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A Series of Unfortunate Events · 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 or the written word did it better. So turn it up, settle in, and get ready for spoilers because this film is lit. My name is Lemony Snicket, and it is my sad duty to document this tale. It's A series of Unfortunate events, and this film is. Is Lit. Hello and welcome back to this Film Is lit, the podcast where we talk about movies that are based on books. We have a great episode about A Series of Unfortunate Events, the movie, not the Netflix series. In case you're confused. Maybe one day we'll talk about the Netflix series. We have both seen it.
• 1:19
  Speaker B: I have a note about that in our Odds and Ends.
• 1:22
  Speaker A: Yeah, we'll get to that later. We both have watched it, but that's not what this episode's about. About the movie with Jim Carrey. So if that's what you're here for, you're in the right place. If you have not read or watched A Series of Unfortunate Events recently, we're going to give you a brief summary of the film and let me sum up. Let me explain. No, there is too much. Let me sum up. This summary is sourced from Wikipedia. In a clock tower, investigator Liminey Snicket begins writing a documentation of the whereabouts of the Baudelaire 14 year old inventor Violet, her 12 year old bibliophile brother Klaus, and their mordacious 2 year old younger sister Sunny. Looks that up so you don't have to. Mordacious means likes to bite things, which if you've seen it, makes sense or you would maybe get that. But I had to look up that word because I was like mordacious. What does that mean? One day the children are orphaned when a mysterious fire destroys their mansion, killing their parents. Mr. Poe, the family banker, manages their affairs and leaves them in the care of Count Olaf, a nefarious stage actor intent upon secretly obtaining their family fortune, which will remain in the custody of the bank until Violet turns 18. Olaf forces them to do heavy chores and belittles them driving back from the court where Olaf has legally obtained custody of the kids. He stops to go into a general store, leaving them locked in the car parked on train tracks with a train heading toward them. Mr. Po calls and Violet tries to tell him that they're about to be hit by a train, but he's unable to hear them due to him driving next to said train. The children divert the train by building a device to remotely activate the railroad switch, just in time saving their lives. Mr. Poe arrives and takes them away, thinking that Olaf was allowing the kids to drive the car alone. The orphans are taken to Uncle Dr. Montgomery Monty Montgomery. The orphans are taken to Uncle Dr. Montgomery Monty Montgomery, an eccentric herpetologist who treats them incredibly kindly. One day, Olaf arrives disguised as a new assistant, Stefano. The orphans attempt to warn Uncle Monty about Count Olaf's arrival, but he believes Stefano is after the incredibly deadly viper, a giant misnomer python in his laboratory that he had discovered. Uncle Monty is discovered dead shortly thereafter and his death is blamed on the viper. Although the children are certain that Count Olaf is responsible, they are almost placed in Stephano's care by Mr. Poe, but Sonny proves his guilt by showing that the snake is harmless and Stefano escapes. Mr. Poe then takes the children to their Aunt Josephine, a grammar obsessed widow with panphobia living on a house at the edge of a cliff. Olaf later appears disguised as a sea captain named Captain Sham to meddle with their plans again. One day, Josephine is not at the house, leaving an apparent suicide, not entrusting them to Captain Sham. Klaus deduces that Olaf forced her to write the note, but she left a hidden message revealing her location. A hurricane causes the house to fall into the lake. However, the children escape just in time. They sail to the cave where Aunt Josephine is hiding and rescue her, but attracted leeches due to Josephine eating a banana. Olaf appears and takes the children, leaving Josephine to be eaten by the leeches. Mr. Poe then finds him with the children and Olaf pretends to have rescued them. Mr. Po is fooled and returns the children back to Olaf, believing that he has redeemed himself. Olaf then plans a play titled the Marvelous Marriage, starring Violet and himself as bride and groom respectively. Klaus's suspicions reveal that Olaf is planning to take advantage of the play to really marry Violet. In an attempt to get the fortune. Using legally recognized vows and a bona fide justice of the peace, Olaf locks Sunny up in a birdcage, threatening to drop her to her death if Violet refuses to take part in the play. Klaus escapes and finds a hidden tower in Olaf's house where he discovers a large window with a set of Lenses that, if positioned correctly, can focus the rays of the sun. And he realizes that Olaf used it to set fire to the Baudelaire mansion. Using the window, Klaus manages to burn the marriage certificate, leading to Olaf's arrest. As a punishment, Olaf is made to suffer every hardship that he forced upon the Baudelaire kids before serving a life sentence. However, a jury of his peers overturn his sentence and Olaf vanishes. Violet, Klaus and Sunny are taken to visit the charred remains of their old home one final time. Where they find a lost letter from their parents has finally arrived in the mail. And inside is a spyglass announcing their family's secret society before they became orphans. Snicket finishes writing his documentation and hides the papers in the clock tower for his publisher to find. As Mr. Poe drives the Baudelaires to their next home, Snicket concludes that despite the siblings recent unfortunate events, they have each other. That is it for the summary. Hopefully that helped you out. If you haven't read or watched this in a while, we do have a guess who this week. So let's do it. Who are you? No one of consequence. I must know. Get used to disappointment.
• 5:57
  Speaker B: All right. I think you're gonna get these. I think they're gonna be pretty easy. He was very tall and very thin, dressed in a gray suit that had many dark stains on it. His face was unshaven. And rather than two eyebrows like most human beings have, he had just one long one. His eyes were very, very shiny, making him look both hungry and angry.
• 6:22
  Speaker A: That's Count Olaf.
• 6:23
  Speaker B: Yeah, that is Count Olaf.
• 6:25
  Speaker A: Eyebrow was a dead giveaway there. Yeah.
• 6:29
  Speaker B: And Jim Carrey looks pretty spot on to the illustrations of Olaf.
• 6:35
  Speaker A: Yeah. And so as does Neil Patrick Harris in the Netflix version. They're very similar style.
• 6:40
  Speaker B: Yes.
• 6:41
  Speaker A: Very similar character design, which is both very clearly inspired by the book, which I assume has always had some kind of illustrations of Olaf. And it definitely could tell that they're just both pulling from the book.
• 6:53
  Speaker B: From behind the door stepped a short, chubby man with a round red face.
• 7:00
  Speaker A: The person that most immediately jumps out to me for this would be Mr. Poe, who is the banker.
• 7:06
  Speaker B: Is that your guess?
• 7:07
  Speaker A: Yes.
• 7:08
  Speaker B: It's not Mr. Poe. This is Uncle Monty.
• 7:11
  Speaker A: I could see that too. That was my second guess. But that doesn't really match the version we get in this movie or in the Netflix series, from my memory. But in this movie it's played by Billy Connolly. Very famous, well known Irish actor, I think. And yeah, he's like taller and thinner and handsome guy. This is not what I would expect. Not the description I would give to Billy Connolly.
• 7:35
  Speaker B: The COVID of this book.
• 7:37
  Speaker A: Oh, is he on the. Wait, which one's him?
• 7:40
  Speaker B: The guy with the red hair.
• 7:42
  Speaker A: Oh, in the middle. Okay. Yeah. In that illustration, he does. I wouldn't say he's short and chubby, but it's hard to tell because he's behind a snake or something. But.
• 7:51
  Speaker B: All right, last one. From behind the door appeared a pale woman with her white hair piled high on top of her head in a bun.
• 8:00
  Speaker A: Okay, well, that one's clearly Aunt Josephine.
• 8:02
  Speaker B: Yes.
• 8:03
  Speaker A: So, yeah, I would say that was. That one was easy. And if I had. If you had done the order backwards, I would have gotten Monty because of the way it's written. Yeah, that it's. I didn't read ahead here. I didn't cheat. But if I had seen. If I had read ahead and saw that second one, I would have gotten. Or the third one, I would have gotten a second one because I would have realized these are the introductions to their new caretakers, because the language is the same. So we're obviously doing the same thing here. We're. It's. It's literature. It rhymes or whatever, but poetry. It rhymes, but. Yeah. Cool. All right. That was pretty. No descriptions of the Baudelaires in the.
• 8:41
  Speaker B: No, not really.
• 8:42
  Speaker A: Interesting.
• 8:43
  Speaker B: We know that. We know their ages, right? In the book, we know that Violet is pretty and we know that Klaus wears glasses.
• 8:49
  Speaker A: All right.
• 8:50
  Speaker B: And that's about it.
• 8:51
  Speaker A: Yep. Okay. Nailed it. I mean, to be fair, the other one is a baby, so it's not a whole lot of description going on there, but fair enough. I have quite a few questions. Let's get into them. In. Was that in the book?
• 9:04
  Speaker B: Gaston? May I have my book, please?
• 9:06
  Speaker A: How can you read this? There's no pictures.
• 9:09
  Speaker B: Well, some people use their imagination.
• 9:11
  Speaker A: So the film opens on this very fun little stop motion animation of the Littlest Elf. It's like a different movie. I legitimately took a second. I was like, did we turn on the wrong movie? Did I order the wrong movie? But then I was like, I don't think so. But then it's revealed that this is not the story that we're going to be following. And it's very in the spirit of the liminey Snicket, where he jumps in and is like, unfortunately, this is not the happy story we're following. I have a much more miserable story to tell you. And. But I wanted to know if that false intro of the Littlest Elf came from the book.
• 9:44
  Speaker B: So it's not in the three books that I read.
• 9:47
  Speaker A: Okay.
• 9:48
  Speaker B: Which is a caveat that I'm gonna make several times.
• 9:51
  Speaker A: Yes. Throughout your questions, which we should clarify that. Yeah.
• 9:54
  Speaker B: For audience and. Because there were actually quite a few of these books out by the time the movie came out. There were, like, 10 of them out, I think.
• 10:02
  Speaker A: And there's, like, what?
• 10:03
  Speaker B: There's 13. Yeah. So I did the best that I could. The fandom wiki for this is actually pretty thorough. So I did the best that I could to find out specific things that you were asking for that were in.
• 10:15
  Speaker A: Like, later books potentially. Yeah. But you only. Just to clarify, you read the first three because that's what this movie is based on.
• 10:20
  Speaker B: That is what this movie is based on. So I read the Bad Beginning, the Reptile Room, and the Wide Window. So the Littlest Elf does not appear in any of those three books. It is the name of a fictional book that Lemony Snicket suggests that we read as an alternative to his very sad and upsetting books.
• 10:41
  Speaker A: Okay.
• 10:42
  Speaker B: But. Yeah, but that happens in the Vile Village, which is book the seventh.
• 10:46
  Speaker A: Okay. So at least seven were out by the time they.
• 10:48
  Speaker B: Yeah, they made this movie as an intro. It is definitely in the spirit of the first book. The Bad beginning starts off. First lines of it are, if you are interested in stories with happy endings, you would be better off reading some other book. In this book, not only is there no happy ending, there is no happy beginning and very few happy things in the middle.
• 11:13
  Speaker A: Yeah, so, yeah, definitely. Which. It might even be the exact line in the movie. I don't remember. But, like, when we get to the end of this and you get, like, the record scratch, actually, this isn't the movie. Like, that might be the line that is said. If not, it's very similar, for sure.
• 11:28
  Speaker B: Cool.
• 11:29
  Speaker A: So we then jump, and we're into our actual movie, which is about the Baudelaire twins who are three. Or twins. Children. Who are these three kids? Sunny. Violet. Sunny, yeah. Sonny, Violet, and Klaus. And one thing in particular, they all have, like, very distinct character traits as these kids. But one of the things is that Violet is, like, an inventor, and whenever she's doing her inventing or her problem solving, she ties her hair up with a ribbon. Like, ties it into a ponytail with a ribbon. And that's how, you know she's thinking and doing her thing. And I want to know if that came from the book, because I remember it from the Netflix series, but does it come from the book?
• 12:09
  Speaker B: It does. Yeah. This is mentioned numerous Times throughout all three books. The way that she uses the ribbon.
• 12:16
  Speaker A: Yeah, we didn't get a pretty early title drop, is that the kids are, like, standing on a Beach and Mr. Poe shows up, played by Timothy Spall. Peter Pettigrew is that actor, I think. I'm pretty sure. And he is the guy who's kind of in charge of getting them to their respective.
• 12:37
  Speaker B: Yeah, he's in charge of the estate layers. Yeah, the estate layer. He's like the executor of their parents will or something like that.
• 12:43
  Speaker A: So he's the one who's responsible to take them to the people who are going to be their guardians or whatever. And so he takes the. Or he shows up and he says to them this first line to them, I must inform you of an extremely unfortunate event. And I wanted to know if that title drop came so quickly in the book. Cause I did not recall that.
• 13:03
  Speaker B: It does not in the book. Mr. Poe says that he has some very bad news for them.
• 13:10
  Speaker A: Okay, so no title drop there. Cause you get another title drop later.
• 13:13
  Speaker B: There are title drops throughout these three books, but not in this particular instance.
• 13:19
  Speaker A: I'm gonna do my best throughout this. Not constantly reference the Netflix series, but just to clarify, I have not read the books. I have seen the entire Netflix series.
• 13:27
  Speaker B: Yeah, the Netflix series is kind of your only frame of reference for this.
