MovieChat Forums > Back to the Secret Garden (2000) Discussion > Confusion...

Confusion...

posted 14 years ago by allmytee_magoo
3 replies | jump to latest

Ok, so since the back-story told by the older characters, and since the same exact setting was used for this movie as was for the Hallmark version of its predecessor "The Secret Garden," (not the one made in 1993 with Kate Maberly as Mary, but the one made for Hallmark TV in 1987 with Gennie James as Mary), I am confused by Lady Mary stating that she went to live with cousins at Misselthwaite, because that is not the storyline in the 1987 version.

In the 1987 version, Lord Craven's father was a friend of Mary's grandfather. They were friends in the military somehow and when Mary meets Lord Craven for the first time he tells her that he only met her father once. It is in the 1993 version, and the book, that Lord Craven is her uncle. So I guess in that vein, her stating that she went to live with family in England is correct, but in keeping up with the storyline of the 1987 version, that is simply not the case.

For those of you who haven't seen the 1987 version, I would seriously recommend it. It was the one that I grew up on. I mean, I was only 3 when it came out, so I watched it for many years before the 1993 version came out, and I was much more impressed with the 1987 version. In it you will get the whole back-story told in this "continuing story" that just simply wasn't told in the 1993 version.

For example, in the 1993 version, we had no idea what happened to the characters as they got older. We never hear that Dickon died in the war, nor do we know that Mary and Colin got married... but we get all of that in the final minutes of the 1987 version. And, the exact same castle was used in this movie as was in the 1987 version, and the garden is set up the same.

So yea... they seemed to get everything else right from the 1987 version, which just makes me wonder how they missed the connection between Lord Craven and Mary's father for this version.

~Megan

[–] ethrush 14 years ago

Sounds like they specifically changed it so that in the sequel, when Mary and Colin are married, it wouldn't be so disturbing to modern day viewers.

[–] mice_elf 13 years ago

"I actually prefer the 1987 version because you get to find out what happens to the characters when they get older, which then makes this movie make so much more sense. Because in the 1993 version, we don't know that Dickon goes off to the war and gets killed, and we don't know that Mary and Colin get married."

The reason why, in the 1993 version, you don't find out that Dickon goes off to war and then gets killed or that Mary and Colin got married is because the 1993 sticks closer to the book and those events never happened in the original story. The original book was published in 1911, three years before the first world war started. The original story ended with Mr Craven's return to Misselthwaite Manor and his dicovery that Colin was able to walk. In the book Mary was the cousin of Colin and there was never any hint of any romantic interest. Dickon, as a member of a working class family, was of a lower class and would never have been considered as a suitable candidate to marry someone of Mary's class. The movie under discussion is indeed a sequel to the 1987 Hallmark version that you mention. Filmed in the same location (Highclere Castle) and with the same (or very similar) garden set. It is rather odd that Mary mentions staying with cousin's when the 1987 Hallmark movie made the express point of altering the relationship as originally written in the book so that Mary and Colin were supposedly unrelated and thus able to marry, once Dickon had been killed off, in the first world war, thereby removing him as a possible rival to Colin.

[–] radz2682 10 years ago

Exactly!