IMDb > Riverworld (2003) (TV)

Riverworld (2003) (TV) More at IMDbPro »

Overview

User Rating:
5.3/10   1,078 votes
MOVIEmeter: ?
Up 27% in popularity this week. See why on IMDbPro.
Director:
Kari Skogland
Writers:
Philip Jose Farmer (novels)
Stuart Hazeldine (writer)
Contact:
View company contact information for Riverworld on IMDbPro.
Release Date:
22 March 2003 (USA) more
Genre:
Adventure | Drama | Fantasy | Sci-Fi more
Plot:
Hale, an American astronaut dies and is reincarnated with other persons who have lived throughout all... more | add synopsis
Plot Keywords:
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Awards:
1 nomination more
NewsDesk:
(8 articles)
First Look: Syfy's "Riverworld"
 (From Televisionary. 29 September 2009, 8:06 AM, PDT)
First look: Tripods writer's claustrophobic British thriller Exam
 (From QuietEarth. 13 May 2009, 8:06 AM, PDT)
User Comments:
not a movie -- just another series pilot more (58 total)

Cast

  (Cast overview, first billed only)

Brad Johnson ... Jeff Hale

Karen Holness ... Mali
Emily Lloyd ... Alice Lidell Hargreaves
Jeremy Birchall ... Lev Ruach
Kevin Smith ... Valdemar
Nikita Kearsley ... Gwenafra
Brian Moore ... Monat

Cameron Daddo ... Samuel L. 'Sam' Clemens
Jonathan Cake ... Nero
Paolo Rotondo ... Flavius
Patrick Kake ... Tane
Colin Moy ... Langer
Lloyd Edwards ... The Mysterious Stranger
Crawford Thomson ... Warrior
André Kovachevitch ... Guard #1 (as Andrew Kovacevich)
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Additional Details

Parents Guide:
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Runtime:
UK:86 min
Country:
Canada
Language:
English
Color:
Color
Certification:
Italy:T
Filming Locations:
New Zealand
Company:
Alliance Atlantis Communications more

Fun Stuff

Trivia:
The character played by Emily Lloyd is supposed to be a grown up version of the little girl who inspired the famous story Alice in Wonderland. more
Goofs:
Factual errors: Alice is portrayed as a blonde. The real Alice Liddell-Hargreaves (1852-1934) had dark hair. more
Quotes:
Monat: My name is Monat.
[other prisoners gasp]
Alice: What is it? What are you?
Monat: I am not human, as you can see, but neither am I dangerous, I assure you.
Jeff Hale: [to the others] It's all right.
[turns back to Monat]
Jeff Hale: Incredible.
Monat: I am from a star system your astronomers named Tau Ceti.
Jeff Hale: Yes, Tau Ceti. Are there other extraterrestrials here?
Monat: Alas, I am the only one.
[...]
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User Comments

   (Comment on this title)
27 out of 33 people found the following comment useful.
not a movie -- just another series pilot, 22 March 2003
Author: 12-string from United States

A law was passed in the 1970s that all fantasy novels had to be franchises, with sequels out the wazoo for time and eternity. Philip Jose Farmer opted not to be a criminal and wrote book after book about a strange world, dominated by an endless river along whose banks everyone who had ever lived on earth was reborn. Food and clothing were supplied, and there were alien observers, whose plan was -- well, that's the plot!

Now the Sci-Fi Channel, abetted by Canada and Australia, has filmed the concept, but be warned, it's not really a movie -- it's the pilot for a series! A 21st century US astronaut, Lewis Carroll's Alice, a riverboat man named Sam, a Holocaust survivor, a strange little girl, a Yoruba princess (whose native dances look suspiciously like standard stripjoint choreo but who also does martial arts like Xena), and the evil Nero, among others, are here, struggling for survival, for power, and to launch an oldfashioned Mississippi steamboat. (So where is Richard F Burton?)

Tech credits are fair for the budget. Except for Emily Lloyd, as Alice, the cast is no-name. There's a higher than expected body count among the extras, which will no doubt be toned down considerably to make sure of a TV PG rating when this goes to weekly, and the gaggle of reborns coming out of the surf during the teaser in flesh-colored G-strings and bras, where appropriate, is probably as close to sensuality as this is going to get.

The ending is as wide-open as the defenses at Basra, with the aliens talking enigmatic foreboding stuff that will make more sense later in the series and a climactic revelation that is no surprise at all and just sets up the conflict for subsequent episodes.

This is going to be a lot like "Sir Arthur Conan Doyle's The Lost World," except that it has a river, not a plateau, where the leads can encounter a new civilization every week while tooling along in that steamboat. If you liked the Lost World series, you may find this worth watching. Odds are they'll be using some leftover scripts from it! On the other hand, if you were a fan of the books, I think you'll regard this as basically an unworthy bastardization for popular consumption of a fascinating idea -- even though Farmer did eventually write it into the ground.

On the IMDb scale, 3 out of 10.

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Message Boards

Discuss this movie with other users on IMDb message board for Riverworld (2003) (TV)
Recent Posts (updated daily)User
Is this a pilot for a series? vik-15
I actually really Liked this movie Timotayo77
Books are brilliant, movie terrible PBDogs
the alien... lifeornothing
Books pirhan_chan
Is everything by PJF out of print? Straydogs_and_Vampires
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