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beccaelizabethI recorded the Triffids thing on BBC1. Then I read the forteana list ripping it to pieces, so my expectations in terms of plot and matching the source text were very low.
So far I have noticed:
everyone is white. I think I saw a dead black man in the rubble.
There's more men than women.
and
Even though 99% of the world is now blind, the story is only following the sighted people.
Where are the blind people? The ones who were already blind and have got the hang of it?
The idea that it takes less than one night between mass blinding and the fall of civilisation, including the electric and everything, yet the roads remain conveniently clear and there's only a corpse if it's relevant to the plot... blah.
Oh look, Jason Priestley. I've seen him do actual acting before yet it remains surprising. :eyeroll:
And there's a black man... being scary as an extra.
I wonder if anyone has made an emergency plan for everybody going blind? There's emergency plans for zombie invasion. Emergency planners can be geeks too.
Right, so... they're rounding up the sighted because the blind won't survive on their own. Has a blind person done any speaking yet? Not so much.
At this rate I'm not going to bother watching the second half.
"I see no way to save them, and no point in dying with them."
"That's wrong. That's so wrong."
... yes. So what's the story going to do about it?
... keep on with the idea those are the only options?
Making the triffids be evil and be the solution to global warming and the fuel crisis is a weird mixed up message. Alternative fuel is evil11!!1
Someone on the forteana list reckoned that the point of triffids in the book was they were common and known and not really dangerous until one factor changed, not being able to see them coming.
"Attention all sighted. Each of you will be handcuffed to a blind citizen. It is now your job to keep them alive."
... *facepalm*
Models of disability in action. I mean, this is how people think of disability as is.
also on the forteana list they said the important difference between Triffids and Survivors wasn't the plants, it was all the survivors who couldn't look after themselves.
Everybody in this story has guns. Where do they get all the guns? I never seen a real gun.
So is this a story with any good guys in? Major Coker is the only one trying to help people and he's doing it with guns and handcuffs.
... I'm having a distraction involving Jason Priestley and handcuffs. It is far far more interesting than anything happening on the actual TV.
Now they're in a warehouse grabbing supplies. You can tell one of them is a bad guy and an idiot cause he's mostly trying to grab alcohol. When the apocalypse comes do not grab alcohol, especially when you're out of drinkings.
Where was the site about how long the electric would last in event of a zombie attack? I think it was mostly more than a night.
Oh look, tentacle attacks. I think I'm supposed to be 'ohnoes!' but I'm more somewhere between *facepalm* and LOLs.
Now I'm wondering if they hired any blind actors to play blind people. I should look that up. ... nope, can't find it mentioned anywhere, cannot look up quickly.
Now the idiot who was grabbing alcohol just ran away and left a woman of color with a broken leg screaming. Why is always women when there's someone to be screaming and injured? On the plus side she's survived cause JP rescued her.
Still all the people with lines, stories, motives, and doing things, they're all sighted. And white. And only one is a woman.
It might be a weakness in the source text, but if you're going to adapt a text you fix the isms *first*.
... okay, so now they're evil and stupid. shooting the guy who might know how to stop the danger? that makes sense where?
ah. Masen and Coker both. Torrence is evil then. That's nice. I'm sure that makes sense. Motives being for boring stories.
Although, if he's trying to take over the world, that's pretty much enough motive.
A black man turns up. He's working for evil. He takes Jo away.
Well at least he exists. Now bets on if he survives the story.
This is like an action movie. With deadly plants. There's not a lot of thinking going on. Just boring boring boring aaaargh plant boring again.
I got all the bits of paper out to start my modernism essay. At this particular moment it is more appealing.
Except that was a very slashy image right there and that looks like fun.
oh look, part one over. shall I bother? Okay, I'll bother watching part 2. But I'll delete part 1.
You know I think someone read that 'The Day of the Triffids' and tried to put all the plot into one day. I think it don't work very well that way.
SO, part two.
