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.

[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.

[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?

[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.

[viktor-haag.livejournal.com]

Meh.