Hello, everyone. I'm Robbie Norman, and this is a Podcast for everything. Welcome. Today, I am joined by Paige the Void to talk about books.
This time, we're talking about Hocus Pocus and the All-New Sequel by A.W. Jantha. We talk about the strength of the new characters, if the rules or absence of rules of magic in the book bother us, and if the book succeeds as a sequel to the movie. We also delve into a conspiracy theory of my own devising.
It's always fun talking to Paige, and this is no exception. On to the discussion. Hello, everyone. I'm here with Paige the Void to talk about books.
Paige, how are you? I'm good. We are discussing, just in time for Halloween, Hocus Pocus and the All-New Sequel with, if you have the cover of the book, turns out that the author of the book is not on the cover of the book. Oh, really?
Yep, no author. That's how Disney does it. They don't put the author's name. I was trying to look up, because I realized I didn't know who wrote it.
A.W. Jantha is... We're going to have a... I have a theory about some of this, but we'll talk about it.
We'll get to that. Credit to A.W. Jantha, and based on a screenplay by Mick Garris and Neil Cuthbert, with a story by David Kirschner and Mick Garris, because all this is based on a movie. So they had to glue all that stuff.
But A.W. Jantha is the credited author. This is a sequel to Hocus Pocus, for all intents and purposes, because Hocus Pocus, the film, from the early 90s, has not gotten a proper sequel yet. There's always, there's been talks about it for years now.
A lot of 90s kids grew up with it, and all those 90s kids now have money to spend. Yeah, we do. And we want those things from our childhood back. Nostalgia is like key right now.
It's crazy. Very, yeah. So did you expect it to be the movie, like book one and book two, when you picked up this book? Because that was something that surprised me when I started reading.
I went, oh, oh, it's Hocus Pocus and the all-new sequel. This is two books. Yes, I did not, no, I did not expect that. I was feeling, I was like, oh, I hadn't watched the movie in a long time.
I'm like, oh, well, I read the Wikipedia just to refresh myself. I'm like, all right, right. That's what happens. And then, Oh, wait, there's a, there's the, the novelization of the first movie is part one.
Mm-hmm. It's just, and almost exactly the same. There is a very clear change because it sets up the sequel. Yeah, a clear change.
And then I feel like they added a few more moments that happened, like, off screen. Yeah. So we got like a little bit more of Max and Allison's romance and little conversations between the two of them. And then the, the, the key factor that allowed it to have a sequel, for sure.
You say before now undisclosed, fourth Sanderson sister. Which I need to, I wasn't saying which as in a witch. I was saying which to set that sentence. And then I realized that's confusing.
You want to get in on witch hominems and. I need to rewatch the first movie, but I believe Elizabeth is referenced at least once. So I need to rewatch because it's the spooky season anyway, and I'm overdue. But I remember Binks shouting at the witches and talking about, like, well, you have my sister.
What happened to Elizabeth? And her being like, I don't know. So I don't know if my brain is making up this memory, but I remember Elizabeth being very shortly referenced at the beginning of the first movie. You're, you're probably, your memory of it is probably more accurate than mine.
This movie was my jam as a kid. I think Billy the zombie was one of my first crushes, which no one should be surprised. Billy the zombie. Oh yeah.
Uh, I just saw a lot of, a lot of stuff, a lot of stuff online about them. I don't know, some faux outrage about them having to change the movie technically to make a hook for the sequel, which I don't know what I, that doesn't really bother me. Yeah, I feel like the movie is still there. It exists.
And if you're going to twist it a little bit so they can work in a sequel, that's okay with me. I mean, I, I think that I don't know what drove this particular angle for a sequel. I assume it's, that's okay. Paige, did you enjoy the book?
I did. I have a feeling that you maybe did not enjoy it as much as me, but to me, it felt like reading a Disney channel original movie. So it felt that nostalgic sitting in front of the TV in the late nineties, early 2000s, and there was a new Disney channel original movie and you're excited. You got your popcorn.
It's all spooky. Like kind of like the Halloween town vibes, honestly, where it's this like fun little spooky adventure where you know everyone is going to be okay in the end, but you're still waiting to see what happens. And that was the, the nostalgia that it brought up for me. I don't know how I feel about it.
Honestly, it's not, I don't, it's not like I hate it or anything. There's not, it's not strong. Like I, cause I've recently read things that I absolutely, absolutely hate and would tell people never to read. I would certainly not say that about this book.
