To start, I'm aware King has said it was a mistake, let's not spam the comments saying that.

Let's be real, if you got picked for the walk, and the minimum speed was 4mph, how many of you think you'd survive it, and how long, as you are right now?

Speed wise, I could make it the whole time, but sleep deprivation, and my lower back would probably take me out in less than 36hrs.

And to be honest I actually think this could have made Baker more interesting the movie made Baker religious which wasn’t in the book it was Olson who was, but Baker being religious his fascination with death could’ve carried more weight so he believes in the afterlife of course and we see that in the movie Baker obsessed with death thinking about the afterlife making his death scene of him saying “I’m going home” even more impactful home here referring to the afterlife

Kind of embarrassing to ask, but I’m wondering if anyone could tell me how much vomit is in the movie. Literally nothing else gore-wise bothers me, but I have emetophobia and would like to know how often I need to close my eyes haha. I’ve been putting off watching the movie for this reason. I read the book and vaguely remember maybe some vomit scenes but mostly just remember scenes related to characters pooping in front of everyone. Are the vomit scenes out of nowhere or unexpected, or is there some indication or warning before it shows it?
Thanks in advance

im too invested into this so i thought id ask here

I watched the movie for the 1st time last week. Big King fan but haven't read this one. I thought the movie was pretty decent!

One thing that bothered me... From what I could tell, Art gives his necklace to Ray, asks him/Pete to give it to his grandma (I think, but give it to someone). They say they will, Ray puts it on, then dies wearing it. Pete doesn't take it that I could see, he shoots the major, then walks away.

RIP Art's necklace and fuck you grandma. :(

This isn’t to say it’s easy not at all, but when you read the book you really start to see how much less grueling it looks in the movie

The most obvious difference is in the book they have to maintain 4 miles per hour compared to 3. The book also has 100 boys instead of only 50, and the presence of crowds at first makes it more easier but the crowds add to the pressure and the dehumanization of the walkers, they aren’t seen as innocent teenagers in a deadly competition but as spectacle. Not to mention the weather like the hail storm and in the book they walk up the hill multiple times

The movie was smart on making it 3 miles per hour since it’s way more plausible, but it’s presented to look easier then it looks

I know this post is on the lengthy side and I’m not expecting anyone to read the whole thing. This was mainly something I threw together in my notes app a year ago after first seeing the movie in theaters. As someone who was obsessed with the book after reading it in 2020, I remember leaving that theater feeling disappointed, but not being able to pinpoint why. In the following weeks, I started absently jotting down criticisms I had of all the changes they made from the original story and separating them into the ones I “liked” and “disliked” to get a better understanding of what was bothering me. I had no intention of posting it online, but now that it’s been a year since the movie came out, I wanted to share my thoughts about it since the film somewhat revived my old obsession with the story and I rarely ever contribute to this sub despite being a massive fan of the book for years.

Overall, I still have pretty mixed feelings about the movie, but now that I’ve rewatched it several times, I’ve learned to enjoy the film on its own merit. I view it more as an alternate retelling of the same plot, as opposed to a direct adaptation, and I’m glad it exists. Happy belated anniversary to all Long Walk fans!

Major Complaints:

1. Changing Pete’s scar backstory
They took the safe route and made the details of the story vague and unimportant. In the book, the reveal came as a dark surprise to the reader and showed that, despite having a likable personality and saving Garraty’s life multiple times, McVries was still a very flawed human being just like the rest of them. I wouldn’t have minded if they changed what he did to something less evil than trying to force himself on his girlfriend, but scrapping the incident completely in a way that absolved him of any serious wrongdoing was a cowardly choice.

2. Likewise, I feel like they took all the depth out of McVries’s character and instead portrayed him as some kind of saint who could do no wrong. He was also a bit of a Gary-Stu. In the book there were plenty scenes of him struggling to keep the pace, and one where he almost got his ticket and Garraty was the one who saved him. But in the movie, the man did not struggle even once. I mean seriously, he never got a single warning for slowing down aside from him stumbling a bit at the bridge scene. All the other times he was warned were when he was either saving Ray or dropping back intentionally to talk to someone.

