Die Dornenvögel - Die verlorenen Jahre

I liked it. Better and better. At first I found the lady cold and not at all like the Meggie I had grown used to from watching the series over and over, but she was farther along in her story now - she'd borne Ralph's child and raised him to the age of thirteen. The world was at war. She was lonely and becoming a pragmatist. She didn't expect to see him again. (We didn't either.) THAT is the gift here - more time with the lovers.

Before commenting on the consistently good performances, which were (for the most part) written and played true to the characters lined in the book and performed in the original mini, I must protest the unsympathetic, growling characterization of Vittorio, Father Ralph's mentor at the Vatican. The writer was dead wrong in having him threaten Ralph with his love for Meggie. "Get over it!" he says, essentially. "Get on with your life!" Vittorio would never have acted so. Maximillian Schell was serious miscasting, but he didn't write his own lines. The same judgments apply regarding the casting and meddling attitude of Meggie's mother- too sensational, too cruel. And out of character.

The confrontation between Ralph and Vittorio comes so early in the story that one is tempted to judge the entire production by it, but it is important to keep watching. Eventually the characters fit in to the almost sacred memories we have of the earlier version and stand as logical segues to the time-line that they must fit into. The son Dane, by the way, is a real goody-goody. I didn't like him as an adult and I didn't like him as a kid, but he was true to character.

Look - Richard Chamberlain is the best. The love story stands. It was the main reason we watched the first one - that and the wonderful performances by the major stars - Kiley, Stanwyck, Simmons. Those folks aren't there; two of them we will never see again, and we will miss them, but we have Richard Chamberlain here again, and he was, after all, the heart of the story.

Look - try thinking of it as a road company performance with a star turn. It's worth seeing. Take another look and see if you don't agree- it's available on tape.

I cried.

This would of been great if this part of the story was in the original but it wasn't! So here it is 13 years later! Only Richard returns! We have a woman cast as Meggie that looks like she be more at home on the Womens P.G.A. TOUR! The story here is weak! It is still a little kick to see old friends but when your friends have had face-lifts they don't seem the same! If this is the only thing left at the video store one night READ a book in fact read the THORN BIRDS

My entire life I only heard bad things about "The Missing Years". I once even saw a copy at a local thrift store with "not good" written on the cover in sharpie. I ended up buying a DVD of each miniseries on DVD and I decided to watch both of them. While it is true that I do prefer the original (unusual for me as I generally prefer the sequels), I did not hate The Missing Years at all. Had the original cast returned I think people would be far more kind to this misunderstood midquel. It had a tall order following up the second highest-rated miniseries in history at the time, but I feel that they still did an admirable job. In studying the history of the production, it is clear that The Missing Years was a labor of love. Unlike the original, they actually filmed this miniseries in Australia. They had to painstakingly rebuild Drogheda from the ground up, and the set designs look AMAZING. The streets of Rome look far better than they do in the original. As a history enthusiast, I was even amazed to see that they went the extra mile to accurately show correct Italian and Japanese weapons for the time period. The Catholic Church also really did shelter Jews during the Holocaust, which was portrayed here as well. The filmmakers clearly did their homework (although there are of course historical errors here and there). Obviously, some of the shots don't hold up (namely the bombing raid on Rome which suffers from some painfully dated mid-1990s CGI) but overall this is a very well-shot, well-acted, well-written show. The Missing Years even explains a few things that never quite added up for me in the original. Why didn't Meggie's brothers ever have children of their own? Why were Meggie and Jussie so bitter at the world? How exactly did Ralph get promoted to cardinal? These questions are answered in this miniseries. Most of the recasts didn't even bother me. The only one that really stood out was Vittorio, and he was only even on screen for a few minutes. Nobody can replace Jean Simmons, but Julia Blake as Fee played the part very well. In my opinion, by far the stand-out performance was from Simon Westaway as Luke. He absolutely nailed the voice, accent and attitude of everyone's least favorite Aussie. They even appear to have put make-up on his forehead to imitate a scar on Bryan Brown's face in the original. While there are inconsistencies with the original (which seemed to imply that Ralph had never met Jussie or Dane before), they are all minor and easy to ignore. Many of the so-called inconsistencies are nothing-burgers. 19 years is a long time for people to change. Overall, I found The Missing Years to be a welcome addition to The Thorn Birds story. It is not perfect, but no work of art is. And if you watch it with an open mind, maybe you will see the miniseries that I saw: a flawed but underrated labor of love that deserves more appreciation for trying to tell a missing side of the story. Like I said earlier, 19 years is a lot of time for things to happen. And I appreciate the filmmakers for trying to show a small portion of the 19 years that went missing in the original.

I read the book and loved the original mini serie. And yes, 19 years were skipped in it.

But only one thing from the book is here in The missing years. The brothers who went to fight in ww 2. The rest is totally made up for this unnecessary flick.

Luke never came back to Meggie and abducted Dane. That storyline is utter rubbish. It makes these so called missing years a hidious deviation from the original story by Colleen McCullough.

Only Richard Chamberlain reprised his role as Ralph de Bricassart, the other characters are replaced with other actors. On top of that they act completely out of character. Complete waste of time, this thing.

I liked it. Mainly because this was actually filmed in Australia. I never found the original credible. The awful attempt to make Hawaii look like rural Australia by chucking a few sheep into the background failed dismally and the Drogheeda mansion looked like a poor relation of the house from 'Giant'. As for the weird, definitely non-Aussie out-buildings - what a joke. This time the authentic location made 'The Missing Years' much more believable. As for the young Dane being criticized for having a broad Aussie accent - how dumb can you be. He is an Australian character being played by an Australian boy - what would you prefer - one of those fake cockney Hollywood versions of an Australian accent? The plot was fine, if a bit predictable, the acting was as good as any in the original, if not better. So it was not the original cast. So what? Accept it for what it is - entertainment - and enjoy it.