Classic City Vibes
Classic City Vibes Podcast - Conversations with people in the Athens, Oconee and surrounding communities who help make this such an amazing place to live. Learn what is going on in one of the nation’s most famous music, film and art scenes, learn about some of the amazing opportunities around us where you can be active and interact with others who have similar interests. This podcast is put out by the Athens Regional Library System where we are committed to helping build strong communities and celebrating our diversity. Engaging Communities, Exceeding Expectations.
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Classic City Vibes
The Art of Book-to-Film
Have you ever walked out of a movie theater feeling betrayed by what filmmakers did to your favorite book? Or discovered an incredible novel only after falling in love with its screen adaptation? Our fascinating conversation with Athens librarians Niké and Britton explores the delicate art of transforming written words into visual stories.
Britton is also one of the host for the podcast "Here Come the Sequels"; Check it out on all major podcast platforms.
All right, welcome to the podcast. Today we have two guests with us, nikkei and Britton. How are you today?
Speaker 2:Doing well. How are you doing?
Speaker 1:Doing good. Both of you guys work over at Athens. Britton, you're also on a podcast yourself.
Speaker 2:I am.
Speaker 1:Tell us a little bit about your podcast.
Speaker 2:It's called here Come the Sequels. We've actually been guests on the show before, so thank you for having me back, Me and my friends Tyler and Alex. We talk about movies, specifically franchises. We pick a franchise and do an episode per movie, so if you want to hear that, wherever you found this podcast, you'll find us as well. And again, that's here Come the Sequels. But that's enough self-promotion. I am here to talk about movies but not about myself.
Speaker 1:Our theme today. Before we get to our theme Nikkei, when's your podcast starting? Oh? Not anytime soon, not anytime soon.
Speaker 3:Okay, me and my friends actually have talked about it before. We do movie nights, so I guess we're all going to do movie-themed podcasts. Maybe one day you could do it. You could make it work.
Speaker 1:Do some crossover there.
Speaker 3:Yeah, come on, maybe one day, maybe one day.
Speaker 1:So, today's theme is movies, it's movies and books. Are books turning into movies? I guess we could go the other way too, but there's really not a lot of movies that get turned into books. Just like the novelizations of you know, and are they ever any good? I don't know of a single one that's gone the other way and turned out any good.
Speaker 2:Yeah, from what I understand, a lot of those are written based off of an early draft of the script, so sometimes they don't even resemble the finished product of the movie because it goes through so much editing and reshoots and everything but the person hired because it's a promotional item, the novelization usually and so they go. Oh well, in this, you know, jaws can talk, but by the time the movie comes out it's like we axed the talking shark.
Speaker 1:Thank goodness, that would have been a different movie, completely.
Speaker 3:That that would have been a different movie. That makes me feel a little bit better. I know I said that you and it probably picked it up, but I was just like you're going to make a novelization, it's not going to be the movie, but think of it as a promotional item.
Speaker 1:Yeah, I think it's more the idea. Yeah, I guess the only time that has been successful, I think the Star Wars books.
Speaker 2:Oh, for sure, yeah, yeah, which are, you know, mildly successful.
Speaker 1:They're not like Runaway, but they certainly some of them. It's like Timothy Zahn. There's a few people who like, do sell fair amount in that world, and for a while.
Speaker 2:I mean through the 90s. That was the continuing canon Before the prequels came out, and then Disney took over, like that was how people got more Star Wars Right of canon and it goes like that from movie to book.
Speaker 1:That would be the way to go. That's the way to go. That's the only way that's been successful that I can think of.
Speaker 3:That's the tip for the big producers who are definitely listening to this podcast and even that just mildly successful, because like even the Star Wars.
Speaker 2:When you're talking about favorite fantasy books, you're not going to bring up Star Wars Right, unless they're just such a Star Wars geek. Yeah, they love Thrawn so much. Yeah, exactly.
Speaker 1:So, all right, enough shade on the Star Wars series.
Speaker 2:No, no, thrawn's cool, he's got those piercing red eyes. Come on, yeah, yeah.
Speaker 1:Let's just start with kind of some of our favorite adaptations, and we'll talk about some that we hated.
Speaker 3:Then maybe we'll talk a little bit about why, why do?
Speaker 1:they work, why do they not work, and that kind of thing. So what about you, nikkei? What's some of your favorite adaptations from book to film?
Speaker 3:Book to film, I would definitely say the Hunger Games. Now, I realize we've had more Hunger Games than the original series, but strictly talking about the original series, because that's the only one I've read so far and, uh, the movies I've watched. So I think that was a very neat book to movie adaptation, like they kept a lot of the same themes, they had a lot of the same story beats and when I watched the movies I came away like, oh my gosh, that was a great movie and it was like just like the book, even if you know there was some like minor changes of course, here and there. But that is, for me, how, as a viewer, I'm like, if I come out of the movie and I'm like, oh my God, it was just like the book, I love it, then I'm happy.
Speaker 1:Yeah, those are great movies, so you were a big fan of the book. Serious though, oh, yes, oh, I love the.
Speaker 3:Hunger Games Okay.
Speaker 1:Suzanne Collins. If she is, they all are.
Speaker 3:They all are this will be a running bit when I get back, exactly.
Speaker 1:Sure, we have the best audience when you're on the case. I don't know what it is that just brings them all in they're looking for you.
Speaker 3:I feel it, I feel it.
Speaker 1:What about you, Brandon? What's one that kind of like jumps off?
Speaker 2:Yeah, well, because there are so many movies that are based on books that I haven't read that I love, so like. I love no Country for Old Men. I haven't read no Country for Old Men, but one of my big ones is Atonement, the Joe Wright movie based on the Ian McEwan novel, which I read the novel like 15 years after I saw the movie, but it had been a favorite movie for a long time and the way I always describe it is that those two things are kind of strange bedfellows, because I love the book for book reasons and I love the movie for movie reasons. There's not, there are. It's not so much that they change the ending so much as they have a kind of a different angle. I think one is a little more open-ended about how things could have turned out and another is more direct about like, yeah, this is what happened. Another is more direct about like, yeah, this is what happened.
Speaker 2:And I think that when I'm reading the book, I'm like the prose is so beautiful and it's just such a you know, it's so beautifully written, but the movie is so beautifully shot and edited and acted and scored and all of those resources are used so effectively. Then I'm like well, I like, I think they work together really well. It's not so much that I think one is better, it's just if I want to read a great book, there's the Book of Atonement. If I want to watch a great movie, there's the Movie of Atonement. And so I think that's a really neat way of not necessarily recreating the book while still being very faithful to the book. It's not reproducing it as a movie, it's just making a movie based on it, which?
Speaker 2:is still very faithful. Who was the director? Again? Joe Wright. Joe Wright was the director. Yeah, he made the Pride and Prejudice Keira Knightley movie.
Speaker 1:So he has his bona fides.
Speaker 2:He does, he does.
Speaker 3:Yes.
Speaker 1:Does it matter. You think it helps to watch the movie first and then read the book later in terms of like to be less disappointed in the product?
Speaker 3:I think it can depend. So I wish I had read Howl's Moving Castle so I could say it. But from people who have read the book and seen the movie and loved both, they say watch the movie first and then read the book because otherwise you will be disappointed in the movie. And so, having watched the movie the Studio Ghibli whole trend I loved it, it was a great movie. And now I need to go read the book so that I can also love the book and then say that everyone else's opinion is correct.
Speaker 3:But yeah, I think it kind of sort of depends on, I think, the quality of the movie too, because I feel like there's a lot of books turned into movies where I'm just ending up, like you already, I know that it's a whole different wheelhouse and, like you know, britain was saying there's like different aspects of what can be great about a film versus what's great about the book. But, um, when it's a film turned into a book and the film is like not that great, I'm just like well, you had the book there like oh yeah, you had like a pretty working product that I feel like you could have just like workshopped around.
Speaker 1:How'd you screw that up?
Speaker 3:Yeah, exactly, so I feel like you know, if it's the film itself was good, or if it's good independently of the book, like it's like if you didn't read the book, then you'll like the film because it was a good film on its own, then you can, I think, have that and, I think, percy Jackson. Now, I read the book and then watched the movies. Did you like the movies?
Speaker 1:I mean no, I didn't Exactly.
Speaker 3:But they liked it enough that they gave it a sequel.
Speaker 2:Yeah, that's true, did you? Mention it on the podcast yet there's only two of them. We usually do threes and up, oh, okay.
Speaker 1:There you go, it's coming.
Speaker 2:Yeah, it's coming.
Speaker 3:But yeah, and they made Annabeth blonde in the sequel. People complained about it. But when I got myself out of my you know I love Percy Jackson, how dare they change everything? And that was dumb. And they aged him up and yada, yada you know all that anger I was like, okay, like it's fun, I guess you know, just like as a movie, I guess it would have been better if it was, you know, based off the book, just saying but and so I guess if you were someone who got into Percy Jackson from the film and enjoyed it as a fun movie and then you got to the books, you could be like, oh my gosh, it's even better.
Speaker 1:It expanded your world Exactly, and there's more. Yeah, yeah, yeah.
Speaker 3:So I guess it can work.
Speaker 1:Right. Yeah, that's not our very good sell. Sure it might work, maybe For that one.
Speaker 2:I think, when I was younger, my thought process was well, I have to read it first, because if I read the book, I'll still watch the movie. But if I watch the movie, I'm not going to read the book because I'm already going to know what happens, which is, of course, not really always true.
Speaker 1:This is the advantage of having a bad memory by the way.
Speaker 2:Sure, I do not have this problem at all, unless I read the book five minutes before the morning of the movie.
Speaker 2:Well, now I'm at the point where if I read something and I know there's an adaptation, I have to take a long break because otherwise, even if it's very accurate, I'll still be like, no, they cut something, it'll be, it's the movie. The book is so thick in my brain and so I I feel like I mean, like, like you were saying, ok, if you love the movie as a movie, the book can just be this fun kind of supplementary material or expansion of it. And I think the opposite is true as well, because you know, when people say, oh, they ruined this thing, I always think, well, they didn't get rid of the book. Like they didn't rewrite you know, they didn't rewrite Percy Jackson Like the book is still there.
Speaker 2:It is still really frustrating to see something you love not treated with the in the way you think it should be treated, but like, yeah, the Percy Jackson book still exists and everything, and they have definitely outlived those movies. But I think for me it's it really it often depends on, like, how the movie itself looks, because there are times that I'm like I don't know if I'm interested in this story, but I want to see these actors and I like this director. So like, yeah, sure, I'll watch this movie. And then there are times when I'm like, yeah, but it's also the thing itself feels interesting enough that I would rather read the book and be curious about how it gets adapted rather than see the adaptation and be curious about the source material. It's very circumstantial, I think.
Speaker 1:Some of it, I think, is how popular and big the book is how they place it in the cultural lexicon and then you kind of expect more of an adaptation, where so many movies you don't even realize they're from books.
Speaker 3:Right, right, they're from books you never heard of or are smaller For sure.
Speaker 1:So do you ever watch a movie and learn, oh, it's about some book you never heard of, and then want to read the book.
Speaker 2:I'm sure I have. I mean, that definitely happens with theater, because I think almost every classic musical is based on a book and we don't. Now, if you say Fiddler on the Roof or Guys and Dolls, you're like, oh, the musical, you don't realize that they're based on books and you don't realize that, like the King and I and Oklahoma and all these things are based Dear Evan Hansen is based on a book. So sometimes, yes, because you do start to go well, like where did this come from? And I think I had did have that more with theater, being like, well, jane Eyre is a pretty cool musical, but what's this? What's this book? Like I heard they got a book based on it.
Speaker 1:That's crazy, that's wild.
Speaker 2:So yeah, sometimes I feel like I mean, honestly, that did happen with me with Atonement, because I saw the movie just going. I loved Pride and Prejudice. I'll see Joe Wright and Keira Knightley make another movie together, and then I later went yeah, I do want to know where this came from. So I mean, it does, it does happen for sure.
Speaker 3:I think for me it's like there will be some movies that I really really like and when I figure out their book. You know, I think, brandon, you had an excellent point.
Speaker 3:You know, even though I'm like I guess about how you know it's one's not ruining the other because the original material or the adaptation still exists as it is. But for me there's some movies that I really like as they are or really enjoyed, and then I learn about a book. I can't think of the one that's coming to my head now. It was like something recent that I wasn't planning to view. I watched with my friends the ones that I might make a podcast with, maybe one day.
