Product: Anne of Green Gables: The Continuing Story
Rating: 1.0
They should have left well enough alone
As a huge Lucy Maud Montgomery/Anne of Green Gables fan, I truly enjoyed the first two Megan Follows Anne of Green Gables movies. The first movie stuck mostly to the book and was really wonderful. The second movie was a combination of several of the subsequent Anne books, and sticks less to the original stories but none the less is an enjoyable view and true to the books in most majorly important areas. The third movie was a bit of a disaster with plot, setting, and events totally fabricated and not at all from the books. YIKES! DO NOT READ ON IF YOU DO NOT WANT TO KNOW INFO ON THE ANNE OF GREEN GABLES BOOKS BEFORE FINISHING READING THEM YOURSELF. (Though I highly recommend reading all the books in the series before watching any movie versions.) In reality, Anne does not go on to do anything exceptional by the world's standards. Montgomery chooses NOT to have her go on to become a great author. Instead she becomes a loving wife and mommy and her adventures continue to be Anne-like and focus on meeting new people and winning them over with her unaltered charm. She enjoys some occasional match-making. She and Gilbert eventually have a rather large brood of children and are happy and content in the normal everydayness of life. The stories are really very sweet and satisfying but not exactly the greatest movie material. The last two novels (Rainbow Valley and Rilla of Ingleside) focus almost exclusively on the lives and times of her children. However, this third Megan Follows movie has Anne embarking on an adventure in wartime Europe in search of Gilbert who left for Europe shortly after their wedding. Anne meets up with Diana's husband, Fred, who has been wounded and joins Anne in her quest to find Gilbert. At one point, Fred subtly suggests that they give up the search for Gilbert and just become a family themselves. Okay...ICK! It ends with Gilbert and Anne adopting a war baby who had been under Anne's charge while she was searching for her missing husband in Europe. They hand over Green Gables to Diana and her emotionally-wrecked husband and plan to settle elsewhere and raise the little boy as their own. Someone behind this movie has a very active imagination. It is almost all completely made up. The final book, Rilla of Ingleside, does take place during wartime, but Anne's sons, not her husband, go off to war. Her teenage daughter, Rilla, does help to raise an infant whose mother dies and whose father is away at war. However, this does not result in any adoption as the baby's father eventually returns to claim him. If you don't mind its almost total departure from anything having to do with the books, I guess this film can be entertaining. I just think it is such a shame that many people fall in love with Anne after reading Anne of Green Gables but never read the rest of the books in the series. Then they watch the Megan Follows movies and are walking around this earth thinking that her story ends with a wartime adventure for Gilbert and Anne who then settle down to raise their adopted son! It's sad, really. The only way I would recommend someone to see this film is if they can't get enough of Megan Follows and Jonathan Crombie and cannot rest until they see them get married on the screen, even if they event itself, and more significantly, the events that follow, are remarkably different from L.M. Montgomery's books. Do read all 8 Anne books and do see the first 2 Megan Follows movies. I think you will find that they are worth your time and money!