Episode Transcript
[00:00:10] Speaker A: On this week's prequel episode, we follow up on our Sleeping Beauty listener polls and preview Maze Runner, the Death Cure.
Hello and welcome back to another prequel episode of this film is lit, the podcast where we talk about movies that are based on books.
It's our final summer series 2025 prequel.
So we're going to be previewing Death Runner. Before we get to that, we'll be seeing what everybody had to say.
[00:00:37] Speaker B: Death Runner.
[00:00:38] Speaker A: Death Runner. The Death.
[00:00:40] Speaker B: That's a way better name, honestly.
[00:00:42] Speaker A: Yeah, the Death Cure. But before we get to that, we have Sleeping Beauty. And before we get to that, we have our patron shoutouts.
[00:00:50] Speaker B: I put up with you because your father and mother were our finest patrons. That's why.
[00:00:55] Speaker A: No new patrons this week. But we do have our Academy Award winning patrons. And they are. Nicole Goble, Harpo Rat. Team Blue Dress. Vic Apocalypse. Mathilde Cottonwood. Steve. Teresa Schwartz. Ian from Wine Country, Kelly Napier Gratch Justgratch. Shelby says no one mourns the Wicked.
That darn Skag and V. Frank, thank you all very much for your continued support. Shelby, great name, great play on words there. It's for those who are only listening. Shelby's name is spelled WCKD from the Maze Runner series. But. And for people who don't know the reference, if you haven't seen Wicked, that is the opening number. Not the opening number, but one of the numbers. In Wicked. No one mourns the Wicked, so. Very clever. And also Nathan up there.
[00:01:45] Speaker B: Team blue dress. Cause blue dress is superior.
[00:01:49] Speaker A: There you go.
Katniss is the one being a problem. We have the cats in the studio for the first time, like, ever. Just to see how it's going, how it's gonna go.
[00:01:57] Speaker B: So if you hear a little meows.
[00:01:59] Speaker A: In the background, that's just Grindy or Katniss, but I assumed Grindy would be the problem. But Katniss is over here trying to tear apart. Trying to tear our carpet apart. So we'll see how this goes. Thank you all again for your continued support. Really appreciate it. Katie, it's time to see what people had to say about Sleeping Beauty.
[00:02:17] Speaker B: Yeah, well, you know, that's just like your opinion, man.
All right. On Patreon, we had one vote for the book and five for the movie. Kelly Napier said, I'm so glad someone else thought of the textile workers when all the spinning wheels were destroyed. This has haunted my thoughts since childhood. Yeah, I would love to see a spin off of the tale where we follow one of the people in the kingdom whose livelihood is just obliterated. By the king and queen.
Prince Philip is four at the christening, so he's 20 and she's 16 when the bulk of the movie happens.
[00:02:56] Speaker A: There you go.
[00:02:56] Speaker B: So, yep, Gross called it.
I'd like to take a minute, if you'll indulge me, to do my own little spin off. Welcome to this film is ballet.
It's disclosed in the title credits that the score is based on the Tchaikovsky Ballet. The Sleeping Beauty and the story of both the ballet and the movie follow pretty closely, as well as Tchaikovsky based his ballet on the Grimm's story, but cut the number of fairies down to six, with the focus being on the most powerful good fairy and the evil fairy. Interestingly, the evil fairy tears the wig off the master of ceremonies who failed to invite her to the christening and beats him with it before cursing the child.
[00:03:37] Speaker A: Sweet.
[00:03:39] Speaker B: She lives in the castle until her 16th birthday and is then presented with a number of suitors vying for her hand.
During the dance with the suitors, a mysterious cloaked figure appears, presenting her with a gift, which is the spindle that pricks her.
[00:03:52] Speaker A: This sounds like the Nutcracker. Isn't that like the Nutcracker?
[00:03:55] Speaker B: I mean, checking. Also wrote the Nutcracker, so, like, fair.
[00:03:58] Speaker A: Enough, but I'm just thinking about the part where, like, they all dance and then the guy gives her the.
[00:04:02] Speaker B: Yeah. Gives her the Nutcracker. Yeah.
[00:04:04] Speaker A: Just kind of. Yeah.
[00:04:06] Speaker B: The entire kingdom is also put to sleep to wait out the hundred years with the princess.
A hundred years later, a prince hand selected by the main good fairy, is chosen to awaken the princess. The good fairy and prince work together to defeat the evil fairy. The prince kisses the princess and awakens the kingdom.
The ballet concludes with the marriage of the prince and princess, blessed by the good fairy. And get this. The marriage ceremony is attended by Puss in Boots, Cinderella, Prince Charming, and Little Red Riding Hood, among other fairy tale characters.
[00:04:39] Speaker A: Fairy tale cinematic universe going on in this ballet.
[00:04:42] Speaker B: Yeah.
It's almost like an episode of Once Upon a Time.
[00:04:46] Speaker A: Yeah.
Or Shrek.
[00:04:49] Speaker B: Or Shrek. Yeah.
Tchaikovsky only composed three ballets. Swan Lake, Sleeping Beauty, and the Nutcracker. That's a solid 100% success rate right there.
[00:04:59] Speaker A: They are all classics.