I think it has its charms. I think there are, there are strengths to it, but I also have misgivings about it. I, I have, I've come to a theory about, about it as well, about its creation that may be 100% wrong. I just have, I can't find any proof that disproves it.
And I'm, I don't know, I'll throw, I'll throw a pass at you at a certain point and see what you think about it. Okay. But we'll get there. I don't want to start with it.
So what, what were, okay, one, how big of a fan of Hocus Pocus were you growing up? Was it, was it a movie you really liked? I think I liked it. I think it was, I think I was a little too, a little too old for it.
I think I missed the window for it. When it, when it came out, I was probably the right age. I just didn't see it until I was a teenager. And by that point, it had, you know, It was, it was not, it was not dark and grim enough.
Now, as an adult, I like it. It's very charming. And it, you know, I like all the people in it and it has, it's fun. It's a fun nineties Halloween movie.
The three witches are great in particular. But I didn't, I didn't like love it as a kid. I think I, my, I, my sister probably saw it. She was probably the right age when she, when she was seeing it, but it's not, it's not like one of those, uh, like the movies, like I think of that would be that are in the same wheelhouse as movies, like the Sandlot or movies like, uh, let's think of that movie, uh, the fat camp movie.
Um, I have, I have a theory. I have a theory about some of this, but we will talk about it. We'll get to that. Credit to A.W.
Jantha and based on a screenplay by Mick Garris and Neil Cuthbert with a story by David Kirschner and Mick Garris because all this is based on a movie. Um, so they had to include all that stuff. But A.W. Jantha is the credited author.
This is a sequel to Hocus Pocus, for all intents and purposes, because Hocus Pocus, the film from the early nineties, never, never has not gotten a proper sequel yet. There's always, there's been talks about it for years now. A lot of nineties kids grew up with it. And all those 90s kids now have money to spend.
Yeah, we do. And we want, we want those things from our childhood back. Nostalgia is like key right now. It's crazy.
Very, yeah. So did you expect it to be the movie, like book one and book two when you picked up this book? Because that was something that surprised me when I started reading. I went, oh, oh, it's Hocus Pocus and the all-new sequel.
This is two books. Yes, I did not, no, I did not expect that. I, I was feeling, I was like, oh, I hadn't watched the movie in a long time. I'm like, oh, well, I read the Wikipedia just to refresh myself.
I'm like, all right, right. That's what happens. And then, oh, wait, there's a, there's the, the novelization of the first movie is part one. It's just in almost exactly the same.
There is a very clear change because it sets up the sequel. Yeah. The clear change. And then I feel like they added a few more moments that happened, like off screen.
Yeah. So we got like a little bit more of a Max and Allison's romance and little conversations between the two of them. Uh, and then the, the, the key factor that allowed it to have a sequel for sure. Max and Alison are both Max is a teacher and Alison is a lawyer, and they are we're in Salem and they have never come clean about this, what happened that night.
They that is, it's still all rumor. Uh, the town is kind of just continued as normal. They still treat the Sanderson sisters as like a weird legend and everything. But, you know, I like those three characters in particular.
I like, you know, I like that it's a diverse cast and that there's a primarily, uh, you know, gay queer romance. The representation was so good. And I feel like they wrote the crush very like believable and sweet and you could really tell like why they cared about each other and what they liked about each other's personalities. And the minute that she started swooning, I lost my mind.
I was like, Oh my God, this is so cute. This is like, what a good book for teens! Yes, it's sweet. It's charming.
When she got turned into a dog, I was mad. I'm like, how are they going to be kissed? How are they going to kiss if she's turned into a dog? I'm going to swear.
I have words about that dog thing. Uh, uh, and I think, I mean, I think that's the strength of it. The strength of the story is very much these three characters is the strength is the diversity. The strength is that they're, they're, they're being cute and being teenagers.
Uh, my misgivings here, I'm gonna tell, I'm gonna ask you if you noticed it, if it bothered you at all. Okay, I'm ready. And it's a thing I, I don't know, I don't read as much YA as you do, I know. I just, I mostly get this when I'm reading comic books with teenage characters.
And the comic books are almost universally written by people in their twenties, usually in the thirties or forties, older people. Okay. I think I, I understand where you're getting with this. And so it's not that necessarily like, oh, they don't know how to write teenagers and they don't know how to write a person who's younger than them.
