Stand By Me says what "The Body" says in terms of plot. "The Body" has a group of children that have an adventure to find a body, and Stand By Me has the same story. The children hear from Vern that a body has been found. They think it might be Ray Brower which in "The Body" Stephen King used the name. At the end of Stand By Me only Chris Chambers dies where in "The Body" all of Gordon's friends die. In the movie, Ace Merrill and his goons never beat the friends up, however in the short story they severely hurt them, especially Chris and Gordie.
The point of view in both the movie and the short story are the same. They are told from third person omniscient. It is narrated by a man who is writing a book. He is writing a book about his childhood. Both of the narrators know what is going to happen at the end. They both want their stories told.
In the short story, Gordie’s big brother, Denny, is an excellent baseball player while in the film he is a football star. In the movie, all of the people Gordie meets are mean to him until they realize he is related to Denny. An example of this is the shop owner who attempts to put his thumb on the scale to make it weigh more. Then once he realizes Gordie is related to the football star he does not put his thumb on it. The he takes an interest in Gordie's personal life just to talk about Denny.
The setting is different because in the film it is set in Oregon, but the short story is set in Maine. The book takes place in Castle Rock, Maine where most of King's stories take place and Stand By Me is set in Brownsburg, Oregon. Other than it being set in different states the setting is the same. The boys are walking along railroad tracks. They also enter some small towns along the way. They find the body in the woods off of the tracks.
The themes are the same in both the short story and the movie. They both tell us how much children should go back to the old days when kids would climb trees instead of playing video games all day. If children would go adventuring they may never get an experience like that again. They may find the body of one of their classmates. They may find a case of money.
