I'll keep this simple and without all blathering hoopla about this and that, that my predecessors are most famous for. Although this may prove to be somewhat of a tedious task, given that I'm required to have a minimum of 10 lines! I'm actually shocked that this re-make has nearly 6.0 rating from 3500 viewers, probably all of them worked on the making of this futile attempt. I was forced to give it a 1 out of 10 rating....LOL This re-make attempt is one of the worst I've ever had the displeasure of viewing! Simply put, the 1963 original version "hands down" had stellar acting (with a lesser known English cast) and much better (Ray Harryhausen) special effects.

I guess the reason that I originally bought this DVD was because it was based on an Ancient Greek legend, however I must admit that the text that we have of this (The Argonautica) is pretty average compared to some of the other texts that we have available. However, at least the movie covers more than the 1963 film, though by doing so it sort of throws the film out to something like three hours. Throw in some fairly average acting and you pretty much have what probably amounted to a television mini-series.The story is sort of faithful to the original, though Heracles stays around longer than he does in the book. In the book he gets left behind after one of Jason's stops along the way, nor is he killed. In fact the death of Heracles in this film could not be any further from the truth, since according to legend, Heracles pretty much committed suicide by throwing himself onto his own funeral pyre.I also found the Negro Orpheus to also be a bit far fetched. To me it seemed that this character was the token Negro, which in a sense really does annoy me. Orpheus was a Greek, not a Negro. Not only do they have the token Negro, but they also have the token girl that goes along as well, and nothing of the sort ever happens in the original. In fact Greeks never bothered with token characters, but then because their stories are based on myth, and also because the Greek were pretty racist, and sexist, the thought of having token characters would, to them, have been stupid. If the Greeks wanted to criticise some of their long standing prejudices, then the playwright (or storyteller) would focus on a myth that involved a woman or a foreigner.

Mini-series treatment of the perennial favourite, this is fairly faithful to the original material (the movie I mean, not the ancient Greeks scrolls!) and is admirably played straight throughout, and not overly hammy.The plot is familiar to all I should imagine - to save his mother, Jason is sent on a quest to reclaim the Golden Fleece from an evil tyrant, and the power of said Fleece will allow his mother to be cured.Of course, as with the movie version, this lives and dies by the set-pieces, and they are well handled: Neptune, The Harpies, the skeletons from the dragon's teeth, they're all here and, with the exception of the skeletons, are well done - the skeletons are a bit of a disappointment, it has to be said, but I guess beating the majesty of the originals was always going to be a big ask.Perhaps a shade too long with a three hour running time, it starts to flag towards the end, but this is still an enjoyable romp.

This is yet another version of classical Greek myth... this one is a bit closer to the 'original' that the 1963 Harryhausen one.I know the above will be a bit inflammatory to some but it is true. The baseline for them myth is the Apollonius poem and Harryhausen himself said they had added to the story to make it more Hollywood.Apollonius states that Jason was more of a charismatic diplomat/trader than a warrior... both qualities I felt the actor was unable to play to the level required.Medea was the daughter of Aertes and a High Priestess. She saved Jason and the Argonauts by cutting the brother into pieces and scattering them behind the Argo so that the pursuing fleet would have to stop and pick them up for burial. Jolene Blalock has the exotic looks for the part but the wooden acting style of Keanu Reeves...The journey was well portrayed - the stop at Lemmnos especially so. It was also nice to see Jason facing the fire breathing bull - though it was not originally mechanical and there were two of them. The fact that he had to plough the fields and sow the Teeth was also a good point. Medea had given Jason an ointment to protect him from the fire of the Bulls (included in the scene) - she also gave him a magical stone with which to defeat the warriors (note, they were never skeletons in the original), a sort of magic grenade which made short work of them.Retrieving the Fleece was well done - it replaced the Harryhausen Hydra (which was not in the original - he 'stole' it from the Lernaen Hydra Hercules fought) - with a lizard that Orpheus sang to sleep. The Apollonian story had a huge, horned snake calmed and put to sleep by the sound of Medea's voice - so it was a slight bending.The fall of Hercules was interesting... and I felt Brian Thompson was underused badly here...The return to Iolchos to face Dennis Hopper (who played a good part in the paranoiac Pelias) ended in a bit of a farce with the Fleece being stolen (as if Jason/Medea would let it out of their sight!) then paraded through the streets... Medea's approach to Pelias was difficult to understand - did she go to stay with the Fleece or was it to kill Pelias? But after short fight scene (indoors to keep down the number of extras required) the survivors all live happily ever after in true Hollywood style...Of course, if you go back to the original tragic myth (pre-Apollonius), Pelias refused to give up his throne, Jason could not kill him (against Greek law), so Medea killed him by magic and ended up being exiled with Jason (who she later killed along with their children when Jason wanted to leave her for another woman)...All in all, a reasonable version - the effects were iffy at times and the standard of acting let it down - but still a watchable version that is totally different from the Harryhausen Hollywood spectacular.