This is based on one of my very favorite novelettes (novellas? I'm not sure of the difference), Vintage Season by C.L. Moore. I'd love to see it filmed as written. Read it and then read more of Moore (pun intended), especially her Northwest Smith (basically the precursor of Han Solo/Indiana Jones) and Jirel of Joiry stories. You'll love them!
Boo Hoo! Let me wipe away the tears with my PLASTIC hand!--Lindsey McDonald (Angel)
Yeah I just rewatched the film tonight and (having read the novella before ever seeing this film), I too would like to see a version of this that stays true to the original story.
I like this version more each time I see it, but I still remember how pissed off I was the first time I saw it at the changes they made to the story, especially the happy ending.
For those who haven't read it, in the original story it's Ben and his wife running the Inn, and they don't have a daughter. The visitors show up like like they do in the film, but it's more of a detective story as the Innkeeper and his wife try to peg what they're all about and why they're there. And the end is much more stark and apocalyptic because after the meteor hits the town, the next calamity is not the explosion of the school, but the release of a virus from the meteorite that wipes out most of humanity.
What can I say, I like doom and gloom endings mostly when it comes to science-fiction, but I know that ending would have been totally out of place in the cinema of the late 80's/early 90's...everything was all happy Spielberg-land so they could never get a story like that made then.
This is very hard to read, isn't it?