• 13:31
  Speaker A: So there is. And from my understanding, the Netflix series was a fairly faithful adaptation. And it does seem like it's very fairly similar to the movie in a lot of ways. Like, stylistically and other things, you can tell that the Netflix series was not trying to be an entirely different thing than the movie is. It almost feels like they're like, what if we just made the movie? But more. Yeah, because it's very similar in a lot of ways. But anyways, I'll do my best not to constantly relate everything to the Netflix series. I'm gonna try. I say, is that. My next question literally has a reference to the Netflix series in. In the question. But in this film and from my memory, in the Netflix series, they subtitle all of Sonny's lines. Sonny is the. The. The baby.
• 14:18
  Speaker B: Yeah.
• 14:18
  Speaker A: Baudelaire. Who's, like, one or two? Two, maybe.
• 14:21
  Speaker B: I think the. The description or the summary that you read said she was two.
• 14:25
  Speaker A: Yeah, that sounds.
• 14:26
  Speaker B: In the books, they only ever. They say she's an infant.
• 14:29
  Speaker A: Yeah.
• 14:30
  Speaker B: So.
• 14:30
  Speaker A: But she doesn't speak, doesn't walk, doesn't. Is very, very young.
• 14:33
  Speaker B: Yeah.
• 14:34
  Speaker A: And I wanted to know. So in the film and in the Netflix series, they. They subtitle all of her baby babblings with lines like she's actually saying things. And often the other Baudelaire children respond to her as if they understand what she's saying. Yeah. Like, get babble something. And Violet will be like, sunny, like, how dare you? Or something. You know, like the. Like, they understand what she's saying. And I wanted to know if the book translated Sunny's thoughts to the reader the same way that the movie and the Netflix show do. Because I like that. I think it's a lot of fun.
• 15:04
  Speaker B: Yeah. So this is something that comes from the book. Although in my opinion, I think the approach is slightly different. Like, to me, the subtitles imply, like, a direct translation.
• 15:17
  Speaker A: Yeah, probably. Yeah.
• 15:18
  Speaker B: The book approaches it more like this. Like, the first time that we encounter this. The line is, this morning, she was saying gak over and over, which probably meant, look at that mysterious figure emerging from the fog.
• 15:34
  Speaker A: Yeah.
• 15:35
  Speaker B: So it feels slightly different. Although the way that Sunny and Klaus respond to her in the books is pretty much the same as it is, like, they understand what she's saying.
• 15:48
  Speaker A: And. Yeah, I think it's. Yeah, it's very similar. And I imagine that a lot of the lines in the show that they use for the subtitles are probably from the book of, like, what they suspect she's saying or whatever. Okay. There's a very specific line. I don't really. I don't know why I'm asking, but there's a very specific line that kind of cracked me up, where they're finally. So Poe picks him up, takes them to Count Olaf, who is their closest relative. We'll talk about that later. But their closest relative. And they drop him. He drops them off there, and they're introduced to Count Olaf, played by Jim Carrey in this one. And he's kind of introducing himself. And one of his first lines, when he's talking to Poe, he says, okay, so where do I sign for the fortune? I mean, children very clearly establishing. Which it's clear the moment you see him and hear him talk, that he is not a good guy with good motives. But that line cracked me up. And I wanted to know if. Where do I sign for the fortune? I mean, children. Came from the book.
• 16:48
  Speaker B: It does not. That bit is not from the book.
• 16:50
  Speaker A: Fair enough. This was a scene that. My next question here is, it's not something I remember from the Netflix series, which is that Klaus has to cook dinner. He asks them. He has a bunch of his acting troupe over. Olaf does, because he's an actor, and he has his acting troupe over, and he asks them to make dinner for him, and they make pasta puttanesca. And he's like, I wanted roast beef. And when they start, like, kind of say, like, arguing with him about it, he just hits Klaus in the face. He clocks him. And I was like, oh, I do not remember in the Netflix series, Olaf ever, like, violently, like, physically hitting, like, the children or anything. And I wanted to know if that came from the book, because that kind of surprised me.
• 17:30
  Speaker B: This does come directly from the bad beginning. I don't remember whether or not it's in the Netflix series. I would be surprised if it wasn't, because it is straight from the book. In the book, he actually hits him hard enough to leave, like, a large bruise on his face.
• 17:45
  Speaker A: I thought that was surprising because I wasn't expecting from my memory, in the Netflix series, like, Olaf's dynamic with them is a lot more cartoonishly villainous.
• 17:56
  Speaker B: I have so many thoughts on that in our Lost in adaptation.
• 18:01
  Speaker A: All right, well, then we segment. We'll get to that later then, because, yeah, my memory was that it was much more cartoonishly villainous.
• 18:07
  Speaker B: Yeah.
• 18:07
  Speaker A: And he still is, like, for the most part, like, it's very over the top, like, yes, like evil, like, mastermind villain, crafting his plans, but never actually, like, really doing anything that ultimately harms the children. Like, he's trying to harm the children, but, like, he never succeeds in any way. So the children don't actually. I don't know. So I was kind of surprised to see him, like, actually just hit Klaus. I was like, oh, okay. But we'll talk more about that later. So, like I said, he does try to murder them quite a bit, though. And the first time he tries to murder them, as after he gets guardianship of them or whatever, some sort of paperwork gets done. And then on the way back from that, he leaves his car. He parks his car into train tracks and then goes into a shop to do some shopping and locks them in the car, hoping they'll get hit and killed by a train. And I wanted to know if that came from the book, because I also really, like, in the movie, the way it's revealed, we don't realize that at first he parks and he's like, ah, I gotta go into this store. And you see him lock the doors. And then there's this slow kind of build as we slowly start to. The camera reveals more and more about the environment. And then we eventually get to a point where we realize, oh, they're parked on train tracks and they're going to get hit by a train. Which I thought the way that was revealed was really effective and fun, but I want to know if it came from the book.
• 19:21
  Speaker B: The train scene is not from the book. I did think that it was a lot of fun and I also thought it was a good way to move the plot along since they decided to move the original ending of the bad beginning to the very end of the movie.
• 19:37
  Speaker A: Yeah. I assume. Then I'll just jump ahead. A couple questions here that if that scene's not in the movie. Because my other question I had about that scene was if they. The way they solved this in the movie is they. They craft like, a catapult. Like a catapult? Not a catapult. I don't even know the word for it. They launch, like a spring launch. Yeah. They tie a toy to a rope and use a spring to, like, launch it and wrap it around the train handle so that they can divert the train basically at the last second. So I assume that's not in the book if the scene is not in the book.
• 20:06
  Speaker B: No, it is not from the book. But I also liked that. I thought it was a good way to demonstrate Violet's talent for, like, mechanics and building things and thinking of things quickly.
• 20:17
  Speaker A: It also felt really. It's not realistic at all, but it has just enough realism to it.
• 20:24
  Speaker B: Yeah.
• 20:24
  Speaker A: That it feels.
• 20:24
  Speaker B: It feels a little. Plausible.
• 20:26
  Speaker A: Plausible. Yeah. It's one of those things where. And that's such a great sweet spot. And that's what kind of why I was interested to see if it was in the book, because it reminds me a lot of other things in the series. Again, from my memory of the Netflix series, where a lot of the, like, that kind of stuff, the tactile, like, problem solving and the stuff they do as over the top as the series is, some of that stuff feels somewhat plausible and realistic in a way that I think makes it much more enjoyable. Whereas it was like this completely over the top nonsense contraption that they invent. Like if they had invented in the car or like some way to, like. I can't even think of a good example, but I could come up with some other way they had figured out how to get the car off the train tracks or keep the train from hitting them. Like they. They created like a. I don't know, some sort of device that they make.
• 21:15
  Speaker B: Like a rocket launcher that, like moves the car or something.
• 21:20
  Speaker A: I don't know. Like, it's just believable enough while being clearly ridiculous that you're like, yeah, I don't know. It's hard to explain, but I really liked it. Similar note in that scene when they're trapped in the car. They realize the train is coming and their first line of action is. Is. Violet asks Klaus if, like, she's like, you read about trains all the time. You know anything about trains that could help us? And we. This is where we get this first instance of this. And I think it only happens, like, twice in the movie.
• 21:48
  Speaker B: It happens like, a handful of times, like two or three times.
• 21:51
  Speaker A: I assume it would have been a thing that kept happening series had they made another two or three movies or however many they're planning to make, I do think. But anyways, the thing that happens is that, as she asked him to, like, remember, because the movie set up earlier, that Klaus remembers everything he's ever read. He's a voracious reader, and he remembers everything he's ever read. So she's like, you remember anything about trains? And we get this really cool visual motif where we cut to the Baudelaire library and he starts thinking about trains and remembering what he knows about trains. And when that happens, we get these insert cuts to different shots of books sliding off the shelf. Relevant books about, like, trains sliding off the shelf. And I thought that was really cool and a very fun little visual flourish to kind of visualize how Klaus is, like. Because it also feels very realistic, kind of of like how memory palaces, like, operate for. I don't know. That's a whole thing. But, like, how people develop these, like, memory tricks.
• 22:50
  Speaker B: Yeah.
• 22:50
  Speaker A: To, like, recall things. It feels kind of, like, realistic in that regard. So I wanted to know if that imagery of him, like, of the books pull it, like, pushing out from the shelves when he's remembering what he's read. If that came. Felt like that was inspired directly in something in the book. Obviously, I'm not expecting necessarily the exact description of that thing, but if it feels like it's. I don't know how to describe it, but you get what I'm saying.
• 23:14
  Speaker B: So the book usually does tell us whether or not Klaus has read books about. Whatever the subject at hand is. I don't know how much I would consider that a direct reference.
• 23:26
  Speaker A: Yeah, I guess.
• 23:27
  Speaker B: But I think you could make an argument for it, I think.
• 23:30
  Speaker A: For sure. I guess what I'm asking is there's not, like, anything in the book where it's, like. Where we get, like, a description of Klaus, like, visualizing the bookcase or. You know what I mean? Like, it's like, like the book doesn't describe Klaus. Like, and then he. He visualized the books he read and like he sees one about this and what. You know what I mean? Like that.
• 23:51
  Speaker B: There might have been one instance where he like visualizes the library.
• 23:56
  Speaker A: Okay. That's what I kind of what I was wondering if, like. Because that would be kind of at least a direct. Yeah, Potentially a direct thing that the movie was pulling from as opposed to just completely inventing that visual whole cloth.
• 24:09
  Speaker B: I feel like I do remember there being at least one instance where he like, visualizes the bookshelves.
• 24:15
  Speaker A: Okay.
• 24:16
  Speaker B: If somebody else remembers better than me.
• 24:18
  Speaker A: So potentially hop in.
• 24:19
  Speaker B: In the feedback. But potentially.
• 24:21
  Speaker A: But it's not something that happens every time. For sure.
• 24:24
  Speaker B: No, I. But I also really enjoyed that visual. I thought it was a lot of fun.
• 24:28
  Speaker A: Yeah. So after that all goes down. They are then taken away from Count All Off. Not because he tried to kill them, but because Poe thinks that he let them drive the car or whatever. It's. Well, I don't know if we have a note about it later, but that's maybe my least favorite thing about this series. And it's the whole conceit of the series. But I find it very frustrating as a viewer, the. The fact that. And again, I understand it's the conceit of this series, but that none of the adults will listen to what the kids are saying. And like it's a constant over and over again. Like the kids are like, oh my God, that's Count all off, you idiots. And they're like, what are you talking like. And again, I understand what the story's doing. It's about how kids, Kids, you know, how adults don't listen to what kids are actually saying. Like, I understand what it's all about. That doesn't make it any less frustrating to watch. Yeah. So it drives me a little bit crazy. But he. So he doesn't listen to what they're saying, but he does decide, okay, we got to get them out of. Out of. Away from Count Olaf. So he takes them to. To Monty, who is their uncle. Monty Montgomery. Montgomery, who is a herpetologist. When they get there, they're kind of exploring his house and meeting very nice guy. They immediately love him. And they're gonna go to Peru and study snakes or whatever together as long as nothing horrible happens. But one of the things they find there is this spyglass that Monty has. And Klaus also found a similar one at the parents house when they were going through the burned down wreckage.
• 25:56
  Speaker B: Yeah, the rubble.
• 25:57
  Speaker A: Yeah. The rubble of their house. He found this spyglass, and he sees that Monty has a very similar one. And this kind of teases the larger story, and it comes back later again in the movie. And I wanted to know if the spyglass came from the book, and that being this setup and kind of tease for some bigger, grander conspiracy.
• 26:16
  Speaker B: So the spyglass thing is interesting to me because it seems to be something that's not really in the books, at least according to the Wiki, but that both this movie and the Netflix series, like, really lack.
• 26:32
  Speaker A: That's interesting because I do remember that.
• 26:34
  Speaker B: In the Netflix series, I thought so there are no. There are no spyglasses. Well, there is one spyglass, which I'll talk about later, but it's not like.
• 26:42
  Speaker A: It'S not one of those spyglasses. Yeah, like one of the secret society spyglasses or whatever.
• 26:46
  Speaker B: Okay, so there's nothing like that in these three books that I read. According to the Lemony Snicket Wiki, a spyglass is used by members of the vfd, which is this series secret organization. And that's, like, briefly mentioned in the eighth book, the Slippery Slope. However, it doesn't seem like that's any kind of larger important symbol. The impression that I have gotten is that it's kind of something that's offhand mentioned in one of the books, but that both adaptations kind of latched onto. And I could be wrong in that because, again, I only read these three books.
