he White Lotus Season 3 has finished and we have opinions! Differing opinions so listen through the podcast to catch those. On this episode Screen Babble takes on two significant TV and film institutions - Great British drama and Disney Live Action.
Matt talks us through some of the big hitters of the year so far, namely Adolescence and Toxic Town. The team tell us what their favourite British drama of all time has been so some decent tips in there for upcoming viewing.
Benji has been busy on Canva creating wonderful graphics for a...podcast. But did you know you can catch us on Daily Motion and Shotstv.com? But don't worry if listening is your preference Benji gives a great description of the visual aids he uses to prove that Disney Live Action is a troubled space.
Finally, we get to The White Lotus, so much to say and so little time.
Matt talks us through some of the big hitters of the year so far, namely Adolescence and Toxic Town. The team tell us what their favourite British drama of all time has been so some decent tips in there for upcoming viewing.
Benji has been busy on Canva creating wonderful graphics for a...podcast. But did you know you can catch us on Daily Motion and Shotstv.com? But don't worry if listening is your preference Benji gives a great description of the visual aids he uses to prove that Disney Live Action is a troubled space.
Finally, we get to The White Lotus, so much to say and so little time.
Category
đŸ“º
TVTranscript
00:00Hello and welcome back to Screen Babble. Today we're looking at great British drama and Disney
00:18live action. Rather polar opposites in the world of viewing, but both institutions in
00:23their own right. And oh my God, White Lotus has finished season three. More on that later.
00:29I'm your host Kelly Creighton and I'm joined as usual by TV critics Benjamin Jackson and
00:35Matt Mohn-Hickson to tell us what's hot and what's not. Remember, if you want to see our
00:40faces you can head over to ShotsTV.com, which is brought to you by a network of journalists
00:44across the country who are transforming stories at the heart of your community into great
00:48TV. You'll find true crime stories, football news and analysis, plus coverage of lifestyle
00:54TV, film and much more. Screen Babble is now a monthly podcast with longer run times
01:00where we'll take you through the best in TV and film. It's been a hectic 2025 to date.
01:06We were just comparing notes on that, in fact, before we started recording. So we wanted
01:09to draw a breath and consider some big programs that have hit our screens in recent times.
01:15We've a soft spot for British drama here, so that's what we're talking about. Finally,
01:20we're going to talk White Lotus. We watched the finale last night. Spoilers alert for
01:25later in the pod. I should say we're going to do a big piece on Disney live action as
01:28well. Missed out on my script for some reason.
01:30No, that's all right. We'll get around to it. We'll get around to it. It's White Lotus,
01:34isn't it?
01:35Benji's got a lot to say about it, so we're good.
01:37When have I not?
01:39Yes. Hello, both of you.
01:41No, no, no. I was going to say, much better now the White Lotus is done.
01:46Oh, dear. We're going to have, I think we need to allocate more time in the podcast
01:51to that than we had on the script.
01:52I need to just zip my mouth up until we get to that, because there's already a couple
01:57of rants in play for the live action Disney stuff.
01:59Oh, hilarious.
02:00If you wanted an angry New Zealand episode of a podcast out there this month. Bye, Jolly.
02:06You've got it.
02:07Oh, buckle in, folks. We're in for a rollercoaster ride today.
02:10OK, so before we start all the bitching, we're going to talk about great British drama.
02:15Matt, we're here for the genre, but particularly we like a standalone limited series that leaves
02:20us talking, feeling, thinking.
02:24And there's been a lot of this recently.
02:26I mean, namely and most potently, adolescence has obviously been a huge thing since we last
02:33had a podcast out.
02:35It's broken all sorts of Netflix records.
02:38Another Netflix show recently that's been doing good numbers is Toxic Town, which is
02:44sort of what British TV does best, you know, telling those extraordinary human stories.
02:50But yeah, talk to us, Matt, a little bit about adolescence.
02:53Obviously it's been kind of everywhere.
02:55If you haven't seen it yet, give us a rough idea what it's about.
02:59Yeah, so I mean, I think unless you've been living under a rock, you've probably heard
03:03of adolescence in some form or another.
03:06You probably made up your mind on it.
03:08I know there's been endless discourse.
03:11So yeah, it's basically about a 13 year old boy who murders his classmates and it follows,
03:20it's all filmed in like one take, that's like sort of the unique of it, like it's meant,
03:24you know, so it's all one continuous shot and it follows sort of four days over the
03:29course of about a year.
