Did you guys read this series growing up? What did you think of the Netflix version? I need to know if I'm being too much of a hater ;w; Oh, and EDIT: My plush got a one week extension! Here's the link if you wanna get her. www.makeship.com/products/lavendertowne-plush-mischief-edition
i read both uglies and pretties in 2011 and never finished specials. when i heard it was getting a movie adaptation, i was shocked because i thought it was a really obscure book series (i wasn't into YA dystopian and didn't talk about books with people). i haven't seen the movie and i don't think i will, so i guess i can't answer your other question. but i didn't like the books, to be honest. i personally thought it was a weird way to deal with the topic and it didn't appeal to me so i kinda forgot about it entirely for a long time. but i think the differences you pointed out are very unfortunate. even if i didn't care for the execution of the book, the adaptation still completely ruins the point. damn. i think eye colour actually is very important here because blue eyes have so much value placed on them, so it's disappointing that someone with brown eyes was depicted with blue ones instead.
I loved the books growing up, haven't seen the movie, but going off the footage in your vid, I'm not interested. Which is a shame! I think the concept of the books is still very important these days, maybe even more than when the books first came out.
The series was really nice and I was going to watch the Netflix adaption but immediately could tell from the preview it wasn’t accurate to the source material in a way that mattered :(
Exactly! The 'Pretties' were supposed to look ethereal, almost inhuman, like Alex Consani or like you said, even Alita styled type of beauty! The standards were meant to be sky-high if you were one of the 'uglies' Sadly, this felt like an edgy tween movie to me. 'Being yourself is the ultimate form of rebellion' would have hit so much harder...
Sorry I only saw the movie and didn't know there was a book, but, I think the movie made it more like our modern standards on what's pretty and attractive. Closer to a more real sense of feeling inadequate and insecurity with one's appearance like wanting a better nose, better hair better body shape, instead of the pretties being outright other worldly comparison to the uglies or it's not as relatable?
Honestly i thought tally was asian because they kept talking about her "squinty" eyes and that it was supposed to exemplify that racism wasnt actually as gone as it was supposed to be in the same way that the "base skin tone" for pretties does.
Ah, I actually thougt she was squinting because of bad vision (maybe not bad enough to wear glasses.) As someone with bad vision and very lided eyes, I often got the question of having Asian people in my family (even though none of them are) because I do tend to squint a lot
She could just have eyes like that. That’s my case. I am, yt, but my eyes are always like that, people always assume I’m tired, or high, even though it’s just how they normally are. It’s not considered cute. Not against it though, in my head i pictured her as asian as well. Just made me think about it since i always used to hear about having squinty eyes all the time when i was in school. Haha
Before I watch this: I found it annoying that Uglies was full of conventionally beautiful actors. Like, how can you get away with that when the premise is a criticism of beauty standards?
It's so irritating to me that the movie is literally called UGLIES but it feels like the executives just said, "Well, it's not like we can ACTUALLY have an ugly person in our movie, people might not watch it!" Cowards!!! I would watch it!!!!! Normalize ugliness and flaws and imperfections, the grotesque and abnormal, the weird and offputting, it's what beauty truly means, it's what makes us human!!!!!!!
Pretties are supposed to be inhumanly beautiful. Therefore, uglies are supposed to look anywhere from ugly to our own version of beautiful. There was a part where tally was looking at an old magazine or something and thought that the celebrities were ugly.
@@LaurenCastellaw-SOMyeah but it’s also about accepting our normalities in human form, casting conventionally attractive ppl is not the best way to go with the idea. It’s not the actors’ fault, but for a work that criticizes beauty standards and the diminishing of personalities in our culture, the casting is peak irony.
I 100% thought it was going that direction when we got to Pretties, and was shocked that it didn't turn out to be gay. Come on . . . those girls had something going on.
I LOVE the way you drew the 'uglies' in a more detailed realistic style and the 'pretties' is a more simplified cartoony style. I think it really drives home how uncanny the pretties look side by side with an unaltered ugly. I feel like this was a point the movie should have been more focused on, like the pretties didn't look uncanny enough in my opinion. Especially since they hired already attractive actors, the shift wasn't dramatic enough.
Funnily enough, I was subconsciously imagining Lady Gaga as Dr. Cable without realizing that's what Lady Gaga's face looks like without makeup/more naturally. I keep forgetting what she looks like when she's not performing or in costume.
i didn't realize she was trans, but honestly you're right, with that information there's a really weird implication about trans operations. that's not the kind of thing studios do on accident. very unnerving
that was my first thought when i saw the trailer, but i didnt see anyone else mention it. not to say no one else did, i simply hadnt seen it talked about, and i feel like it really shouldve been
the implications of casting a trans woman as the main villain of a story about the dangers of plastic surgery and changing yourself to fit the beauty standard is an actually insane choice for the casting director to have not thought of. plastic surgery is definitely a subject which i think should be elaborated on in media, but i think the choice to cast laverne cox as the clear villain of the story is so strange that it almost intentionally seems like alt right propaganda. laverne cox is a woman who has had "plastic surgery" in the sense that shes had gender-affirming surgery. to use her as the example of a villain in a world which surrounds the concept of being stereotypically pretty in a grotesque manner is so ridiculously tone deaf. no one at any point thought about the implications of casting not only a trans woman, but a trans woman of color in this role? especially since, like lavender said, this story had underlying themes of racism and white beauty standards and the role they chose laverne to play is a character which is supposed to look scary rather than "pretty" is... a choice. i 100% think more trans people should be cast in roles which arent specifically meant for trans people and trans people generally should be more normalized in media. but i also think that when you make any choice with your casting, you should think about the implication of that choice. "blind casting" is not ever actually blind. or at least, it shouldnt be. an oversight this big on this important of a movie for that important of a character is frankly embarrassing. i hope movies and media in general take this into heavy consideration in the future.
This. I think people hear "diverse casting is important" but don't understand *why* so they just check boxes instead of making thoughtful, meaningful inclusion
Absolutely! When I heard her first speech about getting surgery and how no one can judge her now afterwards and that it fixes all adversity, considering what she's PERSONALLY been though, I was in shock.
I like how it's "the full lineup of characters" but you didn't include any of the male characters. True! That IS accurate to the books. The male characters do NOT matter in these books. Can't even remember their names.
For a world of what is essentially plastic monsters they went very 'safe' with it and that saddens me. They failed to make convincing contrast by making the uglies too pretty and casting poorly I think the best style/format they could have gone with to make this concept pop 1000% would be a Coraline like stop motion. That would go SO hard.
Fr they should've used prosthetics and sfx makeup to make them look eerily beautiful instead of just having them look like hollywood actors with an instagram filter over their face.
Stop motion is underrated and underappreciated in the animated community. You’d be surprised how many people I have seen fall that art style “trashy and low budget.”
@@lunarialoonatic That's surprising to me. As an artist myself I love stop-motion and the beautiful ways stories can be told with it. Some of my favorite movies are stop-motion. It is a time consuming but gorgeous form of art.
Your comment on Roman noses genuinely made me smile. Ever since middle school I have been so insecure of my nose. I had been called big nose all through out middle school, and came to believe that it was the only thing stopping me from looking pretty. Growing to be mature, I realized that it wasn’t true. Yet I still avoid drawing myself because I hate drawing my nose. I guess what I am trying to convey is that hearing someone call the Roman nose type beautiful has made me so happy. Thank you.
Lots of people think so! My mom has the roman nose and I was always sad that I didn't look more like her growing up, actually people used to ask her if she was babysitting me because we looked so different, including skin tone and hair color. But what I really wanted the most was her nose. And one of my most vivid childhood memories was of her looking in the mirror and complaining that plastic surgery was too expensive or she would have already fixed her big ugly nose... I was probably 7 or 8 and it hurt my heart so much to hear her say that. I always thought she was the most beautiful woman in the world so this rocked my whole world. I thought "If her nose is bad, my nose must be terrible!" and I started having issues with my own nose (a little average button-shaped nose). Much later, she heard me being critical of my own features and told me that I should cheer up, because "many women pay big money to have a nose like yours". After that I lost my insecurity entirely and started just not thinking too much about my features because there will always be a reason to dislike yourself if you look for it. The key is to stop looking.
Having read the books growing up i loved how vividly you could picture characters features down to the slight asymmetry in the uglies' faces. I think it was Shay who was described in that scene where they play with a symmetrical face visualiser as having one side looking slightly angrier than the other due to the natural tilt of the brow, but i cant recall for sure. Regardless, in all the years since I touched the books that visual stuck with me. I'm not gonna pretend they're a perfect commentary for beauty standards and their affects on people, but it was nice as a self conscious teen to have characters described in ways someone hypercritical of their appearance might, not limited to just vague descriptions like "messy brown hair and plain looks" that allow you to easily picture an actor or celebrity.
