*Spoiler Alert* This article is an in-depth analysis of the book and movie and spoilers are inevitable.

Johnny Tremain is a Newbery Medal-winning novel by Esther Forbes and in 1957 Disney made it into a movie.
In the story of Johnny Tremain, the main character, Johnny, is working as an apprentice silversmith in colonial Boston. His master, Mr. Lapham, receives an order from one of the richest men in Boston, and their landlord, Mr. John Hancock, to remake a silver basin in a week. However, time runs short and Johnny is forced to work on the basin on a Sunday. During the process, the liquid silver spills over the counter and Johnny Tremain slips and presses his hands on it. The result was that his thumb and forefinger melted together and he was forced to look for work elsewhere. It is then that he decides that he must go to relative Jonathan Lyte, show him a family heirloom, and hope that Mr. Lyte will take him in. However, Mr. Lyte tries to take the heirloom away by accusing Johnny Tremain of stealing the heirloom. Johnny eventually wins the lawsuit and in the process is taken in by new friends, one of them, Rab Silsbee, at the printing press The Boston Observer. Through his connections at The Boston of Liberty, Johnny is thrown into the world of the Sons of Liberty, assists at the Boston Tea Party, and is present at Lexington and Concord.

One of the major differences between the book and the movie is the absence of certain minor characters in the movie. In the book, they were a source of antagonism for Johnny (Dove the apprentice), or they were the subject of substory threads (Isannah Lapham). Whatever their role, their presence in the book added depth and a feeling of reality. Their absence from the movie made the story shallow and one-tracked.

Another difference would be the importance of certain events. In the book, important events are things such as  Johnny burning his hand, meeting Rab, working as a messenger for the Redcoats, the revelation of Livinia Lyte, the Battle of Lexington and Concord, and the healing of his hand. This sequence of events is centered around Johnny’s personal life and not on the politics around him, though they do shape him. In the movie, the important parts are mainly political: the lawsuit against Mr. Lyte, the Boston Tea Party, the secret meetings at The Boston Observer, Johnny’s role in Paul Revere’s ride, and the Battle of Lexington and Concord. As a result, the movie is more about the beginning of the Revolutionary War and less about Johnny himself.

One important point to bring up is the style of storytelling. Esther Forbes is a skilled writer but the movie was of slightly lower quality. The acting of some of the minor characters was discordant and the general screenwriting was lacking somewhat in vivacity found in the book.

To sum up, the book and movie tell the same story, just from varying viewpoints. The book focuses on the personal life of Johnny Tremain as a struggling protagonist while the movie uses Johnny as a means of conveying the various politics surrounding the beginning of the Revolutionary War. Taking into account that the original story – the book written by Esther Forbes – was a masterpiece of historical fiction and the movie just did not give the same feeling of energy, the book was better.

Views express the opinion of the author and not necessarily those of MODG News.