Posted: 10/24/2007 10:35:18 AM EDT
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Anybody seen it yet? Thoughts? I thought it was a really good film - I don't know if it would be as appealing to people who don't already know the story, though. My husband and I were really excited about seeing it because we'd already read the book. Don't get me wrong - I'd still recommend it. (Mild spoilers possible, proceed at your own peril.) When I read the book, I wasn't a Chris McCandless/Alexander Supertramp fan. My husband disagreed - he liked the guy for doing what he wanted to do, being bold, all that hoo-hah. I wanted to like him for all that, but I guess the bleeding-heart chick side of me came out, and I just couldn't forgive how he abandoned people who cared about him. Ron - the old guy - hit me the hardest. I thought the movie was a good adaptation of the book, one way or another. Gorgeous scenery. Emile Hirsch played McCandless so well, it actually made me think about liking him for a while. |
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Haven't seen it and probably won't. Krakuer did a good job of humanizing McCandless when, in fact, he was odd and probably suffering from some form of psychosis. Not saying he was 100% delusional, but he was getting there. I don't think Krakuer meant for the reader to completely sympathize with the protagonist. Sean Penn on the other hand has stated numerous times that his version will create empathy for McCandless. I won't see the movie when the director admits he intended to romanticize the story of McCandless' demise. The movie wasn't shot where it was supposed to have been and much of the environment was created (including the bus). Glad you enjoyed it though (sorry to be a "killjoy" at the same time) |
In my opinion, that's pretty damn close. McCandless was a boner. I didn't feel bad for him biting it in the end - he had done a lot of stupid shit that got him there. The people I felt bad for were the lives he'd entered, affected, and left without care. I think he took out his anger at his parents on everybody - he felt abandoned/neglected by them, so he just did the same thing to everybody else. |
Good  I was afraid I had pissed you off with my take on the whole thing.Spoiled Rich Kid IMO. Went from one extreme to the other. I think he'd have been just as happy living in the "Burning Man" hippy commune in the desert. A lot less dead too... |
treadwell was a nutjob. /twisted but true/Wish I could've heard the audio from his tapes/twisted but true/ |
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I saw this movie last Saturday. I was pleasantly surprised, it was an interesting movie. A little long and dull at times, but it really gave a personality to McCandless I didn't know. One of the reasons he was so crazy is that he didn't seem to have any common sense or sense of caution or danger. He shot the Colorado River rapids without a helmet, he literally burned excess money, he parked his car in an arroyo overnight...a flashflood caused by a storm miles away wrecked it. Plus he had a pretty fucked-up family life that made his contempt of middle class life and conventional ambition easier to understand. It also provided some details, I didn't know, like that McCandless tried to leave in August which would have been a good time. Also it seemed like he never intended to live permanently out there in the wilderness year-round, like Dick Proennoke did. But he went into this area WITHOUT A MAP (he made his own). He could have made it across the big river that trapped him if he had a map; a cable crossing was just a half mile downstream from his ford. He seemed like a very interesting and good guy, whose uncompromising ideals coupled with his complete lack of caution and fear led to his demise. |
That's because they were so similar. Remember the author goes off on that whole sidetrack about how he (Krakauer) wanted to hike that mountain in Alaska, just to prove he could, because he thought it would change something in him? McCandless was the same way. He announced to several people that this was his final trip into the wilderness before settling down. I don't think he suffered from even mild psychosis. If it's possible to boil down such a complex person in one sentence, I think think he just thought too much, too hard. |
, seriously though, caught the trailer at the Cinema, looks good, may read the book first.
| Interesting! The movie presented him as sympathetic to the free spirits and hippies. He was anti-establishment, and his parents represented the conformity he was trying to escape. I did not pick up that he was a Reagan advocate, based on the courses he took in college and the expression on his face when he sees Bush I on a TV. |
been awhile since I've read the text so I don't remember his political affiliation. McCandless as a republican does seem a bit counter-intuitive. 
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He mentions politics while drinking with buddy the crooked grain elevator operator in South Dakota. McCandless was basically ranting about how the world was fucked up, and Wayne his friend said "Look I know what you're talking about but you'll go crazy thinking about that stuff because there's nothing you can do to change it. Now what IS important is what happened in Roswell in 1947..." The other hint at politics was when his sister is narrating about his grades and the classes he took about Apartheid and some other sociology or Poli sci type elective. Otherwise the movie was pretty apolitical, which scored points with me because I hate being lectured about politics by cokehead celebrities who barely passed high school. |