Transcript
Speaker: Worm is a web serial by J .C. McCray, also known as Wildbo. You can read Worm in its original format by visiting parahumans ah .wordpress dot .com or donate to Wildbo's Patreon at patreon dot .com slash wildbo. This story isn't intended for young or sensitive readers. Readers who are on the lookout for trigger warnings are advised to give Worm a pass. For a complete list, check the description for all of Worm's trigger warnings.
Speaker: Welcome back you worms. ah Welcome back you worms. Here we go. Diving into season three. How exciting is that? We're in arc 15 and we are just going full steam ahead. We've concluded the second season with arc 14 theoretically, of course. So a lot of work to be done. So a lot of touch up things to move around. We had a fantastic season wrap up with our guests, Hannah and Nick, uh, where they got to provide their feedback. That was a lot of fun, a lot of good feedback there. And, uh, looking forward to sort of readjusting some things and making that work. But for the time being, we've got, we've got another arc to get to cause we just can't stop reading. And so now here we are in arc 15 and myself and Alan, as always welcome Alan. Thank you, Jacob.
Speaker: joined, uh, by Michael on the, I was going to say Michael on the keys. I don't know why that was the incident. Yeah. I mean, kid technically not incorrect type. If that's what you're asking. Yeah, exactly. We're going to break down this meaty arc. I think was it was close to like 80 ,000 work. I mean, this, this arc is basically a mini novel. We're getting into that point now where like the arcs are their own novels. Yeah. I want to say 16 might actually be one of the longest ones. Okay. So where this was, this is the prelude to what's to come. Lovely. Yeah. Either way. It's a lot of words. We got to get through. And I think, I think it's 78 ,000. I think that's Michael, what you put in chat, like 78 ,200. Yep. Just shy of 80. Yep. Just shy of 80. There we go. Yeah.
Speaker: Yeah, so yeah, we're in the novel territory. Lot to break into here. Lot to not to dive into, I should say. Um, but keeping in mind that we are, uh, this is our, and we're getting into season three. This is our first episode of the of season three. So I'll imagine, uh, I was thinking for me when I was reading this arc, I was like, okay, great arc. It starts the season, kind of introduces some new things. I have a feeling as we've done before, we'll come back to the first episode and sort of plug in some stuff as we read the next couple arcs.
Speaker: Um, but some good stuff here to kind of, to kind of kick off a, uh, another season. I don't know. What were you thinking? alllan Um, I, okay. So, you know, I'm a huge fan of the world building for episode one pilot. You know, I think that does a good job of showing things through our protagonist size. It's a microcosm for the entire, uh, show and specifically for that whole season as well. Um, I think that. episode one of season two, um, also does ah a good thing. It's, you know, showing, Hey, we're going to be exploring a lot more of the other people. Like once again, it's setting expectations. It's in itself a whole show set into one to show you what's going to happen. Um, where we're going for this one, uh, it does a lot of that. Um, but.
Speaker: I don't like it as much. a won yeah um So it does a lot of the same things that specifically season two, episode one does, which I think for everybody that's arc nine. So, you know, the war arc. So in this, we're getting a lot of backstories. We're going to be able to like jump back and forth kind of like we did with the battery ah story. yeah Right. Yeah. Except we'll do that with, you know, Carol. kind of interspersed that through here or other places. If you want to, um, you know, we get Brian's perspective as an interlude. We get Alexandria, which once again, a lot of time jumping there. We couldn't, you know, follow up with that throughout the series. If we wanted to, uh, I e just, I dunno, it feels like kind of an in -between and I don't like the opening really with us dealing with the
Speaker: the kid Nazis, um not that it's bad. Once again, all of this is great in book. um right as right right and ah know We continue to discuss like how it flows visually and what you can do with show versus someplace in which you can take your time and explain things, I think is different. I think for this one, it feels like too little and the energy kind of isn't right. Um, at least for the beginning of this, I feel like the real strength of this comes in the second half where we get to, you know, uh, the, the attempted, you know, threatening of the mayor and whatnot. Like, I feel like that's where this really shines. And I kind of feel like that should be the focus maybe. Um, maybe, maybe not like actually the, uh,
Speaker: What am I saying here? Like the focus should be on coil and it kind of is, what you know, it's the reason they take Victor hostage, but it doesn't feel apparent enough to me. I would kind of want to open with something stronger. Yeah, I agree. I think, I think it's a little tricky here. I really like the opening from a, undersiders character development perspective like they feel in sync they feel like after dealing with the slaughterhouse nine that this is child's play they're taking down the remnants of like ah ah a dying gang at this point and they feel in control Taylor's much stronger like it just it's a nice sort of
Speaker: Yeah. Power boost, you know, to our characters. Yeah. Which kind of feels appropriate. That's fair. I think just this might actually be an in writing problem ah issue. I think because of all the interludes, I think it actually made me feel more disjointed about this when really there's three things that happen. And I think if we just had them in order, I'd be okay with this, like with no interlude nonsense in between. And that's. They fight and capture Victor. She goes to talk to Parian. They go to kidnap the mayor son. I think if we just had that, and if you do your interludes, it's at the beginning and the end, a la season one vibes more. right i think I think I would like this a lot more as an episode. Yeah, well, and i it's funny because we're kind of getting to the point now where
Speaker: it's it We either got to decide if we want to sort of spread some of this stuff out or cut down a lot of stuff. um I'm more in favor of sort of maybe spreading this out for now, but but okay, so for example, you have the scene at the beginning where they're ah dealing with ah with the remnants of and Empire 88, right? I love that whole scene when I'm reading it, like you said. Really fun scene. The tattletale sort of dismantling Victor and Othala is great, but an audience isn't going to give two shits about Victor and Othala because we haven't seen them yet, if this is a show. At most, they are background ah grunts in some Empire 88 scenes, right? Yeah. So this this whole this whole scene, if you were just to play this out,
Speaker: would not work at all. And this is the type of thing where I think sometimes it's hard for us as like super fans of worm to really break away from that and try to decide what stays and what goes. ah Like when I'm looking at this, it makes way more sense in my eyes that if you're going to keep this scene, Othala and Victor are replaced with Night and Fog. Night in Fog have a reputation that we've seen them before. We're keeping them in in some capacity. The audience is going to recognize them. They are meant to be minor sort of disposable characters in the story. They're not that important, but they're familiar. Like those that's the type of character. I'm not saying we should do that. I'm just saying that's the type of emerging you would see if like
Speaker: you know, you handed the script to a professional screenwriter in Hollywood who was not a fan of worm and you're like, Hey, we need to simplify this and make a fit for an episode. He would go, okay, okay. We're going to cut that. Okay. These characters are the same. We're given these lines to this character. These characters go like they would just be trimming down the whole thing. I'll talk to you right now. What I would do, i I hate that I'm saying this because you know, I love night and fog. Uh, you scrap them all the way and like episode, what is it? Seven. or, you know, season season one, did back in arc seven, or, you know, the purity arc. ah You scrap them from that fight and you replace them with like Victor and Othala. Like that's who they have to get through and it's difficult. You know, they almost lose because Victor Othala rune, like the kid Nazis are stronger than them. Yeah. um And they just barely make it out of that. And then that way it shows here, they just kick their ass. Like it's nothing.
