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Aquaman with Ali Nahdee · The Bechdel Cast

• 0:00
  Speaker 1: On the Bell Cast, the questions asked if movies have
• 0:04
  Speaker 1: women and um are all their discussions just boyfriends and husbands,
• 0:08
  Speaker 1: or do they have individualism? The patriarchy? Zef in best
• 0:12
  Speaker 1: start changing it with the bel Cast. Hey, Jamie, Hey Caitlin,
• 0:18
  Speaker 1: you don't tell me how to captain. I don't tell
• 0:22
  Speaker 1: you how to pirate or something? Oh okay, oh like
• 0:26
  Speaker 1: the beginning of the movie. Yeah, like like that one
• 0:29
  Speaker 1: character said, Oh, I wanted to do the thing where
• 0:31
  Speaker 1: Patrick Wilson says, like you will call me ocean master?
• 0:36
  Speaker 1: Like that would have been better that just I think
• 0:39
  Speaker 1: is imprinted on my mind for you know. Welcome to
• 0:43
  Speaker 1: the Bechtel Cast. They're not all hits right at the top.
• 0:46
  Speaker 1: Sometimes you gotta just get into it and it takes
• 0:49
  Speaker 1: a little time. I'm going to find our groove. But welcome.
• 0:52
  Speaker 1: My name is Jamie Loftus, my name is Caitlin Durante,
• 0:56
  Speaker 1: and this is our show in which we examine movies
• 0:59
  Speaker 1: through an inter sectional feminist lens, using the Bechtel test
• 1:03
  Speaker 1: just very much as a jumping off point. But what
• 1:07
  Speaker 1: is it, Jamie, Oh, the Bechtel test or the movie.
• 1:10
  Speaker 1: I'll say both. I'll do both. We're doing. We're doing
• 1:12
  Speaker 1: Aquaman today, movie from James one one of my faves.
• 1:18
  Speaker 1: I love watching interviews with James Wan. And this isn't
• 1:21
  Speaker 1: passing the Bechtel test. And here's why. The Bechtels test
• 1:24
  Speaker 1: is a media metric created by queer cartoonist Alison Bechdel,
• 1:28
  Speaker 1: sometimes called the Bechdel Wallace Test. There's many different versions
• 1:31
  Speaker 1: of it. Here's the one we use. We require that
• 1:35
  Speaker 1: two characters of a marginalized gender with names speak to
• 1:39
  Speaker 1: each other about something other than a man for two
• 1:43
  Speaker 1: lines of dialogue. There are so many three hour movies
• 1:47
  Speaker 1: that don't pass this simple metric, and this movie was
• 1:50
  Speaker 1: almost one of them. But we'll get there later. But
• 1:54
  Speaker 1: recovering Aquaman and uh, i'm I'm I'm very excited to
• 1:58
  Speaker 1: discuss this movie particular, really because we're bringing back one
• 2:02
  Speaker 1: of the greats we sure are. Our guest is Bi
• 2:05
  Speaker 1: racial Anisha Nabe, founder of the A La Test. You
• 2:09
  Speaker 1: remember her from our episode on Frozen two. It's Ali Nady. Hi,
• 2:14
  Speaker 1: Hello and welcome back. Thank you for invited me back.
• 2:18
  Speaker 1: I was so happy when I got your email and
• 2:21
  Speaker 1: I was just like, yes, pumped about this, Oh my gosh.
• 2:26
  Speaker 1: And you have brought us Aquaman. Tell us about your
• 2:30
  Speaker 1: relationship with this movie. Okay, So going a little bit
• 2:36
  Speaker 1: earlier than that, when you reached out to me, I
• 2:38
  Speaker 1: was like really struggling with a movie to talk about.
• 2:42
  Speaker 1: You know, I'm like, oh, man, because you know, Native people,
• 2:46
  Speaker 1: you know, we're not a monolith. You know, we come
• 2:47
  Speaker 1: from different cultures, different you know, parts of the country,
• 2:52
  Speaker 1: different parts of the continent. So I'm like, okay, so
• 2:56
  Speaker 1: there's a bunch of movies I wanted to talk about,
• 2:58
  Speaker 1: but I don't belong to those specific groups. Maybe someone
• 3:01
  Speaker 1: from those groups should be the one talking about it.
• 3:05
  Speaker 1: And then I wanted to talk about Avatar, but I'm like,
• 3:09
  Speaker 1: you know, maybe not for Thanksgiving, you know, maybe not
• 3:15
  Speaker 1: for Thanksgiving, but um yeah. So I really struggled, and
• 3:19
  Speaker 1: I was really thinking about it. And then finally Aquaman.
• 3:23
  Speaker 1: You know, I realized that even if it's not specifically
• 3:27
  Speaker 1: Polynesian or Hawaiian, you know, he is American, he is indigenous,
• 3:32
  Speaker 1: and he's biracial, and so am I. And um that
• 3:37
  Speaker 1: was the last film that I ever saw in a
• 3:41
  Speaker 1: theater with my mom. So yeah, so there's gonna be
• 3:45
  Speaker 1: a lot of moments I apologize in advance. I'm gonna
• 3:48
  Speaker 1: cry probably a couple of times. And uh yeah, like
• 3:52
  Speaker 1: this movie, ever since it came out, ever since I
• 3:55
  Speaker 1: saw it with Mom, really spoke to me as someone
• 3:58
  Speaker 1: who is biracial, as someone whose mother is white and
• 4:01
  Speaker 1: whose father is Indigenous, and it really I felt represented
• 4:08
  Speaker 1: in a way even if I wasn't Polynesian in Hawaiian.
• 4:11
  Speaker 1: You know it really, it really did tug at my
• 4:14
  Speaker 1: heart strings. And I felt kind of silly like saying
• 4:17
  Speaker 1: that just because it is a goofy superhero movie that
• 4:22
  Speaker 1: may or may not be that good. But I had
• 4:24
  Speaker 1: a fun time. Oh, I had a last But I
• 4:27
  Speaker 1: mean everyone deserves to be represented and seen in the
• 4:31
  Speaker 1: whole spectrum of movies, whether they're goofy superhero movies that
• 4:35
  Speaker 1: perhaps have plots that are messy. I mean, thank you
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  Speaker 1: for sharing that, Ali, I mean with that context in particular,
• 4:45
  Speaker 1: like of course this is a special movie to you,
• 4:48
  Speaker 1: and like it's I don't know, I was I had
• 4:51
  Speaker 1: not seen this movie. I think I just generally I
• 4:55
  Speaker 1: usually wait on superhero movies because I guess I don't
• 4:58
  Speaker 1: I guess just not seeing them in theaters because I
• 5:00
  Speaker 1: feel like everyone knows something that I don't and I'm like,
• 5:03
  Speaker 1: I can't hang and they're gonna be mad at me.
• 5:06
  Speaker 1: But I really I thought this was it was perhaps
• 5:10
  Speaker 1: a bit long, but I I love James Wand's work,
• 5:14
  Speaker 1: and I was very like, kind of surprised and impressed,
• 5:18
  Speaker 1: having very very little understanding of Aquaman other than knowing
• 5:22
  Speaker 1: him as like the goofy superhero because he is a
• 5:25
  Speaker 1: fish um. But but outside of that, I didn't know anything.
• 5:30
  Speaker 1: And I thought that the way that the themes that
• 5:32
  Speaker 1: were kind of chosen for this this Aquaman story where
• 5:35
  Speaker 1: was really cool and most of them worked really effectively,
• 5:38
  Speaker 1: and for me, canonically, Patrick Wilson and Nicole Kidman wore
• 5:44
  Speaker 1: the same wig for the whole movie, and that was
• 5:48
  Speaker 1: awesome too. So yeah, I'm a I I think I'm
• 5:52
  Speaker 1: a fan of this movie. Yeah, I think I am. Caitlin.
• 5:55
  Speaker 1: Oh gosh, well, I saw it not in theaters, but
• 5:58
  Speaker 1: I did see it on a plane. I could plane
• 6:02
  Speaker 1: movie like nine months a year after it had come out,
• 6:04
  Speaker 1: because enough by then enough people had seen it and
• 6:07
  Speaker 1: I had heard I had heard the reviews, which were,
• 6:11
  Speaker 1: I feel like, pretty mixed and still are as far
• 6:13
  Speaker 1: as like, and I was Admittedly, when I first saw it,
• 6:17
  Speaker 1: I was like, you know, the means on sand is
• 6:20
  Speaker 1: is busy James won the j one. Yeah, when I
• 6:26
  Speaker 1: first saw the action scene, I was like, oh, that's interesting.
• 6:31
  Speaker 1: I was having a lot of sensory overload throughout the um.
• 6:37
  Speaker 1: But then when we reached out to you, Ali, so
• 6:40
  Speaker 1: this is our quote unquote Thanksgiving episode in the sense
• 6:44
  Speaker 1: that we are releasing it on the day that a
• 6:47
  Speaker 1: lot of Americans observed Thanksgiving. But we wanted to showcase
• 6:51
  Speaker 1: an indigenous movie or you know, a movie by indigenous filmmakers,
• 6:55
  Speaker 1: or a movie that has some Indigenous ties to it.
• 6:58
  Speaker 1: And then we reached out to U Eli. And then
• 7:00
  Speaker 1: when you came back to us with Aquaman, and I
• 7:02
  Speaker 1: was like, oh, right, it didn't really occur to me
• 7:06
  Speaker 1: that this would be like considered an indigenous movie. And
• 7:09
  Speaker 1: then you spoke a little bit about it, and I
• 7:11
  Speaker 1: was like, oh, yes, of course, and I knew that
• 7:13
  Speaker 1: you would like bring this really great perspective that would
• 7:17
  Speaker 1: give me a better appreciation for the movie, which like
• 7:20
  Speaker 1: it already has. And I know that are like conversation
• 7:24
  Speaker 1: Will and like, yeah, I still think about the Fresen
• 7:26
  Speaker 1: two episode all the time. Because I feel like that
• 7:28
  Speaker 1: might be like possibly the most that I've been like
• 7:33
  Speaker 1: mind blown and swede on a movie that I was
• 7:36
  Speaker 1: not at all expecting to see very much in in
• 7:40
  Speaker 1: the course of an episode, Like I don't know, I
• 7:42
  Speaker 1: think about it often. I'm really touched. I'm really glad
• 7:46
  Speaker 1: that you guys like that and that my insight so much. Yeah, yeah,
• 7:51
  Speaker 1: of course. Yeah. And um, even going with Aquaman, like again,
• 7:55
  Speaker 1: I had like a lot of turmoil because I'm not
• 7:57
  Speaker 1: you know, Hawaiian and I'm not Maudy like um Tamira
• 8:01
  Speaker 1: Morrison is the actor who plays his dad. He's Maudi,
• 8:06
  Speaker 1: which is indigenous to New Zealand. And Um, it's a
• 8:10
  Speaker 1: very important distinction that Native Hawaiians, while they are indigenous,
• 8:15
  Speaker 1: they are not Native American. That is a big one,
• 8:19
  Speaker 1: you know, like a lot of people try to lump
• 8:21
  Speaker 1: them all in because we're indigenous and it's it's not
• 8:24
  Speaker 1: their Polynesian. They are very adamant that, you know, they
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  Speaker 1: are not American, you know, but still you know, like
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  Speaker 1: it's still indigenous. And I felt more comfortable talking about
• 8:37
  Speaker 1: this movie just because it isn't like Lelo and Stitch
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  Speaker 1: or Once We're Warriors where it is very distinctly a
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  Speaker 1: Hawaiian film, a Hawaiian culture, or a Maudi film and
• 8:51
  Speaker 1: Maudi culture, you know, it takes place a main so
• 8:56
  Speaker 1: and um, you know, like even though Aquaman's design in
• 8:59
  Speaker 1: the movie movie is very distinctly you know, Polynesian, you know,
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  Speaker 1: with the tattoos and he speaks um. I think he
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  Speaker 1: says a couple of lines of dialogue that are in Maudi.
• 9:10
  Speaker 1: That's what I was seeing just in the in the
• 9:12
  Speaker 1: captions of the movie. But he um. Those actors could
• 9:17
  Speaker 1: have been played by anybody, really, I mean, they could
• 9:19
  Speaker 1: have been black, they could have been any race. And
• 9:23
  Speaker 1: the fact that it is indigenous, like brought this entire
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  Speaker 1: perspective that really connected. Even if I'm not from those islands.
• 9:32
  Speaker 1: So you know, I feel like I'm kind of in
• 9:35
  Speaker 1: a safe gray area, you know, I don't want to
• 9:38
  Speaker 1: feel like I'm talking over anybody. But it did speak
• 9:42
  Speaker 1: to me. And when I did a lot of research
• 9:43
  Speaker 1: for the movie, I saw that it spoke to a
• 9:45
  Speaker 1: lot of biracial people just across the board. So right,
• 9:50
  Speaker 1: and I mean you bring up an interesting point where
• 9:52
  Speaker 1: some of the characters are indigenous, Aquaman is biracial, and
• 9:57
  Speaker 1: that's acknowledged in the movie, but it's it doesn't become
• 10:02
  Speaker 1: this thing where like so much of his identity is like, oh,
• 10:06
  Speaker 1: I'm so torn and look at me being the victim
• 10:09
  Speaker 1: of racism all the time and stuff like that. It's
• 10:11
  Speaker 1: more about like his identity is just normalized within the
• 10:15
  Speaker 1: context of the world he's living in, which and like
• 10:19
  Speaker 1: you said, he could have been played by any actor
• 10:22
  Speaker 1: of any color in a way that again just like
• 10:25
  Speaker 1: normalizes his existence in the world, which is like what
• 10:30
  Speaker 1: we're trying to move toward when it comes to representation.
• 10:34
  Speaker 1: So that was something I really appreciated about it. Yeah,
• 10:37
  Speaker 1: and I mean I just I love Jason Momoa, and like,
• 10:41
  Speaker 1: you can't not love Jason Momoa as of this recording.
• 10:44
  Speaker 1: I feel like we always have to be like yeah
• 10:46
  Speaker 1: as at this time, No, but um, he's great and
• 10:49
  Speaker 1: I feel like I really and we'll get into this too,
• 10:53
  Speaker 1: but uh, going off of what you were just saying, Caitlin,
• 10:55
  Speaker 1: I really was touched by how like thoughtful Aquaman was
• 11:03
  Speaker 1: as a character and how he was like I mean
• 11:06
  Speaker 1: not you know whatever. Every superhero has to be emotionally
• 11:10
  Speaker 1: stunted if they're a man without fail like that's just
• 11:16
  Speaker 1: the law. But I thought, I felt I feel like,
• 11:19
  Speaker 1: you know, I'm trying to think of a specific example,
• 11:21
  Speaker 1: but I feel like there's a lot of superhero movies
• 11:23
  Speaker 1: where the like male hero like doesn't have feelings or
• 11:28
  Speaker 1: like I don't emote, blah blah blah. And Aquaman is
• 11:31
  Speaker 1: like struggling with his you know, finding his place in
• 11:35
  Speaker 1: the world and trying to figure out where he fits.
• 11:37
  Speaker 1: But he like talks about it with people and like
• 11:41
  Speaker 1: talks about like even when he there's that scene, um
• 11:46
  Speaker 1: when they're on the boat, Um, Aquaman and Mara are
• 11:50
  Speaker 1: on the boat and he is talking about how he
• 11:54
  Speaker 1: killed or was the what is the pirate character's name,
• 11:58
  Speaker 1: David David. I think it's his name. I was like,
• 12:02
  Speaker 1: what's his name because I thought it was like a
• 12:04
  Speaker 1: superhero name, and I'm like, David David slash Manta. Yeah, yeah.
• 12:10
  Speaker 1: But he's talking about how he feels like guilty for
• 12:14
  Speaker 1: killing Manta's father, and I was like, I feel like
• 12:17
  Speaker 1: you don't get those moments from superheroes very often. And
• 12:19
  Speaker 1: then they have a discussion about his role in the
• 12:23
  Speaker 1: world and where he wants to be. There was actually
• 12:25
  Speaker 1: there was a lot of like scenes between Mira and
• 12:28
  Speaker 1: Aquaman that we're reminding me of like Simba and Nala
• 12:32
  Speaker 1: in the second act of The Lion King where she
• 12:35
  Speaker 1: like shows up and she's like, you have to be king,
• 12:37
  Speaker 1: and he's like, that's that's not my life anymore. And
• 12:42
  Speaker 1: then eventually obviously that is a great point, Damie, thank
• 12:47
  Speaker 1: you so much. Women be telling men they have to
• 12:51
  Speaker 1: be the gang. It's just mean, it's a trope at
• 12:54
  Speaker 1: this point. Um, I'm so excited to get more into
• 12:57
  Speaker 1: the discussion. Let's be kept the movie and then we'll
• 13:01
  Speaker 1: get into it. Okay. So we open on Aquaman's mom
• 13:08
  Speaker 1: and dad meeting in. His mom is Atlanta played by
• 13:14
  Speaker 1: Nicole Kidman. She is the Queen of Atlantis who fled
• 13:18
  Speaker 1: to land to escape and arranged marriage. His dad is
• 13:22
  Speaker 1: a human man named Tom played by Tamura Morrison, who
• 13:27
  Speaker 1: is a lighthouse keeper. He's a lighthousekeeper. That is high.
• 13:31
  Speaker 1: That's really hot, that he's a lighthouse keeper. He is
• 13:34
  Speaker 1: really hot period and anything true. He's really underlated to
• 13:39
  Speaker 1: be a lighthouse keeper. He's hot, but it doesn't hurt.
• 13:42
  Speaker 1: He's also been the voice of Boba Fette for like
• 13:45
  Speaker 1: nearly twenty years, I want to say, yeah, it was
• 13:48
  Speaker 1: Django Fett and Clone Wars and that our Clone Wars
• 13:52
  Speaker 1: attack the Clones. And then he's Mr Fette in some
• 13:54
  Speaker 1: capacity and has been for a while. He's back in
• 13:57
  Speaker 1: the Mandalorian and he's doing the book about the only
• 14:01
  Speaker 1: time I have never liked him was in Once Her
• 14:03
  Speaker 1: Warriors because he's like violently abusive in that movie, and
• 14:08
  Speaker 1: it's like, ah, it's hard, like get a Maudie guest
• 14:12
  Speaker 1: on the show to talk about it because it's good,
• 14:15
  Speaker 1: but it is like I almost hated him. Thank god
• 14:19
  Speaker 1: he made this movie because I love him again. But yeah,
• 14:22
  Speaker 1: this one he's at he's being a good dad in
• 14:24
  Speaker 1: a lighthouse and I love that. So Atlanta and Tom
• 14:29
  Speaker 1: fall in love and they have a baby named Arthur.
• 14:33
  Speaker 1: And then when Arthur is a small child, or vas
• 14:37
  Speaker 1: the king of Atlantis or one of the kings, because
• 14:39
  Speaker 1: you find out there several kings who Atlanta was arranged
• 14:42
  Speaker 1: to be married to, he sends soldiers to capture Atlanta
• 14:46
  Speaker 1: and bring her back, and she realizes that she has
• 14:49
  Speaker 1: to return to Atlantis. I kept writing down Atlanta in
• 14:54
  Speaker 1: my notes, so if I accidentally say Atlanta to refer
• 14:57
  Speaker 1: to either Atlantis or Atlanta. With my accent, I'm going
• 15:01
  Speaker 1: to call him Accaman at least twenty million times, so
• 15:06
  Speaker 1: apologies to everyone. Yeah, I'm gonna say the wrong names
• 15:09
  Speaker 1: all the time. So she kind of surrenders and returns
• 15:13
  Speaker 1: to Atlantis in order to keep Tom and Arthur safe.
• 15:17
  Speaker 1: I'm I'm such a fool. I was like, Wow, I
• 15:19
  Speaker 1: can't believe the call given did this movie for two minutes?
• 15:22
  Speaker 1: That's so interesting? But then I was like oh, and
• 15:24
  Speaker 1: then later I was like, oh, right, right, she wouldn't
• 15:27
  Speaker 1: do that. That wouldn't make sense. She does say that
• 15:31
  Speaker 1: one day she will return, which is foreshadowing that's a plant.
