Episode Transcript
[00:00:10] Speaker A: On this week's prequel episode, we follow up on our Snow White and the Huntsman listener polls and preview Edge of Tomorrow.
Welcome back to another episode of this film with it, the podcast where we talk about movies that are based on books. It's a prequel episode. We got plenty to talk about. Lots of good feedback, so we're gonna jump right in. Oh, before we do that, we wanted to remind you we're gonna jump into our patron shout outs. But if you want to hear our bonus episode discussing Snow White and the Seven Dwarves, the 1930s SZX 6, 7, Disney 7 7, 1937 Disney film, that episode just came out last night on our Patreon feed. Patreon.com thisfilmislit Support us there. At the $5 a month level, you get access to all of our bonus episodes, including that which I thought we had some fun stuff to talk about, so go check that out. And now let's shout out our patrons. I put up with you because your father and mother were our finest patrons. That's why. Two new patrons this week. One a free patron. So not technically a patron, a free train.
I don't know, Mercury.
Two different, like two names.
First name, last name, but Mercury. Mercury. So thank you, Mercury for joining us at the free level and following along. And then one new patron at the $5 Hugo Award winning level that I just mentioned, getting access to that bonus content.
Johnny Diamond. What a name. Johnny Diamond. You sound like a wrestler from the 80s.
That's awesome. Hope you appreciate enjoying that bonus content.
As always, we would like to thank our Academy Award winning top tier Patro patrons. And they are. Amanda, Nicole Goble, Harpo Rat, Nathan Matild, Cottonwood Steve, Ben Wilcox, Teresa Schwartz, Ian from Wine Country, Kelly Napier Gratch.
Just scratch. Shelby says March is women in whore month. Just saying.
End of that darn skag. Thank you all very much for your continued support. We really, really appreciate it. Katie, let's see what people had to say about Snow White and the Huntsman.
[00:02:19] Speaker B: Yeah, well, you know, that's just like your opinion man on Patreon. We had four votes for the book, two for the movie, and one listener who couldn't decide.
And quite a few comments, the first of which was from Shelby.
And Shelby said when Katie said in the prequel that there's no romance subplot between Bella and Thor in this movie, I looked at the camera like a character from the Office.
To be fair, we were both kinda right.
[00:02:50] Speaker A: I'm still unsure if there was.
[00:02:51] Speaker B: Yeah, I'm still not. And I Think I'm deciding. I'm positive. That's why I misremembered that because it's not super clear in the movie.
[00:02:59] Speaker A: I'm still unsure whether or not the movie intended for that to be a romance or not. I don't think so. But I also maybe, I don't know,
[00:03:05] Speaker B: maybe you may have missed the birds. In the beginning. She finds one as a kid and says she'll nurse it back to health. Later. They land outside her tower window and either show or bring her the nail she uses to free herself.
After the cliff diving incident, they lead her to the white horse. When Bella and company get to the fairy kingdom, they reappear and we get the horrifying scene you described with the PG13 chest bursters.
As far as I can tell, it's all just the Fae doing fey.
[00:03:33] Speaker A: I noticed the birds.
[00:03:35] Speaker B: Yeah, I noticed the birds. I just had no idea that fairies were gonna come popping out of their.
[00:03:40] Speaker A: Yes. And I did not. Yes. And I don't know if I connected that that was the same. Same.
I guess it makes sense. But like I noticed the birds at different times and like the bird at the window, like where she noticed the nail and. And a few other places and. And that they were kind of a recurring, kind of almost like spirit guidey feeling thing.
But yeah, I didn't. I guess that is. That's the explanation for the horse then, is that it is also some sort of like.
[00:04:07] Speaker B: Yeah. Maybe the horse is also a fake creature. In that case, I feel better about concocting a story where the horse gets out of the mud.
[00:04:18] Speaker A: Oh yeah, it's fine.
[00:04:19] Speaker B: It's fine.
[00:04:19] Speaker A: Yeah. 100% turns into a little Fae creature and flies off.
[00:04:22] Speaker B: Yes. Flutters off or whatever.
[00:04:24] Speaker A: Yeah.
[00:04:26] Speaker B: I've seen this movie twice now and every time they get to the village of women, I'm convinced they decided to swap the dwarves for the village. Then the dwarves show up anyway.
I think there's a happy medium here. The village should be women Dwarves. And if one must die, I would have been more upset about the main woman we talked to getting killed off.
[00:04:47] Speaker A: That would make sense. That would make a lot of sense. That would fix a lot of things.
[00:04:51] Speaker B: It condenses things, keeps the more interesting ideas. We could see a unique take on the Dwarves and we could do something with human beauty standards versus dwarven beauty standards.
[00:05:03] Speaker A: Yeah. You don't even have to do.
[00:05:05] Speaker B: Yeah.
[00:05:05] Speaker A: The scar thing, which I, while an interesting idea, feels weird. Even. Even.
I even. Even discussing whether or not the scarification is enough for the Queen to feels weird. It just. I don't know, there's like weird racial stuff mixed up in that and not racial stuff but like cultural practice stuff mixed up. There's a lot of stuff mixed up in that that is like strange. But if it's a. If it's a village full of dwarven women who are like short and maybe have like facial hair or beards or something that could potentially. And then yes, this and, and, and it's not a thing they've done deliberately. It's just the nature. And they maybe discuss the fact that like, oh, we're actually pretty much. We're pretty safe from the Queen's ire because look at us, she doesn't, you know, we don't exactly fit the beauty standard. You know, we don't exactly fit the look she's. She's trying to maintain or something. You know, something like that. You can have a whole like kind of little conversation about how.
Yeah. The different beauty standards and stuff like that. In a way that feels less weird with the scarification thing and I think solves so many issues. That's like the perfect idea, the perfect solution in my opinion.
[00:06:17] Speaker B: I don't have strong opinions on either version, but this episode did make me want to pick up a Snow White retelling again soon. So thanks.
[00:06:25] Speaker A: Nice.
We can do anything if we can get people to want to read something. We're doing our job for sure.
[00:06:32] Speaker B: Our next comment was from KD who said listening to your commentary helped solidify my love hate relationship with this movie.
There is so much potential here and gorgeous and compellingly creepy visuals. And yet I am also disappointed.
I do think the movie lets Snow White down as far as dialogue throughout the movie and especially the end. The huntsman comes up and gives a quip when joining her in the army and then nothing. Not a word or response to give her some character.
And I have to say as a neutral person on case do. That rallying speech after waking up from her cursed sleep was an abysmal performance.
Again, I don't think they gave her much to work with, but it was croaky and off putting.
[00:07:18] Speaker A: I think the bigger issue for me, I would have to go back and rewatch it. I remember not feeling particularly like woo, yeah, it didn't give me, you know, it wasn't a moment like it wasn't theoden giving the speech to the rohir.
[00:07:30] Speaker B: I mean nothing is sure.
[00:07:32] Speaker A: But I'm just saying like. Or you know, or something much lower than that. You know, it doesn't. It didn't give me any, like, chills or anything like that. I think it's let to me, again, having not rewatched it, it felt like it was less the performance and maybe even less the. The speech itself, like the material and more so just. It feels so unearned in that moment. And so, like, okay, I guess this is what we're doing now that it just lacks any of the punch that that scene should have. Like, even if the performance was perfect, and I guess that could help save it a little bit if the performance was incredible and the speech itself was incredible. But even if they were, I still think it would lack what that scene needs to have, which is a genuine feeling as the audience that this is the. The pinnacle. This is the big moment for this character, that this character has been building to, and it feels like it has been earned. And that this big moment where she rallies the troops is something that feels, again, like kind of the cresting, the pinnacle of her character arc. And it just doesn't. In the movie, I mean, she doesn't
[00:08:39] Speaker B: really even have a character.
