To understand the fury, you must first understand the source material. L.M. Montgomery wrote eight books about Anne, from Anne of Green Gables (1908) to Rilla of Ingleside (1921). The Continuing Story shares its name with no specific Montgomery novel. Instead, it borrows thematic elements from Anne of Windy Poplars , Anne’s House of Dreams , and Anne of Ingleside , but quickly abandons them.
It dares to ask the question that L.M. Montgomery, who suffered from depression and lived through two world wars, knew in her bones but rarely wrote directly: What happens to a woman of imagination when the real world turns into a nightmare?
Rather than attempting to retrofit the remaining novels into the established timeline, writer/director Kevin Sullivan and his team made a daring choice: they wrote an original screenplay. They took the characters fans loved and placed them into a specific historical context that the books had largely skirted: the First World War. Anne of Green Gables- The Continuing Story
For millions of viewers worldwide, the story of Anne Shirley did not end with a wedding cake or a dance under the stars. While the 1985 miniseries and its 1987 sequel, Anne of Avonlea , are etched into the collective memory as cozy, pastoral comfort viewing, the third installment of the Kevin Sullivan production remains a fascinating enigma.
But if you are willing to separate the film from the books—to treat it as a piece of historical fan-fiction or an "alternate universe" story—then The Continuing Story offers a powerful, devastating experience. To understand the fury, you must first understand
The score, for example, is haunting. Don Gillis replaced Hagood Hardy, and the music shifts from Celtic fiddle tunes to mournful cello dirges. The cinematography is grey and desaturated, a far cry from the golden-hued Avonlea. In short, everything about the film looks and sounds wrong for Anne, because it was designed to be wrong. It is the record scratch in the middle of a waltz.
Then, in 2000, Sullivan Entertainment released Anne of Green Gables: The Continuing Story . It was not the gentle, pastoral romance of L.M. Montgomery’s later books. Instead, it was a sprawling, operatic drama set against the trenches of World War I. And it shattered the fandom. The Continuing Story shares its name with no
The Continuing Story begins where that joy leaves off. And it immediately asks a question Montgomery never dared to: What if the 20th century ripped Anne and Gilbert apart?
This decision alienated some purists who wanted to see the specific plot points of Rilla of Ingleside played out verbatim. However, it allowed the filmmakers to explore a darker, more mature theme: the loss of innocence. If the first film was about finding a home, and the second about finding a vocation, The Continuing Story is about finding the strength to survive in a world turned upside down.