Welcome to a special bonus episode of David Behavior. I'm Marie.

And I'm Beth.

And today we decided to dive a little bit more into the Ruins because Beth and I both watched the movie as part of reading the book. And the differences between the movie and the book are honestly pretty fascinating.

They are.

So we just wanted to dig into that a little bit more.

Yeah. And if we had said it in the main episode, I think it would have taken up a lot of time, honestly.

Yeah, it really would have. So this is going to be a little bit looser, a little bit less formatted than our usual show, and we are going to pretty much get into spoilers immediately. The assumption here is that you have at least either watched the movie or read the book or at least listen to our previous episode on the Ruins.

Yeah, at the very least.

At the very least. So let's. Let's get right into it. I guess the biggest difference, obviously, between the book and the movies is the switch around of who gets what death and more specifically, the ending overall of the movie versus the book.

Yes, yes. The deaths are quite different, I want to say right off the bat. The positives. Yes.

Yeah, yeah, go for it.

The positives are that the movie gets into the action a lot more quickly. So we get the scale of everything feels a lot shorter. Which is one of the complaints that we had about the book, is that everything felt so long. One of the things that's negative about that, I will say, is that while we don't get a whole lot of, like, braiding time, we also sort of skip how they built the backboard, which feels like such an operation. Like, I kind of was interested in that, but they didn't show any of it. They were just like, ta da. Now there's a backboard.

Yeah, they just kind of show it now. Yeah, now we're putting the last piece of tape on. And here's the backboard. We did it. It's all done and it's secure and it's perfect. And then the other thing too is in the movie, we do lose a lot of the, like, internal characterization, which obviously, every time you go from a book to a movie, you are going to lose that. I do feel like the character most impacted by that is Amy, because Amy is a very different person between the book and the movie. And it's a really weird change to me because in the movie, she becomes our final girl.

Yeah.

As far as a final girl for this kind of like, kind of downer movie tends to go. But she is a very Anxious person. In the book, she constantly thinks how she does not want to do stuff or how she thinks stuff is a bad idea, but she never verbalizes it out loud. Whereas in the movie, she comes off as a lot more. At one point, Stacy calls her a whiner or something like that. Like, she. She comes off a lot more of, like, verbalizing her worries versus keeping them inside.

We sort of get more of a switcheroo of Amy and Stacey, or at least a mixing of their two personalities, because Amy is the one who, like, kisses Matthias or whatever, and she's the one that gets drunk and stuff like that. Whereas in the book, it was Stacy doing all of the sort of bad.

Decisions, I guess, quote unquote, slutty decisions, Which I. I did find that interesting as well, because I think we mentioned in the book they are discussing, like, oh, if they made a movie of our situation, they basically call out that Stacy would be the slut and that Eric would be the clown or whatever. And I do wonder if, once again, because Scott Smith wrote both, I'm wondering if he purposely went against that to kind of not go with the trope that people would have expected. But at the same time, I feel like it makes Amy a little less likable overall in the movie because she has less of a distinct personality. So there's less to really latch onto because it just feels like her and Stacy are kind of the same person in a lot of ways.

Yeah. And I think that the book. So the book actually does say that, where Jeff was like, well, I didn't know who to choose, so I just chose Amy because she was less outgoing or whatever.

Yeah.

Because they were so similar. They were together all the time and doing the same things all the time.

Yeah.

I think that the movie maybe plays into that a bit.

The main reason why we didn't do something like this with the novelization of Alien Covenant is because the adaptation and changes were kind of going in the reverse. So there is less of a change, aside from a deeper understanding of the characters in Covenant versus this, where you can tell that Scott was adapting it for a more general audience. Because the book is very brutal. And I would say the movie is still pretty brutal for a movie in the genre. But it, like, obviously with the ending, it is much less so.

So some of the other things I wanted to mention. So Jeff is more manipulative in the movie, in my opinion.

Absolutely.

So Amy doesn't want to go, which we get in the book as well, but she goes to sort of appease him. But it's more of sort of an unspoken guilting. Like, she. She knows that. That he wants to go, and she sort of just does it because she knows that he'll be disappointed. Whereas in the movie, he says it explicitly. Yeah, she's clearly in a bad way. Like, she's vomiting into the toilet, and he's like, are you okay? And it's like, no, man.

Yeah, well, and it's. It's too. Because Amy in the movie does vocalize that, like, she's like, no, I want to stay here. I just want to sleep. I want to read on the beach, whatever. And in the book, she thinks about bringing it up, but she doesn't actually do it. So instead, in the movie, we get Jeff manipulating her into going with him. And later on, too. There's a lot of points in the book where I do think Jeff is manipulative in the book, but he's more manipulative in a way where he doesn't say things that he know will make Amy react in a certain way, make her panic or make her anxious about the situation. Whereas in the movie, there is constant, like, verbal manipulation of, like, no, well, you know, it'll be fine. Let's just go this way. Like, I don't. Just a constant ignoring of her, bringing up her worries about their situation. Well.

