“Fencing. Fighting. Torture. Poison. True love. Hate. Revenge. Giants. Hunters. Bad men. Good men. Beautifulest ladies. Snakes. Spiders. Beasts of all natures and descriptions. Pain. Death. Brave men. Coward men. Strongest men. Chases. Escapes. Lies. Truths. Passion. Miracles.”

After years on her farm, Buttercup realizes she is in love with the farm boy, Westley. When he goes to seek his fortune so they can marry, he is murdered by the Dread Pirate Roberts. Years later, Buttercup has agreed to marry Prince Humperdink, but before the wedding she is kidnapped by three men. But they are being followed by the man in black…

William Goldman wrote The Princess Bride in 1973 for his two daughters; one wanted a story about a princess, the other wanted a story about a bride. A satirical love story, written as “an abridgement of S. Morgenstern’s classic tale of true love and high adventure” the “good parts version” includes the story of a little boy discovering books because of the story his father read to him when he was sick.

When the movie was finally made, Goldman wrote the screenplay (he had already won an Oscar for writing Butch Cassidy and the Sundance Kid). He was approached by Rob Reiner, who had loved the book, and after watching This is Spinal Tap, Goldman agreed. So casting began. Reiner said “there was only one man in the entire world who could play Fezzik: Andre the Giant. Billy [William Goldman] wrote the part with him in mind”. Robin Wright was one of the last women they saw, Cary Elwes was spotted in another movie, and Mandy Patinkin was sent the script and hired.

The film had a limited budget, so they tried to use as many existing locations as they could. Most of the castle scenes were filmed in a castle built in the 11th Century (with some of the original tapestries still on the walls). Really only the scenes with water and the fire swap didn’t already exist, which helped the actors, and is wonderful for the viewers.

A movie so well know that it completely overshadows William Goldman’s “abridgement”, The Princess Bride has been a classic since it came out (seriously, do you know anyone who hasn’t seen it?) While the book is wonderful and funny, I think this is one of the few times where the movie is better: it’s really the good parts version.

Similarities

• Almost all of the lines are straight out of the book; especially the hilarious ones (like “Jesus, what’d you read me this for?”
• The only character’s that were cut were Buttercup’s parents. All of the rest are in the movie.

Differences

• The movie is more upbeat; the book has some dark moments
• More history: Buttercup’s childhood, Humperdink’s hunting obsession, Westley’s torture.

Accuracy rating: 5 out of 5. The books 400 pages, but what matters is what’s in the movie.

“Step on a mouse and you leave your print, like a Grand Canyon, across Eternity. Queen Elizabeth might never have been born, Washington might not cross the Delaware, there might never be a United States at all. So be careful. Stay on the Path. Never step off! ”

In the future, there is a time machine. The super rich can now pay to go back in time and hunt the greatest game that ever lived: dinosaurs. You just have to make sure you don’t change anything in the past, otherwise you’ll change the future. Even the smallest change, even a tiny bug, multiplied by millions of years, can change everything…

The short story (of the same name) by Ray Bradbury was originally published in 1952. Bradbury took the phrase “The Butterfly Effect” and made it quite literal. In an arms-race charged 50’s, the moral is the smallest actions have great consequences. The story is beautifully written and a joy to read.

Originally scheduled for release in 2003, the film was delayed until 2005 due to a number of issues. Originally Pierce Brosnan was going to star. While filming, there was a flood in Prague (where they were shooting) and the entire cast and crew had to evacuate. Then the production company went bankrupt. During the writing of the script, the original screenwriter was fired because he wanted to remove the butterfly from the story. Ray Bradbury was so upset that producer’s agreed to fire the writer. The film was finally release in September of 2005.

Similarities

• Time Safari
• Travis is still the leader of the hunt

Differences

• The bullets
• They shoot the same Allosaurus every time; in the book they shoot a Tyrannosaurus Rex-once. They also say the wrong Era: Allosaurus lived in the late Jurassic (145 million years ago) while the Tyrannosaurus lived in the Cretaceous (65 Million years ago).
• The changes that results from stepping off the path take time to occur, and increase everyday in waves; in the book they are noticed the second they get back (because the change took place as a result of a change to the past).
• The reason everything has changed is different too.

Accuracy rating: ½ out of 5. The concept is the same, but after the first 20 minutes it’s an entirely different time travel story.

