 Hello everybody, E here. Welcome back to Dan E Cast with my co-host, Dan. Say hello, Dan. Hi. Um, so, they actually said hi. How about that? Because I don't want this to become a stupid thing where everyone's like, oh my god, that's your thing. You don't say hi. I just, I don't know what words. Yeah, that's, hey, completely fine. Um, anyways, so today we are talking about, uh, the shining and the follow-up decades later known as Dr. Sleep, or called Dr. Sleep, titled Dr. Sleep, whatever. Um, we are going to be talking about my experience having read both the books, having seen all of the movies, um, and Dan's experience having read and finished the shining, having tried to read Dr. Sleep, quitting that, um, they also have not finished the shining movie. Is that correct? Yeah, but I've watched enough videos on it to know, so I know it. All right. Um, and then Dr. Sleep, that's basically what we're going to talk about how certain things differ and why, uh, they couldn't finish it versus why I could or any number of things. I mean, it could probably all be written down as I'm a fanboy. Of course, I finished it, but I struggled with Dr. Sleep too. Um, so we'll get to all that stuff. We're going to start with, uh, with the shining, uh, first off. So, Dan, tell, tell me what you like, didn't like. We're going to talk about the book version first. Tell me what you liked about the book, what you didn't like. Uh, one more thing. My memory is bad. So you go first because I will, I can remember based on what you say, but I can't pull from my own memory. I was about to say it's been a while since Dan finished the shining. So, um, my favorite part in the entire book is the hedge animals. The hedgerow animals. I can understand why they cut it for time or just for a different story because it's so different, but that's, that was good. It's, it's not even like it was like crucial to the story, but it was still just like, I don't know, it's like cutting part of your world of the little mermaid. You know, there's several things that I really, really love about that, about the hedgerow animals, period, the topiary animals, whatever you want to call them. The first thing, of course, is that you never see them move. Um, they have all the Stephen King, I think Stephen King said this, maybe someone else. It's always scarier to have seen that something has moved. Yeah, like the weeping angels, right? Then actually seeing them move. And that's a perfect example. The knights from Resident Evil are similar. A very, a resume before. Yeah. The knights in Resident Evil 4, that's the, yes. Because it's not like you don't see, they, they're still, and then they come to life, so it's not the exact same, but it's still similar in that they weren't moving, and now they are. No, they're going to move. Yeah. It's like playing, it's like playing village and having all the statues, like they knew what they were doing. It's like, oh, shit, they're covered. The Scarecrow's, the Scarecrow's never did, I expected the entire time, but that's Resident Evil Village spoilers. But anyways, so, but yeah, there's that, there's that, but at the same time, there's the, there's the ghosts. So yes, there are ghosts in the Overlook, but there's also another entity. There's something else in there. It's the evil of the Overlook, and then also the ghosts. Exactly. Um, the, what, what gets me is, and what is removed from Dr. Sleep is that entity, because in The Shining, you have the topiary animals, they obviously moved. Yeah. Right. But that you don't have anything like that in Dr. Sleep. So that's, that's, I think that's a big designation between the two books, where you have, there were the ghosts and there were Danny, Danny powering, you know, that, you know, there's a lot of, uh, conversation about Danny powering the Overlook. Like the reason why it got so bad as it did so quickly is because Danny had. Yeah, he has like a battery. Right, exactly. Um, but so why don't we see any of that with like Abra or anything? You know, there's, especially since she's so powerful. Right. There has to be other places like that around, right? That would draw off energy from her. I just, I find that I was thinking, I've been thinking about that recently because I never thought about it before until, um, someone mentioned very recently about how garbage the Stephen King written adaptation for TV was. It had, now Rebecca remains staying those, I can never remember the lady's name, but, uh, it had, uh, the guy from Wings, Steven Weber, who did the audiobook for it. Um, and then Rebecca de Mornay, that's it. Absolutely garbage movie, terrible. It wasn't his favorite for a while though. In comparison to, oh yeah, it's, it's, it still is of course, because you know, it actually followed his vision. Yeah. Um, but so you liked the book, The Shining. Yeah, I, I don't like the movie. I, the movie's bad. It's boring. It's not, it's not good. Yeah. I, I don't care about his, oh my God, he puts so much effort into it and anything that you say is bad is actually his intention. I'll go fuck. It's bad. It's not good. Yeah. It is, it's, you, you know how I feel about it. There's no heart in the movie. It's, it's clinical. It's like, the whole point of the book was that it's this guy and he, he removes all of the character from Jack and just turns him into this really cartoony villains. Like in the book, you're like, you're like, oh, I hope that he comes out okay. And I hope him and his family are okay. And I hope that they can come out of this. And then by the end you're just like, ah, damn. But then with the movie, he just starts out as an asshole and he cut, he's like, he's not a great guy in the beginning of the book, but he's still trying to do better. Yeah, yeah, exactly. But in the movie, he's just like, even before things get bad with like the typewriter scene, he's just such a dick constantly. There's no reason to root for him and it makes it boring because of course you're going to root for the frail little wife and the little boy, but there's no reason to root for Jack anymore, which is why the book is so good because it gives you a reason to root for the person that is becoming the villain. Right. Because as soon as you start watching the movie, the number one thing you're waiting for when you watch that movie is for Jack Nicholson to wild out. Yeah. Because you know it's coming. Because first of all, it's Jack Nicholson. Yeah, exactly. You know, he's back. It's like Nick Cage. Like you watch a movie and you just wait for him to lose it. They need to remake the shiny like scene for scene, but instead of Jack, no, no, no, they don't need to remake it. They just need to replace Jack Nicholson's performance with Nicholas Cage's performance. What's it? They replace the face? Yeah, that'd be great. Oh, amazing. Like the deep fake. Deep fake. That would be amazing because it would fit so perfectly. I'm so far, I'm so much planning to get them