God Awful Movies - 462: The Book of Daniel

Episode Date: June 25, 2024

This week, Dan and Dan from the Data Over Dogma podcast join us for a atheist/Bible scholar/atheist/atheist review of The Book of Daniel. It's the movie that happens when you combine some B-list actors, some E-list actors, iron age* source material, and a $14 budget. *Dan was very clear it is NOT bronze-age. === Check out the Data Over Dogma podcast here: https://www.youtube.com/@dataoverdogma === Get tickets to see us live in Boston, quick before they sell out: https://sites.google.com/view/bostonliveshowsite/home If you’d like to make a per episode donation and get monthly bonus episodes, please check us out on Patreon: http://patreon.com/godawful Check out our other shows, The Scathing Atheist, The Skepticrat, Citation Needed, and D&D Minus. Our theme music is written and performed by Ryan Slotnick of Evil Giraffes on Mars. If you’d like to hear more, check out their Facebook Page: https://www.facebook.com/EvilGiraffesOnMars/?fref=ts

I was like, that makes perfect sense. Yeah. Uh-huh. You have something for me to sign? And they're like, yes, we literally brought a goddamn paper for you to goddamn sign. No, Dr. Dan, Dr. Dan, did they? Sure. Is that how they did most paperwork back then? If they had big hunks of stone that they would cart around like interns at the White House It's polystyrene Yes, yes obviously Otherwise his wrist would break from the way he was fucking holding it God Awful Movie Movie! Movie! Movie! Movie! Movie!

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Movie! Movie! Movie! Movie! Movie! Movie! Movie! Movie! off this week but sitting 900 miles to my northeast is my bad friend Eli Bosnik. Eli, how are you this fine afternoon, sir? Hello, it's me, Jehoaham. Oh, okay. All right. I'm not one of your dad's friends. I'm an old Bible man. Oh, really? Oh, I can tell by the towel that's wrapped around your head. Yes. All right. So, and we're very excited to welcome in a return guest masochist, along with a brand new one Dan and Dan from the data over dogma podcast dance. Thanks for coming on. Thanks. Thanks for having us

I really thank you for the invitation. Yeah, we we made the name difficult to pronounce on purpose. Yes Alliteration is the speed talkers Bugaboo. Greatest enemy. Yeah, absolutely. Well, you know, until you said all of this, nobody was going to know I ever screwed it up. It was going to be.

Now I have to even thank you. That's right. Thank you for that. Two man war against our edits. So tell us, Uncle Dan, what will we be breaking down today? Okay, listen, I blame myself here. I blame you too, Dan. I also blame you.

This is my fault. I take full responsibility. I thought that, you know, bringing a Bible scholar to onto the show, we should do a Bible movie. And since we both were both named Daniel, it seemed like it would be funny if we did a movie called the book of Daniel. But something went terribly wrong. I don't know if maybe it's just it's been a while since you guys have had me on the show and I'm too used to good or even like marginally decent films. Or if it's just that like, I'm in a bad place with my ADHD,

but I have literally no idea what happened in this movie. Yeah. Everybody whispered the whole time. They were stopping for a dramatic pause every four words. Just a random, yeah. I literally could not pay attention to it. It's an hour and a half of listening to your grandpa and his elderly

friends at the home telling each other stories about how super important they were at the insurance office where they worked. But like in vaguely King James Ian language, right? Yeah. It took me 270 hours to watch this film. I mean, I took notes and stuff, but I cannot promise that they're coherent. I guess that's why the other Dan is the one with the PhD and I'm Yeah, right. Yeah, Dan, if you did not already have an ADHD diagnosis, I would use your notes on this film to get you that. Thank you. Thank you. I appreciate that. The thing is,

is that like, you know, I read the fucking book, so I knew how this movie was going. And I just kept watching it, trying to like, imagine it through the eyes of someone who is unfamiliar with the story. And imagine them trying to figure out why the hell anyone was doing anything. Yeah. Yeah. So Eli, how bad was this movie?

Well, if you love the Data Over Dogma podcast, and I very much do. And who doesn't? But you wanted to watch them face their greatest, a historical kind of sort of Bible challenge yet. You will love this movie. Let me explain. Okay, Jeremiah and Dan, jump in here. Not Uncle Dan, jump on in here. Jeremiah is when the Bible starts doing a magic trick for itself. Did I pick

the seven of hearts? Yes, I fucking did. And that's fine if you hide it in Jamesian language, right? If you hide it in high biblical language, and then when a five-year-old asks the question, you're like, you better learn fucking Greek asshole Act it out as a movie is again everyone in a home has dementia but also psychic powers Alright so is there anything you guys want to nominate this one for being the best at being the worst at? I want to say best worst set design. Oh boy they were. This was a 90s single family upper middle class home. Yup. And it was like throw some sticks in the corner, put some drapes here, cover up that light

switch. Yeah. And it was awful. If you want to know how bad the set design was, just go through there and count how many times we see that same platter of fruit in different places. Right? They were stretching that $11 budget when it came to set design. Guys, if you think about it, Bronze Age homes and houses in Arizona today are basically

identical. Yeah. They literally rented this from the same people that they rent like the porn shoots from. 100%. Yeah, absolutely. Yep. And agreed to get it after hours. Yeah, exactly.

They were like, what's all the scuff marks by the dryer? You know what? We'll deal with it later. All right. So I was going to go with best worst sound effects guy that was clearly fucking with them. Oh, my God. It's incredible. Everyone in this movie is taking it seriously. They're trying to stretch out an $11 budget and they're bad actors, generally speaking, and everything's terrible, but like,

the only person who seems to recognize that entirely is the sound effect guy who just keeps throwing in like a boyoyoying here and there. And how many times can you use the same computer-generated image of Babylon? Oh my gosh, that's so cool. Establishing shot, we're establishing shot. We've seen 11 times already.

And looks like a colored pencil drawing. Yes. I bought that copy of Prince of Persia, damn it. And I'm going to get my money straight out of it. Speaking of which, I'm going to go with Best Worse Ancient Dress. So, for those of you who haven't heard the Data Over Dogma podcast, and you should, the Dans, they go into like the real details and the real conflicts when it comes to like Bible history and stuff because of Dan's

Expertise and uncle Dan's expertise right they really get into the nitty-gritty Motherfuckers are walking around with a lands and towel around their head I'm Cyrus king of I don't know, France? Here. Yeah. Yeah. I'm king of Bed Bath and Beyond. Yeah.

It's true. I was going to go, you know, Eli always takes the easy one and I am going to take a page out of his book because my brain went to mush in this movie. So I'm going to take the easy one and say best worst special effects. Yeah. You can call them that. I started this best worst after the first special effect. We're going to get to both of them, but there are two

special effects in this movie and literally the most important moments in the Daniel story. Yes. And they ended up looking like they talked someone on Fiverr down to 250. There is to a 250 year. Got to go to the dark web. All right. Well, we've got some outright community theater on the other side of this break. So we're going to keep it brief. And when we come back, we'll dive into all the this old towel could make a perfect robe wardrobe of the book of Daniel. This podcast is sponsored by BetterHelp. Hey podcast listener, I'm No Illusions. And I'm Dan Beecher.

You know, sometimes when we get overwhelmed, it can be hard to remember to take a moment. Eli, you are sitting a little close. Sorry, I'm just trying to catch your smells. Please don't. Social interactions can be overwhelming and we get caught in unhealthy spirals that leave us feeling down. So do you have the whole Bible memorized? No.

Stupid, stupid, of course not. Stupid. But one way to help yourself navigate difficult times, whatever you're dealing with, is therapy. If you're thinking of starting therapy, give BetterHelp a try. It's entirely online, designed to be convenient, flexible, and suited to your schedule. Just fill out a brief questionnaire to get matched with a licensed therapist and switch therapists anytime for no additional charge. So how many t-shirts do you have?

I don't know, lots. Lots? Me too. Basically the same person, if you think about it. Take a moment. So how many t-shirts do you have? I don't know. Lots. Lots. Me too. Basically the same person if you think about it. Take a moment. Visit betterhelp.com slash awful today to get 10% off your first month. That's betterhelp.com slash awful.

I went to Oxford too. For school? No. To visit? Also, no. Then how did you- I lied! Okay. Dan, thanks so much for coming on.

Happy to be here. Yeah, we've been really excited to do this for a while. Okay, so hey, before we get recording, I wanted to give you a warning that we get a little sillier than you might be used to. That is not a problem. We get pretty silly on the Data Over Dogma podcast. Yeah, sure. Right.

It's just that... Woo! What's up, bean sniffers? It's just that that. D-Dog! D-Money, glad to have you on the pod for the first time. What do you think of my outfit? Uh... it's revealing. I did ask him not to wear it.

He did, but I know you're into Jesus stuff or whatever, so I figured what better way to welcome you than my crucifixion thong. See? It's like my Wingle Wangle's on the cross. Yeah, I can see that. Alright, now if you'll excuse me, I have to blow up the whoopee cushions. Cushions? Plural? Yeah.

Hell yeah. These are your friends, Dan? I mean friends is a strong word. You guys want a Long Island Ice Teas? It's 9am. So mimosas then? I think they're good. More for me.

I mean I could do a mimosas. Yeah right, no actually we wouldn't have mentioned it. Hey there podcast listener, it's me, Marky Mark. Here to tell you about God Awful Movies live show on September 7th. Now you might be thinking to yourself, Marky Mark, why are you fucking telling us about a live show? Well, I'll fucking tell you why. Because this one's in Boston.

That's right, Beantown. The boys are's in Boston. That's right, Bean Town. The boys are headed to Boston. Saturday, September 7th. And you're not going to want to miss it. So head to GodawfulMoviesLive.com right now to get your fucking tickets. But don't fucking wait. Because our VIP platinum tickets always sell out in less than a fucking week. You hear me?

So one more time, that's GodawfulMoviesLive.com for your fucking tickets to the live show. And now, back to the fucking podcast. And now back to the fucking podcast. And we're back for the breakdown. We're going to open up on that familiar pinnacle peak production logo. It is, of course, a subsidiary of Summit Apogee Apex Climax Vertex, Zenith Acme Entertainment. So we're going to open our movie up somewhere outside of Babylon. It's like way outside because it's in L.A., but it's movie up somewhere outside of Babylon. It's like way outside because it's in LA but it's it's somewhere outside of Babylon in

538 BCE. It's like they knew Dr. Dan was gonna be watching and they were like you can't you can't be mad at us we said somewhere. Everywhere if you think about it is somewhere. Did he start stitching us? Shit he started stitching us shit? He started stitching So yeah, so we get daniel old daniel we're gonna have old and young daniel in this movie So we meet old daniel. He's in the desert praying Right. Yeah, we meet him and again I know we've talked a lot about the clothes but I just have to mention it one more time We meet him with a slow pan up from his fucking mall sandals

Yeah, like like it's court evidence, right? They're like just to be clear. These are fucking mall sandals. Like it's court evidence, right? They're like, just to be clear, these are very modern sandals. Here's the rubber, here's the leather, here's the very modern cloth they're made of. And- You can see the tag that says Birkenstock. Yeah, and here's your dad's friend

who went through a bad divorce in his late 50s. So yeah, so he's praying, he says to God, he's like, hey man, all the dudes with the high places and goat demons are already dead. Why are you still punishing us for this shit? Right? Yeah. And this is the moment where I knew I was in trouble because when you can't tell if

the guy is doing a really high pitched old man voice or like some form of ancient ASMR. Yeah. It's going to be a long movie. What was that? It's just this breathy, I am, oh God, why am I? I was like, no, no, this is not going to be OK. Well, luckily he doesn't do that through the whole movie. But yeah, for some reason for this opening prayer, he's like, I really wanna, I just wanna tell you,

yeah, why don't you come over here, little boy? Exactly, yes. Right, right. Yeah, it could only be described as a whisper squeak. I don't know what it is, but that's it. And we set the tone too for the kind of closely trimmed stubble. Yeah, right.

Nobody has a full beard here. Everyone has just been like, two for the kind of closely trimmed stubble. Yes. Right. Nobody has a full beard here. Everyone has just been like, oh, I put it on a number two and just took it down. The ancient Babylonian Norelco. I don't know if you're familiar from your studies. But so he, but then he ends his prayer and like a sword just pokes into screen into his neck from off screen. And it is like so unintentionally funny.

