Latest / This Film is Lit / The Princess and the Goblin

Transcript

The Princess and the Goblin · 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. There's a spark inside us that we can all ignite and all that's dark inside us will flicker into light. It's the Princess and the Goblin and this film is lit. Hello and welcome back to this Film Is like the podcast where we talk about movies that are based on books Today, talking about the Princess and the Goblin, one of Katie's favorite VHS from her childhood. We will talk more about. We have every single one of our segments, so we're gonna jump right in. If you have not read or watched the Princess and the Goblin, we're gonna go to view a brief summary of the film right now. Let me explain. No, there is too much. Let me sum up. This summary is sourced from Wikipedia. In a mountainous kingdom, the widowed king leaves to attend affairs of the state, leaving his daughter, Princess Irene, with her nursemaid. When Irene is out on an outing, she becomes lost in a forest. Deformed animals corner her until a strange singing drives them away. The singing is a young boy, Curtie, the son of a miner, who informs her that the monsters were goblins and are driven away by singing. Everyone except the king, who believed them to be just old miners tales, and his family know of the goblins. The next day, Irene discovers a magical secret door in her bedroom. She ventures into a tower and meets the spirit of her great great grandmother, also called Irene. Grandmother informs the young princess that she will soon be in grave danger. The same day, Curdie and his father are in the mines and Curdie falls through a pothole and into the realm of the goblins. Hidden, he follows the goblin to a vast cavern where the Goblin King and malevolent Goblin Queen are announcing their scheme to flood the mines and drown humans. Prince Froglip, the spoiled and infantile heir to the goblin throne, states that the humans exiled the goblins underground centuries ago, and now they plan to seek revenge. Kurti escapes and warns his father, who then plans to investigate the Goblin kingdom himself. Instead, Curdie sneaks out that night and returns to the goblin realm to find out more about their plans. Hearing Frog Lip's plan is that he shall abduct the princess and marry her, thereby forcing the humans to accept the goblins as their rulers. However, the goblins discover him and trap him in a makeshift dungeon. That same night, Irene follows a magic invisible thread given to her by her grandmother and are led to Curdie. Irene frees Curdie and together they escape the goblins. The miners are warned of the flooding plan and begin erecting supports to keep the tunnels free of water. So it says that, but I don't remember that being in the movie. We'll talk about it, okay? I feel crazy because I was like, wait a second. Because I have a question about. Anyways, we'll get to it. The goblins launch their attack on the castle from a hidden tunnel and quickly gain the upper hand. After Curtie shows the people of the kingdom how to fight the goblins, namely by stomping their feet and singing, they manage to successfully chase them out of the castle. However, as the goblins retreat, they unleash the floodwaters in a last ditch effort to wipe out the humans. Curtie realizes that if the miners are successful, the water will have nowhere to go but up and end up flooding the castle. He tries to get everyone to leave and finds Irene being held captive by Frog Lip. At that moment, the floodwaters arrive and wash them to the ramparts. Curdie and Irene are on the edge and Frog Lip shows up to get Irene. With Irene's help, Kurdy is able to knock Frog Lip off the castle to his demise. Seeing saving the kingdom as the water recedes, the people of the kingdom celebrate their victory in song. Who are you? No one of consequence. I must know.
• 4:01
  Speaker B: Get used to disappointment.
• 4:05
  Speaker A: All right. Wow, we have a huge GIFs who this week. That's the most guess who's we've had in years. Maybe like literally no years.
• 4:15
  Speaker B: No.
• 4:16
  Speaker A: I would bet that it's been multiple years since we've had five. Maybe not, maybe not, but I don't know. We'll see. All right, let's do it.
• 4:24
  Speaker B: Her face was fair and pretty, with eyes like two bits of night sky, each with a star dissolved in the blue. Her golden hair her mother had given her.
• 4:34
  Speaker A: Well, this seems easy. I'm gonna say this is Irene.
• 4:36
  Speaker B: Yes, that is the princess Irene makes.
• 4:40
  Speaker A: Not really anybody else it could possibly be.
• 4:43
  Speaker B: Not only was she beautiful, but her skin was smooth. And white. Her hair was combed back from her forehead and face and hung loose far down and all over her back. It was almost as white as snow. She was dressed in black velvet with thick white, heavy looking lace about it. And on the black dress her hair shone like silver.
• 5:03
  Speaker A: Well, this is clearly her grand. Great. Great, great, whatever. I don't know how many greats they say great.
• 5:08
  Speaker B: Two or three.
• 5:08
  Speaker A: Yeah. That her grandmother Irene. Yeah. The long white hair. Yeah, her hair is very long in the movie. I don't know if it's. This says hung loose far down and all over her back. I think it like touches the floor in the movie, but. And I think her dress is not black.
• 5:24
  Speaker B: No, I think it's like a purple.
• 5:26
  Speaker A: Purple or something. But other than. Yes, Very, very. The hair was the dead giveaway.
• 5:29
  Speaker B: He was dressed in a miner's dress with a curious cap on his head. He was a very nice looking boy with eyes as dark as the mines in which he worked and as sparkling as the crystals in their rocks. His face was almost too pale for beauty, but he looked happ. Merry indeed.
• 5:46
  Speaker A: This couldn't be easier. This is Curtie. I mean, these are just like the characters in the movie. Yeah. Yep. Because to be fair, there's not even that much of a description there. It's just like he's nice looking in miner's clothes and he looks happy.
• 6:01
  Speaker B: Yeah. There was really no way for me to remove the references to mining from that one. He had gentle blue eyes, but a nose that made him look like an eagle. A long dark beard streaked with silvery lines flowed from his mouth almost to his waist.
• 6:18
  Speaker A: So that doesn't really match with anybody but his father in the movie does. Curtie's father does have a beard that I think might even have gray. I think it is a beard with gray in it from my memory. But it's not like to his waist. So I'm gonna say this is Curtie's father.
• 6:31
  Speaker B: This is the king.
• 6:33
  Speaker A: Oh, that's right.
• 6:34
  Speaker B: Curtie's father doesn't have a beard in the movie.
• 6:36
  Speaker A: Yeah, I got them mixed up. What they looked like. Yeah, yeah, yeah, yeah, yeah.
• 6:40
  Speaker B: All right, last one. Her nose was certainly broader at the end than its extreme length. And her eyes, instead of being horizontal, were set up like two perpendicular eggs. One on the broad, one on the small end. Her mouth was no bigger than a small buttonhole until she laughed when it stretched from ear to ear. Only to be sure her ears were very nearly in the middle of her cheeks.
• 7:06
  Speaker A: Okay, well, I'm even Having a hard time parsing what that would look like in. But based on the sort of grotesque proportions and features, I'm gonna imagine that this is the Goblin Queen.
• 7:17
  Speaker B: Yes. That is the Goblin Queen. Yes.
• 7:20
  Speaker A: All right. I have a note about her later.
• 7:22
  Speaker B: I saw your note about her.
• 7:23
  Speaker A: I saw my note about her. I think it's a legit one because it's a real. You gotta be like, yeah, that is a real one.
• 7:29
  Speaker B: It's a legit one. It's a real one.
• 7:30
  Speaker A: We'll get to it. I have some questions, though, and we're gonna get to those in. Was that in the book?
• 7:35
  Speaker B: Gaston? May I have my book, please?
• 7:37
  Speaker A: How can you read this?
• 7:39
  Speaker B: There's no pictures. Well, some people use their imagination.
• 7:42
  Speaker A: My first question is that. Wow. I was confused at what her name was. I could have sworn they kept saying Princess Irelie for the first handful of. I was like, it sounds like her little maid lady is saying Prince Ireli. And I'm like, what? But it's Irene. So they pronounce Irene, Irene. And I wanted to know if there's any indication of that being the case in the book.
• 8:03
  Speaker B: There is not.
• 8:04
  Speaker A: Okay.
• 8:05
  Speaker B: Her name is. It's Irene in the book. And it's spelled normally with no indication that it would be pronounced Irene. I was thinking while I was reading this time that I wonder if the filmmakers were trying to make her name sound like a kid's name and not an old lady name.
• 8:23
  Speaker A: Yeah, it sounds more fantastical.
• 8:26
  Speaker B: Yeah.
• 8:26
  Speaker A: I think that's part of it. Irene is like when. In the 90s, when kids were watching. This is like your aunt.
• 8:32
  Speaker B: Yeah.
• 8:32
  Speaker A: You know what I mean?
• 8:33
  Speaker B: Yeah. That's like your great aunt.
• 8:34
  Speaker A: Yeah. And you're like. Yeah. Whereas they wanted it to be so Irene is a little more playful and elfish or something, you know? Yeah.
• 8:42
  Speaker B: It does sound a little more elfin. Yeah.
• 8:44
  Speaker A: Yeah. So we are introduced to Irene and she. She goes out into the woods. Her dad leaves for a while to go attend the affairs of state or whatever.
• 8:52
  Speaker B: Yeah.
