S03E06 — The Running Man

SPOILER ALERT: This episode and transcript below contains major spoilers for The Running Man.

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

Get ready for glitter, guns, and government corruption—it’s The Running Man! What started as Stephen King’s dark takedown of a dying society became an 80s fever dream where Arnold kills people on live TV… for fun! We’re breaking down the book’s bleak brilliance, the movie’s glorious chaos, and why dystopia apparently looks best with shoulder pads. Spoiler: the movie may win the crowd, but the book wins the soul.

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!)

Stephen King’s The Running Man (written as Richard Bachman) is a bleak, gritty critique of media exploitation and class despair, where the “game” is pure desperation. The Schwarzenegger film trades the social commentary for spandex, explosions, and one-liners—basically turning grim satire into a neon-soaked action party.

Donna: The book was better.
– Book Score: 6.5/10
– Film Score: 6.5/10

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

Josiah: The filmwas better.
– Book Score: 6/10
– Film Score 7.5/10

Tim: The book was better.
– Book Score: 6/10
– Film Score 6.5/10

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Full Episode Transcript

[00:00:00] Donna: Do you know the Running Man? The Running Man? The Running Man? Do you know the Running Man who ends in dairy? Man? 

[00:00:11] Tim: I’m pretty sure John Williams would’ve not gone to the, uh, muffin Man. 

[00:00:18] Rebekah: Is that the Muffin Man theme? It’s I 

[00:00:25] Donna: love the Muffin man. 

[00:00:27] Rebekah: Well, I don’t know him and I can’t love him.

[00:00:47] Rebekah: Hey, it’s, the book is better. It is so good to see all of you beautiful baby listeners. And I say, see, because we’re on YouTube now, and if you’re listening on a podcast app, you know what? Thank you for listening. You should also watch us on YouTube. But [00:01:00] um, you should just do whatever, whatever feels right, whatever feels good and right.

[00:01:06] Rebekah: In your own mind, there’s something in the Bible about that. Hi, is that your truth? Um, uh, welcome, um, welcome, welcome one and all. Uh, we are talking about the Running Man today. If you have not seen or read The Running Man, uh, it was a film in 1987, but that was after it was a book in the eighties. The, I don’t remember the date.

[00:01:29] Rebekah: Mm-hmm. And we’ll get there. Uh, the 19 87 1, you know, is it even the same story? The answer is no. So who even cares if you haven’t seen that one? But we’ll talk about it anyway. Uh, so we are gonna spoil all three versions. There’s a 2025 film, the Running Man, the book, and the 1987 film, and we’re gonna spoil all of them.

[00:01:49] Rebekah: Uh, so you should just let us because we’re delights. And, uh, in terms of content warning for kiddos, uh, I believe both films are rated are [00:02:00] as, would be the books. If such ratings existed for books, uh, we might talk about some rather violent things. Uh, so just keep that in mind if you have kiddos around.

[00:02:11] Rebekah: Alright, our fun fact of the day. What is the strangest or most interesting contest that you’ve ever entered, and how did you do?

[00:02:24] Rebekah: Okay, I’ll start. 

[00:02:25] Donna: Okay.

[00:02:28] Donna: What is your name? I meanly in case we don’t remember. I’m sorry. I’m grandma Practice today. Okay. That no one knows what that means in my other life. I amna. Yeah, you you spelled it wrong. The little, it’s PA the, the judgment is sweet. Um, so I I I’ve been in a lot of contests before, like I, but no sports. I mean, let’s be real.

[00:02:58] Donna: Oh, it’s so funny. [00:03:00] Um, and I didn’t grow up in a family where the parents were like, oh, you should try the sports tee. Yeah, no. Um, but I’ve done music competitions and things like that. Um, I have of recent years participated in several, uh, fantasy football tournaments with folks from my church. Um, no money changes hands.

[00:03:22] Donna: I think the, the last prize we gave was like Reese cups for the Reese Cup for the winter. Uh, but it was fun and I’ve not done too badly in those to know relatively zero about football. Um, so that’s, that might be considered interesting, you know, more than 

[00:03:39] Rebekah: relatively zero 

[00:03:40] Donna: about football. Now I’m getting better, I guess maybe.

[00:03:46] Donna: Um. 

[00:03:48] Rebekah: Yeah, that’s, if you do the follow of glimpse, I would 

[00:03:50] Donna: say you should learn more, but what, what, Lord, 

[00:03:55] Rebekah: Lord. 

[00:03:56] Donna: Um, so yeah, I 

[00:03:58] Rebekah: guess that that’d be mine. [00:04:00] I don’t know that I’ve been in a weird contest. I’m Rebecca and mom and I went in like a mother daughter lookalike contest one time. Mm-hmm. At the, the mall.

[00:04:08] Rebekah: Mm-hmm. I was very young and I don’t remember much about it, but I do have a weirdly distinct memory of seeing a bunch of mom and daughters who were in the exact same outfit and we were not in the exact same outfit. And I remember thinking, are we really trying hard to win? And then I grew up and realized that mom is not that competitive and she didn’t care.

[00:04:30] Donna: Uh, and, uh, about winning, uh, in footnote there, uh, I got there and looked around and said, Hmm, wow. I, my daughter looks like my husband. I think we’re in the wrong contest because there were women and their daughters that were almost clone, like, literally looked like a mini and a, and a tall. And so, yeah, I re I do remember that a lot.

[00:04:54] Donna: I thought we had fun. You lost, but we had fun. That was 

[00:04:56] Rebekah: what actually did 

[00:04:57] Donna: matter. I did win second place in the Miss [00:05:00] Flame contest when I was eight in Chesapeake. They had a little Miss Flame. I don’t know why. The, the, the, the little, the football team, our little local football team was the Chesapeake Vikings.

[00:05:14] Donna: So where Miss Flame came from, but it was an annual contest. They had every summer for one of the city fairs or whatever. 

[00:05:21] Josiah: I don’t know what contest have I ever entered? I guess I’m Josiah I in college in, 

[00:05:28] Rebekah: wait, do you guess you’re Josiah or you guess this podcast is the most substitute? It’s so hard to keep up.

[00:05:33] Rebekah: I wanna make sure I know that you’re clear on your own identity. 

[00:05:36] Josiah: It’s hard to keep up with who I am, but I think I’m Josiah and in college I, I entered a Super Smash Brothers Melee video game tournament in Benson Hall. And I got past the first round just barely based on luck. And then I realized these people are a lot more serious about [00:06:00] Super Smash Brothers melee than I ever have been 

[00:06:03] Rebekah: or will be, 

[00:06:04] Josiah: or will be.

[00:06:05] Josiah: Yeah. I might be a little better at ultimate than newer ones, but the old ones, no. That has a whole meta that I, I have no concept of Wombo combo and wave dashing. 

[00:06:17] Donna: You know, both of you did enter like, um, writing contests and stuff. Yeah, you’re right. We’re things, but, you know, but not, that wouldn’t be strange for sure.

[00:06:28] Donna: Dad would think that those were strange, but only because of how we wrote them. 

[00:06:31] Josiah: Yeah. The content. The 

[00:06:33] Tim: content of your writing. 

[00:06:34] Rebekah: Yeah. 

[00:06:35] Tim: Um, well, I’m the dad and, uh, I, I have never been super competitive. That doesn’t surprise you hearing all of those things, does it? Um, you compete 

[00:06:49] Rebekah: against yourself a lot, but other than that, 

[00:06:52] Tim: yeah.

[00:06:52] Tim: Except against myself. I’ve been in singing contests. Um, not a lot. When I was, [00:07:00] when I was younger, I played sports, um, I played little league football and little league baseball and little league, um, basketball. Yeah, I played basketball the longest until I was a teenager and felt like I grew enough that I had two left feet.

[00:07:18] Tim: Uh, that was the last one that I stopped. 

[00:07:20] Rebekah: But you had the figure of a basketball player, right? You were like tall and incredibly thin. Tall, skinny. Yeah. 

[00:07:25] Tim: Yes. Um, but I wasn’t good at basketball. Um. I don’t know, contests. Uh, I’ve done the, um, publisher’s clearinghouse contests a lot of times, hoping to win millions of dollars for buying nothing.

[00:07:43] Tim: Um, I’ve even bought magazines before for it. Yeah. Didn’t win. We won it four 

[00:07:47] Donna: times. Did you guys not know that? 

[00:07:48] Tim: I didn’t win that. What’s that? 

[00:07:49] Donna: We’ve won it four times times. I’m glad to hear that. I amazing inheritance waiting on me. Right. 

[00:07:54] Tim: We’re just holding that back. So, you know, nobody really knows about it.

[00:07:59] Tim: But [00:08:00] yeah, I was, uh, I’ve not, not done too many competitions. Uh, miss Donna tried to take, take mine though. I do have the distinction here. Oh yeah. Of being a non-football fan and winning mm-hmm. Our fantasy football church league three times and coming in second place the fourth time. 

[00:08:20] Rebekah: So hold on. Is what you’re saying that football stats are completely irrelevant and made up because even if you know them and try to put the players on your team that are the most likely to succeed, you’re gonna fail.

[00:08:33] Rebekah: And the guy who doesn’t know anything is probably just gonna win anyway. 

[00:08:35] Tim: Uh. It, it’s, it’s random enough that, um, somebody who doesn’t care about a particular player being on their team mm-hmm. Or oh, that’s my favorite. I need him on my team. Or he’s from my favorite team. Uh, that does seem to, to be, uh, a good way to go because the fact that I didn’t care meant I could switch them [00:09:00] out all the time.

[00:09:01] Tim: He didn’t play with his heart. Yeah. I didn’t play with my heart. 

[00:09:03] Donna: So he could look at it and say, you, I do. Well last week. You’re alps the emotion. It’s the emotional emotion. Mm-hmm. It’s the emotion. Football fans are causing problems. Before we finish our little fun fact, just as thought, I just realized all three of you did sports when you were growing up.

[00:09:21] Donna: I did not. And I feel very left out. 

[00:09:25] Josiah: Good. 

[00:09:26] Donna: You should enter a sports league band. You 

[00:09:27] Josiah: did majorette. You did marching band. 

[00:09:31] Donna: Oh, majorette and marching band. Nevermind. 

[00:09:34] Josiah: Don’t idiot. Hey, you know, for people who know me, what’s, what’s a strange thing I did was wrestling. Yes, 

[00:09:43] Donna: yes, yes. You were the cutest wrestler ever.

[00:09:49] Josiah: Yeah. Maybe that’s why I didn’t win 

[00:09:52] Donna: you. Your, the season. You played a whole season and your record was up. You did about half wins, half losses. [00:10:00] You didn’t lose all your, all your matches. And to be clear, 

[00:10:02] Josiah: I believe it was half, not like wins, but like wins. I, I, I think that these competitions were supposed to be multiple matches in a single day.

[00:10:17] Josiah: I, every other week I made it one match and every other week I made it zero matches. I think you’re supposed to get to like five or six matches of wins and I never got past one. 

[00:10:31] Rebekah: Yeah. Well good job for winning the ones you did though, you know? Yeah. We also 

[00:10:34] Tim: loved you. Oh, thanks. We’re 

[00:10:35] Rebekah: really proud of you. I should have 

[00:10:37] Tim: got a trophy.

[00:10:38] Tim: And your wrestling picture looks really fierce. It helped. I thought it when you were sick that day, so you felt terrible. 

[00:10:46] Rebekah: Alright. Speaking of contests, mom, what was the running man about? 

[00:10:55] Donna: Well, let me try to synopsize it for you. [00:11:00] The Running Man is, uh, a Richard Bachman pseudonym for Stephen King novel that is takes place in dystopian future in 2025.

[00:11:14] Donna: In 2025, which I found so fascinating and I wondered if they plan to do it. They, they have been planning to do this, this next one, uh, for a while. I did, I did read about that a little bit. It they’d been wanting to, to get it. This is set in dystopian future of 2025. It’s about a man named Ben Richards. And, um, both films take a different slant on who Ben is, but basically Ben is kind of an angry guy who has a good heart, um, but a little bit of a few anger issues.

[00:11:53] Donna: Anyway, Ben enters a contest called the Running Man on the Nationwide [00:12:00] Broadcast System. And, uh, similar to other dystopian things like maybe Hunger Games where they have national television, uh, they, everyone has this free v in their home. And the, the broadcast, uh, the broadcast network has several game shows.

[00:12:20] Donna: Running Man is the most. Violent and, uh, fever pitch ones they have. And he, he ends up in this contest and basically he has a period of time that he runs from hunters. And if he can make it to the end, he makes a buttload of money. Um, as you go through the story, you find out that in this dystopian world, the government control is far reaching and, um, I, I guess, cleverly fools citizens [00:13:00] that, you know, they’re really a part of this or they’re, their opinions are important, et cetera, et cetera.

