Into the wild movie

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brindon_john

Joined
Apr 25, 2007
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Hello everyone! I have been reading and looking at the pictures here for quite some time now and I am very thankful for all the information and the beautiful pictures. I don't post much but when I saw the trailer of the movie, I just had to let you guys know about it. Enjoy!

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=2LAuzT_x8Ek
 
Don't think I will watch it, the attention that Chris McCandless gets for being an arrogant idiot irks me to no end. The kid created slow suicide and it has been romanticized to the point of nausea. Chris
 
I have to agree with runningboar on that. If you read the real story without the Hollyweird romantic movie bull, he was an idiot. I'm sorry to see a person die uslessly, but at least he did'nt take a friend or two with him as is sometimes the case.:thumbdn:
 
I don't completely agree with you guys.
I do agree that Chris made stupid mistakes and made his own demise but I also think that the point of the book was to show how a person might not feel connected to the modern world and long for a change. This is an important theme in the story. I think many of us BF/W&S forum folks might have or had similar feelings and a longing for freedom and adventure.
Chris McCandles read Thoreau and other great thinkers of the past who had the benefit of a wild world to live in but in our times a lot of the wildness is gone in our lives. Thoreau had to go to Walden for the same reason Chris went to Alaska. Chris just had to go a lot farther and wilder to get to his place to be.
I think to focus just on his hubris misses the point of the book. Clearly the book is asking the reader; haven't you wanted to do this too? Would you have died too? Would it be worth it anyway? There are deeper themes going here.

Now add Sean Penn directing (no political stuff here just a great film maker) and from what I saw of the trailer this will be a very good screenplay of a great book.

Besides it is always good to learn from others mistakes.
 
Billy,
A lot of what you are saying is what gets under my skin the most. An urban boy reads Thoreau, Tolstoy, Hemmingway, Emerson and others who, although I love them and can relate to them, overly romanticize nature. They know and I know what a cruel, unforgiving mistress nature is, Chris evidently did not, nor do other people that have this unrealistic view of untamed nature, such as Timothy Treadwell. This movie and the book IMO just reinforce this thinking. Most people in this country, even on this site, think it is horrible to hunt and trap, although they have never done it, yet they have no trouble scarfing down KFC or Mcdonalds. In their snug houses with pantries filled with processed food from the local Wal Mart, they read, and idealize, and long to get back to nature with out having a clue as to what they are really talking about.

In my narrow southern mind all of the creatures of this earth and nature in general are here for mankinds benefit. It is our job to use it without harming it and be a steward of nature and all things in it. Not the other way around, mankind is not here for the benefit of nature. Chris



'Here am I, Dmitri Olenin, a being quite distinct from every other being, now lying all alone Heaven only knows where – where a stag used to live – an old stag, a beautiful stag who perhaps had never seen a man, and in a place where no human being has ever sat or thought these thoughts. Here I sit, and around me stand old and young trees, one of them festooned with wild grape vines, and pheasants are fluttering, driving one another about and perhaps scenting their murdered brothers.' He felt his pheasants, examined them, and wiped the warm blood off his hand onto his coat. 'Perhaps the jackals scent them and with dissatisfied faces go off in another direction: above me, flying in among the leaves which to them seem enormous islands, mosquitoes hang in the air and buzz: one, two, three, four, a hundred, a thousand, a million mosquitoes, and all of them buzz something or other and each one of them is separate from all else and is just such a separate Dmitri Olenin as I am myself.' He vividly imagined what the mosquitoes buzzed: 'This way, this way, lads! Here's some one we can eat!' They buzzed and stuck to him. And it was clear to him that he was not a Russian nobleman, a member of Moscow society, the friend and relation of so-and-so and so-and-so, but just such a mosquito, or pheasant, or deer, as those that were now living all around him. 'Just as they, just as Uncle Eroshka, I shall live awhile and die, and as he says truly: "grass will grow and nothing more".' Leo Tolstoy
 
runningboar said:
Billy,
A lot of what you are saying is what gets under my skin the most. An urban boy reads Thoreau, Tolstoy, Hemmingway, Emerson and others who, although I love them and can relate to them, overly romanticize nature. They know and I know what a cruel, unforgiving mistress nature is, Chris evidently did not, nor do other people that have this unrealistic view of untamed nature, such as Timothy Treadwell. This movie and the book IMO just reinforce this thinking. Most people in this country, even on this site, think it is horrible to hunt and trap, although they have never done it, yet they have no trouble scarfing down KFC or Mcdonalds. In their snug houses with pantries filled with processed food from the local Wal Mart, they read, and idealize, and long to get back to nature with out having a clue as to what they are really talking about.

