Latest / This Film is Lit / Vampire Academy

Transcript

Vampire Academy · 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. I don't know what's gonna happen tonight. At this point, I can't remember who loves us and who hates us, but I do know that we are gonna own this dance. Let's make tonight our bitch. It's Vampire Academy, and this film is litanous. Hello, and welcome back to this film is lit, the podcast where we talk about movies that are based on books we have quite a bit to get into. I think we have every one of our segments, right?
1:17
Speaker B: I think so, yeah.
1:18
Speaker A: So let's just jump right in. If you have not read or watched Vampire Academy, congratulations. But here is a brief summary of the film in. Let me sum up. Let me explain. No, there is too much sum up. This summary is sourced directly from Wikipedia, and as such, its veracity is questionable. Debatable. Rose Hathaway, a 17 year old dampir guardian in training, and her best friend Maroy, Princess Vasilisa Lisa Dragomir, are living discreetly, having escaped from the St. Vladimir's Academy boarding school one year prior. Dampeers are vampire human hybrids trained to protect the Maroyenne, mortal vampires with a normal lifespan and death, who tend to have magical powers and belong to royal bloodlines. The girls are found and forced to return to St. Vladimir's Academy, where they encounter the strigoi, the undead vampires of legend, which moroi become if they completely drain their victims of blood or are turned. Lisa is ostracized by her peers as Rose starts to form an attraction to her russian dampier, mentor and fellow guardian, Dmitry Belikov. Mysterious messages threatening Lisa start to appear, written in blood on her wall and an exploding memorial to her family in the school church. They suspect that it is the work of classmate Mia Rinaldi, who had dated Lisa's now deceased non monogamous brother, Andre. Not monogamous? That's one way to say he cheated on her. Well, actually, no. Cause, right? I think they do say that like that. Was his thing, like.
2:57
Speaker B: Yeah, he, like, dated girls, but, like, in. Like, on the down low? Kinda.
3:02
Speaker A: Yeah, but they. I think they make a note that it specifically said, like, you know, just casual.
3:07
Speaker B: Yeah.
3:07
Speaker A: Like, I don't think there was any player. Right. But I don't think there was any implications that, like, he was in a. So I guess non monogamous works in the sense that, like, I don't think there's any implications that he was, like, telling them that he was the only person.
3:18
Speaker B: No, I don't think so.
3:19
Speaker A: Okay, so I guess that works. It's just funny seeing that written out there about a high school student who had dated. Was it Lissa or Lisa?
3:27
Speaker B: I think it's Lissa.
3:28
Speaker A: Lissa's now deceased non monogamous brother, Andre, and now directs her hatred towards Lissa as the only surviving member of the dragomir line. I don't know if this thing will mention it, but her family died in a car accident. The rest of her family, including Andre, manipulating two other students using sex. She persuades them to help Mia. Mia, that is, persuades them to help her spread rumors about Rose Maroy. Christian Ozera, viewed poorly by his peers as both his parents became strigoi, tries to romance Lissa, but Rose blocks him by lying to them. Both Christian and Lissa begin to bond regardless. Later, Rose investigates the disappearance of Sonja Karp, a teacher who helped her and Lissa escape, and finds video footage of Karp mentally unstable from using spirit magic. She also discovers that Lyssa has the same rare power that the founder of their school, St. Vladimir, had, that of spirit, a power which enables the caster to heal ailments and save the dying. However, using spirit also drains the users life energy gradually with each use. This is all news to me. Rose demands headmistress Ellen Kirova show her classified information on Carp, who reveals that Carp became strigoi and escaped before disappearing. At the same time, dead animals begin to appear wherever Lissa goes. At the equinox dance, Rose discovers Mia is not responsible for the dead animals. Soon, Lissa is kidnapped, and Rose, Dimitri, and Christian rush to see save her. The Maroi responsible for the kidnapping and the threats against Lissa is Viktor Dashkov, a previous candidate for the throne who suffers from the chronic disease Sandovsky's syndrome. He plans to use Lissa to cure himself, although the cure would eventually cost Lissa's life. Once captured and placed in. In the secure cells beneath the school, Victor explains to Rose that she bonded to Lissa, that the reason she bonded to Liz is because she was shadow kissed. Having been brought back to life by Liss's magic during the car crash, I think.
5:26
Speaker B: Yes.
5:26
Speaker A: While they are talking, Victor's daughter, Natalie, who had befriended both Lyssa and Rose and was a very insecure student at the school, is enacting the tools of Victor's escape. I'm editing as I go here to make this make as much sense as possible. She has turned. She turns Strigoi by straining her crush to death. Dimitri comes and kills Natalie and detains Victor during vampire queen Tatiana issue Ivashkov's speech. At the end of the film, Lissa steps in and gives a speech of Rome. She announces that spirit is her type of magic and that it is thanks to Rose that she can master it. Rose then meets Dimitri outside and asks about his feelings for her. He states that he can't love her because if there was any danger between Rose and danger between Rose and Lissa, he would save Rose instead of Lissa. She gives Dimitri a kiss on the cheek and walks back to the academy in a mountain clave. In a mountain cave nearby the academy, Karp leads a horde of Strigoi. The end. Did that make sense? No, of course not. It's insane. We'll get into it. Katie, we do have a guess who this week, so let's go ahead and play. Who are you? No one of consequence. I must get used to disappointment.
6:44
Speaker B: We do have some guess whos. I think that most of these will be pretty easy for you. I just really wanted to read them out loud.
6:53
Speaker A: Fantastic.
6:56
Speaker B: He was older than us, maybe mid twenties.
6:59
Speaker A: Yeah, okay, that's easy.
7:00
Speaker B: And as tall as I'd figured. Probably six six or six seven.
7:05
Speaker A: Huge.
7:06
Speaker B: We're gonna put a pin in that just for a second.
7:08
Speaker A: Okay?
7:09
Speaker B: I need romance writers to understand how fucking tall that is.
7:13
Speaker A: That is gigantic.
7:14
Speaker B: That's huge.
7:14
Speaker A: That's basketball.
7:15
Speaker B: Yes. Like, the average height of an NBA player.
7:18
Speaker A: Yeah, I'm a gigantic person. And I'm six.
7:21
Speaker B: You're three. You're three, and I love that about you, but I also often think that you're far too tall.
7:27
Speaker A: No, I often don't even realize how tall I am compared to most people. And I'm six'three.
7:32
Speaker B: Yeah.
7:33
Speaker A: Yeah.
7:33
Speaker B: 6667 is insane.
7:36
Speaker A: Yeah.
7:37
Speaker B: Okay, moving forward, and under different circumstances, I would have thought he was hot. Shoulder length brown hair tied back in a short ponytail, dark brown eyes, a long brown coat. A duster, I thought it was called, but his hotness was irrelevant now.
7:57
Speaker A: Okay, so that's Dimitri.
8:00
Speaker B: Yes.
8:00
Speaker A: Yeah. I keep forgetting his name because I keep wanting to say Vladimir, but Vladimir is the school.
8:05
Speaker B: Yeah.
8:06
Speaker A: Dimitri.
8:07
Speaker B: Yeah. That last line is not super relevant to his description, but I simply had to include it.
8:14
Speaker A: Why is his hotness irrelevant now?
8:16
Speaker B: Because when they meet him, he's, like, capturing them to take them back to the school.
8:22
Speaker A: Ah, okay.
8:23
Speaker B: He's like bounty, basically.
8:25
Speaker A: Okay.
8:28
Speaker B: With her pretty face and pale blonde hair, she looked more like an angel than a vampire. Her pale, jade green eyes watched me with concern.
8:38
Speaker A: I'd say that's lyssa.
8:39
Speaker B: It is Lyssa.
8:40
Speaker A: Yeah. This is very easy.
8:41
Speaker B: The figure stepped forward, and in the poor lighting, familiar features materialized. Messy black hair, pale blue eyes, a perpetually sardonic smirk.
8:54
Speaker A: Okay, so this is, I don't know, perpetually sardonic smirk. Hmm. Okay. I think this could be Christian. I'm trying to think of who the other people that would be important enough to get, like, an important character description. I don't know if he would have a perpetually sardonic smirk, but I guess I could see it. Messy black hair. Makes sense. Pale blue. I'm trying to think who else it would even make sense. I don't think this sounds like Natalee or Victor or I guess it. Or, like, the. The headmistress of the school. Or I'm trying to think of other. Her friend is a ginger.
9:39
Speaker B: His name is Mason.
9:40
Speaker A: Mason, played by Cal. I say Cal Kestis. That actor plays her friend in the movie the ginger. He plays. There's a series of video Star wars video games called Jedi Survivor, and he is the main character in that. And they modeled the character after him. And it was really surprising to me to be like, oh, that's Cal Kestis.
9:59
Speaker B: Good for him.
10:00
Speaker A: Yeah, like, he's the actor that plays that character anyways, so. And I'm cheating by looking at the last one here because I would have said that this is rose. The perpetually sardonic smirk to me says rose, but the description doesn't make sense. Like, the rest of it doesn't make sense. So I'm gonna say this is Christian.
10:18
Speaker B: It is Christian.
10:19
Speaker A: Okay.
10:20
Speaker B: I figured that would be the one you struggled with the most, but I simply had to read the line. A perpetually sardonic smurf.
10:28
Speaker A: Yeah, that's great.
10:30
Speaker B: All right, last one. That genetic combination had given me skin the same color as the inside of an almond, along with what I liked to think were semi exotic desert princess features, big dark eyes, and hair so deep brown that it usually looked black.
10:50
Speaker A: So this, considering it's written from first person perspective, and I assume the movie is similar, this would be rose.
10:56
Speaker B: Yes.
10:57
Speaker A: And it fits for the most part. The inside of an almond is an interesting way to describe your skin tone, because the inside of an almond is just white.
11:07
Speaker B: Yes.
11:08
Speaker A: Unless she means the outside of the inside of an almond.
11:12
Speaker B: That's what I presume was probably meant, is, like, when you crack the shell.
11:18
Speaker A: The shell on an almond. The inside.
11:21
Speaker B: The outside of the inside, yes.
11:22
Speaker A: The skin, not the shell of the almond, is, like, a light brown.
11:27
Speaker B: But if you, like, slice open the actual meat of an almond. Yeah, it's like beige. Beige, yeah, it's, like, color of my skin.
11:36
Speaker A: Yeah. Like, so, yeah, I'm not sure what. What we're actually going for there. If it's supposed to be like, she has darker skin or, like, base, I don't know, but interesting.
11:47
Speaker B: So there's a lot.
11:48
Speaker A: Lot going on there, but, yeah, that's definitely rose. All right, well, that was very easy. Yeah, that was. Which usually for these ya kind of things, it's pretty simple, so. All right, I have. God, do I have questions? Let's get into it. In. Was that in the book?
12:04
Speaker B: Gaston, may I have my book, please?
12:07
Speaker A: How can you read this? There's no pictures.
12:09
Speaker B: Well, some people use their imagination.
12:12
Speaker A: So we're introduced right off the bat to our two main characters, Rose and Lissa. There may be some backstory before this, I don't remember, but we jump in and they're on the run, and they're staying in, like, an apartment, or they're living in an apartment or something, I don't know, but they're trying to blend in. And we're in Lyssa's room, and Rose is, like, making fun of her because she has a poster of Jimmy Carter on her wall, and Rose is like, why do you have a poster of a weird us president on your wall? I was like, first off, of all the us presidents, maybe the least weird.
12:47
Speaker B: Maybe the least weird.
12:48
Speaker A: Maybe the least weird president to have on your wall. But she's like, why do you have. And so basically she says, oh, you told me to blend in. So it's like a normal human thing, right? To have a. But I'm like, but you are human. Like, I know you're a vampire, but you live in human society. You exist in human. I don't. Like, that was very silly to me, of like, oh, that's a human. You're not an alien. Like, that's an alien thing. You know what I mean? These vampires grow up and exist in normal human world for the most part. I mean, I don't know. I thought it was very silly. But does Lissa have a poster of Jimmy Carter on her wall to blend in? Because I thought that was very funny.
13:24
Speaker B: There's no mention of a Jimmy Carter poster in the book. I am of two minds about the way that the movie points out that all of the students would be very sheltered from the human world. Or most of them, I guess a lot of them. On the one hand, it is true, because we find out that most of the students at St. Vladimir's have basically been raised there since they were children.
13:49
Speaker A: Okay.
13:51
Speaker B: So they would be, like, maybe more sheltered than you're thinking.
13:54
Speaker A: Okay, that's fair, I guess.
13:56
Speaker B: But on the other hand, the way that the movie communicates, this is kind of silly.
14:01
Speaker A: Yeah.
14:02
Speaker B: And also absolutely dates the film.
14:05
Speaker A: I thought that was particularly funny, the line you have mentioned here. I was like, why would you include the number?
14:10
Speaker B: Yeah. When they're driving them. When they're driving the girls back into the boarding school. And Rose is like, goodbye, Facebook. Goodbye, iPhone five.
14:24
Speaker A: Yeah, just say, goodbye, iPhone. Like, why would you say iPhone five? It's such a specific way to date your movie for no reason, when you could just say iPhone and assume, you know, iPhones will be around for a while, at least. Yeah, iPhone five, that's, like, a one year thing, two year thing, tops. Like, it's so stupid. Whatever. Okay, so. But now they're. Since they're on the run, Lissa, and. Cause we don't really know at this point how we know. I think we've explained that Lyssa is a vampire or a damp or a moroi, who was a type of vampire, but they're, like, a mor. They're mortal. They have normal lifespans, and they don't, like, kill people to feed. They just drink, but they have to drink blood. And because they're on the run from the school, they have to. She needs to feed somewhere, and so rose lets her feed off of herself. And this was, like, the first scene in the trailer, and we were joking when we read. When we were talking about this movie beforehand, I think I read the description or something, and we were joking about how it sounded, very sounded like there was maybe going to be some queer undertones in this relationship between Rose and Lissa. And the very first scene in both the trailer and the movie is Rose offering her neck to Lissa so that she can feed off of her. And then when Lissa bites her, she reacts in, like, what I can only describe as ecstasy. Like, she's having an orgasm. And I need to know if that scene comes from the book, because I was like, okay, so this seems very overtly like we're doing some sort of queer overtones, even at this point. And I wanted to know if that scene came from the book and if specifically if Rose reacts that way to Lyssa feeding on her.