[00:13:07] Donna: But you end up finding this is just a, a grand manipulation to, to control the people. And, um, in both iterations of film and in the book, there are some conspiracy things going on that Richards finds out about and, and tries to expose. Um, whether he does a good job of that or not. I guess we’ll discuss a little bit.

[00:13:31] Donna: Um, but in the end. It is really hard for me to sum this one up guys, because honestly why? I don’t want you to give us the spoilers for the end. Let it, we can get to that part if you want. Yeah. The, the end is fascinating. It’s, and we’ll tell you more. How’s that? Oh yeah. I like it. 

[00:13:48] Rebekah: I would say, like, I noticed in all of them, I think the, the theme, one of the major themes was definitely class inequality.

[00:13:58] Rebekah: Um, so like how [00:14:00] much money you have determines, you know, how your life kind of comes out. And I did think it was interesting that they did make a point, it reminded me of the Hunger Games that the show or shows were like, if you were paying attention, the shows were there to ensure that the populace was distracted and not focused on like real life, which mm-hmm.

[00:14:22] Rebekah: You know, is kind of fascinating. Yeah. So as we get into discussing the differences, uh, why don’t, mom, you tell us a little bit about our main character. I think that’s the most important one to start with. 

[00:14:35] Donna: So our, our fellow Ben Richards, um, a little bit about his role in, in, uh, the 1987 film. He is a convicted.

[00:14:49] Donna: Ex soldier, and we find out quickly that he was framed for this and, but he is serving jail time. Um, he’s, he’s, he’s poor. He’s [00:15:00] pitiful in the book. And if you can imagine, Arnold Schwarzenegger in 87 was not, uh, scrawny like, like the Richards in the book. That’s okay. Um, he lost his jobs, um, trying to stand up for workers in the 2025 iteration.

[00:15:19] Donna: And they make a big deal about that, where he, he’d gone to bat against the, the corporate man, so to speak, and, um, had gotten fired several times over the course of his work life and they kept bringing up insubordination, that kind of thing. But, uh, the big difference to me is in 1987 film, he’s forced to get go on the show.

[00:15:44] Donna: We’re gonna get, we, you know, the Killian finds him, thinks he’s a pretty good candidate and he forced him on in 2025. His motivation is to help his family. Uh. They’re poor and, and live in the slums and has a sick baby. And, and [00:16:00] so he is desperate because he is lost his job. And, and so that’s the really big difference in the motivations of the two.

[00:16:08] Donna: Yeah. Two movies for sure. 

[00:16:10] Rebekah: There. It’s interesting because like you said, Arnold Schwarzenegger was never gonna be scrawny, and this is a very classic eighties Schwarzenegger film, like Campy mm-hmm. And all of that stuff. And it, oh yeah, it worked. I think maybe one of the reasons that they added that whole thing of like, oh, he’s actually, like, he was trying to help people and then went to jail for it.

[00:16:33] Rebekah: They kind of did the same thing in the 2025. Not in the story, but in the, I like the idealistic version of who he is. Mm-hmm. Um, but I think maybe they did that partly because like Arnold was never gonna be a pitiful looking person. I would say King’s portrayal in the book is maybe the most kind of, I don’t know if flat’s the right word.

[00:16:54] Rebekah: It’s, he’s not a flat character. Yeah. But he’s very, like, he’s uncomplicated and he doesn’t have a [00:17:00] lot of motivations other than the very simple, I wanna take care of my family. Yeah. And the, the film versions both had kind of larger, more lofty, idealistic like motivations in addition to the 2025 also. And obviously having a family to protect.

[00:17:16] Donna: I will say as we go along here, and you use the word campy for the 1987 film. I, I thought as soon as we started watching it and probably 10 minutes in my mind went to Schwarzenegger in the Batman film he was in as Mr. Freeze, where it was that colors, you know, just over the top dramatization of things.

[00:17:40] Donna: So I kind of, I thought that was interesting. 

[00:17:42] Josiah: Mm. Well Schwarzenegger gets a nod in the 2025 film as well. He is not in it, but his face is on the new $100 bill. 

[00:17:51] Rebekah: I saw that. 

[00:17:52] Tim: They adorable. They apparently talked to him ahead of time and said, there we put a gift for you [00:18:00] in, in the new film. Because, because they were honoring the fact that he was in it before.

[00:18:06] Donna: It was funny ’cause there was absolutely no mention of who it would be on and you don’t have to talk about who’s on your mo money. Right. But I just thought it was funny that they put in there as a little, little cute little Easter egg. 

[00:18:17] Rebekah: Well, I’d have, I read a little thing about like a tip for writers and Josiah, you should use this for your TikTok channel and adjust it as you see fit.

[00:18:26] Rebekah: But there was like a tip that one of the writers I follow said, it’s fun to sit down and like within your novel, like think about the invisible government systems and some of that, even if you never mention it, because that kind of world building, even if you don’t use it in the book directly, it can be so helpful to knowing little, like the little things people say in side comments and.

[00:18:48] Rebekah: Things that just kind of cement the world that you’re in. And so, yeah, I like to think of like the running Man’s 2025 version as like mm-hmm. Arnold was their last president or something. [00:19:00] 

[00:19:00] Tim: Yeah, that makes sense. And shout 

[00:19:01] Donna: out to our, uh, wonderful offspring. They both have TikTok channels and, uh, that you need to follow, uh, Becca’s book, nook and t Josiah, you, you’ve got, uh, it’s your t Josiah author, right?

[00:19:15] Donna: Or do you have a cuter name? Something like 

[00:19:17] Josiah: that. 

[00:19:18] Donna: Yeah, so they both have some pretty awesome TikTok channels and do some fun bids on that and Instagram. So thanks mom. I’ll Venmo you that a hundred dollars we talked about. 

[00:19:29] Tim: Well, the, um, we are doing this at the time that the 2025 movie has been released, but we talk a lot about the 87 film because it’s the, it’s the one that’s been around for so long with Schwarzenegger, but can you imagine if the star had been Christopher Reeve of Superman fame?

[00:19:51] Rebekah: No, I actually can’t. 

[00:19:53] Tim: It was going to be Reeves, but uh, there was too much problem, uh, getting [00:20:00] all of that worked out. And so he was replaced by Arnold Schwarzenegger. Um, and you know, the look of the 87 film, the Campiness or whatever, well. Uh, that is because of a director change. Uh, Andrew Davis became the director after George Cosmas was, uh, was dropped with Reeves apparently.

[00:20:24] Tim: Um, there was a, there was a lot of problem getting started and they were, they were late. Uh, Schwarzenegger has actually criticized Glasser’s final product. Uh, he said it came across more as a television show, uh, which he felt like took away from the great potential of the source material. 

[00:20:43] Rebekah: It is interesting ’cause there were a lot of like TV shows during that time that did it.

[00:20:48] Rebekah: There was a very big distinction between something that was made for TV and something that was mm-hmm. Shown on the big screen. One of those big distinctions was campiness, unfortunately, the look. Yeah. [00:21:00] So can you imagine, uh, this film, the 20 25 1 that just came out being played by someone else, uh, Ben Richards auditioning, uh, for the part of Ben Richards that did not make it in the final version.

[00:21:13] Rebekah: Chris Evans, Chris Hemsworth and Ryan Gosling. 

[00:21:17] Tim: Ryan Gosling Too small. 

[00:21:19] Rebekah: How dare you insult my man. Uh, I’m glad they didn’t do Gosling. Because the, like, project Hail Mary’s coming out soon, and I just like, I want to think of him in that role right now. Yeah. And so I think it would’ve like annoyed me to watch something else with him in it, but that’s just a dumb reason.

[00:21:39] Tim: Yeah. I don’t, none of those characters, none of those actors though, are as unusually different as the ones, the potential ones for the 87 film. These, they all, all, all of these fellas fit into a similar, similar place. They’re [00:22:00] they’re handsome buff. Yeah. 

[00:22:03] Donna: Yeah. To me, like Chris Hemsworth, he seems too bulky like Schwarzenegger was, 

[00:22:11] Rebekah: although we saw this guy walking around shirtless long enough to know he’s pretty bulky.

[00:22:16] Rebekah: You know, like, well, but he’s, he’s skinny, small frame skinny. I thinkt 

[00:22:19] Donna: skinny. He’s a small frame. I think just, yeah. I did think that was interesting that they’re, they’re poor and he has trouble, um, you know, they’re, they’re concerned that their child can even get medicine, but he’s in incredible shape. But they, I I, well, I’ll give him a break.

[00:22:39] Donna: They did give them time before the competition for him to bulk up and, and Yeah, that’s true. Okay. 

[00:22:47] Rebekah: Yeah. Sheila Richards. Mm-hmm. Uh, who was the wife of. Ben Richards in the book and the 2025 film. Uh, she’s pretty similar [00:23:00] in both in terms of like personality. Like she loves her daughter willing to make choices that are tough to provide for her.

[00:23:07] Rebekah: Ben and she are in love. Like all those are the same. The biggest difference I noticed was in the 2025 film, she was a dancer at a club, and there was even a sequence about how she wouldn’t go and dance and like cross a line, like she wouldn’t let the guys touch her, but her friend was teaching her how to like get better tips and stuff because they were so broke all the time.

[00:23:28] Rebekah: And so I think it’s interesting because in the book, she was a prostitute. Mm-hmm. Like she stood on a corner and that was like a, that was a thing that was so hard 

[00:23:39] Donna: for me. I was just heartbreaking. 

[00:23:41] Rebekah: Well, it’s hard because like you understand in this context why, like in the book they explain it and it does feel like it’s just one of those things that it’s gotten so bad.

[00:23:53] Rebekah: If this is the only way you can make money, then it’s the only way you can make money. But in 2020 Five’s film, I [00:24:00] thought maybe one of the reasons they did it that way was because like, it felt like it gave her a little more agency. You know what I mean? Like, as a woman, it didn’t feel like she was quite as relegated to having to actually be a prostitute, but she would still like do a dancer job, you know?

[00:24:16] Rebekah: Mm-hmm. Yeah. Uh, I think it 

[00:24:19] Tim: says a lot about, um, Stephen King. 

[00:24:23] Rebekah: Ooh, okay. 

[00:24:25] Tim: I think it, I think it says a lot about him and how he looks, how he has looked at the world and perhaps still looks at the world. Um, the timing of the novel, um, puts it at a period of time where he apparently thought that, you know, things were going to be dystopian in the future, um, and that people would just be desperate, uh, would be living in desperation.

[00:24:52] Tim: And so desperation, he, he painted this way, which neither of the movies paint the [00:25:00] desperation the same way that he does in the, in the book. 

[00:25:03] Rebekah: I don’t know that I think he believes his book would become reality, but I do think that he writes in a way that he sees like what capitalism does. Like he, a lot of his stuff is like a commentary on his perception of how capitalism works.

[00:25:19] Donna: Yeah. And, and too, this, the book was in 82, so it was just a few years before the movie came out. You know, a lot of the stuff we do, the book was written, you know, several, like even decades before, but this one was pretty close to the, the time the film came out. So think of women ro women’s roles in, in that time period.

[00:25:40] Donna: You could do things like that where it made sense in 2025, that one. She just, she was a dancer and they were teaching her how to give good tips, but she was real clear, I, I’m not letting this happen or that, and it was still so weird for me that it was like that, but I, I could see it. 

[00:25:59] Tim: [00:26:00] But that was, that was for the new movie?

[00:26:02] Tim: Yeah. In the, in the novel. Oh, she was full on. It was, it was during the Reagan era. And, um, it’s just kind of strange because at that point in our nation’s history, uh, women were, um, were very empowered. One of Reagan’s counterparts was the Prime minister of, of England. Uh, Margaret Thatcher, a very strong and powerful woman.

[00:26:33] Donna: Yeah. But this, for King, this was, he’s, what is this? 50 years in the future? Uh, 40 years in the future. So, anyway. 

[00:26:43] Josiah: Well, you know, Damon Killian, he’s the producer on the show, and he’s the mastermind behind the Running Man in, in both the book and the film. But in the 1987 film, they condense him and Bobby t [00:27:00] So Damon is also the host in the Arne film.

[00:27:03] Josiah: Right. 

[00:27:04] Rebekah: Which by the way. Oh my gosh. Like it was so, it, it was very clearly, okay, wait, I say this, when did the price is right. Come out? Because if it came out after this film, then the price is Right. Was before. Before that. Okay, good. Then the film in 1987 absolutely wanted it to feel like the price is right.

[00:27:24] Rebekah: In my humble opinion. That was, oh no. 

[00:27:28] Donna: Have you ever started in 72? Wow. And it was so by, by this time it was very popular. Nice. It was a very popular thing. 

