HOLLYWOOD DOES IT AGAIN

My honor students just finished reading Fahrenheit 451. Each time I read this book, I appreciate and value it more. 

HBO made a movie out of the book a couple of years ago and, of course, my students are begging to see it. So I just finished watching it to see if it was usable or not.

Of course the writers had to sprinkle a few f-bombs throughout but I think I can censor it as we go to make it "school appropriate". (Which is totally ironic, but you gotta do what you gotta do.)  

The bigger issue is what a hot mess Hollywood made out of Ray Bradbury's cautionary tale. Is there anyone left in California who knows at least the rudiments of storytelling?

In the book, Guy Montag is a futuristic fireman, tasked with starting fires rather than extinguishing them. Specifically, Montag and other firemen search out books and set them on fire. The fire chief, Beatty, functions to explain the danger of books: their ideas contradict each other and that is just too complicated for the average human. Thus, society concluded that people would be much happier with nonstop entertainment and being rid of books altogether. 

Bradbury uses the character of Montag's wife, Mildred, to show the emptiness of endless distraction and entertainment. A mysterious young girl, Clarisse, opens Montag's eyes to his own lack of happiness, but then she mysteriously disappears. A chance acquaintance, Professor Faber, explains to Montag that books contain important ideas - ideas that call for wrestling and action from those who truly comprehend. The Bible is alluded to throughout the story. 

Ultimately, Montag kills Beatty and goes on the run. The city he escapes from is destroyed in war and Montag finds a small band of scholars, living in the countryside and preserving books by memorizing them. 

In the movie?

There is no Mildred. Montag does not have a slow burning curiosity about books - he is tempted to join a revolutionary group of book radicals, among whom is Clarisse. (Or, at least, a character sharing that same name.) There is no Faber. Books are preserved not in human minds, but by being copied into a strand of DNA which is then injected into a bird which flies away. (What the heck??)

Montag does not kill Beatty. Instead, Beatty kills Montag.

The Bible is never referenced, but Harry Potter is. 

I suspect the ghost of Ray Bradbury is now compelled to spend eternity haunting the director of this hot mess.