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The original was posted on /r/movies by /u/Puzzled-Benefit-1124 on 2026-05-12 23:34:15+00:00.

The Creature of Shelley’s novel is NOT a sad lonely man who just needs a hug. He’s truly dangerous, spiteful, and capable of genuine hatred toward Victor. Del Toro removes almost all of that from his Creature and turns him into an entirely innocent victim. Everything he does is framed as self-defense; not once does he truly do anything morally wrong.

That is such a fundamental alteration of the character that the moral questions the book actually asks have all but disappeared.

What Shelley was saying is that creation is capable of bringing about something unpredictable and morally autonomous. The Creature has free will, and he makes horrible choices with it. That agency is what makes him human. Del Toro takes that agency out of the equation. The Creature here is a victim from the first frame until the last, which makes for a compelling story, just not the one Shelley was telling.

The “faithfulness” argument breaks down even further when you examine the actual deviations: additional characters, a love triangle that was never present in the novel, and a Creature whose face seems more inspired by Michelangelo’s David than Shelley’s descriptions.

Ironically, the 1994 adaptation by Branagh follows the actual plot of the novel far more closely than this one does.On the other hand, Del Toro absolutely captures the feeling of the story. And to be fair, that may be a completely legitimate creative direction. But it’s not really a faithful adaptation in the way people keep claiming it is.

It’s a beautiful film, and Elordi’s performance is outstanding⭐. However, this is Del Toro’s Frankenstein, not Shelley’s.

TL;DR: Del Toro made the Creature too innocent and too perfect⚠️. The novel is more complex than that, and the film suffers from the oversimplification.