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?
I’m not a fan of the book “I Am Legend” and thought that the movie was better.
In the book the main character is just some guy who learns advanced microbiology and becomes a psudeo-epidemiologist in the matter of a week or so. It’s weird and feels really out of place. He also then gets distracted when a woman vampire-thing seems too human so he ignores literally every single red flag about her.
In the movie at least Will Smith is shown to actually be a doctor beforehand. The woman he meets is, as far as the movie shows, an actual person so it makes more sense for him to forgo some of what he was doing to protect and care for them because he believes that he’s alone.
The book was just so hard to get through because this guy goes to the library, gets a few books, and suddenly starts to believe he can cure whatever they have. And up to that point all we really know is that he grows a garden and paints murals.