Can any point out any differences in the Branagh version and the book? Will be greatly appreciated?

-- Amanda Jones (candychick2005@aol.com), April 10, 2003

Answers

Well, that whole "Fortinbras thing" at the end with the soldiers crashing through windows and such was a complete "Branagh-ism" (not in the play, but a cool visual).

-- Casey (mikken@neo.rr.com), April 14, 2003.

Possibly you could say that in Branagh's version Hamlet isn't responsible for Laertes' death, since Laertes falls from a great height onto a very hard floor. In the script it seems that Laertes definitely dies from his own poison, administered unknowingly by Hamlet. Plus, there is no funeral scene in the script. And the symbolic destruction of the Old Hamlet statue isn't there. And in WS it might well not be meant to be Winter, since according to Gertrude, Ophelia has just died after making flower wreaths.

-- catherine england (catherine_england@hotmail.com), June 06, 2003.

Fortinbras' army pulls down the statue of old Hamlet that we see in the beginning of the movie. It emphasizes the end of Elsinore, and the end of the cycle of destruction prompted by old Hamlet's death.

-- Tasha (lizziebdarcy@yahoo.com), June 14, 2003.

I don't believe that in the movie Branagh portrayed Laertes' death as an accidental fall from a height, for he was clearly well and living, and died from the strength off the poison. Now if I'm wrong with this, I think the reason that Laertes' death was portrayed from the fall was to allow Hamlet the time to take his revenge on Claudius with Hamlet himself dying, for he too dies from the poison.

I think was to try and keep the time running at a believable rate...

-- Rachel Hatton (hattonhead@aol.com), July 16, 2003.

I agree with that: Hamlet is the first to get poisened... but the last to die. So, yes, they had to 'invent' some reasons for the King and Laertes to die before Hamlet, although they were poisoned with the same potion.

-- Liwan Bowén (llbowen@hotpop.com), August 05, 2003.

What silly talk. It is simply theatrical necessity. It needn't be analysed to such pedantic extremes.

-- Patrick Walker (criesandwhispers666@yahoo.com), August 05, 2003.

Of course it needn't. But dammit, it's fun.

-- catherine england (catherine_england@hotmail.com), August 05, 2003.

Also keep in mind that where one is injected with poison contributes to how quickly one will die. For instance if Hamlet is stabed in the arm and Larities (please forgive me for not knowing how to spell that exactly) is stabed in the shoulder Hamlet may have a few more minutes until the poison takes his life.

-- Jessy Robichau (ladymacbeth520@comcast.com), February 26, 2005.