Detroit Free Press
Neal Justin, Detroit Free Press
No one believes that “Roots” will get the attention the 1977 version did.
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Tribune Content Agency, LLC
No one believes that “Roots,” a new interpretation of Alex Haley’s blockbuster novel airing beginning Monday, will get the attention the 1977 version did. Then again, expectations weren’t too high the first time around.

ABC, whose pride and joy at the time was “Happy Days,” was so skeptical of the sprawling history lesson about American slavery that it elected to “burn off” the entire story over eight consecutive nights in January, today’s equivalent of banishing a new show to Saturday evenings.

By the final evening, roughly 85% of all TV viewers in the U.S. had watched at least part of the series — and television executives fully embraced the concept of the miniseries, setting the stage for such blockbusters as “Shogun,” “The Thorn Birds” and “The Winds of War.” More important, the phenomenon sparked spirited discussion in living rooms across the country, inspiring teens to explore black culture and struggles.

Almost 40 years later, “Roots,” is being reintroduced to a new generation via the History Channel, A&E and Lifetime. Over the course of four nights, viewers will be transported to Gambia in West Africa in 1750 to partake in the middle passage voyage of Mandinka warrior Kunta Kinte.

For those who don’t know the story based on Haley’s novel of the same name, the story follows Kunta Kinte’s growth to manhood, abduction by slave catchers, transportation to an American plantation and the subsequent generations of his line — all of whom are trying to keep their families together and traditions alive in a time when mere survival is a struggle.

When the original “Roots” debuted, Mark Wolper, 16 at the time, had a particularly advantageous seat. His father, David Wolper, was the series’ executive producer and its main champion from Day 1. The two would go on to work together on the 1988 sequel “Roots: The Gift” and 1993’s “Queen,” another miniseries based on an Alex Haley book, this one starring Halle Berry.

Wolper was approached many times, before and after his father’s death in 2010, to take a stab at a remake. He refused.

“Even without the father-son shadow issues, I can’t think of a more daunting, frightening thing to do,” Wolper said by phone.

A couple of years ago, he decided it was time for his own 16-year-old son to experience some family history, almost forcing him to sit through all 9½ hours of his grandfather’s most heralded project. Junior wasn’t impressed.

“He couldn’t get into it,” Wolper said. “He said, ‘Dad, I get why it’s important, but it’s a little like your music. It doesn’t speak to me.’ It was at that moment I had this revelation. His generation knows the stories of slavery and even ‘Roots,’ but they haven’t seen it visually in a way that school doesn’t really teach you.”

Traditionalists have the opportunity to see the original when it’s rereleased on Blu-ray on June 7. But younger people are likely to be more attracted to this History Channel production with its slightly shorter running time — eight hours stretched over four straight nights beginning Monday — revved-up action and more defiant characters.

Grueling scenes of central character Kunta Kinte training to be a warrior in his West African village could have been lifted from “Survivor.”

Extended scenes from the Revolutionary War, in which slaves were promised freedom in exchange for siding with England, feature a moment in which an African-American soldier emerges from muddy waters like Rambo getting ready to pounce.

Slaves are still whipped and raped in this version, but not before delivering a kick to the master’s groin.

Daina Ramey Berry, a professor of American history at the University of Texas, defended the more rebellious approach.

“In my classroom, students often ask, ‘Why didn’t they just run away?’ ” Berry said. “As I see it, it’s important to show that African-Americans didn’t just bow down to the oppression.”

The emphasis on fighting back and casting of young, contemporary stars — Anna Paquin, Jonathan Rhys Meyers and Mekhi Phifer all make appearances — may inspire a new generation to start examining their genealogical trees.

Berry also hopes the miniseries will help explain the anger still simmering in the country.

“You don’t have to accept the context, but you have to understand it,” she said.

LeVar Burton, who played Kunta Kinte in the original series, has no doubt that “Roots” can make a difference again.

“As far as we have come in the area of race relations and the topics of social justice, fairness and equality, we still have a long way to go,” said Burton, who served as an executive producer on the 2016 version. “‘Roots’ was, and I believe can be again, an opportunity to do more than simply entertain. It’s an opportunity to educate and enlighten through our storytelling.”

Now if only Wolper can convince his son, now in college, to give it another chance.

“I’d like to have a family screening this summer,” he said. “But unfortunately, he’ll probably watch it on his cell phone in his dorm room.”

The stars of ‘Roots’ reflect

Is it too downbeat?

“I think art that confronts dark passages and turns it in a way that develops our consciousness, our sense of identity, our future, is honorable. So I don’t think it’s something to be avoided. I think it’s something to be taken with a great sense of responsibility — and that drives the work to a more ambitious place than it would be otherwise.”

– Rege-Jean Page, who plays Chicken George, the grandson of Kunta Kinte

Why do it again?

“Many people have said, ‘Oh, God, do we have to make it again?’ Well, yes. When they made it in the 1970s it was almost a ‘Masterpiece Theatre’ version, whereas today, with our current ability and technology, we can produce ‘home cinema,’ which is something completely different from ‘television.’ ”

– Jonathan Rhys Meyers, who plays Tom Lea, a cruel and violent slaveholder

The challenge of the material

“I felt very inadequate. I had no idea how to take this on. He goes through things that I will never experience. He feels things that I don’t think I’ve ever felt. I play him from 18 to 50; I’m 26. There was something bigger than myself, something bigger that I needed to access to reach the depths of who this man was. That led me to pray. A lot!”

– Malachi Kirby, who plays the central role of Kunta Kinte

By the Associated Press

‘Roots’

Airing in four parts

9 p.m. Monday-Thursday

History, A&E, Lifetime and LMN