I watched both the older Roots and this newer version and am not sure exactly how I feel about the remake yet. The acting seemed generally very good in both versions, although the new Roots contains some disturbing graphic scenes of brutality and cruelty (whipping, branding, mutilation, dueling, cock fighting, torture-hanging, rapes, bludgeoning). There was violence shown in the first Roots also, but not at all to this extent. It really doesn't seem like a good thing to show young children in that respect.
The new version of Roots also depicts a lot of racism, which was significant to the plot, of course, but the current version wallows in it. It didn't leave me with any sense of inclusion, just divisiveness. The new version may be a more accurate depiction of some aspects of life in the South in the sense that dueling was not really discussed much in the earlier Roots version. The new version evidently seeks to emphasize class distinctions that developed between rich planters and less affluent farmers in the Jacksonian Era more than the previous version. It really did not depict Protestant Scots-Irish settlers in a very good light at all. Native Americans got badly stereotyped also.
The script, not the acting, left the sense of some characters appearing one-dimensional, sort of walking expressions of racism or modern post- "burn-my-bra" era feminist politics. The sub-plot of a planter's wife and her supposedly deaf-mute driver collaborating as Northern spies sent by the Pinkertons to derail Confederate war efforts really seemed contrived for instance. The woman's husband was absurdly one- dimensional, even by Hollywood's really lax standards for portraying stereotyped White Southern bigots.
I guess I preferred the original version of Roots because it focused on a family's inspiring struggle for equality and recognition in a more three-dimensional way across the span of several generations, and did not shy away from addressing racism in the modern era.
The new version of Roots also depicts a lot of racism, which was significant to the plot, of course, but the current version wallows in it. It didn't leave me with any sense of inclusion, just divisiveness. The new version may be a more accurate depiction of some aspects of life in the South in the sense that dueling was not really discussed much in the earlier Roots version. The new version evidently seeks to emphasize class distinctions that developed between rich planters and less affluent farmers in the Jacksonian Era more than the previous version. It really did not depict Protestant Scots-Irish settlers in a very good light at all. Native Americans got badly stereotyped also.
The script, not the acting, left the sense of some characters appearing one-dimensional, sort of walking expressions of racism or modern post- "burn-my-bra" era feminist politics. The sub-plot of a planter's wife and her supposedly deaf-mute driver collaborating as Northern spies sent by the Pinkertons to derail Confederate war efforts really seemed contrived for instance. The woman's husband was absurdly one- dimensional, even by Hollywood's really lax standards for portraying stereotyped White Southern bigots.
I guess I preferred the original version of Roots because it focused on a family's inspiring struggle for equality and recognition in a more three-dimensional way across the span of several generations, and did not shy away from addressing racism in the modern era.