History YMMV / LifeOfPi

* AwardSnub: Suraj Sharma, who played Pi, did not get nominated for the Oscar for Best Actor. This despite the fact that he practically carried the entire film on his shoulders, acting opposite a green screen to convince audiences that he was staring down a tiger, and starved himself and isolated himself from other people to get into character.

* AcceptableReligiousTargets: Pi respects and admires his strictly atheistic teacher, and devoutly practices Hinduism, Islam, ''and'' Christianity. However, he heaps all of his scorn on agnostics, viewing them as doubters who lack the resolve to pick a side.

* TheyChangedItNowItSucks: Despite the film's good reviews, some have taken issue with how the film portrays Pi's alternate interpretation of events in which the animals were all human passengers of the ship. Specifically, the way the film frames it makes it seem as if this alternate version is the true version of the story, whereas the book is more overt in leaving it as deliberately ambiguous as possible.

%%* EpilepticTrees: With how Pi's story is told, this is inevitable.

* {{Squick}}: The descriptions of how the hyena kills the zebra in the book.

* AwardSnub:
** Actually an award ''speech'' snub: the visual effects team were planning to include a statement about the hard times many special effects companies are going through, even as their work is being used more than ever, but were cut off by the ''{{Film/Jaws}}'' theme. This led to a hundreds-strong protest.
** Averted by the film itself, which took home more Oscars than any other film released that year - ''including'' the OscarBait.
** More upsettingly, Suraj Sharma, who played Pi, did not get nominated for the Oscar for Best Actor. This despite the fact that he practically carried the entire film on his shoulders, acting opposite a green screen to convince audiences that he was staring down a tiger, and starved himself and isolated himself from other people to get into character.

* EpilepticTrees: With how Pi's story is told, this is inevitable.
* HilariousInHindsight:
** Pi was mocked as a child for having a name that could be mispronounced as "Pissing." When he's lost at sea and quarreling with Richard Parker, he actually does piss to mark his territory and show him who's in charge. That does not end well for him.
** Irrfan Khan plays the adult Pi. This wasn't [[Film/TheAmazingSpiderMan the only movie in 2012]] that Irrfan Khan was in with a character named Richard Parker.

* CrowningMusicOfAwesome: [[https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=8vbxdqCi_AQ "Pi's Lullaby"]]. SweetDreamsFuel incarnate.

* VisualEffectsOfAwesome: For the film, Creator/RhythmAndHues[[note]]with Creator/MovingPictureCompany and a few other studios[[/note]] developed some truly phenomenal animation and visual effects, which won them the Oscar for Best Visual Effects.

* FridgeBrilliance: At first glance, the meerkats on the island sleeping on trees seem to be a clear example of SomewhereAMammalogistIsCrying, because those animals actually live in burrows. But from an evolutionary standpoint, it makes perfect sense: Imagine a bunch of meerkats by some means arriving on the island. Those who show their normal behavior of creating burrows quickly get [[spoiler: devoured by the island]], and only a few, showing the abnormal behavior of climbing on trees, survive. Those are the ancestors of the current meerkat population Pi encounters. That's how natural selection works! ([[spoiler: Of course, the point is moot if Pi just made everything up.]])
** Also do note Pi being raised by someone who clearly understood biology and in the book his atheist biology teacher. If he did make it up, then that was more than likely on purpose.
* FridgeHorror:
** [[spoiler: Pi's second story accounts for all the characters and events that happened in the first story, except for one: the island. Except, it does. If you choose to believe the second story, then what happened is that Pi found one of the other survivors' teeth in the boat, probably the cook's.]]
** The [[spoiler: carnivorous island]] Pi finds himself on sort of resembles a [[spoiler: dead body]] from afar in the film. The [[spoiler:roots from the trees]] could represent human veins, and the [[spoiler:meerkats could represent maggots]].
** [[spoiler: Another implication of the second story is that Pi was forced to cannibalize his mother - in the book it is only her head the cook threw overboard, and in the animal version Richard Parker eats part of Orange Juice's body after the hyena kills her. If the island is meant to represent a dead body, it was likely his mother's body.]]
** [[spoiler: A still different interpretation is that while the first story ends with a big climatic story that takes faith to believe in, the second story ends with "Solitude set in. I turned to God. I survived" which is basically what he calls dry yeastless factuality. ]]
* FridgeLogic: The boat thrashed for hours, Pi screamed for a long time, and even looked under the tarp for supplies, but never saw Richard Parker, a full-grown tiger there. There was even a hyena under the tarp as well that apparently didn't get into a fight with Richard Parker beforehand.

** and perhaps MisaimedFandom as the book is a relative newcomer to school curriculum. Yet oddly the message of not letting doubt override your chance to miss a good story, might as well be a major criticism of English curriculum making people not see books as stories.

