ShadowTwo Any one who has read the book or seen the 1956 version are if for a terrible disappointment. Obviously made for TV with all the required commercial breaks to keep the viewer glued to the set; this production not only reinvents the original plot, but also adds in it's own "dark philosophy" of Ahab. Queequeg jabbers like a magpie, Starbuck is a lilly-livered character, and the crew is a mishmash of Africans, crazies, American Indian (?) and what have you. In essence, a waste of time.The 1956 version, though there are some deviations from the book, still gives the depth that Melville intended to portray. True, Moby Dick may be snazzier in the recent version, but he is PURE white, and looks very plastic. The 1956 whale at least had some age about him, especially since Ahab remarked "when you smell land, and there be no land." The pure white whale would be scentless as opposed to the white/greenish/brownish one in the earlier version.

d-millhoff I rented this remake with high expectations.I was disappointed.In four hours, they failed to tell half the story Huston and Bradbury got so perfectly right in the 1956 classic.Huston's classic is a little dated, particularly in terms of special effects that look like the miniatures they in fact are. While the CGI whale in this remake is a refreshingly-convincing manifestation of a 60-foot sperm whale, it's not Moby Dick.This movie is bright and colorful, and the whale's just a whale. The cast doesn't come across as seasoned whalers, it feels like actors playing weekend yachtsmen, thanks in no small part to a script that can't seem to respect the intelligence of its audience.Moby Dick is a dark, slow story of building, brooding menace, which makes the moments of action all the more thrilling and terrifying.This remake captures none of the atmosphere or colorful character or menace of Melville's classic. At its best moments, it's simply re-hashing moments that were were perfected 42 years before.If you want to see Moby Dick, see John Huston's 1956 masterpiece.

mOVIemAN56 What an awful film. Geez. I watched this in a film class and just plain hated it. As I watched this I couldn't help but think what Franc Roddam and Anton Diether thinking. I usually don't base a film on one specific thing and I didn't with this. The visual effects were terrible, the acting terrible and the story was nothing as the classic book or '56 adaption. Even Patrick Stewart couldn't bring the film out of the huge hole it dug . Everything for a bad film is used in this mini-series and it really shouldn't be seen by anyone. Nothing is explained and nothing really happens except a bunch of guys talking about a whale.Moby Dick. Starring: Patrick Stewart, Henry Thomas, Piripi Waretini, and Bruce Spence. 1 out of 5 Stars.

tangoviudo I was never a fan of John Huston's version of "Moby Dick," but it's a veritable masterpiece compared with this dreary TV movie. Everyone speaks in a booming falsetto, including poor Patrick Stewart, who needn't have. The CGI effects are supposedly an important part of the film, what with a computer-generated White Whale, among other things. But nothing meshes - a lesson to would-be CGI wannabes. And reducing Melville's novel to a mere yarn is sacrilege.