MovieChat Forums > The Giver (2014) Discussion > How close is this to the book?

How close is this to the book?

posted 8 years ago by ethanpatrick
3 replies | jump to latest

I only just now learned of the existence of this film, despite being a huge fan of the book. I've read the book dozens of times and I'm afraid that this movie is just going to disappoint me. How different is this from the book, and if it is very different, are they good changes or did they take away from the story?

PS. I loved the changes that were made in the hobbit movies, and actually liked the maze runner movies better than the books, so I'm usually pretty laid back about deviations from the source material

[–] A_Bob 8 years ago

The obvious one was to age the characters of Jonas, Fiona, and Asher way up, giving Jonas and Fiona a romantic story line. Fiona works in the Nursery and Asher works as a pilot. Jonas shares a number of experiences with Fiona.

The Chief Elder has a much larger role, becoming the bad guy for the movie, trying to keep Jonsa in line.

Bob

[–] andrea-696-221052 8 years ago

It will disappoint you. I have loved this book for years and re-read it so many times. I like to pretend the movie doesn't exist. It's hard to explain, it stays true to some of the plot lines, but they don't seem to respect it in other ways and it completely cheapens the film. It feels like such a different vibe from the book. I'd almost call it a "re-imagining" except not in a good way. They tried to make it more sci-fi than it is I think. But yeah you'll be disappointed. I was.

[–] Oddark123 8 years ago

I feel like for feel they just took the first book into consideration. Which really doesn't get that specific as far as how cosmetic the community is supposed to be. This movie specifically went a bit for scifi-future than most people would put it. It also takes the lack of explanation of how gifts work to add a small part that again seems a bit out of place. And to be honest I have a very hard time assuming some of the things in the other books would co exist in the world this movie built (looking at Forest and Trademaster)

As far as the plot goes, most of it is there, with some additions to expand it a bit more. The age ups are kind of hit and miss for me.

If your a big fan of the book/series this probably isn't a feeling of "the best you could have gotten". On it's own, it's okay, not really something that'll ever make it out of middle ground for me.

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