“There’s a playground at the end of the block and I run to the swings and climb on, and Henry takes the one next to me, facing the opposite direction, and we swing higher and higher, passing each other, sometimes in sync and sometimes streaming past each other so fast it seems like we’re going to collide, and we laugh, and laugh, and nothing can ever be sad, no one can be lost, or dead, or far away: right now we are here, and nothing can mar our perfection, or steal the joy of this perfect moment”

“A most untraditional love story, this is the celebrated tale of Henry DeTamble, a dashing, adventuresome librarian who involuntarily travels through time, and Claire Abshire, an artist whose life takes a natural sequential course. Henry and Claire’s passionate affair endures across a sea of time and captures them in impossibly romantic traps that tests the strength of fate and basks in the bonds of love.” (from the 2004 US paperback edition)

When Audrey Neffenegger began writing The Time Traveler’s Wife, she had told stories using art, frame by frame. She knew she couldn’t tell the story of time travel with still images, so “it either needs to be a novel, or a movie”. She realized that the novel allowed her to add layers she wouldn’t have in a short story. Over the basic formula of “boy meets girl, girl meets boys, they fall in love, have a family…”, she could add the difficulty of waiting for someone who was out having adventures, the common idea of loss (in uncommon circumstances) and come out with something extraordinary.

The book was optioned for a movie in 2004, but marketing delays and reshoots pushed the date back from a 2008 release to Summer of 2009. Screenwriter Bruce Joel Rubin (Ghost) focused on keeping the emotional intensity from the book in the script, while being forced to cut details of the book itself (including some time travel): “We were very concerned about how we got out the rules of time travel, how we sort of layered them into the movie. It was very important that the movie not just be a movie that makes you cognitively involved and not emotionally involved.” The actors could relate to thier characters, despite the extraordinary circumstances; while the story is about time travel, it really focuses on love and loss, and what that does to a relationship.

Similarities

• The big moments for Claire and Henry are still there (Henry disappearing at the wedding, how they meet, etc)
• How much they love each other
• Charisse, Gomez, and Henry’s father are still important

Differences

• The relationships with other characters are gone; the movie is the story of Henry and Claire, the book is the story of their life together.
• Henry time travels much less, we don’t see him go to Claire as often.
• The importance of Dr. Kendrick
• What’s going on with Claire’s family
• The impact Henry had on Claire as a child

3.5 out of 5. The movie tried to convey the trouble they had through life, but it didn’t come close enough-the book is much deeper.

“Above me shone the stars, for the night was very clear. I felt a certain sense of friendly comfort in their twinkling. All the old constellations had gone from the sky, however: that slow movement which is imperceptible in a hundred human life-times, had long since rearranged them in unfamiliar groupings. But the Milky Way, it seemed to me, was still the same tattered streamer of star-dust as of yore.”

When a Victorian scientist propels himself into the year A.D. 802,701, he is initially delighted to find that suffering has been replaced by beauty, contentment, and peace. Entranced at first by the Eloi, an elfin species descended from man, he soon realizes that these beautiful people are simply remnants of a once-great culture—now weak and childishly afraid of the dark. They have every reason to be afraid: in deep tunnels beneath their paradise lurks another race descended from humanity—the sinister Morlocks. And when the scientist’s time machine vanishes, it becomes clear he must search these tunnels if he is ever to return to his own era. (From amazon.com)

The most recent remake of H.G. Wells The Time Machine was directed by his great grandson, Simon Wells. Starring Guy Pearce as the Time Traveler, Well’s classic is changed from a commentary about psychology, social change and politics to a straight forward action/sci-fi. Simon Wells said he made the decision because ”A hundred years on from when the book was published, I’m not sure the class struggle is all that relevant.”

Marketed as a young adult movie, the movie avoids the science aspects of Time Travel (which made H.G. Wells’ books famous). Instead it focuses on the characters and their situation, which Alexander feels obligated to change. He is given a clear protagonist (a very creepy Jeremy Irons), and a very blockbuster ending.

Similarities:

- The Morlocks and the Eloi retain their most important characteristics.
- Still 19^th century.
- The very central plot: the Traveler moves forward in time to the year 800,000 and sees a dramatically different Earth.
- The Morlocks smelting enterprise, as a parallel to the explanation for why the (book) Morlocks live underground.

Differences:

- The main character is referred to only as “The Time Traveler” in the book, his name is Alexander Hartdegan in the movie.
- Moved from England to New York; instead of an inventor, he is a professor at Columbia.
- The motive to build the time machine is different: for the book it was science and discovery, for the movie it was to save a lost loved one.
- He briefly stops in which he sees the fate of humanity, instead of going straight to 800,000 AD.
- The Eloi are more human, rather than child-like or nearly cattle. In the book they are androgynous; in the movie they are smarter and more diverse. Conversely, the Morlocks are not just predators, they’re sinister and evil.
- The character Weena has been replaced by Mara, to introduce a romantic element.
- Disaster involving the moon caused the separation of the species.
- The ending.

Overall Accuracy: 2.5 out of 5
H.G. Wells was known for scientific accuracy (and uncanny foresight), but this movie is just watered down action.

Check out the forum post for discussion HERE.

“Then he got an idea! An awful idea! THE GRINCH GOT A WONDERFUL, AWFUL IDEA!”

