THE VIRGINIAN-PILOT
Copyright (c) 1996, Landmark Communications, Inc.
DATE: Monday, February 5, 1996 TAG: 9602030059
SECTION: DAILY BREAK PAGE: E2 EDITION: FINAL
TYPE: Column
SOURCE: Larry Bonko
LENGTH: Medium: 71 lines
SO, HOW DO you like ``Gulliver's Travels'' so far? Isn't it smashing?
Tonight at 9 on NBC, the story gets even better.
In Part 1 of the miniseries starring husband and wife Ted Danson and Mary Steenburgen, the ship-wrecked surgeon Lemuel Gulliver washed up on a distant shore and found himself a giant among the Lilliputians. Then came another voyage, to Brobdingnag, where he was just the opposite - a 6-inch creature in a land of 80-foot tall people.
Remember how Danson was carried about on a silver tray in the queen's court, celebrated as the new jester? That special effect, one of 450 in the first two hours alone, took days to shoot.
Meeting with TV writers in Los Angeles not long ago, Danson said he spent a lot of time acting alone in an empty studio in England before a green screen, doing dialogue with other actors who were not there. They would become part of the scene when special effects were added.
A challenge, said Danson.
State-of-the-art computer technology made it possible for the miniseries' producers and director to match the imagination of Jonathan Swift, who wrote the satirical book on which the four hours are based.
``The shot you saw with Gulliver being carried about while seated on the tray would not have been possible a year ago, because that phase of computerized motion tracking had not been invented,'' said producer Duncan Kenworthy.
There is less of the masterful special effects from the Jim Henson studios in Part 2 - the flying island of Laputa is something to behold, however - and more drama on an intimate scale. Danson is quite compelling as he tries to convince doctors that he is not mad and should be freed from Bedlam Asylum.
And there's the miniseries' climax when Gulliver's son, played by Thomas Sturridge, produces the startling evidence that convinces one and all that his father has, indeed, been on an excellent adventure. Omar Sharif is smashing as the sorcerer who lures Gulliver to his palace and uses his blood to conjure up spirits of history's famous figures.
Hannibal shows up with his elephants.
There is a bawdy moment or two in the four hours - some viewers may have been stunned by how Gulliver extinguished a palace fire in Part 1 - but on the whole, this is wonderful, uplifting programming. For once, a network didn't weave sex, violence and decadence into a miniseries during a sweeps period.
The role of Gulliver is not the breezy, almost effortless bit of Sam Malone play-acting that Danson engaged in for years on ``Cheers.''
``When I first saw the script, I was frightened and terrified by it because it's do big. So huge. The plot and the stories are complicated. It took me months to get familiar with it,'' Danson said.
Since Swift's book isn't really a novel - novels hadn't been invented when he he wrote ``Gulliver's Travels'' in 1726 - the producers needed a script that pulled the narrative together. They chose to tell it in seamless flashbacks.
``Swift's book has never before been done on film in its entirety,'' said director Charles Sturridge, who found a part for his son in the $28 million production. If this version of ``Gulliver's Travelers'' had been done on film for the big screen instead of on tape for TV, it would have cost $60 million, said executive producer Robert Halmi Sr.
Film or tape? Who cares? It was as big a deal as any movie he has ever been in, suggested Sharif. He said there were as many trucks and technicians on location in Portugal and England as when he filmed ``Dr. Zhivago'' in 1965.
The challenge, said Sturridge, was to create five separate societies, ``right up to how they ate and how their soldiers saluted.'' That includes the disagreeable Yahoos, whom you will meet in tonight's finale. by CNB