Books vs. Movies
In this podcast we set out to answer the age old question: is the book really always better than the movie?
Books vs. Movies
Ep. 21 Into the Wild by Jon Krakauer vs. Into the Wild (2007)
What if leaving everything behind could help you discover your truest self? Join me, Lluvia, as we navigate the compelling journey from page to screen with Jon Krakauer's "Into the Wild" and its 2007 film adaptation directed by Sean Penn. As a passionate book lover and actress from New York City, I share my unique perspective on both the book and the movie, discussing my reading habits and my mission to complete the PopSugar reading challenge, which introduced me to this incredible story.
In this episode, we peel back the layers of Christopher McCandless's life—his decision to abandon material possessions and family to embrace the rugged Alaskan wilderness. We scrutinize the film's portrayal of McCandless's relationships, assessing how creative liberties, such as altering the depiction of his parents' relationship and the location of where he lost his car, affect the story's integrity. We'll also examine pivotal characters in Chris's journey, from Wayne to Ron Franz, and how their interactions with Chris were adapted for the screen. Sean Penn's dedication to honoring the McCandless family's perspective also gets a spotlight, revealing the complexities involved in transforming a true story into a cinematic experience.
The final segment tackles the evolving theories about Chris's tragic death, shifting from initial misunderstandings about plant toxicity to more scientifically validated conclusions involving toxic amino acids in wild potato seeds. These revelations not only add depth to Chris's story but also underscore the importance of scientific rigor. Stay tuned until the end for a special teaser about our next episode, where we will explore the heartwarming tale of "Ollie's Odyssey" and its adaptation, "Lost Ollie." This journey from page to screen is one you won't want to miss!
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Hello and welcome to Books vs Movies, the podcast where I set out to answer the age-old question is the book really always better than the movie? I'm Yuvia, an actress and book lover based out of New York City, and today we will be talking about Into the Wild by John Krakauer and its 2007 adaptation Into the Wild. Alright, hi everybody and welcome back. You might hear some licking in the background. That is Voldemort. He is a compulsive licker, so he's licking himself right now as we speak, or as I speak, because you know why wouldn't he decide to wait to lick himself right when I press record? But it's fine, it's fine. Anyway. Yes, today I will be discussing Into the Wild and this book. I read it initially as part of one of my book challenges, so, okay, I really only have one book challenge. Okay, so the way my reading. I am a book polyamorist because there's, like, the book monogamous and the book polyamorist, and that just means that, like, if you're a book monogamous, you stick to one book from start to finish before starting another one. As a book polyamorist, you read multiple books at one time, and that's what I do. I have been a book polyamorist for years now. I think I started being one in high school or middle school.
Speaker 1:Obviously, I have like a big collection of books in my personal library. Most of them are back home in Texas, but that's not the point. So, yeah, so I have my books and like, as I would buy my books, I would read them before. I mean, I would buy them before reading them, and then I would love them and put them on my personal library and then I would you know process would repeat, and then at the same time I was checking out all these books from the library that I only had three weeks to read before I had to turn them back in. Yes, so I had the books that I was buying that I needed to read, and then I had all the books I was checking out in the library that I needed to read. So I just started like doubling, tripling, quadrupling up on books sometimes, and so that's something I still do now.
Speaker 1:So I have my TBR, which is I have so many books still in boxes we're completely moved in, except for my books, because we don't have anywhere to put those books and I'm being a lot more selective now about what books remain in my permanent collection. So I have all the books that are in boxes that I need to read and determine whether or not I want to keep them. So I read those books and then I do the PopSugar reading challenge. That's the reading challenge I discovered about six or seven years ago and I just really enjoyed it and I do it to this day. And then Dua Lipa just started a book club, so now I read her monthly books. So those are like the three books that I read for sure.
