| Gulliver's Travels | |
|---|---|
| Written by | Simon Moore (script) Jonathan Swift (original) |
| Directed by | Charles Sturridge |
| Starring | Ted Danson Mary Steenburgen James Fox Omar Sharif Peter O'Toole Alfre Woodard Kristin Scott Thomas John Gielgud |
| Composer(s) | Trevor Jones |
| Country of origin | United Kingdom |
| Language(s) | English |
| Production | |
| Executive producer(s) | Robert Halmi Sr. Brian Henson |
| Producer(s) | Duncan Kenworthy |
| Location(s) | England Portugal |
| Running time | 186 minutes |
| Broadcast | |
| Original channel | NBC |
Gulliver's Travels is a U.S. TV miniseries based on Jonathan Swift's novel of the same name, produced by Jim Henson Productions and Hallmark Entertainment. This miniseries is notable for being one of the very few adaptations of Swift's novel to feature all four voyages. The miniseries aired in the UK on channel 4, and in the USA on NBC in February 1996. The miniseries stars Ted Danson, Mary Steenburgen, Peter O'Toole, John Gielgud, Omar Sharif, Shashi Kapoor, Warwick Davis, Kristin Scott Thomas, Alfre Woodard, Kate Maberly, Tom Sturridge, Richard Wilson and Nicholas Lyndhurst. It was shot in England and Portugal.
In this version, Dr. Gulliver has returned to his family after a long absence. The action shifts back and forth between flashbacks of his travels and the present where he is telling the story of his travels and has been committed to an insane asylum. (The flashback framework and the incarceration in the asylum are not in the novel.) While the miniseries remains faithful to the novel, the ending has been changed for a more upbeat conclusion. In the book, Gulliver is so impressed with the Utopian country of the Houyhnhnms that when he returns to England he eventually chooses to live out his life among the horses in his barn, rather than with his family. In the miniseries, he recovers from this obsession and returns to his wife and children.
The series won 5 Emmy Awards including in the Best Miniseries category.
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It took years to find the financial backing for the miniseries. The project required a good deal of Special Effects work. Jim Henson's Creature Shop created several CGI wasps and some prosthetic make-up for the Yahoos of Gulliver's fourth voyage. Producer Duncan Kenworthy said that, "It [Gulliver's Travels] was something I'd been developing while Jim was still alive. [...] We wanted to do the whole book, and that was what interested Jim."[1]
The story begins on the night that Gulliver arrives back at home. Gulliver imagines for a moment that he is back on the shipwreck that started his travels. Meanwhile, Gulliver is found by his wife and son on the horse stable the next day. He then proceeds to tell his story, which is narrated in flashbacks as Gulliver begins telling his tale, starting back to the day of the shipwreck and the famous arrival of Gulliver to Lilliput.
Gulliver is discovered by a wandering Lilliputian father and son, who immediately inform the villagers of Lilliput. He is tied up, and hold at ransom while the army arrives alongside the general. He is then dragged inside the city, who then presents himself to the emperor. The father and son then are captured and brought to Gulliver to prove his fierceness to them. Gulliver, then appears to swallow the son, but he later emerges unharmed behind a pillar. He is then fed.
Gulliver continues to explain the strange customs of Lilliput, such as the naming of officials by doing rituals such as the jumping over and going under a stick held by the emperor. Gulliver is then presented to the Empress of Lilliput and is asked to fight a war against the enemy country of Blefuscu. Gulliver then accepts and wins the war in order to show gratitude towards the Lilliputians. After some time they ask him to eliminate Blefuscu further, which Gulliver refuses. He is then ordered to be executed, although his new Lilliputian friends help him, reciprocating Gulliver's help towards them to obtain the highest office. He then flees from Lilliput and ends up in the sea after making a raft with thousands of trees to escape.
Meanwhile, Gulliver's wife Mary asks for the help of Dr. Bates, a member of the mental institution in London, who appears to help Gulliver, but is actually plotting how to get rid of him. He pretends to send Mary's letters to Gulliver in the institution, but actually intercepts them, saving them in a book shelf. Meanwhile, Gulliver is sent to a mental institution, and he is allowed to tell his tale to everyone present. He also appears to show signs of dementia, although these are just memories of his travels. Gulliver's son Tom later discovers a small Lilliputian goat, which he tries to retrieve towards the series.
