Young Torrence Continues Playing When His Mother Leaves the Room and Ignores Her When She Returns
Dumbed down, dull star
Warning: Spoilers
All that highly paid 'talent' at the BBC (the people who would be instantly head-hunted away to other broadcasters)! Why couldn't some committee of them have got together and spotted that they were spending millions on trash? The story is reduced to the level of the Sarah Jane Adventures on CBBC (which are good in their place). The goodies are very good, and the baddie is totally evil and comes to a really sticky end.
There is little logic to the whole thing. There are wild coincidences - everyone keeps meeting up - and ridiculous last-second escapes, sometimes after characters put themselves in the way of the Triffids for no compelling reason. These only eat easily disposable characters.
The characterisations are also weak. Dougray Scott gives one of those proverbial 'phoned in' performances. Any actor could have done it, most of them better. Joely Richardson tries her best, but even she is overfaced when the script suddenly demands that she become an instant step-mother.
See the old John Duttine version. Read the book.
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Over processed limp adaptation
Warning: Spoilers
What we seem to have here is either an adaptation where too many 'cooks' have been involved such that the plot got lost somewhere, or simple a case of the writers not trying to keep the characters and situations in the realms of believability - Too many characters do daft unnecessary things, or events proposed are just daft or ill thought-out.
I'll try listing some example of moments where you roll your eyes due to silly weak/lazy writing (*spoilers*):-
1) Torrence (Eddie Izzard) waking up in a passenger plane careering thought the air. He doesn't ask a single question about why the plane is in trouble. Instead he just gets into a cubicle and fills it with inflatable vests. Wouldn't we all?
2) The plane then happens to crash land (in all the world) right next to/on top of the lead characters. Wow! What a coincidence!
3) In a crazy moment, equalling Indiana Jones surviving an a-bomb by jumping inside a fridge, Izzard comes out of a plane crashing into a city at X hundred miles an hour, alive, with stupid looking comedy character with a blacked face, clothes in tatters and trouser legs ripped and missing. Were the writers drunk? Could this possibly happen? Really?
4) Jo (the news lady) comes out of the underground (which had collapsed because of Izzards plane), wonders around for a minute or two before bumping into our hero and proclaims, "I thought I was the only one"? What in the 2 minutes you've looked love?
5) Our hero and news lady go to the Triffid farms, and off they go into the middle of the farm for no reason other than to risk their lives.
6) At the triffid farm, where X hundreds/thousands of triffids were, they've escaped and killed everyone there. Not a SINGLE triffid is still there even just by random, or sitting by the person it had killed, feeding - in the end that's why the Triffids kill, they sit there feeding on the corpse for X days or weeks... But no, these new Triffids have other agendas, like getting out of the way of our heroes so they don't appear in the episode too soon.
7) We now have ninja tree climbing triffids attacking from the air and scooping folks up off the ground below. Why were they up in these particular trees? Nesting for the night?
8) Why cart Mason and Coker mile and mile away in the back of a truck to then kill them? What's wrong with a back alley? Other than to allow the Triffids to get involved?
9) When Coker throws a bunch of papers out of the plane he's in, they all fall X hundred feet down through the air and land at the feet of our heroes? Wow! Good shot! Laser guided paper!
10) At Bill Mason's father's house, why do Torrent's men all just stand by the fence waiting to be attacked one by one by the triffids. My guess is simply because the script says for them to do that because they're not longer needed.
11) Furthermore, surely driving out of the triffid surrounded house in a one and a half tonne vehicle might have been a good means to survive the triffids?
In short, the writers just seems to have no grasp on keeping their characters/plot/script anywhere within the bounds of believability, and as such you don't believe in the events, and then worse still, don't care about them. To me it just comes across as lazy unintelligent writing.
Why has Torrence's character been made such a major part of this new adaptation? Is the premise of most of the worlds population being blind and starving to death, society falling apart and an ever increasing number of flesh eating plants not enough for the writers to work with? Seemingly not, as they have to invent a big-baddie for us all to hate, and introduce some daft techno-gizmo for triffid communication and daft wooden voodoo masks!
So, even with its simpler/older production values, the depth and darkness shown in the 1981 BBC adaptation puts this modern day one to shame. Why? Because characters and events are handled in a simple and realistic manner so what is seen on screen rings true. I'm sure the writers of that version would have laughed at the thought of suggesting a scene where someone survived crashing into a city at X hundred miles an hour in a jumbo jet, simply by wrapping themselves up in a dozen inflatable vests. Believable? No! So don't include it!
With a simpler more realistic script this could have been a fabulously gritty and dark survival drama. Instead we have some silly over processed hokum. The 1981 version is still a rewarding watch nearly 30 years. This version will be forgotten in 30 days - 5/10
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Awful and unwanted adaptation of a classic sci-fi novel
Warning: Spoilers
Another day, another remake – although this one's strictly a new adaptation of the classic John Wyndham novel, which was already filmed once back in the 1960s and made into a miniseries by the BBC in the 1980s. This one's a two-part TV film shown by the BBC at Christmas 2009. I love the novel, so I was looking forward to watching this and hoping against hope that they didn't ruin it.
