Differences Between Into The Wild Book And Movie

Jon Krakauer's book, Into the Wild, is a continuation of his article which appeared in the magazine, "Outside." It follows the life of Chris McCandless, a charismatic twenty-something-year-old, who decides to leave his comfortable suburban lifestyle to travel across the country straight out of college and eventually live a life off of the Alaskan backcountry. Driven by his idealist views, he breaks ties with his family and embraces the natural world surrounding him. However, his acts lead to his demise and consequently cause varied opinions about the adventurer. While some sympathized with McCandless, others castigated him for his selfishness and foolishness. The film adaptation of the book, directed by Sean Penn, provokes the same responses

McCandless' relationships and his impact on the people he met on the road are dramatized or changed in the movie; while the book contains some darker content. Some scenes about McCandless' childhood, or at least few years before his journey, are completely removed from the movie, such as his days being cross-country captain or writing editorial rants for his school newspaper. Dark parts of the book, such as Krakauer accompanying McCandless' parents to the broken-down bus, or Franz's return to alcohol abuse, were also taken out. Penn removes these scenes because from McCandless' viewpoint these seem irrelevant to his story. McCandless followed this journey to separate himself from society and having such thoughts and reminders would be a distraction and a hindrance to his goal at the moment. Without such dark content, the movie portrays McCandless in a much softer light; he is seen as a wanderer of the world, rather than a grudge-holding boy as shown through Krakauer's

Although Krakauer states he was very similar to Chris McCandless, he does not hold back on any judgments of him, as seen through negative and harsh scenes of McCandless' aggression towards many mundane aspects of life. He calls McCandless "an extremely intense young man [who] possessed a streak of stubborn idealism that did not mesh readily with the world" (Krakauer, Author's Note). Unlike in the book where McCandless is aggressive towards government and society, the McCandless shown in the movie does not act in the same manner. When asked about having a hunting license by Gallien, McCandless responds with "Hell no. How I feed myself is none of the government's business. F—k their stupid rules" (Krakauer, 6). This retort compared to the surprise response when McCandless wanted to canoe down the river in the movie and realized there was a four-year waiting list shows the difference of the book's portrayal versus the movie's. Rather than ranting towards the officer, he finds the situation funny and does what he wanted to do