Ep. 7 Good Morning, Midnight by Lily Brooks-Dalton vs. The Midnight Sky (2020)

welcome to books versus movies the podcast where I try to answer the age-old question is the book really always better than the movie I'm yuvia and actress and book lover based out of the New York City area and today we will be discussing good morning midnight by Lily Brooks Dalton and it's 20120 adaptation the midnight sky starring George Clooney and Felicity Jones what's up everyone so first of all I just want to say if the audio sounds a little different maybe it doesn't sound different at all but if it does that's that's because I'm recording in a different room so I have some very exciting news we're moving we are moving back to the city we have been living out in Jersey for the past year and it has been a struggle to say the least and so this is not the result we thought was going to happen but you know it is what it is and both very excited to be moving back and because of that you know we've started packing things are all over the place so I was not able to record in my usual spot so just wanted to get a little personal and give that disclaimer as I mentioned today we will be discussing the midnight sky and good morning midnight by Lily Brooks Dalton so this is kind of unusual for me I did not think that I would ever be discussing a science fiction film and novel mainly because that is not my genre I can watch science fiction films it's not a go to they're not terrible but it's just not a genre that I'm interested it's not a genre that I always understand a lot more often than not I'm left kind of confused by some of the films or I just find them to be really boring in terms of science fiction books in terms of literature I can watch science fiction and like films and TV shows and maybe be a little bit bored by them but overall I can understand them and some of them I I do think are really really cool but in terms of literature science fiction books just science fiction literature in in general I really truly struggle I find them to be so so so boring I can count on one hand the amount of science fiction books that I have read that I have legitimately understood first of all and second of all really really enjoyed and yeah so I when I created this podcast I just did not think that science fiction was ever going to be on on the roster so the fact that this is on here it's kind of a we we'll take science fiction you know kind of slow well I'm not going to guarantee a lot of Science Fiction for that reason I'm telling you here and now not to expect a lot of Science Fiction content from me but it's definitely not something that I'm opposed to it's just something that I personally struggle with because I just find it to be like the literature especially I just find it to be so so so so boring and because I find it boring I don't understand the action that's going on so yeah and and there are just some like science fiction books that I've read I I don't mind rereading books I've been rereading a lot of books for this podcast specifically there's just some books that I have no interest in ever rereading ever again so do Android's Dream of Electric Sheep which is what Blade Runner is based on not going to happen never want to read that again this is not science fiction but Pride and Prejudice not going to happen no I no M just it's so boring no I I'm not a Jane Austin person I know there's going to be a lot of people that are going to get mad at me for saying that but I'm not a Jane Austin person so I know this is like a really long tangent but just just wanted to throw that little disclaimer out there if you want more science fiction content for me probably not going to happen anyway that being said I thought good morning midnight it's relatively short it's only 28 something pages so it's definitely on the shorter side and it was written in a in a way that was easy to understand at least for someone that doesn't usually get attracted to science fiction so I actually I actually found myself really enjoying this one that being said let's go ahead and get started with good morning midnight by Lily Brooks Dalton good morning midnight was originally published in 2016 it follows Augustine who is an astronomer living on the Arctic he is the only person living on this space as there is there was a catastro catastrophic event that is never disclosed what it was but it meant that everyone evacuated and Augustine being old having and not having long life expectancy at this point due to some sort of diagnosis that is also never revealed he decides to live out the rest of the days in the Arctic I mean at this point what is a catastrophic event mean to him it is very much hinted that Augustine could very much be the last man on Earth meanwhile up in space mission specialist Sullivan and her crew are on their way back to Earth they have been on Jupiter for the last several years and are finally returning home but they are unable to communicate with mission control or anyone else and they are starting to lose hope Augustine and suie manag to connect with one another and kind of figure out what their next steps are in this uncertain future that's ahead of them the midnight sky is its 2020 adaptation starring and directed by George Clooney George cloi plays Austine this is still a post-apocalyptic film in which Augustine is probably the last man on Earth the difference is major major difference between this and the book is that Augustine is actually trying to communicate with Sully and her crew and wants to convince them not not to return back to Earth you know I I think this is the first time in which the plot description for the adaptation in the film actually sound different from one another so let's get into it so as I said the book is relatively short and I'm surprised I I believe the film itself is is almost I'm trying to find the wrong the run time but from what I remember it was close to 2 hours long which considering it's a only a 200 page 200 something page book that's that's pretty long adaptation and having read the book I can honestly say yeah you definitely could have trim trimmed some of that the midnight sky is and and the book too honestly they are both very very slow Burns so if you need like a lot of action if you need a