Coraline, Book vs Movie: What’s The Difference?
Who doesn’t know Coraline? A terrifying stop-motion animation movie you watched as a kid.
I first watched Coraline when I was still in a middle school. I still remember how it felt like watching it for the first time. It was scary. The graphics, the story, it was a nightmare… It’s the best animation movie and my all time favorite.
A couple years have passed and I still love re-watching it. And how unculture I am because I just found out several years ago that Coraline was adapted from a book written by Neil Gaiman with the same title. I had already read it, and i loved it. How I wish I could read the book first before watching the animated version.
If you never read the book, i’ll tell you that there are several differences between the book and the movie version, but the core is the same. Here’s my thoughts about some of the differences.
The Door
The first difference is the representation of the door. The door as we all knew in the Coraline movie is very small, meanwhile the door in the book version is just like a regular door. It says in the book that the door most likely lead to an empty flat on the other side of their flat.
“When this place was just one house, that door went somewhere. When they turned the house into flats, they simply bricked it up. The other side is the empty flat on the other side of the house, the one that’s still for sale,” said Coraline’s Mother in the book.
In the movie, they don’t give any explanation about the small door function, which for me makes the story more mysterious. Also the size of the door in the movie brings in more peculiar aspect and tension than the one in the book.
Added Characters
Second difference is Wybie. I was pretty surprised when i read the book and found out that Wybie wasn’t there. He is specifically made for the movie version. This awkward, talk active character for me makes the movie more colorful. I love that they don’t make Coraline went through all those scary moments alone, unlike in the book version.
Beside Wybie, there is also his grandmother. At the beginning of the movie, we’ll see the Other Mother sewing and turning an old doll into a new doll which resembles Coraline, right? That old doll was Wybie grandma’s twin sister resemblance, whose one day mysteriously disappeared.
That opening scene is genius! It makes the story more dark and frightening and also increases the viewers curiosity.
The added parts and characters also make the whole story feel more connected. I mean, unlike the book that didn’t tell the background of the three ghost children, the movie shows that there is someone who un-directly witnessed the Other Mother’s evildoing, the person who lost their beloved one at that neighborhood, which is Wybie’s family.
Added and Deleted Story
Beside added characters, there are also some added and deleted part. Some important new parts that were added are Mr. Bobinsky’s circus and gardening with The Other Father.
For me, that part is important, because the Other World was created to make Coraline and the other children stay, right? By giving those fun moments, they will impress Coraline and make her think, “Ah, yes the Other World is so much fun, unlike the real world”.
In the book version, they just went straightforward offering Coraline to stay by giving her button eyes without showing her any good things in the Other World, except delicious food made by the Other Mother and a boring circus from Miss Spink and Forcible. The book version of The Other World wasn’t manipulative enough for me.
There is this part when the Other Father was turned into an awful creature and tried to catch Coraline, right? In the movie, that happened in the garden. But in the book version, it happens down in a trap door inside the flat and it was scarier.
Kinda sad because they changed this part. I mean, imagine they turn this into a very frightening scene. Imagine Coraline running up the stairs trying to escape from big and ugly Other Father down the small trap door.
But, I can forgive that because they changed the Other Mother escape part into a more terrifying scene. Yes, the part where Coraline successfully collects three ghost children and her parents inside the snow globe was different between the book and the movie. For me, the movie version is more frightening.
What’s scarier than The Other Mother turning the room into a spider’s web so that Coraline could not run through it? There is no such thing in the book. In the book, Coraline just threw the cat to The Other Mother, trying to close the door and run down the corridor.
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Well, those are some of the differences between Coraline book version and the movie version. Both version are great, but when you ask me which one my favorite, the animation version is the answer. Some of the changes made the movie version scarier and more suspenseful.
We all should thank Neil Gaiman for creating such a timeless story and to Laika Studio for turning it into such a great great great movie of all time.