03:31So there's his day when he's arrested, there's the police are looking for murder weapon and
03:37motive at the school, there's him meeting with a counsellor to talk, you know, sort
03:44of she's trying to get a sense of why he did it as well.
03:47And then it's sort of the family's, the impact on his family's life about a year after he's
03:55been jailed and, you know, trying to reckon with the fact that their kids did this absolutely
04:01horrible act.
04:02It's obviously very timely.
04:04Knife crime is something that's been in the news a lot recently.
04:09It's an emotive topic, isn't it?
04:11I think they handle it well.
04:14I know there's been a lot of reactionary reaction to adolescence has been, you know, people
04:21convinced that it was like race swapped and it was based on that, you know, the stabbing
04:25of the children in, was it Southport?
04:28Yeah, yeah, Southport, when it obviously isn't because it's very different, but yeah, it's
04:36very timely.
04:37It's about online radicalisation of young men and that sort of toxic manosphere, atmosphere
04:45that's popular in some circles of the internet.
04:48I mean, I don't think everyone is, not every single teenage boy has been into this stuff,
04:54but it's out there, isn't it?
04:55Like Andrew Tate and all those sort of like, yeah, those people that are promising, you
05:01know, wealth and power and just, you know, sort of look at women in disposable ways,
05:07sort of like that classic old school style of like patriarchy and misogyny of sort of
05:13seeing women as objects and yeah, and it's very emotive, obviously.
05:19That's why I think it's got everyone talking, but I think the one take, so if you're not
05:24familiar, one takes where they don't do any cuts.
05:26So if you watch TV or film, a cut is when they finish the scene, they cut to a different
05:31angle or, so if we were doing this podcast, I would be speaking, then Benji speaks, it
05:37cuts to Benji, whereas with adolescence, it just films all the moves.
05:42It's really, really impressive how they pulled it off, you know, the way it moves around
05:47and I think it helps ground it as well.
05:50It doesn't make it feel like your traditional kind of life.
05:53Makes it more real.
05:54Yeah.
05:55Yeah.
05:56I mean, I don't know about you, Matt, but I, cause I watched it and I, I used to go
06:00to the theatre quite a lot back bygone eras, it kind of felt like, now I know that you
06:08might get to it, they're talking about having it shown in schools.
06:11Do you think that also the possibility is that they could turn it into like a stage
06:15adaptation based on the one shot kind of premise?
06:18Yeah.
06:19I mean, I think particularly that third episode with the, with the psychiatrist, that's very
06:24like, you know, it's very, you know, yeah, I think possibly, but I think as the TV show,
06:35it works perhaps better than it would as a play, maybe.
06:38I think there's something about the way the camera moves that, for me, this is just my
06:43personal interpretation, but for me, I felt like the camera was a haunting presence, almost
06:50as if the victim's haunting presence there.
06:53Yeah, absolutely.
06:54I think the funny thing is what, you're watching it and then you kind of forget that it's the
06:59one shot.
07:00And then when you remember it's the one shot, you're like, how are they doing this?
07:03Like this is phenomenal acting, you know, cause there's, there's maybe in the whole
07:07four episodes, there's maybe one or two tiny bits where you're like, oh, that pause was
07:12too long or something like that, you know?
07:14But I mean, that's a matter of opinion as well.
07:17And then they actually do incredibly technical and difficult things to do.
07:21Like where they hand off the camera from a handheld to a drone.
07:26And it's unbelievable.
07:27Like the.
07:28It's so seamless as well, isn't it?
07:30Yeah.
07:31It doesn't, yeah.
07:32It doesn't feel labored.
07:33It feels organic.
07:34Totally.
07:35And I guess there's an element of innovation there.
07:37Obviously it was the same, I think it was the same director that did Boiling Point.
07:42One shot with Stephen Graham, which in itself as well was mad and I think much harder to
07:49coordinate because it was in a kitchen, you know, and there was more people and there
07:53was lots of things going on, whereas in most of the scenes, except the school setting,
08:00there's just kind of two people or three people maybe.
08:02And it's very conversational, you know, but it's still mind boggling how they do that.
08:08And I think you're right.
08:09It just adds the kind of gravity to the thing.
08:10It makes it more real.
08:12You're kind of in the room with them.
08:14And I found that third, the third episode with the counselor, oh, it was so uncomfortable
08:20watching it.
08:21It was just like and anything that makes you crawl in your own skin or like, you know,
08:28as I always say, I love when something makes me shout with the telly, but it's kind of
08:30the opposite.
