January 20, 2021 • 41 mins
Adaptations are rarely 100% accurate to their source material, but where is the line between adaptation and a completely new story with the same old name? Jonathan and Ariel discuss when a story isn't the story it says it is.Then we adapt two very unlikely stories of our own.
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Episode Transcript
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Speaker 1 (00:07):
The Large Nerdron Collider Podcast is a production of I
Heart Radio. Hey everybody, Welcome to The Large Nerdron Collider Podcast,
the podcast that's all about the geeky things happening in
the world around us and how excited we are about them.
(00:30):
I'm Ariel casting, and with me, as always is my
super awesome, super original co host Jonathan Strickland. Hey, Ariel,
I got I got an original idea. I'm gonna ask
you a question. You're a bad guy in a Scooby
Doo cartoon. What sort of abandoned structure or location is
(00:52):
your home base of operations? Uh? Functional yet uh not inhabited?
Old Stone Creamery. Okay, that's that's a good answer. I
like it. Yeah, you're just like the marble slab it's
still cold. It's a nice twist on the it's still
(01:13):
warm trope. I like it. Excellent. Alright, so we know,
oh me, uh, an abandoned renaissance festival site. I like that.
We're yeah, we're both like, it's abandoned. Well, it has
to be. It has to be, because that's like that's
the trope, right, That's always the old abandoned amusement park
or the old abandoned train station. So so my reasoning
(01:37):
is because I just want to be able to make
ice cream to fuel my villainy. What is your reason
to be behind it? Because Renaissance. I love Renaissance festivals
if it weren't for all those dang people. Uh, that
is not true, sir. The best part of the Renaissance
festival is the people, because otherwise you can't entertain them.
(01:57):
And you and I have spent more than enough time
on a more or less abandoned Renaissance Festival site for
rehearsals and stuff where it's just the cast, and it
does get creepy, but that's uh, that's enough of all that.
Now we know where are our villainous Scooby Do characters
would reside. Let us move on to what we have
(02:20):
to talk about today. Yeah, and the first thing we
want to talk about, and almost the most important thing
to me is One Division. Because One Division came out
last week and Jonathan and I both watched it, So
the first two episodes, we should say the first two episodes.
So Jonathan, in a as not as spoilery spoilery as
(02:41):
you can way, what did you think of the show?
I absolutely adored it I wholeheartedly loved it. Um. I
loved it both for the the obvious love and affection
the writers and everybody you have for classic sitcoms, American sitcoms,
(03:03):
and I loved it for all the weird and slightly
sinister creepy stuff that gets woven in. Again, no spoilers,
but there the first two episodes, I think it's safe
to say fall way harder on the sitcom love and
corny humor than the creepy stuff. The creepy stuff just
kind of is there occasionally, but that just makes the
(03:26):
creepy stuff stand out more. And that's what it made
me really really enjoy it. What about you? What did
you think? Um? I also absolutely loved it. I actually
spent the entire weekend saying, why are there not more
episodes of this for me to watch? Maybe I just
want to go back and watch the first two again,
because it was, UM, you know, we know that something
is up in the show, you know that from the trailers. Uh.
(03:49):
And and like you said, there was some sinister stuff
that happens throughout UH, But it was just overall very
uplifting and fun and it was just fun, which is
a fun show. And I feel like so many shows
in the past five ten years have just tried to
be gritty and dark and and graphic that I just
(04:11):
really appreciated almost the wholesomeness of of this mystery comedy.
And I just have to say, like, Elizabeth Olsen has
floored me with how well she embodies that classic sitcom
leading lady uh kind of kind of spirit. She nailed
(04:37):
it in such a great way, like that interesting balance
between being uh, you know, sort of the straight man
but also genuinely funny in her own right. And the
supporting cast of that show is amazing. I agree. I agree.
Unlike Fuller House or something where they're trying to bank
(04:57):
on old kitch, this show just really takes old nostalgia
and makes it feel natural. Yeah, it doesn't make it
feel forced. You know. Paul Bettany also did an amazing job,
you know, bribling some Dick van Dyke in there. They Yes,
there's their actual direct references to things like the Dick
(05:17):
Van Dyke Show and a little bit of Lucy ole
Ball in that first episode. And I don't know for
a fact, but at least the way the first two
episodes play out, I suspect we're going to see almost
a chain of different sitcom styles. We know there's one
other one because it was in the trailer, right there
was one that looks very much Partridge Family Brady Bunch ish,
(05:40):
but I expect we'll see maybe a couple of others,
hopefully before the season ends, because I am absolutely digging it.
And and it's also fun in that they have customized
openings for each episode to write, like the opening sequence
for episode two is different from the opening sequence for
apisode one and reflects the kind of sitcom that that
(06:03):
episode embodies, which is really cool. It also makes me
really curious how they're going to go forward because we
know in the movies Vision has died. That's spoilers really
most sincerely dead, and now he's back, and I I
worry Jonathan that it's not going to stay so fun
(06:24):
and wholesome. No, this is going to end in a
very sad way. But you see, they could they can
spin it. They can they can keep Vision around. They
can do this. Uh well yeah, I mean it would
be great if you could keep him around because he
he is such a genuinely fun character. Listen, if they
can make three movies out of the Hobbit we'll talk
(06:45):
about that later. Well, that was my clever way to segue,
right right, right, So, speaking the Hobbit Tolkien Lord of
the Rings all that, there is a Lord of the
Rings show happening eventually, really more of a Middle Earth show.
It's going to coming out for Amazon. We knew about this.
(07:08):
Turns out it's going to be the most expensive TV
show in all of history, with a five million dollar budget,
which is in sane. It also has a five season commitment,
so I'm not sure whether that budget is per season
or for all five or for all five. And it's
already been renewed for season two without a single episode
of season one having come out, but that is still
(07:30):
a huge budget. You know, they're filming in New Zealand,
and they, like everybody else, kind of got uh sidelined
by the pandemic. Of course, New Zealand's in much better
shape than most of the world. So yeah, yeah, And
apparently we've been waiting for this for three years and
I must have put that out of my mind because
I forgot about it until now. I'm pretty sure we
(07:52):
covered this when Ellen c was still going back in
probably and then I forgot about it. Yeah. Well, I
and and this show is going to be set during
the Second Age of Middle Earth. And if you don't
know how the history of Middle Earth works, everything you
see in the Hobbit, everything you see in Lord of
the Rings, all that takes place at the end of
(08:14):
the Third Age of Middle Earth. And so this is
three thousand years before that. Um, it's when Saron is
the big bad for the first time around. You remember
the beginning of Lord of the Rings has Um, Yeah,
is Selder chopping off Saon's fingers with Narsal the sword,
(08:35):
the shards of Narsal, And that is essentially the the
day New Ma the end scene of of of the
Second Age of Middle Earth. So this is going to
take place during that. And we suspect that a lot
of it is going to take place on New Menoor,
the island where the the sort of elevated members of
(08:59):
humans live that's Arragorn is descended from them. So yeah, yeah,
you know, I'm I'm excited about this. I when the
Hobbit movies came out one I was like, why are
there three of them? This is a short story, not
a short story, but a shorter story. Uh. And and
to like, there's so much world that Tolkien built that
(09:23):
I want to explore it. So this has given me
the opportunity. I'm I'm cautiously optimistic about this one. If
it fails, it will not be because it was cheap. Yes, yes,
I am also cautiously optimistic about the Doogie Howser reboot,
which is not a sentence I ever thought i'd be saying. Yeah.