She's all 'come to London'. Isn't London full of Londoners? You'd have to have a pretty damn significant die off before there was room for anyone. But there's a lot of empty where you'd expect a lot of blind people so hey, maybe there's been a lot of dead.
Because clearly the initial rioting would do that.
:eyeroll:
What's the timespan here?
Because this conversation doesn't make any sense if it's the next day but their injuries don't make sense if it isn't.
I mean, they've got a whole 'there's no London' thing going on, overnight?
And why would the triffid food be running out?
there seems to have been a long time happen between episodes, yet they're still injured from the night before. I cannot make this continuity work.
Is she going to be evil? Evil and religious... yeah. Religious always means evil on TV.
Why are they burning so many candles? Where did they get them from? Won't they run out? Why do they even need them when mostly people are blind? They could carry one per sighted person or have one in a room. They're just sitting around being pretty.
Building a wall of cars looks pretty but works more better if they're on their side because then you get actual wall rather than a series of holes.
Oh look, the religious lady is evil, big surprise. Feed the triffids. Because that makes sense at all.
It's the time frame. If they'd been there months or years behaviour changes like that make sense, but they don't seem to have been very long at all. Did I miss a caption? I think I'm just going to stop complaining and pretend it said six months later or something.
If triffids are dangerous why grow them in London? Why not grow them on islands where there's actual difficulties between them and mass disaster?
So there's conversations with the black guy. He tells her plot. He lets her run away. So, just working for evil then.
Now she just found a dead body. It looks new and unrotted. What is it doing there and how long has it been?
Everything too quick to work and not very useful.
And now she crashes the car because of being very stupid. Drive or read, roads full of car crash already, is known.
Little kid with a gun. Win!
... and wondering where they get them from. I mean, really, why is the story full of gun?
Is that kid actor familiar? Maybe CoE?
Oh look, wandering the woods at night, very clever.
wait, dangerous car? Not dangerous plants? Because there were dangerous plants a minute ago.
... same car. Big metal mesh, that has a point? Seems too big to help with triffid. They were all skinny.
Oh look, big country house.
It's a thing with Brit SF that city is danger and big country house is save you. Class and countryside weirdness.
How far is this place meant to be away? I mean they both get there quick, even with mostly walking.
Boring kissy bit. Aren't they going to save the world? It seems a bit urgent.
City burning. Because that would happen. Defending the place wouldn't work, when the triffids have limited numbers and are very slow. And they do have very limited numbers, because they haven't reproduced yet, which is why there's a race against time element. Stupid.
Science solution to the rescue: genetic modification again.
Mother nature's revenge? Oh eew.
Is the point of this story the triffids? really? Where did all the blind people go! Well they just disappeared, leaving the country empty, because... they want to tell a different story.
Seriously, 99% of the country is blind and only the sighted have stories?
How utterly annoying is that?
Also, how is his father sighted?
I mean, what are the odds?
"Well they're mum and dad to me"
TIMESCALE!
we haven't seen a night yet! How is it all so sudden!
"We spent our lives trying to avoid the triffids and then we end up back in a place that's going to grow them."
... our lives??? I'm trying to ignore the time issues, I really am, but they're mixing conversations that would be the first thing that happen and injuries that hadn't healed yet with conversations that sound like they're happening years later.
This just doesn't make proper sense.
Also, that electric fence isn't going to be much use if they leave it undone.
I want to write a recentered version with *actual blind people*.
It's creepy now they've all vanished. And they have. There's not been a blind person for at least a quarter hour.
really, would it have killed the story to have one competent blind person? people getting on with their lives? arrangements that involved survival of blind people?
Oh hell, additional feminist fail. Girl goes "Don't worry, I can take care of myself!" Man goes "yeah, I noticed" and then of course the story demonstrates that only silly girls think they can take care of themselves and she has to get rescued right away.
I really don't like this story at all.
Also, action sequences that rely on dramatic defeat of a plant, fail.
Triffid snow! All die now! Yaay!
... it has utterly failed on the 'make me care' axis. Or possibly backfired.
