#9 INCONCEIVABLE! Big Rascals said "AS YOU WISH" to discussing The Princess Bride!

In Episode 9 of Big Rascals, we discuss Greg's Magical HOT TAKE and the book "The Princess Bride" by William Goldman. Also stay till the end to see the Writing Talent(or lack there of) of the Big Rascals(Greg, Geoff, and Derek). There will be SPOILERS!!! But could we really spoil something that everyone has seen or read?

"The Princess Bride" is a framed fantasy-adventure novel following Buttercup, who, believing her true love Westley is dead, reluctantly agrees to marry Prince Humperdinck. Kidnapped by a trio—Vizzini, Inigo, and Fezzik—she is rescued by a mysterious "man in black", sparking a tale of revenge, romance, and satire.

We want Big Rascals to be a community or a "CLUB." So don't hesitate to Subscribe, Like, and leave a Comment or suggestion on what next book you would like us to discuss and we will do out best to accommodate. Find us on Social Media for extra content. We are also looking for Sponsors or Donors. We can be reached at bigrascals.podcast@gmail.com. We are extremely grateful for any and all support! Thank you!

For our next book to read as a club, Greg has decided on "Project Hail Mary" by Andy Weir.

Keep READING, keep WRITING, and stay RASCALLY my friends!

Transcript

SPEAKER_02 0:10

Welcome to Big Rascals, where we may be grown-ups, but we will never stop being rascals. We are a boys' book club, not just for the boys, but all those who enjoy reading, writing, comedy, and entertainment. Our purpose is to have fun discovering new worlds, making friends, and finding a cure for dyslexia. What's up, everybody? What up, fellow rascals? Hey boys. Hey, one thing I've noticed we have. Hey boys. Good to see ya. One thing I've noticed is we haven't introduced ourselves in the last few, so we should do that again. I'm Greg. I'm Derek. I'm Jeff. Yeah, and we're the big rascals. So we're back with a great podcast today. Uh, we're talking about the Princess Bride. That was Derek's pick. Great pick, Derek. Yeah, excited for it. Yeah, really excited for it. We are gonna switch things up a bit. Um, Jeff had a good idea. He was in charge of the top five, so we're gonna do his idea um instead of the top five. But were we gonna do that at the end? Yeah, that's a surprise for the end. Okay, we'll hold that to the end. So stay tuned. Yeah, stay tuned. It'll be it'll be fun. We will probably embarrass ourselves. So indeed.

SPEAKER_04 1:42

And we would love your critiques. But before we get started, hit that like button, subscribe if you haven't already. And I don't want to ask too much, but statistics show it's not gonna happen unless I bring it up, or unless we bring it up.

SPEAKER_02 1:55

Yeah, it goes a long way. Really, we appreciate it, especially just a growing, growing channel like ours. Um, every little thing helps, and we are very grateful for. So thank you.

SPEAKER_04 2:09

Oh, yeah, and thank you to those who have already subscribed. We appreciate you being there for us.

SPEAKER_02 2:15

Awesome. So let's see.

SPEAKER_04 2:18

I guess we go straight into our hot take. Yeah.

SPEAKER_02 2:23

Oh, I struggled figuring out a hot take. Greg, what are you gonna what are you gonna do? Make me so mad. Oh man. I was trying to think of something that would make you guys mad, but I couldn't think of anything. So I I went with something that's kind of relevant, um, especially with the the Harry Potter TV series. Oh, okay, okay. You might you guys probably know this hot tank of mine. But I think not only are the Harry Potter movies a horrible book adaptation, they are horrible movies altogether.

SPEAKER_04 3:03

Okay, okay.

SPEAKER_02 3:05

I'm gonna fight you a little bit on this. All right. Hold on, you want to hear my reasoning?

SPEAKER_03 3:11

Okay, fine. Fine.

SPEAKER_02 3:12

All right, yeah. Build your argument. Okay. Number one. I think Daniel Radcliffe is a horrible actor. I like him, but he is he is a terrible actor. Um, he looked like Harry Potter, but he certainly was not didn't uh feel like Harry Potter to me, I guess. So I also think um the first two are completely seem like a completely different series than the rest. Yeah. Also doing a two-parter is one of the dumbest things that one of the dumbest trends that ever came out of Hollywood. So you're mad that Dune did two parts? Um, I mean no.

SPEAKER_01 4:10

Yeah, backpedal faster, backpedal faster. I don't know if it it's hard to say when it's part of the trend and when it's not, because yeah, you get like Dune, I feel like almost had to be with the amount of book there is the depth, but in the way Frank Herbert just builds his world, like you need time to figure stuff out.

SPEAKER_04 4:32

Whereas when I read Dune, I was like, I felt like I was thrown into it, and I had no idea what was going on. And I couldn't pronounce any of the stuff. Like the Benny Jesseret, I was calling the the Benigesseret. That's pretty good.

SPEAKER_02 4:46

Yeah, it's a better one of better than what I would have done. Yeah. But you look back at that time, you like Twilight, I think Twilight was the first drags so much, and that's that's I think a big sign of how it is done wrong when they have to drag it out so much.

SPEAKER_04 5:07

Yeah. Have you guys actually watched the Twilight movies? Oh yeah. Painful guys, man. I'm lucky I've only watched the first one, and that's because my wife's from Washington, and she's like, oh, it takes place in forks. Let's make fun of how cringe it is.

SPEAKER_02 5:20

It it is it's great to make fun of.

SPEAKER_01 5:23

The first two, first two for sure. The the rest, like uh, I don't know how many are there? There's like four.

SPEAKER_04 5:31

Yeah, I think so. The rest of them? Three books. They're just better. Three books, four movies. I I remember when the last breaking dawn came out, and everyone was saying, like, I was always asking, is it really crappy like all the other ones? And all my friends at school are like, yeah, but like the last 15 minutes is like the coolest fight scene you'll ever see. And my whole mindset was like, Do I really want to sit through a whole movie? And this was before like I looked things up on YouTube. I knew I could, I did not know you could do that. I just thought in my mind, my adolescent 12-year-old mind, it's not worth it. Like, even then, I was smart enough to know these movies are gonna suck, they're not worth my time.

SPEAKER_01 6:09

Yeah, uh well, spoiler, the fight means nothing, it was all just a dream.

SPEAKER_04 6:14

I found that out thanks to the pitch meetings on screen rant. Yeah.

SPEAKER_02 6:19

So, yeah. Well, we're talking about Harry Potter guys, so let's get back to that. I think what it is, it's it's when you make a two-parter out of a series of books. Like Dune, I guess is a series of books, but justify the two part.

SPEAKER_01 6:40

Now we're going back to Dune.

SPEAKER_02 6:41

Talk about Harry Potter guys. Yeah, dude. No, no, no, no, no. Anyways. Yeah. Harry Potter. We'll get there eventually. I I mean, I think I have a bigger, I would have a bigger audience that would agree with me that the adaptation of the movies wasn't the best from the books, but I think it is a hot take to say that they're bad movies overall. Well, well, well, well.

SPEAKER_04 7:09

Let's see what you did have some truth in your statement that the first two movies seem like a completely different series because, you know, like third movie, they like switched to a darker film grade or different directors in there. Which, yeah, really weird.

SPEAKER_02 7:25

That's like they changed everything, like they lost all their lighting from the colour.

SPEAKER_04 7:29

Yeah, the geography of the castle was just completely different.

SPEAKER_02 7:32

No one different Dumbledore.

SPEAKER_04 7:34

Yeah, but that's because he died. So that was that's you can't knock him for that. But yeah, the first two movies, I feel like they captured that bright, colorful discovering a wizardy world. Magical, magical feeling. And I I loved the first two movies, and the actor for Dumbledore, I feel like, was perfect for those movies. You know, had the gentleness, the the wisdom, and like even when it was still like a family film, even though you know, Chamber of Secrets, it gets pretty dark. You got blood written on the walls, you're talking about death, and like it's still somewhat comical. Like, so the first two movies I feel like I I re-watched those two movies and I've had a good time.

SPEAKER_01 8:19

Yeah, they like went from childhood wonder to teen angst.

SPEAKER_04 8:23

Yes, like a little too quick. Whereas I feel the books, yeah, they started off lighthearted and colorful and wonder wondrous, and they slowly earned the darkness that they brought in because it does get pretty dark.

SPEAKER_02 8:36

It's kind of like like when Voldemort came back in the books, then it the whole overall theme became much darker.

SPEAKER_04 8:43

Yeah, especially since all the adults in that world were there when Voldemort was at power. So it brought that ominous feel like okay, which is playtime's over.

SPEAKER_01 8:52

It's funny because I think the I feel like the movies try and brighten things up in the fifth one. Like they they they go from four and three and the wrong one to brighten up. Yeah, right. Yeah, no kidding.

SPEAKER_02 9:07

Yeah, I don't know.

SPEAKER_01 9:09

Yeah. I I think I mean, are you are you of the mindset that all the Harry Potter movies are bad movies?

SPEAKER_02 9:19

Um, I mean, I'm not gonna die on this hill with this hot take. The hill I will die on is their bad adaptations. Bad adaptations? Adaptations.

SPEAKER_01 9:31

Bad adaptations. Hey, that's a that's a good that's a good word. Um short and bad adaptations. But adaptations.

SPEAKER_02 9:41

I do feel like they are um not great movies, yeah, for sure.

SPEAKER_01 9:47

I agree with I I I think, yeah, bad app, bad at it. Well I I think you definitely need to separate them out because one and two I think are good adaptations. As much I think, yeah, Daniel Radcliffe probably is.

SPEAKER_04 10:03

I feel like they were honest and they were trying their best with what they had at the time. Yeah, I can still enjoy, I can still enjoy those. And Daniel Radcliffe and all the other actors are young enough to where you're like, okay, these are still kids, you're it's more forgivable. Yeah, yeah.

SPEAKER_01 10:17

Oh, yeah. But as soon as yeah, you get three or yeah, three, four, five, um those are bad movies and bad adaptations, uh, especially five. Five is terrible. Six, I think they tried to do a little better on in terms of adaptation-wise, I think it does does a fair job, but oh part one and two, I those make me furious. I get so mad when people bring those up because not only they are bad adaptations, they are terrible movies. And I get so mad. And spoiler, Harry breaking his wand or breaking the elder wand. There is no justification for that. There is no reasoning because the whole point of Harry's wand breaking is because is and then he couldn't repair it was by magic. It was broken by magic. That's why he couldn't repair it. Now, a wand broken by somebody just snapping it, that can be repaired. Yeah, just like how Ron tried to fix his with spellow tape.

SPEAKER_04 11:21

Yeah. So they have the means of fixing wands as we learn, and him just breaking it's like, yeah, you didn't really fix anything, idiot. Oh yeah.

SPEAKER_01 11:30

It breaking the other wand. It was like the producers were just I can imagine the writers and director and producer in in the in the in the writing room being like, guys, what if we broke the wand at the end? Nobody could use it.

SPEAKER_02 11:47

Oh, that's brilliant, dude. I mean, just talk about the whole final battle between Harry and Voldemort.

SPEAKER_04 11:55

Oh, dude, the whole scene where he's like hugging Voldemort and then flying around. Oh my gosh. What it is is so cringy. The only things I would say that those two movies, part one and part two, I actually enjoyed is first, I gotta see another dragon in got in Gringotts. Goblin of Fire was like my favorite one because I had the Hungarian horn tail.

SPEAKER_02 12:22

There you go.

SPEAKER_04 12:23

But yeah, second, I did think the McGonagall Awakening the Stone Soldiers looked it looked pretty cool. I'm not gonna lie.

SPEAKER_01 12:32

Yeah, and I can I can say that's fair. You know, there there are it is good to appreciate some.

SPEAKER_04 12:38

Yes, and the third, we got the golden meme. We got the golden meme of Voldemort's laugh.

SPEAKER_01 12:46

And then we're hugging Draco at the at the betrayal moment.

SPEAKER_02 12:50

Yeah, oh my god. Which I mean that also is another hot take for me. I feel like is it Ray Fiennes who uh played Voldemort? Um I don't know the actors off the top of my head. Yeah. I think it's Ray Fiennes.

SPEAKER_04 13:06

And seeing how how Voldemort was represented, Ralph.

SPEAKER_02 13:10

Ralph Fiennes. Ralph Fiennes. I guess Fayence. Yeah, Ralph Fiennes. I think it's Faintus, but okay. I hated the direction he went with Voldemort. It just Voldemort's supposed to be scary, dude. Yeah, he was not.

SPEAKER_01 13:30

He lost it, yeah. Yeah, completely.

SPEAKER_02 13:32

He was a little more uh uh Ditzy.

SPEAKER_04 13:37

Do you think I would say the most the most damaging thing those movies did to those books is how they all held their wands. Yes. Oh how they just had it all twink like, just holding their wrists over, and the Voldemort never bending his fingers to wrap around his wand was oh my gosh, like darn teetotalers, man. Jeff, you were gonna say I love that. I love the picture in the fifth book like you're gonna be here of Dumbledore fighting Voldemort, and you see the picture of Dumbledore holding the wand, like raising it like it's a sword, and Voldemort having his conjured shield and holding his wand behind him like they're also swords because they are deadly weapons. You grab them, you are the master of them. Like, come on, man.

SPEAKER_02 14:26

Yeah, you also don't want to be uh uh disarmed. Anyway, Jeff, you were gonna say something.

SPEAKER_01 14:35

Sorry, I I totally did. Uh we were definitely trending a certain way, but so it's fine. It's fine. I uh I just wanted to add this. Do you think part of the reason you know we have this opinion about the movies and why they ended up the way they were is because they started making the movies before she finished the books. It's kind of like the Game of Thrones syndrome, yeah. Where it's like you have you have this incredible story, and again, the first two movies are great because I think the first two books really don't have a ton of substance.

SPEAKER_02 15:11

I mean they are shorter, they're very simple, you know, it's just like kind of linear and just straightforward storytelling. Yeah. But uh I also think there's something to do with like J.K. Rowling not really knowing the ending of Harry Potter.

SPEAKER_04 15:32

Yeah, she does contradict herself a lot at the end there, and however, she does change a lot of the canon today. You know, she will like change it on the fly, which I I loved her talent with these books, but oh my gosh. Stop touching it, please. Stay consistent, yeah. Just leave something alone. Exactly. Everyone loved it. Stop trying to change it, please. Leave it alone. Did you guys see the trailer for the TV series, the HBO series? Uh I that's another glimpse of it, I think. That's another problem of just they seem to have that dark film grain. It doesn't have that whimsy and just colorful wonder to it that the first two movies had. So I'm like, uh oh. Uh-oh. And I guess we could always we could talk about the the biggest complaint that we're talking about, but controversy between the some of the casting. Yes, which uh we can save that for all the other YouTubers out there, all the other podcasts. We don't want to get too contentious on here. At least I don't. You guys can. No.

SPEAKER_02 16:37

You can jump into that fire. I I did not have high hopes for it to begin with, and now I just have zero hopes. So I just don't I you know, I don't think they're just gonna it just is they're not gonna stay true to the res the the resource.