[00:27:37] Tim: Yeah. Fam, family Feud, the person who, who played, uh, Richard Dawson, I believe. Mm-hmm. Yeah. Uh, played. That character, the Killian and mm-hmm. Host combination.

[00:27:49] Tim: Um, he actually did a game show. Um, he did the Family Feud for quite a number of years. Yeah, 

[00:27:58] Donna: he was, he was the [00:28:00] Family Feud for, for a long time. And then Amazing other people followed him. But, 

[00:28:05] Tim: well, there are a couple of other characters, uh, that are a little bit different from book to film. And according to which film it is, uh, Jansky and Laughlin are co contestants in the book and in the 2025 film.

[00:28:20] Tim: Uh, Jansky is a young man. Laughlin is an older angry man. Um, in the 2025 film, Laughlin is switched to a female, but pretty close to the same character in a lot of other ways. Um, in the 87 film, it’s Weiss and Laughlin, uh, but in the 87 film, they actually worked together in all of the other iterations.

[00:28:47] Tim: They are co contestants, but they don’t ever work together. The last time they see each other is during the preparation stuff. Um, so. 

[00:28:58] Rebekah: And Weiss Laughlin were his [00:29:00] friends who were forced to join as well. Like, and in the, the other ones in 87 didn’t know Jan in Yeah, in 87 only. And then Jansky and Laughlin were not friends of his outside of that.

[00:29:11] Rebekah: Like, he just met them in the process of, he only knew them in that, 

[00:29:13] Tim: in that process. Okay. Question. Do you think that Schwarzenegger’s accent made Weiss easier to pronounce than Jansky?

[00:29:27] Rebekah: That is very possible, honestly. 

[00:29:30] Tim: Well, I mean, there, there’s so little reason for there to be a, to be a name change like that. Interesting. Yeah. So I just wondered if it was, that was easier for him to pronounce. Well, he has an accent, um, which is a little funny because in the 87 film, he and the female that we’ll talk about in a moment, um, both had accents, but her accent was a little less strong, uh, and pronounced than his, but it would’ve been a little difficult [00:30:00] for both of ’em.

[00:30:01] Tim: ’cause the films in English and they have strong accents. Yeah. 

[00:30:05] Donna: So, um, some other characters that I wanted to mention from the 1987 film in reference to us saying, you know, this campy film. And, and I, I. Connected Arnold Schwarzenegger’s, Mr. Freeze character to how over the top and crazy costumes they wore and stuff like that.

[00:30:29] Donna: In, in 1987, the the stalkers who in the 2025 movie are the, the, uh, hunters, the stalkers are given these wild personality tropes and, and ca their characterization. Um, so there, there were Fireball, um, that was played by a former NFL, uh, football player, J Jim Brown. Um, [00:31:00] buzz saw was played by a professional weightlifter, which I thought found that interesting.

[00:31:04] Donna: Guss, I guess Breath Wish Subzero was also played by a professional wrestler and ma uh, Marshall Arts Master, um, Touro Tanaka. And then Dynamo was a member of the US Wrestling team, uh, LY van Lit. That’s, these are their real names, uh, dynamo. And then the last one was Captain Freedom, and they pulled in, um, professional wrestler Jesse Ventura.

[00:31:35] Donna: And so I thought it was very interesting that they used people who, in their real life. Characters or their, their real life jobs personas. Um, had other, had had similar professions and they just took them, you know, out, they just took them over the top, put wild I costumes on them. I think they were a little, it [00:32:00] took me out of the concept of this guy running for his life.

[00:32:07] Donna: But, you know, for the film it was what it was. So, 

[00:32:10] Tim: oddly enough, most of the, uh, reviewers that we listened to after they saw the 2025 film, they missed those. They, they thought that those, uh, though they were over the top, they were, they were memorable. Uh, and you lost that in the new film. They’re just generic people in outfits.

[00:32:36] Tim: They even called 

[00:32:36] Rebekah: them goons. 

[00:32:37] Tim: Yes. 

[00:32:38] Rebekah: Mm-hmm. It’s interesting. I think that it reinforces though the tonal difference between the three mo the three works, because I think that the book itself is a thriller, but it definitely moves into horror by the end. It leaves you with that like empty horror feeling.

[00:32:57] Rebekah: It’s not just an action thriller. [00:33:00] The 1987 movie was like an act, like a fun action film. And even the 2025, I would say was a. Maybe, I don’t know if this is like a good portrayal, but I would say like a gritty action film, but it still had that element of action that makes you kinda leave the theater feeling like Yeah.

[00:33:21] Rebekah: Versus the way that the book kinda leaves you, which we’ll talk about. But I think that that’s the stalker personalities and like those big personas kind of contribute to the feel of that specific work. And that’s why it didn’t, I like, I wouldn’t have, I wouldn’t have loved him in the new one, but I get what the reviewers are saying.

[00:33:38] Tim: I suppose it’s a, it’s a difference between realism, um, you know, extreme realism, which is more popular today, uh, than campy entertainment kind of things that would’ve been more popular then. I mean, they, there were still lots of realistic style movies, but, [00:34:00] um, for a, for a movie that felt a lot more like a comic book.

[00:34:08] Tim: It was less realistic. And you can, you can see that in the Batman movies that Donna mentioned. You can see it in other superhero movies. Uh, as opposed to the ones more that were more recent, that, that took these fantastical things and tried to make them look and feel like they fit into the real world.

[00:34:31] Tim: Uh, back in 87, it was like, Hey, these are fantastical things. Let’s make it fantastical and it make it look like a comic book. ’cause it sounds like a comic book, you know, a rough one. But still, um, there’s another character that I really liked in the, uh, that got more screen time or, or a larger part it seemed in the 25 film.

[00:34:54] Tim: Um, and I don’t think, uh, he doesn’t get very much time at [00:35:00] all in the 87 film. Um, but it’s Elton uh, there’s, there’s a whole, whole scene That’s the, the guy who played, uh, Scott Pilgrim, right? 

[00:35:11] Rebekah: Yeah. Michael Cyra. Yeah. 

[00:35:13] Tim: And, uh, he, he got this, this segment of time in the, in the new film where, you know, he sticks it to the man kind of, uh, and in the, in the book.

[00:35:28] Tim: Pretty much as soon as he walks in, it seems like his mother has turned them in and they have to go running and it’s just a, a drive and he dies. So his, his part in the 25 film is larger. Although there, again, when I was listening to reviewers, they felt like it was a strange insertion in the way the movie had been going up to that point.

[00:35:58] Donna: So I have a, an [00:36:00] opinion question for Josiah.

[00:36:05] Donna: I, I love, I love this character. Like I thought he did a great job of playing a total conspiracy theorist psycho guide that wants to, to get them. So I thought that was, the scene was cool to me, but it took me out of this suspension of disbelief of this life or death thing that Ben Richards was doing.

[00:36:33] Donna: Like, I get why I get where it was in the plot and what he, how he helped him. Do you agree with that? I felt, ’cause I felt like the whole time I was watching, I was like, he’s so, he’s such a convincing psycho, crazy guy that’s just had all this time to plan and plot, and now he gets it and he gets his, you know, he gets his final wish.

[00:36:55] Donna: Um, did it, do you think it worked in there? [00:37:00] 

[00:37:00] Josiah: Oh, I mean, I think that the whole film would probably have benefited from being more like the Elton Parus scenes. And, uh, it, a lot of the film was too real for its own good too based in reality, down to earth sort of stuff. Whereas the Elton Parus stuff felt like the movie that the director wanted to make 

[00:37:24] Donna: Mm okay.

[00:37:25] Donna: But did feel outta place. That kind of helps me. Mm-hmm. That makes sense of how I felt then, because I was like, we were here 

[00:37:33] Josiah: Fuz. Yes. Mm-hmm. Yeah. Same director 

[00:37:36] Donna: Sean of the Dead. 

[00:37:37] Josiah: Yeah. 

[00:37:38] Donna: Yeah. 

[00:37:39] Josiah: So I think he wanted to make a movie that the Elton Parus scene felt like, but the rest of it didn’t feel as over the top and cartoonish.

[00:37:49] Tim: Yeah. That was another thing that the reviewer said. They, they said, we loved this director. Mm-hmm. This was not his style. Yeah. 

[00:37:58] Donna: Where did he go? 

[00:37:59] Tim: You know, this [00:38:00] movie didn’t show his style. Mm-hmm. And I think they would’ve, they mostly agree with that kind of thing. It’s interesting that you used the terminology that it was too realistic for its own good.

[00:38:11] Tim: Um, and I, I, I think I agree with that though. If, if it had been more like the scenes with Elton, it would’ve felt very different and there were plenty of opportunities for it to have been that a little bit of humor in this dystopian future. 

[00:38:31] Rebekah: I really liked Michael Sears’ character. I do think that it took you out of, it felt, I, I totally agree.

[00:38:39] Rebekah: It felt like a, a weird insertion. So I would agree with reviewers in that way, but like, I still loved it. And ultimately when he died, I was like, Ugh. But it, this kind of goes to a lot of how I felt about this, which we’ll talk more and more about, but like, I felt like the 2025 film went out of its way [00:39:00] to be political commentary, which is like something we’re encountering a lot with films right now that I keep seeing.

[00:39:05] Rebekah: But I felt like it went out of its way to try and be political commentary. And I think this was an effort to make it more of, of it felt like it was trying to say something relevant to today. I don’t know that I liked what it was attempting to say, but I, that’s another conversation, you know what I mean?

[00:39:25] Rebekah: So it was like, I understand why it felt out of place, and I think that might be part of it was like mm-hmm. Trying to add a sermon in that wasn’t really there. But I mean, it’s Stephen King, so maybe he intended for it. Maybe he was all for that. Maybe that was his recommendation. I don’t know. Oh, 

[00:39:38] Tim: he was, he was supposedly very involved in the 2025 film, so yeah.

[00:39:42] Tim: I’m 

[00:39:42] Rebekah: not surprised. Um, other, oh, another character difference that we had noted was that the Evan McCone character in the 1987 film, was he even named, was he one of the stalkers? I don’t think so. He was named, 

[00:39:57] Josiah: oh, sorry. Did 

[00:39:58] Tim: you say film was talking about the [00:40:00] 80? The 87 film? I don’t think he was in the 87 film.

[00:40:03] Tim: So yeah. Those stalkers, were those over the top people? 

[00:40:06] Rebekah: Yeah. In the book. He was the, like primary hunter in the 2025 film. He was also the primary hunter, but he wore a mask, like a full face mask all the time, has to take it off at the end. And it’s a reveal of like, I mean, it’s an actor we recognize ’cause like he’s in Twilight, so like of course I recognize him, but, 

[00:40:25] Josiah: and other things pushing daisies.

[00:40:27] Rebekah: Yeah, and pushing daisies, which also, and the foundation series also seen and the foundations series, which I’ve not watched pushing 

[00:40:32] Josiah: daisies. 

[00:40:33] Rebekah: Anyway, I probably would. Um, but he is revealed and on screen you realize he is actually a former running man. He’s the one in 20 in the first season that they’ve mentioned throughout the movie.

[00:40:47] Rebekah: How there’s one guy that made it 29 days in the first season thought to be killed. And actually he was given this deal and he’s been the head hunter all this time. So that was a difference from the book to the [00:41:00] 2025 film. 

[00:41:01] Donna: Little side note, he took his mask off and I was like, dang, Lee Pace, you have aged badly.

[00:41:10] Donna: And then just a few minutes ago, we were talking before we started. He’s in his forties. And I was like, what? So I’m thinking of Alistair in the Twilight in the, in, uh, breaking Dawn, and I was like, wow, maybe that’s why they kept the mask on him. Poor dude. He was torn up. But that’s just, yeah, has nothing to do with anything with Redd, man.

[00:41:33] Donna: Uh, 

[00:41:34] Tim: but I’ll tell you the, the thing with Macomb being a former Running Man, um, really plays into the conspiracy and the government control, uh, because the, the network controlled the government. Um, they did whatever the network wanted, whatever got ratings, and so to have, to make this deal, oh, we’re, you know, there’s a [00:42:00] rule, you know, they don’t last 30 days they get killed or whatever.

[00:42:03] Tim: Well, we just broke the rule, but we told everybody we didn’t break the rule. Um, so it a lot of, a lot of that conspiracy and behind the scenes thing, and they, they discover, I think in, in the, the book and the 25 film, that there are ways that the government is tracking him, um, that he doesn’t know about or shouldn’t know about that.

[00:42:33] Tim: Technically they’re not supposed to be tracking him. At least, you know, he sends in those videotapes or whatever, and they’re not supposed to track him that way, but they do. There are things about that, that track him. So 

[00:42:45] Donna: that is one thing I liked about the story was the unspoken part was they’re not just tracking you for this game, dude.

