Alright, let's make a "The Giver" thread

The future is looking white.

This trailer makes everything look so… generic.

It feels like they didn't actually bother to read the book. They just grabbed it out of their "well-know award winning YA books" pile when they decided they wanted to do Hunger Games for dudes.

Also, was with necessary to cast a 20-something as Jonas? If you want to do an age-up, fine. Asa Butterfield is actually 16 and looks it.

I wish they made the film black and white, but with color when the dude starts seeing it . Like with Schondler's List. But fewer nazis.

Well, a whole bunch of someones aren't caring.

For someone who hasn't read the book nor watched the above trailer (and is currently looking for the TV Tropes page), What is The Giver and what is this trailer (which I haven't watched) getting wrong?

For one thing, it's in color. The people in the town in the book have been drugged all their lives to prevent them from perceiving colors.

It's a Newbery-winning novel from the early 90s and probably the most famous YA dystopian work before Hunger Games came out. As for the trailer? For starters, the main character is supposed to be twelve. A big part of the story is his discovery of human sensations like seeing colors. The significance of that is lost because the colors are already there. They also appear to have made the climax more "action-packed."

edited 29th Mar '14 5:47:27 PM by Mort08

And boners. Can't forget the boners.

Maybe color would be added to the film when the characters become aware of it? The greyscale was just removed from the trailer since it would be strange to be switching from color-to-black/white without context?

Though, then it becomes a question why they just didn't work that into the trailer itself.

I feel like its being marketed as "Hunger Games for Boys"... Sort of like how Maze Runner is being marketed. It also looks a lot like The Host from last year... with twilight by extension.

Also, I just discovered Nostalgia Chick's new video which discusses this whole YA Craze going on.

My big question is how are these all coming out so samey? Though, maybe there's an allegory for the sameness of the film and the sameness mentioned in the book, but I might be overthinking something that was under thought.

They all pick from the same wells for the most part. Dystopian sci-fi futures where X thing causes humanity to lose it's way. The Giver is actually a subversion of utopian fiction. It makes it pretty straightforward what exactly is required to live in total peace and harmony. Nobody seems to have mentioned this to the crew of course. A lot of the designs are pretty paint-by-numbers for pretty villages and fancy sci-fi stuff. Which is really dumb because the books make it sound very low tech for the most part.

As for why this movie will suck; the screenplay is by some no-name writer and the director is only notable for action movies. This is not an action movie. The giver is at it's core an exploration of what it means to be human and how much of that we're willing to sacrifice for "perfection."

The Giver is very much not an action story. They have body-snatching spaceships in the movie when Jonas hardly ever sees a plane in the book. The age is a big change. In the book he's just turning 12, barley entering puberty. In the movie he's played by a 24 year old and looks about full grown. I guess as long as they get all the emotional stuff right it will be fine though.

Though, naturally, this may not be a bad thing? I mean, on one hand, and this is a view I agree with Niel Gaiman on, the book already covers the 12-year-old kid, and an adaptation should make themselves their own. Also, generally speaking, children are usually very poorly written and I really don't want to know what they'd end up doing with a kid that probably has a lot of depth to them. Maybe they'll expand upon things in the book that weren't fully touched upon and explore concepts that may relate better to our generation.

On the other, this is Hollywoodland and, 9 of 10 times, they're really damn stupid when it comes to doing anything properly in adapting something. However, who knows? Maybe this no name writer will make a break through here.

I also kind of note that trailers are not what they're supposed to be anymore. Instead of showing a portion of the product and trying to find their audience, they instead market and lie themselves to the lowest common denominator. SO, I wouldn't rule out the possibility of the trailers being marketed for these Hunger Games Teenagers and etc.

On the point of the book being low tech, that could potentially be a change for the better considering how much technology has advanced in our day and integrated with daily life that having a very low tech Utopia might be a bit more... I'm not sure what word I'm looking for here since its 2 AM my time. Alienating? Unbelievable?

However, a Period piece looking film with more 50's idea of future Utopia would be interesting, but also a lot harder to do.

I suppose it was too much to hope that everything would be black and white until Jonas starts receiving memories, wasn't it?

edited 30th Mar '14 1:10:13 PM by NateTheGreat

I have no confidence in a film version. For one I feel that it is a book that would transplant quite poorly to any visual medium. Additionally the trailer makes it feel more bog standard Dystopia when it's supposed to be a Utopia at a terrible price like "The Ones Who Walk Away from Omelas." There is peace, and prosperity at the cost of euthanasia for those deemed problematic for what ever reason.

Related to the book, does any else feel that in addition to being an adviser of the past the Receiver was deliberately meant as a fail safe to end the society if it was ultimately deemed unconscionable?

I'm not too miffed about the lack of B&W. My main issue is that the trailer makes it look like Hunger Games for dudes when the book was most definitely NOT Hunger Games-ey in the least bit. It feels like they're missing the whole point of the book, not to mention that Jonas entering puberty is a fairly big part of the story that'll suffer with up-aging of his character, though they could work around it with the magic suppresses sexuality thing. I guess we'll just have to see when the movie comes out.

And what the poster said above me. The society looks dystopic when it's actually supposed to be utopic.

edited 31st Mar '14 7:05:48 AM by Sisi

Yeah, the aesthetic is all wrong. I've always imagined the whole community having a generally comfortable and homey feel to it. Because ultimately it is supposed to have that feel it is pleasant, and comfortable and that isn't a thin vintner, you have to dig fairly deep to get to the unpleasantness required for the society to function. Even if everything is grey because of the imposed color blindness I would imagine they would at least have wallpaper or plaster rather than unadorned concrete walls.

So apparently this film doesn't really do that much justice to the source material huh? Guess it's just another attempt to cash in on the YA craze that began with The Hunger Games.

Also, is the book worth reading. Best to my knowledge, it's essentially a less action-packed version of this (extremely awesome) film:

Not really no.

I don't know what I just watched, but it was awesome and totally unrelated to anything that happens in The Giver.

Both stories involve suppressing emotion for the supposed good of society, but everything else is different.

Oh. That clip isn't from The Giver. For a second there, I had a heart attack.

I think Christian Bale as Jonas would kill anyone who read the book.

What so wrong with adding in Christian Bale and Gun Kata to the story?

For that matter, the visual aesthetic of Equilibrium is a lot cooler than what the movie version of The Giver seems to show.

Because that's not what The Giver is, man.