CHILDHOOD'S END trailer/discussion

FINALLY!!!

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I have lamented many times in this forum about Arthur C. Clark's masterpiece book 'Childhood's End' being continually shelved from being filmed and now finally SYFY channel made it into a three part miniseries to be broadcast on December! From these trailers I can see that it will not be 100% faithful to the book, but nevertheless the main plot is right there. Can't wait to watch this! A real treat if it was done properly.

 

Cast talks about the story...sort of...

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One of my All-Time favorite books. Probably Top 3 All-Time. A little annoyed it took the Sy-Fy Channel to adapt it. It doesn't look horrible from the trailer, but I don't have really high hopes.

 

I have the same mixed feelings: excited because it is finally being made, but worried as this is after all a SYFY channel production, notorious for screwing great books (Avalon, Ringworld) and the home of 'Sharknado'.

 

I finished watching the three part mini-series and I have to admit that they did a great job. Sure, some things were changed, but it happens with every book adaptation. The main plot and key elements were left intact. Charles Dance did a great job as Kerellen even under all that make-up. What could have been better was to tone down or edit the recurrent 'love long lost' of the chosen one that spoke for the Overlords. It took more screen time than it merited. Also the revelation about the First Cause or Collective Mind was too rushed and not given enough explanation (maybe out of political correctness fear of indulging in theological concepts on a premise that was blatantly theological?). Except for these minor faults, this was an excellent adaptation and did justice to the book, even though I always wished it was better suited for a big screen version which would have been more powerful. 8/10

 

I've seen the first episode and it's better than I expected so far.

 

Good stuff. The ending was kind of wonky, but whatever, overall it was a solid mini-series. Tywin Lannister killed it as Karellin, in what could have been a really maudlin part in the hands of the wrong actor.

 

Hah, yeah that was next on my list to.

 

The ending was faithful to the book.

 

Was it? I don't remember, as it's probably been at least 25 years since I read the book.


Spoiler Alert below:


What annoyed me about the ending was the 85 year gap in time. The scientist travels to the other planet and back.......85 years have passed and he gets back just in time to be put back on earth and witness the very end. Meanwhile the little girl is still spinning that energy tornado 85 years later. It just seemed like a really patched together and rushed ending with me considering how much time they spent on other areas of the story that were relatively unimportant. If that's how it actually happened, I think a little more exposition was needed.

Another question, if you remember from the book. Was the scientist in the story actually in the book, or was he a construct of the TV Series to take the place of the narrator in the book.

 

They mixed a few characters together, but yes, there was a dude who stowaway into on the OverLord's starships and yada yada yada, What I didn't like was that in the book it took 50 years for Kerellan to show his true appeareance to humans than just the 10 years gap in the miniseries. Also all the children were first transported to the moon and from there they were testing their powers with the planet earth before they joined the Overmind...always the book is better.

 

Childhood's End was nominated by the Critics Choice Awards for Best Television Movie or mini-series.