Vice documentary on Freeskiing

D34DM0053

D34DM0053

Member


/images/flash_video_placeholder.png Thoughts or comments?

I personally would like to see what they come up with as I like the style of their videos.
 
Love vice documentaries and I'm really excited to see what they come out with, but unfortunately you have to accept that they're producing it now so it's going to be directly related to the Olympics. I just hope they give the rest of the sport's history it's fair screen time.
 
I saw this on NBC, and although there were a lot of urban shots and such jn the trailer, they only talk about competitions. It was good, but the content was very narrow
 
New Thall quote: Skiing has taken a lot and given you a lot, but at the end of the day it's the sickest shit in the world, you know!

Me gusta.

I'm kinda confused tho, all they showed here was slope style, pipe and urban. That's freestyle skiing, not free ride, therefore kinda not quite right talking about freeskiing. imo, freeride is the most important aspect of freeskiing, cos you can bring the tricks you that you do in the park to pow, but not pow to park.

 
hyped to watch this. I love documentary things like this, especially since it is on youtube so I can watch it whenever and wherever
 
<iframe width="560" height="315" src="//www.youtube.com/embed/YKQWyJi2JZY" frameborder="0" allowfullscreen></iframe>
 
I'm entirely indifferent about the whole "Olympic issue" but that was pretty well put together.

More than anything, massive respect to Devun Logan for the way she presents herself generally, and having the balls to say certain things publicly that many shy away from.
 
That documentary actually made me really dislike Devin. I much prefered the way that Maddie Bowman presented herself throughout the whole thing.
 
I hear a bit of hate for Devin but she's honest about who she is, which is respectable. I thought THalls parts were hilarious and Tom ragging on female skiers so hard. Devin kinda fit in with those parts.

I loved watching aaron's binding change between runs at the end there, you could tell Elana was pissed he spun out of whatever they had on his first pair.
 
Pretty much this. I mean was it necessary to include 6 minutes of negativity and finger-pointing from Devin and Tanner? Kinda sounded like an argument between a 13 year-old girl and a hippy gym teacher. Other than that, it was a cool documentary
 
it was more comp then anything really, I mean where were all the big mountain skiers and like stept and other crews with their different views on it?
 
It really didnt show much of a "journey" to the olympic stage. It sort of just showcased and explained the type of skiing that people are going to see in the olympics, while at the same time giving people a few familiar American faces to cheer for.
 
I found it rather off-putting, heavily lopsided and generally disappointing. But I shouldn't have expected anything else.
 
watched the first 15 and totally disappointed. maybe the rest will change my mind.

also "womens skiing is approaching where mens skiing was 4 or 5 years ago"

.... uuhhhm

 
If the first 15 disappointed you and you're hoping the rest will change your mind, you're gonna have a bad time.
 
No offence to anybody on here who was involved in making this, but it really kinda sucked.

I'll just point out 1 thing out of many that I didn't like:

You're talking about freeskiing's journey to the Olympics. Half the time it's about females, yet only once did Sarah Burke get mentioned, and only because she's dead. I mean come on. She was one of the huge driving forces behind having halfpipe skiing in the Olympics and without her it wouldn't be there today. Shame.

Was she not mentioned because she wasn't American?
 
Since when is skiing so dramatic and serious? Good to see Tom and Tanner say all the right things through out the video, especially Tom's comments at the end regarding exploring all the other better aspects of skiing outside the olympics
 
Committing your life to the olympics while still managing to have fun is definitely dope. That being said when Devin said "Tanner let's be honest you didn't even graduate high school, you're a burnout" (not an exact quote but you all know what I'm talking about) I wanted to punch her in the face right through my screen. Not only is Tanner a fucking legend, but he's still way fucking better than her at skiing. Henceforward, therefore, if Tanner's a burnout what the fuck does that make your life dedicated to lower quality skiing?

Also 5 years behind....... LOLOLOL aren't Refresh and EDIAS 5 years old?

