Christopher McCandless

people on here are going back and forth whether its true or not, and while that is somewhat important (even though i believe it is very accurate in most parts), i think whats more important is the fact that this movie has revived so many dead lives in people and really brought them to the idea that life isn't about making money or your job, career, etc.. so regardless of its authenticity, it's a hell of an inspirational movie nonetheless..

Sean Penn did a relatively decent job with the movie, considering what some of these other yokels wanted. The McCandless family got told, well it's too depressing for Chris to just vanish, so we'll have Carine go looking for him, or we'll have Chris live in the end so we can have sequels. Somebody wanted to hire Brad Pitt to play Chris! Considering what we COULD have gotten, what we DID get is pretty good.

pff where'd you hear that man?

agreed!! totally inspiring, changed my life!!

Outside magazine did an article on the movie in 2007, when it came out, and in that article it said that Billie was having nightmares about what Chris endured, and she didn't want a movie. Then it said, well somebody was gonna do a movie without the input of the McCandless family, and rumor was that this unnamed scriptwriter was gonna write a story where Chris lived, and then do sequels. So Walt and Billie called Sean Penn up and said ok, do the movie. Also, it said that when the book originally came out, that Walt and Billie got deluged with movie offers, and Penn was the only guy who wanted to stick to the facts. Some of the "improvements" suggested to the story were what I posted. It was totally insane.

Whether it is authentic or not is irrelevant. It's still one of the most inspirational stories... well, ever