National Treasure: Book of Secrets

00:00:01
Speaker 1: On the Bechdel Cast, the questions ask if movies have women and them, are all their discussions just boyfriends and husbands, or do they have individualism? It's the patriarchy, zephy Beast start changing it with the Bechdel Cast.

00:00:16
Speaker 2: We're back at it again, Jamie. A clue that leads to another clue that leads to another clue that leads to us.

00:00:24
Speaker 3: Finally reuniting with Helen Mirren. Because wasn't that really the full thing we had to do the whole time?

00:00:32
Speaker 2: Yes, yes it was, It's true. Hi, Welcome to the Bechdel Cast. My name is Caitlin Dorante, my.

00:00:41
Speaker 3: Name is Jamie Loftus, and this is our podcast where we talk about important entries in cinema and talk about how they relate to an intersectional feminist perspective. And boy, do we have a feminist text for you? Humdinger. So on the fourth of July. Because you know, we're reasonable people, we don't feel that there's a ton to celebrate. However, the movies, they feel different. The movies really want you to think that there's a ton to celebrate. So we try over the years to line up this week with a movie that is very American coded for better or for worse. Really, last year we did idiocrity an attempt at I forgot.

00:01:35
Speaker 2: We did that for like a fourth of July episode.

00:01:39
Speaker 3: Yeah. Yeah, So last year we did Mike Judge's valiant attempt to comment on the state of America that just ended up revealing that he hated poor people. This year, we're going for the Millennial Generations attempt at Indiana Jones. We're heading back in to the National Treasure expand universe. And I've got to say this movie has more to say than idiocrasy for me. Sure this movie Caitlin Derante made half a billion dollars.

00:02:11
Speaker 2: It really did, and we celebrate that.

00:02:15
Speaker 3: We celebrate And what do American celebrate more than something ridiculous making half a billion dollars. Yeah, it's something that we love to see over here. But first we should talk about what this podcast is.

00:02:30
Speaker 2: Yes, we examine movies through an intersectional feminist lens, using the Bechdel Test as a jumping off point. It is a media metric created by queer cartoonist Alison Bechdel, sometimes called the Bechdel Wallace Test. It originally appeared in Alison Bechdel's Decks to Watch out For in nineteen eighty five as just like a bit a one off joke that appeared in a strip of hers and has since been kind of co opted to be this grand metric. There are many versions of it. The one we use is this two people of a marginalized gender have to have names, they must speak to each other, and their conversation has to be about something other than a man, and we particularly appreciate it when it is a narratively substantial conversation. However, we decided a few caveats, such as it does pass the Bechdel test when Nicholas Cage declares that he is going to kidnap the president of the United States.

00:03:41
Speaker 3: Which is a huge relief because the movie may not in factest the bechel test without that important caveat that we made to save this feminist text exactly unfair criticism.

00:03:53
Speaker 2: Well, there's another caveat that we agreed upon, which is that it also passes the Bechdel test when Nicholas Cage screams at a male child.

00:04:03
Speaker 3: Yes, because that feels like a real close study of different generations of masculinity in combat with one another in a lighthearted yet impactful way.

00:04:15
Speaker 2: It was cinema at its finest.

00:04:19
Speaker 3: I really hope that entire I mean, I know it wasn't because that child actor. I mean not to put the child actor on the spot, but it would have been very hard for the child actor to improvise that dialogue exchange. But it felt so organic. Those are my founding fathers, both CAG and that kid. So today we're covering I think maybe one of our generation's most jingoistic franchises, National Treasure. We've covered National Treasure one, not that you asked, but we've already done it so before. I mean, Caitlin, what's your history with National Treasure? Book of Secrets? Yes, Book of Secrets will and we can't forget the really important oh my gosh, and really great subtitle.

00:05:10
Speaker 2: It's about a secret book, Book of Secrets. Oh my gosh.

00:05:15
Speaker 3: I kind of forgot what the Book of Secrets was and so I was rewatching it.

00:05:20
Speaker 2: So my history with this movie is that I watched it when we covered the first National Treasure movie, which I think was the first episode we released after Lockdown in March twenty twenty.

00:05:34
Speaker 3: Yeah, because we're like, this is going to be over in a second, let's have a little bit of fun. Yeah, and then it turned out it's still happening. We're not going to harp on it today. Yeah, but yes, yes, National Treasure was a movie that came to us during a time of need.

00:05:51
Speaker 2: Yeah, and so I watched the sequel then. So that was about three years ago, and I haven't really thought about it since. But then I I rewatched it with our good friend Bryant like ten days ago, which is part of why I pitched we do this now.

00:06:08
Speaker 3: Yes, and I'm glad you did. Yeah, and now more than ever, more than ever.

00:06:12
Speaker 2: We need to discuss National Treasure, Book of Secrets. So I've seen it a handful of times. Now I think it's not a good movie, but I also love it, so shrug.

00:06:25
Speaker 3: Yeah, I feel about the same way I saw this movie in theaters for sure. Wow, uh brag, I remember, I even this was one of the things where I remember, I vividly remember a trailer moment when it happened in the movie. Trailer moment when Justin and Bartha says it's a little Golden Man, and then classic Bartha trailer moment. Oh and Bartha is on for this. He really is he once again steals the show. We love to see him, and again, I feel like we constantly have to qualify as of this recording, as far as we know, Justin Bertha is a normal man. True. But yeah, I remember seeing the trailer. I was fourteen. I was stoked to see National Treasure two with my friends, which I did, and I loved it even at the time, I feel like, and listeners, let me know, I feel like, even at the time, as a fourteen year old, I registered this as whatever a fourteen year old would call something campy, Like, I recognized that this was not a triumph, which is not how I felt about National Treasure one. I thought National Treasure one triumph. Sure, National Treasure two I thought silly, But you know, I'm going to see it with my damn friends and I'm gonna love every second of it. And so it was. Yeah, I did not remember this movie as well as I remember the first one. I haven't seen it as many times. It's probably my third viewing of it. Ever. I also still have yet to see There was a mini series, I think maybe Misguided mini series that was released around the National Treasure franchise. Yeah, on Disney Plus. I have not watched it either. I think Bartha came back. Yeah, let me did Bartha return? Let me investigate. Bartha was on season four of Atlanta. I don't know if you saw his appearance.

00:08:18
Speaker 2: I have not made it that far into the show. Hang on National Treasure.

00:08:23
Speaker 3: Oh, and he's in the Good Fight. I haven't seen it.

00:08:25
Speaker 2: Okay, So National Treasure. Edge of History is the series from another good subtitles, Yes, from twenty twenty two. Let's see who is in the cast. Justin Bartha is there. I can't tell how important of a character he is.

00:08:43
Speaker 3: It's just a guest star though. It's kind of like a David Crumbholtz and the Santa claus is.

00:08:49
Speaker 2: Which is utter bullshit.

00:08:50
Speaker 3: Yeah, it's that's why we don't watch Disney Plus mini series because we did watch the Santa Clauses and we need to break Catherine Sata Jones is in this damn thing.

00:09:00
Speaker 2: She is? And then a bunch of people who I do not recognize.

00:09:05
Speaker 3: Jake Austin Walker. Sure that's a person. We'll see about that anyways. Yeah, I don't know who's in there. Oh, Harvey Kaitel comes back for a guest spot. That's fun. No, Cage. Harvey loves I mean this franchise. He really does. And even though he's barely in this installment, which I guess we'll get to, not that he's really it's so weird that he's even in this one, because you're just like, why is he there? Why is he there? I mean glad to see Harvey's kitel get a check. I guess why not? But yeah, I saw it. I enjoyed it. I think I seen it one other time and I forgot so many elements. I will say, well, this movie is definitely not good in the traditional sense, and it is certainly not good for the purposes of this our podcast that we've been doing for seven years. Yes, definitely not. I will say that this does deliver as far as a sequel goes for me, because it's such a high concept franchise. Nicholas Cage has to steal an American artifact that is, you're not supposed to steal and find a map on it, and you're like, how does he do that? Twice? I feel like this movie effectively raises the stakes. In the first one, he has to steal the Declaration of Independence. Famously, that's difficult. The second one he turns up the difficulty level and he does several things, but he most importantly another trailer moment, I'm going to kidnap the President of the United States, which he does. Yeah, and the President, not for nothing, loves every second of it. Spoiler alert, The President loves being kidnapp by Nicholas Cage. Can't get enough of it instantly, Yes, like, don't get him in trouble. I love this guy. And then he finds the city of Gold underneath Mount Rushmore. Now we have to get into what the hell's going on there, but I do think on its face they managed to do it. Again. He is finding maps places you wouldn't believe.

00:11:08
Speaker 2: Yeah, he goes from stealing a piece of paper to stealing a human being.

00:11:13
Speaker 3: He steals a whole guy, and then on top of that keeps being like, I'm not kidnapping you, which he is. And then there's a book of Secrets. Also Riley in this movie. I was very I was like, wow, Riley also has close friends who haven't read his book yet. Okay, that's very me coded. I was really relating to Riley. I think the president should give me a really nice car tax free. Yeah, well, a weird post credit scene. Riley was on all cylinders here. Abigail once again done dirty. No justice for Abigail, not that we expected it, but we get we get a second woman, Helen Mirren. That's another sequel thing. We gotta get a second woman in there. But don't worry, We're not gonna let her do anything.

00:11:55
Speaker 2: Nope.

00:11:56
Speaker 3: I just I think that this movie is such a a seque for better and for worse. It does the same thing, but more and twice.

00:12:05
Speaker 2: It's incredible.

00:12:06
Speaker 3: I truly laughed out loud. The shot where again spoilers for those who haven't seen National Treasure two Book of Secrets, The shot where they panned down from the Eiffel Tower and then zoom in on the tiny statue of Liberty. I was such a hard fast zoom and the music like like, oh my god, Americans are so sick in their heads. Everything's about them. It's just disgusting and hilarious in this movie. I just Ben Gates, I swear to and and not I.

00:12:40
Speaker 2: Mean Benjamin Franklin Gates.

00:12:44
Speaker 3: It's like right up there with Larry Geely and all time worse character names for anything. And then another horrible justin Bartha movie quick Justin Bartha thingcause we're talking about it. I didn't know because I was just I was on side this weekend talking to my talk and talk and talking about Justin Bartha and how I was thinking about him. And someone was like, oh, yeah, don't you remember when he dated Ashley Olsen? I didn't.

00:13:12
Speaker 2: We always forget this.

00:13:14
Speaker 3: We history, much like what happened was going on with Thomas Gates. History does not. American history doesn't want us to remember Justin Bartha's relationship with Ashley Olsen. However, I loved I sent it to you. I just looked up because I was like, when did they even date? They broke up in twenty eleven. The alleged reason for the breakup was that Justin Bartha was partying too much on the set of Hangover too she was, which is a very twenty eleven reason to break up with someone. Couldn't have happened any other year.

