The original post: /r/television by /u/ScotchWerewolf on 2026-05-06 00:10:30+00:00.

This was by far the worst of the three Lord of the Flies adaptations I’ve seen. Yet because I started it, I finished it. The only time I was mildly entertained was parts of episode 3.

  1. Starts out with Piggy calling for someone else for how long? It felt like an eternity. Get to the point!

  2. Why are all the kids spread out anyways? They all crashed on the same plane. Did the plane explode, all flew out, all magically survived, and all wound up scattered all over the island?

  3. Piggy was beyond annoying.

  4. What on Earth was Piggy ranting about in regard to rotten wood during the first fire? Was that in the book (I haven’t read it in 25 years)? Rotten wood would be awful at starting a forest fire. Furthermore, it just rained prior to that and the island is lush. No way the fire they had takes off like that in those conditions.

  5. It seems like every single scene was simply drawn out simply to make four episodes. They seemed to hit the main plot points and dialogue (from what I recall) that were in the book. But by doing that, they also turned it into an extremely boring show.

  6. Piggy’s death was horribly long. I can’t be the only one wishing they would just get it over with, but that goes along with points 1, 3, and 5.

  7. The ethnical makeup of the kids was completely illogical. Unlike the 90s US adaptation, this was set as 1950s British kids. Per Wiki, Britain was 96% white in 1981. In 1951, there were only 50k ethnic minorities in the UK, or .1%. It’s completely illogical that modern London demographics made up the student population of the time. Some may say it doesn’t matter. I say it does if it’s a period piece. If it were a modern British adaptation, it would make sense and be acceptable. Not to mention that if this were going for authenticity, it appears to be wrong anyways. Per online searches since I don’t remember: “Ralph is described as and an athletic boy with boxer like shoulders, tan skin, and blonde ‘fair’ hair.”

  8. Why flash through all the kids faces? It didn’t add anything or make me feel for their plight. Just looks like a creepy director to me.

  9. Going back to points 1, 3, 5, 6, and to a lesser extent, 8. The scene when the choir first shows up… weird, creepy, far too long, far too boring. But how did they manage to stay together while everyone else was all spread out? How many days/years/months did it take the other kids to find even one of each other?

Lord of the flies is a book that modern writers and directors should be able to turn into a masterpiece limited, or even multi-season series. Yet this one fails epically.