• 8:53
  Speaker A: And she's out wandering the woods with her handmaiden. And she is wandering around and she spies a little, like, gravel hole thing. And I'm not even sure what that is supposed to. Because they seem to know what it is. She's like, oh. And they're looking at it, her and her cat. I can't remember. Does her cat have a name?
• 9:08
  Speaker B: Yeah, her cat's name is Turnip.
• 9:09
  Speaker A: That's right, Turnip. And her and Turnip the cat are looking at this thing and all of A sudden, a hand bursts out of it and grabs the cat and yanks it down and tries to pull it into the hole. I presume this is a goblin we don't actually see in this moment. But I was, you know, making an inference. And I was not prepared for how quickly this got spooky. Which makes sense. The movie's only 80 minutes long. They can't really mess around too much in getting to it. But does. Is there a moment early on where her cat almost gets yanked into a hole by a goblin?
• 9:41
  Speaker B: Turn up, the cat isn't in the book at all. So. No, there's not. There's really nothing like this scene in
• 9:48
  Speaker A: the book where there's not like an early, like, brush with a goblin or something?
• 9:51
  Speaker B: No, not really. So that, for me was, like, point for the movie for giving her a cat companion.
• 9:57
  Speaker A: So the book was written in what, 18 something years?
• 10:00
  Speaker B: Yeah, whatever.
• 10:02
  Speaker A: The 1800s. This was made in 1991 or something like that. So they were like, okay, well, we gotta make her like a Disney.
• 10:10
  Speaker B: Right. We gotta get an animal sidekick.
• 10:12
  Speaker A: And the book obviously was not worried about. Wasn't thinking about that kind of thing.
• 10:17
  Speaker B: Yeah. But the point for giving her a cat point away from the movie for immediately putting the cat in mortal peril.
• 10:24
  Speaker A: It was legitimately like. Like I assumed that not the cat wasn't going to get murdered by a goblin in the first five minutes of the movie. But the way it grabs it and she has to yank it out of the hole is very terrifying. Like, as a kid, that I would find that scene terrifying.
• 10:37
  Speaker B: Oh, and I did.
• 10:37
  Speaker A: Yes, 100%. So then she very. I don't remember how this happens, but she ends up getting lost in the woods, like, after this goes down.
• 10:47
  Speaker B: Because a lot of goblin creatures start coming out afterwards.
• 10:50
  Speaker A: Is that what it is?
• 10:50
  Speaker B: And then she runs around trying to get away from them.
• 10:53
  Speaker A: She kind of stumbles off into the woods and gets lost and she's being chased by the goblins. But luckily she hears some singing in the distance and a boy carrying a lamp, Curtie, comes around the corner singing his. I don't, for the life of me can't remember the song. I think it's about singing.
• 11:11
  Speaker B: You read some of the lyrics?
• 11:13
  Speaker A: Oh, I was about to say, yes. I think it was about, like, singing or whatever. It's like, really the only song.
• 11:18
  Speaker B: Yes, it is the only. And it's a repeated refrain throughout the film.
• 11:22
  Speaker A: Yeah. Which is interesting because I didn't know about that. Later, I was surprised. Like, I didn't know this Was gonna be a musical. And it's actually not.
• 11:27
  Speaker B: It's really not.
• 11:28
  Speaker A: But this has happened so quick. At the beginning, I was like, oh, I guess we're gonna be like a musical movie. But then, no, it's just.
• 11:32
  Speaker B: There's just the one song.
• 11:33
  Speaker A: And then this kind of recurs a couple times throughout as, like, the song they sing to scare away the goblins. But does singing scaring away goblins come from the book? Because that's what he does. When he shows up singing, the goblins all run away and he's able to rescue the princess.
• 11:47
  Speaker B: Yeah, Cie does sing to drive off the goblins. It's more specifically rhymes that they dislike. In the book. There's a lot. He does a lot of, like, rhyming songs and rhyming chants and, like, counting rhymes. So. But. But yeah, the movie, I guess, broadened that a little bit out to just singing.
• 12:07
  Speaker A: Yeah, well. And speaking of the goblins, though, he explains as he. He talks to her that, oh, yeah, those are the goblins. Like, don't you know about the goblins? Everybody knows about the goblins. She's like, what? I don't know. I don't know that goblins exist. And it kind of weird, it becomes clear that everybody's aware of the goblins except for the people who live in the castle. They either unaware or don't they kind of hand wave them away as like, miners tales and stuff. And I thought that was interesting because the idea there, the idea that at least I was assuming I was kind of getting from the movie, they don't really do anything with this all that much, but at least it kind of felt like was the people in the castle don't have to deal with the goblins. So they don't really think they exist or know about. You know, they don't know about them. And if they do hear about it, they think it's like a myth or whatever. Whereas the people who actually the peasants who live out in the real world have to deal with the goblins. And I wanted to know if that element came from the book kind of.
• 13:01
  Speaker B: But I think the movie maybe boils it down a little bit.
• 13:05
  Speaker A: Okay.
• 13:06
  Speaker B: The miners are definitely more aware of and educated about the goblins in the book. The people in the castle, I would say they aren't immediately concerned about the goblins. But I didn't really get the vibe that it was like, oh, we don't believe in them.
• 13:23
  Speaker A: They don't believe in him or don't even know.
• 13:25
  Speaker B: Yeah, because we learn pretty early on in the book that the Princess Irene is not allowed outside after dark. And that is specifically because of fears about goblins.
• 13:37
  Speaker A: Okay, well, then in that case. So she's aware of goblins, like in the book?
• 13:41
  Speaker B: No, no, but everybody, like, she knows she's not allowed outside.
• 13:44
  Speaker A: She doesn't know why.
• 13:45
  Speaker B: Yeah, she doesn't know why.
• 13:46
  Speaker A: So when she encounters the goblins and he is. Is Curtie, like, explain them to her. Is there anything like the scene where he rescues her and he, like, I guess. How does she first encounter goblins?
• 13:57
  Speaker B: So there is a scene where she and Ludy, her nurse, like her nanny, kind of are outside and they accidentally stay out too late and they're trying to get back to the castle, but it's getting dark and Ludy is freaking out because she. They can see, like, shapes moving around them. Like, creatures are going to come up out of the woods, and that is when they run into Curtie, and Curtie is able to, like, guide them back to the castle.
• 14:28
  Speaker A: Okay, does she then learn about goblins then or when does she.
• 14:33
  Speaker B: Yes, it's not a big deal.
• 14:36
  Speaker A: I was just kind of curious.
• 14:37
  Speaker B: Like, I didn't feel like she really knew about them before that. But it wasn't set up like the movie sets up and sets it up where she's like, oh, what are goblins? I've never heard of goblins. It's a little more like matter of fact, if that makes sense.
• 14:54
  Speaker A: Yeah. So she gets rescued, goes back to the castle, and then I think the next day or something like that, she is in her room. And I don't remember exactly what goes on here, but her cat gets all riled up for something. Handmaiden's doing something. I don't remember exactly what.
• 15:09
  Speaker B: I don't remember exactly.
• 15:10
  Speaker A: We watched this like two or three days ago now. But the cat jumps at the wall and rips down a tapestry and reveals this secret door on the wall. And I wanted to know if a magical one. If the cat reveals the secret magical door in her room, or I guess more generally, if there is a secret magical door in her room that she was unaware of.
• 15:32
  Speaker B: I would say no.
• 15:34
  Speaker A: Okay.
• 15:34
  Speaker B: In the book, she gets bored on a rainy day and goes up a staircase that she's never been up before. And the book kind of lightly implies that maybe that staircase, like, wasn't there before. But that's never confirmed or denied.
• 15:50
  Speaker A: Right.
• 15:50
  Speaker B: So she goes up this staircase and she ends up in a series of hallways that are filled with closed doors. And it's kind of a neat and, like, a little bit creepy description. But the secret passageways aspect of the movie was a big part of its appeal to me as a child. So I'm gonna go with better in the movie for this.
• 16:10
  Speaker A: Okay. Yeah. Secret door in the room is fun. It's got, like, a little moon or something on it.
• 16:14
  Speaker B: Like a rose.
• 16:15
  Speaker A: Oh, is it a rose? Oh, yes. Because, yeah, I think that relates to. Her grandmother has, like, rose petals and stuff, so. Meanwhile, Kurtie is now down with his father in the mines. His dad's a miner, and he helps, I guess, or works in the mine. He may also just work in the mine because it's, you know, Middle Ages,
• 16:32
  Speaker B: you know, child labor. Who cares?
• 16:34
  Speaker A: But he. They're. They're going through the mines, and he ends up slipping and falling through a hole and falls, like, literally a hundred feet through the air.
• 16:42
  Speaker B: Falls forever.
• 16:43
  Speaker A: Like, a hundred feet onto a cart full of rocks.
• 16:47
  Speaker B: Yeah.
• 16:48
  Speaker A: And is fine. And I was like, boy, that 100% would have killed him. And I wanted to know. Know if anything like that happens in the book. But he falls on a cart full of the goblins, or they're mining or doing whatever, and he kind of falls onto their mining cart. But does that happen?
