Latest / This Film is Lit / Prequel to It Ends with Us - Edge of Tomorrow Fan Reaction, A Very Brief Discussion of The Drama

Transcript

Prequel to It Ends with Us - Edge of Tomorrow Fan Reaction, A Very Brief Discussion of The Drama · This Film is Lit

• 0:10
  Speaker A: On this week's prequel episode, we follow up on our Edge of Tomorrow listener polls and preview. It ends with us. Hello and welcome back to another prequel episode of this film is lit, the podcast where we talk about movies that are based on books. We got plenty of feedback to get to and boy, some stuff to talk about with it ends with us. So we'll jump right in as we always do to our patron shoutouts. I put up with you because your father and mother were our finest patrons. That's why. One new patron this week. A free patron, not a paid patron. A freight train. Freight train. Rezinata. Thank you, Rezinata, for joining. Signing on at the free level, getting able to see the occasional post stuff here and there. As always, we wanted to thank our Academy award winning patrons and they are. Amanda, Nicole Goble, Harpo Rat, Nathan Matild, Cottonwood Steve, Ben Wilcox, Teresa Schwartz, Ian from Wine Country, Kelly Napier Gratch. Just scratch. Shelby is tired and that darn skag. Thank you all very much for your continued support. Katie, let's see what the people had to say about Edge of Tomorrow. Yeah, well, you know, that's just like your opinion, man.
• 1:34
  Speaker B: All right. On Patreon, we had five votes for the movie and one for the book. And Shelby said, yay for sci fi. I love when you cover properties I need to get to anyway for my own research. I didn't read the book, but Brian did a good job helping me understand the differences to the movie.
• 1:56
  Speaker A: Thank you. You're welcome.
• 1:58
  Speaker B: This is a little.
• 1:59
  Speaker A: It's my job here.
• 2:00
  Speaker B: Well, sometimes it's your job.
• 2:02
  Speaker A: Sometimes it's my job.
• 2:03
  Speaker B: Usually it's my job. This is a little thing, but doesn't Tom Cruise say he can't feel the power after the blood transfusion? Maybe Emily Blunt did too.
• 2:14
  Speaker A: Yeah. This is the thing.
• 2:15
  Speaker B: Yeah, he does say that.
• 2:16
  Speaker A: Somebody else mentioned this and yeah, it makes sense. I forgot that he said that. That he said he could feel.
• 2:22
  Speaker B: Yes, I do still think. I think it's a weak explanation.
• 2:27
  Speaker A: Well, and I will add that also I think on top, I would have to remember the exact. I would have to go back and watch it. I think the exact context is that he already knows at that point. He's already prime. My point is, if you didn't know that you could lose the power with a blood transfusion, would he know that it felt different in a way that
• 2:46
  Speaker B: meant he had assume that he felt different because like he had a blood transfusion.
• 2:51
  Speaker A: Right. Yeah. So I don't know if that necessarily tracks for Rita. Because ostensibly she might not know. Again, if she would know, she would have to have known because the scientist guy would have figured it out somehow. But I don't know. Yeah, or maybe. Or maybe you could. Maybe it is literally such a specific. But that doesn't track kind of with the rest of the movie where it doesn't seem like, I don't know. I don't. Yeah. It wouldn't surprise me if. I don't know how I was going to say it, but I think he was primed to feel the difference so he could feel that he didn't have the power anymore. I don't know. If you didn't know, oh, I will lose this thing that I had. If that indifference would be noticeable enough.
• 3:31
  Speaker B: Right?
• 3:31
  Speaker A: Or. Or even if you notice the difference, if you would know that that necessarily meant even if you noticed there was a difference, would you assume. Would you assume, oh, that means I no longer have looping power.
• 3:42
  Speaker B: Go back in time.
• 3:43
  Speaker A: Yeah, exactly. I don't. Maybe. I don't know. Because it's sci fi and we can't be in their heads. So who knows? Maybe they literally had like a very strong internal feeling of like, oh, I no longer have this power. Maybe. But yeah.
• 3:55
  Speaker B: Our next comment was from Johnny diamond, who said, I'm sorry, I can't help you on the antenna front, Brian.
• 4:03
  Speaker A: This is a recurring theme which made me feel a little bit better, I will be honest that everybody else was like, I have no idea. I was like, okay, thank God I'm not just dumb. If everybody was like, duh, it's obvious. That would have made me feel stupid.
• 4:14
  Speaker B: But I had that same feeling, like I was missing a chapter or something. Could be something lost in translation, or I may just be dumb too. But I went back to those sections a couple times. And while I can get the overall networked computer's concept enough to not be totally lost, it never feels well explained or concrete enough to feel satisfying.
• 4:36
  Speaker A: There's enough there that I'm like, ah, I kind of get the idea. Like, I'm like, it was enough that I was willing to, like, look past it. And like, I was like, I kind of get it. It's like network and blah, blah, blah, backs up and whatever. Like, I kind of get what they're going for. It was really mainly the antenna thing that felt like it came out of nowhere. Like, and like you said, like, I had missed a chapter where that concept was introduced. And I was like, what?
• 4:57
  Speaker B: I also usually give a work of fiction credit for trying something new, even if the execution falls a little short. Unfortunately, this book had too many of those interesting elements that were introduced and then didn't go anywhere. Like rockets that leave the ground only to fail to light their second stage to make it into orbit that I had to start taking points off.
• 5:18
  Speaker A: I hope you wrote that comment after I think you did after the Artist launch. Otherwise you're tempting fate there. They had no issues though, so we're good.
• 5:28
  Speaker B: While I've certainly come across far worse instances of the boobs boobing boobly, yes,
• 5:33
  Speaker A: it was not the worst by any
• 5:34
  Speaker B: stretch style of writing, having that show up at all on top of the above misfires didn't help matters. I can't quite give the book a pass on its portrayal of women, even if the POV character is an angsty 18 year old.
• 5:48
  Speaker A: Yeah, I mentioned that mainly as like a slight because I do think there's and that's maybe a broader discussion. I do think there's an interesting discussion to be had about writing a character like this to have angsty 18 year old thoughts while also making sure, well like can you do that in a way that feels true and authentic while also not feeling like you're endorsing said shitty 18 year old hormonal dude thoughts? You know what I mean? Like I don't know and I don't think this book even cared to try. But I do wonder like I would be interested to see and obviously we talk about that and stuff all the time that like there's tons of media that where that depicts characters with shitty shitty perspectives and stuff. But I do think in this particular instance there is something really interesting about like if you're trying to capture that in your protagonist. But yeah, then I think you just need to comment on it at some point you need to have the other characters call it out or something like that, which this book just never does.