[00:05:00] Speaker B: Yeah. I mean, if you ask anybody just off the street to name a ballet, they're naming one of these three, and.
[00:05:08] Speaker A: I would argue even one of the two. Swan Lake or the Nutcracker. Not that Sleeping Beauty isn't, but I don't think it's as popular as.
[00:05:14] Speaker B: Not as, well, the Nutcracker.
[00:05:15] Speaker A: Is one like.
[00:05:17] Speaker B: Katniss, Katniss, Katniss. Stop it.
[00:05:20] Speaker A: Stop it.
[00:05:23] Speaker B: If you get a chance, listen to the suite from the ballet. The entire ballet is over three hours long. And the suite, which includes just the most recognizable pieces, clocks in at a much more consumable length. It's beautiful. And you'll definitely recognize some of it from how they used it in the movie.
I thought it was a good decision by Disney to use a well known piece of classical rep as a thread to tie all the properties together.
Do not jump on this table.
[00:05:51] Speaker A: We just got back from the movie. The reason we're letting the cats in here is I felt bad putting them right back into the bedroom. We'd been gone all day at work, and then we went to a movie straight after work. We saw the new Superman. It's good. You should see it.
And so I felt bad immediately shunting them into the bed when we got home. So we're trying it out, but we'll see how it goes.
[00:06:11] Speaker B: I have a little side note, actually.
[00:06:13] Speaker A: Yeah?
[00:06:13] Speaker B: We went to see Sleeping Beauty, the ballet.
[00:06:16] Speaker A: Oh, that's right. We did.
[00:06:17] Speaker B: Very early in our life.
[00:06:18] Speaker A: No, I remember that. Yeah, yeah, yeah.
[00:06:19] Speaker B: And we left at intermission because I. I was the one who wanted to see it and I didn't know it was like four hours long.
[00:06:26] Speaker A: It was very long. Yeah.
[00:06:27] Speaker B: And I didn't. I didn't know you well enough to gauge how you were gonna feel about that.
[00:06:33] Speaker A: Yeah.
[00:06:33] Speaker B: So I was in remission.
[00:06:35] Speaker A: I do remember.
[00:06:36] Speaker B: We could leave.
[00:06:37] Speaker A: I do remember going to that. I don't remember, like, how I felt about it. I don't remember if I liked it or not.
[00:06:42] Speaker B: That was, like, very, very early in our relationship. I think it was before we lived together even could be.
[00:06:46] Speaker A: Yeah.
[00:06:48] Speaker B: Anyway, back to Kelly's comment.
Sorry for the long aside. I'll cast my vote and get out of the way now. I'm picking the story, but only the first part. The second part that was clearly added on at some point is just weird. The movie was a staple from my childhood, but I think the scales tipped in the story's favor because of how it's endured.
One story from the oral tradition has withstood the test of time and transformed into at least two classic fairy tales, an iconic ballet, a beloved movie, and probably many more adaptations in whole or in part. That legacy can't be ignored. So my vote goes for the story.
[00:07:25] Speaker A: Fair enough. I mean, it is hard to argue with.
[00:07:28] Speaker B: It is hard to argue with the enduring centuries of oral tradition and the enduring longevity of narratives.
Our next comment was from Charlene, who said, I didn't watch this one much as a kid, but it's actually the classic princess I've seen most recently. We watched it with our kids within the last year or so I thought. I remembered a line about the fairies wanting to put everyone else to sleep so they wouldn't be heartbroken over immediately losing the princess again. But it does come across as more of a cover your ass move than altruistic.
[00:08:02] Speaker A: There probably is a line about that, if I had to guess.
[00:08:04] Speaker B: Well, I feel. Feel like based on what she says, I do think that, like, they don't want everyone to be brokenhearted is what we're supposed to get from that scene. But, like, the way. The way she says it and the way it comes off definitely comes off as more of like, yeah, we're just messed up. We're just gonna hide our mistake.
Thank you, Kelly. I knew Once Upon a Dream was based on a ballet, but couldn't remember by whom. Mainly I remember it from my aural skills class. When I was a music major back in the day, one of the things we were tested on was hearing a melody and being able to write it out in music notes. That sounds really hard.
I don't know if I would want to do that.
[00:08:43] Speaker A: That would be tough. Yeah.
[00:08:45] Speaker B: I also don't really read music so well.
[00:08:48] Speaker A: Then it would be very hard for you.
[00:08:51] Speaker B: One day, this started playing, and I was thrilled. It was something I knew since remembering the melody between playings was usually harder than figuring out the notes only to be completely thrown off by the key change, which we were, of course, familiar with as a concept, but hadn't got to that point covering.
Hadn't gotten to this point covered in dictation.
But anyway, back to the movie. It's gorgeous and iconic, and I chose it mainly because of that and also because it inspired one of my favorite moments from Enchanted. And Brian, if you've watched that, we did do a bonus episode.
[00:09:23] Speaker A: We did a bonus episode. Yeah. Charlene, if you haven't seen. If you haven't listened, we have a bonus episode about Enchanted that we did during the Cinderella.
When did we do that? Was it not correlated to a.
[00:09:33] Speaker B: No, it wasn't correlated to anything.
[00:09:34] Speaker A: Oh, I thought it was for some reason.
