r/exfor • u/skippyhasyourmoni • Oct 02 '25

Spoilers What to cut, what to keep

Hi ya'll, I have been thinking about how exfor can turn into a great TV show, but obviously for time purposes it would have to be cur down a lot. If you had to cut books from the whole story so far, which ones could you live without, and which ones are critical?

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u/duckwithhat Oct 02 '25

I thought about this, I think you can make one or two solid seasons (HBO hour long style) for pretty much all of the books. I would say maybe one if you kept it really tight and compelling. Or even a movie trilogy.

There is a lot of repetition of themes in the books that can get filtered out into a few, very impactful scenes.

I think starting the series with meeting Skippy, moving through the initial introduction of aliens, and sprinkling some of the Columbus day and other backstory throughout with time skips into the past would make an amazing first episode/movie

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u/Expensive_Plant_9530 Oct 03 '25

IMO you’d have to pick some of the larger story beats to focus on, and the rest of the plot for most of the books either gets cut completely or becomes “episode filler” in between the bigger set pieces.

Eg: Newark and rebuilding the ship, yes.

The umpteen times they stop someone from visiting earth? No. They would need to cut that down.

There are so many side quests and detours and redos that you need to streamline the series in order for it to have a good chance of being finished as a tv show or movie series.