Disney, what are you doing?

The Disney version of the book Huckleberry Finn is a…laughable example of a book-turned-film. There are a few points in the movie that kept true to events in the novel, such as Pap kidnapping Huck and Huck running off with Jim, but the way that the movie carries these things out ruins the overall effect that it’s supposed to have upon the audience.

One major change, and one that ultimately ruined the ending for me, was the absence of Tom Sawyer. Sure, maybe we were spared from his annoying antics and all that jazz, but at the same time Tom was a vital part to not only wrapping the story up but revealing a little more about Huck’s character. In the book, Huckleberry seems to be an independent young man until he’s around Tom. Whenever he does get together with his friend, he becomes soft spoken and easy to manipulate. The movie totally misses this character trait for Huck, instead making him out to be a strong willed kid who does as he pleases. Don’t even get me started on how the film ended versus the book. It was rushed and seemed as if it had been slapped together at the last minute. It was terribly overdone with dramatics, to be honest. That’s Disney for you though, I suppose.

Another difference was the relationship between Huck and Jim. Twain had not put his story together to portray the two of them as best buddies from the very beginning. At the start of everything Huck and Jim were acquaintances at best, and slowly grew closer and trusted one another more as the story progressed and they went through a lot of troubles together. Once again, Disney took the cheery side of things and made it so Huck and Jim got along perfectly from the very start. That really did take away from the character development of Huck and Jim, because watching their trust for each other get stronger was an interesting part of the novel.

Then, of course, the overall tone of the movie was sheer corniness with how there seemed to be a constant undertone of comedy in even the “serious” scenes (such as Peter Wilks’ mouth randomly being open as he's laying there dead in his casket). Twain intended for his book to be humorous, true, but to also have serious situations and to show people how dangerous it was for Huck to be helping Jim escape to freedom. Not surprisingly, Disney pushed the serious side of the story to the back burner in favor of laughs. Really, the epic slow motion “BILLY!” thing? I don’t know how anyone could have possibly taken that seriously. I sure didn’t, even though it was, admittedly, hilarious.