[00:09:36] Speaker B: We did it a while ago, but we did. We did cover it.
And Brian, if you've watched that, it probably doesn't help in conflating Sleeping Beauty with Snow White. Giselle has a bit of all of the princesses in her, but the evil Queen is primarily a mashup of those two villains.
[00:09:51] Speaker A: I think another thing that doesn't help is Once upon a time.
[00:09:55] Speaker B: That's also true.
[00:09:55] Speaker A: All those characters get mixed up in my head because there's so much, like, twisty, turny soap opera lore.
[00:10:01] Speaker B: Everybody is everybody's doctor.
[00:10:02] Speaker A: Everybody's related to everybody. So I just. Yeah, I think that was honestly the thing that makes even more confusing.
[00:10:11] Speaker B: Katniss.
Our next comment was from Ian from wine country, who said, well, sweet shit. Yes, the book.
Having read all the Grimm's fairy fairy books, as well as the pink fairy book, green fairy book, blue fairy book, etc. That were available as a child, and I bought the remaining colors on ebay as an adult.
[00:10:33] Speaker A: I didn't know that was a thing. Yeah, Grimm's stuff is split up.
[00:10:38] Speaker B: The color fairy books are. They're associated with somebody else whose name I can't remember. But, yeah, that's a. There was, like, a series of, like, fairy story books that were all named, like, different color fairies.
[00:10:52] Speaker A: These are not related to the Grims.
[00:10:55] Speaker B: I don't.
[00:10:56] Speaker A: Because now that I'm reading it, he says, having read all the Grimm's fairy books as well as the Pink face. So it'll sound like at first I missed read that and thought they were.
[00:11:04] Speaker B: Related somehow, but Andrew Lang. Okay, Andrew Lang is the fairy book guy.
[00:11:10] Speaker A: When is he from.
[00:11:13] Speaker B: Those published between 1889 and 1913, et cetera, that were available as a child, and I bought the remaining colors on ebay as an adult. Every single story was meant to have a lesson. They all taught something. Yes. That's very Victorian.
[00:11:29] Speaker A: Yeah.
[00:11:29] Speaker B: If I remember correctly, the princess gets cursed because her parents were too proud. Story was meant to be a warning for parents. They always had a lesson that was blatant.
The movie doesn't really tell that lesson. Pretty sure Walt didn't read the stories.
[00:11:44] Speaker A: I mean, I don't know if he did specifically.
[00:11:46] Speaker B: Somebody did.
[00:11:47] Speaker A: Somebody.
[00:11:47] Speaker B: Somebody did.
[00:11:48] Speaker A: I don't. I don't know if he also didn't write this. He wasn't accredited writer on the movie.
[00:11:52] Speaker B: So I feel like he just strolled in and said, I want to cover this.
[00:11:56] Speaker A: Yeah. And then he would stroll in and be like. Like this. Love that, hate the that, hate that, hate that.
[00:12:01] Speaker B: Yeah, I do. I like. I feel so confident that that's the kind of guy Walt Disney was.
[00:12:06] Speaker A: 100%. 100%.
[00:12:08] Speaker B: Our next comment on Patreon was from. Shelby says, no one mourns the wicked. And Shelby said, this is one of those Disney movies. I didn't grow up watching. I've said before I didn't care for the princess ones as a kid, so it wasn't a priority. I saw it once when I was 15, mainly because I wanted to meet Maleficent, who doesn't?
Other than that, it didn't leave an impression watching it again. There's some beautiful animation here and Once Upon a Dream is a lovely song. So I'll give it to the movie.
Other thoughts. Why isn't the dress purple?
The pink versus blue thing is fun, but when the spells hit the dress at the same time, I fully expected it to be purple by the end. That's what you get when you blend pink and blue. Is purple another princess's color?
Actually, no.
[00:12:57] Speaker A: I would argue doesn't. No, because as I said, Jasmine's. I wouldn't be at this time, obviously. But like, ultimately, isn't Jasmine's costume like a lavender?
[00:13:07] Speaker B: Yes. His fancy dress is like a purpley color. Yeah.
[00:13:10] Speaker A: That's the only one I was thinking of.
[00:13:11] Speaker B: Yeah. I don't know. I can only assume that the animators were just having fun and thought it was more fun to make it like a mishmash splash looking thing.
[00:13:21] Speaker A: Yeah.
[00:13:22] Speaker B: I was to combine them.
[00:13:23] Speaker A: Yeah. It is interesting that they never decided. Well, the obvious solution is purple.
My only guess is that they tried purple and nobody liked purple. So they. You know what I mean? Like they probably tried that and then they were like, nah, nobody liked it. So.
[00:13:39] Speaker B: Is purple another princess's color? Ariel's perhaps. I feel like it would stand out nicely next to the rest of the princess lineup. It's like they set up the joke but forgot the punchline. We're digging into a whole bag of worms here with princess dress color colors because they. I think they did try purple on Ariel for a while and it never stuck.
[00:13:59] Speaker A: Okay.
[00:14:01] Speaker B: Sorry, Katie. The meet cute between Aurora and Philip put my back up like an angry cat in record time. No thank you to all of that. Go away. They felt like a missing couple out of A Midsummer Night's Dream. It is kind of A Midsummer Night's Dream ish scene. That's fair.
