Moby Dick (1998)

A Disappointing Continuation

This is a coming of age storyline that you've seen in one form or another for decades. It takes a truly unique voice to make yet another one worth watching.

The movie's neither hopeful in contrived ways, nor hopeless in different contrived ways. Somehow it manages to be wonderful

Close shines in drama with strong language, adult themes.

I watched this immediately after finishing the book, and all I can say is that I am a bit baffled.There were quite a lot of changes made in this version, compared to the book. Now, while this is a pretty normal thing, most adaptations require changes, I must say that all the changes made here were for the worse.All the ways this movie/mini-series differs from the original book are bad. I cannot understand why the makers of this film made the changes they made. It seems to me they cut out the very depth of the story.Most of the characters, for example, were more shallow, more over-the-top, like caricatures of the originals. This ruins the mood and the atmosphere of the story. Granted, the at times ridiculous language in the book does a bit of the same in the original, but not nearly as badly as the style of this adaptation.I feel that the whole core of the book Moby Dick is the character of Ahab, and his dual nature. He is hell bent on killing the whale, but also, deep down, a good man. Now, for some reason, the latter aspect of the character was much down-played in this version. The beauty of the original story is Ahab's own struggle with his obsession, and all the rest of the events in the story are just reflections of this internal struggle. This version does itself a disservice by not following the original on this.The book has it's problems, it's long and tedious, but the story within is a far better one than the one told by this adaptation.

The big mystery of Moby Dick has always been "What possessed Ahab?" In this treatment one has to ask "What possessed the writer and director?" When John Barrymore was making movies they new that as long as he was on the screen, no one cared what they called the darn thing, and no one cared if the "flicker" and the book was two different stories. But what possesses a modern writer to take one of the greatest classics in the English language and slice & dice it into this kind of pastiche? Knowing that 98& of Americans have NEVER read it, is not equal to "plausable deniability" UGH! Some excellent film work, otherwise (make the face QueQueg makes!)

I must reiterate the remarks made by Mr. Vaugh Birbeck. This made-for-TV version of Moby Dick misses the mark by a mile and then some. All of Birbeck's points are valid, but I'll add a few of my own.Moby Dick is about a lot of things – obsession, revenge, objective evil, the nature of existence – the novel is so pregnant with meaning both within and below the text that it has become a byword for significant literature. It is the perennial head-scratcher which has introduced generations of students to the richness of the English language as an artist's palette of tones and colors. Captain Ahab is Socrates run amok. He has seen beneath the façade of mere things to glimpse a sublime Truth, which isn't simply a benevolent deity, but a horror show of forces vast, inscrutable and infinitely hostile.But Moby Dick is also about whaling. On top of everything else it's a story of mariners and ships and the trade of whaling as it was experienced by Melville himself. Director Franc Roddam doesn't seem to realize this. Evidently he has so little regard for the source that he doesn't feel the need to make the Pequod a real ship from a real place on a real whaling voyage with real whalers aboard. Instead we get a rather unconvincing studio prop for a ship, miscast actors with slipshod direction for a crew, and the classically trained Patrick Stewart struggling with a wretched screenplay that preserves little of Melville's language. Watch the 1956 John Ford production with Gregory Peck in the role of Ahab instead. Even though it is only 116 minutes long Ford's direction of a masterful screenplay by the brilliant Ray Bradbury really gets under the skin of the novel.

I didn't even know that this film even existed until one day I was at the check-out counter at my local Wal-Mart store and the had a shelf/table full of discounted videos(you know-the ones thay couldn't sell at full price,so they move them to the front of the store and mark the price way down) And being a lover of films, I took the liberty to sift through these to see if there was anything there that might peek my interest. ....and that is when I found Moby Dick. So,I purchased the film for only $3.99I remember reading Moby Dick in my 8th grade Jr.High class and I also remeber that I didn't like it, and I remeber wondering why this story had been so popular for so many years, and I remeber wondering why it had became such a timeless classic. Dispite the fact that I didn't like Moby Dick as a novel, for some reason I though I might Enjoy this film. Seeing how I only had $4 bucks invested in it - it seemed that I couldn't go wrong.I ended up liking everything about this film but the story.The Music is first rate, the costumes are great,The acting is very well done. In fact this is one of the best quality Made for TV films of the 1990's (exclunding epic mini-series which are always done much better than single Made for TV films like this one). My problem with Moby Dick was that the source material for this film(the Moby Dick novel itself)isn't good to start with. Once again just like when I was 14 and in the 8th grade (only now I'm 32) I must admit that my yunger 14 year old self was right. this story is pointless. Captain Ahab chases a Albino(White) whale all over the world because he is own a revenge quest to kill the great white whale nick-named Moby Dick. only to get him self and his entire crew killed in the process. leaving only the stories main charactor as the sole survivor.Once again at age 32(just like when I was 14)I found myself wondering why this story has managed to stand up to the test and time and still remain one of the worlds great literary classics. The story has always been pointless to me. However this movie did absoletly the best they could with the source material that had. I guess the best way to make a movie thats not very good is to base it on a classic novel that not very good to start with.I gave this film 6 out of 10 stars- only because the production,Music, cast and crew did a very fine job. it the story Moby Dick that stinks