S02E18 — Artemis Fowl

SPOILER ALERT: This episode and transcript below contains major spoilers for Artemis Fowl.

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Featuring hosts Timothy Haynes, Donna Haynes, Rebekah Edwards, and T. Josiah Haynes.

Welcome to the magical trainwreck that is Artemis Fowl, where the book gave us a cold-blooded boy genius and the movie handed us a confused surfer in designer sunglasses. We’re breaking down fairy kidnappings, missing character arcs, and a plot so scrambled it might’ve been written by a troll with a head injury. From unhinged jaw moments (literally) to “Did they even read the book?” energy, this episode is part therapy, part roast, and 100% proof that the book was better. Bring snacks. We’re going in.

Final Verdicts

If you haven’t listened to the episode yet, we recommend waiting to read our verdicts. (But you’re probably grown, so do what you want!)

The book is bloated with backstories, side plots, and some wild diversions (looking at you, Lucy’s subplot). The film trims the fat, focuses on the family, and turns a chaotic crime novel into a cinematic masterpiece.

Donna: The book was better.
– Book Score: 6.8/10
– Movie Score: 2/10

Rebekah: The book was better.
– Book Score: 6.5/10
– Movie Score: 2.5/10

Josiah: The book was better.
– Book Score: 7/10
– Movie Score 3/10

Tim: The book was better.
– Book Score: 8/10
– Movie Score 3/10

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Full Episode Transcript

[00:00:00] Rebekah: Hey, welcome to the book is Better podcast. Uh, we’re a family of four. We do a PA clean podcast, as you should know if you’ve been here this long. And this is, you know, a middle grade book. So we hope that it’s clean enough for your kiddos to listen along with you. Uh, we’re a family of four and we love to review book to film adaptations.

And boy is this one not doozy.

So, spoiler alert for today’s episode based on the title. I’m sure you can assume that we’re gonna be spoiling Artemis Foul, the first book in the series. We’re also gonna be spoiling the book, uh, the movie, sorry, from 2020 by the same name. Uh, and I believe that there’s a little bit of discussion we’ll be having about future books.

In the Artemis Foul series. So if you’ve like only read book one, you might hear some brief broad spoilers. Not necessarily tiny little individual import, but whatever there, just get over it. It’s, we’re gonna spoil it. Enjoy your time with us and shut up. Mm-hmm. Okay. Uh, so as we introduce ourselves, we like to give you a little fun fact about who we are and what we love.

So today’s fun fact is, considering this week’s discussion is about a fantasy book in film, if one fantastical thing could be true, you know, part of a magic system, some sort of device, uh, some sci-fi tech, what would you want it to be? And so I can go first. My name is Rebecca. I am the daughter slash sister of this Foel family.

Just kidding. We’re a great family. Um, and our last name isn’t Foul. Also my last name is different and I totally don’t have a complex about it. But, uh, let’s see. The fantastical thing that I wish could be true, I think that I would love to read minds. I would like to have a superpower and that’s what I would want it to be.

Um, so I think that that’s what I would like to be true. Wow. 

[00:01:44] Donna: Hmm. My name’s Donna. I am the wife and mom of this lord, of this system or something. Uh, so. I mean, I’d like to be able to fly, this is embarrassing to say, but like I get nauseated on a swing. So I think it’d be kinda cool to be able to fly through the air and not be sick.

Uh, planes don’t bother me. I could do that. But swinging outside and it was one of my favorite things to do as a kid. But now that I’m older, yeah, I don’t like it at all. So I would, I would definitely want to fly. 

[00:02:17] Josiah: I’m Josiah, I am the brother, son of this syndicate, and I wish that we could have a world peace bomb, or I don’t, I would not mind being invisible.

Hmm. 

[00:02:33] Josiah: But no one else is allowed to do that. I just want that superpower. So the world single, invisible. The bond 

[00:02:38] Rebekah: thing I do just wanna point out doesn’t really sound like you, I don’t mean that in a mean way, but that seems like a surprising answer. 

[00:02:46] Josiah: Wow. Well, in a magical realm, I can be a different person a.

[00:02:51] Rebekah: You know what? Leaning into that fantasy angle, I like it. 

[00:02:53] Josiah: One who doesn’t love war like you think I do? 

[00:03:00] Tim: Well, my name is Tim and I am the husband and dad of this syndicate. I like that word. I would like it if it were true that you could, you know, have a, a do over I kind of like the galaxy quest you do over of like 11 seconds or something like that.

Um, I think that would be, that would be fun. I can’t imagine being able to read minds because, um, that would be. That would be very rough. So that’s mine. Why do people not wanna read minds? Because I really don’t want to know what everybody’s thinking. And perhaps the inverse. I don’t want everybody to know exactly what I’m thinking.

[00:03:37] Rebekah: I don’t want other people to be able to read my mind. I wanna be able to read other people’s minds. I’m just so I can know who the horrible people are. Listen, I had, I had kind of an interesting week this week, and I was reminded of my, that, I’m not proud of this, but I, my flesh nature’s very vindictive.

And to me right now, the thought of being able to read somebody’s mind is like, I could know for sure who the dastardly people are so that I could make, uh, my life. Surrounded by ruining theirs. You know what I mean? But I’m not like that. I don’t believe That’s good. 

[00:04:09] Josiah: Yeah. Re Rebecca is definitely the talking about world peace.

Rebecca’s the type. It’s like, yes, well, I want a nuclear weapon. Her, I can, I can make sure that no one ever goes to war again. 

[00:04:19] Rebekah: I think that is a good argument and I won’t hear anything to the 

[00:04:24] Josiah: contrary. Oh my goodness. 

[00:04:26] Rebekah: Why don’t you tell us what the heck Artemis fouls about? 

[00:04:28] Josiah: Yes. Artemis Foul. Well, let me tell you a little bit about, uh, the movie, but, uh, Artemis Foul, a 12-year-old genius and quote unquote criminal mastermind.

Uh, I mean, really that’s, he is just a kid from a wealthy Irish family, but probably not a criminal before, during, or after this movie. Uh, but his dad is, I guess maybe, nah, nah. Anyway, Artis Fal is introduced. To the world of fairies by his own cunning and research or, uh, well maybe it’s just ’cause his dad did all the work off screen before the movie started.

He just left him a treasure trove of this information for Artemis to stumble upon, be introduced to, uh, once dad went missing. Okay, so foul kidnaps a fairy. Right. But, um, he does it because he wants gold because he is a criminal. Oh, oh. Um, actually, whoops. Um, he actually does it because he is trying to rescue his father who is alive and kidnapped or possibly missing.

And also his mom is dead. Uh, but she’s also not dead. She’s just sad and in bed. So then, yeah, Holly, the fairy that foul kidnaps becomes his best friend, but also is justifiably. Angry about being kidnapped. Uh, they’re also enemies and they’re also best friends. Um, let’s just tell you what happens in the book and then we’ll explain the dumpster fire of the film as we describe the changes later.

[00:06:02] Tim: So Artemis Foul, the first book in Ian Culver series introduces Artemis Foul the second, a 12-year-old genius and criminal mastermind from a wealthy Irish family with a criminal legacy. After his father’s disappearance and the family’s financial decline, Artemis seeks to restore their fortune by exploiting the magical world of fairies.

Using his intellect and resources, he decodes a stolen fairy book, uncovering Secrets of the Lower Elements Police, LEP, an Underground Fairy Organization. Artemis Targets Captain Holly Short, a determined LEP officer, and the first female in the reconnaissance unit kidnapping her during a magical ritual in Ireland.

He holds her for ransom, demanding a ton of gold from the ferries. The LEP led by Commander Julius Root responds with a siege on foul manner, deploying advanced technology and magical tactics, including a troll attack and a time stop field. Holly’s allies, including the tech savvy Centar Foley, and the Kleptomaniac dwarf mulch.

Digham works through Outsmart Artemis as the plot unfolds, Artemis navigates betrayals, outwits lept strategies and faces, moral dilemmas. His bodyguard Butler and Butler’s sister Juliet play key roles in defending his manner. Meanwhile, Holly’s resilience and mules tunneling skills challenge Artemis plans.

The story blends high tech gadgets, magic and wit, culminating in a tense standoff where Artemis secures the gold but releases Holly hinting at his evolving conscience. The novel sets up Artemis as a complex anti-hero, brilliant, ruthless, yet humanized by loyalty to his family and establishes the uneasy dynamic between humans and fairies paving the way for future adventures.

So let’s get into some of those changes. 

[00:07:53] Josiah: What about, let’s start with characterization changes. Oh, 

[00:07:56] Tim: oh, good Lord. Yes, man, there are plenty of those. Okay. So the titular character, Artemis Foul, who is actually the second, the primary protagonist of the novel is introduced as a cold criminal mastermind, whereas his movie counterpart is a talented, albeit misfit and misunderstood 12-year-old with no criminal history.

Mid film, Artemis claims hi his criminal mastermind status, although he didn’t commit much in the way of crime up to this point in the movie. Artemis also has a thriving relationship with his father, at least whenever dad is in town. His father taught him about that supposedly mystical world of fairies and Artemis cherishes time with him whenever Foul Sr.

Can offer it. 

[00:08:45] Rebekah: I was so confused. My, the first thing in my notes was, is Artemis a surfer? Because they show him surfing. And I was like, what is, like immediately what is happening? I didn’t get the point. I thought it was, no, I got 

[00:09:00] Donna: the point more interesting. The point 

[00:09:01] Josiah: Kenneth Branagh wanted 12 year olds to think, oh, this kid is cool.

’cause he took away every ’cause He knew. ’cause Kenneth Branagh, here’s my hot take, is not a good director. He is that a hot take? I think that’s a hot take. He’s an acclaimed award-winning director, but I don’t think he’s a good director. He is the go-to director whenever you want something to look nice, look Fancy and British, uh, you know, or Irish.