• 15:36
  Speaker 1: Can I just talk about like that whole introduction to
• 15:39
  Speaker 1: the movie, because you know, Okay, I'm gonna try to
• 15:43
  Speaker 1: keep it together. So my um my mom and I
• 15:46
  Speaker 1: when we went and saw this movie, I had just
• 15:48
  Speaker 1: moved home from Finland. I was going through divorce, and
• 15:52
  Speaker 1: she had pay creatic cancer and was just about to
• 15:57
  Speaker 1: go into receiving treatment for that. So, uh so watching
• 16:04
  Speaker 1: this movie with her like right next to me, mhm,
• 16:09
  Speaker 1: she um you know, it was kind of foreshadowing things
• 16:13
  Speaker 1: that not only that I was going to have to
• 16:17
  Speaker 1: deal with I'm I'm sorry, no, no, no, please take
• 16:25
  Speaker 1: your time. But you know, also but also things that
• 16:31
  Speaker 1: my dad was going to be dealing with, because because
• 16:37
  Speaker 1: you want to be hopeful, and you want to be
• 16:40
  Speaker 1: hopeful what you know, you know that that's not how
• 16:44
  Speaker 1: it's going to be, you know, in the end, and um,
• 16:48
  Speaker 1: her absence and the movie, you know, like it touches
• 16:52
  Speaker 1: the characters so much. You know, like when he goes
• 16:55
  Speaker 1: down to the dock every morning morning, yeah, you know,
• 17:00
  Speaker 1: because she says that, you know, we'll be together again
• 17:03
  Speaker 1: and she'll see again and she'll yeah, she'll she's like,
• 17:05
  Speaker 1: I'll meet you here one day. And then of course Arthur,
• 17:08
  Speaker 1: you know, like not having his mother and his life
• 17:12
  Speaker 1: is damaging, you know, like it's it's painful, and especially
• 17:16
  Speaker 1: like with this extra layer with racism and separation from
• 17:20
  Speaker 1: your culture and not really belonging to that culture, you know,
• 17:26
  Speaker 1: especially not fully belonging to a culture of someone that
• 17:29
  Speaker 1: you love on top of that, you know, it's, uh yeah,
• 17:34
  Speaker 1: it gets to you, you know when you're watching this
• 17:36
  Speaker 1: as this biracial kid, um kid, you know, I was
• 17:40
  Speaker 1: like thirty, but you know, but you know, watching it
• 17:44
  Speaker 1: and uh yeah, just kind of sitting there in the
• 17:47
  Speaker 1: theater with mom and watching this and kind of know
• 17:50
  Speaker 1: whing you know, in the back of your head, what's
• 17:54
  Speaker 1: going to happen? And uh, the whole introch of the
• 17:57
  Speaker 1: movie first ten minutes of Aquaman. I'm a bad like this, um,
• 18:02
  Speaker 1: but thankfully, thankfully the movie is a lot more fun
• 18:07
  Speaker 1: than uh than this. The tone, the tone shifts a
• 18:10
  Speaker 1: bit from that point onward, but it is, I mean,
• 18:14
  Speaker 1: it is like it's really beautifully done, like that that
• 18:18
  Speaker 1: scene of them, oh for sure, because they do. They
• 18:22
  Speaker 1: look just like my parents. I mean, it totally looks
• 18:26
  Speaker 1: like my parents. So that wasn't lost on me. And yeah,
• 18:31
  Speaker 1: and I love I love that Aquaman loves his dad,
• 18:36
  Speaker 1: you know, especially especially you know, like as someone taking
• 18:42
  Speaker 1: care of my dad, you know, as someone taking care
• 18:46
  Speaker 1: of your dad, you know, by yourself. Like no, I'm
• 18:49
  Speaker 1: not really by myself, like my sister's helped too, but
• 18:52
  Speaker 1: you know, I I live with him, and I take
• 18:55
  Speaker 1: care of them and make sure that you know, the
• 18:58
  Speaker 1: house is taken care of and that he's taking as
• 18:59
  Speaker 1: me to send and stuff, you know, and seeing Aquaman's
• 19:03
  Speaker 1: relationship with his father, as you know, you're his son,
• 19:08
  Speaker 1: but you're also his best friend and you're also his protector.
• 19:12
  Speaker 1: You know. It's uh yeah, yeah, I do want to
• 19:16
  Speaker 1: talk about their relationship more because I feel like that's
• 19:18
  Speaker 1: one of the big strengths of the movie. It's I
• 19:21
  Speaker 1: mean then just like how it's so funny because it's
• 19:24
  Speaker 1: like I feel like that like is a testament to
• 19:27
  Speaker 1: the actors, Like you don't actually spend a lot of
• 19:30
  Speaker 1: time with Aquaman and his dad, but when you do,
• 19:33
  Speaker 1: it's you just like feel it. And his dad is
• 19:37
  Speaker 1: so like awesome, yeah good and supportive, and you know,
• 19:42
  Speaker 1: Aquaman is like, I'm not Aquaman and his dad's like,
• 19:44
  Speaker 1: oh good, it's awesome. Like and again that that feels
• 19:51
  Speaker 1: like an outlier in a superhero movie where it like
• 19:55
  Speaker 1: someone who's like very I mean, even though Arthur can't
• 20:00
  Speaker 1: me with his mom for the majority of his life,
• 20:02
  Speaker 1: she's he's still very connected to her and thinks well
• 20:07
  Speaker 1: of her. I don't know, it's just I was like,
• 20:09
  Speaker 1: the superhero loves his parents so much and it's so nice.
• 20:15
  Speaker 1: And then there's Patrick Wilson. Oh man, this guy, this asshole,
• 20:22
  Speaker 1: the character, not the actor, the actor. Yeah, he's about
• 20:26
  Speaker 1: to show up before we see him, though we briefly
• 20:28
  Speaker 1: see Arthur a few years later on a school trip
• 20:31
  Speaker 1: to the aquarium with the two worst bullies ever in
• 20:35
  Speaker 1: any movie ever, Brutle. That was so much to me,
• 20:40
  Speaker 1: like the scene from the first Harry Potter movie where
• 20:44
  Speaker 1: like he's talking to the snake through the glass, except
• 20:47
  Speaker 1: Arthur's talking to some sharks or something, and then there's
• 20:50
  Speaker 1: like two Dudley's behind him trying to bully him, and
• 20:53
  Speaker 1: they're like so much older than he is, which is
• 20:56
  Speaker 1: he looks like he's about like four and they're like
• 21:00
  Speaker 1: they're like two ft taller than him. I'm just like
• 21:02
  Speaker 1: James Wands fanning out here, but I feel like things
• 21:06
  Speaker 1: that happen in James wand movies just happened like weirdly
• 21:09
  Speaker 1: at an eleven sometimes for no reason at all, And
• 21:12
  Speaker 1: I feel like that bullying moment, I'm like, why is
• 21:14
  Speaker 1: this so intense and why are the bullies so old?
• 21:18
  Speaker 1: And like what is happening? Um? But then it or
• 21:22
  Speaker 1: like the moment where it's like whatever, Mira and Aquamand
• 21:25
  Speaker 1: almost kissed and then there's an explosion like next to
• 21:27
  Speaker 1: their heads and you're like, Mr Wand that was not necessary,
• 21:32
  Speaker 1: But I'm glad you did it. There's like twenty explosions
• 21:36
  Speaker 1: in this movie that happened out of nowhere, and I'm like,
• 21:39
  Speaker 1: why again, it's quite jarring. He's just like, we have
• 21:43
  Speaker 1: the budget, let's do it. The important thing we learned
• 21:47
  Speaker 1: from the scene is that Aquaman is able to communicate
• 21:51
  Speaker 1: with marine life. Then we cut to him as an adult.
• 21:54
  Speaker 1: He's now Jason Momoa. He's already a badass superhero. We
• 21:59
  Speaker 1: see this sequence where he stops this pirate attack against
• 22:03
  Speaker 1: a Russian submarine, and the main pirate is David a
• 22:08
  Speaker 1: k a. Black Manta, who is not quite Black Manta yet,
• 22:11
  Speaker 1: but he's like kind of having his origin story in
• 22:14
  Speaker 1: the background, fully having his origin story. There's a Shakespearean monologue,
• 22:19
  Speaker 1: there's a dramatic explosion death like yes, yes, yes, yeah.
• 22:24
  Speaker 1: He's played by yah Yah abdul Mateen. The second so
• 22:28
  Speaker 1: Manta now has a vendetta against Aquaman because Manta's dad
• 22:33
  Speaker 1: dies during this attack and Manta blames Aquaman. I felt
• 22:38
  Speaker 1: so bad for him, like I legit. I mean, like
• 22:42
  Speaker 1: even watching it, I'm like, oh man, that was mean
• 22:44
  Speaker 1: as hell. Yeah, because he's like asked the sea for mercy.
• 22:48
  Speaker 1: But then yeah, Aquaman does feel like guilty about it later,
• 22:52
  Speaker 1: so I'm glad he does, because I felt bad that
• 22:54
  Speaker 1: was brutal. Like I know that they're bad guys, and
• 22:58
  Speaker 1: I know that they like killed in us at people
• 23:00
  Speaker 1: and they're stealing ship and I'm like, man, the dude
• 23:03
  Speaker 1: is begging you to save his dad. Oh my god,
• 23:05
  Speaker 1: I don't know if I could say no, I take
• 23:08
  Speaker 1: him to jail, which I mean, honestly makes for an
• 23:11
  Speaker 1: interesting superhero because a lot of superheroes are so morally
• 23:17
  Speaker 1: pure and good that it kind of gets boring. Boring.
• 23:21
  Speaker 1: So for Aquaman to be like, no, dude, see uh
• 23:25
  Speaker 1: later and then and then for him to like experience
• 23:27
  Speaker 1: like which is a pretty human thing to do. He's
• 23:29
  Speaker 1: like acting in sort of the you know, the emotion
• 23:32
  Speaker 1: of the moment, and then later he has like a
• 23:34
  Speaker 1: conflicting emotion about it, and yeah, that's just all very
• 23:37
  Speaker 1: human stuff. My feeling of that, Yeah, that sequence I thought,
• 23:42
  Speaker 1: especially like thinking about it when it comes up again
• 23:44
  Speaker 1: later in the movie, because I wasn't sure if it
• 23:46
  Speaker 1: was like when that was going to come back. It
• 23:48
  Speaker 1: was like, I feel like he was doing kind of
• 23:50
  Speaker 1: like almost like a the way that Arnold Schwarzenegger would
• 23:53
  Speaker 1: handle an action scene where it's like quip, shoot, murder kill,
• 23:57
  Speaker 1: but then we as the audience have to stay in
• 23:59
  Speaker 1: that scene and like, watch how it affects the people
• 24:03
  Speaker 1: who like the cool superhero leaves behind. And oh that
• 24:07
  Speaker 1: that scene of like David climbing like the ladder shot,
• 24:11
  Speaker 1: I was like, Oh, it's so like, it's so sad.
• 24:15
  Speaker 1: And I was like, I think that that probably happens
• 24:18
  Speaker 1: in action movies and superhero movies all the time, but
• 24:20
  Speaker 1: the movie doesn't be like, and we're gonna stay here too,
• 24:24
  Speaker 1: just so you can see how upset these pirates are.
• 24:27
  Speaker 1: Like that was good though, because I feel like that
• 24:30
  Speaker 1: legit like solidified him as a good villain with a
• 24:34
  Speaker 1: good reason to hate. He's strongly motivated. Yeah, oh my god.
• 24:40
  Speaker 1: Yeah that scene at the mid credit scene at the
• 24:42
  Speaker 1: end with him in Randall Park, I was like, all right,
• 24:44
  Speaker 1: I'm I guess I'm excited for the next one. Let's go. Yeah.
• 24:48
  Speaker 1: I feel like really bad for him though. Um. On
• 24:52
  Speaker 1: another note, just because this movie it's so long, but
• 24:57
  Speaker 1: it's it's so long, but it has so much stuf
• 25:00
  Speaker 1: in it, so there's so much lower there's so many flashbacks,
• 25:03
  Speaker 1: so much history, so much legend, and all of it
• 25:06
  Speaker 1: is awesome, but it's like they only really have time
• 25:10
  Speaker 1: for one bad guy, and this movie has too, so
• 25:13
  Speaker 1: he kind of halfway through gets kicked out, you know, like,
• 25:18
  Speaker 1: oh the way, Black Manta, I'm doing other cool things.
• 25:21
  Speaker 1: It's like they should have just saved him for the
• 25:23
  Speaker 1: second movie or this one, and then did something with
• 25:27
  Speaker 1: the worm later. But I don't know. It's like I
• 25:29
  Speaker 1: feel like he deserved a lot better. Every time he's
• 25:33
  Speaker 1: in there, he's great, but it's like you deserved a
• 25:36
  Speaker 1: little bit more. Give him more space, for sure. Yeah,
• 25:39
  Speaker 1: I felt the same way. I hope that he's the
• 25:41
  Speaker 1: like main I mean, I'm hoping that that mid credit
• 25:44
  Speaker 1: scene sets him up as like the character in the
• 25:47
  Speaker 1: second movie. I hope. I hope so too. Yeah, um,
• 25:51
  Speaker 1: let's take a quick break right here and then we
• 25:53
  Speaker 1: will come right back and we're back. So meanwhile, underwater
• 26:03
  Speaker 1: in Atlantis, there are several different kingdoms. King Orm that's
• 26:09
  Speaker 1: Patrick Wilson, is the king of one of them. He
• 26:14
  Speaker 1: is Aquaman's half brother. Because Queen Atlanta is their mother,
• 26:20
  Speaker 1: they obviously have different fathers. His right hand man is Volco. Okay,
• 26:26
  Speaker 1: Willem Dafoe, which he keeps calling him his vizier, which
• 26:30
  Speaker 1: I've only heard that word applied to jaffar. Same, So
• 26:34
  Speaker 1: I was like, oh, okay, so William Dafoe is the
• 26:36
  Speaker 1: Jaffar of this palace, except a good guy and not
• 26:40
  Speaker 1: a villain. He's nice Jaffar. Also, it didn't occur to
• 26:46
  Speaker 1: me to like halfway through the movie that Willem Dafoe
• 26:49
  Speaker 1: is I feel like one of the few people who's
• 26:51
  Speaker 1: in the m c U and the d C you
• 26:54
  Speaker 1: as like super different characters. He's a villain in the
• 26:57
  Speaker 1: m c U. It's also weird to see William Dafoe
• 27:01
  Speaker 1: not as a villain. Yeah, so that's quite something. Yeah.
• 27:05
  Speaker 1: I think the only time he played like a hero
• 27:08
  Speaker 1: or otherwise protagonist was in Platoon. Oh sure, and let's
• 27:12
  Speaker 1: not forget the Last Temptation of Christ or whatever the
• 27:16
  Speaker 1: Jesus later really Jesus famously a hero. Yeah there, And
• 27:22
  Speaker 1: this is another I mean, I guess William Dafoe doesn't
• 27:25
  Speaker 1: get near the lighthouse in this movie, but it's another
• 27:27
  Speaker 1: movie with the lighthouse that he's in. Wow. Wow, good point, Jamie,
• 27:31
  Speaker 1: thank you, thank you. That's why they paid me the
• 27:35
  Speaker 1: big blocks. Um. So, King Orm is trying to unite
• 27:41
  Speaker 1: at least four of the seven kingdoms so that he
• 27:44
  Speaker 1: can become Ocean Master and legally declare war against the
• 27:51
  Speaker 1: surface dwellers at which he wants to do because he
• 27:54
  Speaker 1: thinks humans are going to be the demise of Atlantis
• 27:59
  Speaker 1: and everyone living in Wonder, which we are because we
• 28:01
  Speaker 1: are destroying our oceans. Um, I don't even think that's preachy,
• 28:05
  Speaker 1: Like you know how in like fern Gully and stuff
• 28:07
  Speaker 1: like that, Like the environmentalist issue kind of feels a
• 28:10
  Speaker 1: little too on the nose. It's like, I mean that's
• 28:14
  Speaker 1: kind of valid. Man, We are destroying the ocean, and
• 28:17
  Speaker 1: the ocean is massive and vast, and we're sucking it
• 28:20
  Speaker 1: all up. So yeah, that's another reason I'm really psyched
• 28:23
  Speaker 1: on the Randall Park character because it seems like he's
• 28:27
  Speaker 1: gonna like he's like an environmentalist, Like he's going to
• 28:30
  Speaker 1: bring all of that into the next movie as well. Yeah.
• 28:33
  Speaker 1: I mean, like Patrick Wilson obviously, big old evil villain
• 28:38
  Speaker 1: like spouting some of the nastiest rhetoric you could imagine
• 28:41
  Speaker 1: in this movie. But humans are destroying the ocean. I mean,
• 28:44
  Speaker 1: but then Nicole Kidman kind of shows up the end
• 28:47
  Speaker 1: and she's like, no, they're not. It's like, that's we
• 28:50
  Speaker 1: are who we are. I do like when a villain
• 28:55
  Speaker 1: is motivated in such a way that is compelling or
• 28:59
  Speaker 1: that like the odd it's gonna understand where they're coming from,
• 29:01
  Speaker 1: even if we don't agree with like the execution of
• 29:04
  Speaker 1: their plan or whatever it is, but like would be
• 29:07
  Speaker 1: deeply fun character. But yeah, we're like, yeah, you're not wrong.
• 29:11
  Speaker 1: Humans are destroying all of the environment. Okay, we're back
• 29:15
  Speaker 1: on land. This Atlantean woman, Mara played by Amber Heard,
• 29:21
  Speaker 1: she comes to the surface to relay all of this
• 29:24
  Speaker 1: information to Aquaman and she's like, we need your help.
• 29:29
  Speaker 1: We need to stop Orm again. Nala basically being like,
• 29:32
  Speaker 1: you gotta come and be our king because he is
• 29:36
  Speaker 1: the rightful heir to the throne because he's the firstborn
• 29:38
  Speaker 1: son of Atlanta. And that's the moment you realize, Oh,
• 29:42
  Speaker 1: Jason Momoa, even though he's like six years younger than
• 29:45
  Speaker 1: Patrick Wilson, is supposed to be older than Orm's character.
• 29:50
  Speaker 1: He's taller and that equals older. And then also Nicole
• 29:54
  Speaker 1: Kiman is supposed to be playing Patrick Wilson's mother, she's
• 29:56
  Speaker 1: like seven years older because don't think too hard about it,
• 30:00
  Speaker 1: and she's only twelve years older than Jason Momoa. And yeah,
• 30:04
  Speaker 1: I'm like, okay, you did not cast an age appropriate
• 30:06
  Speaker 1: actor to play their mother. Well, I don't know what
• 30:09
  Speaker 1: kind of like packed that Patrick Wilson and James Wan have,
• 30:13
  Speaker 1: but Patrick Wilson has to be in all of his
• 30:15
  Speaker 1: movies or except for Malignant, But Patrick Wilson isn't in
• 30:19
  Speaker 1: like literally all of James Want's movies. So that's I
• 30:22
  Speaker 1: think why he's here. Something interesting that, you know, upon
• 30:27
  Speaker 1: watching Aquaman uh several times was um or you know, like,
• 30:32
  Speaker 1: I don't know if he's a good villain, but the
• 30:36
  Speaker 1: interesting thing about him is that there's room for like
• 30:40
  Speaker 1: complexity because you know, he benefits from a society and
• 30:45
  Speaker 1: a system that gives him power, of course, and it's
• 30:51
  Speaker 1: interesting that he doesn't hate his dad for killing his mother.
• 30:57
  Speaker 1: You know, there's never a moment where it's like Atlantis
• 31:00
  Speaker 1: was sucking wrong for what they did to my mom.
