I started watching this last night - in the wee hours - on SyFy and could not give it up until it was over! I have not read the books (yet), I have not seen the 2003 TV version and I had never heard of this miniseries. I am a huge fan of the LOTR films, although I could never get through the novels, even as a teenager. Imagine the result if someone like Peter Jackson took on these novels, with his enormous budget! Ah, what could have been.
I am surprised so many hate this production. Of course, people who feel very strongly about certain books are almost always horrified by any attempt to film them. That is a given. I feel fortunate that I had no preconceived notions and was thus able to enjoy it.
Sure, there were plot holes and inconsistencies all over the place. There were - as is always the case when adapting novels for the screen - characters left out and new characters who did not appear in the novels. A reading of this forum tells me there were philosophical/spiritual facets of the novels that were changed or not carried over to the film, and much more unexplained than explained. I don't find this to be a negative, but then I wasn't asking much. I was asking to be engaged and entertained, and I must say, I hung in for those four hours, suspended belief, and ended up mightily entertained.
I thought the acting was much better than it had to be. I particularly enjoyed Mark Deklin's portrayal of Samuel Clemens/Mark Twain. I hope he really was that delightful in person! I was pleased to see and hear actors given often ridiculous dialogue who took it seriously enough to contribute to the whole experience without sounding bored, or offended, or insulted, none of those things we sometimes see in actors who appear in productions they feel are beneath their dignity. I felt each and every one of them tried to understand his or her role in the story - no matter how ridiculous it might appear to be - and advance it, a difficult task given the amount of written material that had to be interpreted and cut down to fit time constraints.
Undoubtedly few of you are old enough to remember the miniseries produced for TV based on Ray Bradbury's Martian Chronicles in the 1970's. Rock Hudson (yes, Rock Hudson! In a flowing robe!) was the major draw in the cast. The cast included minor actors of that time, many of them strictly TV actors. The sets were left over from a forgettable movie made the year before. The special effects were not very special; it was the 70's, after all. The total budget couldn't have been more than $499.00, including costumes. Still, it is regarded as a cult classic.
Like Riverworld, The Martian Chronicles was based on the stories of a giant, possibly THE giant, in the sci-fi community. It undoubtedly owes much of its appeal to its superior source, which the lack of budget simply could not kill. Its message gets through all the dreck. I have read other works of Philip Jose Farmer, and his writings always carry a message, too. It seems hard to believe that little of Bradbury's work has received big-budget treatment, the notable exception being the excellent Something Wicked This Way Comes.
I think this miniseries is worth overlooking its obvious drawbacks and there is much to appreciate here. I, too, plan to get the DVD and watch it without commercial interruption. I would very much like to see this production become a continuing series.
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rooprect
9 years ago
Great post, hawk. And yup, I was there as a wee tot when The Martian Chronicles aired in 1980. I absolutely LOVED the 1st part because it had a haunting vibe à la "2001: A Space Odyssey". I don't remember being affected as much by the other parts, but in all I thought it was a great production, and 80s tv screens were privileged to have such an ambitious effort grace their cathode ray tubes. Years later I read the Bradbury book (loved it as well) and realized how different they were but didn't hold it against the miniseries. For years I was waiting for it to be released on DVD, but now that it has I'm almost afraid to see it again lest it look cheesy (which it definitely does by today's standards). But that production, as well as Truffaut's "Farenheit 451", another Bradbury story that got a huge redesign for the screen, remain in my mind as great works of film.
Which brings us to Riverworld. I haven't read the books, but I'm sure a similar thing is happening here. Certain literary things just cannot be done on the screen, whether it be due to special effects budget (like the mechanical firehouse dog in the Farenheit book) or due to the nature of movies/visuals being more linear and "sensible" than printed words (like the very abstract "House of Usher" chapter in The Martian Chronicles book). So filmmakers make the tough decision to chop out entire portions of books or even change characters altogether. For example in the movie, Burton is a 100% villain while in the book he's more of a morally ambiguous character, I'm told. I can see that, especially in his final scene when he explains his rational motivations. But still, a commercial film needs a villain, just like a commercial song needs a drum beat.
I did sorta roll my eyes in 1 or 2 scenes, usually when there would be some painful movie cliché (like the girl twisting her ankle and saying "Go, save yourself!" and the guy saying "No, we're in this together!"), but hey, clichés can be fun. I don't hold it against a scifi/fantasy for being a little preposterous because, heck, scifi/fantasy itself is defined as preposterous. In the end I can say I was thoroughly entertained from start to finish.
Also, I don't know if there are any Herzog fans out there, but I was really drawn in by the Herzoggian theme of traveling along an endless river in search of the goal ("Fitzcarraldo", "Aguirre the Wrath of God" set on the Amazon), and visually waterways of the Pacific Northwest can give the Amazon a run for its money. That's something this production brought to the table which no book could ever convey in such HD glory.
Will "Riverworld" ever be considered a lost film classic? I dunno, probably not with all the competition out there. After all, the only competition "The Martian Chronicles" had on tv was maybe "Quark" (remember that one? Tv series about a space garbage collector haha). But I'm sure this production will have its loyal fans. I really think a tv series would've been great.
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