I'm stoked so many people got the original Mary Sue reference! Also just wanted to reiterate how appreciative I am of all the kind comments. It really does help the channel a ton
Just fyi, "derpy" is a super ableist term. It largely comes from the way edgelords of the recent past would mock people's intelligence by mimicking the stereotyped sounds that people with certain mental disabilities sometimes make. Just saying since you usually seem very mindful of that sort of stuff (which is always appreciated), but I get that everyone slips up occasionally.
For everyone (like myself) who doesn't know what "dying of exposure" means, it's a blanket term for death because of the weather/elements. Like dying by heatstroke or freezing to death. It can also include drowning and dying because of radiation, but I don't think that was what he meant in this case.
This is true but how likely are people to die of exposure over what seems like 12-24 hours or so in England? I know England can be cold but outside of winter is england really THAT cold? Cold enough for non-elderly people to die of simply being outside for a few hours? I legitimately don't mean to diminish this, I know homeless people do die from exposure, I just question how many would have died over what seems a fairly short time span in what would likely be a not particularly bad time of year to be outside for a few hours. It can't have been more than a day or two or we would likely see people die of thirst too.
@@Kobolds_in_a_trenchcoat I don't know where the movie takes place, I've never seen the black and white version but there are places here in the States that if you are outside overnight with the wrong clothing on you'd definitely die of exposure.
@@Kobolds_in_a_trenchcoat I mean, in Autumn/Winter, yes the cold, windy and wet will get you. Otherwise it'll be the heatwaves. If you just stand in the sun for a few hours you get a mild sunburn, imagine what half a day of just sun blazing down on you will do. That's just cooking you. Also our elderly do die INSIDE in winter as well due to having no heating lol, or inside in summer with no way to ventilate or cool down due to our lack of home-ACs, half or a full day is not 'a few hours' and even a few minutes of something harsh and strong can kill someone.
@@gigigonzalez1654 it comes from "A Trekkie's Tale", which was a parody of Star Trek fanfiction and basically codified the concept of the Mary Sue as we know it. Here's an article with the opening paragraphs and some background info: fanlore.org/wiki/A_Trekkie%27s_Tale
The Christopher Reeves film was my only exposure to this story tbh. Aside from the Simpsons. And I really liked it regardless and mostly because of Christopher .he's just so dang likeable dangit
Birds might have wings, but they aren't angels. Story: we were eating breakfast, whilst watching the birds at the bird feeder outside. Suddenly a magpie grew tired of seeds, and served itself a sparrow. I did not consume any more food that morning.
I used to volunteer at the Shedd Aquarium in Chicago, IL. Almost every person working there had at least one story about being attacked by red-winged blackbirds. There was even one weekend that the outdoor stingray touch exhibit had to be shut down because a pair of the birds had nested in the pavilion and attacked guests.
Oh god, I remember watching this on TV when I was a child myself. If somebody tried to tell me that this movie is the reason I don't want children, I'd at least hear them out tbh.
Just letting you know dom that despite the fact i have watched almost all of your content and despite the fact i have rung the bell youtube still fails to show me your content. i have no idea why! because it's mostly wholesome and really good.
From memory, in the book The kids were always the Children (big C) but when they were waiting for the film at the end they were seen as children (small c) for the first time like you said
As dumb as I sound to myself saying this, I always mistook this for a weird artsy project version of The Children Of The Corn... Of course the movie version of the children's powers remind me of reading Jack The Bodiless, which makes me wonder if Julian May was ever inspired by this story.
Since you put so much effort into asking for likes and comments I shall feed the algorithm And of course you deserve all these beautiful watchers. Don't you know? The youtuber creates their community. Everyones comment section has an etiquette that is governed by the conduct of the presentor. But thank you for the content. Scaled down children. Classical.
While I do enjoy this film it is one of those books where I'd be really interested to see a film adaptation with a female director and screenwriter. The pregnancy part of the plot is so underused.
I read that book shortly after it came out. I was eleven. It was pretty scary. The movie was probably pretty good, but I had trouble with the changed details. That's being a kid for you.
Great review. I'm sure this was the version I watched many years ago. I found it to be a very spooky film. I could have sworn though that the version I saw did have a ufo or two at the beginning, or maybe it was just mentioned and at the end I thought the kids died in a barn and not a house. Would have been interesting to see what the children were like if they had become physical adults, started mating and had actually founded a secluded space to be safe and then spread from across the planet.
