differences from the source material

trustycoffeemug
hollywood big shots enjoy making movies (or at least, they keep doing it; who knows if they enjoy it). but scripts take a lot of time to write, and sometimes it saves time to simply take a pre-existing work of fiction and modify it for the big screen. however, sometimes the source material does not pass through such modification unscathed.

the movie-fication process often takes pains to shorten, lengthen, doll up, ugly up, or in other ways mutilate the source material. e.g.:

* apocalypse now: the original book, 'heart of darkness,' is set in 19th-century Africa instead of vietnam.
* a clockwork orange: alex is cured of his violent tendencies in the end
* forrest gump: gump goes into space with a monkey and a porn star
* jurassic park: the lawyer wasn't a bad guy but hammond was
* starship troopers: the movie and the book both examine the message of "the army is way cool, and better soldiers make better citizens." the book honestly expects the reader to agree with this message, while the movie is laughing in your face for thinking it for even a second.
* who framed roger rabbit?: is about comic strip characters, not animated cartoons, and the killer is like a magic genie or something.
* every stephen king book: doesn't suck. well, not all of them.

zombie

trustycoffeemug
(n.) a corrupted term deriving from bantu by way of haiti. according to folklore the zombie is a hollowed-out shell of a human being, utterly devoid of any semblance of free will, just like (insert-adherents-of-unpopular-political-movement here).

if there is any truth to the stories of zombies, it may derive from the shamanic use of pufferfish toxin to place individuals in a state of excited catatonia. whereas this is a topic best analyzed by historians, and therefore boring, the concept has influenced a number of popular horror movies in which masses of zombies are presented as a stand-in for consumerism or man's inhumanity to man or some nonsense.

irish rock band the cranberries once expressed interest in the contents of a zombie's head

samurai

trustycoffeemug
a component of the social fabric of pre-meiji japan, samurai were warrior nobles sworn to the service of lords and emperors. in times of war they were highly trained combat elites in swordsmanship, horsemanship, archery and tactics; in peacetime they were expected to take on administrative duties or enjoy their own cultural pursuits such as calligraphy, poetry, and hanging out with geishas (not prostitutes... okay, mostly)

for the purposes of foolish ignorant pig westerners, samurai are just guys with ponytails and white robes who go around making "ho! ha! hokkaido!" noises.

camera

trustycoffeemug
(n.) a device used to scan one's surroundings and convert the scan into a two-dimensional image which can later be shown to your neighbors at boring get-togethers.

may also steal souls.

rabbit

trustycoffeemug
(n.) one of the more tolerated rodents, perhaps due to its twitchy nose and big flappy ears. tends to jump around looking for carrots and being very velveteen and watership downy and so on

lunarian

the devils dictionary
n. An inhabitant of the moon, as distinguished from Lunatic, one whom the moon inhabits. The Lunarians have been described by Lucian, Locke and other observers, but without much agreement. For example, Bragellos avers their anatomical identity with Man, but Professor Newcomb says they are more like the hill tribes of Vermont.

(also: The Devil's Dictionary)

aging

trustycoffeemug
(n.) the hoary specter of death's pay-by-installment plan

(adj.) describing one who is in the process of mutating into a frailer, wrinklier, balder form of life

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