Customer Reviews

Don Quixote (Animated Version)

5 star:		(0)
4 star:		(0)
3 star:		(1)
2 star:		(0)
1 star:		(4)

 

 

I purchased this DVD based on what it says on the back cover, namely, that it was significantly based on the story by Spain's 15th century writer, Miguel de Cervantes Saavedra. This version is practically nothing like the real masterpiece by Cervantes (even as a spoof), and was not funny even to my 6 and 9 year old niece and nephew. They stopped watching it after 10 minutes (I was not surprised, as I had already reviewed it).

The animation is of the simplest kind. This was made by Australians, and unfortunately they apparantly suffer from the same ethnic misconceptions as many Americans. Based on the way Sancho's and other characters' accents and dark skin tones were represented here, you would think that they were of Mexican (predominantly Central American Indian descent) instead of European. La Mancha is just south of Madrid, Spain; and Spain is in Europe, not south of the Rio Grande! By the way Australians: there are no tigers in Africa (nor kangaroos).

In summary, stay away from this video. If you are looking for something different or educational (like I was), don't bother. Your children are better off watching reruns of Chicken Run, Toy Story, Disney, et cetera. I gave it 1 star only because there was no option for zero stars.

I should have heeded the advice of the previous reviewer, but being an elementary school Spanish teacher and having a lot of trouble finding materials to teach el Quijote, I thought it would be worth it even if I could only use a couple short clips here and there to support my lessons. Unfortunately, the video is so off base that I couldn't even find a short clip to use. There is no mention of Quixana, Sancho calls him Don Quixote from the start, even before he decide to become a knight. Sancho is the one that gets thrown by the windmill in this DVD instead of Quixote (Quixote just got knocked over.) Quixote's cousins follow him around on his adventures (trying to steal his inheritance), so you have a horse and buggy following Quixote and Sancho most of the time. His cousin (the main evil character) instigates encounters that in the real book are caused by Quixote's imagination (such as getting Quixote to release the prisioners). I also would give it zero stars if that were an option.

Not what I remembered from my childhood. Changed the plot, added characters, and was not true to the original story. Disappointed.

I bought this DVD for my elementary Spanish students as a final and fun activity to culminate the stories they read. This video is nothing like the book. The only scene I was able to salvage was the windmill scene (4 minutes long), and even that was changed.
I'm glad that this only cost me a few dollars. I would not recommend this video to any Spanish teacher looking for a cartoon version of the book to show younger ones.
Please be careful that the Spanish version DVD is the same as the English version, but translated. The covers are different, but they are the same storylines. The Spanish Cover has a supertitle that says "Fables Clásicos" which made me believe it was a different producer from the Engish version.
Finally, the video was boring and beyond my 3rd graders to follow, especially since they had read the actual stories and were expecting different events and characters.

I'm going to be honest; I never really liked the story of Don Quixote. My Spanish class had to do a unit on it, and my teacher showed a video tape (not a DVD) of this cartoon. I'm sure it wasn't at all like the story, but it did let us visualize a very complicated story in English (we're Spanish 1 students, how are we supposed to read this book in Spanish?). I got the DVD version for my teacher, and she was very excited. So, the product made me happy, but it's probably not what you're looking for.