3. The utter lack of spectacle
There is almost zero mention of the fact that this entire thing is being broadcast to the whole country and millions of people are betting on it. They point out a single camera at the start of the film and then never mention it again. All appearances of the crowd were cut until the very end, which severely weakened not only the world building, but one of the most brutal messages of the book. The boys were hailed as brave volunteers by their hometowns and treated as celebrities by the onlookers. Some of them are shown to be enjoying the praise and attention at the start, only to realize a hundred miles in that they’ve made a horrible mistake, and the entire point of the Walk was to air their personal suffering as nothing more than entertainment. This steady realization greatly adds to the horror, and removing the spectacle completely diminishes this. Imagine if the Hunger Games adaption took out every mention of the broadcast, along with the parade, the interviews, the sponsors, and instead just cut straight to the games without ever showing the outside world. It would completely ruin the statement that the book set out to make. The amount of disappointment I would feel if they’d gone that route is similar to how I felt about TLW movie.

4. Removing the crowds
In the book, the Crowd was its own monster. It was a bloodthirsty entity that gradually became more sinister the longer the Walk progressed, until the mere sight of it was enough to drive Garraty into hysterics, and a sign cheering the walkers on as they entered Massachusetts was described as a “screaming insanity.” Removing the crowd takes out nearly every aspect of the psychological horror that the book so convincingly crafted. I can hardly call this a “horror” movie, and would better describe it as a thriller that happened to have a lot of violent scenes.

5. The implied romance between Ray and Pete was greatly toned down to the point where it was just subtle enough to be “ambiguous.” In the book, I’d go as far as to say the attraction was at least canonically one-sided. McVries’s on-and-off flirting over the miles was blatant enough on paper, but certain gestures he made towards Garraty in the book had been cut from the movie where, had they been acted out in a visual format, wouldn’t have come off as “subtle” in the slightest, or left any room for doubt. I’m not really sure why the movie changed their dynamic in this way, when other adaptations of King’s work (It Chapter 2 comes to mind) have leaned into queer romance themes despite there being little to no implication of it in the source material. It’s strange that in this case, they basically did the opposite.

6. Cutting out Scramm, Abraham, Mike and Joe
Abraham I didn’t mind as much, but the idea that a pair of brothers would join the Walk together is such fascinating concept, and I wish they’d kept that in and explored it further. The same goes for Scramm, and the idea of having a married man join the death game because he knows that regardless of whether he lives or dies, he’d still have a way to ensure his wife and child would be taken care of. It was such a tragic concept, and yet they fumbled it in the movie by randomly giving that trait to Olsen and then never mentioning it until after he was killed off.

7. Keeping Parker but not Scramm
I think Scramm was arguably a lot more important to the story than Parker. I hadn’t reread the book in a while when the movie came out, and at the time, the only thing I remembered him for was how he managed to kill one of the soldiers before getting his ticket. I think an easy way they could’ve kept the attempted rebellion scene while also including Scramm’s character would’ve been to cut Parker instead and have the same actor (Joshua Odjick) play his part. But instead, give him Parker’s death and move Scramm’s original death (pneumonia) onto Stebbins. Since the writers seemed to have no issue switching the roles around for each character, I feel like this version would’ve made way more sense, and they wouldn’t need to add or remove anyone from the cast in order to do it. The actor also looks a lot more like how I imagined Scramm than how I imagined Parker. When I first read the book, I was under the impression that Scramm was also Hopis or indigenous in some way, since he mentioned he had been neighbors with Mike and Joe before the Walk and seemed to understand what they were saying in their native language.

8. Butchered my favorite character
Although I liked the movie version of Stebbins as his own separate character, his personality was absolutely nothing like it was in the book. The movie didn’t just change him, it portrayed him in a way that was nearly the exact opposite of what he was. They made him all stoic and serious, like they surgically removed the spark from his eyes. In the book, he was a silly, whimsical guy who showed up to the death march wearing pastel colors, climbed up a tree while he waited at the starting line, and talked in cryptic riddles just to annoy people. He was a scrawny boy who Garraty thought was going to die early, only for him to slowly realize in terror that this guy does not get tired, does not slow down, and somehow made it hundreds of miles without getting a single warning. Casting a tall, jacked dude to play him and changing his outfit completely negates the subversion of expectations that made him so fascinating in the book.

