Speaker 1: On the Bechdel Cast, the questions ask if movies have
Speaker 1: women and them, are all their discussions just boyfriends and husbands,
Speaker 1: or do they have individualism? It's the patriarchy, zephy Beast
Speaker 1: start changing it with the Bechdel Cast.
Speaker 2: We're back at it again, Jamie. A clue that leads
Speaker 2: to another clue that leads to another clue that leads
Speaker 2: to us.
Speaker 3: Finally reuniting with Helen Mirren. Because wasn't that really the
Speaker 3: full thing we had to do the whole time?
Speaker 2: Yes, yes it was, It's true. Hi, Welcome to the
Speaker 2: Bechdel Cast. My name is Caitlin Dorante, my.
Speaker 3: Name is Jamie Loftus, and this is our podcast where
Speaker 3: we talk about important entries in cinema and talk about
Speaker 3: how they relate to an intersectional feminist perspective. And boy,
Speaker 3: do we have a feminist text for you? Humdinger. So
Speaker 3: on the fourth of July. Because you know, we're reasonable people,
Speaker 3: we don't feel that there's a ton to celebrate. However,
Speaker 3: the movies, they feel different. The movies really want you
Speaker 3: to think that there's a ton to celebrate. So we
Speaker 3: try over the years to line up this week with
Speaker 3: a movie that is very American coded for better or
Speaker 3: for worse. Really, last year we did idiocrity an attempt
Speaker 3: at I forgot.
Speaker 2: We did that for like a fourth of July episode.
Speaker 3: Yeah. Yeah, So last year we did Mike Judge's valiant
Speaker 3: attempt to comment on the state of America that just
Speaker 3: ended up revealing that he hated poor people. This year,
Speaker 3: we're going for the Millennial Generations attempt at Indiana Jones.
Speaker 3: We're heading back in to the National Treasure expand universe.
Speaker 3: And I've got to say this movie has more to
Speaker 3: say than idiocrasy for me. Sure this movie Caitlin Derante
Speaker 3: made half a billion dollars.
Speaker 2: It really did, and we celebrate that.
Speaker 3: We celebrate And what do American celebrate more than something
Speaker 3: ridiculous making half a billion dollars. Yeah, it's something that
Speaker 3: we love to see over here. But first we should
Speaker 3: talk about what this podcast is.
Speaker 2: Yes, we examine movies through an intersectional feminist lens, using
Speaker 2: the Bechdel Test as a jumping off point. It is
Speaker 2: a media metric created by queer cartoonist Alison Bechdel, sometimes
Speaker 2: called the Bechdel Wallace Test. It originally appeared in Alison
Speaker 2: Bechdel's Decks to Watch out For in nineteen eighty five
Speaker 2: as just like a bit a one off joke that
Speaker 2: appeared in a strip of hers and has since been
Speaker 2: kind of co opted to be this grand metric. There
Speaker 2: are many versions of it. The one we use is
Speaker 2: this two people of a marginalized gender have to have names,
Speaker 2: they must speak to each other, and their conversation has
Speaker 2: to be about something other than a man, and we
Speaker 2: particularly appreciate it when it is a narratively substantial conversation. However,
Speaker 2: we decided a few caveats, such as it does pass
Speaker 2: the Bechdel test when Nicholas Cage declares that he is
Speaker 2: going to kidnap the president of the United States.
Speaker 3: Which is a huge relief because the movie may not
Speaker 3: in factest the bechel test without that important caveat that
Speaker 3: we made to save this feminist text exactly unfair criticism.
Speaker 2: Well, there's another caveat that we agreed upon, which is
Speaker 2: that it also passes the Bechdel test when Nicholas Cage
Speaker 2: screams at a male child.
Speaker 3: Yes, because that feels like a real close study of
Speaker 3: different generations of masculinity in combat with one another in
Speaker 3: a lighthearted yet impactful way.
Speaker 2: It was cinema at its finest.
Speaker 3: I really hope that entire I mean, I know it
Speaker 3: wasn't because that child actor. I mean not to put
Speaker 3: the child actor on the spot, but it would have
Speaker 3: been very hard for the child actor to improvise that
Speaker 3: dialogue exchange. But it felt so organic. Those are my
Speaker 3: founding fathers, both CAG and that kid. So today we're
Speaker 3: covering I think maybe one of our generation's most jingoistic franchises,
Speaker 3: National Treasure. We've covered National Treasure one, not that you asked,
Speaker 3: but we've already done it so before. I mean, Caitlin,
Speaker 3: what's your history with National Treasure? Book of Secrets? Yes,
Speaker 3: Book of Secrets will and we can't forget the really
Speaker 3: important oh my gosh, and really great subtitle.
Speaker 2: It's about a secret book, Book of Secrets. Oh my gosh.
Speaker 3: I kind of forgot what the Book of Secrets was
Speaker 3: and so I was rewatching it.
Speaker 2: So my history with this movie is that I watched
Speaker 2: it when we covered the first National Treasure movie, which
Speaker 2: I think was the first episode we released after Lockdown
Speaker 2: in March twenty twenty.
Speaker 3: Yeah, because we're like, this is going to be over
Speaker 3: in a second, let's have a little bit of fun. Yeah,
Speaker 3: and then it turned out it's still happening. We're not
Speaker 3: going to harp on it today. Yeah, but yes, yes,
Speaker 3: National Treasure was a movie that came to us during
Speaker 3: a time of need.
Speaker 2: Yeah, and so I watched the sequel then. So that
Speaker 2: was about three years ago, and I haven't really thought
Speaker 2: about it since. But then I I rewatched it with
Speaker 2: our good friend Bryant like ten days ago, which is
Speaker 2: part of why I pitched we do this now.
Speaker 3: Yes, and I'm glad you did. Yeah, and now more
Speaker 3: than ever, more than ever.
Speaker 2: We need to discuss National Treasure, Book of Secrets. So
Speaker 2: I've seen it a handful of times. Now I think
Speaker 2: it's not a good movie, but I also love it,
Speaker 2: so shrug.
Speaker 3: Yeah, I feel about the same way I saw this
Speaker 3: movie in theaters for sure. Wow, uh brag, I remember,
Speaker 3: I even this was one of the things where I remember,
Speaker 3: I vividly remember a trailer moment when it happened in
Speaker 3: the movie. Trailer moment when Justin and Bartha says it's
Speaker 3: a little Golden Man, and then classic Bartha trailer moment.
Speaker 3: Oh and Bartha is on for this. He really is
Speaker 3: he once again steals the show. We love to see him,
Speaker 3: and again, I feel like we constantly have to qualify
Speaker 3: as of this recording, as far as we know, Justin
Speaker 3: Bertha is a normal man. True. But yeah, I remember
Speaker 3: seeing the trailer. I was fourteen. I was stoked to
Speaker 3: see National Treasure two with my friends, which I did,
Speaker 3: and I loved it even at the time, I feel like,
Speaker 3: and listeners, let me know, I feel like, even at
Speaker 3: the time, as a fourteen year old, I registered this
Speaker 3: as whatever a fourteen year old would call something campy, Like,
Speaker 3: I recognized that this was not a triumph, which is
Speaker 3: not how I felt about National Treasure one. I thought
Speaker 3: National Treasure one triumph. Sure, National Treasure two I thought silly,
Speaker 3: But you know, I'm going to see it with my
Speaker 3: damn friends and I'm gonna love every second of it.
Speaker 3: And so it was. Yeah, I did not remember this
Speaker 3: movie as well as I remember the first one. I
Speaker 3: haven't seen it as many times. It's probably my third
Speaker 3: viewing of it. Ever. I also still have yet to
Speaker 3: see There was a mini series, I think maybe Misguided
Speaker 3: mini series that was released around the National Treasure franchise. Yeah,
Speaker 3: on Disney Plus. I have not watched it either. I
Speaker 3: think Bartha came back. Yeah, let me did Bartha return?
Speaker 3: Let me investigate. Bartha was on season four of Atlanta.
Speaker 3: I don't know if you saw his appearance.
Speaker 2: I have not made it that far into the show.
Speaker 2: Hang on National Treasure.
Speaker 3: Oh, and he's in the Good Fight. I haven't seen it.
Speaker 2: Okay, So National Treasure. Edge of History is the series
Speaker 2: from another good subtitles, Yes, from twenty twenty two. Let's
Speaker 2: see who is in the cast. Justin Bartha is there.
Speaker 2: I can't tell how important of a character he is.
Speaker 3: It's just a guest star though. It's kind of like
Speaker 3: a David Crumbholtz and the Santa claus is.
Speaker 2: Which is utter bullshit.
Speaker 3: Yeah, it's that's why we don't watch Disney Plus mini
Speaker 3: series because we did watch the Santa Clauses and we
Speaker 3: need to break Catherine Sata Jones is in this damn thing.
Speaker 2: She is? And then a bunch of people who I
Speaker 2: do not recognize.
Speaker 3: Jake Austin Walker. Sure that's a person. We'll see about
Speaker 3: that anyways. Yeah, I don't know who's in there. Oh,
Speaker 3: Harvey Kaitel comes back for a guest spot. That's fun. No, Cage.
Speaker 3: Harvey loves I mean this franchise. He really does. And
Speaker 3: even though he's barely in this installment, which I guess
Speaker 3: we'll get to, not that he's really it's so weird
Speaker 3: that he's even in this one, because you're just like,
Speaker 3: why is he there? Why is he there? I mean
Speaker 3: glad to see Harvey's kitel get a check. I guess
Speaker 3: why not? But yeah, I saw it. I enjoyed it.
Speaker 3: I think I seen it one other time and I
Speaker 3: forgot so many elements. I will say, well, this movie
Speaker 3: is definitely not good in the traditional sense, and it
Speaker 3: is certainly not good for the purposes of this our
Speaker 3: podcast that we've been doing for seven years. Yes, definitely not.
Speaker 3: I will say that this does deliver as far as
Speaker 3: a sequel goes for me, because it's such a high
Speaker 3: concept franchise. Nicholas Cage has to steal an American artifact
Speaker 3: that is, you're not supposed to steal and find a
Speaker 3: map on it, and you're like, how does he do that? Twice?
Speaker 3: I feel like this movie effectively raises the stakes. In
Speaker 3: the first one, he has to steal the Declaration of Independence. Famously,
Speaker 3: that's difficult. The second one he turns up the difficulty
Speaker 3: level and he does several things, but he most importantly
Speaker 3: another trailer moment, I'm going to kidnap the President of
Speaker 3: the United States, which he does. Yeah, and the President,
Speaker 3: not for nothing, loves every second of it. Spoiler alert,
Speaker 3: The President loves being kidnapp by Nicholas Cage. Can't get
Speaker 3: enough of it instantly, Yes, like, don't get him in trouble.
Speaker 3: I love this guy. And then he finds the city
Speaker 3: of Gold underneath Mount Rushmore. Now we have to get
Speaker 3: into what the hell's going on there, but I do
Speaker 3: think on its face they managed to do it. Again.
Speaker 3: He is finding maps places you wouldn't believe.
Speaker 2: Yeah, he goes from stealing a piece of paper to
Speaker 2: stealing a human being.
Speaker 3: He steals a whole guy, and then on top of
Speaker 3: that keeps being like, I'm not kidnapping you, which he is.
Speaker 3: And then there's a book of Secrets. Also Riley in
Speaker 3: this movie. I was very I was like, wow, Riley
Speaker 3: also has close friends who haven't read his book yet. Okay,
Speaker 3: that's very me coded. I was really relating to Riley.
Speaker 3: I think the president should give me a really nice
Speaker 3: car tax free. Yeah, well, a weird post credit scene.
Speaker 3: Riley was on all cylinders here. Abigail once again done dirty.
Speaker 3: No justice for Abigail, not that we expected it, but
Speaker 3: we get we get a second woman, Helen Mirren. That's
Speaker 3: another sequel thing. We gotta get a second woman in there.
Speaker 3: But don't worry, We're not gonna let her do anything.
Speaker 2: Nope.
Speaker 3: I just I think that this movie is such a
Speaker 3: a seque for better and for worse. It does the
Speaker 3: same thing, but more and twice.
Speaker 2: It's incredible.
Speaker 3: I truly laughed out loud. The shot where again spoilers
Speaker 3: for those who haven't seen National Treasure two Book of Secrets,
Speaker 3: The shot where they panned down from the Eiffel Tower
Speaker 3: and then zoom in on the tiny statue of Liberty.
Speaker 3: I was such a hard fast zoom and the music
Speaker 3: like like, oh my god, Americans are so sick in
Speaker 3: their heads. Everything's about them. It's just disgusting and hilarious
Speaker 3: in this movie. I just Ben Gates, I swear to
Speaker 3: and and not I.
Speaker 2: Mean Benjamin Franklin Gates.
Speaker 3: It's like right up there with Larry Geely and all
Speaker 3: time worse character names for anything. And then another horrible
Speaker 3: justin Bartha movie quick Justin Bartha thingcause we're talking about it.
Speaker 3: I didn't know because I was just I was on
Speaker 3: side this weekend talking to my talk and talk and
Speaker 3: talking about Justin Bartha and how I was thinking about him.
Speaker 3: And someone was like, oh, yeah, don't you remember when
Speaker 3: he dated Ashley Olsen? I didn't.
Speaker 2: We always forget this.
Speaker 3: We history, much like what happened was going on with
Speaker 3: Thomas Gates. History does not. American history doesn't want us
Speaker 3: to remember Justin Bartha's relationship with Ashley Olsen. However, I
Speaker 3: loved I sent it to you. I just looked up
Speaker 3: because I was like, when did they even date? They
Speaker 3: broke up in twenty eleven. The alleged reason for the
Speaker 3: breakup was that Justin Bartha was partying too much on
Speaker 3: the set of Hangover too she was, which is a
Speaker 3: very twenty eleven reason to break up with someone. Couldn't
Speaker 3: have happened any other year.
