We’re talking about BEOWULF! And to talk about BEOWULF, Case and Sam are joined by Certain POV founder, Ben Milton! Why? Because this is BEOWULF!!!

Find Ben on Twitter or at his website!

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Transcription

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00:00
Case
Yeah. So let's talk about this thing.

00:05
Ben Milton
There's an intro for you.

00:09
Sam
The trauma.

00:13
Case
Welcome to certain point of views. Another pass podcast. Be sure to subscribe, rate and review on iTunes. Just go to certainpov.com. Hey, everyone, and welcome back to another past podcast. I am case Aiken, and as always, I am joined by my co host, Sam Alicea.

00:31
Sam
Hi, everybody.

00:33
Case
And we have a returning guest today. We've got Ben Milton back on. Ben, I have missed you so much, budy. I missed you, too, bro. How are you? I am good, man. I am good. The show has been going strong. We cracked 100 episodes, and with that, I brought on a co host.

00:49
Ben Milton
I love it. I'm so proud of you. I love it.

00:53
Case
And today we are talking about. We're talking about Beowulf 2007.

00:59
Sam
Wait, you haven't said that name enough. You have to say it a few more times.

01:04
Case
Beowulf.

01:05
Sam
Yeah.

01:05
Case
Beowulf.

01:06
Sam
Beowulf. Beowulf.

01:08
Ben Milton
Beowulf. In case you forgot what movie you.

01:10
Sam
Were watching, I am Beowulf. Okay. Yeah.

01:14
Case
We're talking about the 2007 CGI movie, which, when I went to look at the creative team behind it, I was like, man, this movie should be so much better than it was.

01:23
Ben Milton
Yeah, it should be. It should be for what it is. It's not awful. I mean, like, Sam, you said this before we started recording, which was, how do you really take an epic poem and turn it into a feature? They're. They're already starting behind the eight ball, in my opinion, with this movie, just trying to recreate and add to something that's already classic literature that everybody already kind of knows and make it better or modernize it in a way that people will find it accessible, which in some ways, they did, and in some ways, they just fell really short on.

01:59
Sam
Yeah, I mean, it's an incredibly ambitious project when you really think of the scope of it. Take something that is classic literature, something that's taught to a lot of different people, and then to add the technical elements that they did by deciding the entire thing should be CGI animated and to also make it so that the actors faces were the characters faces. It's so ambitious. And also, there's actual lines of text from the epic poem woven into the script that was purposely done. But I don't know if it's just like an english majors, like wet dream or nightmare.

02:45
Case
I have some real thoughts about that one because I think there's two kind of approaches that we have to take when we're talking about this movie one is that the movie was financially successful enough. It wasn't a big hit, but it did open number one at the box office when it came out at the time. But I don't think there has been any sort of saying power to it.

03:05
Sam
No. I mean, a group of my friends went to go see it just because CGI, Angelina Jolie would be somewhat naked looking in it.

03:14
Case
Yeah, I also noticed about. That.

03:19
Sam
Was, like, a huge part of the marketing. It was just like, she's, like, almost naked kind.

03:32
Ben Milton
There was a certain curiosity aspect to that made people want to go see it.

03:37
Case
Yeah, made us want to go see it, Ben.

03:39
Ben Milton
It made me want to go see it.

03:41
Case
All right.

03:41
Ben Milton
I'll be honest. I was curious enough to go, all right, well, let's go. And in fact, that whole story is really interesting because that's part of you and I story case, this movie. We had met playing poker, and we hit it off. We were good friends. And this was sort of like our first date where went out and met somewhere that wasn't poker and watched a movie together and then had dinner afterwards and talked about it. And it was a great night, man. This was a big turning point for you and me.

04:10
Sam
Yeah. Usually trauma does bond people together.

04:14
Case
It wasn't that bad then. Sam, you and I have been slowly working our way through a backlog of these sort of, like, prestige CGI movies. And we'll get to plenty more and we'll definitely, at some point, talk about another one from this director, which is the Polar Express. Those kind of movies that are. No, no, it's computer generated, but it's not for kids. We can replace real actors with CG characters. Sam, before you came on the show, we talked about Final Fantasy, the spirits within, which was another one where they're like, oh, we don't need actors anymore. We can just do CG people. And this one's like that. And I had an epiphany watching this movie, which is that every actor is perfectly cast. Every single one. But they're all too fucking old.

05:03
Case
Which makes this movie is the Irishman for old english actors instead of old italian american actors.

05:13
Sam
Yeah, you're right. Everyone is perfectly casted. I will tell you, though, I kind of felt like I wish that they had just used people's voices and not their face. Kind of like, I had this thought, like, if they had actually. Somehow the star power kind of took me out of the moments. Like watching them be Cgi'd.

05:33
Ben Milton
Oh, yeah.

05:33
Case
Especially, like when Angelina Jolie shows up and it's just like, it's such. Just.

05:39
Sam
So I feel was. It was one of those things where I actually spent part of my time being like, oh, I know that face. Oh, yeah, that's who that is. And that would take me a moment out. Not with Angelina Jolie, that was very much her, but, like, with some of the other characters, I was know that. Do I know that face? I do know that face. And so I don't know. I found it a little distracting, actually. But yes, this was very much of that time where it was just like, look, what we can do now. Do we need?

06:15
Ben Milton
I mean, it was even after the prequels, the Star wars prequels and all the CGI stuff that went into that, this comes after that and picks up where that left off, I think carries the ball significantly towards better CGI that we're seeing nowadays. But this movie is so dark and it's so shadowed because of the CGI aspect of it. For me, it's hard to watch now, knowing how good CGI is at the time. I remember being really impressed with it, though.

06:46
Case
Yeah, it was technically impressive at the time. When we watched it, were both excited because it was so shocking how good it was for the moment. But 14 years later, it doesn't hold up at all. And that's because they were going for this degree of realism that just doesn't last once the technology advances and once you start to see the holes, that Uncanny Valley is way more obvious when you stop being impressed by it.

07:15
Sam
Yeah, right.

07:18
Ben Milton
I don't think this movie was ever designed to find its audience in video or on demand or anything like that. This was purely an in the moment movie of like, hey, we can do this. We have the CG technology. What if we married it with a tale that people are somewhat familiar with, at least the name of it? They remember that they were supposed to read it in high school and put some really big name actors in it and modify it a little bit to try and make it modern. And that's all it is. And it works fairly well on that level.

07:52
Sam
And in order to remind people about what epic poem this was from, you'll just say the title and the name of the character over and over and over again. It drove me crazy.

08:05
Ben Milton
Yeah, there is a lot of lot. It's a lot like watching an X Files episode with Scully and Mulder screaming each other's names back.

08:12
Sam
And, I mean, in the poem, it makes sense, right? Because there's couplets and things like that, right? And so you come back to the Beowulf kind of. Because it's almost like a song. Right? It doesn't make as much sense in a movie in prose, right?

08:32
Case
Yeah, because it's an epic poem. So it's not even supposed to be written. It's supposed to be an oral tradition. And one of the merits of dactylic hexameter, which is what this poetry is written in, is that you're supposed to have these repeating sequences. That makes it very easy to remember all the characters names. They have epitats the same way that you would with Homeric epics that are meant to remind you of the details of these characters.

08:59
Sam
Right.

09:01
Case
So that you can just rattle off the details and get to the story. That's why the story is also fairly simple, and a lot of it's just like background stories about things around happening while.

09:13
Ben Milton
Yeah.

09:13
Case
He fights three monsters. Okay, done.

09:17
Sam
When we left theater when I was younger, one of my friends suggested that we wait till it came out on video so we could use it as a drinking game for every time they said Beowulf. And I was like, I'd be dead in the first half of the movie, I was just like, what are we drinking? Orange juice. Right. Because we want our livers to survive.

09:42
Case
No, it's got to be like a session beer at best, right?

09:44
Sam
Yeah.

09:45
Case
Well, and then the other thing that sort of works against this movie is that the Beowulf story has actually been adapted so many fucking times that it's hard to do something interesting with it, because if we're talking about a realistic deconstruction of it, the 13th Warrior is right there and way better than this movie if we want to do cool twists on it. With Sci-fi beats, the alien trilogy is the exact Beowulf story. Like, down to beats. Like, Kane is the one who brings in the alien in the first movie, and the chest burster comes out of. In the second movie, we have a scene just like the giving of hunting the sword to Beowulf when Ripley is given the gun and they go through all the sequences. And then in the third one, all the people.

10:27
Case
Or, like, the first person who sees the alien is like, it's a dragon. It's a dragon. Going off of the Beowulf legend is, like, 101 for screenwriters. Also, same basic beat. Predator is based on Beowulf in terms of the encounter with Grendel. So movies just like this format because it's an easy three act structure, and it works really well for setting up cool protagonists to fight a big antagonist. That's really scary, and people just are down for mean. Also, you know, the Hobbit is directly modeling after Baal with all the smog stuff being based on the dragon at the end.

11:03
Ben Milton
See? And this is the conversation that we had after went and saw this that made me go like, okay, case is one of my people. Case is one of my people. That little tirade right there is exactly what it was. And I completely agree with you. It's a story that's been told over and over again, which makes it really hard to make it interesting because we're so familiar with it, consciously or even subconsciously, that it makes it a challenge.

11:33
Case
Now, that said, the creative team behind this should have been able to do it. It's directed by Robert Zemeckis, who I've talked about on the fifth episode for this series, talking about back to the future. Like, he can pull off some amazing stuff. This is his later era stuff, which is not quite the same level of, you know, fantastic director. The screenplay is by Neil Gaiman.

11:56
Sam
Yeah.

11:57
Case
And I will say this is also, like the Neil Gaimaniest version of Beowulf you could ever put out there. Right.

12:04
Ben Milton
It's super dark and super.

12:07
Sam
And he really. He actually recently just kind of tweeted out something randomly last month about how he really liked the fact that they were able to. One thing that I really didn't like, that they were able to stick actual pieces of the text into the script, that it was, like, part of his goal to do so.