16:11
Speaker B: Yes. All of this is directly from the book. If you'll recall, I started reading this book, page three. We were in the car.
16:21
Speaker A: Yeah.
16:22
Speaker B: And I was like, why is this the gayest thing I've ever read? While we were in the car? Okay, so here's what happens. Her fangs bit into me hard, and I cried out at the brief flare of pain. Then it faded, replaced by a wonderful, golden joy that spread through my body. It was better than any of the times I'd been drunk or high. Better than sex, or so I imagined, since I'd never done it. It was a blanket of pure, unrefined pleasure, wrapping me up and promising everything would be right in the world. On and on it went. The chemicals in her saliva triggered an endorphin rush, and I lost track of the world. Lost track of who I was.
17:11
Speaker A: Yeah. Okay, so it's very explicitly.
17:13
Speaker B: Yeah, yeah.
17:15
Speaker A: This is like a sex analogy. Yeah, spoilers. Dear listener, that will not go anywhere.
17:20
Speaker B: That will not pan out in any way whatsoever.
17:23
Speaker A: Yeah. There is zero apart from that one moment. There is zero in the rest of this film that remotely feels like it has that same energy, which is very strange to me, but glad to know it's from the book. So it becomes very apparent in this movie that. And this movie is exhausting. It's nonstop. But part of the reason it's exhausting is that our main character, Rose, is a non stop quip machine. And I mentioned in the prequel, in a lot of the reviews, they compared Rose and specifically the performance by the actress. Can't remember her name now, but the daughter of Leah Thompson is who that is. They compared it to Juno, to Elliot Page's performance in Juno. And after watching the movie, I definitely get that one, I think a big part of it. And when I was watching the trailer turned to you, I was like, I think a big reason that people are comparing it is just because the actress who plays Rose in this looks like Paige did in Janelle a little bit. Just like their face shape or whatever. But apart from that, the nonstop, quippy, sarcastic, just overly hyper aware feels like it's written by an adult teenager ness of it. To me, it was so painfully mid two thousands. And I wanted to know if the book had that same kind of energy from Rose.
18:50
Speaker B: I mean, she's a little quippy. I wouldn't call her a non stop quip machine in the way that she is in the movie.
18:57
Speaker A: Yeah.
18:57
Speaker B: But she's definitely got that kind of a similar vibe that was. I felt like that was a strange comparison when we talked about it in the prequel, just because Vampire Academy, the movie came out in 2014, and Juno came out in 2007, and I felt like there were so many other, like, female characters to reach for in that intervening seven years. But after we watched it, I could definitely see it, having watched the movie. It's really there in her facial expressions, too.
19:31
Speaker A: Yeah. The intervening years, I think it's just the most notable, that kind of character that people could immediately jump to, and I think a big part of it, like I said, is that in this movie, the actress who plays Rose just kind of looks like Juno. Yeah. Like, just kind of, I think is another part of it, but, yeah, it's. Oh, my God. It was so. It felt like being transported back to 2007. I was like, ugh, God, it's exhausting, honestly. So then we get. They get taken back to the school. They get captured and taken back to the school. The academy. And while they're there, we get a big exposition dump. I think it's a voiceover from Rose explaining, like, everything that goes on at St. Vladimir's Academy and how the dampiers trained to protect the marais, blah, blah, blah. But one of the things that she explains is that the Maroi, apart from being vampires, also do magic.
20:25
Speaker B: Yes.
20:25
Speaker A: And specifically elemental magic. Like, they can do, like, fire, air, water, and earthbending, basically.
20:33
Speaker B: Basically, yeah.
20:34
Speaker A: And I needed to know if that came from the book. Cause I was like, wow, okay, we're layering hats on hats here at this point, but let's sure.
20:45
Speaker B: That does come from the book. The Moroi all have element based magic, and they all specialize in one element, like, around puberty. But Lyssa is 17 and still has not specialized, so that's part of her.
21:00
Speaker A: Like, yeah, they keep saying she hasn't declared. I think it's the word they use in the movie, but, yeah, but I just mentioned it. But, man, the movie is for the first 20 minutes or so, it's just nonstop exposition dump after exposition dump after exposition dump, because there's so much to set up in this world. Like, again, we were, like, 15 minutes into this point, and I was like, this is too many ideas. There's too much going on. And I wanted to know. I assume clearly it probably was, because I can't imagine the movie, usually screenwriters, pretty good at. It's like a. It's like one of the main things in screenwriting. It's like, you gotta.
21:41
Speaker B: Yeah. Streamlining.
21:42
Speaker A: Streamlining. Pairing ideas down, hacking and slashing. And, like, usually in adaptations, that's what people complain about is that movies strip too much out of what was in the book originally. So I didn't imagine that the movie was adding a bunch of stuff here. But I gotta ask anyways. Does the book have quite as much exposition to set up so many things at the beginning?
22:01
Speaker B: My God, yes. This book is almost nothing but world building. Exposition, info dump. Those are the three main words that I would use to describe this book. The experience of reading it, unfortunately reminded me a lot of reading divergent.
22:23
Speaker A: Yeah.
22:24
Speaker B: Just very heavy on this kind of shaky world building where there's just stuff piled on stuff piled on stuff.
22:32
Speaker A: There's too many ideas, and none of it has a sturdy enough foundation. We're all just. We're piling more and more ideas to kind of, like, try to camouflage the fact that, like.
22:43
Speaker B: And we're all just clinging on for dear life trying to follow this.
22:47
Speaker A: Yeah. Honestly, even divergent, I think, is simpler from my memory, feels like it's not quite as many ideas stacked on. There's still too many ideas in diversion. But not even that in comparison, felt like. It's funny you say that, because I was like, even in comparison, Divergent seemed really streamlined in comparison to my experience watching this movie, which, again, I remember that that was one of the main things we complained about in Divergent. Was there too much stuff? But, man, it's absurd in this movie. So we move forward a little bit, and we kind of get our first glimpse of what Lyssa's abilities. You said she hasn't declared, like, a specific part of the. She's not part of the water clan or the earth clan or the fire clan or whatever, so. But we see that they're standing just, like, in the courtyard and a raven or a crow or whatever, and this.
23:39
Speaker B: Is like a flashback.
23:40
Speaker A: Oh, right, right. Yeah, it is a flashback. And a corvette of some sort flies into a statue, and it's, like, flopping around on the ground, dying, dead. And Lissa runs over and is able to, like, bring it back to life. She does something that heals it or whatever and brings it back to life. And I wanted to know if that came from the book and then also. But then she passes out after she does it. Like, it's somehow, you know, like, I guess the. The exertion of doing the spell, this magic, like, forces her to pass out. Then the camera cuts, and we see, like, a woman standing in a window, like, watching them. But it was so quick that I could not figure out who it was supposed to be, and I was hoping the movie would explain who that was. I have a parenthetical here that says, I assume we'll get an answer to this at some point. We did not from my memory, but I could not tell who it was because it was kind of far away and so quick. And I wanted to know if all that came from the book.
24:40
Speaker B: It does. Alyssa does bring a dead raven back to life in a flashback in the book. And I'm pretty sure in the book it's misses Karp who witnesses this happen. And I don't recall anything in the movie that would make me think it was different.
24:58
Speaker A: Here's my problem with that. I agree. It looked kind of like misses carp. My confusion with that is that I swear, in that scene, they had just been talking to her in the courtyard, had they not? And then she, like, walks away, and then, I swear, she walks away from them having that conversation. And then the bird flies into the window or into the statue and, like, dies and she heals it. And then right after that happens, she looks up to, like, the third floor and misses carp is in the window. And I was like, wasn't she just right next to you guys, like, 30 seconds ago? That was my confusion with who it was.
25:36
Speaker B: Maybe she can apparate.
25:37
Speaker A: Okay.
25:38
Speaker B: I don't know.
25:38
Speaker A: I would have to go back and watch it, but that was my confusion because I agree. I thought, I was like, oh, I think that might be misses cart. But I was like, but she was just. Wasn't she just right there?
25:46
Speaker B: Well, the other thing. And I would have to go back and look in the book, but the book is so, like, with all of the flashbacks and memories and things and going into different perspectives.
25:59
Speaker A: We'll get to that.
26:01
Speaker B: The book is so all over the place. It was really, really hard to follow. It was hard to keep track of what was happening when and, like, who was where.
26:13
Speaker A: I will say the movie nailed that.
26:14
Speaker B: Different things.
26:15
Speaker A: I had that same experience watching the movie of not knowing.
26:18
Speaker B: I was saying, I think maybe, maybe the other character that it would possibly make sense for that to have been would be Natalie.
26:28
Speaker A: Yeah, maybe.
26:29
Speaker B: Because obviously Natalie and her father find out somehow that Lyssa can do that could make sense. So maybe it was supposed to be Natalie.
26:37
Speaker A: That could make sense. That makes more sense to me than being miss Carp. Cause like I said, I swear that they had just talked to miss carp, like, in the courtyard 30 seconds ago, but maybe not. I truly don't recall.
26:49
Speaker B: Also, to your parenthetical, I just want to say that the number of times reading the book that I thought to myself, I'll assume we'll get an answer at some point, was actually wild. I think we had very similar experiences.
27:05
Speaker A: Sounds like it. So then we get. Rose has to get. They've been taken back to the school, and she has to get back into the swing of things and get back to training. And she goes to, like, that. There's, like, a night training class she goes to. And her. That mason, I guess he said her.
27:19
Speaker B: Name was the redhead.
27:20
Speaker A: Yeah. Yeah. They're hanging out, and they're, like, chit chatting, and she shows up. And as she gets there, somebody had just. I think Mason or somebody had just said something about, like, her getting her ass kicked or something. I can't remember, like, something about her, like, getting her ass kicked or something. And she shows up and she says, surely you have something more interesting to discuss than my ass. And Mason turns to her and goes, your boobies. And I died a little inside. And I need to know if that line is in the book, because it's terrible. And in that moment, my dreams of. Maybe not in that moment, but I was getting to the point at this. You know, we're like, 1520 minutes in. I'm like, my desire for this film to be, like, camp.
28:11
Speaker B: Like, secretly genius camp.
28:13
Speaker A: Secretly genius camp was just. It was withering and dying before my eyes, and there was nothing Lyssa could do to save it. And this line was one of those where I'm like, this doesn't feel, like, intentional, like, camp. No, it just feels, like, bad.
28:28
Speaker B: Yeah.
28:29
Speaker A: And I wanted to know if that line was in the book.
28:31
Speaker B: So I went and checked the corresponding scene in the book, and I did not find this line. However, that does not mean that this line appears nowhere in this book, because it is, unfortunately, very on brand for this book's humor. The book also never shuts up about how hot Rose is and how great her body and in particular, her boobs are. So it's also very unfortunately, on brand from that perspective. Well, and I have a tiny little excerpt here. This is just one example, but the book is full of shit like this. It's like, every couple pages. And I suddenly realized I was only in jeans and a bra, a black bra at that.
29:22
Speaker A: We know that means whore from that one movie. I can't remember now, what was that?
29:26
Speaker B: That was ten things I hate about you.
29:28
Speaker A: Yeah, ten things I hate about you. Black underwear.
29:31
Speaker B: Yeah. A black bra at that. I knew perfectly well there weren't a lot of girls in this school who looked as good in a bra as I did. Bro. Bro, come on.
29:45
Speaker A: Nice. Fantastic.
29:47
Speaker B: The whole book is full of shit like that.
29:49
Speaker A: Yeah. To be fair, the movie. There's a lot of cleavage. A lot of Rose's cleavage in this movie. They don't skimp on that, for sure.
29:57
Speaker B: Book accurate, apparently.
30:01
Speaker A: So then we get our first instance of this, which you mentioned earlier, the jumping around of perspectives, and we find out that Rose can essentially mind meld into Lyssa's head and see what she's seeing. And either, I think, experience her thoughts. She says the psychic connection only goes one way, and I can't remember if she can psychically communicate with Alyssa or if Lissa thoughts, like, come to her. I think it's Lyssa's thoughts come to her, basically. Yeah. And I wanted to know if that came from the book, if she can get into Lyssa's head and hear her thoughts and see what she's seeing.
30:37
Speaker B: Yes, it does. Rose and Lyssa have a psychic bond that allows Rose to feel what Lyssa is feeling, as well as, like we saw in the movie, enter her mind and basically watch, like, a video camera, watch what Lissa is doing and seeing as she's experiencing it, that it only goes one way. So Rose can do this, but Lyssa, like, doesn't know that she's doing it.
31:04
Speaker A: Yeah. And I think. Is it. Am I wrong that it's explained at the end of the film that that is because of the shadow kiss thing. Okay. That where. When Lyssa brought her back to life after the car accident, that created that.
31:17
Speaker B: Yes. That created that psychic bond, which.
31:19
Speaker A: That's fine, I think, like, as a thing. Like.
31:22
Speaker B: Right.
31:22
Speaker A: That's a fine story element.
31:24
Speaker B: Here's the thing, is that. But none of the many elements in this are bad or uninteresting.
31:31
Speaker A: Yeah.
31:32
Speaker B: There's just too many of them.
31:33
Speaker A: Just far too many. Yeah. Yeah. This one feels kind of like it could work if done in the right way and if. Yeah. If there weren't eight other 8 million other, like, layers going on at the same time. But this feels like it could be an interesting way to. Like. Especially with the kind of story this is about, like, being, like, about, like, gossipy. Like.
31:52
Speaker B: Yes. Yeah.
31:53
Speaker A: Like, relationships and stuff. Her being able to see what Lyssa's doing and who she's talking to without her knowing and stuff kind of feels like it could be an interesting layer to that. And it was one of the things that I thought felt the most. I don't know, that worked the most, potentially. Then we get a scene where throughout the film, we have had a voiceover from Rose, but then we get to a point where Rose literally has a line where she says, and now for the mandatory cafeteria scene. And I was like, wait a second. Is Rose Omni? Is Rose omniscient? Is she aware she's in a movie? Or is it like a. Like, I get we're doing, like, a tongue in cheek thing where, like, it could just be. She's saying that because she's narrating her to herself. Like it's a movie, but because we are watching a movie, it, like, we. There's, like, an extra metal level to it for us. But to me, it came across like, oh, she's know she's in a movie. This is very strange to me. And it was the only time, I think, in the whole movie where that happened, where she, like, calls out something as being, like, an element of a film.
