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Arthur C. Clarke’s novel Childhood’s End is coming to TV

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http://io9.com/syfy-takes-some-liberties-with-childhoods-end-but-its-1747549738

A fleet of alien ships suddenly appears overhead, carrying a mysterious race of visitors with weirdly benevolent intentions: They’re here to fix all of the world’s problems. Great! So what’s the catch? That’s the set-up for Arthur C. Clarke’s novel Childhood’s End, now a Syfy “event series” that kicks off on Monday.

Childhood’s End was published in 1953, 15 years before 2001: A Space Odyssey, and though it’s been bandied about Hollywood over the years, this is the first time it’s been adapted to the screen, with a script by Matthew Graham (Life on Mars), and direction by Nick Hurran (Doctor Who, Sherlock).

Watching the events unfold in the three-part miniseries, it’s pretty incredible how familiar a lot of its images and plot points feel—a testament to how influential Clarke’s book has been on science fiction works that came after it. In a new intro to the novel written a few years before he died, Clarke himself recalls watching the opening scenes of Independence Day and feeling a sense of déjà vu. And Independence Day is certainly evoked here, in turn, when the massive ships arrive and all of humanity stops to gawp and gasp with a mix of wonder and sheer terror.


I wonder how the Bible Belt will react,given that the aliens look like you know who:devil2:
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Already have this set to record.

Arthur C. Clarke has always been one of my favorite authors.

I did not know Nick Hurran was directing, but now I am looking forward to the mini-series even more
 
I read this in high school and always wanted to see a movie of this. The first time I saw the "Independence Day" trailer, I though it was going to be this movie.
 
They're trying to market this with forboding and hints of terror like it's like some 21st century version of "How to Serve Man" but from what I remember of the book, it's nothing like that.
 
Love the book. My DVD is set! However, the early reviews aren't great.......

Just be safe and assume it's going to be awful because it's a SyFy production. It's the same network that's brought us Ice Spiders, Piranhaconda, Mansquito, Sharktopus vs. Pteracuda, Chupacabra, Chupacabra: Dark Seas, and the inevitable, Chupacabra vs. The Alamo. There have also been the various and sundry Bigfoot and Yeti efforts, and of course, the fabled Sharknado franchise.

That said, I'll put on my Sucker For Alien Shit cap and record this one too.

ETA: Okay, so the trailers look nothing like the above named classics. Maybe it actually will be worth watching. :)
 
Love the book. My DVD is set! However, the early reviews aren't great.......

Just be safe and assume it's going to be awful because it's a SyFy production. It's the same network that's brought us Ice Spiders, Piranhaconda, Mansquito, Sharktopus vs. Pteracuda, Chupacabra, Chupacabra: Dark Seas, and the inevitable, Chupacabra vs. The Alamo. There have also been the various and sundry Bigfoot and Yeti efforts, and of course, the fabled Sharknado franchise.

That said, I'll put on my Sucker For Alien Shit cap and record this one too.

ETA: Okay, so the trailers look nothing like the above named classics. Maybe it actually will be worth watching. :)
Totally agree. And I love SF. But I can think of only one SyFy show that I liked: Battlestar Gallatica.
 
Just be safe and assume it's going to be awful because it's a SyFy production.

If I remember correctly, those gleefully bad movies are not SyFy properties, but rather productions from outside studios that SyFy buys the rights to air.

Back when I still had the cable/satellite hookup, the network's own original shows were of better quality.
 
It was pretty pedestrian. Very Christian, American-centric, down to the climatic unveil of the Overlords.

Pasadena? Really?

But it moved along at a fast clip, expressing a lot of social disturbance and dealing with it in a very short time.

Some things bugged me


1) The hero never asked WHY are you here? The media guy was correct. He never asks the right questions. "We're here to help you/become the best you can be." OK, fine but WHY? Are you bored? A charitable organization? Where are you from? etc. etc. We never hear the guy ask these questions or press the Overlord for an answer. So yeah, perhaps the Overlords chose him because while he is a good mediator, he's pretty simple-minded and unsophisticated. In the presence of super-high-tech beings, from outer space, he's easily distracted by the hotel venue. :rolleyes:

2) No deaths from disease or starvation and plenty of food means a HUGE population growth. Did the Overlords do something about that?

