I have watched this more than three times..This is the best Merlin movie out of all.there has been lots of movies(even tv series) about Merlin but this still beats them all.
I don't get the ratting.It should be way higher.the plot,visual effect and acting are amazing.pure classic.
anyone agree?
Hear hear!! Love this film. Amazing.
shareDvd owner here, I definitely agree. A timeless classic imo
shareI enjoyed this as well.
shareI loved it ever since it first aired
shareAgreed. This is one of the best films of the King Arthur mythologies out there. It's got an original twist on it, respects the source material, and feels epic and magical.
shareSam Neil is the man. Whether he's a wizard, a paleontologist, or even the Antichrist, I can take my eyes off this guy.
I need to rewatch Merlin, because it's been a good bit of time since I've seen it, but I've always liked this one. I have a thing for made for TV miniseries, and Merlin is one of my favorites. Also The Odyssey and Gulliver's Travels from the 90s are standouts.
All of those miniseries were really great, yeah. All those miniseries that used to play on the artier TV channels (remember those? most of them converted over into reality TV crap, I think). Merlin was my favourite of them all, but I also dug Odyssey and Gulliver's Travels, yeah. There was an Alice in Wonderland one that was quite good, as well, and because it's Alice every cast member got to be like a special guest star, Gene Wilder showing up as the Mock Turtle kind of thing.
There was another miniseries came out around that time, Ivanhoe, but I think that was a different production company. It was awesome, too.
Yeah the 1985 Irwin Allen Alice in Wonderland is the only one I really like. The Animated one is weird in the wrong ways, and the Tim Burton one is an abomination.
shareI haven't seen the Irwin Allen one, but that cast list is wild. Telly Savalas as the Cheshire Cat? "We're all mad here, I'm mad, you're mad...who loves ya', baby?" Ringo Starr is in this!? I've got to track it down.
I found one version from '72 on a bargain bin DVD in a dollar store; I bought it because it had Spike Milligan in it, among other British big-names, and it was a disappointment. Okay, it was in a dollar store bargain bin, but with the pedigree of the cast (Michael Crawford, Spike Milligan, Dudley Moore, Peter Sellers, Peter Bull) I was hoping for some weird and wonderful gems. Bubkis.
Which one were you talking about?
shareWe should compare notes in a couple weeks.
shareCarol Channing as the White Queen is a highlight. Also this '85 one is really scary and goes all the way on the weird, which I like.
shareI think I've been shown the Carol Channing White Queen, or at least part of it, and I'm not sure how it plays within the film, but out of context it's nuts.
shareLoved loved LOVED this series when I was a kid. I have it on DVD and have been pondering watching it one weekend just to relive my childhood. I remembering liking the Mad Hatter in this. And the Jabberwocky was insanely frightening.
shareI'm glad you commented. I still haven't tracked it down and watched it, but I really should and then come back to this thread to report on it.
Glad to know you dig it.
I see you can get it on Amazon if that helps. And it sounds like it's both parts Alice and Through the Looking Glass.
I will say I never got into Alice in Wonderland yet I am about to talk about how I lived my childhood with 3 different versions, haha. I never read the book and I have tried to watch other versions but I just couldn't get into them. Alice can go really good or really bad very quickly. Apparently, the Disney version and this version (I love this Alice) ruin any other interpretations for me. I also did watch the Disney Channels 'Adventures in Wonderland' which was great. I'll admit had I had a crush on that Mad Hatter at my young age, haha
It does help. I'll check it out there.
I love the books dearly, but I do know people who don't. Approaching them as an adult might be tricky because they're bizarre and don't follow rules of conventional faerie stories or novels, so they just meander around in absurdism. A child can, I think, often accept that stuff more easily than an adult.
That said, it's not as though it's the strangest book out there (indeed, Sylvie & Bruno, another Carroll story, is stranger, in my opinion, so it isn't even Dodgson's oddest work), and it's not as though an adult can't revel in oddity.
If nothing else, Sir John Tenniel's illustrations are marvellous good fun.
