[fantasyfan]

The film of In the Heart of the Sea is interesting too. The cinematography is excellent and the script broadly follows the events in the book. I say "broadly" because there are certainly some significant changes in the story line. Pollard is presented as an inexperienced Captain lacking command authority and prone to serious errors of judgement. In fact, he had captained several whalers. Chase is a more mature and dignified character than was actually the case. The white whale did not follow the survivors; it did smash the ship causing it to sink and then went its own way. The Essex did not catch fire--though on film it makes a glorious cinematic moment.

The story is told as a flashback by the elderly Nickerson to Herman Melville when in fact they never met and Melville relied on Owen Chase's narrative.

Bearing in mind the amount of artistic license employed by Ron Howard, and the fact that events are telescoped to create an intense drama within a two hour time frame, the film is certainly worth seeing.