• 17:05
  Speaker B: That does not happen. And it is pretty silly. He definitely would have gone splat in that moment.
• 17:11
  Speaker A: And I feel like it's whatever, but, like, I feel like there are other moments where people get hurt from falling. And I'm just like. It's just like, oh, it's just fall. There's no even attempt to, like. Cause later they have the scene where she slides down the thing. I'm like, well, we know falling doesn't matter in this year. It doesn't really matter, but anyways.
• 17:30
  Speaker B: So there is a similar ish kind of scene in the book where he ends up finding goblins and, like, following them. So what happens in the book is that he is working an extra night shift by himself.
• 17:44
  Speaker A: Okay.
• 17:45
  Speaker B: In order to earn money to buy his mother a warm petticoat for winter. Because he's a good son. And so he's working, and he overhears this goblin family talking through, like, the. The wall of the cave where he's working. They're, like, on the other side of it, and they're having this conversation that alludes to their plan to flood the mines. So he's like, well, I have to know more about that. So he manages to, like, clear a little passage through this wall and, like, squeezes through and follows them.
• 18:18
  Speaker A: Yeah.
• 18:19
  Speaker B: The other kind of silly thing about that Scene in the movie, I think, is that he seemingly, like, falls asleep and everyone just leaves him there. Like his dad and all of the other minors.
• 18:32
  Speaker A: What do you mean? Oh, yeah. Like. Like, he stays down there.
• 18:35
  Speaker B: He stays.
• 18:36
  Speaker A: You mean they don't, like, go looking for him?
• 18:38
  Speaker B: Well, no, no, no, no, no. I mean, like, before he falls, they just, like, leave him. They, like, go somewhere else, I guess, and, like, leave him behind in this section of the.
• 18:48
  Speaker A: Oh, yeah, yeah, yeah. I don't know.
• 18:50
  Speaker B: Which. I don't know. Maybe that's not silly, but it always really creeped me out as a kid because it doesn't seem like it. The move, the way that the movie shows it, it doesn't seem like he was asleep for very long.
• 19:00
  Speaker A: Yeah.
• 19:01
  Speaker B: Like, it seems like he, like, wakes right back up and then there's nobody there.
• 19:05
  Speaker A: Yeah.
• 19:05
  Speaker B: And that really creeped me out. I do, however, want to give a shout out to the weird dragon thing that's pulling the goblin part in that scene, because I liked him and I hope he didn't drown.
• 19:17
  Speaker A: I think it's safe to say he didn't. He's a water creature.
• 19:20
  Speaker B: Yes.
• 19:20
  Speaker A: We see him later in the lake. He gives Curtie a ride over to the shore. And whenever he talks, he, like.
• 19:27
  Speaker B: He, like, gurgles.
• 19:27
  Speaker A: Gurgles water. So I assume you can think he's like a water creature, so. Nah, I think he's fine. Little detail. In the movie, the goblins call the humans sun people. And I wanted to know if that came from the book.
• 19:37
  Speaker B: Yes, that is directly from the book.
• 19:40
  Speaker A: We love fantasy lingo. Gotta have it.
• 19:42
  Speaker B: Gotta have that world building.
• 19:44
  Speaker A: Yep. During that conversation, this is while we're introduced to the Goblin King, the Goblin Queen, and Frog Lip, the. The Goblin Prince. And they're kind of discussing their plans and what they're gonna do and all that sort of stuff. And during this, frog lip, I think it is, or somebody mentions that the humans drove the goblins underground, like, hundred of years ago or whatever, and they've been living underground since. And they're. They. Now it's time for them to go back and take their place and, you know, come back out from underground. And I wanted to know if that sort of backstory for the goblins came from the book.
• 20:19
  Speaker B: This is close to the book's backstory. Part of the first chapter of the book is devoted to the theory that the goblins used to be people, or more people, like. But they moved underground because they didn't like some law of the kings and eventually turned goblins. I'M going to read a little section. There was a legend current in the country that at one time they lived above ground and were very like other people, but for some reason or other concerning which there were different legendary theories, the king had laid what they thought to be too severe taxes upon them or had required observances of them. They did not like or had begun to treat them with more severity in some way or another and impose stricter laws. And the consequence was that they had all disappeared from the face of the country. According to the legend. However, instead of going to some other country, they had all taken refuge in the subterranean caverns once. They never came out but at night, and then seldom showed themselves in any number. And never too many people at once.
• 21:26
  Speaker A: Yeah, so that's. Same similar idea.
• 21:28
  Speaker B: Similar idea.
• 21:28
  Speaker A: Yeah, I just mentioned it. But there is an evil upstart prince goblin named Frog Lip in the film who is really the one kind of pushing for this plan to get revenge on the humans. And I wanted to know if he was kind of the primary villain in the book because we also have the Goblin King and the Goblin Queen. Goblin King is kind of played as, like, ineffectual. Ineffectual, like, doesn't really concerned about all that stuff. Kind of old and senile or whatever. Goblin Queen is much more motivated and kind of in line with what Frog Lip is doing. But Frog Lip is like the main antagonist. And I wanted to know if that was the same in the book.
• 22:03
  Speaker B: There is a Goblin Prince in the book, although the movie made him a more central villain.
• 22:08
  Speaker A: Yeah.
• 22:09
  Speaker B: He plays a significantly smaller role compared to the Goblin Queen and King in the book. I do think this was a good change. I think it makes sense for him to be the central villain. I would say that the Queen is more of the main villain kind of in the book.
• 22:25
  Speaker A: Yeah, she's. She's a. She's a 1B in the movie.
• 22:28
  Speaker B: Yeah.
• 22:29
  Speaker A: Yeah.
• 22:30
  Speaker B: The movie also changed his name from Harelip to Frog Lip, which I also think was a good call.
• 22:37
  Speaker A: Yeah, no, that's a great idea because. Yeah, there's no reason to have his name be a reference to an actual human, you know, condition. Frog Lip is fine and works better for a goblin anyways.
• 22:49
  Speaker B: Yeah.
• 22:49
  Speaker A: So one of the things I thought was funny in the movie was that we found out early that the castle doesn't know anything about the goblins, doesn't know they exist, thinks they're myths or whatever after I think I jumped ahead here. But I think she has seen the goblins or. Well, obviously she Saw the goblins at this point. But she hasn't been back to the tunnel or to the actual goblin lair yet at this point, has she?
• 23:09
  Speaker B: I don't.
• 23:11
  Speaker A: I don't think so. Because she doesn't know. Because she hasn't followed.
• 23:13
  Speaker B: She hasn't. She doesn't have the thread yet.
• 23:15
  Speaker A: Yeah, but. But from her first encounter with him and whatever. And her dad comes back from wherever he was, and she's talking to him, and she tells him, like, oh, by the way, dad, goblins are real and they're scary and they're gonna cause an issue. And he immediately is just like, oh, okay, cool.
• 23:30
  Speaker B: Double the guard.
• 23:31
  Speaker A: Just like, yeah, we're gonna. Yeah, we'll deal with that. And it's like. It was so funny because that's so different than every one of these kind of stories where, like, obviously, you know, the kid has to be disbelieved or blah, blah, blah, so that they kind of have to do it themselves or something. But I thought it was very funny that he just is immediately like, oh, yeah, okay, I believe you. Like, sure. I wanted to know if that dynamic played at all similarly in the book.
• 23:52
  Speaker B: I think it does. The king in the book is very trusting of his daughter, and he takes her opinions seriously, which I think is what the movie's going for here, I think, along with the idea of him being, like, wise and good.
• 24:06
  Speaker A: Yeah.
• 24:07
  Speaker B: I do think that because the movie went with a more hardline castle, people don't believe in goblins as the initial setup. It does come off as kind of jumping from point A to point M with him.
• 24:20
  Speaker A: But I think it still works in a kind of subversive way. Like, maybe not for a kid. I don't know. It's fine for kids. They don't care. But, like, I think, just as a story, I think it kind of works in the way, like I said, of being. Running counter to how you would expect that interaction to go in most of these stories, which I think is kind of a fun. Like, oh, that's different. I don't. I guess she went through the door. I guess she had met her grandmother already at this point.
• 24:44
  Speaker B: Yeah, she had already met grandmother. And then this is the part where the. The goblin cat gets into her bedroom.
• 24:49
  Speaker A: Oh, that's right. I forgot about the goblin cat. Yeah, the goblin cat gets in, and the two cats are having, like, a battle, Right. And she ends up sneaking into a door and getting. Blah, blah, blah.
• 24:58
  Speaker B: Yeah, they. Yeah, they go into the secret passage to get away.
• 25:00
  Speaker A: They're going to the Secret passage to get away from the cat. And then she ends up. She has a wound on her hand, I think from the cat.
• 25:06
  Speaker B: Yeah.
• 25:07
  Speaker A: And she ends up encountering her spiritual. Her fairy godmother grandmother.
• 25:11
  Speaker B: Yeah, she's just a fairy godmother, basically,
• 25:13
  Speaker A: again, who heals the injury on her hand with rose petals and then wraps her illustrious lustrous silver hair around it and heals her hand.
