I turned this movie off like 40 minutes into it because I couldn’t stand how judgmental this prick McCandless was or however you spell his name. And the way all the actors in Hollywood were praising the asshole. It made me sick, liberal bs, but that’s for another thread. He’s like the biggest hater in the world, but in reality he deserves the most hating on. And yes I know the story. About ten years ago I read like a 10 page article in a wildlife type magazine and just couldn’t stop shaking my head. I’m from the city and I wouldn’t venture more then a few miles outside of my neighborhood without at least consulting a street map, let alone in the Alaskan wilderness. Idiot, he deserved what he got…
It’s not his wanting to leave the materialistic behind - that’s fine. It’s the “I have no need of this thing we call currency - but I’ll rely on other people to spend money for me.” “I love my sister - but I’m never going to contact her or make the slightest effort to put her at ease.” “I’ve done this all on my own - except for when my parents raised me, people helped along every inch of the way, and I leeched off of society for a month or two in LA.” It’s the hubris and inability to acknowledge the people in his life, despite any ill-feelings towards them. His is the most selfish story I’ve ever read.
Favorite Jack London short story: To Build a Fire.
Having actually been more or less in that situation (though not as extreme) makes it all the more hilarious. 
Yeah, the book goes into some detail about how he admired certain writers who either never actually experienced the stuff they wrote about or espoused philosophies they themselves didn’t live by. Did he realize that? Did he care? How come it’s always the relatively well-off kids (and the McCandlesses weren’t wealthy – the parents were working-class who owned their own business and worked their fingers to the bone to make a go of it, achieving some financial stability only after many years of sacrifice) who want a revolution?
I don’t “hate” McCandless, but my gosh he was a stubborn little punk. His death was just such a waste – here’s someone who could have made piles of money with a dot-com or some other speculative venture. He certainly had the brains and the work ethic. But somehow he picked up on this neo-hippie anti-materialistic, anti-establishment Jack London, Henry David Thoreau stuff without bothering to acknowledge the reality of the harshness of the wilderness. If he’d had a compass and maps and a sturdy pair of boots and all that and then died, then his story would have been entirely different. He wasn’t suicidal, just blind somehow.
What makes you think he wasn’t suicidal?
He didn’t put a gun to his head and pull the trigger, but he walked into the Alaska wilderness without preparation. That’s suicidal in my book. Maybe he didn’t quite want to die, but he didn’t want to take the steps necessary to keep himself alive either. Going without a compass was more important to him than living.
I guess I feel like the only people he hurt are people who had piles of expectations they laid on him. Yeah, we should be good to our parents. But in the end, we don’t really have to. Our lives are ours to live, and if we don’t want our parents to be a part of it, so be it. As far as I know, he never implied he’d be around and he never promised he’d do anything for anyone. He never made promises. People just kind of assumed them. And if you get hurt because someone doesn’t act the way you expect them to act, too bad.
My statement about his not being suicidal comes from his telling the old man, “We’ll talk about it when I come back,” in response to the man’s offer to adopt him. Sure, maybe he’s yanking his chain (about coming back to the old man), but I really don’t think he meant to die. Eating the seeds that caused his death was a pretty easy mistake to make, and the book makes the point that if he had been eating well up to that point, he might have been able to fight off their effects. I really think he meant to “tramp” for a couple of years and get it out of his system and then spend the rest of his life telling stories about “the two years I spent living off the land.”
Actually, my understanding is that the seeds were actually harmless–the testing wasn’t finished when the book was initially published. The current theory for him being poisoned is that he stored the seeds in a Ziploc bag and they got moldy, and the mold killed him. (He doesn’t have a compass, but he’s got Ziploc bags?)
It would have been kind of him to inform people around him of his way of operating, then - especially his family who did apparently sincerely love him and want to interact with him, even if he didn’t also have one or both of those feelings. He was an adult; if he’d told his family of his intentions (by phone if he was that scared), they couldn’t have done a thing to stop him. (The postcard really wasn’t up to snuff for this purpose.)
Plus, he was an idiot when it came to wilderness survival, and I have a tough time forgiving that, especially because he did have a serious amount of intelligence. He handicapped himself in unimaginably bad ways, and struggled through with a combination of a ton of luck and some smarts until he eventually (probably) starved.
“[S]tupidity is the only universal capital crime; the sentence is death, there is no appeal, and execution is carried out automatically and without pity.” – RAH
Is that the only measure of worth? How much money someone makes? And speaking of risks, in order to keep piles of money earned with a dot-com, he would have had to get out at the right time. Which many people did not, and ended up losing everything. I agree with even sven: money money money money money money money money money is not the only incentive for everyone.
Naive and idealistic for sure, I don’t really get the hate though. He sought a transformative experience and found it, he didn’t put anybody else at risk. IIRC from the book, one of his letters before going in refered to ‘if I make it out,’ so it seems he had some idea he was playing with fire.
What I find ironic is his hero worship of Jack London, who went on to be as finacially motivated as his own father
No, come on – I’m not saying it’s all about money, of course not. I’m saying the guy threw his life away, forfeiting everything he might have done with that life. If he were a non-productive, lazy slacker I probably wouldn’t care so much. But McCandless’s story is about wasted potential.
“Until you do something to aid humanity, you should be ashamed to die.”
I’m surprised that even sven defends his actions considering that she works so hard to help people throughout the world. Talk about wasted potential. THAT is what is offensive. Want to have a transformative experience? Go build a fucking bridge or teach little kids how to read. Bring food to the needy (his donation to Oxfam doesn’t count–that was his parent’s money).
That’s what’s offensive to me. He could have given so much, but because of some “male” thing that Krakauer tries to defend in the book and Penn romanticizes in the movie, he prefers to selfishly pursue some hypocritical, delusional course of action that led to his death.
What a jerk.