That's not the case. It's more when you get to slang, when you get to referencing technology or social media, or when you are referencing the internet and new technology and all that stuff, you're, I like, I don't think, I mean, I don't know. I don't talk to any teenagers. So I, I can't necessarily like vouch for it, but it feels wrong to my ear a lot of the time when they start talking about social media in a way.
It feels very much like an older person, what an older person thinks a teenager talking about. So like when they use the word Insta, are you on Insta? I'm like, I don't, are teenagers on Instagram? I think you just use Snapchat.
Oh, Snapchat is done. Oh, is it? What is it now? What is it now?
TikTok. TikTok only? TikTok's a big thing. It's not only, but yeah, teenagers are still on, on the gram.
Okay. Um, I have heard it called Insta, but I don't know. I don't know how popular that is. I know people shorten it online.
The, the, the, the, the little bit, the dialogue felt very much like, uh, hello, fellow teenager kind of stuff. Yes, exactly. Um, I think, I think there's like, it's the trouble with adding things about social media is even if it didn't feel dated when this book first comes out and no one, like a couple of years from now, people aren't really going to be using Instagram. It's like if anyone, if it had said Tumblr or Facebook or, you know, like years will pass and those social media websites aren't going to be relevant anymore.
Um, so I think if they had been a little bit more vague, that might have been helpful for this book aging, but then again, they have the, the timestamp on it. So we know that this is taking place, I think in 2018 for most of the story, cause, and, and so that kind of saves it because if you're looking at it and you're like, oh, they keep talking about Instagram. Well, it's 2018, so that's the popular social media. So now that we're in 2019, I don't know if the gram is all the rage, but a year ago might've been okay.
And I don't really know. It's, it's really my ear than more than anything, because I, and I get tired of it. I just like, unless, um, there's a comic book out called Shot Girl. Oh yes.
I keep getting recommended this. You should read Shot Girl. It's very good. But it, it completely understands social media and completely understands the, the kind of kind of zeitgeist around it and how we interact with it.
And, and the whole book is kind of about it, frankly. Uh, and it really makes sense. And, but when I get, when it's, and it's not necessarily really integral to the plot in this, I think technology is kind of integral, but I don't mind that. I don't mind, you know, the use of phones and stuff.
I will say I loved when the mean girl Katie, uh, she was like, yeah, I mean, I got a phone call, but I didn't answer it. Who uses the phone for calls? Come on. Yes.
And that's the thing about it. It's more, it's just, I get really tired of like kids like, oh, like, are you doing that right? I'm like, I don't just, it just feels weird to me. Uh, I don't know.
And again, I can see that. I think I breezed past those details and they didn't irk me too much. Like, like really at all. Okay.
Um, but I can see why it would like, I don't know, just kind of be a little detail that you'd get stuck on, you know? And it's just, I, I do, there's one other, another, this is an itty thing, although I do think it is particularly egregious. Um, I stopped counting after five times that they used, used the word witch instead of bitch as a joke. So it's over five times.
They did it. I stopped counting at that point. Yeah. They did that a decent amount.
And I, which is back. Yeah. And which please. Yeah.
I head witch in charge. I keep. And she's that witch. Maybe, maybe I don't know.
I think that that is probably, if you want to have my complaints writ large, I feel like that is probably encapsulates it. Is that it, it is very campy in spots. And then other times it seems to pull back from that. And it like, it, it left me in a very kind of place where I'm like, well, is this the kind of book that they are going to like indulge in?
I think that some of it is them lampshading their own, their own. I don't, I don't, I hesitate to like, I don't know. I hesitate to use the word constructions, but that's kind of what they are. It's very much like, Hey, we're going to indulge in these like tropey, you know, one trope stuff that, you know, it's a Halloween book.
It's a hocus pocus book. Let's use the word witch instead of bitch for a dozen times. Let's just do it over and over and over. Let's do it.
Who cares? This book is, it's a self-indulgent book. It is directly for fans of hocus pocus. Probably 90s kids who grew up with the movie.
Let's be that. Let's have that kind of stuff in there. And then they have people making fun of it in the book. Like, oh, well we know we're doing it.
I'm like, well, just, you don't have to be ashamed of it. Just go ahead. Just, just push, go, go full on ridiculous. I'm, I'm okay with that.
I, I, I, that's also kind of a, uh, a pet peeve of mine when any kind of art indulges in a trope and then points out they know how much of a trope it is. I'm like, well, if you want to, if you want to acknowledge that this is a trope and you shouldn't do it, either don't do it. Do something else. There's literally, it's your imagination.