• 25:23
  Speaker B: She has Rapunzel hair.
• 25:25
  Speaker A: Yes. And I wanted to know if she heals an injury with rose petals and hair.
• 25:30
  Speaker B: In the book, Irene's grandmother does at one point heal an injury that Irene has sustained, but she uses, like, an ointment. The book says that it smells like roses and lilies, but it's not literally rose petals. And her hair being magical was a movie invention.
• 25:48
  Speaker A: Okay. It's funny, I thought some of the scenes with Irene, the. The grandmother and, like, with her hair and stuff, and, like, some of the way it was animated reminded me of, like, Sailor Moon.
• 25:59
  Speaker B: Yes, absolutely.
• 26:00
  Speaker A: Which I'm sure they were taking some, because I. I think Sailor Moon had started years before this, so I'm sure they were pulling some inspiration there. But, yeah, some of the moments with her, with the two of them, she reminded me a lot of stuff from Sailor Moon. Does she give her the ring? Does her grandmother give her. Yes. So then her grandmother gives her this ring, and it is a magical ring that summons a magical invisible thread that will lead her places. She doesn't really. I know she's kind of vague, I think, about, like, what. Where.
• 26:30
  Speaker B: Yeah.
• 26:30
  Speaker A: She might have.
• 26:31
  Speaker B: The thread is for when she's in danger.
• 26:33
  Speaker A: Yeah. She can follow it.
• 26:35
  Speaker B: Follow it to safety.
• 26:36
  Speaker A: And at the same time, we're seeing the similar thing with Curdie back at home with his parents. They give him a ball of yarn to use in the mines as, like a. Yeah.
• 26:45
  Speaker B: So he doesn't get lost.
• 26:46
  Speaker A: So he doesn't get lost. So he can leave a trail behind him. I wanted to know if Irene in the book has a magical thread ring and if Curdie has a real ball of thread and they both use them to kind of navigate through the dark and dangerous minds.
• 27:01
  Speaker B: Yes. Irene's grandmother does give her a magical thread that will never lead her astray. And Curdie briefly uses a real ball of string to explore the goblin mines.
• 27:11
  Speaker A: Okay. This was crazy to me because this particular scene, both her having the magic thread and the kid with the ball of yarn, was so I was like, I've seen this. I've either read it or I've watched it. I Didn't the rest of this movie. I did not feel like I had seen this movie. But the magical thread thing, something specifically about it. I was like, did I see this in something else? I don't know what I'm thinking of.
• 27:34
  Speaker B: I don't know of anything else that has that. I mean, like, using thread to navigate through, like, a maze or something is a pretty common.
• 27:43
  Speaker A: Yeah, maybe it's just another story doing a similar type of thing. But, like, something about the way she grabs that magical thread and it just, like, appears. I don't know. It was like. It was like triggering something in my brain. Like, you know, this from. This is something else. Did this. Or you've. Maybe you've seen this. But then again, like I said, none of the rest of it made me feel like I'd really seen it. So I don't know, but maybe I watched this movie once and that was the only part when I was like, three. And that was the only part that stuck in my head or something because this would be the kind of movie that I would have watched as a kid, but I didn't really have any memory of it at all. So. Great line in the movie that I was interested to know if it came from the book is we cut down and we're seeing the goblins kind of hang out together as they're plotting or whatever. And Frog Lip is laying in the Goblin Queen's lap and she's, like, petting his hair and, like, talking to him. And she caught. She says to him, isn't that right, my little immorality? And I wanted to know if that line came from her to the book, because it's great.
• 28:38
  Speaker B: It is not from the book, but I agree that it's great. And also, the extremely Oedipal vibe.
• 28:46
  Speaker A: Yes.
• 28:46
  Speaker B: Between Frog Lip and the Goblin Queen was largely invented for the film. And I have to say that I think they were correct in doing this.
• 28:54
  Speaker A: I think it works. Yeah, I think it works. So she heads down into the tunnels. Well, Curtie gets trapped. He gets. I think at this point, he's been caught and discovered.
• 29:05
  Speaker B: Yeah, he's been caught and the goblins have trapped.
• 29:07
  Speaker A: Because he went back down there to try to get more information to.
• 29:10
  Speaker B: Yeah.
• 29:10
  Speaker A: To figure out what's going on. And he's been caught and trapped. And then she follows this thread. I don't remember exactly why. I think she just. Thread appears and she's like, oh, I guess I'll follow it. And she ends up down in the mines. And there's a scene where as she's going down in the mines, following the thread, she gets to, like, a big hill or whatever, and she ends up kind of slipping and then lands on a rock. And then literally, like, skateboard surfs down this giant hill of stones. And I was like, boy, that feels like a movie edition. Is it a movie edition?
• 29:42
  Speaker B: Yeah. This isn't in the book. It is a little silly. Although not as silly as some of the other action editions.
• 29:51
  Speaker A: I think it works in the. It's just. It was so like, yeah. She's like, yeah, surfing down the stairs, like, all right. But it's fine.
• 29:57
  Speaker B: It's the 90s.
• 29:58
  Speaker A: Extreme sport. You got extreme sports. You gotta have extreme sports.
• 30:01
  Speaker B: Gotta have extreme sports in your movie.
• 30:03
  Speaker A: So then she gets to a point where the thread goes through this little hole in the wall, and she's like, oh, no, we can't get through. We can't keep following it. We're at a dead end. And she just, like, sits down and starts crying because she doesn't know what to do. And then the cat goes over to the hole and, like, starts nuzzling around and, like, knocks a rock down. And she just stands up and immediately goes, oh, that's a good idea. We'll just move the rocks and then we can go through the hole. And I was like, what? And I wanted to know if that played out in the book that way, because I thought it was so silly that, like, it's like, obviously, just move the rocks. And then. I don't know. I thought that was very strange.
• 30:44
  Speaker B: There is a similar scene where Irene saves Cardi from where the goblins have him trapped. And she does do this by moving a pile of rocks.
• 30:52
  Speaker A: Okay.
• 30:53
  Speaker B: Figures out to move them on her own.
• 30:55
  Speaker A: Okay. But she gets in there, and she's eventually gets to where Kurti is being held, or she. I don't know, she hears him somehow through a wall, because that just gets her close enough to where she gets to, like, where he is, and then he's still on the other side of this rock wall, and they're able to talk to each other. And he hears her, and then he pushes on this wall and, like, is able to escape. And they're together now, and they've got to get out. So they're following the thread to get back out of the mines, and they start being chased by goblins. At this point, I believe they realize that he's get. They're getting away. And there's this big chase scene. But one of the ways they. They escape, some of the goblins Is they're on top of this big high point in the caves and they. They need to get down and away from the goblins. And so they jump off this ledge and then kind of magically zipline down the. The magical thread that she. That comes out of her ring. Which was fun. I thought that was neat. And I thought that while silly, also at least kind of makes sense. It's like using one of the things established in the story versus just like surfing on a rock. I don't know. Does that happen in.
• 32:01
  Speaker B: That does not happen in the book. I had forgotten about that. I'm not gonna pooh pooh what you're saying about it, but I do think it's a little bit silly because why would Curtie then not buy into the magic thread after that?
• 32:19
  Speaker A: Oh, does he?
• 32:21
  Speaker B: Yeah, like after they zipline on the magic thread and then later he's like, magic thread.
• 32:27
  Speaker A: Oh, bro, you zipline. I guess I missed that line where he like. Yeah, it doesn't like. Yeah, because yes, they both, like, slide down that magic thread. So then we get to kind of one of the big climactic moments where she gets back to the castle.
• 32:41
  Speaker B: So she gets back and she tries to take C to meet her grandmother, but he can't.
• 32:52
  Speaker A: He can't. There's nothing there.
• 32:53
  Speaker B: Yeah, there's nothing there. And then she gets upset.
• 32:57
  Speaker A: Right.
• 32:57
  Speaker B: And has a little moment where she's down on herself.
• 33:02
  Speaker A: Yeah.
• 33:02
  Speaker B: And then I think where this occurs is that she like, she like picks herself back up and she's like, well, somebody has to do something. Yes. And it looks like that somebody is me.
• 33:12
  Speaker A: Exactly. Well, and she has this moment there after all, that goes down where she goes, I need to, like, think for myself. I need to act for myself. And then she calls for the king. And this is kind of treated like a big character moment. But I also felt like the movie never really set this up as a big character arc moment. It already felt like she was already a fairly self possessed.
• 33:30
  Speaker B: Yeah.
• 33:31
  Speaker A: Like, it. It doesn't feel like a big revelation because I feel like she's already been kind of self possessed throughout this movie. She goes and follows a thread down into the goblin mines, like the scene before this, and rescues Kurti. So it didn't feel like a big moment for her necessarily. And so I was interested to know if anything like that happened in the book.
• 33:47
  Speaker B: There's really. I would say nothing like this in the book, in my opinion. I think I can see what the movie wanted here. Like, I think the idea is that she starts Acting like an adult and not a child by taking charge in what limited way she can, which is asking for help from her dad. Yeah, but I don't think it works. Partly because, like you said, they don't really set up this character moment. But also because the action that she takes is precipitated by a statement that seems to have little to do with the following action that she takes.