I think the reason Alice goes very good or very bad is because it's a disconnected (or, barely so) series of strange episodes, stirred into one story. Because of this, it's like a sketch comedy show; some episodes are more memorable or entertaining than others, and (unless you're Monty Python) sketches start and stop, and this can kill momentum.
The Alice miniseries I was talking of threads the thinnest "plot" line throughout, keeping the stories a bit more "together". Then, of course, each segment had its charms, so the momentum felt steady.
I have the book. I was trying to build a little library with classic books. But I am not a huge reader. But with the pandemic, I am hoping to try taking it up if to just break up the sit on the couch and watch TV cycle. So maybe I will give it a shot. I think going in knowing Alice is a strange story, I can get thru it fine.
That movie you talked about before the one from the 70s. That's one I tried to watch and just couldn't. I remember wanting to see it because Michael Crawford was in it and if it had The Phantom in it, it had to be ok. Yea...no...I'll stick to the 80s one, haha
Yeah, just remember it's nonsense, it's absurd, and just go with the flow, and I think it's remarkably fun. Alice is precocious, and that sets off the world nicely. They're running around being mad, and she's this little girl going, "Oh, botheration, that isn't the way it's done!" (not a real quote, just done for flavour), and it's almost like somebody dropped a cast member from Downton Abbey into a Felix the Cat cartoon (you know the old cartoons where the houses are dancing and stuff?)
Oh, yeah, the '70s one was pretty bad. I watched it for the cameos.
The miniseries is from the '90s, I think. Late '90s or early 2000s, anyway. It's got Tina Majorino as Alice and Martin Short as the Mad Hatter. I liked that one a lot.
Sam Neill is excellent, for sure. It's a shame that he's getting older and now undoubtedly in the wrap-up phase of his career, because he's a real talent.
Re: mini-series, I remember there being a lot of them around this time, mining the classic tales for television. In addition to the ones you mentioned, I also remember there being a version of Moby Dick with Patrick Stewart. I may have to go back and track some of them down because the only one I ever actually watched was Merlin.
It seems like it might be time, with the kinds of budgets and talent we're now seeing go into TV productions, for another wave of classic stories adapted for TV. I'd love to see it, just so long as they stay faithful to the original and don't start making wild changes for political purposes.
There's a big one happening right now in the form of Stephen King's The Stand. I loved that book but hated the miniseries from the 90s. I haven't watched the new one yet, but I have high hopes because the cast sounds good and they put a lot of $ into it. The first miniseries did not capture the tone of the book at all. I always thought it was a seriously wasted opportunity, so I'm excited for the new one. Please don't mention anything about the new one if you've seen it. I want to watch it without any preconceived notions going in.
I remember that Moby Dick. Patrick Stewart delivered the goods as usual.
I'm aware of The Stand but the reviews have scared me away. I watched the 90s version just a couple of years ago for the first time. I liked the first half but thought the back half was kind of lame.
The BBC and PBS did a three-part miniseries of Les Miserables a few years ago that was EXCELLENT. I watched it once and enjoyed it so much that I bought it on Blu-Ray and watched it again.
What I would really love is a high-budget, faithful mini-series adaptation of The Count of Monte Cristo. The 2002 film is great in a lot of ways, but you just can't accurately convey a 1200-page story in two hours.
Looks like Stewart's Moby Dick is available right now through Pluto, by the way. I think I'll check it out.
Count of Monte Cristo, yes! A lot of Dumas, or other serialized novels, would be *perfect* to adapt into long-form TV series.
shareI read an abridged (~600 page) version of Monte Cristo in high school and loved it. And right now I'm actually going through the fully-leaded ~1200 page unabridged version. It's a great book and Dumas is a great writer.
I think there are actually all sorts of classics that could be mined for television. We tend to see the same stories done over and over (Peter Pan, for instance, or Little Women) while others are largely ignored (The Lost World, The Time Machine, Beowulf, Treasure Island, Ivanhoe, many of Shakespeare's works and so on).
If I owned a film production company, I'd love to produce high-quality adaptations of these classic stories.
There's a pretty great Ivanhoe miniseries, actually...