(09:43):
So this was one that had escaped my attention until recently,
where we learn more about the the the new version
of Doogie Howser, which will not be Doogie Howser, It's
it's doogie kame Aloha m D. So uh one. Now
(10:04):
we're following a person of Hawaiian descent and to that
person happens to be female. So we've got a young
woman doogie and I think this is awesome. I actually
really kind of dig this idea and I'm very interested
to see where it goes. Um. And I also hope
(10:24):
that they play the theme song on a ukulele, and
I hope it's the same. Yeah. I just hope that
she types up all her thoughts on a really really
really really old computer or I think it will have
to be like a smartphone. Um, it's Peyton Elizabeth Lee
(10:45):
who is who is playing the title role. You know,
I went back and watched the first couple of episodes
of Doogie Howser again recently. They are deal with some
more adult issues than I thought they would. I was like,
they aren't doing this in this episode? Are they What
are they doing? I can't. I watched this as a child.
(11:05):
I mean it was, but that was the whole point, right,
was that here here's a person who is incredibly intelligent
but lacks worldly experience, and and how how the difference
between intelligence and wisdom needs to be understood so that
you don't just assume someone who's really intelligent is wise,
(11:26):
or someone who is wise is you know, book smart intelligent.
It's it's the combination of those two things that is
his journey. So, yeah, it will be I'm curious to
see how this one plays out. So our next story,
and actually the story that is going to be um
inspiring our mash up later, is about the television show Batwoman, Yes,
(11:50):
which has a new Batwoman Yeah Yeah. Ruby Rose left
h at the end of the last season. After the
last season, and instead of recasting her, they're just giving
us a whole new character. The new Batwoman will be
a character called Ryan Wilder Leslie. Yes, And this is
(12:14):
the reason why Ruby Rose left. At least in part
was that she suffered an injury during her shoots of
the the previous season of bat Woman and had to
have surgery in order to correct the injury. And that
was part of it, But another part was just that
she was kind of re examining her goals during the
(12:34):
whole lockdown period and I felt like they weren't really
in alignment with bat Woman. So now we've got a
new Batwoman. We've already seen trailers of her, and of
course the show's coming out very soon, so you'll get
to see her in action. Um. I love the look
of her. I think that it looks great, you know,
the fact that she's adjusted the cowl and everything. Um,
(12:55):
And hopefully this will be the change that Batwoman to
really get its you know, get up and running. Because
a lot of people have said that the Batwoman series
so far has not quite met expectations. I honestly, I
will say I haven't watched it because the wig looked
(13:16):
so bad in the trailers for the first season that
I yeah, So I'm hoping that's better too. But you know,
I'm I'm excited for about I like Batman, I'm excited
for more bat Person media. So I will give the
second season a try. Something I'm not Yeah, something I'm
not sure if I'm going to give a try though,
(13:36):
is the Snyder cut of Justice League. I was already
on the fence, but now that we know it's going
to be four hours long and and new, I don't
I don't know if I can sit through that. Yeah,
I um, I gotta be honest with your Ariel. When
(13:59):
I finally watched Justice League, not once, not once in
that running time, did I think, Gosh, I wish this
would go longer? No? No, No, I mean I will
say like it was a fairly ho um storyline. I
really just enjoyed Justice League for the character h exploration. Yeah,
(14:22):
but you know, Snyder has a darker vision, and so
I don't even know if I'm going to like the
character exploration. Yeah. No, I have a feeling like the
the more lighthearted, quippy stuff that we saw was very
likely the contributions of Josh Weeden. It just felt much
more like Josh Weeden's style. Um, and that Yeah, that
(14:43):
to me tells me that I probably will not I'll
probably watch it, if I'm being honest, but I'm not
looking forward to it. I think that it's I almost
feel like of the same, I almost feel like I
have to watch it for purposes of being able to
talk about it here. Uh the And also it does
(15:03):
have one thing that makes me kind of want to
watch it, which is, in theory, we're gonna get Martian Manhunter,
who I do very much like. I'm being curious to
see how how that is handled because it's such an
outlandish character. Well, we'll have to see if that realization
of the character ends up, you know, meeting your very
(15:25):
high standards areal. In the meantime, let's take a quick break,
and when we come back, we're going to talk about
when adaptations are no longer really adaptations and when that's
good and when that's bad. But first let's take this
quick break and we're back. So a lot of the
(15:55):
things that we talked about in the news segment are
adaptations or reboots or or the like from properties we
really like. And sometimes they are really great, like when
we get the Lord of the Rings movies, and sometimes
they're not so great, like when we get the Hobbit movies,
they usually have a wide range of of criticism about them,
(16:19):
in part to the fact that a lot of times
when properties are adjusted for movie or television, they veer
from the source material to make it a better viewing experience.
So arguably they try to make it a better viewing experience,
it does not always work out, as the aforementioned The
Hobbit proves. Yes, so uh, I mean where do you
(16:45):
Let's start at the basic level of of movies that
are adaptations that just kind of veer away from their
source material in places that don't follow the storyline exactly.
We see this a lot in you know, superhero movies
for example. What are what are your thoughts of that
just between staying true to the thing that you love
(17:05):
because that's what you're going to watch and and giving
a new story And I mean like this this to me,
it largely depends upon your experience with the material. And
by that, I mean if you are someone who has
never seen or read, or or otherwise encountered the original
version of that thing, then your impression of the adaptation
(17:31):
is likely to be very different from someone who is
like a big fan of the source material. Um, and
you know, fans of source material are notoriously picky, myself included,
and that I think is one of the major determining factors.
There are other ones as well. You mentioned superhero movies.
I think superhero movies in particular have a lot of
(17:54):
license only because for especially the classic superhero characters, there
have been so many different incarnations of those characters told
in so many different styles from so many different writers
and artists that you can pick and choose, and it's
everything's up for grabs, right Like there is a can't
(18:15):
be Batman if you wanted to go with the campy
Batman route. There's the dark and gritty Batman if you
want to go that route. There's the Tim Burton route,
where it's kind of both. Like it's you know, there's
a lot of a lot of flexibility there in other ways,
like other works, there's not as much flexibility. And so
one of the the examples I put in our our
(18:36):
notes that I think excels as a movie and was
terrible as a book is Jaws. Uh. Jaws is my
favorite film of all time. It is I think a
perfect movie. The book is almost unreadable, you see, I
(18:57):
feel that way about Hitty Chitty Bang Bang. The only
thing the movie in the book having common is a
flying car. Yeah, well, if you got rid of Husha
by Mountain, I would be all over that because that
Husha by Mountain is the song that kills that movie
for me. Kind of similar to Cheer Up Charlie and
Willie Wonka in the Chocolate Factory. Another example of a
(19:19):
movie that's very different from the source material. Um, Slow
songs kill movies, is what I'm saying. You know, I
would wait you to say in cases like Jaws or
Chitty Chitta Bang Bang, or even Willie Wonka in the
Chocolate Factory, depending on which iteration you're talking about. Well,
I said Willy Wonka, not Charlie. Fair enough Willy Wonka,
which is the gene Wilder one. Uh. I think that
(19:43):
it is beneficial, especially in Willie Wonka and the Chocolate Factory,
to um kind of reinvigorate an old story that had
some old concepts and ideas that were problematic. Yeah. No,
that's that's a fair point. Is that there's stuff in
that book where, you know, viewed through the lens of today,
you think, wow, that that is that is harmful thinking,
(20:06):
That is reinforcing some pretty negative stereotypes. Yeah, so I
think I think you're right on there. Yeah. And yet
when Tim Burton readed it to Charlie in the Chocolate Factory,
I didn't it focused more on Willy Wonka unless on Charlie,
which was odd because of the title change. And I
(20:27):
didn't like that that adaptation as much. And maybe it's
just because it's a story I came to as a
child and related to at a childlike level and didn't
relate to on the candy mogul level. Well, and to
be fair, also for Willy Wonka, that's like, that's a
movie I encountered well before I ever read Charlie in
the Chocolate Factory. So again that's another example of I
(20:50):
encountered that story in the form of its adaptation. First,
it's kind of like if you hear a cover song
without realizing it's a cover song, you might then us
into the original and think, oh, this isn't this isn't
what I expected, because you know the cover has done
something different to it, and you might not even like
the original as much as you like the cover. That
(21:10):
that happens a lot. It tends to be whatever version
of person encounters first, they they imprint upon that more.