• 34:19
  Speaker A: Yeah.
• 34:20
  Speaker B: Also, I'm assuming that this movie was originally written and voiced over in Hungarian. And I do wonder if there are some translation bugs here and there.
• 34:29
  Speaker A: It could be. And I wrote I need to think for myself. I don't remember if that was the exact line I think it was.
• 34:33
  Speaker B: No, that's. That's definitely what she says. Yeah.
• 34:36
  Speaker A: Yeah. It's like. Well, you've already been thinking for.
• 34:38
  Speaker B: I don't know.
• 34:38
  Speaker A: It just felt a little. Yeah, and that could be a thing where a translation didn't quite. The exact sentiment of what that moment was supposed to be in Hungarian didn't quite translate to English. So then we get into kind of the big fight at the end. The goblins attack. At this point, she calls for the king, and then the goblins attack. They start coming up through the basement, like the wine cellar in the castle and pouring into the castle to attack. And Curtie is running around fighting. Everybody's fighting and Curtie's fighting. And the way he fights them is he figured out early on that if you smash their toes, this is like, the goblin's true weakness is that they have. They have, like, singular toe feet things. It looks like in the movie.
• 35:21
  Speaker B: Yeah, they don't have toes.
• 35:22
  Speaker A: Yeah, it's just like, one big foot with no, like, one toenail or whatever. Yeah, it's kind of creepy. But he smashes them on the feet. And that's, like their Achilles heel. If you wanted to know if that came from the book.
• 35:33
  Speaker B: Yes, it does. Curtie similarly finds out early in the book that the goblin's most vulnerable part of their body is their feet. And he consistently uses that against them.
• 35:44
  Speaker A: And speaking of that, earlier, he had. While the. He. At one point, he had snuck into the Goblin Queen's lair. I think it was right before he gets captured, maybe. And he takes.
• 35:52
  Speaker B: This is when they're on. When he and Irene are on their
• 35:54
  Speaker A: way out, and they end up in the Goblin Queen's lair and they're sleeping, and he ends up stealing one of her stone shoes. But he doesn't get both of them because she has these stone shoes that obviously make her. They're like Clogs, but they obviously make her invulnerable, basically. And he gets one of them off. But then later, during this big fight, she shows, I mean, at least good on the Goblin Queen for not sending other people to do. She comes up and is there to tango, and she gets into a fight with Curtie. And during their brawl, he knows he needs to be able to make her feet vulnerable. And so he ends up getting her trapped in a grape press, I assume is what it is, because it's in, like, the wine cellar where they make wine. And he uses that to, like, crush the shoe off of her foot. And I wanted to know if that happened in the book, because I thought that was fun.
• 36:42
  Speaker B: I might be misremembering, but I don't think he ever actually gets her other shoe.
• 36:47
  Speaker A: But he does get one of them.
• 36:48
  Speaker B: He does get one of them in a very similar scene where they're in the bedroom while they're asleep. Some very specific feat stuff going on here, though.
• 36:56
  Speaker A: Yeah, you're not wrong.
• 36:57
  Speaker B: Not. Not judging, just stating.
• 36:59
  Speaker A: Just pointing it out.
• 37:00
  Speaker B: Just pointing it out.
• 37:01
  Speaker A: Yeah. So they start their attack, but then their main part of their plan is to flood. Well, not to flood the castle, to be fair. To flood the mines.
• 37:09
  Speaker B: Yeah.
• 37:10
  Speaker A: So they. Because they want to kill all the miners and force them out of the mines. So they. They. They had been building up this big mo. This big dam in the. In their Goblin mines full of water that they're going to knock down, and then that's going to somehow flood the human. Whatever. Sure, it floods the human minds, but the humans have been warned about this. And we'll get to this in a second in my next. The next segment. The humans have been warned about this. They built their own little dam that diverts the water, which then forces it up. And Kurti realizes at one point the only place it can go is up into the castle. So the water just goes up and kind of floods the castle. And I wanted to know if that happened in the book because kid me would have loved this part of the movie. I've always found things that should not be an aquatic environment becoming one. Super compelling. So, like, houses full of water, like, in a way where you can, like, swim around. But, like, especially if the stuff is still there, like all of the furniture. You know what I mean?
• 38:04
  Speaker B: It's also a specific phobia I'm pretty sure might be.
• 38:07
  Speaker A: I don't know. As a kid, I've always loved the idea of, like. Not that it would be fun in reality, but I Guess it would be in some extent. But like, a thing I would dream about as a kid that I thought would always be really fun is like, if your house was, like, filled with water and you could just swim around in it. Something about that was always very, like, appealing to my imagination. And so this part of the movie where the castle started, it doesn't get quite that far. But where we get them, like, walking around through the flooded castle, I thought was neat. And I wanted to know if it happened in the book.
• 38:36
  Speaker B: Yes. Flooding the mines was the goblins, like, plan B in the book, if kidnapping the princess didn't work, that was plan A. But because the miners were able to put their own dam up, the water backed up into the castle instead and flooded the castle very similarly to what we see in the movie.
• 38:55
  Speaker A: Yeah. I'm realizing. I think I talked about this when we did that one Narnia movie when there was.
• 39:01
  Speaker B: Yeah, we might have.
• 39:02
  Speaker A: Yeah, because I'm sure I talked about it there. Yeah. Like, that would have been another time where. Because I was like. I just remembered, like, this happened in another movie. And it's the hour, the room, like, fills with water.
• 39:11
  Speaker B: Yeah.
• 39:12
  Speaker A: So then the big final moment, they fight their way through everything. The queen has been defeated at this point. And I think I. Whatever. And most of the. Most of the goblins have been by the rushing water have been thrown over the. The sides of the ramparts of the castle, like off a waterfall, basically. It's basically flushed out the entirety of the goblins from the castle. But Frog Lip has Irene grabbed her somehow. And standing on the ramparts kind of in the middle on the edge of this waterfall. And Curdie gets to them and they have this big standoff. And ultimately Irene. He, like, gets Irene out of Frog Lip's grasp briefly, and she. I think she might smash him on the foot.
• 39:53
  Speaker B: Yes.
• 39:53
  Speaker A: Cause she helps. I thought that was a nice touch. She doesn't like a complete damsel in distress. She does get to at least do something. And she, like, smashes him on the foot or whatever. But then Curtie, straight up Karate Kid Flying Crane, kicks frog lips off the waterfall. And I wanted to know if that happened in the book because I was laughing so hard. I was like, clearly this is just them referencing Karate Kid, which came out like the year before this, probably, or something like that. And I wanted to know if that happened in the book.
• 40:20
  Speaker B: That does not happen in the book. The ending of the book is pretty different from what we get in the movie. The biggest difference is that Irene does Not almost get taken by frog lips.
• 40:33
  Speaker A: Oh, okay.
• 40:33
  Speaker B: It initially looks like she had been because when Curdie goes to try to find her, her room is a mess. But then he's able to follow the magic thread because he believes in it now. So he's able to follow the thread and it leads him back to his own cottage.
• 40:52
  Speaker A: Interesting.
• 40:52
  Speaker B: Where Irene is chilling with his mom because the thread had taken her there earlier to get her out of harm's way. Like before the goblins even got to the castle after the fight in the book, the goblins similarly retreat back to their tunnel. And then when Curtie realizes that the water is going to flood the castle instead of the mines, he tells the king to get everybody out. When they come back later, the castle is full of drowned goblin bodies, including the royal family. And it's actually kind of gruesome.
• 41:25
  Speaker A: Yeah.
• 41:25
  Speaker B: That like they go back into the castle and they're just dead goblins everywhere.
• 41:29
  Speaker A: Yeah.
• 41:30
  Speaker B: I am kind of six of one on this change. I like the movie's ending and it definitely feels more movie with like the big action set piece and putting the heroine in actual danger and then getting her out of danger. However, I do appreciate the book's version and how it subverts expectations by having Irene just get herself to safety.
• 41:52
  Speaker A: Yeah, yeah, no, that is. That is a fun, different, like way for that to end. I also imagine what they were doing in the movie maybe with having them all like. Because what we don't see is them drown or anything. I also wonder if there was like, well, if we want to make another one of these, right, Like a sequel,
• 42:08
  Speaker B: we leave it open.
• 42:09
  Speaker A: We leave it open. Like they could have died by falling off the waterfall or they could have survived and washed up on the shore. You know what I mean? Like, that's a. It's a way to do that. I don't know if there was ever any plans to make a sequel, but, you know, you leave it open ended enough that if you want to bring these characters back, you can. All right, I do have one question and then Katie has some stuff she wants to talk about. In Lost in Adaptation. Just show me the way to get out of here and I'll be on my way. Yes, yes. And I want to get unlost as soon as possible. I mentioned this a second ago, but I was like, what? The whole flooding the mines thing? And then Kurtie in the movie somehow seems to know that the miners had created their own dam and that the somehow the water would flood into the castle. And I was like, how did he know all of this? And as I mentioned in the summary, the summary literally says the miners are warned of the flooding plan and begin erecting supports to keep the tunnels free of water. But I did not remember seeing that in the movie. We just. I swear we just jumped to seeing them having built a dam later in the movie. And I felt maybe. Maybe just the version we watched was missing a scene or something.
