I managed to retrieve the comments about RIVERWORLD that I posted elsewhere when the film was first broadcast and will repeat them here, in case anyone is interested in the silly film. I watched most of this film last night and can report that it bears only an atmospheric resemblance to Philip Joséé Farmer's RIVERWORLD novels. About all that I could recognize in the film from the novels was the basic setting: a mysterious planet dominated by an immense river, on the shores of which all the people who ever died on Earth are mysteriously reincarnated in young, healthy bodies. I watched the film because I enjoyed reading the novels and because I was curious what it would do with the character of Sam Clemens--who figures prominently in the second novel, THE FABULOUS RIVERBOAT. Well, there is a character named "Sam," but he isn't revealed as Samuel L. Clemens until the end. I always wonder why so many films adapted from novels go out of their way to change things, when it would not only be better but probably easier to stick to the original story lines. The central character in Farmer's original novel is the 19th century British explorer Sir Richard Frances Burton, whose strong personality and intellectual drive to understand the Riverworld planet give the novel a powerful focus. Naturally, Burton isn't good enough for this TV movie, which makes an American astronaut the central character (played by Jeff Hale, a dead ringer for Tom Berenger). Thrown into the mix are a feisty African princess (Karen Holness), a mysterious alien (Brian Moore), a cute child, et al. Most of this TV movie seems to have been inspired by the second novel, THE FABULOUS RIVERBOAT, in which Sam Clemens directs the building of a boat to travel up the river to find the secret of the planet. In the novel, Clemens's primary antagonist is England's King John. In the movie, it's Emperor Nero (played for laughs by Jonathan Cake, who more closely resembles an invincible Greek Adonis than the effeminate Nero known to history). Incidentally, I wasn't around when the film's credit's rolled. If anyone who saw the film noticed where the location shooting was done, I'd like to hear about it. The locations were okay, but it's probably impossible to find a river on Earth that matches the appearance of the one in Farmer's novels. (I concluded with a postscript, describing the film as “ about as faithful to Farmer's RIVERWORLD as UNIDENTIFIED FLYING ODDBALL was to Mark Twain's A CONNECTICUT YANKEE IN KING ARTHUR'S COURT.)