00:13:43
Speaker 2: No, it's like us discover, like we go through this like series of clues and puzzles to discover that Justin Bartha and Ashley Olsen dated, And it's such a revelation each and every time we learn this.

00:13:59
Speaker 3: I kidnapped Bob Iger to get this information. I was like, where's the book? I okay, the present? That was one thing I've I've tried to fact check a number There have been a number of articles that have you know, attempted to fact check the historical you know, value of national treasure too, Not that it really matters, you know, because most of American history is fucking made up?

00:14:27
Speaker 2: Right? Yeah, how do you even fact check revised history exactly?

00:14:32
Speaker 3: So you might? Sure, why not to a lot of this bullshit? But I couldn't get a straight answer on whether the president does indeed have a book of secrets where every secret from American history is written.

00:14:49
Speaker 2: Longhand crammed into this like leather bound book.

00:14:55
Speaker 3: Also, if I was Riley, I would be absolutely beside myself because Riley is this close to knowing whether Kennedy assassination conspiracies are true, and Nick Cage is like, there's no time and like we gotta find a second, Like comes.

00:15:09
Speaker 2: On, yeah, seriously, the moon landing?

00:15:11
Speaker 3: Come on?

00:15:12
Speaker 2: I have to know what was the whole thing with page thirty seven? Was that just like setting up a sequel or did we actually find anything out about it? Well?

00:15:19
Speaker 3: Page forty seven I don't know. I wonder if that comes back in Edge of History page forty seven. Yeah, I think that that was setting up a sequel because there was for sure supposed to be a third one, because this movie made half a billion dollars. I don't really know why there wasn't a third one in the moment, Maybe Nicholas Cage got too busy with what would he have even been doing. Also, these movies, it is like kind of sick to me that Alfred Bolina did not make his way into this franchise.

00:15:48
Speaker 2: This feels like, yeah, we talked about this on the last episode.

00:15:52
Speaker 3: Yeah. I mean it's like it's so Indiana Jones coded to begin with Yeah that like he'd fit right in. I know, let's find out why there wasn't a sequel. There was, there was a novelization, and I also love that there was a There's a whole section of the Wikipedia page called historical accuracy like be serious, okay sow okay in made two thousand and eight. John Turtletobb confirmed that there would be additional National Treasure movies, but acknowledged the creative team needed time on the second sequel. I don't know why, because the first sequel was awesome. I guess it just like kind of went to production.

00:16:30
Speaker 2: Hell damn it.

00:16:32
Speaker 3: Yeah, it's it's a damn shame because I remember, like, okay, January twenty twenty, the last time we discussed this movie. In twenty twenty, the third one was on the way, and then it turned into the series, a bullshit series which no one watches those and it's they always suck, unfortunately. But the fun thing is that there is a second one and that everyone in the world thowt because it made half a billion dollars in two thousand and seven. That is so wild. Should we love this movie? Sorry?

00:17:08
Speaker 2: Should I recap it?

00:17:09
Speaker 3: For sure?

00:17:10
Speaker 2: Okay, let's take a quick break first, and then we'll come back to recap and we're back.

00:17:21
Speaker 3: Okay, So at the very beginning, I think if with your permission, please, because the beginning is sort of frontloaded with all the history stuff. Yes, so I will try to share what I know, Okay, part of which I independently research. But I would also like to share the very defensive historical accuracy section of the Wikipedia, which mostly clarifies small points that don't make much of a difference to me. But you can let me know, I've kind of on the historical accuracy side surprisingly fall very much and leave National Treasure to Book of Secrets alone in some ways, at least in the opening sequence.

00:18:03
Speaker 2: Sure, all right, okay, So here's what we see in that sequence. We are in Washington, DC. Ever heard of it? It's eighteen sixty five. A mysterious man who we will find out is John Wilkes Booth, along with another man.

00:18:20
Speaker 3: They made him hot.

00:18:23
Speaker 2: John is sexy in this. He and another man approach Thomas Gates and his young son. Now John Wilkes Booth wants Thomas Gates to decode a cipher.

00:18:38
Speaker 3: It's a family tradition. They all see this. There is a version of this franchise that is just like a family curse where all these women throughout history have to deal with these fucking guys who see maps where there shouldn't be maps. But then they're right, and what a nightmare that must be.

00:18:57
Speaker 2: Yeah, you're really signing up for a lot when you marry a gatesman.

00:19:03
Speaker 3: You're gonna be like, enough with the maps, I've had it. And then sure, a shit, there's a damn map.

00:19:11
Speaker 2: Yep. Okay, So as old Tommy Gates is solving this cipher. John Wilkes Booth leaves to go into a theater and he assassinates President Lincoln on screen.

00:19:25
Speaker 3: Famously, again disrespectful, who gives a shit? So I wanted to acknowledge the guy sitting with Thomas Gates is revealed if you, like me, got a public American education and would not be told about things like this, is a member of the Nights of the Golden Circle. This is a real thing. Okay, So I'm kind to share from scholarly journal Wikipedia what it says. It feels very weird and defensive to me. Okay. The Knights of the Golden Circle had actually disbanded in eighteen sixty three. It was based in Ohio, where its founder resided. Though a native of Virginia, Bickley, the founder, had actually been known for being an adventurer. His main focus was not on preserving the Confederate States of America, but restoring slavery in southern neighboring countries that he wanted to make a part of a proposed nation dubbed the Golden Circle. While some members of the group would join the Confederate Army, Bickley was more focused on colonizing parts of northern Mexico as slave states. And you're like, well, as far as the purposes of this movie is concerned, that's still an exceptionally horrible, horrific person. I don't know why we need it clarified.

00:20:40
Speaker 2: Like, actually, he was horrible in a different way. Actually, you should have been more specific about it. You're like, no, I think that they did a fine job, and he was a.

00:20:51
Speaker 3: Real like he was evil was the he is. I mean, you can't get more bad guy than the couple of sentences I just read. Anyways, I just wasn't aware that the Knights of the Golden Circle. I like, that was not, at least in my memory. It was not a part of my knowledge of the Civil War. So already I'm.

00:21:11
Speaker 2: Learning I did not learn about that either. So Thomas Gates realizes that these men who have approached him are members of this Knights of the Golden Circle. He knows that they're bad guys, and one of them shoots Thomas Gates, but not before Thomas rips pages out of John Wilkes Booth's diary, including the page with the cipher on it.

00:21:35
Speaker 3: Very confusing sequence.

00:21:37
Speaker 2: Throws those pages into the fire the bad guy pulls the papers out of the fire, or at least one of them, and runs off. And then in Thomas Gates's dying breath to his son, his son, he says the debt that all men pay, and then Weld dead right.

00:22:00
Speaker 3: You are just like, Okay, the beginning of the National Treasure movie is always confusing, yes, and it's always one of these damn guys solving a puzzle and then it's ugh, fucking whatever. But yeah, so that whole period, there's also like some people kind of getting really particular about I'll just run through stuff about John Wilkes Booth. You're like, who what? There is a secret basement under George Washington's home at Mount Vernon apparently, so something to think about. I don't know, I'll keep going. But oh, and there may have been cipher solvers just like Thomas Gates working during the Civil War, so this is basically and John Wilkes Booth's diary did have multiple pages missing from it, so this is in many ways a documentary. Yeah, except for all of the jingoistic parts that take place in two thousand and seven. Those are not cannon. But the whole beginning I think is historically.

00:23:02
Speaker 2: Accurate, okay, perfect, love to hear it, love to see it, okay. So then we flash forward to Benjamin Franklin Gates aka Ben Gates aka Nicholas Cage, who is giving a Ted talk or something about the Nights of the Golden Circle and the Booth Diary.

00:23:23
Speaker 3: He brought his dad to school, and you're just like, needs to get over themselves. The Gates family, Hubris, I think is very on the table for discussion because it's like, get over yourself, what have you accomplished? And then they kidnapped the president, so.

00:23:42
Speaker 2: They accomplished a lot. So someone attending this presentation, Mitch Wilkinson played by James Harris.

00:23:51
Speaker 3: I totally forgot Ed Harris was in this movie. Yeah, but what a interesting jump scare to have him be like.

00:23:59
Speaker 2: At actually my great great granddaddy aka a Confederate general who's awesome, and everyone's like, yeah, wow, what a respectable person.

00:24:10
Speaker 1: I know.

00:24:10
Speaker 3: Yeah, that's one of the first things where you're just like Jesus fucking Christ. It reminded me of I guess this was sort of something that was popular in two thousand and seven, those videos where it was like stand up comedian owns audience member. But it's like random man at Ted Talk owns Nicholas Cage.

00:24:32
Speaker 2: That's exactly what happens. Because Mitch is like, what do you think happened to those missing pages of the Booth Diary? Well, I have them right here, and they prove that your ancestor, Thomas Gates, it was his idea to assassinate President Lincoln.

00:24:49
Speaker 3: And you're like, huh what, And then cut to the next scene. The whole audience is gone. We don't get to see how people react to this. For some reason, the information seems to remain fairly contained for a while. It's baffling, but I'm fully engaged. Yeah, sitting my ass down and I'm listening.

00:25:13
Speaker 2: You're like, okay, what's next? Tell me more? Yeah, So Thomas Gates's name is on one of these pages of the Booth Diary, and it makes it seem like he was the mastermind behind the assassination. And so now Ben Gates and his daddy, Patrick Gates played by John Hooyt again have to prove that their ancestor, Thomas Gates, was innocent and not the mastermind behind Lincoln's assassination.

00:25:44
Speaker 3: And it's like, get a life job, but they don't need to get a job because they have all the national treasure from the last movie, which were reminded by this big ass house that he.

00:25:57
Speaker 2: And Abigail is like a full ass.

00:26:00
Speaker 3: Also, I know he's about to come into the mix, but I felt that. Okay, first of all, very two thousand and seven choice to have ty Burrell in this movie, all but disrespectful. I think as someone who had a big crush on ty Burrell. Oh, I love a guy with big old eyebrows. But to put him in two scenes not very nice. Yeah, he's really disappeared.

00:26:28
Speaker 2: Well, Modern Family hadn't come out yet, so he wasn't He wasn't big enough, probably.

00:26:33
Speaker 3: Made to be seventeen dollars doing it.

00:26:37
Speaker 2: For Tie for Tie.

00:26:39
Speaker 3: They just made him like horny and weird. And then they're like, all right, I think he served his purpose. Let's get him out of there. Anyways, we'll get back to that because that is connected to the zero movement on making Abigail, letting Abigail. Have they let her drive a car in this one.

00:26:57
Speaker 2: That's true.

00:26:58
Speaker 3: That's about as far as it gets. Yep, bars on the floor.

00:27:03
Speaker 2: Okay, So then we cut to Riley Pool and.

00:27:07
Speaker 3: We're like, that's Justin Bartha best care. We're screaming, we love him, We're crying. He's at borders, okay, two thousands borders because he has written his own book of secrets about the Templar Treasure aka the plot of National Treasure one.

00:27:22
Speaker 2: But no one is buying his book, and his car gets towed and he owes all these back taxes and he's not doing so hot with the ladies.

