Search - Anne Of Green Gables - The Continuing Story on DVD

A bitterly disappointing finale to the story of Anne Shirley

Lawrance M. Bernabo | The Zenith City, Duluth, Minnesota | 10/03/2003

(3 out of 5 stars)

"Having listened to Kevin Sullivan's commentary on the DVD versions of the first two "Anne of Green Gables" series, I was forced to conclude that despite the excellence of those productions he really has a very poor conception of L. M. Montgomery's stories. That certainly helps to explain the travesty of "Anne of Green Gables: The Continuing Story." As co-writer, Sullivan totally abandons Montgomery's Anne books to spin his own overly melodramatic tale of World War I, even though the author's "Rilla of Ingleside" deals with that same time frame. Of course, Anne is almost fifty years old by the time of that novel and it is a pair of her sons who go off to fight in the Great War. Montgomery's novel was published right after the end of World War I, making it a uniquely contemporaneous work which richly deserves a film treatment. Maybe Sullivan objected to the novel's politics, in which the characters supported the war and the Empire, unlike Anne in this film, but who knows. Clearly they waited too long to get around to making this third part, since Anne and Gilbert should have been married long ago. Megan Follows and Jonathan Crombie are basically twice as old as the characters they first portrayed in the original "Anne." But while it is great to see these two playing Anne and Gilbert again and there is nothing to fault with either one of their performances, the story told here is just plain awful. There is no reason to tell the tale of a wife who goes looking for her husband in Europe using L. M. Montgomery's characters and if you want to do the struggling writer routine they could have turned to Montgomery's Emily books.The first two "Anne" series were filled with warm and wonderful moments that you enjoy viewing again and again. The only moments that stand out in this sorry affair are when Anne finally finds Gilbert and when she goes back to the train station where Matthew first found Anne so many years ago to give us a sense of having come back to where we started. Of course, a lot of our disappointment comes from the heighten expectation of finally getting to see our beloved characters on screen again. I know I am not the only one who has read everything written by L. M. Montgomery after seeing the first "Anne of Green Gables" program, so I know I am not alone in being bitterly disappointed by this production. Even worse, the storyline here effectively kills ever returning to Montgomery's original stories, unless we are to suddenly believe Anne's kids end up being old enough to fight World War II. Watching this is just such a depressing experience that you have to go back and read again the best parts of Montgomery's novels or watch the first two series again. This is not something Anne's fans will ever treasure, even if they are compelled to check it out. When they see the ruined state of Green Gables, the aptness of the metaphor will be palatable."

Not what I expected (or hoped for)

Rebecca | Naperville, IL United States | 06/07/2002

(2 out of 5 stars)

"If you have not yet seen this movie, I would recommend that you rent or borrow it before you decide to purchase it. Hoping this new sequel would pick up where the movie "Anne of Avolea" left off, I was disappointed to watch and discover that the movie doesn't even show Anne and Gilbert together that often. The wedding that "Anne" fans have been waiting for was brief and rushed, lasting about two minutes of this three hour movie. After the wedding, the next scene the viewer sees is Gilbert going off to war. Honestly, I think my husband would like this movie more than I do given all of the war scenes. Though I enjoyed seeing the old cast reunited, I didn't feel that this movie was very true to the characters from the previous movies, and certainly not from the books. I plan to sit down and watch "Anne of Green Gables" and "Anne of Avonlea" all over again so that I may recapture the sweet romantic sentiment that this movie lacked."

Very Disappointing/A Betrayal to LMM

KittyKins | 01/18/2002

(1 out of 5 stars)

"I am a real fan of Anne of Green Gables and all of LMM's works, so like many others I was looking forward to seeing this movie. I knew they departed from LMM's books, but I was shocked to find out how much. The story is loosely based on the last book in the Anne series, "Rilla of Ingleside", about Anne's youngest daughter during the First World War. Being the only North American woman's written account of the war, it is a very famous book, and although fiction, has historical value. In the book Anne & Gibert are middle-aged and the book centers around their young adult children, but the movie has Anne searching for Gilbert on the battle lines! Of course Anne has a flirtation along the way even though she and Gilbert are married. What were LMM's ancestors thinking when they allowed this movie to be made!?The first two movies are splendid and are true to LMM's characters in ways that the third movie is not. Although poetic license was used, especially in the 1st sequel, they went a bit further in this second sequel. Anne didn't seem like Anne. Gilbert and Diana were so thin they were almost unrecognizable. How different was Megan Follows as Anne? One of my friends commented to me that she had seen the movie and actually was under the impression that the actor who played Anne was not Megan Follows!! I think the most unforgiveable thing to me is how they portrayed Anne & Gilbert's wedding, which was so beautiful in the book "Anne's House of Dreams"!My hope is that if Sullivan productions tackles such a project again that they present "Anne's House of Dreams", a wonderful story, and stick to the words that made LMM famous! Hopefully it is possible to re-do Anne & Gilbert's wedding!"

Not even plum puffs could ease the disappointment...

M. Turner | Nacogdoches, TX United States | 10/23/2003

(1 out of 5 stars)

"Heartbreaking!I grew up reading the Anne books and watching the first two movies when they premiered on the Disney channel. I was hooked! I have had the first two movies (Anne of Green Gables and Anne of Avonlea) these many years and have loved them to near disintegration. I was delighted then to learn that some of my most treasured childhood friends had come back to the big screen in a new adventure.Well, it certainly was new. Though the first two were not identical to the books, they were faithful to the spirit of the story and dialogue. Where this stilted, era-jumping mockery of L.M. Montgomery's story came from, I'll never know. I watched one time through, hoping it would get better. Many months later I decided to try it again and I turned it off after 10 minutes. I had to re-watch both of the previous movies to make myself feel better.This movie took the cheesiest aspects of the characters, turned up the volume on them, and removed all of the wonder of P.E.I. so beautifully harnessed in the previous movies, plus took us to Europe and NYC?! Josie Pie morphs from a bratty gossip-monger to a militant war-monger, and Anne a near adulteress. These are not the characters I loved (and loved to hate). The scenes showing the ruin that Green Gables had become were as heartbreaking as seeing my grandmother's house after Hurricane Hugo. Perhaps this project was an attempt to make Anne a little more edgy, but unfortunately, the whole appeal of the previous movies and indeed of the books was that they were not edgy. They were sketches of ordinary life with extraordinary characters. There was nothing extraordinary about this movie, except how extraordinarily disappointed I was."