They did. DAY OF THE TRIFFIDS is another example of style over substance, a film where Wyndham's thoughtful prose is tossed aside in favour of people running around with machine guns. It's heavily indebted to 28 DAYS LATER, borrowing many plot points, while at the same time having that glossy look shared by all major BBC drama these days. The Triffids themselves are CGI creations and to be fair the CGI isn't too bad – it's the script that sucks.
Never have I seen a film so chock-full of plot holes – it's as if the writer doesn't give a damn, desperate to throw in as much senseless action as possible. As a result, the film becomes repetitive and boring. Here are a few questions I asked myself while watching:
If the lights in the sky were a brief phenomenon – unlike in the book – where are all the people who were asleep/on the Underground who wouldn't have been blinded?
Why does every character – including kids in a village – have access to a machine gun?
What is up with the stupid tribal mask solution that makes no sense whatsoever (or should that be nonsense)?
How did Susan follow Bill when he went to trap the male Triffid – are we supposed to believe that she hid in the back of the jeep without him noticing?
How did Susan get back in the heavily-guarded room after planting the audio device at the climax (maybe she has Harry Potter's invisibility cloak)?
How many times are we to be reminded of this film's environmentally-conscious leanings?
How unlikely is it that Jo just happens to be picked up by Bill's dad in his jeep?
Why did the screenwriter focus on familiar human drama instead of the actual Triffid story?
All these flaws and plot holes combine to make a thoroughly ridiculous movie. The cast is also a mixed bag – Dougray Scott and Joely Richardson are fine as the heroic twosome, but some of the supporting actors are really awful – especially Eddie Izzard's bad guy, who seems to be trying to imitate Gary Oldman in LEON. Jason Priestley, once an American heartthrob, now unrecognisable, has a thankless minor part, and Brian Cox's turn amounts to little more than a cameo, lucky him. All in all, this is the worst Triffids adaptation to date.
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Some good b-movie monster moments do not cover the missed potential and irritating lack of internal logic in the plotting
Injured in an attack at his work place, triffid expert Bill Mason (sp) is in hospital with his eyes bandaged when the solar event of a lifetime occurs across the earth as solar flares create a cosmic firework display for all to see. When he wakes he finds the hospital in chaos as everyone appears to have been struck blind with only those not watching the sky at its peak. Society quickly crumbles as those with sight struggle with the choices inherent in protecting the weak or looking after themselves. However Mason has more immediate concerns as he knows that the triffids, farmed for years for their oil, require strict control and management given their ability to move and their carnivorous diet and that inevitable power failures will release them to look for easy and defenceless food sources.
In the original material the triffids are pretty much in the background of the story as the focus is more on the collapse of society and the retention (or otherwise) of morality that comes with it. The BBC miniseries got closest to it while the b-movie from the 1960's focused more on the escape from the creatures themselves. Although I did expect a bit more in the way of intelligence and horrific moral drama from this three hour film, I was not overly surprised to find that the Christmas BBC blockbuster production took the "action first" route – not surprised but perhaps a little disappointed. This is not in itself a bad thing because I don't see the logic in deriding something simply because it didn't stick to the source material if whatever it does with it actually works well – it is a different time, a different media and a different writer (adapter). Being protective is not a bad thing either, but the reality is somewhere in the middle, not at either extreme.
The problem then because one of whether this version "works" and it must be said that it does work well in specific moments but not as a whole. What this means is that there are moments and sequences that work well if you just view them as standalone moments. Many of the triffid attacks are well done, while there are scattered moments of drama associated with the treatment of the blind and the selection of survivors. These "moments" are not momentary and as a result I did quite enjoy it as I sat in front of it but ultimately I am not watching a series of "reasonably good bits" but rather one drama that has to work over three hours (yes, three). This is the thing you see, it doesn't work that well, mostly due to the focus of the plot combined with the near total lack of internal logic.
The plot has decided that a clear goodie and baddie are required so, although he is never explained and doesn't make a lot of sense, Eddie Izzard's Torrence is the baddie foil to Mason's goodie. As a result, the bigger picture quickly takes a back seat to Torrence's pursuit of Mason and Jo. This gives us the base of a thriller plot but it does rather fold the whole story in on itself and needs good work done to layer it and add more complexity to it. Sadly it doesn't do this. There are some small moment of tragedy and tough decisions early on but mostly it doesn't do this and it certainly doesn't make it part of the total film so much as part of specific moments. The frequent moments of peril keep it distracting but they are not enough on their own to fill the running time or to distract the mind from the many illogical moments or moments of sheer lay writing convenience (constantly ensuring that the main characters manage to find each other to keep the narrative moving). This continues the whole way to a weak ending that does the same thing and is somewhat of a disappointment that brings earlier failings into sharper focus.
