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?
Arrival.
The book goes much more into the concepts but the presentation of the aliens is pretty lackluster. The movie is much better at conveying a sense of awe.
Totally. But everything else Ted Chiang has written is brilliant.
Agreed, the guy must sweat genius science fiction concepts. Omphalos is my favourite short story ever.
I agree, though the comparison isn’t apt IMO. Chiang’s was a short story, right? The movie is certainly better, but if I wonder what would’ve come to be if Chiang made it a novel.
Couldn’t possibly disagree more with this one. Story Of Your Life is one of the best novellas ever written IMO
Strong agree on this. I suspect only people who read the novella second like the movie better.
I was surprised by how well the movie was done though. I had serious doubts about anyone being able to adapt the story for the screen, but they did a really good job.
I think they’re just doing different things. Story of Your Life is more impactful and meditative over time, but Arrival has a more movie-style pacing and although I find the whole ‘international drama!! war!!’ plot irritating, the fact you don’t realise ‘ah she had the kid with him who’s doomed to die and now she has to grapple with fate and understanding that’ until the very end and it just leaves you on that note - I think that’s really well done.
I guess I preferred the novel’s method of slowly doling that “she’s seeing something that hasn’t happened yet” information out to the movie’s, where the aliens tell her something that makes her “realize” kind of all at once so that humanity can help them in the future.
Like the way the movie does it makes it feel to some degree like a trick, like information was benig withheld by the audience - whereas the story does it gradually, so that at first you just think “something doesn’t add up here”, eventually you realize “okay yes there is something hidden in the context of this”, and then you gradually realize the truth over time. Not that the movie did it poorly, I liked the movie a lot, I just felt like the story “earned” that reveal via a slow burn in a way the movie didn’t.
I love the movie for sure. It wouldn’t be an easy story to adapt. That story is just beyond beautiful to me
Amen!
The film is absolutely amazing, but the novella is even more so.
For me I don’t think either is better that the other, I like them both a lot and they are just kinda different things to me. Usually it’s pretty obvious which one was better, but I think both did a great job in this case.
I’m not sure if that’s a fair judgment. The story is actually pretty brief. There’s not much time for anything. It’s really only about the central concept.
In what way are things fleshed out more in the movie? I’d argue with the exception of the timing of one scene and the shoehorned Chinese war plot, the movie was a pretty faithful adaptation
That actually might get me to read the book, lol. The movie was great but I always want more worldbuilding and conceptual stuff so if the book has a lot of that it sounds like a great compliment to the movie.
If you like conceptual stuff, definitely check out the other stories in Stories of Your Life and Others. Chiang is really good at interesting concepts.