Product Details

• Actors: Dorian Harewood, Paul Koslo, Stan Shaw, Marc Singer, Irene Cara
• Writers: Sydney A. Glass
• Format: Box set, Color, NTSC
• Rated: NR (Not Rated)
• Number of tapes: 7
• Studio: Warner Home Video
• VHS Release Date: December 12, 1994
• Run Time: 840 minutes
• Average Customer Review: 4.8 out of 5 stars  See all reviews (49 customer reviews)
• ASIN: 6302571243
• Amazon Best Sellers Rank: #108,064 in Movies & TV (See Top 100 in Movies & TV)

Editorial Reviews

Amazon.com

Roots rocked the cultural landscape in the late '70s, creating a new wave of awareness of black history. That wave opened the door for its sequel, Roots: The Next Generations, even more of a star-studded event than the original, with stars like Olivia de Havilland, Henry Fonda, Marlon Brando, and James Earl Jones eager to partake in the tale. The sequel follows the rest of the saga of the family of author Alex Haley, from where Roots ended at the Civil War, up to the 1970s when Haley was researching and writing his earth-shattering family story.

While nothing can rival the power of the original Roots' unflinching look at the slave trade and slave life in the early years of this country, the sequel is still full of rich African American history, from Reconstruction, to Jim Crow, to the civil rights movement and the early rumblings of black power. Fonda and de Havilland are respectable in their period-piece roles, but the real power of this sequel is in the more immediate concerns of Haley and his own experience of prejudice while building a stellar reputation as a writer and journalist in the '60s and '70s. One of the most unsettling scenes takes place then, when Haley interviews the head of the American Nazi Party, played with chilling diffidence by Brando. (Brando won an Emmy for this performance.) Haley is also challenged by his fractious interview with Malcolm X (a gripping Al Freeman Jr.). Jones launches his acting career playing Haley with nuance and heart, but with a humanizing set of his own demons.

The four-disc set includes all seven episodes plus a compelling documentary, Roots: The Next Generations--The Legacy Continues, with interviews with Jones, costar and episode director Georg Stanford Brown and a still starry-eyed David L. Wolper, who understands the cultural impact of the two miniseries he helped bring to the screen. --A.T. Hurley

Product Description

Could there be a worthy follow-up to the most-watched miniseries ever? "We felt the other did so well," Alex Haley said, "that we should just let it hang there." But Haley began carrying around a tape recorder, dictating more of his family's tales as they came to his memory. Those remembrances filled a 1,000-page transcript: raw material for Roots: The Next Generations.

Winner of the Emmy for Best Limited Series, this landmark continuation of a landmark event - with 53 stars and 235 speaking parts - "is in many respects a superior achievement," Newsweek said in comparing this to Roots. Twenty-five years later, it has lost none of its dramatic and emotional power to make us confront history and examine ourselves. One man's family remains everyone's!

Customer Reviews

Most Helpful Customer Reviews

98 of 99 people found the following review helpful:

5.0 out of 5 stars ROOTS...An Exciting Birth of Emotions, September 22, 2003

By 

Don Murillo (Alabama) - See all my reviews

This review is from: Roots - The Next Generations [VHS] (VHS Tape)

I believe a review worth reading should include a brief description of the person giving their thoughts.To me,this helps a great deal in deciding how much credibility I will give a person's thinking.
I am a white male,48 years old,happily married going on nineteen years with five children and six grandchildren.I was born in the state of Texas,and raised to befriend people based on their actions-not the color of their skin.I,like most people,have been influenced often times by what has been taught through traditions or hearsay instead of facts,because facts often times takes some effort to discover.
I have just recently read the book Roots,and was so overcome by a multitude of aroused emotions I purchased the mini-series on DVD.My wife,children and I viewed the movies together,and have had many wonderful discussions since.It has been my experience to find movies made from books usually deficient,and so altered to make for 'better viewing' I often have some trepidation of giving my time to them.Roots was/is such a refreshing surprise in that both the movie(s) and the book are so very close in keeping with the original materials.
Mr. Alex Haley was truely a gifted person in his ability to share a story.I only wish he were yet still alive,so I could personally write him a note expressing my profound graditude in his taking the time to educate,entertain and awaken in me a compassion for a people I only thought I knew.
There is brief frontal nudity which may offend some,but in keeping with cultural historical accuracy is but a small negative in a wealth of positives.The casting and acting is above excellence.I could go on with much more accolades,but then I would be writing a novel and not a review.
I highly recommend everyone of all ages to read and or watch what I feel is one of the greatest story of a family history ever told.
I would truely like to see Roots become required reading in all schools throughout our great country.Then I believe,a "dream" would surely come true.

36 of 37 people found the following review helpful:

5.0 out of 5 stars Roots The Next Generations, June 3, 2002

By 

Vince (San Antonio, TX United States) - See all my reviews
(REAL NAME)   

This review is from: Roots: The Next Generations (DVD)

This series impacted my life in a inspiring way. I learned alot about American history and the perseverance of African-Americans. It is a must-see for every human being regardless of race, culture, or nationality.

31 of 33 people found the following review helpful:

5.0 out of 5 stars roots.another generation, February 9, 2002

By 

yolanda warner (minnesota) - See all my reviews

This review is from: Roots - The Next Generations [VHS] (VHS Tape)

i have seen roots again for the second time in my life. the first time i was too young to remember. but today , i have seen something that was /is so powerfull. roots evolked such stong feeling in me as well as my childern. i have not cried this much in years. to see how we(black people) came to america really touched home. i felt such a wide range of emotions. hate, anger, sadness, then forgiveness all at the same time.sitting here thinking about the movie has again forced me to tears...makes one see that what we think is a hopless situation is really nothing compared to what those in the past had been threw..so people ,,please buy or rent roots..and remember where you come from...