You go to Kenneth Branagh. He’s, he’s the Sir Lawrence Olivier of the day. He’s the traditional Shakespeare actor. Kenneth b Branagh took away. So much of what made Artemis Foul interesting and layered and unique, I think. Yeah, unique is key. Mm-hmm. That’s exactly what I was thinking. And then I assume, I can imagine him going through this thought process in the writer’s room.

He’s like, oh man, we took away a lot of stuff that, you know, we had our reasons, but, uh, he’s not really cool anymore. So what’s cool that 12 year olds could do? 

[00:10:01] Rebekah: Surf? Surf. They surf. 

[00:10:05] Tim: Maybe they could, maybe they could speak with an Irish accent. No, no, let’s not. No, that’s not, they 

[00:10:11] Donna: live in Ireland. Listen, they looked for it.

Their initial casting requirement was that the kid have an Irish accent and they searched and could not find anybody he was happy with. Yeah, I’m not kidding you. They couldn’t find, they just couldn’t. Insane. 

[00:10:27] Rebekah: Okay, so I think this goes to Josiah’s point. The thing that threw me the most, obviously threw everybody, this movie sucks, but the thing that threw me the most at the beginning was like, I loved the book starting and being like.

He was a criminal. I was like, this is interesting. It’s like you said, it’s unique, like different. A 12-year-old year old 

[00:10:45] Donna: godfather, 

[00:10:46] Rebekah: like he he be, was becoming Yeah. You know what I’d love to do? Kids love to pretend and so, you know what, it could be fun for some of them to pretend that they’re criminal masterminds, like in a safe space of being 12 and reading a book.

But no, we can’t do, that’s, we have to make everyone noble and motivated by, no, by causes and friendship and surfing. Except also his teachers like kept kicking him out of school. That was the thing that I didn’t get. They tried to portray him as being like a very wholesome kid, but also he like gets in trouble at school.

Yeah. Like it. It didn’t. None of it worked. It was mulu. 

[00:11:20] Josiah: I think it’s a good litmus test for how well your children’s film is doing. When you put it to the litmus test of, would a group of eight year olds in the neighborhood get together to recreate a scene from this story, 

[00:11:36] Tim: the book, 

[00:11:37] Josiah: perhaps? 

[00:11:38] Donna: Or, or would they instead think it was cooler that they could sit in front of a psychiatrist?

And smart off to him. It just was the, to me, I’m telling you, I, I’ll try not to say this a hundred more times, but I felt like it was Disney’s attempt to make the adults look stupid because Colin Farrell wasn’t gonna look stupid. His dad wasn’t gonna be, somebody had to, some adult had to be stupid. So a psychiatrist or psychologist, you never see again.

And then they make Judy Dench sound like a cross-dressing smoker. We’ll get to her, get there’ll, get her there. I’m sorry. I’m sorry. Oh Jesus. Okay, y’all, how about some other characters about Do Mavoy? 

[00:12:20] Josiah: Oh, do Mavoy? Yeah. I didn’t even know that was his name in the book because it wasn’t They call him. Oh, it’s not, it is his name in the book.

I do wanna 

[00:12:29] Tim: clarify. It might have been, but he was never called that. That’s somebody went by if they said it. It was just a quick introduction of his full name. So you, 

[00:12:37] Rebekah: you find in the book, Artemis uses it as a fake name on that first trip that they take. Oh yeah. He gives that as his fake first name, but they joke that it’s like, because it’s Butler’s first name, but he doesn’t use his first name.

[00:12:48] Josiah: Funny. Well, voy and Juliette Butler, they are brother and sister. Oh wait, are they uncle and niece? Yeah. The Butlers are introduced in the book as Deadly Guardians who care for the foul line as their own family generation after generation, DOMA, voy, and Juliet being the current generation in the book. Uh, Butler.

Specifically do. Mavoy Butler is referred to just as Butler, a tradition which reflects not only his name but also his bodyguard role in the film. It’s made clear that he is offended by being referred to as the Butler. It is. It is made clear through narration, not through setup and payoff or show, don’t tell.

But Olaf from Frozen just tells us this. It never matters In the rest of the story, he goes by his first name. Do Mavoy or simply Dom. The backstory of the butlers is not discussed in the film. Yeah, 

[00:13:44] Donna: no, it’s just there. They have nowhere 

[00:13:45] Josiah: there. They’re just there. You have no idea who they are. 

[00:13:47] Tim: They’re just there.

Mm-hmm. You know, you had a narrator. Apparently he might be a butler that just is good at fighting. 

[00:13:53] Josiah: Yeah. You had an awful narrator. You didn’t use them to describe who these butlers were. Anyway, we get a, we get a good backstory in the book. Um, Juliet is Butler’s sister in the books, but is portrayed as his niece, his, and, and younger in the film to be a similar age to artist.

The film shows her mostly as a, uh, entirely as a background character. Yes. Whereas Juliet of the book is more entangled in the Manor siege. She’s a comedic character throughout. Does she love WrestleMania or something like that? Yes, 

[00:14:27] Tim: she loves WrestleMania. That’s how Holly magic’s her. But does she surf?

[00:14:32] Donna: But can she surf? Because that would be really cool. 

[00:14:35] Rebekah: But yet again, the WrestleMania thing was hilarious. Why did you take that out? Yeah, that was very funny. Okay. Throughout this entire film, it was 

[00:14:41] Tim: a children, it was a young adult children children’s film and book. It’s a middle, that’s what it should have been.

[00:14:48] Rebekah: It’s potty humor and dumb stuff is the stuff that makes you laugh. Like somebody who’s really into WWE or whatever. WrestleMania. So she’s mesmerized, spanking, she’s watching, distracting when she’s supposed to be doing things by watching that. That’s a funny thing in a middle grade book. Throughout the whole movie, I thought somehow you took a funny book and you made it less funny on screen because like of all the changes you made, none of them were funnier.

They were all less funny. Why? Why did you have to make it less funny? The whole point was that it was supposed to be funny and it’s for children. Sorry. 

[00:15:21] Tim: You’re supposed to wait till the end to give your verdict. 

[00:15:24] Rebekah: No. 

[00:15:27] Josiah: I had a little bit of an existential crisis watching the movie because the, the change to Juliet Dom’s, Dom says, or I guess maybe, uh, Josh Gads said in the narration, I, I think I, I forget which.

But one of them said that they bring Juliette in because no one could understand Artemis better than another 12-year-old. And I was like, I don’t think that’s in the book at all. So I was still at the point in the film where I’m like, maybe this is setting something up. And I was waiting, I was specifically waiting for the entire, through the entire movie.

What is the payoff that she understands Artemis in a way that no one else does? And I’ll tell you, she does one thing in the movie. She gives him a sandwich, which, um, 

[00:16:14] Rebekah: man, I’m so glad that we challenged the problem with gender rolls in this film so much that we gave her a sandwich to give Artemis another thing to consider just FYI as you wa if any of you listening, baby listeners, make the mistake of watching this film for some reason.

Please just remember as you watch things that happened in the film, there is no payoff. Nothing is a setup. It’s all just really bad. It’s like 17 writers. They each got to write like four lines of a scene and then they were given another scene to write four lines of, but they weren’t allowed to read anything else that anyone else wrote in any of the scenes.

Yeah. And they also developed amnesia. 

[00:16:55] Donna: So what about our next fun character? Rebecca? What about Holly? Alright, 

[00:17:00] Rebekah: so Holly Short is the secondary protagonist. Uh, Holly is also a character throughout multiple Artemis foul books, not just this first one, which you can probably tell from, if you read, read it, it’s pretty clear.

Uh, she has totally different motivations and backstory from book to film. Book, Holly is a female in a male dominated field, and this drives her constant conflict with her boss Commander Julius Root, the female underdog angle that she has, that’s like throughout the entire book, is removed from the film.

Uh, as in the film, LEP recon, ALS already features a host of female officers. Movie Holly, but yeah. Girl Power. Yeah. And movie. Holly has an added onscreen arc about clearing her father’s name. Mm-hmm. Which is probably added to create a parallel with the plights of Artemis Foul ii. Um, that would’ve been 

[00:17:47] Josiah: such a good setup for, for any payoff.

[00:17:51] Rebekah: You know what? Yeah. So her dad, the movie invented character, Beachwood Short, was branded a traitor in the fairy world for stealing the magical act artifact, which we will talk about later. Just hum. Just get upset in your mind, but we don’t have to talk about it yet. Um, we eventually learned in the movie that short did steal the artifact with Artemis father for safekeeping, not for personal gain.

These, it was basically to protect the fairy world or something, which we’ll talk about that all later. But the whole point is in the book, Holly is motivated by being a girl in a boys club and she’s trying to prove herself. So the movie takes that away and gives her much less anti-feminist compelling.

Motivation. I don’t know what the motivation, really women 

[00:18:34] Josiah: are never in positions of power dynamic disparities ever in real life. That’s, that’s so feminist. One of you listen film is saying, how feminist of you, 

[00:18:44] Tim: this is a Disney movie and these are surprising things about Disney. They, they chose not to deal with that, that stuff that you’re talking about.

Mm-hmm. The disparity, they, they chose not to deal with that. They gave certain characters very, a very formulaic types of, of roles instead of even pushing the envelope. It’s just kind of strange. Mm-hmm. I expected Disney to be very woke with, with all of this, but um, they were kind of anti woke. 

[00:19:18] Donna: So I’m gonna go on, yeah, I’ll go on with Master Artemis.