• 6:49
  Speaker B: The movie on the other hand knows what it is capable of a sci fi action romp and it excels in that lane. All the expected tropes of the genre are there and well done. And some elements like Cage's insertion into the story as an unwilling coward are a great are a great twist that added actual value. While I wish they could found a way to do something other than yet another storming Normandy riff than with a white guy lead. I'm glad they at least made the changes to Cage. They did. If he'd just been a whitewashed version of Was it Kaiji?
• 7:25
  Speaker A: That's how I pronounced it. I don't know.
• 7:26
  Speaker B: Yeah, that would have tacked too much toward cliche. And I don't think the movie would be half as fun. Keeping the original setting of Japan and or diverse leads would have been worth an effort. But if Hollywood is going to Hollywood, this motivation switcheroo at least had some upside. The romance may be tacked on and the ending a little too neat. But I give this to the movie.
• 7:48
  Speaker A: Yeah, again, pretty much echoes my thoughts almost exactly. I just going back to the pronunciation of Kaiji's name, I actually don't know how to pronounce it because I will say I thought it was interesting in the book I mentioned that at the end the killer Cage is. Is like scrawled onto his armor. That's like the nickname the other soldiers give him after his whole big murder spree at the end killing all the other mimics. And he says that that was how the Americans pronounced his name, which is interesting because I. Kaiji is not, I guess, like that's not like it's close in their misprint. You know what I mean? It's not like Kaiji is hard to say for an American or something like that where you would say Cage. So I don't know, maybe there is like. Maybe it is like cagey or Cage. Maybe there's some subtle nuance when it's pronounced in Japanese that it's closer to the word cage perhaps than we. I. I don't know. I'm just. I thought that was interesting.
• 8:41
  Speaker B: Our next comment was from Kelly Napier who said, for once I'm going to be brief in my comments. Not because I don't have a lot to say, but because life is lifing and I can't form many coherent thoughts these days. That's fair. I did enjoy reading the book, but I voted for the movie for a lot of the reasons Brian preferred it. The movie did a better job with the frame for the story and by.
• 9:04
  Speaker A: Sorry.
• 9:04
  Speaker B: And by changing some details on how the looping worked made it just a little more comprehendable. The one detail I did prefer in the book was how the main character wrote the number of each loop he was in on his hand. I thought it was a cool through line that would have been easy to do in the movie and I found myself missing it.
• 9:22
  Speaker A: Yeah, that was a fun little detail and I am surprised they didn't. My only guess would be that that's one of those things that if they include that detail, you could fix it digitally, obviously. But if you include it practically, like he actually has it written on his hand on each loop, you can't then in the edit as easily move things around wherever you want. So like there's like. There's some of them where they're like a certain gag may have happened in the original script. They may have had the part where he gets run over by the truck happen on a certain day and then they moved. You know what I mean? Like you can move stuff around a lot easier without an obvious signifier like that. Again. Now that being said, it's not hard to digitally alter that in a movie to but it's extra work for no major payoff other than thing. The other thing I guess you could do is that just have not have it be visible most of the time and only show it in a couple scenes where you want to like show that he is doing that. But most of the time it's like under his sleeve or something. So you just.
• 10:22
  Speaker B: That would be another way to pull that off.
• 10:23
  Speaker A: So. Oh, I. And hold on, I want to. Apparently kaiji or however you pronounce this. We're about to find out is. Is the Japanese word for respect, challenging or intriguing. So let's dive into today's word keiji, which means keiji. So it is. It's keiji instead of keiji. All right.
• 10:43
  Speaker B: Okay, our next comment was from silver haired, middle aged Tuxedo mask. Yes. Who said I loved the movie and tried starting the officially translated novel to see what the differences are, but it just didn't hook me. So I never finished it. However, I do think the actual movie is one of the best sci fi action films of the past 15, I assume years. So maybe I'm just biased, but I definitely give it to the movie.
• 11:11
  Speaker A: I would have to look at a list of sci fi films from the past 15 years. Now he specifically clarified sci fi action films.
• 11:17
  Speaker B: Right.
• 11:18
  Speaker A: And that might be true. I would have to think about it. I think it's a pretty good sci fi action movie. I don't know. I would have to see a list.
• 11:25
  Speaker B: But on a side note, I wonder if all the chest talk in the light novel is because of trying to predict the inevitable manga anime adaptation. Getting all those marketable character designs in there and such.
• 11:39
  Speaker A: Yeah.
• 11:40
  Speaker B: The potato lady would probably be a popular character on the Internet.
• 11:44
  Speaker A: Yeah. It also could just be that. Yeah, I think it's. I mean it's classic sci fi thing generally, but also in a. In a. You know, it's just a popular thing generally and you know, like a young adult to describe a young adult novel to describe the love interests, potential love interests in a way that is sexually appealing to the reader. You know what I mean? Like, there is that element of it as well.
• 12:09
  Speaker B: I feel like I'm going to have to go back to Barnes and Noble and flip through the. The manga and see if I can find potato lady. See if she jumps out at me.
• 12:20
  Speaker A: Her name's Rachel. If you do see her.
• 12:22
  Speaker B: Okay.
• 12:22
  Speaker A: Or do you see the book?
• 12:23
  Speaker B: I mean, I'm assuming if I go and, like, flip through the pages of the book, eventually I'll see someone that I'm like, ah, that must be.
• 12:29
  Speaker A: You should see a part where he runs into a cart full of potatoes and knocks it over. Potatoes go over the ground. The woman pushing the cart is Rachel. The potato lady.
• 12:37
  Speaker B: Potato lady. I'm gonna investigate that. Our next comment was from Charlene, who said, I agree with Brian that a series of fuck it loops could have been fun, but maybe it would have felt too, I don't know, indulgent, like to keep everyone else dying in this war, even if it does ultimately get reset while doing something frivolous like that. I know it's just a popcorn movie, but that may have been a consideration. Who knows? The montage of her killing him sort of fills that comedic role while also being in service of his training and improving so they can win the war.
• 13:13
  Speaker A: I agree in the movie that I think it may have tonally felt a little weird again because my pushback to that was going to be. Well, I feel like the montage of her just shooting him over and over again kind of similarly trivializes everything going on there in a way that I think would be similar to that, but it's maybe a little less so. I think the bigger thing is it just. It would feel so. I don't think you could convince Tom Cruise to do that in a role. It just feels so weird for a character played by Tom Cruise to, like, go on a bender. At least modern day Tom Cruise. You know what I mean? It just doesn't. It's just like, not his thing.
• 13:51
  Speaker B: Right.
• 13:52
  Speaker A: Maybe back in like his magnolia days or something. But like, today I just. Yeah, I don't think Tom Cruise is doing that. It's just not. You know, this is played. If this character were played by Chris Pratt, sure, probably you could get. Maybe they would write that scene in which, good Lord, if it had been made today, it would have been Chris Pratt in that role, which would be awful. I don't even dislike Chris Pratt generally. I think he can be good when he's used properly, but good Lord, he's in too much Stuff.
