Edge of Tomorrow

[00:00:04] Speaker A: This Film Is lit, the podcast where we finally settle the score on one simple Is the book really better than the movie? I'm Brian and I have a film degree, so I watch the movie but don't read the book. [00:00:15] Speaker B: And I'm Katie, I have an English degree, so I do things the right way and read the book before we watch the movie. [00:00:22] Speaker A: So prepare to be wowed by our expertise and charm as we dissect all of your favorite film adaptations and decide if the silver screen the or the written word did it better. So turn it up, settle in, and get ready for spoilers because this film is lit. What do we do now? I don't know. We've never gotten this far. It's Edge of Tomorrow and this film is Lit. Hello and welcome back to this Film is like the Pockets where we talk about movies that are based on books. We have every single one of our segments this week, so we're gonna jump right in. If you have not read or watched Edge of Tomorrow, Slash all youl Need Is Kill we're gonna give you a brief summary of the film in Let me sum up. Let me explain. No, there is too much. Let me sum up. [00:01:27] Speaker B: This summary is sourced from Wikipedia. In 2015, an alien race known as Mimics lands in Germany and swiftly conquers much of continental Europe, killing millions. By 2020, humanity has formed a global military alliance, the United Defense Force udf, to combat the Mimics. However, victory remained elusive until the recent Battle of Verdun, which was secured by the celebrated war hero Sergeant Rita. How do you say her last name? [00:02:02] Speaker A: I say Vertaski. [00:02:04] Speaker B: Sergeant Rita Vertaski. In Britain, the UDF amasses forces for a major invasion of France. General Brigham orders Public Affairs Major William Cage to cover the offensive from the front line, but the inexperienced and cowardly Cage attempts to blackmail Brigham into rescinding the order. Brigham has Cage arrested, demoted to private, and sent to the military base at Heathrow Airport to join the invasion as infantry. He is assigned to Master Sergeant Farrell and the misfit J Squad, who dislike and belittle him. The following day, the invasion forces land on a French beach, but are ambushed and killed and massacred by Mimics. Cage uses a claymore mine to kill a larger Alpha Mimic. Bathed in the Mimic's blood, Cage dies. During the ensuing explosion, Cage suddenly awakens at Heathrow, realizing he is reliving the previous morning. He makes failed attempts to warn against the invasion and experiences multiple loops in which he dies on the beach, only to awaken again at Heathrow with Each loop, his combat skills and knowledge of the battlefield improve. He tries to save Rita's life so she can lead them, but after recognizing his apparent prescience, she allows herself to die, ordering Cage to find her on his next loop. Cage quickly convinces Rita of the reset because she gained the same power after exposure to an Alpha's blood. Her loops enabled her, an initially inexperienced soldier, to win at Verdun, but a later blood transfusion removed the power. Rita takes Cage to mimic expert Dr. Carter, who explains the creatures are a superorganism controlled by a single gigantic Omega mimic. Whenever the Alpha mimics are killed, the Omega restarts a loop and adjusts its tactics until the mimics win. Rita realizes the Mimics allowed the UDF victory at Verdun to make them overconfident in their new exoskeletons and lure them into over committing their forces and retaking Europe, allowing the Mimics to exterminate most of the resistance. Cage spends many loops training with Rita so they can reach the Omega, but he begins to care for her and struggles after seeing her repeatedly die. He experiences a vision of the Omega concealed in a German dam, and he and Rita seek it out. During the journey, the pair bond, but Rita remains distant, having seen someone she cared about die hundreds of times at Verdun. She eventually determines that this is not the first loop in which they approached the Omega. Cage reveals that she always dies before reaching the dam, regardless of his actions, and he is unwilling to kill the Omega and end the loops if she will remain dead. Upset, Rita attempts to leave, but is killed by a Mimic. Despondent. During the next loop, Cage travels to the dam alone. He learns the vision was a trap and is ambushed by an Alpha, but Cage drowns it before it can remove his power. [00:04:54] Speaker A: Cage drowns. Oh. [00:04:56] Speaker B: Cage drowns before it can remove his power to find the Omega. Cage and Rita sneak into General Brigham's office and pressure him into handing over a prototype transponder designed by Carter, having used it to locate the Omega beneath the Louvre pyramid in Paris. Cage is knocked unconscious during their escape and given a blood transfusion for his injuries. Removing his power, Rita frees Cage and he uses his detailed knowledge of J Squad to convince them to help destroy the Omega. They fly to Paris, where the squad members sacrifice themselves to ensure Cage and Rita reach the Louvre. Cornered by an Alpha, Rita kisses Cage, lamenting that she does not have more time to get to know him. The Alpha kills Rita and mortally wounds Cage, but he drops several grenades that destroy the Omega, which bathe him in its blood. Cage awakens before his first meeting with General Brigham and witnesses a news announcement that all mimics are dead. Following a mysterious energy surge in Paris, Cage returns to Heathrow and finds Rita oblivious to his identity. She inquires what he wants. Cage chuckles. The end. [00:06:03] Speaker A: The end. All right, that was a summary of the film. I have one very easy Guess who. But we're gonna do it because why not? Who are you? No one of consequence. I must know. [00:06:17] Speaker B: Get used to disappointment. [00:06:19] Speaker A: Hey, I included this just cause we haven't done Guess who in a while. And I wrote down a character description and then there was really no other character descriptions. So I was like, well, I'll just put this one in there. Just for no other reason that we can compare to the film. Her hair was the color of rusted steel, faded to a dull red. Some redheads conjure up images of blood, fire, deeds of valor. Not her. If it weren't for the sand colored shirt she was wearing, she'd have looked like some kid who'd come to the base on a field trip and gotten herself lost. I couldn't take my eyes off the line of her hair. She wore it short as it bobbed in the wind. There was a graceful balance to her features. You might even have called her beautiful. She had a thin nose, a sharp chin. Her neck was long and white where most jacket jockeys didn't even have necks. Her chest, however, was completely flat. At odds with the images of Caucasian women you saw plastered on the walls of every barrack cell. Not that it bothered me. [00:07:16] Speaker B: Okay, so based on the number of characters and the genders of the numbers of characters, I'm going to say that this is probably Rita. [00:07:26] Speaker A: It is Rita Vrataski. Yeah, it was the only one that was a direct translation that had a character description. Because there are some other character descriptions in the book, but they're for characters that aren't in the movie, essentially, which we'll talk about. But also it gives you a little bit of a taste of the men writing women, not men writing women, I guess, but the. There's. We'll get to it. I have notes on it, but there's a lot of. This is a sci fi book written by a man. Yeah, it's what this is. And there's. I'll have some more examples later, but you get a little bit of it there. [00:08:04] Speaker B: Not bothered by her flat chest though. [00:08:06] Speaker A: Yeah, he's a hero. [00:08:08] Speaker B: Because he's. [00:08:08] Speaker A: He's a hero. He doesn't mind. [00:08:09] Speaker B: He's a good guy. He doesn't mind. He's above. [00:08:12] Speaker A: He's above all gigantic boobs. But don't worry, he does notice when they do have gigantic boobs. And we won't talk about it. So Katie has some questions, so we're gonna get into those in. Was that in the book? Gaston? [00:08:26] Speaker B: May I have my book, please? [00:08:28] Speaker A: How can you read this? [00:08:29] Speaker B: There's no pictures. Well, some people use their imagination. Okay, my first question right off the top. The movie kind of started, like in media resources with the invasion war already going. We don't really see a lot of before. [00:08:46] Speaker A: It starts with the news clips kind of outlining, summing it up. [00:08:51] Speaker B: But by the time we get to the story proper, we're already deep into this war. Does the book start the same way? [00:08:58] Speaker A: Yes, the war has already begun and they've been fighting against the MIMIC for around 20 years. According to Kaiji, the main character in the book, which we'll talk about at the point that the book's narrative starts, the movie did. One of the things the movie nailed in this opening is the meteors falling around the world. That was the beginning of the incident in the book. We don't find that out until the part where we get the background about how this all started comes like, halfway through the book. So, like that background. But it does start similarly where we just start right on. They're about to go to this big battle like it's already been going on. But they nailed the part where the meteors falling around the world. It does leave out one little detail that I really liked, is that in the book it's mentioned all these meteors fell and they left. There were these, like, things left over. I don't know if they call them spaceships. I can't recall in the book. But there were these objects left over and they ended up. And there was one in orbit around Earth and they ended up just like destroying all of those. But what happened is that two of the meteors, I believe it was two, fell in the ocean to the bottom of the ocean. And they didn't realize they were down there. And so they actually ended up destroying most of this before the invasion could kick off. But the mimic ships landed in the ocean. And what happened there is like these, like, nanobots come out of them that they're basically what this is. And the book explains this is. You get a very brief explanation in the book that this is all terraforming for some alien species way far away. So what the mimics are doing is they're preparing Earth for expansion for some Other alien species, like the mimics themselves aren't the actual. They're like the machine organisms that are converting the Earth into a hospitable habitat for these future aliens that are going to come at some point potentially interesting. So they shoot these probes out to planets that they identify Earth as a potential planet that they can I say terraform. It wouldn't be terraforming because terraforming specifically refers to turning something into an Earth like planet. [00:11:02] Speaker B: But something in that vein of. [00:11:04] Speaker A: Yeah, the same idea, but for their planet. [00:11:05] Speaker B: Yeah. [00:11:07] Speaker A: Anyway, so it lands in the oceans and we don't realize they're down there and the nanobots come out and they. The thing from the little passage from the book is in the depths the machines chanced upon echinoderms, starfish, the creshy produced nanobot. I don't know what that means. So we'll get into this more. But this is all translated from Japanese and I think there are some. I don't want to say necessarily translation problems, but there are some times where I feel like the fact that it's translated not everything comes across perfectly. Also, I think I just don't know what this word is. Here is the issue. I've never heard of C R E C H E with an accent over this first E. I don't know, it's almost like creche but the accent's on the wrong E. So produced nanobots penetrated the rigid endoskeletons of the starfish and began to multiply in symbiosis with their hosts. So they. The reason that they kind of look like starfish in the movie. Oh, I think is a reference to this. Is that in the book they are like. They kind of cross bred with starfish. [00:12:15] Speaker B: Gotcha. [00:12:15] Speaker A: In order to create these mimics and that's why they look like that. So I thought that was interesting. And we'll get more to what they look like later. But I thought that was a but. Yeah, broadly. Yeah, pretty similar. [00:12:28] Speaker B: So the main character of this movie is played by Tom Cruise and we meet him like right off the bat and he's on the news at the beginning. Yeah, he is. He's like a. He's in the military, but he's like a media spokesperson. Yeah, he's a PR guy. Is that what his character is in the book? [00:12:49] Speaker A: No, this is one of the biggest changes. The main character in the book is a new recruit going into his first battle named Private Kaiji Korea. He's Japanese. So this book takes place in Japan and they're fighting Battles in Japan and the movie switches that to Europe so that Tom Cruise can be our main character. Not that it couldn't have still happened in Japan, I guess, but they switched the main character to an American guy instead of a Japanese guy. I don't know if I'd argue that this is better in the movie. Cause I think the character's fine in the book. I do like the setup in the movie of Tom Cruise being this mouthpiece for the war who's a complete coward but ends up getting forced into a combat situation. I think that's a fun. An interesting hook, especially for a character played by Tom Cruise where he's not usually. He never plays that guy. He's always the hero. He's always. Which he ends up being the hero. Yeah, but even in movies, I don't know if I've ever seen a movie where Tom Cruise wasn't like the coolest guy the whole time, you know, barring like some earlier movies. And it's like so much of his current day thing. He's like the most badass, coolest guy ever. And that's just like the whole time he's that. You know what I mean? And so I like this idea of him being kind of like a coward at the beginning. And I just think it's an interesting way to get it in. But it does mimic because this is Kaiji's first battle, he's like a brand new recruit. He's equally terrified and unsure of what to do, like the very first time he goes into battle. So they keep that element of it. But I think it's a fun twist. Again, I don't know if I'd say it's better in the movie, but I do like it. [00:14:29] Speaker B: Okay, so then I guess my next two questions are probably also going to be a no, but does he get ordered to the front line despite not having any combat experience and then try to blackmail his way out and basically get sent to die anyway? [00:14:45] Speaker A: Yeah, Again, no. None of this is from the book because the main character is. He volunteered for the army. I do like this quite a bit. I think it sets up a fairly compelling character arc for Cage to become a hero. Which Cage is his name in the. In the movie? Yeah, which we'll get to. That's actually a book reference, but it's not a character arc I personally find super compelling. We'll get more to that later. About like thematically what this book, in