Why they change this central aspect of the new Lord of the Flies?
Spoilers throughout below:
Just finished the new BBC Lord of the Flies, as my favourite book I have to say I was nervous but I was not disappointed, it was absolutely sublime and the kids were all so talented.
Only 2 things really stood out as off to me:
I get why they changed Piggy’s death, the big emotional buildup deserves the longer payoff etc., but I do think the story lost something compared to the book, the shock *BOOM* and the civilisation has completely collapsed. Not necessarily worse just different and I happened to prefer the book.
The big thing that kind of got me was, why didn’t Simon discover that the beast was a parachuter in this version? Unless I missed it, they just didn’t touch this at all, they had him discovering the Lord of the Flies but him finding the Beast, running to tell them but being killed before he had the chance was quite symbolic for the story I thought; he discovers the truth but the characters simply don’t care anymore, they have their own way now.
It seems they went all in on the ‘the beast is in us all’ vibe, but I think you could’ve had both with no issues.
Thoughts?