• 27:29
  Speaker A: I think it's a very clever way, though. Well, continue. Finish your note here, and then I'll. I'll jump in. But you had one more.
• 27:34
  Speaker B: Yeah. So these first three books don't really tease the larger story all that much. Like, hardly at all. Honestly. The closest we get to, like, a tease of the larger story is at the end of the Wide Window, when they're. The third one, when they're at least when they're attempting to arrest Count Olaf because he gets away. Again, Mr. Post says something about, like, his many, many crimes, and Olaf says something about arson. And that's like the first kind of tease that we get at this larger conspiracy that goes on in this series. But other than that, these first three books don't really do that.
• 28:15
  Speaker A: Yeah, I imagine the reason that the Netflix series and this kind of latched onto it is that the main reason is that they knew because they were writing the Netflix series. The whole series was done at that point the movie, like you said, 10 of them was out or something like that. I imagine what's going on there is that the book or the Netflix series in this movie are both aware of the larger conspiracy stuff that comes later. So they're like, well, we got to set that up. Like, you set that up by. And a good way to set that up is with this physical object that is a very tactile Something tactile that we can see. So you don't have to. It's a great show. Don't tell. You don't have to. Like, it's very, like, interesting object. You're like, why do they have these spyglasses? Like, it's not something most people have. And it alludes to something kind of interesting. You're like spy glasses spies. Like, you know, you just immediately your brain is like, what is this for? And because they knew there was this broader thing, they could use that as like the kind of the through line object, the MacGuffin, almost to kind of push to allude to that larger story. Whereas when I imagine when, you know, the first book and two or three books were being written, he may not have had that larger story.
• 29:31
  Speaker B: Yeah.
• 29:31
  Speaker A: Maybe not mapped out. It's a very classic thing where as they're writing, he's writing the books as he goes and maybe has like a loose idea of where everything is going, but it doesn't have it completely mapped out. Whereas the people making the movie in the Netflix series know exactly where this all goes later. So, like, hey, we concede a lot more of this in the earlier story. So I think it makes perfect sense. I think it works well both in this and in the Netflix series, because I find it very fun that there's a spy, an antique spyglass as a mystery MacGuffin.
• 30:00
  Speaker B: Yeah. I just thought it was really interesting when I started poking into that, that it didn't seem to be something that was of large importance in the books.
• 30:07
  Speaker A: Yeah.
• 30:08
  Speaker B: At least from what I was reading.
• 30:10
  Speaker A: So once I get to Monty's, Olaf shows up again, this time in his first disguise, disguised as Stefano, who is a. The herpetology somebody has sent. I don't know. He's replacing Monty's assistant who was supposed to show up and who Olaf kidnapped, tied to a train or whatever. But he knocks on the door and the kids answer it and immediately know it's Olaf. Like, immediately. And I wanted to know if the kids are able to immediately see through Olaf's disguise in the same way they are in the movie. Because they're not fooled for a second.
• 30:47
  Speaker B: Yes.
• 30:48
  Speaker A: Which of course you wouldn't be, because you look at him like that's.
• 30:50
  Speaker B: Jim Carrey.
• 30:50
  Speaker A: Yeah, it's very obvious.
• 30:51
  Speaker B: Yeah. No, they always immediately know that that's Olaf.
• 30:55
  Speaker A: Yeah. And again, that goes back to us saying earlier of like, kind of. That's like. The whole point of the series is that these kids are smarter than everyone gives them credit for and are no more. And are more observant than everyone gives them credit for. And all the dumb adults won't. Won't acknowledge that and. And treat them like idiots, even though the adults are the ones that are the. The stupid ones. But, yeah, there's a great line in the movie that I wanted to know if it came from the book. So after Monty dies and they're. They're going now to their next. They've left Count Olas, now they're leaving Monty's and they're going to their next potential guardian and Poe's driving them there. It's like, I'm taking you to Aunt Josephine. And they're like, who's Aunt Josephine? And I don't remember how it all gets there, but I think Klaus has a line after they kind of talk about who Aunt Josephine is briefly, he says, does it strike you as odd that none of our relatives are related to us?
• 31:45
  Speaker B: Yeah.
• 31:46
  Speaker A: Which I thought was a very funny line because that does seem to be the case, that none of their relatives are, like, particularly related to them in any close way. And I want to know if that line came from the book.
• 31:57
  Speaker B: This is not from the books, but I thought it was a great addition. It is a running gag in the books that the relatives they go to live with aren't actually related to them. Like, Count Olaf is described as either a third cousin four times removed or a fourth cousin three times removed.
• 32:12
  Speaker A: Essentially not related. Might as well not be related at that point.
• 32:16
  Speaker B: Uncle Monty is their late father's cousin's wife's brother.
• 32:20
  Speaker A: Yeah.
• 32:20
  Speaker B: And Aunt Josephine is your second cousin's sister in law.
• 32:24
  Speaker A: Yeah.
• 32:24
  Speaker B: So it's literally 0. 0 blood relatives here.
• 32:28
  Speaker A: Yeah. Yeah. Which. Which also goes to the. Which is fun because that also helps set up which. This line, I think, is really good. And knowing it's not in the book, I think goes back to what we were discussing earlier about the. The movie knows more about what comes in the future. So it's even more set. Set up for the audience of, like, what's going on here. Because we will find out later that all of these people are. And not even later in this movie, we kind of start to realize that these people, Monty and Josephine, aren't really related to them. But they were part of this organization that we will learn more about in the future. Movies that were never made, you could just watch the rest, pick it up with. You could. Honestly, you could watch this movie and then pick up on, like, season two of the Netflix series or whatever. I don't remember exactly which. Which seasons cover which books, but. Okay, so I haven't done a bunch more research, but I think I may have been more correct there about it being a continuation of the movie than I realized before, because I just looked up and saw that Barry sonnenfeld actually directed 10 episodes of the Netflix series. And he was, if you remember from the prequel episode, the director who was originally attached to direct this movie before he was replaced after some stuff went down. He's the guy who directed the Men in Black movie, Addams Family, Addams Family Values, Wild Wild west, all that stuff. But, yeah, he ended up directing, like, 10 episodes of the TV show, and he was an executive producer on the movie. So I think it may have actually kind of been a continuation of maybe his vision in the series. It's very interesting. I'll have to do some more research and see if there's, like, interviews talking about that or not, but. So Josephine, they go in there, they're with Josephine, played by Meryl. Not Meryl Streep. Yeah, yeah. Meryl Streep in this one. Yeah. For some reason, I was gonna say Glenn Close, but it's not. Yeah, it's Meryl Streep, and she's great, but she's this very eccentric, doesn't want to go outside, scared of everything. Panphobia is the Wikipedia summary described. But she ends up disappearing one day, and they find a suicide note. And her window is broken. She lives on the edge of a cliff. But as they're reading the note, they start. Klaus starts noticing that this suicide note has a lot of weird grammar mistakes in it and, like, spelling mistakes and stuff. And he's like. But Aunt Josephine is, like, very. Like, grammar was her whole thing. Like, she's very particular.
• 34:50
  Speaker B: Grammar was her joy.
• 34:52
  Speaker A: Yes. And so he starts to realize that something's going on with this note. And he puts together that all the spelling mistakes. If you correct the spelling, it spells out where she's at, which is like some cave or whatever on the lake. And I wanted to know if him cracking that code came from the book, because I thought that was really fun and also felt really. One, it felt like a. A plausible code that someone could come up with in the moment, and two, that a relatively young, smart person could Solve.
• 35:22
  Speaker B: Yeah.
• 35:23
  Speaker A: You know what I mean? Like, it actually. I was like, yeah, I think you could actually. Like a 12 year old could figure that out if they're pretty smart. Like, it's not like some insane, like, you know, cryptic that they have to like. It's just like. Yeah, okay. Yeah. So I wonder if it came from the book.
• 35:36
  Speaker B: Yeah, it does. Klaus does crack Josephine's secret message hidden in her grammar errors and figures out that she's hiding in curdled caves.
• 35:45
  Speaker A: And is it the same code of where, like, the letter that it should be or whatever is spells out? Okay, cool. And then so after they crack that code, a storm blows in. And again, as I said, her house is like literally on the side of a cliff and it starts collapsing and they have to escape the house. And I want to know if this came from the book, this kind of action sequence, because it kind of felt like a movie addition. Like, I could imagine maybe something similar happens. But the. It's a very big dramatic action scene as they're, like, running through the broken house and all this sort of stuff. But there's this one incredible shot I wanted to point out in here. It's a very gorgeous movie overall. As I mentioned in the prequel episode shot by Emmanuel Lubezki, who shot Little Princess, Children of Men. The Rev. Not the Revenant. No, it might be the Revenant. Tons of. He's like one of the best working cinematographers, so of course it's beautiful. But there's this one gorgeous, like, dolly shot moving through the house as they're like. They're like walking up and like everything is collapsing around them. And it's this wide shot as it. Like dollies. It's so cool. This movie had a lot of moments like that, but I wanted to know if the house collapsing and that kind of action sequence came from the book.
• 36:53
  Speaker B: They do escape from the house, like, just as it starts to slide into the lake. Although it's not nearly as dramatic as it is in the movie.
• 37:03
  Speaker A: That tracks.
• 37:04
  Speaker B: I do have a page number.
• 37:06
  Speaker A: Page number. We love a page number.
• 37:10
  Speaker B: As the youngsters stood up, the wind rose to a feverish pitch. A phrase which here means it shook the house and sent all three orphans toppling to the floor. Violet fell against one of the bedposts and banged her knee. Klaus fell against the cold radiator and banged his foot. And Sunny fell into the pile of tin cans and banged everything. The whole room seemed to lurch slightly to one side as the orphans staggered back to their feet. Come on, Violet screamed and grabbed Sunny. The orphans scurried out to the hallway and hurried toward the front door. A piece of the ceiling had come off and rainwater was steadily pouring onto the carpet, splattering the orphans as they ran underneath it. The house gave another lurch and the children toppled to the floor again. Aunt Josephine's house was starting to slip off the hill. Come on. Violet screamed again, and the orphans stumbled up the tilted hallway to the door, slipping in puddles and on their own frightened feet. Klaus was the first to reach the front door, yanked it open as the house gave another horrible lurch, followed by a horrible, horrible crunching sound. Come on. Violet screamed again, and the Baudelaires crawled out the door and onto the hill, huddling together in the freezing rain. They were cold, they were frightened, but they had escaped.
• 38:32
  Speaker A: There you go. Yeah, that's very similar.
• 38:34
  Speaker B: Yeah.
• 38:34
  Speaker A: Yeah. It's just maybe not quite as long of a dramatic set piece, but I'd say that captures it pretty closely. I had a question as you're reading that, that I won't. I was completely off topic, kind of. I knew the phrase. A phrase which here means. Or is it a phrase which here means?
• 38:51
  Speaker B: Is that the phrase which here means. Or sometimes it's a word.
• 38:54
  Speaker A: A word here means, here means. Yeah. Obviously, I knew that came from the book because it's in. It's all over the Netflix series. It's all over the movie. It's very recurring style thing. It's very funny that it just happened to be in that passage you read. My question isn't, is it in the book? Because obviously it is. My question is, how much is it in the book and is it annoying? Is it in it too much, I guess, is my question.
• 39:16
  Speaker B: It is in the book quite a bit. I personally don't find it annoying because it really hits a sweet spot for my sense of humor.
• 39:26
  Speaker A: I agree, but I. I could see.
• 39:28
  Speaker B: How you might find it annoying.
• 39:30
  Speaker A: How often would you say it's in the book? I'm just like, ballpark. Do you think it's every chapter? I don't know if it's broken up into chapters or how the book. Yeah, I guess that's like. If you had to, like, if. Is it. Like.
• 39:41
  Speaker B: It's pretty frequent.
• 39:43
  Speaker A: So how many pages is this book? Like, they're roughly around 200 pages or something. Yeah, 170 pages, give or take, depending on the book.
• 39:53
  Speaker B: Let me do a case study.
• 39:55
  Speaker A: Well, I mean, that'll take forever. I don't need you.
• 39:57
  Speaker B: Hang on, hang on.
• 39:58
  Speaker A: Okay.
• 39:59
  Speaker B: I will Simply search for the phrase, which here means. Now that I will say that that's not always the way that it's phrased. Phrased. But that is how it's most frequently done. 9, 10, 11, 12, 13. So it's like one or two a chapter.
• 40:20
  Speaker A: Okay, that's not too bad. I don't think you said 13. It's 170 pages, that first book. So it's like every 10 pages. A little bit less than every 10 pages. I think that's enough. Or that's a reasonable amount. Where it's a fun motif. Like it's a fun recurring motif, but it wouldn't get tiresome, I don't think. Yeah, be right on that line. It was just curious because I just thought it was so funny that the one you just happened to read a passage and it had that, like, immediately I was like, I wonder how much that's actually in the book. Like, is it like edible every other page? Because that would be like, oh, my God. But okay. Anyway, that was a complete sidetrack. But I was very interested to hear that answer. They do find Josephine, who is in Curdled Cave hiding. And they escape with her on a little boat. But as they're rowing back, she is eating a banana, which attracts the murderous leeches, or whatever they're called. I don't know. They haven't.
