Benjamin Button
Last night I watched Benjamin Button for the first time. A few months ago I read the short story by F. Scott Fitzgerald.
Talk about taking license with a story! The general premise was the same, but there the similarity ends. Events, characters, settings – all different. The movie changed the books events to coincide with Hurricane Katrina.
I feel robbed. I would have liked to see Benjamin Button ride with Roosevelt and the Rough Riders, as well as show up as a 15 yr old in his uniform for the reunion. The movie really rode rough-shod over the latter half of Benjamin’s life when it truly became hard for him for him to deal with his very unique way of aging. The movie romanticized it to the point of being nearly unrecognizable.
In the story, he goes to college, marries, has a child, and raises his son, all while aging backwards. This causes a similar set of problems as when he was first born.
If you are so inclined, please read the story in Fitzgerald’s Tales of the Jazz Age. Or you can read an excerpt here (provided by Google Books):
Boo to creative licenses for the sake of a movie. I hate it when they do that. That's why I struggle to watch Harry Potter movies because I LOVE the books and I can remember details that aren't in the movies. My family won't watch them with me because I comment all the way through about how this is wrong and that is missing.
ReplyDeleteMy cousin is the EXACT same way! She even noticed the color of Hermione's dress in Goblet of Fire. And it's all my fault. She had never heard of HP till I gave her the first three books. On her first viewing of Half-Blood Prince she called me to tell me she saw at least 23 errors...
ReplyDeleteAnyways, movie adaptations rarely do the books justice, but to totally change the story? That's just WRONG!