Journey Home: The Animals of Farthing Wood VHS

Well now, where should I begin? At the age of seven, I started to collect the magazine for Farthing Wood, then got highly involved into the books, and finally, the T.V. show. For a children's series, it was quite moving and had a lot of dramatic scenes. However, this was a good thing! I found this show to be the best I have ever seen. Not only did I learn from it, but I also enjoyed it, and anticipated seeing a new episode each day.

Ok. So, if you are from England and you've seen/know about the original tv series that this movie is taken from, then that is a good reason to be disappointed in it. However, if you are like me, I watched this movie all the time when I was little and loved it because I had no idea of the exsistance of the British tv show it was based on. True, ever since I found out it was based on a tv series, I have been wishing for DVD seasons of the actual show to be released,but since that seems to be never going to happen, I adore this VHS movie. If you're from America, this is the only way to get an official legal copy of this sadly underrated series. Yes. The songs are goofy,but this was marketed for kids. Most of the parts cut out were taken out do to the fact that America has stronger censorship of violence than the UK and they were afriad parents would complain if it was too violent. As it is, I'm pretty sure alot of parents aren't happy about the scene of the mouse being impaled on some sticks or the pheasants being shot and cooked for dinner. The American voices make the characters easier for Americans to understand because of a lack of accents. In short, if you're a fan of animated animal movies in general and have never heard of or seen the original series this is based on, you'll love it. If you've seen the tv series, you'll probably hate it. Give this little gem a chance. It may not be the whole tv show,but in spite of the cuts, I found the movie to make sense and have an interesting storyline. It stands very well on its own as an action-packed, drama-filled, sometimes heart-warming movie.

Amazon was told over two weeks ago that there was a serious error on this page, several errors.The video being advertised here is probably NOT the one the resellers are selling you. There are TWO versions of the VHS, one with Ian Finlay etc and Sandra Oh and Gordon Michael Woolvett and the OTHER without those people (it has Ralph Macchio as the only known star listed.)BOTH FILMS HAVE THE SAME TITLE, THE SAME COVER and apparently the same BBC VIDEO on the bottom. According to the sellers I talked with they have the same identifying numbers...however, the sellers are dependent on Amazon for that particular information and Amazon was notified of the conflict but has chosen NOT to update their site with any warnings or other information. Because of this I assumed I would be getting one video, advertised on Amazon, and got the other--that is how I know FOR SURE that there are two versions.The only change Amazon made was to say it was 80 minutes...imdb lists the Sandra Oh version as 29 minutes and from 1989!! So they got it even more error filled rather than less...and it most certainly is not the Sandra Oh picture. They are chosing to advertise it that way for reasons of their own.The 1997 VHS released version is 120 minutes and has Ralph Macchio. It is not even listed on imdb...probably because they didn't know or were relying on Amazon for their information. It's too hard to tell which one influenced the other.Please confirm with the reseller about which version you are buying and if it does not match Amazon's page, complain to Amazon...I complained loudly and they obviously didn't consider it worth fixing (even after they promised last month that they would.)I got stuck with the wrong video and a lot of unresolved anger. Don't let that happen to you.Thank you.

When I first saw that this movie was on video I thought, "Cool!" because I had been a fan of the books for a long time. This was made in Britian as a popular t.v series that was very closely based on the books. When I began watching it, there seemed to be scenes cut out, some goofy songs were in there, it didn't follow the books at all, and most of the animals didn't even have British accents! After talking to a U. K. friend of mine, I discovered that this version sold in America is NOT the true British version. Not only did the American merchandisers add several goofy songs and change the voices, but they cut about 50% of the movie out. All of this ruined the whole thing! British animals with American accents, several songs when only ONE is supposed to be there, and all the cuts that were done make many of the scenes not make any sense. What doesn't make any sense, is why American merchandisers would do this. The Animals of Farthing Wood is very popular in Britian, so why American merchandisers would do this to something so popular is beyond me.