Apparently, Philip Jose Farmer's RIVERWORLD novels involve a fantasy world inhabited by souls of dead famous people. This Sci Fi Channel treatment of the story turns the whole concept into an outlandish B-movie with crushingly dull American characters and cheesy fight choreography. The whole effect is something you'd see in the likes of XENA: WARRIOR PRINCESS instead of a proper, thought-provoking piece of filmmaking.The movie was made and filmed in New Zealand, so picturesque locations are about the only thing this has going for it. Everywhere else the acting is terrible; particularly Emily Lloyd, who has the fakest-sounding voice ever, like she's been dubbed. There's a lot of action here, but it's infantile in the extreme, done by people who have no clue how to stage properly exciting scenes. RIVERWORLD is a bore and barely worth watching, a generic mess no different from a hundred other such productions.

Riverworld is an strange alien world with one large river where everyone on earth who dies wakes up around the same age and speaking the same language or rather that they all understand each other's words. There are metal cannisters which contain clothing and dispensers which give food. People who have resurrected earlier have built primitive societies some of them barbaric.Riverworld is based on the 5-book series by Philip Jose Farmer which had a very interesting concept but was poorly executed, terribly padded, bland characters, and had a very anti- climatic ending.This movie actually got me interested in reading the series to see how it ended but I quickly realized that this film adaptation was actually better than the book.For one thing the hero in the film is a 21st century astronaut who is familiar with technology and the concept of aliens and thus was the audience's go-between into this strange new world with famous people in history. In the book it was the 19th century explorer Richard Burton. The human villain in the film is the megalo-maniac Nero whereas in the books it was King John who was not a very convincing bad guy historically or even in the book series.Already I saw the hero-villain aspect had been improved from the book. The astronaut guided by the mysterious beings of the planet wants to travel down river while Nero wants to establish a new empire for himself.It's a shame the series never got off the ground because I would have liked to see how they would have improved upon the original concept.All in all I recommend this film for a lazy Sunday viewing - however I cannot recommend the book series. While the first book is interesting, it quickly goes downhill from there and is not worth the time.

I finally saw this abomination of a TV pilot/movie. I wish I hadn't. 'To Your Scattered Bodies Go' is a novel by Phillip Jose Farmer which won the Hugo Award for best SF novel in 1972. This 'Riverworld' adaptation is a farce and does not do this incredible imaginative book any justice. This is a film that should be remade with all the attention to detail and robustness to how our Earth's history and possible future could be entangled into what I call the world's greatest Anthropological SF experiment of all time. Someone out there in Hollywood-land with some real script writing abilities should read all the books in the series and perhaps write a script that would do it justice. It has the makings of a blockbuster if the right individuals are involved. Anyway read all the books in the series and you will see what I mean. - Cheers

Though clearly in the minority in this forum, I liked the movie.Entertainment is successful when it stirs us (usually emotionally). Books do that by tickling our imagination and letting our minds fill in the blanks with whatever we choose. Cinematography stimulates us with (ever improving) visuals and still lets our minds fill in the blanks.It seems that Riverworld did just that for me. The movie provided two hours of entertainment and stimulation that left me wanting to see more. Exactly what I want in a movie.The movie ended with only part of the story having been told. Just like the Star Wars and LOTR movies, the story finds a natural break but doesn't complete. I doubt that a second movie will be made, but I'd like to see The SciFi Channel pick it up as an abbreviated series much like they did we The Dead Zone, Grey's Anatomy, etc. The real test will be if they can produce a series that earns a second season.As far as the variance from the books, I don't care. That's inevitable.