Kill James Bond! - S3E8.5: Master and Commander [UNLOCKED]

Episode Date: December 14, 2023

That's right, to celebrate 5 million downloads we gave you (That's right, you) the opportunity to pick the next bonus episode! Then, in a tournament that came somehow to be known as the '16 james double bondation', you selected 'Master and Commander: The Far Side of the World'.   Join us on this voyage (Ha) as we ask: Do dudes rock? The answer... May surprise you. ------ FREE PALESTINE Well, we're all witnessing a genocide on our phones, and our elected leaders are running cover for a rogue fascist state thats picking fights with Doctors Without Borders and the Red Cross. So history has charged us with this duty: Do anything and everything within your reasonable power to slow this machine. March, call your representatives, purchase eSims to restore Gazans' access to the internet, protest, disrupt, sabotage. If you only have the dirt beneath your fingernails, scrape it out and throw it in the cogs. There are enough of us to make a difference. palestineaction.org/donate https://www.map.org.uk/donate/donate ----- Consider supporting us on our reasonably-priced patreon! https://www.patreon.com/killjamesbond ------ *WEB DESIGN ALERT*  Tom Allen is a friend of the show (and the designer behind our website). If you need web design help, reach out to him here:  https://www.tomallen.media/   Kill James Bond is hosted by Alice Caldwell-Kelly, Abigail Thorn, and Devon. You can find us at https://killjamesbond.com

Good evening, Peter Files. If you're just joining us now, Hogg's Worldwide have gone to the polls to cast their votes in the grand final of the 2023 Kill JamesJames Bond 16 James double bondation between master and commander and starship troopers. Joining as live now is Abigail Thorn reporting from a packed polling station. Abigail, what's the feeling on the ground about this? How are the voters responding to their first ever democratic election? Thank you, Devon. As you can see behind me, a lot of people are very excited. There's a lot of tension in the air that has been some fighting over the course of the evening, but the police have mainly kept the hogs in line.

Everyone is now just waiting with beta breath for the results of this first selection and hoping that it can bring peace to the region. Fantastic. Thank you. Feel free to stay on a line for the next guest. But it's not all celebrations. While some scholars are hailing this election as a landmark victory for the historically unrepresented hogs who have previously lived under a total content dictatorship, there appears that this democratic election may be anything but joining me is Alice Cordoa Kelly. Now, Ms. Cordoa Kelly, thank you for your time. You've been a UN election observer for well over a decade,

and I believe you were earlier quoted as having called this. The most blatant attempts at voter manipulation you've ever seen, both from influential hogs and even the hosts of the show itself. Would you care to expand on these comments? That's right, Devon. I think ultimately the main takeaway from this is

this is a clear attempt by the authorities to suppress the popular and surging movement of cars to again. And of course we condemn the crimes of cars to again. They must have a role in any meaningful electoral process. There is no solution that does not include the possibility of cars to again. And by forestalling that, I worry that the chances of cars to again, in some ways increase. Very, very dire warning of things to come here. Thank you. Are any of these allegations true? Are these fears unfounded? Would these two final movies even be the two that were born out under a truly democratic process? We may never know. But if the exit polls are accurate, we may be about to see an episode of Kill James Bond

about Master and Commander. The A Hoi! A Vast! Welcome to an episode of Kill James Bond. I am Commodore Alice Gordwokali joined, as always, by my subordinates, Captain Abigail Thorn, and sailing master Devon. Howdy, Oceans, are now about to feel, I'm not feeling ready.

I'm subordinate apparently, that's new. Yeah, yeah, yeah, well listen, I figured you would be fine with it. Master and Commander, a one affair and totally unregt process as you're losing to earlier. We certainly won't quote tweeting everything being like Do you want to see a reality in Impicadilly? Well, some of the hogs might not be on Twitter. As a thank you for, yeah, you just might have no idea on the fog right now.

It's about six minutes of nonsense up front. Yeah, to celebrate 1.5, no, 1.5 million down. 5 million downloads. We had an election on Twitter to choose the topic of our next episode. And you, whether you voted or not, whether the turnout was high or low, you voted master command on the far side of the world.

We can see that this is behind. We can service you by this. Yes, that's right. This was the main fear of hog republicans is that we would use this to legitimize Mastering Commander. Yeah, and I hope you know what you've done, right? Because what you've done by voting for Mastering Commander far side of the world is you've walked into a trap, right? On two levels.

On one level, you've taken away the possibility of a live show with all of us in period naval costume. It's the same because I have that. But on another, I'd like it. You have entered into this on the assumption that this was going to be, yeah, it's the dude's rock movie analysis. No, you have entered into the Thunderdome with the, it's not like the books analysis. I will be talking for three hours uninterrupted is you cannot silence me. Why does Stephen mature and not wear his characteristic

Paraguay, it is an integral part of his character, it is iconic, it's like Aiden Pierce's cap. Everything about this movie is literally unwatchable, has nothing to do with the other Brian novels. Also dudes, dudes don't rock in this film. In fact, I think the very question this movie is literally unwatchable has nothing to do with the other brand novels also dudes dude dude still rock in this film in fact I think the very question this film is asking is dude dudes rock. I have a thesis and I'll say this thesis rice up front Americans cannot be trusted with this fucking movie right on the god they cannot because I This it's regularly a thing on Twitter. It's regularly a thing that like, this is why I got votes on Twitter.

I think about the GQ article, why are so many guys obsessed with master and commander, which is, oh, it's like a dude's rock thing, right? No, no, I mean partially, but no. I think the thesis of this movie is that dude's rock, but not always as they choose to. The rocking of the dudes is constrained by their material conditions, right? Yes.

And sometimes the ways that the dudes rock are very, very compromised, something which we as a feminist podcast are very familiar with. This is a masculine power fantasy in a lot of ways. And it's sort of grandiose, and it's a lot like James Bond. I think you said very well before we started recording that the dudes, they do rock. But what was it you said? Male friendship makes in human conditions better. Yes.

But the male friendship produces those. Yes, yes. Reproduces the inhuman conditions, and it always does that with a body count. That's what we're going to see over the next hour and a half in change is male friendship makes it possible to survive the fucking Oken death machine, right? But sorry, Master and Commander. Yes. First of all, we got to talk about the titles because the first thing on screen and man,

I can't pretend these aren't really good. It's a hard thing to start the movie with. It really is cool. I'm sorry. Hey, listen, it's all the exposition you need. And one of the reasons why the novels are so good, again, you have a counter on the side of the thing or something. One of the reasons why the novels are good is because Orion never, ever explains anything, right? And so he just like, he throws in some nautical terminology and never explains it. This, it explains stuff, but it's very, very spare about it. And so all you get at the beginning is, you know,

1805, Napoleonist Master of Europe, only the British fleet stands before him, oceans now battlefields. Luke Skywalker is on half, it's not called execution, it's called retirement, et cetera. Yeah, just speak. This is the thing, you can contrast it with the Star Wars things, because the Star Wars things

much longer, they give you a bunch of information you don't need to know. And it's sort of like it loses pace, this keeps pace throughout. Because it's like a leftist meme. The Star Wars opening. Yeah, and this rightist meme is how it feels to kill Frenchmen. I haven't figured that star wars is a good franchise. I mean, the thing is, right.

Historically, it has been. I think also, we can't sleep on the other opening title, the one immediately after this, which introduces the ship, which is HMS Surprise, 28 guns, 197 souls north coast of Brazil, which again, it sets up stuff in a way that you really, really need as opposed to like every spy movie we watch, whether like there's a big shot of the Eiffel Tower and then it goes Paris, France, you know. Yeah, this is a very minimalist setup here. You get, yeah, purely what you know. Yeah, this is a very minimalist setup here. You get purely what you need to know, which is this is a British ship. It is 1805 Napoleon has the master of Europe. The British ship is hunting a French privateer that is attempting to bring Napoleon's

war into the Pacific Ocean, and their mission is to stop him. Yeah. That's it. French privateer Akaron or Akaron. That Akaron, the river of a woe in Greek mythology. By the way, this is not... Well, because they also changed it from the book and the book, it's the Americans. And it's the War of 1812.

There should be USS Norfolk. Oh, right. But they worried that in the course of adapting this, it was adapted from two of the novels, they would lose the Americans if the Americans were the bad guys, which is a shame, because given the way that the French had depicted in this, and I have some thoughts about that. Me too, actually. I think that a straight adaptation of this would have been one of a few things that could have really made Americans see outside themselves.

And I think they've kind of been robbed of that. But so we began the ship. Who you suggesting we're inflicting a hermeneutical injustice on Americans by allowing them to continue kind of been robbed of that. But so we begin in the ship and. Who you suggesting we're inflicting a hermeneutical injustice on Americans by allowing them to continue believing everyone believes that in heroes? Yeah, yeah, genuinely. I think so. But so we begin in the ship and the ship sets are perfect, like magnificent.

Dark, cramped, one of the first shots we get is like hanging bags of powder and in quite a sort of Orion, like maybe it doesn't identify those, you're like, what the hell of those? No, no, no, that's the shit that's gonna power all of the like, all of the fights later on. It's also nice that we start in very early morning. It's not something that a lot of people give thought to is what time of day it when your film starts. And it's nice that it's like the half hour just before everyone's waking up. So we get to see a little bit of the ship's routine and how things work as everybody is waking up. And they are entering a fog bank of a watchman reports that he like maybe heard a bell. And there's this young officer called Warren who comes down and we get to see everyone saluting the officers that they go past. This is very clear divide

between officers and enlisted men or sailors. Yes, and sailors' ratings, right? So here's the thing, right? We have our officer of the watch who is assisted by another officer. And these are midshipmen. Midshipmen, I have to explain this here. Lots of countries are fucked up enough to have child soldiers, right? Of course. Only Britain. Only Britain is fucked up enough to produce child officers. Yes. Only Britain. That's what it says. That's right, because promotion, the Navy is based on senior R.C. and it's based on time and service and it's very, very few promotions as you go up.