I'd forgotten that the three fairies are the real main characters in the movie. By the end, I was kind of wondering why Philip was was there, to be honest.
Somebody has to kiss her. Yeah, somebody's got to try to kiss her.
I never understood why Maleficent needed to do anything. After she cursed Aurora. She cast the spell. Shouldn't the magic take care of the rest? Is this a faulty spell? Why wouldn't it just conjure a spinning wheel out of nothing, like Maleficent does in the movie. I understand the other characters trying to fight it anyway. I understand Maleficent working to stop them from breaking it. Why does she still have to make it happen? She didn't threaten to cast it before Aurora 16. She did cast it. It's already done.
[00:15:02] Speaker A: I.
I get what you're saying, and I. And within the universe of the movie, I think that's fair because we see the other fairies just do, like, straight up magic.
[00:15:12] Speaker B: Yeah.
[00:15:13] Speaker A: When I read this comment the other day, my first thought was the reason she still has to do something is because a lot of, like, it almost felt like they're playing on a.
Which, again, within the universe of this movie doesn't make a lot of sense because the other fairies just point their wand at stuff and magic happens. But, like, kind of that. That, like, folkloric version of magic where casting a spell is less to do with, like, creating a magical outcome and more to do with, like, intention setting, almost, if that makes sense. Like, yeah, that's kind of how I interpret it. Of, like, she still needs to make sure it happens because that's how magic. Again, if you ignore the other fairies, magic. That's like, one way magic can work is, like, by.
I don't even know how to describe it.
Sorry, what were you gonna say about it before you. Were you gonna. Did you have.
[00:16:07] Speaker B: No, I wasn't gonna add anything.
[00:16:10] Speaker A: Yeah. I don't know. Yeah. Cause obviously you would assume that the point of this spell is that it just happens.
[00:16:16] Speaker B: I guess after 16 years, maybe she's just so fed up with the who, she's made it like a personal vendetta now to see it through to the end and make sure that it happens, I guess.
[00:16:31] Speaker A: But, yeah, you would assume that it just would happen without her help. But I don't know.
[00:16:37] Speaker B: I don't know.
[00:16:38] Speaker A: I don't know. It's an interesting question because I did think about that, and I was like, why does she have to show up and do it for. Isn't that the point of the curse?
[00:16:47] Speaker B: She's a very involved CEO of evil.
[00:16:50] Speaker A: Yeah.
[00:16:51] Speaker B: Just hands on Shelby's last comment. Here was some of the music and animation reminded me of lady and the Tramp. I watched that one a lot as a kid.
[00:17:02] Speaker A: You know what? Maybe I have to go back and look at the actual language of the curse. Because the curse she gives in the movie, I think, does specifically say, before the sun sets on her 16th birthday, she will prick her Finger on the.
[00:17:15] Speaker B: Spindle of a spinning wheel.
[00:17:16] Speaker A: The spindle of a spinning wheel and fall into it and die or whatever.
And I guess if there was, depending on how you necessarily interpret that, the idea could be if she pricks her finger on the spindle of a spinning wheel.
[00:17:31] Speaker B: Right.
[00:17:31] Speaker A: She will suffer this curse and die.
[00:17:34] Speaker B: Yes.
[00:17:35] Speaker A: But that the curse itself is not ensuring that she will prick her finger on a spinning knee or a spindle. It's ensuring that if she does, she will die.
[00:17:47] Speaker B: I do like the interpretation because that makes the attempts to avoid the curse make sense.
[00:17:53] Speaker A: Make more sense.
[00:17:54] Speaker B: Because if it's unavoidable. Right. Then why bother whisking her away to the woods for 16 years?
[00:18:01] Speaker A: Yeah.
[00:18:02] Speaker B: If it's gonna happen no matter what.
[00:18:03] Speaker A: I guess you're gonna try, but. Yeah. Yeah. So that might be the reason. Again, I guess it kind of comes up to your interpretation because the.
Again, the curse in the movie, I'm pretty sure explicitly says, like, she will prick her finger. Like, it almost impl. That it is a foregone conclusion that this will happen. But I guess you could kind of mess with that interpretation and say, like, I don't know. Again, I would have to listen to the exact wording in the movie. But, like, if it's more to do with if she pricks her finger, she will die or fall into a slumber. I guess, once changed, then Maleficent showing. Maleficent showing up to, like, ensure that she pricks her finger on the spindle doesn't necessarily.
Or that still works because it hasn't happened to this point. And so she's trying to make it happen.
[00:18:51] Speaker B: And to be fair, the curse doesn't stipulate that it has to happen on her 16th birthday.
[00:18:57] Speaker A: No.
[00:18:58] Speaker B: It could die at any point throughout her whole childhood. So the fact that it hasn't yet. Now we're running up against the deadline. Right, Right.
[00:19:07] Speaker A: Running up against the deadline. Again, I get what Shelby's saying, because I also interpreted and I think the explicit text of what is said in the movie that it will happen. Like, implying that this fate is set in stone and it won't take.
It's not an if. It is a when it happens.
But I think if you play a little wiggle room in there and kind of interpret it more of, like, if she were to prick her finger. I don't know. Just a.