this movie are doing and. Or if they are doing anything. But it is an arc for him to like Learn to be a hero or a brave guy or whatever. [00:15:21] Speaker B: Yeah. [00:15:21] Speaker A: That I think works fine for the type of movie that this is. [00:15:24] Speaker B: Right? Yeah. Yeah. [00:15:26] Speaker A: Again, I don't think it's like super compelling or original or anything, but it's. It's an arc of some sort of. [00:15:32] Speaker B: So we meet Feral. [00:15:35] Speaker A: Yes, The Sergeant Major. [00:15:38] Speaker B: Sergeant Major, I believe. I don't know anything about military titles. [00:15:42] Speaker A: I don't know enough. I'm pretty sure he's Sergeant Major. [00:15:44] Speaker B: I don't know who outranks who and whatnot. [00:15:47] Speaker A: He's Sergeant Major in the book or Sergeant Farrell in the book. [00:15:52] Speaker B: But he has a line in the movie about a fiery crucible. [00:16:00] Speaker A: Yes. [00:16:00] Speaker B: Is that from the book? [00:16:01] Speaker A: So I'm assuming you mean his little speech he gives at the beginning. Everything where he goes, good news for you. You have a chance to redeem yourself. Because battle is the great redeemer. It is the fiery crucible in which true heroes are forged. [00:16:14] Speaker B: Yes. [00:16:14] Speaker A: Yeah. That is not from the book. I was able to find. If you are interested in reading the actual light novel version of this, it is available in full through Internet Archive. I found after we had already purchased a copy of the book. Not that I'm mad about buying a copy. I'm just saying you can go read it for free on Internet Archive. And so I was able to search for that line. It's not in the book and I didn't recall it. I do think Bill Paxton is great as Sergeant Farrell. They changed the spelling for some reason, which is interesting. In the book it's spelled F E R R E L L. And for some reason in the movie it's F A R R. I don't know why it's weird, but I really like his performance and the character writing. I definitely think it matches the vibe of how Farrell is described in the book, which he is described thusly by Kaiji. He'd lived through so many battles. He was more than soldier. He was the glue that kept our company together. They said if you stuck him in a centrifuge, he'd come out 70% big brother, 20% ball busting drill sergeant and 10% steel reinforced carbon, which I think Bill Paxton's version of Feral in the movie is a pretty good version of that. Maybe you don't see as much of the Big Brother stuff because that is in the book he does. Kaiji gets to know him a little bit more over the course of the loops and trains with him and stuff and does grow to respect and like. Whereas in the movie he's kind of just like a minor antagonist the whole time. But I also think you can tell that he does. He does have that kind of like hard boy. This is a soldier who's seen it all, has done this a million times kind of thing. Which I think. Yeah, I think matches his character in the book pretty well. Cool. [00:17:50] Speaker B: We meet a handful of people that are on the J Squad. I don't really remember any of their names. [00:17:57] Speaker A: It doesn't matter. None of them are in the book. [00:17:59] Speaker B: But there is one guy whose thing is that he gets into his mech suit and like goes into battle naked. [00:18:07] Speaker A: Not naked. He's wearing a jockstrap, but mostly naked. He doesn't wear like a suit or like clothes. He just wears underwear under the suit. [00:18:15] Speaker B: Almost completely naked. [00:18:18] Speaker A: They're called jackets, by the way. [00:18:19] Speaker B: Jackets. [00:18:19] Speaker A: Yeah. I don't know if the movie called. [00:18:22] Speaker B: I don't think the movie. I don't remember the movie calling that. But they must. [00:18:25] Speaker A: That is what they're called in the book. [00:18:26] Speaker B: I might not have caught it because I wouldn't have been like keyed into that word to describe it. [00:18:31] Speaker A: It's funny cause I'm not. I'm not remembering them saying it, but I'm sure they must have. Anyways. Yeah. [00:18:37] Speaker B: So is a jockstrap guy in the book? [00:18:41] Speaker A: No, it is not mentioned that again. None of the members of J Squad are in the book. The main friend that Kaiji has who is in his squad in the book is a guy named Yonaburo who's another Japanese soldier who I didn't notice a direct. Which to be fair, in the book, he has very little character other than like he's a horn dog and like wants to sleep with women all the time. [00:19:02] Speaker B: Okay. [00:19:02] Speaker A: That's like his primary character trait. Now, to be fair, they're a bunch of teenagers. Like, they're a bunch of like 18 year olds. [00:19:07] Speaker B: Oh, they're like young. [00:19:08] Speaker A: They're young. They're like brand new recruits into this, you know, so they're all like supposed to be young, like hormonal, whatever. So. But he doesn't have much personality. But no, there is no. All those other guys aren't in it. And there is not really any element of like people doing stuff like that. But one thing I did really like in relation to that character. Not so much that he doesn't wear any. That he goes into battle in his underwear under his jacket or whatever. What I did like though is that his jacket is different. It's like more armored and kind of like he's A bigger guy and he has like this bigger, like armored jacket. And there's some other guys who have like different kind of customized elements of their jackets, which I thought was really cool because that is a thing we know happens in the book. Because specifically Rita has completely like customized her jacket to her liking. And so we know it can be done. And so I like the idea of showing other soldiers who have either were issued it or whatever, just a little minor world building of like they're. All of them aren't wearing exactly identical suits. Like they maybe are slightly different in certain ways based on how they fight or whatever or maybe their role in the squad or something like that. So yeah, I thought that was. I liked that. The naked thing, whatever. But just the jackets being a little more custom I thought was cool. [00:20:25] Speaker B: Okay, so we meet Emily Blunt's character. Yes, Rita. So Rita, in the book, is she a war hero? Does she wield a giant fuck off sword? And why is she the only one who gets a giant fuck off sword? [00:20:44] Speaker A: Yeah, so Emily Blunt plays Rita Vertaski, who is from the book, has the exact same name. They didn't change that at all. Exactly what her character is in the book. And she is a revered war hero known as Valkyrie is like her official kind of like title or whatever. But she is broadly referred to as the Full Metal Bitch by people. That's not like her normal, but that's how people refer to her, which we see in the movie. I had a movie nailed it about that. Where we see some graffiti of some propaganda poster of her with Full Metal Bitch graffitied over it. And then Mad Wargarita is another thing that people call her some. [00:21:23] Speaker B: Are those all like nicknames? But there. Are they like flattering nicknames? Are they good nicknames? [00:21:30] Speaker A: Valkyrie for sure. Full Metal Bitch is kind of both. It's. [00:21:35] Speaker B: It's like I could see that going either way. [00:21:37] Speaker A: It's kind of both. It's. It's one of those where like everybody reveres her as like this incredible. Like she's literally like the best warrior ever. And like has the book describes it like. And a movie similarly, like she has killed like hundreds and hundreds of mimics by herself. Whereas usually it takes like whole squads of people to kill one. Like she can kill dozens alone or whatever. So she's like incredibly op compared to all the rest of the soldiers. So I think like Full Metal Bitch. And also she's very cold because of part of it in the book, it's related to the looping thing. And we see a little bit of that in the movie of the idea of like her not forming attachments with people because of her experience with the looping and stuff like that. So she is very like cold and not like whatever. So it's both. It's like Full Metal Bitch is kind of like. It's a term of respect in the sense that like she's like a complete badass, like whatever. But also it's. It is at the same time slightly right. Like mean spirited and that like they think she's kind of a. You know what I mean? And same for Mad Margarita. It's just that she's like crazy or whatever because she like runs into battle by herself like murdering everybody. So getting to the sword. She does not have a giant fuck off sword in the book, but she does have a giant fuck off ax. [00:23:00] Speaker B: Okay. [00:23:01] Speaker A: I'm fairly indifferent on this change. The sword I think is probably visually cooler in, in the, in the movie. Yeah, like it's a more like dynamic and just like a thing makes her [00:23:12] Speaker B: look like a video game character. [00:23:14] Speaker A: I think an ax also would to be fair. But a sword is just the most iconic melee weapon and so I think they're going with that. In the book it's specifically mentioned to be an axe for like actual reasons. And he mentions that she. It's not. She doesn't use a sword because the axe is better because one, it's super heavy and the mimics are huge. And so having the mass of a. An axe to th. Wield around compared to a. A sword just. It makes it hit harder. But also the ax is still effective even after it starts to get dull is what he says. [00:23:49] Speaker B: Yeah. [00:23:50] Speaker A: Whereas with a sword as it would get dull, it would not be as effective because it doesn't have the mass behind it. Which is true in real life to a sense. Like axes maintain their effectiveness as a weapon longer like. Or you know, it's not. They're. They're more durable because you can. Even if it's dull, it can still. Because of the mass behind it, it can still punch through armor, punch through, stuff like that. Whereas the sword would be less so. Which I think makes sense. But like I said, I do like the visual of her having a giant sword. Also in the book. She's not the only one that gets a fuck off sword. He said. Why is only Emily Blunt at the sword in the book? Kaiji eventually gets his own axe. Specifically because in the book they have this weapon that we don't really see in the movie. I guess we kind of do. It's like the shoulder launchers, I guess, but it's not really mentioned. They have like these shoulder launcher things called pile drivers that are like a 20 round kind of like rocket launcher thing that eventually Kaiji realizes is a limiting factor because it has limited ammo. Once you use those 20 rounds, it's useless. Whereas when he sees Rita fighting with the sword or with the axe, in the book, it never runs out of ammo. So she can fight forever and keep fighting and killing mimics long after she, you know, she would have run out of ammo with the thing. So he's like, I need one those. Because that's. But nobody uses them in the book. Nobody else uses them because they're incredibly hard to train with. And the. The way the mech suits work and stuff in order to wield it. She basically explains, like, it would be very easy to. Because the mass of the ax is so big that unless you're very, very good with it and even training with it, you could essentially like break your spine in half by like swinging it incorrectly because it's so heavy or it needs to be so heavy in order to actually do anything to a mimic that if you're training with it, you have to be incredibly careful. And if you do anything wrong, you can just like kill yourself with like paralyze yourself by like swinging it the wrong way. And just the momentum and mass of it will like snap your spine in half, essentially. So nobody else uses them. Okay, but he has able to with the loops. He's able to train with it the same way she was. So that. So he gets his own ax eventually. [00:26:01] Speaker B: But other people have swords or. [00:26:04] Speaker A: No, no, Nobody else has any melee weapons. They all just have guns. Yeah, sorry. Nobody else has any melee weapons at all. They all have guns or the things called pile drivers, which are like, they shoot like rockets or whatever. They're all like, yeah, bullet based things. [00:26:22] Speaker B: You answered this a little bit already, but are the aliens described as looking anything like they do in the movie? [00:26:29] Speaker A: I think pretty close. I think they look awesome in the movie. I think they're really, really cool. So I'll read the description from the book here of this is like, I did write this down for the description. It didn't make sense for Gifu, but I guess I could have. The silhouette of a misshapen orb materialized in the clay brown haze. It was shorter than a man. It would probably come up to the shoulder of a jacketed soldier. If a man were a thin pole standing on end. A mimic would be a stout barrel A barrel with four limbs and a tail. At any rate, something like the bloated corpse of a drowned frog, we like to say. To hear the lab rats tell it, they would have more in common with starfish. But that's just the details, and that's a. We will find out later that they literally have something in common with starfish. We don't know. We haven't at this time. We haven't heard the thing about the starfish thing, but the lab. I assume the scientists are aware of that at this point. So that's why he says that they make for a smaller target than a man. So naturally, they're harder to hit. Despite their size, they weigh more than we do. If you took one of those oversized casks, the kind Americans use to distill bourbon, and filled it with wet sand, you'd probably have it about right. Not the kind of mass a mammal that 70% water could ever hope for. A single swipe of one of its limbs can send a man flying into a thousand little pieces. Their javelins, projectiles fired from vents in their bodies, have the power of 40 millimeter shells. So. And as I mentioned earlier, the book mentions that nanobots use starfish to create the mimics. So them having a vaguely starfishy shape in the movie, to me, felt accurate. [00:27:56] Speaker B: Feels good. [00:27:57] Speaker A: Yeah, yeah, yeah. The book. And actually feels more accurate than what the books. Cause the book says they have four legs and a tail, which I guess a starfish has five limbs, so I guess. Yeah. But I really like the way they look in the movie. I think they're really creepy. And I have a note about it later, but I thought they were kind of nailed. Exactly. Most specifically, the thing they nailed is, like, the way they move and how dangerous they are. [00:28:22] Speaker B: So after his first battle, Cage starts to loop. [00:28:29] Speaker A: Yeah. He kills a mimic which spills its blood, which is in the book, they don't have blood. They have, like, electrical sand inside them. They call it, like. Like, they spill out this, like, conductive sand. [00:28:43] Speaker B: Okay. [00:28:43] Speaker A: Which is cool. And it's kind of what it looks like in the movie. [00:28:45] Speaker B: It doesn't look like. It does look kind of molten. [00:28:47] Speaker A: Yeah, it kind of