Speaker 1:And then, now that I have this podcast, I read a lot of books and watch a lot of things for this podcast. So yeah, I know that was a long rant, but you know what this is a book podcast. I hope you enjoy listening to me talk about books. So, yes, those are the three books I read for sure. And then lately I've been reading up to six books at a time to make up for all this stuff that I need to read and everything for this podcast. But anyway, so just note Orlando, julia, I have received your requests. I definitely want to include them in my podcast and if any of you have any requests at any point, just let me know. I will be more than happy to read and watch and review and everything. But, yeah, that's something that it might take me a while to get to requests, but I'm working on it Anyway. So, yes, that is how I came to read Into the Wilds, because this was actually in my PopSugar reading challenge, prompt number three, in which I had to read a book about a 24-year-old, and this was one of the options that came up, and I'd been really curious about this book because I had heard about it for a while. But let's go ahead and get into it. I've talked long enough about my reading habits. So Into the Wild by John Krakauer was first published all the way back on January 13th 1996. I will say that the edition I read, I believe, was published in 2015. So, yes, there have been some updates that we will get into what I mean by that.
Speaker 1:But this story follows the life, or a brief moment in Christopher Johnson McCandless' life. In April 1992, christopher hitchhiked to Alaska. He walked into the wild by Mount McKinley by this point, he had graduated college two years earlier Mount McKinley. By this point, he had graduated college two years earlier. And by this time, by this point, he had donated all the money he had in his savings account to charity. He had abandoned almost all of his worldly possessions. He had burned all of his cash and his wallet and his identification and invented this new life for himself. Unfortunately, christopher McCandless did meet his demise after going into the wild. So Christopher McCandless spent a lot of time reading books by Jack London and Tolstoy and John Moyer, and these books just gave him an idea of what his life should be like and how he should be living his life. And he wanted to live his life as simplistic as possible and not be tied up in modern society. So he graduated from college and pretty much immediately went on this journey, and at this point he gave up all contact with his parents and his sister and lived as Alexander Supertramp for two years before he headed off into Alaska. So this book is kind of retracing McCandless' journey from his graduation all the way to what may have caused his death in the wilds of Alaska.
Speaker 1:The 2007 adaptation of Into the Wild is called Into the Wild and is directed by Sean Penn and stars Emile Hirsch, and it follows Christopher McCandless after he graduates from Emory University. He gives up his possessions, donates his money to charity and hitchhikes to Alaska to live in the wilderness, and we get a little bit more of a glimpse into his life than we do in the book, including some of the people he encountered. So, as you can see, pretty faithful adaptation. So let's get into my thoughts, into some of the differences, and I will say this book was a little bit difficult to analyze, simply because or not it wasn't difficult to analyze, it was kind of difficult to compare it to the source material because it is faithful, but it also took a lot of liberties, but I also am not sure how many liberties it took, so we'll get into that.
Speaker 1:So the first thing I noticed automatically so the film starts off with Christopher's. Well, no, we do get the first scene in the book, which is Christopher meeting someone in Alaska and he hitchhikes with that person to the trail that he disappears into the wild to, and then we start getting a little bit of backstory. So we get that opening shot in the film, some really beautiful shots of him in Alaska, and then we go back in time to Christopher's graduation and the first thing I noticed was that his parents one of them is played by his mother is played by Marsha Gay Harden, and let me look up really quick who plays his dad, because his dad I don't think I'm too familiar with. His dad is played by William Hurt, so they seem to be about the same age. The actors seem about the same age in the film and in reality there is actually quite a bit of an age gap between the two of them. It's, I believe their age gap was closer to being like a 20-year age gap.
Speaker 1:Christopher actually had, or has, siblings that were much, much older than him from his dad's first marriage. So there was quite a bit of an age gap between his parents in reality. But the film they do kind of say like, oh, this is their second marriage. I mean, this is my dad's second marriage. There's no mention of his older siblings. We just meet him and his younger sister, corinne. But it's more implied in the film that his parents met while they were in college together and that was kind of the beginning of their love story, even though it is briefly mentioned like, oh, my dad was briefly married to someone else and then he and my mom got married. So yeah, the timing of that was a little bit confusing, I will say in the film. But in reality there is an age gap between his parents and his mom started off working for his dad before they fell in love and got married. So, yes, there is that. So, yeah, the film, I will say, definitely made it seem like there was, like they were college sweethearts, when that was not the case. She was either a very little girl or maybe just like a baby when his dad would have been graduating from college.