There was an incentive to get your children into the Navy earlier and earlier, not at all uncommon, to be on the books at nine and at C-12. Well, yeah, we see it. We see it later on. There are children on board. Yes, yeah, fully. I mean. Who are not just like that playing, like they are part of the Navy. No, they are very junior officers. What if they were at home at this

point, they'd be in the mines or the fabric mills anyway. So like, you have to work in right now. This is 1885. Yeah, yeah. And I mean, you can ask plausibly some questions about the British mill. So I still want you to join it. I believe 16. Yes, that is true. Which I, it doesn't really deploy until you're 17. I don't think, but even still about 17 year olds, is there still minus? Yeah, alarming. Yeah. So they're in the fog bank. And the officer of the watch is this midshipman, Hollum. Yes.

And Hollum believes that he sees ship. And the thing is, right. and I'll get to this later, this, this is a film that is not really about how dudes rock. It's not even really about the thing that I said about social reproduction. It's in large part a horror story about command. Yes. Because I'm interested in thinking about this as a film without command, because that, that was the thing that I wanted to do for a long time.

Essential part of understanding Alice's psyche is I spent most of my teenage years thinking, okay, I'm going to be an army officer. And Holland is this tragedy of Kamatsu. Oh, hollum. Yeah. Watch this thing. It's like, it's a dense fog bank. He's looking around. He gets the briefest glimpse of the Akaron. It could have been anything. It could have been a very cheap moving. Yeah, everyone's like, make the call and he's going,

fuck, it's better to make it. You know, have the drop. Yeah. I can't be, sir. You're off, sir, of the watch. Holl know, I have the drop. Yeah. I got me, sir. You're off serve the watch. Homin, you must make a decision. I mean, the first, the first thing we see him do is in a perfectly understandable way. It's hesitating. And this is the thing, to make the right decision is a question of training,

to make a decision is a question of leadership. And he doesn't make one. Doesn't, doesn't make the call. It's the guy who's saying that to him. His buddy makes the call. Makes the call. Yeah, Callamy. Callamy, who's another midshipman, makes the call. They beat the quarters. Which is maybe for Get Ready, I see him.

First time you see? Wake the lad. Yeah. Yeah, they wake up the lad. Geals up, Red Alert. I put a lot of this in Star Trek language to help me understand it. So this is kind of like yellow alert. Yeah. Yeah. They go to yellow alert. That's right. And they wake up the boys. Most noticeably, they wake up the captain. The biggest boy of all.

Here's a boy I like to say. And the contrast here in the way that he moves his bearing is contrast here in the way that he moves his bearing is throughout, I would say, if this is a word, office-ally, right? Yeah, it's a fucking good performance from Russell Crowe. You do occasionally have to hand it in. It's like absolutely confident. And so, so Aubrey comes up to the Fordec. And first of all, he reassures home that he did the right thing, even though he's not certain.

Yeah. And I can spend it to be ready, then to be like caught completely with our pants down here. Like, it's fine. Yes. Yeah, absolutely. Yeah. And we see that he looks into the fog bank. Not sure. Bit dubious, but dubious.

And then you get the like flash of cannon fire, which is fucking terrifying. Yeah, it's really cool. I don't think a film has got Canon as well as Master and Commander. 100%. Yeah. I'm happy to be corrected if anyone wants to say to me,

like, you know, Sergei Bondachuk did a better job with Waterloo, Sure, maybe. But for this, I think, no, really, really, the sound design alone. Yeah, it's good. Because you see the explosion long before the cannonball hits you, because it's this heavy bit of fucking iron that's coming. And like they do a really good job of making sure you see that a lot of these injuries are shrapnel based.

It's not just getting hit by the cannonball. There's like splinters. It's hitting a wooden ship and you are stood within it like explosions. It's fucking cool. We do see that one of the children, the like the youngest midshipman, I believe, Blakeney, who looks about 14, yeah, that. Yeah, it's sort of like, we like focus it on his eye as he's like gonna

push down into cover. This is gonna be an important thing. It's like Blakeney is like a witness to this stuff. It's kind of like a build onks romance in a lot of ways. He's meant to be a kind of like innocent guy. Yeah. Yeah, yeah. Who is introduced to the world of dudes rock by having a bunch of people like butchered

with shrapnel in front of him and he gets like two pieces through the arm. Yeah, he gets his arm like fucked up. And we also see down in the infirmary, our surgeon on board is Paul Bettany, guy we love to see. That's a fucking guy I love to see, baby. Oh, okay. I have some problems. Oh, Paul Bettany, he's a fine actor. He does a great job with this role, right? Um, the books, it's not like the books. So Stephen Mature and the character, thank you,

the character that he's playing. Um, it doesn't try to like grapple with that, because there's a few things there. One of which I'll get into later, but the main thing about this, and I want to say this early, is Stephen maturin is meant to be ugly. He is meant to be like physically repulsive. It's like a key part of his character. He has to live in a separate house from his wife because he keeps bringing dead animals home to dissect. He's an ugly dude. And this is the thing, right?

Paul Bettany, not an ugly man, not an easy man to make look ugly if you were trying to. And I think partially you have this desire to make them relatable and post-eggetic, but I think also there's this kind of thing where even as early as 2003, it was not possible to make a living and get the kind of roles as an ugly actor that it might have been in the past. Yeah, true.

I think there was this niche for character actors who were very strongly featured in a way that is not photogenic, is not necessarily appealing. It's not an insult. I think it's genuinely affected our view of ourselves, our sense of self, that we don't really see that on screen so much. If you're a Pete Possil Twight, say so today, I think you might struggle to achieve the same kind of prominence. Yeah, yeah. That's why we get like 1960s woman dysphoria, right? We keep noticing in old films like people don't fucking look like that on screen. A lot of the thing is a lot of modern movies and I'm going to be very careful in my wedding. A lot of modern movies are quite they've got a big cast and all of them have to look like leading men. So the character is a very, very like it's dying away as a role.

They're all getting older. Yeah. Fingers crossed they're going to bring that back. That would be really useful for me. So I mean, this is the thing. One of the things about Stephen Mature and his character and the novels is the fact that he is ugly, the fact that he is rep the novels is the fact that he is ugly, the fact that he is repulsive,

but the fact that he is also as we later then see, profoundly decent, loyal, brave, and brilliantly intelligent. And the fact that his friends are sort of like required to like see these things in him and still like, you know, confront the fact that this guy smells bad as hell. Like, he's wearing the same coat covered in blood all the time. That's a really interesting piece of character work all around. And I think we lose the ability to relate to that when we have this expectation that everybody, even the, you know, even the ship surgeon

on like just a nothing vessel in 1805. He's gonna be like a 10 out of 10 smoke show. Yeah, yeah, yeah. So he's treating casualties. Yeah, we got a red alert. I mean, we ready phases. There's an interesting little bit I want to pull out here, which is there's, they don't use quite as much fake blood

as they could do. Yes. But they use an interesting substitute, which is, Maturin is like, he asks for more sand on the floor of his cabin because it's getting soaked with blood. I really like that. Yeah, so in a later scene,

they use just like spreading sand on the floor as short-hand for like, there's about to be blood. And I've really, really enjoyed that. Yeah, it's really cool. You can just be elusive with the floor as shorthand for like, there's about to be blood and I've really, really enjoyed it. Yeah, it's really cool. You can just be elusive with the st- It's fantastic. But the boys take a pacing from the acaron. The rudder is shot out, they're taking on water,

they're fucked basically. So they decide to hide in the fog bank and they have to like get the men in lifeboats and like tow the ship by rowing it to run away, which I was like, fun. Wow, that must have been difficult. And throughout Aubrey's alarm, his charm is infectious. He smiles when he says to the younger officers,

run up the colors. It's like, he's fucking joyed itself. He's have a great time. Yeah, yeah, yeah. Meanwhile, Paul Blakeney with like, Shrapnel through his arm, he sees like this horrid old sailors giant, hold fast knuckle tattoos.

Hell yeah. Elis goes in. Must have all. Yeah. Yeah, this is, this is Mr. Brain Surgery who will get to you later. Yeah, we'll get to, because he also gets injured.

So yeah, they escape into the fog bank by the skin of their teeth and and Aubrey kind of debriefs with maturon Not his you know at any of his officers, but you know, I'm surgeon. Because they're friends The vibe is what we go our asses kicked, but at least we're still alive like you could have gone This is sort of a post-match analysis scene where they're like, yeah, we got fucked, hit boys. No shame, we got absolutely fucked. It's like, you know, what's the butcher's bones? Like, I own like, nine dead 27 wounded.

And... They have this office's dinner where they're like, okay, well, we got our asses kicked. The French have a tougher ship, longer guns. She's like, she's really fucking good. They also have the advantage of the wind direction. Wind gauge, yes. Yeah, yeah. And so we've established like, Brits are known to dog and the vibe from the wind direction. Windgate, yes. Yeah, yeah. And so we've established like Brits are known to dog and the vibe from the other officers

is, well, at least we're alive. Let's just kind of limp home and like, cut our losses here. And that's like, you're not so close. No, but. No, no, absolutely not. You know, so the thing about the conversation with Mathura and first, though, is that all three kind of suspects that they've been betrayed, right? The reason why the actor on was able to find them was because of, you know, like human

intelligence, shall we say? Yeah, this is interesting. Mathieu and says, French have their spies named in the elsewhere. That's to be. And this is the thing, this movie was robbed of having sequels. This is the one thing that like dudes rock people on Twitter are right about. No, it's hard. This is a kind of sly bit of foreshadowing

that engages with another part of Stephen Maturion's character in the books, which is that he is fairly often a spy, right? This is not something they do in this movie because they don't get the chance. It's an aspect of his character that they don't adapt that I think it signifies that they wanted to later. And I have some thoughts about, because the thing is, right, this movie is in large part about masculinity and as a form of service, as a form of fidelity to empire. And the central tension here is between Aubrey's sense of duty, which is violent, martial, loyal, and maturons, which is humanistic, naturalistic, pacifistic, even. And at times, like almost insevolent, in fact, openly insevolent. Absolutely, absolutely.

