I recently made a Coraline-inspired design, which caused me to do a lot of research. In this article, I will examine the differences between the original kids’ book and the vivid stop motion animation feature film (with some computer-generated elements). If reading isn’t your thing, you can also watch the differences on my YouTube channel!
Firstly, perhaps I should give you the basic outline of the book in case you’re unaware.
Coraline Jones is a young girl who has moved into a new house that is very old (does that make sense? It’s an old house, but new to her… Anyway…). This house has been split into apartments, so she has two other neighbours (who are odd, in my opinion). Living on the ground floor are two old ladies, Miss Spink and Miss Forcible, along with many Highland terriers. And above her is an odd man named Mr Bobo, who is training a mouse circus. Her eccentric new neighbours all call her “Caroline,” despite her repeatedly reminding them it’s CORALINE. She finds a secret door to an alternate world (the ‘other world’) with other versions of the characters around her, including her ‘other parents’. Her only continuous companion is the black cat she met, who stays with her in the other world, except he can talk in this one. Personally, I think he is the true hero of this story. She has to battle against the other mother, the Beldam, to save her parents. I think that covers it.
When the stop motion animation came out on its opening weekend, with the director and cast attending, it wasn’t the huge hit with the kids as they had hoped for the fantasy stop motion animation. It was a relatively new method of production that took years to create, and many stop-motion movies have been created since. Nowadays, it has become a cult classic, still often being bought on DVD and shown on TV, with reviews on it still being highly rated. The fantasy screenplay produced has been a success overall, so much so, that review videos and blogs are still discussing it (like mine!)
Their Personalities
In the film version of Coraline, the girl is sassy and sarcastic. She’s rolling her eyes all the time over every adult comment she hears at the beginning of the film, which in my opinion, is understandable with some of the stuff they come out with, especially the neighbours. It’s not until she loses her parents to the Beldam and has to save them that she appreciates her life, despite her previously thinking it was dull.
On the other hand, Coraline Jones in the book is kinder and is always sure to be polite to her strange neighbours. According to critics, she was more relatable to other kids in the feature film. Still, I think the more grown-up Coraline portrayed in the book is perfect. This is because she acts like a girl who has grown up an only child surrounded by adults; therefore, she should seem more mature. But maybe she’s too perfect? The film Coraline is much more bratty, and perhaps it makes her development more rewarding to see.
On the other hand, she betrays her cat friend at the end by throwing him at the Beldam, which is not a very nice sacrifice. Even though he’s super snarky, he has helped her through her journey in the other realm. She doesn’t make the most intelligent decisions, but she’s a kid; they must learn from their mistakes. Her adventurous spirit was probably a little too much. However, I think Neil Gaiman’s imaginative story balances her mistakes well with her scepticism, which draws it back. I think that’s what the film got wrong by changing this characteristic of Coraline. I didn’t like the part in the movie where she drops her stone after getting the soul from the other father; what if she needed it again? Stupid mistake, one that book Coraline didn’t make.
Her Parents
The film involved her parents taking a more hands-off approach. Her parents aren’t negligent of Coraline in the book or the movie; they’re just super busy. I’m sure many adults can relate to having to work all the time, look after kids, and moving into a new home has been deemed one of the most stressful things to do and then maintain the family. I can imagine it would be challenging to juggle. So all of this means Coraline in the book and film version is left to her own devices for a lot of the time, but this does nurture her imagination and creativity, at least. However, in the film, people have noted that her parents seem to have a more hands-off approach to parenting. They seemingly ignore her more and are indifferent to what she says, which isn’t very nice when all she wants is company.
Coraline’s Scepticism
Coraline in the book is more astute than film-Coraline. They both yearn for adventure in their mundane life. Still, Coraline from the film embraces the other world much quicker than book Coraline, who immediately feels suspicious. Film Coraline is finding herself having too much fun to realise something is amiss straightaway – you know – despite being in another realm – because that’s not weird at all. On the other hand, in the book, she scrutinises this other realm. She doesn’t allow the other mother’s false security to fool her.
Perhaps the film Coraline is more realistic as she is just a kid. Plenty of kids are adventurous and would love everything the Beldam offered. Coraline, in the book, is more sceptical. Both Coraline media are shown to learn lessons differently. She gets freaked out when the eyes are introduced both in the book and film, though, why wouldn’t you?
