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Ep. 22: 'Frankenstein': Guillermo del Toro, Mary Shelley and more Tell a Monster of a Tale
12 Plays4 months ago
In this episode of 'Adaptation: The Book to Movie Podcast,' Nate and Chris discuss 'Frankenstein; or, The Modern Prometheus' by Mary Shelley -- one of the most formative texts ever written, especially regarding science fiction, horror, women authors and gothic literature.
Additionally, they discuss the various film adaptations, including Guillermo del Toro's recent adaptation (now available to stream on Netflix) and James Whale's 1931 film, with a colossal cultural impact.
UP NEXT: 'The Running Man' and Stephen King's 2025.
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Chris's Letterboxd (@cjanderson878)
Hosts: Nate Day, Chris Anderson
Producer: Nate Day
"Adaptation Theme"
- Written by: Chris Anderson, Jem Zornow
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Transcript
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Introduction to Adaptation Podcast
00:01:20
Speaker
Welcome to Adaptation, the Book to Movie podcast.
00:01:22
Speaker
I'm Nate.
00:01:23
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And I'm Chris.
00:01:25
Speaker
And today we are talking about Frankenstein, one of the most, probably one of the most famous texts ever put to paper, wouldn't you say?
00:01:32
Speaker
100%, yes.
00:01:33
Speaker
Yeah.
00:01:36
Speaker
But before we dive in, I want to give ourselves a quick plug.
00:01:40
Speaker
Our first mini episode called Lightning Round was published just the other day, so be sure to check that out.
00:01:46
Speaker
It should just be in the regular...
00:01:48
Speaker
feed on your streaming app.
00:01:50
Speaker
Sorry about using the wrong microphone on that one.
00:01:56
Speaker
I think I've got it worked out here.
00:01:57
Speaker
So smooth sailing from here on out, hopefully.
00:02:00
Speaker
Oh, definitely.
00:02:01
Speaker
Yeah.
00:02:03
Speaker
But how are you, Chris?
00:02:06
Speaker
I am wonderful.
00:02:07
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I am wonderful.
00:02:07
Speaker
Beautiful day out here today.
00:02:09
Speaker
How are you doing, Nate?
00:02:10
Speaker
Good.
00:02:11
Speaker
Is the weather good out there?
00:02:12
Speaker
I just realized.
00:02:13
Speaker
Oh, my gosh.
00:02:14
Speaker
It's 65 and sunny.
00:02:16
Speaker
And unfortunately, I've spent the whole day inside having a few Guinness and watching two full rugby matches.
00:02:23
Speaker
So I'm glad we're getting down to business here this afternoon.
00:02:26
Speaker
Yeah, let's put our critical thinking caps on here a little bit.
00:02:29
Speaker
It's nice here too.
00:02:32
Speaker
You know, it's kind of scary when I say it's nice and it's November 8th.
00:02:35
Speaker
Yeah, I know what you mean.
00:02:37
Speaker
But c'est la vie, I guess this is the world we live in.
00:02:40
Speaker
What have you been reading?
00:02:41
Speaker
What you've been up to?
00:02:43
Speaker
I have actually most of my reading of late has been for the podcast.
Recent Readings and Movie Viewings
00:02:49
Speaker
Very quick.
00:02:50
Speaker
Finally got Blair to watch Minority Report.
00:02:54
Speaker
Oh, what'd she think?
00:02:56
Speaker
Loved it.
00:02:56
Speaker
It was exactly as good as I remember.
00:02:59
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And so this is my annual plug to everybody.
00:03:02
Speaker
I think this is the fourth time I've watched it.
00:03:04
Speaker
I think it might be the fourth time you've mentioned it.
00:03:08
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It is one of my favorite movies ever.
00:03:10
Speaker
And it's strange because what I love about it is
00:03:12
Speaker
It's just forgettable enough that you don't remember the cool part.
00:03:17
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Or at least I don't.
00:03:19
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But reading, I just finished one.
00:03:20
Speaker
I've been working on this for a little while.
00:03:22
Speaker
It's by a Catholic priest named Thomas Keating.
00:03:27
Speaker
Anyway, very cool book called Open Mind, Open Heart about contemplative prayer, contemplative life.
00:03:35
Speaker
It's a book I took a little while tracking down, and it was very cool.
00:03:37
Speaker
What have you been watching?
00:03:39
Speaker
I've been, it's award movie season, so I've been really, really busy with trips to the movie theater and streaming and whatnot.
00:03:47
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So I'm just going to rapid fire.
00:03:49
Speaker
Are you ready?
00:03:50
Speaker
I'm so ready.
00:03:51
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Blue Moon, really good.
00:03:53
Speaker
Hedda, which is an adaptation of Hedda Gabler, really good too.
00:03:57
Speaker
That's on Prime, so you should check that one out.
00:03:59
Speaker
I think maybe we should get to it someday here on the podcast.
00:04:03
Speaker
Begonia, super weird, super fun.
00:04:05
Speaker
I liked it.
00:04:06
Speaker
Predator Badlands, super fun.
00:04:09
Speaker
Really loved that one.
00:04:09
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I've talked about how much I love the Predator movies on here before.
00:04:13
Speaker
Yes.
00:04:14
Speaker
Ballad of a Small Player, not very good at all on Netflix.
00:04:19
Speaker
Super boring.
00:04:20
Speaker
Fell asleep, in fact.
00:04:22
Speaker
And then I saw Die My Love as well, which is another adaptation and just kind of maybe one of the strangest movies I've ever seen.
00:04:30
Speaker
I don't even know if it's a conversation that you and I would be equipped to have because it's about like postpartum depression and things like that.
00:04:36
Speaker
So hefty slate, but mostly
Predator Franchise Discussion
00:04:40
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good.
00:04:40
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I'm a happy cinephile.
00:04:42
Speaker
Wow.
00:04:43
Speaker
Hold on, rewind.
00:04:44
Speaker
So Begonia, I've seen a number of trailers.
00:04:47
Speaker
You think I'd dig it?
00:04:49
Speaker
I think, yeah, I think you would.
00:04:53
Speaker
Like, don't go in with any expectations.
00:04:56
Speaker
Just kind of ride it like a roller coaster.
00:04:59
Speaker
Mm-hmm.
00:04:59
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No, based on the trailers, I've been thinking about maybe going and seeing it.
00:05:03
Speaker
Yeah, it's super funny.
00:05:05
Speaker
It's also got some really sad stuff, but really cool.
00:05:09
Speaker
And it looks like an insane premise.
00:05:12
Speaker
yeah oh yeah it's it's bonkers but fun yeah i like that okay still blows my mind that you're a predator fan every time you bring it up i wait for you to go boo and every time i'm incorrect i love them they're fun i mean i've skipped most of the franchise because they have like abysmal you know reviews and things like that so i've just seen sort of the cream of the crop and i'm happy that way and um
00:05:41
Speaker
And I have so much fun.
00:05:42
Speaker
It's just like aliens beating each other up.
00:05:44
Speaker
You know, it's awesome.
00:05:45
Speaker
That does sound fun.
00:05:46
Speaker
Have they gone like the land before time approach and there are just like 17 of them?
00:05:52
Speaker
Not quite.
00:05:53
Speaker
I think this one is five or six, but.
00:05:56
Speaker
Oh, okay.
00:05:57
Speaker
That's not bad.
00:05:57
Speaker
But it's also like none of them are, it's not connected like, like the Marvel movies where if you miss one, you don't really know what's happened.
00:06:04
Speaker
They're about different people and stories.
00:06:07
Speaker
So it's kind of fun to just be able to like pick up whichever ones you want.
00:06:11
Speaker
Yeah, smart, smart.
00:06:12
Speaker
Yeah.
00:06:12
Speaker
Okay.
00:06:13
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Yeah.
00:06:13
Speaker
Cool stuff.
00:06:14
Speaker
I think you'd like those movies a lot too.
00:06:16
Speaker
Okay.
00:06:17
Speaker
I'll give that a shot.
00:06:18
Speaker
I've been, I got to track down my new local movie theater.
00:06:20
Speaker
Maybe we'll do that today.
00:06:22
Speaker
Yeah.
00:06:23
Speaker
Oh yeah.
00:06:24
Speaker
That's a really good one in the theaters too.
00:06:26
Speaker
Good like action scenes.
00:06:28
Speaker
It's gotta be.
00:06:29
Speaker
Yeah.
00:06:29
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Giant screen, big sound system.
00:06:31
Speaker
Yeah, unfortunately, I accidentally bought a 3D ticket, which I don't normally do.
00:06:36
Speaker
The 3D at this theater is so bad.
00:06:39
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I have to go again because I couldn't really see.
00:06:43
Speaker
Those glasses are so bad.
00:06:45
Speaker
Yep, yep, yep.
00:06:46
Speaker
Makes sense.
