Another typically pedestrian treatment by the Edison Studios' cameramen means that all we see here is a collection of moving images with no sense of the enormity of this moment in the lives of the people on the film. They had left their homelands and travelled hundreds of miles to be there, but as far as this film is concerned we could simply be watching a group of day-trippers disembarking from a local ferry ride (apart from the pitifully meagre possessions they haul along with them).
Films like this show that, in many ways, the Edison studios had failed to progress at the same pace as their competitors - perhaps because most of their owner's energies were taken up with pursuing legal action against those competitors. This film could easily have been made eight or nine years earlier - which is perhaps why Edison would call it a day as a movie-making company within another ten years (after its' heavy-handed bully boy tactics had failed to crush its rivals).
Films like this show that, in many ways, the Edison studios had failed to progress at the same pace as their competitors - perhaps because most of their owner's energies were taken up with pursuing legal action against those competitors. This film could easily have been made eight or nine years earlier - which is perhaps why Edison would call it a day as a movie-making company within another ten years (after its' heavy-handed bully boy tactics had failed to crush its rivals).
