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Prequel to Sleeping Beauty - The Scorch Trials Fan Reaction, Sleeping Beauty Preview · This Film is Lit

• 0:10
  Speaker A: On this week's prequel episode, we follow up on our Scorch trials listener polls and preview Sleeping Beauty. Hello and welcome back to another prequel episode of this film is lit, the podcast where we talk about movies. Film that are based on books. We have every segment. Kind of.
• 0:31
  Speaker B: Kind. I kind of combined learning things and.
• 0:33
  Speaker A: Book facts in a way that it makes sense. But we do have every segment and lots of listener feedback. So we're gonna jump right into our patron shout out. I put up with you because your father and mother were our finest patrons. That's why. Two new patrons this week. First up at the $5 Hugo Award winning level, Dylan Eldred. Thank you, Dylan. Getting access to that bonus content. And then at the $2 level, Newberry Medal award winner upgrading from their free subscription, I believe. Paige from a book. So thank you, Paige from a book. Getting access to early access. Some other stuff. The when you what's coming out.
• 1:16
  Speaker B: Yes, the coming soon announcements.
• 1:18
  Speaker A: Coming soon announcements and that kind of good stuff. And ad free if ever we have ads, which we could now, I think technically I think I could have ads on our show. I'm just too lazy to do it anyway.
• 1:28
  Speaker B: Not worried about it.
• 1:28
  Speaker A: I know. Anyways, we would be making a whole $5 more a month or something.
• 1:33
  Speaker B: Big spender.
• 1:34
  Speaker A: I don't know. I actually don't know how much. Maybe more. Maybe we are missing out on a reasonable. I have no idea. I need. I should look into that. But let's get to our Academy Award winning patrons. And they are Nicole Goblet, Eric Harpo Rat on pace to match my year's reading goal by end of July. Vic Apocalypse. Mathilde Cottonwood. Steve. Teresa Schwartz. Ian from wine Country, Kelly Napier Gratch. Just Gratch. Shelby says Team Brenda. That darn Skag and V. Frank. Thank you all very much for your continued support. I am also team Brenda.
• 2:09
  Speaker B: As am I.
• 2:11
  Speaker A: As much as you can be, I guess.
• 2:13
  Speaker B: I guess so.
• 2:15
  Speaker A: I was trying to think if there was. I'm team Newt, that would be like the equivalent of being team Whatchama. Alice.
• 2:21
  Speaker B: Yeah, yeah, yeah.
• 2:22
  Speaker A: Team Newt.
• 2:23
  Speaker B: Yeah, for sure.
• 2:24
  Speaker A: I think they had a little chemistry in the movie.
• 2:26
  Speaker B: No, I agree. I agree. And if you've been on letterboxd, the people on there also agree.
• 2:33
  Speaker A: There you go. On letterboxd, specifically. Interesting. All right.
• 2:37
  Speaker B: I have not looked anywhere else for that. So.
• 2:40
  Speaker A: Fantastic. But now it's time to see what all of the listeners had to say about Maze. The Scorch Trials.
• 2:49
  Speaker B: Yeah, well, you know, that's just like your opinion man on patreon we had 5 votes for the movie and 0 for the book. This will be a recurring theme. Yes, Shelby says Team Brenda said. While it's not a particularly great zombie movie, I'm voting for it because I have a soft spot for zombie stuff. I didn't care for the infected in the book. I can see what Dashner's going for, but every time they talked it felt silly. I'll take the ripoff Rage Zombies. Thanks. Speaking of ripoffs, Theresa's story in the movie about her mother cutting out her eyes so she stops hallucinating was very familiar. I feel like I've heard or read it two or three times already. I can't think where it started, though.
• 3:40
  Speaker A: I think that's a pretty standard horror trope. The idea of like clawing your own eyes out to stop the visions or something like. Yeah, I can't think of a specific example, but I know I've seen it in other stuff before.
• 3:51
  Speaker B: The book just felt like it was throwing stuff at you for its own sake. Absolutely. I've never been a fan of the J.J. abrams mystery box style of just doing weird shit and figuring it out later. So I never bothered getting invested in what was going on because I know most of it won't matter. It never does. And to me, that's just really lazy writing to string your audience along. Found the Lost comparisons.
• 4:17
  Speaker A: I agree. I will say that I was fooled initially by the J.J. abrams Mystery Box style of storytelling from watching Lost into thinking that there was a plan. And now I would like to revisit Lost one day because I have heard mixed I hated the ending of Lost when I watched it the first time. Yeah, I do wonder if I would feel the same now. I actually don't know because I've changed a lot in the way I consume media. Since I watched Lost the first time I watched it in like 2012 or so. I don't know. Like right after it ended, I think I finished it or I watched it. So I would be interested to see how I feel about the ending now. But I liked the mystery box style storytelling in Lost because I thought Lost was a very compelling show for most of its run. But I found the ending unsatisfying. And that made me question the mystery box storytelling or, you know, the way J.J. abrams tells stories. And then seeing him repeat the same issues with the new Star wars saga was, you know, made me go, okay, he doesn't know what he's doing, because I think he clearly had no idea where that series was going.
• 5:32
  Speaker B: Mm.
• 5:33
  Speaker A: Or if he did, Rian Johnson told him to eat shit. One of the two. I. Because to me, it felt like he'd set up stuff. And then Ryan Johnson. And they said, do whatever you want, Ryan Johnson. And then some people did not like what Ryan Johnson did, so they tried to switch it to something else. And maybe what we got in Rise of Skywalker was JJ Abrams plan all along. But if so, it was a terrible plan, but pretty bad. I don't know.
• 5:57
  Speaker B: In my opinion.
• 5:57
  Speaker A: Yeah.
• 5:58
  Speaker B: I laughed out loud when Aeris showed Thomas the vents in the movie and Thomas asked, why are you showing me this? Because you're the main character and everyone knows it. Silly. For some reason, I thought Jorge was only a couple years older than the other characters in the book. I actually had the same impression. I thought he was supposed to be, like, in his early 20s or something.
• 6:19
  Speaker A: I had the same experience that Shelby had here when he continued it. Yeah.
• 6:23
  Speaker B: When it turned out that's who Giancarlo Esposito was playing, I was a little confused. But he's great. Of course.
• 6:29
  Speaker A: That was my same thought. I was like, oh, he's playing Jorge. I didn't expect him to be that old.
• 6:33
  Speaker B: Yeah.
• 6:34
  Speaker A: But I do agree that he's fun in the role. He gets to be a little. He doesn't have to be entirely Gus Fring in this role. Which is nice, because, boy, that is unfortunate that he's almost exclusively cast in roles to play Gus Fring now, because he has a lot more range than that.
• 6:53
  Speaker B: Yeah.
• 6:54
  Speaker A: And I wish people would use them for other stuff. More.
• 6:56
  Speaker B: But I wanted to see if I'd seen Rosa Salazar in anything because I thought she was great here. And I never saw Alita Battle Angel.
• 7:05
  Speaker A: Me neither.
• 7:06
  Speaker B: I knew she was in Bird Box. I remember nothing about that movie. I know. We covered it.
• 7:10
  Speaker A: Yeah. I don't.
• 7:12
  Speaker B: Memory. Hold that one.
• 7:13
  Speaker A: Yeah.
• 7:13
  Speaker B: But she was originally supposed to be in Cap 4, too. Her scenes were cut.
• 7:18
  Speaker A: Is that the new one?
• 7:19
  Speaker B: I guess. I don't know. It's a shame. She could have reunited with Giancarlo Esposito in that movie. Maybe next time. Look at that. I found a way to bring up the new run of Marvel Marvel movies again. Can you tell? I've really enjoyed the last three we got.
• 7:34
  Speaker A: I couldn't tell.
• 7:35
  Speaker B: What? What?
• 7:37
  Speaker A: I can't say anything because I haven't seen anything.
• 7:41
  Speaker B: I honestly went into this hoping to enjoy the Scorch Trials. I wasn't expecting much, and I didn't struggle reading it as much as I Thought I would. Maybe it's because it was all new to me. I don't know. Teresa's betrayal was the most interesting thing in this book, while somehow being the most annoying.
• 7:58
  Speaker A: I think that's accurate. It is the most interesting thing that happens. But I still didn't like it or enjoy it.
• 8:04
  Speaker B: I was still like, I guess it's interesting. But I was still like. As I was reading it, and especially when the whole thing had played out, I was just like, why, though?
• 8:15
  Speaker A: Yeah. Well, the thing to me that was frustrating is the whole time, I just knew it was a ploy. Like, I'm like the. Like the. At least the initial, like, where she's gonna kill him or whatever. Like, I knew it was, like, an act, so I was like, okay. Like, it's just obvious that it's an act.
• 8:31
  Speaker B: I'm Team Brenda, by the way. She showed up in the book, and I went, this girl's got game. Plus, everything with Teresa is so fraught and tedious.
• 8:40
  Speaker A: That is true.
• 8:41
  Speaker B: However, I still think Teresa will be endgame. I've noticed that in most love triangles, the first one to be presented as a serious love interest is the one who wins.
• 8:50
  Speaker A: Almost always.
• 8:51
  Speaker B: Peeta Edward angel, kinda Jack from Lost. Speaking of that show. Also, Peggy. In the original Captain America movies, though, Sharon is barely there.