Speaker 2: No, it's like us discover, like we go through this
Speaker 2: like series of clues and puzzles to discover that Justin
Speaker 2: Bartha and Ashley Olsen dated, And it's such a revelation
Speaker 2: each and every time we learn this.
Speaker 3: I kidnapped Bob Iger to get this information. I was like,
Speaker 3: where's the book? I okay, the present? That was one
Speaker 3: thing I've I've tried to fact check a number There
Speaker 3: have been a number of articles that have you know,
Speaker 3: attempted to fact check the historical you know, value of
Speaker 3: national treasure too, Not that it really matters, you know,
Speaker 3: because most of American history is fucking made up?
Speaker 2: Right? Yeah, how do you even fact check revised history exactly?
Speaker 3: So you might? Sure, why not to a lot of
Speaker 3: this bullshit? But I couldn't get a straight answer on
Speaker 3: whether the president does indeed have a book of secrets
Speaker 3: where every secret from American history is written.
Speaker 2: Longhand crammed into this like leather bound book.
Speaker 3: Also, if I was Riley, I would be absolutely beside
Speaker 3: myself because Riley is this close to knowing whether Kennedy
Speaker 3: assassination conspiracies are true, and Nick Cage is like, there's
Speaker 3: no time and like we gotta find a second, Like comes.
Speaker 2: On, yeah, seriously, the moon landing?
Speaker 3: Come on?
Speaker 2: I have to know what was the whole thing with
Speaker 2: page thirty seven? Was that just like setting up a
Speaker 2: sequel or did we actually find anything out about it? Well?
Speaker 3: Page forty seven I don't know. I wonder if that
Speaker 3: comes back in Edge of History page forty seven. Yeah,
Speaker 3: I think that that was setting up a sequel because
Speaker 3: there was for sure supposed to be a third one,
Speaker 3: because this movie made half a billion dollars. I don't
Speaker 3: really know why there wasn't a third one in the moment,
Speaker 3: Maybe Nicholas Cage got too busy with what would he
Speaker 3: have even been doing. Also, these movies, it is like
Speaker 3: kind of sick to me that Alfred Bolina did not
Speaker 3: make his way into this franchise.
Speaker 2: This feels like, yeah, we talked about this on the
Speaker 2: last episode.
Speaker 3: Yeah. I mean it's like it's so Indiana Jones coded
Speaker 3: to begin with Yeah that like he'd fit right in.
Speaker 3: I know, let's find out why there wasn't a sequel.
Speaker 3: There was, there was a novelization, and I also love
Speaker 3: that there was a There's a whole section of the
Speaker 3: Wikipedia page called historical accuracy like be serious, okay sow
Speaker 3: okay in made two thousand and eight. John Turtletobb confirmed
Speaker 3: that there would be additional National Treasure movies, but acknowledged
Speaker 3: the creative team needed time on the second sequel. I
Speaker 3: don't know why, because the first sequel was awesome. I
Speaker 3: guess it just like kind of went to production.
Speaker 2: Hell damn it.
Speaker 3: Yeah, it's it's a damn shame because I remember, like, okay,
Speaker 3: January twenty twenty, the last time we discussed this movie.
Speaker 3: In twenty twenty, the third one was on the way,
Speaker 3: and then it turned into the series, a bullshit series
Speaker 3: which no one watches those and it's they always suck, unfortunately.
Speaker 3: But the fun thing is that there is a second
Speaker 3: one and that everyone in the world thowt because it
Speaker 3: made half a billion dollars in two thousand and seven.
Speaker 3: That is so wild. Should we love this movie? Sorry?
Speaker 2: Should I recap it?
Speaker 3: For sure?
Speaker 2: Okay, let's take a quick break first, and then we'll
Speaker 2: come back to recap and we're back.
Speaker 3: Okay, So at the very beginning, I think if with
Speaker 3: your permission, please, because the beginning is sort of frontloaded
Speaker 3: with all the history stuff. Yes, so I will try
Speaker 3: to share what I know, Okay, part of which I
Speaker 3: independently research. But I would also like to share the
Speaker 3: very defensive historical accuracy section of the Wikipedia, which mostly
Speaker 3: clarifies small points that don't make much of a difference
Speaker 3: to me. But you can let me know, I've kind
Speaker 3: of on the historical accuracy side surprisingly fall very much
Speaker 3: and leave National Treasure to Book of Secrets alone in
Speaker 3: some ways, at least in the opening sequence.
Speaker 2: Sure, all right, okay, So here's what we see in
Speaker 2: that sequence. We are in Washington, DC. Ever heard of it?
Speaker 2: It's eighteen sixty five. A mysterious man who we will
Speaker 2: find out is John Wilkes Booth, along with another man.
Speaker 3: They made him hot.
Speaker 2: John is sexy in this. He and another man approach
Speaker 2: Thomas Gates and his young son. Now John Wilkes Booth
Speaker 2: wants Thomas Gates to decode a cipher.
Speaker 3: It's a family tradition. They all see this. There is
Speaker 3: a version of this franchise that is just like a
Speaker 3: family curse where all these women throughout history have to
Speaker 3: deal with these fucking guys who see maps where there
Speaker 3: shouldn't be maps. But then they're right, and what a
Speaker 3: nightmare that must be.
Speaker 2: Yeah, you're really signing up for a lot when you
Speaker 2: marry a gatesman.
Speaker 3: You're gonna be like, enough with the maps, I've had it.
Speaker 3: And then sure, a shit, there's a damn map.
Speaker 2: Yep. Okay, So as old Tommy Gates is solving this cipher.
Speaker 2: John Wilkes Booth leaves to go into a theater and
Speaker 2: he assassinates President Lincoln on screen.
Speaker 3: Famously, again disrespectful, who gives a shit? So I wanted
Speaker 3: to acknowledge the guy sitting with Thomas Gates is revealed
Speaker 3: if you, like me, got a public American education and
Speaker 3: would not be told about things like this, is a
Speaker 3: member of the Nights of the Golden Circle. This is
Speaker 3: a real thing. Okay, So I'm kind to share from
Speaker 3: scholarly journal Wikipedia what it says. It feels very weird
Speaker 3: and defensive to me. Okay. The Knights of the Golden
Speaker 3: Circle had actually disbanded in eighteen sixty three. It was
Speaker 3: based in Ohio, where its founder resided. Though a native
Speaker 3: of Virginia, Bickley, the founder, had actually been known for
Speaker 3: being an adventurer. His main focus was not on preserving
Speaker 3: the Confederate States of America, but restoring slavery in southern
Speaker 3: neighboring countries that he wanted to make a part of
Speaker 3: a proposed nation dubbed the Golden Circle. While some members
Speaker 3: of the group would join the Confederate Army, Bickley was
Speaker 3: more focused on colonizing parts of northern Mexico as slave states.
Speaker 3: And you're like, well, as far as the purposes of
Speaker 3: this movie is concerned, that's still an exceptionally horrible, horrific person.
Speaker 3: I don't know why we need it clarified.
Speaker 2: Like, actually, he was horrible in a different way. Actually,
Speaker 2: you should have been more specific about it. You're like, no,
Speaker 2: I think that they did a fine job, and he
Speaker 2: was a.
Speaker 3: Real like he was evil was the he is. I mean,
Speaker 3: you can't get more bad guy than the couple of
Speaker 3: sentences I just read. Anyways, I just wasn't aware that
Speaker 3: the Knights of the Golden Circle. I like, that was not,
Speaker 3: at least in my memory. It was not a part
Speaker 3: of my knowledge of the Civil War. So already I'm.
Speaker 2: Learning I did not learn about that either. So Thomas
Speaker 2: Gates realizes that these men who have approached him are
Speaker 2: members of this Knights of the Golden Circle. He knows
Speaker 2: that they're bad guys, and one of them shoots Thomas Gates,
Speaker 2: but not before Thomas rips pages out of John Wilkes
Speaker 2: Booth's diary, including the page with the cipher on it.
Speaker 3: Very confusing sequence.
Speaker 2: Throws those pages into the fire the bad guy pulls
Speaker 2: the papers out of the fire, or at least one
Speaker 2: of them, and runs off. And then in Thomas Gates's
Speaker 2: dying breath to his son, his son, he says the
Speaker 2: debt that all men pay, and then Weld dead right.
Speaker 3: You are just like, Okay, the beginning of the National
Speaker 3: Treasure movie is always confusing, yes, and it's always one
Speaker 3: of these damn guys solving a puzzle and then it's ugh,
Speaker 3: fucking whatever. But yeah, so that whole period, there's also
Speaker 3: like some people kind of getting really particular about I'll
Speaker 3: just run through stuff about John Wilkes Booth. You're like,
Speaker 3: who what? There is a secret basement under George Washington's
Speaker 3: home at Mount Vernon apparently, so something to think about.
Speaker 3: I don't know, I'll keep going. But oh, and there
Speaker 3: may have been cipher solvers just like Thomas Gates working
Speaker 3: during the Civil War, so this is basically and John
Speaker 3: Wilkes Booth's diary did have multiple pages missing from it,
Speaker 3: so this is in many ways a documentary. Yeah, except
Speaker 3: for all of the jingoistic parts that take place in
Speaker 3: two thousand and seven. Those are not cannon. But the
Speaker 3: whole beginning I think is historically.
Speaker 2: Accurate, okay, perfect, love to hear it, love to see it, okay.
Speaker 2: So then we flash forward to Benjamin Franklin Gates aka
Speaker 2: Ben Gates aka Nicholas Cage, who is giving a Ted
Speaker 2: talk or something about the Nights of the Golden Circle
Speaker 2: and the Booth Diary.
Speaker 3: He brought his dad to school, and you're just like,
Speaker 3: needs to get over themselves. The Gates family, Hubris, I
Speaker 3: think is very on the table for discussion because it's like,
Speaker 3: get over yourself, what have you accomplished? And then they
Speaker 3: kidnapped the president, so.
Speaker 2: They accomplished a lot. So someone attending this presentation, Mitch
Speaker 2: Wilkinson played by James Harris.
Speaker 3: I totally forgot Ed Harris was in this movie. Yeah,
Speaker 3: but what a interesting jump scare to have him be like.
Speaker 2: At actually my great great granddaddy aka a Confederate general
Speaker 2: who's awesome, and everyone's like, yeah, wow, what a respectable person.
Speaker 1: I know.
Speaker 3: Yeah, that's one of the first things where you're just
Speaker 3: like Jesus fucking Christ. It reminded me of I guess
Speaker 3: this was sort of something that was popular in two
Speaker 3: thousand and seven, those videos where it was like stand
Speaker 3: up comedian owns audience member. But it's like random man
Speaker 3: at Ted Talk owns Nicholas Cage.
Speaker 2: That's exactly what happens. Because Mitch is like, what do
Speaker 2: you think happened to those missing pages of the Booth Diary? Well,
Speaker 2: I have them right here, and they prove that your ancestor,
Speaker 2: Thomas Gates, it was his idea to assassinate President Lincoln.
Speaker 3: And you're like, huh what, And then cut to the
Speaker 3: next scene. The whole audience is gone. We don't get
Speaker 3: to see how people react to this. For some reason,
Speaker 3: the information seems to remain fairly contained for a while.
Speaker 3: It's baffling, but I'm fully engaged. Yeah, sitting my ass
Speaker 3: down and I'm listening.
Speaker 2: You're like, okay, what's next? Tell me more? Yeah, So
Speaker 2: Thomas Gates's name is on one of these pages of
Speaker 2: the Booth Diary, and it makes it seem like he
Speaker 2: was the mastermind behind the assassination. And so now Ben
Speaker 2: Gates and his daddy, Patrick Gates played by John Hooyt
Speaker 2: again have to prove that their ancestor, Thomas Gates, was
Speaker 2: innocent and not the mastermind behind Lincoln's assassination.
Speaker 3: And it's like, get a life job, but they don't
Speaker 3: need to get a job because they have all the
Speaker 3: national treasure from the last movie, which were reminded by
Speaker 3: this big ass house that he.
Speaker 2: And Abigail is like a full ass.
Speaker 3: Also, I know he's about to come into the mix,
Speaker 3: but I felt that. Okay, first of all, very two
Speaker 3: thousand and seven choice to have ty Burrell in this movie,
Speaker 3: all but disrespectful. I think as someone who had a
Speaker 3: big crush on ty Burrell. Oh, I love a guy
Speaker 3: with big old eyebrows. But to put him in two
Speaker 3: scenes not very nice. Yeah, he's really disappeared.
Speaker 2: Well, Modern Family hadn't come out yet, so he wasn't
Speaker 2: He wasn't big enough, probably.
Speaker 3: Made to be seventeen dollars doing it.
Speaker 2: For Tie for Tie.
Speaker 3: They just made him like horny and weird. And then
Speaker 3: they're like, all right, I think he served his purpose.
Speaker 3: Let's get him out of there. Anyways, we'll get back
Speaker 3: to that because that is connected to the zero movement
Speaker 3: on making Abigail, letting Abigail. Have they let her drive
Speaker 3: a car in this one.
Speaker 2: That's true.
Speaker 3: That's about as far as it gets. Yep, bars on
Speaker 3: the floor.
Speaker 2: Okay, So then we cut to Riley Pool and.
Speaker 3: We're like, that's Justin Bartha best care. We're screaming, we
Speaker 3: love him, We're crying. He's at borders, okay, two thousands
Speaker 3: borders because he has written his own book of secrets
Speaker 3: about the Templar Treasure aka the plot of National Treasure one.
Speaker 2: But no one is buying his book, and his car
Speaker 2: gets towed and he owes all these back taxes and
Speaker 2: he's not doing so hot with the ladies.
Speaker 3: Classic these are hashtag Riley problems. I love him so much,
Speaker 3: even though he is canonically kind of a creep and
Speaker 3: always feels bad for himself. It's yeah, all these all
Speaker 3: these women coming up being like, why aren't you Nicholas Cage,
Speaker 3: And I'm like, open your eyes, ladies, before you stands
Speaker 3: a real hunk. Justin Bartha's right there. Bartha's right there.
