[00:00:08] Speaker A: On this week's prequel episode, we follow up on our Bridget Jones's Diary listener polls and preview the Chronicles of Narnia, the Voyage of the Dawn Treader.
Hello and welcome back to this film is lit, the podcast where we talk about movies that are based on books. It is another prequel episode.
We have quite a bit to get to, including a bunch of feedback about Bridget Jones's Diary. So let's jump right in to our patron shout outs.
[00:00:39] Speaker B: I put up with you because your father and mother were our finest patrons.
[00:00:42] Speaker A: That's why we have two new free patrons this week. I don't think I said this one previous time. Maybe I did, but you're getting a second shaft free shout out if you did. But we have two new free patrons this week and they are Amanda and seven two. There's a space between them. So it's not 72. It is seven two.
[00:01:02] Speaker B: Maybe it's seven space two.
[00:01:04] Speaker A: Seven space two. I don't know.
[00:01:06] Speaker B: We don't know. Either way, we don't know.
[00:01:07] Speaker A: Thank you for jumping on the free Patreon. So you can see and follow along there and get some of the free stuff that we do post some free.
[00:01:15] Speaker B: Like the polls are free. Yeah.
[00:01:17] Speaker A: Public, you can do the polls there if you want on Patreon without, you know, paying anything and handful of other things.
But generally speaking, and I did that.
[00:01:29] Speaker B: Largely for people who are leaving social media because a lot of people are leaving social media right now.
[00:01:35] Speaker A: And that's fair. Yeah, yeah. So that is if you want to go to a place that isn't Twitter or Facebook or whatever in order to leave your feedback, you can head over to Patreon and be a free member and then you can interact and do the polls and stuff there. And we have a lot of people on there that we actually that's where most of our feedback happens, I would say. So there's a lively amount of people talking about stuff on the Patreon. Also just mention this. I opened up the little chat. I haven't looked at it recently, but I started the. There's like a chat room feature.
[00:02:04] Speaker B: Yeah, there's a community chat, kind of.
[00:02:05] Speaker A: Like a Discord channel or something, but on Patreon. So that's up and running if you want to hop in there and chat with people. So we do have and want to thank our Academy Award winning patrons as we always do. And they are Nicole Goblet, Eric Harpo Rat, Nathan Vic Apocalypse, Mathilde Steve from Arizona, Int Draft, Teresa Schwartz, Ian from Wine Country, Kelly Napier, Gretch Justgratch. Shelby says I mained Luigi on Nintendo before it was cool. That darn Skag v Frank and Alina Starkov, thank you all very much. Appreciate your continued support. Katie, let's see what the people had to say about Bridget Jones Diary.
[00:02:47] Speaker B: Yeah, well, you know, that's just like your opinion. Man on Patreon. We had five votes for the movie, one for the book, and one listener who couldn't decide.
Shelby said, I listened yesterday and I did have a thought I wanted to bring up. If I'm not overstepping here, just ignore me or let me know I didn't read or watch this one. Not to discredit Brian's experience, but I just feel Katie is more likely to be asked when she's going to have kids because of the world we live in.
[00:03:20] Speaker A: Oh, absolutely.
[00:03:21] Speaker B: Yeah. That is a fair assessment.
[00:03:22] Speaker A: 100%. I thought I mentioned that family would ask you more, but maybe I did.
[00:03:27] Speaker B: I cannot remember.
[00:03:27] Speaker A: I don't remember. I thought I had mentioned that you would get it asked, but I was speaking in the context of us being together with friends at the dinner party in the movie where she's there with the other couples. And I was speaking more of that, where I would be there, so I would know. But point. Yes. That is very accurate.
[00:03:46] Speaker B: And honestly, I don't even really get asked that question. Question all that much anymore.
[00:03:51] Speaker A: No. Because people know.
[00:03:52] Speaker B: Yeah. A lot of people in my life, and I have been very clear with everyone in my life what my opinions are on the topic, so people have kind of stopped asking me.
I also think the fact that I'm, like, rapidly approaching 40 is probably part of that. I think at this point, most people are like, oh, damn, she's serious.
[00:04:12] Speaker A: Yeah.
[00:04:14] Speaker B: Our next comment was from Tracy Drews, who said, the movie wins for me. All the parts I love in the movie. The movie aren't in the book. Especially the just as you are scene. I like the build up of Mark and Bridget's relationship better in the movie. Also, I really didn't like the book's handling of Bridget's weight.
[00:04:33] Speaker A: That pretty much falls in line with a lot of what you said.
[00:04:35] Speaker B: Yeah.
[00:04:36] Speaker A: Yep.
[00:04:37] Speaker B: Next comment from Kevin Smith. Not that one. And Kevin said, I can't decide which is worse. Bridget and the Authority are part of the upper middle class Sloan Ranger set. A British slang that I can't think of an American equivalent for.
[00:04:57] Speaker A: This is. This sentence makes no sense to me.
[00:05:00] Speaker B: This is. I had. Okay, so I'm going to go on with Kevin's comment here, which shouldn't be an issue with good writing, but I just can't garner sympathy for any. For anyone. Perhaps the story has converted me into an anti bourgeoisie proletariat stance. Viva la revolution.
[00:05:19] Speaker A: It seems interesting that this movie would be the thing that has done that, considering the state of the world currently. But welcome to the revolution. But no, yeah, I don't. Do you know what the heck that means? Did you look it up?
[00:05:33] Speaker B: So I, I googled Sloan Ranger. Yes. And I mean it's basically what Kevin says. It's like a British slang term for this particular type of like upper middle class British person.
[00:05:51] Speaker A: Okay.
It's. Yeah, upper. A young upper middle class person, specifically from West London. Supposedly it's a play on words that references Sloan Square in London and then the TV character the Lone Ranger. But I'm not sure why.