Speaker: Well, and that's the thing. And that's what, and that's what wild bow does in this, this chapter anyway, just with night and fog, like night and fog are terrifying in arc seven, just like they're horrifying. They barely escape bitches. One of bitches dogs basically dies, not fully, but essentially, uh, they barely escape. And now here they are just beating the shit out of them. And it's, that's exactly what that's meant to show is like this progression of how much stronger they've gotten. So we are getting that, and but I agree. um I would even just giving Othala and Victor more of a presence earlier on would be beneficial if you want to keep this scene playing out as is for season three. Like you have to have them earlier to make that work. Yeah. Um, like and there's a few moments in here where I think that's kind of the case, which is tricky. Yeah. yeah I think it in a major rewrite,
Speaker: I think perhaps having Theo hang out with the rest of the Nazi kids would be a nice arc to have. Um, and maybe instead of, you know, that, that interlude where we see, uh, purity go talk to max because, you know, I like the purity, but the focus of worm. isn't on most of the empire 88 people. It's on Theo and his relationship with all the empire 88 people. right So in that regard, maybe we scrap, you know, the section where she goes to talk to max and replace that with Theo getting a phone call from the other Nazi kids being like, bro, you want to come out and party, beat up some you minorities. And him being like, Oh guys, I got a babysit. Yeah.
Speaker: like Yeah. I mean, that was little things like that doesn't have to be much. Yeah. Cause I think having, having more consistent number one, I like the, uh, and having him explored a little bit more because like, sure. He doesn't have powers, but powers are literally everywhere around him. Like, I feel like they would interact more and I'll be honest. I, maybe this is just my brain fritzing out at the moment, but I don't,
Speaker: remember Theo interacting with any of the other Nazi people. I don't think he really does because, and and I get that's cause purity tried to get out and, but, but like yeah he wasn't with purity all the time. He was with his dad who definitely had, you know, Nazi fundraising balls and everybody would attend. Cause that seems like some shit that they would do. And all the like kids got to stand in the corner and drink, you know, punch. and because they're all underage. And you know it's like, oh, go hang, you know, it's go hang out with your cousins. And and you're like, ah, my cousins. And you like turn and they're all shit heads. Right. Yeah. Yeah. I mean, I'm always sure you only see them like three times a year, but like, I feel like there's more of a relationship that probably could have been built up. Yeah, definitely.
Speaker: I'm fine with, I'm always fine more with more Theo character development. Cause I think that's going to help the story later on. Um, but that always, that always works for me. yeah I mean, yeah, knock out, you know, two birds with one stone there, give Theo some more development and, and sort of pepper in these empire 88 kids will help with this scene. Um, I think, I think this is a scene that could adjust a little bit again, depending on how we want to structure the first episode. Um, but I don't hate it as an opening unless you wanted to do a cold open on the season with, uh, Carol and the new wave backstory leading up to, uh, uh, Amy's imprisonment in the birdcage. I think if you wanted to do sort of like a cold open, I mean, this would be like a long scene. Uh, you know, really sort of setting the setting the tone for the, for the season again.
Speaker: I think you could do it that way and then and then cut into the undersiders. I don't know if I like just because there's so much flashback in that arc. I don't know. I'd want to like put that anywhere else in the episode. It feels like it'd be too disjointing to be like present day and then spend a whole bunch of time going back only to build up to just where Amy is at the moment. I don't know if that would work too well. Yeah. Um, I think maybe you start with Amy in there. Uh, cause cause there is, there is. So in this story, we have Carol being a really pissed off at Amy, but we find out later is that she still wants that happy little family unit.
Speaker: and pushes a lot for Victoria and Amy to like make up essentially so that she can have this happy little family. um That's a big point of contention. ah And so I think having that set up that like she has the initial anger where she's like, where the hell's my daughter? like you know, treats Amy not as a daughter. And then we slowly get the unfolding backstory to like work towards Carol forgiving her. who Um, and maybe, you know, that's not even a good thing necessarily. It's just development that we have for her. where She's like, ah, you know, she has my daughter, even if she is terrible. Right. Um, I think that's something we could do in reverse and I think would look a lot better.
Speaker: Yeah, that actually could work. That could work pretty well. Again, you've got to, you still got to figure kind of where you want to place it. I mean, I think the opening of like you open with that where yeah she's walking up. She's like, where the hell's, I mean,
Speaker: because doesn't she, doesn't she go to, she got a tattletale. Yeah. Tattletale. Tattletale tells her. Uh, tells her where Amy, where Amy is. so Yeah. Um, I mean, I think maybe having that like for the help of my daughter or not even exploring that she just shows up to the crime scene. who You know, Amy's there welds there. Everybody else, you know, the cops have set up a perimeter if you want. Yeah. And welds like, Hey, don't be mad at her.
Speaker: She's really having a hard time. She's like, where the fuck is my daughter? And she's like, Amy's right here. And she yells, where the fuck is my daughter? Like, yeah, clearly meaning Victoria and storms inside and, you know, that events unfold. Yeah. Um, and then you play everything else with brandish's backstory. uh, trigger van marquee, the adoption, and then finish it off with her going into the bird cage and Carol watching.
Speaker: um Yeah. Yeah. I don't, I don't hate that. It runs into the same problem I have. This is just my personal gripe with flashbacks where you're relying so much on the flashback after the fact to tell the story, which works when done really well. I just don't see it done well too often. Yeah. Uh, I would have this be those, those are interludes essentially like we did with, uh, with battery where you just have those throughout the season. Oh, you're talking throughout the whole season. Yeah. Okay. So if we did it like that, I'd do it through the season. My problem that I think we would run into is that we just don't have, uh, this is kind of the end of the, yeah, no, this is the, this is the end of new wave. Um, they, they are, they are done for after this. Uh, so,
Speaker: Okay. Thinking about that. I think maybe that's just w w we end. We use that. We skipped that from this season. That goes at the end of last season. Well, it's funny you said that because, it again, I sound like a broker record every time I say this. I'm sure my opinion on things will change as we read the next couple arcs. I have a vague memory of major plot points, but a lot of the ah finer details, I'll have to remind myself as I reread everything. But this almost feels like ah you would save this whole thing with Amy for
Speaker: At some point, like you wouldn't even refer to this for a couple episodes into the season. um yeah You know, something you'd leave and come back to. Okay. Yeah. Cause here's the big thing for the season as we lay the groundwork and we're going to run into this problem. So right away, like here's the issue and it's something we've been watching for a long time. And regardless of what we chose to do with coil, it's still an issue. Coil gets two arcs. They're the longest arcs, but he gets two to himself. That is it. Yeah. You know, and it feels weird. It feels like Luke Cage, Netflix show weird. Oh gosh. Switch villains in the middle of a season. Yep. Yeah. Um, you know, so there's a lot of things that,
Speaker: yeah of ways to play this out take your I figured we'd get to this more with the next arc, but it's good that you bring it up now. um Because it is they it is the biggest problem of this of this season. Because this season should be defined as like the one where they face and take down coil. like That should be the the arc of the season. And you're right. ah I mean, it would be a very quick season if we played it out directly as written. um Yeah. this is there is There are five arcs here. There are five arcs that we could turn into, you know, 10 episodes.