I see that also with adaptations of foreign films, like
if you have seen The Ring before you saw Ringou,
then you may like the Ring more. But people who
saw Ringo first will say, oh, no, the Ring is that. No,
(21:31):
they didn't get anything right. Ringo's the best. Well did
you watch or read The Shining first, because that's another
one that's really popular, Uh, but veered from its source
material and actually made it made Stephen King upset as
it did. He Yeah, we're talking to course about the
kubric adaptation of The Shining, not the not the faithful
(21:53):
and yet nigh unwatchable mini series that was made much later. Um.
I read The Shining first, and I I feel like
those are It's almost like it's two different stories that
share some common DNA, and I think both are brilliant.
I understand King's objections, and I agree that if you're
(22:16):
telling the story of the book, Kubrick made some decisions
that don't work, the big one being that that Jack Torrens,
the character played by Nicholson, that, um that he comes
off way too crazy, way too quickly. And in the
book it's something that you see is built upon his
(22:36):
alcoholism and his history of anger management issues that then escalates, Well,
there's not a whole of escalation in the Shining It
kind of he kind of comes off as unhinged from
the beginning. And so it's a different story. But I
think it's a good story. It's just different. Yeah. Yeah, Now,
(22:57):
I would say that all of these things that we've
talked about so far are maybe not bang bang, are
close enough to the original story that they should be
called the original story, just a different adaptation. There are
there are things out there that try to say that
they're a loved story that really aren't. World war Z
(23:18):
the watch and I'm going to say Pete Dragon, even
though Disney owned the story Pete Dragon to begin with
and had complete right to change it, their new Pete
Dragon is not Peach Dragon to me right. The the
remake Pete Dragon completely ignores almost everything about the original
except for having an orphan and a dragon, or is
(23:40):
even an orphan in the remake he is an orphan, yes, yes,
but you know World war Z has to do with zombies,
yea for my Anderson, that's about Yeah, that's about it.
So have you read the book? Yes, so you know
that the book's brilliant. The book is more of an
observation about how humans cope in the wake of a
(24:03):
massive disaster. And honestly, if you read World War Z
and you look at how the United States has handled
the pandemic, you're like, wow, this is the World War
Z is so accurate. And how how these things play out? Um,
Because it's more of a commentary on things like how
bureaucracy can get in the way and mess things up
(24:23):
and make a bad situation even worse. Um. And the
movie is a zombie action movie. Yeah. Well, and and
a big thing like the story is told from the
recollection recollections of a bunch of different people, right, and
it's after the zombie the zombie menace has passed its
(24:44):
peak and now we're on the other side of it.
So it's people thinking back to when it was going
into its peak, but from the perspective of the story teller,
the worst has already happened. Yeah. And then you've got
the Watch, which you talked about in a previous episode Trying,
(25:04):
which is based off of Guards Cards by Terry Pratchett. Right, Yeah,
it's it's based off the night Watch series of books,
but mainly Guards Guards, It's got the The main storyline
is mostly pulled from Guards cards, with the onset of
a dragon around on more pork and um yeah, it's um.
It's so different from the source material. It shares tiny
(25:29):
little bits of of identity with the source material, but
it makes so many drastic changes that you lose the
spirit and you start to wonder, like, why would you
Why would you make these choices? Because every choice you
make that gets further away from the source material is
(25:49):
alienating the built in audience. But if you are making
it for people who are not that built in audience,
why would you bother adapting something in the first place.
Maybe the as they they had an idea that they
thought would be similar enough, but they wanted to get
a chunk of audience automatically, so they said, we're going
(26:12):
to throw in a couple of things so we can
call it the Watch, so that Terry Pratchett fans will
want to watch it, even though we really want to
tell our own story. But then, I mean, you know,
or you should know going into it, that you're going
to alienate those fans, and thus any reaction you get
from them is going to be negative and that that
(26:33):
is going to become a very powerful story all on
its own. Is that the fans of the series are
rejecting the adaptation you've made. Um. I think if I
watched the watch without ever having read any Terry Pratchett,
I would have thought it was very unusual and strange
and a little compelling, just because it was unusual, but
(26:55):
not particularly well told or interesting, like like it's unusual.
It's kind of like a David don't get on me
David Lynch fans. I think David Lynch has worked brilliant,
but it's like a David Lynch thing in the sense
that you're watching stuff and you're like, this is I'm
just trying to get my head wrapped around what's happening now.
The fact that I've read Pratchett tells me a little
(27:16):
bit more about what's going on, But the changes that
have been made are so drastic that, uh, my knowledge
of Pratchett is only somewhat helpful in sussing out what's happening.
And you know, they leave out entire characters who are
really important in the books, who don't even appear in
the in the show. Um. Yeah, it's one of those
(27:37):
that I find particularly perplexing because I can't figure out
what your end goal was if you are making choices
that are bound to alienate the fan base. Yeah. So
we've talked about some stories that are close enough that
they should be titled after their source material, and we've
talked about some that are so far away that they
really shouldn't. What about Disney, because Disney writes that line
(28:00):
for me of and I know we need to wrap
this up so maybe we can get into this deeper later.
But uh, Disney rides that line of just that they
changed the original story just enough that I'm like, is
it that original story anymore? I got you? Yeah, Like
like all the fairy tales, I mean, obviously they take
(28:21):
all the hard edges off the fairy tales. Right if
you read Grimm's fairy Tales. I mean it's called the
Brothers Grim right there, the Brothers Grim. But they can
be pretty grim fairy tales. Uh, you know, people get
their feet chopped off at ice, pecked out and stuff.
You don't see that in the Disney stories. I I mean, Disney,
(28:43):
for much of its history, is known for sanitizing a
lot of stories in an effort to create a particular
kind of feel right, like you can see a lot
of those classic Disney movies and to tell act like, yeah,
this is all trying to create that sort of sense
(29:03):
of wonder and magic, and the bad guys are easily
identifiable and they are bad, and the good guys are
really really good, and you know, the good guys will
win in the end, and nothing terrible will happen to
anybody that's permanent except the bad guy who will probably die.
Um that's about it. Uh. I'm okay with it because
(29:24):
I know going into it what I'm going to get, Like,
I know, the disease not going to break the mold
on that. Um, you're not gonna have some morally ambiguous
characters in there. For the most part, no one's gonna
get their eyes pecked out. Um. If I want that,
I can go back and read the original fairy tales.
So I just accept it as a totally different take
(29:48):
on the basic plot points of a story. Um, and
some cases it gets way the heck away from the
basic plot points. There You're like, okay, yeah, you've got
some dwarves in here, but this is not snow white.
Yeah yeah, Well, um, now we're going to adapt some
(30:10):
things of our own. Uh, and I don't know if
they either of our adaptations will live up to their namesakes,
but we're going to give it a go. But first
we're going to take this quick break. Al Right, guys,
(30:37):
we're back. And as you know or maybe you don't,
we like to mash up two different properties into one
and find out what happens. And this week I chose
the properties because I had a joke in my head
and I decided that I needed to write a whole
piece around. By the way, this is how my brain works.
(30:58):
I had to write a whole piece around the joke.