I really dont think the issue was the uglies, as they are just natural born normal people I think the issue was just putting a filter on pretties, they should have gone full out alita battle angel since it is stated it is almost impossible to be born a natural pretty
Yes and no. The actors wear makeup to cover up their skin imperfections and their hair is styled in a way to make them look good on screen. Which goes against what the story is trying to say. And also, it just doesn't work as a message if all the "uglies" look so perfect to the audience (because the actors fit our current beauty standards, they're missing out on the meta commentary completely). Also, the fact that all the actors look so attractive to us, make the immersion harder. How am I suppose to believe that the actress playing Tally finds herself to be so ugly that she needs a full body operation when she is so attractive according to our current beauty standards (not talking about my personal taste here)? While if the actress was average looking, aka looked more like me (pre-transition, because hello, I'm a trans guy), then yeah, I would understand more why she finds herself ugly. I would relate to her more. I'd understand why she feels so horrible because that's something we've all experienced. I'm sure the actress too did, we all do, have complex and body issues, but it's harder to believe it when she fits so well within the beauty standards of the present.
@@princeollie1022 your point just doesnt work with the story. All the actors in the movie, if they were in this universe they would be ugly, there is no arguing otherwise. EVERYONE born is ugly in the book, no matter how lucky or how much makeup you wear you are ugly. Only the operation makes you pretty. It doesnt work if some people are born pretty by luck (like it happens in reality) because they wouldn’t be forced to get the procedure. Pretties in the book are simply something strange to us that dont feet out beauty standards and dont look like natural humans anymore.
@lolitareyart Your point only works in the vacuum of the story, but the problem with that is that there is an audience watching the movie. It's more difficult to relate to the characters or believe that they feel ugly when they fit what the audience has been trained since birth to see as beautiful. Also, the makeup the actors wear is not "in the story" (as in, it's not Tally who wears makeup, it's the actress who plays Tally so that the character looks a certain way), it's an out of the story thing they do to make them look more attractive, which goes against the themes of the narrative. It undermines its own themes because Hollywood is just as vain as the Pretties they are trying to critique. Aka a Hollywood movie was probably not the best call to make a critique of beauty standards.
@@princeollie1022I think the message really could’ve been carried over even using “conventionally attractive actors” because it could’ve been saying that even though they look attractive to us, they themselves feel SO ugly because of society and beauty standards. it could’ve been about how fleeting and varied the beauty standards are.
@@princeollie1022the entire point is that they were never really ugly to begin with. Nobody is actually ugly and nobody needs surgery to be pretty. A lot of you missed the entire point of the books and it shows.
Casting model-like people in roles representing “ugly” people in a movie about unfair beauty standards is giving the same vibes as giving an award to a song about men in a movie about feminism lolll (Which I do have qualms about that movie and true feminism is about equality and the Kens were 100% not being treated right but yk still lol)
I think that’s the point, though. None of the “Uglies” actually are. I think a lot of them are actually pretty. They’re taught to hate how they look so they’ll be willing to get the change.
@@tell-me-a-story- it would be nice to show beauty in a way that isn't the hollywood conventionally attractive look though. would have been nice if they were just normal teenagers who were special in their own ways.
I read uglies when I was very young, so I’m actually quite interesting in rereading it since you pointed out the whitewashing aspect, that slipped past me the first time.
me too. The main trilogy and the sequels set after tally's time are all pretty good. i recently reread another series by scott westerfield that I knew I enjoyed but it was _way_ better than i remember it being.
@@sheersternfeld1914 In the most literal terms, as stated by the Google: "Kitbashing or model bashing is the practice of making a new scale model by taking pieces out of kits. These pieces may be added to a custom project or to another kit. For professional modelmakers, kitbashing is used to create concept models for detailing movie special effects.". It is also, as I used it, a general term for mixing and matching parts owing to its increased commonality as parlance
i haven't even finished the video yet but your tally drawing looks so real! like, that's a regular girl you would see in the grocery store! i always thought Uglies could make for a pretty good movie, so hearing about how flat the movie actually turned out to be was pretty disappointing.
Honestly it’s surprising how much her drawing of Tally looks like me. Weirdly never seen a lot of characters with that body type even though it’s not rare. :O
I just watched the movie and the fact that they all cast conventionally attractive people as the "uglies" like- and i remember as I was watching it being like "why do I feel like I'm seeing hunger games?"
@emdove That would still imply at least one LGBT member lol. If A is a girl and loves B who is a boy, then C's crush on A would either be lesbian if they're female or B would be crushing on another guy. Or C identifies as non-binary which would automatically put them into the LGBT camp.
I didnt know there was a book of it. What I find frustrating is how off movies and series seem to go from their original story. Changing characters on multiple parts and all... Seems like such a waste! I loved the setup of this story, even if its "out of place" for this time. The designs you made could easily be used for finding an actual properly looking cast for the story...
I remember reading this series back in 2009 as a teenager. I always kind of wondered how that series would resonate today since it seemed kind of prophetic of modern day social media and beauty standards.
I know this is not the point of the video but the way you draw the characters is just so beautiful. They definitely don't look perfect, they have blemishes and odditys and don't fit up to model standards, but thats what makes them so relatable. The way you drew Tally... she just, she looks so much like me, even down to the acne on her face (my acne is always centered on my forehead). This is honestly so important to me, because i read this book when I was about ten? And I saw so much of myself in Tally, especially in the first book. I especially adore the fact you filled her out a bit more. I have always been a bit chunky, but recently my medication for my ADHD has messed with my appetite super bad and I have slimmed down dramatically. I really miss the way my body felt, and honestly hate how skinny my body feels at the moment. I just think its so important that you made sure to include all their differences and flaws, which aren't even flaws anyway, just because it makes them human. Sorry for the rant, lovely video as always
Watching you draw Shay post-operation reminds me of that one Creepydrawsta, where the demon took the name of the MC's best friend after her failed operation. The description also reminds me of the scene where it's grinding down its own bones and stuff. Eugh. Your drawings of the villain remind me of Mok from Rock and Rule.
"I think it would have beeen better if it was animated." YES. So many things could be good if it was just animated. I don't want "off" looking people/creatures/backgrounds, I want a pretty moving picture that you don't have to look past horrible cgi for (although some cgi is used in 2d animation) and you can belive it all because it's all in the same style and not jarring.
I never read the book, but when you commented that the beauty standard was very Eurocentric, I immediately thought of how K-Pop idols would hold up. Because Asian beauty standards are very strict and accepted in their countries, I thought it's really ironic that these undeniable beauties might be labeled as "Uglies" in this universe. Because as beautiful as they are, from what LavenderTowne is saying, a lot of the most celebrated have features that don't pass the Pretties standards at all. It's crazy how beauty standards can be so different that visuals from K-Pop groups can still be categorized as "Uglies." Kinda tilted my brain a little.
I used idols as an example of todays uglies as well in another video, and with how the book described shay as being ”too skinny” my first thought was wonyoung, and how she’d definetly would have to be ”filled out” for the pretty surgery. ngl with how starved idols are, there’s only going to be like 2-3 of them not needing to be ”filled out” 😭
Uglies has a movie ??? I had no idea. I read the trilogy as a teenager, and I really liked it. I should probably read it again since it's been a while and I've forgotten about a lot of it. Also we can agree that the hoverboards and the way they work in this series are the coolest thing, right ? Especially when Shay rides them.
I hadn't read the books, but the characters and world building felt so flat in the movie, and I kept being pulled out of it by how model-like all the "uglies" were. I read that casting conventionally attractive actors was an intentional choice to show that it's "never enough", but it's just so ironing and disappointing that they passed up an opportunity yo hire unconventional actors who we'd love to see but don't get the chance. Every actor having to look stunning is exhausting for everyone involved.
I only read the first book in grade 9 and had a long conversation with friends about the dystopian genre and how they almost always have a critique on society (I say almost because I have no idea what Divergence’s is if it even has one). Since the story of Uglies focuses on the harsh beauty standards of our world and all of the eugenics and icky stuff it causes, I also iterated that Uglies would never get a live action adaptation because it meant that Hollywood would have to hire conventionally attractive actors to play characters who are just regular people and actually address what the book is criticizing. To my shock they made a movie and clearly it seems they avoided really diving into the books message and instead just made a ‘Teen Dystopia’. I refuse to watch it on principle right now. (Also your designs for the characters are exactly how I imagined them and SO much better than the live action movie. They really should have just made it animated.)
yeah i saw that they cast joey king and was just like "... nah" Also divergent is _weird_ . i never finished the last book, but it seems at first like it's criticizing conformity... but then one of the factions is just randomly evil and wants to mind control everyone else? And then you think about it at all and you start to realize that none of it makes any sense. anyway, i'm gonna figure out where i can buy a copy of uglies.
@@tortis6342I also never finished the last book, so let me tell you when I decided to watch the movies and see how it ends I was *disappointed*.. I'll still never get I over that they just never released alligent part 2
I've noticed a lot of folk saying this should have been animated (which I don't disagree completely on, I love animation) but at the same time I feel like people are forgetting about prosthetic makeup artists? We've generally all seen that they can make unreal creatures but they can also lean heavily into ethereal and alien beauties. I know cgi is cheaper but it does make movies now ... kind of boring in their design departments, imo
I think it's really interesting that you brought up Alita Battle Angel because honestly, that's the kind of physical distortion I was expecting from The Pretties especially the eyes.
