FAQ for
Children of Men (2006)

The following FAQ entries may contain spoilers. Only the biggest ones (if any) will be covered with spoiler tags. It is assumed that no one who is diligently avoiding spoilers will be visiting this page in the first place.

For detailed information about the amounts and types of (a) sex and nudity, (b) violence and gore, (c) profanity, (d) alcohol, drugs, and smoking, and (e) frightening and intense scenes in this movie, consult the IMDb Parents Guide for this movie. The Parents Guide for Children of Men can be found at http://www.imdb.com/title/tt0206634/parentalguide.

Yes. Children of Men is loosely adapted from The Children of Men (1992), a novel by English crime fiction writer, P.D. James.

The film can be considered to be a loose adaptation of P.D. James' original novel The Children of Men. It shares the basic premise and setting as the novel, as well as a number of characters including Theo, Julian, Luke and Miriam.

However, the main plot of the film was the creation of Alfonso Cuarón, as was the character of Kee, who does not appear in the novel, partly because men are infertile in the novel, rather than women, as in the film. Theo, who is an Oxford don in the novel, is a much younger "everyman" character in the film. Theo's friend Jasper is only a minor character in the novel, while the opposite is true of Theo's archnemesis, Xan, who does not appear in the film at all. The novel also delves further into the apocalyptic British society, which is only hinted in the background of the film.

There are many other minor and major differences between the novel and film, the primary one being that the film is action-driven while the novel is more character-driven. For example, the characters in the film are subjected to more external threats of violence, danger and villainy than they are in the novel, probably due to the difficulty of visually translating Theo's internal struggle with existential angst without resorting to a constant narration.

"Lord, thou hast been our refuge: from one generation to another. Before the mountains were brought forth, or ever the earth and the world were made: thou art God from everlasting, and world without end. Thou turnest man to destruction: again thou sayest, Come again, ye children of men. For a thousand years in thy sight are but as yesterday: Seeing that is past as a watch in the night".

"Omgyjya Switch7" by Aphex Twin.

According to an article in accessantlanta.com, the combat scene was a single, unbroken shot which was filmed a total of three times. The final take was the one that was used in the film.

In an article for VFX World, core members of the effects team for Double Negative (the primary effects vendor for the film) talk about many of the seemingly single-take shots being created using a variety of blending techniques that made the shot transitions appear seamless. They describe particular ones, including a 9-minute shot during the car/motorcycle chase scene. But they never specifically mention compositing the combat scene.

According to an article in issue 110 of Cinefex, the sequence consists of six or seven shots filmed over several weeks in at least three locations: Bushey Hall in Hertfordshire, a disused Air Force base in Upper Heyford in Oxfordshire, and a studio set in Pinewood.

Director Alfonso Cuarón says: "The blood was great, but after a while it started to feel like it was on your face. It started to feel distracting." In every frame of the shot after Theo enters the building, the blood was digitally removed in post-production.

It's never made particularly clear in the film, but we know that they are secretive to the point of being a myth, they attempted to determine the reasons for the infertility outbreak, that they are not allies of the UK government or the Fish... and they have an interest in Kee and her child, presumably a continuation of their previous research.

Theo says the word "shantih" as a salutation in one scene and the word is repeated again throughout the closing credits. Derived from the ancient Indian language Sanskrit, it means "calm, quiet, tranquility, peace". The transcription "shantih" is probably not as accurate as "shanti", the spelling favored by most scholars now.

Also, the three words repeated are the closing words of T.S. Eliot's poem "The Waste Land," which is full of haunting images of a post-apocalyptic world in the present ("I will show you fear in a handful of dust"). In a footnote, Eliot explains the three words: "Repeated as here, a formal ending to an Upanishad. 'The Peace which passeth understanding' is a feeble translation of the conduct of this word." To read the entire poem, see http://www.bartleby.com/201/1.html.