By Jennifer Platt for The Times
The TV adaption of Stephen King’s Under The Dome premiers in South Africa this Tuesday. Its ratings in the US broke records for a summer show, but upset many King fans, who felt it was not faithful enough to the book.
The show makes changes to the plot, characters, and the source of the mysterious Dome – which seals off Chester’s Mill, Maine, from the rest of the world – itself.
King, who is an executive producer of the show along with Stephen Spielberg, defended the changes that head writer Brian K Vaughan made. “If the solution to the mystery were the same on TV as in the book, everyone would know it in short order, which would spoil a lot of the fun (besides, plenty of readers didn’t like my solution, anyway)… By the same token, it would spoil things if you guys knew the arcs of the characters in advance.”
He explained further that some of the changes in Under The Dome were necessary for fleshing out the storyline of the television show, whose timeline is much longer – several months – than the one in the book, which only stretches for several days.
King is also traditionally tolerant of TV and film adaptations of his work, with one exception being Stanley Kubrick’s version of The Shining. He disliked the movie so much he wrote his own miniseries version to compensate. But he is happy with Under The Dome on the small screen: “It’s best to think of that novel and what you’re seeing week-to-week as a case of fraternal twins. Both started in the same creative womb, but you will be able to tell them apart,” King wrote on his website. “Or, if you’re of a sci-fi bent, think of them as alternate versions of the same reality. As for me, I’m enjoying the chance to watch that alternate reality play out.”
- Jennifer Platt @jenniferdplatt
Book details
- Under The Dome by Stephen King
EAN: 9781476735474
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