One thing, I thought Chris was kind of naive and self-indulged, particularily when dealing with his parents. I sympathized with them more than him for most of the movie, they had their problems but still loved the kid and tried to give him everything, but he was brutal to them, totally brutal. Not to mention he planned out his trip horribly, he should've taken the river into precaution, he should've brought a radio for total emergencies, he should've been more careful with the berries, etc.

By all the things I know, not all of them are as stupid, naive and brainless as that Chris guy. He really had no freakin' clue what he was getting into and got his paycheck right at the time.

Your judgements have been registered in the great book of life, and your own misjudgements will be reflected upon you in the same measure.

Personally, I don't believe you understood the quest, and have forgiven you both your hubris...

I'm sure they understand jackass stupidity well enough.

Ill be seeing this next Friday but I know full well I'll find it hard to seperate the film from how truly retarded the main character was in real life. Hopefully the film itself is good thou, maybe I'll just pretend its fiction.

You seem like a smart enough guy to know better than to speak about something you do not understand.

McCandless made some extreme choices about how to live his life, but to assess him as "stupid" or "retarded", is frankly stupid and retarded.

I've gone into wild areas unprepared, beleive me Brad its a retarded thing to do.

Wanting to live a life away from civilization and away from materialism is all fine. If it suits you, why not.

Doing so without any idea what you're getting yourself into is stupid. As simple as that.

Do either of you know McCandless' cause of death?

It is likely that he died of poisoning from a fungus on the seeds of a wild tuber that prevented him from acquiring proper nutrition from foods he ate thereafter. This variation in this particular wild food is seasonal and is said to fool even local experts. It was a fatal mistake to be sure, but to call him retarded or stupid is simply untrue. It would be far more accurate to say that an urbanite who died in a car crash was retarded because he knew of the extreme risks involved in automobile transportation and yet recklessly chose to drive anyways.

His official cause of death was starvation. Jon Krakauer forwarded the theory that McCandless died from ingesting the seeds of the wild potato (Hedysarum alpinum). However, after extensive testing, there remains no evidence that McCandless ingested any toxin from any source. All available evidence suggests that he simply starved.

Toward the end of July, after apparently remaining healthy for more than three months, McCandless wrote a journal entry reporting extreme weakness and blaming it on "pot. seeds." As Krakauer explains, McCandless had been eating the roots of Hedysarum alpinum, a historically edible plant commonly known as wild potato (also "Eskimo potato"). , which are sweet and nourishing in the spring but later become too tough to eat. When this happened, McCandless may have attempted to eat the seeds instead. Krakauer theorizes that the seeds contained a poisonous alkaloid, possibly swainsonine (the toxic chemical in locoweed) or something similar. In addition to neurological symptoms such as weakness and loss of coordination, the poison causes starvation by blocking nutrient metabolism in the body.
According to Krakauer, a well-nourished person might consume the seeds and survive because the body can use its stores of glucose and amino acids to rid itself of the poison. Since McCandless lived on a diet of rice, lean meat, and wild plants and had less than 10% body fat when he died, Krakauer theorized he was likely unable to fend off the toxins. Roots of wild potato were used extensively by aboriginal people, eaten both raw and cooked and used as a licorice substitute. Inuit hunters eat wild potato roots while hunting. However, when the Eskimo potatoes from the area around the bus were later tested in a laboratory of the University of Alaska Fairbanks by Dr. Thomas Clausen, toxins were not found. In the most recent edition of his book, Krakauer has slightly modified his theory regarding the cause of McCandless' death. He believes the seeds of the wild potato had been moldy, and it is the mold that contributed to the seeds' toxicity. The exact cause of the young man's death remains open to question. McCandless may simply have starved to death, a theory backed by the fact that McCandless weighed an estimated 77 pounds at the time of his death.

Hmmmm... let's see what else our old friend Wikipedia has to say on the subject:

Exactly, it remains open to question, but there is simply no evidence for the poisoning, except for the guy's diary (however, he probably didn't know much about the whole thing anyway) and another guy's theory which is based on that very same diary.