Customer Reviews

Anne Of Green Gables - The Continuing Story

5 star:		(71)
4 star:		(39)
3 star:		(36)
2 star:		(44)
1 star:		(157)

 

 

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.

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.

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!

Heartbreaking!

I grew up reading the Anne books and watching the first two movies when they premiered on the Disney channel. I was hooked! I have had the first two movies (Anne of Green Gables and Anne of Avonlea) these many years and have loved them to near disintegration. I was delighted then to learn that some of my most treasured childhood friends had come back to the big screen in a new adventure.

Well, it certainly was new. Though the first two were not identical to the books, they were faithful to the spirit of the story and dialogue. Where this stilted, era-jumping mockery of L.M. Montgomery's story came from, I'll never know. I watched one time through, hoping it would get better. Many months later I decided to try it again and I turned it off after 10 minutes. I had to re-watch both of the previous movies to make myself feel better.

This movie took the cheesiest aspects of the characters, turned up the volume on them, and removed all of the wonder of P.E.I. so beautifully harnessed in the previous movies, plus took us to Europe and NYC?! Josie Pie morphs from a bratty gossip-monger to a militant war-monger, and Anne a near adulteress. These are not the characters I loved (and loved to hate). The scenes showing the ruin that Green Gables had become were as heartbreaking as seeing my grandmother's house after Hurricane Hugo.

Perhaps this project was an attempt to make Anne a little more edgy, but unfortunately, the whole appeal of the previous movies and indeed of the books was that they were not edgy. They were sketches of ordinary life with extraordinary characters.

There was nothing extraordinary about this movie, except how extraordinarily disappointed I was.

I fell in love with the Anne of Green Gables series when someone loaned us the first movie. I immediately went out and bought the books and found the 2nd movie that Sullivan made. The first two movies were outstanding and did an excellent job of telling Montgomery's story of Anne.

Like many other fans of Anne, I anxiously awaited the third movie, hoping to see the marriage of Anne and Gilbert and the beginning of their married life and the starting of their family. There is wonderful drama in the books of this period of their lives. I thought, too, that a final movie would be very successful if it dealt with the wartime drama situated around Anne & Gilbert's oldest daughter, Rilla.

What Sullivan presented, however, after two wonderful movies, was not only a desecration of Montgomery's writings, but also just a bad movie. If you have recently discovered Anne of Green Gables and love these tremendous stories, I strongly recommend that you buy the first two movies. By staying close to the text, Sullivan managed to deliver two incredible movies, and Meegan Follows is simply incredible.

Based upon Sullivan's commentary's in the movies, however, we should consider ourselves lucky he got these movies right, because he really doesn't seem to "get" what makes Montgomery's stories so wonderful. This is even more apparent with the 3rd movie, which I can only guess Sullivan put out there to try and make some extra money. First of all, it has nothing to do with Montgomery's actual stories. Sullivan should have kept to directing and left story telling to Montgomery. Second, the movie is just bad. It was a couple of hours that, unfortunately, I'll never get back again.

As other reviewers have commented, I own the first two movies and love to watch them with my family. They are *perfect* family movies with incredible stories and superb acting. The last movie shouldn't even be considered part of the story. It's bad. Don't waste any money on it.

What a waste. The romantic and dreamy, humourous and impetuous Anne is gone, leaving behind a woman twice as old and unforgivably dull, along with her long-suffering love Gilbert - the both of them barely recognisable, as they have altered so much both in appearance and in nature, since the first two productions.

The feel of the Anne films, which were captured by the idealistic and diverse characters, the sweeping views and nostalgic settings, the musical score, the laughter and tears, in short the magic, is totally lacking in this third production.

Why didn't the creaters of this episode set the story in the context of L.M. Montgomery's 'Rilla of Ingleside', making Anne and Gil the parents of children who are caught up in the conflict of WWI? This would have been infinately more believable considering Anne and Gilbert's respective age and appearance, and could have set out to capture the hopes and fears, loves and tragedies of the times. As is stands the story line is fantastical and devoid of interest.

It is ridiculous to ask viewers to believe that it has been a mere matter of a few years since Anne and Gilbert were betrothed. Futher absurdity is found in the idea of Anne and Gilbert, still unmarried, going away together and getting jobs in New York. Then we are to beleive that Anne leaves Avonlea on an intrepid journey to find Gil in war-torn Europe.

Add to this Diana's transformation from a loving down-home family-and-friends woman to a affluent, materialistic, stuck-up tyrannical wife and mother. Then add a Green Gables that has by some mystery in a brief space of years been allowed to decay into a complete ruin.

Dreadful. I was so keen to see this film, as I'm an avid fan of both the Anne films and books. Afterward, I wish I wouldn't have seen it at all. What on earth were they thinking?

I am like you at this very moment, you don't want to believe the reviews you are reading. . .but they are TRUE!

I read all the reviews here before I purchased "Anne of Green Gables-The Continuing Story". I didn't want to believe what I read, because this is Anne of Green Gables, the last two videos were GREAT, why wouldn't this one be too? IT IS NOT WORTH IT!, please trust me on this.

