Product Details

• Actors: Megan Follows, Jonathan Crombie, Schuyler Grant, Greg Spottiswood, Janet-Laine Green
• Directors: Stefan Scaini
• Writers: Jeff Boulton, Kevin Sullivan, Laurie Pearson, Lucy Maud Montgomery
• Producers: Jeff Boulton, Kevin Sullivan, Trudy Grant
• Format: Color, NTSC
• Language: English, French
• Rated: NR (Not Rated)
• Number of tapes: 2
• Studio: Public Broadcasting Service (PBS)
• VHS Release Date: August 3, 2001
• Run Time: 185 minutes
• Average Customer Review: 2.5 out of 5 stars  See all reviews (347 customer reviews)
• ASIN: B00005O0ST
• Amazon Best Sellers Rank: #69,868 in Movies & TV (See Top 100 in Movies & TV)

Customer Reviews

Most Helpful Customer Reviews

309 of 319 people found the following review helpful:

3.0 out of 5 stars A bitterly disappointing finale to the story of Anne Shirley, October 2, 2003

By 

Lawrance M. Bernabo (The Zenith City, Duluth, Minnesota) - See all my reviews
(VINE VOICE)    (COMMUNITY FORUM 04)    (TOP 500 REVIEWER)    (HALL OF FAME REVIEWER)   

This review is from: Anne of Green Gables - The Continuing Story (DVD)

Having listened to Kevin Sullivan's commentary on the DVD versions of the first two "Anne of Green Gables" series, I was forced to conclude that despite the excellence of those productions he really has a very poor conception of L. M. Montgomery's stories. That certainly helps to explain the travesty of "Anne of Green Gables: The Continuing Story." As co-writer, Sullivan totally abandons Montgomery's Anne books to spin his own overly melodramatic tale of World War I, even though the author's "Rilla of Ingleside" deals with that same time frame. Of course, Anne is almost fifty years old by the time of that novel and it is a pair of her sons who go off to fight in the Great War. Montgomery's novel was published right after the end of World War I, making it a uniquely contemporaneous work which richly deserves a film treatment. Maybe Sullivan objected to the novel's politics, in which the characters supported the war and the Empire, unlike Anne in this film, but who knows. Clearly they waited too long to get around to making this third part, since Anne and Gilbert should have been married long ago. Megan Follows and Jonathan Crombie are basically twice as old as the characters they first portrayed in the original "Anne." But while it is great to see these two playing Anne and Gilbert again and there is nothing to fault with either one of their performances, the story told here is just plain awful. There is no reason to tell the tale of a wife who goes looking for her husband in Europe using L. M. Montgomery's characters and if you want to do the struggling writer routine they could have turned to Montgomery's Emily books.

The first two "Anne" series were filled with warm and wonderful moments that you enjoy viewing again and again. The only moments that stand out in this sorry affair are when Anne finally finds Gilbert and when she goes back to the train station where Matthew first found Anne so many years ago to give us a sense of having come back to where we started. Of course, a lot of our disappointment comes from the heighten expectation of finally getting to see our beloved characters on screen again. I know I am not the only one who has read everything written by L. M. Montgomery after seeing the first "Anne of Green Gables" program, so I know I am not alone in being bitterly disappointed by this production. Even worse, the storyline here effectively kills ever returning to Montgomery's original stories, unless we are to suddenly believe Anne's kids end up being old enough to fight World War II. Watching this is just such a depressing experience that you have to go back and read again the best parts of Montgomery's novels or watch the first two series again. This is not something Anne's fans will ever treasure, even if they are compelled to check it out. When they see the ruined state of Green Gables, the aptness of the metaphor will be palatable.

166 of 173 people found the following review helpful:

2.0 out of 5 stars Not what I expected (or hoped for), June 7, 2002

By 

Rebecca (Naperville, IL United States) - See all my reviews

This review is from: Anne of Green Gables - The Continuing Story [VHS] (VHS Tape)

If you have not yet seen this movie, I would recommend that you rent or borrow it before you decide to purchase it. Hoping this new sequel would pick up where the movie "Anne of Avolea" left off, I was disappointed to watch and discover that the movie doesn't even show Anne and Gilbert together that often. The wedding that "Anne" fans have been waiting for was brief and rushed, lasting about two minutes of this three hour movie. After the wedding, the next scene the viewer sees is Gilbert going off to war. Honestly, I think my husband would like this movie more than I do given all of the war scenes. Though I enjoyed seeing the old cast reunited, I didn't feel that this movie was very true to the characters from the previous movies, and certainly not from the books. I plan to sit down and watch "Anne of Green Gables" and "Anne of Avonlea" all over again so that I may recapture the sweet romantic sentiment that this movie lacked.

62 of 63 people found the following review helpful:

1.0 out of 5 stars Very Disappointing/A Betrayal to LMM, January 18, 2002

By 

KittyKins "KittyKins" - See all my reviews

This review is from: Anne of Green Gables - The Continuing Story [VHS] (VHS Tape)

I am a real fan of Anne of Green Gables and all of LMM's works, so like many others I was looking forward to seeing this movie. I knew they departed from LMM's books, but I was shocked to find out how much. The story is loosely based on the last book in the Anne series, "Rilla of Ingleside", about Anne's youngest daughter during the First World War. Being the only North American woman's written account of the war, it is a very famous book, and although fiction, has historical value. In the book Anne & Gibert are middle-aged and the book centers around their young adult children, but the movie has Anne searching for Gilbert on the battle lines! Of course Anne has a flirtation along the way even though she and Gilbert are married. What were LMM's ancestors thinking when they allowed this movie to be made!?

The first two movies are splendid and are true to LMM's characters in ways that the third movie is not. Although poetic license was used, especially in the 1st sequel, they went a bit further in this second sequel. Anne didn't seem like Anne. Gilbert and Diana were so thin they were almost unrecognizable. How different was Megan Follows as Anne? One of my friends commented to me that she had seen the movie and actually was under the impression that the actor who played Anne was not Megan Follows!!

I think the most unforgiveable thing to me is how they portrayed Anne & Gilbert's wedding, which was so beautiful in the book "Anne's House of Dreams"!

My hope is that if Sullivan productions tackles such a project again that they present "Anne's House of Dreams", a wonderful story, and stick to the words that made LMM famous! Hopefully it is possible to re-do Anne & Gilbert's wedding!