ChanBot i must have seen a different film!!

Acensbart Excellent but underrated film

Comwayon A Disappointing Continuation

ActuallyGlimmer The best films of this genre always show a path and provide a takeaway for being a better person.

ArchieIsCool Loved this adaptation of the historical time of James VI of England. What I was not too sure of is was James VI a bisexual? Because he is portrayed as a cruel unfeeling husband to his wife who at first treats her merely as a breeding mare and is callous and a brute, but then is seen liking the company of young men! In one particular scene James is alone with one of the conspirators and in a deal wants him to perform a sex act on him was this a true fact? I have not read in any history books that the king of England was bisexual so was it just a sub plot? Well played by Robert Carlisle who plays him as a cruel selfish man with a bad leg that he drags around.Loved the whole thing great acting from all, Guy Fawkes played by Michael Fassbender was very good a moody fellow who would do anything for his cause.I thoroughly recommend this drama very very good love the execution scene it showed gore and fear.

Scaramouche2004 As a lover of British History, and a as fan of some of this movie/mini series' more prominent actors i.e. Robert Carlise, Kevin McKidd and Richard Coyle, I was looking forward to this adaptation of the circumstances leading up to the events of November 5th 1605 with great anticipation. However, I was somewhat disappointed. It was not so much the historical inaccuracies, these are now somewhat expected, as it seems these days History just isn't interesting enough just to be shown as it actually happened, and needs dumbing down or tweaking.I was more disappointed at the overall tone of the piece as it is openly biased in favour of the catholics and as a result history seems to have been completely rewritten to make England, Queen Elizabeth I, Kinf James I and every other protestant in the world evil conspirators and murderers. In the same vein we are shown how Guy Fawkes, Robert Catesby and the rest of his gang of Catholic TERRORISTS, were really only martyrs to a great cause and were forced into this action by a disfigured, cruel, oppressive and homosexual sex predator of a King, who lied to the people and deserved to get his evil arse blown to smithereens anyway.It is also seems to be anti-English and Pro-Scottish which doesn't make sense at all as the disagreements between England and Scotland had nothing at all to to with the Gunpowder Plot and it seems the entire first half of this three hour lie-fest highlighted the 'plight' of Mary, Queen of Scots just to justify the anti-English sentiment.Of course it never mentions once the lying, plotting and conniving she herself did against her cousin Elizabeth, which bought about her 'reluctant' execution by the English Queen.Apart from using it to work in some anti-English propaganda, the whole Mary, Queen of Scots story line wasn't needed. It took place 40 years before Guy Fawkes and his cronies tried to blow up Parliament and was just a waste of time and money. Its not like it even set the scene, the events of the 1560's and the events of 1605 are completely unrelated. I'm sure the public would have much preferred to see a more accurate three hour in depth story about 1605 than anything else.I just feel as a protestant and an Englishman, that this film went too far in it's inaccurate portrayals and political sentiments against me and my kind and cannot justify the openly political and religious stance it made by portraying the catholics of 16th and 17th century Britain as the nice guys of the piece. It is on a par with portraying the Nazis as humanists with morals and Al-Qaeda terrorists as brave soldiers with just cause. I feel that had a programme, film, play, book or song directed so much negative feeling and bile towards any other country, religion, race, colour, creed or faction, it would have been banned as racist and bigoted, and wouldn't even have seen the light of day. I myself am not racist against any country or religion, especially not against my fellow Britons, my Scotttish and Welsh brethren, it just hurts me that even now in the 21st Century these two great countries still feel significantly insecure that they have to make such jibes and comments towards the English as they feel it raises their position somewhat.To be honest devolution hasn't helped. It has done more to recreate the politics and feeling of the era depicted here than anything else, and unfortunately as a result, the division between our three countries is now growing wider, and the undertones shown in this production substantiates this fact.As far as Scotland and Wales are concerned the United Kingdom of Great Britain is sadly no more

edjavega It was expected that this series would take an anti-Catholic tone, after all, it appears most of England had grown rabidly anti-Catholic (not without reason) at this time.But in scenes where the Catholic plotters were planning to blow up the Parliament, it was a bit disturbing to have the script make the characters use terms such as "martyrs to the cause" and decide that, if innocent Catholic bystanders were to be killed by their plot, that was "alright", since they would be dying for the Church or something like that.Personally, I don't think Fawkes and company thought in those lines, since they needed all the Catholics they could get, since they were in a minority in Britain. Were the producers making the Catholic plotters appear like something out of today's Al-Qaeda, to make the film more "familiar" to today's audiences? The Protestants don't appear too angelic either. The ending sequence where King James I appeared totally mad or ruthless before Parliament, talking about unspeakable punishments for the plotters who only wanted "tolerance" - well, that sort of appeared like the producers were trying to get people to equate the King's behavior to Washington's response to 9/11 and come out thinking that the USA's reaction was quite over the top too. A political statement if there was one.And where did they get it that James I may have been homosexual and had a hard time to have a "normal" relationship with his wife? The historical James I had 9 children by Queen Anne.The point is, costume dramas have all the potential to be great dramas, without having to "adapt" the script to make the historical characters act and speak in a way that would make them look contemporary.At any rate, it was interesting TV fare. *** out of *****

sexy_pisces_gal Clemence Posey stars as the young and beautiful Mary, Queen of Scots in this thrilling tale of murder, deceit and religion. Upon the death of her mother the young Mary travels back to her homeland of Scotland from France after 13 years in exile. Discovering that her religion is considered evil Mary tries to allow Catholics and Protestants to worship in there own way unbeknown to her, her half brother Lord James is conspiring with Mary's rival, the Protestant Elizabeth 1st to plan Mary's downfall and replace her as King of Scotland.When Mary marries the English, and powerful Lord Darnley, James begins to fear for his ambitions even more, when Mary becomes pregnant, and with the birth of her son, the future King James. Lord James realise his plans are destroyed.With her marriage becoming tempestuous and violent Mary seeks solitude away from her violent husband in the arms of her faithful guard Bothwell, a move which was to become her downfall, for the sake of her son Mary places herself in the hands of her enemy and abdicates.The series picks up again around 20 years later with James VI ruling Scotland and awaiting the death of the English Queen Elizabeth so he can claim her crown, when he does ascend to the throne all seems well, the people welcome him and except that they have a Protestant King, what he doesn't count on is a group of powerful Catholics, determined he will not destroy their faith and set to blowing up Parliament and the King. Learning of the plan James enlists the help of his adviser, the questionable Lord Cecill and his ill-fated spy Lady Margaret, to identify Guy Fawkes and his group and bring them to justice.