[00:06:08] Speaker B: Yeah, I'm not really sure the Lone Ranger. Like I understand the Sloane thing with that context, but I don't understand what the Lone Ranger has to do with anything.
[00:06:18] Speaker A: I want to preface. This is the AI summary on Google. The style supposedly is a sophisticated, effortless and unambitious look that includes knitwear, pie crust collars, silk scarves and pearls.
The official Sloan Ranger handbook was co written by Peter York and Ann Barr in 1982 and describes the lifestyle of young posh people like Diana Spencer and her friends. So Princess Diana maybe would be so.
[00:06:48] Speaker B: To me, and now I'm not saying that this is like a one to one equivalent, but to me that feels like what we would call a WASP kind of.
[00:06:57] Speaker A: Yeah, like a wasp.
[00:06:58] Speaker B: White, Anglo, Saxon, Protestant.
[00:07:00] Speaker A: Yeah. But specifically like maybe like the, like a. Like a East coast bus, like a very specific like Northeastern, like from somebody from like Maine, Maryland.
[00:07:12] Speaker B: Yeah, somebody, whatever. Somebody who wears like a kind of preppy clothes, like the collared bowl and lots of like shoes and like.
[00:07:22] Speaker A: Yeah. And they shop at like Brooks Brothers and stuff like that. Yeah. Okay. Yeah. So here's some more clothing. Blazers in red and blue.
[00:07:31] Speaker B: Yeah.
[00:07:32] Speaker A: Aaron. Sweaters, other sweaters, cardigans, Liberty print shirts and dresses. I don't know what that is. Wax jackets.
This is all made up. I think AI is freaking out. Then it says Pashmina, pearl necklaces and earrings and riding boots.
So I'm trying to find. I was just going to go to an image and see if. Yeah, okay. So the first image that popped up was just Princess Diana.
[00:07:58] Speaker B: Fair enough.
[00:07:59] Speaker A: In that kind of attire.
[00:08:01] Speaker B: Yeah, yeah.
[00:08:01] Speaker A: But. Yeah. And then the rest of them though. Yeah. Brooks Brothers for American.
[00:08:05] Speaker B: Yeah. Preppy family money, but like old Money. Preppy.
[00:08:09] Speaker A: Not like high school in the 2000s. Preppy.
[00:08:11] Speaker B: No.
[00:08:12] Speaker A: Yeah, okay.
[00:08:13] Speaker B: Which is different from what the kids consider preppy now.
[00:08:16] Speaker A: I'm sure. Yeah, I don't even know what prep is now.
Anyways, okay, we've solved that conundrum.
[00:08:24] Speaker B: This has been Americans trying to decipher British things.
Our next comment was from Kelly Napier, who said I voted for the movie for many reasons, the biggest of which is every time she started a journal entry with her weight, it made me want to throw the book against a wall. At her heaviest in the book, she isn't even 140 pounds. She was never overweight and damned the culture that made her think she was. Damn it all to hell.
The movie also succeeds more in being a modern Pride and Prejudice than the book does by bringing Darcy into her life on multiple occasions instead of just the beginning and the end. It's much easier to by their slowly falling for each other. And the reason why Darcy and Cleaver dislike each other makes so much more sense than in the book where they don't have a pre existing relationship other than just orbiting the same social circles.
[00:09:17] Speaker A: Oh, right. Because the whole. Yeah, they're like, affair thing wasn't from the book.
[00:09:23] Speaker B: He does.
Trying to remember now because I. I.
[00:09:27] Speaker A: Do remember you saying that something like that was something about that was more like the book. Oh, no, I think it was. But that he doesn't tell.
[00:09:35] Speaker B: Yeah, he doesn't tell Bridget about it.
[00:09:38] Speaker A: So they did have at least some.
[00:09:40] Speaker B: Yeah, they had a backstory, but I think the backstory, like I think the backstory about the affair was from the book, but not that they were friends.
[00:09:51] Speaker A: Oh, prior to the affair.
[00:09:52] Speaker B: Right. Yeah. If I'm remembering that correctly, because, yeah.
[00:09:56] Speaker A: In the movie they were friends. With the night falling out.
[00:09:58] Speaker B: I have already mostly purged this book from my memory because I don't dare.
[00:10:03] Speaker A: Everything I. Yeah, every. Everything we cover, I just immediately there's from my brain.
[00:10:07] Speaker B: Too much. There's too much to keep up there.
[00:10:09] Speaker A: Yeah.
[00:10:11] Speaker B: The one thing I did like in the book more than the movie was the mom's flight from justice. It made me laugh out loud. Next comment was from Nathan, who said, I'm going with the book, but not with a lot of conviction. I didn't care much for the movie as it struck me as a fairly boilerplate romantic comedy. That's not inherently a bad thing for my tastes, but this one just really didn't work for me. I liked the craziness of the book, specifically everything with Bridget's mom. There Was a point in the book where I was like, I think I would rather be reading Bridget's mom's diary.
[00:10:46] Speaker A: Oh, yeah?
Why is that a spin off?
[00:10:50] Speaker B: She was getting up to some wild shit.
[00:10:51] Speaker A: I mean, clearly.
[00:10:53] Speaker B: Nathan went on to say, I don't really feel like the book was meant to be a romance, as it can be seen by Darcy's absence for so much of it. It's more about Bridget's growth. I have never once been asked about my romantic life by my friends. So it did strike me as absolutely bizarre how much of a theme this was.
[00:11:10] Speaker A: And I guess it would make more sense knowing more about this Sloane Ranger phenomenon if the type of person she apparently was and hangs around is these. More like, kind of very, like. Which makes sense. Also makes more sense for all the, like, weird parties and stuff they go to. Like, it makes more sense than that. These are a lot of people very obsessed with status and lineage and all these kind of things where we hang out with normal people who don't care about this.
