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Frankenstein (2025) · This Film is Lit

0:04
Speaker A: This Film Is lit, the podcast where we finally settle the score on one simple Is the book really better than the movie? I'm Brian and I have a film degree, so I watch the movie but don't read the book.
0:15
Speaker B: And I'm Katie. I have an English degree, so I do things the right way and read the book before we watch the movie.
0:22
Speaker A: So prepare to be wowed by our expertise and charm as we dissect all of your favorite film adaptations and decide if the silver screen the or the written word did it better. So turn it up, settle in, and get ready for spoilers because this film is lit. If you are not to award me love, then I will indulge in rage, and mine is infinite. It's Frankenstein and this film is lit. Foreign. Welcome back to this Film Is lit the podcast. We talk about movies based on books. Been waiting to get to this one for a while. We're talking about Frankenstein. So much to get to most of our segments. No Guess who this week, but we do have everything else, so we're gonna jump right in. If you have not read or watched Frankenstein, specifically watched, we're going to give you a brief summary right now. Let me explain. No, there is too much. Let me sum up. This is a synopsis of the film Frankenstein 2025, sourced from Wikipedia. Prelude In 1857, Horizont, a royal Danish Navy ship sailing for the North Pole becomes trapped in ice. Alerted to an explosion in the distance, Captain Anderson and his men discover a gravely injured Victor Frankenstein. Upon bringing him aboard, the crew is attacked by a creature who demands Victor's surrender. Anderson uses a blunderbuss to sink the creature into the water. Victor explains that he created the creature and recounts the events leading to its creation. Victor's Tale Victor's mother dies while giving birth to his younger brother, William, who becomes the favorite of their renowned aristocratic father. Grieving his mother and resenting his abusive father, Victor becomes a brilliant, arrogant surgeon obsessed with curing death through science. He is expelled from the Royal College of Surgeons of Edinburgh for reanimating corpses, which a disciplinary tribunal denounces as sacrilege. Arms merchant Heinrich Harlander impresses, impressed by his presentation, offers Victor unlimited funding and an isolated tower to continue his experiments under an unnamed condition. Enlisting William's assistance in building his laboratory, Victor becomes smitten with Elizabeth, Harlander's niece and William's fiance, who declines his advances when an impatient Harlander demands results. Within a week, Victor fashions body parts from criminals and soldiers killed in the ongoing Crimean War into a body to reanimate. Harlander reveals he is dying of syphilis and unveils his single condition. He wants his brain transplanted into the body of the creature. When Victor refuses, Harlander attempts to sabotage the experiment but falls to his death. Lightning strikes the creature as planned, but it fails to reanimate. The following morning, Victor finds the creative the creature alive. He marvels at its immense strength and ability to rapidly heal wounds, but can only teach it to speak one word. Victor. Frustrated by his lack of intellectual growth, Victor begins to imitate his father's cruel discipline and becomes afraid of the creature's physical strength. Visiting with William, Elizabeth questions Victor's treatment of the creature and bonds with him, teaching him to speak her name. When William finds Harlander's body, Victor dishonestly claims that the creature killed him in a fit of rage. After sending them away, Victor sets his lab ablaze with the creature inside. Hearing the creature call his name, Victor remorsefully attempts to re enter the tower, but it explodes, severing his leg. In the present, the creature boards the ship, confronts the captain, and shares his own story. The creature's tale the creature escapes the explosion and takes shelter in the mill gears of a family's farm. Over the next year, he secretly helps the family, providing them with large supplies of firewood and building a pen for their sheep. They thank their unseen benefactor as the spirit of the Forest. When the rest of the family leaves for the mountains to hunt wolves, the creature befriends their blind patriarch, who teaches them to read and speak fluently. The creature journeys to the ruins of the laboratory, where he discovers the truth about his creation and the address to Victor's estate. He returns to the farm to find the blind man being attacked by wolves, which the creature fights off before comforting his dying friend. The family returns and, mistakenly believing the creature killed the blind man, shoots him. After reviving, the creature realizes he cannot die and will spend eternity alone. He confronts Victor during William and Elizabeth's wedding, demanding the creature the creation of a companion. Victor, fearing the possibility of the creature reproducing, adamantly refuses. The creature attacks him. Hearing the commotion, Elizabeth rushes in and embraces the creature. While attempting to shoot the creature, Victor shoots Elizabeth instead. Williams is wounded while attempting to rush the creature. Before dying, he calls Victor a monster. The creature carries Elizabeth to a cave and comforts her as she dies. Victor pursues the creature to the Arctic, where the creature attempts to destroy himself with a stick of dynamite, but fails. A remorseful Victor and the creature reconcile, addressing each other as father and son. Before Victor succumbs to. To his injuries, the creature frees the ship from the ice. Anderson decides to abandon his pursuit and sail back home alone. The creature reaches out to embrace the sunlight, as Victor once taught him. The end. I have so many questions. Let's get into them. And was that in the book?
5:27
Speaker B: Gaston, may I have my book, please?
5:29
Speaker A: How can you read this?
5:31
Speaker B: There's no pictures. Well, some people use their imagination.
5:34
Speaker A: So as the story mentions or as the summary mentioned, the story starts with a prelude, which is. We open on a ship stranded in the ice, and this crew of the ship discovers Victor, injured, laying on the ice. And then very quickly, we kind of get this opening action sequence where the creature tries to attack the ship and get Victor back from the ship's crew. And then they fend him off before he sinks into the icy ocean. And then Victor tells his. Basically his version of the story of how he created the creature. And I wanted to know. And that's where we kind of launch backward into the story from the beginning. And I wanted to know if the book was structured this way.
6:16
Speaker B: So the book opens with letters from Captain Walton, whose name was changed for the film, to his sister, detailing his attempt to travel to the North Pole, which is, like, his passion project in the book. Shortly into the narrative, they see the creature traveling by sled, like, from a distance, and they're like, was that. And then they encounter Frankenstein following him the next day, and he's not in. Like, he's not doing great. He's, like, down to one dog and sickly. So they bring him on board the ship, at which point he tells his story to Captain Walter.
6:56
Speaker A: So the frame story element of it.
6:57
Speaker B: Yeah, the frame story element is from the book.
6:59
Speaker A: It's just the movie spices it up and makes it a little more.
7:02
Speaker B: Yeah, there's no, like, big action fight scene with the creature in the book.
7:06
Speaker A: Yeah. Cool. So they didn't ex. I don't even remember who this asked this question. I assume. I think it's the captain asked him this. Yeah, before. Yeah, it's because it's before that we get the actual storytelling. And they're talking about. Because they saw the creature. They heard the creature at least. No, they saw it because it attacked the boat. They saw the creature and the captain asked him like. He's like, man, that thing is crazy. What is this monster? What manner of devil made him? And Frankenstein responds by saying, I did. I made him. Which is very dramatic. And there's. I have a lot of questions about lines because that Is we'll get to my feelings on this movie. Holding them for now. But the had some incredible bangers of lines throughout. And so I have a lot of questions about, like, how much of the dialog came from the book. Because it was one of my favorite parts of the movie and I wanted to know if that line came from the book.
8:03
Speaker B: I don't think anything like this appears in the book. I tried searching a couple of variations and, like, different words from this, and I did not come up with anything similar.
8:12
Speaker A: Okay, so then, as the summary stated, we flash back and. And we actually flash way back to Victor's childhood and we see his relationship with his father and his mother. And the main kind of question I want to see here because it informs the whole thematic arc of the movie, the whole point of the film, which is that we see that Victor's father, played by Charles Dance, what's his.
8:37
Speaker B: Lannister.
8:38
Speaker A: Lannister.
8:39
Speaker B: Lannister man.
8:39
Speaker A: Tywin Lannister himself, among many other roles, obviously. But great cruel father, if you need a cruel father, harder, hard to beat Charles Dance. But so we see that his father was very cruel to him. A very, like, demanding, cold father. One particular scene we see is that he's studying biology to become a doctor, it seems like. And he's quizzing him on biology, and Victor gets a question wrong. And his father punishes him by whipping him with, like, a cane or whatever. But Victor holds out his hand to be hit by the cane as his punishment. And his father says, no, not your hands anymore. Those are the tools of your trade. And he's like. Instead he hits him in the face because his face is just there for vanity. And I wanted to know if any of this that's exchanged, but just broadly the idea of Victor's father and his cruelty. Oh, and I guess beyond that, do we even see Victor's childhood in the book? Would be another question.
9:42
Speaker B: So this is 100% a movie invention.
9:44
Speaker A: Okay.
9:45
Speaker B: In the book, Victor and his father have, like, a very good, loving relationship.
9:49
Speaker A: So we do see.
9:50
Speaker B: We do see him interact with his family. Yeah, we get, like, a little bit of information about his childhood. Not a lot of, like, extended scenes like this.
10:00
Speaker A: Okay, well, that brought me. It brings me to my next question then. Cause you said we see him interact with his family in the movie, both his mother and father die at a relatively young age. His mother, as I said, dies in childbirth with his younger brother William. And I wanted to know if that came from the movie because there's then this kind of sub element to it that Victor suspects that his father let his mother die, or at the very least, did not. Chose to save the baby over her, basically. And this kind of spurs his desire, his yearning to conquer death. He had a very close relationship with his mother because she was the only one who showed him any sort of compassion or kindness or anything like that. And so he has this very close relationship with his mother. So losing her kind of spurns this whole thing and, again, is the impetus for his desire to conquer death in the film. And I wanted to know if that was pulled from the book.
10:56
Speaker B: No, none of this is from the book.
10:58
Speaker A: Okay.
10:58
Speaker B: His parents have a loving relationship. His mother does die in the book, but it's from scarlet fever. And it's right before Victor leaves to go to school. So it's not like when he's a little kid.
11:10
Speaker A: Oh, okay.
11:12
Speaker B: And I think I'll just go ahead and say this right now because it's a sentiment that is going to inform the entirety of my remaining opinions and answers to your questions. The book and the movie are incredibly different. And for about 75% of the movie, I was really enjoying its take on the story. I was like, okay, it's nothing like the book, but I like it. It's interesting. That feeling did not necessarily stay with me for the last 25% of the film, but we will get to that.
11:43
Speaker A: Yeah.
11:44
Speaker B: Overall, I think the changes that the movie makes to Victor's backstory and family are interesting. I think it's a good explanation to. For why his character ends up being who he is in the film and why he ends up with the goals and desires that he has, as well as the shortcomings that become very evident. I don't know that I would put this as better in the book or better in the movie, necessarily, because.
12:13
Speaker A: Telling a different story.
12:14
Speaker B: Yeah, it's telling a different story. Yeah.
12:16
Speaker A: Yeah. I will say I liked this part. I had no issue with this, and I actually thought this was all handled well. And I think it's evident now, from the way I've been talking about it, that I did not love this movie as much as I wanted to. I desperately desired to. And I went in thinking I would at least like it. And I don't even know if I like it, necessarily. I don't want to say I dislike it, but it's. I don't know if I would say that I really like it that much.
12:45
Speaker B: I like things about it that is my.
12:49
Speaker A: And we'll talk about this more as we go, but that is where I Land is that I like a lot of things about the movie, but I don't actually like the movie as a whole all that much. And compared as much as I wanted to, not nearly as much as I wanted to. And definitely compared to other Del Toro films. It's pretty low on my list of del Toro films that I've seen. Like, if I were ranking it.
13:13
Speaker B: Yeah.
13:14
Speaker A: Of among, like, with my favorite Del Toro's it. It might be at the bottom of the list of films of his that I've seen. Maybe. Maybe I would have to go back and think about it, but it would be close if not at the bottom, and we can get. Maybe do that later or maybe in the prequel. That would be it. We could. We could, like, rank his movies in the next prequel episode of, like, what our favorites are. That actually might be a fun little exercise.
13:35
Speaker B: Let us know if you want to.
13:36
Speaker A: If you want. You want us to do that. We could. We could. Of the ones we've seen, we can each make our own little list and, like, rank them where we would put them. But, yeah, this. This one was disappointing. And we'll get into why. But so far, up to this point in the film, I was. I had no issues.
13:51
Speaker B: I. At this point in the film, I was seated. I was into it.
13:54
Speaker A: Yeah, I was. I found it a little boring. I didn't think it was. It didn't. The performances were a little dry at times. And I thought, like, this. This whole part at the beginning wasn't gripping me as much as I hoped, but I was still on board with it. And. And this specific element of his backstory I thought was a compelling. I have not read Frankenstein, so I was not comparing it to the book, but knowing kind of what the story was, roughly, like, a little bit of, like, yeah, what the story was just culturally, which, to be fair, I haven't even. I don't think I've ever watched a full Frankenstein movie. Like, so I really did not know the beats of the story or anything like that, other than very, very broadly, like, cultural osmosis wise of, like, guy creates creature from dead people and then comes to regret creating, you know, like, that.
14:43
Speaker B: Very havoc ensues.
14:45
Speaker A: Yeah. And then stuff happens, but I don't even know what happened or, like, what the point was or any like that. And so up until this point, like, just knowing, like, okay, going, we're gonna go do a thing where he's gonna create this, have this creation, and we're setting up, like, his childhood dynamics and his relationship with his father, and that's gonna inform his relationship with the creature and all that. I was like, okay, I can see where this is going. And I'm liking all of this so far. Even if I didn't think it was, like, particularly gripping to watch, I at least was, like, into it enough to be enjoying it. And I would never. Well, we'll get to it. So moving forward a little bit, I think we jump ahead to. Oh, no, this might be a thing in his childhood. Yeah, this is a thing in his childhood, right? He sees this first as a child.
15:29
Speaker B: Yeah, I think so.
15:31
Speaker A: He goes to bed one night and he has a dream, and I think this might be right after his mother dies, potentially, I can't remember. But he has this dream where he sees this dark angel and he calls it a dark angel, and it comes back again several times later. And I don't know if we ever really wrap that thread up. I'm trying to remember, like, not really. I don't think it goes anywhere. What that is necessarily. I don't remember entirely. But he has these visions of this dark angel, which is this giant red angel thing that. He also has a statue in his bedroom that is kind of a similar thing. And I wanted to know if any of that and his vision of that came from the book.
16:10
Speaker B: There's nothing like this in the book. It's very Catholic imagery, unsurprisingly considering that Del Toro was raised Catholic.
16:18
Speaker A: Yes.
16:18
Speaker B: Mary Shelley, not so much. It is a fun visual. I was not overly enamored with that specific visual like I was with some of the film's other visual elements, but I think it works.