Speaker: um Oh, you very just because you're thinking just to kind of just spell it out. We're thinking this season, we're going through coil through Noel, uh, all the way through when Taylor, uh, leaves the, uh, under like leaves the life of villainy and undersiders, right? e Quite that. i don't mike so Am I going too far there? I think, I think we stopped there. I think Taylor leaving is the next season.
Speaker: Cause I think we have two more so full seasons after this. Uh, we've discussed this before, but I think my mind 15 through 19. Uh, cause you know, the end of that is that's spoilers in case y 'all didn't know, but you know, if you listen to this, you probably yeah we are coiling stuff should just be listening. If you, if you didn't know there were spoilers, surprise. Um, Like we end with Noel being defeated and the giant split between cauldron born heroes and natural born heroes and, and the portal opening. That's the end of this, in my opinion. And that's probably a pretty good, that's a pretty good ending. Again, I'm trying to remember all the different points, but within our 20 kicks off with Taylor going back to school.
Speaker: Um, what oh thy right um my gosh right we're right okay what I think should happen is in order to preserve maybe continuity of villainy or just, you know, I don't want a short change coil in this. I think we keep coil alive for a little bit longer so that we can have him be more of an issue here. I think that you keep him alive longer till the end of this season, or at least near the end, just so you have him doing stuff. And that him hitting the like release button on Noel he is him acknowledging that he's almost completely done for, he is without options. He does this, um literally as a fuck you.
Speaker: um which you know is already what he does, but in this case, like that's that's his, you know he he is still alive. He's still responsible for this. um Yeah, but it keeps him in play a little bit longer, I guess. Yeah, it's going to be tricky. I agree. I think I definitely think I've seen you mentioned Luke Cage. I've seen too many examples of the bait and switch, both hero and villain, right? Oh, they've died early on. Oh, nobody saw that coming. Why did our ratings tank? Like, it's like, who could have seen that? The reverse of that, I think was in a
Speaker: the 2014 Godzilla film, really good Godzilla film, launched the whole Godzilla cinematic universe. But nobody wanted, spoilers for Godzilla, by the way, ah nobody wanted Bryan Cranston to die 30 minutes into that movie. It was such, such a letdown. And that movie really suffers like it's fine to watch now. It's a fun little monster flick, but like, Oh, it could have been so much better with his character as like the human character you're following around. i I'll try and remember what it is, but I feel like there's another eighties movie in which, you know, the star is we'll say Steven Seagal or John Claude Van Dammer. We're thinking of, uh, of a executive decision.
Speaker: I am thinking of executive decision because they like, me that's like, Oh man, who's the head billing guy here? You know, and it's, I forget who we'll say Jean -Claude Van Damme. No, and it was, it's Steven Seagal. Steven Seagal. Steven Seagal. Oh damn. my my my mind My mind is on point. um And ah spoilers for this old ass movie, they kill the head billing guy like immediately. It is like five minutes into this movie. He dies. That's what kicks off the plot for the movie. He has never seen again, like.
Speaker: Come on. the The thing that executive decision did though, and the way you get away with this is your backup stars Kurt Russell at the height of his 1980s stardom. And so when you have him as like, okay, I got to carry the rest of this film, it still works. And you can get that shock value and still carry it on. um But again, those are really far, yeah few and far between. And and honestly, executive decision is probably the best example and it's 30 years old. So yeah, 40 years old. And, and, you know, i'll I'll go, I'll say this for both of those. You don't, the buildup for that is all in the trailers and the billing. Like it's advertised as something. If you are watching this show, perhaps
Speaker: This is not, it is difficult to like advertise this, you know, other than what's already been shown to you, but like we're not hyping up that coil is as blatantly going to be the end bad guy here as those movies are saying this character is in this. Right. There's still an expectation and it still could be let down. And at least they do it right away in those movies. They get that out of the way immediately so that you know for the rest of the movie, that person's not going to be there. The problem with this will be the the getting the person out of the way hit smack in the middle. yeah like it's not even It's not even JRPG fire emblem bullshit where, oh my gosh,
Speaker: The bad guy, you know, you get to the end of the game and it's like, Oh, wow. The king or prince or magician was secretly controlled by an evil dragon the entire time, you know, every fire emblem game. And, and, but like, that's the end. It's like, Oh, you thought there were 28 missions. There's actually 30. It's like, Oh yeah, we do the last two. Cool. Like, Yeah, it like it a to it's a twist ending. It's not a twist middle. Right, right. It works when the ah shock of the of the death or you know whatever
Speaker: it is a tone setter or something like that, like Game of Thrones, right? Season one, spoilers for Game of Thrones, gonna spoil everything here today. ah You know, Ned Stark dying at the end of season one was a huge tone setter for the show. And like, it works in that context because it completely changes the dynamic of the show in a really interesting way that a lot of television hadn't done before. So there's some payoff there. and It works to enhance the other characters and things like that. Um, we don't need to set that tone in worm. We did that with Leviathan and other events already. Like that's been set. So, so trying to do like this, Oh, Oh, we're, we're going to just kill off one of the villains in the middle of the season. they didn't You didn't see that coming. It's like, well, they might've, they might've seen that coming actually. Yeah. yeah you know yeah So it's tricky. I think there's some room
Speaker: It's hard. I really don't like ah rewriting and motivation and things like that with characters because I think that that trickles into some dangerous territory. um But we have already talked about toning down Taylor's obsession with Dinah because we don't think it is an obsession. I think we're reading into into that correctly. all our all of our haters online that tell us we're doing it wrong, keep hating. We're standing by it. ah ah Come after us. um No, but I think i think wherere there's an opportunity here to expand on what Taylor's real problem with coil is and
Speaker: and let that drag out a little bit using the travelers and Noel to sort of enhance that. um Yeah. And I think there's an interesting opportunity to intertwine those events a bit more, as you were saying, allowing them to sort of get resolved closer to the end of the season. I don't think Coil's death has to be like the last thing of the final episode, but you know, it's got big penultimate episode ending energy. and up an ultimate episode ending energy. Yeah. yeah yeah like like ah i mean To throw it back, Ned Stark. Ned Stark's beheading is in the ninth episode of the first season, not the 10th. So i you could you could kill Coyle off in the second to last or you know third to last episode.
Speaker: and still leave the ending climax with Noel and all of that going down that way. And just not making it this second episode or the third episode in the season, I think is would be fine. I think that would work. um You can still build up to that, but it'll it'll be ah and'll be a little tricky. Try to make that work for sure. and yeah some um maneuvering there's There's something I'm trying to remember. who I forget which one of our Reddit podcast listeners mentioned it. Um, but in talking about Dinah, they talk about, you know, one of the reasons to, uh, to keep the whole coil Dinah thing around and, you know, reveal it earlier and I'll have, you know, Taylor's continual obsession with it, uh, is because, you know, Taylor wants to let her go and we have to have that contention. And then they point out that like Taylor even said, though, you know, later that like, she wouldn't have let Dinah go, you know,
Speaker: Once she took over, uh, this, this is an issue that Dinah reveals to her. Um, the Dinah knew about like, even if Taylor saved her, like she wasn't going to let her go or she wouldn't have. right And I like, I was like, yeah, that's. I think that's a great point and a fantastic reason to like, have the contention not be that Taylor's so much saving her so much as she's just replacing coil. Like Taylor wants to do the exact same thing. Coil wanted to do. Like right Taylor just isn't in charge. So she
Speaker: doesn't you know she is So she still feels bad about this, but this is one of those power corrupts, absolute power corrupts, absolutely situations. The more up in power Taylor's gonna go, the more okay she's gonna be doing with doing things. you know because there's i mean a bigger justification for it. And that's what makes Taylor such a fantastic protagonist for this whole series and the and the original web serial in the first place is that there's something so relatable, especially with these types of stories where readers want to go like, oh my God, just put me in there and I would do everything so much better.