• 14:20
  Speaker B: Our next comment was from Nathan, who said, I'm reluctantly going with the book and it's looking like I might be alone in this take. I don't disagree with Brian that the book really falls apart at the end. And honestly, I would trace the collapse to even earlier than the last 20 pages.
• 14:39
  Speaker A: Probably true. I was estimating.
• 14:41
  Speaker B: I think Rita asking what loop he is on was the last really good moment.
• 14:45
  Speaker A: That sounds right in my head from about when I started feeling like eh, with the book.
• 14:52
  Speaker B: I wanted them to have a full conversation about what they had both been through in the loops. But instead we just get her backstory. Like obviously we need that, but it would have been more interesting if it had been in conversation form so that he could talk back. And also we would avoid the weird perspective shift.
• 15:08
  Speaker A: That also would be interesting because it definitely would have added to their relationship for her. Like, even if you want to do it a similar way, but like where we. It's more like a flashback, like how the book does it or however. But I do think him learning her backstory would have helped make their relationship more compelling if he knew about like why she was like, she is. We do as the reader, but like he has no idea anything about her backstory.
• 15:33
  Speaker B: So I agree that the whole goal for leaving the loop is also very unclear. In my head, it just became destroy
• 15:40
  Speaker A: all the mimics, essentially.
• 15:42
  Speaker B: Yeah. I really don't think Rita had to kill Hendricks to escape a loop because if she knew that was necessary, why would she have let Kate AD beat the whole mimic squad on the penultimate, penultimate day, knowing it wouldn't actually work?
• 15:56
  Speaker A: That's a fair point. I forgot about that. That they do a thing thinking they know it's going to work. So she shouldn't have known all along. That and somebody else had a comment that I, I, I that was. We'll get to it on the next comment about the whole Hendrix thing.
• 16:12
  Speaker B: We'll get to that later. Okay. On the positive side, I thought the message of the book was very clear and way more interesting than the movie. The the book was firmly war sucks. And it would still suck if you played it like a video game. Because those rando NPCs whose deaths you don't worry about are real people who, if you don't save them the last time, are really permanently dead. No matter how hard you try to save everyone, some folks will end up dead the last time through the loop. I think making him have to kill Rita is a very sloppy attempt to nail home the idea that there are no Happy Endings. But it could have been done way more effectively by making him choose between saving her and defeating the mimics. Of course, then you are fridging Rita. So maybe he was trying to mitigate that issue.
• 16:56
  Speaker A: I mean, you're still fridging Rita. You're just making. I think you're fridging instead of.
• 17:01
  Speaker B: Yeah, either way, it definitely doesn't work as is. But I like the idea of the book's message. I didn't get any of the war is cool vibe that Brian mentioned. It always seemed at best tedious, grinding to improve, and at worst actively traumatic.
• 17:17
  Speaker A: I don't disagree with that entirely. I think that messaging's there. Like I said, I think there is messaging there. And I think your overall summary of war sucks. And it would still suck if you played it like a video game because the random NPCs, who's who die that you don't worry about are actually real people. I think that's all there and I agree with that. The issue is that when you say I didn't get any of the world's cool vibe that Brian mentioned, it's not that the book thinks war is cool as a concept. I think the book is saying war sucks is bad. But it's muddled by the fact that it loves the aesthetic of war so much. Which this is a whole different discussion that people talk about all the times with like, can you truly make like an anti war film? Is it even possible? Because like most anti war films, even, even the most like kind of like decidedly and intentionally anti war films still kind of lend in like an aesthetic credibility to like the heroism and stuff like that that makes it seem cool or good or whatever. And in this instance in the book, I agree that the book is saying war is bad. War's brutal, cyclical, never ending hell or whatever. That is all kind of there. Like that's there in the book. The issue is that it thinks all of the stuff that you do during war is so fucking cool and depicts it as so fucking cool and badass and fun that it, I think muddles that message. Like, I just think there's so much of like, isn't his giant war ax cool? Isn't the one liner he's saying cool? Isn't this also, at least that's how it reads to me, is like the author feels like this stuff is cool because he goes through writing all these things that he does as being very cool. I think the book is obsessed with like the esthetics of war in a way that again, Kind of messes up the war is bad Messaging is kind of my ultimate take on it and why it felt like it wasn't really saying anything to me.
• 19:16
  Speaker B: I was gonna say First Blood, but obviously First Blood then got so misunderstood
• 19:24
  Speaker A: that maybe it doesn't succeed in that either. That's a great example of it. Of that thing of people talking about, like, can you truly make an anti war film? And it's. It. Because it's like, well, obviously what? You know, like, we watched First Blood and we're like, holy shit. This is obviously anti war and like a very progressive film in a lot of ways. In. In almost every way. But. But tons of people go.
• 19:47
  Speaker B: But tons of people go, Rambo, shirtless
• 19:49
  Speaker A: guy, Machine Gun, like. And again, sometimes they're thinking about later movies where the message did change. From my understanding. I haven't seen those. But even still, people think of the.
• 19:58
  Speaker B: Clearly, there was some kind of disconnect somewhere along the line there for people to take First Blood and then turn
• 20:04
  Speaker A: it into cool action man movie. Yeah. No. 100. And. And that's. And that's. It's because the aesthetics of war, the aesthetics of violence are so ingrained in our culture as being a cool thing that it's. Yeah. And so there is like a. And. And I think that can even be fine. Like I said, I don't even have a problem with the movie kind of embracing the aesthetics of war. I have no problem with it at all. I think that's one of the reasons, like, that's why the movie is cool. I like the movie because I think it's a cool action war movie. But I just think in the book it gets a little. Especially for something aimed at a younger audience. It's one thing, like, if it's aimed at, like, because this is a light novel, I assume the target audience is in the age of the character. This is aimed at, like, teenagers. I just think. I worry that the. The book is so obsessed and so into the esthetics of all of this technology and all the cool parts of war that I think a younger reader would definitely miss. The war is bad messaging.
• 21:04
  Speaker B: Yeah. Well, especially if the ending is as messy.
• 21:08
  Speaker A: Yeah. And that's the other thing, is that it's not particularly well executed on top of being.
• 21:13
  Speaker B: Because I. Because I do think that you could potentially, like, you could have a story that has those, like, badass elements and then, like, pull the rug at the end.
• 21:25
  Speaker A: Absolutely.
