In the film, The Beach there is the presence of several alterations to the characters and plot but it is to be noted at the same time, that The Beach has remiand fairly faithful to the novel. These alterations adopted and implemented for the sake of the film , has indeed dignified the entire presentattion. For instance, in The Beach it is shown that Francoise elopes with Richard, but in the original novel there was not the slightest indicaton of this, although both of thm happene to be tempted to high extent. Again, in a separate incident, Etienne, another character of the film is served by Richard from the rest of the group and he also in due course becomes the permanent nurse of Christo, who is dying following the attack of a shark. Whereas in the original novel, The Beach, the same responsibility is carried out by another character, Jed who feels to be alieanted from the others due to several reasons, and Jed never apears in the whole film. On the other hand the sexual encounter of Richard with Sal has no place in the original novel. The voyage to the mainland is undertaken by both Richard and Jed, whom Richard has been accompanying on lookout duty on the island. Jed learning a lot about the map left by Richard puts forward a suggestion that they don't tell Sal about the potential new arrivals. In the film Sal finds out about the map during the excursion to the mainland, and initiates sex so as to preserve the secrecy. However, in the later period she puts Richard on lookout duty alone after spotting the newcomers attempting to cross to the island. Again the re is also a great difefrence between the film and the original novel, The Beach. However, at the same time, it should also be taken into consideration, that in both film and novel the annual celebration gets ruined by the intrusion of the dope farmers. But in the original novel this not before Richard, Françoise, Étienne, Keaty and Jed have made plans to secretly leave the island. It has been found that again the dope farmers arrive with the map that was found by them after the killing of the newcomers and also is angry that the islanders appear to be advertising their community with which it becomes clear that Richard is indeed responsible. Thi is followed by attacking Richard by the remaining islanders before his four fellow planners approach for defending him and at last all of them escape on the raft brought over by the newcomers. On the contrary, in the film The Beach, the dope farmers are found to appear to give Sal the opportunity to kill Richard in order to keep the community. There is also a scene when she attempts to shoot him, but the gun is found to be not loaded. The entire community then leaves Sal, apparently via the raft, shocked by her dedication to the community at any cost. Again, in the film while Richard happpens to be American, Sal is a British citizen. But in the novel, their nationalitiesremain opposite of their film incarnations.

The film, while in production, could not escape conttroversies, and these happened much more due to the bulldoaing and rescaping of the natural beach setting of Ko Phi Phi Leh to make it the paradise on earth, by the 20th Century Fox.