H.G. Wells the Time Machine vs. The Movie the Time Machine

The book The Time Machine and Hollywood’s version of H.G. Wells classic are two very different views of the same topic. The 1895 book shows how well an author writes, while the 1950’s movie shows how badly Hollywood can twist a time tested story. The Time Machine’s two different faces are very spread in meaning, details, and events.

Contained within the book The Time Machine, is an overriding theme of surprise and discouragement for the time traveler. Meanwhile, in the film, the Time traveler seems preoccupied with a single Eloi, rather than with what the future holds. The book also shows the Time traveler as being a person solely concerned with the rescue of the time machine and leaving from the future world. The movie portrays the time traveler as the Eloi’s savior, a person who fights against the Morlock’s to save the human race, not to get back to the past. The book and movie are very different when one considers the overriding themes in both.

One of the main differences between the book and movie, both supposedly based on the book, is the details of many events. In the book the Eloi do not speak English, the Morlock’s are white, the time traveler travels to the palace of green porcelain to get weapons and camphor, and finally the Eloi are completely complacent, they never fight the Morlocks. Meanwhile, in the movie, the Eloi not only speak English, but can understand the time traveler and the more complicated speech that Time Traveler uses. The Morlock’s are a light blue, and the Time Traveler simply picks up a club to fight the Morlock’s. Finally, the Eloi take up the fight against the Morlocks, eventually destroying the Morlock’s underground tunnels. The details of the book and movie show that Hollywood never even looked at the book, yet tried to paint the Eloi and Morlocks as each other’s nemesis.

The largest difference that one may see between the book and movie of The Time Machine is in the sequencing and disparity between the events of the book. First, and foremost is the number of times the Time traveler traveled through time. In the book, there were four trips (not counting the one at the very end). Time Traveler travels to the Eloi/Morlock time, then to the future after that, then beyond that, and finally back to the 1896 dwelling.

In the film the Time traveler makes a large amount of stops before reaching the Eloi/Morlock era. The Time traveler never goes further into the future than that. The Second discrepancy, lies in how the Time travaler deals with the Morlocks. Contained within the pages of the book, the time travaler simply attempts to invade the underground, then he fights them on the retreat from the Green Porcelain palace. In the film, the time travaler fights a small war with the Morlocks, he invades and beats them in the underground, then destroys the underground using matches and sticks. Finally, is the large difference between how the book and movie introduce the Eloi and Morlocks. Going by the classic novel, the Eloi find the Time traveler and approach. The movie relates a different tale. The film shows the Time traveler looking for the Eloi and finding them at play. The meeting of the Morlocks in the book was when the Morlocks appear on a hill overlooking the time travaler’s position. The movie shows the Morlocks taking weena and that is when the fateful meeting, between man of the past and beast of the future, occurs. The events in the book and film express very different sequences and number.

The novel and the box office version are different in many ways. The publication and video have many of the same characters but few of the same characters’ actions. Both novel and motion picture are very contrary to each other.