[00:11:39] Speaker B: Well, and, like, the other thing, because I was continuing to think about that after the episode, was that, like, before you and I were together or like, when we had just started dating, my friends, like, knew that because they're my friends, so they didn't have to, like, quiz me about whether or not I was dating because, like, they knew I was dating because they're my friends.
[00:12:04] Speaker A: Right. Well. And to be fair, her friends, like, again, it's just. It's. Yeah, it's the weird secondary group of friends, I guess, because, like, her close friends all know, like.
[00:12:12] Speaker B: Right.
[00:12:13] Speaker A: Like Tom and Shazza and whatnot. But, yeah, it's that weird secondary. Yeah.
[00:12:18] Speaker B: Anyways, another comment we had on Patreon was from kd, who said, I have to admit, I was a little nervous about revisiting this movie for all the same reasons you guys mentioned. And it is a mixed bag while still being pretty entertaining. One of the parts you discussed was when Bridget discovered Daniel cheating. And the only thing the other woman could say was, I thought you said she was thin. Clearly, we're meant to feel how cruel this is because cheating is fine, but, oh, someone of size is too far.
[00:12:50] Speaker A: Right.
[00:12:51] Speaker B: But it struck me as so strange. How did this even come up in casual conversation?
[00:12:56] Speaker A: Part of what made it so weird to me. Yeah. Like, so he told her that he was having. He was sleeping with this other woman.
[00:13:04] Speaker B: Clearly she knows she's like, the other woman.
[00:13:06] Speaker A: Yeah. So he told her that and then was, like, describing what she. Yeah, it's just such A weird. I don't know. It's. Everything about that is so strange to me.
[00:13:15] Speaker B: It's also. It's even weird to me. Like, if I was describing what somebody looked like to another person, I don't think I would ever say things thin unless they were, like, so thin that it needed to be remarked upon.
[00:13:33] Speaker A: Strikingly thin in a way that's like, oh, wow, that person. You know, like a bean pole kind of guy who's like 7 foot tall and like, you know, or something. I don't know. Yeah.
[00:13:40] Speaker B: But, like, outside of that, I don't think that that's a feature that I would even include in, like, a physical description.
[00:13:47] Speaker A: I think it does make sense for them.
[00:13:49] Speaker B: Again, they're very like, yes, blah, blah, blah.
[00:13:53] Speaker A: Yeah.
[00:13:54] Speaker B: And Katie also said. And for Brian, as someone who has recently been going through the entire TFIL back catalog, I can attest that you did indeed talk about Prince Caspian.
[00:14:06] Speaker A: I don't believe you. That was not me. That was an imposter.
That was somebody, somebody. I must have entered a fugue state for that episode. Like, it's the only explanation, to be fair.
[00:14:19] Speaker B: I don't remember anything we said about that.
I know we covered it, details of it, but I don't remember anything that we said about it.
[00:14:27] Speaker A: It's so crazy to me is, like, I try to scour my brain for anything that happened in that movie. Like, any remote detail of anything that happened in that movie, and I can't think of anything. I can't. I can't.
[00:14:39] Speaker B: Maybe this next one will jog your memory.
[00:14:41] Speaker A: Like, I can. Yeah, maybe, but. Cause, like, I can picture moments from the first movie. Like, I can. You know, Like, I remember, like. You know, I can picture, like, the Pole and Tumnus in the woods and. And, like, the White Witch.
[00:14:53] Speaker B: White Witch, Yeah.
[00:14:54] Speaker A: And stuff like. And some of the, like, imagery and like, the. You know, the stone breaking and stuff. Like, I can remember some. That's in that first one, right? Yeah, I can remember some of that stuff. Not very detailed, but, like, I can only. Nothing. Nothing about the. About Prince Caspian at all. It's fascinating.
[00:15:13] Speaker B: All right. Our last comment on Patreon was from Mathilde, who said, I prefer the movie over the book, at least for the first Bridget Jones. It's more cohesive and sensible. The ending of the book always felt very out of nowhere to me. And having more of Mark does make the romance more realistic. I also love Hugh Grant in this movie. It's his first villain role after being the adorable romantic lead so many Times and it's a refreshing change. And he clearly had a blast with it. That first shot with the elevator doors opening cracks me up every time. The book aspects I prefer are the focus on her friends and the pacing and format of it all. Little frantic 16 year old me felt very seen in Bridget's train of thoughts and how she derails and panics over little things. I think it's why I love both the movie and book, despite their obvious flaws, the subject matter that didn't age well and all the other valid criticisms. She feels like me when I'm at my lowest. And I had never seen a rom com where such a messy character was the main character without the glow up. It was comforting to think that she didn't have to lose weight or change anything really. But she still has ride or die friends and found a worthy guy too.
[00:16:30] Speaker A: I do think that's the charm of the movie. That is what makes the movie like work is that element of it.
[00:16:36] Speaker B: Yeah, I think without that this probably would not have kind of achieved the same kind of status that it has now. Mathilde went on to say, it's more felt in the movie, I think with small details that I really appreciate. Now, her apartment is not new or cutesy. There's real age in the place, the appliances even. And the mess feels organic, if that makes sense.
[00:16:59] Speaker A: Oh, absolutely. Yeah. It doesn't look like a curated. It doesn't. So like the, like a comparison, the apartment that Jess lives in in New Girl or something like that, are these very like.
[00:17:11] Speaker B: They don't feel like a real apartment.
[00:17:12] Speaker A: They don't feel like a real person's apartment. They feel like a TV show apartment. Whereas her apartment very much feels like a real person's apartment.
