And we are live. Welcome, welcome to my channel, where you've never appeared before, have you? Never. I'm completely new. No one knows who I am. If you would like to introduce yourself for that person that doesn't know who you are. I am Book Born from the channel Book Born, and I talk about fantasy and sci-fi, and Liana and I like to be salty together, and sometimes positive. I feel like we're quite positive about our saltiness. We're upbeat. It's not really a downer. That's true. We're upbeat about our saltiness. I'm just like, what positive live shows have we done? American Gods. American Gods. And I'm sure I'll think of one. Sort of Besser Cold. Besser Cold? I mean it was mostly positive. I think our TBR swaps weren't utterly disastrous. There was some positivity in there. That's true. There was. And we talked about the heroes once on a podcast. That was positive too. But that's about it. I feel like we are quite positive, even if we're generally ranting and being salty. So anyway, we are here today where we're allowed to rant once again, but we're also going to be positive. It's going to be both. We're talking about good and bad adaptations, what makes an adaptation good, what makes an adaptation bad, and then some of our favorites and least favorites. We'll probably talk about those throughout. But at the end, we can just completely off-road and just start fangirling about the ones we like and venting about the ones we hate. Perfect. So hello, Beth. Hello, Urza. Hello, hello. So yeah, I mean obviously there's been a lot of adaptations recently. That's kind of why we're doing this. We've both been covering quite a few of them. They are. It's both a great time and a terrible time to be a fan of SFF adaptations, because like there's a lot.  The execs, the people with money have finally realized after years and years that nerd nerdiness is cool. SFF is cool. And it's not like money. They will spend cash. Yes, we're here to talk about Dear Heaven Hansen, correct. Jenny Nicholson said anything there was to be said about Dear Heaven Hansen, so you guys can go watch that. Yeah, just watch all of Jenny Nicholson's content. Don't watch our channels. Just go watch Jenny Nicholson. Just go watch Jenny Nicholson. She's way better. Yeah. But I feel like, I mean, I think, I guess we're, well, I was going to say we were going to talk about it anyway, but I'll just start there with Lord of the Rings. But when Lord of the Rings, the films came out, they were sort of the exception, not the rule. Like they were one of the few fantasy things out at the time.  So like Lord of the Rings is like kind of a gold standard, but also it was kind of by itself too. So like everyone saw it because if you were a fan of SFF, it's not like there were 50 things to heap up with. That was the only one for a very long time. Yeah. And it's interesting when you think of the Lord of the Rings, they took a lot of risks. And I think people don't remember that because it's just so successful now. But I remember in particular, one of the risks they took is they filmed all three at the same time and they talked a lot about what a risk that was because if it didn't perform, they were out of a lot of money. And sometimes I can't prove this, but sometimes I do feel like No fact. The less successful adaptations today, I do feel like are lacking any risk. Like sometimes I'm like, you were just so afraid to do anything that nothing was accomplished. And again, it's funny to think of the Lord of the Rings as a risk since it is just so in our... Like everybody just knows about it and it just is. It's so successful, but they took a lot of risks and they did a lot of things. That could be said, obviously it's not always 100% across the board, but I think a lot of the time, the ones that... And I get not just adaptations in general, creative endeavors, the ones that were a risk are the ones that we remember as being successes. Certainly there are risks that didn't pay off, but it's rare that something that is considered bankable by... That something is considered a classic where the story behind it is like, oh yeah, the CEO signed off on that immediately. Everyone knew this would be a hit and it was. Which is like, when will you guys learn that when you like cookie cutter manufacture something where you think you've checked all the popularity boxes? That is like 0% chance of succeeding. It's so true. Like any super, super successful thing, literally every single one is like, no one thought this was going to be successful. Like literally anytime, Star Wars. Even like recently, Hamilton. I love reading about how everyone was like, no, this is a terrible idea. You should not do this. And of course, like you said, there's tons of bombs that also have that, but it is interesting to see that like almost every successful thing has that in its story. They're risky because that's what's going to be art. Like you said, if it's cookie cutter, it's probably just not going to mean a lot to anyone.   In a vein, I feel like you and I have talked about that a lot with like the strong female character, like a good female character will come out and then like a million copycats that don't understand why it was successful. Like Katniss, that's the really famous one, like the Hunger Games. You saw a million Katniss copycats and none of them came close to the original. That's because usually I feel like the, there's part of it that's a lack of creativity when you're just copying something, but there's also a lack of understanding of what made it successful in the first place. It's a very surface level understanding, be it a female character or a story or whatever. So someone who takes Lord of the Rings and cynically is like, Oh, what made the successful is that there are sweeping landscape shots, an epic score and a large cast. And that's all I need. If I do that, then people will like it. And that's not the secret sauce. Like those are great things that make it a beautiful film. And those are certainly like pluses. Like those are good things about those films, but that's not what makes them. And so in the copycats, they emulate only the surface level. I mean, Game of Thrones copycats are the same.  Got it. And you're like, I mean, yes, there was violence in Game of Thrones and people did find that refreshing as compared to more traditional fantasies like Lord of the Rings. They're like, Oh, fantasy could be edgy. I didn't know. So like, yes, that was a plus, but it's not like Game of Thrones was just Lord of the Rings with blood. That's not what made it a success. So, but that's what they thought because they did know. Well, it's a lack of understanding of writing and characters and what makes a successful story. And I think that's what I'm personally seeing in the Rings of power. It's not like I think it's so going for it. I'm just going for it. I really happen like thinking like they, they put in tons of characters and they put in interesting things without any understanding of how it works. And, you know, I was thinking of other big cast and so like one is the Stormlight archive. What's interesting is everyone will be like, well, or the wheel time, the wheel time has a huge cast. The Stormlight archive is a huge cast and no one complains about that and they're complaining about Rings of power. But if you look at those books, they actually start from a main perspective for quite a bit of time. By the end, by return of the king, you have a lot of perspective, but you didn't start with that. You didn't start there. In fact, I'm going to be making a spreadsheet to prove it, but for my final video, you're with Rand for like 70% of the first book. And then even in the second book, you may have four perspectives, but they're all the main characters from the first book. And then it keeps adding and saying the Stormlight archive, something interesting about that is in the first book, we call it like the Calden's book and the second one Shalon's book. So even though they're secondary characters, Calden has the most chapters in every single part. And the same with the second one Shalon. So someone carries the book. And what we're seeing in the rings of power, no one carries it, not even Galadriel. It seems like Galadriel in the beginning was going to like if someone then her, but then her not really. And that might have been smart. You know, and I, but instead it's just like, we'll give you all of it in the first season. And it's just a lack of understanding of how you write a large cast of characters. Well, it's also, I think a lack of understanding of like when to do which thing, but the same as like a, and I mean, we're here to talk about adaptation. So that'll be part of it is like, when it's, when it's something that should be true to the book, because this really works on screen. And when you, it's a really bad idea to do it exactly like the book, because that's not going to work on screen. And so the same thing of like, sometimes you need to have a bunch of different characters doing a bunch of different things. And that's what this story calls for. And sometimes the story calls for zeroing in on your main protagonist. And you need to know what story you're telling. And then choose the appropriate medium and also like style of telling that story. And you can't just be like, well, this one did a bunch. So that's, I guess we can do that.  Yeah. And I think on a good example of that is, the end of the first hunger games. Did you like the hunger games adaptations? I never read the books. And I only saw the movies like years later. Like, that hype train miss me when I eventually saw the movie. I was like, oh, this is pretty good. So I, I read the books and was a huge fan of the books. And I'm also quite a huge fan of those adaptations, particularly the first one. So what you may not know is like the dogs at the end of that movie. In the books, those are like generated. From the dead contestants.  And it's like this really traumatizing thing for Katniss. It's pretty grim. It's a great thing in the book. I was so happy they didn't do it in the movie because how could you possibly do that without it just being a cheese test? And people complained about it, but I was like, good choice. Like it's just that will not carry in a movie. And I think you have to understand like the mediums are different. And so reasons like as much as I think the scouring of the shire is integral to the Lord of the Rings. I do understand why they took it out and it was probably a smart decision because the movie would just been too long. Like it just, that's not going to play in a movie like it plays in a book. Well, there's a lot of things like that's why when I, when I was a kid when they came out and only years later read the books. So, you know, there's, maybe I would have hated the movies if I had loved the books first, but like, you know, I'll never know. But when I read the book and it is quite different in certain, in some respects, it's like truly, you know, it's like carbon copy and in other respects, they took some liberties. But for the most part, I think people come to respect the films because when it took liberties, it was because a filmmaker was like, I am making a film. And no matter how much I love this book, if I make a film that is exactly like this book, it will make a terrible film. What makes a good book does not necessarily make a good film. So like all the times they stop to sing a song and recite a poem, you're like, in a movie, your story like grinds to a halt and it would completely ruin the pacing and ruin the stakes and the tension and just, it just wouldn't work. It is beautiful and it is like part of the lore of the world, part of what makes it feel like this mythic world. And you lose that in the movie. But I don't think that the movie would be better if you suddenly stopped your adventure story to have Aragorn recite a poem. Like that would work. I think it's bringing in songs when they could and they chose the appropriate moments for that. Yeah. And I think the problem is ultimately, I feel like where we're going to get is there's an intrinsic value that makes something good and it's not either, there's no formula. That's the ultimate answer. You can't take a book and go, well, if we don't have A, B, C, D, E, we'll have a good adaptation. The problem is, is it does take someone with artistry. Like if it's art, it's an art to do it. And so the people who hit gold, hit gold. And I don't, I don't know what to say other than I think some of these shows could have more editors. Like sometimes I'm like, did anyone watch this? Did anyone read this and edit it before you filmed it? Because it feels like if enough regular Joe's can be like, this is questionable. Someone in the writing team, you know, I don't know. Yeah. And I think on a horse. I'll give a lot more grace to something if I feel like it attempted to do something outside the box. And maybe it didn't work out. Maybe that was a terrible idea, but you tried to do a thing as opposed to just copying another thing. And I will always give points for the attempt at the audacity of creativity. You know, so like, if you're tanking, I feel like the idea of copying some other adaptation is 100,000% always the wrong idea. You need to take the story you're telling and figure out what works for it independent of what anyone else has ever done. And I mean, here and there, of course, you know, artists, you know, stand on the shoulders of the people that came before them. And something that you previously thought was unadaptable. If you see somebody adapt something that is in some respects similar and that it was possible that can get your like wheels turning about, okay, maybe it's not impossible. How can I make this work? Because apparently it can. So like people said, Dune is unadaptable. And originally I would have said the movie they made of it would have confirmed that it is unadaptable. But then it comes along Denis Villeneuve and of course there are changes, just like, but that's why I compared Dune to the Lord of the Rings films because he did for Dune what Peter Jackson did for Lord of the Rings. Yeah. Dune was so good. I forgot. Did you tell me I liked Dune? Full disclosure. When Lana told me to do this, I was like, Oh, no, I haven't liked any adaptations recently. And then you listed a bunch I liked and it made me feel better. I think I thought of Dune. I'm not sure if I said it. I was like, I've listed enough. Someone did just say he said, yeah, Shadow and Bone was really good. Although I have to admit I read the book like the Six of Crows books after. So sometimes I don't count it as much if I experienced the show first. I do feel like I tend to be less critical. But I think this comes to like another point of conversation, which is like what makes a good adaptation right? Other than just like we've been talking about like making the right choices for your story, which is a big part of it. But there's also is your adaptation only going to appeal to a fan of the book or is it only going to appeal to somebody who's never read the book or will it appeal to both? Ideally it appeals to both. Someone who's read it and who's never read it will be equally engaged and, you know, a lot of the fans of the books liked that. And it definitely worked for me because Zach and I both were obsessed with the show and that's why I read it even though it was YA. Like really particularly the Six of Crows part of it. The best part. Yeah. Like the cat, like just everything about it was just so well done. It's also an example of a fandom very positively receiving huge changes. Like the fact that they took later books and mushed them together like that sounds like when I heard they were doing that, I was like, okay. I was like, I'll watch it, but I don't know. And it was good to hear that we were going to be participating, but always