00:27:33
Speaker 3: Classic these are hashtag Riley problems. I love him so much, even though he is canonically kind of a creep and always feels bad for himself. It's yeah, all these all these women coming up being like, why aren't you Nicholas Cage, And I'm like, open your eyes, ladies, before you stands a real hunk. Justin Bartha's right there. Bartha's right there. He's he's so hard on the set of Hangover Too.

00:28:03
Speaker 2: It's gonna end his relationship, but he's gonna party so hard he gets dumped. Okay, So Riley helps Ben break into his own house because Ben's girlfriend aka Abigail Chase played by Diane Krueger. But I always forget his German. Yes, correct, Yes, she has kicked Ben out of the house, out of their enormous estate.

00:28:25
Speaker 3: Good for her. He's annoying, he's so.

00:28:28
Speaker 2: Oh my gosh, I can't wait to talk about their relationship.

00:28:30
Speaker 3: Wildly obnoxious. I would also kick him out.

00:28:32
Speaker 2: Yeah, so Ben needs to steal Abigail's work badge because she still works at the archives or maybe she works at the Library of Congress.

00:28:42
Speaker 3: Now, oh literally, I don't know. She has like a plot job, like she has an ID that can get them to the next map, yeah without fail correct. Yeah, that was a bad that That was the first kind of I mean, Riley doesn't fuck up super often in this movie, but the fact that his first act is helping Ben break into a house where he's no longer welcome.

00:29:08
Speaker 2: And then Nicholas Cage will get to this, but he goes on this whole tirade about why she kicked him out, and then Riley said something like, ugh, women, you can't live with them, especially when they change the security code or whatever, and we're.

00:29:25
Speaker 3: Just like hilarious, George Bush is the President's Comedy Like ugh, Yeah, did not like that sequence very much.

00:29:37
Speaker 2: No, so Ben is stealing the work badge because he wants to take another look at this page from the Booth Diary because they think that if they can find a cipher on it, it will lead to a treasure map that will prove Thomas Gates's innocence somehow. It's a I'll understand the connection.

00:30:01
Speaker 3: I am so team Abigail on this because you're just like because she I mean, I think I've I've gotten into the habit of doing this where I'm like pitching a sun Dance movie based off of a blockbuster where she's just like she loves Ben, but he just like will not give up the idea that there's a map on fucking everything, and it ends up like completely deteriorating, deteriorating his life and their relationship because she's just like, it's over, man, you had your moment in the sun. You found the map. There's not maps everywhere, but that's not how this world works. No, there are maps everywhere.

00:30:39
Speaker 2: His obsession with maps being on everything should be the hymn partying too hard on the set of Hangover too which it should be always should end that relationship, but.

00:30:49
Speaker 3: Should it should be? Yeah, Abigail, I'm sure she has a last name, not that we hear it Chase Chase because she's always Chase saying after Treasure with her boyfriend, and Riley is always pulling up with his.

00:31:06
Speaker 2: Friends, and Ben Gates is always unlocking the gates. Think about it, the secrets that will find him the treasure.

00:31:16
Speaker 3: And then Helen Muhren's character's name is Emily Appleton because Apple was the da Vinci code. It all makes sense.

00:31:25
Speaker 1: WHOA.

00:31:26
Speaker 3: I wouldn't put it past this movie to give a character the last name Appleton because I had a ton of fun learning that the da Vinci code was Apple. I also think that every clue and the mysteries in the National Treasure movies are more fun, engaging and make more sense than the Da Vinci Code mysteries.

00:31:54
Speaker 2: But but I think we should keep covering the movies in that franchise. And Angels and Demons.

00:32:03
Speaker 3: Yeah, my god, how many people saw Angels and Demons? Was it like one or two?

00:32:09
Speaker 2: I thought it made at least two hundred million at the box office.

00:32:12
Speaker 3: Well, that's so it's certainly not doing National Treasure two numbers. That's for damn sure, no embarrassing.

00:32:17
Speaker 2: Are you looking it up?

00:32:19
Speaker 3: Yeah? It's like wait a second, hold the precess I need to find out what the global box office take of Angels and Demons was. Now what okay, came out in two thousand and nine, directed by Ron Howard m oh I have horrible news. It made half a billion.

00:32:35
Speaker 2: Dollars, so a lot of people saw it and we should cover it.

00:32:40
Speaker 3: Okay, then it that is the global impact. We do need to talk about it. It in fact made thirty million more than National Treasure too.

00:32:51
Speaker 2: Disgusting, disgusting, embarrassing for book of Secrets.

00:32:56
Speaker 3: Okay, Uh, this is okay, this is very While this movie is not really doing anything for women, I will say that the two female leads in this movie are both doctors, doctor Abigail Chase and doctor Emily Appleton Gates.

00:33:14
Speaker 2: We've got a pair of PhDs.

00:33:16
Speaker 3: We've got a lot of education between these two ladies who we don't get to see do very much. They don't do anything that they are both damseled, so that's important. They also have more, at least in the way of academic credentials than any of the men. Because even though they're constantly like better keep giving them my ID and following them around, I'm like, just let you know, well, no, I do think this just let Ed Harris kill John Voyd. You know, like, what are we doing here?

00:33:50
Speaker 2: What's the worst that could happen? Okay, So Abigail once Ben is like, there's a map on the thing, She's like, that's ridiculous. But then Ben Riley and Abigail look at the diary page under infrared and they do in fact find a cipher, which Ben of course needs to decode, but they need a five letter word first, which Ben figures out.

00:34:17
Speaker 3: It's not apple, which is not pretty scary. How could this be true? I was on the edge of my seat waiting for it to be Apple. It's not.

00:34:25
Speaker 2: So this happens in a scene where Ben is like, Dad, what's the story your granddaddy told you? And then John Voight very conveniently remembers how Thomas Gates's dying words to his son, which is John Voight's grandfather. The dying words were the debt that all men pay? And I'm over here, like, what about the debt that all women pay? Hello?

00:34:52
Speaker 3: No one cares about that. This is also I do think we probably talked about John Voight's politics in the first episode, but this movie comes out on the cusp of John Voyd going full Republican. Like it's during the two thousand and eight election that he says because he I guess had held pretty liberal views for much of his life. He like protested against the Vietnam War and then does a hard switch during the oit election in a way that certainly feels quite racist. And I'm not a big fan of Obama, but like, yeah, it's racist, and then went like, really rode for Romney, really rode for Trump has pretty despicable politics. I'm pretty sure that has some of the reason why Angelina Julie and he are not on good terms. But in any case, I'm just like, do any of these despicable political views? What was he talking about on the set of National Treasure too, Because it seems like he really underwent a pretty gross political shift, and now I need to check.

00:36:03
Speaker 2: Maybe he was Knights of the Golden Circle. Sounds interesting, Oh god, let's fucking let's fucking hope not. And then meanwhile, Nicholas Cage, I guess this kind of makes sense for his whole vibe. And I mean, this is an insult. You know, Nicholas Cage was an Andrew yank guy. It's just all a mess. It's just all kind of a disaster. But I just wanted to because I know that we talked about it the first time. But it feels like this movie comes.

00:36:30
Speaker 3: Out this like the summer, or like the this is a Christmas movie, This comes out just just months before John Voyd comes out as whatever, gross fucking Republican guy.

00:36:47
Speaker 2: Yeah.

00:36:48
Speaker 3: So that's just some interesting context to chew on and why I will be really really letting it fly with my opinions of John Voight throughout this understood.

00:37:00
Speaker 2: Yeah, Okay, So Ben is like deciphering this code. He figures out that the debt that all men pay means death, so that's the five letter word, and the cipher ends up being Labalay Lady, which refers to the Statue of Liberty.

00:37:18
Speaker 3: So I thought that was actually a pretty hot clue. Like these writers again the same writing team as the first movie, Cormack and Marianne Wibberly married couple.

00:37:30
Speaker 2: Is that right?

00:37:31
Speaker 3: Yes, they they really fired up Google for this. I was like, what the hell are they talking about? But it is pretty historically accurate that Laboulay had the idea for the Statue of Liberty, was not the one who actually designed it, but Laboulay, lady, that's a hot clue. Well you ask me. Okay, it's no apple, but it's pretty good.

00:37:54
Speaker 2: The Wibberlys are doing their research. Yes, okay, the clue who is love a Lady? It refers to the Statue of Liberty. So Ben thinks there must be a clue or a map or something on the Statue of Liberty, But not the one in New York City? Ever heard of it? Because there are three statues of Liberty, and the one they need is in Paris, France. Ever heard of that?

00:38:18
Speaker 3: This shot grips. We've already described it, but it's time to shout it out again. It's just an unbelievable shot.

00:38:30
Speaker 2: The cinematogphic down.

00:38:32
Speaker 3: From the Eiffel Tower zooming in to tiny Statue of Liberty where Riley has a drone question mark. I also just love a Justin Bartha hacking scene. He's on a flip phone, he's bitching. I just love these scenes with him where he's like making little comments at the computer.

00:38:54
Speaker 2: I love his little quips. Also, anytime he mentions his book is legiti manly good comedy there, I see.

00:39:01
Speaker 3: It's so funny. No one has read it. It's so except wait, who did there's one person in the movie who did read.

00:39:08
Speaker 2: Oh, Harvey Kayitel.

00:39:10
Speaker 3: Yes, Oh that was That was the best moment for Harvey Kayitel in the movie. It was like, Okay, he just earned his check by reading justin Bartha's Little Book, but also doesn't Bartha I would be I don't know, Riley needs self esteem because he has so many of the answers. Yeah, but no one gives a shit, No one cares. He knows about this Book of Secrets. There's a whole chapter yeah, yeah, on the Book of Secrets.

00:39:32
Speaker 2: There's that scene where he's like he's trying to explain the Book of Secrets to Nicholas Cage and he's like, if it were you trying to convince me, you'd have less evidence than I'd already believe you by now.

00:39:42
Speaker 3: And you're like, yeah, Riley, because you have really slow self esteem and we need to work on that because you're a smart guy.

00:39:48
Speaker 2: Oh Riley. Anyway, Speaking of Harvey Kytel, he is in the movie for some reason and he he's gets wind of the news dusky or sa dusky, Sa dusky. He gets wind of the news that his best friend question Mark Ben Gates is the ancestor of a guy who might have been responsible for Abe Lincoln's assassination. So now he takes an interest in this case, and I think he's kind of working to sort of discredit Ed Harris. I think, is it's what's happening, but I'm not sure it's.

00:40:28
Speaker 3: It's really like his character is for sure not necessary in the movie because yeah, and it also just like, yeah, I was also a little confused on like whose side he was on, because it just seems like he's there to like ultimately be on Nicholas Cage's side, but then kind of fuck with.

00:40:46
Speaker 2: Him, right because he's like sort of the one who tries to arrest him at the Library of Congress later.

