jseph1234 The script and story of this "So-Called" Anne of Green Gables: The continuing story is horrible, with its sexual innuendos towards the beginning (totally inappropriate for the time period and story) and complete bastardization of L.M. Montgomery series.I gave it One star ONLY because the historical accuracy of World War 1 situation.Megan Follows performance was lifeless and flat; I just don't understand (Perhaps its off-camera troubles or disappointment with this Ridiculous BETRAYAL of L.M. Montgomery's story) but this is not the "Anne Shirley" that I came to love in Megan's WONDERFUL portrayal of Anne of Green Gables and Ann of Avonlea.Don't bother watching this if you want to keep the good feelings from the first Two movies and matchless books by Mrs. Montgomery. Just watch the Two other movies/mini-series and skip this at all cost!

MyrPraune I have not read all the Anne books. I don't like the flowery style of Lucy Maud Montgomery that much. But the 2 first TV series were really nicely done, with the romantic and "frilly" side of the story being anchored with really good interpretation. But this is just horrible. It really plays like an excuse to try and bank of the previous success of the 2 first series; the story is ridiculous, the characters so shallow it's a real joke. There is NONE of the warmth and charm of the first series. Even the character of Anne... I mean, it's Megan Follows, normally she should have been able to play Anne like she's done it before........ But with such a screenplay and dialogue, there's no way to do a good job. I felt cheated after this; I felt like the characters and the story that I really loved had been used for $$$ and cheapened. Yuck. I still give a 4 for the fondness of remembering those characters and a certain curiosity in seeing them again on screen.

hms_jellybean The "Anne" series has been my favorite book series since I was about 12 years old. My younger sister had the series but wasn't interested, so I stole it and read all eight books in a week. The same books, now haggard and dog-eared, sit on my bookshelf and get read at least once a year. The characters are lovable and realistic, the plot always well-defined, with bouts of humor and seriousness. The first two Kevin Sullivan "Anne" films captured the books quite well, especially the characters of Anne and Gilbert. After watching the movies, every time I read the first three books, I see Megan Follows as Anne and Jonathan Crombie as Gilbert.But "Anne of Green Gables: The Continuing Story" leaves a bitter taste my mouth. Basically, Kevin Sullivan abused and maimed one of the most beloved book series of all time. The movie moves the timeline of the entire series forward almost 40 years, making Avonlea and its inhabitants in the previous movies seem backwards and primitive. Which makes sense, since those movies are set in the 1870's, while this is set in in the 1910's. Green Gables is in ruins due to it being rented after Marilla's death, Anne and Gilbert are still unmarried though Gilbert is finished with medical school, Fred and Diana share a rather passionless marriage, Diana has turned into a society wife obsessed with wealth, and both Fred and Gilbert seem in a rush to escape PEI for the warfront.As any book fan can tell you, pretty much everything about this movie is wrong, right down to the characterization. Diana and Fred were in love in the books, which never comes across in the movies. Anne and Gilbert were eager to be married; the three-year engagement and separation was hard on both of them and they married almost as soon as Gil walked out of Redmond. Neither could bear moving away from PEI; Anne could barely stand to move 60 miles away from Avonlea. Though both characters mellow with age, they are as they always have been: Anne is still opinionated, dreamy, and fiery. Gilbert is stable, steady, with both a realistic and humorous outlook on life. They complement each other, which is the beauty of their relationship. By the time World War I rolled around in canon, Anne and Gilbert are proud parents of six children, ranging in age from 14 to 21. They were quite against their three sons joining the war, and are heart-broken when all of them end up joining, anyway. In the movies, both Anne and Gilbert come across as flat shadows of their former selves. Probably the most glaring error is in Gilbert: he never would have joined the war and left Anne behind. He waited 10 years for her, for crying out loud! There really was a wasted opportunity here. "Anne's House of Dreams" was a big book of character development for our favorite couple. Anne and Gilbert must cope with the gritty realism of adulthood outside their haven of Avonlea. Gilbert is a poor country doctor, he and Anne must now navigate their first five or so years of marriage, being in a completely new town and new house, how to make new friends, and establish their new lives. They experience the giddy rush of being newlyweds, the quirkiness of their new neighbors (who are "kindred spirits"), and the loss of their first child in childbirth, which sobers Anne and terrifies Gilbert, for as a doctor he was not able to save his daughter and almost lost his wife. They suffer the death of a good friend juxtaposed against the joyous birth of their second child. By the end, they move to a larger home and are much more mature than the Anne and Gilbert we knew at the beginning.That said, if it were not connected to the "Anne" series, I think it would be a fairly good movie on its own. Using different actors with different names and backstories, this could be turned into quite the romantic flick. But since it is connected to a much loved book series and completely deviated from canon in every way possible, it brings it down a lot.

Whythorne I am not one to get completely down on a movie because it isn't 100% faithful to a book upon which it draws inspiration. But if one is doing a follow-up to an already established film series, it seems to me it is just plain common sense that the follow-up should have some continuity in character personality and theme.The previous Anne of Green Gables installments relied heavily on the charm of both its characters and Canadian setting for its success. In this movie neither the characters nor the setting are even given the chance.The actors aged 13 years since the last sequel but for some reason look even older than their real-life early 30s. This is a detriment when we are supposed to believe they are still in their early twenties. Of course, what doesn't help at all is the fact that both Anne and Gil behave like folks who are worn down by life...even before they have had their WWI battlefield experiences. If Megan Follows had exhibited more of the fresh spunk and liveliness that made the Anne character endearing in previous episodes, it would have been easier to overlook the drawn face with the age lines around her mouth. Jonathan Crombie's Gil Blythe does no better, acting as drawn and haggard as he looks.Simple plots based on small-town personalities, relationships, ambitions, etc. have been likewise removed in favor of a more "grandiose" plot involving Anne traipsing around WWI Europe in search of her husband with somebody else's baby in tow. The story not only comes off dull but conveniently contrived to boot. Is it just me, or did anyone else find it odd that, with the millions of combatants and support personnel engaged in WW1 Europe, Anne kept running into people she knew? Further, scenes with the diminutive Megan Follows lugging a large baby around that is nearly as big as her also came off as visually ridiculous.Unfortunately, since the characters in this sequel bear little resemblance to previous incarnations, and since even the charm of Prince Edward Island has been supplanted with war-torn Europe, we are only left with asking the following question: Why bother?It is as if the writer/director et al thought, "Well, the names are the same, and the actors are the same. That will appease the Anne of Green Gables faithful. For everybody else, we have a nice, sappy WWI melodrama!"Relentlessly tedious, bleak and humorless, this "Continuing Story" continues scarcely little of the original flavor of the first two movies nor the "Road to Avonlea" TV series. Speaking as someone who is not even a devoted fan of Anne of Green Gables to begin with, this film makes me sorry for those who are.