00:06:47
Speaker
Anyway, I digress because we're here to talk about an entirely different story.
Frankenstein's Cultural Impact
00:06:52
Speaker
Totally different story that everybody and their nephew has heard of.
00:06:57
Speaker
Yes.
00:06:58
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And what is that story, Chris?
00:07:00
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yeah frankenstein you ready to dive in i am yeah let's um let's let's do that okay um yeah i kept i kept looking through our entire list as i was making um that timeline this is arguably one of the most famous titles we've approached i think it is the most famous yeah i know maybe with the only exception being the hobbit and that's almost kind of i agree
00:07:29
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throughout time that's almost kind of riding the coattails of Lord of the Rings which we haven't quite covered yet.
00:07:34
Speaker
Oofta.
00:07:36
Speaker
That is a tough statement that I don't like.
00:07:38
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I don't think you're incorrect.
00:07:41
Speaker
It's a gross simplification.
00:07:42
Speaker
No, no, no.
00:07:43
Speaker
I see what you mean.
00:07:44
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The thing with The Hobbit is it still leans into like a fantasy niche where I think there are plenty of people who are at least uh
00:07:55
Speaker
prior to the movies, totally unaware of its existence.
00:07:59
Speaker
Yeah, right.
00:08:00
Speaker
Where everybody has heard of Frankenstein.
00:08:04
Speaker
Yeah.
00:08:05
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And has some misconceptions.
00:08:07
Speaker
Yeah, so many.
00:08:09
Speaker
And we'll talk about that on the movie side.
00:08:11
Speaker
Kind of.
00:08:11
Speaker
Oh, I'm going to beat you to it because I get to talk first.
00:08:14
Speaker
Okay.
00:08:16
Speaker
So Frankenstein or the modern Prometheus, its full title, which I think is perhaps the first misconception.
00:08:24
Speaker
I would agree.
00:08:26
Speaker
So without having read any notes, unless you already looked this up, who's Prometheus, Nate Day?
00:08:31
Speaker
He is a figure from Greek mythology.
00:08:36
Speaker
Boy, this is like 20 years ago in my knowledge.
00:08:41
Speaker
And he was he the guy that brought fire to Earth?
00:08:45
Speaker
He was.
00:08:46
Speaker
Okay.
00:08:48
Speaker
Mm-mm-mm.
00:08:49
Speaker
A plus.
00:08:50
Speaker
A plus.
00:08:51
Speaker
Thank you.
00:08:52
Speaker
I had the exact same initial reaction, came up with an entire blank, so I looked it up.
00:08:56
Speaker
Prometheus in Greek mythology is the Titan who, I believe, if I was reading this correctly, first formed man out of clay and then gave fire to mankind.
00:09:09
Speaker
Okay.
00:09:09
Speaker
And then was punished for giving a technology that they should not have by being chained to a rock
00:09:18
Speaker
while an eagle came to eat out his liver every day and then overnight it would regrow oh it was the eagle liver guy as well okay this guy he got around this guy was busy classic classic um no you you remembered more than i did uh so that is the subtitle the modern prometheus and we'll get a little bit into um why here briefly all of my descriptions i'll just give it right up top here one i have tried to say at least moderately spoiler free
00:09:47
Speaker
Not in the sense that anybody listening will be brand new to Frankenstein as a character.
00:09:51
Speaker
Right.
00:09:53
Speaker
But that I feel comfortable suggesting far fewer people have read it than are aware of it.
00:10:02
Speaker
Does that make sense?
00:10:03
Speaker
Well, yeah, totally.
Historical Context of Frankenstein
00:10:05
Speaker
Totally.
00:10:05
Speaker
Right.
00:10:06
Speaker
So I'm going to try to leave this.
00:10:08
Speaker
This will be a relatively spoiler free episode from the book perspective.
00:10:12
Speaker
Okay.
00:10:12
Speaker
Okay.
00:10:13
Speaker
That being said, there was essentially just so much information from a historical genre context side, the book storyline itself, and the author, that I'm going much more shallow on each part than I would like to, just for the sake of scope and time.
00:10:31
Speaker
Okay.
00:10:33
Speaker
So the subtitle is a comparison that comes from the idea that Dr. Frankenstein accessed that which he should not have.
00:10:42
Speaker
Sure, yeah.
00:10:44
Speaker
I don't think it is a spoiler to anyone.
00:10:46
Speaker
I hope that he created life in a laboratory.
00:10:51
Speaker
If that's a spoiler, then you are missing some serious chunks of just like Western culture.
00:10:57
Speaker
Yes, yes, agreed.
00:10:59
Speaker
Additionally, that's really the primary thrust of this subtitle, in my opinion.
00:11:06
Speaker
There are additional, in my opinion, weaker comparisons drawn.
00:11:11
Speaker
But I think that really sets you up from the title page of what you've got coming.
00:11:16
Speaker
Yeah?
00:11:16
Speaker
Sure.
00:11:17
Speaker
Yeah.
00:11:17
Speaker
Okay.
00:11:18
Speaker
So right off the top, I think the biggest pop culture misunderstanding you hear, Frankenstein, and in your brain you picture... The monster.
00:11:27
Speaker
Uh-huh.
00:11:29
Speaker
Dude, crappy Julius Caesar bangs, black hair, bolts coming out of his temples, right?
00:11:36
Speaker
Yep.
00:11:37
Speaker
Incorrect.
00:11:39
Speaker
Right.
00:11:39
Speaker
And I think some people have come around on this by now or more.
00:11:42
Speaker
The title character, Victor Frankenstein.
00:11:46
Speaker
He's often referred to as Dr. Frankenstein.
00:11:49
Speaker
I don't recall anywhere in the text where it is specified that he is indeed a doctor of anything.
00:11:54
Speaker
Okay.
00:11:57
Speaker
He does leave home and go to university for a long period of time.
00:12:02
Speaker
So one, it's entirely possible there was some conferring of a diploma that I just missed.
00:12:08
Speaker
I don't remember that in particular, but he is Frankenstein and he creates Frankenstein's monster.
00:12:15
Speaker
Sure.
00:12:15
Speaker
Right.
00:12:17
Speaker
I think probably the biggest misconception.
00:12:19
Speaker
Yeah.
00:12:20
Speaker
Published in 1818.
00:12:22
Speaker
So just over 200 years ago, which really, really speaks to, I think the emphasis we put on it, not just that it's potentially, if not unequivocally the most famous title we've discussed.
00:12:38
Speaker
but also the oldest that we've discussed by 50 years.
00:12:44
Speaker
Whoa, that's a hefty margin.
00:12:46
Speaker
Yeah, Little Women was fully 50 years later, and especially for anyone who has stopped and looked at the timeline I worked long and hard on.
00:12:54
Speaker
Percentage-wise, this is a crazy outlier.
00:12:58
Speaker
Yeah.
00:12:59
Speaker
And has unquestionably stood the test of time.
00:13:02
Speaker
Yeah, great.
00:13:04
Speaker
So the author, Mary Shelley,
00:13:06
Speaker
So not just the most famous, but written at a time when female authors certainly were not prominent.
00:13:14
Speaker
And the most famous we've talked about.
00:13:16
Speaker
That's the last time I'll say the most famous we've talked about.
00:13:18
Speaker
Just crazy.
00:13:19
Speaker
Very, very cool.
Mary Shelley's Life and Work
00:13:21
Speaker
Yeah.
00:13:22
Speaker
This is, again, a pretty high level summary with some quotes from online because I could not reword them better.
00:13:29
Speaker
This lady's story is wild.
00:13:33
Speaker
And we've discussed some wild authors.
00:13:35
Speaker
Yeah, we really have.
00:13:36
Speaker
So Mary Shelley, born Mary Wollstonecraft Godwin in 1797, London.
00:13:45
Speaker
Her mother died, it was a week and a half, like 10 or 11 days after she was born.
00:13:51
Speaker
And it gets crazier from there.
00:13:53
Speaker
Right off the bat, yeah.
00:13:56
Speaker
Okay.
00:13:57
Speaker
So 1814, Mary began a romance with one of her father's political followers, Percy Shelley.
00:14:04
Speaker
He was already married.
00:14:06
Speaker
Oh.
00:14:08
Speaker
Together with her stepsister, Claire Claremont, crazy name.
00:14:14
Speaker
The three of them left for France, traveled through Europe.
00:14:18
Speaker
When they get back, she, Mary, is pregnant with Percy's child.
00:14:23
Speaker
Upon their return, she's pregnant.
00:14:25
Speaker
Over the next two years, they face ostracism, constant death, and the death of their prematurely born daughter, I believe by like two months.
00:14:32
Speaker
They married late in 1816 after his first wife commits suicide.
00:14:38
Speaker
Okay.
00:14:38
Speaker
Yeah.
00:14:39
Speaker
Wild.
00:14:39
Speaker
Okay.
00:14:41
Speaker
Sorry, girl.