Speaker 1:There is also some other things that were changed. For example, in the film, chris loses his car in Arizona, but in reality he lost his car in California. The events are the same. So it's hypothesized in the book that what happened is that he was staying in this area that was prone to floods, and so it's hypothesized that his car got swept away in one of these floods and he was just never able to either take it out or start the car after it was in this flood. It was very easy to fix. The park rangers that found the car ended up keeping the car for themselves after they discovered it, like they towed it out and they got it fixed really, really easily, and they kept the car for themselves because even though it was a very old car, it was in good condition. But for whatever reason in the film they went with Arizona, not sure why? But yes, there were also quite a bit of characters that I wasn't sure.
Speaker 1:So Sean Penn had bought the rights to the book and he had them for a while. So, as I said, this book was published in 1996 and the film came out in 2007. So Sean Penn had the rights to this film for years before it ended up getting released, and the main reason for that was he wanted to make sure that Chris McAndalus' family was on board with bringing the story to life theatrically. So it took him a while to feel comfortable with making this film. Like I said, he just really wanted to make sure that the parents and the sister and everyone had positive feelings about the story being told. So, that being said, there I mean Chris did meet a lot of people on his journey that he impacted, and he impacted a lot these people.
Speaker 1:He was very charismatic and a lot of these people, despite only having brief encounters with him, were left very impacted by their time with him. The book mainly focuses on the gentleman that dropped him off at the Stampede Trail in Alaska, mainly because he was the last person to have any kind of interaction with him outside of the final postcards Chris sent in Alaska and then so we meet him. We meet the person that he worked with for a few summers. He worked with a man named Wayne for a few summers. So he worked with him and they became friends. And Wayne was like if you're ever in this area where I'm going to be because they met, I believe, in California, if I remember and he's like if you're ever in like North Dakota, hit me up and I'll give you a job. So Chris did exactly that. He ended up in North Dakota, looked him up and he worked with him. So there was him.
Speaker 1:And then there was Ron Franz, who was definitely the most impacted by Chris and by his brief interactions with Chris. They became very, very close and we do see this in the film as well. They became very, very close to the point where Ron at one point like wanted to adopt him, like he just knew that Chris did not have a good relationship with his family. So he was like please, let me adopt you and let me like be a part of my life. And Chris was very intent on going into Alaska and living the life that he had read about in like the Jack London books. And he said you know what you should do Ron is sell all your possessions and live like me, essentially like stop being reliant on the government and whatever you know. And so when Ron found out that Chris died, ron was a very devout man. The moment he found out that Chris died, he instantly became an atheist and took Chris's advice. He sold all his stuff and started living out of his van, and I'm assuming he probably lived that way for the rest of his life. We don't get any updates on Ron, and at the time the book was published, he was still alive.
Speaker 1:So we do see that in the film, so we do see these interactions with these three people, and the book mainly focuses on these three people. It does not mean, however, that he didn't come across some of the other people mentioned, but there are other people, like briefly mentioned in the book, that had interactions with Chris, and there was even someone that I believe is the one that inspired Kristen Stewart's character, but they're very briefly mentioned in the book, as I said. So I don't know if Sean Penn, when he set out to make this film, if he spoke to his people even more and fleshed out these relationships a lot more than they were in the book, or if these. Mine is the ones I specifically mentioned Jim Gally and Wayne and Ron.