going. They're even able to do that now with like the voice too. They can copy the, they watched a YouTube video where the guy had been like building up his portfolio of videos and then in the last, there was a video and then the one before that he, it was entirely an AI that had copied his voice and then the video after that, he's like, look at this. This is crazy. There was some real quick little deviation. There was some discussion. I have a friend, I think, yeah, Eve Harms on Twitter talking to another friend, Autumn Christian, about about getting an AI to tweet for Autumn, I guess from Tumblr or something. I didn't really, it was very interesting, but how they could replace Autumn's whole Twitter account and it would still sound like her. Yeah, because now they can, the AI literally just reads everything that you've done. It's like, okay, I got it. I know what to do. To be more accurate, it's like 20, you need 20,000 tweets or something to go off of. Yeah, it's a specific word count that you have to surpass, not just the tweets. Okay. So yeah, I hate the movie. You hate the movie. I love the book. You love the book. I can, I can, I think I could like the movie a little bit more if I look at it away from the book, but because the book is so unique in certain ways, I don't think that I can look at it that way because like the Percy Jackson movie, like that's not a great movie. It's a terrible movie in comparison to the books, but I think I can still watch that and have fun with it if I just ignore the books. If I look at it and go, okay, this is its own thing, someone having their own fun with this story, it's not that bad. But with The Shining, I can't even do that because first of all, it's boring. Second of all, it just, yeah, it's boring and it takes everything that's charming about the book and, and like Tony, like the way that they just turned Danny into a creepy little kid. It's like, come on, man. It's so lazy. That's what it is. It's lazy. It is. And I've never been able to take that seriously the way he runs around going. And you're not supposed to. You're supposed to be a creepy little kid. And the whole thing in the, in the book is like Tony's like kind of mysterious and he's interesting and you want to know more about it. But then in the movie, it's like, oh, creepy little kid. That's it. That's, that's all there is. Yeah. There's absolutely no depth of character from the start. Shelly Duvall. See, one of the things, I don't want to get to the Dr. Sleep movie yet, but the one of the things is the actress who played Shelly Duvall's part in Dr. Sleep was a, I'm sorry. She was a better actress. She was a better Shelly Duvall than Shelly Duvall. But what's sad, it's not that she was a better Wendy. No, she, she was putting more acting into it. For Shelly Duvall, she was just fueled, it's seemingly just based on her acting and the behind the scenes stuff and how she, how she was treated. The woman was just running on a script in anxiety. That's why it's so bad. And is it like real fear that she's like, if I screw up? That poor woman, that wonderful performance is so bad. Look at what she was dealing with. Here's, here's the thing. Of course, like 95% of the people listening to this, they're completely going to disagree with, with us about this, of course. But that, well, about our take on the, the Shining movie, Kubrick's thing is a masterpiece, whatever people say, whatever, so on and so forth. This is our personal opinion. But going back to what you said about how bad she was treated, there was an article, somebody finally found her in Little Commune, talked to her and she said that she was treated just fine. So are we, are we talking about someone, but are we talking about someone? Yeah, but are we talking about someone who has either like a PTSD trauma that they buried, or are you talking to someone who's just literally just buried it because they don't want to think about it? Or did she literally rewrite her own memory just so she could get past it? I think that's it. Because there's video, because I think it was Kubrick's daughter did a documentary, documentary about the behind the scenes, and you can literally watch him just being an asshole to her, the whole movie, the whole filming. Yeah, many other actors have talked about how unbearable he was to work with. I don't like any, I'm a Kubrick, I'm not a Kubrick hater. I just don't like any of his movies. Yeah, he's fine. It's just like he's not as special as people. He seems to miss the point, for me, he seems to miss the point of heart, or feelings, or emotions, period. Because his best characters are emotionless husks. Let's say, and they're just, they're broken people, which I should like. Yeah, I should really like. It should be interesting. But they don't feel like people, they just feel like broken. Yeah, you should want to go and dig and be like, okay, why are you like this? But with Jack, it's just like, okay, you're just a dick. Right, exactly. I don't care about why you are, you're just mean. Right, with most characters, most characters are vases that then get broken, that then, you know, get put back together with gold that are better. His characters like art pieces that were made broken. Exactly, it's just a pile of shards on the ground. You don't see the hole, you don't see it fit. He didn't sculpt the vase. He sculpted the pieces and then glued them together. That's a good one. That's a good one. Like a puzzle, like a puzzle, but a really bad puzzle. I can dig it. I can dig it. All right. So, okay, that's, that's our thoughts. I don't want to hang up too much on this because I'm more interested. Yeah, four things to talk about. Yeah, I'm more interested in talk. Well, we talked about two so far. We talked about The Shining and The Shining Movie. But the, and everybody's heard me go on and on about, and Dan's opinion of The Shining is my opinion of The Shining. So move on to something that I was actually able to finish that you weren't, which was the Doctor Sleep novel. I enjoyed certain aspects of the Doctor Sleep novel. I enjoyed Andy right up front. I enjoyed her. Yeah, she's great. Yeah. I enjoyed Abra. I enjoyed Dan's story, but here, but the thing that bothered me was is we didn't have any good villains. Everybody talking about how great Rose the Hat, no. She's not really a villain. She's more of a just a antagonizing character, which I guess could be argued that that is what a villain is. But I feel like a villain causes a, you know, a great threat. But she does that, but not really in a villainous way. Who we should be worried about. The person we should be worried about is this little girl who has this insane power that she doesn't know the extent of completely. And we know she has this insane power. We see her, we see her do these wonderful things, and then Rose the Hat's over here is just sucking the, the, the soul out of, steam out of people. Yeah. She did, I never once in the