Why didn’t we have direct confrontations with the count and their opponents like in the film with Jim Caviezel?
The 2002 adaptation is not the only adaptation of the book to film. There is the film MOnte Cristo (1929) by Henri Fescourt and with Jean Angelo as Edmond Dantes, there is Le Comte de Monte Cristo (1943) by Robert Vernay and with Pierre-Richard Willm as the Count, The Prisoner of Château d’If (1988 ) by Georgi Yungvald-Khilkevich and with Viktor Avilov as Edmond Dantes, adaptation with Richard Chamberlain and the anime Gankutsuou.
Alexandre Dumas read Homer (Dumas A., Mes Mémoires, Paris, Bouquins, 2003, p. 590.), he had contact with two different styles of protagonist: Achilles in the iliad who sought direct confrontation and Ulysses in the Odyssey who used the cunning to defeat your opponents.
The count could seek a direct confrontation through duels with their opponents as in the duels of Menelaus and Paris, Hector and Achilles or through cunning as did Ulysses in the Odyssey. The Trojan Horse strategy in the Odyssey is even mentioned.
The count of Monte Cristo was just a foreigner in France (he was using a new identity) and his opponents occupied prominent positions and a direct confrontation could pose problems for the count, even though he was rich;
Ulysses tried to deceive the Cyclops Polyphene, because he had no way of defeating him directly. Edmond for facing prominent opponents in the French elite.
Ulysses disguised himself and waited for the right moment to attack when he returned to Ithaca, Edmond used his power to attack so as not to suffer the consequences of his revenge. Because his enemies were prominent people in the elite.
by Pandora_box_Hesiod