The Giver Movie Adaptation

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**Slarg232**

Anyone else excited about this?

I was one of the few kids in my class that actually liked the book, mind you I was reading Dante's Divine Comedy while my classmates were reading Hardy Boys in high school. It was a thought provoking novel, I thought.

Basic premise is:

The giver is written from the point of view of Jonas, an eleven-year-old boy living in a futuristic society that has eliminated all pain, fear, war, and hatred. There is no prejudice, since everyone looks and acts basically the same, and there is very little competition. Everyone is unfailingly polite. The society has also eliminated choice: at age twelve every member of the community is assigned a job based on his or her abilities and interests. Citizens can apply for and be assigned compatible spouses, and each couple is assigned exactly two children each. The children are born to Birthmothers, who never see them, and spend their first year in a Nurturing Center with other babies, or “newchildren,” born that year. When their children are grown, family units dissolve and adults live together with Childless Adults until they are too old to function in the society. Then they spend their last years being cared for in the House of the Old until they are finally “released” from the society. In the community, release is death, but it is never described that way; most people think that after release, flawed newchildren and joyful elderly people are welcomed into the vast expanse of Elsewhere that surrounds the communities. Citizens who break rules or fail to adapt properly to the society’s codes of behavior are also released, though in their cases it is an occasion of great shame. Everything is planned and organized so that life is as convenient and pleasant as possible.

http://www.sparknotes.com/lit/giver/summary.html

The main character is assigned the job of "Memory Keeper" and starts to realize things are not what they seem in this "perfect society".

The only thing I've heard that I don't like is how Taylor Swift is acting in it :/

**xole**

My first thought was that the boy in the trailer was not eleven and that it looked more actiony than I remember. I probably won't see it.

**Peregrine**

No interest. The story only "works" when you're too young to notice all of the flaws in the world building, so it's a book that's best left in the "happy childhood memories" category. I don't see any value in coming back to it as an adult, or turning it into a movie.

**Paradigm**

Sounds interesting, I'll have to look up the book at least.

**LordofHats**

Peregrine wrote:
No interest. The story only "works" when you're too young to notice all of the flaws in the world building, so it's a book that's best left in the "happy childhood memories" category. I don't see any value in coming back to it as an adult, or turning it into a movie.

I agree with this.

The sad part for me, is that I'd consider The Giver a better book than the Hunger Games trilogy, but the only reason it or Mazerunners are getting film adaptations is because everyone wants to cash in on the teenybop dystopia craze.

**Asherian Command**

I am not interested in this movie at all.

**Slarg232**

xole wrote:
My first thought was that the boy in the trailer was not eleven and that it looked more actiony than I remember. I probably won't see it.

There are a couple of things they changed; the characters are older when given jobs, the jobs certain characters are given are changed, stuff like that.

Funnily enough, in the book there was a scene where the main character went to the House of the Old and washed an old woman. The writer expressed displeasure at that scene being left out, as she wanted to play the old woman.

**cincydooley**

This has gotten pretty poor reviews, which makes me sad because the book is quite good.

**hotsauceman1**

I read the synopsis on Wiki and saw the trailer.
Who created this society and said "Lets make an isolated world where we are all the same and kill babies" it must be the same people who thought the purge was a good idea

**Ensis Ferrae**

LordofHats wrote:
Peregrine wrote:
No interest. The story only "works" when you're too young to notice all of the flaws in the world building, so it's a book that's best left in the "happy childhood memories" category. I don't see any value in coming back to it as an adult, or turning it into a movie.

I agree with this.

The sad part for me, is that I'd consider The Giver a better book than the Hunger Games trilogy, but the only reason it or Mazerunners are getting film adaptations is because everyone wants to cash in on the teenybop dystopia craze.

Agreed. And I never particularly cared for The Giver in the first place.