00:40:51
Speaker 3: On, which he does in the first one too. Yeah, they love to fake arrest him, but then this time the President's like, it's all good. I love I loved the kidnap bang. I love that you looked in the Book of Secrets, page forty seven. It's our little secret. I love this shot at the end. Oh when President what's his name? President?

00:41:13
Speaker 2: Oh? What is his even name?

00:41:15
Speaker 3: Bruce Greenwood is the name of the actor. The name of the character is President of the United States. Don't worry about it. Do not worry about it. So when Nicholas Cage says I'm gonna kidnap the President of the United States, he's just using the president's full name. But I love when the President of the United States turns around and goes what book?

00:41:36
Speaker 2: Oh, I was like.

00:41:38
Speaker 3: He got so good for what book? Indeed?

00:41:43
Speaker 2: Truly Okay. So now Ben and Riley go to Paris to the little Statue of Liberty near the Eiffel Tower, and there is in fact a clue engraved on it with a reference to twins that stand resolute, and Ben figures out that this means two twin desks. Okay, One resolute desk is in the Buckingham Palace. So they go to London.

00:42:09
Speaker 3: I really enjoyed the London sequence and also history check. These are real desks. These are real ass desks, okay exist.

00:42:18
Speaker 2: Were they made from the timber from a ship called the Resolute?

00:42:22
Speaker 3: They sure were? Wow, they sure were. It is a documentary. The desks are not puzzles that I was able to find to help.

00:42:31
Speaker 2: Okay.

00:42:32
Speaker 3: Well, but there was a hidden door in the Resolute desk in the Oval office. The reason it was there. History fact, huh is that Franklin D. Roosevelt wanted to have a hinged front panel installed so that people could not see his wheelchair when he began using a wheelchair. So that is why the panel was there, which they referenced in the movie. Yes, And so this movie you can learn a lot by watching this movie. It's a history book basically, mostly just trivia. I wouldn't say you learned much about that. Themes you don't learn much about, you know, harping constantly harping and obsessing over founding father related history, how it crumbles silas, Yeah, and how building entire franchises around white Americans really hyper fixating on their ancestry is maybe not the best use of time more money. But they were real desks, and so that's not nothing perfect. Yeah.

00:43:41
Speaker 2: Okay. So meanwhile, Mitch Wilkinson again that's the Ed Harris character. He finds out about the progress that Ben is making and he taps Ben's phone so that he can run surveillance on Ben and like spy on him and keep track of where Ben is and what he's doing. Now back in London, Ben and Riley and Abigail, who shows up for reasons plan a little heist. They break into the Queen's office, they solve the little puzzle on the desk, and inside they find an old piece of wood with writing on it of an indigenous language. Yes, we will talk more about this, but this.

00:44:30
Speaker 3: Is just I mean, that is I think one of the movie's greatest gigantic flaws is how because the second you, or at least I might in my notes, the second that you learn that this convoluted secret is related to Indigenous Americans, I'm like, well, they're for sure going to fumble this, oh yeah, massively, And sure enough they do.

00:44:54
Speaker 2: They really, really really do. Yes, we'll discuss this more in a bit. But in the meantime, Ben, Riley, and Abigail escape the palace with this piece of wood, but Mitch and his goons chase them. They're shooting at them. And then there's this ridiculous thing where Ben runs a red light, knowing that a traffic cam will take a photo, so he holds the piece of wood up for the photo. Then he throws the wood in the river. Then he gets Riley to hack the traffic cams to get a copy of the photo, which is somehow high resolution enough where they can still read the writing on it, and.

00:45:38
Speaker 3: I what part of that was challenging for you? Because I was like, makes sense basic order of operations. That was so The wooden panel they find reminds me of like Star Wars nine, where they have a similar thing where you have to like hold it against the horizon and that's how you figure out you're in the right place. And again I will give National Treasure to the edge of handle.

00:46:04
Speaker 2: Ledge of history.

00:46:06
Speaker 3: They're well, I'm not enough to watch it, but I was. I was intrigued. That sequence felt like having a heart attack. It felt like watching uncut gems. Like I was just like, what the hell am I looking at?

00:46:22
Speaker 2: Because it throws it into the river and Mitch's goons easily retrieve it, So.

00:46:28
Speaker 3: Like why is it so easy? Why them Like yeah, and they just loop that, they just have it.

00:46:34
Speaker 2: I guess Nicholas Cage did that to get them off their tail, like to get the bad guys off their tail. But there had to be a better way than throwing the one clue they have right now into a river a body of water. It's also like it's the type of thing that like white people would be like, oh, let's steal this and put in a museum like it's this like incredible ancient artifact, and then Ben is just like carelessly handling it and then like throwing it, oh into a river, like it's this Ben Gates.

00:47:05
Speaker 3: The thing is like Ben Gates, I don't even think gives a shit about American history. He just gives a shit about fresh family specifically and money, like which is a very I think, like jingoistic white American trait. It's like, it feels like a very like American individualist character, like I care about myself and my money and my guys, and that's it. I don't actually give a shit about other people. I don't care about historical accuracy as it pertains to anyone outside of my immediate family. He is a very narrow minded man that Benjamin Franklin Gates.

00:47:40
Speaker 2: The steaks in this movie and him right, the stakes in this movie are my family name has been besmirched, and I have to fix it. Like a guy who's been dead for a century might have a bad reputation, but because he's related to me, and I can't handle that with my ego. I have to go find treasure, which somehow will you know who is fixed the reputation.

00:48:06
Speaker 3: You know, who is the relative of a very old timey serial killer, Maggie may Fish. Is she stealing the president trying to clear his name? No, she let it go.

00:48:23
Speaker 2: Yeah, Oh my god, that's what you gotta do.

00:48:25
Speaker 3: People should learn from her.

00:48:28
Speaker 2: Exactly.

00:48:28
Speaker 3: Yeah, she's been I mean she what has she done? She has instead spent her time on earth healing the fish name by being herself.

00:48:37
Speaker 2: People should what's the expression, like, take a page out of Maggie's Book of secrets.

00:48:43
Speaker 3: Yeah, wow, yeah, take a look at Maggie's page forty seven because it looks a little different. Yeah, okay, okay, she's talked about that publicly. It's fine. Yeah yeah, yeah, yeah. Yes.

00:48:54
Speaker 2: I also knew this because I think she mentions it on.

00:48:58
Speaker 3: Behind the Bastards.

00:48:59
Speaker 2: Oh that's right, that's right. Okay. So they now have this photo of this piece of wood with Riley mm hmm, with the indigenous writing on it. They take the photo to Ben's mom, who is played by Helen Mirren and who is a professor of something. We don't know what.

00:49:23
Speaker 3: It is stated. It is stated, it's it is like it did seem like they went at least not that this is a big compliment, but they did like say what it was. It was. It was just kind of too smart for me. It was like something like archaeology something. Okay, Like she this is a this is a puzzle family. Her puzzles are ancient languages, which seems like a better use of time than what the Gates are doing. Yes, the way her character is introduced, which we'll also get into later, but oh my god, it is just John Voight being like, oh yeah, yie, this broad that is very much the vibe.

00:50:04
Speaker 2: Quit nagging me.

00:50:06
Speaker 3: Wait till you order a couch with this broad and you're like enough stock. I understand where Benjamin Franklin Gates gets his attitudes on women standing up for themselves as being annoying. Yeah, and disrespectful. Meanwhile, Riley Poole Man of the Century single awful doesn't make disgusting makes no sense.

00:50:30
Speaker 2: Okay. So anyway, they take the photo to Helen Mirren, who translates it. But it's only half of the message because they still have to go to the other resolute desk, which is in the White House because it's the President of the United States desk. So they sneak into the Oval Office during the White House Easter egg Hunt.

00:50:56
Speaker 3: This is a typeer. I mean, that is a real thing, right, I remember because I have seen pictures of Why have I seen pictures of that?

00:51:05
Speaker 2: God?

00:51:05
Speaker 3: Who cares? This is such a weird, awful place to live? Why do I know that? I did know that? But that's related to ty Burrell. Yes, Tyberrell is the reason they have the inn at the egg Hunt, because that's we We haven't brought him up yet except to say that spoiler work, this is the last time you'll ever see him, but he's I did like the detail that Abigail moves on instantly where I Abigail, I would do the same. And also Tyberell vibe wise over Nicholas Cage Vibeise inter relationships seems like a better bet.

00:51:45
Speaker 2: Huge upgrade.

00:51:47
Speaker 3: Yes, but they're like, oh, this guy sucks. He's in charge of the egg hunt.

00:51:52
Speaker 2: Right, So Abigail had been seeing this guy Connor, that's Tyberrell, no last name, you know. So they call upon him to help them get into the Oval office.

00:52:06
Speaker 3: Yeah, They're like, let's not use Abigail's credentials or skills, let's use her body. Yeah, to accomplish this yes, and it'll be funny mm hmm. And that's just kind of the internal logic of this scene.

00:52:17
Speaker 2: Right, And then so Ben solves the puzzle on the desk, but the other piece of wood with the rest of the treasure map on it, which they think is going to be in the desk, is missing, and in its place is a seal stamped into the wood, which they think is the presidential seal, but it's slightly different. And this is where Riley's time to shine comes because he's like, no, that's the symbol for the President's Secret Book, which is a collection of documents for presidents by presidents.

00:52:56
Speaker 3: And honestly, okay, would you I think that we've reached a point in history where our generation has witnessed so much absurdity. I would believe that there's a book of secrets.

00:53:14
Speaker 2: I think there's probably a whole library's worth of secrets.

00:53:20
Speaker 3: I think that that would be a better movie than a book of secrets. And I also wouldn't be shocked, just out of the shearing competence of the American system, that it would be in a public library.

00:53:32
Speaker 2: Yeah. I don't know.

00:53:34
Speaker 3: Much like this book of secrets. H what was on page forty seven, John Turtle Top will never know tell I was on page forty seven. I love Oh, it's one of my favorites. It's setting up a sequel that never happens. Oh, Chef's kiss. It's like the end of I Frankenstein when they're like to say, You're like, what the fuck are they talking about? We'll never know. Damn, I'll never know.

00:53:59
Speaker 2: Hey, there's no sequel to I Frankenstein yet.

00:54:04
Speaker 3: It's gonna be the ten year anniversary of I Frankenstein in about six months, and I am gonna rent out a movie theater and you, of course are invited. It's gonna be huge. It's gonna be major incredible. Yeah.

00:54:17
Speaker 2: So we learn about this book of secrets that only the presidents know about. But also so does Riley Poole somehow, so does Harvey Kaitel. A lot of people know about this secret book and they assume that that's where the other half of this map is. But how are they gonna get to the President's secret book? And this is when Ben pitches his incredible idea, wherein he says, I'm gonna kidnap him. I'm going to kidnap the president of the United States, and then.