• 41:13
  Speaker B: The Lachrymose. Lacrimose leeches, yes.
• 41:16
  Speaker A: Because it's Lake Lacrimose is the lake. And they're just super attracted to food. So if you've been eating anything, which is actually really funny when they're talking about the first time. Aunt Josephine is like, the eels are attracted or the leeches are attracted to food. And that's how her husband died. And she's like, I told him not to wait one hour after eating before he went swimming. Which is a really funny way to tie in that old wives advice or whatever. I don't know, the wives tale advice or whatever about not swimming for an hour after eating. Giving it, like an actual reason. It's very funny to me. But I wanted to know if they find her in the thing. They're escaping with her. The eel show. Or the leeches show up to eat her. And then Count Olaf shows up. He has a much nicer boat. He's gonna take them and rescue him, take them back to shore. And the kids get on the boat with him. And then he's about to get Aunt Josephine on the boat, and then he says something and she corrects his grammar and he's like, no, fuck you, you can die. I hate you for correcting my grammar. And I want to know if that came from the book.
• 42:22
  Speaker B: So I would argue that in both the book and the movie, he's going to kill her anyway.
• 42:26
  Speaker A: I think that's probably.
• 42:27
  Speaker B: Yeah, but in the book, yes, she does correct his grammar as she's begging for her life, which makes him even angrier. Also, in the book, he doesn't leave her behind in the remains of the rowboat. He actively pushes her into the water.
• 42:44
  Speaker A: He gets discovered. They get discovered in the water by Poe and Poe. He pretends that he rescued the kids. And Poe's like, oh, must be. And like, sure, okay, you can have him again. And then this is where we get the fake the something marriage. What is it called?
• 42:59
  Speaker B: The Marvelous Marriage.
• 43:00
  Speaker A: The Marvelous Marriage, which is Olaf crafts a plan where he will put on a production of a play where these two characters get married. Himself and Violet playing those two characters, but he will make it be a real marriage. They'll actually be married. And then he can basically steal the fortune that way, because they're married to each other. And I wanted to know if that whole plot element of the fake play where they get married to steal the fortune came from the book.
• 43:28
  Speaker B: Yes, it does. This is the original ending of the first book. The bad beginning.
• 43:33
  Speaker A: Oh, interesting. So they took the ending of the first book and moved it to the end of the movie, which covers the first three books.
• 43:43
  Speaker B: Yes.
• 43:43
  Speaker A: But.
• 43:44
  Speaker B: Yeah, okay. And honestly, it's really neither a better or worse because obviously this is not something that would have worked in the books, like, move. Like having having them go back and then doing this other ending. But I think it was a really clever change for the movie to move this to the very end. Like, it's a big fun set piece with a dramatic reveal and the ultimate defeat of the main villain. So, of course you want that for your movie ending.
• 44:12
  Speaker A: Yeah. How does the third book end, then?
• 44:16
  Speaker B: So at the end of the Wide Window, Count Olaf is still disguised as Captain Sham, and then he's revealed to actually be Count Olaf and he gets away from Mr. Poe.
• 44:30
  Speaker A: So the normal ending, where he.
• 44:31
  Speaker B: Yes, the normal ending.
• 44:32
  Speaker A: Escapes again, and then they get taken.
• 44:33
  Speaker B: Yeah, okay. Okay.
• 44:35
  Speaker A: All right. So basically we end up in the same place. They just move the climax of the first book to the end of the third thing. But the ultimate end is the same. They're going to another new guardian. Olaf is on the run again, blah, blah, blah. Okay. During this big production, Violet's in the play, obviously, so she can get married. Klaus is sneaking around. He has captured Sunny and has her in a cage that he's threatening to kill her. And Klaus is trying to rescue Sunny, who's, like, tied up at the top of his tower. He has, like, a big tower in his house or whatever. And he. And Klaus climbs up to the tower to save Sunny. But while he's up there, he discovers that Olaf has this series of mirrors that directs the sunlight into a lens in his window that is like a big. It looks like an eyeball. Like an eye, yeah. Which is like the. One of the recurring symbols we see kind of throughout the thing. But he realizes. He looks through this lens and realizes that it is pointed at the burning remains, which are still, like, smoking and smoldering in the distance of their house. And he kind of puts together that, oh, my gosh, Count Olaf is the one who started the fire. And I wanted to know if Klaus discovers that in the book, and then if beyond that, Klaus then uses that same telescope lens thingy to burn the marriage license that gets signed during the play, voiding the marriage and saving the day.
• 46:02
  Speaker B: So many thoughts here. The cause of the fire in the books is never discovered.
• 46:10
  Speaker A: Okay, so at least you mean, like, never ever in these books?
• 46:15
  Speaker B: Never ever.
• 46:16
  Speaker A: Oh, okay.
• 46:16
  Speaker B: There are a lot of fan theories, interesting. But the. The actual cause of the Baudelaire fire is never discovered.
• 46:23
  Speaker A: So this is a pretty big change. Then revealing that it was Olaf, which.
• 46:26
  Speaker B: Is obviously the most popular, is what most. That it was Olaf. Yeah. So does Klaus discover this telescope thingy that Olaf used to burn their house down? No and no. There is a moment in the wide window where Violet uses the singular mention of a spyglass in these books. She, like, finds a spyglass on the sailboat and uses it to start a signal fire. So there's that. That's kind of similar.
• 46:58
  Speaker A: Is there any illusion? Because I just kind of briefly read through your notes. Is there any idea that this contraption thing in Olaf's tower, is that ever revealed to be there? Like, maybe we don't talk about it. Like, obviously, the books never state that that was what was used to burn their house down, but is there any allusion to that even existing in Olaf's house that we're aware of? You know what I mean?
• 47:20
  Speaker B: I don't believe so.
• 47:22
  Speaker A: Okay.
• 47:23
  Speaker B: No.
• 47:24
  Speaker A: And like I said, if it was, my guess would be it would be in a later book and not one of these ones. But I, I.
• 47:30
  Speaker B: Well, I don't think we ever actually go back to Count Olav's. House after the first book fair.
• 47:35
  Speaker A: Okay. Because for some reason I have a vague memory of a similar thing in the Netflix series. But I might be wrong. I might be.
• 47:42
  Speaker B: No, you definitely do, because I read about that on the weekend.
• 47:45
  Speaker A: Okay. So see, so we're thinking maybe the Netflix series took that from this movie.
• 47:49
  Speaker B: Yeah, possibly.
• 47:51
  Speaker A: Like I said earlier, I. It. To me, it really does feel like the Netflix series, as opposed to a lot of adaptations when they're like, we're doing this again, or like, let's get as far away as possible from this other thing. I really think the Netflix series was like, this is actually pretty good. Let's just.
• 48:04
  Speaker B: Yeah. I do think the Netflix series took a lot of stuff that they liked.
• 48:08
  Speaker A: Yeah.
• 48:09
  Speaker B: From this.
• 48:09
  Speaker A: And like, unabashedly was like, no, this. This thing was underappreciated and was actually pretty good. Let's just, like, do more of it and, you know, better in our own way. But like. Yeah, that's interesting. Okay.
• 48:22
  Speaker B: So in the book, they do not get out of this particular jam with the marriage because Klaus burns the marriage certificate. So the. The first book sets up several times that Violet is right handed and then at the end of the play, she signs the certificate with her left hand.
• 48:41
  Speaker A: Yeah.
• 48:41
  Speaker B: The children then argue that the marriage is invalid because the bride did not sign with her own hand. And just Strauss backs them up and is like, yeah, that's.
• 48:51
  Speaker A: That's correct.
• 48:51
  Speaker B: That's correct.
• 48:52
  Speaker A: Yeah. I am the law.
• 48:54
  Speaker B: And. And I totally get why this is something you'd want to change. It is a little silly. It does feel like one of those things that wouldn't hold water. I also. Old timey law, sometimes maybe. I also think it would just be a little clunkier to set up in the movie. Like the setup that she's right handed, specifically. However, I have always really liked the left hand plot twist.
• 49:21
  Speaker A: Yeah.
• 49:22
  Speaker B: It's kind of a fun little baby's first Chekhov's gun moment.
• 49:27
  Speaker A: Yeah. Yeah. And I do think that is. I could be wrong, but I do think that is what the Netflix series.
• 49:32
  Speaker B: I think I have a memory of.
• 49:34
  Speaker A: The handedness thing from bouncing around in my head. So I'm like, I think that is what the Netflix series does. But okay, interesting. I think the movie's version of having him use that to burn it is a. A totally fine and like, kind of.
• 49:46
  Speaker B: Yeah, I think it's fine.
• 49:48
  Speaker A: But I get what you're saying. I agree. I do like that it's a fun, weird. And. And even if it's like not like, if you're like, well, that wouldn't actually work. It's like, who cares? The series is full of stuff like that. Like, it's.
• 49:58
  Speaker B: Yeah.
• 49:59
  Speaker A: You know, the series definitely has an internal logic that works and feels real, but it also plays around with.
• 50:07
  Speaker B: Yes.
• 50:08
  Speaker A: Like, what is realistic and. And believable a lot. Yeah.
• 50:12
  Speaker B: These books do really, like, perform in a very elaborate dance on the line between, like, realistic and cartoonish.
• 50:20
  Speaker A: Yeah. And, like, ridiculous, where they're like, well, that would never. Yeah. And I think it does again, from having only watched the Netflix series and this movie, I think it does a pretty good job of it in a way that feels right as like.
• 50:33
  Speaker B: And honestly, the other thing with the left hand plot twist is that. But it's honestly one of my most visceral memories of reading these books as a kid is like, noting the left. That she signed with her left hand and being like, oh, shit, that means something. That means something.
• 50:55
  Speaker A: Yeah. Yeah, yeah. That's fun.
• 50:59
  Speaker B: I do think it's a little odd that this movie seemed to, like, go out of its way to put such a hard final stamp on some stuff like the, like, it's a very hard line, or at least seems like a very hard and. And final reveal that, like, oh, Olaf started the fire.
• 51:22
  Speaker A: Oh, that. Yes. Sorry. You go ahead.
• 51:28
  Speaker B: I don't know. It just. Because.
• 51:29
  Speaker A: Because, I mean, to me that. Because he's on the run still. It's like. Right.
• 51:32
  Speaker B: He's like. He's on the run still. But also, I don't know.
• 51:38
  Speaker A: I would have to know. I would have to remember how all of those plots interact later in the story to know how much of an issue it is to, like, reveal that he did that so early in the story.
• 51:49
  Speaker B: Right.
• 51:49
  Speaker A: It doesn't feel. From my memory, it doesn't feel like it would really cause too many issues later. But I could be wrong because it's been. We watched the Netflix series as it came out, so I don't remember a couple years.
• 52:00
  Speaker B: I don't know. It just. It feels. It feels weird to me that the end of this movie feels so much like an ending as it does.
• 52:12
  Speaker A: I disagree. But.
• 52:14
  Speaker B: Because I would have thought that. I would have expected what I'm saying. I would have expected that they would leave things a little more open than it felt like they did.
• 52:28
  Speaker A: Yeah.
• 52:29
  Speaker B: Because I had always been under the impression that they wanted to make more movies.
• 52:34
  Speaker A: Oh, absolutely.
• 52:35
  Speaker B: Because this was supposed to be the next Harry Potter.
• 52:38
  Speaker A: Yeah, absolutely. Yeah. I.
• 52:40
  Speaker B: And then they just never made more movies.
• 52:41
  Speaker A: Well, they never made More movies because it wasn't financially successful. I think they wanted to make more. And I think the ending, I think the ending is kind of perfect because I think it. And obviously you're talking about your expectations here and kind of what you were going in and feeling, but I think the ending works kind of perfectly because I think it completely leaves it open for more. Olaf's on the run. They're. We're ending the way we have throughout the movie, which is they're. They're leaving whatever the last situation they were in is, and Poe is driving them to some new, you know, guardian or whatever, and we don't know what that's gonna be. And Olaf is on the run, so he's out there a threat still. But we get kind of a satisfying conclusion to this movie, which is a really hard line to like fine line and hard line to walk when you're making installments of a series where it's like, you know, giving you a satisfying ending while also giving you something that feels like part of a continuing story. And I actually thought they, they toed that line pretty well in this one. But I get what you're saying, that it maybe felt a little too final because it definitely has the feel of like we're wrapping things.
• 53:53
  Speaker B: Yeah. And I totally see what you're saying, and I don't even disagree with you. It just like, yeah, it felt more of like, okay, we're wrapping up this show to me than I maybe would have anticipated, given what I know about the book series.
• 54:09
  Speaker A: I think the thing that it's missing, maybe not the only thing, but one of the things that it would be missing that I think would make that more would be a. And maybe there was and we just turned it off too soon. Like a mid credit tease. You know what I mean? Like a. I don't know what. But something that teases what's coming. Like, oh, there's more story to be coming. I don't know if there's a post credit or mid credit scene. I don't think there is. We didn't see one. But again, we didn't watch the whole credits. So I don't know. But I think that might have been one thing that would have helped push it. But this is before Marvel, so we weren't doing. We hadn't discovered the mid credit teaser yet.
• 54:51
  Speaker B: Nor had we completely worn it out yet.