makes you like, okay, maybe, maybe it's not, you know, going to be awful. And they did a great job in the fact that they had to change so much just to accomplish that. And fans were like, yeah, this is good. You did a good job. No one that I saw was mad that they had to change. And I think that's a good example. And this is definitely something important of the people who adapted that understood the characters. They knew who everyone was. And because they, they understood and knew the characters, they could write something that was convincing, even though like you said, I forgot, like it's a prequel, right? To Six of Crows books, like this didn't even exist, but everyone was who they were. And I don't know how you get sure that is really helpful. Peter Jackson, you know, where Tolkien was dead. Like, so I don't think, I mean, Frank Herbert. Well, yeah. I mean, in the case of, yeah, he's dead. His son took over. Okay. I was just like, oh no. It's a very similar situation to Tolkien with the son carrying on with the. Except that he wrote, except I think people like how Tolkien's unhandled it better than because I don't think as far as I know, Tolkien's son didn't like it write his own novels. He's just kind of like put it in, like, a bit of a plot. So I just like. I filled in the gaps to like make cohesive. Like books out of what was previously just more notes. But I'm the show runner for Shadow and Bone was a huge huge fan of the books. And so if you can't have the author to have someone like Peter Jackson, Denny Villeneuve, the show runner for Shadow and Bone, who are fans of the material and this can be a who loves the material will, you know, come at it with the same creativity and enthusiasm as the author would. Yeah, and it's hard because I talked about this a little bit in the Wheel of Time video I made. There is this push now where they claim everyone's a fan. They're like, Rafe Jenkins is a super fan. Sorry, I'm very skeptical about that. Everyone's a super fan, blah, blah, blah, blah. So it's kind of hard to see through it, but you can always tell, I feel like, in the end, which is why I don't believe Rafe Jenkins is actually having the Wheel of Time. So I believe the Shadow and Bone showrunners fan because when they first announced that a deal had been signed, that they would be making a show, the showrunner was at a book signing with Lee Bardugo at Barnes & Noble and they were just talking about how they'd been talking about these books and how he got an early copy of one of them and read it in the limousine on the way to an event and then demanded the next one from her. And they were talking like friends who had known each other for a long time about the books. And I was like, I think he's a fan. Like, I don't think he'd fake this. Well, it's like him.  What's his name? Henry Cavill. Henry Cavill, like, you know he's actually a fan. Like, when you hear him talk, like, you're like, I believe him. He's a nerd. He's a nerd. He likes all the things and you're like, I believe you and that's why people love him. I think you definitely can get the sense when like, it's true and when it's not true, but everyone just likes to claim it now. Which is also the same thing in an adaptation. You know, you can tell if it was made by people who were like sincere in wanting to make this. There's like, I think a lot of, that's when the same, what I was saying about it, I give a lot of grace to creativity. I also give a lot of grace to enthusiasm. You know, like I would rather have a, something that's lovingly made, even though like the budget wasn't there. So like, some of it doesn't look that good. And like, they, you know, but they, they had their heart in it. And I mean, like, Princess Bride, like as a film doesn't really look that good. You know, like it's, unlike Lord of the Rings, it has a nice- The budget was tiny. Yeah. And so like when you, everyone loves it and no one's sitting there going, you know, like these rocks look fake. And, you know, this is a terrible movie because it was made with a lot of love and enthusiasm and has great characters and great personality. And so I would much, much rather have that than something that looks gorgeous rings of power and has no heart, no soul, no, no care and attention to the story. Yeah. It's funny you mentioned rings of power because one of my old videos, I did like a plot of success versus budget. And that movie is like the most outlier ever of like zero budget, but like 90% score ever. Yeah. So I was going to say this. It's interesting when people are talking about the rings of power and you may disagree with this, Leanna. As much as I think rings of power is failing, I do get the sense that they were trying. I think they were trying. I think they believe that they were trying. It's just, it failed. Like there, there is a level there where I think like they really wanted it to be like the Lord of the Rings. They wanted it, but in surface level ways. Well, but they weren't skilled enough. Like that's my point. There's a difference between someone who sits up here and I was like, I'm changing it because I'm better than you. Versus I feel like they wanted it but they just don't have the skill or the story knowledge to carry it because of the way they're presenting people, I do feel like they wanted it but they have zero understanding of how to actually write a good character. I don't know, everything I've heard from them, it doesn't feel like they're like, we're better than JRL token. But some people think that because they made it anyway. I don't know, it's hard to say. I mean, it's also as much as people like to, sometimes it's true in the case of Game of Thrones, there was very clearly two people in the last few seasons that ruined this and everyone else was just fine. But for the most part, you know, it takes a village. So like, yes, the show runners will take the front of it, the script writers will take the front of it. You know, it takes a lot of people approving something and that will override what a writer originally wanted to put on screen and say, no, market, you know, studies show we need to have this in there instead. And the writer is like, I mean, if you like read the opener for The Forward for Neverware by Neil Gaiman, which was originally written for television, The Forward is him saying, on set, every day when they were filming it and they kept taking stuff out that he'd written and he just kept saying, it's okay, I'll put it back in the book. It's okay, I'll put it back in the book. It's okay, I'll put it back in the book. So like, you know, there's a lot of people who are making those decisions and oftentimes it can be too many cooks in the kitchen, you know, where like there's a creative vision of like a single individual and Peter Jackson very much feels like it was his vision for Lord of the Rings and obviously it took a ton of people to like execute on that, but it was his creative idea that like was the ultimate kind of guiding force of the whole project. Also, I mean, I'm sure you have, I've read way too much behind the scenes about Lord of the Rings, just like full disclosure. I'm sure you have as well. But it is interesting when you have someone like that at the helm that is so- Did you know that Viggo Mortensen actually broke his foot? Oh my goodness, no, I've never heard that before. I think what, you get the sense that because he had such a strong vision, it inspired everyone else. When people talk about that, they're also inspired and it is interesting when you see some of the less successful shows, at least for me, people feel less inspired. When you hear them talking, there's less of that and I don't know, it's interesting. I know a lot of people disagreed by what I said about Rings of Power. It's fine, I get it. I think it's bad to people. Okay, I'm just trying to give them a little bit here. Trying to put it out. I do think you're right though about the market research. I do sometimes think that gets in the way and I said this literally like eight months before Rings of Power came out. I said, the budget scared me. I said, they're going so hard on saying how much budget they have. We have 450 million and I thought, that's a bad sign. That's a bad sign because them going so hard, so excited about how much budget they have means they think budget makes a good movie. Well, it's also something to be said for- Unless you're spending all of that on writers. There's something to be said for the creativity that is forced on you when you have limited resources and often the best thing, I mean, just speaking personally, some of my best recipes I came up with when I had not gone to the grocery store and I didn't have a lot to work with and I couldn't go and get any ingredients I wanted to. I was like, okay, what do I have? What can I make with that? And I make something up and it becomes a stable recipe because like, wow, this was actually kind of brilliant. I would never have put this together if I hadn't been down to these two ingredients, but I was and this actually worked really well. So like the way that being limited in your resources kind of forces you and constrains you and makes you think outside the box, like what can I do with what I have? Instead of we have all of the time, we have five seasons and all of the money on the entire planet to just waffle away and do whatever we want instead of like, okay, we have limited time, limited money. What can we do with that to really make this work? And in fairness, like at least rings of power does look good in terms of- Expensive, it looks expensive. It looks expensive. I mean, except for some of the armor. Like ever since you pointed out the armor to me, it is not the bane of my existence, Liana. Like if you just kind of pointed it out, there's this meme that it looks like paper plates and like I've never gone over it. Like it's all I see. But it's that kind of thing too where it was, that's why I keep saying it's surface level because like a lot of it is like, it's form over function, you know, where they're like, oh, this would look kind of cool. And you're like, okay, but what makes something feel really cohesive is when you thought about would it function, would these characters really wear this? Would these characters use this? Does it make sense for them to do this? Because ideally you come up with both. You're like, okay, what would these characters need to have? What would it make sense for them to do? Now, if this is what it makes sense for them to do, how do we make this the prettiest version of that instead of we want it to look like this. It doesn't matter if it makes sense that they would wear this or use this. Yeah, it's interesting. This isn't an adaptation, but I watched a behind the scenes with the costume designer of Stranger Things and hearing how she talked about how she costume them, like how their personality traits and what colors and are they in fashion. There's always so much more thought to it than you think. Yeah, and sometimes it's like, then I started noticing shows where maybe they don't do that. And I do think Rings of Power is something where they spent way more on the landscape than on what the characters were wearing because for me it was Bronwyn that showed out to me because I have complained about that dress. I owned that blue maxi dress in 2010 and it's so distracting. And so it's interesting, again, it's like throwing money at something. If you don't have the people who are so inspired and it just doesn't mean much. Also, I do have to say Alex said something up here. So I haven't seen episode seven yet. Can someone spoil it for me? Is the gladiator part a dream? Like is she having a vision when she just stands there and the volcano is exploding on her? Okay, well, I thought that's what it was. So I feel very sad now. If only. So yeah, that's sad. But I'm told that it's fantasy, so science need not apply and the rules are whatever they say they are for a magic volcano, so. So I definitely feel that way about fantasy. Doesn't need to make any sense. I've said that so many times, just do whatever. That's why I love Darling Girl so much. Oh yeah. They should adapt to that on Lifetime. That's a deep cut for anyone here. But I mean, the same behind the scenes, you look at Lord of the Rings stuff and the stuff that like the same, as you're talking about stranger things, stuff that you don't even clock. You don't know that they're doing it. But like subconsciously, it all comes together to form a whole that on a, that's why you look at it and go, I don't know why, but this feels real. And then you look at something else, you're like, this, I don't know why it doesn't feel real because in Lord of the Rings, every single like scabbard and every single like cuff of every single extra that's in the army was like handmade and hand-worn so that it looked like it had been used by this person for their whole life so that when you have this wide shot of just a crowd of people that you do not see any of those details, but you do. But you feel it. It comes, the whole looks right. You're like, this looks right.  Yeah, and I think in the Lord of the Rings too, they had a lot of like real weight props and swords and stuff like that and all that stuff just, it contributes. What do you think? In your opinion, are there broader cultural trends that make poor writing adaptations more likely? I don't know if it's cultural trends as much as just what kind of show is trending currently like we talked about at the beginning where, okay, Game of Thrones is successful and Game of Thrones has violence and sex.  It's not because George R. R. Martin's a good writer. It's because there was violence and sex. Right, and that's my biggest fear about them. Someone like taking Abercrombie's work, being like, look, there's violence and sex in it. Let's adapt it. It's like, no, no, no, no. Luckily he is alive. So hopefully he'd be involved and be around to be like, I trust Joe, but I think if someone, someone could read a book like that and think that. And so I think it's a lot more about TV trends. And so they see something like, hey, Shadow and Bone is successful and Game of Thrones is successful. Well, we're gonna do Wheel of Time and there's zero understanding of why this property is there. So I don't know, I guess, is that cultural? I don't know if that's cultural. I think it's more just time dependent on what's going on currently. What do you think? Or there's also, again, like either a trend in TV, like you say like, oh, Game of Thrones is popular. We have to have our own version of that instead of let's stand out with our own thing that looks distinct and different from that. Cause like that, I think would make more sense because you have a unique product to offer instead of a shadow of something else. But regardless, I think there's also the, if there's a story that just feels relevant for the current time, you know, that you find it, like Handmaid's Tale felt very relevant for the time. So you pick it up and you adapt because like now's the time for it. So there's some of that and there can be like a rush if there is a story that feels particularly relevant to just like, oh, we have to adapt that because like the current time, it's relevant for that with not any attention to like, you know, how to actually do it properly. Is this actually the right time? Are you forcing a message on it? Cause you think it already fits the current time. So you're just gonna make it do more of that instead of tell the story that it's actually telling, you know, stuff like that. Yeah, and I definitely think there is a trend nowadays to, I don't know if I've talked to you about this over DM. We're like, there's a fear of being misunderstood. Yes. We totally talked about that. Okay, we did talk about that. There's this fear of being misunderstood in a way that sometimes when they're adapting something, they're trying to inject the point into it. And you're like, look, can you trust your audience a little bit? Like I think we'll get it. Or if we don't get it, that's also okay. Like there are levels to a story and when you try to be so obvious or tell, then your story becomes one note. And I think that's also issues we're seeing, like for example, in rings of power, where a story that they're trying to give depth ends up reading like there's not a lot going on. Yeah. I don't need to keep, you know, picking on rings of power. I think a lot do this. Okay, carry on. I think a lot do this, but it's just like the most recent example. Well, and I mean, I know, you'll just have to take my word for it because you're not watching House of the Dragon that both shows their, I think I've certainly talked about this before about how like if you have comedy and drama, side by side, they both feel more heightened by that juxtaposition.  