Where the hell was I? :eek:
And where is Richard Burton?
Nope. Never happened. Just like there were never sequels to Highlander. Never happened! Lalalalalalalalala…
Seriously, the movie should have run with a disclaimer “any resemblance between the book and the movie is entirely coincidental.”
Was it a movie, mini series, series pilot? I just caught part of it on SciFi.
I haven’t read the book in a while (and I don’t think I read all of them). Was there an alien resurected along with the humans? I don’t seem to recall that.
It was a mini-series, I’ve been told (by people who think such an abomination could have been made). In the books, an alien (in fact the one responsible for wiping out humanity) was resurrected on the Riverworld.
Yes, there was, and if you liked the books, I’d advise you to stay the heck away from the TV miniseries.
Couldn’t have that Riverworld.
For one thing, they weren’t naked.
Second, they all were various ages.
Well, actually they did start out naked; it being regular cable they couldn’t show explicit nudity, but it was clear that the folks were naked. But they popped up out of the River instead of waking up on the banks. And not only were they different ages, but it didn’t happen all at once; when the shuttle pilot protagonist arrives, other people have already been there for years.
The Emperor Nero shows up; for some reason he’s a brilliant hand-to-hand fighter. That should give some idea of the depth of historical portraits.
If anybody decides to do a proper movie version of “Riverworld”, I’m sure we can all agree to forget this piece of crap ever happened.
And there were horses there, too. And people wearing leather. It was awful (that is, if it ever happened at all. Which it didn’t.)
It was surprisingly dull given the source material.
Yeah – one of my complaints is that they seem to follow the “Americans won’t watch it if it doesn’t have an American Hero” philosophy that also resulted in Fom Sawyer showing up in “The League of Extraordinary Gentlemen”, the unhistorical prevalance of Americans in the breakout of The Great ERscape (The Americans were transferred out of the camp prior to the break), and the nationality change in U-271 from British to American.
Dammit, Burton was the best part of “To Your Scattered Bodies Go!”, and one of the most interesting adenturer/scholars of the past couple of centuries. Why pull him out in favor of a made-up astronaut?
Because if you say “Richard Burton” to the great unwashed in the USA, they will wonder where Elizabeth Taylor is. Besides, based on the “historical research” the producers showed, they didn’t know who he was either!
Didn’t remember the alien, its got to be twenty years since I read the books. I don’t think I stuck with it to the end. Seemed like the X-files, the answers never seemed to come. I don’t remember if it was ever resolved why they were there. Maybe I should go back and read it.
The alien’s right in the very beginning. First couple of pages, if nmot the first page. But he disappears relatively early in the series.
And, unlike X-Files, the Riverworld series did, in fact, come to a conclusion at the end of the fourth book (“THe Magic Labyrinth”, which was supposed to be the end of the third book, but it got too long). Farmer wrote other works, though – “Gods of Riverworld” and several Riverworld stories (two in "Riverworld and other Stories, and one eacvh for the anthology volumes Tales of Riverworld and its sequel, each filled with stories by other authors set on Riverworld), so it might seem as if the series stretched on interminably, kinda like Dune. But I think the first four volumes pretty much stand on their own.
It’s been years since I read the books. IIRC, at first people were different ages. Anybody who had died over the age of thirty or so, came back as thirty. Anybody who had died between thirty and a minimum age I can’t remember (8? 5?) came back at that same age. Anybody who had died before the minimum age, did not come back.
The alien, IIRC Monat Gratu’ut, is definitely in the books. Though, the description given in the books is not the amphibious alien seen in the horrific miniseries. IIRC Monat has large, bushy eyebrows that almost meet in the center and continue onto his temples and down along the jawline before tapering to points. His nose is flat and turned up like that of certain dog breeds. He also had jowls or cheek flaps.
In the books, people have ‘grails’ that are filled with food if placed in food units at the proper time. The units receive a great electrical charge three times per day, any grails loaded into them when the charge comes are filled with food.
In the miniseries, a grail could be placed into a food unit at any time and be filled.
RE The Mysteries Of Riverworld
At first, questions are answered pretty quickly. Where are they? What’s that thing? Then we get to questions that aren’t answered for a while. Who is the Mysterious Stranger? What are they doing? Why? Then we get answers that lead to more questions. By the end of the last book, we have all the answers.