12:27
Ben Milton
Yeah, I don't know how I feel about that. I have mixed emotions about that, where it's kind of cool for the english nerd in me. And then you're right. It feels out of context. Is this problem?

12:43
Case
Yeah, there's a lot of parts that are like, people are clearly geeking out. The inclusion of old English in a piece that theoretically everyone is speaking old English in is a weird component. The way that they handle the poetry of it all and the deconstruction of the myth in the context of this is also. It's english nerd stuff. And then there's the technical nerd stuff Zemeckis can't get out of his own way for so many shots in this movie. There are so many tracking shots and one take long shots that are, in some cases, impossible. They'll move through areas that a camera could never fit and then just keep on working. And it's like, clearly he's having so much fun having camera work that he just could never do, practically, that it becomes like, distracting.

13:32
Case
And part of that is also that this movie is just before avatar in the timeline of 3d movies coming back. And this movie is obnoxiously 3d.

13:44
Sam
Yeah.

13:45
Case
I don't know about you, but I don't have a 3d TV.

13:48
Sam
No, definitely not. Yeah.

13:51
Case
So there are a lot of shots where just like someone holds a sword right into the screen or where there's all these moments where it's like, clearly was intended for you with 3d glasses. And it's just like, this looks terrible in any other context.

14:02
Sam
Like when Beowulf gets off the boat and he's greeted by the King's guard on the beach and the spear is right at his eye.

14:13
Case
Yeah.

14:13
Ben Milton
Right.

14:14
Sam
Looks very awkward in 2D. Very awkward.

14:17
Ben Milton
It didn't look great in 3D, I'll be honest with you.

14:21
Case
No, because it's a gimmick.

14:23
Ben Milton
Yeah. 3d movies. I've never seen a 3d movie that.

14:27
Case
I enjoyed, but I mean, that's what it comes down to. This is a technical demo in many ways.

14:31
Ben Milton
Yeah.

14:31
Sam
It kind of feels like a very long cut scene from a video game also.

14:37
Ben Milton
Yes, very much so.

14:40
Case
I have notes about that because I actually have notes where this feels like a blizzard cutscene. And if this was a blizzard cutscene, we would probably be lauding it. But the format of it being a movie is why it's like, well, this doesn't look that good because it's a movie and movies are supposed to look like a type of thing that's like, oh, wow. As opposed to a break in the action between you controlling your horde character against the alliance.

15:05
Sam
Yeah. And it's not supposed to last nearly 2 hours.

15:10
Ben Milton
Yeah, it's great in short bits, but I started to watch this on YouTube in short clips and I think that's why I have more of a favorable feel to it because I was like, oh, right, this works as just like a two minute clip and then I can go do something else and then come back, oh, there's another two minute clip. Okay, cool. It works in those short bits.

15:34
Sam
It feels like, well, there are some cool elements to the actual movie itself. It's just like when you throw them all together, it feels too long and too arduous. But there is some cool stuff we should talk about. Cool stuff.

15:51
Case
There's lots of cool design work in it. I love the unifying concept of the draconic features of all of the supernatural in this. I think overall, that's a pretty cool kind of element going on. I love when we get to the cave of the dragon, it's clearly ribs that they're inside. And so it's a cave that is an older dead dragon that they now live inside, or maybe they're inside whatever the mother is supposed to be and that we're just seeing sort of like an avatar of her. Very cool stuff with that. I love Grendel's design. It's really revolting to look at. It's disgusting, but intentionally so. He's this terrible mule of a creature, like human and dragon. And so when you look at his fingers, they're fused together in weird ways.

16:34
Case
And he's got like patches of scales and then also human flesh and human features and the digits are all wrong and everything's so messed up. And then a point that they make a bunch of times where it's like, oh, he doesn't have a penis. They even say that in the middle of the fight. But that actually works in the context of him being, like I said, like a mule. Like this sterile, fucked up hybrid of man and dragon.

17:01
Sam
He's also a big critic of music and sound overall.

17:05
Case
Well, and that was a cool way of demonstrating that visually because Grendel always is supposed to be upset with the noises made from the Meath hall. And so having this big exposed eardrum right there was like a really cool feature.

17:20
Ben Milton
Yeah. It made it make sense. It made it real, which this movie desperately needed with all of the CG and everything else reminding you that it's not real. It needed some of those special effects, actually. I like what you said about set design and also costuming I thought was really good too. Even though it was CG, it was still really good and felt like you were in that space in that time.

17:46
Sam
Yeah. And it felt layered too. It didn't feel like the cloth was too flat.

17:52
Ben Milton
Right.

17:52
Sam
So kudos to those effect artists.

17:56
Case
Yeah, I actually want to give two shout outs that are a little weird. So everyone looks like their actor with one big exception and one small Anthony. Like, Anthony Hopkins walks on. You're like, that's definitely Anthony Hopkins. John Malkovich walks on. You're like, well, that's John Malkovich if he's on a lot of downers because he's so wooden in this moviE. But while BEowUlf is voiced by RAy WinStone, he is not actually performed by RAy winstone. Like, they probably did some face captures, but the face doesn't look like Winstone. Like, it's just totally not the right thing. They just wanted that voice. You know who the actor is for it. He's not credited in all the main stuff. It's Alan RiChson, who I fucking love. He is like a C list Channing Tatum or like one. He was Aquaman on Smallville.

18:49
Case
He was on Blue Mountain State as thad the big, I think, defensive lineman, big, blonde, very funny actor. Has been a Bunch of rooster Teeth stuff. Like I said, he's like a Sea lit. You would never go see a thing for him, but he has been in stuff a decent Amount, maybe d list, frankly. But I love him. I think he's fantastic. So he's the Body actor, and you see it because he's huge. And at this point, this was like when he was doing Blue Mountain State and Smallville. He's so perfect Casting for it. I kind of Wish he was the person doing this Part, but his voice is a little bit higher pitched and whatnot. And I just love that they got him for it because it's such a good bit right there.

19:37
Ben Milton
Right.

19:38
Case
The small exception is Angelina Jolie was pregnant when they made this movie. So while it is very clearly her face, they had a body double for all the capture related to her in that form. And I don't actually know who the actress was for that.

19:50
Ben Milton
You just ruined this movie for me. I'm not going to lie to you.

19:53
Case
Well, when we get to pitches, I will have one that might actually bring it back around for. All right, so those are cool things I like. Even though the deconstruction is kind of weird in this, where supernatural things exist, Beowulf exaggerates every story he tells, and he lies about every story, but he doesn't lie about, like, oh, a dragon showed up and there was no dragon. He lied about how it he. When they talk about fighting the sea monsters, it's like, how many did you kill? Nine. In the flashback, there are seven. And Wigliff says that it was three.

20:32
Sam
Yeah, he was like, last time it was three.

20:34
Case
Right. But if you look in the actual flashback sequence, there are seven. And he talks about how he killed one of them and it turned out to be a mermaid instead, that he fucked in the scene. So his memory is different from the story he's telling at every point, but it's still supernatural stuff. And I kind of like this idea of this being like, a world that could actually have Hercules, like a real Hercules, and could actually have Kukalain and all these epic heroes that I think is a cool element of it and still have hyperbole and still have folktales that make them even bigger and crazier and whatnot. I did draw some comparisons to not a good movie, which is Bret Ratner's Hercules movie.

21:19
Ben Milton
Okay.

21:20
Case
Wherein there are also weirdly supernatural elements going on, but also they kind of play it up as the Legend of Hercules is like a fictionalized account of this person who is definitely supernaturally strong, but not necessarily as strong as the stories.

21:34
Ben Milton
Right.

21:37
Case
It would be akin to if the real Superman's the Golden Age Superman, where he can jump over a building and everyone tells the story of the Silver Age Superman, where he can fly to. Other.

21:50
Ben Milton
Exaggeration never hurt anybody.

21:52
Sam
It felt very natural for Beowulf to do that, though. It was very natural for him to be like, yeah. So I slaughtered nine of them and everyone be like, well, it was three, but it's good. Whatever. His crew clearly still respected him and thought he was amazing. They were willing to die for him.

22:10
Ben Milton
Yeah.

22:11
Case
And they do a good job of selling that. Beowulf is an impressive figure. They might oversell it, but, yeah, he feels like an epic hero.

22:23
Sam
I actually really found some humor after he had decided that he was going to fight Grendel completely naked so that they could really meet each other on, I guess, equal terms. And after he had done that, they made sure that every shot sort of censored his private areas with something else in the shot.

22:46
Case
They really awesome powers.

22:49
Sam
He's lying down and his first in command kind of walks over and is talking to him and is standing right in the spot that would be by his groin. And then as Grendel walks in, there's like smoke that covers the area so you can't really see. And he's walking forward. And then someone throws a sword, like, loses their sword, and it flips into the middle of the table and sticks right where he would be walking in, where the part would be seen, but now it's hidden, even though he's closer. I thought that was quite funny. Like, I was like, okay, this is very subtle, but this is hilarious.

23:21
Case
Yeah.

23:25
Ben Milton
It wasn't very subtle, but it was very clever.

23:30
Case
There was a really bad one where there's like a pan up from a candle stick and it goes up and all of a sudden you realize that's exactly where his junk would have been.

23:38
Sam
Oh, yeah. Was it a candlestick or was like, I thought it was like a spear?

23:43
Case
I think all of these happened.

23:44
Sam
Okay.

23:46
Ben Milton
Every possible outcome that they could think of to do that.

23:50
Sam
Listen, I just appreciate that as much as they showed, like, boobs jiggling, they also showed male rear end. It felt very fair in that way.

24:02
Case
That part was fair, yeah. Oh, we should probably talk about the boobs jiggling. That was gratuitous and not necessarily bad, but it was gratuitous.

24:14
Sam
I don't know, I was just like, oh, this is the reminder that this is not for children. If you brought your kid, I hope you're uncomfortable now.