We'll get to that. But this is the thing. One of the things that the novel does to make that, the novels make, to make that interesting, is that Maturin is compromised by Empire too. He is also in its service in a more direct and more directly violent way than being a surgeon. And this movie, I think, in not doing that, it sort of, it's made itself a pure,

kind of like distilled version of it. But it also, it loses a bit of moral complexity. I have to say, I have a different reading on that scene. I, because I'd not have had that context. Sure. I read this as like, okay, Captain Aubrey is, like, he's pissed off and he's like, somebody must have betrayed us.

He's kind of hotheaded and he immediately decides, we're gonna stay and we're gonna go after the acaron. Over the course of the film, one of the things he learns in his character arc is patience and trusting and I think this is a nice way of showing us at the start. He's like, oh, well, you know, there's no way they could have beaten us in a sort of fat fight.

Somebody must have set us up like, we've got to fucking get those friendship bastards and like, I know, I'm just nice. So the plan is we're going to keep going after them, even though we're outmatched. But in order to do that, Mr. Blakeney needs to have his arm cut off. Mr. Blakeney, all the officers are referred to as Mr.

surname. So, yeah, Blakeney has two pieces of shrapnel through his arm, which therefore needs amputated, which has done viscerally. He's awake horribly. Yes. And... This is the scene that they set up by, like, they put Blakeney...

He's talking to his mate. I've got the name of someone. Paganess. Maybe. Callamy? Oh, Callamy. That's the one. This slightly older one that he's made to us with. And he's like talking about how, like, if you die,

when they sew you up in your hammock, they'll pass the final needle through your nose just to double check if you aren't dead. And he's like, go and, hey, if I die from having my arm broken here, don't let him put that shit through my nose, man. Mm-hmm. And we cut straight from that to him being put down on the table and like the sand being spread around the table and you understand that something very bloody is

about to happen to this poor lad. Yeah. And they call for some builds tension really well. The thing about this, GQ says, overall, the masculinity of Mastering Commander is overwhelmingly positive and wholesome. Wrong. Any nostalgia for the traditionalism in the movie is less reactionary in more about the healthy male bonding between the characters. The lack of healthy male bonding is the part of this film. Actively kills half of the guys that don't die directly

in the gunfight is like, bad male bonding. And we'll get to this very, very expensively, that kind of thing. Actually, yeah, yeah. So you see this boy being sort of like brutalized into manhood and the male friendship here, such as it is, is mature and being sympathetic and kind to him, you know, and sort of like reassuring

him, which again, this is the thing, like yes, it makes the process of having your arm cast off more bearable, but it's still like that's the guy who's cutting off the fucking arm. He's still, well, he also, he praises him by calling him brave, specifically, which is like the virtue that you need to continue being a service to empire. Then we get a very nice scene where the captain comes and he gives young Mr. Blagney a book about Nelson, who of course also lost an arm. It's just like really nice acting from Russell Crowe here that he is obviously concerned on a personal level for Mr. Blagney but tries to hide it and keep it buttoned up, which it's just really nice.

It's quite awkward. It isn't quite known to say to him. What do you say to a fucking child? Is that as fucking on blown off in service of you? Like if you don't want to say, I'm sorry that that happened. It's very difficult to find something to say, because he doesn't really say that,

because ultimately he's kind of not sorry that happened. Yeah, yeah, it's like it's Blake needs to look at him with his one arm, he's like, well, you can damn him ass. Yeah. Um, he refuses. No, see, the cult of Nelson also something we'll get. Yes. Um, but. My next notes has Paul and Russell play game music together. I'll wait, hold on, hold on. First before we got to fix up the ship a little bit. That's true. Well, the ship is happening. Fix.

This is important to that we go from Blakely getting his arm cut off the figurehead getting like recalved. Yes. And there's also a bit in the wardrobe earlier where Aubrey is like no, we're going to go after the the acaron where maturance says wasn't the ship old and Aubrey is like, no, we're going to go after the the acaron where Maturin says, well, isn't the ship old? And Aubrey says, well, what do you call me? And like an aged man of war. This movie's not particularly subtle about the idea that man and ship are one, right? The ship and the boat. In fact, it's one of them, one of the officers even says of Aubrey that, you know that he's served on the ship for so

long, he has so much blood embedded in it as part of his family. Yeah. Might as well be a relation, is that right? Yes. Yeah, yeah. I mean, my only note here is that most modern men wouldn't be able to repair their vessel at sea nowadays. Which to be...

And they do, like, they repair it at sea. That the decision is made of it rather than going back, rather than putting to land to, like, get trees to repair your shit up. They're just going to use, like, wood from about the place. And they do a phenomenal job of it. You see, like, craftsman at artwork, like carving the decorations into this, so it can slot back into the place. And... Some of the damage control stuff is still current and the Ronaivir today. They're like, like sort of a patching a leak

with like, Okam and like, two wedges of softwood, still absolutely current, you know, you see on YouTube. But yeah, so, I really recommend it, because it's cool this fuck. It is cool this fuck. But we then, we spend some time in the captain's cabin where he is playing the violin while mature and is playing the cello and them playing together is romantic.

It's home of sexual. It is. It's absolutely romantic. It's gay. It's home of sexual. It is. Yeah, it's absolutely romantic. It's absolutely intimate. There is one bit of cinematic graphic detail I like here, which is it cuts to a long shot, like tracking around the anchor underwater. Yeah, interesting. And they're playing. And I think that was genuinely inspired just to sort of like

pull back a bit right into the like context of like, yeah, this whole closed system of this ship, you know, is sort of like being like, sort of undergirded by the like intellectual relationship between these two men. Yeah, really nice. Also, they're fucking on each other. Yeah, at this point, I have a note, a question that perhaps you can answer, Alice. And the note is, what is the status of the black crew members?

Because we do see usually in crowd shots, there are one or two members of the crew on board who are black, only one of them who is unnamed ever has any lines, he has like two lines later on. But we are, we are in 1805, right? We are. Two years before slavery first became illegal in part of the British Empire. So, Black crew members are not slaves here, but they're also not free because sailors are not free. This is something that we'll get to with the sort of discipline stuff later on, but in general, these are men who have

been press ganged, possibly from other ships, possibly from their homes, we don't know, and they are under military discipline. So they are sort of not free in that sense, but there isn't a formal racial distinction here. Interesting. There's also a blink and you'll miss it moment where the captain is writing a letter to his wife. You have to pause the screen to find out her name, but she's Sophie. Sophie Villiers. Sophie is not a character. She is a locket and a name on the letter. Again, this movie should have had about 50 sequels because that, that it like novels, people think, oh, it's, you know, it's like Master and Commander, it's just going to be boats. No, it is in large part, but about half of the sort of like on land doing regency novel shit, you could slot these guys into Jane Austin

in places. I will say that is one of my major complaints with the plot and pacing of this movie can be directly sourced from the fact that it is three novels out of 20 being adapted because there are no less than two points where you can really tell that one novel ends and another has just started because the stakes get hard reset. Yes. And when you know that it's adapted from free, it becomes very difficult to not spot that. So they trade with some native resilience, uncomfortable calling them resilience for clarity. Yeah. These are the only women in the movie.

Two or three women here don't get attached. They are the only women you will see the entire time. Yes. Apart from the figurehead of the shit. Yes. Who is the only woman who gets a close up. But yeah, so these women, that's true. These women, they exist to highlight the absence of women

and the distance of Sophie Villiers from Jack Aubrey. And then we move on. We get another wardrobe scene and I engage, perhaps, the single finicky-est historical accuracy note I've ever given. No, I want to hear this though, because I'm interested. I said this. I said this and I got the reply back, are you an 18th century naval officer in the body of 21st century trans women? So they do the, they do the toast, they don't do the loyal toast first, which is bullshit. But it's, it's, to why, to wives and sweethearts, may they never meet, which means it's a Saturday. It's interesting, could have done, you know, each film with a different one of those. My favorite is Thursdays to a bloody war or sickly season, but, um,

in the course of doing this, listen, the toast every day of the week. Seriously, I thought that was organic. I'm too. You're telling me that he's telling me, can you tell me, can you tell me, can you tell me, can you tell me, can you tell me, can you tell me, can you tell me, can you tell me, can you tell me, can you tell me, can you tell me, can you tell me, can you tell me, can you tell me, can you tell me, can you tell me, can you tell me, can you tell me, can you tell me, can you tell me, can you tell me, can you tell me, can you tell me, can you tell me, can you tell me, can you tell me, can you tell me, can you tell me, can you tell me, can you tell me, can you tell me, can you tell me, can you tell me, can you tell me, can you tell me, can you tell me, can you tell me, can you tell me, can you tell me, can you tell me, can you tell me, can you tell me, can you tell me, can you tell me, can you tell me, can you tell me, can you tell me, can you tell me, can you tell me, can you tell me, can you tell me, can you tell me, can you tell me, can you tell me, can you tell me, can you tell me, can you tell me, can you tell me, can you tell me, can you tell me, can you tell me, can you tell me, can you tell me, can you tell me, can you tell me, can you tell me, can you tell me, can you tell me, can you tell me, can you tell me, can you tell me, can you tell me like H. Bonds doing four hours on Captain Jack, stealing his fucking paddler? Like, come on. It is set by day. Oh, fuck me. They've changed them so it's woke now, right? But they're used...