16:30
Speaker A: I would have to revisit the film, and I'm sure I will one day. This is a movie that I very much want to watch again in five years or 10 years and see how. I don't know, just a second time, how it goes down to see if my opinion has changed at all. But this is one. This is an element where, on a first viewing, especially taking notes, I did not grasp what this represented or meant or where it was supposed to go and inform the rest of the story. You know what I mean? So I'm a little. If you do know, I would love to get some feedback on that because, again, I just, after one viewing, wasn't entirely sure what we were supposed to be getting from that. Another issue that I had, which we should have just watched the whole movie with subtitles. There was parts that even. We got a brand new sound system, but even with our new sound system, some of the dialogue was A little tough to understand, I think mainly because of accents, more so than anything because they have pretty thick, like, British accents that are. At times, I was having trouble parsing what was being said. Not too much, but occasionally also they speak in a very. I don't even know the word for it. The kind of stilted, poetic way from this time period and of the, I assume, dialogue pulled from the. That you really have to, like, lock in and parse. You can't just passively. Not that I was passively listening to it, but while I'm taking notes, if other things are happening, it's hard for your brain to exactly register everything that's being said. Because I know during that first vision he has, there's a lot of dialogue during that, or a fair amount of dialogue, I'm pretty sure. And I think I probably missed what that was supposed to be getting out there. Anyways, moving forward, he grows up now. He is now a member of the. Whatever it said in the summary. The Guild of Surgeons at the Edinburgh or whatever.
18:18
Speaker B: Yeah.
18:18
Speaker A: And he is presenting on his. His. His. His new project where he can reanimate dead tissue, dead corpses. And he gives a demonstration that he is. He is on. He is at. Not trial, but he is at a hearing, basically, to see if he can. If he's allowed to stay a member of this group because they don't love what he's been doing. And so he shows them he re. It's part of a corpse and it's like, playing catch with it and stuff. And I wanted to know if that came from the book because I thought that was interesting and it surprised me that he was that far along. Like, the story shows him being that far along or able to literally bring a corpse back to life and play catch with it prior to the moment he actually brings a corpse back to life. And I'm like, oh, he seems to be able to do this already. And so I wanted to know if that came from the book.
19:11
Speaker B: No, it does not.
19:12
Speaker A: Okay.
19:12
Speaker B: He conducts his experiments in secret and never tells anyone else what he's working on or what he's done, which obviously then becomes an even bigger secret when the creature is running around doing things. Yeah, obviously the book does say, like, shortly before we get the actual reanimation of the creature, it says that there's a vague line about, like, I had learned how to instill life into tissue, but there's no detail about, like, what exactly that means.
19:43
Speaker A: Yeah, okay. Yeah. I mean, the scene is fun, and I think that's mainly why it's there is to kind of, like I say, fun. It's also deeply, like, horrifying in a way that is intentionally supposed to be. You're supposed to be like, jesus Christ. Because at the end of this experiment, he pulls the plugs out of it and it, like, dies hideously again. And you're like, oh, God. And so it is. It also sets an interesting dynamic that I don't know if the movie ever really, like, hashes out, which is that all of these other scientists are like, this is sacrilege. This is. You know, how. What are you doing? And there's this kind of interesting dynamic to the film of, like, I tend to agree with them in that moment of, like, what the are. This is insane. Like, why are we bringing corpses back to life? And, like. And they're like, why are you doing. And obviously, I don't think it's sacrilege, but I do think it's. My brain is going, like, there's something. This is up. And the story, like, Frankenstein is squarely a villain in this story. Like, he is absolutely a villain in this story, in the movie, and I. A sympathetic villain who has moments of, you know, and you understand, like, why, broadly, he is the way he is, but he is the villain. And so I thought there was this interesting dynamic of, like, you disagree with the idea of him doing this. And I think the movie even kind of wants you to disagree with the idea of him doing this, but also be incredibly sympathetic to the result of this thing that he does, which is an interesting. And there's an interesting tension there, and I probably would have to watch the movie again to see if it actually. I just don't felt like the movie explored that tension as thoroughly as it could have. It just kind of like, once the creature is created, we just kind of ignore how it happened or why or anything like that, and don't even kind of really grapple with that element of the moral of it. And more. So just about. Okay, now that the creature exists, what do we. Which I think is probably the right way to go about, I don't know, talking myself in circles here. Another thing that I thought was interesting, a character quirk in the film is that we see in his childhood, Victor drinks milk all the time, but then as he gets older, he also continues to pretty much exclusively drink milk. And I imagine this is supposed to be a signal, kind of a sign of his childhood trauma, of, like, a stunted of something where he is, you know, he has this trauma from his childhood and he has kind of connected this almost like an Arrested Development thing in some way in that regard that he. He still continuously continues to like only drink milk, even as a like 35 year old man or however old he's supposed to be in this. I actually don't know, but I wanted to know if that came from the book because I thought it was kind of interesting.
22:34
Speaker B: No, that doesn't come from the book. Or at least it's never mentioned that he's like chugging milk all the time.
22:39
Speaker A: Yeah.
22:40
Speaker B: And yeah, I assume this is meant to symbolize for the most part, like you said, arrested development. Mommy issues.
22:48
Speaker A: Yes. Yeah, I think that's even a more specific element of it is. Yeah. His issues with his mom because that's a big element in the movie.
22:55
Speaker B: And also pretty common filmic language for villains to drink milk.
22:59
Speaker A: That is true. That is not uncommon for villains to drink milk, which is interesting. I don't know why that is necessarily. But yeah, with an actor from this movie, Christoph Waltz, drinking milk in several different scenes in Inglourious Basterds as the evil Nazis, there's several scenes where he's drinking milk villainously. We are then introduced to Elizabeth, who is the niece of Harlander, who is the. Who is going to back this whole endeavor financially. And then his. His niece Elizabeth is engaged to Victor's brother William. So that's the whole dynamic. So he meets. We meet Elizabeth at this dinner that they're having. And I thought her. This was one of my favorite scenes in the whole movie, probably was her introduction because I was like, ooh. I like this dynamic between them. I don't think it carries as much through the movie. It's still there a little bit. But this first opening dynamic between them I thought was really compelling where Victor is like talking about his ideas and like what he wants to do. And Elizabeth kind of calls him out and specifically calls out his reverence for kind of just the broad concept of like ideas. Because he's like, oh. And I don't remember the exact exchange that they have, but he basically, he's like, what? What? You know, like she's. She kind of like scoffs at something he says. And he goes, well, don't you. You have an issue with big ideas or something? Something like that. And she goes, well, I don't have reverence for ideas themselves. I have reverence for good ideas essentially. And. And she goes on to kind of cite like the current war, the Crimean War that men are being sent to die for. You know, like, is that, you know, those are big Ideas. The ideas behind the war are big ideas, but I have no reverence for them. That kind of thing. Basically, kind of immediately proving herself to be somewhat of an intellectual rival to Frankenstein in a way that he was not expecting, especially during this time period, which I thought was compelling. And I wanted to know if that came from the book.
25:09
Speaker B: It does not. Okay. Book. Elizabeth is a pretty nothing character, if I'm being honest. She's Victor's adopted sister. Like, from childhood.
25:21
Speaker A: Yeah.
25:22
Speaker B: They grew up together and they later get married, which was their mother's dying wish for them to get married. So the movie did not pull the incest vibes out of nowhere.
25:33
Speaker A: Oh, you mean the mother, son, incest? Is that what you're.
25:35
Speaker B: Yeah.
25:36
Speaker A: Okay.
25:36
Speaker B: Just like general overtones of things.
25:40
Speaker A: Right. Because in the movie, she's not related to him at all.
25:44
Speaker B: No. But she does refer to her as sister once or twice.
25:47
Speaker A: He does.
25:47
Speaker B: She's marrying his brother.
25:48
Speaker A: Yes. And the movie, very intentionally, you may not have noticed this, because I even knew this going in, and I almost still couldn't tell that this was the case. Mia Goth plays both his mother and Elizabeth. They do some fair amount of prosthetics on her when she's playing the mother, but it is still the same actress, which is, again, an intentional playing on that. The. The kind of Oedipal stuff that's going on.
26:10
Speaker B: Yeah. Anyway, like I said, in the book, Elizabeth is pretty boring. She's not even in most of it.
26:18
Speaker A: Okay.
26:19
Speaker B: The most interesting thing she does is speak on behalf servant girl who's falsely accused of murder. But she does not succeed in saving her. Otherwise, she's just kind of occasionally in the background until it's time for her to die.
26:33
Speaker A: Yeah.
26:34
Speaker B: So I liked the changes that the movie made to Elizabeth. She was smart. She had her own point of view. I felt like she was definitely attracted to Victor. But she was, like, smart enough to see that red flag for what it was.
26:49
Speaker A: Yeah, absolutely.
26:52
Speaker B: Some of the movie's marketing, I felt like, made it seem like she was going to be the creature's love interest, but I honestly wouldn't even say that that's really the case.
27:00
Speaker A: No, I would say the creature does love her, obviously, at the end, but she is not.
27:05
Speaker B: Yeah, she likes him. She has empathy for him.
27:09
Speaker A: She sees his humanity and all of that stuff.
27:12
Speaker B: Yeah.
27:12
Speaker A: But I don't think she's like. Wants to be in a relationship with her.
27:15
Speaker B: No, I don't think there's anything more than, like, the vague suggestion, overtone of romance. And honestly, more like Romance with a capital R. Yes.
27:26
Speaker A: Yeah, it's romance in the sense that she sees his humanity and so he falls in love with her.
27:31
Speaker B: Yeah.
27:31
Speaker A: And. But yes, I do not think. I think she. It seems in the movie that she is very perfectly happy to be marrying William and has no desire. You know, even when the monster shows or creature shows up, she's not like, oh, now I must run away with you. To be like, that's not. Not the dynamic the movie is going for. Again, this might be my favorite scene in the movie because this hits on one of my favorite things, themes that I think the movie is touching on a little bit, which is kind of calling out modern, kind of like tech bro culture. The, like, move fast, break things. All ideas are good ideas. Let's just do the things that are the most interesting and cool without caring about the consequence, you know? Like, it's that, like, very much a critique of kind of like, yeah, Silicon Valley style, tech bro, super entrepreneurial, like, startup culture stuff. Like, I think Victor Frankenstein in this is kind of meant to represent that type of genius who is uncaring about the consequences of what he does. I just think the movie fails to continue, like, that critique as well as it does in this scene. I think it kind of falls away as the movie moves on. And we'll talk more about that, especially later. But it just. I. Yeah, I. I did really like this part where I was like, oh, I can see what we're doing here. I think this is kind of compelling and interesting. And, yeah, like, yeah, I might talk myself into liking this movie by the end. We'll see. Because it is one of those things, I think, actually, it's. This is the thing, like you said earlier. It's. I like all the parts. So when I'm talking about it, like, in retrospect, I'm like, well, I like what it's doing here, but it just. Yeah. And we'll get to it. But, yeah. I wanted to know if Harlander came from the book and specifically if he is the one funding this whole endeavor. And. And if. And if there is this thing that he, like, unspecified thing that he wants Victor to agree to in order for him to fund all of this. I wanted to know if that little subplot came from the book.
29:32
Speaker B: No, Harlander is entirely a movie invention. He's not from the book at all.
29:37
Speaker A: I thought I read there was a similar character, though, that was like, no, no, it's played a similar role.
29:42
Speaker B: No, I cannot think of a single character that I would.
29:45
Speaker A: Is there not Somebody that is killed by the creature who is like, Elizabeth. Elizabeth's like, uncle or something. Or I thought I read somebody say that there was. Okay, I could be wrong.
29:56
Speaker B: I don't know that this part of the movie worked all that well for me. I didn't mind his character per se, but the, like, secret motivation thing annoyed me a little because I thought the reveal of it was not interesting.
30:15
Speaker A: Yeah. So the reveal is. And I think I have it. We'll get to it here in just a second.
30:22
Speaker B: But, like, when he started, there was one point where he was talking about how, like, oh, we only have a week left for this because the war is ending. And I was like, okay, does he want a super soldier?
30:35
Speaker A: I think that was in reference specifically to. I think. And I would have to re. Because I had. I remember that part. And I. I think that. Because I had a similar confusion, I think that may have been in reference to the supply of bodies.
30:49
Speaker B: Okay.
30:49
Speaker A: Not. Not that they. Because I also was wondering, like, does he want a super. Like, is. Is the point that he wants to create this thing in order to, like, use it as a super soldier and, like, deploy it in war or whatever.
31:01
Speaker B: Yeah.
31:02
Speaker A: Which you would assume would be the case.
31:03
Speaker B: Right. Because he's like an arms dealer.
31:04
Speaker A: He's an arms dealer. And so, yeah, he wants to create. Yeah, this. This super soldier to, like, be a soldier or whatever. But that doesn't. That's not. That's not the thing.
31:11
Speaker B: No.
31:11
Speaker A: And then on top of that, it wouldn't make sense. Even if that was the case. It wouldn't make sense. I don't think, in my opinion, to be like, well, this war is about to end, so we don't need a super. Like, of course they would still want a super. You know what I mean? Like, the war ending, they would be like, well, there's going to be another. It's the 1800s. There's a war every other week. Like, that's starting here. And even if there isn't a war, you would still want a super soldier to be like, hey, we're a superpower that has a super weapon or whatever.
31:37
Speaker B: Well, and he's also. He's an arms dealer. So if there's not a war, he'll just start one, no problem.
31:42
Speaker A: I think what he's referencing there is specifically the. The supply of bodies that they need. Suppose, I think, is that the war will supply that. But if they. When the war ends, they won't have the. Which they also take them from people being. I don't know. I Think that's the idea, though, though. Speaking of where he gets the bodies from, another thing they do is that they go to hangings and he collects the bodies of dead prisoners who are being executed. And we get this scene where he is, like, inspecting the prisoners before they are being hung to see who he wants. And I wanted to know if that scene came from the book.
32:16
Speaker B: It doesn't, but I liked it within the context of what the film was doing.
32:20
Speaker A: Yeah, I agree.
32:21
Speaker B: I thought it was a really good way to show how removed from his humanity Victor was.
32:25
Speaker A: Yes. He's completely. Just does not. Not register these people as people at all. He just doesn't give it. He's just there. Meat to him. And. Yeah, he just kind of inspects them and then just moves on as they're hanging people in the background. He just does not care. Another scene that I liked in the movie that I thought was a lot of fun was that Victor has fallen for Elizabeth. He has become. He has been smitten by her wit and beauty.
32:50
Speaker B: The fact that she looks like.
32:51
Speaker A: And the fact that she looks exactly like his mother. And he follows her one day, and she goes to a Catholic church to go into confessional. And he sneaks into the confessional. The confessional doesn't. I said booth, I guess, whatever. I don't know what the term is. Just a confessional. Right.
33:06
Speaker B: Yeah.
33:06
Speaker A: Yeah. He sneaks in and pretends to be the priest so that he can find out what her confession is. And. But she realizes this and they have a fun, coy little back and forth where she confesses to hating Victor Frankenstein and that he's obnoxious, and then he realizes that she's leading him on and blah, blah, blah. And I thought this exchange was very fun. And again, created some fun character tension between them. And again showed her, you know, the fact that she is not. She is not outwitted by Victor. And I wanted to know if that scene came from the book.