24:24
Ben Milton
Yeah.

24:24
Case
And that's kind of like one of the questions I have, which is like, who is this intended for? Because like we said so, it feels like a lot of nerdery about the stuff and that it also kind of feels like a thing you could show your high school kids without it. Look, this is a modern version of Beowulf, okay? But we've got all this sort of adult content. There's a lot of talk about fucking.

24:46
Sam
In this so much.

24:48
Ben Milton
Yeah.

24:48
Case
And in a way that I think this is sort of like Neil Gaiman as an author. It fits better in a book than on a. It, like, stands out more on a. Like, there's plenty of fiction that's fine for kids to. I don't know, this feels like kind of a prude area, but it stands out more when they're glaring at someone's boobs as opposed to being like, she's a cumberly lass.

25:09
Sam
Yeah, well, because you filter through your own imagination when you're reading. Right? We're not always sponges when we read. We can be filters too, but, yeah, it's right in your face. Right. There's also, like, that first. Within that first scene, like the first couple of scenes when they're at everyone's partying, there's like, this weird moment where the queen seems alarmed about whether or not something appropriate is happening to the young lady behind the door. And I was just like, wait, no, okay, she's giggling. I was really. I was like, oh, no, she's giggling. Okay, it's fine. The queen's just being approved. But I was just like. I got really nervous for a second there. I was like, is this rape? No, it's not rape. Okay, it's good. Okay, cool. We're good.

25:58
Ben Milton
We don't have to cancel this movie yet.

26:00
Sam
Yeah. I was like, oh, okay. All right.

26:02
Case
Yeah. That opening sequence in general, I have notes that I get some big shrek energy going on there. Some of that's just, like the bad CG. All of them, like, getting up and chanting and sort of doing the sort of singing revelry with these weird sweeping shots. Feels really indulgent to do in a CGI format. I think it goes really long. We kind of get it.

26:27
Ben Milton
It feels really long. Anytime anybody does that kind of thing in any format, to me, it feels long.

26:33
Case
Yeah.

26:33
Ben Milton
I despise when they do big opening song sequences and stuff like that make it just get into the story, man. I don't need all this.

26:42
Sam
Well.

26:43
Case
And because it's both Zemeckis who really likes doing these long, single take shots, that's always been a thing that he's enjoyed, and he's really indulging it because it's CG and he doesn't need to break its spots. And also, it's 3D, which also benefits from really long takes like that. There's no dynamism to the camera. While it might move, it doesn't cut at appropriate times to really make the sequence interesting.

27:06
Sam
Right. It feels kind of flat.

27:08
Case
Yeah. Which would be less obnoxious if they were live actors, especially if there's a lot of spots where it would probably work fine on a page or on stage, because reading it would be fine. And seeing people do it would also be fine because you get the thrill of seeing live performances, but watching a CGI puppet do it doesn't really inspire any sort of awe at their craft.

27:33
Ben Milton
Let me ask you a question. Was this mocap or was it strictly CGI?

27:37
Case
Mocap.

27:38
Ben Milton
Okay, so you're still getting the actor's performance.

27:42
Case
Yeah, but, I mean, there's a difference between getting a singer and then also going over, taking someone else, doing the basic choreography and mashing it up and different points on stage. A bunch of people doing this big scene is different than getting a bunch of takes that you can smush together. And because of CG, the camera itself doesn't ever cut away. Right. It's just easier to put it, to piecemeal it together, and then there's still weird points. So the camera, when it leaves the mead hall of, it starts off where it goes up to the rafters and you see rats and they leave it, and a bird catches it, and the bird's, like, flying. And I was like, okay, cool. We're doing one of these really long takes to get back to Grendel.

28:26
Case
And then they actually put in the exact spot where you would put in a transition if it was a real camera. And I was like, that's cheap. If you're going to do these long things, don't put the spots where you could hide a cut in there. Just have it actually fly all the way to where Grendel is because the clouds cover the screen for a second and you can easily just fix it. And I'm like, is that a limitation of the technology where they couldn't render that much stuff that far along. And I have no idea.

28:56
Sam
Right.

28:57
Case
But it was just like a long take is not technically impressive by itself. When it is all CGI, you have to do stuff, cool stuff with it. Which is why I don't mind when they go through tiny holes and things that a camera couldn't, because at least that's like, okay, well, you're utilizing the medium in a way that is inventive and difficult to do in a physical space. But when the camera is still using, again, points where you could cut and it wouldn't be a big deal. It's a little bothersome because you're not getting either side of it. You're not getting the technical wizardry of like, oh, look how cool it is that the camera did that and you're not getting the cool abstract elements of it being animation and doing a literally impossible shot. Right?

29:43
Ben Milton
Completely.

29:44
Sam
I agree.

29:45
Case
But were talking about some good stuff and.

29:50
Sam
A journey much like that. Rat.

29:52
Case
Yeah, I did enjoy this movie when it came out, and I enjoyed it enough that I bought used, but still used the director's cut of it. So those are all, I think it was fine when it came out. And the biggest issue is that it doesn't have, like, a lasting kind of impact on me.

30:10
Ben Milton
Yeah, I agree with that. This movie was never intended to find its audience on DVD or in streaming years later, it's movies like this when you're using, like, 3d CGI and Mocap and stuff like that. At the time, it was like a gimmick movie, and you were going to see it now because in five years, technology will have passed it off so much that it's no longer watchable, which is basically what's happened now. But, yeah, it was a movie to be seen in theaters and have that as an experience. And I think for a movie that is designed as such, and if that's its end goal of mine, it was.

30:57
Sam
Fairly successful and it was marketed as a gimmick movie. Definitely. I remember definitely dating myself here, but I remember there was a segment on Entertainment Tonight where they were talking about the CGI and putting Angelina Julie's head right into it and doing the whole scene where she's coming out of the water, not fully, just like right above the shoulders kind of thing. Like, to see more, you've got to go. It was definitely like, that's how they were hyping it up, that it was just like, look at this technology. Oh, my God, they're motion capturing these actors faces and wow, look at what we can do now. And that's really all the marketing for this movie was focused on like 1000%.

31:55
Case
Right.

31:55
Ben Milton
And then you add in the fact that you've got Zemeckis, who's a beloved director, and then Neil Geiman, Neil Gaiman writing the script. It really appeals to the nerd culture of that time as well, too. It is very much what you said, case. It's just a bunch of people geeking out. It really is. Including the audience at the time. Yeah.

32:20
Case
And I think the interesting area where it becomes difficult to really use it in any sort of capacity is that geeking out from the different perspectives means that it's not usable in other ones. Like the high school scenario that we're talking about, like showing this to a high school class. This is Beowulf. It's not Beowulf, though. The story deviates in some big ways, and some of those are interesting ways, but they don't really fully round out like, well, here is what the actual epic poetry said versus what the real story is. There are moments where you get some of that with Beowulf's lies and his exaggerations and so forth. That might have been kind of cool to sort of amp up.

33:00
Case
But if I were to show this to a high school class and be like, just remember that there's lots of deviation points that they're trying to adapt and they're trying to make it work, you're not getting the benefit of being like, well, and this is also like an adaptation of it directly to understand themes and so forth of the poem. There's its own themes and it's its own work. So you lose that element and the technical demo stuff because there's so much else going on in it, and it's now 14 years later, is less impressive to look at, too. And they're not taking any steps to stylize it in a way that would make it more enduring. Like, the prequels are easier to watch than this because they're stylized in a way. Well, there's live actors at spots. There's plenty of things that are.

33:49
Case
It's more jarring to see the dead eyed faces of what looks like Robin Wright here than it is to see you and McGregor.

33:56
Ben Milton
Real dead eyed face.

34:00
Case
Yeah. And they don't do anything with a difference between the lore versus the real stuff. Everything looks the same in it. So we're not doing any sort of. They're not playing with the medium and trying to show kind of different. A more abstract version of here's the stories that they're telling versus here's the real stuff. They're not doing anything to sort of preserve it beyond being a technical centerpiece of that exact moment when it came out.

34:28
Ben Milton
Right.

34:29
Case
Which makes me think that this should have been like a captain Eo, kind of like it's at epcot.

34:33
Ben Milton
Go watch it. It definitely should have lived on in a video game.

34:39
Case
There was a video game adaptation where apparently Angelina Jolie attacks Beowulf with copies of herself that sexually assault him.

34:47
Sam
Oh, my God.

34:48
Case
Yeah.

34:49
Ben Milton
Well, now I have to go find this game.

34:51
Case
I saw references to it, but, yeah.

34:54
Sam
That is so terrible.

34:56
Ben Milton
Sounds absolutely atrocious. I've got to see it.

35:01
Case
Given the era. This would be PS 360. Okay, yeah, it might be a PS two, just because that was still so hugely successful that it was still running.

35:13
Ben Milton
I'll have to see what I can find something to do this afternoon.

35:20
Sam
After we've talked about the offense, that is.

35:24
Ben Milton
Yes.

35:25
Sam
Beowulf.

35:26
Ben Milton
Beowulf. Beowulf. Beowulf.

35:29
Sam
It has to be said at least multiple times every time it's said.

35:35
Case
Why don't we talk about some of themes, though, that they introduce for this, as opposed to the ones that are inherent of the actual poem? Okay, so there's some big themes going on with paternity and faustian bargain of wealth and legend, as opposed to actual virility and the traditional concepts of immortality that I think are very interesting. At the very least, even if it's. I don't know if they completely round it out. I don't know if they nail it at the. I don't know if they stick the landing, but I think it's very obvious. Killed a dragon, quote unquote, and saved his kingdom and became king, but never had a son that we know of because he slept with the dragon or the mother of dragons and had Grendel. Grendel is infertile. And then.