So like having these shows on at the same time is House of the Dragon is a great show and it just looks miles in a way better because it's next to rings of power. And rings of power is not great and it looks miles in a way worse because it's next to House of the Dragon. So like, you know, they already like, it's not that that's why one looks good and looks bad, but it's making it more extreme. Yeah, for sure. And speaking of House of the Dragon, which I haven't watched or read, so whatever. But I've seen a lot of people posting about it. And one thing, I guess they posted a quote that there's this actor, and George R. R. Martin said he's doing a better job of portraying the character than he even wrote. Have you seen this? That brings the bell, but I don't remember the characters in House of the Dragon. He's like, I don't know. I could go look for the meme, but I thought it was interesting to supposedly George R. R. Martin messaged him being like, you are bringing this character to life more than I did. And I know, I think if I had to guess, I would say it was probably a series that he said that about, but it could be a lot of them. I think it was actually. That name sounds familiar. And I think Gaiman said that about Stardust, is that right? Yeah, I think you like the movie better than the book and I like the movie better than the book. I haven't read or seen it yet. That's my next probably Gaiman, but I'm pretty sure he said he liked the movie better than the book. And I always think that's so interesting. I love sometimes when authors are so open about being like, yeah, like there was something that you did that increased my vision. And I think some fans always want to act like an adaptation can never, ever, ever be the original thing. So I always like when actual authors even weigh in on their own work. Well, this has also happened kind of. This isn't important. This is not what we're talking about, but with real life. Tom Hardy, my favorite, he played the real life person, Bronson, who's like one of the longest serving, we're not serving, but he's been incarcerated the longest and he's never actually killed anybody, but he's like known as like the most violent prisoner, but he's never actually killed anyone. And the guy, like the real guy, you know, like really buffed up because he had nothing else to do with solitary confinement. So he's just like constantly just working out because he doesn't have anything else to do. So for the role, Tom Hardy buffed up a ton to play that role. And there was like a story about Tom going to visit him when he first got the role, when he was just Tom himself, you know, as he is, went to go see him. And Bronson was like, you can't play me. And then six weeks later, he shows up fully bulked out. And Bronson was like, you have more muscle than me. You got muscle in places, muscle shouldn't be. Okay, you outdid me. You can do it. So someone's like an author saying you did better than my character. And Bronson was like, hey, you can play me better than I can. You can play me. Yeah, so I think it's just interesting. And the prestige. You know, I absolutely love the prestige. Have not read the book though. And I think you were the one who was like, no, there's no point. Don't read it. I think, I mean, when you read the book, because you have to give credit where it's due because like Christopher Nolan didn't come up with a lot of the ideas that are in there. He just took what was there and made it better. So like, it's not like, the book deserves credit basically for like putting this idea there and then Nolan was like, okay, but you know what, we can make this better. We can improve it. Yeah, I think such, and then you have, speaking of that, what we just talked about, you also have people like Leigh Bardugo who took the opportunity to make some changes. And that people I think responded very positively too. I think that was mostly in the shadow and bone, but I heard there was a lot of things about like consent and things that she felt like weren't clear and wanted to improve in the adaptation. So I think that's really interesting. And diversity. And diversity, yeah. So. Well, and this also so maybe it's time to talk about that. But like the fact that she, the fact that they, you know, they added more diversity to the characters that Ben is actually present in the original text, but they didn't just say, hey, let's just cast people of color and like Ben Mission and it just done. They rewrote the story where it needed to be rewritten to make it make sense that these were now characters of color. They didn't just stick it in there without explaining it or thinking it through or putting effort into like making the story make sense still and making space for that to be a reality in your world because you can do that, but people do it lazily, you know what I mean? Yeah, and we've talked a lot about that where we said, you know, like they made that make sense and House of the Dragon did it. You know, Kyle was like, yeah, they just ignored the stuff in the book that would make it not make sense. And so now it makes sense. And then we talked about Rings of Power where like I actually quite like all the characters that they put, but you also made the good comment of like where are the rest of the people? Like why is everyone else white? Like why aren't there other black dwarves and black elves to like fill out your world? It wouldn't take much to make it make sense. Yeah, we don't need, we need to talk about other things besides Rings of Power. There's got to be something else out there. Other bad adaptations we can talk about. Well, bad adaptations probably almost. Or good. We talked about Good Omens. I see your book back there. Good Omens is a great adaptation. It did also change some genders. And Amazon did it, which is why, that was like the one of the first they did. And so then when it was announced after that, that they were doing Wheel of Time and Rings of Power, I was like, well, they did a good job with Good Omens, so. Neo Gaiman was decently involved in Good Omens. Was heavily involved. Was heavily involved. So that's the big difference, right? We got two dead authors with Wheel of Time and Lord of the Rings. Which again, House of the Dragon does have George R. R. Martin around to help him out. Yeah, yeah. Oh, is that? That doesn't necessarily mean anything. Think of them. I know a great one that's terrible. I always say it wrong. Is it Fantastic Beasts and Where to Find Them? That's not an adaptation. And I never want to talk about that movie because in my world, it doesn't exist. And we've talked about this, Liana. I'm sorry. Ergon? The author was very much alive for that. And it was very much just terrible. I haven't read it. But also, isn't that book just like not that good either? So the context of this is I read that book for the first time when I was 12 or 13 or something. That's when it came out. Well, the guy wrote it at like 16, didn't he? He was 15 when he wrote it. I might have actually, I was a little older, maybe 14 or 15 when I read it. And then the movie came out when I was 16. Now, I have reread the book since then. And I was like, oh, well, he's not great. I was 16-year-old wrote this. Yeah. And I tell everyone, I'm impressed that he wrote it. I think it's actually very impressive for a 15-year-old to write it.  Well, this is how I convinced you to reconsider finishing Red Rising when you learned that Pierce Brown was like 23 when he wrote it. It's all from everything made sense. And I was like, OK. And so I still think it's a great series for readers getting into fantasy because it'll make them feel like they're reading something really long, but it's still very accessible. But yes, as an adult, it's pretty derivative. But that being said, the movie was just a travesty, like a travesty. And he was alive, but he was also very young. And so I bet he didn't have the maybe confidence or even the power. Like Neil Gaiman, for example, the power level there is going to be very different, right? Neil Gaiman is, by the time, they're making good omens. I mean, he's. I mean, it depends on what they negotiate in the contract when they sign the rights and an author that has more contractual power and leverage to put that in the contract. I mean, I learned quite recently that I never really thought about it before, but like in the Universal Parks, everywhere in the park, they sell Dasani water and Doritos and whatever. The only part of the park where they don't is the Harry Potter part of the park. And I just took it for granted. I was like, oh, they have Harry Potter version of water here, but I didn't really think about how it's the only part of the park that has an universe water. And I learned it was because J.K. Rowling required that of any park that would get the rights to do Harry Potter that. And everyone's going to listen to J.K. Rowling. Everyone's going to listen to her. She's got, you know, you want that. And I think that's like one of the reasons why I'm not super concerned about like a Sanderson adaptation, which obviously means more to me and necessarily than you. But I would like it to be good. I want to enjoy good fantasy TV. Because right now he has a lot of leverage and he has said over and over again that he's like, I just say no, I don't need money. So that kind of leverage where like, you don't need anybody think, you know, J.K. Rowling, she doesn't need Universal to make a theme park. She doesn't need it. So she can demand something. The Aragon kid, Christopher Pialini, he probably was like, someone wants to make a movie. Let me sign on the dotted line. So like it is, it is different. Someone mentioned Ender's Game. It's another good example of a bad adaptation. Have you read Ender's Game? I've not seen it or read it. All I know is that Alex Nieves hates both. I like Ender's Game. I liked it quite a bit when I read it. Yeah, that's exactly right. It's not bad. It's just derivative. Ender's Game is a great example of a movie that didn't understand the point of the book. Like that's a great, like, oh, that's fight. Let's have all this stuff. And it was like, well, that, you read the book and did not, like, whoo. To not understand the assignment. You didn't understand the assignment. And I do think that can also maybe come from a lack of understanding that fantasy can mean something bigger than it is. Like a lot of people are like, it's just dragons and fighting. And like, the Lord of the Rings did a great job of really getting the themes of like hope and darkness and light in there. Something that I think was attempted in Rings of Power, but is missing. Again, attempted in Wheel of Time is missing. The understanding of the core values are there. Actually, no, great. This is another Ring of Power example. I'm so sorry. Oh, be my guest. You haven't read the Selma Rillian? Okay, so I started reading it before Rings of Power because I was like, I should read the Selma Rillian before Rings of Power. And then like, I hadn't finished it before the show started running. And then I started watching the show and I was like, you know what? I should not read the Selma Rillian because it will just make me mad. So I'm just gonna not finish this right now. So they have like this elf-human relationship in the show. And I was kind of excited about it because there's a very famous elf- There, and Luthien? Yeah. And in the Selma Rillian, there's just so much subtext about what that means. It's about these races and where they started and what they mean to you. There's just a lot of layers to that story. It was one of my favorite. I mean, even in Lord of the Rings you have a sense of that between Aragorn and Arwen. Yes. And here there's just, it's just not there. Like you get, like they talk about it. Like at the very second episode, they're like, that always ends in death, which I thought was very funny. And I was like, oh, this is gonna be good. And then it just like, well, that was it. They're gonna mention it because like we checked that box. We mentioned it's tough. And then it's like nothing's there. And it's interesting you mentioned Arwen and Aragorn because I talk a lot about the rings of power. None of the characters feel like they have a history. Everyone feels like they kind of showed up on screen and that's the first time they existed. I mean, Kyle, you pretty much summed up the last 40 minutes.  All right, that's a wrap. Good night everybody. But when Arwen and Aragorn first meet on screen you just feel so much history because they don't say anything. It's all unspoken, right? It's all about blocking and how they wrote it. Sometimes less is more. Yeah, they didn't have to say it. They didn't really say it right there. You just already knew. Well, this is one of the things that I keep praising. And again, this is when I was like having these shows on the same time is doing one of them no favors because House of the Dragon, even more so than a lot of shows and certainly more than rings of power, it trusts its audience to piece things together. And it's partially because there is unlike rings of power there's so much story to get through that they have to cram it all into every episode as much as they possibly can. And so in the interest of like expediency then instead of taking the time to tell you a thing they literally do not have the time to tell you the thing.  So moving on, we don't have time to explain this to you. And so when you're watching it I feel like it engages you more because then you sit there going, oh, I wonder what this is and now I'm looking for the answer for it and now there's the answer instead of you just telling me everything all the time and I'm just like, what is this lecture? I don't, there's no like, I'm curious now I want to learn what this is I'm gonna pay attention to see if I can figure out what this thing is. Yeah, it's the classic tell note and not showing, you know? And it takes a lot of skill to write scenes like that. And I mean, yeah, it comes down a lot to skill. And maybe I do think too many cooks in the kitchen I think some of these big, big, big budget projects because they're throwing so much money out of it. Everyone gets a say and when everyone gets a say, a vision isn't gonna be there. Yeah, well, there is also a lot you have to have good actors to pull this off is also the thing, like no matter what script you write if you're relying on a scene to be silently conveying something to your audience you have to have good actors to do that. And yeah, House of the Dragon has, Matt Smith's obviously one of them but pretty much everyone in House of the Dragon is fantastically cast. So like they can just trust them to be like, we don't have time to tell this story so just show it on your face for us, please. Yeah, and it's interesting because even a good actor though can't overcome everything. Can't overcome everything, but it can overcome a lot. It can sometimes, that's sometimes what like, well in the case of a series, what George R. Martin said can in fact say, have the author saying, hey, what you brought to the table as the actor you did me one better than I actually did in the source material. And it's interesting, you can usually tell who those actors are, cause even in a bad adaptation you may connect to a character and you're like, it's cause you were just, you were trying the hardest you could with your, and I don't know, cause the only character right now that I feel like I feel anything for and I know he's a famous guy and I should know his name. In Rings of Power. His father's dad. What's his mother's dad's name again? Oh, Ellen Deal? He's the only person at this point that I like feels like a real person to me. Him and Hallibrand. And Hallibrand is mainly because like he's kind of like Matt Smith's character in House of the Dragon where he just shows up and does stuff that's kind of like, I don't know what your deal is.   