The cast are reasonably impressive on paper but not that good in reality. Scott matches the square jaw of Howard Keel with his gruff voice and lack of noticeable range. Richardson is better but is never given the material to work with. Izzard could have been a great villain but sadly nobody has written one for him so his performance is poor and his presence distracting – he does seem to be in a different movie. Priestly has more of a "oh look at him" effect rather than being a good turn, while the presence of Cox, Bremner and Redgrave suggest more have been possible with a better script.
Not a great surprise then to find that a festive television special delivers the b-movie monster thrills but doesn't challenge or engage the brain all that much (although to read the boards here you'd think the makers had exhumed Wyndham and performed terrible acts with his remains). Missed potential and full of irritating jumps in logic and plotting make it nothing more than this and not something to go out of your way to see.
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Decent start, ridiculous ending
I started with all possible good intentions: it was a BBC production and I am a fan of Doctor Who and even Torchwood; I have seen the original Day of the Triffids and I liked it (even if I thought the premise to be pretty hard to believe) and I was prepared to enjoy it as a holiday release, with not much substance in it.
This being said, I really enjoyed the start, even if clearly beset with budget issues. I replaced the set in my mind and went on. The premise was a bit ridiculous, but that was in the book, so OK. Then Joely Richardson entered the scene and it all went bad. I have seen her in other movies and she was a decent actress. So either my memory plays tricks on me or the director messed it up. Badly! All her lines were out of place, her behavior like taken from a blond girl joke and her acting appalling. Eddie Izzard did a decent role as the psychopath trying to take over London, the rest of the stars just played average and mostly pointless roles, roles which could have been played by any other actor.
The ending was a chaos of irrational behavior, bad acting, predictability and pointless narration supposed to "open our eyes". The ending really messed things up, both from the standpoint of character development and end feeling.
Bottom line: decent effort, but ultimately a failed one.
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Setup Many Problems
The premise of this mini-series is the world is harnessing the oil from a carnivorous slow-moving plant for fuel. They have these plants that blind people before eating them contained in farms. Then comes the solar flares that blinds everybody who stares at them. Apparently everything wants to blind us. There are some survivors who didn't get blinded played by Joely Richardson, Dougray Scott, Jason Priestley, and Eddie Izzard.
The premise has two sci-fi creations. That's usually one too many. And that's before Eddie Izzard survive a plane crash by piling a bunch of floatation vests in the washroom. How he walks away is pure make believe. And what about the rest of the world? I'm sure there are whole sections of the world that was sleeping through the event. The problematic setups do pile on. If you're willing to forget all the problems with the setup, then the movie is acceptable apocalyptic TV fare. But that's asking too much for me.
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Maximum disappointment
Two stars for effort of the cast with such a poor script. Started off OKay with a similar premise as the book, but totally, completely lost-the-plot early on. It turned into a very silly comic-book horror story full of very old and very tired clichés.
The book was never meant to be a 'horror story' about man-eating plants, but about us, about humanity, or a commentary on "Human Nature". For example, even when faced with a common enemy and such destruction, 'Man is still his own worst Enemy', is just one of the many themes explored in the book.
I will stick with the 1981 TV co-production version, which remains the best adaptation of this classic literary science-fiction novel.
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A Wasted Opportunity
With modern production capabilities, this version could have been the most brilliant rendering of Wyndham's book, but it wasn't. The CGId triffids from the leaves upwards were fair depictions of Wyndham's description but the speedily creeping tendrils at the bottom were more reminiscent of the Evil Dead than the Day of the Triffids. The lack of the three stumpy legs on which the plants 'hobble' and (through which they obtained the name Tri-ffed), as well as the hammer appendages through by they communicate with an indecipherable and creepy kind of Morse code (replacing this with typical Bug-Eyed-Monster growls), really wrecked the essence of the title.
What we got was not 'The Day of the Triffids' but 'The Night of the Salivating Foxglove' As normal, the script suffered from 'BBC Disease' - the sacrificing of literary accuracy for 'Social Relevance', which was taken to such extremes that it threw away any relationship with the original story and could only be described as supremely silly.
Eagerly anticipated, a sad anticlimax! better by far is the 1981 production starring John Duttine.
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BBC stinker should be left on the compost heap
Warning: Spoilers
Truly atrocious adaptation of John Wyndham's killer plant and the end-of-civilised-society-as-we-know-it story.
Ah, the BBC.. where has it all gone wrong? Seduced by their generally well-received rebooting of 'Doctor Who', the commissioning geniuses over at Broadcasting House seem to have it in their heads that we lap up this kind of nonsense, but cynically time it to air when most of us are bloated and catatonic with booze and calories (i.e. Christmas Day). I can't be alone in resenting this kind of script-writing 101 for the terminally thick, how did it ever get commissioned? As each tinker-toy contrivance clunked into place, the so-called 'story arc' nose-dived into a preposterous mess and sank there. Dramatically this was as threadbare and as implausible and as daft as they come. Those poor misunderstood Triffids ought to sue for defamation as this 'reimagining' is so totally wide of the mark, it almost defies serious critique. Avoid.