You can do whatever you want. Or just go full on board with the tropes. It's okay to use tropes. It's completely, it is not a sin to story.
There's not that many stories out there when you are, when you're writing anything, you're going to be using other stuff that you've read before. You've seen before. It's okay to use it. It's okay to go to TV tropes and look at all the lists of things that other, other art has done and say, oh, I want to use that and that.
Those are fun. Is there a trope that you could have seen them going for and they didn't do and you were disappointed by it all? Like, is there, if you had to include another trope, excuse me, my throat. If you had to include another trope in there, like, is there one that you would have put into this book?
I mean, I was expecting, I was kind of disappointed. We didn't get infighting with the sisters. Yeah. We got some bickering, which is pretty normal for them.
Yeah. I mean, that's expected. Honestly, I was starting to think that Mary might have. One of them turned hero.
Yeah, exactly. I thought that she might kind of turn a little bit good. There were points when I went, is she going to like, not necessarily turn I was saying, I was saying, okay, I'm gonna have, I have a couple hats ready. Okay.
My first hat, I'm gonna put it on. This is my internet nerd hat. Um um actually. Yeah, I'm actually hat.
Yeah, I'm actually. Yeah, the well actually, I I was, maybe it's just me. Okay. I don't think I know it's not just me because I saw other people talking about it online, but I don't want necessarily someone felt a little, when I was reading it, it felt nitpicky, so maybe it is also nitpicky from my part.
Okay, the nitpick hat. It might not, it might not matter, honestly, in the context of this book, because the movie itself is not concerned with it. I think it's, it's whenever I read anything that has magic systems in it, people using magic, I want rules. And I felt sometimes the rules were just, we need it to happen in the movie, so it happens.
And we don't get reasons, like, and I think the movie itself is because it's so tightly focused, it's all like, well, they have to do this before dawn. That's it. And in this it's like, well, we have to break the blood stone, blood moon stone, before dawn. And then, then, but they all have lightning powers that can do not just like just random lightning, they can also be used as like lassos and I'm like, and they can make lighthouses work.
And I'm like, well, why do they need, why all this extra, why, how does the lightning power make the lighthouse work and how do they, why can they sing a song and it makes all the kids be mind controlled? That it seems like that's only Sarah too, which was interesting because Elizabeth mentioned, she's like, oh, Sarah has a gift, but she only uses it for evil. So she has like some sort of siren powers. I don't know.
That's the thing. Like, I, you know, none of that's, none of that's established in the canon of Hocus Pocus. Why it, I don't, I, I know what I sound like when I say things like this, but I, I want you to, I, it feels very, like, it feels like plot magic. It feels like I need this, we need this to happen in the book and we don't want to explain it, so we don't.
I, I think, I think I, I stepped into the book recognizing that this wasn't going to be a book where like heavy magic systems and rules were going to be in place. It was just going to be like, they were going to run amok with the magic system, so to speak. Did you write this book, Paige? What did I, did I like it?
Did you write this book? That's what I read it. I did. Oh, okay.
This is a surprise. It was me all along. The, um, no, um, but, but like, uh, whenever she used the, the lightning as a, like a rope at the end to pull them back up the edge, I went, I mean, you know, that was convenient. Glad it worked.
Glad, you know, because he didn't die. Most. And she's got lightning powers. She has lightning powers.
They also did establish before that, that it was kind of like, like people had gotten lassoed before that. So I'm like, okay, sure. It's, it's sometimes it's like random flash of lightning, but sometimes it's just a literal rope. Um, it, it, I think it's the idea of that.
That's what I was starting to get tired of. It was very much like, okay, the witches can do this. Sure. That's fine.
Then they turned the light. I, they turned the lighthouse on. I rolled my eyes. I literally, I was just like, oh, okay, guys.
Why can't, why can't Travis just turn it on with his science, science knowledge? Yeah. Yeah. That would, that would have been a nice moment for Travis to, to shine.
Literally. Ha ha. You are on a roll. Thanks.
Uh, that's, I, I, I just, you know, I also want to shout out to Travis, Travis's book. I like Travis. Um, he's great. He's, he's the just, he's a solid wingman.
Travis is doing his best. Really was. Gosh. Just try.
And he was such a skeptic and he really came around to, to just roll with whatever they had to do. Like, I don't even believe in magic. Witches aren't real. Your family is crazy.
And then, okay, how can I science? I'm ready to. At a certain point when you see people literally disappear into like just out of thin air, then rip themselves. And I don't remember this.