08:31But I also love it, too, because make you really feel a very strong emotion, you know.
08:36But yeah, I think you're right about it's all that stuff.
08:38It's all the manosphere and toxic culture and all that.
08:41But I think there was other very nuanced elements to it as well about the education system,
08:47you know, about traditional female roles and how women portray those as well.
08:53You know, there was obviously the role of the parent, you know, what was their role
08:57in the whole thing and their responsibility and what I mean, they deal with that quite
09:00obviously and not so so nuanced.
09:03And people have said, isn't it a bit of a disgrace that it's taken a Netflix documentary
09:07or Netflix series to prompt this conversation, which was a bit like Mr. Bates versus the
09:12Post Office.
09:13Yeah, it's 100% like Mr. Bates, because I remember when Private Eyes started investigating
09:19about the post office drama, and it's a bit of a shame that it took an ITV series for
09:25it to be brought to the public attention.
09:28They did the same thing.
09:29It's a moral panic when I grow up about music.
09:32Oh, why aren't parents watching what their kids will find a way to get this information?
09:38Whether parents have a choice that they do so or not.
09:41Yeah, I know that it's always we should be, the parents should be held responsible for
09:47the content that their kids are viewing.
09:50But with the plethora of ways that we access information these days, let's be honest, it's
09:54kind of hard in our day when we'd have our mom, you know, walk up, turn the TV off, because
10:00we never had a mobile phone or a tablet to pick up that information as well.
10:04Back to, you know, that whole, you know, we wanted to talk about Great British Drama.
10:08So we've had Adolescence, another big hitter thus far this year has been Toxic Town, also
10:15from Netflix.
10:16Also from the same writer as Adolescence, yeah, it's that James Bond guy who also did
10:21the Harry Potter stage play, I think.
10:23Wow, that's a bit of a departure.
10:26That's a very eclectic body of work.
10:29It's interesting with Toxic Town, because that's the more traditional version of this
10:34kind of, like, British messaging show, whereas, obviously, Adolescence has the one take thing
10:40that sets it apart.
10:41And it's very concentrated on a modern issue, you know, whereas a lot of Great British Drama
10:46is very traditional, sort of.
10:49Retrospective as well, isn't it, sort of, this has happened, not so much this is happening.
10:55So Toxic Town is about the Corby waste, toxic waste scandal where babies were being malformed,
11:05you know, like, because of the toxic waste from the sort of the plant that was in Corby,
11:11which is in Northamptonshire, I think, somewhere around there.
11:15Yeah, I mean, I think if anyone hasn't watched it yet, it's great.
11:18Like it's, you know, it is a very straightforward, good lawyer comes in, helps them out, you
11:23know, et cetera, et cetera.
11:25And you see into their lives and the effect that this lack of concern and care by the
11:30local council and the businesses they worked with to develop this bit of land.
11:36It's only four episodes long.
11:38And it's, I would say, like, Mr. Bates versus the Post Office was really an excellent production.
11:45I think they, again, looked at the characters in a bit more detail and it was a bit more
11:49nuanced.
11:51I mean, obviously it was Toxic Town is about it's over about 12 years, I think maybe 12
11:56or 14 years.
12:04There's just something about Mr. Bates.
12:06It was just a different level.
12:07Now that was an ITV production, obviously.
12:10And ITV really do, you know, that sort of British drama stuff really well.
12:15Toxic Town was for me was missing something.
12:17It was maybe just a bit too straightforward, a little bit too superficial.
12:22Mr. Bates just had a bit more.
12:24I don't think I ever cried during Toxic Town, but I definitely cried during Mr. Bates more
12:28than once.
12:29You know, the cry amateur.
12:34But that's not to say it's not a good, it's a good educational program, but yeah.
12:38It's a good watch, but it's not, it's not going to shake you in the same way as like
12:42Mr. Bates versus the Post Office or Adolescents.
12:46So I think we need to, I think we need to rein it in and each of us say what was our
12:51favourite British drama of all time?
12:55Who wants to go first?
12:56Oh, that's a big ask, eh?
12:59Matt?
13:00You want me to go?
13:01Tap three, if you, if you like.
13:03Well, I will go with Threats.
13:07That's in the news.
13:08Apparently they're remaking that.
13:09They are remaking it.
13:10Yeah, they are.
13:11I saw that as well.
13:12It's got a lot of history.
