Have you ever watched “Mrs. Peregrine’s Home for the Peculiar Children”? Have you ever heard of the book? This article covers some of the many differences between the two, and why the books are much better. One such difference is the “Wights” (people who eat the children’s souls), there is a major difference between the Wights in the books and the movie.
The book series is about Mrs Peregrine’s children-who she saved from their awful families and lives-and a newcomer to their group, Jacob Portman. They go on adventures and save each other and even their precious caregiver. For the entire second book and most of the third book, the kids are trying to save Mrs. Peregrine after she was kidnapped. They go against Wights-the main bad guys- and “Hollows”-even worse bad guys- and nearly die every time. In the end the peculiar children do prevail in the countless amounts of situations every time and are able to save their beloved caretaker.
A reason why people should read the books instead of watching the movie is because of the Wights. In the books the Wights lost their peculiar abilities because of an accident in the summer of 1908. The process in which a Hollow becomes a Wight is quite gruesome. The Hollow needs to eat enough peculiar souls in order to become Wights. The difference between the Wights in the books and the movies is that they have lost their abilities due to the accident. The only exception to this rule is Caul, because he inherited his sister’s powers, and she was an “Ymbrine.” Ymbrines are women who have time manipulation powers and they also can shapeshift into a bird, and they protect the peculiar children of the world and hold them in what is called a loop. Loops are never ending repeats of any day of the year, the Ymbrine chooses. Like in the book, Mrs. Peregrine decides to have the day be September 3rd, 1941 (and Caul technically couldn’t be an Ymbrine because he’s a boy) but, in the movie they for some reason have peculiar abilities. Like the Wight, Mr. Barron.
Mr. Barron in the movies is the main antagonist, and he is able to shapeshift into other people and other things, which should not have happened. He doesn’t exist in the book, instead it was Jacob’s therapist, Dr. Golan who was the main antagonist in the first book. Another one of the Wights that go against the rule is the Wight named Mr. Gleeson. He is the Wight who controls ice, or in other words is a Cryokinetic. He somehow kills Emma-or in this movie, Olive- and Emma is brought back to life by Enoch. This wouldn’t have ever happened. Mainly because Mr. Gleeson never existed.
And lastly, I will talk about the Hollows. The Hollows in this movie are depicted as tall, skinny creatures with no eyes, and they were also seen as incredibly pale. But, while there is a small factor in these depictions that is incorrect, there is a much larger problem with what they do. It’s how they eat peculiar children’s eyes. They only do this once, and that’s in the fourth book, “The Map of Days.” This is when Jacob meets another person who can see and hunt Hollows, and this person trains Jacob for a short while until he dies. When he dies, his pet Hollow eats his eyes, and turns into a human. This was the only occurrence of this happening. How Hollows in the books actually kill peculiar children is much more gruesome, where the Hollow uses one of its many tongues and captures a peculiar child and just basically drags the kid kicking and screaming into its mouth, and devours it. This is all that is problematic with Hollows, compared to other reasons why this movie just basically just created a whole new plot.
Other people may have contradicting feelings about this movie. They may love this movie, and it may even be their favorite movie, but, to others that have read the books, this is not the case. According to the site Word Press, the movie just shoves everything it can into it so it can fit everything. This is supported by the quote by Word Press, “It feels like the movie is more or less going through the motions, speeding up the story to squeeze it all in.” This shows how even other readers agree with how the movies don’t do enough justice with some parts of the book. It shows how the movies just basically tried to make a new story.
In the end, all the reasons stated in this article show how the movie doesn’t do the books enough justice. These reasons talk about how the movie’s multiple problems go against the plot of the book, and completely change the story. These reasons include: the problems that the movie made when creating the Wights, and the Hollows. These reasons are why everyone should read the Mrs. Peregrine books instead of watching the movie.