Speaker 1:Next year it'll be out, yeah.
Speaker 3:And then we later learned like, oh my gosh, it was based off this book. And for me I was like, oh, I have no interest in reading the book because I like the movie and I know the books. If I'm learning about the book and that it's different, then I was interested. I like the movie and the story it gave me, so I'm not interested in a story that's different than the story I had and I think that's why for me it's such a.
Speaker 3:Similarities is where I kind of focus on, because if I liked what I liked, then I want it in the same material. Otherwise I'd be interested in it as its own separate thing. And then am I interested in it as its own separate thing? But then there are other times, like um, like you were mentioning, for like musicals and so um, wicked right, learning that it is a book and that is totally NC again now, totally different from what I've heard, um, but interesting from what I've heard about those differences. So I am interested in, uh, reading Wicked um, and I think part of it is because I know it's not gonna to be anything like the book, but what I'm hearing about the different, or sorry, it's not anything like the musical turned movie. But what I'm hearing about, what the book is about, is interesting to me, kind of because of those differences, and so that's, I guess, an example where it does work, and I think, genre plays a big, big part, because you know like romances.
Speaker 3:I forget how many Nicholas Park. I forget how many movies?
Speaker 1:romances are turned into books. I mean movies. When I was thinking about this, I was actually thinking in terms of like, how often blockbuster, like fantasy, is successful in film. How many mysteries turn into we'll say TV series in the same breath.
Speaker 2:No, yeah, yeah.
Speaker 1:How rarely, like these, blockbuster romance movies end up being big movies.
Speaker 2:Yeah, yeah, that's true, it's very.
Speaker 1:I don't know what the transition is for those. Yeah. But, it seems like they don't. You know, like Colleen Hoover, there's a movie, but it's not like this Right right that was bigger and more for the legal stuff surrounding it than it itself. So I guess it's really difficult to take, which is interesting. You wouldn't think that right Right right. Because every movie, 90 percent of movies, have a romantic element to them, so you would? Think romance would translate.
Speaker 2:Well, and also all three of us can attest to how frequently those books circulate.
Speaker 2:Certainly yeah, we're constantly seeing Huge audience. Oh yeah, those books circulate. We're constantly seeing huge audience, oh yeah. I think part of that is demographic, that Harry Potter, percy Jackson is going to have the teen audience, which is going to be very avid. Also, a lot of them have to be driven to the theater and oftentimes they're going to have a parent. So that's one of the reasons kids movies are so successful is you're buying at least two tickets because there's at least the kid and the parent, and so that's part of it, I think.
Speaker 1:And you can do things with fantasy especially. I think Lord of the Rings was kind of like that bellwether of like suddenly oh no, you can do fantasy movies.
Speaker 2:Yes, this can land right.
Speaker 1:You know those kind of visuals that lend themselves to film where in romance it's a lot of yeah that lend themselves to film. Where in romance.
Speaker 2:It's a lot of yeah, and I think sometimes people don't think to themselves oh, if I want to get the impact of this, I got to go to the theater. With a big fantasy, epic visual effects and combat and running and everything you're like. Well, I got to be in the theater to get the big screen experience. I don't necessarily need that from a romance. I would argue that theatrical experiences are useful for every type of movie, because you're that's the only thing you're doing and so even if you're seeing like a small chamber drama, you are in that room with those characters for two hours or whatever. It's not just about the big explosion, not that those aren't incredibly fun. So I think sometimes people think, oh yeah, there's this Nicholas Sparks movie or Colleen Hoover movie. Well, I'd rather watch that with some wine with my friends on the couch than, like, go to the theater. But when you know Harry Potter comes out, it's like we all got to go.
Speaker 3:For the visual effects, because you know like hey, that experience is going to be different.
Speaker 2:Yeah, that's a good point, even though like when I worked at a movie theater you know there were plenty of movies that were aimed at older audiences that we would still have very consistent, healthy turnout for those movies, because that's a demographic people don't think about, but they're very popular.
Speaker 2:And I think, like right now, with TV series, a lot of those books that also circulate, a lot like things based on Michael Connelly and Stuart Woods and Lee Child, like the Reacher TV show on Amazon, which I really, really enjoy that show. But like that is not a. I'm not interested in reading those books right now, and part of that, I think, is because that it's not really my kind of thing. But the show is like threaded a needle that I respond that worked for me so well that I'm like the show is doing what I think this should do. I don't know that I would get that reaction from the book, that I would get that reaction from the book, but anyway I think that with those it's almost like producers are going well rather than try to produce just a movie based on one of these, let's make a TV show that runs longer, and then those shows are huge hits Bosch and Will Trent and all that stuff.
Speaker 1:There's less time investment in watching a show, too, for an hour to see if you like it, as opposed to like reading a book. Yeah, yeah, that's true, that's true.
Speaker 2:When you're kind of having a similar response of like I'm reading a procedural, you know, are you going to catch the bad guy, kind of a thing.
Speaker 1:And I do. If I read a mystery or a fantasy book and I watch a movie, there's a little higher expectation that I'm kind of wanting to see that on the screen. Yeah, expectation that I'm kind of wanting to see that on the screen where, like you know, if I read Rashomon and the movie's completely different.
Speaker 2:I don't care.
Speaker 1:Yeah. Like I just view them as separate things and actually I find that a little interesting to say. Like you know, what does Godard do with King Lear?
Speaker 3:You know, is that King Lear Right?
Speaker 1:Oh, there's little pieces of it, but it's more interesting that way, because I really don't want to see another King Lear.
Speaker 3:Right, right. There's been so many of them, absolutely.
Speaker 1:Where you know Percy Jackson or pick any of those things that you love. You want to see that on the screen, kind of thing.
Speaker 2:I think it's interesting when I remember talking to somebody about one of the first of the new Dune movies and he was like that's not how I pictured it in my head and he was very upset that the movie didn't like exactly nail his imagination.
Speaker 2:And I remember thinking, well, it's kind of unfair because one like none of us are the authority on this, we're all just the audience. And like, I understand that frustration, but also like they can't get it exactly like it is in your head. Like when I'm reading a book, even if I am picturing the character very vividly, I'm not picturing like all the contours of their face. There's still kind of a fuzzy image in my head. So when they cast the actor, sometimes I might be like, oh yeah, crushed it, that's exactly who. But it's always a little bit left of what I've been imagining.
Speaker 2:And I think that is one of the really tricky things about adapting fantasy. And why there's such an investment in it is because it lives so richly in your mind and with mystery there's such a tension to it and then such a space tension that when you go into the movie you're like, well, I already know who the killer is, but are you going to give me that same rush? And I've been imagining this world in these characters, like I'm reading the first wheel of time book right now, and occasionally I'll look up what the characters look like on the show and I'm frequently going ah maybe that's not what I want to see, which is no, I've been watching the show.
Speaker 2:It might be great but, yeah, it's. It's an interesting and impossible job trying to adapt something like that.
Speaker 1:There was an article I read just yesterday. It was really interesting. It was talking about, you know, books that are untranslatable to film and how they think that's changing now with things, and they use Dune as an example, because the new Dune is like that's not a great example. This is the third.
Speaker 2:Dune yeah, yeah, yeah. And people, broadly speaking, love these new movies.
Speaker 1:Yes, they love them, the miniseries I felt was pretty well loved by the readership.
Speaker 2:Yeah.
Speaker 1:And the Lynch movie was really not liked by anyone, which is such a weird choice.
Speaker 2:There's something I think the lovable thing about that movie is. David Lynch himself, I think, is kind of where I'd sit, because otherwise it is I wonder why he did.
Speaker 1:I was always like. I wonder why he did that I was always like why did he take that? I was just like you know, that's not your gig.
Speaker 3:And if we're speaking about books that aren't translatable to movies? Or TV series well, what about book series that aren't finished yet, because we've got to bring up Game of Thrones.
Speaker 1:Oh yeah very true.
Speaker 3:I think that's a shining example of hey, let's wait for the source material.
Speaker 1:How do you feel about that as a reader, if you know eventually the series does get finished as a reader? But you've already seen like the culmination of the show. So how does?
Speaker 3:So I will be a little. I won't go into the full details for the spoilers for Game of Thrones, just because I don't know it's still big enough. Maybe somebody will want to watch it. But I will say as a reader, what was it? I read the first book and then I watched the first season like kind of ish together or like right after, and I remember thinking like, oh, that's pretty good. And then I continued. I decided, well, I'm going to wait on the show and I'm just going to continue the series.
Speaker 3:And I ended up dropping out halfway through book three because I got mad because Arya. I was like why can't she just get home like I just got so frustrated I put the book down there's a lot in those books you get.
Speaker 2:Why can't this storyline be completed?
Speaker 3:exactly. I was just like why do you guys keep making her like she's just struggling, she just wants to go home? And yet again she got like I think it was the lightning lord or whoever like just was like snatched and I was like you know what, I'm dead because I'm getting frustrated. But anyway, um, having uh my dad who was watching the show and did not read the books, um, there was like a theory about John's uh parentage, right that the show was being. Oh, I told him you read book one, you know the answer sure book
Speaker 3:one all of the details about this whole big conspiracy. I was like, I know, and that was one of those things where it was just like for me, I was like, okay, that's book supremacy, right there. But I was just like that's a great example, I think, of what you were just saying, james, about how you know, like as reading the book. If I was then to engage with the show's fandom and have them doing all that theorizing, would it be a spoiler for me to say, well, here's the answer, because the book, book one, which is what season one ends on, tells you it gives you all the details for you to know the answer of John's parentage. It's like it's pretty obvious. It's not really a secret from a reader, but for the show they didn't have all those you know little details, because that is the stuff that gets lost in translation and what I expect to be lost in translation. I don't expect them to do all the subtext and the you know the thoughts right, because a lot of it is internal.
Speaker 3:Yeah certainly what's his name, ned. It's Ned thinking and remembering what his you know sister was telling him and you know every Like. It's his thoughts and that's hard to translate, always to a film element.
Speaker 1:With very few exceptions, more people are going to see the film and series than are ever going to read the source material yeah.
Speaker 2:I think and also avoiding spoilers for Game of Thrones that I know that one of the complaints a lot of people had about the last season of that show was feeling like the ending was rushed and that they hadn't properly built up the events that happened in that. And so I could see because I think that Benioff and Weiss finished the show based on conversations and notes from George RR Martin, saying, hey, this is basically what I'm going to do, so you figure out how to get there.
Speaker 1:He's not rushed. No, he's certainly not.
Speaker 2:Not at all. It is a well-known thing on my podcast that we are all very pro. We believe in him. We're not dragging him. He's going to make at least one of the books. We love him. But I could see that if these books do have basically the same big story beats for the end, people going, oh well, you built to it better. It's not so much that you gave me a different ending, so much as you gave me a better contextualized ending. I don't know. I was fine with the way the show ended. I thought it all made sense, but speaking of things that I felt were telegraphed in the first season, I was like this is where this is going, but anyway, but she'll still so.
Speaker 1:Will you guys read the books If they ever come out? I probably will. Yeah, if he manages to finish, you know.
Speaker 3:And stops writing all those prequels. I'm talking to you, George RR.
Speaker 1:I know you're listening.
Speaker 3:But yes, if he, you know, and I think I won't be real I think it's a case of writer's block. And my mom, who is a big fan of the books and has read them like multiple times, she's like he's not finishing because of the TV show. She's like I blame the TV show. He got his ending. He said all right, y'all know how it ends, so I can work on. You know, I don't have to finish it. Actually, the eternal writer's trap.
Speaker 2:I think I definitely will Will read them. I liked those first five books. I'll, you know, spend more time with that type of writing and storytelling. Sure, my big thing is that in the book there's a character named Darkstar who never shows up in the show and he's basically an anime character and I think that's hilarious. I think it's so funny. So my friends are like why do you love Darkstar so much? I don't really love him. I love the idea that there's of shows. It's so funny.
Speaker 3:I mean like I heard, like Sansa's whole storyline is borrowed from an entirely different character like you know, which is very interesting to me because, again, as like someone who is like, generally, I'm like the book is better than the, you know like, if it's the source, then I'm always going to be a team book um, that I felt interesting because, as you know, a partial reader of the series, I guess I've read half of what the series is currently. If there's only five books, um, you know, I was not a big Sansa fan and so, hearing, though, how she developed in the show, I was like, oh, that's so interesting, I can't wait to like read and I get.