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Ivanhoe_(1997_TV_series)
But, yes, generally it would be nice to see them broaden which classical stories got adaptations.
Kind of weird that you bumped this thread. I first saw Merlin when it originally aired on TV and I remember buying it on VHS. At some point I divested myself of my VHS tapes, but from time to time I would think back about it and how much I enjoyed it. A little while back I ran across it on Amazon and decided to give it another watch and see how it held up.
I was happy to see that it actually holds up pretty well. Sam Neill is great in the role and, for a late 90s television production, the production values are high. The story is well-told and feels magical, and the whole thing also has a kind of wholesome vibe that I think has largely been lost in shows and movies today.
The late-90s I actually think was something of a break-out period for TV productions. They were becoming more ambitious. I remember this was when TNT made Pirates of Silicon Valley and the Patrick Stewart version of A Christmas Carol, and both were quite good.
It had good production values, yeah, but I think the main reason it holds up is that it's just really good storytelling (for the most part), and the cast are solid.
That was, indeed, a time period for stuff like this where TV companies were actually kind of competing with film for quality. Maybe not in terms of production, but definitely in terms of storytelling.
Another one I really like is The 10th Kingdom.
Yeah, it had a good script. I think you also need good production as well though. People are put off by films and shows that look excessively cheap, as most TV movies up to that point did. Merlin didn't look quite like something you'd see in the theater, but it was much better than most of what you saw on television at that time. Also, it had a great cast.
I've heard of The 10th Kingdom but never saw it. I might have to track it down.
I just watched this on Friday with my Aunt and Uncle. I remember seeing very brief pieces of it back in the 90s. I was very into Hercules: The Legendary Journey's and thought 1. It's trying to copy the popularity and 2. The fast/slow, stop/go effects of the magic creatures freaked me out. so I didn't get into it. I was a very picky 16 year old. anyway, 23 years later I finally watched it. It was great seeing so many actors I recognized but wouldn't have known them back then. and it was a great nostalgic step in time in the 90s. I watched the dragon and I still think those 90s style CGI effects look great.
I am not completely familiar with the Author legend so I don't know how accurate or inaccurate the movie is but it was fun. I do wish they gave Merlin a purpose. I liked this idea of a chess game between two powerful beings and humans being the pawns. I liked the reluctant hero that they played Merlin out to be but he never became anything greater...I never felt him defeating Mab was earned. I dunno... from a story perspective, I wanted him to overcoming his hatred of magic to become the 'mind magic' guy to defeat Mab. I wanted him to be more aware of his choices. He just fumbled around the whole movie not knowing or caring what the repercussions were. I get that being find in the start of the movie but at some point, there needed to be some growth and I never felt that happened. There was just something missing there for me. But that's my own personal gripe. I am sure if I watch it again I will have a better understanding what what's going on.
I also enjoyed Hercules but am shocked what a freak Kevin Sorbo has turned into. How weird Anthony Quinn was. So I'm not so sure I do enjoy as much Now as I did before. Did you like Xena?
shareI still like Kevin Sorbo and am glad he is on the conservative side, like me. However, I feel the same with all celebrities. There is no faster way or turning fans or potential fans away than to bring politics into the mix. I don't want to be that person that says "No one cares about your opinions; just act" because I think that is unfair to the celebrity as they are still a human being who has a right to their thoughts. It's just a matter of 'just because you can doesn't mean you should'. I am unaware of any other business of Keven Sorbo's that may make him a freak, I try to stay out of celebrity personal lives as much as possible. Hercules will always be my favorite 90s show just like I will always love classic Star Wars and Luke Skywalker, even though I think Mark Hamill has also gotten a little nuts with politics.
As for Xena, I did like her too. And depending on the story lines I would alternate between devoted viewing. I thought Xena got a little too dark for me; a little too depressing and just not my thing so I would stick with Hercules. But her stories really picked up around the time Hercules started doing the traveling into the Norse and Irish/Scottish stuff that I had no interest in so I ended up skipping some of those seasons and watched Xena explosively. I thought they complemented each other very well.