[00:17:19] Speaker B: Yeah, Bridget's hair is never right and her outfits are very plain and normal too. Nothing is fancy or put together unless it makes sense. Like when she spends an hour getting ready, she looks very natural and not in the fake natural way that is being peddled by the media. Now obviously Renee Zellweger's performance does carry the movie. She's very genuine, heartfelt and likable. And she navigates that small space between funny and caricature very well. It's like Reese Witherspoon in Legally Blonde. Anyone else in the role and it could have been a ridiculous flop. But with someone who cares and understands the heart of the character, it works. I find it funny that it could be compared to Sex and the City when the friends group, when the friend groups are so vastly different. Carrie and Co never felt close to realistic, but I most definitely have a Jude, a Shazza, and a Tom in my close friends. We just don't smoke anymore and don't drink nearly as much. P.S. speaking of smoking, yes, 50 cigarettes is insane, but doable. I hate that. I can personally vouch for that, but what can I say? I had some rough days in my 20s. And a final note, thank you for doing so many of my suggestions. I feel spoiled.
[00:18:33] Speaker A: Well, thank you for suggesting them and continuing to support us. It's fantastic. Yeah, I mean, look, again, it's way less insane. I mean, it's still insane, but it's less practically insane in a time period or place where you can smoke at work and inside and stuff.
[00:18:50] Speaker B: Yeah. If you can smoke like anywhere, anytime.
[00:18:53] Speaker A: Yeah. Then it's way less crazy. Yeah, I mean, it's still insane in a different way, but it's way less. Again, it's more feasible. Yeah, but like in America in 2024, I don't. It just like practically. I don't know how you could smoke 50 cigarettes in a day if you were like working a normal like 9 to 5 job. You know what I mean? And like you have to take a smoke break and like just pound like 18 cigarettes every time. Like, it just doesn't. Yeah, it just does. I don't know how you would do it. Or you just non stop chain smoke from the time you're off work until you go to bed, which I'm sure people do, but.
[00:19:23] Speaker B: Yeah, I'm sure there are people to do that. All right. Over on Facebook, we had three votes for the movie and zero for the book.
Aladdin said, I picked the movie since I skipped the book. Get ready because this chick is lit. Sorry, I had to make at least one bad joke.
[00:19:43] Speaker A: It's a great joke.
[00:19:44] Speaker B: Jokes aside, I watched the movie for the first time. While I enjoyed the film, it was a little odd in terms of our main character. I didn't like Bridget. The performance by Renee Zellweger is great, but the character she's playing was too goofy for my taste. I thought the skirt texting was going to be from someone else and not Hugh Grant.
[00:20:04] Speaker A: It was very much kind of the same thing.
[00:20:05] Speaker B: I was thinking, like, I thought the twist would be that Mr. Darcy was the one who was sending her messages on the computer.
[00:20:12] Speaker A: That doesn't add up to me. I don't think he would be doing that.
[00:20:14] Speaker B: But I loved Hugh Grant as a likable, albeit sleazy boss. And the same goes for Colin Firth as Mr. Darcy. Our Byronic hero. Loved him and his sweater.
[00:20:25] Speaker A: Good sweater.
[00:20:26] Speaker B: That brings me to the question, was his green sweater with a reindeer in the book? It was not. He is wearing, like an ugly sweater when she first sees him, but it's like she just describes it as like a blue and yellow checker pattern or something like that. It doesn't have a reindeer on it. So sorry to disappoint.
I have nothing to say about Bridget's mom other than that she really knows how to sell those. Definitely not allegorical penis toys. Until you guys mentioned it in the episode. I forgot Bridget's friend Tom was gay. He and the two other friends were very forgettable and just referred to them in the movie as Stereotypes 1, 2, and 3.
[00:21:06] Speaker A: I think they're interesting characters. They just don't have enough time.
[00:21:09] Speaker B: It feels like, fleshed out.
[00:21:11] Speaker A: I bet they were in the original cut of the movie more. And they're just the thing that was the easiest to chop out. Like, I would. I could imagine a version, this movie that's 30 minutes longer where they have a lot more scenes. Yeah, but that. When you're trying to get this down to a minute 30 or hour 30 or whatever. Because it's a. It's a rom com in 2000. We have 90 minutes and that's it.
They were probably, like the first to hit the cutting room floor would be my guess.
[00:21:36] Speaker B: Yeah, no, I think you're probably right.
Overall, enjoyable movie with a couple of good jokes and I'm somewhat curious to check out the sequels. Bonus question. Why haven't you guys covered any book adaptations from the chick lit master himself, Nicholas Sparks?
[00:21:52] Speaker A: I actually. So I forgot that person existed until I read this comment and then I was like, oh, why haven't we done a Nicholas Spark?
[00:21:58] Speaker B: I don't know. We just never have. I'm not, like, particularly interested in reading a Nicholas Sparks book, so that's.
[00:22:06] Speaker A: I'll read it. Sparks book. I'll read the Notebook.
[00:22:08] Speaker B: All right, challenge accepted.
You want. You want the Notebook?
[00:22:14] Speaker A: I don't know. It's the only one I. It's the only one I know. It's literally the only one. I could say because it's the. Is what's another famous Nicholas Spark book?
[00:22:22] Speaker B: He's had a.
[00:22:22] Speaker A: The Time Traveler's Wife.
[00:22:24] Speaker B: No, that's not Nicholas Sparks. He's had a handful adapted. I don't. Maybe.
I think the other, like, main one that people would know is A Walk to Remember.
[00:22:36] Speaker A: Ah, yeah, I've heard of that at least.
[00:22:38] Speaker B: Yeah.
But the Notebook is definitely, like, his biggest movie, I think.
Our other comment on Facebook was from Terry, AKA my mom, who said, I've not read the book, but the movie is one of my favorite guilty pleasures. Colin Firth. Sigh.
[00:22:59] Speaker A: He's a handsome guy.