SPEAKER_04 16:55

That's where this is where they have a chance to get all that good meat that they had to drop in the movies because you know they get to be thick books, and there's so many fun little moments that you wish you could see on screen. Yeah, and I I was hoping they would do Ron justice and actually make him a lot more witty, because he was great with a comeback in the books, and he was great at arguing with Hermione, so it actually showed he was somewhat smart.

SPEAKER_01 17:19

He had some uh substance to him, yeah. Besides just being the the goofball. Yep. Yeah, yeah. I I was telling uh Greg this earlier, but I think it's it's gonna end up going the Stranger Things route where they are gonna produce their first season and it's gonna be insanely popular and it's probably gonna do well, but they're gonna get a ton of money and then they're gonna realize that they can up the production and then go a whole bunch longer, and they're gonna end up aging out the characters and they're gonna have to probably skip or change like how the school year works or something, and they're they're you know, like with Stranger Things, they just had so many changes with the characters and took so long filming that uh a lot of issues cropped up. So that that tends to happen with these uh these productions where they're trying something new, especially something as popular as Harry Potter, they're gonna get money, and that's definitely gonna go to their head for sure.

SPEAKER_02 18:16

Yeah, it'll be interesting to see how it goes.

SPEAKER_04 18:21

Yeah, it might be too big to fail. But also, I know you're gonna disagree with this, Greg, but I think Snape was casted really well in those movies. I know you don't like it.

SPEAKER_02 18:32

No, I liked him. Wait, Alan Rickman. Yeah, Alan Rickman. I loved him as Professor Snape. He was 20 years younger, I think. I mean, obviously you can't do that, but I do think he was good. It it is hard to who would you have cast, who would you cast for Snape now? Adam Driver. Okay, yeah. It's the obvious pick.

SPEAKER_01 18:55

Yeah, he would be good.

SPEAKER_02 18:56

He's got the nose, he's got the nose, he's got the foreign the greasy hair.

SPEAKER_04 19:01

Yep. And also, I think you've disagree with me in this as well regarding the Harry Potter films. I think John Williams' score is great with those films. Yeah.

SPEAKER_02 19:11

I definitely don't disagree. I think it's I think it's good. There are there are things to appreciate for sure. I think just because it's tied to the movies, that I I just you just got that bad taste in your mouth. Yeah.

SPEAKER_04 19:26

No, I do think it it's a great, like feeling of magical, you know, just yeah, just has that enchantment and exactly and wonder and mystery behind every corner kind of feel, like in a happy way feel to it.

SPEAKER_01 19:40

I can say you can't help when you when uh I've been to both Universals in California and Florida, and you can't help but feel some of the magic. And that's coming from me who you know has absolutely hated some of the Harry Potter movies. And so you go there and and I will say it could be a little brightened up. It feels a little dingy because it it takes off after like the you know three through five, pretty much. Um but you still feel some of the magic there, and and I think that is that is a benefit of bringing the movie the movies to the big screen, is it does make the magic somewhat real, but it also has such a like you said, a bad taste to it that you can't help but cringe a little bit when you see all the movie stuff. Yeah. Yeah. I did want to add this real quick. Now there I think there's a cool contrast between Daniel Radcliffe and Elijah Wood, where Daniel Radcliffe went on to do a whole bunch of more stuff. And I think Elijah he started out pretty early as a childhood actor. He was in Back to the Future and The Good Son, and and then of course in Lord of the Rings and both him and then Spy Kids as the guy.

SPEAKER_03 20:55

Oh yeah.

SPEAKER_01 20:56

He all he was in a show called the Dirk Gentle's uh holistic detective agency, which is uh based on Douglas Adams, which is I I really want to see that. It looks so funny, looks so funny. But do you I feel like Daniel Daniel Radcliffe got so much more fame than and a lot of people didn't necessarily I don't think they appreciate a lot appreciated Elijah Wood as much as they should have, right? Like, what do you do you think there's a contrast there between them? Do you think they had because it it was about the same time those movies were coming out, and I think they both have had experiences where they've been mistaken for one another.

SPEAKER_04 21:34

Oh, yeah, yeah. Like Daniel Radcliffe would be in an elevator, so be like, dude, it's Elijah Wood.

SPEAKER_02 21:41

Oh, let me put on my glasses. Oh, Harry Potter. I don't know. I mean, Daniel or uh Elijah Wood has been in you know a bunch of things. Oh, yeah, he was in a TV series and then he was in um Sin City, and um, I think he was. Popular, it might have just been like his personality not really wanting to jump into so many things. Yeah, I don't know. It'd be interesting to take a deeper dive into that and see what actually is the reason for that.

SPEAKER_04 22:16

Well, as we draw this part of the uh segment to a close, I'm just gonna say I really hope in this TV series we get to see Arthur Weasley blow up the Dursley's chimney.

SPEAKER_02 22:26

I know that's in book four, but we get to see Tung Tung Toffee.

SPEAKER_04 22:30

Yeah. I'm just really hoping there's a lot more Weasley moments. And yeah. Oh my gosh. There's so many funny things. And keep the Uranus jokes in, okay? How about we just get a series that follow Fred and George? Yeah. I feel like there's enough creativity there that you can have a lot of like, you know, how they get the Marauders map. And you know, they're looking at it. Wow, look at this. There's this guy, Peter Pettigrew, always hanging out with sleeping with Ron. Why is he sleeping with Ron? It's no big deal.

SPEAKER_01 23:02

We don't judge.

SPEAKER_04 23:04

Yeah, that could be Ron's little secret. We'll use it as blackmail sometime. Anyway, I digress.

SPEAKER_02 23:14

Gotta love him. But, anyways, let us know. Am I an idiot for thinking that the Harry Potter movies are bad? Um yeah, let us know. Also, let us know what you think of the new series coming out.

SPEAKER_04 23:32

So give us your thoughts on HBO series. Should we watch it? Yeah. Yes. Should we watch it as the big rascals and review each episode or just a season? Let us know.

SPEAKER_02 23:43

Yeah. Or maybe we'll just stick to the books.

SPEAKER_01 23:48

Yeah. That's always cute.

SPEAKER_02 23:50

All right, Derek. Yeah, why don't you uh open us up with the discussion on the Princess Bride?

SPEAKER_04 23:55

Yes, the Princess Bride. This is one of William Goldman's most well-known pieces of work. The Princess Bride is a satirical fantasy romance focusing on the love between Buttercup and Wesley. The story is filled with high adventure, terrific one-liners, and ooe-gooey declarations of love. Splendid side characters steal your heart, a villain that earns your disgust while being a little comical all at the same time, and a display of how true love conquers all, with a sub-theme of how life's not fair.

SPEAKER_02 24:30

Ooey gooey. That's great. Which um Google, ChatGPT, or Derek?

SPEAKER_04 24:37

No, that was all me. Alright. That was all me. Thank you. Bravo. Let me know if it was cringy or not. Yeah, I wrote that all by myself. Thank you.

SPEAKER_01 24:46

Tasteful.

SPEAKER_04 24:47

Oh, thanks. Tasteful, huh? Okay. Well, let's go into our first impressions of this book. What did you fellas think? This was my second time reading it. Was this your guys' first time?

SPEAKER_02 25:02

Yeah. Well, I think the first thing we need to address is kind of the framing device? Yeah. Are you talking about like William Goldman's like abridged version? Yeah. Yeah.

SPEAKER_04 25:18

Tell us about that, Derek. So the book starts with William Goldman explaining, he kind of makes himself a character, all this, and with interjections as a narrator, explaining how his dad read The Princess Bride by S. Morganstern to him when he had pneumonia. Kind of the same setup as how the movie starts with a grandfather reading to his grandson. And how he loved this book so much, and he goes, he's really roundabout how it goes, but in short, he goes through all these great lengths to get this book for his son to read, and his son reads the first chapter and then puts it down and says he couldn't get through it because it was so boring. And he thinks, What in the world? How could you not like it? And he reads the book and realizes, Oh my gosh, when my dad read this book to me, he only read me the good parts. So he takes the he takes the concept of uh abridging S. Morgenstern's work, which uh spoiler for you, S. Morgenstern is not a real person. There is no unabridged version of the Princess Bride. This has fooled many a person. And I think I think it surprised some of you guys as well. Because I remember when I explained it, I remember Jeff texting, that's wild! So, like, there's this fictional book. Yeah, there's this fictional book that he's abridging and he makes comments about what he cut out and how boring it was, all for comedic value, which I think was I'll get more into that when we talk about it more about her feelings. And um I I think that covers it, which he he interrupts quite frequently in the book, like when his dad read it to him, or when he cut out like 105 pages that as Morganstern put in because of how boring and how detailed it was about Florinese celebrations and stuff like that.

SPEAKER_02 27:12

Or like when Wesley and Purcup meet up. Intercum politics. People are uh, you know, should be allowed privacy. A modicum of privacy.

SPEAKER_04 27:23

The way William Goldman makes himself a character in this, like, first off, he doesn't have a son, I believe. I think he has two daughters, so because he's always calling his son fat and unathletic and saying that he's never going to amount to anything, which you know, he makes him look he makes himself look like a jerk a lot, and he like opens by in a situation where he seems to almost cheat on his wife, and he's always saying stuff like, Sorry, Helen, like you're not as amazing as you think you are, kind of thing to his wife, which yeah, he he makes himself look real bad for comedic effect. So, like, if it was all true, I was kind of getting mad the first time around. I was like, I hate this guy. This guy's a this guy's a scumbag, but they do cut it's awful lot of that from the audiobook, I think, to kind of lighten things up.

SPEAKER_02 28:07

But so yeah, my first impression, I I came across, well, I mean, obviously, we've seen the movie, grew up all watching it and just beloved in our household. But um I think it was maybe like five, six, seven years ago, I was just like, oh, maybe I'll check out The Princess Bride, and then I got the audiobook and started listening to it, and it's like gives that whole spiel that it's an abridgment, and I'm like, where's this full version? And I went looking for this full version and could never find it, and I didn't even know that that's what William Goldman did was it was just like almost a joke.

unknown 28:58

Yeah.

SPEAKER_02 28:59

Yep, he got a lot of people. It's interesting because the audio version audiobook version, which is the only one that I could find, is an abridgment. It's pretty much an abridgment of the original Princess Bride, which claims to be an abridgment. Yes. So it's a little confusing. So yeah, that was my impression. So I haven't even read the full version of Princess Bride yet.

SPEAKER_01 29:30

There, there I was researching into that too, and there's a lot of vr uh different versions of it. Like there was a 25th anniversary edition and a 30th anniversary edition, and both got material added into it. And so it seems like he's it's just been a very flexible book where he's been able to uh incorporate more material into it when he when he's wanted to as time has gone on. Um but I think that's part of the magic of the book, and and I was definitely going into this fully expecting to read more about Florney's uh politics and and guild politics and whatnot, and not having any of that, it was almost like a weight was off my shoulders. I'm like, oh, I don't have to worry about this, I just need to uh enjoy the book. Yeah. Yeah. So first impression was kind of off kilter, but then shifted over into how much I enjoyed the movie, and it was well easy to just fall right into the book.

SPEAKER_02 30:38

Yeah, for sure.

SPEAKER_04 30:40

Uh, what did you guys think of? I don't know if the audiobook had a lot of William Goldens Goldman's writing style, but what did you think? Like I felt like he the way he wrote it, he seems like that, you know, rambling old storyteller that kind of goes on side tangents but then wheels right back masterfully.

SPEAKER_02 31:00

Yeah. Oh yeah. There's definitely that. And the audiobook is very fun because the director of the movie is the narrator for it, Rob Reiner. And so I I feel like he did a really good job.

SPEAKER_01 31:13

He seemed I think he had such a good relationship with William Goldman that it was it helped in him being able to translate, I think, Goldman's um style.

SPEAKER_02 31:24

Style. Yeah. For sure. Yeah, it's all very fun.

SPEAKER_04 31:29

And William Goldman, he is also a screenwriter, and I think he's received several awards as well. And he was the screenwriter for The Princess Bride, his own book, which is a reason I feel like the movie is so faithful to his book, which we can go over the differences like anytime you guys want, because there's not that many. Yeah, exactly. Which makes what makes me realize why the book the movie is so beloved. And yeah, if you haven't seen that movie, wipe yourself off, man, because you're dead. Like, how have you not seen that? Come on, yeah.

SPEAKER_02 32:07

I don't even know if we need a like a non-spoiler section in this podcast. It's just like if you've seen the movie, you know the story generally, and the changes, like Derek said, are so small, but I do like the changes to the stories. Yeah, exactly. I do like that.

SPEAKER_04 32:26

I guess I gotta ask you guys as we go through the changes if they were in the audiobook you guys listened to. Yeah. Because I read the 30th anniversary edition of this book.

SPEAKER_01 32:35

I think for the most part, the audiobook has everything that was in the book, it just takes out certain things. Um, like I I it it shortens some backstories and uh I think it excludes some more detailed parts between characters, some interactions, but for the most part, uh it just uh took out some parts basically. I don't think it changed any of the writing. Yeah, yeah. As far as I can tell when I was examining both of them.

SPEAKER_02 33:03

Yeah, from our discussion uh earlier, it seemed like they took out a lot of Inigo's backstory, not all of it, but pretty much all of Fezicks.

SPEAKER_01 33:14

Yeah, which is too bad. They shortened Fezic. You just you just hear it was from Turkey, and that's and that's kind of about it. And then he was in Greenland at one point. What?

SPEAKER_04 33:23

That's it, they don't talk about how he had all the fights, how he became this undefeated champ, and everyone hated him because the fights were too boring, because he just was fighting all the time, and how he went into fighting gangs for local charities and everything.

SPEAKER_03 33:38

No, which he ended up unemployed in Greenland.

SPEAKER_02 33:46

Yeah, see, this is why they need to make a full version audiobook. Yeah, I don't feel like it'd be too hard either. Maybe we should do it. So weird. Oh man.

SPEAKER_01 33:57

Yeah, we can voice the characters.

SPEAKER_02 34:00

I'll do uh I'll do Fezig.

SPEAKER_04 34:07

I'm gonna be honest, guys. Like we can do a lot of the voices, but I I don't know how we're gonna capture Wesley slash Carrie Elwes' smooth and suave linebacker.

SPEAKER_01 34:19

Now Rob Reiner, he does a good he does a good Jewish and he does a good Jewish Spaniard.

SPEAKER_04 34:28

I don't know if he does anything else. There is a section in the book here where he he like talks about how some people were Jew, like acted Jewish. I can't remember which I think it was Miracle Max and his wife Billy Crystal. Yeah. And I don't know if that was in the audiobook, but I was like going, oh man, he's going into some uh that's hilarious, some racy territory there.

SPEAKER_01 34:53

That's so funny. That's probably why they had that kind of acting in the movie.

SPEAKER_04 34:59

Well, I guess we could quickly go over the the differences in the movie and what was left out from the book, aside from all of William Goldman's interjections, because I guess the first part is just how Buttercup finds out she's in love with Wesley, and it's because the Count comes by to check her out, which is creepy, and his wife is checking out Wesley, and she and Buttercup is getting jealous.

