I found it less sympathetic, especially in his family life. While in reality John Adams took his son John Quincy with him the first time he went to Europe, he actually returned briefly (skipped over in the movie) and was then sent back to Europe. On his return he took his two younger sons, Charles and Thomas. Then after Adams helped sign the peace treaty to end the Revolutionary War - left out of the miniseries entirely, oddly enough - he sent for Abigail who came WITH Nabby. Nabby in fact met her husband in Europe and they had their first child while Adams was serving as ambassador to England. They even had Jefferson comment, "I wish I could have met your children," when in reality he DID meet John Quincy and Nabby in Paris and became very well acquainted with the whole family...John Q especially became enamored of Jefferson and often had dinner with him in Paris. Later, when John Q was moving up in national politics (first as the Secretary of State to Monroe, which was seen as a stepping stone to the Presidency, and then as President himself) Adams remarked to Jefferson that John Q sometimes felt, "almost as much your boy as mine."
I understand why many dramatic liberties were taken with history, because this was to be entertainment, not a documentary. That is why, for the sake of story-telling, we did not need to see Adams's brief return visit to Massachusetts when he was only there for a couple of months before being sent right back. Certain things that David McCullough (in his biography that this mini-series is based on) said were almost certainly inaccurate - such as Adams telling Jefferson that he should write the Declaration because he, Adams, was 'Obnoxious, suspected, and unpopular,' which McCullough points out was Adams looking back at it from old age...At the time he was not suspected, NOT unpopular, and most definitely not referred to as obnoxious by anyone. He was widely considered to be the primary force behind Independence...Jefferson ended up getting the lion's share of the credit through history for writing the Declaration (which is funny because after the oft quoted and incredibly famous first paragraph, the Declaration is nothing special and is in fact sometimes ridiculous in that it blames George III for things that not only did the majority of the Continental Congress and the people know at the time to be blatantly false, but some of which were patently absurd, making it mostly propaganda) while Adams's role is less remembered and cherished.
The miniseries isn't far off on most major things, even if it makes him look like an absentee father and thereby giving more substance to Charles's anger with him in the miniseries than he'd have had if the truth had been shown. On the whole it does an excellent job of shining a light on the remarkable life of John Adams, his accomplishments, and bringing to the forefront the truth that Adams is the most responsible person as a legislator for our break from Britain. Before we built our nation in 1787-88, we had to separate from Britain in 1776, and while George Washington was the key man in actually winning our independence and making it a fact with victory in arms, Adams was the key man in declaring it, and in getting the other colonies to acknowledge themselves as states separate from the power of George III and his Parliament. Our society values action, and especially military action, over words and legislation, which is why Washington was more esteemed at the time and still is today, but the actions of Washington from 1776 in Boston to 1781 in Yorktown would not have been possible without John Adams.
"Well if you wanted to make Serak the Preparer cry...mission accomplished."
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