[00:42:55] Donna: They’re tracking everybody. Everybody. And they know where everybody is and they know. And [00:43:00] so to me, I felt like going that way with it, which goes back to what we talked about with, with, uh, Elton’s character or Yeah, with Elton’s character. It’s, had they gone farther that direction and who knows why they didn’t.

[00:43:18] Donna: I mean, unless, I guess to Rebecca’s point, maybe the, maybe the political commentary that was there, maybe they didn’t want to glorify that, I don’t know. But 

[00:43:31] Tim: some of the reviewers felt like, that, felt like the, the look of the new movie was too. Was too close to reality to our mm-hmm. Experienced reality, you know?

[00:43:48] Tim: Oh, the government, you know, the government and the media conspire together to say some things that we discover later. Okay, there’s some problem with the validity of those [00:44:00] things. Um, yeah. And it’s like, oh no, we didn’t say that. Wait a minute. We saw you say that. Um, it’s, it’s a little bit like, uh, the things that we talked about in, in one of the previous, uh, uh, 1984 

[00:44:15] Rebekah: mm-hmm.

[00:44:15] Tim: That, you know, the government says this group is our enemy, and then they change it to another enemy and we know it, but the people say, oh, well that’s always been our enemy. No, they just changed it. 

[00:44:28] Rebekah: Yeah. 

[00:44:28] Tim: But no, no. Everybody believes it’s always been what, what they are. So both of those have some similar, uh, comments about the, the government and the media, et cetera.

[00:44:43] Tim: Mm-hmm. 

[00:44:43] Donna: And, uh, mentioning setting, let’s, let’s move on to some setting changes. There are not too many, honestly, that is one thing that’s pretty consistent between the three book and two films, uh, that we’ve, we’ve tat chatted about all three include, you know, [00:45:00] futuristic, their idea of futuristic. Right.

[00:45:03] Donna: Dystopian. Uh, tech, they highlight some different things. The the 87 film you get the, the, uh, shot collar, the prisoner collars that they use. And then like you’ve got in 80, in this, uh, current iteration, you’ve got the, the scanner, bomb scanner works the way it works on the plane and the way, um, there was one mention and they, I like 

[00:45:29] Tim: the DNA sniffer.

[00:45:31] Tim: Yeah. This was gonna say that, that little 

[00:45:32] Donna: mm-hmm. 

[00:45:33] Tim: The little thing that was everywhere. 

[00:45:35] Rebekah: Yeah. 

[00:45:35] Tim: Uh, that could tell who you were Yeah. Spying on you. That’s in the 25 film. One of the things in the 87 film two that talked about their tech, um, that was different than the book because they were in the helicopter and they, there were a bunch of protestors.

[00:45:53] Tim: That’s how the whole thing started. Hmm. That he said they don’t have any weapons. Well, how did they know? Um, some of their [00:46:00] tech showed them that there were no weapons in the group. And, uh, I just thought that was, that was an interesting, interesting part too. Yeah. Well, all. All of the book and films have the network, the evil network that’s connected to the government somehow, but it, uh, goes by different names in, uh, in the book, it’s called The Games Network in the 87 Films.

[00:46:30] Tim: It’s ICS, I don’t know what that stands for. I can’t remember. Uh, and then in the new film, it’s called The Network, or NCG. And the NCG logo reminded me that there’s a, there’s a theater that’s part of what is called the, uh, neighborhood Cinema Group, uh, which all over the United States. Uh, it’s a small theater chain, but NCG is what we call it.

[00:46:57] Tim: So when I saw that, I thought, wow, that’s kind of different. [00:47:00] 

[00:47:00] Josiah: There’s also, in the 2025 film, there’s different sections of town that are more starkly, uh, different fitting with the book Betrayal in general, the 2025 film takes the vision of class inequality and really runs with it. It’s a major theme, even more than the book probably focused on it.

[00:47:19] Josiah: I think in the film you have, there’s a guard at the gate into the higher class part of town, and you have to say, what’s your purpose for coming in here? 

[00:47:29] Tim: I, I think that, that the book makes it clear. That these places are very, very separated. The 25 film, um, does that with like the guard at the gate that you mentioned.

[00:47:48] Tim: But I thought that it was really strange that, that the buildings and things didn’t look, we didn’t see parts of the city that [00:48:00] looked like, oh, this used to be an apartment complex and you know, a third of the windows are cracked and they look, look horrible and things like that. It was just kind of like, okay, they’re high rises and it just, it didn’t visually look to me as stark as they wanted it to.

[00:48:21] Tim: The guard at the gate to that part of the town. Mm-hmm. Yeah, I got that. Okay. That’s. That makes sense, but they just didn’t look, they just didn’t look as different, uh, as a film you needed to the 2025 

[00:48:34] Rebekah: film. 

[00:48:35] Tim: Yeah, 

[00:48:36] Rebekah: I, 

[00:48:36] Tim: yeah, that’s 

[00:48:36] Rebekah: shocking. I would really disagree with you on that. Yeah. ’cause I remember thinking last night as we were watching it, like, oh, this feels so like gritty and dark and gross.

[00:48:48] Rebekah: And then you come to this like big, terrifying armored gate and they let you in and it looks like a real city. That’s, well, my ideal version of like a city where it’s, you know, clean [00:49:00] and, and well like man, well manicured lawns, for lack of a better word. And like, I thought that they actually did do a good job of that.

[00:49:09] Tim: Maybe for, maybe for me it was the, it was the color tone. It was all gray. The, the sky was kind of gray. Uh, to me it would’ve, it would’ve really driven that home if it’s like, you know, mm. The sky kind of closes in on you in the Sure. Part of the city. That’s the slums and such. But you can see green, you can see blue sky, and there’s patches of green and things like that in the nicer section.

[00:49:36] Tim: Maybe I just like, it was all concrete. Great. Maybe it’s 

[00:49:39] Rebekah: still more realistic because you can, you know, use a finite number of resources to keep concrete clean and, and plant a couple of trees in nice places and wash things off. However, if pollution and a lot of those things have gotten so bad as they did in the novel, the sky wouldn’t really be blue anywhere near a city.

[00:49:58] Rebekah: Yeah. You know, it would look [00:50:00] smoggy or whatever. So, I don’t know. It seems like it was reinforcing the idea, but that’s an interesting, like, it’s an interesting observation regardless. 

[00:50:08] Tim: Well, with the reviewers that we listened to, um, some of them i, I super disagreed with. Just like they saw one thing and I thought, wow, I liked it like that.

[00:50:19] Tim: And they’re like, oh, that’s the terrible way. So, you know, we all see things differently. 

[00:50:23] Rebekah: Yeah. Which is why it’s all, you know, at the end of the day, a lot of it’s subjective, which is nice. Mm-hmm. To read and listen to a lots of different, well, 

[00:50:29] Donna: to find that the two of you thought differently like that, I thought, I think that’s in itself says something.

[00:50:35] Donna: And what I got from it was I just noticed. You’re in dystopian world and you’re in this, the slum part, then you’re in the fancier, rich, capitalist city. And then, then they just go out into Maine where it was just like a place. The United States. Yeah. 

[00:50:56] Tim: Yeah. Just a highway with 

[00:50:58] Donna: Yeah. 

[00:50:58] Tim: Fields around, around it.

[00:50:59] Tim: So I [00:51:00] thought that was, 

[00:51:00] Donna: that was interesting. 

[00:51:02] Rebekah: Um, another setting thing I thought was really interesting in the 1987 film, like we’ve talked about, it’s like not a 30 day thing, it’s just like one night. So they put them in, for lack of better terms, an arena. I don’t know if that’s the word that they use, but they put them in an arena.

[00:51:20] Rebekah: And I was trying to figure out what this reminded me of, because I knew that it has elements that the Hunger Games reminds me of, but I, it wasn’t just that. And so here’s what I’ve come up with. In the 1987 film, the arena was a mixture, which is funny ’cause both of those things came after it. But it’s a mixture of the Hunger Games, the third book.

[00:51:42] Rebekah: Mm-hmm. Like where they’re in the town and it’s several city blocks, but it, they’re like hooked up and like things happen and, and whatever. But also nineties Batman films. It’s, it’s those. Settings, mushed together. There’s some other 

[00:51:58] Tim: setting that’s mushed in that, that, [00:52:00] that we might mention. Um, have you guys may not be familiar with, uh, the movie Escape from New York?

[00:52:07] Rebekah: Um, I’ve heard of it, but I’ve never seen it. 

[00:52:08] Tim: Okay. The concept is finally crime is bad enough that basically they’ve cut off the island of, of New York, uh, and it is now the prison, 

[00:52:22] Donna: it’s like Alcatraz, but, and 

[00:52:23] Tim: so when somebody’s sent to prison, you just drop them off on the top of one of the towers and whatever happens, happens, um, the escape from New York.

[00:52:33] Tim: So there are parts that are just super gritty and this reminds me of that. That’s, that’s what some of these, the, especially the 87 film reminds me of. Okay, here’s a section, a large section of a city perhaps, that we’ve just, eh, we just let it go, but we use it as the arena. We’ve got lots of cameras in there and mm-hmm.

[00:52:54] Tim: There are bums and people that live there and they’ll just make it more interesting. But yeah, we’ve [00:53:00] just kind of written it off. Call it the arena. 

[00:53:05] Rebekah: Makes sense. Hmm. 

[00:53:08] Josiah: Well the book and 2025 film actually visit dairy right before the climax of the story. The book it takes place in dairy. Another Stephen King book where Pennywise the Clown Lives Main is, I put it on the 

[00:53:23] Rebekah: schedule for us to cover twice and I just keep taking it off.

[00:53:25] Rebekah: ’cause I knew Dad would complain. And now I don’t really wanna cover a lot of Stephen King stuff, so we won’t cover it. But I’m really glad that you pointed out that that’s his novel. Yes. 

[00:53:35] Josiah: Maine is a significant location and at least a dozen of King’s novels. 

[00:53:40] Tim: Mm. Is he from Maine? Mm, 

[00:53:44] Josiah: I don’t know, but I would say probably not.

[00:53:46] Josiah: Well, it probably is some sort of like a magical place to him. Rural Maine. 

[00:53:51] Donna: Dude, he was born in Portland, Maine. Portland, Maine in 1947. 

[00:53:56] Josiah: Truly magical. So it is home. Gosh, he’s old. [00:54:00] 

[00:54:00] Donna: He’s 78. That’s wild. But yeah, I, when you said it, I was like, there’s no way. He was born in Maine. Come on. And man, right there is that.

[00:54:08] Donna: There is dun, dun dun. 

[00:54:11] Tim: So there are some additional changes, uh, to the plot and timeline. For instance, in the book format, it’s so many hours and counting, uh, the film of 1987 seems to have been a one night game show in the 2025 film. It’s a 30 get 30 day game show. Um, so that’s a, that’s a little different from the different works.

[00:54:36] Rebekah: And I did pay attention in the book when they changed the xx hours and counting. If it was like 59 hours and counting 60, they do small time jumps. They don’t do like 60 hours, five minutes worth of plot and then 59 hours where it’s exactly picking up the same spot. They a, he actually wrote it so that every time there’s a time jump to the next set of hours, you’ve [00:55:00] either, you can tell that they’re jumping to the next thing or enough has taken place to fill in hours of worth of time, but it’s a countdown to the end of the, the story.

[00:55:09] Donna: Yeah, I did try to keep up with that as I was listening ’cause I was like, oh, key when he says this many hours. I was like, okay Donna. ’cause a lot of times chapter changes, I’ll miss some something and I, I did kind of pay attention to that. So in the 87 film, we start out seeing that Richards is a noble guy.

[00:55:30] Donna: He was trying to help people and they frame him. And so, um. He ends up being convicted, you know, wrongfully accused and convicted in jail and then letting people out of jail. And so that’s kind of his good guy. Gone, you know, bad, so to speak. Trope in 2025, you see him. The first scene of the movie totally [00:56:00] threw me out of my head of him, his face.

[00:56:05] Donna: And then he’s there with his recently ex-boss with his kid with him. And that was, so I thought at the beginning I was like, where, where are we going right now? Uh, and trying to get his job back because the little girl’s sick. And then you, and then I, because I thought, why, why is this baby with him? Okay.

[00:56:27] Donna: They explained it. Wife was at work. That was fine. But I, I, that whole thing was so weird because the boss was like, did you bring the kid? ’cause you were trying to get sympathy. And then all of a sudden Richards goes, I will end you. I will anni whatever. I was gone. He brought the kid so he wouldn’t beat up the guy, which his wife knew.