People on the Isle of Wight... okay, look, I will try and avoid timescale comparisons, but on the one hand they've had several seasons, and on the other they've had a couple of days. It's a mess.
Is he going to have Dead by Triffid? I bet he is. He's making more triffids and was a bad dad, so there's a rule.
Yep. Of course.
Boo to the bloody stupid psych fail crap.
I mean stories should be predictable because of logic, not because of that kind of crap.
Oh look, ded of triffid, all ded now. Yaay!
All that 'your mother was right' bit is clearly more important than giving a woman an actual storyline. There were two bits of evil woman but mostly there's Men Doing Things. Story should not be about Men Doing Things exclusively.
On the other hand they're carting a radio personality around, and they have tape recordings, so if there's a solution other than 'all dead' it will involve playing triffid talk on the radio. I guess at 1:07. Because there's nothing left else.
And they haven't followed the surivivor politics story at all at all at all so if that's the only ending it's a right balls up.
Hmmm, flashback again. Is it meant to be PTSD style trauma flashback with repressed memory?
Looks like he got venomed as a kid so he isn't dead of it even when he got stung. Different kind of science solution?
Thus far they've taken a story about the whole world having a massive disaster and made it about One White Man Angsts About His Father (and mother a bit).
Oh look, evil Torrence is evil. Will it make more sense this time?
If the Triffids make lots and lots of floating bits I guess being on an island wouldn't be as helpful. I mean, they'd float over there.
Evil Torrence is really boring. I mean, if he can get to whatever middle of nowhere this is supposed to be what's the problem with getting to the Isle of Wight?
Black guy is there figuring out the security system. Does he have a name yet? Don't think so.
Odds are even if he'll survive or switch sides to be a good guy.
I'm betting he'll switch sides then have a heroic sacrificial death to save the white guy.
Science guy thinks it's all about his mother's recordings. Because.
... oh great, he's going to make a triffid attack on purpose? Niiiice.
So there's no good guys then.
... evil Torrence might be being mean, but science guy is going to get Many killed to save four. Classy.
Yes, I know the many are threatening him. It just seems rather different to use people eating plants to make an escape.
Ah, Troy. The black man. he's being sent to kill kids so now he will switch sides and die.
... it's either that or he'll just die. but they're trying not to be racist, right? So.
Oh, great, he has to be talked out of it by the white people. He doesn't just change his mind. That's a bit crap.
Was right so far though. Sides switched.
You know what would be good? Angsty white man dies of his own plan and Troy saves the rest of them. Or mostly useless thus far white womens save themselves. Both of those are rather useless.
Hey, here's a lot of ethnic minority guys with guns! They're extras with no lines! And they're dying! Yep, cause that's where you want to put your diversity.
The repeated refs to Zaire and the ethnic mask and all mesh really poorly with the Angsty White Man plot.
Troy gets shot by Torrence. Dead yet? No.
little girl is behind his back. Little girl kill him? Should.
... nope, doing first aid. Troy not dead yet.
Angsty White Man does saving the day even though it was the woman who had the weapon? Blah.
More ethnic minority screaming deaths then. Classy.
Stinger innoculation? Has a convenient stinger.
Mask saving them all... it'll be a black people living in harmony with nature thing then? Yeah, traditional wisdom remembered from childhood wins.
Because genetic modification is teh evol and uncontrolled dosages with a old wooden mask is teh win.
So many kinds of lose at once!
And yeah, the bodies getting dragged away are all ethnic minority men.
Troy might avoid his sacrificial death though. I give him a near 60% chance of surviving after the clever eye drip trick.
... wait, the stinger is licking them? It's not just that the body gets used to the poison?
No, because there would be no time. Stupid action movie. Makes it all weird and mystical.
Torrence death by triffids. Surprise. Because he's evil.
"Don't you dare!"
heh, evil, yet with a personality and a bit of interesting. And dead now.
Wow, did Troy survive the night? Looks like. So he just got shot a little. Some black people die, some live! Wow!
No, correction, black men. There was only one woman of color in the whole story. And half a dozen white women. And rather more men.