• 31:02
  Speaker 1: This is bullshit because it's easier to blame it on Aquaman,
• 31:07
  Speaker 1: like if it wasn't for you, and it wasn't for
• 31:09
  Speaker 1: your dad, my mom would still be alive, and this
• 31:12
  Speaker 1: is your fault, which goes into like the racial implications too,
• 31:17
  Speaker 1: because he's totally an ocean colonizer, like an ocean supremacist,
• 31:22
  Speaker 1: like he is started by the end of the movie,
• 31:24
  Speaker 1: he's like spouting pure blood like he's He's like, they
• 31:28
  Speaker 1: go all the way with that characters. Yeah politics, Yeah,
• 31:34
  Speaker 1: I noticed that as well, and like contrasting that with
• 31:37
  Speaker 1: how Aquaman feels of like I sort of assumed just
• 31:44
  Speaker 1: based on having seen superhero movies. I was like, Okay,
• 31:48
  Speaker 1: Aquaman is going to blame himself for what happened to
• 31:50
  Speaker 1: his mother, and then that's the journey of like it
• 31:53
  Speaker 1: wasn't all my fault, but it's like it's more detailed
• 31:56
  Speaker 1: than that. And I really liked that scene with Aquaman, mean,
• 32:00
  Speaker 1: with will of Dafoe and he's saying like the opposite
• 32:05
  Speaker 1: of what Orma is saying. He's like he's furious at
• 32:07
  Speaker 1: the system that allowed that to happen to his mother,
• 32:10
  Speaker 1: and I just feel like, yeah, it speaks to like
• 32:12
  Speaker 1: how different their environments were and how different their upbringings were,
• 32:16
  Speaker 1: where like Patrick Wilson was raised by a fascist and
• 32:19
  Speaker 1: you know, Aquaman was raised by a very kind lighthouse keeper,
• 32:23
  Speaker 1: and it makes a difference. Patrick Wilson is white, and
• 32:28
  Speaker 1: because that's the other thing, Like, um, with Aquaman, there's
• 32:32
  Speaker 1: never like a line or anything in the movie where
• 32:36
  Speaker 1: you know, he'd be like, well, you think you're special.
• 32:38
  Speaker 1: White people treat me like shit all the time on land.
• 32:40
  Speaker 1: You guys aren't any different. Blah blah blah, you know
• 32:42
  Speaker 1: what I mean. And it's you know, there's never a
• 32:45
  Speaker 1: line of dialogue like that. But for the biracial people
• 32:49
  Speaker 1: in the room watching this, it's like, oh, yeah, of
• 32:51
  Speaker 1: course he would think that way, you know. And of
• 32:53
  Speaker 1: course Aquaman is going to be thinking, you know, oh,
• 32:57
  Speaker 1: it's the fucking system. You know, it's Atlantis and these
• 33:01
  Speaker 1: racist as white mermaids that killed my mom for loving
• 33:06
  Speaker 1: a brown man like human. But the human in this
• 33:10
  Speaker 1: specific example is indigenous. And the other guys like, no,
• 33:16
  Speaker 1: it's you. So that's interesting, Like it's not subtle. I
• 33:21
  Speaker 1: wouldn't say that it was subtle. I think it's just
• 33:23
  Speaker 1: apparent and just kind of treated like duh, if you
• 33:26
  Speaker 1: get it, you get it. Yeah, the metaphor is is
• 33:30
  Speaker 1: pretty clear. That's another thing. One more thing. Sorry, but like, um,
• 33:36
  Speaker 1: It was interesting to me because as awesome as like
• 33:38
  Speaker 1: Polynesian Mermaids would totally be, I like that the Atlanteans
• 33:44
  Speaker 1: are white, I guess, and the humans are indigenous, like
• 33:50
  Speaker 1: at least in this story, because it could have been
• 33:53
  Speaker 1: so easy, like because I've seen this so many other
• 33:56
  Speaker 1: times where it's flipped where it's like, oh, well, I'm
• 34:01
  Speaker 1: the outcast and I'm the allusion and the allegory for racism,
• 34:05
  Speaker 1: even though I'm Harry Potter and super white, or I'm
• 34:08
  Speaker 1: Sabrina Spellman and I'm white and they're calling me half breed.
• 34:13
  Speaker 1: But you know, it's like, no, you're not the allusion
• 34:15
  Speaker 1: to racism. It's like the racism is present, but it's
• 34:19
  Speaker 1: kind of taken the backseat to species. I guess I
• 34:24
  Speaker 1: didn't connected that, but yeah, it's like that it's not
• 34:27
  Speaker 1: the like one to one mothering narrative that we've seen
• 34:30
  Speaker 1: a ton of times, and I think that gives it
• 34:33
  Speaker 1: a level of sincerity too, as far as like the allegory,
• 34:37
  Speaker 1: because it could have been, you know, takeaway Atlantis and everything.
• 34:41
  Speaker 1: It could have been another story about racism and mixed
• 34:45
  Speaker 1: ethnicity and all this other stuff. But you know, it's
• 34:48
  Speaker 1: like Okay, so it's gonna be about this with the
• 34:51
  Speaker 1: Mermaid politics, who just so happens to have a biracial
• 34:55
  Speaker 1: Polynesian indigenous actor, And I'm like, okay, that's better a
• 35:01
  Speaker 1: little bit more sincere, Yeah, I appreciate that. Um. Okay,
• 35:06
  Speaker 1: So let's see. Mara has shown up and she's like, yeah, Aquaman,
• 35:11
  Speaker 1: you gotta come be King, you gotta stop orm Um.
• 35:14
  Speaker 1: And she also tells him about this sacred trident that
• 35:18
  Speaker 1: had once belonged to King at Land that if he
• 35:22
  Speaker 1: can find he can use it to dethrone arm and
• 35:26
  Speaker 1: he's like, no, that trident's just a myth. Then orm
• 35:31
  Speaker 1: causes this huge tidal wave that destroys this coastal town
• 35:36
  Speaker 1: and nearly kills Aquaman's dad. It sends a lot of
• 35:39
  Speaker 1: trash that had been dumped in the ocean back onto
• 35:42
  Speaker 1: Land as sort of like a warning from orm. So
• 35:46
  Speaker 1: this causes Aquaman to agree to accompany Mera and help
• 35:51
  Speaker 1: her stop arm. So they go to Atlantis and meet
• 35:55
  Speaker 1: up with Volco, who, by the way, we learned through
• 35:58
  Speaker 1: flashbacks that throughout Arthur's childhood, Vocal has been training him
• 36:04
  Speaker 1: basically how to be Aquaman, like be this magnificent fighter
• 36:07
  Speaker 1: and teaching him how like you know, nice Jaffar, nice Jafar.
• 36:11
  Speaker 1: You you can breathe underwater, you can see underwater, you
• 36:14
  Speaker 1: can talk underwater, all this stuff. So he's been like
• 36:16
  Speaker 1: training Aquaman his whole life. It is so fun to
• 36:20
  Speaker 1: see scenes of Willem Dafoe being so nice, Like it's
• 36:24
  Speaker 1: just like wow, where that like scene where they jump
• 36:27
  Speaker 1: off the cliff and he's like, you was see something cool?
• 36:30
  Speaker 1: Of like this vibe is unfamiliar to me. This is nice,
• 36:34
  Speaker 1: so good. I love that scene. One of my favorite
• 36:38
  Speaker 1: shots in the movie is when they're sitting on like
• 36:40
  Speaker 1: the edge of like that cliff under the water and
• 36:43
  Speaker 1: just watching all the mantas like swim by. Yeah. Like
• 36:46
  Speaker 1: this movie is so gorgeous in theaters, Like just seeing
• 36:49
  Speaker 1: it on a big screen was just a treat. Another thing.
• 36:54
  Speaker 1: But what's his name? Volco? Yeah? Yeah, okay, So how
• 36:58
  Speaker 1: do I tie this in? Let's um, So, once upon
• 37:01
  Speaker 1: a time in the United States, it was illegal for
• 37:06
  Speaker 1: Native Americans to practice our religion, our culture, you know,
• 37:11
  Speaker 1: residential schools and just government policy like you could not
• 37:16
  Speaker 1: be Native and if you did have anything as far
• 37:20
  Speaker 1: as like a rattle a drum, sweet grass stage, you know,
• 37:24
  Speaker 1: anything like that. If you were caught practicing and praying,
• 37:28
  Speaker 1: you know, you could go to jail for it. You
• 37:30
  Speaker 1: could be imprisoned for it. So this part of the movie,
• 37:33
  Speaker 1: again it's subtle, but you know, when you're Native and
• 37:36
  Speaker 1: you're watching it, you know, it's kind of clicks. It's
• 37:39
  Speaker 1: like he's learning about his culture in secret because they
• 37:43
  Speaker 1: don't want him to know about how to be Atlantean.
• 37:47
  Speaker 1: It's like, you're a human and we don't want you
• 37:49
  Speaker 1: here anyway. But it's like learning about that element of
• 37:54
  Speaker 1: who you are when you're disconnected from it, and learning
• 37:56
  Speaker 1: about the history and the customs and how to fight
• 38:00
  Speaker 1: and how to use your abilities. I mean, in this movie,
• 38:03
  Speaker 1: it's talking to fish and swimming and finding out who
• 38:07
  Speaker 1: you are. But still it's like finding out this wonderful
• 38:12
  Speaker 1: part of your family and your history and the culture
• 38:16
  Speaker 1: that you belong to. And there's just a small observation.
• 38:21
  Speaker 1: I just really I really like that totally layers this
• 38:25
  Speaker 1: movie's I was like, let's we start talking to Ali.
• 38:28
  Speaker 1: I'm going to be fully like this is the greatest
• 38:31
  Speaker 1: movie ever made, you know what, much like the Ocean,
• 38:34
  Speaker 1: this movie is deep it can be, and sometimes it's shallow, shallow,
• 38:41
  Speaker 1: just like the ocean. Okay, so let's see so Volco.
• 38:45
  Speaker 1: They meet up with Volco and then he has a
• 38:48
  Speaker 1: clue about the final resting place of this sacred trident.
• 38:53
  Speaker 1: But before they can do anything about it, Aquaman is
• 38:55
  Speaker 1: captured and brought to Orm, who Aquaman then challenge is
• 39:00
  Speaker 1: to a duel, and the terms are that if Aquaman wins,
• 39:03
  Speaker 1: Orm will stop the war. If Orm wins, he's like, Aquaman,
• 39:09
  Speaker 1: you're over. So I guess he's gonna kill I'm not
• 39:13
  Speaker 1: sure exactly what fusing terms, which quickly becomes clear that
• 39:19
  Speaker 1: they really should have hashed out what the terms were well,
• 39:23
  Speaker 1: because because he's like, oh, you know, the war will
• 39:26
  Speaker 1: be over, and he's like, but if I win, you're over,
• 39:30
  Speaker 1: which is funny, so yeah, or this evil but sometimes
• 39:37
  Speaker 1: he's such a petty little asshole that it's almost like
• 39:40
  Speaker 1: it's the same like brain scratch that when you see
• 39:42
  Speaker 1: a succession character acting out where you're like, you're being
• 39:45
  Speaker 1: so silly right now. When he screams like I am
• 39:49
  Speaker 1: ocean Master, You're like, okay, are you You're not giving
• 39:56
  Speaker 1: me ocean master in that wig? I don't think so oh,
• 40:02
  Speaker 1: I love it. Right Here we get another quick flashback
• 40:06
  Speaker 1: where Vocal is training teenage Aquaman, and this is also
• 40:10
  Speaker 1: when Vocal reveals that his mother had died long ago
• 40:15
  Speaker 1: and that she was sacrificed by King or VA's, who
• 40:19
  Speaker 1: had gotten very jealous when he found out that she
• 40:21
  Speaker 1: had had another son with a human man. Okay, so
• 40:27
  Speaker 1: I feel just because of that detail, you know, that
• 40:31
  Speaker 1: he found out that she had a child with another person,
• 40:35
  Speaker 1: and that was enough, not even another person, but like human,
• 40:39
  Speaker 1: that was enough to execute her. And I mean, just
• 40:44
  Speaker 1: judging from the fact that she fled this arranged marriage
• 40:49
  Speaker 1: and spent years away, you know, out of the sea
• 40:52
  Speaker 1: and with this person, and that they came after her,
• 40:56
  Speaker 1: you know, um, I think it's kind of safe to
• 40:59
  Speaker 1: assume that or may or may not have been conceived
• 41:01
  Speaker 1: of rape. I think that's fair to assume that that
• 41:06
  Speaker 1: is definitely yeah, or at least like coerced into. Like
• 41:09
  Speaker 1: obviously she was forced to marry this person. But you know,
• 41:13
  Speaker 1: Mira's being in this arranged marriage as well, but she's
• 41:18
  Speaker 1: kind of you know, like, oh well whatever, you don't
• 41:20
  Speaker 1: have to love someone to marry them. It's a political thing.
• 41:23
  Speaker 1: But this very clearly was not the case with Atlanta,
• 41:27
  Speaker 1: and uh, I'm glad that they just kind of leave
• 41:30
  Speaker 1: that up in the air, you know where it's like, yeah,
• 41:33
  Speaker 1: this is possible. It doesn't need to be directly harped
• 41:37
  Speaker 1: on addressed and yeah, but it's it. I mean, that
• 41:41
  Speaker 1: is like unfortunately, yeah, very very conceivably true. And I
• 41:46
  Speaker 1: thought it was, I mean, just another I mean, in
• 41:48
  Speaker 1: this movie, it is interesting. Is written by two men,
• 41:51
  Speaker 1: one of whom is a former cop, so you know, uh,
• 41:58
  Speaker 1: former l ap D police detect of getting worse really amazing, cool,
• 42:03
  Speaker 1: cool and great. So I don't want to like repeatedly,
• 42:07
  Speaker 1: I'm like someone else in the room came up with
• 42:09
  Speaker 1: this idea, because I you won't see me handing it
• 42:11
  Speaker 1: to an l apt officer. But I did like with
• 42:15
  Speaker 1: Atlanta and Mira, two characters who are in who are
• 42:19
  Speaker 1: at different points in time, in virtually the same situation,
• 42:23
  Speaker 1: but dealing with it differently, And that was again just
• 42:27
  Speaker 1: more than I expected from a superhero movie with a
• 42:30
  Speaker 1: gigantic budget. I feel like, if you have to with
• 42:32
  Speaker 1: the you know, they're basically the same person, and you know,
• 42:36
  Speaker 1: Aquaman is like, wow, Mommy's girlfriend now. Life is wild,
• 42:40
  Speaker 1: you know. But but Mira and Atlanta, in spite of
• 42:43
  Speaker 1: how similar their predicament was, they think of the situation
• 42:48
  Speaker 1: and approach the situation very differently because they're different people.
• 42:52
  Speaker 1: And I hate that. I didn't expect the movie to
• 42:56
  Speaker 1: treat them as if they were different people, because I
• 42:59
  Speaker 1: feel like we've seen Mommy's girlfriend now so many times.
• 43:02
  Speaker 1: But I appreciated that at least they did that. Yeah,
• 43:06
  Speaker 1: And I think it's because, like Mara and Orm have
• 43:10
  Speaker 1: this conversation, it's like very brief where she's like, do
• 43:13
  Speaker 1: you think your mother would want to see her two
• 43:15
  Speaker 1: children kill each other? And it sounds like they grew
• 43:19
  Speaker 1: up together, like she must have known Atlanta when she
• 43:22
  Speaker 1: was younger, and she must have known Orm when she
• 43:24
  Speaker 1: was younger, And that's probably why she's a little bit
• 43:26
  Speaker 1: more chill about like, Okay, if I got to marry
• 43:29
  Speaker 1: my best friend, whatever, but you're wrong to marry this
• 43:35
  Speaker 1: fucking dork from school who at least she is it her. Okay,
• 43:41
  Speaker 1: So this big battle between Aquaman and Orm is about
• 43:44
  Speaker 1: to happen in like the Ring of Fire or whatever thing.
• 43:47
  Speaker 1: It's so big. It's this fight is so large So
• 43:51
  Speaker 1: they have this battle where kind of neither of them
• 43:54
  Speaker 1: end up winning because Orm is sort of incapacitated in
• 43:58
  Speaker 1: some way. And I think it's because of me to
• 44:00
  Speaker 1: understand that Mara uses her like water manipulation powers to
• 44:04
  Speaker 1: sort of like whatever, fuck him up a little bit,
• 44:08
  Speaker 1: and then it allows her and Aquaman to escape. Is
• 44:12
  Speaker 1: that what happens? Something like that? It's all I remember
• 44:16
  Speaker 1: was just the scoreboard where it's like, look at how
• 44:18
  Speaker 1: awesome Orm is and then look at the stupid drunk
• 44:23
  Speaker 1: native man who wants to fight him. Right, So I
• 44:27
  Speaker 1: feel like Mara is like we can talk about this
• 44:29
  Speaker 1: later too, But I feel like Mara is playing her
• 44:32
  Speaker 1: cards really well, where she's like effectively convincing Orm that
• 44:36
  Speaker 1: she's like his ally and yeah, like this freaking Aquaman
• 44:41
  Speaker 1: guy is such an imbecile or something like that. And
• 44:45
  Speaker 1: then she's really just like doing this to get away
• 44:49
  Speaker 1: from Orm because she realizes like what a scary tyrant
• 44:51
  Speaker 1: he is. Yeah, anyway, so this fight happens, Mara and
• 44:55
  Speaker 1: Aquaman escape, and then they head to the Sahara Desert
• 45:00
  Speaker 1: to follow this clue that will lead them to the
• 45:03
  Speaker 1: Lost Trident. As they enter the Sahara it just blasts
• 45:08
  Speaker 1: the worst cover of Total's Africa ever by people, and
• 45:13
  Speaker 1: it comes out of pitou is saying, oh my god,
• 45:16
  Speaker 1: I like blacked that out already somehow, that there's a
• 45:19
  Speaker 1: pit Bull song in this movie. It comes out of nowhere.
• 45:22
  Speaker 1: Because overall, like the soundtrack of the movie is pretty cool.
• 45:25
  Speaker 1: It kind of sounds like Tron Legacy or something. You know,
• 45:28
  Speaker 1: it's pitful, except for the end credits song where there's
• 45:34
  Speaker 1: a song where it's just like everything happens movies. I
• 45:40
  Speaker 1: also like that there. Yeah, this whole section of the movie.
• 45:44
  Speaker 1: I was like, this is like the not obviously the
• 45:47
  Speaker 1: same because they were all over the world, but I
• 45:49
  Speaker 1: was like, this is like the National Treasure section of
• 45:52
  Speaker 1: the movie where they're like collecting different things and they're like,
• 45:56
  Speaker 1: we need this, we need this, and that leads to
• 45:58
  Speaker 1: another clue, and that clue at least doing another clue. Yeah,
• 46:01
  Speaker 1: the scene where Jason Momoa is like and this statue
• 46:04
  Speaker 1: means this, this statue means that. I was like, whoa,
• 46:07
  Speaker 1: he's doing the He's doing the Benjamin Franklin cage thing. Yeah,
• 46:14
  Speaker 1: It's amazing how Aquaman becomes National Treasurer for like thirty
• 46:18
  Speaker 1: minutes as I was like, all right, sure. So they
• 46:21
  Speaker 1: go to the Sahara Desert. They find this like secret
• 46:23
  Speaker 1: stand chamber where they're able to play King Atlant's ancient message,
• 46:29
  Speaker 1: which then leads them to Italy. I think they're in
• 46:33
  Speaker 1: Italy somewhere that region, because there's like a Pinocchio joke
• 46:40
  Speaker 1: that is planted and paid off when they go to Italy.
• 46:43
  Speaker 1: For some reason, You're like, what's happening? Hilarious. I really
• 46:47
  Speaker 1: like that scene though in Sicily, just because earlier when
• 46:50
  Speaker 1: she takes Aquaman to Atlantis for the first time, and
• 46:55
  Speaker 1: I think I read in an interview where James wa
• 46:58
  Speaker 1: was talking about this how he wanted the audience to
• 47:01
  Speaker 1: like experience Atlantis the way Arthur does, you know, for
• 47:05
  Speaker 1: the very first time, and just the wonder and the
• 47:09
  Speaker 1: amazement of it when he's flying through and he's seeing
• 47:14
  Speaker 1: this metropolis under the ocean and all of this amazing,
• 47:17
  Speaker 1: beautiful things, you know, So that scene is amazing. And
• 47:22
  Speaker 1: then when he and Mirror are walking around the desert
• 47:25
  Speaker 1: and she's talking about people destroy our oceans, you don't
• 47:28
  Speaker 1: bow your garbage into our seas and blah blah blah,
• 47:31
  Speaker 1: and this is the worst place ever, and he's like, yeah,
• 47:34
  Speaker 1: but we've got you know, big mountains and beautiful forests
• 47:38
  Speaker 1: and big lakes. You know, I mean, like we've got
• 47:41
  Speaker 1: some stupid people running the place, but you know, like
• 47:44
  Speaker 1: the land is beautiful too, And she doesn't really like
• 47:48
  Speaker 1: pay that any attention until she's in Sicily and then
• 47:51
  Speaker 1: we see her, you know, experiencing Sicily for the first
• 47:55
  Speaker 1: time and seeing all the flowers and the fruits and
• 47:59
  Speaker 1: the people and that little girl at the fountain, and
• 48:03
  Speaker 1: she's just it was so good, unless she starts eating
• 48:06
  Speaker 1: roses and then she's like yum yum, Like this is strange.