It's so funny. A dick could have pushed into his cheek and it would have been slightly less ridiculous. So then we get our title screen, right? The Book of Daniels over like a Babylonian stele or something, and we go back to the sword neck scene. Oh my God, that sword, can I just say the sword is visibly dull?

Yeah. Like I have seen pool noodles that are sharper than their sword. Commemorative letter opener is the vibe. Well, the way he's holding it to this guy's neck, if it was remotely sharp, he'd already killed him. So yeah. So we should point out, by the way, that they're not even, well, some people try for some accents at random, like actions oh my god the accent we're gonna

get to the accents you just hold on the line varies from community theater Shakespeare to pretending to be a ghost in the rafters is a Scooby-Doo villain oh we needed Scooby-Doo that is what was missing from this entire thing. Right, right. So yeah, so we see that there's a guy's got the sword on Daniel and then a bunch of soldiers come out and one of the guys, I put a picture in our notes so that I could share this with you guys. One of the dudes is his helmet is over his eyes like Beetle fucking Bailey. And he just keeps it there the whole goddamn time. In fairness, Noah, when you make costume pieces out of a bowl from world market, it is not necessarily going to stay on the way you want it to.

You can't get a fit. That's true. Yeah, no, that's fair. So, but this is where we learn that the guy with the sword, this is played by the the actor is Lance Henryx And he's the guy who played Bishop and aliens. He's playing Cyrus the great Yeah, he's from like fucking Milwaukee or so The white and look we always whiteify the Bible in movies and stuff This is nothing new on this show, but the whiteness in this movie is astounding. This is like a country club leadership board level of whiteness.

They usually get a tan guy at least. I literally wrote, he is Cyrus the white. I mean, great. Now Dr. Dan, very important historical question here. Was Cyrus's flag actually an eagle doing fushigi We had several shots of that flag no absolutely not Ruins everything with his knowledge fushigi ruins everything There's also this great moment speaking of how dull the sword was Cyrus says to the beetle Bailey and all the other soldiers

He's like, um leave us me and this guy I just met. So beetle Bailey grabs his sword by the blade. All right. So, but then the old prank guy introduces himself. He's like, I'm Daniel. I'm here to tell you a story. And he's like, is the story going to like take up the rest of the movie? He's like, sure the fuck is. I just wonder like the whole thing. There's a moment in this where Cyrus's guy that we, we later, his advisor that we later learn as Croesus comes up and they have a talk.

They are outdoors in the middle of the desert and they're still whispering. Do they not know how to turn down the gain on their audio equipment? It was just like every single everybody in this whole movie is whispering the whole time. I don't understand. To be fair all the actors in this movie were around when home computer was how it was sold so I can understand why they don't matter with Justin Cain. Hey, hey. But yeah. So, but what I, what I love about this scene too is cause Croesus comes up to him. He's the one who's like, uh, King Cyrus, this is, this is Daniel from the Bible, you know, and he spoils the lion shit. He's like, he's the one that survived

in the lions. Then I'm like spoilers, Croesus. We haven't seen the fucking flashback yet man yeah well they know we know which is kind of their problem from the beginning right then we all know all of the good stuff that's gonna happen in this and it's the only interesting parts of the movie right they're kind of fucked from the from the jump yeah the the whole movie is just exposition. And then like the sequel is go read the book now. Right. So, okay. So they all settle into Cyrus's tent

for a movie length flashback. This is where Cyrus offers him some wine, but he can't take it cause it's not kosher. Yeah. Something like that, I guess. And so, and Bishop like pours out his wine all dramatically. He's like, oh, my wine's not good. So funny.

And again, it's for no reason, his wine all dramatically. He's like, oh, my wine's not good enough for you. And again, it's for no reason, right? They're later gonna talk about why he can't take a different king's wine and blah, blah, blah, blah, blah. But this scene, there's no reason for the king to be like, well, whenever I hand someone a cup, if they don't drink it, I pour it on the ground next to me. On the floor of my tent.

So now my toga's a little wet. Happy birthday to the ground. Yeah, but so, but Cyrus, that he's like, he demands a story like Eli's kid talking to my wife, right? He's like, you said you'd tell me a story. Tell me a story. He's like, oh, okay. So I got a story of four different kings to tell you. And we're going to start with Nebuchadnezzar and Dan, Uncle Dan, this is why I resent you because you know I can't spell normal words.

My attempts at Nebuchadnezzar in this script are a war crime. I could go to jail. It literally has an X in it, you guys. It does. I was so excited. I actually spelled Nebuchadnezzar right on my first try. I spelled it and I'm like, all right, the fucking spell check isn't underlining it but that can't be right I looked it up and I was right oh I peed and you guys were here. Yeah there you go. I do want to point out

that this last scene was the scene where we are introduced to the fact that every actor in this movie went to the Christopher Walken slash William Shatner school of weirdly placed pauses in lines. Well, that's acting. I don't know if you know Dan or not, but that's how acting is done. Actors over the age of 60, trying to remember their lines. Yeah.

That's a hundred percent what it was in many cases. Just stopping, there's a thing about the shoe. Waiting for someone to turn a cue card around. Well, right, when your vision starts to go, they have to make those cue cards really big. Right, they're so much bigger, yeah. And of course, as old Daniel starts telling the story, we learn that every part, that the actor playing old Daniel thinks that every part of the story is the most important part

of the story. Yeah, for sure. Throughout the entire fucking movie, every single actor. Yes, every line delivered is either wacky comedy or the most important thing. But that's the thing, right? Cause they're all, they're taking this shit from the Bible. They're like, well, you know,

we gotta be very reverent with it. And that's what you end up with. So, okay. So we get our dramatic title card. It's just the first King. And then we get that fucking colored pencil drawing of Babylon. It's kind of amazing.

I mean, I think artistically it's interesting. They only sprung for one of them. So we keep cutting back to the same thing. And there's one moment, I'm gonna get to it later, where it becomes problematic that they've cut to the exact same Well, so now I want to clear that I want to be clear there are two right There's the night one and the day one because there's a different one This is just black, but there's little yellow boxes

That's right. It's basically Rivendell. They've got like arches and bridges right these like alpine mountains hanging over the the because, you know, Mesopotamia, the land between two rivers is covered and all of these rocky peaks. The Alps used to extend way further south. I don't know if you know the history. Climate change, yeah. But yeah, so yeah, we cut to the,

there's the exiles from Jerusalem arriving in Babylon, I guess. And this is great because the gay fear around this scene is so intense, right? Because Nebuchadnezzar was like, send me your unmarked, smartest, hottest boys. And this movie is like, he wanted them for knowledge. Smart stuff, knowledge stuff. Yeah, he does say, you know, this is still in the voiceover from old Daniel and he's like young men without any physical defect and showing aptitude for every kind of learning.

One of whom was myself. It's like getting a little Trumpy there with the narcissism there, buddy. Right. Like this, this story really falls apart in a lot of places. If you have to, if you remind yourself that Daniel is the one telling us right Over and over it's going to use like, and I was the wisest man in the land again. Can you believe it? It's crazy. It's crazy. And these, these stories likely originated in court tales that came from Babylon. And

so at the very beginning, they're like, so we, uh, there were these four of us and they just arbitrarily changed our names. Yes, right. And it's like, and I was Belteshazzar. And the reality is that somebody anciently was like, well, let's put this story in here, but they have entirely different names. Then put in there that the king changed their names. Yeah. Perfect.

That's right. Perfect. Daniel Belteshazzar was my middle name. Yeah. The Bronze Age didn't have multiverse technology yet, obviously. Just for clarity's sake, this is well after the Bronze Age.

We are over 600 years after the Bronze Age. We should point out too that the silly pencil drawing that we saw at the beginning is the establishing shot of Babylon is also the same view they have out their window, apparently, right? So they all gather up and look out the window to pray to God.

And then the guy that's playing young Daniel, this is the first time we see him. Now he's decided to play this role with a British accent. 100% British accent. I didn't catch what was happening at first and the other guys in the scene, the Shadrach, Meshach, and Abednego, slip in and out of British accents,

I assume, presumably, because this other guy just starts doing one, and they're all like, are we doing the accent? Are we doing British? I don't know if we're doing, it's crazy. Well, so actually, I went down the rabbit hole on this a bit, because a lot of the people just speak with their normal fucking Midwestern accent in this movie. I was like, why would this guy who obviously isn't British do this terrible British accent

for this movie? And I looked him up. He's Australian. Oh, right. So they can't have him sound Australian. That would just be silly. The whole thing. No, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, Ah, now, neighbor Kenia's here. Ah, neighbor Kenia's here.

Now. Right, right. Can you imagine an Australian person trying to say neighbor Kenia's here? Not the lions, Dan, fuck! Ah, the fucking lions, Dan! Oh no, the beautiful creatures, lions. Okay, that's my path to Christianity, right?

That's what they always say, is that just, it's a Bible done entirely in Australian. I'm saved, baby. There are some Bible translations out there that take the behold and they change it. So the translations replace it with look, buddy. It's just the King James version, but it's look, buddy. I love it. All improvements are all changes are improvement. So yeah, so they're all settling into their new digs. All the non Daniel guys are super bummed and losing faith so he has to prop them up and he's like guys we're

in a we're in a fucking Bible prophecy like Jeremiah said or I say whoever it was said that we would be here for like 70 years, right? Yeah, don't worry. I am going to choose the seven of hearts. I promise. I love that this scene, like so many, like a shocking number of the movies that you guys make me watch, starts with a guy in fake, badly pretended, tearful prayer. Yeah. It's just, that is such a trope in these movies that someone's like, oh God, why have you done that? It's just so bad.

I don't know, there's something amazing about that. We get quite a bit of it, yeah. So they get done with their tearful prayers, then they go for dinner and exposition, right? Yeah, more exposition. Well, yeah, right, they were just doing exposition. Right? Yeah. More exposition. Well, yeah, right. They were just doing exposition. But yeah. So this is also where we meet a character that I call Unix Steve, right? I don't know the character's name, but again, no, no attempted accent. He's just a white guy from Milwaukee and he is dressed and I'm the only one

who noticed this in their fucking notes. He is dressed as Fred God damn Flintstone throughout the entire movie and no one else acknowledges that. Yep. Right, he's got the orange thing with the black spots all over it and it's, yeah, okay. I didn't notice it possibly because I was watching this actor desperately trying not to do the giant,

big, bold gay voice that he had brought in from home. The director had very clearly nixed, the giant, big, bold gay voice that he had brought in from home. The director had very clearly nixed, but he was like, I'm going to get a few in. There's going to be some. I'm just going to put an H on a couple of S's and we'll let it lie as it lies. There's also a great moment where, like, one of the guys is like, hey, we need to make a pact with each other to stay Jewish no matter what happens. And Daniel's like, he has this real condescending rejection where he's like, no, no, all we

need to do is remember to love our God and remain faithful to him. And the other guy's like, I said stay Jewish. That's the same fucking thing, man. I wanted the other guy to be like, that's you. It's you, Daniel. That's what you sound like. But then they bring food and they're all they have to go like is it it's probably not kosher though, huh? Yeah, I was very confused by this because they're like, oh, what is this meat and he has like a whole

Horror description to the food. He's like the pigs are fed the prisoners and the cows watch a rape every morning The chickens all read mine comp every day before breakfast. And they're like, yeah, we can't eat that. It is ridiculous. Why did they think there needed to be seven non-kosher things about the food? Well, this is actually a problem with the text because there's nothing really in the laws that require they reject this food. Like the, cause it doesn't even talk about meat

in the Aramaic text, it just refers to the portion of the king and the wine. And so there's not really a specific law we can point to and say, that's why. And so this movie is kind of apologizing for the book of Daniel by filling in the gaps and saying, oh, here are all the reasons. Oh, okay.

And this movie does this all the time. Throughout the movie, it sprinkles in all these explanations to try to cover up the problems with chronology, the problems with history, the problems with logic in the book of Daniel. Yeah. So it's going along fixing the story as it goes. In a lot of retconn going on.