33:42
Speaker B: It doesn't. But I also really liked the scene. I thought it was a lot of fun and good character moments.
33:47
Speaker A: Yeah. Speaking of, does Victor fall for Elizabeth in the book?
33:52
Speaker B: Yeah, in the book, they. They are lovers and they get married.
33:56
Speaker A: Oh. So is there anything. Is she engaged to his brother or is his brother in the book or. I haven't guessed that.
34:03
Speaker B: I said she was she. So they did.
34:06
Speaker A: I did.
34:06
Speaker B: You said I. Yeah, I talked about her background. She was his adopted sister.
34:13
Speaker A: Yeah, I saw that. But. Oh. Oh, adopted. Okay. My brain didn't register what that meant. Yeah.
34:18
Speaker B: So they then grew up together, like always. Like, with, like. As brother and sister, but like always, with the expectations. Expectation, yes. That they were going to be wed. Weird. Pretty weird, yeah.
34:33
Speaker A: Yeah.
34:33
Speaker B: Pretty weird stuff.
34:35
Speaker A: Awesome. So then we get to the point where it is revealed, and actually we are right to the point where the. The creature creation is happening. We, as you said, Harlander is like, hey, we're running out of time. We got to do this. The war's ending. So they go and they get a bunch of body parts, and we get this fun montage of. A very gruesome montage of Victor sewing together body parts. Lots of cool practical effects, but very, you know, it's. They're not. They're not shying away from showing all the guts and gruesomeness. But it is then revealed as he's getting. He has the body ready to go, and he goes to talk to Harlander to be like, hey, we're ready to go. And is revealed that Harlander is dying of syphilis. And that his condition, his secret condition, is that he wants to put his brain inside the body of the creature. And that's kind of his motivation behind doing all of this, is he wants his brain in the body so that he can continue living, basically. And I wanted to know if that element came from the book.
35:33
Speaker B: It doesn't, but I have a couple thoughts.
35:37
Speaker A: Okay.
35:38
Speaker B: First of all, being that I feel like he waited way too long to reveal that condition.
35:44
Speaker A: I think the idea that he was thinking was, if I wait till the last minute, it will give Victor less of an opportunity to refuse me.
35:54
Speaker B: Right.
35:55
Speaker A: Because, like, we'll have a ticking clock, like, we gotta do it or something.
35:58
Speaker B: But they're literally, like, they have minutes.
36:02
Speaker A: Yes, I would agree with that. And it's.
36:04
Speaker B: How are we getting his brain out?
36:06
Speaker A: Also, clearly, he already has a brain in there.
36:09
Speaker B: Yeah.
36:09
Speaker A: Because.
36:10
Speaker B: Yeah, like, we're gonna have to open up the. The corpse too and take that brain out anyway. That's neither here nor there.
36:16
Speaker A: I will say. To be fair, too. I also don't know if. If they didn't know exactly when they were gonna do it. The storm happened to roll in, and Victor was like, holy shit, it's time to go.
36:26
Speaker B: Right.
36:26
Speaker A: And so I don't think that Harland or knew, like, oh, we're gonna do it at this time on this day, and then waited till five minutes before. I think he was waiting till close to tell him. And then it so happened that the storm rolled in just at the right time. And he was like, well, we gotta do it now. Yeah.
36:42
Speaker B: And my other thing is that. And this is kind of my. My beef with Harlander's character overall is that I'm not sure understand the addition of his character other than to explain how Victor funded his experiment, which is a thing that the book does not feel is necessary to explain.
37:02
Speaker A: Yeah.
37:02
Speaker B: And I also kind of don't think.
37:04
Speaker A: It'S necessary to explain my issue with Harlander's plot line. And I need. This is where I'm hoping somebody can explain this to me because I was very confused about this. This actually did not really affect my enjoyment of the movie at all. I will say that this is a thing I was slightly confused about, but it did not bother me really in the slightest. And I stopped thinking about it immediately. I have other issues with the movie that are all script character based. One of the things that I was confused about is he's like, hey, I want you to put my brain in the body. And he's like, no. And then he's like, we gotta go now. So they have all these contraptions that they have to put together in order that they have to add to the machine as that in order for the lightning strike thing to happen.
37:46
Speaker B: Yes.
37:47
Speaker A: And for all of the electricity could be conducted the way it needs to and whatever. And there seems to be like these three different pieces that they have. The first one, Victor climbs up to the tower to put the like, lightning rod basically on the tower roof. Then he comes down into the tower and he's putting a second piece, I guess another lightning rod connector that's going to conduct the electricity from after it hits the tower and then direct it down to like, towards the. Where the actual table is and where the creature is. And then he has a third one that Harlander grabs.
38:25
Speaker B: Yeah.
38:25
Speaker A: As he's attaching the second one, Harlander grabs the third one and Victor freaks out and he threatens to destroy it. He's like, put my brain in the body or I will destroy this and we won't be able to do. You know, it'll ruin the whole thing. And Victor's like, holy shit, no, don't do that. And is able to grab him. Harlander falls and the thing falls, catches on his foot, and then they both fall. He's not. Harlander's shirt rips and he falls to his death and crushes his head on the pavement. And even if he wanted to, Victor couldn't use his brain at that point because it is no long. Yes. But the object fell and was destroyed. So I did some quick Googling on this and it looks like what happened actually is that the device that fell was not destroyed, but just damaged a little bit. And when I went back and rewatched this scene, I did notice that, and that he does actually install it on the machine. And people on the Internet are speculating that what actually happened there is that the machine still worked properly, but that was the damaged part, is what caused the machine to destroy itself because it didn't conduct the electricity properly or whatever. And so it destroyed the whole machine. And the idea is that nobody else could do this. He couldn't recreate this or do it again or try again when this first one messed up, which I think makes sense. But I did not gather that that was what was happening when we watched the movie. So we're gonna keep talking about this for the next couple minutes, but that's the explanation that makes the most sense to me. But the experiment still works. And I don't understand what that device was or what it. Again, doesn't really matter because it. It all works out. But I. The movie never. Right. Am I crazy that the movie never goes like, what that was and why it was important?
40:19
Speaker B: Yeah.
40:20
Speaker A: How it affected.
40:21
Speaker B: I feel like there's got to be a missing scene there.
40:24
Speaker A: I felt that way about a lot of this movie.
40:26
Speaker B: Yeah.
40:26
Speaker A: My biggest critique of this movie is that it should have been 30 or 40 minutes longer, which is crazy for a movie that is already two and a half hours. But I. If there's a three hour and five minute cut of this movie, I did.
40:38
Speaker B: See, and I have not verified this, but I did see a thing on Instagram today that apparently there is going to be a director's cut.
40:46
Speaker A: I will absolutely. It's insane to me that we already. This isn't the director's cut because Del Toro seems to have, you know, his say over what he wanted. But I guess they said, you got to get it down to 230. Maybe that was like their main directive is like, you got to get it to 230 or people won't watch it. I will absolutely watch a director's cut of this because my biggest complaint was that I felt, especially in the middle of this movie, way too much was missing from. And actually from right here, from the moment the creature is created until basically the end when we get to the boat again, like, and wrap everything up. There could have been an extra 40 minutes in there of additional character interactions and scenes and character work that I think could have made this movie go from like a five for me to like an eight or Nine. Like, the movie is so close to being. Has all of the elements to be great, but the middle is lacking so much character work and development and, like, stuff going on. Like, so much of that is missing in the middle act for me that it makes everything else just not work about the whole end of the story. And so 100%, I. I would absolutely watch a director's cut of this that's like, three hours long or, you know, something like that. I don't even think it would take that much. Just like 20 to 30 minutes or whatever of additional scenes. And this is one where I would love to know, again, this doesn't really matter. This is one of those things that 15 years ago, I'd be like, well, it doesn't make any sense. But, like, I don't really care about that because in this story, I care more about, like, the characters and, like, what the story is saying and the technicality of how the science works. I don't really care. But it does make me go like, well, what was that thing? You were so worried that it.
42:28
Speaker B: Yeah, it was very important. And then it breaks, and then it.
42:31
Speaker A: Just didn't matter at all. So you're left going, like, unless that's intentional. And the idea is, like, he didn't really understand, like, proving that he doesn't really know what he's doing. I don't know, but it just felt really weird. Anyways, if you understand what that thing was, why it mattered, and then why it didn't matter at all, please let me know. Or if it did, and somehow that has something to do with. But the creature seems to be fine, and I don't know. Anyways. Yeah, so that was an issue I had with the Harlander thing, was that that all just felt like. And then he just dies, and it doesn't matter.
43:04
Speaker B: Yeah, he dies and it doesn't matter.
43:06
Speaker A: And he kind of just becomes a. Yeah. And then he kind of is the impetus, like when William finds his body, for them, like, leaving and stuff.
43:13
Speaker B: Right.
43:13
Speaker A: Yeah, it does feel. It's just. It was a little bit of a. Especially finding out that none of it comes from the book. It just. It feels like maybe there must have been more going on there or something that was either cut or something like that. So it happens. The lightning strikes, and it doesn't work. The body lays there, doesn't come to life, and he's like, it failed. And so he crawls into bed and falls asleep, and then wakes up the next morning, and the creature is standing at the edge of his bed. Alive. And I wanted to know if that's how it played out in the book, because I thought that was very fun. And it's not ever how I've thought or I didn't. I'm interested if it comes from the book because I don't know if I've ever imagined that that was how Frankenstein being created or the creature being created happened.
44:01
Speaker B: So this is definitely a direct nod to something that happens in the book, Although it's a little different in the book. Victor sees the creature start to open his eyes, like he does whatever his reanimation thing is, which is vague in the book. I'll get to it. And he sees the creature, his eyes flutter, and he promptly gets so freaked out that he runs out of the room into his bedroom and hides under the blankets, whereupon he goes to sleep and has nightmares about Elizabeth turning into his mother's corpse. Nothing going on there.
44:37
Speaker A: I'm surprised the movie didn't use that.
44:39
Speaker B: Yeah, right. That feels good. Then he awakens to the creature standing over him as he's in bed.
44:48
Speaker A: Yeah, okay. So, yeah, clearly. Very similar idea there. Yeah, for sure. This is another line. So this is what I was talking about. All of my issues with the movie aside, I'm so interested to see how much of these lines come from the book versus the movie, because it has just some incredible prose in it, dialogue, some that. That is spoken by characters that is just beautifully crafted and hits really hard. And one of them was this is that Victor says. And I don't know who he's saying this to. I just have the line written down. I never considered what would come after creation. And having reached the edge of the hur of the earth, there was no horizon left. And I wanted to know if that line came from the book.
45:27
Speaker B: I don't think this exact line is from the book. Again, I searched some keywords, didn't find anything. There is kind of a similar line from around the same time in the story. But now that I had finished, the beauty of the dream vanished and breathless horror and disgust filled my heart. In the book, Victor is immediately disgusted by what he's done as soon as he does it. So, like. Like in the movie, we have this depiction of Victor as, like, an abusive father. In the book, he's more like an absentee father. He brings the creature to life and then immediately abandons it.
46:07
Speaker A: Yeah, okay, interesting. Speaking of, there's another line in exchange in the book is. And this kind of goes to what you were just talking about, but as he's trying to Teach the creature. He has the creature chained in the the basement of this tower that he his lab that he's working in. And as he's trying to teach it how to talk, at one point the creature is, like, flinching around him when he grabs something or whatever, and he says, are you afraid of me? I'm not going to hurt you. I made you. I'm your maker. And I wanted to know if that line came from the book, but specifically, I want to know. And based on what you said, it's a different thing. But his relationship in the movie with the creature goes south so quickly, and he kind of just turns into his father, like, immediately. It's interesting hearing you say that. It's a similar thing in the book, because that was one of my issues with the movie, is that it felt. This is one of the parts where I felt like, man, this feels like stuff is cut here. Because his relationship with the creature sours so quickly in the film, in a way. It's not that it felt unrealistic. It just felt truncated in a way that I was like, I was imagining it going that direction.
47:17
Speaker B: Yeah.
47:17
Speaker A: It's just. It seemed like I was. The movie was missing scenes of, like, how it got there in a way that it just didn't. It felt underdeveloped to me. And I wanted to know, though, if it was at all similar in the book.
47:29
Speaker B: So none of this stuff is from the book because Victor literally does not spend any time with the creature.
47:35
Speaker A: Oh, really?
47:35
Speaker B: After creating. I was not kidding when I said he immediately abandons him.
47:40
Speaker A: What is like. In what way?
47:41
Speaker B: How does, like runs out of the room and does not return.
47:44
Speaker A: Right, but then you said it shows up and it's standing over his bed like that.
47:47
Speaker B: Yes. He runs out of the room again and does not return.
47:49
Speaker A: Oh, and he, like, goes to London or, like, or he leaves. I mean, I'm just confused.
47:54
Speaker B: Yeah, he leaves his rooms, he hangs out for a bit, his friend shows up, they do some stuff, and then when he goes back to his rooms, the creature's gone.
48:05
Speaker A: And he's just like, oh, God.
48:06
Speaker B: And he's like, yes, basically, essentially.
48:08
Speaker A: Yeah.
48:09
Speaker B: He's like, thank God that's over. It's not over.
48:11
Speaker A: Yeah.
48:12
Speaker B: It's gonna haunt you for the rest of your short life.
48:14
Speaker A: Yeah. All right.
48:16
Speaker B: But I, I, I like the idea of doing more direct commentary on Victor being, like, a terrible father, because that commentary is also present in the book.
48:27
Speaker A: Yeah. He abandons.
48:28
Speaker B: Yeah. It's just not quite as direct as it is here in the Film. But I. I don't think the movie quite nails the landing with this.
48:35
Speaker A: No, I agree completely. I. It's one of those things where it's like, I see what you're going for. Yeah, I agree.
48:40
Speaker B: I see what you're going for. And I'm into it.
48:42
Speaker A: Yes. I just don't think it's.
48:44
Speaker B: The execution is leaving me a little wanting.
48:47
Speaker A: Yes, exactly. Specifically. Then we move on, and Elizabeth and William show up. They come to visit. Well, in the movie, it's because they get a note for. They get some mail for Victor, I think, that they're bringing to him from. I think it's from the surgeon people.
49:04
Speaker B: Yeah, some surgeon thing.
49:06
Speaker A: Yeah. And so they're bringing him this note. And then when they get there, Elizabeth. They run off to do something. Victor and William run off to do something, and Elizabeth wanders down in the basement and immediately just finds the creature chained up in the basement and immediately forms a connection with it. And I wanted to know if that came from the book, but also specifically, Victor has been trying and trying to teach the creature to speak, to talk, and has been failing. And the creature only says Victor over and over again. And Elizabeth introduces herself to the creature, and as she's leaving, it says Elizabeth. And so she. They kind of immediately have this connection. And I wanted to know if that came from the book, if Elizabeth kind of forms this connection with the creature.