00:14:42
Speaker
And this was the tame half of the story.
00:14:46
Speaker
So then, later, a later summer, Percy is
00:14:53
Speaker
almost certainly, at least historically believed to be having an affair with this stepsister, Claire Claremont.
00:15:01
Speaker
So what do they do?
00:15:02
Speaker
The three of them go to Switzerland to spend the summer with Lord Byron, famous Lord Byron.
00:15:09
Speaker
Oh, yeah.
00:15:10
Speaker
Poet, author.
00:15:11
Speaker
Yeah.
00:15:12
Speaker
Who also got Claire pregnant.
00:15:14
Speaker
Oh, my God.
00:15:15
Speaker
Claire.
00:15:15
Speaker
Oh, my God.
00:15:18
Speaker
Apparently, as I was looking this up and I was like, this is crazy, this is crazy.
00:15:22
Speaker
Apparently, there have been multiple publications just discussing the creation of the book Frankenstein.
00:15:30
Speaker
We're briefly touching on it here.
00:15:32
Speaker
But essentially, they're at this lake house in Geneva.
00:15:35
Speaker
Lord Byron, Percy, who is a well-to-do aristocrat and his family is not stoked about first his political following of Mary Shelley's father.
00:15:46
Speaker
Then obviously his getting her pregnant while married to Harriet.
00:15:51
Speaker
Then the four of them go to Geneva.
00:15:55
Speaker
Lord Byron suggests, let's all write a ghost story.
00:16:01
Speaker
Mary is having a terrible time, can't come up with anything.
00:16:05
Speaker
Then this is crazy.
00:16:06
Speaker
A fan
00:16:07
Speaker
I think they said at like the 150th anniversary, went to Geneva and studied the astronomical charts and star movement to calculate exactly what time this idea struck her.
00:16:22
Speaker
I have no idea how much of that is true.
00:16:24
Speaker
But it's believed 2 or 3 a.m.
00:16:26
Speaker
She is unable to sleep, is up middle of the night and envisioned
00:16:34
Speaker
this monster this creation of somebody bringing to life that which they should not be able to thinks this will make for a cool ghost story turns into the world famous novel we now have wow absolutely incredible yeah um so first of all to move on from the
00:16:57
Speaker
undoubtedly, and there was so much more.
00:17:00
Speaker
Dear listeners, if you are interested at all in the last paragraph and a half about this famous, famous, rightfully famous author, I encourage you to look up more.
00:17:11
Speaker
There was so much more about her that we just did not have to use her.
00:17:15
Speaker
Yes, wild, wild, incredible individual.
Pre-Film Public Perception of Frankenstein
00:17:20
Speaker
So the book, I first want to hear from you, what of the story of Frankenstein
00:17:27
Speaker
Were you familiar with or aware of pre-films?
00:17:31
Speaker
And perhaps that's tough to surmise now that you've already seen more than one version.
00:17:36
Speaker
It is tough to surmise, particularly because there are so many different versions.
00:17:42
Speaker
But I guess what I would say is the general structure that a scientist brings somebody back to life or...
00:17:51
Speaker
you know, reanimates a body.
00:17:53
Speaker
But basically the only idea that I had in my head of the monster itself was that the green guy with the stitches and bolts and just like we mentioned, my knowledge was very much based in sort of what pop culture told me.
00:18:11
Speaker
Yes.
00:18:11
Speaker
Okay.
00:18:11
Speaker
Okay.
00:18:12
Speaker
And that was, I mean, you know, besides asking nearly a leading question, essentially my experience as well.
00:18:19
Speaker
Right.
00:18:21
Speaker
Somewhere between.
00:18:23
Speaker
Big, big, crazy monster is created unnaturally.
00:18:28
Speaker
And I think for some reason I thought Young Frankenstein.
00:18:31
Speaker
Is that the name of the other one?
00:18:32
Speaker
Right.
00:18:32
Speaker
The Mel Brooks.
00:18:33
Speaker
What is that?
00:18:34
Speaker
Is that Gene Wilder?
00:18:35
Speaker
Yeah, that's a movie.
00:18:37
Speaker
Yeah.
00:18:38
Speaker
Yeah, I really I thought that was like canon.
00:18:41
Speaker
And I'm now realizing that was satire.
00:18:43
Speaker
Is that correct?
00:18:44
Speaker
Yeah.
00:18:44
Speaker
Yeah.
00:18:45
Speaker
Anything that comes from Mel Brooks.
00:18:47
Speaker
I know.
00:18:48
Speaker
I know.
00:18:49
Speaker
Well, I think it was the first Mel Brooks movie I saw.
00:18:52
Speaker
And obviously I didn't realize at that age how ridiculous the musical number putting on the Ritz was.
00:18:58
Speaker
So, yeah, I think for some reason I thought that was canonical knowledge, not the story.
00:19:04
Speaker
You did mention it in our prep for this, and I was like, what?
00:19:07
Speaker
I'm not talking about Young Frankenstein.
00:19:09
Speaker
I really, really thought it was part of the... Yeah, yeah.
00:19:13
Speaker
That's on me.
00:19:14
Speaker
That's on me.
00:19:16
Speaker
So here's the actual story presented in the book, which was frankly quite... I don't know what I was expecting, but it wasn't this.
Themes in Frankenstein
00:19:24
Speaker
Yeah.
00:19:25
Speaker
Incredibly dark tale.
00:19:28
Speaker
Honestly, it actually explained a lot knowing she set out to create a ghost story, and this is what came of it.
00:19:34
Speaker
Yeah, that's interesting perspective.
00:19:37
Speaker
Yeah, so the book itself, there is an amount to the writing that I feel does betray its age to an extent.
00:19:47
Speaker
You would be maybe not even off-put, but you would be surprised to see a novel written in this fashion today, I think.
00:19:58
Speaker
Okay.
00:19:59
Speaker
It involved primarily the titular character, Victor Frankenstein, and the character we're all familiar with, Frankenstein's monster.
00:20:06
Speaker
The bulk is told, and again, this is a gross simplification, but the bulk is told in two giant monologues, one first of Victor Frankenstein, telling his tale of creating the monster, which is really in-depth, really vivid,
00:20:28
Speaker
As far as one entire monologue, doing a lot of heavy lifting for the book, it stands up to that test.
00:20:37
Speaker
The description is this terrible, agonizing process.
00:20:41
Speaker
He's robbing graves and finding cadaver parts to create this thing he knows he shouldn't be creating.
00:20:50
Speaker
Really fascinating, really well written.
00:20:53
Speaker
And then...
00:20:55
Speaker
A second monologue, essentially, from the monster's perspective, who is now fully fluent in English and very eloquent at that.
00:21:03
Speaker
Yeah.
00:21:04
Speaker
And the fascinating tale of how he became who he is.
00:21:09
Speaker
He runs into Victor far later and explains where he's been this whole time and why he is the way he is now.
00:21:17
Speaker
And it's really sad and heartbreaking.
00:21:21
Speaker
Yeah.
00:21:22
Speaker
Oh, yeah.
00:21:23
Speaker
I had no, I had no, I assume dude makes a monster, monster's bad because monsters are bad, right?
00:21:29
Speaker
Yeah, sure.
00:21:30
Speaker
Especially the moniker we give him, Frankenstein's monster.
00:21:33
Speaker
Monster, yeah.
00:21:34
Speaker
Frankenstein's.
00:21:36
Speaker
Buddy.
00:21:37
Speaker
Unfortunate creation who was foisted into this circumstance.
00:21:42
Speaker
He did not choose, right?
00:21:43
Speaker
Right.
00:21:44
Speaker
Right?
00:21:44
Speaker
We're really victim blaming here.
00:21:46
Speaker
He does kill people.
00:21:48
Speaker
Let's not get it twisted.
00:21:49
Speaker
Twisted.
00:21:50
Speaker
but it is very much, in my opinion, in my reading, a chicken and the egg situation.
00:21:56
Speaker
I felt quite sorry for the monster throughout the book.
00:22:00
Speaker
This was an interesting bit that I found online and had not read into it.
00:22:04
Speaker
I don't know how widespread this view is.
00:22:08
Speaker
In modernity, it is also somewhere between speculated as Shelley's intention or merely interpreted as a metaphor for the LGBT community.
00:22:21
Speaker
Yeah, I think a lot of that, we'll talk about that.
00:22:23
Speaker
I think a lot of that comes from the films and the way they've been erased.
00:22:26
Speaker
Okay, that's interesting.
00:22:28
Speaker
It was obviously not my first reading of it because I was really enthralled with the characters themselves, not really reading into metaphor.
00:22:36
Speaker
But upon finding this kind of postulation or explanation, it doesn't necessarily feel off.
00:22:44
Speaker
You can see it.
00:22:46
Speaker
Because essentially the crux of the story is
00:22:49
Speaker
The monster confronts the doctor and demands he make a female version of himself, saying, I have tried to be a member of society.
