MovieChat Forums > 20,000 Leagues Under the Sea (1997) Discussion > GOOD one

GOOD one

posted 19 years ago by persadie
4 replies | jump to latest

Bought this movie at Walmart for $5
I could have spent $5 more and got the disney version which
I grew up watching. I wanted to see a different version.
Don't get my wrong the Disney version ROCKS.
But this version was a nice change. And I enjoyed it very much.
I love the idea of proto-leviathans. And Nemo was portrayed
much more graspable in this one, I understood him better.
He reminded me of a Dracula.
In the Disney version, they tried to show he was mad by
him playing the Pipe Organ. Other than that he seemed quite
level headed other than spearing the ships, but when he did that
I just saw a soldier.
Nemo was definitely better portrayed in this one.

moblis in mobli - how do you get being free from the world from that?
It means you don't try to control the environment to live in a Matrix.
Live free like the American Indians did.

[–] MetalMiike 19 years ago

Well, you've obviously never read the novel and you've totally misunderstood the story and the 1954 film. In the Disney version, Nemo is NOT mad. As in the book his wife and children were murdered (by the colonial British, in fact) and he, an Indian prince who has studied in Paris, London and New York liquidates his fortune to lead a rebelion against them. When that fails, he builds the Nautilus, drops his name and becomes "no-one", distributing wealth to those ruled by oppresive regimes and destroying British warships. In the end of the novel he finally tracks down the ship of the man who killed his wife and destroys it, finally finding redemption (unlike the Disney film he does not die).

As to THIS version; the negative should be burned. It has reduced one of the greatest novels in literary history to Mills and Boon. The writers have not understood anything of Verne's text and it is the most brainless T.V. fodder. I wish someone would do a propper FAITHFUL version (even the Disney one, magnificent though it is, changes the text somewhat) but Hollywood being what it is, I doubt we'll see anything descent anytime soon.

Where Science Meets Keith Chegwin...

[–] thirteenth_muffin 19 years ago

I agree, MetalMikke, this movie was totally unfaithful to the book and the love-triangle hacked me off. I don't mind that they changed the gender of the assistant, but to compensate other characters for it and make her a main character is just wrong.

[–] eritae 16 years ago

I`ve read the original french Book and It should be noted that I found the Nemo in this Movie more like what Verne intended, when he wrote Nemo. In original he wanted him to be a Polish Noble and only because of political reasons changed it.
The Disney version is ...well Disney they don`t like to show darker tones in the supposed heros. You either like the fluffy versons from Disney or you don`t.

[–] dkmce 16 years ago

This version, which I am watching right this moment, really blows. I wonder if the woman playing Sofie's agent told her, "They want you for the Peter Lorre role." How flattering can you get?

I love the novel, and it's sequel, MYSTERIOUS ISLAND, both of which I've read many times, since I was a boy, 50 years ago.

But putting a love triangle into a story that HAS NO WOMEN IN IT AT ALL, really ruins it. Verne spent years living and writing on his yacht, sort of like a Captain Nemo on the surface, primarily to avoid his wife, with whom he did not get on. It's not an accident that his books often have no women in them. Both the book and the great Disney movie have been very successful without sticking women into it.

Gracious. As I am writing this,I've just seen the scene where they are attacked by sharks while diving, and Sofie warns them by shouting inside her diving helmet, AND THEY HEAR HER!!! Have the morons who wrote this ever been to planet earth? When you're strolling in the ocean in diving suits, YOU CAN NOT SHOUT TO EACH OTHER.

Bad movie. Bad, bad movie.