It's hard to adapt a book, everybody knows that, there are so many details in books that don't translate well to video; and TOL has a lot of inner dialogues, it is a first person narrative afterall, so, yeah...hard.
There were many moments in the book that were adapted to the series that I flat out didn't like, NOT MANY, but there were some, for example, the moment Bone and Third have their "I'm sorry I hurt you." scene at the movie theater. In the book it's very touching, and also showed their friendship and how much Bone cares for Third. In the series it was nowhere near as important nor touching.
Another problem I had with the series was the pacing, IT WAS TOO FAST! Things would happen so fast we could barely breathe. I do understand, the director (P'Cent) had 12 episodes only, the book is quite large, so... what can he do, right? That's GMMTV's fault, they should have made the series longer... or.... P'Cent could have given the secondary characters less screen time (?)... I don't know how they could have fixed this problem, but it was a problem, I mean, Khai's accident was dramatic, but it ended up not serious at all, he was completly recovered in 1 episode. Come on!!!! I was frustrated.The 1 thing I really DID NOT LIKE AT ALL was Bone's storyline. Thanks, but I hated.
Khai was not as funny as he should have been. I know "funny" is complicated, what I find funny you may find boring and vice versa, so....yeah, I thought Khai was super funny while reading the book, his thoughts are just the best, he's a simple direct kinda dumb guy, I loved him after 1 page of his point of view. On the show he gave glimpses of his humor, but very little, mostly at the end.
Now, it may seem I didn't like the show LOL I did, I really did, not as much as the book, and there were some things I didn't care for, but some things I loved:
I loved the cast.
I was worried I wasn't going to like White, but he won me over, he was the trusted friend I wanted to see. Mike was wasted with that boring storyline with the teacher that went NOWHERE, but he was good. Off I also feel was wasted a bit, as I already said I wish to have seen more humour in him, and also, I'm sorry, but sometimes he seemed a little stiff and uncomfortable when delivering more sensitive, sweet lines. Don't get me wrong, I love Off. But I noticed.
Gun...Gun was as usual, great acting, every emotion he needs to show, he does it perfectly. It's kinda scary... lol... HOWEVER....I did have a problem with Third/Gun: Their styles were the same. No change in hair, clothing and styling. Like, wtf? I love Gun, but he is an actor, he was not supposed to be GUN he is supposed to be someone else, Third, someone who styles the hair diferently, who wears different clothes, maybe tight clothes, maybe artsy clothes, I DON'T KNOW, and I'll never know now, because someone didn't care enough to think about these things. I was honestly dissapointed by that. I do like Gun's fashion style, but I wanted to see Third's style.
Moving on...
I loved how my "favorite scenes" were adapted, Third finding out Khai and Bone were testing him, Khai's accident, and the whole "train station" storyline. I loved all of them, mostly because the acting was so good. I cry in all of the scenes. AGAIN.
The ending was great, but that Samsung post scene took me out of the mood a little bit. I wished they had put the scene with them looking at the graduation pictures before the Live on Youtube, and ended there.
I'd give the show an overall rate of 8 out of 10.
But I'd give Off x Gun chemistry a 9 out of 10.
The acting in general? 9/'0.
And I'd give Gun in particular a 10/10.
Oh, and some people are excited to see a season 2 focused on White and Earth, I'd watch that for sure. :)