Speaker 1:And then when I'm like, oh wait, no, she borrowed all that from another character, so I'm not even going to.
Speaker 3:I'm like okay. So then where is her direction going? Because if you're telling me the same ending of the show is what is the ending of the books? Now I'm going to be very interested in how George RR builds to that, Because if she took somebody else's story in the show, I'm like okay, then how do you get her to the same ending in the books? That's like I don't know, and so now I just got to read, because I just need to see him do it.
Speaker 1:I need to see how he does it, for, like all those, characters you know. There was an interview about the Wheel of Time and Adaptation and you know that's 13, 14 books, something like that.
Speaker 2:Yeah, it's a lot of books.
Speaker 1:So basically they were saying, like there is no way for us to. Not only is there a lot of characters, but just from, even if you had all the money in the world, the idea, idea that you could get that many actors and consistently have them for that many years is like impossible. So you have to combine characters and you have to do that kind of thing because of you know who knows how many seasons.
Speaker 3:Oh yeah, so you got two more to wrap it up, and then you got to figure out.
Speaker 2:Well, how do?
Speaker 1:I write these last eight books into two kind of things.
Speaker 2:Well, that's something that I'm I don't know how they're, don't know how successful they're going to be at finishing this Harry Potter series they say they're going to make. You know, john Lithgow, who's apparently going to play Dumbledore, has some quote like I'll be 80-something at the wrap party and I'm like I love John Lithgow so much. But I was also like, yeah, that that's that's assuming that you are able to do eight seasons like one after another, which there was a time when we could have like tv shows on a schedule. And now, obviously in the last few years, there's a pandemic and there were strikes and there's a lot of things delaying shows. But you know, we saw this with Stranger Things, where the kids looked so different because they grew up so much between seasons.
Speaker 2:Yeah, that could happen with. It happened with the Harry Potter movies a little bit, but those movies were also very consistent in coming out. And so, yeah, when you're taking on this huge, like, it's a lovely idea to think we're going to get, you know, eight seasons or seven, whatever it is of the series that I love and we're going to see all this detail. But you think that that's also a lot, and how many episodes of each season are going to be and like you have child actors right and like, at any point one of those actors could drop out for whatever reason, or, you know, there's some kind of.
Speaker 1:Are y'all Harry Potter fans?
Speaker 3:I feel like Britain, as from hearing you guys talk about it in Cirque, you might be a little bit of a bigger Harry Potter fan than me. I am. I read the series, you know, as a kid liked it, watched all the movies, aside for the very last one because I got mad, because I was like why? Harry Potter, I think, was the first one I remember to do it where the final movie right was split into two parts.
Speaker 3:And I was like you guys, I at the time, what was I like 13, 12. I was like capitalism, like you guys just want to make another movie for no reason, absolutely no reason. You just want to take us to the theater again. So I was mad. I was like I'm not watching part two of Deathly Hallows, and then I forgot to come back to it when I was like less mad. So now I got to. You know, I'm going to do it one day.
Speaker 1:But yeah, I liked him. But as you crunching that big book down into two hours, they broke it into two movies, so they could actually do a closer job.
Speaker 3:See, I don't know, I got to go back and watch because I feel like he started the trend, because, you know, then Twilight was breaking down, part one, part two, and now you have.
Speaker 2:Hunger Games did it too.
Speaker 3:Hunger Games. Like you know, I was just like do all of these movies, the final acts, do all of All of them really need to be two parts? And you know, maybe I'll go back to Harry Potter and I'll be like never mind, you were a pioneer because you knew the story needed it and everyone else didn't. Just like I don't know. Maybe a little bit of a cash grab Because I will say, breaking Dawn, it could have been just a single movie, but I will say that was to kind of, I think, pivot a little bit. That was a great example of how you know for movies they usually have that turning point Dark Knight of the Soul, final Battle, you know that sequence. And Breaking Dawn as a book does not have it and they filmed the perfect way. I think as a big, big Twilight fan in my teenage years, so you had a high bar, so that's good, oh yeah.
Speaker 3:And I used to hate Robin Pattinson because I was like he's not hot enough to be Edward.
Speaker 1:That was strictly it.
Speaker 3:I was like people's going to be Team Jacob watching the movie because they don't know they're supposed to be Team Edward because it's not hot enough.
Speaker 1:Now Robert listens to this. We're sorry.
Speaker 2:He also, if I know anything about Robert Pattinson and I don't he's probably heard you say that and went. Yeah, that's true.
Speaker 3:No, I love our president. Like you know, the Batman was enough, but I mean I like him.
Speaker 2:He's a diamond. I grew up.
Speaker 3:But anyway they had a great. You know Breaking Dawn did not have that. It was like very much like you're in the final tense scene with, you know, the Volturi and you know like the Cullens, and you're like, oh no, the tension and then it just dissipates in the book, which is good because it has to, because otherwise you're not going to get your happy ending. But in the movie they make it where they do have that final battle sequence and it's all vision. So you still get the consistency with the book.
Speaker 3:And a lot of people who saw the movie, or really only knew the movie, they hated it. They were like, oh, that's such a cop out, that's a fake or whatever. And I'm like, no, it's you what. The movie needs that final sequence, because otherwise the movie is just like you know, it's like it's building to something and then just whoosh, collapses and it's just like. I feel like it would have been a poor movie to not have it that way and I don't know. I just thought it was very clever and a great example of how books and movies differ as storytelling structures.
Speaker 1:Clockwork Orange, for me, is kind of like that. I prefer that the movie leaves off the final chapter and the final chapter in the book. It's kind of like there's a lot of ambiguity going into that final chapter and the author is just kind of telling you, like sure, what to do with that and the movie doesn't.
Speaker 3:Yeah, I like that.
Speaker 1:So that you know, but very much an artistic kind of choice there, as opposed to like a financial kind of decision kind of thing. One percent before we go. Yeah, I just want to ask as a Harry Potter fan, this is very unique that like people love the books, people love the Harry Potter movies. How do you feel about creating something that's already been done so well, which really doesn't happen?
Speaker 3:all that often In the TV series.
Speaker 1:Yeah, right the TV series, right the TV series versus the movies.
Speaker 2:Quickly I will say I've never cracked a Twilight book. I saw the first one a million years ago and I saw the final one for the podcast and I thought it was so funny when they did this whole. It's a violent fight, people are king-konging people's heads. And then they went uh-uh-uh, that was all pretend. I thought that was so funny.
Speaker 1:So you loved it too. I loved it in a completely different way.
Speaker 2:I had no investment whatsoever and I would say I was a huge Harry Potter fan as a child. Presently I'm playing the Hogwarts Legacy video game and having a lot of fun with that. As a game, the Harry Potter thing is very much a. It's like oh, I can appreciate that nostalgically from my memory, sure gotcha.
Speaker 2:I think that what's really interesting to me about the movies, to me, are not these like hallmarks of cinema, whereas I think the Lord of the Rings movies did create this kind of turning point, and I think those are the trilogy brilliantly, brilliantly made movies, adaptation or otherwise. I think they're just extraordinary. And the Harry Potter movies I think are fine. I only saw the first five but like I recently rewatched one and two and I thought, man, if you haven't read these books, these movies are, there's so much in this movie that like if you. When I saw him as a kid I was like yeah, this is on the book and I'm seeing it, but he hadn't read it. You're like there's centaurs. Now what is happening? I thought what is going on? There's so much happening and I think with the show and a lot of people are having this reaction to it and now that more casting is coming out. People are starting to have, like the implication of, that is a little odd.
Speaker 3:Oh, yeah, snape's casting.
Speaker 2:That's some interesting ideas, which it's like the creators are going. We fixed it. Wait, we made it worse, but I think that I'm ignorant. What is the? They've cast a black actor to play Snape, which is, on its face, not a bad idea, right? Except that part of the backstory of Snape is that he was bullied by Harry's dad for being poor and having weird hair, and so if they're going to do this thing where Harry Potter's dad was picking on a black kid, it's like ugh.
Speaker 3:Who then, you know, becomes basically their version of a Nazi Right.
Speaker 2:I mean he's secretly not Spoilers, I guess. But there is this. It's a tricky. It's a tricky thing. Now I'm sure the actor will do a lovely job. None of this is about that. This is a particular instance where it's a little more complicated, I think.
Speaker 3:Yeah, as a director or something like that you probably know going in like going in, like you're not going to win every fight, oh for sure.
Speaker 1:And so we're wondering if they're going to also like change features about his backstory, because I mean like you know, yeah, snape, what like the thing about it is?
Speaker 3:I don't think it's a spoiler. This is Harry Potter, right? Like it's been long enough.
Speaker 1:He's either in it or he's not.
Speaker 3:He's not, but he is, he is. And then, what is it? Lily dies, you know, and it Lily dies.
Speaker 1:And it's.
Speaker 3:Lily, to be clear. So this is also now Snape, who is super in love with, who is probably going to still be a white woman and he's a black man now, and then it's her death that then causes him to stop supporting the supremacist, the wizard supremacy organization. That's not really a great look from out of context.
Speaker 1:But as a reader, do you want them to change it? Now that you know a reader, do you want them to change it Now that you know the casting? Do you want them to make those changes so that there aren't these kind of like unintended kind of?
Speaker 3:consequences. I would actually appreciate some changes with Snape's character, because what we're supposed to get at the end of it right, and this is also Snape will just pull out a bully of a child because your dad was.
Speaker 2:Your mom didn't like me.
Speaker 3:Yeah, because your mom didn't like me and your dad, like it's an incel kind of narrative almost, but the fact that I would like some changes. If you want Snape to have the ending where Harry's supposed to name his kid after this guy and we're supposed to see him as a decent figure, when, if you actually think about it, like from a outside of, what the narrative is telling me is like I don't really know if I'm supposed to be cheering this on. This seems like you're trying to make it like it was all A-OK, but it kind of wasn't. If you think about it. I would love some changes because then you can make the him naming his kid after him and you know all that makes sense and be like oh yeah, it is A-OK.
Speaker 1:I'm happy.
Speaker 3:So I don't mind if they improve Snape's character to make him a better person, the way they want us to view him as at the end.
Speaker 2:Because of the ending, because initially he's viewed as a tragic hero because he decided to stop being bad, whereas here they could make him more. He's tragically misunderstood or something. But what I think is interesting about this is that one of the selling points of the show, when they first announced it, was this is going to be a more faithful adaptation of the books. We are going to give you more accuracy, because I never felt like the movies were that or any of the changes they made were. So it's not like Ron dies in the third one or something.
Speaker 3:You know they don't do a huge change.
Speaker 2:They just kind of consolidated some things and maybe towards the end of the book because I didn't see the end of the movies maybe they did start cutting things out and, you know, shortening it. Oh, y'all haven't done those on the podcast they did, tyler and Alex did, but I wasn't on the show for that, that was. I went on hiatus and came back. So I've Just so I don't want to deal with all that Come on y'all Not Harry Potter again.
Speaker 1:I'll be back for Godzilla Literally.
Speaker 2:I did come back for Godzilla.
Speaker 1:Oh, did you really? Oh, it was worth it.
Speaker 2:Well, technically I guess I came back for Twilight.
Speaker 2:But we have since done Godzilla and I love him so much. But that, I think, is such an interesting idea that they were like it's going to be a more faithful adaptation of the book. Great, except it wasn't that unfaithful before. Yes, and here are all the things that were. All decisions are making that will possibly force us to make it different, which I don't mind, a different imagination of the story.
Speaker 2:When we have these movies that people love and these books that people love, and now here's this kind of other interpretation of it. To me it's all just too soon at this point if someone says, hey, we're making another treasure island, yeah, that's been around for years and yeah, make it different. You know shakespeare, people reimagine it all the time, like that's totally fine by me. I think some of those are good examples of times where you go oh, I've seen christmas carol and treasure island and alice in in Wonderland and Wizard of Oz imagined in so many ways, but I've never actually read the book. So then sometimes you do go oh well, let me actually go and read Christmas Carol. I mean, I did a few years ago and it was really funny, like I really enjoyed it.
