CHRISTINE DAL MACALINAO

THE PRINCESS DIARIES

A COMPARATIVE ANALYSIS
A princess diaries movie I have watched was an adaptation of a novel, “The Princess
Diaries” written by Meg Cabot. The story is about Mia Thermopolis who’s living her
normal life with her mother who’s an artist and having her best friend by her side, Lily.
The writer of this paper got hooked by the title as it triggers curiosity regarding how
diaries are related to a princess and how important those diaries for the princess. The
movie was fun and entertaining which caused of having the idea of why not read the
original book and try to identify how different the adaptation from the original story, what
are the changes, and which one is the nicest; The original or written story or the movie
adaptation. As a clue, the book is way better than the adaptation as it is more detailed.
A lot of people are into reading stories and mostly got disappointed every after they
have watched the adaptation. This paper then shows comparison of the story “The
Princess Diaries” based on the book and the movie adaptation. In addition, people who
will read this would know if which among the two is heavier for the writer of this paper’s
heart.
Both book and movie has the same title, names of the characters, that Mia Thermopolis
(who’s the main character of the story) is unpopular, feels like she’s invisible to
everyone because no one notices her except her best friend Lily and its brother
Michael, Mia is a careless girl who always get in trouble most of the time, she got mad
when they forced her to accept the fact that she’s a princess, she refused the call, it was
her grandmother who taught her how to act like a princess, and Mia and Michael had
admired each other secretly . But for the rest of the scenes are way too far from what it
should be and various of differences have noticed.
In the book, Mia is not expressive. She’s good at lying, pretending that everything just
falls in the line, because she’s not into confrontation. Her mother knows that Mia’s
always lying the reason why she gave her a diary for her to write down what she feels
and the truth behind those lies she’s telling. Moreover, Mia sucks at Algebra and Mr.
Gianini who was her Algebra teacher who turned out to be her mother’s boyfriend. Mia
have parents but decided not to settle for marriage for some reason and she knows that
her father is a politician in Genovia. In addition, She knows her grandmere or
grandmother and even visited Genovia with her to shop clothes. Her father told her that
he has a cancer and the reason why she found out that her father is a Prince and that
she have to get herself ready for having a responsibility as a Princess of Genovia. She
was horrified, she refused the call and even hated her dad for not telling her earlier. Mia
is a vegetarian. Her grandmother is strict and mandates what she must wear, do and or
act in accordance of being a princess. Mia and Lily had a long fight because Lily thought
that she’s not being supported by her best friend with her TV show and because of Lily’s
physical transformation. During their long fight, Michael on the other hand was helping
Mia for her Algebra and also befriended Tina who everyone think is weird because
she’s always with her bodyguard. Sadly, She can’t tell Lily that she’s a princess even if
she badly wanted to. Unfortunately, the truth came off the press without them knowing
who could possibly the person who tried to tell people about her true identity. Her dad
visited her in the school to fixed the commotion. After the exposure, Josh, her long-time
crush invited her to go on a date with him during the Cultural Diversity Dance. Mia
agreed right away as it was the first time someone asked her out and it’s a big deal for
her because it was her crush who invited her. Her parents were against about it but did
nothing as Mia was being supported by her grandmother. Josh intentionally kissed her
in front of everybody at the school and let the press took photos of them. Unfortunately,
Mia did nothing to stop it. After the commotion, she saw Michael and had their first
dance. The story ended as Mia being saved by Michael when Mia throw an eggplant at
the window which could bring Mia to the juvenile. These things are the exact contrary of
what happened in the movie. Because in the movie, It was her grandmother who gave
her the book and said it was from her father and that she can open it by using the
necklace her grandmother gave to her during their first meeting. Mia was expressive in
the movie and her only problem was public speaking. Moreover, she never met her dad,
it was her grandmother who told her that she’s a princess of Genovia and her father
died a year ago. She was horrified by the news she just received and directly refused
the call of responsibility and walked out. In addition, Mia was not a vegetarian at the
movie and she loves food. Also, she told Lily about her true identity and both kept the
secret. Her grandmother on the other hand, have maintained her patience over Mia
and tried to understand her. Unfortunately, her true identity came off the press because
her hairstylist tell people that he did the princess look; about her physical
transformation. Nevertheless, she had a fight with her best friend with the reason of
dumping them; Lily and Michael. Because she had a date with Josh after people knew
about who really is she. Her mother was not strict to her and even supported her with
Mia’s imagination of having her first kiss with Josh while popping her feet up. Mia was
naïve that she didn’t think of being used by Josh at the beach just to be famous. He
kissed Mia that made her slapped him and ran away. But Mia and Lily did not stop
talking to each other that long after the incident unlike in the book. At last, Mia invited
Lily and Michael to the grand ball where she will be talking to the press about her
decision of either she’s going to take the crown and accept the responsibility or not.
During the ball, Mia did not prepare anything as she planned to run away, but she
accidentally saw the letter of her father for her that made her changed her mind. She
went to the ball; wet, no make-ups and all. She just went there for her to tell people that
she’s ready to be crowned.
While in the story, Mia was not yet crowned and her first dance with Michael was at
school and not in the grand ball. Also, it was only Josh who kissed Mia, unlike in the
movie, it ended up showing her first kiss with Michael. The biggest differences then is
Mia in the movie never met her dad and it was her grandmother who told her the truth
on their first meeting, while she knew her father and even talked to him since she was a
child and even go shopping with her grandmother in Genovia based on the book.
Moreover, there are scenes that are similar and only differs with the setting or the
characters they are with during the scene. Just like when Mia almost send to juvenile. In
the story it was because she throw an eggplant out of the window which is against the
law and she was saved my Michael. In the movie on the other hand, it was because
they got into an accident and she was saved by her Grandmother. However, the writer
of this paper would also want to emphasize that there are characters who are not
mentioned or seen in the movie such as Tina and a guy who pretended to be blind to
harass women.
In overall, I loved both stories. It may have the same titles but it made big changes by
how the director translates into movie of what Meg Cabot have written. But, As a fan of
reading, the original story or the book will always be heavier for me than anything else.
I’m just not that affected by its changes because I watched the movie first before
reading the book, which I think is better.