I think in the end it didn't race fail. I mean, bloke was scary and got called a traitor, and switched sides because white people talked him into it rather than because killing children was wrong, so that's a bit fail. And the random extras getting broken or eated had a tendency to be black or gold or brown, so that was a bit fail. And there was the weird native wisdom solves everything bit. And... it could have failed worse? Erm.
Feminist fail was massive. Women did bugger all useful. There were a couple of evil women, who were evil because they tried to be in charge. Women who picked up weapons and had logic and plans and stuff turned out to be useless and need rescuing by Angsty White Man. Granted, said females were childrens, but they were children with guns and good aim, so really that should have worked. They got a couple of things done once they were doing a man's plan. And there was the thing with the romance, but that was so out of nowhere it seemed random and dropped in. Oh, and I almost forgot the refrigerator mother... heh, yeah, that don't mean the same put together that way... women in refrigerators = his mum the inspiring death. I got the ending all wrong because I thought women would turn out to be helpful and actually do something. As it turns out, no. The music to attract triffids was his own recording in the end, and also the point of triffids is you don't need to attract them special, they just tend to turn up and eat you. And the radio presenter lady was no help at all at all. Roles for women big fail.
And then there's the ablism fail. Blind people didn't exist until the big disaster, you see. And then they get chained to able people to be looked after, because they haven't anything to contribute. And then they just vanish. It's creepy.
Race, feminism, and ablism fail. What a surprise.
That's a few hours of my life I won't get back.
And it made the story so much more *boring*. The bits that were predictable plus the bits where there's only really the one character, Angsty White Male, and everyone else just sort of exists.
I want to write a recentered version involving blind people and women.
I don't know if the source text is this much faily but this version was rubbish.
So far I have noticed:
everyone is white. I think I saw a dead black man in the rubble.
There's more men than women.
and
Even though 99% of the world is now blind, the story is only following the sighted people.
Where are the blind people? The ones who were already blind and have got the hang of it?
The idea that it takes less than one night between mass blinding and the fall of civilisation, including the electric and everything, yet the roads remain conveniently clear and there's only a corpse if it's relevant to the plot... blah.
Oh look, Jason Priestley. I've seen him do actual acting before yet it remains surprising. :eyeroll:
And there's a black man... being scary as an extra.
I wonder if anyone has made an emergency plan for everybody going blind? There's emergency plans for zombie invasion. Emergency planners can be geeks too.
Right, so... they're rounding up the sighted because the blind won't survive on their own. Has a blind person done any speaking yet? Not so much.
At this rate I'm not going to bother watching the second half.
"I see no way to save them, and no point in dying with them."
"That's wrong. That's so wrong."
... yes. So what's the story going to do about it?
... keep on with the idea those are the only options?
Making the triffids be evil and be the solution to global warming and the fuel crisis is a weird mixed up message. Alternative fuel is evil11!!1
Someone on the forteana list reckoned that the point of triffids in the book was they were common and known and not really dangerous until one factor changed, not being able to see them coming.
"Attention all sighted. Each of you will be handcuffed to a blind citizen. It is now your job to keep them alive."
... *facepalm*
Models of disability in action. I mean, this is how people think of disability as is.
also on the forteana list they said the important difference between Triffids and Survivors wasn't the plants, it was all the survivors who couldn't look after themselves.
Everybody in this story has guns. Where do they get all the guns? I never seen a real gun.
So is this a story with any good guys in? Major Coker is the only one trying to help people and he's doing it with guns and handcuffs.
... I'm having a distraction involving Jason Priestley and handcuffs. It is far far more interesting than anything happening on the actual TV.
Now they're in a warehouse grabbing supplies. You can tell one of them is a bad guy and an idiot cause he's mostly trying to grab alcohol. When the apocalypse comes do not grab alcohol, especially when you're out of drinkings.
Where was the site about how long the electric would last in event of a zombie attack? I think it was mostly more than a night.
Oh look, tentacle attacks. I think I'm supposed to be 'ohnoes!' but I'm more somewhere between *facepalm* and LOLs.