Speaker 2:And so I think that when a book has been around for long enough, it's fine to mess with it and change it around, because you have a thousand. There's tons of pride and prejudices, there's tons of Jane Eyres and everything. So when you but Harry Potter is still very it's younger than I am I was 10 or 11 when the first one came out, I think. So that's what it felt so odd to me about it. Obviously, the driving force is Warner Brothers has this license, they have this IP Copyright protection. Yeah, exactly, they get to retain the copyright and they're like well, this will make money. However it goes, it's going to make us money, at least initially, and it could turn out great. I mean, I might be eating crow, however long it takes them to make it. Even if it doesn't, they're going to make money, completely, completely.
Speaker 3:It's interesting for me because it feels like Harry Potter got to already, like you said, already have the pretty faithful movie adaptation and everything, and I'm over here sitting about Percy Jackson and you know, the TV series and let's get a good one, right?
Speaker 1:is that what you want?
Speaker 3:well, yeah, and then you know, the TV series is just so different.
Speaker 2:And Rick Riordan, yeah, different from the books, from the books, from the books. Oh interesting.
Speaker 3:And Rick Riordan, though he said, like he was doing the TV series, the way he would write the books now, and it's interesting because I'm like I don't know if I would like the books you write now, You're like please don't.
Speaker 3:Yeah, but at the same time, you know, I learned about Percy Jackson and I'm like, so I'm going to read those for sure, because I always read it as Percy. I deliberately did not read the Trials of Apollo because that first chapter it was at the end of Heroes of Olympus series and I read it and I was like, oh my gosh, I'm so excited. And in that first chapter there was a sneak preview Apollo's like okay, percy, can you help me, and he's not going to be in here. I'm also out, exactly, I was also out. So anyway, but yeah, the TV series is like way different than the book and it's not trying to be, and I'm like, well, we could even be Harry Potter and get like the faithful movie adaptation, then I wouldn't you know be.
Speaker 3:I think as disappointed as a fan and you know to go into other disappointing things because I said I was definitely going to rag on Aragon. Oh, yes, oh my gosh, what was it the most? Uh, I think one of the most uh known facts about Aragon's movie is like they gave the dragon feathers. I think it's like the thing that's known for people who are not familiar with the property at all.
Speaker 2:Don't nobody tell Nikkei about dinosaurs.
Speaker 1:I know right, let her dream. Right, let me dream. It's a different episode, that was not my you know my main critique of the film.
Speaker 3:The film was just.
Speaker 1:No one liked that film. No one liked the film. It was a bad film.
Speaker 3:It was a bad adaptation, but I do think Eragon and the whole inheritance cycle, that is one of those series that is hard and I don't think really maybe can be adapted because there's so much that is slow periods, periods that would be montages in a film or even a TV series. Like Aragorn, in either book two or book three he's like in the desert trying to, I think, get his cousin. If I remember correctly, he's in that desert. I don't know how long he was in that desert, for I was eating it up as an 11-year-old. I was like, oh yeah, I'm reading like, oh my gosh, how is Aragorn going to survive? If I had to watch that as a TV or a film for as long as he was just in that desert, that one little sequence alone, I would be in agony. I would be like this is boring. I'm seeing the same thing over and this is like a Life of Pi, but it's only one part. Life of Pi was great, by the way. I'd never read the book. It's a beautiful book.
Speaker 3:I want to read the book because I've heard great things. I saw the movie.
Speaker 1:I was like, oh my gosh this is a magical experience I've done both and they are both great. They are both great.
Speaker 3:Okay, it's on my list for this year, but it'd be like that you know long and now just imagine that's one part of a bigger story or movie. That's not the story, that is just one part it was. So I really don't think that Inheritance Cycles there's two. He does very much the I think that a lot of adult fantasy does where the journey is so extended and you get into so many of those small details and there's like so little action.
Speaker 1:Which is a reader you love, which is a reader I love, which is a video I love and you know it works because I can read about him learning how to do magic.
Speaker 3:If I'm watching him how to do, learn how to do magic, I'm watching him like, do it, you know, over the course of months, right as just becomes you know. I mean, I mean, I need you to learn how to do it. Get to the fight like, go, like, make that a montage. I do not think those books translate well all.
Speaker 1:So you're not going to get excited if you hear someone is adapting those because you're going to be like that's not going to work. I don't care who directs it.
Speaker 2:Well, that's an interesting one, because they haven't to my knowledge they haven't announced that one, and that's still a very popular series. It circulates frequently.
Speaker 3:He just came out with another one.
Speaker 2:Yeah, people really do enjoy it, and so it's interesting that there isn't a studio that is actively getting that pushed forward in some way. I mean and.
Speaker 2:I'm fine with that. Like I read the first book and I'm not connected to it the way other people are. But I think that's in a way kind of refreshing that it's like oh, this is presently just a book and we can just let it be that. I frequently on my show like we just did the Maze Runner movies recently and none of us have read those books. But Tyler would look up stuff on Wikipedia and goes guys, I think we, I think this is better, I think we did a good job not reading the books. This sounds crazy.
Speaker 3:But of course you never know until you're actually experiencing it. Oh, Sean hears this Eyes go to it.
Speaker 1:Those are. Those books are for real young readers that write, if I'm remembering, I'm not, I have no idea. I know they're YA, it's like a YA, but they might skew younger YA maybe I was thinking, maybe they were like J books, which I think it's harder to make oh, for sure you know something interesting for adults that's coming from a J area I love.
Speaker 3:I loved the first Maze Runner. It was a fun movie.
Speaker 2:The third one's surprisingly good. We were all kind of like, wait, this is like a real movie. What's happening?
Speaker 3:But Sean is one of our coworkers at Circulation. He read the book series.
Speaker 1:He loved it.
Speaker 3:He loved it, and when he saw the first movie he was like no, I'm out. He's like this is not the same at all. And I think that was the first movie series I ever read, oh no, the first movie I ever watched, and I hadn't read the book first.
Speaker 2:And I remember feeling guilty, I remember thinking that's why I never finished the movie series, Because I was like I have to go back and read the books before I watch the rest of the movies, and that's why I never.
Speaker 2:One day I'll be on a podcast and James Dashner will listen to it and be so disappointed in me, I'm sorry, james, I really distinctly remember reading Holes, the Lewis Sacker book, like reading the book the night before my family and I went to see the movie Okay, and really enjoying both, and I think that's another one that both have survived really well and people respond to both really positively. But some books, I think, are like the right length where you can go. Yeah, we can pretty much adapt this into a movie and we don't have to cut too much or add too much. Like this is, we can pretty much just do this thing, because frequently you are looking at stories and going, all right, this can't fill a movie, we got to pad it somehow, or this is not going to, this is way too much, or you know what have you?
Speaker 1:What movie were you most disappointed in? Oh, that was adapted from a book. Oh wow. This probably has to be Eragon for me, eragon for you, even though your expectations for going in were they, did you think of it? This is not a filmable thing. Before or after you saw it, you're like wait a minute.
Speaker 3:I'd heard it was bad so I knew not to be excited going in. But I didn't know how bad it was and as like I wrote fan fiction for Eragon like I was deep.
Speaker 1:Oh, I was deep into it.
Speaker 3:I, like you know, studied the ancient language and like what it was based off of. You know to create new words, like I was.
Speaker 1:I was an Eragon fan they weren't gonna make you happy.
Speaker 3:Oh no, they never were but at least as a fan, I knew like after I got the movie and I was like, oh yeah, I know crap, it wasn't even a good movie. Like I said, it wasn't even a good movie.
Speaker 3:I was just like you could have at least made it a good movie. But then I thought about it and I was like you know what, after reading these books and everything and the reason I wrote the fanfiction was because I was waiting so long for the fourth one to come out I said I'll write it myself in the meantime. But yeah, I think that was when it didn't. I didn't see the movie and think they could have done it better. Well, they could have, but I didn't think like I want them to try again, like I wish we didn't. You know, like with Percy Jackson, I was like man, why did they have to make those movies so not faithful? Because now we don't get to have a faithful adaptation. And it could work With Eragon. I was like you guys, I was like this this is a book, it is a book and it works as a book and I do not think it could ever work as a film and be the same thing.
Speaker 1:Could you watch it as a film if it wasn't trying to be the same thing? If some director you know Alatar is coming and he's going to do whatever it's for, I think I could, I think there's a lot of interesting things to do.
Speaker 3:But, like I said, aragon is just so like someone who's not interested in that sort of like. He goes by and he like takes you through like the whole growth of the hero, like through every little, like even little things that you know usually aren't interesting about life. You get to see him do in the books and I'm just like I don't know as a film if that really works, you know.
Speaker 3:So I think, somebody taking it and doing something totally new or like just somehow taking that story, it's just a colonel's uh-huh and then doing, I think it could, his dragon right, it's dragons, it's magic itself fighting an evil king despot like come on people cool elements. That's why people still love the series, even when they get in and realize like, oh, those are like colonels. I think, I think I would be interested to see someone try it in a new, just way out there. Yeah, Just rewrite it themselves, Like essentially rewrite the story to fit for a film or a TV series. That would be interesting actually.
Speaker 1:What about yours, your least your?
Speaker 2:most disappointing. Yeah, most of mine are based on musicals of movie adaptations, but I will Before I get my real answer. The other Eragon of movies is Golden Compass, the Philip Pullman, and. I haven't watched the series, but I've heard the TV show is a lot better. That's a difficult story to adapt. More in terms of the themes of it, I think Philip Pullman does a beautiful job with it, but it's tough to figure out like okay, this has some very adult themes but it is for kids. So how do we kind of weave all that together?
Speaker 2:Recently I read a few years ago I read Station Eleven, the Emily St John Mandel book, and it just like completely undid me. I thought it was so beautiful and I loved it so much. And very soon after finishing it I started the miniseries which I'd read very good reviews of and very quickly I went this does not feel right, I have to drop it. It just is really not and it was changing events and it was telling the story differently and that show is made by very talented people and there's brilliant actors in it and I think it was largely a case of I watched it too soon after the book. I needed to forget the book a little bit, but I think it was also the thing of well, I'm not so much bothered by you doing events differently as I am. This just feels so different from the way the book felt, and the way the book felt was so strong, and that is a very like.
Speaker 2:Maybe this feeling is exactly what the writers and the directors of the show got when they read the book. It's just not what I felt, and so that I didn't even finish the series. I watched a couple episodes and there was one character that I was like I can't listen to you, you're scraping my brain. So I'm just not going to deal with this anymore, which is a shame, because, you know, mackenzie Davis is one of my favorites and she's the lead, but that's one that I may try to do again at some point. But I just was. It was it just yeah, I just felt so. So I don't say wrong, but so pale compared to what I got from the book.
Speaker 3:And speaking of pale ones, to go with one that I was not expecting already to be disappointed home, the. I think it's a Disney Pixar film.
Speaker 2:Oh, that's a DreamWorks, is that with Rihanna? Thank you, isn't that?
Speaker 3:Yeah, I think so. So the DreamWorks film Home is based off of a children's book. So now we're getting into children's the True Meaning of Smekte. I read that as a kid. I loved it. It was like a very high quality. And then when I saw the film I was like, oh, you've watered everything down, everything Like.
Speaker 3:I'm just like you just made it a little sanitized, like oh yeah, yeah, and I'm just like, like, but it's like there were like such deep themes and I feel like, as, unfortunately, with a lot of children's books you can get away with it not being anything like the adaptation, because you're a kid, right, you know like there's there's so many children's books that get at, uh, get adapted and it's like did the kids even read it or do they even remember it? The same, or they just, you know, they're just liking everything.
Speaker 3:but they just want to see the characters again yeah, yeah, home was one of the I think the ones actually that disappointed me, because I wasn't expecting it and I was just like you have turned. I'm just for people who have never read the book. They're going to see home and hear that it's based off a book and not understand that the book is like, it's good, it's deeper and it's more meaningful and it's more touching and the story that the book is like it's good, it's deeper and it's more meaningful and it's more touching and the story about the mom and the daughter, like it's just so, like it gets you right in the feels.
Speaker 3:And Home didn't have that at all and it was very interesting. The way I, you know, I almost want to go back and read the True Meaning of Spectate, just so that I'm correct in knowing that I'm fully correct in being like, oh, you guys just sanitized the heck out of it. It was already a true story.