Speaker: Like, Oh my goodness, if I had Superman's powers, Oh, I changed the world. You know, it's like, it's just a natural way of trying to fantasize about these types of stories. And Taylor is to that personification. So, so well constructed. Yeah. I was going to say it's why I love worm as a whole, because yeah there's so few times that I want to strangle somebody for, you know, without good reason, like, Like you're saying, there's a lot of times you're always like, oh gosh, if I were only in this world, I would do this. The problem is, Wild Bo's really, really, really smart about this. And all the times we're like, man, if I were Taylor and then he does something, and I'm like, I would have never thought of that.
Speaker: right yeah and And so I'm not, a you know all the stuff I'm upset with is dumb teenage stuff. you know Little decisions here or there, but the overall big stuff, I'm not beating my head against the wall. like the The only thing I had against the wall is the Dyna obsession. Like I don't think it's played out well in the writing. I don't think it it'll play out well at all. If we want to talk about CWS plots, like the Dyna thing is going to look so bad, so bad in a TV show.
Speaker: because you're just going to be like, Oh, here's that. And we've forgotten about that for a long time. yeah Oh, and we're bringing it back in season three to like quickly deal with that as if it's a subplot, like, right. Well, and I, and again, and we've talked about this before, but I think this plays into this wild bow, I think is, and I don't want to put words in his mouth by any means, but I have a feeling that there's lots of plot points and worms. He's talked about, he's talked about a few of them before that, that audiences either just didn't quite grasp the way he had hoped they would, or, you know, weren't as receptive to. And I would not be surprised if
Speaker: And not to sound like a pretentious asshole, but I'm going to because that's who I am. ah But I wouldn't be surprised if we're right. And and Taylor's obsession with freeing Dinah is just an internal justification like WODBO intended it to be that way. as just a way of her justifying a takeover of coil and, ah you know, assuming control of the situation. That's what it read to me when I first read it. And I thought that's how it was meant to be read. Like I never bought Taylor's like
Speaker: loyalty to Dinah or this, this good natured morality, like a little bit sure she's, she's still trying to do the right thing. And I don't think she wants to see a kid get drugged and, you know, abused like that. Like, sure. But it, it just never felt like that compelling of a motivator for her. And I do wonder, I wonder what wild boas yeah kind of deeper reasoning. If he did have one, maybe I'm reading into it too much. Who knows? Yeah. find out when he and no no I would say I still haven't sent the email out being like, Hey, wild book, come fight me on the marquee thing. Um, but I, but I need to, uh, you know, I've put that off for too long. I would, I would love to hear what if you had a few different thoughts. i just want i Yeah. You know, everybody wants to hear from him. Um, but yeah, when I first read it, you know, I,
Speaker: tend to take everything at face value. I think that's part of the autism ah is like, I read it as is, and I formulate my thoughts later about the complexity of it. So reading this, I was just like, damn, Taylor's kind of dumb in this one respect and forgets about Dinah all the time. And what an inconsistent personality. And then, you know read you know, thinking about it, you know, five minutes later, I'm like, wow. That's not that compelling of a, of a motivator for me, or and it's not that it's not compelling because, you know, rescuing a child is compelling. It's just not consistent. Yeah. And so you either have to have this on Taylor's mind and like, it can like, i really do feel like a consistent thing. And this isn't a matter of realism for our real world's sake, but realism for the flow of a show's sake and having an entire arc, the slaughterhouse nine that forgets about Dinah for a whole arc.
Speaker: You know, yes, I get that she's present and she does a thing with crawler like, and then is it out for a month. You're right. You know, like I get that that's there, but like literally she knocks herself out doing that during the, you know, chapter arc 11 interludes and is gone. Like four, three more arcs. Like she's knocked herself out for three arcs until we can get to season two. And in my mind, that sounds like, you know, uh, our boy wild boat going, Ooh, we've got Dinah around like, that means I got to write some stuff about her and her ability interacting with like figuring out the slaughterhouse nine and killing them. And that seems like a lot.
Speaker: Not to say that that's, you know, taking the easy way out, but sometimes you just need to make things a little easier for you when you're writing this much in volume. So many characters. So many characters and having one that complicated that interacts with so much, just knock her ass out. but you know ever it's like It's like if you had an actor who played Aisha and you were like, man, this actor's got a really wild schedule. What do we do? Oh, you just show things happening on their own and be like, ah, must've been imp. Like and the greatest actor we ever had.
Speaker: ah Barely had to be on set. I just thinking that, were you going to say that? That's how you sneak in your celebrity cameo, you know? You just, oh, there's a character that's only ever there. Brad Pitt style. Deadpool 2, what's his name? Vanisher. Is No, it isn't. What's his character's name? It's so funny. The Vanisher. The Vanisher, yeah. Yeah. yeah We interrupt our scheduled program to bring you a word from our sponsor, Zencaster, a one -stop shop for all your podcasting needs. When we first started this podcast, we knew we needed a service that would let us record remotely. After doing some research, Zencaster was the obvious choice. We started using Zencaster and never looked back.
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Speaker: I want you to have the same easy experiences I do for all my podcasting and content needs. It's time to share your story. That's zencaster .com slash pricing and use our code rockton bay BC. And now back to our scheduled programming. All right. So let's, uh, let's go, let's go. it We'll, we'll, we'll come back to this. I think this is going to be a reoccurring theme this season, trying to make all this mashup, but let's, I do want to kind of get to some other chapters in this arc, particular in, in particular, and talking about, I think things that'll work well or maybe wouldn't work well. Um, um there's some conversations. Oh yeah. Go ahead. and i Just to to leave it on this. I have the perfect moment for introing Taylor's interest in Dinah.
Speaker: for this okay because, because we get a rehashing of all the issues that we had all the way back in arc eight or seven. Yeah. We literally re it's a rehash of everything with the undersiders all over again and all that jazz, but Taylor sits tattletale down and says, tell me about Dinah. And I think that's, that's how we should do it is so Taylor's like, ah, we, you know, we, we got Dinah mentioned randomly last time. Uh, we have now maybe even met her or asked to like talked or something about that. And she goes, okay, this girl that we, that we helped kidnap, you know, a couple months ago, tell me about that. And I think then you could make skitter have an obsession about Dinah and maybe even have coil realize after that, that skitter knows and doesn't like it to a degree where this is going to be an issue. Mm -hmm.
Speaker: Um, yeah, that would work cause you haven't introduced that whole thing yet. So it's not like lingering. Like that's true. but or Or maybe even it's a self -fulfilling prophecy. If we're rewriting this where, uh, Dinah essentially tells coil is all behind the scenes. Donald tells coil that he needs to get rid of skitter, but he cannot do it openly or something because it'll fail. And this could be Dinah lying about the numbers potentially in order to get free that she's manipulating coil in some way to set him up for failure.