• 21:26
  Speaker B: But it doesn't sound like the novel
• 21:28
  Speaker A: succeeded well, because I was. Another thought I had actually, that I forgot to mention on that main episode was that one of the things I was concerned with after we. I don't think I mentioned on the main episode because I might have had this thought after we recorded or something. I was like, boy, I wonder if I misinterpreted this whole thing. And this whole thing's like a Starship Troopers thing. Because you can say the same thing about Starship Troopers. That is very much like the movie specifically I'm talking about here that like the aesthetics of what is going on in Starship Troopers is like cool sci fi war movie stuff. But what it's depicting is. And it's a kind of a similar thing. And so I was like, what makes Starship Troopers work? To me, Whereas this doesn't in the sense. You know what I mean? And to me it just doesn't feel like. And I think part of it is that even the cool parts there are played so over the top comically and like, it just feels like they're not taking. That's the big difference. The big difference is that in Starship Troopers, when I watch it, even the cool like aesthetic war stuff feels like it's not taking itself seriously.
• 22:31
  Speaker B: Yeah.
• 22:32
  Speaker A: Whereas in this book, the cool badass war aesthetic stuff felt to me like the author was taking that seriously and like actually does genuinely think all that stuff's really cool. Whereas I don't think, I can't remember, the director of, of Starship Troopers actually thinks all that stuff is cool. Or maybe he does in some regard. I don't know. It's complicated. It's. I, I will fully admit that it is kind of complicated, but there was just something about the way the book was written that it didn't feel and to your point, like that. And there was no. Because that's another way you could do it. Even if it's not like an out and out satire like Starship Troopers, you could do another thing where it is like this, like you're setting up like this cool aesthetic of war and making it all seem very cool and badass. But then there is like more of a rug pull that makes it feel like, oh, shit, that was all a facade. But it's so interwoven back and forth between like, war is hell, grimy, sucky, like from moment one. The very first depiction of battle in this is horrifying. And like he watches his friend die and it's, it is like the classic, like, war is miserable, hell, brutal. We should do everything we can to avoid war. That's like the very first battle in this, the book. And so there is no rug pull moment later because it's establishes that immediately. But then goes on to also be like, but aren't these jackets pretty cool? Isn't it pretty cool that he has this sick ass warhammer? And isn't it kind of cool that like he kind of like met his dream girl through this, but then he had to kill her? Well, like, it just feel. I don't know. It's so. It's hard to describe. I just. It didn't. The way the. The. The thematic tonality of it all just didn't quite add up to me in a way that worked so. But I could understand why it might work for somebody because I could talk myself in circles about it. Clearly. Clearly.
• 24:23
  Speaker B: Okay, back to Nathan's comment. The best part of the book, which really departs from the movie is the idea that the Mimics are learning too. The way the final battle comes to Keiji really shifts the stakes and makes it really feel like even with the looping, he might lose.
• 24:39
  Speaker A: That is a point that I think is true, is that in the book it is definitely they are learning from the loops in a way that feels more like. Isn't really depicted in the movie.
• 24:49
  Speaker B: I'm not clear how he could lose, similar to how. I'm not clear how he could win. But both seem possible in the movie. It seems inevitable that Cage will eventually win unless he somehow stumbles into getting a blood transfusion, which wouldn't even be the Mimics beating him.
• 25:07
  Speaker A: But to be fair, for most of the book, I felt the same way until we get to the end. I don't know. I will say for most of the book, because there's literally no way that I was aware of for the entirety of the book for him to lose this power. Yeah, I was like, well, he can't lose. Like there's ultimately he's gonna figure out a way to defeat. You know what I mean? I felt that way in the book. Like he has to.
• 25:30
  Speaker B: Right. Because if he can't lose it, if he can't lose the power, you just keep it unending, seemingly. Which I guess would be a way to.
• 25:37
  Speaker A: Yes, seemingly. And again, his point is that. Well, in the book, the. The it's more clear that the Mimics are also learning from their loops.
• 25:45
  Speaker B: Right.
• 25:45
  Speaker A: And so they like for instance, the final battle, when they attack, they ambush them at the base, which has never happened before. They always fight somewhere else, but this time they do this ambush at the base. And so like there is this element of like the mimics kind of learning and adapting. But again, it doesn't matter because they just. Okay, they kill him and then he starts over again. And so like, it never. Like, I didn't feel either way. Like in the book. I actually felt like there were slightly more stakes in the movie. Because you knew there is a way that this could end without him winning, which is that he gets injured and gets a blood transfusion.
• 26:20
  Speaker B: As far as the movie, I think it's a profoundly mediocre action war film. I had heard good things about its hook, raising it above the normal level of such things, but that was not my experience. I think Tom Cruise is too slick to effectively play low status at the beginning. So the transition didn't really work for me.
• 26:40
  Speaker A: I thought he was perfect. I think that's what makes it work is that he is so slick and you're so used to seeing Tom Cruise play cool guy. Cool guy that he's trying to cool Guy his way out of it. Especially in those first couple loops. He's trying to cool guy Tom Cruise his way out of this situation and it just doesn't work.
• 26:58
  Speaker B: Yeah, he just can't.
• 26:58
  Speaker A: He can't. Which I thought was really compelling and actually think was what makes Tom Cruise really work in that role playing low status. Because again, it's so counter to what he does or to what he normally does. And he tries to Tom Cruise his way out of it and can't.
• 27:13
  Speaker B: Aside from Rita, there were no other characters I cared about dying. So it didn't grip me emotionally at all. The film aims low and to my eye, doesn't really achieve even that. All in all, I give the book the win for trying something interesting, even if it kind of whiffed. Finally, I think that Rita knew she had left the loop because she stopped having the associated visions. I got the sense that the visions were a repeated part of things after they started.
• 27:40
  Speaker A: Yeah, that could be too. That's another element of it, apart from the like, I can feel it thing that he says. Also, it's just. Yeah, they have the visions and they said they become more and more frequent. Like the longer they're doing the. Or at least I thought that's what they said. Also in the book, it's specifically mentioned, which I can't remember if the movie does this, is that they start getting migraines, like horrible headaches. The longer they've been.
• 28:02
  Speaker B: I don't remember that being in the movie.
• 28:04
  Speaker A: And so.
• 28:04
  Speaker B: Yeah, okay. Our last comment on Patreon was from Cottonwood. Steve, who said, I'm going to say I prefer the movie instead. Even though the art in the original manga is pretty darn impressive and the story seems a little more hard sci fi rather than Hollywood sci fi.