Oh yeah Dr. Cable, I remember. It might have been one of the first "the big manipulator behind the scenes" type of characters I ever encountered in fiction. And from what I remember, she worked well in that role, and whenever she appeared in the book, I really felt her threatening vibe, and I think your drawing represents that pretty well. I already said in another comment that I should read the books again, but now I think I should even more because Cable could be great inspiration for my own "big bad manipulator antagonist".
Wish I could get the plush, my parents said no:(, But I luv your content sm and ur my fave art TH-camr!!! ALSO ID LOVE TO SEE A HITCHHIKERS GUIDE TO THE GALAXY IN THIS SERIES! I HAVNT READ THE BOOK IVE SEEN THE MOVIE, !! Also I know Marvin was drastically changed (the depressed robot)
Did you know that the Hitchhiker's book is not the original? It actually started as an audio drama series. I love the book but I think the original radio play is the funniest, especially hearing all the silliness in very posh, clipped BBC accents
Hell yes on Trillion that pissed me off so much! Plus they made her crochet-version randomly a redhead, like what is even happening? And I mean, book Zaphod as drawn by LT? Nuff said 🤩 But I NEED to see LT draw the scene where Ford meditates in the forest and gives off such soothing vibes that all the animals come to be near him and then he GANKS them for his and Arthur's dinner
I’m so sad because we didn’t get those sharp teeth out of dr cable. I wish we did. I wish cable was more scary. I wish that they didn’t cast hot people for those who are supposed to be terrifying or “ugly”
I feel like if they didn't give the actress make up (aside from some acne to make her eyes look smaller) and gave her brown contacts she'd look similar to the description. The face shape was close.
what a great video!! I read this series as a kid and was disapointed by the lack of extreme visuals of the movie. I completely agree that an animated movie would have been the best choice to capture the style of beauty the pretties are described as in the books.
Omg imagine how cool pretties would be if it was stop motion. And they could do cool scenes where they show people literally molding peoples faces to represent surgery.
i think the book would be best adapted into stop motion animation to best capture the themes and plot of the book, as it's one of the few mediums that characters can have imperfect features
The way your sketch of Shay's face looked while b&w reminded me of Hay Lin, if Hay Lin looked more fierce and less friendly. Lovely video. Thanks for sharing. This book series definitely left an impression on me when I read it as a way of getting back into reading.
I feel like maybe they casted a pretty cast because they didn't want to call somebody ugly for being in the movie, but I mean the original book is about accepting yourself, so I don't see why it's a problem. Like the actress who played Tally was pretty, but you could've been more realistic.
I think that using actors we find attractive still makes sense for the movie. The whole point is that it makes us go ‘no way they see themselves as ugly!’ But they do, because this is in a future where beauty standards have become so extreme. Realistically, not all the kids are gonna look repugnant, they’re just normal looking kids that have insecurities pushed onto them even though they’re pretty in our eyes. They should have had acne on the Uglies though for realism, kids that age would not have perfect skin I agree
Honestly not everything has to be live action some things like this movie could have been better in Animation especially the pretty operation it could have shown more how drastic this Transformation is bc the movie didn’t really show how drastic the change was
as someone with an aquiline/Roman nose im glad Lav talked about it because looking up my nose type and almost the only thing I see is a bunch of people getting nose jobs to "fix" it and me personally struggling with my self esteem because of it when I was younger and even my own older sister saying I should get plastic surgery because she thought I hated my nose so much I should just chop it off, that had such a negative impact on me for a long time and it took me years to be able to accept myself and not hating the bump on my nose. and part of it was just seeing it the same as any other person's features, as an artist i also love drawing all different kinds of faces so it made no sense for me to love everyone's noses except my own, and I started to see the beauty in what made me who I am
I’ve noticed so many movies and shows recently really shy away from discussions of racism. It makes any representation in the media feel so performative because racism affects people of colours lives in every way. It would make so much sense for the “pretties” system to be racist, because it’s based on Eurocentric beauty standards, and the idea that every person looking the same would be better is very close to eugenics. I think studios are afraid to talk about racism because they see it as too risky, but it really takes away from the stories being told.
Gosh, the way you describe the villain character reminds me of the other mother. This story would've definitely worked really well as a stop-motion animation! To capture that creepy uncanny feeling + contrasting natural beauty/realness.
Never seen this book but now I'm definitely gonna look for it. Also I don't know too much details but the book is literally called the uglies. Putting people who do not have the flaws that are meant to be indicated kinda feels strange to me. It's kind of taking away the insecurities an ACTUAL TEEN goes through. It's like their tryna just put in the beauty standards instead and what happens when it makes other kids feel strange that even the uglies don't have the flaws as them?
fr! i have body dysmorphia and i still see myself as overweight even though i’m a few pounds away from being underweight :’) you cannot trust insecure ppl to describe themselves right
I want to do this so bad but Lemony Snicket intentionally barely describes the main trio so kids can imagine themselves in the book and it makes it almost impossible ;w; I love that series SO much though I must find a way
@@LavenderTowne How about 100% Wolf? It is originally a 2008 novel by author Jayne Lyons with illustrations by Victor Rivas. Not a lot of people know about the book or movie (the movie was initially released in Australia since Flying Bark Productions is an Australian animation studio and it was released in America in select theaters). I highly recommend reading the book first and then watching the movie. I would love to see your take on the characters!
@@LavenderTownewhy not do characters other than the main Trio? Olaf gets described a lot and so does Esme. You could choose other characters or maybe do a redraw of the main trio with your ideas.
@@LavenderTownestarting from Brett Helquist's illustrations could maybe work - especially since he clearly had a similar struggle! 😂 The books do have descriptions of their circumstances and their CLOTHES, which you could make a VERY powerful design out of! At the beginning of The Carnivorous Carnival, before they put their disguises together, there's a passage where it mentions that Violet is still in her hospital gown - makes my blood run cold honestly
I've never watched the movie or read the book but the characters are so wildly different from their descriptions what the hell??😭😭 the book sounds really interesting though, I will have to give it a read :3 great art and video as always
How are the HG movies what the books are satirizing? Genuine question, because I've read the books and watched the original 3 movies multiple times and never got that impression.
Hey, I dunno how much you care about the other specifics of how other things are supposed to look, but hoverboards do have a distinct shape! Not skateboard-ey like you'd think. There's a book called bogus to bubbly that actually explains the finer details of stuff like that, and it has a visual of what Scott imagined the boards to look like!
Honestly when I read the books back forever-ago, I was mildly contemptuous of Shay for getting pissed at Tally for just, like attracting the attention of the boy she liked. Girl, if you abandon the revolution just because of a man, you didn't really care that much in the first place. Now it comes across as just the thing a stupid teenager would do, but she still comes across as a mean girl. Like we can't ignore the fact that she forced Tally un-consensually into specialhood; even back then with my underdeveloped media literally that came across as a huge violation.
19:27 even more to your point Dr. Cable's fit here is SO similar to something Coin would have worn. I think you're 100% right that making this an animated movie or series would have been SO much better.
For Dr Cable they definetly should of got someone like Anya taylor joy. I think the reasoning behind there cast of Joey king is they wanted a famous very famous actor to give the movie popularity but it they had placed someone like Anya Taylor Joy as the villian and kept the very agro almost psycho scientist vibes it would've been a lot better and they could cast a lesser known actor who fits the "ugly" labled more
Oh my god when you started drawing Pretty!Shay I got so nervous and frightened! Those eyes were genuinely horrifying to look at, and this is coming from someone who LOVES drawing anime eyes!😦 It makes me wonder if it hurts the pretties having their eyes stretched out so much. You did a good job with the uncanny valley factor
Never even heard of this series (although I never read YA novels), but it's an interesting concept and definitely something that should be explored more. The world is too focused on beauty standards that it's affecting even young kids now, it's horrendous that there's 10 year old kids out there worrying about skincare routines and crap like that (not to mention it's actively dangerous to their health and can give them permanent damage). Shame that the message is always completely destroyed every single time they do a live-action movie/series because they absolutely HAVE to cast model-level attractive actors. They can't even stoop to "hollywood-ugly" levels, let alone real world average levels, letter aloner real world ugly levels.
I really love the cast lineup at the end. The comparison between Tally and Shay compared to Dr Cable is so striking. Dr Cable looks like a cartoon super villian in the best way possible
oh dude i am pretty sure i read this book but i couldn’t remember most of the details including the title, i just remembered it was something to do with going through some sort of transformation in mid to late teens & that was just how society was. i need to reread it sometime, cuz outside of everything you described i have very little memory of it & i remembered liking it a lot in like grade 7-8? i love all of their designs, though tally’s “pretty” design does freak me out a bit; mission accomplished? lmao
I loved the books as a young teen, seeing only negative reviews I haven’t dared to watch the movie^^’ Wouldn’t wanna imprint a bad image on a book that defined so much for me back then
Lavender! You should do a by the book of Eragon! Also, ironically i feel like Tally and Shay are already pretty even if they are "Uglies", I should read the book 🤔
I think I always imagined Dr. Cable to look a lot like the Beldam from Coraline, I love this design so much more than the movies because of that. I feel like it just looks more true.