Yeah, absolutely. None more fun than when they have to try to deal with the whole Darius Cyrus thing. Yeah. Oh gosh, yeah. Oh, it's so good. I kept going like, did he have an uncle Darius too? He had a double uncle Darius.

Shut up. Double uncle, yeah. So, okay, so, but then he's like, well, you know, look, we can't eat your food. How's this for a deal? We'll just go vegan for 10 days. And if we don't waste away, then that's the solution, right? We're going to look better than those keto guys. Shut up.

But again, here's the problem with using the Bible for your source material, right? Because this is so boring, right? But you have to put it in because it's a thing that happens in the book of Daniel. Not much happens in the book of Daniel. So you have to use this and it has to be a dramatic moment so that those of us who are big Bible fans are watching along going, Oh, I know this part, right? Point of order. Not much story about Daniel happens in the book of Daniel. A lot of like stuff that's not included in this movie happens in the book of Daniel and it's crazy. Yeah, namely the second half of the book of Daniel.

Yeah, exactly. Yeah. And it's also because every line has to be so dramatic, it is so monotone. Like there are no peaks and valleys in this movie. Everybody is white knuckled, teeth gritted. This is the most important moment of my life. Do you have any soy nuggets? I literally glazed over several times and had to go back and rewatch. It's what I talked about before. When everything is important, literally nothing is important.

You can't even pay attention to it. Yep. Well, and then, so we back out of the flashback long enough for modern day Daniel to tell King Bishop or King Cyrus that like, this is actually very credible and it makes total sense actually that we would do this and that they would let us do this.

But yeah, so they were fucking vegetarian for a while, which is the plot of the movie so far Then we go back to the flashback Using that same pencil drawing establishing shot of Babylon, right? And now I guess we're a few years into the future They're all being they've all been educated in the ways of Babylon and they're gonna be presented to King Nebi Yeah, and they just keep adding unnecessary death stakes to every scene, right? So they're literally about to walk into the chamber and he's like, oh, I forgot to mention, if the king doesn't like the three sentences you're gonna say to him, he's gonna murder

you guys. So you know, trying to really, and me, also me, which a lot of turnover in my job, as you can probably imagine. So no pressure, just don't screw it up or we all die. So yeah, great. So they walk in, Nebuchadnezzar looks bored by their presence. He says, his first question is, who am I?

And I'm like, nice, start simple, let them build their confidence. Can I also just jump in here and say that when they enter the room, and this continues throughout the movie, when an important moment happens, they punctuate it with a gong? Yes! Yes! Is that sound effect guy? Where the fuck do you think you are? You only start to notice it about halfway through the movie, and then it gets like really obvious

and start kind of like someone will step out and be like, oh, I forgot my water bottle. Gong! Don't do it twice. Gong! It's like one of those stores that has a door chime and you're a kid and you just run back and forth in front of it. That's how the gong works. I literally had to go down a rabbit trail just to figure out if gongs were used in the Middle East. Which they weren't, by the way.

No, no. Yeah. This is probably the director, like, how are we going to punctuate the important parts that are extra important? Right. Yeah, exactly. So if somebody ring a gong.

When you can't rely on the actors for that, you're kind of out of luck. But young Daniel gives him this speech about how their God is totally cool with them serving other people as long as they're in a different zip code than him. He doesn't hear about it later, I guess. I don't know. But Nebuchadnezzar is like, all right, well, maybe I'll hear about it later, I guess. I don't know. But Nebuchadnezzar is like, all right, well, maybe I'll take you on as my advisors and maybe I won't. Would you tell me shit that I don't want to know? It's a trick question. Don't answer it.

Yeah, right. It's a trick question, man. But that, but this is where Daniel throws out what might as well be his tagline in the movie, right? Where he says, it's his catchphrase. It is such a, it is such a goofy, they go back to it like five or six times. That's going to be on the poster. Yeah, exactly. You don't want to, if you don't want the truth, it's best. I don't remember exactly how he says it.

Don't ask me anything or whatever. If you don't want to. Yeah. Yeah. So, okay. So then we back out of the flashback long enough to explain why this totally makes sense, right? This is where Cyrus is like no yet No, I totally you take your enemies and you make them very very close to you and rely on them

It makes total sense. Actually if you think about it And this is where we get the he conquered me, but we're cool now side plot cheer really like yes This is where we introduced to the lackey has been creases the whole time. The former king of Lydia. Oh my gosh. And this is just, this is just one of the themes throughout the entire movie is like no matter what happens, if the bat, if you're the enemy, but you know, things are cool now, then everything's fine.

Right. I would love for that to actually be the case though. You're just sitting there next to the guy who you just conquered his land and killed all his people and it's like, so what do you think we should do about agriculture? Or I think you should have left my kingdom alone before I think you should have left. How's that chair? Is it comfortable? Yeah, I just had it made.

Just had it made for my birthday. My birthday. And this is the tradition of Kreese is staying on as Cyrus's advisor is almost certainly legendary. The most scholars think that when Cyrus defeated him, he either was killed or took his own life. Well, there you go. Well, now you're making it a bummer, Dan.

Yeah. We're trying to, the movie is trying to historicize the book of Daniel. It's trying to say, hey, look at this thing that happened over here. It ties in. These are all interconnected. Right.

Well, and I think they're trying to like leave people with the impression that, you know, Cyrus increases hanging out and talking about Lydia was in the Bible somewhere, right? Yeah. Yeah. To be fair, trying to historicize Daniel is slightly harder than making us care about season three of Loki. So like, you gotta to give these people that.

But Owen Wilson might. So now we're okay. We're back in the flashback. Nebuchadnezzar wakes up from a nightmare sitting straight up. Yes, they did that to me. And also he said, like, look, I've seen this bed at fucking Ashley furnishings or whatever. Right. This jumped out at me.

It's like nice four post bed. We've got the foot locker at the foot. Like this is standard upper middle-class white dude bedroom. Yeah, for sure. And then he's like, when they asked about, he's like, bring my advisors. And I just got very Walmart, Gary Oldman yelling, everyone.

Yeah, right. And he's a professional when he's like, all of them. Yeah, he goes, do you for me. Yeah, right. Professional when he's like all of them. Yeah, he goes, he goes, do you want me to bring your enchanters, your sorcerers or your astrologers? And he's like, all of them. And he brings three guys. But really no illusions. He only brings one guy he brings.

And thank you so much for confirming this for me, Dr. Dan, because I felt like I was crazy. One of the astrologers is played by Gallagher. Is that really Gallagher? Did he? It is a hundred percent him. Holy shit. I just I had him, this Gallagher in my notes, but I just thought he looked like,

my God, how far he has fallen. Well, which is good because he's a piece of shit. Well, now he's dead. Yeah, yeah. We all discovered that that he's a right wing nut job. I mean, not since he died, but yeah, not since he died, that he's a right-wing nut job. I mean, not since he died, but yeah. Not since he died. Now he's very left-wing. Yeah.

By being a racist who died. We love that. We stan. But what's amazing is that, like, he very clearly thought there was going to be a moment where Gallagher, the world's greatest comedian, got to show his chops, never fucking happens. You can see him wind up in three scenes, he's like, well, I think, and they're like, cut. It's so fucking, the Sledge-O-Matic was just off camera. The Sledge-O-Matic was just off camera at all times, I promise you.

He brought several. Hey, I have watermelons. I just think that, like, you're right that he kept getting cut off He didn't have a moment to be you know a big Gallagher moment on screen and yet there was enough space for him to show that he's a genuinely terrible actor He really there was yeah, it was just enough like he said three lines and it was just like ooh God and I wonder what the direction was for these three. Like they come in and it's like, just look like bumbling idiots.

Yeah. It was like they must've said you saw the weasels in Roger Rabbit, right? Aim for that. Aim for that. Yeah. So yeah, so he's like, I had a terrible dream. I need you guys to interpret it. And they're like, Oh, tell us what you dreamed about.

But apparently he knows the Eli rule. So he's like, no, no, you tell me what I dreamed about. You're supposed to be psychic, right? And they're so, they're so mad about it. They're like, you have to let me put your card back in the deck. Don't be a jerk. It's going to be fun. Stop.

Yeah, he's like, if you don't tell me what I dreamed by sunrise, I'm going to chop your heads off. Right? Yeah. So then we get young Daniel asking Unix Steve about that last scene and he's like, yeah, you know, let's go ask the king for clarification. And I love this moment. I wouldn't even have brought it up except that this there's this great moment where unit

Steve is like, a great king who's threatened to chop people's heads off for not being able to like tell what he dreamed. Danny has a question for you. I'm gonna leave. I just just to set the scene a little bit. I want everyone to read to realize that this so this is at night, you know, the king woke up from a dream. So it's supposed to be candlelight. And obviously whoever's in charge of the lighting was like,

turn it to flicker mode and set the intensity to seizure. They need a flashing light warning at the beginning of this movie. It was so bad. It was hard to watch. And I thought something jumped out at me. They come in and the king says, your death is upon you as well,

unless you know my dream and can interpret it. And Daniel goes, I am. Yeah, 100% he does. And I was like, what the hell is he responding to? Cause it was not what the king just said. It's not an answer to what the king just asked you. Yeah, I literally, I puzzled over that one for a while. He says, I am and I will.

Yeah, right. Neither of those make sense, man. But he's like, but I can't tell you what you dreamed about. He says you dreamed about a statue with, you know, different layers of precious metals all along and its feet were made of clay and the clay broke and a rock that broke, it turned into a mountain. And the whole time he's saying this, I'm reflecting on how much this actor looks like Charlie Day, you know, in the meme with the yarn behind him or whatever.

And I just, I could not take any of this seriously. Oh, seriously. I had a different take on it. I sat there watching and it was like, I went into a bit of a reverie myself, but I thought it'd be good if it was like, you saw a huge statue with a head of gold gleaming silver pecs rippling abs of steel Of the finite weight. Nope. That's a different dream Give me one more chance you're those come gutters high school

Hold on hold on. I got not that one either. Hold on, hold on. I got it. That one ended very abruptly. So he's like, but what does the dream mean? And he's like, okay, so you're the head made of gold. And he's like, so far, so good. I like this. I like this. Always a good idea to tell a king that his dream means that he's the best king. And then, and then make the rest of your dream interpretation happen in the distant future so that nobody can call you on anything. Right? Yeah, this is great technique. Genius technique. It's absolutely the right way to go. Yep. But he's like, yeah, so you're five generations from now or whatever, your kingdom is going to fall apart. That's what this dream is all about. And he's like, oh, cool. Your God is awesome. Yeah. All of Daniel's interpretations are like, well, you're gonna die and your kingdom is taken from you

and everything sucks. And they're like, give this man all the gold. Yeah, give him the purple robe. Yeah, he's in charge of everything. And then it's like a sitcom because as soon as the next story starts, Daniel is back to just kind of staying in a trailer out back. Yeah. And they're like, wasn't there some dude who did this kind of thing before? I thought you lost your job in the last episode. Yeah.

So then, okay, so, but the king made Danny ruler over all of Babylon. Again, this will not stick, apparently. There's something that happens off screen that changes that. And that's how the movie starts. Really? Yeah. Yeah. Cause Cyrus, when he takes over, Daniel, as an official, if they were keeping him on, it would have just been a seamless transition. Right.

It would have just been like, kill that guy, you have his job now. But instead, Daniel's just kind of wandering through the back lot and suddenly stumbles upon Cyrus's camp. He's like, oh, I didn't notice this. I've got to pay better attention. Why can't I? And so every scene is, we're starting over from scratch. Even though the last scene ended with the king saying,

you are my number one. Yeah. Well, I also, you know, we didn't mention it at the time, but I do love the fact that he's praying like eight feet from the king's tent and didn't realize that. That was great. Yeah. I got to look up more. Yeah, right. I've been looking left this whole fucking time, right?

Is where it was all happening. So yeah. So, so, but this is where King Nebuchadnezzar makes a 90 foot golden statue of himself, which is totally not a drawing. It's glowing. So it can't be a drawing, is it? Right. Yeah.