Speaker 1:I think if you're going to for me, for films I'm interested in, it's either going to be a faithful adaptation of something I love or something that's going to be a little more risk-taking as opposed to what you're talking about. All the cuts are to make it watered down or whatever. That's the worst way to go with a film. I would rather you miss trying something crazy. What is this? That's better than going. What's this?
Speaker 2:There's more, that they're taking the book as an inspiration and a jumping off point to do their own meditation on that thing. Rather than going. Well, we're going to do. I think I Am Legend, the Will Smith movie is, and World War Z I will carry that banner.
Speaker 2:Those are both stories and I've read the I Am Legend book. I really really enjoyed novella, the I Am Legend book I really really enjoyed novella. And that's a very like ponderous, this guy just sort of feeling about he's the only person left alive and there's vampires yelling at him and stuff. And it was a beautiful book and the movie is a Hollywood action movie and there's nothing wrong with being a Hollywood action movie, I love those but that you realize like, oh, you just took the premise and the title and did your own thing and I think World War Z did the same where the book is this epistolary retelling of how a zombie apocalypse spread throughout the world and all these different places and all these different classes of people experiencing it, and the movie is Brad Pitt's running from floods of zombies, which does sound really fun. Did it work? Did you like the movie? I don't remember. I mean, I did see it and I don't remember responding to it very well, and so I think that you're talking about Aragon, when you also OK, I get that you're not even really trying to adapt the book literally, but also just didn't pay off as a movie. You're kind of like, well, at this point, what do we have? When you have two things that are very different but work as their own things, it's like, okay, well, I can take that, this is just a different entity. But when, yeah, you didn't even make a movie that paid off, it's like, well, why did you do this? Or why did you need this title?
Speaker 2:I remember All the Light we Cannot See is a book that I really really loved, and then they made a miniseries of it. Recently I was reading a review of it by Daniel Feinberg, who's a critic I really love, and he was like I don't know why, why, why is this so different? Like, why is it so hard to adapt the story? You know it doesn't make sense. And he had talked about the Percy Jackson show and talked about like, well, if you want more accuracy, da, da, da. But here's the thing Even if something is really accurate, does that mean that the acting is good and the directing is good and the editing is good? Does the dialogue? Even if the dialogue is fine, when you're reading it, does it sound weird coming out of an actor's mouth in a movie? So, yes, then I don't think accuracy is the only thing that matters in adapting something. It's also about understanding what is this story trying to communicate, and then can we also make just a well-made movie out of it.
Speaker 1:It's a different medium.
Speaker 2:Exactly, it's a different medium, like Aragon.
Speaker 1:There's things you just can't do in film but there's also things you can do in film that you can't do in a book that's where you need to go what a book does.
Speaker 2:Primarily it does through language, almost exclusively, obviously, picture books and graphic novels, and there are house of leaves and stuff, but ultimately what it's doing, it's doing through writing. And you can take a full page to read a description of a room and the history of the room and how the room looks and the tear in the chair and all this other stuff. But then a movie can just show you the room. Yeah, not because it's shallow, but because they're like we can communicate everything here, because a movie also does through acting and music and editing and production design. And you could look at that as saying, oh, a movie has it so much easier, they've got all these other tools. But you could also say, yeah, a movie has to juggle all of that stuff to try to make one cohesive thing Well, it's also a book, I can direct you Right.
Speaker 1:Cohesive thing Well, it's also a book, I can direct you Right. Very specifically, yes, even with a film, when I'm showing a scene where there may be some symbolic things I'm trying to convey, well, the audience may not even get that, even catch it, yeah.
Speaker 3:So how do you translate that symbolism? So it can be tricky. Yeah, completely.
Speaker 2:And I think that's why something like Atonement sticks out to me where I go. Yeah, both of these work, because this is a movie and this is a book and I can appreciate those things as independent art forms and that's why I think Lord of the Rings. I know there's tons of stuff they cut and changed, but how are you going to?
Speaker 2:you know those books are massive Again, fantasy being so big, oh it's so yeah, but then readers of the diehard fans of those books are still big fans of the movies because they go, yeah, but they ultimately got it.
Speaker 1:Yeah, yes.
Speaker 2:Fundamentally, they understood what this feels like and looks like. They got the important stuff and it still feels like that precious thing.
Speaker 1:And it does. To me. It feels like that those films are kind of like a turning point in like book adaptations for certain types of books, like before that, and then after that it's very different worlds and a lot of that's not just peter jackson, it's the technology that was coming on. Now there's a lot of factors to it, yeah, but it does seem like like an important. Whether you like it or not, it's definitely an important.
Speaker 2:Oh, completely cultural, yeah and now and I don't know which one jumped this off but now turning books into series, I think is such a huge thing because creators are realizing oh well, we actually have the time to tell this story. Which you couldn't do in a movie Right, and sometimes they can still feel like, do we need 10 hours to tell this story? And sometimes you know there's all kind of different and you have like the Handmaid's Tale, which does the book in a season and then keeps going and then yeah like however many seasons there are of that just kind of doing its own thing.
Speaker 2:My wife loves that series. I watched the first season and enjoyed it. I just have never gone back to. I do want to because I did like it and I love the book, but it's, it's interesting now but there's a book I love and it's not 20 volumes or whatever.
Speaker 1:I usually would prefer the movie so I can see it in the theater Sure. And there is kind of like a certain you know. If things go on season after season, there is a difficulty, even with the best actors and the best directors and the best writing, to keep that engaging. Oh, completely so for me personally like if it's a book I love and it's not too massive yeah yeah, then I'm more excited for a movie yes, than a tv series, a lot of tv series.
Speaker 3:They run into the issue where it's like when do they end?
Speaker 1:and a book has an end, so if you're gonna, be a tv series.
Speaker 3:It's like okay, you understand, like that there's an end point, right and and if you drag the narrative on too long, then now it can be like, okay, what are we doing here? You know, the story was over.
Speaker 1:I guess you see that a little, but we haven't really talked about this.
Speaker 2:But like comics oh my god, movies which yeah all the Marvel stuff, but that's never.
Speaker 3:That's kind of like a TV series comics are like, they're always like, yeah, and they're everybody's always dying and coming back and like it's like you know kind of thing they're eternally having to recreate things and I think the uh animated films for the dc um yeah you yeah are a great example. I just I, literally just last week um watched the crisis on infinite earths that they had the final like that trilogy. I thought it was great. It made me almost want to read the comic. And then I I remember the comic is set like what originally in the 70s.
Speaker 3:Yeah, and I was like it's probably not going to get the same feel, but every single end of their series sets up for the next revamp of the new movie series. So this is, of course, one of them as well. But I found it very interesting. Now, as a comic fan a big one for DC I know all the characters, I know most of their lore and everything. So when I'm going in I'm like, oh, this is great, that little callback and this and that I'm understanding everything.
Speaker 2:You're not like. I can't wait to see what Uncle Ben gets up to Exactly.
Speaker 3:But, as you were saying, britton, for that other movie, like if I went in for Harry Potter, for Harry Potter, if I went in totally blind, knew nothing about comics, and I just started watching the current. Well, I guess current is like ending, but that current DC animated movies, like where they are from the first one they had I think it was Superman or Batman, I can't remember and then to the end of Crisis, I'd be like confused. And it's so funny because the first movie was very, very confusing for me because it starts with Barry Allen as the Flash. He's time tripping, so like the movie is non-sequential, like you're having him start somewhere and then go back in time and then go forward and back and forward.
Speaker 3:And I was confused. I was like am I missing a movie or something? Is this a whole? I didn't even understand that that was a whole movie at first. Is this a whole? I didn't even understand that that was a whole movie at first. I was like are we going to get the actual consistent plot? And then he's just going to be doing this, and then I was like oh no, that is the movie him doing this and at some point I was like, oh wait, I understand, it worked actually.
Speaker 3:Now that's again someone who has all that knowledge.
Speaker 1:I cannot imagine being totally blind, going in and being like I understand what's happening, or at the end of the movie I'm like that was dumb. It was dumb and stupid and I don't like it. I think that's a good example the way I talked about the difference between animation and like a regular film, like I feel like they can take more chances with animation, like if you try to make that into a movie, the budget is humongous there's a committee making those decisions and like to make you know I grew up reading Green Lantern, sure, yeah, so if you've seen the Green Lantern movie, it was one
Speaker 3:of the worst movies ever. Oh, I'm so sorry. Yeah, it was no big deal, but I was like you know, but you know you have to.
Speaker 1:There's so much money invested in making a live action with an animation. I mean there's still a lot of money in it, but you can right yeah.
Speaker 2:I mean the Spider-Verse movies are the perfect proof of that extraordinary, and how to Train your Dragon, which now they're trying to make into a live action shot for shot, yes, you were literally just saying that.
Speaker 1:I hate, shot for shot. I don't understand them.
Speaker 3:Yeah, completely they showed one where it was like the branch hitting hiccup and they showed the live action and they were like this doesn't even make sense. And I was like well, no, if you see the animated, it actually is. Like you know, you pushed a branch and you see the whole effect of the branch coming back.
Speaker 3:And in this it just like it's like magic, you know, and I'm like, oh, my goodness, you can't even, because it makes it just like you were saying James, animated effect in a way that now, remember, you can't hurt the actor either. There's so many real life shots and things Stupid. Protecting the actor's rights and everything.
Speaker 1:We hate OSHA.
Speaker 3:But that's the truth right. If you're going to, you can't recreate, or what was it? There's a perfect example. We're getting a little bit off topic talking about comics, but James Gunn, he just released the.
Speaker 2:Superman.
Speaker 3:No the animated Creature. Commandos. Thank you, creature Commandos. There's a fight scene in Creature Commandos which is and he did that, you know, as part of the DC Universe and the live action movies. But he made that one a TV series that is animated because of those rules, because there's a fight sequence in there that is so cool you could never, absolutely never, recreate that live action. You would be. Somebody would be hurt severely.
Speaker 1:There'd be a lawsuit.
Speaker 3:And so that's just. It's limiting in a way, and it's good that it's limiting, to be clear, of course.
Speaker 1:Sure, of course we were joking. We respect actors' rights.
Speaker 3:We love you, osha, if you're listening. We respect actors' rights. We love you, osha, if you're listening. You know, like and I, the fact that I think there's so many other movies or books that could be translated better if they went with animated movies or animated TV series and especially, of course, with comic books.
Speaker 1:but, like just regular books.
Speaker 3:So much fantasy would be beautiful and instead there's that idea to make it live action because it's, you know, there's still an idea in Western culture that animation is for kids.
Speaker 2:Right.
Speaker 3:And all those you know things.
Speaker 2:One that we want to see are fan cast actors in the thing In the thing and it's just like.
Speaker 3:well, I wonder, is there any? I know, james, you're the one asking questions, but now I'm curious are there any like books that have become movies or TV shows where you were like oh, I wish you made it animated instead, or it would have worked better?
Speaker 2:I mean honestly, a lot of some of these live-action superhero movies get to a point like I remember watching the second Aquaman movie and being like this is animated. That's a CGI Jason Momoa and a CGI Nicole Kidman. It's more quote-unquote, realistic, realistic looking CGI, but it is ultimately animated. I think with superheroes it's a tricky thing to adapt because these are characters that have been around for almost 100 years and so when you adapt them, you're not just taking one, but you're taking the entire history of this character, and so you're going okay, well, we're basically off of this run of the character or this time period of the character. And so sometimes people will then watch a Marvel or really a comics adaptation and go well, this is weird, the tone is different, and why is She-Hulk so silly? Or why does Nathan Fillion have that haircut or whatever.
Speaker 2:And then plenty of people will come out of the woodwork and go well, in the comics, that's what they look like. Or comics are silly sometimes, like that is part of the DNA of this. And like I know that the Captain America Civil War a lot of people pointed out that's not the Civil War story in the books. You just took the title. I don't care, I'm fine with it, just give me something entertaining. And so that is like the ultimate example of well, does Tony Stark feel like Tony Stark to you? Do the characters more or less look like that? Are we getting kind of the overall? Are you getting it quote-unquote right? Because if you're trying to adapt it very, very specifically, which one are you trying to adapt? And it's so vast what you're pulling from.
Speaker 1:And you know, a lot of the superhero movies are made. Like I said, there is a committee. Oh, completely Half those people don't know Batman for Superman, so there's that element of it too, and the director is mostly there to wrangle everything, because they've pre-vised all the fight scenes.
