He didn't want to rock the boat. We didn't know it at the time, but Andy had an escape tunnel virtually complete. Andy had no guarantees that he could get his book cooking story out (or that it wouldn't have somehow been squashed) but even if he did, getting the warden in trouble wouldn't get him released which was his ultimate goal. With Tommy dead, the chance of a retrial went from slim to none. If his plan to indict the warden backfired, he would be in a world of trouble. If it worked, he'd have to hope that rocking the boat to indict the warden didn't result in him being transferred out of his "one bunk Hilton" cell..

You may a good point about Tommy and how the Warden was in good standing with the community. I love the justice at the end. Almost poetic that Andy brings him down and he shoots himself instead of going to prison. Andy gained his freedom and the Warden lost his.

@Strannger18 said:

You may a good point about Tommy and how the Warden was in good standing with the community. I love the justice at the end. Almost poetic that Andy brings him down and he shoots himself instead of going to prison. Andy gained his freedom and the Warden lost his.

This is one of the rare cases where the movie was better than the book. In the book Andy has been hording money on the outside since before he was in jail. No shady financial dealings at all with the warden. Although he does rat the warden out for other things, the warden does not commit suicide like the movie. He is simply arrested and never heard from again.

That is the only book I haven't read, but it does sound lackluster. I'm glad Andy got him in the end still. The shooting does add that last bit of drama and triumph over evil. Its like Julius Ceaser. Not complete without that last twist of the knife in the back

Apparently the most King-esque sequence - the shooting of Tommy - isn't in the King book!

Darabont's a genius.

While agreeing with some of these criticisms, I should note that the book is still quite excellent.

One difference in the book is that there's more of an "unreliable narrator" thing going on--Red repeatedly hints that some of the stories about Andy have been embellished as he's become something of a mythic figure among the other prisoners.

@Drooch said:

Apparently the most King-esque sequence - the shooting of Tommy - isn't in the King book!

Darabont's a genius.

Darabont does tweak Kings work to make the movies better than the books (Shawshank Redemption, The Green Mile, and the Mist <<<<that ending whoa)

Yes, there are some remarks about the film, but there are no logical holes in it.

Darabont is the only person who could improve on Stephen King ... and he does.