• 54:53
  Speaker A: Yes, nor had we worn it out yet. So. All right, those were all my questions for. Was that in the book? But I do have a question that I want to Talk about in Lost in Adaptation.
• 55:03
  Speaker B: Just show me the way to get out of here and I'll be on my way.
• 55:09
  Speaker A: Yes, yes. And I want to get unlocked as soon as possible. This may come up eventually because I can't recall from the Netflix series, but is it explained ever where the kids were at the beginning of this story and why they were there when the fire broke out? Because they're just seemingly on some beach and Poe arrives and is like, your parents are dead. And you're like, where were they? Why were they like, they're like young kids. Like, why are they there? Like, so I just didn't know if there was any. And I couldn't remember if the Netflix series explained what was going on there. So what's going on there?
• 55:42
  Speaker B: I mean, there's not all that much of an explanation. They're at Briny beach when the fire happens. The first book states that their parents gave them permission to go to the beach that day.
• 55:53
  Speaker A: Okay.
• 55:54
  Speaker B: There is a popular fan theory that their parents knew about the fire, like, or knew that something was going to happen and so sent the children away, but that has never been confirmed.
• 56:06
  Speaker A: Okay, and spoil this for me because I truly cannot remember. Are their parents actually dead?
• 56:11
  Speaker B: As far as we know, yes.
• 56:13
  Speaker A: Okay, that's a weird fan theory then. That they knew there was going to be a fire and this stayed there to die? Like, I don't.
• 56:21
  Speaker B: So there is a. There are hints throughout the book that one of their parents may have survived.
• 56:29
  Speaker A: Yeah, I knew there was some.
• 56:30
  Speaker B: I couldn't remember the details by using like, secret passages going out of their house. But that's also something that's never been confirmed.
• 56:38
  Speaker A: That's right, because I don't remember. Like, I was like, I think I would remember the Netflix series if like, like one of their parents turned up at the end and I don't remember that. So I was like, I think they are dead. But then that fans theory makes. Is it weird to me if they like, knew the fire was gonna happen. But I guess there could be the idea that like, maybe they knew something.
• 56:55
  Speaker B: Was going, like, but they didn't know what.
• 56:57
  Speaker A: They didn't know what, or they knew. So they're like, let's get the kids away in case.
• 57:00
  Speaker B: Yeah. And then they weren't able to get out in time or something interesting.
• 57:03
  Speaker A: I don't know. Okay, well, that was my one question for Lost Adaptation, but you have something you wanted to talk about.
• 57:08
  Speaker B: Yeah, I have a couple things here that I would like to. To. To put into this section.
• 57:14
  Speaker A: This is A good catch all section. We don't know.
• 57:17
  Speaker B: Right. Because there are some, you know, things that get lost in adaptation. And I didn't want to put this particular thing into any of my segments for reasons that I will get into. But I want to talk about Count.
• 57:30
  Speaker A: Olaf is what you alluded to earlier. Yeah.
• 57:33
  Speaker B: So in the prequel, you read one of the review pull quotes that stated Olaf is a humorless villain in the book, he's not amusing like Carrie at all.
• 57:43
  Speaker A: Yeah.
• 57:44
  Speaker B: And I have to hard agree with that assessment. I really had like, very little memory of Count Olaf in the books from when I read them years ago. So I was kind of going in more with the memory of like Neil Patrick Harris's take in my head. But he's incredibly sinister. Like, he is not at all like either Jim Carrey or Neil Patrick Harris's take. His constant disguises are really the only, like, silly element about him in the books. But he's like, if a Scooby Doo villain were actually evil and legitimately dangerous, the situations might be cartoonish. But he is very much not.
• 58:32
  Speaker A: Yeah. And you're. Yeah. Interesting. That's fascinating because you're right, like Neil Patrick Harris. And I think this is another area where it feels very much, which is interesting because it never feels like a bad copy to me, which is impressive. But Neil Patrick Harris's Count all off feels very, very similar.
• 58:50
  Speaker B: Yes.
• 58:51
  Speaker A: To Jim Carrey's Count all off to the point where it's like, clearly he just is doing the same version of Count Olaf. But it doesn't ever feel like a bad imitation, which is impressive. I guess that's kudos to Neil Patrick Harris for never feeling like he's just doing like a bad Jim Carrey doing count. You know what I mean?
• 59:08
  Speaker B: Yeah.
• 59:09
  Speaker A: But they are very, very similar in the way they talk and their cadence and their sense of humor and like the way they're wacky, zany, like plotting, mischievous people that. That are clearly like not good guys. They're like evil guys, but in a fun way.
• 59:28
  Speaker B: Yeah. They kind of like there. There are moments where they feel dangerous.
• 59:33
  Speaker A: Yeah.
• 59:33
  Speaker B: But like, overall, for the most part, they're kind of like goofy and cartoony.
• 59:38
  Speaker A: Yeah.
• 59:39
  Speaker B: Now I understand why the movie and subsequently the show would make this change. I totally, totally get it and I don't even disagree with it, which is why these thoughts are appearing in this section.
• 59:52
  Speaker A: Because it is fun. I do like to Olaf as characters in both of them. They're enjoyable to watch.
• 59:58
  Speaker B: It's fun. And you do kind of need some of that enjoyment, because these are kind of like, there's a lot going on, and not all of it is fun.
• 1:00:09
  Speaker A: Yeah. And especially later in the series. That was my experience, man. Memory from the Netflix series is like, as the series went on, I was like, oh, God.
• 1:00:16
  Speaker B: Yeah. So, like, I totally get it, but I do think it ends up feeling a little cowardly, in my opinion. Much like a Roald Dahl book. I think a big part of what's going on in this series is acknowledging that harmful people in real life are not like, villains in stories.
• 1:00:40
  Speaker A: Yeah.
• 1:00:41
  Speaker B: And again, while I totally get and don't even disagree with the movie's change, it does feel like they were a little afraid to go there.
• 1:00:51
  Speaker A: No, I completely agree. And it's hard because I can totally understand why they would. Because it has to be a daunting idea to translate that character into a blockbuster.
• 1:01:06
  Speaker B: Yeah.
• 1:01:07
  Speaker A: Summer fun movie.
• 1:01:09
  Speaker B: Yeah. You know, like a fun summer family adventure movie. Like, oh, we're gonna go see this movie. That's kind of like the next Harry Potter. Like, we're gonna go have fun at the theater.
• 1:01:20
  Speaker A: Yeah. And if. And then if, like, the main villain in the series is, like, this abusive, who you're worried is literally going to murder these kids, like, constantly. And, like, it's just. But. But in a way that is not fun at all. Would feel like. Yeah, that would be very interesting.
• 1:01:37
  Speaker B: Hard to watch.
• 1:01:38
  Speaker A: Yeah, it could be. Yeah, it could be fascinating. It could be great. If you pull it off, it could be great, and it could elevate this from, like, a fun summer blockbuster movie. If you really went for it, that could become, like, a really good, compelling, actual, like, drama. Not drama, but, you know, like, movie about, like, kids and relationships with adults and bad people and all that sort of stuff can be really compelling and interesting. But that would be. You were. You were shooting. You were throwing darts at the moon, trying to pull that off. Whereas this version where you get, like, the fun Jim Carrey, wacky Count Olaf feels like much more of, like. Well, that's. That's more of, like, hitting balls off a tee. Whereas otherwise, I have to try to hit a home run against Nolan Ryan, and I don't know how I'm gonna pull that off.
• 1:02:23
  Speaker B: Another thing that I wanted to mention that I didn't feel like I had a better place to put is something that I noticed upon reading these books as an adult that I definitely did not pick up on as a kid, which is the subtle but strong sexual undertones and the threats of violence against Violet in particular, that Element stood out a lot upon rereading these, like, at. I just. And it goes kind of hand in hand with what I was saying about Count Olaf is that the movie makes the whole thing very cartoony, and the books are actually, like, incredibly dark in a lot of ways.
• 1:03:18
  Speaker A: Yeah, they're just written for more of a niche audience or for more of a specific point of view, whereas the movie's trying to appeal to a lot more people, and that kind of movie doesn't appeal to as many people.
• 1:03:30
  Speaker B: These books are for weird kids.
• 1:03:31
  Speaker A: Yeah.
• 1:03:32
  Speaker B: Yeah, they're for kids. Like the kind of kid I was.
• 1:03:35
  Speaker A: Yeah, yeah. I did have a thought that I think would actually be really fascinating, but I was trying to think, like, when we were talking about, like, okay, so Jim Carrey's Count Olaf is, like, this wacky, you know, and Neil Patrick Harris is very much in the same vein. I would be really interested to rewatch the Netflix series now and see if maybe there's more, because I do remember elements of that. I do remember when you started talking about Count Olaf and how he's much more scary and, like. And, like, evil and, like, not as fun in the. In the.
• 1:04:07
  Speaker B: Yeah, he's. He's really not fun at all in the book.
• 1:04:10
  Speaker A: I will say I had a memory of. From watching the Netflix series and especially the part about Violet and some of the, like, undertones of, like, the sexual violence and stuff, I feel like I have a vague memory of feeling that a little bit watching the Netflix series series. I would have to rewatch it in order to remember if that's a true memory or if I'm inventing that memory. But I wonder if that actually. If the Netflix series did try to put a little bit of that back in, because I have this vague memory of feeling uncomfortable about some of the ways they depicted the relationship between Olaf and Violet.
• 1:04:46
  Speaker B: Yeah, Actually, I feel like I remember talking about that when we watched it.
• 1:04:50
  Speaker A: And so that makes me think that maybe the Netflix series did try to put at least a little bit of that back in. I don't know. I don't remember enough to. Like I said, it's been five years since we watched that, so. But that would be interesting if we do rewatch that at some point to see if that actually is my memory. But what I was saying, I was thinking, like, when you said, like, oh, this Jim Carrey version, Neil Patrick Harris version, not at all, like, what the book version is, I was like, okay, so what's the actor? We're remaking Lemony Snickets. A Series of Unfortunate Events for the third time. But we're doing a version where Count Olaf is not fun, wacky Neil Patrick Harris or Jim Carrey instead. And he's awful, scary guy who dresses up in wacky costumes and can be kind of funny. And I have the perfect actor, by the way.
• 1:05:36
  Speaker B: I'm excited.
• 1:05:36
  Speaker A: This preamble is all for me, setting up the reveal of the perfect person for this role. I'm so happy about it. So I was trying to just figure out who that person would be if you're remaking this version that still has the dark comedy and stuff, but also has a truly scary, intimidating Count Olaf who has this air of menace about him. I have it. I have it.
• 1:05:57
  Speaker B: Okay.
• 1:05:58
  Speaker A: He would never do it, but I have it. And it would have been. Have to been, like, 10 years ago. Daniel Day Lewis.
• 1:06:05
  Speaker B: God damn it, you're right.
• 1:06:06
  Speaker A: Daniel David.
• 1:06:07
  Speaker B: Damn it, you're right. Yeah. Daniel Day Lewis would dive into this.
• 1:06:11
  Speaker A: Oh, my God. Right? He gets to play all these ridiculous, like, methody characters.
• 1:06:16
  Speaker B: Yeah, yeah, yeah.
• 1:06:17
  Speaker A: He can do the, like, funny, weird. Like, you know, he has that, like, energy.
• 1:06:23
  Speaker B: Yeah. Like, he has, like, chameleon energy.
• 1:06:25
  Speaker A: Yeah. And he has, like, a. And even when he's his most deranged and terrifying, there's still something kind of funny about, like, it's hard. I. Oh, my God. Like, that would be enthralling, I think, like, to watch Daniel Day Lewis play Count Olaf, I think, in a version where it is more. Yeah. Like, it's darker.
• 1:06:46
  Speaker B: Get Hollywood on the phone.
• 1:06:48
  Speaker A: Oh. I was like, holy, that would be amazing. There's probably other people. But that. As soon as it popped into my head like that. Cause I'm just thinking of him and, like, there will be blood and stuff like that and gangs in New York and stuff. I'm just like, oh, God, that would be good. Anyways. All right. Anything else for Lost adaptation?
• 1:07:05
  Speaker B: No, I don't think so.
• 1:07:07
  Speaker A: All right, very good. That was all of my questions and some of Katie's thoughts. But we're gonna get to more of Katie's thoughts, and when we find out what she thought was better in the book. You like to read?
• 1:07:20
  Speaker B: Oh, yes, I love to read.
• 1:07:23
  Speaker A: What do you like to read?
• 1:07:26
  Speaker B: Everything. So a lot of this was really similar, but I do have a couple things here. One thing that I thought was kind of a missed opportunity was that when the children get to Count Olaf's and they go up to their bedroom, the room that they're staying in at his house, there's a painting of A giant eye on the wall in their bedroom. And I thought that was, like, a missed set opportunity. I thought that could have been really creepy. And off putting which bedroom in the. The room that they, like, stay in at Count Olaf And Olaf.
• 1:07:59
  Speaker A: Okay, okay, okay.
• 1:08:00
  Speaker B: The movie also has.
• 1:08:02
  Speaker A: So sorry. The movie just moves that to the window. Like. Yeah, like the.
• 1:08:06
  Speaker B: The window in the tower.
• 1:08:07
  Speaker A: Yeah. But, yeah, you still could. You could have done. Yeah.
