I LOVE Alfonso Cuarón’s sci-fi action movie Children of Men. I’ve watched maybe six times and every time, the ending always almost brings me to tears. So when I learned it was adapted from P.D. James’ book of the same name, it was a no-brainer deciding what my next book would be.
After finishing the book, it wasn’t difficult to reach to the conclusion that I enjoyed the movie better.
While James’ book gives a more in-depth look at how human infertility and humanity’s slow death march towards extinction affects the sexual dynamic between men and women and almost demented ways humans try to cope with a world without children or a race of dead men walking, I feel the book dedicates WAY too much time describing the failing of human civilization and the Regrets and guilt of Theo Faron. It’s not even until after 2/3 through the book where it feels like the plot and story are properly paced and stuff of consequence actually begin to happen.
The film’s adaptation by, comparison, feels consistent in its pacing and the world building and woe-is-mes of Theo feel more compact a take up less of the audience’s time.
What books do you feel were worse than its film adaptation and why?
Queen of the Damned. Enjoyed the movie until I read the book and realized how much they changed and messed up the story.
I have deep, terrible feelings for that movie even though I know it’s objectively bad, lol. I absolutely loved the book, though.
I always thought one of the flaws of the movie was getting Jonathan Davis to do all the singing for Lestat. Lestat was supposed to have this ethereal changing voice, and in my opinion, they should’ve had the music from the soundtrack play for his singing instead to represent that. But I absolutely love the soundtrack, so… lol.
The soundtrack is fantastic. I agree on Jonathan Davis not being the right fit for Lestat’s singing voice, but I do understand why he was chosen for the job. I also just realized that I misread the title of the post (thanks ADHD brain), lol. Oops. I love the book. I have a strong dislike of the movie because of how much they changed the story, and because it’s so cringey in a bad way to me now (Aaliyah is wonderful as Akasha). I do watch it for pure nostalgia here and there because I loved it so much back then until I read the book a few years later, lol.
I only love it because an old friend and I who are no longer friends used to watch it long distance together before streaming was a thing. I miss him.
And why was Jonathan Davis chosen for the job? They could’ve gotten anybody else lol. How did they think that would work???