Hey there, fans of sci-fi fiction, post-apocalyptic YA romantasy and all things dystopian. Today, we're diving into the world of Scott Westerfeld's Uglies: the book series that rocked our teenage shelves, now brought to life on Netflix. Did the adaptation live up to its original dystopian glory, or did it miss the mark? So many questions arise from close reading and reviewing, so let's find out together! In case you are interested in writing your own reviews and sharing your thoughts with other bookworms, have a look at our guide on How to Become a Book Reviewer.
If you love Page vs. Screen comparisons but YA dystopian isn’t really your thing, make sure to check out our other articles for Little Women and Daisy Jones & The Six. Or just visit our Blog, and explore more Books that Turned into Movies.
On the other hand, if you do love books like Uglies, we’ve got you covered with more exciting recommendations!
Scott Westerfeld’s Uglies takes place in a futuristic dystopia where our own civilization has collapsed three centuries ago and humanity has evolved to live in self-sufficient, eco-friendly, extremely technologically advanced cities. These societies are determined to give their civilians equal chances at success, so every person gets a mandatory cosmetic surgery on their 16th birthday. Tally Youngblood is a teenager waiting eagerly for this crucial milestone that will turn her from an Ugly to a Pretty. Before she has the chance to do that, though, her new friend, Shay, makes a decision that triggers a chain of events that leads Tally to discover the shocking truth about the surgery: other than giving each person the “ideal” features they’ve been manipulated to desire, it also creates lesions in the brain that makes one more docile and compliant. This truth is revealed to her while she’s undercover to betray the runaways of The Smoke and turn them in to Special Circumstances—a mission she deeply regrets as she resolves she would rather not get the surgery either.
Tally’s story is a timeless metaphor for how beauty ideals affect young minds in tandem with the continuous technological advances of the modern world. This is why the screen adaptation has been hyped up, especially by those who read the books as teenagers after its original release date back in 2005 and now get to see this beloved story come to life as adults.
Before you continue, make sure to check out our Uglies book summary if you need a refresher on the original plot of the book series.
Of course, we wouldn’t be proper bookworms if we hadn’t watched the movie ourselves to enjoy our favorite characters and rant about the discrepancies from page to screen.
However, if you feel you require a few tips to elevate your reading experience, we got you! Check How to Become a Better Reader, and let us know if it helped.
Whether you loved or hated the Netflix film, it’s time to take out your magnifying glass and come along as we take a closer look at the Uglies cinematic universe, comparing it to the world Scott Westerfeld created in his hit book series.
Bookworms beware: There are spoilers ahead, both for the books and the Uglies movie.
One of the greatest differences between the books and the film is Peris’ role in the story. Peris plays an important part at the beginning of the first book as Tally’s best friend, who gets the surgery first and moves to New Pretty Town. Although inseparable since childhood, the two friends lose touch, a fact that motivates Tally to sneak into New Pretty Town to find him. Her love for him is the driving force that makes her desperate to get the surgery and reconnect with him as a Pretty. In the book, after she is denied the surgery and forced to infiltrate the Uglies at The Smoke, Peris only resurfaces to motivate her further. He promises her they will soon be together and happy, so she should do whatever the Specials ask her to do to achieve that.
In the movie, Peris (portrayed by Chase Stokes) plays a greater role, as Dr. Cable makes him a Special; a higher class of Pretty that works in Special Circumstances and possesses an intimidating, almost terrifying kind of beauty. As a Special, he is present when they raid The Smoke to arrest the rebels and even kills David’s father, Az, in front of everyone.
He is a soldier who has joined the dark side, never to return. When Tally (Joey King) begs him to remember their friendship and snap out of the ruthless mindset of the Specials, he maintains his cold facade, which only breaks seconds before his tragic fall from a building. Although it’s unsure whether he dies or not, it is heartbreaking to watch him call Tally by her pet name “Squint” right before he falls to his supposed death. This makes the Specials seem ruthless and evil, taking advantage of their friendship to turn them against each other and make Tally realize there’s no point in resisting.
As mentioned above, the film takes a huge leap from the books, gathering all the exposition of Tally’s betrayal in one scene. When the Specials raid The Smoke, it is revealed that Tally was the one that—unknowingly—turned them in and caused the tragic death of David’s father Az (played by Jay DeVon Johnson). In the same scene, David sees Peris murder his father, while being fully aware that Tally is his best friend and responsible for him being there in the first place.
