brad@looking.UUCP (Brad Templeton) (07/07/84)
I don't know what "ARTS-TV" is, but I assume you are referring to the 6-part BBC-TV series they showed up here a couple of years ago. I have to agree it is quite good. You can't call it a remake, because the 60s movie was unforgivable schlock, that had nothing to do with the book. The TV series follows the book plot quite closely, although the character of Josella Playton is not the same. (In the book she's the author of a mildly risque book, "sex is my adventure". In the show she has less character and is simply a frightened young London woman) The triffids are incidental in many ways to the book and the movie except at the end. I do admit this makes the title odd. At the same time, however, they DO add a valuabe thing to the story, so I'm not sad that they're there. The message at the end of the story (I suppose this is a SPOILER) Is that mankind has brought about his own doom, but by building the blinding weapons and by breeding the triffids into a possible role as successors of man. They add an element of suspense, and provide a common foe for man to unite against later to some extent. John Wyndham (I can't recall if that's the spelling) was one of the authors who turned me on to SF when I was young. Did he do the same of others? I later movied into Heinlein, Clarke and Asimov, but I stared with him. Hats off. -- Brad Templeton - Waterloo, Ontario (519) 884-7473
tjb@snow.UUCP (Timothy Bissell) (02/12/85)
>How can you call Day of the Triffids a bad Sci-fi movie? I thought it was >quite good and it is certainly far above the likes of Mars needs women, etc. >M. McCann The reason why it is so bad is that it deviates from the book so much. The BBC produced a series based on the book which (as I recall) followed it more closely, and was much, much better. Tim Bissell, University of Warwick, UK