Sunday, November 8, 2009

Lord of the Flies! The Movie!


Today I watched the movie the Lord of the Flies. I’m going to be blogging about the differences between the book and the movie and my reaction to the movie.

In the beginning of the book, the characters are all split up in the forest. In the movie, they are paddling to land on a raft. Another difference is that the pilot of the plane is on the island with the boys in the movie. The pilot wanders away from camp and they think he is the beast. In the book, the pilot was never known to be on the island. Sam and Eric chose to go to Jack’s side in the movie while they were forced to join his side in the book. The film was made in 1990. This version of Lord of the Flies was set at that time. I know this because in the movie, they talked about television shows that were playing in 1990. The book was set in the 1950’s.

In my opinion, I liked the book more than the movie. The book was more detailed and entertaining. In the book, I understood more about what the characters were feeling and thinking. I imagined the characters different than they were. The only character that resembled by imagination was Jack. Like I pictured, he was nasty and mean. Usually books are better than movies because movies cannot live up to your imagination.

Saturday, November 7, 2009

And Now for a Totally Different Ending


Can you imagine Ralph being murdered and no one being rescued? Can you imagine every one of the characters dying?

In this blog, I will be talking about an alternate ending I thought of and its overall effect on the reader and the story.

In the actual ending of the story, the protagonist, Ralph, is running from the chasing savages when he sees an officer standing on the beach with a revolver in his hand. Ralph quickly boards the boat and the savages slow down as they see the boat. Ralph and a few others are rescued.

In my alternate ending, Ralph heads toward the beach and accidently trips. The savages throw their spears at him. They stab him and he screams as blood spurts out of his body. The savages keep pounding him until he dies. After the savages realize what they’ve done, they overthrow the antagonist, Jack, and attempt to kill him. He runs away and hides for good, never to be seen again. Without anyone willing to take the throne, the savages are unorganized and don’t know what to do. Eventually, they all die on the island without being rescued.

The savages realized they had done a terrible thing when they killed Ralph. They then tried to redeem themselves by overthrowing Jack, but it was too late. They can’t make it on their own with both of their leaders gone. In most books I read or movies I watch, the good characters win and the evil characters lose. In this ending, no one wins. My ending is not a satisfying ending because it leaves no hope that good will prevail. Golding ended the book as he did to make readers feel hopeful that good people in society will be rewarded in the end.

Sunday, November 1, 2009

Loss of Innocence

Another theme of Lord of the Flies is loss of innocence. In the beginning of the book, the boys were young, innocent British schoolboys. At the end of the book, they became savages. Before coming to the island, the boys had everything done for them. Their parents protected and sheltered them. Someone provided them food, either at home or at school. They never had to find their own food. They lived in houses and didn't have to worry about making their own shelter.

After the plane crashed on the island, their lives changed completely. They had to find their own food and make their own shelters. They had no one to protect them and became afraid. They grew more fearful as stories of a beast arose. They were so afraid that their fear controlled them. They lost control of themselves in a mob. They were excited because they thought they were going to kill the beast but they mistakenly killed Simon, an innocent boy.

"Ralph said, 'That was murder.'
" 'You stop it!!' said Piggy, shrilly. 'What good're you doing talking like that.'
"He jumped to his feet and stood over Ralph.
" 'It was dark. There was that-that bloody dance. There was lightning and thunder and rain. We was scared!'
" 'I wasn't scared,' said Ralph slowly, 'I was-I don't know what I was.'
" 'We was scared!' said Piggy excitedly. 'Anything might have happened. It wasn't-what you said.' " (Page 156).

From that point, their innocence was lost. There is no way to regain innocence.