Speaker 3: He's he's so hard on the set of Hangover Too.
Speaker 2: It's gonna end his relationship, but he's gonna party so
Speaker 2: hard he gets dumped. Okay, So Riley helps Ben break
Speaker 2: into his own house because Ben's girlfriend aka Abigail Chase
Speaker 2: played by Diane Krueger. But I always forget his German. Yes, correct, Yes,
Speaker 2: she has kicked Ben out of the house, out of
Speaker 2: their enormous estate.
Speaker 3: Good for her. He's annoying, he's so.
Speaker 2: Oh my gosh, I can't wait to talk about their relationship.
Speaker 3: Wildly obnoxious. I would also kick him out.
Speaker 2: Yeah, so Ben needs to steal Abigail's work badge because
Speaker 2: she still works at the archives or maybe she works
Speaker 2: at the Library of Congress.
Speaker 3: Now, oh literally, I don't know. She has like a
Speaker 3: plot job, like she has an ID that can get
Speaker 3: them to the next map, yeah without fail correct. Yeah,
Speaker 3: that was a bad that That was the first kind
Speaker 3: of I mean, Riley doesn't fuck up super often in
Speaker 3: this movie, but the fact that his first act is
Speaker 3: helping Ben break into a house where he's no longer welcome.
Speaker 2: And then Nicholas Cage will get to this, but he
Speaker 2: goes on this whole tirade about why she kicked him out,
Speaker 2: and then Riley said something like, ugh, women, you can't
Speaker 2: live with them, especially when they change the security code
Speaker 2: or whatever, and we're.
Speaker 3: Just like hilarious, George Bush is the President's Comedy Like ugh, Yeah,
Speaker 3: did not like that sequence very much.
Speaker 2: No, so Ben is stealing the work badge because he
Speaker 2: wants to take another look at this page from the
Speaker 2: Booth Diary because they think that if they can find
Speaker 2: a cipher on it, it will lead to a treasure
Speaker 2: map that will prove Thomas Gates's innocence somehow. It's a
Speaker 2: I'll understand the connection.
Speaker 3: I am so team Abigail on this because you're just
Speaker 3: like because she I mean, I think I've I've gotten
Speaker 3: into the habit of doing this where I'm like pitching
Speaker 3: a sun Dance movie based off of a blockbuster where
Speaker 3: she's just like she loves Ben, but he just like
Speaker 3: will not give up the idea that there's a map
Speaker 3: on fucking everything, and it ends up like completely deteriorating,
Speaker 3: deteriorating his life and their relationship because she's just like,
Speaker 3: it's over, man, you had your moment in the sun.
Speaker 3: You found the map. There's not maps everywhere, but that's
Speaker 3: not how this world works. No, there are maps everywhere.
Speaker 2: His obsession with maps being on everything should be the
Speaker 2: hymn partying too hard on the set of Hangover too
Speaker 2: which it should be always should end that relationship, but.
Speaker 3: Should it should be? Yeah, Abigail, I'm sure she has
Speaker 3: a last name, not that we hear it Chase Chase
Speaker 3: because she's always Chase saying after Treasure with her boyfriend,
Speaker 3: and Riley is always pulling up with his.
Speaker 2: Friends, and Ben Gates is always unlocking the gates. Think
Speaker 2: about it, the secrets that will find him the treasure.
Speaker 3: And then Helen Muhren's character's name is Emily Appleton because
Speaker 3: Apple was the da Vinci code. It all makes sense.
Speaker 1: WHOA.
Speaker 3: I wouldn't put it past this movie to give a
Speaker 3: character the last name Appleton because I had a ton
Speaker 3: of fun learning that the da Vinci code was Apple.
Speaker 3: I also think that every clue and the mysteries in
Speaker 3: the National Treasure movies are more fun, engaging and make
Speaker 3: more sense than the Da Vinci Code mysteries.
Speaker 2: But but I think we should keep covering the movies
Speaker 2: in that franchise. And Angels and Demons.
Speaker 3: Yeah, my god, how many people saw Angels and Demons?
Speaker 3: Was it like one or two?
Speaker 2: I thought it made at least two hundred million at
Speaker 2: the box office.
Speaker 3: Well, that's so it's certainly not doing National Treasure two numbers.
Speaker 3: That's for damn sure, no embarrassing.
Speaker 2: Are you looking it up?
Speaker 3: Yeah? It's like wait a second, hold the precess I
Speaker 3: need to find out what the global box office take
Speaker 3: of Angels and Demons was. Now what okay, came out
Speaker 3: in two thousand and nine, directed by Ron Howard m
Speaker 3: oh I have horrible news. It made half a billion.
Speaker 2: Dollars, so a lot of people saw it and we
Speaker 2: should cover it.
Speaker 3: Okay, then it that is the global impact. We do
Speaker 3: need to talk about it. It in fact made thirty
Speaker 3: million more than National Treasure too.
Speaker 2: Disgusting, disgusting, embarrassing for book of Secrets.
Speaker 3: Okay, Uh, this is okay, this is very While this
Speaker 3: movie is not really doing anything for women, I will
Speaker 3: say that the two female leads in this movie are
Speaker 3: both doctors, doctor Abigail Chase and doctor Emily Appleton Gates.
Speaker 2: We've got a pair of PhDs.
Speaker 3: We've got a lot of education between these two ladies
Speaker 3: who we don't get to see do very much. They
Speaker 3: don't do anything that they are both damseled, so that's important.
Speaker 3: They also have more, at least in the way of
Speaker 3: academic credentials than any of the men. Because even though
Speaker 3: they're constantly like better keep giving them my ID and
Speaker 3: following them around, I'm like, just let you know, well, no,
Speaker 3: I do think this just let Ed Harris kill John Voyd.
Speaker 3: You know, like, what are we doing here?
Speaker 2: What's the worst that could happen? Okay, So Abigail once
Speaker 2: Ben is like, there's a map on the thing, She's like,
Speaker 2: that's ridiculous. But then Ben Riley and Abigail look at
Speaker 2: the diary page under infrared and they do in fact
Speaker 2: find a cipher, which Ben of course needs to decode,
Speaker 2: but they need a five letter word first, which Ben
Speaker 2: figures out.
Speaker 3: It's not apple, which is not pretty scary. How could
Speaker 3: this be true? I was on the edge of my
Speaker 3: seat waiting for it to be Apple. It's not.
Speaker 2: So this happens in a scene where Ben is like, Dad,
Speaker 2: what's the story your granddaddy told you? And then John
Speaker 2: Voight very conveniently remembers how Thomas Gates's dying words to
Speaker 2: his son, which is John Voight's grandfather. The dying words
Speaker 2: were the debt that all men pay? And I'm over here, like,
Speaker 2: what about the debt that all women pay? Hello?
Speaker 3: No one cares about that. This is also I do
Speaker 3: think we probably talked about John Voight's politics in the
Speaker 3: first episode, but this movie comes out on the cusp
Speaker 3: of John Voyd going full Republican. Like it's during the
Speaker 3: two thousand and eight election that he says because he
Speaker 3: I guess had held pretty liberal views for much of
Speaker 3: his life. He like protested against the Vietnam War and
Speaker 3: then does a hard switch during the oit election in
Speaker 3: a way that certainly feels quite racist. And I'm not
Speaker 3: a big fan of Obama, but like, yeah, it's racist,
Speaker 3: and then went like, really rode for Romney, really rode
Speaker 3: for Trump has pretty despicable politics. I'm pretty sure that
Speaker 3: has some of the reason why Angelina Julie and he
Speaker 3: are not on good terms. But in any case, I'm
Speaker 3: just like, do any of these despicable political views? What
Speaker 3: was he talking about on the set of National Treasure too,
Speaker 3: Because it seems like he really underwent a pretty gross
Speaker 3: political shift, and now I need to check.
Speaker 2: Maybe he was Knights of the Golden Circle. Sounds interesting,
Speaker 2: Oh god, let's fucking let's fucking hope not. And then meanwhile,
Speaker 2: Nicholas Cage, I guess this kind of makes sense for
Speaker 2: his whole vibe. And I mean, this is an insult.
Speaker 2: You know, Nicholas Cage was an Andrew yank guy. It's
Speaker 2: just all a mess. It's just all kind of a disaster.
Speaker 2: But I just wanted to because I know that we
Speaker 2: talked about it the first time. But it feels like
Speaker 2: this movie comes.
Speaker 3: Out this like the summer, or like the this is
Speaker 3: a Christmas movie, This comes out just just months before
Speaker 3: John Voyd comes out as whatever, gross fucking Republican guy.
Speaker 2: Yeah.
Speaker 3: So that's just some interesting context to chew on and
Speaker 3: why I will be really really letting it fly with
Speaker 3: my opinions of John Voight throughout this understood.
Speaker 2: Yeah, Okay, So Ben is like deciphering this code. He
Speaker 2: figures out that the debt that all men pay means death,
Speaker 2: so that's the five letter word, and the cipher ends
Speaker 2: up being Labalay Lady, which refers to the Statue of Liberty.
Speaker 3: So I thought that was actually a pretty hot clue.
Speaker 3: Like these writers again the same writing team as the
Speaker 3: first movie, Cormack and Marianne Wibberly married couple.
Speaker 2: Is that right?
Speaker 3: Yes, they they really fired up Google for this. I
Speaker 3: was like, what the hell are they talking about? But
Speaker 3: it is pretty historically accurate that Laboulay had the idea
Speaker 3: for the Statue of Liberty, was not the one who
Speaker 3: actually designed it, but Laboulay, lady, that's a hot clue.
Speaker 3: Well you ask me. Okay, it's no apple, but it's
Speaker 3: pretty good.
Speaker 2: The Wibberlys are doing their research. Yes, okay, the clue
Speaker 2: who is love a Lady? It refers to the Statue
Speaker 2: of Liberty. So Ben thinks there must be a clue
Speaker 2: or a map or something on the Statue of Liberty,
Speaker 2: But not the one in New York City? Ever heard
Speaker 2: of it? Because there are three statues of Liberty, and
Speaker 2: the one they need is in Paris, France. Ever heard
Speaker 2: of that?
Speaker 3: This shot grips. We've already described it, but it's time
Speaker 3: to shout it out again. It's just an unbelievable shot.
Speaker 2: The cinematogphic down.
Speaker 3: From the Eiffel Tower zooming in to tiny Statue of
Speaker 3: Liberty where Riley has a drone question mark. I also
Speaker 3: just love a Justin Bartha hacking scene. He's on a
Speaker 3: flip phone, he's bitching. I just love these scenes with
Speaker 3: him where he's like making little comments at the computer.
Speaker 2: I love his little quips. Also, anytime he mentions his
Speaker 2: book is legiti manly good comedy there, I see.
Speaker 3: It's so funny. No one has read it. It's so
Speaker 3: except wait, who did there's one person in the movie
Speaker 3: who did read.
Speaker 2: Oh, Harvey Kayitel.
Speaker 3: Yes, Oh that was That was the best moment for
Speaker 3: Harvey Kayitel in the movie. It was like, Okay, he
Speaker 3: just earned his check by reading justin Bartha's Little Book,
Speaker 3: but also doesn't Bartha I would be I don't know,
Speaker 3: Riley needs self esteem because he has so many of
Speaker 3: the answers. Yeah, but no one gives a shit, No
Speaker 3: one cares. He knows about this Book of Secrets. There's
Speaker 3: a whole chapter yeah, yeah, on the Book of Secrets.
Speaker 2: There's that scene where he's like he's trying to explain
Speaker 2: the Book of Secrets to Nicholas Cage and he's like,
Speaker 2: if it were you trying to convince me, you'd have
Speaker 2: less evidence than I'd already believe you by now.
Speaker 3: And you're like, yeah, Riley, because you have really slow
Speaker 3: self esteem and we need to work on that because
Speaker 3: you're a smart guy.
Speaker 2: Oh Riley. Anyway, Speaking of Harvey Kytel, he is in
Speaker 2: the movie for some reason and he he's gets wind
Speaker 2: of the news dusky or sa dusky, Sa dusky. He
Speaker 2: gets wind of the news that his best friend question
Speaker 2: Mark Ben Gates is the ancestor of a guy who
Speaker 2: might have been responsible for Abe Lincoln's assassination. So now
Speaker 2: he takes an interest in this case, and I think
Speaker 2: he's kind of working to sort of discredit Ed Harris.
Speaker 2: I think, is it's what's happening, but I'm not sure it's.
Speaker 3: It's really like his character is for sure not necessary
Speaker 3: in the movie because yeah, and it also just like, yeah,
Speaker 3: I was also a little confused on like whose side
Speaker 3: he was on, because it just seems like he's there
Speaker 3: to like ultimately be on Nicholas Cage's side, but then
Speaker 3: kind of fuck with.
Speaker 2: Him, right because he's like sort of the one who
Speaker 2: tries to arrest him at the Library of Congress later.
Speaker 3: On, which he does in the first one too. Yeah,
Speaker 3: they love to fake arrest him, but then this time
Speaker 3: the President's like, it's all good. I love I loved
Speaker 3: the kidnap bang. I love that you looked in the
Speaker 3: Book of Secrets, page forty seven. It's our little secret.
Speaker 3: I love this shot at the end. Oh when President
Speaker 3: what's his name? President?
Speaker 2: Oh? What is his even name?
Speaker 3: Bruce Greenwood is the name of the actor. The name
Speaker 3: of the character is President of the United States. Don't
Speaker 3: worry about it. Do not worry about it. So when
Speaker 3: Nicholas Cage says I'm gonna kidnap the President of the
Speaker 3: United States, he's just using the president's full name. But
Speaker 3: I love when the President of the United States turns
Speaker 3: around and goes what book?
Speaker 2: Oh, I was like.
Speaker 3: He got so good for what book? Indeed?