[00:08:40] Speaker A: That's what I mean. And so it ends up just being flat because of that, I think, as much as anything else, which I would have to go back and watch it again. But I don't remember thinking the performance was bad in that scene. But I also don't remember thinking it was, like, amazing or anything. So.
[00:08:54] Speaker B: Such a strange thing to be so compelled by a lot of what you are seeing. And also, like, how. What. Why did the Dwarves show up so late?
Omg, the fairies.
[00:09:07] Speaker A: Yes.
[00:09:08] Speaker B: Four exclamation marks. The take that Eric's kiss was for his wife and that was what broke the spell is not something I thought of, but it works so, so well.
[00:09:18] Speaker A: It's. It's the only thing that makes sense.
[00:09:20] Speaker B: That's my head cannon now. That's. I'm sticking to that. Y and y'. All. That Finn hair gave me so much joy then and now. Bonus points for having a lasting impression that the actor recently showed up in A Night of the Seven Kingdoms, and I immediately recognized him.
[00:09:38] Speaker A: So funny. We. I. I want to watch that here shortly. We're almost done with Discovery of Witches, and I want to watch that after that.
[00:09:43] Speaker B: But still platinum blonde and still rocking an unfortunate style, although less aggressive. I wonder if they saw this role and were like, yes, he can be a target.
[00:09:53] Speaker A: Absolutely. When you see him, you're like, yep, that could be a target.
Makes sense.
[00:09:57] Speaker B: That could be an insane inbred blonde.
[00:10:00] Speaker A: Yep. Yes, that's the vibe he's going for in this movie. So.
[00:10:07] Speaker B: Also, I did want to agree that I felt a little conflicted on Ravenna's backstory slash motivations. I'm not sure sure we needed the SA element to bring sympathy to her where she could have just been motivated by pride and power.
There is something in particular, a little messy about how the scene with King Magnus and her. Ruined by a king by you, when we have no reason to believe he is a bad guy.
[00:10:31] Speaker A: Ruined by a king like you.
[00:10:32] Speaker B: Right, right. Ruined by a king like you.
[00:10:34] Speaker A: Yes.
[00:10:35] Speaker B: And it makes me question what they were trying to say with her justifiable outrage, but connecting it with her evil acts.
[00:10:41] Speaker A: I don't disagree. It does.
It feels like too nuanced of a discussion of feminine rage and the effects of sexual assault on people for a movie like this. Yeah, we talked about that a lot when we discussed the episode on the bonus episode we did on last night in Soho.
Without spoiling that movie, there's a big kind of reveal towards the end that that ties into some similar themes about, like, women who've been victims of, like, sexual violence and the actions they take as a result of that and how justified some of those actions may or may not be. Like, all these kind of things. And that movie, I think, is a lot more.
It's a lot. It's a different type of movie. It's a lot more able to handle some of those kind of heavier tone, like, kind of thematic elements.
But I completely agree that in this movie, it does feel messy in the sense of, like, okay, I think there could be something interesting here. But this. This popcorn action adventure flick is not necessarily the place to like, delve into the intricacies and complexities of.
Of right. Righteous feminine anger at the patriarchy and how that expresses itself. And like the. You know what I mean? It just.
[00:12:05] Speaker B: Yeah, it is very, like.
It feels very particularly like early 2010s feminism.
And it's. It's not even half baked. It's like quarter baked.
[00:12:16] Speaker A: Yes. Yeah, yeah. And. And. But it also. It's definitely. And I. Because I agree, the sexual sub stuff, like, not needing that necessarily to bring sympathy to her role. I don't think it necessarily needs it. It definitely does. That's another thing to me that very much feels of this time.
I mean, it's not that it's not like it's gone anywhere, but like, that was kind of the. And always. And even before this time period of 2010s, this is kind of always the classic way men writing women write A sympathetic backstory for a powerful woman. Characters. Oh, she was sexually assaulted at some point. And now.
Yeah, that just tended to be a way, you know, that, that it's. It's the entirety of Game of Thrones. It's like, you know. Yeah.
And again, I think Game of Thrones, it actually works a lot of times because I think there's a lot more of a nuanced thing going on. And like, that show is just a lot more layered and prepared and able to handle the intricacies of discussing stories like that. Whereas this movie, both because of the amount of time, the length of the movie, and again, it's more worried about spending most of the time being a fun action adventure movie.
[00:13:27] Speaker B: Right.
[00:13:28] Speaker A: You just don't have. Yeah.
[00:13:29] Speaker B: I'm only going with the movie because Snow White being 7 is a choice. But Katie is also right in that the fairy tales little oddities are also amazing.
[00:13:38] Speaker A: There you go.
[00:13:39] Speaker B: I do want to go back to the Snow White's age thing in the Grimm story because I think I may have been a little unfair on that point because I think you could read the story as like. I think you could like read in between the lines and like say that more time passed. Oh, that's not necessarily seven.
She's seven when it starts, but not necessarily seven when it ends. That's not explicitly in the text, but I think you could read it again. It's a fairy tale. Yeah, but I think you could read it that way.
[00:14:16] Speaker A: Okay. But even then, she probably still wouldn't be.
[00:14:18] Speaker B: She wouldn't be terribly old or something.
[00:14:21] Speaker A: She's probably like 11 or 12 or, you know, like early teens maybe. Yeah.
[00:14:28] Speaker B: Our next comment is from C. Yavasor, who said, hey, y', all, I've been listening for a while, but I'm rarely active on social media at the right time to catch the polls. So this is my first comment.
[00:14:43] Speaker A: As I said, I don't recognize that's a new name.
[00:14:46] Speaker B: I feel like this movie is more in conversation with the Disney movie visually and narratively than with the fairy tale. So it's probably a good thing you plan to watch that.
Spoilers for a 90 year old movie. But the curse in Disney is fixed by true love's first kiss. I don't know when it evolved into true love in the public consciousness, but that doesn't come from the early Disney princesses.
[00:15:10] Speaker A: I imagine that's a thing similar to Mirror, Mirror on the Wall. That is just kind of.
[00:15:13] Speaker B: Yeah.
[00:15:14] Speaker A: By nature. Of simplicity's sake or whatever.
[00:15:17] Speaker B: Yeah. Slowly morphed Even with that knowledge, I'm not a fan of the kiss twist in the movie. So since they never actually define it in the movie, I personally justify it as her having kissed William sometime before the apple or Ravenna kissing her as him counted for the magic.
Though I really like the justification y' all came up with for it. I will always be incredibly fond of this movie. I enjoy it on its own, but when it came out in theaters, I was recovering from jaw surgery and my sister took me to see it. In spite of her personal dislike for Kristen Stewart, I do still enjoy it as a fun and visually interesting time. But the cheating scandal from production kind of made it harder to enjoy an older man who claims to love his wife. Falling for and kind of pursuing the younger woman he's working with is sure a parallel that colors the end.
Yeah, so I went with the book.
[00:16:09] Speaker A: Yeah, that is. That is.
Yeah, it's definitely not ideal.
Again, nothing necessarily super problematic about it in the sense that they're adults. But yeah, he is the director on
[00:16:22] Speaker B: the film and he was married.