Speaker: um and And in which case it's a self -fulfilling prophecy of him trying to get rid of Taylor sets Taylor off to try and get rid of him before he does it to her. who Like therein lies the issue. Um, and maybe that's even an issue brought up because now that Taylor knows about it, the numbers go up for Dinah. Right. Um, and, and if we could show that, you know, ah like we showed like her, you know, looking at the percentages before, maybe we show that off in this first episode where like we open the episode with her being like the numbers are low.
Speaker: We ended the episode with Taylor going, tell me about Dinah and Dinah getting up and going, the numbers are going up. Yeah, sense to me that's good. Anyway, that's the last thing talking about that ah for now. That's for now. That's yeah, for, for now. Exactly. We'll, we'll be back. We will be back. um All right, so yeah, moving back in, there's a couple other things that happen in this arc that i I do like. We get a really nice moment between Brian and Taylor, which I think is great.
Speaker: um That feels like a nice thing to slip into the first episode. ah Just a little bit more character development between the two of them. I probably wouldn't want to change anything there. I love the banter between the three of them and Taylor and Imp specifically. I think it's great. A couple of the good conversations as well. I think i think the skitter ballistic conversation is interesting, especially considering that this season will focus a bit more on the travelers in general. I think probably a good idea to maintain that conversation a good bit. um And then then I love reading it. I love the Flechette -Perian skitter interaction.
Speaker: I think we could probably preserve most of it. I think it, I think it comes down to a pacing thing more than anything, depending on how we want to space out the episode. Yeah. Let me look at my notes on this. Cause I'm sure it'll be just, I'm so frustrated with everything.
Speaker: Yeah. No, I literally no notes about this. I think that it works. Yeah, no, I really like it. I think I honestly would just be restructuring for pacing, depending on how the whole season or the whole episode gets ah broken up. But I do, I do really like these conversations. I think they're, I think they're good. I think they are great character moments, especially for Taylor. Yeah, I wouldn't, wouldn't really want to change much there, if anything. Oh no. Yeah, I like it. I like it a lot.
Speaker: So the big action piece for this, this opener, really, aside from the opening little fight scene and some of the skirmishes that happened, the big action piece is the attack on the mayor. And yeah, yeah, everything that happens at the end. And I like it. I, again, I don't, this is, guess we're, we're getting in this place, but while Beau writes it perfectly, there's not much to change. I don't really think it's a ten challenge here it's a good, yeah. that's It's a good, it's a good little, you get the little reveal of, of triumph. ah Who's been seen enough at this point. I think very easy to sneak him in around different fights and things like that. um It's a pretty noticeable power. Even if you don't remember, Oh, his name is triumph. It's the guy that shouts like every other hero and superhero that shouts.
Speaker: um Yeah. Like, you know, it's if you have them fighting against Leviathan, you could have them fighting against the nine. Like, it's very easy to showcase him so that when he appears here, it's not going to be like completely out of the blue. You know what I mean? Yeah. Yeah. I yeah, I've gotten notes for the fight. I don't think. Yeah. All my all my notes are for other stuff. Little random things, fights solid. I think building up to the fight works. um And I think, I mean, I honestly think you can even end with the triumph interlude or that scene rather from the interlude where they're all sort of debating everything. Like, what do we do? We're going to go after them. They're all pissed. ah You know, assault is all fired up. And then the reveal of defiant and dragon ah feels like a really fun episode cliffhanger.
Speaker: Um, maybe you can do, if you want to end on Taylor, you can cut back to the undersiders or something like that if you wanted to. But, uh, I think it could also doesn't just, it doesn't work very well ending the episode with, uh, with the protectorate. Yeah. I feel like you could put that anywhere. Uh, yeah. Uh, like, Honestly, there's enough here that we either do a long episode or you could, you could break this up into stuff. well And again, I think you really would probably, because I think you do want to fit in the travelers a bit more early on. Um, especially considering we have their whole arc to fit in somehow. Yeah, I don't mind at all doing, doing a traveler openers.
Speaker: Yeah, I actually thought about that. I, I'm debating between, and obviously we'll, we'll touch more on this when we get to RX 17, but I'm debating between traveler openers, which I think would work pretty well, especially since we've kind of been running this cold open theme or, uh, or doing like an entire self -contained episode. Yeah. I mean, it works fantastic as a self -contained episode. Don't get me wrong. If we wanted to break it up, the big issue here is Noel, you know, the kind of being the reveal, we know sort of what's going on here. Um, and, uh, but Noel doesn't get the, like, doesn't start showing off the weird stuff until the last two, uh, chapters in that arc.
Speaker: And there's eight chapters in there. And I feel like a good season would be eight, eight episodes. ehu So like one per each of those is an opener or something. Yeah. and Yeah. I mean, either way, I think either way works. I think, I think we'll kind of figure that out, but if, yeah, I mean, open openers would work. Closers would work. I think you could do it either way. Um, kind of fitting that in either way, all that to say, uh, There's going to be, there's room to spread this, this stuff out for sure. Yeah. Um, okay. Other stuff. I kind of wish shippped over, sorry, not to cut you off. We skip over. Uh, Alexandria is interlude as well. Again, this is something we could probably move around a bit. Um, no, I like,
Speaker: you know I think we have enough material to be jumping around throughout the episodes to do our little A, B and C plots as they go. like And again, we're kind of focusing arc at a time here. We haven't talked about, it might be prudent to show uh, cauldron or, or a Flechette's crew, depending on how much we put in there, you know, little things like that that we can space in as well. So there's, there's going to be plenty of material to stretch across the first couple of episodes. Yeah. Yeah. Um, yeah, I think, I think, you know, keeping the main antagonists being the tension between and the travelers
Speaker: plus coil and the undersiders should be the big thing. Like we have other stuff, you know, tangling with the heroes and stuff, but um I think maybe, you know, this is when we finally figured out what his power is. You know, this is when Taylor decides like, like, I got to get Dinah out. um This is wrong, but also, the reason, you know, could get ballot back in into all of this. Like this is when all of that happens. And I think if you have those conversations now instead of all the way earlier, pads for time that you would be eating.
Speaker: um Yeah. I mean, I'm looking ahead. I think, yeah, I think there's, there's a lot to fill episodes with. This is going to be a fun, this is going to be a fun season to, to plan and strategize. Um, there's a lot to maneuver here in some really fun ways. Uh, and I think it's going to be pretty fun to tackle. Yeah. but One of the fun things I want to, I would love to do is, and and and wild Bo writes it a little, but when she goes and she sees Danny, um,
Speaker: She has a little interaction with him. oh yeah yeah ah and And she has a moment where she thinks back and just thinking about the mayor and his son when he's begging for his life and whatnot, and kind of compares that to her dad. I feel like that should be way more of a thing, like paralleling, paralleling between Taylor and Danny. um The relationship she sees in her adventures and maybe the ones that she has with him. Like once again, these are major changes that I would go back and redo what we've already said, but like maybe have have her come back and check on Danny more and have it be the, like there's your, we learned a lesson today moment where she goes out, she sees a fucked up relationship and then she comes back and compares that relationship to
Speaker: how her and Danny have problems or how her and Danny interact. um Cause it seems, in my opinion, I think her and Danny have maybe not the healthiest relationship, but they're on good terms a lot more than, uh, than other people are with their parents. Like, yeah, they're, they're friendly. Like, yeah you know, they, they are. There's tension maybe there, but they're speaking to each other. Yeah, they're speaking. there're And I'm not just talking about this moment, but I'm talking about as a whole. like yeah yeah that i don't i I think they have actually a surprisingly good relationship, all things considered. um And in this, I i would like, I you know i of course, I'm a sucker for Danny, so I would love to have him be more in this. And maybe have him and Taylor have more of those sit down
Speaker: moments where like maybe she hangs out longer. Maybe her, you know, leaving home is a later thing. Maybe she doesn't stay as far away all the time. You know, she speaks out to come back home to talk with him. He, that that he is her,
Speaker: he's kind of her mentor, if you will, like he's her dad. So like she comes home. She's like, Hey dad, I'm about to do something. I need advice. He gives the best advice he can. And, you know, eventually they come to a thing where she thinks she knows better about something and, you know, flips out on him, you know, but overall I'm going to make it more heartbreaking later on. Cause she's closer to him longer. Yeah. I like that. know That's good. Like, yeah. There's some room there. There's some, there's some wiggle room. Yeah.