[00:23:01] Speaker B: I did know that my mom liked Colin Firth. I actually had no idea that she had ever seen this movie. So that was interesting.
[00:23:09] Speaker A: There you go.
[00:23:10] Speaker B: You learned a little bit on Instagram. We had four votes for the movie, one for the book, and two listeners who couldn't decide.
And we had one comment from Hannah Joseph, who said, I agree with Katie. The movie version is better. It has a stacked cast at the peak of 2000s Rom com, and I loved that. It was also a retelling of Pride and Prejudice. Plus Renee Zellweger killed it. It's definitely one of my top comfort rewatch movies all year round.
[00:23:43] Speaker A: I could see that. I could see that.
[00:23:46] Speaker B: We didn't have comments anywhere else. We did have one.
[00:23:49] Speaker A: No Miko this week. Miko sat out.
[00:23:51] Speaker B: Miko sat out on this one.
We did have one vote for the movie on Threads and I forgot to tally these, but I'm pretty sure the movie won.
[00:24:02] Speaker A: Yeah. Oh, it definitely won. 4, 3, 7, 5. 12. It was 1, like 12 to 3 or something like that.
[00:24:14] Speaker B: Plus a couple people who couldn't decide.
[00:24:17] Speaker A: Right. All right, thank you all for all of your feedback. We always love hearing what you have to say and talking about it. Katie. Time now to preview the Chronicles of the Voyage of the Dawn Treader. The book.
[00:24:32] Speaker B: Are you sure you're 18?
[00:24:33] Speaker A: Why?
[00:24:34] Speaker B: Dweller Calder.
[00:24:35] Speaker A: Edmund. You're supposed to be helping me with the groceries.
[00:24:38] Speaker B: Better luck next time, eh, squirt?
[00:24:40] Speaker A: Squirt? I'm a king.
[00:24:42] Speaker B: Not in this world.
Lucy, have you seen this ship before?
[00:24:48] Speaker A: It's very Narnian looking, isn't it? What's going on here?
[00:24:51] Speaker B: E. And the painting.
Okay, first off, I just want to start off, and I'll repeat this again in the main episode because I think a lot of people don't listen to the prequels. Which is fine if you hear me call it the Dawn Treater at any point in this. Mind your business. That's how I thought it was pronounced for my entire childhood because I never heard anybody say it out loud.
[00:25:24] Speaker A: It's fascinating. No, no, there's always words like that. I can't think of anything off the top of my head, but there's definitely words throughout my life that I've been years that I read as a child in books, and then years later was like, oh, wait, what? And Obviously, examples are things like names from, like, Harry Potter and stuff. I'm not even talking about that. I'm talking about just, like, normal words, like. Like this.
And. Yeah, I.
[00:25:45] Speaker B: And I think this is still like, the only place I've encountered that particular word.
[00:25:52] Speaker A: Yes. Treader.
[00:25:53] Speaker B: Yeah, Treader.
[00:25:54] Speaker A: But, yeah, like tread.
[00:25:56] Speaker B: Right. Well, no, I know.
[00:25:57] Speaker A: Is that spelled differently? It's spelled the same way, right?
[00:25:59] Speaker B: No, it's spelled the same way. I just didn't make that connection as a kid.
[00:26:02] Speaker A: Yeah, that's also. Yeah, sometimes that can happen, too. Yeah. Your brain doesn't realize those are, like, the same. Yeah.
[00:26:07] Speaker B: So, like, the like. And I read these books a lot growing up. Like, I read all of them.
[00:26:12] Speaker A: Yeah.
[00:26:12] Speaker B: I've never read any of them. And I just thought it was pronounced traitor. Fair enough.
[00:26:19] Speaker A: That's fair.
[00:26:21] Speaker B: But the Voyage of the Dawn Treader is a portal fantasy novel for children written by British author C.S. lewis. Good old Clive Staples himself.
[00:26:33] Speaker A: You want to clarify what a portal novel is?
[00:26:35] Speaker B: A portal fantasy.
[00:26:37] Speaker A: Yeah.
[00:26:37] Speaker B: A fantasy story that involves, like, going from one world into the next.
[00:26:43] Speaker A: Just clarifying for our audience in case somebody thought it was related to the video game property.
[00:26:48] Speaker B: You know, you go through perhaps a wardrobe or perhaps a painting or a.
[00:26:53] Speaker A: Little door in your wall.
[00:26:54] Speaker B: Or a little door in your wall, you know.
[00:26:56] Speaker A: Yeah. Of course.
[00:26:57] Speaker B: This was the third novel published in the Chronicles of Narnia, but it is the fifth novel according to the series internal chronology, because C.S. lewis wrote them all out of order.
[00:27:10] Speaker A: Oh, that's right.
So this is the fifth in the order of this actual. Like, the way the story plays out.
[00:27:17] Speaker B: Yes. Yeah. It was the third one that he wrote. But if you, like, line them all up in the order that they happen. Yeah, it's the fifth.
This novel was published in 1952 in both the UK and America, but Lewis actually made edits to the text in between, like before the American version came out, which resulted in some differences between the British text and the American text. And those changes actually remained until 1994, when HarperCollins took over publication in America from Macmillan US and made the decision to use the British text as the standard for their editions.
[00:27:58] Speaker A: Is Harper Conway for some reason, do you know?
[00:28:02] Speaker B: I don't think so. I'm pretty sure that's an American publishing company.
Even Wikipedia said that it was an unusual choice.
[00:28:10] Speaker A: It's just particularly strange. I was thinking, okay, maybe it's the. If they're a British company, I could see them being like, everybody already does. The British version. We're going to keep the Older. Like, we're going to keep the original version, but it's very strange for a publishing company to be like, okay, the author made these changes, but we don't care. We're going to go back and use the original version he wrote, even though he decided he wanted to change things in it. This is interesting.