Okay, yeah, now tell me about all of this. Tell me the whole thing. It's so fascinating by this. Off the top of my head, I may get these the wrong way around. You can't complain if she does. Monday is our ships at sea. Tuesday is our men, which because of woe because they let birds in the navy now is like our sailors, I think. Yuck. It's cool. When Wednesday is ourselves with the reply because no one else will take an interest in our welfare. It's just randomly quoting

the Combini River collective in the probably. Yeah, yeah, yeah. Thursday is a bloody war or sickly season, because promotion in the Navy was always based on the guy in front of you dying. And a bloody war pulls off a bunch of junior officers and a sickly season kills off a bunch of aged senior officers. Ah. Friday is a willing foe and serum.

Saturday is wives and sweethearts may they never meet. And then Sunday is absent friends. That's not the big like thing that I'm objecting to. I know, but that was so nice and thank you. You're so welcome. The thing that I'm objecting to here, Captain Howard, the commander of Romareans aboard, correctly passes the port to Canter to his left, but he lifts the bottle,

he lifts the decanter from the the, excuse me, he lifts the Decanter from the table, literally unwatchable even if he's not supposed to be a table officer. Unacceptable conduct in a naval mess. What should you do? What does the correct answer take that shit up? You slide it, you slide it along, so you can lift it to poor and you pour for the person to your right, but you slide it across the thing because you're on a ship and the decanter is gonna, like, you're gonna drop it or it's gonna fall. Brace them.

Oh, of course. It's a naval, it's a harmless naval tradition. I'm sorry. We also got a little bit of Nelson here because- Yeah, some more Nelson. Somebody says, yo, Captain Aubrey, you met Nelson, right? We like one I one armed dude, Trafalgar, that dude. Um, and then like, could you tell us a story about him? And he's like, uh, yeah, he was weird.

He told me to pass the salt. And also his patriotism kept him warm. Yeah, he, he, he does a big like showmanship thing about this. It's clear that he's been thinking and practicing this where he's just like, Oh, the I met him twice at dinner the first time he when he spoke to me, he looked at actually, no, he just goes, I met him twice at dinner. Um, and I served under him at the Nile. Nile, thank you. As a junior officer, no, no, older venue I yourself now, Mr. Blakeney. Um, And then eventually one of his other cocks, with some description goes, like, hey, man, can you just like give us an anecdote about this?

And he goes, are the first time he, we were at dinner and he looked across the table at me and he said, strawberry, you pass me the salt. Everyone laughs, and the second time he gets, he gets real sentimental about it. He was telling me a story about how someone offered him a blanket on his ship and he said, he doesn't need it because he's warmed by his zeal for king. And for anyone else, you'd go, shut the fuck up. But Finellson, you almost believed it.

And everyone's like enrapsured by this. Yeah. And this is the thing, like leadership in the thing, it's a function of self belief, right, and self confidence. And Nelson's self belief is so overwhelming that he can say the dumbest shit you've ever heard and you're like, yes sir, thank you.

You're like fuck maybe, I guess. Yeah, I guess his love for King and Country does keep him more. Oh, Bettany is skeptical. I hate to hit for King and Country, he's me fucking woman. Yeah. Yeah. Well, I'm is skeptical. My hatred for King and country keeps me fucking warm. Well, I write my new videos about this. I might like my country if it just fucking liked me back. It would be nice, wouldn't it? I don't know. I exist in a complicated and somewhat abusive DOM sub-relationship with my country. This is nothing and it's an aside on an episode. It's

going to be too long anyway. So cut this if you want to. It's on the power of three hours. I was watching the business insider, like, things about like a rare kind of salt, and they were interviewing this person who like makes this salt, right? No, it's such good watching, genuinely. They're like so expensive and still standing on business inside of wonderful. Yeah, yeah, yeah. But she was like talking about how the her government had like put in a bunch of like legislation to try to protect the traditional trade that she was a part of and she looks at the camera and says like so, so genuinely, my government wants me to be able to make a living doing

this and I hunched the wall and was like, one to be fucking nice to have any amount of confidence that your government likes you once you to keep doing what you're doing. Once you to keep breathing, like you're gonna live, I don't know, things like that. Anyway. Yeah, but so he expresses skepticism, as you say.

And then what happens is that Dr. Maturen gets weevled off. Yeah, he gets fucking clowned on, dude. Yeah. I genuinely would fucking walk off the side. It's so happy with his shit. Yeah, it's a shitty pun because Aubrey is, he makes puns. He does this.

It's one of two things he does along with like fuck up proverbs. And yeah, he shows him two little weevils that are crawling out of their horrible bread. And he's like, you know, which one would you choose? And he leads, maturing up the garden path, if it's like, I've been like really looking at these fucking weevils. He's like, what's the philosophy? He has to choose one, which would you do? And maturing naturally goes, well, I choose this one because it's a more robust weevil.

It's slightly longer. Probably goes stronger. He's got your ass. Do you not know? He's like cracking up in the midst of this in the service. You must always choose the lesser of two weevils. Everyone around the fucking house. Just his table.

Ryan's saying. Incredible. Yeah. It's over for maturin. He's not. You can make these types of jokes when you have a captain. And everyone's just like, ah, it's so funny. No, like, and then maturin's just like,. Yeah, it could be bullying so easily, but the fact that

mature and takes it in kind of baffled good grace. Yeah, just be like, shit, you've really got me there somehow. So like, yeah, yeah, what's this is this is the thing that I do like about mature and in this movie is that he is baffled by everything North Koreans just like what? Yeah, what? Yeah, there's a point later on where people cheer and he goes clearly something very fascinating and nautical has just happened.

Yeah, it's very funny. So, so we also have to see as as the wardrobe as the mess having having dinner so to our other ratings. And they're singing C shanties. Ohanties. And as Aubrey comes aboard, they stop singing just in time that poor Harlem. Poor Harlem, he joins in. And he is in this guilty of an excess of feeling. Officers do not sing and you are not friends with your men, right? And this is the thing where he fucks up again. And all pretty, but just kind of like lets it lie. Like he just goes, well yeah, because Paul Bertney has his great line where he's like, oh, because, because Holland starts joining in with this scene chanting and all the men fucking stock,

because he sings like a pretty boy. And they even change the song. It's an officer. Yeah. And Paul Bertney says, what a wonderfully true voice they even change the song. He's an officer. Yeah. And Paul Benton, he says, what a wonderfully true voice Mr. Holland possesses. And then the captain is like, indeed. Oh, Mr. Holland, Ruzel. Yeah, the crew will remember this. Yeah. Also, Mr. Brain Surgery, man, who had his brain surgeoned early around by Paul Benton,

who was not wearing gloves, speaks at this point. He was either expected to survive and at this point, he starts matching up for it. Yeah, this guy gets his brain operated on. It's really good. All the guys are stood around. He's doing this operation on the deck to get full daylight on it.

And he's just like, takes a slot out of this guy's skull, he gets it trapped with one of those. But you can buy it to take a big watch out of something. Anyway, yeah. And everyone stood around, they were all looking at him and they're going, like, he's so fucking good. This guy's great.

Meanwhile, it cuts in and he's like, past me the spoon. Yeah. As they note, though, as they note, he is like unusually gifted for a naval surgeon. Where your average naval surgeon, where your average naval surgeon is more, is like closer to barber than surgeon at this point.

Well, they're like, oh, he wouldn't charge us less than 10 guineas if we were on land. That was one of the lines I think. I always have a soft spot for surgeons in any fiction because my dad was one. So if there's ever a surgeon, I'm just like, that's the good guy. You should read the novels, Steve McErin, he's an interesting surgeon.

But yeah, this is the guy with the whole fast tattoos. Yes. At this point, sail hoe. Yes, sail detected. We picked up something on long-range scanners, scanners, scanners. And long-range scanners being my eyes. But there's a scene earlier on where we find out

why the surprise survived all the cannon bolts and things like that, because the acaron, you mean, sorry, the acaron, the surprises, of course, the boat, it's the protagonist. The acaron, why it survived all of that shit is because it's got a thick hole. We find this out because during the peace, one of the guys on the ship was in Boston for a wedding,

and he happened to see the Akron out of water and he described it to one of his other boys who built a perfect little model of it and they go, boy, he's so good. And I'm like, that's, this is beautiful. Thank you so much. Yeah, this is, this is Wally and Nagel, by the way. Don't, don't, don't get attached. You're going to attach for that.

I guess so. Yeah, they are also fucking on each other. But yeah, so they learn that this is why the acarons are unusually fast and unusually strong. The thunders. Orbri is in love with it. My note is that the Navy requires every captain's special interest beboats, because he's holding up and he's like, look at it, it's bluff above the sea line and trim below it.

This is the future boys. What fascinating times we live in. Yeah. And I'm like, hell yeah, man. Sorry. No, no, no. My name is the, the, the acron is galaxy class. The surprise is California class.

They got, they got ambushed by the acron, yeah. Yeah, the acron drops out of warp. It was hiding behind a moon. Yeah. They figured out. We have a fantastic bit where he like, Aubrey like uses his telescope and he sees his glass and he sees the captain of the acron

on his foredeck looking at him with his. And this is the thing, right? This is another relational aspect of masculinity. I think people are mistakenly, but understandably jealous of the male friendship in this movie. This, this is male-enemieship. Yes, yes.