• 9:01
  Speaker A: To be honest, I don't even know who Sharon is.
• 9:03
  Speaker B: Ted, in How I Met yout Mother, who is Sharon? In the Captain America movie, Sharon is.
• 9:11
  Speaker A: Sharon.
• 9:11
  Speaker B: Peggy's niece, maybe.
• 9:15
  Speaker A: Oh, maybe you're right. Boy, I remember so little about some of those details.
• 9:19
  Speaker B: Yeah. Plus, there's so much more drama we're supposed to care about with Thomas and Teresa. And the whole you never get over your first love trope is popular for some reason.
• 9:31
  Speaker A: Yeah. That is. I don't. That's an interesting point. I don't know why that trope is so popular.
• 9:36
  Speaker B: Yeah.
• 9:37
  Speaker A: Personally, because almost every single person I know does, in fact, get over there.
• 9:45
  Speaker B: Yeah.
• 9:45
  Speaker A: You know what I mean? It is so exceedingly rare for a person. And maybe that's the idea, is that it's some sort of, like. Because it is so, like, rare for people that. That it's seen as this, like, coveted thing. But I don't know why. Because I can't. It's a weird thing to want to, like. It's a weird thing to aspire to. To me, I don't know. I'm sure it's a lot of it's rooted in, like, weird purity culture and, like, patriarchy and stuff, obviously. So I'm sure that's a big, like, plays a big role in it, but it is fascinating to me that even in relatively, ostensibly, maybe not progressive media, but like just it's so ubiquitous that it is like, it's just every story. It's like the. It tends to be the first, you know, whoever the first love interest introduced is, tends to be the final love interest, even if there are, you know, deviations along the way. And I think that's boring.
• 10:44
  Speaker B: I agree. The thing I knew about the Scorch trials is that there's a new girl love interest. The thing I know about the death cure is that I've got a good idea of the ending.
• 10:55
  Speaker A: But.
• 10:55
  Speaker B: But I don't know how the love triangle resolves. I still think Brenda's endgame. Shelby, I think you've made compelling points.
• 11:04
  Speaker A: I don't.
• 11:04
  Speaker B: But I still like in my heart, I still think Brenda's endgame.
• 11:09
  Speaker A: I hope Brenda is. I'm really like 50. 50. I could see it going either way, but part of me thinks that nothing about Dashner so far has convinced me that he's a particularly like subversive. Interesting or subversive. So like the most.
• 11:27
  Speaker B: Another compelling point.
• 11:29
  Speaker A: Yeah. The most obvious answer of like, yes, the. The first love interest introduced who seems to be like, you know, the, the OTP is like the. Yeah, the obvious one it will end up with, but we'll see.
• 11:42
  Speaker B: Also, I loved the little things and that the movie did with the Grievers, the one he hallucinates and the babies in the tank. That was worth the movie's vote.
• 11:51
  Speaker A: Fair enough.
• 11:53
  Speaker B: I did appreciate that the movie brought the Grievers back as the book did not.
• 11:58
  Speaker A: Yeah. A little reminder so that when they show up in the third movie to Kill Ava Page, we remember. Oh, that's right, the Grievers. And we set up the fact that they were the ones. Like they had them in their lab and stuff. I'm telling you, they're putting the movie is putting those pieces there for a reason.
• 12:14
  Speaker B: Our next comment was from Dylan Aldred who said, I haven't read the book, but I was 14 or 15 when this movie came out and I remember loving Last of Us and World War Z type zombies on. On rewatch. It's all right, but not much to write home about. I enjoyed a lot of the cast and the action was fun, but the story was pretty surface level and just felt like getting from set piece to set piece.
• 12:40
  Speaker A: Pretty much.
• 12:40
  Speaker B: Yeah. Fun thing. You mentioned that in the book there are a lot of no name characters with them who die to the obstacles. But in the movie it's just the main characters, so you know, they're all safe. However, in the movie there is one no name kid with them who has no lines and never has a close up as far as I remember. And according to the credits, his name is Jack. Oh, he actually has a death scene that was cut and is in the deleted scenes where he gets killed by the crank zombies when escaping the mall while. But apparently this was cut since the test audiences didn't know who he was and were confused at who died. So the scene was cut and instead he just disappears mid chase.
• 13:23
  Speaker A: Okay, fair enough. I will agree that it makes sense to cut him, obviously for the reason if the audience doesn't know who that is and what's going on. But on top of that, it seems kind of dumb to have somebody die to the cranks in that scene and then also have Hector get infected by them. You know, it's like, I don't know, having Winston. Sorry, Winston, not Hector, but I don't know. Yeah, Winston get infected by them in that same scene. Like it just feels like you're using two. I don't know.
• 13:57
  Speaker B: There's a hat on top of a hat.
• 13:58
  Speaker A: Yeah. Yeah. It's like, why would you not save one of those deaths for either earlier or later in the. You know what I mean? Like, it seems weird to use them both in the same scene if you only have two people that can die. Really? Yeah. Which I guess they could have killed more because they're changed so much of the story anyways. But true.
• 14:15
  Speaker B: I remember watching and being like, oh, there's one random dude with them he's screwed. And then when watching Winston's death scene, I went, wait, why are there only seven of them? Where did Rando go? Did I make up a character in my head?
• 14:27
  Speaker A: Apparently not.
• 14:28
  Speaker B: Our next comment was from Kelly Napier, who said I have to keep my comments short this time because I reread the third book immediately upon finishing the second one and now I'm getting details confused between the two and don't want to spoil anything. Kelly, that does not give me hope for this third book. That being said, it's the movie any day of the week. This book, as you both commented, felt so unnecessary as a whole because so little of consequence happens. The best thing was introducing Brenda and Jorge and may actually be the only good thing the book did. Pretty much my favorite part of the movie is the warehouse explosion. The use of Patsy Cline juxtaposed with the action scene. Was really enjoyable to watch, and since I knew the song from before, it served as a really effective countdown to the catastrophic incident. Our next comment was from on pace to match my year's reading goal by end of July. Who I believe is Nathan.
• 15:27
  Speaker A: Yes, I believe so.
• 15:30
  Speaker B: And Nathan said this is about as clear a choice as the POD ever presents. It's gotta be the movie. I honestly liked the film quite a bit more than y' all seemed to, and while I don't think it was super original, the characters have good chemistry and emotional resonance and the choice to cast so many great actors in side roles really, really, really works. I'm not going to pretend that I didn't find Thomas's closing a little sappy, but I was nonetheless pumped for the Death Cure movie. And even though now I have to read the book first, which really drags things down, that has been the summer series experience for the last few years. I didn't feel like the small size of the group of survivors meant there could be no deaths. To me, it didn't feel like anyone beyond Thomas or Teresa has real plot armor. Newt, Frypan and Minho are killable and honest and I honestly, despite having seen this movie before, thought that Jorge was going to die this time around. That seems like such a natural one and done for Giancarlo Esposito.
• 16:33
  Speaker A: I will agree that it felt like Giancarlo Esposito would sign on for one movie like in the middle and not two, but I agree that nobody has I I'm not sure that I thought they had. I don't those people don't have plot armor for the series like I expect some combination of nude Fry Pan, Minho. Yeah yes, Theresa Thomas to die in the next movie but slash book. But in this one, just having finished the book specifically I had a pretty good having and that was only having read the if I'd only watched the movies. Obviously you don't know who would or wouldn't die. My my guess from watching my point or our point I think was from having read the book beforehand and then watching the movie you go okay, well all of these characters that we're watching here are still alive right in the book and so odds are they're probably mostly going to survive this again. Doesn't mean they couldn't have changed it, but I just had a feeling that I felt like it sapped some of the tension for me that I just had a feeling that none of these characters that I cared about and again, as much as I can care about them were going to die.
• 17:43
  Speaker B: Speaking of TV stars guesting, Aiden Gillen is probably possibly the person in the world that most looks like a rat. So he was perfect cast.
• 17:52
  Speaker A: Can't disagree with that.
• 17:53
  Speaker B: He is kind of ratty.
• 17:55
  Speaker A: He is ratty. And they never mention it. They never mention.
• 17:57
  Speaker B: I know they never call him Ratman.
• 17:59
  Speaker A: In the movie, but that's who he is.
• 18:00
  Speaker B: But he is pretty ratty.
• 18:02
  Speaker A: He is.
• 18:04
  Speaker B: I didn't love Teresa's use in the film. She's just kind of along for the ride until her final betrayal.
• 18:09
  Speaker A: I agree with that.
• 18:10
  Speaker B: Yeah, I think that's fair.
• 18:11
  Speaker A: She is kind of doesn't have.
• 18:12
  Speaker B: She's kind of just there.
• 18:13
  Speaker A: Yeah.
• 18:16
  Speaker B: As far as the book, I think it might be one of the worst written books I've ever read.
• 18:20
  Speaker A: I don't know if I'd go that far in some ways, but anyway.
• 18:23
  Speaker B: In some ways. Yeah. I said for the last one that it wasn't the worst summer series. And while I think that's still generally true, this book is quite possibly the worst book I have read for a summer series. Did you read the Fifty Shades?
• 18:37
  Speaker A: Fifty Shades books, I would argue are worse.
