Welcome to the second part of my post on how the 2012 film 'Abraham Lincoln: Vampire Hunter' varies from the source material.
The villains in the film don't exist in the book
You heard it right, the villains in the film don't exist in the book, they're new. In the book there isn't a central villain, it is more like the vampire race as a whole are the villain. So it makes sense why they adapted the story to give the audience some main characters to concentrate on.
There is no train of silver
Another new piece of work, in the novel the story revolves around a group of vampires called the Union, who campaign to get Abraham in The White House in order to fight slavery in the south. Without slavery then many vampires wouldn't be able to feed as freely as they had been, and their growing numbers would become more difficult to conceal from the New World. This gets tied in with the Civil War, with vampires desperately fighting for their survival. It was a smart decision to add this into the story, because otherwise the whole second part of the film would have been revolving politics, and although it would have been interesting, it would have lost half the audience. So they through in an awesome action sequence with guns, axes and explosions. Need we ask for more? This leads onto my next point...
Abe Lincoln seems very agile with an ax for a fifty year old man
A bit of a fault with the film, no matter how good he was at killing vampires, by the time a man reaches fifty, he simply cannot swing an ax that hard or jump that far. In the book Abe has well and truly retired from vampire hunting. He does do one more hunt (in a the mansion, so they film changed the timing and cause of that part of the story, and made it better), where we find out that he is too old to hunt. He makes mistakes, he's slow, he can't keep up with vampires anymore, he cannot match their strength. In fact he gets injured in the book, not badly, a vampire gets a hold of his ax and swings it at him, cutting his chin (the author uses this as a reason for why Lincoln grey a beard, clever).
Who's this William Johnson guy?
In all honesty I cannot remember if he is in the book, if he is, it is a minor part. In the film he is really important to the story, it can be seen as good and bad, to be honest I don't know why they put him in instead of Armstrong (possibly to tie in with the slavery theme, that's not be being racist by the way). He is a good character, played very well by Anthony Mackie, and for anyone who hasn't read the book he doesn't seem out of place. I'll just say the inclusion/creation of this character has its perks, but it means missing out other important characters.
The story doesn't end with Abe and Mary going to the theater...
The film ends with Abe giving Henry his journal to look after and he and Mary heading off to the theater. Anyone who knows their history knows what happens next. In the book, the story goes on, in goes into his assassination (by a vampire), how long it takes for him to die, the hunt for his killer (and his killers death at the hands of Henry) and the journey Abe (and his son Thomas') bodies takes on train in order to make it back to their home town. It is really interesting when you read it, because most of it is based on fact. That's what I love about this novel. Again I understand why they changed it, to keep the film a decent length (not to drag it out) and after his assassination, the pace slows right down, on screen it would be quite boring t anyone who wasn't interested in the history.
The ending to the book is so much better! Warning, the biggest spoiler so far
The final scene in the film is Henry in modern day, asking the same question he asked Abe to another man. Now the book ends in the sixties. It simply shows a picture of Martin Luther King Jr, and the final three sentences of this book are brilliant! I loved it! It simply states "A defining day in a man's struggle for freedom. Not unlike the day Abraham Lincoln was laid to rest, ninety-eight years before. The day Henry made a choice...that some men are just too interesting to die". How amazing is that ending!
What happened to the guy who was writing the book?
The book revolves primarily around a collection of Abe's journals, the film misses out the importance of these, the whole first section of the book is about Henry putting his trust in a failing author to write a novel about Abraham's secret life. So whereas the book is an account of Abraham's life, the sources being both the history books and his journal, the film is just looking at the events and putting them on screen. I can understand why they didn't go from this point of view, because it wouldn't have worked with their whole "A man only gets this drunk if he is going to kiss a girl or kill a man" theme.
So there we have it, those are what I see as the major points they changed in the transaction from novel to film. I'll probably think of a few more over the next few days, I always do.
As usual if you have any comments, or any questions of your own feel free to get in contact with me, on here or on various social networking sites (details are on the main page).
'Abraham Lincoln: Vampire Hunter' is a good film and a great book, I would highly recommend both of them.