• 28:26
  Speaker A: I. It's. Well, I didn't read the manga to be fair, but from what I've heard, it's pretty similar. But the. It's. It's. I don't think it's any harder sci fi. I think it tries to be at times in terms of some of its. Some of the things in it. But I think overall it felt. The book felt very. I was like, oh yeah, this is gonna. This should. Obviously this was turned into a movie. Like it felt like reading a movie to me. Like it felt pretty Hollywood. Again. The big kind of. It felt even more Hollywood in some ways. Again with the big like, oh, we have to have our two protagonists fight each other for seemingly no real reason. Kind of out of nowhere. Like it felt, you know, a lot of some of the decisions felt like decisions made for spectacle and whatever, as opposed to actual like strict, like narrative driven decisions or like strict adherence to like the rules of the universe. You've said. You know what I mean? It felt less like he was worried about that. So in that way, I'd almost say it felt less hard sci fi than the movie. They're both kind of like, meh wishy washy.
• 29:26
  Speaker B: Yeah. Two things really bring me in with this movie, and I cannot stress this enough. It actually takes the time to illustrate progression. Cruise, who I always felt is a smarmy PR guy in regards to Scientology, plays the perfect lobbyist for a bullshit untested technology. He is the Advocare salesman of the future, so to speak. The movie takes the time to show him train, fail, and even grow a little as a person. He gains real empathy, which is the perfect foil to Rita. She is the hardcore killer out of tragedy, not happenstance. It's interesting to see how both take on a different approach to the looping. And it's until Cage finally accepts Rita's point of view that he discovers the truth.
• 30:11
  Speaker A: Truth.
• 30:12
  Speaker B: I love this because it's character development through implied actions and nuance rather than being spelled out. At least that was how I looked at it. Now the book's explanation and final chapter is a little murky, but basically Rita implies that someday someone is going to have to kill Keiji as well. Yeah, while it was not spelled out all that well, the way I see it, the explanation of how the mimic's work was done so more books could possibly be made Edge of Tomorrow clearly needed an end.
• 30:42
  Speaker A: That's interesting because I almost felt, yeah, the movie definitely. Yeah, I could argue. You could argue the movie has a more concrete ending. No, it definitely does.
• 30:51
  Speaker B: Yeah, it definitely does.
• 30:52
  Speaker A: The mimics are all dead. Yeah. In the or seemingly all dead. In the book. Yeah. There's no the war is not over. It's ongoing.
• 31:00
  Speaker B: Beyond that, I really respect the care and world building the film put into this. J Squad is a bunch of ragtags and one can imply the humans are losing the war because we infer.
• 31:11
  Speaker A: I'm a big, I'm a big stickler for implying for. Mainly because I always used to get it mixed up. So I go back, I constantly check in my head which one I'm using.
• 31:19
  Speaker B: Okay. J Squad is a bunch of ragtags and one can infer the humans are losing the war because we have a real world example of this happening as Russia is sending prisoners, mentally disabled, and other outsiders to the front line as the attrition of a losing battle is catching up to them. I think this is why it made sense that Cage got sent to the front lines because what's the point of putting him in jail for a decade when the human race might not exist after tomorrow? That's fair. Anyway, I adore this movie because it is fun enough for a guilty pleasure and has enough hard sci fi where I won't complain about the mechanics of the time looping unless I get a few IPAs or some wine in me. I'm still looking forward to the new anime all youl Need Is Kill, where it seems to take on a different perspective with Rita as the main character, but it could just be a gender swap. I don't know. I'm trying to stay away from the plot rundown because this anime takes on a much more surreal and colorful take on the story.
• 32:17
  Speaker A: Yeah, I, I, I think it's out. Or I don't know if it's out in America.
• 32:20
  Speaker B: Yeah, I think it is.
• 32:21
  Speaker A: I thought it came out, but I,
• 32:22
  Speaker B: I didn't look up anything about it, so I don't, I don't know any of the details.
• 32:26
  Speaker A: Cool. Thank you, Steve.
• 32:29
  Speaker B: Over on Facebook, we had seven votes for the movie and one for the book. And we had a comment from James who said, I will preface by saying I haven't read the book, but damn, I can't see it being better than the movie. We didn't have any comments on Instagram, but we had one vote for the movie and two for the book. The two has an asterisk because one of those votes was from Tim Wahoo.
• 32:56
  Speaker A: So not a real vote.
• 32:57
  Speaker B: Not a real vote. And on Goodreads, we had one vote for the movie, zero for the book, and we had our comment from Mikko, who said, I've genuinely tried to understand the time loop mechanics of this book for two weeks straight now.
• 33:16
  Speaker A: You have no idea how good it felt to read that sentence, because it
• 33:20
  Speaker B: immediately made me go, if Miko can't understand this, nobody can.
• 33:25
  Speaker A: Miko can't parse this as a problem with the book. That's not on me.
• 33:33
  Speaker B: I've even read the manga and the original spec script, trying to find answers. While the translation might make the issue somewhat worse, I found plenty of Japanese forums where people were asking for help trying to understand the ending.
• 33:46
  Speaker A: Okay, so it's not purely a translation issue.
• 33:50
  Speaker B: First two notes after the blood transfusion, Cage says, I lost the power. I can feel it. Presumably Rita could feel losing hers the same way.
• 34:00
  Speaker A: Yeah, yeah, it's reasonable. It's just what we discussed earlier. Yeah.
• 34:05
  Speaker B: Two, Rita says she killed Hendrix in the novel, but in the sense that she ended the loop in a version of the battle where Hendricks happened to die, rendering it final. Hendricks was never part of the Mimic network quote. When Rita finally broke out of the loop and reached the future, she learned that Arthur Hendricks had died. He was one of 28,000 killed in the battle. End quote.
• 34:28
  Speaker A: I had forgotten about that. And I. Like, I said, I had retroactively. Retroactively had, like, an epiphany of, like, oh, maybe while reading the book, I did not think that she had actually killed Hendrix. But then as I thought back on it after we were like, what? I had watched the movie and was like. And we were discussing it, I had, like, the thought, like, oh, maybe that's what she meant when she said she killed Hendrix is that she actually killed him. Because I was like, that would at least give me more. I was trying to, like, help add motivation or understanding to the final battle of why she figures out she needs to be killed or whatever.
• 35:04
  Speaker B: Yeah.
• 35:04
  Speaker A: And so I was like, oh, maybe she figured that out with Hendrix earlier. But then again, as other people said, it doesn't really add up, so it doesn't really make sense. And so, yeah, when she says she killed Hendrix, what she meant is she. She killed him by saving or by ending the loop or whatever on one where he did not survive or whatever. Yeah.
• 35:24
  Speaker B: The manga actually does this differently, and Hendrix survives every loop except the final one, really amplifying Rita's guilt.
• 35:31
  Speaker A: Okay, Quilt quilt.
• 35:37
  Speaker B: Okay, the book's ending. Here's my best interpretation of what's going on.
• 35:41
  Speaker A: Oh, boy.
