#actually I should go find some dissections/readings of the film bc it’s finally been long enough that those should be out??

[itstimetodrew]

Alright @swankaliciouschekov …you asked for it 👀

Going under a read more because I’m not very structured lol

Thar Be Spoilers Below👇

So the most obvious difference someone will find in the Poor Things novel if they’ve only seen the movie is that everything is framed completely different. The movie is straightforward, there was a woman who was reanimated with the brain of a fetus and so begins life over again discovering all its wonders and horrors with no societal conscience. It’s not just a story about Bella discovering herself based on her wants, but how rigid and confining that larger society around her is, and how it (and the people in it, mostly men) relentlessly push their choices onto her.

The book has the same idea, but it turns out that the science fiction story we know is just that—fiction. Bella’s story is from Mccandless’ point of view, but Victoria (Bella’s original and ‘true’ identity) writes her own response to it. She derides it for being such a distortion of actual events, a half-delusional retelling that allowed Mccandless to see himself as more of an equal to her and Godwin. She talks about what really happened, how she fled from her husband and appeared on Godwin’s doorstep of her own will, no baby brain surgery involved.

It’s interesting because in Mccandless’ Frankenstein-esque tale of this woman finding her own identity and refusing to be controlled by the men around her, the tale’s existence itself takes away her ability to tell her own story. I can see why the movie would just stick to the main fantastical section, the ‘researcher commenting on a commentary in response to a fictional story’ angle wouldn’t work as well for the medium (the film benefits SO much by just being over-the-top every moment in its colors and style and score). But it’s amusing to think of how Victoria’s commentary has been cut out entirely this way.

Movie Mccandless is also even more obviously the “good” man in Bella’s life. He’s very respectful of her boundaries and desires and acts as the voice of reason in that she should be treated like a human and not an experiment. Book Mccandless is not nearly as passive or accepting. He’s the one that talks about having Bella as soon as they meet, aware enough to criticize men for wanting child-like wives but then obsessing over marrying her in the same breath, he’s sick with jealousy and anger when she runs away with Duncan, etc. And that was with him positioning himself as the righteous hero!

Similarly, Movie Godwin is even more of a mad scientist caricature than the book. In the novel, Godwin is vocal about his compassion for all living things. The only other odd experiment we know of aside from Bella is two rabbits he splits in half and swaps parts between. When he realizes the rabbits have lost some semblance of self and aren’t as happy as before, he switches them back. Movie Godwin does still love Bella, but he also has a menagerie of recombined animals and goes so far as to replicate Bella’s surgery on another woman once she leaves.

Again it’s just funny to see that the exact issues Victoria points out in the novel—her story being twisted, Mccandless painting himself as more innocent and other men as more monstrous—are even stronger in the film.

I don’t think the film did the novel “wrong”, though. It’s clear the vision for the movie wasn’t meant to be a 1:1 adaptation of the source material, and it shouldn’t have to be. I could talk all day about other facets of religion and philosophy from the novel that didn’t make it in the movie (or vice versa, the movie adds some really cool ideas), but I wouldn’t call it a complaint or downside to not see them there. My hope is that whether someone loved the movie or hated it, they would still consider picking up the novel knowing it’s a very different experience. (I’ll admit there is irony in both the novel and film discussing women’s perceived role as sexual objects despite not being allowed to claim sexual power or general autonomy for themselves…being written/directed by men lol). I read the book twice before seeing the movie twice, and I really enjoy both despite how different they are!

NOW GO READ POOR THINGS (and talk about it or the movie with me hehe)

I really hope that Poor Things getting so much awards attention also drives people to check out the original book. The film and the book are both really good and suited for their specific mediums, but it also creates a significant difference in how they tackle themes about sex and bodily autonomy and feminism. Like if the movie isn’t your taste, I’d 100% recommend picking up the original novel because it is Very interesting…🧠

[sroloc--elbisivni]

*sits down* *pours a glass of water* *pours one for scott westerfeld* *sips*

so here’s my pitch for an adaptation of Uglies specifically and the Uglies quartet* more generally. vague spoilers. i can’t figure out how to make the readmore work anymore so hit J or start scrolling fast.

*theoretically it’s a trilogy with a bonus novel, but I fuckin love Extras.

First, it’s a webseries, because Hollywood refuses to  option a series brutally dissecting the culture of cosmetic surgery and brainwashing through a dystopian lens (gee I wonder why).

The first few videos are amateur vlogging, taking us through the first part of Uglies, aka “Tally and Shay fuck around and find out.” it’s their shared dark web youtube channel, maybe it’s uploaded to the Crims’ private server or something and as bonus content sometimes we see videos that Shay made with Zane before the Crims cut out. either way we have to be convinced, as an audiences, that the girls are sure this is secure. The scene with Paris is never in-video, or if it is it’s just audio of Tally recording herself breaking into the party, so we don’t see the Pretties.

anyway. Tally’s hoverboarding saga, the hypothetical makeover side, sneaking out to the ruins, the good shit. it’s a webseries from the PoV of two kids who don’t know too much about making videos so shots are limited and we can really lean into the suggestions of this world instead of trying to build whole sets.

use of CGI, but only for detail work, leaning into the uncanny valley, making the world of Tally’s city very clean and polished, too clean, and putting skeletons in the Rusty Ruins.