[00:16:25] Speaker A: And he was married. Yeah, obviously that part. But, you know, like, even still, even without any sort of major. I don't know how old he was. I don't know. I don't think there was necessarily, like, a huge age gap between.
[00:16:34] Speaker B: I have no idea, but probably a
[00:16:36] Speaker A: little bit at least.
But you're the director on the film. You're the boss.
[00:16:40] Speaker B: Yeah.
[00:16:41] Speaker A: Shouldn't sleep with the actors.
[00:16:43] Speaker B: Should not be romantically pursuing.
[00:16:45] Speaker A: You can sleep with the producers. That's about it.
[00:16:48] Speaker B: But the producers shouldn't be sleeping with you.
[00:16:51] Speaker A: Ah, it depends. You might also be a producer if you're.
[00:16:54] Speaker B: I guess.
[00:16:55] Speaker A: I mean, honestly. Yes, you shouldn't. But whatever. Yeah. They made a joke about on the recent Scrubs episode reboot about, like, sleeping only with, like, they're talking about. Because J.D. is the chief of medicine. He can only sleep with, like, members of the board and above or whatever. He can't sleep with employees.
[00:17:12] Speaker B: Our next comment was from Kelly Napier, who said, first, a little anecdote about how we accidentally own this movie. Years ago, my husband's uncle lent us his copy of this movie on dvd, saying how it was so good and we would love it. Okay, well, it went up on a shelf and we never watched it. We never returned it either. And that uncle has now passed away.
I think this might be our inheritance from him.
We have now moved this DVD three times, and this finally gave us a reason to pop it in. It was so forgotten on our shelf. My husband didn't even remember we had it.
Now, down to business. I voted for the story largely for three reasons. One, I agree with Katie that some of the other assassination attempts would have been cool to see on screen. And. And the one with the stays would have fit perfectly with the vibe of this movie.
[00:18:06] Speaker A: Absolutely. With the. The vaguely kind of milquetoast feminist.
[00:18:10] Speaker B: Yes.
[00:18:10] Speaker A: Critiques that are.
[00:18:12] Speaker B: Let me. Let me tighten your corset until you die.
[00:18:14] Speaker A: Yeah, exactly.
[00:18:17] Speaker B: Two, when you have a piece of media that inspires so many other pieces of media throughout the years, it's hard to deny the superiority of the original source. And three, this movie, as you both stated in the episode, was kind of a mess overall. It was trying to do way too much, and the story felt rushed because of it. I loved the inclusion of the women's village, but because of that, the story of the Dwarves was shorted, so we could have focused on.
[00:18:44] Speaker A: I see what you did there.
Story of the Doors was shorted, so
[00:18:50] Speaker B: we could have focused on one, but not both. Also, they didn't have to do the horse like that.
[00:18:56] Speaker A: True, but it's a Fae. It's fine. Also, we solved. We solved the village in the dwarf thing earlier with Shelby's comment. We're good. Combine it.
The women in the village are Dwarves. Nail it.
[00:19:07] Speaker B: I'm a little surprised you both loved Charlize Theron's portrayal of Ravenna so much when it struck me as an imitation of a cross between the Sanderson sisters from Hocus Pocus and Lamia from Stardust.
Stardust, for sure. Hocus Pocus I don't really get.
[00:19:25] Speaker A: It's been so long since I've seen Hocus Pocus, honestly, since I've seen both of those. I haven't watched Stardust since we did it.
[00:19:32] Speaker B: Yeah.
[00:19:32] Speaker A: Podcast
[00:19:34] Speaker B: in 20. 19.
[00:19:35] Speaker A: 19. Yeah. And I haven't seen Hocus Pocus since before that, so I can't compare it. I will say there were a few times where I didn't love all of her choices. There were definitely moments where I was like, some of the deliveries felt a little stilted and clunky in a way that didn't work, but most of the time I just thought she was chewing scenery in such a fun way that I enjoyed it and I thought it worked really well. But there were moments where I was like, not. Not amazing.
[00:20:07] Speaker B: A magical woman who needs to consume a person's essence to stay young. Been there, seen that. And man, is she terrible at accents.
[00:20:15] Speaker A: I'll take your word for it on the accent. I didn't notice.
[00:20:20] Speaker B: Yeah, it didn't. Didn't bother me.
[00:20:22] Speaker A: I. I don't. I'm not. She's South African. Doing a British accent. To me, that might as all well be the same thing. I know they're very different. I'm aware. I'm just saying I'm very bad at accents generally, so you have to be
[00:20:34] Speaker B: very noticeable for me, honestly, same. Your accent has to be so cartoonishly bad for me to clock it as
[00:20:41] Speaker A: bad or it just has to come out a lot. Like we talked about in the Discovery of Witches in the first season of that, the main actress, her Australian accent comes out in her. And it's also different because she's doing an American accent.
If it's an American. If it's somebody doing an American accent, it's easy for me to clock. If it's somebody doing something else, even British, I couldn't even begin to like unless it's cartoonishly bad. I just can't. I don't. I can't tell.
And yeah, I won't. I won't even necessarily disagree that her character is particularly unique or interesting or original.
[00:21:18] Speaker B: No, it's not. It's not a unique character.
[00:21:20] Speaker A: The performance, I think, is fun.
[00:21:21] Speaker B: I think the performance is fun. And I like the. I like the aesthetic of her character.
[00:21:27] Speaker A: I think she's got a really cool and just. Yeah, as we said, the whole movie's aesthetically works. Her aesthetic works really well. It's a fun performance that is at times a little.
A little overwrought, but it works because it's fine for what the role is.
[00:21:44] Speaker B: All right. Our last comment on Patreon was from Nathan, and Nathan said it's always hard to choose when one option is short and seemingly for kids. I think the story is annoyingly silly.
This evil witch somehow can't make an enchantment that keeps Snow White dead when she isn't physically in contact with her. Even knowing this, the Evil Queen never double taps or takes the body away before the dwarfs can save Snow White again.
Listen, none of them are really like the brightest bulbs in this story, okay?
I can forgive this sort of nonsense in a kid's story where the point is to just entertain, not to make sense.
I cannot, however, vote for something I found so frustrating, even over a profoundly mediocre movie.
As far as the movie, I think the whole Snow White especial plotline is just kind of extra. I know we need a reason that the Queen targets her specifically, but making her the Promised One with mystical healing powers seems like a step beyond what is needed.
[00:22:48] Speaker A: I completely agree with that. That felt so unnecessary because it's like we already have. She just. She's have her be part of the prophecy for the queen and like that's why the queen is trying to get her. I don't understand.
[00:22:59] Speaker B: Yeah, we didn't need the extra.
[00:23:01] Speaker A: She's like magical and. And can. Yeah, yeah.
[00:23:05] Speaker B: The movie doesn't even really do a good job of showing her powers, instead opting to have the dwarves talk about how their various physical maladies are healed without really demonstrating that they actually existed.
[00:23:18] Speaker A: I mean, I.
I figured out that the Bob Hoskins dwarf was blind eventually. I don't think I realized it initially.
I realized eventually. Once they kept showing close ups of his eyes and stuff, I was like, oh, okay. And I think they were trying to like, not to be a little subtle in the filmmaking and not just like outwardly be like, that's not what.
[00:23:43] Speaker B: I don't know.
[00:23:44] Speaker A: I don't know any of the dwarves names. That's Doc. He's blind.
