What was wrong with Emma?

[ElleRaiser]

Argh, each episode got more and more irritating. Emma was so clumsy and unlikeable. But I found myself irrationally hating it all. But why? I can't work it out - I am usually totally undemanding when it comes to anything with bonnets in it...

I'm off to buy "Clueless" on Amazon - enough said.

it was rubbish wasnt it? i watched the forsythe sage just before it far superior even with its weird camera angles

mmnn, couldn't bring myself to comment on the Box Hill scene - cringeworthy at best! Frank Churchill was waaaaaaaay over the top.

Clueless is genius isn't it? Best Emma adaptation ever!

Badly done indeed, quite!

I actually screamed in frustration when Frank put his head in her lap and dp told me off.

Oh and why did Isabella look just about as old as Miss Bates - she came on at one point and I thought, who's that old woman then? Must admit by then I'd virtually given up and had stolen dd2's Professor Leighton game!

I watched Clueless again a couple of nights ago, when dd1 refused to watch The breakfast Club with me, having pronounced it boring. Clueless is a work of genius!

Agree that this was at best a mediocre production. Due to the lack of age gap between Knightly and Emma, it was glaringly obvious from the word go that they were meant to be together whereas a visible difference in age makes it more believable.

I think I'm spoilt for Austen forever after the incredibleness of "Lost in Austen".

I missed that, wonder if they'll show it again.

Jajas - Mr Woodhouse considers himself an invalid and ALWAYS sits by a fire, despite the weather!

Well, he could afford them!

It was just boring. I felt obliged to watch two episodes, but couldn't be bothered with the rest. The characters were just flat, especially when you compare it to Little Dorrit from last year which was wonderful.

The production values were a bit hit and miss as well I thought. The scene in the garden just after Mr Knightly has come back from London, leading up to his big declaration, had what sounded like background noise from a distant motorway. And in the same scene the actors were so badly positioned that they were squinting against the sun almost all the time. What was going on with Emma's hair in yesterday's episode? It looked like a bird's nest, surely there's no way a respectable lady would have been seen with her hair like that.

I think they got the character of Mr Elton right according to the book, but I prefer the Alan Cummings version which is funnier. Mrs Elton was just right, but it's a small part so not enough to save a scene all by herself.

The more I think about this book, the more I think that it should have been written by Austen from Knightly's point of view. He is by far the most likeable character in the book and it would have been more interesting to view Emma's transformation from younger sister/brat to love interest from his side than from hers.

I'm glad I'm not the only one who found it a chore to watch. I normally love this sort of thing. I didn't know whether I'd just been spoiled by watching Gwinnie's Emma.
The Mr Knightly was much better in that one too.
I think part of the problem was that it completely lacked any of the humour which is found in the book.

Songbird, do you have Virgin Media/sky? If so Lost in Austen is on TV Choice on demand ITV netplayer.

It was the worst JA adaptation I've ever seen. Instead of finishing with the view over the sea (at the end of Emma it mentions that they were going to the sea - first time ever for Emma - for a trip after they were married) it should have finished with the problems of arranging the wedding (the turkey thefts) and the wedding itself:
"The wedding was very much like other weddings, where the parties have no taste for finery or parade; and Mrs. Elton, from the particulars detailed by her husband, thought it all extremely shabby, and very
inferior to her own.--"Very little white satin, very few lace veils; a
most pitiful business ... "

And they kept moaning about the awful sultry heat when there was patently quite a strong wind on that day of filming!

Not sure how anyone could have preferred Gywneth . She was at least as old as Romola and her horrid droning accent was awful and her neck is so weirdly long.

As a long-necker myself I must say how very dare you!

Apart from the odd line that sounded a bit american I thought Gwyneth was fab.

One critic said she looked like a disgruntled duck a lot of the time (or something like that) and I agree but thought it added to the appeal.

I saw the Kate B one but remember nothing about it at all.

I hated the Gwynnie one because of the voice overs and think alouds and things like that. I can remember little about it other than an over-riding feeling of fury tbh!

I didnt like it but surely the worst Austen adaptation was the Billie Piper one? When she had dodgy blonde roots and looked as if she had just staggered out of a nightclub in Camden rather than a regency house in Bath

I didn't even watch the Billie Piper version Kerala, I think I had a lucky escape.

I've remembered something else that really annoyed me about Emma, there wasn't enough parasol usage. They were all forever gadding about in bonnets without brims or no bonnet at all with the full sun on their faces and chests. Honestly, if I'd been on set I would have been forever pokeing the actress with a sharp stick to stand and sit with a straight back, and then handing her a parasol.

There as never been as good a characterisation of Emma as Clueless IMO. She's comfortable to be socially elite, she interferes in other people's lives, she has no idea what life is like outside her own little world, she's shallow, trite, opinionated, immature and judgemental but somehow she's still likeable because her heart is kind and she doesn't mean to cause upset. I don't know why they can't get it right in the full-frock version.

I didn't see this one, but I find period dramas on the whole totally unrealistic and too modern

the actresses are all overly groomed, perfectly arched eyebrows and gleaming white perfectly straight teeth