3) The mediator's girlfriend. I just wanted to strangle whoever wrote her character. :mad: She's SUCH a stereotypical stock character - the simple, unsophisticated mediator's even simpler girlfriend. She's so simple she's about on par with a female chimp or a high school football player's cheerleader girlfriend. She's uncaring about the greater universe, the big questions, the ramifications about a populated universe. She is simply there to emote at an adolescent level. She only cares about things that stand at arm's length - her boyfriend, their relationship, her jealousy of a dead woman from his past. Ye gods, that's the best the writers could do? The other female characters are no better - simple dimwit girlfriend, the uneducated drug addict single mother, the religious fundamentalist fanatic. I hope the characters improve, but something tells me they won't.

4) Whose minding the farm? The mediator seems pretty busy during his tours of the world. Do the plants grow on their own? The homeless guy still living in a home on wheels, no matter his state, says people no longer have to work. So no one is working the farms or running the sewage systems or water plants?

5) "We don't look like humans." Oh yes you do. Two eyes, two ears, one nose, a mouth, a head, 2 arms, 2 legs and a tail and wings and you walk on two legs. Can't get much closer to human-looking than that.

6) "We've seen the problems our appearance causes on other worlds". Other worlds have a Christian-like version of the bogeyman stolen from pagan gods? How depressing. At least 70%of this world won't care what the Overlord looks like. Only the monotheists will.

 
6) "We've seen the problems our appearance causes on other worlds". Other worlds have a Christian-like version of the bogeyman stolen from pagan gods? How depressing. [/hide]

Well, probably not. But for aliens that look like toads or pelicans, they would be even more unsettling
 
It was pretty pedestrian. Very Christian, American-centric, down to the climatic unveil of the Overlords.

Pasadena? Really?

But it moved along at a fast clip, expressing a lot of social disturbance and dealing with it in a very short time.

Some things bugged me


1) The hero never asked WHY are you here? The media guy was correct. He never asks the right questions. "We're here to help you/become the best you can be." OK, fine but WHY? Are you bored? A charitable organization? Where are you from? etc. etc. We never hear the guy ask these questions or press the Overlord for an answer. So yeah, perhaps the Overlords chose him because while he is a good mediator, he's pretty simple-minded and unsophisticated. In the presence of super-high-tech beings, from outer space, he's easily distracted by the hotel venue. :rolleyes:

2) No deaths from disease or starvation and plenty of food means a HUGE population growth. Did the Overlords do something about that?

3) The mediator's girlfriend. I just wanted to strangle whoever wrote her character. :mad: She's SUCH a stereotypical stock character - the simple, unsophisticated mediator's even simpler girlfriend. She's so simple she's about on par with a female chimp or a high school football player's cheerleader girlfriend. She's uncaring about the greater universe, the big questions, the ramifications about a populated universe. She is simply there to emote at an adolescent level. She only cares about things that stand at arm's length - her boyfriend, their relationship, her jealousy of a dead woman from his past. Ye gods, that's the best the writers could do? The other female characters are no better - simple dimwit girlfriend, the uneducated drug addict single mother, the religious fundamentalist fanatic. I hope the characters improve, but something tells me they won't.

4) Whose minding the farm? The mediator seems pretty busy during his tours of the world. Do the plants grow on their own? The homeless guy still living in a home on wheels, no matter his state, says people no longer have to work. So no one is working the farms or running the sewage systems or water plants?

5) "We don't look like humans." Oh yes you do. Two eyes, two ears, one nose, a mouth, a head, 2 arms, 2 legs and a tail and wings and you walk on two legs. Can't get much closer to human-looking than that.

6) "We've seen the problems our appearance causes on other worlds". Other worlds have a Christian-like version of the bogeyman stolen from pagan gods? How depressing. At least 70%of this world won't care what the Overlord looks like. Only the monotheists will.


