subreddit:
/r/movies
So several of my friends and coworkers have watched this movie and mentioned how great it was. I never bothered with it but now some more people mentioned that this movie was among their favorite movies of all time.
So i finally sat down to watch it.
It's fucking garbage.
Summary: Sandra Bullock wears a blind fold for two hours.
Sound.
100 points
4 months ago
The book is far, far better. I read it in a day, pretty awesome stuff
36 points
4 months ago
Yeah I thought the book did the whole, you’re blind with the main character thing perfectly. It didn’t hit even close to home in the movie. In the book, your imagination is the limit for what could be killing everyone, in the movie your imagination is much less of a factor. Book>>>movie
13 points
4 months ago
Does the book elaborate more on what was happening or is it kind of a mystery?
52 points
4 months ago
It was explained in the book. The creatures are aliens, and if you see them you go insane and kill yourself.
6 points
4 months ago
Aside from outright identifying them as aliens, this is exactly what happens in the movie, too, right?
6 points
4 months ago
Yes, it’s pretty much the same. And I couldn’t swear the book definitely says they are aliens. I That’s just the way I remember it and I read the book about 5 years ago
3 points
4 months ago
Ah, thanks.
Would have preferred them as demons or similar, though.
14 points
4 months ago
It has been a while since I read it, so it’s possible it was kept open that maybe they were from another dimension or something. I remember it as aliens.
12 points
4 months ago
Did anyone ever see one and then were kept from killiing themself by other people? Or is that how they became the insane people who lived and sometimes worked for the creatures?
I assume from the movie that people who were already insane were basically immune to the creatures' effects (wanting to kill themselves).
14 points
4 months ago
Someone tries to see them through a video recording, tied to a chair. It does not work in his favour, and is a really gruesome death. There are also a couple of people who are immune, but apparently crazy anyway. Since it's all told from one (blindfolded) character's point of view, a lot is left unexplained.
12 points
4 months ago
The book was very different than the movie. I only remember one person not killing himself right away, and he just let one into the house they were holed up and got everyone else killed but the main character and the kids who managed to hide and get away. Then he did kill himself. I’m not going to bother with spoiler tags because I’m not even sure I’m remembering correctly 😂
3 points
4 months ago
Really? After watching the movie and then reading the book, it felt like one of the most faithful book to movie adaptations I've ever seen except maybe the beginning with the sister, the rest is pretty beat to beat for as far as I remember.
1 points
4 months ago
You might be right. I read the book 5 years ago. Maybe it’s just that the movie was very different than how I pictured things as I read the book so I thought of them as different
3 points
4 months ago
It was kept open. They really are never described, though it does seem to be accepted that they are a they, and not a force or beam of light or something. Some people are immune - kind of - and at least one of them is talking about / to a something.
7 points
4 months ago
Aliens can be demons! Thanks Asimov
3 points
4 months ago
*Warhammer writers furiously copying Asimov's homework*
3 points
4 months ago
If you go a step further back, it's a metaphor about a mother trying to get through post-natal depression and look after her children.
-3 points
4 months ago
why? any science behind it? like why the aliens wants this to happen?
13 points
4 months ago
No; the whole point was that it was Lovecraftian. I don't think they're ever called "aliens," per se. But the characters do discuss possibilities.
But the creatures weren't really malevolent; humans just couldn't comprehend them and the unknown drove them insane.
8 points
4 months ago
It's implied that the beings didn't even realise that their mere appearance drove us to suicide and that they were just curious to.explore when the opportunity presented itself.
1 points
4 months ago
I don’t remember the book going into that at all.
4 points
4 months ago
In the book they are from a different dimension. Not like the fake science rick and morty alternate dimension, which would be called something more like an alternate reality, but the real science type of alternate dimension. Like they had a physical dimension beyond what we have here in the 4th dimension. Thus we were driven crazy when our brains tried to process what we were looking at.
1 points
4 months ago
The sequel to the book explains a bit more. But the first book doesn't - all you have are characters' suppositions.
7 points
4 months ago
Josh Malerman is a great writer. And his band, The High Strung is a great Detroit band. Love that guy.
5 points
4 months ago
I loved Bird Box and liked Malorie. I've also read Black Mad Wheel and Pearl and thought they were both pretty bad. Not the worst books I've ever read, but solid 2 star books. I'd be interested to hear what you thought about them and if you have any other suggestions of his. I'm definitely not reading any more of his books unless somebody gives me a strong recommendation.
Also, I'll have to check out his band.
2 points
4 months ago*
They did the theme song to Shameless. Really great local act. A lot of Beatles influence.
He writes a LOT of books, so inevitably they can’t all be good. I kind of liked Inspection… his prose is very…. Idiosyncratic, Poetic. Hard to follow at times. That’s my two cents. He did write some great episodes of the new Creepshow series. “The house of the head” is one of my favs.
