Into the Wild

I win

losers

haha jorge
oh and it feels good

HAHAHA Matt is having trouble

BORED

Both the movie and the book were vastly entertaining. I did find that the movie was indeed Hollywood-ified. I think the strongest points of the movie were its soundtrack and cinematography - two things a book cannot even possess. The book, however, I see as a much better piece of work. Krakauer really goes deep into McCandless's psyche throughout the book, where the film really only scratches the surface. The film does, though, present Chris's anguish leading up to his death very well. The film tended to get slower and slower, often losing my attention (I was watching on the Manitowish bus, so my attention span was limited anyway), but the book kept me captivated and wanting to read more and more. I really enjoyed also Krakauer's looks at other explorers and adventurers, which gave a whole extra level of understanding to Chris's actions.

I think knowing Chris's death was coming made it all the more captivating. You know the ending, but you have no idea how he got there. It's a truly amazing story to follow, an adventure of a reckless young man with innocent intentions, ultimately leading to his downfall.

As a side-note: as I mentioned, the soundtrack of the film was fantastic. Eddie Vedder! Woo!

I claim this land for china!!

hi

Eric you wrack a disiprin.

Hi! This is so cool! I've never blogged before...

yeahh my password finally worked!!!

Although I was aware that Chris was dead I still found myself rooting for him throughout the story. As I read further into the book and learned more about Chris and his relationships and experiences I wanted to think he was still alive and was hoping some how he would still find his way out. However, that obviously never hapened which in the end has a more powerful effect once Chris's full story had been read and mulled over.

I read the book and watched the movie and although the book gives you more of an in depth look at Chris' character, and background stories of different adventurers, the movie gives you a stronger sense of emotion and the connection that he made with the people he met as he traveled.

I'm sure Matt is still having trouble, but aside from that I'd like to compare and contrast the film v. book a little bit. It's been awhile since I've watched the film but from what I remember it wasn't nearly as detailed as the book was, and unlike the book you didn't know the outcome of Chris until the end of the movie. Knowing the outcome and the basics of the story before reading it was somewhat interesting and compelling because it allowed me to pick up on all the other details associated with the story and how he managed to survive as long as he did. I agree with Joey because the book definitely kept me captivated, it was one of the most interesting books I've ever read.

The movie and book shared several similarities and a couple major differences. They obviously share the same story line and both refer to past events which occur before Chris' (a.k.a. Alexander Supertramp) "journey" and events which lead to his death. However, the movie focuses on Chris' adventure on a more personal level more so than the book does whereas the book describes it based on journal entries letters etc. and different people Chris encountered. One of the main differences that appear very early in the story was that the reader was informed immediately of Chris's death. As one who watched the movie before reading the book, I thought it was interesting how the beginning of the story sort of explained to me what happened after his death and how his body was discovered. In other words, the story picks up where the movie left off and retraces the events that occured (As I mentioned earlier). As for the people he encountered during his journey, I strongly agree with Jake "the movie gives a stronger sense of his relationships with these people." I feel as though it was necessary for me to watch the movie before reading the book. Reason? The movie runs the audience through the story with far less detail then the book which gives them a general knowledge of the story. The movie made the book more interesting and easier for me to connect and understand the pieces.

I really enjoyed Eric's comments about "rooting" for Chris - I found myself doing the same through the book. It's very interesting that such a story like this, even though one knows the dismal outcome, evokes such a strong feeling of hope. Kind of shows a strong aspect of the human psyche and how hope can change us so much.

I loved this book. I most always hate reading but this book i enjoyed. Chris reminded me of myself in many ways, and I feel as though that helped me enjoy the story. Like Eric C. I found myself rooting for Chris to succeed in his journey to Alaska. It is a great story that is real and provokes real emotion.