• 1:08:10
  Speaker B: The movie also does this kind of running. Ish. I didn't feel like it went through the whole film joke about Count Olaf referring to Sunny as a monkey.
• 1:08:21
  Speaker A: Yeah.
• 1:08:21
  Speaker B: Which I just thought was pretty meh. I didn't think it was, like, I was indifferent. I thought it was funny.
• 1:08:26
  Speaker A: Kind of funny that he keeps referring to her as a monkey because it's a baby. He's like, I don't know. I could find. I like the idea of Olaf being like, he doesn't. Babies. That's a. It might as well be an animal. Like, I don't know what that.
• 1:08:38
  Speaker B: Fair enough.
• 1:08:39
  Speaker A: I thought it was kind of funny.
• 1:08:40
  Speaker B: Not, like, amazingly funny, but small detail. When we get to Uncle Monty's house, there are these giant, like, snake statues leading up to his house, which were cool. However, in the book, they're like sick ass. Elaborate snake topiaries, which I thought would have been cooler.
• 1:09:00
  Speaker A: Yeah, it would have been very cool.
• 1:09:01
  Speaker B: I also like topiaries.
• 1:09:03
  Speaker A: I also think that makes an appearance in the Netflix series. I haven't had a memory of giant snake topiaries, but I could be wrong.
• 1:09:10
  Speaker B: I thought it was interesting that the movie gave Uncle Monty a different reason for wanting to go to Peru and, like, a backstory where his family also died in a fire, which is not the case in the book.
• 1:09:25
  Speaker A: Yeah.
• 1:09:27
  Speaker B: Like I said, the first three books don't really hint at the larger conspiracy, like, at all, which is fine. But then I was also thinking, like, if Uncle Monty is, like, super aware of everything that's going on, I think it makes less sense that he doesn't listen to what the children are saying about Stefano being Olaf. Like, that guy should be way more paranoid.
• 1:09:49
  Speaker A: You're completely right. And that is an issue, I think, is that. And I think that's an issue I had even with the Netflix series. And it goes back to my issue of just, like, that recurring theme of nobody listening to them being frustrating because.
• 1:10:02
  Speaker B: There are adults that should listen to them.
• 1:10:04
  Speaker A: That makes it even more frustrating when it's Monty. You're like, mother, were in the secret society. You know about all this stuff. You know, like, yeah, why are you not taking what they're saying? Ser. Like, that is particularly frustrating when you think about it. I think it's okay because if you just don't think about, like, it's. It's one of those things you can kind of just gloss over, and you, like. If you don't, like, think about it too much, your brain kind of just eludes over that. But, like, yeah, if you think about it for a second, like, why was he not more. Like, why did he not take them more seriously when he knows all this stuff? Yeah.
• 1:10:34
  Speaker B: Yeah. In the Reptile Room, the way that they reveal Count Olaf is Stefano is that Violet picks the lock on his suitcase and they find evidence that he murdered Uncle Monty. And when they reveal this, they're like, oh, Violet picked the lock on his suitcase. And Mr. Poe is like, nice girls shouldn't know how to do things like that. And Klaus, like, claps back and is like, my sister is a nice girl, and she knows how to do all sorts of things.
• 1:11:05
  Speaker A: What a good brother.
• 1:11:06
  Speaker B: Which I enjoy. There's also an eye tattoo reveal at the end of the Reptile Room.
• 1:11:13
  Speaker A: The eye on his ankle.
• 1:11:14
  Speaker B: Yeah, the eye tattoo on his ankle.
• 1:11:17
  Speaker A: Not an eyeball.
• 1:11:18
  Speaker B: Not an tattoo on his eye. No. He uses stage makeup to cover his eye tattoo.
• 1:11:24
  Speaker A: That scene's in the movie where they, like. Which I don't even remember them setting that up. That felt like kind of a weird. Like, did we see. I assume we did, like, earlier in the movie. Saw the tattoo on his ankle briefly.
• 1:11:35
  Speaker B: Yes.
• 1:11:35
  Speaker A: Yeah, that felt like. Because I remember that being much more of a thing in the Netflix series.
• 1:11:39
  Speaker B: Yeah.
• 1:11:39
  Speaker A: And then in the movie when they, like, he has a tattoo on his ankle, I was like, oh, I remember that from the Netflix series, but I don't really remember that from this movie.
• 1:11:49
  Speaker B: When we meet Captain Sham in the Wide Window, he says that he owns a sailboat rental business, and he. He gives Aunt Josephine his business card, which. And then Aunt Josephine is like, well, of course he is who he says he is. Look, he has a business card. At which point. Point the narrator makes a point of telling us, just because something is typed does not mean that it is true.
• 1:12:15
  Speaker A: Does that not make it in the movie?
• 1:12:17
  Speaker B: I didn't catch it.
• 1:12:18
  Speaker A: It's possible that my brain is remembering that the Netflix series, maybe it was.
• 1:12:22
  Speaker B: But I did not catch it because they also. They skip the. The business. Yeah, they definitely skipped the movie as well.
• 1:12:28
  Speaker A: Something about that line, it's, like, knocking around in my head. And it's possible it's from the Netflix series. I just remember it.
• 1:12:34
  Speaker B: But. But I do think. But that is a lesson some of us could have learned a little more, I think.
• 1:12:40
  Speaker A: All of us, honestly.
• 1:12:43
  Speaker B: Speaking of the business card, though, the business card also has a grammar error on it. Count Olaf uses the wrong It's. He uses an it with an apostrophe when it should not have had an apostrophe, which is the mistake that I.
• 1:13:00
  Speaker A: Make all the time.
• 1:13:02
  Speaker B: Yeah, you know what? It's a hard one. It's one of those ones.
• 1:13:05
  Speaker A: My brain knows the rule. I know that it is an abbreviation for. It is. But for some reason, my brain. I will just type it all the time, even though I know that it's okay.
• 1:13:15
  Speaker B: I go back and correct them in your notes. But that is the mistake that then initially tips off Klaus that something isn't right with Aunt Josephine's note because she puts the same error in there, right at the top.
• 1:13:29
  Speaker A: Yeah.
• 1:13:30
  Speaker B: There's a scene in the book where the children, they're all allergic to peppermint and they give themselves like. They eat peppermint and give themselves an allergic reaction on purpose to get away from Mr. Poe and Captain Sham so they can go and investigate the note. It was just kind of a fun scene.
• 1:13:48
  Speaker A: Yeah, fair enough.
• 1:13:49
  Speaker B: The children steal a sailboat from Captain Sham's sailboat rental business to go find Aunt Josephine, which. I don't.
• 1:13:56
  Speaker A: Yeah, I don't remember how they.
• 1:13:58
  Speaker B: I don't. They just get a. They just have a boat in the movie.
• 1:14:01
  Speaker A: I think she. She has one.
• 1:14:03
  Speaker B: Oh, I think you're right.
• 1:14:04
  Speaker A: Because when they look out the window and they like, see down in the water, there's like a boat down there. I think they take hers.
• 1:14:09
  Speaker B: That's like. But so they. They have to they the sailboat from his sailboat rental business. And I was like, honestly, I have to admire the commitment of actually opening a sailboat rental business to complete your disguise as a peg legged sea captain.
• 1:14:24
  Speaker A: Truly. Yeah. Yep.
• 1:14:26
  Speaker B: Another line that I really liked from the book was frustrated citizens tend to execute kings and queens and make a democracy. And I enjoyed that for no particular reason.
• 1:14:37
  Speaker A: Reason.
• 1:14:38
  Speaker B: No particular reason. My last thing here is that at the end of the Wide Window, it's actually Sunny who reveals that Captain Sham is Count Olaf. And she does that by biting his peg leg in half, exposing his real leg hidden inside of it.
• 1:14:57
  Speaker A: I think that might make it into the Netflix series. Something about that rings a bell. Yeah, but that is fun. Yeah. That would have been a good. That would have been a good moment.
• 1:15:04
  Speaker B: I don't really know how.
• 1:15:06
  Speaker A: Her biting doesn't really pay off in the movie, does it, really? Other, like, she bites Olaf like, once or twice, but, like, there's not, like, a big moment where, like, her chomping on stuff is, like, there to beat. You know what I mean?
• 1:15:17
  Speaker B: No, I don't think so.
• 1:15:19
  Speaker A: It could have been down the road in a future movie. But that was kind of surprising because obviously Clouse's stuff comes up a lot. Violet's stuff, like, her skill comes up a lot. And the sunny is a biter. That's their all they're bringing to the table. And witty baby one liners. But, yeah, I don't think this movie really makes much use. Like I said, I think, like, once or twice she may, like, bite Olaf or something, but it's not, like, narratively relevant, I don't think. Anyways, all right, that was everything Katie had for better in the book. Let's find out what she 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.
• 1:16:02
  Speaker B: So while Mr. Poe, while they're. While they're all in the car and he's taking them to Count Olaf's, he says something like, I'm taking you to your closest relative, Count Olaf. He just lives across the city. And Klaus says, I don't think that's what closest means. In the book, Mr. Poe tells the children that their parents will stipulated that they should be raised in the most convenient way possible. So he's taking them to Count Olaf off because he's the closest relative geographically. And I liked that this line acknowledged how strange that is.
• 1:16:36
  Speaker A: Yeah, it's just a funnier joke, too.
• 1:16:38
  Speaker B: Yeah, it is.
• 1:16:39
  Speaker A: It's a funnier joke like, oh, your closest relative. Oh, you thought that meant physically closest relative?
• 1:16:46
  Speaker B: Yeah, I liked the line from the narrator in the movie about them, the orphans, being still in the clutches of a clueless banker.
• 1:16:55
  Speaker A: Yes.
• 1:16:56
  Speaker B: Because Mr. Poe might be, like, my least favorite ever. He's awful.
• 1:17:00
  Speaker A: He's the worst. Yeah. And actually, I found him more infuriating in this movie because he's the actor who plays him in the Netflix series is just more likable. I can't remember the actor's name. I don't remember what else I've seen him in, but he's a much more likable guy. Whereas Timothy Spall in this, I'm like.
• 1:17:18
  Speaker B: Peter Pettigrew, Timothy Spall, just like he exudes like. Yeah, yeah. My apologies to Timothy Spall, because I don't know him personally, but upon seeing.
• 1:17:30
  Speaker A: I don't think he'll listen.
• 1:17:31
  Speaker B: No, but just like, upon seeing him, I'm filled with anger.
• 1:17:36
  Speaker A: Yeah, he definitely has a.
• 1:17:39
  Speaker B: He just has one of those. One of those auras that pisses you off.
• 1:17:44
  Speaker A: Well, and it's. Again, it's definitely being who we, you know, growing up watching Harry Potter and stuff and being Peter Pettigrew, I think plays into that a little bit.
• 1:17:53
  Speaker B: Moving forward. The children actually spend more time with Uncle Monty in the book. They're there for, like, a week before Stefano shows up. But I thought that the movie did a really good job of getting us emotionally attached in a short amount of time.
• 1:18:08
  Speaker A: I think a lot of that can be shouldered on Billy Connolly. Absolutely does a very, very good job of making him very likable and endearing in a very short amount of time. A little thing that I thought was really fun is that when he plays his auto harp, Billy Connolly actually plays that instrument. And so that's him, you know, that was just, like, his own thing he brought to the role.
• 1:18:29
  Speaker B: So Aunt Josephine's late husband, Ike, in both the book and the movie. In the book, we're told that Ike was also afraid of, like, most things. But I thought the idea that Aunt Josephine used to be, like, super fearless before Ike died was. Was sadder.
• 1:18:49
  Speaker A: Yeah, it's way sadder.
• 1:18:50
  Speaker B: Way sadder.
• 1:18:51
  Speaker A: Yeah.
• 1:18:52
  Speaker B: I also liked the group photo reveal.
• 1:18:55
  Speaker A: Of, like, all of them.
• 1:18:56
  Speaker B: Yeah. Which might be something that happens in a later book.
• 1:18:59
  Speaker A: I'm not sure it shows up in the Netflix series.
• 1:19:01
  Speaker B: Yeah.
• 1:19:02
  Speaker A: I remember a photo of, like, the whole VFD or whatever that shows up later in the series.
• 1:19:08
  Speaker B: I liked that the movie had a bunch of Aunt Josephine's crazy fears come true as the house was falling into the lake.
• 1:19:14
  Speaker A: Yeah.
• 1:19:15
  Speaker B: The doorknobs exploding.
• 1:19:17
  Speaker A: Very funny. That's not from the book.
• 1:19:19
  Speaker B: No, it's really good.
• 1:19:20
  Speaker A: Yeah.
• 1:19:20
  Speaker B: Like the fridge almost crushing.
• 1:19:22
  Speaker A: Almost crushing them. Yeah. It's very, very funny. Are those fears from the book?
• 1:19:26
  Speaker B: Yes.
• 1:19:27
  Speaker A: That's really good.
• 1:19:28
  Speaker B: Yeah. That is a good change.
• 1:19:29
  Speaker A: Very, very clever.
• 1:19:31
  Speaker B: This is not something that's better in the movie, per se, because it wouldn't work in the books, but I thought that having Mr. Poe give the children back to Olaf so that the movie can end with the play scene worked really well. I kind of like that the movie switches the roles by having Klaus be the one who builds the grappling hook and climbs up the tower to rescue Sunny. It's Violet in the books.
