the two scenes i missed were

(1) the man and boy see an extremely pregnant woman with two men, then later accidentally surprise them at their camp. in the camp the people abandoned they find a newborn infant, headless, roasting on a spit over a campfire.

(2) the man and the boy hide as they watch an army of cannibal warriors clad in various bits of armor, with improvised weapons, and all wearing some form of red cloth ... followed by a group of slaves and then followed by a group of catamites many without clothes and all yoked together with dog collars and chains.

i can understand the removal of #1... i think they should have put it in, even if implied, just for the horrific impact. but i can see why a decision was made to exclude it; it wasn't central to the story.

but i was extremely disappointed in the removal of #2. that was probably one of most intense scenes in the book that really was terrifying and stuck with me. I really wanted to see that one scene played out on screen. i feel kind of ripped off that it wasnt.




as for rummaging around in the boat, they could have made room for a minute or two of it, but i wasn't too upset about it. it was just more foraging.

one thing that stuck out as being out of place was the black dude near teh end who tried to steal their rig, and the man made him strip naked before leaving him.... dude looked WAY too well-fed to be a starving refugee. i realize not everyone is as motivated for character performances as Viggo Mortensen... but the dude looked almost *fat*

12/26/2009 2:00:05 AM

^ omar gotta eat!

12/26/2009 2:47:34 AM

Cannibalism? in a world with guns? I just don't see it.

12/27/2009 12:37:38 AM

Oh shit, I completely forgot about the baby-on-a-spit scene. You're right, that was really intense and I wish they'd put it in.

And we are in complete agreement about #2, which practically made me shit myself in terror.

^I'm not sure you understand what's going on...

[Edited on December 27, 2009 at 12:54 AM. Reason : ]

12/27/2009 12:53:26 AM

^^All the vegetation died, rampant fires destroyed most ecosystems, and the waters of the world were polluted. What the fuck do you think they're going to shit with guns except each other?

12/27/2009 2:21:40 AM

SHIT

WITH

GUNS

12/27/2009 2:22:45 AM

Humans make a piss-poor food supply. It would be like subsisting off lion meat. Yes, it can feed you through the odd winter, but your primary food supply best quickly become something else, or you will starve to death.

What were today's victims eating yesterday? Why did you not kill them a year ago and take their food? It could have fed you for a year! As it is now, you will be lucky to survive for a month on their flesh, and that is only if you have a technological method to process and store their now rotting corpse. If you do not, then you have fed yourself for at most a week.

12/27/2009 11:09:46 PM

^ have you read the book or seen the movie?

12/27/2009 11:14:43 PM

this was the most depressing book i've ever read, i have no desire to see the movie

1/10/2010 3:22:40 PM

it was an incredible book. "depressing" was but only one facet.

the movie was a good try, but it really coutdnt touch the literary power of the novel.

i wish i hadnt seen the movie now. it diminished my experience with the book.

1/12/2010 4:05:51 AM

People were really crying at the end of this movie? Why? Were they mourning the loss of those two hours of their lives that they won't be able to get back?

1/13/2010 5:01:15 AM

Who said anything about crying?

1/13/2010 5:04:37 AM

2 people on the previous page.

1/13/2010 5:05:58 AM

I see.

1/13/2010 5:09:53 AM

Ok, finally saw the movie. I get it, the world has been destroyed by a string of global super volcanoes that set fire to much of the planet and blotted out the sun. The movie does not represent the most likely outcome of this eventuality. Especially given what was seen in the movie, where apparently the haze is low enough in the atmosphere (more of a fog) that enough thermal radiation is captured to prevent the planet from turning into a snowball and freezing the characters to death.

No natural food production is possible without sunlight, got it. But we humans are more clever than this. With just the technology in my head this problem can be dealt with at least poorly. All we need is heat to avoid frost and light for photosynthesis, and we can still make food without the sun. Start your thinking at the nearest large coal power plant. The heat from the plant can be used to heat every available large indoor space which would be insulated and converted to farming facilities raising genetic engineered algae for people to eat. Not to mention, the entire countryside is covered with dying trees which can be ground up and fed to cattle, which apparently can use the bacteria in their stomachs to digest even long dead lumber. Depending on the scale, such facilities could be set up in a matter of months to a year and would come to employ a vast quantity of the workforce, particularly unskilled workers which would be able to feed their families. The price of energy and particularly food would grow to occupy almost all of people's income, but they would be able to survive on stored food supplies (and the world's cattle) while the economic recalculation takes place and the want-ads again match the available workforce. Manufacturing will fall as the demand for consumer goods becomes non-existent, allowing all industry to shift to producing equipment used in food production. Riots would break out, but they would be put down by the police/military/private security. Employment in the energy industry (mining/drilling/etc) would increase dramatically to supply the fuel needed to replace the sun. Many people would be lost to starvation, cold, and strife, particularly in the disorganized third world, and standards of living would not recover for several generations, but the continuation of civilization would be assured.

