Merlin (1998 Miniseries)

This might be one of my more obscure reviews. Unless you caught this mini series airing in 1998, or, if you're like me and you caught this on SyFy when it used to play on repeat over and over again, you probably haven't heard of this incarnation of the Arthurian legend. But I remembered this miniseries pretty vividly from my childhood and when I realized it was on Amazon Prime, I knew it was going to be something I rewatched sooner or later.

I've always loved the Arthurian legend. I've also really loved the story of Merlin because he has evolved tremendously. There are some of the more traditional stories that portray him as mysterious vizier to Arthur, others that portray him as a bumbling fool like in Disney's The Sword in the Stone. But I think the Merlin I like the most is the one they do in this series. They also do it in a book series I grew up with called The Lost Years of Merlin. Both the book series and this mini series takes the character of Merlin and makes him a more central character. Instead of being the Alec Guinness Obi-Wan Kenobi who is just a wise old mentor, they take him in a more Ewan Mcgregor Kenobi role where he either is, or will be the mentor to Arthur, but he is the central character and he has to overcome his own trials in order to become the great wizard of legend. Then there's the BBC Merlin television show that I haven't gotten around to checking out. If you've seen it feel free to let me know how that is.

Out of all these incarnations there are good incarnations and bad incarnations and I want to take a look at this mini series and see if Sam Neil's incarnation of the famous wizard is one that should be more recognized than I think it is right now.

The Merlin miniseries follows the rise and fall of King Arthur as well as the almost prequel stories that occur before Arthur is born. But all of these stories, whether it includes Arthur or not, all center on the character of Merlin (played by Sam Neil from Jurassic Park). The movie starts at his birth in a time of conflict and change in the medieval era.

Christianity is coming to Europe and "the old ways" are being forgotten. This concerns a powerful sorceress by the name of Queen Mab (played by Miranda Richardson). Her and her shape shifting gnome henchman, Frick (played by Martin Short, btw sometimes he plays some characters that wouldn't fly as politically correct these days, just a warning), create a child who Mab believes will bring back the old ways with magic and make people believe again.

Before going on, I should mention how interesting it is that Christianity and actual European history takes a role in this movie. The movie tries to take a somewhat realistic approach as it portrays the medieval era as rife with conflict and wars between various factions vying for power. It feels less like a fantasy and more like an early draft of historic Game of Thrones. So when its juxtaposed with the fantasy elements, it's actually kind of effective.

Now another thing worth mentioning is that if you watch this mini series, you should know that it was 1998 and visual effects and CGI were still progressing. So yeah, the CGI and visual effects are horrendous in this film. They look like garbage.

The first episode focuses on Merlin and his tutelage under Mab and Frick. However, when he becomes disillusioned with Mab and believes her to be manipulating him, he swears off magic. The first episode also centers on Merlin's love for a lord's daughter named Nimue (played by Isabella Rossellini). This relationship is introduced really clumsily in probably the cheesiest fantasy way possible. They meet and instantly fall in love. This is exemplary of the rest of the show, but I will get more into that later.

The second episode brings Merlin into the political world as he starts advising Kings, especially Vortigen (played by Rutger Hauer) and Uther Pendragon (played by Mark Jax). He gets caught up in a Game of Thrones... ish play for the throne and he himself plays into the politics a little bit. There is a bit of a change between episodes as Merlin's motivation is no longer looking to defeat Mab, but instead to instill a good man as King.

Now, I think there was a lot they could have done with this because I think the series does play into the greek legend aspect of the Arthurian legend in a way that I don't think fantasy really did again until Game of Thrones. It's this idea that heroes can do evil things. In greek legends, "Heroes" weren't actually good people or doing things to be a good person, they did it for glory, or to extend their power. Especially in one scene where Merlin gives Uther Pendragon a disguise to go and seduce a married woman is kind of a sketchy thing. And it could have been played up more as Merlin doing whatever he needs to do to get a good man as the king.

Now there are a lot of parts of this series that are made up to add more intrigue. Queen Mab is a totally made up character. Merlin's backstory needed to be embellished a little bit and I think they really did try and make an interesting backstory. The places where the series falters is when it feels too bound to the source material and doesn't take any risks. You see motivations that could be good, but they change in order to put Merlin at the place where he needs to be by the third episode that mainly focuses on his relationship with Arthur (played by Paul Curran).

Now the relationship between this Merlin and this Arthur is really good and it's what I remember the most from the series as a kid. This was always my favorite part of the Arthurian Legend. Unfortunately, watching it now, I still love it but there is not nearly enough of it. The other unfortunate part is that this is where you see the tension between the Merlin character they were trying to make unique in this series and the Merlin of the original source material and it's not exactly smooth.

