Every Way The Five Nights At Freddy's Movie Changes The Video Game Lore
This post contains spoilers for "Five Nights at Freddy's."
It took eight years for the film to finally hit the big screen, but the live-action adaptation of "Five Nights at Freddy's" is making bank at the box office, almost guaranteeing a film series for the already massively popular franchise based on the video game of the same name. With 13 games (and more on the way) and over 30 books of lore to choose from, there was no shortage of ideas for the film's story.
And yet, the film wisely chose not to directly copy the lore of the video games, instead crafting a script that borrows from some of the most well-known elements and creating an alternate universe in the process. Since the movie's release, there have been countless reports of adults lamenting the lore-dumping the little humans in their lives have been doing to try to explain the differences between the games and the movie to those who are in the dark.
So let me, an adult woman in her 30s, explain the differences to you in a way that will hopefully make more sense than an excited 11-year-old who hasn't yet figured out how to effectively communicate a story. The lore is convoluted and ridiculous regardless of medium but if you're willing to suspend disbelief and give yourself over to logic that includes robots running on the corpses of dead kids, this article should hopefully help you wrap your head around what is proving to be the horror event of the year.
Mike Schmidt's story is new
While Mike Schmidt is the protagonist in both the first "FNaF" game and the movie, his backstory is completely different. In the games, Mike is William Afton's son, and "Mike Schmidt" is just an alias he uses to earn the security guard position at Freddy Fazbear's Pizza to put an end to his father's crimes. In the film, he takes the job as a last-ditch effort to show employment in order to maintain custody of his little sister, Abby.
Additionally, Abby is not a character in the games. There are a lot of little girls in the game's lore (Elizabeth Afton and Charlotte Emily, most prominently) but not Abby. This change is a positive one because the eventual reveal that Mike was William's son always had a bit of a Darth Vader/Luke Skywalker vibe to it all and felt a bit silly. By turning Mike into a character who wants to fight Afton because it's the right thing to do rather than one motivated by a familial obligation, his quest for heroism feels stronger.
Instead, Mike's true motivation in the film is focused on his family. He's still reeling with the guilt of his brother Garrett being kidnapped (by William Afton), and trying to keep Abby safe. Afton is still very much a threat to his family, the way he is in the games, but Mike no longer has a familial bond with the killer. This offers room to expand Afton's character to something brand new, something that even die-hard fans can't predict every step of the way. It also allows the Vanessa character more room to grow.
Vanessa doesn't appear to be Vanny (yet)
Of all the characters in the movie who are sourced from the games, Vanessa has arguably the biggest changes in the live-action adaptation. In the game "Security Breach," Vanessa is a security guard for the reopened pizzeria and doesn't have a defined connection to William Afton. However, she is corrupted through a computer virus by Afton's spirit (the games go in some weird directions, folks) and she takes on the moniker of "Vanny," doffs a sleek, robot bunny costume, and becomes an acolyte of Afton's Springtrap. She continues carrying out his work and even kills a few kids in the process. She's like what Amanda is to Jigsaw in the "Saw" films.
In the movie, Vanessa's backstory seems to be a mix between Michael Afton's from the games and Charlie Emily's from the novels — it's revealed that she is William Afton's daughter who has been struggling with knowing the truth for much of her life. It's not quite clear if Vanessa is actually a cop or merely posing as one to have an excuse to try and keep an eye on everything going on at Freddy Fazbear's Pizza, but she does have access to a cop car, radio, and some supplies for animal control, so perhaps she pursued the career in response to her childhood. Speaking of, it is clear that her father still has a lot of control over her. She struggles to face him when confronted directly, and considering she survives all five nights, this likely isn't the last we'll see of Vanessa. It won't be surprising if Vanny becomes one of the antagonists if the film expands into sequels.
The differences with the animatronics
The main four animatronics all follow the same behaviors established in the game's lore, but the motivation behind their killings has changed. In the games, the animatronics attack Mike Schmidt because he looks like William Afton, the person who killed all of the children whose corpses are currently rotting within the animatronics. In the film, the animatronics have violent tendencies because Afton has been controlling them to do his bidding, even commanding them to kill for him. This is emphasized by scenes where the animatronics play with Abby and even build a fort with her, a sign that the souls within the hulking figures are still innocent children.
Their desire to kill Abby is not rooted in malice but in friendship. They want to be able to play with Abby forever, and in their minds, this can only be achieved by putting her inside another animatronic to be just like them. They attempt to put Abby in a suit with an open chest and a doll-like face. This seems to be some sort of amalgamation cross between Ella from the "Five Nights at Freddy's" books and the Circus Baby animatronic from Circus Baby's Pizza World in the game "Security Breach." Ella was the animatronic owned by Charlie Emily, while Circus Baby was the animatronic that killed Elizabeth Afton. This means that Abby's character is most certainly inspired by both of their characters, fortunately not suffering a similar fate.
The origin of Springtrap is different
The relationship between Afton and Vanessa is new for the movie, but since the film doesn't dive into the full histories of the characters like in the games, it's impossible to predict where the franchise will go and what aspects of the lore will remain the same for the two. The movie does showcase an event known as "The Springlock Failure," where William Afton became forever trapped inside the yellow Spring Bonnie suit and turns into the villain known as Springtrap. The circumstances surrounding why the failure took place are different from the games to the movie and will likely be at the center of whatever lore the films take moving forward.
First shown in "Five Nights at Freddy's 3" after beating Night 5, an 8-bit minigame appears that explains the story of how Afton wound up trapped in the suit. The ghosts of the Missing Children (that's the game name for the kids inside the animatronics) corner him in the Safe Room. Looking to hide, Afton goes inside in the Spring Bonnie suit in hopes that they won't see him. The Safe Room is in disrepair, however, and rain pours down from the ceiling, causing the suit to short circuit, sparking a springlock failure and killing Afton.
In the film, Afton is inside the suit when Abby uses crayon art to help remind the Missing Children that Afton is the reason they're all dead and residing inside the animatronics in the first place, and they all turn on him. When Mr. Cupcake jumps on Afton and bites off part of the suit, the animatronic triggers the internal springlock mechanisms' failure, fatally wounding William. At the end of the movie, as Mike, Abby, and Vanessa escape, the animatronics drag Afton's body, in the suit, into a back room to bleed out.