I just watched The Revenant. Man did it suck! Why didn't they stick closer to Punke's novel? And what's with the wood chimneys?

A lot of things go in to play when movies are adapted to film.

Even though many novelists want to write stories that show, and don't tell, books largely tell when compared to movies. Books just aren't visual. Think of it his way. Books tell their stories with words. Metaphors, similes, description, etc. While movies use camera angles, images, editing, transitions, colors, etc.

If you want to know more about this, watch this video. Incredibly insightful. https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=F3QsUx0x_4w

Also, when it comes to film, money is largely involved as well. Simply put, even though movies have all this technology and CGI and whatnot, it's still easier to pull anything off with a book than it is with a movie. Why? Because with a book you just have to describe it. With a movie, you have to pay for it to happen, you have to fly leo dicaprio out to location, you have to make costumes, this, that, the other thing. So many variables come in to play when making movies that sometimes pulling off the same exact story that's in the book is difficult, or impossible. Sometimes they run out of time during filming, need to cut a scene, and move on to meet their deadline.

Sometimes its as simple as trying to fit a 300 some odd page book into a 2 hour movie. It won't happen. So the director has to readjust the story and make every scene count.

As for the wood chimneys, I have no idea. I haven't read the book or seen the movie. But being a film student, I do know people who know the people who made the movie. The studio that's been trying to make the movie took about five to make this movie. A movie should only take 1-2 years at most. So there were obvious problems during the film's production. What they were, I have no idea.

Hope this helps.

I haven't seen the movie but wood chimneys were common way back when. They caught fire too often and in time were changed to stone. Lots of people had to build the house fast before winter and wood was faster.

Crawling inside a (presumably recently dead) horse? to keep warm, or at least warmer that it was outside the horse?