the hoverboarding-down-a-roller-coaster has to be in there, preferably filmed on a GoPro equivalent, but if there isn’t enough budget we cut away from a painted shot of the ruins where Tally’s at the top into static bc the camera went too fast and then it’s Tally and Shay losing their minds with the adrenaline comedown and they kiss nope where was i

Shay’s letter--i can’t remember if it being on paper was a plot point in the books but I’m really feeling video message, ideally uploaded to the same channel, and then when Special Circumstances drop the bomb on Tally we as the audience go oh shit. they’ve seen everything.

this is where the mode of the story changes--no more amateur vlogging, now it’s Tally recording reports for SC. They’re not transmitted, so we just get this video diary of Tally’s trip, a little camera running the whole time, and then....I'm not sure whether it’s Tally talking to herself to vent her feelings, or the footage is cut together as a summary and the video is prefaced with a Very Official Special Circumstances report, so it’s like a debriefing.

The Smoke. That whole thing. the very last part is chaos and confusion and found footage. >:)

PART 3, which is Tally’s video diary of the whole next part of the trip with David. This part is more edited, more condensed, than the earlier parts, and the connecting throughline isn’t always clear. some of it is just the two of them talking, some of it is long epic scenery shots, some of it is after everything goes down and they get Shay back and they’re having these Very Serious Discussions, and those are shot like...the camera is being the record. except for where it isn’t.

SPEAKING OF SHAY. if it’s at all possible to pull this off, Shay is cast with two different actors, one for the first two thirds and one for the last third (and most of Pretties). The first Shay is an actual teenager, zits and all, not a beauty by any means. The second Shay is classic Hollywood cast-a-20-something-as-a-teen, rounded out with makeup to be just inside the uncanny valley. surrounded by everyone else, who’s been living in the woods. This should be the most jarring thing.

The last video is a discussion of informed consent, and the making the plan happens largely offscreen so then there’s a long sequence of Tally hoverboarding back to the city (shot by drone) where she’s just narrating, and the leadup to the ‘make me pretty’ penny dropping that oh. This is Tally leaving a message for herself and she’s not sure who she’s going to be when she watches it.

PRETTIES. Less of an outline on this one, but it works from the same framework of three parts, three storytelling styles--the first part is total Instagram Influencer, professional vlogging, glitz and party culture. The camera is floating now so Tally’s always in frame. Same trick pulled with Tally’s actor so you’re looking at actual different people. Tally and Shay are dating but the conflict is them both refusing to talk about whether this is a casual thing or an actual relationship so when the thing with zane happens it’s a mess.

when tally and zane start looking for the pills, that’s when it flips back to a narration style similar to Uglies, where Tally’s carrying the camera and they’re documenting their crazy adventures, thumbing their noses at SC. maybe it’s also intercut with like, news stories, because trying to film the ice rink scene would be bananas. unreliable narration as they try to pretend they’re completely law abiding.

 from the balloon and onwards, it’s all found footage. maybe anthropological stuff of the village, official reports, and then those end with the camera falling to the floor as the anthropologist is like ‘you’re not supposed to be--’ but we do make it all the way to the camp and the Specials showing up, and this is where the CGI comes in again to get just that over the edge of weird badwrong.

Specials is a mix of surveillance footage, recorded reports, and callbacks to the Crims’ channel in Uglies--at least one shot-for-shot remake but way more dangerous. sometimes the camera is just left running on a log in their campsite and no one even notices, and this is the tragedy, they’ve grown so used to their lives being recorded that they don’t even bother to care.

From Tally going down in Deigo until her message at the end, she doesn’t appear on screen, but she does carry the camera in to her saying goodbye to zane.

HEY REMEMBER HOW I LOVE EXTRAS? EXTRAS IS A MOVIE.

by this point there’s enough following and enough buildup that you might actually get a movie out of this, especially since it’s tackling things that are less explicitly ‘societally expected body modification is bad.’

it’s also dissecting the meta narrative that’s been set up throughout the webseries--it starts with Aya recording herself talking to Moggle, and then we zoom out, getting Moggle in the shot, and from there it’s just leaning into the wild fucking scope of this book. mag lev train? hell yeah. mountain?? hell yeah. the flaws in a society obsessed with reputation and vlogging which cannot be successfully explored within that medium??? hell YEAH. I FUCKING LOVE EXTRAS.

I personally think it would be very cool and narratively sexy if the entire thing was subtitled in English and the characters spoke in Japanese except where they switch into English, like in the book, but I also get like....familiarity and the danger of exoticizing. but driving home that this is the whole world that lives like this.

footage from the webseries is recut and narrated over into something more professional, and interspersed with the movie to catch up people who haven’t watched the webseries, and also to show how the narrative of history gets cleaned up. but if it’s done right, three things should happen:

We barely see anything of Tally’s Ugly days and the Smoke. There are shots of her chatting with her friends and laughing, way back from the Ugly days or the Pretty ones, but we never hear her voice except for the final letter

Shay and the rest of the Crims get important footing in the narrative but Zane is nowhere to be seen.

everyone in the audience, including people who haven’t read the books or watched the webseries, should LOSE THEIR MINDS when she shows up

There’s a post-credits scene of everyone covered in cake after it exploded.

*pauses to drink water* in conclusion give me licensing rights and a good director.