I read it. Are they, they talk a lot about do witches like go into hell, like literally in hell. Like it's well, they did that in the first movie where, you know, uh, Billy says go to hell. And when he is like, oh, I've been, thank you.
Like it was lovely. Uh, so they kind of establish in the movie that hell is some sort of vacation destination or resting place. I'm not really sure what they were doing there. Um, but yeah, that, it did raise a lot of questions in my head of like, what is hell like in this universe?
Also, are the ghosts still in hell? Because, um, Banks and Emily and Elizabeth are all like visiting hell to see the, the family. And I'm like, y'all don't, that's not, you're not hell, are you? Like these are nice ghosts.
I don't, I'm glad you brought that up because I don't like, I can understand Elizabeth, but why are the, all the old ghosts back? The whole point at the end of the first thing is that they go rest. He finally gets reunited with a sister. He gets the, and they get to go to sleep forever.
They get to go to heaven or whatever, wherever they go. I'm not sure. Yeah. That's the other.
And like they, that's the other, the other feels very like, they show up to give the people information at the right time. I'm like, or just make it Elizabeth. I don't need all these. Okay.
The ghosts or whatever. They don't, they're barely in the book, honestly. Elizabeth was in it. It's I don't, I don't like.
Okay. I found, I'm two opinions that maybe contrast and maybe clash against each other that I managed to hold in my head at the same time. Okay. One.
I thought some of the dog stuff was very funny. I thought the dog stuff was very funny. There's, there's that. Like I recognize that some of it is very cheesy humor that I still made me laugh about.
Like them trying to be positive. And they're like, you're a dog. This is not good. Like that, that joke is going to probably work on me for the rest of whatever.
Like that kind of pay. No, it's not good. This is bad. You're a dog.
You are a normally a human person. And now you're a dog. That's bad. I thought that was very funny.
And usually it was like, I think my biggest laugh throughout the entire book, every time they made dog jokes. Um, also I didn't like that. They made a black character, an animal. Oh, that's fair.
Yeah. I mean, I, I, I was like, if I'm nitpicking, it's like, I'm just like, okay, so we got a solid queer relationship in here also. And you're going to take, you're going to take the person of interest of the main character who is gay and black and then turn them into an animal for most of the book. Like, oh, all right, cool.
We're going to princess and the frog this, like where, like the whole story. She's going to be a dog. Yeah. And then they make her not a dog before.
In a way that didn't fully make sense. It was because they needed her to be a person in the last fight is, is what that was. But, but yeah, I, you know, I, I feel like the turning someone into an animal is because they were like, well, for this formula to work, we need a talking animal and we don't want to bring banks back as a cat. So let's turn one of the characters into a dog.
And that, that felt forced. Like, I didn't feel like, like, like you said, it was, um, funny how it was everything's not fine. You're a dog. Ha ha.
Um, but then also I'm just like, you really, you literally don't need to be a dog right now. Like it, this would work just as well. I feel like if they were three people the whole time. Yeah.
There's, I don't think there's a necessity for dog. Very much like they saw the plot. They saw the first, they saw the movie and it has a cat in it. So what's a weird thing we could do?
This is a sequel. Oh, this one's a dog instead of a cat. Yeah. It's a, it's a twist there.
And I, I think I would not care as much if it wasn't, you know, one of your female black queer characters, the one, you know, you're doing well with the representation. And then you just go, no, they're a dog. Why can't you make someone else a dog? Um, or just not have a dog.
It was, I mean, I, I came up with having, I really enjoyed this book. I thought it was fun. I thought it was quirky. I like, I do not regret reading I am, I don't know, am I an old woman who doesn't want to be on social media?
I, I feel like your theory is probably not far off, like where it's a name for a ghostwriter, you know? And, and I, that makes me a little bummed because there were some moments in there that I really liked the writing style and I'd like to read more books by this author, where there's something about, oh, that description when she heard Sarah singing where it was like, if sounds had a taste, it would be buttercream frosting. I really loved that. And I was just like, who are you?
What else have you written? Like the minute I read that line and I just typed in the author's name and signing to see if any events popped up, cause I'm like, who are you? Are you a person? I, I'm 95% sure that A.W.
Jansen is not an actual person. They, they acknowledged in the, there's a sub dedication in here for people, but whoever, there's no hard evidence to it. I mean, it could be that, gosh, I wonder if it's like a writer who writes like a different sort of book that maybe Disney wouldn't want to be like, and so it's kind of like a ghost name for this title, but maybe it is a successful author, like outside of that. Like maybe it was a part.