I also watched the movie before read the book. When I watched the movie, even though they don't tell the audience Chris is going to die at the end, I found myself getting kind of caught up in the movie and not really thinking of the fact that he wasn't going to live through it. Instead I found myself, just as several other people have rooting for Chris to overcome the elements and his shortages of food. Although he did over come many near-death experiences and managed to eat enough keep him alive it seemed kind of trivial that he died because he ate the wrong plant. Also it added to the emotion that had he survived for just two more weeks he would have been discovered by the hunters who journeyed through that area.

I almost was dreading the end of the book, knowing that Chris was going to die. You see him making progress, surviving and enjoying himself in the book. But, then I would remember that even though things seem to be going okay for him, in the end he is going to die. I didn't like knowing Chris's fate before I read the book, because I knew that they would eventually end badly for him.

Something that I found very interesting was how much Chris wanted to go into the wild and how much he enjoyed having nothing. I would never want to be put in a situation like that and it shows how different people live and view their lives. I was just amazed at how much he enjoyed having absolutley nothing when in todays society, it is important how much material possessions you have!

I enjoyed the book very much, but the movie... not as much. The movie was indeed better than I anticipated, yet it lacked some qualities that the book held. The Krakauer created the story almost as a report relying heavily on first hand accounts and facts about Chris. The movie, however, was pretty much a dramanization of Chris's story, which is understandable. I also feel that the movie was trying to be to indie-ish artsy fartsy at times, but other than that I was 'ok' with the movie.

Yea, and it seems from the way the author describes Chris as he's about to depart on his trip into the wild (he's unprepared, didn't bring boots, his rifle was too small to kill large animals, he didn't have a compass, etc.) that he really didn't respect how much power nature can have. Despite the way the Krakauer tries to kind of "report" the story, this is still an opinion that he gets across.

Chris's unpreparedness is indeed really alarming. The way Chris was explained to be through his younger life, it seemed like he would have been a little more prepared. Maybe part of him just snapped? Some line of common sense that kept him as the average, vanilla, American human being? Perhaps Krakauer is trying to tell us that's something we all need to lose a little bit. It's just Chris tended to be an extremist.

While we are immediately made aware of the fate that Chris’ journey “Into the Wild” will yield,
(from the Author’s Note), throughout the pages of his report Krakauer walks us through a detailed
explanation of the characteristics of Chris’ family and self that compel him to embark on such a
mission to invent a new life for himself.

The idea of a young man from a well-off family, opting to donate all of his money, and abandon his
possessions, in order to walk into the wilderness--very ill-prepared for what he was about to
endure--without notifying any of his peers or family members of his whereabouts, could at first
glance appeal to be a bit ridiculous. Yet Krakauer helps us make sense of Chris’ desire to live off
the land, “go wherever the wind takes him,” etc, through in many ways setting up his writing in such
a way that we as an audience can understand/”feel” Chris’ frustrations with his life.

Because of the connection Krakauer is able to create between Chris and the audience, having
established an understanding in the reader about the sources of Chris' deep frustrations with his
life, I agree, we are caught “rooting” for Chris to succeed in his endeavor. Knowing his fate in
advance, was a bit discouraging as I read, however. Because as we’d be excited to see Chris
succeeding, or as we'd be frustrated with his refusal to accept offers for work or aid from people he
encountered throughout his travels, we knew that regardless of his decisions or progressions made
throughout the book, the ultimate outcome would remain the same.

I do concur with the fact that as you continue to read this book, it becomes easier and easier to attach yourself to Chris. However, it was always in the back of my mind that he was going to die. Knowing that he was going to die and especially how he was going to die made it hard for me to feel any sympathy towards Chris. If only he had better prepared himself he could have lasted a lot longer and I think that for him to be able to live and possibly go on more adventures would have fulfilled his desire to live with and among raw nature much better. Not to mention Krakauer could have made a couple more books out of it and made some more money.

After watching the movie, which bored so much at times i almost had to turn it off, i would much rather have had the book start like the movie. Also, i would not necessarily say that one is better than the other. I would have to argue that while the book does offer much detail about Chris as a character, the scenery and sense of the actual wilderness cannot be captured on paper. Plus Emile Hirsch puts across some serious emotion that only he can.