book was I ever worried for Dan, was I never worried for Abra. Like she's, she does villainous things, but not to the extent that it actually affects the story. Like of course you look at her and you read about her and it's like, yeah, that's a villain character. But then you read what she is inserted into and it's like, okay, so she's a villain, but not of this story. And that's why I think the book, not the movie is so good because they actually make her like a threat. Yeah. I agree. I'm going to add one more thing to that. One of the things that I, that one of the, here's, here's just a guess from me, a theory of mine, as it were. I have a theory that that's the reason why the baseball, baseball boy scene exists. The Stephen King. To really set it off. Stephen King realized that Abra and Dan weren't going to be in trouble here. Yeah. He knew they weren't going to be in trouble. So he needed a scene and it probably all just happened naturally, like he was just writing and he was like, oh, this is really going to mess people up. And the, I will say the scene is far more disturbing in the movie than it was in the book. Dan, you didn't get to that point. I don't, I don't think so. I can't remember exactly why I cut off, but I know it was after Dan and Abra met her. Honestly, you could have just read like the second half of the book and watched the movie and you'd have been fine. Because that's the, really the only difference there is the people that are mad that I say that too. But I know there's a, there's a Dr. Sleep fans out there, but for the most part, most Stephen King fans agree the book just wasn't that stellar. And it had nothing to do with the fact that he was revisiting. In fact, most of us like of the stuff from Dan, you know, catching up with Dan finding out. I feel like if it had been less of a, like, more of a cheesy kind of like coming of age story, I feel like that would have been a matter of entertaining. Honestly, just like watching Abra and Dan and he's like, yo, this is what's going on with us and how weird we are. And she's like, okay. Yeah, I would have been completely happy had there been no true not. Yeah. I would have been completely happy with just those two and another That's what it is. They, it feels like he had two ideas and he was like, okay, let's put these together. But they didn't just, he used a very cheap glue. We just didn't I like that very cheap glue. The glue is the story. He just shoved them together. Some Dollar Tree glue. Yeah, it's not even Elmer's. It's just like sticky tack or something. Like it's not that it's like, they're both amazing ideas on there. And if I, well, you don't know about the Dark Tower series. Like you haven't read that yet. So you don't know about the can toy and all that stuff. If you read that, the true not is from that universe. Okay, that they're psychic vampires and the people out there can toy and true not. I understand that. Calm down. Calm down. That's not what I'm saying. I'm saying there's, there's a certain aspect to them that pops up in the Dark Tower series. And I don't want to spoil any, any things should Dan want to go and read them. So I'm trying to be, there's whole like species. There's the prim, there's all this amazing lore and everything in the Dark Tower universe that then bleeds over into his real world novels. And that's, I think that's the, I'm not sure anybody has done that before. That's what I like. I really like overarching stories like that. And that's why I like stuff like his stuff because it has, and it's not like outright where like you see like Wendy Torrance pop up and like Carrie or something. It's just like, it's little stuff. And that if you've read it, it's like, oh, I like, it's just the little stuff that if you know it, it's like, oh, I see you. One of the most brilliant, well, there's two, there's two things I want to say real quick as a Stephen King fan kind of fanboying over here, you talking about that thing. Two of what I consider genius characters popping up in other Stephen King books. There's a book called Rose Matter where a woman runs away from her abusive husband, goes to live not a commune, but a place for like abused women kind of deal. She meets a character named Cynthia or Cindy, who's a very, very small character, very small side character. He then puts Cindy, this very small side character, off in this other book called desperation. And he does it again in regulators, which is kind of like a, it's very strange because desperation and the regulators have the exact same cast of characters, names, everything, but their personalities are a bit different and their lives are a bit different. He released one of them is Richard Bachman. We'll talk about that one day if you ever read a Bachman book. That's his, that's him going, I want to be able to, I want to see. I don't want to be associated with this. I want to do what I want. Well, he wanted to know if he, if he could get a publisher again based solely on his writing. Yeah. And not, you know, because he was Stephen King because people were literally joking and saying that they'll publish anything from Stephen King now even his laundry list. It's one of the, he's one of the first people I've ever heard someone say that about. Um, and another, another time he did this is with Thaddeus Beaumont from the dark half. And I don't want to tell you too much. I don't know how, how far down the Stephen King rabbit hole you're going to go. I want to give you too many spoilers, but the dark half that book focuses completely on Thaddeus Beaumont, that Beaumont, but that also pops up in other books, but he's never in the books. He's only mentioned in the other books. And you literally see his entire timeline from the time the dark half ends all the way to his death, but it's all off screen. It's all in other books. Like people will be sitting around, Hey, did you hear about, you know, Thaddeus Beaumont or so on and so forth? I thought that, I thought that was really, really cool because usually it's like you said, you know, like, you know, Wendy pops up or, you know, Dan pops up to fight alongside Roland in the dark tower. It's like the Disney conspiracy theories and like where you like, you see Rapunzel inflaying and like frozen. It's like, that's a little much, but like, I like the little stuff, you know, right? Same here. And he does have the bigger stuff. I mean, the dude wrote himself into the dark tower. He is a character in the sixth dark tower, but it's good though. It's not the way you, he's like, oh my God, this guy's just trying to, he's so full of himself. So it's like Stan Lee and Marvel. But the whole point, the reason why it works and yes, the reason why he works so well in in song of Susanna, even though the book is hot trash, the reason why him writing himself into the book works is because the entire dark tower series is so meta. It is all about story. Like you have stuff from Harry Potter, Marvel, all