#ive watched the old movie tons of times and i've listened/read the book so much i've lost count

[mrs-jake-blues]

Hey! I'm one of the anons that's been sending you questions!! I know for a fact that I'm not the only person sending you anonymous asks. That means you've got at least two or more people sending you asks! Most of my asks have been questions about John. I've been watching SNL for a quite a few years now, but I'm just now kind of getting into the behind-the-scenes of SNL. For example, books that are written, other shows and movies that feature the cast, and so on and so forth. I'm just very curious about everything! Unfortunately, I live in an area that's kind of in the middle of nowhere. The closest town to me has maybe seven buildings in it - a police department, a fire department, a mom-and-pop grocery store, one of those old-fashioned pharmacies with a soda fountain that also doubles as the only restaurant in town, a very small library, a gas station, and a post office. Most of the books in the library are history books of the US or the very common pop fiction books. There's absolutely nothing about SNL in the library. The second closest town is actually a city with loads of stuff to do, but I can't afford to drive all the way to the city all the time, especially since it's over an hour away. There's actually a large network of libraries in the city and at one point they considered putting the library in my town into the network, but most of the rest of the people in my town refused for reasons I do not understand. I haven't had a chance to really explore the SNL books from the large library network yet, but I plan on doing so when I can! I'm pretty sure the Belushi book you mentioned is at the large library. I have thought about reading books online, but I'm very old-fashioned in the sense that I like to actually hold books. I have also thought about straight up buying the books, but if I change my mind it's hard for me to return them. I didn't realize how long this message was getting! Sorry! Before I leave though, are there any other books you recommend about John or SNL? Or even any documentaries or movies? I know to avoid the W*red video at all costs.

Dude this is wild I thought you all were the same person now I’m confused 😭. I’ll occasionally get anons about John but this is like crazy how many I’m getting and lowkey maybe thought it was someone fucking with me but that makes more sense but I appreciate your asks. I’m glad you know to avoid Wired haha. But Belushi by Judy and Samurai Widow also by Judy are must haves. The documentary that came out in November Belushi is amazing. If you can find it online, there’s a mini documentary about John with interviews with everyone on his “Best Of” DVD and I love it. There’s also “It’s Always Something” by Gilda which I’ve yet to read and the documentary “Love Gilda” which I’ve had yet to watch but heard is amazing! I think there’s a book about the first five years? And Jane has a book but I don’t wanna read that because I’m not a fan and Ive heard the whole thing is her being miss holier than thou and really negative so 😕. Laraine bas a book but I think it’s only audio book? I really wanna read/listen to it because I adore her and her stories about John make me 🥺🥺🥺 because she loved him so much and I wanna know if she talks about banging Dan 👀 lmao. But thanks for your asks, hey, I know with bigger blogs that get a ton of asks they have regular anons put like a little emoji with their names so maybe you could do that so I know which anon you are haha! Cause I thought you were all the same person 😭 And if you ever wanna talk about John my dms are always open!

Also sorry if I came across as rude when I said you should read belushi last night, I was in a bad mood I’m sorry :(

Also edit: your town sounds cool as hell, I wish we had a pharmacy slash soda fountain instead of all these hipster places we have here.

[bloodsbane]

HERE IS SOME OF MY HOT TAKES:

it was...... Okay

the animation is mostly fine. it’s kinda janky but you get used to it. i think it worked most when it was still, and if they had stylized things a bit more, and been a little more creative with the editing, it could’ve been really fitting and effective for the sort of story they were telling.

the biggest issue i had was the rearranging of plot elements. the movie had to cut some things due to time, but it stayed very true to the spirit of the book. the most they did was remove a few characters, but otherwise it was a really faithful adaptation. the miniseries keeps a lot of things from the book but puts them in weird, new places, seemingly for little to no reason. 

due to the above, a lot of themes and character moments/development are kinda muddled or completely disregarded. i think bigwig gets it worst of the ‘main’ cast, he’s not given nearly as much credit as in the book or movie and a lot of his personality is reduced to ‘pretty aggressive, mostly just a fighter’. 

they did this THING... where they made romance a much bigger element to things, but they weren’t actually, like, interested in, y’know, developing a romance in a good way. because of course they couldn’t, with this story; it’s not ABOUT romance. they end up shifting a lot of hazel’s motivations and attention in the latter half of the series to clover, who is his love interest now, and it SUCKS because it totally MISSES THE POINT of the fucking story, which is hazel learning to bring everyone together and bring out the best in every rabbit in their little group. hazel cares about EVERYONE, but he sounds really selfish and shallow bc they have him emphasizing how much he cares about clover, specifically. 

overall, they seemed to lose track of the ‘themes’ of the book, sacrificing key plot moments for the sake of changing things to make their take on the story more unique. biggest example of this would be the removal of the ‘there’s a dog loose in the wood!’ motif, introduced in the beginning and called back to at the very end, when fiver has his vision. also related: they don’t escape the efrafa rabbits by using a boat, which called back to blackberry having them use a log to float across the river to escape the aforementioned dog. and again, they fuck up character arcs, most notably bigwig’s. 

to offer some positives! first, they do hazel and fiver’s relationship well. i think hazel could’ve been done better, and again the whole ‘give him a love interest’ angle was a mistake i feel, but he’s serviceable as a protag. fiver is more or less perfect.

OH BUT FUCK I FORGOT, BACK TO A NEGATIVE RQ, THEY FUCKED UP ‘BRIGHT EYES’ AND DIDN’T HAVE FIVER GO TO FIND HAZEL, AND IM LIKE. WHY. 

did a mostly good job with efrafa and woundwort. changed woundwort’s backstory, which i found a little odd, but w/ the angle they play it, i understand why and i think it’s fine. his character is a little less... Solid, I guess, than in the books or movie. they made him a bit too vindictive, i guess? woundwort wasn’t sadistic, he was just totalitarian, doing what he truly believed was the best way to handle things, even if it meant being cruel. oops this turned into a complaint again.

i really liked the setting for efrafa, it’s a cool location that reflects well with the theme of the efrafa rabbits being unnatural (too much like humans). 

ALL IN ALL: episode 1 is fine, 2 is where things get messy, 3 is okay, 4 is mostly good. 

and i’ll say, i feel like they actually did an incredibly good job with the ending; basically everything following the siege on their warren onward is pretty effective (not including the bigwig complaint up above). i even cried a little at the end, heh. 

so i’ll say! if you like the book and the movie a lot, you may not like the miniseries that much, but i definitely think it’s worth seeing for yourself. if nothing else, it’s been fun seeing all the things they thought to change and speculating on why, and talking to friends who know about the previous iterations and talking to them about it. it may not be the best adaptation, but at least it’s trying, and i do hope it gets more people interested in the old movie and maybe even the book! from what i’ve heard, people less familiar with the story have enjoyed the miniseries well enough.

overall i just wished they’d maybe focused less on changing things to be ‘unique’ and tried to bring out what was good about the book, that the old movie didn’t have the time to explore. they couldve made a really compelling drama with all the relationship dynamics between characters, and that would’ve made personal arcs even more satisfying. honestly if they’d just re-framed it to be more interpersonal and made bigwig more of a main character like he is in the books, it could’ve been much stronger imo.

*KICKS DOWN THE FUCKING DOOR* WHO SAW THE NETFLIX WATERSHIP DOWN MINISERIES AND WANTS MY HOT TAKES