And so, and the guy who's playing it, he's, you know, he's got some, some charisma, more charisma than most of the other actors in the show. So even though there's a lot of, I don't care about him, but I literally think I only care about his mother's dad. I'm just like, he's the only one. I'm just like, you, you, you're trying and you're actually bringing something to this role that feels correct. I would have agreed with you, but this latest episode made me very, very much hate that character. So I haven't watched episode seven. I've heard it was really terrible. So that's what I did. I will say like when we first met Ellen, well, not, not on the ship, but when they were the in new manure and an Ellen deal was like actually like participating in the story. That was the horse riding episode and that was, that was really dumb. But he for the first time felt like a character from Lord of the Rings, who like knew the lore. He felt like a care, actually what it was what I said earlier. He felt like a character who actually had history. He felt like a character who existed before he showed up on screen where every other character was like, you were birthed the minute you got on screen and you have no history. And, and again, that's also a writer. Feel like they have to tell you everything they know about a character, which is also bad. That happens in books a lot. Like, no, you should know a lot that readers don't know, but it informs the characters. Same with world building too. Like, let me explain to you why this is here and all of the history behind it, even though in this conversation, it makes no sense for these characters to be explaining their own history to each other. And you're like, why? But adaptations versus re-imaginations, would you consider Wheel of Time a re-imagination of a re-imagination of Lord of the Rings and adaptation? Wow. Let me tell you, I think the Wheel of Time would have been better if it claimed to be a re-imagination. What I, I think Wheel of Time, Wheel of Time- I mean, Rings of Power basically came out and said, we are a re-imagination. The story told and never told. You know what, you know, I respect it. I seriously respect them for being like, this isn't an adaptation. Like, I at least respect the honesty. Wheel of Time- Well, that's because they were contractually obligated to not make- Good. They had to say because it's not. They had to say that, good. Because with Wheel of Time, I always say this. I'm like, what they should have done, they wanted to just focus on the ice to die, great. They should have just named the show The Tower and been like, we're just doing a show about the ice to die because that's the thing we're interested in. And you know what? I feel like it would have gone over better because then people wanted to have expected it to be an adaptation. I don't think it is a re-imagining. I think it's trying to be an adaptation and failing. It was just, I mean, it was bad not just from the books, bad. It was bad because it was a bad show. Episode eight, I mean, all the classic signs of bad writing. Did you, did you make it to episode eight? Yeah, I watched the whole thing. Okay, it was bad, right? This isn't just because I liked the books. Okay, great. No, it was awful. Just checking. I think you gave the whole show a lot more grace because you liked the books and you were like hoping that, like benefit of the doubt, it'll, it'll get. I have said this many times, I am the eternal optimist. And so with rings of power, I have been like, it's fine. It's gonna get better. It's gonna get better. And finally, it's like, I gave it six episodes and I am broken now. So that's what happens. Like the switch gets flipped where I'm like being so nice. And then I'm like, that's it.  I think Kyle's trying to convince you to watch House of the Dragon with this. Yeah. I'm assaulted daily between you and Kyle and sometimes Jimmy about Game of Thrones. So now House of the Dragon. He's like keeping track of every, if this one doesn't have as many sex scenes so you can watch it. I mean, they are there.  But I, so like way, way back now in our conversation when we were talking about too many cooks in the kitchen and I actually kind of wanted to talk about this isn't an adaptation, but nevertheless is like, it's in the extended family of what we're talking about, Star Wars, that the inmates, I watched like probably cumulatively weeks of content if you add up all the hours of content that I watched on taking down Rise of Skywalker and why it makes no sense. And then how it could have been rewritten and how this came to be. And just so- Star Wars conversation just like awakened something to me. I just really feel like we shouldn't go there, but continue. Well, I was just saying after all of that, it was like quite some time later after absorbing all of that, it was like years later that I saw some, a video that was kind of unpacking how that, how we arrived at the plot that we had and how the basically like a lot of the things that don't make sense about it that like truly do not make sense where you're like, like you can't understand how we went from point A to point B, like how someone thought you could connect those things. Like that this would be a logical progression. And when you look at, like when they finally were able to look at old scripts and old ideas and old like iterations of the story, all of the extra footage that got cut and how there's like the vestigial structures of plots that made sense. But the, all of what was around that plot point is now gone and we're left with this one plot point that by itself is not connected to anything else and doesn't make any sense. And then this is when like the too many cooks in the kitchen where you're like, okay, this story it's not that one person sat down and wrote complete nonsense from start to finish. It's that there was a plot that had like things connected to it and progressions and things building and things like it wasn't the nonsense that it is now but when you're like, let me just cherry pick some of the plot points that you had in this massive story and not any of the connecting tissue you end up with something that is nonsense. And like that's to a greater or lesser degree which can happen with adaptations when someone is like, here's how we need to adapt this. And then 50 executives are like, take that out, put this in, take that out, put this in. And then you're like, but now this makes no sense. What is this? That whole thing was a mess, right? And you also had like fighting directors where like, they were like, well, I don't like what you did in the first one so I'm going to change it. And then the same director came back to the third and was like, well, I don't like what you changed so I'm going to change it back. And you're just like, yeah, this is too- It's basically the fairy is from Sleeping Beauty fighting over the dress. The same beauty is wearing. Oh my gosh, that is just equal trilogies. Oh my gosh. And it's, you know, an Obi-Wan, the Obi-Wan show. Sorry, this is kind of mad. I just think it's we're on Star Wars. Like that also was a show where I was like, did you watch this? Did anyone before producing this watch this show? Like, I know we've harped it to death like the horse riding scene, but that scene where that little girl is running from people like, did you watch this? And my friend Nick from Wicked Good Books, who's a film person was also talking about how like, they could have just like edited that to make it make more sense. Like you could have taken some scenes out and edited it and like just no one, not a single person were able to be and you just think, are these yes men? Like what's happening? I don't understand it. I think, okay, do you think the rush to get new content out has anything to do with it? Like being like, we have to do it now, now, now, and get a new product out, is that affecting this? I think, I wouldn't say like, you can't put the entire blame on that, but it's certainly one of the many factors. You know, there's executives who want to make sure this is bankable. There's people who don't understand the material they're developing, there's constraints of time, meaning we have to like pump this out immediately. There's stories that, I mean, there's stories like Obi-Wan where they've decided that the new way to go is to do TV shows. And for a lot of stories, it's like, thank God, because like back in the day, it had to be a movie and you could never tell Game of Thrones in a movie. That's just, you'd need 10 movies, that's nuts. So like having TV as an option is great. But for other stories, it's the opposite. Like this should not be a TV show. And so like Obi-Wan, you're like, nope, this is Disney says we're doing content that's streaming now. And you're like, but Obi-Wan isn't a series. Like that's a movie at best, maybe a three episode mini series. And it's that like where somebody who's the director and writer for Obi-Wan would not have gotten to say, no, I think this should be a movie. You know, like they don't get to say that. So yeah, and that's actually another good point about how I feel like we were also over going, going overboard on the length of things. Like why is every brings a power episode an hour and 15 minutes? There's absolutely no reason. And an example of a show that I actually love. So Stranger Things season four, there was two episodes at the end and each of them were like two hours, I think. They were super long. And the first of those did not need two hours. As much as I love that show, I was like, dude, there were so many things you could have cut out. Now the second episode did, like every moment of that two hours was needed. And I'm just like, why are we just like, we need an hour and 15 minutes show. It's gonna make it better. Like there's so much you could cut out and make it a four. What, what's, why are we losing the 45 minute show? It's, you can do. It was the same like when I heard people saying that, oh rings of power, it's slow because it's going to be five seasons. And I'm like, no, if you're telling me you need five seasons because you have so much story that it requires five seasons to tell it not, oh, it's like procrastinating with your homework. I've got five weeks to hand in this assignment. So I'll do a little bit today, but not all of it. Like, no, it should be five weeks of work. Like every episode should have a reason to be there, not be like, well, we didn't have to move the plot forward in this one because we've got 10 more to go. Like that's no, that's not how this works. And I feel like- And it's interesting because these seem to be, they just keep getting green lit. And so it's also like, maybe everybody has just lowered their expectations. Like people just want to watch TV and there's so much content, so they watch it and it's fine. And if it's not actively bad, then they just keep watching it. This reminds me of David Mitchell's rant from back in the day when Downton Abbey was the big thing.  And he was ranting about how Downton Abbey season two completely went off the rails. But what he's really upset about is that no one noticed. In fact, his ratings were higher than the first season. And he's like, so really the first season is the shameful one because why bother making something quality when people will just watch anything? It doesn't, as long as Dame Maggie smits in it with a cool hat and got some British accents in it, it doesn't matter. It doesn't make any sense. So like there is that they're like, well, if we make it, people will watch it. Yeah. And it's just about, what's actually going to last? And you think of things with Lord of the Rings. That's definitely lasting power. The original Star Wars, they're just never going anywhere. I'm sure Game of Thrones is going to be watched for years and years and years. It was just too much of a book. Well, that's the first four seasons. It was two. I mean, Game of Thrones, like one interesting thing about Game of Thrones that is different from other ones is it's less family friendly. So people have to wait to show it to people later and people don't like the ending. So it's going to be interesting to see how that affects it going forward. Which there is, a lot of people have suggested this and usually I've heard it from people who are using it as a reason to justify rings of power being the way that it is, which is a weird, it's weird to me that they're doing this, but they're basically saying that like, well, you can't compare them because HBO messed up the end of Game of Thrones. So they had something to prove. They had to make sure House of the Dragon was good because they knew that people were mad about how Game of Thrones ended. So they had to like prove that, no, this is going to be better than that. And I was like, I mean, I do think that that's true. I do think that they felt pressure to be like, you know, guys, like we got rid of those dunderheads who messed it up, we got rid of them, we've got the good team back, we can make this good. There is some of that. But at the same time, the idea that like, so every other show gets a pass and is off the hook, it's only House of the Dragon that like, had to like, you know, like do extra credit work, you know, to not fail out of class, you know, it's like, well, rings of power should equally need to prove itself to us, to like earn its audience. It's not like, well, we, well, we didn't mess anything up before. So we don't have to try. Like, that's what? That's not how you make something that lasts or art, right? It's, a lot of these shows are just gonna go into oblivion. You know, one is, again, not an adaptation. I mean, it is an adaptation, but different format. It's like Marvel. I'm really curious, I mean, now it's never gonna end. So maybe in 30 years, we'll still be having new movies come out for all I know, but it'll be interesting to see like, which one of those stick around, because it does feel like some of them are like these classics that people are gonna want to watch over and over again, but as more and more content comes out and most people agree- Over saturation.  It's gonna be interesting to see, of course, we can't predict it, right? We gotta wait the 30 or 40 years. Well, in the same vein of like, there's copycats that are like, well, like we said, you know, Game of Thrones is successful because there's, you know, R rated content. So that's what makes it successful. We need to make something R rated in fantasy. There is another part of the copycatting is that instead of tapping into unadapted, unknown stories and authors, they're just doing, again, like rings of power, like, okay, Lord of the Rings, like there's a lot of material there. You could do more in the world of Tolkien, but there are so many stories you could adapt. There are so many authors that have amazing books that would make amazing TV shows. Like, and they just think like, how much Amazon would stand out from and not be compared to House of the Dragon if they had, for example, adapted the Green Bone Saga because no one else is doing that. No one else's show looks like that. And even if they didn't do a super great job with it, at the very least, people would be like, this is fresh. This is new. This isn't, oh, I've seen this and I've seen it better. Yeah. And it's always gonna be brand and name recognition. And it's working. That's the worst part. Where are these execs gonna feel like they need to do something new when, you know, rings of power had the biggest premiere or whatever.  