[00:56:47] Donna: Yeah. When he got home. And I was, I like, who is this guy? So I will say that was a little weird for me in trying to. Get a sense of where we were going and maybe [00:57:00] that’s why he did it, to give you a sense of where he, I don’t know. Anyway, that’s my thought. I also loved the, the sock subplot. Like 

[00:57:07] Rebekah: where 

[00:57:08] Donna: Yes, 

[00:57:09] Rebekah: the little red sock was so cool.

[00:57:11] Rebekah: Um, it was just a reminder of his daughter. It’s a really good part of the new movie that wasn’t in the book. I thought that was a great ad. Yeah. 

[00:57:17] Donna: Yeah. 

[00:57:18] Josiah: The book takes place in 2025. Haunting the, uh, 

[00:57:27] Rebekah: oh, sorry. Are we 20? Are we all living in a dystopian hell hole? I just something. It is 2025. I just wanna check in.

[00:57:33] Rebekah: Are we good? The 

[00:57:34] Josiah: recent film does not specify a year while the Arne film takes place in 2017 ish. For some reason, they slightly changed the year for the first film. 

[00:57:45] Rebekah: They made it exactly 30 years after the film was like being released. It was like 30 years in the future, which by the way, was a thing that happened in several eighties movies.

[00:57:56] Rebekah: And like, um mm-hmm. The, what’s Android’s [00:58:00] do, Android’s Dream of Electric Cheap 

[00:58:01] Josiah: Blade Runner. 

[00:58:02] Rebekah: Blade Runner does the same thing. And I’m like, roller ball. How quickly do you think some of these things happen? Mm-hmm. Yeah. Yeah. Back to the future. Yeah. It’s like you get to to it in the future and you’re like, I think you maybe picked a date that was a little too close.

[00:58:15] Rebekah: But, uh, both of the films have some sort of like resistance subplot, which I thought was really interesting in the book. He’s just a guy, like he really wants to help his daughter, but he was, he was more pitiful than anything in the 1987 film. Arnold’s character, Ben was in the resistance. Right. They like had an actual movement.

[00:58:41] Rebekah: I don’t remember if he was in it or not, but they call it the, that’s who got them outta prison. Right. And got the collar off of him. But he was in prison. Yeah. Anyway, he, they weren’t sure if they wanted him in the resistance ’cause he was like a former cop or something in that one. And then in the 2025 film, he, Ben Richards is not part of the [00:59:00] Resistance, but Michael Sears’ character is trying to get him to join the Resistance, but he runs into two different people who basically like, make it clear that they’re trying to like, expose what the government’s doing.

[00:59:12] Rebekah: So they kind of add more of that external thing. The, the book just didn’t focus on, he was like, I just need to live. 

[00:59:19] Tim: I think maybe Stephen King had an idea that, that he was putting forward, that any resistance would be individual and, um, insignificant That it, it’s a, it’s more of the hopeless despair of, of the world.

[00:59:42] Tim: You know, Hey, everybody’s excited about killing these people and they get to participate in killing these people. And they watch game shows where people die all the time. Hey, everybody’s happy about that ’cause Yeah, it’s just such a strange world that he built. 

[00:59:58] Donna: So, [01:00:00] um, there’s also, uh, some difference in the character that, the female character that, uh, Richard’s Inc.

[01:00:10] Donna: Encounters at the end, toward the end of book and film. Um, in 87, this character has like, there’s kind of a, a, a side subplot, I don’t even know, there’s not, there’s not a word for that, where they, uh, suggest a little bit of a romantic connection with Big Kiss at the end. Yeah. They, they look like they’re gonna get together at the very end.

[01:00:36] Donna: Uh, and then the 25 film and the book, he encounters this lady, Amelia Williams, who. Uh, basically he needs, he needs to get somewhere. So he gets in her car and she starts out terrified of him. He, through time, is able to convince her, I’m not this guy that you’re seeing on film, [01:01:00] blah, blah, blah. And she, she chooses to, to assist him.

[01:01:03] Donna: And, and that plays out the way it does. I, I was okay with this. I didn’t, I didn’t mind this at all. I listened to these two reviewers that I guess I, I’m sure they didn’t read the book because they did not make the connection at all. But they were like, who is this random character they brought in at the end?

[01:01:24] Donna: Why would you ever do that? Come find nowhere. And I was like, okay. I get introducing characters late, that that could be a problem. But there was a point, why would he have known her before he needed to get somewhere? She was in a car. And so I thought it was interesting that they didn’t, they didn’t make the connection to the book, so they thought it was just rights concept that was just stupid.

[01:01:50] Donna: And yeah, so I, I did find that that interesting that, uh, without connection to the book, it just seemed like he got that out of nowhere [01:02:00] and threw somebody in. Um, so 

[01:02:02] Rebekah: I thought she did a great job though. I liked, like in the 20 25 1, I really, really enjoyed how well she portrayed the character. And like, I love the thing about like.

[01:02:14] Rebekah: But essentially you made me feel like I’m a bad person and now I have to prove that I’m not. And he’s like, why do you care what I think that you’re not a bad person? And she’s like, I’m not trying to prove it to you. And it was interesting ’cause I felt like you saw that subtle shift where in her own mind she’s like, wait, am I one of the bad people because I’m not helping.

[01:02:31] Rebekah: And like, she really didn’t have to help him, but she does end up doing so. And by doing that, even though like we don’t know officially what happened to her, like Richard’s essentially in the 2025 film even sacrificed his own survival to let her take the remaining parachute and live. 

[01:02:50] Tim: Well, the 87 film does not emphasize the other game shows, but the book and the 25 film include auditions for [01:03:00] the multiple shows.

[01:03:01] Tim: Uh, and Richard’s discovering that he’s selected for the one show that he doesn’t want to do. He’s actually banned from all of the other ones. Killian says they’ve, they banned you from all of their properties except this one. So the one you didn’t want to do that you told your wife you would not do is the only one you’re going to be able to do.

[01:03:23] Rebekah: And I do wanna point out, I noticed in the 1987 film, there were two shows on the background in a couple of shots where two more game shows were lash shown. They just chose not to like explain them or really emphasize ’em at all, 

[01:03:38] Tim: just kind of in the background. Yeah. 

[01:03:40] Donna: I’m not sure if this meant if this, she caught this, but.

[01:03:44] Donna: Josh Brolin did fine as Killian. I mean, the, the character he played and, and the way he did it is fine. I, I couldn’t get away from the fact that Josh Brolin’s been in so much stuff. I saw Josh Brolin, they just didn’t, they didn’t cha they didn’t change his appearance enough. I don’t [01:04:00] know if that has, I mean, that’s just personal opinion stuff, but I just thought, throw that out there.

[01:04:04] Donna: He’s, he’s just in a lot of stuff right now and I was like, uh, every time I see him I was like, wait, you’re who’s kill what Kelly? And wait, you’re Josh Brolin. Uh, anyway, just, just a personal opinion thing. 

[01:04:19] Rebekah: I do a pretty good job of suspending my disbelief, which is why I didn’t just see Josh, Josh Brolin, which I do understand, but it took me this long to recognize that that’s why Josiah has named himself on our little thing, executive producer Thanos.

[01:04:32] Rebekah: Because I forgot until mom said the name Josh Brolin. Yeah. That this was also Thanos. Mm-hmm. So there you go. All right. That’s who I’m, we’re glad you’re so 

[01:04:39] Josiah: observant. Yeah. Beautiful. So smart. Well, you know, thanks. In the 2025 film, Ben Richards is standing in line to get into the network building and they have to stay quiet in the line.

[01:04:58] Josiah: Someone’s Look forward someone and look [01:05:00] forward. Someone’s coughing up behind Ben. And he, he like collapses and starts chucking up. And Ben is like, this guy needs to be helped. This guy needs an ambulance or whatever. He probably doesn’t say ambulance a doctor. And it kind of reinforces his standing up for the little guy persona and he has to fight police.

[01:05:24] Josiah: ’cause the police are like, you have to keep standing and look forward. 

[01:05:29] Tim: Don’t make any noise. I 

[01:05:30] Rebekah: think they literally said, don’t help him. They 

[01:05:32] Tim: send him and they send him to the back of the line that he’s been waiting in for hours. Stupid. Mm-hmm. I get, we also find out 

[01:05:40] Josiah: about his plots to help workers get better conditions at former jobs.

[01:05:45] Josiah: Yeah. And how he was insubordinate so he got fired, 

[01:05:50] Donna: which kind of makes sense to me. I got it. I got what they were trying to get, but I thought they tried too hard. [01:06:00] Maybe that’s, I thought they tried too hard to make him a good hearted guy who is a 200% rage monster. I, I don’t, I thought they tried too hard to get there.

[01:06:13] Donna: Uh, also, they, um, in 1987, Richard’s required, is required to go to, uh, to, to go on Running Man. Or they threaten him by saying, you’re friends. Who they obviously know he’s gonna care about are gonna go in your place. And then, uh, like we just talked about, you know, in 2025, he’s still compelled to go on, but you recognize pretty quickly that Killian just recognizes him as a rage monster and he knows it’ll make for a good show.

[01:06:49] Donna: So, 

[01:06:50] Tim: um, in the 87 film, he was, he had he signed on to do it, to keep his friends from having to do it. Yeah. And once he [01:07:00] strapped in, they say, oh, we’ve added your friends, so they’re gonna go in with you. You’re so kind. 

[01:07:07] Donna: Yeah. 

[01:07:08] Tim: To make him more angry. That’s when he says his famous line, I’ll be back. 

[01:07:15] Rebekah: Oh, yes, yes.

[01:07:16] Rebekah: That is when the Schwarzenegger line comes in. So one of the things I wasn’t sure about in the 1987 film that I was like, what is happening? Because I watched the first part of the movie twice. ’cause I watched it like three weeks ago and then I was like, I’ll just start from the beginning. I wanna see the whole thing.

[01:07:31] Rebekah: The dance sequences at the beginning of the show in 1987, which I’m pretty sure are not mentioned in the book, I don’t think that’s a book thing at all. The dance sequence was like almost five minutes long. I literally clicked through it the second time ’cause I was like, I don’t wanna see this many butts again.

[01:07:47] Rebekah: And whatever else you wanna say about it, I will give whoever made this movie a little bit of credit. Because the 2025 movie dance sequence was a much shorter and B, much [01:08:00] less skin showing like the 19 a seven one. If I had had little kids in the room, I would’ve like, like, I don’t know. Like it That was French cut over the top.

[01:08:09] Donna: The French cut bikini shorts were huge in the eighties. Yeah, especially at look 

[01:08:14] Tim: in exercise where 

[01:08:15] Donna: yeah, dancer size and yeah, jazzer size and all that crap that, that shape of bikini leg was huge and it just was butt everywhere. So 

[01:08:26] Rebekah: I will say we found out later that Paula Abdul was the choreographer for that 87 dance sequence.

[01:08:33] Rebekah: That was a hundred times too long. But this posed a question for me and I just want to say it ’cause I think it’s an interesting thought, but I do not understand why so many movies in the eighties tried to make futuristic things look mostly like things looked in the eighties with like very minor changes.

[01:08:54] Rebekah: That was something I thought about a lot in the 1987 film here. I think the same thing about Total [01:09:00] Recall, I just like, I just feel like we see that, uh, blade Runner’s another example where it’s like. Very, very little seems to be changed from like stylistic anything. And then they’re like, look, this is the future.

[01:09:13] Rebekah: And I’m like, so in the future they’ve made no technological advancements. Like, well, I think that’s how it feels. 

[01:09:18] Tim: I think some of it has to do with the fact that fashion repeats itself. Mm-hmm. Um, our, our big legged jeans coming back in now, I wore those in their se early seventies. Yeah. Um, fashion has a tendency to repeat itself now adjusted, but, but it repeats itself.

[01:09:41] Tim: Um, and so I think that’s one of the thoughts of the future thing. Uh, 

[01:09:46] Donna: but Josiah, Josiah has directed and acted in multiple straight plays and, and musicals where they take the, the source material and they put it in [01:10:00] another time and they change up the costumes and they change up the setting and they change up the whole feel of it.

[01:10:07] Donna: But it’s still the source material. So to Rebecca’s point, why, why not? Like, style goes in a cycle, right? So high wasted big leg pants were in during the friends era and they’re cycling back in now. So why not make. Look back at other styles and go, okay, how can we imagine that? Blah, blah, blah. Yeah. Anyway.

[01:10:38] Tim: Well, it’s also, it’s also easier to costume. 

[01:10:42] Donna: Yeah. Whatever. If you don’t 

[01:10:43] Tim: have to make that many changes if you don’t spend with seamstresses and a billion dollars on the costuming budget. 

[01:10:48] Donna: Come on, seamstresses. And, and designers can make anything they want. Let’s get real. Okay. Sorry, I’m softy for no reason.