33:04
Speaker B: Seems like she's calling out the fact that they're in a movie.
33:06
Speaker A: Yes.
33:07
Speaker B: Yeah.
33:07
Speaker A: Where it has that level of, like, detached, like, meta irony or whatever. But it was. And I think that's what made it confusing is that was, like, the singular time that, that happened. And I was like, wait, what is going on here? So by comparison, does the book have. Obviously, it's from first person, from her perspective, but it, does it have any sort of, like, omniscient meta level where Rose seems to know or is like.
33:30
Speaker B: Or.
33:30
Speaker A: Cause, like, I guess a similar thing in the. In the. In a novel might be that she is, like, writing this or whatever. You know what I mean?
33:37
Speaker B: That it's, like, definitely not writing it. No. And I don't recall anything like this happening in the book. I wondered I. If what the movie was trying to do was go for, like, a gossip girl esque kind of narration, which is an idea that I'll return to later.
33:54
Speaker A: Yeah.
33:55
Speaker B: I don't know. But that was a thought that I had, and I wrote down the same thing that you did. I think it's the only scene, only one I remember that has this specific kind of meta element to it.
34:08
Speaker A: Yeah.
34:09
Speaker B: Because Rose does speak directly to the.
34:12
Speaker A: Audience, but it's in a standard narration way of, like, that's me. I'm Rose. Like. Or I don't even know if she says, that's me. But, like. Cause that also kind of does that thing where it pulls back a layer and it's like, you know, describing what you're seeing.
34:26
Speaker B: Yeah. Like, particularly at the beginning when she's explaining, like, Moroi and dampier and all that stuff.
34:32
Speaker A: Yeah. But something about that doesn't feel, I guess, that maybe is equally meta in a sense of, like, well, who would she be talking to? Like, obviously it's us, the audience. And thus, obviously, she's kind of omnisciently aware she's in a movie, but specifically calling out, like, narrative elements of a film.
34:49
Speaker B: Yes.
34:50
Speaker A: Feels like a layer of strange that I find kind of. Yeah, I just found it kind of strange in a way that I couldn't. I don't know, I couldn't wrap my head around what we were doing. Well. And to me, I think I wouldn't surprise me. I mean, who knows? Because it would make sense for the narration to have been planned the whole time. But it also wouldn't surprise me if the narration was one of those last. Last gasp, let's try to rescue this thing and make any of it make sense kind of things. So let's add a very common tactic. If you have a movie that you're worried. I don't know if any of this makes sense or tracks at all. Let's have our main character narrate for the audience to explain things that we don't. Didn't do a good enough job.
35:29
Speaker B: Seem like it may have been a likely candidate for that. And I could also see it being planned.
35:34
Speaker A: Yeah. And to be fair, even if they planned the narrative the whole time, or to have the narration the whole time, the voiceover parts of that voiceover could have been last minute. You know, ads, last minute notes. And maybe at some point, because it could be a thing. It could be like a thing where. Sure, they plan to have the voiceover narration the whole time, but they got done with it and they're like, this movie's boring and it sucks. Okay, we get. Let's get a writer's room in here. We need to punch up some jokes. So one of the things. Easiest ways to punch in and add jokes is to add lines of dialogue for your narrator, dude. Cause you don't have to film anything. You just get the actual voice.
36:09
Speaker B: Yeah. You just pull that one person in.
36:10
Speaker A: And have her say some stuff. So you add. So, so they have a writer's room. Write a bunch of, like, watch the movie and, you know, basically add jokes to it as they go. Cause this feels like that kind of thing. It feels like somebody roasting the movie as you're going. So I'm like, oh, that's probably what it is, actually, is they had a writer's room go through and, like, all right, add jokes that we could have the voiceover say, and they came up with a list of jokes and, like, added a bunch of them in, maybe, I don't know, but that's kind of what it feels like. So then I talked about in the summary that Mia is one of the, like, kind of minor antagonist of the film that does not like Lissa for convoluted reasons, mainly being that Lyssa's dead brother cheated on her in her eyes.
36:53
Speaker B: Yeah.
36:54
Speaker A: Even though. Because they were, like, hooking up, and then he was also hooking up with other women, and she was in love with him, and then. Anyway, so now that he died, she's has to take all of her anger out just on Lissa. Very strange. At one point, she's, like, mocking Lyssa or Rose or somebody, and Rose is like, threatens to beat her up. She's coming over. She's like, I'm going to punch you, or whatever. And Mia stops rose from fighting her by saying that the school would kick her out. And I was like, but you don't even want to be there. They tried to escape already, and they very explicitly don't want to be in the school. I'm like, then get kicked out. Like, what do you care? But is that in the book? Why does she care if she gets kicked out?
37:39
Speaker B: So she cares because they would kick Rose out, but they wouldn't kick Lyssa out, and Rose can't not be there to protect Lissa.
37:48
Speaker A: Okay. Why?
37:50
Speaker B: Because they're bonded.
37:51
Speaker A: Okay, sure, fine, all right.
37:53
Speaker B: And they're bff.
37:54
Speaker A: Yeah.
37:55
Speaker B: And potentially lovers.
37:58
Speaker A: And that's. Yeah, that's fair. Like, if it's her best friend, like, whatever. I get that. To me. I guess I didn't interpret it as they would only kick out Rose.
38:08
Speaker B: Yeah.
38:09
Speaker A: Because I was like, why would they? Okay, sure. Doesn't somebody have to protect Alyssa?
38:15
Speaker B: Well, Dimitri would.
38:16
Speaker A: Oh, okay.
38:17
Speaker B: But they're bonded.
38:19
Speaker A: Okay, sure. So then we get this scene where. And I don't know why this happens. I have a question about it later. I legitimately did not understand what was going on in the scene, but Rose grabs one of the other random Miroi and is like, hey, let's go hook up.
38:37
Speaker B: Yes.
38:38
Speaker A: And I don't know what her motivation. I don't. We'll get to that later. But I just have to talk about this line, because it's one of the worst things I've ever heard in a movie. Like, it legitimately made me angry. It's like, how do you write this? And I need to know if it's in the book, because they're making out. And then the guy starts. He starts feeding on her. He bites her?
39:02
Speaker B: Yeah, he tries to bite her.
39:04
Speaker A: Yeah, or tries to bite her. And she's like, whoa, stop it. Bah. And then he says to her, like, while she's protesting or something, at one point he's like, oh, haven't you been? Didn't Lissa feed on you? Or whatever? And then he says, once you have fang, you never go. But he trails off, and she interrupts him before he can finish the line. What possible ending to that line could he have said that would have made any sense and worked in the context of that rhyming line?
39:39
Speaker B: You got me, chief.
39:41
Speaker A: Not in the book, I assume.
39:42
Speaker B: Not in the book.
39:46
Speaker A: Once you go fang, you never go bang bang. I don't know what that means. There's no.
39:52
Speaker B: Well, here's the thing. Neither did the writers.
39:55
Speaker A: Yes, that's why they haven't.
39:56
Speaker B: That's why they stop him. Yes, because there's no possible way to finish that that makes sense.
40:00
Speaker A: And to be fair, this is another one. I think he's not facing the camera. That could be another one of those writers room punch ups. We need to add more jokes. I don't know. What's that one offensive joke about? Yeah. Oh, let's tweak it to be about vampires. Okay, but, like, what do we change it to? Once you go fang, you'd never go, I don't know. Well, let's just have him. Who cares? We'll put it in, and we just won't write the last word of it. Cause it doesn't. It's so infuriating. It's the stupidest thing. Oh, my God. So then we. She's been training with Dimitri on and off throughout the movie. He's, like, a special tutor or something. I don't know. Yeah, she has, like, she's doing special lessons with him, and I think this is right after the fox scene where they kill somebody kills a fox, and, like, hangs it outside Lissa's room, and she's talking to Lyssa. Dimitri is talking to Lyssa, and she's like, look, I'm tired of running. The next time we meet up, teach me to fight. I was like, isn't that the beginning of this movie? The entire thing that she said that the damp peers are taught in this school is, like, combat training and, like, how to fight to protect the Maroi. So what. What. Why do you. What do you need to tell him to teach you to fight? That's, like, literally the whole point of the school, isn't it?
41:34
Speaker B: So I think the movie does kind of a bad job of explaining this, as it does other things. She is in her regular combat classes, but she's getting extra tutoring from Dimitri to make up for having been gone.
41:51
Speaker A: Oh.
41:52
Speaker B: So she's frustrated because he's basically just having her run a bunch instead of teaching her any combat techniques.
42:00
Speaker A: Okay, yeah. I did not get that at all. I mean, we do see him tell her to do sprints in one scene. He's like, all right, do sprints. And she's like, okay. But, like, that was, like, the only contact. I didn't remember any specifics about why. I thought literally he was just, like, teaching. I didn't know what the context of their meeting up was or whatever, or, like, why it was happening or. Okay, even still. Whatever. I still think it's very dumb to be like, I'm tired of running. Teach me to fight. It's like, okay, sure, he can teach you more fighting skills, but that's, like, the whole thing you're doing at this school. It's not like the school hasn't been teaching you to fight. You know what I mean? Like, normally that line happens in, like, a thing, like, in Harry Potter or something where, like, all right, I'm tired of learning defensive spells. Teach me anhe, like, hot or whatever or something like that. It just doesn't make sense in this context to me because it's like you're already being taught how to fight. That's the whole thing that you explained earlier in the movie. The entire reason this school exists is to teach your stupid thing, people to fight so you can protect vampires. It's so stupid. I want to know what this scene happened in the movie because I was very early in the book, because I was very confused. We cut to a scene, like, we jump forward quite a bit. We cut to a scene where Christian is talking to Lyssa in, like, a library, and all of a sudden. And they've met a couple times at this point, but all of a sudden he's like a strigoi or. I think it's in the courtyard.
43:18
Speaker B: Yeah, it's in the courtyard.
43:19
Speaker A: He's like, he has blood on his face and he. Cause he has become a strigoi. And I was like, that was out of nowhere, and then a bunch of strigoi break into the courtyard and just start murdering everybody. And I was like, and then once they murdered Dimitri, I was like, okay, this is a dream. And that's what it ends up being, is that it ends up like Lissa is having a nightmare, and because Rose can see her, she, like, also has the same nightmares Lyssa does, I guess, is the idea. That makes more sense, but I want to know if that happened in the book, because I was very confused initially at what was happening.
43:51
Speaker B: That does not happen in the book. I really didn't care for it. I didn't feel like it went anywhere or did anything extra. Yeah, I didn't really like it. It's not from the book. The movie also made an aesthetic choice to give the strigoi red eyes, which I totally get from a visual communication perspective, but the book is really clear that you can't always tell right away when a Maroi turns into a strigoi, which I thought was kinda spooky. Like, kinda. Ooh, creepy. Yeah.
44:26
Speaker A: It seems like an important thing, important element, so that you don't know which, to be fair, I think in this scene, isn't he wearing sunglasses?
44:32
Speaker B: At first, he might have been specifically.
44:34
Speaker A: To hide that, maybe, or something. I could be wrong about that, but I feel like I remember a scene where somebody's wearing sunglasses to hide their red eye. Whatever. Then right after that, also in the courtyard, there's a scene where they see. I don't remember how we get here, but they get to the courtyard, and Lissa's backpack is, like, hanging in the middle of the courtyard, and she walks over to it, and her cat is dead inside the backpack, who we met once earlier in the film. For, like, 2 seconds, I forgot she had a cat. Like, when this happened, I was like, oh, that's right. She had a cat earlier, because it was literally, like, one scene, which, again, it's fine. I set it up. I just. I forgot, but. So her cat's dead, and I wanted to know if that comes from book, because she tries. And then she tries to resurrect the cat, but they say it's. Oh, it was. It had been dead too long. Like, she can't resurrect things that are dead dead. She can resurrect things that are mostly dead. Yeah. Like, literally, that is. Yeah, literally. Her skills. Like, yeah, he's only mostly dead, so she's unable to resurrect the cat, but when she tries to do it, like, the strain of it or whatever, opens up a bunch of slices on her arm. She gets, like, seven horizontal slices up her arm. That is very evocative of self harming or whatever. And I was like, what is happening here? And then again, she passes out. I want to know if any of that came from the book or what the what?
45:53
Speaker B: All right, so Alyssa doesn't have a cat in the book. There is a cat named Oscar at the beginning of the book, but he belongs to this guy that they were living with in Portland, and Lyssa does not bring the cat with them when they leave. I knew as soon as she brought that damn cat, I was like, that cat's gonna die. I knew. Yeah. I was like, they're killing that cat, aren't they? And they did. So there are no dead or murdered cats in the book, which might be a good enough reason to give this one to the book, but we'll find out. As far as the cuts, I thought it was interesting that you brought up self harm, because Lyssa actually does self harm in the book, and it is handled with about as much grace as I could expect for 2007. Okay, so I'm going to call that better in the book, because I think it's more interesting than one scene where cuts magically appear on her arms.
46:50
Speaker A: Do they go into why she does it in the book? Because in the movie, it's like a pure accident. It just happens as a result of her trying to do this magic. She just has these cuts on her arm. It doesn't really seem like something she chose to do or anything like that. It's just using the magic exalts this cost on her or whatever.
47:11
Speaker B: She's got a lot going on in the book. Obviously, her whole family died tragically, so she's very isolated. She gets bullied by her peers. She doesn't want to be there. She is really depressed all the time. And then the magic also has a strain on her mental health.
47:32
Speaker A: That's what I was getting at. I was trying to figure out if there was a thing. Cause we get to a point later where we find out that. And I think I have a question about it here shortly. We find out later that the power she has or the type of magic.
47:44
Speaker B: She wields is depletes your life force and sanity.
47:49
Speaker A: Yes, exactly. And that becoming a strigoi, like, releases the burden of this magic that she's using from her. And I was wondering if maybe she self harms in the book as an outlet for that specific thing. The fact that her magic is, like.
48:07
Speaker B: Yeah, I mean, that's part of it, but it's just one aspect of why she does that.
