Book vs. Movie

      The Giver movie and The Giver book have many differences. One event from the book was that Jonas was going to leave the community, but he was following a plan. In the movie Jonas also was trying to leave the community, but the set of events were different. For example in the book Jonas and the giver were together and, “It was late at night, now. They had talked and talked. Jonas sat wrapped in a robe belonging to The Giver, the long robe only elders wore. It was possible, what they had planned(155).” Jonas influenced The Giver so he could help him do what was right, and they both worked together like friends. Jonas left the community really easily, and no one noticed until the next day. In the film Jonas found out Gabe was going to be released so he decided to take Gabe with him and cross the border of memories. When Jonas was going to leave Asher caught him, Jonas physically attacked him and went to look for The Giver. The speaker knew what was going on and she started a search for him. Jonas went to the Nurturer Center to get Gabe and Fiona. Fiona helped distract the guards that were chasing them and the Jonas left the community. This event was really different from the book because Jonas is the one that came up with the plan, he also didn't have to worry a lot about people seeing him in the night. Also in the book Gabe was still living with Jonas when he decided to leave, and it made it easier for him to runaway to elsewhere. This made the ending of the movie have more of a dramatic vibe, the ending of the book was just full of suspense.

      The director did a good job at directing the movie, but there is things he changed too much and it doesn't seem like the movie is based on the novel. The director changed the sequence of events and he even created new events. For example in the movie Fiona and Jonas had like a romance going on, and Jonas and The Giver weren't as close friends; also Jonas wanted to quit being the receiver because he wasn't brave enough. I didn't really like this because Jonas was portrayed in the book as brave, courageous, and selfless, but in the movie he was just selfless and kind of courageous because he set out to cross the border of memory. Another reason I think the movie doesn't  seem based on the novel is because Fiona and Asher had different jobs and different personalities. In the book Jonas said, “Asher's such fun. But he doesn't really have any interests. He makes a game out of everything(17).” This quote shows that Asher's personality changed because in the movie there was a scene where Fiona and Jonas were about to go down a metal slide and Asher didn't want to join. Even though the director did change many things I think he did a good job because everything tied up perfectly at the end.

      I think The Giver book is the medium that most impacted my understanding. I think this because when I was reading I was also annotating and that helped me notice many things. One thing I noticed when reading the book was that the author was using Lily as a source of information because I learned things from her. In the book at the family reunion Lily was talking with Jonas and she said, “I don't know. They acted like... like...". ‘Animals?’ Jonas suggested. he laughed. ‘That's right,’Lily said, laughing too. ‘Like animals.’ Neither child knew what the word meant, exactly,but it was often used to describe someone uneducated or clumsy, someone who didn't fit in(5).” This quote shows that the author used Lily to tell us that there are no animals in the community. Another reason the book impacted more my understanding is because the movie just gave us everything when it started. For example at the beginning of the movie they told us the rules directly, and they told us everything directly and since it is a movie I missed some parts, but in the book I did it in my own pace.