I don't know. That's interesting. I wonder who wrote it. It's a weird thing to me.
One, also, their, their name is not on the cover of this. There is, there's no type, there's not anywhere on the cover of this. I have it in, I have a physical copy because I accidentally ordered a physical copy from Amazon, uh, but instead of a digital copy, because I am, I'm a grandpa. That's officially the answer is that I accidentally ordered a physical copy, but it does not have an author's name on it, and there's no social media for A.W.
Jansen, and uh, there's no bios anywhere for them either. I think you're probably right. I think this was a ghostwriter situation. Which, good job, secret writer.
And that's the strangest thing to me. I, it is, I think that's also kind of disappointing to me. And I think that took some wind out of my sails when I realized that. It's like, even if it is someone, even if it's, because it feels, I don't feel, this is Disney.
Like, either, even if they're, if they're famous, and you don't for something for other stuff, and you don't want that to influence, like, I would say, just don't have them write your book, or just own up to it and say, yeah, I want to write something different, so I'm writing uh a YA novel instead. That's people do that all the time. Oh yeah. And or, they are unknown and you just got, you know, you hired some unknown writer, well, let them have a career.
Like, I don't, I don't know. I agree with that, too, where this is, this was a, I mean, it's for sale everywhere. Like, I bought mine at Target, which, what a dream. It's a New York Times bestseller.
I wonder if it was multiple authors. It's possible. I mean, I assumed that the first part was written by someone different than the second part when I realized, when I realized the author is probably a ghostwriter, then I went, oh, well, probably the novelization was written by one person, and the sequel was written by another person. And I feel like the writing, I mean, like.
The voices are different. Like, and that could be that, you know, they just have range. But I wouldn't be surprised if it was multiple authors. The author's gonna tweet at us and be like, I'm a real person.
I made a Twitter just for you. If they do that, I will happily correct myself. I have no problem with that whatsoever. I just, it feels strange to me when you have a big company doing this.
Like, there's a difference between like, and this is not a series, you know, it's not like this is a long running series with dozens of books in it, you know, and there's, and even the people who do generally use ghostwriters, like, and famous authors who use ghostwriters and or, you know, use assistants that actually write the books for them, they at least acknowledge it. They will have both credits there. And I, you know, this is the only book. Why would you need a ghostwriter in the first place?
There's plenty of great, there are plenty of great YA writers out there. Who are probably, like you said, you are a huge fan of this book and of this movie. And there are plenty of others who I'm sure are also huge fans of the movie. Why don't you write this?
Oh, I think anyone would be delighted, especially if you're like a spooky 90s kid. Like, that's a dream project for like so many people. Yes. Do you think that it, it will be a series?
Uh, I mean, yes. I assume there will be another one. Because the way they ended this book, how did you feel about that? Um, I'm curious to see how it would go.
I, like it's, this is already a bestseller. Then I, it's published by Disney. So like you said, it's a target. There's, there's plenty of places that it will sell.
It's, it's more like, it is, it's kind of that continuation of, well, what are the rules for the, like, I think that might be something, like, also exacerbate my kind of frustration with some of this. Because it's suddenly, oh, is that, it's Winnie? And now she's in a boy? Is that what we're supposed to believe?
Is it Winnie? Or is it someone different? I don't know. I, I wasn't sure if she was, he was, he had Winnie's spellbook.
So that's why. I thought it was someone new. I thought maybe it was, I don't know. I don't know.
I was wondering, because they referenced, like, you don't think it would be the devil, do you? Because the two people they talked about were a mother and master. And we know master's the devil from the first movie. And, like, oh, the devil made the spellbook for, for Winnie.
And now he, like, I'm just like, those are the two people they wanted to summon. Like, really, really bad. And they got their mother back for a hot second. What if they also summoned the devil?
I don't know. Okay, I'm on board if it's the devil. I'll make that go. If it's actually, they brought, they brought literal capital devil.
Literal devil to earth. And, you know, he's a teenage boy. Okay, I'm on board again. But I didn't, I don't know who it is.
I think it's a little ramsack to me, uh, to just like, oh, well, they, the book does it. The book can just do whatever they need it to, and witches never die. And we just have, I mean, they, they pretty much give themselves as much rope as they possibly can for as many sequels as they possibly can. They just, you know, witches don't die, and the book isn't, it can't be destroyed, and you're just like, well, eventually I'm going to want you to, they want, they should probably destroy that book, uh, somehow.