Speaker 2: Truly Okay. So now Ben and Riley go to Paris
Speaker 2: to the little Statue of Liberty near the Eiffel Tower,
Speaker 2: and there is in fact a clue engraved on it
Speaker 2: with a reference to twins that stand resolute, and Ben
Speaker 2: figures out that this means two twin desks. Okay, One
Speaker 2: resolute desk is in the Buckingham Palace. So they go
Speaker 2: to London.
Speaker 3: I really enjoyed the London sequence and also history check.
Speaker 3: These are real desks. These are real ass desks, okay exist.
Speaker 2: Were they made from the timber from a ship called
Speaker 2: the Resolute?
Speaker 3: They sure were? Wow, they sure were. It is a documentary.
Speaker 3: The desks are not puzzles that I was able to
Speaker 3: find to help.
Speaker 2: Okay.
Speaker 3: Well, but there was a hidden door in the Resolute
Speaker 3: desk in the Oval office. The reason it was there.
Speaker 3: History fact, huh is that Franklin D. Roosevelt wanted to
Speaker 3: have a hinged front panel installed so that people could
Speaker 3: not see his wheelchair when he began using a wheelchair.
Speaker 3: So that is why the panel was there, which they
Speaker 3: referenced in the movie. Yes, And so this movie you
Speaker 3: can learn a lot by watching this movie. It's a
Speaker 3: history book basically, mostly just trivia. I wouldn't say you
Speaker 3: learned much about that. Themes you don't learn much about,
Speaker 3: you know, harping constantly harping and obsessing over founding father
Speaker 3: related history, how it crumbles silas, Yeah, and how building
Speaker 3: entire franchises around white Americans really hyper fixating on their
Speaker 3: ancestry is maybe not the best use of time more money.
Speaker 3: But they were real desks, and so that's not nothing perfect. Yeah.
Speaker 2: Okay. So meanwhile, Mitch Wilkinson again that's the Ed Harris character.
Speaker 2: He finds out about the progress that Ben is making
Speaker 2: and he taps Ben's phone so that he can run
Speaker 2: surveillance on Ben and like spy on him and keep
Speaker 2: track of where Ben is and what he's doing. Now
Speaker 2: back in London, Ben and Riley and Abigail, who shows
Speaker 2: up for reasons plan a little heist. They break into
Speaker 2: the Queen's office, they solve the little puzzle on the desk,
Speaker 2: and inside they find an old piece of wood with
Speaker 2: writing on it of an indigenous language. Yes, we will
Speaker 2: talk more about this, but this.
Speaker 3: Is just I mean, that is I think one of
Speaker 3: the movie's greatest gigantic flaws is how because the second you,
Speaker 3: or at least I might in my notes, the second
Speaker 3: that you learn that this convoluted secret is related to
Speaker 3: Indigenous Americans, I'm like, well, they're for sure going to
Speaker 3: fumble this, oh yeah, massively, And sure enough they do.
Speaker 2: They really, really really do. Yes, we'll discuss this more
Speaker 2: in a bit. But in the meantime, Ben, Riley, and
Speaker 2: Abigail escape the palace with this piece of wood, but
Speaker 2: Mitch and his goons chase them. They're shooting at them.
Speaker 2: And then there's this ridiculous thing where Ben runs a
Speaker 2: red light, knowing that a traffic cam will take a photo,
Speaker 2: so he holds the piece of wood up for the photo.
Speaker 2: Then he throws the wood in the river. Then he
Speaker 2: gets Riley to hack the traffic cams to get a
Speaker 2: copy of the photo, which is somehow high resolution enough
Speaker 2: where they can still read the writing on it, and.
Speaker 3: I what part of that was challenging for you? Because
Speaker 3: I was like, makes sense basic order of operations. That
Speaker 3: was so The wooden panel they find reminds me of
Speaker 3: like Star Wars nine, where they have a similar thing
Speaker 3: where you have to like hold it against the horizon
Speaker 3: and that's how you figure out you're in the right place.
Speaker 3: And again I will give National Treasure to the edge
Speaker 3: of handle.
Speaker 2: Ledge of history.
Speaker 3: They're well, I'm not enough to watch it, but I was.
Speaker 3: I was intrigued. That sequence felt like having a heart attack.
Speaker 3: It felt like watching uncut gems. Like I was just like,
Speaker 3: what the hell am I looking at?
Speaker 2: Because it throws it into the river and Mitch's goons
Speaker 2: easily retrieve it, So.
Speaker 3: Like why is it so easy? Why them Like yeah,
Speaker 3: and they just loop that, they just have it.
Speaker 2: I guess Nicholas Cage did that to get them off
Speaker 2: their tail, like to get the bad guys off their tail.
Speaker 2: But there had to be a better way than throwing
Speaker 2: the one clue they have right now into a river
Speaker 2: a body of water. It's also like it's the type
Speaker 2: of thing that like white people would be like, oh,
Speaker 2: let's steal this and put in a museum like it's
Speaker 2: this like incredible ancient artifact, and then Ben is just
Speaker 2: like carelessly handling it and then like throwing it, oh
Speaker 2: into a river, like it's this Ben Gates.
Speaker 3: The thing is like Ben Gates, I don't even think
Speaker 3: gives a shit about American history. He just gives a
Speaker 3: shit about fresh family specifically and money, like which is
Speaker 3: a very I think, like jingoistic white American trait. It's like,
Speaker 3: it feels like a very like American individualist character, like
Speaker 3: I care about myself and my money and my guys,
Speaker 3: and that's it. I don't actually give a shit about
Speaker 3: other people. I don't care about historical accuracy as it
Speaker 3: pertains to anyone outside of my immediate family. He is
Speaker 3: a very narrow minded man that Benjamin Franklin Gates.
Speaker 2: The steaks in this movie and him right, the stakes
Speaker 2: in this movie are my family name has been besmirched,
Speaker 2: and I have to fix it. Like a guy who's
Speaker 2: been dead for a century might have a bad reputation,
Speaker 2: but because he's related to me, and I can't handle
Speaker 2: that with my ego. I have to go find treasure,
Speaker 2: which somehow will you know who is fixed the reputation.
Speaker 3: You know, who is the relative of a very old
Speaker 3: timey serial killer, Maggie may Fish. Is she stealing the
Speaker 3: president trying to clear his name? No, she let it go.
Speaker 2: Yeah, Oh my god, that's what you gotta do.
Speaker 3: People should learn from her.
Speaker 2: Exactly.
Speaker 3: Yeah, she's been I mean she what has she done?
Speaker 3: She has instead spent her time on earth healing the
Speaker 3: fish name by being herself.
Speaker 2: People should what's the expression, like, take a page out
Speaker 2: of Maggie's Book of secrets.
Speaker 3: Yeah, wow, yeah, take a look at Maggie's page forty
Speaker 3: seven because it looks a little different. Yeah, okay, okay,
Speaker 3: she's talked about that publicly. It's fine. Yeah yeah, yeah, yeah. Yes.
Speaker 2: I also knew this because I think she mentions it on.
Speaker 3: Behind the Bastards.
Speaker 2: Oh that's right, that's right. Okay. So they now have
Speaker 2: this photo of this piece of wood with Riley mm hmm,
Speaker 2: with the indigenous writing on it. They take the photo
Speaker 2: to Ben's mom, who is played by Helen Mirren and
Speaker 2: who is a professor of something. We don't know what.
Speaker 3: It is stated. It is stated, it's it is like
Speaker 3: it did seem like they went at least not that
Speaker 3: this is a big compliment, but they did like say
Speaker 3: what it was. It was. It was just kind of
Speaker 3: too smart for me. It was like something like archaeology something. Okay,
Speaker 3: Like she this is a this is a puzzle family.
Speaker 3: Her puzzles are ancient languages, which seems like a better
Speaker 3: use of time than what the Gates are doing. Yes,
Speaker 3: the way her character is introduced, which we'll also get
Speaker 3: into later, but oh my god, it is just John
Speaker 3: Voight being like, oh yeah, yie, this broad that is
Speaker 3: very much the vibe.
Speaker 2: Quit nagging me.
Speaker 3: Wait till you order a couch with this broad and
Speaker 3: you're like enough stock. I understand where Benjamin Franklin Gates
Speaker 3: gets his attitudes on women standing up for themselves as
Speaker 3: being annoying. Yeah, and disrespectful. Meanwhile, Riley Poole Man of
Speaker 3: the Century single awful doesn't make disgusting makes no sense.
Speaker 2: Okay. So anyway, they take the photo to Helen Mirren,
Speaker 2: who translates it. But it's only half of the message
Speaker 2: because they still have to go to the other resolute desk,
Speaker 2: which is in the White House because it's the President
Speaker 2: of the United States desk. So they sneak into the
Speaker 2: Oval Office during the White House Easter egg Hunt.
Speaker 3: This is a typeer. I mean, that is a real thing, right,
Speaker 3: I remember because I have seen pictures of Why have
Speaker 3: I seen pictures of that?
Speaker 2: God?
Speaker 3: Who cares? This is such a weird, awful place to live?
Speaker 3: Why do I know that? I did know that? But
Speaker 3: that's related to ty Burrell. Yes, Tyberrell is the reason
Speaker 3: they have the inn at the egg Hunt, because that's
Speaker 3: we We haven't brought him up yet except to say
Speaker 3: that spoiler work, this is the last time you'll ever
Speaker 3: see him, but he's I did like the detail that
Speaker 3: Abigail moves on instantly where I Abigail, I would do
Speaker 3: the same. And also Tyberell vibe wise over Nicholas Cage
Speaker 3: Vibeise inter relationships seems like a better bet.
Speaker 2: Huge upgrade.
Speaker 3: Yes, but they're like, oh, this guy sucks. He's in
Speaker 3: charge of the egg hunt.
Speaker 2: Right, So Abigail had been seeing this guy Connor, that's Tyberrell,
Speaker 2: no last name, you know. So they call upon him
Speaker 2: to help them get into the Oval office.
Speaker 3: Yeah, They're like, let's not use Abigail's credentials or skills,
Speaker 3: let's use her body. Yeah, to accomplish this yes, and
Speaker 3: it'll be funny mm hmm. And that's just kind of
Speaker 3: the internal logic of this scene.
Speaker 2: Right, And then so Ben solves the puzzle on the desk,
Speaker 2: but the other piece of wood with the rest of
Speaker 2: the treasure map on it, which they think is going
Speaker 2: to be in the desk, is missing, and in its
Speaker 2: place is a seal stamped into the wood, which they
Speaker 2: think is the presidential seal, but it's slightly different. And
Speaker 2: this is where Riley's time to shine comes because he's like, no,
Speaker 2: that's the symbol for the President's Secret Book, which is
Speaker 2: a collection of documents for presidents by presidents.
Speaker 3: And honestly, okay, would you I think that we've reached
Speaker 3: a point in history where our generation has witnessed so
Speaker 3: much absurdity. I would believe that there's a book of secrets.
Speaker 2: I think there's probably a whole library's worth of secrets.
Speaker 3: I think that that would be a better movie than
Speaker 3: a book of secrets. And I also wouldn't be shocked,
Speaker 3: just out of the shearing competence of the American system,
Speaker 3: that it would be in a public library.
Speaker 2: Yeah. I don't know.
Speaker 3: Much like this book of secrets. H what was on
Speaker 3: page forty seven, John Turtle Top will never know tell
Speaker 3: I was on page forty seven. I love Oh, it's
Speaker 3: one of my favorites. It's setting up a sequel that
Speaker 3: never happens. Oh, Chef's kiss. It's like the end of
Speaker 3: I Frankenstein when they're like to say, You're like, what
Speaker 3: the fuck are they talking about? We'll never know. Damn,
Speaker 3: I'll never know.
Speaker 2: Hey, there's no sequel to I Frankenstein yet.
Speaker 3: It's gonna be the ten year anniversary of I Frankenstein
Speaker 3: in about six months, and I am gonna rent out
Speaker 3: a movie theater and you, of course are invited. It's
Speaker 3: gonna be huge. It's gonna be major incredible. Yeah.
Speaker 2: So we learn about this book of secrets that only
Speaker 2: the presidents know about. But also so does Riley Poole somehow,
Speaker 2: so does Harvey Kaitel. A lot of people know about
Speaker 2: this secret book and they assume that that's where the
Speaker 2: other half of this map is. But how are they
Speaker 2: gonna get to the President's secret book? And this is
Speaker 2: when Ben pitches his incredible idea, wherein he says, I'm
Speaker 2: gonna kidnap him. I'm going to kidnap the president of
Speaker 2: the United States, and then.
Speaker 3: Everyone goes, yeah, everyone loses it because we love when
Speaker 3: Ben goes off the because it always works out for him.
Speaker 3: Then John Voyd, i will say, does a hell of
Speaker 3: a line read here where he goes, I'm your father.
Speaker 3: How am I supposed to react to that? You're just like, okay, yeah, fair,
Speaker 3: But he secretly loves it because two seconds later, the
Speaker 3: like Ben has to do so little to get his
Speaker 3: debt on board for the worst ideas ever because his
Speaker 3: dad is also like secretly into it the whole time.
Speaker 3: But like he's like, I'm gonna kidnap the president of
Speaker 3: the United States, and John Voyd's like, oh my gosh, no,
Speaker 3: we can't do that. And then Nicholas Cage is like,
Speaker 3: well there's a map. He's like, oh, oh, well, okay
Speaker 3: if there's a map, And that's why if we're kidnapping
Speaker 3: him for a map, this family loves map We're mam, guys, God,
Speaker 3: I hate them saying so much, but it's like, it's
Speaker 3: so weird having a character that you can't stand who
Speaker 3: is never wrong. It's like, just it breaks me.
Speaker 2: It's infuriating. Also, so they should rename this franchise map
Speaker 2: Quest because they're always going on quests to find maps.
Speaker 3: To find it, and one map leads to another, leads
Speaker 3: to another.
Speaker 2: Which does eventually lead to treasure. They're right about that, and.