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Ah! Another adaptation....
Warning: Spoilers
John Wyndham must be turning in his grave!
Well, the original story was great and then these TV geniuses decide to make an adaptation (or should I say butcher) of a fine book to TV. The recipe for this type of tripe is really simple:
The mutilate the original idea, add some political correctness, update the story so that it include some social commentary or make reference to a modern problem, add a dash of ethnic mumbo-jumbo (the mask scene in the end of the second episode is utterly idiotic!), mix it to it a dumb script, and voilá: we have a modern "adaptation" of a classic converted to a rather dull TV movie.
This is only watchable if one has absolutely nothing else to do. It is too long, too slow and lacks creativity. Read the book instead...
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Did Anyone On The Production Ever Read The Book
Warning: Spoilers
Hey DOCTOR WHO has changed the face of British television . Not long ago BBC executives would have cut their own throats rather than commission science fiction . They commission Doctor Who probably as a one off series , find the public have fallen in love with the show and can't get enough of science fiction drama so start making it a staple diet of their schedules . Next up following the success of TORCHWOOD is an adaptation of John Wyndham's DAY OF THE TRIFFIDS one of the great sci-fi novels of the 20th century . Having enjoyed the 1981 BBC version I was looking forward to this big budget remake though I did have reservations that this might be dumbed down to a mainstream audience
When I say " dumbed down " what I mean is that DOTT isn't really a sci-fi horror story that DOCTOR WHO has a reputation for . The story revolves around mankind being blinded by a meteor shower and Bill Masen going through the narrative finding flawed attempts by different communes to keep the human race going and rebuilding civilisation from scratch . The Triffids aren't really what the story is about . The novel is rather slow moving but this is compensated by its intelligent premise and its brooding atmosphere . it is quite rightly a highly regarded novel and has been the inspiration for 28 DAYS LATER and both versions of the BBC's SURVIVORS
Unfortunately my fears were realised very quickly . Torrance is asleep on a plane , awakes after everyone else has been blinded but without a word realises what has happened and surrounds himself with life jackets in the plane toilet . Perhaps he's got supernatural powers of deduction , but more likely Patrick Harbinson has written this original scene badly . Director Nick Copus helps make it even more incredible when we see Torrance stagger from the plane wreckage . You know one of these scenes from The Road Runner cartoon where Wile E Coyote gets blown up ? Well that's what the survivor of the plane crash looks like . I wish directors wouldn't substitute spectacle for credibility
As for the Triffids themselves they're much more central to the plot in this version , as much as part of the story as a monster from DOCTOR WHO is central to that show . The only thing is they're kept very much in the shadows . It really is bizarre when we get Masen describing their threat only for them to appear off screen or seen very fleetingly from a distance . Since they're CGI creations one can't help thinking there's been some sort of FX failure and they've ended up looking terribly unconvincing so at the last minute Copus has reshot the scene
Apparently this version cost $15 million to produce and looking at the big names in the cast much of this went on appearance fees . Cox and Redgrave don't appear in the opening episode while Bremner is quickly killed off . Dougray Scott is actually quite terrible . True I can imagine hetrosexual women and gay men in the audience having heart attacks every time he's on screen but his " Hey ain't I a bit of hunk and watch as I give a smouldering look " expression ie his only expression gets very tiresome especially since Masen is a basic everyman character in the novel . In fact Scott comes over as so vain I kept expecting him to lament that there's very few women who can't gaze upon him anymore " That's worse than getting eaten by a Triffid girls "
Having said that Dougray is Daniel Day Lewis in comparison with Eddie Izzard . Who thought it was a good idea to cast a transvestite comedian in a dramatic role ? It's made even worse that much of the story revolves around Torrance's villain . I've never liked the guy and know him mostly as one of the world's most unfunny comedians and I genuinely think he must have been on drugs whilst acting his part . There's no gravatis to Torrance , no presence and no conviction . Really maybe the BBC should have cloned Izzard and made him play the Triffids and let a tree play Torrance . It'd definitely be an improvement
Part Two entirely goes its own way adding its own characters and subplots while forgetting the main subplot of the novel featuring a blinded population is entirely ignored . It's like watching a substandard RTD scripted episode of DOCTOR WHO . There's a due ex ma china plot twist that makes no sense while Torrance has the worst final line demise in television history . When all is said and done even the 1962 film version has its better points than this mega million dollar mega flop
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Oh dear, another mangled remake
Why, oh why do people think it is a great idea to remake a hugely successful and gripping novel, and completely screw around with the plot and characters. Nothing in this remake adds to the original, instead it twists it into a laughable and contrived mess. There are plot holes throughout - and god knows where all those automatic machine guns came from in the heart of England.
Heaven knows why writers/producers would take what was a proved winner, as demonstrated in the 1981 BBC series, and entirely rip its heart out. Very, very disappointing.
