Summary of differences between the movie Frankenstein (1994) and the book (unsorted)

Movie:

Frankenstein is the first one to reach the ship. It seems like he is followed or even hunted by his creature. Dogs are running into the fog to attack the mysterious thing in there and get all ripped apart. Frankenstein hurries to get on the boat, everybody fears the thing in the fog. Frankenstein seems to be okay, he is not completely exhausted and can talk.

Book:

The crew sees one big creature on a sledge heading north. The crew is wondering but doesn't seem to be scared. The next morning, they find an person: Frankenstein. He is very exhausted and ill and has to be nursed to be able to talk again.

Frankenstein was therefore the second person to be seen at the boat because his creature hurried north the evening before without taking big notice of the ship.

Movie: Frankenstein has a friend Clerval at medical school

Book: Clerval is a friend of Frankenstein since youth.

Movie: Frankensteins mother dies giving birth to a child.

Book: Frankensteins mother dies as she was nursing Elizabeth who was very ill.

Movie:

He interrupts his professor and talks about Paracelsius, Magnus etc. He is also having anatomy classes (I am not sure whether Krempe or Waldman did them).

After another lesson Frankenstein is talking to his companion outside as he is taken to the side by Waldman, who seems creepy. He wants Frankenstein to justify himself and afterwards Waldman invites Frankenstein harshly to his home.

Book:

Waldman is just another Professor who seems to be more open-minded than Prof. Krempe. He is holding lectures and doing practical exercises and becomes quite a close friend to Frankenstein. It seems to be a friendlier relationship than in the movie.

Movie:

Waldman shows Frankenstein an experiment with electricity. He had sticked needles into a monkeyhand which causes contractions if electricity stimulates the muscles. He demonstrates this and the hand dramatically grabs Clerval.

Book: Not mentioned.

Movie: Waldman gets killed by an ill person whom he should give an injection.

Book: The death of Waldman is not explicitly mentioned.

Movie:

Frankenstein was working very hard on his project to revive a human and as he has almost finished, Clerval and Elizabeth want to see him. There is a pandemia and they wand to leave with Frankenstein.

Book: I might be wrong but i did not read anything about a pandemia?

Movie:

Frankenstein is in the mountains with his family / friends as a small thunderstorm cloud comes close to them. He puts a metallic aperature into the floor and they lie down in a circle holding hands as a lightning impacts into the metal charging the people with electricity.

Book: Not mentioned in the book.

Movie: Frankenstein finally brings his creature to live by using electric eels.

Book: The scene of the "birth" of Frankenstein's creature is not described - it seems to be explicitely included in the movies to present some eyecandy.

Movie: Frankenstein's creature is a bald human with normal skin colour.

Book: Frankenstein's creature is described with yellow skin and black hair.

Movie: After the creation of his creature, Frankenstein is sleeping. Suddenly he wakes up and sees his creature which starts going after Frankenstein. Frankenstein runs away and is able to close a door behind and find a hatchet, to hunt the creature but it is gone. It has taken Frankenstein's coat and made itself "shoes" and flees into the street. In the movie it knows instantly, how to put on a coat or how to tie shoes out of rags.

Book: The creature's birth is more "aesthetical" / "archaic" than the clumsy behaving of the new born creature in the movie. The emotions and senses of the creature were much more detailed in the book but this depends on the medium book. In the book it was more like the creature being like an exploring child which has to learn what clothes and fire are for.

Movie: The creature steals / eats bread on the market because it is hungry. The coat on its head is shoved back by someone and the creature's head is revealed and he is identified as "a monster". Therefore people begin to beat the creature. It feels hard-pressed and defends itself which results in violent strikes. This is enough to keep the people back and run away over a house and jump onto a coach. It seems like the creature's coordination (climbing up somewhere, jumping down on a coach) is also quite good.

Book: This scene is not mentioned.

Movie: The cottagers are an old, blind man, a middle-aged man and women and one male and one female child.

Book: Old man and two middle-aged people, Agatha and Felix

Movie: The first word the creature learns is the word friend by listening the woman teaching the child this word.

Book: It is described how the creature learns various words like fire, milk, bread, wood.

Movie: The creature tries to read Frankenstein's journal

Book: The creature does not only read Frankstein's journal but develops into a very intelligent being reading Paradise Lost and the Sorrows of Werter.

Movie: The cottagers are poor and don't have enough to eat so the creature culls their vegetables. On Christmas eve, the cottagers leave a notice on a shield "For the good spirit of the forest" and some food.

Book: This does not happen in the book. The creature is helping the cottagers by chopping and leaving them wood and not food.

Movie: Someone beats the old blind man up and this person gets beat up by the Frankenstein's creature. Afterwards the blind man invites the creature into the house and talks to it and feels its face.

Book: The creature itself knocks at the door and comes in to talk to the blind man. They talk for a while until they get interupted and the creature gets beaten and thrown out like in the movie. The blind man did not touch the creatures face in the book. The creature also seems much smarter in the book as it seems to be underdeveloped in the movie.

Movie: The old man plays the flute and the creature seems to learn playing the flute too. It shows Frankenstein the flute later in the movie but does not play anything.

Book: The flute does not occur in the book.

Movie: Rescue-scene of the drowning girl is left out.

Book: The creature saves a small girl from drowning in the river and gets shot afterwards and suffers pain.

Movie: The creature meets William in the woods who looks at it and begins screaming and runs away. As he runs away he loses the medal with Frankenstein's image in it.

Book:The creature meets William who shouts at it that he is the son of Frankenstein. Frankenstein kills him and takes the medal from the boy's dead body. The death of William is described in contrast to the movie where only William's dead body is found.

Movie: Justine gets lynched by an angry mob for killing William.

Book: Justine is sentenced to death in a trial.

Movie: The creature tears out the heart of Frankenstein's wife.

Book: Frankenstein's wife only gets killed without getting her pumping heart getting ripped out of her body.

Movie: Frankenstein revives his dead wife, which does not recognize him anymore. She finds herself in the middle of Frankenstein and his creature, both struggeling for her love. She takes an oil lamp over her head, crushes it, sets herself in flames and commits suicide by jumping down somewhere.

Book: Frankensteins wife does not get revived so nothing of the written things above happens.

Movie: At the rear end where the seamen want to burn Frankenstein's body, the ice crust breaks so they all have to get on the boat. Frankenstein's creature falls into the water and swims to Frankenstein and sets himself and itself on fire and therefore commits suicide.

Book: The creature takes Frankenstein to entomb him in the north and says it will kill itself. It is not sure whether this happens or not.

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