I enjoy the book but if the movie had been like the book it probably wouldn't have been nominated much less won any of the major Oscars it got. In the book, after he gets home from Vietnam, Forrest gets arrested for throwing his medal at the leader of Congress. Jenny asked him to do that but he threw it too hard by mistake. After getting put in a mental instituion, they decide to have him go into space. Then he crashlands his space ship on an island full of cannibals and lives with them for quite a few years til he finally gets rescued.

Then after that he ends up becoming a wrestler where he wears a diaper and calls himself the Dunce. That ends up not working out. Then he even ends up getting to film a movie with Rachelle Whelch by playing the Creature from the Black Lagoon which also doesn't work out. This stuff is just too silly and most of it could almost be its own movie. But not an Oscar winning movie.