Humanoid cuckoo babies is such a weird concept to me. Going to be thinking about it for a while. Not that I mind, I'm just struggling to put thoughts into a comment. There's of course the horror of waking up pregnant with some parasitic alien race's baby, and the task of trying to raise an alien baby. How do you even know how hot is too hot for milk for an alien baby? What if alien baby is allergic to bananas. How could you tell? Raising a human baby is challenging enough for our species, what advanced alien species would trust us with their progeny?
Erich von Daniken's _Chariots of the Gods_ was also originally supposed to include the detail that Jesus was an alien, but the publishers insisted it be cut. It, too, was incredibly problematic, claiming that brown people couldn't make or do anything without alien intervention. The author would claim, in a later book, that the Black race was a "failure".
The bit about the children all wanting to be together doesn't make a lot of sense to begin with. I would have thought, in fact, that all the women in town would feel a compulsion to move elsewhere before the births, so that it wouldn't become so blatantly obvious the children were all so similar and weird. One super brilliant Wunderkind in, say, London, Luton or Glasgow, instead of 60 all at the same time in a small town like Midwich would draw less attention, and since they're all mentally linked anyway, why would they need to be all together. Splitting up in male/female pairs (if the mental link was still gender-linked) would give them maximum survivability.
It just hit me that there is a series pretty similar to this that I grew up on called fantastic children. The only similarities is that the kids have white hair and blue eyes. As well as the children are mature for their age.(There's one more similarity but it's a spoiler so I won't say it here) But it's less horror/thriller and more mystery/adventure.
The sequel and the 90's remake is very underrated, compared to the current strain of remakes it's not that bad and the ending of the sequel made me very sad and actually made me cry
I watched the day of the triffids in the 80s, I was a kid and it was supposed to be scary but just made me laugh. I watched village of the damned shen I was a kid too, I found it a bit menacing in some places but in most of the film it was so cheesy it became comical
An entire community of women having unexplained simultanious pregnancies is an absolutely amazing and terrifying horror concept. I WANT this story from a female lens. The power fetuses have to alter their carrying parent's body has so much potential for horror.
John Carpenter's remake actually tried to do that, spending more time particularly with one of the mothers. It's obviously not perfect (although I'm one of the few that actually really likes the film) but it tried a lot harder than the original in that respect.
I also really liked John Carpenter's remake. My only beef with it is that it felt a little tame. But I agree about how awesome it would be to see it from more of a female one, including a writer and/or director
In umbrella academy this sorta does happen on a global scale. But what you see narrative wise is what the children grew up with after that and all their issues.
There's a Swedish graphic novel series that has a spin on that concept. The series is called SH3 and probably won't be translated, so I'm just gonna spoil what happens: The arc starts with several women in the same area turning pregnant out of nowhere, and since it takes place in a world of super-powered individuals, the authorities starts to suspect a super-sex offender of some sort. The plot gets creepier and creepier, with more and more members of the central cast becoming affected, and abortions somehow being impossible. The reveal is extra-horrifying. Basically, one of the main characters is a superman-type being who's been raised on Earth, while actually hailing from another planet. After he lost his virginity to a one-night-stand in high school, his sperm has simple been spread in the area, since they are also indestructable and able to fly. In the third volume, a plot thread about a lesbian couple gets introduced, and it's pretty interesting to see how they slowly grow more accepting of the idea and want to do the best of the situation, only for one of them to suffer a freak side-effect of the government's attempt to stop the spread of the sperms.
Another similar story is the graphic novel "The Goddamned 2: The Virgin Brides", though that one is more explicitly a twist on the biblical virgin birth.
Yep, and it sounded he went to the source, the original Star Trek fanfic about "Lieutenant Mary Sue" that coined the term "Mary Sue". Ironically, that fanfic was specifically written to _be_ a satire of that type of self-insert character that is so perfect everyone loves the Mary-Sue (or Gary-Stu if male) and who upstages every canon character. Bonus points if the Mary-Sue melodramatically sacrifices themselves to save the world, only to be brought back to life by a magical talisman/true love/insert plot device here.
Suddenly being pregnant (or being pregnant at all) is one of the most horrifying things I can think of, never mind having to raise the satan-alien child too
If I ever get enough confidence to properly try writing one of the things on the top of my list is the ‘mysterious mass pregnancy’ plot but from the women’s point of view. Given I’m a woman who doesn’t want children and is genuinely grossed out by the thought of being pregnant I get the feeling the tone will be very horror.
