[00:00:10] Speaker A: On this week's prequel episode, we follow up on Our Scott Pilgrim vs the World listener polls and preview Frankenstein.
Hello and welcome back to this film is like the podcast. We talk about movies that are based on books. It's a prequel episode. Tons of feedback to get to. Very excited about that and plenty to talk about as we preview 2025's Frankenstein. So let's jump right into it and recognize our patrons. I put up with you because your father and mother were our finest patrons. That's why one new patron this week at the $5 Hugo Award winning level.
Heidi eats bean sprouts.
Thank you. Heidi eats bean sprouts. Hope you enjoy that bonus content. Love your name. It's fun.
[00:01:01] Speaker B: I also want to note that it's Heidi. Like hide.
[00:01:03] Speaker A: Yes. It's spelled H I D E Y.
[00:01:05] Speaker B: Not like H I, not like a little German girl.
[00:01:08] Speaker A: Yes.
But Heidi eats bean sprouts. Check out that bonus content. Hope you enjoy it and thank you for supporting us. And as always, we need to recognize our Academy Award winning patrons. And they are.
Amanda Nicole Goble, Harpo Rat, Nathan, Vic Blofeld, Mathilde Cottonwood, Steve Ben Wilcox, Theresa Schwartz, Ian from Wine Country, Kelly Napier Gratch.
Just scratch. Shelby will return in Avengers, Doomsday, and that Darn Skag. Thank you all very much for your continued support. Really appreciate it. Katie, it's time to see what the people had to say about Scott Pilgrim versus the world.
Yeah, well, you know, that's just like your opinion, man.
[00:01:52] Speaker B: All right. On patreon, we had 12 votes for the movie and 0 for the books.
[00:02:00] Speaker A: I really didn't think it was going to be so lopsided.
[00:02:03] Speaker B: Just you wait.
[00:02:04] Speaker A: I. So, like, I had a feeling that the movie would do well, but man, that's crazy.
[00:02:10] Speaker B: Our first comment was from Shelby, who said my thoughts.
I decided to. Katniss, I decided to watch the movie with you at the last minute. It's one everyone else has seen and it's set in a place I've actually lived, which never happens. Plus, the flightless Captain America gets to play another bitchy character, which is always fun.
It was a movie, there was some funny gags and the fight scenes were well done. Chris Evans was a highlight, as was Brandon Roeth. Is it Ralph or Ruth?
[00:02:44] Speaker A: I don't know.
I've always said Brandon. Ruth, I think, or Ralph. I actually have no idea how I even say it.
[00:02:49] Speaker B: All right. I always forget Ralph is in this, but it's nice to see him sort of reprise his role as Superman for five minutes.
[00:02:56] Speaker A: A little bit, yeah.
[00:02:57] Speaker B: I have a whole new appreciation for Brie Larson. Thank you for that. I'll probably revisit those scenes.
I wish I liked or cared about any of our main characters. It doesn't help that the lead is the special who's just the best fighter and Ramona is the cool girl who wants to date him for some reason.
I just know there's so many people who will watch this movie and love it and then go complain about Rey from Star wars being a Mary Sue.
[00:03:22] Speaker A: Yeah. I mean, probably.
Yeah. I don't know. For me it's like, yeah. Cause that's baked into the universe of the thing. So like.
Yeah, it doesn't bother me. I'm not saying that it bothers you, but I just.
I can totally understand not particularly liking or caring about the main characters. It is the weakest part of the movie. But I just.
It doesn't affect my viewing enjoyment of the film.
[00:03:46] Speaker B: No, I don't particularly care for Scott as like a character.
[00:03:51] Speaker A: Not really.
[00:03:51] Speaker B: He's pretty meh.
[00:03:53] Speaker A: Yeah, I liked him more as a character. I'll say this, I liked him more as a character in my younger days when I saw more of myself in him.
But now having changed a lot as a person, he's not an.
I guess I can still appreciate the character from that spec. So it does still help me a little bit to be able to be like, I understand what this character is.
[00:04:11] Speaker B: And what I will say. I have a kind of a similar soft spot for Ramona because I feel like there's a butterfly effect of my life where I could have been that type of person.
But the rest of the movie to me is good enough and fun enough that I don't really care about how much I like the two main characters.
[00:04:35] Speaker A: Completely agree.
[00:04:38] Speaker B: Our next comment was from Kelly Napier who said. Oh, and Kelly was the patron who requested this. So Kelly said. As I was reading the graphic novels, I kept finding myself wondering why anyone would be friends with Scott Pilgrim in the movie. He's a slightly self absorbed person in the books. He's awful. One of his friends could have said they had cancer and three pages later he wouldn't have remembered they told him anything.
His bumbling, forgetful, selfish nature got really old really quick.
[00:05:07] Speaker A: I think one thing to keep in mind with regards to that is that I agree, but also gotta keep in mind the age of the characters in this story. Yeah, this is the age range where at least in my experience, the friends you have are just kind of the people that are near you that for whatever reason you ended up friends with. And some of those people you don't end up liking. And eventually you do, like, move on from those people. Don't remain friends with them or whatever. But the idea that, like, why are any of them friends with Scott, I think I can understand. Like, because a lot of them are friends from, like, childhood and stuff like, Like. Like Envy and Kim and even some of the other ones, they went to high school together or whatever. And there are. I think Scott does have some qualities that you can see when he's not being obnoxious that are rel. You know, that you could, like, I could understand enjoying being around him. But yes, generally he. He does suck to be around. But again, that is the whole character arc. He has to realize that nobody is gonna like him if he continues acting the way he does.
But I think, again, contextually, I think what I understand about it is, yeah, if these characters were all 35 and still friends with a guy like this, you'd be like, why is anybody friends with this guy? But the fact that they're all pretty fresh out of college, kind of still in that right after college, we've all were friends in high school and stuff, they're still figuring out who they want to be as people and like, what kind of people they want in their lives. So the fact that they're friends with a guy that they don't. That is kind of an asshole, that none of them seem to super like all that much, I don't think is that strange personally.
[00:06:44] Speaker B: But Kelly went on to say, also in the books, it felt like sometimes the author forgot details from one book.
[00:06:50] Speaker A: To the next that I would agree with. Yeah.
[00:06:51] Speaker B: Yeah. The ex boyfriends versus exes is the perfect example of that. You can't just retcon like that and expect people not to notice.
[00:06:59] Speaker A: To be fair, in that instance, I don't think that was a forgetting.
[00:07:01] Speaker B: That was just for Absolutely an active retcon. Yeah.
[00:07:06] Speaker A: And I. I think he was just like, well, we'll just.
[00:07:10] Speaker B: We'll just pretend that.
[00:07:11] Speaker A: Your point being. Your point being that people are not going to forget that the first few books said explicitly ex boyfriends.
[00:07:17] Speaker B: Right.
[00:07:18] Speaker A: But I think, as if you want to change that halfway through. I think the way he did it in the books is about the best way you can do that, probably. I mean, otherwise, what do. Like, I guess you could lampshade it and have us have a line where Scott says, like, I thought you said ex boyfriend. Like, when she says exes, he's like, what do you mean exes and he's like, do you mean ex boyfriend? Like, you could, but I don't think you need to. And so, yeah, but there are plenty of other things that I have felt like kind of just details that were forgotten from or.
[00:07:47] Speaker B: And like, to be fair, we kind of touched on this during the main episode. If you were reading these as they came out, like, you know, a year, a year or two apart or whatever, you probably wouldn't notice.
[00:08:00] Speaker A: Not nearly as much.
[00:08:01] Speaker B: Not nearly as much as reading them all back to back. For sure.
It constantly felt like Scott wandering aimlessly through the world was a reflection of the author wandering aimlessly through the story.
[00:08:13] Speaker A: Yeah, a little bit. Yeah.
[00:08:15] Speaker B: The movie takes the best parts of the book and turns it into a piece of media that is wildly entertaining to consume.
It didn't bother me that certain points of clarifying backstory were left out of the movie because the entire movie is a fantastical world that you don't quite understand the rules of, but you're still willing to go along for the ride. The books bored me. The movie thrilled me. So the movie gets my vote.
[00:08:38] Speaker A: Yeah, I agree with all that. Yeah.
Anything that we pointed out in the episode of, like, oh, better in the book. Because, like, this backstory or details, obviously based on our final verdict is stuff that I don't think is necessary for the movie to have included. It's just. It is interesting.
[00:08:55] Speaker B: Like, like we said, it's stuff that we appreciated in the books, but not necessarily like, stuff that I absolutely am like, oh, this should have been in the movie.