 
Teddybear Crisis is nearly 10 years old and I would argue the skiing in it is still further progressed than current womens skiing.
 
I did not like that at all. It was supposed to be about the Rise of Freeskiing. Not a few freeskiers journey to the olympics. They talked about the actual beginnings of skiing so little. Also, I feel like they couldn't have picked lamer skiers to be the focus of the film. Who is Aaron Blunck? Also, Devin Logan was kind of annoying during that whole movie, especially the disparaging remarks about T-Hall, who is a way better skier than Devin Logan in the first place, and is responsible for getting skiing to the point where it is today. Whenever they showed Chris Logan, he was just labelled as Devin's Brother... wtf? Despite the Fact that he kills it twice as hard.
 
for all you hating on Devin for calling out tanner, you don't think he would do the same damn thing if roles were switched? They both love skiing and neither likes someone else telling them how they should do it.

And from what i could tell Tanner was the one to give her shit first anyways.
 
eh, was hoping it would be more about the freeskiings journey to the olympics, not a few riders journeys.
 
Watching now. Impressions:

Through 3 and a half minutes I disagree with everyone's views on what the sport is and why they do it. "we're adrenaline junkies and we like to push the limits and being scared of getting hurt is what makes it fun", etc. Not only is that totally wrong, imo, but also plays right into the mainstream narrative of freeskiing just being about getting a rush from doing something stupid and dangerous.

Around 4 minutes, JF has the most insightful comment about why he and the NCAF started this sport, gets 15 seconds of time to speak. Making me wish this whole documentary was just a Q&A with those guys.

Aaron Blunck is hilarious. Just his manner of speaking. He sounds like what I think the personification of NS would be like.

At 7.5 minutes, why is this documentary supposedly about Freeskiing just talking about a few US athletes? If it was a US team profile vid, maybe it should have been presented as such. Of course it couldn't be because Tom and Aaron aren't on the Sochi squad, but it's pretty transparent when it isn't released until the first week of February and it's basically just footage from Momentum.

Hey look Tom going on record about how bad Women's freeskiing is. Seems to be happening more and more this season. "Where the boys were 4 or 5 years ago", Bowman, as she learns an uphill 3 in the pipe. Uh huh. Hey, go look at the winning run from men's X slope four or five years ago and tell me what girl would contend in those comps. Or, hell, here's a slope run from ten years ago, and it's better than anything in Women's freeskiing right now: http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=zpftGSyM5rE

Emotional shot after rambling incoherent treatise on concussions in snowsports. Okay. I guess the point of that was basically the tears.

And we're talking to people about whether they'd be okay dying while skiing. FML. We're back to "this is just about arenaline and doing scary stupid dangerous shit". Come the fuck on.

Okay the back and forth about freeskiing and whether it should be in Sochi has potential... and it's an opportunity completely wasted because the only perspective we get is from Devin Logan and Tanner Hall and Maddie Bowman. Look, when Tanner sounds like the reasoned and insightful participant in a free exchange of ideas, there's a problem. Wait, nevermind, Tom makes at least one brief point on creating new divisions within the sport.

23 minutes and something in... Hah, Devin's "you had your chance now it's our turn". Did you just compare yourself to Tanner Hall? The face of the sport for the better part of a decade? Jesus, I hope you've got a switch triple or something to justify you being in any way connected with the current "turn" of leading people in the sport. It's Tom's turn and Petit's turn and Goepper's turn, maybe, but don't lump yourself in with those guys.

Hey looks like some comp footy from this winter, 25 minutes into the 40 minute program.

Oh shit, that helmet cam footage of the knee injury, fuck my life. I have my blown ACL on video and I've never watched it. I think my reaction was similar. Christ, I wish I hadn't seen that.

28 minutes in, and we switch to women's pipe, and I can no longer tell the difference between practice and finals.

Back to Tom, and this is just making me feel terrible for him.

Haha and a 5 second compilation of each of ABM and Russ, marking perhaps the first time a non-american has been mentioned in this video more than 30 minutes in. MURICA!

