Fantastic Mr. Fox

Fantastic Mr. Fox is without question one of the best stories ever written for kids, but the movie is also amazing.. so the question is: To Read, or To Watch?



Movie Poster

There have been quite a few plot changes in the movie when compared to the book, for example, the entire kidnapping part with Kristofferson, the entire Ash being the only kid when in the book Mr. and Mrs. Fox had 4! The moving to the tree that causes the entire problem... all these changes have had a positive effect on the overall story because, in my opinion, it put in more suspense and more drama in the movie. Like when the farmers had kidnapped Kristofferson my mind was all "OMG! Is he going to die?" and at the start when
the Foxes were moving houses from the hole to the tree, I was "Animals do that?!".

The way the characters were portrayed in the book are very different when compared to the movie. For example, the protagonist of the movie - Mr. Fox is showed as the ideal father figure, but, in the movie, he is showed as a father who's running away from his responsibilities and sounds very sophisticated, thanks to George Clooney (voice of Mr. Fox). Mrs. Fox is represented like a 60s housewife in the book, but in the movie, an independent, hippie-looking housewife. Ash as a dis-obedient kid who's still figuring out who he is but in the book, an obedient child who listens to his parents without a question. The farmers, Boggis, Bunce and Bean are not represented very different from the book though. In my opinion, the movie has a much more realistic feel to it than the book.


The Book

The simple and easy to understand language used by Ronald Dahl is something that no one can beat, but the camera angles and soundtrack, along with the colour palette used cleverly by Wes Anderson is definitely a winner. The colour palette used in the film gave the movie a very 'autumn' type feel and also resembles the colours of a fox. The score also gave the entire film a point. However, the language used in the book was simple which I think can only be entertaining for little kids, but the film can be enjoyed by the entire family.


Wolf Scene









If I wanted to, I could talk about the wolf scene in this entire paragraph... but I won't do that :| I think the biggest difference in the movie and the book is the representation of women. As I mentioned before, in the book Mrs. Fox is shown as a woman who always supports her husband but in the movie Mrs. Fox is independent and tells her husband to change, for example one of her quotes "If what I think is happening is happening - it better not be." Other things that caught my attention were that, the film actually had a life lesson - everyone has to grow up! As Mr. Fox was running away, he realizes that and he goes to face them. Whereas in the book - there's nothing like that. Another thing was that during the wolf scene Mr. Fox tells the wolf that he has a phobia of them. He faced his fear, what's better than that?

 I think this is one of the rare cases where I actually preferred the movie over the book! and the reasons, well, the MAIN reason is the wolf scene (it's amazing) but other things were, the way they showed Mrs. Fox as being modern and independent and the way I could connect with Ash in ways. For example the way that he's 'different'. The future of story - telling will hopefully be books, but if these types of movies come out... I think movies would take over.