In the book, this plays out completely differently. When the Specials arrive at the settlement, they arrest the Smokies and take them all back to Special Circumstances. That is, all except for Tally and David, who escape separately but find each other to orchestrate an escape plan.
When they finally rescue the Smokies, David notices that his father is nowhere to be found. Once they have fled, his mother, Maddy (played by Charmin Lee), reveals that his father was killed while in custody. However, David is still oblivious to the role Tally has played in this. The shocking revelation only comes toward the end of the book, when Tally tells him what she’s done and promises to make things right by offering herself as a test subject for the cure. Even though he’s heartbroken, he understands it’s not entirely Tally’s fault, and still wants to protect her. This doesn’t happen in the movie right away, due to the trauma of witnessing his whole world crumbling in an instant.
Of course, when adapting a whole book into a movie, there are things that need to be edited out or crammed together to fit the format. This seems to have been the case for Tally and Shay’s friendship. In the book, we slowly get to know and love Shay (Brianne Tju) along with Tally, with their relationship evolving from partners in misery and mischief to close friends. What we don’t see in the film is that Shay shows her a whole new world in the Ruins, where they share their deepest worries as well as laughter, while riding the rollercoaster on their hoverboards. Shay gradually expresses her concerns about the surgery to Tally, as she doesn’t share the same insecurities as Tally about their “ugliness”. She is surprised to hear that Tally thinks one side of her face is uglier than the other. It makes such an impression on her that she even uses it as a clue in her encrypted instructions to The Smoke. This conversation does happen in the film, but that information is not used in Shay’s letter, diminishing the impact it had on Shay.
Their relationship becomes competitive in The Smoke, as Shay is in love with David, but gets her heart broken when she realizes his heart belongs to Tally, who, for all she knows, is still in love with Peris. The tension rises between the two friends and pulls them apart as Tally’s guilt builds up.
The producers of the Netflix adaptation probably thought such a plotline of female rivalry would not appeal to current audiences. So, they changed it to Shay accepting David’s feelings for Tally and simply insisting she make a real choice between New Pretty Town and The Smoke. In the end, Shay ends up a Pretty, and forgives Tally in both versions, although in the book, she actually goes back to the new Smoke against her own repulsion for the place, just for Tally’s sake.
An important difference in the world-building of the movie is the role of the White Tiger Orchid. In Netflix’s Uglies, humanity uses this new species of orchid to produce energy despite the fact that it ends up destroying the environment. The Specials know about this, but choose to keep it hidden from the general population.
This is barely different from our own environmental crisis—or that of the Rusties, as the characters would call us. It shows that humanity has regressed to repeating the same harmful cycles, especially the corrupt Specials. The Smokies are trying to fight against this and eliminate the threat of the orchid, but the Specials fight back, trying to suppress their rebellion on all fronts.
This is a gigantic departure from the book, where renewable energy is used instead, as this evolved civilization considers the Rusties’ destruction of the environment a primitive and heinous practice. The white tiger orchid does exist, depicted as an invasive species that has taken over vast areas of land, choking out other forms of native plant life. These orchids are emblematic of the unintended consequences of setting out to control nature. They were originally bred by the Rusties for their beauty, but they spread uncontrollably, destroying the natural ecosystem wherever they grew.
The white orchids highlight the book’s theme of control versus natural balance. The plants serve as a stark reminder of how making things uniform and “beautiful”, like the orchids or the Pretties, can actually destroy the diversity and richness that nature—and individuality—depend upon.
On screen, Laverne Cox’s Dr. Cable manipulates Tally, convincing her Shay’s been brainwashed by David and is in danger. The Smokies are developing a weapon to attack their city and the civilization they have built to replace it with their own. Joey King’s Tally has the choice of taking the surgery and leaving her friend behind, but she can’t do that as she considers the threat Dr. Cable has planted in her mind. When she leaves, she truly believes she’s the city’s only hope for survival.
Scott Westerfeld’s Dr. Cable is much more intimidating, holding Tally’s dream of getting the surgery and reuniting with her best friend over her head. She doesn’t disclose why they need to bring Shay back, but Tally knows she has to do as they say if she wants to move on with her own life. She makes that decision on her own, having cracked under the pressure of having to return to the dorms where she is a reject, an irregularity in a flawless system.
