The Prisoner - the remake:Follow

Yes, I suppose nothing is sacred, or too difficult, to try and remake.

The cast of it is interesting, Ian McKellen as 2 and James Caviezel as 6 is promising, but having seen the first two episodes, the character of 6 is a bit pale compared to the original.

It's not the acting for me though, that's good enough. Ian McKellen does a great 2, very imposing.

How this remake is going to be treated fairly is beyond me, and it's something the creators hopefully took into account. The original is a true cultseries, beloved and mostly non-understood by a whole lot of people.

The differences are logical, to be expected yet a bit confrontational, I just keep expecting to see the same things, have them behave the same way as in the original.

I suppose I only have two things I don't quite like:

SpoilerIt's all very grim and dark, the original was no walk in the park either but it had a sort of whimsical mood, flashy clothing, odd behaviour and odd surroundings made it seem a bit cartoonish. Not so much in the remake, it's all quite grim, and quite lethal too. 6 is running around in a constant state of panic and confusion, hardly the self aware and quite in control character from the original.

SpoilerIt's very unclear what it's all about, it's almost as if having seen the original helps explain what the remake is about. the reason why 6 is in the village in the original is clear quite quickly, but now it's hard to get, only one vague reference to it in a flashback. I can see someone who has never heard of the original get turned off by a rather unclear premise.

I am curious to see how it all turns out, it would be unfair though to expect this series to explain some of the things of the original though.


Edited, Nov 16th 2009 8:24pm by Zieveraar

The original is a delight. I'll be waiting for the remake to finish before I begin watching.

I suppose the directors have to try to take the remake in a new direction, because an updated original simply wouldn't do justice to nostalgia. It will take several episodes to judge the polarity of new vector.

Edited, Nov 16th 2009 2:27pm by Allegory