[00:19:35] Speaker B: But no. Lady and the Tramp.
That's another one that I like.
And also, I believe animated in the 50s. So it makes sense that it would have some stylistic similarities to this one.
[00:19:47] Speaker A: Oh, interesting. I haven't seen lady and the Tramp since I was also probably the same age. I watched this.
[00:19:52] Speaker B: Lady and the Tramp has the scariest Disney villain, the rat that tries to bite the baby.
[00:19:58] Speaker A: I truly don't remember.
I know I've seen it.
[00:20:01] Speaker B: I'm sure that's my Disney to villain hot take is that the rat is the scariest one.
All right. Over on Facebook, we had zero votes for the book and two for the movie. And we had one comment from Kat who said, I agree with Katie. This movie is visually stunning. And while it's certainly true that we spend no time learning why or how Aurora and Philip fall in love, that's not the point. And if your only criticism of the movie is shitting on anti. On the anti feminist point of her being saved, I think you're missing all the historical context of the passed down fairy tale and the time the film was made in addition to just regurgitating boring middle school level analysis.
[00:20:44] Speaker A: I think it would be shitting on the.
There's too many double negatives in there. Never mind. I don't know. The shitting on the anti feminist point of her. Nevermind. My brain can't process.
I agree with what you're saying. I get what you're saying and agree with it. I just. Yeah, never mind.
[00:21:02] Speaker B: It's not my favorite Disney film. The stunning visuals is the movie's strongest point and it lacks the same comedy or musical punch of following films. But I also have a soft spot for Once Upon a Dream.
[00:21:15] Speaker A: I just reread your sentence. It makes total sense. My brain didn't. Sorry, I put it together. My brain parsed it. Good job.
[00:21:22] Speaker B: If we can suspend our disbelief and lovingly embrace fairy tale tropes like valiant heroes and evil for evil's sake, why can't we accept fated lovers or love at first sight?
[00:21:33] Speaker A: Yeah, I tend to agree with that. It's like you just. Again, if you have the context and you're able to understand within this type of story what's going on here.
[00:21:43] Speaker B: Yeah, it's fine.
It's genre conventions.
[00:21:47] Speaker A: Yeah, exactly.
[00:21:49] Speaker B: Over on Instagram, we had two votes for the book, four for the movie, and one listener who couldn't decide.
Also, real quick, I just want to mention this.
We don't get a ton of interaction on threads. But also, I can't get into our threads account right now.
I. I don't. They shut our threads account down for suspicious activity and I cannot figure out how to get back into it.
[00:22:15] Speaker A: So if you are.
[00:22:16] Speaker B: If you're following us on threads. I'm sorry, I don't know what to do.
But over on Goodreads, we had zero votes for the book and one for the movie, and Mikko said nothing much to say about this one. I feel like we lose something when Aurora's sleep only lasts one night. I mean, a couple hours, I think. Not even a whole night.
[00:22:41] Speaker A: Yeah. Honestly, yeah.
[00:22:43] Speaker B: However, I like Prince Philip meeting her before the curse more than him being some random guy. So it's an overall positive change.
It was a bit weird when the seven league boots were mentioned in Perrault's version, like a cameo from another tale.
[00:22:58] Speaker A: Seven league boots. Those showed up in Ella Enchanted, right?
[00:23:05] Speaker B: Maybe.
[00:23:05] Speaker A: Aren't those the ones that, like, they put them on and you take a step and. Yeah, like super far.
[00:23:09] Speaker B: You move seven leagues.
[00:23:10] Speaker A: Yeah. They're also in. Aren't they in?
[00:23:12] Speaker B: They crop up in a lot of stuff.
[00:23:14] Speaker A: Pratchett uses them in something, doesn't he?
We free men. Maybe.
[00:23:18] Speaker B: Do they show? Maybe.
[00:23:20] Speaker A: I think they were an Ella Enchanted potential.
[00:23:22] Speaker B: I can't. I mean, that makes. Because the main thing that I know seven league boots from is actually another Gail Carson Levine, who's the author of Ella Enchanted. She uses them in the Princesses of Bemer.
[00:23:32] Speaker A: Maybe you mentioned them when we were talking.
[00:23:34] Speaker B: I might have talking about Ella Enchanted then.
[00:23:36] Speaker A: And maybe that's why my brain.
[00:23:37] Speaker B: Because I don't remember for sure if they were in Ella Enchanted because I.
[00:23:40] Speaker A: Know I'd heard of them before and for some reason my brain connected in Ella Enchanted. And the only way, if they weren't in that, the only way it would have happened would be you mentioning them from something else.
[00:23:49] Speaker B: So the fairy tales were fun to read, but the movie is better, as is the blue dress. Another blue dress to finish team Blue dress.
Also, I expect the death ring references to continue for the whole Death Cure episode.
[00:24:02] Speaker A: I'm glad somebody caught that. Every time I've been saying the death cure, I've been saying the death cure.
[00:24:09] Speaker B: I did not. Because I don't know what that reference is.
[00:24:12] Speaker A: It's a good, better, bad, bad reference. There's an early episode we did called the Death Ring.
[00:24:18] Speaker B: I vaguely remember you covering that.