The dad figure, uh, Artemis Fowl Sr. The protagonist’s father was not really present in the book as fowl Sr was presumed dead in a mafia incident that took place years before the story begins. However, Artemis dad is introduced early in the movie Alive and Active before being kidnapped. Throughout this story, this greatly, uh, alters Artemis motivations and he’s ultimately returned via the Ulus artifact back to foul manner.

They had to have some reason to create it. We keep having to 

[00:19:59] Josiah: mention the 

[00:19:59] Donna: Ulus. I’m so, oh, my do, oh, I know. I kept thinking through there. This was in the book was this Tim goes, no, it literally was, had nothing to do with anything. It’s 

[00:20:09] Josiah: the center of the movie. 

[00:20:10] Donna: Yeah. So we, but we also see the positive relationship between Artemis and his dad in the film, which doesn’t seem to have been the case prior to dad’s disappearance in the book.

Yeah. The book does. Which makes Artemis even a little more interesting and mysterious in the book because here’s this kid having to navigate life without a dad for a while mm-hmm. And that he’s trying to get through and, and those things. Um, I will mention that Colin Farrell’s scenes were shot in three days.

Nice. 

[00:20:43] Tim: Well, they finally decided, I suppose they needed somebody that had an Irish accent since they were, they’re all in Ireland. 

[00:20:52] Donna: Well, the other part of this though, about Colin Farrell, it was like way up into the marketing they had been advertising and, and talking about the movie before they ever said he was part of the cast.

So I don’t, I mean. 

[00:21:08] Tim: I have a feeling this was actually in some of the rewrite stuff because some of the first trailers that I saw for the film Yeah. Looked like the girl playing Juliet was a large part of Artemis life. ’cause it made the two of them look like they were teaming up together. Um, which I thought, well that’s really strange.

Well, they, they did team up. She took a 

[00:21:31] Donna: sandwich to him. 

[00:21:32] Tim: Well, no, I mean that’s what the, that’s what the first trailer was like. I, I’m thinking that a lot of that kind of stuff ended up on the cutting room floor or was rewritten out of it. 

[00:21:44] Rebekah: Just to clarify about the father thing, wasn’t it in the book that they talk ab a little bit about Butler kind of being his father figure, like to Artemis.

’cause 

[00:21:52] Tim: his dad has been gone. Yeah. So 

[00:21:54] Rebekah: then they were like having this like lovey-dovey relationship, but he’s just kind of gone a lot. And I was like, wait, what? What has happened? Anyway, 

[00:22:01] Tim: he’s gone. But you know, who was there? 

[00:22:03] Rebekah: In the book? Yes, his mom. Let’s talk about Angeline fowl. So the mother of Artemis fowl throughout the book is alive, but unwell and bedridden.

So she just stays in her room and they never really get her out of bed. The closing scene of the book, uh, his mother gets outta bed, which he deems worth the price of losing many millions of gold, uh, which is how he got somebody to heal her basically. Um, Angeline in the film died years before the opening scene, and this is treated as a non-issue.

We don’t care. Who cares? It’s just your mother. Mom died. 

[00:22:41] Josiah: It’s so tough when the main, uh, part of Artemis in the book who is a bad person. We like him and he’s the protagonist, but he’s a criminal doing seemingly selfish things that, you know, end up having noble causes a little bit underneath the surface.

But his main source of humanity is his relationship with his mother. They thought, nah, we’ll cut that from the film. Who cares about, it’s probably not important. We’ll humanize him. Oh, okay. Well, okay, so we’re cutting the mom from the film, so we have to humanize him some other way. Let’s make him not a criminal ma Mastermind.

[00:23:19] Tim: Let’s just make him really smart. Smart. Let’s make him. 

[00:23:20] Rebekah: Smart. That’s and Misunderstoods in a misfit. 

[00:23:23] Tim: We’ve never seen a movie about that. 

[00:23:27] Josiah: Oh goodness. Hey, uh, speaking of mother figures, commander Root Julius, oh, please. Julius Root is gender swapped from book to film, but remains. I will admit much the same in both works.

Uh, root is gravelly voiced for sure, no nonsense, and supposedly a good leader of the command. Uh, however, in the book, the male root is constantly at odds with Holly as she tries to prove herself in the Boys Club of lep Recon, roots, banter with and distrust of Holly based on her being a girl is removed from the film, leaving a slightly softer version of the Commander in the film Movie Root played by Dame Judy Dench also distrusts Holly at points, but because of her father’s assumed betrayal of the fairy world rather than her gender.

Judy Dench famous for. Rolls, uh, like cats decades. Yes, 

[00:24:30] Donna: please. I have her filmography. I have her filmography on my screen. She has been, now she’s picked some really bad roles. The cats was horrible. Let’s be real. It, I mean, it was not good. Mean was, we all know that that was 

[00:24:44] Josiah: six months before this. So I think it’s the same era.

She wasn’t having a great 

[00:24:48] Donna: time. Uh, she was in, uh, Chaka Law, which is that not a, was that not an award-winning movie? It’s by 2000. Guess she was an Academy Award winning. Um, she was in, let me just try to find, she was in some other bond. She was in a couple of other bond films, but they were older. Older ones.

[00:25:05] Josiah: Yes, you, you know that her casting as Commander Root is supposedly a tribute Jesus to her role as M in the James Dar. Oh, no. What 

[00:25:15] Tim: not. A good tribute. 

[00:25:16] Donna: Yes. That’s a, you guys, here’s something I figured found besides, what’s a tribute 

[00:25:21] Josiah: when it’s dishonoring? 

[00:25:23] Donna: Okay. That’s like at somebody’s, 

[00:25:24] Rebekah: that’s a funeral.

It’s like at somebody’s funeral. The time when they were 18 and they needed to make some extra money, so they took some pictures of themselves and posted them online to make that money. It’s like you dig those up and after the 96-year-old woman has died, you post that as the image next to her coffin.

It’s like, that’s great. You know, let’s just 

[00:25:42] Donna: embarrass you. Here’s, that’s good. Right? She was in like the importance of being Earnest Jane ere. She was in a ton of like, she did a lot of Shakespeare films, Shakespeare made to film, and she’s just. It’s too much. It was, I can’t, I don’t understand. But the thing that bugs me the worst is one piece of, uh, one of the changes that I heard the most about, it was literally in like every article I read about this.

That Holly was the first female in her role in the book. She was the first female. Mm-hmm. And she was 

mm-hmm. That was very important is Pres that prestigious. 

[00:26:21] Donna: So then why did Kenneth do this to Judy Dench? One. Why did he do this to her and why did he put a female there? It, it, it just literally bogles my mind.

The book 

[00:26:33] Josiah: immediately are rooting. For Holly, who is an underdog, right? 

[00:26:37] Tim: Yeah. Yeah. And partly she’s an underdog because she did make a mistake earlier. She is the pilot program. Yeah. For, for women in this role, females, it’s 

[00:26:47] Josiah: relatable. 

[00:26:48] Tim: But she did, she did make a mistake. And so they keep bringing it up and root keeps bringing it up.

You know, don’t re don’t forget. Not like that affair. Not like that affair. And even Foully. 

[00:26:58] Rebekah: Well, and he’s Foley, he’s quick. Foley says something about that. He’s like quick to threaten that she’s gonna lose her job the second that she does something else wrong. Right. Which does seem inconsistent with how two strikes, like he treats other people on recon.

And by the way, just a side note in the book, one of my favorite little things was LEP Recon, the lower elements Police Reconna Make Squad. Yes, they He’s that joke 

[00:27:20] Josiah: in movie. No, not at all. It’s not. It’s 

[00:27:23] Rebekah: actually really funny. I thought it was adorable. But that’s like supposedly where the humans got our word leprechaun.

I just thought that was adorable. That’s adorable. 

[00:27:28] Josiah: Foley’s a send tour. He is. In charge of, he’s tech guy. He’s the tech, 

[00:27:35] Tim: he’s 

[00:27:35] Rebekah: this tech, he’s the man behind the, the screen that makes all of the things possible. And he’s a big 

[00:27:40] Josiah: dork in the book. Right? Big dork. Yeah. 

[00:27:42] Rebekah: Huge dork. And he and root. Mm-hmm. Had hilarious banter throughout.

It was so adorable. Like they’re constantly arguing, but like fully knew what a valuable member of the team he was. And that Foley was, was just mostly messing with him, that they weren’t gonna really get rid of him. And in the, yeah. Well, 

[00:27:56] Josiah: Foley in the movie, he’s just like. A mildly attractive, serious guy.

No character. Really? 

[00:28:04] Rebekah: Yeah, he’s boring. He’s not funny. There’s no banter. He’s just like, I am tech. I am IT, 

[00:28:11] Tim: and I’m here to help. Turn it off and on again. No. 

[00:28:15] Donna: What about the most absolutely funny character in the whole film, who they use as narrator? What about that guy? 

[00:28:22] Tim: Mulch? Digham. A kleptomaniac Dwarf has a much larger role in the film.

Unnecessarily. How 

[00:28:30] Rebekah: larger You get it? Larger. He’s okay acting. Yes. I’ll get 

[00:28:34] Tim: there. Acting as narrator witness to the police and ally to the fo fouls. Both works portray him as an opportunistic criminal, but the movie makes him a giant fairy. He’s supposed to be a dwarf. It was meaning he’s small, but he’s the largest person in the cast, the entire cast, which simply means he’s human sized, da da, yay.

We don’t, we save on special effects. He quickly joins the side of Artemis, however. In the books Digham, uh, eventually joins Artemis, but not until much later in the series. Um, he is a character that is completely self-motivated and the reason that he’s brought in is because he’s already a criminal, so he’s lost his magic.