• 18:40
  Speaker B: Fifty Shades books were so bad.
• 18:41
  Speaker A: I think they are worse. That would be the ones that I would say are worse.
• 18:45
  Speaker B: They're also way longer.
• 18:47
  Speaker A: Yes.
• 18:48
  Speaker B: Which is a big part of the problem.
• 18:49
  Speaker A: But I think other than 50 Shades, the Scorch Trials might be the worst book I've read on the podcast.
• 18:57
  Speaker B: I feel like, especially for a summer series, I guess I would have to. I don't know, I would have to really think about it. I fit. To me, this one is like neck and neck with Divergent.
• 19:10
  Speaker A: The series or which book like the series? I don't think it's even close. I think Divergent in retrospect. And maybe I'd be wrong if I went back and revisited. I think in retrospect, Divergent is infinitely more interesting than this series is. Personally, of the books, I think these movies might be better than the Divergent movies, even though we gave those ones all to the movies because they're much better than the books are. I think these movies are also much better than the books are. And I think. But I think these books, I think for these, the books are just more forgettable. Maybe. I don't know, maybe not.
• 19:46
  Speaker B: I've forgotten a lot about the recent series.
• 19:49
  Speaker A: Maybe it's just recency bias. But.
• 19:52
  Speaker B: Yeah.
• 19:52
  Speaker A: But if I had to rank them, I do think that I would put. I think I would put the Maze Trial basically on par or The Maze Trial, the Maze Runner, the first one, like, on par with all of the Divergent series is, like, equally bad. But I think Scorch Trials was a little bit worse than most of the Divergent series because it was just so, like, it felt so pointless. Like, that, for me was the big thing of just. It felt so meaningless. Whereas from my memory, at least, stuff was happening in, like, the Divergent, Allegiant, Insurgent, whatever series, like, books.
• 20:27
  Speaker B: I am really trying to think. I cannot remember a single scrap of anything that happened in the second Divergent book. What happened in that book.
• 20:38
  Speaker A: They get to the Amity Farms, they start planning some stuff. I don't remember. Again, I'm not saying it's like, a big difference. I'm just. They're very close.
• 20:53
  Speaker B: I feel like I'm having a very similar experience with this series as I did with Divergent. Yes. Where, like, the first book, I was like, this is not great, but I can see, like, the glimmer of an interesting idea in it. And then, like, it has just steadily gone downhill from there.
• 21:11
  Speaker A: Oh, yeah, I would agree. I would agree. I would agree. Like I said, I just. I don't know. I just. I. And it very well could just be a recency bias that I'm. Yeah.
• 21:20
  Speaker B: Okay, where did I leave off on Nathan's comments?
• 21:22
  Speaker A: As far as.
• 21:26
  Speaker B: It has all the major overarching problems y' all talked about, but also falls short on just simple stuff. Y' all mentioned the flat trans. And the meaning of flat trans is so obvious that I don't know who that line was.
• 21:38
  Speaker A: For kids.
• 21:40
  Speaker B: Yeah, it was.
• 21:41
  Speaker A: My only guess is just for kids who can't put that together, maybe even.
• 21:46
  Speaker B: If you somehow didn't get it, that fact changes nothing about this story, so why mention it? Also, at the Two Thirds mark, Thomas thinks that he couldn't remember the last time he'd been at such a loss for words. Well, I can remember, like, 20 pages earlier when he was silent for such a long time after finding something out from Brenda that she asked if he was asleep. Also, every other time that anyone gives him any new info and it just blows his mind.
• 22:16
  Speaker A: It is a tedious book to get to.
• 22:18
  Speaker B: Yeah, it is. It's tedious. All right. I believe this is our. Yes, our last Patreon comment was from Cottonwood, Steve. And Steve said, last year I jokingly mentioned you two should do the Maze Runner as a summer series. This is Steve's fault. I had only seen the first movie and I noticed my oldest nephew was reading the series. When his family visited from Colorado, I thought since my nephew is fairly discerning, this would be a good suggestion. And he gave it a thumbs up. I'm really regretting all of this. First and foremost, I choose the movie again. Now, the first movie was solid and the book was merely okay, but we hit some walls in the second book. I'm just going to call James Dashner the J.J. abrams of ya. Not sure if the title fits him because I don't read ya. I mean, I don't know if it fits him. I don't know if I don't.
• 23:18
  Speaker A: I don't know if the Champion.
• 23:20
  Speaker B: Yeah, I'm not sure if he would be like the top one.
• 23:22
  Speaker A: Yeah. But it definitely applies.
• 23:24
  Speaker B: Yes, for sure.
• 23:25
  Speaker A: It's definitely at least a J.J. abrams of the YA genre, if not the J.J. abrams.
• 23:32
  Speaker B: He created so many mystery boxes and asked so many open ended questions that the book became intolerable to read at several points. I like the weirdness, but it proved to be pointless in the end. After the about face at the end with Thomas, Theresa and Aerys, I wanted to throw the book in the trash. How much dumber could this story get? Desert Grievers with light bulbs.
• 23:56
  Speaker A: I think that's less dumb than the whole plot.
• 23:58
  Speaker B: I agree.
• 23:58
  Speaker A: Thomas, Teresa. I agree.
• 24:00
  Speaker B: I thought that was actually like weird and creepy.
• 24:02
  Speaker A: Yeah, like weird monsters is less dumb to me than all of the nonsense with that.
• 24:08
  Speaker B: I will admit I like the ending because it felt like a creepy X Files moment. RIP Mark Snow, by the way.
• 24:16
  Speaker A: Yeah, he said like yesterday or something two days ago. It's the guy, the composer who did.
• 24:19
  Speaker B: This theme song with Thomas in a padded room with a busted up desk and Teresa saying in his head, wicked is good. This was a book that.
• 24:28
  Speaker A: I will say I don't hate that setup for the next book. I just hate that it's the same basic setup from.
• 24:35
  Speaker B: Yeah, he's just doing the same thing.
• 24:38
  Speaker A: Like I think that's a somewhat. That could be like a somewhat fun, interesting, like twist. But it's just like. Okay. Yep. Nope. Same. Yeah.
• 24:47
  Speaker B: Yeah. And we'd end up just like back safe.
• 24:50
  Speaker A: And now he's in some weird situation that he's got to figure out. Like it's. Yeah, it's just repetitive. If the first book hadn't ended the way it did, then like I would have been less annoyed with the way the second book ended.
• 25:04
  Speaker B: This was a book that probably doesn't need to exist. You could probably jump to the death cure and most likely not miss much. That's My prediction when I start with that book today. And yes, I will continue because now I have to see how much the series will enrage me in regards to the wasted potential. Dashner made six books out of this. Yikes. My ADHD and completionist mind demands this. You have fun with the other three books, my guy. You could not pay me enough. Now for the movie. Yeah, it's mediocre. I give them props for using a lot of great physical sets rather than just making everything cgi. I found it funny that Brenda is a spicy, tough talking minority, which I bet is another high school trope since she grew up on the wrong side of the tracks. I think that's just a trope in general. I don't think that's. Yeah, I don't think that's unique to ya.
• 26:05
  Speaker A: But it is. But that like growing up on the wrong side of the tracks, like high school, that is. It is a trope within high school stories as well. But yeah, it's also just a broader trope of like the. Yeah, the like tough loudmouth minority person. Like that is a. Yeah, yeah.
• 26:22
  Speaker B: And particularly for like a Latina character. Yes.
• 26:25
  Speaker A: Yeah. Which I don't know. For ethnicities ever mentioned in the.
• 26:30
  Speaker B: That's fair.
• 26:31
  Speaker A: Yeah.
• 26:32
  Speaker B: Personally, I didn't like the fact that they borrowed ideas from other movies, both good and bad. The Flare virus sure seemed like the rage virus from 28 days later, complete with people chaining them up for personal reasons. Then they went all I Am Legend on us turning the zombies into nothing but monsters. When the book clearly showed there were levels to the infection, it would have been nice to see that. Plus, if they are in the mountains and need jackets to stay warm, wouldn't that be a major plot to saving humanity live in higher altitudes?
• 27:04
  Speaker A: Do they need jackets in the book? I think that was just a movie thing where they get to the mountains and it's like cold and they like have to find jackets to put on and stuff. It might. I don't remember them needing jackets in the mountains.
• 27:17
  Speaker B: I don't think they go very high up into the mountains in the book either.
• 27:20
  Speaker A: No, I don't remember though.
• 27:24
  Speaker B: You can't tell me Wicked would not be located in the highest mountains of the Sierra Nevadas at this point.
• 27:30
  Speaker A: Do we know where Wicked is? Like their head?
• 27:32
  Speaker B: I don't think so, no. I disliked the Heiress character. I kind of hated the fact that they didn't have the well equipped, cleaner and meaner Group B. And I wasn't a fan of the fact that they missed a Great tribute for Barry Pepper by poorly framing him in a Dutch angle shot as he fires the massive gun. For good, bad or bad bad fans, you know which movie I'm talking about.
• 27:56
  Speaker A: Yeah. I'm surprised they didn't. Well, not. I'm not surprised. I'm sure he was like, don't do that. Somebody would have suggested it. He would be like, how about you don't.
• 28:06
  Speaker B: Plus, hope is a bad thing is sure. Shawshank Redemption level glibness.
