I could only watch the first episode and half the second. The only thing this atrocity has in common with "Anne of Green Gables" is the title and the names of some of the characters. Their characters are utterly unlike the book characters, barring, perhaps Marilla. If Montgomery bitterly disliked the first 1917 movie, she'd have a fit and fall in it if she watched five minutes of this.
In the first episode, Anne and Diana have a bitter quarrel. We know from Diana's wedding scene in the books, that they claimed their friendship had lasted throughout their youth with never a harsh word between them.
The kids are playing baseball, wearing a batting helmet as an important part of the plot line, in a pickup game in a Canadian back-country hamlet in the 19th Century.
The story is interrupted by preachy politically correct gruel, directed at teaching everyone to sit together and sing Kum Bay Ah.
When Gilbert and Anne were completely playing together and cooperating in the second episode, I shut it off and returned the DVD to the library. That friendly interaction rips the heart out of the book's plot.
Fortunately, I have just found the 50 episodes of the 1979 Japanese cartoon on YouTube. Excellent. I watched the first English-dubbed episode tonight, and it, at least, is utterly true to the book.
In the first episode, Anne and Diana have a bitter quarrel. We know from Diana's wedding scene in the books, that they claimed their friendship had lasted throughout their youth with never a harsh word between them.
The kids are playing baseball, wearing a batting helmet as an important part of the plot line, in a pickup game in a Canadian back-country hamlet in the 19th Century.
The story is interrupted by preachy politically correct gruel, directed at teaching everyone to sit together and sing Kum Bay Ah.
When Gilbert and Anne were completely playing together and cooperating in the second episode, I shut it off and returned the DVD to the library. That friendly interaction rips the heart out of the book's plot.
Fortunately, I have just found the 50 episodes of the 1979 Japanese cartoon on YouTube. Excellent. I watched the first English-dubbed episode tonight, and it, at least, is utterly true to the book.