Forest Gump Book vs Movie
Although there seem to be more differences between the book and the movie of Forrest Gump, there are still many similarities between the two. Forrest was raised by only his mother; they lived in the same big white house renting rooms out to travelers. Forrest does earn a scholarship to play running back for the University of Alabama football team. He meets the love of his life, Jenny Curran in first grade and later on they get married after Jenny went through some violent relationships. Forrest meets his best friend Bubba and they have dreams of opening up a shrimping business when they get out of the army. Bubba later on dies in the army with Forrest by his side. In memory of Bubba, when Forrest gets out of the army he buys a big shrimping boat and starts the shrimping business him and Bubba dreamed of. Even though Forrest wasn’t able to save Bubba’s life, he did rescue his lieutenant. His name was Dan, lieutenant Dan. When they were both put in the hospital together after Forrest was shot in the “Buttocks” running away from the enemies, they became good friends. While at the hospital, when Forrest had free time he would go fool around and play Ping-Pong having no intentions to be good until he realized how good he had gotten. After a while Forrest’s name was getting around and becoming well known. After a while he becomes a world-class Ping-Pong player.

Between the book and the movie of Forrest Gump, there were more differences than I expected. I had already seen the movie a few years back so I had pictured Forrest as an average Tom Hanks looking guy before reading the novel. After further reading of the book, I found that by the time Forrest was sixteen years old, he had grown to be six-foot-six, two-hundred and forty-two pounds. That surprised me very much. In the movie, Forrest had to wear braces on his legs to keep his crooked spine in place as a child. One day Forrest was walking home with Jenny Curran, some bullies were riding on their bikes chasing Forrest and throwing rocks at him. Jenny told Forrest to run; Forrest tried to run but was being held back because of his braces. Forrest knew he had to get away so he pushed through and his legs magically broke out of the braces. When his braces flew off he was one of the fastest people you’d ever seen. Forrest never knew he could run so fast, neither did anyone else. He got away from the bullies, and after that, everywhere Forrest went he was running. But in the novel, Forrest never had to wear leg braces because of a crooked spine. He was just born fast. The movie shows Forrest a few years later when he was in high school but in the same situation, running from bullies but the bullies were chasing him with a truck this time. Forrest is running and cutting through fields while trying to escape from them. Forrest takes a turn and ends up on the high school football field, Bear Bryant, head coach of The University of Alabama football team, is at Forrest's school watching the team play. Forrest is not on the team, but Bear Bryant sees him run onto the football field. Forrest runs past the quarterback just as he releases the ball and reaches the wide receiver as the ball arrives. Bear Bryant is amazed by his speed and asks who he is. Bear Bryant gives Forrest a scholarship to play football for Alabama. Forrest is the running back and is named First Team All-American. The novel it’s different, Forrest already plays football and is very good. One day he goes to the principal’s office where he meets Bear Bryant from the University of Alabama. Bear asks him if he wants to play football in College and Forrest answers yes, and so he goes to play. In the film, Forrest’s love was Jenny Curran. In the film she had a bad childhood being raised by an alcoholic and abusive father. Her mother had died, and her aunt was also abusive. But in the novel Jenny is a common normal girl who lives with her family. She has no problems throughout her childhood; later on she takes part in being a hippie but doesn’t do drugs. She’s just a normal girl with regular problems at her age.

In my opinion I think the film version of Forrest Gump is better. In my personal opinion, I think the film is more realistic. In the book Forrest becomes a wrestler known as “The Dunce”, Becomes an astronaut and goes to outer space, crashes into a jungle then taken hostage by cannibals with his ape, Sue. Forrest becomes a world-class chess player, and a six-foot-six two-hundred and forty-two pound running back. In the film I liked how Forrest was a normal average guy and I liked how Tom Hanks portrayed the character of Forrest Gump. It helped me better understand the personality of Forrest. I really liked how in the film Forrest wasn’t able to run because of his crooked spine and he had to wear the leg braces. Once those leg braces flew off Forrest experienced something he never had before, running. After that he learned that he loved to run because it was something he was unable to do now I think he was grateful that he could and so that’s why he took pride in running and he ran everywhere.

Even though Forrest Gump was lacking of intelligence, he fulfilled his life and didn’t let what other people said get in his way. The movie was different from the novel but I think it gave me a different perspective on Forrest compared to what I pictured him as in the novel. I think the director put this film together very well and made it one of the best films of all-time.