So we are combining the world of Gotham City, not
Gotham the series, but Gotham City from d C Comics,
the home of characters like Batman, Joker, Arkham Asylum, and
all that kind of stuff, with the Veggie Tales, a
beloved cartoon series featuring talking vegetables and fruits that tell
(31:24):
Bible stories and saying awesome, awesome songs. Um. So, since
you have this brilliant joke, oh it's terrible, You're gonna
hate it, and you throw you threw me under the
vegetable cart for this one, I'm gonna I'm gonna go first. Yes,
so this is bat Tails Positive Fables for a Caped
(31:45):
Crusader Chapter one. Yes, it's an anthology, all right. Batman
was feeling blue. You see, the denizens of Gotham City,
we're feeling that their hero was far too violent and dark,
leaving Cape Crusaders approval ratings. At a native with women
and children, Batman's pr person insisted that he cleaned up
his image. He had to start doing p s a
(32:07):
s about brushing your teeth and eating your vegetables. They
even took away his weapons, so instead of batterings, he
would throw bananas. It was torture, but it was working. However,
Poison Ivy got wind of this, and she decided that
she would not have this. In Gotham's darkest days, people
(32:28):
would sorrow eat fast food left and right, and her
pants plants were allowed to thrive. But now now that
Batman and Gotham were cleaning up their act and their diet,
her plants were being murderously killed, yes, murderously killed. She
broke into Wayne manchon Well the bat Cave Wayne Mansion,
uh one of those two, and animated all of the
(32:50):
plant matter in Batman's fridge to attack him. There was
a lot that men had had gifted tons of produce baskets,
more than he could eat from all of his good
will work and in the agriculture business. Slowly, but surely,
because they don't really have legs, the animated vegetables and
fruits began to creep up on Batman, seeking to bludgeon
(33:11):
him to death with their soft, almost ripe bodies. Batman
turned and saw the praitis just in time. He was
just about to make guacamole out of them when he
remembered that he was on a broadcast to a bunch
of children, teaching them about playing outside. So, but grudgingly,
he decided he tried to make peace with these animated
vegetables uh instead of making a massacre, and he addressed
(33:34):
the sentient flora. He thought, surely, if these things are
good for you, then they must be good at heart too.
He explained that he was just trying to make the
world a better place and not kill them, and the
veggies and fruits, actually being rather selfless, liked this so
much showed that they asked to join Batman on his quest.
He may not have weapons, but he did have good
(33:56):
nutrition for the body in the mind, and that is
just is dangerous. And soon Batman took forth with his
new arsenal. He had the grapes of wrath, which would
incapacitate villains with their smell, because as you know, they
never take a bath, a killer tomato named Bob, who
had shut down any bad joke, along with French peas
who would incapacitate you with bad jokes and laughter. He
(34:16):
also had a cucumber who, being mostly water, had a
psychic connection with the water buffaloes at the Gotham Zoo,
and together they vowed to fight crime the right way
by speaking kindness and goodness and reason into the villains.
And surprisingly, the villains were so thrown by this that
it worked for a time. That was a really good week. Well,
(34:40):
I can tell you that my version goes as dark
as yours went bright. Oh no, yeah, I get ready,
I'm going to ruin it. In my version of Gotham City,
there is no Batman. Bruce Wayne, rather than setting out
to avenge his slain parents, goes into a deep despair,
(35:02):
eventually emerging but being a shell of who he was
meant to be, idly spending his time and living off
his inheritance and irritating his butler, Archibald. However, also in Gotham,
there lives Barbara Gordon, daughter to Jim Gordon, the police commissioner.
Despite her father's best efforts to protect his daughter from
the grim realities of Gotham, young Barbara realizes at an
(35:25):
early age how the world works. She shares her father's
convictions and has a strong moral compass, but is also
frequently distressed at how corrupt much of Gotham's system is,
with criminals frequently bouncing out of the justice system due
to bribery and intimidation. She sees the need for a hero.
Ever since she was young, Barbara was interested in gymnastics,
(35:49):
but as she considers the possibility of the life of
a vigilante, she begins to seek out other training. She
commences her father she needs to learn martial arts and
how to handle weapons, pragmatically pointing out that since he
is a police officer and he has a revolver, it
would be irresponsible of him not to have her learn
how to be responsible with such things. After much training
(36:12):
and consideration, Barbara is sitting in her room contemplating what
persona she should take on as the vigilante Gotham needs.
She has to protect her father, after all, and criminals
are a superstitious, cowardly lot. As she thinks, she overhears
her own name being sung on the television. It's a
children's program that's on, just something she had on in
(36:33):
the background. Moreover, it's all about biblical stories, something she
hadn't paid much attention to, but now seemed to really
hone in on that moral compass, and the song has
convinced her Barbara would become the man a t yes,
a flipping, somersaulting, kicking and punching manity of justice. She
makes a big lumpy suit and sets out to confront
(36:56):
the low life of Gotham. While on patrol, she happened,
So here's some common street criminals chatting about a new
force into town. It's Mr Nezzer, a veritable crime boss
who is shaking up the criminal underworld in Gotham, taking
territory and assets from other families. But perhaps even more
feared than Mr Nezzar is his assistant, Mr Lunt. A
(37:18):
native of Gotham. Mr Lunn is known for his sadistic
streak with a reputation of slicing open victims and stuffing
them with decorative gourds. Similarly, the serial killer of Victor Zaz,
known for peeling his victims, has joined forces with the criminals.
Barbara begins to research Nezzer and Lunt, doing some detective
work as she learns more about their plans and influence.
(37:39):
Along the way, she encounters a young man dressed as
a pirate. His name is Larry. Larry, smitten with Barbara,
the manatee, proves that he can actually handle himself pretty
darnwell in the scuffle as the two are discovered by
some criminals on the streets of Gotham. Larry mostly seems
to be effective by accident, but Barbara proved she is
more than capable of handling herself, and so Barbara Manitate
(38:04):
and buccaneer Larry form a dynamic duo capable of putting
crime in its place. Their first true victory is when
they defeat one of the three Scallion brothers. The other
two are already making plans and how to bust their
baby brother out of our comb to be continued question mark.
That is the gritty reboot of Larry Boy. Yeah, so
(38:27):
for those who have no idea why I made that joke.
It was just for ariel Uh. You need to if
you are unfamiliar with eggie tails, you need to look
up the video Barbara Manatee, and that is why I
wrote that joke. I do love manatees and I do
love veggie tails, so totally worth bringing my beloved vegetables
(38:49):
into the grimness of reality. I bet I lost at
least nine of our audience who are like, why is
she a manatee? But the other ten percent absolutely adore you, Jonathan.
That's probably true. So if you adore Jonathan and his
Barbara manity joke, or have ideas about adaptations yourself and
(39:11):
and what you think doesn't doesn't qualify, or you know
news that you want to talk to us about, you
can reach out to us. How can they do that, Jonathan? Well,
the best way now is through our email that would
be l n C at I Heart Media dot com.
We have a website that is large nerdron Collider dot
com where we post episodes and show notes. You can
(39:34):
leave comments there as well. We've also got our sights
on We've got Twitter that's ll n C Underscore podcasts,
and we are on Facebook and Instagram. That's large nerdron Collider,
So you can reach out in any of those ways.
If we really like what you have to say, you
could be referenced on a on a future episode. And
um also remember if you enjoyed this show, to like
(39:58):
on whatever platform you are listening to us on and
recommend it to a friend. Word of mouth really helps.
We're starting to see growth every week, which is fantastic.
We love to see it because we really want this
to become a conversation, not just us talking to you,
but talking with you, and we want to hear from you.
(40:18):
Yeah uh, and so we hope we hear from you.
But until next time, I'm Ariel Caston and I am
the Night m M. The Large nur John Collider is
(40:49):
a production of I Heart Radio and was created by
Ariel cast In. Jonathan Strickland is see executive producer. This
show is produced, edited and published by Tory Harrison. For
more podcast on my heart Radio, visit the I Heart
Radio app, Apple Podcasts, or wherever you listen to your
favorite shows.