36:28
Case
So Rothgar has no heir that he can speak of, but his name carries on in legend. Beowulf even more so in the exact same way, effectively a more successful version of Rothgar coming in, fighting yet a different monster, having the exact same situation, becoming a king the same way, being passed down by herofgar. And Baalf lives on in legend, but he has no child. That becomes an. And, like, it's kind of the same discussion that happens more so in Troy than in the Iliad, where it's all about who will remember your name versus actually having, again, the traditional way of doing it, which is having kids who carry on your last name and carry on your legacy generation over generation, carry on your bloodline. In this case, his bloodline is dead, but the name Beowulf is still being talked about 1500 years later.

37:24
Sam
Well, and also, Beowulf is a legend in his own right, but he kind of does carry on Hothgar's legacy by carrying his. Like, that's also part of it, right? Like, the sins of the father. And in some ways, both of them know, laid with this person. Well, monster given her a son and then gone off to live their bargain. And for whatever reason, it's not enough for her. And especially because Huthgar wants to kill. He sends a hero to kill her son, right? And then the servant takes the horn back, steals it from her area, so she no longer has it. So she feels betrayed. And so it's both of them betraying her in some way, sliding her in some way. And so Beowulf does carry on Hothgard's legacy, which is why it makes sense for him to name him the heir.

38:29
Sam
Like, he's just. Oh, yeah, sure, kid. You killed her. Yeah, you're basically my heir then. Out a window, then.

38:38
Ben Milton
Out a window.

38:43
Sam
You know how that goes. You're just like, yeah, you fucked up. I'm free now. I'm myself. You'd think you'd want to live a little longer, right?

38:53
Ben Milton
Finally enjoy it a little bit.

38:56
Sam
Yeah, finally free of it, technically. It's not like he couldn't have tried to stay with his bride. She's pretty young. Have a child. No. Done.

39:08
Ben Milton
Just got to go. It's time.

39:12
Sam
I know what's coming yet. I'm just going to yeet myself off this building.

39:19
Case
That's such a weird part there, because then the time jumps forward. I think they say 50 years in it. But however long, to an old Beowulf like you could have easily just been like, smash cut two, future. Now he's married.

39:33
Sam
Yeah. You didn't have to have him jump.

39:36
Ben Milton
Well, I don't know. There's something about the honor of it and the weight of the curse being so heavy that he could not. This was his one chance to escape life without this curse, and he wasn't going to miss that opportunity. I kind of dig that. I don't know, maybe that's just, like, the old samurai code of honor coming out in me or whatever, but I kind of dug the idea that he was just like, well, all right, I'm free of it now. Let me not mess it up any further and just kill myself.

40:14
Sam
I think also maybe he just didn't want to watch what Beowulf's future was going to be like. Wow, you really messed this up. Well, sucks to be you because it's.

40:26
Ben Milton
Not going to end well for anybody. Got to go.

40:29
Case
Yeah. I just think it's like a weird contrast because Beowulf gives his life to kill his son and that, like, traditionally Beowulf dies fighting the dragon, regardless of the version of the story.

40:41
Sam
Right.

40:41
Case
In this case, instead of being poisoned, it's bleeding to death, falling, what, like five stories minimum?

40:49
Sam
Yeah. He rips his still beating heart out of its chest. Go on. Yeah, it was cool. That was cool.

40:59
Case
Yeah, no, that sequence is cool. But the death for Beowulf in the poem and other adaptations is usually based on Beowulf wins, but still dies because he was poisoned in the fight. In this case, the fight itself killed him. He's bleeding out from him cutting his own arm off, and then he again falls to his death. He wasn't going to survive that. There was no scenario where he's going to survive that. And I'm just saying it's interesting because on the one hand, he dies nobly, actually doing it, as opposed to the cowards way, the suicidal way, not making comments about people who actually commit suicide in the real world, I'm just talking about in the lore kind of perspective. But it's interesting that they still both die once their respective bastard sons are dead.

41:52
Sam
Yeah, well, I think in some ways they both committed suicide because Beowulf, I think when he goes after his son, and especially when he makes that final motion to cut his arm so he can swing in and his arm's already actually been burnt. Right. Because the dragon still has some fire. So when you stick your hand in to reach the heart, his hand's been burnt. So he has been affected by this magical creature. You could argue that is a type of poison, but I don't know.

42:24
Sam
But he knows, like, when he looks at his queens and the woman who's warming his bed, his wife and his side chick, when he looks down at them and decides that he's going to, he gives him one last look like, I'm going to save you, and then he cuts his arm, knowing that this is going to be definitely probably an end to him because there's just no way this is the one thing he's going to do and then he gets it done. So I think on some ways he knows that there's a big possibility that he's not going to survive this. The difference between the two men is that one of them sent someone else to do what he should have done, and the other did what he needed to do. Right. Husgar sent Beowulf to go make sure and to.

43:21
Sam
First of all, to kill Grendel, and then to go and try to slay the mother, right. Because she was so pissed and knowing the danger, lied there, he still sent Beowulf and didn't go himself. And when Beowulf came back and he knew the truth of it, he'd rather die than watch this kid, basically. Well, other man, young man, fall the way he did. So he just, like, peaced out. He was like, fuck this. Bye. Where Beowulf? His wife asks him, why don't you just get a hero? Why don't you just send a hero? And he said, and continue the. Like, continue this? Why would I continue this nonsense? This is my responsibility. So that's the difference between the two of them. They may have carried each other's legacy and also the same curse, but they are two different men.

44:20
Sam
And that is what redeems Beowulf in this version of it. Because even though he is boastful and even though he lies and he, in this version, does not kill Grendel's mother, and he makes a deal for power and everything else, he has realized his regrets and how those things, like, he had died a long time ago, once he had made this deal, and he realizes that it's up to him to set it right, because no one else can do it, or someone else will face the same pain. Yeah.

44:56
Ben Milton
Right.

44:57
Sam
Which may or may not matter because of the end of the movie.

45:00
Case
It doesn't necessarily break the cycle because it's heavily implied that Wygliff restarts it.

45:05
Sam
Yeah.

45:05
Ben Milton
Which I don't know how that's something that I don't think works in a movie. Especially a movie where, you know you're not going to be making a sequel to, like, what's the point?

45:15
Case
Beowulf Two. Wiggler's journey.

45:17
Sam
Right.

45:19
Case
The woes of Wiggle continues.

45:23
Ben Milton
Yeah, there's no need for that in a movie like this.

45:28
Sam
Yeah, agreed.

45:29
Ben Milton
See the point in that?

45:30
Case
Can I just say, I'm, like, annoyed that Brendan Gleason is in this movie, but James Cosmo isn't?

45:37
Ben Milton
Yeah, you can say that. Go ahead.

45:38
Sam
Yeah, you just did say that.

45:42
Case
If you're going to go full CG. So you can ignore everyone's age, and you got Brendan Gleason, who is great, and he should be in every epic movie ever. You don't have his goddamn dad from Braveheart.

45:56
Ben Milton
I guess. Yeah.

45:58
Case
And I don't know what I'd put James Cosmo as. Like, maybe he could just be in a flashback as Beowulf's dad.

46:03
Sam
But, like, yeah. I was asked what you would cast Mez after you said everything was perfectly casted. I was like, but where are you putting him?

46:09
Case
I don't know.

46:11
Ben Milton
Just sitting at a table somewhere.

46:13
Case
He could have been with the crew. He could have been like, they could have made him look really goddamn young. And it could have been really weird because all the aging feels weird anyway. And no one's voice matches their fucking face, even though the faces are perfect. Like, it'd be like in fucking gargoyles when they have all the clones of the clan and they have, like, young Hudson. I forget the name for it, but he's like, instead. Whereas everyone else is just like, an adult version of an adult clone of the gargoyles. Rather the one old guy they cloned to be, like, perfect youth. And he's like, fucking scary as hell. And do that for James Cosmo. Have him look like he did in Highlander one.

46:53
Sam
Just for case.

46:54
Case
Just.

46:55
Sam
Just for case.

46:57
Case
I don't know. James Cosmo is dope.

47:00
Sam
I'm not saying he's not. I'm just saying. Didn't we say one of the problems is that everyone was just nerding too hard on this film?

47:07
Case
That's fair.

47:10
Sam
I just want him in it because he should be epic. I don't care where he fits. Just throw him as a background dancer. I don't care.

47:21
Case
It's just weird because those two come as a package deal in so many things. Braveheart I mentioned, but also Troy, again, this is the Irishman for old english actors. It would have been great to just round it out a little bit more with the appropriate actors.

47:36
Sam
Maybe sometimes a father and a son just don't want to do things together. Case. Maybe they don't.

47:43
Case
So another big theme that's in this that is interesting and introduced for this is this sort of emasculating aspect of the. So, like, this is all part of it that both Beowulf and Trothgar are rendered infertile going forward. Like they're not able to have kids after they have their respective draconic bastards. And that is interesting and weird. And I'm not sure what it says and I'm not sure if I like what it says, but it is there. It's a huge theme of this succubi stripping men of their fertility.

48:21
Ben Milton
I mean, isn't that kind of what we thought of Angelina Jolie at the, had she already broken up with Billy Bob Thornton by this wonder, or if she was still with him, then she was wandering around with the vial of blood that she took from him and stuff like Angelina and Jolie in this period of time was pretty wild, right?

48:47
Case
Yeah, this is right after. Mr. And, yeah.

48:50
Ben Milton
So this is where she broke up America's sweetheart couple, Brad Pitt and Jennifer Aniston. Jennifer Aniston, she's the other. Had, she had that reputation. So I can see why they leaned into that. I mean, it's good marketing. Again, it's perfectly cast.

49:08
Case
Yeah, perfectly cast. 20 years too late. 20 years too late or maybe 15. Like, Angelina would have, she would have been young. Her ga years would have been great. It's just an interesting extra thing to put in there. And again, I don't have a problem necessarily with it. I don't know. So epic poetry has this element of everything in the past was better than it is now. That's a continuous theme of everything. Because we're talking about heroes of times past. The people telling the story of the odyssey or of the iliad of the Trojan war, for example, is like, remember these great civilizations that don't exist anymore because now we're living in fucking huts because we're in the greek dark ages. Remember those awesome people that are long dead?