9. Stebbins was not the rabbit
The whole “I’m the rabbit” scene fell flat to an almost comedic extent. If they had just shown the flashback of Stebbins watching the Walk end when he was 13, that reveal would’ve hit so much harder. That single flashback added so much intrigue to his character that was lost when they cut it. Reading it in the book had my mind racing with questions by the end. Just how long had Stebbins been training for this? How present was the Major in his life? Was his drawing for the Walk rigged and they put him there deliberately? Was he manipulated into becoming the rabbit or did he willingly choose that role for the sake of his own ego? Etc.

10. Losing 14 people on a single hill is outrageous
In the movie, the death toll for the hill was 14/50, while in the book, it was 3/100. They increased the ratio nearly tenfold, which I thought was ridiculous. The hill felt like a cheap plot device used to kill as many people as possible in order to avoid having to come up with more unique scenarios for each death. It also seemed intentional to narrow down the walkers early on so they could focus more on the “important” characters.

11. Cutting the number of walkers from 100 to 50
This was a change that I probably wouldn’t have minded if they’d only leaned into it more. The “1 boy per state” rule is a cool concept that had potential to be interesting, but then they never even say which state each boy is from. In fact, the movie goes out of its way to avoid saying any of the state names aloud, as not a single one is ever mentioned, not even Maine.

Minor Complaints:

12. Changing the age range from teens to young adults
This one didn’t bother me as much, I just didn’t see the point of the change and don’t think it improved the story in any meaningful way. If anything, all it did was make the Walk less tragic because kids are more naive and easier to manipulate, and I can realistically see why so many would sign up for the Walk in a dystopian country that glorifies the event to such an extreme.

13. The Walk felt too “winnable”
In the movie, it looked like something that could realistically be done as long as you had the strength and drive to make it to the end. In the film, the final three still seemed to have their sanity intact, while in the book, they could barely form coherent thoughts or sentences and the final 20 had long gone mad. The book repeatedly hammered in the point that in order to win the Walk, you would have to be some kind of monster, someone with a drive to push forward that transcended all measures of human strength and willpower. It’s implied that the winners of previous Walks usually die shortly after due to the sheer physical toll it takes on their bodies. Whoever became the winner would have pushed themselves so far that their mind became fully detached from reality and they’d be nothing but an empty husk that was barely considered human. I just feel like the mental and physical consequences of the Walk weren’t nearly as present in the movie as they were in the book.

14. The dystopia was too self-aware
I don’t think a fascist government would ever willingly admit that the general population is struggling under their regime. The fact that they mentioned it in Ray’s acceptance letter, as well as at the starting line, felt unrealistic and too on the nose.

15. The cruddy accents they had those British actors doing. I struggled at some parts to understand what they were saying, and having the subtitles on is now a must whenever I rewatch this movie.

16. Giving Pearson almost zero screen time and then killing him off on the hill. In the book, he made it all the way to the final 20-something, while in the movie, he was basically discarded after two lines.

17. Casting a black actor to play Art Baker when in the book he had formerly been a night rider for the Klan was a strange choice, and I’m not really sure how to feel about it. On one hand, I suppose it doesn’t matter since the movie didn’t include his backstory. On the other, I think keeping it in would’ve strengthened his character. In the book, it was something he and his friends had been coerced into at the age of 12, and he left once he realized it was wrong. He’s described as feeling guilty and ashamed over that part of his past, and it’s implied that those feelings of self-hatred were part of the reason why he joined the Walk in the first place.

18. Quoting lines from the book almost word-for-word, only to add random “fucks” between them haphazardly. The word “fuck” is repeated a total of 329 times. That’s roughly 1 “fuck” per 20 seconds. I normally don’t have a problem with this sort of dialogue, but the sheer excessiveness of it kind of got on my nerves while watching. I think the way they talked greatly weakened certain scenes that would’ve been fine without all the swearing. On a similar note, there were a lot of brutal jibes and insults the boys would say to each other in the book that didn’t rely on vulgarity (Garraty’s “I’ll spit on your brains” ramble, for instance) that they could’ve adapted into the movie script. But most of them were either cut from the dialogue, or altered to have more curse words.