Wybie
There is no Wybie in the book. So, many of the readers of Coraline were annoyed by the addition of the character Wybie in the film version. Many have guessed he was put there to appeal to more male viewers. In the film, he helps her in the other world to free herself, which has awful consequences for the Beldam. Personally, I think he could have been added to prolong the film. Others welcomed the addition of Wybie because it added a few comical moments and gave her a friend. What I didn’t like is that his helping Coraline kind of took away from her independent personality. She has a few cryptic messages from the black cat in the book, but that’s it; she has to figure everything out herself. With Wybie in the film, that bit is slightly taken away. On the other hand, Wybie turning up at the end of the film to save Coraline from the hand and failing kind of argues against that point because Selick wanted Coraline to be the hero of her own movie still, plus it made for funny content. However, Gaiman said,
“I was uncomfortable with feeling like Wybie had rescued [Coraline] at the end. She has to rescue herself.”
So, it is just a matter of opinion, I guess.
On the topic of Wybie, he also has his grandmother, which the film decided to tie in with the little ghost girl in the other world. The ghost girl was Wybie’s grandmother’s twin.
The Dialogue
As with any adaptation, the dialogue can change considerably when translated into a movie. It could sound odd if you shoved the exchange from a book straight into the film. But this is more to do with the voice of the characters. For example, Coraline’s more polite manners and inner dialogue with herself in the book aren’t the same in the movie. Instead, they make her less mature, which translates through her actions and, of course, her voice, But she isn’t the only person whose dialogue is different. Most of what the Other Mother says is different, as are the quotes from other characters. It’s a shame. There are so many great quotes from the book!
However, one of the most significant dialogue differences is the nameless cat, which is much more snarky and funny in the book. I wish they had incorporated that into the movie; it would have been great! He is my favourite character. Keith David voices the cat wonderfully in the movie. Still, he doesn’t get to say lines about humans not knowing who they are or not wanting what they want because it would be no fun to get whatever you wanted all the time. That would have been great.
Little Differences
Many tiny character differences aren’t that big of a deal. However, they are still differences when added up.- Coraline is naturally English in the book, like Gaiman himself, but that’s not the case in the movie, with American actress Dakota Fanning voicing her.
- Appearance-wise, the cat’s eyes are green instead of blue.
- Coraline’s hair is black in the book instead of blue, although I liked that in the movie. It would have been even cooler if her hair was black at first but turned blue in the other world because kids always have dreams of dying their hair in crazy colours… or at least I did. The second I got the chance, I dyed it bright red and haven’t stopped since!
- Coraline also talks to herself a lot (which could also be why Wybie was added, so she’d have someone to talk to instead).
- The Beldam is tall with long fingers right away in the book, not the perfect image of her mother, just with button eyes.
- There isn’t a snow globe or ghost children’s eyes to find. Instead, the ghosts ask her to help find their souls.
- The door to the other world was made much smaller in the movie. The door was regular size in the book, as you would expect. Still, the door was smaller in the movie and covered in wallpaper to make it look less threatening and more inviting for one inquisitive little girl.
Coraline HATES It When You Mispronounce Her Name
While the movie Coraline only mildly corrects a character when they mispronounce her name as “Caroline,” book Coraline gets much more annoyed by it, and I love it. I get it. You may think, why? Your name is easy to say; however, many people seemingly can’t be bothered even to say my name and immediately nicknamed me Meg. I hate it. Many of my friends and family call me Meg, but it’s irritating when strangers start calling me without checking with me! Anyway, that was completely off track, sorry! She hates the mispronunciation of her name.
The Beldam even tells Coraline what would happen if she returned home.
“Nothing’s changed. You’ll go home. You’ll be bored. You’ll be ignored. No one will listen to you, really listen to you. You’re too clever and too quiet for them to understand. They don’t even get your name right.”
The Corridor
The film’s gateway to the other world is a strangely coloured tunnel she goes through. In the book, it is just a dark corridor; Gaiman writes,
“Coraline took a deep breath and stepped into the darkness, where strange voices whispered and distant winds howled. She became certain that there was something in the dark behind her: something very old and very slow.”
Also, when returning to the other world to return to her parents, the corridor changed, seemingly moving like it was alive. Gaiman wrote that Coraline…
“…knew that if she fell in that corridor, she might never get up again. Whatever that corridor was was older by far than the other mother.”
I thought perhaps the Beldam was the person who controlled the corridor, which isn’t much of a stretch, surely? An ancient creature thing that’s scarier than the Beldam? No, thank you. Can you imagine that scene being stop-motion animated for the movie?
Another passage Gaiman wrote for the book makes it even creepier:
“It seemed to her that [the hallway] went on for a longer distance than anything could possibly go. The wall she was touching felt warm and yielding now, and, she realized, it felt as if it were covered in a fine, downy fur. It moved as if it were taking a breath. She snatched her hand away from it. Winds howled in the dark. She was scared she would bump into something, and she put out her hand for the wall once more. This time what she touched felt hot and wet as if she had put her hand in somebody’s mouth, and she pulled it back with a small wail.”