[00:09:05] Speaker A: It's also stuff I appreciate in the books because I had seen the movie, like, right. Were I just reading the books, I might have not cared and might have found it even more meandering.
[00:09:15] Speaker B: That's fair.
[00:09:16] Speaker A: You know what I mean of, like, we're getting all these backstory stuff. Like, since I kind of knew what the whole plot of the movie was and where it was going, and like, the arc of Scott seeing that backstory was interesting, but I. I agree it doesn't need to be in the movie.
[00:09:30] Speaker B: Our next comment was from Nathan, who said, the overwhelming takeaway from the book for me is just how completely Scott Pilgrim sucks. I know it's aware of this and attempts to address it, but I think it fails to do so.
Perhaps it was just because after five books of suckitude, I could barely be asked to pay attention to Scott, let alone root for any sort of growth or happy ending.
[00:09:56] Speaker A: Interesting.
[00:09:57] Speaker B: The movie does a much better job because the repeated scene excellently Draws the contrast by old and new Scott.
I especially liked his correction of who he cheated on. It was obviously both, regardless of who he dated first.
[00:10:11] Speaker A: Yeah, I.
That's interesting because I didn't feel that way in the book, like, Scott does suck. But I do wonder too, sometimes if people, and I'm not saying this specifically about Nathan, but when people talk about how that ruins the experience, I wonder if people, maybe everybody was a much better person than me their whole life.
I don't.
[00:10:34] Speaker B: I don't know if that's probably true.
[00:10:36] Speaker A: I don't think I was a bad person. Definitely. Not to the extent that Scott Pilgrim was by any stretch.
But that journey of maturing and appreciating the way that learning to be more cognizant of the way that my actions affect other people and stuff, and the emotional impact I have on people, even through very subtle, small things that you maybe don't realize when you're younger, has been a big part of my maturity, my growth as a person.
And so to me, even though I think Scott sucks, I do have a lot of sympathy for the arc he's going on. And so even though, yeah, I'm like, man, this guy sucks.
The fact that the whole point is, hey, he realizes he sucks and needs to be a better person is like, I think, good and a very.
And so it is interesting to me to hear people because, like, I don't know, it's just interesting.
[00:11:36] Speaker B: I mean, I think there's like two possibilities there. And again, I want to reiterate that I'm not saying this about Nathan.
[00:11:43] Speaker A: Yeah, this is generally genuinely. Because this is a very common, like, broad thing. I'm just discussing the whole broad spectrum of this.
[00:11:51] Speaker B: I think that, yes, there is a possibility that somebody, you know, watching the movie or reading the books just didn't have to go on that same journey and can't identify with it. I also think there's a possibility that somebody could be thinking that he sucks because they have not, like, self reflected and realized that, oh, maybe, like, I also suck.
[00:12:13] Speaker A: Yeah.
Yeah. Because I do. I just, I do think that. And I can also completely understand because of who this, this story is about a CIS straight white guy, like, who's a gamer. And like, I can understand he is like the epitome of the obnoxious person who needs to go on that journey and most of them don't.
[00:12:35] Speaker B: Yes.
[00:12:35] Speaker A: And so I understand not being particularly interested in seeing that play out and being like, wow, cool, great. Another story about how a white, cis, straight, white guy needs to learn to not be a self absorbed asshole. Like it's not a particularly unique story and I completely agree with all of that. And so and I also think that maybe like were, you know, I could understand other people being like, I would prefer, you know, the same type of story but about somebody who isn't Scott might be something that they'd be more interested in. But I am a CIS straight white guy, so for me it works. I'm like, yeah, okay, I see myself reflected in this text.
[00:13:11] Speaker B: But you're self aware enough to see yourself reflected in the text, which I think is net good.
[00:13:16] Speaker A: And myself at around the same age as Scott was like 23 or early 20s.
[00:13:23] Speaker B: Continuing with Nathan's comment, the overwhelming takeaway from the movie is how awesome the world around Scott Pilgrim is. It's vastly superior to the book because it's fun to imagine living in this world. The flashiness and fun of the universe shines through any plot or character issues. The fights are always going to be way more fun when you can see them in live action. And they nailed shooting them. This goes to the movie by a country mile.
Some other thoughts I had.
I think this universe is cool, but I do get a little frustrated by the lack of a clear guideline as to how things work. I get that's part of the charm of the book, but it frustrates my analytical mind, which needs a framework.
[00:14:05] Speaker A: I used to be more that way.
I have slowly, I don't know, trained my brain not to think that way as much.
But it also does depend a lot on the story. Like if other things work so well in the story, like in this instance, I can ignore and not care about that. Whereas other movies where it feels like that is super relevant. It does bother me. Like where the rest of it doesn't work so well that I don't, you know, that I do focus on the ways that the world doesn't make sense to me.
[00:14:33] Speaker B: This is one where there were some aspects of it that bothered me more than others.
The idea of them having video game type fights where the loser blows up into coins and that's not explained at all did not bother me.
[00:14:46] Speaker A: Which we're about to hit on here.
[00:14:48] Speaker B: But then the whole thing with the glow, that did bother me. The fact that it's not really fleshed out and explained what it's supposed to be.
[00:14:58] Speaker A: Yeah, that feels a little bit different though. We'll get to it. But that feels a little. There's a distinction between those two things. To me, one of them is a rule about how the world works. The other one is a question about what a story element means.
I don't need to know in universe why they have video game fights where characters burst into coins. That's just how that universe works.
And similarly, I don't need to know why somebody actively glows, but I need to know what that means in the story.
[00:15:28] Speaker B: That's fair.
[00:15:29] Speaker A: You know what I mean? I need to know why that's important and what that means.
And with the coins exploding, it's like, well, you defeated them. And it's a reference to a video game. That explains why. That's like that. That's fine. But the glow thing, I'm like, okay, but what. What are we doing with that?
[00:15:43] Speaker B: You know, Speaking of people exploding coins, Nathan's comment continues. More specifically, is Scott on top. On top of being the worst is also a serial or at least repeat murderer? I always kind of assumed the deaths were more figurative and the exes just kind of moved on once they lost. But that definitely doesn' with what the book says, a world where death is so normalized would be kind of horrible.
[00:16:09] Speaker A: Yeah, that's one where you just have to take it as part of the universe. Because I do think you as the reader, you're supposed to kind of interpret it metaphorically, like, you have defeated that ex. They are now not part of the story moving forward. They are not part of Ramona's life moving forward. That is, whatever.
In the universe. Yes, they are being killed, but the universe doesn't care. So it's like you have to not. I don't know. It's hard to describe, but it does. Yeah, in the universe, they do seem to die, and you're just like, man, whatever.
[00:16:40] Speaker B: But if they had extra lives, maybe they just go back to start.
[00:16:44] Speaker A: Could be.
[00:16:46] Speaker B: How does Gideon sick the League on Scott so fast? At the point of the email from Matthew, all he has done is completely strike out with Ramona. They absolutely aren't dating. I assume that Gideon didn't create the League in response to Scott approaching her, but rather had it sort of standing around for the next time Ramona dated someone.
[00:17:05] Speaker A: That was my understanding, yeah.
[00:17:07] Speaker B: Which would have been awkward if her next relationship was a one night stand or a brief fling.
But what triggered their launch? Gideon could probably tell that Scott saw Ramona in subspace since he's an expert in using it, but that doesn't seem like enough reason.
[00:17:21] Speaker A: So the reason is because that's what it needs to happen for the story to happen, basically, is the real reason. But I mean, like, the explanation that to me, I never. Because I never really cared or thought about it. But like my brain's way of explaining it is. Well, in the same way that this magical world, there are video game fights where people burst into coins and there are like one up lives and stuff like that, there is also this kind of like magical relationship thing where when two people meet, the universe of this world knows, hey, these two people are going to date. They are going down a path where they're going to date. Even though it might in that moment seem like maybe she's not even interested. Whatever the universe of this.
[00:18:08] Speaker B: Yeah. I think if you look at it more in almost like a mythical sense that once Scott initiates any kind of relationship with Ramona, that kicks off his heroic quest.
So it doesn't like, it doesn't really matter that they haven't actually formally started dating yet. The quest has already begun.
[00:18:29] Speaker A: The quest has been begun and is started.
[00:18:31] Speaker B: He's received the call to action.
[00:18:33] Speaker A: And so Gideon gets a little push notification that's like, hey, this is happening. Send the evil exes after them.
[00:18:41] Speaker B: I called Ramona's number from the film since it's not a 555 number and it is not in service, which was quite disappointing.
[00:18:49] Speaker A: I do wonder if it's the Canada's version of a 555 number.