13:13And honestly, like that's been a decade, 15 years since I watched it and it's still, like
13:18seething.
13:19I've never watched it.
13:20Got to try that.
13:21Okay, go on.
13:22It's horrible, but it's really good.
13:23Maybe not the current political climate, Kelly, but you know.
13:29Then Line of Duty.
13:30I'd say Line of Duty for the first four and a half seasons, I think until Stephen Graham's
13:35departure in season five, no spoilers or whatever, that is when the show goes a bit off the rails.
13:43But before that, it is really, really, really good.
13:44Again, a lot of chat about that up here yesterday, that is potentially going to be back again
13:49soon.
13:50But anyway, go on.
13:51Yeah.
13:52And then I'm going to go with a bit of a wild card show, Ripper Street, which people might
13:56not have heard of.
13:57Yeah, interesting.
13:58Yeah, I've heard of it.
13:59Yeah.
14:00And that got, it was BBC originally, wasn't it?
14:01And then it went to Amazon Prime and yeah, I think it recently got added to Netflix as
14:05well.
14:06It's really, really good.
14:07It's really compelling.
14:08Yeah.
14:09Cool.
14:10Okay.
14:11Yeah.
14:12Yeah.
14:13Yeah.
14:14Some of your fave actors.
14:15Yeah.
14:16Okay.
14:17Benji, where were you?
14:18Uh, the original Life on Mars before it got absolutely destroyed by, uh, the American
14:21remake.
14:22No, I liked John Simms a lot and I will always love John Simms from his role in 24 hour party
14:28people where he played Barney from New Order.
14:31So whenever I used to watch Life on Mars, it's like, oh, I better check out some New
14:34Order.
14:35Um, I noticed you've got Russell T Davies in your list, so do I.
14:39I think the, I think Queer as Folk was a fantastic landmark moment in English drama.
14:46It kind of normalized kind of gay characters on TV.
14:50It made them look as ridiculous as this sounds.
14:53But back in the day there was a caricature sometimes and I think with Queer as Folk it
14:59actually showed that just normal people, where it's just their sexual preferences are different
15:04than straight persons.
15:07And uh, for my third pick, it's gotta be Utopia, if you recall that Channel 4 series
15:13it ran for two seasons, about a bunch of people that find a mysterious comic book manuscript
15:19which is said to detail the future of the world, and two people from a shadowy government
15:25organization tracking people down to try and find said manuscript.
15:30It only lasted for two seasons, absolutely despicable that it happened.
15:35America tried to do their own version like they did with the Inbetweeners and yeah, Life
15:42on Mars, Queer as Folk and Utopia, definitely my top three.
15:45It's hard though.
15:46It is a hard one.
15:47Britain does drama very, very well.
15:50Very well.
15:51Yeah, absolutely.
15:52Yeah.
15:53I struggled with this as well, but I had to go with Happy Valley, just one of the singular
15:56greatest female characters of all time on British TV and Russell T Davies, I couldn't
16:02decide between it's a sin or years and years.
16:04What I love about Russell T Davies, despite the fact that I don't ever watch Doctor Who
16:07is that element of sci-fi or fantasy, there's always a little something in there, maybe
16:14not so much in it's a sin, years and years had it a bit though with the whole dystopian
16:17thing.
16:18Oh yes, yes, definitely.
16:19He just brings a kind of a otherworldly element to things sometimes, which I kind of love
16:23being a sort of a fantasy fan from way, way back in the day.
16:28And then a couple of honorable mentions, The Split, I just thought was the best writing.
16:31I loved it.
16:33I just, I loved, I always say I love what they didn't see on that program.
16:38They didn't feel like they take splay in everything, which I really found refreshing.
16:42And then I thought we need to mention EastEnders and Casualty because these are absolutely
16:47bread and butter drama in the UK.
16:49So that was supposed to be a really quick take on our fave British drama, but it went
16:53on for like five minutes.
16:55Me and Matt, me and Matt only got the opportunity for three, but he was a producer role, circumvented
17:02I don't know what six.
17:05No love for Heartbeat between the three of us either, no love for Nick Gary.
17:09And I was surprised there was no Shetlands or Broadchurches or anything like that in
17:12there.
17:13But anyway, they fall into a particular genre, don't they?
17:16Yeah, they do.
17:17They do.
17:18Oh, okay.
17:19I enjoyed that.
17:20Brilliant.
17:21We're going to have to revisit that again someday, I think.
17:22So now moving along to Disney live action.