Mm-hmm. Which is, which is the, the consequence of not following the, the fairy rule book. Yeah. Um, and so that’s why Root brings him in to break into foul manner. Yeah. Is because he’s al he gets him out of jail so that he can go in and do this thing that breaks the rules. Yeah. 50 years 

[00:29:49] Rebekah: off a sentence or whatever.

[00:29:50] Tim: Yeah. So, um, and there’s something about a fire murder, actually. It’s not a murder. Um, it was a murder. It’s the goblins. Well, he’s against the goblins. And the goblins. The goblins are fireproof except their brains inside their head. Yes. 

[00:30:06] Rebekah: He shoves fire into the guy face and explodes him and kills him. Where, I’m so sorry.

Where is the moral center here for the director? Because it’s like, there’s certain things and he is like, I can’t imagine showing Holly as the first person that’s a female in her job also murders. Cool. If it’s goblins, like, it’s like, where’s the, that’s, that’s good. But not females fighting to like, 

oh.

[00:30:36] Josiah: Hey, Foley, we completely ruined an interesting character, but he was played by a non-white actor, representation, 

hey, 

[00:30:46] Josiah: and I’m sure a non-white actor playing a really uninteresting flat character that was based on an interesting, fun character that really advances the cause of underrepresented minorities.

I’m sure 

[00:31:01] Rebekah: it’s just so insane, like it doesn’t, oh. Well, it’s, it’s 

[00:31:07] Josiah: racist. It’s the quiet racism of not low expectations in this case, but of, um, of boringness, of, of stripping away the, the no Kenneth Brano stripped away the humanity from underrepresented, underrepresented minorities in the interest of representation, therefore setting representation back.

[00:31:28] Tim: But speaking of underrepresented, let’s get to the main character. Yes. Who was not in the first book, 

[00:31:37] Donna: but hey, who was completely covered head to foot, even her face. So we don’t know me what skin tone was. Who’s underrepresented 

[00:31:48] Josiah: playing role know? I was trying to figure it out. I was trying to figure it out in the film.

Your, what’s her name? 

[00:31:54] Donna: Opal Co. 

[00:31:55] Josiah: Opal co Boy. I was, I was trying to figure out who it was when I was watching the movie. I had just finished the audio book and I was thinking, is this like the fairy. That Artemis takes the fairy book from at the beginning of the book, which is not in the film. Who, who on Earth is this?

Holly? Because I had, I had no idea. 

[00:32:15] Donna: So actually, so actually Opal was the major antagonist of Artemis Foul, but she does not come into the books, the novel book series until book two. However, her shadowy machinations are a feature of the film. She’s the one pulling the strings, kidnapping Artemis Sr.

Strings. Mm-hmm. And coercing his son to receive the Oculus in the books. Cowboy is a power hungry, tech genius and rival to the Centar Foley, who we’ve been saying could have been stronger. And there’s, there was an end for CO for Poor Foley film Cowboy seems to be mostly like a setup for an external villain that would encourage sequels.

And I wondered watching through the movies, how much of this is he just doing, thinking that they’re gonna do a series and newsflash they don’t. 

[00:33:09] Josiah: Those are, those are the characters. Um, for the most, I think that’s basically all the, the major characters. But what about setting changes? I mean, the primary set piece in both book and film is foul manner.

I guess in the film there’s like a hidden library of. Fairy artifacts and research, uh, that, uh, you know, it’s to support the plot line Fowl Sr. It left Easter eggs for his son find. Mm-hmm. And for well Butler to lead him into the library of fairy artifacts. Whereas in the book, Artemis cleverly researches things for him himself, finds out things for himself.

He’s a proactive character. Oh, but no, no, no. I think it’s more interesting for the main character to be completely passive, an observer who has nothing to do with like the plot of the film. He’s just like going well, 

[00:33:55] Tim: especially since he’s a criminal mastermind. 

[00:33:57] Josiah: Yeah, definitely a criminal mastermind for sure.

[00:34:01] Donna: And I thought the room was interesting, and I’m not super observant about this, but I thought the room in the film was interesting that it just had all these things just laid out on shelves and tables and, and almost like it was like dec, a decorated room instead of this secret place that you certainly wouldn’t want to have exposing all your artifacts and all your findings in case someone would happen to get in there under nefarious purposes.

[00:34:31] Josiah: Well, you saw how hard it was to get in there. Butler grabbed a nearby pole and just put it in the ground and it opened up the ferry library. So it’s actually really hard to get in there to find out Pole didn’t foot away. Didn’t on 

[00:34:41] Donna: the pole. He didn’t dance on the pole, he just pulled the pole, right? So another setting changes in Haven City, in Ferry world, it’s shown in both versions of the story, but the film’s version of the town is far more visually high tech and modern.

The book kind of describes it like, like the secret underground city where there is advanced tech, but you only see some quick snapshots of the tech rather than a full scope of of the cityscape. The film realizes not only Haven City, but a whole host of advanced tech used by LEP Recon. 

[00:35:17] Tim: I thought this, I thought this was one.

Feature that was positive. I can get on that training. Yeah. In the book. In the book, you’ve got the possibility. Mm-hmm. You know, for world building. Yeah. And in the film, I think they, they showed that this one piece. I felt like in the film they did show that. So I wanted to say the positive thing. ’cause I did think that was a positive, 

[00:35:40] Donna: the positive thing.

It’s good. I like 

[00:35:41] Josiah: mulch, digham handcuffs that like technologically. Stuck him to a a, mm-hmm. Path, A path, electronic track on the ground. That was cool. I liked those. Yeah, that was cool. 

[00:35:53] Rebekah: Uh, another setting change is that some of the fairy rules of the world that were discussed in the book are non-existent in the film.

Some of these were really interesting, by the way. I like them. Uh, this includes the fact that fairies may not enter the house of humans or mud people as they not so affectionately refer to us without being invited. Also, fairies are unable to be outside in daylight in the books, which is a major driver of the timeline because like they, part of why they used the times stop and some of the things that made that so relevant to the plot was that like they couldn’t be above ground once the sun came out.

Because they physically couldn’t last for more than a couple of minutes without dying. Uh, so they removed some of that stuff, which I thought was some of what I liked the best about the world building. 

[00:36:37] Tim: I know that as we’ve talked about different things, following your own rules and being consistent is an important thing.

So we talked about that with Harry Potter. We talked about that with other magic systems and even other things that we’ve read or talked about together. If you have a magic system, stay in that magic system. Don’t just suddenly pop something out. Yeah. Uh, Stardust was one where it’s like, oh, that’s a thing.

Now that’s also magic. Oh, that’s magic. Yeah. That’s just call it magic. So well, the greatest of these magic rules that was omitted is the ritual By performing the ritual, burying an acorn at a crossroads or near a river under the full moon while reciting a spell, fairies can periodically renew their magic, which they have to because all of their equipment is based on that magic.

Holly hasn’t performed the ritual in a long time in the novel, which is why her magic is low, and she was vulnerable to be kidnapped in the first place. The film eliminates this altogether and doesn’t actually explain why Holly’s magic didn’t seem to be working well. Oh, why would it ta-da, just disregard it.

It was very important because that’s why she was at the oak tree. That’s why Artemis and Butler were able to kidnap her because she was there at that place. ’cause they were watching it. Otherwise they wouldn’t have known where she would’ve been. 

[00:38:05] Rebekah: I’m sorry, are you discussing the setup and payoff of the plot of the book that actually made, yeah, I guess I am.

I can’t believe you had mentioned such a thing when we’re discussing Kenneth Branas film Masterpiece. How dare you? So how 

[00:38:20] Tim: does the plot and timeline differ? Slightly just, but from the book, 

[00:38:26] Donna: I think the operative word is slightly. So, uh, the film opens with reporters discussing the events. Foul manner and the exposing of arm, Artemis Fowl Sr.

As a criminal with an accomplice in the book, the crimes of the fouls aren’t exposed to the public at all, and the media was never involved, but Artemis can surf real good. Um, 

[00:38:56] Rebekah: my, my, one of my friends, Abby, was over here to watch the movie. She was like, Hey, I wanna hang out this week. I said, I have no time, but if you want to come watch this awful movie with me, I have to watch it for a podcast recording.

I’m assuming it’s gonna be bad. And, uh, I remember like, as it started, Josh was here, he was kind of falling asleep. Within five minutes she was sitting next to me and literally like the first scene, I was like, what? Wait, what? Why no, why? But neither of them have read the book. So they didn’t know what I was upset about yet.

It was just a very 

[00:39:24] Tim: exciting experience. So Artemis Fell, is unaware of his family’s massive criminal enterprise in the film. While in the book. We start off strongly with the fact that the fowl family is a long, has a long line of very rich criminals, and Artemis has taken the mantle of continuing the scheming and stealing that keeps the bloodline in mansions and fancy suits a fact that Bau apparently didn’t want to even mention, 

[00:39:55] Donna: but, but Ferdy as Shaw did look cute in a suit.

That’s another positive. I did think that the actor. Appearance of the actor. Yeah, I did. I will say that’s another positive for me. I felt like the visual of, of the character worked with what I could see in the, in the book. So 

[00:40:13] Rebekah: yeah, I mean, on the positive side, I think he did a fine job with the terrible force material.

With the material he was given. 

[00:40:19] Tim: I think there are, there are actors, and I’ve said this before, that can carry the screen and you, you see that and sometimes they’re secondary characters and you realize, wow, they’re gonna get their own movie where they’re the titular character. But I thought he could carry the screen.

The problem was writing was so boring and inconsistent. Sometimes he’s a criminal mastermind ish, sometimes he’s sulking poor, misunderstood, outcast sometimes he’s super cool actually. And sometimes he’s a teenager, but it was just so inconsistent and poor writing. But I think he could have carried it if they’d given him, given him good writing.

