Huckleberry Finn

In both the book and the newer movie of The Adventures of
Huckleberry Finn, Mark Twain's tale of the escape of a young boy
and a slave in search of freedom unfolds. Movies have been made
with the desire to reproduce Mark Twain's novel in an entertaining
way. In the process, though, Hollywood has left out important
scenes or changed events in order to attempt meeting the audience's
need for entertainment. These changes made when transferring a
book to a movie should not be allowed. Every little detail is
important in the development of the story, because the details are
what support the plot and bring Twain's ideas together. The
differences between the characters, plot, and themes distinguish
themselves when comparing the book to the movie.

The differences in some characters set the book and the movie
apart from one another. In the movie Tom Sawyer is completely left
out of the story. In the book Huck compares his ideas and plans to
those of Tom. While Huck is planning the gory details of his fake
death, he thinks about Tom and how Tom's plan would have been more
detailed and creative in the situation. Another difference that
can be noted between the book and the movie is the fact that the
movie left out Boggs. The character Boggs, the drunk man is an
important character in the book because the situation that Boggs
encounters exemplifies the fact that drunkards were treated like
jokes or low lifes during the eighteen hundreds just as some are
treated now. In the novel the Grangerfords' son is named Buck, but in the movie his name becomes Billy. This is part of
Hollywood's attempt to make the story sound more modern.

The changing of characters is not the only difference between
the movie and the book. Parts of the plot change in the attempt to
convert the book to film. All the scenes that involve Tom Sawyer
or any of Huck's friends are left out. The scene where Huck and
his friends are organizing a gang is eliminated from the movie.
This scene should have been left in to establish a taste of the
atmosphere in which Huck is growing up. The movie adds in a scene
of Huck getting shot, but nowhere in the book does Huck get wounded
by a bullet. This scene does not fit well with the plot. It is
supposed to be Tom who gets shot, but since he is left out of the
movie Huck ends up getting shot while Jim risks losing his freedom
to save Huck. This scene affects the viewer by making the
relationship between Huck and Jim appear stronger. At the end of
the book Huck finds out from Jim that his Pap has died. The
Phelpses offer to let Huck stay with them, but he turns down the
offer. In the movie, on the other hand, Huck finds out his Pap is
dead while Jim is in jail. Later, while Huck is recovering from
his gunshot wound, Ms. Douglas visits him and she makes an offer
for him to come back with her. He decides he does not want to be
civilized and runs off into the fields.

Although the characters and plot have significant changes
within them between the book and the movie, the themes have equally
evident alterations. Religion is looked upon more strongly in the
book than in the movie. In the book Huck is made to pray in a closet and his doubts about helping Jim invade his mind more often.
According to the religion Huck is being taught, it is considered
extremely sinful to help a runaway slave. Another difference is
there are fewer racial slurs and demonstrations of prejudice in the
movie because of the need to be politically correct. The movie
would be considered controversial if racial slurs were kept in the
transformation from book to movie. The fact that the movie makes
Jim into a Swahili warrior instead of a drowned Arab becomes an
example of obvious ridicule. The dialect is slightly different in
the movie than in the book. In the movie it sounds as though the
actors try too hard to reproduce the dialect and therefore end up
with a fake sounding dialect.

The differences between the book and the movie are
substantial. In attempting to reproduce the book successfully, the
newer movie of Huckleberry Finn does not succeed. The number of
changes between the movie and the book in characters, plot, and
theme make the move too far-fetched from the original tale Mark
Twain tries to get across to his audience.



Recommended: Yes