Speaker 1:If these were just completely made up and made up for the film to kind of give a little bit or a lot more backstory to Chris than we get in the book, it's completely understandable that the book has as much information as it has because, as I said, or as we know, chris died and there was like he didn't have an address, he didn't have ids, he didn't have like he didn't have anything we have no way of. John krakauer had no way of piecing together his life other than through the people that he came across with, that he that you know on his super tramp adventures. So, that being said, there were a lot more characters in the film than there are in the book. So I feel like they weren't I don't know, I I feel like they might have hindered the story a little bit more than had they just focused on the relationships that Chris had. Now, this would have made for a shorter film, but honestly I think I would have been okay with that. But again, we'll get a little bit more into my thoughts later. So, yeah, like Kristen Stewart, character Tracy, there's a couple named Rainey and Jan. They're not in the book or if they are, they're very, very briefly mentioned, to the point where I don't remember them. As I said, there are other people in the book, but they're one of the ones he sent a postcard to, but they were definitely not named Rainey and Jan the way they are in the film. So that's what I'm saying.
Speaker 1:I don't know if Sean Penn spoke to this couple and expanded more on interactions they had with him and if the interactions he has with them in the film actually happened in reality. Based on additional research Sean Penn did by interviewing this couple, there is a young lady mentioned as having a big crush on Chris, and he kind of just said no, he had clearly no interest whatsoever in having any kind of relationship. So that's definitely who I think Kristen Stewart's character was based on. So, yeah, so again, was the young lady that had a crush on him? Like, was she interviewed? Like, I just feel like the things were added, like these moments were added to the film but they definitely didn't happen in reality. And, mind you, I understand why the film took so many creative liberties, because we don't have a lot of information on Chris. So, yes, it does make sense for there to be so many liberties taken in that sense, but I don't know that I liked that the film did that, because I feel like it slowed it down a lot. I don't know, but anyway.
Speaker 1:So in 2013, corinne McCandless, who's Christopher's little sister. They were very, very close to each other and she was very devastated when she was one of the ones that he cut contact off completely. He cut contact off with his entire family, so that blow was particularly devastating to her, which I completely understand. I don't know what I would do if my brother just stopped talking to me one day. So she shared this information with John Krakauer back when he was interviewing the family for this book. She stated all of this off the record and asked that he not include it in the book because she was protecting her parents at the time.
Speaker 1:But in 2013, corinne republished her own book, in which she details Christopher's life from her point of view and why she thinks he might have romanticized this way of living so much, and a lot of it had to do with the fact that their parents were abusive. This is something that her parents have since denied and said is not true, which makes sense why they would say that. So it's up to you who you choose to believe in this situation. But that is something that Corinne apparently revealed to John Krakauer in the 90s and asked that he not put in the book, and so he hinted at it as best as he could Like. He constantly talked about the pressure Chris felt, how his parents were very overbearing, particularly his father, but that's the most he said about that.
Speaker 1:The film actually shows some of that abuse. I will say it doesn't show the parents being abusive towards the children. It shows the dad specifically being abusive towards the mother and this really big fight that turned physical between the two of them. And young corinne is crying and we see chris come out of the shadows and start comforting her during this moment. So we do get little glimpses of that. That we don't in the book, but that is the reason why. The other thing, very, very minor change. But in one of the few moments in which chris gave in and got a job outside of the Wayne Westerberg job where he could kind of get paid under the table was, he very briefly got a job at Burger King, and in the film they made it that he worked at McDonald's. So yeah, I thought that was just a fun little tidbit, but no, he actually worked at Burger King instead of McDonald's. So, yeah, I thought that was just a fun little tidbit, but no, he actually worked at McDonald's, at Burger King, instead of McDonald's. Also fun fact Jin Galleon. He's the Alaskan who took Chris to the start of the Stampede Trail. He plays himself in the film. So that's fun. Just a little fun tidbit, all right. So those are really the main differences between the book and the film.
