SPOILERS!!! Madeleine L'Engle is my favorite author. _A Ring of Endless Light_ is my favorite book. This movie should have never been made because it makes Ms L'Engle look like the writer of a bad after-school special. The woman who wrote the tele-play should be ashamed of herself.
There are so, so many characters left out of the movie (Vicky has an older brother John who works at the Science Center w/ Adam... not to mention The Rodneys and Jeb Nutley!).. and there are NO death walls in the book! Vicky and Adam and Zach do not catch the "bad guys" because there really are no "bad guys" in the book.
Zachary's father is an international business man, not the owner of a fleet of fishing boats!!! Zachary does NOT live on the island.. he would probably rather die than live there, IMHO.
Vicky's parents would NEVER force her to attend a school she didn't want to go to.. and are very supportive of her writing. Oh, and the entire family knows about Grandfather's leukemia--that's why they are spending the entire summer with him (and the parents are there with the children, in the book)! Mr. Rochester and Ned belong to The Austins, not to Grandfather. Just so, so many plot points are left out and replaced by dumb ones.
BTW, Enid's calf dies in the book... and when Vicky and Adam are out in open water Basil brings another dolphin (Norberta) with her calf (Njord) to comfort Vicky and Adam. Oh, and Basil is NOT Enid's mate... It just seems that the tele-play writer wanted to make a dolphin movie and couldn't come up with her own character names...
It pained me to see these horrible actors speaking some of Ms L'Engle's best words. . . I burst into tears several times during the movie because the script and plot got me so, so mad!
The only thing I did like was the actor playing Grandfather--if this horrible movie was more like the book, he would have been the PERFECT person to play Vicky's wonderful Grandfather.
This book is perfect... Sadly, when people attempt to improve upon perfection they fail miserably.
There are so, so many characters left out of the movie (Vicky has an older brother John who works at the Science Center w/ Adam... not to mention The Rodneys and Jeb Nutley!).. and there are NO death walls in the book! Vicky and Adam and Zach do not catch the "bad guys" because there really are no "bad guys" in the book.
Zachary's father is an international business man, not the owner of a fleet of fishing boats!!! Zachary does NOT live on the island.. he would probably rather die than live there, IMHO.
Vicky's parents would NEVER force her to attend a school she didn't want to go to.. and are very supportive of her writing. Oh, and the entire family knows about Grandfather's leukemia--that's why they are spending the entire summer with him (and the parents are there with the children, in the book)! Mr. Rochester and Ned belong to The Austins, not to Grandfather. Just so, so many plot points are left out and replaced by dumb ones.
BTW, Enid's calf dies in the book... and when Vicky and Adam are out in open water Basil brings another dolphin (Norberta) with her calf (Njord) to comfort Vicky and Adam. Oh, and Basil is NOT Enid's mate... It just seems that the tele-play writer wanted to make a dolphin movie and couldn't come up with her own character names...
It pained me to see these horrible actors speaking some of Ms L'Engle's best words. . . I burst into tears several times during the movie because the script and plot got me so, so mad!
The only thing I did like was the actor playing Grandfather--if this horrible movie was more like the book, he would have been the PERFECT person to play Vicky's wonderful Grandfather.
This book is perfect... Sadly, when people attempt to improve upon perfection they fail miserably.