[00:41:01] Josiah: Do you know, one of the things that Artemis does in the book is, uh, to obtain the, a copy of the fairy book of the people. Wow. We haven’t even talked about this yet. He later uses it to understand fairy culture and manipulate the situation with Holly to get as much gold as possible. It’s, uh, it’s this huge thing for the entire book.

He keeps revealing, he knows fairy information and all the fairies are like, no human has ever known that Artemis gets this book by visiting a fairy at the beginning of the book. Uh, he, he’s just. The fairy is disguised as a human. And, uh, Artemis helps her escape the alcoholism that has gripped her for so long 

[00:41:42] Tim: because he invented the potion that would take care of the alcoholism.

[00:41:48] Josiah: And it’s, it’s a very interesting start to his character. Yeah. Where it’s like he is doing this good thing for this mm-hmm. Fairy, but it’s not for the right reasons, sort of. So it’s a, he’s a, he’s a flawed, complicated, interesting character. Now in the film, this never happens. The book is never mentioned, hid.

His goal is to save his father. Whereas in the novel, Artemis is a likable criminal mastermind looking to steal gold. The film replaces his knowledge of fairies coming from this book by showing his father in the film, teaching him about the fairies from the many items in the secret library where clues were made for Artemis.

To discover. Sure. Very, very sad. This also was, um, I was fa I’m a language nerd and so I was fascinated. Eoin Fer has this sequence where Artemis is translating hieroglyphs and he says that hieroglyphs are a purely idiographic language, like each hieroglyph translates to a different word, but that’s not true.

It’s partly idiographic. This is why it was so complicated to translate before the Rosetta Stone, but it’s also partly phonetic. So if I’m not, if I’m not mistaken, we figured out with the Rosetta Stone that certain hieroglyph, and it’s just a context thing. You take the word of like if it’s a picture of an owl, it might be the word owl, or it might be the sound that an owl, that the word owl produces.

Oh, um, gotcha. Now, and, and if I’m, I might be completely butchering this, but my very minimal understanding of hieroglyphs is that, um, if you wanna say, I’ll, I’ll be back instead of spelling out I-L-L-B-E-B-A-C-K or having a picture of a person I, and then re a symbol for return. It’ll be like owl, like have a picture of an owl and then a buzzing bee.

Uh, and then I don’t know, a person’s back like hat’s back or something like that. So it’s kind of like a mixture of owl bee back. That’s probably not true at all, but that’s how I understand it. 

I like that. 

[00:44:03] Josiah: And I, I did Artis find it very interesting. Did not quite know that. So I’m more of a boy genius than he is.

Okay. 

[00:44:09] Tim: I I, you are totally a boy genius. I did like the fact that he had to figure out, figure that out for himself because his computers mm-hmm. Couldn’t translate it until he learned certain things about it himself by deduction, including the direction to read each page, um, and the symbol for here’s where to start or here’s the direction to go.

[00:44:33] Rebekah: It’s almost like they made him a really interesting character. Yes. Who was really fascinating and smart. He 

[00:44:37] Tim: was smarter than his computer. He only used his computer because it could do things faster once he taught it what to do. 

[00:44:45] Rebekah: Speaking of things, the movie introduces a plot device in the form of a magical McGuffin called the Ulus.

Oh. What? Um, this immensely powerful object is described as the fairy’s greatest resource Wow. Allowing them to teleport and serving as the source of their energy. The Ulus ties together the film’s disparate plot threads, as Artemis seniors stole this device to keep it out of the wrong hands. Opal Cabo wants it to enact her evil plan.

And Beachwood short. Holly’s father helped Artemis Senior. Senior, I can totally say that word. This fetch quest unifies the motivation for all characters. Yeah. Because their motivations were really dumb and made no sense, and we had to figure out a way to make it make sense. Yeah. Uh, the, they even motivate Why Artemis kidnaps Holly, which is again, confusing in its own way.

The Ulus shifts the story from a confined ransom standoff to a broader stakes of saving the world. Oh, not everything has to be about the saving of the world. I am so like, I’m super over all the superhero stuff. Like Avengers End Game was the last good movie in the Marvel universe. So far. Okay. I’m just saying.

And I think that it did for it. It is a great foil for the way that I feel about how this movie was Mo like changed from its book. Mm-hmm. In the book you have something that, confined is a good word for that because it’s like, it’s a confined standoff. It happens between a few people. There. The stakes are high for the characters, but the stakes aren’t high for the rest of the world.

Partly because Artemis fowl like has a lot more adventuring to do. Mm-hmm. And I’m sure the stakes get higher as the books go along. And remember this movie was set up to have sequels 

[00:46:35] Tim: because there’s books 

[00:46:38] Rebekah: doesn’t because of there’s the movie’s terrible. But not everything needs to have stakes of saving the world.

Like I am a person who enjoys that in a lot of what I read, but. Like, can you not just tell an interesting story that affects a small number of people? Like by the way, there was like a whole fairy army at some point. That doesn’t happen in the book because you don’t need everything and everyone in involved in everything all the time.

[00:47:05] Donna: Well, you, that would be like Harry Potter, uh, killing Voldemort in Sorcerer Stone. 

[00:47:11] Rebekah: Yeah. I mean, it’s, you, 

[00:47:12] Donna: you have to build, you have to go somewhere stake, have to, if you’re gonna write a series, the Stake 

[00:47:16] Rebekah: of Stone were like, he learned about that. Yeah. But the stakes in Sorcerer Stone were that they were afraid that Voldemort would steal an artifact.

Yeah. Like that was the stakes and everybody around them knew that it wasn’t a big deal and whatever. Yeah. Like, and, and then 

[00:47:32] Donna: they grow. The other part of this, the other part of your point, uh, which I totally agree with, I felt like it. It was forcing something it didn’t need. And I mean, I think that’s what you’re saying.

It, it wasn’t, it wasn’t necessary. The story had merit, but another change that was in book and film, but just wasn’t the same in the two, uh, was Mulch Digham. Um, in the film they use him as the narrator where, you know, the book has like this third person narrator, but they’ve got him in an interrogation room with the police or the FBI or the KGB, or, I don’t, I don’t even know who the book, you know, he, it, it just uses that third person narration, which personally I like, I don’t, I don’t need every book to be written from the perspective of the, of the main character.

So I, I did like that in the book as well. Um, 

[00:48:33] Tim: yeah, but he doesn’t narrate the book, does he? 

[00:48:36] Donna: No mulch doesn’t, that’s the thing, the book, it has a, a third person narrator that, you know, it’s, from Holly’s point of view, it’s from Artemis. Yeah, exactly. Well, 

[00:48:45] Tim: that’s, that’s the, is that the, um, God point of view. I can’t remember what, what that’s called.

Omniscient. Omniscient. Point of view. View, omni, the omniscient. You just, you know everything. 

[00:48:54] Josiah: If done correctly, it’s limited. It’s just from the future. 

[00:48:59] Donna: Right. Um, and a little trivia on this, Josh Gads portrayal was met with some really bad vibes. Again, bran all loved him for this part. He was very, he was very interested in him playing this part.

They used mulch as this narrator where the book has the third person, like I’d said, but, uh, in a June, 2020 Vulture article. Uh, it’s stated to be an attempt to quote, an attempt to provide some levity that just ends up ringing broad and hollow. But hey, at least we got the pure horror image of Josh Gad fully unhinging his jaw to swallow the dirt hole.

Sadly, in the book series, digham can also meninge his jaw and is indeed famous for his farts. So we can’t fully blame Disney for that in quotes. 

[00:49:48] Rebekah: Okay. But, but in the book he talks about not wanting to let go of his dirt farts unless he’s still underground. ’cause he doesn’t wanna bother people. Right. And in the film what got me, I was horrified.

What got me was he does this horrible thing with his jaw, right? Yeah. Which again, is in the book, like I’m probably, you know, whatever. But he like looked back at them like I’m. So excited to traumatize your visual like ocular devices for the rest of your life. You’re never gonna stop thinking about it.

Whereas, at least in the book, he wasn’t a good guy or anything, but Digham is like, you know, he didn’t wanna like release it out in the edge. He’s so, he’s a likable character. 

[00:50:25] Tim: Even, even though he’s, he criminal some bad, made some bad decisions. There was, there was another thing. Connected to that, that I thought that was really stupid.

They sent him in to dig underground secretly to get in the mansion. So apparently he’s digging six inches from the surface, breaking up the staircase as he secretly ghosts digging a tunnel. It’s like, okay, that just completely defeated the purpose of having him do that. Why didn’t you just walk up to the front door?

[00:50:58] Donna: They’d let people in. They had a butler, and Juliet probably would’ve given him a sandwich. So. 

[00:51:04] Rebekah: Okay, so because of the added storyline of Opal Cabo, the film uses a character Kon, who in the book did overstep root and get the council to give him like access to get the troll into foul manner and all that.

Kon in the movie also sends the troll to foul manner. However, in the movie, he is working for Opal Cabo as a spy or a saboteur of some sort. He’s the one that met with her, yes. Early in the movie. And so he’s shown multiple times throughout the film. He’s the one behind drugging the troll and making it have an allergic reaction for some reason.

Why? Why? Why did we do that? I don’t get it. Uh, and so instead of just being someone that like root confided in, who later went behind his back, Kajon becomes an actual saboteur and they kind of try to work everything happening at foul manner into this idea that Opal was behind it all. 

[00:51:59] Tim: So we have to get the troll to foul manner and they have to capture one.

Mm-hmm. Sure. And they do that. The book and the film have a, have a section with. With the troll being captured. That’s where we find out that Holly doesn’t have all of her magic and she’s not going to expose herself until she can’t help but save a little boy. Um, in the film, it’s a, it’s a girl in the film, the scene is, is an extended scene.