Speaker 1:And yes, I think my biggest issue with the film adaptation was the voiceovers. So we get a lot of voiceovers. We get one from Chris at the start and then he doesn't speak again in, in voiceover at least, and then Corinne gives all the other voiceovers throughout the rest of the film in which she gives glimpses into her family life and her relationship with Chris and she's there to provide more context that the book could not provide about their family. And I guess Corinne consented to let the film include these details. But I don't know, I feel like it kind of bogged down the story a little bit. I don't know if there would have been a way to include this information just narratively, because it's one of those things that's like show, don't tell. So we are getting a little bit of both, like the voiceovers are more telling us. Really, the only one that we get a show don't tell kind of moment or show and tell kind of moment is the scene in which the parents are in that physical fight with each other. But otherwise, while she's giving her voiceovers, we see emile hirsch as chris mccandless living his life as alexander Supertramp and before he heads into Alaska, and once he's in Alaska, we see that in Alaska. So I don't know that I liked the voiceovers. I also didn't really like, as I said, I believe all these things were added, like the.
Speaker 1:He has a lot of interactions with Rainey and Jan and there's a good chunk of time dedicated to Rainey, jan and Tracy. And then there's this other chunk of time dedicated to this couple from Amsterdam I believe it's a European couple for sure and he's like going down the river and they're the ones that tell him like if you keep going down this river, you'll end up in Mexico eventually. So we have that. There's a scene in which he goes to a I don't know if it would be considered a homeless shelter. I'm going to call it a homeless shelter. So he shows up to this homeless shelter, registers and then goes in and then walks out again after seeing some of the people there and realizing oh, I actually don't want to spend my time at this homeless shelter If I'm going to live like this. I'd rather just be outside and toughen it out. Essentially, we get a lot of scenes like that added into the film and again, I understand why this was done.
Speaker 1:I believe Sean Penn was trying to give as much of a glimpse into Chris's life as possible and like that's how he's showing us Chris McCandless's way of thinking by these little snippets and these long interactions that he has with people. But I felt like it slowed the film. For me, it slowed the film down a lot and I feel like there's ways to still get his way of thinking across without elongating these scenes or these moments. Yeah, I just feel like there might have been a more engaging way to get his ideas across, and I'm not exactly sure what that would be. I'm gonna be honest, but I'm just saying that that was kind of my issue with the film.
Speaker 1:All right, so now that we've covered as much as I can talk about, as I said, it's kind of hard because it's a good adaptation, but it's a very different adaptation at the same time. So I apologize, I did call it a faithful adaptation earlier, but it's not kind of I don't know if it's a faithful adaptation of new things that were known about Chris's life at that time. So, as I said, it's possible that by the time this film was made, new things about Chris were discovered that Sean Penn wanted to include in the film, or if this is just added as backstory. But yeah, it's a little difficult to figure out. But anyway, now that we are in actual Alaska.
Speaker 1:So the film and the original publication of the book. So when the film was published, it went with the original ending of the book, or the original conclusion of the book, which is that Chris died as a result of confusing two plants. So there's the wild potato seed plant, which is edible, and there is another plant which I don't remember because they use the scientific name of it. They use the scientific name for both, but because I'm guessing, because I read, well, we'll get into it. So there is the wild potato seed plant and then there's the other plant and they are extremely similar. Even botanists have a hard time distinguishing the two. The difference is so slight and it has to do with the leaves. Like, the veins on the leaves of this plant are different and that's how you can differentiate them, but, like if you are not an expert botanist and you know to look for these veins, they look very, very similar. So the film ends with chris confusing this plant for the wild potato seed plant, so he eats the plant. That's actually poisonous and that was the original conclusion of the book, so it does match up with the original publication of the book. However, as I said, the updated version, the most updated version of this book, was published in 2015, which is the one that I read and it's.
Speaker 1:The official. Cause of death is starvation, and a lot of people, especially those who don't look kindly upon Chris's life, believe that it was starvation, just strictly starvation. Chris didn't know what he was getting himself into. He did not plan for food accordingly. He was eating animals that he trapped and caught, but they're very lean meats and were not adding enough fat to his diet, so a lot of people think he died of starvation.