different kinds of stuff popping up into the dark tower universe. And the Wizard of Oz is a heavy thing in there. They literally go to the Emerald, Emerald Castle, Emerald Kingdom, whatever the fuck it's called. They literally go there at one point in time and book four, I believe it is. So it's all about story. So him writing himself into his own story makes sense because he's freaked out when he sees his character show up at his door. It's like, you're my creation. Why are you here? And it also has a lot to say about authors who consider their work their babies and all this other stuff. And that weird, I find it weird anyways, that someone would take their creative venture and consider it their child. Well, I think it's less their child and more of their creation. I got that. Some people treat them like babies. I know. I know. But it's like, I kind of understand it because I have some characters where I'm like, I love you so much. You are amazing. I made you amazing. And I wish you were real. And it's just like, I think it's just like pride. And if someone were to disparage them, you'd probably get a little upset or if not a lot upset, right? See, I'm not like that. I think it's more just pride, honestly, and being like, this is a good thing that I did. And I know it's a good thing that makes sense because I'm not proud of too much. I'm just like, I look at things and I'm like, it's a thing. Yeah, I only have like, like two characters that I'm like, yeah, you're amazing. That's that's two more than me. So you're doing good. You're doing good. So yeah, Dr. Sleep. If you there's going to be spoilers here. I don't think you know, you've been sports. Yeah, you're never going to, but I'm going to talk deep spoilers. Yeah, I might, but I don't, I don't care. But generally don't care. For those of you who don't know, the ending of Dr. Sleep, the book is vastly, vastly different from Dr. Sleep, the movie because Flanagan's film is a sequel both to shining the book and shining the it's and the shining movie. He managed to blend them both together and give us the ending because he even did a, because in the film version of the shining, what's his face? I always forget his name, the old man, Dick Holler. I always want to call him Richard or Rob for some reason. Anyways, Dick, well, his name is Richard because his name is Dick. Anyways, but Dick dies in the shining, the movie, Kubrick's version, which I've always hated. And then doesn't make any sense. Honestly, it just, I mean, it literally comes out of nowhere because Jack just comes around the corner and he's like, oh, it's like, okay, he was just like, okay, I need to death in here with all that way. He didn't even get to tell Danny how I got caught in the chest. Anyways, it was, it's, it's, yeah, it's pointless at that point. Just take him out if you're just going to do him like that. That's how I feel. But Flanagan was able to, but Dr. Sleep, the book doesn't open because we open with what, Andrea, right? Do we open with Dan? No, I think he do. We open with Dan going through his bed. Second chapter. Yeah, it's the second chapter because we open with Dan in, give me the book, in the desktop. Yeah, exactly. With the baby with the full diaper. Yeah, lockbox, we open with Dan. It opens with Dan and we're to, we go through his spiral into, you know, he gets to the place where his father was and he's, and then we leave him after he hits rock bottom, after he wakes up underneath an overpass, something like that. He cleans himself up, so on and so forth, ends up in a little town where he, where he mans the, the little train that goes around, which is funny because if you go all the way over to the end over here, there's a children's book. Oh, yeah. Yeah. So the train is, that's from, that's Blaine the Pain from, from Wastelands and Wizard and Glass, which is a dark tower series. It's an ode to that anyways. Charlie the choo choo kind of deal. Anywho, but the, with, I forgot my train of thought where I was going with this, we were talking about the differences. So the, this one opens up, you know, you go, you go through the paces, you meet Abra, but it's at the point where there's the shootout at the park. That's where everything, after that, everything changes because in the book. I don't remember, I remember bringing up. Right. Dan and Abra end up going out to the location where the, to Sidewinder, Colorado, where the overlook burned down in, and, and then they fight, oddly enough, I think they fight Rose the Hat in a tree stand or something like that, some elevated thing. It was a horrible ending. One of the worst endings he's ever written and Stephen King's written some horrible, horrible fucking endings, but somehow Flanagan, I'm not going to say somehow because Flanagan said it wasn't all that hard. No, it's not that hard to be better than epic fantasy fight in fantasy. Yeah. It's not that hard. You got your overpowered superhero against Lex Luthor. You got Superman versus Lex Luthor. I mean, come on. We know how this is going to end. And it's not even that bad of a, it's not even that like hard of a train of thought to go to because literally you just think, okay, well in the movie, they didn't do the ending of the book. So what if I just do the end of your book? Right. Exactly. Um, with this one, Flanagan had the weight on his shoulders to be able to make a sequel to The Shining, a follow-up to it. Yeah, because if you made it, if he just made it this sequel to the book, then movie fans would be mad. And I don't think anyone would really care if he made it. Somehow he managed to make it. Yeah, I don't think anyone genuinely would care if he only made it a sequel to the movie, but he did make it a sequel to both. And that's why it's so good. Yeah. Because he didn't just go, okay, I'm just going to please the fans of the movie. I would like to make this good in comparison to the movie and the book. Right. Because I think where I think where he succeeded the most is that he wasn't trying to make a better film than The Shining. He made his own movie. Yeah. Yeah. He was just trying to do his own thing with the pre-existing right. Even the, even the Easter eggs or the throwbacks or whatever, some people didn't like the fact that they went back to the overload so on and so forth because I thought it's a good fan service. But he had to, he had to do something. And the crazy part is where he put the ending of The Shining, the book at the end of Dr. Sleep, the movie. Yeah. With the boiler and the sacrifice and all that stuff. I'm just sitting here. I'm like, that it's so, so brilliant. Mike Flanagan is killing it. I will watch anything. I haven't had time to watch his Netflix specials like The Haunting of So-and-So and the Haunting of whatever. Yeah. And Bly Manor or whatever. Bly Manor and I think of someone else. Let's turn to the, no. Flanagan was behind, yeah. Flanagan was behind that. First one was House on Haunted