[00:18:52] Speaker B: Maybe. I don't know, because it's.
[00:18:53] Speaker A: I assume it. Well, no, but if it's her number, it would be an American number because she's American probably.
Unless she got a phone in Canada maybe. But interesting because. Yeah, I don't know how if Canada has a different number for.
[00:19:07] Speaker B: Yeah, I don't know. I've never thought about it.
[00:19:09] Speaker A: No.
[00:19:11] Speaker B: I thought Envy gets the worst treatment in the movie because in the book it seems clear to me that while she wasn't blameless for the end of their relationship was largely due to Scott's behavior and he is and how negatively he treats her in the movie because of the limited backstory, we kind of accept his version of events and we can almost be happy he ruins her band and possibly her livelihood.
[00:19:34] Speaker A: Yeah, I mean, I think you could interpret it that way. I think if you put together the pieces about the rest of Scott from the movie, you can assume that their relationship was probably not like her fault necessarily. Like how it ended was not necessarily just her fault.
In fact, the movie kind of alludes to that with the whole haircut thing and like that it was related to his like weird paranoia and anxiety and stuff like that.
[00:19:59] Speaker B: But yeah, Stacy Pilgrim is a lot more prominent in the movie than in the book and that is the right choice because Anna Kendrick is awesome and also in my opinion, the best actor in this movie.
[00:20:11] Speaker A: She's good. I don't know if I'd say she's the best actor in the movie, but she's good.
[00:20:16] Speaker B: I didn't love the treatment of the Chris Evans ex in the book. He seems pretty chill, almost reluctant to fight and inevitably in the book he seems pretty chill, almost reluctant to fight and inevitably beat Scott, which I thought was a nice change of pace from the other exes. He even provides snacks and drinks during the break. He calls.
You mentioned Chris Evans has fun playing bad guys. And I guess I don't know that I have ever seen him do that, but I have seen him play multiple characters that are pretty nice and likable and still act like jerks because of the environment they live in. That's what he played in Knives out and he nailed it.
That should have been his role here, but the movie made him way more antagonistic and I really think that was a mistake.
[00:20:59] Speaker A: I disagree.
I think that over the top marmy movie star is is in a comedy is for the this movie was the perfect type of role for him. I don't even disagree that I. I think it could be interesting. Like the version in the, in the book is like him being different from a lot of the other ones in that he doesn't seem particularly interested in fighting Scott or whatever is like an interesting hook but. Or an interesting like twist. But for this specific. The movie's version is just so much fun and his. He gets to chew the scenery so much.
It's interesting. Also your point of.
I don't know that I've ever seen him play a bad guy, but I have seen him play multiple characters that are nice and likable but still act like jerks because of the environment they live in. That's what he played in Knives Out.
I would argue he's a bad guy in Knives Out.
[00:21:50] Speaker B: I. I would have to disagree with that assessment of his character in Knives Out.
[00:21:55] Speaker A: I agree that he is an evil because of the environment he they live in in Knives out, but that's true for every villain ever in everything ever other than like the devil, I guess maybe like something specifically created to be like as evil incarnate or something.
I would argue that pretty much every villain ever is a villain because of their environment and other factors outside of their control, generally speaking, because I do not think that evil exists as a concept. This is A whole broader discussion. But it goes into my determinism thing that I think everybody is pretty much shaped by factors beyond their control.
And so, yeah, I would say he's 100% a villain in Knives Out.
[00:22:42] Speaker B: Yeah.
He tries to murder his grandfather so he can get his in eventually.
[00:22:47] Speaker A: Tries to murder what's her name. Yeah, he tries to stab her at the end.
[00:22:51] Speaker B: It's been a minute since I've seen it, but now I would describe his character as charming.
[00:22:56] Speaker A: Yeah, he has moments of. Especially early when he's introduced. He's introduced.
He thinks it seems like he's gonna be maybe the one on her side in this whole ordeal while everybody else isn't. But it is. That is a ploy.
[00:23:07] Speaker B: But it is charming. To achieve the means to an end. That is an act, which is murdering his grandfather and getting his inheritance.
[00:23:15] Speaker A: And then again, when that all fails at the end, he tries to stab Martha to death with a knife. It just happens to be a fake, like plastic knife, so he isn't able to kill her.
But, yeah, again and more so I would just argue that, like, every villain. Is that so Anyways. But I do. Well, say. I don't know if I think of another big role other than this in Knives out where he plays a villain. I'm sure they exist. I'm sure he's played him in more movies.
Those are the main two that jump out in my head.
[00:23:42] Speaker B: I don't. Okay. It's been a really long time since I' Is he not another teen movie?
[00:23:51] Speaker A: He's kind of a villain in that.
[00:23:52] Speaker B: Yes. Yeah. Isn't he like, he's like. He's kind of like a jock.
[00:23:56] Speaker A: He actually plays a very similar character to Lucas Lee where he's like a shmarmy over the top.
That's practically probably. That movie's probably why he was cast as Lucas Lee, if I had to guess.
Because he does play a very similar type of super scene. Chewy, ridiculous, arch villainy.
Like, he's like the school jock bully from It's Been a Long Time. I've seen that movie, but that's my memory anyway, so.
[00:24:20] Speaker B: All right, finishing up Nathan's comment here. In the film, did Ramona go back to Gideon, or was she trying to go off by herself and just got kidnapped and chipped by Gideon.
[00:24:31] Speaker A: Yeah, I don't know. The movie never addresses it, and I don't know if it really matters, but I always interpreted it as she went.
I don't know. I never actually really thought.
[00:24:42] Speaker B: I had always interpreted it as that. She did go back because that's a big part of her own like self loathing is that she's like I deserve to be in this shit relationship.
[00:24:52] Speaker A: But then he like put a chip in her neck or whatever. Yeah. Which again kind of ruins that.
It's messy. Cause I do think one of the.
[00:25:00] Speaker B: Weaker points of the movie.
[00:25:01] Speaker A: Cause I agree with you that the idea that she does go back because that's what she feels like she deserves and that she can't escape this kind of cycle of abusive assholes to who she's been in relationships with and blah blah blah. And so she feels like that's where she belongs. But then it is subverted a little bit by the fact that. Oh, but she's also being mind controlled to be there. Like why?
[00:25:21] Speaker B: Okay, sure.
[00:25:22] Speaker A: Yeah, sure.
[00:25:24] Speaker B: I think that Knives dad in the book might indicate that Brian Lee o' Malley was considering a Knives Scott book ending where his approval would have been relevant.
[00:25:33] Speaker A: That's an interesting idea.
[00:25:34] Speaker B: Yeah, I do think that's an interesting idea.
[00:25:36] Speaker A: Potentially being the case like that, that would be a reason to include that subplot if that was where it was going to go down the line.
[00:25:43] Speaker B: So yeah, I agree.
[00:25:44] Speaker A: Interesting speculation for sure.
[00:25:48] Speaker B: Our next comment was from Cottonwood Steve, who said I have to go with the movie on this, mainly due to the abject averageness of the graphic novel.
I've seen this happen with other graphic novels where the story in the book is less interesting than what is on screen.
Snowpiercer comes to mind on that front.
Why the Last man and maybe Watchmen are some other examples. And yes, I'm ready to fight people over Watchmen and heck, even V for Vendetta because I'm feeling spicy today.
[00:26:22] Speaker A: Do not agree on Watchmen, although both of those movies are good adaptations. As we talked about on the thing, I just, I don't even remember. I might V for Vendetta. I might have picked the movie. I'm pretty sure I picked the poster.
[00:26:31] Speaker B: I do not remember.
[00:26:32] Speaker A: But Watchmen I would disagree disagree with. I think that graphic novel is.
[00:26:36] Speaker B: And you can listen to both our Watchmen and our V for Vendetta episodes right here on the show. Yep, I'm going to go ahead and give Brian Lee o' Malley the benefit of the doubt about the pitfalls of his books. When I used to write, I rarely thought about the future implications of my stories. Good thing they were utter crap so no one can ever read them.
But in all seriousness, I just didn't care much for the story, the art style or Scott Pilgrim.
[00:27:03] Speaker A: I will agree that I actually wasn't. There's parts of the drawings that I liked, but the general character art style, I was not like a huge fan of. It didn't particularly strike my fancy of like.
[00:27:16] Speaker B: Yeah, it doesn't seem. It didn't feel like a particularly like unique or interesting style to me.