00:23:02
Speaker
I said I wouldn't give spoilers.
00:23:03
Speaker
I won't go further there, but this is what he demands of the doctor.
00:23:07
Speaker
I love the wording here.
00:23:08
Speaker
This is where it really stood out how old the text is.
00:23:11
Speaker
I will quit the neighborhood of man and move to South America, where man obviously is not, I guess.
00:23:18
Speaker
In comparison to 19th century Switzerland.
00:23:22
Speaker
I don't know.
00:23:22
Speaker
Yeah.
00:23:23
Speaker
Hilarious.
00:23:25
Speaker
Some astonishing, astonishing quotes from the book that I just had to save.
00:23:32
Speaker
They were so... You really feel struck by the words of this character that you're kind of, I don't know, more or less not to enjoy, right?
00:23:43
Speaker
Yeah.
00:23:45
Speaker
So they meet...
00:23:47
Speaker
And Victor Frankenstein is not thrilled about him, right?
00:23:50
Speaker
The monster now says, I expected this reception, said the demon.
00:23:55
Speaker
Again, let's look at how he's being portrayed.
00:23:57
Speaker
Mm-hmm.
00:23:58
Speaker
All men hate the wretched.
00:24:00
Speaker
How then must I be hated who am miserable beyond all living things?
00:24:05
Speaker
Yet you, my creator, detest and spurn me, thy creature, to whom thou art bound by ties only dissoluble by the annihilation of one of us.
00:24:17
Speaker
You purpose to kill me.
00:24:18
Speaker
How dare you sport thus with life?
00:24:20
Speaker
Do your duty towards me, and I will do mine towards you and the rest of mankind.
00:24:25
Speaker
If you will comply with my conditions, I will leave them and you at peace.
00:24:30
Speaker
But if you refuse, listen to this, Nate, I will glut the maw of death until it be satisfied with the blood of your remaining friends.
00:24:40
Speaker
Jesus Christ.
00:24:43
Speaker
Incredible.
00:24:44
Speaker
Oh, that's tasty.
00:24:48
Speaker
Right?
00:24:49
Speaker
Yeah.
00:24:50
Speaker
Okay.
00:24:50
Speaker
Now we skip forward a little bit.
00:24:53
Speaker
And this is where.
00:24:56
Speaker
I'm fully team monster.
00:24:58
Speaker
Right?
00:24:59
Speaker
Okay.
00:25:00
Speaker
Remember that I am thy creature.
00:25:02
Speaker
I ought to be thy Adam, but I am rather the fallen angel whom thou drivest from joy for no misdeed.
00:25:09
Speaker
Everywhere I see bliss from which I alone am irrevocably excluded.
00:25:13
Speaker
I was benevolent and good.
00:25:14
Speaker
Misery made me a fiend.
00:25:16
Speaker
Make me happy and I shall again be virtuous.
00:25:20
Speaker
Any fair and reasonable plea.
00:25:24
Speaker
Mm-hmm.
00:25:25
Speaker
responded to thusly, Be gone, I will not hear you.
00:25:30
Speaker
There can be no community between you and me.
00:25:33
Speaker
Oh, you and me?
00:25:34
Speaker
You, the one that wouldn't have existed without Victor?
00:25:37
Speaker
Cool, cool, cool, cool.
00:25:39
Speaker
We are enemies.
00:25:39
Speaker
Be gone, or let us try our strength in a fight in which one must fall.
00:25:43
Speaker
What a jerk!
00:25:46
Speaker
Victor?
00:25:47
Speaker
Yeah!
00:25:48
Speaker
Yeah, Victor's awful.
00:25:50
Speaker
So, it was very fascinating throughout the entire book.
00:25:54
Speaker
I just...
00:25:55
Speaker
was very much more and more team monster here.
00:25:59
Speaker
That's all I'm going to say about the book.
00:26:01
Speaker
So much here, incredible writing, really ties up loose ends well.
00:26:08
Speaker
That could be, at least initially, reasonably questioned.
00:26:12
Speaker
She really comes around on all of those things, which is where this is considered, you know, in my mind, it was a classic monster tale.
00:26:19
Speaker
And then I had to think, we don't really have a genre monster tale.
00:26:22
Speaker
Ghost story fit that.
00:26:24
Speaker
gothic literature, it is discussed as a classic gothic tale, definitely fits that.
00:26:29
Speaker
And I've also seen a lot of not signifiers, label, I guess, there's a better word for it that I'm not finding right now, labeled as a precursor to fantasy, which at first I was like, that doesn't fit what I would consider fantasy.
00:26:44
Speaker
No, it absolutely does.
00:26:46
Speaker
Creates her own natural laws, follows them, which is sort of the big
00:26:52
Speaker
difficulty in fantasy, right?
00:26:54
Speaker
Do they hold up or do you contradict yourself?
00:26:57
Speaker
And it's really an interesting crossroads of those, especially for its time, which I think is never brought up because you don't need that qualifier.
00:27:07
Speaker
It's very, very good in and of itself.
00:27:10
Speaker
But that's all I want.
00:27:10
Speaker
There was more that I wanted to say about the book, but I really want it to, I want to leave some mystery.
00:27:16
Speaker
Okay.
00:27:16
Speaker
So I'm going to leave the book right there.
00:27:18
Speaker
Yeah.
00:27:19
Speaker
Great.
00:27:19
Speaker
Well, thank you for that.
00:27:20
Speaker
And let's take a quick break.
Frankenstein Book vs. Movie Adaptations
00:27:23
Speaker
And when we come back, we'll talk about the movies.
00:27:25
Speaker
Excellent.
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Speaker
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00:28:06
Speaker
Welcome back to Adaptation, the Book to Movie podcast.
00:28:09
Speaker
Today we are discussing Mary Shelley's Frankenstein.
00:28:12
Speaker
Chris gave us a great rundown of the book and the history behind it and its massive impact on our culture.
00:28:19
Speaker
And now I'm going to talk about the movie versions.
00:28:23
Speaker
This is maybe one of the movies that I've been most
00:28:27
Speaker
excited to hear about because i've seen none of them so you haven't watched the new one it just hit netflix yesterday as of recording i've literally watched young frankenstein it's as close as i've gotten well i'm i'm eager to uh i mean a spoiler alert for later i guess but i'm eager to see what you think of this movie yeah
00:28:51
Speaker
As we have alluded to in this conversation, Frankenstein is quite possibly one of the most popular fictional characters to ever exist.
00:28:58
Speaker
Like right up there with like Spider-Man and like Dracula, I guess.
00:29:02
Speaker
I don't know.
00:29:02
Speaker
I'm struggling to think of anybody else that's sort of at that level.
00:29:05
Speaker
No, no, I think you're totally right.
00:29:07
Speaker
You're almost born knowing...
00:29:10
Speaker
who this character is.
00:29:11
Speaker
Yes.
00:29:11
Speaker
There have been many, many, many adaptations of Shelley's book.
00:29:17
Speaker
Most of them, as we'll sort of talk about, are very loose adaptations.
00:29:22
Speaker
It's been adapted to the stage and the screen and beyond, you know, short films and like immersive theater and video games.
00:29:33
Speaker
I just like you name it.
00:29:34
Speaker
And Frankenstein has been sort of mapped onto these things.
00:29:38
Speaker
Mm hmm.
00:29:40
Speaker
Like I said, loose adaptations like Young Frankenstein or Lisa Frankenstein is another recent movie that sort of played on this trope.
00:29:49
Speaker
Those are much more common.
00:29:51
Speaker
And that's because of the first movie that we're going to discuss here in just a minute.
00:29:57
Speaker
Very few of the movies that exist are actually direct adaptations of Mary Shelley's book.
00:30:03
Speaker
Interesting.
00:30:04
Speaker
Yeah.
00:30:05
Speaker
The new 2025 version, which I'll get to a little bit later, is...
00:30:10
Speaker
a direct adaptation.
00:30:11
Speaker
And from what I've collected from some people that have read the book, the most faithful adaptation so far.
00:30:18
Speaker
Okay.
00:30:19
Speaker
Okay.
00:30:19
Speaker
So the first and most prominent version of this movie came from 1931.
1931 Film Adaptation of Frankenstein
00:30:24
Speaker
So super old movie.
00:30:25
Speaker
It's also like 70 minutes long.
00:30:27
Speaker
So it's a really great, easy, breezy watch.
00:30:30
Speaker
It featured Boris Karloff as the monster, and he went on to have an iconic career as a horror star, often playing monsters and creatures and
00:30:39
Speaker
things of that nature.
00:30:41
Speaker
And this came from Universal.
00:30:44
Speaker
This is an important note on that page, I guess, because this was their Universal's second very famous horror movie after Dracula.