The Large Nerdron Collider Podcast is a production of I
Heart Radio. Hey everybody, Welcome to The Large Nerdron Collider Podcast,
the podcast that's all about the geeky things happening in
the world around us and how excited we are about them.
(00:30):
I'm Ariel casting, and with me, as always is my
super awesome, super original co host Jonathan Strickland. Hey, Ariel,
I got I got an original idea. I'm gonna ask
you a question. You're a bad guy in a Scooby
Doo cartoon. What sort of abandoned structure or location is
(00:52):
your home base of operations? Uh? Functional yet uh not inhabited?
Old Stone Creamery. Okay, that's that's a good answer. I
like it. Yeah, you're just like the marble slab it's
still cold. It's a nice twist on the it's still
(01:13):
warm trope. I like it. Excellent. Alright, so we know,
oh me, uh, an abandoned renaissance festival site. I like that.
We're yeah, we're both like, it's abandoned. Well, it has
to be. It has to be, because that's like that's
the trope, right, That's always the old abandoned amusement park
or the old abandoned train station. So so my reasoning
(01:37):
is because I just want to be able to make
ice cream to fuel my villainy. What is your reason
to be behind it? Because Renaissance. I love Renaissance festivals
if it weren't for all those dang people. Uh, that
is not true, sir. The best part of the Renaissance
festival is the people, because otherwise you can't entertain them.
(01:57):
And you and I have spent more than enough time
on a more or less abandoned Renaissance Festival site for
rehearsals and stuff where it's just the cast, and it
does get creepy, but that's uh, that's enough of all that.
Now we know where are our villainous Scooby Do characters
would reside. Let us move on to what we have
(02:20):
to talk about today. Yeah, and the first thing we
want to talk about, and almost the most important thing
to me is One Division. Because One Division came out
last week and Jonathan and I both watched it, So
the first two episodes, we should say the first two episodes.
So Jonathan, in a as not as spoilery spoilery as
(02:41):
you can way, what did you think of the show?
I absolutely adored it I wholeheartedly loved it. Um. I
loved it both for the the obvious love and affection
the writers and everybody you have for classic sitcoms, American sitcoms,
(03:03):
and I loved it for all the weird and slightly
sinister creepy stuff that gets woven in. Again, no spoilers,
but there the first two episodes, I think it's safe
to say fall way harder on the sitcom love and
corny humor than the creepy stuff. The creepy stuff just
kind of is there occasionally, but that just makes the
(03:26):
creepy stuff stand out more. And that's what it made
me really really enjoy it. What about you? What did
you think? Um? I also absolutely loved it. I actually
spent the entire weekend saying, why are there not more
episodes of this for me to watch? Maybe I just
want to go back and watch the first two again,
because it was, UM, you know, we know that something
is up in the show, you know that from the trailers. Uh.
(03:49):
And and like you said, there was some sinister stuff
that happens throughout UH, But it was just overall very
uplifting and fun and it was just fun, which is
a fun show. And I feel like so many shows
in the past five ten years have just tried to
be gritty and dark and and graphic that I just
(04:11):
really appreciated almost the wholesomeness of of this mystery comedy.
And I just have to say, like, Elizabeth Olsen has
floored me with how well she embodies that classic sitcom
leading lady uh kind of kind of spirit. She nailed
(04:37):
it in such a great way, like that interesting balance
between being uh, you know, sort of the straight man
but also genuinely funny in her own right. And the
supporting cast of that show is amazing. I agree. I agree.
Unlike Fuller House or something where they're trying to bank
(04:57):
on old kitch, this show just really takes old nostalgia
and makes it feel natural. Yeah, it doesn't make it
feel forced. You know. Paul Bettany also did an amazing job,
you know, bribling some Dick van Dyke in there. They Yes,
there's their actual direct references to things like the Dick
(05:17):
Van Dyke Show and a little bit of Lucy ole
Ball in that first episode. And I don't know for
a fact, but at least the way the first two
episodes play out, I suspect we're going to see almost
a chain of different sitcom styles. We know there's one
other one because it was in the trailer, right there
was one that looks very much Partridge Family Brady Bunch ish,
(05:40):
but I expect we'll see maybe a couple of others,
hopefully before the season ends, because I am absolutely digging it.
And and it's also fun in that they have customized
openings for each episode to write, like the opening sequence
for episode two is different from the opening sequence for
apisode one and reflects the kind of sitcom that that
(06:03):
episode embodies, which is really cool. It also makes me
really curious how they're going to go forward because we
know in the movies Vision has died. That's spoilers really
most sincerely dead, and now he's back, and I I
worry Jonathan that it's not going to stay so fun
(06:24):
and wholesome. No, this is going to end in a
very sad way. But you see, they could they can
spin it. They can they can keep Vision around. They
can do this. Uh well yeah, I mean it would
be great if you could keep him around because he
he is such a genuinely fun character. Listen, if they
can make three movies out of the Hobbit we'll talk
(06:45):
about that later. Well, that was my clever way to segue,
right right, right, So, speaking the Hobbit Tolkien Lord of
the Rings all that, there is a Lord of the
Rings show happening eventually, really more of a Middle Earth show.
It's going to coming out for Amazon. We knew about this.
(07:08):
Turns out it's going to be the most expensive TV
show in all of history, with a five million dollar budget,
which is in sane. It also has a five season commitment,
so I'm not sure whether that budget is per season
or for all five or for all five. And it's
already been renewed for season two without a single episode
of season one having come out, but that is still
(07:30):
a huge budget. You know, they're filming in New Zealand,
and they, like everybody else, kind of got uh sidelined
by the pandemic. Of course, New Zealand's in much better
shape than most of the world. So yeah, yeah, And
apparently we've been waiting for this for three years and
I must have put that out of my mind because
I forgot about it until now. I'm pretty sure we
(07:52):
covered this when Ellen c was still going back in
probably and then I forgot about it. Yeah. Well, I
and and this show is going to be set during
the Second Age of Middle Earth. And if you don't
know how the history of Middle Earth works, everything you
see in the Hobbit, everything you see in Lord of
the Rings, all that takes place at the end of
(08:14):
the Third Age of Middle Earth. And so this is
three thousand years before that. Um, it's when Saron is
the big bad for the first time around. You remember
the beginning of Lord of the Rings has Um, Yeah,
is Selder chopping off Saon's fingers with Narsal the sword,
(08:35):
the shards of Narsal, And that is essentially the the
day New Ma the end scene of of of the
Second Age of Middle Earth. So this is going to
take place during that. And we suspect that a lot
of it is going to take place on New Menoor,
the island where the the sort of elevated members of
(08:59):
humans live that's Arragorn is descended from them. So yeah, yeah,
you know, I'm I'm excited about this. I when the
Hobbit movies came out one I was like, why are
there three of them? This is a short story, not
a short story, but a shorter story. Uh. And and
to like, there's so much world that Tolkien built that
(09:23):
I want to explore it. So this has given me
the opportunity. I'm I'm cautiously optimistic about this one. If
it fails, it will not be because it was cheap. Yes, yes,
I am also cautiously optimistic about the Doogie Howser reboot,
which is not a sentence I ever thought i'd be saying. Yeah.