00:54:51
Speaker 3: Everyone goes, yeah, everyone loses it because we love when Ben goes off the because it always works out for him. Then John Voyd, i will say, does a hell of a line read here where he goes, I'm your father. How am I supposed to react to that? You're just like, okay, yeah, fair, But he secretly loves it because two seconds later, the like Ben has to do so little to get his debt on board for the worst ideas ever because his dad is also like secretly into it the whole time. But like he's like, I'm gonna kidnap the president of the United States, and John Voyd's like, oh my gosh, no, we can't do that. And then Nicholas Cage is like, well there's a map. He's like, oh, oh, well, okay if there's a map, And that's why if we're kidnapping him for a map, this family loves map We're mam, guys, God, I hate them saying so much, but it's like, it's so weird having a character that you can't stand who is never wrong. It's like, just it breaks me.

00:55:58
Speaker 2: It's infuriating. Also, so they should rename this franchise map Quest because they're always going on quests to find maps.

00:56:07
Speaker 3: To find it, and one map leads to another, leads to another.

00:56:10
Speaker 2: Which does eventually lead to treasure. They're right about that, and.

00:56:14
Speaker 3: Then you get a half a billion dollars. It's so it is. I mean, Nicholas Cage knows what he's doing when he says the line I'm going to kidnap the President of the United States. No way did they need a second take on that? That was really.

00:56:29
Speaker 2: Special, And as we pointed out in the first National Treasure episode, it's basically the same exact line read like the same intonation as when he says I'm gonna steal it. I'm gonna steal the Declaration of Independence. He just copy paste same thing, except now it's a human person who is the President of the United States.

00:56:51
Speaker 3: He is, in fact the President of the United States. Oh, and then the movie gets goofy. It becomes extremely goofy.

00:57:00
Speaker 2: Before that it was a goofy movie, and now it's an extremely goofy movie.

00:57:04
Speaker 3: We've cranked it up to an eleven. We're like, yes, this is no more thinking for the rest of the movie.

00:57:11
Speaker 2: So what happens next is Ben Riley, Abigail and Patrick orchestrate another heist where they infiltrate the president's birthday party at a hotel called Mount Vernon, which they're able to do because they like book up a bunch of other hotels as if an event for the president. They couldn't just be like, sorry, I don't care that your retirement party is here. I'm the president. My plans override yours.

00:57:41
Speaker 3: Yeah, move the retirement party.

00:57:43
Speaker 2: Yeah. But they're acting like, oh my god, this is already booked up. We need to find another place for the president's birthday party.

00:57:50
Speaker 3: So, as stated earlier, the Wibberleies once again are googling up a storm because there is a secret basement beneath Mount Vernon where you can example, kid briefly kidnapped the president of the United States.

00:58:03
Speaker 2: Uh huh, yes, great, so I love that. And this president was an architectural history major from Yale.

00:58:13
Speaker 3: Also, you're like, this guy sucks boom, No one harvs your credent cheese.

00:58:19
Speaker 2: It's like, you know, when you major in architectural history and then you become the president of the United States.

00:58:26
Speaker 3: What's next? In English major? A failed real estate heir? Be serious? Yeah, that's a little topical humor for me.

00:58:35
Speaker 2: Ha ha ha ha.

00:58:37
Speaker 3: Anyways, yeah, I think it is just that was just a weird detail to add for a character. They didn't even give a first or last name to Why do I know what degree this man has? But I don't know what his name government name is.

00:58:51
Speaker 2: Yeah, we're not sure anyway. So Ben goes up to the President at the party at Mount Vernon and tricks him into following Ben into the basement to find this secret underground tunnel. And then Ben is like, I need to know where your book of secrets is, mister President, And then the President is like, ti he, what are you talking about. But then after some like impassioned speech about something something American history who knows, the president is like, okay, fine, the book does exist, and it's in the Library of Congress and here's a bunch of numbers that you'll need to know.

00:59:34
Speaker 3: The way he buckles is just shocking. It's so fast, Like yeah, Also, how quickly he agrees to go into the basement with Nicholas Cage is hilarious.

00:59:45
Speaker 2: It's so funny.

00:59:46
Speaker 3: Like Nicholas, I mean, he is a very charismatic guy, but he's just like, I don't know can I come to the basement. And he's like, sure, let's let's do it. Like he's had like a couple of white claws and he's like, let's do it. Let's get down to the basement.

01:00:00
Speaker 2: Happy birthday to me. And then he's like, Secret Service guys, get the fuck out of here. I'm with my new friend.

01:00:05
Speaker 3: Oh my god. There is one guy I I they none of the Secret Service agents get names, but there's one guy who is like acting. He's like, I need a sledgehammer, I need a gun. You're like, oh my god, he's like really going for it. It was so funny anyways, but yeah, this president is just a real dunce, like he is just given away. He just says, okay, fine, there's a book of secrets, and then literally, like Nicholas Cage's character, Benjamin Franklin Gates, famously untrustworthy, famously addicted to breaking the laws, does not believe consequences apply to them, and they don't in this world, never do. Why would you, as the president who knows who Benjamin Franklin Gates is and that he famous doesn't listen to anybody, be like, okay, honor system, promise to not read all of the secrets, Like what are you talking about? He's using me?

01:01:10
Speaker 2: And then not only that, he's like, look at an extra secret. Take a gander at page forty seven.

01:01:16
Speaker 3: He's like, don't look up whether the moon landing happened, promise, but like the check out page forty seven and fine and clear your and like, I don't know, it is truly like such American like white supremacy, exceptionalism. This conversation they have in the basement where the president is like, I really admire how you want to clear your dumb ass family's name again, blah blah blah, Like here's every secret in the entire world. Promise you'll only read the one about your grandpoppy or whatever. You're just like this fuck, this is just I mean, it's camp because it has to be. Yeah, but this president is just like such a trusting man.

01:02:04
Speaker 2: Yes. Also, I feel like the actor who plays him who I like, Bruce Greenwood. He's in The Star Trucks, ton of stuff. Yeah, I feel like he's who they call when Sam Neil isn't available.

01:02:16
Speaker 3: Oh I do. But he does have very like TV president face. Yeah, yeah, he's been in a lot of stuff. I really liked him. In the two thousands, the jj Abrams start.

01:02:29
Speaker 2: The star trucks.

01:02:30
Speaker 3: Yeah. Same. I think he's a fun guy, and I'll say it he did. He was. He was the President of the United States for me. And then at the end, the fact that he has the audacity to say what book of Secrets? I was like, you have no vested interest in people not knowing about this damn book of secrets? You told the first notorious thief who asked, like, what is rough? Ugh, We're fucked.

01:03:00
Speaker 2: Yeah it's true. Okay, so oh we're still doing the recap Ben. Okay. So Ben now has the information he needs to access the Book of Secrets. So he runs off and heads to the Library of Congress with Riley and Abigail. They find the Book of Secrets and inside is a photograph of the other half of the map, along with an entry from President Coolidge with a reference to Mount Rushmore, and Ben is like Borglum carved Mount Rushmore to destroy the map's landmarks to protect the City of Gold. So they figure out.

01:03:41
Speaker 3: That the city of what right. The fact that they managed to turn it up turn up the heat from kidnapping the president. I was genuinely impressed because it's like, at that point you gotta go City of Gold.

01:03:53
Speaker 2: There had been some references prior to this about Cibola, which is this like legendary lost city of Gold.

01:04:01
Speaker 3: But if you have two brain cells like I do you need Nichol's Cage to be like there is a city of Gold underneath Mount Rushmore, And it's like, oh m hmm, that's.

01:04:10
Speaker 2: And that Mount Rushmore was a cover up to protect the whereabouts of the City of Gold.

01:04:17
Speaker 3: You'll never think to look underneath Mount Rushmore, just like you'll never think to I mean, that's sort of like what this whole franchise is predicated on. Like you would never think to pour a bunch of aquafina water bottles on Mount Rushmore to find the city of Gold. You just wouldn't.

01:04:37
Speaker 2: You would never think to look on the Declaration of Independence for a map to the Templar's Treasure for.

01:04:44
Speaker 3: A bunch of old white supremacists. No, I don't think you would think that. But but someone is thinking that, and he's constantly being rewarded for it. I for some reason, it maybe just I was absolutely delighted that because whatever we're about to get to this when they go to my Rashmore. They have to pour water on to find the state whatever. Yeah, but that they but the movie had the foresight to get a water bottle company to like do product placement. Yeah, Like, well, Aquafina, do you want to be the most American water bottle? And Aguafina said, sure thing. Yeah, yeah. Desanni found dead in a ditch National Traders water bottle.

01:05:27
Speaker 2: Yeah, makes you think.

01:05:29
Speaker 3: Yeah, So Aquafina reveals the At this point, you're just like, what the fuck is even happening? Cut to the City of Gold, Like, what's going on?

01:05:38
Speaker 2: Yeah, So the FBI are closing in on them on account of Ben having kidnapped the President of the United States, but they escape. Meanwhile, Mitch pays Helen Mirren a visit and shows her a letter from the Queen of England to his ancestor, once again a Confederate general. It contains a clue that they need to find the City of Gold, but he burns the letter and he's like, now I'm the only one who can find Cibola, and then he kidnapps Helen Mirren and takes her to Mount Rushmore, where Ben, Riley, Abigail and Patrick already are because they figured it out that they need to go there, and then they kind of like reluctantly all team up to search for this city of Gold, and they're pouring aquafina onto the rocks.

01:06:34
Speaker 3: Nick Cage does a hilarious fake out where he's like, oh, my hands just kidding. Oh, I was laughing.

01:06:41
Speaker 2: So there's a few moments that I feel like we're kind of borrowed from Jurassic Park in this movie because, again, not to bring up Sam Neille again, he does that with the like t Rex Gate, he pretends to be electricuted and he gets in several arguments with children in that movie.

01:07:01
Speaker 3: Nick Cage only does it once, but he does it so it's so funny because it's like Nick Cage is doing things that Sam Neil would do, but he's just doing it in a way that's so annoying to watch and the Cage I prefer it. We haven't gotten to Nick caje argument. I mean, it happened a while ago, because it doesn't matter to the plot, but it mattered to our culture.

01:07:26
Speaker 2: Yeah, exactly. Yes, So, based on Mitch's clue, they pour water all over the rocks, which reveals an eagle engraved into the rocks, and then there's a secret latch that opens a secret door and they go inside this like cave catacomb type place where most of it immediately collapses and they get trapped inside, so they have to keep moving onward into the cave. There are various obstacles like this like platform that's tilting all over the place. Then they get into a room with a bunch of water that they think is a dead end, but they stop the flow of water and then are able to go downward, and then that's where they discover the city of Gold. And as they are oohing and aweing over the city, the water starts bursting through again and it starts flooding the city. So now they have to find the drain. But Mitch is a bad guy again suddenly, and he's like, we're not leaving until you agree to say that I discovered the City of Gold, because he's also obsessed with like family legacy. Shit.

