My husband and I saw The Chosen trailer on his streaming service. I’m interested in watching it. Is it well done? Does it stay close to the Biblical Gospels? Thanks for any honest review you can give.
I think it is one of the best mini-series ever made about Jesus. There are always issues when dialogue is added that is not from the Bible. But I think they do a good job of blending the lives of the disciples into the biblical account. Since it is crowd-funded, they have only completed two seasons and are working on the third. I believe you can watch it from YouTube or their website. It starts off kind of slow in my opinion but by the second or third episode, it is pretty good. I would watch the first three episodes and see for yourself. Most people we have talked to about it have enjoyed it.
I watched it....
.....and personally would still recommend Jesus of Nazareth
....
It’s very well done and will bring you to tears more often than not. That said it’s well over 90 percent plus non biblical speculation. It aims to do a lot of fill in background of the culture and the lives of the disciples and others who were around Jesus. Some of it is jarring but I would say for the most part it fits very well with the biblical narrative.
I will add this to the comments you have already received. A problem I had with it is that it is very low budget. This sometimes took me out of the show. The Romans wear chrome-plated armor that looks like it was just manufactured. It isn't properly aged and antiqued because it is probably on loan from a re-enactor who wanted it back pristine. There is a scene in which Jesus is supposed to be speaking to "a crowd". He asks Simon if he can speak from his boat to better address the crowd. I don't remember how many people there were, but I seem to remember it being about 9 or 10 people at the most. He was standing right with them and could easily have addressed them without going into the boat.
Later in the same scene is a famous moment in which Jesus has Simon cast his net again and, due to a miracle from Jesus, Simon and the other fishermen pull the net back in laden with fish (this scene is done much better in Jesus of Nazareth). However, the boat has scarcely left the beach. They are not in water deep enough for fish to swim or for Simon to have cast his net. Maybe they thought no one would notice? I get that they are hampered by the budget (the series is produced with money raised from crowdfunding), but scenes like that call too much attention to the low budget.
My wife and I watched 5 or 6 episodes before stalling out on it. It seems they drag out a plot (like Simon not being able to pay his taxes) for more episodes than needed, and Simon and his wife seem to have the same argument over and over. We'll probably resume it at some time. I read that for the second season they were allowed to film on an existing biblical village set that the Mormons use; so maybe the production values are better going forward.
My wife and I really enjoy The Chosen.
It seems to be pretty Biblical but there are differences in the time lines which I suppose is to further the plot. The first miracle Jesus performs is casting the demons out of Mary Magdeline in the movie.
But -that sets up a very public event and gets the Roman soldiers and the priests involved in the story right away.
Not sure if Jesus turning water into wine at a private event would have been able to cause as big of a ruckus to create a plot filled with tension, good and evil, etc.