I mean, that's at some point why I finally drew the line and said, I'm not watching Star Wars Contents.  Although I just started watching Andor and so far. You know, I heard it's amazing.  I could prove that I was boycotting something. But I also said when I was watching it with my brother that like, while other Star Wars content, I mean, I didn't watch a lot of it. I would just like watch videos on it. I watched Mandalorian, but like I watched one episode of Boba Fett and was like, nope, I watched one episode of Obi-Wan. I was like, nope. So like, I haven't really watched a lot of it, but it's very kind of simple storytelling of like, here's the villain, we kill him. Here's the villain, we shoot him. Here's the villain, we run away from them. Like it's very simple storytelling. And Star Wars has tended to be that way. But Andor, I was like, this is the game of thrones of Star Wars. Like it's a very political story with like a lot of like details that are like not accessible to a child. Like a kid can watch the Mandalorian. And it's not because it's violent, but a kid would be bored out of their mind because it's a lot of like discussion of like, you know, it's kind of like, it's a better version. But it's kind of when people talk about Phantom Menace and they're talking about trade agreements and you're like, is the kids are like, what? I don't understand. That's right, seven year old. And he was like, well, the poverty scene was great. And at some point you had to pause and be like, do you understand what's happening here? Can I explain to you? Like we did, we pause the movie and we're like, let's explain to you in simple terms what's happening here. Yeah, I've heard great things. I'm going to watch Andor, but I am refusing into all 12 episodes out. To be fair, like it's not like my new favorite show, but compared to everything else that's been coming out, watching it, I keep waiting for it to suck. And I'm watching it and I'm just like, this is, oh, this is good.  I like this, which is a high bar fairly. I'll watch it if all 12 episodes come out and everyone's like, it was worth watching, then I will watch it, but not until then and not before then. Fair enough, fair enough. Yeah, it's, I don't know. It's, again, it's something intrinsic. I do think, like you said, like, wouldn't it be nice if they wanted to take more risk? But I think people who want to take that risk have a very clear attitude. Game of Thrones was a risk, which is what people now forget. Yes, and they have an artistic vision and they want to do it. Of course, that is going to meet more pushback to getting funded. So yes, man, can you imagine, Green Bones Saga would make a great adaptation, you know, all these things, but they also have to be found to the right people who have the vision and are going to fight for it. So it's just, it's tough. And Wheel of Time is interesting because Wheel of Time wasn't like a copy of a park. That's what my brother said. My brother was like, oh, a planet that doesn't have sand, I think. Going on desert planet. Yeah, I think Wheel of Time was an interesting one because in some ways, Wheel of Time could have been a risk because it was a new property, technically, in terms of like, it had never been, it's not like it had that name recognition. It just did a bad job. It also had a lot of money, though. Again, another one that was like, wow, they really just like went for it with all that budget. I don't know. But not in the right places. Cause I mean, like we talked about this too because not as contemporaneous as Rings of Power and House of the Dragon, but like Wheel of Time and Shadow and Bone were a little more contemporaneous. And there again, where we were watching a much better version and a much less good version where they Shadow and Bone had a much lower budget, but they used it wisely. And that's the same thing I was talking about before where like if you don't have that much, then you have to be careful and clever with how you're gonna use it as opposed to being like, well, we have money. So just throw money at the scene and then it'll look expensive and then it'll be great. And you're like, as opposed to like the sort of like gorilla filmmaker that's like, we've got $10. How cool could we make this look with $10? Yeah, and well, the interesting thing I was gonna say about Wheel of Time is at least Rings of Power looks good. Wheel of Time had a lot of money and sometimes I'm like, where did you put that money? At least I know where Rings of Power put their money. Like you watch that show and you know where the money went. Wheel of Time, like I don't say it looks terrible. There were some good scenes, but it was sometimes confusing. Like where did $350 million go? To Rosamund Pike. I mean, and that's valid, to be honest. I thought she was a great moraine one of my favorite parts of the show. Which I mean, Wheel of Time, like she was a name, a recognizable name. The Rings of Power doesn't really have anyone in it. That's like a Rosamund Pike where you're like, well, I know her. It's all unknown. Although I do think in the end, Rosamund Pike may be a hindrance to the story because I guess I've heard they are giving her a much bigger role because they can't have Rosamund Pike and not have her be the main in every episode. Although one of my problems with Sandman is that they had Steven Frye and then hardly used him. And I'm like, you have Steven Frye. Why isn't he in this more? Where is his character? It's interesting because it's like, I mean, I've gone on record being like, Rosamund Pike is the perfect moraine. Like she's perfect. Like as moraine is my favorite character of the real time, I'm here to say like she is perfect. But she would be perfect in the perfect adaptation. Yes. But if you're telling me that your adaptation suffers because you have her, then maybe I would like a slightly less perfect moraine and a better adaptation. Yeah. I don't know. That's the thought. Like if I got a less good moraine, but the adaptation as a whole was better because they didn't feel forced to put her in every scene that she didn't need to be in. And that's the same thing though. Like as the, I would rather have low budget with heart than high budget with no heart. You know, that's like Princess Bride. You know, like I, if you made an expensive Princess Bride where no one in it really cared about it that much. No one really like loved it. It wasn't like this passion project. It would be like this empty, pretty shell versus something that looks kind of crappy. It looks kind of cheap, but it has the characters and the story in the heart that that's why it's still a classic. Yeah. I think it's interesting. I'm thinking of casting now because another thing, stranger things really nailed was casting and in the first season had a lot of unknowns. Now of course they had Winona writer and like, yes. But they all, they didn't do with her what they did with moraine where like she has to be in every scene and it has to be the main character. She wasn't. She wasn't, she wasn't. She was a pouring character and she played the heck out of it. I just rewatched that for a season and I was like, wow, man, she was great. And I mean, but this is a similar thing that we've talked about before in terms of a lot of stories will do this, basically the equivalent of that, but with characters, like known characters and like make them be central where they don't need to be. You know, Star Wars did this where they were like, this should be the new people's story. Why are Han Solo and Luke and Leia hanging out so much? Like they had their trilogy, let the new people take it. That name recognition thing kills so many things. We're like, we need to put in many things. And so I think rings of power is hindered by that. Not with celebrity name recognition, but with like, we have to have Galadriel and Isildur and like, it's like, how about not? How about you just told some stories about people that we don't know about because they weren't made by Peter Jackson already. Well, I do think, at the beginning of this time when the show was first coming out, I actually thought Galadriel was a good choice because really we know very little about her in actual Tolkien lore. So I thought like, oh, that could be a great choice. Now I thought Galadriel was gonna be really the only name we saw. And I wish that was the case because it was really like a story just about Galadriel and we didn't have Elrond, although I mean, I'll admit Elrond and Duran are the most enjoyable part of the show but they're so far, I'm only on episode six, but like they contextually, like they're related to nothing. So like, if you just had a show about Galadriel and you maybe had a couple cameos from people that were in her life, but it was just, that would have been better every time, like, do we know who the stranger is yet? Like I just wanna say if the stranger is Gandalf, I will jump off a bridge. Like I keep calling me not Gandalf.  So surprised. Did you guys see this coming? Don't just like rely on name recognition to get you through something. I mean, that's, you know what did that was right? Like to this point, someone else described it a lot. I don't remember if it was like a DM or a comment at this point, but someone said that every episode of Ranks of Power feels like a really, really extended teaser trailer because nothing actually moves the plot forward, it just keeps showing you another thing and you're like, yes, you teased this, you teased this in every episode. Like you need to pay it off or what? Like you cannot keep showing me this thing and being like, I wonder what it is, wonder what it is for like eight episodes.  I think, yeah, and I think again, it goes back to like a lack of understanding of what made a thing good. They're like, well, people love Gandalf and people love Galadriel and people love that. So if we have them in the show, it'll be good. Whereas it's like, no, make some new characters, make some original characters and let people fall in love with a new character because you have good enough writing to make a character feel real and there. I feel like we've been talking about bad ones. Should we talk about what makes something good? Like, do we have examples of what, I guess we talked about how good Lord of the Rings is and I mean, when I was talking about... Good Omens, what made Good Omens good? Casting helped Good Omens a lot, I think. And again, it helps to have, I mean, yes, the author's involved in it, but it helps to again, have people, because they made changes. It wasn't a carbon copy of the book, but to understand where updates needed to be made because it was written quite some time ago and it's a modern setting, which is not a thing fantasy often has to deal with. So like, the characters now have cell phones. They did not have cell phones when this was written. So things like that were like, okay, we need to change the update the story so that it makes sense for a modern audience and things like that. So it's just knowing your source material and knowing your medium and understanding both and what works about them so that you have a successful adaptation. Yeah, and again, that was definitely an adaptation that understand the point of Good Omens. It understood the humor. It understood what it was doing and had the right characters. I mean, for me, that Azara fell and Crowley are like cannon in my head now. They just like killed it in such a way. And that's again, someone who knew who was, and those were big names. They were big names, but they did the thing somehow. Yeah, I mean, I think this is it also. Yeah, completely. And again, it's also, I've said a ton of times that like, and this is true in books and in film and television that it's almost never how much time you spend with somebody. It's like getting the right key moments because like Boromir is my favorite example of that is that like, I've spent seven hours now with these more than seven hours with these Rings of Power characters and they could literally all die and I frankly would be relieved. But Boromir, you see honestly quite little of him in Fellowship of the Ring. He doesn't have a lot of lines. He doesn't have a lot of screen time. And by the end of that movie, spoilers when he dies, that's an impactful moment. And you feel like you are broken hearted about this character and it's, you didn't need to see him for 10 hours. Like it was, you had the right moments, the key moments, the important moments. He had an entire character arc that you saw even though like he barely said anything in the movie like comparatively. Yeah, and again, that's about being intelligent enough for every scene of your film meaning something. It doesn't have to, every scene shows something new about a character, shows something new about a setting or the plot. And every scene that Boromir was in said something about who he was. So even though it's probably like 10 minutes of screen time, I don't know, it's really interesting to find out how much screen time. You're the staff person, I rely on you. Although I'll go Google it at some point. Because it's so true. I used that example. I used the example actually in Stranger Things 4. Did you watch Stranger Things 4? Yeah. Okay. Enzo, I think Enzo is the perfect example. I loved him so much and I Googled it and he has 20 minutes of screen time in the like 12 hour season. And he was one of my favorite characters because I knew exactly what he had every moment. And when you do compare that to unsuccessful things like Rings of Power, where you're like, the scene I used most recently, it might have been episode four, where Galadriel fights all the new Minorians. Like, you know what I'm talking about? Like that scene where she like battles that. I don't know. For training. For training, yes, training. Because she also like fights the guards out of her cell also. I don't wanna talk about that. I don't wanna talk about that. I just, again, another scene for training doesn't exist. So that training scene, I remember turning to Zach and being like, that was nothing new. You are showing me the same aspect of Galadriel's character over and over and over again. We did learn that Minor is actually a poor country because they can't afford a training ring for their, for their army. They had to fight. And someone pointed out that they used real swords, which is like what you would never do in training. But anyway, that's all beside the point. They're training at farmer's market instead of like. The point is they keep acting like they're showing Galadriel doing something. You're like, look, was that episode four? I think that was episode four. And it was like- Were the training happen? I think so, yeah. Yeah, it might have actually even been five, which if it was, that's so depressing. But I'm four hours in and the only thing you have shown me about Galadriel is that she can fight. Okay, every scene with Galadriel should show me another aspect of her. And it's just, it's like this rule of cool, this thing will be fun. And so we know nobody because it's just the same thing over and over and over again. Not to always compare it to House of the Dragon, but I did recently like, cause I mean, this has been true, I guess, throughout the show, but I only recently pointed it out in, I think for the episode from last week, so like last week's video on it. Cause obviously House of the Dragon, it has dragons in it. I don't know if you're aware.  