If this show revives the popularity of cockfighting. Who do you think would be a good host for the televised matches? I think Ryan Seacrest or Ricky Martin.
A big part of what made the original Roots so powerful was that so many actors who were famous in “good guy” roles were playing horrifyingly villainous characters:
Ralph Waite, who played John Walton of The Waltons played the lustful rapist first mate on the slave ship who gleefully urges captive women on his reluctant captain.
Kunta’s first owner is none other than Ben Cartwright himself, Lorne Greene, who is a drunken lout who orders Kunta whipped into accepting his slave name.
Kunta’s second owner is Robert Reed, or Mike Brady of Bunch fame. He sires Missy Anne of his drunken brother’s wife, and later sells Kizzy to her sadistic master.
And as in the quote, Chuck Connors, who was mainly known for Lucas McCain. Of course, there are those who argue that Lucas McCain was too much of a badass with that rifle to be a good guy for real.
Missy Anne? Sandy Duncan. Wholesome as hell. Reacts with selfish racist annoyance when Kizzy is sold away. It’s all about her. Doesn’t even remember Kizzy in a scene from years later.
Lots of typecast stretching in that show. That’s what made it iconic.
[QUOTE=Two Many Cats]
Sandy Duncan. Wholesome as hell. Reacts with selfish racist annoyance when Kizzy is sold away. It’s all about her. Doesn’t even remember Kizzy in a scene from years later.
[/QUOTE]
I think she remembered her, but was still ashamed and pretended not to.
I’m with Snoop Dogg on this one. Enough already with the constant stuff showing blacks in slavery. I won’t be watching.
I’m pretty sure it is a show about blacks in slavery.
We will miss you.
I’d forgotten that so many “good guy” actors from to 60’s and 70’s were in Roots. Too Many Cats makes an excellent point that seeing them in slave owner roles was supposed to be unsettling. It certainly worked.
I guess History didn’t have the budget to hire similar popular tv actors from this era.
I keep hoping Lavar Burton will pop up in a small role. Maybe a civil war soldier. I think tonight’s the last episode.
It’s gotten to where anytime I see/hear a black actor in a “Yassuh, Massa, I sho does, suh” type role, I know when I hear them interviewed they’re going to have a beautiful English accent.
heres a question from the first series ok georges kids are waiting for him to come back …its been years and they argue about leaving the place because of kkk activity
Now ironically the sherriff is their old overseer (not a bad guy compared to the rest of them ) and him and georges son are taking fingerprint like marks of the horses that the harassers are using and its some high society people in the area since they can match them by the horse shoe
the sherriff wants to take all the evidence to the federal judge but George comes back and the family basically says let it be since they want to go to tennesee where George bought the family land like he promised
Heres my q… what would of happened if they did go to the judge like their friend wanted ? anything at all ? although the judge and sheriff was appointed by the army I don’t think much would of resulted out of it …
You forgot everyones favorite grandpa/santa clause … Burl ives the one who rips off the sharecroppers after the war … when the last owner family left they freed the slaves or abolished their debt… he lies to them and says they still owe tons of money
note I don’t remember exactly the plot hvent watched ie since I was in the 8th grade so I might be wrong in the plot recollections
edit
He did pop up in Part 1. It was blink-and-you-sorta-miss-it cameo. He was one of the slaves been bought/sold when Kunta first gets to America. IMDB even names him as Ephraim, so someone may have called him Ephraim during that scene. The camera lingers on him a bit as he gets carted off in the back of a wagon.
I must have blinked then. Or taking a bathroom break
Glad to hear Lavar was in the remake.
They didn’t get into the Reconstruction period? That was one of the most brutal periods in the South. The aftermath of war and Northern carpetbaggers decimated the economy. Made it almost impossible for the freed slaves to get a new start. They continued as share croppers for another 75 to 100 years
I guess they wanted to end on a positive note with George and his family leaving for a new life in Tennessee.
Pretty good ending episode. Strong characters and story. The battle scene was done a bit clumsily. The rebs charging the Union position looked disorganized and clumsy. The murder of the black soldiers was done oddly. You can’t shoot a guy with people standing behind then. The bullets will go through several bodies. They would have killed everybody. Not just the black soldiers.
Interesting remake. But I prefer the first series
They skipped that character in the remake. But they did have the psychopathic plantation owner’s son demand payment from the freed slaves. George paid the bastard in lead. 
Which while dramatically satisfying would never have happened. Even if somehow the father didn’t press charges, there’d probably be a lynch mob, and mule drawn wagons filled with families don’t travel fast.
Much better as the episodes play out. I like the fact that Chicken George knew that Tom was his father. I always thought to was implausible in the original that he wouldn’t know. Everyone on the small plantation would have known. The character played by Anna Paquin was a bit strained, but it worked. I’m not all the way thru Ep 4 yet, but one thing I found rather mystifying was how young Tom went out after the war to find his father and he was basically wandering around in the woods. Even with Spirit Kunta guiding him, that doesn’t seem like it would work. George wasn’t even in the same state, was he?
Tom Lea’s house should have been more dilapidated.
Suspension of disbelief factor that was the same with the original: how could the Englishman have kept Chicken George against his will? Slavery was illegal in the U.K… Per Haley family tales the real Chicken George (pic) went to England as well, but I think his stay there was much shorter.
But what happens to him if he returns the US? I’m OK with him staying for years and trying to earn enough money to buy his family upon his return. But he could have found some way to communicate with them a few times during 20 years.
If I’m reading the wikipedia article correctly, the first ancestor that can actually be traced to Haley is Tom Murray. That makes everyone further back (Chicken George and back) possibly fictitious, and Tom M. was only Haley’s great-grandfather.