The long version, that is…96 episodes.
I’d really love to discuss/debate but this is the only board I know of where people address things with such clear vision, and I don’t think there’s that many viewers here.
Would anyone be interested?
Bueller? Bueller?
I have seen a different version, and probably not the whole thing. It doesn’t seem that NetFlix has your version either. I know a couple of video stores that may have it, so I’ll look around. Sorry, but you may be on your own here.
Have you watched the whole thing already?
I’m on disk 7 of 13, so about halfway through.
Waa! Is it too much to ask? I hunger for debate! Discussion! Nitpicking! Just like everyone else.
I saw the movie of the Peter Brooks version. It isn’t quite that long, but would definitely make for good debate. Brooks did some very…interesting things with the original text in order to make it read as a single narrative. Personally I don’t like it (and I have read the original, well a translation of the original, and it was for a theater of Asia class so we focused mostly on how the text was dramatized differently by different cultures in the Hindu world) but many people saw it as a groundbreaking cross cultural event. When you finish your version, go watch the one I saw (also long, but not that long), I would love to hear what you have to say about the two.
I’ve seen several episodes of the television version – nowhere near the whole thing, but a good chunk of it. Usually when I see it, it’s because the T.V. just happens to be on that station and I’m not really paying attention so I can’t be bothered to do it.
I certainly wouldn’t watch it on purpose and I would have no interest in getting the DVDs and slogging through all that muck.
Debate? Well, what to say – as an artistic endeavour, it’s a big pile of crap. There are problems in every conceivable aspect of the show, from the set designs, to the costuming, to the audio quality, to the … heh … “special effects,” to the foley, to the acting … you name it, it’s done half-assedly.
The biggest crime, however, is in the writing. Whoever sat down to adapt this version was one lazy bastard. It has no sense of drama or timing or dramatic timing whatsoever … every aspect of the story is spelled out, repeatedly, in excruciating detail.
And here’s the nub – everything, I mean everything is spelled out in exposition. It’s absolutely sick. You know that old adage – “show it, don’t say it”? Well, I think someone must have gotten it backwards, because everything is said, not once, not twice, but repeated until you want to drill a hole in your head. There is no character development, no subtlety, no implication, nothing. Just exposition. And most of it is SHOUTED! (I LOVE SHOUTING!)
Oh, and you know how to tell who the bad guys are? When they laugh, it always echos.
And all the songs are sung to the same goddamn tune!
Gakh!
I got it for my SO for our anniversary (thanks to your pseudo-suggestion when your SO got it for you). We’re currently through disc 1. Then again, our copy has 16 discs, so I’m not sure we have the same version.
I have to have the SO explain parts to me, since I feel that it kinda assumes you’re familiar with the story beforehand.
Nitpick - The narrated parts with the stars and the spinning wheel. Logically, I know that the wheel is an important symbol, and is on the flag. But Og help me, with the stars as a background, it looked like a rotating space station, a la 2001 or Ender’s Game. The SO got endless amusement from that. :smack:
Oh, and it has an obsession with virgin births.
Ah, yes. There’s one point in the first episode when Shantanu is talking to Ganga, and the subtitles are completely in CAPS for 5 minutes or so. I was highly confused since the actors were speaking in a normal tone.
In fact, I’m still not sure what that’s about. Perhaps someone hit the caps lock and nobody noticed. 
I don’t so much care about debating the version itself, just the ideas put through to it. I have to acknowledge it could have been shot much better, but I’m not too worried about that. I don’t think it’s a pile of muck at all, or crap, as a matter of fact, I love it, even with all its cheesiness and over-the-topness.