SPEAKER_01 35:27

The Count was watching Buttercup, and the Countess was watching Wesley, who was watching Buttercup.

SPEAKER_04 35:32

Yeah, like it's so weird. Although I would I'm gonna say I was really laughing when he comes and says, I hear your cows are the best. And Buttercup's dad's like, My cows are horrible. Like, if it wasn't for Wesley or anyone else having cows, like if no one if someone else had some cows, they would be better cows. They would be better cattle than mine. But yeah, this this grown man checking out this 17-year-old girl and this grown woman checking out this 17-year-old boy. Like, really weird, but you know, jealousy is what makes Buttercup realize she's in love with Wesley.

SPEAKER_01 36:11

Uh this what does he say? This is before Germany and France, but not after kingdoms or something like that. Yeah, Europe, I think. Before Europe, but after kingdoms. The olden times.

SPEAKER_04 36:25

Yes, like that's that's like the first major difference, and you get to see Humperdink's proposal, or you get all of Humperdink's story of how like he's this great hunter, and like his beginning was pretty well done to make you hate him, because I think the first sentence is after describing his like a barrel of a man, like he couldn't go one day without killing something. Yeah, he couldn't go one day without killing something. He has this whole zoo of death where he can hunt every day, and like it's like everything that he wants to defeat.

SPEAKER_01 36:56

Yes, the enemies of speed, the enemies of strength, the enemies of fear, yeah, and like he's choking out like an orangutan right when hit the count's like, I need to talk to you.

SPEAKER_04 37:06

Can it wait? And he like breaks its neck. Okay, let's talk. So, like, he's definitely established as a physical threat, but also just this psychopath that just has a bloodlust, and he has no desire to get married ever. And the only reason he does is because, well, his dad's gonna die. They have to have a male heir, and they have to have a male heir, so he needs the uh he needs a wife, and they go through this whole long story of how he's like a gay, like courting the guilder. Is it Duchess or is it they do? That was out of the audiobooks. Yeah, it's kind of it's one of William Goldman's like comedy things where he like they talk about how like I think it was for a month that he was courting her and having her, like, and she was well known for having the finest hat collection in all the country.

SPEAKER_01 37:57

This is why the audiobooks three hours.

SPEAKER_04 38:01

She had the finest hat collection, and she had like a hat for every occasion. Like he asked her to go for a walk. She said, Oh, excuse me. She went and changed her hat. She was never seen without a hat. And then one moment at a feast, the wind blows in through the door and blows off the hat, and then the candles are out, and that's how Prince Hubert Ink sees for a second she's bald. And so he refuses to marry her. She's bald, Jerry. She's bald. So he refuses to marry this girl, and then that's when the count's like, well, there was this farm girl I saw who had great potential, and like the proposal is so I thought it was kind of funny. The way it's like so short. I'm trying to find it here, but it's essentially um Humperdink, seeing Buttercup, and Oh yeah, here it is. Seeing Buttercup, and basically saying, Hi, I'm Prince Humperdink, I'm your prince, you're gonna marry me. And this is after Buttercup found out Wesley got killed by the dread pirate robbers, and she said she's never gonna love again. And she's like, I'm Buttercup, I'm at your service, I will not marry you. And he's like, You probably didn't hear me. I'm your prince, you will marry me, or you will be put to death. She's like, Okay, kill me. Then he's like, he basically gets to the point of like, I don't care about love. Let's get married. I need a male heir, and she's like, I I'm never gonna love you. He's like that, he's like, that's fine. How about you just don't love me, you marry me, and become the most miserable and richest person and most powerful woman in the world. And she's like, Okay, fine then. She's like, okay, fine. I got nothing better going on, and that's it. That's the courtship, and I thought it was pretty funny.

SPEAKER_01 39:45

Yeah. Oh, yeah. That it I think is the big difference between the the book and the movie is it seems the book develops Buttercup a lot more than the movie does. Yes. You get a sense of Buttercup's character through, I think, small moments in the in the movie, but the book definitely has more of her.

SPEAKER_04 40:00

Yeah, she's kind of a tomboy in the beginning where she just doesn't pay attention to the boys, doesn't do it.

SPEAKER_01 40:05

She's unkempt, she just doesn't even bathe, and she just likes to ride her horse around. Love out addresses like she would be the most beautiful girl in the world if she if she just cleaned herself up.

SPEAKER_00 40:16

Yeah.

SPEAKER_04 40:18

And then one of the other big notable differences is it goes into Anigo's backstory and Fezik's backstory. Talks about Anigo, Nigo's father making the six-fingered sword, and then how his father was killed. How he tried to avenge his father, and how he left for ten years to practice sword play, and it talked about how he became a wizard. Yeah, he became a wizard, how he divided his day up into like, okay, I had four hours a day for sleeping. I spent like two hours squeezing rocks so my grip would be impeccable, and just practi and doing all these little things. Like he had it down to the like the set time, so he had time to eat, time to sleep for only four hours every day, and just basically eat and practice for 20 hours a day. Yeah. And how he became a wizard of sword play. Oh, exactly. And then you have Fezzak, who, yeah, he he was bullied because he's just a big kid who just loves rhymes. And he his dad tries to teach him to fight. He finally hits his dad and puts his dad in a coma for three days. And his dad's like, Alright, you're gonna make us rich fighting people, and everyone hates him because the fights are too easy. And then, yeah, one thing led to another where his parents eventually die and they wish him the best, and he ends up unemployed in Greenland, found by Vicini.

SPEAKER_01 41:33

This is where his uh his idea of sports, it's not very sports, not in.

SPEAKER_04 41:41

Yep, and then I guess the other noticeable change is they left out the zoo of death, which is really cool, but I can see in the 80s how they wouldn't want to have all those animals on set and risk, you know, injuring an animal and having a lawsuit there.

SPEAKER_01 41:56

Well, the R O U S I think were complicated enough as is for them to orchestrate. So man, imagine boy, is that movie magic wonderful?

SPEAKER_04 42:06

We'll get to that bats, the blood eagles. Yeah, the blood eagles, death bats. Like, there's five levels, and it's so cool how they progress. They get attacked by the deadliest snake, and Anigo tricks Fezic into just taking out the snake by saying, I had more rhymes to share with you. I guess we'll never, if no one. He's like, tell me the rhymes, Inigo, and he's like not saying anything. I lied. And then he's like, Yeah, Fezak is just mad at Enigo for the next few paragraphs about how he lied, and then they get to the king bats, and Fezik is petrified, and that's when you get to see Enigo's wizardly sword play as he's just fighting by sound alone because he's blind in the darkness, and he's just impaling all these bats to where they're stacking on his sword, and like great action set pieces. Like, this is one of the reasons I think you need to at least read the book once.

SPEAKER_01 42:56

These are things a book can have that a movie, I mean, even a modern movie, could struggle to replicate it properly, and a book just is able to give that with your imagination so much better.

SPEAKER_04 43:08

Yeah, and like on the I think it was the last final floor before they got to the fifth floor, there was the deadliest spider that hung out on the doorknob, but they didn't know, and it was all well lit, and Anigo's just having the biggest panic attacks the whole time, just losing his mind. And then Fezic just breaks down the door and Anigo ends up crushing the spider unknowingly.

SPEAKER_01 43:32

Which there's gotta be some danger here. What is it?

SPEAKER_04 43:35

I love that. So, like, please go ahead and read the book just for that part alone. It's it's amazing. I love it. It's it's terrific. And we'll talk about the ending later, because I I had I have some feelings about that, and I don't want to get to it just now, but yeah, let's uh let's for the most part. There's some other changes and other details here and there. Like they give details of how they get all the ingredients for Wesley's like. Miracle pill, but for the most part, to our viewers and our listeners, that's as many changes as there are for the most part. There's some minor ones as well that I glazed over, but like very faithful adaption to the to the book to film, which I think is just an incredible feat all on its own, because I feel like not very many movies based on books can have that title, especially nowadays. Yeah.

SPEAKER_01 44:29

Yeah. Do you think uh the way the book was framed is the primary part of that? I imagine because you know uh Goldman was involved, of course, that makes a huge difference. But um do you think the framing was the biggest part of why the movie was so faithful to it?

SPEAKER_04 44:51

Like because a lot of his framing, like he did a lot of cutouts because a lot of from the movie where it's you know the grandson interjecting and asking the grandfather is what William Goldman said. He asked his dad when he read it, and you know, even those lines are faithful to the book, you know, everything that's even said. So like that that is a possibility, but I don't know.

SPEAKER_01 45:16

Maybe I I I was fascinated by the framing because I've been listening, I've been listening to it was a lot of the writing podcasts I came across were so consequential to what as I was listening to this. Uh like it was talk one of them was talking about how you only tell the reader what you need to tell them, which I feel like the fact of the abridging kind of did that, right? It avoided, you know, you didn't necessarily you didn't need to know anything about Florent politics or guilder politics or or you know the love scene between Wesley and Buttercup kind of stuff. Like you really, oh, they just had a reunion, you know what the reader knows what's going on, right? You he really only told us what we needed to know as we're reading the book, which it was what actually makes a good book. And even for character descriptions, um, like as you're learning, uh you should only give the description of the character as you need to um in the moment as the moments kind of go along. And I think that shows up in this book as well. Uh I I love uh Humperdinck's description. He was a barrel of a man with barrel arms and barrel legs. And it was um I I thought it would be a wonderful exercise in writing to uh as you're writing out your scenes or chapters, see if you can abridge them. Like if you can abridge them, then yeah, you probably need to cut a lot out. Uh if you if you can't abridge it, like it's impossible without losing too many details, then that is probably a well-written scene. That is a good way to judge if uh you've given the reader everything they need to know and not too much more. Yeah, yeah.

SPEAKER_02 47:00

Well, I feel like it it's a nice callback to your hot take from last episode, Derek. I think you said like simple is better.

SPEAKER_04 47:08

Yeah, if you can convey more with less, I feel like you're doing a great job because Pierce Brown did a great job, just you know, like we said in that episode, his one sentence can encapsulate all the feelings that character has, and it's like coming off as poetic. And you know, the Hobbit was able to convey high ideals to like without talking down to the children that it was made for, and you're able to still feel all that uh wisdom and years of knowledge that Tolkien had behind those words, and you you can understand it even when you're a kid, and it's gonna mean more when you're an adult. It's yeah, it's if a story grows with you, that is quite a strength. And I do agree, Jeff, going back to that advice, because one of the best pieces of writing advice I got was if if the sentence like is if everything you write down on the page is needed, then you gotta keep it. But if you can take out the sentence, or you can take out the paragraph or the page, and the reader's still gonna know everything they need to know, and the story's not gonna change, take it out. Which there's some writers out there where I'm like, they could have used that, but there's other ones where I'm like, dang, that's a lot of information, but it all came around. In the end, I'm like, oh that that I'm okay, I can't criticize her for being too verbose.

SPEAKER_01 48:31

Yeah, it's a hard balance for sure. I think it really takes kind of understanding your book and and seeing where the concept leads, but oh man, yeah, it's the whole uh killing your darlings kind of thing because you can write a whole eloquent page and it it you're like crap, I have to get rid of it.

SPEAKER_04 48:50

Yeah, and that's kind of what William Goldman pokes fun at because he all has like a whole page dedicated to like, yeah, in this chapter, it was all about making Princess Buttercup a princess of this tiny land, so she wasn't a commoner, and it's like he says it's it was a hundred and five pages of all this stuff, which he just says, Yeah, no one wants to read that, so I'm gonna sum it up like my dad did. After one thing and another, she got like she was ready to be married to Prince Humberding after three years, or after one thing and another, three years passed. Which I feel like that's a funny way of William Goldman just making fun of very verbose writers out there and be like, come on, no one needs to know that. And even in movies, you see that happen sometimes where it's like, okay, that's that was a waste of time, where they just said all that dialogue, and I'm like, Yeah, I already learned all that from that dialogue earlier. Why are we rehashing the same ground? Oh, yeah, exactly. For sure. Well, one of the biggest strengths, I would say, the the book and the movie has is its characters, which I would love to talk about. Like the main woman, Buttercup, we already talked about. She's kind of a tomboy, she has more development and description in the book, but she's still kind of just very lackluster compared to many of the other characters we fall in love with throughout this story. Yeah.

SPEAKER_02 50:17

Yeah, I think though she represents kind of uh that fairy tale princess that wants to be swept off her feet.

SPEAKER_01 50:30

A trophy to be pursued.

SPEAKER_02 50:32

Uh-huh, exactly. And I I think she represents that well, and that's kind of her role.

SPEAKER_01 50:41

So I guess that's the damsel in distress.

SPEAKER_04 50:43

Yeah, that's which she's not completely a damsel in distress, because in the end of the book, she's able to think quick and get them out of the way of the guards. Yeah.

SPEAKER_02 50:52

M your queen.

SPEAKER_04 50:57

Yeah, is it bad that like when I read that, because it like in the book, it like hasn't extended in all casts. It's like in the middle of the page, and I just immediately thought of in place of a dark lord, you shall have a queen. Oh, yeah. Just picturing her flying like Kate Blanchett as Galadriel.

SPEAKER_03 51:20

Love me and despair.

SPEAKER_04 51:24

Exactly. But how do you guys think Wesley was portrayed in the book versus the movie?

SPEAKER_01 51:31

I I can't see anything other than Carrie El. Right? Yeah.

SPEAKER_04 51:35

I cannot either. And let's how about we uh gush a little bit about how perfect of casting that was.

SPEAKER_02 51:42

Yeah. And Derek, I mean, what a what a delightful book, as you wish is, that you missed out on.

SPEAKER_04 51:50

Oh, I need to read that. Oh, yeah.

SPEAKER_02 51:52

It's it was such a joy because it was almost just like you're watching the movie as he's just talking about all the backstory with it. It really is seems like such an awesome fellow, Carriel was.

SPEAKER_01 52:06

Oh, yeah. He is he is one of the actors I want to meet. Not only because of this, but he's been in so many things.

SPEAKER_04 52:13

Oh, yeah. This and because he's Pierre Despot Psych. Like, once again, like his line delivery, I feel like is unmatched. Just he has a style. Yeah, he has this style. It's so suave and just unhitched, unlike undeterred. And his sarcasm as well is so well done, like when he's climbing up the rocks, and he goes like, I don't suppose he can speed things up. And he's like, I'm I'm only up here and waiting to kill you. And he just looks at him. That does put a damper on our relationship, doesn't it?

SPEAKER_02 52:50

Yeah. And you learn how you learn kind of what uh put him over the edge of being casted for Wesley in the book. He talks about how Rob Reiner and his his partner came to interview him and they had him do some lines. And I think at one point he did a he did a fat Albert.

SPEAKER_01 53:13

And then every uh every Comic Con he goes to, they ask him to do a Cosby impression.

SPEAKER_02 53:22

Yeah, that was something that like Rob Reiner loved about him. He's like, oh, this guy's actually funny.

SPEAKER_01 53:29

Just imagine suave Carrie Ellis.