2/10
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atmospheric but weak, confused plot
Very few of the actions of any of the characters are credible, and this makes it hard to relate to. Torrence behaves like a personal Nemesis to Jo and Masen. There is no logic to his operation nor why people follow him. The plot proceeds through a series of accidents and stupid or careless mistakes in unlikely situations. Cars in the UK seem scarcer than automatic weapons. No one behaves cautiously, like a survivor. Even triffid experts, scarred by triffid fights, go deliberately into battle against unrestrained triffids without eye protection that was mandatory for them when working with secure captive triffids. Relationships evolve clumsily and implausibly. People in general are more afraid of each other than triffids, spend more energy fighting each other than fighting to survive. This is an attempt to create 'drama' - was the writer not able to get enough drama out of the premise of flesh eating plants conquering the world? Nothing rings true. Watching it becomes a disappointing waste of time. A great shame since the effects and production values are excellent. Another example of where spending a little more time, thought & money on the script would've paid huge dividends. This could've been awesome, but sadly it's a complete turkey.
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Three hours better spent watering your plants...
One of my personal favorite movies of all times is the cheap and often clumsy 1962 version of "Day of the Triffids". Admittedly it's a flawed and heavily altered version of the acclaimed story, but it made an everlasting impression on me thanks to the unequaled atmosphere of hopelessness (during the first half of the film) in combination with the original nature of mankind's opponent (during the second half of the film). Most of the praise should undeniably go to the novel's author John Wyndham, of course, but there's also that typical apocalyptic atmosphere that only worked effectively in late fifties/early sixties Sci-Fi movies. I haven't read the book yet, but apparently the 1962 film adaptation modified a large number of elements, which is probably why the BBC produced two much more elaborated and faithful adaptations in the form of TV mini-series. I can't speak for the 1981 version, but this newer and supposedly "technologically advanced" 2009 version only made me regret to have wasted three long & precious hours of my life and sparked the desire to re-watch that charming old movie again.
Thinking back about my viewing experience now, only one day ago, I already wonder how they even managed to fill three hours of running time, as there's actually very little happening in "Day of the Triffids". Here, the Triffids (a unique species of carnivorous plants) already exist as genetically engineered organisms and their oil is used as a more than welcome alternative fuel resource. Their hunger for flesh is stilled and supervised in humongous laboratories of the Triffoil Corporation, but when solar flares blind the entire world's population, the ravenous vegetables break free and feast themselves on the poor and helpless blind. Speaking of which, the whole "world gone blind" aspect is scandalously neglected in this version. There are really a lot of people who apparently missed the once-in-a-lifetime light spectacle and there are only a few sequences of (implausible) mass hysteria in the center of London. There's also very little Triffids-horror, for that matter, and it seems that the entire film revolves solely on the dire romance between a Triffid milkman and a BBC journalist and one idiot's quest for world domination. Only one sub plot is worth mentioning, in my humble opinion, and it involves a monastery community run by Vanessa Redgrave that the Triffids don't attempt to invade for some mysterious reason. The final half hour is unendurable and nearly impossible to struggle through, as the main couple adopts two siblings and reunites with the man's father who has thought up a cross-pollinating solution. Fake sentiment and family drama is the absolute last thing I'm looking for in a Sci-Fi flick about murderous plants. As a fan of old-fashioned special effects and the power of suggestion, I also certainly cannot recommend watching "Day of the Triffids" for its lackluster CGI effects and pitiable post-apocalyptic landscapes. Please, explore and re-discover old Sci-Fi cinema … or, in my case, take the time to read a good book.
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Dreadful adaptation
Warning: Spoilers
How can such an amazing story be ruined? The writer of this version seems to know well how to achieve this - with ease.
I found myself on the side of the triffids wishing the main characters would just become fertiliser. Hard to watch it to the end in fact am writing this whilst trying to do so. This is the third version I've seen and rubbish compared to the other two. No problem with them making an updated version but they've changed it throughout for the sake of changing it and made it thoroughly dull. Why have a character to blame for releasing the triffids? why have someone survive a plane crash? why do the plants have to have ridiculous roots that grab things? Is this meant to make it more exciting?
Avoid this and watch the 1981 version instead.
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Caution: Heavy Plant
Warning: Spoilers
John Wyndham's most famous story gets another adaptation along with a contemporary make-over by the BBC this Christmas.
It's a two-part 3-hour effort. The first half introduces us to the plants in an extremely sketchy and unsatisfactory way. Their genesis is never made particularly clear. A number of slightly confusing and needless flashbacks add nothing of value to the story. In a way, the Triffids have an anonymous hint of 'Aliens' about them.
Then; as in the book, most everyone is blinded. Here it seems to be caused by a sudden stupendous solar-flare which lasts only a few minutes (and therefore could only have affected one side of the planet's population, whilst many people like shift-workers and so on would also have been spared). And this is only one in a number of gaping plot holes that Wyndham was smart enough to avoid, but not the BBC. Which is pretty inexcusable when you have the original story to work from. Also, as the initial flare developed over hours, it would have seriously interfered with satellite communication to such an extent that aeroplanes would likely have been grounded.