You know, like they don't say that any.
[00:23:50] Speaker B: Right.
[00:23:50] Speaker A: But like. And so I think they're trying to be a little subtle. But yeah. I honestly didn't even register until the part where he becomes unblind and I was like, oh, okay.
So yeah, they did see.
[00:24:00] Speaker B: And I didn't clock that he was supposed to have become unblind.
[00:24:04] Speaker A: Yeah. So you don't realize that at all. Yeah, yeah, No, I agree. It's. Yeah.
[00:24:09] Speaker B: It also becomes real weird when they later talk later in the movie about Snow White and her pure blood being the only thing that can save the land.
It's not intentional, but they are walking awfully close to some white supremacist talking points.
[00:24:22] Speaker A: I didn't remember that part, so. But I didn't take your word for it.
[00:24:27] Speaker B: Well, we're always treading a fine line when we get into like, blood.
[00:24:31] Speaker A: Yeah, yeah.
[00:24:33] Speaker B: It's super unclear to me exactly what Ravenna's powers even are, which makes it seem like she can just do whatever she needs to in the moment.
[00:24:40] Speaker A: That is an issue too. Her power level is kind of.
[00:24:45] Speaker B: Yeah, it's real up in town. I feel like just making her borderline immortal, but otherwise just a normal person would have made more sense.
Snow White spends basically no time in the actual Dark Forest and it feels like the Evil Queen could have attacked directly as soon as Snow White left it. And yet Ravenna. Wait, waits till much later.
Yeah,
[00:25:07] Speaker A: she didn't know where she was or something. But then she just magically finds her later. So I don't know. Know.
[00:25:12] Speaker B: I didn't care about Gus's death, but I'm a little surprised y' all didn't either.
[00:25:16] Speaker A: An interesting sentence.
[00:25:18] Speaker B: I assumed this was just a me me being a little heartless thing, since they spent what felt like forever setting him up as Snow's best little buddy in the few previous scenes.
[00:25:29] Speaker A: See, I. I didn't feel like.
[00:25:30] Speaker B: I didn't feel like they did enough.
[00:25:32] Speaker A: Snow's best little buddy. Like, he definitely. They have a scene together, but it's
[00:25:36] Speaker B: not like, yeah, he was brave enough to ask Snow to dance and they really got along. It all rang hollow to me. But not for lack of trying.
I mean, I think there was some lack of trying.
[00:25:48] Speaker A: Yeah, I think it did lack a little bit of effort, but it also rang hollow. So it was both like.
[00:25:52] Speaker B: Yeah.
Anyway, long story short, I picked the movie.
[00:25:57] Speaker A: There you go.
[00:25:58] Speaker B: Over on Facebook, we had zero votes for the book and one for the movie. And we had a comment from m', Aladdin who said I have to go with the movie since I have very fond memories of seeing it. When it came out in theaters and rewatched it last year along with the prequel sequel, the Huntsman Winter's War, I have no idea what that. I knew there was like a new movie in this, but I have no idea what it's about.
[00:26:25] Speaker A: No.
[00:26:25] Speaker B: Using Brian's philosophy from the episode, my brain was turned off in 2012, and I enjoyed it as a darker fantasy take on a beloved Disney classic.
After rewatching it in 2025 with my brain turned on, I still enjoyed it. But Snow White leading the army makes no sense since she had very little training.
The only logical explanation I can come up with is that she is supposed to be a beacon of light and hope.
However, the same logic can apply to Prince William, but since he's not Snow White, it doesn't count.
[00:26:57] Speaker A: I mean, you can have her be the. The kind of, like, figurehead of the army or like the beacon. Like the thing. She can give the speech. She can do all of that stuff. It's just having her suit up in arm, lead the charge on horseback and then like, sword fight the queen.
[00:27:11] Speaker B: Well, yes, specifically, like leading the charge and sword fighting the queen. Like, if you want to put her in armor and have her outwit.
[00:27:18] Speaker A: Like the king is.
[00:27:19] Speaker B: Yeah, like the king is. But as we discussed in the episode, if she's following in her father's footsteps, she has to be at the front of the army. But there's no basis for us to like understand how she's able to do.
[00:27:32] Speaker A: How she's able to do that. Yeah. Yeah.
[00:27:36] Speaker B: Katie spoke about the hate for Kristen Stewart in 2012 and she wasn't wrong because I was one of those people.
To be fair, I didn't hate her, just disliked seeing her as well as her Twilight co star Robert Pattinson.
They were, they were pretty saturated in pop culture at the time.
[00:27:53] Speaker A: Yeah. And that was definitely part of it. Like, it was just. They were everywhere.
[00:27:57] Speaker B: However, as the years went by, I watched them both grow as actors post Twilight and my dislike for them went away.
However, Kristen Stewart as Snow White initially I thought was the weakest part of the movie. And to some extent she still is. But not as bad as I remembered regarding her acting.
[00:28:14] Speaker A: Yeah, I thought her acting's fine.
[00:28:16] Speaker B: Yeah, it's fine.
[00:28:16] Speaker A: It's not incredible. The biggest issue is just that her, her character is. The writing is the script. Her character just doesn't have enough.
[00:28:23] Speaker B: Yeah. There's really nothing for her to work with.
[00:28:25] Speaker A: She's just mostly running and scared and then isn't.
Yeah.
[00:28:32] Speaker B: However, her beauty is still no match for Charlize Theron.
[00:28:35] Speaker A: I mean, okay, I don't disagree necessarily.
[00:28:39] Speaker B: That is one weak part I can't overlook. Even 14 years later. Snow White is supposed to be equally beautiful as the queen, which is the main reason why she is jealous and wants her dead. In this version, there's nothing to be jealous of. The audience is going full on dark side with Charlize over a beauty contest.
[00:28:57] Speaker A: I. Look, I.
Who am I to pit to each other? I think they're both very attractive in their own way. So I, you know, I, I could see. I think she, I think she works fine as.
I don't think she's like so subjectively less attractive than Charlize Theron that it's like ridiculous or. You know what I mean?
[00:29:21] Speaker B: I don't know.
[00:29:21] Speaker A: I think, I think it works fine. But it is, there is an element to. And to be fair, I think the movie part of it with Charlize Theron's character is that the reason. Part of the reason Kristen Stewart is more fair, which is interesting in its own right, is because Charlize Theron is like rapidly aging.
[00:29:40] Speaker B: Yeah.
[00:29:40] Speaker A: Because she is needs like if she doesn't constantly absorbing life force from people, she does. Like we see her like deteriorating and aging. So I, I think that also plays into the element of Snow White being fairer than her. I don't know. But yeah.
[00:30:01] Speaker B: Lastly, I want to address something that Brian brought up in the episode back in 2012, nobody used the term Mary sue or other popular terms that are used nowadays. Let me.
[00:30:13] Speaker A: I was there when the texts were written.
[00:30:15] Speaker B: Let me get through the whole comment.
Since nobody was programmed to pick a political side and be very vocal about it on the Internet, the majority of people. The majority of people regarding criticism about the movie were mostly about the pace, underdeveloped characters, and Kristen Stewart's acting. That's it. Everybody back then was still able to be civil about the movie discussion without being disrespectful to other people.
Okay, Miladin, I want to take you to task a little bit because none of this is true.
[00:30:48] Speaker A: No.
[00:30:49] Speaker B: And I like, I understand that.
[00:30:51] Speaker A: Like, there's a hint of truth to it. Sorry, go ahead.