17:24So we were talking recently about the fact that, you know, there's the Snow White and
17:30Seven Dwarfs just came out again.
17:33So we're moving across the pond to the institution that is Disney and the more latter day endeavors
17:38with live action remakes of beloved Disney feature length animated films.
17:42Think Aladdin, Cinderella and more recently Mufasa and Snow White.
17:46There's been a lot of controversy around Snow White, Benji, which we'll come to, but talk
17:50to us first about how this live action trend has evolved and how successful it's been or
17:56otherwise.
17:57Yeah, look, it's it's very kind of a mixed bag.
18:01I remember when they first started talking about the amalgamation between live action
18:07and CGI.
18:08Now, me being a child, I was I was born in the 80s, but I think late 80s, early 90s,
18:14you could really say were my formative years.
18:16I remember how excited I was when Who Framed Roger Rabbit first came out which was an amalgamation
18:23of traditional hand-drawn animation meets live action.
18:27So I think I understand the appeal of doing a live action Disney remake.
18:33What I don't understand is how many that they have to trot out.
18:37I mean, we'll take a look at some figures.
18:40So it's purely data driven.
18:41We'll get to a tier list, which is a personal choice.
18:45So I'm waiting for a couple of arguments there.
18:47Personal and informed, yeah.
18:49But I think it's the same situation with music.
18:52That's the same situation with say art, it's the same situation with television.
18:57Something does really well.
18:59That's kind of a little bit off the beaten path.
19:01Everyone sees how well it does.
19:03And suddenly there is a huge pivot towards we need to do all of that.
19:08A great example of this would be the Marvel Cinematic Universe, my lawyers have told me
19:12in my humble opinion.
19:13I thought you were going to say my lawyers have told me not to talk about this anymore.
19:18I thought you must have a red dot on your forehead.
19:20What?
19:21I don't...
19:22Oh, God, no, I thought...
19:25Wait a minute, wait a minute, wait a minute.
19:28Draw the curtains, everybody.
19:29Hold on.
19:30I see some guy with crazy mouses up there on my roof pointing something at me.
19:37So the Marvel Cinematic Universe pivoted from the serious kind of nature of the early Iron
19:42Man Avengers films.
19:45And then Guardians of the Galaxy came out and Thor, which was completely irreverent
19:49and offbeat.
19:50And then suddenly it felt like every single superhero movie had to have this kind of time
19:55to grow.
19:56I think that's the last time I watched any of it was Guardians of the Galaxy.
19:58I think I foresaw the shortcomings and just stopped there.
20:03But go on, sorry.
20:05You've got a generation of people that grew up with it and would like to see how they
20:10do the animated pieces in CGI, and then you've got that sector of people that have never
20:18experienced it first time round, perhaps never grew up with, like the Lion King, at the cinema,
20:25and they've got the opportunity now to relive things.
20:28Now, so me and Matt had a really interesting conversation before the podcast about the
20:32trouble with live-action films, because if you do a shot-for-shot remake, then people
20:37are going to complain that there's no differentiation between the original and the new one.
20:43But then if you do something that slightly deviates from the script, like for White,
20:48for example, you can't win because you're upsetting the traditionalists.
20:52And then you've got all the contrarians like myself that think that live-action films,
20:56much like the superhero genre, maybe needs a little bit of a break.
21:02And the box office figures themselves kind of indicate that as well.
21:06Yeah.
21:07Shall I bring up some fancy little artwork that we've been doing?
21:10Love to see that.
21:11We do love a visual aid.
21:13Por favor.
21:14There we go.
21:15Right.
21:16So I, this morning, have included the latest box office for...
21:20There we go.
21:21Oh, look at that.
21:22I didn't even realize I could do that.
21:23I did that.
21:24I did that.
21:25I edited it.
21:26I did it.
21:27Wow.
21:28Well, you made it, but I just put it on the screen.
21:29But there you go.
21:30How exciting.
21:31Look at this.
21:32We all made it.
21:33It was a communal thing.
21:34So starting from 101 Dalmatians, which let's be honest, I know they had live dogs, but
21:41in theory it's considered the first live-action remake.
21:46You can see Snow White has just taken, if I remember correctly, just over 150 million
21:53at the box office.
21:54So that's probably the worst alongside 102 Dalmatians, is that right?
21:58Well, you know, if we were going to do a music podcast, I'd compare it to Will Smith's new
22:01album, you know, which, unlike Will Smith, doesn't slap.