Speaker 2:So you'd be like, oh, they got this indie director to direct this huge Marvel movie. Oh, because he's just kind of there to work with the actors and just kind of like, okay, I guess put the camera over there somewhere. This is out of my hands.
Speaker 1:This is funding my next five movies, literally. Yeah, I don't blame them at all. No, no, no.
Speaker 2:And, like the producers are making the movie, I'm just kind of here to steer it more or less, and sometimes that definitely can work. I mean, james Gunn is an example of a director who still feels like he is directing the superhero movies he makes. It still feels like the Garden of the Galaxy movies, feel like James Gunn movies.
Speaker 1:That's what you always want. You want someone passionate. It doesn't matter what the movie is or what the thing is yes, absolutely, if you can get a director who's passionate about it instead of whoever's just hot at the time which happens a lot of times.
Speaker 2:I remember Ethan Hawke doing an interview where he said he doesn't really believe in highbrow and lowbrow art. He believes in art where you can tell their heart is in it or not. And I think that's something I completely agree with is, you do see some of these superhero movies and you go, yeah, I mean they. Clearly this is made by people who really cared about it and also were given the freedom to put that care into the movie, because I'm sure that there are plenty of superhero movies where the people do care about it. But they get so hamstrung and the focus groups and the right and they, ok, well, social media says we have to do it this way and you have to cast this actor because they have more followers and there's all of this nonsense where you might have like the biggest fan in the world of that property.
Speaker 2:I remember rewatching the Joss Whedon Avengers and kind of being surprised at how much it felt like a Joss Whedon thing and for better or for worse. But I was like, yeah, this doesn't feel like a committee movie. I mean, I know there is a committee involved, but a committee that ultimately said, hey, this is ultimately kind of what we want to do, but do it your way, yeah, and that's such a special thing that you don't get quite as much anymore. I mean, james Gunn has that cachet, I guess now.
Speaker 3:Yeah, he's big enough that they trust him.
Speaker 2:Yeah, he's had enough successes.
Speaker 3:To be able to have that vision, Uh-huh, but yeah, and then there's so many comic book adaptations that you know it's like oh no, I didn't like that, or I didn't like how that ended, Like for Civil War. Now I've never read the comic book adaptation, but hearing fans, they're like Civil War. The movie was better because Civil War the book series was bad.
Speaker 2:I've heard that too.
Speaker 3:Or go back to the DCEU or DCU you, the terms don't correct me online. Um, uh, the they started it, or part of the movie started with the long halloween. Um and the way the, which is batman.
Speaker 1:Uh, and the way one of the most famous.
Speaker 3:One of the most famous and um the way that arc ends was like the reveal of, like uh, the the killer is very interesting the way they do in the comic book, because it's kind of like a little bit like it feels like you were trying to do like a gotcha but didn't really like put all the pieces, great, but the long Halloween they threaded it through and like I wish I could remember exactly like what the problem is. But the way they revealed the villain and everything, I was like, oh my gosh, you fixed it, you fixed the comic book Like now it makes like. That makes perfect sense. Yes, that's the one I decide. Or Under the Red Hood is another great example, both also famous Batman stories and DC stories in general. In Under the Red Hood, the comic book, batman decides at the end when Jason has the Joker pin. These are spoilers.
Speaker 1:Spoiler alert for Under the Red.
Speaker 3:Hood. Jason has the Joker with the gun on him and he's like you know, you got to kill me before I kill the Joker, like you got to choose. In the comics, batman says OK, I'm going to throw a batarang slice your neck, but kill the Joker Like you've got to choose. In the comics, batman says okay, I'm going to throw a batarang slice your neck, but it was a non-lethal shot, I guess, and you know that's how I'm going to prevent it. In the movie, he says uh-uh, drops the gun and says you do what you've got to do. I'm not making that choice, which makes Jason crash out for lack, boom, and you know basically.
Speaker 2:Joker does say ha ha a lot.
Speaker 1:And a boom follows.
Speaker 2:Yeah, that's true, that does sound accurate.
Speaker 3:Yeah, yeah, and activates the bombs and that's. And it's like, if you're going to have Jason and Batman, you know being opposed, but that was his son for all intents and purposes, like literally, like literally he adopted him and then also like he was his robin. To have that choice in the movie, I think is more respective of batman as a character and his bond with jason versus in the comics, where it's like I'm going to protect and risk my son's life is what it feels like to some fans to save the joker. And it's like, yeah, you know that's not. I mean, I'm old for batman, not killing folks, for sure. But like, yeah, to choose that you know.
Speaker 1:I know People have different opinions.
Speaker 3:We don't have to get into that.
Speaker 1:That's a different problem. In real life.
Speaker 3:I'm for him not killing, yeah, yeah, but in that scene I just felt like that scene was more faithful to the characters and their relationship in the movie, even though the original was the comic book series. So I think there's a lot of for comic books and superheroes. There's a lot that can go wrong, especially with live action. So Under the Red Hood was another animated film. There's a lot that can go wrong, but there's a lot you can also improve on, because the comics, since they have all these different things there's a lot that has already gone wrong.
Speaker 1:Once again, that's going back to making choices, because not treating the source material as sacred, yes, but making choices that make sense to make it better, as opposed to making choices to make it more sellable or more marketable, or short and marketable, those kind of things, because I do think that a lot of and I understand this, but a lot of audiences have this opinion that, well, whatever, the thing that came first is that's the Bible.
Speaker 3:That's the thing, that that's the ultimate version of this.
Speaker 2:And sometimes you might be adapting a story and going, hey, we could film it this way, but isn't it kind of weird? Hey, we could film it this way, but isn't it kind of weird? It's kind of disrespectful. This character Like why don't we just kind of reangle it? And sometimes people will go back to that source material, Like I think right now, if somebody was to adapt HP, Lovecraft and said, let's tell this story and excise all the racism, that would be an improvement, Sure of course.
Speaker 2:And you would still get Cthulhu and all this cool stuff, and so I think that so it'd be longer than 15 minutes.
Speaker 1:Yeah, basically, yeah, really, it's a short, best short of the year.
Speaker 2:Honestly, that would be critical, but I think that's Particularly with comic books. I mean, these are very rabid fan bases and it is now a fan base that exists because people saw the movies and the Marvel. The MCU is their Bible for who these characters are. And now it's gotten to the point where in the comics, tony Stark is drawn to look like Robert Downey Jr and Nick.
Speaker 2:Fury is drawn to look like Samuel L Jackson and you know, and maybe that's fine, I haven't really read them, but I at this point, like we obviously watch a lot of superhero shows or superhero movies on my podcast and so I often go into them going well, I've heard of this character. I'm ultimately just asking questions about, like, does it all make internal sense in the movie and how's the editing look, how's the acting? You guys tell me if it feels faithful or they missed a beat. But I'm just watching the movie and seeing how it pans out and some of them are stunning. But people have talked about the Nolan Batman movies which I think are like dark knight is extraordinary to me, and a lot of people have said, yeah, it's a better movie, but it's not really a better batman movie because, you know, compared to the batman or something that feels more like what I've read I don't want to get any people angry at this, at this podcast, so I'm not gonna.
Speaker 3:I'm not gonna comment on that, but as I'm going to to your point about um, when you don't know, so I'm DC, dc girlie, I'm not that into Marvel. I haven't read them.
Speaker 1:I'm the same way. I didn't read Marvel growing up, yeah, or?
Speaker 3:anything like that. And so watching, having watched the Marvel movies, you know that's where I started MCU. I started with Captain America because my grandpa took me to the theater the Dollar Theater for those of you in Athens who remember for those of you in Athens who remember.
Speaker 2:Yeah, now at that time, I think I saw it there too actually.
Speaker 3:I think maybe it was like the 250 theater already, but shout out to Dollar Theater Anyway. So I started the movies there and, like you, I don't know these characters at all. So like when I heard about fans being like this, that and the third, I was like, okay, I don't care because I don't know the characters, so I'm not going to be disappointed. So I like that and I totally understand and respect your dislike.
Speaker 3:But it doesn't affect me Now, having my boyfriend Jeremy, he's gotten me to watch some Marvel TV series, and so I just watched the Avengers, one of their animated shows, and the characters there. I was like, okay, wait, I understand now. Now, retroactively, I'm like I wish I had that version of Thor Sure.
Speaker 3:Avengers Assemble. I wish I had that version of Thor. Or I wish I'd had that version of Captain America. Those are actually really cool, awesome versions, and now I wish they had done that in the movie. That would have been nice to see.
Speaker 2:You don't want the four different versions of Thor that the MCU has given us, that they're giving us. Yeah, it's Everybody gets a Thor, everybody gets their own version of Thor.
Speaker 3:But essentially, yeah, it's very interesting. You know, like you said, people who are now fans of the movie properties and those interpretations of the characters, and then I can understand comic books anger when it's like you've now reinterpreted my character and now, because it's so popular and so monetary and you know, comics are, yes, still very money driven and editorial mandates are still there Now you're turning my character into this movie version and I'm mad because you're ignoring all of this history and I'm like, yeah, I can understand your frustrate because I've been there, was like the, you know, in DC territory, but in our case we just had crappy movies for a long time.
Speaker 1:So we weren't suffering, we were just suffering that we didn't get to have good ones people's expectations when they came up and people get used to certain things when in 2008,.
Speaker 2:When we got both Dark Knight and Iron man, that was a turning point of wait. Superhero movies can work.
Speaker 3:And be cool and good.
Speaker 2:And not just like Spider-Man 2, would have been that beforehand. I mean, I will, at the end of my days, defend the Christopher Reeve movies of Superman, but even that was such a different take on it.
Speaker 1:It's a product of its time too. Oh, completely.
Speaker 2:Absolutely. And it's sort of a cyclical thing where people loved Downey's Iron man because he felt like Tony Stark walked off the page and so now he walks back onto the page as Robert Downey Jr yeah. I think also, a lot of comic fans understand like well, a lot of comic fans are very opinionated about which is best, but others understand like, yeah, if I like Spider-Man, which Spider-Man do I want? I got this one, I got that one, I got all these different Spider-Mans there's no one true interpretation of the character.
Speaker 2:There's the one you love.
Speaker 3:Yeah, even if diehard fans like me still think, like you know, every time you write Batman as being super violent or whatever. I'm like.
Speaker 2:you're wrong if you miss the compassion from him, but even then I'm wrong you know, I know I'm wrong, it's a take and some people watch these movies and go like I don't want a take. Just give me the quintessential version of this, which weirdly, like video games, are doing that. Like the Spider-Man video games and the Arkham games feel much more like we're just kind of doing that. Who the character fundamentally is.
Speaker 3:Or the Batman Matt Reeves. Oh sure he's my man and, like I said, Robert Pattinson, I forgive you I forgive you for not being fun enough to play. Edward, when you were, like you know, younger.
Speaker 1:That was such a high bar right it was. That's not a diss, it was.
Speaker 3:Like he's literally supposed to be the pinnacle of like, like human perfection for a 17-year-old.
Speaker 2:Who was pretty high At that time in your life. Who would you have cast as Edward?
Speaker 3:I don't see, I was never very like well-known about movie actors and actresses and stuff, so I don't think I had anyone specific in mind. It would definitely have been someone younger, because I was like what, 11, 12? Because I was a sixth grade, I think, when the movie came out, and so I would have cast someone who was about the same age.
Speaker 2:So you probably couldn't, you know age, all the cast Sure, so we've been Daniel Radcliffe.
Speaker 3:Well, yeah, I just I think that was at some point. I did, like you were saying, james, and you're alluding to Britain.
Speaker 1:I knew there was nobody hot enough.
Speaker 3:But here we go. I would have chose someone who I thought was hotter than who plays our boy Jacob again.
Speaker 2:Taylor Lautner Taylor.
Speaker 3:Lautner, taylor Lautner, thank you. Whoever was cast should have been hotter than Taylor Lautner.
Speaker 1:That's all I want to say. That's your bar, that's my bar.
Speaker 3:Because you know, taylor Lautner was kind of attractive.
Speaker 1:He was hotter.
Speaker 3:yeah, oh he was great and I was like, like I said, I was just angry because I was like everyone's going to be Team Jacob.
Speaker 2:Because it, oh, their lives were lost. I still remember People were sending me mail about buy Twilight Bonds to support the front.
