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41: Treasure Island Part Two
38 Plays10 days ago
Yo ho pirates! Chris and Jordyn are solo sailing again for part two of Treasure Island coverage. The mates compare the sometimes boring book by Robert Louis Stevenson to its much more action packed and exciting 2002 space adaptation Treasure Planet. While the plots are mostly the same, the different tones and settings make for totally different experiences. Which do you prefer?
Tell us your thoughts! Did you love or hate this adaptation? Let’s discuss in The Book Watch Lounge on Facebook
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Transcript
Introduction to Treasure Island and Jim Hawkins' Adventures
00:00:00
Speaker
Welcome back to Bookwatch. In this part two of Treasure Island, we're taking off on an adventure of a lifetime as we join two iterations of Jim Hawkins on their adventures for Captain Flint's treasure. Once again, we have mutinied, mutineered, excuse me, against Sarah Day. You know, if it's our second mutiny, that makes it a mutin' eye now, I think, right? I think so.
00:00:26
Speaker
Sarah Day is out this week. Another another week without Captain McD.
00:00:34
Speaker
Jordan and i are casting our ships for the joyride. And as you can see, Jordan has lost some background ah equipment. She's lost her treasure.
00:00:44
Speaker
her trove is getting smaller. But we will persist and continue on until she reaches her new destination in a couple of weeks. All of that will be dived rest the way into as we walk the plank and after these messages.
Books vs. Cinematic Adaptations: Successes and Failures
00:01:08
Speaker
Welcome to Book Watch, the podcast where pages meet screens. Each week we dive into the world of adaptations, comparing beloved books with their cinematic counterparts. From faithful retellings to bold reimaginings, we'll break down what worked, what didn't, and what made each adaptation unforgettable. Whether you are a bookworm, a movie buff, or both, grab your bookmark, grab your popcorn, and let's watch some books.
00:01:33
Speaker
All right, so this week we've got to really bring everything back together and look at all these different scenes from the Treasure Island book and the Treasure Planet movie.
00:01:45
Speaker
And now... We talked a lot about it last week. There was a lot of stuff we went back and forth on. um Where do you want to start with this? you want to go all the way through it, beginning of the end and going all the way the resolution?
00:01:59
Speaker
What's the most important way to get through this for you? oh Well, to start at the beginning, to be sure. Because I say let's just watch the movie and forget about the book. that was the way that That's the way to handle Treasure Planet, in my opinion. but I mean, I'm kind of down for that which is not something I usually say, but this book is like...
00:02:18
Speaker
You can tell it's written in a different age. It's very dense and very thick to get through. Like it feels like you're walking through sludge. Yeah. Short, but it felt like it takes forever to get through, which is weird.
00:02:33
Speaker
but so A weird thing. I'm like, this book is not that long. Why am I struggling? But yeah it's okay. All right.
Treasure Island vs. Treasure Planet: Tone and Pacing
00:02:41
Speaker
So yeah, we discussed ah well each of these scenes probably a little bit when we were going through the characters, but the arrival at the end with when bone shows up on the at the end and rents a room and hides his treasure in the book is where that starts. And he stays there quite a while. um We see a lot of story being built up in those first few probably months that he's just hanging out at the end, hiding out from whoever he's the in the book. It's the one legged man.
00:03:10
Speaker
Yeah, he's definitely there for a long period of time in the book. And he's always like, watch out for the man with the peg leg. Like he's bad news. Like you don't want to trust him. Meanwhile, he himself is like a dirty drunken pirate, like living in this hotel and or and not paying bills not paying his bills and just like scaring off the other customers and just causing a lot of problems. But he's like, no, no, no. Like, you think I'm bad. I'm not the worst thing that can happen. um And yeah, and the, we talked about a little bit last week, like the difference in pacing between the book and the movie. and The movie, the scene is literally like he crash lands and makes a couple of comments and then he dies right there in Jim's arms. Like it's very, very quick. um
00:03:57
Speaker
And the other pirates like coming in and chasing down Billy bones is like a whole chase scene versus it's not like that at all in the book. It's still, even when the other pirates come, there's like,
00:04:10
Speaker
one suspenseful moment where Jim is like hiding under a bridge and then like that's it and then it's all like yes Dr. Lipsy and Mr. Trelawney what should we do next about this problem with the pirates and it's very like gentlemen discussing the matter at hand instead of like jump on this alien dinosaur looking thing and we're gonna take off running and you know figure out and It's not an action sequence, basically. Right. Which is much better in the movie from that standpoint. Those action sequences are what you need in any film. But um yeah it just was a lot of unnecessary buildup. I don't feel like we got a lot of extra exposition. um the man with the peg leg thing or uh kind of comes back again in uh pirates the caribbean with the whole barbosa having in that wood leg and the um the one of the later ones there so it's kind of interesting that they you pulled some of these little elements from um different books as he he is the feared man with the one leg in that in that one yeah to some of the people and so um i thought that just caught that just caught my attention when i was we were saying that there
00:05:16
Speaker
Yeah.