However, this is the most entertaining episode because there is a lot going on. You've got Arthur pulling Excalibur, you've got Morgan Le Fay (played by Helena Bohnam Carter) and her whole devious plot facilitated by Mab. You've got Lena Headey playing a super quiet and super docile Guinevere when compared with how she plays Cersi in Game of Thrones years later is wildly entertaining. You've got the rise of Mordred (played by Jason Done) and his weird choice in playing Mordred as a devilish man child. They had a lot of fun with this last episode and it kind of makes the entire series worth it.

Oh and you have Martin Short and Helena Bohnam Carter falling in love and making out in a love connection nobody really asked for, but I think everyone needed it.

Yeah... it's weird.

Overall, the theme that I find throughout this entire series was that it felt completely rushed. I'm sure the fact they only had three episodes to pack in a lot of the Arthurian legend as well as their own liberties that actually were really interesting and unique, but not enough time was dedicated to this story. Not enough time was dedicated to Merlin and Nimue, they are just in love. Not enough time is dedicated to Uther Pendragon so when he suddenly turns out to be a bastard, its really sudden and weird. Not enough time is dedicated to even developing who Arthur is, we're just supposed to assume he's the Arthur of legend. Not enough time is put into the ending where there's a whole thing where Merlin was supposed to bring back a child instead of his father Lancelot (played by Jeremy Sheffield) and then at the end he off handedly says that this kid comes to Camelot with the Holy Grail but we never see that even though that is a big deal. It's very strange.

I think there are a lot of elements about this series that are really good. The main one is the cast.

Sam Neil's Merlin is absolutely excellent. I came out of this series wondering why Sam Neil never became a bigger name because he is just damn entertaining every time I see him. Maybe I'm missing his boring work, but I've always loved his work.

This is early pre Burton and Depp Helena Bohnam Carter and it definitely shows. While her character is a little bit weird, I think she's pretty good in this series if not under utilized. The character of Morgan Le Fay is a complex character and they could have done a lot with her that unfortunately they obviously just didn't have the time for. And as weird as the relationship with Carter and Martin Short is, Martin Short gives a pretty good performance as well.

Paul Curran does a decent job as Arthur and like I said, Lena Headey's character, though kind of boring, is super entertaining with the context of Cersei Lannister in mind.

Miranda Richardson does a good job but I always thought she was strange because she was perpetually whispering. Her character also wasn't really helped by the 1998 visual effects.

I think overall, Merlin is a great representation of where live action fantasy movies and TV shows were in a pre-Lord of the Rings world. Before Lord of the Rings, the most prominent fantasy film that was the most successful was probably David Bowie's Labyrinth in 1986.

 I've never watched Labyrinth all the way through, but I've seen enough to recognize the influences it had one different live action fantasy properties leading up to the 2000s. Labyrinth was the gold standard in an industry that was not popular or profitable and if there was going to be any fantasy movies, miniseries, or shows, they were going to have to be strange like Labyrinth was.

Now, Merlin may be strange but it's not nearly as strange as Labyrinth, but the visual effects and costume design is definitely reminiscent of fantasy like it.

I'm really going to try and watch Labyrinth at some point soon because I am interested in it's influence on fantasy stories in a pre-Lord of the Rings world. If I'm missing another fantasy milestone movie in between Labyrinth and Merlin, let me know because that is going on the list too.

There is also a sequel series to Merlin called Merlin's Apprentice that I'm interested in checking out. Not only because its following this series which I personally really like but understand its not very good, but also because it came out in 2006, 3 years after The Lord of the Rings series completed. I'm interested to see if the influences of Lord of the Rings bleed off into the sequel series. You might see a review for that soon.

But overall, Merlin is a strange miniseries. I think it's trying to tell too much story in too little of time. If this had been a limited series or just a few more episodes, I think they really could have done some really great things, especially with the cast and some really great sets and action sequences. But at the end of the day, its just not that strong of a series.

Over the course of writing this review, I read a couple of articles about this fabled Merlin Saga that Disney is trying to get off the ground based on the TA Barron books I mentioned at the front of the review. The last news I could find was that they were looking for Ridley Scott to direct the franchise. But for now I can't say it'll happen anytime soon. But I hope it does, Merlin is a fascinating character and probably deserves better than a rushed three episode miniseries in 1998.

But what did you think? Have you seen Merlin? Did you see the series play constantly on SyFy like I did or was that just me? Comment and Discuss below! You can also send me your thoughts on Twitter @MovieSymposium as well as send me your requests for films and TV series I should review in the future. If you follow me on Twitter, you can get updates on future movie news and reviews coming out of this blog.

Thanks and I'll see you next time.