Riverworld Blasphemy

[shannon_a]

I just watched Riverworld, which my TiVo taped for me off the science-fiction channel last night.

In short: it was an absolute blasphemy, and if you have any love for the original books, or for that matter for your own sanity, run far, far away.

This movie is the most closely based upon the second Riverworld book, The Fabulous Riverboat by Philip Jose Farmer, but really it just took the basic premise and some characters and ran with it.

Now, really, I don't have a problem with a new creator telling a new story in a different medium, but this story was just bad. The plot was hackneyed in the worst whitebread-hero's story sort of way. Even given historical giants like Sam Clemens to play with, the characters were totally flat and took no advantage of these real peoples' history.

Shannon's Grade: A waste of an hour-and-a-half.

To make up for subjecting myself to this horror, I put the first book in the series, To Your Scattered Bodies Go on my to-be-read shelf.

Comments

[cartazon.livejournal.com]

Chris and I watched this last night too, having taped it previously. I've never read the books, but even so I felt vastly disappointed by the presentation. The boat was gorgeous (and the actor playing Sam Clemons is a honey!), but the script was trite (Nero: I need an empress to stand beside me and teach me compassion.) and the cinematography not nearly as well-done as I'd thought it would be from the previews, though I guess I'm spoiled there from the visual beauty of the Dune mini-series.

Obviously, Riverworld was intended as a series pilot and not a movie event in itself. A shame, really, because it's a fascinating idea. I daresay that the concept would work as an online RPG, with a ready made reason for people returning from the dead and for having just about any background they want.

I've got the original books on my to-read list as well.

[odheirre.livejournal.com]

There is a GURPS Riverworld that I never picked up and I believe is out of print.

[shannon_a]

The boat was indeed beautiful, and the one thing I liked in the presentation.

Too much of the rest of the presentation seemed very unlikely--such as the fact that everyone after waking up naked on Riverworld and having to bootstrap civilization from nothing in 10 years or less--ended up with their appropriate period clothes, even within the same villages.

And, yeah, it was clearly shot as a pilot, which I wished I'd known before watching it; it would have changed my expectations for having a complete story, though from the start I was befuddled about how they were going to fit in any Riverworld story into two hours.

I remember the books as being very good, though consider stopping after the fourth (_The Magic Labyrinth_), as it forms a full-stop to the series and some are disappointed by what the fifth book (_Gods of Riverworld_) offers afterward.