00:30:52
Speaker
And that studio became extremely well known for horror since then and sort of created the first cinematic universe in that all of these creatures
00:31:00
Speaker
had their own movies, Dracula, Frankenstein, Wolfman, the Invisible Man, some of those like really iconic monsters that you think have had their own movies and and several sequels and some of them sort of overlapped with others and some of them would pop up in other characters movies.
00:31:15
Speaker
So really interesting that that this movie sort of launched that idea in Hollywood of interconnected storytelling.
00:31:22
Speaker
Yeah.
00:31:23
Speaker
Now, this movie is actually technically an adaptation of a stage play, which is an adaptation of Mary Shelley's book.
00:31:30
Speaker
The stage play is called Frankenstein and Adventure in the Macabre.
00:31:34
Speaker
And it's written by Peggy Webling.
00:31:36
Speaker
This play took some serious creative liberties.
00:31:38
Speaker
So this movie does not align very well with the plot of Mary Shelley's book.
00:31:44
Speaker
Okay.
00:31:45
Speaker
It's the general plot.
00:31:47
Speaker
A Frankenstein, it actually doesn't even follow Victor Frankenstein.
00:31:50
Speaker
It's actually Henry Frankenstein in this movie who creates the monster.
00:31:56
Speaker
And this movie is responsible for the visual that we always conjure when we think of Frankenstein, the green guy with the bolts in his neck that comes from this movie.
00:32:07
Speaker
The idea of a hunchback sidekick that's usually called an Igor that's from this movie and is not, to my understanding, is not a character in the book.
00:32:16
Speaker
Not at all.
00:32:18
Speaker
Yeah.
00:32:18
Speaker
So this movie, like its legacy, I just, I don't think there's any other movie that we've talked about, maybe not even another movie in history that has had the legacy that this one has because of the way that it's shaped the way we see this character and the way we see this story.
00:32:34
Speaker
I almost, does it, does it feel too strong to suggest that perhaps this is the pop culture icon more than even the book itself?
00:32:44
Speaker
I think that that's probably fair.
00:32:46
Speaker
I think, you know, I don't want to disrespect Mary Shelley and all of the things that she did for women and for science fiction and, you know, changing the world the way she did.
00:32:56
Speaker
But I do think that I don't know that we would look at the book in the same light if this movie had not just devoured pop culture.
00:33:06
Speaker
I mean, it was a huge hit at the box office, huge hit critically as well.
00:33:10
Speaker
It was a big deal.
00:33:11
Speaker
This movie was a really big deal.
00:33:13
Speaker
Mm-hmm.
00:33:14
Speaker
And it's a lot of fun too.
00:33:15
Speaker
It's, it's a little bit more cartoonish.
00:33:17
Speaker
It's more of your classic monster story.
00:33:19
Speaker
Yeah.
00:33:20
Speaker
Yeah.
00:33:20
Speaker
Yeah.
00:33:21
Speaker
Like, like, like Scooby-Doo monsters.
00:33:23
Speaker
Yes.
00:33:24
Speaker
Yeah, it is actually.
00:33:25
Speaker
How would you say it's just sort of operatic in the way that it's like, there's a good guy and there's a bad guy and the bad guy does bad things.
00:33:31
Speaker
And, and, uh, you know, the village has to rally to stop the bad guy.
00:33:35
Speaker
Uh-huh.
00:33:37
Speaker
No, no, no.
00:33:38
Speaker
I actually really like your description because that is, uh,
00:33:42
Speaker
dire diametrically opposed story yeah book that is very morally ambiguous and
00:33:49
Speaker
meeting right and right and this one yeah this one i think there is sympathy for the monster in this 31 version if you're looking for it there's a very famous scene where he accidentally kills a child that's it's just um because he thinks that she can float basically uh he throws her in a pond because he's you know like one day old he doesn't understand so you you really have to like i think that you can watch this movie in two ways and one is that sort of cartoonish operatic way
00:34:19
Speaker
And the other is like if you sit down and really try to feel the things that everybody's feeling, you really find the sympathy for the monster.
00:34:26
Speaker
But that sort of moral chewiness is not quite as as chewy, I guess, in this movie as it is in in other movies.
00:34:33
Speaker
This movie was directed by James Whale, pretty notable because he was one of the few people in Hollywood who was openly gay.
00:34:41
Speaker
Wow, nearly 100 years ago.
00:34:43
Speaker
Yeah, it was virtually unheard of at the time.
00:34:46
Speaker
And that's part of the reason that this film has been so strongly embraced by the LGBT community.
00:34:52
Speaker
Again, because of those themes of otherness, ostracization, say that 10 times fast, and loneliness.
00:35:01
Speaker
Yes, yep.
00:35:02
Speaker
Whale himself said that he didn't intentionally inject that into the movie, but he's supportive of those readings.
00:35:08
Speaker
You know, there's all kinds of reading and research you can do on how your identity affects the way that you read things and create things.
00:35:15
Speaker
So I'm sure it's there somewhere.
00:35:19
Speaker
In fact, it's been noted throughout history that the physical resemblance between James Whale and Boris Karloff is sort of like a glowing neon sign pointing at like the fact that maybe he unintentionally
00:35:31
Speaker
imbued this character with that.
00:35:33
Speaker
Yeah, yeah, yeah.
00:35:34
Speaker
That background.
00:35:35
Speaker
And also, the sequel to this movie, Bride of Frankenstein is a fairly original story about the creation of a female Frankenstein that we know of as
00:35:47
Speaker
you know, with the white sort of shocks through her hair.
00:35:49
Speaker
That one is also extremely embraced by the LGBT community because Victor, or I guess Henry Frankenstein creates life with another man.
00:35:57
Speaker
He recruits another scientist to help him and it's a man.
00:35:59
Speaker
So there's two men sort of quote unquote procreating.
00:36:03
Speaker
And then the bride wants absolutely nothing to do with the monster.
00:36:07
Speaker
So there's some really interesting sort of queer theory readings of these movies as
LGBT Themes in Frankenstein
00:36:13
Speaker
well.
00:36:13
Speaker
That makes so much more sense.
00:36:15
Speaker
Yeah.
00:36:15
Speaker
I mean, you've offered 10 times the context that I did.
00:36:18
Speaker
So that's why I say that.
00:36:21
Speaker
This movie was considered pretty blasphemous when it came out.
00:36:24
Speaker
It required a lot of editing and garnered a lot of controversy because of its themes of blasphemy, right?
00:36:31
Speaker
A man playing God.
00:36:32
Speaker
This is the 1930s.
00:36:33
Speaker
So, you know.
00:36:34
Speaker
Yeah, yeah, yeah.
00:36:36
Speaker
And it was banned in several countries across the globe when it came out.
00:36:40
Speaker
Goodness gracious.
00:36:42
Speaker
But despite that, it was, like I said, a huge hit commercially, critically, culturally.
00:36:47
Speaker
It's just like next level.
00:36:49
Speaker
It's got to be the most impactful text that we've talked about.
00:36:52
Speaker
No, I think you're, yeah, yeah.
00:36:54
Speaker
Or movie, at least.
00:36:55
Speaker
I think the combination, maybe.
00:36:57
Speaker
Maybe that's fair to say.
00:36:58
Speaker
Yeah, yeah, sure.
00:37:00
Speaker
Yeah, totally.
00:37:01
Speaker
The next major adaptation that's a straight adaptation of the book,
00:37:05
Speaker
It comes in 1994, directed by Kenneth Branagh, and it's actually called Mary Shelley's Frankenstein.
00:37:10
Speaker
Awesome.
00:37:12
Speaker
Stars Branagh, Helena Bonham Carter, Robert De Niro is the monster.
00:37:16
Speaker
Ian Holm and John Cleese are in this movie as well.
00:37:19
Speaker
Yeah, great cast.
00:37:20
Speaker
Really interesting sort of story in Hollywood.
00:37:23
Speaker
surrounding this movie.
00:37:25
Speaker
The script was written by Frank Darabont, at least in part, and it was known throughout Hollywood for being just an immaculate script, an incredible interpretation of Mary Shelley's text.
1994 Frankenstein Adaptation
00:37:34
Speaker
So it's a high quality that there's no way this movie was going to be bad.
00:37:41
Speaker
Unfortunately, Kenneth Branagh is sort of a hit or miss director.
00:37:45
Speaker
He's really, really good at Shakespeare stuff and pretty, and, and some Agatha Christie stuff, pretty not good at everything else.
00:37:51
Speaker
So he really butchered,
00:37:53
Speaker
this script, unfortunately.
00:37:54
Speaker
Frank Darabont has spoken about not recognizing the script that he wrote when he saw the movie.
00:37:59
Speaker
He was like, this is not the story that I told.
00:38:03
Speaker
It's a really strange operatic version of the story.
00:38:07
Speaker
I guess I'm just going to call everything operatic in this episode.
00:38:10
Speaker
It's extremely dramatic and like soapy almost.