Now I'm wondering if they hired any blind actors to play blind people. I should look that up. ... nope, can't find it mentioned anywhere, cannot look up quickly.
Now the idiot who was grabbing alcohol just ran away and left a woman of color with a broken leg screaming. Why is always women when there's someone to be screaming and injured? On the plus side she's survived cause JP rescued her.
Still all the people with lines, stories, motives, and doing things, they're all sighted. And white. And only one is a woman.
It might be a weakness in the source text, but if you're going to adapt a text you fix the isms *first*.
... okay, so now they're evil and stupid. shooting the guy who might know how to stop the danger? that makes sense where?
ah. Masen and Coker both. Torrence is evil then. That's nice. I'm sure that makes sense. Motives being for boring stories.
Although, if he's trying to take over the world, that's pretty much enough motive.
A black man turns up. He's working for evil. He takes Jo away.
Well at least he exists. Now bets on if he survives the story.
This is like an action movie. With deadly plants. There's not a lot of thinking going on. Just boring boring boring aaaargh plant boring again.
I got all the bits of paper out to start my modernism essay. At this particular moment it is more appealing.
Except that was a very slashy image right there and that looks like fun.
oh look, part one over. shall I bother? Okay, I'll bother watching part 2. But I'll delete part 1.
You know I think someone read that 'The Day of the Triffids' and tried to put all the plot into one day. I think it don't work very well that way.
SO, part two.
She's all 'come to London'. Isn't London full of Londoners? You'd have to have a pretty damn significant die off before there was room for anyone. But there's a lot of empty where you'd expect a lot of blind people so hey, maybe there's been a lot of dead.
Because clearly the initial rioting would do that.
:eyeroll:
What's the timespan here?
Because this conversation doesn't make any sense if it's the next day but their injuries don't make sense if it isn't.
I mean, they've got a whole 'there's no London' thing going on, overnight?
And why would the triffid food be running out?
there seems to have been a long time happen between episodes, yet they're still injured from the night before. I cannot make this continuity work.
Is she going to be evil? Evil and religious... yeah. Religious always means evil on TV.
Why are they burning so many candles? Where did they get them from? Won't they run out? Why do they even need them when mostly people are blind? They could carry one per sighted person or have one in a room. They're just sitting around being pretty.
Building a wall of cars looks pretty but works more better if they're on their side because then you get actual wall rather than a series of holes.
Oh look, the religious lady is evil, big surprise. Feed the triffids. Because that makes sense at all.
It's the time frame. If they'd been there months or years behaviour changes like that make sense, but they don't seem to have been very long at all. Did I miss a caption? I think I'm just going to stop complaining and pretend it said six months later or something.
If triffids are dangerous why grow them in London? Why not grow them on islands where there's actual difficulties between them and mass disaster?
So there's conversations with the black guy. He tells her plot. He lets her run away. So, just working for evil then.
Now she just found a dead body. It looks new and unrotted. What is it doing there and how long has it been?
Everything too quick to work and not very useful.
And now she crashes the car because of being very stupid. Drive or read, roads full of car crash already, is known.
Little kid with a gun. Win!
... and wondering where they get them from. I mean, really, why is the story full of gun?
Is that kid actor familiar? Maybe CoE?
Oh look, wandering the woods at night, very clever.
wait, dangerous car? Not dangerous plants? Because there were dangerous plants a minute ago.
... same car. Big metal mesh, that has a point? Seems too big to help with triffid. They were all skinny.
Oh look, big country house.
It's a thing with Brit SF that city is danger and big country house is save you. Class and countryside weirdness.
How far is this place meant to be away? I mean they both get there quick, even with mostly walking.
Boring kissy bit. Aren't they going to save the world? It seems a bit urgent.
City burning. Because that would happen. Defending the place wouldn't work, when the triffids have limited numbers and are very slow. And they do have very limited numbers, because they haven't reproduced yet, which is why there's a race against time element. Stupid.
Science solution to the rescue: genetic modification again.
