Horton Hears a Who by Dr. Seuss is one of my all-time favorite children’s books. I think it is so fun to read with all of the rhyming and it always reminds me of my mother and father reading it to me when I was little.
The story of Horton Hears a Who is about an elephant named Horton who sees a dust speck float by him one day and he thinks he hears someone calling for help. He believes that there is a very small person living on the speck so he sets it on a clover and proceeds to carry it around with him everywhere he goes in order to protect it. When the others in the Jungle of Nool (where he lives) find out he is talking to a clover they think he is crazy and they are determined to destroy the dust speck and capture Horton. Even though they think he is crazy, there is a person on the dust speck, in fact it is a whole town called Who-ville and they are depending on Horton to save them.
The movie just came out about a month ago and I thought it was wonderful. For the most part it was true to the book with very small differences. I thought the actors who did the voices of Horton and all of the animals in the Jungle of Nool and Who-ville, were excellent and I think the producer did a great job selecting them.
I was especially impressed by the fact that the movie had a narrator who read certain parts of the book word for word so in these instances there was absolutely no difference. It has to be a challenge to create a short picture book into a movie that is over an hour so I was expecting a lot of additions to the book in order to draw the movie out.
All of the changes that were made to the book were very minor and I do not even think most people would catch these differences but as I said, I loved the book when I was little so I am very familiar with Horton and the sour kangaroo.
One of the biggest differences that I noticed between the two is the focus on Who-ville. In the book, almost the entire story is focused on Horton, but the movie focuses a lot on the actual Who’s who live in Who-ville. The mayor of Who-ville is mentioned in the book, but none of his family is and we never see him at work or at home. However, the movie shows us his family life; we get to know his wife and their 97 children (only one boy) and his work life. The mayor’s only son happens to be Jo-Jo who is the sole Who that save Who-ville from being thrown into Beezle-Nut oil, but there is no mention of any relationship between the two in the book.
In the movie, Horton the elephant has a small friend who is a mouse and he is present in most of the scenes, however he is not in the book at all. The presence of the mouse whose name is Morton does not alter the story line at all, he just adds a little comedy to the plot, which Jim Carrey takes care of anyways.
One of the other things in the movie that I noticed was not accurate from the book was Horton’s saying “I meant what I said and I said what I meant, an elephants faithful one hundred percent”. I am almost positive that this would go unnoticed by most people but my other favorite childhood book happened to be Horton Hatches the Egg which is where this saying comes from. Horton does not ever say this in the book Horton Hears a Who but he says it many times in Horton Hatches the Egg.
Overall, I thought the movie was wonderful and I was very impressed with the adaptation from the book. The characters that were in the book all had a role in the movie including The Wickersham Brothers, Vlad, the Sour Kangaroo and her son, Jo-Jo, and the mayor. There were many more characters added to the movie but it did not detract from the original storyline, it just made it more interesting.
Images courtesy of http://gillianmowry.com/wp-content/uploads/2007/07/horton_book.jpg and http://www.cyber-cinema.com/original/hortonorg.jpg
The story of Horton Hears a Who is about an elephant named Horton who sees a dust speck float by him one day and he thinks he hears someone calling for help. He believes that there is a very small person living on the speck so he sets it on a clover and proceeds to carry it around with him everywhere he goes in order to protect it. When the others in the Jungle of Nool (where he lives) find out he is talking to a clover they think he is crazy and they are determined to destroy the dust speck and capture Horton. Even though they think he is crazy, there is a person on the dust speck, in fact it is a whole town called Who-ville and they are depending on Horton to save them.
The movie just came out about a month ago and I thought it was wonderful. For the most part it was true to the book with very small differences. I thought the actors who did the voices of Horton and all of the animals in the Jungle of Nool and Who-ville, were excellent and I think the producer did a great job selecting them.
I was especially impressed by the fact that the movie had a narrator who read certain parts of the book word for word so in these instances there was absolutely no difference. It has to be a challenge to create a short picture book into a movie that is over an hour so I was expecting a lot of additions to the book in order to draw the movie out.
All of the changes that were made to the book were very minor and I do not even think most people would catch these differences but as I said, I loved the book when I was little so I am very familiar with Horton and the sour kangaroo.
One of the biggest differences that I noticed between the two is the focus on Who-ville. In the book, almost the entire story is focused on Horton, but the movie focuses a lot on the actual Who’s who live in Who-ville. The mayor of Who-ville is mentioned in the book, but none of his family is and we never see him at work or at home. However, the movie shows us his family life; we get to know his wife and their 97 children (only one boy) and his work life. The mayor’s only son happens to be Jo-Jo who is the sole Who that save Who-ville from being thrown into Beezle-Nut oil, but there is no mention of any relationship between the two in the book.
In the movie, Horton the elephant has a small friend who is a mouse and he is present in most of the scenes, however he is not in the book at all. The presence of the mouse whose name is Morton does not alter the story line at all, he just adds a little comedy to the plot, which Jim Carrey takes care of anyways.
One of the other things in the movie that I noticed was not accurate from the book was Horton’s saying “I meant what I said and I said what I meant, an elephants faithful one hundred percent”. I am almost positive that this would go unnoticed by most people but my other favorite childhood book happened to be Horton Hatches the Egg which is where this saying comes from. Horton does not ever say this in the book Horton Hears a Who but he says it many times in Horton Hatches the Egg.
Overall, I thought the movie was wonderful and I was very impressed with the adaptation from the book. The characters that were in the book all had a role in the movie including The Wickersham Brothers, Vlad, the Sour Kangaroo and her son, Jo-Jo, and the mayor. There were many more characters added to the movie but it did not detract from the original storyline, it just made it more interesting.
Images courtesy of http://gillianmowry.com/wp-content/uploads/2007/07/horton_book.jpg and http://www.cyber-cinema.com/original/hortonorg.jpg
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