Speaker 3:It was war. So I was just so mad because I was like this is media propaganda. This is Team Jacob propaganda. To have Taylor Lautner and then Robert Pattinson, that's awful, just awful.
Speaker 2:It's interesting because I'm at this point now where I'll know about the casting of a TV show or movie. And so when I read the Handmaid's Tale, I hadn't watched the show but I knew the casting and so inevitably I was picturing Yvonne Strahovski and Elizabeth Moss Not that I'm not always thinking about Yvonne Strahovski, but I was like, oh yeah, that's, that's who is in the book. And I recently read and then watched Lessons in Chemistry, the Bonnie Garmis book and the Lee Eisenberg show, and reading the book I was like I am not picturing Brie Larson when I'm reading this character, but this is 100 percent Brie Larson character. I totally see how she's going to play this and I thought she did a terrific job. And I did picture Lewis Pullman as Calvin. But that was an interesting thing where I went yeah, I don't know if you really you do and you don't look like Elizabeth Zott in my head, but currently I'm reading the Olive Kitteridge novel by Elizabeth Strout, which I'm really, really in love with, and they adapted that into a miniseries.
Speaker 2:I didn't realize that and that's Frances McDormand and Richard Jenkins, which is unfair to anyone. They're both so stunning and, reading the book, I'm like, yeah, this is 100% who these actors, who these characters are Like, even if some physical description feels is not the same as what they look like, I'm like, well then, the book is wrong, because every line that either of those characters say, oh yeah, those actors say that and it's interesting how I am that does inform me reading the book of going, oh, that's interesting that those guys and there are other actors who I know are going to be in in the show that I I'm reading those characters going, oh, I can see how this actor would play this character. But jenkins and mcdorn, I'm like you are those characters that is so direct it's.
Speaker 1:It's astonishing to me how right they seem to have gotten casting is just so obvious and there's certain books where you're like how would you ever cast anyone else?
Speaker 2:I mean that's a similar thing with Harry Potter, where, like Robbie Coltrane, is so like bullseye Hagrid that like no disrespect to anybody else.
Speaker 3:Yeah, no actually you're right.
Speaker 2:I'm like that's so perfect and it's interesting. I remember seeing the second movie when I was a kid and being like Mr Weasley doesn't quote unquote, look right, but he's acting exactly right, he feels exactly like the character. And then you get into those like well, does the character have to quote unquote, look the same way. I haven't seen the Goldfinch movie, but I know that Jeffrey Wright, who's one of my favorite actors, plays a character in that who is of a completely different ethnicity in the book, and it's one of those things from I'm thinking well, I can see Jeffrey Wright playing this character, but his, his physical description means kind of has a thematic resonance in the book in a way. And so is that change gonna work? I don't know.
Speaker 2:Apparently the movie wasn't super well received. I'll find out one day, but that's always and I'm such an actor nerd I'm inevitably always thinking about who do I want to see in this stuff? And you know, I think with superheroes you get a lot of okay, well, who's popular right now? Because if we get, they think more, what superhero can this popular person play?
Speaker 1:That gets people in the seats Right exactly. Let's get Harry.
Speaker 2:Styles at the end of Eternals and see how that goes, and sometimes it pays off. You get Florence Pugh in the MCU and she's fantastic. Sometimes it does work, but there are times where I'm going. I don't need this actor to be famous.
Speaker 1:I need them to feel like the character. Well, I don't. When I read, like I think you mentioned earlier, I don't really have an image.
Speaker 3:If it gets a long detail about how somebody looks, I'm kind of like.
Speaker 1:That's just the way I read. I never go in to have an image, it's more like a feel. I'm not to kill a mockingbird. One Flew Over the Cuckoo's.
Speaker 3:Nest.
Speaker 1:Jack Nicholson seems so much that character when I was reading the book I didn't really have a picture of that in my head, but when you see it, that's what somebody yes, exactly the vibe. The vibe exactly that feels right and I think is more More important than the looks.
Speaker 2:Yeah, because I definitely I remember reading the Harry Potter books and knowing that Snape didn't have a long, curly mustache and a purple turban mustache and a purple turban but in my head he was like that's what he looks like. Hagrid and Uncle Vernon look the same in my head and then seeing the movie and going, of course they don't look like that. What are you doing? But I think that is. I have these sort of hazy images Even if I'm reading the page and going. I'm picturing a different thing than what you're describing, because the tone of this character looks differently in my head than it looks, not in terms of like red hair versus brown hair, but like build and everything. It's a different idea.
Speaker 1:Are y'all drawn more to, for instance, if a movie is coming out by a particular book that you loved or by, are you more driven by, like the director, and seem like, oh, I wonder what this person's going to do, kind of like I don't think, like if I was like what book do you most want to get put into a film? I don't really have a book like that.
Speaker 1:I'm more interested in like the kind of, like the dialogue kind of between those, or even books like the new Spike Lee that's at Cannes this week is based on the Kurosawa, which is based on an American mystery novel by Ed McBain. So it's like this Japanese guy taking this American book and making a movie. Now we've got this American director who's taking the job.
Speaker 2:So that to me is interesting. It's like, how are they all talking to each other? And from what I've read, is itself kind of a reimagining. It's not literally high and low, it's just like, oh well, what would that look like in this context? I love high and low, so I'm very excited about it.
Speaker 1:High and low is a great film, Terrific movie. What I've heard, the first two-thirds of the film very closely related, but of course it's very much an homage to New York because of Spike.
Speaker 2:Lee and all that.
Speaker 1:But then, like the last third, like goes to really interesting places. Okay, I have to add to that.
Speaker 2:Generally I'm more who's making it? Because at this point I'm like well, taking this book and adapting it might work out. Oh, but you got this director, you got these actors. Well, they've got a pedigree, they've got something that I really respond to. So, like, all right, spike Lee's making something, or what have you Like.
Speaker 1:I think at this point. Who's your favorite director, by the way?
Speaker 2:Oh God, I'm going to. I mean, my go-to is always Kore-da, the Japanese director who has directed things based on manga, whatnot, but like domestic manga, not like superheroes and stuff. But yeah, I'm still going to go with him. But lately I've been really liking Billy Wilder and the old school.
Speaker 3:Stanley Donnan and.
Speaker 2:Howard Hawks has been a fixture lately, but so when you have that kind of stuff, like Spike Jones made when the Wild Things Are, which I know a lot of people went this is not that book and a lot of other people went it kind of is, but it's Spike Jones and this is his. Are you going to see a Spike Jones movie or are you going to see when the Wild Things Are?
Speaker 1:movie and it's that picture book. There's not that much material, right?
Speaker 2:And so Spike Jonze kind of went what's divorce feel like? And blew that up. So for me I'm more curious about like well, what is this director going to do with this source material? And I might still come out of it going I love this director, I love this book. I don't really know if y'all were right for each other, but I'm still interested in what you're going to do.
Speaker 3:What about since I am not that much of like a movie nerd and everything, for me it's 100% like. If I hear that it's a book I loved or watched, I'm like, oh my gosh, I'm so excited?
Speaker 1:Is there one you would really love more than any other?
Speaker 3:It's hard because you know, then I have to think of my favorite book.
Speaker 2:Right.
Speaker 3:It's not necessarily the same, because there are certainly books that I love, that I'm like that's not going to touch me, like Eragon's not going to be? No, not at all.
Speaker 1:Even if it was your favorite book.
Speaker 3:Oh man, it's so hard because we were just talking about comics and comic books and then now it feels like. You know, that's where my mind is.
Speaker 1:That's fine if there's a comic that hasn't been adapted.
Speaker 3:That hasn't been adapted yet.
Speaker 1:It's also the hard or well, let's do a good Green Lantern. Here we go. I'm going to do a series.
Speaker 3:I'm going to pivot with a series and a children's series Animorphs oh, your favorite.
Speaker 1:I remember that love Animorphs that needs to be a TV series, 100% TV series 54 books and they tried to do one on Nickelodeon back in the day.
Speaker 2:Yeah, I know they need to redo it.
Speaker 3:Yes, they, they do one they need to make it animated. Do not try to make a live action.
Speaker 1:They transform into animals like live action is going to be hokey, yeah aliens and transform into animals and also just for like animal safety and animal.
Speaker 2:You're going to have to CGI the animals anyway, right?
Speaker 3:so you might as well just make it animated. You know, k, if you're listening and you still own the rights, please, please, have it be animated. So they're coming out with a graphic novel series right now.
Speaker 2:It looks really good too. Those books look good Just visually, I mean yeah.
Speaker 3:So, jeremy, he loves them. I am like, eh, because I grew up reading and seeing. So did he. But the physical, you know, like the covers, those, characters they were real people and I was like those kids are the characters.
Speaker 2:Like in my head when I read oh yeah, they had.
Speaker 3:Yeah, they were like perfect one-to-one. Now again, I don't want it to be live action, but I did expect the art style, especially because it's a very serious book. I did expect it to be a lot more um, the art style to be more realistic, and so it's very much a bubbly.
Speaker 3:You know, cartoony effect yeah, a lot of same face, you know, no offense to the artist a little bit of same face syndrome and so I'm just a little bit more removed from the art. Now, jeremy, on the other hand, we were like literally talking about this um a couple of days ago and he was saying that he feels like it was. He always got the vibes of very like saturday morning, kind of like cartoon, where you read the book, like you know, they have a difficulty and then they try them from the end, like you know. And for me the way I saw it was always like as a longer running narrative. I read the series here at the Oconee County Library when it was here on the shelves, you know, I would check out like ten at a time and it was always much, very much like a war of attrition where, like, they're just holding the line until the you know the Andalites get here, like so they are. So I just read it as very much like okay, they're managing to hold the line, they're managing to hold the line, and I was like reading for the for that moment. So for me I got the whole. Like you know, it felt like I was on the edge of my seat the whole time and I felt very much.
Speaker 3:You know the way KA Applegate was intending right, which is very much like war and the cost of war and all of that. I hate the ending, though still Despise it. She went too hard. She was good but I'm still angry, anyway. So to see that adapted the art style, I would not want them to take the graphic novels and I think the graphic novels might be a setup maybe for an animated series at some point, which I would love and I would still watch it even if they did that with the art style, because you know it's Annie Morse and I will. But that's probably a series that I think 100 percent could appeal to. You know it's children's and children's aimed and it can appeal to adults because it's very like adult themes.
Speaker 2:It's very violent, Very very.
Speaker 3:Yeah, they're pretty violent, so maybe we probably would have to age it up, you know, if you make it that medium.
Speaker 1:But we want the adult version, right? Yeah, I don't want them to adultify.
Speaker 3:Like you know, powerpuff Girls right.
Speaker 2:Oh, that does. There's some things where it's like I don't need you to adultify, but like why Rachel turned into a bear and her like paw got cut off. Like it was crazy, right right, it was crazy.
Speaker 3:And then You're right.
Speaker 2:They might be 42. Okay, yeah, you're a Morse fan too.
Speaker 1:Okay, okay, I see you, Britt.
Speaker 3:I see you.
Speaker 1:That's probably one idea, or you would hate it if they did the movie and they were like people in their 60s. Oh, my goodness, I don't know.
Speaker 2:A bunch of septuagenarians being like I. Have to turn into a bear if I'm going to get through and that gets into like, oh, I Capture what it feels like to be young and everything Okay.
Speaker 3:There's a tone.
Speaker 2:Maybe, if you made it a comedy, the series that I've always wanted to see was the Red Wall books.
Speaker 3:Oh the mice right yeah the mice Speaking of violent things Animated.
Speaker 2:Because, they did an animated show in England but it was very stilted animation. So I would like a nice, you know high budget, still like photorealistic ish. You know, I wanted to look like mice and otters and everything I think that would be could be a really cool thing. They would have to thread that needle of. Yes, these are campfire stories. People also get beheaded. So let's kind of figure out how to. How to tell that, because the watershed down Exactly Like a watershed down kind of town, how to tell that Watership down kind of Exactly like a watershed down kind of tone.
Speaker 3:Yeah, for sure. And speaking of, just to go back, you know, talking about favorite books.
Speaker 1:The Host is always the one.