Throughout the book there are many people who argue Chris is nothing special or original, because there were a lot of other people who went out and did the same type of thing he did, before he did. Critics say that they feel no sympathy for him or any of the other adventurers like him that fell to Mother Nature. I found myself thinking in a different direction. Although it may have been easy for Chris to go and risk his own life it was a lot harder for the people who loved him to not know where his was or how he was doing. This didn't apply only to his family; it was like this with all the people that knew him. He always kept moving, never spending too much time with the people he met along the way, this way he never got too attached to any one person or group of people. If anyone ever asked him to make a promise or to do one last thing before he left he would always say, “We’ll talk about it when I get back, OK?” Obviously I didn’t know Chris personally, but his story still impacted me, and I can’t imagine what it was like for the people who were close to him.

I loved reading all of the blogs on here and I agree with what many of you guys are saying about the book and the movie. The movie made me more emotional, I dont know if it was just because I was seeing it or what. I think that the book did analyze his life in a more detailed way, describing his personal life more, where as the movie concentrated on his Journey. One part of the book that struck me was when the the author was talking about all of the people who were so pissed at him for doing what he did, as in leaving his family and not telling them where he was going. I loved Chris and i was very inspired by him... I thought it was so cool that he could leave everything that he had going for him. He was a smart kid who went to college and had money and everything he needed, but for some reason he knew that life of money and business was not for him. He was a person who just wanted to follow what he wanted and he did. The most sad part was when he died. That part in the movie was so depressing because he had finally come to his senses that he wanted to go home and then something so stupid happens.. oh well but i thought the book was and awesome adventure book!!

Knowing right off the bat that Chris was going to die almost hinted that he was going to transform. By this I mean that as the book goes on, we see Chris lose his youthful spirit and learns an attitude of respect for the beauty and power of nature as well as simple things that we take for granted. He writes about "The great holiness of FOOD" and "reality" (168), and explains his new found appreciation of the simplicity of nature and how its a lot less "romantic" than he had imagined. We anticipate and gradually become aware of this transformation of attitude as the book goes on and as we read the excerpts and articles at the beginning of each chapter as well which communicate the idea that Chris learned a fear, respect, and appreciation of nature and his surroundings as he approached his death.

For me the movie provoked more emotion because it was easier for me to visualize him and his journey however, the book provided much more detail of his character by thoroughly describing his life and experiences before giving everything up and going into the wild. One thing that I found was that the movie skipped stories that contributed to our understanding of Chris’s character. This can explained by the fact that film makers were force to condense the story into a compact 2 hour film that would sell and still convey the story.
Although I was rooting for Chris to succeed in his journey to Alaska it was naïve for him to just go out into the wilderness without any prior knowledge or experience in the wild. In the end his death was tragic but expected not only because the begging of the book but because of his extreme lack of knowledge of nature. For example when he ate the thing that would not allow his body to obtain nutrients and therefore he died. If he had some prior knowledge he would have been able to avoid this situation and had lived longer.

I think what Jon was saying out Chris' lack of knowledge is very true. An example of this is when he kills the moose and "in his naivete" tries to preserve the meat by smoking it instead cutting it into strips. Krakaur shows us a different version of Chris than a lot of us had probably originally thought of: "McCandless came into the country with insufficient provisions...This has been regarded as evidence not just of stupidity but of the even greater sin of arrogance." (180). The author communicates this arrogance throughout the book and I was really left with thinking that maybe Chris was maybe more naive and arrogrant than adventurous.

I agree with Chris's last statement. McCandless only told himself he could survive in Alaska. Convinced mostly by his travels around the country. McCandless in my opinion had very little experience in the harsh and unforgiving climate of Alaska. His adventurous spirit became inflated by his arrogance, which lead McCandless to jump in head first without the proper thought and preperation that is required.