sharon-draginis — 12 years ago(November 07, 2013 08:49 PM)

Let's be clear: if this were a stand alone movie, it would be a decent
film, a solid 7/10 at best. My beef is not that there's an addition to
the storyline, despite the gigantic plot hole in creates in attempting
to rewrite the book and script altogether. It's fine, more than fine,
that the writers decided to completely disregard the specific twenty
year gap mentioned both in the book and in the script. The plot itself?
Fine! In fact, it's a rather intriguing premise, and perfectly workable
from a story-teller point of view.
But
It's not fine that the entirety of its plot, when placed in the setting
of The Thornbirds, is contrived out of character beep that could
have never happened. It's not fine that the script writers so
completely missed the point of each character. It's not fine that their
motivations and ideas are so completely out of character that they are
no longer the characters from either the book or the original series.
Let us break down exactly exactly how far off the characters the
writers went: Fiona - Meggie's mother. Arguably the best written
character from McCollough's novel, and perhaps consequentially received
the worst of the butchering. Nothing, nothing could have turned me off
from this miniseries more than seeing Fiona, of all people, clutching
her face and sobbing, "We need strong men around!" Seriously. Let's
just back the hell up remember, REMEMBER, that this woman from the
original book and series is the most reserved of creatures. Quiet,
proper, and so fiercely independent and capable of running a household
all on her own that she barely needs any help at all, even when
birthing children like a hen lays eggs.
Fiona doesn't need a man.
Fiona doesn't need /anybody/. That's the whole point to her character.
The only thing she needs is the love of her son, and later in life, she
finds out that she was far more dependent on Patty's love than she'd
realized, and it helps her realize that maybe, MAYBE Meggie needs a
little more love as wellbut this happens far later, far far later,
when Fiona is old and brittle and just coming to terms with how much
more involved she should have been with Meggie emotionally.
The Fiona in The Missing Years is vibrant, chatty, and meddling. The
Fiona that McCollough wrote would find such qualities a nuisance.
McCollough's Fiona is not vibrant. She is broken, and merely recovered
to a point of bein functional, reserved, and so entirely private with
her emotions that it'd be impossible for her to care for the emotions
of anyone other than Frank and Patty.
Meggie - People keep saying that the Meggie from The Missing Years is
too hard and cynical, and I have to wonder what in the hell they're
talking about. The Thornbirds Meggie version is far worse in that
department. Why shouldn't she be? She just exited an emotionally
abusive relationship, and ripped herself a child from Ralph's loins.
If anything, this Meggie is appallingly similar to a doormat.
McCollough's version of Meggie would have laughed, and laughed, and
laughed her thin butt right off at the idea of Luke coming back to try
and reconcile their relationship. And you know what? She would've sent
him right back on the train. There would have been no second chances.
If you don't think that as well, then you don't know who Meggie is as a
character.
Meggie /resented/ Father Ralph after she conceived Dane. All of her
love for him transferred to Dane. There was still lingering fondness
left over 20 years later when Ralph came to visit Dane in his older
years, yes, but my God, she ferociously detested him for his lack of
ability to love her as completely as she loved him, for his own
inability to choose if she, or his ambition was more important in the
long run.
Do you think she would've opened herself, and allowed herself to be so
vulnerable again after he'd just abandoned her for God? If you were in
the same shoes, would you? Nooo. No. You'd be uncomfortable with him
even setting foot in your own house, because you'd know this: Here is
the man who loves ambition more than me.
In some ways, he's the exact same as Luke. Both of them made it more
than obvious to Meggie where their priorities were: Luke was with work
and money, and Ralph was with 'God'. Both of them kept teasing her with
glimpses of what life could be beyond, and Meggie was the one who
realized, in both situations, that life them would never be any
different than it already was. Luke would never tire of work and money,
would never want to settle down. Ralph could never be at piece with
himself, thinking he'd abandoned all of his power for something as base
as physical love.
.
I could go on.
I could go on, and on and on.
The only character performance I truly enjoyed was Luke's. The actor
claimed that role and made it as enjoyable as it was in the original,
even if it's complete bullocks to think that Luke, for ANY INSTANT,
would think twice about retrieving Meggie for any reason, and would
want to settle down afterward. It's just bad. A