49:55
Case
Remember the golden age of things that are long since past, like Beowulf, the era of Harathgar. When he goes and fights, Grendel is depicted as a great time versus the later period of his life when he's gone through wars and shit's falling apart. This, they introduced the whole, like, Christianity's fucking up everything element, but that's still there where the time of heroes is long, like, it's now a time for mortal men. So are they saying that the heroes are being stripped away of their masculinity and not being left to be in the breeding pool?

50:28
Ben Milton
Oh, I see what you're saying. I didn't get that at all out of that. I thought it was just a plot device.

50:37
Case
And it might be too, it.

50:38
Sam
Might just be case might be overthinking this. He can do that.

50:42
Case
I can do that. But this is also a know. Yeah. By a Neil Gaiman thing, I mean, a Gaiman script. So, like, in terms of overthinking, like, Neil Gaiman definitely overthought this. He thought he was being very clever by having, like, all right, Grendel's going to speak in old English. Everyone else is going to be speaking in technically old English, but we're going to hear them, and it's not old.

51:07
Sam
Right.

51:08
Case
There's a lot going on in that.

51:10
Ben Milton
Well, yeah. As for the fertility thing, I don't think so. My take on that is that it's not just a plot device. It's also a take on that was part of the curse that came along with. It was like, oh, yeah, you're getting a son, but I'm completely screwing you. It's the old faustian deal with the devil. We're like, yeah, you're getting something for this, but the price you're paying is so much higher than what you're getting, even though you think you're walking away from the deal on top of the sun. And in this case, I think that was part of it, because there's no point in being a king if you can't pass on your kingdom to your heir. That's the whole purpose of having royalty and passing things down from generation to generation.

52:04
Ben Milton
So I think that was just a way for them to show that this was a devil's deal. You're not going to walk away with this without losing something significant in return.

52:16
Sam
Yeah. And it makes it so that their reign in their kingdom is never quite secure. Right. Because if you don't have an heir, you haven't secured your kingdom.

52:32
Ben Milton
Yeah. And also ensures that they stay alone their whole life, because they'll never really truly be able to fall in love with their queen because they'll never be able to have an heir with that queen, and they know it. And so it prevents them from having an honest relationship because they have this horrible secret that they carry inside them that they can't share with anybody.

52:54
Sam
There's also this feeling, like, I mean, there were several cultures that would take multiple wives, and usually the wife that gave us the heir would be more important, and also, if they gave more, the ranking order would kind of change. And so I think there is also a way of the monster still possessing them because she is the only person who still has the heir. So in some ways, even though she's not legally their wife, she is the number one wife. So there is a control aspect of that.

53:30
Ben Milton
Yeah. Ultimately, the kingdom is going to come back to her.

53:35
Sam
Yeah. Well, because she also basically kind of has the key to their undoing when she's done with them through their child. And I don't know, that is complicated in its own right. But if you think about ex wives and children, and I don't know what that's saying, but somebody went through an ugly divorce.

53:58
Case
Yeah, especially because this is around the same time that Alexander the great movie came out, where Angelina Jolie was the mother of Alexander, who pitted him against Philip.

54:07
Sam
Yeah, this is typecasting now. Poor Angelina, actually. But there is something to be said that Grendel is definitely a monster that helps to undo the happiness that hearthcar has. And this dragon is definitely coming, like, oh, promise broken. Well, that's it. Going to send him after his father, let everyone know that he didn't actually kill me and he actually birthed a monster.

54:41
Ben Milton
Yeah, it gives her tremendous leverage in the relationship.

54:46
Sam
Also makes her seem pretty vindictive and a little bit petty.

54:50
Case
A lot of bit petty.

54:51
Sam
Yeah.

54:51
Ben Milton
But then again, she gets raw deals from the guys anyway, so it's not like she's not innocent in this. But nobody is. Everybody is betraying each other on some level. How much of a hero story, really, when you think about it?

55:06
Sam
No.

55:07
Case
Which is fine. I just wish that it wasn't also muddled by the technical demo aspect. I think when we get into pitches, that's sort of like, it's this contrast of like, are you trying to tell interesting stuff with the literature or are you trying to show off how cool things.

55:22
Sam
I mean, little.

55:25
Ben Milton
A little B. Yeah, they just tried a little too hard in some aspects where it just felt a little flat.

55:32
Sam
You know what doesn't fall flat, though, Case?

55:35
Case
What's that?

55:36
Ben Milton
Angelina Jolie's boobs?

55:38
Sam
No, I was going to say shows on our network. Case. It's the perfect place to talk about shows on our network.

55:48
Case
Yeah. Why don't we take a second to shout out one of the many shows on certain POV. And when we come back, we'll have some pitches. Video games are a unique medium. They can tell stories, immerse us in strange, fantastic worlds, blur the very boundaries of our reality. But at the end of the day, video games are fun. Whatever fun is to you. I'm Jeff Moonan. And I am Matt, aka Stormageddon. And on fun and games, we talk about the history, trends, and community of video games. It's a celebration of all the games we play and all the fun we find within them. And there's so many more games out there, so we hope you'll share in.

56:29
Ben Milton
That conversation with us. Fun and games podcast with Matt and Jeff.

56:32
Case
Find us on certainpov.com or wherever you get your podcasts and happy gaming. All right, on to pitches.

56:38
Sam
To be fair, her boobs don't fall flat either. So that's cool. Thank.

56:42
Ben Milton
Thank you. You.

56:44
Case
No, the physics in this. Nothing has weight in this world. Everything they pick up is very light. And gravity has no impact on women's boobs.

56:52
Sam
Gravity has no impact on almost anything in this.

56:55
Ben Milton
Anything in this movie. Yeah.

56:56
Sam
The way that beow can jump is amazing.

57:01
Case
So noting that those are limitations of the time, which. The week that we're recording, this is the week that our episode on how to train your dragon dropped, which is such a similar type of movie with Vikings, with dragons. It's very much of the same type. And our guest for that one, Sam Wilson, is a former animator, and she talked about all the issues of how do you make things like clothing fall on bodies appropriately, how do you make things feel like it's real? And this movie, they hadn't quite gotten there yet, but there would have been ways to make it more enduring. I think there are movies that still have interesting elements going on today that you can go back to.

57:44
Case
Even though this is a nascent period of full CG, there's plenty of things that still look, if not great, at least good. Like, if you look at the original incredibles, it's not good CG anymore, but it still is watchable. It's totally fine. So what could have been done to make this epic poem adaptation as enduring, or at least a little more enduring, almost as enduring as the actual epic poem itself? Ben, you are our guest. Would you like to take the first swing?

58:16
Ben Milton
No, I would not.

58:17
Sam
Okay.

58:18
Case
Sam, you've kind of put yourself in a corner because I'm not allowed to go before you anymore.

58:22
Sam
You're not? So here's the thing. I feel like I do not have a good pitch for this film.

58:30
Ben Milton
You don't either. That's my problem. I was just hoping that I was going to be able to skirt by in this episode.

58:37
Sam
I feel like there are certain choices that they made specifically that just make this such an ambitious project. And I feel like there's two things. I think that they could have just done this as a live action film with the script as it was. And it may have been a little more interesting just because, well, one, we would get texture and maybe some more nuance to the camera and probably some more facial expressions because not all the facial expressions really worked. And maybe within a performance, you could have gotten a little bit more from a live action actor. So there's that way. I was like, forget the CGI yay. Technology, but with this script, take it and make it real.

59:32
Sam
The other choice is instead of using motion capture, which I know was part of the gimmick, actually design these characters, because I personally found it very distracting that as much as it was just like, oh, yay. Yeah, I know who that person was. It took me out of the film a lot. So I kind of just wish that they had their own faces instead of the actor's faces, because looking at how the CGI moved versus how the actor would move in real life, I don't know, it just threw me off a lot. I would totally cut that last ending bit with, and the monster with Angelina Jolie. I'm just gonna call her Angelina Jolie because that's who it is.

01:00:28
Ben Milton
I like the monster.

01:00:29
Sam
I like the monster. I actually thought her scenes were fine. I thought her accent was fine. Whatever. She's an imaginary know. But I just felt like that end, like the cycle continuing kind of made diminished Beowulf's sacrifice overall. Like, he sacrificed all this thing, and then it's just like, she rises from the sea and is just like, hey.

01:00:58
Ben Milton
The next schmo that comes by.

01:01:00
Sam
Yeah, I mean, I would have liked it better if he had thrown the stupid thing at her head and be like, be gone with your cunt or something like that. Just told her to go away because I was just like, oh, come on. Beowulf literally gave his life just so that this wouldn't continue. And I would have been fine with her burning with him, like, just going down in flames, as if he was such an epic hero that she wanted to be with him in the last moments and that there was some sort of weird, monstrous love there for her. I would have been fine with that dramatic ending.

01:01:37
Case
Yeah. I feel like the ambiguity at the end isn't sufficiently ambiguous. Like, he steps into the water. If they had cut a few frames earlier, he sees her out in the water after Beowulf has been subsumed, that would have been fine too, because it would have been more open. But he's very clearly going in.

01:01:58
Sam
Yeah, it's like, oh, it's just going to happen again, guys. That's what's going to happen.

01:02:03
Ben Milton
Guys are going to die.

01:02:04
Sam
Guys are going to die. They have no control over themselves. Poor guys. It was very broy.

01:02:13
Case
It really is. That is a big element of this movie.

01:02:16
Sam
Yeah. Overall, I would definitely cut down some of the more gratuitous things, not because of them approved, but just because I don't really feel like they're necessary. I feel like the boob moment where the cleaning woman was, like, when she was scrubbing the table just went on too long. I was just like, that could have been like a minute. That could have been a minute. I would have cut that down because it's not needed. There were a few shots and things that just felt indulgent, to be indulgent. And so I would have cut this down. And by cutting those things, I think if we took off 30 minutes, this film wouldn't have been as bad, because I think that they just leave in longer sequences that don't really need to be there. And it's like getting through.