looks metal. Yeah. Like, almost like sand or. But anyway, so. Yeah. And then he gets. In the book, he gets. Or in the movie, he gets covered in the blood and dies. And then that's what causes the loop. [00:28:58] Speaker B: Yeah. But then he pops back to, like, right as he's arriving at this training [00:29:07] Speaker A: camp, the military base at Heathrow, London. Heathrow. [00:29:11] Speaker B: So is that from the book, does he pop back to kind of the same point or. [00:29:18] Speaker A: Yeah, essentially, yes. So in the movie it appears to be, I think they say a 24 hour loop. In the book or in the. Yeah, they say in the movie it's a 24 hour loop. In the book it's. They say it's exactly a 30 hour loop. For whatever reason that's. That's the time, the amount of time it loops. And it is the same where it is similar, where Kaiji loops back in the book to him waking up the day before the battle. So. Which is similar in the movie where it's. It's the day before the battle he goes to fight in. [00:29:48] Speaker B: Yeah. [00:29:49] Speaker A: And then he wakes up there every day. And in the movie he's like waking up on like that bag of. Or that pile of bags or whatever. In the book he wakes up like in his bunk. Like in it, you know, he like every chapter starts with like he has like, he fell asleep like reading a novel and he like has his hand, finger in like holding the page or whatever and he wakes up every morning with his finger. [00:30:11] Speaker B: That's kind of fun. [00:30:12] Speaker A: Yeah, yeah, yeah. And he never finishes the novel. He says, but it's like some mystery novel. But yeah, but it's the same thing. He wakes up the same time every day. And it's from being asleep, which I think is kind of important because it's. And it's a little confusing. A little. A lot confusing. I'll preface now, I am not an expert on what the hell happened in this book because specifically like the time travel stuff is. I don't want to say it's poorly explained. I think it's fine. But I was really struggling wrapping my head like completely around what like the, the mechanics and the logistics of how the time travel worked because it's not really that important. It's clearly like the premise was thought of and then like how do we come up with a some sort of vaguely believable like sci fi explanation for this time loop? But yeah, I. But anyways, my point was that the fact that he's waking up from being asleep I think is kind of relevant in the book because there's this allusion to the idea that. That this is. That what is actually happening is that you're kind of dreaming or something. I don't know. I'm not even you giving me a look and I can't even begin to explain it. There's this whole sub thing, side thing where people are. There's like reports from around the World of people having dreams about the creatures. And I think it's implied that maybe those are people who are also looping or maybe not. I don't. Again, some of those little things like with like the mechanics of what's going on in this and some of that world building stuff. I'm not sure if I'm dumb or if it's like a little bit lost in translation or if it's just not that thoroughly fleshed out in the book. You know what I mean? Like, maybe it's just not actually as. [00:31:57] Speaker B: Yeah. Anyways, well, maybe we'll have a listener. [00:32:00] Speaker A: I'm hoping maybe. Yeah. [00:32:02] Speaker B: Who speaks Japanese. [00:32:04] Speaker A: Either speaks Japanese or just has read this or is like a big fan of this book and like knows a lot about it. Like, because again, some. And we'll get more into it later, but there's some specific stuff with like how the loops get closed at the end and like how the time travel mechanic like finishes or whatever that I have notes as I was reading, like I don't understand what is supposed to have happened here or whatever. [00:32:31] Speaker B: So he goes through like several loops after we figure out. We get like a montage of him dying and waking up and doing things. And then finally he is on the battlefield and he interacts with Rita and she says, come find me when you wake up. [00:32:53] Speaker A: Yeah. [00:32:53] Speaker B: Revealing that she knows. [00:32:56] Speaker A: Cause he says something to her about like, hey, you're gonna. He like tells her that he's like, he knows what's gonna happen. And then she goes home. [00:33:02] Speaker B: She says, come find me when you wake up. And I was wondering if that line was from the book. [00:33:07] Speaker A: No, it's not. But I thought it was a great hook. And it does mirror the reveal of Rita knowing about the loops in the book. Because there is a similar thing where he's been in these loops. Eventually he talks to Rita a handful of times and then eventually it's revealed. Oh, she knows about this in the book. The. The line is. After this a similar type of conversation happens. She turns to him or shouldn't turn to him. She says in his comms, like right as a chapter ends in one of the sections, he says something to her and then she says over his comms, how many loops is this for you? And that's what he's like, oh, shit. She knows what's going on. [00:33:45] Speaker B: A little gag that I really enjoyed in this movie. So she tells him to come find her. In order to do that, he has to get away from his squadron. So he attempts to do this by getting the Sergeant to give them push ups to do. And then he tries to like duck and roll under a moving truck. And the first time he tries this, he gets run over and like loops back. [00:34:13] Speaker A: Yeah. [00:34:14] Speaker B: Is that from the book? [00:34:15] Speaker A: It is not. I think it's a great movie addition. I love it. It is not from the book. It is a reference kind of to a thing in the book which is that every day on that first day they have PT physical training. Where they do. In the book they do these things called ISO push ups, which is essentially planking, where they just hold a push up for like an hour or something like that. And they specifically say that they do those because it's like punishment. They're actually being punished in the book. It's not just like training. They're in trouble for a thing that I'll talk about later. But the ISO push ups, the book specifically mentions that that type of workout is according to the. The military is good for people using jackets because you don't have to be strong to use a jacket. So like lifting weights and stuff doesn't matter because the jacket augments your strength like incredibly. So you don't have to be strong to use a jacket, but you have to have a lot of endurance and you specifically have to have like really good like body control and like that sort of thing. So the idea of like doing like this like holding a plank, where you have to like hold your body in this exact position for like a really long time. The idea is that that trains the type of stuff you need to do to use a jacket. [00:35:31] Speaker B: Supposedly that makes sense. [00:35:32] Speaker A: So I think the them having to do push ups there is a reference to that maybe because I feel like [00:35:36] Speaker B: we see Emily Blunt do that kind of. [00:35:40] Speaker A: Yeah, it's a different thing, but it is. Yeah, she's doing like. She's doing like a one handed, like balanced thing, almost like a acrobatics kind of like pose. But it is similar. Yeah, because they're literally as it's described in a book is literally just get into a push up position. But instead of like a plank is where you're like on your elbows or whatever. It's just you hold the upright, like you extend like you're at the top of a push up and then you just hold there. So what she's doing is similar but a little bit different. But I think that is also a reference to that probably. But yeah, yeah, I think it's great. And I just love all of the movie's little sight gags that they can do with him. Dying and restarting that are just not attainable in the same way in the book. Like, I really like the moments in the movie where something goes comically wrong and then he dies and it restarts again. Some of that stuff kind of happens in the book. There are moments like that, but I just don't think they're as effective or as funny as they are in the movie. Just by the nature of the visual medium and the way that like kind of editing gags like that can work. There are some similar type stuff in the book. Again, it's not like it's. The book has none of that. I just think the movie takes it and dials it up a little bit more. [00:36:47] Speaker B: All right, so he goes to meet her and we also meet the doctor, whose name, Dr. Carter, who's like an expert on mimics. And one thing that I thought was funny and then it comes back later when he's getting further into the loop every time, is that when he meets him, the doctor's like, how many fingers am I holding up behind my back? And Tom Cruise is just like, how should I know? Is that from the book? [00:37:21] Speaker A: It is not from the book. The doctor character isn't really in the book. He's essentially a stand in for a character named Shasta Rael, who's a Native American woman who is the mechanic who works on Rita's jacket. She's the one that Kaiji goes to and gets an axe from. He goes and talks to her and is like, hey, I want an axe. Because he knows that she made it for Rita or whatever. And so she's like, he's essentially a stand in for that character, it seems like. Cause he seems to be her mechanic. But that character in the book, she's not like a mimic gene. Like she's not like a biologist or whatever he is. She's just actually a mechanic, but a similar character. But no, there. No one ever really tests his foreknowledge in the book. So I enjoyed that in the movie because there's not a moment. He also doesn't really tell anybody other than Rita. Like he does tell Rita, but it's different. He doesn't even tell her every loop, I don't think. But in the same way, like it's not like him and Rita like planning like how to do this in the same way. But. So, yeah, there's not really any gags like this, but I thought it was fun. I enjoy that. Yeah. Especially later when he's like, you have two fingers behind your back. [00:38:28] Speaker B: Yeah, yeah, yeah. [00:38:29] Speaker A: When it comes back. [00:38:30] Speaker B: So we move forward and they're making this plan to try to get to where they think the Omega is. And, like, emotionally, we kind of come to this point where he's getting upset because he has to watch Rita die over and over while he's simultaneously falling in love with her. [00:38:51] Speaker A: Yeah. [00:38:51] Speaker B: Is that something that happens in the book? [00:38:54] Speaker A: Essentially, yes, kind of. But it's not focused on in the same way in the book. It's hard to describe. Like, there is an element of that, for sure. During one of the loops in the book, towards the end, Kaiji dies during one of their attempts where they think they're gonna succeed at closing. I think this is when this happens. They think they have it all figured out and they know they're gonna be able to close the loop. And then they do the stuff they think they need to, and it doesn't work. And he wakes up again, looped back. And then that time he basically goes and finds Rita and they run off together briefly. And during that, he realizes that. Or, sorry, this is before that final loop. He realizes during one of these loops as they run off together briefly, that she doesn't have the same feelings for him that he does for her because she's just meeting him. He does develop feelings for her over the course of the book and develops a crush on her, basically. But there is, like, a kind of an interesting scene where he realizes, like, well, this is the first time she's meeting me. Every single time. Kind of that classic, like, 50 first dates thing or whatever. But on the final loop, they do end up. He does go and talks to her, and they end up just spending, like, hours together, just talking. And then it is implied that they sleep together that night because he wakes up in her room on the morning of the battle, like, in her bed or whatever. There's no, like, description of them doing anything or anything like that. But the implication, I assume, is that they slept together. But I will get to that more shortly. [00:40:28] Speaker B: Do they Mad Max in a minivan? [00:40:31] Speaker A: They do not. It's a great action scene. Not in the book at all. They. They don't. They don't have to, like, take a car or anything like that. They essentially never leave the military base in the. Well, that's not true. They go to the battlefield. But it plays out. We'll get to it. The whole ending plays out differently. [00:40:48] Speaker B: Okay, is there anything from the scene where they're trying to fly the helicopter? [00:40:54] Speaker A: No. So there's no helicopter or anything like that. Again, the ending is very Very different. Which we will get to. [00:41:00] Speaker B: Okay. [00:41:02] Speaker A: Which I'll just say your next question is, does he go to the dam with her and does it end up being a trap? None of this is in the book. Again, the ending, very, very different. Including, there is no device that allows him to see where the Omega is hiding. That is not a thing. The Omega is not. [00:41:17] Speaker B: Okay. [00:41:18] Speaker A: Not really. It's kind of. It's just the movie amplifies it and changes it. [00:41:23] Speaker B: So, all right. Does he eventually end up getting injured to the point where he gets a blood transfusion and loses his looping powers? [00:41:35] Speaker A: So, no. This is a complete movie edition. The idea that you can lose the power to loop if you get a blood transfusion. Yeah, not in the book at all. I like it. I think it adds an interesting. Some interesting stakes. In the book, the only way to escape the loop is you have to destroy the antenna. I still am not entirely sure what that is. We'll get to that later. Destroy all the backups, which is just other mimics, and then destroy the server, which is kind of equivalent to both the Alpha and the Omega in. Okay, the movie. There isn't an Omega in the movie. Like, there isn't like, some big giant thing, but it's similar. And again, to me, it's not even entirely clear what the antenna is. We'll get. I think that might. This whole thing might have been a little bit of the translation thing. We eventually find out that I think both Rita and Kaiji are antennas. We'll get to that. It's complicated. And like I said, I'm not even sure I understand the mechanics of all of what's going on with that. This is a thing with the whole, like, antenna and backups and server thing. I would really appreciate if somebody who has read this book, either multiple times or just, like, feels like they really understand what's going on with those mechanics. Like, what is going on there and why. We'll get to it. Like, why the ending works the way it does. I could use some input, but no, you can't. The blood transfusion thing, where that. That is not a thing. Like, you just. There's no way to escape the loop short of killing all of the mimics that are responsible for the loop, essentially. [00:43:05] Speaker B: Okay. All right. Well, then, is there any rough equivalent to when