Find a way to, you know, the book is the hope. It's protected by magic. That's true. Magic explains away a lot of stuff.
Are you, are you excited for another book if they have one? Yeah, because here's the thing. The one, one thing I was missing from both of these books was, I'm like, if you're gonna do a new Hocus Pocus, give me more Billy. Like, come on, please.
And so, at the very end, I'm like, oh my God, are you, are you doing this to my heart right now? Are you summoning Billy on the very last page? And um, I can't be alone. I'm sure there's a whole fan club out there for that zombie.
Um. What's the name of the fan club page? Um, Billy the Zombie for Life. Okay.
It's on a Yahoo geosite. Oh, I see. With like a heart around him. It's, it's beautiful.
So it's a neopets, uh, guild. I, I literally just described the fan page I had for Orlando Bloom, but I put Billy the zombie in there instead. My youth. Anyway.
My youth. Um, I, I, but also, the person who summoned him referred to Billy as brother. Uh, so I don't know if that was a general term, like bro, but um, I don't know. I'm curious.
It'd be really interesting. But then, what is, Billy is good. Why would you summon him for nefarious deeds? Again, I don't know.
And I think that some of it is very much like just throwing out stuff that people remember. Like, I don't, I didn't really need, just like I didn't need the ghosts to show back up. I don't need you to poke me. Remember the stuff in the first thing?
Remember? I did like how they, they had Allison dressed up like Lady Gaga. I was like, yeah, that's a pretty funny callback. Of course she is.
Yeah, that's, that's good. I thought that was cute. Someone, someone online was calling out the references to Disney characters. Oh, they did that pretty frequently.
And I'm like, well, I guess you're allowed to without getting sued. You can have someone trick-or-treating I don't know. I've seen mixed reviews online, but I I don't know if I can trust reviews online anymore. I don't know if I I look at just the amount of them.
And for every bad review, there is also one that is great. And so it's very hard for me to get any sense of actual, if there's an actual, uh, like consensus on, on anything, at least critical consensus on it. And I don't think that this book necessarily is attempting to, it's certainly not trying to be literature. It is, you know, the, the front cover literally has the silhouettes from the three witches on the, but on the back, it has the silhouettes of the, the three new characters.
That's really nice. I like that. Yeah, I like that too. It's a cute, you know, if you had to accidentally order a book online, at least it's a pretty one.
It's a cute book. Yeah, it looks really nice. Uh, I mean, I think my, my, I, I had to, I bought the physical one. I tried to cancel it and I bought the digital one and then they shipped me the physical one anyway.
So now I have it in every format. You're a super fan. Yes. That's how I would describe myself as of this book, a super fan.
Uh, we'll see. I maybe they're trying to establish someone like a, you know, I assume this is gonna be a series. Maybe they are trying to establish a JK Rowling type, you know, it has A.W. Dantha kind of that kind of the same kind of feeling of someone apart from these books.
And it, and maybe it just is Disney being very guarded about image. Or it could be, um, similar to, gosh, wasn't Nancy Drew all ghostwriters? Like where it was a different writer for each. It could be something like that too, where they want to have like one uniform name and a bunch of different writers working on it.
That's, I think that's a good question to end on. Is this, do you think this is, I think we've answered the question that this is good for fans of the movie, but do you think this is, do you think if, let's say a teen, a 13 year old picks it up and has never seen the movie, does it work? I, that's so hard. Like, I don't know that I can actually answer it because the whole time I read it, I was picturing Salem as it is in the Hocus Pocus movie.
And I, I have such a nostalgia for all the characters. So I don't know that I can like separate the two to have a fair answer. I think that, I think, especially that second part, it painted enough of a picture and introduced enough new things that even if, I, I don't know, I don't know. I'm trying to like work that out in my head.
And I, I feel like it has series potential, but if it was like book one, two, three, and four of like this new Hocus Pocus, the book series, is it something that people like me, who were really into the movie as kids, are going to be picking up a reading or is it going to be like a hot new book for the teens? And that I'm not, I'm not totally sure about. I don't know who their key demographic is going to end up being if this does turn into a series. And if you're a fan of the original matters, I'd like to say that if they expand it, it could stand on its own two feet.
And we could get more out of like the relationship which were between the like core three characters. Uh, because I would read a book about the three of them, I think, even if it wasn't a Hocus Pocus book. Like I liked them. Um, so I think because of their dynamic, it might, it might work even if you're not a fan.