In my narrow southern mind all of the creatures of this earth and nature in general are here for mankinds benefit. It is our job to use it without harming it and be a steward of nature and all things in it. Not the other way around, mankind is not here for the benefit of nature. Chris



'Here am I, Dmitri Olenin, a being quite distinct from every other being, now lying all alone Heaven only knows where – where a stag used to live – an old stag, a beautiful stag who perhaps had never seen a man, and in a place where no human being has ever sat or thought these thoughts. Here I sit, and around me stand old and young trees, one of them festooned with wild grape vines, and pheasants are fluttering, driving one another about and perhaps scenting their murdered brothers.' He felt his pheasants, examined them, and wiped the warm blood off his hand onto his coat. 'Perhaps the jackals scent them and with dissatisfied faces go off in another direction: above me, flying in among the leaves which to them seem enormous islands, mosquitoes hang in the air and buzz: one, two, three, four, a hundred, a thousand, a million mosquitoes, and all of them buzz something or other and each one of them is separate from all else and is just such a separate Dmitri Olenin as I am myself.' He vividly imagined what the mosquitoes buzzed: 'This way, this way, lads! Here's some one we can eat!' They buzzed and stuck to him. And it was clear to him that he was not a Russian nobleman, a member of Moscow society, the friend and relation of so-and-so and so-and-so, but just such a mosquito, or pheasant, or deer, as those that were now living all around him. 'Just as they, just as Uncle Eroshka, I shall live awhile and die, and as he says truly: "grass will grow and nothing more".' Leo Tolstoy
Click to expand...
Chris,
I think we are actually agreeing on a lot of levels. Yes over romaticizing nature was definitely a mistake and one many folks make.

My point about Chris was that his very "urbane" upbringing deprived him the true understanding of who he is in respect to the world. The Tostoy quote touches on that; Dmitri is realizing that connection as he sits there.

Some folks are lucky to still have a connection to their world from where they grew up (in the country) but many people like Chris do not have that connection and yearn for it wheteher they realize it or not.

The book does not reinforce the notion that nature is tameable but rather shows that it is not; especially if you have no experience or skills.

In fact I would say that when I first read it on it's first release it had the opposite affect. The book showed me that if you desire to venture into nature on any level you need to learn certain skills and respect nature or it will kill you.

I think we could argue this point all day; the story makes you mad at Chris and people like him. For me I feel compassion for him and see a little of him in anyone who yearns for a natural connection that has been but almost lost completely, myself included. His lack of skill and knowledge are a product of that lost connection.

No that does not make up for Chris' hubris and nievity but explains it.
Bill
 
BillyM -

Agreed. At least in my mind, your points are valid, and we are in a similar vein when it comes to the interpretation and draw of books by the authors you've cited.

Due respect, but I don't agree w/RB that these books/movies overly romanticize nature to a point that a reasonable person can't draw their own conclusions. Only an idiot could watch "Grizzly Man" and not come away with at least one takeaway being "do NOT understimate nature or you end up in an animal's belly".

That said, none of us have seen the final product of Into the Wild, so the jury therewith remains out.
 
I read the book and probably will see the movie out of curiosities sake, but I hope that they make a point of not glamorizing him to much. Like Tim Treawell, Macandles has been documented to have been a liar and probably suffering from mental illness' that ultimately lead to their deaths and in Treadwells case someone elses death as well.

These are not men that died well and do not need to be praised for it.
 
I listened to that book on tape. Interesting, but way UNPREPARED.

.22 as a gun of choice? Come on, you could have done better than that. Interestingly, he killed a moose with it if I remember correctly.

Later,
Scottman
 
There is a very big argument for the 22, in fact it very well might be my choice.

Gun and ammo are lightweight so you can carry much, much, more ammo than any other caliber, most 22s are very accurate and easy for even novices to shoot accurately because there is no muzzle blast or recoil, it is the most popular round on the planet so resupply would be easy anywhere, small game and birds are much more common than large game and would be a staple of your diet, more ammo choices than any other caliber, the standard 22LR kills out of proportion to it's size, literally tons of deer are killed each year with the 22 it is the poachers #1 choice because of the low report.

If that's not the biggest run on sentence you've ever seen give me a few minutes and another beer and I will think of some more.:D Chris
 
My granddad killed a black bear with a .22 rifle on his orchard. It's deff. a usefull gun but i think i would pass on it if i were heading up to Alaska:D ill see if i cant find my pic and post it of him holding his .22 rifle over the black bear
 
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