And certainly having dragons on screen, I don't think anyone would be very mad about a dragon just being on screen for no reason. Cause they're just like, that's very cool. But House of the Dragon ain't got time for that.  So when they have a dragon in the scene, yes, it looks cool, but it also feels cool because anytime there's a dragon scene, it is plot and character relevant. It's not just, ooh, a dragon. It's doing something to further the story and to further character development and the moment of this dragon flying isn't just like a cool visual. It's got so much meat behind it. And so like that's what makes a moment epic. It's not just, oh, look, like the fact that Gandalf shows up with the Rohirrim, you know, at the Battle of Helms Deep.  I mean, certainly that looks nice, but it's an epic moment because you felt like you're with this army that you feel a lot for and they're gonna lose. And then you're like, here is our savior and Gandalf, we love him and there's the Rohirrim. And like you feel that and that's what makes that moment cool. And yes, it looks nice, but it looking nice is like the least of it. Yeah, and I think again, it's you can't buy emotion. You can't buy meaningful moments. You can't fake it. So a lot of what they try to do, and we've talked about this as well, we're gonna make the music swell and we're gonna make the filming, make this feel dramatic, but I'll have no emotion to it because there wasn't, oh my gosh. We have the smog origins, oh, smog. I was thinking he said, nevermind. I was thinking he said- Smeagol? Oh yeah. No, I mean, if rings of power had smog, I would, and they got Benedict Cumberbatch back. I'd be like, I don't care, there's no plot. It's just one thing. It's just one thing. You know, the hobbit. So the hobbit's a great example of, wow, did they nail the casting? Oh man, when Freeman, Freeman, Martin Freeman, was cast as Bilbo, it was just like, oh, they can't do anything wrong. And then the movies came out and I was like, oh. And the first one, like it's not amazing, but the first one was still pretty good. Like I was like, it's not Lord of the Rings, but like, yeah, this is good, this is good. And then the second and third ones, you're like, oh, okay, well. Let me tell you my experience of watching the hobbit. The first one I watched and felt the same. I was like, okay, well, that was fine. I fell asleep midway through the second one and didn't bother with the third. That's on the third one, I think you would be better. And that one definitely suffered from like, well, we can just make it as long as we want. People like the Lord of the Rings extended version. So. I mean, they have trilogy and making three long movies and then taking one children's book and making three long movies is like, okay. It's terrible. Maybe two movies, but. Anything matters. Okay, here's a good Taylor Swift example. In the comments, if you're a Swiftie, let me know. Leanne is not gonna understand any of this, but that's okay. I also, I have, I know things. I know things. One of the fan favorite songs of Taylor Swift that came out in like 2012, that was never a single. So general population doesn't really know it was a song called All Too Well. And famously she said that it used to be a 10 minute song and she cut it down to five minutes. And it's one of the most famous songs among like the Swifties, okay. And now she's re-recording all her music. I don't have time to get into that. Okay, I don't. If you wanna hit me up over DM sometime people, I can get into it with you. But she's redoing it. And as one of the things to fan, she released the original 10 minute version. So she released. Wait, wasn't there someone famous in the music video for it? Sadie Sink and Dylan O'Brien. Okay. Yeah. But that's all I know about it. That's all I know about it. Anyway, we can DM about it. Okay. The point me and she released the 10 minute version and everyone really loved it. And what I've always said and people say this a lot and I've always talked about in these like communities is like, but if she had released the 10 minute version first, it would not have been a good song because the editing is what made it such a tight and good song. And now that we all love it, it is so great to hear this long version. And it's great. Just like the extended versions are great. But I would submit that the extended versions, like if you saw those first would not have the same impact as seeing the edited version. And maybe they would, it's a little different. But I do think like we just don't have enough value on editing. So like the hobbit was like, well, more hobbit is always better. And it's just like, that's just not true. I'm sorry. I'm gonna have to bring this up again, but it's the same problem that Fantastic Beasts has where like J.K. Rowling was like, people wanted to know more about these characters. They wanted to know more. And it's only because they already cared about these characters. They were in stories that where they mattered. And then having read those stories, now people wanted to know more. And to mistake that for, oh, people just want tons and tons of lore all of the time. You're like, no, you have to tell a story where we care about it. And then we're gonna ask you about the lore. I just, but I mean, I feel like the hobbit was like the, I don't know, the preview of what the rings of power would be, where it's the hobbit was much too stretched out. And then the rings of power is just like even worse. And like, I used this analogy with my brother the other night where I was like, you know, to be Lord of the Rings about it, rings of power feels like two little butters spread over too much bread. Like what Bilbo says. What Bilbo says. I'm stretched thin. This much plot, and you've just stretched it out over eight episodes and filled in some like CGI visuals. And like versus like House of the Dragon is like a burrito that you can't quite fold over because there's just too much in there. I feel like I'm gonna need to use that scene now when I do my review. I'm gonna steal that from you and just like open. That will just be the opening. We'll just be Bilbo saying it's like too much, too little butters spread over too much bread. I'm just gonna open and be like, that's it. That's what it feels like. I'm actually being serious. I'm just gonna open with that scene now. Thank you for the idea. You're welcome. And when you review House of the Dragon, you can use the burrito too. Oh, great. Yeah, I like when you said when I review House of the Dragon, I appreciate that. Yeah, I think, and again, some people are like, well, some things could be longer. In fact, we just had a conversation about a scene that was cut in Harry Potter when you accidentally watched the extended cut. I didn't know there was an extended cut. And how like, yeah, maybe it could have used that. And it's knowing when. And again, that's just skill. There's just really no way to measure that, you know. But again, with so many, with books as well, Les is usually more. And like one of the reasons Neil Gaiman is such an amazing author. Like his art is in his brevity. And the fact that he can tell you the entire being of a character in one sentence. And a much worse author will tell you 500 pages and you still don't really feel like you know the character. I mean, and then there's, but we also like Jonathan Strange and Mr. Norrell, which arguably is just so long. But again, she spent like 10 years on it. I don't think she was like, well, we're keeping everything I wrote because it needs to go to press. Like she considered everything that's in there. And like something can be long. And again, like if it brings the power needs to be fine. Like recently, you know, George R. R. Martin, as I think Manneven today, said that House of the Dragon to tell its complete story needs four seasons, 10 episodes each. Like that's what it needs to tell its story. And like based on season one, I mean, yeah, they're cramming in as much story as they can. And so if you're telling me that there's so much story that this is the length of time that it takes to tell this story, then great. But if you're just like, here's this amount of time, fill it in with some story. And you're like, okay, I'll just like, mosey on around and maybe we'll find a plot along the way. Like there's something can be long and justify that runtime. Well, that was my point. That was my point. It's like, gravity isn't always the answer. And also, length isn't always the answer. It's what do you need to tell the story? And Jonathan Strange and Mr. Naral needed every moment to tell the story. I think it's a brilliant book. And there's a lot of stories that I think need every moment of its length to tell the book or tell the story. And there's other ones that don't. And there's short books. I mean, Piranesi. Piranesi is like 200 pages. And I'm obsessed with that book. And it's everything it needed. I mean, Santa Clara is great. And also, you know, that's a great example because those were both by Susanna Clark. You've got like the two extremes from the same author. She knows- With the Neil Gaiman, you have American Gods, this meandering monstrosity. And then you have Ocean at the End of the Lane, which is like barely more than a short story. And like there are authors who again, like I don't, when I guess, gravity I think is always the answer in that everything's story should be as short as it possibly can be and still tell its story. And for some stories, that's still 1,000 pages because like it can't be any shorter than that and tell this story. But that doesn't mean you make it 2,000 pages because more is better, you know? So like a story isn't better because it's longer. It should be like told, it should justify every word, every scene, every minute, whatever, if it's a movie or a book, like it can be extremely long, but it needs to have a reason to be that long. Agreed, agreed. Oh, there was a comment up here I missed. Let's see. If you go back and watch interviews with Payne and McKay talking about their care for Tolkien, they are very clearly con men in hindsight. They're pitching their con to this day. Well, it's unfortunate to hear. I like to try to see the best in the people. And I like to think that they were trying, okay? Because it's painful to think that people weren't trying.  I don't, like my life motto and all things is expect the worst and hope for the best. But at the same time, I think my assessment of most things is that I probably don't know the whole story. I'm almost 100% certain that I don't know the whole story. So most of the time, you know, if I can comment on the parts of it that I do know, then I will, but to concretely lay the blame for something at someone's feet, unless like there is some kind of, and even then, like you clearly can't know. But you know, like most of the time, like there's so much behind the scenes. There's so many people behind these things. There's so many reasons. I mean, when people will say, like when I complained about Sandman, right? And people were like, Neil Gaiman says it's great. Therefore it is. And I'm like, well, first of all, just because he likes it, like I am an independent human being with independent thoughts and feelings. And I can have an opinion independent of the author. So we can disagree about that. That's an option. But also, I don't know if Gaiman actually likes it. I know that he's contractually part of this production and it behooves him to promote it. And like that doesn't mean that I think he's lying because if I didn't like it, therefore Gaiman doesn't like it. Like I know the truth of it. But like, okay, like Gaiman is promoting it. That means next to nothing. It means that it's based on his work. And maybe he loves it. Maybe he really does. And maybe he doesn't. But just because he tweeted saying the show is great and he's a part of it. Like, you're like, that doesn't mean anything.  I'm like, I mean, they're not the only ones making this show. They're not the only ones making all the calls. Like you just don't know. Okay, I got it. Someone said that Payne and McKay say if you don't like it, you're patently evil. I want proof of that. I wanna see the quote where the showrunner said if you don't like it, you're patently evil. I want receipts. I want receipts for that. Because that's true.  I didn't at first. And now everything I've read after it came out, they're like, oh yeah, it says everyone didn't like this thing that we did, but I know I'm right. So I'm gonna keep doing it.  It was about the love triangle between Egwayne and Rand and Perrin after he fridged his wife. That didn't exist in the books. Everyone hated that rightfully because it made no sense. And he was like, well, fans and everyone has said they didn't like that, but I know what we're about. So we're gonna keep doing that. But I think this is a great opportunity to talk about something we haven't talked about really, at least like other than in passing, but changes from the source material where if an adaptation is not well received and it did happen to be an adaptation that did change some things, people will say fans don't like it because they require it to be exactly like the book. And I simply don't think that's the case that it has to be justified in the story that you are telling. And there's plenty of examples of adaptations that do change things and people are fine with it. But as soon as, so you change something and people don't like it, oh, you only hate it because it's not like the book. And that's not the case. Like I think this love triangle thing in Wheel of Time, like it's not that this is different from the book, therefore it's bad. It's that it also doesn't make any sense in the story you're telling either. And I've talked about that a lot. I've said like, at least have consistency in the story you're telling. So if you wanted to get love triangle, great. And he didn't have a wife and they wanted to make that tension, although I don't like love triangles period, at least I would have understood it. Like, okay, maybe they're trying to make this tension, but like, you're gonna give him a wife that he's supposed to be mourning after killing. Sorry, this is all really big spoilers for the Wheel of Time show, but you shouldn't watch it. No one cares. Yeah, here's the problem. They're in big fandoms, they're always gonna be misbehaving fans. And in big fandoms, there's always gonna be the fans who literally, literally will not, nothing if it is not a- I mean, there's people that don't like the Lord of the Rings movies and don't like the Dune movie. And so- Because it's not a line of line. It's not a line by line adaptation. There is always a fan, but I do feel like a lot, creators get to be defensive and just point to those fans and be like, see, they'd never be happy. And that can be really frustrating when you're like, look, dude, like I even said that in my Wheel of Time thing, like when it boiled down to it, I actually found out none of my complaints really had to do with the Lord changes. Like some of them did, but very few. It was mostly like, this is just bad choices. Like you're bringing someone back from the dead. That is patently a no-no in all of fantasy. Like to have no cost to bring someone back from the dead is like literally rule number one. And so it is frustrating how discourse about adaptations has fueled things. I'm feeling it wrong. I kind of want to Google this. I know I shouldn't be researching during a live show, but I cannot believe people who don't like rings of power, patently evil. I thought you were looking at me doing it. Let's see. So when I call some of the rings of power backlash, patently evil. Okay, see, that's very, very different. Because if they're calling the racist people, patently evil, like that's not necessarily the same thing. Which I mean, this is the same thing that happened with Star Wars where like anyone who said that the new movies were bad were like, that's because you're a bigot. And you're like, no. Well, this is why I also, I mean, I plan at some point spoilers to do a video about this. So, you know, stay tuned. But I think as much as we've talked about, okay, so we live, excuse me, rings of power and House of the Dragon airing at the same time. Obviously everyone's comparing them. Cause of course they are. The studios basically want you to at that point.  