they have to convince J Squad to go to Paris with them and kill the Omega? [00:43:19] Speaker A: Not at all. Like I said, there's no mega. There's no big, dramatic mission at the end. What there is, is a battle, but we'll get to that in a second. [00:43:28] Speaker B: Do Rita and Kaiji kiss before they go to their deaths? [00:43:32] Speaker A: Kind of in the sense that they sleep together the night before the final loop. You like big dramatic kiss where they're like. They're like, no, they're heading to their deaths or whatever and like share their first kiss or what. There's nothing like that, which I was not big on in the movie, personally. I. [00:43:48] Speaker B: Whatever. [00:43:48] Speaker A: It's yeah, like it just feels tacked in on in a way that's like. It just feels unnecessary. But yeah, I thought the romance in the. In the movie was like. It might be a place where the book's slightly better because the romance in the book is not good. But it's at least more central to what's going on kind of with Kaiji's character. Not even more central to what's going on with his character. It just gets more pages of the story of their relationship and stuff in a way that I feel like the movies just doesn't quite. I don't know. I wasn't a fan of either of the romance in either. I'll spoil it now and I'll get to it here in a second. I thought the ending of this book sucked. Like the final third of it I thought was bad generally speaking, just not very good. We'll get to it. But yeah, no big mission or. Sorry, no, they don't kiss again. They sleep together on the night before the final battle. So it is similar in that regard. They do have some sort of romantic moment. [00:44:49] Speaker B: Okay, is there anything like the dramatic hand open reveal that Tom Cruise has already pulled all of the grenade pins? [00:45:01] Speaker A: No, there's nothing like that in the book at all really. I know what you're talking about. I know both the specific moment and also broadly what you mean of this reveal where you think all is lost, but ah, surprise. [00:45:13] Speaker B: Ah, surprise. I've pulled all the grenades. [00:45:16] Speaker A: Nothing like that. [00:45:20] Speaker B: Okay, so then at the very end of the movie, after they kill the Omega, he actually loops further back and he wakes up before he even tries to blackmail the general. So he gets off scot free. All of his past mistakes have been erased. Is that similar to anything that happens in the book? [00:45:42] Speaker A: No, not at all. And this is another big change. It's also one of my biggest questions with the movie. So in the book, the loop does not reset after he destroys all the things that he needs to at the end of the final battle. And they do the stuff like essentially the equivalent of destroying the Omega or whatever time the loop ends. And time just continues. [00:46:05] Speaker B: I mean, that makes sense. [00:46:06] Speaker A: Yes, that is. That does make sense. I'm generally genuinely not sure why time looped back the way it did in the movie. So, like, you see that he, when he blows up the Omega, you see, he like absorbs the blood from the Omega or whatever. So clearly that is, is what's causing this. And so I, I wasn't sure though if the movie is implying that he has now started a new loop or that he reset all the way back and from their time will run normally for. You know what I mean? Like, I guess we wouldn't know unless he dies. [00:46:37] Speaker B: Imagine. Imagine he lives his whole life, dies on his deathbed, and then wakes back up. [00:46:47] Speaker A: Yeah, that could be. Honestly, I don't know. So I was looking this up because I was trying to figure out like why he went back to the helicopter. And I was like, that doesn't make any sense. Some people have speculated that. And which this kind of makes sense that the battle of the Louvre, which is where at the end, that actually takes place the night before the battle where he originally died. Because that's the next day on that. On the beach or whatever. [00:47:16] Speaker B: Yeah. [00:47:17] Speaker A: So the idea is that by having that battle be slightly before or, you know, hours before the battle that he died in originally, he resets further back. Still doesn't really make sense because that battle happens in the middle of the night. It's pitch black out when they do the battle of the Louvre and when he wakes up on the helicopter, supposedly it's a 24 hour loop. [00:47:38] Speaker B: Right, Right. [00:47:39] Speaker A: It's not the middle of the night. [00:47:41] Speaker B: And that the 24 hour loop doesn't really make sense to me either because he always wakes up in the same. [00:47:47] Speaker A: Well, but it's not from. It's not from when you died. It's from when you died the very first time, I think. Okay, so it's 24 hours from the first time he died in the very first battle. [00:48:00] Speaker B: Okay. [00:48:01] Speaker A: Not 24 hours from every time he dies. [00:48:03] Speaker B: Okay. [00:48:05] Speaker A: Although it should be. I will say, I think, because I had that same thought, I will say, I think the mechanics of how the time travel is described only makes sense if it was 24 hours from when you died each time. But that's not. I think they just don't do that both in the book and the movie, because that makes a less. [00:48:24] Speaker B: Yeah. [00:48:24] Speaker A: Compelling. You don't get a Groundhog Day scenario. You get a slightly different Groundhog Day scenario every time. Because as he lives slightly longer, he would. [00:48:31] Speaker B: Yeah, he would be Jumping back to [00:48:33] Speaker A: a slightly different time, which wouldn't. It just doesn't work. So they just make it a. And I think the. The explanation you could go for there would be. It's. It's a set amount of time from when that first death occurred. You go back again. I don't know. But. So I guess the idea, like I said, you could kind of argue that on this Battle of the Louvre one, since this is a new loop now, he has closed the loop, essentially. But then he gets some sort of loop power again anyways from the Omega. That resets it from that time when he died. But again, it's not 24 hours, clearly, because it would be the middle of the night when he was on it. But it's like. [00:49:10] Speaker B: I mean, obviously from a storytelling perspective, if he pops back to after he's committed a war crime or whatever, it's not a happy ending for our hero. So we need him to go back further. [00:49:25] Speaker A: Right, Right. Well, and that's. And we'll get to it. But in the book. Yeah, we'll get to it here in a second. He does just kind of essentially commit a war crime, and that's how the book ends again. So it make a ton of sense to me why. How the movie resets it. But whatever. So let's talk about the ending. This is the big change. Essentially what happens in the book is that, like I said, they think they've done figured out the thing they need to do, and they do the thing by killing all the backups. And then the main server mimic, which is kind of equivalent to the Alpha in the movie, and they do that, but then time resets again and they're like, huh? What's going on here? On the final loop? The first day of the loop, they. They spend a bunch of time together and then they don't know it's the final loop at that point, but they spend a bunch of together and then they sleep together. And then when he wakes up in her dorm the next morning, like her room the next morning, the Mimics ambush the base, which has never happened before. They always go to the battle on the beach the next day, and that's when he dies or whatever. This time, the Mimics attack the military base that they're on. And that all kicks off there. When that happens, Rita then real during this whole big final battle when they ambush the base, Rita. And after that loop that didn't work, Rita realizes this time that she is the antenna and that in order for the loop to end, she has to die. This is. I'm just gonna read the exchange they have in the book because I genuinely do not understand what's going on here and why it works this way or what? I just. I don't know. So I'm just gonna read this section of the book. She says to him, it works both ways. If you become an antenna, the mimics will still be able to loop. I'm an antenna. You're trapped in a loop. You kill me, the loop doesn't propagate, I kill you, it's for real forever. Only one of us can escape. To which Kenji thinks to himself in response to her saying that none of it made any sense. And boy, do I completely agree. I do not understand. It made me feel very dumb trying to parse what was going on here with the mechanics of this. And again, part of it was like, I wonder if there's some translation because this is very. Trying to like. It's very like, complicated, nuanced discussion of time travel and loops. And on top of that, the relationship between different mimics and how those mimics dying interact with the time loop. There's just a lot of complicated interactions there that I could imagine would be very hard to translate from a language with a very different type of vocabulary and stuff to England, you know what I mean? So I do wonder if maybe that's part of what's going on there in the book. I have no idea. Like I said, I do not understand the physics or mechanics of the loops in this book. I will say I then realized that. I assume what must have happened here is that this is what happened when she was in a loop previously. She. In the book, she mentions that she had at one point this guy who was like her equivalent of Sergeant Farrell, who was like her commanding soldier during one of her previous loops, which in the book she is looped more than one time. In the movie, I think it's implied that the Battle of Verdun was like the time that Rita, like, was stuck in a time loop. Yeah, in the book, I'm fairly certain it's implied. It has happened multiple times where she has been in loops and then gotten out of them. But one of these times, she had this loop where she was stuck in it with this guy, Commander Hendrick. He wasn't stuck in it, but she was stuck in a loop. And somehow she realized, I think, that in order for her to escape her loop, she had to kill Hendrick or let him die so that she could escape the loop. Because I guess he was an antenna or something like that. Because she mentions in the book both having to have watched him die, like, a hundred times. But also, there's a line at one point in the book where she mentions that she killed him. [00:53:21] Speaker B: Okay. [00:53:21] Speaker A: And so I. And. But it's never concretely laid out, but I think you can put together at the end here. And I actually just had this. While I was working, working on the notes, I had this revelation of, like. Because I'd like the whole Hendrik thing. I was like, I don't know what to do with that. It's like. It's more so like, character stuff for her. Like, she's talked about how she, like, had this relationship with this guy. Hendrick is mentioned in the movie, but he's mentioned as, like, a boyfriend that she had that she saw die. That was like. She says, like, oh, this guy named Hendrix or whatever. When they're in the car together driving, she mentions Hendrix, and it's implied that they were, like, dating and, like, that he either died and she wasn't able to save him during the loops or whatever. In the movie or in the book, Hendrick is just, like, more like a father figure. He's like a commanding officer who she, like, grew fond of, but they didn't have, like, a romantic relationship anyways. I think that at least tracks with that. That's why she's able to kind of suddenly figure. Because that was one of the problems I had, is that it comes out of nowhere. She's like, you have to kill me to get out. And I was like, what? Like, they've gone through a million loops, and she's never brought anything like this up before or anything like that. And it's kind of out of nowhere. She's like. Like, she starts fighting him, and it's like, you have to kill me. And he's like, what are you talking about? And she basically explains, like, well, I. You're. [00:54:37] Speaker B: We're. [00:54:37] Speaker A: We're gonna be stuck in here. One of us has to die. And in order for you to get out, or for the. The better ending is that I have to die or something like that or whatever. So ultimately, Rita essentially forces Kaiji to fight her, and he kills her. And then after he kills her, he goes into, like, a blood rage and kills all of the other mimics that are attacking the base. They. They say afterwards that he killed, like, hundreds of them by himself. I hate. Like I said earlier, I hated the ending of this book. I thought it all felt incredibly rushed. And the. The whole, like, he has to kill Rita thing came completely out of left field. To me, I did not find it satisfying. To me, it felt entirely like an idea that he forced the narrative into instead of the other way around. To me, it felt like he wanted to have this big battle where, like, the. The final thing is like, oh, I want to have this moment where our two protagonists have to fight each other as, like, this final showdown. [00:55:34] Speaker B: Yeah. [00:55:35] Speaker A: And they have this big battle across the entire military base, and it ends in the cafeteria, where in the book, they have spent a ton of time together throughout the loops. Like, he always, like, would go and, like, have lunch and, like, watch her eat lunch, and then they would have lunch together, whatever. So they spent all this time together in the cafeteria, and so they have their big final battle in the cafeteria because it's, like, a emotionally resonant place for them to have this big battle. But it just truly felt, like I said, like, the author wanted the two protagonists to be forced to fight each other and. And for one of them to be forced to sacrifice the other to end the time loop and save the day. But it just felt completely shoehorned into the ending and didn't feel set up to me at all. Again, in retrospect, when I thought back and thought about the Hendrick thing, I'm like, okay, I can kind of put together that maybe that you could suss that, like, in retrospect, you could put together, like, oh, she must have had to do this same thing to Hendrik to get out of her loop or whatever at that one point. But there's nothing setting that up before that. Like, again, I didn't really dawn on me, and I had finished the book and was doing the notes when I kind of, like, put together. Oh, that must have been what happened there. I, I, again, I just all kind of happens. I thought the ending was brutally, like, rushed and, and bad. Like, it just, it felt. It felt completely orchestrated and not in a way that felt. It felt like he had an ending, like, the ending that he really wanted and didn't really do the work to get to that ending. Like, he had a beginning and then, like, an ending and then, like, didn't figure out how to work those together necessarily. And it just feels like this ending kind of comes a little out of nowhere again. So the movie ending doesn't. Also doesn't make a whole lot of sense to me. I still much preferred it because I thought I was genuinely very annoyed reading. You'll