Huckleberry Finn Movie Vs Book Analysis

Compare and Contrast Huck Finn

When a book is being adapted into a movie, changes have to be made, especially if doing the book identically would involve a three to four hour movie. What changes should be made? Are all the simplifications going to change the basic message and plot? In the case of the novel Adventures of Huckleberry Finn by Mark Twain, there are many differences and similarities between the book and the Disney Home Videos version directed by Stephen Sommers. There are differences and similarities in the elements of plot, characters, and characterization. All together, these elements make up the move from a book version to a movie version.

Many of the differences between the movie and the book are due to the simplifying of the

Jim discovers Pap’s body on the boat while Huck discovers the two murderers. The boat collapses and sinks, skipping Huck’s later effort, in the book, to send a ferry back to the boat to save the two men. Some differences in plot do change the story somewhat. The movie fails to show Jim and Huck stealing the girls’ clothes that Huck wears to town. It uses implication instead of being explicit. Other times the movie goes beyond simplification and actually changes the tone of the story, such as the removal of the Royal Nonesuch, which is a crucial comical relief in the book that brings out more of the duke and king’s

There are still the basic main characters such as Huck, Jim, Pap, the Duke and the King, the Grangerfords and the Sheperdsons, Miss Watson, and the Widow Douglas, but there are also characters taken out, such as Tom Sawyer, Aunt Polly, and the Phelps. These characters form a crucial part of the plot in the book that is not present in the movie. Instead of Tom being shot, Huckleberry is shot. Instead of having Jim captured by the Phelps, Jim is put in jail. Therefore, when Huckleberry and Jim are caught, Jim is almost hung. Huckleberry wakes up in the Wilks ’ house to find that Jim is all spiffed up and has been set free by the recently deceased Miss Watson. The widow Douglas has come and is going to civilize Huck, but Huck runs away again. The Phelps have been replaced by the widow, Tom by Huck, and Aunt Polly, also, by the widow. As a result, the entire ending has been changed, for the movie.

The differences in what characters are in and not in the movie and book, and the parts of the book, that the movie omits, simplifies, or replaces lead to different in the characterization of the characters. The duke and the king are more openly evil in the movie. They threaten to turn Jim in if Huckleberry does not keep silent. Huckleberry and Jim seem more fearful and less caring in the movie because Huckleberry never sends a ferry