Yes, yes. And this is honestly so, but if you're fucking, if you're in a sword fight with a guy and he's like, you know, I knew this day would come. Fantastic. Yeah, yeah. It's also gay as fuck. I think often about the K-Beaton comic, where you have the jewel with the pirate and the guy,

so like his doublet splits open, he's gonna lock it with your face around his neck. And you're like, my God. I think what you spend an all day and night thinking about another guy, like, yeah, because you think about the enemy pirate captain, you're like, thinking about him, you're like, this guy's good, he's fucking out playing me,

he's got a great shit, I love this guy, I want to kiss him, actually. So I do like the doorbelly just down to his breast, as this is the second time he's done this to me, they'll not be a third. I'm sorry, you can have an enemy if you're a woman, like you can have a, you can have a, I do.

You can have a female memosist, I know you do. I do, it's a different kind of psychosexual, I think, to have a female nemesis and to have a male one. I know she wears a locket with my face on. So I know she does not ascend my enemy one. At this point, at this point, I know she does not anymore. Orry deploys what I have taken to calling Lucky Jack's child and dangerment raft.

Yes. I know that they go scrap heap challenge on his ass. They put him in a shuttlecraft. Yeah. Are you gonna keep doing this even if neither of you are doing this in a slat-track? But keep it going, it's gonna stop. They create a shuttlecraft, and they have little lanterns

and barrels on this makeshift raft, and they stick a junior officer on it. I think it's war. Call me again. They cut it loose and then it has lanterns on it. It looks like the back of their ship and it allows them to slip away into the dark. It's very clever. Yeah.

And Call me does a fantastic job. He swims back. He's very brave. Everyone's very proud of him. He again looks about 16. My next note for this is just, it's not even plot-related. It's just that I note all the officer-y stuff in this as I do every other movie. And there's a bit later on where, like, one of

the sailors makes some sarcastic joke. And one of the midshipmen goes, like, yes, thank you for that, David. And it's just like, yeah, teaching, being a naval officer, the handshake meme, you just cut the wind right out of someone with some like light sarcasm. It's great, it's good fun. The most superstitious about the alcohol on, in particular, Mr. Brain Surgery is like, oh, it's the phantom, Mr. Devall.

It's such a fucking asshole. Mr. Brain Surgery is kind of Bible obsessed and superstitious. And Mr. Brain surgery is kind of Bible obsessed and superstitious. And Mr. Brain surgery identifies that the problem is that they have a Jonah. And the problem with it, they have someone aboard who is bringing bad luck like the prophet Jonah.

And therefore, we must throw him off the ship like the crew, the Jonah ship did to Jonah where he got eaten by a well. Again, he was like, he was a prophet, whatever. Yeah. I don't think they're getting the correct medical lesson, but they want to, yeah, they will find this going. They go through them with it. But this plan using the shuttlecraft kind of works because in the morning, they've like

snuck around the back of the acron and now they have the weather gauge advantage and they're hunting them down. Haha. This is really staring stuff. This is for me the best action riddle of the movie. Yeah, chasing them. Yeah. Like, yeah, they chase them around Cape Horn.

Yeah. Is that, what does that mean other than there's a big storm? I know where it is, but what does that mean in like, why is that significant? Okay, so, so there's two capes, the Cape of Good Hope and Cape Horn. If they're trying to go around, I may have forgotten which Cape it is, right? I think it's Cape Horn. I'm going to pull this one. But they're trying to go around it because the Ackeron wants to enter the Pacific.

It is, Cape Horn. And if they round Cape Horn and enter into the Pacific, they will have like uninterrupted access to sink, burn, pillage, and take a surprise, the entire British whaling fleet in the Pacific, which is going to give a huge economic advantage to Napoleon in the war against the British. Oh, yeah, I guess if you've got the one warship in the whole fucking sea, yes, you'll see. That's basically it, right? Absolutely, that's exactly it. They've found themselves in this kind of like situation where they are like the battle

of Sema where they are unexpectedly the last line of defense. And the thing about the capes is by virtue of position and geography, they have extremely rough seas all the time, extremely strong winds. They are famously very difficult and very unpleasant to navigate. To the point that you, you know, it's one of the things that you can kind of get like bragging rights for as a sailor, again, in Royal Navy, mess. It's a pretty good season of tattoo. Not allowed to put your elbows on the table, unless you're around it, you get one elbow per cape. So if you're a rounded cape on,

you get to put one elbow on the table, or if you've rounded cape on, the cape will go... You would do nothing but put that elbow on the table, though. And you'd sit down and say, Oh, I'm... Yeah, just like, I'm... You think I'll do it when everyone else is out. Yeah, yeah, yeah, yeah. I've got three capes I've been around.

These scenes are so cool when they're like sailing through the storm, and everyone's like pulling on the ropes, like the wind machines, and the rain and stuff, I've made a known here that I can't read out loud. But yeah, this scene's fucking rock. I love a heavy sea. I love them. So yeah, for a second, I thought you met like the word cunt. We do. We love a heavy sea. We do love a heavy sea to be fair here on the Q and J spot. So, so, so, so, Wally, Se Simon Wally, the one who saw happen to see the acron being built. Um, he is, uh, he's, he's captain of the Misen top, right? What that means is he's captain of the Misen top. Yeah, yeah, yeah. It means he's got to be up in the like the, the top, like a

mast head bit. He's the guy whose vomit is falling on you. Yeah. Yes. Yeah. Um, And the Mismast, which has been repaired by, you know, at sea, rather than going into the rainforest to completely replace it. And which the carpenter, Mr. Lam, says, you know, I will not vouch for this around the cape, snaps. And Wally has hurled into the ocean. And the point is that Mr. Hollum was just asked to go up and assist him. Yes, he gets halfway up before it snaps.

So this isn't, this isn't Hollum's fault. He hesitates for a second. He's being asked to climb the Muthant Must in like a force 11,000 gale. It's impossible to ask if I can tell you. I'd hesitate. I missed it, must, in like a force 11,000 gale. It's impossible to ask if I can tell you. I'd hesitate. I'm not even a little fruity boy, and I'd hesitate. Well, it's kind of lucky that it does.

It's not like it would have done anything if he, I mean, he would have been killed too, if he was seen as well. Yeah, yes, but that everyone hears him be ordered to do it, and everyone sees him hesitate, is the thing. Yes. And once again, they like to remember this. Wally is popular, yes. 10 out of 10 twink.

Yeah, so the 10 out of 10 twink, he's trying to swim to the wreckage of the Mersen mast, so you can climb back aboard. And the wreckage is acting as a seanker. It's turning the ship off course. is acting as a C anchor. It's turning the ship, of course. And this will doom the ship, the ship will founder, if it sort of like tax won't leave here. Or bring the worries being informed that he needs to choose now

whether like if they're going to have to sacrifice that one guy in order to save the rest of the ship. Need of the money. You did, again, leadership commands about making the hard decision. You want to take up this as a male fantasy. The thing is, you know, the fantasy is that you are all free in this and not wally, right? Yes.

So if you know, I know you're 100% of the wally, I'm going to tell you, I know what place. Yeah, what wally is round, of course. Well, actually, not to bring up Star Trek again, but we see in Star Trek lower decks, what happens if you are not Aubrey in this, but you are a friend of Wally's, because part of Mariners arc in the latest season of lower decks is being like, no, Captain Picard fucking sent my friend to her death, I fucking hate that dude. Yeah, yeah.

You never hear from the Red Shirts. They're probably pretty mad about this stuff. Yeah. So they have to come loose and need us. Yeah. Well, maybe he survived flotting on the Red Kitchen, went to Brazil and shacked. To tear a Del Fuego, not none, you don't want to.

The crew are kind of like listening in, as Aubrey talks to Maturin about this, and Aubrey knows perfectly well that the crew are going to sort of take this poorly. He knows that they have to do it, and he sort of asks Maturin, have you heard any kind of like stirrings, you know, because mutiny is a real possibility on a role in Aivivessel. This is the first time anyone acknowledges that these guys are not there voluntarily, by the way. And Maturen says, you see, I'm rather understanding of mutinies, men pressed from their homes, their chosen occupations confined for months, or wouldn't press. Stephen even I profoundly respect your right to disagree with me here in this cabin, but I can only afford one rebel on this ship, which is really getting to the heart of it.

It is your non-violent or non-directly violent masculinity is only acceptable as an indulgence, or an amusement, or something that facilitates the social reproduction of the higher archaea as it is. Paul Benley says, the men would be loyalty always. But considering that we are kind of out going on the acro on anyway, maybe we should have turned back a few weeks ago when we had the chance, is this really about your duty to country, or is this as this become personal for you, and Captain Jack denies that it's personal. Well, he does admit that he has exceeded his own orders. This is where I guess he was only told to follow them as far as Brazil. He has exceeded

his orders weeks ago, he says. As he says, it is subject to the requirements of the service. This is one of those moments, like, mature and it's like, well, I mean, hey, you ask me if I've heard any whispering as your friend or as a member of your crew, because if I'm a member of your crew, I would say there's nothing I hate more than an informant. It's interesting for dual role here that mature and has to play.

Yes, you're right. More interesting if you make a spy, read the novels. But yeah, so ultimately, Nagle, Warly's boyfriend, having sort of now believed more strongly than ever that Harlem is the Jonah, is insubordinate to him.

He doesn't salute, he's like he's shoulder checks him, you know? And there actually, there's a thing before this, there's one last aftershock before this, which is when the, like God, what's the word? When they're wholly stoning the deck, Harlem is sort of supervising,

and he hears them talk about him negatively and you know to like impune his command order and he backs down I get horror right you have to like jump on this stuff like immediately and he doesn't because he's scared and because he feels guilty. And so, of course, it escalates and sort of nageless insubordance to him. Or very picks it up immediately because, again, to be the captain of a Royal Naval vessel and the Navy provides this. Yeah, you have to be constantly alive to the possibility of mutiny, right? And he's like, no, I have to have him flop. Flash this man in ions. Sorry, I think we should put him massively here.