Hill, of course. And then the next one, Bly Manor was Turn of the Screw is what that's based on. I thought he did Hill House, not. He did both of them. He might not have directed, but he's the one who produced it. He's the same showrunner as it were. But I'm very upset that his revival isn't getting made, same as I was when I heard Josh Boone's revival isn't getting made. I want to see one of these directors do revival because they have such a passion for the source material. It's an amazing book. It's one of my favorites. That's the problem. I would love for you to read it eventually. I think that's the problem that probably came out of the Shining movies. He just didn't care. He just saw, he got the source material and he's like, okay, I'll make it a movie. He's a fan. He's a huge fan. Mike Flanagan is just a- No, Kubrick. Oh, Kubrick. Kubrick should have made his own- That's what I'm saying. I think what happened is he didn't actually really care. He was just like, okay, I got this. I'll go do something with it. Yeah, Stephen King said the problem with Kubrick is he didn't believe in ghosts. He didn't believe in magic. He didn't believe in any of that stuff. You had- Just funny because the movie is so often debated. Like, oh, is there ghosts or not? Literally, the freezer door is unlocked. What do you think? If there's not ghosts, then it's the invisible man. Yeah. There's an entity in the overlook and there's ghosts. And Danny is a battery. Like he said, that's exactly what happened there. So as far as Dr. Sleep, just like we did the last couple of times, we've done this. And there's more episodes to come. We were worried- Not worried. I was worried about getting this office done so that we can do this without any background noise or anything. There might be a slight echo. I'm not sure how good the audio is out here. But anyways, next week, we're going to be talking about the Hunger Games. We're going to be talking about- Dan has read all of them, even the prequel. No, not yet. I read the beginning of it and I gave up on it. Yeah. Because she has. I can find the audio book probably. Okay. So yeah, you can blow through it. It's not that long. Yeah. Because anyways, so we're going to be talking about the Hunger Games. That's why I didn't title this podcast slash video, so whatever you want to call it. I didn't call this Stephen King whatever or King theme because we're going to be talking about other things. Anyway, so Dan has listened- not listened. Watched the movies, read the books, listened the books, whatever. I have not read any of them. I'm not interested in them whatsoever, but I am interested in the cultural phenomenon of them. So I will be watching the movies. We should do the dumpster fire that is divergent. I hate those books. Did they make all the movies? Yeah, they made all of them. They did? Okay. Yeah. So here, if you- you've read all the divergent books? No, I read the first one, but we can rage about that one anyways. Okay. All right. I'm fine with whatever. We can just probably talk about like YA dystopian tropes or something next time. It doesn't have to just be Hunger Games. So we can start like this. We start talking about Dr. Sleep in the Shining and all of a sudden we're, you know, we're on other topics. So, but we've covered all of this stuff. In your opinion, so far out of all the stuff that you have read, I'm not sure if I've asked you this before. What's your favorite Stephen King or even his movies that you've seen? You may not- Well, I've read two books so far. So- Pet Cemetery and the Shining. Oh no, I had- I've read three of them. Because I did read- I've read Pet Cemetery. So I, I don't know. I put them all equal. It was the Carrie- It was Carrie, Pet Cemetery and the Shining. And you didn't get through- Didn't finish. Sleep. Dr. Sleep. Dr. Sleep. Okay. Because they're all good in their own ways. And I don't think it would be appropriate to rank them with each other. Why would you say what is it so far? What's your favorite? I don't know. So I'm saying I don't, I don't think that I could because they're all, they're all good in different ways. So it's not- Yeah, I don't bounce around on my favorite. My favorite is and will probably always be it, but I bounce around with like my number twos all the time. Like is it Pet Cemetery? I think I did like Carrie a lot. I think probably if I had to Carrie, but I like all of them pretty equally. Cool. Because I think Carrie is the one that I would reread again. You also have the guidance of this fan boy for a father and be like, ''Stay away from this trash.'' And that's probably the ones that Dan would probably go read. That's the, that's the funny part. No, I don't- No. Because I don't like rewatching things really. I would love- I don't like wasting my time. I like, I like just doing something that I know I'll like. That's why I just reread things so often. I would love for you to read Elevation. I have the audio book if you want to listen to it. I would love for you to read that one just so that we could discuss it, whether or not you like it or not. Because it is such an SJW dumpster fire. Like it is everything that, you know, everybody complains about, like on the conservative side of things. Mm-hmm. Every- Like the things that they complain about that don't actually exist. They just kind of think it does. It's like when, you know, when people try too hard. Mm-hmm. Like they're like keyboard warriors. Like they're not actually going to do anything to enact real change. They're just going to sit around and talk about it, right? So that's the kind of thing that I feel with Stephen King when he did that. He was like, oh guys, look, look how liberal I am. I'm so fantastic. I'm a wonderful person. I'm going to, I'm going to have this guy with the savior complex come in and save, save the lesbians. White savior. Yes. Lesbian savior. Anyways, but I had a problem with it on a very basic level. It just felt like that to me where he was just like waving his flag in there going, look at me, look at me. I'm an ally. And I just, but he's done it in other books so, so well, so much better that this one is such an anomaly for me. It's almost like he didn't write it. Honestly, because of the time period that I came out, that's probably literally what it is. It's probably literally him going, I gotta make sure people know. Honestly. The terrible person. Yes. It's funny. Another thing, there's a scene in Institute where, where two characters, one of them is, I think one of them is adult. And one of them is a preteen or young teen. And one of them makes a crack at like Trump or something like that. And they fist bump because, you know, right, right. That's the face. What? But, but here's the thing. There are people in the world like that. Like they, yeah, we both hate this person. Fist bump, you know, but there are people out there like that, right? So it is cringe, hella cringe. But there are people out there