When I heard that in English
IV we were going to read Beowulf, I thought to myself, wow I get to read the
book version of the story. I had already seen the movie so I thought I was
going to be the one that knows it all. That I was going to be ahead of everyone
else, boy was I wrong. There are so many differences from the book version and
the movie, but there were three very important differences that impacted the
story completely. Hrothgar gave Beowulf his kingdom, Beowulf did not kill
Grendels mother, and Beowulf was the father of the dragon.
In the text Beowulf did became king, King of Sweden, but
in the movie Hrothgar gives Beowulf his kingdom. In other words Beowulf becomes
king of Denmark; in the movie Hrothgar commits suicide. In the text it doesn’t say
what happen to Hrothgar or the rest of the Danes after Beowulf left. Another
thing that was different and was really unexpected was that Beowulf had a thing
for Queen Wealhtheow. In the text Beowulf and the Queen didn’t even speak to
each other, she wasn’t mention until Beowulf killed Grendels mother and the
Danes were celebrating. In the movie, I thought Beowulf and Wealhtheow would
have a great relationship because of the chemistry it showed they had. And boy
was I wrong, Beowulf messed everything up when he didn't kill Grendel’s mother.
Instead he made a deal with the fiend.
In the text Beowulf killed Grendels mother, but in the movie
he didn’t. The reason why I think Beowulf neglected to kill the mother was
because she was beautiful. In the text they described her as a horrible monster,
Grendel’s mother’s beauty lead to a one night stand. He’s a man and when a
beautiful woman is basically throwing herself at him, he couldn't resist. Then
he goes to Heorot and be all like, “Yeah people, I Beowulf have slain your
monsters, yep I killed all of them,” he lied and everyone believed him.
Everyone expect for King Hrothgar, he knew the truth because he did the same
thing years ago.
The one night stand between Beowulf and Grendels mother
lead to something that was very big and made the story become more interesting.
The dragon that lead to the death of our protagonist is actually the son of
Beowulf and Grendel’s mother. When we started reading the story and it didn’t
mention anything about the dragon being related to Beowulf I was shocked. Then
when we were watched the movie and the dragon transformed into a human and
said, “I have a message for my father,” I wasn't shocked like the rest of the
class; well those who were paying attention.
In my opinion I preferred the movie then the text; I
think the text was just valance after valance. While in the movie it was more
to it than just an epic hero killing monsters. The movie had the epic hero
fathering the monster that lead to his death, I think it was a better story
then just having Beowulf killing the dragon. The ending of the movie was also
better then the ending of the text. In the movie they left you in a cliffhanger while in the text it just ended with no suspense or anything. So as you
see there were many differences between the movie version and the book version.