[00:28:33] Speaker B: Well, Wikipedia says that they're a British American publishing company, which doesn't.
[00:28:37] Speaker A: Yeah, it doesn't help at all.
[00:28:40] Speaker B: Thanks for nothing, Wikipedia.
Okay, where did I leave off here? Okay. The Voyage of the Dawn Treader pulls inspiration from a handful of sources aside from Christian mythology, which we know that this series is steeped in Christian mythology, but there's also a lot of other stuff going on because C.S. lewis was a big fan of that kind of mishmash.
Most notably, this novel is reminiscent of Imram, I think, is how that's pronounced. I M, M, R A M. I have no idea. Which is a genre of Irish folklore which involves a hero's journey across the sea to the underworld.
[00:29:25] Speaker A: Wow.
[00:29:26] Speaker B: And Lewis specifically drew inspiration from the medieval text the Voyage of St Brendan, with the novel's characters following the plot of St Brendan's Voyage. Almost exactly.
[00:29:38] Speaker A: Huh.
[00:29:39] Speaker B: So other notable references that you can find in the text include the story of Fafnir from Norse mythology. There's also references to Dante's Inferno, as well as Rabelais, Gargantua and Pantagruel.
[00:29:57] Speaker A: Wow. I've heard of some of those things.
Really? I mean, I've heard of Fafnir and I've heard of Dante's Inferno. I've read Dante's Inferno. I don't know what Gargantua or Pantagruel is.
[00:30:09] Speaker B: Rabelais, I believe, was a satirical French writer. It sounds French and gargantuan. Pantagruel, I believe, is like a story involving giants.
[00:30:23] Speaker A: Oh, is that one thing. Gargantua and Panel.
[00:30:25] Speaker B: Gargantua and Pantagruel. Yeah.
[00:30:27] Speaker A: I thought it was two separate.
[00:30:27] Speaker B: Which I think that's a chapter from, like, a larger text, if I'm remembering right.
[00:30:32] Speaker A: Right.
[00:30:35] Speaker B: A couple critical opinions on this. Critics. Anthony Boucher or Boucher, I'm not really sure. And also Francis. Jesse Francis McComas found the novel to be, quote, not quite up to the high level set by previous Narnian adventures. But they both singled out the character Reepicheep as one of Lewis's finest imaginings.
[00:31:02] Speaker A: Reepicheep, What a name.
[00:31:04] Speaker B: I'm pretty sure Reepicheep was in Prince Caspian.
[00:31:07] Speaker A: Sure, it could be. This is my first time seeing the words. So Once again, I feel confident. I don't, I think it was a different, a different soul inhabited me. When we watched that movie that was.
[00:31:20] Speaker B: In like either 2018 or 2019. So that was like an entire, I was sure I was a different person.
[00:31:26] Speaker A: I agree. But I remember episodes before that. I just don't remember remember that episode. I remember our discussion of, from, of like do Androids Dream of Electric Sheep? Which was like our fifth episode or whatever.
[00:31:39] Speaker B: And I don't remember that one at all.
[00:31:41] Speaker A: I, I, I say I remember it. I just have a, a memory again, I cannot stress enough how much memory hold this is that I do not have any where in my head, any experience of watching the movie or talking about it. It just does not exist in.
[00:31:57] Speaker B: Okay, all right, sorry.
Of the novel, researcher Sue Baines wrote, quote, in contrast to other Narnia books, Dawn Treader has virtually no overt villains other than the slavers in the very beginning who are quickly overcome and disposed of. Rather, the plot confronts the protagonists again and again with the flaws of their own character. And my last note here is that aside from the 2010 film that we will be covering, the Voyage of the Dawn Treader has been adapted multiple times for both stage and radio. And there was also a BBC miniseries in 1989 in which it was combined with the previous book and released as Prince Caspian and the Voyage of the Dawntrader.
[00:32:45] Speaker A: I read that when I was doing my movie research. I saw that that was the case. So cool. That is it for the book facts. Time now to learn a little bit more about the Chronicles of Narnia. The Voyage of the Dawn Treader, the film.
You've got an extraordinary destiny, something greater than you could have imagined from C.S.
[00:33:04] Speaker B: Lewis'S epic masterpiece, the fate of Narnia depends on you.
[00:33:09] Speaker A: This December.
[00:33:17] Speaker B: This place just gets weirder and weirder.
You have returned for a reason.
[00:33:22] Speaker A: Your adventure begins now.
The Chronicles of the Voyage of the Dawn Treader the Chronicles of Narnia the Voyage of the DawntReader is a 2010 film directed by Michael Apt, who's directed Amazing Grace, some episodes of the TV show Rome, the film Gorillas in the Mist, episodes of the TV show Ray Donovan, the film the World Is Not Enough, the James Bond film the World Is Not Enough, among other things. Mostly done a lot of TV primarily, and a handful of films. The film was written by Christopher Markus, who wrote Endgame, Infinity War, Civil War, Captain America, the First Avenger, Captain America, Winter Soldier, the Dark World, basically every Avengers movie from like a certain point on, he wrote on and also was a writer on Lion, Witch and the Wardrobe and Prince Caspian.
It was also co written by Stephen McFeely, who is Christopher Marcus's writing partner and has all the exact same writing credits that I just stated for Christopher Markus and a third writer, Michael Petroni, who wrote the Book Thief. The Pope's Exorcist Messiah. Queen of the Damned Messiah is a TV show. He seems to actually. I think he was like the Christian one they brought in because a lot of his stuff. I think the Book Thief is vaguely Christian. Y the Pope's Exorcist is that like Russell Crowe movie from horror movie from last year or two years ago that's supposed to be really bad. Messiah is a Netflix original TV show about Jesus coming back. But it's like. I don't know how religious it actually is or if it's. I don't know. I don't know much about it, but he was like the creator. He was the showrunner for that. I think it's vaguely Christiany Y And then, yeah, Queen of the Damned as well, which I thought was interesting.