Character Development: Jim's Father Figure Absence
00:05:18
Speaker
I like the difference to the movie in the book, like the exposition about Jim and his lack of a father figure in the book. Jim's dad dies. He's just like has a weak constitution. He's a weak man. um Like his, his ill health and he just dies like suddenly like some random illness in the book. um And Jim is like sad about it, but that's why he is fatherless versus in the movie we see um further in the film, we get a whole flashback scene of Jim and long John Silver.
00:05:51
Speaker
And we watched Jim's dad walk out on Jim and his mom. And I think that's a really important difference talking about like the dynamic of Jim and Long John Silver, which we mostly got into last week. So listen to last week's episode.
00:06:05
Speaker
But like the difference of my dad dying of an illness and my dad walking out on me. that creates a very different kind of attitude in a person. um And I think like that's the biggest difference in the movie and in the book is book Jim seems at the beginning, at least to be very timid. He's not really sure he wants to do all this. He's like, well, if I don't go now, like I'll probably never get off of this rock and, you know, go see anything with my life. So I might as well give it a shot versus movie Jim has been dying to get out into space and he's been dreaming of this and flint's treasure and all of these things this adventure he's been dying to have that his whole life um and so i think honestly like yeah there's the whole part of it being in space versus in like actual historical pirate times but i think the difference in jim is the biggest difference between book and movie
00:07:02
Speaker
That's fair. It's the Will Turner equation. Your dad was a filthy pirate and a good man, but we didn't ever get back to him in the in the film either. But I kind of always wanted it throughout the whole movie. It's like, is one of these people going to be his dad? But no, they don't give us that. So that's fine.
00:07:19
Speaker
That would have been an interesting and a very different movie, I think. It probably would have been, yeah. What if his dad had been the, I mean, in the book we get the guy, at the robot that's, or the um guy that's been marooned there for,
00:07:30
Speaker
a certain amount time in the movie it's a robot but you know the guy that had been stuck on the island being his dad would have been a whole different storyline too that would have been crazy actually again totally different movie yeah but that would have been crazy yep exactly Next up, we basically we
Mutiny Scenes: Action vs. Dialogue
00:07:51
Speaker
push off. We and you know go on the voyage. You got the doctor putting together this exposition and there we start the um the in the book, the long journey or the long prep for the journey.
00:08:04
Speaker
And there's more exposition, more exposition, more exposition, more exposition. And then we finally leave. Yeah. That's kind how this whole book feels. You know a lot of people talking about things. And then finally, when something happens, maybe.
00:08:16
Speaker
Yeah, it does set up the dynamic of um the captain and the crew being separate entities. This is not a captain and crew like collection that have worked together before. There's the captain that Dr. Livesey and Squire Trelawney who in in the movie are just kind of crammed into the doctor, um that character who is hired. And then Long John has his own crew and they talk to Long John Silver and hire him and his crew separately. And so that is like crucial for the plot of setting up the ah the mutiny and like the
00:08:57
Speaker
dynamic of there's the good guys on this side and the bad guys on this side that's all set up in this section they robert louis stevenson just takes forever to get to it we're not a very patient crew here no it's Yeah, and I didn't see any problem with that in the in the book overall, but yeah, it did take a little while to get
Strong Female Characters: Captain Amelia's Impact
00:09:21
Speaker
there. The movie definitely moves you along a lot quicker. we get the meeting with the captain. She locks away the the map that he has, a little you know his little puzzle box, locks it and like the ship's safe so that nobody takes it because she doesn't trust the the crew.