• 48:13
  Speaker 1: It was good. I like that, but I don't know.
• 48:15
  Speaker 1: The movie has scenes that works so so well, and
• 48:18
  Speaker 1: it almost feels like a different movie because it's like
• 48:22
  Speaker 1: when it's excellent, it's excellent, and then when it's really
• 48:24
  Speaker 1: really clumsy, it's it's very clumsy all over the place. Yeah. Yeah,
• 48:30
  Speaker 1: so they're they're following this next clue, but then Black
• 48:34
  Speaker 1: Manta shows up, who has been absent for a while,
• 48:39
  Speaker 1: who has been absent for a while, but who has
• 48:41
  Speaker 1: also established this alliance with Orm, and so Orm is
• 48:44
  Speaker 1: like kind of making Manta do some of his bidding
• 48:47
  Speaker 1: and trying to get him to kill Aquaman Um. So
• 48:50
  Speaker 1: he shows up and attacks Aquaman and Mara. There's a
• 48:55
  Speaker 1: big fight sequence there. They eventually get away and head
• 48:58
  Speaker 1: towards the location of the trident, which is in this
• 49:02
  Speaker 1: kind of like underwater oasis cave place where surprise, guess
• 49:09
  Speaker 1: who's there, Queen Atlanta. He's going to cry again very soon.
• 49:16
  Speaker 1: I did not see that coming. I did not see
• 49:19
  Speaker 1: a coming. I thought, yeah, yeah, the audience and Aquaman
• 49:24
  Speaker 1: has everyone basically, everyone has been led to believe that
• 49:27
  Speaker 1: she died because she was sacrificed to the trenches, but
• 49:30
  Speaker 1: she managed to survive, and she's been like hiding and
• 49:34
  Speaker 1: living in you know, seclusion this whole time. So she
• 49:38
  Speaker 1: and Aquaman reunite. They have a nice tender moment, and
• 49:42
  Speaker 1: then Aquaman goes and gets the trident, which he's able
• 49:46
  Speaker 1: to do because he is the one true king. He
• 49:49
  Speaker 1: gives this whole kind of speech about how he's he
• 49:53
  Speaker 1: didn't come here because he thinks he's worthy. He's he
• 49:55
  Speaker 1: came here because like this is the only choice he
• 49:58
  Speaker 1: has to like save humanity basically, because he's also talking
• 50:01
  Speaker 1: to this giant fish creature who sounds like flotsam and
• 50:05
  Speaker 1: jetsam from The Little Mermaid whatever that was. I loved
• 50:10
  Speaker 1: that big scary fish. I was like, I watched that
• 50:14
  Speaker 1: scene twice because I was like, Oh, it's just this
• 50:17
  Speaker 1: this mean fish and that has like a really hard grip,
• 50:22
  Speaker 1: like and he was like, You're never gonna get this
• 50:24
  Speaker 1: trident from me. And then Aquaman is like, well if
• 50:28
  Speaker 1: I did, and he's like, oh, you can hear me.
• 50:30
  Speaker 1: And Aquaman is like yes, and he's like all right,
• 50:33
  Speaker 1: see if you can get it, and just like totally
• 50:36
  Speaker 1: neutralized threat in the space of like one kind of cute.
• 50:40
  Speaker 1: Jason Momoa's performance in that scene also was like I
• 50:43
  Speaker 1: just I just Jason Momo is so fun Like his
• 50:47
  Speaker 1: delivery in that scene where I don't know if maybe
• 50:50
  Speaker 1: maybe it was a choice, maybe he just like there
• 50:53
  Speaker 1: was scratch audio and he wasn't hearing the voice he
• 50:55
  Speaker 1: was responding to, but the scary flots of jets and fishes, Wait,
• 51:01
  Speaker 1: you can hear me, and yes, I can hear you,
• 51:05
  Speaker 1: and I can understand you. And it was just like, oh,
• 51:09
  Speaker 1: it's just so funny. I loved that scene. There are
• 51:13
  Speaker 1: two wonderful lines in the scene it's when Arthur's talking
• 51:18
  Speaker 1: to uh, his mom. He's saying, you know, he still
• 51:21
  Speaker 1: walks at the end of the dock every morning waiting
• 51:23
  Speaker 1: for you, which you know, ugly cry. But then um,
• 51:29
  Speaker 1: she says something. She's like, you need to be more
• 51:33
  Speaker 1: than just a king or whatever. And he's like, what
• 51:36
  Speaker 1: could be greater than a king? And she says a hero?
• 51:40
  Speaker 1: And I'm like, you know, that was the point where
• 51:42
  Speaker 1: I'm like, this is the indigenous representation that I really
• 51:46
  Speaker 1: just want for like little kids, you know what i mean, like,
• 51:50
  Speaker 1: you know, just a hero. You know, like I wonder
• 51:53
  Speaker 1: if that is how like because I used to work
• 51:56
  Speaker 1: at a gym for a little bit and you know,
• 51:59
  Speaker 1: would work with little kids, so one of the bonding
• 52:02
  Speaker 1: experiences between me and these kids would be superhero movies.
• 52:05
  Speaker 1: And just how much my black students loved Black Panther
• 52:10
  Speaker 1: so much, you know, like that was their hero. And
• 52:12
  Speaker 1: it's like Aquaman. When she said that line, I'm like,
• 52:16
  Speaker 1: this is what more than ever, I feel like the
• 52:19
  Speaker 1: little kids in the audience, you know, the little biracial kids,
• 52:22
  Speaker 1: the Native kids, the Hawaiian kids, you know, like they
• 52:26
  Speaker 1: don't need a king, they need a hero. And they
• 52:28
  Speaker 1: need someone who's gonna do these incredible things and who
• 52:32
  Speaker 1: look like them and are special and are you know, extraordinary.
• 52:37
  Speaker 1: And then when he's talking to the scary Cathulhu Monster
• 52:44
  Speaker 1: and she's telling them, you know you're not worthy and
• 52:46
  Speaker 1: blah blah blah, what makes you think that you're worthy?
• 52:49
  Speaker 1: And he just straight up tells her He's like, I came.
• 52:52
  Speaker 1: Let me read it, says I came to save my
• 52:55
  Speaker 1: home and the people that I love, the Trident is
• 52:58
  Speaker 1: their only hope. If that's not good enough, often, screw you.
• 53:01
  Speaker 1: I'm like, I love our King, Batman, who Batman? Who?
• 53:07
  Speaker 1: Wonder Woman? Who? Right? Which is like, again, such an
• 53:12
  Speaker 1: interesting deviation from so many superhero movies or so many
• 53:15
  Speaker 1: like I guess um like chosen one narratives where it's
• 53:19
  Speaker 1: like you have to prove your worth and you have
• 53:22
  Speaker 1: to like do the thing that proves like but in
• 53:25
  Speaker 1: a way that feels different from because he proves his
• 53:28
  Speaker 1: worth by like acknowledging that He's like, no, I'm not
• 53:31
  Speaker 1: any more worthy than anybody else. I'm just here in
• 53:34
  Speaker 1: this time of need, and I'm like I need to
• 53:37
  Speaker 1: take action against this TYRNT and like that's you know,
• 53:43
  Speaker 1: if that makes me worthy, then so be it, and
• 53:45
  Speaker 1: that is what ends up happening. But like I feel
• 53:47
  Speaker 1: like so many other chosen one narratives or I don't know,
• 53:50
  Speaker 1: it's just I really liked that about this where it's
• 53:53
  Speaker 1: just like he's like, no, I like, I'm not special.
• 53:57
  Speaker 1: I just like am here to help. And then it's
• 54:00
  Speaker 1: like cool, that makes you worthy. Hell yeah, but that
• 54:02
  Speaker 1: means you are special, like special. I was like, Jason,
• 54:09
  Speaker 1: don't be so humbul you obviously are going to get
• 54:12
  Speaker 1: the trident that it is. The other thing is like legit.
• 54:15
  Speaker 1: He he like saying, you know, like I know I'm
• 54:19
  Speaker 1: not worthy. I know I probably can't be king. I
• 54:21
  Speaker 1: know I'm probably not the best choice. I'm like, motherfucker,
• 54:24
  Speaker 1: You're fighting with Superman and Batman and Wonder Woman in
• 54:28
  Speaker 1: the previous movie, and you haven't mentioned that once, Like bro,
• 54:32
  Speaker 1: I would have thrown that in warm space. You're welcome,
• 54:36
  Speaker 1: Mr Humble. I always forget that because I just yea,
• 54:40
  Speaker 1: I don't have the correct brain for it. I'm like, oh, yeah,
• 54:43
  Speaker 1: he knows Batman, Superman, Yeah, those are his past. Yeah.
• 54:48
  Speaker 1: I didn't see Justice League, not the theatrical cut, nor
• 54:52
  Speaker 1: the Snyder cut, So I always forget that. So Aquaman
• 54:55
  Speaker 1: has already been introduced as a character into this cinematic
• 54:58
  Speaker 1: universe a year prior to this, I believe, because Justice
• 55:01
  Speaker 1: League was released theatrically in twenty seventeen, So he's already
• 55:05
  Speaker 1: existed in this universe as this character fighting alongside Yeah,
• 55:09
  Speaker 1: and I think chronologically that all happens before the events
• 55:12
  Speaker 1: of this teen Aquaman movie takes place too. Yeah, he's
• 55:16
  Speaker 1: already done all this like superhero ship and then now
• 55:19
  Speaker 1: he's like saving the world on his own. Uh. Yeah,
• 55:23
  Speaker 1: I always forget that because I skipped Justice Leave. It's
• 55:27
  Speaker 1: I'm sure that they sort of want you to forget that.
• 55:29
  Speaker 1: They don't want you to like hyper fixated on all
• 55:31
  Speaker 1: the cool ship because it kind of undercuts the story.
• 55:34
  Speaker 1: But I mean, I don't know the script did make
• 55:36
  Speaker 1: me forget. I just sort of assumed. I was like, well,
• 55:39
  Speaker 1: I guess he just hasn't met them yet, because like
• 55:41
  Speaker 1: you're saying, Ali, I'm like, I wouldn't shut up about it,
• 55:44
  Speaker 1: Like yeah, I was like, listen, orm you wouldn't have
• 55:49
  Speaker 1: an ocean if I hadn't saved the planet from Steppin Wolf.
• 55:52
  Speaker 1: So you're welcome Ocean Master. Yeah, Mr Ocean Master, how
• 55:57
  Speaker 1: do you like that? That Ocean Master line read really
• 56:01
  Speaker 1: killed me? It's like, God, how do you say that
• 56:04
  Speaker 1: with a straight face? Very funny? Wild? Okay, So there's
• 56:07
  Speaker 1: just a little bit of the story left. Uh, so
• 56:10
  Speaker 1: you know Aquaman getting the trident. Meanwhile, orm is launching
• 56:15
  Speaker 1: an attack against some of the other sea kingdoms because
• 56:19
  Speaker 1: I think he's trying to like gain control over them
• 56:22
  Speaker 1: so that he can launch this attack against the surface.
• 56:26
  Speaker 1: That whole thing. I was like totally understand what he's
• 56:30
  Speaker 1: trying to do. But then Aquaman shows up with the
• 56:33
  Speaker 1: trident to stop arm. There's another big battle. Aquaman and
• 56:37
  Speaker 1: may kiss at some point, um because she does have
• 56:41
  Speaker 1: to be his girlfriend. Not only like it comes out
• 56:45
  Speaker 1: of nowhere, but it's like, you know, it's Jason Momoa
• 56:49
  Speaker 1: and she could die in the next scene, so fucking
• 56:52
  Speaker 1: get him. But also I wonder if that's what kissing
• 56:56
  Speaker 1: Jason Momoa is like, where you just like the chaos
• 56:59
  Speaker 1: just kind of stops that there's like explosions and it's
• 57:03
  Speaker 1: just time stops. I mean, like sucking Lisa Bone, I
• 57:06
  Speaker 1: know it's like that every day. Could she come out
• 57:09
  Speaker 1: and confirm. Is that what it's like the kiss Aquaman? Yeah,
• 57:12
  Speaker 1: please let us know, Lisa. I also had that thought
• 57:15
  Speaker 1: that I was like, oh, if I kissed Jason Mamoa,
• 57:17
  Speaker 1: I probably would also feel like a whale just took
• 57:20
  Speaker 1: me away to some a second location afterwards, because a
• 57:23
  Speaker 1: whale just shows up and she's like, I gotta go,
• 57:26
  Speaker 1: and like later, I hope that that is the Jason
• 57:29
  Speaker 1: Mamma experience, that that a free Willie shows up and
• 57:33
  Speaker 1: it just takes you where you need to go. Afterwards,
• 57:37
  Speaker 1: so they're having the big battle, Aquaman eventually wins against Orm.
• 57:41
  Speaker 1: Atlanta shows up and she's like my two sons, and
• 57:45
  Speaker 1: then Aquaman shows Orm mercy. Orm is taken away as prisoner,
• 57:50
  Speaker 1: and then the people of Atlantis accept Aquaman as their
• 57:54
  Speaker 1: king a k a. King Arthur, which is also funny
• 58:00
  Speaker 1: it it makes you think. And then the movie ends
• 58:03
  Speaker 1: with Aquaman's mother and father reuniting on the dock and
• 58:08
  Speaker 1: having a beautiful kiss, and then we get some voice
• 58:11
  Speaker 1: over from Aquaman saying that their love that probably never
• 58:16
  Speaker 1: should have had, like you know, it wasn't supposed to happen, Uh,
• 58:19
  Speaker 1: it did happen and end up saving the world the end,
• 58:25
  Speaker 1: you cry, cry, cry, cry, cry, Cry cries so much.
• 58:29
  Speaker 1: Let's take a quick break and then we will come
• 58:32
  Speaker 1: right back to cry and discuss, and we're back where
• 58:41
  Speaker 1: would we like to begin? I mean, there's not a
• 58:44
  Speaker 1: ton ton ton of um. There are a few context
• 58:47
  Speaker 1: things that we should touch on before jumping back into
• 58:51
  Speaker 1: the story maybe, but the things that stuck out to
• 58:54
  Speaker 1: me was I did I was like God. The screenplay
• 58:57
  Speaker 1: ultimately was co written by a top uh so will
• 59:02
  Speaker 1: be what the fuck um co written with David Leslie
• 59:08
  Speaker 1: Johnson McGoldrick, which is a lot of names in a row.
• 59:12
  Speaker 1: We've also got a story by credit from Jeff john Yeah,
• 59:16
  Speaker 1: question Mark. Oh, I just I mean, most of this
• 59:19
  Speaker 1: crew seems to be like with the kind of the
• 59:21
  Speaker 1: outlier of Will bel I don't really know why why
• 59:25
  Speaker 1: he's here, and I kind of wish he wasn't. But um,
• 59:27
  Speaker 1: it seems like James One was allowed to kind of
• 59:30
  Speaker 1: bring his like team of people he usually collaborates with
• 59:33
  Speaker 1: to this movie, which is cool because it looks like
• 59:36
  Speaker 1: a James One movie and not like they just threw
• 59:39
  Speaker 1: all these DC who house people at him and he
• 59:42
  Speaker 1: didn't get to make the movie. He wanted that said
• 59:45
  Speaker 1: a lot of men, really male, heavy production, like top
• 59:49
  Speaker 1: level production stuff. Is all all guys, And are they
• 59:54
  Speaker 1: I know James one isn't white, but are the other writers?
• 59:57
  Speaker 1: Are they people of color? Are they? Uh? Let me
• 1:00:02
  Speaker 1: double check, but I do not believe. So, yeah, James
• 1:00:05
  Speaker 1: Won is Chinese Australian. Will Beal is a white cop. Uh. Yeah,
• 1:00:12
  Speaker 1: I was doing it. I was doing a quick Google
• 1:00:14
  Speaker 1: of everyone, and it is it is mostly white guys
• 1:00:16
  Speaker 1: at the top of this project. That's a little I
• 1:00:19
  Speaker 1: don't know, that's a little surprising, especially with all the
• 1:00:22
  Speaker 1: nuance that this film kind of has with the racism.
• 1:00:27
  Speaker 1: I know that like just tangentially that like these movies
• 1:00:31
  Speaker 1: are like there's writer's rooms that take place around these movies,
• 1:00:34
  Speaker 1: and those writers don't get credited. So I'm assuming, I
• 1:00:38
  Speaker 1: just I'm assuming that whatever goes right in this movie,
• 1:00:40
  Speaker 1: a white cop didn't write like he wrote all the
• 1:00:44
  Speaker 1: Nazi ship probably but yeah, yeah, he's like, oh orm,
• 1:00:48
  Speaker 1: I'll take orm. I got it. Like, but yeah, I
• 1:00:52
  Speaker 1: just want to igno and and and then also just
• 1:00:54
  Speaker 1: um for the five times this episode shout out James
• 1:00:58
  Speaker 1: Won because you gotta love him. He's and if you
• 1:01:02
  Speaker 1: and if you haven't really gone into the want of
• 1:01:05
  Speaker 1: verse he made. I never get like at another certain
• 1:01:10
  Speaker 1: people you think of and you're like, I'm so upset
• 1:01:13
  Speaker 1: at you for being so smart, so young and so like.
• 1:01:16
  Speaker 1: He made the Saw movie, the first Saw movie, when
• 1:01:18
  Speaker 1: he was like twenty five or something. It's ridiculous he
• 1:01:22
  Speaker 1: did so he did the conjuring he did in City
• 1:01:25
  Speaker 1: as he did like he did, he just did Malignant.
• 1:01:28
  Speaker 1: He's like forty three. I was like this man, and
• 1:01:33
  Speaker 1: he seems like such a sweetie pie. James. I wonder,
• 1:01:38
  Speaker 1: I wonder if super Yockey has made James Wan Sure,
• 1:01:42
  Speaker 1: I would like one. I think. Another important piece of
• 1:01:46
  Speaker 1: context for this movie is that canonically early I guess,
• 1:01:50
  Speaker 1: at least as far as like comic book character Aquaman
• 1:01:55
  Speaker 1: was created as a white character. And then when Zack
• 1:02:00
  Speaker 1: Snyder whoever was in charge of casting Jason Momoa as
• 1:02:05
  Speaker 1: Aquaman in Justice League, basically was just like, this doesn't
• 1:02:10
  Speaker 1: need to be the white character that we saw in
• 1:02:12
  Speaker 1: the comic books. We can just kind of cast whoever
• 1:02:16
  Speaker 1: they cast. Jason Momoa, who is native Hawaiian and to
• 1:02:21
  Speaker 1: some extent Native American. On I believe his mother's side,
• 1:02:25
  Speaker 1: but he I think doesn't necessarily claim as much heritage there,
• 1:02:30
  Speaker 1: so he um just give that some clarity. Yeah, yeah,
• 1:02:35
  Speaker 1: Jason Momoa is a bit of a problematic faith just
• 1:02:38
  Speaker 1: because he has played Native American characters in the past.
