i must have seen a different film!!

Good story, Not enough for a whole film

The film never slows down or bores, plunging from one harrowing sequence to the next.

The thing I enjoyed most about the film is the fact that it doesn't shy away from being a super-sized-cliche;

This documentary changed my life. Absolutely brilliant.

I will just mention one instance from the documentary and you think about it. There is a short mentioning of how a trainer used to train Orcas that were new to the park by putting them together with older, trained Orcas and asking them to perform the same tasks. When they, inevitably, failed, both animals were punished by being deprived of food. So the older, trained Orca, took it out on the younger, untrained one. Now, sit back and think about the same tactic being employed by human parents against their children. "I don't know who did it, but you are both grounded". There you go – a documentary about whales in captivity that taught you something about your own wrong methods of parenting.Aside from that, when you are done watching this, you will probably and justifiably never want to go to a marine park show with Orcas ever again. The documentary just works as a wake-up slap. We separate a baby whale calf from its mother and social structure, keep it as grown, 5 ton, apex predator in a pool for its entire life and milk it for its semen. If you ask me, Orcas must be the most mellow creatures on earth, for them to have only killed this few people in captivity…You want to see Orcas? Fly to Alaska or Iceland and get on a boat, to see them as they are meant to be: Swimming free and with erected dorsal fins.

A disturbing and infuriating documentary about the abuse of Orcas in captivity, and how that treatment has lead in turn to a startling number of deaths and serious injuries of trainers. The film posits that taking an up to 12,000 pound creature used to freedom and traveling up to 100 miles a day with it's incredibly close extended family, capturing it and plunking it in a giant concrete swimming pool with strange whales from other pods and goading them into performing tricks multiple times a day is a good formula to lead to these intelligent and amazing creatures to slowly go crazy, and act out. It's a hard concept to argue against. This is indeed a one sided film, but there are cases where 'fair and balanced' is not an appropriate approach for a documentary. There aren't always two equal sides to every story. This is one such situation.It's very moving to hear ex—trainer after ex-trainer express their remorse for how the whales were treated, and their sadness and anger for their fallen and injured comrades, And it's deeply chilling to see so much compelling evidence that Sea World knew just how bad things were, and worked overtime to keep it from the press, the public and even the trainers themselves – many of whom were fed lies about the whales (e.g. they live longer in captivity) that they in turn fed the visiting public. The footage of the actual attacks are truly terrifying. This is not a film for kids. But it is a film to remind us of how far companies will go for a buck, and how humans can blind themselves to the sufferings of others – Orcas or other people – when it's in their short term self-interest.

Dawn Brancheau was not only one of the most experienced trainers at SeaWorld in Orlando, Florida, she was one of the most beloved. According to her colleagues in the documentary "Black Fish", she understood sea animals, particularly killer whales, like few others. For 15 years, she trained killer whales and participated in the killer whale shows at Seaworld, working with one of the most famous and largest killer whales in captivity, Tilikum, a bull orca. At only 39 years old, her career was cut short. (It should be noted that whales are not fish; they are air-breathing mammals who live in the water; their ancestors once lived on land.) In 2010, shortly after a show which became a disaster when Tilikum failed to cooperate because of mishaps neither entirely the trainer's nor the whale's fault, Dawn decided to have some quiet time with Tilikum to calm the whale down and ease their relationship. After only a few minutes, Tilikum grabbed Dawn, pulled her down into the water and mutilated her. Because scientists now know whales are highly intelligent, similar to their dolphin kindred, more than likely this whale knew exactly what he was doing: he purposefully killed his trainer. Tilikum's behavior may have been carefully considered as a message to his human captors that he was frustrated with the circumstances of his captivity. This is the focal story of "Black Fish", a scathing exposé of these entertainment parks, especially in regards to their killer whale shows. Like most kids who grew up in the late 1970's, 1980's and 1990's, I went to SeaWorld a handful of times. Seeing these beautiful creatures in front of your eyes is a magnificent wonder to behold, and in particular the killer whale shows. Most Generation X'ers and Millennials visited SeaWorld and similar amusement parks themed around sea animals. I think we all assumed the whales and the parks had a special relationship in which the animals agreed to be in captivity in exchange for food and shelter. I think I also assumed these parks were created by people who loved sea animals and wanted to create these attractions as a way for the public to interact with these incredibly unique animals. While the trainers and others who are in direct contact with these animals certain love and respect them, corporate interests appear to have very little empathy or sympathy for the animals they own, more interested in profit than humanity."Black Fish" paints a very grim picture of the attitudes of upper management of SeaWorld and other similar parks in the United States and around the world. Although not mentioned in the documentary, SeaWorld Entertainment was originally created by the Anheuser-Busch corporation as part of their Busch Gardens amusement parks which were associated with their brewing companies. While certainly the idea of an amusement park founded for the purposes of exposing the public to sea animals, the parks were created by a beer company, not by animal lovers or experts. Early on the documentary, we see footage from the 1970's of whales being captured for the purposes of eventually becoming part of SeaWorld and related amusement parks. Since there was no regulation at the time, hunters could capture these animals at will without fear of government oversight.The documentary traces incidents of disruptive and violent behavior among the animals which appears to be a direct result of mistreatment. The documentary portrays corporate managements of these parks as having little regard for these animals, and the most at stake in terms of generating large revenue and pleasing stockholders. They would give young trainers misinformation about whales to minimize their responsibility towards the animals. Often in many of the accounts of injury and even death among trainers, the "official" story from the corporation was the incidents were the fault of the trainers, and the animals are generally happy and content, and bad things happen because of error. However, the documentary reveals much mistreatment of the animals, to the extent that sometimes the animals will hurt one another, which happened early on to Tilikum when he was young.The story-line also reveals that when these parks became hugely popular in the 1970's and on-wards, there was little scientific research about whales and similarly high-intelligent sea animals. For many years, it was thought that whales were not highly emotional, and they lived for only about 25 to 30 years. Apparently, much of the data came from whales in captivity, not whales in the wild. It was eventually revealed that whales in captivity tend to live shorter lives, and in the wild, among those who reach adulthood, whales can live about the same life span as humans, from 60 to 75 years. They are not only highly intelligent, but they bond emotionally to members of their families in similar ways as human beings. However, these were unknown to the SeaWorld corporations who seemed to have little interest in understanding the nature of these animals.A sobering look at a cultural phenomenon which became part of modern life in the late 20th century. Sea parks, an outgrowth of the larger complex amusement parks begun by Walt Disney in the 1950's, have become part of American and international culture. Unfortunately, they were established to make money, and they would mislead young trainers with erroneous information. According to the documentary, much of the conclusions of upper management had nothing to do with knowledge about whales. While I am sure upper management individuals would deny any wrong-doing, they are pressured from stockholders and corporate executives to minimize their responsibility. Here, the documentary relies on the testimony of the trainers and not a corporate spokesperson.