• 1:19:55
  Speaker A: Is she not in the play at the time?
• 1:19:57
  Speaker B: It's the night before the play. She's attempting to rescue Sunny so that they can get out of this jam that they're in. Yeah. But she ends up getting caught as soon as she gets to the top of the tower. So I thought that was fun. A little moment of Klaus being inspired by his older sister. So my last thing here is kind of a complicated thing. So in the book, the members of Count Olaf's theater troupe are not given proper names, at least not in these three books. But they have identifiers based on physical attributes. So they're referred to as like the women with white faces, the hook handed man, the bald man.
• 1:20:39
  Speaker A: How they're in the credits for the movie too.
• 1:20:41
  Speaker B: Yeah. So one of the members is described as the person who looks like neither a man nor a woman.
• 1:20:49
  Speaker A: In the net or in the IMDb credits, they're described as the person of indeterminate gender.
• 1:20:54
  Speaker B: Yes. And in the books there is some, we'll say, yikesy stuff.
• 1:21:02
  Speaker A: Yeah.
• 1:21:03
  Speaker B: Where the text wants us to be uncomfortable with that.
• 1:21:05
  Speaker A: Wants us to be like, oh, that's weird. Weird and gross. Yeah.
• 1:21:08
  Speaker B: In particular, the character is also described as like, enormously fat. Like cartoonishly fat. And in the wide window, there's a scene where the children are trying to escape from this character and they're just like grunting like an animal. And then they pick up Klaus with their mouth, like, very strange. And just like putting stuff.
• 1:21:29
  Speaker A: This isn't a human. This is like some.
• 1:21:31
  Speaker B: Yeah, yeah, yeah, yeah. So the movie really downplays this character.
• 1:21:36
  Speaker A: I think the entire acting troops. Barely.
• 1:21:38
  Speaker B: Yeah, very minimal. I mean, they're also barely in the books.
• 1:21:41
  Speaker A: Right. But yeah, they have very minimal parts.
• 1:21:44
  Speaker B: I. I think there's a reference to this character with the. The half bride, half groom costume. Yes. Yeah, we see this character a couple times who escorts Violet down the aisle, but that's kind of about it.
• 1:21:57
  Speaker A: Yeah.
• 1:21:57
  Speaker B: And now I'm not saying that that all but removing this character was the right way to handle things. But the movie's approach does strike me as a lot less offensive than the books.
• 1:22:09
  Speaker A: Yeah, it's definitely one of those things that I think that character could actually. And even having that character be a villain could be done fine. Like, I think you could have a character. Like they could all be these kind of strange almost. Like when I say strange, I mean that, like they're very unique. Like you said, like the hook handed guy and stuff. I think having them even be like his band of. Of villains. Could work if it was done in a way that felt that the, the physical characteristics about them wasn't what made them villains or weird, but was just a thing about them. If that makes sense. Like I think you could pull it off. But yeah, I, I, because I saw that in the, in the IMDb credits and I had a vague memory of that character from the Netflix series because they do have those characters in the net Netflix series.
• 1:22:58
  Speaker B: And I, I had to go back and read how that character was handled in the Netflix series, which sounded better than both of these.
• 1:23:07
  Speaker A: Yeah. But like that was. And I guess that was my point is that I think you could, you could do that character in a way that was interesting but also not like not super problematic at least. The thing that I thought was fascinating because I had a note about this in Odds and Ends but as good as places any is that the character, the actors they have that play the act. The band of his acting troupe are like a bunch of people that you've heard of, but they're like not in the movie at all. What's her name plays like one of the main, one of the white face women.
• 1:23:41
  Speaker B: Jennifer Coolidge.
• 1:23:41
  Speaker A: Jennifer Coolidge. She's like barely in it. Louise Louie Guzman is another one of them. The guy, the hook handed guy is Jamie Harris who's been at a bunch of stuff. But we, we noticed I rec. I was like, what do I know him from? He's one of the main characters guys in carnival row. He's one of the cops who. Orlando Bloom is like the villain cop. I think like the, the main bad guy cop or whatever. But the, the person who plays the person of indeterminate gender in the movie is Craig Ferguson. Did you notice that?
• 1:24:12
  Speaker B: No.
• 1:24:12
  Speaker A: The talk show host, like the late night talk show.
• 1:24:14
  Speaker B: That's crazy.
• 1:24:15
  Speaker A: It's so interesting. It's so interesting. Yeah. I thought that was fascinating that they had like a bunch of like, like kind of known actors. Well.
• 1:24:24
  Speaker B: And I wonder, I wonder if they were able to get people to sign on because like maybe they.
• 1:24:29
  Speaker A: Yeah.
• 1:24:29
  Speaker B: Oh, we're gonna keep making movies. You're gonna have. Yeah. Slightly bigger roles or at the very least you're gonna be in this series that's probably going to be X number of movies long.
• 1:24:40
  Speaker A: Right.
• 1:24:40
  Speaker B: Like, like I said earlier, this was supposed to be the next Harry Potter.
• 1:24:44
  Speaker A: At least three movies.
• 1:24:45
  Speaker B: Yeah.
• 1:24:45
  Speaker A: More. Yeah.
• 1:24:46
  Speaker B: So I wonder if they got bigger names to sign on like that.
• 1:24:49
  Speaker A: Yeah. And it's not like that's anybody super huge again. Louise, Jennifer Coolidge. You know, back in 2004. Like, it's not like these were like a Listers or anything.
• 1:24:59
  Speaker B: Right.
• 1:25:00
  Speaker A: Well, you have heard of and seen in things, which is surprising for bit parts in a movie.
• 1:25:04
  Speaker B: Yeah. Like, if this was not like an adaptation of a really popular book series at the time and it was just like a standalone thing, those would be like, no name.
• 1:25:15
  Speaker A: Well, and I guess my point, like, I think in my point of comparison, and I could be wrong about this, I think in the. The Netflix series, all those characters are played by just nobody you've ever heard of. I could be wrong about that. But, like, there's some big name people in the Netflix series, but I don't think those. Anyways, all right, that was it for better in the movie. Let's go ahead and find out what the movie nailed. As I expected.
• 1:25:38
  Speaker B: Practically perfect in every way. All right, let's rapid fire a few things. The narrator, Lemony Snicket, as a mysterious character who's, like, kind of involved, but kind of not. And we're not really sure yet what his whole deal is. The fake out. When they arrive at Count Olaf's and they think that they're going to live at Justice Strauss's house, he's like, no. She's like, oh, no, he's my neighbor. He lives over there. The lion. First impressions are often entirely wrong.
• 1:26:09
  Speaker A: But not in this case.
• 1:26:11
  Speaker B: Not in this case, though. Though. The list of chores that Count Olaf gives them to do every day. The Incredibly Deadly Viper looks just like its illustration.
• 1:26:22
  Speaker A: You showed me that book cover earlier and yeah, it looks exactly the same.
• 1:26:26
  Speaker B: When Olaf shows up as Stefano, he does threaten the BS with a large knife. And Uncle Monty does think that Stefano is a spy from the Herpetological Society. Aunt Josephine is afraid of everything. And she loves grammar. Summer. They also eat chilled cucumber soup. And Aunt Josephine is also terrified of realtors.
• 1:26:48
  Speaker A: Very valid fear.
• 1:26:49
  Speaker B: Yes. Extremely valid. Also, the realtor in this movie was played by Jane Lynch.
• 1:26:55
  Speaker A: Yes. Yeah. Another. There's some random.
• 1:26:58
  Speaker B: Another, like, blink and you miss it.
• 1:27:00
  Speaker A: Cameo in a minute. Yeah.
• 1:27:03
  Speaker B: Captain Sham, AKA Count Olaf, does flatter Aunt Josephine by calling Violet her sister sister. And he also does away with Aunt Josephine, like, almost immediately. Yeah, I didn't really remember the plot of that book, and I was like, oh, he's gonna try to, like, marry her. No. Klaus does convince Aunt Josephine to leave Curdled Cave with the threat of realtors.
• 1:27:27
  Speaker A: Realtors.
• 1:27:28
  Speaker B: The realtors are gonna show up.
• 1:27:30
  Speaker A: Yeah.
• 1:27:31
  Speaker B: The leeches do start eating the boat and the oars.
• 1:27:34
  Speaker A: Yeah. When they're trying To.
• 1:27:34
  Speaker B: Yeah. When they're trying to paddle away. The leeches in this are kind of like. They're kind of like cartoon piranhas. Like, they just eat whatever.
• 1:27:43
  Speaker A: Yeah.
• 1:27:44
  Speaker B: When Count Olaf finds them and is going to rescue them, quote unquote from the rowboat and the leeches, and Josephine, like, immediately gives up the kids. She's like, oh, you can have them. Yeah, just don't let me die. Yeah, you can have the kids. I don't care. And the. The kids are like, hey, wait a second. And Olaf does force Violet and Clouse to participate in the play by putting Sunny in a bird cage and dangling her out of the tower window.
• 1:28:14
  Speaker A: There you go. All right, we got a handful of odds and ends before we get to the final verdict.
• 1:28:29
  Speaker B: And my very first note right off the bat was that I need Violet Baudelaire's outfit immediately. That's great.
• 1:28:36
  Speaker A: Yeah. Costumes in this are great. Costumes, which they were nominated for. Oscar might have won. No, makeup won, I think. I think makeup won. And they were nominated for costumes, art, design, which all makes sense. I talked about it in the prequel that there's a moment in the movie where Jim Carrey, when they first meet Count Olaf, he says something, or they say, oh, our parents are dead. And he reacts by, like, going, like, laughing or something. I can't remember what he does. And then he says, let me do that one again. Quick, give me the line. And then, like, Klaus, like, our parents are dead. And then he reacts like, oh, no. Or whatever. And the note in the IMDb trivia that I read in the prequel was that that was unscripted and that Jim Carrey just forgot his line or wanted to do his line again in that moment and so said that. And then they used it in the movie. Movie. But that wasn't actually, like, planned to be there. And when I watched that, to me, it felt intentional and not like.
• 1:29:35
  Speaker B: I agree, I agree.
• 1:29:36
  Speaker A: That felt like. Now, maybe that line wasn't in the script, but that did not feel like a moment where he said that during a take. Right. They just, like, used that take.
• 1:29:49
  Speaker B: Yeah.
• 1:29:49
  Speaker A: To me, it felt like a thing. Like. Like he was like, what if I did a thing here where I was like, I responded weirdly, and then I said, let me take.
• 1:29:58
  Speaker B: And, like, honestly, like, I would even buy that he might say that still in character. Like, I would buy that. But the way that Klaus responds to me makes it feel like something that was more planned.
• 1:30:11
  Speaker A: I. I guess it could be possible that he did that. That. That his reaction of Let Me take that line again, was completely spur of the moment and not like a planned thing that he did say that. And they kept rolling, but then they decided, we like that. Let's have Klaus.
• 1:30:30
  Speaker B: Yeah, yeah, I could be in kind.
• 1:30:33
  Speaker A: And then go from there. Like, they made that decision like while they were filming it. But I'm pretty sure the IMDb trivia implied that it was a thing like after the fact that they were like, yeah, oh, we like this take where he says that, that. But that can't be the case because Clouse responds, they had to have in the moment decided. So either it was something they. Either it was scripted and that's a complete lie. Or two, Jim Carrey or whoever thought of that line in the moment and then they decided to do it. Or three, he did actually kind of just blurt that out as like an outtake. But they liked it and thought it was funny. So then in the moment they went with it. Those are the three options. I don't think any of them are. The only option that doesn't make sense is he blurted that out in the moment. And then later in the edit they were like, oh, we like that.
• 1:31:27
  Speaker B: Yeah, that. No, yeah, that makes the least use that.
• 1:31:31
  Speaker A: Anyways, whatever. Doesn't really matter. But again, a lot of times when you hear those kind of stories, they're almost always wrong. I'm not saying they all are, but a lot of times those moments are when people claim that like, this was. Oh, what wasn't. This was like a mistake or an accident that they like left in the film because they liked it. It. It's usually way more complicated than that. And that's not how movies are made. But anyways, I don't know how to.
• 1:31:54
  Speaker B: Explain it, but this movie, especially at the beginning, does feel to me like it was made by Nickelodeon. There's something about it. Well, they utilize like it was made by Nickelodeon.
• 1:32:06
  Speaker A: One of the things they do quite a bit, which is an aesthetic that works for this movie, is they use quite a. They utilize a fair amount of like, kind of like wide angle lenses and some zangier kind of framings and stuff that feels kind of Nickelodeon y of big exaggerated features with wide angle lenses and stuff like that. I think that's part of it. But I don't know what else you would be talking about.
• 1:32:30
  Speaker B: I don't really know either, so I'll take that as good of an explanation as any.
• 1:32:35
  Speaker A: You mentioned earlier how quickly the movie endears us to Monty. And like I said, I think a big part of that is Billy Connolly. But another big part of of it, I think, is how freaking cozy his house looks in particular. Obviously the big herpetological room with all the snakes is right.
• 1:32:49
  Speaker B: It's a like, greenhouse kind of.