Affly? Yeah, none of that happens until they go to the Galapagos after. Oh, god, dammit. Yes. Yeah, no, it is. It is. I fucked up my... To be honest with you, the thing is, I have such a good time watching this movie that

I actually don't have a ton of notes. One of my notes here is just like, okay man, I don't know what the fuck that was about. Yeah. Oh no, exactly what that was about, actually I could say it when I get to. No, okay fine, so we'll book this for later. The point is that for now,

Hollum is kind of like he is a marked man. Yes. He has failed to like confront this thing that is brewing against him again. I mean, this movie is very long and it does hammer home the same sort of point. So we could probably breeze through this bit fairly quickly. So like, they go around the cave

and then the captain's like, yo, Bet you tend with, they go into the Galapagos Islands because this fuck all out of here, right? So that's where they're gonna be. We're gonna go there. And Mr. Paul Betany is like, yo, I'm Charles Darwin hasn't been invented yet. But I think maybe I could invent Charles Darwin

because I'm an amateur naturalist. An amateur naturalist? And I think maturin is a naturalist kind of verges on the profound, right? Like, together, these two men are a dialectic, which will deliver the world we live in, right? That's the endless. You have the scientific rationale

and you have the kind of like, you know, martial that you can plug it into whatever fucking dichotomy you want, like Dionysian appellate, all this shit, right? But yeah, no, Maturen has like a really, a really sweet joy of discovery, right? And so the second he's like, we're going to the Glafagos, he comes up on deck and he's able to come on. Yeah.

And most of the content is that you can scratch the composer, dramaturgical. Oh, that's true. I was like, I do, I'm gonna say him a few days on shore. And then at this point, we get this fun scene where it's just like, Mr. Blakeney is talking to Paul Bertney, and Paul Bertney's telling him about insects that disguise themselves as sticks or as thorns or whatever.

Fasmin. And we get this line which is just like, hmm, evolution, because Mr. Blake is like, does God make them change? And Paul Bertney's like, yes, God does make them change, but do they also change themselves? That's the question. That's right, I wrote, okay man. And again, it is heartbreaking that Blakeney's to sort of like surrogate parents, right?

His mum and dad are all very mature and Blake needs to sort of better off as a scientist, right? But already he belongs to the Royal Navy. And so as much as he can be interested in these things, you know, it's not kind of, it's something that is kind of like foreclosed on him. When we get to the Galapagos, there's also sort of lovely critters, there's marine iguanas and flightless calmerants, which Paul Bernier is particularly taken with. But, but. GOS stock footage of iguanas. Yeah, but they pick up some castaways who were wailers,

who were sunk by the Acheron, and they're like, oh, she was here a couple of days ago, and immediately the captain's like, no, fuck, we're not going to show, sorry I break in my prophecy, we've got to go and do more war. Subject to the requirements of the surface. Yeah, they have this argument.

And it's just like war comes first, slash, you never pay attention to my hobbies. Yeah, absolutely. Absolutely. This is the fight in the romcom, yeah. They have the conversation about it. It's like the fight in the rom-com, yeah. They have the conversation about this, like, they're like, well, I mean, this is important. Like, you promise this shit to me, man.

Like, I don't know why you're doing this. And eventually, Aubrey snaps and he yells, we do not have time for your hobbies. Oh, damn, no hobbies, sir. Yeah. He uses the big, big D. Mm. That was used the big, big D.

And, and yes, he goes off in sulks and you're like, damn, are they ever going to get back together? So they chase the acro and off into the sea and immediately get be calmed? Yeah, they get be calmed, idiot. Like, yeah, so they're afraid you inform me that you had zero jokes in your notes. Yeah, I did, but I wrote down get Becom did it.

This is the point where the men are like, yo, hollums, the Jonah. And this is what I tell you who's Becom does. Yeah, this is where Wally or whatever the fuck he's called shoulder clock, so that gets to no other result. Nate, Nate called, Nate called, Nate called, Nate called, Nate called, Nate called a Jackson. Yeah. And Aubrey's only means of restoring discipline.

And again, this is against maturines objections and maturines of gents is kind of like enlightenment liberal that like, you know, this is, it is brutal, which he concedes and Aubrey's like, no, men must be governed. Yeah. You know, this is impolite. This is not an archit, you know.

Again, hits different in the books when he realized that Maturin started out as a castle and like anti-bona pass is rebel. So there is one way of restoring naval discipline, which is how Nagel flogged. It is not filmed as horny, not intentionally. It is horny, but not intentionally. They only give him 12 lashes. Yes. Is that a lot?

Sharp had 100. I feel like it's a lot when you're getting lashed. I mean, they've never lashed. They've only got a 9-tail, I don't know. Yeah, true. They've never lashes are different. There's different provisions based on like age and stuff, which is sort of uncomfortable thought given some of the ages going on here. But yeah, no, this is,

it is something that potentially could kill you. And once you're getting into lashes and double digits, you're into the like that you will not be a sailor anymore because you are, you know, kind of dead. So this is sort of, you might need my back muscles to do a lot of the sailing stuff because it's a lot of pulling. Oh, yeah, this is for eight, then plausible, plausible stuff. But yeah, so he is flogged. And then again, in the kind of command horror story here, Aubrey sends for Harlem and tries to...

He doesn't get it, man. He doesn't even get cursed. Okay, so this is what you would call on the Argo and interview without coffee. It's something that you might see proceeded with the words, your hat, my office now. It's gentler than it could be, right? It is clearly like, this is a bad business. Like you have fucked up serially here in order that it has, you know, for it

to have come to this, you have fucked up so bad. You have allowed an immense amount of insubordination to already happen. Yeah. And you have to put your foot down so hard now in order to stop this. Yeah. And not by being a tyrant, but by like having self confidence. Yeah, and we see Holland, like we see his face and my boy is thinking, I can't do that. 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, 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, 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, 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, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, captain. He's still a different kind of fruity, a gay. He's still a midshipman at almost 30, which is sort of, almost scandalous.

He's left 10 and twice, we hear him. Yes, yeah, and it's not because he's a bad sailor, as Aubrey says, it's because, well, he's a bad officer, right, he doesn't have the quality of leadership within him. Something I always worry about a lot. You just find... Forgot I mean what it loves to just be one of the sailors. Yeah, you just...

Also, you do. Don't have this ability. Thank you. I can tell. It leads us very well. To lead people. And it's not like they give them leadership training back there. No, no, no.

Because if you are somebody who does not have it in you to lead other people nowadays, you can learn how to do that. There are techniques and classes that you can do. And like, yes, people are confined in any airport. Yeah. Yeah. So people are telling for it, but leading people is a skill and managing a team is a skill.

But back then, it was just like, no, you're a gentleman. You should be born with this. And if you don't have it, there must be something fucking wrong with you Yeah, yeah, yeah, I own of them and I think this wrong with him by the way, it's being gay Yeah, I'm so clear I like it and then because it's like you're not supposed to like you this pose You're not friends with your men. Yes. Yeah, I have a power social relationship with you. They do not really know you

This is exactly the problem that I would have as well as and be like, well, I want the mental like me. The mental think I'm their mate, but you can't let that happen because they'll call you a journalist, throw you off the boat. That's right. But so what happens is that he goes back and the crew reproach him by way of like,

obsequiousness, dumb obedience, but by, like, sort of very, very elaborately saluting him every time he goes past, which again, is a thing you can clamp down, but he doesn't. He walks through this gauntlet of men saluting him to the points of having a panic attack, where he goes and he hides in the gun room from this. And again, I write, you know, the dude's still rock. Is this a healthy set of male-religious deal of the dude's rock guys here?

How is he known about this? They seem to be pretty steady actually, immobile in fact. There's not a lot of rock in going on, but the dude's up be calmed, but the dudes are be calmed. The dudes are be calmed. So the next dog watch, he comes up and, you know, it's Blake News watch, because Blake News has to be witness to this.

Mm-hmm. Yeah. And he's like, you're always very kind to me. This is a system of social reasons. We also, based on violence. We also see that below decks, like they're going like Mr. brain surgery has decided

that now is time to finally be like, it's him. We all know it's him. He's the gentleman. Phantom is here on his watch. Like he was about to go up the mast when fucking whatever is face drowned. Like, yeah, like this. Every, both times he's been on watch the phantoms appeared.

He went up the mast. Like I guarantee you, if he goes, if he's on watch the phantoms appear, he went up the mast, like, I guarantee you, if he goes, if he's on watch tomorrow, we're gonna see that boy again. What mature and actually confronts Aubrey when he says, you know, you believe this. Yeah. Yeah.

You are also falling prey to this superstition. And Aubrey says, just like, he just, he dismissive, I go into some things and beyond science and leaves, and you, like, he believes this. He thinks that, thatum is somehow a genna and where the holum goes to the doctor and then probably he's like, there's nothing wrong with him, but he believes he's cursed and the captain's like,

yeah, maybe he is. He's like, what? And when holum recurs? Goes up on the deck to relieve Lake Neve, his watch, Lake Neve's like, I'm sure it will start blowing again tomorrow and holum goes, I'm sure it'll start blowing again tomorrow, and and Holland goes, I'm sure it will. And you get, do you get the impression he has elected rather than allowing the crew to like, linch him that he is going to do it himself. Yeah,

he continues this quite convivial, uh, congenial, sorry, conversation with Blakeney while he picks up a cannonball, when he goes, you're always very nice to me, Blakely. Thank you. Goodbye. And he just steps off the side and fucking sinks down into the inky depths, and there's this horrifying shot of him looking up at the camera as he disappears into blackness. And you go, the dude's rock, I ask you now, will you come down the dudes?

