Lord of the Flies: Changes and the Reasons Behind Them

The screenwriters of the 1990 movie version of Golding's novel Lord of the Flies clearly had a different sort of project in mind than just remaking the original 1961film. They made many changes from the original, and each change they made added to the effect of the movie. Each change they made was obviously carefully thought out and planned for a specific reason.

The first and most obvious change they made involved the boys in the movie. The boys were American, not British, and they were from a military school. They seemed to be older; there were no real "littluns." Also, some were of different races, unlike the earlier movie. They all know each other from the school. I think the reason these changes were made was because the movie was made in America for the average American, and the average American might not understand the premise that there had been a nuclear war and that the boys had been evacuated. The boys were your typical pre-teenagers except for their military background. They were modern kids. They grumble about how much they miss television. Viewers can relate to them easily.

Another important change is the fact that the pilot does not die in the crash. He is alive, but seriously wounded. The boys keep him with them and take care of him, in spite of Jack's protests that he is going to die anyway and that they can't afford the time and effort he requires. He then escapes during the night and the boys are sure he had been drowned, but he is hiding in a cave. One of the boys enters the cave and hears him. This is the origin of the story of the 'monster.' In the original, though, the dead pilot was attached to a parachute, which moved and frightened the boys because it looked like the 'beast' they believed it to be. The reason for this change is evident. The idea that a boy who heard a growl and saw something move might think it to be a monster seems more feasible than that of a couple of boys seeing a vague, shapeless, moving form and deciding that it is a beast. It works out well, though, because in the newer movie Simon finds the pilot after he is dead and the same outcome results.

A further change was the character of Jack. When the vote for chief takes place, Jack doesn't step forward and say "I should be chief." Someone nominates him because he's older, and when Ralph is chosen over him he doesn't become angry and sullen; rather, he simply says, "Well, I guess you're chief then." He changes much more in a much shorter period of time, and he starts his own tribe earlier in the movie. Also, some of the boys follow him at the outset of his tribe when he first leaves, unlike the first film (in which he leaves alone). At the feast (called a barbecue in the second movie), Jack is not as elaborately dressed and decorated as in the original movie. I think the reason for this is to keep Jack's more child-like, fun-loving aspect and prevent him from turning into an entirely evil villain. In the original, Jack is more like a dictator; in the later version, he doesn't seem this way until the very end. Why the screenwriters present him this way could be because they want the change to be more dramatic at the end, when Jack becomes the corrupt tyrant he always was in the first film.

Piggy, too, changes greatly from the first movie to the second. In the first he seems much more intelligent and prudent than in the second. In the newer version he appears as more of a whiner than as the voice of reason. His weaknesses are not as evident, either; he doesn't have asthma, and he seems less helpless after Jack steals his glasses. I think the Piggy in the first movie was better than the Piggy in the second. I don't understand why the screenwriters minimized Piggy's importance so much. Perhaps they wanted to shift the emphasis to Ralph and make him seem more intelligent. Maybe the writers wanted Ralph to be more of a hero and Piggy more of a right-hand man than a significant character. Either way, in my opinion they made the wrong decision.

The final important change was the end of the movie. There are no words exchanged between the naval officer and Ralph. Ralph simply sees the officer, and the boys all stop one by one as the realize that an adult has arrived. Then Ralph begins to cry, and the camera pans the sea and the sky, and the movie is over. I suppose the screenwriters didn't want to take away from the drama of the culmination of the movie. They wanted to highlight Ralph's torment and make the question of "what happens next?" clearer.

The screenwriters of the 1990 film version of Lord of the Flies wanted a movie that would comment on today's society rather than on that of the time of Golding's novel. They wanted something that would make a hit at the box office less than something that would answer a probing philosophical question regarding the origins of evil. To do this, they had to rewrite the story. And the end result, though very different, is still a movie that makes a very definite impact.