And she gets told to go down into the. Into the shaft.

Yeah.

Afterwards, it was like, in the book, it was her and Jeff going into the shaft to, like, scout out to see about the. The phone and things like that. In this one, it's like, well, no, you and Stacy have to go. And it's like, well, Stacy's hurt, number one.

Yeah. Because that's. Another change is in the book. Eric's the one with the. He hurt his knee initially.

Right.

In the movie, Amy hurts her knee and Stacy. Sorry, Stacy. Once again, I'm mushing them together. Stacy hurts her knee, and instead of, like, in the book, them going, well, you're hurt, Eric. We're not going to send you down again. I'm going to go down, and Amy will go down with me. Instead, we get. Well, Stacy and Amy, you're the lightest. So you two have to go down. You have to go down, and you have to look for this phone.

Right, Exactly. And it's. I don't know. I don't. I don't like it. I think it's a bad change. I do like that they didn't have Amy die the way she did. Again, once again, justice for Amy. I feel like that death was the worst one. Not in a good way, in my opinion. Like, I feel it was the worst one in, like. Not that it's too bleak, but I just feel like it wasn't for her own. On her own terms.

No. Yeah. And I. I do think it was too bleak, to be perfectly honest, because she was ignored. Jeff heard her struggling and calling for him, and he chose to ignore her in the book. And that makes it harder in. In not a. In not a, like, oh, this book is so dark and bleak sort of way, but in a, like, wow, that's a shitty situation sort of way.

Yeah. And it didn't seem to have a point. Like, even narratively, I don't feel like it had a point.

Well, no, because Jeff doesn't dwell on it. He dies almost immediately afterwards. Like, it. It doesn't make a difference.

And in terms of the other thing that I felt was comparable. Pablo or Dimitri. Yeah, his whole situation. So he dies immediately in the movie as a sort of example, I guess, of what will happen. And in the book, he just sits there and suffers. And as we discussed, it's kind of a microcosm of the situation that they're in. But in the movie, it's. I keep wanting to call him Heinrich. It's Matthias.

Yeah.

He's the one who gets his legs chopped off. And I think it's not a good change. I don't necessarily like it.

I think it kind of. It ends up making his character worse, like, in a lot of ways, because in a lot of ways in the book, Matthias was, like, kind of one of the more solid members of the group who for a long time, kind of helped them keep it together. Whereas in the movie, he gets taken out of that role almost immediately because of him breaking his back and his legs getting so injured. And it also takes away from Pablo Demetri, like you said, because he's. He's. I had seen this movie, like, before I had read the book, and I was surprised when Dimitri didn't. Pablo didn't die immediately because that's. He dies immediately in the. In the movie. But it made it a lot better, and it made it a lot sadder and harder because he didn't speak the same language. No one could really communicate with him. They voted to cut off his legs and ostentatiously, to save him, but he didn't really know what was going on because he couldn't talk to them. Whereas in the movie with Matthias, he tells them to do it. But, yeah, I feel like it takes away from the difficulty of them making the choice for Pablo vs Matthias being able to get a vote.

Yeah. I feel like the big conflict, the sort of character moment we have with Stacy where she's just like, kind of says, yeah, like, take the legs away because it's a vote, but it's not really a vote. And then she goes down and tells Amy, and she knows that Amy would vote against it. And so Amy comes up running and is like, what have you done? And Stacey's like, I shouldn't have done it. I shouldn't have voted that way. And we get kind of that, like, awful character moment for her where we sort of do get to dig deep and kind of look into her psychology, whereas in the movie, we don't get that. She's just. She's like, we should vote. Don't do it. And then immediately Matthias is like, do it. It's fine.

Yeah.

And it's like. I don't know. It takes away from the decision of the group.

Yeah.

The. The weight of it.

Yes. Well. And it takes away from that microcosm view because it's no longer the.

Yeah.

Because what we're referencing, in case it's been a minute since you listened to the episode, is that Pablo's situation with him clearly dying and the group having to make all these decisions and kind of stopping treating him like a person eventually, as time goes on, is kind of a microcosm of their situation with the Mayans that are surrounding the temple, where it's obvious that the Mayans have had to, like, distance themselves and make this decision, that we can't allow anybody who has touched this plant to come back down, and they don't actively seek out to kill them. In the book, it's more of a. Well, we have to do what we have to do. And that's kind of what the situation with Pablo is in the book. And in the movie, we lose that because it's Matthias instead.

