After reading that JREF was willing to pay the Smithsonian $20,000 to not show The Privileged Planet video, I just had to buy it. If something can get the evolutionists scared, then it must be worth watching. So, I bought the video and took a look to see what the hoopla was all about.
Basically, the video was a presentation of the anthropic principle. The quality of the video was professional and the presentation was compelling. The film was well narrated by John Rhys-Davies (Gimli of LoTR). As for content, I’m already familiar with several of the arguments that were presented (water, atmosphere, magnetic field), but there were also several that I haven’t heard of before (galactic habitable zone, total solar eclipse) that were pretty interesting. The only major issue that I disagreed with was mentioning that plate tectonics was a fact (though it didn’t spend much time on this). Throughout the video, it took a fairly nuetral stance on interpreting the evidence. Then it ended by stating that the evidence points to a creator. Now, the latest news is that the SI has backed out because of the conclusion.
Overall, it seemed to me that the video was more of a teaser for the book that it’s based on (which it successfully made me want to buy the book). But, it’s definitely a good video on the presentation of the anthropic principle and makes quite a powerful case.