Nail on the head.

Also maybe in the next episode someone will have the observational capability to point out:


"Hey, in case you didn't notice, this alien guy is pretty much everything your god is, except that he's actually here, doing actual things."



Obviously that changes, but jeez.

And why is it always so awful when utopia is actually created? To this day I'm still confused about why the Alduous Huxley's Brave New World was such a bad place. Satisfying work, complete security, excellent health, great sex, happiness, good drugs?

Yeah. Count me out of that shit. :rolleyes:
 
And why is it always so awful when utopia is actually created? To this day I'm still confused about why the Alduous Huxley's Brave New World was such a bad place. Satisfying work, complete security, excellent health, great sex, happiness, good drugs?

Yeah. Count me out of that shit. :rolleyes:

Because such societies stagnate. They don't create or build or advance because everyone is getting stoned after work. Wash, rinse and repeat. No better than a herd of milk cows, standing there chewing cud while getting milked.
 
OK, night 2.

*sigh*

Has anyone read Childhood's End? Were the women characters of that book as mindless and vapid as the TV version? Or did Clarke not bother with women characters in his book?

Utterly contemptibile stereotypes.


Ricky's girlfriend, Ellie the chimp, is still caring about nothing but the state of her ovaries and her inability to blither and goo-goo ga-ga over ribbons and babies. With an extraterrestrial alien in their midst, capable of miraculous feats, who has the answers and knowledge of the universe...what is her only concern? She feels so cheated she didn't turn into an incubator, that she actually pulls a gun and is ready to kill over her lack.

What a fucking idiot.

Bet Ricky is having 2nd thoughts about marrying a chick that nutty about getting pregnant.

And speaking of fucking idiots.

Jacob's wife, the Mombie Amy. Get her knocked up, immaculately, and she's nothing but a grinning brood mare, high on hormones. She also has no interests outside of that and unlike poor barren chimp woman, she's achieved her woman's life goal by getting pregnant and doesn't care about anything other than contemplating her navel in her prego belly.

Next is Milo's would-be Asian girlfriend Rachel - another chimp girlfriend in training. Milo's having a breakthrough about the Overlord's language and planetary system, and she is only concerned that he's using her favorite Hermes lipstick to write about it. After he spends all night pinning down the system and planet, how much interest does she show in his monumental discovery?

None. She doesn't even look at his info. She just wants to kiss him because that's wimmen stuff

Final fucking idiot - suicidal bitch psychotic fundamentalist counselor woman Peretta who worms her way into the graces of Ricky's chimp woman. And because of her manipulations, feels that gives her special privileges and so trespasses onto Ricky's property to confront the Overlord, uninvited, with her 1st century sheepherder nonsense. She berates him and because she's a woman of faith, follower of the Prince of Peace, Jesus, she resorts to murder because the Overlord fits into her sick fantasies. Good riddance to her.



Even a boy is sharper than every single woman in this series.

Pathetic and getting really offensive.

Only the men in this movie think and contemplate and make strides towards answers. Yet not a single man ever presses questions to the Overlord. After questioning Kerellen, Milo is intimidated into shutting up by Boyce at the party - why? No one has to work for a living anymore. Why didn't he tell Boyce to fuck off? Amy is clearly afraid of the communicator thing, but never once does Boyce say they won't cooperate unless they get answers. They just go along.

Women are idiots and the men are ball-less in this series.
 
Though there were women in the novel, from what I remember they were mostly just the wives of the main characters, with little to no character development or presence. I have not watched the mini-series, so I am not sure how they are treated there, but if you can even remember their names, they are likely taking a larger role in this adaptation than in the original material.
 
Though there were women in the novel, from what I remember they were mostly just the wives of the main characters, with little to no character development or presence. I have not watched the mini-series, so I am not sure how they are treated there, but if you can even remember their names, they are likely taking a larger role in this adaptation than in the original material.

I didn't, I had to look the names up.
 
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