[00:24:20] Speaker A: And during that, there's this one moment in the movie where the main character, they're talking about the death ring. And there's this very obviously 80 yard line where the main character goes, the death Ring. And like the. The cadence of which how he says it. Every time I see the Death Cure, I.
I can't Help but say it in that cadence. So I'm glad somebody caught it.
[00:24:47] Speaker B: Well, now we know Mikko is a good battle.
[00:24:49] Speaker A: Yeah. I didn't actually know that Miko was a fan. Yeah.
[00:24:54] Speaker B: All right. Our winner this week was the movie, with 12 votes to the book's three, plus our one listener who couldn't decide.
[00:25:03] Speaker A: Sweet movie. Crushed it.
[00:25:05] Speaker B: Really, truly fantastic.
[00:25:06] Speaker A: Thank you all for your feedback. Really appreciate it. Katie, no learning things segment this week because we've learned about Dashner in this series already. But we are gonna preview the Death Cure, the book I can handle Thomas. He'll show up eventually.
That's what I'm afraid.
[00:25:27] Speaker B: They took you because you're immune to a plague that's wiping out the human race.
[00:25:35] Speaker A: They think you're worth sacrificing to find a cure.
They'll never stop until we can stop them.
The last city with control, base of operations.
It's the lion's den.
[00:25:48] Speaker B: Urbano.
[00:25:48] Speaker A: That's where we're going.
Three years we spent behind walls trying to break out.
Now we're trying to break back in.
[00:25:57] Speaker B: The Death Cure is a 2011 young adult dystopian science fiction novel by American writer James Dashner. It is the third installment in the Maze Runner series, but the fifth in chronological order, because he wrote those two prequel novels that we don't care about.
[00:26:15] Speaker A: Right.
Are they prequels?
[00:26:17] Speaker B: I thought, yeah, they're pre. I think they're prequels.
[00:26:19] Speaker A: Didn't.
Didn't Steve or somebody say that some book was a. Never mind. It doesn't matter.
[00:26:26] Speaker B: Well, they gotta be prequels if this one is the fifth. Chronologically, I mean.
[00:26:29] Speaker A: Well, obviously, I thought he said something about a book with Newt that came after, and so that.
[00:26:34] Speaker B: I don't know, maybe that was also a prequel.
[00:26:36] Speaker A: I don't know.
[00:26:36] Speaker B: I don't know.
[00:26:37] Speaker A: Maybe.
[00:26:38] Speaker B: Critical reception for the Death Cure was mixed, which makes me feel really great.
[00:26:44] Speaker A: That's fascinating because I'm like, 200 pages in, and I've enjoyed it much more than.
[00:26:51] Speaker B: Oh, well, that's good. You're ahead of me. So I'm glad to hear that.
[00:26:54] Speaker A: The first 15 chapters, I was like, it's the same thing again. But since they have gotten to Denver for spoilers, it has gotten infinitely more interesting than any of the other. And it's not a high bar. I'm not saying it's, like, great, but I'm at least like, hey, this is different and something.
So maybe the ending will suck. It's possible. I have no idea.
[00:27:17] Speaker B: All right, well, so I do have some Pull quotes and stuff. Common Sense Media gave the book three out of five stars, commenting that the book's oppressiveness kept it from being more memorable than they wanted it to be.
Whatever that means.
This is straight from Wikipedia.
The Deseret News also commented on the book's bleak nature.
[00:27:40] Speaker A: Okay, so I assume oppressiveness.
[00:27:42] Speaker B: Yeah, probably dark.
[00:27:43] Speaker A: Like dark and.
[00:27:44] Speaker B: Yeah.
But they praised it as being, quote, both conclusive and satisfying.
[00:27:50] Speaker A: Okay.
[00:27:51] Speaker B: The Horn Book Guide and Kirkus Reviews both gave positive reviews, with the Horn Book Guide saying that the book's conclusion was, quote, thought provoking.
[00:27:59] Speaker A: I could see that because I still don't know who I'm rooting for.
Interesting in this. Like, I still don't know which. I don't know if is necessarily a positive thing, but especially for a series that I feel like is not written as comp. Like is has a. A writing level and style that is like, more juvenile than a lot of the other summer series we've covered. I feel like. I don't. I don't know. It doesn't feel as. But I guess I can see the ending being thought provoking, having not gotten there yet because like I said, I still don't know who I'm rooting for. Like, necessarily.
[00:28:34] Speaker B: Okay.
And there was not a whole lot out there about this book specifically. So much like last time. We have some other random stuff that I thought was interesting as I was trying to find more fun facts about this book.
The Wikipedia page for this book has a link to the original book trailer, which I wanted to watch, but it has been privated for some reason.
[00:28:54] Speaker A: Okay, interesting.
[00:28:56] Speaker B: Not deleted.
[00:28:56] Speaker A: Privated.
[00:28:57] Speaker B: Privated.
And then again, this doesn't really have anything to do with the death cure specifically, but I found this on Dashner's old defunct blogspot page and I thought it was funny in regards to all of the Gladers being named after like, famous scientists.
[00:29:18] Speaker A: Yeah.
[00:29:19] Speaker B: And he said, quote, who is Mean Ho named after?
[00:29:23] Speaker A: We asked that. We were like, oh, he must be named after like a Chinese. Or we don't. I don't know if we know the Mean Ho.