And, and he demands that everybody worship this statue, but fucking Shadrack, Madrack and Abdrac or whatever wouldn't do it. Oh, this is where I said the Gallagher looking guy, but no, it's Gallagher. It's Gallagher. Oh, and it is so right that he plays the giddy little school yard snitch. Like, yeah, that may be the right, the best casting in the movie now that I think about it, actually. Well, it's funny because before I realized that this was Gallagher, I wrote in it, it

was like, who the fuck is this guy and why is he playing this part? Like it's a guest spot on Sesame Street. But now it's all coming together. But yeah, so but they bring in the three other guys and they're like, Hey, these guys will worship you. And he's like, throw them in the furnace. And they're like, well, we're not afraid of no furnace. Our God will protect us from a furnace.

And he's like, all right, we'll make the furnace seven times hotter than fire. You want them extra melted? I don't know. Just turn the dial up seven more times. What's hard about this? Turn it all the way around, yeah. We needn't Doc Brown here with his different colored logs to throw into the fire.

And then he throws them into the worst CGI fire. Oh my God, so funny. This is my best worst. And I gotta say, not only does the effect itself look idiotic, what we're seeing is sort of a foreground, like a brick arch and then like these bad pretend flames happening and like three cardboard cutouts of dudes. Just a silhouette, yes, yes.

And then another fire in front. And then, and then the angel appears and is 12 feet tall. He's a Kaiju, it's Kaiju Jesus that appears behind him. I laugh for so fucking long. It's suddenly Hogwarts yearbook photo and Hagrid is standing behind Harry, Ron and Abednego. Also I know it's a historical and not actually accurate to the Bible, but a lot of modern Christians tell this story as Jesus is the one who's in the fire with them. And I was really hoping that was going to be in this movie.

Well they definitely, that was definitely supposed to be Jesus. Right. You're supposed to recognize that as the silhouette, they blacked out the face so you couldn't see it, because when you're in the middle of a fire, it casts shadows over your face. That's what they say, yeah. And, but yeah, this is an annoying mistranslation

that I always harp on about, the King James Version says, the Son of God. And for, since the earliest Christianity, they've been like, well, that must be Jesus. And, but the Aramaic says, a son of gods. And then later Nebuchadnezzar says, ah, the messenger of the one true God came down. And I was wondering what they were gonna do with the movie,

if they were gonna say, the Son of God, a son of God, whatever, and they kind of punted and went with an angel of God. So they just replaced it. I was like, boo. Yes, exactly. Pussy footing around it. Why don't you just say it's Jesus? Yes, because if it's Jesus, then he gets to be like, hello,

I'm very important way later. Later, like now. Remember me for later. All I know is that this movie has now convinced me and none of you will ever be able to change my mind that Jesus is Hagrid and that is how I will hear all the sermon on the mount forever is going to be blessed are the peacemakers.

It's just gonna be. You're a wizard, Matthew. You're an apostle now, Matthew. If JK Rowling gets three more mean tweets, she might say that. Yeah, no. So, and I love throughout this whole scene because the graphics look like, like if the four of us had to produce this graphic, you know, like to defuse a bomb, quick before it, whatever, whatever.

This is what we come up with. So because it's so bad, the way that the movie tells us what's going on is we just watch Nebuchadnezzar tell us what he's looking at. He's like, why? There's a fourth image in the fire. We threw only three men in. It's an angel of God, you know, cause we couldn't tell by just the graphic. So, okay.

So now they're back out of the furnace, unharmed. Nebuchadnezzar's amazed. He's like, wow, you don't even smell like fire. I'm like, what a weird detail to put in there. I don't know. I went camping like last week and I still, when I shower, smell smoke. So maybe that is the real miracle. You might be having a stroke in the shower.

And then he makes the funniest pronouncement, right? Because I thought this when we read this in the Bible too, when we read the Bible on our show, I thought it was so weird that he's like, oh now I'm double impressed with the God, but he does this thing where he's like, all right, now anyone who talks shit about Jew God will be cut into, their words not mine, little pieces. Yes! And their house reduced to rubble will also cut your house into little pieces you gotta wonder if there was someone in charge of those technicalities right someone shows up with a body hacked into like five or six pieces and it's like

come on Mitch it's a little little piece you heard what the king said and again but that's the problem with basing your story on not Bronze Age stories, older than Bronze Age stories, or younger than Bronze Age stories, by up to 600 years as I understand. But this is supposed to be a fucking triumph in the story, but it's the most barbaric shit you can imagine. So it doesn't exactly have the impact they're going for. Yeah. And then once you hear scene, then everything goes back to Nebuchadnezzar being a pagan and

Daniel living out back in a shed. Right. All right, well, not to put too fine a point on it, but the guy he was threatening to cut into little pieces, that was us, right? So we're going to take a quick break and check the locks, but we'll be back in a flash with even more of The book of Daniel. Which is why I must cancel my subscription. Oh perfect Dan they are gonna love it.

Hey guys whatcha doing? Yeah Dan are you okay? I'm totally fine. Eli here just hired me to use my acting skills to get him out of his subscriptions. Yeah his performances are as moving as they are practical. Thank you, Eli. Guys, if you want to manage your subscriptions, why don't you just use Rocket Money?

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Thanks. I still don't understand why you were covered in fake blood. Weren't you going to be on the phone? It's part of my process Dan. Part of his process obviously. It's not fake blood. And this is the execution room. Nice.

Oh yeah, it's very state of the art. This is the disemboweling table. Please make sure that you're scraping everything into the bin afterwards. That all has to go to the pigs. Sorry, you feed people to the pigs? Yeah, it's a King Decree thing. Hey Chris, this is Frank. He's new. How's it going?

Chris is the best little-piece cutter in the business. Sorry, little-piece cutter? Oh, he's another King Decree. Anyone who insults Chew God has to be cut into little pieces. That's how he worded it. That feels open to interpretation though, right? Yeah, you'd think so, but no. Pretty much it has to be a brunoise. Wow, not even like a dice? No, too uneven, man. Sure, sure.

And over here is the lion's den. Now, this is going to seem self-evident, but you got to hit a balance between feeding them enough to make them big and scary and making sure that they're hungry when we throw someone in there, right? Yeah, I've been here for like two days. Well, you know, I fed them right before I threw you in, didn't I, Michael? It's true, he did. What about a Julianne?

Look, I don't tell you how to do your job. Sorry. Ha ha ha ha. And we're back for more of this shit, and we're going to rejoin the action outside of the flashback with old Daniel kind of yada, yada, yadaing his way to the next dream interpretation story. I've never been mad at you for we're going to rejoin the action as an intro to a segment of our broadcast now. Fair, fair.

Also, this was one of those moments where Cyrus is telling us, he's, Cyrus starts to tell the story, but like all I could hear, and this was one of those ADHD moments, all I could hear was this deep gravelly voice going, shepherd, baby. I could not penetrate the droning. Yeah. Well, what's amazing is of course the version of the story of the legend of Cyrus's birth is very kind of familiar and it's used in the Bible and it's used in all kinds of different places.

It's just one of those sort of- Shakespeare steals it. Yeah, right, right. It's just one of those sort of familiar tropes that you see all over the place. And so they stop and Cyrus is like, actually I'd like to be the one telling the story now. And he tells that fucking story.

It's so funny. It's an interruption story, right? He's like, and so I walked and you walked into the valley. Yeah, yeah. I'm at over five, you have to let me eat crafty. Well, that's exactly what it was, right? Cause the Lance Hendrickson was like, no, this isn't all the lines I have.

And they're like, no, not at all. Of course, are you kidding? They've got a lot of lines. And I think, again, it's an attempt to, one, try to break up the monotony of this freaking narrative from the book of Daniel, but also try to stitch it into a broader history, even as ahistorical as this legend is. Sure, yeah.

They're trying to show, it's all interrelated. Right, right, no, you've heard this story story in history and now this story is also in history. Yeah. Right. Right. Also, it's a very sanitized version of the legend. Right. Because at the end of this one, Cyrus's dad is just like, yeah, I'm sure glad that kid's OK. Right. The version I heard was way more cannibalistic. So but then we flashback into Nebuchadnezzar having another bad dream. I love that what I've inflicted on Eli is a movie where people constantly talk about their dreams. Oh my God. If this had ended with a zipline race, this would not have been more directed at me

as a human being. So yeah, so, but this time I guess he doesn't make Danny guess his dream anymore That's just a one-time thing so he tells him about this dream where he dreamed of a tree and And it goes on for so fucking long cuz I guess they're quoting from the Bible at this point But like we're all just going like yeah, we get it man tree stuff keep it well except that he introduces this Like obviously he wakes up in a you know cold sweat and he introduces this as like this is the scariest dream I've ever had The image is literally terrified me that is a line from the movie And then he tells a story about a tree getting cut down and that's it

Yes, this orange guy came out of the stump and he was like the trees have no knees They're talking about climate change. Scared the crap out of me. What's so funny is that they very clearly start to do the we're going to illustrate his dream thing because they show us like another color. They invested in a third colored pencil drawing of this big beautiful tree. And then he's like, and then an angel came down and said, make that tree's mind into an animal.

They just got away. Like, I that tree's mind into an animal. And they just cut away. Yes, right. Like, I don't know how to draw that. Cut down the tree and he's like, oh, we don't have it. And then hack up its limbs. Oh, we certainly don't have it. And make it have the mind of an animal.

And then everybody just sat around going, what the mind of it? Why would the tree? Can you even have that? I don't think you can animate that. You know, they had some undergraduate illustrator or whatever, they were like, can you do this? They're like, I can give you a tree. Can you even have that? I don't think you can animate that. You know, they had some undergraduate illustrator or whatever, they were like, can you do this? They're like, I can give you a tree.

I can do that. I've got tree. You already told us you couldn't do this statue because it was too many different colors. Fiverr is double our budget, so I guess we're gonna take a tree. Right, but he wraps up the bad news, right? And he's like, yeah, so all this bad stuff, you're going to go crazy. You're going to eat grass like cattle

until you worship Jew God. And I had always wondered why in the Bible he doesn't go like, so maybe skip all that and just, you know, worship to God. No, right now. And in the movie he does. He's like, you want to, you want to skip that part? Yeah, this is a great moment, right? Cause he said, he talks about this, the tree gets cut down and the stump itself gets chained to the earth or whatever. And then he's like, so what does it mean? And Danny's like, what does it mean? This guy with the questions and stuff.

Oh, I don't know. I feel like this was the easiest dream to interpret ever. I think even Gallagher could have gotten like, Like, oh no, you're a great tree and then you get cut down. It's not, it's not hard, dude. No, this is actually pretty, pretty straightforward dream. Watermelons. They come out, but this is another part of the book of Daniel that is just entirely a historical because this, this idea about the king who wanders off into the desert like a hippie for seven years, that is Nabonidus, who was the last king of Babylon before it was conquered by Cyrus the Great. And so the book of Daniel has erroneously attributed

this to Nebuchadnezzar. And so this is another problem, only the movie doesn't, there's no way to make this right So they just kind of lean into it like okay We'll just we'll keep Nebuchadnezzar so much a historical stuff in this book so weird. It's so weird Yeah, you wrote the book for yourselves. You could have just It's your book so but Nebuchadnezzar like he hears all this stuff and he's like, oh well I'll be nice to poor people and shit, but that only lasts for about a year. And then we get this great moment.

So he's standing out at his palace and he's looking at his palace. Don't ask too many questions. They only have the one line drawing. Oh my God. That was the moment I was talking about where the voiceover literally says they're walking on the roof of the palace and they look out over the land and they're in the picture that the only picture that they've ever used is the fucking palace. So yeah, he's chatting with Unix Steve about how he's like, man, my stuff is awesome.

I'm really the best. If you think about it, there's no one in the world any better than me. I'm amazing. And that's about all Yahweh is willing to listen to. So we literally do fucking boomy voice like we do in our goddamn sketches. I laughed for so long. It was so bad.

Because it's also, it's not biblical this moment. So they just have God talking smack fancy. Fuck you man, come up here and say that. Bitch ass bitch. So yeah, but so God takes his authority and gives him, and they keep referring it to it as an animal brain. I have an animal brain, I don't know the fuck they mean. I have a theory and I want to put this out there. I'm going to be radically vulnerable. I'm going to speak from my heart. This was a bet among the crew how many pieces of grass they could get this actor to put in his mouth.

