Survivors (2008) [DVD]

It is a pity that views on the new Survivors are so polarised. But inevitable. I'm a fan of the original series, although it has to be said it gets heavy going after the first series. The new series is a good, modern take on Terry Nation's great story of an epidemic wiping out most of the human race. There is a wide gap of 30 years between the old and new series and therefore a vast difference in style and production values. Instead of endless tramping around in the countryside, with slow panning shots now endless tramping around deserted Manchester at sunrise and the typical jerky camera shots whenever there is any 'action' (just like 28 Days/ Dead Set, etc, etc). A few debris strewn streets were shown in the original 'Lights of London' but pretty much everything else takes place in the country. The original is almost a survival guide as the 'survivors' try to get everything working again so compared with the new series it is slowly paced and 'action' is fairly sporadic.
As for casting. Political correctness has been mentioned by other reviewers. It shouldn't matter if the cast are all white or all black or all whatever, it is the story that matters! But I think that casting along diversity lines or 'quotas' to reflect society is necessary. In any event, the casting is fine and the actors have recreated the original characters well. I like Julie Graham (not least because she's been one of my fave middle age totty since At Home With The Braithwaites) and hopefully Abby Grant will stay in the series, unlike the original.
Having ploughed through the original and enjoyed that and been reasonably satisfied with the new series, I'd say defy the 'credit crunch' and get BOTH series. In each case a great story, well told.

It's only fair that the characters in the second take on Terry Nation's novel should reflect the values of the society dying around them, but for some reason I didn't expect it. So when Max Beesley's Tom Price presents as a brooding ex-con rather than the eccentric-but-harmless Welshman of the 1975 original, I began to wonder; the more so when the series turned on a drip-feed of sex and violence almost lacking from the original.
But it works. Julie Graham as Abby Grant and Paterson Joseph as Greg Preston pull the series together and give it drive (much as they did in the original), and Philip Rhys as the disenfranchised party-boy adds viewer interest as he is forced by cirmcumstance to mature more and more quickly than his peers.
The original series is still watchable today because it's driven by ideas and by dialogue. I hope in the second series of the new cut some of the principal characters will stop waving their guns around for long enough to fashion a society they can be proud of and the viewer can believe in.

I suppose they have to be congratulated for at least coming back to this 1970s masterpiece, but...

It's a load of stinking rubbish (to put it politely). It completely misses the point of the original, which was how to rebuild the basic structures (food, politics, law, etc.) of society from nothing; with the original you were always putting yourself in the characters' places, thinking how you'd start afresh. Seeing the original as a ten year old made me deeply about the way we live and how superfluous material possessions are. The new one is just the opportunistic acquisition of 'stuff' (a bit like shopping without recourse to money) and a bit of love interest and gossip, nothing to make you think about how we live our lives now.

The original was very deep; it worked on a range of levels. If the Daleks were Terry Nation's Nazis, in 'Survivors' (the original proper one) he voices a distrust of government and imposed, top-down structures; it was very much a celebration of anarcho syndicalism; small groups of people coming together as one; the language of the time was of 'communes'; the proper 'Survivors' was a cheerleader for individual personal responsibility tied to the need for people to rely on one another. The new one is so unsophisticated it barely raises any issues at all, aside from all the awkward 'diversity' rebranding...

You could say the original is a paean to 1970s hippy country communes and cooperatives, the new one is a symptom of 2000s mindless urban political correctness.

It saddens me to see this remake; like The Italian Job, Starsky and Hutch and countless others it was like a 2D plastic model of the original; apparently similar on the surface at a glance but with none of the depth, breadth, texture or 'feel'. Why on earth didn't they just leave well alone...? I'm not surprised Terry Nation's estate didn't want to play ball.

The only good thing is that it puts the original into people's consciousnesses; buy the original, don't waste your money on this guff.