Hi! A random ask, but I send these to everyone–any thoughts on Gone TV?
Yes! Overall I’m very excited to maybe, hopefully have a gorgeous TV show so that I can see Gone play out onscreen, and maybe have a larger fandom to post content in and see content in! If this show does what the Good Omens series did, I will probably collapse out of joy. I’m excited to see what comes of Michael Grant writing and having creative influence for this show, and I very much hope that it’s on a streaming service I have access to so that I can watch it and overanalyze every episode. However they end up splitting the books among episodes/seasons, I hope that it is a good creative choice and suits the story well.
That doesn’t mean that I’m not nervous about anything. For one, the show could just flat-out not happen. That’s happened before! With MG writing the script, one would think that would change, and judging by his twitter updates it has let this production go a lot further than the last one. Now, onto my nitpicks:
In terms of casting, while I would be fine with the “poof” age moving to 16/17, and I know that hiring adult actors is generally easier than child actors, ideally they wouldn’t cast older actors to play kids. Depending on the projected season length, the average age of the actors could definitely vary, I really, really don’t want to see a 25 year old playing Sam Temple. A 18 year old with a bit of a baby face playing 15 (a la Tom Holland)? Perfectly fine. But one of the most integral themes of the series is that of youth undergoing terrible things, and if they pull a Riverdale with this one I will be so mad. If I was the casting director, I would have the lead characters (Sam, Astrid, Caine, Diana) be (young) adults and the rest be kids. And probably cut the Sam/Taylor scene.
Which brings me to the fact that I hope the show isn’t ridiculously sanitized. I certainly hope that there will be no on-screen teen sex scenes, because I flat-out hated reading those parts, and I understand that the gore will probably be tuned down a little bit. But I don’t really want the plot or any character arcs derailed because something is too taboo. As in, a fade-to-black Caina scene would make sense for the plot, a Sastrid fade-to-black would make sense for both characters, the Penny-Caine psychological torture scene turned down a little, cutting the Sam-Taylor scene (or casting an adult actress to play Taylor, or replacing Taylor’s character with another character), and not delving as deep into the sci-fi horror aspects of it all would be fine, since that preserves the existing plot (and the budget. SFX are expensive). However, 40% of the kids in the FAYZ died, and that...really shouldn’t be erased from the story. Neither should Gaia’s cannibalism and other atrocities. Or Drake being unkillable. Or the Coates kid’s cannibalism in a time when they were starving. Make it TV-14, obviously, but don’t cut the gritty stuff that makes Gone interesting in the first place.
Also if, as in my wildest dreams, the show becomes insanely popular and people are craving more and more seasons, the last thing I want is watch the writers force drama between the traumatized survivors of the FAYZ. Just adapt the Monster trilogy and take it from there. Or pull a The Good Place and say “Nope. It ends here.”
I just realized that I wrote you an essay. Whatever. Also, if anyone wants to add on/comment on what I’ve said here, feel free to do so. I’m sure I skipped like, most of the other gory scenes in Gone, and there’s definitely more that could be adapted well/poorly.