see, for patrons who look at our notes, you'll see it in my notes toward the end of This. I was like, this sucks. I was enjoying the book until the final 30 pages. And then it felt like he got tired of writing it and was like, I gotta. I gotta wrap this up. I know I have this battle that I want to do, but I don't. I'll just have her start it. Like, she just goes, you, we gotta fight because you have to kill me. And it's like, what? Okay, sure. I don't know. I. I would be interested to see if anybody else had similar feelings reading the book, but the ending just felt completely unearned and out of nowhere to me in a way that I was. I felt was very unsatisfying. Movies ending was more satisfying. I don't think it's any better. Like, yeah, it still feels kind of messy and, like, there's still some loose ends. There's still some loose ends that don't really make a lot of sense. That just some of the stuff feels a little like, sure, whatever. But I thought as a narrative, it just. It felt less abrupt and out of nowhere than the way the. The book kind of wraps up. I want to talk and more. And compare what the book and movie may or may not be doing thematically, especially with the ending in the next segment. So I'll just leave it there for now. But, yeah, I wasn't a big fan of the book's ending. Not a huge fan of the movie's ending, but it's slightly better than the book's ending. So Katie has one question that we're gonna talk about in Lost in Adaptation. Just show me the way to get out of here, and I'll be on my way. Yes. Yes. And I want to get unlocked as soon as possible. [00:59:00] Speaker B: Okay. So Rita was previously also stuck in a time loop, but then she stopped being stuck in it, which we. We find out later was because of the blood transfusion. Yeah, but how would she know that she lost the ability to loop? Because I feel like the only way you would know that for sure is as if you died. [00:59:31] Speaker A: Okay, so initially I didn't interpret your question correctly. I thought you were just asking how she got out of the loop in the movie. I was like, well, the movie explains about that. She gets a blood transfusion. I completely agree that I'm not sure how she knew that she had lost the ability. [00:59:46] Speaker B: There's not a way to test that. [00:59:48] Speaker A: Yes, because obviously if she was killed again, she would just die. You would assume. I assumed we're meant to once you. I didn't think about it watching the movie, but once you asked that question. I thought about it. I was like, I guess what you could assume is that we're meant to infer that the doctor dude somehow figured out it was related to her blood. Cause they know it's related to the blood, right? So I assume that the doctor, at some point, like, they were. He knew she was in the loop. Cause they were working together while she was in the loop or whatever. And so he must have done some sort of testing on her blood or whatever. And at some point after she got the blood transfusion, like, maybe he realized before that, like, oh, your blood has something crazy going on with it and that's maybe what's causing this. And then after the blood transfusion, he took a blood sample again and realized, oh, you don't have the magic juice or whatever. That's like the only thing I can assume. I do. I, I specifically, like I said earlier, I think it's a fun wrinkle, the whole blood transfusion thing. But I do agree that it doesn't make a ton of sense of how she would know. You just have to assume the doctor somehow figured it out. I'm. [01:00:50] Speaker B: I'm fine with assuming that, but it was like, I thought that in the movie, she was like, I lost the ability to loop. And I was like, girl, how do you know? [01:00:57] Speaker A: Yeah, no, it's. That is fair. Yeah. Okay. And I put this here because I didn't know where else to put it. My biggest problem with the book and the movie to some extent, is that I'm not sure that they're saying anything particularly interesting. I found that to be less of an issue in the movie, personally, because it doesn't bring up much, if any, thematic stuff or really even allude to anything super interesting. [01:01:22] Speaker B: It's just kind of a fun popcorn action movie. [01:01:25] Speaker A: Exactly. They're like, you could find a few things here and there. Like I said, there's kind of the general arc of, like, Tom Cruise's character learning to be brave, kind. Whatever, whatever. Like, there's not really like the. The. There's no discussion of, like, what the mimics are and, like, why we're fighting them. They're just the bad aliens who are trying to kill us all, like, and blah, blah, blah. The book, however, on the other hand, definitely is at least trying to touch on some thematic stuff, but in my opinion, just kind of fails on every count or, And. Or abandons any sort of interesting thematic stuff. And that's part of why I felt like the ending was, like, rushed and just like, I just want to end this. So one thing that is brought up in the book, that is never mentioned in the movie, that I thought was really compelling in the book when it was brought up, is that we find out there are, like, this pacifist group called the Dreamers who think that the whole reason for that this war is happening is. Is the fault of the humans, is that humans have failed to learn how to communicate with the mimics and that all of this fighting could be solved if we could just figure out how to communicate with them. They are mentioned exactly twice in the book. This whole. Whole idea of, like, maybe we should try to communicate with them. Maybe they're not evil. Like, maybe we can do whatever is mentioned exactly twice in about exactly two sentences, and it's just never touched on ever again. [01:02:56] Speaker B: And. [01:02:56] Speaker A: Or never. And. And by the time the book ends, it may have. Well, those sentences may well not have been in the book, which is just. Which I found incredibly, like, weird. It's just like you. He brings up this idea of, like, there are these people who think, like, maybe we could talk to the mimics, maybe we could communicate, figure out how to communicate them. Maybe this war is pointless. Basically, they're like, pacifist, kind of like demonstrators or whatever, against the war, blah, blah, blah. And, like, Kaiji is, like, dismissive of them because he's a soldier or whatever, blah, blah. And I. I don't know what the book wants me to think about them. Like, they're mentioned in that one, like, little offhanded comment and then, like, never brought up again. And I'm like, like, am I supposed to agree with them? Am I supposed to wonder, like, maybe we could communicate with these or. [01:03:42] Speaker B: Or not. [01:03:42] Speaker A: Or not. I don't know. It's never brought up again. It just, like, it gets disregarded. And then we go from there. And then at one point, towards the end of the book, Kaiji, our protagonist, literally thinks to himself, genocide is the only way to win this war. Like, we have to kill every single one of these mimics. It's the only way to end this war. Like, he basically, like, literally comes down on the side of, like, we have to do genocide. Which, again, I'm like, okay, is that, you know, generally genocide? We're not like that. When you're using the word genocide, you're like, that's a bad word. We don't like that. But I. The book doesn't really. I think we're supposed to be like, yep, you got. That's what you got to do. That's kind of what it feels like in the book. I don't know. And then the entire ending, Kaiju. The whole part where Kaiji is forced to fight and kill Rita, someone he's grown to care for, and then he is forced to essentially take her place after he kills her, he becomes, like, the new full metal. Like, he's the new, like. Because after he kills her, he kills, like, hundreds of mimics or whatever. He gets the Valkyrie Award, which is, like, it's only been given to one other person, Rita. It was literally named for her because she got this award for killing so many mimics or whatever. And so, like, he becomes the new, like, face of resistance on Earth, of the war effort or whatever, and everyone looks up to him. And that kind of feels like it could be commentary on, like, the cyclical and feudal nature of war, right? [01:05:08] Speaker B: Yeah. [01:05:08] Speaker A: Like, that kind of feels like, okay, maybe the point here is, like, war is. War never ends. War never changes. She dies. He has to kill her, but then he just has to take her place and become the mindless killing machine. Whatever. But so much of the stuff around that in the book feels like that's not the point the book is making. So, like, during their fight with between Rita and Kaiji, at one point, Kaiji doesn't want to fight her, but he's, like, reasoning through his head. And eventually he gets to this point where he's like, well, I guess I have to fight her. He, like, decides he has to fight her because he wants all of this struggle he's been doing through all of these loops to have been worth it. Like, he's like, what's the point if I just, like, let her kill me, basically? Or, like, if I just give up or die or whatever? Like, I. I've done all this struggling. I got. I would have to find the exact moment in the book, but he basically is just like, I have to. I have to make this worth it. And it's like, okay. And their whole fight and everything at the end, and this is a broader issue, is that everything is so, like, edgy and try hardy cool stuff that. So, like, for instance, during their big final fight, which is supposed to be this big emotional climax of, like, oh, my God, he has to kill this person who he's grown to care for. The line in the book is that as they're, like, kind of standing there facing off with each other, and he's like, I don't want to fight you. Whatever he said. The line in the book is, she'd chosen to speak with Steel, and I had to give her an answer, I picked up my axe, right? Which is like. It's like a cool guy, badass, like, line. But that's one of those moments where I'm like, okay, I don't know what I'm supposed to be feeling here. And then after he does kill her or during this fight, as he's fighting her, he gives, like, this impassioned speech about how he would. Rather he would. His preference would be to just repeat this every day with her over and over again. And he's like, I know it's gonna suck. I know it's gonna be miserable, but I'd rather do that and just spend time with you and, like. Because I like you or whatever, and I care about you. And he literally tells her he loves her right after he killed. Like, he hits her, like, mortally wounds her or whatever. He, like, has this impassioned speech about how he loves her and wishes that they could just be together. And she's like, no, you have to end the loop. And so he kills her. And I just. It just feels also hollow of, like, I don't. I don't know what I'm supposed to feel about Kaiji, about their relationship, about him deciding to kill her. Like, again. I guess the idea is that he has to do this in order to end the war. That's what she says is, like, you have to go forward and do this because, like, if I die or if I kill you. Whatever. The line I read earlier was, which didn't really make a lot of sense to me. [01:07:52] Speaker B: Yeah. [01:07:53] Speaker A: But basically she comes to the idea that he has to kill her in order to end the loop and to, like, basically win the war and save humanity or whatever. [01:08:00] Speaker B: Because she's an antenna. [01:08:01] Speaker A: Because she's an antenna. Because she was related. She was there when the. I don't even know. I can't explain it. I can't explain it. I can't explain it. I don't know. I didn't understand the. The mechanics of why she was an antenna, which. And again, the server is kind of like the Alpha. It's like the main one. The other mimics are the backups. Basically, the idea is when one of the mimics or one of the Alphas gets killed, it. The other backups release, like a. A time travel pulse that warns the Alpha that died in the past what happened that got it killed. So that it then knows for the future battle, like, not to do. Not to do that. Which is also part of what makes this whole thing confusing is that it's not Actually, I think in the book not actually looping time, it's actually like memories, implanted memories, kind. It's weird. I do not under. Time travel is complicated and hard to understand when it's explained well. [01:09:01] Speaker B: Yeah. [01:09:01] Speaker A: And I do not think this book does a good job explaining again, which I'm fully, fully open to chalking up to a translation kind of thing. Or me being dumb. That's also possible. I'm usually pretty good at understanding time travel stuff inside of him, but this one, I really did not understand what was going on here. But then. So he kills her, blah, blah, blah. And then he gets this line at the end where he's like. He says, you were just a piece on the board and I was the piece that replaced you. Which kind of sounds like a thing again to my first point of it being maybe like a commentary, a critique on like the cyclical nature of war, blah, blah, blah. But then he vows to continue and win the fight for humanity. For in a way that feels very like, hoorah, I'm going to do this. [01:09:46] Speaker B: Yeah. [01:09:46] Speaker A: And so that we get this constantly kind of conflicting, like, I just couldn't figure out what I was supposed to get out of it. And then the final moment of the book is him drinking moldy coffee. So. So when they slept together before the final battle, they wake up the next morning, she has real coffee. Real coffee doesn't exist anymore. We actually see this briefly alluded to in the movie. That's a nod to this where they brew coffee on the helicopter farm or whatever. I don't know what else to call it. It's a farm out in the middle of nowhere and there's a helicopter there. So she brews coffee, but as the coffee is like they just finished brewing it, they get attacked and they don't have time to drink it it. He goes, they leave the her room. They go fight off the mimics, then fight each other. He kills her. He eventually comes back to her room, gets in there and the coffee that they brewed that morning is still sitting there. And they had had a conversation before the attack all popped off while they were brewing the coffee. And she said like, oh, with real coffee. Because he's only ever had artificial coffee. Because like I said, real coffee doesn't exist anymore. She said there was something about. They were having conversation about like coffee sitting out or something. Or he's like drinking cold coffee. And she goes, oh, well, it was real coffee. If you. If it sits for several days, it'll get moldy or something like that. And he goes, oh, okay. So then when he gets back after the final, everything goes down, the final, like sentence of the book is him getting back, seeing the coffee, kind of reminiscing about what happened. And oh, and she mentions like, oh, and if you drink that moldy coffee, you'll like, feel like it'll make you sick. It'll like, you know, give you food poisoning or whatever. And he drinks the coffee, which kind of feels