• 35:42
  Speaker B: Rita tells Keiji, quote, our brains adapt. We become the antennas. If you become an antenna, the mimics will still be able to loop. I'm an antenna. End quote. Yeah, but as she's bleeding out, she says, you don't have a choice. You have to break out of the loop before what happened to me happens to you. End this goddamn thing while you still can. End quote. And, yes, I went and translated the original book to confirm what is said. And the straight translation?
• 36:13
  Speaker A: We'll have to put Mikko on the payroll at some point.
• 36:16
  Speaker B: The straight translation is, quote, this loop must be broken before your brain becomes like mine. End quote. Rita has gone through over 211 loops compared to Keiji's 159. So presumably, while he is part of the network, he hasn't yet turned into a fully working antenna.
• 36:37
  Speaker A: Sure.
• 36:37
  Speaker B: Unlike Rita, who has just reached the critical point.
• 36:40
  Speaker A: That's a lot of inference that you have to do to get to that. Understand? I'm not even saying it's wrong. I'm just saying, boy, that's. The book's asking a lot of you to parse that from the information it gives you.
• 36:51
  Speaker B: In my opinion, this makes me draw only one conclusion. Rita lies when she says only one of them can escape the loop.
• 36:59
  Speaker A: Really?
• 37:00
  Speaker B: Exclamation mark.
• 37:01
  Speaker A: Okay.
• 37:02
  Speaker B: In actuality, Rita cannot survive and Keiji cannot die. Rita has decided to end it all. Quote. When I met Rita yesterday, she had decided she was going to die. I didn't recognize it for what it was at the time. End quote.
• 37:16
  Speaker A: Yeah, I didn't mention that, but there is that. I forgot about that little part.
• 37:20
  Speaker B: So she lies, forcing the fight, and simultaneously gets to die. Test Keiji's skills as her replacement and end the loop. I still don't think this is 100% airtight, but I honestly doubt Sakurazaka thought this through.
• 37:35
  Speaker A: That makes the most sense that he didn't think it through and that you're trying to pick up the pieces. But, I mean, your explanation makes as much sense as anything I've. I was able to come up with, which, to be fair, wasn't much because I just was like, oh, I'm gonna stop thinking about this. I don't care.
• 37:50
  Speaker B: While I wouldn't call the book bad, I think the movie made the story better in basically every way. Yes, the editing really sells the looping and shows Cage improving incrementally, giving him an arc. It has a clear goal Raises the stakes by kicking him out of the loop before the finale, has much clearer time travel rules and isn't weird about its female characters.
• 38:11
  Speaker A: I mean, yeah, yeah. I would say yeah entirely. Even. Even with we can. We're allowed to look respectfully at Emily Blunt doing a sweaty push up four or five times.
• 38:21
  Speaker B: Respectfully.
• 38:22
  Speaker A: It's not always the male gaze. Just because we're looking at a hot woman doing sweaty push ups.
• 38:27
  Speaker B: The book also doesn't feel that well written. For example, the three page subchapter explaining the origin of the aliens is written in a totally different voice than the rest of the story. Keiji's chapters are in first person limited, Rita's in third person limited. But that info dump brings in a hitherto unseen narrator voice and addresses the reader. Quote, on the next clear night, look up in the direction of the constellation humanity calls Cancer. End quote. Why it feels so out of place for one chapter you don't even need.
• 38:59
  Speaker A: I should have mentioned that because this goes in line with my other thing where it's like where we get the perspectives shift on Rita's chapter chapter, but not on the Major Ferals chapter, which felt really confusing. But yes, there's also the like where we get a narrator who literally starts talking to you briefly and I'm like, wait, that's also not its own. Like it's in the middle of the Rita chapter, I think. Or might be in the middle of the Sergeant Feral or the Major Feral chapter. It's in the middle of just some other like character's chapter. It's not like it would be one. Like, it's that. It's. It's almost like a thing that he realized he should have written at the beginning of the book as like a prologue.
• 39:37
  Speaker B: Yeah.
• 39:37
  Speaker A: But then like decided to just put it in the book. Left it like some reason. He. He like wrote it in the. He's like, oh, I should write this. And then like wrote it as he was writing in the middle of the book and then forgot to move it to be a prologue and just like left it in the middle and you're like, wait, what's going on here? Okay.
• 39:55
  Speaker B: The manga is also much better than the light novel, despite being almost a one to one adaptation. Okay. But between the book and the MO movie, the movie wins.
• 40:05
  Speaker A: Fair enough. Thank you MO for all of your work. And also mirroring my opinions almost exactly. Always, like when that happens, like having my opinions reinforced by somebody else telling me that I'm right. I'm. I'm only human.
• 40:20
  Speaker B: So our Winner this week was the movie with 14 votes to the books 4.
• 40:27
  Speaker A: Fantastic. Katie, it's now time to preview. It ends with us, the book.
• 40:35
  Speaker B: Hey, Lily, you want to do the honors?
• 40:38
  Speaker A: No, you go ahead. I. I need to take it in from here.
• 40:40
  Speaker B: I was hoping you'd say that. Okay. Oh, my God. Oh, that's my brother Ryle, the first official customer. Well, you'd have to buy something to be considered a customer. Right now you're just loitering. We all have an idea of what love can be.
• 41:00
  Speaker A: I want to see you again. Now you see me. You know what I mean.
• 41:05
  Speaker B: It Ends with us is a 2016 romance novel by American author Colleen Hoover. The novel explores themes of domestic and emotional abuse. Hoover has stated that it is based on the relationship between her mother and her father, describing it as the hardest book I've ever written. However, the book's publisher, Atria Books, still billed it as a romance novel, describing it as a story about a workholic with a too good to be true romance who can't stop thinking about her first love. Which, insofar as much as I've read, I guess that's true. Yeah, I guess that's an accurate description. I don't know, but I feel like we're leaving out some important things.
• 41:54
  Speaker A: We'll get to it. I know almost nothing about the actual book. I know a little bit about the extraneous stuff, but I know almost literally nothing about the actual, like, plot of the book. Yeah, I know some of the characters
• 42:04
  Speaker B: names, but so I have a couple pull quotes from reviews. These are from, like 2016, 2017, when the book. So they're contemporary to the book's publication. In a starred review, Kirkus Reviews wrote, quote, the relationships are portrayed with compassion and honesty, end quote, and concluded that the novel, quote, powerfully illustrates the devastation of abuse and the strength of survivors. Now, per their website, Kirkus only gives stars to about 10% of the books that they review.
• 42:38
  Speaker A: So, yeah, we got their stuff.