• 1:02:42
  Speaker 1: He was in a movie, uh called Rhoda Paloma I
• 1:02:45
  Speaker 1: think is how you say it, where he played a
• 1:02:48
  Speaker 1: Native character. He was on a show called The Red
• 1:02:51
  Speaker 1: Road where he plays a Native character. And he was
• 1:02:54
  Speaker 1: on Frontier where he plays a Native character. And again,
• 1:02:58
  Speaker 1: you know, and distinction there is, you know, like Hawaiians
• 1:03:03
  Speaker 1: are not Native American and Native Americans are not Hawaiian
• 1:03:07
  Speaker 1: because it's you know, different different histories, different cultures. So
• 1:03:12
  Speaker 1: in an interview for The Red Road on Sundance TV,
• 1:03:16
  Speaker 1: the lady interviewing him asked him if he has any
• 1:03:20
  Speaker 1: Native heritage, and he says, you know, my grandmother she
• 1:03:24
  Speaker 1: has a little bit of pawny, but I wouldn't say
• 1:03:26
  Speaker 1: that I have enough. And I think that that's an
• 1:03:28
  Speaker 1: important distinction, kind of problematic phrasing, you know, in a way,
• 1:03:34
  Speaker 1: you know, you don't really want to talk about blood
• 1:03:36
  Speaker 1: quantum and go into that, Kara, but you know the
• 1:03:40
  Speaker 1: fact that he does acknowledge, Like, you know, I'm a
• 1:03:42
  Speaker 1: little bit uncomfortable claiming to be Pawny, even if Grandma
• 1:03:46
  Speaker 1: might have been. I am Hawaiian, So I'm glad that
• 1:03:52
  Speaker 1: you know, at least with Aquaman, it's like, yes, this
• 1:03:55
  Speaker 1: is Hawaiian, this is Polynesian, but it's also in Agenois
• 1:04:00
  Speaker 1: and American, and you know, like he can really I
• 1:04:05
  Speaker 1: don't know, I feel like this creation was very much
• 1:04:08
  Speaker 1: part of Jason Momoa's influence, and uh, it feels more
• 1:04:13
  Speaker 1: sincere that way, because it's like, dude, stop sucking playing
• 1:04:17
  Speaker 1: native characters. Let a native person play the character. I
• 1:04:21
  Speaker 1: honestly wasn't aware of the full, like the full context
• 1:04:24
  Speaker 1: of his history there. Thank you for for letting us know. Uh,
• 1:04:31
  Speaker 1: we started to touch on this, and Alie, you were
• 1:04:33
  Speaker 1: speaking to this already, but I'm interested to hear you
• 1:04:36
  Speaker 1: speak more about kind of your connection with this movie,
• 1:04:39
  Speaker 1: especially in terms of like it's indigenous representation. It's an
• 1:04:42
  Speaker 1: indigenous superhero that there aren't really any other examples of
• 1:04:47
  Speaker 1: that by racial representation. I mean, yeah, yeah, if you
• 1:04:51
  Speaker 1: want to speak to that anymore. Well, it was interesting
• 1:04:53
  Speaker 1: when I did my research and so many people, you know,
• 1:04:58
  Speaker 1: like wrote these articles about Aquaman being like the first
• 1:05:01
  Speaker 1: actual big biracial superhero and like I even was like
• 1:05:07
  Speaker 1: trying to you know, I'm like, is that correct? You know,
• 1:05:10
  Speaker 1: like I'm going back, and the only one I can
• 1:05:13
  Speaker 1: really think of was Brandon Lee and The Crow because
• 1:05:16
  Speaker 1: he's Chinese and white. But little kids were not watching
• 1:05:21
  Speaker 1: the Crow, you know, like the same audience watching the
• 1:05:24
  Speaker 1: Crow was not, you know, like it's not as accessible
• 1:05:27
  Speaker 1: as Aquaman was. So in the same way that Blade
• 1:05:31
  Speaker 1: and Black Panther are different, Like people try to say
• 1:05:35
  Speaker 1: that Black Panther isn't the first black superhero. That was Blade,
• 1:05:39
  Speaker 1: and I'm like, yeah, but children were not the target
• 1:05:42
  Speaker 1: audience for Blade. They have it that was like R
• 1:05:46
  Speaker 1: rated right, it was like it's very gory and graphic,
• 1:05:50
  Speaker 1: and Blade wasn't presented as like look at this role
• 1:05:52
  Speaker 1: model for children, like no, no, yeah. And even Jason Momoa,
• 1:05:58
  Speaker 1: like in an interview, so he said, is honestly to
• 1:06:01
  Speaker 1: be the first mixed race Superheroen is like, really, is
• 1:06:05
  Speaker 1: is there not one? He's like, that's a huge honor.
• 1:06:07
  Speaker 1: And to play it so close to who I am
• 1:06:10
  Speaker 1: and all of his imperfections, I get to play it
• 1:06:12
  Speaker 1: in a way where you can really slip between those
• 1:06:15
  Speaker 1: two worlds. And I'm excited for the world to see it,
• 1:06:18
  Speaker 1: he says, I haven't seen Aquaman yet because I'll be
• 1:06:21
  Speaker 1: able to see something with my kids for the first time,
• 1:06:24
  Speaker 1: and I'm going to be really emotional and affected and
• 1:06:27
  Speaker 1: to hold their hands. It's going to be a really
• 1:06:30
  Speaker 1: cool moment to be a dad with a ten year
• 1:06:32
  Speaker 1: old and eleven year old. It's pretty special. And yeah,
• 1:06:36
  Speaker 1: you know, like that's what I think too. Like again,
• 1:06:39
  Speaker 1: you know, I used to work with kids at the
• 1:06:40
  Speaker 1: gym and stuff, and there was this one specific little boy,
• 1:06:45
  Speaker 1: you know, and he's black. I don't know if he
• 1:06:48
  Speaker 1: was by racial. I think both of his parents are black,
• 1:06:50
  Speaker 1: but he had these beautiful like amber colored sort of
• 1:06:54
  Speaker 1: their brown eyes, but they kind of had like yellow
• 1:06:57
  Speaker 1: in them a little bit. And he would like, oh,
• 1:07:00
  Speaker 1: I have eyes like Aquaman. You know what I look like.
• 1:07:04
  Speaker 1: You know what I mean. It's like I love that,
• 1:07:06
  Speaker 1: you know, like this kid who clearly is like, even
• 1:07:10
  Speaker 1: if Aquaman isn't black, there's something you know, it's a
• 1:07:13
  Speaker 1: brown superhero. It's by racial superhero. It some elements of
• 1:07:18
  Speaker 1: him look like him. And it's like, you know, that's
• 1:07:21
  Speaker 1: what I want for these kids, you know, especially indigenous kids,
• 1:07:25
  Speaker 1: you know, who really might not have a role model
• 1:07:30
  Speaker 1: like Superman or Batman or something to that extent. You know,
• 1:07:35
  Speaker 1: like seeing yourself on screen is is very important, especially
• 1:07:39
  Speaker 1: like when I think about representation for me. You know,
• 1:07:45
  Speaker 1: there's a million actresses out there who look like me.
• 1:07:47
  Speaker 1: There's a million characters who look like me, but I
• 1:07:49
  Speaker 1: don't feel like they are me. But then when I
• 1:07:54
  Speaker 1: see Native actresses, you know, in shows like Reservation Dogs
• 1:07:59
  Speaker 1: or you know, anything else, really I'm like, I don't
• 1:08:04
  Speaker 1: feel like that's representing me either, because I'm so white
• 1:08:07
  Speaker 1: passing and biracial and not really connected to the culture.
• 1:08:12
  Speaker 1: And I think that's why I gravitated so much towards
• 1:08:14
  Speaker 1: Frozen two when it came out, because it was you know,
• 1:08:19
  Speaker 1: an aquaman too in this extent, especially with the dad
• 1:08:22
  Speaker 1: and you know, the parents looking so much like mine
• 1:08:25
  Speaker 1: and all the other stuff. I hope that answered your question.
• 1:08:29
  Speaker 1: I kind of went out, that's like, that's so, that's
• 1:08:33
  Speaker 1: so lovely to hear, Like, yeah, this movie, I mean this,
• 1:08:36
  Speaker 1: And again it's like this movie is it's so interesting
• 1:08:40
  Speaker 1: to me because this movie wasn't marketed in that way
• 1:08:44
  Speaker 1: at all, Like it was just like, here's the Aquaman movie.
• 1:08:47
  Speaker 1: And then like I just and and maybe I just
• 1:08:50
  Speaker 1: wasn't engaging with I feel like I'm my my feed
• 1:08:54
  Speaker 1: does not superheroes don't come up in my feet a lot.
• 1:08:58
  Speaker 1: Uh So maybe I missed this course, but I didn't
• 1:09:00
  Speaker 1: hear much about it either. I mean it was like
• 1:09:03
  Speaker 1: I was very pleasantly surprised that and it's and it
• 1:09:07
  Speaker 1: just fits into the story so seamlessly. Yeah. Another thing
• 1:09:11
  Speaker 1: I think is really interesting about the narrative is that
• 1:09:14
  Speaker 1: Aquaman the character being mixed being by racial even though
• 1:09:20
  Speaker 1: it's never explicitly stated in the movie like he's half
• 1:09:24
  Speaker 1: Atlantean and half specifically indigenous human, it's always just like
• 1:09:28
  Speaker 1: he's half human and half Atlantean. Like we've mentioned, there's
• 1:09:33
  Speaker 1: like a clear allegory that can still be drawn because
• 1:09:36
  Speaker 1: he you know, he still has indigenous roots. And then
• 1:09:39
  Speaker 1: you can see this allegory of like, yes, he's half
• 1:09:42
  Speaker 1: white because Nicole Kodman is a white woman and half indigenous.
• 1:09:48
  Speaker 1: So even though there's like not an explicit discussion happening
• 1:09:52
  Speaker 1: about that in the movie, really there's like this you know,
• 1:09:54
  Speaker 1: clear allegory that's being presented. Even so, in the movie,
• 1:09:58
  Speaker 1: him being mixed is a thing that gets commented on
• 1:10:03
  Speaker 1: quite a bit, both by his like enemies who see
• 1:10:07
  Speaker 1: him being mixed as like a travesty. You know, he's
• 1:10:12
  Speaker 1: called whatever clearly like slurs by Patrick Wilson's character, by
• 1:10:17
  Speaker 1: King Orm versus other you know, his allies are constantly
• 1:10:22
  Speaker 1: reinforcing this. You know, you're the bridge between these two worlds.
• 1:10:26
  Speaker 1: We need you, and this is part of what makes
• 1:10:28
  Speaker 1: you worthy because you have these two experiences, you have
• 1:10:32
  Speaker 1: backgrounds from both of these worlds, both of these people
• 1:10:36
  Speaker 1: that can unite us because there you know, there's Nicole
• 1:10:41
  Speaker 1: Kidman shows up at the end and she's like, there
• 1:10:43
  Speaker 1: aren't two worlds. Actually it's not. You know, the surface
• 1:10:46
  Speaker 1: people and the underwater people were all from the same planet.
• 1:10:50
  Speaker 1: We are one. And again, like the voiceover, the voiceover
• 1:10:56
  Speaker 1: in the end is you know Aquaman saying, you know,
• 1:11:00
  Speaker 1: my father was a lighthousekeeper, my mother was a queen.
• 1:11:02
  Speaker 1: They never were meant to meet, but their love saved
• 1:11:06
  Speaker 1: the world. They made me what I am. A son
• 1:11:08
  Speaker 1: of the land, a king of the seas. And it's
• 1:11:11
  Speaker 1: like this celebration of his like kind of bicultural identity
• 1:11:16
  Speaker 1: is what saves the world. Let me comment on that one. Ah,
• 1:11:23
  Speaker 1: the end of the movie kills me. Yeah, okay, so
• 1:11:29
  Speaker 1: um when he says that, I know, he's like, you know,
• 1:11:35
  Speaker 1: speaking in terms of like Atlantis and people, you know,
• 1:11:38
  Speaker 1: but so saying, you know, like they were never supposed
• 1:11:45
  Speaker 1: to meet, but their love saved the world. It's like
• 1:11:49
  Speaker 1: that got to me, you know, like for a number
• 1:11:52
  Speaker 1: of reasons. Um, you know, all things considered, my parents
• 1:11:58
  Speaker 1: were never supposed to be you know, m and uh,
• 1:12:02
  Speaker 1: my dad's parents certainly were never supposed to me. You know.
• 1:12:06
  Speaker 1: It's like with residential schools and colonialism and all these
• 1:12:12
  Speaker 1: terrible things that have happened, you know in the United
• 1:12:16
  Speaker 1: States and Canada. It's like Grandma was never supposed to
• 1:12:21
  Speaker 1: be alive, you know, It's like Dad was never supposed
• 1:12:26
  Speaker 1: to be alive. You know, like technically none of us
• 1:12:30
  Speaker 1: are supposed to be here. And you know, like when
• 1:12:33
  Speaker 1: you put it in that perspective, what do you think
• 1:12:35
  Speaker 1: that you know, against all odds, like we're here, and
• 1:12:39
  Speaker 1: we're here because grandpa loved a Native woman and they
• 1:12:44
  Speaker 1: had children and then my dad met my mom. You know,
• 1:12:49
  Speaker 1: like how easily. Could Grandma have been sterilized at those
• 1:12:53
  Speaker 1: schools or could have died at those schools, Like we're
• 1:12:55
  Speaker 1: still finding you know, all of these bodies of these
• 1:12:59
  Speaker 1: two oldren you know, that are buried at different residential
• 1:13:03
  Speaker 1: schools and stuff, and it's like that could have been
• 1:13:08
  Speaker 1: any of them, you know, that could have been Auntie,
• 1:13:10
  Speaker 1: that could have been Grandma. You know, like the state
• 1:13:12
  Speaker 1: could have taken Dad away from her, you know. And
• 1:13:15
  Speaker 1: it's like so many things could have happened where they
• 1:13:17
  Speaker 1: were never supposed to meet, and they did. And uh,
• 1:13:23
  Speaker 1: even then, like once upon a time, like interracial marriages
• 1:13:27
  Speaker 1: were illegal into like the seventies, you know, like they
• 1:13:32
  Speaker 1: could have went to jail for being married, you know,
• 1:13:35
  Speaker 1: or you know, having interracial children. So it's uh, you know,
• 1:13:41
  Speaker 1: against all odds finding each other in this life. I mean,
• 1:13:45
  Speaker 1: it's kind of beautiful, and I'm happy that the movie
• 1:13:50
  Speaker 1: ended on a happy note. I'm glad that Aquaman's mom
• 1:13:52
  Speaker 1: didn't get fucking fridged like usually, you know, so the
• 1:13:57
  Speaker 1: end where you know these the end where she's there
• 1:14:04
  Speaker 1: and he finds her again. It's like when you're sitting
• 1:14:07
  Speaker 1: in the theater with mom and you know that that's
• 1:14:10
  Speaker 1: not what's gonna end because she's sick, it was still
• 1:14:16
  Speaker 1: kind of healing, and it's like, you know, I'm not
• 1:14:19
  Speaker 1: really religious or anything, but it's like, at the end
• 1:14:22
  Speaker 1: of all things, I kind of hope that that's where
• 1:14:24
  Speaker 1: we find her someday. You know, I'm so happy I'm
• 1:14:30
  Speaker 1: not the only person on the planet who fucking cries
• 1:14:32
  Speaker 1: over Aquaman because like the other articles that I've read
• 1:14:36
  Speaker 1: where people said that they got very emotional toops m
• 1:14:39
  Speaker 1: h ah. I don't know if this movie meant to
• 1:14:44
  Speaker 1: go so deep, but I interpreted it deeply. So that's
• 1:14:49
  Speaker 1: the beautiful thing about art and stories and movies is
• 1:14:52
  Speaker 1: that they can be interpreted any which way they can be.
• 1:14:57
  Speaker 1: You know, the experience that you're any viewer bringing into
• 1:15:02
  Speaker 1: the viewing experience will kind of inform I think it's
• 1:15:05
  Speaker 1: really beautiful that James One Superhero Aquaman movie is something
• 1:15:11
  Speaker 1: that's so like profoundly important and like impactful and effective
• 1:15:16
  Speaker 1: to you. I'm so glad and I'm so glad you
• 1:15:19
  Speaker 1: have that that memory with your mom too. That's really beautiful. Yeah,
• 1:15:23
  Speaker 1: that's really great. Yeah me too. It was good good
• 1:15:27
  Speaker 1: last movie and uh a happier memory was when we
• 1:15:33
  Speaker 1: were watching it is at the beginning of the movie
• 1:15:36
  Speaker 1: when he breaks into the submarine, because Mom she she
• 1:15:42
  Speaker 1: would watch all of the m c U with us
• 1:15:44
  Speaker 1: all the time, and her favorite was Thor, like she
• 1:15:48
  Speaker 1: loved Thor. And then when Aquaman broke into the submarine
• 1:15:52
  Speaker 1: and it's just beating everyone's ass, She's like, oh, no,
• 1:15:56
  Speaker 1: I don't know if who I like more? Now do
• 1:15:58
  Speaker 1: I like Thor more? Do I like Aquaman more? And
• 1:16:00
  Speaker 1: then they dude hit him and he like did that
• 1:16:02
  Speaker 1: little head tilt before he kicked his ass? And we're
• 1:16:05
  Speaker 1: both like, yeah, Aquaman, sorry, Chris. My mom had a
• 1:16:12
  Speaker 1: type long haired muscly men man. It was also a
• 1:16:18
  Speaker 1: teddy bear right funny, another lovely memory. Man, We're going
• 1:16:25
  Speaker 1: we're going deep on Aquaman. I'm so happy it's good.
• 1:16:31
  Speaker 1: It's good movie. I like it even if it kills me.
• 1:16:34
  Speaker 1: It's a good movie. And it made I wanted to
• 1:16:38
  Speaker 1: just shout out how again. I mean, I feel like
• 1:16:40
  Speaker 1: at this point, for the majority of people have a
• 1:16:43
  Speaker 1: commonly accepted truth. But like, this movie made a shipload
• 1:16:47
  Speaker 1: of money. This movie made over a billion dollars. Yeah, globally,
• 1:16:51
  Speaker 1: I think, yeah, Like I didn't. I guess I didn't
• 1:16:54
  Speaker 1: remember how wildly successful this movie was. Um, because I
• 1:16:58
  Speaker 1: just don't pay attention to the dc you because I
• 1:17:00
  Speaker 1: assume it's boring. But then I'm like, well, if it's
• 1:17:02
  Speaker 1: James Want, it's not going to be boring. And if
• 1:17:04
  Speaker 1: they had billion dollars, I know, the d C EU
• 1:17:08
  Speaker 1: just hasn't been like none of them are really any good.
• 1:17:12
  Speaker 1: I would say, like they only had like three really
• 1:17:15
  Speaker 1: really good ones, and that would be this one, Aquaman,
• 1:17:19
  Speaker 1: Wonder Woman, and Birds of Prey. Oh yeah, yeah, yeah,
• 1:17:23
  Speaker 1: those are the ones. Yeah, those are really because the
• 1:17:25
  Speaker 1: Superman ones haven't really been that good, the Batman ones
• 1:17:29
  Speaker 1: really haven't been good. Wonder Woman is awful, Oh my gosh,
• 1:17:33
  Speaker 1: what a third really, And I mean not for nothing
• 1:17:38
  Speaker 1: that the three good d c EU movies were directed
• 1:17:41
  Speaker 1: by women and people of colored not a white guy
• 1:17:43
  Speaker 1: to be seen Wonder Moons. Yeah, but yeah, I mean
• 1:17:47
  Speaker 1: it's huge box office success, which, by the way, it's
• 1:17:50
  Speaker 1: as of this recording, it's the twentie highest grossing film
• 1:17:53
  Speaker 1: of all time, but hilariously only the fifth highest grossing film,
• 1:17:56
  Speaker 1: of which means there were four other movies in the
• 1:18:00
  Speaker 1: gross more, which was like an Offers movie. Black Panther
• 1:18:05
  Speaker 1: incredible too, and I'm forgetting the other one, Durrassic World
• 1:18:10
  Speaker 1: whatever Durassic World came out. Oh my god, Yeah, I
• 1:18:13
  Speaker 1: guess that's that's so wild And all the while we
• 1:18:17
  Speaker 1: couldn't get a better wig for Mera with a billion dollars.
• 1:18:20
  Speaker 1: Then she looks so much like Aerial from Disney's Little Mermaid.
• 1:18:25
  Speaker 1: That distracting. I did, Um, obviously, I mean maybe this
• 1:18:31
  Speaker 1: is the part where we can like kind of say it,
• 1:18:33
  Speaker 1: like as we talk about Mira. Yeah, so like there
• 1:18:37
  Speaker 1: is definitely obviously a conversation to be had about domestic
• 1:18:41
  Speaker 1: violence and abuse, and it's not something that should be
• 1:18:44
  Speaker 1: ignored or overlooked. Of course, Um, several places have already
• 1:18:50
  Speaker 1: discussed this, and you know as far as Amber heard, yes, yes,
• 1:18:56
  Speaker 1: as far as Amber heard, and everything that's surrounding that,
• 1:18:58
  Speaker 1: the controversy. Um, so that's why we really just wanted
• 1:19:03
  Speaker 1: to focus more on the indigenous aspect of the film,
• 1:19:07
  Speaker 1: because there is a lot to be said without really
• 1:19:09
  Speaker 1: even mentioning her. Right, but now that we are going
• 1:19:13
  Speaker 1: to mention her, you know, not to give not to like, um,
• 1:19:17
  Speaker 1: it's not framing her in a positive light, so to
• 1:19:20
  Speaker 1: say more like the character just kind of separating the two.
