Timewaster's Guide Archive

Departments => Movies and TV => Topic started by: guessingo on July 03, 2010, 01:16:26 AM

Title: Pillars of the Earth TV Series this month
Post by: guessingo on July 03, 2010, 01:16:26 AM
This is one of my favorite books. Starz is going to have a miniseries based on the book later in July. I don't have Starz, but I think I can get it off of netflicks. Ridley Scott produced it. I am very hopeful. Three books that I liked alot were made into movies lately and were not very good (Lovely Bones, The Road, The Time Travellers Wife) so I really hope this is good.

Pillars of the Earth takes place in the high middle ages in England. It revolves around a large cast of characters in a village that is building a cathedral. I think it is the kind historical novels that fantasy readers would like.
Title: Re: Pillars of the Earth TV Series this month
Post by: guessingo on July 21, 2010, 12:58:19 PM
This starts friday. I don't have starz, but I think I can get it off netflicks with in a day. This is one of my favorite books. It is the type of historical fiction that fantasy readers would really enjoy. It truly is a GREAT book.
Title: Re: Pillars of the Earth TV Series this month
Post by: guessingo on August 01, 2010, 05:20:01 PM
first 3 episodes are on netflicks. you can watch online. Very fathful to the book. done very well.

this is really good guys... so is the book.
Title: Re: Pillars of the Earth TV Series this month
Post by: Peter Ahlstrom on August 02, 2010, 02:56:35 AM
How's the amount of sexual content? What would it be rated if it were a movie? My wife LOVES the book, but when it came to sex scenes she tore out pages and scribbled out words. There is more sex in the book than she wants to read.
Title: Re: Pillars of the Earth TV Series this month
Post by: guessingo on August 02, 2010, 02:43:03 PM
The sex is lighter in the TV series than in the book. The rape scene is pretty light, but they get the point across. There is no nudity so far.
The sex would be too much for regular network TV, but lighter than what you see in the Sopranos. I think it would be a light R.  The violence is much lighter than what you got in Spartacus on Starz. They do show people getting stabbed. There is one scene where someone gets an ear cut off, but its not obscene.

I would screen it before showing it to kids. Its up to you. Lets put it this way, the sex is much lighter than what we will see on HBO in the GRRM series, but probably too detailed for network TV. The sex in the book was graphic, but it was important to the plot. The violence was necessary to get the point across that you are not in modern times and life was cheap back then.

The 3rd episode ends with the King coming to Kingsbridge to look at how the Cathedral is doing.

If your wife likes this book tell her to check out Cathedral by the Sea. It is much lighter on sex and violence. It takes place mainly in Barcelona during the late middle ages. It is a translation from spanish, but the translation is VERY good. The scope is not as epic as Pillars of the Earth, but very good too. They do a GREAT job of letting you know what it was like living in Barcelona in that time.
If you read the Amazon reviews people compare it to Pillars.






Title: Re: Pillars of the Earth TV Series this month
Post by: guessingo on September 07, 2010, 01:05:22 PM
The last 2 episodes were extremely dissapointed. It looks like they either ran out of money and had to end the series at 8 episodes or they spent too much time in the first 6 episodes on more details from the book than they wanted to. They really condensed the last 2 episodes. They completely changed the ending from book and it was not very good. The end to the last episode was a cliched TV ending. The book is alot better.

If you like medievil books here is another one (with alot less sex) that is great.

Cathedral of the Sea by Ildefonso Falcones (may have misspelled the name). Takes place in Barcelona during the middle ages. Not as epic in scope as Pillars. I really liked it. The author does an outstanding job explaining the culture of the city. It is a translation from Spanish, but the translation is excellent. It makes me want to go to Barcelona to go visit the Cathedral that is in this book.