To say that this is not a faithful adaptation of They Came to Baghdad would be the understatement of the century.
It has most of the characters and some of the plot. The problem is the framing of it all. You can see how the producers would struggle to fit a novel like They Came to Baghdad into under an hour.
The problem is that all the charm and fun of They Came to Baghdad is lost. There's no mystery regarding who is the hero, who is the villain - a key aspect of the book. Victoria Jones' character is very much changed. The exotic settings aren't there.
It does get better - the first scene with Anna Scheele buying tartan cloth is confusing and awful. Once we're in Baghdad things are more familiar.
I don't know if anyone will ever bring a faithful adaptation of They Came to Baghdad to the screen. It might be too difficult to adapt script-wise, it might not be commercially viable. But it's something that would be fascinating to see. Maybe GenAI will make it a possibility one day.
For now, we have this. And thankfully, we still have the wonderful book it's loosely based on.
It has most of the characters and some of the plot. The problem is the framing of it all. You can see how the producers would struggle to fit a novel like They Came to Baghdad into under an hour.
The problem is that all the charm and fun of They Came to Baghdad is lost. There's no mystery regarding who is the hero, who is the villain - a key aspect of the book. Victoria Jones' character is very much changed. The exotic settings aren't there.
It does get better - the first scene with Anna Scheele buying tartan cloth is confusing and awful. Once we're in Baghdad things are more familiar.
I don't know if anyone will ever bring a faithful adaptation of They Came to Baghdad to the screen. It might be too difficult to adapt script-wise, it might not be commercially viable. But it's something that would be fascinating to see. Maybe GenAI will make it a possibility one day.
For now, we have this. And thankfully, we still have the wonderful book it's loosely based on.
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