00:38:14
Speaker
And I think he was trying to make it like a really commercial blockbuster.
00:38:18
Speaker
And I don't feel that the text that Mary Shelley wrote can be a commercial blockbuster.
00:38:24
Speaker
I think it's sort of too complex and too...
00:38:26
Speaker
I mean, it lacks all of the things that a blockbuster needs, which is like action adventure and shoehorning that into the story, I think is kind of a disservice to what she wrote.
00:38:36
Speaker
The movie was called Frantic and Overwrought and even Manic, which I think is kind of crazy.
00:38:42
Speaker
Kenneth Branagh is shirtless for half of this movie.
00:38:44
Speaker
He plays Victor Frankenstein.
00:38:45
Speaker
I'm like, what is going on?
00:38:46
Speaker
What is this movie about?
00:38:48
Speaker
I'm looking at pictures and it is absolutely absurd.
00:38:53
Speaker
I've tried to watch it several times and I think three times now, including to prepare for this podcast.
00:38:58
Speaker
I have fallen asleep every single time.
00:39:00
Speaker
I can't make it through this movie.
00:39:04
Speaker
I don't know exactly what
00:39:06
Speaker
deal is but i just i hate it and most people do um and because of that it's not very accessible i've had to rent each time i've watched it and fallen asleep i had to rent it pay for it those are expensive naps
00:39:20
Speaker
Mm hmm.
00:39:20
Speaker
Yeah.
00:39:22
Speaker
But that brings us to today with a brand new version called Frankenstein from Guillermo del
Guillermo del Toro's 2025 Frankenstein
00:39:28
Speaker
Toro.
00:39:28
Speaker
Fantastic.
00:39:29
Speaker
Who is a great director.
00:39:31
Speaker
He's known as the master of misunderstood monsters or sympathetic monsters.
00:39:35
Speaker
All of his movies are generally about somebody that is probably not even human.
00:39:41
Speaker
If that, you know, he did like Hellboy and he did The Shape of Water and
00:39:46
Speaker
All of these movies are about monsters that are misunderstood by the people around him.
00:39:50
Speaker
And this movie in particular has been a passion project for him.
00:39:55
Speaker
It's the movie he's always wanted to make.
00:39:56
Speaker
And he spent nearly 20 years working on it.
00:40:00
Speaker
There have been many times over the last two decades where he almost made this movie.
00:40:04
Speaker
And then it fell through, sometimes because of funding, sometimes because he himself got a little too overwhelmed and like sort of chickened out because this was a text.
00:40:12
Speaker
It's super meaningful.
00:40:14
Speaker
this text to him.
00:40:15
Speaker
It's got a lot of themes that resonate strongly with Del Toro, like mommy issues and daddy issues.
00:40:21
Speaker
And again, sort of feeling like a freak and being othered and things like that.
00:40:25
Speaker
Can I tell you, especially because I am never the one on the film side, I have no idea why, because I never watch any awards, but I remember watching his award speech for Shape of Water.
00:40:36
Speaker
And I remember, well, I didn't remember this quote, so I pulled it up, but it's exactly what you just described.
00:40:42
Speaker
Guillermo del Toro said, since childhood, I have been faithful to monsters.
00:40:46
Speaker
I have been saved and absolved by them because monsters are patron saints of our blissful imperfection.
00:40:53
Speaker
Mm hmm.
00:40:54
Speaker
What a cool dude.
00:40:56
Speaker
Oh, my God.
00:40:56
Speaker
He is really cool.
00:40:59
Speaker
And he's just, he's also like always on the right side of history and ethics.
00:41:03
Speaker
And the reason you've seen that clip is because people in the film community just love him.
00:41:09
Speaker
I mean, I don't know if there's a director out there that's like got as good a public image as this guy.
00:41:13
Speaker
Really?
00:41:14
Speaker
People just reshare it.
00:41:15
Speaker
Yeah.
00:41:15
Speaker
I mean, he's going viral right now.
00:41:18
Speaker
This movie is playing in theaters.
00:41:20
Speaker
It was playing in theaters.
00:41:22
Speaker
And he would go viral because he would pop up at these screenings and lead the audience in a chant of fuck AI, fuck AI, fuck AI.
00:41:30
Speaker
Incredible.
00:41:31
Speaker
Yeah, just a cool dude.
00:41:33
Speaker
Just a cool storyteller, cool creator.
00:41:35
Speaker
So it took him nearly 20 years to make and release this movie.
00:41:40
Speaker
Wow.
00:41:40
Speaker
Big labor of love.
00:41:41
Speaker
Stars Oscar Isaac, Jacob Elordi as the monster.
00:41:45
Speaker
Mia Goth, who's sort of a horror icon.
00:41:48
Speaker
You, I believe, saw her in the movie X, which you hated with a burning passion.
00:41:52
Speaker
Yeah.
00:41:53
Speaker
Yeah.
00:41:55
Speaker
And Christoph Waltz is in this as well.
00:41:58
Speaker
And David Bradley.
00:41:59
Speaker
Pretty strong reception, not amazing reviews, including, spoiler alert, myself, I think I and many others were expecting something a little bit more.
00:42:09
Speaker
I think he sort of got lost in this.
00:42:10
Speaker
I think the 20 years of work on this maybe sort of fried some things.
00:42:16
Speaker
Lose perspective a bit.
00:42:18
Speaker
Yeah.
00:42:18
Speaker
And in fact, it debuted, I forget now, I think it was at Venice Film Festival, but one of the fall festivals.
00:42:24
Speaker
to pretty lukewarm reception.
00:42:27
Speaker
And people were pretty disappointed to hear that this movie was not sort of as amazing as they were expecting.
00:42:35
Speaker
I want you to flesh out that sentence more, though.
00:42:37
Speaker
You and many others wanted more what?
00:42:39
Speaker
What?
00:42:41
Speaker
Oh, I think I'll get to that later.
00:42:44
Speaker
Okay, okay, okay.
00:42:46
Speaker
But TLDR, I think the monster's too sympathetic in this movie.
00:42:51
Speaker
I think that there's some stuff that was skimmed off the top, maybe, that sort of left a fairly hollow story.
00:42:59
Speaker
But anyway, reception has gotten warmer since audiences have been able to see it.
00:43:03
Speaker
Like I said, it had a pretty strong theatrical run, which is not very common for Netflix movies.
00:43:08
Speaker
Mm-hmm.
00:43:09
Speaker
But the demand was there.
00:43:10
Speaker
People wanted to see this on the big screen.
00:43:12
Speaker
And it hit Netflix on November 7th, which is yesterday as of recording, and is available for all.
00:43:18
Speaker
Okay, okay.
00:43:19
Speaker
So that's come around.
00:43:21
Speaker
Yeah, yep.
00:43:22
Speaker
So more people are liking it, but I think it's very interesting that it's not like a 100% glowing reception, considering that everything about it seems so... Like Guillermo del Toro making this movie seems like a slam dunk, and it just hasn't been.
Reception of 2025 Frankenstein
00:43:39
Speaker
I was going to say, is there a world in which it is doing that well simply on the laurels of who directed it and who's starring in it?
00:43:49
Speaker
Yes, I think that's possible.
00:43:50
Speaker
And it being on Netflix as well, people are going to have such easy access to it.
00:43:56
Speaker
We don't get true blue Frankenstein movies that often.
00:43:59
Speaker
Like I said, I'm really only talking about these two true adaptations.
00:44:03
Speaker
And the last one was in 1994.
00:44:05
Speaker
and is not very accessible.
00:44:06
Speaker
So I think there's a lot of excitement around this famous adaptation and it being made by exactly who anybody with a pair of eyes or a beating heart would put in charge of it.
00:44:20
Speaker
Yep, yep.
00:44:23
Speaker
So kind of interesting.
00:44:25
Speaker
We'll get more into sort of the specifics of what I think of each of these later in the ratings section.
00:44:32
Speaker
But I think this is a good time to launch into our discussion questions.
00:44:38
Speaker
One of the questions I had for you, I was pretty surprised...
00:44:42
Speaker
I did not know going into this new 2025 version that the 1931 version was not an accurate retelling of the book.
00:44:51
Speaker
So I was really surprised when the monster looked different.
00:44:53
Speaker
Like when the monster spoke, I was like, what is going on?
00:44:56
Speaker
This movie is so bizarre because the 1931 version is, like I said, it's so much more simple.
00:45:02
Speaker
I was just curious how he's physically described the monster in the book.
00:45:06
Speaker
No, that's a great question.
00:45:08
Speaker
And it is very interesting.
00:45:10
Speaker
This is actually the part that I think maybe once it was described as a ghost story, it made more sense to me.
00:45:16
Speaker
Do you remember the movie Cloverfield?
Depicting Frankenstein's Monster
00:45:21
Speaker
And it was pretty terrifying until they actually showed the monster and then it was funny.