lot of you know just something more engaging this is probably not the book or the film for you that being said I do feel as though the film was a little bit slower than than the book and and and the the book even though I don't mind slow burs personally I I think you can find a way to make slow burs engaging and I felt like the book did that really well I I there were things that I was like okay maybe we're going on a little bit too long with this description but overall I found myself really engaged with the book and with the film I I think like I said the main problem with the film is the book is itself is already a slowburn but the book itself is like I said less than 300 pages I felt like they made the film run like they wanted to make a 2-hour film they extended slow scenes and made them even longer so it felt like the run time was even longer than than the you know 2 hours it already was the book was beautifully written that's one thing that I that I really really loved is just how everything was described and you could really really feel the relationships and the tension and the love and the frustration and the the the characters all had for each other as opposed to the film The relationship between Augustine and Iris in the film which is George Clooney and it's a little girl what's what's what's her name okay I just looked up the actress's name and I have no idea how to pronounce it so I'm not even going to attt to I don't want to butcher that as someone who has a name that everyone butchers I feel it I'm not she's not here for me to ask her how to pronounce that name so I'm not going to attempt it but it's the little actress iris is about 10 or 11 maybe a little bit younger so between George Clooney's character and the little girl I thought that was great and I also felt like the relationship between the young Austine played by Ethan peek and his love interest Sophie Rundle who plays Jean I thought that was that was also good so the majority of the the story the film does focus on Austine whether it be old Austine or young Austine more than it focuses the people up in outer space which I thought was a major detriment to the film itself in the book we have six crew members and in the film there are only five and the crew members in the book you know they they've been it it's just been them for several years once they reach Jupiter they're really you know they kind of lost the ability to communicate at least verbally with Mi mission control because they're they're so far away and so it's just been them they're pretty you know tight-knit and they all respect each other but they're also kind of sick of each other and so when they discover that mission control is not responding to them and that really no one is responding to them you know they once they're within within range of being able to communicate with planet Earth they try sending out their signal to other places and it's just it it's just not happening so they start so not only are they sick of each other but there's also this tension of like what is going on our families are down on Earth we have no way to communicate with them what is going to happen and so there's there's a lot of tension in in that sense in the film I don't remember there being that relationship amongst the the the crew they I'm not I'm not saying it it it just wasn't I'm not saying it didn't exist it just it just wasn't as memorable you know it the the main focus of the film was definitely the relationships that Augustine had and the relationship Sully has with ad played by David O yo so in the book Sully has a husband that you know she and her husband are strange and she has a daughter back on Earth but she has started to develop a relationship with one of her fellow crew members they they don't they're not in a relationship the way they are in the film but they there's obviously like sexual tension there and spoiler alert at the end of the book like he does reveal his feelings for her so there's that but in in in the film we don't really get that there there isn't like there's passing comments but it it isn't so much like I don't feel the I didn't feel camaraderie in the film the way I felt it in the books one major major major change from the book into the film is that the character of Sully is pregnant and she is not in the book the main reason for that is that Felicity Jones after getting cast in the role of Sully found out that she herself was pregnant so if you watch this film that is Felicity Jones real life pregnancy belly out on screen so yeah it it was one of those things where she knew that getting pregnant might cost her the role but but you know there there just reaches a certain point where you can't hide your pregnancy anymore so she told George Clooney hey I'm pregnant and George Clooney said that's fine I still really want you for the role we will adapt this and so they made Sully a pregnant astronaut and yeah so I don't know how much that influenced the decision to make Sully and AD wle a couple I don't know if they were always a couple or if they were just made into a couple be to kind of explain why there's a pregnant astronaut in space but yeah like I said in in in the film ad W's counterpart is he and Sully are not together they do like each other there is sexual tension there but yeah there's there's nothing going on between them until the end when he reveals his feelings for her and it's so interesting because it's one of those things where when we're talking about the book I remember like the the moments between the crew members Stand Out stood out to me a lot more than what was going on between Augustine and Iris back on Earth and in the film it was it was the opposite like I said I I I didn't I really didn't care for the astronauts which is like yeah I I I don't know and and and in the book The only reason I didn't care was just or I didn't care as much I still cared I cared more for Augustine and Iris in the book than I did the crew members in the film it is I think it just wasn't as interesting I was just a lot more interested in seeing the relationship between the crew members and how they were interacting with each other and the mounting tension and mounting anxiety of not knowing what's what's going on back on Earth than I was with