Exactly. And the other thing, actually, that I did appreciate in the movie was that Amy throws a piece of vine on a child and they shoot the child. So we get that quarantine mentality right away. She, like, figures that, like, we get it immediately, which I really appreciate, especially in the movie, because obviously we have a limited time frame, so I kind of liked that. That's how they discovered it. Yeah.

I guess, because Jeff, almost immediately after in the movie is like, he touched the vine. That's why they did that. We've touched the vine. That's why they're keeping us here. Whereas in the book, it does feel like it takes them forever to realize, like, why they are trapped there.

Yes. Which I guess is a choice because the book is quite long, but I just feel like it's more effective in storytelling as well.

100%. And it shows that these Mayans, this isn't out of malice. This isn't out of hate for them as foreigners or anything like that. This is literally, they have to kill one of their own, a child at that, because they can't let this escape. So it becomes more clear that their motivation is not personal or vindictive against these kids.

Yeah, exactly. Exactly. Killing one of their own is. Is great evidence of the weight that the decision carries. It's. It's more. It makes it more impactful, I guess.

Yeah.

In my opinion. And I feel like if they'd had a scene like that in the book, I feel like it would have been improved. I agree. I did appreciate that.

I agree. And then to rewind a little bit before they even get up to the mountain, because this is the thing too, is like, in the book, I don't remember Matthias having a phone. I don't remember any of them really having a cell phone, or at least one was signal when they get to the hill. In the movie, Matthias does have a world phone, a satellite phone, so he is able to get signal, but he loses it really quickly, which makes me think that he didn't have it in the book because the movie had to find a way to get rid of it. But before they even get into the taxi, Matthias gets a call and he says, like, oh, Heinrich. And like, you know, tries. Like, it sounds like maybe the call drops or something. He doesn't try to call back. But that just brings up to me in the movie, like, wait, so was Heinrich alive up until that morning? Or did these plants speed dial Matthias?

The call is coming from inside the vine.

Right.

I think it was maybe a deleted scene, is my opinion. I think maybe they had Matthias or. Oh, my God, I think maybe they had Heinrich. Like a scene with Heinrich on the ruin.

Oh, do you think they went with the mysterious girl instead as the opener?

Yeah, maybe. That's definitely possible. I feel like they should have cut out that phone call, though, because it does sort of make it, I don't know, not suspicious. It sort of makes it odd that he doesn't try to call back and nothing comes from it.

Well, and he doesn't seem. And that's the thing is, like, even in the movie, he. He's coming off as worried that his brother hasn't come back yet. You'd think that if his brother called him, he'd be more eager to talk to him.

Was it because of the ringtone? Is it because we're supposed to be like, oh, it's the same ringtone as in, is ringing in the vine?

That's stupid.

But it's the most generic ass ringtone. It really is just ringing.

It's just ringing.

If it was something really unique, I think I would. That's probably the reason. Like, if it was like, I don't know, like, funky town or something, like, I feel like that would be the reason.

Yeah.

Or like, I don't know, 99 lift balloons if we're going with something German.

Is that it? Was it just so that we would connect the ringtone when we hear it from in the pit? Because that's the stupidest reason.

It's so dumb. Because it's so generic. It's just ringing. It's nothing special.

No, it's absolutely not.

And also, yes, they gave him the line just like mine. That's my brother's ringtone. It's. We have the same ringtone. And I'm like, okay, so we didn't need that then.

No, we didn't.

Because he said it. I don't care if it's his. He recognized it. Right.

Well, and like. And here's the thing, too. Like, all he needed to say was like, we didn't need Matthias to have a world phone. We didn't need for any of that to happen. All we need for him to say is, heinrich has a world phone. That must be it, because it's ringing down in the. In that mine.

Yeah. Just have him leave it back at the hotel by accident.

Yeah, yeah, that's easy. Or just if you want to establish that ringtone, have it be the Greeks calling him to, like, be like, oh, we didn't make it, or whatever. We. We got drunk or whatever. Something. Something else. You don't need that. You just don't need it.

Because it feels like. Yeah. If it was Heinrich, he would call him back because that's the first contact he's had with his brother in a while.

Yeah.

So wouldn't he be more desperate to, like, be like, I'm coming, I'm coming?

Yeah, exactly. Yeah. And he, like, goes to, like, joking with the others immediately after. Like, it's. It's bizarre. It's bizarre. And then. I'm sorry, I just saw in the notes that you called Pablo Pa Metri. Because in the movie they just call him Demitri. They don't call him Pablo. He doesn't have a cute little Spanish nickname, but that's so funny. But, yeah, what we were talking about for him, dying immediately. We could have had someone get shot in the chest, like, in the shoulder, in the leg. Something to where you didn't need to immediately kill off a character in order to maintain that group dynamic that we had in the book.

