Downton Abbey

[Adelle Dazeem]

I saw the movie this afternoon. I'll preface this by saying I absolutely LOVE the tv show. I have watched the complete series at least 6 times. That being said, I HATED the movie. I thought it was horrid. I'm so disappointed. The only redeeming part of the movie was the costumes. Lady Edith's dress and headpiece the night of the dinner was simply amazing. I don't think I will every bother watching the movie again. It was such a waste of time.

 

[Sandeep1]

I saw the movie this afternoon. I'll preface this by saying I absolutely LOVE the tv show. I have watched the complete series at least 6 times. That being said, I HATED the movie. I thought it was horrid. I'm so disappointed. The only redeeming part of the movie was the costumes. Lady Edith's dress and headpiece the night of the dinner was simply amazing. I don't think I will every bother watching the movie again. It was such a waste of time.

That's interesting as it received an 85% rotten tomatoes ratings which is very solid.

 

[Adelle Dazeem]

Yeah - I do not get all of the positive reviews, but apparently people will eat anything and love it if they are hungry enough. I won't go into specifics because they would be considered spoilers, but the characters seemed to be exaggerated versions of themselves yet they did things that never would have happened in the series.

 

[DVC-Don]

Wife and I saw the movie yesterday. We enjoyed it and the audience applauded at the end.

 

[antmaril]

My son and I saw it on Friday. There was no recap in the beginning, which was I hoping for since my son didn’t watch DA. We both enjoyed it. However, I was not blown away by it. It was good, but I didn’t think it was great. I’m not sure why. I was a HUGE fan of the tv show. I think it is one of the best things I have ever seen on television. The movie was fine.

 

[MrsJackSparrow4Life]

We liked it but I don’t think Tom’s storyline (the first one) was done very well. I don’t want to post spoilers but It wasn’t introduced correctly IMO and was very anticlimactic. It was like the writers were told they needed to add drama after the final script was written and just threw it in.

 

[Imzadi]

My mother and I went and saw it today. Apparently our theater didn’t feel a recap was necessary since they went straight into the movie...didn’t even have previews now that I think about it.

Yes, we saw it last night. They didn't show any recap at our theatre either. I did spend a couple nights re-watching the last couple of seasons on Amazon Prime. So I was all caught up and didn't notice the missing recap.

Actually, it's not really about what happened in-between. Honestly, I felt like it could have been set a week after the end of the final episode rather than two years - nothing has really changed. The interactions and relationships explored through the film that I enjoyed (both romantic and platonic relationships, I should note) all involved pairings of an existing and a new character in each case.

You're right. It didn't seem like there was any real time lapse from the series.

I do think it is a stand alone movie. So anyone, who hadn't watched the series could watch the movie.

While I did Wiki the King & Queen. I don't think it ended up being necessary. The family & staff would have reacted the same, regardless of which king & queen were coming.

 

[Imzadi]

I saw the movie this afternoon. I'll preface this by saying I absolutely LOVE the tv show. I have watched the complete series at least 6 times. That being said, I HATED the movie. I thought it was horrid. I'm so disappointed. The only redeeming part of the movie was the costumes. Lady Edith's dress and headpiece the night of the dinner was simply amazing. I don't think I will every bother watching the movie again. It was such a waste of time.

Yeah - I do not get all of the positive reviews, but apparently people will eat anything and love it if they are hungry enough. I won't go into specifics because they would be considered spoilers, but the characters seemed to be exaggerated versions of themselves yet they did things that never would have happened in the series.

We liked it but I don’t think Tom’s storyline (the first one) was done very well. I don’t want to post spoilers but It wasn’t introduced correctly IMO and was very anticlimactic. It was like the writers were told they needed to add drama after the final script was written and just threw it in.

Yes, it's hard to respond to posts or ask for details without spoiling it for others. So, I started a new, SPOILER thread so those of us who want, can talk about the movie in more detail:

https://www.disboards.com/threads/s-o-downton-abbey-the-movie-spoilers-thread.3770890/


And I copied & pasted these three posts over to there to talk about them. I hope you guys don't mind.
.

 

[Pea-n-Me]

I saw it the other night. As I said earlier here, I had never found time to watch the series (but it was next on my list!). Pleasantly surprised to find it was set in Yorkshire, as a big James Herriot fan.

Our theater did not show a recap. And there were only five of us there, in total. My companion was DD21 and she promptly fell asleep after a long day, lol. But there were several times the rest of us were laughing which, I think, surprised me.

I enjoyed it a lot, and would like to see it again. Planning to drag DH along as I think he'd like it, too.

Since seeing the movie I have been reasearching the history a bit. Thought I'd share this recap video, which has two of the cast members (and one of my favorites, who made me laugh the most) explaining things. Enjoy!

 

[theluckyrabbit]

We're planning to see this over the weekend -- thanks for mentioning Yorkshire! Big James Herriot fans here, too -- that will make DH more interested to see this. My parents just saw this, and Mom said that Dad stayed awake (!) -- so that is another good sign for this film. lol.

 

[trip]

My son and I saw it on Friday. There was no recap in the beginning, which was I hoping for since my son didn’t watch DA. We both enjoyed it. However, I was not blown away by it. It was good, but I didn’t think it was great. I’m not sure why. I was a HUGE fan of the tv show. I think it is one of the best things I have ever seen on television. The movie was fine.

The recaps were before the actual movie started at least at the theater where we watched the movie. In fact, we weren't paying attention to the pre-movie stuff and then we realized the recaps had started.

 

[AndreaDM]

I saw it on Tuesday and really enjoyed it, but I don't think I would have liked it as much had I not watched the show, know the backstories of the characters absolutely helped in my enjoyment of it. Our theater did not show a recap at all, went right into the movie. I agree that timewise, it could have been right after the series ended other than the kids being a little older than they were in the show.

 

[Feralpeg]

We saw it yesterday. No recap at our screening. The movie was just okay. It was very predictable. My sister and I realized that there wasn't a single soul in the theater under 60 years old (including us). lol. Mr. Molesley was my favorite member of the cast.