• 28:11
  Speaker A: I. I did notice that in the movie when they were talking about the, like, hope and somebody was like, hope. Somebody might have said, hope's a dangerous thing. I can't even remember. Like, in towards the end of the movie, somebody said Barry Pepper. Or somebody said that it wasn't Barry Pepper. I don't remember who it was, but. And I was like, oh, it's the slide from Shawshank Redemption.
• 28:30
  Speaker B: I can't wait to see what happens with the rest of the series. It doesn't matter which is better for. I just want some dang answers at this point.
• 28:36
  Speaker A: I agree with that.
• 28:38
  Speaker B: I still think Thomas will hook up with Teresa, but only if Brenda dies. I also think Newt is going to die in a shocking manner, mainly because the most recent book in the series is all about Newt's backstory. So some foreshadowing in my mind. And then he left a comment later saying, I stand corrected on my prediction. Apparently the book is about Newt as a sequel book. Never mind. So.
• 29:03
  Speaker A: Well, we just had that. I guess now we know Newt lives.
• 29:06
  Speaker B: Newt lives.
• 29:07
  Speaker A: Okay.
• 29:08
  Speaker B: At least in the book.
• 29:09
  Speaker A: Yeah, that's true.
• 29:11
  Speaker B: Plus, I wish they would have used a metal track rather than Patsy Cline. I love Patsy, but hearing Master of Puppets by Metallica or maybe Fur Fray by Rammstein or maybe going Emo with My Chemical Romance as teenagers. Just a thought. If I knew editing, I would do my own version of the scene.
• 29:34
  Speaker A: I don't. I don't agree. I don't think any of those would have worked as well as the song.
• 29:38
  Speaker B: I have to agree. I think that those all would have ended up feeling a little expected.
• 29:43
  Speaker A: Yeah, I think they would feel a little.
• 29:45
  Speaker B: I don't. I don't.
• 29:45
  Speaker A: Especially because it's Jorge's music. Not that it wouldn't make sense, like maybe Metallica or whatever, but I don't know if Jorge be like a big MCR fan. I don't know. It doesn't necessarily fit his character. To me. I. I think that would have felt the. The. Now, to be fair, I don't think it's particularly unique or original for the movie to have all of the. The action and violence set against sort of a.
• 30:13
  Speaker B: Right. That juxtaposition is not like particularly unique.
• 30:16
  Speaker A: But it's at least interesting. Whereas just like a metal song as things are exploding is like, okay, like, yeah, like I don't know. To me it just feels a little like, yeah, expected. And at least they picked something that was particularly unique and not just like, I can't even think of a good example. But yeah, I don't know. I prefer the movies version, but.
• 30:43
  Speaker B: All right. And Steve's last comment was, I'm not listening to my 14 year old nephew anymore.
• 30:48
  Speaker A: Generally. Probably a good idea.
• 30:50
  Speaker B: Yeah, yeah.
• 30:50
  Speaker A: They don't know anything yet. They're too young.
• 30:53
  Speaker B: He's just a baby.
• 30:55
  Speaker A: Yep.
• 30:56
  Speaker B: All right. Over on Facebook we had two votes for the movie and zero for the book. We had one comment from m' Aladdin who said, this time I chose the movie over the book. And no, it's not because of my unpopular opinion from the previous episode.
• 31:15
  Speaker A: Oh, did they choose the book? Yeah.
• 31:17
  Speaker B: Okay. I found the first 25 chapters of the Scorch Trials book to be quite boring and it only became more interesting and engaging once we met Jorge and Brent.
• 31:27
  Speaker A: I would agree with that. It gets more interesting in the second half.
• 31:30
  Speaker B: Yes, for sure. The only standout moments were Ratman providing exposition to the crew, Teresa acting strangely, kissing Thomas and then telling him to go away. In the movie, Ratman, also known as Jansen, was a much better character. Aiden Gillan portrayed him as both charming and evil, bringing more presence to the role compared to the book. Aeris in the movie is a more sweet and innocent guy who has spent time in the maze with the girls and reunites with them later when he sees Harriet and Sonya. I liked this portrayal, but also appreciated his character twist. In the book. Harriet and Sonja were better utilized in the movie as members of the rebellion, whereas in the book they work for Teresa after she captures Thomas and are quite forgettable. Aside from Sonya kissing him. I don't remember that.
• 32:19
  Speaker A: I don't remember that at all. I don't remember that she kisses him. Yeah, I don't remember that.
• 32:26
  Speaker B: Jorge in the book felt like a stereotype from a 60s Western, existing mainly to help our main white protagonist. However, in the movie, brilliantly played by Giancarlo Esposito, he is depicted as a smart and cunning leader who will protect his daughter and others at all costs.
• 32:44
  Speaker A: Just to clarify, I don't think she's actually his daughter, but yeah, like adopted daughter, essentially, or. I don't even think they, like, define their relationship that way, but that's just kind of like, the vibe of their relationship.
• 32:56
  Speaker B: For sure. Brenda in the book seemed written mainly as a love interest for Thomas, but I did enjoy it when she punched him for saying she was probably a terrorist. In the movie, Brenda is portrayed as a much stronger, more beautiful, and more capable than her book counterpart.
• 33:13
  Speaker A: I don't.
• 33:13
  Speaker B: I'm glad we all have the same, like, hots for Brenda in this. In this little.
• 33:19
  Speaker A: I'm not sure I would say that she's portrayed as much more beautiful in the movie, because I don't. She's repeatedly described as very attractive in the book. We just can't see her so much.
• 33:30
  Speaker B: We can't see her in the movie.
• 33:31
  Speaker A: Yeah. But I agree, she's a more interesting character. Actually, I don't know. She's kind of more interesting in the book. I just don't know if it's in a good way. Like, I think the. The weirdness of her character in the book and the fact that she is, like, infected and kind of dealing with that for most of the book is compelling. And then some of the weird background. Like, I think that stuff is interesting. And in the movie, she's fine as a character, but I don't know. I don't know if she's a more interesting character in the movie, but.
• 34:07
  Speaker B: I.
• 34:08
  Speaker A: Think it's good that they got rid of some of the stuff that made her, quote, unquote, more interesting.
• 34:15
  Speaker B: Yeah. And we also might be running up against the same thing that we noticed in the first movie, where we're seeing the performance from an actor, and that's really helping us along with the character.
• 34:28
  Speaker A: So it's adding a lot of layers to a character that is pretty thin in the look. Yeah.
• 34:33
  Speaker B: Now let's discuss Thomas and Teresa. Teresa in the book, while absent for a good portion, like most of the book. Yeah, most of the book had more intriguing plot points.
• 34:43
  Speaker A: I mean, she does have more to do in the book than in the movie. It's. Yeah.
• 34:49
  Speaker B: This included her leaving the group, telling Thomas to leave her alone, and eventually capturing him to take to Wicked. Although the last few chapters are a bit hazy. I remember her crying and apologizing to Thomas at one point. She does rescue him, if I remember correctly, in the end, but he ends up in a white room with no escape.
• 35:09
  Speaker A: She doesn't. Does she rescue him? I don't think she res.
• 35:16
  Speaker B: Um.
• 35:19
  Speaker A: She does apologize for, like, what she did several times.
• 35:22
  Speaker B: I mean, she. She does some stuff at the end that is. I don't know if I would directly say rescuing him, but, like, they're fighting the light bulb monster. Things, like, side by side at the end.
• 35:38
  Speaker A: Okay.
• 35:38
  Speaker B: And I don't remember if there's, like, a direct.
• 35:41
  Speaker A: I was trying to think if there was a specific moment where, like, something is happening to him where she. Like. I just couldn't remember that. So I. Yeah, but maybe. Yeah, I don't remember. To be fair. Muladin says they don't remember.
• 35:56
  Speaker B: In the movie. Teresa's betrayal seems more reasonable, but it didn't have the same emotional impact as her book count counterpart.
• 36:05
  Speaker A: I don't know. I don't. I don't think me. Either of them had a ton of emotional impact for me. I. I think the movie had more. Because I could kind of understand.
• 36:16
  Speaker B: Well, I think I could understand her.
• 36:17
  Speaker A: Motivation better in the movie, whereas in the book.
• 36:20
  Speaker B: Yeah, to me, made it feel more emotionally resonant.
• 36:23
  Speaker A: Yeah. Because in the book, the fake one is, like, at least on the surface level, more like, impactful and like, whatever the word is, her portrayal in the book, the fake one feels more emotionally impactful because it's, like, super intense. But it's also, to me, was very obviously fake. And then once we've. Even if you don't expect it to be fake, once it's revealed it to be fake, it's like, okay. And then her ultimate twist at the end, which isn't even really a twist, but, like, the ultimate actual betrayal at the end, where she's like, wicked is good or whatever, is not nearly as. I wouldn't. I don't know if that's even a betrayal because it's hard to tell in the book at that point why Thomas is in the situation he's in, in the room. If Theresa's responsible for that, like, you know what I mean? Like, we don't know how that all came about or what's going on there. So I'm not even sure how much she, quote, unquote, betrayed him at the end of the book. She just agrees, at least to some extent, with the mission of Wicked, whereas he doesn't seemingly, even though it's a. It's even. That's kind of muddy in the. I think the book does a bad job of exploring that, and the movie does a much more concrete job of, like, exploring, like, their motivations of, like, and how they feel about Wicked. So I don't know. Yeah. I'm not sure I would say that the book's Betrayal is more emotionally. Or at least for me, it wasn't more emotionally impactful. I thought the movies were.