Yeah, exactly. Like, just shoot Matthias in the shoulder. Have Demetri live. Because part of the, I guess, ramp up, at least in the book, is that they're still kind of, like, joking and having fun. When they're up on the ruin, they're like, what the heck? This is so crazy. This is so weird. Like, they're a bit shaken, but they're not, like, so scared. So having Dimitri go down into the ruin, he's, like, so happy and, like, jovial, and I feel like that's kind of part of the horror is that we, you know, he's about to get gravely wounded.

Yeah.

So absolutely. I feel like having that dichotomy is. Is important.

Yeah. No, I agree. What do you think about the change? So in the book, obviously, the vines can mimic voices and ringtones and other noises. In the book, it kind of. At one point, Eric, who is the one in the book to have the vines inside of him, says that he can, like, feel them vibrating and he can, like, feel the voices that imitating coming from inside him. Whereas in the movie, we have them as the flowers do that, like, kind of vibrating. How do you feel about that change from it being just the vine itself to, like, a specific flower?

I think it's stupid because it kind of made it look like Alice in Wonderland. Tim Burton's Alice in Wonderland. Like, yeah, you know that. Do you know a scene I'm talking about? It's been a minute since I watched it.

I know you're talking about.

Yeah, but it does make me think of that where the flowers are, like, mouths. And I think it's really cheesy. I didn't like it, personally.

I agree.

I don't know. I think it's like what you were saying about having the vines speaking is also kind of cheesy. So I don't know how else they would have done it.

Yeah. And I did notice we were noting that it seems to go back and forth in the movie of whether or not these vines are intelligent. There's some moments where it's like, yeah, that's a smart thing to do. Like, they purposely are, like, psychologically manipulating people in some parts. But Other times, they just seem like they're reacting. And I. I mentioned that. I feel like it's kind of to touch on Stephen King and author. We're never going to cover on this podcast, not because we, like, hate him or anything, you guys, but just because enough people have covered. I mean, Beth's giving me a look right now, but enough. Enough people have spoken about Stephen King over the years. But it's. It's kind of like if you look at Kubrick's the Shining versus the made for TV the Shining that King ended up making because he was unhappy with Kubrick's. It's the reason why Kubrick changed the hedge animals into a hedge maze. And it's because you can write something to sound terrifying because you're leaving it to the reader's imagination, but then when you translate that to film, it might end up looking really stupid, such as moving hedge animals attacking someone versus someone getting lost in a hedge maze.

Yes. And I think the vision for that specifically, now we're just getting into the Shining, but I feel like the vision for that could have been something like the Weeping Angels.

Yeah.

Where they only move when you're not looking. And that's really scary and freaky. And I think it probably could have been like that, but I feel like it was the better decision to have it be the maze, because that's probably cheaper.

Oh, yeah. And it's also, like, you know, it's old CGI, it's 90s CGI, so it's. It's not great. But so for the movie, I feel like they shied away a lot from, like, the vines being more intelligent or doing stuff that was more intelligent or moving around more. Both because they knew they didn't have the CGI budget for it and because they. I think they were afraid it would come off as goofy.

Yeah, absolutely. And that. Just thinking of the. The vines inside of Stacey, I do. I don't know, I think I feel neutral about the switch of it being Stacy versus Eric. I do feel kind of like Eric fell to the wayside as a character as a result. Like, I just feel like he kind of didn't really get any chance to. To shine in a specific way other than just, like, mansplaining to Stacey about her injury.

Yeah, I. Yeah, it does feel a lot like. Because obviously, with Stacy kind of unraveling because of these vines that she can feel inside herself, we get that same unraveling that she had in the book. So, like, her character was still there, even if, like, certain aspects were Skipped over. Whereas with Eric. You're right. Like, it. It kind of felt like he was just there. Like, he was just. He's just there and he's trying to help, you know, and sometimes he argues with Jeff, but mostly he's just kind of there until he gets stabbed.

Did he kind of go into the de facto Matthias role with Jeff?

I feel like he did. I feel like some of Matthias's more, like, stoic and more. Because there's even a part where he says, like, we should set up a watch. Like, he's a lot more proactive in some ways. But because of that, it's kind of the thing with Stacy and Amy where they kind of end up blending into one character instead of being two distinct characters. I feel like Jeff and Eric kind of end up mushing together in some ways so that neither of them really stand out that much, aside from Jeff being a manipulative asshole.

Well. And him trying to be the leader. Blah, blah, blah. But that's kind of interesting because one of our critiques of the book is that we don't get a lot of characterization, and it is very, like, generic. But it's so funny because we get a lot more than in the movie, in my opinion.

