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.