The Road

[Hyfi]

Following on with the Post Apocolyptic genre, I watched The Road last night. I did not read the book but talked to a few that did.

This is another dark, dreary, low budget film. The plot is simple, a father and son walk south towards the coast in hopes of finding food or people who are not canibals. (hmmm, Eli walked West) Along the way they meet up with some pretty whacky characters including a lone traveler named Ely. (Pretty close to a wandering traveler named Eli in another movie)

In the start of the movie, as they travel down the burned out road, they approach a overpass bridge. It eerily looks just like the tunnel/bridge in the opening of Eli. Were both of these movies filmed on the same Hollywood back lot?

Overall, the movie held my interest throughout and had a couple hair raising scenes. The worst part of the movie, much the same as the book, is that it has no ending. It just leaves you sitting there wondering. We never find out if anyone lived happily ever after.

Is this the sign of a bad writer, to write a long story only to have no real ending?

What did the rest of you think about this one?

[ForeverAutumn]

I didn't see the movie, but not only did the book have no ending...it also had no beginning. Frankly, there were so many gaping holes in the story that I just didn't buy the whole premise.

[Worf101]

There was an ending, or at least I felt there was. I'm not going to give it away but I found the kid "moving on" to be a very clear ending. I found it quite realistic, not that I've lived through an apocalypse but I've been part of planning for it in that I'm in utility regulation. When Disasters hit New York State, I and others in my shop are on a list of personnel to be transported to the SEMO Bunker (State Emergency Management Office) out at the Albany Campus. If I'm on call when/if something happens the Troopers will arrive at my house and take me to the bunker.. take being the opperative word.

Back to the original post, most people will never ever know what caused the disaster, nor will they have any rational plan for survival past a few months or year at best, after that point, civilization will have broken down and things will devolve. This film had the stench of truth.

Worf

[Troy]

Well, it's a pretty common plot device to leave a story open ended and up to interpretation. It's up to the consumer to decide whether the kid gets eaten by the family at the end, or goes on to found the future of humanity (or something in between). Everything doesn't have to be explained, does it? I can't believe you guys don't grok that, or have never experienced it with other stories . . .

The book won a Pulitzer and just about every other fiction award available. It was a beautifully written story about a truly ugly subject. The book is actually much bleaker than the movie (hard to believe, eh?). It's a poetic eulogy for the human race, relentlessly sad, and painful. In the book the wife is already dead and very little is explained about why it all ended, it just did . . . and this is the aftermath. It truly deserved all those awards, but it's also a stone drag. I was depressed for a week after reading it.

While the movie has a similar tone, it's much more rote and obvious than the book. Everything is much more spelled out. It doesn't have 1/10th the lyricism and subtlety.

So many post-apocalyptic books glamorize or romanticize it. They make you think that it would be an epic adventure. You might have some zombies or crazed barbarians to contend with, but in the end, humanity wins out. Not here. The Road really shows it for what it would probably be like, and makes you realize the horror and pointlessness of surviving. It's no Zombieland, that's for sure.

[Troy]

I and others in my shop are on a list of personnel to be transported to the SEMO Bunker (State Emergency Management Office) out at the Albany Campus. If I'm on call when/if something happens the Troopers will arrive at my house and take me to the bunker.. take being the opperative word.

Utterly fascinating! I hope you haven't had a vasectomy, in case it's up to you to repopulate the earth.

[ForeverAutumn]

nor will they have any rational plan for survival past a few months or year at best,

Exactly! So how do this guy and his kid, who was presumably not even yet born when disaster struck, survive for so long? And how does his kid end up seeming so educated? I don't know, maybe the movie was more realistic but I couldn't help rolling my eyes at the book.

Don't get me wrong, it was an interesting read and kept me engaged. But I think that it could have been a much stronger story had it started earlier and with more information.

I do agree with you that I didn't feel cheated at the ending, although I thought it was somewhat predictable. But when I started the book, I felt like I was coming in in the middle.

I'll shut up now since I haven't seen the movie and might actually be quite different from the book.



Edit: I just read Troy's post, #4. He obviously got more out of this book than I did.

[Hyfi]

Exactly! So how do this guy and his kid, who was presumably not even yet born when disaster struck, survive for so long? And how does his kid end up seeming so educated? I don't know, maybe the movie was more realistic but I couldn't help rolling my eyes at the book.

Don't get me wrong, it was an interesting read and kept me engaged. But I think that it could have been a much stronger story had it started earlier and with more information.

I do agree with you that I didn't feel cheated at the ending, although I thought it was somewhat predictable. But when I started the book, I felt like I was coming in in the middle.

