David Attenborough & the True Test of Legacy

Given how much he means to me, it's weird that on a personal blog that I have only written about Sir David Attenborough a handful of times, particularly since I talk about him CONSTANTLY.  While he has starred in a number of documentaries over the years, they aren't film, so they never intersect with Oscar, and while he does quite a bit of political advocacy, he's never run for political office, so I suppose it makes sense.  This past year, though, David Attenborough has made an astonishing five long-form nature series, particularly noteworthy given Attenborough is 97-years-old.  Prehistoric Planet II, Our Planet II, Wild Isles, Frozen Planet II, and Planet Earth III, the latter of which I'm almost done with (the rest I've already completed), have all been part of his past year.  Attenborough's work is vitally important, opening up the conversation about animals & in many ways raising entire generations on how they can have an impact on the beautiful creatures that inhabit our planet.  You could argue that no single living person has done more for environmental advocacy.  And he does so through truly breathtaking documentaries, filled with color, majesty, light, and some of the most impressive nature photography ever put on film.

Planet Earth has become the series he's most synonymous with, and was chronologically the fifth series of the five that he's created in 2023.  It's also, to date, the final series that Attenborough has done or committed to doing.  Attenborough this past year has announced he will no longer travel for on-set location shooting (frequently he will do his specials from places like Africa or the Galapagos Islands, where he will interact with some of the local wildlife firsthand), but has insisted that he will continue to present, as he loves the work.  He does have a special that was just released entitled Attenborough and the Giant Sea Monster (anyone know where you can watch this in the US?), but that's the only thing that he has on the radar.  Rumors abound of a Blue Planet III, but while he has stated that he's not retiring, it's rare (and maybe telling) that he hasn't announced his next project yet.

This is sadly the case for a few legends.  John Williams, age 91, announced his retirement last year, and while he took it back, it's hard not to see his recent Oscar nomination for Indiana Jones and the Dial of Destiny (his 54th overall) as being an acknowledgement that it might be his last one.  Similar to Attenborough with Planet Earth, Williams getting to write the final installment of one of his most storied franchises (admit it-you just started to hum the "Raiders March" without me even needing to prompt you) feels like a closing of a chapter, even if it (hopefully) isn't it.  Martin Scorsese, 81, has talked pretty openly about how he knows his career will end soon, and how he feels like what he wants is more time.  Steven Spielberg, 77, recently made The Fabelmans, a lifelong ambition project about his early childhood, and while he (like Scorsese and unlike Attenborough & Scorsese) has announced potential projects, he also has entered the age where every new film feels like an event, a potentially "last of its kind" event.

This is morbid to talk about, and normally I wouldn't because I want all of these men to go on forever, but it does invite a really sad commentary.  These four men are irreplaceable.  There is no "next David Attenborough" or "next John Williams" in the same sense there was never a "next Alfred Hitchcock" or "next Frank Sinatra."  But they also represent a type of entertainment that is at risk of dying all-together.  The kinds of giant, original blockbusters that Steven Spielberg was synonymous with (Jaws, Raiders of the Lost Ark, ET, Jurassic Park) are completely out-of-style, as are his most recent run of thoughtful, meditative historical epics (Lincoln, Bridge of Spies, The Post).  Same with Martin Scorsese-his giant epics are celebrated, but no one else is making them, and at some point they did.  When Spielberg released Amistad, it came out the same year as Titanic, Seven Years in Tibet, and Kundun.  Now, their movies feel completely alien-no one's spending that kind of money on such epic storytelling.  Biopics are cheap-looking Netflix garbage (that still somehow get a lot of Oscar nominations, because it's all they can get their hands upon).  Any special effects film is a retread or sequel, not something groundbreaking like Jaws or Raiders of the Lost Ark.  There's only a few creative minds like Spielberg & Scorsese who consistently get $100 million for an original idea (Ridley Scott, Christopher Nolan, James Cameron), but save for Nolan they'll all be over 70 by the end of this year.  Hollywood is not raising an environment where the next Spielberg or Scorsese can exist.

The same can be said for John Williams, which is weird as virtually every film still has composers.  Much of cinematic composing today is either a ripoff of Williams (he's so influenced film music, it's hard not to borrow from him) or a rebuttal to him.  But let's be honest-even if Dial of Destiny is not his best score, listen to it against the other four nominated scores, and you have to admit-it's of a different era, and still an example of the best of its kind.  Even something like Oppenheimer doesn't have that big, Boston Pops-style classical sound to it, the sound that Max Steiner and Miklos Rozsa would bring to music.  With just a few left beside him (like Hans Zimmer & Alexandre Desplat), the man who ushered in a new era of film music could well end that era with him.

And this is, sadly, the case for David Attenborough as well.  Attenborough's films are in a class by themselves, but that's partially because they cost so much.  With continual cuts at the BBC, one wonders if they'll die with him.  Attenborough is a national treasure in Britain, regularly voted the country's most beloved citizen, and public outcry over cutting him from the BBC would be, well, untenable for either of the country's political parties.  But it's pretty clear the writing's on the wall for his nature documentaries after he's gone-they're too expensive to be able to continue in the same way, and even if they did, they won't carry the same level of editorial vision.  Planet Earth III is not easy entertainment.  It's beautiful, mournful, and it also focuses heavily on the damning impact of climate change.  Other documentaries lack Attenborough's heavy hand in showing how we impact the natural world, either leaning in on the cuteness of the animals (DisneyNature) or, if you watch some of the other Netflix documentaries, feeling more like a church potluck's level of depth into the climate crisis.  A series that combines both beauty and responsibility...no one does that like Attenborough.

Why am I bringing this up, other than to bum you out?  It's not a fear of a lack of programs from these four (I have seen most of Attenborough's modern work, but have plenty of past series, including all of the Life collection, which I'm going to start later this year, to watch still), but more a fear of what will happen when they're gone.  Part of preserving an artist's legacy is ensuring that the artists who are inspired by them, not just their work but their work ethic, have a way to move forward & a vision to create freely (and commercially).  We need to start finding a new generation of artists given this kind of investment, so that these men can remain legends, but not the last of their kind.