#I should deadass just make a 5 hour video essay about it comparing all the versions together

[mass-of-men]

why do you think catch 22 (a show) so bad, especially in comparison to the book?

Excellent question! Now keep in mind I'm not an English major, I'm a History and Film major so I'm just looking at this novel as someone who has read Catch-22 around 10 times and I've watched the show in full around 4 times now and I talked about it when it first came out here.

I think ultimately it comes down to how the show represents ending. It is not only a change from the book, it is about as far from the book's ending as one could get. I talked about the ending here but to go further into just having it end with Snowden's death I think completely destroys the not just Yossarian's story, but the story of the war itself.

Heller's book is designed in the way that Snowden's death is revealed throughout the whole book and it is not until the end that we get to see what really happened. Now I'm not saying I would have needed flashbacks to Snowden's death like in the 1970 film, but Snowden's name is mentioned so many times that his death is something that clearly represents the fall of the war and the military industrial complex to Yossarian. Snowden represents the lives and the feelings of every young man who joined the war in order to be, doomed to die.

Hell, 35 pages into the book, Yossarian asks "Where are the Snowdens of yesteryear?". He is quite literally asking the high command, where are the young men you sent into battle knowing they would not come back. Snowden's constant presence is a reminder of what war cost, the same as the Dead Man in Yossarian and Orr's tent. The book does an excellent job of making it so we as the audience understand why he wants to escape but can't actually fathom why until the end of the book when during his surgery, Yossarian remembers Snowden.

Now for it being my favorite book, to be honest I'm not a huge fan of Heller's style. I think it makes perfect sense for this book, in that the American military industrial complex is as confusing and nonsensical as Heller's writing is but the end of the book gets me completely. "It was easy to read the message in his entrails. Man was matter, that was Snowden’s secret. Drop him out a window and he’ll fall. Set fire to him and he’ll burn. Bury him and he’ll rot, like other kinds of garbage. The spirit gone, man is garbage. That was Snowden’s secret."

It is because Yossarian learns Snowden's secret he truly realizes he has to leave. And that is the part that makes the deaths of all his friends(although I'm not sure book Yossarian would call any one there his actual friend) all the more tragic, he knows he has to get out and yet has to watch all the people he know die one by one as if counting down to him. He is going to suffer the same fate as every other man there and he will have no way in the matter.

Like I said in my other post about the ending, Snowden's death is the beginning of Yossarian's story, not the ending.

To go back to the show for a moment, the ending has me feeling empty, but not in the way it was trying for. I don't think any Yossarian, let that be the book, the 1970 film, or the miniseries, would accept death and more so his fate.

His most famous quote is literally "Live forever or die in the attempt", it is not death that he fears but not being in control of his fate. Being send to die by people who won't even tell him why. I think that's why the book(and film by extension) ending works so well. Yes, he could die trying to row from Italy to Sweden, but it would be Yossarian's choice to do so, he is in charge of his ending.

That's why the show's ending fails because it is simply not Yossarian accepting his fate to die but to almost welcome it with no one left. He is not alone in the book, he has Danby and the Chaplain and most importantly he has Orr waiting for him in Sweden. The show Yossarian is unwilling to leave to go to Orr for... some reason. That's it, the show never explains why Yossarian doesn't go AWOL. The book does an amazing job at highlighting every attempt by Yossarian to leave in an ethical(more or less) way and him going AWOL is the last resort. but it is the only way he will not die in battle. Yet the show Yossarian is just willing to die for Cathcart, Korn, and Scheisskopf because he's too tired to even try.

I feel like the show was trying to twist the story into being about these wacky group of boys being screwed over by the military and how they all tragically die because of it, but the book speaks to so much more. Catch-22 isn't All Quiet on the Western Front, and I don't think the show runner remembered that.

Now that's not to say there aren't parts of the show I liked. I loved the cast, especially Christopher Abbott as Yossarian, the cinematography was beyond beautiful, and I still listen to the soundtrack. I just was so beyond disappointed as a huge fan of the novel when the show came out because it truly didn't feel like it was made by someone who had an appreciation for the work itself.