The beginning part of the movie is really nice to watch. . .then the war begins, Gilbert leaves and Anne leaves to go find Gilbert. And I am waiting and waiting for Anne to come back to Avonlea, but that never happens. The rest of movie is nothing but WAR WAR WAR. My wish finally comes true, Anne and Gilbert both comes back to Avonlea, but it is the last 10 minutes of the movie. THE END.

Please, please do not waste your money. Just watch Anne of Green Gables and Anne of Avonlea over and over because those are the only two classics.

I fell in love with the "Anne of Green Gables" movies when I was a little girl because of they were such lovely interpretations of the L.M. Montgomery books. Meagan Follows IS Anne Shirley. When I found out that a third installment of the series was coming out, I could not wait. However, what I received left a very bad taste in my mouth. "Anne of Green Gables - The Continuing Story" was horrible! The story was terrible and did not live up to the previous installments that drew you in to the story. With this film, I really didn't care about the characters the way I had in the past. The only thing I did care about was the fact that Anne and Gil were FINALLY together, but was still disappointed by their rushed wedding - something I had been waiting for for a very long time. I don't think that we, as fans, had the opportunity to really enjoy their wedding the way we had always imagined we would. I also hated the fact that the character of Jack and his son, in a way, came between Anne and Gil. Sometimes I felt like Anne was cheating on Gil with her interactions with Jack. I wanted to see Anne and Gil have their own children and raise them in the wonderfully heartwarming way they were raised, not with all of the melodrama of WWI.

I truly wish that a better ending to an extraodinary series could have been made, but I guess I'll make do with the first two movies. I can't say enough great things about those films!

The only reason I am giving this film one star - I would like to give it zero - is because some of the original cast is back. It was great to see Anne, Gil, and Dianna once again!

If you are a fan of "Anne of Green Gables" and "Anne of Avonlea" (aka "Anne of Green Gables - The Sequel"), don't bother purchasing this last installment. Although I'm sure you will want to see what happened to all of your favorite characters, your hopes will certainly be dashed and disappointed by a poor story and poor dialogue.

In the previous installment of Kevin Sullivan series of "Anne" movies, Gilbert Blythe convinces Anne Shirley that if she wants to write a book that might actually get published, she should stop writing the "high-faluting mumbo-jumbo" stories that she had attempted for years, and write simple stories about the life and people she already knew -- people like Matthew and Marilla Cuthbert and Rachel Lynde. Anne finally came to realize that Gilbert was right. Oddly, Kevin Sullivan thought Gilbert was wrong. The result was one of the most horridly depressing movies I have ever endured: "Anne of Green Gables -- The Continuing Story."

The first two "Anne" movies were pure romance: they depicted (to slightly misquote the Cervantes character in "Man of La Mancha") "Life, not as it is, but as it should be." Sullivan apparently wanted to leave such "childish" things behind, and produce an "adult" movie about Anne -- one with cynicism and violence and at least the possibility of illicit sex. What he came up with was so foreign to the first two movies, and so ugly, that it should simply be flushed like all the rest of the... well, you know what gets flushed.

Think of the cinematography. The first two movies were so visually beautiful that they could bring tears to the eyes simply though the scenery. The colors were rich and bright and warm, and it seems the sun always shone. The scene in the first "Anne" where Matthew brought Anne to Green Gables down the lane through the flowering orchard ("The Avenue") was as beautiful as any scene I have ever seen in any move, ever. Even the winter scenes were beautiful! In real life, of course, Canadian winters are brutal. But the Anne movies were romance: life, not as it is, but as it should be. On the other hand, "The Continuing Story" seemed to be filmed in one color, a dead and ugly gray. Sullivan undoubtedly thought that was more adult and more realistic. He was wrong; it was simply ugly.

And consider the characters. Sullivan apparently thought it necessary to include at least the possibility of illicit sex. Certainly Anne comes close to adultery with that Jack Garrison character. When thus tempted, the "real" Anne -- the one from the the first two movies -- could only have one response: "There can never be anyone for me but Gilbert." That line, perhaps the most gloriously unrealistic, purely romantic line ever spoken in a movie, was what Gilbert said in the second movie, when he was explaining to Anne why he broke off his engagement with Christine Stewart: he could love only Anne. And Anne could love only Gilbert. That Anne did not tell Jack that in this misbegotten movie proves that it wasn't really Anne. They called her Anne, and the got Megan Follows to play her, but it wasn't Anne. It was a different character.

This movie deserves a lot less than one star. Do not buy it. It is really nothing but a lot of high-faluting mumbo-jumbo, as Gilbert said. Kevin Sullivan should have known better.

This is the only movie in a trilogy that I have ever seen and then wished I had not. As a great fan of the Anne of Green Gables movies, and of Anne & Gilbert in particular, I was expecting more of the same heartwarming and genuine storytelling that I had come to love in the first 2 Sullivan films. However, dredging through 3 hours of this movie was more of a laborious affair than anything even close to enjoyable. Pity that Anne fans should be left with this sorry installment of a movie. To those of you who have not seen the movie yet - if you don't want to end your memories of the Anne series on a disappointed, heartbroken note, I would like to recommend not bothering to invest the time and toil that this movie entails. Incidentally, the warm cover on the videos/DVD is a gross misrepresentation of the actual tone of the movie.