AbandonedRailroadGrade
Joined Jan 2000
Welcome to the new profile
We're making some updates, and some features will be temporarily unavailable while we enhance your experience. The previous version will not be accessible after 7/14. Stay tuned for the upcoming relaunch.
Badges3
To learn how to earn badges, go to the badges help page.
Reviews28
AbandonedRailroadGrade's rating
I read one of the books some 20-25 years ago, I think. My memory of it is a little hazy, but I know I loved it. What an awesome idea: The entire human race, every saint and sinner who ever lived, all 36 billion of us, spewed out all at once, randomly along the shores of an alien planet.
I expected this TV adaptation to be trash, but to my surprise I actually sat through the whole thing while defragging my computer.
Sure, there were a lot of cheap TV-movie qualities. I didn't remember this apple-pie Captain Kirk American astronaut from the book. (Fellow IMDb commentators remind me that in the book he was the complex Romantic English adventurer Burton.) And the African priestess was awfully cheesy and inauthentic for our sensitive and politically correct age. (She's a cross between a corny "native" of 1930's jungle flicks and a more modern stereotypical angry black woman. But she's easy on the eyes, and maybe that's all that really matters.) And the whole Valdemar thing was your standard "Xena-like" action fare, as other commentators have so aptly put it.
But the main idea of Riverworld remains powerful. The actors are quite good. The gorges and beaches of New Zealand are stunning. The special effects and the riverboat are more than adequate. All-in-all, better than average TV fantasy adventure.
I expected this TV adaptation to be trash, but to my surprise I actually sat through the whole thing while defragging my computer.
Sure, there were a lot of cheap TV-movie qualities. I didn't remember this apple-pie Captain Kirk American astronaut from the book. (Fellow IMDb commentators remind me that in the book he was the complex Romantic English adventurer Burton.) And the African priestess was awfully cheesy and inauthentic for our sensitive and politically correct age. (She's a cross between a corny "native" of 1930's jungle flicks and a more modern stereotypical angry black woman. But she's easy on the eyes, and maybe that's all that really matters.) And the whole Valdemar thing was your standard "Xena-like" action fare, as other commentators have so aptly put it.
But the main idea of Riverworld remains powerful. The actors are quite good. The gorges and beaches of New Zealand are stunning. The special effects and the riverboat are more than adequate. All-in-all, better than average TV fantasy adventure.
Yup, yup, yup, I saw it as a kid, too. I think I first saw it on the big screen at my elementary school in the late 1960s. I was enchanted and devastated. One of those half-mystical childhood experiences that haunts you the rest of your life.
Today I caught it on Turner Classic. And I have to wonder: To what degree has this film actually influenced the course of my life? It idealizes the pathos of the loner, who has his own special magic and beauty that brings out the worst in his peers, teachers, priests, and mass transit officials. But in the end, the purity of his love carries him to a better world (we hope). Dare I say I can relate to that? Or was I TAUGHT to relate to that, by this film?
Such is the haunting power of childhood experiences. At the risk of exposing myself as an old fart, I wonder if the children of today have similar fodder for thought.
Today I caught it on Turner Classic. And I have to wonder: To what degree has this film actually influenced the course of my life? It idealizes the pathos of the loner, who has his own special magic and beauty that brings out the worst in his peers, teachers, priests, and mass transit officials. But in the end, the purity of his love carries him to a better world (we hope). Dare I say I can relate to that? Or was I TAUGHT to relate to that, by this film?
Such is the haunting power of childhood experiences. At the risk of exposing myself as an old fart, I wonder if the children of today have similar fodder for thought.
This weren't as bad as some people say. There's three reasons to watch it: (3) There is actually some funny and witty material here, (2) the photography is gorgeous--both the interior shots and the glamorous locales of mid-1960's New York, and (1) Natalie is stunningly beautiful.