@@StarsManny you're assuming the thing *doing the impregnating is hyper aware of human emotions and all that stuff. So that's a weird assumption to make.
@@StarsManny not necessarily! You could do something that takes away the agency of choice from the unwilling mothers (much like them not choosing the pregnancy in the first place). Instead of being influenced into being elated at the mysterious pregnancy and protective of the prospective child, perhaps they can't actively seek to terminate the pregnancy without suffering horrible psychic punishments or physical debilitation until they stop the attempt. Make them very much aware that this is no normal pregnancy (especially amongst those that weren't sexually active or had no interest in having kids), but unable to do anything about it. And even if they're not actively protective of the children once born, they can't somehow bring them to harm either, either directly or indirectly. Though, a totally different tack would be to keep your suggested delight at the sudden pregnancy, but have that only extend to the point where the child is born and then the compulsion wears off in a snap. You then deal more with the mental aftermath of realizing that this parasitical being forced you to not only carry it to term, but made you feel *happy* to do so, only letting your mind go when it no longer needed your body to grow. There's a lot of psychological and body horror themes that could be explored here tbh! Many ways this plot could realistically play out ("realistically" for sci-fi/horror, that is).
Dominic wrote down that dominatrix joke. Filmed himself three times, twice as children, then but it in black and white, then uploaded it. Respect man, respect
Have I read the book before hearing about the authors past I would have interpreted the whole "I'm so happy to be pregnant with God knows what" aspect as an effect/manipulation of the mothers by the "children" inside them.
That was exactly what happened in the 1995 version. Several of the women were distraught and intended to terminate before all simultaneously having weird visions that changed their minds.
Ira Levin said that when considering pregnancy-themed horror the idea of aliens occurred to him but this book had already beaten him to the punch, so instead we got "Rosemary's Baby."
@@edienandy I think Ira Levin was in general pretty good at writing female characters. Several of his books have female protagonists and they always come off complex and reasonable
I remember feeling horrified by this when I saw the american movie, and I was a teen then. I would probably have nightmares for weeks if I'd been introduced to it more recently.
I think the mothers being overly happy to be randomly pregnant with the alien kids in modern recreations or reimagining it by explaining the kids made them think this so they would be very well cared for and not hurt. I don't think the writer meant that considering the past he had but it'd make sense as why the mothers aren't even bothered by the change Edit: I forgot this comment and recently watched the film, deciding to watch this to see how it deferred from the book. I thought that David was supernaturally controlling his mother cause as soon as he's born she's devoted him no matter what even though she was scared while pregnant
That is how I interpreted it when I read the book. I remember various ideas being thrown around here but the very sexist one mentioned here being adopted only BEFORE the character realised the full power of the children and then largely dropped. Certainly the mothers later on were being emotionally controlled.
"Birds can be real assholes" Especially when you include the fact that the eggs laid by the victim bird are either thrown out by the brood parasite parent, by the brood parasite baby once it hatches, or the baby victim birds are killed by the brood parasite baby upon hatching, thrown out of the nest by the brood parasite baby's instinctive reaction when it feels something on its back, or just out-competed in food acquisition by the larger brood parasite baby. End result, along with tricking another bird into raising a baby, brood parasites result in the death of the original babies. BTW, not all cuckoos are brood parasites. The roadrunner (yes, it's a cuckoo) is an example of a non-brood parasite species. All honeyguides are brood parasites, though
Reminds me of a Twilight Zone episode where there was a boy that could read minds and would "disappear" people who didn't like him. Or turn them into jack-in-the-boxes.
So John Carpenter remade a movie about interstellar aliens with supernatural powers that come to earth to be raised by humans...and he cast SUPERMAN in the leading role? That can’t have been unintentional.
John Carpenter is one of my favourite directors but that film is hilariously bad. I spent the whole run time distracted by the question of how and why a set of children in rural America were able to obtain matching British school uniforms from the 1950s. Did they sew them themselves or did they all pester their parents to get them for them?
@@casanovafunkenstein5090 Yes haha, its,its carpenter so its competent but not very good. But watchable if weird. Butonly i youare ok with weird old movies .
