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?
My answer to this question will forever and always be Jaws. It’s not just that the movie was better; the book is absolute trash.
I’m honestly shocked anyone wanted to make it into a movie after reading the book. It’s so poorly written, misogynistic, there’s half a dozen plot lines that are meaningless and lead no where. It’s one of the worst books I’ve ever read.
The movie is about the shark. The book is about depressing small-town melodrama. The only thing I think the book did fractionally better was explain the mayor’s behavior in not wanting to close the beaches.
A lot of people are bringing up Jaws, and it’s not good, but I’ll give it one credit in that it has moments where the narrative switches to the shark’s perspective. It’s not for long and it’s not very detailed, but it does show that the shark isn’t some cackling evil monster killing innocent children because it likes to see people crying, but rather that it’s an animal that needs food to survive, and it happens to be in a big body of water full of ‘food’.
Considering how the film’s popularity led to so much misguided hatred for sharks, I think the book deserves at least some credit for that one element, showing the shark as a genuine animal just trying to survive, not necessarily doing anything wrong, and not even having a morality we can understand.