Red Queen: 5 big differences from book to screen
Red Queen: 5 big differences from book to screen. The ‘Red Queen’ author claims the Amazon Prime Video series is his finest work.
By Megan Sauer
The author of the ‘Red Queen’ universe books has admitted that the Amazon Prime Video series is “his best novel” thanks to the small changes made.
Today we don’t talk about anything else. The Prime Video debut of ‘Queen Roja,’ based on Juan Gómez-Jurado’s best-selling novel, sparked immediate buzz on social media, quickly becoming the day’s hot topic.
The streaming platform chose to release all seven episodes at once, mirroring the binge-reading experience of the novel (which many of us can relate to).
Much discussion has centered on the excellent casting, with Vicky Luengo and Hovik Keuchkerian embodying the roles of Antonia Scott and Jon Gutiérrez, the story’s protagonists, to perfection.
The roles fit them like a glove, and although in the first stages of the series they suffer from a somewhat artificial lack of naturalness in the dialogues, their chemistry grows episode by episode and we can no longer think of other faces to give life to some characters who have been accompanying us since Gómez-Jurado published ‘Reina Roja‘ in 2018.
The first episode of a literary trilogy that, sooner or later, will be completely transferred to the small screen. Given the result of its first delivery, it is only a matter of time.
The transition of Juan Gómez-Jurado’s books to television remains remarkably faithful, retaining phrases unchanged between the two mediums and replicating the storyline almost word for word, albeit with minor alterations.
The author himself has admitted that the only thing these changes do is improve the original material, and he has described the ‘Red Queen‘ series as “his best novel.” There are five small notes, yet they present a compelling character underutilized in the book, along with one of the finest scenes in the production.
Mild spoilers for ‘Red Queen‘, but no details are mentioned about the novels ‘Black Wolf‘ and ‘White King‘ that continue Antonia Scott‘s story.
‘Red Queen’: Jon’s ‘amatxu’
In the ‘Red Queen‘ novel, the mother of police officer Jon Gutiérrez lives in Bilbao and, although she is mentioned several times, she does not actively participate in the story. That changes in the series.
Karmele Larrinaga plays Jon‘s ‘amatxu’, who lives with him in Madrid, and makes her one of the best characters in the series thanks to her naturalness, her comedic outlook and her big heart, being essential to facilitate the meeting finale between Ezequiel, the great villain, and Antonia and Jon.
‘Red Queen’: The potato omelet
In both the book and the Prime Video series, Jon feels “offended” when Antonia brings him to the hospital cafeteria, where they serve a pre-cooked and rigid potato omelet skewer. She assures him of a homemade omelet to give him a taste of the real thing. true what good food is.
In the series, Jon prepares Antonia‘s omelet personally, with all the care and affection in the world so that it comes out perfect. However, the literary Antonia suffers from anosmia (loss of smell) and cannot taste it. For her all food tastes the same.
In the series, Jon‘s ‘amatxu’ is in charge of creating the delicacy of the gods and giving it to Antonia Scott to try, who, when she puts it in her mouth, goes into a trance and imagines the entire preparation process in one of the best (and funniest) sequences from the show.
‘Red Queen’: The monkeys
The Prime Video advertising campaign for ‘Red Queen‘ highlights two key elements: the pills Antonia uses to manage her abilities and the imaginary monkeys that assail her during moments of instability. Interestingly, this detail deviates from the novel.
The book explains that “Antonia Scott’s mind is more like a jungle, a jungle full of monkeys jumping at full speed from vine to vine carrying things. Many monkeys and many things, crossing each other in the air and showing their fangs.”, but it is not related to his anxiety attacks that occur due to the Red Queen project experiments.
‘Red Queen’: Eduardo Noriega’s character
In a flashback of the series, Antonia Scott is having dinner at a flamenco tablao with her partner when she notices the appearance of a mysterious man who keeps staring at her. Seizing a moment of distraction, Antonia confronts the man (Eduardo Noriega), who warns her about the peril of exposing ‘Mr. White’. He goes as far as to claim that their investigations could jeopardize not only their lives but also those of their loved ones.
The character of Noriega is a wink for fans of the literary saga, who have surely recognized the role he plays as a figure who will appear again later, but since in these 7 chapters not much more information is given about him, we will not be the ones who reveal the mystery. In the first book of the trilogy, he doesn’t even appear.
‘Red Queen’: Differences between the ending of the book and the series
Spoiler alert for the conclusion of ‘Red Queen‘, but no specifics are disclosed regarding the novels ‘Black Wolf’ and ‘White King‘, which further develop Antonia Scott’s narrative.
Although at the end of the ‘Red Queen’ book it is clear that Mr. White is the mastermind behind the kidnappings carried out by Ezequiel and Sandra, the series makes it even more evident when Antonia, when reviewing the entire case, unites the points on the city map forming a gigantic ‘W’ over Madrid.
This leaves the door open to a second season (adapting ‘Black Wolf‘, the next book in the saga) which, although it has not yet been officially confirmed by Prime Video, is an open secret.