[00:27:22] Speaker A: It might have been unique, I don't know, but it wasn't particularly aesthetically appealing to me. However, there were pages and like spreads or I don't know the term for it. I'm not a graphic novel person, but cels. But specifically whole page spreads that were really cool and visually striking. But that was less to do with the actual art style and more with the composition and that specific scene, what was being depicted in some of the fight scenes and stuff. But I agree generally I wasn't blown away with the art or anything like that.
[00:27:55] Speaker B: Edgar Wright did o' Malley a favor by making the movie bringing an everlasting stamp onto the IP with incredible care.
I still marvel at the editing of the film and the fact that no image is wasted, no threat of clothing is wasted, and no drop of paint is misused from a color palette perspective. I love it. And for a guy that works in the paint industry, it always inspires me to think colorfully.
For some reason, Scott's line when he enters the Chaos Theater the second time always gets me. You're pretentious. This club sucks. And we have beef.
[00:28:27] Speaker A: We have beef.
[00:28:29] Speaker B: I mean, this whole movie just had the right amount of sarcasm and wit to make it perfectly quotable. We're here to make you think about death and get sad and stuff.
[00:28:38] Speaker A: I do. That is. I agree with that. That is kind of the perfect balance of sarcasm and wit. Cause I was worried that it would feel. And we might have touched on this a little bit in the main episode. I was worried that it would feel dated and cringe and it didn't to me. But your mileage may vary. I think most people didn't have that experience, but I do think that it's. It for the most part avoids the pitfalls of feeling particularly like of its time, especially dialogue wise and like joke wise.
It is not as dated as it could be.
[00:29:12] Speaker B: Certainly not as like some other stuff that was coming out around the same time.
[00:29:17] Speaker A: Yeah.
[00:29:18] Speaker B: And of course I have to talk about the vegan stuff.
Frankly, it is condescending. But I have never met a vegan that didn't like these scenes. Yeah, sure, Todd is a jerk, but he has power and who wouldn't want that? Plus yeah, Envy Adams could control me for the rest of my life for all I care.
I actually have a vegan police T shirt as well, which I love. That scene with Thomas Jane and Clifton Collins Jr. Collins handlebar mustache always gets me as well.
I always seem to enjoy Wright's films, though I'm a bit reserved on the Running man, considering I love the dumb and silly version from the 80s. Great episode.
[00:29:56] Speaker A: I have not seen the Running Man. Everything I have heard is that it is by far his worst movie and that it does. It barely feels like an Edgar Wright movie is what I have heard from some people reviewing it, that it is by far his least, that he has lost the sauce. And that is just it. Which is interesting because, yeah, usually people have complained about a lot of his movies kind of in the. The post Cornetto trilogy era of not having the same kind of heart that those movies did, which I generally kind of agree with. And I. I do think that it's possible that Simon Pegg was a bigger part of that writing, a more important element in the. In the script writing than maybe some people may have thought initially or like when they were coming out, you know, in your head. They're kind of like Edgar Wright movies. But Simon Pegg is a co writer on all of the Coroneto trilogy, and so I think that he may have been more important to writing. But that being said, even this movie, supposedly other movies aside, Last Night in soho, Baby Driver, whatever issues that people have with those movies aside and this movie, you could usually still very much feel that they're Edgar Wright movies, like directorially, even if you have issues with the script or the plot, you know, the plot or whatever. Whereas supposedly Running man, it's not great, but who knows?
I'll probably watch it eventually because it's the only one I haven't seen.
[00:31:18] Speaker B: So I guess we might get around to covering that.
[00:31:22] Speaker A: Oh yeah, it is a. Yeah, it's an adaptation.
[00:31:24] Speaker B: I don't know which movie. Maybe we could do like a. We could do a vote.
[00:31:28] Speaker A: People would pick the 80s one, I think, because that's definitely the kind of. The classic.
[00:31:35] Speaker B: All right. Our last comment on Patreon was from Paige from a book and Paige said the movie for sure. I didn't read all the graphic novels, mostly because I was missing volume three and don't like going out of order.
[00:31:50] Speaker A: It's a pretty important one, especially for the movie too.
[00:31:53] Speaker B: A lot of movie stuff is in volume three.
I like the movie because it doesn't mind painting Scott as flawed. I think he's a douche. However, I also think he does have some very memorable character developments, especially in the last fight scene where he apologizes to both Knives and Ramona for cheating on them both.
One of my favorite scenes was Envy Adams singing Black Sheep. I wore out so many people with that song when I heard it. I also really liked the dialogue and sarcasm throughout the movie.
The cast was pretty top tier as well. Wait, I skipped something.
I also enjoyed the randomness of some scenes, like when Scott jumps out the window. The blooper for that particular scene had me laughing for far too long.
[00:32:38] Speaker A: I have to see the blooper. Is it? Yeah, we're gonna trying to go through the window. Like what could the blooper.
[00:32:42] Speaker B: It's a good question. We're gonna have to look at our.
[00:32:46] Speaker A: Yeah, the Blu ray.
[00:32:47] Speaker B: Blu ray that we got. I'm sure it has that on there.
The cast was pretty top tier as well. And I'll agree the characters in the graphic novels and movies are almost 100% on point. I'll hand it to the books for giving us the movie game and the anime.
Speaking of the anime, it's just as entertaining as the movie. In fact, they change the story and reveal more about Ramona Flowers. I won't give anything away, but I will say the writing for how both Ramona and Scott are flawed characters and they need to learn from their mistakes is what makes consuming the movie and anime so enjoyable.
The consequences to their actions don't just affect them. And I feel so many pieces of media want the main characters to be perfect.
I like when I can read or watch about how shitty someone is and then realize. And then realizing it later. It adds depth.
One last note before I sign off. Fuck the game. I rage quit that one faster than I did Dark Souls.
[00:33:42] Speaker A: I didn't know there was a game.
But yeah, the anime. Other people have mentioned it.
[00:33:46] Speaker B: Yeah, we got a couple comments about the anime.
[00:33:48] Speaker A: It is a reimagining of the story. From what I've heard, it is a kind of like a different version of the story but based on the same novels. But then like.
[00:33:59] Speaker B: A second editing pass at the story.
[00:34:01] Speaker A: Not even that. It's more so like a what if this happened instead. Like the premise is Scott disappears in like the first episode or something. Or gets killed. Maybe Scott basically disappears and it focuses on. I think Ramona basically becomes the main character and has to go and find Scott or save him or something. But it's like the same thing with X's. I don't know the specifics but I think it might be something like where Gideon kills or kidnaps Scott.
[00:34:31] Speaker B: Interesting.
[00:34:32] Speaker A: And then Ramona has to go fight the League of Exes in order to get Scott or something like that. It's like a reimagining of the story.
[00:34:41] Speaker B: Interesting. All right, over on Facebook we had six votes for the movie plus one listener who wouldn't decide. We'll get to that comment. Okay, first comment was from Tom, who said tldr. I picked the movie for basically the same reasons as you guys did.
This is a hard one. I was kind of obsessed with both of these properties at various points in my life. I was in university and collecting comics when the books started coming out, and as an older millennial, it felt like the first media really specifically targeted at me.
[00:35:17] Speaker A: It's definitely, yeah, definitely in the target audience.
[00:35:19] Speaker B: Yeah, I was a fan of movies like Clerks and the TV show Spaced at the time, but they were still more Gen X. Yeah, this was something referencing the video games, anime and indie music that I was into, and it depicted people my age with the kind of lifestyle and friendships I had in my early 20s before I got a real job.
I remember when Sarah was cast as Scott being completely aghast because I had self inserted to the point that I embarrassingly remember saying Sarah isn't cool enough to play Scott, completely oblivious at the time. That the point is Scott is not kind of not supposed to be cool or aspirational and is a messy person who often does shitty, selfish things.
The books had the benefit of being released over several years, which helps with the pacing and character development issues in the movie and as Katie suggested, the year wait between releases seemed helped it seemed.
And as Katie suggested, the year wait between releases helped it seem less repetitive or meandering.
The movie has the huge benefit of great casting and actually hearing the line deliveries and the music which enhance the comedy and the vibe to no end.
I think I have to choose the movie as it's hugely enjoyable and a nostalgic couple of hours and the direction and visual style is so much fun. Whereas I don't think I dare go back to the books right now as it might make me cringe too much at how much I identified with them 20 years ago.
My true favorite is probably the Netflix anime which gets to have the best of both worlds. Episodic pacing plus fantastic soundtrack and that great cast delivering the lines.
[00:36:59] Speaker A: Yeah, because that's the other thing which I think we mentioned in the prequel. But the anime does have every single of the movie actors coming back to play their Characters again in the voice actor as voice actors.
