June 17 - Gulliver's Travels

Today’s movie is fantasy adventure with a scene that happens on June 17. Watch it tonight and enjoy.

GULLIVER’S TRAVELS               

Lemuel Gulliver goes off on a sea voyage and after a storm finds himself washed up in Lilliput, where the people are only six inches high. He is hauled to the capital and the Lilliputians can’t decide what to do with him. Gulliver is amused by their unusual customs and divisions. He aids them by capturing the Blefudcudiasn fleet and becomes a hero. However after a palace fire that he puts out (but accidentally douses the Empress) they decide to kill him. He builds a raft and escapes taking a Lilliputian sheep with him. He arrives in Brobdingnag on June 17, 1703 where the inhabitants are 72 feet tall. [49:27 to 51:59] He is captured by a farmer who exhibits him for money. Eventually he becomes the favorite of the queen and the enemy of the court jester whom he has displaced in the queen’s interest. She is appalled by Gulliver’s description of Europe as they have a communistic, peaceful society. He lives in a box which one day is picked up by an eagle and dropped into the sea, so he makes his escape. He is picked up by the flying island of Laputa, where math and music are much studied, but not to any practical end. The ruler of Laputa is estranged from his wife who lives on the surface in Menudi. He bombards her with rocks, but she builds a giant magnet, causing instability and damage to Laputa. Gulliver deploys the countermagnet and restores stability, but falls to earth. In Menudi beauty is favored over science. She doesn’t get along with her husband mainly because he built the Academy, whose scientists believe that before the perfect world can be built the old one must be destroyed. Thus they have devastated the countryside. Gulliver visits the Academy but gets no help from those there who pursue useless experiments. Gulliver wants to go home so he ventures into the wasteland.  He meets a sorcerer, who studies history by using his magic mirror to pull historical personages out of the past and discussing their activities with them. Gulliver finally has to bring in dozens of historical figures who fight each other and annoy the sorcerer, who finally lets Gulliver go.    He is captured by the struldbrugs, who deliver him to the gatekeeper, who offers him the water of life. Gulliver considers the price of immortality too high, as it causes blindness. He escapes and comes to the land of the Houyhnhnms, a race of telepathic, talking horses. He admires their use of reason in all their affairs, but they consider him partly a Yahoo, the degenerate race of humans who also inhabit that land. .Gulliver eventually makes it back to England, where he finds that his wife works as a servant for Dr. Bates, who wants to marry her. He starts telling about his voyages and having hallucinations about them and everyone but his wife and son think he’s crazy. He’s sent to Bedlam. The doctor had hidden Gulliver’s letters to his wife and now tries to burn his journals, as they support his story. At a sanity hearing things look bad, but his son finds the Lilliputian sheep and produces it. That convinces everyone Gulliver is sane.

                

The best version of this story. Includes all the voyages. The special effects are really, well special. Danson is surprisingly good as Gulliver.   

Gulliver’s Travels by Jonathan Swift (Barnes & Noble Classics, New York, 2001) at page 90 gives the date Gulliver landed in Brobdingnag

Producer - Duncan Kenworthy

Director - Charles Sturridge

Screenplay - Simon Moore

Awards - The film won the Outstanding Individual Achievement in Art Direction for a Miniseries or a Special; Outstanding Individual Achievement in Hairstyling for a Miniseries or a Special; Outstanding Individual Achievement in Writing for a Miniseries or a Special; Outstanding Miniseries and Outstanding Special Visual Effects Emmys. It was also nominated for the Outstanding Individual Achievement in Cinematography for a Miniseries or a Special; Outstanding Individual Achievement in Costume Design for a Miniseries or a Special; Outstanding Individual Achievement in Directing for a Miniseries or a Special; Outstanding Individual Achievement in Editing for a Miniseries or a Special - Single Camera Production; Outstanding Individual Achievement in Sound Mixing for a Drama Miniseries or a Special; Outstanding Supporting Actress in a Miniseries or a Special (Woodard).

Runtime - 3 hours 6 minutes

Released - February 4, 1996

Starring -

Ted Danson as Gulliver

Mary Steenburgen as Mrs. Gulliver

James Fox as Dr. Bates

Omar Sharif as the Sorcerer

Peter O'Toole as Emperor of Lilliput

Alfre Woodard as Queen of Brobdingnag

Kristin Scott Thomas as immortal gatekeeper

John Gielgud as professor of sunlight

           

Copyright by Ivan Walters in 2015.