49:52
Speaker B: No, Elizabeth never really interacts with the creature until he. Until she dies.
50:00
Speaker A: Yeah.
50:02
Speaker B: But I did like this element, given the direction that the movie was taking, and also changes to Elizabeth's character.
50:09
Speaker A: Yeah, she's more of a scientist in the film. Like, she has these interests. She seems to be really into, like, etymology.
50:16
Speaker B: Yeah. She's interested in science, but she's kind of a foil to Victor in the sense that she is able to retain her empathy and humanity and, like, combine that with her other interests.
50:31
Speaker A: And she seems more interested in, like, observing.
50:34
Speaker B: Yeah.
50:34
Speaker A: And admiring nature and God's creation or whatever. Whereas Victor obviously wants to conquer it. Wants to, you know, bend it to his will. And that is. Yeah, we're playing kind of two sides of the same coin. I. I didn't mind this first scene between them, and I. I think there. It was another thing where there was an interesting direction to go there. I just don't think that it quite went. Got. Got as much work as it needed. Again, this is the whole part of the movie here in the middle, where I just felt like. Like it was missing huge chunks of what I was expecting to be there. To really build toward where the movie goes at the end. But, yeah, I. I liked the idea here, for sure. As I mentioned earlier, Victor has been constantly asking, trying to get the creature to talk, and it won't. And at this point, he is so fed up and thinks that he has failed and that this. This creature will not be intelligent, and he has fallen so, so fully into being his own father, who is disappointed in his son for not living up to his high standards, essentially, that he decides he needs to destroy the creature because it is this abomination and a failure. And again, this is a little bit of where I buy everything about the journey Victor goes on. I just think it happens a little quickly and truncated and just isn't fully explored in a way that felt. Felt compelling and correct to me. It just felt a little like. Not performative, but it just felt like this is what the script needs to happen here as opposed to, like, this is what makes the most sense for these characters in this moment.
52:11
Speaker B: Yeah. Yeah.
52:11
Speaker A: Is kind of how this middle section felt to me. And the end a little bit. Although I think the end. We'll get to it. I think the end could have worked had this middle section been done better. But that's my contingent with this whole film. Or that's my whole issue with the whole film. He decides he needs to destroy it and he goes to. To the basement. He has all these gas cans everywhere and he's dumping gasoline everywhere and he's going to burn the building down. And he says to the creature as he's standing there, you know, say one word. Say. Say any word other than Victor, and I'll. And I'll save you, basically. And I won't. And I won't do this. And as he's. The creature doesn't say anything. But then as he's leaving, the creature quietly says, elizabeth, and Victor hears him. He turns around and looks at him and then leaves anyways and lights the tower on fire. And I wanted to know if that scene. Scene came from the book.
52:59
Speaker B: No, none of this comes from the book. I really. I liked the idea of this scene. Also. The massive amount of gas cans did take me out of it a little bit. It was like a comical amount of gas cans.
53:11
Speaker A: It is. But I was like, whatever. It is silly. But, you know, it's one of. That's one of those details where I'm like, whatever. Yeah. Were I 20 years ago, I would be like, that's so dumb. Why are there so many gas cans? But. Yeah, but the thing. But so is there does he destroy his lab or anything like that? In the book, does any of that, this element come from the book of, like, trying to. The creature just disappears, he said. So there's nothing where he, like, burns his lab down or destroys any of his stuff or anything like that.
53:36
Speaker B: Trying to think. Scanning. Don't think. So I thought.
53:41
Speaker A: I read there was. Maybe I'm.
53:43
Speaker B: I thought, okay, there's a point where Victor is trying to create. So, okay, so at the end of the movie, close to the end of the movie, when the creature tells Victor that he wants Victor to make him a companion that is from the book. And in the book, Victor does start to do that, and then he changes his mind and destroys what he's been building.
54:12
Speaker A: Oh, okay.
54:13
Speaker B: So that could be.
54:14
Speaker A: Yeah, similar idea there. Similar.
54:16
Speaker B: But he doesn't, like, burn it all down or anything. Okay.
54:21
Speaker A: So then that all blows up. He blows everything up. His leg gets ripped off. And then we cut back to. And he gets found by his brother and Elizabeth. And then we cut back to the North Pole on the boat, and we're back, and he is still recounting this story because he's been telling this whole story to the ship's captain, played by that evil. By that one wizard guy from the Witcher.
54:43
Speaker B: I don't know if you recognize that guy.
54:45
Speaker A: Yeah. Anyway, so he gets back there and we got back there, and he's telling him, and he has this line that he says to the captain that I wanted to know if it came from the book, where he says, in seeking life, I created death. Again, just lots of metal, gothic, cool lines in this. And I wanted to know if that came from the book.
55:04
Speaker B: I also did not find this line in the book.
55:06
Speaker A: Okay.
55:07
Speaker B: It's possible there's something very similar that I was not able to find. So if you recognize that one, let us know.
55:14
Speaker A: All right. So then, as he's finished telling this part of the tale, there's a commotion outside the ship's. The captain's quarters. And the door bursts open and the creature is standing there, and he walks in and he goes, ha, my turn to tell my half of the tale. And we get a perspective switch to. Because Victor has been narrating the whole thing until this point. And then we get a perspective switch and the creature gets to tell his tale from the explosion to where we are now. And I wanted to know if that came from the book because that was cool.
55:49
Speaker B: In a manner of speaking, yes. In the book, while Victor is telling his story to the captain, partway through, he says, That a year or two after creating the creature, he was accosted by the creature while he was hiking in the Alps. At which point the creature tells Victor all about what he has been doing for that length of time. And Victor then relays the creature's story to the captain. The book is kind of structured like a matryoshka doll. I think I said that. Right. It starts with the captain's letters, which contain Victor's story, and then inside of Victor's story is the creature story.
56:38
Speaker A: This is. This is Cloud Atlas. Yeah, there's an example of it, maybe. I would have to see exactly how.
56:45
Speaker B: It doesn't sound quite as like.
56:49
Speaker A: As, like, met.
56:50
Speaker B: As. Yeah, but, yeah, similar idea that. Yeah. So that starts with the letters, and then in the letters, the captain's like, you're never going to believe what this guy told me. Let me write down his whole story for you.
57:00
Speaker A: That's actually. Yeah, yeah. No, that's pretty similar to the idea.
57:04
Speaker B: Of what, halfway through Victor's story, he's like, okay, now I'm going to pause and tell you what the creature told me. And we shift, like, into the creature's point of view.
57:14
Speaker A: That's. I do wonder. I would be interested. I think there are other stuff. Stories that are more direct inspirations for Cloud Atlas, but I would be in. Interested. Interested to know, because that is very similar to what Cloud Atlas does. Except Cloud Atlas, it sounds like, takes it a little bit further, but.
57:26
Speaker B: Yeah, yeah. So there are, like, narrative shifts and perspective shifts, and the audiobook that I listened to was narrated by three different people, which I presume is commonplace. I don't know. So we do get that perspective change. But then you kind of have to decide how much you trust any of it, because the creature story is being filtered through Victor and all of it is being filtered through Captain Walton. And, like, to be honest, I don't know that it was Mary Shelley's intention to imply any kind of unreliable narration necessarily, but I do think it's an interesting wrinkle.
58:03
Speaker A: It is for sure. It is for sure. And I do like. I think there's potentially a compelling choice by the movie to give the creature his story and allow him to tell it. And actually, which would make sense because the story we see, Victor would have no idea what. Yeah. Any of this happened because it's all stuff where he was not involved for the most part, until the. Obviously the end where they're encountering each other again. But all of this. Most of this part here coming up, which brings us to my Next question. Question is, after he escapes. And as we talked about earlier, there's not. Victor doesn't try to destroy him, and he, like, escapes out of a. Down a water slide in the bottom of the thing, as he does in the movie. He takes. He just. I assume, just leaves the house.
58:48
Speaker B: He leaves and, like, wanders in the woods for a while.
58:51
Speaker A: But specifically in the movie, what we see is that he. He wanders around, and then he finds this family's house out in the middle of the countryside and is able to hide in there. And I thought it was a barn, but there are a bunch of cogs in it. And they eventually will say it's like the. The mill cogs or whatever. Basically, there was an old mill building attached to the. This family's, like, longhouse that they don't use anymore. And he's able to hide and live in there while this family lives in the house next door. And he's also. While he's there, he's able to, like, look through the walls and watch them like they're teaching this young girl how to read. And so he's able to learn from watching that. And I wanted to know if any of this came from the book, because then the rest of the family leaves, and there's this old man played by the guy who plays Argus Filch and the evil guy from Game of Thrones who does the Red Wedding, that. I can't remember that actor's name. But he. He's there. He. He lives in this house as a blind old man. He wants to stay there for the winter. And then the creature comes in and introduces himself to him, and they spend the winter together. And I wanted to know if any of this came from the book.
1:00:00
Speaker B: So. Yes and no. The creature does hide in. He calls it a hovel. In the book, I was picturing kind of like a lean to based on what he was describing. Cause it sits up against a cottage. So he hides in there, and he watches this family through a crack in the wall for like a year.
1:00:20
Speaker A: Oh, okay.
1:00:21
Speaker B: And it's a blind old man and his adult son and his adult daughter. And then eventually the son gets a lover. More on that in a minute.
1:00:31
Speaker A: Okay.
1:00:32
Speaker B: So he watches this family for like, a year. And he also does things for them like g. Gathering the wood. And they refer to him as a good spirit who's doing things in the.
1:00:43
Speaker A: Movie, they refer to him as the spirit of the woods.
1:00:45
Speaker B: So he learns to speak and read just by observing the family. Because as luck would have it, the son's Middle Eastern lover shows up and also needs to be taught to speak and read in their language. This part was pretty silly, honestly.
1:01:05
Speaker A: Yeah.
1:01:07
Speaker B: He does not spend winter hanging out with the old man. More on that in a minute after your next question.
1:01:15
Speaker A: Probably a good choice to switch it to them teaching like a child.
1:01:19
Speaker B: Yeah, yeah, yeah.
1:01:20
Speaker A: As opposed to like. Yeah. I mean, not that they're. It could work too, I guess, but. Yeah. Then. So we get to. He spends the winter with the old man, and then at one point he decides he needs to leave and go find his roots. And specifically, he heads back to the lab that is now destroyed. And he searches through the wreckage and he finds Victor's notes kind of explaining that he was created by Victor. And then also he finds a letter with Victor's address on it. So he knows where Victor lives now. And then he returns to go back to the house with the old man. And when he gets there, the door is open. And we set up earlier that wolves will come ravaging through. And they are very cartoon movie wolves that are like these evil, vicious. Which, it's fine. It's a fairy tale. Like, they're, you know, they're like these overly ridiculous evil wolves that, like, there's literally like the whole ground shakes when they come running. Like, you know, it's. Yeah, it's a little silly, but again, we're going for this archetypal. Like, these are. Yeah, these are fairy tale wolves that are like big, bad, scary monsters, basically. And they have gotten in the house and they are eating and killing the old man. And Victor comes in and dispatches all the wolves in gruesome ways, or some of them. And then the rest of them run off and he has a brief moment with the old man as he's dying. And then the old man's family returns at just the worst possible time. And they're like, hey, it's that. Cause earlier they saw this creature in the woods and shot at him because they thought he was like a yeti or something. I don't know. Yeah. And they realize they're like, hey, it's that thing again. And they think he has killed. Well, I think they would fill it up pretty quick when they saw the dead wolves laying around.
1:03:06
Speaker B: Right, you would. I mean, who knows? Shoot first, ask questions later with these people.
1:03:11
Speaker A: Yeah, absolutely. And so they show up and shoot him and he dies out in the woods. And I wanted to know if I actually didn't ask that, but if that also happens where we find out that he can't die because of this that he gets shot by them and seems to die, and then he wakes back up and comes back to life.
1:03:33
Speaker B: Okay, so none of this is from the book. There is a similar moment in the book where he has been watching this family for, like, a year, and he decides to reveal himself to them. And he decides to do it while the old man is the only one home because he's blind. And the creature's like, okay, so I can get my foot in the door with someone who's not gonna be immediately put off by my appearance because he's already had multiple interactions with other people at this point who were just immediately like, what is that thing? Kill it.
1:04:09
Speaker A: Yeah.
1:04:10
Speaker B: So he's a little hesitant.
1:04:11
Speaker A: Yeah.
1:04:12
Speaker B: But he's like, I'm gonna get my foot in the door with this guy who can't see me, and he's the patriarch. It's gonna be fine. But then right after he goes inside and is trying to convey his story to the blind old man, who is open to hearing it, he's trying to convey his story. Everybody else comes back home and they immediately freak out. So the creature manages to, like, slip away and hide. But then when he comes back out, the entire family has abandoned the cottage. They just all up and left. I preferred the movie's take on this part of the story. Like I said, I thought this part in the book, it was fine. Parts of it were a little silly. The idea that he was able to, like, learn to read just by, like, listening to them, I thought was a little silly. And the introduction of a Middle Eastern character was, as you can imagine, a little rough in some spots.
1:05:11
Speaker A: Some issues with.
1:05:14
Speaker B: I thought that the movie allowing the creature to actually bond with the old man before having everything ripped away from him was, like, infinitely more sad.
1:05:23
Speaker A: Definitely.
1:05:25
Speaker B: One thing that I did find funny about the book is that the family actually did the thing that everyone says horror movie families should do. Like, they saw a monster in their house one time and immediately moved out.
1:05:38
Speaker A: That's true. They were like, getting the fuck out of here.
1:05:40
Speaker B: We're out.
1:05:40
Speaker A: Nope. Not doing this. Yeah, it's true. It's true.
1:05:44
Speaker B: It is not implied in the book that the creature is immortal.
1:05:48
Speaker A: Okay.
1:05:49
Speaker B: Hard to kill. Maybe because of, like, his size and general, I don't know, toughness.
1:05:56
Speaker A: Yeah. Yeah.
1:05:56
Speaker B: But there's no implication that if you.
1:05:59
Speaker A: If you were to be, like, got his head cut off, that he would, like, come back to life or something like that. Yeah. Which I don't know in the movie, he might not either. But he gets Shot, like, a lot in that one scene and again does die and then, like, comes back to life. I mentioned this earlier, but I wonder if it came from the book. Does Victor lose his leg when he blows up the lab? But now, obviously, he doesn't blow up the lab, but does he lose his leg at any point in the book?
1:06:22
Speaker B: There's no mention of any injuries, the severe. No.
1:06:25
Speaker A: Okay. I mean, clearly we're going for this idea that I assume in the movie here, of giving him something similar to giving him a way to kind of commiserate with the body horror of the creature. Like, I think the idea here is that we're giving him an N for him to develop some sympathy potentially for the creature by having this limb that is not his. He has this prosthetic leg. And I think that's what we're going for. I don't. Doesn't really go anywhere. And it doesn't feel like it motivates Victor's change at all. In fact, nothing really feels like it motivates Victor's change. Which is kind of my biggest issue with the whole end of the movie is it just feels like he kind of just changes. Changes his mind out of nowhere, seemingly. But we'll get to that. So. But it doesn't lose his leg in the book?
