Life of Pi Book Vs Movie Review

Here is the Life of Pi book Vs movie review. Every reader gets nervous when a beloved novel is adapted for the big screen by a film director. 

But, if the story is not done well, the movie might quickly misrepresent the whole thing, leaving readers extremely uncomfortable. 

When Ang Lee revealed that he would be making a movie adaptation of Yann Martel’s Life of Pi, readers were understandably alarmed. While there were certain areas where Lee could have done a better job, overall, the film was well done.

Life of Pi Book Vs Movie Differences Explained

We didn’t anticipate that the Life of Pi movie would differ significantly from the book, but as we read, we noticed several significant differences.

We were interested in many of those differences, but the one we liked best was when Pi’s father taught him and his brother Ravi a lesson about how dangerous and unfriendly animals can be.

There are a lot of differences. In the book, Pi begins by playing by himself and gets a call from his father and brother asking to speak with them. 

Pi arrives there believing that Ravi has broken the law or is in trouble, but his father greets them with the words, “I have an important lesson for you today.”

This leads them to the tigers’ cat house, where one zookeeper gets a goat and ties it to the bars (trapdoors), causing a tiger to emerge. Gradually approaching his victim, the tiger kills him by yanking the goat through the bars.

That differs from the movie for the following reason: in the movie, Pi and his brother Ravi enter the cat house, where all the big cats are kept.

Pi then gets a piece of meat, and his brother tells him to stop and not to approach the area.

Pi responds, “I just want to meet Richard Parker,” as Ravi dashes off to call his father. Instead of Richard Parker, it’s just a random tiger in the book.

Life of Pi Ending Explained Review

The tiger is getting closer to the cage where Pi is approaching it, and then suddenly Pi’s father appears from behind and pulls Pi away, sending Richard Parker flying.

At that point, Pi’s father decides to discipline him and instructs Babu, the caretaker of the big cats, to get a goat and tie it to the cage.

Subsequently, it depicts Richard Parker approaching his target, the goat, and dragging it deeper into his small space, where he kills it.

As you can see, there are significant differences: Pi plays by himself innocuously in the book, but he is essentially looking for trouble in the movie.

However, most people prefer the book over the movie because, after demonstrating to Ravi and Pi the dangers of tigers, his father shows them around the entire zoo, stopping at each animal to explain to them how dangerous it is in its unique way.

In the movie, however, his father didn’t do that. Having gone through this Life of Pi book vs movie review, you would want to decide which one interests you the most.