I must admit, I was not a rabid fan of the show as such a young age, When the shows began airing on Soapnet in the early 2000's I became hooked when everything of course made sense as an adult now.
It was like discovering the show for the first time. I am still amazed how good the show really is, particularly seasons 1-12.
After years of watching Dallas and becoming hooked on it, I wanted to see everything. The movies I will talk about below, I was not even aware of existing until this DVD set came out in 2011.
J.R. Returns from 1996, The War of the Ewings from 1998, and The Early Years from back in 1986 are all worthy of watching at least one time.
The Early Years turned out to be a real surprise, considering none of the original cast appear. More on that below.
JR Returns:
Of the 2 movies released after the original series ended in 1991, J.R. Returns from 1996 is by far the best of the two. JR Returns takes place 5 years after the events of the series finale.
Any notion that J.R. took his own life at the end of that 1991 episode is laid to rest, when the opening scene shows J.R. shoot the mirror instead of himself.
J.R. Returns is an absolute blast, and I find myself watching the movie quite often. Some of the crooked stuff J.R. does in this movie are classic JR, and will definitely bring a smile to the Dallas fan's face.
Audrey Landers reprises her role as Afton Cooper, and Ken Kerchival as Cliff Barnes, Deborah Rennard as Sly, and George Kennedy as Carter McKay, and of course Patrick Duffy as Bobby, Linda Gray as Sue Ellen, and Larry Hagman as JR.
Overall I like the film, the plot, the acting, and the ending. JR Return is befitting the Dallas legacy, and a whole lot of good, not so clean fun.
War of the Ewings
Of all the Material in this package, 1998's The War of the Ewings is the least appealing, its definitely worth watching once, but the antagonists in this one are so over the top that I find my self rolling eyes more often than not.
I have watched it a few times, it's just OK. It's the type of film that you can pick a part. On the good side Steve Kanaly returns to his Ray Krebbs roll and is a welcome sight.
Some of the secondary characters are very poor here, 2 particular come to mind: Michelle Johnson of Blame it on Rio fame, is Bobby's Love interest in the movie and not at all convincing.
A preposterous personal assistant to Carter McKay named Peter Ellington, he is portrayed by Philip Anglim, and the character is so bad he threatens to bring the entire film down with him.
Dallas: The Early years
This prequel from 1986 was very good, and much better than I had anticipated. My trepidation being that the entire cast is not familiar, and has nothing to do with the regular series, though this story "was" written by David Jacobs.
As you might expect, this movie deals with the beginning of Ewing Oil, how the Barnes Ewing feud started and the early dynamics between the Ellie's side of the family, "the Southworths" and Jock.
Dale Midkiff as Jock Ewing is very good, and certainly seems faithful to the original Jim Davis portrayed character.
Molly Hagen also does a nice job playing Miss Ellie, showing a very feisty style that seems logical for the younger Miss Ellie. Hoyt Axton does a fantastic job as well as Miss Ellie's Daddy Aaron Southworth. The running time on The Early Years is a brisk 3 hours.
Return to Southfork Reunion appears on the Movie Collection as a Bonus as Well
Return to Southfork originally aired on CBS November 7, 2004, then was packaged in the season 4 DVD set from 2006, then again 5 years later in the Movie Collection.
The real special part of this DVD is that Victoria Principal actually participates, the first time she had anything to do with the show since 1987. She genuinely seems happy to be there, and the chemistry with the rest of the cast is very good.
Of course Larry Hagman steals the show as you might expect. If you're a Dallas nut like me, you'll live with the fact you'll now have 2 copies of this reunion once you buy the Movie Collection.
Of all the Dallas DVD releases, The Movie Collection was like manna from heaven for the Dallas aficionado, you probably will never see these movies on regular over the air TV again.
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