1:07:27
Speaker B: No.
1:07:28
Speaker A: Then we get to the wedding. William is going. Getting ready to get married to Elizabeth. The creature has come back to life and realized he needs to go find Victor so that he can have Victor create him a partner so that he can have somebody to be with because he can't die and he doesn't want to be lonely. So he arrives back at Victor's estate or whatever, and when he gets there, Victor realizes, like, he comes inside and Victor realizes he's there, and they. They face off with each other, and Victor turns to him and says. And I wanted to know if this line came from the book, because I thought, again, there's a lot of good dialogue in this movie. It's just not enough of it, I guess. I don't know where he says, are you here to thank me? As soon as the creature walks in, the first thing he says to him is, are you here to thank me? And it's just, oh, you're like, God, you. He says, you survived, and you were intelligent enough to find me. I made you well. And I wanted to know if any of that came from the book.
1:08:31
Speaker B: No, it doesn't.
1:08:32
Speaker A: Okay. Yeah. I really like that dynamic. I thought again, there's so many moments where it's like, Almost there. It just. So then does he ask Victor? Because then the next thing, he's like, hey, like I said, he wants a companion, and I wanted to know if he asked Victor for a companion so that they can both be monsters together.
1:08:50
Speaker B: He does ask Victor to make him a companion. Yeah. I didn't check the specific line. Be monsters together. But he does ask for, like, specifically. He wants him to make a companion the same way. Like, the same way that you made me, essentially. So that we're Were the same. He might ask for, like, an Eve to be. Because he's like, I'm like Adam, so make me an Eve. Kind of. Yeah. He demands that Victor creates a companion for him or else he'll murder everyone Victor loves.
1:09:24
Speaker A: Yeah. So that. We'll get to this. I'm sure you're gonna have this at some point. Because my understanding is that. And this is a cultural thing that I had heard, which is that. And having now watched the movie, this is like a big change, is that. My understanding is that in the book, the creature becomes the monster that Victor imagines him to be as a result of all of the events. He gets turned into a monster by the world, basically. And by the end, he is like a villain.
1:09:54
Speaker B: Yeah. We're on a nature v. Nurture kind of trajectory in the book.
1:10:00
Speaker A: Yes. And like a tragedy of like. Yes, Like a classic tragedy where he is driven to become this evil monster because everybody assumed he was an evil monster and all of these horrible things happen. But, like. And so your. Your. Your point there, where he threatens to murder everyone Victor loves, like, that is not the monster. He might say that in the movie, but you don't believe it, even if he says it. He might say like, oh, I'll kill them. Or I. I don't remember.
1:10:25
Speaker B: But yeah, the movie is on more of, like, a. A postmodern type of, like this. The creature's very sympathetic. Not that he's not sympathetic in.
1:10:37
Speaker A: But he. He's sympathetic, but then he gets driven, like.
1:10:40
Speaker B: Yeah.
1:10:40
Speaker A: Or. Sorry, go ahead.
1:10:42
Speaker B: Yeah, I. I think the. The book, I think, is playing a little bit more with who we're sympathizing with and when.
1:10:53
Speaker A: Yeah.
1:10:54
Speaker B: Because both Victor and the creature are sympathetic at turns and not sympathetic at turns.
1:11:06
Speaker A: Yeah.
1:11:06
Speaker B: Whereas the movie is going, I think, a little bit more black and white.
1:11:10
Speaker A: The creature is entirely sympathetic the entire time in the movie, and Victor fluctuates. Victor has sympathetic moments and less sympathetic, but it's mostly not. Not sympathetic.
1:11:19
Speaker B: Mostly we don't like him.
1:11:21
Speaker A: Mostly, he's the villain. But. But there are moments, whereas. And the creature, which I never expected anything different from a Del Toro. No, that is not del Toro to a T. Like, that is just. The monsters are the good guys, the humans are the bad guys. That's how his stories tend to work, which I. Again, I. I don't have a problem with that. I. I even think in this movie that dynamic could work. I could understand being disappointed if you wanted something closer to the book, because I do think there's a beautiful tragedy to that idea of the creature becoming, being nurtured into the monster that everybody.
1:11:57
Speaker B: Thinks he is asking questions about, like, the ways that we treat people and what kind of outcomes we get from that.
1:12:05
Speaker A: Because he does become the monster that kills people and stuff. Right. I think he, like, kills like a family or something at some point in the book. Or like a mother and a daughter. Doesn't he kill, like a little girl in the book or something? I.
1:12:15
Speaker B: Sometimes he kills a little boy or.
1:12:17
Speaker A: Yeah. A child.
1:12:18
Speaker B: A child, yeah.
1:12:19
Speaker A: And like, intentionally, right? Not accidentally.
1:12:21
Speaker B: Yes, intentionally.
1:12:22
Speaker A: So, like, point being that, like, he does do evil things in the book that are. But again, the whole point is that he wasn't born evil or he was.
1:12:32
Speaker B: He would not have been a murderous.
1:12:35
Speaker A: Monster had everybody not.
1:12:36
Speaker B: Yeah. Had. Had Victor not abandoned him and had he been treated more kindly, he would not have turned into this. This monster that he is.
1:12:47
Speaker A: Yeah. And the movie takes it and spins it and goes, no, he's just this misunderstood. He is what he is, and the world rejects him. But he doesn't become the monster that they envision him as. He maintains his humanity in spite of that, which, again, I like that. I think that's a. I think for the modern day, that is a message that is important. I do think there's something interesting and compelling about the book's version, but I have no issue with the movie's take on it. I just don't think they did a great job during this whole inter exchange with. With Victor. He has another great line where he says to Victor, because Victor, like, calls him an abomination and obscene. Like, when he asked to make him a partner, he's like, well, and make another abomination like you. You are obscene. Or something like that. And the. The. The creature retorts to Victor, I'm obscene to you, but to myself, I simply am. Which I thought was another great line, and I wanted to know if it came from the book.
1:13:40
Speaker B: Great line. Not from the book.
1:13:42
Speaker A: Cool. Again, so it's. It's. Man. Man. Maybe I don't know. Maybe del Toro needed a co writer on this. Maybe because he's got so many of the. So much of the dialogue is that it. Seemingly. A lot of it comes from him. So good. But, man, it's. Yeah, the character. And again, the director's cut may fix all of this. I could actually believe that the director's cut would fix a lot of my issues with this movie. I could believe that. And then in that exact convers or in that same conversation, we get another incredible line where as he's having this conversation, Victor says to him, like, oh, you speak now. It's a miracle. And the creature responds, the miracle is not that I should speak, but that you should ever listen. I wanted to know if that line came from the book.
1:14:28
Speaker B: Not from the book, but again, with the increased focus on parent child relationships in the movie, I think this line works really well.
1:14:37
Speaker A: Yep. So then we get to the big moment here, which is that Elizabeth rushes in, sees the creature. They have a moment where they reunite, and then Victor grabs a gun to try to kill the creature. And at the last second, Elizabeth is like, no. And jumps in front and Victor shoots her and kills her. Well, she doesn't die in that exact moment, but ultimately kills her. And I wanted to know if that's what happened in the book.
1:15:01
Speaker B: That is not what happens in the book. What happens in the book is that the creature strangles Elizabeth on her invictus.
1:15:09
Speaker A: That's the thing he does. Kill everybody you love or whatever. Yeah.
1:15:13
Speaker B: And it is a truly idiotic moment for Victor, because in the book.
1:15:18
Speaker A: You're talking about.
1:15:18
Speaker B: In the book, yes. Because the creature had previously, like, taunted him by saying, I will be with you on your wedding night. Which for some reason, Victor interpreted to mean that the creature would kill him on his wedding night, despite the fact that the creature had specifically threatened to kill all the people that he loved and indeed had already killed his younger brother and his best friend. But, yeah, sure, bud. He was after you and not your wife. Definitely.
1:15:47
Speaker A: Yeah. And then. And maybe my least favorite part in the entire movie, maybe, because, boy, it just felt as it. It's. Del Toro contains multitudes because some of his writing and so much of the dialogue in this.
1:16:04
Speaker B: This one was Tumblr.
1:16:06
Speaker A: Oh, my God. So much of the. The. The dialogue in this movie, you're like, man, it's brilliant. Brilliant. It's poetry, it's art, and a lot of it seemingly was written by Del Toro himself. And then we get this, which is William rushes in and sees the creature Leaving with Elizabeth. The creature picks up Elizabeth's body and is, like, gonna take her with him as she's dying. And William rushes after the creature to try to stop him, and the creature, like, throws him and slams him against the wall. And he slams his head against the wall and Victor rushes over and William is, like, bleeding profusely from the side of his head. And Victor's like, I can save you or whatever. And William basically says, no, like, don't like. And he tells him that he, like, he had always been scared of him and had always. They have this, like, exchange. And then he gets to the end of this and he says, victor, to me, you are the monster. And I need to know if that came from the book, because that is. It's. Buddy, we don't need a character to turn to Victor Frankenstein and go. If you think about it, you're kind of the monster in this whole situation. It's just.
1:17:17
Speaker B: Yeah.
1:17:18
Speaker A: I love Del Toro wearing his heart on his sleeve and that his movies are bombastic and, like, are not. Like, there's a lot of subtext in them. But most of the themes are very on the surface. And it's not like his movies are not. Not subtle in a lot of ways. And I do not mind that at all because it's. I like the style of. In a lot of the stories, I really like the way that it works. And even in this movie, like, lots of the exchanges, I like the way they work. But that for particular line is I would have. That would have been cut and I would have as a producer on the film, I would have been like, no, can we. Not any. Anyways, so. Did you answer this already? I'm sorry, it's not from the book.
1:17:59
Speaker B: So that line is not from the book. No, I mean. And it's not that Victor's monstrosity isn't commented on by the book. It is in a more subtle way. But I think that line is a pretty clear and kind of ham fisted.
1:18:12
Speaker A: Not kind of ham fisted. It is deeply ham fisted.
1:18:16
Speaker B: A nod to a more post. Post modern reading of the novel.
1:18:21
Speaker A: Yes. I had no issue with the center. Yeah, I thought those. I thought most of the exchange that. That dialogue between those two in that scene, until he says that line pretty much covered everything we needed from that. We didn't need the button where he literally just says the point.
1:18:39
Speaker B: And it's not like. And it's not that. It's not that the sentiment's wrong.
1:18:42
Speaker A: No, no.
1:18:43
Speaker B: Especially like the way that Victor's depicted by the Film.
1:18:46
Speaker A: Not at all.
1:18:47
Speaker B: Absolutely correct. But did we need to say it.
1:18:49
Speaker A: It would have been point blank. It could have been. It wouldn't have been, like, less subtle if he had literally turned to the camera and the music had all dropped out and he would have been like, don't we all think that he's kind of the monster in this whole thing? Like, you know, if he had turned to the camera, like Deadpool, that would not have been much less subtle than. Than what the movie actually does. Which I just. Again, I just. Creature rushes out with Elizabeth. She dies. And he takes her to this cave. She dies. Victor then finds the creature in the cave. He follows, like the trail of blood and stuff to the cave, sees Elizabeth's body, has this confrontation with the creature. Creature breaks his nose. Yeah. And his arm or finger or something like that. And basically is like, I'm gonna make your life a living hell, you piece of shit. Yeah, fuck you. Which I guess in that sense, he does become the villain to Victor.
1:19:40
Speaker B: Right.
1:19:41
Speaker A: He does embrace the villain role to Victor, but not to the rest of the world like the book does. So I guess that to be fair to the movie, it does try to keep a little bit of, like, I will be the villain. You. He might even say that exact line.
1:19:57
Speaker B: He does kill a bunch of the sailors at the beginning of the movie.
1:20:01
Speaker A: He does kill other people, but they're all people who are attacking him.
1:20:05
Speaker B: Yes.
1:20:05
Speaker A: You know what I mean?
1:20:06
Speaker B: Yes, absolutely. That's fair.
1:20:08
Speaker A: He doesn't just randomly kill people. People in the. In the movie. He does kill people, but like I said, it's all people who are, like, attacking him. It's all, like, self defense, generally speaking. But he does. And like I said, to give the movie credit, he does actually decide, like, I will be the villain that you think I am to Victor. He might even say, like, something basically exactly like that. I can't remember the exact exchange they have when he, like, breaks his nose and stuff, but. And then he leaves. And then Victoria, Victor. Were you gonna say something?
1:20:38
Speaker B: No.
1:20:38
Speaker A: Okay. And then Victor decides he needs to hunt him down and goes on this hunting expedition to the North Pole to track down and kill the creature. And I did, like, Victor's. His, like Northern. His outfit, like, his. His hat and his whole, like, he turns into, like this frontiersman that I just thought was very funny. And I wanted to know if any of that. He gets like a dog sled and everything. And I want to know if. If any of that came from the book.
1:21:06
Speaker B: Victor does follow the creature all the way to the North Pole to kill it. Yeah, they do this kind of like cat and mouse game after Elizabeth dies.
1:21:16
Speaker A: Okay. So that's exactly what happens in the movie. He just follows him around, and we.
1:21:20
Speaker B: Don'T ever get a description of him looking like a woodsman. But it is mentioned in the beginning that they are traveling by dog sled.
1:21:29
Speaker A: Okay. So then he catches up with the creature in the North Pole. And this loops us around to the beginning of the film again, where they saw the explosion in the distance and then they went to investigate. We get to see what happened that led to that explosion, which is they have this kind of face off in the Wilder or in the. On the frozen in the North Pole. And then the creature finds a stick of dynamite that Victor had on him and is like, oh, you're gonna use this to kill me. Here, light it. And if it kills me, sick. Amazing. I would love for this to kill me. That would be amazing. And if not, I'm gonna keep finding you and hurting you or whatever. And he backs up and the TNT goes off and it doesn't kill him. And I wanted to know if that came from the book.
1:22:15
Speaker B: No, that doesn't happen in the book.
1:22:17
Speaker A: Okay, that was fine. I thought that was a fun. I liked that element of it and the way the story looped around and we saw that from the other perspective. I thought that was interesting. I thought that was compelling. Compelling. Then we get to the ending. Final couple questions here for. Was that in the book? Is he's finished now telling his tale? And we get back, we cut, we catch back up. We are now back in the cabin with the creature, Victor and the captain all sitting there. And Victor and the creature have a moment together. He walks over and he has now told his part of the story. And Victoria apologizes to the creature. They have a big exchange. And everything said in here is really sweet and there's lots of good dialogue. And I like the idea of this scene a lot. None of it felt earned to me. The words they were saying were pretty, but felt completely empty from everything that led to this moment in the film to me. And I wanted to know if any of this came from the book.