22:05But, uh, according to...
22:07I stole that joke, eh?
22:10But you can see, so the interests there, Alice in Wonderland, which would be quite interesting
22:17to see as a live-action film because of the characters such as the hair, the mouth, you
22:24know, all of those bits.
22:25And it's a Tim Burton movie, so Tim Burton doing Disney, there's an appeal to it.
22:30Jungle Book, again, did quite well.
22:33There's only two movies that hit the billion mark, though, or surpassed it.
22:39Beauty and the Beast that we've been talking about, and The Lion King.
22:44But you look at things, say, follow-ups like Mufasa didn't do too well, Alice Through the
22:49Looking Glass didn't do too well.
22:52My theory is that once you've seen how they've approached animating the anthropomorphic characters
23:00in CGI, has the charm then gotten lost?
23:04Because I did not like The Lion King.
23:07I know it's controversial, I preferred Aladdin to The Lion King, because once you got over
23:12the fact that it was animals talking to each other, the reality kind of just...
23:20The disbelief of reality wasn't there anymore, I kind of felt like I was waiting for David
23:23Attenborough at one point to make a comment about it.
23:28I have never seen any of these films, and I would consider myself to be, like I would
23:35watch a lot of big films, do you know what I mean?
23:37The Little Mermaid and Mufasa did actually appeal to me, so I don't know, maybe the worm
23:42is turning, but maybe if they keep going, eventually they'll get people on board.
23:47I suppose, like you, I'm from an era of, it was just animation, you know what I mean?
23:53Back in the day, and I think I just don't want them to mess with that.
23:56You know, why fix it if it's not broken?
24:04Even though I know that's not a real thing in film and TV, because remakes can do quite
24:10well in some scenarios, but yeah, I don't know, what I'm trying to say is maybe there's
24:17a prejudice within a certain community against it.
24:21Does that go back to the whole generational idea that we're traditionalists and we grew
24:26up watching The Lion King?
24:29I got a copy of it for Christmas one year, and I remember just watching it.
24:33And so when they had the remake, I thought, oh, this is going to be pretty cool.
24:37Went into it, and just after the first 10 minutes when you've kind of gotten the shtick
24:41that it's animals talking to one another, it just, I have to go back and watch that.
24:47Messing with your memories, your fond memories.
24:49Beauty and the Beast had a human character and the fantastical elements, which had that
24:53amalgamation of CGI and, you know, live action stuff.
24:59But shall we create some controversy and I bring up the tier list of my favorite live
25:05actions to discuss?
25:06All right.
25:07Well, I mean, that's not the entire list as well.
25:09I've left off a couple of things.
25:10So I haven't done an S tier because full disclosure, I didn't have room on Canva to create an S
25:18tier.
25:19So, A, B, C, and F. So the people out there listening to this as the podcast, let me describe
25:25this to you.
25:26It's a grid.
25:27A, B, C, and F, and all of the Disney, or most of the Disney live action movies, should
25:33I say, ranked.
25:34Now, in my A tier, I mean, I think I've already shown my love of Beauty and the Beast.
25:39Beauty and the Beast, Aladdin, I really enjoyed Aladdin, that pre-Will Smith Oscars, but I
25:46still think it was great.
25:47Because, again, it combined the human aspect with the CGI aspect, same with The Jungle
25:53Book, same with Cinderella, same with The Little Mermaid.
25:56I liked Maleficent as well, which isn't strictly a remake, but it is a retelling of Sleeping
26:01Beauty, and I thought it was absolutely brilliant.
26:05In the B tier, Mulan, which was unfair because it came out during Covid, so I don't think
26:12the box office there's not representative, Cruella because I liked Emma Stone and it
26:17was a bit of a different take from the 101 Dalmatians story, Tim Burton's Alice in Wonderland
26:22I thought was great, because it was the first time we saw those characters in CGI, and then
26:27the follow-up to Maleficent because, again, I thought they were both solid.
26:33Then we get to the controversial C moments, which for me is The Lion King remake, Mufasa,
26:39101 Dalmatians, Alice Through the Looking Glass, and Snow White.
26:46I didn't mind Snow White.
26:49One person in there's acting is absolutely atrocious, and I do not know how they keep
26:54getting film roles.
26:56My legal team has told me not to mention that Mrs. Claybury, it's not Rachel Ziegler, and
27:01it's not a whole bunch of CGI dwarves either, so.