00:09:34
Speaker
Yeah. And they don't talk about it again. and that's kind of... the they ship off, they go through, they go up to the space where they're at the spaceport it has a few scenes there in the movie, but mostly it's just getting on the ship and pushing off into the space or into the ocean.
00:09:53
Speaker
I really liked Captain Amelia. We talked about it last time too, like the lack of females in the story. and I mentioned it then, but like having not just throwing a random female character, but making her be the captain of the ship. And she's very qualified. She knows exactly what she's doing. She's good at her job.
00:10:14
Speaker
You know, a testament to the day and age in which each medium was was created. but she was awesome. I love her. Such a great character, especially in the film.
00:10:25
Speaker
yeah And then, I mean, then it's just ship life as usual until we get to the mutiny moment. And the the book, it's there's a lot of different mutiny moments, I feel like, in the book versus the film. Because there's the main mutiny, but then there's also couple times that they are arguing over um who should be the captain now or what all this stuff is. In the book, it was pretty far off in the story. You get through a lot of the space travel. You spend a lot of time with Jim and and Silver getting to know each other and him learning to do his chores well and as the cook's assistant. And you're supposed to be just wearing him down with as many chores as possible, but he's actually building this bond with him. And that's really important to the rest of the story, both in the book and in the film.
Pirate Treachery: Action and Tension in the Film
00:11:16
Speaker
But...
00:11:17
Speaker
Um, the mutiny happens. They, take over the ship after getting rid of the um second mage in the movie. in the book, I can't remember. Does that happen? do they lose the... No. ah they They do lose some some guys on the good side, but not till later. And like the benefit, which we've talked about before in other properties, but like the benefit of a film is getting multiple points of view. So the scene in the movie where we lose the second meet or the first mate
00:11:48
Speaker
the captain's number two right um he like the bulldog looking character whom i loved but whatever um when we lose him like we get to see that jim tightened all the ropes because they they're in space and so if they get outside of the like field of gravity of the ship they're just gonna float off into space or wherever And so they're battling a black hole, which is another action sequence that is thrown in to liven things up a little bit. Because again, the book is a little bit boring. But we get to see like Jim does his job and like, just like how Silver taught him and he pulls the ropes and he tightens them and you make sure that everybody's going to be safe. And we see the ah Mr. Hands character, the little spidery go and cut the first mate's rope and, you know, kill him. Basically. And so that's like as the audience, that's our first like official piece of evidence that these are pirates and they're bad guys. Because up till now, they're just kind of like sketchy looking, but they haven't actually done anything. um
00:12:50
Speaker
But even Jim, like Jim gets blamed for that because it was his job to tighten the ropes. But nobody else saw that happen. So nobody else knows that it was a murder. They just think that Jim, you know, is a screw up and a loser and didn't do his job. Or just made a mistake. Yeah. Yeah.
00:13:06
Speaker
Yeah. He kind of takes that like screw up loser onto himself because he already feels that way because of his home, like growing up without a dad and like his mom, like trying to keep him out of trouble and all of that kind of stuff. He kind of internalizes it that, you know, not everybody thinks I'm the worst. And like, no, dude, like you don't know this, but it wasn't your fault.
Creative Choices: Space Travel and Space Whales
00:13:27
Speaker
I'm so emo.
00:13:29
Speaker
Literally. All right. And then, so that's all a lot of fun, but also sad in the film to see, you know, we lose a character we liked and we have to go on from there and we kind of get silver trying to comfort him and stuff. And so we go on from there to the actual mutiny that happens when they get to treasure planet in the film.
00:13:51
Speaker
i think it's when you're pretty close to treasure Island in the book. So they arrive at treasure Island. They've already been mutinied. They, the, the, ship crew go aboard and leave the captains on the ship in the i think in both properties no they're they're running away in the movie in the in the film they stay the ship and let the pirates go aboard and then they sneak off later So, I mean, there's only so much similarity you can have when you're talking about like a ship at sea versus a spaceship that still looks like a ship. That part confuses me always a little bit, you know, how you how you sail through space on a ship that looks like a ship and not like a rocket.