Gulliver later lands in the land of Brobdingnag, and is shown as an exhibition by a farmer and his daughter who discover him. He is sold to a lady of the royal court, who presents him to the queen. He is examined by the doctors who ridicule him for his size, and discusses the politics of Brobdingnag, which are different from the traditional politics of the normal kingdom of England. He eventually gains the despise of the court dwarf, who is envious of not being considered the "smallest man in the kingdom". The dwarf sends him some giant wasps to kill Gulliver, but Gulliver is swift enough to kill them. He then extracts a wasp's sting and makes a dagger from it. Meanwhile, the farmer's daughter eventually falls in love with Gulliver and wishes to marry him. Gulliver softly rejects her advances and asks her to free him. She relentlessly does so by letting his box float away in the sea.
Gulliver sees the flying land of Laputa and signals them to pick him up. They do so, and he immediately befriends the king and prince, who is considered an idiot. He converses with two astronomers and learns of the way to speak to them when they get into a thinking state. Gulliver later learns the tricks of these men, and they share their knowledge of math and astronomy, among other things. He later examines some customs which he finds unnecessary, while trying to find a Room of Answers to get back to England. After getting ready for the "End of the World Ball", he later participates in a battle in which the kingdom of the prince's mother is attacked. Gulliver falls from the hole under a magnet that sustains the island above the ground, into a bed under the palace. He then converses with the queen of the place, and after leaving the palace, he encounters a magician in Glubbdubdrib and stays at his house with the promise of being taken to a port to go to England. While the days pass Gulliver wonders when will this be, as the magician only says his servants are looking for two horses that escaped and that they'll "go tomorrow". Gulliver later discovers the magician is drugging him and using his blood to summon the spirit of great figures such as Alexander the Great and Julius Caesar. He later summons more spirits by his own will. After summoning many spirits, he abandons the place realizing everything's an illusion when he goes through two standing guardians. He later meets the struldbrugs, giving his dagger to them to enter, later rejecting their offer to gain immortality by drinking their water.
He finally arrives in the land of the Houyhnhnm horses, where he is enchanted by their intelligence and grace, and also encounters the Yahoos. Gulliver begins to get disgusted by them and prefers the company of the Houyhnhnms. He talks to them and explains his costumes and lifestyle, and begins to admire more their culture. After being attacked by Yahoos and saved by the Houyhnhnm leader Gulliver begins to despise more and more the Yahoo lifestyle. He studies their customs and decides to prove the Houyhnhnms he's more like them. He even rejects the diamonds he finds in a quarry. The Houyhnhnms, even though they recognize his virtues, form a council and decide that Gulliver must leave the island. With sadness, Gulliver then departs the island and is rescued by a Portuguese ship against his will.
He then is in the moment amongst doctors in an evaluation. His wife is then asked if she believes his story. She answers that she believes in him and later questions Bates's motives to leave him in the institution. He answers he does it since it is his "Christian duty". She responds that his motives are "everything but Christian" and reveals his hideous plan of hiding the letters which had been discovered by Tom earlier in the film. After reassuring his tale once more, Gulliver's son enters the court room, showing the small Lilliputian goat Gulliver took care of. Gulliver is then released and he lives with his family. He still struggles to cope with them after receiving so much disgust of being a Yahoo, but has learned to be a better person and is dedicated to his new horses and family, whom he talks to again. The film ends in a scene of Gulliver and his family, whom he has grown to love once more, and shares what he is now as a person.
The miniseries was generally well received by critics. Ken Tucker of Entertainment Weekly wrote that, "Everything about this production is surprising, from its choice of Gulliver -- Cheers' Ted Danson in an excellent wig -- to its startling fidelity to Jonathan Swift's 1726 novel," and called it a, "...big, gaudy, funny production that feels free to give full reign to Swift's blithe vulgarity."[2]
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