Skellig Book vs. Film

Skellig by David Almond was made into a film and into a book, although they are based on the same story by the same author but with a different director, they are very different and they are not similar to each other in the plot and in the ideas.

The book is a simple story about a boy named Michael and is jealous and worried about his baby sister who has been sick since the day she was born. There is slight fantasy and magic to the story that adds a twist to the story of a boy coming to his new home, with his new sister. The movie has a more dramatic twist to it; it makes everything seem bigger than it is to the book. Starting with how rude Skellig is in the movie compared to the book and how Michael finds him in a shed in the movie while in the book Skellig lives in the garage. There is more yelling between the characters in the movie unlike the book which shows very little of the yelling and the problems between the characters, another difference between both the movie and the book is that they show Michael’s dad as being a very heavy drinker and he is drunk most of the time in the movie than the book, we see this in the movie due to the scene where Michaels father is very drunk and he tries to burn down the shed putting both Skellig and Michael in harm’s way which is not told in the book.

Another difference between the book and the movie is how they show Michael’s friends. In the book the author shows history between his friends which is why we relate to them as being friends and they do not make as much fun of him, but in the movie they do not show the relation between them and show them more as enemies than friends and showing how they made fun of Michael because he was always hanging out with Mina and not with them.

The stories are not very similar to each other, the book is a very simple and less dramatic plot making it smaller, softer and a subtler where the power of the story sneaks up on the reader and the surprises’ the reader. The movie is more dramatic and more exaggerated than the book, with a lot more drama and a lot more action compared to the book and does surprise the watcher as much as the book.