A Giant Make-Over

Actor Matthew Modine gets the same reaction whenever he tells friends about his latest TV project, “Jack and the Beanstalk: The Real Story,” a fanciful four-hour drama airing Sunday and Tuesday on CBS.

“When people ask me about it, you see their faces screw up,” says Modine (“And the Band Played On,” “What the Deaf Man Heard”). “They always laugh when I tell them [the plot]--it is 400 years later and the giants want their stuff back. They say: ‘That’s great.”’

“Jim Henson’s Jack and the Beanstalk: The Real Story” isn’t quite as simplistic as Modine’s explanation. Produced by Jim Henson Television and directed by the late Muppet master’s son, Brian, the lavish miniseries is a live-action fairy tale for adults that is inspired by the children’s story about the young man who climbs the beanstalk, kills the evil giant and steals his singing harp and a goose that lays golden eggs.

In this retelling, Modine plays 39-year-old Jack Robinson, the great-great-great-grandson of the original Jack. The powerful chief executive of Robinson International--a company founded generations ago, which he inherited from his father--Jack learns from a mysterious young woman named Ondine (Mia Sara) that the giant of the fairy tale, known as Blundermore Thunderdell (Bill Baretta), was actually a sweet gentleman. Ever since the first Jack stole the goose and the harp, all the inhabitants of the land of the giants have suffered from poverty and despair. Now, the oldest and wisest giant, Magog (Richard Attenborough), wants justice--he wants Jack to pay for the sins of his fathers.

Vanessa Redgrave also stars as Jack’s seemingly ageless aunt, Jon Voight is Jack’s main advisor, and Daryl Hannah plays a giant.

The Jim Henson Creature Shop created the enchanting animatronic characters--including a talking goose--and the 550 special effects. The movie was filmed in England in late 2000.

Henson, who took over the company after his father’s death in 1990, says that “Jack and the Beanstalk” was the brainchild of Michael Wright, vice president of movies and miniseries for CBS Productions.

“He called me and [writer] Jim Hart and said, ‘Can you think of a way of doing ‘Jack and the Beanstalk’ over two nights?’ He really didn’t have anything more than that.”

So Henson and Hart went away and read all the versions of the fairy tale. “Every retelling of ‘Jack and the Beanstalk’ was different,” says Henson. “I got back to Michael and I said, ‘I don’t like “Jack and the Beanstalk.” It feels to me that it was a fairy tale that became mostly rooted from the British empire-building times. It feels like a story that glorifies people going out and conquering [lands], and now they are rich and heroes. I kind of disagree with the morality of it.’ Michael said, ‘Maybe you want to do something around that,’ and Jim and I started thinking.”

Over the next few weeks they came up with the idea of undoing “Jack and the Beanstalk.” “We got really into the idea of creating a modern myth,” says Henson, “a modern fairy tale, because no one is really trying to do that. ‘Jack and the Beanstalk’ is perfect because no one has ever told it the same way twice, so it is not like a piece of sacrosanct literature. Here is a piece that has traditionally changed with the times, so let’s change it to create a new fairy tale, a new, modern morality tale that encompasses modern social values and modern social morality.”

Modine shares the same feelings as Henson regarding the original “Jack and the Beanstalk.” He recalls 14 years ago reading the story to his young son, Bowman. “When you hear it as a child, it is really a spooky kind of scary story,” he says. “And as a father, to read the story to your son, it’s really fun because you get do to these voices. But reading it as an adult, I took it quite literally--here is a story of a boy who climbs a beanstalk and steals a goose and a harp and kills the giant and lives happily ever after. I said, ‘I don’t like that story. I don’t want to read that story anymore. I don’t want him to think it’s OK to steal and murder.”’

This “Jack and the Beanstalk,” Modine says, is a great what-if story. “What if Jack was lying and the giant was a nice guy?”

*

“Jim Henson’s Jack and the Beanstalk: The Real Story” can be seen Sunday and Tuesday at 9 p.m. on CBS. The network has rated it TV-PG-V (maybe unsuitable for young children, with an advisory for violence).