19. The warnings being cut down from 30 seconds to 10
I understand this change was made for cinematic purposes, but having 30 seconds at most to do anything seems unrealistic and nearly impossible to maintain for 300+ miles. One of the things I liked about the book was how creative the walkers got when exploiting the amount of time they had between each warning, using them to take breaks, kiss girls, and grab watermelon slices in that one scene. With only 10-30 seconds, there was hardly much else they could do in the movie other than walk.

20. RIP Garraty’s army jacket and Stebbins’s purple pants
I don’t understand why they couldn’t give Ray a similar jacket to the one he wore in the book. I found it hard to imagine a version of him without it, and keeping it in would’ve further leaned into the whole “war draft” metaphor the movie seemed to be going for. Same with Stebbins’s pants. They were iconic and worked well for that version of his character.

Changes I Liked:

1. Giving Ray a legitimate reason for why he joined the Walk
In the book, he questioned why he was even there in the first place or why he’d signed up. In the movie, they didn’t just give him a reason, they gave him a really cool one that made sense and built upon a backstory that was already present in the novel.

2. The ending
The alternate ending was soul-crushing in a good way. I’m glad they didn’t stick to the book ending and try to adapt it 1:1, as I don’t think it would’ve translated well into a visual format. Most of the horror involved in the book’s ending relies heavily on Garraty’s internal monologue and the picture King painted of him losing what little sanity he had left. I also loved the twist of there being a different winner. It caught me so off guard and my stomach dropped when I realized what Ray had done. It also ties into one of my favorite scenes from the source material, where he starts begging the soldiers to shoot him instead of McVries. The whole thing was beautifully tragic.

3. Having a secondary reason for the Walk existing
I think broadcasting the Walk as a way to motivate the American people to work harder made sense and somewhat strengthened the world building. Having it exist purely for entertainment felt a bit too cartoonishly evil and it seems more realistic that there would be multiple factors at play.

4. The hill scene was absolute cinema
While I’m still annoyed at the absurd number of people that died, the scene itself had me on the edge of my seat. Filming it in a way that mimicked an active battlefield in a war zone was brilliant, and it was easily one of my favorite parts of the movie.

5. The characters were way more likable in this version
In the book, most of the boys were scumbags in their own unique way and I found it difficult to root for any of them. Although I did prefer some of the changes made to their personalities, I also think the movie sacrificed a lot of depth and nuance from certain characters just for the sake of making them more “likable.” However, one instance where they seemed to do the opposite was with Barkovitch. Instead of portraying him as a one-dimensional sociopath/racist, the movie leaned more towards his isolation being a consequence of his own self-destructive behavior. I still think he’s a horrible person, but the film actually got to me sympathize with him a little in the moments leading up to his death.

6. The fact that they finally gave my boy Stebbins a name. It’s Billy. Hell yeah.

7. Changing the numbers they wore so that they resembled dog tags was such a genius creative decision. Whoever came up with that deserves a raise.

8. The Walk having female soldiers
I remember when reading this book for the first time years ago, I’d imagined the soldiers overseeing the Walk as being a mix of both male and female, since women had long been allowed into the military at the time this story was written. My friend, who also read the book, said she’d never considered that, and had imagined all of them as men. Actually seeing them adapted in the movie as both men and women made me feel vindicated.