[01:10:55] Donna: And I think that 

[01:10:56] Josiah: there’s a little bit of hindsight because [01:11:00] whenever you are in the modern day, you don’t really think of the fashion happening in front of you as modern day. It’s like, oh, this is just what fashion looks like. 

[01:11:10] Donna: True. Not This is 

[01:11:11] Josiah: what the modern day fashion looks like. It’ll be outdated in five, 10 years.

[01:11:16] Donna: Yeah. 

[01:11:17] Josiah: Well, you know, one thing that bothered me in the 2025 movie was after the run begins, Richards gets some help from a friend, Molly Jernigan, who’s going to offer him a share in his store. Just an offhanded line that William h Macy delivers. And I was like, oh, well that’s devastating. You really should have mentioned that yesterday.

[01:11:45] Rebekah: Yeah. I do wanna clarify that offer and all of that is not in the book from Molly. Um, but there is a guy in the book named Molly that he goes to, to get papers from. It’s just a guy, guy who knows who he is. He [01:12:00] pays him new dollars and he leaves ger. It’s not like a friend. And it was like, this actually bothered me more than the Michael Sierra thing in terms of like departure from the, the vibe of the rest of the film.

[01:12:14] Rebekah: Because it felt like, wait a minute, hold on. You have this best friend who like, runs, you know, a shop and he, what do you mean? Like, it just, that threw me off, I think more than the other, for sure. 

[01:12:24] Josiah: Mm-hmm. And William h Macy is tortured to give up the information on all of the forged documents that Ben got from him.

[01:12:33] Rebekah: That was a dream sequence. Wow. That, that was a dream sequence. He wakes up ’cause he has this vision of his friend being tortured. Then the, he has the vision of them coming after him and, and they’re about to come in the door and he like wakes up and he realizes that part was a dream. I think that was part of the dream sequence.

[01:12:51] Rebekah: I don’t think he actually betrayed him. 

[01:12:53] Josiah: Then how did they find him? 

[01:12:56] Rebekah: Oh, they found him later. ’cause they, they said a, the few later that they found [01:13:00] him through the tapes, he was mailing in. Hmm. He said these tapes are traceable. And so it was shortly after that that he met up with a guy who said he would send the tapes on his behalf.

[01:13:10] Rebekah: And so they supposedly weren’t tracking him through the tapes, but the, like they say, it’s like not very long after this that they say something about the tapes. 

[01:13:18] Josiah: I remember in the book, uh, they promised him, yeah, we don’t track you through this. And he thinks to himself, oh yeah. Right. Yeah. 

[01:13:27] Donna: Yeah. 

[01:13:28] Josiah: Hmm. And 

[01:13:28] Donna: I, I think too, I get like Macy’s like, oh yeah.

[01:13:33] Donna: Or Molly’s like, yeah. I, I, I’m sorry. I was just, I was waiting to tell you and I thought at the same time, okay, Ben, Richard, you have a friend that owns a business. Why weren’t you there yesterday asking for the job? Like begging for something? Yeah. So I kind of thought it was like they put it on Macy, like, oh, I’m, I’m just, I’m so terrible.

[01:13:55] Donna: I should have told you. And I was like, well, I’m, 

[01:13:58] Josiah: they haven’t talked about this before. 

[01:13:59] Donna: [01:14:00] Yeah. You have not discussed it. Um, yeah, so we come across Bradley and his brother and his younger brother Stacy, uh, in the book, in, in the 2025 iteration. The other thing, and I did really like this insertion in this current film, um, on.

[01:14:21] Donna: Uh, Bradley has this reality web show called The Pulpit, and he’s the apostle, and he goes through exposing lies. Like he’s, he’s the, um, young burgeoning Alex Jones maybe of yes, regardless, which think of Alex. But it’s that same kind of thing where it’s over the top and, and his, he, he gets into graphics and costume and, and all the, of course he’s masked, uh, to expose, expose lies.

[01:14:53] Donna: I did think that was a pretty cool, uh, addition. 

[01:14:57] Rebekah: It didn’t bother me. I do think that it was really good. [01:15:00] It also was very much like the newer, uh, Godzilla movies where there’s, uh, one or two of them where there’s that guy that has the web show about exposing the truth of like the hollow earth and stuff.

[01:15:13] Rebekah: Very similar like vibe of like, this is my cool web show about this thing. And 

[01:15:19] Tim: don’t you think that’s an attempt to, to acknowledge that today in the current reality, those kinds of things are happening. So in the future, surely they’ll still be doing that because 30 years ago nobody did that kind of thing.

[01:15:39] Tim: Broadcasters were major networks. 

[01:15:41] Rebekah: You could like, yeah, you could like print a flyer, but there was no way to like get information disseminated on a huge. Scale unless you partnered with an organization of some kind. Right. 

[01:15:51] Tim: Public television was laughable. That’s where we get, that’s where we get One of the things that our family likes to watch a lot is [01:16:00] the, um, a moray.

[01:16:04] Rebekah: Oh my gosh. Yes. Yes. Um, in both the movies in very different ways, 1987 and 2025, there are some like additional action sequences or different action sequences than the book. Uh, we see this a lot. Every film we cover that has an action sequence in the film all the way up until the last Harry Potter film with that stupid fight scene between Harry and Voldemort that we’ve talked about on so many episodes, it’s probably annoying at this point.

[01:16:31] Rebekah: Um, I would say the one that I noticed the most was the, and maybe this was like. Similar, but with a different character. Was the car gunfight when he jumped in the car with Am Amelia, if that’s her name? Yeah. Amelia Williams. Um, there’s like a gunfight from the car in the 2025 show, uh, movie. Although I will say there’s a car gunfight in the book, but it’s with the Michael Sierra character.

[01:16:58] Rebekah: And in the [01:17:00] film there’s not much of a gunfight there. It’s just a, a, a, you know, chase scene kind of for most of it. Right. But just in general, like 1987 had a ton of the stuff with like the campy, what do they call them? Not hunters, stalkers, stalker. Yeah. Where they like ad scenes where there’s like an ice skating rink and all that stuff.

[01:17:22] Rebekah: So they definitely took some liberties, trying to make it a little more interesting on screen using those sorts of changes. 

[01:17:29] Tim: But some of those changes are the things that caused some of the reviewers we listened to to say those characters were just people in some, in an outfit. They, they weren’t, they weren’t unique, they weren’t different.

[01:17:45] Tim: You could barely tell them apart, um, just, Hey, they’re thugs. 

[01:17:51] Rebekah: Mm-hmm. 

[01:17:53] Josiah: Well, you know, speaking of those. Thugs and outfits. You know, we see the network [01:18:00] militia misspelled. Mm-hmm. Yeah. They, uh, militia, they catch Ben and Amelia on the road to dairy and before they can kill Ben off camera, which would make bad freebie.

[01:18:16] Josiah: This is in the 2025 film. The network cameras, I don’t know if this is where we learn the network cameras has have guns where we learn the networks. The only cameras maybe. Yeah. The network cameras machine gunned down. The militia who are supposed, who think they are doing the network’s bidding. They’re like, we’re here.

[01:18:38] Josiah: So that the network does, you know, it has the little guy also looking out for the network’s interest because they 

[01:18:44] Rebekah: would get rewards. Mm-hmm. Yeah. 

[01:18:47] Josiah: And I think that they think they’re helping out the government and the government’s doing the right thing. Right? I mean the government law. Yeah. So we’re fighting the criminals and stuff like that.

[01:18:58] Josiah: And then when they’re murdered, [01:19:00] that’s one of Amelia’s moments of realizing that the network is lying and she doesn’t understand why would the network do this? It’s like it’s bad tv, bad free. They’re manipulating 

[01:19:12] Rebekah: the situation to hurt people that thought they were on the right side of things. Yeah. I thought that was interesting.

[01:19:19] Tim: Yeah. The network and the government in, in all three iterations, um. Are painting these participants, these contestants as criminals. The reason they’re doing this is to try to have their sentence commuted. Um, so they’re all criminals and if you want them to face justice, because it would, it seems like it would be a hot, a lot harder to say, here’s a father who desperately wants medicine for his child and he’s going to try not to be killed and we’re gonna give him money if he survives, help us kill him.

[01:19:54] Tim: It’s like, that doesn’t quite work as well. So they paint them all as criminals [01:20:00] and it’s bad TV if you do it off camera. So although we want everybody helping us, we don’t want everybody helping us if it doesn’t fit with what we wanna do. 

[01:20:12] Josiah: And I also think about the Laughlin murder was by two kids in a flamethrower, and it’s like, why didn’t the network do it to them?

[01:20:21] Josiah: And I guess it’s like, well, maybe it’s good tv. Maybe they didn’t wanna kill kids. Um, 

[01:20:27] Rebekah: I think they pointed out specifically, someone mentions it, I think, I don’t know if it was Amelia, that they had let the kids that were not the network hunters do the last kill. And they said that they would never allow both of the big kills of the season to be done by non-network hunters.

[01:20:46] Rebekah: So it was like, it has to be the way we decided or. Those people who think they’re we’re on their side, that like they’ll, they’re expendable as well. 

[01:20:54] Donna: Mm-hmm. And it also reminds you how, how depraved the, some of the public was getting [01:21:00] too, that these two kids still in school would have one, have flamethrowers, which I thought was completely wild.

[01:21:07] Donna: Um, so I thought, yeah, I, I thought that was an interesting, I get it because they did say as part of the contest, the public, it didn’t just have to be the hunters that got him. It could be the public and the public would get money for it. So Wow. Way to turn the public into violent anarchists, you know?

[01:21:26] Tim: Well, yeah. Like people would never do that kind of thing. Um, another one, all three works include a deal offer to Richards the 87 film mentions a beachfront condo. Um, the book is that he would become one of the hunters, uh, in the 25 film it is to get his own hunter show. So, um, he’s too profitable for the network slash government, uh, [01:22:00] to simply kill.

[01:22:01] Tim: So they want to do differently. 

[01:22:03] Rebekah: He, in the 20 25 1, they name the show and do an open sequence and it’s hunter six. ’cause they ask him to start it. He has to kill the other hunters. That have been their like golden childs children. Yeah. Childs, childs, yeah. Um, children, uh, he kills the first five hunters, including the one that was actually a former hunter.

[01:22:26] Rebekah: I 

[01:22:26] Donna: mean, it’s, it’s crazy. And he just wants the money. That’s, I thought that was the saddest part about it. He’s just wanting the money to help in 2025. That’s, that’s all he cares about. 

[01:22:37] Josiah: The book is fairly clear that his family has been killed. Uh, off, off screen, off page, a huge little plot point, twist kind, kind of the big twist of the book is when Killian says, yeah, your family was killed like 10 days ago.

[01:22:55] Rebekah: And it wasn’t by the network. That was the thing. They, I feel like they made it fairly [01:23:00] convincing in the book that it, he was like upset that it had happened. Killian was because they were wanting to use them as bargaining troops, Slater, but it happened because of something else. 

[01:23:11] Josiah: Yeah, it was a riot.

[01:23:13] Rebekah: Exactly. 

[01:23:14] Josiah: And in 2025, the film left it ambiguous saying that it was the hunters and that you need to, uh, take revenge on them. But like even Killian says, I don’t know what are you gonna believe? Are you gonna believe me? It doesn’t matter if you’re gonna, there’s nothing I can say you’re, you’re gonna have doubt about whether I’m telling the truth anyway.

[01:23:36] Josiah: And then in the. Attacked on ending of the movie in 2025, the wife and child were alive. Mm-hmm. And so was Ben in the 1987 Arne film. The Richards family is not mentioned. 

[01:23:51] Donna: And, and as we go on end to endings, um, there’s some differences. And I specifically chose [01:24:00] this one to talk about because it has wrecked my head in the book.

[01:24:06] Donna: He hijacks the plane, he crashes it into the skyscraper killing himself and the antagonist, I guess, who knows? They were reading, this is an audible presentation, and I’m like, what the crap was the end of the book? I thought it was the laziest ending of a book I’ve ever, I, and it, maybe it wasn’t. Maybe that’s just what I got out of it.

[01:24:31] Donna: But I don’t even care about things being tied up in a bow. I just, I, I don’t, I thought I went back and listened. Did I miss something? I just felt like the end just went. 

[01:24:43] Tim: How about the 87 movie? 

[01:24:44] Rebekah: The 87 movie, which we’ve discussed obviously is the most of a departure. Ben survives the arena. He exposes the lives of the network, and he personally kills the game show host on live television to spark public unrest.

[01:24:58] Rebekah: Mm-hmm. So it’s very [01:25:00] victorious. It, it cements that can’t be. Mm-hmm. Vibe where like you have to get a win at the end of that, or it’s kind of a waste, you know? 

