Customer Rating:  
Summary: Political Correctness Does Not Improve It
Comment: If you make a point of calling attention to the rampant anti-Christian bias in modern movies and television long enough, you will eventually encounter the only possible lucid counter argument -- not every fictional character is intended as a commentary; sometimes a bad Christian character is just an interesting character, nothing more. There are two responses to this, one general, one specific. The general one is, "Fine, explain why the ratio of 'good' Christian characters to 'bad' Christian characters works out to ZERO," and the specific one is, "Fine, explain why this particular racist, sexist, homophobe, liar, criminal, hypocrite, rapist, murderer, etc., needed to be a Christian, too." However, the basic point is a valid one; unless the author tells you (and tells you the truth) you have no way of knowing for certain...
with one exception. If a work of fiction LACKING an evil Christian character is adapted and an evil Christian character now appears in the finished work, you've got your anti-Christian bigot dead to rights with no possible excuse. That is the case with this lavish BBC TV dramatization of Sir Arthur Conan Doyle's "The Lost World". In the novel our heroes are betrayed and trapped on the inaccessible plateau by a couple of "villainous half-breeds" seeking revenge against Lord Roxton for his personal campaign against slavers; in this adaptation the betrayer is a crazed Christian missionary, played by Peter Falk, unable to face the reality of the existence of dinosaurs. Now I don't fault the screenwriter for wanting to tone down the strong smell of racism inherent in the original characterization but replacing it with anti-Christian bigotry is not an improvement. Nor does it make any logical sense. At least after their initial skepticism over the genuineness of fossils subsided, the response of creationists was not to question the EXISTENCE of dinosaurs but rather evolutionists' explanation for HOW they came to exist. Furthermore the response of Christians who now found their beliefs irreconcilable with evolution was not violence but rather apostasy. In short Peter Falk's character is nothing but a slander to Christianity that reveals something dark about the screenwriter and not the offended viewer.
If that was all that was wrong, one might pass over it; asking for the sort of sensitivity and respect the industry displays towards all other religions is a complete waste of time. However, the screenwriter insisted on ruining the ending as well. The other innovations are less damaging. The addition of the by now required female character is handled better than it usually is; and the inevitable shift in sympathies from the natives to the ape-men is only partially unjustified and that mainly by the idiocy of an ending:
After the return to England, after the escape of the pterodactyl our heroes INEXPLICABLY decide to LIE, to pretend it is all a hoax and that they have discovered nothing. The staggering stupidity of this is worth examining in some detail. First, our heroes have totally sacrificed their integrities, their reputations, and in fact their careers because nobody is likely to employ or fund reporters or scientists who have admitted lying or to believe them if they ever again claim something that's the least bit in question. Second, what has their sacrifice gained? The Lost World will now be left to the tender mercies of the natives, you know, the people who when last seen were enthusiastically trying to exterminate the ape-men and make use of the White Man's technology to become more efficient killers! Though the PC mindset is incapable of grasping the concept, as set up by the plot, the only way the primitive creatures of the Lost World could POSSIBLY have been preserved alive would have been for a bunch of imperialistically inclined Europeans to have INSISTED on it with the threat of military force to back it up after our heroes had convinced people they were telling the truth. As it was left by the screenplay, when scientists finally rediscover the Lost World, all they will find is a bunch of natives... with some GREAT stories about how their grandfathers wiped out all the monsters.
Note: if you disagree with my opinion and wish to acquire the film, it is available here: The Lost World.
Customer Rating:
Summary: Best Version Ever
Comment: I can't believe nobody has reviewed this made-for-TV 2-part version of Arthur Conan Doyle's timeless story. First, I must point out what this is NOT:
This is NOT the lame, dino-muppet version with John Rhys-Davies
as Professor Challenger (which was also a 2-part TV movie, I
think, and it spawned an equally awful sequal).
This HAS NOTHING TO DO with the lame TV series of the same name.
Not its pilot movie, NOTHING.
This version stars Bob Hoskins (Kruschev in "Enemy at the Gates") as Challenger, and he plays him exactly as Doyle wrote him. It also stars Bernard Fox as the pompous Summerlee. I can't recall the younger actors' names right now, but they are all excellently cast as the naively impulsive Malone, the debonnaire but savage Lord Roxton, and the sweet but strong daughter of a missionary, a character not in the Doyle novel which I'll get to in a moment. These characters are well-developed and likeable.
The cinematography is rich, with victorian-era London and lush, amazonian jungles while the special effects are not your typically lame CGI animated monsters, but the highly realistic computer models originally developed for the BBC series "Walking with Dinosaurs". No mish-mash of dinos from varying ages here, the spotlight is on the few species that make up an eco-system and the bad boy of the reptiles here is the Allosaurus just as it was in Doyle's novel.
The script is extremely faithful to Doyle's novel, and I must applaud in particular the way it handles the ape-men. This film treats them in a sympathetic yet unsentimental light, choosing neither to demonize them or using them to make some politically correct statement. They are brutal and murderous, yet also capable of maternal love and communication. Just when you think they are about to reach an understanding with our band of explorers, they create a tragedy for the indian tribesmen among which our band has taken refuge, teaching Challenger a bitterly un-PC lesson in survival. The viewer can understand why the tribesmen want to kill all the ape-men, but at the same time, can't blame the ape-men for their actions considering the circumstances.
One area where this long tele-film deviates significantly from the source material is in the addition of a missionary who causes the band to be stranded (portrayed by Peter Falk). This will no doubt infuriate some religious viewers, but Falk's character obviously represents the "creationists" to Hoskin's rude and impatient Challenger who represents the evolutionists. Considering what the story is about, I thought this was an almost inescapable development overlooked by the other, far lesser versions of "the Lost World". But again, the scriptwriter handles the missionary sensitively, and Falk's brilliant portrayal makes the viewer feel the tragedy of his life, his anguish as he commits the unthinkable, spurred on by the threat to everything he thought he knew. This element, I feel, elevates this story beyond just another dinosaur adventure flick and redefines the novel to modern audiences.
Sadly, this 2-disc DVD set is no longer produced, but if you are a fan of "the Lost World", or like excellent, richly filmed adventures with great characters, snap up the used copies while you still have a chance. You won't be sorry. Should all available copies disappear, there should be a serious, letter campaign to get it re-issued as this is the best version of the novel ever filmed and it would be sad to let it drown amongst all the dreck that goes by the same name.
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