like that because, you know, Stephen King's like that. He's out there right now. He'd be the type of person to walk up to someone and go, fuck Trump, right? Yeah, you know, but it, and it's, it feels more, it doesn't feel like it comes from a place of authenticity. It feels like it comes from a place like, I want people to like me. Yeah. Performative activism. That's exactly what it feels. That's what it is. That's what it's called. Also from, you know, this is also coming from a person who has two videos up on his channel. One of them is, fuck Trump. But anyways, that was, that was just to get rid of like a certain subset of my, my viewers who are just, anyways, that's a whole other story. But the, I would like to, I would like for you to read Elevation. If you, if you hate it, I don't expect you to get any farther into it. It's a super short book. It's like, not even a hundred pages and the font. It's probably, it probably should be about 50 pages is what it should be if the font was normal. So it's basically a long short story is what it is. But he's, he's done these things better. I think the drawing of the three is one of the best books about civil rights ever written. And I don't think there's people out there right now, you know, especially not white folks rolling their eyes. But I think the interaction between Deda, Suzanne, whatever you want to call her, this woman has like a dozen different names. Throughout the course of the series, it's Deda, Odeda and Susanna. They call her Susanna at the point. But her being a civil rights activist and Roland being like the neutral. He has no idea about racism, any of the stuff. He's not even from this world. He's like, y'all are crazy. Are you trying to tell me that they hate you just because of the color of your skin? And then Eddie over here, who's from a completely different time because Deda is from like the sixties and seventies. Eddie's from the eighties. It's just these two, all these cultures really mashed together and it's one of the best I feel. As a white person who has no, you know, no dog in this fight, it felt like, it felt stronger than anything he's done recently. And that was one of the things that was strange about the casting of the Dark Tower movie that people were worried about. And it had nothing to do with the fact that they race swapped Idris, Roland and had Idris Ellis play. How are we going to do this, the second one where, you know, the whole point of the second one is, you know, the clash of these characters. It's easy. He just, he's not experienced it, you know. That's the problem that they had. I'm talking about the adaptation. That's what I'm saying. It's easy. If he's from a world where it doesn't exist and he's a dark guy, then going to like... No, but what I'm saying is Deda, one of the things that Deda is so pissed off about is these white men that she didn't got stuck with. That was like, yeah. So if Roland's black, you don't have that, you don't have that contrast. You get what I'm saying? Okay. And I guess they could have done with Eddie. Yeah, I mean, it's not like the other guy does. Right. And I'm not even saying... So it could be a thing where she's like, ah, this stupid white guy, and he's like, huh? What are you talking about? And she's like, what am I talking about? That's pretty much what happened. Eddie understands it because he's from our time. But Roland's from the world moved on and it's just not an issue anymore. Because you're worried about monsters and all that stuff. Honestly, I feel like it could be even funnier since he's played by a black actor now. And she's like, what do you mean you don't understand? It's racism. Okay, yeah. Look at you. Yeah. It's racism. It's not even like... I had a... I didn't even have an issue with it, but people didn't have an issue with it. And that's the same thing. Like, I think it could be more interesting than it was originally with him being white. It could be more interesting with her being like, look at you. What do you mean you don't understand? Hell of true. Exactly. It's just funny the way people get stuck on certain things. You know, when it has to be this thing, a character has to be these things. But yeah, the going back with... We get off on... I get off on tangents and I take you with me. I understand that. Trust me. I'm not saying we. I get off on tangents and I take you with me. But for me, oddly enough, I'm going to say something possibly a little controversial. I... It's a book no one cares. I like... Huh? It's a book no one really cares. No, no, no. It's... It's not a book. That's the thing. I like Dr. Sleep the movie more than The Shining Book, The Shining Movie. Oh yeah, definitely. I like it more. I think Flanagan's film is better than anything King Kubrick any of them did. Yeah, it's just objectively good. Like people are always like, Art is subjective. Yes, but on the other hand, if you compare a little doodle that a one-year-old did to like a painting by like a seasoned painter, obviously one is better than the other. And that's what this is. It's obviously just in so many ways. Like you can like things better than the other. Like I... Tales, not tales. The pre-sequel of the Borderlands games. Terrible game, but it's my favorite. Like two is objectively the first. It's map design. It's just boring other than the story, but that's unrelated. But it's just... No, it's really... I... It's interesting to me. Art is subjective, but it is also objective in different ways. Like you can't... You can look at a movie that has like terrible writing, terrible acting, terrible cinematography, just everything and just be like, Yeah, I like this, but this movie is better. There's no question about it. You can really say that it is better. If you want to say objectively, Mike Flanagan's film is good. It is well shot. There aren't any gaping plot holes that I can think of. I'm sure somebody will say, Oh, but that was just... I'm sure there'll be something, but it's objectively a good experience. And it's better than the book. I don't think that can really be argued, honestly. Because if people say it's poorly shot, it's whatever, it's poorly written. Objectively, no. I don't think there's... I don't think... It's beautiful and the acting is amazing. Like the whole time we were watching in theaters, because no one was around, because we got to it so late, but I was like, Oh my God. Because I kept noticing the... What's his face? So I was playing Danny. Like he was mimicking... Jack. Yeah, yeah. He was mimicking the way that he acted as Jack. And then when Auburn was like... Yeah, him. When Auburn was possessed by Danny, she was mimicking him too, because it was Danny, and Danny's actor was acting the way that his father's acting. It's good. It's so interesting. I don't want to say object. Change the relationship. Because it still is our subjective opinions about how good it is. Now there's gonna be people who don't like it, and