Mother nature's revenge? Oh eew.
Is the point of this story the triffids? really? Where did all the blind people go! Well they just disappeared, leaving the country empty, because... they want to tell a different story.
Seriously, 99% of the country is blind and only the sighted have stories?
How utterly annoying is that?
Also, how is his father sighted?
I mean, what are the odds?
"Well they're mum and dad to me"
TIMESCALE!
we haven't seen a night yet! How is it all so sudden!
"We spent our lives trying to avoid the triffids and then we end up back in a place that's going to grow them."
... our lives??? I'm trying to ignore the time issues, I really am, but they're mixing conversations that would be the first thing that happen and injuries that hadn't healed yet with conversations that sound like they're happening years later.
This just doesn't make proper sense.
Also, that electric fence isn't going to be much use if they leave it undone.
I want to write a recentered version with *actual blind people*.
It's creepy now they've all vanished. And they have. There's not been a blind person for at least a quarter hour.
really, would it have killed the story to have one competent blind person? people getting on with their lives? arrangements that involved survival of blind people?
Oh hell, additional feminist fail. Girl goes "Don't worry, I can take care of myself!" Man goes "yeah, I noticed" and then of course the story demonstrates that only silly girls think they can take care of themselves and she has to get rescued right away.
I really don't like this story at all.
Also, action sequences that rely on dramatic defeat of a plant, fail.
Triffid snow! All die now! Yaay!
... it has utterly failed on the 'make me care' axis. Or possibly backfired.
People on the Isle of Wight... okay, look, I will try and avoid timescale comparisons, but on the one hand they've had several seasons, and on the other they've had a couple of days. It's a mess.
Is he going to have Dead by Triffid? I bet he is. He's making more triffids and was a bad dad, so there's a rule.
Yep. Of course.
Boo to the bloody stupid psych fail crap.
I mean stories should be predictable because of logic, not because of that kind of crap.
Oh look, ded of triffid, all ded now. Yaay!
All that 'your mother was right' bit is clearly more important than giving a woman an actual storyline. There were two bits of evil woman but mostly there's Men Doing Things. Story should not be about Men Doing Things exclusively.
On the other hand they're carting a radio personality around, and they have tape recordings, so if there's a solution other than 'all dead' it will involve playing triffid talk on the radio. I guess at 1:07. Because there's nothing left else.
And they haven't followed the surivivor politics story at all at all at all so if that's the only ending it's a right balls up.
Hmmm, flashback again. Is it meant to be PTSD style trauma flashback with repressed memory?
Looks like he got venomed as a kid so he isn't dead of it even when he got stung. Different kind of science solution?
Thus far they've taken a story about the whole world having a massive disaster and made it about One White Man Angsts About His Father (and mother a bit).
Oh look, evil Torrence is evil. Will it make more sense this time?
If the Triffids make lots and lots of floating bits I guess being on an island wouldn't be as helpful. I mean, they'd float over there.
Evil Torrence is really boring. I mean, if he can get to whatever middle of nowhere this is supposed to be what's the problem with getting to the Isle of Wight?
Black guy is there figuring out the security system. Does he have a name yet? Don't think so.
Odds are even if he'll survive or switch sides to be a good guy.
I'm betting he'll switch sides then have a heroic sacrificial death to save the white guy.
Science guy thinks it's all about his mother's recordings. Because.
... oh great, he's going to make a triffid attack on purpose? Niiiice.
So there's no good guys then.
... evil Torrence might be being mean, but science guy is going to get Many killed to save four. Classy.
Yes, I know the many are threatening him. It just seems rather different to use people eating plants to make an escape.
Ah, Troy. The black man. he's being sent to kill kids so now he will switch sides and die.
... it's either that or he'll just die. but they're trying not to be racist, right? So.
Oh, great, he has to be talked out of it by the white people. He doesn't just change his mind. That's a bit crap.
Was right so far though. Sides switched.
You know what would be good? Angsty white man dies of his own plan and Troy saves the rest of them. Or mostly useless thus far white womens save themselves. Both of those are rather useless.