48:14
Speaker A: I only asked because in the movie, they specifically tie these cuts on her arm to the. The magic itself. And specifically, they say, like, we see a thing later where when they're doing some research in the library, they find, like, the Vladimir, the guy who founded the school or whatever, who also did the same kind of magic that Lissa does. There's, like, a drawing of him with the same cuts on his arm. And so it's like, the movie makes it very clear that it's this type of magic that is doing the specific type of magic that Lyssa does that results in these cuts on her arm. And I was wondering if, like, it sounds like the movie basically tried to extract, like, keep the detail of that in without tying it to self harm directly. Because they didn't want to deal with that.
48:58
Speaker B: I think.
48:59
Speaker A: I just think they didn't want to.
49:00
Speaker B: Like, I think they didn't want to explain it. Didn't want to go into it. Yeah, yeah. They're, like, didn't want to try to step around it and potentially risk getting it wrong. Yeah, yeah.
49:11
Speaker A: Which I think it's fine. Like, fair enough, if you're worried. I don't know. I think it's more interesting and compelling if you can do it in a thoughtful and compassionate way. But it is one of those things where I understand why you might just go around it. But it's interesting to me to then keep the very specific element of the cuts on her arm looking like that and then being like, oh, but it's just the magic. I don't know. Interesting. Do they say the word fornicating in the book so much? Because in this movie, they say the word fornicating maybe more than any movie I've ever seen, which is, like, only, like, three or four times, but that's three or four times too many for a teen rom.com fantasy.
49:59
Speaker B: Yeah.
50:00
Speaker A: Why are they saying fornicating so much? Is it in the book?
50:02
Speaker B: I don't recall the word fornicating appearing in the book at all. I think I surely would have made note of it, because it's kind of a strange, archaic word to include in such a piece of media. There is a lot of sex in the book and talk about sex. Do you think the movie's trying to get around a censor issue, or how.
50:25
Speaker A: Do they talk about it? What do they say? What word do they use? Do they say sex?
50:29
Speaker B: Yeah, they say sex, but they don't say fucking. No, I think that would be for young adult. I don't think they would let.
50:36
Speaker A: I agree. I'm just. Cause I think even in a teen movie, you can say sex. I'm pretty sure in, like, a pg 13 movie, you can say, oh, they're gonna have sex. I don't think you have to say they're gonna fornicate. I don't think. But I could be wrong. I don't know.
50:51
Speaker B: I don't remember an exhaustive list of what they say in the book, but they use the normal kind of euphemisms, like hook up or bang or whatever. You know?
51:02
Speaker A: That's what I'm saying. It just felt so strange to me that this movie said fornicating.
51:06
Speaker B: Yeah.
51:06
Speaker A: Enough times that I took notice.
51:08
Speaker B: Well, and I think it's always Lissa, isn't it?
51:10
Speaker A: I think so.
51:11
Speaker B: Was it always. Maybe they're trying to make her sound.
51:14
Speaker A: I have a question about this later. We'll get to it. The thing with her family. We'll get to it. Maybe her family are weird pedants. We'll get to it, I think.
51:24
Speaker B: Okay.
51:24
Speaker A: I need to know. I have a question about it. In a lost adaptation. We'll get to it. Moving on. There's a scene where at one point, they're walking through the courtyard, and Rose is, like, following Lyssa or something like that, and she's. I don't remember the context. I apologize. But so much happens, and, like, there's so much. It's so nonstop. It's like. It's so chaotic. It reminded me a lot we talked about while watching. It reminded me of beastly in that sense, that it's just, like, I felt like I was just getting pummeled with.
51:54
Speaker B: Like, it's, like, nonstop, like, non sequiturs.
51:57
Speaker A: Yeah.
51:58
Speaker B: And a lot of what happens looks and feels really similar to other things that happen, so it's hard to keep things in kind of a chronological order of, like, what happens when and what.
52:11
Speaker A: Leads to what and what, because it's so. Also because so in the movie, so little of it is explained, because a lot of it has to do with, like, weird rules of magic and so little of it. And it would suck to over explain it, but it also sucks when you just don't know what's going on. So, anyways, she's following Lyssa through the courtyard, and I think a hole opens up in the ground, and rose steps into it and breaks her ankle. And then she wakes up in the hospital, and her ankle is fine. I don't understand? Did that happen in the book? What happened there?
52:44
Speaker B: Okay, so Rose does break her ankle in the book, but it happens when she's balancing and walking on top of a bench and the wood gives out, like the wood bench gives out from under her.
52:58
Speaker A: Okay.
52:58
Speaker B: And it's later explained that Natalie made the bench break with her earthbender powers so that Rose's ankle would break and then Lissa would heal it, and then they would know for sure that Lissa was using her powers to heal. Okay, now, in the movie, Victor also briefly mentions at the end that Natalie used the sidewalk to break Rose's ankle. It's kind of a blink. It was like a blink and you miss it moment in his villain monologue at the end. Now, I will grant that using earth powers to move a cobblestone, I think, makes more sense than using Earth powers to rot a wooden bench. Maybe.
53:46
Speaker A: I think they make equal sense.
53:48
Speaker B: Yeah, I guess they make equal sense, but that's what happened.
53:51
Speaker A: Okay, that makes sense. I didn't understand what's happening there. And again, it's not that I think the issue with the movie is because I don't want it to sound like I'm complaining that, like, the movie doesn't meticulously explain every single little thing that happens. And even when it does, there are things that I missed. I think the issue is that there's so much nonsense going, like, there's so much going on with so little. And the movie gives you so little time to wrap your head around it, and none of it's intuitive because it's all so, like, piecemeal together of, like, all these different types of fantasy story tropes and elements and stuff that your head is spinning the whole time, that it's so hard to, like, hold all of the little things in. So it's like, when that happens, I'm like, okay, but who did that and why? So then when there's one throwaway line at the end where Victor's like, and then Natalie broke your head, it's like 8000 other things have happened that I've tried to wrap my head around and figure out, like, parse in a way that makes it. I don't know. It's another line I have to know is in the book, because people in this movie, in the similar vein of the fornicating thing, don't talk like human teenagers in the year 2014. At one point, somebody asks somebody, and I don't remember who, how long have you been in crush with him?
55:14
Speaker B: Yes.
55:15
Speaker A: And I. I just wrote in all caps, why do the people in this movie speak this way? What is happening? Is that in the book?
55:22
Speaker B: It's not from the book. And I kind of get what they were trying to do there.
55:27
Speaker A: Do you?
55:29
Speaker B: Yeah, like, it's like a quirky way of saying, like, instead. Instead of saying, like, how long have you been in love with him? How long have you been in crush with him? Like, quirky.
55:40
Speaker A: Okay, sure, I guess. But it doesn't come across that way to me. It just comes across as, like, alien speaking. Like, it's fair enough. Like, the way they talk is just wrong enough that it feels. I don't know, it just makes my brain go, wait, what? That's not how people talk.
55:57
Speaker B: You know what that line reminded me of, though? Do you remember the click?
56:04
Speaker A: What is that?
56:05
Speaker B: You covered it on this show.
56:08
Speaker A: Oh, I have a vague.
56:13
Speaker B: The one where it's like, the mean girls and they have gossip points.
56:19
Speaker A: Boy, that's one of those movies that we've done that gunned in my head could tell you zero details about it. There are some movies I remember a lot of stuff we've done in pretty thorough detail, even some of the early. But that is one of those ones that I. I. Zero idea that we covered that. And my brain retained none of the information about this one will be another one of those movies, by the way, Vampire Academy. I think I'll remember we covered it, but I think I will retain, like, zero.
56:46
Speaker B: I have a penchant for remembering kind of specific details. For the most part, I. Memory wipe after we finish an episode. Run.
56:55
Speaker A: Yeah. Oh, that's.
56:56
Speaker B: Yeah, no, I, like, I cannot possibly keep it all. I always feel bad when people, like comment or like message and want to chit chat about something we talked about in an episode a long time ago, five years ago. Cause I have no memory of that.
57:10
Speaker A: I will say it's like a. There's a. It's depending on what it is. There's like a 25% chance if I will remember, like, some of the stuff. Some of the, like, there are very specific things in episodes we did a long time ago, like, very specific discussions that I remember, like, having. I can't think of an example right now. I would have to, like, think to find a specific example. But, you know, there are elements. Like, here's the thing I vaguely remember. I. It was one of the very early episodes, and we did Hitchhiker's guide to the Galaxy. I picked the. I picked the movie, and I was very unsurprised expected to pick that. And I think I remember one of the reasons I picked it is that I liked some of the small changes they made to. I can't remember her name, the woman's character in that.
57:55
Speaker B: Oh, Zoe Deschanel.
57:56
Speaker A: Yeah, I know Zoe Deschanel, but I was trying to remember the character's name.
58:02
Speaker B: The only thing I remember about that episode is that you picked the movie.
58:05
Speaker A: Right. But Zeva Bieval Brock's Arthur Dent. And what is her name? I can't remember. Whatever. But whatever her character's name is. Like, I remember specifically, like, oh, I liked some of the changes that the film made to her character and kind of stuff like that. And so, like, and I was like, the 12th episode we did or something. I don't know. It was very, very early on in our room. But this movie we probably did, like, three years ago. I don't even remember we did it. I don't even. That name meant nothing to me when you said it.
58:31
Speaker B: I know. You gave me the blanken look when I said that meant nothing to me.
58:36
Speaker A: So again, it's like, it's like, for me, it's like a complete crapshoot. I may remember very specific things about our episodes, other things. I don't even remember that we did it at all. So. Yeah.
58:48
Speaker B: Anyway, that was a fun tangent.
58:51
Speaker A: This specific line. It was the line I used in the intro quote, I want to know if it comes from the book because it cracked me up where she says, they're getting ready to go to the equinox ball or whatever. And Rose says, I can't remember who loves us or hates us. And I was like, me either, because I just. Who knows?
59:09
Speaker B: Yeah, I don't remember this being in the book. I didn't have a digital copy to look up specific lines. Well, I did, like a week ago, but then I had to return it. And for some reason, this book is a hot commodity on Libby right now. I looked to see if I could renew it, and there was a list of ten people. So, no.
59:33
Speaker A: I wonder if the show got renewed, maybe.
59:36
Speaker B: I don't think so.
59:36
Speaker A: I'm pretty sure it got canceled after.
59:37
Speaker B: The first season, but I'm pretty sure this was not in the book. This movie is a mess, though. I agree with your sentiment.
59:46
Speaker A: Yeah. So we get to a scene where during the dress buying montage, where they're going to, I say montage, not montage. The scene where they're going to buy dresses for the party while they're at the mall, they see this necklace. It's like a $12,000 necklace. And rose like, ooh, it's so pretty. And then she sees the price tag. It's like, oh, never mind. But then as she's getting ready for the dance, she gets a gift from somebody, and it's from Victor, and it's the necklace. And she's like, wow, the necklace. So she puts it on, and then it turns out this necklace has had, like, a love spell cast on it. It. And she eventually, after she leaves the party, she goes and she finds Dimitri, and as soon as she sees him, she immediately just, like, jumps him and is like, we need to have sex right now. And I wanted to know if there's a magic love potion necklace in the book.
1:00:44
Speaker B: Unfortunately, yes. All of this is from the book in one of the single most confusing reading experiences of my life, because it plays out exactly the same way. She, like, figures out that lyssa is in grave danger and goes to get kidnapped, and she goes to get Dimitri, and then they just start hooking up.
1:01:05
Speaker A: Yeah.
1:01:06
Speaker B: I was, like, reading it, and I was like, what was happening? Because here's the thing. The very idea that a compulsion spell can be put onto an object in this universe is introduced in that scene. It's not seated at all.
1:01:25
Speaker A: Yeah. Oh, it's not even. Is it even in the movie? There's no implication that. That the case. You could do that?
1:01:33
Speaker B: You could do that. No, absolutely.
1:01:34
Speaker A: I mean, we have seen Lyssa specifically has, like, the power of compulsion.
1:01:38
Speaker B: Yeah, she can.
1:01:39
Speaker A: But specifically, they make a big point. She has to, like, make eye contact with the people.
1:01:43
Speaker B: It's more like a classic vampire kind of a. Yeah, like, ooh, I want to drink your blood kind of.
1:01:49
Speaker A: You will let me in or whatever. Yeah.
1:01:52
Speaker B: The idea that they can do that to objects, not even hinted at until this scene. And that's because all the other magic.
1:02:00
Speaker A: Is, like, they're element bending.
1:02:02
Speaker B: Yes. All the other magic is very, like, tactile.
1:02:04
Speaker A: Yeah. And, like, they're not, like, blow wind around or, like. Yeah, shoot fire and that kind of stuff.
1:02:10
Speaker B: Yeah. They're not, like, casting spells or doing.
1:02:13
Speaker A: Incantations or anything like that.
1:02:15
Speaker B: But that's one of the main problems that I had with the book is the entire book reads like the author is just playing one big game of. Yes. And with herself.
1:02:25
Speaker A: Yeah.
1:02:25
Speaker B: Like, she's just going.
1:02:27
Speaker A: Yeah. Just writing it. Whatever kind of pops into her head.
1:02:29
Speaker B: And nobody stopped her.
1:02:31
Speaker A: Yeah, we're getting towards the end here. Victor has revealed himself. No. Yeah. Victor has revealed himself as the villain. At this point. They go, because he has kidnapped Lyssa. And Rose is aware, so she gets Dimitri and the girl from that tv show the Expanse, that other, like, the girl who is, like, the other protector lady, who's, like. Only has a handful of lines, who's, like, with Victor or not Victor with Dimitri in some of those scenes, the one that breaks in and she gets shot and she's wearing a bulletproof vest, that actress. She's one of the main characters in the tv show the Expanse. I was like, oh, she's great in the Expanse, but I had no idea she was in this movie. It's a very small part. But anyways, they go to save Lissa, and when they bust in, they got to fight a bunch of people. And then Victor barricades himself in a room with his main security guy or whatever, and Dimitri is going to burst, trying to bang through the door. And the security guy says to himself, they say Dimitri is a guy, but I'm an atheist. An atheist with a big gun. And I was like, okay, movie. This is the one time where this is the closest to camp, this movie. It's like the only time the movie has done anything like this, where I felt like, okay, this feels if the whole movie was written like this, I would have been on board. But this is the only time that this happens, and I love it, and I wanted to know if it was in the book.
1:04:07
Speaker B: That specific line is not from the book.
1:04:10
Speaker A: Okay.
1:04:10
Speaker B: No. In the book, several characters do say that Dimitri is like a God in reference to his fighting skills. I don't think they actually did that in the movie, though.