[00:37:14] Speaker B: Our next comment on Facebook was from Andy. Who said movie? Same reasons, but it's complicated. Sometimes I rewatch the film and a part of my brain wants to say it's borderline incel art. But another part of my brain remembers that I recognize a lot of Scott's behavior in a younger me, albeit in the early 90s era. Characters don't have to be likable. And if we recognize human behavior in art, then that art is doing a good job of art.
[00:37:41] Speaker A: I agree. So that is where I come in because I was like, I don't think I would remotely categorize it as incel art because again, the whole point.
[00:37:52] Speaker B: Yeah, I mean I definitely see how you could like surface level.
[00:37:56] Speaker A: Yeah.
[00:37:57] Speaker B: That kind of read.
[00:37:58] Speaker A: Or if you don't watch the final like 20 minutes of the movie.
[00:38:00] Speaker B: Yeah.
[00:38:01] Speaker A: Or something like if you just want. Yeah. If you just watch like the first two acts like. Yeah, I could feel that way maybe.
But it's. Yeah. The whole point, like I said, is that Scott has to develop.
[00:38:13] Speaker B: Yeah.
[00:38:13] Speaker A: Learn and grow self understanding and. Or you know, and what is the one he gets the sword of the power of at the end instead of love? It's in the book. It's understanding but in the self respect.
[00:38:26] Speaker B: Self respect. Yeah.
[00:38:27] Speaker A: That's what it is.
And yeah, I think it's. Yeah. I, I don't even think this one has a like a.
You could only feel that it's like kind of in cell Y or, or even like if you only watch again the first two acts like. I'm trying to think of comparing it to something like Fight Club or whatever where that I could imagine watching the whole movie and getting the wrong read of what the movie say as we know people do. Yes. But this one you would just have to not watch the end of the movie. Like that being said, there is still. I. I guess you could kind of come to the conclusion that maybe it's like, like too easy and that like he still gets the girl in the end in a way that feels a little like he's rewarded for, you know, saving the day or whatever. In a way that feels a little in silly in the sense of like that idea of well I did good thing I said right words. I get girl now. Kind of like that's how that works idea.
But yeah, I, I don't, I don't think you have to worry about that with this movie. Personally.
[00:39:34] Speaker B: The film is incredibly well shot and conceived, but I find some sequences like with the ex Girlfriend intensely embarrassing to watch.
[00:39:45] Speaker A: I don't know which scene he's talking about there.
[00:39:47] Speaker B: I assume with Envy. Envy or Roxy is another ex girlfriend. But I wouldn't categorize those scenes as, like, awkward.
[00:39:56] Speaker A: Oh, it could be. He means he could be specifically talking about all of the kind of weird biphobia stuff. Oh, right, yeah, yeah, that would actually makes sense. And like the orgasming to death. That. Yeah, so he may have been talking about that. That would make sense.
[00:40:11] Speaker B: Another side of it is that for me, Gen X, this film has the 2000s thing of ironic distance, snark, and everything as pastiche, which I do not like, and which we know now opened the door for everything as an aesthetic and a consumer choice.
[00:40:27] Speaker A: Hmm.
I don't think that's interesting.
It's also interesting to distinguish yourself from that as Gen X because, boy, if anybody's guilty of the ironic distance snark and everything is a pastiche, Gen X has been. Is.
[00:40:42] Speaker B: I mean, I, like Millennials are also guilty of that.
[00:40:46] Speaker A: But you mentioned Clerks earlier.
[00:40:48] Speaker B: Gen X is not. You guys are not off the hook for any of those things.
[00:40:52] Speaker A: Or you didn't mention Clerks, but the person above mentioned Clerks, which is kind of. Of everything Kevin Smith has ever done, is kind of the epitome of that.
And yeah, no, that's. And I, I actually think this movie is kind of an antidote. Like, there's a lot of sarcasm and snark in this movie, but I don't think at the, at the core of it, it's a movie about, again, the, the.
I think people just ignore the end of the movies. I'm not saying you specifically, but like, like, like the end where it's like he earns the power of self respect and has to reflect on himself and apologize and make corrections to. Like, that is not a.
The whole point is that his, his. His way of dealing with the world where everything is sarcastic and snarky and.
And detached and ironic is actually not good. Like, the whole thesis of the movie is that he needs to be a more genuine, self respecting, less sarcastic, less snarky person. Like the detached person. Like, he needs to be more present, more genuine, more. Like. I actually think the. And while. So the movie has a lot of that other stuff in it, I don't think. And Edgar Wright stuff has never been.
He deals. His humor deals in snark and sarcasm, but I think at the core of all of his movies is a deep seated enthusiasm and passion for like, art and enjoying things and life and love and all of that stuff. In a way that I don't think is reflect, because I hate that, too. Like, I am not a fan of the overly detached, overly sarcastic, Too cool for school. Too cool for school. Like, that whole thing drives me crazy.
And I just don't think this movie's guilty of that. In fact, the movie lampshades it several times where Como is like, kind of in the movie. The example of that, where he's like. Like, I actually think that. Or this band. The band's actually better live. You should see him live or whatever when they're, like, at the show live, watching them. And then, like, at the end where he's like, the graphic novel is actually better than the movie. You know, like, he is the epitome of that. Like, snarky, obnoxious, detached. And I think it's intentional that he's a little bit older than of them and then probably actually would be like a Gen Xer. Like, fitting, because I do think that that is kind of.
And again, Millennials. Very guilty of this as well. But I think that was kind of like quintessentially a Gen X thing. Like that 90s whole era of like, yeah, again, Clerks, everything. Kevin Smith did a lot of the sitcoms from the 90s, kind of like the Seinfeld era and all that sort of stuff moving into. And then it was, I think, kind of Millennials who moved us the other direction eventually as they started writing more stuff and taking over kind of in the early mid 2000s, I guess that was still also Gen Xers probably a little bit, but, like younger Gen Xers bordering on millennials who did start to. And we got a resurgence of things that did preach attachment and caring about stuff. You know, like, we went from Seinfeld to, like, Parks and Rec and stuff like that. And even went from, like, the Office to Parks and Rec, which is kind of like bridging that gut that divide. Anyways, it's interesting.
And as much as this movie does have, which we know open the door for everything as an aesthetic and as a consumer choice, I don't.
That's a whole broader discussion. I think society has always been that it's just. It's hyper, hyper, hyperized in certain specific ways. But I don't. Anyways, that's a whole different discussion. We don't need to go there right now.
[00:44:39] Speaker B: All right, then. Our last comment on Facebook was from Miladin, who said, I choose neither.
The main reason is that Scott Pilgrim is a very unlikable douchebag. It also didn't help that I didn't like Michael Cera as an actor and I was constantly confusing him with Jesse.
[00:44:59] Speaker A: Eisenberg, like while you were watching them.
[00:45:02] Speaker B: I don't know.
[00:45:03] Speaker A: Or do you mean like back in the day before you knew?
[00:45:06] Speaker B: Probably. I would assume back in the day.
[00:45:08] Speaker A: Like when you didn't really know who they were, you kind of get. Because I agree they do look similar. And I also would occasionally use. When Eisenberg first showed up, I would like got him confused with Michael Cera a couple times. But in the movie, I know it's Michael Cera as I'm watching it throughout.
[00:45:22] Speaker B: The movie, I was rooting for villains to kill him. Sadly, that didn't happen and we had a sad ending where Mary Elizabeth Winstead ends up with him. Hopefully she killed him in bed after that night. I never read the graphic novels, nor do I want to after seeing the movie a couple years ago.
[00:45:40] Speaker A: So fair enough.
[00:45:40] Speaker B: Aladdin. Not a fan.
[00:45:42] Speaker A: Not a fan. I mean, we already discussed that earlier, like my feelings on that. So we don't need to rehash it.
[00:45:49] Speaker B: Over on Instagram. We had two votes for the movie, one for the books with an asterisk because that was Tim Wahoo.
[00:45:56] Speaker A: Yeah. Who voted for the books sarcastically.
[00:45:59] Speaker B: Yes.
And two listeners who couldn't decide. We do had. We did have a comment from Jack D. Probst, who's my second cousin.
[00:46:08] Speaker A: Oh.
[00:46:09] Speaker B: Who said this is the correct take take. That was in response to our. The post that said the movie is better on it.
[00:46:17] Speaker A: We agree. Jack.
[00:46:19] Speaker B: Over on threads, we had two votes for the movie, zero for the books, and one listener who couldn't decide.
And Liam the Man 2098 said, door number three, the Netflix series.
[00:46:33] Speaker A: That's interesting because I didn't hear a lot of buzz about the series when it came to.
