Apparently "Eddie Izzard is in it" is enough for me to put movies in my queue

[james_davis_nicoll]

What do people think of the 2009 BBC version of Day of the Triffids?

Comments

[barberio.livejournal.com]

It's a "re-imagining" of the original rather than an adaptation, and not in a particularly good way. Eddie Izzard gets to be in it's first really really really stupid set piece.

[daveon.livejournal.com]

Er... it wasn't all that good really.

[fridgepunk.livejournal.com]

Let me just explain the backstory for the setting: global warming has been solved by having genetically engineered triffids produce oil.

So keep sharp objects away from you while watching.

[fridgepunk.livejournal.com]

Oh, and don't even think about why the triffids are invading central london, nor how they get into westminster from the english countryside so quickly.

[matgb]

I weatched the first episode on broadcast. Despite having iPlayer on my TV, and being something of a fan of both the book and previous adaptations when I was a kid, I strangely managed to miss the later episodes.

Very high production standards and budget, with an excellent cast. All wasted from what I saw. It's possible it got better, but reviews and blogs said otherwise.

[terheyt.livejournal.com]

It's awful. Utterly atrocious. Hour-long-rant-worthy.

Great production values, but the changed the story to involve magical mystical jungle shamans, emo eye make-up induced by self-poisoning, and triffid tentacles so strong that handlers need to carry tazers.

Right. Not getting started again. But do yourself a favour and re-read the book.

[terheyt.livejournal.com]

To be fair, that one part DID come from the book. And was well explained in the book, from what I remember. They just skipped all explanations for everything.

[runningbadger.blogspot.com (from livejournal.com)]

Exactly what I was going to write.

I'd give it a miss, James.

[http://users.livejournal.com/krin_o_o_/]

So basically it's a valiant but doomed and wasted effort on the part of all parties except the writers and producers who insisted on a badly scripted Eco-rant against big corps using fraken-plants as the strawmen to move the rather spare plot along?

[fridgepunk.livejournal.com]

I wouldn't even go that far, because the triffids get released by misguided ecoterrorists who want to free the poor oppressed triffids and is promptly killed by said triffids.

Plus the real antagonist is eddie izzard as the evil protector of england, rather than the triffids, who play a minimal part in the story until the last few episodes.

The best moral that can probably be gleaned from it is an omnidirectional "me am go too far!" and DOOOOOOOM.

[lederhosen.livejournal.com]

magical mystical jungle shamans, emo eye make-up induced by self-poisoning

I'd managed to completely blot that part from my memory until you reminded me :-/

do yourself a favour and re-read the book.

Or catch the old BBC six-parter. I got the DVD a couple of years back and was pleasantly surprised by how well it had held up (one or two visual FX aside).

Honestly, 28 Days Later is probably in the running for second-most faithful screen adaptation of DotT.

[puritybrown.livejournal.com]

Others have touched on the problems introduced into the story in the course of adaptation, so I will just add: I could have lived with the travesty they'd made of Wyndham's story if it hadn't been so incredibly dull. Despite having quite a lot of action and high dramatic scenes, the show was let down by a script that was so on-the-nose that it might as well have been banging every audience member on the head with a sledgehammer. No subtlety, no layers, and no possibility of letting the audience think for a microsecond. There was nothing to think about: everything was laid out with the most excruciating obviousness.

[michaelgr.livejournal.com]

You'd be less bored watching actual plants grow than watching these modern triffids. It's dull and silly and not even unintentionally funny.

[pauldormer.livejournal.com]

Saw the first half. Didn't bother with the second.

[pauldormer.livejournal.com]

"Last few episodes"? It was shown in two parts on the BBC, as I recall. Might have seemed like more, though.

[scott-sanford.livejournal.com]

Having missed the movie, I'll say that oil-producing triffids should be highly flammable. I'd do that just for the burning triffid scenes, but we'd best keep them away from James Nicoll.

And isn't the best way into London by the Tube? This could make the morning commute interesting.

[viktor-haag.livejournal.com]

Meh.

[murasaki-1966.livejournal.com]

You made me laugh very hard. I have the image of a stack of large leafy Triffids hanging off the handrails on the tube, reading the Times.