• 42:40
  Speaker B: So they liked it. Kirkus liked it. And then Trisha Carr, writing for Romantic Times, said it ends with us as a perfect example of the author's writing chops and her ability to weave together uplifting romantic and somber plot lines. No matter your level of fandom, readers will love and respect protagonist Lily and learn something from her struggles. So the book was initially successful. As of 2019, it had sold more than 1 million copies worldwide, been translated into more than 20 languages. It also won the 2016 Goodreads Choice Award for best romance. But the reason that I wanted to note that those review quotes were contemporary to its publication is because in 2021 the novel and Hoover's works overall experienced a huge surge in popularity thanks to Book Talk, which if you're not familiar with the term, is the like book reading community on TikTok. Like very, very generally, very broadly. So it's huge surge in popularity over on BookTok accruing over 1 billion tags on TikTok due to that attention. It Ends With Us was number one on the New York Times combined Fiction bestseller list in January of 2022. It was number one on the publisher's weekly adult list for the first six months of 2022. And it was the best selling novel of 2023 again, per publishers Weekly. So this is years after it was published. It just like popped off.
• 44:23
  Speaker A: Yeah.
• 44:24
  Speaker B: So then because of that popularity we had, we got, we got a couple other things out of that. A sequel called It Starts With Us was published in October of 2022. In April of 2023, a special collector's edition of the book was published which features a Q and A between Hoover and her mother. And it's a hardcover that comes with like a fancy foil embossed jacket and foil stamped binding and new endpapers and all kinds of cool stuff.
• 44:54
  Speaker A: Yeah.
• 44:55
  Speaker B: And then In January of 2023, Hoover announced the planned release of a coloring book based on It Ends With Us. However, there was a bunch of backlash to, to the novel subject matter and she decided to cancel the project apparently the next day, stating, quote, the coloring book was developed with Lily's strength in mind, but I can absolutely see how this was tone deaf.
• 45:22
  Speaker A: Interesting.
• 45:22
  Speaker B: So people were not into the idea.
• 45:24
  Speaker A: I wonder how much of that was. Well, no, that would have been early enough that it was before any of the movie stuff.
• 45:30
  Speaker B: So.
• 45:31
  Speaker A: Yeah, because that was, that was, that's. And we're not going to talk about it in detail, but for. That was a huge kind of sticking point in some of the whole stuff with Blake Lively.
• 45:41
  Speaker B: Yeah, there was a similar kind of
• 45:43
  Speaker A: snap of people feeling, which I don't necessarily entirely agree with, but we'll, we won't, we won't get to it and I'll explain why we'll get to it in part right now. Well, actually. Sorry, did you already say this last?
• 45:58
  Speaker B: Oh, no, I was just gonna say there's no other adaptations of this other than the 2024 film, so. So you're gonna tell us about that right now, that special connection you feel, that first kiss. But 15 seconds, that's all it takes to completely change everything.
• 46:26
  Speaker A: I'm so sorry. It ends with us. Plus is a 2024 film written by Christy hall, who wrote I am not okay with this, which is a TV show we watched. Yeah. And a film called Daddy O. And it was directed by Justin Baldoni, who directed an episode of Jane the Virgin, something called Five Feet Apart and something called Clouds. Not much. Mainly an actor. Primarily an actor and producer now, but wasn't much of a director. Like I said, he.
• 46:55
  Speaker B: I don't think I had ever heard of this before.
• 46:57
  Speaker A: I had never heard of him either. So one of the reasons he directed an episod of Jane the Virgin is. I think that's what, like, his most known from. Is that he was a main. Like a main character on Jane the Virgin.
• 47:07
  Speaker B: I never watched that.
• 47:07
  Speaker A: Yeah, I haven't watched it either, so. Or at least I don't know if main character is the right term. But he was prominently featured for multiple episodes on that show. So the show or the movie stars Blake Lively, Justin Baldoni, Jenny Slate, Hassan Minaj, and Brandon Sklenar, among others. Has a 55% on Rotten Tomatoes, a 53% on Metacritic, and a 6.3 out of 10 on IMDb and it made 351 million against a budget of 25 million. So huge financial success. So Justin Baldoni optioned the novel, as I mentioned, in July of 2019 to be produced through his company, Wayfarer Studios. And then In January of 2023, Blake Lively was cast in the role of Lily Bloom. So, getting into just a couple random fun facts before we get into some other stuff here. This is all IMDb fun facts. Young Lily's actress, Isabelle Ferrer, has a facial mole in the same place as Blake Lively's. And it's an actual mole. It wasn't a prosthetic. She just has that. While the film is based primarily in Boston, it was filmed in New Jersey in Hoboken and Jersey City. Thought this was interesting. Actress and activist Alexa Nicholas lambasted the soundtrack on Instagram for featuring a song by her abusive ex husband, Michael Milosh, founder and singer of the band Rye. I don't know any of the details or any of this surrounding this, but thought that was interesting. And then author cameo, Colleen Hoover has a cameo at Alyssa's birthday party scene. She's shown briefly, and then she can be seen again in the background.
• 48:39
  Speaker B: All right, we're gonna look out for
• 48:41
  Speaker A: Colleen Hoover birthday party. So. And then my final IMDb trivia fact that transitioned us into the other part, which, again, you guys are gonna be disappointed at how brief this is. Cause I'm not doing. We're not doing it. Colleen Hoover admitted that the highly publicized feud between Blake Lively and Justin Baldoni over made her regret writing the book in the first place. She explained, I can't even recommend it anymore. I feel like the lawsuit has overshadowed it. I'm almost as embarrassed to say I wrote it. When people ask what I do, I'm just like, I'm a writer. Please don't ask what I wrote. Which I thought was funny. That's why I included this. I just thought that quote was very funny. She said that the negative publicity has also affected her mother, quote. The book was inspired by her story, and now it gives us PTSD to think about it. I feel awful because I almost feel like she's gone through more with the aftermath math of this film. More pain than she went through with my dad. Just seeing the ugliness of it. The more time that passes, the easiest, easier everything gets for all of us. But it is sad because I was very proud of that book. I'm still proud of it, but less publicly. So maybe I need therapy. I don't know. Which. I thought. I. I don't know. I seemed.
• 49:43
  Speaker B: I mean, that sucks.
• 49:44
  Speaker A: Yeah, it is. Yeah. And that brings us to said controversy. I'm sure most people listening are aware, but there is a very public was Slash is a very public and very ongoing feud between Blake Lively and Justin Baldoni. We are not going to cover all of that here. There is simply too much, and it is far too complicated.
• 50:04
  Speaker B: And we're not that kind of.