• 37:58
  Speaker B: Yeah, I think what the book does with Theresa is maybe more unique than what the movie does. But again, because I did not understand anything about what Theresa's motivations were in the book, I had a hard time feeling emotionally impacted by what she was doing.
• 38:17
  Speaker A: We don't know her motivations for the fake betrayal until after it happens. So we don't know what's going on. Going on there. And then once after it happens, it all gets undercut because he's like, well, it was all an act. It was fake. Blah, blah. And then for the final reveal at the end, where she seemingly again has sided with Wicked, we have zero content, no idea answers or what's going on. So that one also left me going. I don't know. Like, we'll see, I guess, maybe.
• 38:41
  Speaker B: I think throughout this entire book, I was too busy going, what the heck is happening?
• 38:47
  Speaker A: Yeah.
• 38:48
  Speaker B: To have any kind of emotional connection to anything that was happening other than annoyed. As for Thomas, outside of his constant need to find Teresa, the book version didn't provide many memorable moments. Yeah, yeah. A few stuck with me, such as the memories of his parents and their involvement yet to be revealed. Thomas killing someone and being surprised by it, despite nearly beating Gally to death in the first book. And his capture by Teresa, which left him emotionally broken in that white room, ultimately deciding to stop playing their games.
• 39:27
  Speaker A: Is that what I feel? We don't know why he's in that room.
• 39:31
  Speaker B: No, we don't.
• 39:32
  Speaker A: He falls asleep and wakes up and. Yeah, and we don't know why he's in that room. And Teresa says Wicked is good, but we don't know for sure.
• 39:39
  Speaker B: We don't know how involved she is.
• 39:41
  Speaker A: Or, like, where everybody else. We don't know anything. Like, we just. Yeah. So. Well, I guess we'll have to see.
• 39:47
  Speaker B: Perhaps Aladdin is just misremembering.
• 39:50
  Speaker A: Or has read ahead.
• 39:52
  Speaker B: Yes. Or has read ahead and knows more than we do. The movie version of Thomas remains a Boy Scout who tries his best to help everyone and find answers. Overall, I prefer the movie over the book. I might not be able to share my thoughts on the third book because I plan on spending time in nature with books in hand and staying off social media.
• 40:11
  Speaker A: Good call.
• 40:11
  Speaker B: Good for you. Hope you both are doing well and take care.
• 40:15
  Speaker A: Thank you.
• 40:19
  Speaker B: We didn't have any comments on Instagram this time. We did have four votes for the movie and one for the book with an asterisk because it was from Tim Wahoo, who's not a real person, doesn't count on threads. We had one vote for the movie and zero for the book. And Gumby, okay, 234, said, after my failed attempt to read the first book, I didn't even try with the second. I'm chalking it up to the fact that I'm older than the author's targeted demographic.
• 40:49
  Speaker A: Yeah.
• 40:50
  Speaker B: I still want to know where the name Frypan came from. And then later, they commented again and said, I gave up and hit the Maze Runner wiki. He was originally named Toby.
• 41:02
  Speaker A: Okay.
• 41:02
  Speaker B: Wicked named him Sigmund Freud and Siggy in parentheses. The Gladers called him Frypan because he was the cook.
• 41:11
  Speaker A: So we have, like, Inception levels of nicknames here.
• 41:14
  Speaker B: Yes. So I'm not looking forward to all of their actual names being revealed.
• 41:19
  Speaker A: I feel like that's going to be. Yeah, that's. Oh, my God. Why would you get. Okay. I mean, I guess it doesn't matter. And it's probably realistic, quote unquote, for some of them to use the fake name that Wicked gave them, while other ones have nicknames based on, like, other stuff that, like, arose while they were in the Glade. But it is funny when. When you don't ever tell us Frypan's name.
• 41:56
  Speaker B: Yeah.
• 41:56
  Speaker A: But we do know that most of the names are based on science, that all the names supposedly are based on famous scientists. And then we're going, well, for the boys. Sorry, for the boys. Yeah. And then we're left going, well, what is Fried Pan? Because we never have heard Siggy or Siggy anywhere, Right?
• 42:13
  Speaker B: No, no, that does not ring a bell to me. And it's literally just Frypan who has, like, a Glade nickname.
• 42:21
  Speaker A: I think so, yeah. I think he's the only one.
• 42:23
  Speaker B: Nobody else has one.
• 42:24
  Speaker A: A nickname like that, at least that I can recall, which is definitely annoying.
• 42:32
  Speaker B: All right. Over on Goodreads, we had one vote for the movie, zero for the book. And Miko said, like, with the Maze Runner, I couldn't find any deeper message in this book. But more importantly, I couldn't find any plot. Things happen, sure, but it's such a random mess. Dashner really invented a way to justify literally anything. Anything that happens is just a variable, capital V in the trials, capital T, no matter how little sense it makes.
• 43:04
  Speaker A: Not wrong.
• 43:06
  Speaker B: The movie mostly fixes that a generic plot is better than no plot. I agree. My headcanon is that they needed the maze to stress out the kids, to massively increase the enzyme production. Okay, they have to invent something that's at least a reasonable something. Yeah, it's weird. I can justify the idea of torturing kids in the lower tech movie assuming my headcanon, but not the actual construction of multiple mazes. Conversely, in the book, I can buy WICKED making the maze with their super science, but I can't convince myself that it was the best plan they could come up with to save the world with everything else they have at their disposal.
• 43:46
  Speaker A: It does. It's just. Yeah.
• 43:48
  Speaker B: No matter the angle, the world building makes my head hurt, that is.
• 43:51
  Speaker A: Yep.
• 43:52
  Speaker B: As a fan of hard sci fi, it's so difficult for me to read about this post. Apocalypse with force fields, teleportation, bioengineered monsters, telepathy, mind control, murderous anti gravity goob, secret tattoo machines, and plenty more, because I cannot help but try to make sense of it all and fail spectacularly.
• 44:13
  Speaker A: I really do try to not overly nitpick stuff like that because it is like you can go down a thing where it's just like, yeah, it's just a story. Not every little L, you know, like, sometimes those things don't all add up, but it is one of those things where it's like, man, I think what it is is when you, when you. The reason I think that myself and Miko focus, and other people, I'm sure, focus on those kind of details in a story like this is that when the characters are so boring, when nothing seemingly, you're not getting any answers to the plot. Like, you have nothing but time to think about the world and like the world building and how much sense it makes sense and how much sense it doesn't make because you have nothing else to really be worried about. Whereas if I was like, really emotionally invested in these characters, I don't care if how. Like, I wouldn't think that much about, like, the logistics of why do they need to do all this? You know, like, yeah, yeah, yeah.
• 45:06
  Speaker B: Thomas feels much more proactive in the movie. In the book, after he's shot and fixed by Wicked, I really wanted him to stop playing the game as clearly Wicked doesn't want him to die. They're fine killing plenty of the rare immune kids, but not Thomas. You have leverage. Use that. I much prefer the kids actively driving the plot forward and not just being passive pawns. The Scorch trial seems like an even worse experiment than the maze. At least in the maze, Wicked could control most things. Now I want to read a version where Thomas just randomly slips while running and cracks his skull open, leaving Wicked Scratching their heads, wondering if this was really such a good idea.
• 45:48
  Speaker A: Well, and the thing that's frustrating in the book, too, is, like, they go into this whole conversation after that whole event about the. Where they come in and get him, where they're like, well, they must. They must. There must be, like, certain ways we can die that are fine.
• 46:01
  Speaker B: Yeah.
• 46:01
  Speaker A: And certain. Maybe certain people can.
• 46:04
  Speaker B: Like where they all sit around and try to figure it out.
• 46:07
  Speaker A: Yeah. But. But we never get an answer. And so it's like, well, who.
• 46:11
  Speaker B: Yeah, who cares?
• 46:12
  Speaker A: Yeah. Because it doesn't matter. We don't know. So we're just going, well, I guess maybe we'll find this out one day. Like, what the rules were, like, who could live? And you know what I mean? So it's like, okay, like, I get.
• 46:23
  Speaker B: I guess. I guess.
• 46:25
  Speaker A: I guess, like, because that's what they say in the book is like, well, the gun being in the. In this area was like, not what they. You know, that was like, outside of their variables or whatever. So they can't. They won't let Thomas to die that way because it's outside of the variables they are controlling or whatever. And you're like, okay, but then. So, like. But also. You think. But you're, like, also wondering, well, maybe it's that. Or maybe is it just that Thomas himself is so important that they won't let him die, like, regardless. But it doesn't seem like, can they control the lightning? Like, is that a thing? They can.
• 47:00
  Speaker B: Right. You know what I mean? They could have gotten taken out by a bolt of lightning.
• 47:04
  Speaker A: Unless they are controlling the lightning, but we don't.
• 47:07
  Speaker B: Which feels unlikely.