Netflix’s Dr. Cable is the main antagonist in the movie, as she seems to be the evil mastermind behind every decision the Specials make. She purposefully lies to Tally that The Smoke is creating a weapon; she turns Peris into a Special, and is there when they raid The Smoke and give the order to kill Az in front of his son, instilling fear into the rebels. She is a tyrant whose only motivation is to eliminate any threats to the oppressing regime she supports.
The book series’ Dr. Cable, however, is a bit different. She is merely an officer for the Specials, who happened to have been assigned Tally’s case. She has no personal motivation against her and simply sees her as another one of her missions to preserve order and peace. Even though she orders the raid, she is not there herself when the Specials arrest the Smokies and transfer them to Special Circumstances in their hovercars.
It is understood that she was the one who had to kill Az eventually, but we don’t really see that happening, and neither does his own son. Dr. Cable believes that everything she does is to keep the peace, as she thinks their system of life is the more advanced of the two, and any Ugly who chooses otherwise is foolish.
In the movie, Tally is rescued from the fire at the white tiger orchid fields by David himself. The Smokies are the ones who drive the helicopters setting fires to the dangerous plant species. It’s a clear distinction between the bad city with its evil Specials and The Smoke; the only place whose inhabitants really care about the environment.
Author Scott Westerfeld finds a middle ground between these two extremes, the Rangers. The Rangers are Pretties from another town who have made it their mission to control the orchid situation. Even though they’re Pretties, they work closely with the Smokies and respect their way of living, yet they wouldn’t choose it for themselves. Their existence is a revelation for Tally, whose perception has been limited to her own city, having no idea there are other kinds of Pretties out there. Their mission and the Smokies’ involvement in it shows her that maybe The Smoke isn’t as bad as the Specials have convinced her it is. The Rangers’ presence in the story is a subtle but impactful way of showing that not everyone lives within the strict confines of the city or rebels outright like the Smokies. Some are trying to work with what they have to mitigate the damage done by past mistakes.
In the film adaptation, Maddy secretly slides a vial of a chemical solution into David’s pouch as he cries over his father’s body. This solution is the result of their joint research for the cure, but there’s still one component missing; the nanosynth, which can only be retrieved from Dr. Cable’s lab. Later, during their escape, Dr. Cable manages to arrest Tally, David and Maddy and puts them in chambers in the lab to begin procedures for the surgery. Croy (Jan Luis Castellanos) saves them at the last minute, breaking the window and setting fire to the room, but Maddy manages to steal the nanosynth before she escapes. By the time they break out, she already has the cure and is ready to use it.
In the books, she and her husband haven’t managed to find the cure, even after years of research. They have found a way to reverse the changes in physical features and have used it on themselves, but they haven’t found a way to undo the brain damage that is caused by the lesions. After her husband’s death, Maddy isolates herself at the New Smoke for twenty days to focus her efforts and finally find the cure. The pain of Az’s tragic loss and the desperate need to protect their son is what finally gets her to find the cure and offer it to Shay, although she rejects is, prompting Tally to step up.
No matter which version you prefer, it's clear that the world of Uglies still has plenty to offer, sparking conversations about beauty, conformity, and rebellion. From one future Rusty to another, thanks for joining us on this wild and exciting journey.
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As of yet, there has been no official announcement of a sequel, which would follow the story of the second or even third book, Pretties and Specials. Usually such a decision would be based on the first movie’s success, but with a Rotten Tomato score of 15%, that prospect doesn’t seem all that promising.
In the Uglies movie stars Joey King as Tally alongside Chase Stokes as Peris, Laverne Cox as Dr. Cable and Keith Powers as David. David’s parents, Az and Maddy, are played by Jay DeVon Johnson and Charmin Lee, while Shay is portrayed by Brianne Tju.
The Uglies adaptation for Netflix is directed by McG, who is known for box office hits like Charlie's Angels and The Babysitter. The script was written and adapted from Scott Westerfeld’s book series by Whit Anderson, Vanessa Taylor and Jordan Davis.
Eirini is a passionate book nerd with a keen penchant for the whimsical and the witty. She holds a degree in English Literature - because what's better than reading books for homework? - and delights in dissecting the subtleties of storytelling. When it comes to fiction analysis, she is determined to turn every stone and go through every theory of the stories that excite her. Known for her playful approach and keen observations, her contribution offers readers a delightful exploration of literary themes that resonate with enthusiasts and casual readers alike.
