History Film / KonTiki

* HulaAndLuaus: Well, it's Tahiti, in south Polynesia, not the Hawaiian Islands. But there are still two good-looking women in grass skirts dancing at the end of the movie.

* EenieMeenieMinyMoai: Heyerdahl cites the similarity of Easter Island moai to Incan art as evidence for his theory.

While Heyerdahl showed that the voyage was feasible, and several other groups duplicated his feat, later research indicates that the original theory of Polynesia being settled in an eastward direction from the Asian mainland is correct. In particular, genetic evidence solidly backs the general outlines of Polynesian colonization originally set out on the basis of Polynesian linguistics.[[note]]Polynesian languages are clearly part of the Austronesian family, whose other members are mostly in Southeast Asia; the genetic evidence tracks the theory that Austronesian-speakers went east from Indonesia to colonize the Pacific.[[/note]] That being said, there is [[https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Pre-Columbian_trans-oceanic_contact_theories#Claims_of_Polynesian_contact tantalizing but inconclusive evidence that Asian-descended Polynesians made the reverse journey at least once before 1492]], possibly accounting for Heyerdahl's observations and partially vindicating his theories.

While Heyerdahl showed that the voyage was feasible, and several other groups duplicated his feat, later research indicates that the original theory of Polynesia being settled in an eastward direction from the Asian mainland is correct.

A dramatic film of this voyage, also titled ''Film/{{Kon Tiki|2013}}'', was released in Norway in 2013.

At the time the history of the islands of the south Pacific, and specifically how they were settled, was a subject of intense academic debate. The dominant theory at the time was that the islands of Pacific were settled by people who set off from the Asian mainland and traveled eastward. Heyerdahl disagreed. He believed that the south Pacific was settled by people who set off from mainland South America and traveled westward. Heyerdahl contended that the famous moai statues of Easter Island resembled Incan statuary, and that Easter Island myths indicated that peoples from the Americas had settled the island.

* DissonantSerenity: Heyerdahl when he recounts some of the more dangerous parts of the voyage, like the time two guys got into the little rubber raft attached to the ''Kon-Tiki'' and were nearly left adrift in the open ocean, which almost certainly would have resulted in their deaths. He says it would have been "not very nice".

''Kon-Tiki'' is a documentary film from 1951. It is [[https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Thor_Heyerdahl Thor Heyerdahl's]] account of his 1947 voyage with five companions, in a raft, over 6,980 km (4,340 miles) of open ocean, to landfall in the islands of Polynesia.

* ExperimentalArcheology: Former TropeNamer as "Kon Tiki Plot". Heyerdahl set out to show that South Americans could have settled Polynesia by doing it himself.

* ExperimentalArchaeology: Former TropeNamer as "Kon Tiki Plot". Heyerdahl set out to show that South Americans could have settled Polynesia by doing it himself.