Oh no, we didn't get the take again, Chris. Do you mind going and putting that dandelion in your mouth? Yeah, that's perfect. We're going to get a shot. You know what? Could you just take a whole big bite of dirt? It would actually look really good. Well, I also I want to point out that this actor clearly had a barefoot double, right?

Because we keep seeing that he's barefoot and walking around, but never in the same shot that we see the actor's face. And we never when we see the actress face, it's never more the waist. And he's like got got like half a toe yeah they're angry feet that he's got and this was this was clearly filmed in the empty lot behind the studio oh yeah they're like they're like fading out the corners like get the in-and-out dumpsters out of the shot yeah Yes, that's right. Right. There's a teamster taking a smoke break in the shot. Yeah.

They made a lot of use out of tight shots in this. I like that they, what they say that is that this is the most, he's been doing this for seven years and he is literally crawling pain stricken on the ground. It's like, dude, he hasn't picked up even basic bushcraft by seven years. Right? Like he, like we've all seen castaway.

We know what you can do after seven years of trying to figure it out. Yeah. And the flash out kind of addresses that, right? So we go to the old guys at the golf club and they're like, wait, I'm sorry. He had the mind of an animal for seven years and he didn't die.

And he's like, God told the animals to leave him alone. Yes, the lions and bears do better than to fuck with him, apparently. Just two hyenas sitting on a cliff. So you're sure God said that guy? He was very specific, I promise. Why are we Jewish? But yeah, but one day Daniel decided that he had had enough and he wanted to acknowledge that that God had fucking a

More fucking Transformers than him or whatever this was all about, right? Which of course you have to stop and think well wait if he had the mind of an animal How was that mind capable of deciding to praise Yahweh? was that mind capable of deciding to praise Yahweh? Shhhhhh. Shhhhhh. It's all good. Yeah, because it implies that he was roaming around the desert for six and a half years being like, this is bad, but I don't want to like give it all up to Jew God yet.

You know what I'm saying? Right? Right. But then he's like, I, I, uncle, uncle, whatever, man, uncle. And Boomy Voice God comes in and he goes, all right, I'm done. I'm gonna go back to being a king now. Oh, good. And apparently they just saved his place.

Yes! Like nobody, like there was no, nobody stepped in or like there was no coup attempts or anything, they were just, oh good, you're back. Okay, well here's a list of things that we needed to get done. A lot of paperwork that hasn't been getting done. Cyrus would just be like, oh, you know, Nebuchadnezzar's not able to join us this week.

It's fine. Bring the dance on. Well, historically, again, this is Nabonidus who runs off into the desert, and he leaves his son, Belshazzar, as his regent, who is ruling in his stead. And so there's a lot of people who try to argue that this is historical, because Belshazzar is represented in Daniel as the last king of Babylon. And they're like, so while Nabonidus was gone,

Belshazzar was the king. And like they, but he wasn't recognized as the king. They didn't hold the Akitu festival because the king wasn't in town. Bunch of crap like that. But the whole animal mind thing is kind of reflects this idea that we see in Numbers 22. Don't know if you remember the story of Balaam

being hired by Balak to go curse the Israelites. At one point he's riding his donkey and the angel of the Lord appears in the way and the donkey tries to walk around, but he kind of traps him, but Balaam can't see him and then he's like kicking and whipping the donkey. And finally the donkey starts talking to him. Yeah, we remember the talking donkey.

I love the start with the, like, I don't know if you remember this one, it's just a little talking donkey in the book. Yeah, no, yeah. But, and the whole point of this is, it's kind of rhetorically suggesting that even, that Balaam is dumber than the ass that he's riding on. Cause even the ass can see the angel

and understands what's going on. And so Balaam has to have this explained to him by an animal. And so the idea with Nebuchadnezzar is he's got to revert to this kind of primordial animalistic state because even a basic animal can tell that God is you know in charge. So he was being upgraded. Yeah. Yeah. Basically this is we're doing a factory reset. Yeah. And then you're gonna get all the updates. Alright, now that makes sense.

Do you think the donkey first read numbers when it came out like hot off the presses and was like oh shit now it makes it like, like I'm an asshole. I went to talk. I hope Dan defends me on a podcast someday. All I'm going to say. Here's the other thing though. When Nebuchadnezzar gets back to court after all of this, we know that he is really like his mind has genuinely changed because he upgraded hats.

Oh, he did. Yeah. He went with, he literally gives a little, he did. Yeah. He went with the idea. He literally gives a little, I'm so changed for my semester of broadspeech. He said. Are you going to start pronouncing it mozzarella now? Yeah.

Yeah, no, he's on it, but he's on team Yahweh. Now he's not Jewish. He just, he likes, he thinks that's a pretty cool guy as far as gods go. So then the voiceover kicks in to sort of wrap up Nebuchadnezzar's part of the story. He's like, yeah, yeah, yeah, anyway. So he dies and he starts to tell the next part of the story. And I love this because Bishop Cyrus cuts in and he's like, Hey, man, you're talking about the part where like Babylon was overthrown. I was there. Like, I know this one.

That one was me. Like I was, I did that. Don't quote the deep magic to me, witch. Yeah, right! Yeah, exactly. I love that they cling to the age-old God-awful movie adage of tell, don't show. Because this guy sits there and literally describes by far the most cinematic moment this movie has to offer, and they never do it. No! Like, he just says it. That's an expensive scene to shoot. Yeah.

Yeah, right. No, he's talking about the siege of Babylon and how they overcame him by diverting the river and everything like that. And he's like, yeah, no, I was just gonna get to that, but why don't you tell, you just tell this part of the story. That's fine. That's fine.

And the thing that annoyed me the most is Daniel says this was prophesized Which is not a word. No, it's just prophesied Dan McClellan I do not think you're allowed to decree anything is not I don't think you of all people Who literally won't allow anyone to say anything about language? Just like you refused to let me use a dictionary. You're not allowed to say that's not a word. Hey, there are degrees of of acceptability here.

There's an ongoing Scrabble feud in the data over dogma households. I I am adopting a prescriptivist outlook for the sake of the facetiousness for comedy. OK, I didn't realize you were that kind of doctor. Can I get some Xannies? I was like, he said he's going to do a prescription. So now is the time for the story of the second king, right? This is Belshazzar, king of Babylon.

We get the big title card, second king, and we meet Belshazzar at a big party. And I got so excited when I realized where in the book we were I'm so excited. I was like ghost hand ghost hand ghost hand It's one of those things where like you can just have Cyrus go Yeah, you know, there's a big siege and we live blah blah blah, but you have to actually do the ghost hand So yeah got really excited. So they're at this big party. It's a lot of tight shots, but trust us, it's a very big party. They're in a very large room. You don't know it. It's from Canada. But and Balsers are, he's not worried about

this siege beyond the city walls. He knows that he's going to be just fine. He just wants to celebrate. The only problem is that he doesn't have good enough cups. This cup tastes bad. Yeah. And I love the moment when one of his advisors, Lowrent Sir Davos from Game of Thrones, he has the weirdest accent. I went back and watched it like three times. I don't know why he has an accent. I was even trying for it.

I assumed that he was actually like a foreign dude. I don't know. I didn't look it up, but he was like my kink these three these cups are considered sacred I was like what what is that? Yeah? He's like he's trying to start a fight with a French guy. He hasn't met before Also, it's just a beautiful moment of a biblicality where he's like, bring me the cups and then they keep the camera rolling while he turns to like the slave who's been stroking his arm. He's like, I'm sorry I yelled about the two cups.

I just I'm really stressed right now. And I'm trying to keep harder boundaries in my life. You know what I'm saying? You're a slave. He makes it very clear that he's not worried about Jew you got, he'll drink out of whatever fucking cup he wants. So then we get to see the cheap ass shitty fucking cups, the dollar store cups, this $9 budget movie, spray painted gold.

Yeah. So they bring out these cups. It looks like something you'd serve a Sunday in at the Cheesecake Factory. Yeah, it's got real King Arthur school play vibes, these guys. Yes. Right. But they fill him with wine and he raises his glass for a toast to Marduk and all the

other gods, right? Marduk's not gonna get some mention. I would have been so pissed off if I was another god if I had just been a fucking special Vance in the godside loading. I'm the Etcetera? Fuck you. just been a fucking special Vance. Yeah. In the God's hand. In the et cetera? Fuck you. The et al of the academic world. Yes, exactly, yeah.

And then, so they all start drinking from their cups and then we get what I would have expected if like we were watching a Twilight Zone episode from 1962 or something like that for this disembodied hand. You were worried that it was going to be that good quality? Well yeah, right. So yeah, so the ghost hand comes in, starts writing really slowly.

Yeah. I think they could have got a little bit quicker with that. It's like Microsoft Paint font. I mean, they were just so funny. And they couldn't write it in the Aramaic script. They had to be like, well, it's gotta be in English. No, they wrote it in English in spooky. Yes, right, yes, but in English.

Which means that God was like, I'm gonna write it and I'm gonna write it in spooky fonts. Right, right, he's like, you know, we did Comic Sans once before. That did not go over well, so let's do some. I will say this though. Here's a fun tip for your next party. When things are getting a little stale, or you know, maybe you've made everyone uncomfortable

by throwing a fit about cups, have a ghost hand write a riddle on a wall. It'll change the whole vibe. Oh yeah. Well, what I love the most about this is that the ghost hand is four letters in. It is written M-E-N-E and Belshazzar turns to everybody and says, whoever shall be able to read this gets to be the vice president of Babylon and has all my... I feel like you'd exhaust just waiting till it was done first. Yeah. Let him finish. Come on, man. It did take a long time. I was like, are they just going to kind of sit there?

And one guy is like, I gotta go to the bathroom. While they're kind of waiting. Okay, we see that word. Oh, it's the same word again. Are they gonna do the same word a third time? Oh, it's a different word. Someone moved the planchette to the goodbye part. I want a different one.

Also, I just have to point this out. Cause like, they take lots of liberty with biblical language. So I don't know why they felt the need to use the, I will dress him in purple catchphrase, right? Because what that means, and Dr. Dan, I'm sure you can say what that actually means, but what that means is he's gonna be part of my royal court,

but instead he stands up and declares, I will dress him in purple. Yes. Yeah. And I think it was, I think it was Belshazzar. At one point he said, again, language thing annoys me. He says, from whence it came. And whence means from where. So just so you're aware, you don't say from whence,

you just say whence it came. From where? It's like ATM whence machine. Yeah, right. The Los Angeles Angels. I do love that, like, and this is, It came from where it's like ATM whence machine. Yeah, right. The Los Angeles Angels. I do. I do love that.

Like, and this is biblical. I love that this is the hand writes gibberish words that aren't like real words even for them. Because again, this is Daniel able to do the easy trick where any interpretation is right. Like I can tell you what those words mean. Well, like it translates to like number, number of weight measure, right? Or something like that. Yeah. Like weight, weight, number, measure.

Okay. Yeah. It's, it is Aramaic. Okay. Like he would have, he would have spoken Aramaic. The whole reason that Judaism adopted Aramaic is because they were in the exile in Babylon where Aramaic was the language of wider communication. So, yeah, like, they should have been able to read this. But that's what's in the biblical text.

It's really weird that he would have had to go to, like, give me, give somebody a half of my kingdom or whatever to read it that way. But it would be great if he just came in there and he's like, wait, wait, number measure, and then took the gold chain and the fucking purple robe and left or whatever. But he's like, wait, wait, number measure. And then took the gold chain and the fucking purple robe and laughter or whatever. But he tells him like, Oh, that means that God's done with your bullshit. You used his cup. So now the Medes and the Persians are going to take over your city. Right?

Yeah. Yeah. I feel like, I feel like this King is really dumb because I don't care what the actual truth is. If a guy interprets your thing and he tells you that you're doomed, you obviously kill that guy and find somebody to do a better one. Like that's just how you do it. Or you just keep drinking.

Like what are you doing? Why did you just let, you know, just... It's so funny. Believe that he's right. And then reward him. Yes! When he actually does it, right? So then he calls the guy in and he's like, oh, God's going to punish you. Like Yes! When he actually does it, right?