(09:43):
So this was one that had escaped my attention until recently,
where we learn more about the the the new version
of Doogie Howser, which will not be Doogie Howser, It's
it's doogie kame Aloha m D. So uh one. Now
(10:04):
we're following a person of Hawaiian descent and to that
person happens to be female. So we've got a young
woman doogie and I think this is awesome. I actually
really kind of dig this idea and I'm very interested
to see where it goes. Um. And I also hope
(10:24):
that they play the theme song on a ukulele, and
I hope it's the same. Yeah. I just hope that
she types up all her thoughts on a really really
really really old computer or I think it will have
to be like a smartphone. Um, it's Peyton Elizabeth Lee
(10:45):
who is who is playing the title role. You know,
I went back and watched the first couple of episodes
of Doogie Howser again recently. They are deal with some
more adult issues than I thought they would. I was like,
they aren't doing this in this episode? Are they What
are they doing? I can't. I watched this as a child.
(11:05):
I mean it was, but that was the whole point, right,
was that here here's a person who is incredibly intelligent
but lacks worldly experience, and and how how the difference
between intelligence and wisdom needs to be understood so that
you don't just assume someone who's really intelligent is wise,
(11:26):
or someone who is wise is you know, book smart intelligent.
It's it's the combination of those two things that is
his journey. So, yeah, it will be I'm curious to
see how this one plays out. So our next story,
and actually the story that is going to be um
inspiring our mash up later, is about the television show Batwoman, Yes,
(11:50):
which has a new Batwoman Yeah Yeah. Ruby Rose left
h at the end of the last season. After the
last season, and instead of recasting her, they're just giving
us a whole new character. The new Batwoman will be
a character called Ryan Wilder Leslie. Yes, And this is
(12:14):
the reason why Ruby Rose left. At least in part
was that she suffered an injury during her shoots of
the the previous season of bat Woman and had to
have surgery in order to correct the injury. And that
was part of it, But another part was just that
she was kind of re examining her goals during the
(12:34):
whole lockdown period and I felt like they weren't really
in alignment with bat Woman. So now we've got a
new Batwoman. We've already seen trailers of her, and of
course the show's coming out very soon, so you'll get
to see her in action. Um. I love the look
of her. I think that it looks great, you know,
the fact that she's adjusted the cowl and everything. Um,
(12:55):
And hopefully this will be the change that Batwoman to
really get its you know, get up and running. Because
a lot of people have said that the Batwoman series
so far has not quite met expectations. I honestly, I
will say I haven't watched it because the wig looked
(13:16):
so bad in the trailers for the first season that
I yeah, So I'm hoping that's better too. But you know,
I'm I'm excited for about I like Batman, I'm excited
for more bat Person media. So I will give the
second season a try. Something I'm not Yeah, something I'm
not sure if I'm going to give a try though,
(13:36):
is the Snyder cut of Justice League. I was already
on the fence, but now that we know it's going
to be four hours long and and new, I don't
I don't know if I can sit through that. Yeah,
I um, I gotta be honest with your Ariel. When
(13:59):
I finally watched Justice League, not once, not once in
that running time, did I think, Gosh, I wish this
would go longer? No? No, No, I mean I will
say like it was a fairly ho um storyline. I
really just enjoyed Justice League for the character h exploration. Yeah,
(14:22):
but you know, Snyder has a darker vision, and so
I don't even know if I'm going to like the
character exploration. Yeah. No, I have a feeling like the
the more lighthearted, quippy stuff that we saw was very
likely the contributions of Josh Weeden. It just felt much
more like Josh Weeden's style. Um, and that Yeah, that
(14:43):
to me tells me that I probably will not I'll
probably watch it, if I'm being honest, but I'm not
looking forward to it. I think that it's I almost
feel like of the same, I almost feel like I
have to watch it for purposes of being able to
talk about it here. Uh the And also it does
(15:03):
have one thing that makes me kind of want to
watch it, which is, in theory, we're gonna get Martian Manhunter,
who I do very much like. I'm being curious to
see how how that is handled because it's such an
outlandish character. Well, we'll have to see if that realization
of the character ends up, you know, meeting your very
(15:25):
high standards areal. In the meantime, let's take a quick break,
and when we come back, we're going to talk about
when adaptations are no longer really adaptations and when that's
good and when that's bad. But first let's take this
quick break and we're back. So a lot of the
(15:55):
things that we talked about in the news segment are
adaptations or reboots or or the like from properties we
really like. And sometimes they are really great, like when
we get the Lord of the Rings movies, and sometimes
they're not so great, like when we get the Hobbit movies,
they usually have a wide range of of criticism about them,
(16:19):
in part to the fact that a lot of times
when properties are adjusted for movie or television, they veer
from the source material to make it a better viewing experience.
So arguably they try to make it a better viewing experience,
it does not always work out, as the aforementioned The
Hobbit proves. Yes, so uh, I mean where do you
(16:45):
Let's start at the basic level of of movies that
are adaptations that just kind of veer away from their
source material in places that don't follow the storyline exactly.
We see this a lot in you know, superhero movies
for example. What are what are your thoughts of that
just between staying true to the thing that you love
(17:05):
because that's what you're going to watch and and giving
a new story And I mean like this this to me,
it largely depends upon your experience with the material. And
by that, I mean if you are someone who has
never seen or read, or or otherwise encountered the original
version of that thing, then your impression of the adaptation
(17:31):
is likely to be very different from someone who is
like a big fan of the source material. Um, and
you know, fans of source material are notoriously picky, myself included,
and that I think is one of the major determining factors.
There are other ones as well. You mentioned superhero movies.
I think superhero movies in particular have a lot of
(17:54):
license only because for especially the classic superhero characters, there
have been so many different incarnations of those characters told
in so many different styles from so many different writers
and artists that you can pick and choose, and it's
everything's up for grabs, right Like there is a can't
(18:15):
be Batman if you wanted to go with the campy
Batman route. There's the dark and gritty Batman if you
want to go that route. There's the Tim Burton route,
where it's kind of both. Like it's you know, there's
a lot of a lot of flexibility there in other ways,
like other works, there's not as much flexibility. And so
one of the the examples I put in our our
(18:36):
notes that I think excels as a movie and was
terrible as a book is Jaws. Uh. Jaws is my
favorite film of all time. It is I think a
perfect movie. The book is almost unreadable, you see, I
(18:57):
feel that way about Hitty Chitty Bang Bang. The only
thing the movie in the book having common is a
flying car. Yeah, well, if you got rid of Husha
by Mountain, I would be all over that because that
Husha by Mountain is the song that kills that movie
for me. Kind of similar to Cheer Up Charlie and
Willie Wonka in the Chocolate Factory. Another example of a
(19:19):
movie that's very different from the source material. Um, Slow
songs kill movies, is what I'm saying. You know, I
would wait you to say in cases like Jaws or
Chitty Chitta Bang Bang, or even Willie Wonka in the
Chocolate Factory, depending on which iteration you're talking about. Well,
I said Willy Wonka, not Charlie. Fair enough Willy Wonka,
which is the gene Wilder one. Uh. I think that
(19:43):
it is beneficial, especially in Willie Wonka and the Chocolate Factory,
to um kind of reinvigorate an old story that had
some old concepts and ideas that were problematic. Yeah. No,
that's that's a fair point. Is that there's stuff in
that book where, you know, viewed through the lens of today,
you think, wow, that that is that is harmful thinking,
(20:06):
That is reinforcing some pretty negative stereotypes. Yeah, so I
think I think you're right on there. Yeah. And yet
when Tim Burton readed it to Charlie in the Chocolate Factory,
I didn't it focused more on Willy Wonka unless on Charlie,
which was odd because of the title change. And I
(20:27):
didn't like that that adaptation as much. And maybe it's
just because it's a story I came to as a
child and related to at a childlike level and didn't
relate to on the candy mogul level. Well, and to
be fair, also for Willy Wonka, that's like, that's a
movie I encountered well before I ever read Charlie in
the Chocolate Factory. So again that's another example of I
(20:50):
encountered that story in the form of its adaptation. First,
it's kind of like if you hear a cover song
without realizing it's a cover song, you might then us
into the original and think, oh, this isn't this isn't
what I expected, because you know the cover has done
something different to it, and you might not even like
the original as much as you like the cover. That
(21:10):
that happens a lot. It tends to be whatever version
of person encounters first, they they imprint upon that more.