Speaker 3: Then you get a half a billion dollars. It's so
Speaker 3: it is. I mean, Nicholas Cage knows what he's doing
Speaker 3: when he says the line I'm going to kidnap the
Speaker 3: President of the United States. No way did they need
Speaker 3: a second take on that? That was really.
Speaker 2: Special, And as we pointed out in the first National
Speaker 2: Treasure episode, it's basically the same exact line read like
Speaker 2: the same intonation as when he says I'm gonna steal it.
Speaker 2: I'm gonna steal the Declaration of Independence. He just copy
Speaker 2: paste same thing, except now it's a human person who
Speaker 2: is the President of the United States.
Speaker 3: He is, in fact the President of the United States. Oh,
Speaker 3: and then the movie gets goofy. It becomes extremely goofy.
Speaker 2: Before that it was a goofy movie, and now it's
Speaker 2: an extremely goofy movie.
Speaker 3: We've cranked it up to an eleven. We're like, yes,
Speaker 3: this is no more thinking for the rest of the movie.
Speaker 2: So what happens next is Ben Riley, Abigail and Patrick
Speaker 2: orchestrate another heist where they infiltrate the president's birthday party
Speaker 2: at a hotel called Mount Vernon, which they're able to
Speaker 2: do because they like book up a bunch of other
Speaker 2: hotels as if an event for the president. They couldn't
Speaker 2: just be like, sorry, I don't care that your retirement
Speaker 2: party is here. I'm the president. My plans override yours.
Speaker 3: Yeah, move the retirement party.
Speaker 2: Yeah. But they're acting like, oh my god, this is
Speaker 2: already booked up. We need to find another place for
Speaker 2: the president's birthday party.
Speaker 3: So, as stated earlier, the Wibberleies once again are googling
Speaker 3: up a storm because there is a secret basement beneath
Speaker 3: Mount Vernon where you can example, kid briefly kidnapped the
Speaker 3: president of the United States.
Speaker 2: Uh huh, yes, great, so I love that. And this
Speaker 2: president was an architectural history major from Yale.
Speaker 3: Also, you're like, this guy sucks boom, No one harvs
Speaker 3: your credent cheese.
Speaker 2: It's like, you know, when you major in architectural history
Speaker 2: and then you become the president of the United States.
Speaker 3: What's next? In English major? A failed real estate heir?
Speaker 3: Be serious? Yeah, that's a little topical humor for me.
Speaker 2: Ha ha ha ha.
Speaker 3: Anyways, yeah, I think it is just that was just
Speaker 3: a weird detail to add for a character. They didn't
Speaker 3: even give a first or last name to Why do
Speaker 3: I know what degree this man has? But I don't
Speaker 3: know what his name government name is.
Speaker 2: Yeah, we're not sure anyway. So Ben goes up to
Speaker 2: the President at the party at Mount Vernon and tricks
Speaker 2: him into following Ben into the basement to find this
Speaker 2: secret underground tunnel. And then Ben is like, I need
Speaker 2: to know where your book of secrets is, mister President,
Speaker 2: And then the President is like, ti he, what are
Speaker 2: you talking about. But then after some like impassioned speech
Speaker 2: about something something American history who knows, the president is like, okay, fine,
Speaker 2: the book does exist, and it's in the Library of
Speaker 2: Congress and here's a bunch of numbers that you'll need
Speaker 2: to know.
Speaker 3: The way he buckles is just shocking. It's so fast,
Speaker 3: Like yeah, Also, how quickly he agrees to go into
Speaker 3: the basement with Nicholas Cage is hilarious.
Speaker 2: It's so funny.
Speaker 3: Like Nicholas, I mean, he is a very charismatic guy,
Speaker 3: but he's just like, I don't know can I come
Speaker 3: to the basement. And he's like, sure, let's let's do it.
Speaker 3: Like he's had like a couple of white claws and
Speaker 3: he's like, let's do it. Let's get down to the basement.
Speaker 2: Happy birthday to me. And then he's like, Secret Service guys,
Speaker 2: get the fuck out of here. I'm with my new friend.
Speaker 3: Oh my god. There is one guy I I they
Speaker 3: none of the Secret Service agents get names, but there's
Speaker 3: one guy who is like acting. He's like, I need
Speaker 3: a sledgehammer, I need a gun. You're like, oh my god,
Speaker 3: he's like really going for it. It was so funny anyways,
Speaker 3: but yeah, this president is just a real dunce, like
Speaker 3: he is just given away. He just says, okay, fine,
Speaker 3: there's a book of secrets, and then literally, like Nicholas
Speaker 3: Cage's character, Benjamin Franklin Gates, famously untrustworthy, famously addicted to
Speaker 3: breaking the laws, does not believe consequences apply to them,
Speaker 3: and they don't in this world, never do. Why would you,
Speaker 3: as the president who knows who Benjamin Franklin Gates is
Speaker 3: and that he famous doesn't listen to anybody, be like, okay,
Speaker 3: honor system, promise to not read all of the secrets,
Speaker 3: Like what are you talking about? He's using me?
Speaker 2: And then not only that, he's like, look at an
Speaker 2: extra secret. Take a gander at page forty seven.
Speaker 3: He's like, don't look up whether the moon landing happened, promise,
Speaker 3: but like the check out page forty seven and fine
Speaker 3: and clear your and like, I don't know, it is
Speaker 3: truly like such American like white supremacy, exceptionalism. This conversation
Speaker 3: they have in the basement where the president is like,
Speaker 3: I really admire how you want to clear your dumb
Speaker 3: ass family's name again, blah blah blah, Like here's every
Speaker 3: secret in the entire world. Promise you'll only read the
Speaker 3: one about your grandpoppy or whatever. You're just like this fuck,
Speaker 3: this is just I mean, it's camp because it has
Speaker 3: to be. Yeah, but this president is just like such
Speaker 3: a trusting man.
Speaker 2: Yes. Also, I feel like the actor who plays him
Speaker 2: who I like, Bruce Greenwood. He's in The Star Trucks,
Speaker 2: ton of stuff. Yeah, I feel like he's who they
Speaker 2: call when Sam Neil isn't available.
Speaker 3: Oh I do. But he does have very like TV
Speaker 3: president face. Yeah, yeah, he's been in a lot of stuff.
Speaker 3: I really liked him. In the two thousands, the jj
Speaker 3: Abrams start.
Speaker 2: The star trucks.
Speaker 3: Yeah. Same. I think he's a fun guy, and I'll
Speaker 3: say it he did. He was. He was the President
Speaker 3: of the United States for me. And then at the end,
Speaker 3: the fact that he has the audacity to say what
Speaker 3: book of Secrets? I was like, you have no vested
Speaker 3: interest in people not knowing about this damn book of secrets?
Speaker 3: You told the first notorious thief who asked, like, what
Speaker 3: is rough? Ugh, We're fucked.
Speaker 2: Yeah it's true. Okay, so oh we're still doing the
Speaker 2: recap Ben. Okay. So Ben now has the information he
Speaker 2: needs to access the Book of Secrets. So he runs
Speaker 2: off and heads to the Library of Congress with Riley
Speaker 2: and Abigail. They find the Book of Secrets and inside
Speaker 2: is a photograph of the other half of the map,
Speaker 2: along with an entry from President Coolidge with a reference
Speaker 2: to Mount Rushmore, and Ben is like Borglum carved Mount
Speaker 2: Rushmore to destroy the map's landmarks to protect the City
Speaker 2: of Gold. So they figure out.
Speaker 3: That the city of what right. The fact that they
Speaker 3: managed to turn it up turn up the heat from
Speaker 3: kidnapping the president. I was genuinely impressed because it's like,
Speaker 3: at that point you gotta go City of Gold.
Speaker 2: There had been some references prior to this about Cibola,
Speaker 2: which is this like legendary lost city of Gold.
Speaker 3: But if you have two brain cells like I do
Speaker 3: you need Nichol's Cage to be like there is a
Speaker 3: city of Gold underneath Mount Rushmore, And it's like, oh
Speaker 3: m hmm, that's.
Speaker 2: And that Mount Rushmore was a cover up to protect
Speaker 2: the whereabouts of the City of Gold.
Speaker 3: You'll never think to look underneath Mount Rushmore, just like
Speaker 3: you'll never think to I mean, that's sort of like
Speaker 3: what this whole franchise is predicated on. Like you would
Speaker 3: never think to pour a bunch of aquafina water bottles
Speaker 3: on Mount Rushmore to find the city of Gold. You
Speaker 3: just wouldn't.
Speaker 2: You would never think to look on the Declaration of
Speaker 2: Independence for a map to the Templar's Treasure for.
Speaker 3: A bunch of old white supremacists. No, I don't think
Speaker 3: you would think that. But but someone is thinking that,
Speaker 3: and he's constantly being rewarded for it. I for some reason,
Speaker 3: it maybe just I was absolutely delighted that because whatever
Speaker 3: we're about to get to this when they go to
Speaker 3: my Rashmore. They have to pour water on to find
Speaker 3: the state whatever. Yeah, but that they but the movie
Speaker 3: had the foresight to get a water bottle company to
Speaker 3: like do product placement. Yeah, Like, well, Aquafina, do you
Speaker 3: want to be the most American water bottle? And Aguafina said,
Speaker 3: sure thing. Yeah, yeah. Desanni found dead in a ditch
Speaker 3: National Traders water bottle.
Speaker 2: Yeah, makes you think.
Speaker 3: Yeah, So Aquafina reveals the At this point, you're just like,
Speaker 3: what the fuck is even happening? Cut to the City
Speaker 3: of Gold, Like, what's going on?
Speaker 2: Yeah, So the FBI are closing in on them on
Speaker 2: account of Ben having kidnapped the President of the United States,
Speaker 2: but they escape. Meanwhile, Mitch pays Helen Mirren a visit
Speaker 2: and shows her a letter from the Queen of England
Speaker 2: to his ancestor, once again a Confederate general. It contains
Speaker 2: a clue that they need to find the City of Gold,
Speaker 2: but he burns the letter and he's like, now I'm
Speaker 2: the only one who can find Cibola, and then he
Speaker 2: kidnapps Helen Mirren and takes her to Mount Rushmore, where Ben, Riley,
Speaker 2: Abigail and Patrick already are because they figured it out
Speaker 2: that they need to go there, and then they kind
Speaker 2: of like reluctantly all team up to search for this
Speaker 2: city of Gold, and they're pouring aquafina onto the rocks.
Speaker 3: Nick Cage does a hilarious fake out where he's like, oh,
Speaker 3: my hands just kidding. Oh, I was laughing.
Speaker 2: So there's a few moments that I feel like we're
Speaker 2: kind of borrowed from Jurassic Park in this movie because, again,
Speaker 2: not to bring up Sam Neille again, he does that
Speaker 2: with the like t Rex Gate, he pretends to be
Speaker 2: electricuted and he gets in several arguments with children in
Speaker 2: that movie.
Speaker 3: Nick Cage only does it once, but he does it
Speaker 3: so it's so funny because it's like Nick Cage is
Speaker 3: doing things that Sam Neil would do, but he's just
Speaker 3: doing it in a way that's so annoying to watch
Speaker 3: and the Cage I prefer it. We haven't gotten to
Speaker 3: Nick caje argument. I mean, it happened a while ago,
Speaker 3: because it doesn't matter to the plot, but it mattered
Speaker 3: to our culture.
Speaker 2: Yeah, exactly. Yes, So, based on Mitch's clue, they pour
Speaker 2: water all over the rocks, which reveals an eagle engraved
Speaker 2: into the rocks, and then there's a secret latch that
Speaker 2: opens a secret door and they go inside this like
Speaker 2: cave catacomb type place where most of it immediately collapses
Speaker 2: and they get trapped inside, so they have to keep
Speaker 2: moving onward into the cave. There are various obstacles like
Speaker 2: this like platform that's tilting all over the place. Then
Speaker 2: they get into a room with a bunch of water
Speaker 2: that they think is a dead end, but they stop
Speaker 2: the flow of water and then are able to go downward,
Speaker 2: and then that's where they discover the city of Gold.
Speaker 2: And as they are oohing and aweing over the city,
Speaker 2: the water starts bursting through again and it starts flooding
Speaker 2: the city. So now they have to find the drain.
Speaker 2: But Mitch is a bad guy again suddenly, and he's like,
Speaker 2: we're not leaving until you agree to say that I
Speaker 2: discovered the City of Gold, because he's also obsessed with
Speaker 2: like family legacy. Shit.
Speaker 3: Yeah, but he's ed Harris, so he is going to
Speaker 3: like lose. But the I just wanted to quickly shout
Speaker 3: out the platform scene because I remember seeing the platform
Speaker 3: scene in theaters and I think it's a really well
Speaker 3: done scene. I still get a little bit of anxiety
Speaker 3: watching the platform scene even today. It's where again the
Speaker 3: team is very quick to agree that Riley would be
Speaker 3: the first to die. Poor this poor man needs to
Speaker 3: like go to a trivia night, like he needs to
Speaker 3: like make new friends. Period. He's gotten, you know, he's
Speaker 3: got at least gotten something out of this, you know,
Speaker 3: kind of emotionally abusive friendship he's in with Nicholas Cage.
Speaker 2: You gotta read Ferrari out of it.
Speaker 3: You gotta read Ferrari. He got this book deal. Get
Speaker 3: the fuck out of there, man, Seriously, he doesn't care
Speaker 3: about you. He doesn't care about you.
Speaker 2: No, he didn't even read your book. He didn't even
Speaker 2: open your book from its packaging.
Speaker 3: And Abigail also, you know, for all the disrespects she's given,
Speaker 3: she doesn't give a rats ass about Riley either. She
Speaker 3: leaves him for dead instantly because this movie also does.