• 1:19:25
  Speaker 1: We want to acknowledge that we are well aware that
• 1:19:28
  Speaker 1: this is I mean an ongoing case and well, I mean, well,
• 1:19:32
  Speaker 1: let's let's link to some resources to that effect in
• 1:19:35
  Speaker 1: the notes of the show. So if you're if you're
• 1:19:38
  Speaker 1: not aware of the situation, we're not going to get
• 1:19:40
  Speaker 1: into it here because we would be here for hours
• 1:19:42
  Speaker 1: and it would it would take away from what we
• 1:19:44
  Speaker 1: do want to discuss about this movie. But we are
• 1:19:46
  Speaker 1: aware of the ongoing case with Amber Heard and Johnny Depp.
• 1:19:51
  Speaker 1: Domestic violence is always something that we want to never
• 1:19:54
  Speaker 1: ever erase in the scope of our show. UM. But yeah,
• 1:19:58
  Speaker 1: so we just wanted to acknowledge it that that is
• 1:20:02
  Speaker 1: something that's ongoing at the time of this recording. Um,
• 1:20:05
  Speaker 1: in terms of like the the case is still going.
• 1:20:08
  Speaker 1: And I believe the Amber Heard is not coming back
• 1:20:10
  Speaker 1: for the second Aquaman movie. I think she is. I
• 1:20:13
  Speaker 1: think they are filming because yeah, well there was a
• 1:20:16
  Speaker 1: lot of controversy around her casting in the second movie
• 1:20:20
  Speaker 1: because they wanted to recast her, and people wanted to
• 1:20:24
  Speaker 1: boycott Aquaman two because of that, and it's like, you know,
• 1:20:29
  Speaker 1: I know this is an unpopular opinion. I mean, whether
• 1:20:32
  Speaker 1: she's an Aquaman two or not, I'm still going to
• 1:20:34
  Speaker 1: see it because he is the only indigenous, bi racial
• 1:20:39
  Speaker 1: superhero like period, and like, why let her ruin that,
• 1:20:44
  Speaker 1: you know, like, for lack of better terms, I mean,
• 1:20:46
  Speaker 1: why take it away? You know, according to MDB, she
• 1:20:49
  Speaker 1: does appear to be in this sequel that she about
• 1:20:53
  Speaker 1: a year from now in December. So okay, well, yeah,
• 1:20:59
  Speaker 1: we want to make sure that we acknowledge that. And
• 1:21:02
  Speaker 1: you know it would have felt weird too not addressing address. Yeah,
• 1:21:08
  Speaker 1: but we'd rather focus on other aspects of the film.
• 1:21:12
  Speaker 1: We're focusing on the story here. We'll we'll leave a
• 1:21:14
  Speaker 1: link in the description of this episode, right, but you know,
• 1:21:18
  Speaker 1: just separating Mira from the actress um the character herself,
• 1:21:23
  Speaker 1: I mean, is strangely pretty capable. I think, you know,
• 1:21:26
  Speaker 1: I tend to agree, yeah, to an extent. I like
• 1:21:29
  Speaker 1: that her motivation really isn't you know, Oh, I'm in
• 1:21:32
  Speaker 1: love with Arthur. You know, it's like, no, my soon
• 1:21:36
  Speaker 1: to be husband is a fucking lunatic and yeah, you know,
• 1:21:40
  Speaker 1: we have to save the world and I have to
• 1:21:43
  Speaker 1: like kind of teach this guy how to save the world.
• 1:21:46
  Speaker 1: She's kind of the impetus that gets Aquaman even involved
• 1:21:50
  Speaker 1: in the plot of the movie, which is pretty cool.
• 1:21:53
  Speaker 1: I was all over the place with her, honestly, Like,
• 1:21:56
  Speaker 1: there are certain scenes where I was like, because I
• 1:21:59
  Speaker 1: totally agree with like she is the one that brings
• 1:22:02
  Speaker 1: him into the action, but she's like, I think, unless
• 1:22:06
  Speaker 1: I missed something, the first time she participates in the
• 1:22:09
  Speaker 1: action of the movie, like she fights is an hour
• 1:22:12
  Speaker 1: and a half into the movie, and the movie is
• 1:22:15
  Speaker 1: two and a half hours long, to be fair, So
• 1:22:17
  Speaker 1: she is involved in the act. Once she is involved
• 1:22:19
  Speaker 1: in the action of the movie, she remains involved in
• 1:22:21
  Speaker 1: the action and she's in the rest of the battles.
• 1:22:24
  Speaker 1: But it it took a while for her to like
• 1:22:28
  Speaker 1: become and there there was a and maybe I'm being
• 1:22:30
  Speaker 1: like overly I don't know, maybe maybe I'm being overly
• 1:22:34
  Speaker 1: sensitive to this thing. But the first time that she fought,
• 1:22:37
  Speaker 1: there was this music cue that I'm like, I know
• 1:22:40
  Speaker 1: this music cue. It's guess who's fighting now, Like, there
• 1:22:44
  Speaker 1: is that music cue the first time she fights, where
• 1:22:46
  Speaker 1: it's a long stare, like she looks at the bug guy,
• 1:22:51
  Speaker 1: I don't know what, Like she looks at the scary
• 1:22:53
  Speaker 1: guy and she's like, oh, you don't think a girl
• 1:22:56
  Speaker 1: can fun? Like she doesn't say it, but the music
• 1:22:59
  Speaker 1: tells you that. And then she fights and then you're like,
• 1:23:01
  Speaker 1: all right, I guess we broke the seal there. And
• 1:23:03
  Speaker 1: then she continues to fight, and like we know why
• 1:23:06
  Speaker 1: she knows how to fight like all this stuff because
• 1:23:08
  Speaker 1: she she had a mentor growing up as well. So
• 1:23:12
  Speaker 1: it's not a Merry Sioux situation or anything like that,
• 1:23:15
  Speaker 1: but I wish she'd I do. I sort of wanted
• 1:23:18
  Speaker 1: her to get involved in the action a little sooner
• 1:23:21
  Speaker 1: because there were I think like at least one, possibly
• 1:23:24
  Speaker 1: two large fight set pieces where she's sidelined and I
• 1:23:29
  Speaker 1: didn't think necessarily had to be right, that's fair, Yeah,
• 1:23:33
  Speaker 1: But I was also I was also paying attention to
• 1:23:35
  Speaker 1: things like does she ever have to be saved by
• 1:23:38
  Speaker 1: a man? Is she doing any of the shaving? And
• 1:23:40
  Speaker 1: I found that she she saves him twice. She saves
• 1:23:43
  Speaker 1: him twice one when the first like that big title
• 1:23:46
  Speaker 1: wave that arm throws at them. She saves both Aquaman
• 1:23:50
  Speaker 1: and his dad by also like kind of giving him
• 1:23:54
  Speaker 1: like Atlantean CPR, basically like using her powers to like
• 1:23:59
  Speaker 1: extract the her from his lungs, and then she saves
• 1:24:01
  Speaker 1: him from Patrick Wilson's fashy rage. Yes, and after like
• 1:24:05
  Speaker 1: the ring of fire battle and yeah, I mean when
• 1:24:08
  Speaker 1: we do see her fighting, she is a competent fighter.
• 1:24:11
  Speaker 1: She can turn wine into swords. That's pretty cool. I know.
• 1:24:17
  Speaker 1: I was like, wow, what a live laugh love moment.
• 1:24:20
  Speaker 1: Uh well, I mean technically Jesus is her teacher, so
• 1:24:25
  Speaker 1: whoa that. Guess what you can do with the wine?
• 1:24:33
  Speaker 1: Love it? It's so deep. Um, yeah, I think I think.
• 1:24:36
  Speaker 1: I just like that. Whenever that like girl fighting now
• 1:24:39
  Speaker 1: music que plays, I'm just like, come on, come on,
• 1:24:43
  Speaker 1: James Wan. You know women can fight. You've been doing
• 1:24:46
  Speaker 1: that forever. But whatever. But and then towards the end,
• 1:24:49
  Speaker 1: there's there is someone who saves Mara as they're approaching
• 1:24:54
  Speaker 1: like the tridents resting place and they're being attacked by
• 1:24:57
  Speaker 1: all these like sea creatures, and at first I thought, O,
• 1:25:00
  Speaker 1: it was Aquaman, but then it turns out to be
• 1:25:02
  Speaker 1: this unknown figure who ends up being Nicole Kidman's character.
• 1:25:06
  Speaker 1: So I was like, Okay, she at no point has
• 1:25:08
  Speaker 1: to be saved by a man, unless I'm like missing
• 1:25:11
  Speaker 1: something or forgetting something. I don't think that happens. No,
• 1:25:15
  Speaker 1: she doesn't, Okay, so that was I was like, all right,
• 1:25:18
  Speaker 1: that's that's something for you know, that's kind of unusual.
• 1:25:21
  Speaker 1: She's fighting with weapons, like the bars on the floor,
• 1:25:24
  Speaker 1: but like she fights with weapons, it's not like random
• 1:25:28
  Speaker 1: stuff that's around and has like powers. I feel like
• 1:25:31
  Speaker 1: a lot of superhero movies don't really equip if there
• 1:25:35
  Speaker 1: is like one woman in the story, she isn't like
• 1:25:37
  Speaker 1: thinking of the first like Avengers movie where Black Widow
• 1:25:41
  Speaker 1: all these other characters have like out of this world powers,
• 1:25:45
  Speaker 1: and then Black Widows like, I can wrap my legs
• 1:25:48
  Speaker 1: around a man's face and pussy slam him to the ground.
• 1:25:53
  Speaker 1: But she's got actual powers also in the like when
• 1:25:57
  Speaker 1: the movie turns into National Treasure for a while and
• 1:26:00
  Speaker 1: they're like having to use like clue solving skills. She
• 1:26:03
  Speaker 1: knows what to do with the first artifact. She knows
• 1:26:06
  Speaker 1: where to go and how to find it. She knows
• 1:26:08
  Speaker 1: how to access the recording, which leads them to the
• 1:26:11
  Speaker 1: next clue. She memorizes that recording, which Aquaman like didn't
• 1:26:15
  Speaker 1: even think to do or couldn't do, or you know,
• 1:26:18
  Speaker 1: I relate to that too, because I legit would be
• 1:26:21
  Speaker 1: like what did he just say? What do we have
• 1:26:23
  Speaker 1: to do? I would have to watch it forty seven
• 1:26:26
  Speaker 1: times and like write it down. Yeah, And I like that.
• 1:26:29
  Speaker 1: It's like it's not just I feel like very often.
• 1:26:32
  Speaker 1: I mean, I think you could even make this argument
• 1:26:34
  Speaker 1: for National Treasure of like, even when there's a capable woman,
• 1:26:38
  Speaker 1: she's all along for the ride. I mean, in the
• 1:26:41
  Speaker 1: case of National Treasure, she's a hostage for a while
• 1:26:43
  Speaker 1: and doesn't do any of the clue solving, even though
• 1:26:46
  Speaker 1: she's like a historian. So but but in this case,
• 1:26:49
  Speaker 1: it's not only is mera a very very important active participant,
• 1:26:54
  Speaker 1: they also share a common goal like her, their fates
• 1:26:57
  Speaker 1: are connected, and so the stakes are extreme high for her.
• 1:27:00
  Speaker 1: It's not just like I have a crush on this guy,
• 1:27:02
  Speaker 1: so I'm going to help him out, or Nicholas Cage
• 1:27:05
  Speaker 1: is taking me hostage, so let me see what I
• 1:27:07
  Speaker 1: can do, like you know, right, And then the second
• 1:27:10
  Speaker 1: big clue, Aquaman figures that out because he's like, oh,
• 1:27:13
  Speaker 1: Romulus was the king. We have to put the bottle
• 1:27:15
  Speaker 1: and the statues hand, and then that's how we find
• 1:27:18
  Speaker 1: the thing. But it just means that there's equity between
• 1:27:21
  Speaker 1: like she saw the first thing, he solves the second one.
• 1:27:25
  Speaker 1: They're like equals in this endeavor, which again is not
• 1:27:29
  Speaker 1: It's like, should just be the standard thing that we
• 1:27:32
  Speaker 1: can expect, but it's almost never that way. It's almost like,
• 1:27:36
  Speaker 1: you know, the man doing all the work, the woman's
• 1:27:38
  Speaker 1: there along for the ride to look pretty and to
• 1:27:40
  Speaker 1: kiss at the end, which does happen in this movie too.
• 1:27:43
  Speaker 1: I would argue that this love story feels very wedged in,
• 1:27:46
  Speaker 1: doesn't really need to be there, doesn't really develop in
• 1:27:49
  Speaker 1: any meaningful way except for that one scene where she's like,
• 1:27:51
  Speaker 1: look at me eat flowers and he's like, ha ha,
• 1:27:53
  Speaker 1: you're you're cute, and then and then they're kissing right
• 1:27:58
  Speaker 1: there are Yeah, there are a few like hey, end
• 1:28:00
  Speaker 1: brusha's and then meaningful glances and it's like is this necessary?
• 1:28:04
  Speaker 1: I mean sure, I guess, And it didn't like super
• 1:28:07
  Speaker 1: bother me because the characters do have chemistry, but it
• 1:28:11
  Speaker 1: was like, I agree, it's like it is wedged It
• 1:28:13
  Speaker 1: could have been a potentially like tutor, I guess, if
• 1:28:17
  Speaker 1: she was more like a younger sister or something as
• 1:28:20
  Speaker 1: opposed to a love interest. Yeah, because the optics of like, well,
• 1:28:25
  Speaker 1: I mean, I guess who cares. But it's like she
• 1:28:27
  Speaker 1: was going to marry her, she's being forced to marry
• 1:28:30
  Speaker 1: his brother, and then she's like, oh, I guess I'm
• 1:28:32
  Speaker 1: just actually going to marry her, which feels very like
• 1:28:37
  Speaker 1: classically royal story that felt like this felt like such
• 1:28:41
  Speaker 1: a modern story, and to have that like royal brother
• 1:28:44
  Speaker 1: conflict felt more dated. I don't know, I don't they
• 1:28:48
  Speaker 1: would have taken the kiss out of that big fight
• 1:28:51
  Speaker 1: scene and then at the end where he's like what
• 1:28:54
  Speaker 1: do I do now, she's like be their king and
• 1:28:56
  Speaker 1: he like kind of kisses her on the forehead before
• 1:28:58
  Speaker 1: he does that thing. I'm like, how cute would that
• 1:29:00
  Speaker 1: have been? If that would have been like a big
• 1:29:03
  Speaker 1: brother like I'm gonna be the king or whatever instead
• 1:29:05
  Speaker 1: of oh, we just made out and you know what
• 1:29:07
  Speaker 1: I mean, like something a little bit more wholesome. Yeah,
• 1:29:12
  Speaker 1: I like I like the little sister thing, or like
• 1:29:15
  Speaker 1: I'd like to just see more examples of like women
• 1:29:18
  Speaker 1: being men and a woman being platonic friends in a
• 1:29:21
  Speaker 1: movie that they don't have any fine, they can still
• 1:29:25
  Speaker 1: both be like movie star hot, but also like it
• 1:29:28
  Speaker 1: doesn't automatically mean they're going to be attracted to each
• 1:29:31
  Speaker 1: other and gonna wanna kiss someone. Max and Furious too
• 1:29:36
  Speaker 1: hot people who don't kiss, and they are just allies.
• 1:29:39
  Speaker 1: And I love that. Just let hot people be friends.
• 1:29:43
  Speaker 1: Just let people friends once, I would say. And I
• 1:29:48
  Speaker 1: mean as far as like so Mara, I don't know,
• 1:29:53
  Speaker 1: I would have liked to get to know her a
• 1:29:54
  Speaker 1: little bit better. She doesn't have that much of an arc.
• 1:29:57
  Speaker 1: She doesn't feel like that new wance or complicated of
• 1:30:01
  Speaker 1: a character to me. I don't know. I feel like
• 1:30:03
  Speaker 1: there could have been more, like I don't know, just
• 1:30:06
  Speaker 1: emotional nuance to her, which I think could have been
• 1:30:09
  Speaker 1: explored if she was like a member of their family,
• 1:30:11
  Speaker 1: like the little sister or you know, a friend of
• 1:30:14
  Speaker 1: the family who I don't know. It just I felt
• 1:30:17
  Speaker 1: like there could have been more to develop her. But
• 1:30:19
  Speaker 1: I was generally impressed with the way her character was
• 1:30:22
  Speaker 1: handled and the amount that she was given to do
• 1:30:25
  Speaker 1: and the agency that she had. I was. I was
• 1:30:28
  Speaker 1: generally impressed with all of that. I agree. There is though,
• 1:30:31
  Speaker 1: a scene which kind of like picked for me. When
• 1:30:36
  Speaker 1: it's towards the end, Aquaman and Mara have shown up
• 1:30:39
  Speaker 1: at this like cave place where the trident is supposed
• 1:30:43
  Speaker 1: to be. Nicole Kidman is also like, by the way,
• 1:30:46
  Speaker 1: I've been hiding for twenty years. And then we're also like,
• 1:30:50
  Speaker 1: does that mean that Aquaman is only like twenty five
• 1:30:53
  Speaker 1: because I think she he was like a small boy
• 1:30:55
  Speaker 1: when she So I'm like, okay, I guess Aquaman's twenty
• 1:30:59
  Speaker 1: five or something. Think about was like forty something. Yeah,
• 1:31:05
  Speaker 1: she's and she's supposed to be Patrick Wilson's mother, Like
• 1:31:07
  Speaker 1: Patrick Wilson is like fifty. You're like, well, I guess
• 1:31:10
  Speaker 1: it's all relative. We don't know how people in Atlantis
• 1:31:13
  Speaker 1: age by aging my aging underwater differently. This is just
• 1:31:17
  Speaker 1: a goofy Atlantis observation. But there would be some of
• 1:31:20
  Speaker 1: the scenes in Atlantis where you would just you would
• 1:31:24
  Speaker 1: just be seeing the actors from like the chest up,
• 1:31:27
  Speaker 1: and then they would suddenly cut to a wide shot
• 1:31:28
  Speaker 1: and you're like, oh, they're floating there. It's just like
• 1:31:32
  Speaker 1: that guy's hair is just like Doren has like red hair,
• 1:31:37
  Speaker 1: and he's just like sort of floating around and his
• 1:31:40
  Speaker 1: hair is all going everywhere. Seed where they take Willhem
• 1:31:43
  Speaker 1: Dafoe's nice Jaffar character to the dungeon or whatever. They
• 1:31:47
  Speaker 1: cut to a wide shot and like to those like kicking,
• 1:31:54
  Speaker 1: and I was like, that's so funny. I forget that
• 1:31:56
  Speaker 1: he's swimming in this scene while he's going, um, he's
• 1:32:01
  Speaker 1: being taken to the dungeon. Yeah, it looks very stall anyway.
• 1:32:05
  Speaker 1: So the three of them have all kind of reunited.
• 1:32:07
  Speaker 1: It's an aquaman and his mother and then Mara, and
• 1:32:10
  Speaker 1: there's you were like Aquamans like, all right, I gotta
• 1:32:14
  Speaker 1: go find the trident. And he goes and like does
• 1:32:16
  Speaker 1: the very important thing of the movie, and then he
• 1:32:18
  Speaker 1: comes back to where Mara in Atlanta or Atlanta are
• 1:32:22
  Speaker 1: just like, well, we had to wait for the man
• 1:32:24
  Speaker 1: to do the important thing, and then we were just
• 1:32:26
  Speaker 1: the two women who were sitting here waiting. Well, they
• 1:32:29
  Speaker 1: don't want to. I think that's fair enough. You do
• 1:32:33
  Speaker 1: not want women with the tentacle monster in this movie
• 1:32:36
  Speaker 1: because fandom is weird enough without god fair fair enough.
