The Princess Bride Comparisson Essay Example

It is a mixed blessing to be able to see the movie version of a popular book. In most cases, Hollywood veers from the text and the viewer is left with a watered down version of the original. In the case of the Princess Bride, the cinema version is very close to the book. One such scene is Inigo and Fezzik’s visit to Miracle Max in search of a miracle. Setting, conflict, and dialogue are three points of high congruency. Setting is a major difference between the book and the movie. In the novel, Miracle Max and Valerie live in a hut with a trap door leading down to a cellar. Because of this, the reader meets Valerie earlier and has a chance to learn more about the couple. In the movie, there is no trap door or cellar. Valerie enters from a back room, and we get almost no inside view to the pair. Westley is laid out on the floor in the book, while he is laid on a table in the movie. Altogether, we learn more about the characters and their background in the novel, and almost nothing personal in the movie. In order for the novel to progress, certain conflicts must be solved. The first conflict is the order of how Fezzik and Inigo will get Max to perform his miracle. In the novel, he goes back and forth between his wife, Valerie, and Fezzik and Inigo. He and Valerie decide if Inigo and Fezzik can pay the price of at least 50, he will work his miracle. However, they are able to pay up to the price of 65, and Max still refuses them. In the movie, he just states that he has never worked for such a small amount of money. The one exception was for a very noble cause. One conflict solved, one more to go. Now they have to convince Max that it is a noble cause. In the book, Inigo convinces him when he tells him, “If you bring him back to life, he will stop Prince Humperdinck’s marriage…. Humiliations galore” (Goldman, 1973). In the novel, Inigo tells Max that Westley will stop Humperdinck’s marriage if he brings him back to life. Once the conflicts are solved, everyone gets