The Harlem Globetrotters on Gilligan's Island

This movie is incredible! Amazing! It had everything! It is truly shocking that it was a made for TV production, it has epic blockbuster written all over it.

Name it and this movie has it. The Harlem Globetrotters, greedy developers, Gilligan, Mary-Ann, The Professor, The Skipper, the millionaire and his wife, the rest, tourists, basketball in an exotic Caribbean location....... this movie has everything! EVERYTHING! ABSOLUTELY EVERYTHING!

You should be grateful, very grateful, that we get entertainment such as this. The world is good.

I am probably one of the few Gilligan fans who can say that they like this picture, but there are several things wrong with it. Ginger has regressed backward in age so that she looks like her own daughter. Lovely Constance Forslund, an actress who once played Marilyn Monroe, is obviously too young to play the role when she would be better off doing it in a remake. The Howells who once said they never had a son suddenly have one, so either they had lied way back then, or they adopted the oldest kid in the orphanage to avoid parental duties." Oh no, we meant we didn't have a son ON THE ISLAND." This was supposed to set off a new series with the castaways running a resort on their old island, such a series would have allowed them to close all the old plot points of the series and bring back their old guest stars, but instead there is a culture shock as the castaways meet the Harlem Globetrotters. An illogical bet is made just for the team to play and show off their magic on a ridiculous looking court that has to be seen to be believed. Husband and wife team Martin Landau and Barbera Bain play financial rivals of the Howells in order to bilk them out of a valuable new element on the island. The plot as well as the jokes are straight out of the series, as are the Skipper's and Gilligan's wardrobe. Couldn't they have got more new clothes by now ? Still, this movie to end all movies does follow the spirit as well as the craziness of the series. I can only assume the next movie will be called: "Return to Gilligan's Island: Balingkoff's Revenge."

The final and most obscure of the Gilligan's Island TV movies gets more right than the other two. While the previous two specials incorporated a lot of melodrama based on realistic situations that often made them feel more like the Brady Bunch than Gilligan's Island, this film goes for broad comedy, cartoonish antics, bold characterizations and sight gags that better capture the tone of the original series.

Sci-fi aficionados may notice that this television film curiously foreshadows elements from more prominent sci-fi movies and shows that came out later:

*The rare element supremium sounds a lot like Avatar's unobtanium and both are used as the MacGuffin in the plot.

*A villain's henchman sneaks venomous spiders into the windows of the heroes' huts to attack them while they're sleeping just as a hired bounty hunter sneaks killer bugs into the window of Padme's bedroom in Star Wars Episode II: Attack of the Clones.

*The villain manipulates Thurston Howell the 4th into doing things he shouldn't do by taunting him that he's chicken. Marty McFly is manipulated the exact same way in the Back to the Future sequels.

*The supremium becomes unstable and destructive over a certain temperature just like the acid does in Superman III.

*George the robot opens the front panel on his torso to retrieve items just like Bender does in Futurama.

This isn't a great movie. It isn't even a good movie, despite the presence of an Oscar-winning actor. But it did tell us all that robots can't think and human creativity and passion will always win out over the oligarchs' attempts to replace us.

Don't invest in AI. Invest in humanity. That's the moral.

One does miss the original Ginger, of course, and it is sad that the writers had to invent a never-mentioned son for Mr. & Mrs. Howell, but there was a reason. Jim Backus was dying.

The brief scene of Backus as Thurston is all the more valuable when you know how sick he was. He rallied for one day of shooting. According to Dawn Wells, after he finished his part, the frail Backus turned to Wells and asked "Was I funny?"

Yes this television movie did not give a rating because the good reason why I did not enjoy is because ever since I started Gilligan's Island the first season and mostly two and three seasons of it and cancel it immediately is because opportunities like this tv movie about a popular basketball team and a island that cannot never go home is just a disappointment because as an adult especially the new generation it's very much made for kids (TV-G) all audiences which to me is boring and puts me to sleep but this television movie puts me to sleep and yes it happens constantly 100% of the minute. What a waste.