[00:35:15] Speaker B: Yeah, that is interesting because that's, that's.
[00:35:18] Speaker A: Isn't that like one of the sequels to something?
[00:35:22] Speaker B: It's. It's in the same universe as an interview with the Empire.
[00:35:26] Speaker A: That's what I'm saying. I thought it was like in the universe or kind of a vague sequel or whatever. The film stars Georgia Henley Skanderkeens, Ben Burns, Will Poulter, Liam Neeson, Simon Pegg and Tilda Swinton, among quite a few.
[00:35:38] Speaker B: I think that should say. Ben Barnes.
[00:35:41] Speaker A: Yes, Ben Barnes. All right, Ben Burns. Who's Ben Burns?
[00:35:45] Speaker B: I don't know. I don't know that man.
[00:35:47] Speaker A: Let me look. Did I make up a person or is this somebody else that I. No, maybe that. So the lead singer of Breaking Benjamin is Ben Burnley? I think so. Maybe that's what I don't know. Ben Barnes. Yes. The film has a 49% on Rotten Tomatoes, a 53% on Metacritic, and a 6.3 out of 10 on IMDb. It made 415 million against a budget of 145 million.
So Michael Apted took over for Andrew Adamson, who had directed the first two films. After Adamson decided he didn't want to direct this one, he just stepped back into a producing role.
And then it was announced in 2008, in December of 2008, that Disney was not going to co produce this one after they had a falling out with Walden over the budget because Prince Caspian made Considerably less money than the first film did. And so Disney wanted to give them a smaller budget for this one, but Walden wanted a bigger budget.
I think Disney wanted to give him 100 million budget and they wanted like 150 million or whatever. Ultimately, as you said. I said the budget ended up being 145 million. Disney dropped out December of 2008, and then it was announced in January of 2009. So a month later that 20th Century Fox would take over as the distributor of the film. And then. Very funny. Disney would get back the rights to the film in 2019 when they purchased 20th Century Fox.
[00:37:09] Speaker B: Yep, that's the mouse.
[00:37:12] Speaker A: So a handful of IMDb facts that I wanted to share here that I thought were fun. 1400 special effects shots were made for Voyage of the Dawn Treader, which is more than are in the lion, the Witch and the wardrobe, which had 800, but fewer than are in Prince Caspian, which was 1500. During the end credits of this film, you see drawings of the characters, and those are your exact drawings, apparently pulled from the book. And that this was a tribute to Pauline Banes, who was the illustrator for the series, who passed away in 2008 at the age of 85.
This was Scander Keane's final film. Quit acting after this and went into politics. Apparently he's a Tory. I did a little bit of reading. Sounds like he comes from old money and maybe sucks. I don't know.
Seems like he might suck, but I.
[00:37:55] Speaker B: Wonder if he's a Sloan Ranger.
[00:37:58] Speaker A: Yes, I think that he might honestly fit into that. Yeah, I think.
[00:38:02] Speaker B: I think Sloan Ranger is just women.
[00:38:05] Speaker A: No, well, the images showed men, too. I think it's just that whole, like, social kind of circle type thing. But maybe, I don't know, maybe it's generally applied to women. I don't know. But there were men in those pictures. But yeah, he seems like he might suck. I don't know. I didn't do too much. I didn't do too much looking, but he's like. He's like a. He's a political analyst for, like, the Tories, so he can't be that great. Michael Apted, apparently, as when he took over to direct, decided to get rid of Prince Caspian's Spanish accent because he didn't like it and didn't think it worked for the character. So I don't remember him having a Spanish accent.
[00:38:37] Speaker B: Honestly, I don't either.
[00:38:39] Speaker A: But Ben Barnes, I. Probably not. Probably a good call to make him not do no Spanish accent.
I thought this was fun. Michael Apted was warned by both Gorb Verbinski and Peter Weird to not film on the open seas because it's just too unpredictable and too much of a pain in the ass. And so they built a giant gimbal that the ship was on set in like a water tanks so that it could rock and look like it was at sea. Gore Verbinski, for people who don't know, is the Pirates of the Caribbean director who did most of them. And Peter Weir is, among other things, the guy who directed Master and Commander Far side of the World. So. Which is a great movie and I think might be based on a book.
[00:39:20] Speaker B: So like two guys who know.
[00:39:21] Speaker A: They know. Yes. These are guys who have done. Yeah. Master Commander is an incredible movie. We gotta watch it at some point, at least for a bonus episode. If it's not a book, I think it might be based on.
[00:39:31] Speaker B: I have to check and see.
[00:39:32] Speaker A: I think it's based on a book. It's really, really good.
It might be based on like a historical. Like it might be based on a book in the sense that it's like a non. Like it might be the like the one of the people on the ship's like journal or something.
[00:39:47] Speaker B: That would be interesting. I think that done a non fiction.
[00:39:49] Speaker A: Yeah, that might be what it is. I could be wrong about that. So apparently there's a short cameo where Nathaniel Parker shows up to play Ben Barnes's father.
Caspian X, I guess is Prince Caspian's father, or Caspian, I was gonna say probably Caspian 10, whatever.
[00:40:07] Speaker B: Sure.
[00:40:08] Speaker A: But this is fun. Ben Barnes had previously played a younger version of Nathaniel Parker in the film Stardust.
[00:40:14] Speaker B: Oh, nice.
[00:40:15] Speaker A: So yeah, in Stardust, Nathaniel Parker plays whatever Ben Barnes character is as an adult.