Yeah. And I think that looking back on it now, it's. It's less that we don't get any characterization, but it's more that we get very 2D. Like, here's their 3. Here is everybody's main flaw and everybody's main personality trait, but at least we have that. And they're distinct from each other versus the movie where they're more mushy instead.

Yeah, it's true. So the other thing I wanted to mention was with the vines being intelligent, I felt like they were more intelligent in the book.

I agree.

I think that they were less relying on instinct. Even though in the book they just sucked up the vomit and sucked up the blood. And in the movie, they, like, did that fainting trick at the end and they put blood on Amy. But, like, I feel like if we were dealing with book vines, that blood wouldn't have survived. They would have just sucked it up.

Yeah, I feel like the vines would have started crawling on her and she probably would have started freaking out before Jeff had a time to distract the Mayans.

And I do.

Maybe that's part of the reason why the vines don't react to the vomit. Like when Eric pukes and stuff. Like, maybe they thought of that. I don't know. That's being a little. I think, feel like Generous to the situation. Situation.

I think so. But they did, I guess, because Jeff didn't die. They didn't do the Jeff hat trick, which I'm pretty disappointed by. And we didn't get an Amy puppet. We got, like, that other lady as a puppet in the Stacy. Amy scene, but which I feel like.

Has less emotional impact, obviously.

Absolutely. Yeah. And we didn't get the stripping of the bones.

No.

As the reason for them to. To do that. But we did get, like, vines on the. On the legs, obviously, but.

And they do. They don't linger on it too much. I will say the special effects in the movie, the. The actual practicals, I think, were very good. They did a great job with the blood. The vines and the other, like, CGI aspects are very cheesy, like, when you're looking at them. But as far as, like, down to the bone, I feel like they tried to kind of hint at that, but they probably weren't able to make it super convincing for it to be completely down to the bone. So they just stripped away more of the flesh and not all the way down to the bone.

I did think that Stacey's moments where everybody was just kind of. So everybody freaked out at first with Matthias and with Stacy having the vines inside of them, and then the scene where she's like, they're inside of me. And everybody's just kind of resigned, and they're like, okay, let's pull them out. And it's very, like, monotone. It's no longer yelling about the vines being inside. They're like, yeah, they're inside. Let's get them out. And I felt like that was very on tone with the book where there is that scene where it's like, okay, they knew they had to get them out by the root because Eric was freaking out, and they had to prove to him that they got them out completely. And it was very much the same vibe where it's like this horrible thing is happening and everybody's just like, okay.

Yeah. Well, they're. Yeah, they're just. They're getting to the point of emotional overwhelm where they're just becoming numb at this point.

Yeah, I thought that was really well done in the movie.

I mentioned something, too, that I noticed more in the movie than in the book. With Stacy in particular, there's a lot of points, not a ton, but there's a few points in time where she kind of covers for Amy. So like we said, the cheating thing, they moved that to Amy instead of Stacy, and Stacy covers for her. And she tells Eric, too. Don't say anything about it. She has him covered for Amy.

Yeah.

And then later on, initially, after Matthias falls, Jeff is telling Amy to go down and Amy's kind of like, freaking out. And Stacy says, no, I'll go, I'll go. Like, it's fine, I'll go. And so it feels like they were going for kind of a. Kind of almost like a lopsided friendship between them, which I. I did pick up a little bit from the book, but not as much as I did in the movie, where it seems like Stacy invests a lot more in, like, protecting Amy then Amy seems to think about her. At least in the movie. You know what I mean? Yeah.

In the book, it was the other way around. So in the movie, we have Jeff pointing out that Amy is getting burned and Amy's like, no, I'm just hot. And that's a Stacy thing. In the. In the book.

Yeah.

Where Jeff is like, well, Amy doesn't think about her body. She doesn't consider things. And that's just like a thing about her is that she's just going to get burned and not notice. So that's another Stacey trait.

Specifically sunburned, not. Not burnt, like.

Oh, yeah, yeah, yeah. So, like, in the. In the book, she's sitting there with her little sunshade, but her, like, feet are getting burnt and she doesn't notice at all. That's a thing that got transferred onto Amy. Same thing with, like, the kiss and same thing with getting too drunk.

Yeah, yeah.

So all of their sort of character traits got kind of switched around.

Yeah. Which is really interesting also to return to. You mentioned that Stacey does not get that moment of voting for Pablo's legs, you know, to get cut off in the movie, obviously, and her guilt, like, resulting from that.

Yeah, yeah.