33 minutes in and I don't think anything Maddie Bowman has said in this entire thing has enlightened anyone on anything involving skiing.I can't say this without sounding like a bit of a jerk and I'm sure they're all good people and they're actually pretty funny, but if you were going to ignore 95% of the names in this sport could you not have chosen more than one (Tom) who can actually speak at all usefully about the sport? I know, Maddie's and Devin's and Aaron's job is to ski in comps, not provide commentary. This is really on Vice, not them.

35 minutes and Chris Logan is notable because he's Devin's brother. Well then. Someone want to get Vice a copy of Sunny? I know Rogge must have one. I think this is forgivable because in the context it doesn't really matter that Chris even knows how to ski, to say nothing of skiing like a boss. But still. Jarring.

37:30 - "Come on air bear!" Hahaha I bet he wishes that was never shot. Wait did she just help him figure out how to click into his binding?

39 - Apparently she didn't do a very good job of it.

42 - And apparently Devin and Maddie are intent on making Tanner's point, or at least via Vice's editing they are: apparently everything in life is about making the team. That's... not... yeah. I'm sure this was unintentional.

43 - Really badly written "where are they now" titles. You're named to a team or you earn a spot, you don't "win" a spot, it's not the fucking lotto.

And credits. All I can say is "meh". Still think you could've done that much better. I was kind of hoping for a newschoolers-oriented version of Steep, so I guess I was setting myself up for disappointment. Any time someone wants to make that movie I'll watch.
 
devins cool as fuck....and shes podiumed at almost every major comp and shes in the olympics. im stoked she spoke her mind and didnt keep quiet because of intimidation like 99% of people would.
 
I don't know what to think of Aaron Blunck. Legally adopted by his MILF coach and lives with her instead of his parents and she helps him into his bindings. Its kinda weird but he seems pretty chill
 
i thought vice did a horrible job picking people to represent our sport.

other than tom and tanner, what have the other 3 skiers really done to progress the sport to the olympic level?

 
i thought the documentary was supposed to highlight the sport's progression to the olympic level.

just saying that devin logan and "air bear" really didn't do anything to get skiing as a whole to the olympic level.

 
I agree. I wish they had interviews with others that have done more for skiing. I'm just saying I understand why they picked who they did
 
Shoulda been more about progression of the sport not the Olympic athletes but it was really well put together and an engaging 45 minutes
 


"We're coming along and where the boys were like four or five years ago is kind of where we're approaching and we will get there."- Maddie Bowman, Free

As a rebuttal to Maddie, I would like to present Candide's run from X Games 2003.

X Games 2003: Candide, 1st

X Games 2014: Maddie, 1st

I could see if you give Maddie the slight edge on that one so here is Tanner's 2nd place 2004 OS Open run.

US Open 2004: Tanner, 2nd

 
No, the title is "Freeskiing's Journey To Sport's Biggest Stage". The title misleads you into thinking that it would be about the journey from the beginnings of our sport in the late 90's, up until now. The video neglects to mention anything about the progression seen in Freeskiing over the past 15 years.

Instead of focusing on several skiers over the course of six or seven months, this would have been a lot better if there was more time spent with the pioneers who allowed these athletes a chance to compete at the Olympics. People like Sarah (RIP), Dumont, Hall, Johnson, Thovex, Crichton, Olsson, Auclair, the three Phils, etc. The ones who progressed Slopestyle and Superpipe to what it is today.
 
Maybe Tom not making the olympics is a blessing in disguise? He'll push the media side of skiing like Tanner Hall was saying and be the steezy internet and fun side of things versus the olympic pure professional skier.

I thought Maddie, Tom and Tanner were great representatives for it but they definitely could have found more charismatic skiers like Gus or Torin to replace Aaron and Devin. Still though, I enjoyed it and thought the "behind the scenes" aspect of it all was cool to see.
 
You must log in or register to reply here.
Back
Top