[00:46:37] Speaker B: When it came out. I had forgotten about it.
[00:46:39] Speaker A: Yeah, I did too. I remember hearing about it when it came out and was like, oh, I should watch it at some. And then I just forgot about it and then never heard like buzz or like people talking about it afterwards, but.
[00:46:48] Speaker B: Apparently everybody really likes it.
[00:46:50] Speaker A: Yeah.
[00:46:50] Speaker B: Or at least the handful of people that comment on our show really like it.
Over on Blue sky, we had one vote for the movie and zero for the books. And Nathan Bodnar said, does this mean my vote counts twice?
Sure, yeah. You. You can vote on as many platforms as you're on.
[00:47:11] Speaker A: Stuff the ballot box if you want.
[00:47:12] Speaker B: I do not care.
[00:47:14] Speaker A: No, this is.
[00:47:15] Speaker B: I am not a real. I am not going to run around trying to figure out which Usernames are the same people. Yeah, it's obviously the movie because Anna Kendrick is awesome.
[00:47:25] Speaker A: There you go.
[00:47:27] Speaker B: And on Goodreads, we had one vote for the movie, zero for the book. And we have a comment from Mo, who said, I've seen this movie before, but this was my first time reading the comic based on the movie. I was expecting something more stylized. The very simple style combined with the weird video game elements just caused me to constantly question what kind of world this is. And all the subspace stuff just came off weird.
The movie is so stylized that you can leave all the. Is this literal or a metaphor wandering behind you and just have fun.
[00:48:04] Speaker A: Completely agree with that. Yeah, it does fix. It papers over all of those issues because you're just like, meh. Eh, who cares? Doesn't matter.
[00:48:12] Speaker B: The glow really bugs me when it appears for the first time on the very last pages of volume one.
[00:48:18] Speaker A: That's crazy.
[00:48:19] Speaker B: Yeah, that's crazy to me. Also.
[00:48:20] Speaker A: Hand me the first book real quick. I gotta look at this while you're. While you're talking.
[00:48:25] Speaker B: When it appears for the first time on the very last pages of volume one, it feels like a stylistic effect. I don't know if the proper term for it would be a shock attention intensity symbol, manpu, focus lines, or something else.
I like the idea of taking a symbolic comic book element and turning it into a real thing. The in universe characters can see, but Scott Pilgrim doesn't really manage to pull it off.
[00:48:52] Speaker A: So I completely agree. So I'm going back and looking at this. I didn't realize it.
So. Yeah, it's just. It's just like.
[00:48:58] Speaker B: Oh, yeah.
[00:48:59] Speaker A: And I don't think. I didn't. So. Because he does. She has like, the lines around her, and Scott's looking at her and goes, you're ahead.
Are you okay? And she goes, yeah, I'm fine. And then it just ends. I had no idea that was supposed to, like, what?
[00:49:14] Speaker B: Oh yeah.
I had no idea that that was what we were supposed to think he was talking about.
[00:49:20] Speaker A: Yeah.
At all. Now that may help. Like, you said that if. If you're an anime reader or like.
[00:49:26] Speaker B: A mango and I, like, I did wonder that if maybe that was like a reference to something that I didn't know enough about because I'm not. Not a manga reader at all.
[00:49:36] Speaker A: Yeah.
So that. That would actually make sense, though, if maybe if you've read it. But yeah, it. Yeah.
But they don't refer to it as the glow there. He doesn't say you're glowing or anything like that he just says your head and then we have the lines. So I would have never connect. I never connected later when he's like the glow to that moment because he didn't describe it as a glow there. So I had no idea that was what I was supposed to be seeing again. Also, we read the black and white versions. Had we read the color version.
[00:50:09] Speaker B: Yeah, maybe. Maybe that would have been more obvious in the color versions. I don't know.
I think it doesn't work because o' Malley himself doesn't seem to know what he was going for.
And then Mikko has a quote here were purportedly from Brian Lee o'. Malley. I kind of waffled back and forth on understanding for myself what the glow meant. I'm trying to remember what it means in the book. It's like when you're self obsessed. It's this weird anger depression thing. I don't really know. It's kind of a metaphor. It's kind of when a relationship is on this fragile ledge and someone's upset at someone.
So I'm not sure what that quote is from.
There was a link back to Brian Lee OMalley's Goodreads page in Mikko's comment, but it didn't. I looked for it on that page and it didn't seem to appear there. So I googled the quote and I didn't get anything back. So I'm not sure what that quote is from. If it's from like an interview or a blog post or you can let us know.
[00:51:09] Speaker A: Mikko, I would be interested just like comment on this on Patreon or you don't follow on this episode or whatever and just mention where you read that specifically because yeah, that if assuming that's true, that is belie.
That is very much like it's. It falls so in line with my perception of it that I am skeptical because it so much confirms and aligns with my like perception of the fact that he didn't really have.
[00:51:37] Speaker B: He describes it as being like five.
[00:51:39] Speaker A: Different things kind of a metaphor and blah blah blah. It's that is so perfectly aligns with my reading of it that it. Again I whenever I see a quote like that I'm skeptical because I'm like that that that jives too perfectly with my priors. So I should like stop and think is this actually real or not?
[00:52:00] Speaker B: The comic might be a more in depth exploration about relationships, but I had way more fun with the movie so it's an easy pick.
Some random stuff.
The girls are soft, Exchange and Ramona Ratatouille Scott came from a 17 page side story released on Free Comic book day in 2006. It's bundled with volume three and some of the later colored releases, but maybe not the black and white ones, so you might have missed it.
[00:52:27] Speaker A: It actually might be. Hand me book three real quick. That actually might be. So we did read the black and white ones, but one of them, at least one of them did have a thing at the back that was like a.
Another story that somebody else drew, I think that I thought might have. Oh, no, it's not that.
[00:52:45] Speaker B: Yeah, I skipped over that, but I skipped those.
[00:52:48] Speaker A: So there were like these little. At the backs of these. There were these little like. And. And three does have a couple, but I don't see anything where she's ratatouilling because, like the back of book three has a bonus section where he says, I thought it would be nice to ask some friends to contribute a few little things for the back of the book.
The idea is that it's fun for them, the creators and you, the readers, and we all get to see different interpretations of the characters and it's like some little, like short things drawn by other people. But this particular one that I'm looking at does not have either the. The Ratatouille scene, so it must be just in the color versions later.
[00:53:28] Speaker B: Yeah, I didn't realize that that was a thing that existed.
[00:53:31] Speaker A: Yeah, me neither.
[00:53:33] Speaker B: The opening title scene is indeed a practical effect, as Wright confirms on one of the four commentary tracks. Just a long room, a long carpet and a crane camera.
[00:53:43] Speaker A: Yeah, I figured that. I went back and watched it again after we did the episode and I was like, yeah, no, that's definitely practical.
And that makes sense. Yeah, just a long room.
[00:53:51] Speaker B: Wikipedia stating that Ellen Wong didn't think she would even be considered for the role of Knives because she is Asian. Seems to be a mangled version of her saying, as an Asian actress, I was never going out for a role like this. This was not the type of role that I would even be able to look at. A bit unclear, but I assume she's mainly talking about how prominent the role is.
[00:54:13] Speaker A: I could imagine what she's probably talking about is as the love interest of like a white character in a mainstream Hollywood film, maybe that. Which would make more sense. Like, you know, like it's not, you know, that she felt. Because, yeah, the way it was written on Wikipedia was specifically about the character Nies. And I was like, wait, what? But yes, just broad, broadly, like that type of role as like A main love interest I could see.
[00:54:39] Speaker B: Yeah.
[00:54:40] Speaker A: Maybe that's what she was getting at. So cool.
[00:54:43] Speaker B: All right, so our winner this week was the Movie by a crushing landslide with 24 votes to the books, one with an asterisk, plus four listeners who couldn't decide. Damn.
[00:54:57] Speaker A: Absolute spanking. Well, yeah, there you go.
[00:55:00] Speaker B: And I'll be honest, I was kind of hoping we would get, like, a big fan of the graphic novels just to hear that perspective, because neither you or I were, like, super into them.
[00:55:11] Speaker A: No. And we'd never read them before.
[00:55:13] Speaker B: Yeah.
[00:55:13] Speaker A: So.
[00:55:14] Speaker B: Yeah, But.
[00:55:14] Speaker A: But no. Yeah, yeah. I'm a little surprised. Yeah, we didn't get one. But that's.
I mean, when the movie's better, the movie's better. Glad everybody could see what we could see.
Girl.
[00:55:25] Speaker B: Thank you for validating us.