I felt like they tried to put that emotional guilt a little bit on the fact that instead of. In the book, it's Eric who is panicked and wants to get out of the mine. So he insists on lifting Pablo. In the movie, Stacy's the one that went down and got injured, and she's panicking and insists on lifting Matthias, which results in him getting hurt more. And she does kind of start, like, they don't return to it, which I feel like is a loss, but she does start to be like, it's my fault, isn't it? I'm. I insisted on lifting him. Like, that's why he's so bad now, because of that.

Yeah.

And so I felt like they were trying to maintain that, that Kind of moment. But it didn't. It just didn't work as well because she doesn't, like, she kind of drops it immediately.

Yeah, for sure. And, I mean, that's Amy's thing, too. Amy was like, if I hadn't have stepped back into it, if I hadn't done this, we wouldn't be here. And all this stuff. And we don't get any of that in the movie.

No. I feel like Amy. It's really interesting because the way that they changed Amy, she doesn't. And obviously, like, I don't think in the book she's personally responsible for the situation at hand, but she feels like is in a lot of ways. And I think that they got rid of that, like, for the most part, on her, because we see it's, like, pretty consistently, Jeff, like, pushing her into these situations versus her not speaking up when she has a bad feeling about it.

Yeah, exactly. A lot of Amy's stuff is. And while in a lot of. Again, the theme running through the book is that they ignore their instincts. And I feel like Amy just notices it a lot more and she feels guilty about it, whereas the others don't really. They're sort of just resigned to being there.

Yeah. There's a lot of almost what I would call, like, thought interruption in their chapters where they, like, they're starting to think about something and then they're like, nope, that's. Nope, not gonna think about that right now. Like, it's just really interesting because it's more of a refusal to look at it versus Amy's, where she is, like, constantly thinking about the fact that she made a choice to not speak up.

Well, and she's the one in the movie that says where Jeff is like, well, if it's gonna happen, it's gonna be because of this. And she's like, well, you can't say that.

Yeah. Yeah. It's really interesting. I feel like we've covered a lot of the main changes in the movie itself. Should we talk about the ending?

We should talk about the ending. It's the biggest. I think it's controversial between us.

It is. Well, I think it bothers you more than it bothers me, and that's fine. Like, I totally get it because it is. So. Okay. So in the. In the book.

Very sensitive.

I know. It's okay. So in the book, Stacy is the last person standing at the end, and she goes down to the bottom of the hill, and she can see that the Mayans are already packing up because they know that, you know, the Time is coming. And she waits until nightfall to see if the Greeks show up. They don't. And so she kills herself, hoping that her body can serve as a warning, which. I mean, Stacey, girl, you've seen these vines drag people away. She gets dragged into the underbrush. Whereas in the movie, Stacy is the one instead who is begging for someone to kill her because she has the vines inside of her. It's implied that Jeff does it. It cuts away before showing it. But he's the one that picks up the knife and he puts blood all over Amy in order to make it look like she died. And he carries her down to the bottom, and he tells her, like, I'm gonna distract them. When I say your name, you run and go to the Jeep and just drive away. And she's like, oh, promise me you'll still be here. And he's like, oh, Yep. And it's like, girl, you know he's gonna die. But anyway, so he. He carries her down to the bottom, and he starts, you know, yelling at the Mayans. They don't understand him, but they are paying attention to him. And they're, like, kind of following him as he walks away from where he puts her down. And when he yells her name, she. And he gets shot. And she makes it out. In the theatrical cut of the movie, there are three different endings, technically, for this. In the theatrical cut of the movie, she just drives away. That's the last scene that you see of her, is her driving away in the van. And then we cut, and it is the Greeks arriving at the pyramid. In the extended cut, which is what we watched, same thing happens, but it zooms in on her face, and you can see that she already has the vines under her skin. So she is escaping, but she's escaping infected. And with the extended deleted scene that was originally in there, it then flashes forward to her having died and been buried in the United States and the vines now growing out of her grave. So that's the difference. And there are things about this, like Beth says, that don't really work very well. It's broad daylight. When he carries her down, like, if the Mayans are paying any attention, they would see her get up and move. They're distracted a little. Like, they do end up chasing her, but they are distracted entirely by Jeff. Which you don't think would have worked as well, right?

No, I don't think it would have worked. So the whole. Okay, so one. Again, I. I guess with Movie Vines, they're not slurping up the blood right away. Whereas book vines would have slurped it all up. So there wouldn't have been any left, I guess, if they had taken it from. Directly from Stacy's body. But they show him, like, dipping into the dirt, which is pretty gross anyway.

It is really gross.