She does look a bit like the character, idk al the hate. Though o do agree her eyes appear big, but then again anytime she looks in the mirror she is squinting. Also when she is thinking hard, so maybe that's why she's called squint lol.
Hey LavenderTowne! I wanted to js say rq that it would be super fun to see a by the book video on Netflix's adaptation "The School for Good and Evil", since my cousins and I all read the books and were thoroughly disappointed at the adaptation
I feel like the actors not actually being ugly could be a choice to show that, while they think they’re ugly, they’re actually not and the only reason they think that is because of the society?
Genuine question from someone who hasn't read the books, nor watched the movie. What I gathered from the premise is they're all Uglies by default, and everyone goes through the procedure, even if they're already extremely attractive, they're still Uglies. With that in mind, it doesn't seem like any of the non "Prettified" characters needed to really be ugly. Keep in mind that this society have their own beauty standards, so while they're attractive to us, they'd be ugly to them. Unless I'm missing something? With that being said, I don't doubt that this probably wasn't their reasoning, they were always gonna cast attractive actors regardless. It just works out by accident, I guess.
yeah I read the book and I’m pretty sure that it was trying to tell the readers that the uglies are just normal people. I don’t want to spoil you on any of the details if you do plan on reading the book or watching the movie so I won’t give any examples of when they do but in the first it is a dystopian book and the author was trying to warn us that we don’t need to look perfect and be “pretty” as you can simply be content being yourself.
May I recommend you to check out 100% Wolf? It’s originally a 2008 novel by author Jayne Lyons. In 2020, it received an animated movie adaptation produced by Flying Bark Productions. I would love for you to cover an animated movie for your By The Book Series.
I’d love to see her do Hunchback of Notre dame because we already have the Disney movie but obviously those characters don’t look exactly like the book version
I really loved that series of books when I was younger (especially the last one of the main trilogy, Specials), but man the movie just seems like it’s doing all the wrong things. Especially with Laverne Cox as Dr Cable??? Bc you’re so right, that character is pretty much a eugenicist, so it’s a weird choice. I’m forgetting the specifics, but tbh I think Laverne would make more sense as the leader of a city in (I think) Specials, where it’s during/post mind rain and the leader is way more chill and reasonable than Cable, but starts to do some of the things that the whole prettification process was in part designed to stop, aka encroaching more on the environment like humanity had before. Like I think she would be a much better fit for that sort of character. Also seconding the point pretty much everyone is making, why do they have actors who are largely very conventionally pretty playing “uglies”?? It feels tone deaf. Also I do think animation would be a great choice for this series bc of how distorted the pretties would look and also just the degree of tech advancement etc - it would likely look wayyy better than what they did. (Also if Extras ever got adapted, I don’t really want to see how that would look in a more realistic style honestly)
I like how you drew tally's body type I actually haven't seen a lot of people draw that body type which I personally have the body type so its nice to see someone draw it✨
i also think you guys take the self descriptions of appearance in this book too seriously. tally is not a reliable narrator on this topic. she is obviously insecure and gonna be overly critical of her own appearance.
Your Dr. Cable profile reminds me of Ragyo from Kill La Kill in the best way! They both have that severe, deranged look like they lust for power. And both series deal heavily with beauty and body image, too
Didn't see the movie or read the original material, but I agree that the casting is quite shallow, if the plot supposed to show this antiutopian world where individuality is replaced by "correct" beauty standards. Maybe they are good in terms of acting, but in story like this, looks are important to consider, it definitely could be more bold. The redesigns are really fun and memorable, I especially like Dr. Cable - she looks like piranha to me, and uncanny paleness and sharp features make you feel uneasy.
To include the eurocentric beauty standard element of the book would mean higher-ups have to acknowledge the reality of modern society being racist with its beauty standard, and that's not something those higher ups are capable of acknowedging because they benefit from said beauty standards. The producers are mostly (if not all) white. and most of them are male. literally the group with the most social privilege. these ppl won't contribute to a show with an idea that threatens their privilege. I doubt they even realized those elements to begin with. They'd rather slap on a bandaid of 'diversity' and randomly cast poc actors for another shit movie instead. Great drawings as usual btw lol
![how Coraline should ACTUALLY look // [book versus movie: CORALINE]](http://i.ytimg.com/vi/D0sPJHhjIXI/mqdefault.jpg)
Did you guys read this series growing up? What did you think of the Netflix version? I need to know if I'm being too much of a hater ;w;
Oh, and EDIT: My plush got a one week extension! Here's the link if you wanna get her. www.makeship.com/products/lavendertowne-plush-mischief-edition
First to reply
Also I haven't read the book or watched to movie but maybe I will
i loved the series growing up. i hated the fuckin movie so much I promise you ain't a hater compared to some of us
i read both uglies and pretties in 2011 and never finished specials. when i heard it was getting a movie adaptation, i was shocked because i thought it was a really obscure book series (i wasn't into YA dystopian and didn't talk about books with people). i haven't seen the movie and i don't think i will, so i guess i can't answer your other question. but i didn't like the books, to be honest. i personally thought it was a weird way to deal with the topic and it didn't appeal to me so i kinda forgot about it entirely for a long time.
but i think the differences you pointed out are very unfortunate. even if i didn't care for the execution of the book, the adaptation still completely ruins the point. damn. i think eye colour actually is very important here because blue eyes have so much value placed on them, so it's disappointing that someone with brown eyes was depicted with blue ones instead.
I loved the books growing up, haven't seen the movie, but going off the footage in your vid, I'm not interested. Which is a shame! I think the concept of the books is still very important these days, maybe even more than when the books first came out.
The series was really nice and I was going to watch the Netflix adaption but immediately could tell from the preview it wasn’t accurate to the source material in a way that mattered :(
It was crazy how the movie tried to push the romance between Tally and Peris and David so much when Shay was clearly the best option
Lol
Never seen it or read it but like… honestly, feels like it’d work based on lavenders explanations
I mean!!!! Right???
Sorry but if we have gay people in our movies China will have a hard time censoring it and banned the movie from China. We can’t have that can we/j
First watch of the movie when I saw Shay and Tally together I was like "they so should get together"
Exactly! The 'Pretties' were supposed to look ethereal, almost inhuman, like Alex Consani or like you said, even Alita styled type of beauty! The standards were meant to be sky-high if you were one of the 'uglies'
Sadly, this felt like an edgy tween movie to me. 'Being yourself is the ultimate form of rebellion' would have hit so much harder...
I always pictured the pretties as James Charles 💀💀
@@TheDramaticCrafter James Charles isn't "ethereal" enough to be qualified as Pretty in the book.
@@peachesandcream22 fair point, but just how overdramatized and uncanny he looks
Sorry I only saw the movie and didn't know there was a book, but, I think the movie made it more like our modern standards on what's pretty and attractive. Closer to a more real sense of feeling inadequate and insecurity with one's appearance like wanting a better nose, better hair better body shape, instead of the pretties being outright other worldly comparison to the uglies or it's not as relatable?
@@2alicat730 it’s scarier. It’s not as relatable, but enough we can understand. Understanding is the scariest part
Honestly i thought tally was asian because they kept talking about her "squinty" eyes and that it was supposed to exemplify that racism wasnt actually as gone as it was supposed to be in the same way that the "base skin tone" for pretties does.
Ah, I actually thougt she was squinting because of bad vision (maybe not bad enough to wear glasses.)
As someone with bad vision and very lided eyes, I often got the question of having Asian people in my family (even though none of them are) because I do tend to squint a lot
that wouldve been better tbh, tackles another issue society has
wait did they take the lighting/base skin tone stuff out?
She could just have eyes like that. That’s my case. I am, yt, but my eyes are always like that, people always assume I’m tired, or high, even though it’s just how they normally are. It’s not considered cute.
Not against it though, in my head i pictured her as asian as well. Just made me think about it since i always used to hear about having squinty eyes all the time when i was in school. Haha
@@caramel9154yeah;;;
Before I watch this: I found it annoying that Uglies was full of conventionally beautiful actors. Like, how can you get away with that when the premise is a criticism of beauty standards?
And after?
@@15_heidune72 Lavendertowne confirmed the sentiments, lol.
Literally. I was so annoyed that David was conventionally attractive like HIS NOSE IS SUPPOSED TO BE CROOKED
@@MeltedBunny um ok?
@@MeltedBunnyBut she is??? She's feminine, has full lips, big eyes and a small nose and no wrinkles. Doesn't matter if she is your type or not. 🤦🏽♀️
It's so irritating to me that the movie is literally called UGLIES but it feels like the executives just said, "Well, it's not like we can ACTUALLY have an ugly person in our movie, people might not watch it!" Cowards!!! I would watch it!!!!! Normalize ugliness and flaws and imperfections, the grotesque and abnormal, the weird and offputting, it's what beauty truly means, it's what makes us human!!!!!!!
Pretties are supposed to be inhumanly beautiful. Therefore, uglies are supposed to look anywhere from ugly to our own version of beautiful. There was a part where tally was looking at an old magazine or something and thought that the celebrities were ugly.
