The 5 biggest differences between the 'Paper Towns' book and movie

Spoiler alert! The following contains spoilers for both the Paper Towns book and movie. 

Like The Fault in Our Stars, the movie adaptation of John Green's Paper Towns is decently faithful to its source material, but there are quite a few changes (as always happens). We break down the five biggest changes, and what they mean (there were too many little ones to mention them all).

5. They don't break into Seaworld

In the movie Margo's and Quentin's night of (mis)adventure is missing one very important stop: Seaworld. In the book Margo wants to go because it's the only theme park she hasn't broken into. She also gets bitten by a snake when they're wading through the moat. In the movie it's never mentioned, Green even acknowledged it on YouTube, saying “no one was anxious to pay Sea World for the chance to give them good publicity.”

4. Radar doesn't work for Omnictionary (and Angela has a bigger role)

In the book Radar is a very high level editor at a Wikipedia-like site called Omnictionary, and spends a considerable amount of time removing spam from entries. In the movie whenever they need to look up something they look it up on a site called Omnictionary, which looks just like Wikipedia but doesn't get any further explanation. Also Radar's girlfriend Angela's role is inflated in the movie. The pair share several scenes alone and Angela joins on the road trip, a change that we whole-heartedly support.

3. The timeline

The movie keeps a lot of the same elements from the book, but just shakes them up a bit. In the book the whole road trip to find Margo thing goes like this: Quentin figures out Margo is in Agloe from the Omnictionary entry on Graduation Day (so after prom), and it says that she will only be there "until may 29th at Noon." The gang leaves for Agloe directly from Graduation and the time crunch is so that they can get there by May 29th at noon, which happens to be the next day. They get into a crash, but it only causes minimal damage and they keep right on going. In the movie all of this happens before prom and there's no time crunch from Margo, but rather from Radar who wants to get to prom on time. The car crash blows out a tire, so they have to wait for a few hours for help, during which time Radar and Angela have a very special moment together (read: have sex).

2. They don't find Margo in Agloe

In the book when the crew gets to Agloe, finally, they find Margo sitting in an office chair in a barn, writing in a journal and sporting a new haircut. Then they all confront her about her disappearance, Margo is kind of (read: really) mean to Lacey, everyone leaves except Quentin, and then the two duke it out over everything, including his obsession with her and idealization of her (they end up staying the night). He convinces her to call her parents to tell them she's OK, and she tries to convince him to move to New York City with her. The two kiss and promise to stay in touch.

In the movie, Margo isn't in the barn. The crew waits for awhile and eventually leaves without Quentin, who is determined to wait for her for longer. Eventually he heads over to the real town near Agloe, and spots Margo after he's bought a bus ticket back to Orlando. The two get milkshakes together, duke it out over everything. She invites him to come with her but doesn't say where, and when he tells her to call her sister, Margo says they talk everyday. The two kiss. Quentin heads back home for prom.

1. They never really think Margo could have committed suicide

This is really the biggest change, and it's not so much to the plot as it is a tonal change. Throughout the book there is the slight fear that Margo might have killed herself. It just makes the book more on the drama end of the dramedy scale. It happens because of a few key plot points the movie left out.

First, although Margo and Quentin still find the the dead guy at the beginning as kids and she says "all the strings in him broke," she never repeats that as a teenager. But in the book she does, referring to her boyfriend cheating on her she says her own last string broke:
"But it was the last string. It was a lame string, for sure, but it was the one I had left, and every paper girl needs at least one string, right?"
Also, when Quentin, Radar and Ben go to the abandoned building for the first time in the book, they find a dead raccoon, but first they smell it, and there's a palpable fear that it could be Margo:
"As soon as the car stopped, my nose and mouth were flooded with the rancid smell of death. ... I know all at once that this isn't funny, that this hasn't been prove-to-me-you're-good-enough-to-hang-out-with-me. I can here Margo that night as we drove around Orlando. I can hear her saying to me, 'I don't want some kids to find me swarmed with flies on a Saturday morning in Jefferson Park. Not wanting to be found by some kids in Jefferson Park isn't the same thing as not wanting to die."
Of course the Margo in the books has not killed herself, she's just gone to Agloe, just like the Margo in the movie, but there's a definite difference in the mood of the search for awhile.