SPEAKER_04 53:38

Oh man. Oh yeah. Oh, I what's your guys' favorite line that he delivers? Like, I feel like there's so many good one-liners he delivers. Yeah. And I feel like that's like he is just platinum for it. But he does so many cool, like, just the way he carries himself too, like in the sword fight when he throws his sword and like lands, and he like goes in the pole, he does like the full twist and flips off it, and then just crosses his legs, picks up the sword.

SPEAKER_03 54:05

Like no, what of consequence? I must know.

SPEAKER_02 54:12

I mean, I'm just a disappointment. Yeah, that would be that could be our top five. What best what are the best speeds? One-liners. But you know, you seem a decent fellow. I hate to die. I hate to kill you. I hate to every time I hear that.

SPEAKER_04 54:31

I always tell my son, because we watch that sword fight all the time, because he loves sword fights right now. And I tell him every time, like, that's how Canadians start fights.

SPEAKER_01 54:43

They're just both too nice. You seem a decent fellow? I'd hate to kill you. And then as they accidentally hit each other with their swords, oh, I'm sorry. I'm sorry. Well, I'm sorry.

SPEAKER_04 54:54

Oh man. Can't I just say how masterful the choreography for that sword fight is? Like, yeah. Who is the actor for Anigo? I can't remember his name.

SPEAKER_02 55:06

Uh it's um Mandy Petinkin. Yeah.

SPEAKER_04 55:12

Yeah, Petinkin. Like, I bet you him and Carrie Elwis are just looking like they are having the time of their lives. It's so cool. It's so fun to watch. Derek, you gotta read this book, man.

SPEAKER_01 55:24

Say maybe we should have done that movie. He frames it. I I think he does a fantastic job of bringing out everyone's personality that was on the set. Yeah. And you I mean, you definitely get a sense of who they were. But uh, one of the things he emphasizes about Mandy is how he was so serious most of the time during the filming, and he kind of after the fact thought wishes he would have uh had more fun in in it. But you can just see like he Mandy Potinkin really played his role very seriously. He didn't necessarily want to be a funny character, it seems.

SPEAKER_04 55:59

But I think he's gone on record saying that was one of his like favorite roles of all time as well.

SPEAKER_02 56:04

Yeah, I would doubt. But you find out that they were training before they even started shooting, and it was one of the last scenes they they filmed. And when they did a practice run in front of the director, he's like, That's it. It was just like a minute, yeah. It was only like a minute long, and so they're like two weeks away from the actual filming date, and so they're like, Crap, we gotta add like five minutes into this, but because they were trained so good, they were able to implement like the part where they go up the stairs, and then the part make use of all of the set, yeah, like the whole terrain and just how an ego just is talking about unless the enemy of studies is the group, and then he like does this backflip, which I have.

SPEAKER_04 56:58

Like they're doing such cool choreography, and just oh my gosh, just the dialogue between them is so fun. Oh, yeah. I know something that you don't. I am not left-handed, and the way he just smoothly transitions and oh, can I also just praise who's the composer for that? Just he did such a good job with the music of the sword fight. Just it is so well paced, it's quick, and it like has some sense of danger in it with the use of the the strings. Oh my gosh.

SPEAKER_02 57:33

The the cha-cha-cha.

SPEAKER_00 57:36

Yeah. Yeah.

SPEAKER_04 57:39

Oh, and I I the the way it ends too, just you know, when Wesley reveals that he's not left-handed either, and you know, they're like going at it. And that's when an ego's like, you can see him getting frustrated. He's like swinging at Wesley, and you see him just dodge just the switch of the like just once again, just the way Carrie El was carries, there's just he's just going side to side, like so nonchalant, like, oh yes, this is an average Tuesday for me.

SPEAKER_01 58:08

So good. It is it is fascinating. They did not use well. I think the only part with stunt doubles is the flips and the acrobatic, uh, what is it called? The not the pole vaulting, um the high bar. Yeah. They swing around the acrobatics.

SPEAKER_04 58:25

Um, but Mark Mark Knopfer, that's the guy who composed this movie. Yeah.

SPEAKER_02 58:30

Which I did. Um shoot. Never mind. I'm trying to remember where the reason they they got that guy, but I can't remember. There was a reason. Interesting.

SPEAKER_04 58:46

Yeah, for those of you listening as well, many of the great one-liners from the film are featured in like most of the dialogue is spot on in the book.

SPEAKER_01 58:55

So if you've preceded the mood uh improvising for a lot of lines, but yeah, most of the iconic dialogue is from the book.

SPEAKER_04 59:04

Well, and there is some lines in there, like the line that Wesley says to Buttercup, where life is paid, anyone who tells you otherwise is selling something. That's actually something Fezic's mom tells him. But that's a technique that Peter Jackson used as well in the Lord of the Rings. Like he would take the great lines and he'd give them to other characters because he's like, I'm not able to fit this anywhere. And that's, I feel like, kind of why the Lord of the Rings feels like Tolkien even when it doesn't, even when it's not following the correct script, which I gotta hand it to William Goldman for swapping lines like that. Good for him. Yeah, yeah.

SPEAKER_01 59:40

That is really cool. It is so iconic in its in its wording and its lines, and I think a large part of that is how the care is the characters that are delivering it. Like I said, I think it it you have characters you give the right line to the right character and it it sends it into history, basically makes it iconic for sure.

SPEAKER_02 1:00:04

Which is crazy to think that the movie was a flop to begin with.

SPEAKER_04 1:00:09

Yeah, that blows my mind.

SPEAKER_01 1:00:10

Didn't have nearly as much credit to what it deserved.

SPEAKER_02 1:00:13

Yeah, you find out Carrie talks about how the like the poster for it was like the it advertised the grandpa and the grandson more than like the fantasy of the story. And so people are like, no interest in the surface. It looks like a kid's movie, but then for kids it looks like an adult movie, and so like nobody wanted to go. Everyone was like, What is this? Didn't know what it was, yeah. But yeah, the characters in this are great, you know. Like, even uh, you know, we get Vicini just for a short little time. But but he's so memorable. He is, he's such a great character, just someone that you kind of like instantly hate, inconceivable, but at the same time, like he's he's he's fun to follow around.

SPEAKER_04 1:01:05

They'll be like, what kind of sleazy stuff is he gonna do? Which once again, perfect casting choice for Vicini, even though in the book he's like a hunchback. Yeah, but I don't care.

SPEAKER_02 1:01:18

Do you know who their first choice were was for Vicini? No, who was their first choice? Can you make a guess? Yeah, give us a guess. Who do you think? Who would you cast? Who would I cast? A Sicilian, so kind of an Italian hunchback. Come on, put it together. I don't think I can't talk so bad at being on the spot. Who would you love? Who do you think would just kill it as the City? What Italian actors do I know? With hunchbacks. He's short.

SPEAKER_01 1:01:56

It's usually sunny around him.

SPEAKER_02 1:01:58

Yeah.

SPEAKER_03 1:01:59

Danny DeVito! Okay, okay.

SPEAKER_04 1:02:06

I can see him hamming it up with that rule.

SPEAKER_03 1:02:09

Could you imagine? Especially with the way he can just talk fast with passion.

SPEAKER_02 1:02:14

Oh, yeah. I I mean, I loved uh I can't remember the actor's name. Yeah, Wallace. Yeah.

SPEAKER_01 1:02:21

He did great. He did amazing. No doubt, like the inconceivable coming from him is spot on.

SPEAKER_04 1:02:29

And once again, just it's owning all the lines, everything he says, like every scene he's in is pretty much memorable. Yep. Um, just the laugh as he's dying.

SPEAKER_03 1:02:39

Oh my gosh, that is so iconic.

SPEAKER_02 1:02:41

Yeah. But it talks about in the book that he was actually uh self-conscious because he knew Danny DeVito was the first choice. He felt inadequate playing that role.

SPEAKER_01 1:02:54

It it was such it seemed like such a big thing for him. He was so self-conscious about it that for this his scenes, he had Rob Reiner act out the scenes how he wanted so he could try and mimic it, is what how how he worded it. Um which that that I imagine that does that puts so much pressure on an actor when you hear, oh, you were basically a second choice, and you have to live up to who they had as probably the first choice. Though it it honestly seems like he was putting too much pressure on him. Carrie kind of emphasizes how the director tried to make it clear to him that he was the perfect person for the role, he was meant for the role. Yeah, but I mean, I can imagine that's hard to get across after you've already heard your second.

SPEAKER_04 1:03:45

That is, yeah, that is tough. Oh man. But yeah, like the whole exchange, like Vicini's pretty faithful um in from movie to film, and just the whole exchange of the poisons is just such a delight to read, just as it is a delight to watch, and you get Vicini going on those tangents about how he's deducing what he knows about the man in black. And I just love it. And Wesley just, you know, with his one line, just being like, You're trying to like just saying astounding or something like that, and you know, him wait till I can go Australia.

SPEAKER_03 1:04:24

Oh yes, Australia.

SPEAKER_04 1:04:26

It's it's so good.

SPEAKER_01 1:04:29

Never go against the Sicilian when death is on the line.

SPEAKER_04 1:04:33

Oh my gosh. And yeah, that laugh is just incredible. I love it, and credit to the movie for adding the whole little rhymes bit near the beginning of those three getting introduced, because that's not in the book where like anybody want to peanut?

SPEAKER_02 1:04:53

Stop it.

SPEAKER_04 1:04:54

No more peanut now. I mean it. Anybody want to peanut? And once again, back to perfect casting. Andre the Giant as Fezic. Yeah, that was he was absolutely delightful. And was it was he talked about in As You Wish? Oh, was he?

SPEAKER_02 1:05:12

It's pretty much a tribute to it. It's a big tribute, which is is like I said, so delightful to learn more about Andre and how you love everyone. Everybody just loved everything.

SPEAKER_04 1:05:25

Yeah, I was about to ask, did it have that little fact where he called everyone boss? And the reason he did that was to like have more warmth and have everyone like feel like they weren't talking to this giant. Yeah, it was disarming, and they're like, oh yeah, this is this is a friend, not a giant of them. Okay, boss.

SPEAKER_01 1:05:39

Okay, boss. Oh man. Hey boss, come over here. Yeah. Yeah. Yeah, there's this. Oh I don't I I don't want to spoil that. We're we're gonna spoil it. There's this scene where or this part where Carrie talks about how uh Andre had this uh ATV to get around on the set because his back was so bad. And like Couldn't fit into the vehicles. Shuttle. Yeah. And so he had to have his own ATV and he was having so much fun on it. And he calls Carrie over. He's like, hey boss, you want to ride this thing? And Carrie's like, you know, he's trying to be the professional actor. He's like, no, no, I don't want to. It's okay. It looks fun though. And finally he convinces Carrie to give it a try. And he shows him how to do it. And Carrie gets on it, and he's revving it up and getting ready to go. And right as he's about to hit the throttle, his foot slips off and it rolls over his foot and his and his toe like basically folds under itself and breaks. And that was right before they were about to start filming.

SPEAKER_02 1:06:43

You know, the the scene where the where Fezzick tries to kill Wesley, yeah. So that that's pretty much when it happens. And Carrie tries to hide it from the director.

SPEAKER_01 1:06:57

There was a nurse on scene, like an inexperienced nurse who patches up the toe, and and he's like he's like begging everyone. Don't don't tell him. Don't tell him.

SPEAKER_02 1:07:08

Don't tell the director. For Carrie. And um inspired. Uh 23 year old.

SPEAKER_01 1:07:20

23, yeah. 23-year-old. That's huge. Yeah.

SPEAKER_02 1:07:24

Which is hilarious. But so they pretty much just swapped some filming around to where he could do it with a broken foot and then kind of put more of the action scenes later. But there's one that he talked about, one part where he talked about when uh right before Buttercup pushes him down the hill and he like smoothly like sits down. The only reason he's he's sitting down like that is to not hurt his toe. Yeah, it's legal. He makes it look cool. The director's like, Wow, that was such a cool way to sit down, Carrie.

SPEAKER_01 1:08:07

That's so funny. Oh yeah. Needless to say, they knew his toe was broken like immediately. They're like, Carrie, just be more careful, please. And be honest with me.

SPEAKER_02 1:08:23

You don't need hiding. We're not gonna replace you. Which, yeah. Yeah, Rob Reiner honestly seemed like a really cool guy. Um, definitely uh sad what happened to him, and that kind of is relevant now with uh you know his him and his wife being murdered, which is sad, but what you didn't know what I looked him up, I'm like, oh, he died like a while back. Yeah, he was murdered by his son.

SPEAKER_01 1:08:53

Oh my gosh.

SPEAKER_02 1:08:54

So I didn't get pretty pretty sad. Uh depressing, yeah, pretty sad, but really uh I'm glad we can remember him so fondly, though. Yeah, yeah. Yeah, uh definitely uh that is tragic. Holy cow. You know, him and the cool thing about that audiobook, Carrie reads it, but he has all the actors come back on and read portions of it, and Rob Reiner reads a bunch of it. He also does the audiobook, which is he did really good with as well. So but yeah, very fun.

SPEAKER_04 1:09:30

Um back to the book. Uh talk about a really fun way to display the hero Wesley's abilities with you know it's it's it's just like a video game where you have levels he's moving up, but you don't know it, where he has he shows off his sword play and proves like that he's a master because you get Anigo's backstory of how he becomes a wizard and he gets bested by Wesley, and you then you get Fezick's story of how great he is, and then he gets bested by Wesley, and then Vicini, how clever he is, get invested by Wesley.

SPEAKER_01 1:10:01

Well, I think the book even builds it better because if if you had read the book, you you could guess it was Wesley, but as far as you know, it's just the man in black.

SPEAKER_04 1:10:10

That's true, because he it says he was there when Buttercup was shown to the people, and he had hate in his eyes. Yeah. So, like, yeah, you don't know who this guy is at first, which is awesome. Like, you're like, the man in black, I don't know if I like him, he had hate in his eyes, but he's taken out all these guys, like you can't call them bad guys once you get to know him, you're like these good bad guys, these good kidnappers.

SPEAKER_01 1:10:36

Yeah, not villains, but yeah.

SPEAKER_04 1:10:39

Oh, yeah. Like Inigo and Fezick were probably like the big golden ones for me throughout the book, and mostly throughout the film, because at least with the book, you feel Fezick's kind of dependency on having a friend and Enigo being that friend for him. It's just it's very endearing. And like, if if you don't like Inigo and Fezzick, who are you? What the heck? Who hurt you, man? What's wrong with you? Yeah, what the heck? Yeah. But um then you also get to see Prince Humperty track down Wesley, which is pretty fun, and you see those hunting skills come to use, and you see how he notices uh two masters fought at the sword and everything, which comes into play during the final confrontation, which wasn't in the movie, which is kind of fun. But then you get to you know the re the reunion of Buttercup and and Wesley, which William Goldman kind of glosses over.

SPEAKER_01 1:11:36

My wife wishes I would have left this in the book, but people are uh what is it, a modicum of privacy?

SPEAKER_04 1:11:44

Yeah, people deserve a modicum of privacy. But then you get to the fire swamp, which also a really fun set piece and location for a fantasy story. What did you guys think of the fire swamp?