[00:30:53] Speaker B: Like, looking back, and especially in the, like, extremely heightened kind of mess that we're in right now, I think it is very easy to look back at the. At the halcyon days of 2012 and say everybody got along and nobody was. Was politically charged, but people were absolutely politically charged. You even mentioned the hate for Kristen Stewart. Yeah, that was political.
People hated her because she was a successful young woman.
[00:31:25] Speaker A: Yeah, yeah.
And the thing you're accurately categorizing is that what didn't exist in 2012 in the same way, and it still kind of did. I was there. Like I said, I was there 100%.
These arguments on the Internet existed. It was different.
[00:31:44] Speaker B: Yes.
[00:31:45] Speaker A: What didn't exist in 2012, that didn't really kick off until around 2016.
Roughly 2015. 2016, in that range, maybe even close. 2012 might be pushing it. It might have even started to kick off around there. What didn't exist was the full infrastructure of outrage peddlers and merchants on the like. Like, it wasn't the dominant form of cultural critique at the time. Wasn't like all of the worst people creating a million YouTube channels about how Brie Larson sucks. Like, that wasn't predominant in the way it is today or really, again, it's now waned a little bit. Like, we've somewhat corrected to where those type of, like, outrage peddlers, the height of their power was like, you know, the early 2000s, like right after 202016 to like 2023. Ish. Was kind of like when that we've
[00:32:39] Speaker B: kind of since kind of crested.
[00:32:41] Speaker A: Kind of crested. And people now find that cringe a little bit like people have.
[00:32:45] Speaker B: People are seeing through it a little bit more than they used to.
[00:32:48] Speaker A: Still exists. But. But no, 100% in 2012, there absolutely was huge political debates about on the Internet about movies and people were absolutely not cool about and civil about.
Again, it's not the same. I don't think it's necessarily to the exact same extent, but it was definitely a thing. I was on the Internet having debates with people during that time period. It existed.
[00:33:19] Speaker B: Also, the term Mary sue specifically is much older than its kind of popularity might have. You believe it's actually existed since 1973,
[00:33:30] Speaker A: which should be fair. I don't think he's claiming or Milane's claiming that it didn't exist in 2012. He says nobody used the term Mary sue in 2012.
[00:33:38] Speaker B: It.
[00:33:39] Speaker A: I would have to go check when the popularity of it exploded. I know it was more. It definitely became a thing like I said around 2016, 2015, when like all of the. When did Captain Marvel come out? Was that 20, like 18?
[00:33:52] Speaker B: Let me search it as a Google trend.
[00:33:54] Speaker A: Yeah, say if you search it as a Google trend, we could figure that out real easy.
Captain Marvel is 2019. So.
But that was that that whole Captain Marvel also wasn't the beginning of the worst like the surge in obnoxious like right wing incelie flavored film criticism and media criticism. It existed long before that. 2012 might be right around the time. It might be right before Mary sue was really picking up speed as like a shitty.
[00:34:29] Speaker B: So there's at least some level of web search for the term. There was like a small surge in 2013.
Okay. And then a huge enormous surge at the very end. Oh come on, show that to me again. The very end of 2015.
[00:34:53] Speaker A: Yeah.
[00:34:55] Speaker B: And then it surged again in 2017.
[00:34:57] Speaker A: You know why that is why it surged in 2015?
[00:35:01] Speaker B: Was that Captain Marvel?
[00:35:02] Speaker A: No, that was the Force Awakens. That was.
Yeah, that's really when it kicked off was Rey was like when it. But but again I, I had heard of Mary Sue Long. I, I, the intern, the circles I was running in around on Reddit and stuff. I had heard of people calling characters mary sues in 2012. 100.
[00:35:20] Speaker B: Yeah.
[00:35:21] Speaker A: Again I would. I agree. You're not wrong that it was not. Yeah.
[00:35:25] Speaker B: 2015 not as common as it is now.
[00:35:28] Speaker A: 2015 is really when that kicked off in terms of like being a popular thing. People were like, you know, criticism, people were levying. But it absolutely people were using it in 2012. But yeah, nowhere near as much as modern day or even a few years later.
[00:35:45] Speaker B: But yeah, November 30th to December 31st, 2015 crazy surge.
[00:35:53] Speaker A: Yeah.
Force Awakens. That was it. That's what it was. It was Force Awakens coming out with Rey. Yep.
And then that's what it was again. I don't think your last comment there is entirely incorrect. I think it's just a vast oversimplification that really cuts out on and kind of over is like a rose tinted glasses view of 2012.
[00:36:13] Speaker B: Yes, very much. I think looking back on that period of the Internet with like. Yeah, like rose colored glasses, like everything was so much better then.
[00:36:22] Speaker A: Yeah, it was better in some ways.
[00:36:25] Speaker B: A little better in some ways, but it definitely wasn't. It was not this like peaceful utopia where. Where no one was.
[00:36:34] Speaker A: Yeah.
[00:36:35] Speaker B: Politically charged in their criticisms of media.
[00:36:40] Speaker A: But it definitely. But a thing that is true is that it had. It was not commercialized and it wasn't like a money making scheme that huge slabs of the Internet had latched onto as a grift and as a way to like drive engagement. And like it was a. That is absolutely true. Is that it had not become the entire like industrial.
[00:37:04] Speaker B: Yes. And I think that, that, that is something that's important to be aware of that I think maybe some people are not aware of. Is that that kind of outrage and the prevalence of it is a grift.
[00:37:17] Speaker A: Oh, 100%. That's.
[00:37:18] Speaker B: That's people making you angry on purpose to make money off of you.
[00:37:24] Speaker A: Yeah. And plenty of those people believe the things they're saying, but plenty of them also don't even give a shit if it's. If they believe what they're saying. They're just saying stuff because they think it'll get attention and get money.
But yeah, no, that is absolutely. Yeah. The, the grift industrial complex from that had not kicked off in 2012. So you're correct about that. And it was definitely not as bad as today, but it existed and was absolutely a thing.
[00:37:46] Speaker B: All right, thank you for.
Thank you for your comments and being a good sport in a way.
We didn't have any comments on Instagram this time, but we did have two votes for the book and two for the movie.
And then over on Goodreads, we had one vote for the book, zero for the movie, and a comment from Mikko who said, I did not have strong feelings for either story. So this will be mainly just random thoughts about the movie.
When Snow White arrived at the lakeside village, I was wondering if it would be her final hiding place. The movie had been going on for an hour without even a hint of the Dwarves, so I thought maybe the filmmakers considered them to be too childish for this gritty retelling and simply cut them.
No, never.
Why are there eight dwarves? They're even more interchangeable than the Hobbit dwarves. So just start with the traditional seven. Now, the movie is the story of Snow White and the seven dwarfs, plus Gus, who we won't count despite him sacrificing.
[00:38:57] Speaker A: I mean, that's the reason there's eight Dwarves, though.
[00:38:59] Speaker B: Yeah.
[00:39:00] Speaker A: So we can kill one and have Snow White and seven dwarves. You explained the reason that there are eight of them is that they wanted
[00:39:07] Speaker B: to kill one we like. Just in case they decided they wanted to do a sequel focusing on her and the dwarves.
[00:39:13] Speaker A: Yeah, they could still have for some reason. Yeah.
[00:39:16] Speaker B: Speaking of the dwarfs, I was really impressed with their effects. Apparently they did a lot of CGI head and limb replacements, but it looked seamless.