27:04And then you get to the bottom of the barrel, F, Pinocchio, again, it was another release
27:10that went straight to streaming because of Covid, maybe it should never have seen the
27:14light of day, I absolutely...
27:18There was no need for it to be done, much like there was no need to have 102 Dalmatians
27:23done.
27:24And for as much as I've put Tim Burton's work with Alice in Wonderland higher up, did we
27:29really...
27:30Dumbo's depressing enough.
27:32It was a, the animated film was a baby elephant taken away from its mum, did we really need
27:39the melodrama of a man that came back from war missing an arm trying to raise a family
27:43by himself?
27:44The melodrama is about Dumbo, not about the family around Dumbo.
27:49So...
27:50Come at me if you want, everybody, come at me if you want, if you disagree with me.
27:54I love that we went from C to F, we're gonna have to populate D and E at some point in
28:00the next few years, I'm sure there'll be plenty more.
28:03Disney do not get a D or an E, no, it's A, B, C, and F, you know, that's the grading
28:08scale that we work on here, that's Screen Babble.
28:12Yeah, the Screen Babble scale.
28:15But I mean, we've got all the fun and games of Lilo and Stitch coming up, so let's see
28:20what happens.
28:21Yeah, we might have to rethink the scale, but we'll see, yeah.
28:24I think that Lilo and Stitch is going to do well, primarily based on the idea...
28:29It's a bit more contemporary, yeah.
28:31Yeah, and based on the idea, it's a human character, and it's a CGI character, you know,
28:38kind of alien character, you know, which kind of fits better.
28:41You're right, it just fits better, the idea, as opposed to the very traditional stories
28:45and the fairy tale stories, you know.
28:48To get on my soapbox for a second, only based off the trailer, it does show how Disney have
28:54slipped more conservative since the original came out, because in the original, one of
28:59the aliens is disguised as a woman, even though that's a man, and in this film, that alien
29:06is disguised as a man in the trailer.
29:09So obviously, Disney are trying to, you know...
29:12Avoid any...
29:13Avoid any, yeah.
29:15Discussion of controversial topics, yeah.
29:17Interesting.
29:19You know, maybe one of the twists in the story is that the alien gets picked up by ICE agents
29:26and taken to El Salvador, but we'll see.
29:30Exactly, you never know how it's going to end, do you?
29:32Contemporary.
29:34Oh, okay.
29:35Well, that was brilliant.
29:36And thank you for all your efforts with Canva there, Benji.
29:39I mean, I just love it.
29:40I love a visual aid.
29:41Um, okay.
29:42Now we have literally three and a half minutes to talk about The White Lotus, but actually
29:49that's for the video.
29:50So if you want to hear all the chat about The White Lotus, just go to the podcast, people.
29:53Um, right.
29:55So yes, The White Lotus, season three, based in Thailand, finished last night.
30:00I'm going to have to keep this fairly condensed.
30:03We're going to, Benji, maybe not you first, right?
30:06Matt, tell me.
30:07Fairly condensed, what you thought of it?
30:09Uh, mixed, mixed.
30:11Unsatisfying in quite a lot of the end of the storylines.
30:16And yeah, slow season.
30:18I enjoyed the slow burn.
30:20Didn't enjoy the last half of the last episode.
30:23So yeah, is my review.
30:27Can I just say, logistically, I thought 90 minutes was too long.
30:30I thought it was a faffing around in the first 45 minutes of the episode that could
30:33have been covered off before this.
30:36Um, and just given us an action packed final hour, you know, which I was kind of anticipating.
30:41Um, I think one of the most interesting things about it was how blatantly religious it all
30:47became towards the end.
30:49You know, there was obviously this myth, mythicism and kind of, um, idea of the East and religion
30:54kind of through the whole thing.
30:56But, you know, at the end, we've actually got a choir singing a Christian song, you
31:00know, over this kind of montage of what's happened with everybody.
31:03You have, you know, OK, spoilers, spoilers, spoilers, spoilers.
31:07You have a death.
31:08And the visions and somebody comes back to life, you know, all this, you know, Jason
31:13Isaac's character is like Job in the Bible.
31:16You know, he loses everything and then he realizes what he didn't have anything because
31:21without his family, he's nothing, you know, without love and God's love and all that.
31:25I just thought that was all that was in my head was like, was this such a moral tale
31:29by the end of it?
31:29And I mean, I know that's that's a theme that runs through all of them, obviously,
31:32is this disgusting wealth and classism and all this kind of stuff.