SPEAKER_01 1:11:56

Yeah, I I think the I almost feel like the fire swamp is there, besides like the casual mentions of the the zoo of what is it, zoo of death, of the creatures in there, you kind of get a sense that this is a magical world, but then the fire swamp really cements that in that there, you know, there's these spurts of fire, they they call it the snow sand. I think in the movie it's the lightning sand. Yeah, the lightning sand in the movie, and then the ROUS. Um, but it really builds upon the idea that this is more than just the real world.

SPEAKER_04 1:12:27

Wait, ROUS, rodents of unusual size? I don't think they exist. Once again, just a wonderful smooth line from Carrie Owens, just nailing it. Yeah, just like the way Oh, can we talk about the movie magic that is taking place in the fire swamp? Like, oh my gosh, yeah. Yes, they're they're dudes in rubber, terrible rubber costumes. Little people, yeah, little people.

SPEAKER_01 1:12:59

Honestly, are we a kid? Just I I mean it's fantastic.

SPEAKER_04 1:13:07

Like just, you know, when he's holding open the mouth, you see the tongue just I'm like oh man.

SPEAKER_01 1:13:14

That's what a tongue does.

SPEAKER_04 1:13:20

Which, yeah, I I I loved that scene as well, because you know, it's once again building up the hero by showing his wits, because you know, he's fighting three of them at the same time in the book, where he's only fighting off one in the movie, which probably due to how terrible those suits were for people for the little people, even though yeah, they talked about how like they couldn't even really see out of them, and they they would go in them and just be like just dying of heat.

SPEAKER_01 1:13:51

Yeah, coming out like soaked in sweat.

SPEAKER_04 1:13:53

Yeah, I I believe it because that is a lot of rubber, a lot of latex, but it's it's still it was still an odd, like as cheesy of a scene as it is. I still think it's epic and awesome just seeing him get bit, yelling, and it's a manly scream from such a suave guy, and seeing him roll over as he hears the fire come and burn. The just shows how smart it like I love it. Uh like take note, modern writers. Like, notice how William Goldman built up the opponents first to then show build up Wesley, like build up your villains, make them an actual imposing threat to show that your hero can conquer things and it makes it way more awe-inspiring. Yeah, that's so true.

SPEAKER_01 1:14:36

Definitely. Do you have a slight crush on Carrie Elvis? Kind of, dude.

SPEAKER_04 1:14:41

Like how do you how do you not? How do you not question if he were to just be there and just talk to me about whatever passion he has, like, I'm not gonna say no. It's it's kind of the same for me with Henry Cavloff. Like, he was to tie me up and just tell me about his Warhammer figures, I don't think I would not enjoy it, man.

SPEAKER_02 1:15:08

Well, another thing I can give you the gush over Kerry the whole diving into the lightning sand was his idea. Oh, yeah. They originally just gonna have him jump in feet first. Oh and so he's like, that's not very heroic. You gotta have them diving in. And so that they designed it the trapdoor to be feet first, so they're like, okay, well, let's try it with a stump man first. So they had the stuntman do it and it worked. And so they're like, okay, we'll try it with you, Carrie.

SPEAKER_01 1:15:42

But and it was one take. Yeah, it was one take and they did it. I mean, otherwise he you know might have smashed his face right into a few.

SPEAKER_02 1:15:49

Yeah, because it was like timing, the timing of it too. Of opening it. Yeah, so he just like smashed his hands and face. Yeah.

SPEAKER_04 1:15:57

Yeah, you already broke his foot, poor guy.

SPEAKER_02 1:16:00

Doesn't need to break his nose.

SPEAKER_04 1:16:02

Yeah.

SPEAKER_02 1:16:02

Boy, did it look awesome. I mean, yeah, he nails it.

SPEAKER_04 1:16:06

It does look corrogued. I'm thinking about it now, jumping in feet first, because the way he like snips the vine, places the sole, and he's just like a perfect die. It's like, oh man, this guy was in the Olympics. Oh my gosh. Not a ripple.

SPEAKER_03 1:16:19

Oh yeah. 10 out of 10. Oh yeah. 11 out of 10. Absolutely. There you go.

SPEAKER_02 1:16:26

No, the fire swamp was awesome. Um, yeah. I really want to get to the the real book though, the the whole book, I can say. Because I feel like the audiobook doesn't, you know, give you too much.

SPEAKER_01 1:16:42

Yeah. I I I mean, as as you're talking about, there I can see where a lot of things are missing. It it does have the meat for sure, but it is missing.

SPEAKER_02 1:16:53

Yeah.

SPEAKER_01 1:16:54

Misses the potatoes. Yeah. That's a good way to put it. Well, uh we were talking about characters.

SPEAKER_04 1:17:06

Yes, we were. Like, um, I guess one per one I did also want to address. We did talk about Humperdink as well, but I also gotta just give William Golden props for making an imposing villain while also making him easy to make fun of with the name Humperdink. Like, dude. And the barrel description.

SPEAKER_01 1:17:27

Yeah, like, dude, Humperdink?

SPEAKER_04 1:17:31

I'm supposed to be afraid of this guy, then you know, he's choking out a mad orangutan and just breaking its neck. Oh, maybe I gotta be scared of this guy.

SPEAKER_01 1:17:39

Now I do feel like Humperdink isn't quite complete without Count Rugen. I think both of them are a fantastic villain pair. Because Humperdink is he's the hunter, he's all about control, and then you have uh Rugan, who's also like the sociopath who's a little insane, but just obsessed with pain, the study of pain. I mean, what a pair. Yeah, the control hunter and the pain sociopath. Woo!

SPEAKER_04 1:18:06

That's yeah, that that is a pretty lethal combo, especially with like how they just both knew each other's minds and everything so well. Which once again, that movie was doing some great casting. I think Humpertink was well because he does some great line deliveries, like all gallant the way he talks with some things, but still, best line from Humpert Inc. I have Gilda the Frame, I have my 500th celebration to celebrate, and my wife Tomoda.

SPEAKER_01 1:18:33

I'm 12 and then one of the best lines from Rogan get some rest. If you haven't got your health, you haven't got anything. I mean, coming from a straight sociopath, like, oh gosh.

SPEAKER_04 1:18:48

And we're gonna hand it to the albino as well.

SPEAKER_03 1:18:50

Just the the pit of despair.

SPEAKER_01 1:19:01

Don't even try to escape. Don't even think about a skidlin. Oh yeah. I I think in the book he tells he says that line was improvised, right? I mean he was saying that, well, it was improvised how he did it. And Carrie was talking about how he was it she struggled not to laugh in that moment because he was not expecting him to do that, to go from the pit of despair to don't even try to escape.

SPEAKER_02 1:19:35

Oh yeah.

SPEAKER_01 1:19:37

How could you not make that uh you know it's so funny to say that the torture moment, but it's it's such a wholesome movie. And just how funny it is. Book story movie, whatever. Yeah, yeah, all of it.

SPEAKER_04 1:19:54

Oh man, yeah, it's it's just so good. Um as and as you progress through the story, you all we also like get little snippets of like all the side characters, which kudos to William Goldman to making the side characters memorable. I feel like a sign of a good story is when you remember more than just the main cast. And one of the best writing advices I ever got was when you're writing a side character, write them as if they're acting like the story's about them. Like they think they're the main character, they're gonna do what's best for them or what they want to get. And just Miracle Max and his wife yelling, and how you find out he's bribed by the the head of the thieves quarter, and just even the uh what's the not not the not the pope, the archdeacon with his mowage just all of them acting so well, even for the small amounts of time, and just making themselves memorable was so good.

SPEAKER_01 1:20:57

Yeah, and that is so relevant again to the one of the writing advice, what writing advices that I listened to this week was when your story starts to lull, just introduce a unique character. And uh the the podcaster this was um Jim Thayer that was saying this. He he's a big fan of Dickens, and so you use he was using a lot of Dickens analogy or Dickens examples, and uh was talking about the artful dodger, how an Oliver Twist Oliver really isn't that interesting of a character, he's kind of a lens, but at Oliver Twist you have uh character after character that is just interesting, bizarre, fascinating, uh strange in some way. The artful Dodger, Bill Sykes, Fagan, all of those just like eye-grabbing characters as you're reading through the book. But man, talk about eye-grabbing character after eye-grabbing character as you're reading through Princess Pride. The story has no lol because as you're going through, I mean, it's just moment after moment, you get this strange, interesting character, and Nigo, Fezek, Vizzini, the even the albino, uh, Rugen, Humpertink, um uh Miracle Max. And his wife. And his wife.

SPEAKER_04 1:22:18

Like, I don't think there's that is why this is even the hag in the dream with boo like you you remember her all the time. Like, you are just gonna be saying those lines for the rest of your life.

SPEAKER_02 1:22:34

Oh yeah. Oh yeah, yeah, it is really hard to separate the book from the movie.

SPEAKER_04 1:22:41

Yeah, they're very they're very synonymous.

SPEAKER_01 1:22:43

Yep, and you could say they're both William Goldman's works, I think. Uh honestly isn't all because he screenwrote the movie, he wrote this.

SPEAKER_04 1:22:51

Yeah, and he just does a great job, which um go into the miracle, um, where they revive. Well, I guess we should address how Wesley actually dies. And the only really minor change to that is that it's level 20 in the book and in the movie it's 50. Which once again, great line.

SPEAKER_03 1:23:15

Not to 50!

SPEAKER_02 1:23:17

What do you do think is better?

SPEAKER_04 1:23:19

Yeah, definitely. Yeah, why do you think they changed that?

SPEAKER_02 1:23:22

Probably just sounded better.

SPEAKER_04 1:23:23

Yeah, I think it sounded way more dramatic, especially after hearing that, like, yeah, level one, I just took one year of your life away, and then it's seeing that it goes to 50, like you're just that was there to just give so much despair so that the miracle would seem that more well, miraculous.

SPEAKER_02 1:23:44

Yeah, that's I guess another thing. I don't know if the book goes more even more in depth into the torture of Wesley, but it talks about in the audiobook how Count uh Rugen is like burning Wesley and he's like his hand in oil, yeah. Not to enough to damage, but just to cause pain, and um Wesley's like screaming, but he's not actually getting hurt. He's able to take his mind. Yeah, and he like describes it as yeah, taking his mind away.

SPEAKER_04 1:24:20

And he pretty much removes his mind and he just thinks about Buttercup the whole time, and he just gives the reactions they want, which um that yeah, that's in the book as well. The book does a good job of kind of hyping up the machine because like you have Count Rugan, he's trying to figure it out, and then he kills a wild dog with it, and the yelp like is heard throughout all of Florida. Oh, yeah, and like he describes the scream hanging in the air and then slowly like contracting, kind of like the opposite of a ripple and coming back to it. So when you know he's a villain, kills the dog, yeah, yeah. Freaking Rugan deserved to die because he killed the dog.

SPEAKER_01 1:24:59

Isn't that one of the tips? If you want if you want the readers to know who's the villain, have them kill a dog or kick a dog.

SPEAKER_04 1:25:05

Yeah, that is probably the easiest way to make someone hate hate a character, is like, oh, he kicked a dog. Kill him.

SPEAKER_01 1:25:14

I hate him.

SPEAKER_04 1:25:17

So like the machine I feel like is definitely amped up a lot more. And yeah, it's like built up like a character as well. But the the movie does a sufficient job as well, like showing level one and just being like, maybe I'll take it up to level five, and you know, never daring to go to the absolute limit. But yeah, as well in the book, he talks about how he's done so many, taken off so many years off Wesley, and then after the 20, basically, yeah, that's it. You got no life left. Yeah.

SPEAKER_01 1:25:45

Now, how do you think the machine works? Because in the in the movie, it's like suction cups everywhere. Is it like an ultimate nipple twist? Is that what it is? Is that why?

SPEAKER_04 1:25:56

Well, in the book it talks about how it has those suction cups, but it covers like every inch of Wesley's body, which is a comical thing to think about because it's even on the inside of his eyelids and on the outside. And I was just like, I was like, why am I for some reason? I think I was picturing when I was picturing it, it was all in the animation of like the future rama animation style. I couldn't picture it in live action for some reason. I was like imagining this guy that's like I was imagining Bender in all these suction cups, just sitting there like, what the heck?

SPEAKER_02 1:26:33

Pretty that's all our imaginations can be is futurama. That's all we have left. Yeah, I I do like how the book uh used that aspect of taking his mind away, and then like when the machine he gets hooked up to the machine, and he's like, Oh, I'll just take my mind away. And it's like, nope. Oh, yeah, didn't work with that.

SPEAKER_01 1:27:00

That illustrates the intensity perfectly.

SPEAKER_02 1:27:03

Yeah, it made it so much more severe.

SPEAKER_04 1:27:05

And he actually cries, like they have to know about like that's like only the second time he's cried in his life. Yep. Exactly. Oh wow. Um, but then that's when it leads to Anigo and Fezzick going in to the zoo of death because they hear Wesley's screams as it's brought to the death blow. And like great set piece. I it's it's uh one of the reasons I think you need to at least at least read the book once because it's definitely something I feel like we were robbed of, but uh again, with how the ROUS were done, I don't know how they were gonna do that. But there's a lot of stuff in that zoo that was mentioned in the book that I was kind of like wanted to see. Like he mentions a black pool and maybe a tentacle showing every now and then, like, which if you're anything like me, I have this like fearful respect of the Deep ocean and the leviathans it might hold, and just squid are magnificent and terrifying to me all at the same time. I've watched so many deep sea uh documentaries, and they all feature squid, and yeah, so like I was it kind of put me on the edge of my seat because I was like, oh man, what if they fall into that? Because I first read this in high school, it was one of the books assigned to me, and reading that I was like, oh my gosh, oh my gosh, this is gonna be absolutely terrifying. Yeah, and I kind of wanted a blood eagle to get out because I wanted more description of like what makes them the blood eagle. Like, are they like leaves so much to the imagination? Yeah, which I guess would you say that's a strength for a writer, or is it best when they describe kind of like do what Brandon Sanderson does? They go deeper rather than go wider, where they give more description and have you have more understanding. And does that bring more awe or fear, or is it the fact you don't know enough bring more awe and fear?

SPEAKER_01 1:29:02

I think William Goldman balances it perfectly because you have a bit of both, where you have certain creatures he brings in and you get a deeper under deeper image of it. Uh the R U S's the Death Bat, the Anaconda, but then you have the other ones that are off to the side, like the the blood eagle and um the spy oh what was the other one? The green green speckled recluse, yeah, and the spider, the squid. Um which I think it is it is so valuable to leave some things in the dark. Um as as as exciting as it is to just have essentially like a Sanderson style explanation for everything, it is also valuable to just let your reader ponder and imagine. Like you think of a blood eagle in a cage, and everyone is probably going to imagine something slightly different, which has so much power to it because it gives the reader some power over what over what they're imagining. And it helps to have such a good name, like blood eagle.

SPEAKER_04 1:30:07

I mean it's simple, but it has that visceral feel to it. Like, I guess let's let's put your claim to the test. We'll each imagine something different. What do you think a blood eagle looks like?