@@LaurenCastellaw-SOMyeah but it’s also about accepting our normalities in human form, casting conventionally attractive ppl is not the best way to go with the idea. It’s not the actors’ fault, but for a work that criticizes beauty standards and the diminishing of personalities in our culture, the casting is peak irony.
the point is that the “uglies” aren’t actually really ugly they just dont look like the “pretties” that have really insane plastic surgery
Considering Joey King produced /put money up for this movie because she wanted it made when no one else did says it all on the casting choices
But it'll be hella awkward to be cast as the "ugly" one 😂 I feel like this will be better not as a live action
Didn’t know this book existed, got the notification and thought lavender was calling someone ugly 😭
Same
The amount of times I've seen someone say something along these lines is insane lol
I’d recommend the entire series it’s so good!!!
I 100% thought it was going that direction when we got to Pretties, and was shocked that it didn't turn out to be gay. Come on . . . those girls had something going on.
Ive read most of the series. Its good. Gonna skip the movie if its as bad as it sounds
I LOVE the way you drew the 'uglies' in a more detailed realistic style and the 'pretties' is a more simplified cartoony style. I think it really drives home how uncanny the pretties look side by side with an unaltered ugly. I feel like this was a point the movie should have been more focused on, like the pretties didn't look uncanny enough in my opinion. Especially since they hired already attractive actors, the shift wasn't dramatic enough.
Lady Gaga not being Dr. Cable is such a huge missed opportunity imo
Bro... wow. You are probably correct.
She would've ATE
Funnily enough, I was subconsciously imagining Lady Gaga as Dr. Cable without realizing that's what Lady Gaga's face looks like without makeup/more naturally. I keep forgetting what she looks like when she's not performing or in costume.
Now that you’re saying it. I think she would’ve been the perfect casting choice
I WAS JUST ABOUT TO COMMENT EXACTLY THE SAME,,, and first thing I saw your comment, lmao
So true!!! She would so run with that role!
I think casting a black trans woman as the villan in a eugenics society is super odd?? Esp in our current political climate
i didn't realize she was trans, but honestly you're right, with that information there's a really weird implication about trans operations. that's not the kind of thing studios do on accident. very unnerving
THEY DID WHAT 😭😭😭
Blame Judith Bulter and Sophie Lweis for that. They made those theories academic in the first place.
Holy sh*t, yeah I HAATE the implications of that… what a strange decision
that was my first thought when i saw the trailer, but i didnt see anyone else mention it. not to say no one else did, i simply hadnt seen it talked about, and i feel like it really shouldve been
Every time they called her squint while I was watching I just went “SHES LITTERALLY GOT BABY DOLL EYES WHAT”
Fr tho never seen eyes rounder
Also love ur pfp
@ aw thanks!
the implications of casting a trans woman as the main villain of a story about the dangers of plastic surgery and changing yourself to fit the beauty standard is an actually insane choice for the casting director to have not thought of. plastic surgery is definitely a subject which i think should be elaborated on in media, but i think the choice to cast laverne cox as the clear villain of the story is so strange that it almost intentionally seems like alt right propaganda. laverne cox is a woman who has had "plastic surgery" in the sense that shes had gender-affirming surgery. to use her as the example of a villain in a world which surrounds the concept of being stereotypically pretty in a grotesque manner is so ridiculously tone deaf. no one at any point thought about the implications of casting not only a trans woman, but a trans woman of color in this role? especially since, like lavender said, this story had underlying themes of racism and white beauty standards and the role they chose laverne to play is a character which is supposed to look scary rather than "pretty" is... a choice. i 100% think more trans people should be cast in roles which arent specifically meant for trans people and trans people generally should be more normalized in media. but i also think that when you make any choice with your casting, you should think about the implication of that choice. "blind casting" is not ever actually blind. or at least, it shouldnt be. an oversight this big on this important of a movie for that important of a character is frankly embarrassing. i hope movies and media in general take this into heavy consideration in the future.
I 100% agree with this!
This. I think people hear "diverse casting is important" but don't understand *why* so they just check boxes instead of making thoughtful, meaningful inclusion
Absolutely! When I heard her first speech about getting surgery and how no one can judge her now afterwards and that it fixes all adversity, considering what she's PERSONALLY been though, I was in shock.
Sounds like he’s perfect for the role
@@c.s2193 who?
I like how it's "the full lineup of characters" but you didn't include any of the male characters. True! That IS accurate to the books. The male characters do NOT matter in these books. Can't even remember their names.
HAHAHA omg I meant the full lineup of who I drew but you’re so real for that
i remembered david... and isn't there a guy named zach or zane or something in the second book?
@@tortis6342 Zane, and they resolve the love triangle in a very simple way! :)
@@96vicki You're wrong for this lmaooo
it's a nice change from what usually happens
I TOTALLY saw the pretties and specials like aome alita levels of different when i read the books as a kid
me too!
For a world of what is essentially plastic monsters they went very 'safe' with it and that saddens me. They failed to make convincing contrast by making the uglies too pretty and casting poorly I think the best style/format they could have gone with to make this concept pop 1000% would be a Coraline like stop motion. That would go SO hard.
Agreed!
Fr they should've used prosthetics and sfx makeup to make them look eerily beautiful instead of just having them look like hollywood actors with an instagram filter over their face.
Stop motion is underrated and underappreciated in the animated community. You’d be surprised how many people I have seen fall that art style “trashy and low budget.”
@@lunarialoonatic That's surprising to me. As an artist myself I love stop-motion and the beautiful ways stories can be told with it. Some of my favorite movies are stop-motion. It is a time consuming but gorgeous form of art.
Your comment on Roman noses genuinely made me smile. Ever since middle school I have been so insecure of my nose. I had been called big nose all through out middle school, and came to believe that it was the only thing stopping me from looking pretty. Growing to be mature, I realized that it wasn’t true. Yet I still avoid drawing myself because I hate drawing my nose. I guess what I am trying to convey is that hearing someone call the Roman nose type beautiful has made me so happy. Thank you.
Lots of people think so! My mom has the roman nose and I was always sad that I didn't look more like her growing up, actually people used to ask her if she was babysitting me because we looked so different, including skin tone and hair color. But what I really wanted the most was her nose. And one of my most vivid childhood memories was of her looking in the mirror and complaining that plastic surgery was too expensive or she would have already fixed her big ugly nose... I was probably 7 or 8 and it hurt my heart so much to hear her say that. I always thought she was the most beautiful woman in the world so this rocked my whole world. I thought "If her nose is bad, my nose must be terrible!" and I started having issues with my own nose (a little average button-shaped nose). Much later, she heard me being critical of my own features and told me that I should cheer up, because "many women pay big money to have a nose like yours". After that I lost my insecurity entirely and started just not thinking too much about my features because there will always be a reason to dislike yourself if you look for it. The key is to stop looking.
Having read the books growing up i loved how vividly you could picture characters features down to the slight asymmetry in the uglies' faces. I think it was Shay who was described in that scene where they play with a symmetrical face visualiser as having one side looking slightly angrier than the other due to the natural tilt of the brow, but i cant recall for sure. Regardless, in all the years since I touched the books that visual stuck with me.
I'm not gonna pretend they're a perfect commentary for beauty standards and their affects on people, but it was nice as a self conscious teen to have characters described in ways someone hypercritical of their appearance might, not limited to just vague descriptions like "messy brown hair and plain looks" that allow you to easily picture an actor or celebrity.
wait THE SCARY JOKES FAN IN THE WILD????? OMGGGG
@@charlieyipeeeHaha yes :]
yeah i reamember that too. The morpho software picks one side of your face and mirrors it, because a pretty's face must be perfectly symmetrical.
@@tortis6342 yep that one! I thought it was a neat level of detail to go into regarding the characters' faces :>
I really dont think the issue was the uglies, as they are just natural born normal people I think the issue was just putting a filter on pretties, they should have gone full out alita battle angel since it is stated it is almost impossible to be born a natural pretty
Yes and no. The actors wear makeup to cover up their skin imperfections and their hair is styled in a way to make them look good on screen. Which goes against what the story is trying to say. And also, it just doesn't work as a message if all the "uglies" look so perfect to the audience (because the actors fit our current beauty standards, they're missing out on the meta commentary completely). Also, the fact that all the actors look so attractive to us, make the immersion harder. How am I suppose to believe that the actress playing Tally finds herself to be so ugly that she needs a full body operation when she is so attractive according to our current beauty standards (not talking about my personal taste here)? While if the actress was average looking, aka looked more like me (pre-transition, because hello, I'm a trans guy), then yeah, I would understand more why she finds herself ugly. I would relate to her more. I'd understand why she feels so horrible because that's something we've all experienced. I'm sure the actress too did, we all do, have complex and body issues, but it's harder to believe it when she fits so well within the beauty standards of the present.
@@princeollie1022 your point just doesnt work with the story. All the actors in the movie, if they were in this universe they would be ugly, there is no arguing otherwise. EVERYONE born is ugly in the book, no matter how lucky or how much makeup you wear you are ugly. Only the operation makes you pretty. It doesnt work if some people are born pretty by luck (like it happens in reality) because they wouldn’t be forced to get the procedure. Pretties in the book are simply something strange to us that dont feet out beauty standards and dont look like natural humans anymore.
