Who Framed Roger Rabbit? is by far one of my favourite movies to date, if not my ultimate favourite movie. Nearly 40 years since its conception, and there has still been nothing like it created since! Of course there have been plenty of movies that have incorporated live-action with animation, and there have even been some that have used two-dimensional characters before, but no one has been able to capture the magic quite like Roger did! 🐰
(Source: https://rogerrabbit.fandom.com/wiki/Who_Framed_Roger_Rabbit_(film) )
Well, imagine my surprise when I happened to come across this copy of a book titled, Who Censored Roger Rabbit? Little ol' me had no idea that the film was based off a book! 😄
I had been pleased as punch to have stumbled upon this book!~ However, after reading it, there are some stark differences between the two. It has proven that, even against its literary predecessor, the movie still emerges on top 🏆
So if you've ever seen the movie, then you know that it opens with Eddie Valiant being hired by Maroon Cartoons in order to spy on his competitor, the Acme Corporation. While doing so, Valiant catches Jessica Rabbit playing patty-cake with Acme (and that's not a euphemism -- they quite literally just play patty-cake with one another 😅)
(Source: https://tenor.com/en-CA/view/roger-rabbit-jessica-patty-cake-gif-5319231 )
The images of Roger's wife playing patty-cake with another man is enough to send Roger over the edge, and it is during his spiral that Acme is mysteriously murdered... While on scene, Valiant encounters Judge Doom, an unnerving individual, the first to figure out how to kill toons 😬
(Source: https://imgur.com/gallery/anyone-care-dip-ouwJPki )
(Not gonna lie, this scene used to traumatize me as a kid, and I still find it unsettling today)
This is a huge difference from the book, where it is Roger who immediately employs Eddie Valiant to investigate his contract with the DeGreasy Brothers. As he begins his search, Valiant discovers that the Jessica Rabbit in this story has left Roger for one of the DeGreasy brothers.
When he attempts to confront Roger on this, Valiant finds him murdered in his apartment, along with Roger's doppelganger (toons can create duplicates of themselves for short periods of time). The DeGreasy brother is also found murdered at his home, and so Roger becomes a suspect once again.
Back in the movie, Roger also hires the services of Valiant, in order to prove his innocence. They begin searching for Acme's will, which was the killer's true motive for murdering him, for it states that Toontown will be relinquished to the toons. Valiant uncovers that a company called Cloverleaf intends to buy Toontown, and Cloverleaf is owned by none other than Judge Doom! 😱 His plan is to destroy Toontown and convert it into an interstate highway.
In the end, Doom is destroyed, Roger and Jessica are reunited, and Toontown belongs to the toons!~
(Source: https://makeagif.com/gif/roger-rabbit-with-all-the-toons-sing-smile-darn-ya-smile-3yryw2 )
Meanwhile in the book, Valiant discovers that Roger unknowingly possessed a teakettle/magical lamp, and it had actually been this genie who was not only responsible for Roger's good fortune, but for his death as well. Valiant ends up destroying the genie.
When he returns to Roger's doppelganger, Roger confesses that he had killed the DeGreasy brother, and he had planned to pin it on Valiant the entire time.
In the end, Roger disintegrates to ash, and his remains are blown away with the wind...
So uhhhhhh yeah! 😅 Obviously this is a huge difference from the movie! And uhhhhh personally, I hated it! 😅😅
The entire reason why I love Roger Rabbit is for its completely zany, unhinged, chaotic universe!
(Source: https://www.google.com/amp/s/makeagif.com/amp/b0TmzA )
Despite the fact both medias deal with very mature and dark themes -- murder, infidelity, etc. -- the movie was still able to keep with the cartoons' crazy nature, while the book tried making toons more like us. And personally, it just didn't work. Because the author tried making toons as human as possible, the magic simply wasn't there.
I also idolize the relationship between Roger and Jessica in the movie, and it is one that, again, accurately reflects the zany nature of toons. Nobody could suspect that Jessica actually loves Roger -- she's a drop-dead gorgeous, humanoid toon, while he's a goofy rabbit! 🐰 And yet, she does... The two are madly in love with each other, and what's more, Jessica attributes her affection for Roger as due to the fact he makes her laugh.
(Source: https://tenor.com/en-CA/view/jessica-rabbit-he-makes-me-laugh-gif-11765944318301199093 )
They represent toons beautifully; I honestly consider them my #1 power couple!
In the book, because Roger's marriage to Jessica is a result of superficial magic, the spell eventually wears off and love is no longer there. Jessica then spends the entire novel degrading Roger, calling him a no-talent rabbit, shrieking that she never loved him, acting completely repulsed by him... Because Roger doesn't realize their love was fake, cooked up by a genie, he is heartbroken by Jessica's unfiltered truth, especially considering Roger is the opposite -- he loves her to death! 🥺 The whole thing broke my heart, and I hated it...
The final reason why the movie trumps the book... Roger is a character you can love. Despite the fact he acts completely loopy and does questionable things, he is still a toon who lives by his word. Despite being a kooky toon, Roger is someone you can trust.
(Source: https://giphy.com/gifs/animation-quotes-who-framed-roger-rabbit-PZ8gosOm2tNWU )
The same cannot be said for book-Roger. I went through the novel pretty much suspecting that Roger had killed the DeGreasy brother, which is already extremely uncharacteristic of such a fun-loving toon, but to then try and pin it on a private detective simply doing a job he had hired him to do? A detective who tried his best to defend Roger, despite his dislike for toons, and still looked out for Roger because he was his partner, at that? By the time Roger finally disappears for good, I just felt immense pity for him and my heart broke all over again...
Aside from that, there are still some major differences that set the movie apart from the book -- and the movie was able to do more in only an hour and a half! 😂
For one thing, there is the satisfying character development of Eddie Valiant. He is someone with a past and a reason for why he despises toons (the murder of his brother at the hands of a toon). It becomes the entire reason for why his life descends into depression. The movie is able to build off it, until Valiant comes out on the other side a stronger man.
For another, the villian archetype, portrayed by Judge Doom, is top-tier 👌 A toon who masquerades as a human, whose sole purpose is to eradicate Toon Town. A toon who is so absolutely disgusted with his own kind that he was the first one to destroy the once indestructible toons! On top of that, he is the killer that Valiant has been searching for for several years, and we all receive catharsis once Doom's reign of terror finally comes to an end...
(Source: https://getyarn.io/yarn-clip/1d6f4905-2fa2-43d1-b81e-6ade80e71d0a/gif )