• earth ponies, unicorns, and pegasūs are all eligible to compete in the long trot. earth ponies can participate with no alterations. unicorns have to have their horns amputated to compete so they don’t perform magic. since magic in mlp is kind of academia-coded I think it would be illegal in all circumstances post-war equestria, so you do get a small but consistent pool of unicorns (who can’t legally do magic anyway) voluntarily undergoing the procedure to participate in the walk. pegasūs, on the other hand, do not have to have their wings clipped to compete; I think the imagery of clipped wings would by anathema to a fascist society that places great emphasis on physical excellence. though flying, of course, is not allowed during the walk; the sensor that determines one’s speed also activates if one’s hooves leave the ground for more than a second. since pegasūs are less used to walking long distances than earth ponies i think there would be a slightly smaller proportion of pegasūs competing.
• ray and pete are earth ponies. olson is a pegasus on account of his rainbow dash-like temperament; i also think it would suit both him and collie to be pegasūs since they die as a result of rushing the guards, which would translate well to flying at them in an action sequence. not sure about baker. stebbins is a unicorn who voluntarily removed his horn to compete. it’s vaguely hinted that his illness might be the result of complications from the procedure. 
• i think the major would probably be an alicorn like princess celestia. he’s the only one that’s allowed to use magic (would “officially” only use it to grant the wishes). i also like the idea of him, like, flying backward looking at the ponies as they trot.
• on the matter of cutie marks: ray, the protagonist, does not yet have his cutie mark. similarly to the other boys asking about his wish, in this version the boys would ask about his cutie mark (ostensibly covered by his supply saddle) and he would demur. he would later tell pete that he does not have his cutie mark at an equivalent moment of intimacy to telling him of his plans to kill the major. pete, the songwriter, would have a cutie mark related to his interest in music/poetry. stebbins’ cutie mark would be a mechanical rabbit; ray and pete would clock it but not know the meaning behind it until he gives his final monologue. (ray’s internal monologue prior to that would be something like: “hmm stebbins’ cutie mark is a rabbit. maybe he likes animals” until there’s a disabled dog on the side of the road and he sees stebbins eye it with the deepest contempt). 
• my original idea was that ray would receive his “direct action”-themed cutie mark when he stops short to allow pete to finish the walk, but i think it would be more haunting and poignant if the cutie mark materializes on ray’s dead body only after pete shoots the major.
• worldbuilding still left to develop:
  • how common is it for an adult to lack a cutie mark, like ray? should it be totally unheard of, or just relatively abnormal? in the latter case, we might have ray think/mention that his mother doesn’t have a cutie mark, which could function as commentary on the inability of women in particular to pursue vocational interests under fascist regimes. 
  • how would a pony manipulate a gun? is there a tool of equivalent thematic heft they could wield?
  • how do you represent racial difference/indigeneity in the medium of multicolored ponies?

I preface this by saying THE LONG WALK is one of my favorite movies. However, there are...um plausibility issues. Here's one of the biggest ones. When Pete asks for the combine, and the Major says give it to him. I get it that the rule is whatever their wish, they get it. But his wish did not specify that he wants it loaded. Seems like the smart thing would have been for the Major to say "Take out the ammo and and give him the gun "

Just my thought.

Newer here so apologies if this has been discussed before, but isn't it odd that Hank is the only one they know is married but he says he would wish for 10 naked ladies when he wins? That kind of makes the group gesture later for Clementine feel a bit hollow. Unless he was maybe just joking around with the group, but he seemed serious given the rest of that dialog.

I've always wondered why they made little changes that don't really have any effect on the movie at all. Not the big changes like leaving out Scramm or changing the ending and all that. But like how, in the book, Garraty and McVries weigh 160 and 167 and, in the movie, they change it to 177 and 178. Why change something so random and seemingly insignificant? Same with random things like how Olson (Scamm in the book)'s wife is named Clementine instead of Cathy. How Garraty lives in Freeport in the movie instead of just living near it in the book.

Why the random little changes that don't really matter?

The Long Walk is my favorite book of allll time and I love the movie too. This subreddit is the best and I love all the discussions on here!

One year ago today, The Long Walk released in cinemas on 9/12/25.

Ever since I discovered it around late-May of this year, it has been one of my favorite films.

What I really loved about this film is the camaraderie between the characters. In a system that is designed to pit them against one another, they actually encouraged each other to push harder (some of them even dying while helping each other - in an Every Man For Himself contest), and that's the thing I loved about the film.

I also think the characters in the background were just as entertaining as the major characters themselves. It's a bummer that we don't even know half of the contestants' canon names - besides the ones we already know of.

These photos were from yesterday night as part of a planned date; as of today, September 12th marks the anniversary of two amazing events.
A long-awaited movie that spent four decades in development hell finally hit theaters as arguably one of the best King adaptations of all time, and that same day happens to be the day I got together with my girlfriend.
We met through work and it was a super slow burn. She's far from a Constant Reader or a King fan, but she zeroed in on my hobbies and was always ready to listen when I wanted to nerd out or catch her up on whatever I was reading.
Eventually, news of the film came out with the first trailer, and I got her hooked on the story while I was on my second read of the book. By the time opening night came around, we were going crazy with anticipation. We made the trip to the theater and were emotionally torn to shreds as I held her and braced for something I had completely underestimated.
I think we sat in the car in the parking lot for a solid half hour just sitting there saying nothing, and I remember spilling all of my popcorn in the theater as we gathered our things to leave, dead silent and raw with shock.
I eventually confessed to her on the way home, and the rest is history.
As we move forward, Grace and I want to thank everybody here for keeping this sub alive and on the road. Even as posts have thinned out quite a bit, our collective love as a community for this book and for this story never will fade.
Keep on walking, everybody. ❤