• 1:32:51
  Speaker A: That's its own thing. It's cool, but it's not super cozy or whatever. But later on that evening when he's playing the harp and they're like sitting by the fireplace, we get this one shot in particular that's like a wide shot kind of from the ceiling of the room they're in. And it looks so nice. Like, it looks so cozy and delightful. It's like a super cool fireplace. And it's the perfect amount of. Full of stuff. Like, it's that perfect amount of, like. It kind of reminds you of like, Bag End or something. You know what I mean? It has that, like, very cozy, like, homey, homey feel. And I just. The fireplace in the layout of that room, and I was just like, oh, my God, I want. I want that.
• 1:33:37
  Speaker B: I am pretty positive feel, pretty sure that the line about the ones who start the fires and the ones who put them out might be from a later book.
• 1:33:46
  Speaker A: I think you're right because I think it's in the Netflix series. That line rung a bell.
• 1:33:50
  Speaker B: Yeah, that line felt very familiar to me.
• 1:33:53
  Speaker A: We mentioned random cameos earlier, but another completely random one is that Dustin Hoffman is in this movie for like. Like two shots.
• 1:34:01
  Speaker B: Yeah. He's like, randomly in the audience watching.
• 1:34:04
  Speaker A: The wedding attend or. Yeah, the play attendees, and they're just like, look, it's Dustin Hoffman. And you're like, what is he doing? He's not even a name. He. He's just a guy who's here and you're like, maybe he would have been a character later. I don't remember if that would make any sense.
• 1:34:17
  Speaker B: Yeah, maybe.
• 1:34:18
  Speaker A: But you're like, why? And my only thought has to be that, like, Dustin Hoffman just, like, really liked this book series or something and wanted to be in it. I don't know if he has kids or, you know what I mean? Like, like maybe he has kids or something and his kids loved it. And he just like, can I cameo in the movie? Or. I don't know. That's my only guess because I don't understand why else you would have Dustin Hoffman play a person in the crowd for two shots in your movie. It's very strange.
• 1:34:43
  Speaker B: Another thing that I think might be from a later book is the letter that never came. Like, not specifically the letter with the spyglass that they get from their Parents at the end of the movie. But like, the idea of. Or like the line, like, the letter that never came. Yeah, that's very Lemony Snicket.
• 1:35:02
  Speaker A: Yes. Yeah, for sure. My last note here is that as much as I like. So we talked about the Netflix series a lot. Quite a bit. Like I said, I tried to avoid it as much as possible, but in the Netflix series, Limine, Snicket is played by Patrick Warburton.
• 1:35:16
  Speaker B: Yeah.
• 1:35:17
  Speaker A: And he appears on screen a lot. Like, he comes out and he, like, talks to camera and, like, I'm Lemony Snicket. I can't do Patrick Warburton's voice. But a thing that I thought was really interesting about this version is that Jude Law plays Lemony Snicket in this. You never see his face, which is really.
• 1:35:33
  Speaker B: Which is in canon with, like, if you look.
• 1:35:36
  Speaker A: And I was impressed that Jude Law was like, yeah, fine, I just won't be in the movie.
• 1:35:39
  Speaker B: Like, if you look at. In all of the books, his author photo is. Oh, you never see his face.
• 1:35:45
  Speaker A: Interesting. Yeah, but I thought that was interesting, but. So I like Patrick Warburton's limited Snicket a lot in the series. I think he's a lot of fun. Like, he's a very. He does like his voice. Obviously, it's Patrick Warburton, so he's doing his. He's just playing.
• 1:36:01
  Speaker B: He's doing his Patrick Warburton thing.
• 1:36:03
  Speaker A: Yeah. Which is a lot of fun. And I don't want to say that his character completely lacked this in that series, but Jude Law's version has a. The way he delivers his lines, has a sincerity and, like, vulnerability and heart that gave the film a tenderness that I felt. Like, the show. I don't want to say the show lacked. It's been a long time since we watched it, but there was something about Jude Law's Lemony Snicket that I thought still captured a lot of the, like, quirky, fun comedy of the character, while having an extra added layer of, like, compassion and heart that I thought was really compelling. I don't know. I really liked his performance as Lemony Snicket in this. And again, it's only in voice. Well, I say only in voice. We see his silhouette quite a few times, but, like, we don't ever, like, see him on camera. Camera. And nothing like we do in the Netflix series, where he's just like, hi, I'm Lemony Snicket talking to you, the audience. But, yeah, I just thought I was like, man, I really, really liked his performance as Lemony Snicket in this. Like I said, I just thought it added an extra layer to the narrator character, especially knowing where the story goes later, at least a little bit from my memory. I thought it added a lot to it that I'm not sure I would have to rewatch it, but I'm not sure that the Netflix version had. And on that same note, like I said, I, I, I was really pleasantly surprised by this movie and I thought it was quite good. I, I think this, the series benefits from the TV format.
• 1:37:33
  Speaker B: Oh, absolutely. Yeah.
• 1:37:34
  Speaker A: The episodic format of Netflix worked perfectly for this. And having that expanded, this was the.
• 1:37:39
  Speaker B: Way that the, that was the way that those, these were always, like, needing to be adapted.
• 1:37:43
  Speaker A: Absolutely works. Makes perfect sense. And I think it was better for the, these, this book series to be a TV series eventually. That being said, I think the movie works pretty well. And it's kind of disappointing that, to me that they didn't make more, because I think it could have been a really good series. Like, I actually thought this movie was pretty good and I actually really enjoyed it more, Even more. I thought I would like, like it, but I enjoyed it a lot more than I thought. And maybe that was helped by having watched the Netflix series and knowing a little bit more about the story and where things go. Like, maybe that helped. I'm sure it did. But I, I, like I said, I really enjoyed it this time and I was like, that, that was good. That was very good.
• 1:38:21
  Speaker B: Speaking of the Netflix series, I wanted to bring this up at least once because I figured we may get people asking, will we ever cover the Netflix series? The answer is I don't know.
• 1:38:33
  Speaker A: Yeah.
• 1:38:34
  Speaker B: Of all the TV adaptations that are out there, the Netflix adaptation of A Series of Unfortunate Events might be the thing that interests me the most. Most as, like, something to cover.
• 1:38:48
  Speaker A: Yeah.
• 1:38:49
  Speaker B: The main problem with covering it is that the series is 13 books long.
• 1:38:55
  Speaker A: Yeah.
• 1:38:55
  Speaker B: And we only cover 28 books in a year. That means that we either spend five and a half months straight on one series or we put in buffer episodes and spend even longer working our way.
• 1:39:10
  Speaker A: Through trying to remember what, what happened previously.
• 1:39:13
  Speaker B: And like, yeah, either way, I'm concerned.
• 1:39:17
  Speaker A: About burnout, because the only. Yeah, there's a couple ways. There's a handful of ways we could handle it, but I think all of them are not super conducive to our podcast.
• 1:39:26
  Speaker B: Yeah.
• 1:39:26
  Speaker A: Because, like, it's either we, yeah, like you said, we do it for like six straight months or we space it out or we do some weird condensed Schedule where we do like a bunch of episodes.
• 1:39:38
  Speaker B: Like where we try to like speed run it.
• 1:39:40
  Speaker A: Yeah. Like where we try to do like six episodes in six or something.
• 1:39:45
  Speaker B: And none of those options are like good options.
• 1:39:48
  Speaker A: None of them are great for what we do. Again, if we were doing this full time, maybe that would be a different thing. But since this is a completely a side project that we have free time.
• 1:39:57
  Speaker B: This is something that we do in the evenings after work.
• 1:40:00
  Speaker A: Yeah. And on the weekends and stuff. And we enjoy it a lot. But it is one of those things where we don't. We try to make sure it's a thing where we, where we keep enjoying it so we keep doing it. And it isn't something that feels like we're like we gotta record six months worth of episodes on this thing. Or, or in, in a few weeks. Whatever. It just. Yeah. It. So maybe one day. I think the thing that would be most likely would be maybe we do like a. The bonus episode style. Like.
• 1:40:28
  Speaker B: Yeah.
• 1:40:29
  Speaker A: Where we don't do a full. Full adaptation cover. But we do watch it and like talk about maybe we do like three episodes on each season or like like one episode on each season. So like three total episodes or I don't know, something like that would maybe be the way. But we don't do like a direct book comparison. We more so just talk about. I don't know, who knows. We literally have no idea. But we wanted to address that just so kind of head off questions or preemptively answer questions that people might have about that. So. But anyways, and if you come in.
• 1:41:00
  Speaker B: The comments asking about it, I'm going to tell you to listen to the episode.
• 1:41:05
  Speaker A: Yeah. Before we wrap up, we want to remind you you could do us a giant favor by heading over to Facebook, Instagram, threads, Goodreads, Blue sky, any of those places. Follow us, interact. We'd love to hear what you have to say about A Series of Unfortunate Events. And we will read and react to your comments on the next prequel episode. You can also do us a favor by heading over to Apple Podcasts, Spotify. Wherever you listen to our show, drop us five star rating, write us a nice little review. If you'd really like to support us, head over to patreon.com thisfilmislit Support us there for a few bucks a month, get access to bonus content and all that kind of good stuff. And at the $15 a month level, you get access to priority recommendations, patron requests, where if there's something you'd really like for us to talk about you can give us 15 bucks a month. Request it and we will add it to our queue as soon as possible. And this was a patron request from Kelly Napier. There you go. Thank you, Kelly. We really appreciate it.
• 1:41:56
  Speaker B: This was a much better pick than last year's first episode, which was Forest Gump, which was Kelly's patron request.
• 1:42:04
  Speaker A: Yeah, this one was this one. Look, I have a soft spot for force. Anyways, point being, book sucked. Oh, that's true. I didn't have to read it. Fair enough. All right, it's time for the final verdict.
• 1:42:21
  Speaker B: Sentence fast. Verdict after. That's stupid. I didn't remember a whole lot about this movie going into to it, and I was pretty pleasantly surprised. It's not like the most incredible piece of filmmaking you've ever seen, but it's fun and unique and a pretty decent adaptation, especially given the challenges that this series almost assuredly presented to the scriptwriters. However, I am going to give this one to the books and I have three main reasons why. Reason the first I'm not sure you can really, apples to apples, compare a film that seems to be trying to be its own little island to the first three books in a sprawling 13 book series. I think the movie really did its best, but I also think that you're always going to feel the loss of that scope and intrigue. Reason the second Count Olaf I talked about it earlier, and while I'm not against a silly, goofy, cartoony villain, I just think that letting Olaf be an actual villain is so much more interesting. And Reason the third the thing that truly makes these books unique and perfect for weird book nerd kids like me is the style. When I started reading these as a kid, I had never encountered a book that used its narrator and narration style in the way that these books had. Rereading them as an adult, I realized that they really primed me to enjoy some things that I read and loved later down the line, like Terry Pratchett, Hitchhiker's Guide, and the Princess Bride. And even though I think that the movie did a good job mimicking that style to some extent, it's not something that you can really truly capture outside of the written world. So it's for these reasons that I'm choosing to say that the books are better. A word which here means superior to the film.
• 1:44:29
  Speaker A: The look on my face as you read that last line. I wish the viewers had to go for it. It was a mixture. It was a mixture of pride and disgust. I can't even begin to capture that feeling of just well done. But also. No, it was great. And I agree. I think in particular your third point there is, I think the movie and the Netflix series, for that matter, do a really good job of communicating that style, because I got it immediately from both of them and I really enjoy it in both of them. But I can only imagine, because I love Terry Pratchett and Hitchhiker's Guide and stuff, Douglas Adams, that I can immediately imagine what those books are like. And I was like, I would love that. I would have been all over this book. I don't know how I didn't read this as a kid.
• 1:45:16
  Speaker B: Yeah, I think you would have been all over these as a young person.
• 1:45:19
  Speaker A: Idea how I didn't read these, but I would have loved them because. Yeah, that's right up my alley. And I completely agree that it is something that style is something that is hard. Even at done perfectly, when you translate it to film, it's still just not quite the same as it is to read it. So, Katie, what's next?
• 1:45:38
  Speaker B: Up next, we are really switching tracks and we're going to talk about Bridget Jones's Diary, which is a book by Helen fielding in a 2001 film.
• 1:45:51
  Speaker A: Interesting.
• 1:45:51
  Speaker B: I. I have. This is. I've never watched it. I. The only thing that I know about this movie is that it's like, infamous for body shaming. So the only thing I know about.
• 1:46:06
  Speaker A: Literally the only thing I know about it is that they, like, the whole thing is like, she's like, yeah. Famous for body shaming. A person who is incredibly not the thing they're all making fun of her for being. I think from my memory, it's like, it's that thing where, yeah. You constantly see the meme of, like, this. This is what everybody was making fun of for being fat in 2001 or whatever. It's like.
• 1:46:27
  Speaker B: And it's like Renee Zellweger, very normal body.
• 1:46:31
  Speaker A: Yes.
• 1:46:32
  Speaker B: A slim body.
• 1:46:33
  Speaker A: I would even say arguably. Yeah. It's very, very, very. I don't know if funny's the right word, but, yeah, we'll dive into all of that in the Bridget Jones Jones episode in two weeks time. But in one week's time, we're previewing Bridget Jones Diary and seeing what all of you had to say about A Series of Unfortunate Events. Until that time, guys, gals, not binary dolls. And everybody else, keep reading books, keep watching movies and keep being.