The Other Mother
The other mother is scarier in the book. The Beldam, voiced by Teri Hatcher, is scary enough to give you nightmares. Still, Neil Gaiman is famous for being scary by NOT telling us certain things, or he has a way of describing them that just makes people shiver, or me at least. For example, when Coraline asks the Beldam to keep her word, the Beldam says she swears on her mother’s grave. Coraline asks if she even has a grave, to which the Beldam replies:“Oh yes. I put her in there myself. And when I found her trying to crawl out, I put her back.”Bloody terrifying! What the hell?! Another scary example is the Beldam’s blood. Near the end of Coraline, the black cat is thrown at the Beldam when she tries to escape. In the book:
“The cat made a deep, ululating yowl and sank its teeth into the other mother’s cheek. She was flailing at it. Blood ran from the cuts on her white face – not red blood but a deep, tarry black stuff… It (the black cat) hissed, and swiped its scalpel-sharp claws at the other mother’s face in one wild rake which left black ooze trickling from several gashes on the other mother’s nose.”In the book, I have already mentioned that Coraline is more sceptical about it, but this is so because the Beldam still has some disturbing features she couldn’t change. Gaiman describes her like this:
“She looked a little like Coraline’s mother… Only her skin was white as paper. Only she was taller and thinner. Only her fingers were too long, and they never stopped moving, and her dark red fingernails were curved and sharp… And then she turned around. Her eyes were big black buttons.”The Beldam in the movie is precisely like Coraline’s mum in appearance, except for the eyes, of course. It is said that the film creators could have chosen to do this to draw out the length of the reveal of the other mother’s proper form. Throughout the movie, we see her slowly transforming into her standard monstrous form.
Coraline Calls The Police
After Coraline discovers out her parents are missing and that the Beldam has them trapped in a mirror, they communicate with Coraline by writing “help us” on the glass. She realises she’ll have to go back to the Other World to rescue them. In the movie, Coraline arms herself to face off against the Beldam. In the book, however, Coraline decides to call the police first. They think this is a joke and urge her to sleep.
The Basement Scene with the Other Father
Most scenes that feature dangerous situations in Coraline differ from book to screen. In the basement scene in the book where Coraline has to blind her other dad and quietly escape so he can’t hear her, which is freaky as hell, Gaiman wrote:
“Coraline made a noise, a sound of revulsion and horror, and, as if it had heard her and awakened, the thing began to sit up. Coraline stood there, frozen. The thing turned its head until both its black button eyes were pointed straight at her. A mouth opened in the mouthless face, strands of pale stuff sticking to the lips, and a voice that no longer even faintly resembled her father’s whispered, “Coraline.”‘
This scene is replaced in the movie by the less scary (but creepy) garden scene with her other dad on the back of a praying mantis. He apologizes and says he doesn’t want to hurt her in the film, which is also covered in the book. The other father tells Coraline to run in this book because:
“[the Beldam] wants me to hurt you, to keep you here forever… She is pushing me so hard to hurt you. I cannot fight her.”
There’s a theory about her other dad that I will discuss later, which I think is exciting and links to this scene.
The Rats
In the book, the mice become rats in the other world with red eyes and sharp teeth. The night that Coraline’s mum shows her there is nothing but a brick wall behind the locked door, Coraline is falling asleep, but then she hears a strange noise, hum… I wonder what that is? She gets out of bed to look because… Of course, she did. So, Coraline is afraid, yet she follows the noise anyway, showing either bravery or stupidity. I know I certainly wouldn’t get out of bed. I’d just scream for my mum… and I’m 23.She spots a spider-like object scuttling into the drawing room. She runs after it and turns the light on. What does she see? The door is cracked open. How did that happen? Menacing. Coraline is just too fascinated with this mysterious door for it to open by itself… The house has the force (there’s got to be a Star Wars joke somewhere). She goes back to bed and dreams of rats singing an ominous song:
“We are small, but we are many, we are many, we are small We were here before you rose. We will be here when you fall.”Well, that’s not terrifying. The mouse circus sing an even creepier song near the end of the book when Coraline tries to find the third soul in Mr Bobo’s flat.
“We have eyes, and we have nerveses, we have tails we have teeth You’ll all get what you deserveses, when we rise from underneath.”In the film, one mouse runs out from underneath the bed and leads her to the door. The movie doesn’t have the super creepy rhymes from the mice. I bet that’d give the kids nightmares.