Brought to you by OBS staff member Erin

The Grinch lives just North of Who-ville, and hates when the Who’s celebrate Christmas. So he decides to stop it – by stealing Christmas!

One of the most popular Christmas movies ever, How the Grinch Stole Christmas almost didn’t get made. At first, Dr. Seuss was reluctant to animate the Grinch. But once he began seeing the animation and hearing the songs, he began to get excited. Some lines have been added to lengthen the movie, but Dr. Seuss wrote the extra lines and song lyrics, so they stayed true to the book. Dr. Seuss teamed up with Chuck Jones (Bugs Bunny fame) to animate the classic book for the new audience of children. Boris Karloff narrates, with Thurl Ravenscroft (who was also the voice of Tony the Tiger) singing the iconic theme song.

Dr. Seuss and Chuck Jones had been work partners before the Grinch; before World War II they created an Army training film featuring a character called Private Snafu. They continued to work together, creating Horton Hears a Who and The Lorax.

The Similarities:
- It’s almost word for word from the book
- His heart still grows three sizes
- The animation stays true to the book

The Differences:
- The thread the Grinch uses to tie an antler on Max is black in the movie, red in the book
- The Grinch is even more mean in the movie
- There are additional lines, and songs

Overall Accuracy: 5 out of 5

Check out the forum post for another poster and discussion HERE.

“The one thing that drew her out of her boredom was the alethiometer. She read it every day, sometimes with Fader Coram and sometimes on her own, and she found that she could sink more and more readily into the calm state in which the symbol meanings clarified themselves, and those great mountain ranges touched by sunlight emerged into vision” (U.S. Knopf 2002 paperback edition pg. 150)

“The protagonist of this complex fantasy is young Lyra Belacqua, a precocious orphan growing up within the precincts of Oxford University. But it quickly becomes clear that Lyra’s Oxford is not precisely like our own–nor is her world. For one thing, people there each have a personal daemon, the manifestation of their souls in animal form. For another, hers is a universe in which science, theology, and magic are closely allied. But Lyra’s carefree existence changes forever when she and her daemon, Pantalaimon, first prevent an assassination attempt against her uncle, the powerful Lord Asriel, and then overhear a secret discussion about a mysterious entity known as Dust. Soon she and Pan are swept up in a dangerous game involving disappearing children, a beautiful woman with a golden monkey daemon, a trip to the far north, and a set of allies ranging from “gyptians” to witches to an armor-clad polar bear.” (from amazon.com)

After writing his Sally Lockhart mystery series, Philip Pullman was discussing ideas with his publisher for his next book. He threw out an idea he had for a modern version of Paradise Lost by John Milton. The publisher told he to run with it, and the His Dark Materials series was born.

Called Northern Lights in the U.K., the title was changed when it arrived in the U.S. (much like the first Harry Potter). It was well received, and won numerous awards. The third book, The Amber Spyglass, received the Whitbread Award-awarded by other writer’s as the best book of the year. It was the first children’s book to win, and this opened the door for a film adaptation. The movie was not the first adaptation of the books. They did very well on the London stage, running multiple years at different times.

Writer/Director Chris Weitz (New Moon) was a fan of the books, and wanted to stay very close to Pullman’s ideas. Pullman was on set some days, and available for collaboration, since the film was shot near his home in Oxford. While writing the script, Weitz had to be aware of the religious controversy that the books had caused and walk the line between being accessible to the audience and staying true to the book. The first book really has the least controversy in it; how they thought they would be able to adapt the rest of the series (especially the third one) is beyond me.

The movie was received with mixed reviews, especially in regards to the special effects and accuracy to the books. Many diehard fans of the books felt that the movie over-simplified the main concepts in the books in order to attract a wider audience. Chris Weitz has defended his adaption as an introduction to the world; at the time all three books were going to be made into movies.

The Similarities:

- The location, and the way the college is set up.
- The importance of the daemons.
- The groups of characters: the gyptians, the panserbørne (the ice bears), and the witches for instance, are all there and just as important.
- How the other characters relate to Lyra, which evolves over the course of the series and is very important.

The Differences:

- The deaths of certain characters were removed to make the movie more children friendly
- The ending; the movie ends with Lyra and Roger flying away in with Lee Scoresby and Iorek Byrnison-the book continues on for another few chapters.
- Some of the order of the scenes has changed.
- The Magisterium is more sinister in the movie-they are the bad guys. It’s a much more grey area in the books. The same is true with “the gobblers”.
- One character from the second book is added to the movie, to provide a platform for what would have been the complete series. Two of the children are combined into one character. And the name of the king of the bears was changed.

Overall Accuracy: 3.5 out of 5
The general tone was toned down to create a blockbuster movie; I highly recommend the book first.