Would you have changed anything?

[shaggles]

I could live without all the stuff about Staffan and Tommy's mother. I don't think they added much to the story.

[bore]

I could live without all the stuff about Staffan and Tommy's mother. I don't think they added much to the story.

Perhaps, but without that Tommy would just be an empty face.
One of the reasons I think Tommy is OK is because I don't like Staffan that much, so I guess I just feel a bit sorry for Tommy.
If Tommy was just a useless body, like Jimmys friends, (Heck, I don't even remember their names.) then I wouldn't care much about him when he is trapped with Håkan.
Staffan and Tommy's mother is for me the difference between horror and comedy in that section.

[shaggles]

I could live without all the stuff about Staffan and Tommy's mother. I don't think they added much to the story.

Perhaps, but without that Tommy would just be an empty face.
One of the reasons I think Tommy is OK is because I don't like Staffan that much, so I guess I just feel a bit sorry for Tommy.
If Tommy was just a useless body, like Jimmys friends, (Heck, I don't even remember their names.) then I wouldn't care much about him when he is trapped with Håkan.
Staffan and Tommy's mother is for me the difference between horror and comedy in that section.

Maybe. I think Tommy had enough interaction with Oskar to make his character stand on it's own without the additional background.

[DarkGuyver]

Personally, I wouldn't have changed a thing in the novel. It has a very good and steady pace, which makes me want to keep on reading to find out what happens next.

[covenant6452]

Personally, I wouldn't have changed a thing in the novel. It has a very good and steady pace, which makes me want to keep on reading to find out what happens next.

Yes I agree, I wouldn't change a thing in either the novel or the film either, if it ain't broke...don't fix it. There's a reason were all here and it started with a beautiful story in a fantastic novel that inspired talented people to make a brilliant film...

...and a remake.

If someone were to actually create time-travel, go back to the time JAL was writing and somehow influence him to change a certain aspect of his story it probably wouldn't have coalesced the way it did and the film wouldn't have come together the same either. No Kare, no Lina, no Tomas, no Johan, No Hoyt. Any one of those factors changed and most of us wouldn't be here.
The remake rights would probably have been purchased by Uwe Boll.
Oh, and whoever would have gone back in time would probably have ended up killing their own grandmother, or would have left behind a piece of technology and returned to a future filled with robots with lazerbeam eyes or a future where we are ruled by marmosets or some other paradoxical horror.
So no, I wouldn't have changed anything.

[Bioroid]

This is a tough thing for me to answer. I'm on my third read-through now, and each time I pick up on this or that thing that makes me go "well that could have been trimmed, or this could've been done a little differently," but by the end it's all come together so well my mind has always changed to "leave it all as is."

The only thing I might do is maybe make Oskar and Eli be not so... I guess you could say "moody" toward each other at certain places in the story, but that's more of a hangover from the film than an actual criticism.

[Ash]

Perhaps another plot twist.
When Eli reveals that she is a boy, Oskar reveals that he is actually a girl, raised as a boy by her mother.
So we'd have a boy pretending to be a girl, falling for a girl pretending to be a boy.
Even JAL wouldn't attempt that one LOL. But I think Disney might have.

[the_value_of_x]

Perhaps another plot twist.
When Eli reveals that she is a boy, Oskar reveals that he is actually a girl, raised as a boy by her mother.
So we'd have a boy pretending to be a girl, falling for a girl pretending to be a boy.
Even JAL wouldn't attempt that one LOL. But I think Disney might have.

[lombano]

Perhaps another plot twist.
When Eli reveals that she is a boy, Oskar reveals that he is actually a girl, raised as a boy by her mother.
So we'd have a boy pretending to be a girl, falling for a girl pretending to be a boy.

Actually a potentially interesting version would be with an Oskarina.

[Ash]

The down side of that plot twist is it would make it just another boy/girl vampire flick, and too merchant ivory for my twisted tastes in books/films. JAL presents quite unlikeable characters and taboo scenarios and asks us to accept, even love, that. He pulls that off rather well.