01:03:05
Sam
I kept having to fight the urge to hit the skip 10 seconds button. Can I just see what happens in 10 seconds? Because it's just like, it takes a long. I think that there is good things here, right? They do a really good job kind of demonstrating that Beowulf kind of thinks the queen's really hot and that she thinks he's hot and setting up tension that way. But I feel like, I'm sure you can go in, find select moments, cut them out, and cut out about, like 30 minutes of this, bring this runtime down. And I think that would bring a more concise film that wouldn't drag as much.

01:03:46
Case
Yeah, there's some real Star Trek the motion picture energy going on here. The scenes themselves are good. They all are. Too long.

01:03:56
Sam
Yeah, they go on too long. I feel like I wouldn't cut a lot of the things, like the fight with Grendel and Beowulf. I would leave that alone. And I would leave the scene with the dragon at the end alone. Right. Those huge fight scenes with the two dragons, I would leave and not touch those. Some of the scenes in some of the shorter scenes, like that whole first scene where they're all singing and stuff like that. I would cut that down a little bit. Although, you know, I love a musical number. I'm the opposite of Ben. Give me a giant musical number. But I agree with Grendel. Those songs weren't very good, and they deserve know. That's the biggest problem. I think that Grendel actually probably didn't really have a problem with noise. I think he has a problem with bad noise.

01:04:48
Sam
And if they had been actually good musicians, he would have been fine with it.

01:04:53
Case
Like, what he's actually saying in old English when he burst through the door is like, you're all off key and.

01:04:59
Sam
Someone is sharp, which is worse than being flat, but just no one understands him. If only he wasn't speaking old English.

01:05:09
Case
He's actually showing choreography. He's not actually trying to fight them. They just keep rushing at it more. He's like, no, it's step ball change. And then he just steps on a.

01:05:15
Sam
Person and they keep poking him. It's just like, honestly, I would get mad if I were him.

01:05:21
Ben Milton
Yeah, he was just misunderstood, that's all.

01:05:25
Sam
I understand that this is like a grim and dark story and very serious and important, but why everything had to be in tones of brown? And strictly for CG, it's easy to hide dark colors. Well, I guess I'm spoiled now because CGI can do more colors.

01:05:53
Case
I don't necessarily buy that because the shadow part I'm totally fine with, it's that they don't have then contrasting high bright spots to really make it pop. There's a reason avatar really hit a market two years later. And part of that was that there was this lush color scheme in contrast with lots of shadowy bits.

01:06:13
Sam
I think also, just like, in general, there was some, like, I don't know, it was just very dark. It was a very dark film. And I get really bored when everything just seems like the same color. And I understand there is tone and things like that, but I was just like, it's just so brown. Everything's so brown. Everything people are wearing is so brown. Everything's in the same kind of color tone. It was just very visually boring, as good as certain things were. Also, we are reviewing this, talking about this like 15 years later. So I couldn't help but think that the hair texture was still good. But think about how good hair texture has gotten now.

01:06:56
Sam
That was one of the things I was like, oh, it's actually pretty good in this, but it's so much better now with some big exceptions, because there.

01:07:04
Case
Are some bad mullets in here.

01:07:06
Sam
Oh, no. Hairstyles were terrible. But I'm talking about. But they look like.

01:07:09
Case
They look like wax.

01:07:12
Sam
Yeah, there were a couple of blizzard stapled onto the back of a neck kind of hair movement. But, yeah, basically I would just go through, cut out anything that was gratuitous. You know, that whole thing like kill the baby, the little things that you love also. Oh, especially I would treat Beowulf, the word Beowulf again, like a lot of people have to treat choice words and just say it when it counts and take it out from saying it so repetitively because the second half of the movie didn't have it as much. I know because I had started a count in the beginning half and then I stopped because it was too many.

01:07:53
Sam
So I would remove a lot of them, like, have it when he introduces himself, have it when the king calls him that kind of thing, but don't have people say it or make it a rule that it's only said three times. Each time it's said, like, if you want reverence or you want to do it. Because sometimes it was like six times in the span of, like five minutes. If you want to make it like the epic poem, be like, Beowulf. Beowulf. Beowulf. And then just kind of leave it at that. So it's not battering me over the head all the time.

01:08:24
Case
I mean, I generally can agree with most of your notes. I kept thinking, so this is a movie that we will have to talk about at some point. But I kept thinking, like, they should have sky captain in the world of tomorrow. This, like, live actors with more CG kind of stuff going on. I think that's a strength that we have gotten to with. Where I think we've really gotten into an interesting spot now is things like Marvel movies, which, sure, there's limitations and it's not perfect yet, but where you can have these really kind of crazy set pieces, or better example, Game of Thrones, where if you properly integrate live sets with live actors, with proper costumes and CG elements, you could make a really kind of compelling version of this.

01:09:06
Case
Because a lot of the directorial stuff that I object to are things that would have been less obnoxious if they were people I keep coming back to. And sure, again, this is the Irishman, but for english actors, you would have to have a different cast to be like the young 20 something Beowulf and all that. Maybe get Alan Richardson to do the.

01:09:30
Ben Milton
Part.

01:09:34
Case
But plenty of them wouldn't have to be recast, or you'd have to shoot at different times. Like, Angelina Jolie would have had to give birth, but she was pregnant at the time, so that's its own thing. But plenty of the actors would have been fine. You could have actually done them maybe as the actors in the later time and then reflected back on the previous times and maybe had either recasting or CG elements more put in then.

01:09:54
Sam
Yeah, the other thought I had was just to kind of loop back to that. I thought maybe you could even do it as someone recounting the story.

01:10:03
Ben Milton
I thought of that, too. Yeah, I thought that might be an interesting way to do it and even have it done in sort of the old sitting around the fire with an order telling the story. Beowulf. Beowulf. Beowulf. And that's how you work in the actual old english text by having somebody speak it and orate it and then it fade into the story.

01:10:27
Case
Yeah, because then you could do a more stylized past. You could do full CG, but you could do elements that are like. You could integrate colors that are a little bit off. You could integrate shadows and shapes that are wrong. You could do things to make it look like a how to train your dragon, or even something even more abstract. You could do something that has a painted kind of feel to it to make it feel like it's part of the texture of the stories that they're telling. And then juxtapose with the old men of the present telling that story. And then you pull out all the stops to try to have the dragon fight at the end be this fusion of both the fantasy that they were telling and the live actions that were seeing.

01:11:08
Case
Because you could tell a lot of that story from the modern day standpoint, reflecting back on the past. They even move the fight against the rival armies from the past period to the future period. In the poem, it happens when Beowulf is still young. So you could have those elements in there. You could sort of combine all those things to make it feel like, man, this glorious past that we used to get. And then when you actually see it live, maybe that could be how you start to really play up that it's not true. Or you do what they do when they tell the story of fighting the sea monster, where we see a story that contrasts with what they're saying out loud.

01:11:48
Sam
Yeah, right. I mean, I think also with that, you could have, at the end, if you really wanted to be like, is it real, kids? Which clearly they wanted a twist ending, which is why they had the monster come out. But you could have the orator. Suddenly it zooms out and the big dragon bones are behind them, kind of thing. It did happen. See, look at the dragon bones. Beowulf's Lane, son. There's something like that.

01:12:16
Ben Milton
Yeah, you could totally do that. Absolutely. I think, if you don't mind me jumping in, I would go one of two different directions with this. This movie fixates and nerds out on stuff like that, and it flirts with going way too far with gratuitous nudity and things that. Just sexualizing a lot of different things that don't necessarily need to be sexualized. And either I would lean, like, way into that and make this caligula, or I would cut a lot of that stuff way back, too. And I'm more inclined to go Caligula with it just to make it more interesting.

01:13:00
Case
So actually, this is what my other pitch was. Aside from being more like that, I would say make this like a heavy metal.

01:13:06
Ben Milton
Okay.

01:13:07
Case
Yeah. Really love the fact that you're doing the CG. Like, adult themed CG stuff. Like, if you don't want to make it look like Toy story or something like that, lean into it.

01:13:18
Ben Milton
Either go all the way or don't.

01:13:20
Case
Yeah. Have the gold melt all the way off the boob and they have all this implied sex in it. Go for it. Fuck it. Why not?

01:13:27
Ben Milton
Yeah, it's CG.

01:13:29
Case
Yeah, go for it again. As it is currently, it would be difficult to justify showing to anything, but maybe high school seniors, and even then you would feel, like, kind of weird about it. This isn't the kind of thing where it's like, oh, kids, go watch this. It's a good way for you to watch a version of Beowulf. I would rather show them 13th warrior than this. I'd rather show them aliens. Because at least there's, like that separation of the context where you're like, okay, well, this is like a realistic version. If you're going to do something that's set in the period and actually have dragons and actually have Grindel and have all that stuff, and you're going to have the level of titillation that's in this. Right, then might as well make it full on. Because me, as of tomorrow, I'll be 37.

01:14:17
Case
Like your old man. Like, looking at this, I'm not that excited to see CGI boobs just, like, kind of dangling there. But I understand where you can kind of come around to being, like you said, like a Caligula level where it's almost like art.

01:14:33
Ben Milton
Right. Where you just go for it. Yeah. It walks up to that line and then stop. Falls short of being art and it falls short of being safe because it goes too far. And it's just sort of in this weird, awkward zone.

01:14:51
Sam
Yeah, because it doesn't go really far enough because there are no nipples on the boobs. As far as.

01:14:57
Case
Right.

01:14:57
Ben Milton
It's not pornographic by any stretch of the imagination. Like you said, it's kind of titillating and there's no reason for it. It doesn't really service the movie at all.

01:15:09
Case
Yeah. Everything about it's like a little. Not far enough, but it's too far to be the thing you want it to be.

