Tomorrow, When the War Began

A great story ruined by a terrible screenplay adaptation. I loved the books & thought that the earlier movie was a very good adaptation of the first book. But by the time I was watching the 4th episode I was laughing at the ridiculously far fetched alterations to the plot. Completely unrealistic scenes that at times reminded me of episodes of either Gilligan's Island, Skippy or even Hogans Heroes. What were the writers thinking?!! So much potential, so little delivery.

I am not sure what is going on with the complaints about this not being true to the book or 'things have changed' or perhaps the people reviewing it prior to me are expecting a continuation of the film or haven't read the books in years unlike me, but I don't see a massive deviation from the novels other than some modernisation of the tale.

When the books were written, it was a different political climate and youth culture, when the books were written it spoke to the teenagers of my time (90's) where mobile phones and social media weren't everywhere and the biggest threat was a far off distant war in Iraq.

In the movie, there wasn't even mention of The Hermit and yet, the kids mentioned him quickly as they went to enter Hell.

The relationship of the teens is presented exactly as I remember it and their discovery of the invasion feels like it came straight out of the books.

The highlighting of the joy these teenagers experienced in Hell is to prepare you for the stark realisation that these childish experiences are over before the teenagers are thrown into situations much more adult than they are, that their dreams and hopes are about to be shattered as much as their lives are.

I find it a wonderful updated, modern interpretation of a novel series I still read and adore even today.

Don't expect the movie here, whilst the movie was excellent and did take lines from the novel, the series has a lot more chance to play with the themes and events from The Tomorrow series and The Ellie Chronicles. It can take longer to reveal plot points and build the changing, growing nature of the kids relationships and how war will inevitably change them.

I look forward to seeing how it continues.

I have read the books and seen the movie and absolutely loved them. When I heard that the series was coming out I was quite excited, I thought the void left by the lack of a sequel to the movie could finally be filled. Now after watching the first episode I'm beginning to think that that void will never be filled. I have found it quite utterly disappointing. Just seemed like the scenes of jubilation/slow motion happy happy joy joy were well overdone. Well i guess after hyping it up in my head it was always possible that it might not live up to my exceptions but i didn't think it was possible it would be this bad.

Anyway I will hang in there for the next few episodes *fingers crossed* Please get better.

I am a native Californian, and Australia is my dream land. I love all Australians, the beautiful country, the beautiful beaches, the beautiful lakes, and the beautiful accents. I never read the books, but I did watch the movie that came out in 2010 and I loved it. THe only thing I didn't like was that they didn't make a second or third one! So when I saw that they made a series I was a little skeptical because they weren't the same actors, (so in a way, I guess I can imagine if you've read the books, you have a completely unique picture in your mind) but then I watched it, and I still loved it. I think they do an amazing job, the actors, the teens and the adults, even the invaders. I like how in the show, there are many more details than the movie alone. I think that TV shows based on books are GREAT for the people that enjoy watching TV more than they do reading. So all in all, if you've read the books, most likely nothing will be a better than or equal to what you've read. But for the rest of us who enjoy TV more, books converted to TV series are way better than books converted to movies. Plus TV series can include more, and go on to have many more seasons than the books themselves. Just look at the vampire diaries, started out from books but going strong over 7 seasons, or pretty little liars successful show going on for 9 plus seasons, and I've heard THOSE books were completely different as well.

I read the books as a kid and have good memories of them, although I can't remember enough specific details to draw direct comparisons between them and this TV series. I have read that they have changed certain details, but I am sure those are ultimately minor and irrelevant to the overall quality of this series as they have got the fundamentals of storytelling and character development so badly wrong.

The entire first episode is like a long sequence of short indie music clips tied together. Lot's of slow motion scenes of laughing when they should have been building tension or showing at least some suitable level of character development. The characters all seem to have the same shallow, fake, annoyingly positive, Triple J presenter-esque personality. I found them all completely unmemorable, unlikeable and almost indistinguishable personality-wise from each other.

The multi-cultural cast is also entirely unconvincing as a bunch of Australian country kids. They dress, act and talk like a bunch of city kids. To think that this group of ignorant hipsters would be even remotely capable of starting an armed resistance against an occupying foreign army requires far more suspension of disbelief than I was able to manage. That is, until you see the absolute incompetence of this ridiculous army in action.

They try hard to give emotional weight to particular scenes early on, but they have never earnt these moments. They are superficial and unconvincing, just like this entire production. Everyone involved should be ashamed of their work, except for the camera crew. They actually did some nice work.