like maybe there's something approaching a point there of like, of like he is not in a good situation, you know, like that this isn't like a triumphant. Him drinking moldy coffee doesn't feel like a triumphant ending. You know what I mean? But so much of everything around it is constantly like, isn't this so cool? Isn't all of this shit so cool? Isn't it so badass? Isn't he such a badass? Isn't all this so awesome that I just, I really struggle trying to figure out if the book wanted me to think this was all real cool or. And like awesome and fine or if like, war is hell, war sucks. That. You know what, I just really, really struggled with that. I would love to hear other people's takes on what they got out of this. I'm. Maybe it's both. Maybe it's maybe generally both. Maybe like he wanted it to be a fun. Because it is like a. It's a light novel, which we discussed is like a YA kind of thing. Maybe he didn't want to get too deep in like in the Weeds with like a depressing like anti war thing and wanted it to be like a fun read, but also still wanted to pepper in a little bit of like, right. Light anti war thematic imagery and symbolism and stuff. You know what I mean? Like, maybe that's what it is. I don't know. Please help me, listeners. I need help. I. This book. I didn't. Didn't. Yeah, the ending didn't. I didn't. Didn't do anything for me because I was like, I don't know what I'm supposed to do with this, but that was it for Lost in Adaptation. I have a bunch more stuff to talk about and we're gonna start with what I thought was better in the book. You like to read? [01:13:02] Speaker B: Oh yes, I love to read. [01:13:04] Speaker A: What do you like to read? [01:13:08] Speaker B: Everything. [01:13:09] Speaker A: There's this little thing that we find out in the book which I thought was fun, is that. But I mentioned earlier that they were all in trouble for doing Pete and doing physical training as like punishment. And it's because the night before somebody had stolen a bunch of booze out of like the officers barracks or something like that. And I thought this was funny. Is that. So they steal all that booze and then normally it. The leadership kind of looks the other way. They like don't say anything or whatever but they do this thing where each of the. They steal the booze and then they all get drunk the night before the battle. And part of that is because they have this special serum that on the morning of the battle they get injected with a thing that like. [01:13:52] Speaker B: Ah. They have an anti hangover serum. [01:13:54] Speaker A: Yeah, they have like anti hangover magic serum. [01:13:55] Speaker B: Nice. [01:13:56] Speaker A: So everybody gets drunk the night before the battle and. But they all. All of the soldiers, when they go and steal the booze that night they all sign a confession saying it was them who did it. And then after the battle, whoever died, they give that confession to okay the higher ups. And then so that person takes the fall for everybody else of being the person who stole the. Which I just thought was kind of an interesting little like world building thing. That sounds like a based. Maybe based on a real thing. [01:14:29] Speaker B: Could be a real thing. [01:14:30] Speaker A: Yeah, I thought that was interesting. A thing the book mentions that we don't see in the movie at all is that they have these active camo screens that they put up where they can hide behind that are like projectors basically that mimic ironically the environment behind them. So like that you can't. It's like active camouflage basically where it's like a giant screen that has a projector that is making it look like the environment behind them so they can all stand behind it and hide there. And that's how they wait before the battle starts. They're like waiting on the beach behind these like active camo things. Which I thought was kind of fun. But I also really like the airdrop in the movie. So I can't complain with that about that. A line that I thought was a good line in the book that doesn't make it into the movie is he's talking about the war with the mimics and he says on paper we had air support superiority but we ended up in a drawn out land war anyhow which was like ain't that the way it goes? Seems like that's always. That's true to history. Kaiji does explain why he signed up for the military in the book. And I did want to read it because I thought it was kind of interesting and it wasn't really related to him wanting to like fight or be a hero. He just felt worthless and thought the army might fix him. When I told my parents I'd enlisted, they wanted me to join the Coast Guard. They said I'd still get a chance to fight without going into battle, that I'd be performing the vital task of defending the cities where people worked and lived. But I didn't want to fight the mimics to save humanity. I'd seen my fill of that in the movies. I could search my soul till my body fell to dust around it. And I'd never find the desire to do great things like saving the human race. What I found instead was a wire puzzle you couldn't solve no matter how many times you tried. Something buried under a pile of puzzle pieces that didn't fit. It pissed me off. I was weak. I couldn't even get the woman I loved, the librarian, to look me in the eye when he's in school or whatever. I thought the irresistible tide of war would change me, forge me into something that worked. I may have fooled myself into believing I'd find the last piece of the puzzle I needed to complete Kaiji Korea on the battlefield. But I never wanted to be a hero loved by millions, not for a minute. If I could convince the new friends I had that I was someone who could do something in this world, who could leave a mark no matter how small, that would be enough. And look where that got me. And so I thought that was an interesting. I think that's a very, like, compelling and accurate read of the motivations of why young people do stuff. You know what I mean? Like, it just felt like a. Yeah, yeah. On one of the first loops, like, the second or third loop in the book, he decides to, like, run away. He's like, well, fuck this. If I have a chance, I'll just bail. And he, like, leaves the base and, like, tries to run away. And he makes it down to some beach kind of, like, miles away, and ends up running into this old man and this young girl who are, like, fishing on the beach. And he's, like, talking to them and briefly. And then they both get attacked and brutally murdered by a mimic that pops out of the ocean. It's pretty graphic and awful in the book. We will find out later that. That they were. That that was not, like, happenstance. That the mimics were there looking for him because they're aware of what's going on kind of. Or whatever. Or because of the loop. They are also trying to kill him because he killed the Alpha or whatever. A little detail that the movie never mentions that I thought was cool in the book is that they have this. The jackets have a thing called an auto balancer that when you're. You turn it on in the. On the jackets, they basically keep you from destroying stuff accidentally by like limiting your movement slightly so that you don't do anything like too crazy. But it also slows down. It causes like, input lag essentially to the, like the controls of the jackets. And so veterans always turn them off and like people who know how to use them. But it also makes it much harder to use the jackets because you can end up like hurting yourself with them. But Kaiji start. Kaiji starts training with it off so that because in order to actually survive and be a good warrior, you can't use it. It's a little detail that I thought was kind of interesting. It's again, it's like world building stuff. I thought this was kind of fun. In the movie or in the book, there's this little detail that they have comms where they can talk to each other, like inner squad or whatever. But I guess maybe for people from other squads, they have a thing where if they walk up to the jacket, they can put their metal hand of their jacket on the shoulder of the other person's jacket and it forms like a comm link. It's kind of fun. With the technology they have, there's probably a better way. Like there would be a more practical way to do that. I think it's a fun little thing, though. I think it looks cool or I think it would be cool. Rita's backstory is in the book, which we don't get any of in the movie, which I thought it's not super important, but it is kind of interesting. Rita explains that she was relatively unremarkable as a child. She wasn't like super athletic or smart or anything. She grew up on a pig farm in Illinois. There's some good world building. I mentioned earlier about that when the war broke out or when the invasion started, Africa and South America were like the developing nations were like the first to get overrun. And so like things like coffee and tea were some of the first. [01:19:24] Speaker B: Yeah. [01:19:25] Speaker A: Things to go away. And so she mentions that, like, her father was like, really into coffee and like, would buy this like super rare expensive coffee they would go find at this guy or whatever. Anyways, stuff like that. I thought it was cool. Rita doesn't initially want to join the army. She's actually like, like a vegan, she says, or she's not vegan, but she says she doesn't want to join the army because you can't eat mimics. And it's wrong to kill animals that you aren't going to eat. Like when she's a little kid, like, that's her logic behind it. And she says, like, according to like her pastor or whatever, like, you shouldn't kill things that you're not going to eat. And so she has this like, moral code. [01:20:00] Speaker B: Very like, farm. [01:20:02] Speaker A: Yeah, yeah. And so she doesn't want to. She doesn't want to join the army because, yeah, it would be wrong to kill mimics because you don't eat them. But then her town, her tiny town in southern Illinois gets attacked by a scouting party of like three mimics that come up the Mississippi river and like a third of the town dies, including both of her parents, who she sees brutally murdered by mimics. And she immediately signs up so that she can kill every mimic that she can. And that's, that's kind of her whole backstory. And then another thing that I thought was fun, I mentioned Shasta earlier, who is Rita's engineer. At one point in the book, there's this scene where she brings Rita a bunch of little action figures of like, her and like different people that have been made that I thought was kind of funny. Shasta is an interesting character. She's not in the book a ton, but I was hoping she would be in the. Well, I mean, I guess I knew she wasn't in the movie from having seen it before, but I think she would have been fun in the movie. All right, that was everything I had for better in the book. Let's go ahead and talk about what was better in the movie. My life has taught me one lesson, Hugo, and not the one I thought it would. [01:21:03] Speaker B: Happy endings only happen in the movies. [01:21:06] Speaker A: I mentioned this earlier, but the casual men writing, women sexism of this book is pretty rife throughout. Again, I think part of that you can chalk up to. It's. It's the, the point of view character is an 18 year old. [01:21:20] Speaker B: Right. [01:21:21] Speaker A: Boy going through, you know, puberty. [01:21:24] Speaker B: Going through 18 year old boy things. [01:21:26] Speaker A: Yes, but. But just a few excerpts here that I wanted to read just so you can get a feel for some of the stuff that made me kind of roll my eyes. Well, this is my note. The first part was about Rachel the potato lady and her boobs and the double entendre about her boobs. Potatoes. So here's the little excerpt of her description of Rachel the potato lady. She works in the cafeteria or whatever. She had healthy, tanned skin and larger Than average breasts. Her waist was narrow. Of the three types of women, the human race boasted the pretty, the homely and the gorillas you couldn't do anything with save ship em off to the army. I put her in the pretty category without batting an eye. Then cutting. This is a different thing. He runs into her during one of the loops. He's trying to get somewhere and he accidentally runs around a corner and slams into her cart. She's transporting a bunch of potatoes somewhere, knocks over her cart. Potatoes go everywhere and the potatoes get scattered everywhere. And she says something like oh my God, there's potatoes everywhere. And she says it's their fault for being so round. She arched her back slightly so her chest stuck out. It was hard to ignore. I guess this is Kaiji saying that. You ever see potatoes that round? She said I hadn't. This is him thinking to himself, not among the tubers littering the floor either. So just talking about her boobs there. [01:22:50] Speaker B: Potato boobs, yep. [01:22:52] Speaker A: Then Shasta. There's a line here where in one of the interactions with Shasta, this line is in the book. She clutched the monkey wrench to her chest, flattening the swells of her breasts that lay hidden beneath their overalls. And then the final one I had here which is also about Rachel the potato lady. I turned to see a bronze skinned woman standing beside the table. Her apron bound breasts intruded rudely on a good 60% of my field of view. [01:23:16] Speaker B: God damn, I don't even know how that's possible. Apron bound breasts protruded rudely. Yeah, that's 60% of my quietest sentence. [01:23:27] Speaker A: Yeah, yeah. Again it though all of that stuff is from the perspective an 18 year old kid. So I, you know, you maybe give a little bit of grace to the author there of like trying to depict that. I don't know. But anyways, glad the movie didn't really have any of that. Instead we just get to ogle Emily Blunt in a way in a very respectful manner I mentioned earlier. But I really like them airdropping in the jackets out of the ships. I thought that's a cool set piece. Also the way it like blows up and like is crap. Just all of the beach set piece I thought is very very fun and none of it's really in the book. They fight on the beach in the book it is similar but they don't drop out of airships and it's not nearly as chaotic or it is as chaotic but it, it's not described in nearly as much detail as what all we see in the movie in a way that, again, I really like that the action set piece in the movie I mentioned earlier, but the horrifying speed and the way the mimics move really translates their danger from the book. The book mentions that it takes normally 10 soldiers to kill one Mimic. And that feels accurate based on the movie. Like, as we see those things flying around, just like. Like, throwing people across, you know, it does feel. I would almost label it as better in the movie because, I mean, it is nailing what the book's describing. But I think it. I genuinely am like, yeah, those things look like an unstoppable killing force. [01:24:47] Speaker B: Yeah. [01:24:47] Speaker A: And it looks very. Like the CGI and stuff is, like, really good. Like, I think it's kind of seamless. I really like the cage getting melted by the electric sand