Hold on. Yeah. 

[00:52:26] Rebekah: Holly saves a boy a in a book, a boy, and in the film she has to save a weak little girl. Okay. I’m over it. Sorry. Go ahead. Beth 

[00:52:36] Tim: Bran. Uh, in the film we get an extended scene in Italy or somewhere thereabouts of a wedding where a massive troll shows up to destroy everything. Uh, we’re introduced to the Times Stop Mechanic, uh, as it’s used to give l recon time to wipe memories and remove the troll from the scene.

Mm-hmm. It is in the book. It is foreshadowing for some of the things that happen later in the film. It probably is some foreshadowing, but it almost seems. So separated from the plot, it 

[00:53:09] Rebekah: felt completely out of nowhere. Yeah. And I didn’t understand why I was supposed to care. Mm-hmm. Like, whose wedding is it?

Am I supposed to care? Are these characters I need to care about? I don’t think I would’ve minded if it was brief, but this felt like the longest scene that literally the only thing that mattered is that the troll came from there. Like, it felt like it was just used to show how times stop worked, which didn’t really matter.

’cause we saw how it worked at foul manner. Like it, it was very extensively shown there. And so, I don’t know. I also must have fallen asleep. ’cause I didn’t think that this was in the book at all. I don’t know if I fell asleep at some point and missed this little part of the, the book or what happened. But anyway, yeah.

I, I thought that scene was so pointless and a waste of. Screen time. Speaking of, uh, the Sea John foul manner plays out very differently from the book to the film. 

[00:53:57] Josiah: Yeah. In the book, the fairies use standard protocol to surround the property and time freeze the entire thing. Artemis with knowledge of the time stop device, which they don’t expect him to have, but the fairies don’t expect him to have that knowledge necessarily.

But Artemis Masterminds the defense of foul Manor negotiating with Commander Root, surviving a troll attack outside the mansion and foils the fairies attempt to bio bomb the matter. Bio bomb talking about, you know, weapons of mass destruction. That seems awful. This shows Artemis cleverness in the end as he figures out how to escape the times stop and, and the sleeping spell.

By drugging himself and the butler, which lets him trick the fairies and keep half the ransom gold. And I, I would even add the most interesting character choice in the book for me was when Butler trusted Artemis to take care of the situation. He, BA Butler basically said, is my sister Juliette. Going to be safe and rescued.

And Artemis said, yeah, and Butler really wanted to ask more questions, but he decided to trust Artemis and go along with Artemis plan. Now, on one hand it shows Butler being right to trust Artemis, but also maybe a little bit wrong because Artemis plan was a little bit of a risk. He was guessing with his intelligence, but he was guessing that their, their sleeping spell uh, scheme would work.

He wasn’t a hundred percent sure. So I think that shows that Artemis does care about the Butlers, but he is willing to play with people’s lives. 

[00:55:42] Rebekah: So I agree with that. I also wanted to say, before we talk about what the movie does, one of the most interesting things I thought that they did cut, which you kind of mentioned from the film, was the bio bomb.

It was this like cool technology they had that would like basically be this device. They fly in somewhere and they decide how large of a blast it should be or whatever. It kills all organic matter, so it basically kills the people and the bugs and the rodents and whatever, but it doesn’t affect any of the things in the house.

And that’s first of all, terrifying but awesome. Like I thought that was a really clever invention. And that’s not in the movie, right? Correct. Like they don’t mention that they’re threatening to use that at all. So I was like, yeah, that was another thing that I was like, this is so cool. Why are you taking out the cool thing?

[00:56:26] Donna: Because they put in the oculus, which is certainly the cooler thing. The actually off. Yeah, 

[00:56:31] Rebekah: get off. Go ahead. 

[00:56:32] Donna: So the film still uses a Times Stop, but it shows as like a mechanical capsule that must maintain this time bubble of Artemis and Butler openly fight back in the film rather than solving their problems with Cunning, which was a huge part of their character in the book.

And Holly quickly joins the characters to subdue the troll. Oh, they all get to work together. Well, that’s exciting. 

[00:56:59] Rebekah: Yay. The fight. We’ve talked about this in other films. This is obviously the last Harry Potter film. We have discussed that at length. Mm-hmm. But I hate it when movie makers feel like they need to do this kind of thing where it’s like adding onscreen action.

But like you add onscreen action at the expense of the plot rather than furthering the plot. Like I get, like the troll battle in the book was really interesting, but I do think it was more interesting that Artemis was so clever. So 

[00:57:29] Donna: anyway. So what about the resolution? How did they fix this thing? 

[00:57:33] Tim: Um, the resolution of the film shows Artemis dad being returned to foul manner by way of the alos and all the characters sharing in heroic triumph for saving the world from the workings of Opal Co Boy, Artemis of the book is more or less successful in retrieving fairy gold, though not as much as he initially had hoped, although I think in his plans giving back half of it was probably part of his, his plan.

[00:58:01] Rebekah: He made a comment to say like, he looked at his mother and he said, he literally said something like his. Monologue was like, it was worth like losing millions, the millions in gold or something like that. So it, it, I’m not sure that he was planning on doing that for sure. 

[00:58:17] Tim: Yeah, he does foil the plans of LEP recon, uh, but his father is still missing.

However, his mother does get better in the book. Thanks to Holly and Artemis acknowledges he’s going to have to learn how to scheme better in private now that he’s no longer a functional. Orphan and he also drinks champagne. 

[00:58:37] Rebekah: Yeah. They shared a glass of champagne, which I thought was like, okay, because they said something about, I think movie this Thomas should 

[00:58:43] Donna: be okay.

Movie. 

[00:58:43] Rebekah: Movie. He goes, I think that she would be okay with it. Yeah. I was 

[00:58:47] Josiah: like, um, people in the British Isles, they love, I think age drinking might be 16 up there. Maybe that’s Spain. Yeah. 12 

[00:58:53] Rebekah: year olds should definitely try champagne. Yeah. You know what’s funny about that 12 year olds would hate champagne.

So Yeah, they probably why that’s probably would never 

[00:59:02] Donna: even think about enjoying the taste. 

[00:59:04] Rebekah: So mom, why don’t you walk us through some of the trivia and all the money that was 

[00:59:08] Donna: made, the book released on April 26th, 2001. So Rebecca, if you’ll interject here just a little bit about. The development of this thing.

[00:59:19] Rebekah: Yeah, so plans for the film to be based on this book started in 2000 before they had actually published the book in the first place. Miramax Films was involved through the next 19 years. A series announcement came as early as 2001. According to Fer, a screenplay was completed in oh three, but he was skeptical about it coming to fruition.

A 2010 Vulture article revealed that the film had, quote, had remained in development, hell, in part over disputes between Disney and the Weinstein Brothers as they were leaving Miramax. 

[00:59:51] Tim: A 2020 variety piece revealed. Another non-commissioned screenplay was written by Irish. Playwright Jim Sheridan, his daughter Ann Caer.

The film was to be directed by Sheridan. 

[01:00:03] Josiah: Well, you know what? That actually fizzled out. Then in July, 2013, Disney announced they would produce the movie with drum roll, the Weinstein Company. This version was said to be a mix of the events from the first two novels in the series with yet 

[01:00:20] Rebekah: another screenplay, which I will note before we go on in the development hall part of it.

I do think that it’s interesting to think about the first two novels being combined because I could see an argument BA be made if you followed the book plot more closely for getting through both of the first two books. From what I understand about the second book, because you do introduce like a bigger villain and more of that, so I can totally see setting up.

[01:00:45] Josiah: I was surprised, not positively or negatively, but I was surprised at the first book how little happened. Yeah. Mm-hmm. Uh, like it was a complete plot, but it was a, a right. Relatively self-contained plot of by, you know, about 25% of the way into the novel, you’re at foul manner for the rest of the book. 

[01:01:02] Donna: Yeah.

And, and Fer definitely had thoughts of series, like he was looking at a longer thing for sure. So 15 years now, later, and we’re still just up to 2015, variety reported. Branagh had been hired by Disney, so they, they did pick him up a few years before the film actually came out. Along with yet another screen play by an Irish playwright, Connor McPherson, who knew there were so many Irish playwrights out there, but we’re 

[01:01:31] Tim: not done yet.

On September 12th, 2017, Disney. Finally announced a film release date of August the ninth, 2019. The following month, Disney cut ties with the Weinstein Company after allegations and charges of criminal sexual misconduct came to light. Oh, well that’s unfortunate. 

[01:01:50] Rebekah: David Rooney of the Hollywood Reporter wrote that the film quote becomes a wearying slog with too little reason to invest in the bland characters amid all the chaos.

[01:02:02] Donna: So then we end up, even though the movie was due to release in theaters in on 8, 9 19, it was pushback, then canceled due to COVID. Okay. How dare it. The film was released, which is why I saw 

[01:02:16] Tim: a trailer. 

[01:02:17] Donna: Yes. That, 

[01:02:18] Tim: yeah, they were advertising hard. Didn’t have much to do with the way the movie ended up. 

[01:02:22] Donna: Uh, the film was, uh, released exclusively on Disney Plus on June 12th, 2020.

And then, unfortunately, somebody might say or not, it was removed from the platform in May of 2023 due to cost cutting measures. But in November, 2020, an article in Variety said, and I read this in a, in another source as well, by November. So it had been out since June. It was the 18th. Most watched straight to streaming titles In the year of what?

[01:02:52] Tim: 20 movies of 2020. I’m just, I’m just telling you. Well, first of all, yes. 