• 43:11
  Speaker B: No, I don't think it is.
• 43:12
  Speaker A: Okay, so what. What's going on there?
• 43:15
  Speaker B: So I think the confusion here is created by the timeline because the movie seems to take place over the course of, like, a couple of days. The book takes place over an entire year. So Curdie finds out about the goblins plan to flood the mines pretty early on. So the miners are able to then spend that time constructing their own dam. That makes sense given the space of a year. Couple of days. I don't know.
• 43:47
  Speaker A: I mean, that's all true. My bigger issue with the movie wasn't the timeline. It was. I literally don't remember a scene where they get warned about the water.
• 43:55
  Speaker B: So technically there is in the movie.
• 43:57
  Speaker A: Where is that at?
• 43:58
  Speaker B: Maybe I just missed it. First time when Kurti falls down the hundred feet and lands in the cart, that's when he finds out about the planet. And then he gets back and he goes back home and he tells them. And he tells them. And his dad is like, we have to investigate. And then he goes by himself.
• 44:17
  Speaker A: Yes. So I remembered that. I guess I don't remember the. A discussion of the miners plans to.
• 44:23
  Speaker B: I guess there's not.
• 44:24
  Speaker A: And maybe there is and I missed it. Maybe there's one line, because I. I do remember that scene. I don't. I remember taking a note during that scene where he's talking to his parents about that. And so I think I just missed the brief discussion about him telling them about the flooding.
• 44:35
  Speaker B: I think we're meant to, like, fill in the gap.
• 44:37
  Speaker A: Okay. Because I was a little bit confused at how the miners knew. Not. And now it makes sense of how they knew. But, like, I didn't remember them having this plan to build their own.
• 44:44
  Speaker B: Yeah, I don't think there's any discussion of their dam until we see it at the end.
• 44:49
  Speaker A: Yeah, that's what I was confused about. And the way the description, like the. The Wikipedia summary read was like there was a scene where we see them, like, building that or something. It's like, I don't remember that at all. But again, it's possible I missed it while taking a note that Was my one question for this part, though. But you had some stuff you wanted to talk about?
• 45:03
  Speaker B: Yeah, I have some other things here. The first of which is that I wanted to mention the goblin animals in this section because there are some subtle differences that I didn't have a strong opinion about one way or the other to, like, put it in better in the book or better in the movie. The book describes the goblin animals as looking like horrifying bastardizations of normal animals because that's essentially what they are.
• 45:31
  Speaker A: Right.
• 45:31
  Speaker B: Because the goblins keep them underground, so they've become more and more creature y over time. But the book also really stresses that the goblin animals aren't evil. They're still just animals. The movie's version, I think, is close to that. But definitely there's some more, like, fantasy creature vibes in the movie's version. And at least some of them seem to also be just as evil, like the cats to be evil. Yeah.
• 46:00
  Speaker A: Yeah, they do. It is a mixture. Yeah.
• 46:02
  Speaker B: Another change that I'm not sure what to do with. In the book, the Goblin Queen is actually the prince's stepmother. And the king's first queen was a sun woman from upstairs, we're told. And I would love to hear anyone's thoughts on that because I wasn't entirely sure what to make of it. I didn't really feel like it fit thematically or within to the plot line.
• 46:31
  Speaker A: I mean, I assume the idea is just we're creating an idea where frog lip or harelip in the book as the Goblin Prince or whatever is. Is of both worlds. He's part human, part. So like, part of. Maybe part of his motivation is.
• 46:47
  Speaker B: But I didn't really feel like that was explored at all in the book.
• 46:50
  Speaker A: And that's. Yeah.
• 46:51
  Speaker B: So I would just like, if anyone else read the book, I would like to hear your thoughts on that, if you have them.
• 46:57
  Speaker A: Okay.
• 46:58
  Speaker B: Finally, I wanted to kind of generally touch on themes. So the book's themes are, in my opinion, a little tricky to nail down, particularly if you don't know what you're looking for. But I think it boils down to messages about belief and religion in a sort of broad sense.
• 47:22
  Speaker A: Yeah. I mean, the one thing you've mentioned so far was Curdie coming to believe in the magic thread and that being. But yeah.
• 47:27
  Speaker B: So aside from the surface level, like, Goblin human interactions, the main source of conflict in the book is centered around Irene's belief in her grandmother and her trust in her grandmother's instructions and learning to be at peace with the people around her not also believing in her grandmother and, like, being okay with that.
• 47:50
  Speaker A: Interesting.
• 47:51
  Speaker B: There's a lot of musing throughout the text on this. I'm gonna read a couple quotes. Seeing is not believing. It is only seeing. People must believe what they can. And those who believe more must not be hard upon those who less. I doubt if you would have believed it all yourself if you hadn't seen some of it. And then this little exchange between Curtie and the princess, that's all nonsense, said Curdie. I don't know what you mean. Then if you don't know what I mean, what right have you to call it nonsense? So George MacDonald was a Congregational minister, so all of this makes sense. And I think the movie attempted to transpose that into a more secular message about doing the right thing even when nobody else will back you up. But I don't think the movie did enough legwork to fully flesh that out.
• 48:45
  Speaker A: Yeah, the theme in the movie's not super strong. There is a little bit of that. There's kind of just the idea of, like you said earlier, when she has to be the one to stand up and do something about kind of taking responsibility for stuff or whatever. And again, which even that feels like it's. It isn't perfectly set up because it doesn't feel like a huge transformation for her or anything necessarily. And she definitely, at least to my memory, doesn't struggle at all with her own belief in her grandmother or anything like that in the movie.
• 49:16
  Speaker B: No, not really. No.
• 49:17
  Speaker A: Obviously she does stro. There is that whole scene with Kurti not believing, and that leads directly to the moment where she has that kind of character moment. But it's definitely not quite as explicit or not explicit, but it's definitely not like a specific, like, spiritual message. I would say it's more. What is there is kind of just more about, like, believing in yourself, basically.
• 49:39
  Speaker B: Yeah, kind of. Yeah, kind of.
• 49:41
  Speaker A: Yeah.
• 49:42
  Speaker B: All right.
• 49:43
  Speaker A: That was all we had for Lost. An adaptation. It's time to find out what Katie thought was better in the book.
• 49:49
  Speaker B: You like to read? Oh, yes, I love to read. What do you like to read? Everything. There's a moment when Irene first meets her great, great grandmother in the book where she looks at her and she's like, wow, she's really old. She's gotta be at least 50. Which I thought was great. Yeah, that's such a little kid thing. She's like. Cause Irene is canonically in the book. She's eight years old when the book starts. So I feel like that's Such a classic little kid thing to guess an age that's not actually very old. Her grandmother is also way more, like, obviously magical in the movie. And I have to say that I enjoyed the subtlety of the book's version.
• 50:36
  Speaker A: So in the book, you're not entirely sure if she's actually there or is like a magical.
• 50:41
  Speaker B: She's kind of a nebulous sort of being. You're not really sure exactly what all of her powers are or like, you know, is she a ghost? Is she a spirit?
• 50:50
  Speaker A: But I guess my point is, is she described as transparent in the book? Because she's transparent in the movie?
• 50:56
  Speaker B: I don't think she appears as, like,
• 50:58
  Speaker A: a spirit in the movie. You know what I mean? Like.
• 51:01
  Speaker B: Yeah, yeah.
• 51:02
  Speaker A: So I was just curious because. Yeah, in the book, if she's like an actual. Seems to be an actual person there who has these kind of interesting.
• 51:08
  Speaker B: Seems to be.
• 51:08
  Speaker A: Yeah.
• 51:10
  Speaker B: Although I didn't really care for Ludy in the book either. I have to say that I don't care what the. For what the movie does with her. More. She was kind of annoying in both,
• 51:20
  Speaker A: but she's just kind of. That classic, like, handmaiden character is kind of annoying. Like, that's.
• 51:26
  Speaker B: She does a lot of, like, expositing at the beginning of the movie. I thought it was funny that the movie made it seem so light and bright, deep underground in the mountain. Like, when we go in there with them.
• 51:38
  Speaker A: Well, you gotta be able to see.
• 51:39
  Speaker B: Sure. But the book puts a lot of emphasis on the fact that when Kurti is, like, creeping around trying to figure out what the goblins are up to, he's doing it in complete darkness, which I think is very creepy. Yeah, a little world building thing that I liked. Because the goblins don't have toes. They have a theory that humans wear shoes because we can't stand the sight of our own toes.
• 52:03
  Speaker A: Oh, okay.
• 52:04
  Speaker B: I didn't really understand why the movie went with chronic allergies as the main character trait for the Goblin King. Yeah, I've never really got that.
• 52:12
  Speaker A: I did, like. Well, I don't. Maybe you have a note about his hat? Do you have a note about his hat?
