With Tom Hanks at the forefront, Forrest Gump was always bound to be a success in film form. It offers various ‘slice of life’ perspectives on the growth and maturation of the titular character as he explores a multitude of increasingly unlikely scenarios as he develops from boy to man. Hanks is heart-warming, and the colorful palette of characters Gump interacts with each bring their own life to the story.
What many may not realize, is that the film was first released in book form by writer Winston Groom. There were a lot of differences between his original vision for the story and what ended up on our screens.
Forrest Gump’s Personality
In both the book and film, Forrest is portrayed as rather childlike, innocent and kind-hearted. One of the slight discrepancies in his portrayal comes in his IQ. Of course, much of the storyline lives and dies with the fact that Forrest doesn’t have the highest IQ in the world, otherwise he wouldn’t end up in many of the situations he is in.
While this is pretty much consistent in the film, the book shows Forrest to have a strange proclivity towards occasional things, such as physics. Book-Forrest also swears non-stop but doesn’t utter a bad word once in the film.
The Chess
Obviously, a film is only so long. Push three hours and people start walking out. As such, Robert Zemeckis had a time constraint, within which he could only allow Forrest to get up to a finite amount of adventures. One that didn’t make the cut was one of those which showed Forrest to have a high IQ in certain regards (which the film didn’t show). He became incredibly gifted at chess, ending up world-class and getting up to various adventures around the world off of the back of his gift.
Forrest And Jenny
Jenny was Forrest’s source of undying love pretty much consistently from their time as children right the way up to the end of the film, at which point we discover the two had a child together. Sadly, Jenny dies just a year after Forrest finally gets what he craved so dearly.
In one way, things are a lot meaner in the book, even if Jenny didn’t end up dying. The book sees Forrest find out he is the father of Jenny’s child, but instead of finally getting to (at least temporarily) be with her, she goes off with another man to raise their child.
The Shrimp
The first big difference in how Forrest’s shrimping business is portrayed between the book and film is that Forrest has a little ape assistant in the book. They find their shrimp in shallow pools together. In the film, Forrest teams up with Lt. Dan, and they have a boat to help them out. The second element of this endeavor that doesn’t quite match up is the outcome. In the book, Forrest gives up on the business and ends up traveling around as a one-man-band. In the film, he simply hands the business over to Dan, with none of the one-man-band stuff.
Forrest’s Legs
In the film, Forrest’s iconic run is foreshadowed by a long childhood full of leg braces and bullying. Forrest’s crooked spine meant that he couldn’t walk properly from an early age, and a young Jenny was forced to yell those iconic lines, “run Forrest, run!” as he evaded bullies.
There is no mention of any sort of leg issue in the books. Furthermore, rather than running away from his bullies, a far more burly book version of the character simply punches them all.
The Run
Speaking of the run from the end of Forrest Gump, it doesn’t happen at all in the book. This is probably the reason that Forrest doesn’t run from his bullies at the start of the book, and why he doesn’t have such crippling leg problems: He doesn’t require them for foreshadowing purposes! Groom must be pretty annoyed he didn’t come up with that bit himself, considering the run has arguably become the most iconic part of the film, even if it is one of the moments that makes the least sense.
The President And The Pee
One major example of a change between the books and films comes in the entire sequence in which Forrest meets the president. In the film, he becomes a football star, meeting the president because of this, then drinking seven Dr. Pepper’s and telling President Kenney that “he has to pee”.
In the book, he isn’t a world-famous football star, but a high school player. The person who provides his award isn’t the president, and the reason “he has to pee” is because he drank two Slurpee’s. Forrest did later meet President Johnson, but thanks to his military service instead.
The Box Of Chocolates
Without a doubt the most enduring line from Forrest Gump is when the titular character explains that his mother used to say, “life is like a box of chocolates. You never know what you’re gonna get”. It’s a great phrase that makes perfect sense. In the books, it’s much less prominent and impactful. In fact, it doesn’t even make much sense: “being an idiot is no box of chocolates”.
Bubba
The first visual difference between Bubba’s portrayal in the books and films is that the films show him to be black, while the books describe him as white. In terms of his actions, the two meet at university in the books, rather than in the army. Their first encounter comes when Forrest is in the football team, not when they’re in basic training.
Forrest The Astronaut
Possibly for pacing reasons, possibly for budget reasons, possibly for believability reasons. Whichever reason Zemeckis chose to leave out the fact that Forrest became an astronaut in the books makes a lot of sense.
It’s a particularly strange tangent that sees Forrest go into space, meet an ape called Sue, and crash in a jungle full of cannibals who take them hostage. Yeah, pretty weird, right?