00:14:36
Speaker
Space is much different. they didn't have different laws of physics out there i guess clearly but still black holes and still you know still people can float off into space but they have space whales they do i got so excited and when i saw the space whales because it reminded me of star wars i was like oh my god they have space whales they were so cute and you know another there was no aquatic life mentioned in the book church island which is a little sad like There was no dolphins and like literally nothing, but whatever. They were busy killing off all the whales.
00:15:11
Speaker
That was a whole job. Yeah. Dang. He got me. That was probably all treasure. Anyways, that was what the real treasure hunt was, was getting to the pot of whales. So whale oil. Yeah. Yeah.
00:15:25
Speaker
So now on that dapper note or the downer note, we can move on to the rest of the treasure hunt here. And so the race to the find the treasure in the film is kind of just them wandering around an island trying to find where this X is or where where the where the actual treasure is being kept.
00:15:47
Speaker
Along the way, they meet the, ah um what was his name? I'm forgetting the guy marooned there. Ben. Ben Gunn. Yeah, just Ben in the movie.
00:15:58
Speaker
That's right. um we They find him on the planet. ah Jim finds him on the on the island. and he kind of helps save him from the pirates in that moment, I think it was, and kind of builds a friendship with him.
00:16:11
Speaker
And then... Captain is injured at this point. That's right. So doctors trying to, and we get the fun scene that we mentioned where doctors like, I'm not that kind of doctor. i just have a PhD. I'm useless. So he's trying to tend to her while Jim and Ben, the robot are like going off trying to find things. and And in the book, it's again, like a little confusing and a little bit boring, but they, you basically have the two camps of like the pirates over on this part of the island and like Jim and doctor and squire and captain on this part of the island. And there's like a hut house situation that they're in.
00:16:50
Speaker
and it basically is kind of a little Lord of the flies situation where they're all like, well, this island ain't big enough for the two of us type deal. And so like they're trading shots and they're trying to kill each other. And, you know, nobody's actually looking for the treasure for a while in the book. They're so busy trying to like outmaneuver and strategize each other. um and you know, they're just kind of hanging out. So,
00:17:18
Speaker
In the book, it's a very like long... And it kind of happens in the movie too, but again, a little bit quicker where Jim goes and is like, we can't just sit here forever. Somebody's got to do something and Jim goes to the ship and...
00:17:34
Speaker
In the book, he, like, takes the ship, like, totally around, like, he circumvents the island and finds a little um cove that he, like, kind of maroons it on. Like, he washes it up on shore. and that's where he fights with one of the maids and kills him.
00:17:51
Speaker
and then in the movie, he, like, goes... takes the little speeder and goes up to the ship in space and like cuts the guy loose and he floats off into space just exactly and it's the same character you know for ironic justice that yeah mr hands who like killed the the first mate earlier and he dies the exact same way so it's like yeah get him just Poetic justice. Yep. Yes, that's what I meant.
00:18:18
Speaker
Yep. And they, yeah, that whole scene in the book kind of confused me when he was sailing the boat around.
Jim Hawkins' Recklessness: Book vs. Film Portrayal
00:18:24
Speaker
i was like, wait, is he leaving? Well, what is, where are we going with this boat here on this boat trip that Jim's taken here?
00:18:32
Speaker
I was leaving everybody behind, but. It came back around and I think the film does a better job of just making it. he had to go up there to get the, the, the map that got left behind when, when the little blobby guy made himself into the map instead.
00:18:47
Speaker
Yeah. So it was a more believable reason to go back to the ship and, doing that the The movie definitely made it make much more sense than the book. And he because even in the book, like you get Jim's inner monologue, he's like, oh this is kind of a stupid idea. I probably shouldn't have done this. It's like, yeah, bro. Like you didn't want to think he's very book. Jim is very impulsive. And he does not think things through and think about the consequences until after the fact. He's like, oh, man, like, I can't sail a whole ship by myself. Like, duh, bro. Like, what? There's a reason that ships need captains and crews.
00:19:23
Speaker
to use them. like you Of course you can't sail the whole ship by yourself. like You've also never sailed a ship before. like You were the cook's assistant on board. you You're the cabin boy, whatever. like You don't actually know anything about sailing a ship. What are you doing? Not to mention the fact that like you have an injured person. Everybody else is like trying to figure this out and like the dynamic and the politics of like who you know the two different camps, like I said.