Hey, here's a lot of ethnic minority guys with guns! They're extras with no lines! And they're dying! Yep, cause that's where you want to put your diversity.
The repeated refs to Zaire and the ethnic mask and all mesh really poorly with the Angsty White Man plot.
Troy gets shot by Torrence. Dead yet? No.
little girl is behind his back. Little girl kill him? Should.
... nope, doing first aid. Troy not dead yet.
Angsty White Man does saving the day even though it was the woman who had the weapon? Blah.
More ethnic minority screaming deaths then. Classy.
Stinger innoculation? Has a convenient stinger.
Mask saving them all... it'll be a black people living in harmony with nature thing then? Yeah, traditional wisdom remembered from childhood wins.
Because genetic modification is teh evol and uncontrolled dosages with a old wooden mask is teh win.
So many kinds of lose at once!
And yeah, the bodies getting dragged away are all ethnic minority men.
Troy might avoid his sacrificial death though. I give him a near 60% chance of surviving after the clever eye drip trick.
... wait, the stinger is licking them? It's not just that the body gets used to the poison?
No, because there would be no time. Stupid action movie. Makes it all weird and mystical.
Torrence death by triffids. Surprise. Because he's evil.
"Don't you dare!"
heh, evil, yet with a personality and a bit of interesting. And dead now.
Wow, did Troy survive the night? Looks like. So he just got shot a little. Some black people die, some live! Wow!
No, correction, black men. There was only one woman of color in the whole story. And half a dozen white women. And rather more men.
I think in the end it didn't race fail. I mean, bloke was scary and got called a traitor, and switched sides because white people talked him into it rather than because killing children was wrong, so that's a bit fail. And the random extras getting broken or eated had a tendency to be black or gold or brown, so that was a bit fail. And there was the weird native wisdom solves everything bit. And... it could have failed worse? Erm.
Feminist fail was massive. Women did bugger all useful. There were a couple of evil women, who were evil because they tried to be in charge. Women who picked up weapons and had logic and plans and stuff turned out to be useless and need rescuing by Angsty White Man. Granted, said females were childrens, but they were children with guns and good aim, so really that should have worked. They got a couple of things done once they were doing a man's plan. And there was the thing with the romance, but that was so out of nowhere it seemed random and dropped in. Oh, and I almost forgot the refrigerator mother... heh, yeah, that don't mean the same put together that way... women in refrigerators = his mum the inspiring death. I got the ending all wrong because I thought women would turn out to be helpful and actually do something. As it turns out, no. The music to attract triffids was his own recording in the end, and also the point of triffids is you don't need to attract them special, they just tend to turn up and eat you. And the radio presenter lady was no help at all at all. Roles for women big fail.
And then there's the ablism fail. Blind people didn't exist until the big disaster, you see. And then they get chained to able people to be looked after, because they haven't anything to contribute. And then they just vanish. It's creepy.
Race, feminism, and ablism fail. What a surprise.
That's a few hours of my life I won't get back.
And it made the story so much more *boring*. The bits that were predictable plus the bits where there's only really the one character, Angsty White Male, and everyone else just sort of exists.
I want to write a recentered version involving blind people and women.
I don't know if the source text is this much faily but this version was rubbish.
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no subject
Date: 2009-12-31 07:44 am (UTC)D:
That's not just blatant and enraging ablist fail, that so bad that it's suspension-of-disbelief and basic writing skills fail. I threw the book at the wall & have not even attempted to finish it; I refuse to wade through stupid that deep even for genre research purposes.
I am saddened but not surprised that a modern remake failed to do it better.
no subject
Date: 2009-12-31 07:47 am (UTC)eeeew.
and you're quite right, writing *fail*
no subject
Date: 2009-12-31 07:56 am (UTC)And yet he wrote the story of stupid instead, and wasted every single particle of the potential that was there in the idea.
no subject
Date: 2010-01-04 06:24 am (UTC)no subject
Date: 2010-01-01 01:51 am (UTC)*Disclaimer: haven't actually seen the thing in question, just based on what you said. And you know, most other things I get to see on tv/movies/books/everything.
no subject
Date: 2010-01-04 06:24 am (UTC)no subject
Date: 2010-01-03 09:32 pm (UTC)And the whole blind people turning almost automatically evil and... well, silly, was there, too.
