A classic fairy tale

Rating: 8/10 (25 October 2013)

This movie is considered a classic and to some people the greatest movie of all time. I think that it is quite a good movie but would not go as far as that. What the Princess Bride is is a fairy tale designed to capture the hearts and fantasies of those who watch it, and this movie succeeds in what it sets out to do, but to understand what the Princess Bride really is, one must look at its origins because, unlike most films, it has a very strange origin indeed, and in fact until the film was made, it was incredibly obscure. But before I discuss this, I will run through the plot.
The movie is based around Princess Buttercup and a farmboy Wesley. At the beginning of the movie we discover that they truly love each other, but Wesley is poor so sets off to make some money. During the time the evil Prince Humperdink sees Buttercup and decides that he wants to marry her, and as a prince he can marry who he likes. While out riding though she is kidnapped by a rather nasty character and his henchmen Inigo and Fenik. While sailing to another country Wesley, now known as the dread pirate Roberts, catches up with her and rescues her only to be captured by the evil prince Humperdink and sentenced to lie in the pit of despair for eternity.
As I said this film is your typical fairy tale with the beautiful woman, the evil prince, the dashing hero, and the nasty monsters. The original is also quite old, but if that is so, why is it not read to every child at bedtime? Well, the new book is very difficult to obtain: I managed to borrow it from a friend whose brother got it from America, and the original book is not exactly the type of book that one reads to children (though William Goldman, the screenwriter for the movie and the author of the new book claims that his Grandfather read it to him). The interesting thing is trying to date it from the movie and the new book. Goldman claims that the book that he wrote is a truncated version of the old book with only his comments added and the boring stuff excluded. Thus dating it would put it after the Russo-Japanese War of 1905 - as somewhere somebody mentions the foolishness of fighting a land war in Asia, and that is the first war in Asia that the Europeans lost (and the book does take a Euro-centric world view). Another line mentions the mafia (approximately 1850) and only criminals dwelling in Australia (1776, the year the first colony, a prison colony, was established in Australia). Only the last line I actually remember from the book.
Now what about the original? Well Goldman claims that the original author stated that the book was a exposition on the cultures of the nations of Florin and Guilder (which do not exist). The original supposedly contains chapters describing, intricately, princess Buttercup's wardrobe and other such stuff. The most disturbing part of the book is the end, where Wesley, Fenrik, and Inigo suddenly die from old wounds, and Humperdink catches up with Buttercup and forces her to marry him. The movie does not end in such a sadistic way, but when knowing about this ending, it opens one's eyes to the nature of the book. One wonders why such a good movie with such a good plot would use such pathetic names as Buttercup and Humperdink? The first answer is that it is a children's movie, but the main reason is that the original book is a satire. The story is supposed to be a fairytale, but the sadistic ending seems to show how pathetic the happily ever after endings are simply unrealistic and stupid.
It sounds as if the original book was some long and boring treatise with pockets of interesting story thrown in (a little like Moby Dick, which seems to be a text-book on whaling with the story of the fanatical captain Ahab thrown in). The movie on the otherhand is quite enjoyable and we must thank Goldman's grandfather for putting Goldman through the torture of listening to the story yet having the desire to rerelease it in its new, enjoyable, form. I do wonder is the original did exist, but my friend seems convinced that it does.