01:15:16
Ben Milton
Right.

01:15:18
Case
It's too far from the actual Beowulf poem to be informative about the Beowulf poem without being far enough to be fully interesting conversation about it. The CG and all the lifelike stuff. It's too sexualized to show to some people for that purposes, but not far enough to actually really be that exciting.

01:15:38
Ben Milton
Right? I think we beat that to death. The other thing that I would change in this movie is I would not have made it in 3D. You've already got CG going on. You don't need to make it in three D. I would have axed that idea early in production when they pitched that of like, and we're going to.

01:15:59
Case
Do it in 3d.

01:16:02
Ben Milton
You're doing too much.

01:16:06
Case
That's a lesson. I wish we could just go back to movies from this period for about another five years after and just be like, stop. Fucking stop.

01:16:16
Ben Milton
3D is not a good idea. Yeah.

01:16:19
Case
Unless it was going to be like an experience where it was just for theaters. Even avatar suffers in that it doesn't work at home. If this was going to be like a ride and maybe do other sensory stuff or something like that, like an amusement park attraction, that's a different story. But having it be expected that, oh, yeah, you can watch it at home on your 3d TV that literally no one wants.

01:16:47
Ben Milton
Yeah. 3D has never been a great idea to me. It's always been a bigger distraction to me in theater than it is enjoyable, because you have to stop people like, oh, look, that's 3d. Amazing. And it just takes you out of whatever's happening.

01:17:04
Sam
Honestly, it usually gives me a headache.

01:17:06
Ben Milton
Yeah.

01:17:07
Sam
I always opt to not see the 3d version.

01:17:09
Ben Milton
Yeah.

01:17:09
Case
I mean, there's a reason people marketed 2D glasses. So you could go to see 3d movies with your friends and not see the 3d part.

01:17:16
Ben Milton
Really? Those exist?

01:17:17
Case
Yeah. Hank Green, Youtuber and TikToker extraordinaire, was behind those.

01:17:23
Ben Milton
That's genius.

01:17:24
Sam
I got a great idea. Thanks, Hank, for another wonderful thing.

01:17:30
Ben Milton
Well done. Do they just reverse the color on the glasses and the blue and red?

01:17:36
Case
Well, it's not for the. I forget the correct terms. It's not for the. When you have red blue 3D. It's for when you have the prismatic ones. Yeah, but, yeah, that's sort of the areas where I'm kind of thinking, or if you're going to keep it fully CG, kind of what I was saying would have a more stylized version for when you tell stories to differentiate at least those two kind of formats. And in terms of the actual script, I think this is one where it's like the. Another pass is like a tightening of, like. I think there's a lot of spots where the scene goes on too long. But I don't have specifics. Like, cut the scene. I just think, make it a little bit shorter. Maybe tell John Malkovich to fucking care when he's delivering his line.

01:18:17
Sam
Oh, yeah. He did not fucking care at all. I thought he was being sarcastic.

01:18:22
Ben Milton
Couldn't tell because without the facial features, it was hard to tell.

01:18:25
Sam
Right when he came to give Beowulf the sword, I thought he was being sarcastic. When he was like, I doubted you before. I was just like, wait, does he believe in him now? I didn't think he did.

01:18:39
Ben Milton
Or is he just high on ketamine? I can't tell what's wrong with him?

01:18:43
Case
Did they get him in the room and they just happened to have a mic going while they gave him the script to read through? It's like his first read through, and.

01:18:50
Ben Milton
I was like, okay, John, thanks a lot. Here's your money.

01:18:57
Case
Here's my fee if I have to read the script beforehand. Here's my fee if I just read it out loud once.

01:19:03
Ben Milton
Well, we spent a ton of money on this 3D. We better just do the one time through, right?

01:19:09
Sam
Maybe he just felt like he couldn't talk. Sometimes. It's so adorable when dogs do this, but when you put little booties on dogs and they can't walk. Or a sweater, maybe with him putting motion capturing on his face made him feel like he couldn't really talk.

01:19:24
Ben Milton
Yeah, maybe it could be.

01:19:26
Case
I mean, I remember in the director's commentary for rounders, they talked about how he would ask what the lenses were for all the shots, and then he would figure out how he wanted to be positioned because he just knew where the edges of the frames and stuff were because he was just that used to working on camera. Maybe that's just his thing. He really enjoys having cameras and knowing how he looks on it. So the idea of not being on camera and not being captured that way just drains him of his energy. Like, all of his excitement has been like, cool. I can do a fun thing where I start at a weird angle and move my head in a fun way. And this is just like, oh, hunting is my family.

01:20:04
Sam
Please, please go with it. It was like Daria was doing it.

01:20:08
Case
Yeah.

01:20:11
Sam
No. Beowulf, I totally believe in you now. Here, take my family sword. No, it's cool. You can't come back. Please die in there. That's how it got.

01:20:20
Ben Milton
He was kind of like, Eeyore, okay, take the sword.

01:20:26
Sam
Have I told you about Jesus Christ?

01:20:32
Case
But, yeah. So I think that there's a lot of fun components in this that are like someone telling a story or blowing up a legend. And we've seen a lot of stuff like that, especially a lot of stuff with Gaiman worked on like that. If you've read american gods, you can feel that it is the same mind that created this. And I just wish that they did something artistically to sort of differentiate that. And I think that could have been a really cool way to handle it. Embrace that element and roll with that. Or as were saying, make it a porn, right? Go for that one. Or human actors with CG integration again, like the Game of Thrones style or like the Lord of the Rings style, which had just come out and looked great.

01:21:18
Case
Even the CG that looks bad in it doesn't look that bad because it's not the whole thing. It's like that troll doesn't really hold up, but, well, you're not focusing all the shots on him. Grendel probably would look a little weird, but you wouldn't really worry that much because it wasn't every shot. Reminding you just how bad. I don't know. Like I said, the script just needs to be sort of shortened. Maybe tell them, like, hey, lay off the old English so much. Or if you do it, come up with a better reason for it. Grendel is fine. It's weird that the mother goes back and forth between it. If she only spoke in old English, that could be kind of fun. Maybe like some supernatural elements to it. I don't know. Like I said, it's probably more, just don't make it.

01:22:04
Ben Milton
I mean, that's your other choice, too. Don't make this film. This is not a film that I don't think anybody was ever. What year did this come out? In 2007. I don't think anybody was like, you know what I want to see on film?

01:22:19
Sam
Beowulf.

01:22:19
Ben Milton
Beowulf.

01:22:20
Case
I kind of was. That's the other part of it. All of these things were my shit. Like, the idea of, like, oh, look at the cool advancements in CG. That'll be great. Oh, look. Oh, we're going to have a Neil Gaiman scripted Beowulf adaptation. That'll be great. This was all my shit. The fact that it's, like, underwhelming is the thing that bothers me.

01:22:42
Sam
Beowulf.

01:22:43
Ben Milton
All right. Beowulf. Oh, Beowulf.

01:22:48
Sam
Now, everyone take a shot because we got through this and we said Beowulf.

01:22:55
Case
Yeah, the shot should be mead. Actually, if we're really getting into it should be mead. We should have all been drinking mead. For this conversation?

01:23:03
Sam
For this whole conversation. Well, Hasker does have some of the finest mead. Right. That's something that Beowulf does say in this film. It's the one thing he's good at. He's kind of got a Dionysus robe going on in that first scene, too.

01:23:19
Case
Oh, yeah.

01:23:20
Sam
Very peek of.

01:23:22
Case
And Beowulf strikes me as the type of person who would know really well, good mead. Like, he's got a fucking bear on his chest. Like. And his name is. Actually translates to the bear because it's bewulf, which they have no hesitation in being like, by the way, you know what your name means?

01:23:38
Sam
Yeah. They explain his name to him. It's great.

01:23:41
Ben Milton
Yeah. In that sense, he's a little bit of a Harry Potter character where he's just there so that other people can give exposition of why he's there.

01:23:49
Case
I don't know. Well, the thing that bums me out is that this movie just doesn't hold up today. And there's all the things that make you think that this should be great, but it's not one that you can go back and be like, oh, that was a lot of fun or anything. It's more like, well, there's just been.

01:24:05
Ben Milton
Other movies that do the same thing, just better since then or even before then. Like, you talk about the Lord of the Rings trilogy, what was amazing, even the prequels for the Lord of Rings, the Hobbit trilogy, was better than this. There's just a litany of other movies that you can go on and on that tell this same story, but in a more effective way. And I think it goes to what I think all of us have said this, is that the script just needs to be tightened up. The filmmaking just needs to be tightened up and not be so indulgent in the idea of, like, look what we can do with the technology. I love what you said, case, about it being there's a lot of Star Trek, the motion picture energy, where it's just like, okay, you just did.

01:24:55
Ben Milton
That shot was like 3 seconds, and it only needed to be one and a half. Like, there's no reason for it to be that long or whatever. Just little places that you could trim this movie in this script, and it would be great. Or it could be at least a lot better than it is.

01:25:12
Sam
Yeah. I mean, just being shorter in general would make it better.

01:25:17
Ben Milton
Yeah.

01:25:20
Sam
Just go back and just cut some of the stuff.

01:25:23
Ben Milton
Well, you said it, Sam, is kill the baby.

01:25:25
Sam
Kill the baby. The things that you. Which actually, the baby might be old English, to be honest with you. That might be the thing that they loved. Like Neil Gaiman loved the most too much.

01:25:34
Case
Yeah, that sounds right.

01:25:36
Sam
A lot of those scenes could have been. I mean, he could have kept the old English, but there didn't need to be as much of a long conversation in old English that went on at least like three minutes between when Grandpa died. Yeah. So it's like. I understand. But also, it didn't have to. It could have been like, who killed you, my son? It could have been like, beowulf done. Like, that's a scene that could have been so much shorter.

01:26:04
Ben Milton
End scene.