SPEAKER_01 1:30:19

I imagine um uh like uh you have you seen Rescuers Down Under? You all better have seen Rescuers Down Under. Yeah, that like immense style eagle just with uh blood red wings, and it almost looks like blood is dripping down, and the wings just it like hanging kind of like a vulture, like the vultures from uh uh jungle book. What do you want to do today? But more intimidating, just uh this immense creature in the cage is how I imagine it.

SPEAKER_02 1:30:52

Yeah, pretty, pretty similar to mine, just kind of like um I didn't imagine that big, but more like bald eagle, but red with like red glowing eyes type thing, looking dangerous.

SPEAKER_04 1:31:09

Crazy. See what I imagined was have you guys seen the Dracula parrot? No, it is an all-black parrot, except for on its neck, it has a blood-red patch, like it looks crazy. So I was imagining something like that, only the red is like more crimson rather than bright. And I was I don't know if you guys seen the last unicorn as well. You remember the harpy? I was imagining a bird that size, and I was like, I don't know if you know about like the the rock ROC from I think it's Arabian mythology, where it's basically a giant eagle with teeth in its beak. So I was imagining teeth in their beak and their talents always stained with blood, so their talons are crimson. So yeah, I was imagining some teeth in a beak, which you know, teeth in a bird is if I'm not watching a dinosaur documentary, then that's very unsettling. It's pretty deeky, it's pretty freaky deaky, freaky deeky, freaky deaky, like geeky geeky.

SPEAKER_02 1:32:11

Yeah, well, I definitely think when it comes to fear, leaving things to the imagination is stronger. Uh, good example for me is The Ring. You guys ever watch The Ring? That traumatized me when I was younger, and it's more so like you never see what the girl does to her victims. Like I know it.

SPEAKER_01 1:32:38

There was some trauma there because I lived with this guy. Oh, yeah. And the amount of times he would act like the ring girl, you know, crawling around the floor trying to scare me, even though I hadn't seen it, traumatized me just as equally.

SPEAKER_02 1:32:53

Yeah. But I think what made it so scary to me is that in my head I connected the dots to like what she actually did to kill her victims, you know, and that's what made it so much. You made an explanation in your mind and it was terrifying.

SPEAKER_04 1:33:13

Yeah.

SPEAKER_01 1:33:13

Yep. It's kind of like the power of the the Blair Witch trial movie. Oh, the Blair Witch project or Blair Witch Project. Oh, yeah, that's still one of my top five horror films. I it's so good. So many people find it absolutely terrifying. They literally don't show anything. Oh, it's so freaking later ones. I think it's like the it's like the last sequel. Um they end up showing the witch, and it for most people it ruined it because it's like now they showed it, and it's like, oh yeah, it's kind of funny than what I thought it was.

SPEAKER_04 1:33:42

Yeah, I've never seen the sequels, but I'm guessing it sounds just like how have you seen Insidious? Not Insidious, I think I've heard of those. Yeah, yeah. With the with the further, and like you get glimpses of the demon, but as soon as you get like the whole body shot and it's on there for more than a couple seconds, you're like, reject Darth Maul! Like it totally takes it away. And I feel like the best example of like showing less and letting imagination and the unknown take fear is Slender Man. Like, that does such a good job with just you know, a glimpse, great sound, like great music and sound keys to just get you scared and you don't know what he does to his victims either. But anyway, we're talking about the Princess Bride. And in fact, let's let's uh since we're talking about fear in that aspect, that is a part of fantasy, but as well, fantasy as a genre, it seems to always have staples like virtuous heroes, good triumphing over evil, magic, luck, coincidences, um just great morals, but sad, but you could argue that fantasy, the genre itself, is derivative in a way. Like you're always tracking the same, treading the same ground, it seems, until Game of Thrones came out. And I did you guys watch any of Game of Thrones? I I never watched a single episode of Game of Thrones because I heard there was nudity in it, and I was like, oh, I can't watch that. I'm I'm not gonna watch that.

SPEAKER_01 1:35:20

I heard there was incest, and I was like, nah.

SPEAKER_02 1:35:23

Like a ridiculous amount of nudity, but you know, that's how the books are. Oh, okay.

SPEAKER_04 1:35:29

So well, I if I correct me if I'm wrong, Game of Thrones, it was like pretty new and trailblazing, the whole fantasy genre with um very morally ambiguous characters. It seemed like no one had plot armor for once. Um virtue is taking a backseat, and you have a lot of backstabbing, and the people getting on top are the ones who can lie and deceive the best, and you know, a lot of vices are taken center stage, and it's just grim and bleak, and doesn't really inspire the best in the human spirit.

SPEAKER_02 1:36:10

Yeah, I definitely think it um it goes down that route more, but there is definitely there is still like traditional hero, um, you know, the noble hero you could say like Jon Snow in that. Um or the Starks. They're they're kind of like the the good, the morally good heroes that you know they definitely lose in the first few books for sure. Okay. Um so yeah, it definitely goes a different route than traditional fantasy, but yeah, I think it's still kind of all generally there in the story.

SPEAKER_04 1:37:04

Okay, okay.

SPEAKER_01 1:37:06

Yeah, I think there's been a departure or it I it is coming back to uh to an extent.

SPEAKER_04 1:37:13

I feel like it is coming back with what I've heard of the Knight of the Seven Kingdoms. It seems to be more fun, traditional fantasy that is fun to follow, and um other movies like I don't know if this counts as fantasy, and I don't know if you guys have seen it, but K-pop Demon Hunters was a really fun movie with just some fun protagonists to follow around where I didn't have to question that they were the they were the were they the good guys or not. Like they seemed to have you know they had their problems, but at the same time I knew they were good through and through. Yeah, which I I guess a lot of people don't like that about fantasy, is just you know the vanilla uh goody good boy scout hero going on an adventure to prove himself.

SPEAKER_01 1:37:57

Yeah, like the the chosen one style adventure. Um I think yeah, there's but there was it almost seemed like a trend, it just kind of hit the world suddenly that there there needed to be a departure from the original fantasy tropes. Um, and this is something uh going back to the the writing podcasts I've been listening to, but uh Savannah Gilbo talks a lot about tropes and conventions, how conventions are necessary for your book. If you want a book published, you need to know the conventions of your book, like which things are expected in your style book. If you're gonna write a hero fantasy book, you need these specific steps. If you're gonna write a crime uh mystery, you need to have a crime, you need to have a detective, you need to have like all these things to meet it. But then the tropes are the things that usually find their way in um to the to the writing, uh, like the chosen one hero, uh, things that just kind of end up in there because they're usually associated with the conventions. Um, tropes can be good because they're they tend to be what people expect in books and what people enjoy. Like I do love the chosen hero. When I go to a book, I enjoy a book that has a chosen hero story, like Hercules, Harry Potter, um, Legend of Zelda, Master Chief, he's a chosen one. Um, Dark Souls, even though Dark Souls kind of does a great job at playing on the chosen one trope. Um, but I think the Dark Fantasy trend really tried to stray away from that, and that's why Game of Thrones did become so popular, was because they were essentially dumping on all the tropes, like Jon Snow, he was the hero, he seemed to be the chosen one, and then they just kill him. And and that surprised enough people, and it was shocking enough uh departure from the trope that it intrigued a lot of people. And I think that definitely has its place in books. Um, but I think one of the best examples of kind of trending that way, but also being able to stay true to a lot of the conventions is I will fanboy over Dark Souls till I die. But Dark Souls is is so good because, like I said, they they had the the trope of the chosen one, but then you come to find out that you weren't necessarily the chosen one. It the chosen undead is just an idea that was established by the gods to get someone to do the deed or to get someone to save the world, basically. Kind of like Neo. Yeah, it could have been anyone, it could have been kind of like the special in the Lego movie, yeah, yeah, exactly. Matrix Lego movie. Yeah.

SPEAKER_04 1:40:48

Hey, the the the genius of writing ideas can take many forms, exactly, yeah, and it can be executed in many ways, and we love to see the same idea in different forms.

SPEAKER_01 1:40:59

So I I I mean I will say that I am a sucker for this Princess Bride style of fantasy. I will I will always go to those books. I do have a fondness for some dark fantasy elements and and conventions and tropes, but I I am glad to see us going back to some more of that that uh classic traditional fantasy style. I think the dark fantasy is kind of gonna creep in there and stay with it, which it is good. I that that'll add plenty of variety, but um a departure from Game of Thrones, I think is is is a positive take. Or the world needs needs a better or needs a more positive fantasy, I think.

SPEAKER_02 1:41:44

Yeah, I mean it it just feels so good after watching Princess Bride, you know, you just feel all warm inside, true love, all that jazz.

SPEAKER_04 1:41:57

Oh yeah. Well, why do you why do you guys think we need stories with you know heroes who have like such a great moral compass that seem almost unachievable, but yet we we always seem to flock back to them. We never see them as too unreachable, we seem more inspired. Why why do you think humans, the race of humans, just want to have these kind of heroes in their stories?

SPEAKER_01 1:42:26

Well, uh I think to be blunt, I think it it is literally a personification of Christ. And you know, not to get too religious, but it is I think essentially ingrained into everything. And it's grained into the world, ingrained into us to look to a savior and and to personify that in everything. I mean, even in Greek myths, I think you have that. They they they go down the dark fantasy route plenty, but um they're they're you know, their heroes, Jason and the Argonauts, uh Perseus, Hercules, all are the savior type, right? I believe it's Heracles. Honey, I think you mean Huncules. Yes. My daughter's been obsessed with that with Hercules lately, so great movie. Yeah, well watching that one.

SPEAKER_04 1:43:27

One of one of my top three Disney films for sure. Oh yeah. Oh my gosh. We we could go on about that. But wow. That's kind of weird that Danny DeVito kind of popped up twice in this podcast.

SPEAKER_01 1:43:42

Oh yeah. He will, he will always appear. Yeah, he's a national treasure. He's he's like that uh urban legend where you say his name too many times and he'll show up. He's like Beetlejuice.

SPEAKER_02 1:43:57

Yeah. I really think it it's just a thing that we all want to be. I think we all want to be the hero. We all want to be better than what we are, you know. Like it's, you know, get to back back to like Red Rising. When Darryl goes through the carving, it's like I would consider going through the carving myself if I came out a gold, like champion, Greek god. To avenge your your dead wife, yeah, with the murdered wife again. You know, like we go through life, and I I've been thinking about this quite a bit with with my job and everything. It's just we go to work every day, we're you know, we drive to work, we work, we drive home, and then we we get into this routine where it becomes boring, and often we escape into books and fantasies to escape our own life. Um and so I I really think deep down people want to be that hero or want to live that fantasy, but you know, it's just not reality, obviously. And it it is a nice escape. It's like a yeah, escapism.

SPEAKER_04 1:45:28

Yeah, that's I feel like fantasy's front and center attraction is the escapism.

SPEAKER_02 1:45:35

Yeah, exactly. I also think like it might be easier than actually becoming the hero as well, yeah, to escape rather than do the work.

SPEAKER_01 1:45:50

Yeah, not go through the carving, but still come out the uh the gold on the other side. Yeah, become Captain America without the drugs.

SPEAKER_04 1:45:59

Yeah, um, I think a big reason why we flocked these and why we need stories with heroes like this is because you know, I'm I'm all for having a complex story where there's like we loved Jurassic Park and we it was able to have the arguments, and player piano was the same way how it argued for automation and against automation. I love moral complexity, but I do think it is good to have stories that have that line already drawn pretty clearly. This is good, this is what we all want to be, this is what we want to aspire, and clearly we all do like our spirit, our mind, our body, we all see that, and we want to be like Aragorn, we want to be like Sam, we want to be like Arthur Weasley, just kind, and and we just want to be like Darrow, just able to have the passion to overcome obstacles if it the if the time arises, and we all want to be wise like Dumbledore or Gandalf and have the answers for our loved ones who are struggling. It's it's night, and we all want to be able to call evil evil and good good. We don't want to have to argue over these stupid things where it's like, okay, we know the line, we don't need to ask, does this cross the line? It clearly does. Okay, we know that this we can call a spade a spade. It's sometimes nice to just know what is good and what is bad and not have to really question it too much. Where fantasy, which you you could argue is one of fantasy's weaknesses, but it's also one of their strengths because fantasy is one of the because stories in general are kind of how we learn a lot of life lessons, especially when we're kids. That's how we learn how to treat people, how to like after all, we judge characters by what they do.

SPEAKER_01 1:48:00

Yeah, scientifically they've proven uh people who read fiction have a greater sense of empathy. I mean they've done all kinds of statistical analysis on this, and yeah, people who read fiction are have a greater understanding and ability to show empathy.

SPEAKER_04 1:48:15

Yep. But to have to be able to have those defined so clearly, which I think right now the world is always trying to just redefine things and make arguments about like, no, this is all misunderstood, you're not thinking it about this way, and just they like to muddle things, which I'm sure there's plenty of college papers out there saying evil's just a social construct, like evil doesn't exist, it's just something we made up, and which begs to argue that good doesn't exist either, but that's that's just nihilistic. I I do I choose not to believe it. Uh that's that's the mouth of Sauron, and I want to be Aragorn just cutting off that argument's head and saying I do not believe it.

SPEAKER_01 1:48:56

That's great.

SPEAKER_04 1:48:57

Um but this is just The Princess Bride is just such a warm, fun, and high-action fantasy, and also it is a fantasy romance, which it is titled S. Morgenson's uh Tale of True Love. It's all part of the title. A classic classic tale of true love and high adventure. We've been talking a lot about the high adventure.

SPEAKER_01 1:49:22

What do you guys think about the love? I did want to say one more thing a little bit. To bathe, uh to blathe. On the fantasy uh front, real quick. Um uh just kind of touch on the things you both said. Uh, one psychological analysis I came across that has been sticking with me lately is boy this specifically around boys. Uh, but as boys are growing up, they constantly are looking to something bigger than them. This is why, like, monster trucks are so popular amongst boys. Or Superheroes, soldiers, uh anything that's bigger, stronger, more powerful. And it is important for boys to have their role models who are bigger, stronger, more powerful than them, to be positive role models. Um the importance of having that hero character for boys growing up, like looking at Hercules, right? Who you know can lift this massive rock and throw it into the ocean. But he is also such a good character who you know does things for uh to save the May, right? Sacrifice his life uh for good causes and things like that. And so um again, just adding on to the importance of having this in around us and the importance of fantasy, importance of fiction. But yeah, I think that also goes uh ties into love, which is boys out are constantly I I can say I I'm I'm just a lovesick boy reading my fantasy books. I I absolutely loved the romance in this, yeah. The whole as you wish, and what he was saying was, I love you.

SPEAKER_02 1:51:16

Yeah, it was great for sure. I do feel like though, Buttercup is somewhat undeserving of Wesley. You're not wrong, you're not wrong. Carrie L was Wesley.

