Product Details

• Actors: Rowan Atkinson, Tony Robinson, Stephen Fry, Hugh Laurie, Tim McInnerny
• Format: Color, NTSC
• Rated: NR (Not Rated)
• Number of tapes: 1
• Studio: 20th Century Fox
• VHS Release Date: August 18, 1993
• Average Customer Review: 4.9 out of 5 stars  See all reviews (12 customer reviews)
• ASIN: 630235966X
• Amazon Best Sellers Rank: #352,097 in Movies & TV (See Top 100 in Movies & TV)

Customer Reviews

Most Helpful Customer Reviews

8 of 8 people found the following review helpful:

5.0 out of 5 stars The Best British War Comedy Ever, March 24, 2001

By 

"dragyn_01" (England, United Kingdom) - See all my reviews

This review is from: Black Adder Goes Forth, Part 2 [VHS] (VHS Tape)

"Goes Forth" follows the trials and tribulations of Edmund Blackadder and his pals in the trenches during the war. The first tape is great, but the second it better. All the episodes are brilliant, but the last one, "Goodbyeee", is truly unforgettable, and contains the most powerful anti-war statement ever made in British comedy.

"Goodbyeee" is different right from the start. All the characters are still there; Baldrick is still filthy; George is still stupid; but somehow, almost imperceptibly, everything has changed. For the first time, we learn about the characters' backgrounds and lives; about their hopes and dreams, which seem strangely sad against the grim backdrop of the trenches. For the first time, Blackadder cracks jokes which cut too close to the quick to be truly funny - they're almost sad. And for the first time, we get a sense of the characters really being mortal and vulnerable in a way we've never seen them before; yes, they've died before, but their deaths have been comic, things to laugh at. Here, we don't want them to die.

And the character of Blackadder has changed too. He has been toned down just a little; his still easy wit is less cutting, less biting. He has a world-weary air, and often seems as though he is a man who has been fighting for so long that he has almost forgotten what he is fighting for; he just wants to go home. The war that is raging all around him all too visibly has changed him, saddened him; forced him to grow up at last and face his responsibilites.

Throughtout the history of the Blackadders, they have all run from life; tried to escape. Here, Blackadder essentially does the same thing; he doesn't want to go over the top, doesn't want to be a part of the war - doesn't want to die. But here, for the first time, we feel that his fears are justified; we actually sympathise with him. And here, also for the first time, he finds himself unable to escape, and war finds him at last.

Blackadder has died many times before in history, but never as powerfully as here, during the final push over the top.

He has tried everything he can to escape, but now here he is at last, faced with certain death and no way out. Everything is eerily quiet as the men assemble. Silence. Last hopes are crushed; last goodbyes are said, quietly, with typical English reserve. Then the command is given, the whistle's blow - and they are over the top and running. Here the action slows down, and they run in slow-motion across no man's land, straight into gunfire. They do not get far. The picture freezes, and is replaced by a field of poppies in the sunlight - the single most poingant, memorable image ever captured on British television. The closing theme plays, slowly, in a chilling minor key. It is over.

The impact "Goodbyee" has had on British watchers is immeasurable. Broadcast just days before Poppy Appeal, there is no way of measuring the affect it must have had on people, young and old. Rowan Atkinson (Blackadder himself) claims that while shooting the episode, he experienced an unreasonable sense of foreboding, as though he was really going to die at the end.

Thank God Ben Elton and Richard Curtis had the sense to end a Blackadder series based on soemthing as serious as the war on a poignant, sobre note. A stupid, comedic death would have trivialised war, which this certainly did not. Also, if Elton and Curtis had chosen to create a hero out of Blackadder, it wouldn't have worked, because if he had done something truly heroic, he would have been out-of-character and far less believeable. However, by keeping him as an essentially normal human being, with faults, and not a hero, they succeeded in capturing the spirit of the war very accurately: the majority of people who died were not heroes; they were not flawless, unselfish people - they were just men.

"Blackadder Goes Forth" is completely unforgettable.

10/10

4 of 5 people found the following review helpful:

5.0 out of 5 stars the best BA Series, December 5, 1999

By 

David Evans (Sydney, Australia) - See all my reviews

This review is from: Black Adder Goes Forth Part 2 [VHS] (VHS Tape)

My favorite BA Series, with such quotes as:

Lieutenant George: You know, I won't half miss you chaps after the war.

Private Baldrick: Don't worry, Lieutenant; I'll come visit you.

Lieutenant George: Will you really? Oh bravo! Yes, jump into the old jalopy and come down and stay in the country, and we can relive the old times.

Edmund Blackadder: What, dig a hole in the garden, fill it with water, and get your gamekeeper to shoot at us all day?

The Last episode Goodbyeee, were Lieuteant george, Blackadder, Baldrick, and Cap. Darling make the final push is very sad, and it made me cry

1 of 1 people found the following review helpful:

4.0 out of 5 stars once again 'excellent', September 15, 2000

By A Customer

This review is from: Black Adder Goes Forth, Part 2 [VHS] (VHS Tape)

the ending series of a two video set is a must to complete the story. from the loss of captain darlings cushy job to baldricks 'i have a cunning plan' at the last minute. we will be entertained by these characters for a long time to come.