A lot of money got well spent on some extremely harrowing and comprehensive apocalypse scenes which are centred (inevitably) on London, but are still a refreshing change from New York and LA, as indeed are the British accents. The plants themselves are also modified into something more closely resembling terrestrial octopuses with super-human strength.
An odd choice of casting is that of stand-up comic Eddie Izzard - still sporting his trade-mark black leather trousers - as the villain of the piece. He sets a new standard in preposterous air-crash survival. Basically, he grabs everybody's inflatable survival tunics and shuts himself in the bog with them. Yes. You could almost imagine this as a joke in one of his surreal monologues. Other players are no more than competent.
Other disappointments are the complete abandonment of both Wyndham's excellent original character-driven dialogue which was frank and witty, and also his well-rounded analysis of human foibles and affairs. He was an extremely insightful man. And something else jettisoned is the lonely interlude of the hero walking through an eerily silent and deserted capital, so eloquently described in 'Groping London'.
The book was first released in the more urbane, and 'civilised' 1950's, so the kind of tolerance and compassion of that period is replaced by a vicious, homicidal self-centredness more in keeping with the third millennium and reminiscent of 'Grand Theft Auto'.
By the second part, the special effects and CGI budget must have been exhausted, and what we have left is a fairly hammy and predictable shoot-'em-up in which Leather Eddie gets his come-uppance.
If you haven't read Wydham's almost-timeless novel then this creature-feature may seem like an adequate piece of sci-fi hokum. But with such a story-maestro for inspiration, you hardly need to be a purist to feel a bit disappointed with the BBC's effort.
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Lame Screenplay
I started seeing "The Day of the Triffids" with great expectations of a good sci-fi film. The beginning of the story recalls "Blindness" with most of the population blind. However, differently from José Saramago's novel, London and the rest of the world do not have a mysterious outbreak of blindness but they are affected by a solar storm that blinds everyone that was looking at the phenomenon. Therefore the story is too ridiculous from the very beginning, disregarding that part of the worldwide population would be sleeping or in places protected by the sun. How a scum like Torrence could become a leader? The lame dialogs and situations seem to be written by morons or believing that the viewers are morons. My vote is three.
Title (Brazil): "O Dia Final" ("The Final Day")
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Painfully stupid movie
Warning: Spoilers
The premise of the movie (about first 5 minutes) seemed to be interesting. Then there was totally improbable catastrophe (all people on Earth blinded by Sun including those on night side, in the metro, in the mines, just one guy who sleeps in plane with hat on his eyes and another one who has few layers of bandage is not blinded... huh).
Then all strange and extremely implausible things start to happen. Then there are some characters with unlikely motivation start to do bizarre things like guy who tries to arrange military coup in the middle of chaos. Unfortunately ALL characters behave in very absurd ways: They constantly fire obviously useless weapons on plants, shout "STOP SHOUTING! STOP SHOUTING!", try to save obviously dead people and so on. In general they seem to fight among themselves than to take a stand and find some reasonable solution to the plan infestation.
This movie is almost completely brain dead and painful to watch. I'm simply not able to survive the second part, the first one was bad enough. The King's The Mist may have some crazy characters too, but overall it is worlds better than this.
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Decent update, but too many stupid scenes and flat script lines
Warning: Spoilers
Having read the book I remember watching the original 1981 series and being quite impressed. It was near enough to a fantastical but still believable post-apocolyptic event that you could forgive the shortcomings and flaws.
I saw this version when first released and recently stumbled across it again and decided it was worth a second viewing. Suffice to say I was both impressed and appalled.
The plot has understandably moved on in the 20+yrs since the first TV adaption, however its gotten itself lost somewhere thanks to the writers inabilty to keep the characters and situations both exciting and likable, but most of all believable - remember these are supposed to represent realistic people albeit in an alternative now/near future.
Instead there are simply too many characters who insist on ignoring even the most blatant self imposed sensibilities and rules and instead do unnecessary, risky, incomprehensible and too often dangerous things that even a person in shock or suffering anxiety and loss would think twice about. And once you add in absurd events, ridiculous coincidences, and ill thought-out consequences it negates so many of the shows positives.
Many others have listed or noted the weaker subplots, scenes, and characterisations so I'll pick out just a few that erked me early on - in fact lets just stick with the main character intros:
1) Torrence (played by a quietly menacing but bored looking and slightly out of place Eddie Izzard) waking up in the plane after the passengers and crew have been blinded and it threatens lose control. He simply reacts like hes seen it all before - there's no panicking or asking questions but instead calmly grabs inflatable vests from under a few seats and wedges himself in the toilet (nowhere near enough to make a difference btw even if the crash itself isn't so violent it kills him). And when the plane crashes in the middle of London not only is he alive but also he's miraculously virtually alone. Now I'll let them off to a point as its required for the plot, except he's barely shaken or injured yet his clothes are tattered, torn and blackened - yet a moment later he's smashing a shop window for a suit just as every plane crash survivor does.