Speaker 3: I noticed, and I think that this is like an
Speaker 3: action movie trope that we've discussed in the past. There's
Speaker 3: a very like unspoken women and children first ethos to
Speaker 3: this movie. Definitely, it's always like a very you know, hypermasculine,
Speaker 3: Like I'm John Voyd, I better check this swinging vine
Speaker 3: before I bring and we were in on the You're
Speaker 3: just like fucking whatever, Like Abigail has to be the
Speaker 3: first to get off the mysterious platform. Meanwhile Justin Bartha
Speaker 3: dead Like yeah, clearly he's the weakest link. You're just like,
Speaker 3: leave this poor man alone. Although Justin Bartha has big,
Speaker 3: Justin Long wasn't available vibes. Have we talked about that?
Speaker 3: I think we have. Yeah, yeah, I mean Justin Lung
Speaker 3: wasn't available for this, and that's good because Justin Bartha
Speaker 3: made the partisan.
Speaker 2: We love him in this role.
Speaker 1: We do.
Speaker 2: Okay, So the city is flooding and Ed Harris is like,
Speaker 2: I need to be the one to discover this. But
Speaker 2: then some stuff happens. I don't even quite track it.
Speaker 3: There's a crank, there's some there's a door, it's flooded. Deal,
Speaker 3: and then gives a shit.
Speaker 2: Basically, it culminates in Mitch getting left behind Slash. He
Speaker 2: decides to sacrifice himself so the others can escape, and
Speaker 2: so he dies. N then they get out of all
Speaker 2: the they like leave the cave. Harvey Kaitel's there to
Speaker 2: arrest Ben, but then the president is there and he's
Speaker 2: like I love this guy. He saved my life. He
Speaker 2: did not kidnap me. Don't believe the rumors ti he
Speaker 2: and he says to Riley, what is.
Speaker 3: Definitely not a book of secrets? Wink, You're just like
Speaker 3: this guy sucks. This guy is so bad at being
Speaker 3: the president.
Speaker 2: Then we cut to people excavating the city of Gold
Speaker 2: Ye yikes, and then some shit happens. Riley meets a
Speaker 2: fangirl of his. Ben and Abigail get back together and
Speaker 2: the kiss and is disgusting.
Speaker 3: And then pan up to Mount Rushford. Do Do Do
Speaker 3: Do Do do the end.
Speaker 2: Let's take another break and we'll come back to discuss
Speaker 2: and we're back.
Speaker 3: Shall we begin by discussing the women of this movie
Speaker 3: before we get into blatant indigenous history fumbling fump. Yes, yes,
Speaker 3: because it just feels sort of like a continuation and
Speaker 3: in an addition to our discussion of National Treasure One,
Speaker 3: where a huge thing with National Treasure One as well
Speaker 3: as because I would like lump in the Da Vinci
Speaker 3: Code kind of into this discussion because it came out
Speaker 3: in the same stretch of years and has many of
Speaker 3: the same issues. Even though I think National Treasure franchise
Speaker 3: as far as watchability, far and beyond way better. But
Speaker 3: that a big issue we have with National Treasure One
Speaker 3: is that Abigail it feels like a very two thousands
Speaker 3: era writing convention to give Abigail a lot of academic credential.
Speaker 3: She is not written as just like I think the
Speaker 3: way that often Indiana Jones characters are written of just
Speaker 3: like a lady, and here's a lady. She doesn't have
Speaker 3: any skills, but she's gonna be around for it, And
Speaker 3: so it feels like a very superficial advancement of those
Speaker 3: writing conventions where it's like, no, now she's very qualified
Speaker 3: and like they're But still, ultimately, the way that these
Speaker 3: characters are used within the plot of an action movie
Speaker 3: is not much different.
Speaker 2: They're not allowed to contribute the knowledge that they allegedly have.
Speaker 2: They're not allowed to do really much of anything to
Speaker 2: push the story forward, except for like little crumbs here
Speaker 2: and there. I took inventory of the handful of things
Speaker 2: that Abigail does that pushes the story forwards.
Speaker 3: I felt like she's mostly treated as like I mean
Speaker 3: she it just felt like it was she was almost
Speaker 3: used as like a narrative device to be like, oh well,
Speaker 3: how would Ben get in there? Abigail's ID and that's
Speaker 3: like sort of yeah, like she's not doing very much.
Speaker 3: She's just giving them access to a lot of.
Speaker 2: Things for sure, or she's like doing something kind of
Speaker 2: careless and it pushes the story forward in that way.
Speaker 2: For example, she's meeting with Ed Harris for some reason,
Speaker 2: I don't know why. They're like getting drinks together, but
Speaker 2: then she gets a call from Ben who is like,
Speaker 2: we figured out the clue. And then so now she's
Speaker 2: like loudly talking about the clue within earshot of Ed Harris,
Speaker 2: so he like figures things out because she's just like
Speaker 2: being careless, right, So it's technically her doing something to
Speaker 2: push the story forward, but not in the way you'd want,
Speaker 2: not in.
Speaker 3: An informed or intelligent way, yeah, right, which is like
Speaker 3: you know, like characters can make mistakes. But it just yeah,
Speaker 3: it just felt like she that was just like well
Speaker 3: someone It didn't feel unique to her in any way exactly,
Speaker 3: and like it's not really something that you would expect
Speaker 3: her character to do. Yeah, something that had to.
Speaker 2: Happen exactly, So it doesn't even track. But that's a
Speaker 2: scene that takes place, Like you mentioned, she drives a
Speaker 2: car so she helps Ben escape from the Library of Congress.
Speaker 2: She knows where the special books are in the Library
Speaker 2: of Congress. She does use her like quote unquote feminine
Speaker 2: wiles to distract this man she's stringing along ty Burrell
Speaker 2: so that the male protagonist of the movie can do
Speaker 2: the important things, aka solve the desk puzzle.
Speaker 3: Yeah. I hated that. That was that felt like a
Speaker 3: regression on the two thousand and four movie where yeah, yeah,
Speaker 3: and then there's like a really protracted joke about like
Speaker 3: I'm making out with ty Burrell's that Nicholas He's just
Speaker 3: like ough this, I don't know. It felt like super
Speaker 3: dated for two thousand and seven.
Speaker 2: Yeah, it really did. Yeah, she is the one who
Speaker 2: finds the bird on the rocks, but only because Nicholas
Speaker 2: Cage had figured out the clue of like, oh, we
Speaker 2: need to pour these aquafina water bottles on the rocks.
Speaker 3: That was yeah, that was like chance that it.
Speaker 2: Was her exactly. And then she does get damseled when
Speaker 2: Ed Harris holds her at knife point when he's trying
Speaker 2: to escape the flooded room.
Speaker 3: It's it's so close to the end of the movie too,
Speaker 3: where I was like, well, because at this point Helen
Speaker 3: Mirren has been damseled already. Yes, also John Voyight has
Speaker 3: kind of been damseled, so like maybe it's a generational
Speaker 3: damseling in this one, but it's like, no, it happens
Speaker 3: to Abigail the last second too.
Speaker 2: Yeah, and then she kind of like she doesn't really
Speaker 2: join the group in their like map quest if you
Speaker 2: will until Ben and Riley are in London, and then
Speaker 2: she kind of gets involved because Ben picks this like
Speaker 2: fake fight with her and we'll talk about their relationship also,
Speaker 2: but they're like arguing and she doesn't even realize they're arguing.
Speaker 3: But then but then at some point she does that
Speaker 3: was maybe that was like lost in the performance too,
Speaker 3: But I was like.
Speaker 2: Didn't scan for me at all, There's no indication she
Speaker 2: gets what's happening. Yeah, so that was shitty. But then
Speaker 2: he tries to go look at the Queen's desk without her.
Speaker 2: He's like always just trying to exclude her from things.
Speaker 2: He's like, no, it's too dangerous. She does go along,
Speaker 2: and she does suggest that the code on the desk
Speaker 2: might be a year, but she doesn't figure out which
Speaker 2: year it's. Ben who figures that out. So all this
Speaker 2: to say, her contributions in the story are either like
Speaker 2: by pure coincidence or her making a mistake, or her
Speaker 2: she maybe like contributes five to ten percent of the
Speaker 2: thing while Ben is doing the majority of it. It's
Speaker 2: all stuff like.
Speaker 3: That, right, I think. And that was similar to the
Speaker 3: first one, and it also really reminds me of Marian
Speaker 3: Courtyard in the DaVinci Code and other women were told
Speaker 3: is hypercompetent but is not actually allowed to behave that way.
Speaker 2: Within Oh you mean Audrey tattoo.
Speaker 3: Oh my gosh, I'm being anti French. Yes, I do
Speaker 3: ada tattoo. Yes, yes, which sucks and is a convention
Speaker 3: that I think we still see in movies now where
Speaker 3: it's like I feel like there's like a tacit understanding,
Speaker 3: where it's like, well, we can't just have like you know,
Speaker 3: but it's I don't know, it's we've talked about it before.
Speaker 3: I find it really frustrating to go out of your
Speaker 3: way to write a competent character and then be like,
Speaker 3: but don't worry, she's not gonna do anything. I felt
Speaker 3: like for me, the highlight for Abigail in this movie
Speaker 3: was comment during the car during the car chase. That
Speaker 3: was a cool sequence. I like that she and Riley
Speaker 3: were just like on kind of a side quest together,
Speaker 3: and that they almost killed a cop. That was fun. True,
Speaker 3: that was a treat. The rest, yeah, she wasn't really
Speaker 3: allowed to do very much. I thought it was very
Speaker 3: interesting and by interesting I do mean lazy that they
Speaker 3: wrote basically an identical character to Abigail to be Ben's mom.
Speaker 3: Let's go through her, because it's, first of all, it's
Speaker 3: disrespectful to write Helen Mirren a shitty part. Don't waste
Speaker 3: this woman's time. She's a legend, I know, but they did.
Speaker 3: They wrote her Emily Appleton Gates much in the way
Speaker 3: that we learn how Ben views Abigail, which is like
Speaker 3: I love her, but this ball and change, she doesn't
Speaker 3: get me.
Speaker 2: She's so annoying. She's always nagging me, mama, right.
Speaker 3: And then we see an identical dynamic between presented uncritically
Speaker 3: really between John Voyd and Helen Mirren. I felt like
Speaker 3: it was marginally more self aware in that relationship, which
Speaker 3: isn't saying very much. But I don't know, like, yeah,
Speaker 3: so Helen Miren is playing this like archaeologist. She specializes
Speaker 3: in ancient language like something something plot translate, yes, and
Speaker 3: so she does do a number of things throughout the
Speaker 3: movie to help them true and she does. I did appreciate,
Speaker 3: and again this is like crumbs, but I did appreciate
Speaker 3: that in most of the moments where John Voight would
Speaker 3: criticize her, she would not accept that criticism and would
Speaker 3: be like, no, you were seeing puzzles everywhere, and I
Speaker 3: had to raise our son by myself. Yeah, and like
Speaker 3: I also wanted to go on quests, but no one
Speaker 3: was raising our son due to your puzzle issue. And
Speaker 3: her character's pretty consistent on that issue. And I liked it, like,
Speaker 3: and I liked it she was doing stuff. I liked
Speaker 3: her relationship with Ben. There is no relationship with Abigail,
Speaker 3: but they hugged for some reason. I liked how Riley
Speaker 3: introduced himself to her at the end of the movie.
Speaker 3: That was fun.
Speaker 2: Yeah, he's like, by the way, I'm Riley Pool, author
Speaker 2: of the Templar Treasure.
Speaker 3: Boo. But I felt like, certainly an underwritten character, but
Speaker 3: better written than Abigail unfortunately. Yeah, but that's why it
Speaker 3: made it so confusing to me that she randomly gets
Speaker 3: back together with John Void at the end of the movie,
Speaker 3: because we are led to believe that she would never
Speaker 3: do that.
Speaker 2: Yeah, here's my theory. So, as she says in the movie,
Speaker 2: when John Voy first shows up in her office, she's like,
Speaker 2: we didn't love each other. It was just excitement, adrenaline
Speaker 2: and tequila, which is a pretty sick burn. Good honestly
Speaker 2: to tell your ex husband.
Speaker 3: And she keeps calling back the tequila.
Speaker 2: Yeah, yes, So she basically says like, I never loved you.
Speaker 2: I was just horny and we were going on adventures
Speaker 2: and that was exciting. So maybe it's just that because
Speaker 2: they went on this other adventure, she's horny again for
Speaker 2: him and that's why they kiss.
Speaker 3: But but then she's like, I.
Speaker 2: Thought that was another mistake. I'm gonna go back to
Speaker 2: my university and keep ignoring you.
Speaker 3: And you know that information is actually like what would
Speaker 3: have happened to them? That is written somewhere, but unfortunately
Speaker 3: it's page forty seven of the President's Book of Secrets,
Speaker 3: so we will never know what happens. And if the
Speaker 3: Gates I was just like, why did we need a
Speaker 3: Nicholas Cage parent trap in this movie? Was that necessary?
Speaker 3: Like I would say, no, he's in his forties and
Speaker 3: it's not necessary for him to have a parent trap
Speaker 3: at this late stage.
Speaker 2: And he doesn't even have a twin to help him.
Speaker 3: It doesn't Yeah, first of all, he couldn't pull it
Speaker 3: off well, although I think Riley could help. Sure, he
Speaker 3: could hack his parents to make them love each other again. Yeah,
Speaker 3: but yeah, I thought that that was a very like
Speaker 3: callous undercutting of like, not a great well thought out character,
Speaker 3: but the best written woman character we've seen a national
Speaker 3: treasure so far. And then they totally undercut her at
Speaker 3: the end by being like and she kind of apologizes
Speaker 3: to John Voyd a little bit. She like is a
Speaker 3: secondary party to the adventure, just like she said she
Speaker 3: always hated being and then she kisses him at the end,
Speaker 3: and you're just like, well, we certainly lost track of
Speaker 3: this character in the third act. Yes, she's also damseled,
Speaker 3: as is Abigail. She does do one thing, Well, what
Speaker 3: did you think of this? I guess I was sort
Speaker 3: of neutral on this as a plot point where Ed
Speaker 3: Harris is like, you better not tell John Vod what
Speaker 3: this means, or else kill him, and he shows he
Speaker 3: has like an old timey pistol and you're like, huh, okay,
Speaker 3: interesting plan. And so she has the knowledge but can't
Speaker 3: give it to John Void and then she insults him
Speaker 3: and then is like, I wish I hadn't drink that tequila.