1:04:21
Speaker A: They might once. I don't know.
1:04:22
Speaker B: So that line maybe came out of nowhere, but whatever, I guess. Who cares?
1:04:26
Speaker A: Yeah, it may come at once. I just thought it was hilarious. But I'm an atheist. Atheist with a big gun.
1:04:33
Speaker B: It's even funnier, too. Correct me if I'm remembering wrong by the fact that his gun is not big in this scene. It's like. Like a little, like, pistol or something. Like a handgun?
1:04:46
Speaker A: Yeah, it's not a particular.
1:04:47
Speaker B: Not like he has, like, an AK 47 or something.
1:04:50
Speaker A: It might. It might be a large caliber pistol. I don't know. I don't remember. But it is a handgun of some sort. But it could have been like a deagle. Like, a deagle is like a 50 cal. Like, handgun, which is like a huge hand. I don't know if that's what he has, but you can have very large, quote unquote large handguns. I just don't know if he does. I don't remember. It's still incredible. Line a. I wish more of the movie had had that kind of, like, energy. So they. They're. A bunch of stuff happens. They're trying to escape or whatever. They break out, but then some psi hounds show up. Who cares? That's the whole thing. Some of the vampire rays, psi hounds, which are, like, psychically controlled demon wolf dog things or whatever, who cares? But the dogs come. Victor has the dogs go to attack Rose to kill Rose so that he can get Lissa, but as the dogs come to attack, Christian, who has been shot at this point and is dying, is laying on the ground, and the dogs jump over him, and. But he musters his last bit of strength to shoot fire out of his hands and catch the sigh hounds on fire, and they go running away into the distance on fire. And I wanted to know if Christian saves the day in the book like that by flambeing the sigh hounds.
1:06:13
Speaker B: Christian does try to fight the sihounds, but he gets taken out. And the other. The lady guardian. Yeah, like, bursts in from left field and saves them. Obviously, this is better in the movie.
1:06:28
Speaker A: I guess. It's corny, but whatever.
1:06:30
Speaker B: It's corny, but it actually makes sense with Christian's, like, character arc.
1:06:35
Speaker A: Fair. Yeah.
1:06:36
Speaker B: Whereas in the book, they're, like, fighting the sigh hounds, and then all of a sudden, the other guardian is just like, here I am to save you.
1:06:44
Speaker A: So then Victor gets captured, gets thrown into prison underneath the school. Rose goes to confront him and talk to him because he says he knows something about shadow kissed, and she's like, what's the, uh. So she goes to talk to him to try to get information, and while he's there, Natalie shows up, and she has become a strigoi so that she can break Victor out of prison, I guess. And I wanted to know if that happened in the book, if Natalie turns evil and becomes the. I guess she's been evil the whole time, but becomes Strigoi to break her down.
1:07:19
Speaker B: Yes, she does become strigoi.
1:07:20
Speaker A: Okay. Then Dimitri shows up as Victor's trying to escape, because Victor beats up Rose and is, like, leaving, and as he's trying to escape, he gets to, like, the elevator to get out of the basement, and Dimitri is there, and they, like, square off and look at each other, and then all of a sudden, a rock falls out of the ceiling, and Dimitri kicks it into Victor's face, and I let out one of the largest. What? That I've ever let out. Watching a movie that's truly saying something for you is that from the book? Well, one of these movies, not counting good, bad or bad, but is that from the book? What happened there?
1:08:02
Speaker B: That does not happen in the book. I think what we're supposed to assume happened is that Victor also has earthbending powers and tried to, like, drop the brick to kill Dimitri, but Dimitri was too fast, kicked it into his face.
1:08:23
Speaker A: I think the issue is that the bending skills are not set up or explained enough.
1:08:31
Speaker B: Yes.
1:08:32
Speaker A: And I had a heart whenever. So whenever something like the ankle breaking and the other thing happened, I didn't, my brain didn't realize somebody was doing that, especially in this one. I don't feel like I noticed Victor doing a thing that would.
1:08:47
Speaker B: Right. Well, and this is just me surmising.
1:08:50
Speaker A: That makes sense.
1:08:51
Speaker B: It's never confirmed that he had earthbending powers.
1:08:56
Speaker A: That makes sense. I would have to go back and watch. And maybe I'm wrong. Maybe Victor does do something that indicates that he's earthbending and making that rock fall, but it seems like the rock just falls randomly and Victor kicks it into a space, which is funnier, but I don't. Okay, that's fascinating. Then we get to the end. They've saved the day. Victor's locked or dead. No, well, Natalie's dead.
1:09:22
Speaker B: Natalie's dead.
1:09:23
Speaker A: They recapture Victor, and they. We get to the end. The queen shows up again, and she gives a speech, starts giving a speech, and Lyssa just jumps in, who is like the heir, I guess, to the throne or whatever, because she's part of the royal. There's also a whole royalty.
1:09:40
Speaker B: Well, in the book, it's like she. She could be named heir to the throne. I don't know if they actually said that she was in the movie or not.
1:09:48
Speaker A: It's the same idea that she's one of the heirs, if not the next heir to the throne or whatever, which. It's a whole nother layer of, like, why did we even.
1:09:55
Speaker B: Of, like, weird.
1:09:56
Speaker A: Yeah, why do we have this weird royalty thing? It's just like, too many layers here. But Lyssa jumps in and cuts the queen off and gives her own cringy ass speech, just like, basically telling all of the fellow students we need to come together and stop, like, gossiping and slut shaming. Which is all fine sentiment, but it's the weirdest kind of, like, wrap up speech for this movie. It's such a strange moment. I was just like, okay, so now she's okay. I guess we're just doing thing. Like, the moral of the story is, I don't know, guys, let's all be a little nicer to each other. It's like, is that what I was supposed to get out of this movie? Doesn't really seem like it. Is that in the book? From the book?
1:10:42
Speaker B: No, and thank God, because I hated it a lot.
1:10:45
Speaker A: I agree. It was terrible. And then does the book end with the end of the film? Karp is in the. I said in the summary, she's in the mountains nearby, and the camera pans back, and she's, like, seemingly leading an army of strigoi, like, hundreds, if not thousands. And it looks like there preparing to attack the academy. And that's, like, our tease set up for the next movie. Spoilers that never got made. Is that how the book ends?
1:11:16
Speaker B: This never happens in the book? No. Not to say that it doesn't happen in one of the other five books. I have no idea, nor will I be finding out, but it's definitely not in this one.
1:11:28
Speaker A: Okay, cool. That was it for those questions, but I got a lot more. So let's get into it in lost, an adaptation.
1:11:36
Speaker B: Just show me the way to get out of here, and I'll be on my way. Wow.
1:11:39
Speaker A: Was a lost. Yes. Yes.
1:11:42
Speaker B: And I want to get unlost as soon as possible.
1:11:45
Speaker A: Okay, so I mentioned earlier that Lyssa's family was in a car accident. This is. It took me a while to wrap my head around it, which, again, is fine. The movie is revealing this slowly, but the. The thing I want to ask about the car accident is the very opening scene of the movie, is the car accident, like, flashes of it?
1:12:05
Speaker B: Yeah.
1:12:06
Speaker A: And we don't. Again, we don't know what's going on. It is explained later that Lyss family and Rose were all in this car. And eventually we'll find out that a drunk driver just veered into their lane, hit their car, killing them all. I would imagine we will find out later that it probably wasn't.
1:12:20
Speaker B: I would think, like, in one of the future books, they'll reveal in a future book that they were.
1:12:25
Speaker A: It was actually, like, you know, somebody. One of the queens.
1:12:29
Speaker B: Yeah, like, it was like a political killing or something.
1:12:32
Speaker A: Yeah, would be my guess. But they say in this one, there was a drunk driver that killed her family, and they all die. Except Rose and her. And she survives and is able to resurrect Rose because Rose is just barely not dead. But the thing that I asked about is in that scene in the opening of the movie, the conversation they're having is insane. And her family are seemingly all pedants. Like they're all correcting each other's grammar until they're struck by a car and killed. And I was like, jersey, right? Yeah, exactly. I was like, you're all insufferable. Like, what is happening here? And that's actually, I wondered related back. I was like, is that why she says fornicating all the time?
1:13:14
Speaker B: Yeah, maybe.
1:13:15
Speaker A: Maybe it's her. They're setting up this weird thing where her family is like, they're very formal and they're like, very formal and proper because they are from some. This very old bloodline or whatever. So they're very old money proper or something. I don't know. But I wanted to know if the element of them specifically being pedants is from the book because that was so strange to me.
1:13:38
Speaker B: So here's the thing. We never interact with Lyss family in the book. They don't appear in any flashbacks or dreams or anything. So I really could not say if they're pedants or not. I actually did appreciate the movie, including this scene, even if it was kind of weird because we literally don't interact with them at all in the book.
1:14:05
Speaker A: I didn't mind the car accident scene or setting that up or having us see that first. I just thought it was very strange from moment, like the very beginning of the movie.
1:14:13
Speaker B: Yeah, right before having a very strange conversation.
1:14:16
Speaker A: Very strange conversation that I was just like, what is happening? Why are we arguing about, like, grammar and like, what? And then they get hit by a car. Like, what?
1:14:24
Speaker B: They could have been talking about anything.
1:14:26
Speaker A: So strange that I. It just really, like, put me. Started me off on a weird foot. Whatever. Then this is a very broad question because the movie does not explain this to my. At least not to my satisfaction. And I want to stress, I really do, because one of my biggest pet peeves and annoyances, especially with film criticism and film conversation reaction, that sort of thing, I genuinely try to meet movies on. And then maybe this isn't even the best example, but I generally really. I hate when people don't watch movies on the level the movie is trying to, like, be like, don't watch a movie for what a movie is trying to be.
1:15:08
Speaker B: Yeah.
1:15:08
Speaker A: I find it frustrating and annoying when people. You can tell somebody came into a movie trying to poke holes in it, trying to like, cinema sends. Cinema sends it or whatever. Like, I find that a very, very dumb way to watch movies. I think it's very, like.
1:15:24
Speaker B: It's very disingenuous.
1:15:25
Speaker A: Disingenuous way to watch movies. Like I genuinely, even genuinely even approach the movies we watch on good bad or bad bad in that way to the point where there have been movies we've watched on good bad or bad. Where I go, I actually think this is just a good movie. Like I. And so. Cause I actually find it very frustrating. Even specifically bad movie review. There's. I'm not gonna name names, but there's a podcast that I actually like quite a bit that will watch movies that I genuinely think they, they just go in regardless of what the movie is doing, like this. We're here to make fun of this movie. So kind of, no matter what, we have to make fun of this thing, regardless of everything. And so I find that ridiculous. And again, this is maybe isn't the. This is the complete sidetrack. Because I've had it in my head that when I get, when we get in reviews where it feels like all I'm doing is like poking holes and questioning and feeling confused, like, I just want to get across. And I'm genuinely trying to understand a movie and I'm not trying to, like, play up how ridiculous a movie is just for like, you know, humor or whatever. I genuinely want to understand and meet a movie on the level that the movie is presenting. And if a movie is just silly, goofy fun, I think that's fine, and I can meet it on that level. And a movie doesn't have to be more than that. But anyways, that sidetrack aside, I just don't want. If there's a vampire Academy fan out there, I really didn't come into this wanting to actually came into this movie wanting to like it. It just didn't get to where I wanted it to. Anyways, back to my actual question here. I was like, man, I really hope this movie explains why this whole Muroy dampier relationship exists in the first place, because that felt like something that needed to be explained.
1:17:02
Speaker B: Right. Well, when you set up very heavy lore like that, you expect your audience to have questions, though, because they do.
1:17:09
Speaker A: Explain, like the Maroi. They're the dampier. They're half human, half vampires, and their role is they protect the Maroi. And that's their whole thing. It's what we're all committed to. We have to do that. It's like there's this thing where they come first, above all others. They have this. The dampier have this ethical code, basically, that the Maroi always are above all other. Above all others. And I was like, man, I really hope that we get some sort of like, discussion or exploration or anything about why that relationship.
1:17:44
Speaker B: Take a note on the history, where.
1:17:45
Speaker A: It came from, where it started, why it started while it can, why it continues. Is this going to be, like, are we getting into some, like, class thing here? You know what I mean? Because, like, we talk about how a lot of the Miroi are, like, from, like, royal, amazing bloodlines, and the dampier seem to be kind of like their servants. I'm like, are we gonna, like, go into some kind of class politics or something here? I don't know. I was just hoping for anything. And the movie gives us basically nothing. And so I was wondering if there was more in the book.
1:18:11
Speaker B: Great news. The book does not really explain this either.
1:18:15
Speaker A: Cool. Cool, cool, cool.
1:18:18
Speaker B: The closest we ever get to an explanation of why the dampier are so willing to be the Moroi's lap dogs, essentially, is that the dump here can only reproduce with Miroya. Like, they can't have children amongst themselves or with humans. That's the closest we get to an explanation. I guess the other explanation is that that's the way it's always been.
1:18:46
Speaker A: Right? And maybe the future books would go into that. Yeah, maybe they do something that you would. Maybe not the first book, necessarily.
1:18:53
Speaker B: I mean, they front load a lot, sure.
1:18:57
Speaker A: But I could see that being a thing that you kind of delve into down the road. Like, okay, where does this all come from? Like, maybe Rose starts to question whether this whole system makes any sense. You know what I mean? I could see that being.
1:19:08
Speaker B: I could see that being a plot line further on down the road.
1:19:11
Speaker A: And that would be fine. I'm just. If you're a big vampire academy fan, let me know. Why does this whole thing. What's. What's with this whole thing? What's, uh. What is it you say you do here? I mentioned this earlier, but the scene where Rose goes and makes out with Jesse. Why? What? Why did she do that? I could not parse in the movie what her motivation was for.
1:19:31
Speaker B: Because he's, like, such a babe.
1:19:34
Speaker A: No, that cannot be.
1:19:35
Speaker B: That's literally it. That's literally it.
1:19:37
Speaker A: Really?
1:19:38
Speaker B: That's literally it? Yes. She thinks he's hot.
1:19:40
Speaker A: I thought she had some ulterior motive.
1:19:42
Speaker B: That she thinks he's hot. She wants to make out with him. That's literally it.