1/16/2010 2:01:44 PM

Quote :

"a novel by Cormac McCarthy, was the 2007 winner of the Pulitzer Prize. I've actually come to a stop and I can't finish the final scene just yet. I'm still trying to come to terms with I've read, trying to digest where it's taken me. Basically, my psyche is shot. My mind is blown. This book is just devastating.... I feel destroyed. I've been walking around in a daze all day. I've never read a book more profound, or personally intense. "

Dude, calm down. It's just a book. You must have some fragile little mind if this book emotionally devastated you. Sure its kinda intense and all, and there are some sad parts, but overall I found the book pretty boring. Sure it would be shocking to live in a world like that, but I couldn't imagine sitting here with the thoughts you are having. It's just a book, and it wasn't really even that good of a book either. It was just interesting enough to keep my attention so that I could finish it.

I've started the movie, but I don't even know if I am going to be able to finish it. It is so sloooooooow

1/16/2010 2:44:58 PM

finally read the book

s'alright i guess

1/16/2010 3:39:15 PM

at one point while reading the book i had to set it down and call someone because i was starting to feel so shitty.

1/16/2010 3:58:25 PM

wtf seriously????

I would say you guys are joking, but I know you are being serious.

Like I said, its just a fucking book.

How you can allow a book to emotional fuck you like it seems to have done to some of you is beyond me.

It's not real, its fiction.

Stop acting like your mom died in your arms.

1/16/2010 4:15:05 PM

if you don't get emotionally involved with books you read you are missing out a lot

1/16/2010 4:24:10 PM

I mean I do kinda while I am reading them. But when I put the book down it ends.

I could never imagine this happening to me...

Quote :

"Basically, my psyche is shot. My mind is blown. This book is just devastating.... I feel destroyed. I've been walking around in a daze all day. I've never read a book more profound, or personally intense. "

That is just absolutely ridiculous.

1/16/2010 4:30:30 PM

Quote :

"if you don't get emotionally involved with books you read you are missing out a lot"

1/16/2010 5:48:14 PM

I do.

WHILE I AM READING THEM.

I don't let them affect my daily life.

1/16/2010 5:53:59 PM

maybe he is just extra emotional

1/16/2010 5:55:06 PM

Quote :

"Ok, finally saw the movie. I get it, the world has been destroyed by a string of global super volcanoes that set fire to much of the planet and blotted out the sun. The movie does not represent the most likely outcome of this eventuality. "

This assumes the people who know how to do this didn’t die off quickly.

And no post-apocalypse movie is really going to represent what you’re describing. I’m sure theres some good Discovery channel shows or something that might though.

I didn’t read the book, but I thought the movie was great. Much better than Book of Eli.

[Edited on January 17, 2010 at 9:57 AM. Reason : ]

1/17/2010 9:51:32 AM

Don't read the book.

It will destroy you emotionally and you will spend the better part of a week walking around in a daze unable to function on your own.

1/17/2010 4:39:48 PM

well, it actually was that intense.

but you should read the book.

and then suck on my nuts.

1/18/2010 1:00:53 AM

I have read the book guy.

Thats the main reason I can't understand you getting your mind freaking blown.

It's not that intense and I seriously question the mental state of someone that reacted like you did.

1/18/2010 4:00:42 PM

finally seen the movie

i think it was because i read the book that i think the movie fucking blows

everything felt way too rushed and very little direness to their situation

Book: B-
Movie: D

1/18/2010 8:02:21 PM

I think I'm somewhere in between joe_schmoe and KaYaK. I think the book is phenomenal, deserves all the praise it's getting and (take heart) is as good as anything Faulkner's ever done. That's not a comparison of their styles; simply an opinion of the quality of the two author's works. I think Faulkner was one of the masters of his generation, and I think McCarthy is one of the masters of his.

That said, I understand KaYaK's point...While this a novel that you should be emotionally invested in, it's a bit dramatic to be so affected by it that you walk around in a daze for a day afterwards. That's a bit like the kids who are being chastised for "post-Avatar depression" after being so affected by that movie. I feel like sometimes people have a tendency to, when they really appreciate a work of art, get a little bit carried away about how affected they are emotionally by said work of art, as sort of a mechanism to make that beloved work of art a PART of them. Of course, there's nothing wrong with this if it's how you connect to your art. But I can see how KaYaK has turned on the skepticism is all I'm saying. I see both sides.

