“When I was your age, television was called books,” the grandfather from The Princess Bride movie tells his grandson. Television and movies often start out as books, and The Princess Bride is no exception. It was based on the 1973 book The Princess Bride: S. Morgenstern’s Classic Tale of True Love and High Adventure: the “Good Parts” Version and was written by William Goldman. William Goldman also wrote the screenplay for the movie, which makes for an interesting comparison between the two.
In the grand tradition of bad news first, let me get the parts that I didn’t like out of the way:
The book, like the movie, features “real world” scenes that alternate with the more fantastical ones. I find the “real world” portions of the book to be a little bit confusing. The narrator is a fictionalized version of the book’s author, William Goldman.
Some elements that that the narrator attributes to himself, are those of Mr Goldman. This includes various other works that William Goldman wrote that the narrator credits himself with writing. The fictional part of the book includes parts talking about S. Morgenstern and Florin as if they were real. It’s this part real, part made-up combination that I find off-putting. Perhaps if these segments had been one or the other, either closer to William Goldman’s real experiences while writing the Princess Bride, or a completely imaginary narrator, it would have worked better with me. Replacing them with All-Star Anykid Fred Savage and his loveable Grandfather was a good decision.
Like most older books, The Princess Bride has some outdated language referring to different groups of people.
It shows up from time to time and, fortunately, none of it makes it into the movie. Lastly, remember when the Man in Black raises his hand to Buttercup? In the book he really does hit her, not cool at all.
Let’s move on to the good parts of the “Good Parts” Version.
The book has more involved backstories for most of the characters. Backstories are usually some of the best parts of reading the source book for a movie.
Inigo Montoya grew up in a small village outside of Toledo in Spain.
He was a happy kid who worshipped his father. Domingo Montoya was the greatest swordsmith in the country. They were very poor because Domingo had no interest in making flashy playthings for rich men. When the Six Fingered Man requested a sword balanced for his unique hand, Domingo finally found a project worthy of his mastery. Inigo struggled to make sure that his father ate and slept enough while he was working.
After Count Rugen murdered Domingo, young Inigo was taken in by his father’s friend: the second best swordsmith in Spain. From there he set out to become the greatest fencer in the world and avenge his father’s death. Inigo started drinking after he ran out of challenging opponents and failed to find the Six Fingered Man.
Fezzik was born in Turkey, a big baby who only got bigger.
The other children would pick on him due to his size and his reluctance to fight back. Fezzik’s father taught him to fight in order to defend himself. He proved to be such a good fighter that his parents took him on tour, still just a boy who hated being booed and preferred making up rhymes to fighting.
After his parents’ deaths, Fezzik joined the circus. Eventually he was fired from the circus and ended up “unemployed in Greenland”. William Goldman wrote Fezzik’s story with Andre the Giant in mind, and reading it you can see as much. He was the boy who became a fighter because he was “the biggest and the strongest” when he would have preferred befriending people to fighting them.
Prince Humperdink is even worse in the book than the “warthog-faced buffoon” that he was in the movie.
For starters, he dumped the princess that he courted before Buttercup because she was bald. Worse, was how much he loved killing. He “never let a day go by without killing something”. The Prince had his own Zoo of Death where he kept all of the fastest, strongest, and most dangerous animals in the world, that way he could have a selection of prey. The first time that the reader meets him, Humperdink is snapping an orangutan’s spine for fun.
Here are some other interesting bits from the book:
-Miracle Max met Valerie when he was at Miracle School and she was a potion ladler. Why do I feel like the school was Beauxbatons?
-Count Rugen was married. It was the Countess looking at Westley that awakened jealousy in Buttercup and made her realize that she had feelings for the Farmboy.
-Vizzini stole the boat that he used to kidnap Buttercup, after he asked around looking for the fastest one.
-Buttercup jumps into shark-infested water, but changing it to “shrieking eels” is a much more fun choice.
-In addition to the nightmare with the old lady booing her, Buttercup had other nightmares about whether she was able to love, or if her love was dangerous.
-Yellin (the head of the brute squad) and the Albino were first cousins.
-The brute squad paid well, according to Fezzik.
-Inigo said his famous line to Count Rugen at 5:37 PM.
Many of the most memorable scenes in the movie are taken almost word for word from the book. It’s almost impossible to read certain parts without hearing the actor’s voices.
The largest change from the book was the removal of the Zoo of Death from the movie. In this part Fezzik and Inigo battle through the Prince’s zoo looking for Westley. They pass caged cheetahs, hippos, and maybe a giant squid as they go. The duo has to fight a giant python and a swarm of bats before they find Westley mostly dead in the fifth level of the zoo.
There’s a really great moment in this sequence where Inigo and Fezzik both afraid of what is ahead, wrap their arms around each other’s shoulders. They keep the outside hand free to defend themselves. It’s a really nice display of friendship and vulnerability, especially for two male characters. The Zoo of Death was cut for budgetary reasons and replaced with Inigo asking his father’s spirit to guide him, which is also has great emotional resonance.
The Princess Bride’s small budget was part of its charm.
Nowadays, the Fire Swamp and the Zoo of Death would be huge, slick CG set-pieces. Fezzik would be played by a big-name actor in a motion capture suit. It never bothered me that the R.O.U.S. was a guy in a rat costume, or that the matte painting backgrounds only went so far. Part of what makes the movie so loveable is that it looks like it’s taking place in the boy’s imagination. For anyone who has a thought of re-making it “get used to disappointment”, because it’s not possible to make it any better.
For anyone who wants to read about the making of The Princess Bride movie, please read As You Wish: Inconceivable Tales from the Making of the Princess Bride written by Westley himself (Cary Elwes). It has tons of great anecdotes from making the movie.
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