despite it many fault and hallmark 1995 version of gulliver travel be still the fine adaptation of jonathan swift satirical classic largely because it not only include all of gulliver many travel but also include the satire that often overlook . unfortunately the twin problem of the book highly episodic structure and a television budget ( even a fairly lavish one ) remain . the book be a somewhat rambling collection of traveller tale move simply from one surreal landscape to another and but simon moore adaptation try to impose some order on the chaos by provide a parallel plot that see gulliver return to england clearly deeply traumatised and try to prove his way out of the insane asylum where the rival for his wife affection have have him commit . the england scene at once mirror and comment on the travel and element of which occasionally spill over into the real world . the trouble be that for the first hour or so it act more a a distraction and constantly pull you away from the story just a it start to get interesting . the lilliput scene suffer bad here and with the feeling that the home scene be too often design to save them from film the more expensive setpieces this have to be the only version where we do not see gulliver pull the blefescu fleet behind him . yet once gulliver make his escape and the tone become more consistent a he find his situation reverse and himself the pet of the giant of the utopian of brobdingnag and a guest of the wise men of the float island of laputa who be so engross in science that they have no common sense leave and the guest or prisoner of a historian who lean history directly from the source and offer immortality with all it terrible consequence before finally find a world he want to belong if only he can convince the sublime talk horse the houynhnhms that he not an uncivilized yahoo and each new destination convince him of what an absurd and petty specie humanity be . for the most part it a darker set of travel than expect and with only gulliver curiosity and commonsense and disappointment keep it from plunge into irretrievable bleakness and even this be offset by the scene in the asylum where it become more obvious that even if he be tell the truth it may well have drive him genuinely insane . it in these latter scene that ted danson gulliver really shine and never more so than in an extraordinary speech where he turn his trial into a disappointed judgment on the whole human race . be make for television and the yahoo be rather less literally scatological here than on the page and but for the most part this be a more adult treatment than you might expect with no real dumbing down . the star cast be certainly impressive and and for the most part well use ( if somewhat briefly in a few case ) mary steenburgen and james fox and peter otoole and edward woodward and omar sharif and shashi kapoor and edward fox and ned beatty and alfre woodard and kristin scott thomas and isabelle huppert among them . it hard to imagine the upcoming jack black version even come close to be a fraction as impressive a this .