00:45:28
Speaker
Yeah.
00:45:29
Speaker
No longer scary.
00:45:31
Speaker
Right.
00:45:31
Speaker
And it so abundantly illustrates that what's scary is the unknown.
00:45:36
Speaker
Yeah.
00:45:37
Speaker
How bad could this thing be?
00:45:40
Speaker
And Shelley really takes that approach.
00:45:41
Speaker
There's no line by line describing him head to toe ever.
00:45:47
Speaker
Okay.
00:45:48
Speaker
You are very specifically told he is physically imposing, massive compared to other humans.
00:45:55
Speaker
I think they do say at some point, like eight feet tall or something like that.
00:46:00
Speaker
Whoa.
00:46:01
Speaker
Did they even measure in feet in England in the early 19th century though?
00:46:06
Speaker
I might have made that part up in my head.
00:46:09
Speaker
It's a fairly vague description to answer your question.
00:46:12
Speaker
What you are given is consistently he is so astonishingly ugly, grotesque, abhorrent that regular humans virtually cannot stand to look at him.
00:46:29
Speaker
Okay.
00:46:30
Speaker
Interesting.
00:46:31
Speaker
And that's a unique thing to text that you can't
00:46:34
Speaker
really do in a movie right and it is clear in its deliberate desire not to be clear you know mm-hmm that being said because that's the only description I can I can't have nothing pictured in my head and it made it difficult to make those two things match up oh interesting okay I've been given no description except a giant dude I kind of kept picturing jaws
00:47:03
Speaker
from Moonraker, the famous Bond villain.
00:47:08
Speaker
Oh, okay.
00:47:09
Speaker
Yeah.
00:47:10
Speaker
Kind of really tall and really big features.
00:47:14
Speaker
And because of that, I kind of kept being like, man, these guys just ran away because they saw you and you wouldn't even listen to what you had to say.
00:47:23
Speaker
So I think maybe that's where some of this friction in where your sympathies lie is coming from.
00:47:32
Speaker
Yeah.
00:47:33
Speaker
which is brilliant from an author's perspective, and I imagine maddening from a producer's perspective.
00:47:39
Speaker
Well, and all three of these versions of Frankenstein that I'm talking about look very, very different.
00:47:45
Speaker
I would encourage you, Chris, and everyone listening to just Google De Niro Frankenstein and Elordi Frankenstein and look at what they look like.
00:47:54
Speaker
And it's pretty interesting the ways that they differ.
00:47:56
Speaker
Yeah, yeah, yeah, yeah.
00:47:59
Speaker
So actually, maybe it's the opposite.
00:48:00
Speaker
It sounds maddening to me.
00:48:01
Speaker
Maybe that's like a fun, maybe that's the freedom that some producers or directors enjoy.
00:48:07
Speaker
There is no direct description.
00:48:08
Speaker
So how can they mess it up?
00:48:10
Speaker
Yeah, I'm sure a director loves that.
00:48:12
Speaker
Yeah.
00:48:13
Speaker
Yeah, yeah, yeah.
00:48:13
Speaker
Very much a similar question from me for you watching the movies.
00:48:18
Speaker
So I had trouble from the text alone, as I said, picturing a creature so hideous that people would immediately shut him and not listen to him.
00:48:27
Speaker
Obviously, movies cannot rely on the text, but they create the visual for you.
00:48:31
Speaker
And I guess you've really answered this quite a bit at this point.
00:48:34
Speaker
But were any of them like presented in such a way that you were so appalled and disgusted?
00:48:41
Speaker
You were like, oh, yeah, that guy's a bad person simply for how gross he looks.
00:48:47
Speaker
You know what I mean?
00:48:48
Speaker
Yeah.
00:48:49
Speaker
Yeah.
00:48:50
Speaker
That's tough because, well, you know, in 2025, we know that like you can't judge a book by its cover or a person by their appearance.
00:48:59
Speaker
So I suppose you have to sort of put a blanket over that idea.
00:49:05
Speaker
I will say, I want you right now to Google De Niro Frankenstein.
00:49:09
Speaker
I was looking at that.
00:49:11
Speaker
He's an ugly motherfucker.
00:49:13
Speaker
And, um,
00:49:15
Speaker
It's just in terms of creating a visual that was going to freak people the hell out.
00:49:21
Speaker
That's probably the best one that I've seen.
00:49:23
Speaker
But for those that are not Googling it, it's Robert De Niro with really swollen, puffy features and very lopsided features.
00:49:34
Speaker
And he's got patchwork.
00:49:37
Speaker
stitches that are crooked and going every direction all over his entire body, but especially his face.
00:49:46
Speaker
Cut scars across his lips.
00:49:49
Speaker
One of his eyes, I think, might be.
00:49:52
Speaker
Or maybe they're just different colors.
00:49:53
Speaker
Or maybe he's blind in one.
00:49:54
Speaker
Yeah, I can't quite tell what they're implying.
00:49:56
Speaker
Definitely different colors.
00:49:59
Speaker
I mean, it looks like if Robert De Niro was allergic to bee stings and put his head in a beehive.
Modern Perceptions of the Monster
00:50:06
Speaker
It would undoubtedly be disconcerting to say the least to run into this dude in the wild.
00:50:13
Speaker
Sure.
00:50:14
Speaker
Especially if he's like not very eloquent in his speech and, and, um, you know, can rip a door off its hinges and things like that.
00:50:22
Speaker
Um, that being said, again, the 2025 ism of it all is that we know not to be mean to people because they look different.
00:50:31
Speaker
Yes.
00:50:32
Speaker
Yes.
00:50:33
Speaker
So maybe it's, maybe that's the difficulty.
00:50:35
Speaker
you know, applying modern morals.
00:50:38
Speaker
Morals, yeah.
00:50:39
Speaker
And I mean, now that I'm looking at these pictures and trying to be realistic to myself, I've been on my part.
00:50:46
Speaker
Cool.
00:50:47
Speaker
I imagine the movies were a little more difficult.
00:50:49
Speaker
The movies were a little more difficult and all so different.
00:50:53
Speaker
The 31 version, I give it four and a half stars because it's so fun and so classic.
00:50:58
Speaker
Wow.
00:50:59
Speaker
We've talked about it ad nauseum at this point.
00:51:01
Speaker
You can't, you just can't like not give laurels to something that had such an enormous impact.
00:51:07
Speaker
Yes.
00:51:08
Speaker
You know, the makeup was amazing.
00:51:09
Speaker
And this was an early, this was in the first handful of years of talkies, movies with sound.
00:51:16
Speaker
So the fact that it still holds up as well as it does many of those movies,
00:51:20
Speaker
In fact, the very first movie with sound, The Jazz Singer, is sort of known for not being very good because it took them a while to get a handle
Impact of 1931 Film Adaptation
00:51:28
Speaker
on the technology.
00:51:28
Speaker
So the fact that this one is that old, similar to what you're saying about the book, it's an old movie.
00:51:34
Speaker
It's almost 100 years old.
00:51:36
Speaker
And it holds up really, really well.
00:51:40
Speaker
And like I said, it's kind of fun that you can watch it in the two ways.
00:51:44
Speaker
You can either watch it.
00:51:45
Speaker
you know, as a sympathetic story or as just a classic fun Halloween monster movie.
00:51:51
Speaker
Yes, yes, absolutely.
00:51:52
Speaker
So aged, I really feel like it aged like wine.
00:51:56
Speaker
The 94 version, like I said, I three times I rented it and you get it, I think for 48 hours and I fell asleep every time.
00:52:06
Speaker
So I gave it two and a half stars because I've looked at, you know, the sets are nice, the costumes are nice.
00:52:12
Speaker
Robert De Niro looks like they put a lot of work into his makeup, but I can't get through it.
00:52:19
Speaker
That's probably even a pretty generous rating considering it's put me to sleep three times.
00:52:25
Speaker
The 2025 version, initially I had it at three and a half.
00:52:29
Speaker
After rewatching some of the scenes yesterday, some of the critical scenes, I dropped it down to a three.
00:52:35
Speaker
I do think that it's a technical masterpiece.
00:52:38
Speaker
The sets are gorgeous.
00:52:40
Speaker
The costumes, hair and makeup, just fantastic.
00:52:43
Speaker
That's a standard for Guillermo del Toro, whose movies are gorgeous.
00:52:48
Speaker
And the performances are good, but I felt like a lot of them belonged in different movies.
00:52:53
Speaker
There was a lot of humor in
00:52:55
Speaker
injected into Victor's character, which I thought was like really misplaced.
00:53:00
Speaker
He's like, he's just frigging goofy and kind of over the top.
00:53:06
Speaker
And then, you know, you get to the blind man who I think most people will know as the hermit, sort of how he's interpreted in that 31 version.