2) In the meantime Bill is recovering from a close call with a Triffid sting - just as per original, only altered to suit. However the manner he received the sting is ridiculous having handed his glasses to a colleague as she is held hostage in a Triffid farm. As its later shown by the bodies that stings to the face in general can kill the question is if Triffids are so dangerous with their stings why only glasses and not a full mask? And with high fences, secure buildings and armed security (in a UK non-military/government farm!) how did the intruded get so far in the first place?
3) Our heroine Jo, a news reporter, comes out of the underground having miraculously been saved her sight my being ordered to change location by produced. This I'll accept as luck, however the aforementioned plane crash happnes right above her head yet she appears to be the only survivor from the underground, which is doubly unfortunate considering any others would be equally 'lucky' to still retain their sight. She doesn't even seem to look around other than at her apparently dead cameraman (who she does nothing more than glance at). Surely as an outdoor reporter she would be a little more observant even if shook up - obviously not tho as she soon proclaims "I thought I was the only one" when she bumps in to Bill.
I feel the only character who comes out of his first scene with any credibility is Corker who like the older version remains tough, resolute, caring, but shortsighted - although why he's suddenly an American and a Major and dressed like a WW2 airman seems odd (pandering to the US audience? or just another unnecessary change to the original?)
Its a pity there are so many points to highlight as it could have been so much better. I feel the writers have made a mess keeping the rewrite true to the original but relevant to modern audiences. The characters are forced to stumble over a sometimes terrible script that misses the point on too many occasions, and on more than one is simply absurd. The altered plot is lazy and at times unwiedly. Compared to the almost 'scripted reality' feel of the original this is written and produced as a more dramatic affair but comes over as far less believable even taking in to account the SciFi genre.
Just a couple more quickies:
Updated Triffids. More menacing but rather more unreal than those of old.
Also Terrance. Whilst Izzrad is suitably menacing the actual character feels wrong and its not only his entrance but also his quick rise to major player status that has changed.
To sign off there is that one last biggie that isn't just annoying but downright stupid - and I mean worse than the tree climbing Triffids - those awful Tribal Masks and the idea that a little Triffid 'blood' will suddenly make you safe from attack!!! ... Whilst i find the remake fine I still find the original with its older, simpler style more enjoyable. It just seemed to capture the post-apoas well yet in a far less in-your-face manner.
Will there be another version made sometime in the future. I doubt it, at least not for a good while, but if so I sincerely hope it's far more like 1981 that 2009...
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Not entirely successful
Warning: Spoilers
Two things happen - lights in the sky make most people go blind, and the world is simultaneously overrun by Triffids, intelligent ambulatory carnivorous plants.
Classic stories - of which John Wyndham's The Day Of The Triffids is one - are almost entitled to revisitation by the TV/movie industry every few years. This particular iteration is a two part, 3 hour co-production between the BBC and sundry others, and features Dougray Scott as major protagonist Bill Masen.
In this instance, Masen actually works with the Triffids, which were harnessed by his father to produce Triffid oil to defeat global warming in an interesting tweak to the original. In a less pleasing tweak, Masen's mother was killed by Triffids when he was a child, which results in frequent and annoying flashbacks of African natives in frightmasks.
Dougray Scott is a dour, unappealing, and frequently unintelligible protagonist. Joely Richardson is a solidly effective leading lady and Eddie Izzard is an entertaining but motiveless baddie.
The scenes of a devastated London are very effective, and the Triffids are nicely realised.
Which leaves the script, in respect of which one can only say "Oh dear." There are digressions which would be fine in an ongoing series, but which have no place in a miniseries like this. There are illogicalities aplenty. There are characters with no apparent motivation, and unbelievable motivations. The Day Of The Triffids is an easy story to make believable. This effort chooses not to.
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In the world of the blind...
Britain, present day. Oil from a genetically altered walking carnivorous plant saves the world from the harmful use of fossil fuels. We take advantage of them, however, and when the majority of our planet's population is instantly blinded, these Triffids escape and we now have to deal with both them and this sudden(perhaps too much so?) collapse of society. This focuses on Dr. Masen(Scott) who studies them(just as his parents did until his mother died and he lost contact with his father), the reporter Jo(Richardson) and the mysterious and pragmatic Torrence(a nicely menacing Izzard). We see how the military, the religious institutions and regular people react to this turn of events, and how some sighted are willing to give up everything to save those who are not, while others frown upon that. I have not read the book, nor watched another version of this... I hear that it is smarter than this lets it be. This does still comment on things and have compelling themes, such as cynicism, balance with nature and naiveté. It takes off right away and keeps to a good pace, and is consistently interesting and entertaining. The acting and the cast are great. FX are marvelous. The production values are very nice, it's filmed well with effective use of hand-held camera and sharply cut. There is tension and suspense, and the chaos is convincingly rendered. One complaint I hear that I can understand(I get that this is also not the same as the original, but I don't know what the changes are) is that it is too flashy, too Hollywood. British apocalypse fiction is more about the day after than the event, unlike the American ones. And this is listed as action(among other genres), and it really shouldn't be. The decision was undoubtedly because it's easier to sell, and it's unfortunate. Still, if this sounds appealing to you, the time investment of three hours may feel worth it. It does to me. There is a bit of bloody violence and disturbing content in this. I recommend this to those looking for a "end of the world" story that has you thinking somewhat. 7/10
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The extent of dumbing down
The people who made this adaptation assumed the following:
That the average British punter watching this is so thick, that if you cracked open his or her skull with a claw hammer, ate their brain, and crapped it back into their head their IQ would be increased billions of times. Take this piece of script for example:
"The Triffids have escaped!" "What are the Triffids?" "They are bad and they escaped!" "The Triffids ESCAPED!?" "YES The Triffids ESCAPED!" "TRIFFIDS ESCAPED!" "TRIFFIDS ESCAPED!" "That means the Triffids have got out!" "Yes, the Triffids have got out. The Triffids are BAD, and now they've GOT OUT!"