* HilariousInHindsight: Pi was mocked as a child for having a name that could be mispronounced as "Pissing." When he's lost at sea and quarreling with Richard Parker, he actually does piss to mark his territory and show him who's in charge. That does not end well for him.

* VisualEffectsOfAwesome: For the film, RhythmAndHues[[note]]with Creator/MovingPictureCompany and a few other studios[[/note]] developed some truly phenomenal animation and visual effects, which won them the Oscar for Best Visual Effects.

* UnfortunateImplications:
** The two stories paradox basically suggests that the religious side is delusional and clinging on to a pleasant reality while the atheist side is fundamentally nihilistic.
** How is the "atheist" story nihilistic - because it reveals a universal willingness to compromise your morals in order to survive? That only happens for a moment of weakness, and he struggles with it for weeks afterwards and comes out of it just fine. Sure, that story isn't nearly as inspirational as the "religious" one, but that's realism for you.
** The two French characters are brutal, [[spoiler:cannibalistic]] savages. [[spoiler:That is, if they were separate characters. In the alternate story they're hinted to be the same guy. In the animal story the cook might have not even existed.]]

* AwardSnub: Actually an award ''speech'' snub: the visual effects team were planning to include a statement about the hard times many special effects companies are going through, even as their work is being used more than ever, but were cut off by the ''{{Film/Jaws}}'' theme. This led to a hundreds-strong protest.

* FridgeHorror: [[spoiler: Pi's second story accounts for all the characters and events that happened in the first story, except for one: the island. Except, it does. If you choose to believe the second story, then what happened is that Pi found one of the other survivors' teeth in the boat, probably the cook's.]]

* UnfortunateImplications: The two stories paradox basically suggests that the religious side is delusional and clinging on to a pleasant reality while the atheist side is fundamentally nihilistic.

* TearJerker: See the [[TearJerker/LifeOfPi page]].

* CrowningMomentOfFunny: The Japanese Officers' responses to Pi in their ForeignLookingFont (assumed to be Japanese):
-->'''Mr. Okamoto:''' [[spoiler: We have no proof they were meerkat bones.]]\\
'''Mr. Chiba:''' [[spoiler:Maybe they were banana bones! [[AnnoyingLaugh Ha! Ha! Ha! Ha! Ha!]]]]\\
'''Mr. Okamoto:''' [[spoiler:Atsuro, Shut up!]]\\
'''Mr. Chiba:''' [[spoiler:I'm very sorry, Okamoto-san. It's the fatigue.]]\\
'''Mr. Okamoto:''' [[spoiler:You're bringing our service into disrepute!]]\\
'''Mr. Chiba:''' [[spoiler:Very sorry, Okamoto-san.]]
** Ravi's reaction to Pi being an InterfaithSmoothie:
--->'''Ravi''': So, Swami Jesus, will you be making the hajj this year?
** The Great Lunch Exchange during the interview
---> '''Pi:''' Would you like a cookie for the road?
** Whaddaya know? Bananas ''do'' float!

* CompleteMonster: [[spoiler:The chef in the alternate version of the story. Even by the circumstances of the situation, he comes off as especially barbaric in comparison to his fellow survivors. And he is meant to represent the hyena.]]
** In the book, Pi described the hyena as this, as an abomination. In the movie, the hyena behaves like any animal, and is quite cute [[GrotesqueCute in an unsettling way]].
** In the book only, there's a scene where [[spoiler: Pi comes across another man in a lifeboat. Said man tries to kill and eat Pi despite having food of his own]].

-->'''Mr. Okamoto:''' [[spoiler: We have no proof they were meerkat bones.]]
-->'''Mr. Chiba:''' [[spoiler:Maybe they were banana bones! [[AnnoyingLaugh Ha! Ha! Ha! Ha! Ha!]]]]
-->'''Mr. Okamoto:''' [[spoiler:Atsuro, Shut up!]]
-->'''Mr. Chiba:''' [[spoiler:I'm very sorry, Okamoto-san. It's the fatigue.]]
-->'''Mr. Okamoto:''' [[spoiler:You're bringing our service into disrepute!]]
-->'''Mr. Chiba:''' [[spoiler:Very sorry, Okamoto-san.]]

* TearJerker: When the ever optimistic and resourceful Pi finally loses hope.
--> [[WhamLine We're dying, Richard Parker...]]
** There's also the part in the movie where Pi makes up the second version of the story, for the insurance people. He just looks so tired and broken. The entire time he tells the story, he stares straight ahead into space, talking with no emotion, as tears run down his face.
** Pi crying as [[spoiler:he's being taken to civilization after washing up on shore, because Richard Parker left before he could say thank you and goodbye]].

** The [[spoiler: carnivorous island]] Pi finds himself on sort of resembles a [[spoiler: dead body]] from afar in the film.