00:53:13
Speaker
And he plays like a very, it's a, it's my favorite performance in the movie because it's so sincere and so gothic and in a classic way, it feels like it matches the movie a lot more, but then you've got like,
00:53:25
Speaker
Mia Goth, who I mentioned, she usually plays like a freak, for lack of a better term.
00:53:32
Speaker
And she's basically the straight man in this movie.
00:53:34
Speaker
Things just didn't work very well for me.
00:53:38
Speaker
It's like the gears that are making this clock tick are the wrong size or something.
00:53:44
Speaker
It's a little overstuffed with its ideas.
00:53:46
Speaker
Like I said, it, it, I think it was almost too sympathetic of the monster, which is sort of a disservice to this text that is really complex and layered.
00:53:55
Speaker
Hmm.
00:53:55
Speaker
Yeah.
00:53:55
Speaker
Yes.
00:53:56
Speaker
And it's, it's also wrought with the stuff that Guillermo del Toro frequently visits in his movies, these ideas, there's a semi Oedipal complex.
00:54:05
Speaker
He's like in love with his mother, uh, Victor is, and that's something we see in a lot of Guillermo del Toro movies.
00:54:11
Speaker
He hates his father.
00:54:13
Speaker
which is something we see in a lot of Guillermo del Toro movies, hates his father because he's like an abusive piece of crap.
00:54:20
Speaker
The sympathetic monster, like I said, a hundred times is very normal for him.
00:54:24
Speaker
It just feels like nobody's kind of doing anything extra to make this movie special, you know?
00:54:31
Speaker
Yeah.
00:54:31
Speaker
Yeah.
00:54:32
Speaker
And then lastly, I wrote that some of the ideas, I think because they're undercooked, they're kind of spoon fed to you.
00:54:40
Speaker
I think the last line of the movie is the monster saying, I'm not the monster, you're the monster or something along those lines to Victor.
00:54:47
Speaker
And I was a little bit like, yeah, we get it.
00:54:50
Speaker
This is a two and a half hour movie.
00:54:54
Speaker
If you didn't get it before now, you shouldn't be watching the movie.
00:54:57
Speaker
So pretty big eye roll there.
00:54:59
Speaker
I think there's
00:55:00
Speaker
pacing issues, CGI issues sometimes, not always.
00:55:02
Speaker
A lot of people have been harping on the CGI and I wanted to specifically make a note of the fact that I think that in some scenes it's just fine.
00:55:10
Speaker
So I feel like I just ragged on it, but I still ultimately liked it.
00:55:15
Speaker
But a three is a lot lower than I was hoping.
00:55:17
Speaker
I really thought I was going to get like a five star banger out of this one.
00:55:21
Speaker
Yeah, so really it's just not as strong as you expected or were hoping for.
00:55:25
Speaker
Yes, and I think some of that comes from the fact that I really didn't know...
00:55:29
Speaker
how different it was from the 31 version, which isn't entirely fair.
00:55:35
Speaker
But I don't know.
00:55:37
Speaker
We live in a world where that 31 version exists.
00:55:40
Speaker
And maybe if you're adapting Frankenstein, you have to sort of draw from both piles.
00:55:47
Speaker
Yeah, I mean, you need to be aware of that.
00:55:49
Speaker
You don't get to just say, well, no, exclude that context.
00:55:52
Speaker
Right, right.
00:55:54
Speaker
Yeah, let's talk about recommendations.
00:55:56
Speaker
I had the exact opposite experience.
00:55:58
Speaker
Well, I guess it was a net neutral going in.
00:56:00
Speaker
I had no expectations.
Gothic Literature Recommendations
00:56:02
Speaker
You know, a little bit of why it's just such a classic.
00:56:05
Speaker
But I was very pleasantly surprised, especially at the depth of the text.
00:56:11
Speaker
I would recommend this to most just general readers.
00:56:16
Speaker
Like I said, it really sits at this kind of pleasant intersection of not super long, not super short, but not super long.
00:56:25
Speaker
A classic everyone has at least some idea of.
00:56:29
Speaker
And then also, like I mentioned, it kind of sits comfortably in a few genres.
00:56:34
Speaker
So there's no one, you don't have to be huge into sci-fi.
00:56:39
Speaker
You don't have to be huge into gothic or horror for this to appeal to you.
00:56:44
Speaker
Oh, that's cool.
00:56:45
Speaker
Okay.
00:56:46
Speaker
So I'm going to reverse this a little, which doesn't necessarily make sense, but I like it.
00:56:52
Speaker
First of all, I recommend you read it.
00:56:54
Speaker
If you read books, I recommend you read it.
00:56:56
Speaker
If you don't read books, I recommend you read books and then return to Step 1.
00:57:01
Speaker
Hey now.
00:57:02
Speaker
And beyond that, I'm going to recommend if it's middling, if it's fine for you, that's fine.
00:57:08
Speaker
If you enjoy it as much as I was surprised to enjoy it, I think you would also enjoy Mexican Gothic by Silvia Moreno-Garcia.
00:57:16
Speaker
So actually, maybe it's not totally reversed.
00:57:19
Speaker
The opposite, I think, is true.
00:57:20
Speaker
If you've read these, I think you would definitely enjoy Frankenstein and vice versa.
00:57:24
Speaker
Mexican Gothic by Silvia Moreno-Garcia, huge a couple of years ago.
00:57:28
Speaker
And Steppenwolf by Herman Hess, famous for Siddhartha, but also, I think, maybe equally famous for Steppenwolf.
00:57:38
Speaker
Yeah, yeah.
00:57:40
Speaker
Cool.
00:57:41
Speaker
Yeah.
00:57:42
Speaker
That's a good recommendation.
00:57:43
Speaker
I felt this was, I was surprised.
00:57:45
Speaker
I was very surprised, pleasantly surprised.
00:57:49
Speaker
Movies, talk to me.
00:57:51
Speaker
Movies, yeah, fully recommend the 1931 version.
00:57:54
Speaker
It's super fun to look at it side by side with the more faithful adaptations like the 2025 version and I suppose the 94.
00:58:01
Speaker
I wonder if you can make it through that.
00:58:04
Speaker
And I guess ultimately I would recommend the 25 version partly for the sake of there being so few straight adaptations and even fewer remotely good quality.
00:58:18
Speaker
And it's the most sort of Guillermo del Toro movie that has existed.
00:58:22
Speaker
Like I said, he touches on everything that he always does in these movies.
00:58:27
Speaker
So I wouldn't say I don't recommend it.
00:58:31
Speaker
I just would say maybe temper your expectations.
00:58:34
Speaker
Another one to maybe just kind of let it ride it like a roller coaster a little bit.
00:58:38
Speaker
I think you'll enjoy this movie if you like the other versions of Dracula that have been made, and particularly last year's Nosferatu, which is, of course, Dracula with the names changed.
00:58:50
Speaker
Any of those movies that I mentioned, like Young Frankenstein, Lisa Frankenstein, Edward Scissorhands is another play on the Frankenstein movie.
00:58:58
Speaker
Oh, okay.
00:59:00
Speaker
A monster from, you know, jumbled up crap.
00:59:03
Speaker
So if you like, or body parts.
00:59:05
Speaker
So if you like those kinds of movies, Phantom of the Opera for that, that sort of Gothic, Gothic drama and tension really like elements of the unknown there.
00:59:17
Speaker
And also if you'd like any other Guillermo del Toro movie, you'll, you'll pretty much like the 25 version, but skip the 94 version unless you need a nap, I guess.
00:59:27
Speaker
Yeah.
00:59:27
Speaker
Yeah.
00:59:27
Speaker
Hmm.
00:59:28
Speaker
For the second time this episode, I don't know what I expected, but it was not that.
00:59:32
Speaker
Yeah, I think I even said in our last episode that
00:59:35
Speaker
I was looking forward to this one because it would be, we, we did the Bruce Springs.
00:59:39
Speaker
Yeah.
00:59:39
Speaker
It was deliver me from nowhere.
00:59:40
Speaker
And I was like, don't worry, next one will be a banger.
00:59:42
Speaker
And I'm, I'm a little let down, but it's still a really important, just formative text for, for culture.
00:59:53
Speaker
And I actually, I really, this is maybe the part that I anticipated least.
00:59:57
Speaker
I really like what we kind of teased out of perhaps the,
01:00:02
Speaker
popularity, notoriety, pop culture, fame is not one side or the other.
01:00:09
Speaker
Would the conversation also be less interesting if they were more faithful and we just had three different movies that were all equally tough to chew on, really compelling moral questions?
01:00:24
Speaker
I mean, those movies are so important but exhausting to watch.
01:00:28
Speaker
Yeah.
01:00:29
Speaker
Yeah, totally.
01:00:30
Speaker
That's probably why that one puts me to sleep.
01:00:32
Speaker
Yeah.
01:00:36
Speaker
Yeah.
01:00:36
Speaker
Just kidding.