@lolitareyart Your point only works in the vacuum of the story, but the problem with that is that there is an audience watching the movie. It's more difficult to relate to the characters or believe that they feel ugly when they fit what the audience has been trained since birth to see as beautiful. Also, the makeup the actors wear is not "in the story" (as in, it's not Tally who wears makeup, it's the actress who plays Tally so that the character looks a certain way), it's an out of the story thing they do to make them look more attractive, which goes against the themes of the narrative. It undermines its own themes because Hollywood is just as vain as the Pretties they are trying to critique. Aka a Hollywood movie was probably not the best call to make a critique of beauty standards.
@@princeollie1022I think the message really could’ve been carried over even using “conventionally attractive actors” because it could’ve been saying that even though they look attractive to us, they themselves feel SO ugly because of society and beauty standards. it could’ve been about how fleeting and varied the beauty standards are.
@@princeollie1022the entire point is that they were never really ugly to begin with. Nobody is actually ugly and nobody needs surgery to be pretty. A lot of you missed the entire point of the books and it shows.
Casting model-like people in roles representing “ugly” people in a movie about unfair beauty standards is giving the same vibes as giving an award to a song about men in a movie about feminism lolll
(Which I do have qualms about that movie and true feminism is about equality and the Kens were 100% not being treated right but yk still lol)
I think that’s the point, though.
None of the “Uglies” actually are.
I think a lot of them are actually pretty.
They’re taught to hate how they look so they’ll be willing to get the change.
@@tell-me-a-story- it would be nice to show beauty in a way that isn't the hollywood conventionally attractive look though. would have been nice if they were just normal teenagers who were special in their own ways.
@@father270Like the way lavendertowne drew her feels right to me way more than in the movie
@@tell-me-a-story- i mean yeah so are people who are considered 'ugly' irl
I don't know why you think it's not sexist to give an award to someone based on sex instead of merit.
I read uglies when I was very young, so I’m actually quite interesting in rereading it since you pointed out the whitewashing aspect, that slipped past me the first time.
me too. The main trilogy and the sequels set after tally's time are all pretty good. i recently reread another series by scott westerfield that I knew I enjoyed but it was _way_ better than i remember it being.
Pretties are basically real life anime people in a way.
In Extras they have real-life anime people, so Pretties would probably be slightly different--more in line with American beauty standards.
@@Chameleonradio Fair enough.
"Uglies" is also a term for kitbashed spaceships in Sci-Fi, so my brain stuttered and bluescreened when I saw this come up in my feed. Groovy vid, tho
Just by how your speaking I can tell your a sci-fi nerd
@@RidiculouslyRandomProductions Yessir
I know I'm supposed to know what kitbash means. And yet, I don't.
@@sheersternfeld1914 In the most literal terms, as stated by the Google: "Kitbashing or model bashing is the practice of making a new scale model by taking pieces out of kits. These pieces may be added to a custom project or to another kit. For professional modelmakers, kitbashing is used to create concept models for detailing movie special effects.". It is also, as I used it, a general term for mixing and matching parts owing to its increased commonality as parlance
@@jacktimson2401 oh, makes sense.
I think I knew that once and forgot, because that sounds familiar.
i haven't even finished the video yet but your tally drawing looks so real! like, that's a regular girl you would see in the grocery store!
i always thought Uglies could make for a pretty good movie, so hearing about how flat the movie actually turned out to be was pretty disappointing.
Honestly it’s surprising how much her drawing of Tally looks like me. Weirdly never seen a lot of characters with that body type even though it’s not rare. :O
I just watched the movie and the fact that they all cast conventionally attractive people as the "uglies" like-
and i remember as I was watching it being like "why do I feel like I'm seeing hunger games?"
Well they had to make it easier to turn them attractive to society’s standards
only you can save this movie girl
Akira’s transformation in Devilman Crybaby is much better than anything the Uglies did.
It truly shouldve been animated.
@@EmyNdon’t you put that evil out into the world
@@Studiosagi You are right it must not be said
This series in the style of Devotion Crybaby would be so cool!!! I would eat that shit up
Redesigned version of dr. Cable kinda reminds me of Other Mother. And it even makes sense
Uglies as an animated movie could have been high art
Oh my god I remember reading this book in my English class in 7th grade, I loved it so much
me too!! I wanted to try. SpagBol so badly...
@@LavenderTowne SpagBol still lives rent free in my head omfg
@@deadlynightshade_art Randomly thinking about SpagBol is what gets me to reread it on occasion LOL
Yeah it brought back memories i forgot i had too!
Saaaame. We got a list and told to pick one. So i picked Uglies
Most love “triangles” are really just corners that the girl is typically backed into
It's not a triangle unless one member is bi/pan, honestly
@@pinkythepinkslime6170 TRUE
@@pinkythepinkslime6170 orrr it just goes in a triangle one way. A loves B, B loves C, C loves A and everyone is unhappy 😂
@emdove
That would still imply at least one LGBT member lol. If A is a girl and loves B who is a boy, then C's crush on A would either be lesbian if they're female or B would be crushing on another guy. Or C identifies as non-binary which would automatically put them into the LGBT camp.
@@rainpooper7088 I didn't say that it's possible without LGBT+ members. It just doesn't need a bi/pan one, that's what I wanted to express 😁
I didnt know there was a book of it. What I find frustrating is how off movies and series seem to go from their original story. Changing characters on multiple parts and all... Seems like such a waste! I loved the setup of this story, even if its "out of place" for this time. The designs you made could easily be used for finding an actual properly looking cast for the story...
There's 4 books actually! Uglies, Pretties, Specials, Extras. I got the box set of all of them bc I loved the original series I read in highschool.
I remember reading this series back in 2009 as a teenager. I always kind of wondered how that series would resonate today since it seemed kind of prophetic of modern day social media and beauty standards.
Especially Extras, with everyone having a feed channel and face rank and a "fame economy"... Like we literally live that right now 😅
I know this is not the point of the video but the way you draw the characters is just so beautiful. They definitely don't look perfect, they have blemishes and odditys and don't fit up to model standards, but thats what makes them so relatable. The way you drew Tally... she just, she looks so much like me, even down to the acne on her face (my acne is always centered on my forehead). This is honestly so important to me, because i read this book when I was about ten? And I saw so much of myself in Tally, especially in the first book. I especially adore the fact you filled her out a bit more. I have always been a bit chunky, but recently my medication for my ADHD has messed with my appetite super bad and I have slimmed down dramatically. I really miss the way my body felt, and honestly hate how skinny my body feels at the moment. I just think its so important that you made sure to include all their differences and flaws, which aren't even flaws anyway, just because it makes them human. Sorry for the rant, lovely video as always
Watching you draw Shay post-operation reminds me of that one Creepydrawsta, where the demon took the name of the MC's best friend after her failed operation. The description also reminds me of the scene where it's grinding down its own bones and stuff. Eugh.
Your drawings of the villain remind me of Mok from Rock and Rule.
I remember that !!! That story was really interesting, I should rewatch all the creepydrawsta videos this halloween season...
"I think it would have beeen better if it was animated." YES. So many things could be good if it was just animated. I don't want "off" looking people/creatures/backgrounds, I want a pretty moving picture that you don't have to look past horrible cgi for (although some cgi is used in 2d animation) and you can belive it all because it's all in the same style and not jarring.
I never read the book, but when you commented that the beauty standard was very Eurocentric, I immediately thought of how K-Pop idols would hold up. Because Asian beauty standards are very strict and accepted in their countries, I thought it's really ironic that these undeniable beauties might be labeled as "Uglies" in this universe.
Because as beautiful as they are, from what LavenderTowne is saying, a lot of the most celebrated have features that don't pass the Pretties standards at all. It's crazy how beauty standards can be so different that visuals from K-Pop groups can still be categorized as "Uglies." Kinda tilted my brain a little.
I used idols as an example of todays uglies as well in another video, and with how the book described shay as being ”too skinny” my first thought was wonyoung, and how she’d definetly would have to be ”filled out” for the pretty surgery. ngl with how starved idols are, there’s only going to be like 2-3 of them not needing to be ”filled out” 😭
I cannot describe the mood whiplash when I saw Uglies was on Netflix and then looked up the reviews 😢
your version of Dr. Cable is actuslly really beautiful wow...... very much in love with that side profile in particular.
Uglies has a movie ??? I had no idea. I read the trilogy as a teenager, and I really liked it. I should probably read it again since it's been a while and I've forgotten about a lot of it. Also we can agree that the hoverboards and the way they work in this series are the coolest thing, right ? Especially when Shay rides them.
It only released recently
@@haventpickedanameyet2527 Yeah I eventually figured that part out.
Trilogy? There's a fourth book. Extras.
@@LaurenCastellaw-SOM Oh yeah my bad. I read it too, I somehow forgot. I thought Specials and Extras were one book somehow ^^' It's been a while ^^'
I hadn't read the books, but the characters and world building felt so flat in the movie, and I kept being pulled out of it by how model-like all the "uglies" were. I read that casting conventionally attractive actors was an intentional choice to show that it's "never enough", but it's just so ironing and disappointing that they passed up an opportunity yo hire unconventional actors who we'd love to see but don't get the chance. Every actor having to look stunning is exhausting for everyone involved.