[01:25:09] Tim: Mm-hmm. Well, the 25 movie, Ben, is presumed dead in a similar plane crash to the book, and he’s framed as a terrorist. Then he comes back to expose the network’s, lies, and personally kill the host on live tv, sparking public unrest.

[01:25:28] Tim: So there again, they want, they want to wrap it up. Um, I personally preferred the 25 and 87 endings because I thought the book ending was lazy. It was lazy writing. What do we do? How do we end this? We’ll blow everybody up. 

[01:25:49] Rebekah: Okay. 

[01:25:49] Tim: We’re all done. 

[01:25:51] Rebekah: So I don’t know if I actually, I don’t know how Josiah feels about this either.

[01:25:55] Rebekah: I think I might agree with him more than you guys this time, which is less common. But [01:26:00] I actually didn’t mind the book ending for what it was, and I say this because A is very Stephen King ending where you kind like suck the air out and make you feel really hopeless. Like that’s kind of the, he likes to end things that way.

[01:26:15] Rebekah: However, I also thought, because the second half of the book in particular really started to bleed over into the horror genre where we talk a lot about his intestines being out on the floor and they catch on things and he steps on them and how it feels and all that. You get into the really Stephen King side of the writing there, but I thought it was feeling more and more and more like a horror film.

[01:26:41] Rebekah: And so to me then the end was like, yeah, there is no hopeful ending. Like the point is he’s, he’s gonna accomplish something, you know? And he was mad and he was mistreated, and yeah, maybe he’ll get his comeuppance a little bit, but not without dying. Like there is no actual hope that he’s gonna live through this.

[01:26:59] Rebekah: [01:27:00] I appreciated the book ending for what it was. I actually did not mind it. I also. Enjoyed the 2025 ending. I did think, and I think Josiah might mention this later, there was part of it that felt kind of tacked on, which we can talk about like in our final verdicts if we want. But in terms of that ending, I thought that because they took the movie in a more dystopian action film but didn’t make it feel like a horror film, it felt appropriate to end it with more of that like kind of, yeah, we got ’em kind of vibe.

[01:27:34] Rebekah: I don’t think it would’ve worked as well in the film to end it, like the book, like you could have, but I thought that they designed the film to have a more predictable ending. Predictable meaning the good guy lives. And so it didn’t bother me, um, that they changed it, but I also understand and kind of didn’t hate the way they did it in the book.

[01:27:54] Josiah: I mean, the ending was so tacked on in the 2025 movie. [01:28:00] It was, you know what it reminded me of very odd comparison. Wild Robot. 

[01:28:06] Rebekah: Really? 

[01:28:08] Josiah: It was like, oh yeah, the focus tested groups did not like ending there, so they did a quick reshoot and put something quickly together that it, you know, just kind of just tax 

[01:28:24] Rebekah: onto the end.

[01:28:25] Rebekah: The test audiences found it too unsatisfying. 

[01:28:29] Josiah: Yeah. Now what I wouldn’t have minded was. Ah, and it would be like sad and cynical is that the people paid for the family’s groceries, which was kind of silly. Uh, but it wasn’t Ben, it was people that he inspired. 

[01:28:49] Rebekah: Mm-hmm. That would, that 

[01:28:50] Josiah: would’ve been nice. And then don’t go to the end where Killian 

[01:28:53] Rebekah: Yeah, it’s 

[01:28:54] Josiah: Molotov.

[01:28:55] Josiah: That would’ve been something fine. Where it’s like, okay, the family did live, which is [01:29:00] a kind of a twist. That’s, and a confirmation that Killian was lying and that, it’s like the Batman movie with Robert Pattinson is that at the end of the movie, Batman figures out that he, his main goal shouldn’t be to defeat criminals.

[01:29:18] Josiah: It should be to con, uh, inspire the townspeople to be good and hopeful. 

[01:29:25] Tim: Well, and the, the lady that’s not 

[01:29:26] Josiah: Stephen King’s outlook on life. 

[01:29:28] Tim: The, the lady at the end that he, that he gets in the car with, hijacks the car, um, when she says, I’m, you know, I need to prove that I’m a good person. And he is like, you said Rebecca, well why do you need to prove that to me?

[01:29:44] Tim: And she says, I’m not trying to prove it to you. Which that sentiment would, would feed into what Josiah is saying for the ending. If somebody else had said. Your husband inspired me. People [01:30:00] are beginning to notice and change. So 

[01:30:03] Donna: let’s talk a little bit about numbers. The book release was on May 1st, 1982, shortly before I graduated from high school.

[01:30:14] Donna: Aw, what a good year. Uh, the movie release was in 1987 film on November 13th. Important date to remember. Uh, and then the 2 20 25 movie. There was a premier at the ODN Luxe Leer Square in London on November 5th, and then the UK wide on November 12th, 2025. But the US and Worldwide release was again on a November 13th.

[01:30:48] Donna: Hmm. Just two days ago. From the time of this recording, the book rating on Good Reads is 3.89 out of five, and that’s 159,000 ratings. So it’s, [01:31:00] it’s a, a solid rating for, to me, when you get up in that high number. Uh, and we’ll see if I agree with that at the end. I. Rotten Tomatoes. Uh, the 1987 critics rating was 59% just short of fresh.

[01:31:18] Donna: And the 2025 critics rating 63%. So, so far with just it’s beginnings, uh, it’s, it’s got a fresh rating. We’ll see if that holds on. I’ll, I’ll be interested to see. 

[01:31:31] Tim: I’m fascinated that those two ratings for the 87 film and the 25 film are so close to one another. 

[01:31:40] Rebekah: Yeah, I would’ve expected 

[01:31:42] Tim: 59% and 78 or 

[01:31:44] Josiah: 80%, but yeah, they’re awfully close.

[01:31:47] Josiah: It’s, you know, it’s up to 65% just in the past couple hours. Okay. Okay. 

[01:31:53] Donna: Yeah, I pulled those numbers last night. So that’s, that is interesting that it’s gone up a little bit. Gone up and not, uh, based on [01:32:00] reviewers we listened to. We’ll, we’ll see if it hangs in there. Uh, um, let’s see, where else, uh, IMDB, the 1987 film gets a 6.6 out of 10.

[01:32:10] Donna: The 2025 gets a 6.8 out of 10. Again, remember this is as of about 12 hours ago, so it’s gonna be changing, I’m sure, uh, uh, through the weekend. Flicker audience score, uh, had a 87, 19 87, got a 61% audience pull, and then 2025, got a 63. Is that, can you see if that’s any different? It 

[01:32:36] Rebekah: has gone up. 79%. 

[01:32:39] Tim: 2 79. Wow.

[01:32:40] Tim: Yeah. Okay. That’s as 

[01:32:41] Rebekah: of this morning. Um, 

[01:32:43] Donna: that’s crazy. Yeah. And I will just mention here, I think this has been a horrible year for movies. Uh, shout out to Nerotic if he ever hears this. I appreciated a, a, the, a podcast he put [01:33:00] out just recently talking about how abysmal this year has been in movies. And I wonder if that 79 rating isn’t just, there’s some action, there’s some interest.

[01:33:12] Donna: It’s got a little funny element to it, whether we think it’s a great film or not. And I wonder if that’s where the rating’s coming from because people are just look at they want to be entertained. Um, let’s go on. Alright. Box office. The production cost in 1987 was $27 million in 2025 exchange would be about 77 million.

[01:33:36] Donna: So it’s a decent amount of money spent on, on the film. And, uh, 2025, uh, the budget was 110 million. So a little bit more, I’m kind of surprised it wasn’t a little higher, but I guess, you know, we’ll see. Uh, opening weekend in 1987, they pulled in 8.1 million. And as of last [01:34:00] night, the projected box office for the week, uh, for this opening weekend, it was, uh, one, it was, they’re projecting 17 to 20 million.

[01:34:11] Donna: Their Thursday night viewing, their Thursday night box office had hit 1.9 million. So we’ll see maybe that audience rating will, will pick it up and give it a good first weekend. Uh, most of what I read suggested they’re thinking this’ll probably beat out now you see me for opening weekend. And, and the other stuff out.

[01:34:33] Donna: Uh, this week, the USA Canada gross for 1987 was, uh, 38 million. Nothing significant international wise as far as international viewing for the 1987 film. And so the numbers I have for total obviously are for 1987. It ended up making 38 million. So, uh, it beat its production cost, not [01:35:00] by as much as they probably wanted it to.

[01:35:02] Donna: Um, and who knows, they might pull in a little bit more with, with this new, uh, adaptation coming out. The movie, as we stated before, was rated r, both, both films and then, uh. The 2025 film was done in multiple locations in the UK with, I don’t know this, a few scenes shot in Bulgaria. I didn’t look farther to see what those were, but uh, but most of what they did was done in the UK and, uh, 1987 I think was, uh, you know, primarily film set like, you know, at, on on film stage or whatever.

[01:35:42] Donna: But, um, uh, I did notice that the 87 film I did read a little bit that the sets and things, I mean they did a lot of crazy, you know, building and creating of, of just wild, wild sets [01:36:00] for that. Well, 

[01:36:00] Tim: it had so much of it would have to be practical. Yeah, yeah. Much less cg for sure. 

[01:36:07] Rebekah: So getting into some of the like little interesting trivia things that we had found, um, in 1987, the film was supposed to open in July.

[01:36:18] Rebekah: They moved it because Predator also starring Arnold Schwarzenegger was coming out that July. Um, interestingly though, two things. Number one, predator Badlands premiered in theaters just a week before Running Man 2025. However, in 2025, they were supposed to premiere on the same weekend. I know that because I had looked up the Running Man release date over and over to schedule our episode recording.

[01:36:45] Rebekah: And it changed like two weeks before the movie came out, which my guess is to avoid literally the exact same thing. Now, I will say the one big thing here is I don’t think Glen Powell is in Predator Badlands, so probably not. So it wasn’t of the same main [01:37:00] character, but that is a, that’s a hilarious thing.

[01:37:03] Rebekah: So, 

[01:37:05] Tim: okay. So Stephen e dea who wrote the 1987 screenplay, told the New York Post in a 2019 interview that the film was the inspiration for the reality show, American Gladiators, which first aired in 1989, dusa did our previous episode, subject Die Hard as well. Mm-hmm. 

[01:37:33] Donna: Wow. Mm-hmm. Little bit of a run in his career there in the late eighties.

[01:37:39] Donna: Yeah. And 

[01:37:40] Tim: American Gladiators, um. I would have to check this out to be sure, but I feel like one of the gladiators may have been the last person in the 87 film, the one that worked for the network. Um, I can’t remember what his, what his name was, but the one that was one of their [01:38:00] commentators. Oh, that 

[01:38:01] Donna: might have been one of the gladiators names, you mean?

[01:38:03] Donna: Yeah, 

[01:38:03] Tim: I think, well, no, I think he, he might have been one of the gladiators. It would’ve only been two years later, so I can’t, I can’t remember. One of them at least looks like him a lot. 

[01:38:13] Donna: Interesting, interesting. Um, so for a little bit of film magic, I found this interesting is not normally the type of trivia I use, but I thought this was very interesting.

[01:38:25] Donna: So the Running Man 2025 was filmed entirely with digital camera. And that’s not uncommon now, but it is the first time for Edward Edgar Wright, the director, who is a, like, self-proclaimed, huge advocate for the use of film stock. And most of his films are, you know, shot in 35 millimeter, uh, Kodak, which that’s another reason.

[01:38:53] Donna: It was interesting to me why that detail. But that’s who he is and he’s a, uh, a great, uh, [01:39:00] advocate for this. He said in an interview with the playlist that the reason they did this was, it was money. So. Uh, getting the film equipment and everything they would need to properly shoot the scenes, getting it to the places that he wanted to get it into.

[01:39:19] Donna: Like not just the travel of it, but actually fitting the film in the right places he wanted to use, uh, would make it more expensive. And they were trying to keep their budget down, which I found interesting that, oh, it doesn’t matter why I found it interesting. I just thought it was fascinating that that was even a concern.

[01:39:40] Tim: I find it interesting because that may be part of what some reviewers had a problem with. They, it could be. They talked about how Edgar Wright was, so the look of his film was always a certain way. Yeah, I mean, that’s true. Um, there’s certain things about it [01:40:00] and parts of the film seemed like it was done by him, but parts of it didn’t seem like it was Right.

[01:40:08] Tim: So yes, it could have had something to do with the different type of film used. Yeah. 

[01:40:13] Donna: And it, it was important enough to him that he like assured the, the interviewer that, to quote Mr. Schwarzenegger, I’ll be back to 35 millimeter. So I thought that was kind of a, an interesting thing. Apparently, you know, that’s a, a, a.