[00:39:24] Speaker A: It did look really good because they're all from. I'm fairly certain every single one of them is a.
Not a little person or, you know, there is a like. Of average height essentially. But yeah, they did a lot of like head replacement and stuff that did. I. I was genuinely like, surprised how good it looked for the time period that it. It was pretty seamless.
[00:39:46] Speaker B: Snow White being poisoned by fake William managed to surprise me. My first thought was that the filmmakers were doing a bad job reminding watchers about the apple so close before the poisoning. That was surely going to happen in another 10 minutes.
I was expecting something a bit more clever for the final confrontation. Maybe the Queen gets stabbed with a dagger covered in Snow White's blood after shrugging off other wounds. Blood of the fairest defeats, et cetera, et cetera.
[00:40:13] Speaker A: Something, anything. It's so nothing that she just stabs her with a knife. It's not a special knife. It's not. Again, the idea is, I guess that Snow White herself.
[00:40:23] Speaker B: Yeah, she's special.
[00:40:24] Speaker A: Special, sure. And that's fine. But it just. It is a very anti move like
[00:40:30] Speaker B: the movie does zero work to prove to us that she's special. So it doesn't work.
[00:40:35] Speaker A: Doesn't really work. And. Yeah, yeah. And it's. Yeah.
[00:40:38] Speaker B: I did not care that much about the fairy tale version either. In fact, I was getting pretty mad at Snow White getting tricked thrice in a row, even when the dwarfs repeatedly tell her not to trust anyone. But I also think the gritty retelling doesn't quite work without knowing the original.
For example, had this been an original story, you would have definitely cut the dwarfs. My vote goes to the book. All right, so our winner this time was the fairytale. With seven votes to the movie's five plus our one listener who couldn't decide.
[00:41:13] Speaker A: There you go. Thank you all so much for your comments. We love hearing the feedback and talking about it. Katie, it's time now to preview All YOU NEED is Kill.
What I am about to tell you sounds crazy, but you have to listen to me.
Your very lives depend on it.
This does not be end.
You see, this isn't the first time.
Now we've had this conversation.
[00:42:02] Speaker B: All YOU NEED is Kill is a Japanese science fiction light novel by Hiroshi Sakurazaka with illustrations by Yoshitoshi Abe.
[00:42:14] Speaker A: Probably Abe. Abe would be my guess, I think.
[00:42:18] Speaker B: Quick side note, because I wanted to make sure that we got this in there because we were.
[00:42:23] Speaker A: Both of us.
[00:42:24] Speaker B: Yeah, both of us were like, what is that? A light novel is a type of popular literature from Japan that's usually classified as young adult fiction, generally ranging from targeting teens to 20s or older. So it kind of sounds like a ya. Like new adult. Yeah, kind of a thing. Yeah, the definition is pretty vague and wide ranging, but generally it refers to a story accompanied with manga style illustrations, often in black and white.
[00:42:54] Speaker A: I haven't gotten to any illustrations yet. I'm about almost halfway through the book and I haven't hit a single illustration, so I don't know if there are
[00:43:00] Speaker B: any or not, but Sakura Zaka was inspired by an online account written by a video game player.
I guess a blog of some sort where comments on how restarting the game after the playable character's death allowed for trial and error improvement.
[00:43:16] Speaker A: What year is this book from? Oh, here we go. Sorry, you're coming up to it. Sorry, I thought. Okay, my apology. I was.
[00:43:22] Speaker B: Yeah, which led the writer to conceive a story where the hero wound up being played over and over.
[00:43:28] Speaker A: Yeah, it's very obvious when you just read. Having not known that, you know, reading that. Now, having read the first half of the book, it's very clear it was inspired by video games.
[00:43:39] Speaker B: While writing, he also read other time loop based fiction. The Wikipedia article only specifically mentions the movie Groundhog Day.
[00:43:48] Speaker A: Yeah, that makes the most sense.
[00:43:50] Speaker B: I couldn't access the article that it was citing to see if he had talked about anything else as research material. So no word on whether or not he read all you Zombies.
[00:44:01] Speaker A: I will say it's a different thing. All you Zombies is a different type of time loop.
[00:44:05] Speaker B: That's fair.
[00:44:07] Speaker A: What this is is like Groundhog Day. This is a character reliving the same day over and over and over again as opposed to looping back in time and influencing Events, you know what I mean? So it's slightly different. Yeah. So there are other things like Groundhog Day. Happy Death Day, I believe, does the same thing. And there are other. Which is a movie and then they made a sequel. But there are other stories like that. But it's that type of time loop.
[00:44:34] Speaker B: So the original novel was released in 2004.
It was Sakura Zaka's breakthrough science fiction novel and it earned him wide praise as well as a nomination for the best Japanese Long work and the 36th SEIAN Awards in 2005.
[00:44:53] Speaker A: So that's why you said it must be a blog. Because it came out. That's why I asked what year did come out.
[00:44:56] Speaker B: Yeah, I think it must be a blog.
[00:44:58] Speaker A: Okay. 2004. Yeah, probably a blog. Yeah.
[00:45:02] Speaker B: And those awards are. That's like their science fiction fantasy awards.
Well, mostly science fiction or message board or something. Yeah, it could have been a message board or something. The novel was later adapted as a manga. In 2014 with illustrations by Takeshi Obata.
The manga was. Was nominated for the best US Edition of Internal Material. Asia International.
International. Ma.
I was like, internal Material.
You know, like in the book Infernal material at the 2015 Eisner Awards. Michael Eisner, I guess.
[00:45:43] Speaker A: I don't know, but.
And I accidentally. We accidentally got the manga first. Yes, we ordered the manga or no, you picked out it. Saw.
[00:45:52] Speaker B: I was like, you decided to do that.
[00:45:55] Speaker A: We did a kind of a last minute switch on this from a different potential episode. And so we needed the. Where I was like, we needed to replace an episode. So I was like, hey, let's do Edge of Tomorrow. And we're like, oh, Barnes and Noble has.
[00:46:07] Speaker B: I was like, oh my gosh, our Barnes and Noble down the road has it. So I went and got it. And then turns out that it was a novel before it was a manga.
[00:46:15] Speaker A: Well, because then. So you got it. And I was like, oh, it's a manga. That's interesting. I didn't realize that. And so I started reading it. I opened the first page, and the first page it says based on the novel by the Hiroshi Sakurazaka. And I was like, oh, yeah, so this is okay. And then so we went and found the. The actual novel.
[00:46:37] Speaker B: So aside from the 2014 film adaptation that we'll be covering, the novel was also adapted as an anime film which released in Japan in 2025, which one we were doing.
[00:46:49] Speaker A: And I was like, oh, there's a.
[00:46:50] Speaker B: There's another one.
[00:46:51] Speaker A: There's another one.
[00:46:51] Speaker B: Indeed there is.
[00:46:52] Speaker A: They released an Anime like last year. And I was like, like, oh, I'm only aware of Edge of Tomorrow, so. All right, speaking of Edge of Tomorrow, let's learn a little bit about it in our preview.
What day is it? Judgment Day. You just came in with the fresh recruits.
[00:47:10] Speaker B: This is not the end.
[00:47:15] Speaker A: The invasion will fail. Along with every soldier you are sending.
We lose everything.
[00:47:26] Speaker B: Come find me when you wake up.
