Lord of the Flies (1963)

Now for the 1963 movie: Well, for the most part the acting is decent (Ralph and Simon are especially good) and the scenery depicts images from the book well. (I love the scene with the choir boys walking on the beach in their costumes!) Unfortunately, this movie is just too rushed in its storytelling and too short to have the same lasting effect as the book. The movie kind of zipped through the first half of the book within 20 minutes, and the characters weren't given enough solo screen time, so their personalities don't really shine like they did in the book. (For example, Roger is taken as a very minor character except when he suddenly killed Piggy, so I didn't really feel that he was representing all that is evil in human nature.)

I also never really felt the rivalry building up between Jack and Ralph in the movie, since there weren't really enough examples of it. (For example: Before Jack became a savage, there was only the one scene in which Jack argues with Ralph and says "Bollocks to the rules!" He then became a savage soon after. I would have liked to see more arguments between Jack and Ralph before Jack went ahead in becoming a savage.)

And the name "Lord of the Flies" is never explained or even mentioned during the entire film (except when it is displayed during the opening and closing credits, of course). This is probably one of the most important examples of symbolism in the entire book!

Finally there's the ending, which doesn't include the scene painted by the last two paragraphs. These lines are, IMHO, the most powerful in the book. I was expecting a scene to go with these lines, one that would really hit home. Instead the movie just ends when the officer appears.

I suppose I'll give the movie 3 out of 5.