The New Yorker film critic, Anthony Lane wrote, we feel ourselves to be in good company with these men and strangely jealous of their packed and salted lives. Ben the dudes. The New Yorker film critic, Anthony Lane wrote, we feel ourselves to be in good company with these men and strangely jealous of their packed and salted lives. Idiot. GQ asked to win the film at Jackson. Wouldn't it feel satisfying to spend each day

doing industrious and meaningful shipwork? Is this, it's certainly industrious, is it meaningful? Whether or not this is meaningful, it's one of the central tensions of the film. Who fucking hires these people? And then they have the fucking goal to turn around and say that film criticism is over. Look as like it didn't fucking begin.

Will they only ones doing? Yeah. So, so, yeah. We invented film criticism. We are on the modern-day syscaline, but syscaline, either with a proto-kill James Bond. Agreed. But yes, as the cop, We are on the modern day Cisco and E, but Cisco and E, but with a proto kill James Bond. Great. Yes, as as as

and the thought as former public schoolboy here, I relate very deeply to the idea that like, no, this is a regimented, traumatic institution. And it is meat to question what the fuck is it doing here? What's what is the point of this system? And the answer is, I guess Napoleon question mark. Sorry, if it allows for this and has no capacity to stop this when it's already going, then it's fucked.

This is completely broken. He jumps out of the airlock. Aubrey leads the funeral. The... I was all so excited to count it in my childhood. It was the most human thing. Yeah, and there's a line in here, which again, right, there's a very, very personal to me because that like, again, this, not with the Navy because fuck boats, right? But this was something that I wanted to do and I used to agonize about whether it was something that I could do,

whether it would be disastrous like this. And Orri's line about column is... Simple truth is, not all of us become the men we once hope you might be. Which I used to dread, and then it came true in a much stranger way than I could have anticipated. Yeah, yeah, I know exactly what you mean. Yeah, no. Simple truth is, not all of us become the men we once hoped would be. Some of us become better. Quite frankly.

That's for tagline for Kill James Bond. Yeah, no. It's a very, very strange to reflect on. But yeah, I watched this for the first time. When it came out, I was 12 years old. No, I was like, oh, shit, fuck, I hope I don't become like that. I guess not. Yeah, so at which point, immediately, immediately after this, the win picks back up again. So, immediately after this, the win picks back up again. So, like, I mean, he was. I don't know.

Superstition vindicated. No further questions. Curse is real. I guess that guy was cursed. All right, moving on. Forget everything I said previously. I've been eased. Yeah, thank Christ.

Yeah, yeah. Oh, it's actually... We'd have all felt very silly if he hadn't killed himself in the wind and picked up. Just kidding, we would have picked something else to go wrong to blame him and then he would have given himself to suicide regardless because that's the way the system operates. Love superstition.

Dood Rock. Dood Rock. Dood Rock. Dood Rock. So yeah, it's the point you wanted. It's the point you wanted. They stopped being become. Oceans are now battlefields. Oceans are battlefields again. Yeah. And it's gone. Yeah.

And so there's an albatross following them. And Captain Howard, Captain Howard, I tell you how he doesn't come off while in this movie is the role marines. Yeah. The boot next. So yeah, no, they, how is this trying to shoot this albatross and he misses and he shoots Paul Batteney with the phaser? Because Paul Batteney is running around the deck, looking at the albatross in absolute wonder.

Yeah, yeah. Having wonder. He gets shot. It's fucking shot. Shot in the guts. And at this point, you know, Higgins, his assistant medical officer, was like nervous and is unqualified to like fix the fucking shift doctor who we kind of need. Jack looks through the glass, The acaron is in sight They have found it, but Jack lets it go. Yeah, he turns back to the Galapagos. Should we beat the quarters? And he like puts it down. He goes down. He looks at Paul Bettany and he goes hmm I'm not doing it. Yeah, some great sickness makeup on Paul Battening, by the way. They really do a good pale in my boys looking.

My man's in hype of Leemick Shock. The self-surgery scene is like fantastic. Really good pain, aren't you? Right, dark holiday. From the back end. So yeah, it's very, this is fucking sick. It's a great, half an hour. This is like male friendship thing where he like puts the ship.

He like puts everybody ashore in order to do the surgery, where it's not rocking because that's what the surgeons might have asked him. You've done a notch rocking. Yeah, exactly. So he's not rocking these dudes. And then as Ben at the surgeons made his about to like, in science,

mature and it's like, no, no, no, I will do this. I know what I'm doing. He says, I do this by my own hand and then he performs surgery on himself. Hardcore. It's not even slightly to a transgender person like myself. String your ass fuck, I'm sorry. He makes Aubrey help him and there is a fun moment that alludes to something that keeps coming off in the book, which is that Aubrey, despite being there is a fun moment that alludes to something that keeps coming off in the book

Which is that Aubrey despite being a sort of a fighting captain It is kind of second by the size of blood and surgery And and so he is like visibly very uncomfortable and you see mature and notice this about him and Smile, he checks in and I'm he goes like you're doing all right While this guy is for for of exergetals, self. Yeah. Oh, it's cold. It's, it, this is.

So like the actual, the central relationship between all very mature and right, it is not frictionless. It is not even healthy necessarily. It plays a central part in reproducing a fuck system. But it is very intimate, right? Yes. Romantic. And as Paul Bettany is recovering from the surgery,

which succeeds, he's like, oh, how long have we got to get after the acarons, surely? And then Captain Jack's like, no, actually, let it go. We're going to head home in a couple weeks. Take as much time as he wants to go wandering and look at the animals. He says, before peace breaks out, God forbid.

I don't even know if that was the Akarona's headbag, man. This kind of should have been the end of the film, I think. Should have been the end of the, well, okay, we've had a character growth, we've learned our lesson. Yeah, but instead. To have some fun scenes where Paul Bettany looks at animals, which I love. Yeah, this is sweet.

Like I said, it doesn't really engage with like novel mature, but it does do some like age of discovery stuff. Paul Bettany secures the bag in that movie where he played Charles Darwin. Mm-hmm. Yeah. He, and Blakeney comes with, you know, and is like learns to identify some beetles and stuff. And of course, as he goes over the like the last hill in pursuit of this fucking bird,

you see his frigate with a giant French flag. Shit. The acarons on the other side of the island, baby. And you know, both, both men are forced to give up something important to them in order to like, you know, safeguard the interests of the other. And the empire because he has to leave all the samples and let all the animals go in order to run back so he doesn't get to discover evolution and be Charles Darwin so he does that thing. They're dropping all of the fucking cages to leave him and

he looks back and he goes oh open the cages like it's clear that he has given up on bringing these samples back to science. Yeah. Yeah. And they go back and they tell Captain Jack, you have the acarons here and the chase is on. And as they're doing this, we get this nice scene where I think, I think probably Ross the Crow's intention, the character's intention in a scene was to come to the cabin and say,

thank you for allowing me to continue my, my war. I love you. And but instead we just get this, he was like, sorry you won't be able to take your animals back. He's like, no, it's fine. We did get this one. It's the Fasmed. It's the Insulinian Fasmed. Yes, I also wrote that. It's a stick insect that disguises itself. I hope this doesn't have any like great repercussions for you. And he goes, whoo! He's like, how's a fucking idea?

Yeah, yeah, yeah. He's wily. He's still out of gun. He's out in the woods. There's a beautiful moment I want to highlight here, which is Blakeney. He's doing his like illustrations of a naturalist kind of thing and he draws a seal and we get this beautiful show he looks at the seal and it goes like And he writes are a connects to a seal It's very very sweet. Yeah, yeah, it really highlights how young this fucking guy is

Yeah, yeah But so Aubrey realizes the value of science. It makes you better at war. He says this more or less for better. Oh, interesting. What if we simply disguise the surprise as a wailer? We got wailers on board. We know how to do it. We'll like set some fire below below below deck and we'll have it like vent up like it's the rendering works of a wailer. Because the primary difference between the two of them as discussed earlier is that it can take more cannons and it can fire its cannons further than the surprise guns.

So by drawing it in, you get rid of that advantage. You can just fire a point blank on it. Exactly. Very close. They even put on costumes. The fake wailer. The fake wailer. Yeah, and we see him arranging stuff and sort of like briefing ahead of time.

And he gives Callamy this sort of like 16-year-old command of the boarding party. And his first officer pulling, so we know that he is served with and come up with. It's like, are you sure about this? Is he not too young? Are you sure he's ready? And he goes, were you ready? And it's like, oh, okay, yeah, no,

this is just the generational trauma show. Like we just, all of these guys were doing this shit when they're at teenagers and now doing this to like teenagers further. And bizarrely, the only way out of this thing is through finding out about stick insects and then discovering evolution. And yeah, again, leads you to sort of more profound stuff. Anyway, trauma. And Blakeney is disappointed that he won't be in the boarding party. Because Callamy says, no, you'll be staying behind.

I've decided not to take you on the away team because it's bad. You're too young. Because you're too young to be a child officer. And Blakeney complaints to the captain and the captain's like, no, I'll give you a special job instead, young man. Like, well, you'll sit on Santa's knee when I go aboard the enemy ship. How about that? Well, still very much in the battle.

Yeah, yeah. Yes. Yes. Stay on board and you'll take command of our ship when I'm on the other one. How about that, son? And it's like, oh, great. Yes, son. Acting captain.

And he goes, whoa. Yeah, yeah, yeah. So at this point, send the chair and everything. Yeah. Aubrey sort of anticipates the Q ship, which is a first world war invention. I thought you meant like from the continuum. I said, Clare's in it.