[00:47:34] Speaker A: Edge of Tomorrow is a 2014 film directed by Doug Liman, known for Swingers, fair game, jumper, Mr. And Mrs. Smith and the Bourne Identity, among others. But the Bourne Identity we did, right? Yeah, written by Christopher McQuarrie, who wrote the Usual Suspects, Mission Impossible, Rogue Nation, Fallout, Mission Impossible, Fallout, Mission Impossible, Dead Reckoning part one and two. Basically, he took over the Mission Impossible series from Rogue Nation on as the main writer. He wrote Top Gun, Maverick, he wrote the Mummy, 2017. He works with Tom Cruise a lot now, apparently, ever since Jack Reacher, Jack the Giant Slayer, Valkyrie and Jack Reacher.
Also co writing credits on, according to IMDb, the brothers Jez and John Henry Buttersworth, or Butterworth, who wrote together wrote on Ford vs Ferrari, the film Fair Game, which Doug Lyman directed. And then. And this is. They wrote some other stuff, but this is interesting. They wrote the video game Indiana Jones and the Dial of Destiny. So anybody who's played that, it came out like last year, two years ago.
They wrote the script for that. The film stars Tom Cruise, Emily Blunt, Bill Paxton and Brendan Gleeson, among many others. But those are like the names that you will recognize. Other than that, mostly unknown or not unknown actors, but not names that people will care about.
The film has a 91% on Rotten Tomatoes, a 71 on Metacritic, and a 7.9 out of 10 on IMDb. And it was nominated for six Saturn Awards included, which are the Academy Award for science fiction, including best science fiction film. And it won for best editing. It made 381 million against a budget of 178 million.
So producer Erwin Stoff, his company 3 Arts Entertainment, optioned the rights to the light novel the same year it was published. This says 2009. That's not right. Maybe in America, maybe published.
[00:49:27] Speaker B: Yeah, it might have come out. Yeah, maybe that might be right.
[00:49:30] Speaker A: And they produced that. His production company produced a script with screenwriter Dante Harper, who originally found the novel, quote unquote, too complex to adapt, but eventually chose to risk it and took eight months to write the first draft. Because he didn't. He needed the money. He was like, all right, fine, I'll do it. And took it. Warner Brothers then Decided to purchase that script for $3 million in April of 2010 and they hired Doug Liman to direct the film.
The script. That version of the script in 2010 made the 2010 edition of the Blacklist, which we talked about previously, which is the Hollywood's list of best unproduced screenplays. Brad Pitt was initially approached to play the lead, but after he turned it down, the studio went to Tom Cruise, who signed on Robert Orsi and Alex Kurtzman, probably best known for the Star Trek reboots. They also wrote the first Transformers movie or like the live action 1 from 2007 or 6. Whatever.
Mission Impossible 3 and the Legend of Zorro. Also were writers on Xena and Hercules and all that stuff.
But probably most known now they are like the current. Or specifically Alex Kurtzman is like the current.
He's the Dave Filoni of the Star Trek universe right now. He like runs all of the TV shows. Basically. He's like, like Paul Feig for. Or not Paul Feig. Yeah, Paul Feig for the Marvel movies.
[00:50:51] Speaker B: Okay.
I don't know who Dave Filloni is, so that meant nothing.
[00:50:55] Speaker A: He's running all of Star wars stuff right now.
He directed and wrote a lot of the Mandalorian stuff and was involved with that. The main thing he did, he.
He was the showrunner for one of the big Star Wars, Clone Wars.
[00:51:10] Speaker B: Okay.
[00:51:11] Speaker A: He's like a big lore nerd. He knows everything about Star Wars. They put him in charge of everything.
[00:51:16] Speaker B: He's that guy.
[00:51:17] Speaker A: But for Star Trek, he's basically that guy for Star Trek, which people have very mixed feelings about. A lot of people don't like modern Trek. I haven't actually watched any of it.
I don't think what I have seen of it I thought was fine. And I think people over criticize new Star Trek from what I've seen, but I haven't watched a lot of it. So I can't really say a lot of the people who hate current Star Trek are chuds or like right wing shitty assholes.
[00:51:40] Speaker B: Would be. Would. I guess. Yes.
[00:51:42] Speaker A: Yeah.
Again, that doesn't mean that all of new Star Trek is great. I have not watched and plenty of it does not seem good from what I've seen. But a lot of the criticisms of current Trek are bad. Six months before filming, Doug Liman apparently got rid of 2/3 of Dante Harper's original script and that's when the Butterworths were brought on to rewrite the script.
Then Simon Kinberg, who's probably most known for writing Deadpool, Logan X Men First Class and all of those X Men movies that came out after First Class, like Days of Future Past and Dark Phoenix and all those. Also wrote the Martian adaptation.
So he's written a lot of stuff. He took over for the Butterworths. It's cracking me up that that's their name. He took over for the Butterworths before. Finally, eight weeks before filming, Christopher McQuarrie came on and replaced Simon Kinberg.
Script was a whole thing. Took lots of issues.
McQuarrie ended up joining the project through Tom Cruise because him and their work together on Jack Reacher. Tom Cruise was like, hey, I'm getting ready to go do this Edge of Tomorrow movie. You should come work on the script.
When they were getting ready to start filming, the screenplay did not have a satisfactory ending.
Despite the producers and studio executives worried about starting filming without a set conclusion, Doug Liman opted to finish the script during principal photography. So they started shooting without having an ending for the movie.
Supposedly on the second day of shooting, Doug Liman demanded that they reshoot everything that they had shot on day one, which was concerning for producers.
I thought that was interesting. I've never heard that before. Like we're reshooting all of yesterday today, which is kind of interesting.
So I thought this was cool. The actors actually did wear, at least some of the time, actual prop mech suits. So I don't know, I don't know if you know anything about this movie, but it's a sci fi future war movie where they fight in like I
[00:53:35] Speaker B: saw some still armored suit things kind of looked like the ones in Fallout a little bit.
[00:53:42] Speaker A: Yeah, similar idea. Yeah, very similar idea. They're like the. Yeah, the suits from Fallout kind of. But they. And they're based on like real, like stuff that like DARPA and stuff is developing right now.
But they actually wore real mech suits that weighed about 85 pounds. And between takes on some of the. Sometimes instead of taking these suits off because it took a little while to get them in and out of these suits, they would suspend the suits by chains so that the actors could sit in them and take the weight of the suits off of them, but then not have to get in and out of the suits. Which I thought was fun. That's kind of cool. That's like what you would actually do with them in real life. You know, if they're real, like if you had to like power them down or something, like you could. I thought that was kind of neat.
And so this I thought was interesting. According to a Wikipedia article, as recently as 2024 there were discussion or according to the Wikipedia article, as recently as 2024 there were discussions of a sequel going into production, but I could not find anything concrete of anything actually happening on that.
Getting into a one IMDb trivia fact that I thought was fun, so I had to include it Guillermo del Toro worked on the initial design of the Mimics. The Mimics are the evil alien creatures in the movie. I say evil, we'll get to that.
[00:54:55] Speaker B: We'll see how evil they are.
[00:54:56] Speaker A: I actually don't. I've seen this movie. I don't remember the ending of what ends up happening, but I have seen this movie.
But Guillermo del Toro worked on the initial designs of the Mimics, even though even doing the sketches for how he thought they should look and advising on how they should sound and move and stuff like that. But the design ended up changing so many times during post production that the Mimics in the movie bear little resemblance to Del Toro's ideas, according to IMDb trivia.
[00:55:23] Speaker B: But I just thought that's kind of disappointing.
