Before we begin, I have to get something off of my chest. Lifetime, when you announced The Unauthorized Full House Story shortly after completing The Unauthorized Saved by the Bell Story, I admit that I was excited. Growing up, I would always watch Full House with my grandmother and my uncle on Saturday mornings, usually after a Power Rangers and Digimon programming block on ABC Family known as Jetix. Back then, I wasn't as fond of sitcoms as I am now, and if I had to say what shows sparked my interest in this genre of television, it would be both Full House and Boy Meets World. However, when I finally saw The Unauthorized Full House Story on Lifetime a week ago, I was more disappointed than excited. I was hoping to see the behind the scenes story of what is probably my favorite sitcom of all time, as well as some of my favorite scenes and some iconic scenes from the show recreated. While I saw the behind the scenes story and drama of what happened while filming (albeit in a truncated format, as many incidents I heard about from interviews and news articles were either merely mentioned or omitted entirely), I was severely disappointed by the recreations of scenes from Full House, as out of the three scenes they seemingly "re-created", only one of them actually stayed faithful to the series. What also disappointed me was that aside from the actors who played Bob Saget and Dave Coulier, none of the actors looked like their real-life counterparts. The Olsen Twins were also aged up a bit as opposed to being nine months old when the series began. Also, Lori Loughlin and Andrea Barber's actresses looked absolutely nothing like the people they were supposed to be portraying. At least Candace Cameron and Jodie Sweetin's many actresses in the movie made the effort to at least attempt to look like their counterparts, despite being unsuccessful. I also felt the film focused too much on Bob Saget and his wife than it did with Full House, similar to how a film released in 2005 called Behind the Camera: The Unauthorized Story of 'Mork & Mindy' focused more on the relationship between the late Robin Williams (may he rest in peace) and his first wife.
One last thing as well that irked me was that my favorite character, Steve, (played by Scott Weinger, whom you may know as the voice of Aladdin's title character) was glossed over almost entirely, aside from their poorly made remake of Full House's final scene in which DJ Tanner is waiting anxiously for her prom date only to discover it is her ex boyfriend, Steve, who had left the show in the final episode of the seventh season due to him and DJ breaking up (the break up episode being one of my favorites). However, despite having a mostly negative opinion of the movie, there were some parts I actually liked. One such part is the ending, which surprisingly was not at the show's final curtain call, but a couple of years after the series ended. We actually end the film at the wedding of Candace Cameron-Bure with a narration by Bob Saget's actor, and I felt that was a satisfying ending. Another part I enjoyed was how accurately Saget and Coulier's actors portrayed their characters both physically and in personality. However, I do feel that Coulier's actor acted more like Robin Williams in various scenes. Overall, the film is not bad, but it is also far from a good film. I feel that they should have taken more time with it, maybe even delaying it to give it more polish and refinement. This film had potential, and I feel that maybe with a little more time taken with it, I could have enjoyed it. I would not mind if it had a 2016 release as opposed to the Summer 2015 release it received. The pacing is rushed, the characters are severely bland and undeveloped, and the focus should have been more on Full House than Bob Saget and his wife. I honestly hope that Fuller House arriving next year on Netflix is much better than this film.
