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  • Essay / The Rise and Fall of Mankind: A Comparison of The Time Machine in Film and Fiction

    In The Time Machine, HG Wells takes on the impossible task of imagining the future of our world. The story features the time traveler (George), the main character of the story, and his many adventures in the year 802 701 AD. Later, in 1960, Wells' crazy prophecy was made into a film. However, when the time came to adapt the book into a film, many changes had to be made to the plot of the story so that audiences could understand the chain of events that were unfolding. Some of the plot divergences took place in Weena's river scene, the talking rings scene, Weena's death, and Eloi's rescue mission from the Morlocks. Each change was made with clear intent, and the most crucial of these differences departs from Wells' pessimistic tone while preserving key themes of the original text. Say no to plagiarism. Get a tailor-made essay on “Why Violent Video Games Should Not Be Banned”? Get an original essay First, we see differences in the plot between Weena's near-drowning experience at the river presented in the book and the film. At this time in the film, George (the time traveler) had just arrived in the future and he met the Eloi by the river. This was the first time in the film that George saw the Eloi while in the book, George met some of the Eloi at the sphinx statue upon his arrival. Also in the film, George saves Weena on her first day in the future, while in the book, the time traveler saves Weena on her third day. In the book, the time traveler observes: "Well, on the third day of my visit...to save the little thing that was crying weakly and drowning...I grabbed the poor mite and lured it safely to 'down...I found out her name was Weena. » (Well 43). This shows that the director chose to change the order of events in the film. He chose to change this because during the first few days of George's visit to the future, he thinks a lot and wonders about the strange world the Eloi live in and so to make the film more interesting, the director chose to skip some of the dialogue that took place in the book. This was a good decision on the director's part as it immediately appealed to the audience and made Weena George's love interest, which came into play later in the film. Then another discrepancy between the book and the movie is the talking ring scene. In the book, George cannot understand the language of the Eloi, so he must figure out for himself how Eloi society is constructed. In the book, George states, “I decided to make a determined effort to learn the speech of my new men” (Wells 27). However, in the film the Eloi speak English, so George is free to ask them questions about their lives and social structure. However, the Eloi are not educated and therefore do not understand why they are not obliged to work and why there are no elderly people. As a result, the director added the talking ring scene, in which George and Weena visit what appears to be a museum and listen to rings that talk when you spin them. The rings act as a historian. Weena doesn't understand this, but George does. The rings make it so that George doesn't have to figure out Eloi's society on his own, because the rings give him all the answers. The rings confirm: “I am the last to remember how each of us, man and woman, made our own decision. Some chose to take refuge in the large caverns and,.