As a big fan of Jules Verne, I’ve read the book more than once. And seen the 1956 (not 1960s) Michael Todd movie. I even saw it in the original Todd-AO format at the Rialto in NYC. I’ve read the Classics Illustrated version and listened to audio adaptations. I never saw the 2004 Jackie Chan version or the 1989 Pierce Brosnan versions.
In the first place, you should know that there are virtually no faithful adaptations of Verne’s work. What we do have are a few creditable ones. One of the things that the Todd film introduced was Fogg making part of his journey by balloon. That doesn’t happen in the book. But it’s become so associated with the story that it has graced multiple book covers and shows up in just about every version since, including the current Masterpiece one. Verne had his heroes travel by balloon in other books and stories (most notably in Five Weeks in a Balloon, his first big financial success), so it’s not really much of a stretch. It enlivens one of the dullest parts of the story and is visually interesting, so why not? Todd got the Verne Medal for his film.
The other thing you have to realize is that PBS adaptations, especially of hoary old classics, have recently gone out of their way to “re-interpret” the stories both to bring more life into them and to make them more acceptable to a modern audience. If you look at the 2007 Masterpiece version of Dracula (or, even better, the 2020 BBC Stephen Moffat version, although that never ran on PBS) you see something utterly unlike the original story, although it clearly has its roots there.
Just so with this latest adaptation of Around the World in 80 Days. It’s definitely not Verne’s direct story. The balloon is there, to start with, but Passpartout didn’t have a revolutionary brother. Fogg didn’t try crossing the Arabian peninsula by camel. The Indian segment is completely different – there’s no foray by elephany through the jungle, and Fogg doesn’t rescue Aouda from a burning suttee pyre. Paspartout didn’t try to delay Fogg with a medicinal draught, and they didn’t end up on a desert island. And in the book Inspector Fix is a detective following Fogg with Javert-like tenacity around the world because he’s convinced that he’s the guy who robbed the Bank of England. When I saw a female character named Fix, I had to do a double-take.
Nevertheless, I like the series, and continue to watch it. Part of it is wanting to see how they’re going to change things around this week from the original. Part of it is wanting to see how they’ve altered things in the name of multicultural inclusiveness. Verne himself was pretty forward-looking for his time – he had heroes of all nationalities, not just Frenchmen. He had Englishmen (as hhere), Germans (until the Franco=-Prussian War, at least), Poles, Russians, Americans, Canadians, Turks, Indians, a Chinese man, and others. But he still had that Western Civ paternalism, and he still wrote slightingly of “savages” from Africa and the native Americans. This series does away with the whole suttee incident, which doesn’t make the Indian people look very enlightened, and recasts Aouda from a princess to a more believable healer. Each character gets a LOT more backstory (Estella? Can this be setting us up for this version’s Love Interest for Fogg to take Aouda’s place?). The new female Fix and Passpartout are given more agency and importance. It’s all very interesting, if not exactly Verne.
But if they screw with the ending, I’ll never forgive them.
By the was, here’s Saul Bass’ wonderful animated closing credits for the 1956 film:
That was like a mini series,