The Giver - BLU-RAY

Jonas lives in a seemingly idyllic world of conformity and contentment. When he begins to spend time with The Giver, an old man who is the sole keeper of the community's memories, Jonas discovers the dangerous truths of his community's secret past. Armed with the power of knowledge, Jonas realizes that he must escape from their world to protect himself and those he loves -- a challenge no one has ever completed successfully.

Incredible combo on this movie! You get the Blu Ray, the DVD and the digital version - all for one low price! The film is very good. Love Ms. Streep as the "baddie"! LOL Fascinating Bonus material - especially about the film was made after languishing for several decades.

Retaining the uniqueness and magic from the pages of a book is sometimes a difficult task for a director to accomplish. There have been great successes in this feat, however, very few ever truly give the book the justice it deserved. Part of that reason is what artists and critics alike like to call, "artistic license"- the right to make any changes they want to a story or piece of art when given permission to do so. Even the universal success of the original Jurassic Park movie is criticized because the book had so much more. At several hundred pages, it would be difficult to capture every detail. People criticize the Twilight saga and Harry Potter films for changing a characters purpose, or gender, or leaving them out entirely, or adding new characters that never appeared in the books if but for a few lines. Did that happen in this rendition of the timeless classic, The Giver? Honestly, I don't remember. The book itself is quite small, yet there are countless critical writings about it in literature. It was one of those stories that broke the social norm, and gave people something to talk about. And because it was written for younger audiences, yet had adult like themes, it was a great way for young kids to branch out into deeper, more thoughtful stories. I read the book long ago, but what I remember of it, I can promise, it was all in this movie. Was it worth seeing in the theaters? Not exactly. Did it have great actors? yes. Is the story well delivered? Yes. Are the special effects a good representation of our times? Not exactly, but the sets were different and strange, in a good way. All in all, my concluding statement is, if you read the book, watch the movie. Its fun. Then go read the book again. See for yourself.

I have not read the book, but I have seen the play (and will see it again in a couple of weeks). The movie-makers could do a lot more than a stage-bound production can offer, but seem to have gotten lost in the wilderness once the protagonist makes his break from orthodoxy. The film is fine until the last fifteen minutes, when they trimmed out some “journey” and left me wondering just where this guy was going. The deleted scenes feature helps to fill this gap - it should have been left in. But the bottom line is that he traverses a lot more territory than his map indicated he would he seeing - I’d be interested to know how the book treated this segment. As a story, it’s engaging (until that last quarter-hour) and thought-provoking.

I've read all four books in The Giver Quartet (yes, there is more than one) and have loved every single one of them. I was a bit nervous to find out that there was going to be a movie, so many movie adaptions fall short, but not this one. This one was everything a fan of the book could possibly hope for plus some. In the bonus features there is an interview with Louis Lowry and even she has said that the movie was everything she could hope for, so you know that it is going to be good.