1/19/2010 12:18:20 AM

Quote :

"but i was extremely disappointed in the removal of #2. that was probably one of most intense scenes in the book that really was terrifying and stuck with me. I really wanted to see that one scene played out on screen. i feel kind of ripped off that it wasnt."

God, man, I felt the same way. There's something about the way that scene (and I mean scene in the actual sense, not the drama sense) is written that is so perfect, the way he depicts them as sort of a ragtag army of demons and monsters, but demons and monsters whose existence is very plausible and believable. Would've been nice to see Hillcoat put his spin on this.

The change that I'm frankly shocked that noone has mentioned so far is that THEY CHANGED THE ENDING. Not a complete overhaul of the ending, but they certainly diluted it's emotional gravity, with the "everything's gonna be OK" dialogue the threw in at the end between the boy and the family of survivors. I felt like this was totally unnecessary and didn't see the purpose that it served. The ending is MUCH better in the book, where he meets the man, and walks off with him, and there is a brief, ruminative epilogue on nature (and btw, McCarthy does ruminative better than anyone still living). I felt much less like I was being sold something, which is how I felt with the additional dialogue at the end of the movie. Didn't dig it.

All that being said, I feel like most people have said they felt; That Hillcoat did a good job translating a book to the big screen that seemed like it would be quite a chore to translate so. But, the emotional weight is much lighter in the movie.

1/19/2010 12:29:38 AM

the book was fucking awesome. that's why it won the 2007 Pulitzer Prize.

1/19/2010 1:10:15 AM

Quote :

"I get it, the world has been destroyed by a string of global super volcanoes that set fire to much of the planet and blotted out the sun."

At no point in the book or the movie do we find out what happened to the world, because that's not the fucking point.

Jesus, I can't imagine what a miserable life you lead if every work of fiction you encounter is met with "That's all very silly and would never happen."

Your post has, for the first time, made me think that you're not actually a super-libertarian, but really some sort of profoundly obnoxious troll.

1/19/2010 2:52:47 AM

Quote :

"the book was fucking awesome. that's why it won the 2007 Pulitzer Prize."

I agree with that.

1/19/2010 7:21:39 AM

^^ I'm an engineer, I find it an enjoyable mental exercise to analyze other's perceptions of how the world could work. I'm puzzled why it bother's you so, maybe if you don't like the game then you shouldn't play. No one else has, it seems I am literally the only one here who watches movies this way

1/19/2010 9:41:17 AM

BTW, guys...Avatar? TOTAL bullshit. A place like Pandora could never exist when you take into account the effect gravitational pull would have on it's ecosystems. Floating rocks? Blue people? Tail sex? Puhhhh-leeze. NONE of that is geologically plausible. Morons.

1/19/2010 11:31:24 AM

What bothers me is that you're taking it apart based on a serious lack of understanding. You pull a volcano theory out of your ass, and then talk about how the characters aren't freezing to death when at the very beginning of the movie Viggo's voiceover says that their biggest problem is the cold.

Over the course of the story they cover many, many, many miles, during which time they encounter maybe a hundred people on the outside, and a bare handful of surviving buildings. And you start talking about power plants.

1/19/2010 1:22:58 PM

they needed to cgi some damn fog breath in there

1/19/2010 1:25:47 PM

Based upon the given information that was the best explanation. Something had to set fire to the forest near their house and then blot out the sun. A space meteor could have done that too, but if they were close enough to see the fires they would have been killed by the shock-wave. And from the movie it was not at all clear that temperatures were all that low, barely freezing if they survived bathing in a water-fall and then ran around with their faces uncovered without losing their facial features. And I was making a 'suspend disbelief' there, as it is foreseeable that without any sun the world would be more like an Antarctica winter than what was seen in the movie, which was more like a North Carolina winter. But that was fine, maybe the recently erupted volcanoes are providing the heat and greenhouse gasses to keep the planet from snow-balling (Antarctica winter).

The movie takes place 10 years after the 'event'. If no one lifted a finger to help the situation (power plants) beyond 'cannibalism will save us!', then it is quite understandable why the pedestrian traffic would be so light. Similarly, I saw no discernible damage to most of the buildings they encountered, whole neighborhoods were intact, only the city-scape shown for a matter of seconds looked worse for wear, all of which might have been Earthquake or Human induced. That said, it is possible in the 10 years time my schemes were tried and then failed for some reason, but so far I cannot think of any.