This is the shortest film in the trilogy. Huzzah. At an hour and 53 minutes. That's the only one that doesn't pass the two hour mark. So that's fun. And then time to hit a bunch of reviews because I thought these were interesting writing for the Orlando Sentinel, Roger Moore, I don't think that one gave it three out of four stars saying, quote, it's a worthy challenger to the far more popular Harry Potter pictures. End quote. The Guardian gave it a positive review saying, quote, it arrives with confidence and bravado intact and arguably the most Tolkien esque of the Narnia books. IGN was also positive saying, quote, the Voyage of the Dawn Treader is a solid sequel that might even surpass the first entry as the best in the series for some fans. It also bodes well for the future of this once iffy franchise. End quote. Comments that age like milk. Writing for the Arizona Republic, Kari Lingle said the best thing about the film is neither the top notch CGI nor the shallow moral lessons, but the performance of Georgia Henley as Lucy as well as the performance of her and Ed Edmonds insufferable cousin Eustace Scrub, which I think is Will Poulter, I think in the movie. Writing for E. Online, Luke Thompson praised the performances, saying, quote, henley and Keens are charming as ever, and Poulter's turn as Eustace injects a welcome note of comedic cynicism into the sea of sentimentality. Simon Peg also succeeds. Eddie Izzard as Mouse Warrior Rea Cheep. Billy Brown's sorcerer Korea Kin has a fun performance in a sequence, and a sequence in which Lucy inadvertently wishes her life away is brilliantly disorienting and nightmarish. End quote.
Getting to some Christian reviews of the movie, they also liked quite a bit about it, saying the key for many was the closing scene, apparently, in which Lucy and Aslan.
Aslan assures a Lucy sobbing Aslan assures a sobbing Lucy that he's very much in her world where he has another name, and that this was the very reason why Lucy was brought to Narnia. That by knowing Aslan here for a little, she may know him better. This is impossible to read. I copy pasted this in from Wikipedia because I didn't really care to like.
[00:42:32] Speaker B: And now you're having to dissect it anyway.
[00:42:34] Speaker A: Yeah, I'm trying to read what Christian's like writing about how this is like a.
[00:42:39] Speaker B: It's Aslan, by the way.
[00:42:42] Speaker A: Aslan.
[00:42:42] Speaker B: Yeah.
[00:42:43] Speaker A: What did I say?
[00:42:43] Speaker B: I don't remember now, but you were saying it wrong.
[00:42:46] Speaker A: Aslan, probably. Yeah, Aslan. So emphasis on the second syllable. Okay.
Apparently this was in direct contradiction to the first two Narnia movies that left Christian reviewers feeling that the director had not grasped and accurately reproduced the key section and sections and themes from the first two that kind of alluded to the Christianity of it all. So they thought this one, this one.
[00:43:10] Speaker B: Alludes to the Christianity more than the other two did, supposedly, I guess, according.
[00:43:15] Speaker A: To this one weirdly written.
[00:43:18] Speaker B: I guess we'll find out.
[00:43:19] Speaker A: We'll find out. And finally, for the Chicago Sun Times, Roger Ebert praised the film, giving it three out of four stars, saying, quote, this is a rip snorting adventure fantasy for families, especially the younger members who are not insistent on continuity. End quote.
[00:43:35] Speaker B: It was kind of a backhanded comment.
[00:43:36] Speaker A: A little bit of a backhanded comment. He still gave it three out of four stars, so it sounds like it's fine. It sounds like it should be fun. As always, I wanted to remind you, you can do us a favor by heading over to Facebook, Instagram Threads, Blue Sky, Goodreads. That's the other one. Interact. We'd love to hear what you have to say about any of these movies that we watch. But, you know, especially coming up, we want to hear what you have to say about the Voyage of the Dawn Treader. There's too many words on my screen right now. I'm trying to remember what I'm saying. You can also support us by leaving us a nice little review on wherever you listen to us or by supporting
[email protected] thisfilmislit Katie, where can people watch the Chronicles of Narnia, the Voyage of the Dawn Treader?
[00:44:14] Speaker B: Well, as always, you can check with your local library. I think they probably will have this.
[00:44:19] Speaker A: One, I would think.
[00:44:20] Speaker B: Yeah, good bet. Very likely. You should definitely be able to get the book from them.
[00:44:24] Speaker A: Yeah.
[00:44:25] Speaker B: Or if you still have a little.
[00:44:27] Speaker A: Maybe if your local church has, like, a little, like, library, they would probably have.
[00:44:30] Speaker B: Yeah, maybe. Maybe so. Or a local video rental store, if you've still got one of those. Those, you can check with them. Otherwise, you can stream this with a subscription through HBO Max, or you can rent it for around four bucks from Amazon, Apple TV, YouTube, or Fandango at home.
[00:44:49] Speaker A: Yeah, I'm excited to watch this because then it'll be the second Chronicles of Narnia movie I've ever seen. So that'll be fun. But no, I. I am. I'm interested to watch it, to see if it, like, if. If anything, you know, comes back into my brain, if it reawakens anything from the second movie.
[00:45:07] Speaker B: I'm pretty excited about this. Voyage of the Dawn Treader was my favorite Narnia book, and I've actually never seen this movie, so I'm very interested to see what they've done with it. And the book also has what I consider the best opening sentence in all of literature.
[00:45:27] Speaker A: Wow.
[00:45:28] Speaker B: Personally, I know there's a lot of debate about that. This one is it for me.
[00:45:33] Speaker A: Okay, fair enough. I'm interested to hear what it is, because I have no idea. But, yeah, I think it'll be a lot of fun. Come back in one week's time. We're talking about the Chronicles of Narnia, the Voyage of the Dawn Treader. Until that time, guys, gals, not binary pals. Everybody else, keep reading books, keep watching movies.
[00:45:49] Speaker B: And keep being awesome.