Speaker 3:I say because I've read it the most times and it was adapted right into the film. And the Host is another one where, now that I've seen more films like you know, the Life of Pi, or you know ones that are slower beats, where it's like more, where it fits right with a book that is not really action heavy, the host is kind of, I feel like a ya, and with twilight, you know talking about breaking dawn, uh, part two, um, there's the idea of making it like the classic movie structure of, like you know, action, or like a theme or a you know a big fight sequence at the end or something like you know that you're building towards, like a, a climax. There you go. And so the host is very much, a lot more. And I pivot off of it because Annie Morse and the host for those who don't know, they have very similar themes, similar evil, alien race, but the host does it in a very interesting way that is very much a commentary on humanity and what it means to be human. And it's Stephanie Meyer. So just for Twilight fans, the host. It's a different experience and I think it's a good one.
Speaker 3:But anyhow, the translation into a movie it felt like very lacking.
Speaker 3:To me it's very weird because it wasn't even necessarily bad, but just it didn't carry all of that weight the same way the book had, the movie had, and I don't think though they were trying to.
Speaker 3:It feels like they were more interested in like the sci-fi elements because you know, alien invasion, people hiding that sort of stuff, and they still have like they didn't try to change it too much where they were trying to add like action elements, but it felt very much just like I don't know like almost like something that would feel like if it was a TV series maybe they could have had the length to build with. And it's very interesting because the host feels like it could be a movie, but if you made it a TV series you could have that commentary about like the humanity and the development, because it's the development of the characters and how they respond to one another. That is really what the book and story is about. And the movie, I think, just doesn't have that because it's such a shorter runtime that it's just kind of like I don't even know how to describe it it's like it's a movie, right, yeah yeah, yeah.
Speaker 3:And that's it. But you know, didn't Imagine Dragons do one of the soundtrack stories?
Speaker 2:I couldn't tell you, or it feels like it's. Imagine Dragons as a movie, if that makes sense Imagine Dragons should have been doing the Eragon music. I wouldn't say that, let's go ahead. If you're going to go, just go ahead, just run into the ground.
Speaker 1:But yeah, I think most adaptations that I like the least comic book regular tend to be ones that don't have the pacing just too quick yeah yeah, they're not building the characters. I know these are action heroes and there's all these powers and that's kind of like why people love them. But you've got to like build these characters first.
Speaker 1:Yeah, you know, it's like sometimes it's ten minutes into the movie and they've got powers and they're fighting and, like the rest of the movie, is nothing but like lots of fight scenes and little short snippets in between the fight scenes where they're trying to build the story.
Speaker 2:That almost feel I can't think of the word, but just necessary, just like, yeah, we're putting this in because we have to, alright, keep going, or then you have the opposite effect man of Steel, where nothing happens in that movie until then, the most boring Superman movie I've ever watched. And and speaking of getting the character wrong, to make. Superman, so petty.
Speaker 3:The worst part is I wasn't even mad about Superman killing Zod at the end. Oh sorry, spoiler.
Speaker 1:Retroactively.
Speaker 3:James edited it.
Speaker 1:It never happened. There was a part that you were very angry about that got edited out.
Speaker 3:I was and at the very end. I'm not even mad about that, like from the Superman, you know, I think given the exact situation, I can see how that could be an interesting take on the character. That's not even the part I was mad about, it's all the other stuff, like you said, not getting the character and also it's just boring. The whole movie is just Lois looking for him and then she finds it at the end. Portion happens in the last. What third, maybe fourth?
Speaker 2:of the film. Yeah, we did all the Superman movies on the podcast, so I will just let go listen to that if you want to hear my Superman opinions. I'll spare us the airtime.
Speaker 3:He's making a very angry face right now.
Speaker 1:That's right, they're not good. We'll just say that We'll do the abridged version. Bad Superman. Go watch Christopher Reeve.
Speaker 2:Christopher Reeve, he's my guy. Yeah, I think the word that I've often used recently when I've watched an adaptation of something is abbreviated, that inevitably it feels abbreviated and like in Lessons in Chemistry. I think they did a really lovely job making a show out of that book, but there are elements of that that I thought, well, yeah, in the book this made a lot more, it had more emotional weight. It still makes logical sense in the show, but it meant more in the book. And I remember watching Harry Potter in the first one and like throughout that book, you can constantly like, build up Neville's character, that like oh, and you can just have these little offhand mentions of, like, life at Hogwarts proceeded as normal In charm's class.
Speaker 2:Neville died whatever, he got eaten by a dog or something. And you're constantly like, oh, things keep happening to poor Neville and he keeps messing up. So at the end of the book when he stands up to them, it's very like, oh, wow, neville's really found his courage. And in the movie, when he does that, you're like which one is he? Again, I don't remember this character very well and it doesn't have the same punch. They still did the event and that's just something a book can do. A book can have all these to kind of scene building things, and in a movie you have to be so much more careful, more selective about where are you putting the camera and how are you using your runtime.
Speaker 1:I would say, you know, currently, in our time, though, there's more stuff being adapted from books than ever before. Yeah, and overall better at adaptation than like if you go watch like classic era Hollywood kind of stuff. Like my probably least favorite adaption all the time is of human bondage and I don't. I remember reading the book and really enjoying it, and then I went to watch the movie. I didn't even remember there was a love interest in the book.
Speaker 1:That is all the movie is it's like Betty Davis for an hour and I was like what? So we read two different books yeah, yeah, yeah but I think there was more of that back in that kind of time period. And now you do get, sometimes you get that, but you often do get very true ones or interesting takes.
Speaker 2:We're so much more aware of what the fan base thinks now, I think as well, because I think even though you didn't have a committee, maybe that looked the same way even in the 30s and 40s you still had somebody with a cigar going. Now you got to get a dame in there, you got to get a love interest, you got to make a picture. You know there's still kind of pushing with what in their mind is quintessential movie.
Speaker 1:Star system, all that, exactly, completely, and it's.
Speaker 2:You know, the book can still be this, like we'll just kind of take the title and the pedigree of the book and then we'll make our own, our own movie of it and you still, you also do still have like lost weekend and uh, to kill a mockingbird and these things.
Speaker 1:There's great ones, yes, even during that right you still had those.
Speaker 2:Those come through, but you know not as many no, not as many.
Speaker 1:No, it was harder, I think for sure I said I would uh artem Fowl just a little shout out, for apparently I did not read or watch the movies.
Speaker 3:That's another Jeremy thing. But apparently Artemis Fowl. The movies totally watered down him when he's like he's supposed to be a jerk and kind of like a bad, like, not like an evil villain and they made him like the hero and all good Like washing the flaws. I think that's a for any adaptation. It can go either. You know most of the we're talking about books to movies, so you know, or TV series, but when they?
Speaker 3:like erase the Flaws or with now. This is adaptation, adaptation. Avatar, now the last airbender, you know, in the live action when they said, oh, we're not going to let Sokka be like a misogynist the way he is in the beginning.
Speaker 2:It going to let Sokka be like a misogynist, the way he is in the beginning. It's like what's the problem? Because he outgrows it. Yeah, the point is to show someone, to show that this is bad behavior that becomes removed.
Speaker 3:Even a single line, ursula, when they did the live action, you know, and they removed her line where she's talking to Ariel about her body and you know saying like oh men, like girls, you know, who don't talk a lot, you know they think a girl who's something is a bore, I can't remember the line. Anyway, they changed it in the live act because they were like oh well, we don't want her. You know, that's misogyny and everything and it's like she's a villain. She's very clearly the villain you didn't like she's the evil sea witch.
Speaker 3:Manipulate Ariel to listen and not. So it's just like those little tiny changes which are the ones where it's like like we were sanitizing or unnecessary, and it's just like tell me a story.
Speaker 2:And yeah, you have to display the bad behavior so that we can criticize it.
Speaker 1:Yeah, there's no trust in the audience.
Speaker 2:It's like we can't trust in children.
Speaker 1:It can't depend on you to figure out that's not good, or to have a complex, any kind of complexity.
Speaker 2:Yeah, and that if you don't understand it, we're not going to take this opportunity to help you understand it. Yeah, or have this be?
Speaker 3:a teaching moment.
Speaker 2:Like why?
Speaker 3:wouldn't Disney instead, because you know you can make money. You have a deep thing that has a little bit more subtext, isn't as clear, and then you could have, like the sharing, the Director's. Cut where we explore and we explain. You can even have a kid version of that. It's like. This is how you teach kids how to learn and read and understand and comprehend. It's not by sanitizing, it's by explaining.
Speaker 1:Yes.
Speaker 3:Let me get off my soapbox there, preach it.
Speaker 1:I think we all agree with you there. All right, so I think that's that's good. I'm sure there's lots more books we could talk about.
Speaker 3:We never even talked about Stephen King, which is crazy to me. I was thinking about that.
Speaker 1:Oh, that's true, and actually we didn't talk about any horror, Like there's the Ring Stephen King, yeah, yeah.
Speaker 2:Which I mean famously Clark Barker, who was a writer director. Right right.
Speaker 1:Pretty rare for that to happen, certainly.
Speaker 2:Or William, I think, with one of the Exorcist movies. Yeah, good example.
Speaker 1:Yeah.
Speaker 2:I mean famously. The Shining is apparently not at all like the book, and Stephen King hates the movie because it's not like his book? Yes, I heard, but everyone, or a lot of audiences, are like, yeah, but the movie's the movie.
Speaker 1:Like how am I not going to? It's really good. Yeah, I'm going to consider one of the greatest horror movies of all time.
Speaker 2:Sure.
Speaker 1:Like None of the adaptations are really embraced. Movies, miniseries, whatever they are, that's. You know, certain genres are harder to do, but it is interesting to see how many, like famous horror books, don't really have movies or accepted movies. Yeah, and if you look at what are the big horror movies. They're generally not. Most of them are not based on the books.
Speaker 2:I know that I really love the Haunting of Hill House miniseries, but that is apparently very, very, very different from the Shirley Jackson book. Yeah, and in a way that I'm okay with because I love so much what the show is doing and is again taking like we'll take the kind of the basic form of this to tell our own story about trauma and grief and everything. But I can understand why there are people who are like that's not even the book. Why are you doing it?
Speaker 3:it's like like, why even have it be a title? And I think it's kind of like, did you choose it just so that it would be popular, because you get that association, or are you actually wanting to borrow these little elements and tell your own story? And I think it's just honesty that's needed, because just a real quick maybe. My last point, at least ending, on Rochelle Mead. She wrote the Vampire Academy series. Loved that. She came out with a movie. We saw the trailer. All the fans, including me, we were like this does not look like the book and Rochelle Mead.
Speaker 3:Now this one I'm not sorry for, if you're listening, because she told all of us no, it's okay it's, you know, like watch the movie. You know it's not like you know it is like the book? No, it is not. They turned that into what was a very interesting vampire's whole story and they watered, they turned it into a like the teen girl. You know popular, you know like a a teen girl drama, school, school, drama.
Speaker 2:Yeah, mean girls with vampires.
Speaker 3:Yeah, and I'm just like jaw dropping.
Speaker 2:You guys can't see that in the podcast.
Speaker 3:And I was just like and so, if you're honest, I think you should be honest about what the adaptation is going to be. Is it going to be faithful? Is it going to be you're just borrowing the some of the ideas and rather than use the fact that it is an adaptation to sell it, even when you're not being faithful, and then I would be OK.
Speaker 1:And there's a lot of directors who will take a book and adapt it and they change the name and they kind of take all the liberties they want. They're not really selling the book. They just had some ideas in that book that was their launching. That's I think very honest, like we're not trying to cash in on, just people who know the title. Right right, but yeah, so that's a better way to do it. All you directors listening.
Speaker 3:And the authors promoting it. Yes, make it in the contract that you don't have to lie. Yeah.
Speaker 1:I wonder. I would assume most authors have almost no control Once you sell it, I would imagine.
Speaker 2:They sold the right. The book right, the movie rights to Artemis Fowl were sold before the book came out. Yeah, and it was in development for like 20 years, and then that's what happened. So like there's all kinds of I wonder if you're an author, like what that's like, I'm sure. A like all right. And so the movie rights at this point, and da-da-da-da-da.
Speaker 3:Yes, 100%. And when you're like lower, you know like you gotta.
Speaker 1:Sure, you have no clout, you just. You have no choice but Suzanne.
Speaker 3:Collins, you know we're talking about the Hunger Games being a great example. She was an executive. What was it? Writer or producer on all of those films? It turned out. It turned out, yeah.
Speaker 1:And George R R.