I only read the first book in grade 9 and had a long conversation with friends about the dystopian genre and how they almost always have a critique on society (I say almost because I have no idea what Divergence’s is if it even has one).
Since the story of Uglies focuses on the harsh beauty standards of our world and all of the eugenics and icky stuff it causes, I also iterated that Uglies would never get a live action adaptation because it meant that Hollywood would have to hire conventionally attractive actors to play characters who are just regular people and actually address what the book is criticizing. To my shock they made a movie and clearly it seems they avoided really diving into the books message and instead just made a ‘Teen Dystopia’. I refuse to watch it on principle right now.
(Also your designs for the characters are exactly how I imagined them and SO much better than the live action movie. They really should have just made it animated.)
yeah i saw that they cast joey king and was just like "... nah"
Also divergent is _weird_ . i never finished the last book, but it seems at first like it's criticizing conformity... but then one of the factions is just randomly evil and wants to mind control everyone else? And then you think about it at all and you start to realize that none of it makes any sense.
anyway, i'm gonna figure out where i can buy a copy of uglies.
@@tortis6342Amazon has the full box set if you're interested! It has all 4 books: Uglies, Pretties, Specials, and Extras.
@@tortis6342I also never finished the last book, so let me tell you when I decided to watch the movies and see how it ends I was *disappointed*.. I'll still never get I over that they just never released alligent part 2
@@hopelessnihilist1425 lol. I didn’t ever watch the movies
@@tortis6342 you saved hours of your life, trust. Lol!
I've noticed a lot of folk saying this should have been animated (which I don't disagree completely on, I love animation) but at the same time I feel like people are forgetting about prosthetic makeup artists? We've generally all seen that they can make unreal creatures but they can also lean heavily into ethereal and alien beauties. I know cgi is cheaper but it does make movies now ... kind of boring in their design departments, imo
I think it's really interesting that you brought up Alita Battle Angel because honestly, that's the kind of physical distortion I was expecting from The Pretties especially the eyes.
I absolutely love how you drew Shay. She reminds me of someone I know out of a kids show but I just can't put my finger on it..
Oh yeah Dr. Cable, I remember. It might have been one of the first "the big manipulator behind the scenes" type of characters I ever encountered in fiction.
And from what I remember, she worked well in that role, and whenever she appeared in the book, I really felt her threatening vibe, and I think your drawing represents that pretty well.
I already said in another comment that I should read the books again, but now I think I should even more because Cable could be great inspiration for my own "big bad manipulator antagonist".
Wish I could get the plush, my parents said no:(, But I luv your content sm and ur my fave art TH-camr!!!
ALSO ID LOVE TO SEE A HITCHHIKERS GUIDE TO THE GALAXY IN THIS SERIES! I HAVNT READ THE BOOK IVE SEEN THE MOVIE, !! Also I know Marvin was drastically changed (the depressed robot)
YES ME TOO!! In the book Trillian is described as Arabic with dark eyes and hair and it annoys me that all the popular adaptations cast her as white
Omg yes! I absolutely love the book
Did you know that the Hitchhiker's book is not the original? It actually started as an audio drama series. I love the book but I think the original radio play is the funniest, especially hearing all the silliness in very posh, clipped BBC accents
@@Oreganoothyme I Didn’t know that, I’ll have to check it out sometime
Hell yes on Trillion that pissed me off so much! Plus they made her crochet-version randomly a redhead, like what is even happening? And I mean, book Zaphod as drawn by LT? Nuff said 🤩
But I NEED to see LT draw the scene where Ford meditates in the forest and gives off such soothing vibes that all the animals come to be near him and then he GANKS them for his and Arthur's dinner
I’m so sad because we didn’t get those sharp teeth out of dr cable. I wish we did. I wish cable was more scary. I wish that they didn’t cast hot people for those who are supposed to be terrifying or “ugly”
Will you be doing a Creepy Drawsta this year? :3
Yes!!
@@LavenderTowneYES GOD YES BABE WAKE UP
@@LavenderTowne YEEEAHHHHH
Yes yes 1000x yes! I love her creepy drawing vids. Her voice suits it so well and I love her artist depictions of the story
OMG THANK YOU!!!@@LavenderTowne
NO-Not the pjo movies😭😭😭😰😰😰😰 0:15
😭😭😭
I feel like if they didn't give the actress make up (aside from some acne to make her eyes look smaller) and gave her brown contacts she'd look similar to the description. The face shape was close.
Imagine making a movie with beauty standards as a theme and you decided to cast attractive people to play as the ugly characters.
what a great video!! I read this series as a kid and was disapointed by the lack of extreme visuals of the movie. I completely agree that an animated movie would have been the best choice to capture the style of beauty the pretties are described as in the books.
Omg imagine how cool pretties would be if it was stop motion. And they could do cool scenes where they show people literally molding peoples faces to represent surgery.
i think the book would be best adapted into stop motion animation to best capture the themes and plot of the book, as it's one of the few mediums that characters can have imperfect features
The way your sketch of Shay's face looked while b&w reminded me of Hay Lin, if Hay Lin looked more fierce and less friendly.
Lovely video. Thanks for sharing. This book series definitely left an impression on me when I read it as a way of getting back into reading.
I feel like maybe they casted a pretty cast because they didn't want to call somebody ugly for being in the movie, but I mean the original book is about accepting yourself, so I don't see why it's a problem. Like the actress who played Tally was pretty, but you could've been more realistic.
I think that using actors we find attractive still makes sense for the movie. The whole point is that it makes us go ‘no way they see themselves as ugly!’ But they do, because this is in a future where beauty standards have become so extreme. Realistically, not all the kids are gonna look repugnant, they’re just normal looking kids that have insecurities pushed onto them even though they’re pretty in our eyes. They should have had acne on the Uglies though for realism, kids that age would not have perfect skin I agree
Honestly not everything has to be live action some things like this movie could have been better in Animation especially the pretty operation it could have shown more how drastic this Transformation is bc the movie didn’t really show how drastic the change was
You know it's a good day when LavenderTowne posts 😔
as someone with an aquiline/Roman nose im glad Lav talked about it because looking up my nose type and almost the only thing I see is a bunch of people getting nose jobs to "fix" it and me personally struggling with my self esteem because of it when I was younger and even my own older sister saying I should get plastic surgery because she thought I hated my nose so much I should just chop it off, that had such a negative impact on me for a long time and it took me years to be able to accept myself and not hating the bump on my nose. and part of it was just seeing it the same as any other person's features, as an artist i also love drawing all different kinds of faces so it made no sense for me to love everyone's noses except my own, and I started to see the beauty in what made me who I am
I’ve noticed so many movies and shows recently really shy away from discussions of racism. It makes any representation in the media feel so performative because racism affects people of colours lives in every way. It would make so much sense for the “pretties” system to be racist, because it’s based on Eurocentric beauty standards, and the idea that every person looking the same would be better is very close to eugenics. I think studios are afraid to talk about racism because they see it as too risky, but it really takes away from the stories being told.
Gosh, the way you describe the villain character reminds me of the other mother. This story would've definitely worked really well as a stop-motion animation! To capture that creepy uncanny feeling + contrasting natural beauty/realness.
THANK YOU LAVENDERTOWN we all say in unison
THANK YOU LAVENDERTOWNE
THANK YOU LAVENDERTOWNE
Never seen this book but now I'm definitely gonna look for it. Also I don't know too much details but the book is literally called the uglies. Putting people who do not have the flaws that are meant to be indicated kinda feels strange to me. It's kind of taking away the insecurities an ACTUAL TEEN goes through. It's like their tryna just put in the beauty standards instead and what happens when it makes other kids feel strange that even the uglies don't have the flaws as them?
uglies was so boring, I watched it and like geez waste of time spent. Should've been made in the 2010s when movies like it were popular
It's such a cool concept they just messed it up a lot
Bear in mind that book Tally isn't a reliable narrator about her appearance.
fr! i have body dysmorphia and i still see myself as overweight even though i’m a few pounds away from being underweight :’) you cannot trust insecure ppl to describe themselves right
13:35, girl went from Musa to Maki Harukawa, HELP.
14:06, THEY GAVE HER THE _SAW X_ WIG.
Can I recommend A series of unfortunate events next episode next episode
I want to do this so bad but Lemony Snicket intentionally barely describes the main trio so kids can imagine themselves in the book and it makes it almost impossible ;w; I love that series SO much though I must find a way
if it was possible I would absolutely love it :(
@@LavenderTowne How about 100% Wolf? It is originally a 2008 novel by author Jayne Lyons with illustrations by Victor Rivas. Not a lot of people know about the book or movie (the movie was initially released in Australia since Flying Bark Productions is an Australian animation studio and it was released in America in select theaters). I highly recommend reading the book first and then watching the movie. I would love to see your take on the characters!
@@LavenderTownewhy not do characters other than the main Trio? Olaf gets described a lot and so does Esme. You could choose other characters or maybe do a redraw of the main trio with your ideas.