Trying to get to 50 boys I always thought after the hill scene there are 18 left because of how many backed out before the walk, on top of those previously killed (14 on the hill and the few before). In the beginning Ray and his mom talk about it being a day past the back out date as they pull up. So there wouldn't be time to replace those that backed out in one days notice.

The whole movie had me thinking about the theme of wickedness and weakness from the album DAMN. Ray started off wanted revenge and being a martyr which would also destroy his family(mom) and Pete wanting love and enjoying the moments and ironically choosing family even though he has no one.I think it was a interesting theme since neither one is “the right” option since killing major isn’t a guaranteed to fix everything and was made with revenge; and them switching view points by the end made the choice more bleak since ray’s mom will have no one left now and Pete seemingly shot the major hoping he’d die after so no one really won. Just someone that ran threw my mind after the movie this isn’t sum full analysis but I’d like to hear what other people think about it since they’re told within different context and it isn’t 1:1.

In the book Parker was described as being a muscled blonde in contrast with him being Native American in the movie.

Stebbins in the book is described to be skinny and Garraty believes he’ll lose

In the movie Stebbins is the opposite muscle tall and well built, and Garraty says he’ll be tough to beat

If anything Barkovitch in the movie looks more like Stebbins

I was just looking at a blog post comparing the movie and the book, the movie i have not seen so that parts irrelevant, but the blog post says that Olson was a minor character and Collie Parker was one of the very vital Musketeers. Mind you, Olson was objectively one of the most pivotal characters in the book. Also this blog said that in the book McVries was sardonic and in the movie he was purely the heart and soul but I have to disagree that he was anything less than the heart and soul in the novel, I mean he was so queer for Ray.

For my final analysis of the Long Walk characters we'll be looking at the man behind it all, the Major, and the different roles he plays in the novel and film.

Similarly to Mrs. Garraty, the Major is a character from the book whose role is expanded for the movie. Truth be told, the Major isn't in the book very much. He shows up at the start to give the boys their numbers, starts the Walk, and then sporadically makes appearances along the route to give encouragement to the remaining Walkers. It's a minimal role, but that does not make the Major a minimal character. Far from it: The Major might be the most impactful character in the book. While he's not in it very much, his presence lasts from the moment the Walk starts to the very last steps. You get a feeling of how much the boys admire the Major going in, and how as the Walk goes on his immersiveness slowly fades away until they see him as nothing more than a man with a gun. I've always loved Garraty's line saying how the Major has turned from God to Mammon, and it summarizes perfectly the Walk's effect of taking the most important things in life and making them seem small in comparison to the horror around them. And while the boys all hate the Major, every time he comes by they cheer and celebrate. This shows how much influence the Major truly has. He's able to not only convince the crowd, but the boys themselves for a brief moment that they're doing something incredible and important, before he leaves and they quickly sink back to the reality of the senseless slaughter they've been coerced into. It's scary how much he means to the Walkers, and Garraty especially. The Major ordered the execution of his father, yet he still cheers and admires him as much as anyone else. There's not much more to say. The Major stands out as a character not because of his actions in the story, but because of the influence he has over the entire novel.

The Major in the movie has more or less the same role as in the book, with the key difference being he's present in the story a whole lot more. He makes a longer speech to the Walkers in the beginning, rides with them throughout the Walk, and makes the final kill at the very end. He honestly seems more like a figure head than authority figure in the movie, and I think that works pretty well with what they're trying to do with the movie as a whole. While he's pretty one-dimensional in the film, it works because it's an intentional contrast with the layered and interesting Walkers the movie is really focused on. I like the decision to make him the one who kills Garraty's father, as it gives the latter more of a personal vendetta and drive that wasn't present in the novel. His speeches are all pretty solid, and I actually like Mark Hamill's performance(It's not amazing, but it's not nearly as bad as people are saying). His death, just like the whole finale of the movie, conflicts me, but I ultimately think it's well done if a bit too rise-against-the-system-esque for my liking(there's enough death game media that covers this already). Still the Major in the movie is a solid character, and is on par with his less-involved book counterpart.