01:26:07
Sam
But he talked and talked, and I was just like, I don't know what he's saying either.

01:26:13
Case
Last thing I was thinking about with this is that. So we see with video games, there's, like, remastered editions that come out. A big hype point on our network right now is that Mass Effect is coming out with the legendary editions where they're taking all the assets and redoing the textures and so forth. This is a movie you could do that with, right? Like, theoretically, they might somewhere have saved the project files, and someone could go in with the same mocap with the same. Here's all the frames, and here's all the polygons that go into everything moving on screen and redo the lighting and the textures and all that. Someone could do that and make this same movie but look better.

01:26:53
Case
And I don't know if I would do it for this movie in particular, but it's kind of an intriguing thought experiment because you could do updates of movies in a way that you can't with film.

01:27:04
Sam
Yeah, I think this movie would improve with some better lighting effects and balance out some of the shadow in it. But I don't think it'd be worth.

01:27:14
Ben Milton
It because the script isn't special enough to make it worth it. Yeah, the script just kind of falls flat. Like, having an ambiguous ending really takes the air out of the wind of this story. It's not an ambiguous, it's like a 60%. You're 90% sure what, you know what's going to happen. It's just made this all pointless.

01:27:39
Case
I am 90% certain that we are finished with this conversation. And there's better things that we could be doing with our lives, such as checking out stuff that you're working on, Ben.

01:27:49
Ben Milton
Oh, thank you, man. I am doing a podcast called Origin story Radio, where I interview marketers about how they got their start in marketing and just hear their stories and tips. And tricks for newbies getting involved in online marketing. So you can find me@originstoryradio.com yeah, I.

01:28:08
Case
Was so happy to listen to the episode with you and Addie because it was so nice just having like classic certain point of view pedigree for listeners who don't remember, Ben Milton is the founder of certain POV along with Addie Thomas. And since your show wrapped, we've missed.

01:28:27
Ben Milton
Oh, thank you, man. I appreciate that.

01:28:29
Case
Yeah, everyone should go check out origin story. It's been fun to tune into. It is a totally different industry than what I work in, so I don't listen to every episode, but it's just nice to hear some of the thoughts that you have going on and there's lots of good advice that's applicable to the rest of the world. I have learned so much from you in life that it's just like, nice to hear advice from you, even if it's only in the oh, thank you, Case. Sam, where can people find you? Follow you?

01:28:58
Sam
They can find me here and then they can follow case for any complaints. Where can they find you, Case?

01:29:05
Case
They can find the podcast on Twitter at another pass. They can find me on Twitter at case aiken. The network is certainpov.com or on Twitter at certainpov. Yeah, so we've got lots of great shows, lots of new ones that have come on since the days of Ben Milton and Addie Thomas starting this fledgling network. I'm going to give a shout out to a show that just dropped its hundredth episode and was the first show to come under the banner outside of the spin offs, which is fun and games with Matt and Jeff, that was the first show to come on board. As opposed to being a spinoff show, it is a great conversation about video games and video game culture.

01:29:46
Case
Matt, who is our editor, is a lot of fun and has great ideas about video games, and Jeff is just a wealth of knowledge about games. For their 100th episode, they had their respective wives on, which was a great listen. It's so much fun kind of peeking behind the curtain and seeing the culture at home for both of them and how the most important people in their lives influence their respective gaming. So that's a great episode to go check out. But in addition to the main show on that feed, they also have side quests, which is a really fun series where various guests come on to each individually, talk about a video game they loved for like five to 15 minutes. So it's really cool. I've done a bunch of those on video games that I really cared about and meant something to me.

01:30:32
Case
So check those out. Fun and games with Matt and Jeff great show again, it's at certainpov.com and there's lots of other things going on there, including a link to our discord server. We do most of these calls on Discord. We have lots of great time chatting, sharing memes, talking spoilers for marvel projects like Invincible, which I love, or any of the other stuff. Just come have nerd conversations there. But yeah, until then, Sam, what do we got in the pipeline?

01:31:02
Sam
Next time we're going to be discussing Highlander two, the quickening. But until then, if you enjoyed it, pass this on.

01:31:15
Case
Thanks for listening to certain point of views. Another past podcast. Don't miss an episode. Just subscribe and review the show on iTunes. Just go to certainpov.com.

01:31:44
Sam
And then we'll just have to put like filler into the rest of the episode. Check out other shows on certain point of view.

01:31:51
Case
We've got enough shows. We could actually fill some serious time with all the commercials we have.

01:31:56
Sam
This is like now, another commercial, because how do you change an epic poem and make it better?

01:32:04
Case
So I have a question. Have you ever wanted to get into comics, but you just didn't know where to start? Well, welcome to comics Quest. I'm JD Martin, and every week I sit down with the guests to talk.

01:32:17
Ben Milton
A comic that I think anybody can.

01:32:19
Case
Pick up and start their comics reading journey. We take a look at psychedelic Sci-fi.

01:32:23
Ben Milton
Fantastic action, heart wrenching love stories, and of course, superheroes.

01:32:28
Case
So check us out at certainty or.

01:32:30
Ben Milton
Wherever you listen to your podcasts.

01:32:33
Case
Cpov certainpov.com.

AI meeting summary:

●      The meeting explored the challenges of adapting the 2007 CGI movie "Beowulf," aiming to modernize classic literature through CGI animation and emphasized visual aspects in marketing to attract audiences, particularly Angelina Jolie's portrayal. Themes of masculinity, legacy, and emasculation were analyzed in the film, focusing on characters' struggles with fertility, paternity, and Faustian bargains affecting their actions and relationships. The conversation extended to technical aspects like motion capture technology for character animations and critiqued creative choices such as underutilized tracking shots.

●      Discussions delved into the film's cinematic spectacle during its release period, highlighting marketing strategies targeting audience interests in heroism and internal conflict. Challenges in sustaining lasting impact due to evolving technology standards were noted, along with flaws in character portrayals and pacing issues. Suggestions included tightening the script, enhancing visual effects, and exploring narrative adjustments, as well as comparisons with successful adaptations like **Lord of the Rings** and **Game of Thrones**.

●      Participants expressed thoughts on improving the movie by remastering it with modern technology, embracing or toning down its provocative nature for impact. Creative ways to retell Beowulf's story through different cinematic techniques or settings were proposed to enhance storytelling effectiveness. The meeting also discussed casting decisions and potential enhancements to specific roles within the storyline. Promotional segments featured podcasts from specific **POV Network** members, discussing marketing origins and video game culture shows, recommending related content available on certainpov.com.

●      Insights focused on critiquing Beowulf's adaptation, pointing out opportunities for improvement through script revisions, visual enhancements, and creative storytelling approaches. The meeting showcased how various elements like script shortcomings, overindulgence in gratuitous elements, and technical limitations like CGI influenced the film's reception. Analysis regarding audience engagement and comparisons with successful adaptations aimed to elevate Beowulf's appeal through strategic adjustments and enhancements in storytelling and visual presentation techniques.

Notes:

●      🧠 **Analyzing Epic Poem Adaptation**

●      **Discussion on turning an epic poem into a feature film

●      Utilizing CGI animation and actors' faces for characters

●      Emphasizing repetitive use of title and character names for recall**

●      🎭 **Exploring Themes**

●      **Comparing themes introduced in film adaptation versus original poem

●      Emphasis on emasculating aspect**

●      🎮 **Video Game Community Discussion**

●      **Conversation on history, trends, and community of video games

●      Mentions of showing video games to high school classes**

●      📝 **Pitch Strategies**

●      **Debating between telling interesting stories or showcasing literary elements

●      Incorporating old English text in storytelling**

●      🎬 **Content Suggestions**

●      **Suggesting cutting out gratuitous elements

●      Embracing storytelling and legendary aspects**

●      🎙️ **Podcast Discussions**

●      **Promoting 'Origin Story Radio' podcast

●      Mention of 'Side Quests' series discussing video games**

Action items:

●      **Case Aiken**

●      Review the Polar Express (00:00)

●      Talk about Captain Eo at Epcot (34:37)

●      Tighten up the script and filmmaking, avoid indulging in technology showcases (1:24:40)

●      **Sam Alicea**

●      Watch a video game adaptation of Beowulf for PS2 or PS3 (35:13)

●      Discuss Highlander II: The Quickening next time (1:31:02)

●      **Ben**

●      Cut some of the more gratuitous scenes (1:02:27)

●      Shorten certain scenes to make the film more concise (1:03:39)

Outline:

●      Chapter 1: Adaptation Challenges and Technical Elements (00:05 - 02:30)

●      00:05: Introduction to the challenge of adapting an epic poem into a feature film.

●      01:13: Discussion on incorporating CGI animation and actors' faces into the adaptation.

●      02:05: Mention of weaving lines from the epic poem into the script.

●      Chapter 2: Storytelling Techniques and Adaptation Choices (07:52 - 14:31)

●      07:52: Emphasis on using repetition to remind viewers of the epic poem's title and characters.

●      09:38: Highlighting the use of epitaphs and oral tradition in storytelling.

●      12:40: Critique on the integration of actual text pieces into the script.

●      Chapter 3: Narrative Themes and Deviations (32:39 - 35:35)

●      32:39: Discussion on how the adaptation deviates from the original epic poem.

●      34:15: Contrasting introduced themes with those inherent in the actual poem.

●      Chapter 4: Suggestions for Improvement and Editing (59:26 - 1:27:51)

●      59:26: Proposal to enhance the adaptation using technology and a realistic approach.

●      1:03:03: Recommendation to trim unnecessary elements for a more concise film.

●      1:07:19: Suggestion to selectively include key moments from the original poem.

●      Chapter 5: Narrative Presentation and Stylistic Choices (1:17:30 - 1:31:56)

●      1:17:30: Discussion on stylized storytelling methods for differentiation.

●      1:21:39: Dialogue on script editing and shortening for better pacing.

●      1:31:15: Mention of upcoming discussions and podcast recommendations.