[00:29:30] Speaker B: Okay, who is Mean Ho named after? I get this question often and the answer is simple.
The events of the Maze Runner take place well in the future.
So I purposefully wanted a main character who is named after someone who doesn't exist yet in our day.
So keep an eye out for the great man who will rise up in our society called Minho.
Translation, I didn't know any Asian scientists and I couldn't be bothered to Google.
[00:30:02] Speaker A: It 100% what it feels like. It's like I couldn't come up with anybody. Which is insane because there's a ton of very famous inventors and stuff throughout history.
[00:30:12] Speaker B: That's nuts.
[00:30:13] Speaker A: Yeah.
[00:30:13] Speaker B: And you couldn't just Google it, man.
Yeah, whatever.
He stopped posting on that blog in May of 2012, and it is like a time machine.
There's a post all about how excited he is for the Hobbit movies.
[00:30:27] Speaker A: Oh, I wonder how he felt about him after the game.
[00:30:30] Speaker B: We'll never know.
[00:30:30] Speaker A: Never know.
All right, that is it for the preview of the book. Time now to learn a little bit about Maze Runner. The Death cure, the film.
[00:30:41] Speaker B: The world is dying.
[00:30:44] Speaker A: If we find a cure, that's the only way all this was worth it.
Do you regret it? What you did to us?
I did what I thought was right.
There's no guarantee we'll make it back from this when we started this together. May as well end it that way, too.
You still care about it, don't you?
[00:31:09] Speaker B: Don't lie to me.
[00:31:11] Speaker A: Come on.
How many kids do they have to round up? Torture, kill?
When the hell does it stop? It stops when we find a cure.
Thomas, you can save your friends, or you can save us all.
The Death Cure is a 2018 film directed by West Ball, the Maze Runner series, Kingdom of the Planet of the Apes, and the Legend of Zelda, who they just released the casting for.
[00:31:46] Speaker B: So it's the upcoming.
[00:31:48] Speaker A: Yeah, the upcoming Legend of Live action Legend of Zelda movie they're making. They just released the link and Zelda castings.
[00:31:54] Speaker B: Yeah, I heard about that.
[00:31:55] Speaker A: Everybody's mad.
It was written by T.S. nolan, who wrote on all of the Maze Runner films, but is the sole writer of both the second and this one.
Pacific Rim Uprising, the Atom Project, and other stuff. The film stars Dylan o'. Brien. Kaya. I still know. I haven't looked up how to pronounce her name. Kaya. Probably Kaya Scodelario, Thomas, Brody Sangster, Natalie Emanuel, Giancarlo Esposito, Aiden Gillan, Walton Goggins. Which is fun. Kee Hong, Lee, Barry Pepper, Will Poulter, Spoilers. And Patricia Clarkson. The film has a 43% on Rotten Tomatoes, a 50% on Metacritic, and a 6.3 out of 10 on IMDb. For comparison, the second movie had a 48% on Rotten Tomatoes. So lower on Rotten Tomatoes. But the second movie had a 43% on Metacritic and this one has a 50%. So a higher Metacritic score. Identical scores on IMDb to the second movie, 6.3 out of 10 on both. And then going back to the first movie, the first movie had a 66 on Rotten Tomatoes, a 57 on Metacritic, and a 6.8 out of 10 on IMDb. So the first one is still the highest rated across the board, but this one has a slightly better Metacritic score than the second movie. Interesting, but a slightly worse Rotten Tomatoes score. So make of that what we will the film made 288 million against a budget of 62 million and was nominated for some Teen Choice Awards, including Choice Movie Ship for Thomas and Teresa. My parenthetical here says the children are lost and now to be fair, I don't think the children nominate those. I'd actually have no idea how the Teen Choice Awards.
[00:33:26] Speaker B: I don't either.
[00:33:26] Speaker A: I assume like producer, you know, like yeah, execs or whatever come up with whatever they want to promote or whatever that year would be my guess. But yeah, I saw that it didn't win to be fair. Team Brenda yeah, didn't win to be fair, but so principal photography for the film started in March 2016, roughly a year and a half after the second movie filmed.
Not a lot on this, but this is like the big thing that everybody knows about. And it was everywhere. On March 18, roughly four days after filming began, it was reported that Dylan O' Brien was hospitalized for injuries sustained while filming.
Production was originally planned to only be delayed for around a month, month and a half, two months. But at the end of April, production was shut down indefinitely as it was revealed that o' Brien's injuries were more serious than originally kind of revealed or thought.
[00:34:13] Speaker B: Yikes.
[00:34:14] Speaker A: According to an article in the Hollywood Reporter that I found, which was the source for this on Wikipedia, o' Brien was on top of a vehicle wearing a harness and he was unexpectedly pulled off of the vehicle and hit by another vehicle.
[00:34:25] Speaker B: Jesus Christ.
[00:34:26] Speaker A: WorkSafeBC described his injuries as, quote, a concussion, facial fractures and lacerations. In DB Trivia also describing this event says specifically that he was drug under the vehicle that he was harnessed to while filming. The opening train chase sequence in the which is a thing in the movie.
Apparently the take is used in the film. The take where he hurt himself is used in the film.
