Finally got around to seeing the movie… it was quite good. One thing that does not at all accord with my memory of the book (which I read 6ish years ago) is that the movie seemed MUCH harsher on his parents. Was all the stuff about them fighting, his dad’s secret past, etc., in the book?
I’d also like a where-are-they-now update on some of the smaller characters, particularly his sister and Tracy… although of course the movie is not about them.
No in fact my recollection is that McCandless was described as being from a happy family. I noticed in the credits that Chris’s sister had contributed to the voiceover dialogue and the family were thanked for their courage.
I am sure that I recalled McCandless as a spoilt middle class boy from aa loving home, not the product of domestic relationships that made his self absorption pretty understandable. However I can’t find my copy of the book.
Here is Jon Krakauer’s original article at Outside Online.
I’m dating a girl from Alaska, and she hates this guy. Thinks he’s a total moron with no survival skills, and thus no business living in the wilderness. Second only in stupidity to the guys who are as we speak copying him and making pilgrimages to the bus, tying up rescue resources.
My brother knows a guy, an asshole wannabe comic and trust fund baby, who thinks this is a really good idea and is planning to do this himself, so I know she has a point.
Just saw Into the Wild on DVD. Completely rolleyes-worthy, a John Hughes teen-angst flick cut with a second-rate Easy Rider remake. Yeah, I know it’s based upon a book/true-life events, but the entire “flight from civilization” was so overblown, given the motivations, it was like listening to Bender talk about getting cigarettes for Christmas. For two hours. For two pretentious hours.
The entire story works better if you assume the main character had a psychotic break. It would’ve worked better without the silly voice-over and rationalizations of his actions. Overreact much, kid?
I was of the opinion that he spent the summer at the bus and winter was rapidly approaching, not that he survived an entire winter there. I was also wondering why he just didn’t:
- Fish.
- Shoot one of the wolves and eat it.
I also liked the usual inconsistency of ranting about civilization while still using the products of the Industrial Revolution to move around, eat, kill stuff, and sleep in. Way to make your point. 
I don’t know, though. Are you sure we’re meant to see him as noble? I don’t see him as noble. But I don’t see him as an asshole, either. He was 23. I’d hate to be raked over for everything I did when I was 23.
Don’t you know that if you do anything that causes inconvenience to anyone else or do something that others see as unconventional that you deserve to die a slow painful death? Death to the individualists!
You have my sympathies. Has she drunk you under the table yet? 
Seriously, people up here are quick to vilify those who venture into the wilderness, but are ill-prepared to do so. This guy seemed to be better prepared than many, in that he had the necessary survival tools, lacking only the items needed to get him back out again, i.e., a map and compass. I have to put him in the ‘knucklehead’ category for that omission alone. Less egregious mistakes have ended in death for people far more experienced than he was. Idealism is a rough road.
It’s pretty obvious the filmmakers took Chris’s perspective on things: The constant rationalizations of how his parents f-ed up their kids lives via the voice-overs (not to mention his sisters accepting the rightness of Chris’s actions), the inability of any character to flatly tell him “you’re going to die up there” (though apparently many did in real life), and even their casual acceptness of the rightness of his arguments (“I get what you’re saying, but you still spend too much time up there” (Wayne and Chris at the bar)), all of it pointed to how we were to sympathize with him, and possibly agree. Hell, there was a point in the movie where it’s flatly stated that Chris’s disappearance helped his parents relationship! They think their son might be dead, but that’s OK: They don’t fight as much anymore. It’s all good! :rolleyes:
And, of course, this was an adapted work, not an original screenplay, and with adaptations what is left out is just as telling as what was included. The opening scene, where Alex/Chris is dropped off by the man who gave him the pair of boots is a telling example. In the article linked above, the guy driving Chris to the drop off point did a helluva lot more than offer him a pair of rubber boots: in real life he repeatedly tried to dissuade Chris from doing it, even offering to drive to Anchorage to buy Chris some decent gear. All this was cut out, leaving us with nothing but Chris’s “noble” intentions and a pair of boots offered by a stranger who was seemingly unknowing of Chris’s plans.
I just watched this, and, even though I read the book, I don’t remember this being addressed - did he ever fish?!?! It seems to me he was surrounded by water that had to be teeming with fish, and he had a net and a pole. But there was no indication of fishing in the movie, although he did have a net and a collapsible pole. I’ve been fishing in Alaska, and it’s absurdly easy to catch a fish in a river. If I had nothing but hunger to distract me, I’d head for the river long before I’d pick up a .22, and there would be lots of sustaining nourishment there.
Unless the river has no fish. If you are upstream from a waterfall, it’s likely that there are no fish. If the stream is glacial, it’s likely there are no fish. If the lake from which the river originates isn’t stocked, or has no fish because of the altitude (read: many months of frozen water), it’s likely there are no fish. I don’t know about the waters near where he camped.
Ah, I see. I went fishing on the Kenai Peninsula, so that’s a whole different kettle of, well, you know. But thank you for fighting my ignorance. Mr. singular will be glad to know this, since it bugged him, too.
Now, any idea why he thought lugging around a moose head was a good idea? For that matter, couldn’t he have put some of that meat in the net and let the river act as cold storage for a bit?
Bumped.
The bus, long an attractive nuisance, has now been removed via helicopter by the Alaska Natl. Guard: 'Into the Wild' bus, known as a deadly tourist lure, has been removed by air | CNN