The Other Mr Bobo
The odd man upstairs is called Mr Bobo in the book and not Bobinski. Another difference is that Mr Bobo raises rats instead of mice in the book. He is creepy in the other world, even being described as hungry. Mr Bobo materialised in the doorway of Coraline’s other bedroom after the rats’ creepy rhymes. Go away, old man! Where’s the pepper spray when you need it? He asks Coraline to come upstairs to visit, but she tells him she doesn’t want to. Gaiman wrote,“There was something hungry in the old man’s button eyes that made Coraline feel uncomfortable. Coraline could hear the rats whispering to each other, although she could not tell what they were saying. She was not certain that she wanted to know what they were saying.”
The Other Miss Spink and Miss Forcible
In the movie, the other Miss Spink and Miss Forcible’s performance includes a stunt in which they swing from trapezes, pick Coraline up, swing her through the air, and dive into a tiny bucket of water. They then form a human tower by balancing one another, with Coraline at the top. While the theatre and the ladies’ act also appear in the book, the show’s stunts are much darker. Instead of trapeze, the women volunteer Coraline to participate in a dagger-throwing trick. They place her in front of a board and put a balloon on top of her head while the Other Miss Spink blindfolds Forcible and spins her around. Disoriented and unable to see, Forcible hurls a blade toward Coraline, who “held her breath and squeezed her fingers into two tight fists.” Luckily, the edge pops the balloon instead of hitting Coraline, and she wins a box of chocolates. I think this scene was changed for the film because perhaps it was a little more visually stunning to the audience to see a wild, fast-paced trapeze act, I don’t know. Another difference between the book and the movie is at the end when Coraline tries to retrieve the souls of the kids trapped with the Beldam. In the film, Coraline finds a giant, wrapped sweet wrapper on stage, in which Spink and Forcible hold the soul inside. Their dogs have also turned into bat creatures. In the book, however, it is a lot grosser than that. I wish it were sweets. Instead, the soul is in a “grayish-white” sac that resembles a nest of spider eggs and is described as “twice the size of Coraline herself, and it stuck to the back wall like a slug.” Gaiman writes,“Inside the sac was something that looked like a person, but a person with two heads, with twice as many arms and legs as it should have. The creature in the sac seemed horribly unformed and unfinished as if two plasticine people had been warmed and rolled together, squashed and pressed into one thing.”Coraline has to reach her hand into the…
“…sticky, clinging whiteness of the stuff” that “clung to her skin and clothes like a spiderweb clings, like white cotton candy.”Of course, she is trying not to wake the creatures inside the sac. That goes well.
The Dog Usher Refers To All The Other Children The Beldam Has Trapped
In both the book and the movie, Coraline enters the flat of the other women to discover a theatre with an audience of dogs. Unlike in the film, in the book, one of the dogs approaches Coraline and asks to see her ticket, saying:
“I haven’t got all day, you know. You can’t watch the show without a ticket.”
and when Coraline tells the dog she doesn’t have one, he grumbles:
“Another one. Come in here, bold as anything. ‘Where’s your ticket?’ ‘Haven’t got one,’ I don’t know… Come on, then.”
Not everyone picks up on this foreshadowing moment when reading the book. Still, he refers to the other children trapped in the other mother’s world. Of course, Coraline doesn’t realise this at the time, but knowing the rest of the story makes this conversation creepy.
The Endings Are Different
Many fans, including myself, find the ending to the book much better than the movie. In the book, Coraline already knows that the Beldam’s hand gets into her world, so she sets a trap to catch it by setting up a tea party on top of the well. It’s another example of her being “brave, tricky, and wise,” and she even does it days after her big escape. How was she so patient? How wasn’t she terrified? In the book, Gaiman describes when Coraline sees the hand coming into her world, writing:
“Coraline’s mouth dropped open in horror and she stepped out of the way as the thing clicked and scuttled past her and out of the house, running crablike on its too-many tapping, clicking, scurrying feet… Five-footed, crimson-nailed, the color of bone. It was the other mother’s right hand.”
In the movie version, Wybie helps Coraline get rid of the hand in the well once she finds out it came over with them. It might be more exciting than having a few regular days before the big trap. It translates better into the film, but Gaiman’s is more satisfying.
Conclusion
So, these are all the differences I made between the book and film of Coraline, and I love both. The book is worth reading, and the film is worth watching as they are both wondrously entertaining. Did I miss any differences? I probably did, but I enjoyed researching these things and watching Coraline so many times to try to figure out any more differences from the book.
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