1:19:47
Speaker A: Okay, fair. I mean, that's fine. I just. I lit. I thought I was missing something. Like, I thought there was, like, a genuine. Like, she's trying to do something or get some information or something. Okay. During one of the training scenes of Dimitri is Dimitri and Rose do this thing where they, like, flip each other. It's, like a thing they do. And during one of the training scenes, they've been flirting, and Dimitri flips rose onto the ground, and then he straddles her, and he's pinning her to the ground, and they're flirting back and forth, and then she says, got any other moves you want to show me? And then it quickly cuts away.
1:20:24
Speaker B: Yeah.
1:20:26
Speaker A: And I legitimately could not tell in that moment if we were supposed to infer that they then had sex. Like, to me, that edit the way it's edited, would be. Would normally imply, oh, they just, like, the way it's cut was, like, oh, they went and had sex.
1:20:43
Speaker B: Yeah, cut to black.
1:20:44
Speaker A: Because nor. Yeah, because we cut before he responds or does anything, or they think they get up, but, like, he doesn't say anything. And then. But then I was like, but I don't think that's what. I don't know. I just wanted to know if it was supposed to be implied that they had sex there or not.
1:21:01
Speaker B: If you think, no, no. Rose is supposed to be a virgin the entire time, and her and Dimitri definitely never.
1:21:10
Speaker A: Okay, well, that's bad filmmaking language, in my opinion.
1:21:12
Speaker B: Yeah, I agree.
1:21:14
Speaker A: Because to me, I was like. I couldn't tell what was supposed to happen. It just cut so abruptly. It felt like it was implying something that I guess it wasn't. There's a scene where Mia has been, like, the antagonist the whole time, and at some point, we cut to, like, the. They're in the church, and Mia is, like, sobbing, and rose, like, looks at her and is like, huh? And, like, makes a face at her, and Mia turns to her and is like, don't feel bad for me. Feel bad for the princess. And I was like, what is happening? And I think I figured out what was going on here. I think. Cause we see at the beginning of that scene, Lissa has, like, her arm around, or some boy has his arm around Lissa at, like, the front of the church, and they're, like, chit chatting with some people, and they're like, mia is watching them. And I think the boy was, like, previously dating Mia.
1:22:11
Speaker B: Yeah.
1:22:11
Speaker A: I didn't notice that in the moment, but I put it together after the fact. But I don't understand. All of it felt so contextless. I was like, but what is this? I didn't know that she. I barely knew that Mia was with this boy, and now Lissa's with this boy, and I'm supposed to know that and care how that affects Mia, and Mia knows that it's like yelling at Rose. Like, don't feel bad for me. Feel bad for the princess. What does that line mean?
1:22:37
Speaker B: I don't know what that line is supposed to be.
1:22:39
Speaker A: I just. None of it. It just. I. I felt so many moments in this movie, again, genuinely made me feel like a crazy person of, like, am I missing something? Like, what is happening here? Anyways, whatever. I don't know if you have any ideas.
1:22:51
Speaker B: I mean, I could further explain what goes on with Mia in the book.
1:22:56
Speaker A: It's fine. It's fine.
1:22:59
Speaker B: Okay.
1:23:02
Speaker A: So I mentioned this earlier, but I just wanted you to know if you could expand on this anymore when they find out. Once Rose finds out that carp misses Carp became or Miss Carp or whatever, became a strigoi, Dimitri is talking to her about it, and he explains that she became a strigoi to take away the pain of being undeclared or something along those lines. This is also not made any easier by that. Anytime that Dimitri says a line, he's impossible to understand because he has a very thick russian accent.
1:23:35
Speaker B: Yeah.
1:23:38
Speaker A: And he kind of mumbles his lines. I think he's going for, like, a. Like, a quiet, like.
1:23:42
Speaker B: Yeah, I think he's going for, like, mysterious.
1:23:44
Speaker A: Yeah, mysterious, cool guy. So he kind of, like, says everything kind of quiet and mumbly, but then adding in the fact that he has, like, a kind of thick russian accent makes a lot of his dialogue hard to understand. But he says something about her, like, doing it to take away the pain of being undeclared. And I think I kind of know what's going on here, but can you expand on the. What that is or what he means or what's going on there?
1:24:08
Speaker B: So Carp had the same spirit powers as Lyssa, where she could heal and resurrect things. And the catch with those powers, like we discussed, is that having them basically makes you slowly deteriorate and go insane, and becoming a strigoi cuts you off from your maroi powers.
1:24:33
Speaker A: Oh, I did not get. So that's an. I did not get that.
1:24:37
Speaker B: Yes. So you become a strigoi and you're no longer a bender. Pretty much.
1:24:43
Speaker A: I interpreted it the other way. I thought that that meant that when you became strigoi, you still had the powers, but that it didn't like that you were, like, free from, like, the.
1:24:54
Speaker B: Like, the moral consequence.
1:24:56
Speaker A: Yes. So, like, they didn't, like, negatively affect you anymore. So, like, I thought my. The way I interpreted it was that becoming Strigoi meant she could still do her spirit powers, but that it no longer affected a toll on her anymore or something like that. But you're saying it gets rid of your powers?
1:25:12
Speaker B: That was my understanding from the book, yes. So basically, she becomes Strigoi on purpose to keep herself from going crazy.
1:25:20
Speaker A: Okay. There's a scene at the end where once Victor captures Lyssa, he's, like, trying to torture her to get her to use her powers on him so that he can cure his Sarkoffsky syndrome or whatever it is. Whatever it is. And I want to know what's going on there, because the guy who's torturing her seems to be gently blowing on her ear, and she's writhing around like she's dying. And I don't. I'm not saying the movie didn't explain what he was doing, but I felt like I did not get an explanation for what he was doing and why she was. How this was torturing.
1:25:57
Speaker B: Okay.
1:25:58
Speaker A: I assume magic, obviously, but, yeah.
1:26:00
Speaker B: So in the book, Rose specifically says. First she says that he's using, like, air pressure to torture her.
1:26:10
Speaker A: Okay.
1:26:11
Speaker B: Like, I guess, like, maybe on her eardrum.
1:26:12
Speaker A: Sure, I can see that. Yeah, that makes sense. And then she's, like, a real bad. Like, when you're going, plane. Yeah, plane. Taking off in a plane.
1:26:20
Speaker B: And then she also says after that, that he's, like, using it to suffocate her, basically, so she can't breathe.
1:26:29
Speaker A: Sure. I could see that. I think you could even do that effectively. I think the way they do this.
1:26:33
Speaker B: In the movie, it's not very effective. It just looks cheesy.
1:26:36
Speaker A: He's just like, he's blowing on her ear in a way that just looks really cheesy. Whereas I can imagine directing and editing and shooting that scene in a way where he's like. And it's like. And she's like, ooh. And like, I don't know. I can imagine re editing and reshooting that in a way that is effectively. That effectively demonstrates what is going on, even without saying what is going on. But the way they do it in the movie, they may even have an explicit line where he says what she's doing, but I missed it. And what he's doing looks so goofy that I could not. I could not handle it. All right, those are all my questions. I get to shut up now, and we get to find out what Katie thought was better in the book. You like to read?
1:27:22
Speaker B: Oh, yes, I love to read.
1:27:24
Speaker A: What do you like to read?
1:27:28
Speaker B: Everything. All right. I'm gonna speedrun my sections. Cause this episode's already long. Someone does leave a dead fox for Lissa to find in the book. But if the idea was supposed to be for her to use her powers and heal it, so I thought it made more sense. In the book, she, like, finds it on her bed and not hanging over a random doorway. Like, if the idea is for her to heal it, I don't know why you would. Would hang it also.
1:27:57
Speaker A: Yeah, I think they just did that in the movie. Cause it's more dramatic, obviously. Yeah. And maybe they didn't wanna feel. They didn't wanna people to think they're ripping off the godfather.
1:28:07
Speaker B: Fair enough.
1:28:08
Speaker A: Yeah.
1:28:09
Speaker B: I thought putting the queen in a giant fur queen robe was really silly. The crown was already silly. But putting her in a cheap looking party city queen of England robe made it really look like a game of dress up. I just really didn't like that.
1:28:27
Speaker A: It also just. That's what that whole element is just so unexplored. You're like.
1:28:32
Speaker B: Yeah. You're like, okay, yeah, sure.
1:28:36
Speaker A: I like that actress. What's her name from? She's been in lots of stuff. She was in once upon a time, I think. Right?
1:28:41
Speaker B: Was it.
1:28:42
Speaker A: Oh, was that not her? I thought she was in once upon a time.
1:28:45
Speaker B: She's in the movie so briefly, I didn't even clock that actress.
1:28:48
Speaker A: I've seen her in stuff before. She's been in a handful of shows and stuff I've watched over the years, and she's usually good.
1:28:53
Speaker B: But anyways, the part in the movie where Rose attacks the mall kiosk guy annoyed me, because do we not think that this wouldn't cause a huge scene? She puts him in a headlock, and then they just walk away. I agree that mall kiosk guys are annoying, but come on.
1:29:15
Speaker A: That's true.
1:29:17
Speaker B: I thought the sigh hounds were pretty silly looking, not super great special effects.
1:29:23
Speaker A: I thought the special effects were fine. I was expecting worse. I'll say that. I was expecting them to look worse than they did, and they don't look great, but it's not like.
1:29:31
Speaker B: Well, then the thing that I don't understand is that you said in the prequel that they were originally gonna use actual dogs.
1:29:37
Speaker A: Apparently, they filmed it with actual dogs.
1:29:40
Speaker B: They decided to go back, use CGI.
1:29:44
Speaker A: Yeah. And specifically, Rochelle Meade, like, drew them.
1:29:47
Speaker B: Which is the weird part to me, because in the book, they're just described as looking like wolves. Like, what we saw in the movie didn't look at all like what I felt like was described in the book.
1:29:58
Speaker A: I don't know? Yeah, they look more like. They kind of. They kind of look like wolfish, but they look like just big black dogs, basically.
1:30:05
Speaker B: Yeah.
1:30:05
Speaker A: Like hellhounds or something. I thought they were funny. Fine, they were uninspired, but, like, it wasn't. I don't know, I was like. I've seen way worse these kind of things in movies.
1:30:17
Speaker B: Okay, so my last thing here, all of these were actually complaints about the movie and not really things like that.
1:30:25
Speaker A: Yeah, honestly, that is true.
1:30:27
Speaker B: But my last complaint about the movie is about the headmistress of the school, Karova.
1:30:33
Speaker A: Yeah.
1:30:34
Speaker B: Because are we not going to address the fact that she was obviously in on all of this somehow? Yeah, because she, like, tries to knock out Rose.
1:30:44
Speaker A: Yeah.
1:30:44
Speaker B: She likes to stop her from saving Lissa, and then nothing ever comes of that. It's never brought up again.
1:30:50
Speaker A: Rose takes the needle and ejects her with it to knock her out, and then. Yeah, it's, like, never addressed.
1:30:55
Speaker B: Yes, never addressed. And none of that was in the book, really? And I don't understand why that decision was made.
1:31:01
Speaker A: It seems like they're clearly setting up a later. Yeah, like a later story thing that maybe in the second book, you know, it's revealed that she's working with Victor or something, or who knows? But, yeah, it is very strange that it's never mentioned again. Like, Rose doesn't even, like, even, like, a moment where Rose turns to Lisa at the end, and it's like, oh, by the way, the headmistress, like, tried to drug me.
1:31:25
Speaker B: She's, like, in on this, I think that's very.
1:31:28
Speaker A: Yeah, you're right. That's very strange. All right. That was everything Katie thought was better in the book. It's time to 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.
1:31:44
Speaker B: The very beginning, when the girls are trying to escape. They, like, light their motorcycle on fire and push it down the road. That doesn't happen in the book. I thought it was more interesting than anything that happened in that scene in the book fair, so. Yeah, I liked that the movie added a strigoi attack early on.
1:32:05
Speaker A: Is that when they get to the school?
1:32:06
Speaker B: Yeah, when they're arriving at the school, they get attacked. So in the book, the strigoi are kind of this boogeyman that never really pays off. But we don't interact with any strigoi until the very end, when Natalie turns strigoi, and I kind of feel like, that only half counts because we already knew Natalie, and I just feel like if you're gonna set up a big bad, like, give me the big bad. I spent about 85% of the book thinking that there was no way we weren't working towards a conclusion that the strigoi aren't actually evil because we never actually met one.
1:32:44
Speaker A: Huh.
1:32:45
Speaker B: Like, and I was like, okay, surely we're working towards this idea that this is all propaganda, right?
1:32:51
Speaker A: Oh, okay.
1:32:51
Speaker B: And maybe we are in, like, future books based on. I don't think so either. Like, based on the movie? Yeah, like, based on what happens with Natalie and everything. I don't think that's actually the case. It was very strange to me.
1:33:05
Speaker A: I could see the idea of setting up the strigo kind of like Twilight does with, like, the. Which I also found annoying, but the whatever.
1:33:15
Speaker B: Oh, the Voltori.
1:33:16
Speaker A: The Voltori. You know what I mean? Like, we set that up in, like, the first book, but we don't actually see them until the second or third book.
1:33:22
Speaker B: Right.
1:33:22
Speaker A: So, like, I can kind of understand if you're doing that, if, you know, you're planning to write, like, a series, like, kind of saving that card, like, only giving us one of them, like, Natalie in the first one, and then saving more of them for later. I could. I could see it, but I thought it worked well in the movie, or.
1:33:39
Speaker B: You know, I was just. It was. The strangest thing to me was that there were, like, several points throughout the first, most of the book that made me think we were working towards this conclusion of, like, propaganda and, like, they're not actually evil and blah, blah, blah, blah. But then at the end, when Natalie turns Drogoi, it kind of seems like. Like they're just evil.
1:34:02
Speaker A: Yeah.
1:34:04
Speaker B: Anyway, if you've read more of the Vampire Academy novels, please let me know. I thought it was funny that you mentioned that there wasn't enough of the Miroi using their elemental powers because there's so much more of them using them in the book than there in the movie than there is in the book.
1:34:22
Speaker A: I just think if you're gonna add earth and fire and waterbending in and make it, like, a whole thing and then especially have, like, very specific plot points related to that, I needed to see more of it, because all I remember seeing until the very end, like, we see christian light that dude on fire, but we get that one scene early on when she's explaining during the montage where she's, like, at fourth period, we go off to do combat training and all the Maroi go to learn magic and we see a montage of them lighting candles and whatever. But then that. And then the scene where christian lights that dude on fire are like, the. I was like, are there other scenes?
