My summary and high star rating make my overall assessment of this miniseries obvious overall, but I at least want to chime in on a couple of things I constantly see and hear in reference to this along with most other book-to-film adaptations.
As with ALL film adaptations, this will NOT-and in fact CAN NOT-be identical to the book, and if that is what you expect or even desire, let me paraphrase author John Green regarding his book The Fault In Our Stars becoming a movie (when mostly young readers freak over the blue-eyed main male character being changed to a guy with brown eyes or the actress playing the main protagonist, who in that book happens to have cancer, being "too pretty" as if nobody with cancer can be attractive-granted the readers ARE mostly teenage girls--anyway, back to what he expressed several places to varying degrees of detail and all that): Of COURSE the movie will differ from the book-one consists of scribbles on paper and the other of moving pictures and sound! More importantly in my estimation is the arrogance of MANY readers. Arrogance? Yes, I DO believe it arrogant to presume YOUR way (when saying you/your, I refer to the person doing the fussing) of reading and interpreting a book and indeed the motion picture YOU envision while reading-the on the fly movie of your mind-is somehow more "correct" (I think there are as many correct interpretations as there are readers/viewers/listeners/consumers of whatever medium) or true-to-the-author's-vision or other self-righteous nonsense we all manage to find some time for when we could be volunteering to clean up the streets or teach or mentor youth whatever we're good at/knowledgeable about etc! I guess my key criticism is far less pertinent to the film than the people griping about it-something to be aware of in nitpicking is that what YOU find very important and worth emphasis is NOT going to be identical to what other readers do or what brush strokes-the broad swipes and the minutiae alike-were truly indispensable and/or moving/crucial to the plot's advancement or a character's portrayal/even all that memorable to the author and all the editors and friends whose input contributed to its making. I hope my little moment on a case of Dr. Bronners didn't waste every reader's time entirely. It's GREAT to be passionate about books-how rare and foreign (and ironically disconnected) we often feel in this tech age! Just remember that as critical as the book absolutely is to the movie or television program bearing its name, our brains filter and process scribbles, sounds (non-word ones in particular), and pictures differently-even stills and moving pictures are handled differently, as in they light up the brain differently when we're scanned.
With that very long bit of feedback issued, my assessment is actually rather simple. The sets and the stunts are SO awe-inspiring that you could almost pair them with awful character development and still give it okay marks! The story, though, is SO well-acted, engrossing, and rich, carefully pieced together with impeccable timing and interactions you can almost feel the love, anger, jealousy, and utter turmoil from an absolutely GREAT cast--HUGE props for SUCH powerful older figures and especially for NOT making it a film of only overly pretty people! It is WELL WORTH watching in a long happy marathon or across two nights of grim weather. I believe it is much easier to stay with the story and appreciate how incredibly complex and nuanced it is, what an ambitious endeavor with a beautiful result they've brought to us. I also recommend you watch the special features making of pillars bit-it's about half an hour and you'll leave wanting to fist pump the air seeing this fantastic work come to life from a few different perspectives and a dozen different (camera) angles. Anyone wanting to get into film or at all intrigued by the process should really applaud this as they truly somehow organized something utterly MASSIVE in scale and right down to makeup and a good hundred animals to work with, they made it work AND HOW... Sure it isn't true to history, only based ON it. There's no way they could logically follow the book to the page-too much not only had to be cut or rearranged but also ADDED, pieces we fill in where books leave big gaps movies cannot-but at the end of the day this is marvelous and does a great deal of honor to the books, making details about building a cathedral just as beautiful and gripping to watch unfold as to imagine while following paper-staining scribbles.
As with ALL film adaptations, this will NOT-and in fact CAN NOT-be identical to the book, and if that is what you expect or even desire, let me paraphrase author John Green regarding his book The Fault In Our Stars becoming a movie (when mostly young readers freak over the blue-eyed main male character being changed to a guy with brown eyes or the actress playing the main protagonist, who in that book happens to have cancer, being "too pretty" as if nobody with cancer can be attractive-granted the readers ARE mostly teenage girls--anyway, back to what he expressed several places to varying degrees of detail and all that): Of COURSE the movie will differ from the book-one consists of scribbles on paper and the other of moving pictures and sound! More importantly in my estimation is the arrogance of MANY readers. Arrogance? Yes, I DO believe it arrogant to presume YOUR way (when saying you/your, I refer to the person doing the fussing) of reading and interpreting a book and indeed the motion picture YOU envision while reading-the on the fly movie of your mind-is somehow more "correct" (I think there are as many correct interpretations as there are readers/viewers/listeners/consumers of whatever medium) or true-to-the-author's-vision or other self-righteous nonsense we all manage to find some time for when we could be volunteering to clean up the streets or teach or mentor youth whatever we're good at/knowledgeable about etc! I guess my key criticism is far less pertinent to the film than the people griping about it-something to be aware of in nitpicking is that what YOU find very important and worth emphasis is NOT going to be identical to what other readers do or what brush strokes-the broad swipes and the minutiae alike-were truly indispensable and/or moving/crucial to the plot's advancement or a character's portrayal/even all that memorable to the author and all the editors and friends whose input contributed to its making. I hope my little moment on a case of Dr. Bronners didn't waste every reader's time entirely. It's GREAT to be passionate about books-how rare and foreign (and ironically disconnected) we often feel in this tech age! Just remember that as critical as the book absolutely is to the movie or television program bearing its name, our brains filter and process scribbles, sounds (non-word ones in particular), and pictures differently-even stills and moving pictures are handled differently, as in they light up the brain differently when we're scanned.
With that very long bit of feedback issued, my assessment is actually rather simple. The sets and the stunts are SO awe-inspiring that you could almost pair them with awful character development and still give it okay marks! The story, though, is SO well-acted, engrossing, and rich, carefully pieced together with impeccable timing and interactions you can almost feel the love, anger, jealousy, and utter turmoil from an absolutely GREAT cast--HUGE props for SUCH powerful older figures and especially for NOT making it a film of only overly pretty people! It is WELL WORTH watching in a long happy marathon or across two nights of grim weather. I believe it is much easier to stay with the story and appreciate how incredibly complex and nuanced it is, what an ambitious endeavor with a beautiful result they've brought to us. I also recommend you watch the special features making of pillars bit-it's about half an hour and you'll leave wanting to fist pump the air seeing this fantastic work come to life from a few different perspectives and a dozen different (camera) angles. Anyone wanting to get into film or at all intrigued by the process should really applaud this as they truly somehow organized something utterly MASSIVE in scale and right down to makeup and a good hundred animals to work with, they made it work AND HOW... Sure it isn't true to history, only based ON it. There's no way they could logically follow the book to the page-too much not only had to be cut or rearranged but also ADDED, pieces we fill in where books leave big gaps movies cannot-but at the end of the day this is marvelous and does a great deal of honor to the books, making details about building a cathedral just as beautiful and gripping to watch unfold as to imagine while following paper-staining scribbles.