kayspam

This was a perfect romantic feel-good movie. The camera work was beautiful. The special effects were wonderful; the fantastical interacted with the real seamlessly. The plot was great, I loved the transition from folk tale to 'reality.' I especially liked the development of the two main characters, Mira most of all. Her initial introduction had me thinking she was going to be a brat through-out and I was pleasantly surprised.

I just finished reading the series for about the zillionth time and decided to take a chance on the television series. I read reviews here and thought i should be alright until the second season. I was wrong. I am halfway thru the first episode and have already asked my husband not to bother getting the rest of the dvds on netflix. I am so disappointed. i'm going to try to finish the disk but the massive alterations. So far the only similarities i've found between the book and the series is a girl named Emily and a father named Douglas both with the last name Star. Scenes, characters, location, plot line etc are all changed. Oh wait they did get the names of the aunts and cousin correct but... the cat is wrong.

Sigh. Perhaps if i had never read the books i'd be OK with just watching this as a stand-alone piece. Even Emily's essential personality has been changed from the character i adored in the trilogy.

Most people already know the story so I won't recap. All I really want to say is that I have waited 25 years for this movie.. and I was not disappointed! If anything my dreams were exceeded. The casting was incredible, there is nothing about any of the characters that I would change. The scenery was fabulous. The special effects were great. I was worried about the use of so many CGI characters but at no point did I feel that they caused any distraction and their implementation was perfect (IMHO) I am a big enough fan of the series that I did go out and buy the BBC version (on VHS and then on DVD when it became available) simply to have SOME cinematic rendering of the text. It wasn't bad for a television series directed at children. But this movie does much more justice to the full grandeur of the book.

I am looking forward to the rest of the books in the series.