1:35:02
Speaker B: There's a scene where I think Mia uses, like, the, like, makes the water fountain, like, slash on Lyssa.
1:35:09
Speaker A: Yes. But even that was so minimal that.
1:35:12
Speaker B: I was like, well, and. But even. Even the silly stuff with, like, the moving brick and the sidewalk moving, I thought was more like, it was more of an example of them using their powers than what we see in the movie.
1:35:26
Speaker A: But see, those things were things that I didn't think I had had. I was like, I mean, I guess I knew. I guess that had to be what it was, but I don't know, it just felt so half baked. Like the whole water or the elemental bending thing felt like she saw Avatar. The last airbender was like, this is sick. I want to add this to my thing and then just kind of added it without really thinking through it in any way.
1:35:50
Speaker B: I mean, I'm not unconvinced that that isn't what happened.
1:35:54
Speaker A: And it just felt so, again, undercooked where I was just like, when those moments happened, like the hole in the ground and the ankle breaking, I'm like, okay, obviously somebody did some sort of magic. But like what? I don't know. I just. It didn't. I don't know.
1:36:08
Speaker B: It's good for me. This book came out in 2007. I'm pretty sure Avatar started airing in 2005.
1:36:15
Speaker A: Oh, yeah, yeah.
1:36:16
Speaker B: I'm not unconvinced that that. Cause it is very half baked in the book as well.
1:36:21
Speaker A: To be fair. Avatar for the last airbender, not the first thing to do, like elementary.
1:36:25
Speaker B: No, not at all.
1:36:26
Speaker A: Magic bending or whatever. It's been around forever.
1:36:28
Speaker B: But it was a huge part of the cultural zeitgeist at the time that this book was being written. Yeah, the movie specifically says that they wipe the memories of the human feeders that they have on campus for them to drink blood from, which I don't believe is mentioned in the book. But I thought that was a detail that made sense that they would, like, wipe their memories. Natalie licking the blood off of the wall and doing forensic chemistry with it. Gross. But I thought it was fun, and I thought it was an interesting way to utilize the fact that they're vampires, which, let's face it, isn't actually all that important. It really isn't.
1:37:09
Speaker A: That's annoying to me.
1:37:11
Speaker B: They could have just been elemental magic users and the story would be exactly the same.
1:37:16
Speaker A: Yeah. And that's the thing. That's just like the hat on the hat thing. It's like, okay, just pick one. Make them vampire.
1:37:21
Speaker B: Pick a lane.
1:37:22
Speaker A: Or make them airbender. Like, you know, like element benders. Like do one of those two things. Like, why are we doing both of them?
1:37:31
Speaker B: Yeah.
1:37:31
Speaker A: Where it just felt so convoluted and unrelated. Like, I think that's the other thing. It just, like, it just felt like two popular ideas slammed together without really any reason that makes a sense. Cause, like, to me, what makes more sense and who knows? It's magic. You can do whatever you want with it. But, like, to me, if you're gonna do vampire Academy and they're gonna do magic, have them do old world, like, spells and potions and that kind of, you know what I mean? Like, have them do like, throwing runes and like doing that kind of magic and stuff that feels more vampire.
1:38:08
Speaker B: Yeah.
1:38:09
Speaker A: To me.
1:38:09
Speaker B: Or, you know, have them like, climb walls or some shit and you can.
1:38:14
Speaker A: Do stuff like that. But the element bending just feels wholly unrelated to the vampire thing.
1:38:20
Speaker B: I agree. I agree. I didn't mind the misses Karp video diaries. The movie doesn't do a whole lot with it, but I thought it was a pretty decent visual aid.
1:38:33
Speaker A: Yeah.
1:38:35
Speaker B: There was one line that I thought was kind of funny. At one point, Natalie surprises them and rose almost punches her in the face and then. And goes, watch out. You do not want to have to get a nose job in Montana.
1:38:48
Speaker A: That was also the only time I realized, oh, this takes place in Montana. Why is this in Montana?
1:38:55
Speaker B: I don't know.
1:38:56
Speaker A: I guess they just wanted like a remote.
1:38:58
Speaker B: Yeah.
1:38:58
Speaker A: Is that where it is in the book?
1:38:59
Speaker B: It is set in Montana. In the book. Yeah. And I almost think she was trying to get the same kind of Pacific northwest y vibe as twilight has. But Twilight has an actual reason for taking place. Place in that area.
1:39:15
Speaker A: Yeah. And Montana is also not remotely Pacific.
1:39:18
Speaker B: Doesn't. Well, I know that, but I mean, I was like, I feel like she was trying to go for like similar, like, oh, forests and like, whatever.
1:39:26
Speaker A: I think she was just going, I don't know, maybe she's from Montana. But, like, I definitely think it was like a. Let's get a. I want a remote. Like a place where I can just have this school where it seems like it would be like, in the middle. It's in the middle of nowhere, right? Yeah, kind of.
1:39:38
Speaker B: And that is the reason given in.
1:39:40
Speaker A: The book for why I, like, nobody lives there.
1:39:43
Speaker B: Right.
1:39:44
Speaker A: Which Montana is one of the main ones. It's like Montana, Wyoming, and the Dakotas. So.
1:39:51
Speaker B: The only possibly funnier place to have set this would have been the Dakotas anyway. I don't know if it fully works within the larger context because I had so much trouble following this movie, but I appreciated that the movie at least tried to say that misses Karp wiped Rose and Lissa's memories of why they left the school in the first place. Because the book teased the reason that they left for so long, especially for being in Rose's point of view. Because she should have known. Right? She should have known.
1:40:31
Speaker A: What should she have known?
1:40:33
Speaker B: Why they left.
1:40:34
Speaker A: Yeah, right.
1:40:34
Speaker B: But the book teases it and drags it out for so long, and then it ends up being this big letdown of, like, oh, they were compelled to leave by misses carp. And even when we find out that reason, it doesn't explain why at the beginning of the book, Lyssa is so viscerally upset about coming back.
1:40:54
Speaker A: I'm gonna be honest, none of that made sense to me in the movie.
1:40:56
Speaker B: I know. I'm sorry. This was a huge frustration of mine was, like, the way that the book revealed information because we're in a first person perspective, but we're not getting information that we should have that the first person. And there's no real reason given for why we're not getting this.
1:41:19
Speaker A: Why don't you know this? Yeah.
1:41:20
Speaker B: So when the movie was like, oh, she wiped their memories, I was like, thank God, an explanation. An explanation for why. I don't have an explanation.
1:41:29
Speaker A: I'll be honest. If you asked me why they left the school, I couldn't tell you. Yeah, why did they leave the school?
1:41:36
Speaker B: They left the school because misses Karp compelled them.
1:41:39
Speaker A: Why did misses Karp compel them to leave the school?
1:41:41
Speaker B: Because she. Okay. Because she knew that Lyssa also had the spirit powers, and it was either trying to protect her, possibly from Victor, because when we first meet her, she's, like, super paranoid. And she keeps talking about how, like, they came for me and they'll come for you.
1:42:06
Speaker A: Right.
1:42:07
Speaker B: Which I would presume she means Victor.
1:42:10
Speaker A: That makes sense.
1:42:11
Speaker B: Although that's never confirmed. Or if we are believing that misses Karp was actually evil the whole time she's trying to get them to leave so that the strigoi can get Lyssa. In the book, we find out that Natalie killed one of the teachers in order to become strigoi. And in the movie, she kills her crush, like, the guy she likes, and the book spends so much time dumping on Natalie for no real reason. And it feels so mean spirited that I actually appreciated that the movie let her have a power moment with the guy that she had a crush on instead of having her have to sadly take down an old man.
1:42:56
Speaker A: I don't know. Okay, I'll take your word for it. That doesn't sound better to me that she just murders this guy.
1:43:03
Speaker B: I mean, either way, she's murdering an innocent person. All right, final note here. I can also appreciate that Rose got to help kill Natalie at the end. In the book, Dimitri dispatches her pretty quickly by himself, which I will grant. Makes sense since Degueir is supposed to be overpowered and Rose is still in training, but it also felt a little anticlimactic having him just bust in and save the day. So Rose getting to help, I thought was kind of a nice compromise.
1:43:34
Speaker A: She just strangles her with a belt.
1:43:36
Speaker B: She helped.
1:43:37
Speaker A: No, I know. She does help, but it's just the way she helps is like, oh, Jesus. All right, that was it for everything Katie thought was better in the movie. Let's go ahead and find out what she thought. The movie. Nailed, as I expected. Practically perfect in every way.
1:43:56
Speaker B: The movie actually gets the movie. It's actually a pretty faithful adaptation.
1:44:01
Speaker A: I can imagine that.
1:44:02
Speaker B: Because it makes no sense.
1:44:04
Speaker A: That's how, you know, an adaptation is bad, big or how not bad. That's one of the reasons that you can't adapt books directly like so many people want you to, is because when you do it, they become incoherent messes.
1:44:17
Speaker B: Yeah, we talked about how both open with Lyssa feeding from Rose, and then, like, almost immediately, Rose looks out the window and sees somebody watching them. They run from them. Dimitri immediately takes her out when she tries to fight him. Dimitri has tattoos on the back of his neck for every strigoi that he's killed. Lyssa uses compulsion to get Kurova to keep Rose in school instead of expelling her. Their classes happen at night because they're vampires. Rose decides to go to church, and she picks up on the priest saying shadow kissed Anna, which kicks off her whole investigation of St. Vladimir and all that. Mia spreads a rumor about Jesse and whatever the fuck the other guy was named, both feeding from Rose. Christian sets a guy on fire to stop him from bullying Lyssa. The queen shows up and randomly chastises Lissa in front of everyone real quick, that line.
1:45:23
Speaker A: Mia spreads a rumor about Jesse and the other guy both feeding from Rose is one of those things that in the movie, is incoherent and makes no sense because I don't have enough time. The movie is doing so many things so quickly. Your brain doesn't even. I didn't have time to wrap my head around the fact that that's. That what we're doing is, like, a weird metaphor for, like, her being a whore and, like, having sex with multiple dudes and, like, that. But because of the context text, like, that's a fine metaphor. And, like, I could see what you're trying to do there and, like. But there's so much going on in the movie that I literally didn't even parse what any of that. What? Like, yeah, I don't know. It just goes back to what we just said, that trying to directly translate a book into a film and include, like, every little bit in detail that the book has. Like, not every little bit in detail, obviously, but, like, so much of that stuff leaves you with a movie that is so overstuffed with, like, detail that just does not work in a film because your brain can't. You're doing so much simultaneous world building, character development and plot exposition all at once that you can't grasp any of it.
1:46:45
Speaker B: Yeah.
1:46:45
Speaker A: Especially when it's done too many pieces and you just can't. So, like, I can't sit there and appreciate, oh, we're doing, like, a fun or not in a fun, but we're doing, like, an interesting metaphor for, like, college or for, like, high school or for, like, you know, high school slash college sexual exploits. And, like, the way that the social capital around that and the way the drama and the fallout from all that we're doing that. We're doing that while we're also establishing a world where there's, like, vampires who do earthbending. And I'm just like, so you don't have time to do any of it?
1:47:21
Speaker B: No. Where was I in my list? The crew go shopping at the mall to get dresses for the ball. Mason makes Jesse and Ray confess, apologize to Rose about the slut shaming thing. Victor kidnaps Lyssa to force her to continually heal him. Lyssa gets a power up from Rose to heal Christianity. Victor does a villain monologue from his prison cell and explains a bunch of stuff to Rose at the very end. Dimitri's excuses for not being able to be with Rose are the same. And then at the end, Rose has a moment with the raven that Lyssa brought back to life.
1:48:07
Speaker A: Sweet. Amazing. Fantastic. All right, let's get to a few odds and ends before the final verdict. This actually blew my mind as we were watching the movie, I was, like, this actress playing Rose. I know this isn't uncommon, but Rose looks like a 28 year old.
1:48:32
Speaker B: Yeah.
1:48:33
Speaker A: And then I looked it up, and I was like, the actress was actually, like, 18 when she filmed this.
1:48:38
Speaker B: Crazy. I mean, I will say high school student, like, 2014, like, makeup.
1:48:44
Speaker A: And that's probably what it is.
1:48:47
Speaker B: That was, like, the full face era, and it was very, like, it made you look older than you were.
1:48:52
Speaker A: And that particular actress, I guess, maybe just looks older. I just like, she looked like an adult, like a 30 year old to me. And I think you're right. It probably is the makeup. That's usually what it is. It's usually the hair and makeup that makes that happen. It's why when you look at, like, old fear books of high school from, like, the fifties, everybody looks like they're 40 years old already. It's because of the hair and makeup primarily.
1:49:13
Speaker B: Yeah. Styled in a way that we're used to seeing on 40 year olds.
1:49:16
Speaker A: Exactly. And so that's probably what it was. But I was like, did they cast an adult, like a 30 year oldness? Apparently not. I loved the detail that the movie knew they needed to just plaster the names of the different vampire classes. Maroy, Strigoi, and Daniel here. They're like, nobody's gonna remember this. We gotta put it. And they're hard. Like, they're weird words.
1:49:38
Speaker B: Yeah, they're like odd words. So, like, whenever speaker one, when they.
1:49:42
Speaker A: Introduce it, they just put the word in giant, white, bold text, and it floats across the screen, like, in the background as she's talking about them. I was like, good. They just gave up on that one. They're just like, ah, put it on the screen. I don't know. Maybe somebody will remember it that way.
1:50:01
Speaker B: I started laughing pretty much as soon as we were introduced to Dmitri, because he's supposed to be, like, the hottest of the hot guys, and that man was not very hot.
1:50:16
Speaker A: Look, I don't disagree. I don't think he's. He reminded me a lot. He looked. His eyes. I think he looks like Josh Hartley a little bit.
1:50:27
Speaker B: A little bit.
1:50:28
Speaker A: But, like, a poor man's curt. And the big thing to me was more so than, like, just physically. He just wasn't a good actor.
1:50:39
Speaker B: Yeah.
1:50:40
Speaker A: Like, his performance was bad, and I don't know, that may have very well been. He's a russian guy who's, I think, mostly been in, like, russian films. It's very possible that it's just he's bad, because he's acting in English and it's, you know, his second language, and he's just. But, man, he reminded me, for good bad or bad bad fans, he reminded me a lot of the dude from the incubus. Like, the way he delivered lines was like, that stilted.