00:19:49
Speaker
And you're just like, well, I'm going peace out and leave everybody on their own and go to the ship. For why? what What was the reason? What was the reason? And then, like you said, the movie is like, well, literally.
00:20:01
Speaker
Right, to that part. And like you said, the movie makes more sense where it's like, oh, we all still need the map. And Silver and the pirates think that Jim has the map. Jim knows that it was Blob.
00:20:13
Speaker
What's his name? not His name's not Blob. Morph. morph My boy Morph. Yeah. Morph was the map. So the map is still on the ship. So he has to go back to the ship to get the map.
00:20:25
Speaker
Doctor needs to look after Captain. Ben is useless for that. So that explains all that. And it's fine. It makes sense. And Ben's a fun little like, you know, comedic moment there of him having to like in the at least on the film, he had to um you know try to turn off the unlock the door or something. or I remember what it was. Oh, turning off the lights. Yeah.
00:20:46
Speaker
maybe yeah yeah i think he's trying to turn off oh no just disabling the cannon that's what he was doing he was playing with all the electronics and ends up that's why uh israel hands or the hands floats away in this in the film is because he turns off the gravity and then uh he's able to be cut loose when he's trying to do the same to jim so was kind of self-defense of you were going to this to me so now you're going float out into space yourself Good.
00:21:14
Speaker
Rightfully so. yeah at Amen. Yeah. So Jim gets the map. um This is like this part of the movie, like it really kind of
Silver's Relationship with Jim: Loyalty and Redemption
00:21:24
Speaker
diverts. They divert from each other because now Jim has the map and then. Silver and crew like come in and take over and then they like basically hold Jim at gunpoint. Like we're gonna kill the captain, we're gonna kill the doctor if you don't like use the map. And cause for some reason, Jim's the only person who can figure out how to open the map. is somewhat Yeah, and so they're like, if you don't do what we tell you to do, like we're just gonna start, we're just gonna start blasting. um
00:21:55
Speaker
Versus in in the book, They still kind of get to that point, but like, not really. Like, they do a trade. Jim gets taken by Silver and Co. While the Doctor, the Squire, and Ben Gunn are like setting traps and like trying to freak out the pirates. And like pretend to be Captain Flint's ghost and stuff. And it gets a little like, little weird and wonky.
00:22:23
Speaker
Yeah, they were all probably drunk by this point. It's a little too much rum on the boat there, you know? They're all susceptible to that, you know? Yeah. So, rightly so. Yeah, you got to do that freaking out with people with ghost stories.
00:22:36
Speaker
Mm-hmm. Good way to, you know, not be hunting for treasure. Anyhow, we'll go on to finding the treasure, which in the film is literally opening up this portal they find that basically opens up the core of the planet.
00:22:53
Speaker
um it all you also find out in the film that it can open up to basically wherever it wants to be um and that's pretty cool i really like the visuals they use there in the book it seems like they find where the treasure is supposed to be buried and then there's like no treasure there because it was already moved by a gun we find out later into the up into the camp somewhere up on the mountain think or something like that Yeah, so I think Ben Gunn was on the original crew with Captain Flint, who buried it in the first place. And he you know but has been here for so long, he I think he was kind of trying wanting to use it as like a bartering tool. Like, well, it's been moved, so I know where it is. So if you want it I'll tell you, but you need to agree to take me with you, that kind of a thing. And so there's all that back and forth with everybody.
00:23:45
Speaker
But yeah like you said in the movie, there's the portal that gets them to the core of the planet. And basically, like, everybody gets to just, you know, go ham and take whatever they want, except for there's a booby trap.
00:23:59
Speaker
And the booby trap basically is going to blow up the whole planet because Flint is just that selfish of a guy where he's like, I'm dead, but nobody's going to have my treasure but me. I'm going to let it sit here forever instead of letting anybody else have it. So I'm going to literally blow up this whole planet. um If anybody tries to take my stuff.
00:24:19
Speaker
So then there's like the whole time, like we've got two minutes until the planet explodes. Cut to a 10 minute sequence of you trying to save everybody before it happens. As long as show the clock counting down little by little, you know, chunks of time. It's just moving by very slowly. Yeah. Yeah.