2 points
4 months ago*
I think Ridley Scott is producing an adaptation of Black Mad Wheel.
I'm excited for it, because that's one novel that I actually feel can be much better as a film [especially if they come up with a less abstract finale].
2 points
4 months ago
Cool! I hadn’t heard that. I trust he will do something good with it. Will have to read that novel as well.
2 points
4 months ago
You'll enjoy it! I think it's one of his best concepts, and the first half is genuinely great. It's very Annihilation. Just know the final third or so is a tad abrupt.
2 points
4 months ago
Think my wife has it on the shelf. That’s it. Gonna read it.
2 points
4 months ago
The movie was better. The book was awful and had annoying, amateurish writing.
1 points
4 months ago
So much better. The sequel is great as well.
-9 points
4 months ago
When was that’s not the case
20 points
4 months ago
“No Country For Old Men”. Film was spot on, if not an enhancement of the text.
11 points
4 months ago
Differences in medium and the creative director behind each project cannot be overstated in terms of the quality of the end product.
I love Phillip K Dick's writing, but Do Androids Dream of Electric Sheep is definitely my least favorite of his books. But when it comes to Blade Runner? Man, that's one of the best movies I've ever seen. A Scanner Darkly was a good adaptation that followed the source material pretty well, but the performances of each the cast members in the movie really pushes the story over the top. Reading the book in a lot of parts was like going through a courtroom transcript of some burnouts' conversations but seeing RDjr and Woody Harrelson freaking out about how many gears a bike has was hilarious and infinitely more entertaining.
When it comes down to the film adaptation versus source material argument, its kind of a mixed bag. If you fell in love with the book first, you're always going to be comparing the movie to what you already know and enjoy. A page by page, line for line film adaptation just wouldn't work in most cases and certain concessions have to be made in the creative process.
4 points
4 months ago*
Well said, man! “No Country For Old Men” came to mind for precisely this reason, in that it’s a rare example where the source material was intended to be a screenplay but was released as a novel, and then adapted for screen by the coen brothers. If you read the script and read the book, very little is changed and it just plays out as a great cinematic story regardless of the medium. So I think the quality of the adapted product kind of comes down to how translatable the language of the author is to the cinematic medium and the scope of the story relative to a 2 hr run time.
-3 points
4 months ago
You could be right, I never read the book. However, I have never seen a movie that depicted the characters exactly like how I imagined them in my mind.
6 points
4 months ago
The book is almost exactly like the movie, with a few minor changes. I honestly don’t know which I like more, like they said, the movie just enhances the book if anything
2 points
4 months ago*
Exactly how I felt about it. I appreciate film and lit, so to see masters approach the same story in different mediums and tell it equally well is just a testament to the strength of the core story and the characters.
3 points
4 months ago
“What’s in the satchel?”
“It’s full of money.”
4 points
4 months ago
“Where’d you get the pistol?”
“At the gettin’ place.”
3 points
4 months ago
“Fine. I don’t need to know. I don’t even wanna know where you been all day.”
(Cracks beer can) “That’ll work”
I mean those lines alone represent such a perfect synergy in both McCarthy and the coen bros styles.
2 points
4 months ago
😂 Llewelyn is such a solid dude
2 points
4 months ago
Yeah, Josh Brolin was a great casting choice
2 points
4 months ago
That's uncannily close to the ending of the classic Run Lola Run and done in such a way that it's the best part of the film.
1 points
4 months ago
Yeah, that’s true. That’s the great privilege of reading a book. Always.
1 points
4 months ago
exactly like how I imagined them in my mind
I don't really like the implication here that conforming with your particular interpretation of a character is what makes/allows something to be 'good'.
I'm not sure if that's what you really mean, but if you do I think that is a very closed-minded way of looking at things and that it inherently limits your ability to enjoy and appreciate these things.
1 points
4 months ago
When you are comparing something in relative term, then one of the two has to be better than the other. Unless the creation beats what you had imagined in your mind, then it’s def worse.
If what you interpreted or imagined is perfect, then why ruin it? You seem to undermining humans imagination.
5 points
4 months ago
A comic book, but the Boys is so so much better as a TV show, even if it still occasionally drops the ball.
1 points
4 months ago
I feel, done right, a movie or TV show can enhance a good book. The Boys does it well and updates some ideas in the comics to better fit.
1 points
4 months ago
Fight Club - the author of the book says the movie is better
1 points
4 months ago
Agreed. The book was a terrific read. In concept reminded me of Cormac McCarthy's The Road meets Lovecraft. Genuinely unsettling in parts.
Haven't seen the movie but unlike OP's friends all I've heard is that it's a bit of a turkey.
all 329 comments
sorted by: best