When translating a work of written static word to the vibrant active astatic canvas of a motion picture many changes and sacrifices must be made in order to have it fit with in an allowed time, remove unnecessary elements, modernize and so forth. Thus we are to be expecting to find major differences when viewing the two mediums. The legend of Beowulf, the collection of The Canterbury Tales and the tragedy of Macbeth had to make some small additions and necessary subtractions in their move to modern film. From changing the characters personalities, altering female roles and modify locations within the stories, these changes are a guaranteed part of films adaptations.
The personality of a character is essential to that character, an…show more content… In our modern world the lack of female roles really cause a scriptwriter for a film to change the movie to keep both sides of the gender demographics happy. There is no role, speaking, for a female in Beowulf. The only female that plays a main part is Grendel’s mother, a horrible, deadly, reptilian monster that Beowulf has to kill. King Hrothgar’s queen is only mentioned in passing, having no significance to anything at all, ever. In the movie or film, the Queen is more important, as she is charmed with Beowulf and after the death of Hrothgar takes the foreign hero as her husband and the new king. Grendel’s Mom is now allowed to talk and live past the first act, after transforming herself into a half naked Angelina Jolie covered in gold paint and seducing Beowulf into doing it in a wet, dark and probably feces covered cave. He also managed to have intercourse with a mermaid, during a race across the sea, after slaying some sea monster, while underwater- because that was a necessary scene to add to the film. In Canterbury Tales the roles of females are weak feminists, like the Wife of Bath who has had many husbands, may be a gold digger, and wants equality between men and women but ends her tale with the chauvinistic knight and rapist having the old, ugly woman turning into a hot younger one for him- defeating her point entirely. In A Knight’s Tale we add two new…show more content… A weak or non matching setting can cause a strong story to rot and become god awful. Therefore when translating a book to film they never change the setting- okay, they do it all the time. In Beowulf the book, the eponymous main hero after actually killing Grendel’s Mother and not initiating intercourse with it, returns to his homeland, becomes a great king, grows old, and dies killing a dragon- not his son. In the film they decided animating another dark, dreary and wet location would be too much work for them, so they changed the story to make sure Beowulf does not need to return home to be king and kill a dragon by having Hrothgar name him his heir and then walk out a window and off a cliff, and having the dragon be born of Beo’s one night stand with CGI Angelina Jolie. They change the plot to avoid work, because of laziness. In A Knight’s Tale, the entire setting is changed and the only thing that remains the same is that the are in Europe somewhere. They are no pilgrim’s on a pilgrimage to give thanks to a saint telling stories on the way to pass the time. This film is so different from the supposed source that I doubt it really was made by people who read Canterbury Tales at all. I mean the setting is confusing, from the rock music, the modern dance moves, references to the brand Nike and the fact that a gambling addict version of the author of the book, Geoffrey Chaucer shows up naked on the