Speaker 1:John Krakauer, though, after the original book was published, something just did not sit right with him about his original conclusion, because, in his mind, chris was a very intelligent young man. He was cautious in his decisions to ensure that he survived. The more he thought about it, the more he felt that there was no way that Chris could confuse these plants. Chris had a field guide that explained all like the edible native plants of Alaska, and this book also was like caution. This wild potato seed plant looks a lot like this other plant, so the more that John Krakauer thought about it, he did not feel that Chris would confuse these plants, like he would double or triple check to make sure that the plant was the one that was edible, that he could eat. So he started doing a little bit more research and he ended up coming to the conclusion.
Speaker 1:Well, he ended up coming up with his second conclusion, which was that there was a mold that grew on these potato seed plants. So this second conclusion since it had been raining a lot and Chris harvested these plants during the wet raining season and immediately put them into a plastic baggie, that caused that mold to grow on them and this mold is what was toxic to humans and that is what caused his death. There were several scientists who were very upset that he came to this conclusion, like he took a sample of these seeds and sent them to scientists. And scientists said, yes, there is mold on these seeds. And he's like great, that is what caused his death. And so a lot of scientists, after the second conclusion came out, were very upset. And we're like we are scientists, in order for us to make solid conclusions, we do more than one test first of all, and you know we go through this whole like peer reviewed process, you know. So you get peer-reviewed journals and all that stuff, and so they're like just because a sample you sent to the lab came back for mold doesn't mean that there was mold on these seeds. And we've tested these seeds and there was no mold on them. So I think you might be jumping to conclusions. So John Krakauer agreed with that and he did more research. So John Krakauer agreed with that and he did more research.
Speaker 1:The final conclusion which, as of 2015, seems to be the one that he is sticking with, and that is that there was a toxic amino acid in these wild potato seeds that caused Christopher McCandless to die. So the way this amino acid works is that if you are completely healthy and you start showing signs that this amino acid is in you, you can immediately get it treated and if you are of healthy weight, all of that it can be treated and you will survive. But since Christopher McCandless was not eating well, he was underweight this like even had he figured out what was going on and gone to get treatment, there was probably nothing the doctors would have been able to do at his point. Because the amino acids, the way they work, is that they prevent food from. I'm going to try to explain it. I don't really quite understand it myself, but this is what I understand that this amino acid binds to your whatever in your body that helps you digest and it prevents the food you digest from turning into the nourishment you need to allow your body to keep functioning. So, which is why, if you eat this amino acid and you are of a healthy weight that is why it's easily treatable or if you catch it on time, because obviously, if you keep eating these and you don't notice, eventually you who are of healthy weight, healthy everything eventually this amino acid will stop you from being able to process food and turn it into energy. But if you catch it on time, it can be reversed because your body is still healthy enough to get rid of this excess amino acid and you'll be fine. But since he was already undernourished and not eating well, this amino acid just continued to eat away at him until he eventually died. So that is John Krakauer's final conclusion, and this is this one. He did several tests on it and this one did not piss off the scientific community, so they might agree with him a little bit more on this conclusion than they did with the mold conclusion. So, yeah, that is how the film ends versus how the book ends, and again, that is why they end differently. The original publication did end the same way as the book, but the updated version obviously does not. And that, oh.
Speaker 1:The other major difference, or I guess the other change they made to the film, is that Chris, right before he dies, he writes his note that says essentially like I have lived a wonderful life, god bless you all. And he writes this note. He leaves it in the van that he was living in the wild of Alaska and he dies. We know that he wrote this note in reality because before he died, when he knew the end was near, he wrote this note and he took a self-portrait. So he did not leave this note in the camper for others to find the way it's implied in the film. He took it, this picture, on his camera and later on, when the film was developed, his final self-portrait was there along with that message. So yeah, that is Into the Wild the book versus Into the Wild the movie. So, as I said, the voiceover and the added interactions with people kind of slowed the pacing down for me for the film. Like I was really into the story when it started and then it's like once he met Rainey and Jan around. That point is when it really started to slow down for me, until it picked back up again once he was in Alaska and we saw him trying to survive out there.