00:24:38
Speaker
So and we get, you know, a continuation of the dynamic between Silver and Jim where Silver like has come to begrudgingly, I think, in know his own weird piratey way, he's come to love Jim. And he like the whole thing is about getting the treasure and like both movie and book Silver.
00:24:59
Speaker
Their goal is the treasure. Like they're not actively trying to hurt Jim. They're not, he's not actively trying to hurt, you know, the doctor or the captain or anybody else. He just really wants the treasure and he's a pirate. So he has no morals. He's willing to do whatever it takes. to get the treasure, but if he can avoid harming Jim, he's going to avoid harming him whenever possible.
00:25:19
Speaker
um And so you get the moment, you know, in the movie with like, everything is falling and burning and exploding.
Silver's Choice: Jim over Treasure
00:25:26
Speaker
And Long John, you know, has like a ship that he can get away with.
00:25:31
Speaker
that's full of treasure and jim is you know hanging by his fingernails from the cliff and jim's gonna fall and die and long john makes a choice to save jim instead of just scooting on out and and escaping um which is interesting and different from again the book doesn't go that deep into long john's character i think as the movie does in the book again so selfish he's just like well you know Jim I've never harmed you my boy like you know when we get when we get back you know just take me with you like he's begging for his life like just Jim can you know I've been good to you like please convince everybody else to take me home And then you know help help convince the police to not hang me for being a pirate. you know
00:26:18
Speaker
Again, not actively harming, but he doesn't actively save Jim in any way, the way that film Silver does. Yeah, the relationship's not quite as close in the book. but yeah I think that dynamic and that sacrifice moment there really brings some depth to the character.
00:26:35
Speaker
And it shows Jim that, oh, he does care about me. He was willing to give up his treasure to save my life and then The sequence continues and they keep ah working together to solve this puzzle that they have to fix in the ne last two minutes here of how are we going to get out of here? how are we going to be safe?
00:26:51
Speaker
So in the film, i don't even think the book, I'm not even sure how it ends up resolving at this point. It was so much back and forth of stuff happening that I kind of lost in the last couple of weeks. But in the ah in the film, they have to they build one of the little flying ah surfboards for Jim, and he ah goes and hits the button on the teleporter to move its location for transport back to where they started.
00:27:17
Speaker
and he's able to have this really last-minute moment of everything is turning to lava around me, and I've got to hit this button, and then the boat's going to go through, and I'm going go through, and things are going wrong. So it's a much more action-y moment that i that sticks with me a lot more than whatever...
00:27:31
Speaker
garbage happens in the book. you know It was a good framework, but it didn't quite stick with me. It didn't have the meat I needed for a story to stick in my my heart here.
00:27:42
Speaker
Yeah, I, yeah, it's just, and like you said, I don't really remember how it ended either because the ending was like that boring. I'm pretty sure, again, it was more of just gentleman being gentleman. Gentleman agreement. Yes, and, you know, we agreed that we'll take you back. And since you're outnumbered, you know, like Silver basically is the last last man standing from the pirate crew.
00:28:05
Speaker
So they're like, okay, you know, we need every man we can get. It's all hands on deck. Ha ha ha. to actually man the ship to get everybody home. So fine, you can come home with us, but then like you're going to jail, you're we're taking you the police, like we're doing all of that. that's great They leave the other mutineers on the island.
00:28:24
Speaker
Yeah. yeah That's what happens in the book. That's right. It's not that they were gone. It's that they get left behind in order to basically they'll get saved if if someone comes. There's enough provisions here we're leaving for them. But we're taking the treasure and we're leaving them. That's what it was. Okay. i okay so But again, like boring. Right. I agree. Boring. It's like gentlemen discussing what the best course of action is and, you know, silver gets to gets to win and come back without actually doing anything redeemable versus in the movie. Like, like we said, he actively saves Jim's life. He could have chosen to let him die and he chose to save him. And then they all escape. And then it's like, well, you know what? Instead of bringing you back home, home,
00:29:10
Speaker
And sending you to the police. You saved my life. So here's your little doggy bag of treasure. You go on your way. We'll go on our way. And we just never speak to each other again. And I think that's a better ending.