[01:40:30] Donna: An important enough deal for him to stand on as far as moving away from film stock or film to digital, probably similar 

[01:40:38] Tim: to, to Tom Cruise saying, we’re going to release this film in theaters. Yeah, it’s for the film, right? 

[01:40:46] Josiah: Yeah. This novel was the last of four books written by Richard Bachman before it was revealed.

[01:40:52] Josiah: This was a pseudonym for Stephen King. King wrote this book in a single week, I [01:41:00] hope. Does that 

[01:41:00] Tim: surprise you?

[01:41:06] Rebekah: It’s fine. 

[01:41:08] Tim: The, it’s weird. The audio book I listened to, um, had a new, uh, preface by Stephen King. He said this was, you know, this was a Richard Bachman book. He says, I, I occasionally go back to Richard Bachman because it, he was a, he was a pseudonym for me, but he imagined him as a different person than himself.

[01:41:35] Tim: Uh, and he’s rougher, uh, rougher around the edges and those kinds of things. So 

[01:41:43] Donna: yeah, I got the impression from just those little bit of history I found on it. You know, he, he would use Bachman, those four books to move away from the ho from horror, horror. And then it sounded like, [01:42:00] it sounded like he wanted to hopefully keep the two authors separate.

[01:42:05] Donna: And at some point after this one, it came, people found out and started, you know, oh, well that’s this guy. Right? So in the 

[01:42:13] Tim: introduction, the preface, he, he talks about the fact that, uh, Bachman, he imagines that he has a box of Bachman’s old notes for, for books that he got from his widow after he died.

[01:42:31] Tim: ’cause basically he had to kill him because of, he couldn’t have him. But he keeps looking into Bachman’s box of notes to come up with new, new, uh, books. It’s an interesting thought. There was a, there was some football drama, football drama on the, uh, the, the set, the scene where the three [01:43:00] contestants receive their costumes, uh, in, um.

[01:43:03] Donna: In this one, in this, it is in this film. I didn’t say that. Sorry. 

[01:43:06] Tim: It’s in this one. Mm-hmm. The 2025 version. Mm-hmm. Um, it was in Tottenham Hot Spur Football Club, changing rooms, uh, in London. It’s reported that the assistant director, Richard Gray’s, mark, wore an Arsenal Team Shirt, fierce rivals of Tottenham as an act of rebellion.

[01:43:27] Tim: The Hot Spur staff on hand during filming were not amused and asked the film crew to leave immediately after the scene was completed. Apparently, they are real fans. True, 

[01:43:40] Donna: true fans. 

[01:43:40] Tim: Tottenham true fans. 

[01:43:42] Donna: Is that Tottenham? 

[01:43:44] Tim: Tottenham, 

[01:43:45] Donna: Tottenham Court Road from so many British comedies we watch and Harry Potter.

[01:43:51] Donna: Yeah. Fun. Well, before we give our verdicts, I just have a yes or no mini game question for the crew [01:44:00] today. Uh, Tom Cruise called. Called Powell, um, I think it was the other way around. No, Tom Cruise called him. Uh, they, they were, they started together in Maverick and so they, they’ve known each other for a while.

[01:44:13] Donna: They’re friends. And so Cruise called him with some advice on how not to die in a high action film. And Powell has started acting in, in this. We’re seeing him more, uh, in, in films. His career is really kinda shooting up and one of his key suggestions was for Powell to film himself. When he ran, he said, you don’t look as cool as you think you do now.

[01:44:40] Donna: We’ve heard several reviewers in this past week as we’ve watched people talk about this film call Powell the new Tom Cruise, and they would like show him running and say, look, he’s got a little bit of a Tom Cruise run. So I, I am a huge Tom Cruise fan. So I was curious after, now that you’ve [01:45:00] seen the film, would you agree that, that Powell is becoming the new Tom Cruise?

[01:45:07] Rebekah: Perhaps? I think he’s definitely falling into that like action movie guy. Um, time will tell if he’s like, got that level of staying power in the industry, but I can see why people would say that. Yeah. 

[01:45:24] Josiah: Maybe more of than a new Chris Hemsworth. 

[01:45:27] Donna: Hmm. Fair. Yeah, I could see that. 

[01:45:30] Tim: I could, I could see that maybe, maybe you would, you would refer to him that way.

[01:45:36] Tim: Um, Tom Cruise has a long career in that genre, and a lot of people have come and gone. Um, Liam Neeson, I think that’s Liam 

[01:45:51] Donna: has his own thing, right? He, he’s got his own. Exactly. He was doing, 

[01:45:54] Tim: he was doing his, the action stuff, but he quickly grew too old to make that [01:46:00] happen, you know? Do you 

[01:46:01] Donna: think he has, I still think he’s gonna keep doing it.

[01:46:04] Tim: Well, he’s in parody now, so Yeah. So that probably works, works well for him. Yeah. But I, I think, I think it’s always a limited run for most people. Mm-hmm. Because you have to keep up such, it’s such a physical thing because for today’s audience, you have to be able to do the physical stunts. Yeah. Um, when it was James Bond, uh, Sean Connery, not necessarily.

[01:46:31] Tim: You let some people do those kinds of things and you could hold on a lot longer, but, uh, Tom Cruise has done the, I do most of my stunts kind of set a bar. Yeah. Uh, and so audiences look at that and probably notice more than we think. 

[01:46:47] Rebekah: I would say, to be fair, Tom Cruise, if you, if you were saying like, I, new Tom Cruise, I think Ryan Gosling has actually done more of that, especially in like the Stunt man movie that he did.

[01:46:58] Rebekah: And like 

[01:46:58] Tim: that was very well done, kind of 

[01:46:59] Rebekah: making a [01:47:00] point of that and whatever. Anyway, so I would even put Ryan Gling in that category as well. 

[01:47:05] Donna: Yeah, because nobody’s Tom Cruise, just, just so you know. Yes. Don’t argue with me. Don’t judge me. He’s nobody is. But that. We’ll go on now. Let’s, let’s continue, 

[01:47:14] Rebekah: let’s do our final verdicts to continue.

[01:47:16] Rebekah: How does that sound? Yes, sounds 

[01:47:18] Tim: wonderful. 

[01:47:20] Josiah: Yeah, so I guess I would give the book and movie the following scores. I did not see the 1987 movie. Um, didn’t get the memo. Everyone else apparently did. 

[01:47:33] Rebekah: Sorry, that’s probably my miscommunication. 

[01:47:36] Josiah: No, that’s probably my miscommunication. Uh, the book and movie both, you know, had some good elements and potential.

[01:47:47] Josiah: I think I’m gonna, you know, ultimately go with a six and a half for the book. And it’s hard to give the movie above or below that ’cause it’s around a [01:48:00] six and a half for me, maybe a six. I think the tact on ending makes it a little worse for me is like, oh, he’s alive and he’s fighting and he’s angry and.

[01:48:12] Josiah: His anger and violence is the solution to our problems, I think is a harmful, uh, addition to society. So let’s give the movie a six. I think the book is slightly better than the movie. 

[01:48:28] Rebekah: Um, I am gonna give the a, the book is probably like a six, six and a half for me. Let’s give it a six and a half to be a little more, you know, sweet there.

[01:48:40] Rebekah: Um, I liked it. I listened to, to the audiobook. I don’t know if I would listen to it again. This is one where I’m like, I rate it a little lower because I rate things high that are like re watchers or rereads for me. I think this one is like the buildup to whether or not he’s gonna live was so much bigger to me than, uh, the rest [01:49:00] of it felt that.

[01:49:01] Rebekah: I don’t know that it has like, reread ability. I think the movie, honestly, I’m also gonna give a 6.5 because for me, I said earlier I kinda liked both of them for what they were, but I had specific issues with both of them too. I really enjoyed the movie. I think that the ending, the tact on ending is not bad critique.

[01:49:20] Rebekah: I think Josiah is right. I think some of the other reviewers are right. I, I think that that’s something that worked because of what audiences want. And I am an audience that kind of likes wrapped bows. You know, even I thought it was a little heavy handed, but I don’t know. I think that it’s, uh, it’s been.

[01:49:38] Rebekah: Implemented well, and then I would say the 1987 film for me is like a four and a half. I really it like, I would never put it on again. I had trouble focusing ’cause it was like the campy silliness of the, the guys going after him just like got old after a second for me. But, uh, yeah, I think that the book in film, in terms of the book in the newest film, were pretty equal [01:50:00] in how much I enjoyed them and like the kind of issues I took with them.

[01:50:03] Rebekah: And I again say that in the context of they were clearly different genres because King did not manage to keep the horror out of it by the end. 

[01:50:12] Donna: Well, hmm. Let’s think this through. Uh, I was okay with the book except for the ending, which I’ve said before I thought was horrible. I was okay with it. I don’t know that I’ll read it again.

[01:50:26] Donna: It, it wasn’t something where I would just specifically, you know, proclaim, I’m never touching this book. You know, I might pick it back up. But, um, once I saw that he wrote it in a week, I wondered if some of the issues I did have with it were becau maybe that explained it. Um, so let’s, let’s be generous and say 6.5 for the book, um, the 87 film.[01:51:00] 

[01:51:00] Donna: I agree with Rebecca. I, I probably wouldn’t just, I, it’s not a go-to to watch if somebody said they wanted to watch it for some reason or whatever, what I watch it with, sure, I wouldn’t avoid it, but it’s, it’s not a re watcher for me. Um, maybe a, a five and a half-ish. Uh, I thought the, I thought the, the, uh, stalkers just without the stalkers being so over the top and weird, the rest of it I could deal with what they were doing, the action part of it.

[01:51:32] Donna: And again, like I said, I like total recall. I like that, uh, that dystopian being one guy survives thing. So, um, but the, the stalkers were enough to, to really kind of trash the movie for me a little bit. Um, the 2025 movie for a quality. Would I give a high critical [01:52:00] rating for this? Maybe not as much. It did entertain me.

[01:52:04] Donna: I, I thought there were pieces and parts that I picked out I didn’t like, but I loved the whole, the whole part with Michaels. Uh, I, I liked William h Macy, even though I thought what they did was characters kind of dumb. Um, still probably give it a, maybe, I guess 6.5 or seven. Um. Hmm. Would I go back and would I see it again, like on streaming?

[01:52:33] Donna: Eh, maybe, maybe not. So I guess overall it didn’t wow me. Uh, but this, this latest movie, there was some entertainment value in it for me. Um, but probably the overarching thing is I had some trouble with the suspension of disbelief in a few areas, and so that took me away. So, yeah. 

[01:52:58] Tim: Well, [01:53:00] um, I think that I would give the book a six.

[01:53:05] Tim: I probably will never read it again. Um, I would give the 87 movie, although we weren’t all supposed to watch it necessarily. But, uh, we did. Just for reference, I would give the 87 movie probably probably a five, five and a half. I thought it was, I thought it was interesting, but very campy. Not my style, but I would give the 2025 movie, probably a 7.5.

[01:53:34] Tim: I enjoyed it. I could watch this movie again. I did have problems with exactly how some of the things went, and I agree with some of the reviewers that there were things that, um. It felt like it wasn’t sure exactly what it wanted to be at times. Um, but I’d still probably give it 7.5. I’ll be, I’ll be generous and give it that.

[01:53:57] Tim: So [01:54:00] overall it was entertaining. 

[01:54:03] Rebekah: Alright, well I think there you have it. If you wanna connect with us so you know how to do it. If you wanna support us, leave a rating, your review, talk to us on Discord, talk to us on x, talk to us on Instagram, wherever it is that you wanna talk to us. We’ll be back to your message eventually when one of us looks at Instagram or wherever you send it.

[01:54:23] Rebekah: Um, anyway, thanks for listening. We really appreciate you guys and uh, no one mentioned my Christmas tree this entire episode, so, uh, Merry freaking Christmas everybody. ’cause it’s November and that’s what November means and don’t think so. Then I was gonna say 

[01:54:37] Tim: something, but you know, 

[01:54:39] Rebekah: what were you gonna say?

[01:54:40] Tim: I was just gonna make mention of it. 

[01:54:42] Rebekah: Oh, thank you. I noticed you’ve already started. 

[01:54:44] Tim: Christmas 

[01:54:44] Rebekah: started. It’s almost all out. I just have to clean up now. Anyway, Merry Christmas everybody, and uh, we love you, you filthy animals. Yeah. Bye bye.[01:55:00] 

[01:55:11] Rebekah: It is Hickey do. 

[01:55:12] Josiah: Glen Powell. 

[01:55:12] Rebekah: Glen Powell. Thank you. I’m bad with actor names every time I hear name, but I don’t them hickey do. 

[01:55:17] Tim: Every time I hear the name I think of Colin Powell. Yes, [01:56:00