Riverworld (2003 film)
| Riverworld | |
|---|---|
DVD cover
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| Genre | Science fiction |
| Directed by | Kari Skogland |
| Starring |
Brad Johnson Karen Holness Emily Lloyd Jeremy Birchall Kevin Smith |
| Country of origin | Canada |
| Original language(s) | English |
| No. of episodes | 1 |
| Production | |
| Running time | 86 minutes |
| Release | |
| Original network | Sci-Fi Channel |
| Original release | March 22, 2003 |
Riverworld is a sci-fi/fantasy feature-length pilot episode for a series that was never produced. It aired on the Sci-Fi Channel in 2003. It was loosely based on the Hugo Award-winning "Riverworld" saga by Philip José Farmer. Production began in 2001. It was rebooted in 2010, under the same title.
In the year 2009, a meteor shower above Earth claims the life of American astronaut Jeff Hale (Brad Johnson). He awakens inside a jade-green bubble beneath the surface of a body of water filled with them. A mysterious cloaked figure pierces his bubble with a staff pressing it against his forehead, forcefully filling his mind with images to come. Dazed and in pain, he soon finds himself crawling nude onto a beach littered with metal canisters containing unisex clothing. Soon dozens of people from different lands and historical eras emerge from the water, also nude, and distribute the canisters. All understand each other's language, except a lone Neanderthal man, who lacks the capacity for speech.
Hale learns that the "known world" is the bank of a massive river. Anyone who has ever lived on Earth at any time in history is qualified to start life anew on Riverworld, reborn in his or her prime of life. Other cloaked figures are seen fleetingly, but their purpose is unknown. Food is provided, and the climate is clement. The need for shelter is easily provided by available resources and simple manual labor.
Hale meets and makes close friends with some of his fellow castaways, all of them from different time periods: Alice Liddell Hargreaves (Emily Lloyd); Mali (Karen Holness), a former slave of the pre-Civil War era; and Lev Ruach (Jeremy Birchall), a Jewish victim of the Nazi Holocaust. The Neanderthal among the castaways is later killed by a man introducing himself as Lucius Domitus Ahenobarbus (Jonathan Cake), a citizen of Ancient Rome. When Hale begins to argue with Lucius about the latter's ethics, Lucius attacks him for the leadership; but their fight is interrupted by slavers under the rulership of one Valdemar (Kevin Smith), who has erected his own empire and plans to expand it.
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