00:29:23
Speaker
But he lets Morph stay with him. Morph chooses to stay with Jim and his new buddy for him. Such a sweet moment. That made me like unreasonably emotional, actually. Right? Like Morph was so cute. Because like, again, in his weird piratey way, Long John Silver loves Morph. Like that's that's his little buddy. That's his baby. That's his little guy. That's been his partner in crime.
00:29:48
Speaker
literally for however many years and he's like no like i care about you more if i care about this kid i want you two to be together and he's again making a sacrifice yes he's making a sacrifice for jim like to make jim's life better and i have a little part of himself with him Yeah, and like not that Jim would ever forget what happened anyways, but like just to always have that piece of Long John. Because again, the movie, like it's a montage, so it happens pretty quickly. But like the movie goes through like all of the...
00:30:27
Speaker
hours days potentially weeks of bonding that long john and jim had on the ship on their way to treasure planet like they got close and we talked about it earlier jim has no father he has no father figure in his life so like all of the like lessons of how to be a man he's getting from long john silver which like he's a pirate so there's definitely some issues there but at some point it's something you know And between the influence of ah Long John and then now I think Captain Amelia and the Doctor, like, movie Jim is set up for success where he has, like, strong people around him. Not that his mom wasn't, but, like...
00:31:14
Speaker
i it's his mom like he's he's a teenage boy like of course he doesn't want to listen to his mom he doesn't think his mom knows anything like I know she's a baddie and I love her but like he's a teenage boy like there's only so much she can do like he needs other people to influence him and so I think now like the combination of of Mostly Long John, but then also a little bit of Captain Amelia and the Doctor. like Jim now has a good foundation of what it means to be a man. And we see at the end of the movie, he comes home in his uniform. He's part of the Navy now. He's one of those guys. He's he's going somewhere productive with his life.
00:31:53
Speaker
And that's exciting. And the captain one that gave him that recommendation to become one after she all saw his ah skill as a pilot of his little ship thing and how, you know, he understood the way things worked on the ship in a lot of cases. and so it was cool for him to get that um strong authority figure on his side as well. It really led to, you know, the... the cops that were arresting him in the beginning of the film are now the ones that are introducing him as the new captain or the new cadet at the academy. So yeah, it was a fun little reversal of fate in the end here as he didn't get the treasury he was after, but he got what he needed out of the adventure.
00:32:30
Speaker
He got something even better. ah coming of age story.
Film's Satisfying Conclusion: Jim's Development and Future
00:32:34
Speaker
family And then like books, Jim just like goes back to running the end with his mom. Good man.
00:32:41
Speaker
As far as we know, like, yeah, we don't know Like the right thing to do, certainly. Like, yeah, it's, you know, 1700s England. you got to have an income. you got to take care of your mom. Like you're the like legally probably he owns the place now. So like, yeah, you got to go back and run the inn. So, yeah, like that's the right thing for him to do in that story. But like, gosh, it's so boring. Kind of was. Yeah. So adding spaceships in space and all these aliens and making the story have a
00:33:12
Speaker
A lot a better conclusion with actually getting some like the doctor and the captain have their babies and the ah and he gets his little military military journey. It all kind of it made this story have a lot more stakes and yeah set us up perfectly for number two, which we never got.
00:33:33
Speaker
So tragic. I am really curious because but this is one of the ones that like there's been so many different iterations of that we, you know, we've talked about covering it multiple times. I am really curious to see what like the Muppets version is like.
00:33:49
Speaker
Because the Muppets, like way there when like we did Muppets Christmas Carol and it was like very spot on like page for page of the of the book a Christmas Carol. So I'm really curious to see if the Muppets version like Because I think it probably will follow the story more closely if it's able to do as much of like bringing in the depth of the characters and um like just making the story more exciting. And, you know, obviously in its own Muppety way with like the humor and the rats and the Rizzo and all that kind of stuff. But like.
