The lord of the flies series, my thoughts+is it worth the watch
I have been a huge fan of lord of the flies for like 4 years now. When I returned home from uni, my sister had apparently also caught the lotf bug and asked me to watch the series with her since she'd already watched it and all the movies multiple times and is currently reading the book. I was hesitant since I'm a stickler for book accuracy but i love my sister and i wanted to spend time with her so i agreed. Me, my dad and my sister watched it all together and it was lovely. I think I enjoyed it more because i was with my family. Now, short answer:I'd say give it a watch, even if you might get unreasonably angry at the book inacuracy like I did. At the end of the day, it's a good series on it's own and the book accuracy doesn't really take away from that. Like, my dad has never read the book and he thought it was very good..if ykwim? Before we get into it, I'm a pretty harsh critic so when it comes down to it, you'll probably enjoy it more than I did. The child actors do an excellent job in their roles as the characters. As Piggy's biggest fan, I loved every second of screen time and the first episode was a big hit with me. As a Simon fan...I wasn't too thrilled...they take some very interesting directions with his character that I didn't really love.
For book accuracy all I'll say is this. They change some things from the book in a positive way and add things that actually makes things make more sense and really makes things better...but at the same time they remove very key important things from the book that really should be there?? It confuses me..However, I'd imagine it's probably a lot more book accurate that the other movies. The episodic format is actually quite a good direction to take a lord of the flies series since it allows the plot to span over a few hours and it gives more focus on each of the boys and their characters. Plus, Ralph comes off as a lot less of a protagonist at all?? I kinda felt like he was pretty unimportant at points LMFAO. Mild spoilers (mostly book spoilers) below!!!!! --- They do a VERY good portrayal of the forest fire in my opinion. It was excellent. Piggy's death had me tearing up I'm not gonna lie. I think they kind of made Simon's death a bit less horrifying though but like I said they took a very interesting direction for Simon's character and I wasn't thrilled with it anyways. The voice for the lord of the flies had me and my sister cracking the fuck up.
The hunters costumes are genuinely terrifying and I kinda loved them. They don't do a very good job at exploring colonialism though. The 'british boys' draw back in the book is kind of very important and they only really mention this with the naval officer??? If they did at any other point I didn't notice at all. Theres a lot of flash backs which on one hand I really like because it gives more insight into the characters but it kinda dulls down the part of the book where Ralph has his own flashbacks to his horse in devon (??? if i remember right) and his mind slipping to nicer, simpler times to cope with the stress of everything. It does kinda dilute a LOT of the symbolism in the original book to. I saw this review that basically said it was less about 'all man is evil' and more about how childhood trauma impacts them and I'd agree with that I'm not gonna lie. it's a very modern take on the book and considering the original point of the book was it's reflection of ww2 and that all men can be evil, even those we consider 'good' in societal terms.
It does also have it's own very good symbolism, though. Maybe I'm just saying this bcs of how Piggy's episode ended though.
This is pretty sporadic but overall you should watch it.
BIG SPOILERS FOR THE SERIES BELOW KINDA!!!! -_________ SPOILER The simon basically being gay and in love with jack in the diary flashbacks...was not...my favourite take....on the book...it kinda cracks me up tho.
SPOILER They also changed my favourite piggy scenes where he said simon deserves to die because hes batty and makes ralph say it instead what the helly...also WHY DONT RALPH AND PIGGY JOIN IN ON SIMONS DEATH
