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The differences between Gulliver’s Travels movie version and original version
“It is simple enough for children, complex enough to carry adults beyond their depth.” — Gulliver’s Travels. The story is about Gulliver's fantastical adventures to four unrealistic countries. It tries to explore the ludicrousness of politics, the war, cultural shock, and whether rationality has any intrinsic value in itself. Gulliver's Travels was a famous literature in the 18th century.
Thus, it was adapted into a version of fairy tale later, and became a well-known literary work, which I believe most of the people have read or heard of. In recent years, Gulliver's Travels has been remade into a movie by adapting the original content and enriching it with different allegories. Although the movie is based on the storyline of a novel, there are still three obvious differences compared to the novel.
First of all, these two versions focus on different topic. The novel uses Gulliver as a medium to observe people and things in different countries and to gain insight. However, the movie version focuses more on main character’s experience, and his shifting perspectives. Though in both the novel and the movie versions, the first country they visit is Lilliput, the contents are quite different. In the novel, there are two political parties, which is high-heels and low-heels. They argue whether they should wear high heels or low heels. Here, Gulliver tries to reveal that the political parties in England at that time always fight for something trivial, and it is ridiculous. However, in the movie version, it focuses more on main character’s mental journey, providing less detailed descriptions of the personalities of the Lilliputians. In the movie, the main character is a normal mailman, but when he visited Lilliput, because of his physique, he can easily defeat the Lilliputians’ enemy, Blefuscu. Thus, he became the hero of Lilliput. This kind of changes also make Gulliver’s mind grow and stop him from cowering in the face of difficulties. So, in the novel version, the four countries are more thematic, whereas in the movie version, the theme is Gulliver.
The next, difference lies in the meaning of the production. The meaning of the production is totally different. To talk about this difference, it is important to be aware of the background in which the two works were created and why they were created. Gulliver's Travels is an American fantasy film released in 2010. It is positioned as an adventure movie, comedy. Thus, it was originally created to be an entertainment. Different from movie version, the background of this novel is 18th century England, and it is positioned as a satirical novel. The author's focus in creating this novel was to satirize the state of government and religious in Europe at that time.Also, the author is trying to question whether people were born corrupt, or whether people would become corrupt.
So, this novel uses a satirical point of view to inspire contemporary thinking. It is a thought-provoking novel. Therefore, the two versions are presented in vastly different ways, shaped by the distinct purposes for which they were created.
Lastly, another fundamental difference between the two works is the mental transformation of the two main characters. In the movie version, by the end, the main character becomes brave enough and confident to face his mistakes, finding himself able to be with the girl he loves. However, in the novel version on the other hand, Gulliver goes to the land of Houyhnhnms. A utopia where the horses are the noblest of species --- they speak, and they are rational. They are the rulers while the deformed creatures that resemble human beings are called “Yahoos”. Swift (1726) says that Yahoo is a beast refer to human in the land of Houyhnhnms. Their looks are disgusting, their bodies are mostly bare, and they are brutal and illiterate. In the land of Houyhnhnms, the horses can’t understand the concept of lying. “That the use of speech was to make us understand one another, and to receive information of facts; now if anyone said the thing which was not, these ends were defeated.” Swift (1726) They are more like philosophers instead of horses. After this trip, when he returns to his home in England, he is unable to reconcile himself to living among "Yahoos". Thus, in the end, Gulliver becomes a recluse, remains in his house, avoids his family and his wife, and spends several hours a day speaking with the horses in his stables. In other words, he becomes a misanthrope, a hater of humanity. You can see from this paragraph that movie version ends in a comedy, while the novel does the opposite.
The three main differences between the novel version and the movie version are as above: different aspects, different writing backgrounds, and different endings. In these two works, they express different meanings in the same theme of fantasy adventure. There is no absolute good or bad, you can get different insights and inspirations through their different structures. Gulliver’s Travels, “a fairy tale for adults”, which version do you prefer?
References
Swift Jonathan (1726) Gulliver’s Travels
Gulliver’s Travels. (2023, Nov 14). In Wikipedia.
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