• 52:16
  Speaker B: I don't.
• 52:16
  Speaker A: I like his hat in the movie. His weird, dumb stone circular hat that
• 52:21
  Speaker B: I assume it's his crown.
• 52:22
  Speaker A: It's like his crown, but it's just a big hunk of rock that sits on his head that also, like, he, like, puts on a. It hangs on the bed frame above him in bed. I thought that was fun.
• 52:32
  Speaker B: I thought that's funny too because like, I guess you're just taking a chance every night.
• 52:37
  Speaker A: Yeah.
• 52:37
  Speaker B: That that's not going to break and crush you.
• 52:39
  Speaker A: Well, I guess it won't. I don't know. He wears it every. Yeah, I don't know.
• 52:42
  Speaker B: Well, I guess they do have very hard heads, so I guess it wouldn't kill him. I thought that the goblins. The. The reveal of the goblins nefarious plan was a little more subtle and like doled out more slowly in the book.
• 52:57
  Speaker A: Usually the case.
• 52:58
  Speaker B: Yeah. There's a really gross line in the book where the prince says that after they capture the princess, he wants to peel off the skin between her toes and bind them until they grow together. And I would have sworn on my life that that line was in the movie, but I guess I just had a visceral memory of reading it like years ago. I thought it was not at all clear that the movie's version of the ball of thread is supposed to be a ball of thread.
• 53:25
  Speaker A: We were joking about that. It looks like a rubber ball. It's just literally a single color.
• 53:31
  Speaker B: And then it bounces, and then it
• 53:32
  Speaker A: bounces and it makes the sound of a bouncing ball. We were like, what?
• 53:35
  Speaker B: In the book, some goblin cats find Curdie's string and play with it, which is what ends up getting him lost before he gets captured as opposed to him just like immediately running out of string in the movie.
• 53:49
  Speaker A: Yeah, that would be more fun because. Yeah, in the movie he's just like, oh, no. And then it just like.
• 53:52
  Speaker B: Yeah, like loses it immediately.
• 53:54
  Speaker A: All right, well, that was. That didn't do much.
• 53:57
  Speaker B: Overall, Irene is a lot less screamy in the book. She screams a lot in this movie.
• 54:05
  Speaker A: I didn't really think about it, but yeah, I guess she does.
• 54:09
  Speaker B: My last note here is that the way Curdie ends up in the castle for that final battle is that he gets captured by the guards because he suspects that the goblins are tunneling into the castle. And the way that he goes about trying to prove this is by breaking into the castle garden and listening to the ground every night to see if he can hear them tunneling in. Okay. And they also shoot him in the leg with a crossbow, which is why his leg is hurt.
• 54:43
  Speaker A: Oh yeah. In the movie he just like falls. Yeah, I think it just. He ends up with a like a.
• 54:47
  Speaker B: Yeah, he like trips and falls and they're like, oh, that's a really bad injury.
• 54:52
  Speaker A: Blood on his leg. He's hurt.
• 54:53
  Speaker B: Yeah.
• 54:54
  Speaker A: All right, let's go ahead and find out. What Katie thought was better in the movie. My life has taught me one lesson, Hugo, and not the one I thought it would. Happy endings only happen in the movies.
• 55:06
  Speaker B: We mentioned this earlier that Irene in the book does meet Curdie as she's lost and seemingly beset by goblins and he helps her back. The big difference is that Ludie is with her in the book. But I liked the movie setting up Irene as kind of like mischievous and rebellious that she like goes off by herself. Curdie and Irene seem to be a little closer in age in the movie. Not that they have like a ginormous age gap in the book. When the book starts I mentioned that she's 8 and he's canonically 12 when the book starts.
• 55:42
  Speaker A: Yeah. So old enough that it's a. That those are two different children. Like that's 8 year olds don't hang out with 12 year old. Well, not that they don't hang out, but they're.
• 55:50
  Speaker B: That's two different children. Yes, it's elementary school and middle school and there's that. There's also, I think more of an like an implied future romance in the movie.
• 55:59
  Speaker A: It definitely ends on a note of like they might get together.
• 56:03
  Speaker B: Iriny at one point does get scared by a goblin cat entering her bedroom in the book. But I thought the movie's version was more entertaining. I liked the look of the goblin village underground. I thought that was fun. In the book they just live in caves, which is kind of boring. The river of lava may be a little silly, I don't know, but I thought that having them tiptoe through the hall of sleeping goblin guards was fun. They're all interesting wrinkles to having them get out of the goblin lair.
• 56:34
  Speaker A: I think I had the note in Odds and Ends, but that scene cracked me up with the lava. And then the. The goblins sleeping in the room is that they cross over this big rock bridge over this lava river and it collapses behind them and falls into the lava. And then when they get to. When they get to the room and all the goblins are there and sleeping, they run in and I think it's Irene that goes, wait, turn back. And I was like. Or maybe it's Kurti. One of Kurti goes, wait, turn back. And I was like, brother, that bridge just literally collapsed into the. What do you mean turn back?
• 57:10
  Speaker B: There's no turning back.
• 57:11
  Speaker A: Where are you going?
• 57:12
  Speaker B: Irene does bring Curdie to meet her grandmother after she saves him. But in the movie she's just not there and everything is covered in Dust like she never was there in the book. In this scene, Irene can see her grandmother in the room and Curdie cannot. I guess both are interesting.
• 57:32
  Speaker A: Yeah, they're both working their own way, I think. Yeah.
• 57:35
  Speaker B: I loved that Irene has a miniature throne in her bedroom. Yeah, I thought that was great. It's kind of like, I guess the princess version of having like a play kitchen.
• 57:47
  Speaker A: Yeah. Yeah.
• 57:49
  Speaker B: And finally, Irene eventually does give Curdie the kiss that she promised him in the book. But I liked that in the movie they have her switch to his cheek at the last second because I thought that felt age appropriate.
• 58:02
  Speaker A: Yeah. They're little kids. Yeah, that works. All right, let's go ahead and talk about what the movie Nailed it as I expected.
• 58:11
  Speaker B: Practically perfect in every way. I just mentioned this, but Irene does offer to kiss Curdie to thank him. I will say that the book plays it more as like, courtly and less as like a implied romance thing, but that is from the book. The line when Irene meets her great great grandmother and she kind of lists a whole bunch of greats because she's not sure how many there are. And her grandmother responds, I'm not as great as all that.
• 58:40
  Speaker A: Yeah.
• 58:41
  Speaker B: Curdie does work in the mines with his dad. Child labor. Hey. At one point, Irene's grandmother has a rose shaped fire burning. The magic thread is fastened to Irene's ring. Curdie overhears the plan to kidnap Irene and force her to marry Frog Lip. And then he gets discovered right after that he can't stomp on the Queen's feet specifically because she is wearing stone shoes. They do trap him in a little cave by pushing a big rock up against it.
• 59:12
  Speaker A: Yep.
• 59:13
  Speaker B: The thread does lead Irene into the mountain via a little, like, stream outlet. She has to, like, get in the water to go inside. She does at one point try to follow the thread backwards when she thinks she's hit a dead end and it won't let her.
• 59:26
  Speaker A: Yeah.
• 59:26
  Speaker B: The Goblin King does want the Goblin Queen to take off her shoes before getting into bed, but she will not. On their way out, they do happen upon the royal bedroom. And Curdie steals one of the Goblin Queen's shoes, revealing that she has six toes.
• 59:42
  Speaker A: So they don't have any toes. Except the queen has six for some.
• 59:45
  Speaker B: The queen has six for some reason. But she's embarrassed of this. That's why she wears the shoes. Yeah. The goblins do come up into the castle through the wine cellar. Grandmother does visit Curtie while he's delirious in the castle Dungeon and heals his leg for him. C does burst into the melee yelling, stamp on their feet.
• 1:00:07
  Speaker A: Yeah. Yeah. Yeah.
• 1:00:08
  Speaker B: And finally, a storm does happen at the same time as the flooding in the final climax.
• 1:00:14
  Speaker A: All right, got a handful of odds and ends before the final verdict.
• 1:00:28
  Speaker B: First note, if I had a little gray tabby cat, I would call him Turnip.
• 1:00:32
  Speaker A: It's a good name for a cat. Turnip is cute. I thought, overall, this movie looked pretty interesting. It's not, like, the most gorgeous film, but it has moments.
• 1:00:41
  Speaker B: It has moments that are. Yeah.
• 1:00:43
  Speaker A: That are cool and unique. And one of them was that when we were first introduced to her grandmother, the door opens, the room that she's in, and all this light bursts out, and we get this really cool shot of the light, like, hitting Irene. That I thought was really, really cool. The way they animated that. I thought that was really neat.
• 1:01:00
  Speaker B: I love this story's reference to and almost, like, subversion of the spinning wheel in Sleeping Beauty.
• 1:01:08
  Speaker A: It is very similar. Yeah. Yeah. Because her grandmother in this has the spinning wheel. Her grandmother is also a baddie in this movie.
• 1:01:14
  Speaker B: Yeah, she is.