blood stuff inside the mimic is a good way to help explain why the loop starts and how he gets. It's the looping power. In the book, it specifically just says that if you're making electrical contact with the mimic when you kill it, that is what causes the loop. I think the blood sand thing is a good shortcut for that. It's like the same idea, kind of, but just a more, like, obvious version of it. And it does actually come from something kind of in the book, because it is mentioned that every time they kill the mimics in the book, this, like, electrical sand stuff comes out of them. So, you know, it feels motivated. I love in the movie that he tries to explain everything to Feral, and Feral just doesn't believe him, and they, like, duct tape his mouth shut and, like, go on with the mission. In the book, he never really tries to explain it. He mentions it to Yona Burrow, like, once or whatever, and Yona Burrow, like, doesn't believe him. And then, like, that's it. Like, he never tries again to, like, really, other than Rita, eventually, once he finds out that she knows about it. But he never, like, tries. The thing that Tom Hanks or Tom Cruise does was of, like, I'm gonna explain everything that's about to happen. And, like, you know, because you're like, why wouldn't you do that? Obviously you would do that. [01:26:07] Speaker B: Right? [01:26:08] Speaker A: And so I thought that was fun. The. The whole thing where Rita just shoots him and kills him whenever he gets hurt. Yeah, that hearkens to something in the book where in one of the loops, he wakes up and he's, like, annoyed with the whole thing, so he asks Yona Burrow, his bunk mate, if he can borrow his gun. And then Just shoots himself kind of just to see what happened. And he wakes up again immediately. But there isn't like a repeated, like, Rita kills him gag in the book. She never kills him intentionally in the book. Which I thought, again, I thought that was fun in the movie. I think the training bots in the movie are cool. That feels like an interesting way to have them trained to fight mimics. These weird spinning, I don't know, hardware, giant hunks of metal or whatever. Nothing like that is really meant. They do train in the book, but there does not talk of how they're training. They do do training stuff. Also, I really like the joke where he recommends trying to transfer the power. He's like, have you ever tried trying to transfer the power to somebody else? And she's like, how? What do you mean? She's like, do you mean by having sex? And he's like, yeah. She's like, tried it. And he says, how many times? And then she just kills him with the robot. I thought that was really funny. I enjoyed that I mentioned it. But the movie's explanation of time travel is a bit more understandable than the book's version, in my opinion. And also the thing I really like about it, it gives a context concrete goal, which is find and destroy the Omega. It gives it fairly early. We get a concrete goal in the book eventually with that list of like, kill the antenna, kill the backups, and then kill the server. Again, though it's towards the end, we don't have a. For most of it, he's just, like, trying to figure out, how do I get out of this. He doesn't really have an idea of how. And so I like the concrete goal. But also, even in the book, once we get a concrete goal, I was still confused what the antenna was because it hadn't been mentioned. I. Unless I'm crazy. And that was one of my issues with the whole antenna thing. I don't think by the time the antenna is mentioned, it's mentioned. Like, it's a thing I felt like I should have heard about and knew what the antenna was, but I didn't know what it was. And I was still confused by the time the book ended. Other than we realize eventually that Rita is an antenna. [01:28:18] Speaker B: Yeah. [01:28:18] Speaker A: But I swear to God, I'm pretty sure when that, like, list pops up of, like, kill the antenna, I was like, wait, what's the antenna? Because they had talked about the backups, which is just all of the mimics are backups, basically. And they had talked about the server, which is Essentially, like, the alpha mimic, like the main one. But they haven't talked about what the intent. And I was like, okay, I just gave up. I was like, whatever. I don't understand. Whatever. It's fine. Another thing about the book that I thought was very strange made me feel crazy. So this book has four chapters, and each chapter is broken up into little, like, subchapters or whatever. The four chapters are Private Korea, Sergeant Farrell, Full Metal Bitch, and Killer Cage. And Private Korea is. The first chapter starts, and we're in Kaiji Korea's point of view, and it's his story. We got to chapter two, and I was like, oh, Sergeant Farrell. Which is, like, 57 pages into the book. I was like, oh, Sergeant farrell. I had assumed we were gonna switch perspectives. [01:29:22] Speaker B: Sure. [01:29:23] Speaker A: Right. [01:29:23] Speaker B: Yeah. [01:29:23] Speaker A: Like, oh, we're gonna go into Sergeant Farrell's perspective there. We do not. We stay in. Which was very confusing for the first, like, two pages of that chapter. I was like, wait, oh, we are still in Kaiji's. But that chapter does focus on his relationship with Feral, but it's still in Kaiji's perspective. Then chapter three is Full Metal Bitch, which is Rita's chapter. When that chapter starts, we do switch to Rita's perspective, and that's when we get all her backstory and stuff. [01:29:55] Speaker B: Yeah. [01:29:56] Speaker A: And I was like, wait, what is going on here? I found that incredibly annoying. And I found that incredibly annoying. Maybe I'm missing something about, like, the nature of what's going on there, but I thought it was very strange that we have these chapters that don't really mean what, I don't know. Seem to be different based on different sections. Yeah. In contrast, I love the way that in the movie, we're able to move through the narrative. Move through the fact that the narrative is repeating via the editing that the movie utilizes. I thought it was so clever and fun. Like, I think the movie just watches better than this reads. I think it reads pretty well for most of the book. Like, it's a fun page turner for the most part. And the looping stuff. And the looping gag does work in the book. There are some good fun, like, enjoyable moments from that. I just think it's more fun in the movie. I think you can do more with, like, the edits. One of the things I absolutely love is, and I'll get to in a second is, like, when Rita realizes that they've done the loop before, like, when they get to the farm and then she realizes that Cage is stalling. That's one of the Things that happened better in the movie. And then it's revealed that they've been there a bunch of times and that he won't. He doesn't want to go to the end because she dies every time. But we as an audience think it's their first time getting there. And then it's revealed to us and her that, oh, my God, they've done this a dozen times or whatever. I think, like, those kind of things the. The movie does a really good job with that aren't really in the book. And I thought, like, stuff like that I think is really cool. I think it's kind of funny that in the book we literally get the cafeteria scene from Spider Man 1 where [01:31:36] Speaker B: he catches all the stuff. [01:31:37] Speaker A: Yes. On the tray. Like, we get the literally, like. And this book came out, like a couple years after Spider man came out. I would have to find. Here we go. Fucking piece of shit. The guy was up already, his fist flying toward me. He was stubborn. I had a few moments to consider whether I should dodge because he's looped so many times. He's like a super. Whatever, super soldier at this point. Whether I should dodge his punch, launch a counter attack of my own, or turn tail and run. Speaking from experience, a straight right from a man who'd been trained to pilot a jacket definitely had some bite, but it didn't register compared to what a mimic could do. This loser's punch would be strong enough to inflict pain, but not a mortal wound. Unless he got extremely lucky. I watched as he put every ounce of his strength into the. Into the swing. His fist went sailing right past the tip of my nose. He was. He was. Which is like the exact, like, where he turns and like he was neglecting his footwork, leaving an opening I didn't take. There went my first chance to kill you. Which again, this is where the, like, the. I'm like. I don't know what I'm supposed to feel like. He's such a try hard, edgy, like, you know what I mean? That was my first chance to kill you. Doesn't this runt have anything to say for himself? He reached one big meaty arm over Rachel's shoulder and threw a jab. I reacted instinctively. Subjective months in a jacket had conditioned me to always keep my feet planted firmly on the ground. My right leg pivoted clockwise, my left, my left counterclockwise, bringing me down into a battle stance. I parried his lunge with my left arm and raised the lunch tray in my right hand to keep the plates from falling, my center of gravity never leaving the middle of my body. Rachel dropped the fried shrimp. I snatched it from its graceful swim through the air before it could touch the ground. And I'm like, ah, it's the cafeteria scene. Yeah. And then he, like, dodges every punch that the guy throws at him. And I was dying. I was like, it's the cafeteria scene from Spider Man. That's amazing. A little detail that I thought was fun, but also stupid in the book. It is mentioned in the book that the udf, and this is why I have it embedded in the movie. The udf, which is the United Defense Force, speaks burst, which is called Burst English, shortened to just burst, which, according to the book, is a simplified version of English that is used for soldiers that are from a bunch of different countries. So the United Defense Force is made up of soldiers from all over the world. So they came up with this thing called Burst English, which is like a simplified, shortened version of English for soldiers. I do not feel like a single line in the book is written in anything other than standard English. [01:34:03] Speaker B: Yeah. [01:34:03] Speaker A: Maybe that's a translation thing. [01:34:04] Speaker B: Yeah. [01:34:05] Speaker A: I don't know. But I'm like, okay, you can't say you're speaking a different dialect and then not have it reflected at all in the dial. [01:34:12] Speaker B: Right. [01:34:13] Speaker A: You know what I mean? Like, I'm like, oh. Because, like, I got to a point where they're like, oh, we speak burst. And I'm like, well, that's not. How do you. Any line is written in this book. They're all. They talk normal. I don't. Yeah. So I thought that was very strange. So it was. Yeah. I thought the little choreographed break in at Whitehall in the movie is fun, where they're like. They've clearly done it multiple. That's another thing that. Where the movie is, like. It doesn't show us doing them. Them doing it a bunch of times, but clearly they have done it multiple times because he has it all rehearsed or whatever. So I thought that was fun. I really like the blood transfusion I mentioned earlier, but I like that it ups the stakes and gives them, like, one final shot at this, because, yes, [01:34:47] Speaker B: it's not gonna go. [01:34:48] Speaker A: He's not gonna go again. This is it. This is your final attempt. We don't have anything like that in the book. I thought that was fun. This is similar, but. But Kaiji, in the book really waxes poetic about how perfectly matched and in sync that him and Rita are in a way that, again, feels very like wish fulfillment. Like juvenile, kind of stuff similar to like the men writing women thing of just. It's another one of those elements that makes me wonder how serious I'm supposed to take all of this because it. It seems like you're supposed to take it seriously. Hell hath joined together. Or sorry, what? This nightmarish time loop from the bowels of hell hath joined together. Let no man put asunder. Only Rita and I understood each other's solitude. And we would stand side by side dicing mimics into bite sized chunks until the bitter end. Like it's just. There's a lot of that. [01:35:35] Speaker B: Yeah. [01:35:36] Speaker A: Which is just like. And again, this is with a character in the context of the story. She doesn't really know him. So it's a lot of like this weird one sided relationship stuff that feels very incelly at times. It's. I'm not. I'm overselling it in that. Say in that. But it just. I got a weird vibe from like the way that Kaiji and Rita's relationship is kind of talked about. It felt very guy writing his dream romance with a woman in a very like one sided way. That feels weird to me. I don't know how else to describe it. I just felt the way that the romance was written kind of cringe and weird. [01:36:18] Speaker B: Yeah. [01:36:19] Speaker A: I don't know how else to put it. There's a little detail where Shasta, who I mentioned, is Native American and before the final battle when they wake up in their bedroom together, she comes bursting into the room and she's wearing like a native headdress because the night before at a party, the other soldiers forced her to dress up like that. And she says like, this is what happens when you aren't around Rita or something like that. Like I don't. It was just weird. I just found it strange. I'm like, what? Yeah, okay. It's fine. I. I don't think it's fine. Like it's. It's clearly like the book is not saying like this is like the whole point is that like the other shithead soldiers like made her put on like a Native American headdress or whatever. But it's still just a weird inclusion in my. Yeah, like I don't know. He re. One of the reasons I felt like the end of the book was rushed is that he literally reuses a line. I've never seen that in a book before. I don't think so. There's this line early on when it's in the little section where we get the insert about like how the Mimics arrived on Earth and, like, where they came from. And we. We get the description of them having, like, spawned from, like, under the ocean with starfish or whatever. And right after that of, like, where they came from, there's a line that says the mimics. There's a line that says the mimics ate Earth and shat out poison. Like, that's. The line is like, they ate Earth and they shat out poison because they're, like, terraforming the Earth and like, turning it into whatever. That's, like, halfway through the book and then towards the end in like a. In just like in the story, there's just that same line again used in a completely different context. It was so strange. I would. I don't know the exact. But it was not like a callback or any. You know what I mean? Like, it's not. It literally just felt like he liked that line and wanted to use it again. I was like, what? That's the same. You just reuse the same line again for me. Again, very strange. And then my final note. Note here is the end of this. At the end, he kills Rita, and then he, like, goes on a killing spree, killing all the mimics. And then there's a line in the book, after he kills Rita, time just