And the misogyny. Oh, the misogyny.
Basically, I read it when I was young and clueless and a fan of apocalyptic fiction, and still saw all its problems. I mainly like it as a classic one can refer in new apocalyptic fiction, and dismantle its preconceptions and -ism.
I would so read your version.
no subject
Date: 2010-01-04 06:25 am (UTC)adaptations need to fix things better.
no subject
Date: 2010-01-10 09:17 pm (UTC)Day of the Triffids
Date: 2009-12-31 09:24 am (UTC)All that 'your mother was right' bit is clearly more important than giving a woman an actual storyline. There were two bits of evil woman but mostly there's Men Doing Things. Story should not be about Men Doing Things exclusively.
I agree it shouldn't be exclusively about Men Doing Things (even more so, White Sighted Men, immediately getting rid of anyone who'd been blind before the story was set) but hello 20th century (didn't John Wyndham die around 1970s, 1960s?... hmmm, goes off to Google)(yep, born in 1903, died in 1969, wrote the book in 1951).
"Attention all sighted. Each of you will be handcuffed to a blind citizen. It is now your job to keep them alive."
... *facepalm*
Models of disability in action. I mean, this is how people think of disability as is.
If you feel like expanding your thoughts here, I'd like to read it. I've come across in your lj that you have Asperger's and from reading your lj, maybe you have other things going on that I'm not aware of, that affect your mobility?
I'm normal (whatever that is, right?), my eyesight has always been crap (yay, glasses!) and I've got a bit of arthritis in my shoulders and some aches and pains in my ankles and knees at times, but my sister became paraplegic and yep, I help her in some way every day. So you discussing those kinds of issues in shows is interesting to me. You're so right in people not seeing accessibility problems (and I'm positive I've been as guilty in that as everyone else, because when I'm out somewhere with my sister, I'm looking for elevators to get to other floor(s), grabbing stuff off of shelves for her, getting her over rough pavement, concrete, sidewalks, getting her inside the mall, inside a restaurant, into a bank, a store and so on.
Re: Day of the Triffids
Date: 2010-01-03 12:09 pm (UTC)20th century is an excuse for things made then, not adaptations. So much changed, that couldn't be?
Asperger's, yes. only mobility thing is the thing where my disability assessment says I shouldn't ought to go places on my own because I'm 'unaware of common dangers' ie cars. I'm mostly aware of cars. Er, mostly isn't a good word in this context. Other than that I'm just trip over my own feet clumsy. not really mobility stuff.
what I meant by 'this is how people think of disability' is the thing where the blind citizen in those pairs wasn't actually doing anything, let alone anything useful, and wasn't the one making the decisions. Like their disability means no mind no voice no skills, woosh, all gone. Story does that all the damn time. People who actually know people with disabilities (and know they know) don't so much think that way. But story and news and every time people ask the carers instead of the person they're asking about, there's a really unhelpful model in there. Disabled person as burden. :-p
Disabled person as person. Story is short on that.
I could probably make more sense with my brain in :eyeroll:
accessibility is different for everyone. some people need subtitles or audio description or somewhere to park their wheelchair. one of our local cinemas does autistic spectrum friendly showings of films, where they make the environment less likely to freak people out while they watch a movie, keep the lights on and turn the sound down a bit. The same place has regular movies for people with babies. Called 'the big scream'.
... I had a point but it wandered off.
Accessibility: lots of different things, sometimes conflicting.
is interesting.
no subject
Date: 2009-12-31 04:22 pm (UTC)I may read the book and see if that's as much fail.
no subject
Date: 2010-01-01 12:14 am (UTC)no subject
Date: 2010-01-01 04:36 pm (UTC)