I see that also with adaptations of foreign films, like
if you have seen The Ring before you saw Ringou,
then you may like the Ring more. But people who
saw Ringo first will say, oh, no, the Ring is that. No,
(21:31):
they didn't get anything right. Ringo's the best. Well did
you watch or read The Shining first, because that's another
one that's really popular, Uh, but veered from its source
material and actually made it made Stephen King upset as
it did. He Yeah, we're talking to course about the
kubric adaptation of The Shining, not the not the faithful
(21:53):
and yet nigh unwatchable mini series that was made much later. Um.
I read The Shining first, and I I feel like
those are It's almost like it's two different stories that
share some common DNA, and I think both are brilliant.
I understand King's objections, and I agree that if you're
(22:16):
telling the story of the book, Kubrick made some decisions
that don't work, the big one being that that Jack Torrens,
the character played by Nicholson, that, um that he comes
off way too crazy, way too quickly. And in the
book it's something that you see is built upon his
(22:36):
alcoholism and his history of anger management issues that then escalates, Well,
there's not a whole of escalation in the Shining It
kind of he kind of comes off as unhinged from
the beginning. And so it's a different story. But I
think it's a good story. It's just different. Yeah. Yeah, Now,
(22:57):
I would say that all of these things that we've
talked about so far are maybe not bang bang, are
close enough to the original story that they should be
called the original story, just a different adaptation. There are
there are things out there that try to say that
they're a loved story that really aren't. World war Z
(23:18):
the watch and I'm going to say Pete Dragon, even
though Disney owned the story Pete Dragon to begin with
and had complete right to change it, their new Pete
Dragon is not Peach Dragon to me right. The the
remake Pete Dragon completely ignores almost everything about the original
except for having an orphan and a dragon, or is
(23:40):
even an orphan in the remake he is an orphan, yes, yes,
but you know World war Z has to do with zombies,
yea for my Anderson, that's about Yeah, that's about it.
So have you read the book? Yes, so you know
that the book's brilliant. The book is more of an
observation about how humans cope in the wake of a
(24:03):
massive disaster. And honestly, if you read World War Z
and you look at how the United States has handled
the pandemic, you're like, wow, this is the World War
Z is so accurate. And how how these things play out? Um,
Because it's more of a commentary on things like how
bureaucracy can get in the way and mess things up
(24:23):
and make a bad situation even worse. Um. And the
movie is a zombie action movie. Yeah. Well, and and
a big thing like the story is told from the
recollection recollections of a bunch of different people, right, and
it's after the zombie the zombie menace has passed its
(24:44):
peak and now we're on the other side of it.
So it's people thinking back to when it was going
into its peak, but from the perspective of the story teller,
the worst has already happened. Yeah. And then you've got
the Watch, which you talked about in a previous episode Trying,
(25:04):
which is based off of Guards Cards by Terry Pratchett. Right, Yeah,
it's it's based off the night Watch series of books,
but mainly Guards Guards, It's got the The main storyline
is mostly pulled from Guards cards, with the onset of
a dragon around on more pork and um yeah, it's um.
It's so different from the source material. It shares tiny
(25:29):
little bits of of identity with the source material, but
it makes so many drastic changes that you lose the
spirit and you start to wonder, like, why would you
Why would you make these choices? Because every choice you
make that gets further away from the source material is
(25:49):
alienating the built in audience. But if you are making
it for people who are not that built in audience,
why would you bother adapting something in the first place.
Maybe the as they they had an idea that they
thought would be similar enough, but they wanted to get
a chunk of audience automatically, so they said, we're going
(26:12):
to throw in a couple of things so we can
call it the Watch, so that Terry Pratchett fans will
want to watch it, even though we really want to
tell our own story. But then, I mean, you know,
or you should know going into it, that you're going
to alienate those fans, and thus any reaction you get
from them is going to be negative and that that
(26:33):
is going to become a very powerful story all on
its own. Is that the fans of the series are
rejecting the adaptation you've made. Um. I think if I
watched the watch without ever having read any Terry Pratchett,
I would have thought it was very unusual and strange
and a little compelling, just because it was unusual, but
(26:55):
not particularly well told or interesting, like like it's unusual.
It's kind of like a David don't get on me
David Lynch fans. I think David Lynch has worked brilliant,
but it's like a David Lynch thing in the sense
that you're watching stuff and you're like, this is I'm
just trying to get my head wrapped around what's happening now.
The fact that I've read Pratchett tells me a little
(27:16):
bit more about what's going on, But the changes that
have been made are so drastic that, uh, my knowledge
of Pratchett is only somewhat helpful in sussing out what's happening.
And you know, they leave out entire characters who are
really important in the books, who don't even appear in
the in the show. Um. Yeah, it's one of those
(27:37):
that I find particularly perplexing because I can't figure out
what your end goal was if you are making choices
that are bound to alienate the fan base. Yeah. So
we've talked about some stories that are close enough that
they should be titled after their source material, and we've
talked about some that are so far away that they
really shouldn't. What about Disney, because Disney writes that line
(28:00):
for me of and I know we need to wrap
this up so maybe we can get into this deeper later.
But uh, Disney rides that line of just that they
changed the original story just enough that I'm like, is
it that original story anymore? I got you? Yeah, Like
like all the fairy tales, I mean, obviously they take
(28:21):
all the hard edges off the fairy tales. Right if
you read Grimm's fairy Tales. I mean it's called the
Brothers Grim right there, the Brothers Grim. But they can
be pretty grim fairy tales. Uh, you know, people get
their feet chopped off at ice, pecked out and stuff.
You don't see that in the Disney stories. I I mean, Disney,
(28:43):
for much of its history, is known for sanitizing a
lot of stories in an effort to create a particular
kind of feel right, like you can see a lot
of those classic Disney movies and to tell act like, yeah,
this is all trying to create that sort of sense
(29:03):
of wonder and magic, and the bad guys are easily
identifiable and they are bad, and the good guys are
really really good, and you know, the good guys will
win in the end, and nothing terrible will happen to
anybody that's permanent except the bad guy who will probably die.
Um that's about it. Uh. I'm okay with it because
(29:24):
I know going into it what I'm going to get, Like,
I know, the disease not going to break the mold
on that. Um, you're not gonna have some morally ambiguous
characters in there. For the most part, no one's gonna
get their eyes pecked out. Um. If I want that,
I can go back and read the original fairy tales.
So I just accept it as a totally different take
(29:48):
on the basic plot points of a story. Um, and
some cases it gets way the heck away from the
basic plot points. There You're like, okay, yeah, you've got
some dwarves in here, but this is not snow white.
Yeah yeah, Well, um, now we're going to adapt some
(30:10):
things of our own. Uh, and I don't know if
they either of our adaptations will live up to their namesakes,
but we're going to give it a go. But first
we're going to take this quick break. Al Right, guys,
(30:37):
we're back. And as you know or maybe you don't,
we like to mash up two different properties into one
and find out what happens. And this week I chose
the properties because I had a joke in my head
and I decided that I needed to write a whole
piece around. By the way, this is how my brain works.
(30:58):
I had to write a whole piece around the joke.
