The original post: /r/television by /u/ToughDesigner7072 on 2025-11-22 17:40:37+00:00.
I recently watched the original Roots miniseries (1977) and have now been going through the 2016 remake, and I have found the original to be far superior in message, nuance, script, and character direction.
What the original does so relevantly to today’s realities, is that it captures the nuances of emotions and motivations amongst all of its characters. This lends to a much stronger messaging about the institution of slavery, and the modern outcroppings of racism and discrimination that linger. The original series thus makes each character multi-dimensional and allows us a true introspection as viewers.
The remake loses the nuance and thus loses the power of the messaging. The characters feel single sided, rigid and wooden as if forcing a narrative, but it comes off as inauthentic with motivations that don’t feel believable and often tropish. This would certainly be even more polarizing and thus powerful moments of the original hardly register in the remake, and lose the opportunity for similar self reflection.
Kunta Kinte playing with the slave traders in the market is the first time we realize Kunta took on the message of his fellow captive of surviving. He mentions his real name to Fiddler but almost in a pleading way as if realizing the immense weight against him of losing his identity due to his captivity. The iconic moment where Kunta is whipped and tortured to say his slave name Toby shows the actor expressing true saddness and the reactions of his fellow captives shows a transition from hope and supporting strength, to a resignation and loss of hope.
In the original, Fiddler truly comes off as wise and well able to handle a higher level of self preservation, playing to the wishes of his masters for survival while harboring the true nature of his captivity.
Most of all, in the original, the white characters are far more realistic in the mannerisms, shades of situational behavior, and motivations. The slave ship Captain is one of the best portrayals of the conflict between a moral religious message, vs the cultural and political waves prevalent in the moment. He clearly appears shocked and conflicted at what he is witnessing, yet shows his yielding to the slave industry as a strong message of how institutionalized and systemic racism occurs. He doesn’t like it, but it’s paying his wage. He would rather stay quiet despite his conflict than lose his paycheck. Every moment of his story is an incredible exposition of the slave trade as well: sharing with the audience the details of how the African slaves were packed in a mathematically calculated way, why both men and women slaves are desired, and the horrors of what happened to female captives. The captain continuously slips into a deeper and deeper state of dissolution and it is portrayed excellently.
Dr. Reynolds exposes to us that high intelligence doesn’t preclude someone from accepting the political and social power of slavery, even while others may believe in false tropes of their slave captives as lacking intelligence, language or being animals. Simply, Dr. Reynolds is an opportunist even if he has more heart. His delivery of Kizzy packs an emotional weight that emphasizes the horror of him later selling her off.
The slave handlers similarly have far more nuance. They provide the beliefs or rationalizations of the slaves they are managing as sub-human.
In the remake, Kunta simply comes off as rebellious. He’s rebellious with his Mandinka leaders. He’s rebellious with the slave traders. He’s rebellious with Fiddler, and he’s even rebellious with Belle. His insufferability in this portrayal does not give us a reason for his surrounding characters to give him sympathy. It feels like a forced plot as a result.
Fiddler is also far more rebellious, and it doesn’t stand to reason of why he would be given any better treatment than any other field slave. We just have to assume that he gets better treatment due to his musical skills alone which feels inauthentic. They give Fiddler a more heroic end, but at the same time the fight scene made little sense - how could 1 much older slave dispatch 4 men of equal or larger stature? There’s no payoff from his demise. Kunta hardly reflects on the emotional loss of his only friend for more than a decade to simply expressing his anger at his situation. In the original, Fiddler’s end carried a much more emotional weight in how the older Kunta was saddened purely due to loss of his decades old friend.
The slave ship sequence totally loses key points in its portrayal: no discussion of how or why the slaves are kept the way they are, no reason to explain why they are told to dance, no focus on the fact that the slaves were kept for weeks on end without the ability to properly relieve their bowels normally, no motivations of any of the white characters reasoning or justifications or emotional understandings of the situation. It just a chaotic sequence of things happening, with no moments to linger and reflect, and the white characters looking like evil comic strip characters.
Dr. Reynolds, Mr. Reynolds, the handlers, and majority of other white characters are shown with only characterizations of inhumanity and selfishness.
Finally, the iconic torture scene of Kunta falls flat. We see him yielding, but we get none of the wave of emotions from his fellow captives - none of the hope followed by the loss of hope.
I do appreciate more accuracy in the dressing of the Mandinka tribe, the element of adding the mounted mastery which makes their portrayal and that of Kunta more powerful, vs a generic bushman in the original. But these don’t impact the story and narrative much. The remake even lacks more of the parent’s emotions and scenes. We don’t even get to sympathize with them or their loss. They only appear like ghosts in a dream to Kunta later.
The modern cinematography is also quite distracting at times vs the more clear and clean vistas and stable footage style of the past.