That's why you hate this show. Well, we currently have House of the Dragon running which has like a substantially female cast with strong female characters and no one has a problem with it. Like the same thing with the racism thing. Like there are characters of color that are portrayed kind of strangely in rings of power. Like we said, like, why is there just the one? Why isn't, why aren't there more? Why isn't there a whole village like this? Why, this doesn't make any sense. Like it feels like tokenizing that you have just the one. Like, so you can have a problem with that.  You're like, no, cause like they did it well in House of the Dragon. Like no one has a huge, I mean, okay, obviously someone. There's always someone. But like for the most part, people don't have a problem with House Velary and being black in House of the Dragon. We've hit on, you've hit on a lot of different things which like first, like we both made videos about the female representation thing and how we can't pretend every representation is good. It will make bad characters, which is why at the end of my race video I just did, I said, yes, there are plenty of legitimate criticisms about how race is used. And if we don't talk about them, then representation doesn't get better. But I'm still, I'm kind of still on this article thing about what Payne said, because I do think it's unfair when we take their words out of context in the same way that they are taking the fandom out of context. Because they're clearly talking about the racist comments that did come out when we saw our endurance stuff. Now, do I think that was a small part of the fandom? Yes. And do I think it's annoying that they like to make that a bigger deal to make the fans seem crazy? I was about to say, I feel like where I would agree with you that it's not fair to do that, but where I stop having patience for it is if they are asked a very good faith question. You know, like, so people are criticizing the show saying that like the story isn't that good or that they're not liking these characters, what do you say to that? And if their only answer is like, well, some of these fans are racist, you're like, well, that didn't answer the question.   And even this article says there are a lot of legitimate reasons to not like rings of power. So I'm just saying this quote, I get frustrated also when we take these out of context because it furthers the idea that fans aren't like no one's listening to each other. And yeah, anyway, I just don't think we can use that quote. That's all. I'm just, I'm all about the research here, people. And you just, we can't keep taking people out of context. But anyway, one thing I talked about is it's like they take one tweet and then they report on it and then the other people report on it and then someone else reports on it. And so now everybody thinks that that tweet is 8,000 tweets and it was one tweet that someone said something about it. Which is why I also hate the internet, which we're on right now, but... I do think that there's something to the sort of diversity armor, animals like plot armor where that is, like we said, it's not fair to take it out of context and it's equally unfair for them to just say, if you dislike the show, then you must be racist. You know, like that's the narrative.   And that's why I just feel like, are we ever gonna get anywhere with criticizing these shows if like all it is is just like this pissing contest because that's what it feels like. That's why I do really enjoy the fact that we have a currently airing comparison with House of the Dragon to point to and be like strong females and diversity. Like it's literally happening simultaneously and people are not having those problems with that show. So like, if you're gonna tell me that it's only because people are bigoted that they dislike rings of power, we currently have an example to show you ready to go. Didn't you have to dig that out? I'll be like, I don't think so. And Wheel of Time had a lot of that too because the show runners really thought they were doing something, making the dragon able to be a man or a woman. They were like, well, we're making it equal. And it was like, well, you kind of actually harmed the female characters. Like I talked about this a lot, like Egwayne in particular, I thought was very, very harmed. By that narrative, because in the book, her whole story is about how she is like, I'm coming with you. And it's her choice. She is the agency motivator. And then all of a sudden they made this change and now she's just pulled along. And it's like, well, who was the stronger character? Just because you say she can be the dragon doesn't make her stronger. It's like this lack of knowledge about what real characters are. And that's what it is, right? Okay, so throwing diversity in, but not actually making someone a good character. It all comes back to writing, right? No one's going to notice colorblind casting if everyone is a character that's great. And I mean, you might notice, you might say this doesn't make a ton of sense, but you like it. Well, again, this is where I would point to Shadow and Bone. I appreciated the fact that like, I mean, I don't think the show would have sucked if they had just made Alina Asian and said, you know, that, okay, we're going to have Alina and Malby people of color and just cast it that way. Like the show would have been fine. But it actually made the story richer and better and had more depth and nuance to those characters. In fact, they wrote into the story that this is part of what made those characters bond with each other is the way that they had been othered because they were non-white in a predominantly white environment. And that's why they do stand out and they're standing out, affects them to this day.  And like it just brought more depth and more nuance and more conflict. And it just made it a richer story because instead of just saying, oh, look, we made them diverse but didn't do anything in the story where we could actually do something with that or make it make sense or add to their characters in this way. Like that's, you can make the story better by doing that and to not do that is a missed opportunity. Yeah, and there's two things in the comment that I feel like I want to address. The first is that woke casting can be a red flag and they can forgive it if the show is good. I think that's a bad thing to say. Like we forgave that they did diversity. No, they wanted to include diversity and House of the Dragon, they did it properly. And so I don't think it's forgiving anything. It's a good thing no matter what. And I'm tired of pretending that like constantly having all white fantasy is a must. Like- I obviously I can't speak for you, Mr. X. I don't know what you meant by that but if they mean that lore fans, you know, people who would be like, this breaks the lore of this book but because you did this so well in this show that I forgive it. So if that's what they mean then like there is- I can get that. I guess there would still choose to that. I can get that. And then someone saying I'm being naive about RP. I'm not even defending the show runners. They're making a garbage show but I refuse to take them out of context. I do because that's what's happening on the internet and it's something I'm very vocal about on my channels. I'm just tired of everyone taking everyone out of context to pretend that they said everyone who doesn't like the show is patently evil is not what they said. It's not. I just read it. I looked it up guys. I Googled it while we were here. She did, we all thought. It's not what they said. Now do I think that they're sticking their heads in the sand because they wanna pretend their show is good. So they're only paying attention to the reviews that they can say, look that's racist. Totally. I can definitely- Which to defend them a little more than even you are I don't know that that's true that they personally are ignoring the actual criticism they're seeing but when you are doing an interview to promote your show and you get thrown a hard ball question like people are saying it sucks. What do you say to that? I mean PR 101 is you don't say they're right. It does suck. And we really messed that up, didn't we? Like, no, like the show would be a terrible PR strategy. Of course they're gonna say, well, how can we spin this? Well, we're gonna spin it by saying, well, they're racist because that's what PR is. It's just why I'm always like, I don't know. I don't know who decided this. I don't know who wrote this. I don't know who was the one that signed off on it. And we will never know. That's such a good point too. Like, do you really expect the show runners to come out and be like, you're right. We did do it. I mean, maybe years later, I think Stephen King said that I think the first Dark Tower book, the introduction or the forward from the author for Dark Tower is Stephen King being like, yeah, this book sucks. But if you're willing to sit through it, then the next ones are better. So like, okay. Yeah, and I think what would really show that show runners were taking things to heart would be the next season, right? So like for me, I'm very interested to watch Wheel of Time season two and be like, was this all him posturing? Are they actually gonna try? No, I don't think they will. I just don't. And I think I'm gonna probably quit Wheel of Time season two. That's my prediction, we'll find out. But it'd be interesting. What about if rings of power, what if the next season all of a sudden is going a lot faster and is doing all the stuff then you might be like- No, they overcorrect. They suddenly- I don't know, but it would be interesting, you know? It would be interesting. But if you were casting rings of power, what would you do? I don't know if they mean for like the characters that we are, like given the story that we did already have like if we would have casted it differently. Cause I don't know. People who are saying that the actors and rings of power suck, I don't know that. I don't know that that's not true cause I really haven't seen them in much else. Maybe they do suck. But I think it would be a rare actor that could make this story good. I don't think that it's their fault. And also it's often not just the story, but the direction, you know? Like a director can get a bad performance out of a good actor. Yeah, and I, it's hard to say. Like sometimes I look at the collateral and I'm like, did they cast her? Because she looks perfect. Cause if we're just going by like pure, like you see a photo of her, yes. Like- She is very short though to be collateral. Yes. I mean, that's one of the problems I think with the show is that the collateral acts very human. All the elves do, not just collateral. Yes, yes. All the elves do. All the elves act very human, which again adds to that layer of why the human elf relationship isn't feeling interesting. I hadn't actually thought of it this way until I saw and I'm so, I do not remember which video my brother showed it to me a video talking about rings of power. And they pointed this out and like, I just have generally kind of checked out in any like meaningful criticism when I watch it. I'm not like, oh, this story could be so good if they did this, I'm just not there. I'm just like, this is stupid, this makes no sense. Like I'm just not thinking about how to improve it because I just don't care enough. But when they pointed out, and I was like, actually, yes, that by itself would make it so much better is that the fact that elves should be quite different from humans and should be quite, you know, unemotional. They live for thousands of years, they would be more detached and that Arundir who feels kinship with humans and feels affection for humans should be the most human-like of them all. But actually every elf in the show is like emotional and mean and very human-like and Arundir is the only one that's kind of stoic and distant and you're like, this should be the other way around. And just that, your story would feel realer because you'd be like elves are distant and removed except Arundir because he feels like one of the lads and wants to be with the humans. Like, why is it literally around? Well, and it's shocking to me and I talked about this in one of my videos that Kate Blanchett and, oh shoot, who's the actress for Galadriel right now? I knew her name, but I forgot it. Morphid Clark? Morphid Clark, they're the same age when they played Galadriel. Did you know that? Kate Blanchett was 30. 30 when she portrayed Galadriel. And Morphid Clark is like 32 or something. Yeah, I think she's 32. So she's two years older. And I said, Kate Blanchett, she feels 2000 years old when she plays Galadriel, you know? I mean, Arundir feels literally old. And Morphid Clark feels 32. And I'm not, again, I'm not blaming her because I don't know. I've never seen her in anything. I am blaming the writing though. And again, the directing and there's a lot of people involved in making her like this. And I think that, yeah, it missed the mark in that way. I don't even know what the point I was gonna make was about that, just that, well, we were talking about casting. Someone asked us about casting. So I think it's hard to answer, like you said, the casting, I think if the story was different, the casting could be fine. That's what we'll never, never know. Like, I don't- Or like, I guess, I mean, we would know if we saw them either improve second season or see these actors, do something different where, because there's been times when I've, an actor is in something that is much more well known. And then I happen to know them because I like saw them, it's usually British actors because I watch a lot of British TV. So like obscure British TV that no one in America has seen. And then they get their big break in some Hollywood movie. And everyone's like, this is a terrible actor. They can't act. And I'm like, they actually can. I've seen them in small budget British television, like, given Oscar winning performance. So to say that, you know, they're a bad actor. Some, I mean, sometimes some, like Tommy Wiseau, I don't think that's a situation where like, maybe he'd be a great actor or something else. But like, a lot of the time, like, it's, you don't know that it was the actor, unless you've seen them do a bad job over and over and over in multiple different things. Agreed. And I always think that I always joke about like, Natalie Portman, like the first movie I ever saw Natalie Portman in was Star Wars. And especially the second and third ones, I used to think, oh, Natalie Portman is not great of an actress. And then I saw her in literally every other thing she's ever been in. And I was like, oh, so it was Star Wars. And it wasn't Natalie Portman. So I do like, I get, Yeah. There's no one in rings of power right now that I'm like, is so terrible that I'm like, there's no way it's something else. There's no one I feel that way about. Yeah. Yeah, that's it. I get, I feel like the actors they have are fine probably. Like even if none of them are like brilliant, amazing actors that are destined to win an Oscar someday in something else, like maybe you don't have to be that great. Like honestly, like the acting in Lord of the Rings is good, but it's not the kind of thing that requires that much acting. Like it's the story and then looking stoic a lot of the time is what carries it.  