Augustine and Iris so the majority I'm really not going to discuss Augustine and Iris too too much in in either the film or the book and the main reason for that is so Augustine and Iris start off on the base and they decide to go to another I I don't think it's like an actual base it's it's more like you can still live and survive out there because people are meant to take care of the satellite but they're going out to like a smaller Camp meant just for the people in charge of the satellite the the maintenance of of the satellite and they go out there to try to get a better signal to see if they can communicate with anyone and and that's basically the events of the film and the book there's no deviation from there so there are there are moments of tension you know because they're traveling in the Arctic and that's dangerous because of the arctic animals and the Arctic storms and everything so it is dangerous it but overall just not as interesting as what's going on with the crew members up in space the majority of the differences I'm going to be talking about are going to be related to the crew because that's where most of the differences lie the moments between Augustine and Iris like I said are pretty faithful and and even the relationship between young Augustine and and Jean are pretty faithful there's maybe just like one difference there that that I'll get into but just so you know I guess I can just get that out of the way what am what am I talking about let's go ahead and get that out of the way so young Austine and Jean in the film are around the same age the book Jean and young Augustine are not there's actually quite a big age gap between them Jean is in her early 20s and a Augustin and is in his late 30s when they meet and get together he so after she so you know he they're together and the reason they end up breaking up is because young Augustine doesn't want to be a father he has no desire to be a father his life revolves around his career and he wants to dedicate all his time and his focus and energy on his career so in the film The last time he sees Jean you know she says you can you can go out and say hi to her and he says no and and so she drives away and that's the last time they ever see each other you know that's the last chance he ever has to meet his daughter in the book he never meets her you know he he sends presents to her on her birthday for the first few years of of her life and then he just completely stops he does send her presents on on her birthday but it's always Anonymous Jan kind of suspects and and knows who it's from and tells her daughter that that you know the presents are from her dad so he always has this you know correspondence with her but they never have like a deeper relationship beyond that and like I said the the presents do stop at some point so back to the crew so as I said in the book we have six crew members in the film we have five we have Debbie and her counterpart counterpart Maya and I will say except for Sully none of the crew members have the same names as they do in in the book they're completely new characters for all intents and purposes so Maya is is the film version of this character and Debbie is the book version of this character so Maya is spoiler alert coming up Maya and Debbie do die while they are up in space in the film Maya and Sully are they go through like this space garbage area where a piece of space garbage knocks down their satellite and obviously they're trying to communicate with Earth so need they need to fix the satellite Maya and Sully go out to attempt to fix a satellite and right as they fix it there is another trash shower and Maya is hit and impaled by one of the items and she ends up bleeding to death and that is how she dies deie and Sully go also go out to fix the satellite and in in this case it's not space trash it's just it just stops working so they need to go out and fix that and what happens is that deie has kind of already been depressed she has completely lost hope in the fact that they are not receiving any kind of correspondence from Earth so she's she is depressed the fact that she gets up and goes out to help Sully kind of gives the crew a little bit of hope that she found the motivation to get get up and do that while they are fixing you know they're fixing the thing and then they receive a report that Sully receives report that there's something wrong with Debbie's spacit and that's when Debbie reveals that there is she she didn't realize that her oxygen was running low and it's too late to get some more and so she ends up dying from a lack of oxygen and in in the film they're able to bring Maya back into this the spaceship and when they take off her helmet all this Blood just starts flowing out of her out of her spacit because I mean she's bleeding out and it just ends up all over the inside of of the Launchpad it's not a Launchpad I don't know the technical term for it but you know when they when they go in and out and they kind of have to you know they they go whatever I'm just going to call it the launch pad so she ends up dying in there so they are able to keep her body on the spaceship to hopefully take it back to Earth in the film I mean in the book Sully after realizing after Debbie has passed again it by the time they realized that she was running low on oxygen there was no way they could get back inside the ship on time to give her oxygen it was already at critically low levels so suly cuts off the rope that holds them to the spaceship and debie floats away to be in space forever and Sully believes that that is what Debbie would have wanted we have two very different deaths don't know which one's worse honestly one of my biggest fears is like dying by lack of like dying by drowning or suffocation like those just sound awful to me but then like bleeding out that also sounds but then I don't know I feel like you reach a point where you're bleeding out that your adrenaline kicks in and you don't realize I mean like you you realize you're bleeding out but like your adrenaline kicks in and you're just like oh my gosh what I'm going to what am I going to do and then you just die I don't know is that painful I feel like bleeding out is not might not be as painful this is sorry I was yeah two very