Maidgethma Wonderfully offbeat film!

HottWwjdIam There is just so much movie here. For some it may be too much. But in the same secretly sarcastic way most telemarketers say the phrase, the title of this one is particularly apt.

Alistair Olson After playing with our expectations, this turns out to be a very different sort of film.

Cassandra Story: It's very simple but honestly that is fine.

bopdog My background vis-a-vis this mini-series: I read both books, each when they were new, and liked them. I watched "The Pillars of the Earth" on Blu-ray, and liked it. It was not as good as the books, but enjoyable given that it was, in the end, a TV show.World Without End is just plain awful. I thought about how to capture its horribleness, and decided I could not do it justice. Instead, I will only say I give you my solemn word that this is bad. Save your money and your time, and avoid!!!

Rene4096 Well, everybody starts an IMDb account for a good reason; mine was the misguided information in the many reviews for this underrated movie... ;)You see, reviews should NOT be about the question "does the movie follow or match up to the original book?" Instead, reviews should purely focus on the question "what is the quality of the movie itself?" The above misunderstanding on itself already explains why 58 out of the 68 reviews (to date July 3rd 2016) are very negative, which not only is a pity but very misleading as well.I watched "The Pillars of the Earth" and give that a 8 out of 10. "World Without End" gets the exact same rating...Both series give the same type of atmosphere, story telling, acting; in all both are excellent done, compliments to the casts and directors. I can highly recommend watching both.Note: in order to compensate a bit for the misleading underrating I rate this one 10 out of 10; just a small contribution from my side to bring the balance in rating back to where it rightfully should be to my personal humble opinion... ;)Have fun watching "World Without End" ;)René

cscsmith21 First off, I read the book which was okay but a bit repetitive of Pillars of the Earth. I was really looking forward to this series but ended up massively disappointed by it instead.Cynthia Nixon should go back to Sex and the City because her performance was 100% rubbish. God, if I saw her "I have a cunning plan" expression once I saw it a thousand times. She couldn't do anything with the character. Not that the rest of the cast were 1000 times better. Peter Firth was the only one who did well and Gwenda at least seemed interesting but neither were given enough time or breathing space to grow more.On top of that, some things are just implausible. Like how does Mother Cecilia get to be head of the nunnery and the town without learning how to spot and understand troublemakers like Godwyn. Politics, as Prior Philip understood, is part of being a leader of any description. Plus there is Gwenda, forcefully called "the Saxon" as if the writers were so lacking in confidence in this show that they hitched it "Pillars". Sort of "wink wink nudge nudge you remember Ellen don't you". Incidentally, the series creators lack of confidence is something that is obvious all the way though the 8 episodes.Another issue was its out and out invasion of history. Where Pillars would have local and town leaders meet with historical figures, this was possible because Kingsbridge was near places those people would conduct their business. Finesse, in other words. World without End pulls history around to have the likes of King Edward III give inordinate attention to, and finally launch an all out war against, Kingsbridge when he's only just begun invading France. I mean they have him specifically say Kingsbridge.There are other things too. Like how, when the plague strikes, does the character of Merthin know about "quarantine". He actually says quarantine. I'm pretty sure that wasn't invented until decades even centuries later. Or how the appearance of the statue of the Madonna changes so radically between Pillars and World without End without any of the people noticing or caring. Surely they must have realised at some point that (A) the statue was fake and (B) they weren't real miracles.The Bridge collapse was utter rubbish. Half the people looked like they were jumping off. Also, I just couldn't buy that falling off a crappy little bridge like that one would kill such a number of people as to be worthy of being called a major disaster.The way King Edward II was treated, as in the news of his "death" in the first episode, was stupid. It treated like freaking water cooler gossip or a scene from Eastenders or Coronation Street. For Gods sake, if a King back then died in mysterious circumstances, lords and peasants alike would be shitting themselves because more than likely a major war would break out.All in all, a very poor show and a slur on the fine work that was "Pillars of the Earth", both the book and the series.

M Q Okay, as it says, there are spoilers below.I read the reviews. Seems like those that did not read the book enjoyed the miniseries, while virtually everyone who read the book did not enjoy the miniseries.I agree completely. I read the books and the miniseries left a lot to be desired. My issue is, why change the plot so significantly? In the miniseries, many key characters were missing, Caris marries Elfric,Petronella and Godwyn are murderers, the queen hates Kingsbridge, Sir Gerald was Earl, there is no mention of Shiring, etc. etc. and I am only half way through the videos. I understand cutting it short for film, but why the huge changes? And why did Ken Follett agree to this?Did he think it was an improvement on the book? (Maybe it was, I don't know). I was just looking forward to the video version of the novel. I found myself simply comparing all of the changes which seemed needless. 1) Maybe if you haven't read the book or seen the series, watch the series first. The book is much more detailed and it will still be fresh because of the huge differences.2) The only reason I gave it 7 out of 10 is that if you have not read the book, it probably would be an enjoyable miniseries. The acting is good, the characters are good. I want to be fair to the screen version and not tainted by my having read the book. (BUT WHY THE NEEDLESS CHANGES?)3) Mr. Follett, I really hope they paid you a huge amount of cash for the video rights. Not for it being bad, just for it being basically so different from the book.Hope this helps!!