Speaker 1:The issue I had with the book is that it's a really short book. It's less than 300 pages, it's 200 something pages and it probably could have been under 250 pages. So there are two chapters dedicated to John Krakauer specifically. So a lot of criticisms that the book and subsequently the film face by critics of Christopher McCandless is that it glorifies him, it romanticizes this thing that he did, which a lot of people view as reckless, something that is not to be admired, something that should not be glorified in any shape, way or form. So the book originally started out as an article for a magazine that John Krakauer wrote After seeing the reception it received positive and negative.
Speaker 1:That's when he decided to talk to some of the people that wrote to the magazine and said I actually knew Chris, I interacted with him. So he interviewed all these people. Obviously some people were telling the truth, some people were not, and he pieced together the final two years of Chris's life. So I don't know if all the negative reaction to the trip caused him to want to justify Chris's decision, and so he included two chapters in which he did something just as reckless as Chris, if you want to call it that way, and how he could have died, but he was lucky enough to have survived. And he talks about other people that did this as well and also survived. They didn't do exactly Chris's life, but they did something like that where they went on a trip or something and didn't plan accordingly and almost died, but they didn't.
Speaker 1:So I'm not sure I feel like these stories were included more to justify why he wrote this book or why he feels like people shouldn't judge Christopher McCandless as much as they do. But I didn't mind the other stories, but while reading John Krakauer's accounts I was kind of like I don't I'm. While reading John Krakauer's accounts I was kind of like I don't, I'm sorry, john Krakauer, I know this is kind of rude to say, but I don't care about you or your adventures. Like I'm glad you're still alive, I'm glad you survived your trip and you could have met the same fate as Chris had you made a wrong decision along the way the way he did. But I don't care, I would have much rather just stick to Chris's story. So that was my issue with the book. The chapters where he talks about himself were pretty long compared to, like, the chapters focusing on Chris. So, anyway, so that was my issue with the book and that was my issue with the film, and they're kind of similar in their own way.
Speaker 1:They've slowed the story down for me me, which is a shame, because it's a story that I was actually really interested in. Like I remember when the film came out, my mom telling me about it, and I was really intrigued by the story. I didn't realize it was a true story until later and I was like wow, like I was really intrigued and I was really, really looking forward to reading this book and it started off really, really strong and it grabbed me and then it lost me and it never really quite grabbed me again. So for that reason I rated the book three stars and the film, while slow, it did overall keep me engaged, which is why I rated it 3.5 stars. All keep me engaged, which is why I rated it 3.5 stars. So, without further ado, the winner of this Books vs Movies is Into the Wild.
Speaker 1:The film, yes, and I will say I thought Emile Hirsch did a great job as Christopher McCandless and Orlando was watching it with me and they framed a shot in the film to look like another one of Chris's self-portraits outside of his van and Orlando was like, wow, like he really looks like Chris McCandless. So, yeah, orlando was also not sure of if this was the story he thought it was. He had heard of Christopher McCandless, mainly because Chris McCandless's self-portraits are mentioned a lot in like listicles and just like top 10 videos about like most haunting photos with serious backstories you didn't know about or whatever. So that that's how Orlando knew about Chris McCandless, but he didn't know like the full story. So, yeah, it was really interesting getting to watch it with him because he has only seen the film and, yeah, his film engaged me a little bit more than it engaged him. So, yeah, so that's my final verdict I have to give it to the film, which is a shame because, honestly, like I feel, if John Krakauer had left his accounts out of the story, I might have liked the book a lot more than I did, but I just felt like those chapters just weighed the story down and, yeah, I just it just was not able to capture my attention again.
Speaker 1:But anyway, that is it for this episode of Books vs Movies. Next time we will be talking about Ollie's Odyssey and its adaptation, lost Ollie. See you next time.