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?
Ready Player One, the movie is mid but the book is so bad. The protagonist is basically a self-interest character who drones on about 80s culture for most of the book and only wins the day through luck and never had to learn any lessons. The book also has the writing style of a middle school student
While I agree with most of that, I found myself enjoying the book more than the movie, but it’s probably because I read the book first. I didn’t care about the 80s Ppop culture stuff, but I thought the idea of the Oasis was pretty cool. Now, if you want a really, really bad book, read the sequel. It’s definitely worse! Wade still learns nothing and turns out to be a total creep. And they assassinate Halliday’s character, too, making him out to be a total creep as well. And if I remember correctly, it’s just as preachy, too.