@@casanovafunkenstein5090 - My initial thought was "well, they could have a Catholic school in the area"... but never having seen that film, I don't know if the town would have been large enough to support such a school.
@@PhoenyxAshe to put it in perspective there are less than two dozen women of appropriate age who give birth to the aliens, so it's basically the middle of nowhere
There were a few things I liked about Carpenter's version, among them, that there was one of the kids that didn't turn evil, because they apparently all came up in pairs, and the kid that was alone (because a scientist stole one of them for study and dissection) was ostracized by the group. and In the final scene, he was the only alien kid to survive in the end.
Still waiting on Good Omens. Not telling you to get on it, just letting you know there is still interest in that video so you don't think it's too late.
I think it has already been paid for by a patreon I think Dom is just waiting for it to ease up on the copyright (I think that is the wrong word but you know what I mean)
Also, worth noting is that he has a long Patreon list that he is going off of right now. You can read it on his website. www.dominic-noble.com/the-patreon-to-do-list
That will be a one-sided bloodbath as the children of the corn themselves have no powers. They only have He Who Walks Behind the Rows - and he will gladly sacrifice the lot and then accept the alien children as his new disciples.
@@troyschulz2318 He's supposed to be satan masquerading as God (at least that's the impression that I got from the series) so the alien children wouldn't have the ability to do anything to him.
I have heard a radio theatre play that combined the two stories. It is named "Beyond Belief: Teenagers of the Corn", it is part of The Thrilling Adventure Hour, and it is hilarious.
Even the teen mom was OLD, because Grampa didn't understand women's bodies (or minds). I read this at 10 or 11, and was already menstruating and freaked out by the idea of getting mysteriously pregnant--which could've happened to me at 8 or 9, according to the rules of this book, since I was "ready".
Well I think that would actually depend on the details of the rules of the book. Ignore the author's dumb ideas and think about it from the alien's perspective. It would make a lot more sense to assign it as "people who could carry a pregnancy to term" as opposed to "people who could get pregnant". Although it's supposed to be scary either way.
Actually, for reasons that science can't yet explain (seriously) menstruation has been having it's onset at a much earlier age than it used to. Fifty years ago it was incredibly rare for girls to start their periods before age 13. Now girls as young as 8 are getting theirs and no one knows why it changed. At least they didn't the last time I researched this. But, it's actually true that back when he wrote this book there just weren't girls getting their periods before they turned 13.
@@eshbena yeah. And back when laws and custom had women getting married as soon as they menustrated, that was 15-18. And that was def because of malnutrition, although why precocious puberty is more common now compared to 50 years ago is unknown, given the level of nutrition in the global north is roughly the same.
I think the going theory is that it's something to do with nutrition levels--you have to have a certain amount of body fat before you can start menstruating. Precocious puberty, where kids as young as 8 start menstruating, is less common (maybe 10% at most?)--these days the average age seems to be around 12. But that doesn't mean it's safe to have a baby then--a kid that age who is menstruating could get pregnant (which is a horrifying thought), but teenage pregnancies come with risks due to age. It's safer to wait until at least your twenties to get pregnant.
@@eshbena we have current research pointing towards it having to do with modern diets having more of the needed nutrients for growth being more easily obtained causing major growth to occur earlier and from another paper pointing towards preteens and teens being in the healthy bmi range earlier.
Hey guys, just a reminder please don’t tell him to hurry up and finish doing other books adaptations, A lot of this take a lot of time and effort You just telling him to hurry will cause possible burnout, he’s a human being, not an entertainment machine. Edit: The entitlement people in the replies you don’t pass the vibe check 🤡
My only criticism of this video is Dom saying he doesn’t deserve us. You deserve every one of your Beautiful Watchers, Dom, it’s you who’s too good to us!
My only criticism is his jab at middle-aged white men. Like them being middle-aged white men is the problem. I'd say the writing habits of the certain famous middle-aged white women (J.K Rowling, Stephanie Meyer and E. L James) are more problematic than anything from Michael Cryton or John Wyndham. But I wouldn't hold their sex, race or age against them. Just their writing habits. Given his habitual self-flagellating at being a white man it makes me think Dom has some self-loathing issues he has to work through.
@@ThePkmnYPerson I get, but it's the part of Jurassic Park he decided to focus on - the age, sex and race of the author. When really I thought we got past judging people based on those. Say what you will about Stephanie Meyer and E.L James, he didn't use their age, sex or race to disparage them.