So he calls the guy in and he's like, God's gonna punish you. Like, no, it's just saying, right? God's gonna punish you. No, you're gonna die tonight. Right, you're gonna die tonight. And then we watch this actor be like, oh, okay, well, give this guy a prize.

Well, so, okay, but we cannot brush past the fucking actual reveal when he's doing he goes to like actually tell him what it all means Oh, you mean the dramatic prairie dog legitimately the dramatic prairie dog sound dude and whether said gong in one of them I wrote this down and podcast listener I need you to know that I am not exaggerating as he reads the words which they can all Read there in spooky English. He says meanie Dramatic peri-dog sound Oh my god Teckle Horrorhouse scream yes and a thunderclap

Upfrasian Dramatic peri-dog sound again. I when the dramatic period of sound back a second time I was crying with laughter. I was weeping with laughter in front of my computer. It was so fucking over the top. That's when I went and wrote a sarcastic sound effects guy as my best worst is when we reached this point in the fucking film. There's one that's even better later. But yeah, but what I love the most about this is that, you know, he says when he comes in, he's like, Hey man, can you tell me what this means? And Daniel takes a look at it. He's like,

you sure you want me to tell you the truth, the whole truth and nothing but truth? He's like, I can take it. I can take it. Tell me the truth. But then he doesn't just tell him what it means. He tells him all of that shit, like in the form of a Tom roast, the whole time he's doing it. He's like, and you also were a fucking piece of shit about God's sippy cups and he's mad about that still now and everything else. He just goes on and on from the point where the king's like, okay, I get it. I'm going to die, man. That's all you had to say.

Some of your high school friends are still in touch with each other. They choose not to reach out to you. And again, it's a situation where he's like, well, that sucks. Anyway, put him in charge of the kingdom. And then as soon as that's over, Daniel is relegated to the outhouse out back again. Right. Yeah. He's walking around to the in and out dumpster some more. Yeah. He goes, is there nothing to be done? And Daniel's like, well, you, you, you need to give me a purple robe and a necklace or something. I think that was, I was implied. I believe that there was a necklace involved.

And then in that moment, I love this so much. Just then all the soldiers break in and the city has fallen. I like that they yell the name of their king when they break in. Yeah, right. Kind of ruins the surprise. I want one guy to do it early. All hail, fuck, god damn it. It's like the guy who claps too early at the concert with the orchestra.

No! And this is another part where the movie's trying to apologize for the book. Yes. Because he has Darius come in and he's like, King Darius, you know who I am. Anyway, I'm taking the city in my name as Cyrus, who is actually the king, commanded me just so we're clear about who's in charge. I'll be the king later. Because Cyrus explains that he's the one who took the city, which is what historically happened. And Darius was 11 years old when all of this went down. So the real Darius the Great ruled after Cyrus's son, where he took

over the kingdom from Cyrus's son. So yeah. Right. Well, unless you count Gaumata the, the magus, that he had a little short reign there in between, but yes. But we don't count that. Oh, okay. And can I say, can I say, if there had been a fifth grader in the last third of this movie, it would have been way funnier.

Okay, yeah. Yeah. It's just a new recast. I just like that, like, the moment that you're talking about, Dan, sets up the weirdest thing, which is Darius comes on and says something along the lines of,

Send word to Cyrus that I, Darius, his and says something along the lines of send word to Cyrus that I Darius his uncle and father-in-law have taken the towns and I'm now going to be king of it as he insisted. Yes. Now you there, do you know who I am? As you just said, and Daniel's like, uh, I think you're Darius. Yeah. You just said the nephew and son-in-law of Cyrus.

And then he's like, Oh my God, you're a prophet. How did you know? I like the cut of your jib. Put him in charge of everything. Yeah, exactly. Yeah. So yeah, they stabbed Belshazzar the fucking the moment where fucking Darius of Iowa State stabs Belshazzar is just priceless.

And then Daniel's just standing there in the back all awkward like he just showed his tits at Mardi Gras with that ridiculous bling necklace that they've given him. Then then of course this is where Darius Ted Cruz is him right does the whole do you know who I am thing. But he does apparently he's the third king they sneak the title card in on us right. This is going gonna ruin the tour So yeah, so but Daniel is like hey, you know what you're the new king I saw you stab the other guy so I Buy my on your side always liked you better. I'll hail you man. Yeah

This actually just got it. Yes telling Telling him he was going to do you like it? I'm just trying something new. Yeah, it does be it does feel very much like that was like a god You're on y'all way punk. Yeah Where it's like, oh I just got this awesome new robe and check out these this bling and blah blah blah And then it's like hey you there rich Babylonian dude. I i'm killing all of them. Ah I was like, hey, you there rich Babylonian dude, I'm killing all of them. Ah, he got me again. This is how uncle Dan and I tried out our COVID beards

on each other, getting on Zoom. What do you think? It's nice, right? I just got it, it's purple robe, the king gave it to me. And there's another thing that the movie is trying to do here to gloss over something that Christians do here by combining Darius and Cyrus saying they're in league with each other.

They're trying to mush together the notion that's presented in Daniel that there was a Median kingdom and then the Persian kingdom. And so when we go back to our statue, if you combine the Medes and the Persians, there's supposed to be two different parts of that statue, which means that Alexander the Great and then the Diyadochi, the successors, are the rest of the statue because this book was finalized in the 160s BCE, right when the battles for succession are going on. But if you squish the Medes and the Persians together, you can move everything up one and

then it's Greece and then Rome, and then the toes get to be any modern kingdom. And so that's how you make the prophecy extend all the way down to today is by squishing together the Medes and the Persians. That gives you a little more room to work with. Oh, that's really interesting. This is both trying to make it seem more historical and also trying to allow you to misinterpret

the vision of the statue so that it can be made to be a prophecy about- Right, exactly. I thought Joe Biden's feet were looking a little play like. That's really cool. All right, yeah, yeah. But so he decides he's gonna be on Team Darius from now on. So that's settled.

And then we back out of the flashback a little bit to meet Lance Henriksen's screen time minimum. And this is where he goes, again, they're, they're trying to retcon the history of this. He goes, ah, Darius, he's my uncle and my uncle. Our family actually has more incest than Heath's search history, but it's, um, Don't Google it. He goes, eventually Darius put me in charge of the whole kingdom because of my wisdom. And he's like, hadn't you already been in charge of the whole kingdom twice?

Did you tell Darius what to do? What was Darius doing if you were in charge of the whole kingdom? He was... ...unkling? But this is where they decided to put him in charge of everything. This is where all the other advisors got super jealous and decided that they were going gonna have to take Daniel out. Ooh.

Dun, dun, dun. Yeah, all right. Or boing, boing, boing, boing. Yeah, right. Yeah, to fit this movie. All right, so I'll tell you what. Well, if we ignore the fact that we've already read the book and the movie has already spoiled how this is gonna go,

we have tension, damn it. So that means we get to take a break. But first, let me give Act Three the hard sell. Does this movie have lion money? Did they blow their budget on Bishop? Would actorless B-roll of lions very much in a zoo enclosure do in a pinch? Find out the answers to these questions and more when we return for the leonine conclusion of will we return for the Leonine conclusion of the Book of Daniel. This podcast is sponsored by Naked Wines. Eli, please don't do this. They're coming. They're coming. They're coming. Hey, Eli, nice smoking jacket.

This old thing? Why, yes. You haven't heard, I'm smart now. He's wearing it backwards. Okay, Eli, I'll buy. Why are you smart now? Because of Naked Wines, of course. What is Naked Wines? I saw you avoid the point, you're still our friend. Naked Wines is a subscription service that seamlessly connects you to the finest independent winemakers on the planet. So you get a box of the market's best quality wines, however often you'd like, for a fraction of the price you'd normally pay in stores.

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six bottles. Nice Eli, thanks. I guess you could say I'm an Ivy League man myself now. Oh, cause grapes grow on vines. Grapes grow on vines, exactly. Did we miss it? No, you guys are just in time. The king is about to do the toast. I'm Marduk by the way.

Horse God, nice to meet you. I'm one of the lower river gods. And now I'd like to offer a toast to Marduk. Oh, that's you, that's you. So nice of them. The God of our lands. Awesome. Really good for you.

And also the other gods. Wait, what? I mean, maybe he's going to come back to us. Now for the celebration. Let us take these cups. Oh, you have got to be fucking kidding me. And also the other gods. Seriously?

I am so sorry, you guys. No, no. You know what? This isn't on you, Marduk. This is so classically him. Just like everyone remembers the big four or five gods and the little guys like us just go unnoticed. God, they use horses for literally everything. Really sucks.

You know what? We're just gonna go. We're gonna go. Come on, horse god. Yeah, let's get out of here. Hey guys, what did I miss? Did anyone mention any gods that aren't me? Oh, not now, Jew God. Whoa. What's up with him? Horses. Horses. Sure. Love that so much. And we're back for still more of this shit.

We're going to rejoin the whatever you call this stuff with. Yeah, exactly. Half an hour more with three evil advisors and their clandestine meeting in the swamp. Oh, and we get my favorite character in the whole movie, which is fly guy. This got one of the three, he's the latest comer to this meeting and he is swatting away flies the whole time. For whatever reason, I loved this guy.

He was sassy. Well, yeah, he was sad and he was so depressed and sad and just dejected, right? Because they're all like, well, what if we killed Daniel? And he's like, nobody'd believe it. What? What? Wouldn't believe what? That he's dead? They're like, nobody'd believe it. What? What wouldn't believe what that he's dead there? We could drown him. He's like, no, I would never work. Oh my God. No, he could breathe under water. All right. Fucking Eeyore. What are you doing here?

I love that he showed up late to their little their little clandestine meeting. And they're like, were you followed? Yeah, there was a red Volkswagen behind me for a few blocks, but I ditched him. What are you talking about? Where you follow? We could just look around ourselves. I can see a hundred miles in every direction, dude. I'm pretty sure I'm fine. Don't pan. There's a home Depot over there. The family in and out is watching us. I'm also going to point out that they walked, you know, whatever, five miles to have this conversation away from prying ears and they're still fucking whispering.

Yes. Why are you doing this to me? And I love the swatting of the floods. You know, this guy was like, this is my moment. I'm gonna take advantage of my screen time. The director was like, will you just say the damn lines? Yes. He clearly was like, wait, wait till they see this.

Wait till they see this. Yeah. But they're all complaining because Daniel is so damn moral and he won't even take bribes and he's so loyal to his God. And one of them is like, hey, maybe we could use that as his weakness, right? Like a ju jitsu, right? Like a ju-jitsu, right? Thank you. But they're like, oh, that actually works.

We could make it illegal to pray to his God, and then he'd have to do it, because he's so loyal to his God, and then he'd be a criminal, and we could have him put to death. This is what they decided, because drowning is something that would be too complicated. Because no one would believe that he was possible of drowning.

And I love the first thing I thought of when these three guys sat down is again, they took a Norelco to those beards. They came down nicely. It's like a number two. It's pretty close. And then they even got a bit of a fade going on the hair. Yeah, the youth master look going on. They couldn't be like hey we need you to grow your hair out for six months like no we need this on DVD in six months to start filming yesterday. I don't think you can ask anyone in this movie to like do something for you. They're not paying anybody enough to like not to literally do any watch. No yeah the the ask is being in

this movie. And I just I love the the thought of imagining Daniel telling the story to Cyrus. Yes! And so one of them said, he's the most righteous guy ever. No one would ever believe that he did this. And then the other guy was like, yeah, he's so righteous. No one would believe that. And Cyrus is like, kill him. Yes! This guy is really pissing me off.

Right. So we back out of the flashback and, and Bishop's like, Cyrus is like, yeah, well, you know, you're clearly the best. Obviously, if all of your enemies sit around talking about how great you are. And I'm like, dude, he's the one telling you the fucking story. You know, I can tell you that the Pope has a lot of great stuff to say about me. It doesn't matter. But yeah, but back in the flashback, they convinced the king to make it illegal to pray to the old gods, right? This is king. This is where we still on Bausch's or no, we're on Darius at this point. So they convinced Darius to make it illegal to pay. They're like,

Hey, you know, a lot of people are praying to the old gods to spite you. And he's like, they are. And he's like, yeah, so make it illegal to pray to all gods for 30 days. And he's like, that makes perfect sense. Yeah. Uh huh. You have something for me to sign? And they're like, yes, we literally brought a goddamn paper for you to goddamn sign. No, Dr. Dan, Dr. Dan, did they? Sure.