• 47:08
  Speaker A: Unlikely, but we don't know. They could have. They have transportation. Like, maybe they could have, like, weather. I don't know. So we don't know. And again, it just always comes back to we don't know, because that's the whole point of the book. And so you're just going, well, I don't know. And if I don't know, I guess I shouldn't care, because it doesn't. There's no way you can have answers until eventually maybe you will get some answers one day.
• 47:29
  Speaker B: Well, and then the other, like, the frustrating thing coming off of that to, like, connect back to what you were saying a minute ago. If I cared about the characters, I might care about whether these questions get answered.
• 47:40
  Speaker A: Yeah.
• 47:41
  Speaker B: But I don't.
• 47:41
  Speaker A: Yeah.
• 47:42
  Speaker B: So I don't.
• 47:42
  Speaker A: Yeah. Yeah.
• 47:45
  Speaker B: All right. Miko's last thing here was a couple of random ramblings. I'm starting to Suspect that the first symptom of the flare virus is giving things stupid capitalized names. The gone Berg Underneath the tower, bliss, etc. Yep, I understand what Dashner was trying to do with that, but it's also like, okay, guy, yeah, sure.
• 48:11
  Speaker A: I will say in particular the gone one is dumb. Yeah, like the berg or whatever. Or like Bliss being a drug. But the term gone, when referring to people who are like cranks or whatever, who are. Have reached a certain level of the disease or whatever. Yeah, that shouldn't be capitalized.
• 48:33
  Speaker B: I agree.
• 48:33
  Speaker A: That should just be like the word gone. Like they're gone. I don't know. That's just. Yeah. There are times like that where you're like, okay, that. That one doesn't need to be like a thing. Like it's not a proper noun. It's just. Just a descriptor. But okay.
• 48:50
  Speaker B: Those air vents they crawl through are the biggest I've ever seen. Even in movies.
• 48:54
  Speaker A: I have the exact same thought watching the movie. They are truly maybe the biggest events I've ever seen in a movie. And that was another reason, I think at the beginning that my brain was going, are they. Is this part of the plot? Because they have these gigantic human sized.
• 49:09
  Speaker B: Not only are the vents gigantic and human sized, but. But the. The dropdown that they go through appears to be made specifically for them to go down.
• 49:19
  Speaker A: It is hinge. It's hinge so that it opens, but then also has some sort of latching mechanism where you can shut it from the ground. Like he swings it back up.
• 49:28
  Speaker B: There's no reason for it to have all that meant for people to crawl through the vents.
• 49:33
  Speaker A: Yeah, no, I thought the same thing. I was like that. Yeah, they are truly gigantic events. It's crazy.
• 49:40
  Speaker B: Alan Tudyk was a total surprise, but a nice one.
• 49:44
  Speaker A: Yep.
• 49:44
  Speaker B: Agree. And this last note here, which was some thoughts that I was having, I.
• 49:50
  Speaker A: Wrote this in the book, my book notes. I have the same note in there.
• 49:54
  Speaker B: Is Harriet named after Harriet Tubman and Teresa after Mother Teresa. I disliked naming the boys after scientists. I like this even less.
• 50:06
  Speaker A: So I had the same note about Harriet. Yeah, I was like, is Harriet named after Harriet Tubman? Because oof. Was my right. Yeah, that's an interesting choice. Teresa I hadn't put together with Mother Teresa. I had assumed that she was also named after a scientist just because she was in the group.
• 50:23
  Speaker B: Okay.
• 50:24
  Speaker A: Their maze.
• 50:25
  Speaker B: So I looked that up after like racking my brain trying to think of a female scientist named Theresa. So I like looked it up and I don't know, because I think I just looked on, like, the Maze Runner wiki or whatever. So how accurate this is, I have no idea. But it did say that she was named after Mother Teresa. I know. I know. Just possibly the worst decisions we could have made.
• 50:55
  Speaker A: No. Well, her turning out to be terrible, secretly, surprisingly, would actually be a great. Maybe it's a great writer.
• 51:01
  Speaker B: Yeah, maybe. Maybe James Dashner is actually really clever.
• 51:05
  Speaker A: Yeah, could be.
• 51:08
  Speaker B: All right. And Miko rounded this out by saying, for similar reasons as to what you discussed in the episode, I prefer the movie over the book, though I think the gap between them is larger.
• 51:20
  Speaker A: Yeah. I don't know. Probably. I did. I did really dislike the book, and I thought the movie was fine. Fine. I think the biggest thing for me is that I preferred the adaptation of the first movie more as an adaptation. And so I think I liked the first movie more than I liked this movie, which might have been. But I also liked the first book more than I liked this book. So maybe that was, like, kind of measured, like, weighing my. I don't know, like.
• 51:49
  Speaker B: Yeah, I don't know. I feel like I disliked them pretty evenly, but for different reasons.
• 51:54
  Speaker A: What do you mean?
• 51:55
  Speaker B: The two books.
• 51:56
  Speaker A: Oh, okay. Yeah. Yeah. No, I preferred the first book, I think, generally. But, yeah, maybe not. You're right. This one had more interesting stuff in it.
• 52:06
  Speaker B: Yeah.
• 52:07
  Speaker A: But it was also more tedious.
• 52:09
  Speaker B: More tedious and more frustrating.
• 52:11
  Speaker A: More pointless than the first book. But it did have more interesting and a little bit more interesting characters.
• 52:16
  Speaker B: Was so boring. Like, it felt like nothing happened. 300.
• 52:20
  Speaker A: But I felt that way about this book, too. I don't know. I.
• 52:24
  Speaker B: But things were happening in this book. They just didn't matter.
• 52:27
  Speaker A: Yes. Maybe that's. Yeah, I don't know. I guess we're.
• 52:30
  Speaker B: That's what I'm saying.
• 52:30
  Speaker A: We're arguing here. Yeah.
• 52:32
  Speaker B: A similar level of dislike, just for different reasons.
• 52:35
  Speaker A: Yeah, fair enough.
• 52:38
  Speaker B: All right, well, our. Our winner this week of the listener polls was the movie with 12 votes to the books, one with an asterisk.
• 52:48
  Speaker A: Fair. Fair. 12 to nothing. It won 12 to nothing. Yeah, there you go. All right, thank you all very much for all of your comments and input about the Scorch trials. Katie, it's time now to learn a little bit and preview at the same time. Sleeping Beauty. No matter what anybody tells you, words and ideas can change the world.
• 53:11
  Speaker B: All right, kids, we're in my wheelhouse now. Sleeping Beauty is a folk slash fairy tale that has been adapted and retold in countless variations throughout history. It has its own ATU index type. It's type 410, Sleeping Beauty. Since it's been a minute since we covered a fairy tale, I'll go back over this. ATU stands for Arne Thompson Uther Index, which is a catalog of fairy tale types used in folklore studies. And what that does is identify similarities in various stories across culture cultures, and uses those similarities as a method of categorizing the stories.
• 53:54
  Speaker A: Yeah.
• 53:55
  Speaker B: So in the case of Sleeping Beauty, in order to be included under ATU 410, the folktale must include. Must feature a number of common motifs, most importantly a princess who's magically forced into sleep and then later woken up. But also may include more specific motifs like a slighted fairy or witch, a magic spindle, a magic castle surrounded by a hedge, etc. So Sleeping Beauty is actually a bit younger, quote unquote, than other fairy tales we've covered on the show. Cinderella and Beauty and the Beast are both ancient.
• 54:31
  Speaker A: When you say ancient, you're not using that technically, right? No, like not the ancient world.
• 54:36
  Speaker B: Very, very, very old. Like inception of storytelling kind of old. Ish.
• 54:43
  Speaker A: Okay.
• 54:44
  Speaker B: And then Rapunzel is thought to have pre Christian origins. But the farthest back we can definitively trace Sleeping Beauty is the Middle Ages to a chivalric romance that I'm gonna butcher the name of Persiforist, which was written in French sometime in like the 1330s or 1340s. That actually lays the groundwork for Arthurian legend.
• 55:11
  Speaker A: Okay.
• 55:12
  Speaker B: Now it's possible that Sleeping Beauty was inspired by the story of Sleeping Brunhild and the ancient Norse. Again, I'm going to butcher this Volsunga saga which then would potentially put its origins like way earlier. But my understanding is that.
• 55:30
  Speaker A: Into the ancient world, actually. So you maybe, maybe.
• 55:34
  Speaker B: My understanding is that that's a little complicated because most of the Volsunga saga is derived from the poetic Edda or Edda. I'm actually not sure. An accurate dating of those poems is a source of much scholarly debate. So, like, maybe, but we don't know for sure.
• 55:51
  Speaker A: Okay.
• 55:53
  Speaker B: But jumping forward in time, the story gets easier to trace. The next most well known variation is Italian poet Giambattista Bellissi's Sun Moon Antalya.
• 56:06
  Speaker A: Is it Basile or Belise?
• 56:07
  Speaker B: Basil. Basil. I don't know.
• 56:10
  Speaker A: Well, I don't know. It's spelled on here with the S first and then.
• 56:13
  Speaker B: Oh, you're right, it is.
• 56:14
  Speaker A: I don't know.
• 56:14
  Speaker B: I just watched Batista Basil's Sun Moon Intalia.
• 56:19
  Speaker A: Okay.