[00:55:28] Speaker A: Anyways, we don't have a Learning Things segment this week because we had so much feedback and plenty to talk about in our preview of Frankenstein, My Maker told His tale, And I will tell you mind.
[00:56:01] Speaker B: All right. I did keep my section a little bit condensed since we had so much other stuff to go over, but. Frankenstein, or the Modern Prometheus, is an 1818 Gothic novel written by English author Mary Shelley.
Shelley began writing Frankenstein during The summer of 1816, a year known as the Year Without a Summer. Due to the volcanic winter caused by the eruption of Mount Tambora in 1815.
Shelley, who was then 18 years old, and her lover and future husband Percy Shelley, as well as a few others, were staying with Lord Byron.
It's really a who's who of writers at the time.
They were staying with him by Lake Geneva and the Swiss Alps, but because the weather was too cold for outdoor activities, the group had to stay in and they entertained themselves by reading ghost stories. Eventually, Lord Byron, probably wanting to show off, Hoff, suggested that they all write their own ghost stories.
So, initially, Shelley was unable to come up with an idea. However, several days later, she was not able to sleep and became possessed by her imagination as she withheld the, quote. Grim terrors of her waking dream, beheld, quote. I saw the pale student of unhallowed arts kneeling beside the thing he had put together. I saw the hideous phantasms of a man stretched out, and then, on the working of some powerful engine, show signs of life and stir with an uneasy half vital motion. Frightful it must be, for supremely frightful would be the effect of any human endeavor to mock the stupendous mechanism of the creator of the world.
And this was the initial idea for what would become Frankenstein.
So Mary Shelley started writing what she assumed would be a short story.
Remember, because this was a ghost storytelling contest.
But she expanded the tale into a full novel with Percy Shelley's encouragement.
She would later describe that summer as the moment, quote, when I first stepped out from childhood into life.
The context around the composition of the novel was also that of personal tragedy. She wrote the first four chapters in the weeks following the suicide of her half sister, Fanny.
Additionally, her first child had died in infancy, and when she began writing Frankenstein Frankenstein, she would have been nursing her second child, who would also pass. By the time of Frankenstein's publication, Shelley wrote much of Frankenstein while residing in Bath, England. I hope it's how you say it, and it's not one of those, okay, it's Bath.
I always feel uncertain.
[00:58:55] Speaker A: That one's easy.
[00:58:58] Speaker B: Where she found inspiration in the city's Gothic Abbey, as well as in the local medical community, she was a contemporary of Dr. Charles Wilkinson, who was a pioneer of medical electricity and attended lectures at his laboratory.
The intellectual movements of the time period were also a source of inspiration. She believed the Enlightenment idea that society could progress and grow if political leaders used their powers responsibly.
However, she also believed the Romantic with capital R idea that misused power could destroy society. Shelley completed her writing in April or May of 1817, and Frankenstein, or the Modern Prometheus, was published in January of 1818.
It was initially issued anonymously, with a preface written for Mary by Percy Shelley and with a dedication to philosopher William Godwin, who was her father.
It was published in an edition of just 500 copies in three volumes, which was pretty standard for the day, is my understanding.
Contemporary critical reviews were kind of varied.
Walter Scott, writing in Blackwood's Edinburgh Magazine, praised the novel as, quote, an extraordinary tale in which the author seems to disclose uncommon powers of poetic imagination.
Labelle Ensemble described the novel as very bold fiction, and the Edinburgh Magazine and literary miscellany hoped to see more productions from this author.
On the other hand, John Wilson Croker, writing anonymously in the Quarterly Review, although conceding that the author has powers both of conception and language, described the book as, quote, a tissue of horrible and disgusting absurdity.
[01:00:56] Speaker A: All right, as somebody who couldn't meet the book, where it was coming from.
[01:01:03] Speaker B: The British Critic, a conservative and high church journal, attacked the novel's flaws as the fault of the author, writing, quote, the writer of it is, as we understand, a female. This is an aggravation of that which is the prevailing fault of the novel.
But if our authoress can forget the gentleness of her sex. It is no reason why we should. And we shall therefore dismiss the novel without further comment.
[01:01:32] Speaker A: So they're saying, how dare a woman write something? So.
[01:01:36] Speaker B: Yeah. And we're not going to give this the time of day because it was written by a woman who doesn't remember that she's a woman.
[01:01:43] Speaker A: Right. Cool.
[01:01:44] Speaker B: Yeah, cool beans.
Despite these reviews, Frankenstein achieved an almost immediate popular success.
It became widely known, especially through melodramatic theatrical adaptations.
In October of 1831, the first popular edition in one volume appeared. This edition was heavily revised by Mary Shelley, partly to make the story less radical.
It included a lengthy new introduction by the author, presenting a somewhat embellished version of the genesis of the story.
This edition is the one most widely published and read now, although a few editions do follow the 1818 text. I'm not sure what we have out there. We probably have the 1831 text.
Usually 1818 texts will say that on the COVID Today, the novel is generally considered to be a landmark work as one of the greatest romantic and gothic novels, as well as one of the first science fiction novels.
The novel has influenced popular culture since its publication, inspiring numerous films, television programs, video games, and other derivative works. And the character of the monster remains one of the most recognized icons in.
[01:03:02] Speaker A: Horror fiction and one of the most annoying past pedants corrections in fiction, period.
All right, that was a little bit about Frankenstein the novel. Now let's learn about Frankenstein the film.
I remember pieces.
Memories of different men.
Then I saw it.
Your name.
Victor Frankenstein.
Frankenstein is a 2025 film written and directed by Guillermo del Toro, known for Pan's Labyrinth, Hellboy 1 and 2, the shape of Water, Pinocchio, Nightmare Alley, Crimson peak, Pacific Rim, Blade 2, the Devil's Backbone and others. It stars Oscar Isaac, Jacob Elordi, Mia Goth, Christian Cottonbury, Felix Cameron, David Bradley, Lars Mickelson, Charles Dance, Christoph Waltz, Lauren Collins, Ralph Innocent, Bern Gorman and Nikolaj likas has an 85% on Rotten Tomatoes, a 78 on Metacritic, and a 7.5 out of 10 on IMDb. It made $480,000 and $480,678 against a budget of 120 million. But it was a NETFLIX original and it had just a very limited theatrical release. So it didn't come to our theater, for instance?
[01:04:36] Speaker B: No.
[01:04:37] Speaker A: So, yeah, the theatrical box office was not relevant. I just included it because it was on Wikipedia. The film was nominated for five Golden Globes, did not win any of them, but it was nominated for best Picture Best Actor, Best Supporting Actor, Best Director, and best score by Alex Alexander Desplat, which I didn't realize and made me more excited because he's the guy who did Shape of Water, which is an incredible score. And the Oscars are supposed to be announced on the 22nd, so in just a couple days, but we don't know at this point if I imagine it'll be nominated for some Oscars, but we don't know which or how many.
So all the way back in 2007, del Toro said that he would kill to make a faithful Miltonian tragedy version of Frankenstein.
In 2008, he revealed that he was working on concept art for the film. And at that time, he said, quote, what I'm trying to do is take the myth and do something with it by combining elements of Frankenstein and Bride of Frankenstein without making it just a classical myth of the monster. The best moments in my mind of Frankenstein, of the novel, are yet to be filmed. The only guy that has ever nailed for me the emptiness, not the tragic, not the Miltonian dimension of the monster, but the emptiness is Christopher Lee in the Hammer films, where he really looks like something obscenely alive.
Boris Karloff has the tragedy element nailed down, but there are so many versions, including the great screenplay play by Frank Darabont that was ultimately not really filmed, end of quote.
Just kind of touching on all the different versions.
In 2009, he said that production for on the film would not start for a while. Boy, did he not know how long it would be at that point.
And at that time, he said that Doug Jones was going to be playing the creature.
[01:06:15] Speaker B: That makes sense.
[01:06:16] Speaker A: Which makes sense. Sense. And that they were working on makeup tests. According to Doug Jones, this version of the project was shelled because Universal ended up planning their whole Dark Universe franchise this.
And so moving forward a few years in 2013, Guillermo del Toro mentioned that he would like Benedict Cumberbatch to play the creature for making this film.
[01:06:39] Speaker B: That is an aggressively 2013 casting is.
[01:06:42] Speaker A: Right around the time the Hobbit movies were coming out. Makes Sense. Then in 2016, del Toro said of the project, quote, frankenstein to me is the pinnacle of everything. And part of me wants to do a version of it. Part of me has, for more than 25 years, chickened out of making it. I dream I can make the greatest Frankenstein ever, but then if you make it, you've made it. Whether it's great or not, it's done. You cannot dream about it anymore. That's the tragedy of a filmmaker. You landed a 10 or you landed a 6.5, but you were at the Olympics already and you were judged. End quote. So, so again, long, long dream project for him that he was nervous about making because he had built it up for so long in his head.