1:23:23
Speaker B: No. At the end of the book, Victor dies, and then the creature comes in, appears. After he dies, we don't ever see them exchange words. And the creature does express some regret at what happened between them.
1:23:39
Speaker A: How does Victor die? What happens?
1:23:42
Speaker B: He's been injured and weak, and from the creature or chasing him, he's also pretty sickly throughout the entire book.
1:23:52
Speaker A: Okay.
1:23:52
Speaker B: He, he falls ill a lot.
1:23:55
Speaker A: When you say the creature comes in and expresses regret at what? Who expresses regret to who and what captain? The captain. The captain. Oh, okay. So it's the same.
1:24:04
Speaker B: Yeah, it's the same general setup.
1:24:06
Speaker A: Okay, Okay. I just wasn't entirely sure. The captain did find him. And then he comes in and. Okay, I gotcha. But Victor is dead at that point. So they don't have this conversation.
1:24:14
Speaker B: They don't have this conversation. No.
1:24:16
Speaker A: Well. And that brings me to my final question, that, which is again, just a line question where and because I could actually, even based on your last question, this could still happen in the book as Victor is dying. He says, rest, Father. Perhaps now we can both be human. And I did like the idea here that the movie is kind of doing. Of how in death Victor gains his humanity and in life, Like, they have this kind of, like, inverted journey, basically, kind of between the creature and Victor and, and Victor dying. He says, you know, like, we, we now. Perhaps now we can both be human. I don't know. I liked all of the sentiments expressed in the scene and all the elements here in this final scene. But again, the setup failed so entirely to earn this payoff off where, where it just felt like Victor, like, having this change of heart, felt like it kind of came out of nowhere, really. I guess the idea is that having heard the creature's story is what caused this change would be my guess, so. But I think what we don't see is any, like, if at any point during the story that we're being told, had we cut back to the ship. Ship, and, like, seen Victor's kind of reactions to the story he was being told or something may have helped that when we finally got back there at the very end, he, like, is like, oh, I feel bad. I'm sorry. And apologizes, and they both apologize. It just, just feels completely unearned to me. I don't know. I, I, I did not.
1:25:57
Speaker B: No, I agree.
1:25:58
Speaker A: But I loved the idea of the scene. I'm like, man, had the setup for this been better, I would be bawling during this scene. It was, it was so. It was kind of, honestly, very frustrating because, like, I could tell this, like, the score and the performance and the dialogue itself, the words they're saying to each other. I'm like, if, if I had the journey leading to this moment had prepared me for this moment and made it feel earned, holy, this would be an incredible payoff. But because it didn't, it to me, this felt hollow and empty in a Way that just, like it did nothing for me, which was really disappointing. Disappointing. But does that. That specific line. Does that come from the book?
1:26:36
Speaker B: I didn't find this one in the book. No. At the end of the book, like I said, the creature kind of appears and he speaks with the captain for a few minutes and kind of sums up the novel's thesis, main ideas. And then he says that he's going to commit suicide and then disappears into the icy fog.
1:26:56
Speaker A: Oh, okay.
1:26:57
Speaker B: He says he's gonna light a funeral pyre and climb atop it.
1:27:00
Speaker A: So he does in. He doesn't stare at the sunset or the sunrise. Yeah. Which I thought that ending was fine. I thought him like saving the ship and then, you know, standing there in the sunrise, the sun rising on his face, I thought left an ambiguity to the ending that felt fitting and tragic and beautiful. It's just, again, that it didn't affect me at all because I didn't care much about the characters all that much. I. I cared the most about the creature, to be fair, because I think he is the best written in the whole thing. It's just. Yeah. Mainly the dynamic between Victor and the creature.
1:27:40
Speaker B: Yeah. Well, no, I mean, I think you're. You're right. That it just feels unearned.
1:27:44
Speaker A: Yeah.
1:27:45
Speaker B: At the end.
1:27:45
Speaker A: Yeah.
1:27:46
Speaker B: It's a nice idea, but it doesn't feel like the narrative got there.
1:27:50
Speaker A: Yeah.
1:27:51
Speaker B: In a way that works.
1:27:52
Speaker A: That makes sense for this to be happening. Yeah. That was. Yeah. All right. I do have a couple questions that I want to talk about. In Lost, in Adaptation, Temptation. Just show me the way to get.
1:28:01
Speaker B: Out of here and I'll be on my way.
1:28:05
Speaker A: Yes.
1:28:06
Speaker B: Yes. And I want to get unlocked as soon as possible.
1:28:09
Speaker A: Again, this doesn't really matter, but I. Just curious. And you answered this. I had to stop and ask this while we were watching the movie because. And I realized it was. The reason I didn't understand is because I was writing a note during a conversation. Actually, I was Googling something during a conversation where this was explained to a question I had about another note that I was writing. Writing, which was. At one point, we see him. We see the. The whole scene in the. The sir in front of all the other surgeons where he brings the corpse to life.
1:28:36
Speaker B: And it's like.
1:28:37
Speaker A: It's. It's. Not only does it, like, come to life, he's playing catch with it, and it's, like, autonomous. Like, it. You know, it's not talking or anything, but it's autonomous. It can catch. It can interact with him and all that. Sort of stuff. And then he unplugs it and kills it. And then later on, as they're preparing for the big one, there's no. This subplot of Victor having to figure out, like, how to do this and, like, where he. How he's able to power it or whatever. And, like. And how. Like, how he's unsure of how to deliver the electricity. And then at one point, while he's sitting in the bath after a conversation with Elizabeth, he has this brain wave about symmetry because she. Something. What she said about symmetry triggered this. You know, he has a brain blast in his.
1:29:20
Speaker B: And.
1:29:20
Speaker A: And it's like, ah, symmetry. And then he's able to. He moves how he's applying the electrodes to the nervous system or whatever in order to send the electricity in. And that this is what will work to make the creature come to life. And we see him do this, and then the creature that he has, like, pinned to his table, like, comes to life. And I was like, but you already did. You've done this. I don't understand what's going on. So I was like, claire. And now I'm saying this now. We had this conversation during the movie, so I know the answer, but in case you were, like me, unsure of what was going on there. Why? Why. What was going on there?
1:29:55
Speaker B: So I think the idea is supposed to be that the method he used to reanimate that very first corpse wasn't sustainable.
1:30:04
Speaker A: Yeah.
1:30:05
Speaker B: Because then when he's talking to Harland or later Harlander, it's in that scene.
1:30:09
Speaker A: Where they're standing in front of the big.
1:30:11
Speaker B: The Like.
1:30:12
Speaker A: Like the lymphatic.
1:30:13
Speaker B: Lymphatic system on the board.
1:30:14
Speaker A: Like on the wood board.
1:30:16
Speaker B: Yeah. Harlan. Harlander is like. Well, you. You pulled the. The plug on it or whatever, but in reality, it was about to die anyway. Because you need a different way to deliver.
1:30:28
Speaker A: Yes.
1:30:29
Speaker B: The battery juice or whatever.
1:30:31
Speaker A: Yes. And that was. I was. I was taking some notes during that. So I missed, like, that exact exchange during that.
1:30:37
Speaker B: Yeah. And I think. I think the implication is supposed to be that they were gonna then deliver it, like, through the lymphatic system instead of. Of whatever he was doing before.
1:30:46
Speaker A: Yeah. Okay. And that's fine. Again, it's also a thing that doesn't really matter. I'm not that. But it was a thing where I was like, wait, what's going on? But it's explained. And I just. Yeah, I dismissed it. So this was another thing that I was questioning for. And I still was questioning because I don't Think the movie really explains this, which is. I was like, why does he use a bunch of different bodies and cuts them into pieces and then stitches them together instead of just using, like, one dead body that's in pretty good shape, you know, like, find somebody who, like, got decapitated, sew a different head on, you're good to go. Like, you know what I mean? Like, that. That seems like the easier way to do it. My guess from watching the film and. And as a result of seeing the monster eventually. And this is also probably mentioned at some point in a line of dialogue that I just missed while taking notes or whatever. My. My guess was that, oh, like, he wants their. The goal is to build this, like, superhuman. Because there is a point, like Harlander says to him, like, I want you to put my brain in this new super Adam that you've created. Like, I think the idea is that they're going. Trying to create, like, the perfect. He's trying to create, like, the kind of the perfect human or whatever. And so that requires kind of combining all these different body parts, and he's more muscular and bigger and stronger than a normal human. So they need more than one body to do it. I was like, okay, I can buy that. Is that your understanding from the book, or is there any explanation in the book or what's going on on there?
1:32:10
Speaker B: So there's not an explanation of why he uses a bunch of different body parts necessarily. The implication that I got was that, so he's, like, scrounging these body parts from different places, was that, like, maybe he couldn't get a full body that was in good enough shape. But the book also says, as the minuteness of the parts formed a great hindrance to my speed, I resolved, contrary to my first intention, to make the being of a gigantic stature, that is to say, about 8ft in height and proportionally large.
1:32:50
Speaker A: Yeah. I can also believe the idea that during this time period, which the book, I think, takes place even earlier than the movie. Right. Because the book takes place. Supposed to take place like, in the 1700s or, like, early 1800s, whereas this takes place in, like, the 1850s and 60s.
1:33:06
Speaker B: So there are. The letters are dated 17 dash.
1:33:13
Speaker A: Yeah.
1:33:13
Speaker B: So 1700 something.
1:33:15
Speaker A: So the movie takes place at least 50 years later than that, if not 60 years later than that. I could believe the idea that the bodies he has access to, now that I think about it, that he's able to get. It would be hard to find a body that is in good enough shape all across the board to just use so he kind of, as a result, has to. Because he's getting prisoners and.
1:33:38
Speaker B: Yeah.
1:33:38
Speaker A: He's got a cobblestone and people dying on the battlefield. So he has to cobble it together. I guess it's just my thought was like, well, surely one of those people on that battlefield, you know, their head got blown off. Just sew another head on. But the rest of them. You know what I mean? Like, I don't know. It just. But I could at least buy that or. But also I think the explanation of. Yeah. If he wants to make him like a superhuman, like this big, like, thing again, kind of in. As an effort of God, a little bit as like, this thing I'm creating is more than.
1:34:11
Speaker B: What, Better than what you did.
1:34:12
Speaker A: Exactly. I could buy that. And so you need. You know, he's got. Because we see that in the movie. Is that. And that's part of the. I think Is very good. I know people have mixed feelings about the creature design in the movie. I generally liked it. I thought it was fine. One thing I did like about it is that I do think the creature's design does kind of tell the story in this part. Because once you actually see the creature, not only his size, but the way the muscles are, like, layered and not. Not an anatomically like the same as humans. You're like, oh, he's adding, like, extra muscles and stuff that are. So you're here. He's doing. He's piecing together this thing. It doesn't just look like a normal human body, but a little bigger. It has this.
1:34:51
Speaker B: Yeah, it looks like something kind of human, but not.
1:34:54
Speaker A: Yeah. Which I thought was cool. Yeah. Again, I. I was mixed on it because I. There are elements of his. The design that felt like other things I'd seen in a way that was. Wasn't my favorite. Like, he reminded me, honestly, a little bit of. And I think it's just his face reminded me of the fucking character from that terrible movie we did where the guy has the metal in his face and the terrible young adult story.
1:35:20
Speaker B: Oh, Beastly.
1:35:22
Speaker A: Yes. His face a little bit reminds me of the face of the. Do you get what I'm like, yeah.
1:35:28
Speaker B: Yeah, yeah, yeah, yeah.
1:35:30
Speaker A: I couldn't remember the name this time. There's, like, elements of his face that reminds me of the dude's face in Beastly. It's very different. He also reminds me of the aliens from Prometheus, or not the alien, but the big. At the beginning of Prometheus, which probably is not unintentional. Well, I don't know, maybe it's seems.
1:35:48
Speaker B: Like a weird thing to reference the modern Prometheus.
1:35:50
Speaker A: I know, but that would be an interesting thing to reference, actually. I could see Del Toro liking Prometheus. Now that I think about it, that could be right in his wheelhouse, because it does have a lot to say about, like, religion and stuff. At the beginning of Prometheus, the pilots or whatever, they're these big, like, white, super muscly aliens that kind of look a lot like the creature in this, which I thought was interesting. Again, I overall was fine with the creature's design, and it's heightened by the performance. I thought Jacob Elordi does a really good job with the performance. And then my final question for this, and this isn't a question about this movie, because he does not have it in this movie, but I have to ask Casket, because it's the most, like, maybe the. Oh, you know, the other thing we didn't talk about. I'll ask this here, too. Two things that are kind of classic Frankenstein's creature monster things. One, bolts in the neck.
1:36:43
Speaker B: Yeah.
1:36:44
Speaker A: Very classic depiction. Every Halloween costume, you ever see a Frankenstein, he's gonna have bolts in the neck. Does that come from the book? He does not in this movie. So. But bolts in the neck. And then the other thing. Thing, scared of fire, because that's a thing that you see in a lot of movies, too, is the creature being scared of fire. And so do either of those things come from the book?
1:37:03
Speaker B: So the creature is actually described twice in the book. He's the only character that's, like, fully.
1:37:10
Speaker A: Described, which is why we didn't have a guess who. I guess.
1:37:12
Speaker B: Yes.
1:37:12
Speaker A: Because it would have been the creature.
1:37:14
Speaker B: Oh, yeah.
1:37:15
Speaker A: And it's very obvious.
1:37:16
Speaker B: Would have immediately been like, oh, that's the creature. Because this movie's depiction is actually pretty damn accurate. He's described as gigantic with long black hair and kind of looking like a corpse.
1:37:30
Speaker A: Yeah.
1:37:31
Speaker B: The book does not mention any bolts in his neck. Afraid of fire? I would say no, because I think.
1:37:39
Speaker A: That'S in some of the movies from my memories. That's, like, kind of a cultural thing I remember about Frankenstein's creature and monster is that he's afraid of fire.
1:37:47
Speaker B: I would not say, because the first time the creature encounters fire in the book, he encountered, like, he's, like, hiding in the woods. He's been, like, living in the woods, and he encounters, like, the remains, like, the glowing remains of a fire that some other people had left behind, and he is immediately, like, enamored with it. And Once he learns that he shouldn't, like, grab it, he's into it. He's like, this is great. It's warm and I can cook my food.
1:38:16
Speaker A: Oh, interesting. Because my memory is. I think I saw. So I will say this. The bolts in the neck, I thought that wasn't from the book, because I think I had heard that that was, I think, an invention of the 1931 film, which is the classic.
1:38:29
Speaker B: Yes. And I've never seen.
1:38:31
Speaker A: I think I have seen.
1:38:33
Speaker B: That's the Boris.
1:38:34
Speaker A: Boris Korloff, the James Whale director.
1:38:37
Speaker B: But I'm pretty sure that movie is responsible for a lot of the heavy lifting of our cultural perceptions of Frankenstein.