Speaker: Cause I want, I want to add that to a a look bigger discussion at the end of this episode, whenever we get done. Um, but I think we're also, uh, small things, you know, that we talk about adding things earlier so that we can show them off later. Uh, more director Costa Brown, we need to have her name thrown out a lot more about uh, about Brockton Bay in relation to, um, what's going on at the PRT, where we're getting orders from, uh, you know, pictures, stuff like that. Director Costa Brown just needs to be said more. That's true. Just be more, more name drops. Yeah, I think. Yeah. Cause yeah to be honest, maybe I'm misremembering, but I think this might be the first time we hear her name.
Speaker: It is in the it within the story. I mean, yeah, it is. Yeah. So, you know, in retrospect, we're just going to step back in somewhere. Uh,
Speaker: ah looking at, yeah, a lot of messed up kids ape family relationships. We got that covered.
Speaker: Oh, we didn't mention it, of course, but this goes without saying, since we've sort of been adjusting this a bit anyway, if we do the whole, ah you know, interlude with the Protectorate talking about getting revenge, not getting revenge, Defiant, Dragon, all of that nonsense. ah Thomas Culvert's there, obviously, I think, or Calvert. ah Yeah, yeah. You know, just again, he's just sort of present in a lot of these, a lot of these places. um Just to kind of keep, keep reinforcing that. um I, I, this is, this is just an image. This is not even a, uh, like a thing we need to do, but in my head coming up with ways of like talking about coils power and showing that off. And I like the idea when we're talking about the threatening, how, how is he pulling this off? Um, we could leave that a secret for the audience, how he's fooling her powers. Um,
Speaker: or we could show it, but still have Lisa not know. And the idea of the screen, you know, Rick and Morty ah splitting the screen to, you know, different universes that are doing different things at the same time. One side you have coil calmly talking to Lisa and the other side you have him get up out of his chair, grab her head and smash it against the wall. Like, yeah. And then, but then when he's done, he like straightens up, so sit like sits back down and then you can see him like concentrate and then folds the universes back to the first one. I like, I'm going to, can I, I'm going to share my, my idea of thought about this a lot as well. I think golden opportunity for some really, I would like get a good director here who knows what they're doing and uh,
Speaker: play with some ah black and white versus color and using this to sort of differentiate realities. And then as he chooses a reality, it fades into color, you know, that whole thing. no There's some, Oh, ah so I've got something for you. Once again, we are off topic of the script writing, but, uh, Okay. So we do hear me out. I like that. We do it, but we also do it. We do it with specific colors. Okay. Like you take the the visual scope and you divide it into two so that the saturation, like, or the appearance of saturation, yeah like you're essentially separating red, green, blue, you know, all that in half.
Speaker: putting one in one side and the other. And then, you know, you just bump up, bring those colors back once the other one's gone. Yeah. Yeah. That way it's kind of like half black and white. Yep. ah I like that idea was to come with the coloring. there's a Jacob understands. so there's i One of my favorite, favorite scenes from the show Legion, um which is another comp show that we haven't really talked a lot about, but I think does a lot of superior stuff very, very well. That's because you and I watched the first episode together when it came out all those years ago. all those yeah oh that well and And I never followed up on it.
Speaker: It gets, it's good. It's a very, very good. I know. I mean, it I liked what was going on. I like a good guessing game. It had all the qualities of Westworld. and now There's this there but there a long story short. That's just part of the end of the second season or so. I won't spoil anything here. Go and watch Legion. It's the second season. There's a third season. There's three. There's a third season. and It is done. It's completed three seasons. Oh my God. I thought that was a one and done and it was great. I did. I mean, granted, I'd never watched best the first episode. So yeah.
Speaker: ah But as vague as possible, there's ah there's a scene where a couple characters are interacting with different dreams at the same time, essentially. And the dreams are sort of alternate realities. ah If yeah anyone who knows who's familiar with Legion ah as a Marvel character, it makes a little more sense. um And each of the realities is shot a little differently. like one is done in like old timey silent film subtitles and that kind of thing. ah there's a There's music going on in the other world. like it's it's just It's just really sort of ah ah like abstract art sort of moment. But as weird as it is, it works really well in sort of characterizing each
Speaker: reality is different for the moment. The dream is different for the moment. um Anyway, it's it's brilliantly done. It's very, very good. And i think I think of that a lot when I think of how we how you would visualize coils power is just presenting to realities as as distinct on their own and then distinct from actual reality and then you know doing whatever kind of fancy trick you wanna do to to merge them or pull one into the other kind of thing like you were saying with the colors would work pretty well. Anyway, we got off topic, would be really fun. I'd love i'd love to sit down with it with a really good director and talk about some fun options there. He's ah he's a fun character to try to storyboard for. Yeah, yeah, definitely.
Speaker: Um, I think as a whole, this whole, this first episode is just going to be a matter of rearranging. I don't think there's a whole lot that'll really get cut or that we need to talk about. I think it's just going to kind of fold into the other episodes a little bit more, or I should say the season a little bit more. Um, but I mean, that's a big thing is thinking about now, like I'm going to shoot for just as a, you know, feeling it out. We've got to figure a way to get, not have coil, just, you know, go immediately. I agree. Um, so figuring out a way to keep him around, not the whole time, obviously, cause he's not the big bad, but you know, 80 % of the time. Uh, so before we move on to Noel as the big bad.
Speaker: Yeah. And Noel's not the big bad ah the of the whole series. And this is something. Obviously not a whole series, but you know, I mean for this for season. Yeah, absolutely. 100%. But that does touch on one thing. We've talked about this with other mediums and stories that we like a lot. One thing that Worm does very well is it it It does what I think Mass Effect does very well, which is continuously present a lot of antagonists that aren't the real antagonists. Like in the background, the Reapers are still coming and they're about to just destroy everything. And you're just so caught up in
Speaker: the like minutia of this ah you know politics and getting on the council and this species hates that alien. and you're like It's just so inconsequential to the utter destruction of the universe that's about to take place. And worm has that energy as well. And I really, really like it's Again, this is going beyond script writing, but being able to like just keep that on the back of everyone's mind. that like Yeah, Coyle's a problem. We got to get past him, but he's a small fry. Oh, Noelle's a bigger problem. that's That's a pretty big threat. We got to deal with that. but also like
Speaker: she's not the problem here. like you know There's just more going on. yeah and i'd like I'll be honest, first time reading this, Cauldron was the big threat. Right. and that And that's the sort of bait. I think Cauldron is a sort of bait and switch. And what's great about this and the way... Oh man, I'm going to get on a podium or a pedestal. but And this is exactly what The Boys is doing right now for anyone who's caught up with where The Boys is at, ah especially if you've watched Gen V, the spinoff, ah where that's sort of like the behind the scenes plot that's going on right now. Minor spoilers for that show right now. um But that's like the whole thing. Minor spoilers, they're manufacturing Compound V and distributing it and it's deadly and it's hurting people and it's all be this big hush -hush secret.