Is that how they did most paperwork back then? If they had big hunks of stone that they would cart around like interns at the White House. It's polystyrene. Yes, obviously. Otherwise, this wrist would break from the way it was fucking holding it. Yeah, it's an inch thick at least. It's insane.

And they didn't, they're not incising anything. They're like painting totally meaningless symbols, gigantic symbols, by the way. You've got enough for maybe three words on each gigantic stone block. It's like, this is, nope. Somebody at some point must've been like, well, what do they look like?

And they're like, look, the brief says, stone tablets with ancient writing on it, make something up. Amazing, if only the Babylonians had some type of distinctive writing that we could recreate on some tablets. Yeah, the reality would have been they would have used somewhat wet clay with a stylus and would have impressed their cuneiform writing in here. And this doesn't remotely resemble Aramaic or Akkadian or old Persian or anything like that. Oh, those languages weren't a series of triangles facing different directions.

No, and they did not have lines separating the different columns. Yeah, right, right. Where you can still see where the fucking artists try to create margins for their fucking Sharpie letters and shit. It was God. And also, correct me if I'm wrong here, Dr. Dan, but I also don't think that when they were done with the cuneiform tablet, they had the fucking king cuneiform sign the damn thing so that it was official.

Oh, do you think that ancient Babylonians complained about cuneiform the way we complain about cursive, right? Like you're signing a contract and they're like, actually you have to do it in cuneiform? I haven't done cuneiform since I was in like fifth grade. Why do they teach that? It makes no sense. So and then so the bad guys come in, of course, immediately after that, they catch Daniel praying, which was the point the whole time.

I mean, wait a minute. Do they, though? Because, A, he's praying. But then we hear this loud knocking on smash cut to a curtain. The doors down the, the doors down the hallway a little bit. As they're barging in, like before they've had a chance to see him at all. They're like, ha, we caught you. Yes.

Yeah. He's like, I was just masturbating and I damn it. Were you masturbating to other gods? We were thinking about it. So yeah. So, but, but he was, so they catch him. They're like, oh, we got him. So they come back to Darius to tell them that they caught Daniel praying. They're like, Hey man, we got somebody defying your order already. And he's like, oh wow. And then they bring Daniel in, in ye olde handcuffs. Yeah.

Can I just pause and just reflect a little bit on the dude who's conferring with Darius at the top of the scene. What is the little paperwork? Who has a four foot long, like thick flowing beard, but only from his jaw and below. And then up on his, like anything above his jawline is just the patchiest stubble on his cheeks. It was the weirdest beard I've ever seen in my life. Yeah, he got a hair transplant from ZZ Top

after the fire. But he could only afford like literally under the chin. Yeah, exactly. That came up the whole thing, yeah. So, but they bring him in, he's been praying, and Darius is pissed, right? Because he doesn't want to have to have Daniel fed to the lions, but according to the rules on the box top, he has to. Right? Now, again, Dr. Dan, I just want you to chime in here. Did ancient Babylon

work on Wishmaster rules? If you got the king of Babylon to say his name backwards, did he have to go back to his own dimension and leave Superman alone? Is that how it worked? Yeah, so it's not mixist but tolk rules in ancient Persia, but this is what the text says. They come in and say, recall, O King, that it is a law of the Medes and the Persians that no edict or decree

that the King issues can be changed. So they're asserting that, but yeah, this is nonsensical. The guy ran the world. He would have been like, kill him and kill them too. Yeah, I get that. Anybody else wanna question me? Cause I'm just handing out killings. Because according to this movie,

the King of Babylon felt really strictly held by no backseat. Exactly. So yeah, right. So he's like, oh man, I would love to help you out, Daniel, but fucking no backsies. I mean, obviously I have to feed you to the lions now. And he's like, well, maybe that maybe we can go over the paperwork. Maybe we can find a loophole go over the paperwork. Maybe we can find a loophole in my divine goddamn authority as a living God and figure out a way to get you out of this. So we get them looking over the fucking paperwork and this, them searching through the law books may be the funniest thing I've ever seen in my fucking life.

Yes. Because they're all just looking through these paper mache tablets with again, like three words worth of shit written on each fucking one. So they're stacked to looking through these paper mache tablets with again like three words worth of shit written on each fucking one. So they're stacked to the ceiling right? Someone's carrying a fucking wagon out. This is just the Grubhub order guys. I'll be back in a second for more. Why did you have to hold the mail? Bring forth another another truckload of styrofoam. We need to find this. What's really cool about this is one of the reasons that we have a ton of text is because they did stash these little clay tablets away in libraries. And so they were like stacked

to the ceiling all around just thousands of them. And when things, when cities were overthrown, when they were destroyed, there would be this big conflagration or fire and they would set buildings on fire and that would set buildings on fire and that would bake the clay tablets. Oh, interesting. And so we have thousands of these texts precisely because somebody burnt down a library and we were able to dig up the now basically lasting forever

clay tablets with the cuneiform writing on them. With five words on each. Yeah, and then one asshole in Alexandria was like, you guys know paper's a lot thinner than it's actually made of. Right, yeah. Paper's pretty fucking stupid. Only they'd listen to Dr. Dan. And if you ever get a hold of these tablets, some of them are really small.

They can be like one inch by one inch with several lines of writing on them. So when people, when they're like, paint it real big, that's just 100% fake. Oh, right on. Okay. To be fair, the only thing that would have been funnier than the giant fake cuneiform is if he had been taking notes on a one inch by one inch piece of clay,

glaring into the camera. Dr. Tan says this is what we wrote on. It's okay, but they can't find an excuse to not throw them to the line. So the time comes, Daniel's like walking him He ate Daniel hands Darius the the bling right before they head to the dot lions den Mm-hmm, and they walked to the dungeon together as friends Yeah, this is my favorite this dungeon

Apparently the lions den is just in the basement, which I think is amazing. It's just a room in the basement Yep, that they even descend? Cause it felt to me like they just went around the corner and down the hallway. Right. Right. Yeah. And in, and in the text it says there was a stone that was placed over the opening to the den and in the movie it's like, here, let me get the keys clang,

clang and it's just a big panel door with a window with prison bars in it. Yes, let's get a little prison bar in it. Yes, it's got little prison bars in it. So that the lions don't reach through in a bucket. A door which they throw open and then leave open while Daniel gives his goodbyes to everybody. Yes, but it's got the hungry lions in it. I wanted a lion to jump out during his monologue so fucking bad. Oh my God! I literally, like, nobody even, like, looks through the bars to be like, are the lions looking at the door right now?

Right, right. Yeah, but they have a, he brought some kosher wine for Daniel, the dairiest did. Mm-hmm. Right? So they have some wine, big pre-lion hug, and he goes in and Daniel is like, hey, you never know, God might save me from the lions. And he's like, well, I won't know because despite there being a, a window here, I'm just going to fucking leave, but I'm going to go because it's yucky.

It's gross. It's not fun. And, and this is where I started writing in my notes, like, what are they going to do here? Cause there is no fucking way that this movie has lion money, right? And if they put an actor, if this movie put an actor in a room with a lion, I wouldn't trust them. I would feel really bad for that fucking actor. No fucking shot. And it starts with like you see Daniel standing in the room and there's like a silhouette that kind of wanders by.

Yes. Like that's a dog with a wig put on it. Right, with a perspective or something. Yes, right, right. So what are they going to do when you have to show a lion? Here's what you do. You call Joe Exotic and you say, hey, if I send you a green screen and an iPhone 6, could you get us some growling lion footage? And a reach around.

Yeah, right. So, yeah, no, so they've got these lion shots. There's three Yeah, right. So yeah, no. So they've got these, they've got these lion shots. There's three lions, right? Two males and a female. Which by the way, if you know anything about lions, two males and a female is exactly the right configuration. Nothing bad could happen. Two males and one female into the same conclosure. I really wanted a shot of them trying to introduce the like, they put the one lion in the other room, and then this lion in that room,

gotta let them get used to each other's smell. See, you smell under the door, yeah. And the bee footage they have bought of these lions, because here's the thing, if you know anything about lions, they're big cats. And I don't know if you've ever met a cat before, but cats are fucking adorable. They do cat shit.

They roll around on their backs, they scratch their tummies, they bat gently at objects around them. And lions do that too. It requires a tremendous amount of training and camera artistry to make lions look scary. That is not what they have done with the lions in this movie. These lions might as well be chasing around a laser, right? I fucking love this scene. At one point, like the lion does lay on its back and ask for belly rubs. It's so good. There's literally a belly rubs moment and we're supposed to be like, is God going to give belly rubs?

I like that Eli, you said, you know, if you know anything about lions, you know, who didn't know anything about lions, whoever wrote who didn't know anything about lions Whoever wrote this script because at one point when Daniel is praying to be saved He's like I'm these beasts whose teeth are like spears and whose tongues are as sharp as swords I don't think their tongues are sharp. I don't think that's how Like they're saying mean things to you they're grittyitty, you know, after enough licking it hurts. Sure, yeah. No, it's like sandpaper. Yeah.

I feel like he was saying like they're kind of bitchy. Okay, right, right. They have a sharp tongue. Why are you being mean, Lion? Just say nice things. Very caustic in their humor. Yeah, but so then we have to cut to King Darius in his bedroom. It's weird, he still has that very same Ashley Home furnishings bed that we saw earlier in

the film. Same four poster, same drapery. You don't throw away a perfectly good bed just because it's a different King's bed. They just put a blanket over the foot locker. So Now it's completely different. Yeah, luxurious full-size by the way, I just want right. Yeah, right. It's Queen but So but yeah, but he's too pissed to eat food or fuck his concubines. And by the way, this is the 33rd time I believe that we see that plate of fruit I was talking about earlier, but he's like no I don't want to feast on fruit and fuck concubines. I just want to be in silence and think about how

sad I am that I had to feed my buddy to lions. Right? Yep. And so we cut back to Daniel. He's praying to God that God will save him from the lions. He's like, save me from these ravenous beasts. And I'm like, they're right there, dude. I don't, there's no reason to be like that about it. And then we cut to the bad guys, the guys who conspired to have him thrown in here. Right. And they're all feasting and laughing and they're like, how we sure did get away with it. Huh? They got, they got a whole, there's a one moment that's really weird where one of them is like, they're cheersing to the lions. Yes. And they say who show no

partiality to a Hebrew than any other man, you know, whatever they say. And I was just like, we're toasting non bigotedness. I just, I, Oh yeah. Yeah. No, it's 20, 24. The Jews will take what they can get. You know what I'm saying? So yeah. So, but we, you know, Darius sleeps fitfully that night, but we cut back to Daniel and he's fine. The lions are, he gives him some scritches. I mean, he doesn't, right? Cause he's never actually in the same room as these lions.

We see the lions or Daniel, but he's fine. Yeah. I really wanted him when he was out, he was like, you don't even smell like lion. I did like the moment where the bright light appears to Daniel as he's praying or whatever. I was really hoping Hagrid would appear again. But he blew their wad on that one already. But he's like, hey, by the way, God, I'm going to totally tell everybody about this, about how awesome you are about this.

You have rescued me from the mouth of lions. And I'm like, well, the cage of lions. I mean, they were in there. You didn't do circus tricks while you were in there. Right, yeah, exactly. So, okay, so the next morning, Darius shows up and he runs through the dungeon to find out if Daniel's okay. And he looks through the window and he's like,

are you okay, are you okay? And he's like, yeah, no, actually I'm just fine. No, no action in this movie yet. Oh my God, he looks through this little window and he's like, Daniel, Daniel, you're still in there, like, first of all, wouldn't he just assume that it's a bloodbath that he's about to see? He wouldn't, you, you don't call out to the guy that was, right. You would, you would say, Hey guys, um, is my buddy all bloody and in pieces in there?

