Essay 3 workshop

Every movie that is based on a book deviates from the book in some ways. Sometimes it is easy to tell the differences between the two and sometimes it is hard. After watching Smoke Signals and reading This is What it Means to Say Phoenix, Arizona, I was able to detect some major differences, as I know that all of you were able to. These differences were fairly major and they changed the way that I felt about different things in the story and the movie. The story was good, but I felt that it left out a good deal of detail that were very important to the plot of the story.

The first main difference that I noticed between the movie and the story was the fire that killed Thomas's parents. The story did not even mention the fire, let alone the fact the Thomas's parents had died in that fire. The mentioning of the fire in the movie was very important. It eventually tied into s possibility of why Victor's father had left the reservation. The story did not elaborate on why Victor's father left the reservation. All it stated was that he left. This led me to believe that Arnold was a dead beat father. I mean how could you just leave your son like that? I did not think very highly of Victor's father after reading the story.

Smoke Signals brought a reasoning for Arnold's leaving the reservation. After I watched the movie, I sympathized with Arnold. He held in all of his guilt until he could not any more. After hearing what Arnold went through with accidentally starting the fire that killed Thomas's parents it makes you wonder. Did other residents of the reservation know that he had started the fire? If so, were they making his guilt worse by bringing the subject up or calling him a murderer? I could not help but wonder if Arnold had not killed Thomas's parents in that fire would he have turned out to be such an alcoholic, and would he have left the reservation? We will never know because the movie did not show if this was happening. The information about the fire changed my view on Arnold. After watching the movie I no longer thought he was a dead beat. There had to be some powerful reason that was keeping him from returning to his son.

In This is What it Means to Say Phoenix, Arizona Victor and Thomas had had some problems with their relationship in the past, but they seemed to be on better terms while they were on the trip. This differs from the relationship that they had had in Smoke Signals. In the movie Victor seemed to be extremely annoyed with every aspect of Thomas, the way he dressed, the way he acted his stories, et cetera. To Victor, Thomas was not acting like an Indian should. Victor believed that an Indian should act tough, not tell stories all the time. Victor even tried to teach Thomas how to act like a real Indian. In the story Victor did not seem like he was annoyed with the way Thomas acted. They were even laughing together. When I read the story I got the impression that Victor did not associate with Thomas on the reservation because every one else thought that he was weird, but he liked Thomas. When watching the movie I got the impression that Thomas angered and irritated Victor.

The introduction of Suzie in Smoke Signals was a major deviation between the story and the movie. It was such a major difference because she was the person that caused Victor, and me for that matter, to have a different perspective on Arnold. The story sort of made the assumption that Arnold was some body that was selfish and did not care about his wife and son. Suzie made that all change with the way that she talked about him and described how much he talked about Victor and regretted ever leaving the reservation and his family.

Suzie made Victor think about how he felt about his father. She actually made Victor start to forgive Arnold for leaving him. Being able to work through some of these problems made Victor a better person. You could see this when Victor and Thomas were driving back to the reservation. Victor seemed to have more patience with Thomas. He seemed to be less angry for the most part. The scene in Smoke Signals was a perfect example of how knowing that his father did love him and had wanted to return to him started making him a better person because he ran the many miles to get help. Would he have done this if he was still angry Victor?

Another some what small difference between the movie and the story was that in the movie Victor and Thomas took the bus to Phoenix, but in the story they flew in an airplane. This was not a big difference, but it ties into another difference. While they were on the bus Victor tried to teach Thomas how to be what he considered a real Indian. He tried to teach Thomas to be tough instead of always telling stories. This scene shows that Victor and Thomas had two completely different views on how an Indian should dress and act. They also ran into two guys in this scene that had taken their seats. When they confronted the guys they did not move. The guys made Victor and Thomas move to other seats. I think that this scene kind of shows that when this movie took place in a time when Indians were looked down at and were not treated equally like they are nowadays.

One difference between the movie and the story was when Victor and Thomas were driving back to the reservation. The story says that they did not come across any sign of life in Nevada, not even water. When they did finally find something that was living they ended up running it over and killing it. In Smoke Signals this scene did not happen. Instead they got into an car accident with some guy that was intoxicated. Victor ran like 20 miles to get help for the other people in the accident. I do not really know what the significance of this difference is, but the scene in Smoke Signals showed that Victor was not really a hostile person any more and was thinking of others.

There were a lot of differences between this movie and story. A lot of them were big and changed the meaning of things. These differences are a classic example of what happens when a story or book gets turned into a movie. Stories are changed and elaborated on during the editing and production process of making the movie to make it so that the movie is more interesting. Sometimes I think that if this was not done I would probably not want to watch the movie or enjoy the movie. This story and movie is an example of that. I read the story before I watched the movie. After reading the story I was not really excited about this movie. I thought that it was going to be lacking anything that was going to be interesting and that it would be somewhat confusing with the flashbacks. I was thoroughly surprised when I watched the movie. The producers and editors had added so many details that the story had left out. The movie clarified the confusion that I had had about the story.