01:08:38
Speaker 3: Yeah, but he's ed Harris, so he is going to like lose. But the I just wanted to quickly shout out the platform scene because I remember seeing the platform scene in theaters and I think it's a really well done scene. I still get a little bit of anxiety watching the platform scene even today. It's where again the team is very quick to agree that Riley would be the first to die. Poor this poor man needs to like go to a trivia night, like he needs to like make new friends. Period. He's gotten, you know, he's got at least gotten something out of this, you know, kind of emotionally abusive friendship he's in with Nicholas Cage.

01:09:18
Speaker 2: You gotta read Ferrari out of it.

01:09:20
Speaker 3: You gotta read Ferrari. He got this book deal. Get the fuck out of there, man, Seriously, he doesn't care about you. He doesn't care about you.

01:09:27
Speaker 2: No, he didn't even read your book. He didn't even open your book from its packaging.

01:09:31
Speaker 3: And Abigail also, you know, for all the disrespects she's given, she doesn't give a rats ass about Riley either. She leaves him for dead instantly because this movie also does. I noticed, and I think that this is like an action movie trope that we've discussed in the past. There's a very like unspoken women and children first ethos to this movie. Definitely, it's always like a very you know, hypermasculine, Like I'm John Voyd, I better check this swinging vine before I bring and we were in on the You're just like fucking whatever, Like Abigail has to be the first to get off the mysterious platform. Meanwhile Justin Bartha dead Like yeah, clearly he's the weakest link. You're just like, leave this poor man alone. Although Justin Bartha has big, Justin Long wasn't available vibes. Have we talked about that? I think we have. Yeah, yeah, I mean Justin Lung wasn't available for this, and that's good because Justin Bartha made the partisan.

01:10:29
Speaker 2: We love him in this role.

01:10:30
Speaker 1: We do.

01:10:32
Speaker 2: Okay, So the city is flooding and Ed Harris is like, I need to be the one to discover this. But then some stuff happens. I don't even quite track it.

01:10:46
Speaker 3: There's a crank, there's some there's a door, it's flooded. Deal, and then gives a shit.

01:10:53
Speaker 2: Basically, it culminates in Mitch getting left behind Slash. He decides to sacrifice himself so the others can escape, and so he dies. N then they get out of all the they like leave the cave. Harvey Kaitel's there to arrest Ben, but then the president is there and he's like I love this guy. He saved my life. He did not kidnap me. Don't believe the rumors ti he and he says to Riley, what is.

01:11:24
Speaker 3: Definitely not a book of secrets? Wink, You're just like this guy sucks. This guy is so bad at being the president.

01:11:31
Speaker 2: Then we cut to people excavating the city of Gold Ye yikes, and then some shit happens. Riley meets a fangirl of his. Ben and Abigail get back together and the kiss and is disgusting.

01:11:47
Speaker 3: And then pan up to Mount Rushford. Do Do Do Do Do do the end.

01:11:53
Speaker 2: Let's take another break and we'll come back to discuss and we're back.

01:12:05
Speaker 3: Shall we begin by discussing the women of this movie before we get into blatant indigenous history fumbling fump. Yes, yes, because it just feels sort of like a continuation and in an addition to our discussion of National Treasure One, where a huge thing with National Treasure One as well as because I would like lump in the Da Vinci Code kind of into this discussion because it came out in the same stretch of years and has many of the same issues. Even though I think National Treasure franchise as far as watchability, far and beyond way better. But that a big issue we have with National Treasure One is that Abigail it feels like a very two thousands era writing convention to give Abigail a lot of academic credential. She is not written as just like I think the way that often Indiana Jones characters are written of just like a lady, and here's a lady. She doesn't have any skills, but she's gonna be around for it, And so it feels like a very superficial advancement of those writing conventions where it's like, no, now she's very qualified and like they're But still, ultimately, the way that these characters are used within the plot of an action movie is not much different.

01:13:31
Speaker 2: They're not allowed to contribute the knowledge that they allegedly have. They're not allowed to do really much of anything to push the story forward, except for like little crumbs here and there. I took inventory of the handful of things that Abigail does that pushes the story forwards.

01:13:50
Speaker 3: I felt like she's mostly treated as like I mean she it just felt like it was she was almost used as like a narrative device to be like, oh well, how would Ben get in there? Abigail's ID and that's like sort of yeah, like she's not doing very much. She's just giving them access to a lot of.

01:14:06
Speaker 2: Things for sure, or she's like doing something kind of careless and it pushes the story forward in that way. For example, she's meeting with Ed Harris for some reason, I don't know why. They're like getting drinks together, but then she gets a call from Ben who is like, we figured out the clue. And then so now she's like loudly talking about the clue within earshot of Ed Harris, so he like figures things out because she's just like being careless, right, So it's technically her doing something to push the story forward, but not in the way you'd want, not in.

01:14:39
Speaker 3: An informed or intelligent way, yeah, right, which is like you know, like characters can make mistakes. But it just yeah, it just felt like she that was just like well someone It didn't feel unique to her in any way exactly, and like it's not really something that you would expect her character to do. Yeah, something that had to.

01:14:55
Speaker 2: Happen exactly, So it doesn't even track. But that's a scene that takes place, Like you mentioned, she drives a car so she helps Ben escape from the Library of Congress. She knows where the special books are in the Library of Congress. She does use her like quote unquote feminine wiles to distract this man she's stringing along ty Burrell so that the male protagonist of the movie can do the important things, aka solve the desk puzzle.

01:15:26
Speaker 3: Yeah. I hated that. That was that felt like a regression on the two thousand and four movie where yeah, yeah, and then there's like a really protracted joke about like I'm making out with ty Burrell's that Nicholas He's just like ough this, I don't know. It felt like super dated for two thousand and seven.

01:15:46
Speaker 2: Yeah, it really did. Yeah, she is the one who finds the bird on the rocks, but only because Nicholas Cage had figured out the clue of like, oh, we need to pour these aquafina water bottles on the rocks.

01:15:58
Speaker 3: That was yeah, that was like chance that it.

01:15:59
Speaker 2: Was her exactly. And then she does get damseled when Ed Harris holds her at knife point when he's trying to escape the flooded room.

01:16:10
Speaker 3: It's it's so close to the end of the movie too, where I was like, well, because at this point Helen Mirren has been damseled already. Yes, also John Voyight has kind of been damseled, so like maybe it's a generational damseling in this one, but it's like, no, it happens to Abigail the last second too.

01:16:26
Speaker 2: Yeah, and then she kind of like she doesn't really join the group in their like map quest if you will until Ben and Riley are in London, and then she kind of gets involved because Ben picks this like fake fight with her and we'll talk about their relationship also, but they're like arguing and she doesn't even realize they're arguing.

01:16:49
Speaker 3: But then but then at some point she does that was maybe that was like lost in the performance too, But I was like.

01:16:56
Speaker 2: Didn't scan for me at all, There's no indication she gets what's happening. Yeah, so that was shitty. But then he tries to go look at the Queen's desk without her. He's like always just trying to exclude her from things. He's like, no, it's too dangerous. She does go along, and she does suggest that the code on the desk might be a year, but she doesn't figure out which year it's. Ben who figures that out. So all this to say, her contributions in the story are either like by pure coincidence or her making a mistake, or her she maybe like contributes five to ten percent of the thing while Ben is doing the majority of it. It's all stuff like.

01:17:45
Speaker 3: That, right, I think. And that was similar to the first one, and it also really reminds me of Marian Courtyard in the DaVinci Code and other women were told is hypercompetent but is not actually allowed to behave that way.

01:17:57
Speaker 2: Within Oh you mean Audrey tattoo.

01:18:00
Speaker 3: Oh my gosh, I'm being anti French. Yes, I do ada tattoo. Yes, yes, which sucks and is a convention that I think we still see in movies now where it's like I feel like there's like a tacit understanding, where it's like, well, we can't just have like you know, but it's I don't know, it's we've talked about it before. I find it really frustrating to go out of your way to write a competent character and then be like, but don't worry, she's not gonna do anything. I felt like for me, the highlight for Abigail in this movie was comment during the car during the car chase. That was a cool sequence. I like that she and Riley were just like on kind of a side quest together, and that they almost killed a cop. That was fun. True, that was a treat. The rest, yeah, she wasn't really allowed to do very much. I thought it was very interesting and by interesting I do mean lazy that they wrote basically an identical character to Abigail to be Ben's mom. Let's go through her, because it's, first of all, it's disrespectful to write Helen Mirren a shitty part. Don't waste this woman's time. She's a legend, I know, but they did. They wrote her Emily Appleton Gates much in the way that we learn how Ben views Abigail, which is like I love her, but this ball and change, she doesn't get me.

01:19:27
Speaker 2: She's so annoying. She's always nagging me, mama, right.

01:19:33
Speaker 3: And then we see an identical dynamic between presented uncritically really between John Voyd and Helen Mirren. I felt like it was marginally more self aware in that relationship, which isn't saying very much. But I don't know, like, yeah, so Helen Miren is playing this like archaeologist. She specializes in ancient language like something something plot translate, yes, and so she does do a number of things throughout the movie to help them true and she does. I did appreciate, and again this is like crumbs, but I did appreciate that in most of the moments where John Voight would criticize her, she would not accept that criticism and would be like, no, you were seeing puzzles everywhere, and I had to raise our son by myself. Yeah, and like I also wanted to go on quests, but no one was raising our son due to your puzzle issue. And her character's pretty consistent on that issue. And I liked it, like, and I liked it she was doing stuff. I liked her relationship with Ben. There is no relationship with Abigail, but they hugged for some reason. I liked how Riley introduced himself to her at the end of the movie. That was fun.

01:20:54
Speaker 2: Yeah, he's like, by the way, I'm Riley Pool, author of the Templar Treasure.

01:21:00
Speaker 3: Boo. But I felt like, certainly an underwritten character, but better written than Abigail unfortunately. Yeah, but that's why it made it so confusing to me that she randomly gets back together with John Void at the end of the movie, because we are led to believe that she would never do that.

01:21:23
Speaker 2: Yeah, here's my theory. So, as she says in the movie, when John Voy first shows up in her office, she's like, we didn't love each other. It was just excitement, adrenaline and tequila, which is a pretty sick burn. Good honestly to tell your ex husband.

01:21:40
Speaker 3: And she keeps calling back the tequila.

01:21:43
Speaker 2: Yeah, yes, So she basically says like, I never loved you. I was just horny and we were going on adventures and that was exciting. So maybe it's just that because they went on this other adventure, she's horny again for him and that's why they kiss.

01:22:00
Speaker 3: But but then she's like, I.

01:22:01
Speaker 2: Thought that was another mistake. I'm gonna go back to my university and keep ignoring you.

01:22:07
Speaker 3: And you know that information is actually like what would have happened to them? That is written somewhere, but unfortunately it's page forty seven of the President's Book of Secrets, so we will never know what happens. And if the Gates I was just like, why did we need a Nicholas Cage parent trap in this movie? Was that necessary? Like I would say, no, he's in his forties and it's not necessary for him to have a parent trap at this late stage.

01:22:34
Speaker 2: And he doesn't even have a twin to help him.

