New Zealand Adventure/Secret Series

[Moonraker]

Woods of Adventure was really Castle of Adventure. Southern (or was it TVS?) held the copyright for the title, so our NZ friends had to rename it.

[Anita Bensoussane]

Well, I'm mostly interested in "Castle" and "Valley" and was wondering how they realized the castle scenes in New Zealand?

The Woods of Adventure is a completely different story to The Castle of Adventure, though it does feature a (fake-looking) castle.

[Chrissie777]

Thank you, Anita !

[Tony Summerfield]

I wouldn't waste your money on the NZ series. It's awful.

I guess it is all a matter of opinion, but I have just watched the whole series (you can only buy it as a complete set and I bought mine on ebay) and overall I found it quite enjoyable. The main characters are all good, although a few of the 'baddies' were certainly OTT! Each story was originally done as three half hour episodes, so all the adaptations are far longer than any of the Famous Five episodes.

[Julie2owlsdene]

I notice on ebay and Amazon that you can also buy the Secret Series - On Ebay the Adventure series is £29.95 and the Secret Series is £39.95. Totalling £69.90

On Amazon the Adventure Series is £32.99 and the Secret Series is £32.99 totalling £55.98, so to buy both is cheaper on Amazon. Must say I am tempted!!

[Wolfgang]

I might mess up with the sums, but according to my arithmetic skills I'd say with 2 times £32.99 you have a total of £65,98, which is still cheaper than ebay though.
It's somehow ridiculous that you get 8 episodes for £30 und 5 episodes for £40, or £33 each on Amazon...

[Fiona1986]

Depending on the postage, wouldn't it be even cheaper to buy the Adventure series from eBay and the Secret series from Amazon? That'd be less than £63

[Anita Bensoussane]

I wouldn't waste your money on the NZ series. It's awful.

I guess it is all a matter of opinion, but I have just watched the whole series (you can only buy it as a complete set and I bought mine on ebay) and overall I found it quite enjoyable. The main characters are all good, although a few of the 'baddies' were certainly OTT!

I viewed the whole series about six weeks ago and meant to post about it on here at the time but was too busy (partly because whenever I had a bit of spare time, I was watching the Adventure series! ) I watched the stories in order and was disappointed with Bill in The Island of Adventure. He and Jo-Jo (whitened and called Joe) looked pretty similar, except that Joe had more charisma! However, Bill grew on me as the series went on. The setting for The Island of Adventure (which featured in some of the other stories too) was beautiful, and the story well-told though not identical to the book. Events were supposedly taking place in England, as in the original, though they were clearly filmed in New Zealand. Other episodes in the series were set elsewhere but were probably all filmed in New Zealand, I think. All four children spoke with New Zealand accents while Bill sounded Scottish and Allie English. The character of Allie was far more developed than in the books, and I liked the way she was portrayed. The four children were very natural too, and likeable. I agree with Tony that some of the villains were over the top, particularly in The Ship of Adventure and The Circus of Adventure. Horace Tipperlong in The Sea of Adventure was great though! Overall I too enjoyed the series, the only dud episode for me being The Woods of Adventure (it was more like The Secret of Moon Castle than The Castle of Adventure). I wasn't as keen on Ship and Circus either because of the comic crooks, but the rest of the series was very watchable in its own right, even if it didn't scream "Enid Blyton".

What was that nifty little hand-held scanner that Jack used in The Ship of Adventure? It looked like a vacuum cleaner attachment and he just had to run it over a map or something and it would scan it into a portable computer (a basic and limited computer, being the early 1990s). Did such scanners ever exist?

By the way, the DVD set contains bonus material about the making of the series. It shows the creation of the secret passages, the training of Kiki (more than one Kiki!) and footage from the auditions, among other things, and is well worth a watch.

[Chrissie777]

I have just watched the whole series (you can only buy it as a complete set and I bought mine on ebay) and overall I found it quite enjoyable. Each story was originally done as three half hour episodes, so all the adaptations are far longer than any of the Famous Five episodes.

Hi Tony,

That sounds very promising.
BTW I will get it in October.
If I could find a way to transfer the older movie with Susan George (The Castle of Adventure) onto DVD, I would order the VHS tape in a heartbeat. It has been filmed at Saltwood Castle in Kent, so it has to be gorgeous!

[Wolfgang]

What was that nifty little hand-held scanner that Jack used in The Ship of Adventure? It looked like a vacuum cleaner attachment and he just had to run it over a map or something and it would scan it into a portable computer (a basic and limited computer, being the early 1990s). Did such scanners ever exist?

Actually hand-held scanner exist, my first scanner was a hand-held one, 256 gray-scale for Windows 3.1. It didn't run on Windows 95, so I had to buy another one then. They didn't have their own powersupply, they got it from the PC. So basically it's possible things worked out that way. Whether there was one with that shape I can't say though. What's far more astonishing is the highly efficient software Jack was able to use, but I think I mentioned that previously already.

[Anita Bensoussane]

Thanks for the information, Wolfgang!

[Soenke Rahn]

By the way - not the same but possibly similar: http://www.c64-wiki.de/index.php/Handyscanner_64

[Darrell71]

Really, Moonraker, I'm with ya: Aaaaaaaaaaaaargh!

[Moonraker]

I wouldn't waste your money on the NZ series. It's awful.

I guess it is all a matter of opinion, but I have just watched the whole series (you can only buy it as a complete set and I bought mine on ebay) and overall I found it quite enjoyable.

I too have the complete set on DVD, so I will give them a second viewing!

[Chrissie777]

Actually it's not that bad. Allie and Bill are much younger than in the 8 books and Bill is quite attractive (not the way he looks in the books).
For "Island of Adventure" they even found a New Zealand coastline which has an island next to it.
"Castle of Adventure" is quite spooky with a crazy monk. They called it "Woods of Adventure" (probably because of the movie with Susan George?), but it's based on "Castle", but changed a lot.
I still have to watch the other 6 sequels, but so far I enjoyed it.
Next year I plan to order the "Secret Series"
http://www.amazon.co.uk/Enid-Blyton-Sec ... 930&sr=1-1" onclick="window.open(this.href);return false;
Did anybody already watch it and can tell me more about it?