it's gonna be a subjective thing. I'm trying to think... I had something on the tip of my tongue about the objectively. I don't think there's anything wrong with the film. I don't know. Maybe we still can't say objectively. We probably can't say objectively. Okay, at the least it's better than the book, because I feel like there are things that you can say. I feel like he fixed everything that was bad about both properties. Let's put all three properties. Let's say three properties. You have the Shining, King's Shining, Kubrick's Shining, King's Doctor Sleep, Flannigan's Doctor Sleep. He fixed those three that he had nothing to do with. Every single problem they had, he fixed. Yeah, because it's not like the Shining book was bad. It's just better than it because of the things that it did. It's not like it's better than it because one is bad and one is good. It's just not even higher quality. It's just it did more things that gave it room to be better because it had more room to grow and actually be better. While the Shining was very contained within itself with very cute characters, it was in one location the entire thing. It had a very set story with the Doctor Sleep movie. It's not like all over the place, but it has a lot more characters and it moves a lot more. And it has the themes from the Shining get expanded upon a little bit more in that, too. And the only thing that I wish Flannigan would have done that King didn't do in Doctor Sleep, or I wish that King would have done in Doctor Sleep is give us a little more like with the entity because when the when the overlook is burning down, this like black backwing shadow comes flying out of it. And you also hear like roaring and whatnot. That's not uptight. It's kind of like what they were trying to do in Pet Sematary when he's going to bury whichever one, but at the very end. Yes. And he sees like the stupid face. It's but like he's in the book. It's like he he's hearing like the noises and stuff and that it's kind of like what he did there. Yeah, because that's like it's not ever explicitly. Yeah, it's like it's all about Louis's fear. He's noticing it. He's like, hmm, there's something going on. Something is going on. Yeah, exactly. But it's like the topiary animals. Once again, there's something going on. I just don't know what the fuck it is. Yeah, I think that's more scary than if they had got up and jumped at him or anything because it's like it's. I just wish there was something like that in Doctor Sleep. I wish I wish there was a sign that there that there's an entity that is not anthropomorphized like the not anthropomorphized either but like, you know, the two not are humans. You know, the the truth put into something to be there. I wish there was something that wasn't human. You know that I guess they kind of did it at the end when he was being possessed because you could tell that it it wasn't him. But at the same time it's still. Oh, yeah, that does happen. It's still having like a shell to put the the fear into. It's still like, OK, what am I scared of? I'm scared of Danny because he's being possessed. So with the topiary animals, it's more like, what am I scared of the topiary animals? Why? I'm not sure. But something's going on. But with Danny being possessed, it's more, I know why I'm scared of him because this is happening. But with the other stuff, it's like, I'm scared of this. Not quite sure why. But I know something is making me scared because of it. And throughout the throughout the entirety of the Stephen King universe, you find these entities and these things that feed on fear. Yeah. Pennywise is, of course, the biggest one everybody points at. But you also have the true not. They suck the steam out of you, but you taste so much better when you're scared. Because it's so much more. I actually like that a lot because yeah, I feel like it's kind of like monsters inked in that way. We're like, because I think it's probably less the fear and probably more the overload of emotion. I think the writers were fans of it. Maybe, but I think it's more probably the if you really looked into it or tried to give a reason to it, it would be the overload of emotion. And fear is easier to overload. Fear or sadness or anything negative is more easy to overload than happiness because you have to you have to do a lot more to overload someone with just being so happy. And that's like that's the plot of monsters ink. And like you see by the end that they've gone to like telling jokes and stuff to get that that fuel. But it does make sense why. Also animals can animals can sense when you're afraid. Because you let off the, you know, pheromones or certain things in either your sweat or whatever exudes from you. Animals can tell when you're frightened. They can also tell like just when we're happy too. Because I know with our animals, when we're happy about stuff, they jump up and they're like, whoa, what's going on? You guys are happy. What are we happy about? She's like, oh, what do we celebrate? You know, it's like my sister laughing. Like my sister will laugh and go, wait, what's funny? It does make a lot of sense within the story. It's like, why does that add so much to the experience? Well, it's because there's more going on when it's just someone sitting there like and you're eating their soul and nothing's happening. But when they're also scared, there's more. There's literally more going on. Nothing's happening. I love that she said, you're just eating their soul and nothing's happening. Oh, this, this soul is so blasé. Yeah, that's great. Yeah, it's a very cool, just a little added feature. Yeah. Like it also opens the opportunity for like the opposite of that. We're like, they're like happy vampire feeders. Like they just feed off of that. They just suck up. They just show up the birthday party. That's what I was just about to say. They show up that kid's birthday party. He's like, whoo. He's like, yay, I'm so full. Now I can go hibernating for 27 years. Oh, that's great. Or they show up at like weddings and stuff. Well, I should, I should write something like that. Something that feeds off happiness. Yeah. Like instead of, but an evil entity that feeds off happiness. Like it doesn't make them sad. Like it doesn't make them sad. That's what a clown is. It's a, that's what a clown is. Oh, well, I mean, but it was still. I'm not saying it. Sucking fear down. But when I'm saying it, I can't do a clown. It's a big thing. Who feeds off happiness. People are like, this dude's just trying to do over a first birthday life. I'm saying my, from my fear of clowns perspective, that is a, that's what clowns aren't. Clowns are an evil entity. That's wearing a really creepy mask. And it's like, I'm going to make you so happy that you explode, man. I'm going to make you so happy that you just die. You just pop like a balloon. Yeah. I'm going to make you explode and get your heart attack. You know, I wish, I wish I