I'll shut up now since I haven't seen the movie and might actually be quite different from the book.

The boy did not seem overly educated in the movie. Actually he hardly even speaks throughout most of the movie.

One interesting scene was where after they walked for who know how long, they miraculously ended up at the house where the father grew up. Geez, what a coincidence. Anyway, the father started to tell the kid how they used to hang the stockings at the fireplace, the boy just looked at him funny and he stopped I guess because he realized that the kid had no clue as to what christmas even was.

I can't say I felt overly shorted at the end but I really don't like to have to make up the ending myself, tell the whole story or don't bother. That is not to say it wasn't again thought provoking and all through the movie there is a good message to be had.

I just read the book plot and compared it to the movie writeup and don't recall seeing an infant roasting on a spit as described in the book. Maybe thats a good thing since there was enough other highly believable and likely behavior from desperate starving people.

[ForeverAutumn]

I think I need to see the movie.

Just to clarify...when I said the kid was educated, I didn't mean like he went to school. But it just seemed to me that for a kid who was born into a post-apocolyptic world he seemed to have experiences, and related to things, that I didn't think he should have. I can't think of any specifics now but that's how I felt when I was reading. I think that's where more history would have come in handy.

I'm not as willing as Troy to just accept this story for what it is. I want answers dammit!

And now I'm trying to figure out whether I'll have time to rent the movie this weekend.

[Troy]

You guys are funny. I like ambivalent endings. They are much more provocative. Even though I didn't like the movie overall, I liked that the ending of Inception was left totally up in the air. Did the spinning top waver before the final cut to the credits? We're left in the dark as to whether the character is locked inside a dream or reality. Did you hate that too? There are countless stories with these kinds of endings, you guys uniformly dislike that?

I guess I like being left to make my own decision about what a story is telling me.

And it's funny FA, but I didn't get an educated feeling about the kid either. Yeah, experienced, but in ways that you and I can't imagine. How did they survive so long? Sure, dad seemed like a more resourceful person than most, but so much of their survival was just blind luck too. They would never have made it that far without the food in the bunker and the ship (totally glossed over in the movie). As far as the beginning being left open, as already mentioned, the 'why' the world ended doesn't matter in the context of the story. Because the story is from the boy's perspective and he was born after the fall, he has to accept it as it is. He has no conception of the world before and it thus, it has no context to his story. Frankly, I love that about the book.

Those aspects of it all felt quite plausible and appropriate for me. Yeah, I obviously got more out of the book than you did, but with all the awards it won, I suppose I'm not the only one . . .

And Hyfi, that 'baby on the spit' thing only gives you a tiny taste (sorry!) of the tone of the book. That is one bleak mofo.

[thekid]

I thought the movie did a pretty good job with a somewhat diffcult source. Viggo Mortensen gave a great performance and the set captured the mood of the book.

The book is very good and I highly recommend it. you should not have to read the source material to appreciate/understand the movie it is based on but i think in this case some of the questions here are answered in the book.

[blackraven]

I thought that there was a glimmer of hope at the end of the movie. There was that green japanese beatle near the end of the movie when everything else was black and white. Also, the kid found a new family.

[ForeverAutumn]

I thought that there was a glimmer of hope at the end of the movie. There was that green japanese beatle near the end of the movie when everything else was black and white.

What?! Well that's not in the spirit of the book at all.

Also, the kid found a new family.

Who boiled him and ate him after he ate the beetle.

See what happens when you leave things open for interpretation?

[blackraven]

[Worf101]

Utterly fascinating! I hope you haven't had a vasectomy, in case it's up to you to repopulate the earth.

The Bunker would survive for a while but in a Nuclear exchange, Albany's been targeted mulitiple times. It would not survive a near miss or a direct hit. It's not built to that standard and I've never found vast caches of food and water down there, but they might be there. My job would simply be to gather and report the extent of utility outages and when/if power will be restored to specific areas. Foget nuclear but if Hurricane Earl hits the state hard, then I'd and others would coordinate power restoration in the aftermath. Problem is, once you're in there... you're IN there...

Worf

[Worf101]

What?! Well that's not in the spirit of the book at all.



Who boiled him and ate him after he ate the beetle.

See what happens when you leave things open for interpretation?

Jeeese Louise Woman!!!!! I didn't need to see that first thing on a Friday morning!!!!! Good God woman!!!! You ARE quite blood thirsty!!! Just remind me never, EVER to get stranded with you too long. I'll start looking like a giant rump roast.......

"Klingon's is practically chickens...."

Worf