MovieChat Forums > Z for Zachariah (2015) Discussion > Would you have rather seen an adaptation...

Would you have rather seen an adaptation of the book?

posted 8 years ago by supercygnus
4 replies | jump to latest

Since the movie is basically an in name only adaptation of the book, after having seen the movie were you happy with the final product or would you have preferred to see an actual adaptation? It would have been a tricky thing to film as it's dilemmas are far more complicated (not the least of which the protagonist's age) and would almost feel more at home in a foreign film where trickier subject matter usually plays better. That being said personally that is a movie that I would have been interested in seeing. It's a unique story and still one I haven't seen played on screen before. But you might have other thoughts. I like to hear people share that type of stuff. Your thoughts movie fans?

[–] iroquoisjoe 8 years ago

Would you have rather seen an adaptation of the book?

Oh Hell's no! 

First of all, this is NOT an in-name-only adaptation. Far too many elements of the original short novel are present in the film all the way up to the half-way mark of it's length. The same basic story is there. Apocalyptic devastation. Isolated farm. Lonely girl. Wayward scientist. Radiation sickness from water contamination. Nursing back to health. Getting-to-know each other. Getting the farm going again. A church, an organ, a dog named Faro, a super radiation suit. etc. I could go on... 

But, anyhow, having seen the BBC, made-for-tv, more faithful adaptation of the book...I would NOT like to see that again. MOSTLY because the second half of the story and the ending is a bit un-enjoyable. I mean...

a. the lack of any real explanation about why the scientist suddenly turns dangerous, came off frustratingly weird in the book and in the tv movie. In this film, that transition would have turned the elegance of the characterizations and the FANTASTIC acting into just trashy thriller stuff. I don't think you could have gotten Margot Robbie and Chiwetel Ejifor to do it with THAT script.

b. then an ending where she IS essentially FORCED TO GO OFF INTO the devastation...and boom that's the ending. I mean the one thing the movie brought-out is the visuals of just how bad things look/are outside of Burden Valley. To have the scientist inexplicably act in a way that forces her to go out into that horror...and, what more, to have her actually do it without any clue to her fate? Intellectually, I want a more coherent and meaningful reason for all that.

Myself? I don't LOVE the addition of the third character, but, honestly, I really don't know what else they could have done to even approach marketability with just two characters...without, say, adding some sort of man vs nature type of disaster.

Now,in the second half of this movie, I, personally, would have appreciated a divergence from the book where the scientist and the religious farm girl REALLY struggle with the conflict between being pragmatic adaptive humans vs being persons of faith, beliefs and traditions.

THAT is the move I would have truly wanted to see all the way through. We got that in the beginning and at the very ending, but had to have the third person, because, well...mano-a-mano drama is more "accessible" to viewing audiences! 

Peace! 

On November 6, 2012 god blessed America...again. 

[–] supercygnus 8 years ago

I felt that the addition of the third character actually vastly over simplified the story. A love triangle is literally the last thing I thought of reading the book. A bathroom sex scene wasn't really something I would have ever imagined seeing taking place.
A) he always seemed dangerous. He was the unknown and became more aggressive about asserting his authority. Resistance seemed to provoke worse in him. Consider the fact that he was "off" and willing to do whatever to survive. The hole in the suit suggests he wasn't even a scientist, or even if he was he killed someone else to get it. And obviously you wouldn't have Margot Robbie in an adaptation of the actual book. You might recall that her character was significantly younger in the book.
B) she wasn't forced.

A good example of how the character could have been realized without making her an adult woman is Winter's Bone. That is a great example of a young actress playing against unpredictable and often desperate adults in a bleak reality.

I get your points but they seem to be rooted in having issue with the book. I can understand that as it's not for everyone. I think I have to really disagree about the endings though. Isn't she essentially forced to stay with a murderer now? She actually chooses her trek at the end in the book. The stranger (who most likely is not actually a scientist) is left kind of pathetic and there is an empowered heroine leaving him there. I have to agree that despite the suggested possibility that maybe there is something else out there, her future seems pretty dire. But it is her choice.

But these are all just opinions and observations and I appreciate you sharing yours. Some of your thoughts made me think more about the source material. Thanks.

[–] iroquoisjoe 8 years ago

I get your points but they seem to be rooted in having issue with the book.

