Anne of Green Gables: A New Beginning

I had heard this was being made and have just seen it for the first time. Kevin Sullivan should be mortified, but I doubt that he has the good taste to know it. The writing is dreadful, the rape of the original story and characters appalling, the abuse of an iconic Canadian story tragic. And on top of that, the quality of the film-making is and insult to the term 'amateur'. It's painful.

I have heard tales of the legendary hubris of Mr. Sullivan but this falls below even the lowest expectation. The directing is so bad he manages to make well known accomplished American actors unwatchable. The sentimental posturing of Barbara Hershey is laughable and Shirley MacLaine looks like she's checking for exits. I guess everyone needs to top up the retirement fund, even legends. Fair enough. But what do a couple of ageing American stars know about Canada or the history of a maritime island most Americans never heard of? What do they have to do with the heart or memory of this story? Their rhythm is wrong. Hollywood plunked itself down in PEI farmland to tell them who they were. Ridiculous. Offensive.

Kevin Sullivan, whatever glutinous ambitious distortions and abuses you have flung across the memory of this story, you could hardly have done worse than this piece of insulting exploitive drivel. I find it difficult to imagine anyone in Canada will ever watch anything you are attached to again. Shame on any Canadian agency for funding you. I commend the past cast members for eschewing this abortion of a script and certainly you as a 'director'.

Hard enough to get Canadian stories told...but this is criminal.

How sad to ruin a great story with a series like this! Do not see it, if you have good memories of the Anne of Green Gables tv-series or the books!

Mr. Sullivan does not have a good track record in terms of his faithfulness to Mongtomery's books. The first movie was his closest and best adaptation. Anne the Sequel, though a well done movie, strays greatly from the original text. By the time we enter into the third movie all is lost. Hard to believe they would keep going, even after Anne: The Continuing Store was critically and publicly panned!

There is not a shred of Anne Shirley's character in Barbara Hershey. And although a fine actress, she struggles to bring merit to the character. The younger Anne comes closer, but her over acting (probably due to poor direction and terrible writing) renders her a mock-up of Megan Follows.

Even worse, Mr. Sullivan completely disregards Anne's back story, told in the first novel. He turns Anne into a liar and Marilla's moral judgment is jeopardized by a cheap subplot! The backdrop of Green Gables is always enchanting, but as a devoted fan I was distracted by the reused footage from previous movies and several episodes of Road to Avonlea. Who do they think they're kidding? It is too bad the powers that be do not listen to what Montgomery fans want and deserve. Movies that would have followed the novels more closely would have been more cherished than this invented drivel, only produced to make an easy buck.

The only redeeming quality is a brief glimpse of Mrs. Rachel Lynde at the very tail end of the movie. Her presence reminds us of what could and should have been.

Remember when you watched Anne The Continuing Story and thought "well this is kind of dumb, and totally goes against the books, and pretty much common sense, and those continuity issues of their ages, and on and on"? Well that was kind of like Star wars 8 and you thought it destroyed everything. Then came this new movie and you thought there might be some sort of redemption...but just like Star wars 9, it turned out to be an even bigger dumpster fire, and it spat in the face of the previous story. I'm guessing 90% of this movie is basically false and impossible. I was kind of expecting Anne in this story to come out of the shower at the end like Bobby Ewing and the whole thing was just a dream.

I feel like it's all about the money at this point. Again, the magic from the first two is gone. Visually, it's a nice film to look at. I loved seeing Green Gables itself again and happy we got to see more of it than part three. But in my own opinion it's a step down yet again. Three was a let down and so is this one. They should have stopped after Anne 2; and left Anne and Gil on the bridge. I would have preferred to leave it up to the imagination than having this film. Where is the movie with Anne and Gil having children together? Anne fans deserved better. After viewing this installment, I can't believe how anyone who loved the first two movies would ever accept this film. It wasn't what I imagined at all and trying to tie this in simply to make a buck is awful. Thanks, Kevin. I liked three better than this. This film visually is an improvement over Anne 3 but come on, Diana and Rachel fans will be disappointed for one thing! The smartest people in the whole development of Anne '4' are the original actors who decided to stay OUT of it. Especially Megan Follows. You'll always be Anne to me.