Absolutely god-awful

The acting, apart from perhaps Elijah Wood's performance was excellent.
Eddie Izzard in particular I thought was very good, and brought a lot of humanity
to a part that at times can be pure caricature.
However for someone who is a huge fan of the book and earlier film productions, this adaptation left a lot to be desired.

If your going to change characters like Livsey & Trellawny to such an extent that they become unrecognizable, and develop aspects of the backstory that impact on the main characters motivation that weren't there in the original story then you simply aren't making Treasure Island anymore.

I think if you aren't familiar with the source material you might get something
out of this adaptation, but for fans of the original this was awful.

The Sharpe series is a perfect example of why - Because the social attitudes, culture and even language of the period would be utterly incomprehensible to a modern audience. I don't mean just for kids, either.

For example - Would you understand why a Victorian era 'hero' has graphic pictures of naked 4-year-olds displayed on his bedroom dresser?
Today's audience would instantly decry that character as an evil paedophile, yet back in that era such things were considered depictions of purity and innocence without any kind of sexual context. It was as much a feature of everyday life as seeing bikini-clad women in the media is for us today.

This is an extreme example, perhaps, but some modern 'schollars' have labelled Classic authors as paedophiles for this very reason. If they cannot understand the period cultural context, how would the average viewer?
One shouldn't have to be a certified historian in order to understand a simple story.

Another example - Was every 1970s cop like Dirty Harry? Every private detective like Peter Gunn or Sam Spade?
Why do you think we have modern adaptations of Shakespeare? The Leo DiCaprio version of Romeo & Juliet, while managing to retain the original dialogue, is still set in a modern city environment with guns and cars, to provide a modern context for a modern audience.

Would you find Batman Begins believable if everything else was the same, but Batman was played by Adam West in the same 60s style as the series?
It just wouldn't work, would it?

If you don't have the right contexts for settings and characters, the audience will not find them believable enough. The target audience here was probably a more casual viewer needing a good introduction to Treasure Island than someone who knows the original source material inside and out.

But whatever the target, if you cannot get your audience's interest, you don't get the ratings and you fail. Regardless of how nitpicky anyone wants to get over something, THAT is ultimately the drive behind 'modern' entertainment. It's about ratings and money. Nothing more.



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Yet, quite often people will behave heroically and unselfishly. There may have been a black market during WWII, but Britain wouldn't have pulled through without a great deal of self-sacrifice. A co-worker might raid the fridge, but also donate sick days to a fellow worker.

And many reasons a book becomes a classic is because it makes you LOVE the characters, not think "Oh, good, they are no better than the average." We enjoy watching the comparative nobility of the Doctor and Jim Hawkins (who won't betray his word, even when he thinks he will likely be tortured to death). What people consider "relevance" often doesn't outlast the decade it was born in.

Hope lasts. Cynicism doesn't.