• 50:05
  Speaker A: We're also not that kind of podcast, really. I have listened to dozens of hours of podcasting about this case, and I still don't feel remotely informed enough to really break it down. Part of that's because I'm listening to it while doing other. Yeah, not like actively engaging with every second of those podcasts, but. But I'll just say this based on the reporting and breakdowns that I have consumed, especially specifically from the podcast Gavel Gavel, which is a show run by people who I generally trust to do good research and come to unbiased conclusions and whose motivations I also generally trust because they're very progressive people who I know they aren't coming in. They're not like, conservatives or shitty people or whatever, who, you know, I trust their general motivations and things. This case seems to me to be kind of similar to the Amber Heard Johnny Depp case in terms of whose side I'm on meaning I am generally on Blake Lively side. Justin Baldoni even hired the same PR firm to help launder his reputation and stir up negative sentiment towards Blake Lively. Also, by the way, we're probably gonna get comments from people because the people on Dustin Baldoni side on this are.
• 51:11
  Speaker B: Yeah, boy. Yeah.
• 51:13
  Speaker A: Unhinged. Yeah. That is to say, I basically think Blake Lively is telling the truth. That doesn't mean I think every single thing she's said or done has been perfect by any stretch. But I also tire of feeling the need to caveat my support for someone that I think is likely a victim of sexual harassment because she was a bit cringe and self important. I also find that kind of exhausting, but which is the same thing with Amber. Heard of just like, you know, like, yes, we can caveat it a million times. Like, I understand that she probably wasn't perfect in that relationship, blah, blah, blah.
• 51:44
  Speaker B: Yeah.
• 51:45
  Speaker A: The villain in that situation was broadly, largely Johnny Depp. Yeah, I think the same thing is occurring here. It's a little bit different. He's not as bad as Johnny Depp was. He's not accused of like, you know, beating Blake Lively or anything horrible or like that. But I think he's just a creep. I think he's an asshole who's way more self important even than Blake Lively, which is impressive because she is. From everything I have consumed about this, as most. I assume Hollywood people are very self important, but he, he is even more so. Some of the stuff he said, it's. It's insane. And yeah, I just, I, like I said, I. I think he's broadly like an asshole. Who, him and his. And his production company, probably broadly. I agree with most of the stuff that I trust Blake Lively's recollection of events more than I trust theirs broadly. That doesn't mean on every single example. But yeah. And so if you. I would like I said I'll go back if you want to hear more about this. Gavel. Gavel literally did like 50 episodes on this where they covered like, oh, they went through everything. It's one of the reasons I don't really want to go into it because it consumed their podcast for like two years of like the only thing they could talk about going through hundreds of pages of court documents and reading texts between PR firms and it's just, it's exhausting and it's. Who cares? Like, I don't care. Like, and that's kind of what I've ultimately come down to. Him just like he sucks. Like, I, it's all too complicated for us to try to figure out or discuss on this show. I don't think the dust has settled really yet on it ultimately. And yeah, I think, I think you can figure out. Like I said, I think if you do the research yourself from trusted sources, you'll. You'll find come you'll figure out where to apportion your support as much as it matters. Because I know it's not like I'm. I don't support. I don't give a about Blake like whatever. She's a multi million. She's fine. She's fine. Like it's whatever. Anyways, I'm done talking about it. Let's get to some reviews of the movie. Wendy Ide of the observer gave the film three out of five stars, writing, quote, for a film that dips its Manolo clad toe into the murky waters of domestic abuse, it's unexpectedly aspirational, almost frothy in tone. The Globe and Mail's Joanna Schneller praised Lively's performance, saying, quote, beyond Naily's exact beyond nailing Lily's exact shade of auburn hair, funky sexy dress and vision notebook stuffed with flowers, she also conveys her luminousness and strength and reminds you how pleasurable it can be to watch a romantic thriller. Kevin Mayer of the Times gave it four out of five stars, calling it, quote, a glossy, sometimes soapy, but always compelling adaptation. End quote A couple reviews A little more critical Writing for the Atlantic, Hannah Georges said, quote, to young people who have become inured to the misery of modern life, there's a seductive premise in these novels. Relentless suffering can give way to freedom and hot sex. If women want it badly enough on screen, performed by real people, it's not as convincing. End quote. And then for the Sydney Morning Heralds, Sarah Sandra Then for the Sydney Morning Herald, Sandra hall gave the film two and a half out of five stars, saying, quote, it's packed with erotic cliches overlaid with a rolling soundtrack of pop hits that include songs by Taylor Swift and Lana Del Rey. And she called the dialogue riceable. Is that how you pronounce that word?
• 55:12
  Speaker B: I have no idea.
• 55:12
  Speaker A: Riceable. I think that's how you pronounce that board. Rsribl rsibl I'm pretty sure that's riceable. It's risable, according to Google. Risible.
• 55:24
  Speaker B: Yeah, risible.
• 55:25
  Speaker A: As always, you can do us a favor by hanging over to any of our social media platforms. Facebook, Instagram threads, Blue Sky, Goodreads. Any of those places interact. We'd love to hear what you have to say, Boy. Yeah, let us know. I guess I shouldn't have plugged social media on this one. And then you can support us by heading over to patreon.com thisfilmislit get access to bonus content, all kinds of good stuff at the $15 a month level. You get access to priority patron requests. And this was a patron request from.
• 55:56
  Speaker B: This was a request from Nathan.
• 55:57
  Speaker A: Yeah. Who literally said he did it just to torture us with all the stuff around it. Or something like that.
• 56:02
  Speaker B: Something like that.
• 56:04
  Speaker A: Thank you, Nathan. I appreciate it. No, I actually am. Katie, where can people watch?
• 56:10
  Speaker B: Well, as always, you can check with your local library or a local video rental store if you still have one. Otherwise you can stream this with a subscription to Netflix or you can rent it for around four bucks from Prime Video, Apple TV, YouTube, Fandango at home, or Plex.
• 56:30
  Speaker A: So I am actually interested to watch this movie from the discourse perspective, but not the Justin Baldoni Blake Lively discourse.
• 56:39
  Speaker B: No, no, no, no.
• 56:40
  Speaker A: Yeah, from the. What do we think about this as a depiction of domestic assault or domestic abuse? And what is it saying about it? And is this like a good book? You know what I mean? Like a good story. That's the angle I'm really interested in. Because again, even before all the Baldoni lively stuff, there was a whole bunch of discourse about just the merits of this story, broadly, which I think are way more interesting and obviously way more in our wheelhouse as a podcast.
• 57:04
  Speaker B: Totally agree. I'm hoping to get a Fifty Shades vibe from our conversation.
• 57:12
  Speaker A: We shall see.
• 57:13
  Speaker B: This one.
• 57:13
  Speaker A: We shall see. We shall see. Cuz I did have a bit of a hot take on 50 Shades, but we'll see. So, all right, that's going to do it for this episode. As always, you can come back in one week's time and we're talking about. Well, we won't always be talking about it ends with us, but next week we're talking about it ends with us. Until that time, guys, gals, non binary pals and everybody else, keep reading books, keep watching movies and keep being awesome. Sam.