Speaker: Cauldron feels like a rip off of that, but it's not. And any worm fan knows that it's not. It's just barely scratching the surface there, but it feels so familiar. People are going to absolutely latch onto that and be like, Oh, I've seen this before. I know what's, what's going on here. We've been down the road and then you're going to hit them, you know, end of season three, season four. but I can't remember where so certain stuff is revealed. ah And it's just going to rock everyone's world. It's going to be so good. So yeah it's, it's beautiful. I love, I love that worm does that. Yeah. Yeah. so I don't have much more to say for arc 15. If you know, not for arcs 15 specifically, but I do have a big thing to talk about. That's been on my mind. Let's talk about it. Yeah. ah the The idea of themes in worm.
Speaker: Um, and this is not, this is not like what particular themes, you know, that we're shooting for this episode, but the idea of themes in general. Um, cause I just had it a lot when I was reading this, I was like thinking just like, dang, you know, worm is a really awesome series because of how big it is. Um, it would already be cool if it was small. um And there's lots of cool short stories out there that introduce a lot of ideas. Like, ah you know, we're looking at Isaac Asimov, you know, the classic sci -fi, you know, short stories that get turned into these big, big things. um right But this is, this is, this would be great as short stories. And it's phenomenal as a massive piece of literature. um Yeah.
Speaker: and And because it's so big, it has the ability to contain so many themes um just by proxy of its size and ah and the format. And when we are talking about transferring this to television, um we we are you know despite having more ability to Um, to expand the senses through which we can and explore stuff. Uh, I think that we're actually doing a, you have to do the opposite when it comes to the theming of the show, um, with your visual storytelling. Um, like unless we made the television show, uh,
Speaker: ah Honestly, episodeed it more like an anime, like a full metal alchemist brotherhood, if you will, where there's like, yeah, that I guess there's technically three seasons and there's 64 episodes and, you know, they just kind of all blend together, if you will. yeah um Like, unless we did something like that, which nobody does, uh, And I don't know if if that's for good reason, cause I would watch that show. um
Speaker: ah But like putting it together in seasons and episodes really limits the ability to touch on all of those themes all the time. um And I was thinking like, man, what are some themes of worms that I really enjoy? One of them is like the, you know, the way that worm, I think it's, It might even be it's official little, uh, what is it called? Logline, which is doing the right things or doing the wrong things for the right reasons. right yeah um Great theme, morally gray. Probably I would say the number one team that most people would associate with worm. We talk worm yeah and talk morally gray. Uh,
Speaker: And that that's a theme, we you know we can touch on that. But another theme that I've more recently been using as my elevator pitch for worm is what if trauma were powers? o And it' while we can touch here and there on it, if we were to focus on that as the theme, as a eighth central theme of the show, i it would look like such a different show. like um it would look wildly different. you know I'm thinking in my head and writing notes down, I'm just like, that this this by far wouldn't be the same show. It wouldn't even be the same story if all we did, and I'm not saying this like we exclusively, but we just, we focused a little more on the aspect of trauma and dealing with that. It's a very different show. And then I was like, okay, well, you know one of the things I was talking about, like
Speaker: you know because we would then we would get into the bullying thing. And then this would end up way more focused on the high school aspect. And then they compounds and it changes yeah a lot of the story. um you know If we look over at the, ah what is a monster? you know What makes a monster out of a person? um you know i i I don't even think like that's really all that much shown ah in, in worm. Um, I know that some people will disagree with that. Uh, but like, okay, let's, let's, let's just say that that is one of the central things. Let's say that's a focus. Like, you know, what's the dividing line between monsters and people like, man, once again, I think people are doing more.
Speaker: Like a lot more people are going to do a lot more sketchy things. I think that's going to be closer to the boys were like, maybe you have a very good character, but then they go and do something wildly wrong. You know, what happens when assault does accidentally run through somebody and kill them, but like everything else he does is good. Like, you know, it's, it's just every theme. If we are to focus on them, like I feel some people or, you know, are writing about, you know, I'll say it. We're getting feedback in the comments on like YouTube and Reddit. That's where we get most of our attention. Like the idea of themes are really easy to write in, you know, the what the way that worm's written, but putting it to television, putting it in a script, either the show gets enormous,
Speaker: ah Right. Or you just can't fit all of them. Yeah. Um, yeah. And while I would love to do a really long running show, I think that would be great. I would hate to make worm outstay its welcome on television. Um, you know, we all saw Game of Thrones, you know, I don't want to go for eight seasons and be disappointed. Uh, and, and granted that's, you know, dropping the ball at the end, but a lot of people will say, ah, season four is kind of where it went bad. Like I'm okay. Uh, I keep going back. Ted Lasso is great. Ted Lasso goes for one, two, three seasons and it's done. They call it quits. I think that's the way more shows should be. You know, we go one, two, three, you know, I really don't think you need to go more than five seasons.
Speaker: I really don't. No, I think, I think five sounds, sounds like a good. I don't think worm needs to go more than five seasons. I don't think any, um yeah I don't think any other shows should really need to go more than five seasons. And in this doing five seasons of television, we're just going to call, ah you know, I'll just call it standard television. We're doing hour long episodes. We'll do 10 episodes a season, you know, cause that's kind of where the HBO game of thrones model, you know, Pointed us. You're not gonna fit all those themes in. You really, you can't, um you know, there's a lot of things that Game of Thrones cut out. And while there's a lot of stuff going on in Game of Thrones from different characters perspectives, once you look at the themes that go on in Game of Thrones, what themes are really consistent and take place. And truth be told, I don't think there's a lot. I really don't.
Speaker: um you know I think there's a lot of like, hey, ah the good guys don't always win. Things don't always go as as expected. There's a lot of ah that grim dark, ah almost contrarian ah to your normal heroic story, which yeah you know call that whatever you will as a theme. ah But you know in terms of these apparent big themes that they tackle,
Speaker: I don't think there's a lot in there. I think for the most part, we are focused on there are political problems that you gotta deal with. And some people are just bad. even and yeah and like And that's terrible. you see you know You see behind the mask and you see a lot of characters and a lot of good dialogue and stuff like that, but the themes just aren't as heavy as they are in the books. because surprise, you can't cram all that in there. I know this is a long, long run. No, it's a good it's a good run. But that's something that's been on my mind, which leads me to the ultimate conclusion when in my discouraged state of like, man, is it even worth fitting worm, like breaking it down to the point where a lot of themes are missed in order to make worm. And I think the answer at the end of that is yeah,
Speaker: because It's warm, it'll be great. like but even ah Even a section of worm would be fantastic. um It doesn't need to have everything. It doesn't need to have all the themes. It doesn't need to have them focused on it as much as it did in the books or in the serial, just because it's I don't think it's actually possible. um there's a Maybe I'm just a bad writer. you know yeah No, I think i think i I would almost say you probably don't go far enough anything. I was reading some um comments and critiques on Dune 2, which is is the big talk of the talk of the year so far.
