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

Seriously, even though I haven't read the book, based on what I've been hearing, it sounds like Equilibrium is closer to what the movie is gonna be like rather than the actual source material. Which makes me just want to watch Equilibrium again.

edited 3rd Aug '14 2:32:55 AM by LDragon2

It doesn't have a good score on Rotten Tomatoes, and the last commercial I saw for it made it sound like alove story. Sounds the whole thing is a disaster.

The movie has gotten the Approval of God of Lois Lowry so I may give it a view tomorrow. Majority of the negative reviews is pretty much It's the Same, Now It Sucks! with the whole future dystopian setting.

And I'm sure ABSOLUTELY NO money changed hands to get her approval. Nope. None whatsoever.

Then again, she wrote all those awful sequels, so she might not have the best vision of her own creation.

Saw the second trailer when I went to see Lucy, and the black-and-white did shock me. Actually gave me the tiniest bit of hope that they actually know what they're doing.

But then I saw all the talk-show interviews and such that all started with either "How is this different than The Hunger Games?" or "How is this different than Divergent?", and it fell down again. Because I knew that that simple misconception, that treatment of a classic like another carbon-copy, was gonna go right up through the system. And based on the reviews, I don't think I'm that far off.

As a fanatic fan of the book I really don't want to bother with the movie unless it's going to be as faithful as possible. I don't demand 100% faithfulness, but any changes must have a point beyond "let's get rid of the weird stuff to make this more marketable". They have to be "this can't work on screen, so we must change it to something that is both cinematic and faithful to the book."

edited 18th Aug '14 5:18:57 PM by NateTheGreat

Supposedly, the movie is schizophrenic- good when dealing with anything other than the darker parts of the novel, in which case it's overtly sanitized and bowdlerized.

So no one with more than a passing familiarity with the book should watch it? Fanboy rage is inevitable?

I thought the movie was ok. It's biggest issue was the it wasn't long enough, so Jonas' relationship with The Giver and his family (unit) is underdeveloped.

I keeps the themes of the book pretty well though.

From what I've been reading, it appears that one major critique of the film falls in line with Seinfeld Is Unfunny. At the time the original book was published, what it showed was refreshing and interesting. However, after so many movies that have dealt with the same themes (The Hunger Games, Divergent, Equilibrium, etc), the film adaptation simply doesn't feel as thought-provoking or original.

What say you?

The lack of any real consequence bugs me for some reason.

The ending drama with Fiona was unnecessary. Aren't you glad that Jonas reached the barrier in time, even though Jonas wouldn't know and he never returned to the community? There wasn't a Sequel Hook, but having Jonas develop romance with Fiona killed the chance for a sequel without retconning itself.

It's a okay film. What I'm most relieved is they kept the scene where Jonas's father murders the child. That was one of my few concerns.

As for what I thought of the film as a whole is like what someone mentioned here earlier: "Schizophrenic".

I feel the first few minutes contradict what the rules of the film state "no emotions" but showing the people smiling. It was frustrating but once I let go that this isn't a pure adaptation, I just shrugged my anger off.

They did kind of address that halfway through where The Giver said they're able to feel surface level stuff, but not deep emotions.

True, I must of overlooked that.

And, to be fair, emotionless can come off easily in a book, but that's nigh impossible for an actor, one who is expected to have a very broad range of emotions, to have no emotions at all. Also, it can come across as very cold and unrelatable.

I just didn't like the ending and I felt like it didn't make sense. The only explanation I can think of is that it was some dying dream or something.

I also was bothered by how Jonas' first reaction upon seeing the map is 'If I were to cross it, all the memories will return' which... I have no idea where he got that idea and it certainly would never be my first reaction to such information, but it apparently turned out to be correct anyway so... : /

Two Decades later the debate lives.

My only problem with the ending is that they were lazy with showing the same loop from the beginning, only with it now in color. People should be freaking the fuck out or something. Not continuing on a leisurely stroll.

That wasn't what bothered me. I was bothered by the house in the middle of nowhere, but not that far from the 'Fence of Memories' or whatever when, well, I can't see any reason for that to be there. It was in a memory that was presumably from GENERATIONS earlier. Yet it looks exactly the same and its implied that a family is singing inside JUST LIKE THE MEMORY? What?

Could have been a Christmas memory and the escape being around that time of year?

Well, the... I'm not sure if there was a name, but the Society that Jonas lives in seems to be INCREDIBLY isolated, comparable to the Hunger Game's Capitol. It just seems incredibly strange that a house and family would be living so absurdly close to the border of that... country???

The fact that it looks the exact same as the memory, every detail is the same (or, if there are differences, they aren't significant enough for the audience to pick up) even though the memory would have had to have been (or was suggested to have been) recorded several generations earlier.

There was several miles of nothing between the Community and the Border, so a house less than a mile from it doesn't seem that far fetched. Maybe the Barrier stops people from getting in?

Just saw it. I thought it stayed as close to the book as a movie could.

The book is better. I think all the additions they made dimishes the story and makes it very generic.

I didn't mind it. However, it is very different from the book, especially the ending. And I was annoyed they cut out the second sled memory. It kind of made the first one pointless, I found. Actually, it felt like every scene that stuck in my mind in the book was cut from the movie. So what I ended up watching was fine, just...not the book.

That said, I really liked The Giver (as in, the old man himself) in this.