**LordofHats**

The sadder part is that The Maze Runner (I misremembered the title, apologies) is really good... Unless I'm misremembering that too @_@

**chaos0xomega**

The trailer implies that there is far more action in the film than there ever was in the book, which is to say there really wasnt any action at all in the book, and therefore the film is taking some huge liberties and major departures from the story and is simply a thinly veiled attempt to cadh in on a fond childhood memory.

On top of that, the thing that angers me most about everything is the fact that the film has been shot in color, when one of the fundamental elements of the society is that color no longer exists and everything is black and white (at least to everyone but the Giver).

**cincydooley**

You know what series I'm shocked hasn't been made a movie yet? Scott Westerfelds pretties series.

**chaos0xomega**

Id want to see his Leviathan trilogy in film form first

**Gitzbitah**

You know, when you decide to jazz up a book you really have to go all the way for it to work. You don't take Romeo and Juliet to the 20s- you take them to 90s California like Romeo + Juliet. If you want to introduce a new audience to Fahrenheit 451, but find the subtle wordplay of the 'fireman' won't work, you ask Christian Bale to shoot subtlety with guns, many, many times. http://www.imdb.com/title/tt0238380/.

Or you add that missing appeal to Pride and Prejudice- Zombies.

I'm rather amazed no one has yet made a found footage film of Bram Stoker's Dracula mixing Hostel and Paranormal Activity. Pull out the Victorian mores and splatter it with gore and you could have a winner.

**Ensis Ferrae**

Gitzbitah wrote:

I'm rather amazed no one has yet made a found footage film of Bram Stoker's Dracula mixing Hostel and Paranormal Activity. Pull out the Victorian mores and splatter it with gore and you could have a winner.

The problem is that now, you'd have to make Dracula sparkle....

**cincydooley**

chaos0xomega wrote:
Id want to see his Leviathan trilogy in film form first

Oh feth yes.

Would have been a perfect studio ghibli type Film. Sigh. :-/

**chaos0xomega**

ouch, now that makes me sad :C

**Cheesecat**

Is the sequel going to be called "The Taker" (I feel bad for saying that terrible joke)?

**hotsauceman1**

Cheesecat wrote:
Is the sequel going to be called "The Taker" (I feel bad for saying that terrible joke)?

Well remember the role of the main character is "The Receiver"

**Cheesecat**

I'll admit I'm a child for smirking at that.

**squidhills**

Cheesecat wrote:
Is the sequel going to be called "The Taker" (I feel bad for saying that terrible joke)?

It would be a great title for a movie detailing the origin of the big bad from the first three Black Company novels, though.

**cincydooley**

Well, gathering blue is actually the sequel. The quartet of books actually gets pretty dark as it moves forward.

**LordofHats**

cincydooley wrote:
Well, gathering blue is actually the sequel. The quartet of books actually gets pretty dark as it moves forward.

Also a huge mind feth @_@ Sad to say by the last book in the series, I was rather confused wth was going on.

**Relapse**

Much emo action on the way to someone dying.

**AegisGrimm**

My wife is exited as it's one of her favorite books from ages ago.

And what Preggo wants, Preggo gets.

**xraytango**

So pretty much Logan's Run and Brave New World wrapped up in one teen-angst-dystopia fest?

**Jehan-reznor**

Is this a PC version of Brave new world?

**Mr Nobody**

chaos0xomega wrote:
The trailer implies that there is far more action in the film than there ever was in the book, which is to say there really wasnt any action at all in the book, and therefore the film is taking some huge liberties and major departures from the story and is simply a thinly veiled attempt to cadh in on a fond childhood memory.

On top of that, the thing that angers me most about everything is the fact that the film has been shot in color, when one of the fundamental elements of the society is that color no longer exists and everything is black and white (at least to everyone but the Giver).

The movie starts in black and white and the main character later begins to see more colour in the world.

**LordofHats**

Unless I'm mistaken, wasn't the book the same? Starting with the color red? I mean, I see several things in the movie completely absent from the book. I don't think the girl was ever about to be executed in the book but the trailers seem to depict something along that happening. But the colors thing I think is from the book.