[00:34:50] Speaker B: Nice.
[00:34:50] Speaker A: It's apparently a moment where a car approaches a moving train and he jumps out of the window. I assume to like jump onto the train or something.
Wes Ball, the director, asked o' Brien's permission to use the scene in the film and o' Brien said he had been he would be more heartbroken if it didn't make it into the cut. So, I mean, honestly, if you're gonna sacrifice, you know, your face.
[00:35:10] Speaker B: Yeah.
[00:35:11] Speaker A: For a movie, they might as well use the take.
[00:35:13] Speaker B: Maybe he was hoping that it would become like the Lord of the Rings lore.
[00:35:18] Speaker A: Broke his face.
[00:35:19] Speaker B: Yeah. Like every time he fell under the car.
[00:35:22] Speaker A: And yeah.
[00:35:23] Speaker B: Somebody's like, did you know, got a.
[00:35:24] Speaker A: Concussion and broke his face. Yeah, yeah. I read another, I think on IMDb it said like, he broke like his acetal occipital, like the bone around your eyes, basically both of them, I think. And that sounds rough and like his cheekbones or something like. Yeah, he had like facial fractures and a concussion. And yeah, it was really. Again, they had to stop filming for a year basically for him to recover.
One other fun little IMDb trivia factor that I wanted to include here, because I think this is his only cameo. There's a scene where Theresa and Ava are presenting their data to board members at Wicked. I assume in a flashback, probably.
Maybe not, I guess. I don't know. One member, the only one to not speak a word or word who's a member like a board member on the. For Wicked is none other than author of the book James Dashner. So he has a cameo in this one.
And getting into some reviews. Wikipedia did not have a summary of reviews, so I had to go to. I went to Rotten Tomatoes and pulled some choice blurbs from some of the reviews there. Chris Stuckman gave it a rotten rating. Chris Stuckman's a YouTube reviewer who I enjoy, generally speaking. He gave it a rotten rating, saying, the things that really should have made Thomas change and evolve as a character feel like background elements at times. So I didn't think that the character moments worked all that well. Writing for npr, Scott Tobias gave it a fresh rating, saying, quote, the Maze Runner is the rare series that has improved, with each installment expanding beyond the organic pin of the first film into a bigger and more thrillingly realized science fiction sandbox. End quote. For the Atlantic, David Sims was not a fan saying, quote, the Death Cure is a grim, half hearted farewell to this wave of young adult dystopias. End quote.
The blurb for Peter Bradshaw's review for the Guardian was simply for fans only, and he gave it a two out of five.
And then finally one positive review from the New York Times, Ben Koenigsberg said, quote, as silly as they sound, these movies are pretty well made, capable of outsized action and teary intimacy. End quote.
[00:37:26] Speaker B: All right.
[00:37:26] Speaker A: Which I think I've generally agreed with so far. The action scenes have been fun they're pretty well made.
[00:37:31] Speaker B: Yeah.
[00:37:32] Speaker A: I don't know if I would say teary intimacy necessarily, but yeah, so far.
[00:37:35] Speaker B: That has been my experience of the movies. They're not like, amazing. They're not super memorable, but they're fine.
[00:37:42] Speaker A: They're fine. Yeah, they're enjoyable enough. That is all I have, as always. You can follow us on Facebook, Instagram, not Threads right now. Blue Sky, Goodreads. Goodreads, that's another place interact. We'd love to hear what you have to say about all the stuff we talk about.
Drop us a rating and a review on whatever podcast platform you listen to us and Support us at. Patreon.com thisfilmislit Katie where can people watch Maze the Death Cure?
[00:38:07] Speaker B: Well, as always, you can check with your local library. I have been getting all of the Blu Rays for this one from our local library.
In order to get the Death Cure, I had to rent the 3D. We have the Anthology 3 Blu Ray set, so we have all of them at the moment. Or if you still have a local video rental store, you can check with them. Otherwise, you can rent this for around $4 from Amazon, YouTube, Apple TV or Fandango at home.
[00:38:35] Speaker A: Yeah, I am interested to see what this movie does because I. Like I said, I'm about 200 pages in or a little over 200. I can't remember. I think I'm a little over 200 pages in or right around there. And with where I'm at now, I'm actually wondering if the second movie was as much of a departure as it felt like at the time. Yeah, I have a suspicion, and we shall see in the movie. I may be completely wrong on this, but where I'm at in the book is that I think they just took a lot of elements from the third book and kind of smushed them around into the second movie.
[00:39:05] Speaker B: Yeah, that's what it's seeming like to me so far as well.
[00:39:08] Speaker A: And I'm wondering if maybe this. This ultimately won't be quite as much of a difference than like, it felt like. Like, because it felt like they were going completely different places. But maybe not. We'll see. It also still may. Yeah, I have no idea. Obviously.
[00:39:20] Speaker B: No way to know until we watch.
[00:39:21] Speaker A: We will get there in one week's time talking about the Death Cure. It may be a day later. So I'm gonna be out of town this weekend. Probably shouldn't be late, but if anything, it'll be like a day late. So look out for that until that time. Guys, gals, not by now with palace and everybody else.
[00:39:37] Speaker B: Keep reading books, keep watching movies and keep being awesome.
