Two weeks ago in my review of Gulliver's Travels I mentioned a TV miniseries version of the classic satire that I'd seen. This is that TV miniseries version. It aired on NBC in 1996 and starred Ted Danson as Gulliver. As I mentioned previously, I'd seen it in seventh grade and remembered it fondly. I was worried, nonetheless, that I would watch the miniseries here and now in 2012 as an adult and be unable to deny two things - one, that this would end up being a rather faithless and dumbed down adaptation of Swift's novel, and two, that the special effects would reek of "made for TV in the mid-nineties." Fortunately, neither fear was warranted. While it wasn't a scene-for-chapter or shot-for-page adaptation, this miniseries certainly held up as an intelligent and respectful re-telling of the original novel, maintaining its tone and various absurdities quite well. And while I'm sure another miniseries made today would have superior effects (especially during the first two parts, which deal heavily with large size discrepancies between people) it isn't as if these effects were distractingly bad at all. In fact, the production seemed rather self-aware of which story elements it was and wasn't capable of recreating convincingly. Overall it was a very good piece of television that feels just as under-appreciated as the novel it was based on.
No comments:
Post a Comment