[00:55:25] Speaker A: My memory is they look cool in the movie. So Getting into some reviews, Justin Chang for Variety called Edge of Tomorrow, quote, a cleverly crafted and propulsively executed sci fi thriller, saying that the film directed by Doug's Lyman or was Doug Liman's best since the Bourne Identity, which based on the other movies I ripped off ripped off from him that doesn't like the Bourne Identity is a good movie, but the rest of those, there's not much else that really stuck out to me. I was like, oh, I thought, because it's funny, because I was like, I thought he did Bourne Identity. And I think in my brain I assumed he did a bunch of other really good movies after that. And I don't know if he did. I don't think he actually did.
Chang said that the screenwriters, with the assistance of the editors, quote, tell their story in a breezy narrative shorthand and at times sleight of hand, transforming what must surely be an unbelievably tedious gauntlet for our hero into a deft, playful and continually involving viewing experience.
About the relationship between Cruise and Emily Blunt's character, Chang said, quote, lyman handles it with a pleasing lightness of touch that extends to the proceedings as a whole. He also commended the visual effects and the expertly designed Mimics, as well as Dion Beebe's cinematography.
Todd McCarthy, writing for the Hollywood Reporter, said the film was a narratively ambitious sci fi actioner that takes a relatively playful attitude toward the familiar battle Tropes. He went on to say, despite the humor, he found the time loop premise tedious and that the final stretch becomes dramatically unconvincing and visually murky.
However, he also called the effects quote, exciting, convincing and gritty for most of the film, I would assume beyond the end. He applauded Brennan Gleason and Bill Paxton in their supporting roles. Kenneth Turan, writing for the Los Angeles Time, gave the film a positive review, saying, quote, a star driven mass market entertainment that's smart, exciting and unexpected, while not stinking, while not stinting on genre satisfactions, and that it broke a string of, quote, cookie cutter, been there blockbusters, end quote.
Edge of Tomorrow was listed on 23 critics top 10 list for movies of 2014 out of the 201 evaluated, apparently. Oh, so out of 201 critic lists, Edge of Tomorrow was on 23 of those critics top 10.
[00:57:41] Speaker B: So, okay.
[00:57:43] Speaker A: David Hines, writing for what culture, ranked the original script all youl need is kill from 2010 fifth in his list of 10 best movie screenplays since 2010.
And he considered certain changes made for the film to be detrimental, saying, is it me or does quote the edge of. Or does the title Edge of Tomorrow suck in comparison to all you need is Kill? The conflict between Cage and the mimics is also far more localized to the beach and marine barracks in the screenplay, which improves the cohesiveness of the overall story. Whereas Cruise finds himself up in a helicopter in no time in the film version, end quote.
And then in July 2025, it was one of the films voted for the Reader's Choice edition of the New York times list of 100 best movies of the 21st century, clocking in at number 275.
So it didn't make the list. It was like an honorable mention, I guess.
[00:58:33] Speaker B: How did it.
[00:58:34] Speaker A: I guess it was like an honorable mention, huh?
[00:58:36] Speaker B: Okay, yeah.
[00:58:37] Speaker A: Or something like that. I don't know, but yeah.
John, one of my friends commented that he thought all you need is Kill is a much cooler name. And why would they change the name? And I read some stuff about it. They were gonna use all you need is Kill originally.
And then I believe it was Doug Liman. I read that Doug Liman thought that the tone of the movie didn't really matter. Like the. The tone of the movie that they made after adapting it didn't really match that kind of vibe necessarily. And at one point. So they started. They. I think they started going with Edge of Tomorrow at one point. They were going to change it to Live, die, Repeat.
[00:59:13] Speaker B: Yeah.
[00:59:14] Speaker A: And then ultimately decided against. And I think some marketing even came out with it.
[00:59:19] Speaker B: Like I feel like I saw some
[00:59:21] Speaker A: stuff that had that some marketing even came with the title of Live Die and Repeat before eventually they decided no and they just made Live Die Repeat this like tagline. And Edge of Tomorrow is the title of the movie. I don't really have strong feelings about what you should. What it should have been called. All you need is Kill is a badass title. That is a crazy, like cool title. But I think Edge of Tomorrow is fine. It's not super, it's not as evocative as all you need is Kill is. And it's not as explanatory as Live, Die Repeat is. But I think it works because it is like the edge of Tomorrow. Like he, he's living on the edge of tomorrow. Like keeps repeating the same day over and over again. It's interesting. I don't have strong feelings about the name though. So as always, you can do us a favor by heading over to Facebook, Twitter, or as always, you can do us a favor by heading over to Facebook, Instagram, threads, Blue Sky, Goodreads, any of those places interact with us. We'd love to hear what you have to say about stuff we talk about. You can also help us out by heading over to patreon.com thisfilmislit support us there, get access to bonus content and you could drop us a five star rating and write us a nice little review at Apple Podcasts, Spotify or wherever you listen to our show. So Katie, where can people watch Edge of Tomorrow?
[01:00:29] Speaker B: Well, as always, you can check with your local library. We have a Blu Ray copy incoming through interlibrary loan or if you still have a local video rental store, you could check with them.
Otherwise, I don't think this is streaming with a subscription through anything.
[01:00:47] Speaker A: I believe when I watched it four years ago, I rented it on Amazon, I think.
[01:00:53] Speaker B: So you can rent it for like three or four bucks through Plex, Spectrum, Prime Video, Apple TV, YouTube or Fandango at home.
[01:01:03] Speaker A: There you go.
Yeah, I put this on the list eventually at some point because I watched it while a weekend you were gone, like several years ago.
Every now and then when you're out of town for a weekend, I will watch stuff that I'm not sure if you'll be interested.
[01:01:17] Speaker B: I do the same thing when you're out of town.
[01:01:19] Speaker A: And so I watched this because I was like, I don't know and like it's not the same that I thought you wouldn't like but after watching it, I was like, oh, I think you would. I think you would enjoy it.
And after I saw that it was based on the book, I was like, oh, that's interesting. And now having read half the book, it's so far a fairly. From my memory of the film, a fairly faithful, at least in terms of a lot of the, like, what's happening, fairly faithful adaptation so far. A lot of things change, which we'll talk about in the, in the, in the episode. Like the big one being who the main character is because it's, it's by a Japanese guy about a Japanese character and they adapted it into an American film about Tom Cruise. So he doesn't play the Last Samurai this time, but yeah, so he plays an American.
And so they shift who the main character is.
But other than that, a lot of it from my memory, a lot of some of the little details and stuff has felt fairly similar from my memory of the film. And I remember thinking, while not being like an incredible masterpiece of cinema, thinking it was a very good, fun action like movie, like sci fi movie. So I'm excited to watch it again and I'm excited to finish the book and see because what I truly don't remember is I don't remember how the movie ends for whatever reason. I don't know if I finished it really late at night or something and like, was falling asleep or what. I remember, like the first half of the movie and I do not remember the second half of the movie. And I'm about halfway through the book and it's. And I'm like, I'm at a point now where I'm like, I don't remember what's going to happen at the end of this thing. So. Yeah, but I don't know. I think it should be a lot of fun. Come back in one week's time. We're talking about Edge of Tomorrow. Until that time, guys, gals, not binary pals.
[01:03:02] Speaker B: And everybody else keep reading books, keep
[01:03:04] Speaker A: watching movies and keep being awesome.
[01:03:09] Speaker B: It.