different deps let's get back to that so it yeah it's kind of one of those things I kind of preferred Maya's death in in the film just because it made a little bit more sense to me than you know Debbie not realizing that her oxygen is is is running low I I don't know I I feel like that might be something you would notice but then I'm I'm starting to but it's possible that she did notice and you know she just decided not to do anything about it maybe maybe she did she did want to leave her life behind so I don't know that that's just something that that occurred to me but anyway yes two very different deaths and it is some time after the in in the book in the film that they fixed the satellite that Augustine and ether that's the name of the spaceship happen to communicate with each other in the book it's definitely by coincidence that they end up communicating with each other in the film I will explain a little bit further down there because that is down the line Alex there there because there's difference there and it's a major spoiler alert so you know let's let's keep it moving without the spoilers I mean I already gave the Debbie Mya spoiler but let's let's keep it going for a little longer without those other spoilers so yes they they get in touch Augustine and and Sully get in touch with each other they start you know in in in the book start Sully starts asking questions like do we know what happened well in the film too they you know tell us what happened why have we why haven't we been able to get into touch with anyone Augustine says I don't know I honestly don't know myself what happened I haven't been able to get in touch with anyone else on Earth either and so that's you you know Augustine just says that there in the book says that there was some it it it's possible that there was some sort of War so that's kind of what it's it's it's hinted at like this major nuclear war killed everyone else on Earth and so obviously after having this conversation the crew members start talking about what next steps so in the book the next steps um they the at this point The Ether has reached the International Space Station so they get off there and start talking about next steps the International Space Station only has one pod that'll allow them to re-enter the Earth's atmosphere and there's only enough room for three people and which means that two of them would have to stay behind and then in the film at this point so remember earlier I said in in my plot description I said that Augustine is actually trying to condense the crew not to come back to earth yeah so these are the the suggestions that Augustine has he says so in the film they are actually exploring one of Jupiter's moons which is habit humans are able to live on this Moon there is vegetation there's water so they can live on this Moon you know Augustine basically says I'm pretty sure I'm last man on Earth and I don't think the rest of the earth is habitable so might as well I mean you're already up in space you can use Earth's like instead of slowing down the way you would so you could land on Earth you can speed up and make your way around Earth and with Earth Earth's gravity will give you enough Force to send you to like send you far enough into space where you can eventually make your way back to Jupiter's moon without with like the remaining Fuel and food and whatever else you have left on on the spaceship so the next steps for the crew is do they want to go back to this to Jupiter's moon and live there or do they want to go back to Earth and it is at this point that Mitchell and Sanchez decide that f it they're going to go back to Earth and at this point they've also gotten a glimpse of what planet earth looks like and it just looks you you can't see land at all it's just like thick Green Smoke Sur surrounding the entirety of the planet no that's not true you can see the the the land and the water but everything just looks green and it is like covered by this thick green Haze everything it just it just obviously looks dead if you're not going to live if you go back to Earth but Mitchell and Sanchez say f it I'm I'm going to go back to Earth and kind of just take my chance and see what I find there I I'd rather go back so apparently Sanchez and Maya were really really close again I don't remember the relationships amongst the crew members at all like it was just not memorable to me so apparently sanus loved Maya as a daughter so he wants to go back to Earth with her body and see if he can bury it and so that that's the motivation for Mitchell and and sanchz and so they decide to go back Sully and AD wle being expectant parents decide to go back to Jupiter's moon and start start populating that I guess you can say so that you know they they want to give their child a better future and that's one of those thing one of those things that I am not sure if that was also affected by Felicity Jones pregnancy I don't know if originally the ending was going to be closer to the one in the book or they were always meant to go back to the moon and just you know start repopulating the moon just without a child already on the way so just just one of those things I'm really curious about how much the pregnancy affected the story like the little story lines like that anyway just just something I was curious about so yeah in the book as I said they the crew member the remaining crew members are on the International Space Station and they have to decide oh and in in the book they all decide you know why not go back to Earth we have no reason what are we going to do like we can't all stay on the space International Space Station and maybe if we make it back to Earth we can kind of see what happened and if there's any way we can maybe bring the remaining crew members back I mean the possibility of the crew members being brought back from the International Space Station are low but you know we can kind of just figure things out because they went to actual Jupiter and the book does not have a moood where you can live on so it's either the International Space Station or the Earth as options so one one of the crew members volunteers right off and says I have nothing waiting for me on Earth I don't have a good relationship with my family I I have no reason to go back