[01:02:59] Donna: On Good Reads, the book rating was 3.86 out of five, which I, I, I would agree with. I might even go a little closer to four. But, um, the, the book rating got a, a pretty solid. Uh, a review there, the movie rating. However, sadly, I think this might be our worst Rotten Tomatoes critics rating that we’ve reviewed, uh, or that, that we’ve done podcasts for 8% folks.

18, did you say? Uh, uh, eight. Let’s, let’s with just one. Digit. Digit, yeah. Uh, IMDB rating 4.3 outta 10. Smelly. Woo. And then the audience, the Flixter audience score though, they rallied and gave it a 19. 

[01:03:42] Tim: Wow. It made the double B. You guys? I don’t think 

[01:03:45] Donna: I’ve ever seen, there’s some bad rated movies out there, but just nothing that we’ve ever really looked at.

[01:03:53] Rebekah: Oh, yeah. I don’t know if I’ve ever seen anything with an audience rating that low. Yeah, like an audience rating of 60 is pretty bad. Yeah. When you compare it to like a critics rating, I don’t think I’ve ever seen an audience rating under like 40%. Wow. That’s insane. 

[01:04:09] Tim: Well, as a standalone movie. I think it’s just very weak and doesn’t go anywhere.

Oh, it’s so bad. It’s not your friend. It’s not funny that hadn’t read the book. Probably ended the movie like, eh, you know why? Yeah, 

[01:04:24] Donna: yeah, yeah. So sadly the production cost was 125 million. Now because it’s streaming similar to something else we did just recently. So I, I could not find profitability stuff on online.

I looked in multiple sources. I was hoping I could at least find they had something in there. I did find a few things that talked about, like, they spent like $30 million on marketing, which was probably part of production cost. I’m not positive, but, um, there has to 

[01:04:54] Tim: be some way, not necessarily for us to know, but there has to be some way Sure.

For companies to know, because otherwise they wouldn’t, they wouldn’t have any clue as to whether something was doing well. Sure. Or doing poorly. 

[01:05:06] Donna: Yeah. Well, it’s, it’s viewers, but it’s just nothing I. Could, I just couldn’t find any dollars attached to it. Um, it was rated pg, which I felt was fair. It was filmed in the Republic of Ireland in Northern Ireland, England, Scotland, Italy, and Vietnam.

What, 

[01:05:23] Rebekah: Vietnam Also, they did record the Vietnam stuff, but they didn’t use it. Is that what it was? 

[01:05:29] Josiah: Yeah. And I just read that it dealt with, uh, his mom, Angeline Powell in the Vietnam shots. Oh, 

[01:05:36] Tim: wow. 

[01:05:36] Josiah: I, whatever. That’s, I think that we can safely assume that yes, it would’ve been nice to have Angeline, but the, the shots with her in them in this film version probably would not have done her justice.

Yeah, that’s probably so, and she’s probably glad that they cut it. 

[01:05:51] Donna: So not, um, not gonna surprise you here, baby listener. But I pulled some critic responses and I just, I didn’t want to totally shock you. So we’ve done all this before now to prepare you for these, okay. Um, they’re brutal. Or as a 2020 listing, uh, stated on real deal reviews, uh, the web, on the website, real deal reviews, uh, the biggest bombs of the year, their Artemis foul, FOUL.

Whoa. So let’s look at a few of these. 

[01:06:26] Josiah: Whoa, that hits that slaps. Hey, rotten Tomatoes, the critic consensus reads. A would be franchise starter that will anger fans of the source material and leave newcomers befuddled. Artemis Foul is Frustratingly Flightless. Mm-hmm. That’s generally one of the kindest reviews that we found.

[01:06:49] Rebekah: Kate Herand of Indie Wire gave the film a d plus, could have been an F, and noted that it quote, lacks an effective star. Good effects general coherency and any sense of actual magic. End quote. Aw 

[01:07:04] Donna: Peter De Bridge. A variety. Calls the film Tortuously Long, it just 93 minutes and downright awful. 

[01:07:12] Tim: Wow. Scott Mendelson of Forbes wrote that the film fails on a fundamental level of, is this movie fun and do I want to spend any more time with these characters?

And described it as one of the worst young adult fantasy movies ever. 

[01:07:30] Josiah: Hey, Robbie Collin of The Daily Telegraph gave the film one out of five stars. Was zero an option writing Lots of things happen, but nothing unfolds. It’s like watching a feature length trailer for a film that doesn’t exist.

[01:07:51] Donna: Uh, the Barry Hertz of the Globe and Mail gave the film 1.5 out of four stars saying, I know that it was, I’m sorry. Out 

[01:07:59] Rebekah: of four 

[01:07:59] Donna: out of four stars 

[01:08:01] Rebekah: whose rating system is 

[01:08:02] Josiah: this? Yeah. Yeah. Roger. I think Roger Ebert gets his out of four. Mm-hmm. He, he’s dead now, but, 

[01:08:08] Donna: well, yeah. Oh, okay. God rest his soul, uh, saying that it was a confusing, muddled, sloppy mess of bad intentions and worse execution.

[01:08:17] Rebekah: Peter Bradshaw, the Guardian, gave the film two out of five stars for some reason, writing quote, images and characters bounce around like shapes on a screensaver and only McDonald. Holly Short and Gads performances have any fizz. Ooh wow. And even that I disagree with. This is a YA franchise by numbers 

[01:08:39] Donna: end quote.

So I did find a couple of kind of positive reviews and I wanted to read them just because they’re short just sentences. But just so you’ll understand how desperate they were trying to find something positive. I think maybe. Maybe Kenneth Bra like paid him. Could you find something or wrote them himself?

Uh, Richard Roper of the Chicago Times gave a positive review, three out of four stars writing that the film does a marvelous job of capturing the decidedly Irish tone of the adventure. Why? No, it doesn’t. 

[01:09:13] Josiah: No, it doesn’t. Josh Gad the beginning says it happens in the most magical place, Ireland. End. End of Irish.

That’s the rest of you 

[01:09:22] Rebekah: see California beaches and 

[01:09:24] Donna: he American accents and 

[01:09:26] Josiah: Vietnam. No. Maybe. 

[01:09:28] Donna: Maybe. Richard Roper only saw the first few minutes of it and so decided, and it’s, he said it features a wonderful and diverse collection of characters. And then another guy, mark Kermode, said that it was a fun, fleeting, rather flimsy romp.

It doesn’t have classic qualities, but it works if you take it for what it is. A 95 minute supernatural fantasy. Mark was on crack when you watch this movie. Were 

[01:09:57] Rebekah: you high? 

[01:09:59] Donna: Anyway, I just thought it was interesting. Oh no. Sorry. I was high when I said that. That’s it. That’s it. 

[01:10:06] Tim: Well. The author Owen Fer was reported to say, it really wasn’t an Artemis Foul movie at all.

It was just using the name 

[01:10:17] Rebekah: poor guy. That 

[01:10:18] Tim: was truly horrifying. With each new director, my heart sank a little bit more after he found out. One of the first adaptations by the Weinstein Company was a parody of other fantasy series, similar to how the scary movie franchise makes fun of horror movies. The screenplay even included characters from Lord of the Rings.

[01:10:40] Josiah: What the heck? What’s wrong with movie studios? 

[01:10:43] Donna: I don’t know. And we’re complaining about this adaptation. 

[01:10:46] Tim: Yeah, baby. This was the best. This was the best person. The best of, oh my goodness. 

[01:10:51] Donna: And despite all this, fer does have a cameo in the film. Oh. Don’t get too frustrated if you missed it. He was an extra in a group of people who walked across the field.

I mean, it might have helped if I knew what he looked like. But that was his, that was his, uh, his cool cameo. So there you go. 

[01:11:12] Tim: I think I could have written a better screenplay. 

[01:11:14] Rebekah: Okay. If you had to, what’s one change you would make to make this film better? Oh my God. Is this our mini game? Woo. Yeah. 

[01:11:21] Tim: One change.

Just one. Just one? Mm. 

[01:11:23] Donna: Oh, I know I’m doing mine first, so you don’t take it. Okay. You apologize and pay restitution to Judy Dench for what you’ve done to her career. Oh, no. By making her this horrible. Character. I literally couldn’t pay attention. I couldn’t tell you what else happened in the movie because every time she spoke, I was just like, why would you do that to her?

You make her look like a man. Then you make her talk like she smoked for seven, what was she, 308 years old. 

[01:11:53] Josiah: Multiple reviewers I listened to said it was confusing that Judy Dench and Josh Gad had the same accent. They sounded like the same person. 

[01:12:04] Donna: So I mean, that would be my one. Change some just get somebody else.

Get a big gruff guy. Get, I mean, Dave Batista, another possibility would be, um, even if you put like Aquaman in there, 

[01:12:18] Rebekah: my one change would be I would remove Holly’s dad’s subplot thing and I would revert back her being a girl. First one in her position as a, in a girl in the boys club, like I would’ve redone that plot from the book.

[01:12:32] Josiah: I liked the idea of the dad being in the film, and I, I would’ve, I would’ve made Artemis figuring out about the fairy world, his own research, instead of his dad leaving behind these clues. I, I’m, I wouldn’t necessarily have taken out the dad altogether. I like from the book that it’s, it’s not. Very, very noble what he’s doing.

It’s just understandable. I would’ve tried to find a way to balance it between he wants to rescue his dad, but like it’s more than just that. He also wants to restore his personal honor or his family’s honor doing something illegal. Oh, being a criminal, uh, mastermind, either one. 

[01:13:16] Tim: Um, going last is, is not easy.

I think I would adjust Artemis Junior’s role to more of what it was in the book. Mm-hmm. That he was a criminal mastermind. That, and that he was discovering these things. So mine mind and he had something ing to do. Money size is similar. Do Yeah. Well, yeah. I would, I would and I would by doing that, I think I would, would change the focus from the big, some big master thing to just the story that was there.