01:22:36
Speaker 3: It doesn't Yeah, first of all, he couldn't pull it off well, although I think Riley could help. Sure, he could hack his parents to make them love each other again. Yeah, but yeah, I thought that that was a very like callous undercutting of like, not a great well thought out character, but the best written woman character we've seen a national treasure so far. And then they totally undercut her at the end by being like and she kind of apologizes to John Voyd a little bit. She like is a secondary party to the adventure, just like she said she always hated being and then she kisses him at the end, and you're just like, well, we certainly lost track of this character in the third act. Yes, she's also damseled, as is Abigail. She does do one thing, Well, what did you think of this? I guess I was sort of neutral on this as a plot point where Ed Harris is like, you better not tell John Vod what this means, or else kill him, and he shows he has like an old timey pistol and you're like, huh, okay, interesting plan. And so she has the knowledge but can't give it to John Void and then she insults him and then is like, I wish I hadn't drink that tequila. I hate this man. I didn't hate that scene because it wasn't like she she had the information, but she couldn't do to the old timey pistol.

01:24:05
Speaker 2: So here's my interpretation and problem with this scene. Okay, So she doesn't tell him the truth. She gives him like a fake translation that has something to do with a hummingbird. Yeah, and she tells that to John Voight. John Voight brings that information to Nicholas Cage, which he realizes off screen is a clue, and he's like, wow, mom, good work with the hummingbird clue. But we don't understand what it is, what that's a reference to.

01:24:33
Speaker 3: So we can't bad writing.

01:24:34
Speaker 2: It's just bad writing. Because and so like if we could see her logic and we understand why she gave this particular clue and what it refers to and blah blah blah, then we could see like, oh, she's smart.

01:24:46
Speaker 3: Because yeah, she secretly gave the right answer.

01:24:49
Speaker 2: Yeah, something like that.

01:24:50
Speaker 3: But I honestly didn't even register that because this movie, I just feel like at some point my brain's just like loop, like it just turns to goo and I'm just like, he's gonna find it City of Gold. I better just sit my ass down and watch.

01:25:04
Speaker 2: I do think the movie is relying on your brain, like everyone's brain doing that so they don't question the very bad logic that's always happening.

01:25:12
Speaker 3: That's why they make Nicholas Cage periodically argue with children and do other things that don't matter, so that you're just.

01:25:18
Speaker 2: Like, whoa, that's funny, and it is it is, and they are correct. But that would have been so much more satisfactory if we understood the clue that she gives that is actually like helpful, But we don't understand, so it's just like a blah nothing thing.

01:25:36
Speaker 3: And what's more, we get the really frustrating convention that we see in movies all the time, where it's like a sequel time we got a second woman, but she's not gonna be talking to the one from the first movie, even though they're constantly in the same scenes and in the same rooms. I believe that, I mean, this is getting a little ahead of her, but it's like they say hello to each other at one point, they hug a couple of times, but they never talk, which is so wild because it seems like the movie has lazily like the only way you could, for me justify this writing two very similar characters, which I mean, to be fair, Patrick Gates, Benjamin Franklin Gates very similar guys. Yeah, so okay, if that's not, you know, a lazy gendered choice, I think that you owe it to those characters to let them talk to each other. Do I think if these women had a scene together they would talk about anything other than the puzzle? Guys? Probably not. But I think that like even having I mean, any scene between these two characters makes a lot of sense, and the movie's just like not interested in scene that I think would have been really good and like firmly, firmly fits within the context of this world. But of course we don't get that in this Jerry Bruckheimer movie, because why would we?

01:26:59
Speaker 2: Why would frustrating? Can we talk a little bit more about Abigail's relationship to Ben, which is very reflective of what it was like in the first movie, where he spends most of the first movie being like, shut up, you're so annoying. Quit being so angry at me that I stole the Declaration of Independence. You're overreacting, blah blah blah.

01:27:20
Speaker 3: This is now canon to their relationship, and she's fine with it, question Mark.

01:27:24
Speaker 2: Well until she kicks him out of the house. So basically, he's explaining to Riley why Abigail kicked him out of their house, and he says something like, oh, she kept saying stuff like, oh, Ben, I guess you think my opinion doesn't matter. I guess you always know what's best, So I guess I'm invisible. And so what he's describing is him being a shitty, condescending, inattentive partner. And as he's relaying this information to Riley, he's framing it like, what a bitch, how dare she think I'm dismissive of her and her feelings.

01:28:05
Speaker 3: Which could be a legitimate story choice if he grows and changes in any way throughout the course of the movie, and then even then she doesn't need to take him back. H Right, But that doesn't You didn't even get the chance to consider that because Benjamin Franklin Gates, like many people will never change, He will never improve, he will never stop seeing puzzles, and he will never stop telling his girlfriend to shut the hell up. And so that is someone that you leave. But yeah, it was really really frustrating where when that happened, because I didn't remember the ins and outs of the emotional journey of National Treasure too, Whereas like, is there any chance that he or John Voight, who I like think is like a fraction a millimeter ahead of Ben's character in like at least he is criticized to his face and sort of takes it. He pon. It doesn't mean that he changes very much, but he doesn't, you know, say shut up, you know, in the way that Ben tends to when criticized by anyone, especially Abigail. But Ben doesn't change at all. He does the whole movie from the first one over again but more and then at the end she's And I feel like it also played into this was just like I think this was just bad writing, but I feel like it played into this like trope that surrounds women of like, well, well, actually, I don't know what did you think about this? Like there was this like thing that came up A couple of times where they're having this argument in England and she says, I think, like not the worst point where he like makes assumptions about her and then acts on those assumptions instead of having a conversation with her. And she's like, even if you think you know the answer to what I'm going to say, and even if you're right, you still have to have that conversation with me. Yeah, which is basic emotional intelligence, but like, okay, interesting that they had that conversation. He does not learn from this, and he does not change because in the last shot of the movie, he makes an assumption about what she's thinking and feeling because she says the word so, and he's like, well, when you say the word so, you're mad. And then she sort of repeats a more convoluted version of what she said earlier in the movie, which is, no, you can't just tell me what I feel based on a weird assumption You're making. What I meant to say is I love you and move back in with me. And so it is like almost like I was like, ooh, where is this going? Is this gonna go anywhere? Of course it's not, because I feel like the weird conclusion it reaches like women don't actually say what they mean, which is like.

01:30:44
Speaker 2: Right, and again he does not earn this invitation to move back in with her because he has demonstrated zero growth.

01:30:54
Speaker 3: So it's just like and not for nothing, What does this mean for typearell tyberal things. He's about to get married.

01:31:02
Speaker 2: Yeah, he just got hardcore made out with in the Oval office. He's got a raging boner for weeks from that.

01:31:10
Speaker 3: Probably he and Riley should hang out because they just like I think that they just need to like start getting drinks on the weekend and like being buds because yeah, they're just being disrespected right and left. Yeah, No, I mean it's like hard to talk about Abigail and Ben's relationship because it's like she much like the first movie, and I think even more in this one, like just behave so irrationally, like not in a way that makes sense, And I feel like it's a little if I'm remembering correctly, it's a little tighter in the first movie because you're meeting her for the first time and so she pushes back more. But now it's just like, well, obviously she's in love with Nicholas Cage, so we could kind of have her do anything, they're gonna end up back together, and that feels like maybe why the writing in Helen Mirren's character is a little more coherent because we're meeting her, but it just their relationship absolutely sucks. She should take his big old house and dump him, dump Tibrell, do whatever, just don't get back together with this guy. Yeah, this is bad.

01:32:19
Speaker 2: I agree.

01:32:20
Speaker 3: You've got your puzzle treasure from movie one. Leave it at that which brings us to the treasure. Yes, we had a different version of this discussion in our first episode, I believe. Yeah, like we were talking about earlier, the second that they bring Indigenous American culture into this. You know that this Jerry Bruckheimer funded movie is going to absolutely fumble, erase, disrespect, not care about Indigenous people or indigenous history or redistribution or anything that would make logical sense in this situation.

01:32:56
Speaker 2: Right, So here's the I've gathered and keep in mind listeners that I'm not a historian or an anthropologist.

01:33:08
Speaker 3: You're a Helen Merrin.

01:33:09
Speaker 2: I have a master's degree in screenwriting from Boston University, a fact that I would never mention. Those are my credentials. So the information I have is mostly from wiki, pds, scholarly journal or just like things I already knew with my brain, because.

01:33:28
Speaker 3: With your brain and everything, Because like.

01:33:33
Speaker 2: This movie makes so many missteps that even if you have the slightest understanding of geography or time, you would know that everything that happens in this movie doesn't make any sense. So they find the piece of wood that has markings on it that appear in They keep referring to it as like an ancient Native American language. Different ideas are floated. They're like, oh, it looks Incan or Aztec. Later on they say that they think it's Olmec, so they're sort of speculating. They think they identify one symbol on this piece of wood that means sebola, So they look up sibola in a history book of secrets. Not sure, but what it says there is that in fifteen twenty seven, a Spanish ship wrecked off of the coast of Florida. There was one survivor who was a slave named Esteban, who saved a tribe's dying chief and as a reward, he was taken to the tribe's sacred city built of solid gold. And then later when Esteban tried to find the city again. He never could, but the legend grew and explorers came to the New World in search of the city. And so that's like the information that Ben and Riley and Patrick and all these characters are working on. But they're like, we still don't know what this message means. So they take it to an expert in a language that they refer to as and I quote ancient Native American, as if there is one language shared among all Indigenous Americans and that language is called Native American.

01:35:26
Speaker 3: Which, unfortunately, I mean, I don't think I had any institutional knowledge to severely questioned as a fourteen year.

01:35:36
Speaker 2: Old like, well no, based on what little we learn about indigenous people in American schools.

01:35:43
Speaker 3: I think there are many elements to this becus sound ridiculous, but like there are elements to the National Treasure movies that just like really clearly illustrate like how vague americans general understanding of American history is. Yeah, yeah, this is like a really really damning example.

01:36:03
Speaker 2: Absolutely. So they go to Helen Mirren, who is, you know, an expert in the language of quote unquote ancient Native American, and they're like, oh, we think it's Olmec, and she's like, yeah, I think so. After all their puzzles includes blah blah blah, they find the city of Gold under Mount Rushmore, which is in South Dakota, famously, So, just to recap and put all of this information together, a slave was taken to a place off the coast of Florida, which is somehow also South Dakota, to a secret city of an unspecified indigenous tribe which may or may not have been Olmec, which does track for the meso American architecture that we see of the City of Gold at the end of the movie. But South Dakota and Florida are famously not near each other. They're not near each other, nor are they meso Americas or American.

01:37:07
Speaker 3: Yeah.

01:37:07
Speaker 2: Also, the Omech people did not inhabit either of those places of Florida or South Dakota. And the Olmecs existed from fifteen hundred BC to about four hundred BC, meaning that they were not around when the conquistadors were coming to this region of meso America to colonize and steal land and steal materials and gold and all that stuff.