And then if you look into the middle distance, we're like, they are ancient in thinking deep thoughts. It's a lot of stuff. Like we want to say, oh, they're such a good actor, but like, I mean, Kate Blanchett is a lot.  And someone else was like, is she, or is she just tall? Cause like, you know, you have a lot of good friends. They're just like, there's something. She's a tall, beautiful, statuesque, you know, natively, elvish looking woman. And she just stands there in a beautiful dress and with completely blank expression. And people are like, wow, she plays the role of Galadriel so brilliantly. And I'm like, she just looks like an elf naturally, had a great costume and stood completely still while we filmed her for a second. Like that didn't take great acting. I mean, there are scenes where she does good acting to like, I'm not saying she doesn't, but a lot of it is just like, that didn't require great acting. Yeah, I mean, that's true. I'm sorry, I'm just distracted by this troll in here who's saying something about every comment in period. Champions diversity, I don't even know what that means, but they've said it like 30 times. So there, we gave it attention and I'll stop spamming it. I don't know what you mean. We're liars because of it, apparently. So, you know what? Leanna and I aren't that affected by mean comments. I just want to let that person know. We get mean comments a lot. So like, we're just, it rolls off. I just wanted to let everyone know that in the chat. Anyway, I like what this person said, present. Some people have presents and I do think Kate Blanchett is someone who has presents, which is why like you said, she doesn't have to do a lot because she's like, she's present. Yeah. Well, if you could choose and have creative input on a future adaptation, what would it be? First law. I'm awaiting the call. So what capacity? You have to choose a capacity. So it can be like casting director. It can be like an editor. It can be like, okay. I knew you were going to pick that. So I've already did a fan cast. Do you have someone in mind? For, for who? Anyone. You said you want to be casting director. So it's casting director. So Glokta must be Sam Cloughlin. Tom Hardy must be over nine years. Okay. They'd have to make him ugly, but I guess it makes sense because he was so good for attractive in the beginning. Yeah. And he's young. He's like 30. I forget that. I always forget that. You know, that's one reason I really like sharp ends that is it the first story in sharp ends where you get to see Glokta pre everything. That was a great story because I visualize Glokta too old because of who he was in the first law. I feel like most fan castings that I've seen pitch somebody who's quite old and I'm like, Glokta's 30. He's just broken. Okay. I liked the Sam Cloughlin. Okay. Give me more. That was a good one. And I knew him and I barely know any actor. So that's exciting. Tom Hardy is Logan nine fingers. I knew it. I knew it. He goes for Serger so well. I just knew it. I knew it. Who are you having Tom Hardy play? Logan. Tell me he wouldn't be a good Logan. Okay. Who else? Well, so I originally for Bayez, I actually, it might have been Kyle. Maybe not. Somebody pitched me there casting for Bayez and I liked it better than mine. Graham McTavish. I don't know who that is. He's an Outlander in House of the Dragon which I don't think you've seen either of those. But I think if you looked him up you would concur that he'd be a good Bayez. I'll look him up after this. That's a good one. What about, do you have anyone for Artie? I just really like Artie. Well, I do, but I don't think, it's kind of like what I said with the Darkling where I thought Killian Murphy should play the Darkling, but not now because now he's too old, but also Ben Barnes is too old. So if he can play it then, okay, then back to my original suggestion, make the Killian Murphy. Why do you have to Ben Barnes in every live we do? But so like my, I picture Artie basically as Haley Atwell, you know, Agent Carter from... Oh. But she's now a bit too old, but like... She's too old now, but yeah. She would have been great. That's a great picture for him. Okay, I like that. Cast and director, first thought. If I had a hand in anything, Sanderson, that's a good question. It's my surprise people. I don't want to hand in anything Sanderson. Yeah, I just don't think I would... I think you're gonna, I think I know what you're gonna end up saying, even if you don't know what it is yet. Can you tell me? Tell me what I think. Sometimes I need that help. Well, you've spoken to the author quite a few times. Okay, I was gonna say, I knew you were gonna say Dandelion, so that's funny, that's what I was gonna guess. Yeah, Dandelion Dynasty, that would be interesting. Either if it was Dandelion Dynasty or even I guess if I did like a Sanderson one, for me, I'd want to be in the role of editor.  And I wouldn't even tell them how to fix it.  Was it you that I was talking to where I was like, I don't want to be hired to write anything. I just want to be hired to read your script and be like, no, that doesn't make sense. I just, exactly, I just want to be like, no. I can't write it better for you, but no. No, I know it's wrong. That's just the role I want because I feel like... Oh yeah, it was you. I was saying that basically the person that tests security systems by finding flaws in it, I want to be that person for plots where I'm like, whole, whole, whole, plot, plot, plot. Well, it's like the professional hackers, right? Professional, that's a job where they go and try to break the thing and they work for the company. I want to do that for plots. I do think like, Dandelion Dynasty would be a fun one to do that for. The reason I'd say I wouldn't necessarily want to do it for Sanderson is I think it would be really hard for me with Sanderson to let go of some things that I really wanted that may not serve an adaptation. So like, for sure... First of all, I can only do casting for first law. I can't, otherwise it would be page for page. I would have Stephen Pacey dub all the dialogue so that it would sound like the audio book. Yeah, and so like, there is that. I'm just like, I'm looking at my shelf. What else do I like? I don't know. I mean, Greenbone just would be an amazing adaptation. I just don't know what I could contribute to that. That's how I feel. You know, maybe like sort of Keigen. Like I could be a great no-person on sort of Keigen because I already kind of feel that way about the book where like, I gave it five stars or whatever. I love that book, but there's something that was like, no. And I just want to be like, no. So that would be a good one. I literally have to look at my shelf. I don't know. That's probably... Dandelion Dynasty would be really fun. I would like that one a lot. You get to work side by side with Ken Lee. You're already friends. Honestly, that'd be the best part of working on first law would be like, if I got to like work side by side with Jo-Ever Karambi. I don't know who we are. We exist to them. So it would be fine. I think that would be fun. I would love if Dandelion Dynasty became, I'd probably be a show. Would you think Dandelion Dynasty would be a good show? Yeah. Yeah, I think it could be a good show. I feel like it's like a lot of these where there's just like, if you did, like, I think a competent writer, it would be almost unrecognizable, but you could like strip it down and make it much simpler and make a good movie. But it would be very, very different from the book. So if you wanted something that was more loyal to the book, you would need to be a show. Yeah, but something like Green Bone, I think can make an excellent movie. I think you would lose some things, but I think it could be a good thing. But at the same time, I think a disciplined mini series of, like the way the British do it, where it's like five episodes, six episodes, like tight. Cause like, you would lose a lot if you did make it a movie. So, and I like, you know, cause I already think of Green Bone as Peaky Blinders. And Peaky Blinders is the TV show, but it is like quite, each season is quite short. So like, if it was like... You need to bring back the mini series. I mean, that's what made Good Omen so good, right? It was just a mini series. I think they were only like 40 minute episodes. I don't think they were super long, if I remember. Well, and there's also like, so with books, except for that trend of splitting the last one into two movies, in general, at least you have the security of like, there is an end point to this, as opposed to the TV show that outstays its welcome and just keeps going and going and going. So like a lot of TV, like that's what's scary about Rings of Power is like, with the order of the rings, you're like, these are the books and this is where it ends. And we can't just keep it going cause this is where it ends. So Rings of Power, cause there isn't actually a story we're adapting here. So they're just gonna keep going. I don't know where we're going to, but... Yeah, and it's interesting because like Rings of Power and Wheel of Time claim like that they have a set, or at least Rings of Power does like a set amount of seasons, which in theory makes it sound good. I mean, in some shows do like, I always respect Breaking Bad because they said they had five seasons worth of content and they sure did and they stopped no matter. It was so popular and they stopped and that story is better for it. I feel like I was actually thinking when I said it of the show, the German show Dark, where they were like, we have a three season story and that's it. And this is, and when you watch it, like yeah, like they have a very, I don't know, very disciplined plotting where like, this is clearly the arc they always meant to tell. It's a complicated and interconnected. And it's the same thing of like, it's not too short or too long. This is the amount of time we require to tell this story. And having that discipline. And I think typically non-American shows, British ones and other European shows are better about that. Americans are like 20 episodes a season, 20 seasons. Let's just go forever. The office is the perfect example. The British office had two seasons and like an extra episode. And the office went until everyone didn't like it anymore because that's capitalism, I guess. I don't know. It's just, as long as we're making money then that's all that matters. And that does her show. I never, I think I watched one or two episodes of Merlin. I don't know if you've ever watched one. Merlin was so great. And you know what Merlin was? Merlin's what you talked about, Lana. They did not have budget. You watched that show and you're like, wow, that looks really bad. There was a dragon at a show and you're like, that's not good. But you know what, that's what had hurt. A show that was kind of ruined by looking better and having budget was Doctor Who. Cause it also looks kind of crappy to begin with because, and it's a show that has a built-in mechanism to keep going and to like regenerate. So like that's very clever on the people that invented Doctor Who because you can totally recast it every few years. And it still fits the story. Like there's a built-in reason to do that. But it was like a campy show. And as soon as it got a budget and like gravitas, now it's like rings of power. You're like, you take yourself so seriously as opposed to being this like campy show about this like guy that travels in a phone booth. Because Doctor Who is campy and Merlin is campy. Merlin is absolutely campy. And I loved every second of it because it's campy the entire way. And I wish Sandman had been campy. It should have been. Well, I neither liked the graphic novel nor the show. So I can't talk about it. So I'm sorry. I mean, the graphic novel was fine. I didn't like hate it or anything. I mean, we would have a problem if you were like the graphic novel sucked. Thank God the show was brilliant. Then I'd be like, okay, that's friendship. I only watched two episodes of the show. And then I was like, well, I better read the graphic novel. And then I read the graphic novel. I was like, I don't need to finish the show. That was the pipeline of Sandman for me. Anyway. I thought I would bring this up sooner. But actually I thought going into this live that I'd bring it up like an example of something really, really changing the story. And I'm me thinking that I was a great idea. And it's not, and I like the book as well. But the Count of Monte Cristo film, they made a huge change to the ending of it. And I love that change. And I love watching the interview with the, I don't know if it was the director or the writer, but whoever was responsible for the change. He was like talking about when he decided to do that and how he was like, his experience of reading the book and deciding that this is how the story goes. And he was like, Dumas, how did you miss that? Of course this is what happens, the way he's like feeling like the author is the one that's like, you messed up. This is, you meant to write it like this. You just, you missed it. Count of Monte Cristo is hard for me because somehow I had never seen that movie despite everyone loving it. And I've read that book like two years ago and then saw the movie. I did, the movie is way better for commercial audiences. Like way better. And I understand why everyone loves it. I will say it does really miss the point of the novel though. The novel was like, revenge sucked. Like he spent literally like 40 years on revenge. And then at the end he's like, this is hollow and nothing. Although I will say, is her name Mercedes? Did I make that up? What's her name? Mercedes? Okay. The ending for Mercedes though in the book is track. I was like, really? None of this was her fault. Come on. So I think that the movie was like, oh, we'll make it happy and nice. I think while I, while what I was just time at was the ending, I think the best change that it made and it in the ending could have been the book ending still is the fact that while there was a collective of people that conspired against him, making it this true betrayal between him and Fernand where it's not just, oh, he's one of the many dudes that had a potential stake in screwing him over. The like the true visceral like betrayal and hatred that there is between Edmund and Fernand in the movie. I thought like that's just makes it a lot more. It gets the audience a lot more like, how could he do that to you? Like that you're invested in seeing this pay off. And I'll say like, you couldn't, I mean, I guess someone could, but yeah, adapting to Count of Monte Cristo as written, it's just never going to go over really. I guess maybe if you made a TV show, I just don't think it would. I really liked the book. But also Dumas was paid by the word and it shows. It did cost kind of a lot of money. And yes, I listened to it. And were there times where I was like, these French names all sound exactly the same and I'm unsure who is who. And you also kind of were like, wait, we've been here for a while. What does this have to do with the main plot? Oh, there's definitely a lot of that. So yeah, I appreciate for what it is. I do like the message more of the original, although it always bothered me that the main character saw him as a son and then left him out to dry because apparently that's okay. So I did love that part of the movie. It felt better.  And you don't read the book in that way. So I appreciate for that. But if we're talking about that, I don't think you've read it, but another adaptation that did that and di