I bought this VHS tape years ago and watched it once, knowing then I wasted money on it. But recently, I have read the novel again in my old (middle) age, and still like it as much as when I first read it at 13. But I had forgotten the conversion this film takes until I watched it again, and I'd sure give the tape away for nothing.
While there are moral ambiguities in the story, personified in Long John Silver, this follows after Shakespeare's witches in MACBETH: "Fair is foul, and foul is fair" say they. The 2 characters in the novel who prevent blanket torture and murder of all loyal to the ship's command are Captain Smollett and Jim Hawkins. Smollett because he sensed that trouble was in the works when he was engaged on a cruise of secret 'treasure' with the secret out of the bag, a crew he did not pick himself, and the arms already stored under the bows (within easy grasp of the crew he distrusted). If his points of precaution had not been met, he would demand to be discharged; so to prevent delays his precautions were applied, and if it had not been so, it would have been easy mutiny, the pirates (if true to what pirates really were) would have cut off their lips and ears and roasted them, then made them eat them before their slow bleeding finally killed them. So it's rather angering to shift the story to where the pirates were the "good guys" and Smollett and those loyal were villains. The Japanese were more 'heroic' at Pearl Harbor! And as for Jim Hawkins actually turning traitor... this simply is not Stevenson's story. While we can sympathize, some, with his natural curiosities and desire for adventure in his 2 escapades in the novel, it was never in his consideration to join those he knew to be human trash who recklessly waste short provisions and maim and kill for the pleasure of it. That's a completely different personality than Stevenson's story-telling character.
Squire Trelawney is the one character of the "faithfuls" whom I wouldn't mind being given a more critical portrayal than most cinemas of this story. After all, it was only through coincidence (overused in the novel) that he happened to be right there at the discovery of the treasure map and was probably the only one who had the means to organize an expedition to find it. So he is a greedy opportunist. But he totally ignored his wiser friend's imperative to keep quiet about what they had found, and thus the crew he hired via Silver had the perfect opportunity to get 'their' treasure. But this movie does not develop that, and instead it goes after the one man of authority with foresight, the Captain, and makes him into a manipulative crook willing to let innocent blood be shed to make himself rich. That's low. It compares with making Joe Friday into a bribe-hustling cop.
While there are moral ambiguities in the story, personified in Long John Silver, this follows after Shakespeare's witches in MACBETH: "Fair is foul, and foul is fair" say they. The 2 characters in the novel who prevent blanket torture and murder of all loyal to the ship's command are Captain Smollett and Jim Hawkins. Smollett because he sensed that trouble was in the works when he was engaged on a cruise of secret 'treasure' with the secret out of the bag, a crew he did not pick himself, and the arms already stored under the bows (within easy grasp of the crew he distrusted). If his points of precaution had not been met, he would demand to be discharged; so to prevent delays his precautions were applied, and if it had not been so, it would have been easy mutiny, the pirates (if true to what pirates really were) would have cut off their lips and ears and roasted them, then made them eat them before their slow bleeding finally killed them. So it's rather angering to shift the story to where the pirates were the "good guys" and Smollett and those loyal were villains. The Japanese were more 'heroic' at Pearl Harbor! And as for Jim Hawkins actually turning traitor... this simply is not Stevenson's story. While we can sympathize, some, with his natural curiosities and desire for adventure in his 2 escapades in the novel, it was never in his consideration to join those he knew to be human trash who recklessly waste short provisions and maim and kill for the pleasure of it. That's a completely different personality than Stevenson's story-telling character.
Squire Trelawney is the one character of the "faithfuls" whom I wouldn't mind being given a more critical portrayal than most cinemas of this story. After all, it was only through coincidence (overused in the novel) that he happened to be right there at the discovery of the treasure map and was probably the only one who had the means to organize an expedition to find it. So he is a greedy opportunist. But he totally ignored his wiser friend's imperative to keep quiet about what they had found, and thus the crew he hired via Silver had the perfect opportunity to get 'their' treasure. But this movie does not develop that, and instead it goes after the one man of authority with foresight, the Captain, and makes him into a manipulative crook willing to let innocent blood be shed to make himself rich. That's low. It compares with making Joe Friday into a bribe-hustling cop.