Speaker 3: I hate this man. I didn't hate that scene because
Speaker 3: it wasn't like she she had the information, but she
Speaker 3: couldn't do to the old timey pistol.
Speaker 2: So here's my interpretation and problem with this scene. Okay,
Speaker 2: So she doesn't tell him the truth. She gives him
Speaker 2: like a fake translation that has something to do with
Speaker 2: a hummingbird. Yeah, and she tells that to John Voight.
Speaker 2: John Voight brings that information to Nicholas Cage, which he
Speaker 2: realizes off screen is a clue, and he's like, wow, mom,
Speaker 2: good work with the hummingbird clue. But we don't understand
Speaker 2: what it is, what that's a reference to.
Speaker 3: So we can't bad writing.
Speaker 2: It's just bad writing. Because and so like if we
Speaker 2: could see her logic and we understand why she gave
Speaker 2: this particular clue and what it refers to and blah
Speaker 2: blah blah, then we could see like, oh, she's smart.
Speaker 3: Because yeah, she secretly gave the right answer.
Speaker 2: Yeah, something like that.
Speaker 3: But I honestly didn't even register that because this movie,
Speaker 3: I just feel like at some point my brain's just
Speaker 3: like loop, like it just turns to goo and I'm
Speaker 3: just like, he's gonna find it City of Gold. I
Speaker 3: better just sit my ass down and watch.
Speaker 2: I do think the movie is relying on your brain,
Speaker 2: like everyone's brain doing that so they don't question the
Speaker 2: very bad logic that's always happening.
Speaker 3: That's why they make Nicholas Cage periodically argue with children
Speaker 3: and do other things that don't matter, so that you're just.
Speaker 2: Like, whoa, that's funny, and it is it is, and
Speaker 2: they are correct. But that would have been so much
Speaker 2: more satisfactory if we understood the clue that she gives
Speaker 2: that is actually like helpful, But we don't understand, so
Speaker 2: it's just like a blah nothing thing.
Speaker 3: And what's more, we get the really frustrating convention that
Speaker 3: we see in movies all the time, where it's like
Speaker 3: a sequel time we got a second woman, but she's
Speaker 3: not gonna be talking to the one from the first movie,
Speaker 3: even though they're constantly in the same scenes and in
Speaker 3: the same rooms. I believe that, I mean, this is
Speaker 3: getting a little ahead of her, but it's like they
Speaker 3: say hello to each other at one point, they hug
Speaker 3: a couple of times, but they never talk, which is
Speaker 3: so wild because it seems like the movie has lazily
Speaker 3: like the only way you could, for me justify this
Speaker 3: writing two very similar characters, which I mean, to be fair,
Speaker 3: Patrick Gates, Benjamin Franklin Gates very similar guys. Yeah, so okay,
Speaker 3: if that's not, you know, a lazy gendered choice, I
Speaker 3: think that you owe it to those characters to let
Speaker 3: them talk to each other. Do I think if these
Speaker 3: women had a scene together they would talk about anything
Speaker 3: other than the puzzle? Guys? Probably not. But I think
Speaker 3: that like even having I mean, any scene between these
Speaker 3: two characters makes a lot of sense, and the movie's
Speaker 3: just like not interested in scene that I think would
Speaker 3: have been really good and like firmly, firmly fits within
Speaker 3: the context of this world. But of course we don't
Speaker 3: get that in this Jerry Bruckheimer movie, because why would we?
Speaker 2: Why would frustrating? Can we talk a little bit more
Speaker 2: about Abigail's relationship to Ben, which is very reflective of
Speaker 2: what it was like in the first movie, where he
Speaker 2: spends most of the first movie being like, shut up,
Speaker 2: you're so annoying. Quit being so angry at me that
Speaker 2: I stole the Declaration of Independence. You're overreacting, blah blah blah.
Speaker 3: This is now canon to their relationship, and she's fine
Speaker 3: with it, question Mark.
Speaker 2: Well until she kicks him out of the house. So basically,
Speaker 2: he's explaining to Riley why Abigail kicked him out of
Speaker 2: their house, and he says something like, oh, she kept
Speaker 2: saying stuff like, oh, Ben, I guess you think my
Speaker 2: opinion doesn't matter. I guess you always know what's best,
Speaker 2: So I guess I'm invisible. And so what he's describing
Speaker 2: is him being a shitty, condescending, inattentive partner. And as
Speaker 2: he's relaying this information to Riley, he's framing it like,
Speaker 2: what a bitch, how dare she think I'm dismissive of
Speaker 2: her and her feelings.
Speaker 3: Which could be a legitimate story choice if he grows
Speaker 3: and changes in any way throughout the course of the movie,
Speaker 3: and then even then she doesn't need to take him back.
Speaker 3: H Right, But that doesn't You didn't even get the
Speaker 3: chance to consider that because Benjamin Franklin Gates, like many
Speaker 3: people will never change, He will never improve, he will
Speaker 3: never stop seeing puzzles, and he will never stop telling
Speaker 3: his girlfriend to shut the hell up. And so that
Speaker 3: is someone that you leave. But yeah, it was really
Speaker 3: really frustrating where when that happened, because I didn't remember
Speaker 3: the ins and outs of the emotional journey of National
Speaker 3: Treasure too, Whereas like, is there any chance that he
Speaker 3: or John Voight, who I like think is like a
Speaker 3: fraction a millimeter ahead of Ben's character in like at
Speaker 3: least he is criticized to his face and sort of
Speaker 3: takes it. He pon. It doesn't mean that he changes
Speaker 3: very much, but he doesn't, you know, say shut up,
Speaker 3: you know, in the way that Ben tends to when
Speaker 3: criticized by anyone, especially Abigail. But Ben doesn't change at all.
Speaker 3: He does the whole movie from the first one over
Speaker 3: again but more and then at the end she's And
Speaker 3: I feel like it also played into this was just
Speaker 3: like I think this was just bad writing, but I
Speaker 3: feel like it played into this like trope that surrounds
Speaker 3: women of like, well, well, actually, I don't know what
Speaker 3: did you think about this? Like there was this like
Speaker 3: thing that came up A couple of times where they're
Speaker 3: having this argument in England and she says, I think,
Speaker 3: like not the worst point where he like makes assumptions
Speaker 3: about her and then acts on those assumptions instead of
Speaker 3: having a conversation with her. And she's like, even if
Speaker 3: you think you know the answer to what I'm going
Speaker 3: to say, and even if you're right, you still have
Speaker 3: to have that conversation with me. Yeah, which is basic
Speaker 3: emotional intelligence, but like, okay, interesting that they had that conversation.
Speaker 3: He does not learn from this, and he does not
Speaker 3: change because in the last shot of the movie, he
Speaker 3: makes an assumption about what she's thinking and feeling because
Speaker 3: she says the word so, and he's like, well, when
Speaker 3: you say the word so, you're mad. And then she
Speaker 3: sort of repeats a more convoluted version of what she
Speaker 3: said earlier in the movie, which is, no, you can't
Speaker 3: just tell me what I feel based on a weird
Speaker 3: assumption You're making. What I meant to say is I
Speaker 3: love you and move back in with me. And so
Speaker 3: it is like almost like I was like, ooh, where
Speaker 3: is this going? Is this gonna go anywhere? Of course
Speaker 3: it's not, because I feel like the weird conclusion it
Speaker 3: reaches like women don't actually say what they mean, which
Speaker 3: is like.
Speaker 2: Right, and again he does not earn this invitation to
Speaker 2: move back in with her because he has demonstrated zero growth.
Speaker 3: So it's just like and not for nothing, What does
Speaker 3: this mean for typearell tyberal things. He's about to get married.
Speaker 2: Yeah, he just got hardcore made out with in the
Speaker 2: Oval office. He's got a raging boner for weeks from that.
Speaker 3: Probably he and Riley should hang out because they just
Speaker 3: like I think that they just need to like start
Speaker 3: getting drinks on the weekend and like being buds because yeah,
Speaker 3: they're just being disrespected right and left. Yeah, No, I
Speaker 3: mean it's like hard to talk about Abigail and Ben's
Speaker 3: relationship because it's like she much like the first movie,
Speaker 3: and I think even more in this one, like just
Speaker 3: behave so irrationally, like not in a way that makes sense,
Speaker 3: And I feel like it's a little if I'm remembering correctly,
Speaker 3: it's a little tighter in the first movie because you're
Speaker 3: meeting her for the first time and so she pushes
Speaker 3: back more. But now it's just like, well, obviously she's
Speaker 3: in love with Nicholas Cage, so we could kind of
Speaker 3: have her do anything, they're gonna end up back together,
Speaker 3: and that feels like maybe why the writing in Helen
Speaker 3: Mirren's character is a little more coherent because we're meeting her,
Speaker 3: but it just their relationship absolutely sucks. She should take
Speaker 3: his big old house and dump him, dump Tibrell, do whatever,
Speaker 3: just don't get back together with this guy. Yeah, this
Speaker 3: is bad.
Speaker 2: I agree.
Speaker 3: You've got your puzzle treasure from movie one. Leave it
Speaker 3: at that which brings us to the treasure. Yes, we
Speaker 3: had a different version of this discussion in our first episode,
Speaker 3: I believe. Yeah, like we were talking about earlier, the
Speaker 3: second that they bring Indigenous American culture into this. You
Speaker 3: know that this Jerry Bruckheimer funded movie is going to
Speaker 3: absolutely fumble, erase, disrespect, not care about Indigenous people or
Speaker 3: indigenous history or redistribution or anything that would make logical
Speaker 3: sense in this situation.
Speaker 2: Right, So here's the I've gathered and keep in mind
Speaker 2: listeners that I'm not a historian or an anthropologist.
Speaker 3: You're a Helen Merrin.
Speaker 2: I have a master's degree in screenwriting from Boston University,
Speaker 2: a fact that I would never mention. Those are my credentials.
Speaker 2: So the information I have is mostly from wiki, pds,
Speaker 2: scholarly journal or just like things I already knew with
Speaker 2: my brain, because.
Speaker 3: With your brain and everything, Because like.
Speaker 2: This movie makes so many missteps that even if you
Speaker 2: have the slightest understanding of geography or time, you would
Speaker 2: know that everything that happens in this movie doesn't make
Speaker 2: any sense. So they find the piece of wood that
Speaker 2: has markings on it that appear in They keep referring
Speaker 2: to it as like an ancient Native American language. Different
Speaker 2: ideas are floated. They're like, oh, it looks Incan or Aztec.
Speaker 2: Later on they say that they think it's Olmec, so
Speaker 2: they're sort of speculating. They think they identify one symbol
Speaker 2: on this piece of wood that means sebola, So they
Speaker 2: look up sibola in a history book of secrets. Not sure,
Speaker 2: but what it says there is that in fifteen twenty seven,
Speaker 2: a Spanish ship wrecked off of the coast of Florida.
Speaker 2: There was one survivor who was a slave named Esteban,
Speaker 2: who saved a tribe's dying chief and as a reward,
Speaker 2: he was taken to the tribe's sacred city built of
Speaker 2: solid gold. And then later when Esteban tried to find
Speaker 2: the city again. He never could, but the legend grew
Speaker 2: and explorers came to the New World in search of
Speaker 2: the city. And so that's like the information that Ben
Speaker 2: and Riley and Patrick and all these characters are working on.
Speaker 2: But they're like, we still don't know what this message means.
Speaker 2: So they take it to an expert in a language
Speaker 2: that they refer to as and I quote ancient Native American,
Speaker 2: as if there is one language shared among all Indigenous
Speaker 2: Americans and that language is called Native American.
Speaker 3: Which, unfortunately, I mean, I don't think I had any
Speaker 3: institutional knowledge to severely questioned as a fourteen year.
Speaker 2: Old like, well no, based on what little we learn
Speaker 2: about indigenous people in American schools.
Speaker 3: I think there are many elements to this becus sound ridiculous,
Speaker 3: but like there are elements to the National Treasure movies
Speaker 3: that just like really clearly illustrate like how vague americans
Speaker 3: general understanding of American history is. Yeah, yeah, this is
Speaker 3: like a really really damning example.
Speaker 2: Absolutely. So they go to Helen Mirren, who is, you know,
Speaker 2: an expert in the language of quote unquote ancient Native American,
Speaker 2: and they're like, oh, we think it's Olmec, and she's like, yeah,
Speaker 2: I think so. After all their puzzles includes blah blah blah,
Speaker 2: they find the city of Gold under Mount Rushmore, which
Speaker 2: is in South Dakota, famously, So, just to recap and
Speaker 2: put all of this information together, a slave was taken
Speaker 2: to a place off the coast of Florida, which is
Speaker 2: somehow also South Dakota, to a secret city of an
Speaker 2: unspecified indigenous tribe which may or may not have been Olmec,
Speaker 2: which does track for the meso American architecture that we
Speaker 2: see of the City of Gold at the end of
Speaker 2: the movie. But South Dakota and Florida are famously not
Speaker 2: near each other. They're not near each other, nor are
Speaker 2: they meso Americas or American.
Speaker 3: Yeah.
Speaker 2: Also, the Omech people did not inhabit either of those
Speaker 2: places of Florida or South Dakota. And the Olmecs existed
Speaker 2: from fifteen hundred BC to about four hundred BC, meaning
Speaker 2: that they were not around when the conquistadors were coming
Speaker 2: to this region of meso America to colonize and steal
Speaker 2: land and steal materials and gold and all that stuff.
Speaker 3: Brain.