• 1:32:43
  Speaker 1: That picked for me as well. And I feel like
• 1:32:46
  Speaker 1: that could have been remedied by just like writing a
• 1:32:48
  Speaker 1: short scene for them. Yeah, because I forget who was
• 1:32:53
  Speaker 1: saying it earlier, but like she would have known Queen
• 1:32:56
  Speaker 1: Atlanta since she was very young. They would have plenty
• 1:32:59
  Speaker 1: to talk about. She was going to be forced to
• 1:33:02
  Speaker 1: marry her bed son, she's falling in love with her
• 1:33:04
  Speaker 1: good son. They just have known each other for a
• 1:33:07
  Speaker 1: long time. Maybe they'll reminisce about something. What is Nicole
• 1:33:10
  Speaker 1: Kidman been up to? Like, there's so many questions and
• 1:33:14
  Speaker 1: there could have been a scene with them. Wait would
• 1:33:16
  Speaker 1: they have known? Wouldn't have Nicole Kidman's character been banished
• 1:33:20
  Speaker 1: probably before Mary was even born? I don't know, because
• 1:33:23
  Speaker 1: I think Mari says something. I think Mari says something
• 1:33:27
  Speaker 1: like this goes against everything your mother taught us or something. Right,
• 1:33:30
  Speaker 1: It's that was Yeah, it sounds like they which again
• 1:33:34
  Speaker 1: you have to suspend your disbelief and believe that Patrick
• 1:33:36
  Speaker 1: Wilson and Amber her at the same age, which is
• 1:33:38
  Speaker 1: very obviously not true. But yeah, I like I think
• 1:33:44
  Speaker 1: that they would have known each other. But even if not,
• 1:33:47
  Speaker 1: there's plenty to talk about. Yeah, or if like if
• 1:33:50
  Speaker 1: we want to throw in another like fight sequence in
• 1:33:52
  Speaker 1: there where if like some of the sea creatures had
• 1:33:54
  Speaker 1: like infiltrated this place and then we have to see
• 1:33:57
  Speaker 1: these like two women, you know, kick some ass like
• 1:34:00
  Speaker 1: an action movie. After all, Like it just felt so
• 1:34:02
  Speaker 1: weird to me that, like he comes back and it's
• 1:34:04
  Speaker 1: like these two women were just like, okay, we wait.
• 1:34:06
  Speaker 1: We were here waiting for you the man to do
• 1:34:09
  Speaker 1: with the important thing, and we were just sitting here
• 1:34:11
  Speaker 1: waiting and I was like, that could have been handled
• 1:34:14
  Speaker 1: way better. Yeah. Yeah, But bottom line, especially compared to
• 1:34:19
  Speaker 1: superhero movies and the way women are treated in them
• 1:34:23
  Speaker 1: for years prior to this, uh, Mara's involvement in story
• 1:34:27
  Speaker 1: is pretty decent. Yeah, motivated, there's action, like, it's good.
• 1:34:33
  Speaker 1: I wouldn't call it trinity syndrome either, you know. I
• 1:34:37
  Speaker 1: there's plenty for her to do. It's not like she
• 1:34:39
  Speaker 1: just showed up and it's like, now what do I do?
• 1:34:42
  Speaker 1: And I'm here? Really how cool I am? What do
• 1:34:46
  Speaker 1: I do? Nothing? Yeah, it's not like Morpheus sent me.
• 1:34:49
  Speaker 1: It's like I sent myself because I see that this
• 1:34:53
  Speaker 1: man that I've been forced into a marriage is trying
• 1:34:56
  Speaker 1: to kill the world, so I have to um stop him. Yeah,
• 1:35:00
  Speaker 1: and then in the same in the same way. I mean,
• 1:35:02
  Speaker 1: and I think we've kind of covered this at this point,
• 1:35:04
  Speaker 1: but um, Queen Atlanta has a full arc. You know,
• 1:35:08
  Speaker 1: It's it does seem like you're kind of led to
• 1:35:10
  Speaker 1: believe for the majority of the movie that she is Fridged.
• 1:35:13
  Speaker 1: But then not only is she not Fridge, but she
• 1:35:16
  Speaker 1: gets to go on this like beautiful journey that makes
• 1:35:19
  Speaker 1: me cry when I think about it. Um, So, you know,
• 1:35:23
  Speaker 1: there are certainly more characters of consequence in this story
• 1:35:28
  Speaker 1: that are men. For sure. There's brother conflict, there's pirate
• 1:35:34
  Speaker 1: merman conflict. There's fathers and sons. There's a lot of
• 1:35:38
  Speaker 1: you know, male relationship. And I don't even necessarily mean
• 1:35:41
  Speaker 1: that in a bad way because there's a wide variety
• 1:35:43
  Speaker 1: of them. And then there are like two women in
• 1:35:47
  Speaker 1: the story basically, and they are both white ladies, which
• 1:35:51
  Speaker 1: but the women who are there, I think that the
• 1:35:54
  Speaker 1: script does right by them and they have fully realized
• 1:35:58
  Speaker 1: stories and their motivated, dead and involved and yeah, h
• 1:36:02
  Speaker 1: I wanted to talk a little bit more about the
• 1:36:04
  Speaker 1: relationship between Aquaman and his dad because I think it's beautiful,
• 1:36:10
  Speaker 1: and we do joke a lot on the show about
• 1:36:11
  Speaker 1: how like, ultimately all stories are about fathers and sons. Um,
• 1:36:15
  Speaker 1: this one doesn't bother me. This one's beautiful, This one
• 1:36:18
  Speaker 1: doesn't bother me. It's it's a very sweet and supportive relationship.
• 1:36:21
  Speaker 1: Between the two of them. I feel like a trope
• 1:36:23
  Speaker 1: you see A lot is like the younger man, the son,
• 1:36:27
  Speaker 1: trying to prove himself to his dad and like kind
• 1:36:30
  Speaker 1: of being toxic along the way, or like the dad
• 1:36:34
  Speaker 1: character needs to redeem himself because he's been a shitty,
• 1:36:37
  Speaker 1: absent dad for his whole life. But there's like none
• 1:36:40
  Speaker 1: of that in this story. It's just like they've been together.
• 1:36:45
  Speaker 1: They are supportive of each other. There's no like masculinity
• 1:36:49
  Speaker 1: contest that either of them are trying to win. They're
• 1:36:53
  Speaker 1: just like having a nice time together and they love
• 1:36:57
  Speaker 1: each other. And I really appreciate she ate that representation
• 1:37:01
  Speaker 1: of like a father son relationship in a movie, because
• 1:37:03
  Speaker 1: we don't usually get anything like that. Yeah, there is
• 1:37:08
  Speaker 1: a there's a line of dialogue the Aquamenses towards the
• 1:37:11
  Speaker 1: end that I found to be confused. I don't I
• 1:37:14
  Speaker 1: don't know if this was a joke or what, but
• 1:37:16
  Speaker 1: it's when Mara is saying she said something like we
• 1:37:20
  Speaker 1: need to like encourage diplomacy, or we need to like
• 1:37:23
  Speaker 1: try to talk this out or like get it so
• 1:37:25
  Speaker 1: that the different like kingdoms of Atlantis are like get
• 1:37:29
  Speaker 1: It's something along those lines. I didn't write down specifically
• 1:37:32
  Speaker 1: what it was, but Aquaman's response to that was, I
• 1:37:36
  Speaker 1: learned from a young age not to show weakness. I
• 1:37:39
  Speaker 1: solved my problems with anger and my fists. I'm a
• 1:37:43
  Speaker 1: blunt instrument and I'm damn good at it. And I'm like,
• 1:37:46
  Speaker 1: is that actually even true? Like I feel like your
• 1:37:48
  Speaker 1: father wouldn't have like taught you that. Yeah, I'm just
• 1:37:55
  Speaker 1: I'm a tough man. Think guys will like guys like
• 1:37:58
  Speaker 1: you as I'd be like, look, I'm a little fucked
• 1:38:01
  Speaker 1: up and you're like, because why like lass party and
• 1:38:05
  Speaker 1: with those guys in that scene earlier, but it was
• 1:38:08
  Speaker 1: so it was so sweet. That was like the est. Yeah,
• 1:38:16
  Speaker 1: you don't see Batman doing that ship. Aquaman is so
• 1:38:18
  Speaker 1: much better. He's a friendly neighborhood Aquaman. He's a wholesome
• 1:38:23
  Speaker 1: boy boy. Yeah. No, that that relationship with that was
• 1:38:28
  Speaker 1: really well done. And it also didn't like it was
• 1:38:31
  Speaker 1: so I don't know, Yeah, it didn't like overtake the
• 1:38:33
  Speaker 1: story in a way that I feel like those relationships
• 1:38:36
  Speaker 1: sometimes do. And like, like you were saying at the
• 1:38:39
  Speaker 1: beginning of the episode, Alley, there's all of these like
• 1:38:42
  Speaker 1: pretty nuanced themes in this movie that just it's just seamless.
• 1:38:47
  Speaker 1: You don't feel like the movie is like really pushing
• 1:38:51
  Speaker 1: any particular theme on you. It's just like it's just
• 1:38:53
  Speaker 1: happening and it's and it's good. Yeah. That's really surprising
• 1:38:57
  Speaker 1: because of like Lesser Hands, you know, like this could
• 1:39:00
  Speaker 1: have been so messy and a movie that's already kind
• 1:39:03
  Speaker 1: of messy. I'm happy that part wasn't. You know, it's right.
• 1:39:08
  Speaker 1: I did appreciately like pro environmental conservation message of the movie,
• 1:39:14
  Speaker 1: although it was kind of weird that it was the
• 1:39:16
  Speaker 1: motivation for the villain and that it wasn't also the
• 1:39:18
  Speaker 1: motivation for like the good guys. That's a little Ghostbusters
• 1:39:22
  Speaker 1: for me. Yeah, we're like the E p A Is
• 1:39:25
  Speaker 1: the Devil. Yeah. I feel like they didn't want to
• 1:39:31
  Speaker 1: make the villain to sympathetic, you know, where it's like
• 1:39:35
  Speaker 1: kill Monger, you know, like made so many good points,
• 1:39:38
  Speaker 1: and it's like, well, we can't have y'all, you know,
• 1:39:40
  Speaker 1: rooting for the bad guys, so let's make him a misogynist,
• 1:39:43
  Speaker 1: you know what I mean, like black Panther. Otherwise, I
• 1:39:47
  Speaker 1: mean people would be like, oh, yeah, you know what
• 1:39:50
  Speaker 1: I mean, right, Like, yeah, see your point. Maybe I
• 1:39:53
  Speaker 1: should follow you actually, So then Orm is like, you know,
• 1:39:57
  Speaker 1: well you're not wrong, but you're also a fascistict yeah,
• 1:40:02
  Speaker 1: like or recognizes the environmental issue in a way that
• 1:40:06
  Speaker 1: Aquaman doesn't as much. But also his proposed solution is
• 1:40:11
  Speaker 1: violence and like racial violence and uh like would not
• 1:40:15
  Speaker 1: resolve the problem, but he acknowledges it. So it's weird.
• 1:40:19
  Speaker 1: And then at the end that line that Nicole Kidman
• 1:40:21
  Speaker 1: when she comes to like, I whatever, it's a comic
• 1:40:24
  Speaker 1: book story. So when she goes over and hugs her
• 1:40:26
  Speaker 1: son and she's like, don't do a fascism and he's like,
• 1:40:28
  Speaker 1: oh man, I feel so silly, and like he's like,
• 1:40:33
  Speaker 1: I'm sorry, mommy, I really I wasn't gonna I definitely
• 1:40:36
  Speaker 1: wasn't going to do a fascism. And then I'll go
• 1:40:39
  Speaker 1: to jail. Now think about what you did in the
• 1:40:42
  Speaker 1: dungeon and like in the swimming dungeon or whatever, and
• 1:40:45
  Speaker 1: so it's like all very whatever end of movie stuff.
• 1:40:49
  Speaker 1: But then Nicole Kidman says something like that makes sense
• 1:40:52
  Speaker 1: thematically with aquaman S narrative, where she's like the land
• 1:40:56
  Speaker 1: and the you know, we're all she's kind of like,
• 1:40:58
  Speaker 1: this is a monoculture maybe, and it's like, Okay, that
• 1:41:01
  Speaker 1: is I see, I see why she's saying that, But
• 1:41:06
  Speaker 1: that really pushes the environmental stuff aside. And because we've
• 1:41:11
  Speaker 1: been seeing I mean, that's why I'm intrigued by the
• 1:41:14
  Speaker 1: Randall Park character UM and how he is going to
• 1:41:20
  Speaker 1: team up with be held hostage by unclear uh with
• 1:41:26
  Speaker 1: Black Manta. But like it seems like the movie setting,
• 1:41:29
  Speaker 1: like the franchise, is being set up to address that
• 1:41:31
  Speaker 1: in a more meaningful way in the next movie. It
• 1:41:34
  Speaker 1: seems like it. I hope that there will be UH
• 1:41:36
  Speaker 1: in the sequel. I hope that there will be more
• 1:41:38
  Speaker 1: women of color in it, especially like Polynesian women are
• 1:41:42
  Speaker 1: more Polynesian characters in general, because you know, ycause it's
• 1:41:47
  Speaker 1: the Polynesian superhero. And also I guess the the environmental issues.
• 1:41:54
  Speaker 1: I wonder if it was also now that I think
• 1:41:56
  Speaker 1: about it, I wonder if it was kind of swept
• 1:42:00
  Speaker 1: under the rug a little bit because Jason Momoa was
• 1:42:03
  Speaker 1: protesting Mauna Kea around the time and then was also
• 1:42:08
  Speaker 1: standing in solidarity with Standing Rock Yes, and they were
• 1:42:13
  Speaker 1: probably like, well, we don't want it to get to
• 1:42:15
  Speaker 1: preachy because we're still Hollywood and you know, I don't
• 1:42:19
  Speaker 1: want to make too many waves. We don't want to
• 1:42:22
  Speaker 1: be pro environment. That would be absurd, that would be
• 1:42:27
  Speaker 1: a bad look for us. So it's like, what do
• 1:42:30
  Speaker 1: you mean God, I mean yeah, And then you think
• 1:42:32
  Speaker 1: about whether you can't you can't. You just can't think
• 1:42:34
  Speaker 1: about it. Like the carbon footprint of a movie like
• 1:42:36
  Speaker 1: this is gigantic and there aren't enough. Um. I mean,
• 1:42:39
  Speaker 1: that's a conversation that we should have on this show someday,
• 1:42:43
  Speaker 1: but I just haven't done enough research on it. But
• 1:42:45
  Speaker 1: just like the massive carbon footprint that movies havepen how
• 1:42:47
  Speaker 1: there's basically no regulations on how much energy you can
• 1:42:52
  Speaker 1: just bust into the air making you know, Willem Dafoe
• 1:42:56
  Speaker 1: swim or whatever it is, Like right, yeah, I would
• 1:43:01
  Speaker 1: like to learn more about that too. I feel like
• 1:43:03
  Speaker 1: we like, very very minimally scratched the surface when we
• 1:43:07
  Speaker 1: talked about Babe on the Patreon and I get a
• 1:43:10
  Speaker 1: little deep dive onto like how certain practical effects have
• 1:43:14
  Speaker 1: like killed nearby animals on movie sets. There have been
• 1:43:19
  Speaker 1: a few examples of that, but like, yeah, it's not
• 1:43:21
  Speaker 1: just like wildlife, it's just, yeah, the kind of ecological
• 1:43:24
  Speaker 1: impact that a lot of production movie productions have is
• 1:43:29
  Speaker 1: I'm sure not great. The next big big blockbuster we cover,
• 1:43:33
  Speaker 1: maybe I'll do a section of Avatar to probably because
• 1:43:38
  Speaker 1: you know that. God, Yeah, when we do the Avatar episode,
• 1:43:42
  Speaker 1: that would be that would because it's like, oh, this
• 1:43:45
  Speaker 1: that movie does claim to be a lot of things,
• 1:43:50
  Speaker 1: but you're like, bull, but what was the carbon footprint
• 1:43:52
  Speaker 1: of that? Mr Cameron? Can can we get some numbers there?
• 1:43:55
  Speaker 1: Among other things? Yeah? H does anyone have any other
• 1:44:01
  Speaker 1: thoughts about the movie that they like to discuss. I
• 1:44:05
  Speaker 1: want to say yes, but I'm blanking out. I think
• 1:44:09
  Speaker 1: that's that's everything that I had. There's so there was
• 1:44:13
  Speaker 1: so much, there's so much to love about this movie. Yeah,
• 1:44:16
  Speaker 1: I do have a newfound appreciation for it. I mean,
• 1:44:18
  Speaker 1: for me, like when I watch a movie, I'm mostly
• 1:44:22
  Speaker 1: analyzing until I analyze it through like the Bechtel cast lens.
• 1:44:26
  Speaker 1: I'm just looking at it from like I'm mostly like
• 1:44:29
  Speaker 1: story point of view, and like how well are the
• 1:44:31
  Speaker 1: characters developed, how compelling are the themes, how structurally sound
• 1:44:37
  Speaker 1: is the story? How like effective is the world building?
• 1:44:40
  Speaker 1: And I feel like some of those things in this
• 1:44:42
  Speaker 1: movie is like what made it feel very like clunky,
• 1:44:45
  Speaker 1: Like most of the world building is done through like
• 1:44:47
  Speaker 1: very clunky dialogue, and I'm just like, come on, of exposition.
• 1:44:53
  Speaker 1: Yeah there's But visually, for me, some of the choices
• 1:44:58
  Speaker 1: were strange, and again I was experiencing a lot of
• 1:45:00
  Speaker 1: sensory overload. But um, yeah, I do have a I
• 1:45:03
  Speaker 1: have way more appreciation for this movie than I did
• 1:45:08
  Speaker 1: before we started talking about it on this show. So
• 1:45:11
  Speaker 1: I every time I see I was selling Caitlin this
• 1:45:14
  Speaker 1: off Mike before we started recording. But I was like
• 1:45:16
  Speaker 1: everything that I found confusing about this movie, I suddenly
• 1:45:21
  Speaker 1: was like, I actually like it because it's all James
• 1:45:24
  Speaker 1: Wan stuff, Like James Wan created Jigsaw. Who if can
• 1:45:28
  Speaker 1: you think of a more expositional character than Jigsaw. He
• 1:45:34
  Speaker 1: the movies are not particularly well written, and they look
• 1:45:38
  Speaker 1: absolutely weird every single time, but it just it just works.
• 1:45:43
  Speaker 1: His movies are just vibrating. That's the James Wan way. Yeah,
• 1:45:47
  Speaker 1: Jigsaw is the ultimate I think. I guess listeners, let
• 1:45:51
  Speaker 1: me know if there's a character that um is more
• 1:45:53
  Speaker 1: inherently expositional than Jigsaw. We should do a saw a
• 1:45:57
  Speaker 1: month on the Patriot we got. Oh goodness, does this
• 1:46:03
  Speaker 1: movie pass the back door test. I forgot to pay attention.
• 1:46:07
  Speaker 1: It does. I I saw it passing one time. It
• 1:46:11
  Speaker 1: is a two and a half hour movie. Maybe I
• 1:46:13
  Speaker 1: missed something, But there was one interaction that Jason Momoa
• 1:46:19
  Speaker 1: is present for and it's shot from the back, so
• 1:46:22
  Speaker 1: it could have even been a d R. But maybe
• 1:46:25
  Speaker 1: maybe someone flagged that in James Wanda is like, oh shit, um.
• 1:46:29
  Speaker 1: But Nicole Kidman and uh Mea have an exchange where
• 1:46:34
  Speaker 1: Mara says something like and you've been here for twenty
• 1:46:38
  Speaker 1: years and she's like, yes, I've been here for twenty years,
• 1:46:43
  Speaker 1: and then they're like, anyways, aqua man. But it does.
• 1:46:46
  Speaker 1: Technically it does pass. Okay, well, good for the movie.
• 1:46:53
  Speaker 1: They also had two and a half other hours to
• 1:46:56
  Speaker 1: to maybe do that, And but that is like, that's
• 1:47:00
  Speaker 1: I think an extension of a problem we've been talking
• 1:47:02
  Speaker 1: about for five years now that the first time I
• 1:47:04
  Speaker 1: remember talking about it was in our Star Wars episode
• 1:47:07
  Speaker 1: four episode where it's like, how could this movie pass
• 1:47:09
  Speaker 1: the Bechdel test? There's only one woman she's got to
• 1:47:11
  Speaker 1: want to talk to, and it's like there's only two
• 1:47:13
  Speaker 1: women and they only appear in one scene together. Where
• 1:47:16
  Speaker 1: else is this going to pass. That's like a structural flaw.
