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The Thorn Birds (1983)

Rate: 3
Viewed: 3/25

ThornB
3/25: The Thorn Birds is eight hours of nothing.

Hey, David Wolper...what the hell happened? You had it in Roots and then repeated the magic in North and South. They were masterpieces of a miniseries which started with three ingredients: solid writing, strong characters, and a sweeping vision. Chronologically sandwiched between these two, The Thorn Birds contains none of them. Instead of a promised epic, I'm bored to death by the whole soap opera bullshit. And of course, that's not Australia but California, pure and gold. Ditto for the almost all-American cast. Funnily enough, as they showed the miniseries all over the world, it was widely ignored in Australia.

Richard Chamberlain has never been more than bland his whole life. Therefore, he's a terrible pick to play Father Ralph de Bricassart. Robert Redford would've been better (I found out afterwards he was originally a choice). Somebody with his looks...he can make the passion believable. Then, there's Rachel Ward. Granted, she's beautiful, but what a terrible actress, especially when she closed her eyes in order to "feel" this special something before blurting out her lines. I couldn't help but laugh. Instead of Rachel Ward, why not get Lesley-Anne Down? Now, how about that weird character played by Christopher Plummer? All of the talks he had with his protégé scream "homosexual" to me.

Another mistake is killing off two valuable assets quite early: Barbara Stanwyck and Bryan Brown whose late appearance caused me to say, "Finally! A real Australian." Had they stayed on longer, The Thorn Birds might have gone somewhere. But it's moot because Mare Winningham showed up during the fourth episode to ruin everything. If Madonna didn't exist, she would, hands down, win the Worst Actress of the 80's award. I couldn't stand the stupid bitch and wanted to strangle her. Oh, yeah...Barbara? Learn how to play dead because I can see your Adam's apple moving constantly.

If I were the filmmakers, I would've started the story when Meggie was about 16 to 18 years old. Going earlier is to cross the pedophile territory. Remember Richard Chamberlain's age was close to 50 while Sydney Penny was 12 or so. Due to the quickening of the timeline, the development of any character is skipped over. Just because a person died doesn't mean I should feel deeply because I didn't know who he or she was, especially the Clearly brothers. They've tried to make Mary Carson's death the most meaningful and impactful of all, but everybody was well off in the long run, causing her to be thoroughly forgotten. Why didn't anyone take Mary's portrait down and throw it in a fire? Having the ill luck to meet two losers in a row, Meggie should've sampled more men, especially in Sydney, the capital of Australia.

The script is a prime example of "What Not to Do." Nearly every line never advances the story or adds depth to the characters. It's dialogue for the sake of dialogue to fill in the time. Nothing sticks. You only need to watch The Godfather trilogy for what I mean. Furthermore, every twist has been so predictable that I can see it coming at least an hour ahead of time. Oddly, the eight-hour miniseries deals with priests, yet the content involved seems to be 1% religious. The most anyone has gone is "God" this or that. There are no Bible stories, verses, psalms, or anything else.

All in all, compared to Roots and North and South, The Thorn Birds is a massive disappointment.