1:38:45
Speaker A: And when I earlier I said I hadn't seen this, I have seen that movie, but I watched that. My dad showed that to me when I was five. I was a little kid. And I don't remember anything about it, but one thing I do think I vaguely remember is that I think towards the end, there's this whole thing where the villager with the torches, he's, like, scared of the torches or something, and, like, the fire from the torches is, like, sets him off. I have some memory bouncing around in my head of, like, at one point there's like a scene where he's, like, calming down or seems to be fine, but then, like, somebody has a torch and that, like, causes him to freak out, and then he, like, goes on a rampage or whatever. But anyways, okay, so there you go. Yeah. And I think you're right. I think a lot of the kind of the. In the way that it tends to happen that, like, the first big movie adaptation, especially in these. Kind of same with, like, Dracula and stuff, where some of the more culturally cornerstone elements of this character were kind of cemented in that first big movie adaptation. Similar where the Dracula and in this one, the bolts in the neck and stuff like that. Yeah, I think do come from the 1931 film.
1:39:53
Speaker B: All right, I have some stuff to talk about in this segment as well, starting with how Victor is depicted. So, first off, I feel like it's pretty common, and I could be wrong about this because I have not seen a lot of Frankenstein adaptations, but I feel like it's pretty common for adaptations to depict Victor as, like, a mad scientist.
1:40:17
Speaker A: He's, I think, generally, culturally, if you ask people, like, what's, you know, describe Victor Frankenstein, the character Dr. Frankenstein, like, oh, he's a mad scientist.
1:40:25
Speaker B: I don't know.
1:40:26
Speaker A: Like, that would just be like. Yeah.
1:40:27
Speaker B: But I would not describe him that way. Way in the book. He does do mad science, arguably, but he's literally a college kid who gets overexcited about an idea and then immediately regrets doing it as soon as it's done. He's a baby boy who scares himself.
1:40:47
Speaker A: Yeah. Which is an interesting dynamic.
1:40:49
Speaker B: Not a fully grown man laughing maniacally while lightning cracks in the background.
1:40:54
Speaker A: Yeah. Which is an interesting dynamic. And, like, I think that could be cool. I think that that is a very interesting character dynamic. I totally understand why Del Toro chose to go the direction he did with this, because I think turning. Where he's not even so much a. He is a mad scientist in this. But again, it's really the. He's a move fast break things. Don't think about the consequences, only think about what you can achieve. Achieve how. How cool what you could do could be.
1:41:27
Speaker B: Which. And like, I think arguably, that is what Mary Shelley was going for.
1:41:32
Speaker A: It's a similar idea, but it's just.
1:41:33
Speaker B: Yes, but I think she, like, depicts it a little.
1:41:35
Speaker A: Yes. Because he's younger and he's more naive, and he doesn't have the foresight to realize what he's. He doesn't have the. The wisdom to realize what he's doing could have these horrible consequences. Whereas the victor in this story is old enough. You know, he's played by Oscar Isaac, who's, like, 40 or whatever. In this. He has. He should have the wisdom. And. And he's been to college. He's been. You know, he got. He. He has. And so, again, the movie is making a very intentional choice that I think is compelling and is a. A better tale for our modern day or is a more timely tale for our modern day of. Hey. Of commenting on. Hey, maybe this whole idea where you just do insane shit because you can. Without thinking about the repercussions and what it will mean for the things. You know, maybe we shouldn't try to create artificial life. Maybe that has some issues that we should stop and think about. No, no, no. That move fast break things. Let's do. This is cool. I can do this. And we're gonna do this because we can and because it's fucking awesome. And damned be the consequences. Like that. That is a much more timely story.
1:42:45
Speaker B: Yes, absolutely.
1:42:46
Speaker A: So I completely understand it, but I do think there's a very compelling, slightly different version that you're talking about in the book there.
1:42:54
Speaker B: Okay, so that brings me to the creation scene, and I would like to read it to you. It's very short.
1:43:01
Speaker A: Yeah.
1:43:02
Speaker B: It was on a dreary night of November that I Beheld the accomplishment of my toils. With an anxiety that almost amounted to agony. I collected the instruments of life around me that I might infuse a spark of being into the lifeless thing that lay at my feet. It was already one in the morning. The rain pattered dismally against the panes and my candle was nearly half burned out when by the glimmer of the half extinguished light, I saw the dull yellow eyes of the creature open. It breathed hard and a convulsive motion agitated its limbs. How can I describe my emotions at this catastrophe? Or delineate the wretch whom with such infinite pains and care I had endeavored to form? His limbs were in proportion, and I had selected his features as beautiful. Beautiful, Great God. His yellow skin scarcely covered the work of muscles and arteries beneath. His hair was of a lustrous black and flow glowing his teeth of a pearly whiteness. But these luxuriances only formed a more horrid contrast with his watery eyes that seemed almost of the same color as the dun white sockets in which they were set, his shriveled complexion and straight black lips. The different accidents of life are not so changeable as the feelings of human nature. I had worked hard for nearly two years for the sole purpose of infusing life into an inanimate body. For this I had deprived myself of rest and health. I had desired it with an ardor that far exceeded moderation. But now that I had finished, the beauty of the dream vanished and breathless horror and disgust filled my heart. Unable to endure the aspect of the being I had created, I rushed out of the room and continued a long time traversing my bedchamber, unable to compose my mind to sleep. At length, lassitude succeeded to the tumult I had before endured. And I threw myself on the bed in my clothes, endeavoring seek a few moments of forgetfulness.
1:45:02
Speaker A: Huh.
1:45:03
Speaker B: That's it. That's the whole creation scene.
1:45:05
Speaker A: Yeah. So very. Not. Not nearly the dramatic.
1:45:10
Speaker B: No, not even close.
1:45:12
Speaker A: So that's interesting because that had. So I had heard that I had. I had. Since we watched the movie, I had watched a. A video from a YouTuber I really like called Atun Shea, who does. He does like a. Mostly historical stuff. But anyways, he had talked about this and that was one of his. He did not like this movie and he's a big, big fan of the book. And one of his complaints that is that he was hoping for something closer to that. He really liked the intimacy and the. The idea of this like young kid tinkering in his bedroom. Creating this creature versus the big pompous.
1:45:46
Speaker B: And, like, accidentally making the monster under his bed.
1:45:49
Speaker A: Yes. Yeah. Which is, I think, really interesting. Interesting. Personally, I don't mind the movie's version. I'm all here for a big, bombastic, ridiculous. Like, I thought that the whole creation scene, I think, is a lot of fun issues we talked about earlier, aside of like, what the heck, that device that broke. Overall, I really like it, but. Yeah, no, that is interesting. That is. It is. And that I am sure goes back to probably the 19. Probably that you know it. Which makes sense. I can imagine, you know, the screenwriter or whatever going, this is the big moment.
1:46:19
Speaker B: You want a big moment.
1:46:20
Speaker A: The big moment. He's playing God. We got. How is he got to bring a body back to life. We have to show this somehow. And if you just have, like, it twitch to life in a dark bedroom or whatever, dark office or whatever, it's like, oh, that's not nearly as.
1:46:34
Speaker B: Yeah, yeah. So I. I included this stuff in Lost in Adaptation because I think it's neither better in the book nor better in the movie. I understand why this particular movie made Victor older.
1:46:46
Speaker A: Yes.
1:46:47
Speaker B: And I understand why adaptations in general make the creation scene into a big bombastic display over depicting the book more closely. Although I would be interested in seeing an adaptation that takes that more subtle and creepy direction with it. But I could not leave this episode without discussing them, because I think that the creation scene in general, I think, is an interesting and unexpected thing to encounter when you read the book for the first time. Going into it with just a general cultural knowledge of what Frankenstein is as a story.
1:47:24
Speaker A: Yeah, no, absolutely. Yeah. No, that's fascinating. That it is. You know, that's one of those things where it's like, okay, I can imagine that version, the book version of this. The director who does that is like Robert Eggers.
1:47:40
Speaker B: Yes.
1:47:41
Speaker A: That's. Who does that version of Frankenstein.
1:47:44
Speaker B: And it's terrifying.
1:47:45
Speaker A: Yes. And it's. Yes. Yeah. All lit by, like, candlelight in a dank little room.
1:47:50
Speaker B: And.
1:47:50
Speaker A: Yeah. That is a Robert Eggers film. That is not a Guillermo del Toro film. Guillermo del Toro. Toro film. It takes place in a giant gothic castle with lightning and huge, insane.
1:48:01
Speaker B: And the creature literally on a cross.
1:48:03
Speaker A: Contraptions. And the creature literally on a cruise. Yeah. On a cross and. Yeah. 100 and. Which. I wouldn't have it any other way. I do love. I love. I say whenever. Yeah. Again, none of that stuff was. My issue with this movie is it's really truly just the character interaction stuff. All of the. The big bombastic moments. And I will say, though cinematography wise, I do have a note about this later. I'm trying to remember if we.
1:48:27
Speaker B: I don't think you talked about it.
1:48:29
Speaker A: I like the way this movie looks. I didn't love the way this movie looks. I in general thought it looked pretty good. I. My biggest complaint with the look of the movie was just that. And I would have to rewatch the Shape of Water. So I looked up who the cinematographer was. Same guy that did Shape of Water and has done like all of Del Toro's most recent films. Something about the look of this movie. At times I felt like he used a lot more wide angle lenses in this than he did previously. That. In a way that. Which I think works because a lot of it with this is you're supposed to take in the environment and the background. And they spent all this money and all this labor on building these huge, gorgeous sets. And so shooting them with these big wide shots I think makes a of lot, lot of sense. And so it wasn't even so much that. But like the lighting and color at times, while the movie is colorful, I don't know how I would have to describe. I would have to go back and literally watch and compare like some similar shots from like Shape of Water to this. I feel like my memory is that Shape of Water was richer and punchier. Like the color was like punchier in that and had and. And just felt denser and richer than it does in this movie.
1:49:46
Speaker B: I would have to rewatch the Shape of. Because we haven't seen that since it was in the theaters.
1:49:50
Speaker A: The mo. Yes, the movie's very blue, but I, again, I would have to go back and look. But I just. This movie was not as pretty. It's. It's so hard to describe because the movie's gorgeous, but it's also some of the shot choices and stuff just didn't wow me in the way I was hoping. I. I don't. This is one that would have to go way more like, like kind of scene by scene and nitpicky and be like, okay, like what I'm talking about and like show some examples. But I just. My feeling as a whole of watching the movie was not like, wow, this is gorgeous and beautifully shot. It was. This is well shot and it looks good and like it looks better than most movies do these days. But like, it did not blow me away in the way that I was hoping. I really liked looking at it, but I didn't. I wasn't like Jaw on the floor. Like, holy shit. The. This is a beautifully shot, like, stunning film. I thought, holy shit. This is a really beautifully art directed film. I don't know if it's a beautifully shot film. It is beautifully shot. That's. I'm nitpicking. I'm very much nitpicking. I want to stress that because it would be an overstatement to say that it's not beautifully shot. It's just maybe not shot as. I think maybe what it is is that the camera work isn't as bombastic as the film feels like it should be. Like, maybe that's what it is, is that maybe the. I don't know. Anyways, I'm done talking about it. All right. That was all I have to say. Let's go ahead and talk about what was better in the book. You like to read?
1:51:29
Speaker B: Oh, yes, I love to read.
1:51:31
Speaker A: What do you like to read?
1:51:35
Speaker B: Everything. All right. My sections are gonna be pretty quick. Cause we already covered a lot of ground in your questions.
1:51:40
Speaker A: Yeah.
1:51:41
Speaker B: But a couple things from the book. Book. Victor, when he's young, gets into really obsolete sciences like alchemy. And then when he goes to college, his professor is like, pardon me, you've been studying what? I was kind of sad that we lost Victor's best friend, Henry. I really liked Henry, and he was a very good friend. I understand why he's not in this particular story. Victor is always falling ill with nervous fevers throughout this book. He's a delicate lad. Another thing that I really loved was that there is random chunks of poetry scattered throughout this book. And I loved that because I just loved the reminder that a teenage girl wrote this book.
1:52:33
Speaker A: Yeah.
1:52:34
Speaker B: Because that is. And I mean this with all of the love and affection in my. My heart. That is such a teenage girl writer thing. Victor's reaction to seeing the creature in broad daylight after making it and then immediately abandoning it two years prior was, quote, its unearthly ugliness rendered it almost too horrible for human eyes, unquote. I mentioned this, but in the book, Victor actually does start building a companion for the creature. But then he changes his mind and rips it apart, which obviously enrages the creature even more.
1:53:10
Speaker A: I wonder if I assume that's the plot of the Bride of Frankenstein movies. Maybe.
1:53:14
Speaker B: I don't actually.
1:53:15
Speaker A: I've never seen any of them, but I. Yeah.
1:53:17
Speaker B: After the creature kills Elizabeth, Victor attempts to tell the local authorities about it so that they can help him apprehend it. But the magistrate does not believe him. Yeah, because why Would you.
1:53:28
Speaker A: I mean, sure.
1:53:29
Speaker B: And my last thing is a little nitpick about the movie. Wouldn't the dynamite have blown him to pieces?
1:53:36
Speaker A: You would think.
1:53:37
Speaker B: You would think because it just kind of singes him.
1:53:40
Speaker A: Yeah. And it kind of like blows his fingers.
1:53:43
Speaker B: Yeah.
1:53:43
Speaker A: A little bit, but not. Yeah.
1:53:45
Speaker B: Like you would think it would blow.
1:53:47
Speaker A: Chunks if a bullet can go through him. Yeah, you would think. You would think that the TNT would. But again, I, that's one where I'm like, whatever. I, you know. Yeah, yeah, I, I, Yeah, I agree.
1:53:57
Speaker B: But like I said, it. It's a nitpick.
1:53:58
Speaker A: Yeah. It's one of those nitpicks that were. Had. Does. Were the movie to work better as a whole. I don't. You don't even care or think about at all. It's. It's one of those things where when the movie, when the rest of the movie doesn't work as well as you want and you're sitting there going, ah, well, this. Like, you're not as bought into, like, the relationships and the character dynamics and entranced by what the movie's doing. Those little things start to, you know.
1:54:22
Speaker B: Yeah.
1:54:23
Speaker A: Pick at your brain a little bit more than they would otherwise. So. Yeah. All right, let's go ahead and find out what Katie thought was better in the movie. My life has taught me one lesson.
1:54:33
Speaker B: Hugo, and not the one I thought it would.
1:54:37
Speaker A: Happy endings only happen in the movies.
1:54:41
Speaker B: I thought that moving the sailors wanting to turn the expedition back and go home to the beginning as opposed to the end of the story, because that happens at the end of the story was a nice, succinct way to explain what all was going on on right there.