00:34:25
Speaker
like we said, we've said it several times now, so sorry to the listeners for being repetitive, but like this book is boring, bro. It's boring. But I am interested to check some of the other versions too. The Muppet one's going to be, I'm interested in, but like even some of the other shows or the other iterations over time, I'd like to see how they changed it to make it more interesting. So I think it will be something we cover a few more times, at least over the next couple of years, we will probably get back to this here and there, but yeah,
00:34:53
Speaker
And we'll probably do Muppets next. so But I'm really interested to see how it goes. i don't know if i want to read the book again, but I'm interested to see how some of the other adaptations go. Yeah, I also like to be serious about this book and like its cultural impact, like so much of pirate media today stems from this book. Like there weren't a lot of historical fiction novels about pirates before this book. I'm sure there were some, but this one really like took it off and like made everybody be like, start had like the wider pop culture start to romanticize the pirate era. And piracy in general, the pirate golden age, right? In like the 1750s-ish to the 1780s-ish, kind of somewhere in there.
00:35:41
Speaker
But like and we've got so many different shows now and movies. Like you talk about Pirates of the Caribbean and like Black Sails was very popular recently. Like there's a lot of... pirate romanticism and pirate media now in this day and age that we probably wouldn't have if it weren't for this book being written so as boring as it is I think that's mostly a product of when it was written and the style of books at that time but ye what would the world be like without Captain Jack Sparrow, you know? And like, we're, we need Captain Jack Sparrow. to walk before you can run. So. Right. we definitely I definitely still appreciate these kinds of books that were the early, early successors or early predecessors to some of these other things. So.
00:36:30
Speaker
I definitely think that it is a worthwhile read for anybody looking for something to something historical, something ish to end something fun and adventure, but just know what you're getting into when you start reading it. It's definitely not going to be all action scenes, but it's interesting enough. You can, if you're willing to listen through the dialogue and hear what's being said, said behind everything, it's pretty good.
00:36:51
Speaker
So any other final thoughts on it? I just want to recommend another pirate book. I haven't read it in years, but I distinctly remember loving it when I did read it. It's called Pirate Latitudes by Michael Crichton, who wrote Jurassic Park.
00:37:05
Speaker
I don't remember if it's a like retelling or a spinoff of Treasure Island, but if you're looking for another pirate book, that's well-written. You can't go wrong with Michael Crichton, obviously, but Pirate Latitudes is a banger.
00:37:23
Speaker
I have it on my shelf. I bought it while I was looking for my Jurassic Park collection, but I have not read it yet. So i will I will definitely pick it up by that risk recommendation. So definitely. I get back in a pirate mood after this, that's what I'll be reading instead of Treasure Island.
00:37:38
Speaker
Fair enough. All right. Well, thank you everybody for tuning in today. We appreciate you. We've ah posted our one year ah appci appreciation post on Facebook. It's a little bit of sappy stories about our our starts to everything, how things are going with us hosts. So go check those out. Give us a like, give us a follow.
00:38:00
Speaker
and definitely go back and listen to some of our other things. We talked about our Muppets Christmas Carol. That was a lot of fun. Pirates of the Caribbean.
00:38:10
Speaker
One more time. Jurassic Park. We got our our Percy Jackson content. Definitely go listen to the catalog. There's going something for everybody in there. Thank you again for listening and give us follow.
00:38:23
Speaker
And we're out. Bye. Bye. Ahoy. Arr.
00:38:31
Speaker
Something for the bloopers.
00:38:36
Speaker
That's a wrap for this week's episode of book watch. We hope you enjoy diving into the world of page to screen adaptations with us. If you love this episode, don't forget to subscribe, leave a rating and review wherever you listen and share it with a fellow book and movie lover.
00:38:51
Speaker
If you prefer to watch along, you can check out the show on YouTube, youtube.com slash at book, watch podcast. You can follow the show on Instagram at bookwatchpodcast. And you can follow me, Sarah Day, on Instagram at captain.mcd. That's M-C-D-E-E.
00:39:08
Speaker
And you can follow me, Jordan, on Instagram at jjcorrito. That's C-A-R-R-I-D-O. And you can follow me, Chris, at cyborgnight404. That's knight with a K. You can also join the conversation in the Bookwatch Lounge on Facebook at facebook.com slash group slash slash book watch lounge.
00:39:30
Speaker
If you'd like to support the podcast, you can join the Patreon at patreon.com slash book watch podcast. Tiers start at only $4 a month and we would love to have you over there. Have a favorite adaptation you'd like us to cover or a book you think deserves a screen adaptation or just want to let us know of if any feedback. Send us an email at book watch podcast at gmail.com.
00:39:52
Speaker
Until next time. Keep reading. Keep watching. And we'll see you next week.