Childhood's End - SyFy Channel

[Graham Smith]

Anyone who is a fan of hard SciFi from the 50's has probably read "Childhood's End" by Arthur Clarke at least once. I've probably read it at least a dozen times along with a few other selected books from that era. My old paperback copy was in such bad shape that it was falling apart that I had to retire it when I moved earlier this year.

And anyone who has read it knows that it would not be an easy movie to make. There's almost no action and a large part of it centers around an unseen alien representative of the Overlords and the human representative of Earth. It's a mystery/thriller, psychological cat and mouse game. And it plays out over two or three generations.

Well, I just saw the trailer for a SyFy miniseries based on the novel and, as I pretty much expected, they are taking some liberty with the story to introduce some action. How much they are going to screw with it, I cannot say but I have the feeling that they are probably going to wreck it.

The problem with trying to turn something like Childhood's End into a movie is that it was written for a different time, a different audience. An audience for whom TV was something new and the Cold War was something very immediate. It was a book about ideas.

The miniseries will air in December and I will give it a try. But I'm not holding my breath.

And if you have never read the book, and you like classic SciFi, then you need to. It is very much unlike anything you have read before.

[SiG Lady]

Here a starter set of links if anyone cares to explore this topic . . .
https://www.google.com/?gws_rd=ssl#q=childhood%27s+end+miniseries+air+date

[GrumpyOne]

Graham, this childhoods end? Give it a listen, you might like it.

http://m.youtube.com/watch?v=T_CATnUOngA

[Graham Smith]

I've heard it before. I had to go lookup the lyrics and, yes, there are things about it that fit the story. I could see that song being used a couple places in the book or as the closing credits.

[Miranda]

... I managed to miss reading "childhood's end"

not sure how. from the synopsis on Wiki, I know I have not read it.

it is clearly a lot of inner dialogue.

like the first half of stormship troopers the ideas are often dropped.

let the book go and see if they do a good tale.

"do androids dream of electric sheep" became a good movie

and I think that was very much an exception.

I can't see "speaker for the dead" being a good movie.

for the same reasons you already mentioned.

[Graham Smith]

.let the book go and see if they do a good tale.

"do androids dream of electric sheep" became a good movie

and I think that was very much an exception.

I will watch until I feel that they have crossed the line - it depends on what they do with it. Stormship Troopers is a good example... The movie took the book, pulled a few pieces out of it, then threw the rest away. It doesn't matter that much if the result was good or bad, it was unnecessary. They could have called it "Bug Wars" and discarded the few names they borrowed and it would have been the same movie.

The premise of Childhoods End is quite unique for it's time and it does ask some hard questions of the reader. The main characters and tone of the book are clearly in favor of something that is a radical departure for us. And oddly, very different from ideas expressed by the same author in other books. It's as much a coming of age story as anything - a discussion of how our view of the world changes as we get older.

I just hope they get it right, but I have seen too many cases where a good story has been ruined by people who neither know nor care about the source material. They are so busy trying to change it around to suit their own tastes that it ends up being trampled in the mud.

[Graham Smith]

Well, it started by introducing a character who was not in the book at all and it has gone pretty much further and further away from the book ever since. I've watched the first hour and outside of the vague outline of the Overlords arriving to help mankind and the name of the lead character, it is almost completely different than the book.

I could maybe accept an updating if it were a good movie, but it is BORING!!!

[sperman]

I haven't read the book in many years, but after watching the first night, it seemed very different from what I remember. I plan to re-read the book after watching the final 2 episodes to compare the two.

[Graham Smith]

I haven't read the book in many years, but after watching the first night, it seemed very different from what I remember. I plan to re-read the book after watching the final 2 episodes to compare the two.

I'm not sure that that the screen writer even read the book. Maybe he read the Cliff Notes version or something. The screen writer has missed the entire point of the book. The entire feeling you get from it is wrong. The timescale is wrong. Everything is wrong.

The book was written in the early 50's and was unlike anything that had been done before. The mini-series is trying to turn it into something more familiar when the entire point of the book was to be something entirely unfamiliar - unlike what we were used to. It's a coming of age story - a story about the parents having to sit back and watch their children grow up and leave home. It is both sad and joyous.