Yeah. Already. So. 

[01:13:48] Rebekah: Alright, so I think we are ready for our final verdicts. So 

[01:13:52] Josiah: I thought the book was, was fine. I think I would like the book better if I read the whole series. It took me a while to get what the tone of the story was in the book. I eventually, I think the coolest part, the two, the two cool parts that it took me a while to get adjusted to were Supernatural plus High Tech.

It’s combining Dungeons and Dragons with James Bond. That’s a cool combination. Sure. And then the other thing was that Artemis Foul, I was taken aback at the first couple chapters. I was like, is he not a good guy? And then, and then he had the thing with his, his mom in a, in the first couple, a few, few chapters, and I was like, oh, okay.

He’s not a good guy, but he like, loves his mother and he misses his dad and stuff like that. So it’s like, okay, he’s a bad guy, but he’s a kid too. So, okay, this is complicated. I like that. Then the movie, the first 30 minutes of the movie, I was not sure if I hated it. I was like, this is not as bad as everyone was saying it was.

And then it continued and it, I wouldn’t call it boring. Some of the reviews called it boring. But I, I think it kept moving along. It just had no cohesion. It had no payoffs for the setups that they, uh, they had earlier in the script. It, uh, it disappointed on almost every, every level visually. It was pretty nice.

I think that Kenneth Brannan might not be a good director. He might just make things. He, Cinderella, he made one of the first live action Disney remakes, and I think that might have been his best ever film because it was just Cinderella, make it look pretty. It’s Cinderella and it worked for that because it was just a straight up adaptation, which is what people want with these live action adaptations, even though they’re not getting them now.

So I think that’s the best thing he is ever made. I don’t think he is good at doing anything but making something that already exists pretty, if he tries to do anything more than that, it seems to blow up in his face. So I think that there were a lot of changes from the book to the movie that were ill-advised.

I would give the movie a, let’s say three outta 10. There were, I liked Haven City. Mm-hmm. The look of it, the visuals were mostly good. So I won’t go down to zero as a joke, but let’s say three outta 10. ’cause there were some good visual and, uh, even though Judy Dench and Josh Gad were distracting, they made it not boring to watch because it was funny how bad Yeah.

It was and how outrageous they were. You do like movies 

[01:16:29] Rebekah: so bad that they’re funny. 

[01:16:30] Josiah: Yeah. Um, I think, uh, you know, whatever. But I, I, you know, I, I do, I think other people do, but, and the book, you know, I, I, it’s a, it’s a good six and a half, seven for me. Uh, maybe I need to reread it, maybe. It would improve with the rest of the series.

Mm-hmm. But, um, yeah, let’s say a seven, let’s say a soft seven outta 10 for me. And the, and the, the book is better. 

[01:16:53] Rebekah: All right. And who wants to go next? Verdict. 

[01:16:57] Donna: I’ll go. So, um, well, I wanna be, we’ve, we’ve trashed on the movie so much, and I’m not gonna go on and say, I, oh, I’ve decided to like the movie now.

I’m not, I’m not gonna do that. That would be insane. Uh, but I will say the visual of the movie to the, one of the positive reviewers points, I thought the movie was visually attractive. Um, I did like some of the, I, I did like some of the things with Holly. I thought she had a lot of potential. I enjoyed that.

I enjoyed her. I think they could have done more with her, especially if they had made her the first female, like we’ve mentioned before, I think that would’ve been a huge thing. I’m gonna say for movie I’m, because I was so off, I was off put so badly by Judy D’s character. I’m gonna say two out of 10. I, I can’t even get to three, but, but for the book, I would be interested in reading it again and then going forward, like planning to just read through the series because I think there is potential there for.

Good development. I’ll say the book would be maybe, I don’t know, 6.8 or so, 6.9. And if I, uh, on a second read, I might even get up to like seven or higher. I, I, I was interested in it. It kept moving. Mm-hmm. It wasn’t so long that I got kinda lost in what was going on. Uh, it was a shorter, one of the shorter things we’ve read, and that meant the plot had to develop and go.

So I’ll, I’ll go with that. 

[01:18:30] Rebekah: So I, I enjoyed this book. I think it’s a decent middle grade book. It’s clearly written in 2001. I think it’s a little harder 24 years later with some of the tech and stuff like, and I think there was a comment made about this where, and I don’t remember, I think it was in one of the things I was reading, I don’t think we mentioned it, but there was something about the tech where Owen Fer said something, how like a lot of the tech he mentioned now just exists.

Um, which is a thing with sci-fi. I mean, that happens. So it’s a little bit like, it took me out of it a little bit because when we first started, I thought he said that it was the year 3000 and it wasn’t. And so I was a little confused ’cause I was like, this isn’t very futuristic. It seems outdated, you know.

Anyway, I liked the book. I thought it was unique. I liked that Artemis was a criminal. I thought that was such a clever concept and just a. A thing, like a conceit that I could really get into. It did take me a second. Kinda like what Josiah said at the very beginning. I expected him to be a good guy, so it was a little bit like, wait, is he bad?

How bad is he? How much do I like him? It took me a little bit to get into it. As much as I kind of have complained about the movie trying to change this, it was a little difficult for me in the book that the stakes felt relatively low because it was just about like really like this one person getting kidnapped and his dad did.

First of all, his dad’s presence is non-existent in the book in terms of like, it’s not part of the stakes of this particular thing. Really, it was just the little thing I cared about was like I didn’t want his mom to still be all messed up, so. I think that I got a little lost with, and maybe it was just ’cause I was reading the audio book and a lot of times I’m doing that in the midst of doing something else.

I got a little bit lost with like, wait, who’s talking to who, who is this person? Like, the voices were good in the audio book, but it was fine. Like I rate this book like six and a half outta 10. So I liked it. Um, I would be interested to know what happens in the rest of them. It didn’t grab me in the same way as like, like with the Wild Robot, another middle grade, which is a little bit lower level grade I would say, even though they’re technically in the same genre age wise.

That one like grabbed me and I really wanted to know what happened more. Uh, I was very grabbed by the story of them going to Korea and getting the book, but then it kind of fell off for me a little bit after that and like it, I had to try to, to get interested in what was happening. Um, but I didn’t think it was bad for sure.

The movie was awful. Um, I will give it like a two and a half out of 10, mostly to be generous, similar to how Josiah was. ’cause I do think visually it wasn’t terrible. The, the main two protagonists, the kids I thought did a good job, um, with the roles that they were given. And so that’s, you know. I think that’s worth giving it that, but I just mostly think it was a huge train wreck.

Obviously I think the book was better in this case. I wish. This is something that I think could be really, really interesting in television form, like in a TV series. I think you could do a lot of fun stuff with his little criminal, like kind of a, not ex, maybe slapstick is the right word, like a little slapstick kind of comedic kid show about a kid criminal.

Like I think that that could be really good in a serialized version, um, of a television show. I don’t think it worked as a movie and I was really, I think the biggest thing I would say I was disappointed in by the movie was how much of the humor was removed. I, I really liked the humor in the book. I thought all of the banter between the various people that had their cute little things, like I thought it just worked.

Like it was clever. It was good. It made sense. And I think the movie somehow, again, I said this before, but I, I don’t know how, but they managed to make a funny book. So unfunny, like every, almost every time they tried to do a funny thing like that, Josh Gad made a joke or whatever. It felt like fringy, and I’m not saying that because I’m like.

Stuck up. Like I liked the silly comedy in the book, but oh my gosh, it just made me cringe. 

[01:22:14] Tim: Well, I am last because I’m the one who recommended this one because I, I really enjoy the book, and when I give it a rating, I’m giving it for the series. Um, I listened on audio audiobook to all of the first series with Artemis.

Mm-hmm. Uh, except for, there’s, there’s one about demons that I chose not to listen to at all. I purposefully didn’t want to. So I would give the book, uh, probably an eight out of 10. I really enjoyed it. Uh, like I said, I’ve listened to all of them, so I’m kind of judging the whole thing, not just the first book.

Um, I did recently re-listen to the first book and I enjoyed it and I was looking forward to listening again to the rest of it. I, I, I will be extremely generous and give the. Film a three out of 10, and I will give it that because the costumes did not look fake. It was good costuming. I thought this the special effects that they used looked appropriate and actual, like they were actually existing in, I mean, we’ve watched some things that were so bad that you’re thinking, okay, um, some guys made that in their backyard, uh, kind of thing.

But this was, this was better than that. I did feel like the actress who played Holly and the actor who played Artemis were likable. The writing was terrible and the directing was terrible, and some of the other choices I thought were really bad. But I would give it a three out of 10 for the film and an eight out of 10 for the book.

And I would definitely say the book is better. I’ll, I’ll reread the book. Mm-hmm. It’s one of those things that I can listen to while I’m going somewhere and it had enough lightness to it that some of the things that we read are, they’re just dark. They just feel dark. Um, this didn’t feel dark. He starts off as a bad character and then he discovers he actually has a heart, you know?

So that kind of. That was wonderful. 

[01:24:14] Rebekah: Cool. Well I appreciate all of those. I thought that was really good. Good verdicts, everyone. If you enjoyed this episode as usual, we really appreciate it When you leave us a five star rating or review, it helps a ton. We’re also live on Patreon. Would love to have your support there as a free subscriber or part of a paid tier.

There’s some cool bonus options we’d like to start putting out there soon. Uh, you can find us on X Instagram and Facebook at book is Better Pod and to send feedback, ask us questions to answer for future episodes and just have a little fun with us. You can join our free Discord server. There is a link in the episode description and until then, uh, make me a sandwich le recon out.

[01:24:57] Tim: Goodbye. 

[01:24:58] Rebekah: Bye. 

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