Physiologically speaking, it would have been more interesting if a certain amount of immunity from the alien mind control would have transferred to the mothers during gestation. It could've been used as a small, and exploitable, weakness against the seemingly unstoppable children without resorting to bombs. Just my thoughts.
I'm getting Stranger In A Strange Land vibe from this story. Supernatural aliens and superpowers, mass murder, author self-insert that commentates on the state of the real world and is the smartest character.
Dom dont say that you were lucky with your fans. You as a creator make and maintain a community based on how you interact with them. If you are kind and understanding your community Will be too. If you are an edgelord your community Will be aswell. View your community as a reflection of your personality and morals. Also ive been a fan since The starship trooper episode, always happy to see another video from you!
While you're right that good people tend to attract good people, he did get a little bit lucky too :) A lot of channels about books attract pretentious butts who are just there to feel intellectually superior. I'm super happy that that's not the case here :)
I remember seeing this as a child and wondering why on earth any of those women kept the babies. I mean, I know that terminations weren't legal at the time but surely they could turn them over to the government after birth. The explanation about the author's attitude towards women kind of explains it. Dude did not understand women at all.
i thought from the movie that because it was a catholic village, they felt very discouraged, just like in real life where women don't want to be ostrasized from their VILLAGES/parishes
Just as an additional history piece - abortions and birth control have always been around (just with a lot of complications and dangers) and in a lot of small, isolated towns or settlements throughout history have always had people who provided these services and just DGAF what the law says. Of course, it has also almost always been a word-of-mouth secret among the women, who don’t see it as something the menfolk/husbands need know about. So the author probably doesn’t know about that, anyway.
I absolutely love this story and one reason is I am interested in Natural History. It is obvious the mothers should reject their babies but you have to understand the Cuckoo in nature. The mother carries on feeding the cuckoo chick despite it being larger than the mother prior to leaving the nest. It has already killed the other chicks. Often in nature mothers will abandon their young for no reason but not the cuckoo. The cuckoo seems to have some weird control over the mother. The idea that we could be subjugated by an alien race in the same way is a totally brilliant concept.
I absolutely love this story and one reason is I am interested in Natural History. It is obvious the mothers should reject their babies but you have to understand the Cuckoo in nature. The mother carries on feeding the cuckoo chick despite it being larger than the mother prior to leaving the nest. It has already killed the other chicks. Often in nature mothers will abandon their young for no reason but not the cuckoo. The cuckoo seems to have some weird control over the mother. The idea that we could be subjugated by an alien race in the same way is a totally brilliant concept. @@KawaiiStars
@@robertmoore1061 honestly i can see that happening, actually, nursemaids were like this aswell, often poor mothers would have to give their children away, to nurse a noble baby, but often they got attached to the baby more than their own
11:00 One of my personal philosophies in life is that there's a Simpsons reference for any occasion. When a show's been around as long as the Simpsons and has had to come up with so many jokes to fill so many episodes, you're bound to cover practically everything under the sun.
This book inspired the x men characters the stepford cuckoos. The clone daughters of emma frost. Their names are Sophie, Pheobe, Irma, Celeste, and Esme.
@@GrifterMage Yes their name is a Spice Girls reference. Although not always as Irma was briefly redubbed Mindee by another writer. But that got retconned so that her name is Irma again, though she prefers Mindee as call name. And only three of the Cuckoos are left
The idea of this story both fascinates me (because it is an interesting concept) and makes me wildly uncomfortable in a "I'm a woman and this is my nightmare sort of way" XD
Something else to notice, the line about "The indecisiveness of Western Democracy" and Zeleby's "strong man making all the important decisions" behaviour kinda shows some... *Interesting views* from Wyndham. None of them good.
@@vassily-labroslabrakos2263 He wasn’t talking about _that,_ tho that is definitely in their with the other races of the world killing their cuckoos like they were animals realizing a snake egg was mixed in their nest. Hawkatana was pointing out Wyndham seemed to think authoritarian strongmen could only deal with the extraterrestrial threat. He’s saying Wyndham seems to either be a commie or an boot licking fascist.
The mental battle at the end of the movie is more tense, but the idea that at the last moment they show humanity, implying that maaaaaybe there was another way to ave this, but this revelation too late due to KABOOM... that sounds like quite a provocative ending.