31:37Um, but I still think it's intriguing.
31:39I still think they're worth watching, and I'll be excited to see where the next one
31:42goes.
31:43Right, Benji, off you go.
31:45Uh, I didn't like it.
31:46I did not like it one bit.
31:48I think that it meandered off.
31:49I don't think it had the same kind of strength and pull as the first two seasons.
31:56Maybe part of that is because they don't have a hotel manager like they did in the first
32:01and second season, that that became the anchor point and everything was happening around
32:06them.
32:08No matter what Mike Wyatt might, what interviews he might have done or anything like that,
32:12I'll let people come to their own conclusions.
32:15It's good, but certainly not as enjoyable as the first two seasons, and again, it just
32:20meandered towards the end, and I thought...
32:24I felt hollow at the conclusion, and I didn't feel hollow at the end of the conclusion of
32:29season one and two, so, I mean, by all means, you have to watch it because it's a talking
32:34point this year, but will you enjoy it as much as the first and second season?
32:38I didn't, and I don't think fans would enjoy it as much either.
32:42I kind of, I was very disappointed with the end of the three girlfriends story.
32:46I wanted them to like tear each other's hair out, you know, and instead it was like,
32:51actually, everything's fine.
32:52We all love each other.
32:53I thought it was a bit of a cop out.
32:54I know it's more nuanced than that, and she's trying to say, you know what, life is crap,
32:59but you guys are kind of permanent, and that's fine.
33:01That's what friendships are about in a way, but it just kind of, it was all too simple
33:05in the end, you know, it was all too, oh, we all forgive each other and love each other.
33:09You know, I did think it was interesting that the kind of, we'll say the more innocent or
33:15the more, the good characters that have been, in inverted commas, the good characters that
33:20we are portrayed throughout the series, all come a crapper at the end in one way or another,
33:26you know, either die or nearly die or turn into bad guys, i.e. Belinda, you know, she,
33:34she's a good guy all along, three series apparently, and now she's a bad guy,
33:38and it's disgusting, and it just makes you feel disgusting about the fact there's no good people
33:42anywhere that survive these things.
33:44Even the good guy security guard ends up being a bad guy, you know, all this stuff.
33:48So it's a, it's a total moral tale.
33:51I think there's layers and layers to it, but as I say, I think I'll be interested to see
33:56where it goes next, and it's interesting that we've all got such a different take on it as
33:59well, which I think is a good thing with a TV program, but let's talk next series.
34:04Where would you like to see it go, Matt?
34:06Well, so I was looking up just for work reasons, and they've filmed them all at Four Seasons hotels.
34:12Yes.
34:12In the UK, I feel like I want an Agatha Christie kind of season where,
34:16you know, there's Tweed, there's, you know, a little detective with a 12-year-old.
34:21Like an Orange Express.
34:22Yeah, exactly.
34:24So they have, they have a Four Seasons in Hampshire, lots of, like, misty moors and
34:29country house, I think that would be cool, like, yeah, get, get that Knives Out vibe.
34:34Yeah, I'm similar. I think they should go to my hometown, Killarney, County Kerry in Ireland.
34:39There isn't a Four Seasons there, but there's five-star hotels, and you have that very mystical
34:45kind of Celtic sort of nature. It's, you know, the mountains and the lakes, and it's really pretty,
34:49and the showrunners did say that they're kind of trying to get away from the beaches and crashing
34:56waves kind of stuff, but I imagine they'll still want, like, sex appeal and sexy, so watch the
35:01space people. Bikinis in Killarney, maybe, I don't know. What about you, Benji?
35:06Well, I don't know if Matt answered it, but I was going to say Cleethorpes.
35:10Okay.
35:12A sexy episode, a sexy season of the White Lotus in Cleethorpes or Skegnesh, you know.
35:18Oh, you heard it here first.
35:23There we go.
35:23We can start the campaigning now.
35:25Okay.
35:25Yeah, go on. Atlas manager, that's the one.
35:29Thank you for joining us today. I have gazed into my crystal ball, and I see The Last of Us,
35:34season two, and Eurovision in our next episode, so definitely check that out. If you have any
35:39suggestions for what TV or film we need to get into our lives, drop us a line via social media.
35:44Our TikTok cannot be missed. Check that out. We'd love for you to rate, review, and subscribe to
35:49the podcast so we can reach as many TV lovers as possible. We'll be back soon with more Screen
35:54Babble. Bye.
35:56Bye-bye.