• 1:47:19
  Speaker 1: I mean, yeah, that does speak to how there are
• 1:47:22
  Speaker 1: a lot of characters in this movie and most of
• 1:47:26
  Speaker 1: them are met. We get another like there's a scene
• 1:47:29
  Speaker 1: where Orm kills like the mermaid kingman and then his
• 1:47:34
  Speaker 1: daughter who's like teen daughters now, like the heir to
• 1:47:37
  Speaker 1: the throne. So then she shows up in a later
• 1:47:39
  Speaker 1: battle and she's like doing some stuff here and there
• 1:47:42
  Speaker 1: barely I mean blank, and you'll miss her. But other
• 1:47:45
  Speaker 1: than that that, yeah, there really aren't any women. But like,
• 1:47:48
  Speaker 1: for example, Willem Dafoe's character easily could have been a
• 1:47:51
  Speaker 1: woman like one of the villains, like other of the
• 1:47:54
  Speaker 1: villains could have been a woman. There are and I'm
• 1:47:57
  Speaker 1: sure that that connects to like the common Book says, well,
• 1:48:00
  Speaker 1: but it's like this movie already, this franchise already made
• 1:48:03
  Speaker 1: changes independently of the comic book that improved the source material.
• 1:48:07
  Speaker 1: So why not why not keep going with it? What
• 1:48:09
  Speaker 1: if Black Manta's dad would have been Black Manta's mom mother, right,
• 1:48:14
  Speaker 1: because then that really would have been shitty if he
• 1:48:16
  Speaker 1: would have left his mom to die, you know after
• 1:48:19
  Speaker 1: what he did, Like no, fuck you, I mean Black
• 1:48:23
  Speaker 1: Manta could have also been a woman, Like what's what's
• 1:48:26
  Speaker 1: to stop that from happening. But I do like the
• 1:48:29
  Speaker 1: idea of it being his mother instead of his father,
• 1:48:32
  Speaker 1: because then that's like Aquaman has like mommy problems, and
• 1:48:36
  Speaker 1: that would like heighten the conflict between the two of
• 1:48:39
  Speaker 1: them if they have this like shared like loss of
• 1:48:42
  Speaker 1: mother and like, ah, yeah, it was right there, it
• 1:48:47
  Speaker 1: was right. That's why you don't let an l a
• 1:48:49
  Speaker 1: p d. Officer write your movie. They're gonna yeah, um,
• 1:48:55
  Speaker 1: as far as our nipple scale goes zero to five nipples.
• 1:49:00
  Speaker 1: Analyzing it through an intersexual feminist lens um, I would
• 1:49:06
  Speaker 1: say between Mara and Atlanta, even though they are the
• 1:49:11
  Speaker 1: only two women in the story and they don't really
• 1:49:13
  Speaker 1: interact hardly ever, but as individual characters, like there's interesting
• 1:49:19
  Speaker 1: things happening there, there's more equity between Like Mara, who
• 1:49:25
  Speaker 1: is positioned to be the love interest, but she's also
• 1:49:27
  Speaker 1: more than that. In this movie, she's all that, she's
• 1:49:30
  Speaker 1: doing other stuff, she's fighting, she's solving clues, she has
• 1:49:33
  Speaker 1: the agency to like seek out Aquaman to begin with,
• 1:49:36
  Speaker 1: so you know, she's far more important to the narrative
• 1:49:39
  Speaker 1: than a lot of other like superhero movie female counterparts
• 1:49:43
  Speaker 1: of hers have been in the past, So that's cool.
• 1:49:46
  Speaker 1: The fact that this movie is representation of an indigenous superhero,
• 1:49:52
  Speaker 1: a biracial superhero. Uh the kids adults alike have seen
• 1:49:58
  Speaker 1: themselves represented in is like really important, really powerful, very meaningful.
• 1:50:04
  Speaker 1: The relationship between Aquaman and his dad and how there's like, again,
• 1:50:10
  Speaker 1: so many father son relationships are in movies are so
• 1:50:13
  Speaker 1: steeped in like some weird form of toxic masculinity, and
• 1:50:16
  Speaker 1: the fact that that's absent from this relationship I think
• 1:50:20
  Speaker 1: is a very positive thing to see on screen. And
• 1:50:23
  Speaker 1: so yeah, there's a lot of things going for the
• 1:50:27
  Speaker 1: movie that again, when looking at it through the through
• 1:50:31
  Speaker 1: the bectolcast lens, I appreciate it way more. So with
• 1:50:36
  Speaker 1: that in mind, I'll give it like three and a
• 1:50:40
  Speaker 1: half nipples, because there's still some stuff that, you know,
• 1:50:43
  Speaker 1: kind of rubbed me the wrong way. The fact that
• 1:50:46
  Speaker 1: the only black characters are villains, Like, why weren't there
• 1:50:50
  Speaker 1: black Atlanteans who are just existing in that world? Why
• 1:50:55
  Speaker 1: aren't there other just like any yeah, any people of
• 1:50:59
  Speaker 1: color elsewhere in the story, because it's still a predominantly
• 1:51:03
  Speaker 1: white cast. And and then there are the only black
• 1:51:06
  Speaker 1: characters we meet, Like there immediately sidelines until the credits
• 1:51:11
  Speaker 1: of the movie, right, yeah, yeah, and then you've got
• 1:51:14
  Speaker 1: like Randall Park, who seems like a very fun character.
• 1:51:17
  Speaker 1: I was like, so, where's he? Give me more him?
• 1:51:21
  Speaker 1: I'm pretty sure he has a very large role in
• 1:51:23
  Speaker 1: the second movie. I did a little digging, and I
• 1:51:27
  Speaker 1: love Randall Park. Yeah, he's great. So I think there
• 1:51:30
  Speaker 1: could have been more, just diversity overall, but yeah, even so,
• 1:51:35
  Speaker 1: I was three three and a half nipples, and I
• 1:51:40
  Speaker 1: will give one to Jason Momoa. I'll give one to
• 1:51:46
  Speaker 1: Nicole Kidman's wig. I'll give one to Always got to
• 1:51:51
  Speaker 1: give one to her wig and never to her and
• 1:51:54
  Speaker 1: never to her. I'll give one to Randall Park. And
• 1:51:57
  Speaker 1: I'll give my half nipple to the how do you
• 1:52:01
  Speaker 1: say this word? Corinth Corinthian corinthe No, not Corinthian whatever,
• 1:52:06
  Speaker 1: the giant crab monster. H So that gets my that's
• 1:52:13
  Speaker 1: my half nipple. I'll meet you at three and a half.
• 1:52:16
  Speaker 1: That sounds right to me. Um, yeah, I I agree
• 1:52:19
  Speaker 1: with what you're saying. I feel like this movie is
• 1:52:24
  Speaker 1: doing so much for a superhero movie. I absolutely loved
• 1:52:30
  Speaker 1: and really appreciated you sharing your connection to it. Ali
• 1:52:33
  Speaker 1: like it is just like I'm so glad this movie exists,
• 1:52:37
  Speaker 1: and I'm so glad that the Yeah, that just that's
• 1:52:41
  Speaker 1: how this world is, and that it I don't know,
• 1:52:44
  Speaker 1: like it subverted a lot of my expectations of just
• 1:52:48
  Speaker 1: what I expect from superhero movies in general, but also
• 1:52:51
  Speaker 1: just you know, including a biracial character in a meaningful way,
• 1:52:56
  Speaker 1: in a very authentic and thoughtful way that was also
• 1:52:58
  Speaker 1: true to like who the actor himself is, and just
• 1:53:01
  Speaker 1: all of this wonderful thematic stuff and then and then
• 1:53:06
  Speaker 1: I mean in terms of how I mean, and I
• 1:53:09
  Speaker 1: agree that the two female characters that we have are
• 1:53:12
  Speaker 1: wonderful and they have these fully realized stories. They're very motivated,
• 1:53:16
  Speaker 1: they're they're also very white. And I really hope that
• 1:53:21
  Speaker 1: you know, in like like we've discussed already, that there
• 1:53:24
  Speaker 1: is diversity across gender in this franchise as it continues
• 1:53:29
  Speaker 1: to develop, which I want to believe is going to happen.
• 1:53:33
  Speaker 1: Um also know, like body diversity to like there's a
• 1:53:36
  Speaker 1: shot where like the two women are standing next to
• 1:53:39
  Speaker 1: each other and it's like, oh, you have the same
• 1:53:41
  Speaker 1: exact body type, Well you forgot Nicole Kidman is taller
• 1:53:46
  Speaker 1: than husband. That if mirror was cast by like a big, hulking,
• 1:53:53
  Speaker 1: gorgeous woman like yeah, hell yeah, or that would have
• 1:53:58
  Speaker 1: been Acquaman's mom. So like the cole Conman's beautiful a lot.
• 1:54:01
  Speaker 1: If it was right like rich people were gigantic, which
• 1:54:07
  Speaker 1: is why he's fucking gigantic, that would make sense to me. Sorry,
• 1:54:12
  Speaker 1: I never have to do Jamie, No, no, I'll go
• 1:54:15
  Speaker 1: three and a half. I am now officially amped to
• 1:54:20
  Speaker 1: see Aquaman two. Who knew James wants directing the new
• 1:54:24
  Speaker 1: one as well? I appreciate James Wan. Okay, three and
• 1:54:30
  Speaker 1: a half nipples. Gotta give one to James Want. I'm
• 1:54:32
  Speaker 1: as big as fan. Also, I'll give one to the
• 1:54:37
  Speaker 1: Cthulhu as well. Give one to Jason Momoa. He is fantastic.
• 1:54:42
  Speaker 1: I really love him, and I'll give my last half two.
• 1:54:48
  Speaker 1: Randall Park nice Illi, what about you? Yeah, I think
• 1:54:53
  Speaker 1: three and a half is fair because you know, obviously
• 1:54:56
  Speaker 1: the movie meant a lot to me for a bunch
• 1:54:58
  Speaker 1: of different emotional reasons. But uh, but yeah, it does
• 1:55:02
  Speaker 1: have a lot of clunkiness in it. The exposition, like
• 1:55:06
  Speaker 1: I said, is all over the place. There's a lot
• 1:55:09
  Speaker 1: of information, a lot of backstory. Um, but all of
• 1:55:13
  Speaker 1: it is cool, So I'm a little bit more forgiving,
• 1:55:16
  Speaker 1: But it just could have been done better. Birds of
• 1:55:19
  Speaker 1: Prey kind of does that too. Actually, it's just a
• 1:55:21
  Speaker 1: little slapping, a lot packed into yeah, a lot of characters.
• 1:55:26
  Speaker 1: I feel like it's like when you have that many characters,
• 1:55:28
  Speaker 1: you're like, well, someone's going to get lost in the mix.
• 1:55:31
  Speaker 1: Like and yeah, I think it was supposed to be
• 1:55:33
  Speaker 1: two movies and they just kind of like combine them
• 1:55:37
  Speaker 1: and it feels that way. Yeah, But like I said,
• 1:55:41
  Speaker 1: like a lot of the stuff, the stuff that's clumsy
• 1:55:44
  Speaker 1: is clumsy, but not terrible. I've definitely seen so much
• 1:55:48
  Speaker 1: worse in the d C EU on top of that, Like,
• 1:55:53
  Speaker 1: but the stuff that they did well, they did very
• 1:55:57
  Speaker 1: very well, like surprisingly well. So yeah, i'll give it
• 1:56:01
  Speaker 1: three and a half. Also, I'll give one of these
• 1:56:04
  Speaker 1: nips to Jason Momoa. I'd like to give him too,
• 1:56:08
  Speaker 1: but he can just have one. I'll give another one
• 1:56:11
  Speaker 1: to his dad because Mandalorian. I'm going to give the
• 1:56:17
  Speaker 1: third one to Black Manta just because, yeah, Yama is
• 1:56:22
  Speaker 1: so hot and I know that's not what it's important
• 1:56:26
  Speaker 1: right now, but I just had to say that he's
• 1:56:28
  Speaker 1: hot but bad. He was also like I know that
• 1:56:31
  Speaker 1: there's a problematic element obviously with the black guy be
• 1:56:34
  Speaker 1: and the villain, but man, at least he was a
• 1:56:36
  Speaker 1: good villain, which wouldn't have been an issue again if
• 1:56:39
  Speaker 1: there were other black characters, right, but because he's he
• 1:56:44
  Speaker 1: and his dad were the only ones in his dad dies,
• 1:56:46
  Speaker 1: It's like, okay, well that's pretty glaring anyway, right of course.
• 1:56:50
  Speaker 1: But then uh, yeah, my half, I guess we'll go
• 1:56:53
  Speaker 1: to Nicole kidman, just just a cool kidsman. Just get
• 1:56:58
  Speaker 1: that I have to give the full ones to the
• 1:57:01
  Speaker 1: people of color and the indigenous folks, and you can
• 1:57:04
  Speaker 1: just have a half just half. Well, Alie, thank you
• 1:57:08
  Speaker 1: so much for coming back and joining us in this
• 1:57:11
  Speaker 1: wonderful discussion and for sharing your your connection with this movie.
• 1:57:16
  Speaker 1: It's like really moving and I was like tearing up
• 1:57:18
  Speaker 1: and yeah, me too, thank you for putting up with
• 1:57:23
  Speaker 1: me during that. Oh my god, oh my god, any
• 1:57:26
  Speaker 1: please come back anytime, like truly, I will come back
• 1:57:30
  Speaker 1: for Avatar properly. I called this. Nobody else gets to
• 1:57:34
  Speaker 1: do it but me. You've got Avatar. Does give me
• 1:57:37
  Speaker 1: a call and be like all right, we're doing this,
• 1:57:41
  Speaker 1: and I will be like, yes, we are my time.
• 1:57:43
  Speaker 1: Wait when does the next When does Avatar to come out?
• 1:57:46
  Speaker 1: Twenty years from now? Probably? Yeah, like not for another
• 1:57:49
  Speaker 1: year and a half. We can't wait. It can't it
• 1:57:52
  Speaker 1: can't wait. It can't wait. An it's never coming out?
• 1:57:55
  Speaker 1: Oh God. But yeah, I would love to come back
• 1:57:59
  Speaker 1: and thank for inviting me again. I love talking about movies, yes,
• 1:58:04
  Speaker 1: and we love having you. Where can people you know
• 1:58:07
  Speaker 1: check out your stuff follow you online? Tell us about
• 1:58:10
  Speaker 1: the A LA tests. We've talked about it before, but
• 1:58:13
  Speaker 1: tell our listeners who might not be familiar, what the
• 1:58:15
  Speaker 1: LA test is. Okay, So the A LA tests started
• 1:58:18
  Speaker 1: off on Tumbler. It's the dash A LA dash test
• 1:58:23
  Speaker 1: dot tumbler dot com. And it was when I was
• 1:58:26
  Speaker 1: in Finland and came up with a Bechdel Test inspired
• 1:58:31
  Speaker 1: litmus test I suppose for a Native and Indigenous women,
• 1:58:36
  Speaker 1: where I noticed that when they appear movies, they're usually
• 1:58:41
  Speaker 1: not a main character or a white guy's girlfriend, or
• 1:58:45
  Speaker 1: they get murdered or they get sexually assaulted and every
• 1:58:48
  Speaker 1: single thing I've seen, so I'm like, okay, let's look
• 1:58:51
  Speaker 1: for characters who are the main character so an Indigenous
• 1:58:56
  Speaker 1: woman who is a main character, who is not the
• 1:59:00
  Speaker 1: love interest to a white guy and doesn't get sexually
• 1:59:03
  Speaker 1: assaulted or killed at any point in the story. And
• 1:59:09
  Speaker 1: it took off, Like I don't know, people just really
• 1:59:12
  Speaker 1: responded really well to this, which I was kind of
• 1:59:15
  Speaker 1: surprised by. But I guess when you have like hard evidence,
• 1:59:19
  Speaker 1: you know, where it's all like, no, I don't think
• 1:59:21
  Speaker 1: I'm making this up by seeing this pattern, and it's
• 1:59:25
  Speaker 1: a very disturbing pattern that keeps happening, and people are like, yeah,
• 1:59:29
  Speaker 1: actually that is kind of sucked up. You know, why
• 1:59:32
  Speaker 1: aren't more characters passing the ALA test? Yeah, And it
• 1:59:36
  Speaker 1: was kind of like I mean, it was I believe,
• 1:59:38
  Speaker 1: like the first of its kind as far as like
• 1:59:39
  Speaker 1: an like a test examining representation of Indigenous women in media,
• 1:59:45
  Speaker 1: and like when you have something like that that's like
• 1:59:47
  Speaker 1: also like easily quantifiable or like qualifiable, Like, yeah, I
• 1:59:52
  Speaker 1: I'm not surprised that it took off, because it's like
• 1:59:56
  Speaker 1: it's a great way to like open up that conversation
• 1:59:58
  Speaker 1: about representation of Indigenous characters and women in media. And
• 2:00:03
  Speaker 1: that's all I really wanted it to do. You know.
• 2:00:06
  Speaker 1: It was just like start the conversation and then hopefully
• 2:00:08
  Speaker 1: it leads to better movies and better characters, which I
• 2:00:13
  Speaker 1: hope it has. Like people have been talking about it
• 2:00:16
  Speaker 1: a lot, I think, I mean, it seems like it has.
• 2:00:18
  Speaker 1: I like, I don't know it already has like such
• 2:00:21
  Speaker 1: a cool, impactful legacy. The Gina Davis Institute called it out,
• 2:00:27
  Speaker 1: So congratulations, that was amazing. She got me into the
• 2:00:32
  Speaker 1: goddamn league. You're part of the Justice League now, yeah,
• 2:00:38
  Speaker 1: but yeah, and then I did another test. I think
• 2:00:42
  Speaker 1: I was talking about this when we were talking about
• 2:00:44
  Speaker 1: movie talks with Caitlin. Yes, yes, yes, where it was
• 2:00:47
  Speaker 1: does the Indian live? Which is also like does the
• 2:00:50
  Speaker 1: Native American characters show up in the movie? And does
• 2:00:53
  Speaker 1: he die? Okay, if he does, he doesn't pass, you know, hope.
• 2:00:57
  Speaker 1: So uh, that one hasn't quite as taken off. But
• 2:01:01
  Speaker 1: that's mostly because I am not organized and I don't
• 2:01:06
  Speaker 1: know how to run a website. So I'm figuring it
• 2:01:09
  Speaker 1: out it don't happen. But other than that, you can
• 2:01:15
  Speaker 1: find me on Twitter, Alie Naughty on Twitter, Alie Naughty
• 2:01:18
  Speaker 1: on Tumbler, Elie Naughty on TikTok. If you really want
• 2:01:21
  Speaker 1: to see me embarrass myself and on Instagram. Yeah, I
• 2:01:26
  Speaker 1: love your one minute movie reviews. They're really great. I
• 2:01:29
  Speaker 1: haven't done one in a long time. I need to
• 2:01:31
  Speaker 1: do it again. Yeah, bring it back, bring it back,
• 2:01:34
  Speaker 1: And then you can follow us on Twitter and Instagram
• 2:01:38
  Speaker 1: at spectel Cast. We've got our Matreon which is at
• 2:01:44
  Speaker 1: patreon dot com slash spectel cast, and that's five dollars
• 2:01:48
  Speaker 1: a month and you get to bonus episodes every single month,
• 2:01:51
  Speaker 1: plus access to the entire back catalog, which is over
• 2:01:55
  Speaker 1: one hundred bonus episodes. This month we did two of
• 2:01:58
  Speaker 1: our most popular romcom request that we've just never done
• 2:02:02
  Speaker 1: for some reason. So if you want to hear us
• 2:02:04
  Speaker 1: absolutely hand. You've got males ads back to it. That's
• 2:02:10
  Speaker 1: where you can go to do that how to Lose
• 2:02:12
  Speaker 1: a Guy in ten Days as well. Um. Yeah, the
• 2:02:15
  Speaker 1: Matrean community is so lovely and so fun and is loose.
• 2:02:20
  Speaker 1: You know, we're hanging loose on the Matreon, so head
• 2:02:23
  Speaker 1: over there. It's holiday time. If you want to get
• 2:02:26
  Speaker 1: some merch, you can go to t public dot com
• 2:02:28
  Speaker 1: slash the bettel Cast and I think that's everything. Well,
• 2:02:34
  Speaker 1: we'll see you in December, alright, bye, bye bye,