What do you think? Because you didn't have the nostalgia work, like working as hard in your favor. I think they need to, if this is gonna be a series, they really need to shift. They need to shift away from the old, like it's, they need to shift towards all, all the attention.
Like I think certainly in the first sequel, you're gonna have, you know, a handoff, a baton pass. Like here's the, here's the young kids. We're gonna follow them now. I don't need to see.
And like that, that's why I'm a little hesitant about them bringing, you know, we see Billy rise up again at the end of that. I'm like, well, just have new stuff. I don't want, like, especially if it's going to be leading forward, have new characters and let them really shine because that's the best part of the book. It is, you know, I don't need to see a book about the adults and you know, most adults.
I wish Poppy would think there's multiple scenes where she's just like my parents. They're in hell. I'm like, well, focus, Poppy. Come on.
Yeah, get over it. Stop worrying about your dang, stop worrying about your dang parents getting tortured by demons. Worry about that dang stone. Uh, and I like, I want to see, you know, I think sometimes they're, they're leading, you know, I, I like the direction of a new warlock, I guess in this case, maybe it is the devil.
And if it's the devil, that is that, see, that's what I'm talking about going for it. Like they're not just fighting. They, they fight some, a bunch of extra witches in this. They don't end up really mattering, but like if they start fighting the devil, I'm like, okay, go for it.
That's something. And then he, and then, then maybe the three, the sisters come back because the devil is actually too much. And they're like, well, you betrayed us. And then the witches come back and fight the devil.
But then, but then the witches also are not certainly not good still. They still want to take over, but blah, blah. I don't know. That's just me.
It's me just, you know, spitballing around, but I want to focus on the new kids. I think the, I don't need ghosts from the old movie. I don't need, I don't need them banging around anymore. Let them have a happy ending.
They walk off into the sunset. Let, let us, let get some new. I like Elizabeth and I think here, I think this is my, my also be what I was really hoping for when they talk about Elizabeth and they, they started, they hit here and there about, um, I don't know. There's, there seems to be a little bit hinting of, and especially at the very, very beginning when they're sitting in the classroom and they're talking to her dad and all the kids are giving them a hard time trying to get him to talk about this, this, the sisters.
They have it just like kind of incidental dialogue, uh, where one of the kids are talking about like uh uh patriarchy or something about, you know, how women were always the ones getting burned at the stake and, and stuff like that and being accused of these awful things. And then they were, you know, I was really hoping that, you know, the cast is much more diverse. This book is certainly more quote unquote, woke than the movie is. I was really thinking that they would have a little bit more of that in there.
A little bit, some progressive themes about, you know, giving us a little bit of insight into why, you know, these witches were witches in the first place. You know, and even, you know, they talk about, you know, I think we even allude to that at one point where she's like, no, I, there's a reason I, I, you know, I use this power is because I had to. And I'm like, well, that's really interesting. I want to know like how they became witches in the first place or why it's because they were being oppressed or something.
Like that's, that's an interesting power dynamic. Can we You want a prequel? Sure, actually. Yeah, that, I'd be down.
I'd be down for a rise, the rise of Winnie. Rise of Winnie. Rise. Oh my gosh.
Yeah. I, uh, well, I, you know, uh, we, I, we got a couple of flashbacks. I wouldn't have minded a few more. Like, so I think, I don't know.
I wonder if this new character is the devil or some warlock from the past. If we're going to get little glimpses into pre-Hocus Pocus adventures of witchy stuff and who he is to the Sanderson sisters. Um, I don't know. Might just be a brother.
Maybe. They actually only talk about the sisters. He's like, I'm the brother who also matters. Mm-hmm.
I'd rather, I'd rather be the devil. I know. I hope it's the devil. I hope it's the devil.
Is there anything you want to add, Paige? Uh, I don't think so. I mean, Sarah on a Roomba. Very good.
Great. I like Poppy. Mm-hmm. Poppy's cute.
I like Isabella. I like Travis, my boy. Your boy, Travis. My boy, Travis.
Katie was, turned out to be okay. She turned out to be okay. Still, I'm still holding a grudge against Katie. I can't help it.
I'm not as, I'm not as, I'm not as forgiving as Poppy is. Yeah, we don't know her that well yet either. She doesn't, you know. She plays soccer.
Yeah. But she, she was a helpful ally. She was. At the end, she was