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?
Contact.
It’s not that the book is bad, it’s actually quite good. But I remember when the movie came out everyone was saying how much more in depth and expansive the book was. So when I got ‘round to reading the book I was surprised how faithful an adaptation the movie was. The book was written when the Soviet Union still existed, so there’s some Cold War subplots that were out of date and excised from the movie. But other than that the movie is pretty close to Sagan’s book and, IMO, and better way to experience the story.
Squints. It’s a good movie, but I can’t forgive it for making the ending be about Ellie begging people to believe her. It’s the opposite of the ending of the book, where she continues to look for evidence—and finds the evidence she sought.
The last page of the book is, well, magical.