Of course, I can't quite convey it as stupidly in writing. Dumbing down doesn't begin to describe the depth and magnitude of this level of cultural ruin. The TV adaptation of the early 80s was infinitely better in every way. Not just the script and direction. Even the camera work, the special effects, were vastly better. Our only hope is to cull those in our population who think this sort of guff is worth the license fee, and bring back the death penalty specifically for the sort of muff-botherers who make this drivel. Scrap the BBC if it can make excrement like this, sacrificing Radio 4 may be hard, but it would be worth it so that this sort of thing would no longer come into the world. We need to see the scriptwriters, directors, producers and funders publicly tortured and executed on TV instead, it would be a great moral improvement on this level of depravity.
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Flawed but enjoyable adaptation
Warning: Spoilers
Before watching this it is best to put the book and previous adaptations out of your mind or you will be frustrated by the inconsistencies. Even if you have never heard of The Day of the Triffids before there will be several times during the programme where it will hard to suspend disbelief; for example I don't think it is possible to survive a plane crashing into a city by hiding in the toilet with a few life vests.
Set in the not to distant future the problems of global warming has been solved by replacing fossil fuels with oil extracted from triffids, a strange plant discovered in central Africa which not only feeds on meat but is able to move on its own. They are farmed in secure buildings where the males are segregated to prevent uncontrolled pollination. All is going well until too things occur, first one of the farms is infiltrated by a man determined to free the triffids during his capture triffid expert Bill Mason is wounded and has to go to hospital for eye surgery. While he is recovering the second event occurs; a solar flare that causes blindness in everybody who observes it. When Bill wakes up and takes off his bandages he finds that he is one of the few people that can still see, others include reporter Jo Playton who was in the Underground when the flare occurred and Torrence, the man on the plane who was sleeping at the time.
With most people blind and the escaped Triffids advancing on London Bill and Jo plan to head out of the city to Bill's father's house in the country where they think they may be able to use some of his research to find a way to combat the triffids. Unfortunately they are prevented from doing this by Torrence who, along with American Major Coker, has some how taken control of London.
The actors did a good enough job with the material and I thought using the triffids as a solution to global warming was a decent updating but wasn't so keen on other things such as when Torrence acquired a pistol from a policeman; there was no explanation as to why an ordinary policeman would be armed a later on when Bill and Jo meet a couple of young armed girls there is no explanation as to how they got their hands on a submachine gun of a type which hasn't been used by the military in twenty years. Despite these flaws I enjoyed this version of the story well enough.
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Really disappointing from the BBC
How on earth could the BBC system, that normally delivers high quality, come out with this disaster of a mini-series? There is no synopsis on the IMDb page. Maybe everyone is just too embarrassed to even try writing one. I certainly won't contribute! I did listen carefully to the radio drama from the Norwegian broadcaster NRK, made back in 1969, and that is far more exciting than this TV drama from 2009, even though one should expect the opposite. I haven't found out who has directed or produced this nonsense and I don't even care. And how could such top actors believe in it? They don't seem to be having a good time. The film is so full of logical flaws, bad acting and poor film crafting that it clearly is appropriate for use in film schools as a great example of how not to do it.
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Dreadful mockery.
This has very little to do with the book written by John Wyndham. This movie/show, whatever, is a total and unparalleled piece of garbage. Watching it would have made John Wyndham turn in his grave. This book deserves a show of "Survivors" quality.
The makers of this version took a great classic, removed all that made this book great and substituted it with their version of pseudo science that makes no sense. The book is a psychological drama of the world gone blind. The triffids (that have nothing in common with triffids portrayed in this movie) and mysterious plague are additional elements that complicate the situation.
This movie/show makes it all about triffids and their "biology". As a biologist, I can only say that whoever wrote this part had no clue what they were talking about. This so called "biology" of triffids is on par with that of the "Alien" (when they make an incision of the alien, "blood" burns through several floors of the spaceship, yet the scalpel is undamaged)...
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Source: https://www.imdb.com/title/tt1332653/reviews
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