So we are combining the world of Gotham City, not
Gotham the series, but Gotham City from d C Comics,
the home of characters like Batman, Joker, Arkham Asylum, and
all that kind of stuff, with the Veggie Tales, a
beloved cartoon series featuring talking vegetables and fruits that tell
(31:24):
Bible stories and saying awesome, awesome songs. Um. So, since
you have this brilliant joke, oh it's terrible, You're gonna
hate it, and you throw you threw me under the
vegetable cart for this one, I'm gonna I'm gonna go first. Yes,
so this is bat Tails Positive Fables for a Caped
(31:45):
Crusader Chapter one. Yes, it's an anthology, all right. Batman
was feeling blue. You see, the denizens of Gotham City,
we're feeling that their hero was far too violent and dark,
leaving Cape Crusaders approval ratings. At a native with women
and children, Batman's pr person insisted that he cleaned up
his image. He had to start doing p s a
(32:07):
s about brushing your teeth and eating your vegetables. They
even took away his weapons, so instead of batterings, he
would throw bananas. It was torture, but it was working. However,
Poison Ivy got wind of this, and she decided that
she would not have this. In Gotham's darkest days, people
(32:28):
would sorrow eat fast food left and right, and her
pants plants were allowed to thrive. But now now that
Batman and Gotham were cleaning up their act and their diet,
her plants were being murderously killed, yes, murderously killed. She
broke into Wayne manchon Well the bat Cave Wayne Mansion,
uh one of those two, and animated all of the
(32:50):
plant matter in Batman's fridge to attack him. There was
a lot that men had had gifted tons of produce baskets,
more than he could eat from all of his good
will work and in the agriculture business. Slowly, but surely,
because they don't really have legs, the animated vegetables and
fruits began to creep up on Batman, seeking to bludgeon
(33:11):
him to death with their soft, almost ripe bodies. Batman
turned and saw the praitis just in time. He was
just about to make guacamole out of them when he
remembered that he was on a broadcast to a bunch
of children, teaching them about playing outside. So, but grudgingly,
he decided he tried to make peace with these animated
vegetables uh instead of making a massacre, and he addressed
(33:34):
the sentient flora. He thought, surely, if these things are
good for you, then they must be good at heart too.
He explained that he was just trying to make the
world a better place and not kill them, and the
veggies and fruits, actually being rather selfless, liked this so
much showed that they asked to join Batman on his quest.
He may not have weapons, but he did have good
(33:56):
nutrition for the body in the mind, and that is
just is dangerous. And soon Batman took forth with his
new arsenal. He had the grapes of wrath, which would
incapacitate villains with their smell, because as you know, they
never take a bath, a killer tomato named Bob, who
had shut down any bad joke, along with French peas
who would incapacitate you with bad jokes and laughter. He
(34:16):
also had a cucumber who, being mostly water, had a
psychic connection with the water buffaloes at the Gotham Zoo,
and together they vowed to fight crime the right way
by speaking kindness and goodness and reason into the villains.
And surprisingly, the villains were so thrown by this that
it worked for a time. That was a really good week. Well,
(34:40):
I can tell you that my version goes as dark
as yours went bright. Oh no, yeah, I get ready,
I'm going to ruin it. In my version of Gotham City,
there is no Batman. Bruce Wayne, rather than setting out
to avenge his slain parents, goes into a deep despair,
(35:02):
eventually emerging but being a shell of who he was
meant to be, idly spending his time and living off
his inheritance and irritating his butler, Archibald. However, also in Gotham,
there lives Barbara Gordon, daughter to Jim Gordon, the police commissioner.
Despite her father's best efforts to protect his daughter from
the grim realities of Gotham, young Barbara realizes at an
(35:25):
early age how the world works. She shares her father's
convictions and has a strong moral compass, but is also
frequently distressed at how corrupt much of Gotham's system is,
with criminals frequently bouncing out of the justice system due
to bribery and intimidation. She sees the need for a hero.
Ever since she was young, Barbara was interested in gymnastics,
(35:49):
but as she considers the possibility of the life of
a vigilante, she begins to seek out other training. She
commences her father she needs to learn martial arts and
how to handle weapons, pragmatically pointing out that since he
is a police officer and he has a revolver, it
would be irresponsible of him not to have her learn
how to be responsible with such things. After much training
(36:12):
and consideration, Barbara is sitting in her room contemplating what
persona she should take on as the vigilante Gotham needs.
She has to protect her father, after all, and criminals
are a superstitious, cowardly lot. As she thinks, she overhears
her own name being sung on the television. It's a
children's program that's on, just something she had on in
(36:33):
the background. Moreover, it's all about biblical stories, something she
hadn't paid much attention to, but now seemed to really
hone in on that moral compass, and the song has
convinced her Barbara would become the man a t yes,
a flipping, somersaulting, kicking and punching manity of justice. She
makes a big lumpy suit and sets out to confront
(36:56):
the low life of Gotham. While on patrol, she happened,
So here's some common street criminals chatting about a new
force into town. It's Mr Nezzer, a veritable crime boss
who is shaking up the criminal underworld in Gotham, taking
territory and assets from other families. But perhaps even more
feared than Mr Nezzar is his assistant, Mr Lunt. A
(37:18):
native of Gotham. Mr Lunn is known for his sadistic
streak with a reputation of slicing open victims and stuffing
them with decorative gourds. Similarly, the serial killer of Victor Zaz,
known for peeling his victims, has joined forces with the criminals.
Barbara begins to research Nezzer and Lunt, doing some detective
work as she learns more about their plans and influence.
(37:39):
Along the way, she encounters a young man dressed as
a pirate. His name is Larry. Larry, smitten with Barbara,
the manatee, proves that he can actually handle himself pretty
darnwell in the scuffle as the two are discovered by
some criminals on the streets of Gotham. Larry mostly seems
to be effective by accident, but Barbara proved she is
more than capable of handling herself, and so Barbara Manitate
(38:04):
and buccaneer Larry form a dynamic duo capable of putting
crime in its place. Their first true victory is when
they defeat one of the three Scallion brothers. The other
two are already making plans and how to bust their
baby brother out of our comb to be continued question mark.
That is the gritty reboot of Larry Boy. Yeah, so
(38:27):
for those who have no idea why I made that joke.
It was just for ariel Uh. You need to if
you are unfamiliar with eggie tails, you need to look
up the video Barbara Manatee, and that is why I
wrote that joke. I do love manatees and I do
love veggie tails, so totally worth bringing my beloved vegetables
(38:49):
into the grimness of reality. I bet I lost at
least nine of our audience who are like, why is
she a manatee? But the other ten percent absolutely adore you, Jonathan.
That's probably true. So if you adore Jonathan and his
Barbara manity joke, or have ideas about adaptations yourself and
(39:11):
and what you think doesn't doesn't qualify, or you know
news that you want to talk to us about, you
can reach out to us. How can they do that, Jonathan? Well,
the best way now is through our email that would
be l n C at I Heart Media dot com.
We have a website that is large nerdron Collider dot
com where we post episodes and show notes. You can
(39:34):
leave comments there as well. We've also got our sights
on We've got Twitter that's ll n C Underscore podcasts,
and we are on Facebook and Instagram. That's large nerdron Collider,
So you can reach out in any of those ways.
If we really like what you have to say, you
could be referenced on a on a future episode. And
um also remember if you enjoyed this show, to like
(39:58):
on whatever platform you are listening to us on and
recommend it to a friend. Word of mouth really helps.
We're starting to see growth every week, which is fantastic.
We love to see it because we really want this
to become a conversation, not just us talking to you,
but talking with you, and we want to hear from you.
(40:18):
Yeah uh, and so we hope we hear from you.
But until next time, I'm Ariel Caston and I am
the Night m M. The Large nur John Collider is
(40:49):
a production of I Heart Radio and was created by
Ariel cast In. Jonathan Strickland is see executive producer. This
show is produced, edited and published by Tory Harrison. For
more podcast on my heart Radio, visit the I Heart
Radio app, Apple Podcasts, or wherever you listen to your
favorite shows.
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