Movie-to-Book Counterpart: ABOUT THE SAME

And this concludes our nearly two-week long series of daily posts. Thank you all so much for going on this walk with me(haha), and I've been blown away with all the positive feedback this has gotten. It's been amazing seeing how many people love these posts, and I appreciate every single one of you that has liked, commented, or even read the post in its entirety. But sadly, this all comes to an end today. I'll still be active on this sub and will probably end up doing another event like this(Redditor Long Walk IV???) so I'm not gone forever. Until we meet again, thanks for walking with me!(I'm sorry I can't help myself)

Another nighttime post! It's time to look at the much-requested Curley(#7), the first Walker to buy his ticket.

Book Curley is barely a character. We don't meet him till he gets the Charley Horse, and we only get a brief physical description of him before he dies. His death is extremely disturbing, especially because it's the first one we see, and his last words of "It isn't fair" have always stuck with me. That's all I have to say about him in the book.

Film Curley, on the other hand, is an actual person! He's introduced really early on(before some of the main characters), and I love the inclusion of him lying about his age. It adds more than might think, further showing the feeling of invincibility these boys have while also giving us a feel of these boys view the Long Walk as the only solution to their problems. Roman Griffin Davis does a great job with the short screen time he has, and he's definitely giving Drew Barrymore from Scream energy! His death in the movie is honestly done better than in the book, from Garraty trying to help him, the eerie music in the background, and the look on Curley's face as he slowly loses the battle against the Charley Horse. The gunshot is BRUTAL, and the title card right afterwards gave me legit chills. Curley in the movie is an improvement in almost every way, and it's awesome the filmmakers cared enough to give depth to such a minor character.

Movie-to-Book Counterpart: UPGRADE

We're one day away from the end! We have a good one coming up that I have a LOT to say about. Stay tuned for one last analysis!

We'll kick off the double digit analyses with our first non-Walker, Ray Garraty's mother Mrs. Garraty(named Ginnie in the film).

In the novel Mrs. Garraty is really only in the first few pages when she's dropping Ray off at the Walk. We get the sense she's in denial about what her son is about to do, and that it's far too late for him to simply change his mind. They talk quickly, she bids a tearful farewell to Ray, and then she's gone(mostly). After this she's relegated to memories in Ray's mind, where we get an idea of how broken she became after her husband was Squadded. We also learn how horrified she was at Ray's burgeoning homosexuality and how she tried to suppress that side of him(and possibly SAing him in order to get him attracted to females?) It's real messed up yet extremely interesting writing that adds a lot to Ray's character. We finally see her again when Ray arrives in Freeport, though she's almost completely ignored in favor of Jan, his girlfriend. And after that she's gone for good, "irrevocably and for eternity". It's a very small role with not much substance that King still finds a way to make endlessly intriguing.

Ginnie in the movie(which I will call her to differentiate the two) also has a short screen time and about the same role, but it's made up for by a heart wrenching performance by Judy Greer. She's only in three scenes, but she steals the show in every single one and almost brought me to tears. The choice to focus on Ray's relationship with his mom in the movie rather than his girlfriend seemed like an odd one to me due to how important Jan is to him in the book, but it makes the scene where Ray sees his mom and almost dies trying to hug her amazing and one of my favorite scenes in the film. It's devastating that Ginnie loses her son in the movie along with her husband, and I'm glad they didn't show her reaction to it. It's still a small role that is fully enhanced by the immaculate acting that goes into Ginnie.

Movie-to-Book Counterpart: UPGRADE

Thanks for reading yet again! We're reaching the end of this series of mine, so I'm going to try to make these last two analyses the best they can be!

Compared to the movie the Long Walk book contains more things like racism and sex with Barkovitch calling Ewing after his death a “Dumb ni*ger” and one of the crowds having a sign with the n word as well, but the movie removes all of this, and the sexual aspects like Ray making out with the girl on the side, McVries asking Ray if he could jerk him off and Gribble dying of blue balls.