continues. He says, they threw me in the brig. They wanted a scapegoat for Rita's death. And I was like, buddy, you're not a scapegoat. You killed her. What are you talking about? [01:38:41] Speaker B: You're just a regular goat. [01:38:42] Speaker A: Yeah, you're. You killed her. Then he says, like, there was some sort of trial and I was cleared of all charges. And, like, it just. It just hand waves all this away, and I'm like, what? So I assume what is the idea here is that because he, like, they knew he killed Rita, I guess. But since he also saved the day and killed all of these other mimics and is like the super soldier, they're like, well, we'll let you out. We'll let you off on this. [01:39:11] Speaker B: This. [01:39:11] Speaker A: But the book never addresses. Like, if he tried to explain what ha. Like, there's no. You know what I mean? Like this. It's so weird. The ending of this book feels so rushed and just like. It doesn't answer it. It just feels like somebody trying as quickly as they can to get to the end of the book without addressing any of the things that I'm like. As the events are happening in the final pages, I'm like, wait, but what? Wait, wait, what? And it's like, no, no, no. Fuck you. We're getting to the end. We're getting to the end. And I'm like, what? Okay. Anyway, so I just didn't like that at the ending, and I. I'm glad. [01:39:45] Speaker B: I do wonder if Scapegoat could be a translation. [01:39:48] Speaker A: Yeah, that very well could be. It could be they wanted a. Yeah. I don't know what it would be, but, yeah, he says they wanted a scapegoat for reading. [01:39:55] Speaker B: I mean, it could be just some Japanese word that doesn't have a direct translation. And the. Whoever translated it was, like, close enough. [01:40:03] Speaker A: Yeah. I don't know. Yeah, it's just so interesting because I was like, that. You're not a scapegoat. And it's not even like. Yeah, he's aware. He. You know, it's just like, what? It's so weird. Weird. Okay, whatever. All right. I got a handful of things to talk about that the movie nailed. As I expected, practically perfect in every way. One thing that neither the booker or movie shows, so the movie nails it in this regard that I think most people would have tried, is that we never see a day in either where they just, like, go on a bender. [01:40:33] Speaker B: Yeah. [01:40:34] Speaker A: You know, like, off. And, like, I'm just gonna go, like, run all away and, like, get drunk and have sex and, like. Like. You know what I mean? Like, and do drugs for a few loops or something. Like, there's none of that, which I thought was interesting. You would think, again, there is one where he kind of tries to run away in the book, but he just, like, goes to the beach and is, like, trying to figure out what to do next. And you would think after, like, hundreds of loops, at some point they'd be like, you know what? Fuck this. [01:40:56] Speaker B: I'm just gonna go do cocaine. [01:40:58] Speaker A: Exactly. Yeah. And there's. I would just assume you would get one, especially in the movie. You think, like, that's a good gag. That's a good loop gag, or whatever. And you just don't get it. So I thought that was interesting. I mentioned it. But the United Defense Force is what the global combined, like, armed forces are called, both in the book and the movie. One of the times that Cage dies in the book, Rita does take his battery, which we see in the movie, [01:41:22] Speaker B: like, as he's dying. [01:41:23] Speaker A: She's like. He's like, did you take my battery? And she's like, yep. Just goes, yeah, that actually happens the first time he dies in the book. They do have coffee at the helicopter farm in the movie, like I mentioned, which is I think a reference to them having coffee at the end or whatever. Again, I feel like the ending is. Feels similarly rushed in both the book and the movie, with the whole J Squad's last stand and everything. [01:41:43] Speaker B: Yeah, that was super rushed. I feel like half of them died and I missed it. [01:41:48] Speaker A: Yeah. And you're like, oh, they're all dying and, like, what happened? Yeah, like, a lot of that just felt kind of rushed in a very similar way that felt like the book was. It's a fun set piece, like the driving the thing across the water. And it just. None of it felt super narratively set up, even, like, recruiting J Squad. [01:42:04] Speaker B: Yeah, well, I don't think we got to know them quite enough in the movie. Movie for that to, like, really feel mean. Like, it's fun. [01:42:11] Speaker A: It's fun, but, like, yeah, you didn't spend quite enough time with them for it to feel meaningful in any way. Yeah, I. I feel the same way. Which again, felt similar to the book. And then the final note I had here is that at the end of the book, when he goes and gets his new jacket, that when he's becoming the new face of the United Defense Force or whatever, somebody has scratched Killer Cage into the jacket on the front because Cage is how the Americans pronounced his name, Kaiji. [01:42:43] Speaker B: Oh. [01:42:43] Speaker A: So I'm interesting. That is why Tom Cruise's character is named Cage in. [01:42:48] Speaker B: Okay. [01:42:48] Speaker A: The movie, which I thought was fun. Yeah, that's a fun. Yeah, that's why they called. [01:42:53] Speaker B: If we have to have Tom Cruise, we might as well get a reference to the. [01:42:57] Speaker A: Yeah. All right. A couple of odds and ends before the final verdict. [01:43:11] Speaker B: Okay, so the premise of this movie, like, the premise of how he ends up on the front lines of this battle. I'm sorry, but, like, I have to say that I am on Tom Cruise's side here. A sentence which I have never said. It seems, like, really dangerous to me to have some guy who has no idea what he's doing along for the ride in this very important battle. Like, surely they would just send him to military prison or whatever. [01:43:46] Speaker A: Yeah, I don't know. [01:43:48] Speaker B: I understand that it's the conceit for the movie that he gets, like, demoted and sent to, like, thrown onto the front lines. Like, literally just given a death sentence for this. [01:43:58] Speaker A: Yeah, well, but they. Yeah, and that is essentially what it is, because I don't know if you caught this, but, like, they're. They're all like. Yeah, that is. They are essentially just letting him die because, like, they don't even tell him how to turn his safety off. They don't want him to be able to shoot his gun because they don't want him to, like, kill somebody. [01:44:17] Speaker B: Killing him. [01:44:17] Speaker A: Yeah, yeah. Do you think there might be a better way to do that? But there's maybe less paperwork this way. I don't know. Because. Yeah, you could just throw them in prison or something. [01:44:25] Speaker B: Yeah, yeah. The slow mo pushup. The slow push up. [01:44:30] Speaker A: We see it like four times that [01:44:33] Speaker B: Emily Blunt does in this. So I don't remember if I saw it in a trailer around the time this movie came out, but I think I might have seen it in a gif on Tumblr probably. [01:44:47] Speaker A: Sounds right, right. Sounds like the kind of thing that. [01:44:50] Speaker B: That slow mo. That slow push up has been living rent free in my head probably since 2014, and I had no idea what it was from. [01:45:02] Speaker A: Well, there you go. [01:45:02] Speaker B: Until seeing this movie. [01:45:03] Speaker A: Now you've seen it. It's a good push up. It's a good pushup. [01:45:06] Speaker B: It's a pretty good pushup. [01:45:07] Speaker A: Pretty good push up. I thought it was funny that they still found a way to get Tom Cruise on a motorcycle in this movie, despite the fact that he doesn't really, like, there's not a reason for him to be on a motorcycle. But we see him, him. And that actually kind of mimics the scene in the book where he, like, runs away and then finds that the old guy and the girl on the beach, he, like, goes to a bar and, like, has a beer or whatever. [01:45:26] Speaker B: Yeah. [01:45:27] Speaker A: On his motorcycle. But I just thought it was funny because Tom Cruise always finds an excuse to ride. [01:45:31] Speaker B: I think he has it, like, in his contract that, like, if I'm in your movie, I will be on a motorcycle at some point. [01:45:38] Speaker A: Remember the last time I saw a movie with Tom Cruise where he wasn't riding a motorcycle? I'm, like, genuinely serious. I. He does. He's a big motorcycle guy. He does. It's always him riding them. I just thought it was so funny. And then my last note here is, I don't know if you noticed this. I thought it was very interesting. And it. Maybe it's a. My guess is that it's just kind of a production mistake maybe or something. But I think you could interpret it potentially as like a. But probably not. So the final, very last, very, very end of the movie, he dies, he wakes back up, and then we see him walking to go see Rita again for the first time. [01:46:14] Speaker B: Yes. Yeah, yeah, yeah. [01:46:16] Speaker A: The color grade on the shot where the camera is behind him, following him, walking into, like, that room. [01:46:23] Speaker B: Trying to remember. I didn't notice this. [01:46:25] Speaker A: The camera is like following him walking into the room. [01:46:28] Speaker B: I know what you're talking about. [01:46:29] Speaker A: And then it cuts and then we see him from the front and we see him like walk up to her. The whole interaction with her and the part where he walks up to her looks normal. And like the rest of the movie. Movie. The single shot from behind where we just see like the back of his head in uniform walking into the room. [01:46:45] Speaker B: Yeah. [01:46:46] Speaker A: Looks completely different from the rest of the movie. It's color graded almost entirely differently. Or like the. The film grains. It might have just been. They shot it on film and that piece of film was weird or something. I don't know. It looks so different. And I was actually wondering if it was supposed to be like a clue about like this not being real or something like that. I do not think that's it. Because again, the shot right after it looks normal. It's not like the whole ending sequence looks like that. It's just really weird that there's this one. I think it must just be a technical issue. Anybody, I don't know if anybody else noticed that, but if you did, please look at. If you can go watch the movie again. Just the very, very end. The final. You could probably find it on YouTube because I'm sure they have the final scene where he meets her again, like on a YouTube clip or whatever. It looks so different. And I was like, what is going on here? Very strange. All right, those are all my notes for the final verdict. We want to remind you you can do us a favor by heading over Facebook, Instagram, threads, Blue Sky, Goodreads, any of those places interact. We'd love to hear what you have to say about Edge of Tomorrow. All you need is kill. Please, all you need is kill. Fans or super fans or anybody who knows more about this book. Answer my questions that I had in this episode. Help me, please. Help. Help. [01:47:57] Speaker B: You're our only hope. [01:47:59] Speaker A: Hope. You can also help us by heading over to Apple Podcasts, Spotify or wherever you listen to our show. Drop us a five star rating, write us a nice little review. We would appreciate that. And you can head over to patreon.com thisfilmislet support us there. Get access to bonus content starting at the five dollar a month level. You can get our bonus episode. We just put out on Snow White and the Seven Dwarves for last month's episode. [01:48:19] Speaker B: Yeah. [01:48:19] Speaker A: What's this month's episode for Patreon? [01:48:25] Speaker B: The bluff. [01:48:26] Speaker A: The bluff. That's right. We're doing the Bluff, which is a pirate movie that just came out that I thought looked equal parts bad and fun. So we'll see. We'll see what that is. But if you want to hear us talk about the Bluff in a couple weeks, check out our patreon. Katie, it's time for the final verdict. [01:48:43] Speaker B: Sentence passed. [01:48:45] Speaker A: Verdict after. [01:48:47] Speaker B: That's stupid. [01:48:48] Speaker A: All youl Need Is Kill is an enjoyable enough book for the majority of its page count. It has a great premise that makes for a page turning adventure that keeps you interested, but I really struggled figuring out what the book is trying to say. At times it felt like a critique of the way young people are tossed into the meat grinder and the cyclical nature of war, but that was constantly at odds with how much the book wanted you to think. All of this stuff was really cool. The action one liners, the wish fulfillment nature of Rita and Kaiji's relationship, and just the general tone of the book book all felt completely dissonant with any potential war bad messaging that it could be attempting to deliver. The movie manages to avoid most of these pitfalls by being more unabashedly a summer blockbuster about Tom Cruise and Emily Blunt punching aliens to death. The questions about who these aliens are, why they're doing this, and even some criticisms about war broadly are still kind of there if you squint. But the movie never really puts a spotlight on them. So you're allowed to forget about all of that and just enjoy Emily Blunt doing sweaty push ups and Tom Cruise shooting all of the bullets. The entire narrative conceit, the time loop also translates better to film. There are so many great gags and editing tricks that make the film a fun watch that are just not possible in the book. Neither are particularly profound stories, but I think the movie is more aware of that and as a result works better. So on this loop, I'm giving it to the movie. Katie, what's next? [01:50:11] Speaker B: Up next, we are tackling a more recent film and we're gonna. I'm gonna be reading my very first Colleen Hoover. [01:50:22] Speaker A: Oh my God. I forgot. I forgot. I remembered and then I forgot. [01:50:26] Speaker B: We. Ladies and gentlemen. [01:50:28] Speaker A: Why are we doing this? [01:50:30] Speaker B: It was a patron request. We're gonna be talking about the 2024. [01:50:34] Speaker A: That patron hates us. [01:50:35] Speaker B: It ends with us. I don't think that. [01:50:37] Speaker A: No, no, no. I'm just joke. They're trying to get us in trouble, getting us, dragging us into this quagmire. It'll. [01:50:44] Speaker B: It'll be just like 50 Ships shades. It'll be great. [01:50:46] Speaker A: Yeah. [01:50:46] Speaker B: It's gonna be fun. [01:50:47] Speaker A: Yeah. No, I agree. I'm. I'm. Yeah. But yes. Oh, boy. It ends with us. That'll be. Yep. [01:50:53] Speaker B: That's gonna be something. [01:50:54] Speaker A: That's gonna be something. So come back in one week's time where we'll preview, it ends with us. We'll get into some of that. We'll preview it ends with us. But we're also gonna hear what you all had to say about Edge of Tomorrow. It's gonna be a lot of fun. And in two weeks time, we're talking about, it ends with us. But until that time, guys, gals, non pioneer pals, and everybody else, keep reading books, keep watching movies, and keep being awesome.