1:51:05
Speaker B: Yeah. I. Like, I was assuming his accent was real, but he was such a bad actor that it made it sound like it might not be real.
1:51:13
Speaker A: Yeah. And again, it's very possible that he's a fine actor when he's speaking Russian or whatever, like, the way the lines are delivered in English, it's so stilted, it sounds ridiculous. It just sounds.
1:51:27
Speaker B: The other thing that struck me about that choice in actor was that his physical type, his body type, he was very stocky and built, which makes sense for his character. And I'm not saying that that body type isn't attractive or can't be attractive, but it's also, like, so far from the typical YA romance type, that I was very caught off guard by it.
1:51:58
Speaker A: I think also the thing was that, because I saw a photo of this actor with his normal hair, like, a short haircut, and he's much more attractive with, like, I just think that hairstyle doesn't suit his face, maybe as, like, part of it, potentially, because, again, I saw a photo of him with short hair, and I was like, yeah, this is a handsome guy. I don't know. I think it's just a combination of those factors just made it like he didn't have leading man energy.
1:52:27
Speaker B: No, he really did not. Bless his heart.
1:52:30
Speaker A: Yeah.
1:52:32
Speaker B: This was a little detail that I just wanted to bring up for posterity. The character of Mia, I think, was unironically named after the crown princess of Genovia from the princess Diaries.
1:52:48
Speaker A: Oh, really?
1:52:49
Speaker B: Cause her name is Mia.
1:52:51
Speaker A: Yeah.
1:52:52
Speaker B: And her regular last name is Mia Thermopolis in the princess Diaries, but her royal last name is Rinaldi.
1:53:01
Speaker A: Really?
1:53:02
Speaker B: Yeah. And the character in this book is Mia Rinaldi. Very well, sure. Another random line from the book that I just wanted to include because it cracked me up. This is about Christian, and rose thinks to herself, and although he wasn't strigoi himself, some people thought he wasn't far off with the way he always wore black and kept to himself. And I was like, damn, even vampires hate goth kids. In this universe.
1:53:33
Speaker A: You go to an 800 year old school that's called St. Vladimir school for.
1:53:39
Speaker B: Vampires are literally vampires. And you're gonna be like, ugh, that guy wears black all the time. Jesus.
1:53:47
Speaker A: Unbelievable. You mentioned that scene where they're at the mall and rose beats up that mall clerk guy.
1:53:54
Speaker B: Yeah.
1:53:55
Speaker A: The jacket she's wearing in that scene while they're walking through the mall. It is a red leather jacket that I swear is the exact same jacket that Emma wears in Once upon a time.
1:54:06
Speaker B: I love that.
1:54:06
Speaker A: It's got the same kind of like.
1:54:09
Speaker B: Yeah, it's like a moto style.
1:54:11
Speaker A: Yeah, yeah. Where it has those, like, stitching and stuff on it. It look, I was like, that's, that's Emma's jacket that she wears once upon a time. Speaking of, right after that. So they go to the mall to buy those, their dresses for the, the party, the big, like, ball or whatever. When they get to the ball, they have the big, like, we're gonna go to. We're gonna, we're gonna go own the shit out of this party or whatever. And then we get, like, the slow mo montage of them, like, badass strolling into the party. And even as a me, as a man who is me, I was like, those dresses are not nearly, like, memorable enough for this, like, slo mo party entrance moment.
1:54:53
Speaker B: Like, they're fine.
1:54:54
Speaker A: They're fine.
1:54:55
Speaker B: They look nice.
1:54:55
Speaker A: They look.
1:54:56
Speaker B: Yes, they look nice, but it's not, it's not like a. Haha. It's not like a. Wow.
1:55:01
Speaker A: Yeah. Like, particularly like, rose's dress. They make a big deal out of it. And again, it's a nice looking dress. And it actually comparatively, like, one of those kind of dresses that has aged fairly well. Like, you know, it's kind of a timeless, like, black strapless dress.
1:55:15
Speaker B: It's not, like, super of its tie.
1:55:17
Speaker A: It's not super dated, but it's also not super, like, wow. I don't know. I was just like, yep. Just. Sure. I don't know. Just whatever.
1:55:25
Speaker B: Did you catch the screenwriter eighties reference? This.
1:55:31
Speaker A: Wait, the guy who wrote Heather's referenced pretty in pink in his.
1:55:35
Speaker B: Yeah, yeah. When Mason is, like, kind of pursuing Rose at the dance and she's like, whoa, ducky.
1:55:44
Speaker A: Yeah.
1:55:45
Speaker B: Okay. I'm sure all of your teenage fans in 2004 recognize and understand that reference, man.
1:55:52
Speaker A: Good one. I think they should have got. So we're talking about Victor. He's played by Gabriel Byrne, or Gabriel Byrne, who's a great actor. I don't think he was right for this role. He's not, like, terrible or anything, but the whole time, all I could think of who they should have got to play this role is Robert Carlisle.
1:56:12
Speaker B: Yeah.
1:56:12
Speaker A: The guy who plays rumpelstilts upon a time.
1:56:14
Speaker B: He would have been great.
1:56:15
Speaker A: He would have been perfect.
1:56:17
Speaker B: He would have been incredible.
1:56:18
Speaker A: Brought the level of camp and over the top nonsense that you need for this role.
1:56:25
Speaker B: Too good for this trash movie.
1:56:27
Speaker A: Gabriel is too good for this trash movie. Gabriel burns a great actor, too. Like, I just. He just. Yeah, he. Cuz Gabriel burns the. He's what's his name in little women, right? The. Isn't he the professor in little women?
1:56:41
Speaker B: Oh, yeah, I think you're right.
1:56:42
Speaker A: Yeah.
1:56:42
Speaker B: Yeah.
1:56:43
Speaker A: He's been in lots of stuff. Great actor. I just don't think he has the. He doesn't. At least not in this movie. He does not bring the level of, like, over the top.
1:56:52
Speaker B: Right.
1:56:52
Speaker A: Especially once he becomes the villain at the end. He's not nearly fun enough. And all I could. I just. Because. Especially the scene where, like, she's talk. He's talking to him from the jail cell at the end. All I'm picturing is Rumpelstiltskin jail cell with the front.
1:57:05
Speaker B: All magic comes with a prize.
1:57:07
Speaker A: Like, he just would have been perfect. And it's funny because even Gary Byrne kind of looks like him. Like, the kind of character he is. Kind of looks. I think he even has a cane that he walks around with at times. It's like he. Robert, Carla would have been. It felt like they wrote the role for him.
1:57:21
Speaker B: Yeah.
1:57:22
Speaker A: And then he just didn't do filming.
1:57:25
Speaker B: Once upon a time.
1:57:26
Speaker A: But I feel like they missed out. He would have crushed that role. I have to see who they got for the tv show. Maybe they got Robert Carlisle for the tv show. And then my last note here was, I don't know whose idea it was, but when they get to the house to rescue Lyssa and they're, like, fighting everybody. I don't know whose idea it was for this, but in one of the moments, Rose, she's up on the balcony fighting somebody. And the way she fights this person is she leaps onto this dude's chest and wraps her legs around him, and then just, like, headbutts him over and over again.
1:58:01
Speaker B: Just, like, slams her head into his head multiple times.
1:58:06
Speaker A: Choreography choice for her. I don't understand why they thought that would make sense for her to do in a fight.
1:58:13
Speaker B: No, because it doesn't make sense. And, like, listen, I don't know anything about Khanda, but I have to imagine a direct headbutt is, like, a thing you can only do once.
1:58:24
Speaker A: It's complicated, I think, but it's just such a strange. I don't understand. We've shown her learn to fight she's training to do normal fighting. Why does she fight? She fights like a monster. That kind of choreography is something you would give to an enraged monster in a movie that, like, runs and leaps onto somebody, like, wraps their limbs around him and then starts, like, headbutting them over and over again. That's not the choreography you give to, like, your heroine. It's just. It's very strange, and I don't understand it, and I don't get why, like. Cause I'm trying to, like, I was trying to, like, okay, like, what is the character? Cause a lot of times, like, you wanna. You wanna say something about your character through the choreography you give them.
1:59:10
Speaker B: Sure.
1:59:10
Speaker A: But I'm like, what is the. What are we saying here? Like, the way she, like, she wraps her legs around him in kind of like a sexual way. Like, again, like, it's just like she. Like, it's very strange. And then the headbutting. I'm like, we never established that she has, like, a particularly hard, like, if you're gonna do that, you set that up with, like, there's a joke earlier where Dimitri punches her in the head and he, like, shakes his hand. He's like, you have the hardest head I've ever. I don't know. You gotta do something. Like, why is that? It's just a mind boggling decision that.
1:59:41
Speaker B: Would require a level of writing that this movie was clearly not capable of.
1:59:45
Speaker A: But that's the thing that makes it more infuriating. Just do a normal thing. Just have her, like, fight him.
1:59:51
Speaker B: Like, just.
1:59:52
Speaker A: She's been combat training. Like, that's the whole point of going to the school. Just have her fight him like a normal person. Why did. Why would you do this extra weird thing if you haven't set up? Whatever. It's a little thing, but those kind of decisions, I just. It blows my mind. I don't understand. Whatever. I'm sorry. I'm done. As always, you can do us a favor by heading over to Facebook, Twitter, Instagram, goodreads threads, any of those places. Follow us interengage. We'd love to hear what you have to say about Vampire Academy. Really was excited for that. For our next prequel episode, so get that feedback in. You can also help us out by going over to Apple podcasts, Spotify, wherever you listen to our show. If you enjoy it, please drop us a five star rating. Write us a nice little review. Helps get the show out to more people. And if you want to support us at the highest possible level, whatever, go to patreon.com. this film. I'm done. My brain is done. Patreon.com thisfilm is lit. Support us there monetarily. Get access to some bonus content we just finished watching the first Addams Family movie for our bonus episode. For October, we're gonna watch Addams Family values and then we're gonna release our Halloween episode here in just a few days for our bonus episode. That's the $5 and up level. We do one of those every single month. And at the $15 and up level you get access to priority recommendations. If you have something you would really like for us to talk about, you support us for $15 a month. Recommend it and we will add it to our list. And this one, in fact, was a.
2:01:21
Speaker B: Patron request from this was a request from Nathan.
2:01:27
Speaker A: Thank you.
2:01:28
Speaker B: Thanks. Thanks I guess.
2:01:30
Speaker A: Thanks I guess. Thanks. I hate it all right Katie, it's time for the final verdict.
2:01:42
Speaker B: Thats stupid. There are a lot of properties that one could compare Vampire Academy to for the time period. Twilight and Harry Potter are obvious, although I dont really think its much like either of those. As I was reading, I was also reminded of divergence, Avatar, the last airbender, the clique, and strangely enough, shadow and bone. But here's what I think Rochelle Mead was actually trying to do. Gossip Girl with vampires. It's all there. The horde of ultra wealthy, ultra privileged teenagers, the prep school setting, the gossiping and politicking and catty backstabbing and the who's banging who of it all, and the fact that you dont really like or trust anyone because they all kinda suck. All you have to do is sprinkle some fantasy elements on top. But thats where this book went horribly wrong. There is simply too much going on here. It was vampire gossip girl with three different classes of vampire elemental magic users, a forbidden romance that isnt well set up, queer vibes that I'm still not sure were intentional or not. A spooky mystery about a missing teacher, a chosen one coming into her mysterious powers, a twist villain that isnt well set up. Half baked feminist critique, half baked commentary on mental health, a big bad that amounts to almost nothing, etcetera, etcetera and so forth. And thats not to say that you cant have a good ya fantasy series that has a lot of different elements and leans into heavy world building. More successful properties do it all the time. For example, Shadow and Bone. One of the big differences is that those series usually give their world and lore building some room to breathe. The other difference, in my opinion, is that this series lacked a true audience pov character. Someone whos also being introduced to elements of the world for the first time. For example, for example, in Shadow and Bone, Alina has grown up in Ravka. But then she gets thrown into the unfamiliar world of the grisha and we get to learn about that alongside her as a character. Rose was unable to function this way and the world building suffered because of it. It was painfully obvious when the book was choosing to just not share information with us, which was really, really annoying. Now, based on everything I've just said, you might think that I am about to give this one to the movie, but you might be wrong because this movie was an unintelligible mess. I had trouble following it even after reading the entire book. I can't begin to imagine what Brian's experience was like.
2:04:36
Speaker A: And you're all aware now, having experienced my meltdown over the last 2 hours. Powers.
2:04:41
Speaker B: So in the case of Vampire Academy, I think I have no choice but to give this one to the book on the grounds of being 10% more comprehensible than the movie.
2:04:53
Speaker A: I agree. Having not read the book, the movie was terrible and not the good kind of terrible, unfortunately. Katie, what's next?
2:05:03
Speaker B: Up next, we are continuing spooky season. I guess we're closing out spooky season with a horror classic.
2:05:11
Speaker A: Mm hmm.
2:05:11
Speaker B: Rosemary's baby.
2:05:13
Speaker A: Yeah, I'm interested. I know nothing about. This is one of those movies that I've heard a lot. Obviously you hear of. It's a very famous, popular movie, but I've never seen it and never really had a desire to see it. But I am. I am excited to watch it. So I'm looking forward to checking it out.
2:05:29
Speaker B: I've never seen. I've seen pieces of it and a lick of it. The novel was written by Ira Levin, who also wrote the Stepford Wives, which I remember really enjoying. So I'm looking forward to reading it, watching it. I know that it's. Horror films are often commentary on the time period, and this one, I think is very much that. So I'm really looking forward to talking about it.
2:05:52
Speaker A: Yeah, we have to talk about our first film directed. Well, that's probably not true. I was gonna say our first film directed by a rapist, but that's almost assuredly.
2:06:00
Speaker B: That's almost assuredly not true. True.
2:06:04
Speaker A: First film directed by this specific rapist would be the case. So we'll get into that in the prequel, but come back in two weeks time. We're talking about Rosemary's baby, but in one week's time, we'll be previewing Rosemary's baby and hearing everything you lovely people had to say about vampire Academy. So please get that feedback in and please come back. Until that time, guys, gals, non binary pals, and everybody else, keep reading books, keep watching movies, and keep being awesome.