Riverworld

This was the most disappointing adaptations of a novel to film/video that I've ever seen. Most of the points that made the novel so interesting were completely changed or glossed over. While the movie was entertaining enough in its own right, it totally missed most of the essential points in Farmer's works. The fact that they tried to condense two novels ("To Your Scattered Bodies Go" & "The Fabulous Riverboat") into a two hour (with commercials!) production made it even worse.

A law was passed in the 1970s that all fantasy novels had to be franchises, with sequels out the wazoo for time and eternity. Philip Jose Farmer opted not to be a criminal and wrote book after book about a strange world, dominated by an endless river along whose banks everyone who had ever lived on earth was reborn. Food and clothing were supplied, and there were alien observers, whose plan was -- well, that's the plot!

Now the Sci-Fi Channel, abetted by Canada and Australia, has filmed the concept, but be warned, it's not really a movie -- it's the pilot for a series! A 21st century US astronaut, Lewis Carroll's Alice, a riverboat man named Sam, a Holocaust survivor, a strange little girl, a Yoruba princess (whose native dances look suspiciously like standard stripjoint choreo but who also does martial arts like Xena), and the evil Nero, among others, are here, struggling for survival, for power, and to launch an oldfashioned Mississippi steamboat. (So where is Richard F Burton?)

Tech credits are fair for the budget. Except for Emily Lloyd, as Alice, the cast is no-name. There's a higher than expected body count among the extras, which will no doubt be toned down considerably to make sure of a TV PG rating when this goes to weekly, and the gaggle of reborns coming out of the surf during the teaser in flesh-colored G-strings and bras, where appropriate, is probably as close to sensuality as this is going to get.

The ending is as wide-open as the defenses at Basra, with the aliens talking enigmatic foreboding stuff that will make more sense later in the series and a climactic revelation that is no surprise at all and just sets up the conflict for subsequent episodes.

This is going to be a lot like "Sir Arthur Conan Doyle's The Lost World," except that it has a river, not a plateau, where the leads can encounter a new civilization every week while tooling along in that steamboat. If you liked the Lost World series, you may find this worth watching. Odds are they'll be using some leftover scripts from it! On the other hand, if you were a fan of the books, I think you'll regard this as basically an unworthy bastardization for popular consumption of a fascinating idea -- even though Farmer did eventually write it into the ground.

On the IMDb scale, 3 out of 10.

Oh yeah, you know if you have read the very creative series of books by Mr. Farmer, that there are ideas and story snipets from the book, but I couldn't of imagined that the creators of the TV movie would make it so unwatchable to anyone not looking for a squared jaw man or exotic native women. There is so much imagination in the books, I was hoping that this show being on a Science Fiction Channel would try to appeal to a "sharper" audience. There was nothing memorable about the show. I suggest turning off the TV and reading this in the book.

... that is, until I read the novel.

While not a great film or a stunning film, it had seemed OK and had potential for sequels. The story seemed interesting enough to prompt me to read the book.

After the book I realized just how far off the mark this adaptation was. I took with a grain of salt the other comments which stated such opinions. I wished to read for myself.

And now I agree. I thought of it as a 5/10 movie before, but in light of how poorly it reflected on the novels, I now give it a 2/10.

I do agree that the 2003 Riverworld is a poor adaptation of the books. I don't think however that it was that bad as a standalone. It is vastly superior to the 2010 Riverworld which was a mess both as an adaptation and on its own merits. There are major problems with this Riverworld, the story does read of not just two books condensed into one movie but also of a pilot of a series that never happened. The telling of it suffers from important plot-points changed, skimmed over or cut, incongruous clichés, many predictable scenes and uneven pacing, having moments where it was rushed and others where it plodded. The script is lazy and stilted, the CGI Riverboat was poorly rendered and the characters have little of their interesting or likable traits, coming across as cardboard. However, technically the film doesn't look too bad, unlike the 2010 movie it did have striking sets, had good photography and most of the effects were decent. The music has that fantasy-adventure sort of atmosphere without being over-bearing or generic and the acting from a largely unknown cast is above average. In conclusion, an okay film but leaves much to be desired. 5/10 Bethany Cox