During high school, every child is forced to sit through four years of English classes. Of those four years, two of them are probably spent reading Shakespeare. By the time they are out of there, students never want to hear “to be or not to be” ever again.
Little do they know that they are never done being exposed to the work of The Bard even when they go to the movies or pop in a DVD.
There are many movies based on Shakespeare’s works, although you may not know that they are originally related to a play.
The Play: Romeo and Juliet
The Movie: Warm Bodies
The Similarities: Two crazy kids fall in love and are from totally different walks of life. Julie is one of the dwindling human population, and R is an undead zombie with a hoarding problem. Juliet is a Capulet and Romeo is a Montague. Same idea, right?
Her father is completely against their union, and eventually there are some pretty drastic changes in how the two groups work together. R’s bff is named M, a nod to Romeo’s best friend Mercutio.
The Differences: Well, first of all there are zombies and bonies, who are pretty much zombies who no longer have any sort of humanity left.
The whole aspect about the Romeo character going through a transformation did not really happen in Romeo and Juliet, while R obviously starts to change back into a human complete with heartbeat.
The character M is also quite different from Mercutio. In the beginning of the movie, M seems set in a state of status quo (maybe because he is dead), but as the movie progresses, he breaks out of the undead stereotype. Mercutio seems to be eager for adventure until he finally dies.
The Play: Taming of the Shrew
The Movie: 10 Things I Hate About You
The Similarities: Pretty much the whole general plot. Katherina and Bianca are sisters, the former being an untamable man-hater and the latter being a desirable young girl who is very interested in the courtship process.
Their dad says Bianca cannot date (or get married) until Katherina does, so one of Bianca’s suitors pays someone to woo the older sister.
The Differences: The way Patrick treats Kat once they are together is much different than the way Petrucio treats Katherina once they are together. Patrick is sweet to Kat and does genuinely care for her. Petrucio practically starves Katherinam claiming that nothing is good enough for her, but he is really just trying to completely break her will.
The characters of Lucentio and Hortensio seem to be combined into Joey and Cameron, but it is difficult to tell which character in the play is reflected in which character in the movie, although it is safe to assume that ultimately Lucentio is most similar to Cameron because both end up winning the younger sister’s heart.
The Play: Hamlet
The Movie: Lion King
The Similarities: The evil uncle kills his brother, the king. The rightful prince ends up in exile for a while, during which the evil uncle takes control of the kingdom.
The boy is put under the care of two colorful characters that later get the original story told from their point of view (Rosencrantz and Guildenstern are Dead and Lion King 1 ½). The prince comes back to take his rightful place and defeat his uncle.
The Differences: The relationship between Simba and Nala is a bit better than the relationship between Hamlet and Ophelia. Also, Simba and Nala end up married while Hamlet and Ophelia end up dead.
I am also really glad that Scar does not end up with Sarabi, Simba’s mom. Can you imagine the discussions that parents would have had to have with their children about marrying your dead husband’s brother or dead brother’s widow?
Plus, could you imagine what Hamlet would sound like if it were a musical? Oh wait. They did that. It’s called Hamlet 2.
Becki Brown
Senior Features Editor