The Principle

The Principle is a 2014 documentary and project of noted traditionalist Catholic crank, Robert Sungenis, dealing with Sungenis' current hobby horse, modern geocentrism. In comparison to much of Sungenis' work, the film seems to have distinctly crisp production values, along with a cast of famous personalities providing narration. This isn't to say that the movie looks good, only that it looks much better than the astronomy clip art and watermarked stock photos often used on Sungenis' blog. It also isn't to say that all of the involved personalities knew what they were providing audio for.

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General overview

The eponymous principle appears to be the "Copernican principle", the idea that the Earth is not at the center of the Universe and is, in fact, not all that special. Needless to say, the film is dedicated to debunking this principle, and proving that the world and humanity are in fact at the center of everything. It is the basis of the infamous geocentrist tome, also by Sungenis, Galileo Was Wrong[1], the title of which strongly suggests that it is chock-full of wingnuttery. While the film has reached some level of fame online, it seems unlikely to be "one of the most controversial films of our time" as suggested by the official website.[2] The most worrying possible effect of the film would be an increase in interest in geocentrism among fundamentalist Christians, much like the effect of The Genesis Flood on the creationist movement in the late 1960s. Outside of extremely conservative circles, the film is unlikely to be anything more than a blip on the radar of public consciousness. According to IMDb, the film grossed US$86,172 as of April 2015.[3]

Celebrity and scientist involvement

Kate Mulgrew and Lawrence Krauss, one a celebrity and the other a scientist, involved in the production of The Principle have stated that they were duped into participating in the documentary. While it seems oddly underhanded for a member of a religion that preaches against deception to use such tactics, it has been done before.

Physicists Michio Kaku, Max Tegmark and Julian Barbour and other scientists also appear in the film,[4] and were also tricked into appearing.[5][6]

gollark: Air conditioning is good because sometimes the air is the wrong temperature and must be *dealt with*.
gollark: Suuuuuure.
gollark: What happened? Why are there [REDACTED] new messages? Who's TemporarLy or something?
gollark: waste of money™
gollark: But they try and make it at least very hard to run user code on them.

References
  1. Galileo Was Wrongby Robert A. Sungenis & Robert J. Bennett (2015) CAI Publishing, 11th ed. ISBN 1939856604.
  2. The Principle: About
  3. The Principle (2014) IMDb.
  4. The Principle: Meet the Cast
  5. The Conspiracy Theorist Who Duped The World's Biggest Physicists: Popular Science spoke with Rick DeLano, whose movie The Principle shows the world's most famous cosmologists promoting the idea that the Earth is the center of the universe by Colin Lecher (May 7, 2014) Popular Science.
  6. 'Clever Editing' Warps Scientists' Words in New Geocentrism Film by Elizabeth Howell (April 16, 2014) LiveScience.com (YouTube)
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