Return to Green Acres

I agree with the previous reviewer who said that this reunion movie must have been written by someone who had never seen the original show. In a way, Green Acres was like Seinfeld for the 1960s, in that there were no lessons or morals learned and very little seriousness or sentimentality - just lots of weird humor (except for some lovey-dovey scenes between Oliver and Lisa at the end of some episodes). This is also a show that had a lot of fun breaking the 4th wall, with characters making references to the opening credits and such. That said, what on earth were the writers thinking when they wrote this movie? The movie isn't even funny - did they forget that Green Acres was supposed to be a comedy? The plot is very cliched - a greedy business man conspires with Mr. Haney to buy everyone's property in Hooterville and turn it into a mall or something. This results in many serious, sappy scenes that have none of the wacky flavor of the original. We even have a "lesson," as Eb's teenage son learns to appreciate his rural hometown instead of thinking it's boring. We also have a romance between the Ziffels' niece and the businessman's son, which I think only makes the show drag even more. Stick with the original - the only reason to watch this movie is if you're curious to see how the cast looked after 20 years.

This is probably the second-worst TV reunion show ever. While the honor for the worst goes to the Beverly Hillbillies reunion, this one is only marginally better. First off, the show begins by explaining that Oliver and Lisa had moved back to New York and had been living there many years!! This NEVER could have happened in the TV series and in many ways makes the show irrelevant--after all, what's funny about moving to Hootersville and then leaving because it DID suck after all?! Secondly, like the Hillbilly TV movie, a lot of the cast was dead or near-dead. Fred Zipfel was dead and Mr. Haney just looked dead (he was very sickly and died soon afterward). And the rest of them just looked old and tired. It was pretty sad watching this mess, as it just wasn't the same. It's true you can never really go back.

Yes, it missed the mark big time. I've always felt that reunion shows of this ilk (i.e.,old 30-minute sitcoms) should be done in the same 30-minute time-frame. And, in this particular case, should have been done on similar sets as the TV show instead of filming outdoors in real settings. Because the producers and/or writers chose real-life settings for this reunion show AND stretched it to two hours, the look and feel of the show was completely alien to the original series. For me, that was the first glaring mistake. They should have stuck to the cheap indoor sets and made it a half-hour long. Maybe then they could've used the money they'd have saved and spent it on better writers, because the next glaring mistake was the bad writing. It stuck out like a sore thumb. I give this movie two stars instead of one, because the only endearing aspect of this "mistake" was seeing most of the original cast together again.

How about a movie that is directed and written by the original director who directed all but 3 of the episodes? Introducing, Mr. Richard Bare!!!!! This should be filmed by August of next year for a 2011 release. Are you excited??? We are in the works of pre-production. The script is written, and boy howdy, is it good. The context will be set in the original time-frame. The cast will be famous and look alikes. Which A list actor do you think looks the most like Eddie Albert? How about Eva Gabor? Who should play Arnold? How about Mr. Kimball? We already have a Mr Haney! You must stick to the original values of the TV series. Especially in a movie as important as Green Acres as it has a HUGE following! Let's get er done.

This is one more movie based on a TV show which feels like it was written by someone who never saw the show, and based the script on what people had told them about it. It has the right characters, place names, and situations, but none of the wifty, oddball humor which made the show special. It was good they could get (almost all) the same actors back from the original series. As usually happens in reunion movies like this, something happens to threaten the situation, and the characters band together to (everyone say it together) "SAVE THE TOWN!" The end of the movie is everyone saying "Well, now we can go back to normal!" It's almost as if the scripts for these things come in a kit--they're that stereotyped.