• 56:20
  Speaker B: Which was published posthumously around 1635. Fun fact, if you've ever had someone tell you that in the quote unquote original Sleeping Beauty, the prince impregnates the princess while she's still asleep. That comes from Basile. Okay, so thanks for that one, my guy. Then up next, after that, we have French author Charles Perrault's version, the Sleeping Beauty in the Wood, which was published in 1697. Perrault's is largely considered to be a direct adaptation of Basile's version. Both of them are written in two parts, which some folklorists believe may have originally been two separate stories that got, like, sandwiched together somewhere along the line.
• 57:09
  Speaker A: Interesting. I mean, they must have narratively followed well enough to combine them somehow, if that were the case, at least.
• 57:17
  Speaker B: And then we have the Brothers Grimm version, which was first published in 1812 and is titled Little Briar Rose. And the brothers actually considered not including the story in their collections on the grounds that it was derived from Perrault's version. And they smell the French all over it. And they were. They were specifically collecting German stories. Like, that was their whole. That was. Their whole mission was to collect German folklore. They were like, scholars and folklorists. They were not writers, authors.
• 57:54
  Speaker A: I mean, I knew that. I just didn't know that they had that. That they were specifically looking for German.
• 57:58
  Speaker B: Yes.
• 57:58
  Speaker A: Okay.
• 57:59
  Speaker B: So they almost did not include that one because they were like, it's too French. But the presence of the sleeping Brunhilde story convinced them to include it as an authentically German tale. So there you go. And their version is actually the only known German variant of this story.
• 58:23
  Speaker A: I don't. Maybe I don't. My geography is a little rough. But why would it being a. I'm trying to go back here. Where was.
• 58:33
  Speaker B: You're asking why they would count the Norse story.
• 58:35
  Speaker A: Yes. Why would the Norse thing be all.
• 58:38
  Speaker B: Under the umbrella of Germanic, like, folklore?
• 58:41
  Speaker A: Okay.
• 58:41
  Speaker B: It's the same umbrella.
• 58:42
  Speaker A: Interesting. I know it's a big umbrella, the European history.
• 58:46
  Speaker B: But it's the same umbrella.
• 58:48
  Speaker A: Like what. What was considered what parts of what is obviously very.
• 58:51
  Speaker B: And it's all, like, messy and complex. Yes. And it's all, like, kind of extra messy because a lot of the, like, Germanic folklore and paganism tradition got, like, really, really, really wiped out by early Christian. So there's a lot about that that we just, like, don't know and will never know. Thanks for that. So for this episode, I will primarily be looking at the Poirot and Grimm's versions of the story. So we're going to look at Perrault because the Disney film is supposedly adapted directly from that. That's according to Wikipedia and the sources that I've looked at. We're also gonna look at Grimm's because there is at least one element from it that I know is in the Disney film, but that does not appear in Pierrot.
• 59:50
  Speaker A: Okay.
• 59:50
  Speaker B: And I'm interested to see if there are any other similarities that we actually got from Grimm's.
• 59:56
  Speaker A: All right. Well, speaking of the Disney version of the story, it's time now to learn a little bit about Sleeping Beauty. The film Sleeping Beauty, sparkling with colorful.
• 1:00:06
  Speaker B: Spectacle, brimming with gay music and delightful.
• 1:00:09
  Speaker A: New songs, filled with fascinating new Disney characters. You'll meet lovely Princess Briar Rose. I wonder why each little bird has.
• 1:00:26
  Speaker B: A somewhat to sing to.
• 1:00:32
  Speaker A: I will say before I get started here that I didn't. So a lot of the stuff on Wikipedia about this that I was looking at, a lot of the production stuff was about, like, writing the story and the changes. And I didn't. I saw that that was. Most of it was about. I didn't read it intentionally and didn't include it because kind of feels contrary to the point. When I was a little kid, I don't remember anything about it. So I don't remember, like, what's in it or what. I remember, like, literally nothing about it. I know I have seen it, though, but. So I intentionally didn't read all that and didn't include it because going through, like, the changes they made in the prequel is kind of runs contrary to the whole point of our show.
• 1:01:11
  Speaker B: Yeah.
• 1:01:13
  Speaker A: But a lot of that information about, like, what versions they did and stuff was included in the Wikipedia. I just didn't read it. So getting into the notes. 1959 film directed by Clyde Geronimy, who was the assistant director on Dumbo, an assistant director on Bambi. I think that's what I put ad in now I can't remember. And then was a director. Cinder. Now why did I put that son of a gun. I put, like, shorthand notes in here. About what the different roles. Doesn't matter. I'm just going to say worked on Clyde Jeronamy, worked on Dumbo, Bambi, Cinderella, Alice in Wonderland, Peter Pan, lady and the tramp, and 101 Dalmatians, all in various director roles of varying levels. Because for these animated films, there are different types of directors, including the supervising director who's like the head director, and also sequence directors, which this film also had three of, including Erik Larson. Who worked on. Was an animator on Snow White, an animator on Pinocchio, Bambi, Song of the also, and then worked on maybe a director on Song of the South, Cinderella, Alice in Wonderland, Peter Pan, etc. Wolfgang Reitherman, who was the. I worked on Sword in the Stone, Jungle Book, Aristocats, Robin Hood, the Rescuers and others. And Les Clark, who was primarily an animator, but also directed a bunch of shorts. And it was written by Erdman. Why did my notes disappear? I'm also fairly certain, and I don't know why I had numbers in here that are missing. I'm fairly certain Erik Larson, Wolfgang Reitherman and Les Clark are all members of the old Nine Old. Whatever that.
• 1:02:55
  Speaker B: I think you're right. Yeah. The nine old Men.
• 1:02:56
  Speaker A: I had a nine next to their names. And now it's not in my notes to remind me of that. And I don't see that in my notes. So I'm confused. But I swear I wrote that down when I was writing these notes originally to remember to say that. Anyways, it was written by Erdman Penner, who has the primary story by credit, who was a writer on Cinderella, lady and the Tramp, Peter Pan, Alice in Wonderland, Pinocchio, and then also has. There's additional story sequence or story writing contribution credits for Joe Rinaldi, Winston Hibbler, Bill Peet, Ted Sears, Ralph Wright and Milt Banta. So it's always hard with these animated movies to talk about the director and writer. Cause there's 80 of them and you don't know what they were.
• 1:03:38
  Speaker B: Well, and this one, I suspect, is particularly worse because it was in production hell for a long time.
• 1:03:44
  Speaker A: Yeah, yeah. The film stars Mary Costa, Bill Shirley, Eleanor Audley, Verna Felton, Barbara Luddy, Barbara Jo Allen, Taylor Holmes and Bill Thompson, among others. I'm sure everybody knows all those people very well. Every time I read these for like the old Disney movies, I'm like, nobody knows who the fuck any of these people are. And that's unfair to them. I'm sure they were popular people back in the day. I'm just for modern audiences. We're like, I don't know who any of these people are.
• 1:04:10
  Speaker B: I think Eleanor Audley also was the wicked stepmother in Cinderella, I think so.
• 1:04:15
  Speaker A: I think she had quite a few prominent roles. And yeah, the film has a 90% on Rotten Tomatoes and 85% on Metacritic and a 7.2 out of 10 on IMDb. It was nominated for both an Oscar and a Grammy for Best Music or it was best Soundtrack for the Grammy and Best Music for the Oscar, but did not win either. And it made $51.6 million against a budget of 6 million. But I believe that I read somewhere that in its initial release or whatever, because the budget was so large, it was kind of a flop. Not a flop, but it did not do as well as they needed it to.
• 1:04:51
  Speaker B: That's what I've always heard about it.
• 1:04:54
  Speaker A: So Walt Disney considered the story for adaptation as early as 1938, but the project didn't move forward at that time. But then, after the positive response to Cinderella, Disney decided to register Sleeping Beauty as a planned production in 1950. The storyboard for the film was completed in 1952, but Walt rejected it because he thought it was too similar to Cinderella and Snow White. And his big thing was that he wanted it to be different because obviously it's a similar. Not a similar necessary story, but it's a princess story based on a fairy tale. They wanted to make sure it was different. So turns out they actually spent three years searching for the voice actress for Aurora. She was ultimately discovered by a composer named Walter Schumann, who heard her sing at a dinner party and recommended that she audition for the role. Originally from Knoxville, Tennessee, she had a strong Southern accent. That almost meant she almost cost her the role. But then she proved that she could do a satisfactory British accent.
• 1:05:50
  Speaker B: I read this in your notes earlier, and I would have never in a million years guessed that, unless Wikipedia's lying. Just like based on her performance in the movie.
• 1:06:03
  Speaker A: The film was originally planned to be released in 1955, but there were significant delays that pushed the film back for years, leading to its ultimate premiere in January of 1959. And they began production in around 1950, so 10 years in the works. One of the main reasons that delays were caused was because a lot of the people who were working in the studio on the film ended up getting reassigned to TV series that Disney was working on, at the time, as well as very specifically the development of Disneyland, because this is when Disneyland was in development. Walt himself also caused quite a few delays because apparently he insisted that he oversaw every aspect of the film, despite the fact that Disneyland's development was consuming most of his time. And so the animators on the film apparently were very frustrated by this. The delays were like, Disney wants his fingerprints on all of this, but he's never around, or he's too busy working on Disneyland to work on the movie, but still wants to be involved and blah, blah, blah. It's always so funny to me hearing about all of these, like, Beloved pieces of media that were always, you know, developed under these kind of things where it's like, yeah, like, like, you know, the idea that art. I think it's easy to look back at these kind of projects and be like, oh, well, it must have all went very well. Yeah, this all must have, like, to.
