SyFy's Childhood's End

[R.P. McMurphy]

I have yet to watch the miniseries, but I remember the ending of the book being that the overlords couldn't evolve and join the Overmind themselves, but send others who have evolved into a non-materialistic existence.

That's exactly right. The children evolve and assimilate with the Overmind. Humanity was a lower stage, a childhood that has now ended and we have moved into a higher plane of existence.

 

[Lear60man]

This is the best explination I found so far, and no I didnt read the book. I liked it because it didnt wrap up in a little bow. We lost, or won depending on how you looked at it.

 

[0neiros]

So they wanted the children to evolve, then the planet is destroyed and there are no more humans. There still doesn't seem to be any point to it.

Not really, we were destined for extinction regardless. Either by our own hand, or evolving to a new existence. Some of this is conjecture, and some is out of the book.. When a race is approaching the change, the Overmind sends the Overlords to help them along, as part of the approach to the change involves violence and unrest, like a CHILD throwing a "I don't want to go to bed"tantrum. The reason Karellen knew to wait on revealing themselves wasn't that they had visited us before, it was because we as a species had a racial premonition of their coming and that it meant the end for **** Sapiens.

In the book at the end,the Earth didn't blow up, it along with us was transformed to an energy state, and Milo fekt a sense of fulfillment and satisfaction at the end, not pleading. In this the miniseries failed. As for us travelling to other worlds, Milo came back to earth because he just couldn't handle the alienness of other planets, just couldn't adapt, and knew it would be that way for any human. Don't feel bad, the miniseries didn't convey that there were Billions that ascended. **** sapiens time had come it was time to grow up

My Father raised an interesting point as to why The Overlords can't evolve and ascend. They are at a dead end evolutionarily, and he feels it;s because if you analyze them physically their homeworld must have been nasty for them to become the dominant species. ie their physical defenses - Horns, claws, wings, hooves, unlike humans whom compared to other Species is lacking physically and needed to develop our minds to dominate, Karellen's people didn't, so their minds didn't have that extra something that races that ascend do.

Over-all they did a good job, the end was decent, and they didn't muck it up like Deathly Hallows part II which is my standard on how to not follow the source material for the Payoff at the end of the story.