Comparing Colonialisms in Dan Simmons's The Terror and its AMC Adaptation

While the AMC broadcast adaptation of Dan Simmons’ horror novel The Terror is largely faithful to the book, key differences in the portrayal of the Inuit, the British expedition members and the supernatural Tuunbaq creature, as well as in the fates of certain characters, lead to contrasting messages about colonialism and resistance from each text. Broadly speaking, the book has a less sympathetic and nuanced portrayal of native people and their resistance to colonialism, but ultimately a more optimistic view of the sustainability of their relationship with the environment; the broadcast series, in contrast, provides ample space for the native perspective on colonisation and a more complex exploration of the relationship between colonizer and colonized, but is ultimately pessimistic about the outcomes of resistance against colonialism.
This paper will analyse the source work and adaptation in comparison with each other, and, finally, will explore what the differences say about the authors’ contrasting perspectives on the subject of colonialism and resistance, and about changes in the social environment between the writing of the book and the production of the broadcast series.