Speaker 2: So when this Spanish ship crashed off the coast of
Speaker 2: Florida in fifteen twenty seven. The Omech people had not
Speaker 2: been around for about two thousand years.
Speaker 3: So this is thank you for doing this research, because
Speaker 3: I knew it was wrong, but I didn't know it
Speaker 3: was that many flavors of wrong.
Speaker 2: Yeah, And like you said, this is all verytive of
Speaker 2: the way white American culture and our like education system
Speaker 2: number one treats indigenous cultures as a monolith because they
Speaker 2: are like jumping around in time, they're jumping around geographically,
Speaker 2: and they're just saying, well, it's Native American, so it
Speaker 2: doesn't matter that we're referring to a tribe from like
Speaker 2: millennia ago who were in a completely different geographic region.
Speaker 3: Yeah, like doesn't acknowledge any of the diversity within indigenous culture.
Speaker 3: Speaks about Indigenous Americans as if they no longer.
Speaker 2: Exist exactly, yes, and that like.
Speaker 3: White American treasure hunters therefore are entitled to whatever they find,
Speaker 3: which is one of the most colonial pieces of thought
Speaker 3: that exists, is that you can just steal and claim
Speaker 3: it as your own, and that this is an act
Speaker 3: of valor, and this is an act of like that
Speaker 3: you should be out of and profit off of is stealing.
Speaker 3: It's like almost hard to talk about because the story
Speaker 3: you just described is so fucking convoluted. But like I mean,
Speaker 3: and in two thousand and seven, making this for a
Speaker 3: white American audience, which like this movie very clearly is
Speaker 3: written in gibberish, Like there is no doubt in the
Speaker 3: way the movie is presented and in the way that
Speaker 3: in most public American schools is taught that there's anything
Speaker 3: wrong with this that like a white American guy finding
Speaker 3: a treasury that belongs to a culture that is not
Speaker 3: his own, finders keepers it's mine, And this is like
Speaker 3: just colonial logic and the reason that you know, many
Speaker 3: museums exist the way they do, the way the wealth
Speaker 3: is distributed and stolen. I mean, it's just like I'm
Speaker 3: sure we're not saying anything that listeners of this show
Speaker 3: don't know already, but it's just like presented so blatantly
Speaker 3: in a way that I don't even know would be
Speaker 3: possible to do now. But this movie came up fifteen
Speaker 3: years ago, Like it's not an old movie at all,
Speaker 3: and it's so like I don't know, I mean, I
Speaker 3: was really curious, not optimistic of how it would be handled,
Speaker 3: or even if the iconic character the President of the
Speaker 3: United States, the upholder of American white supremacy, would react
Speaker 3: to this piece of information, and like, we don't really know,
Speaker 3: it's unclear what's going to happen at the end, but
Speaker 3: we know that the Gates family will once again profit
Speaker 3: off of it.
Speaker 2: Absolutely. So I'm glad you brought that up, because there's
Speaker 2: that scene when Ben Gates is kidnapping the President and
Speaker 2: the President is loving it and it's getting a horny
Speaker 2: but then he's like, why would I tell you where
Speaker 2: my Book of secrets is? And Ben says, because it
Speaker 2: will probably lead to the discovery of the greatest Native
Speaker 2: American treasure of all time, a huge piece of culture lost,
Speaker 2: and give that history back to its descendants. And you're like, Okay,
Speaker 2: if you do find this treasure, it absolutely should go
Speaker 2: back to the Native people you're trying to steal it from.
Speaker 2: But he's talking about himself, right, Yeah. The ethos of
Speaker 2: this movie is, oh, well, you know Native people in
Speaker 2: the New World, they did have this rich culture, but
Speaker 2: it got left behind somehow. I don't know how that happened,
Speaker 2: but it's ours now to find and to take because
Speaker 2: Native people are a thing of the past and they
Speaker 2: don't exist anymore.
Speaker 3: And we're honoring them by taking this right.
Speaker 2: They're part of history. So this treasure is ours to
Speaker 2: turn into a fun adventure.
Speaker 3: There's no talk of redistributing, I mean not to mention.
Speaker 3: Much like the First National Treasure, it is like essentially
Speaker 3: all white cast There are a handful of black actors
Speaker 3: in minor roles, including a black government worker who's kind
Speaker 3: of bullied for bringing up that. This is during the
Speaker 3: Hotel debacle, but there is a black government employee who
Speaker 3: brings up to a white government employee like there's a
Speaker 3: rumor going on that the hotel that the President of
Speaker 3: the United States wants to hold his birthday at used
Speaker 3: to be a place where the clan would meet, right,
Speaker 3: And the white government employees says, well, is it true,
Speaker 3: and like immediately just starts like giving this guy shit,
Speaker 3: and that black government employee response, it doesn't really matter
Speaker 3: if it's true, we should move the party, and all
Speaker 3: the white government employees get so annoyed they're making like
Speaker 3: it's just like this movie. Yeah, it's doing absolutely I
Speaker 3: mean less than nothing.
Speaker 2: There's another black character who kind of teams up with
Speaker 2: Ed Harris, who again is the descendant of a Confederate
Speaker 2: general who the again, the movie nor any of the
Speaker 2: characters care about question at all. They're like, oh wow,
Speaker 2: a general and an army. Good for him, the same thing,
Speaker 2: but the.
Speaker 3: Way that they like very much excuse the Queen of
Speaker 3: England for being like for being sympathetic to the Confederacy.
Speaker 3: They're like, well, she just didn't want a division in America.
Speaker 3: So and you're like, no, she's racist, Like it's a
Speaker 3: very easily illustrated argument that the Queen of England is racist,
Speaker 3: Like what are you talking about?
Speaker 2: Ugh? Yes, So it really adds insult to injury in
Speaker 2: this movie, in particular with the treasure being this indigenous treasure,
Speaker 2: this indigenous city on stolen land, where the people going
Speaker 2: after this treasure are all white, and many of them
Speaker 2: are from a family who was descended from people who
Speaker 2: were actively colonizing the New World and taking the land
Speaker 2: and lives of the indigenous people who centuries later would
Speaker 2: steal this treasure from because like we cut to like,
Speaker 2: I guess the government excavating this city and they don't
Speaker 2: even seem to be doing it properly. Because Helen Mirren's like,
Speaker 2: are you cataloging this and they're just like nope, And
Speaker 2: so you just like have all of these like white
Speaker 2: American federal government people like infiltrating this place, and then has.
Speaker 3: Turned into this weird joke where it's like, instead of
Speaker 3: acknowledging that the American government does not give a shit
Speaker 3: about Indigenous history, it cuts to John Voight, the King
Speaker 3: of Republicans, being like, you should have tried buying a
Speaker 3: couch with this lady. And I was like, oh my god,
Speaker 3: what the hell are we doing here?
Speaker 2: Yeah, what's going on? Yes, So all of that absolutely sucks. Yeah,
Speaker 2: and that's all I have to say about this movie.
Speaker 3: Yeah. I mean, in terms of any sort of progressivism,
Speaker 3: this movie is doing less than nothing. It is, truly,
Speaker 3: I think, one of the most jingoistic franchises of our generation.
Speaker 3: And in that way, I think if we're being you know,
Speaker 3: like just sort of legacy wise, it makes it worse
Speaker 3: that they're not straight up bad movies. It makes it
Speaker 3: worse that they're fun to watch, because it's like, if
Speaker 3: these movies go down easy and they're the romp is Undeniable.
Speaker 2: Ten out of ton on the rampometer. You can't deny it.
Speaker 3: Then it's much easier to accept and glaze over, which
Speaker 3: like we have done in the course of this episode,
Speaker 3: because it is a fun movie to watch and its
Speaker 3: core message is empty and baseless. It's not so anything
Speaker 3: new in terms of like the emptiness of how American
Speaker 3: history is viewed. It feels like it's ill. It's just
Speaker 3: illustrates how ingrained the sort of white supremacist line of
Speaker 3: thinking is in America that you can build a big,
Speaker 3: goofy action movie around it, And at least at the time,
Speaker 3: there was not a big questioning of the way that
Speaker 3: history is presented, where it's like understood that it's not
Speaker 3: a documentary, as I've argued it, but it's also like
Speaker 3: not presented. But the things that it was picked apart for.
Speaker 3: I went through some of the original reviews. The historical
Speaker 3: inaccuracies that's pulled apart for are not the ones we
Speaker 3: just discussed, right, They are like, well, actually, this guy
Speaker 3: that believes in the Confederacy actually believed in this version
Speaker 3: of the Confederacy, And you're like, that's not the thing
Speaker 3: we should really be putting a big old hell and
Speaker 3: mirror magnifying glass. To remember the scene where she has
Speaker 3: a big old magnifying glass.
Speaker 2: Oh wow.
Speaker 3: Anyways, yeah, this I mean, and and it doesn't pass
Speaker 3: the backtel test. Not for nothing. It doesn't pass the
Speaker 3: back to test. No, and I have to give it
Speaker 3: no nipples. I think, I think I have to give
Speaker 3: it none.
Speaker 2: Yeah, I agree, zero nipples on our nipple scale, in
Speaker 2: which we examine the movie on a scale of zero
Speaker 2: to five nipples based on looking at it through an
Speaker 2: intersectional feminist lens, but based on everything we've discussed, as
Speaker 2: far as the piss poor treatment of the characters who
Speaker 2: are women.
Speaker 3: The blatant disregard for history.
Speaker 2: There's not a single Native person in the movie.
Speaker 3: That revolves around a native treasure. We can't give you
Speaker 3: more information because, as you just explained, Kalen, it doesn't
Speaker 3: make any fucking sense. And unfortunately it's a very fun
Speaker 3: movie to watch in many ways. Yeah, there's really not
Speaker 3: I don't know. I like, I really it's true. I
Speaker 3: hope that our listeners like enjoy listening to these episodes.
Speaker 3: These movies are so incoherent, they're very goofy, but also
Speaker 3: like we want to acknowledge, you know, the kind of
Speaker 3: ideology that they're reinforcing. Yeah, because that does still happen
Speaker 3: in movies for sure. And I feel like the action
Speaker 3: genre is sort of a very common offender of this
Speaker 3: specific kind of misrepresentation.
Speaker 2: Especially this subgenre, because we've treasure hunting, Yeah, the treasure hunting,
Speaker 2: and even in like the Dora episode, it like does
Speaker 2: a slightly better job at handling this, but it still
Speaker 2: fumbled a lot of stuff. So these like, yeah, adventure
Speaker 2: go on a quest to find treasure movies almost always completely.
Speaker 3: Is taken from another culture that the movie has no
Speaker 3: interest in.
Speaker 2: Yeah for sure.
Speaker 3: Yeah, so zero nipples, no nipples, a million Bruckheimer teeth.
Speaker 2: Forty seven pages of secrets in a book who knows?
Speaker 3: Who knows? Anyways, we hope that you enjoyed this episode.
Speaker 3: Are not annual because we I mean, unfortunately it's all
Speaker 3: over the place in movies, but our you know, jingoistic
Speaker 3: nonsense movie of the Year, National Treasure two Book of Secrets.
Speaker 3: If you know it was on page forty seven, hit
Speaker 3: us up.
Speaker 2: Please, And the places you could hit us up, for
Speaker 2: example are Twitter and Instagram.
Speaker 3: If you know it's on page forty seven, yeah, we
Speaker 3: where you can follow us at Bechtel Cast.
Speaker 2: You can subscribe to our Patreon aka Matreon. You get
Speaker 2: five sorry, you get two bonus episodes every month for
Speaker 2: five dollars, as well as the back catalog of something
Speaker 2: like one hundred and almost one hundred and fifty fifty
Speaker 2: or so. And yeah, we're having a hell of a
Speaker 2: time over there. We just wrapped up.
Speaker 3: Junion Month, which is our union themed episodes. We do
Speaker 3: an in depth explainer of the WGA strike, and we
Speaker 3: also covered newsies and there's there's more some of fun
Speaker 3: to come over on the Matreon, So please join us
Speaker 3: over there. And in the meantime, I'm gonna go to
Speaker 3: borders to get a copy of a story that's definitely open,
Speaker 3: to get a copy of my man Riley's book. He's
Speaker 3: got to move copies. Someone's got to read it, someone's
Speaker 3: got to read it. On some page forty seven of
Speaker 3: Riley's book, literally no one knows, no one's ever gotten
Speaker 3: that far except Hervey Kaitel, What.
Speaker 2: A good friend. I'm gonna crack open a bottle of
Speaker 2: aquafina and.
Speaker 3: Bored on the nearest rock God that there is the
Speaker 3: moment where, like these movies at the midpoint they just could.
Speaker 3: It's so brain dead that you're just like, oh, they're
Speaker 3: gonna pour water on a rock? Yeah, brilliant, Sure, God
Speaker 3: fucking damn it.
Speaker 2: Well, I guess they ran out of good ideas.
Speaker 3: Yeah, this which this movie is full of. Oh I
Speaker 3: would like to just quickly one more time, shout out
Speaker 3: Nicholas Cage arguing with the child added nothing to the movie,
Speaker 3: but added a lot to my life.
Speaker 2: Oh and hey, while we're speaking of books, you should
Speaker 2: read Rod Dog. Everyone you haven't.
Speaker 3: Already dog, Yes, it's true.
Speaker 2: It is what secrets are in that book of it
Speaker 2: looks secrets.
Speaker 3: Page forty seven of Raw Dog. Oh, baby, you don't
Speaker 3: even want to wait. Actually, let's find out. I've got
Speaker 3: a copy right here. Amazing, Okay, page forty seven. This
Speaker 3: is what they don't want you to know. Forty seven.
Speaker 3: Oh it's it's the whole page about an anthropomorphized pickle
Speaker 3: named garlic. Joe. Yes, I read about Joe. That's my
Speaker 3: book of secrets.
Speaker 2: Wow.
Speaker 3: Check it out. You can get it wherever books are sold.
Speaker 3: And it's pretty anti America. Helly, And with
Speaker 2: That, happy summer bye,