• 1:01:15
  Speaker A: Good Lord. I was like, who's gonna. Yep, that's your grandma.
• 1:01:22
  Speaker B: I love that Cardi and his dad have matching sweatbands.
• 1:01:25
  Speaker A: Yeah, they do have their matching little headbands.
• 1:01:29
  Speaker B: Also, Curtie's toothpick legs.
• 1:01:32
  Speaker A: Yeah, he's got really long, spindly legs.
• 1:01:35
  Speaker B: Character design.
• 1:01:36
  Speaker A: Yeah. Another animation thing they did that I was not as big of a fan on was that they do this very interesting candle flame flicker effect. Like when people have, like, a candle or there's a fire or a lamp, mainly with Kurti's lamp, I think is, like, the main time we see it. But they do this very interesting flickering light effect that I don't know if I'd seen that specific thing done in animation before. It's pretty, like, convincing and effective as flickering light. I also found it kind of annoying and, like, hard to look at, but it is interesting at least.
• 1:02:08
  Speaker B: I think it's interesting that they at least made the effort to do, like, to. To mimic light like that. It's. It's interesting.
• 1:02:17
  Speaker A: I referenced this very, very early, but this is a legit one because so many times people will say ones, and you're like, come on. That's not a real. I have a new. Hear me out. The Goblin Queen.
• 1:02:28
  Speaker B: I'm just saying I think that's a real.
• 1:02:30
  Speaker A: Hear me out. That's a legit. Hear me out.
• 1:02:32
  Speaker B: I don't know, because you're right. A lot of people's Hear me outs are just classically hot characters.
• 1:02:36
  Speaker A: Hot characters that are, like, a little weird or something.
• 1:02:39
  Speaker B: But the Goblin Queen is kind of grotesque.
• 1:02:41
  Speaker A: Kind of grotesque, but in a way
• 1:02:43
  Speaker B: you're like, but she got them titties.
• 1:02:45
  Speaker A: Maybe that's all it is.
• 1:02:47
  Speaker B: I don't know.
• 1:02:47
  Speaker A: Maybe this is supposed to be a kids episode.
• 1:02:50
  Speaker B: Katie, I really love Frog Lips. Emo cloak.
• 1:02:54
  Speaker A: Yes.
• 1:02:54
  Speaker B: He's got, like, a skull pin holding his cloak together.
• 1:02:58
  Speaker A: I feel like. Is. Am I crazy that his character design is vaguely similar to the bat from Not Fantastic? What was the movie we just did?
• 1:03:06
  Speaker B: The Great Mouse Detective.
• 1:03:08
  Speaker A: Oh, a little bit like that. I was thinking. No, the. The bat in the animated movie about the cutting down the forest.
• 1:03:14
  Speaker B: Why am I blanking on the fern gully?
• 1:03:16
  Speaker A: Fern Gully was the bat. No, he's more brown. Right. I think I am thinking of Basil Rathbone or whatever. The. That's the guy that plays him. But what is the character's name in the Great Mouse Detective? The villain. Anyways, that character. People know what we're talking about. The villain in the Great Mouse Detective. He does, I guess, kind of look like the color with the cape and stuff. Yeah, yeah.
• 1:03:36
  Speaker B: The part in this movie where her grandmother is, like, sitting at her vanity table and she looks back at Irene and her reflection in the mirror is also still looking at Irene. Never been sure if that was just, like, an animation goof or if it was an intentional moment of otherworldliness.
• 1:03:55
  Speaker A: It could be both.
• 1:03:56
  Speaker B: It could be both.
• 1:03:57
  Speaker A: That's a classic. Like, oh, my God, we have to animate this mirror. What if we don't animate it? That'll be kind of interesting and cool,
• 1:04:04
  Speaker B: but also, it is a little bit creepy.
• 1:04:06
  Speaker A: Yeah, that's what I mean. Yeah. I think that could be intentional. Random scene is that Ludi just gets her boobs licked on by one of the goblins, he licks up her chest, and then she goes on a foot stomping spree, which I thought was. But I was like, oh, okay.
• 1:04:21
  Speaker B: Supposed to be a kids.
• 1:04:22
  Speaker A: Yeah, it's supposed to be a kids movie.
• 1:04:25
  Speaker B: I forgot about the cute line animation of Turnip in the credits of this movie. We turned them off right away. But there's, like. There's a. The credits have, like, a line animation of Turnip playing a string.
• 1:04:38
  Speaker A: Oh, yeah, No, I saw. We did.
• 1:04:40
  Speaker B: We saw, like, a minute of it.
• 1:04:41
  Speaker A: Yeah, yeah, it was very cute. It looked like, like an animation test or something. Or like, early. Yeah, early parts. So my final note was that I felt like the My kind of assessment of the movie was that it felt like it directly adapted kind of the plot of the book, but missed many of the important story elements and that it works totally fine as a kids movie, but doesn't work a whole lot beyond that.
• 1:04:59
  Speaker B: Yeah.
• 1:05:00
  Speaker A: Which kind of matches.
• 1:05:01
  Speaker B: Agree with that. Yeah. With like the kind of flattening of the themes.
• 1:05:05
  Speaker A: Yeah. Like it's. It's. It's a totally fine movie that I would be totally. Like, I would show it to a kid, like my kid or whatever. I think it's a fun movie that of kind kids would be into, especially because just the type of like a fantasy. I love fantasy stories and you know.
• 1:05:17
  Speaker B: Oh, yeah. I was like fully obsessed with this.
• 1:05:19
  Speaker A: 100%, I could say. Yeah. I think as a kid I would have been really into this. So yeah, it's got a lot of charm in that way, but like watching it as an adult, it has some charm, but it's not like, wow, that was a great movie. Yeah.
• 1:05:32
  Speaker B: Upon this reread of the book, I was really struck by how clearly C.S. lewis took stylistic and thematic notes from MacDonald because Irene's grandmother is basically Aslan.
• 1:05:49
  Speaker A: Yeah. Yeah.
• 1:05:50
  Speaker B: And the. The gentle narration style of this book is also very reminiscent of the Narnia books.
• 1:05:57
  Speaker A: Yeah, that makes sense. Especially based on what you said of it having a message being kind of a spiritual and the writer, author being a preacher. I could imagine that C.S. lewis would have been very familiar with the book. Yeah, it would make sense. As always, you can do us a favor by heading over to Facebook, Threads, Blue Sky, Goodreads, Instagram, any of those places interact with us. We'd love to hear from you so we can talk about what you thought about the Princess and the Goblin on the next prequel episode. You can also help us out by heading over to Apple, Podcasts, Spotify or wherever you listen to our show. Drop us a five star rating and write us a nice little review. And you could Support us@patreon.com HisFilmIsLas get access to bonus content starting at the $5 level. We just put out a bonus episode late from last month about Only Lovers Left Alive that I think is really, really good. I might just release it on main. I was so. I liked our discussion on that movie so much that I kind of was like, I might just put this out on main for everybody so that more people can hear it. But if not, if I don't do that, this. I'm now not giving you any reason to go support, but go support us. 5 bucks a month get access to that bonus content. I think we're putting out some really interesting discussions on movies there, so go look for that stuff. Katie, it's time for the final verdict.
• 1:07:09
  Speaker B: Sentence fast.
• 1:07:11
  Speaker A: Verdict after.
• 1:07:13
  Speaker B: That's stupid. I adored this movie as a child. It was my personal weird VHS that nobody else seems to know about. I was terrified of it, and I absolutely wore it out. To me, the story had absolutely everything. A princess who was a little closer to my age than typical Disney fare, a cat companion, secret passages, a cool magical item, a character who essentially amounts to a fairy godmother defeating the villains via the power of song, and to top it all off, a very real sense of danger for the protagonists. I have some very clear memories of dressing up, putting on a little quarter machine ring, and pretending to be guided around my house by magical thread, evading goblins with every rewatching it as an adult, I can see the holes and the weak spots. I don't really care. For me, it holds up on nostalgia alone, but I definitely could understand not thinking very much of it without that nostalgia to prop it up. I love the book, too. I didn't read it as a child, but this is my third reread as an adult, and I think it holds up on its own. It is an enchanting little story, and I love that. I can see where some of the subsequent giants of fantasy reached in and grabbed inspiration. My enduring love for the film notwithstanding, I think that the book does a far better job with its themes, messages, and the story's timeline. So for those reasons, I'm going to give this one to the book.
• 1:08:46
  Speaker A: All right, Katie, what's next?
• 1:08:48
  Speaker B: Up next, we have a switch episode. Yeah, and you are reading Project Hail Mary.
• 1:08:55
  Speaker A: Yes, I am. No, I've already started it. We'll talk more, but about our thoughts and. And the fact that we've seen it before the movie already, because I wanted to see it in theaters when it came out, but then wanted to wait to do it. We'll get into all of that on the prequel episode. Until that time, guys, gals, non binary
• 1:09:10
  Speaker B: pals and everybody else keep reading books,
• 1:09:12
  Speaker A: watching movies, and keep being awesome. Sam.