to Earth I have nothing I I just have nothing so I'm going to volunteer and I'm going to stay on the International Space Station so the remaining crew members draw straws to determine who's going back to Earth and who's staying and suie draws a straw that says that she has to stay behind with the crew member who volunteered the next day when they are supposed to leave one of the crew members says hey you have a lot more at stake than I do you have a daughter to return to I'm just going to stay behind I I volunteer to stay behind with with this other guy and you go back home and she's like are you sure and he says yeah so she she ends up on the space pod with the other two guys including her love interest and it is at this point when they enter into the Pod that he says you know I have feelings for you I love you be with me and then it is revealed that su's first name is Iris if you're paying attention you will remember that oh no maybe I did no I did I mentioned that iris is on the base with Augustine back in the Arctic so it is implied that Augustine was having a hallucination about this daughter that he never met and that Iris Sullivan AKA Sully has been his daughter this whole time so this is one change that I really liked in the film because in the film film it's it's a lot more like had I not watched the film I don't think I would have gotten the connection honestly between the little girl Iris and Iris Sullivan it just to me that plot twist in the book was just not as clear so I really that is one change that I really appreciated in the film and the other reason I appreciated it is so as you're you can probably guess oh I never said my spoiler alert I'm so sorry everyone so spoiler alert's a little late but spoiler alert but yes what I really appreciated about the film was how they brought that into a full circle moment and just what I really appreciated in the film is that it's it's highly highly highly hinted at that Augustine never despite never having met his daughter he kept a close eye on her career and so he knew that that was his daughter up in space the whole time and the reason he decided to stay behind because Sully asks him at once point you know why did you decide to stay behind on the base instead of evacuating with everyone else and he says I felt like I could help someone so it's hinted that he knew that because he's he's kept track of his daughter's career he knew that she was up in space exploring Jupiter this whole time and he felt like if he stayed behind he could possibly help her and the rest of the ether crew and he he does that's one moment that I thought was really really beautiful in the reveal of in the film is just not even how clear it was like if if the author wanted to keep it more ambiguous in the book that's fine but I just thought that moment was really beautiful because there's no connection like everything just seems by is implied that it's a coincidence in the book like he knows of The Ether and he knows that they've been in space but he doesn't know that that's his daughter he's you know he's an old man getting ready to die and he's Reminiscing on his life and so he hallucinates this little girl because he's lonely up in space and because he kind of has regrets of never having had a relationship with her and but he he he's not willingly like he's not up there because he wants to help her like he's literally up there because he's like I don't see any point in evacuating when I'm going to die soon anyway like that's that's literally his reasoning so that is one major major change between the film and the book that I loved and truly appreciated and yeah so the final image in the book is the guy su's love interest saying revealing his feelings for her this point we have so each chapter alternates between Auggie and suly so at this point we've like long forgotten about Augie they had their last conversation a while ago he it's it's hinted that he's hallucinating and then the next chapter is all about Sully the other guy volunteering to stay behind Sully getting in the Pod with her love interest in the other guy that are able that is able to go back to Earth and her name is revealed and it's like oh Iris Iris probably the same probably the same person what what are the odds and and in the film The Final image is him looking back and in case you didn't understand that that was his daughter we get a a flash we go back to the flashback of him denying to mean his daughter and we get a glimpse of little Iris in the car and it's the same little girl that's been in the Arctic with him this whole time and then Augie and Sully say goodbye to each other which I also thought was nice cuz in the book they kind of lose contact with each other and then yeah they say goodbye to each other and Sully and her partner are off to return to Jupiter and that was good morning midnight versus the midnight sky so as you can probably tell between the way I was just talking about them I think it's pretty obvious that I preferred one over the other without but you know I'll still do my usual rating system so I rated the midnight sky three stars and I rated the book good morning midnight or Stars didn't feel the need to do a drum roll that time because like I said I think it was fairly obvious I preferred the book The only thing I preferred in terms of the film was the ending I thought the ending was I just thought the ending was better in the film than it was in the book it was a lot more satisfying so yeah that was that was good morning midnight tune in next time when I discuss a book that just filled me with so much rage and I'm not looking forward people always say I can't imagine you angry I want to see you angry first of all no you don't second of all I don't like being angry stop saying you want to see me angry like I don't want to be angry but for those of you that are curious and want to see me angry definitely tune in to next week's episode because I am that book that I thought the adaptation pissed me off and then they read the book and I was like no no no no the film at this point is just a mild annoyance the book just no no no no so we will be talking about it after we collided by anat Todd and the adaptation all right I'm mentally preparing myself for that already see you next St