Speaker: and And everyone's been given a praise as it so rightly deserves. And there was a... Don't deserve that movie. We don't. And there was a comment saying something like, Oh, I love Dune. It's so great. ah But they'll knew really changed up a few things from the book. And I don't really know why he did. It didn't really seem like he made should have made those changes. I liked the film. It worked. but man, I would have liked to have seen such and such play out. I forget the whole little rant. And somebody responded to that with a paraphrase of something I've heard a lot, but that it was so succinct and I wish I had like screen grabbed it. But basically they said, a faithful adaptation ah should not a result in an inferior movie.
Speaker: And I love that so much because that's good yeah it's when you're adapting a work, any work, it is a different story. you are it would be more It would be more correct to say, ah you are this This story is heavily ah influenced by the works of J .C. McRae in Windworm. It's a different story. It's a different medium. It's a different story. You are telling a different story and you are kind your constraints are different. You have a screen time. You have shots. you have much you know you're You're dealing with an entirely different frame.
Speaker: and a different script and a different everything is different. And so as a result of that, a result of accepting that's a different story, like you said, you are going to have different focuses, different themes, things like this. This is part of the medium. It's part of what makes that ah adaptation so much fun. I'm a massive, anyone who knows me, i'm I'm just such a massive film nerd and I love adaptations good and bad because it's really fun to see creators ah choose how they want to ah adapt and pull important things from certain stories. Sometimes that really doesn't work out. You get absolute crap. um But the truth is most films and TV shows you see today are adaptations. You just probably haven't read the original work they were based off of.
Speaker: unless you're like Nolan or Tarantino and you're writing your own stuff. Most movies and ed shows are based off of existing works, books or ideas or stories that have been written. um That's just how it works and and we you have the option of going and reading the original or maybe you're a fan of the original work already and you get to enjoy the story told in a different way. And I think you kind of nailed it when you talked about like, you're not going to fit all of worm on a television series unless you are taking a camera to your computer screen and scrolling through the pages slowly. And it's you know a 500 hour TV show of letting the audience just read it read it with you there. But it's fun to sort of... This is what we're doing is trying to highlight
Speaker: what are the important elements? what are the what are the What are the themes? What are the moments that we think are going to translate really well to television? That television could even help enhance or, you know, strengthen certain elements of the story that we didn't really get to focus on while reading it. So, no, rant away. I think we're in and kind of total agreement there, right? This is the fun. this is I mean, obviously, This isn't getting made. We know that, right? We don't know that. we don't know that where this is This is just a fun hobby and it's really fun to sort of think about the story in this way. And, uh, you know, hopefully everyone else is listening along is having fun too. I hope if you're, sick if you've, if you've listened this far, I would imagine that it's a fun hobby. I hope so. Yeah, I would hope so. Yeah. It makes me think of like when you're, I mean, this is going back to
Speaker: What I hear again is like when I write, I write with flow where like, it is hard for me to go back and redo a section like of dialogue because I go, well, they didn't start the conversation this way. So it wouldn't flow to this point in the conversation naturally. Like I always write with flow and with, um, I don't know, like in my head, everything's kind of rhythmic. Uh, there's. I can't, you know, I can't believe I'm quoting George Lucas, but it's like poetry. It rhymes like there is a rhythm in my mind to writing. Uh, it's just like there is to editing, like the Cohen brothers get the rhythm of editing. Yeah. to exactly If you want to hear like, see what rhythm looks like, that's what it is. Um, but.
Speaker: rhythm for writing for me, like there's a lot of things that, you know, they have this pattern, this da da da da da. And then, you know, and you can play around with it obviously, but I don't like juddering. I don't like, you know, I have a certain rhythm wall, you know, there might be a pace and but as a serial worm does not do that well. Worm does not pace well at all. It doesn't, you know, cause like you would get upset with worm as a book for the most part, because wow, this feels like it's a really oddly paced book. if It's not a book, it's a serial, which means you could just keep going. And so the pacing, while sometimes it feels weird, does not feel as weird as it would be if it was a book. And then you got to the last page and you were like, huh, that's weird.
Speaker: And so when I'm thinking about as a television show, like you got to have these beats and these moments that hit and come back and happen again and then finish at certain points. Otherwise it doesn't flow. Um, and you know, as you write it, you got to go back and go, well, if this is here, I got to go back all the way to the beginning and rewrite this flow because it, you know, If we don't have it here, like I'm not just going to stick Theo in, in season three, you know, yeah yeah with no backstory, like I'm going back like, nope, we got to have it. And we've not only do we have to have it here, we have to have it here, here, here, and here. Otherwise no flow. Um, yeah and I think that's another point where like each medium has a flow, each medium has a pace. And as I'm looking at it, if I were writing this,
Speaker: If I were just editing it and rewriting it, it would be completely different than how I am writing it for script and pacing. Like there's a lot of things I would just leave as is, because it doesn't need to be different in a book. But if it's in a television show, it needs to be wildly different because it doesn't rhyme. Yeah, right exactly. No, I think you're, I think you're spot on. I think you're kind of nailed it. Anyway, now that we've, you know, dialed in the grant section. Yeah. Yeah.
Speaker: Call our number, give us a voicemail. But truly, thank you to everyone who's listening. We really do love reading all the comments and feedback, you guys. It's a passionate fan base. And we know that, like we said, anyone who's listening this far into this niche podcast that we have is a diehard work fan. And we appreciate and love you. And I'd love to hear your thoughts on all of this. It's a fun challenge. It's a fun challenge. I challenge everyone to to give it a shot themselves. It's kind of storyboard a, storyboard an arc out. See how it would, see how you think it would work on a television. You can challenge me and any of us here on this podcast do a duel at nine eight zero nine nine nine zero four three eight. Exactly. That's the call. Leave us a voicemail. Let us know what you think. Maybe we'll play it on a one of our episodes here. Start your phone call with it's time to du du du du du du du du du dual.
Speaker: at nine eight zero nine nine nine zero four 38. Well, I think that about wraps it up, Alan. Any, any final thoughts, rants, suggestions? I'm all ranted out. I'm all ranted out. I think me too. We'll save it. I didn't have my podcast juice. So I saved that for the book club. Yeah, we'll have plenty more rants to come, I'm sure, as we get into some of my favorite arcs in Olive Worm. So stick around for next episode, which will be arc 16. Big arc, my God, it's going to be a juicy one. So yeah, we're going to have a lot of fun trying to figure that one out. And as always, Michael, thanks for making us sound good. We appreciate having you here. Alan, thanks as always for joining. Oh, thanks for having me, Jacob.
Speaker: Until, until next episode, take that you weren't. Thank you so much for listening. Read along with us at parahumans .wordpress .com. We'd love to hear your thoughts. What did you love? What did you hate? Anything you think we missed, et cetera, as long as it's kind. If you'd like to get in touch, you can find us on Twitter, threads, Instagram, TikTok, and Reddit at Brockton Bay, B .C., or click the link in the description.
