Where the Wild Things Are Paper

Analyze a Book that is a Movie


Where the Wild Things Are

There was a lot of talk when the announcement of the movie Where the Wild Things Are was going to be made, some people did not know if it would be successful. How can you make a full length feature film out of a picture book? Some people I talked to told me that the movie changed the whole book and some say they loved the movie. So how did someone turn such a simple picture book into a movie? The movie did follow the book, but it dug deeper into the book, the story line and the mind of a child. The classic story is about childhood and the places we go to figure out the world we live in. The movie tells the story of Max, a rambunctious and sensitive boy who feels misunderstood at home and escapes to where the Wild Things are. This is something that all children feel and go though. I know that as I grew up I would always retreat and/or get sent to my room and long to escape where I am. Max lands on an island and he meets the wild things, mysterious and strange creatures whose emotions are as wild and unpredictable as their actions. The Wild Things desperately long for a leader to guide them, just as Max longs for a kingdom to rule. Max is crowned king and he promises to create a place where everyone will be happy. Soon Max finds that ruling his kingdom is not so easy and his relationships there prove to be more complicated and difficult than he had originally thought. The book and the movie are closely tied together. The movie does not take away from the book, it adds to the book. The movie does start off with background that is not in the book, since the book starts off talking about “the night that Max wore his wolf suit to bed” you don’t really get to meet and get to know who Max is except for that he is a wild child. The starting of the movie lets you get to know and understand that there is a lot to Max and that he really is a troubled child. So the movie kind of adds things to the book, but it doesn’t really add to it, but expand on the book and takes us to a different level to help us understand. There is not a line of the book that the movie misses and that is one of the most important things to me. They keep the core story line of the book; nothing is changed, just brought more to life.

To dig into the mind of the child Max the movie brought his imagination to life. Within the book there is more than meets the eye to how Max is. The troubled child, causes trouble, and is as his mother class him a “wild thing”. In the book Max is sent to his room, in the movie Max runs away, but in both we get into his mind and he takes us to where the wild things are. The story just gives little detail about Maxes trip, but in the movie we are taken into detail about the world that the wild things live. Max is pretty much the same in both the movie and the book, but in the movie, the wild things become more part of the story and have their own back story as well. In the book we know they are part of his imagination, but they represent other things in his life as well. So really when comparing the characters from the story to the movie they are just about the same but with more personality. You have Max, his mother (who you do never really meet in the book), the wild things, and Max’s sister (who is not in the book). There are a few other characters but they aren’t that relevant to the story line. The characters they had for the book were fine the way the story was written, but you could not have a movie without a story behind the character and names for them as well. Two of the wild things were Carol, the wild thing that Max was strongly connected too, KW, another one of the main wild things that Max had trouble with, it was kind of forced to choose between the two of them to be friends. Max was trying to make the “family” full again, he was made king because they all thought that he could fix everything. The rest of the wild things are: Alexander, Judith, Ira, The Bull, and Douglass. In Max’s mind these wild help him figure out a lot about him and about the people around him. At the very end of the book and the movie the line “Don’t go, we’ll eat you up, we love you so” is said and helps finish off the picture in our minds about who the wild things are.

The theme of the book and the movie follow each other, at least one of the main themes does. The story talks about a child who gets into trouble, like a lot of children do, I know I for one got in trouble a lot and was sent to my room or would even try to run away. Just because you get in trouble doesn’t mean that your parents or whoever punished you hates you. Max thought that the best thing to do when he did something wrong would be to run away from everything. He went to where the wild things are and he became king and thought that everything would be right and wonderful. Max soon realizes that he cannot run away from his troubles and that he is lonely even when surrounded by these wild things and that he is king. He misses home and his family, so he leaves them. When he gets back to reality he comes to find that he is still loved. In the story it ends with him getting the dinner he was sent to his room without and in the movie it ends with him returning back home to his mother who had missed him and was worried about him. So no matter what, a child should never think that they are unloved or hated because they get in trouble. There are a few different themes to the book, but I think that is one of the most important to remember.

I think the hardest thing that I had to deal with when I was watching the movie was the island where the wild things are. In the book it seems to be just his small little island and it is all forest. In the movie you have the forest, desert, beach, and even mountains. There is a reason for them to do that though. It expands on the expansion of Max’s mind and imagination. It is interesting to try to think about the emotion Max is going through at the time that of the movie. Max is scared and worried when he first gets to where the wild things are and he is a dark forest. There are times when he is confused and just doesn’t know what to do and is kind of lost and he ends up in a desert setting. So the setting in the book and the movie are not totally the same, but it fits the plot line and what they are doing in the movie to have the setting what it is.

The book and movie have their differences to make them what they are, I mean it is not that easy to turn a picture book into a full length film, but they did it and in my opinion, successfully. I know friends who have said they hated the movie and that it was demonic and they could not understand how that was supposed to be a children’s movie. However I loved the movie, and thought that it went along with the book well. The story line was the same, Max got in trouble the night he wore his wolf suit to bed, and he escaped and went to where the wild things are. They did not miss any of the lines and you can tell when the lines were going to happen. So if you ask me we should “let the wild rumpus start” and enjoy the movie and watch it with an open mind. If you don’t understand that yes a child can act this way, but the ending is one of the most important parts and without what happens through the movie of the story you can’t have the ending mean what it means. Max runs away and returns to find that he is still loved. I love both the movie and the book, but I grew up with the book. The book will always be Where the Wild Things Are always and forever for me. But I would recommend for everyone to watch the movie too, it adds to the story a point of view that most people don’t really look at. You can read the story as a story, but you will never fully think about what the book is truly saying and meaning until after you have watched the movie.

 
 
 
<3  Erin Christina