So, does this mean that you too enjoy discussing the scientific and socio-political backgrounds of movies? You sure are responding like you do

1/19/2010 6:11:34 PM

I do enjoy discussing such things. But you don't have to go too far for such thoughts to ruin pretty much any movie.

It's also important to bear in mind that sometimes literature (upon which this film was based) has goals other than detailing specific events. Both the book and film versions of "The Road" had much, much more to do with love and fear than they did with the mechanics of apocalypse. If the author (or director) had laid out some cause for the disaster and then strayed away from the probable effects of that cause, it would be one thing. As things are, the book/movie just say, "Holy fuck, there's no sun and everything's either burnt or on fire." Then they told a story under those circumstances.

It's like reading "Lord of the Flies" and then focusing on the fact that, even in the 1950's, there'd be a way of knowing where the plane went down, especially in relation to an island, especially one that was known to man (which it had to have been, since pigs were on it). You're missing the entire point of the thing.

Quote :

"If no one lifted a finger to help the situation (power plants) beyond 'cannibalism will save us!', then it is quite understandable why the pedestrian traffic would be so light."

Neither the book nor the movie give reason to believe that nobody tried such things, only that nobody in the area traversed by the main characters tried such things. Hell, the book even refers to communes that exist but are, for reasons unknown to the reader, unacceptable destinations.

1/20/2010 12:23:16 AM

Because communism is just wrong I guess

Otherwise, very well. You are quite right. But in defense of the subject, we had three pages of discussion of 'the point', I think it can be considered covered. So I say on to the tracking of crashed airplanes in the 1950s...

1/20/2010 1:50:50 AM

meh

5/29/2010 5:52:46 PM

bttt

5/29/2010 5:53:24 PM

OMAR LITTLE

5/29/2010 6:08:37 PM

Movie is pointless without the book. And the movie is terrible with it.

This isn't a "boo, the book is so much better" argument. The movie makes the audience focus way too much on the actual disaster itself, which was [i]not/i] McCarthy's goal. The movie has different aims from the book in a lot of different and critical ways that I'm not entirely sure the director or producer even realized.

This critical misdirection has led to many of simpler audience members forming crippled opinions similar to that of LoneSnark's.

6/1/2010 1:09:22 AM

Quote :

"The movie makes the audience focus way too much on the actual disaster itself, which was not/i] McCarthy's goal"

As someone who never got around to reading the book (though I wanted to), and just watched the movie a few nights ago, I strongly disagree. I didn't think the movie focused on the disaster at all really. It made it clear that [i]something happened, and that's about it. - which is all it needed to do to tell the story. Maybe it focused on it more than the book, or maybe it just focused less on other things which makes it seem that way. actually if anyone asked, I would say it doesn't focus on the disaster at all.

Having said that, I didn't think the movie was good at all. I'm debating whether I should read the book now or not. It's tempting just because I thought the story had potential and I like some of McCarthy's other books (some I don't care for at all). And I think it would come across better as a book and I'm sure the movie was lacking some aspects of the book. I'll probably at least start it and see if it catches my interest I guess.

very glad i got this at redbox and didn't see it in the theater like i would have liked to at the time.

6/1/2010 1:53:56 AM

I enjoyed the movie and didn't really find myself wondering about the disaster at all. Then the other day my mom watched it and said she hated it and was particularly mad that they never told you about the disaster or whatever wrecked the planet. So I guess it just depends on the person.

6/1/2010 1:42:11 PM

I just got this audio book and will be listening to it. its quite short. Wanted to get the novel in before seeing the film.

6/1/2010 1:55:27 PM

^^^
The movie sticks to the book probably more so than any I've seen. I enjoyed both.

6/1/2010 2:18:00 PM

I saw the movie yesterday without having read the book and I liked it a lot. It was moving, especially the dad's flashbacks to happier times with his wife. Also liked the suspense and danger every time the two got into a pickle. I had no problem with the unnamed disaster, the cannibals, etc. Even some of the stuff the book fans are talking about didn't occur to me (the situation not being dire enough in the movie?? I thought the movie was non-stop one dire situation after another, with the constant threat of starvation to top it off)

My one problem was with the ending. I'm glad it was semi-happy, but after watching how barren the land was I just couldn't believe that the other family could survive without resorting to cannibalism, especially with 2 kids. And they were willing to take on a 3rd??

Also, at the end the kid found a beetle and they saw a bird flying around. Was there anything like that in the book? Were things slowly getting better as they moved south?

6/1/2010 4:47:58 PM