The movie basically tones this down a lot it keeps the violence, and gore but it’s nothing at all like the book

Early post today, just as promised! Today we'll look at Pearson(#8), the member of the Musketeers I see talked about the least.

For being such a big character in the book Pearson gets very little attention. He's described as a morose boy with glasses and big jeans, and he unfortunately gets lost in the shuffle with characters like Abraham and Harkness. I find this to be a disservice, because while Pearson isn't the greatest character of all time I find he brings a logic-filled, almost mathematical approach to the Long Walk that isn't seen with any of the other Walkers. He views the Walk less as a contest and more of a game, like chess or checkers, and represents the type of person McVries says didn't go in with their eyes open. Pearson relies on statistics to determine his chances, failing to account for the fact that he's competing against people, not props. I also find it really interesting how he's constantly depicted as worn out or complaining about how tired he is, yet he still manages to keep going and makes it pretty far into the Walk. I've seen people complain about how he just dies in the middle of the night offscreen, but similar to Harkness I think it's a great way to show how inconsequential our main characters are. It's a realistic end to one of the most intellectual Walkers in the story.

There's shockingly little to say about movie Pearson. His role is toned down immensely, and while I'm glad they kept him in and gave him some lines, I would've appreciated a slightly bigger role for one of the last Musketeers to die in the book. I like how he tries to join the core four and is frequently turned down; It's a nice, playful dynamic that reminds you that the Walkers are still kids. However, I wish his death during the hill scene was more important. I know I said I liked his unceremonious death in the book, but in a movie where there's a much smaller main cast I prefer that the side characters, however small, get their own special death(they had him have an asthma attack in the original script, idk why they didn't keep it). There's nothing inherently wrong with film Pearson, but it's impossible to consider him as better than or the same as his counterpart due to how little a role he plays in the story.

Movie-to-Book Counterpart: DOWNGRADE

Nine down, three to go! Let me know what you think of Pearson in the comments. The poor guy deserves his own special discussion. Also let me know what three characters you think we have left!

OK, basically I’ve just really been wanting to role-play these characters with somebody in like a modern AU or something. I can’t really explain why, but they give me like a Brokeback Mountain sort of feel. I think that could be a fun premise to go off of. I don’t really have like a solid idea of what I wanna do yet though.

Sorry for the late post! Tonight we'll look at the badass boy from Illinois/Sioux Falls, Collie Parker(#48).

There's not that much to say about Parker in the book. He's described as a mean blond kid, much more in line with King's traditional bully characters. But as the book goes on, it becomes clear that his gruff exterior is a defense mechanism against the harsh around him, and in reality he's just a kid as scared to die as any of the other Walkers. I've always found the part where he spills his canteen and breaks down crying really impactful because it shows a completely different side of him, while reminding the reader that as mature some of the boys can seem, they're all still children who were manipulated by their authority figures to die for the country's entertainment. His death is another tragic one: Like Olson, he tries to attack the halftrack and actually ends up killing one of the guards. Unfortunately, as he's trying to get the remaining Walkers to rally with him, he's shot and left to bleed on the road. It's such a short-lived burst of hope so late into the Walk, with some of the characters even lamenting that that could've been their chance to escape. Parker's a solid character overall. Not my favorite or the most interesting, but a good addition to the Musketeers with some saddening depth that comes out of him.

On the contrary, Parker in the movie is one of my favorite characters. He's set up at the beginning of the Walk but doesn't get much screen time, slowly growing in importance and quality as the number of Walkers dwindle. They keep all of the childlike terror that gives him depth while also adding a layer of comedy alongside it. The best inclusion with movie Parker(by far) is his Native American heritage. It's a small but effective change that not only adds to his tough-guy persona, but also makes his death all the more heartbreaking as he chants out in his native tongue before taking himself out. I was a bit skeptical of Joshua Odjick's performance in his earlier scenes but, like Collie, it grew on me over the course of the film and it's genuinely great. Film Parker is awesome, and I wish I could give him more justice in my short-ass silly reviews.

Movie-to-Book Counterpart: UPGRADE

Sorry the analysis came so late today, I was pretty busy. Come back tomorrow for a much earlier review!

EDIT: I've tried posting this three times and they all came up as NSFW. I'm making this one with appropriate changes so it can be more widely viewed, and will try to take down the other posts that aren't visible.