Then in 2023, the project was revived when Del Toro signed a multi year deal with Netflix.
Variety reported that the film was back in the works, this time with Oscar Isaac, Mia Goth and Andrew Garfield starring in the film.
Then In January of 2024, Jacob Elordi replaced Andrew Garfield due to scheduling conflicts that arose after the sag aftra strikes. that time period, I didn't realize, I had no idea that Garfield, Andrew Garfield, I had heard that was originally supposed to play the monster or the creature. Del Toro explained about his own approach to the adaptation. Quote, what I find beautiful is that when you create a universal myth, whether it's Frankenstein, Pinocchio, Dracula or Sherlock Holmes, Holmes, the myth itself rises so far above the original material that any interpretation is equally faithful if done with sincerity, power and personality. If you think in terms of fidelity to the canon, you would be completely paralyzed. End quote. Just what I like to hear, because that means it'll be an interesting anime.
Somebody who understands how adaptations are supposed to work.
Oscar Isaac, discussing the film, said, quote, this very, this very European story, but told through a very Latin American, Mexican Catholic point of view. So it was just high passion all the time, end quote.
And then talking about his inspiration for making the movie, Del Toro said, it was a religion for me since I was a kid. I was raised very Catholic. I never quite understood the saints. And then when I saw Boris Karloff on the screen, I understood what a saint or a messiah looked like. So I've been following the creature since I was a kid. I always waited for the movie to be done in the right condition, both creatively in terms of achieving the scope that it needed to be needed to make it different, to make it at a scale that you could reconstruct to the whole world. End quote.
Getting to a couple random fun facts here. Victor Frankenstein's laboratory and the Captain Anderson ships were fully constructed sets of this. Daryl Del Toro said in a very famous quote at this point that people have heard and was shared around quite a bit a few months ago. I want real sets.
I don't want digital, I don't want AI, I don't want simulation. I want old fashioned craftsmanship. People painting, building, hammering, plastering. End quote. I thought this was interesting. While scouting locations in Scotland, Del Toro made a visit to the Wallace Monument in Stirling and that this visit influenced the design of Frankenstein's tower laboratory. And I only mention that because I have been to the Wallace Monument in Stirling in Scotland and I was like, hey, I've been there. There's a fake William Wallace sword in it. I believe it's fake from what I heard, but it's a cool looking tower if you've never seen it. It's a very cool building and I did climb it when we were over there in college, so Getting to some reviews, Alyssa Wilkinson of the New York Times selected it as a critics pick and said that Del Toro's version wholeheartedly embraces the novel's profound debt to Paradise Lost while imprinting it with his signature style, transforming Shelley's literary skeleton into a distinctly Del Toro tale of monstrous fathers and abandoned sons that remains faithful to the core pathos of the original text. This was also echoed this was also echoed by the Hollywood Reporter's David Rooney, who described the film as a visually sumptuous retelling that transcends horror for grand romantic tragedy, suggesting that it hues closely to the novel's tragic spirit while achieving a new cinematic scale.
Jamie Graham for Empire magazine gave the film four stars out of five, saying, quote, it is an unusually faithful rendition of Mary Shelley's novel that also functions as a boldly personal gothic role romance, stitching together Shelley's themes with Del Toro's signature fairy tale and body horror sensibilities into a sumptuous hole.
Glenn Kinney for RogerEbert.com gave the film a perfect score, which I think is four out of four stars. I think they still do it that way, vigorously defending the adaptations integrity, crediting Del Toro for forging something new, nearly new from the familiar source material by keeping quote philosophically faithful to Mary Shelley's novel even as he smartly transposed its core to a more fantastical Victorian setting, thereby expanding the humanity found in the classic story. Some more guarded reviews. One from the Guardians, Peter Bradshaw said while gave the film three out of five stars, admired its narrative shift to the creature's perspective, a key element of Shelley's multivoice novel. He contended that it's quote, luxurious Cod period reverence for a Victorian aesthetic ultimately sanitizes the tale's raw philistines philosophical horror, steering clear of the transgressive energy he finds in other interpretations. This critique of the adaptation choices was also similarly echoed by Ava Elizabeth Jenkins, writing for the Daily Tar Heel, which I assume is North Carolina UNC's magazine maybe, who in a mixed assessment, argued that specific character alterations from Shelley's blueprint, such as aging up Victor Frankenstein and reconfiguring Elizabeth's reaction role, ultimately, quote, undermined the source material's emotional weight, end quote, rendering a key moment from key moments from the novel feeling unearned in what she still calls, quote, a beautifully horrific interpretation.
And then finally, writing for Variety, Peter de Bruges noted that while the to Del Toro's vision hues closer to Mary Shelley's intentions than most prior film adaptations, particularly in its empathetic exploration of creature and purpose, it ultimately buckles under its own weight, its structural choices and epic runtime, diluting the novel's concentrated film philosophical power. The consensus, and this is just from Wikipedia, the broad consensus, the consensus frames Del Toro's Frankenstein as a sweeping gothic romance that prioritizes the novel spiritual core over literal fidelity.
So. Which is in line with what I have heard. Yes, it all kind of boils down to what elements of the book that you like thematically, narratively, and whether or not you think Del Toro cares about those and put them in his version of it. It sounds like. So, as always, you can do us a favor by hanging over to Facebook, Instagram threads, Blue Sky, Goodreads, any of those places interact on social media so we can hear what you have to say about all this stuff. Drop us a five star rating, write us a nice little review and Support
[email protected] ThisFilmIsLet Katie working people watch Frankenstein on Netflix. Yes. Which I believe this is true no matter where you are, because I feel like it's a Netflix original everywhere, so.
[01:13:48] Speaker B: And I, I don't know if there are any plans to give this any kind of like, physical release. Release.
So I.
[01:13:55] Speaker A: There you go.
[01:13:55] Speaker B: Watch it on Netflix.
[01:13:56] Speaker A: Watch it on Netflix.
Yes. So as we, we've talked about many times at this point in the lead up to this, very excited to watch this.
[01:14:04] Speaker B: Yes. I am a big Del Toro fangirl and I. I am actually not a Frankenstein girly.
[01:14:13] Speaker A: Say, have you read it?
[01:14:14] Speaker B: I have read it once before, but I. I'm not a Frankenstein girly, but I am interested in becoming one.
[01:14:21] Speaker A: Yeah.
[01:14:22] Speaker B: Say you love Dracula because I.
I read it in college, but I didn't like the class or the professor, so I'm very interested to give it another shot.
[01:14:33] Speaker A: Yeah, yeah, yeah. And I'm very excited to watch the movie. I'm also. We're both big Del Toro fans. I've never seen a movie of his that I've disliked. I like some more than others, but I've never watched one where I've been like, well, that wasn't good, or I didn't like that.
So I'm. And some of them I love. Shape Water, I thought was the best movie that I saw that year. Crimson Peaks. Great, great.
Pan's Labyrinth is one of my favorite movies. I'd probably put it in my top.
[01:15:00] Speaker B: 10 aesthetically, thematically, storytelling wise. Like, storytelling wise. I am always into what del Toro is surfing.
[01:15:08] Speaker A: Yes. Which is. Makes me very interested to see this, because as I've talked about some. Some people, I've not watched full reviews of this, but in some small reviews I've seen from people, it's mixed. And people that. That I like very often agree with their opinions. I have seen both people say, I like this and I hate this.
[01:15:29] Speaker B: Yeah. A variety of opinions on this, all from people whose opinions I generally trust. So I'm deeply interested to see what this is.
[01:15:38] Speaker A: Yes. And it's not so much. I don't think there's really discourse in the sense that it's nothing like, in terms of, like, oh, it's problematic or. Or anything like that. It's just genuinely, like, adaptation wise. Do you think this focuses on. On the right things? Do you think, you know, like.
[01:15:52] Speaker B: Yeah.
[01:15:52] Speaker A: How does it translate this story? And. And because people have such strong feelings about the novel, because it is such a classic, that, Yeah, I. I'm very, very interested to see how we feel about this. Can't wait to watch it. That'll be in one week's time. We're talking about Guillermo del Toro's Frankenstein. Until that time, guys, gals, not binary pals.
[01:16:16] Speaker B: And everybody else, keep reading books, keep.
[01:16:18] Speaker A: Watching movies, and keep being awesome.