Ha!  Yep! You are damn skippy right about that!

Thank you for sharing your opinions too. I don't think anyone on this board has talked at length about the book so far.

But, before I go off on that let me acknowledge that it is NOT a "bad" story. It is a good young adult story that I did enjoy a lot of. But, it has its 2 weaknesses as I already elaborated on: The ending, and the awkwardly inexplicable transition of the scientist into psychopathic homicidal killer Norman Bates.  The first problem I don't really blame the writer for...for the reason that I will explain later, but the second may or may not be the culpability of the writer, for the same later-to-be-explained reason.

Let me iterate that I love this movie. I love the acting, the cinematography, the music, the pacing, and...to a lesser extent...even the ending that some people find to be ambiguous. So yes I do have issues with the book as opposed to the movie...that they wisely decided to make divergent. Which is, of course the point of this whole thread: Why I would not like to see a [100% faithful] adaptation of the book.

But just to get one thing clear: There is NO suggestion in the book whatsoever that Loomis is anything other than a scientist. The holes in the suit has zero subtlety in their existence. They are exactly what they were all but explicitly stated to be. The locations where John Loomis shot Edward the guy who was trying to take the anti-radiation suit.

I agree with you totally that the addition of the third character was my least liked part of the movie. It did devolve what could have been a sublime philosophical look at the duality of man (that whole Carl Jung thing) into a tawdry love trinagle. But, that is an obvious criticism that many others have made.

And, you are ABSOLUTELY RIGHT, they should have kept the younger-looking actress Amanda Seyfried to play the teenage Ann Burden (Although I do love what Margot Robbie did with the role).

Yes, Loomis can be seen as a threat RIGHT FROM THE BEGINNING because of Ann's journaling perspective of his arrival and...well...all the events of the book that we have. However two things:
a. Firstly, Ann's particular second person perspective is a literary device known as "Unreliable Narrator". She does and thinks more than a few irrational things. It may take more than one reading to catch them all, but I think the opening explanation of why she is even writing in a diary is the easily overlooked thing because it goes by so fast. She says that she started writing because she has started losing track of what things happened, when they happened, and IF they happened at all.

b. Secondly, as much as I don't like the ending or the transition of Loomis I fully realize we don't have the full story the writer intended. As you probably already know, the writer died before he could finish the story. Now, all we have is what his family later submitted to the publisher, saying that they used his "writing notes".

So, I, like other critics of the book, feel that we only have a part of what the artist intended...and that there may have been a clearer and/or longer ending in the mind of the author that better explained what was REALLY going on with both characters

So, right there is another reason why there is no need to be uber-faithful to his story; he did not write it all anyhow. 

And, yeah, Ann was forced to leave in the same sense that if someone starts chasing you with a knife across a bridge and you make the "decision" to take your chances with the fall and the waters below. Not so much a real "decision" so much as a existential ultimatum. I mean, who wants to die? 

Ann in the movie WANTS to stay with her John Loomis...as opposed to Ann of the book and her John Loomis. They pretty much reached true amity until the love triangle added the new (second) central conflict of the plot. And that of course is the weakness of the general viewing audience that had to be given-in to by the screenplay writer and the producers. Most audiences would not have sat through the sole plot being the struggle towards reconciliation in a "technological man vs spiritual/natural woman" conflict scenario. Better to make it an Adam/Eve/Snake sexy allegory story.  

Peace! 

On November 6, 2012 god blessed America...again. 

[–] cuechick 8 years ago

I just finished the book and agree, that it veers off and really becomes a totally different story. It reminds me of The Color of Money, also completely different from the book. They also added a character and totally changed the story. Still, in both cases I enjoyed both for what they were.

I watched the film first and thought it was pretty good but became curious when I read on here how different the book was. Found a copy via amazon for 1¢ + shipping. Best penny I've spent in a while. The good thing is you can watch/read either without being spoiled by the other ;)

But to answer your question, I would like to see a faithful adaption. I don't think it would be at all that difficult, though I'm sure a hard sell since this version did not do well. I don't think Ann's age is that big of a deal but you could make her 17/18 instead of 15/16 as in the book. Or people could just read the book! It is excellent, I read it in two days and I'm not a particularly fast reader.