SPEAKER_04 1:51:34

Um, well, I feel like the way he wrote, because you know they're always making these declarations of love, saying, like, if you were to fill the sea with all the love, it would not with all the love in the world, it would not match the love that I have for you. And then a day would pass and that love would grow even would grow grow infinitely like it's all these nebulous, like unfathomable declarations of love. And like I feel like it's that high school like teen love that just is just so new, and you're just always trying. Like, I don't know if you guys have seen the musical Moulin Rouge or the movie with Ian McGregor. I thought you were gonna say, have you seen high school musical?

SPEAKER_01 1:52:16

No, no, no, no. I was like, but like if you watch that, Ian McGregor. I've seen most of Moulin Rouge.

SPEAKER_04 1:52:21

Okay, yeah, you know how Ian McGregor's character, he's just obsessed with the concept of love. He like he has this high school boy energy just mesmerized with love, and that's kind of how this is right here. And yet it doesn't come off as like overly cheesy or cringy or bad. It's like not high school literary magazine bad, which I'm really impressed with.

SPEAKER_01 1:52:45

Well, the whole isn't the whole point of the movie is that he has this fantasy of love, and she is like the love doesn't exist person, and him entering her life is like her realizing that love is kind of possible, isn't it?

SPEAKER_04 1:52:58

I feel like that's what I remember it being something like that, kind of, but she realized love was possible because she was jealous of the countess, which is weird, but getting to the end of the book, it's much like the end of the movie where you have Miracle Max bring the pill, which Billy Crystal, once again, perfect casting, and you have the showdown between Rugen and Anigo, which great payoff, wonderful showdown.

SPEAKER_02 1:53:25

Talk about the probably the best revenge story of all time. I do feel like it is up there, uh, along with like the count of Monte Cristo. Yeah. Um so like simple, like we have to talk about this more in depth. Um just the hello, my name is Nigo Montoya. You killed my father. Prepare to die.

SPEAKER_01 1:53:54

Jinx Montoy, prepare to die.

SPEAKER_02 1:53:59

So stop saying that. Yeah, that's one thing I do feel like the movie did do better. So in the book, doesn't he count Rugen just die from fear?

SPEAKER_01 1:54:12

Um oh I I think something like that. It's uh I I don't think so. I think he does stab him, but then it talks about how he dies from fear.

SPEAKER_02 1:54:24

He stabs him like in the movie in all the spots where he Nigo got injured. Yeah, yeah. And then he goes to stab him and he collapses.

SPEAKER_01 1:54:36

But in they don't have the they don't have the iconic line in the book, do they, where he's like, I want my father back, you son of a bitch.

SPEAKER_02 1:54:45

Yeah. Oh, they they do.

SPEAKER_04 1:54:46

They do. Okay. I can even read, I can find it for you.

SPEAKER_02 1:54:50

Okay, so maybe they they missed out in the audio book.

SPEAKER_04 1:54:57

Okay. Yeah, he even says the hello, my name is Inigo Montoya over and over again, and you even have the count going, stop saying that. And um yeah, stop saying that. And right here, Inigo drove for the count's left shoulder as the count had wounded his. Then he went through the count's left arm as at the same spot the count penetrated his. Hello, stronger now.

SPEAKER_03 1:55:24

Hello, hello, my name is Inigo Montoya! You killed my father, prepare to die. No, offer me money, everything, the count said. Power too, promise me that. Oh, that I have and more, please. Offer me anything I ask for. Yes, yes, say it.

SPEAKER_04 1:55:41

I want my I want Domingo Montoya, you son of a bitch. And the six-fingered sword flashed again. The Count screamed, that was just to the left that was just to the left of your heart, and ego struck again. Another scream, that was below your heart. Can you guess what I am doing? Cutting my heart out. You took mine when I was ten. I want yours now. We are lovers of justice, you and I. What can be more just than that? The Count screamed one final time and then fell dead of fear. Oh, okay. You got me.

SPEAKER_02 1:56:13

You got me. I mean you got me. It was essentially dead. Yeah. Being stabbed around the heart. But so we can we're both right.

SPEAKER_03 1:56:29

I guess the movie was somebody died of mine.

SPEAKER_01 1:56:32

He died of fear.

SPEAKER_03 1:56:34

You got me.

SPEAKER_02 1:56:38

No, but um dang. What is my point? The the audiobook did leave some of that out, which is frustrating.

SPEAKER_01 1:56:48

Yeah.

SPEAKER_04 1:56:49

Um but the movie reading the book. But the physical book itself. Well, the line delivery from Petinkus is just so well done.

SPEAKER_02 1:56:59

Well, true. I heard this backstory. I don't know if you guys have heard. Um, but yeah, Mandy Petinkus. Um envisioned Count Rugen as the cancer that killed his his real father. Yeah. Oh. And so that's why he was so good and passionate with it that he was truly fighting the cancer that killed his real father. And so, yeah, just knowing that and watching it again, I'm like, oh my gosh, it hits so different. Wow.

SPEAKER_01 1:57:37

It's a reason, I think, why it I mean that line is probably the most quoted line amongst the movie. There's so much power in it. And I think even his his when he's talking to Wesley on the clifftop and he's telling him his story, it's kind of the way of giving the exposition without the narrator giving it. Um but you just hear his passion, and that all plays into how he was imagining that that scenario. Yeah, yeah, which I think is beautiful for sure.

SPEAKER_04 1:58:09

And after that, we get the wonderful showdown between Humpert Ink and Wesley, which is all just a bluff, and you know, we're so used to in fantasy having a great big battle and showdown, but uh the I can't it's it's so fun to have a clever defeat. And in the book, the only difference of this showdown is yeah, Wesley like talks him and even mentions how Humperding tracked him and saw the footprints of his and Anigo's fight, saying, You you saw our footprints, you saw that it was the duel of two masters. I was the victor in that. Do you really think you can beat me? Like, just psychological warfare, so cool, and to just stand up on the brink of death, because in in the book it talks about how the pill was only supposed to was supposed to was said to work for an hour, and Wesley thought he had an hour, but it only was gonna work for 40 minutes. And it's at that last minute where he just tells Humperding to drop his sword, and you know, Humperding, this man who has faced so many foes and and monsters and kill them all no with no fear, sees the man that he killed with the machine stand before him, knowing that he tracked and saw that he was the victor of a master sword battle, and to see this man defy death and stare him in the eye and tell demand he drop his sword, it just loses it. Brilliant!

SPEAKER_02 1:59:42

Oh yeah, that's so good.

SPEAKER_01 1:59:44

I I do love it because it plays so well into Humpert Inc's character of wanting control, and hence his zoo of death, trying to control and master everything, and realizing he could not control or could not best Wesley, and that scared him the most. That that was the fear inside of him. He he had absolutely no control over him. Even Wesley overcame death, yeah.

SPEAKER_02 2:00:09

That exactly, like, could you imagine thinking you killed someone and in the most scary way possible that you know of, and they're back alive, not dead, telling them that they're gonna it's to the pain, gonna dismember you and just describing how he keep his ears just so he could have all the all the depression of scaring everybody brutal.

SPEAKER_01 2:00:39

Oh yeah, oh go ahead. No, go for it. I was just gonna progress along. You you go ahead. This might be jumping back a little bit, but um one thing, and this is my my older brain that bothers me. I wish I had my childhood brain that just you know accepted and loved fantasy for everything that it is, but um not evaluate it too much. Is Miracle Max is his pill a Deus Ex Machina? Like how, or you know, I under it is an element of this fantasy world, right? This this miracle worker who used to work for the king that got sacked by his son, you know, and now in the book he likes cough drops, and the in the movie he likes MLTs, MLTs, which I think is way better than cough drops, especially Mandalom.

SPEAKER_04 2:01:23

Yeah, makes it nice and sounds pretty good.

SPEAKER_01 2:01:28

But uh you know, it the there doesn't seem to be too much buildup in Granite, you know, it is abridged, I imagine, in the actual fake book that it might have, but that it he kind of seems to pop up, basically resurrect Wesley and then disappear. Essentially a day six mocking.

SPEAKER_04 2:01:48

He's mentioned earlier in the book that it's working for the king and being the miracle man and humberting firing him and everything. So he's he's there, okay, just he has no dialogue up until he's doing the miracle for Wesley.

SPEAKER_02 2:02:02

Yeah, yeah. I also think like the machine itself is so unknown, like the way it actually kills Wesley, you're not really sure. Like Count Rugen says it takes it drains your life force or whatever you just want to do.

SPEAKER_01 2:02:19

It kind of goes back to that, like we're not given all the information.

SPEAKER_02 2:02:22

Yeah, and so it's like I can I can kind of live with he's mostly dead type thing, you know.

SPEAKER_04 2:02:30

Well, see, yeah, that's I feel like is a staple of fantasy as well, like silliness to a certain degree, like just to be able to have a funny explanation and you're like, this is fantasy, I can go with it.

SPEAKER_01 2:02:44

Yeah, it's like the aspect of dragons really wouldn't be able to fly, being how big and crazy they are, but they fly in fantasy. They do fly in fantasy, unless they let's uh okay.

SPEAKER_02 2:02:59

Sorry about that, folks. Just had to take a small break, work out some technical difficulties, technical difficulties, but yeah, I think we were kind of summing up the ending of uh Princess Bride. So, yeah, you want to take us there, Derek?

SPEAKER_04 2:03:15

Yes, in fact, this is kind of one of my complaints with uh the book is how William Goldman ends it, where you know Fezzick comes in clutch with the white horses, which in the book they're built up to be, you know, bred to perfection, and they're the fastest horses. In fact, uh Prince Hubbard Ink has four of them to which he rides together and he alternates riding them so to never weary one with his body weight for too long, and then you know, they all get through the guards because you know Buttercup calls herself the Queen. And that's when you have Buttercup just saying that she was surprised Wesley was living, and he just talked about how he was gonna live, and um see um, let's see, and like you know, Buttercup looked at him and you know they say some romantic stuff, and that's where William Golem's father ended it, and you know, William Goldman as a boy was like, What there shouldn't there be more? Like, did the ship the revenge pick him up? Did they escape and everything? And that's when he did the abridgment and he says, This is what Morgan's turn wrote. From behind them, suddenly, closer than they had imagined, they could hear the roar of Humberdink. Stop them! Cut them off! They were, admittedly, startled. But there was no reason for worry. They were on the fastest horses in the kingdom, and the the lead was already theirs. However, this was before Anigo's wound reopened, and Wesley relapsed again, and Fezzick took the wrong turn, and Buttercup's horse threw a shoe, and the night behind them was filled with the crescendoing or sound of pursuit. William Goldman does interject here, saying that it's like a lady or a tiger moment.

SPEAKER_01 2:05:08

Which I love that.

SPEAKER_04 2:05:09

Yeah, which I know Jenston has a very big soft spot for. And he says now, he says, now Morgan Stern was a satirist, and he left left it that way, and my father was, I guess I realize too late, a romantic, so he ended it another way. Well, I'm an abridger, so I'm entitled to a few ideas of my own. Did they make it? Was the pirate ship there? You can answer it for yourself, but for me, I say yes it was. And yes, they got away, and got their strength back, and had lots of adventures and more than their share of laughs. But that doesn't mean I think they had a happy ending either, because in my opinion, anyway, they squabbled a lot, and Buttercup lost her looks eventually, and one day Fezak had lost a fight, and some hotshot kid whipped an ego with a sword, and Wesley was never able to really sleep sound because of Humperdink maybe being on the trail. I'm not trying to make this a downer. W understand, I mean I really do think they that love is the best thing in the world, except for cough drops. But I also have to say, for the umpity umpth time, that life isn't fair. It's just fairer than death. That's all. And that's where he ends it. So, we kind of took his thanks to Jeff's idea, we took his advice of, you know, what do you think? And we kind of wrote our own endings for this. Now we kept it pretty brief, and I don't know who wants to start, so we're kind of picking up where our four heroes are riding off in Escape. They're in pursuit right now of Prince Humperdinck's men. What do you think after well, let me ask this. Any of you guys listen to like was the listening to the sequel book Buttercup's Baby at all in that abridgment?

SPEAKER_01 2:06:58

No.

SPEAKER_04 2:06:59

Good. Because uh I I didn't read that part either. I was thinking of doing it so I could be all snug and be like, well, since I have the facts of the future, I can make this more, but no, I want to have fun too.

SPEAKER_01 2:07:12

I wanted that, I wanted to.

SPEAKER_04 2:07:14

I kind of went to the more ridiculous level of fantasy. So I don't know who wants to start. Oh, it's gotta be you, Jeff.

SPEAKER_01 2:07:20

This was your idea, Jimmy. No, I I think it's it'll definitely be cool to see each of our uh takes on this. And it I think it will go to show a lot of kind of our our preferences and and and our the things we talked about for why we think fantasy is important, especially this type of fantasy. So this will be a lot of fun. All right. Here we go. Get ready to read this. Now I all of a sudden I got so nervous. You can do it. I read it to my wife, and not I'm not bragging or anything because I was I was like pestering her after this, but I was like, so how was it? She's like, yeah, it was good. I'm like, tell me more. What was wrong? But uh yeah, so let's see how this goes. All right. Prince Humperdink, now with the Florent army in front of him, pursued the group with all the way to the coast. Wesley led the group onto the revenge, only remembering Fezzick and Inigo when the crew jumped to their feet, pulling out their weapons and directing them towards the giant and Spaniard. Looks exchanged between Wesley and Inigo, carried between them in an unspoken conversation. I imagine it went something like this Inigo saying, We have nowhere to go. What should we do? Wesley responds, Are you willing to become a pirate? Both nodded and the crew jumped to send off the revenge. Wesley having just introduced the crew to their new members, Humperdink's army reached the coast and began boarding the Florin ships. The pursuit across the water was tremendous. Humperdink's ships remained close behind the revenge. Wesley navigating navigated the revenge close to the Florin coast, tricking many of Humperdink's ships to crash into the coastal rocks. After some time, Morganstein doesn't specify, but spends a number of pages describing the conflict between Humperdink and the Florin military as they begin to tire of losing ships and fellow soldiers to the pursuit of the revenge. I will summarize these pages as thus The Florin army was considering mutiny, and Humperdink had to turn back to Florin. His lust for completing the hunt of Wesley and Buttercup was not satiated. He planned to regroup and continue the hunt later. His campaign against Gilder will have to wait, or so he thought. Wesley, Buttercup, Nigo, and Fezick watched the Florin ships depart. Wesley had already communicated to Buttercup to refer to him as Roberts among the crew. She failed to call him Roberts, as she would only refer to him as her dear Wesley. The crew was not bothered by the change of their captain's name and quickly accepted Buttercup and adored her presence on the ship. Wesley's command was only superseded by her request to the crew. Needless to say, they did not spend as much time practicing piracy. Inigo and Fezzick became the most loyal of the crew. Inigo eventually took over the control of Wesley's ship and crew, their days of piracy ending. Fezzick found a beautiful and large woman who shared rhymes with him every day. Wesley and Buttercup left the revenge and built a farm in a far-off country. They did not fear any pursuit from Humperdink, as he became distracted by other affairs. Upon returning to Florin to the Florin Docks, Humperdink did no longer need to plan a reason to attack Gilder. Gilder had just attacked and attacked and captured Florin. Humperdink's remaining ships arrived at the Florin Docks and the Gilder army descended upon him before the anchor was dropped. I like to imagine Humperdink got some what he some of what was coming for him. Morganstern does not elaborate on what Gilder ends up doing with Humperdink, but let's let's say Florin never was never able to get another male heir. Wesley and Buttercup, on the other hand, had many children, sons and daughters who would always ask to hear the story of the farm boy, milkmaid, the giant, and Spaniard, and it was clear to the children what their parents meant by saying as you wish.