• 1:07:22
  Speaker B: Kind of like, mythologize it and idea.
• 1:07:24
  Speaker A: It turns out, no, everybody hated Walt and like, it took 10 years to make and everybody was miserable the whole time. And there was like, they, they, they rejected the first set of storyboards because, like, he hate. He thought it looked too much like the, you know, the other movies they'd done and all this sort of stuff. And it's just like, yeah, it's. It's a miracle any of these movies ever come out in or any good. But speaking of, there's honestly too much information about the production of this film on the Wikipedia and I didn't want this to be two hours long. So go check out the Wikipedia page about the art inspiration and the anime process and all that is very interesting. It's just I didn't want to go on forever because I knew we already had a long episode. I'll shorten and say, basically a lot of the inspiration for the visual elements of the film were pulled from, like, illuminated manuscripts and traditional medieval tapestries and all that sort of stuff. I love the art in this movie specifically. There was one artist that I can't remember his name now, who basically was given. Who's like, was put in charge by Walt Disney of like, the entire look of the film. I can't remember the guy's name, but he, like, was very involved in, like, how the movie looks. So getting this, a couple of IMDb trivia facts that I thought were interesting. The running gag of Flora and Merryweather arguing about whether Aurora's dress should be pink or blue originated from the filmmakers arguing about the same thing.
• 1:08:45
  Speaker B: Creative problem solving.
• 1:08:47
  Speaker A: Yep. And apparently, despite the fact that, like, a lot of the toys of Aurora at the time and stuff that came out, she is wearing a pink dress in the movie. She almost wears that for no time at all.
• 1:08:59
  Speaker B: Yeah, she's mostly in the blue dress.
• 1:09:01
  Speaker A: Yeah.
• 1:09:01
  Speaker B: There's a whole thing. Are you talking about, like, toys then or. I don't know, because the Disney princess lineup, there's a whole thing about that.
• 1:09:08
  Speaker A: Sure. I have no idea. I remember reading, like, one note about it and I. Yeah, I didn't write.
• 1:09:12
  Speaker B: It down, but yeah, she mostly wears the blue dress in the movie.
• 1:09:15
  Speaker A: Yeah. This was the last fairy tale produced by Disney until the little mermaid in 1989. So there was a 30 year gap between fairy tale stories. Look for out for the hidden Mickey Mouse when the fairies are discussing how to help the king and Queen Merryweather makes cookies in the shape of Mickey Mouse.
• 1:09:32
  Speaker B: Apparently I didn't realize they were doing that that far back. That's crazy.
• 1:09:38
  Speaker A: Queen Leah is the first mother of a Disney princess to be alive during the film and this would not happen again until Mulan in 1998. They really love killing off moms in the Disney movies and then getting to some reviews. And I believe these are all contemporary reviews until the very end of this. For Billboard, Ron Gravatt called the film, quote, disney's best, complimenting its score, colors and the final battle, which he described as a hair raiser for the youngsters and grown up alike. Variety praised Mary Costa and Bill Shirley's performances and called the scenes involving three good fairies, quote, some of the best parts of the picture, end quote. Kate Cameron for the New York Daily News wrote that the film, quote, will charm the young and tickle adults, and praised his story in voice, acting and the animation. George Burke for the Miami Herald described it as, quote, a magnificent achievement offering suspense, action and happy humor in a truly giant sized package. Lorna Carroll for the St. Petersburg Times called it a masterpiece and the last word in the art of animation, end quote. However, Sleeping Beauty is, quote, far more magnificent, far more advanced. It does not touch the heart as did Snow White, end quote. So didn't think it had quite the emotional heart that Snow White did, but as a artistic piece was on par. Henry Ward wrote for the Pittsburgh Press saying, quote, it is undoubtedly will find the children, will undoubtedly find the film completely enchanting and saying that more mature audiences, quote, may find this new effort somewhat of a carbon copy of previous Disney animated features. Bosley Crowther, writing for the New York Times, said, quote, the colors are rich, the sounds are luscious and magic sparkles spurt charmingly from wands. But he thought that the film's plot and characters were too similar to Snow White and the Seven Dwarves. Philip K. Shewer of the Los Angeles Times praised the film's visual design, the animation and the three good fairies and Maleficent, but criticized that it stereotyped human characters and found sorry things popping up on my screen, and found himself more impressed by the accompanying short film, Grand Canyon. Then for the Pittsburgh Post Gazette, Harold Cohen praised the film's sharp and unmistakable art, style and animation, but thought the characters were underdeveloped and not exactly memorable. Harrison reports also noted that the film was similar to Snow White and the Seven Dwarfs, saying that although Sleeping Beauty is, quote, unquestionably superior from the viewpoint of art and animation, of the art of animation, it lacked the unforgettable character songs and overall entertainment appeal of Snow White. And Time harshly criticized the film, particularly its design, saying even the drawing in Sleeping Beauty is crude, a compromise between sentimental cran book childishness and the sort of cute commercial cubism that tries to seem daring but is really just square.
• 1:12:30
  Speaker B: And oh, I think whoever wrote that review did not understand the art style at all, apparently. I could not disagree more and I.
• 1:12:38
  Speaker A: Couldn'T find a score for it. But they. Ebert and Siskel. Siskel and Ebert reviewed the film on their TV show when it got re released in like the 80s or whatever. And Ebert praised the film for its animation, saying, quote, it was lively. It's a lively and playful retelling of a favorite fairy tale. But I couldn't, like, when I went to his website, I didn't see an actual review for the film with like a score. So they might have just been chatting about it on their show or something. So that's it. Katie, where can people watch Sleeping Beauty?
• 1:13:10
  Speaker B: Well, as always, you can check your local library or a local video rental store if you have one. Probably a good chance you'll find this one at the library.
• 1:13:20
  Speaker A: I think so, yes.
• 1:13:22
  Speaker B: Otherwise you can scream this with a subscription to Disney plus. I did not see that it was streaming anywhere else, at least not in the US or you can rent it for around $4 from Amazon, Apple TV or YouTube.
• 1:13:37
  Speaker A: There you go. Yeah. Disney plus seems like the obvious.
• 1:13:40
  Speaker B: Well, sometimes that's. Sometimes their stuff is also on Hulu.
• 1:13:43
  Speaker A: Yes, that's true. Because it's owned by them.
• 1:13:45
  Speaker B: Yeah, they're owned by the same Disney thing.
• 1:13:47
  Speaker A: Yeah.
• 1:13:48
  Speaker B: I'm very, very, very excited. I have a huge soft spot for this movie.
• 1:13:54
  Speaker A: I'm interested. Like I said, I don't. I don't know if I remember a single element of this film other than she ends up asleep. Like, somehow I, I truly, I don't. I. I know I have seen the movie when I was a little kid, but I. It's not like one that I ever watched. To be fair, most of those older. The older Disney were not ones that I watched much.
• 1:14:19
  Speaker B: I think this might have been like the classic Disney that I watched the most growing up. I was a little scared of it.
• 1:14:26
  Speaker A: Oh, interesting.
• 1:14:27
  Speaker B: But I really liked it, I think.
• 1:14:29
  Speaker A: Of the classic Disney, if I had to say What I probably watched the most, My guess would be maybe like Pinocchio.
• 1:14:35
  Speaker B: Pinocchio's terrifying.
• 1:14:36
  Speaker A: Or like Fantasia maybe.
• 1:14:38
  Speaker B: Oh, no, you're right. I probably watched Fantasia more.
• 1:14:41
  Speaker A: Maybe because I wasn't a big Snow White. I didn't really care about Cinderella. I'm trying to think of the other I wasn't big on.
• 1:14:52
  Speaker B: Peter Pan.
• 1:14:52
  Speaker A: Peter Pan or oh, Dumbo.
• 1:14:55
  Speaker B: Oh, yeah, I wasn't big on Dumbo. Upset me this year.
• 1:14:59
  Speaker A: I remember thinking it was sad when.
• 1:15:00
  Speaker B: I was a little kid.
• 1:15:02
  Speaker A: So I think if all of the like, of that era, like, you know, the pre. Like, right.
• 1:15:06
  Speaker B: Like, yeah, like Walt is still alive era of Disney.
• 1:15:10
  Speaker A: Jungle Book would have been. But that was like right at the end.
• 1:15:12
  Speaker B: Yeah.
• 1:15:13
  Speaker A: During the production, Jungle Book and Pinocchio were the two that I probably watched the most. But even those, not a ton, I was much more. I would watch like Aladdin, like the stuff that came out.
• 1:15:22
  Speaker B: I mean, obviously I watched that stuff more. But I have a huge soft thoughts for Sleeping Beauty. I love the art, I love the music, I love the animation. So I'm very excited to talk about it.
• 1:15:34
  Speaker A: Let's do it in one week's time. Until that time, guys, gals on battery.
• 1:15:39
  Speaker B: Pals and everybody else keep reading books.
• 1:15:41
  Speaker A: Watching movies and keep being awesome.