What they've done is to take a great story created by a great writer (Philip Jose Farmer) and turn it into an unbelievable mess. To top it off, they did it TWICE. I have to hand it to them, though--this pile of crap is even higher and smellier than the first effort back in 2003. Granted, they had a lot of help from directors and writers and production companies that know nothing about SF, but SyFy gets the bulk of the blame here.
Two of Farmer's short pieces, "The Day of the Great Shout" (1965) and "The Suicide Express" (1966), evolved into a truly wonderful story, published in novel form and entitled "To Your Scattered Bodies Go" (1971).
In Farmer's story, everyone who ever lived on Earth have found themselves resurrected as healthy, young, and naked people on the grassy banks of an enormous river. Given food, but with no clues to the meaning of their strange new afterlife, billions of people from every period of Earth's history--and prehistory--must start again.
Prior to the event that came to be known as "Resurrection Day," Sir Richard Francis Burton gains an unplanned glimpse behind the scenes and is the first to realize that the Riverworld is no traditional afterlife. This forbidden sight would spur the renowned 19th-century explorer to uncover the truth. Along with a remarkable group of compatriots, including Alice Liddell Hargreaves (the Victorian girl who was the inspiration for Alice in Wonderland), an English-speaking Neanderthal, a WWII Holocaust survivor, and a wise extraterrestrial. Burton sets sail on the magnificent river to learn the truth.
Giving the newly resurrected metal, technology, horses and all the rest spoils the whole concept by depriving the viewer of the experience of seeing human beings take the very little they start with and build something wonderful.
Go read the book--this movie is a waste of time.