Yeah. And then he looks at it and little Daniel, just he's been sitting on the floor and he just peers behind the corner. Just as little. It was a weird. I laughed for a year. It was, it was very whack a mole the way he appeared in that one. Yeah. God saved me and everything, but I don't want to push it. So I've kind of been holding up over here, if you know what I'm saying. So yeah, so but he's like, so did your god miracle you? And he's like, yeah, totally. Either that or the lions weren't hungry. He's like, either way, I'm letting you out. By again opening the door completely wide open and stepping aside while whatever wants to walks out of there.

I don't know. They have never seen somebody try to go into the backyard without letting the dogs out. Yeah, if Daniel had made his way out in that way that people who own German shepherds have to, just like, no, no. Right, pushing him back with his foot. Knee him in the face. And one interesting thing in the Aramaic here in the text, this is very clearly a hole in the ground because Daniel is lowered into the pit and Daniel is brought up out of the pit and then there's that rock that is laid over it and he seals the stone with his signet ring and everything and so once again the movie's like, ah, it's a little rich

for our blood. Let's move all the furniture out of the living room, paint it like brick. You know, all the furniture out of the living room, paint it like brick and... You know that some PA actually had to call some, like, you know, backhoe rental company and be like, okay, it costs how much to dig a hole? Yeah, right. That's crazy. That is, wow.

Do you guys have any holes? I wondered if this movie has lion money. It didn't have down money, right? It just went down. So, okay. So, but then Darius is like, hey, you know what? While we're here with a bunch of hungry fucking lions, those three guys who tricked me into signing that cuneiform tablet in the first place are right there. So he feeds the other guys to the lions. Not before yelling at them that this Hebrew, meaning Daniel, is my greatest possession, which was a little

yikes. Yeah, a little bit. A little bit. But yeah, so they pushed them into that room. We hear a lion roar and that's that, right? So then Darius goes upstairs, I guess, or around the corner to issue a new decree, a pro Daniel's God decree. We're all Jews from now on.

So that's just the funniest fucking thing about this, biblically, not in the movie, is that even the Bible isn't going to pretend that King Darius became Jewish. So they have to have him constantly being like, I recognize that Jewish God is the right God. I'm not gonna do anything about that just yet. I just know that they're right is all. He's like someone who acknowledges that vegans are right, but cheese is delicious.

You know what I'm saying? Yeah, okay, all right. Look, Marcus lets me fuck a goat on his altar. You know what I'm saying? Okay. Tell Jew God to come out with some goat fucking. It did feel very much like a, well, until tightrope God shows up,

lion taming God is the true God. The answer is still no, juggle God. And this is being written again in the second century, the Hellenistic period, and or at least the stories are being finalized in that period. Or as I call it, the Bronze Age. And so the point is not like we're going to represent them as changing the kingdom.

The point is basically trying to insist that, hey, our God's okay. You can tolerate our God. You can let us do our thing. You don't have to try to stamp out our God using these stories from from much earlier So the the emperors are kind of just it's a message for the Hellenistic rulers Just and gotcha live and let live I guess The Bible is trying to do like a what your friend who like spiders does about daddy long legs Well, they won't hurt you and they get rid of pests But yeah, but this is awkward moment where he's like, and, you know,

Jewish God's kingdom will never end. Things are going to be great for the Jews from here on out. Trust me. All going to come up roses. Then this is Darius gives him back gives Daniel back his clinky bling. Yeah. And then we we cut to the wrap up, right? We're going to get the final king, which is of course Cyrus who came before Darius, but that's fine. It's just, we don't worry about that.

Right. I love that this scene starts out with Daniel being like, I'm gonna read these old prophecies to you. Let me just look around the room first and see what flags you might be flying. No reason, hold on. Okay. Yeah, and this is truly retcon the closing, right?

Because what they're trying to do here is tie all the ahistorical prophecies, both in Daniel and that they made up just for this movie together. To the point that at one point, one of the old guys goes, oh, and they call me a shepherd and I was found by a shepherd.

So that prophecy is pretty much what I thought it was. I thought it was a seven of hearts. Right. So he's like, hey, I'm going to read you these prophecies that our God put down hundreds of years ago that curiously are really close to you and predict what you've done. And so he reads them and Cyrus is like, wow, there is no way that you could have possibly known the present. Yeah.

So. Yeah, he literally, he literally goes through and says, now, now these prophecies all say, here's what you did. And he lists all of these things that like, yeah, he knew. Right. He already like, this is not even a good trick. This is not even like Eli doing mentalism on his bad days. No, this is me drunk outside a bar

doing mentalism at gunpoint, being like, I know, do you like guns and pointing them at people? Yes. You have a shirt, I'm seeing a shirt. A shirt of redness. And Cyrus is like, he's like, I don't care about all this stuff,

but he called me a what? Yeah. Like that's the, he repeats that over and over again. Like that's what convinced him. It's like, knowing my name is one thing, but saying I'm a shepherd? Right. That is interesting. Who could have possibly imagined that a person

in like a sheep-based society who was a ruler would think of himself as a shepherd. Nobody's used that metaphor for a king before. That's impossible. Just all kings in Mesopotamia for literally over a thousand years. And I'd love to because there's actually a moment here where Cyrus goes like, all right, but wait, you told me that you had a story about four kings. Who's this fourth king? And I'm like, it's the burger king, man. Come on. Who do you think it is? Dummy. But yeah. So he tells him all the different prophecies and he's like, but the end prophecy is that you give

me a bunch of stuff. And he's like, weird, weird. That would have been God's last promise. I know we're like 30 seconds before the end, but I do have to point this out. Remember that they've included this other old guy who's supposed to be the different king he conquered. Croesus, yeah. Croesus. They have this moment where Croesus goes, hey, should we fact check any of this?

And the old guy's like, no. That's it? Yes. They don't ever come back to it. He's like, according to Daniel's story, Daniel's very trustworthy. What do you, I don't even understand what you're saying here. You heard the goons talk about how he has all this integrity. Yeah, right.

That was Daniel saying that. Story, yeah, exactly. What's funny about this, when Cyrus gives his pronouncement at the end, this is actually how the Hebrew Bible, as it is arranged within the Jewish tradition, ends. The first and second Chronicles are placed at the very end. And so second Chronicles, chapter 36, verses 22 and 23,

the Hebrew Bible ends with Cyrus making this proclamation and then seen. And so, and the idea is that this kind of ends the whole Bible on this note of promise of restoration. We're going to return. Everything's gonna go back to the way it used to be. So that's the cliffhanger that the Hebrew Bible ends on. And then Christians rearrange the Old Testament

and we put Malachi at the end. So it can end with this segue into, now here's the guy we were talking about, Jesus. And- Interesting. Yeah. So they ended this movie on that. Is it like Namaiah and a couple of the other ones,

like chronologically after this though, or am I misremembering? Oh yeah, yeah. No, well, Daniel is, and Daniel's probably the last text of the Hebrew Bible that was actually composed. Gotcha. But yeah, they said it much earlier. So it's not in chronological order at all.

Gotcha. Awesome. So yeah, so we get Cyrus telling them that the Jews can all go home now and they're out of exile and blah, blah, blah, and everybody feels good. But then Daniel has come in just, but you know, of course, still sucked for me because I was like 70. So what am I going to go all the fucking way back to? So I didn't get to do it.

Oh, look at all those stairs in the promise land. Oh, yeah. Right, right. I mean, except that what he ends up doing is doing a Bruce Banner at the end of every episode of Fighting. Yes, he totally does. We watch him wander off into the California brush, yeah. It's so weird.

Yeah, he goes eat, so he's asking God for more shit at the end. I'm like, I feel like God's done plenty for you, dude, in this story. You're good. All right. So, so, so Dan, we already know how many stars this gets in terms of entertainment, but on a scale of one to five, how did it do in terms of biblical accuracy? So biblical accuracy itself is a bit of a misnomer, but in terms of how well it reflected the biblical text, I would say it's like a four and a half.

Like it tries to follow it very, very closely, but it's also trying to correct it and improve on it by trying to work in all of these other historical things as well. So they try to punch it up a little, punch up to buy it. Yeah, yeah. So we're gonna sex it up a little bit. We're gonna try to make it sound a little more historical

than it really is to the degree we're able. There are some things where they're like, we can't really do anything about this. And so there's only so much makeup you can put on this actor. And so, yeah, I would say 4.5 in terms of the loss. Whoa, well done. It's pretty close. That's the highest anything's been rated

for anything in the history of our show. On our show. I do believe. All right. So if our audience wanted to learn more from you guys, where should they go? You know, Data Over Dogma podcast is available on all of the podcasting places. We also do YouTube. So you, if you want to see our gorgeous faces, we're available there. Just look for just Google or search data over dogma. And, and yeah, you'll hear us obviously shred the Bible the way the way we've been doing, but it's informed shredding. Yeah, right, right. No, I've learned a lot of awesome stuff today and I hope our listeners have as well. All right. Well, a huge thanks obviously to the dance for helping

out today. But just because we're done with our review of the book of Daniel doesn't mean we're done with the episode just yet because we still need to re-enlist so Eli tell us what's on deck. Well Noah, speaking of prophecy, I thought it was time to turn to one of our more modern prophets. I'm talking about boy band super villain Clay Clark. Oh no. In his documentary, The Great Reset versus The Great Awakening.

Oh for fuck's sake. Alright, so with that to look forward to, we're bringing episode 462 to a merciful close. Once again, a huge thanks to Dan and Dan for helping us out today. And be sure to check the show notes for a link to their show and perhaps even a huger thanks to all the Patreon donors that help make the show go. If you'd like to count yourself among their ranks, you can make a per episode donation to patreon.com slash got awful.

And thereby earn early access to an ad for a version of every episode. You can also help a ton by leaving a five star review and by sharing the show on all your various social media platforms. And if you enjoyed this show, be sure to check out our sibling shows, the Skating Gala, the Excitation Aided, D&D Minus, and the Skeptical Gala, but we'll wherever podcasts live. If you have questions, comments or set-up, I have suggestions you can email godolphinmoviesatgmail.com.

Tim Robertson takes care of our social media. Our theme song was written and performed by Ryan Slotkin, the people of Jeff's on Mars. All the other music was written and performed by our audio engineer, Morgan Clark, and was used with permission. Thanks again for giving us a check of your life this week for Heath Enright and Eli Buzdigum, Del'm Delusions, promising to work harder to earn another chunk next week.

Until then, we'll leave you with the Breakfast Club close. Daniel went on to ask if he could be moved to a spot in the Bible further away from a ZP. Gallagher lost all his watermelon smashing money speculating on the stock market and became a bitter, has-been comic doing racist and homophobic acts at insane clown posse events Had several heart attacks one on stage and eventually died

All of that's true Dr. Dan gave uncle Dan a serious talking to about booking future guest appearances. Yeah. That one hasn't happened yet. That one. It's in the future. Prophecy. Eli prophesized it. It happened in the Bronze Age. I guess that did have a weirdly, oh, come on, you could do better than that. I prophesized it. It happened in the Bronze Age.

I guess that did have a weirdly, oh, come on, you could do better than that. What are you doing crowd work? Who's fucking tonight? Dan? Are you still it? Still gotta do the pipe. Oh, you know it. Still gotta do the pipe. Non-Uncle Dan, I want you to know that as part of this sketch, I fed JAPGBT your first thesis. And I was like, what's a joke I could make about this? And twice JAPGBT was like, there aren't really any jokes in here.

It's very serious. See, AI cannot take my job because they have the absolute know-it-all. That's right. Yeah, you are safe. I like that you went for it there, Dan. You fucking went for it. Hell yeah. Listen, I was classically trained to do that.

Right? No, I get it. I get it. You know when you're working with a pro, damn it. That's right. All right. Interstitial. I always love this moment that we have as we do this part of the show with the New Gas

where we sort of learn their sense of humor. Right, there's this moment where you're like, oh good, you know. Hope they like this. Or not, you know. Dan makes a very solid straight man. That's right. So far so good.

All right. And Rocket Moneyhead? The preceding podcast was a production of Puzzle and the Thunderstorm LLC, copyright 2024, all rights reserved.