01:37:34
Speaker 3: Brain.

01:37:35
Speaker 2: So when this Spanish ship crashed off the coast of Florida in fifteen twenty seven. The Omech people had not been around for about two thousand years.

01:37:46
Speaker 3: So this is thank you for doing this research, because I knew it was wrong, but I didn't know it was that many flavors of wrong.

01:37:58
Speaker 2: Yeah, And like you said, this is all verytive of the way white American culture and our like education system number one treats indigenous cultures as a monolith because they are like jumping around in time, they're jumping around geographically, and they're just saying, well, it's Native American, so it doesn't matter that we're referring to a tribe from like millennia ago who were in a completely different geographic region.

01:38:29
Speaker 3: Yeah, like doesn't acknowledge any of the diversity within indigenous culture. Speaks about Indigenous Americans as if they no longer.

01:38:35
Speaker 2: Exist exactly, yes, and that like.

01:38:39
Speaker 3: White American treasure hunters therefore are entitled to whatever they find, which is one of the most colonial pieces of thought that exists, is that you can just steal and claim it as your own, and that this is an act of valor, and this is an act of like that you should be out of and profit off of is stealing. It's like almost hard to talk about because the story you just described is so fucking convoluted. But like I mean, and in two thousand and seven, making this for a white American audience, which like this movie very clearly is written in gibberish, Like there is no doubt in the way the movie is presented and in the way that in most public American schools is taught that there's anything wrong with this that like a white American guy finding a treasury that belongs to a culture that is not his own, finders keepers it's mine, And this is like just colonial logic and the reason that you know, many museums exist the way they do, the way the wealth is distributed and stolen. I mean, it's just like I'm sure we're not saying anything that listeners of this show don't know already, but it's just like presented so blatantly in a way that I don't even know would be possible to do now. But this movie came up fifteen years ago, Like it's not an old movie at all, and it's so like I don't know, I mean, I was really curious, not optimistic of how it would be handled, or even if the iconic character the President of the United States, the upholder of American white supremacy, would react to this piece of information, and like, we don't really know, it's unclear what's going to happen at the end, but we know that the Gates family will once again profit off of it.

01:40:36
Speaker 2: Absolutely. So I'm glad you brought that up, because there's that scene when Ben Gates is kidnapping the President and the President is loving it and it's getting a horny but then he's like, why would I tell you where my Book of secrets is? And Ben says, because it will probably lead to the discovery of the greatest Native American treasure of all time, a huge piece of culture lost, and give that history back to its descendants. And you're like, Okay, if you do find this treasure, it absolutely should go back to the Native people you're trying to steal it from. But he's talking about himself, right, Yeah. The ethos of this movie is, oh, well, you know Native people in the New World, they did have this rich culture, but it got left behind somehow. I don't know how that happened, but it's ours now to find and to take because Native people are a thing of the past and they don't exist anymore.

01:41:41
Speaker 3: And we're honoring them by taking this right.

01:41:44
Speaker 2: They're part of history. So this treasure is ours to turn into a fun adventure.

01:41:51
Speaker 3: There's no talk of redistributing, I mean not to mention. Much like the First National Treasure, it is like essentially all white cast There are a handful of black actors in minor roles, including a black government worker who's kind of bullied for bringing up that. This is during the Hotel debacle, but there is a black government employee who brings up to a white government employee like there's a rumor going on that the hotel that the President of the United States wants to hold his birthday at used to be a place where the clan would meet, right, And the white government employees says, well, is it true, and like immediately just starts like giving this guy shit, and that black government employee response, it doesn't really matter if it's true, we should move the party, and all the white government employees get so annoyed they're making like it's just like this movie. Yeah, it's doing absolutely I mean less than nothing.

01:42:59
Speaker 2: There's another black character who kind of teams up with Ed Harris, who again is the descendant of a Confederate general who the again, the movie nor any of the characters care about question at all. They're like, oh wow, a general and an army. Good for him, the same thing, but the.

01:43:17
Speaker 3: Way that they like very much excuse the Queen of England for being like for being sympathetic to the Confederacy. They're like, well, she just didn't want a division in America. So and you're like, no, she's racist, Like it's a very easily illustrated argument that the Queen of England is racist, Like what are you talking about?

01:43:43
Speaker 2: Ugh? Yes, So it really adds insult to injury in this movie, in particular with the treasure being this indigenous treasure, this indigenous city on stolen land, where the people going after this treasure are all white, and many of them are from a family who was descended from people who were actively colonizing the New World and taking the land and lives of the indigenous people who centuries later would steal this treasure from because like we cut to like, I guess the government excavating this city and they don't even seem to be doing it properly. Because Helen Mirren's like, are you cataloging this and they're just like nope, And so you just like have all of these like white American federal government people like infiltrating this place, and then has.

01:44:41
Speaker 3: Turned into this weird joke where it's like, instead of acknowledging that the American government does not give a shit about Indigenous history, it cuts to John Voight, the King of Republicans, being like, you should have tried buying a couch with this lady. And I was like, oh my god, what the hell are we doing here?

01:45:02
Speaker 2: Yeah, what's going on? Yes, So all of that absolutely sucks. Yeah, and that's all I have to say about this movie.

01:45:12
Speaker 3: Yeah. I mean, in terms of any sort of progressivism, this movie is doing less than nothing. It is, truly, I think, one of the most jingoistic franchises of our generation. And in that way, I think if we're being you know, like just sort of legacy wise, it makes it worse that they're not straight up bad movies. It makes it worse that they're fun to watch, because it's like, if these movies go down easy and they're the romp is Undeniable.

01:45:42
Speaker 2: Ten out of ton on the rampometer. You can't deny it.

01:45:45
Speaker 3: Then it's much easier to accept and glaze over, which like we have done in the course of this episode, because it is a fun movie to watch and its core message is empty and baseless. It's not so anything new in terms of like the emptiness of how American history is viewed. It feels like it's ill. It's just illustrates how ingrained the sort of white supremacist line of thinking is in America that you can build a big, goofy action movie around it, And at least at the time, there was not a big questioning of the way that history is presented, where it's like understood that it's not a documentary, as I've argued it, but it's also like not presented. But the things that it was picked apart for. I went through some of the original reviews. The historical inaccuracies that's pulled apart for are not the ones we just discussed, right, They are like, well, actually, this guy that believes in the Confederacy actually believed in this version of the Confederacy, And you're like, that's not the thing we should really be putting a big old hell and mirror magnifying glass. To remember the scene where she has a big old magnifying glass.

01:46:56
Speaker 2: Oh wow.

01:46:57
Speaker 3: Anyways, yeah, this I mean, and and it doesn't pass the backtel test. Not for nothing. It doesn't pass the back to test. No, and I have to give it no nipples. I think, I think I have to give it none.

01:47:09
Speaker 2: Yeah, I agree, zero nipples on our nipple scale, in which we examine the movie on a scale of zero to five nipples based on looking at it through an intersectional feminist lens, but based on everything we've discussed, as far as the piss poor treatment of the characters who are women.

01:47:29
Speaker 3: The blatant disregard for history.

01:47:32
Speaker 2: There's not a single Native person in the movie.

01:47:36
Speaker 3: That revolves around a native treasure. We can't give you more information because, as you just explained, Kalen, it doesn't make any fucking sense. And unfortunately it's a very fun movie to watch in many ways. Yeah, there's really not I don't know. I like, I really it's true. I hope that our listeners like enjoy listening to these episodes. These movies are so incoherent, they're very goofy, but also like we want to acknowledge, you know, the kind of ideology that they're reinforcing. Yeah, because that does still happen in movies for sure. And I feel like the action genre is sort of a very common offender of this specific kind of misrepresentation.

01:48:16
Speaker 2: Especially this subgenre, because we've treasure hunting, Yeah, the treasure hunting, and even in like the Dora episode, it like does a slightly better job at handling this, but it still fumbled a lot of stuff. So these like, yeah, adventure go on a quest to find treasure movies almost always completely.

01:48:38
Speaker 3: Is taken from another culture that the movie has no interest in.

01:48:41
Speaker 2: Yeah for sure.

01:48:42
Speaker 3: Yeah, so zero nipples, no nipples, a million Bruckheimer teeth.

01:48:49
Speaker 2: Forty seven pages of secrets in a book who knows?

01:48:55
Speaker 3: Who knows? Anyways, we hope that you enjoyed this episode. Are not annual because we I mean, unfortunately it's all over the place in movies, but our you know, jingoistic nonsense movie of the Year, National Treasure two Book of Secrets. If you know it was on page forty seven, hit us up.

01:49:16
Speaker 2: Please, And the places you could hit us up, for example are Twitter and Instagram.

01:49:23
Speaker 3: If you know it's on page forty seven, yeah, we where you can follow us at Bechtel Cast.

01:49:29
Speaker 2: You can subscribe to our Patreon aka Matreon. You get five sorry, you get two bonus episodes every month for five dollars, as well as the back catalog of something like one hundred and almost one hundred and fifty fifty or so. And yeah, we're having a hell of a time over there. We just wrapped up.

01:49:52
Speaker 3: Junion Month, which is our union themed episodes. We do an in depth explainer of the WGA strike, and we also covered newsies and there's there's more some of fun to come over on the Matreon, So please join us over there. And in the meantime, I'm gonna go to borders to get a copy of a story that's definitely open, to get a copy of my man Riley's book. He's got to move copies. Someone's got to read it, someone's got to read it. On some page forty seven of Riley's book, literally no one knows, no one's ever gotten that far except Hervey Kaitel, What.

01:50:32
Speaker 2: A good friend. I'm gonna crack open a bottle of aquafina and.

01:50:38
Speaker 3: Bored on the nearest rock God that there is the moment where, like these movies at the midpoint they just could. It's so brain dead that you're just like, oh, they're gonna pour water on a rock? Yeah, brilliant, Sure, God fucking damn it.

01:50:53
Speaker 2: Well, I guess they ran out of good ideas.

01:50:56
Speaker 3: Yeah, this which this movie is full of. Oh I would like to just quickly one more time, shout out Nicholas Cage arguing with the child added nothing to the movie, but added a lot to my life.

01:51:07
Speaker 2: Oh and hey, while we're speaking of books, you should read Rod Dog. Everyone you haven't.

01:51:14
Speaker 3: Already dog, Yes, it's true.

01:51:17
Speaker 2: It is what secrets are in that book of it looks secrets.

01:51:22
Speaker 3: Page forty seven of Raw Dog. Oh, baby, you don't even want to wait. Actually, let's find out. I've got a copy right here. Amazing, Okay, page forty seven. This is what they don't want you to know. Forty seven. Oh it's it's the whole page about an anthropomorphized pickle named garlic. Joe. Yes, I read about Joe. That's my book of secrets.

01:51:49
Speaker 2: Wow.

01:51:50
Speaker 3: Check it out. You can get it wherever books are sold. And it's pretty anti America. Helly, And with

01:51:57
Speaker 2: That, happy summer bye,