In some ways it's unfair to try to compare the remake with the original Roots. The first was less a miniseries, and more a cultural phenomenon. It was unlike anything before or, really, since.
When I first heard it was to be remade, I admit I was dismayed. Not because the story of slavery has been told enough: it absolutely hasn't: apart from Roots, there has not just been nothing approaching its cultural reach, there just hasn't been any telling of the story at all. You can count on one hand the slavery films since Roots, and as for telling the story adequately - successfully - one? Two? Roots was aired two generations ago. A new mass market telling of the story of slavery is long overdue. My dismay was something else. First, sentimental. I didn't want the original messed with. It was such a huge part of my youth and political growth. Second, I wasn't convinced it was the right vehicle for today. I decided to put that to one side when I saw that LeVar Burton (young Kunta Kinte in the original) was involved in the remake. I wanted to reserve judgement. But having now seen two episodes, I can't help having a view.
And unfortunately I'm not sold on this version.
I can fully understand why they'd want to bring the story to modern viewers who missed it the first time round. And I get that this means updating the way it's told. Modern expectations are different. Something that had impact on 1970s TV screens does not necessarily have the same impact now. I also see why they changed the portrayal of Kunta Kinte. In the original, he was an innocent. He had the same determination, the same fierce dignity, the longing for freedom. But he was an unsophisticated country man from a small village. The new Kunta Kinte is from a city, he had plans to go to university in Timbuktu, and is more worldly. And I get why that was done. And I accept those changes. But there are also huge story changes.
Some of these I get. The sub-plot on the ship with the captain was excised. That's fine. The main story needs to move along more quickly for today's tastes.
But because I know the original so well, I'm left wondering why other plot changes were necessary, especially where these mess with the facts of characters' lives. For example, the original Kunta Kinte did not fight in the Revolutionary War. He did not have his foot chopped off as a result of that, but by as a result of his continual escape attempts. The brutal amputation in the original was the shocking culmination of the grim attrition of Kunta Kinte's struggle against the conditions of American slavery. It stood not just for his personal story as an African in a shocking New World, but as an allegory of slavery itself. In the new version, this attrition seems to have been swapped for quick fire events. Part of my resistance to these new facts in Kunta Kinte's life (him joining the Ethiopian regiment) is that very blurring between fact and fiction that Haley and the programme were able to sell. For me, these people are not just plot tools, the facts of their lives shouldn't be messed with. Kunta Kinte did not fight in that war. That's one thing, and I worry that anyone making the comparison between the two might therefore find the veracity undermined. But this too leads me to think that if this story is not fully suited to modern expectations, instead of repackaging it, they should be looking for other slavery stories to tell.
I'm also not convinced by the degree of force used by certain characters. I don't think Kizzy would have lived had she knifed an overseer in an escape attempt. Again, I can see the reason for it, but it doesn't sit right logically. She'd have been lynched.
The original had a huge impact. It was seen by everyone. Families watched it together. The next day at school everyone was talking about it. It was a cultural phenomenon. But a lot of that can't be repeated. TV is not the same now.
In the original, the slave owners and overseers were played by big names from family shows. It subverted the miniseries genre. This was part of its shock. It was a genius stroke. I'm not sure that can be replicated either. It wasn't just that it was "hard hitting" (and perhaps we've since become inured to "hard hitting"), it was that it was hard hitting in a place where that wasn't previously seen: the prime time living rooms of the vast majority of families.
The remake, successful though it may be as a piece of television, does not have that reach, that impact, that epoch-changing stature. It's more than understandable that the makers should turn to the original in order to begin to redress the lack of slavery stories. But it's also ironic that this dearth of slavery stories on television is addressed by resurrecting the only one there's been. We don't need one story, we need many.
I do see the need for a new Roots for this generation. I just think that perhaps it can't happen by remaking the old one.
