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Decent Film, But a Poor Adaptation of the Book

posted 5 years ago by Ranb (11320)
12 replies | jump to latest

As much as people talk about how much Cruise's character (Cage) was changed from the book, others like Rita Vrataski and Ferrel were changed even more.

While Keiji Kiriya is a young Japanese man who volunteered for the UDF and is a skilled but untested soldier and William Cage is a cowardly middle aged white guy who is completely untrained in powered suits, this is one of the less severe changes from the source material.

The movie does not reveal the reasons for the mimics purpose on Earth (they are terraformers) or why they're called mimics (they mimicked starfish in the ocean to take their shape) in the first place.

Rita meets Keiji while he is dying of wounds in his first battle. She asks him if the green tea after a meal is free; this is a code phrase to see if he is looping. She then tells Keiji that he is dying, but she will protect him from the mimics until he does; only then will she take his suit battery. While Rita is slaughtering mimics, Keiji kills a server mimic which causes him to start looping. The server and antenna mimics send a signal back in time so that they can attack again 30 hours earlier to do better in battle. The loops will only stop if the server and antenna mimics are all killed in rapid succession.

In the film Rita shamelessly steals Cage's battery after he is wounded; Cage then kills a mimic which bleeds on him causing the loops. The loops in the film stop if the soldier gets a blood transfusion. What?

The military is one of the film's antagonists, while in the book the military is trying to find out the causes of the loops Rita is experiencing. Farrell is much different in the book, he is devoted to his troops, in the film he seems to care nothing for them at all, especially Cage.

The book has a tragic but hopeful ending after Kieji and Rita battle to the death, but the film has a sappy happy ending in which there is zero body count after Cage loops back two days prior to the battle.

The biggest change from the book is that Rita is revered by soldiers everywhere. Her ability to coordinate with air strikes then mop up mimics with her battle axe inspires everyone on the battlefield to give 110%. This is completely absent in the film.

This film is the Starship Troopers of the 2000's. Just not as campy.

[–] abigolcwock (517) 5 years ago

Japanese trash has to be changed a bit to be digestible to non-weeb audiences. And comparing it to Starship Troopers, which is a masterclass in satire, is quite the compliment

[–] Ranb (11320) 5 years ago

The original novel is not trash, it is actually a good read. When I said that Edge of Tomorrow was like Starship Troopers, I was only saying that they were both very poor adaptations of the source material. So not a compliment.

[–] Redsfan001 (6218) 5 years ago

As a sci fi fan ignorant of the source material, I have to put this movie as well above average for big box office ventures.

I see your point about Starship Troopering, (The newest generation of Star Trek movies are guilty of this)
Not enough purpose/ information about the Omega was given.

The movie reminded me somewhat of the platform video games I played in my youth.

A more cerebral version would be interesting, but the action scenes were not overkill.

Positive endings are important in Hollywood. Psychiatrist have noted positive endings have a overweighted effect on the view of a movie overall.

[–] Ranb (11320) 5 years ago

I've read the original screenplay of the film; it stuck rather close to the book. I'm guessing that someone decided Tom Cruise needed to be on the screen a lot more, as in almost every scene. The book was rather short at 230 pages and 58,000 words. There was no reason to make the film Rita so much less influential, famous and inspiring than the Rita of the book.

[–] Redsfan001 (6218) 5 years ago

I would have no problem giving her more screen time, she is a hottie!

[–] Ranb (11320) 5 years ago

Hahaha, I agree. But in the book Rita was described as a short skinny flat chested redhead. One of the soldiers said she looked like puppy.

[–] liscarkat (19418) 4 years ago

The purpose of movies based on books is not to transcribe the book to the screen for fans of the book. The film based on a book is its own art form. Simply making a page-by-page visual copy of the book could be done by technicians, or even a computer.

[–] Ranb (11320) 4 years ago

In this case characters were changed in ways that were not required just to make a sensible transition to the screen. Most of Rita's back story was omitted, Farrel's contribution to Cage's training was completely eliminated and replaced with Rita.

Just as well they did not use the book name. :)

[–] Ace_Spade (9658) 3 years ago

It sounds like I prefer film Cage to book Keiji. One of the things I immediately loved about the movie was Cage's cowardice. It gave him a good place to start an impactful character arc from. I like "coward heroes" (Rincewind is one of the finest), and Cage in Edge of Tomorrow was a refreshing change of pace from standard action heroes/ Tom Cruise roles.

The movie didn't have to tell me that the mimics were terraformers because I knew they were invading. That's all I needed. I also got the impression that they were terraforming from the fact that the areas they had taken over for longer periods of time had an abundance of water in them. It looked to me like a semi-aquatic species making themselves at home. I was curious about "why 'mimics'?" but I got over that.

I like the military as antagonists. It limits options for the heroes and raises stakes.

[–] warrior-poet (1369) 2 years ago

I wouldn't describe it as a "poor" adaptation, just one that is very different. I really liked the movie, but yeah a lot was lost in translation.
_________________________________________
Never believe. Always question. Rebuke belief, a.k.a. bias, a.k.a. groupthink, a.k.a. ideology, the bane of skeptical, logical reason.

[–] Ranb (11320) 2 years ago

The film was nearly an "adaptation in name only". Half of the short list of book characters were omitted and all of them changed a lot from the book.

[–] warrior-poet (1369) 2 years ago

Indeed. Could almost just called it "inspired by" instead of an adaptation, they're so vastly different.
_________________________________________
Never believe. Always question. Rebuke belief, a.k.a. bias, a.k.a. groupthink, a.k.a. ideology, the bane of skeptical, logical reason.