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?
Depending heavily on the reader, but for modern audiences, Foundation.
The tv series incorporates stories from other Asimov books, original elements, reimagining…
In the book, not only is ALL the action offscreen (a fact that shocked Asimov when he reread it decades later after being finally convinced to write a fourth book), but also almost all of the main characters never meet, since they are generations apart, and many of them are just generic guys with no real backstory.Especially Gaal, who instead of being arguably the main character (badass female swimmer psychic heretic mathematician cryo-time-traveller) in the TV show is simply a hapless narrator (and a dude with no characteristics) in the first small part of the first novel.