It's really gross. So I think so, number one, he sets her down far enough away, and I feel like the Mayans probably would have just shot him because he gets pretty far out to put her down. So that's number one. Number two, no one's watching her. And also, the vines don't grab her as well. Like, I don't know. Again, movie vines are much dumber. So I feel like movie vines would have grabbed her. Okay, whatever. Number three, nobody's paying attention. And I feel like they're, like, all watching him, which I guess, fair, but there's so many of them. Why wasn't anyone in the, like, you know, line of sight of her watching her? It feels very strange. Like, it doesn't feel like it's a very good plan. And as you point out, it's broad daylight.

Yeah. And I will say, like, there are less Mayans in the movie than there are in the book. However, there are still he. I think at one point he says there's about 50 people out there. So there's at least 50 people. Some of them are the women and apparently children that they bring along to these events. So not all of them are armed men. But, like, I do agree. I do agree that it is silly that they would not be keeping an eye on her. I think maybe if they had established earlier, like in the book, that he kind of found a blind spot, a spot that wasn't guarded, and he kind of took her there before starting his. Like, took her closer to that before starting his diatribe and. And getting their attention. I feel like that would have worked.

Better if it was actually circular like it is in the book. Like, I feel like that makes a lot more sense where he goes to the far other side of the hill.

Well, and here's the thing, too, is this. So in the movie, it is a pyramid. It is clearly a. Like a Mayan pyramid. Whereas in the book, it is a large hill. That is it takes him an hour to circumnavigate it at one point in the book, and I do feel like this would have worked better in the scale of the book, because he could have gotten them out of the line of sight of her as they were following and maybe just have it be where just the women are there. Like, Watching her, the ones without weapons, and they yell for the men or something. So, like, I totally get where you're coming from. Like I said, it doesn't bother me. Like, it doesn't. Like, it does not detract from the movie for me personally, because I kind of. I kind of like that the movie goes. It seems to. And this is just my interpretation. There seems to be a message of them selfishly still wanting to escape and get out into the world, despite knowing what these vines are and knowing that they are covered in these vines and knowing that these are extremely dangerous to everyone. And so I kind of like that she gets out because it feels kind of mean. It feels kind of like she would be willing to sacrifice the world to save herself, basically.

Yeah. Yeah. Yeah. And I think I like that on theme with the book. Like, I feel like that is on theme because it is part of ignoring that voice in your head to tell you this is a bad idea.

Yeah.

Because I think they should have had that voice with this plan to say this is a bad idea.

100. We were talking about it a little bit, and I was saying that, like, I would, like, this is, you know, a little morbid, but, like, I would hope if I was in a situation like this, that I would have, like, the strength of character to realize, like, I can't leave this hill. Like, I can't. I can't go back because I can't risk everybody. But I don't know. I've. I've never been in a situation like this. So maybe I would be trying until the last to escape, but I would hope that I wouldn't.

I think that it's kind of like. It makes me think of the book A Short Stay in Hell, where there are some people who just keep trying and trying and trying and trying. And I feel like. I don't know. I'd like to think I'm that kind of person. I would just try to find something. I don't know. Even if the Greeks come, I would least want to warn them. Yeah. If I know somebody else is coming like I do, I feel like I would want to survive until at least that happens.

Yeah.

Because clearly the minds can't be trusted to cover up this deadly trail.

Well, and here's the other thing, too, is, like, you know, part of this is, so these Mayans, they don't speak Spanish. They don't speak English. They speak their own language. I forget the name of the language that native Mayans speak. That's my bad. I apologize for any native speakers out there. So I would think that, like, at some point, because this feels like this has been going on for a while. This feels like this has been going on for, I don't know, a hundred years or something, at some point, you'd think that one of these Mayans would be like, guys, one of us should take Spanish so that we can tell people to not go down there. Like.

Yeah, you'd think. There's so many dead people. Yeah. And I think the implication is that they're mostly tourists.

Yeah.

Because the guy in the truck was like, don't go there. That's a bad place. That's a bad place. So I feel like Spanish maybe wouldn't help them.

That's fair. He did. Yeah, he did tell them it's a bad place.

But it would help them more than. Yeah.

And here's the thing. If they had been able to communicate, even in, like, obviously, these kids didn't speak great Spanish, but they spoke some Spanish. So, like, even if they were able to say, like, danger, don't touch those. They're deadly. They're poisonous. Like, just something instead of letting them back up into them and then having to force them up the temple.

And I guess, you know, we wouldn't have a book otherwise. But I feel like, yeah, there are a few holes in this situation, but especially in the movie.

Yeah, for sure.

Because it feels like the kids just, like, stared at them. Nobody was like, stop. Like, the children were just like, okay, yeah, they didn't.

Yeah, yeah, yeah.

And I guess that's how it was in the book as well. But it. It felt like they left them alone far before they found the trail. You know what I mean? Like, they were like, they're getting close. And so the kids booked it back to the village to be like. Like, hey, we got a situation.

Yeah, I agree.