SPEAKER_04 2:11:34

Ah I think that's way better than uh what I wrote. My beat red. I think you did a really good job and and good job at uh including the interjections of Morgan Stern didn't, like you know, of Willie Goldman coming in.

SPEAKER_02 2:11:58

You certainly did better than me.

SPEAKER_04 2:12:01

I think yours is gonna be the best, Jeff.

SPEAKER_01 2:12:03

Oh, I appreciate that.

SPEAKER_04 2:12:04

But let's hear what you got, Greg. Yours is probably better than mine. After all, I wrote mine 30 minutes before this because it was the only time I had time. I was thinking about it a lot, but I didn't read it to my wife and get pointers. So good job on that. I got no pointers. At least you read it out loud beforehand.

SPEAKER_02 2:12:25

All right. Uh let me get into character. Inigo, Fezzick, Wesley, and Buttercup rode away into the sunset, making their way towards the place where this whole adventure started. We can escape on the revenge, Wesley said, looking over at Buttercup. I told my crew if I was not to return that day, to sail up and down the aisle and wait for me. They should still be there. I never would have guessed the pirate life was for me, Inigo said, but I am excited to find another purpose. Would you say that you are nervous? Fezick said with a wink. Inigo laughed as they crested a hill and the sea came into view. In the exact spot where Buttercup was kidnapped stood a lone man. Vicini? said Inigo in surprise. Buttercup gasped. Fezick growled. You Wesley exclaimed. Me, Vicini said. Inconceivable, Wesley said. Inigo looked at Wesley. I don't think that means uh never mind. I thought you were dead, Vicini. What do you take me for? A fool? Vicini said. How? Wesley said. Morons, Vicini said. Do you really think I don't have ioking powder antidote on me at all times? When the man of black hair beat you two, I knew I'd lost the battle. All I needed to do was convince this man that he had beaten me, and then I could bide my time, go back to the beginning, and come up with a plan to win the war. I found you, Vicini, Fezick said. You were dead. Maybe you are mostly dead? Mostly dead, you idiot? Vicini cried. I wasn't dead. It was the side effect of the antidote. It knocked you out for it knocks you out for hours and slows your heart rate down so much that it gives you the appearance of not breathing. How did you know that we would be here at this time? Eniko said in disbelief. I'm not going to give away all my secrets, Vicini said. You have one problem, Wesley said. You came alone, and these two gentlemen are no longer loyal to you. Vicini laughed and raised his hands. Oh please. At that moment they were surrounded by at least twelve men. Normally that would have been a fair fight, but with Enigo's injuries and Wesley being mostly dead all day, there was no way Fezick could take all twelve men. I can only take ten, Fezick said. Kill them, Vicini said. The twelve men started closing in. Wait, Wesley yelled. There must be something I can offer you. The men hesitate. Too late, Vicini said. Kill whatever you're being paid, I will double it, Wesley yelled. There was silence, and everyone looked at Wesley. Perks up being a pirate, he said with a shrug. There was silence once more, and everyone looked at Vicini. I accept, he said. The end.

SPEAKER_01 2:15:47

I will that is that is that is fantastic. I think there's something special about Greg, and that is his he has a fantastic, humorous heart to him, and that is apparent in all of that. So I think he did a fantastic job, man. Thank you.

SPEAKER_04 2:16:04

That was great.

SPEAKER_01 2:16:06

Yeah.

SPEAKER_02 2:16:06

I wanted Vicini back in. That was like my initial thought. I was like, oh, how's this gonna play out?

SPEAKER_04 2:16:14

But and I love how you did the classic stuff in fantasy where I'm not gonna explain everything. Yeah, you leave questions unanswered, and that's okay.

SPEAKER_01 2:16:23

Yeah, that was great dialogue too. I I could exactly imagine those coming from the each of the characters.

SPEAKER_02 2:16:30

So yeah, I tried to play in like a lot of uh you know, like the rhyming of physics and uh what dialogue was used before, you know. Oh yeah. Cool. Thanks, guys.

SPEAKER_04 2:16:45

Well, it's probably best we started with Jeff than you, than me, because Jeff seems the more grounded and like cookie cutter of a of an eddie. Yours goes down like a very unseen path, but is very rewarding. Mine kind of goes in a too silly of a path. So I'm excited. So don't so don't judge me.

SPEAKER_02 2:17:10

Give us down. I also spilled water on his papers. Yeah, so this might this might be hard to read. It was planned sabotage.

SPEAKER_04 2:17:19

But I tried with me. I tried to mimic William Goldman's riding style. So okay, just as just a recap, like Fezick's taking a wrong turn, Buttercup's horse lost a shoe, Wesley's relapse and is unconscious, and Inigo's wounds have reopened. Now, yes, everybody seemed lost for everything seemed lost for our four fine fellows, which we have grown to love so much this through this adventure. That's what Morganstern would have would have you believe, anyway. Fezik taking a wrong turn came to their advantage in in all reality. Let me back up. Back in the fire swamp, when the two ROUSs voraciously devoured the one that Wesley defeated, they got a taste of Wesley's blood from that ROUS's jaws. Human blood. It was divine to them. They they did their best to pursue Wesley for another taste of that divine blood to satiate their craving. This only got them as far as the as the revenge, which was waiting for Wesley at that time, but he never came due to Humperding's treachery. Well, like rats, they well, like the rats they are, they stowed away. Now don't ask me how a rodent of that of an of that unusual size could do it for so long and not be noticed. Morganstern doesn't explain it, and neither shall I. I suppose he was enamored with Florinese celebratory customs to look into this one. Well, the two ROUSs were now on Florence soil because of the revenge came to Florence soil, and Fezick found them. That's where Fezick took the wrong turn into. Buttercup screamed and quivered at their sight. She thought she she would never have to relive this nightmare. And that scream is what brought Humperdink and his men to a close in on their location. Humperdink's men arrived just as Fezick was lifting an ROUS in each hand and ready to toss them into the boulder and shatter their skeletons. But they were quite in a frenzied panic, and they were going to and they were going crazy at the smell of Anigo's blood. Holt commanded one of Humperdink's soldiers. Fault, thought Fezick, doing his rhymes. He was not liking how unfriendly the beasts he was holding were, so in frustration he threw them amidst the soldiers. Like a whirlwind of claws, teeth, and fur, the ROUS collided and luckily drew blood from a soldier. Then the frenzy began and panic over overtook them, all overtook all the soldiers. Wesley came too at this moment. Not them again, he shouted and began directing Fezzick and the horses to the right direction and the revenge. And back on the revenge, Wesley took Buttercup by the waist and said, Oh, how I shall love you in the coming years. As and and Buttercup smiled and blushed. And as you see, true love always wins. Wesley's love for Buttercup allowed him to defy death. The ROUS's love for the taste of human blood provided an, admittedly, unbelievable escape for our heroes, and Humperdinck's love for war and killing were able to were able to use the appearance of the ROUS's as Gilder's sabotage and start the war that he desperately wanted. And here's uh William Goldman's introjection. Now, isn't that nice? Still a strange way to end up end a story, Morgan Stern.

SPEAKER_01 2:20:44

That's great, man. Fantastic.

SPEAKER_02 2:20:49

I just love how like different we all were. It is so good.

SPEAKER_01 2:20:53

I mean, that was fun. Two two unexpected turns from both of you for sure. Mine was very routine, very trope-filled. Yeah. Both of you provided some great um yeah, unexpected little pop-ups. I was not expecting to see Nita come back. I was not expecting ROUS to be the like, you know, out of um the back to the middle of the story.

SPEAKER_04 2:21:23

That was great. You see, my one of my favorite things of fantasy is the monsters they provide. And I feel like this one is actually a little lackluster, or at least the book is better at filling it in. And props to the movie for giving us the whispering eels because in the book it's sharks.

SPEAKER_02 2:21:41

Shrieking eels.

SPEAKER_04 2:21:41

Oh, shrieking eels, sorry. Yeah, it's shrieking eels. But I yeah, I loved the shrieking eels. I thought they were terrifying. The RUS's song was like, I love a good monster, so I kind of wanted to bring them back. Yeah.

SPEAKER_02 2:22:00

It's funny because I thought we would all bring Vassini back. Like, everybody's gonna think of this. Like, oh man. Whatever.

SPEAKER_01 2:22:12

I was gonna go into detail of like having Humperdinks upcoming or come up ins to be a rendition of what Wesley described to him, but I was like, that might be a little too much. Actually describing everything. Uh I'll just go with something simpler. That was awesome. Good job, fellas. Yeah, that was fun. Fantastic. We got some up-and-coming writers on our hands. All right.

SPEAKER_02 2:22:40

Maybe. Well, we gotta do our rating. Yep. Why don't you lead us out?

SPEAKER_04 2:22:47

I'll lead us out here. So this is a very fun book. I recommend everyone read it at least once, especially if you love the movie. And that's everyone. Everyone loves the movie. It is the closest thing to a perfect movie that we have had. Um, I hope but this is my second time reading it, and I honestly kind of got annoyed with William Goldman's interjections. Where I was like, and he's very he's very wordy, especially with the introduction, and I was getting kind of annoyed of him.

SPEAKER_02 2:23:19

Kind of like you get annoyed with the kid and the grandpa interrupting the story.

SPEAKER_04 2:23:25

Yeah, yeah, yeah. So you could probably skip all, it's all italicized what he says. You could skip what he says, and you'd have a much quicker and more fun read. Um, and that was one of the negative parts. And they they took out the shrieking eels, like it's in the map in the book, but you don't have anything with the cool shrieking eels. But other than that, uh I'm gonna give this book a solid eight out of ten.

SPEAKER_02 2:23:50

Sweet.

SPEAKER_04 2:23:51

Mm-hmm. Okay.

SPEAKER_02 2:23:53

Yeah, you know, I I guess I haven't read the full book. The audiobook was great, but it it was essentially like just listening to the movie, um, which is not a bad thing by any means, because the movie is so great and um and fun and amazing and timeless. It'll be something I will watch with my kids and hopefully their kids. Um with that and also as you wish kind of factored in. I was kind of thinking in the eights as well. I would probably go high eights, probably like eight seven. Thoroughly enjoyed all aspects of this. It definitely uh was so fun. So good pick, Derek.

SPEAKER_01 2:24:45

Oh yeah. It it is interesting. I think the audiobook does uh produce a lot of what uh Morganstein Morgan Stern interject's interjections, because I did not notice nearly as many um as like you're describing. Um so it it is gonna be interesting when I fully read the book. I did per peruse it a little bit, but um yeah, it seems like it it's almost uh the audiobooks almost an introductory experience, then you have the full book, and of course there's the movie that kind of gives you the whole shebang. But um I I I'm gonna go a little higher than both of you. I was enamored by just everything about it. The uh I I it seriously has inspired me to I want to do something like this. I would love to take some of the story ideas and and try and do a similar idea of it's it exists as a fictional book and I want to recreate it. I'm putting it in that in the nine out of ten. I just love the fantasy it builds, I love the positivity of the book, I love how fun it is. It is something that can be reread and read again and again. Uh read to your children, read to your grandparents. Uh, of course, it's accompanied by the movie. Um and then, like you said, the as you wish book is also just fantastic. I'm gonna give that a nine out of ten too, because it's just it this is just a magical thing that exists in the world. Yeah, uh the Princess Bride. This is something I I don't think this is this is an interesting idea. Was nostalgia is gonna be hard to kind of build on in the future because things are more and more not becoming as nostalgic. Like nobody's nostalgic for the iPhone 12. Nobody's nostalgic for the iPhone 13. But this has almost forever nostalgia to it. Um and yeah, just being able to introduce it to, like you said, your kids, your grandkids, your great-grandkids, your great-great-grandkids, because you're gonna be living that long. Um but I absolutely love it. Nine out of ten, fantastic.

SPEAKER_02 2:27:08

Sweet. Yep, so fun. So cool. That was awesome.

SPEAKER_04 2:27:15

Yep. I had a fun time being rascals with you guys this evening. Yeah, great. That's great.

SPEAKER_01 2:27:22

We are gonna have to do that that uh book finishing thing again. That yeah, that was pretty fun.

SPEAKER_04 2:27:26

I was I was a little nervous, but you know, yeah, it it was fun to practice some writing again.

SPEAKER_02 2:27:34

That was nice. Yeah, it was good. Definitely it helps, man. Any kind of practice like that helps. Once you brought that up, Jeff, my brain was just like and uh the thing that popped in my head first was like bring back Vicini. And it's just like, okay, well, how am I gonna do that?

SPEAKER_01 2:27:53

I love hearing that. That is exactly what it's supposed to do. Just yeah, so cool. It is fun, yeah.

SPEAKER_02 2:27:59

So I get to pick the next book, which is sweet. Um, I've been debating between three books. I'm not gonna mention the other two because I think they'll probably be my next two picks after this one. Um, but I think for relevancy, I'm going to pick um Project Hail Mary by Andy Weir. I have not read this book. I have read The Martian and Artemis. The Martian was amazing. It was really good. The movie also was amazing. I think it followed the book really well. Artemis was okay. It was good, enjoyable, not something that I want to ever return to. So I'm curious about this. And I'm really curious about the movie as well. And I think it would be fun for us to go see it as a group, but yeah, you know, if we can make it happen, awesome. If not, no worries. But yeah, I think it'll be fun. Not too many. I hope we can all get together and watch it.

SPEAKER_04 2:29:08

Yeah. And we can take our wifeies out to a nice evening. I I don't really want to be seen with my wife.

SPEAKER_01 2:29:15

No.

SPEAKER_04 2:29:16

After hearing about all this true love, I see why you love this book. It is an escape for you.

SPEAKER_01 2:29:25

No, that sounds awesome. Popcorn, though. This movie, I to me it almost appeared out of nowhere. I I mean, I've Andy Weir, right?

SPEAKER_02 2:29:34

Yeah, have you read any of his stuff?

SPEAKER_01 2:29:37

Oh, yeah, I've read The Martian and uh total, he seems like a total sci-fi nut. Like he knows his stuff really well. So I'm really excited about it because it just seemed to pop up and gain some immense popularity, and I mean that's usually a good sign for a book.

SPEAKER_02 2:29:51

So I've actually I've started it like the first couple chapters, and uh gotta say, it is reminding me of one of my own works, which is like I'm like I was a little self-conscious about it, anyways. Now I'm like, okay, maybe it's not so out there, but anyways, we can talk about it more next time. Yeah, all right. That'd be great. So cool, fellas. Anything else before we take off? No, good to go. Sweet, yeah. Okay, this has been Big Rascals. Keep reading, keep writing, and stay rascally, my friends. Catch you guys later.

SPEAKER_01 2:30:33

Bye. See ya.