hms_jellybean The "Anne" series has been my favorite book series since I was about 12 years old. My younger sister had the series but wasn't interested, so I stole it and read all eight books in a week. The same books, now haggard and dog-eared, sit on my bookshelf and get read at least once a year. The characters are lovable and realistic, the plot always well-defined, with bouts of humor and seriousness. The first two Kevin Sullivan "Anne" films captured the books quite well, especially the characters of Anne and Gilbert. After watching the movies, every time I read the first three books, I see Megan Follows as Anne and Jonathan Crombie as Gilbert.But "Anne of Green Gables: The Continuing Story" leaves a bitter taste my mouth. Basically, Kevin Sullivan abused and maimed one of the most beloved book series of all time. The movie moves the timeline of the entire series forward almost 40 years, making Avonlea and its inhabitants in the previous movies seem backwards and primitive. Which makes sense, since those movies are set in the 1870's, while this is set in in the 1910's. Green Gables is in ruins due to it being rented after Marilla's death, Anne and Gilbert are still unmarried though Gilbert is finished with medical school, Fred and Diana share a rather passionless marriage, Diana has turned into a society wife obsessed with wealth, and both Fred and Gilbert seem in a rush to escape PEI for the warfront.As any book fan can tell you, pretty much everything about this movie is wrong, right down to the characterization. Diana and Fred were in love in the books, which never comes across in the movies. Anne and Gilbert were eager to be married; the three-year engagement and separation was hard on both of them and they married almost as soon as Gil walked out of Redmond. Neither could bear moving away from PEI; Anne could barely stand to move 60 miles away from Avonlea. Though both characters mellow with age, they are as they always have been: Anne is still opinionated, dreamy, and fiery. Gilbert is stable, steady, with both a realistic and humorous outlook on life. They complement each other, which is the beauty of their relationship. By the time World War I rolled around in canon, Anne and Gilbert are proud parents of six children, ranging in age from 14 to 21. They were quite against their three sons joining the war, and are heart-broken when all of them end up joining, anyway. In the movies, both Anne and Gilbert come across as flat shadows of their former selves. Probably the most glaring error is in Gilbert: he never would have joined the war and left Anne behind. He waited 10 years for her, for crying out loud! There really was a wasted opportunity here. "Anne's House of Dreams" was a big book of character development for our favorite couple. Anne and Gilbert must cope with the gritty realism of adulthood outside their haven of Avonlea. Gilbert is a poor country doctor, he and Anne must now navigate their first five or so years of marriage, being in a completely new town and new house, how to make new friends, and establish their new lives. They experience the giddy rush of being newlyweds, the quirkiness of their new neighbors (who are "kindred spirits"), and the loss of their first child in childbirth, which sobers Anne and terrifies Gilbert, for as a doctor he was not able to save his daughter and almost lost his wife. They suffer the death of a good friend juxtaposed against the joyous birth of their second child. By the end, they move to a larger home and are much more mature than the Anne and Gilbert we knew at the beginning.That said, if it were not connected to the "Anne" series, I think it would be a fairly good movie on its own. Using different actors with different names and backstories, this could be turned into quite the romantic flick. But since it is connected to a much loved book series and completely deviated from canon in every way possible, it brings it down a lot.

RahzelleWR I know many people have disliked this movie because it is so jarringly different from the previous two, but this one is my favorite and I think it's the best of the three. What I love about the first two Anne of Green Gables movies are their beautiful simplicity. They really do take you back to a simpler time. All the pastoral beauty and innocence. But the third movie portrays how it really was for people of this generation. In their youths things were lovely and simple but the world changed around them very fast. Also consider all the adventure that takes place in this movie. Anne has little need for all her imagination here because everything going on around her is so dramatic. (Anne even gets to dress like a Nun, something she's always imagined) It's like she's living out everything she'd imagined though perhaps not in the ways she would like. But the very, very best thing about this movie is the love that has matured between Anne and Gilbert and their constant devotion to each other. This movie is most definitely the most romantic of the three and I love it!

Pollyanna706 I have never read the books, but I was excited to watch the mini-series. I must say that the first two movies are excellent, but his last one was terrible. First of all, how do you justify making the last installment in 2000, when the previous movie was made in 1987. Megan Follows was bound to grow up, and cannot possibly pull a mid-twenties Anne Shirley after 13 years. The other thing that bothers me is the change in Diana. How does someone change like that in just a few years? She's far too old to be portraying someone of Anne's character and loses some of her spunk that she had in the previous movies. She isn't enthusiastic and certainly does not extend from the previous movie. Gilbert is a decent character in this final movie, but all in all it wasn't the greatest. It is hard to continue a mini-series without doing the sequels immediately. I compare this poor rendition to the 3rd installment of North and South when they change the characters and bring in others that didn't exist in the first two installments. Kevin Sullivan... better luck next time.On a more positive note, the costumes are quite accurate and the clothes were very pretty. I do give credit for the scenery and costumes all around.

vicky-wiseman Such a shame that this one was ever made. So bad in so many ways. Anne in this film bears no resemblance to the Anne in the previous two films and has no connection at all to the Anne of the books - which Anne of Green Gables story is this film supposed to be continuing? There is a continuing story to Anne of Green Gables: L M Montgomery wrote 8 books in the Anne series, why were these stories not adapted for film? I was so pleased when I found that this film had been made and so disappointed when I watched it. The first two DVDs are practically worn out with re-watching, this one I watched once and then sold on ebay. Many apologies to the poor soul who bought it off me.