Except, you know what kids would say instead of that?

Yo, we've got a. A sitch. A sit in time. I don't know what kids say. I don't know. I don't know.

Hey, yo, hey, yo.

Hey, yo, fam. Them. Them. Them whities up in that pyramid again. I don't know. Oh, my God.

Anyway, also, the other thing, the issue I had with the ending was that the vines were in her skin. Yeah, I guess. But she didn't have any injuries, so why was it in her face?

No, that's. That's super fair. That is. I guess maybe the implication was, even though for Stacy, it was more obvious because she saw them go in, that maybe these spores that were on them are small enough to kind of sink in and start growing inside of you. Or maybe it was on the food they were eating. Like, I don't. Like, we. We don't know how. Because you mentioned that, like, everything here looks kind of like you're like, oh, wasn't this supposed to be the tents from the. The scientists, the archaeologists that were here before? They look so old and, like, gross. And it's because everything is covered in a layer of this, like.

Yeah, yeah, yeah.

This spore, I guess.

Well, it's mentioned that it smells musty.

Yeah.

And I guess that's why. Is that the inside is musty from spore.

Yeah. So maybe the implication is meant to be that, like, inevitably the vines were going to make it into them. Either they were going to die before or the vines were going to infect them, regardless of what precautions they took. But also, I think it was just more to shock you at the end.

Yeah, yeah. Dramatic. Dramatic aesthetics.

Exactly.

Yeah. The scene, though, with, like, Stacy, that should have been Eric, with her being like, just cut him out. Just cut him out. Was. Was very good. Oh, yeah, it was awful.

It was terrible. It's gnarly. Once again, very good practical effects in this movie. Not for the faint of heart. It is a gnarly scene when she is trying to cut them out.

Let it not be unsaid that we watched this twice.

Yeah.

The second time, I skipped it. I didn't want to watch it.

And that's so valid. Honestly. I watched it because I'm gross, and I like to watch things like that.

They're nasty.

I'm nasty. I'll find a book adaptation of Hostel and make you watch that. I'm joking. I won't do that. I'm joking. The Human Centipede.

Ew.

I would never. I would never make you watch the Human Centipede. Good movie. Overall, I. I enjoyed the movie. It's just once again, the differences I find really interesting. Mostly because it's the same writer. It's just so interesting. The changes that were made, you can tell that some of them were made for the studio. Some of them were made because audiences hate downer movies. Like, it's been found consistently that if your movie has a downer, like, a super downer ending, when people leave theaters, they will give it a lower score. So obviously they couldn't end it on Stacy killing herself at the end. And other changes were made, too.

And any mention of suicide is probably gonna be not great.

Controversial at the very least. Do you think that that would make it into the movie if it were made now.

Maybe.

I'm just not sure.

Yeah, she may have committed suicide by Vine. She may have just like walked into the Vine.

Yeah, I feel like. Because I feel like more like movies are allowed to be a little bit more brutal nowadays than they were. Maybe. But even then, like you look back at 2006, 2007, 2008, horror, it's. It's mean. There was a lot of mean horror movies in that time.

There's a difference. There's a difference between mean and like bleak. That's true. I feel like the tone of this movie was not bleak necessarily. It's brutal and it's like gross. But I think it's not necessarily like that. Like, it's not like an HBO like miniseries kind of deal, you know?

Yeah, an HBO miniseries.

It's not like American Horror Story.

Imagine if HBO did a miniseries of the Ruins.

Oh, it would be bleak.

Oh yeah.

You better believe nobody would make it out.

Of course not.

If Mike Flanagan did the Ruins, there'd.

Be a lot more. There'd be a lot more emotion. There'd be a lot more exploration of personality. Give me that.

We'd get the Mayans probably.

Flanagan should just cover everything, honestly, just adapt everything. So yeah, those were our thoughts on the changes between the movie the Ruins from the book the Ruins. I'd love to hear your guys opinions. If you have also both read the book and seen the movie or listened to our episode on the book and watched the movie previously, you should do that by joining our Discord. The link is always in the show notes and you can keep the conversation going there. And I think we're gonna wrap it up there.

Yeah, we're gonna wrap it up. And I'll mention sometimes we have watch parties on the Discord. So we could do a watch party of the Ruins and watch it for a third time.

A third time in a week.

Listen, no, this isn't gonna come out till I know, a couple months.

That'd be so funny though. If we watch it like once a week until then just to, just to stay on top of it. I'm joking. Let's not, please. I love this movie, but I don't need to watch it again. Thanks for listening. If you want more from us, our social media is in the show notes as well as a link to our Discord where you can join the conversation and suggest books, maybe even movie books where we could watch the movie and.

Read the book, go out and commit some David behavior.

Bye.