@@LavenderTownestarting from Brett Helquist's illustrations could maybe work - especially since he clearly had a similar struggle! 😂
The books do have descriptions of their circumstances and their CLOTHES, which you could make a VERY powerful design out of! At the beginning of The Carnivorous Carnival, before they put their disguises together, there's a passage where it mentions that Violet is still in her hospital gown - makes my blood run cold honestly
I've never watched the movie or read the book but the characters are so wildly different from their descriptions what the hell??😭😭
the book sounds really interesting though, I will have to give it a read :3
great art and video as always
So from what I'm understanding:
The Hunger Games 🤝 Uglies
the movies are what the books are satirizing
No I will defend the Hunger Games movie series with my life, it's the marketing that was horrific.
The first and second hunger games movie are pretty good honestly, but the last two (and the prequel one that I forgot the name of) where meh
How are the HG movies what the books are satirizing? Genuine question, because I've read the books and watched the original 3 movies multiple times and never got that impression.
Jennifer Lawrence herself (just an example) I like how the actor of the villain (Snow) was the hero IRL RIP man.@@tallemajas
@tallemajas
There were some pretty bad marketing decisions made for these movies, like the makeup tie-in based on the freaking Capitol.
LANVENDERTOWNE I GOT THE PLUSH ITS COMING ON CHRISTMAS!!! :DD
Hey, I dunno how much you care about the other specifics of how other things are supposed to look, but hoverboards do have a distinct shape! Not skateboard-ey like you'd think. There's a book called bogus to bubbly that actually explains the finer details of stuff like that, and it has a visual of what Scott imagined the boards to look like!
Honestly when I read the books back forever-ago, I was mildly contemptuous of Shay for getting pissed at Tally for just, like attracting the attention of the boy she liked. Girl, if you abandon the revolution just because of a man, you didn't really care that much in the first place. Now it comes across as just the thing a stupid teenager would do, but she still comes across as a mean girl. Like we can't ignore the fact that she forced Tally un-consensually into specialhood; even back then with my underdeveloped media literally that came across as a huge violation.
I haven't read or watched either but wow; Totally agree and have noticed the bad trend of putting POC into villain roles like that. :/
19:27 even more to your point Dr. Cable's fit here is SO similar to something Coin would have worn.
I think you're 100% right that making this an animated movie or series would have been SO much better.
For Dr Cable they definetly should of got someone like Anya taylor joy. I think the reasoning behind there cast of Joey king is they wanted a famous very famous actor to give the movie popularity but it they had placed someone like Anya Taylor Joy as the villian and kept the very agro almost psycho scientist vibes it would've been a lot better and they could cast a lesser known actor who fits the "ugly" labled more
Even Chloe Grace Moretz would be good as the main character
Oh my god when you started drawing Pretty!Shay I got so nervous and frightened! Those eyes were genuinely horrifying to look at, and this is coming from someone who LOVES drawing anime eyes!😦 It makes me wonder if it hurts the pretties having their eyes stretched out so much. You did a good job with the uncanny valley factor
Never even heard of this series (although I never read YA novels), but it's an interesting concept and definitely something that should be explored more. The world is too focused on beauty standards that it's affecting even young kids now, it's horrendous that there's 10 year old kids out there worrying about skincare routines and crap like that (not to mention it's actively dangerous to their health and can give them permanent damage). Shame that the message is always completely destroyed every single time they do a live-action movie/series because they absolutely HAVE to cast model-level attractive actors. They can't even stoop to "hollywood-ugly" levels, let alone real world average levels, letter aloner real world ugly levels.
I really love the cast lineup at the end. The comparison between Tally and Shay compared to Dr Cable is so striking. Dr Cable looks like a cartoon super villian in the best way possible
oh dude i am pretty sure i read this book but i couldn’t remember most of the details including the title, i just remembered it was something to do with going through some sort of transformation in mid to late teens & that was just how society was. i need to reread it sometime, cuz outside of everything you described i have very little memory of it & i remembered liking it a lot in like grade 7-8?
i love all of their designs, though tally’s “pretty” design does freak me out a bit; mission accomplished? lmao
I loved the books as a young teen, seeing only negative reviews I haven’t dared to watch the movie^^’
Wouldn’t wanna imprint a bad image on a book that defined so much for me back then
Idk. It was a bit campy and cgi was horrible. But I enjoyed it. I thought it was a fun movie.
Lavender! You should do a by the book of Eragon!
Also, ironically i feel like Tally and Shay are already pretty even if they are "Uglies", I should read the book 🤔
I think I always imagined Dr. Cable to look a lot like the Beldam from Coraline, I love this design so much more than the movies because of that. I feel like it just looks more true.
You should definitely do Dear Dumb Diary or Diary of a wimpy kid
did dear dumb diary ever get a movie? i remember liking the books a lot but i don’t remember anything about a movie based on the books.
@@GhostiGrotesque got one in ~2013 i think
I think the whole movie should have been animated. Like it looks so good in your style
The actress they chose for the main character of uglies, gets a lot of hate for her appearance though, so I understand that casting choice
She does look a bit like the character, idk al the hate. Though o do agree her eyes appear big, but then again anytime she looks in the mirror she is squinting. Also when she is thinking hard, so maybe that's why she's called squint lol.
You drew the characters so cool looking it made me want to read the book
Hey LavenderTowne! I wanted to js say rq that it would be super fun to see a by the book video on Netflix's adaptation "The School for Good and Evil", since my cousins and I all read the books and were thoroughly disappointed at the adaptation
I feel like the actors not actually being ugly could be a choice to show that, while they think they’re ugly, they’re actually not and the only reason they think that is because of the society?
I've never even heard of this, but the design you came up with for the doctor fucking whips.
Genuine question from someone who hasn't read the books, nor watched the movie. What I gathered from the premise is they're all Uglies by default, and everyone goes through the procedure, even if they're already extremely attractive, they're still Uglies. With that in mind, it doesn't seem like any of the non "Prettified" characters needed to really be ugly. Keep in mind that this society have their own beauty standards, so while they're attractive to us, they'd be ugly to them.
Unless I'm missing something? With that being said, I don't doubt that this probably wasn't their reasoning, they were always gonna cast attractive actors regardless. It just works out by accident, I guess.
yeah I read the book and I’m pretty sure that it was trying to tell the readers that the uglies are just normal people. I don’t want to spoil you on any of the details if you do plan on reading the book or watching the movie so I won’t give any examples of when they do but in the first it is a dystopian book and the author was trying to warn us that we don’t need to look perfect and be “pretty” as you can simply be content being yourself.
May I recommend you to check out 100% Wolf? It’s originally a 2008 novel by author Jayne Lyons. In 2020, it received an animated movie adaptation produced by Flying Bark Productions. I would love for you to cover an animated movie for your By The Book Series.
I’d love to see her do Hunchback of Notre dame because we already have the Disney movie but obviously those characters don’t look exactly like the book version
I really loved that series of books when I was younger (especially the last one of the main trilogy, Specials), but man the movie just seems like it’s doing all the wrong things. Especially with Laverne Cox as Dr Cable??? Bc you’re so right, that character is pretty much a eugenicist, so it’s a weird choice. I’m forgetting the specifics, but tbh I think Laverne would make more sense as the leader of a city in (I think) Specials, where it’s during/post mind rain and the leader is way more chill and reasonable than Cable, but starts to do some of the things that the whole prettification process was in part designed to stop, aka encroaching more on the environment like humanity had before. Like I think she would be a much better fit for that sort of character.
Also seconding the point pretty much everyone is making, why do they have actors who are largely very conventionally pretty playing “uglies”?? It feels tone deaf.
Also I do think animation would be a great choice for this series bc of how distorted the pretties would look and also just the degree of tech advancement etc - it would likely look wayyy better than what they did. (Also if Extras ever got adapted, I don’t really want to see how that would look in a more realistic style honestly)
I like how you drew tally's body type I actually haven't seen a lot of people draw that body type which I personally have the body type so its nice to see someone draw it✨
i also think you guys take the self descriptions of appearance in this book too seriously. tally is not a reliable narrator on this topic. she is obviously insecure and gonna be overly critical of her own appearance.
Your Dr. Cable profile reminds me of Ragyo from Kill La Kill in the best way! They both have that severe, deranged look like they lust for power. And both series deal heavily with beauty and body image, too
Didn't see the movie or read the original material, but I agree that the casting is quite shallow, if the plot supposed to show this antiutopian world where individuality is replaced by "correct" beauty standards. Maybe they are good in terms of acting, but in story like this, looks are important to consider, it definitely could be more bold. The redesigns are really fun and memorable, I especially like Dr. Cable - she looks like piranha to me, and uncanny paleness and sharp features make you feel uneasy.
To include the eurocentric beauty standard element of the book would mean higher-ups have to acknowledge the reality of modern society being racist with its beauty standard, and that's not something those higher ups are capable of acknowedging because they benefit from said beauty standards.
The producers are mostly (if not all) white. and most of them are male. literally the group with the most social privilege.
these ppl won't contribute to a show with an idea that threatens their privilege. I doubt they even realized those elements to begin with.
They'd rather slap on a bandaid of 'diversity' and randomly cast poc actors for another shit movie instead.
Great drawings as usual btw lol
I love how in all your videos you always put so much effort into finding and recreating lines from books into your own amazing art! ❤