1:54:58
Speaker A: Yeah. And also I like that it sets up the dynamic of the, the symmetry between the captain's white whale mission and Victor's white whale, you know, and, and, and the captain seeing the folly in Victor's ways and that changing his decision. Because that does happen in the book. Right. Like that at the end they decide not to go back. And I guess the idea is that having heard Victor's tale, he's like, maybe this.
1:55:25
Speaker B: Maybe I should.
1:55:25
Speaker A: Maybe I shouldn't.
1:55:26
Speaker B: Maybe I shouldn't challenge nature to this extent.
1:55:30
Speaker A: Yeah.
1:55:31
Speaker B: I like that the movie expanded on the science part of building the creature. That stuff was all cool and like, yeah. How he built the body. Because the book really, really glosses over this one. It's literally like after spending many months collecting and arranging my materials.
1:55:47
Speaker A: Yeah.
1:55:48
Speaker B: The, the book is a little bit coy about what the month, what the creature's made of.
1:55:53
Speaker A: That's fine. It's an 18 year. Right, right.
1:55:56
Speaker B: She's.
1:55:56
Speaker A: It's not like she's had a bunch of anatomy classes and science classes and. Yeah. Or. Yeah. 100%. Like, who cares? That's. It's also. Not. Again, I like the movies kind of going into a little bit more depth, specifically, just because it. It allows for some really cool kind of gnarly body stuff and whatnot and.
1:56:14
Speaker B: Just cool practical effects.
1:56:15
Speaker A: Yeah. And it adds to the. The. The kind of whole aesthetic and ambiance of the film.
1:56:22
Speaker B: But, yeah, I really liked the art direction and particularly some of the set pieces and visuals in the tower. Like the creature up on the cross. Is it obvious? Yeah. Is it still looks cool? Yeah, yeah. And then like the giant medusa's head staring down at them throughout the whole thing.
1:56:42
Speaker A: Yes. Yeah, yeah. In the background. Yeah. At one point, I think the creature even turns. Oh, that's. The creature sees it at one point and is, like, looking at it. Yeah, yeah. No, yeah. Again, the art direction is stunning. I have no. Yeah. Everything. The sets, every.
1:56:57
Speaker B: It's all the costumes.
1:56:58
Speaker A: The costumes.
1:56:59
Speaker B: Incredible.
1:56:59
Speaker A: Yeah.
1:57:01
Speaker B: I really liked the exchange between Victor and Elizabeth when she's chastising him for the, like, keeping the creature locked up in the basement, essentially. And she said. He says, it doesn't know any better. And she says, but you do.
1:57:16
Speaker A: But you do. Yeah. I thought that was great. Yeah.
1:57:19
Speaker B: I really liked the scene with the deer.
1:57:21
Speaker A: Yeah.
1:57:21
Speaker B: When the. The creature goes into the woods and he's, like, feeding deer and then the hunter. And the hunter shoots it.
1:57:28
Speaker A: Yeah.
1:57:29
Speaker B: And there was a kind of a suggestion that the creature was experiencing fragments of different memories, like from his different body parts.
1:57:41
Speaker A: Yes.
1:57:42
Speaker B: That I thought. It didn't really go anywhere, but I thought the suggestion was intriguing. Intriguing.
1:57:46
Speaker A: Yeah. All right, let's go ahead and talk about what the movie nailed.
1:57:54
Speaker B: As I expected, practically perfect in every way. The story does open on a seemingly unrelated person journeying to the North Pole. I had completely forgotten that there was a frame story in this book. I started reading it and I was like, who is this man?
1:58:10
Speaker A: Is frame story even the right term for it? Probably not. We're probably using that in grand.
1:58:15
Speaker B: Well, no, because it begins and ends with the letters.
1:58:19
Speaker A: I mean, frame story probably applies. Is that there's probably a more specific.
1:58:23
Speaker B: There probably is a more specific term underneath the umbrella of frame story for.
1:58:29
Speaker A: What this story does.
1:58:30
Speaker B: Yeah. But it is a framed narrative structure. The creature does read Paradise Lost and has an existential crisis after Reading. Reading it. The creature says, is he reading Paradise.
1:58:43
Speaker A: Lost in the movie?
1:58:45
Speaker B: Doesn't he not read Paradise Lost?
1:58:46
Speaker A: Yes, he does. Yeah, he does. I. I had a quite.
1:58:49
Speaker B: I mean, they talk about a couple different.
1:58:50
Speaker A: He reads a couple different books, but.
1:58:52
Speaker B: He does specifically say that he read Paradise Lost. Yeah. And the creature says that if he can't have love, he'll indulge in rage. Which I don't think is the exact line from.
1:59:03
Speaker A: Oh, that was my intro.
1:59:04
Speaker B: Your intro line. Yeah. But it's pretty close to a repeated sentence sentiment that the creature espouses in the book, which is more like, if I can't be good, then I must be evil.
1:59:18
Speaker A: Yeah. Literally, the thesis of what we talked about, it's the whole point of that. The society, victor, everybody, drives this creature into becoming the evil monster that they expect him to be. All right, we got a handful of odds and ends before we get to the final verdict. At the beginning of the movie, the shot where he punches that guy in half or punches that guy and breaks him in half backwards was fucking wild. I was like, holy shit. Crazy.
1:59:54
Speaker B: I'm about to bring up this, this particular, other Del Toro movie a couple times in this section, but the red veil thing that his mother is wearing and that. That first scene where we see them, she has like this giant red veil that's like flowing in the wind. Reminded me of Crimson Peak.
2:00:12
Speaker A: Yeah, we. I mean, I've. Yeah, we both have multiple notes about that.
2:00:17
Speaker B: Yeah. The coffin that they bury his mom and, and.
2:00:21
Speaker A: And his dad, they're both.
2:00:23
Speaker B: That coffin went hard.
2:00:25
Speaker A: Crazy. Yeah. Yeah. Super cool.
2:00:27
Speaker B: Also from Crimson Peak, the yellow butterfly butterflies that Elizabeth And I don't know if it's the exact same type of butterfly.
2:00:35
Speaker A: Yeah.
2:00:36
Speaker B: But there's also. There are yellow. But there's a yellow butterfly motif in Crimson Peak as well.
2:00:40
Speaker A: Yeah. A similar thing. The tower's location, both outside and specifically, like when you. When they pull up to the outside of the tower, like where it's setting, like on a hill with like nothing around it.
2:00:52
Speaker B: With nothing around it. It's just like this single.
2:00:55
Speaker A: Yeah.
2:00:56
Speaker B: Horrifying looking structure.
2:00:58
Speaker A: There's no trees, there's no nothing. It's just like a hill. And then this thing. And then on top of that, when you go into the entryway of the laboratory in this movie, the. The layout of it was very reminiscent to me of the house from Crimson Peak. It is different. Like, the staircase in Crimson Peak is this big, like, spiral staircase.
2:01:20
Speaker B: Yeah.
2:01:20
Speaker A: Like around the outside of the wall. Whereas in this one, it has, like, a grand central staircase. But the. The. Just the wideness of the room. Yeah, the wideness and these doors immediately off both sides. That very similar to how it is in Crimson Peak. And the way it's lit, like there's this, like, sunlight coming down.
2:01:36
Speaker B: Yeah, the kind of, like, decrepitness.
2:01:38
Speaker A: Yeah. Oh, that too. Yeah. The walls are all, like, covered in vines.
2:01:42
Speaker B: And then also the basement part, like, the. Underneath, where he keeps the creature looks very similar to where they keep the, like, red clay stuff in Crimson.
2:01:53
Speaker A: Yeah. A lot of that was like, oh, this is all. Yeah, it was interesting. You mentioned earlier that he read Paradise Lost, but another thing we hear him reading at one point, he's reading Ozymandias because he reads the line from. The line from Ozymandias, and I was like, wait, wasn't that written by Percy Shelley? Which makes sense, because this movie takes place, like I said, 70 years after the book was written. So he could be written.
2:02:24
Speaker B: Twas written by Percy, she Shelley. I guess this would be a universe where Mary Shelley did not write Frankenstein because Frankenstein is taking place in universe.
2:02:34
Speaker A: Yeah. Yeah. I don't know.
2:02:35
Speaker B: But Percy Shelley still exists.
2:02:37
Speaker A: Yeah. It's interesting.
2:02:39
Speaker B: I loved Elizabeth's wedding dress sleeves.
2:02:42
Speaker A: Yeah.
2:02:43
Speaker B: If we were getting married this year, I would have sleeves like that. They would be black.
2:02:47
Speaker A: Yeah.
2:02:48
Speaker B: But that would be a thing. I'd be like, I want my arms to look like a mummy. And the bridal consultant would be like, okay, my last note here. I thought ending a Mary Shelley adaptation with a Byron quote was a choice.
2:03:07
Speaker A: Yeah. The final scene of the. Or the final frame of this before the credits is a Lord Byron quote. I don't remember what it is.
2:03:14
Speaker B: I don't either.
2:03:15
Speaker A: It is a Byron quote. Why is that a choice? I don't know the specifics here. I mean, I know they Weren't they friends? I thought they were.
2:03:22
Speaker B: Yeah.
2:03:22
Speaker A: But I didn't know if there was some drama or something.
2:03:25
Speaker B: No, not that I know of. It's just kind of. It's. It's kind of a lit nerd thing to be like, Byron.
2:03:32
Speaker A: Oh, okay. Yeah. I say. I. I didn't know why. Okay. Yeah. That's what I'm wondering. That's. That's the context I need. I don't know. That's why I'm asking, like, is there some sort of, like. Yeah, like, thing that, like. I mean, I could understand the idea of it feeling a little strange, but. Yeah. Because my thought was, like, well, aren't they friends? So, like, maybe he thought it Felt relevant. And so I don't know.
2:03:54
Speaker B: Yeah, I just. I don't know. Okay, it's a marriage. It's a Mary Shelley joint. End it with a Mary Shelley quote.
2:04:00
Speaker A: I get what you're saying. I don't necessarily disagree, but I just didn't know if maybe there was some added drama, like they.
2:04:06
Speaker B: Not at the point that I'm dating.
2:04:08
Speaker A: And then like, they divorced and there were so. Or, I don't know, like some sort of weird, like, falling out.
2:04:12
Speaker B: But, like, I don't know. Not that I know of. But like, like I said, he was a fuck boy, so, like, maybe.
2:04:17
Speaker A: Yeah, I don't necessarily disagree that it feels kind of strange to end with that quote, but I just, you know, you're like, what? What's the relevance? Not that the quote isn't relevant, but I don't rem. But I remember thinking like, oh, yeah, sure, that that quote feels fine here, but it is, like an interesting choice to be like, okay, why are we putting a Byron quote? Yeah.
2:04:34
Speaker B: All right.
2:04:34
Speaker A: Before we get to the final verdict, we want to remind you you could do us a favor by heading over to Facebook, Instagram threads, Blue Sky, Goodreads, any of those places. We'd love to hear what you have to say about Frankenstein 2025. So excited to hear this feedback, get other people's opinions. I'm sure this will be a spicy one because I have to imagine that the opinions on this are going to vary around back and forth. So, yeah, very excited to hear what people have to say. If you disagree with it, agree with us, whatever, let us know. We'll talk about it on the next prequel episode. You can also help us out by heading over to Apple, podcast, Spotify. Anywhere else that you listen to our show. Drop us a five star rating, write us a nice little review. That will be super appreciated. Finally, you can Support us@patreon.com ThisFilmIsLit get access to bonus content, priority recommendations, all that good stuff. Check it out. Patreon.com thisfilmislit Katie, it's time for the final verdict.
2:05:25
Speaker B: Sentence passed, verdict after. That's stupid. I was positively convinced that I was going to pick the movie until like the last 30 or 40 minutes I was sitting on our couch for almost two hours thinking, oh no, I am going to have a controversial opinion. Opinion. Because I loved this movie's ideas. I loved the focus on Victor Frankenstein as a bad parent who immediately continued the cycle of abuse. I liked the reimagining of Elizabeth as a student of philosophy and science herself. Even if it was a little underdeveloped. And I really loved the changes to the creature's relationship with the old man. But while I loved the ideas, the execution didn't end up working for me. The last act felt rushed, and so most of the movie's big ideas that I loved wound up in a place that felt underdeveloped and unearned. All that said, I think the movie is an interesting take on a story that has already been reimagined a lot. And Frankenstein has been reimagined a lot. Lot to the point that the broad cultural ideas about the story and characters can feel pretty disconnected from the original text. But Frankenstein is about a lot of things. Making the thesis about parenting isn't incorrect by any stretch. It's just not going to be everyone's interpretation of the story. I didn't love the book as much as I loved Dracula. I thought it was a little meandering at times, and most of the characters felt pretty flat to me. I wanted to love the movie more than I did. While I adored the visuals and a lot of the initial ideas that just didn't pan out in the end. So this time I'm going with the one and only, the classic Frankenstein by Mary Shelley.
2:07:31
Speaker A: There you go. My pithy letterboxd review of the film is that it, ironically, mechanically, is not. Doesn't add, is not greater than the sum of its parts, is how I would say it is that I like all of the pieces of this, but when you sew them all together and stitch them together the way the film did, it just didn't quite create something that felt whole and complete and right. Which, again, I think, ironically. Yeah, I'm sure I'm not the only person to mention that it's a very common review of this movie, but it is, I think, think it's an accurate one. Katie, what's next?
2:08:15
Speaker B: Up next, we are going to be talking about Warm Bodies, which is a young adult novel by Isaac maran and a 2013 film.
2:08:25
Speaker A: I remember hearing about this film.
2:08:28
Speaker B: I wanted to do something a little fun after this one, and then the one after Warm Bodies, I think is going to take a little more energy. So I wanted to have something fun in there. And I have liked everything I have ever seen Nicholas Hoult in.
2:08:44
Speaker A: I was just Googling. I was like, I think that's Nicholas Hoult, right? Yeah, it is, yeah. No, that'll be interesting. I'm very excited now to see because, yeah, I never disliked Nicholas Hoult in a single thing. The director is Jonathan.
2:08:58
Speaker B: Guess who plays the female lead, though.
2:09:02
Speaker A: I have no idea. Idea.
2:09:04
Speaker B: That's somebody from something we've been watching recently.
2:09:07
Speaker A: Oh, my gosh. Wow. Yeah, that's her. Okay, I didn't. I had no idea she was in this. We. We'll leave that spoiler that teaser there and we'll talk about that in the prequel episode. That's fascinating. The director was not somebody I recognized, so that'll also be interesting. Yeah, no, I. I don't know anything about this movie. I remember seeing a trailer like when it came out and was like, well, whatever. Just looked like a movie. Looks like it's got okay reviews on Rotten Tomatoes. But we will get into all of that on the next prequel episode in one week's time. And we'll be following up on all of your feedback on Frankenstein. So please get that in. Until that time, guys, gals, non binary pals and everybody else, keep reading books, keep watching movies, and keep being awesome. Sam.