Since the film called A Soldier's Story is an adaptation of A Soldier's Play, there are going to be many similarities. Though the technical elements involved in the story's film production and those involved in its stage production are different, the major characters, themes, and plot points are the same. When discussing the two versions' similarities, you can narrow your focus based on what you find most intriguing about the film or the play. For example, you can discuss how the characterization of Sergeant Vernon Waters is fairly similar in both versions of the story.

In both A Soldier's Story and A Soldier's Play, Waters is portrayed as a light-skinned Black sergeant who has internalized white racist notions about Southern Black people. In both versions, Waters is intelligent, cunning, and ambitious; he has a deep hatred for Black men from the rural South, whom he feels embody racist caricatures of the past and reflect poorly on him. Waters is a cruel and oppressive leader and belittles many of the Black soldiers he oversees. In the film and play, Waters has a keen disdain for Private C.J. Memphis, whose happy-go-lucky nature and vernacular speech infuriate him. Waters torments Memphis in both versions of the story, to the point that Memphis commits suicide.