had, I wish I had existed before John Wayne Gacy to find out if, because you look back at like the, from the 20s and whatnot, those clowns were horrible. People love clowns, but they're terrifying. But those clowns look right. They look terrifying back then. That's why people always like, they try to like give, explain my fear of clowns. They're like, oh, it's because of this and horror movie clowns and John Wayne Gacy. No, it's because if I look at that, that is not human. That is strange. There is something going on behind that. Yes, yes. It's like the uncanny valley. Yes. But that's the thing. Gross. If you don't know, it's like, it's like right now with, you know, everybody wearing masks, you don't know what they're doing behind those masks. You know, you don't know what lies. It's not as bad because it's literally half of your face. It's not like a whole bodysuit and paint and everything. With clowns, it's like this whole costume and get up. I'm like, what are you hiding? But with masks, it's just like, it's just half of your face on. Yeah, but people have been talking to me and I've been sitting like, sticking my tongue out at him and whatnot and just making goofy things. There was a guy on a TikTok who said, this is going to be me once I can go back to work without a mask. And it's literally, yeah, someone else is talking to him. He's like, mouthing, I gotta tell people because since they can't see me, he's like mouthing their words, like mocking them. And they're like, dude, what are you doing? He's like, I thought, I don't have my mask on. And then, you know, he does like a tongue stick out and whatnot. He's like, this is going to be the issue when I take them, when the mask come off. And it's true because I've been doing that to people too. I've been like, I'm just like, I'm staring right at him. I'm like, I'm doing all kinds of weird stuff, but I'm being quiet. But yeah, definitely there's that, I just wonder if before John Wayne Gacy, if there were people who were like, what clowns terrify me? Because children have always been scared of clowns. I'm sure there were. It just, he kind of amplified that. I'm sure it was a lot, not a lesser fear, but a fear that wasn't taken as seriously. Like the fear of the dark. I feel like that's just one of those things where people were more like, it's just a clown. It's just a guy in a costume. It doesn't really matter. But then after that, people are like, oh, I see what you're talking about now. I see. Yeah, because this one's over here eating peepee. Like literally, he's over there eating peanuts. So like not in a good way. He's over there like chopping them off. And he, you know, it's the clown anyway. But the- That's why I'm not scared of like Pennywise or like Arthur Clown or anything. Because I look at those and I see a horror monster. I don't see something that is hiding something. I just see, yeah, just, I can see it. And I see that it is trying to scare me. But the thing with clowns is, it's not trying to scare me, but it is. It's trying to do the exact opposite. It's trying to make it happen. Which is a very controlling, terrifying. That's a very controlling thought when you think about it. You have no control over that fear. And it's a completely irrational fear. It's kind of like me with dolls. Yeah. I have never, ever. And Child's Play was one of my favorite series of all time. But there's something, and I can do evil dolls. Yeah, because they look evil. Yes, exactly. It's not like a porcelain doll that you'd see in your great-great-grandmother's attic. Exactly. Exactly. You look at Chucky and you go, okay, that is a doll that was designed to be scary. But this little motherfucker sit, this porcelain- No, I'm not pointing at anything. Sorry. They're looking over, like, I'm just pointing up into, like, a make-believe. Yeah. This creepy motherfucker, it's smiling at exactly. It's up to something. It's a doll. It's an inanimate object. It's not going to come out. At least with clowns. I know that it is a human that has the possibility to- To cause you harm. It's like me with spiders. Like, there are spiders out there that will kill you. So it's kind of a rational fear. But most of them won't. It's true. It's true. Well, you see where it all comes from. And people, I guess I'm letting my history out here. But when I was a kid, another kid locked me into a doll closet that was infested with spiders. So it was dolls, spider webs, spiders everywhere. And I was stuck in there for almost an hour, pressed up against the door, just shivering. And until finally, his dad let me out because I was literally banging on it, but he'd been out gardening. So he finally came back in and heard me banging. Came in and said, what's going on? And I ran out of the house screaming. I never went back over there again, never saw him again, never went anywhere near him. Because the kid didn't even go to my school. He was just a youth group friend, or quote unquote friend that I had that I was playing with. I had some terrible friends, man. Anyways, but yeah, he put me in there and locked me in. I'm not even sure how he did it if he jammed something in there. But I couldn't get out. But his dad just came and just opened it right up. Unless, you know what? Now that I think about it. It might have just been big brain panicking and not thinking outside the door. There might have been a lock on the outside of the door. And his dad might have done that to him. That might have been what I just thought about that, man. 30 years later, I'm thinking about this. Holy cr- Anyways, we're not going to get in. This isn't, you know, E's trauma cast. We're not going to go through all of my stuff. But is there anything else that you want to talk about as far as the shining Doctor Sleep? Or anything else, Stephen King? Because it might be a while before we talk about King again. Is there anything- I don't think- I haven't watched or read enough to have anything opinion outside of what we talked about. I think I already yelled about everything. I already yelled about everything. Okay, so I guess we're done for this episode. It's- we're at 53 minutes. I thought we were actually closer to 20. No, no. Because when we stopped talking about the book, it had only been like 30 minutes, I think. Okay. Well, that's it for this episode of Dan E. Cast. If you guys want to see video- Dan doesn't like being on camera, but if you want to see video of me while we're doing these things, if you want to see my sweaty fat ass sitting over here in the corner, because that's exactly what's happening right now because we have to have the air conditioning off. If you want to see that, let me know if you're fine with these things being just audio, or if you want them up on a podcast site somewhere like iTunes or whatever. Let me know down there in the doobly-doo. But until next time, I have been E. You have been U. Dan has been- Yeah. Yeah. We'll talk to you guys later. Bye-bye!