Ep. 22: 'Frankenstein': Guillermo del Toro, Mary Shelley and more Tell a Monster of a Tale

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

*****

In this episode of 'Adaptation: The Book to Movie Podcast,' Nate and Chris discuss 'Frankenstein; or, The Modern Prometheus' by Mary Shelley -- one of the most formative texts ever written, especially regarding science fiction, horror, women authors and gothic literature.

Additionally, they discuss the various film adaptations, including Guillermo del Toro's recent adaptation (now available to stream on Netflix) and James Whale's 1931 film, with a colossal cultural impact.

UP NEXT: 'The Running Man' and Stephen King's 2025.

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