John, John DeLancy is going to be in this fucking film. They were disguised as... It's a classic film. It's like an ordinary, wailing vessel. But if you get too close, you'll find out it'll tell you a fucking face of it. It's actually King George's finest, you know. Or the Edward or whatever the fuck it was.

And that's my two guesses. I'm sure it's one of those. King George, I believe. Hey, wonderful. It was actually King Victor. It was that weird two months before we had it. Yeah. So, um, yes.

The plan, the plan works perfectly. They blew the acaron in. We hear a French voice, Frenchly being like, Yeah, this is where the disgusting French accent. The vile French. This is the way into this spell, bro. So it was like me during the OSS 117 episode intro. I do not have L-themail Frenchypes.

It's like, ah, but you fucking stop crying away with this type of thing. I'm on D5 and I have shit like this. Yeah, it's just unbelievable. So, might as say, the French roll up. Yeah, they roll up on them. Yeah, and it works. They let it bar. They do.

They don't hesitate. They let it bar. Blakeney is forced to kill, apart from other things. But cheering is forced to fight. Well, I got a minute. Let's go beat by beat here. The French roll up. Let's make this a three hour episode.

Let's do it. The French roll up. The boys spring the trap. They fire, they topple the main mast. And so they successfully knack at the acaron. And the boarding party... I take down its warp core or something. Yeah, they do. Well, no one knows.

Well, we've actually seen earlier what they were like. It's engines. No, no, no, they don't. They go through the shields, right? At which point the boarding party beam over. But the French have a trap of their own because they're all pretending to be dead. And then they all just fall in the book quite frequently. And they all scream, and they're like,

we are not dead after all, we have fool do. And then they have a battle. And my notes say, so this battle sequence is one of two things that's happening. A, this is not filmed and edited very well, so I can't tell what's happening. Or B, there is a deliberate choice to do that because the scene is meant to be chaotic. And I think second, I strongly think second.

Yeah, yeah, it would be weird if they got everything else right. I was really fond of this one. I thought that was really well done that you cannot tell anybody apart. It's sort of like very short kind of charts of brutal violence and sort of like mangled bodies and stuff. And yeah, no, it's very difficult to follow. You don't know who's who's really winning. Yeah, as you say, Blakeney and Paul Bettany do have to be mover and then they have to take up the French gun crew. And then like, they have to run the guy through with the sword. Yeah, I'm sure in the fence, though, which is quite fun.

He is, again, the truth of the truth. Yeah, the jewelest, you know, tiny French version of Bettany takes out one of the crew, gay lovers. Oh, yeah, the bad guy, Nagle gets caught by a tiny French child. Yeah, the sailing it also gets got. Yeah, you get phased right in the eyes. Right in the eye. And at this point, the captain is like, well, it looks like we've kind of won, but where is

the Romulan captain? And we learn is in sickbay. He's dead. Yeah, there's a doctor.bay. Hmm, he's dead. Yeah, he's dead. There's a doctor. There's a French maturin there. He's just like, as the captain has died badly. He wasn't, he wanted to do to have his soul.

He's a very tired, he gets a real sense of Aubrey. He's like, genuinely quite desperately upset for he hasn't had a chance to talk to the captain because he's walking around a ship In like is anyone here the captain please cry Videos he even gets like he goes into the captain's room and a guy under the fucking table tries to kill him And he goes you the captain and a guy goes no, and he just like let's him go and just Throws his dagger out the window and it's back to under the table. He's like, where's the fucking captain?

And we find that he's dying. He's dying. Yeah, he's dead. So they take Akiron as a prize. And he promotes Pulling's his first officer to captain, gives him command of the prize. But sadly, Peter Watts' face died. The leader of the boarding party, the sixth-year-old, he died.

Hell on me. Yeah. The first officer, Riker, he died. Dominic Monahan, who is in this movie, we didn't mention him at all. He's also dead. He was the guy who... He was driving. He was the Ensign who was driving the ship. Yeah. And... So, if you've never mentioned Billy Boyton this as well, and he does a great job, as well. Wait, is that I get my Dominic Monahan's and my Billy Boyd's mixed up?

You might have gotten you, but he always gets upset. I think I did that Sermbar saying, I'm so sorry. No, you're right, you're right, that is the Lee Boyd fuck. I got it, I pippened when I should have married, or I married when I should have pippened. I'm sorry.

So many cases. The guy who was flogged also dies, and then, and my notes say, Blakeney stitches up Peter and they do him like Ben Laden. They do, do him like Ben Laden. To be turned into corruption. I can't. I want to be doing by service of the dead. Yeah, I'm like, this one?

This one actually did make me kind of want to be buried. I'm like, oh, you're right. Being buried at sea, it's a good prayer is the thing. The Church of England gets uncharacteristically martial when it's like at sea. Yeah, I thought about the concept of whale falls, and I think it'd be nice if I was one, you know. is the thing. The Church of England gets uncharacteristically martial when it's at sea. I thought about the concept of whale falls and I think it'd be nice if I was one. You got to get buried at sea.

I have spent a lot of my time underwater already. I'm a lot of... Collective sea burial. You must back to the... It's the most returned to the earth kind of thing you can do is... You've got to do it with, for me, full like stolen valor honors. Oh yeah, 100%. Like you're an admiral.

With the pipes, yeah, yeah, yeah. But yeah, so again, like you look at this kind of like butchers bill, as Aubrey says for this, including the 16 year old or whatever who is cut down before he can become like Aubrey. And you go, is this movie about how dudes rock? Is this a movie about how this is a sort of a healthy, aspirational thing? You know, I think perhaps not.

These dudes don't seem to rock, but as you say, he gives the acaron to Pull Links, Promoted to Captain, and then they part ways. He's like, well, we'll see you back in England. As they go, they play some more music, and Paul Burton, he makes his off-handed comment, like, I feel a bit sorry for them, the only ship stuff they've got is his Higgins, my guy, who's not really all that great. And then Captain Jack's like, oh no, they've got the French Doctor 2. And Paul's like, I'm supposed to, weird accent. Yeah then Captain Jack's like, oh no, they've got the French Doctor too. And Paul's like, I'm supposed to him, we're at accent.

Yeah, Paul's like, no, no, he's been dead for months, I've heard the ship's locks. He died a fever months ago. And then I, you're like, you're like, why the hell are you?

You're a piece of shit. Fucking shit. And he's like, god damn it, that fucking doctor gave me the captain's sword and surrendered. He was the fucking Romulan captain. He was the captain. It's like, he's a cop the fucking Romulan captain. He was the captain. It's like, he's a concoit. Romulan pulling over there.

I've just said pulling over there. He's fucked, oh well, let's go. Let's go. Let's go. The Galapagos will have to wait, because it's fucking warp nine after the acron, let's fucking go. Master Commander 2 will come, and then it doesn't happen. And it ends with a joke, which is, you know,

the, the, the bird you're looking for is flightless. It's not going anywhere. And, and their friendship sort of like rekindles over, you know, in service to Empire, which is, I think, maybe more ambivalent than, you know, I think had they had the thing that I wanted, another 20 movies, to work that one out, I didn't know. I think you could have gotten something really interesting there here as an introduction to a franchise that never came.

I find myself having talked it over with two of my best friends, kinder and better disposed towards it than I had gone in. I was expecting to go in on this having seen it being like, this is literally unwatchable. Why does he pick up the port instead of excited across the table? But no, no, no, it's... It's interesting. It's, I think it's very well done,

it's a bad adaptation, but I think it's a good moving, is my contention on this. It's a good movie if you haven't read the books, I think, and which I have. Yeah. And to be honest, I hadn't seen Mastering Commander before this. It's one of those movies I'd always meant to do, but since I figured we would do an episode about it at some point, it's what I've been holding off. And I did have a fantastic time with this movie.

I had a really, really good time watching it. It is a very, very competently put together. Like, he's a cinema. I like it because just like as an actor, game recognized game, like Russell Crowe and Paul Bettany to give like fucking amazing performances in this. And it's really nice to not to be too like movies

these days as all like superheroes, but you know, sometimes these days we cast leading men in particular for their looks and their abilities are like player character people already know. It's really nice to have a movie where it like it hinges that you have to have a fucking good actor in this. You could not have just like, I won't name names, but like any any old male actor who looks handsome could not play this role. You need guys have just like, I won't name names, but like any, any old male actor who looks handsome could not play this role. You need guys who are like fucking good at the craft. And it's nice to watch.

Something else I appreciate about this is the closeness of its narrative. And that is something that it owes to the books in that you're not getting away from the ship, right? And it's not quite like some of the other stuff we've seen, like the edge, for instance, which is like, oh, this is like a playwright's movie where it's been like sort of written for a stage. No, no, it's like very, very keen to like put you in this like closed system and investigate that system. And it's quite a like a holistic way of doing that, which I really, really like. And I think there's too much temptation for writers, particularly, to jump away from these

things and to contextualize these things. And the furthest context you get in this is beyond the opening shots, it's that one shot of the anchor while they're playing together. And I'm like, yeah, no, this is really, really good to keep the focus in that tightly on this one kind of, this one community, this one sort of piece of England at sea. Yeah, because that's a direct comparison that Aubrey makes for the final fight, is that like, listen, we are here to fight for England against France. is that like listen, we are here to fight for England against France. We are all English. This boat is England. That boat is France. This is a microcosm of the entire war. And that's

how he gets everyone excited about it. Yeah. And meanwhile there's me being like, well, Napoleon, he's like, do you want to see a gear team and pick a daily? And I'm like, well, I have a question, Barbara. The question is, I'm just calling it a complicated historical legacy. And you know, obviously I'm a side-point, I'm sure. We're all very much on, and Paul Benning said, I think. Yeah, well, literally, yes.

Yeah, absolutely. Sort of understand mutiny when the people in charge of your environment that you find yourself in, or making decisions that you don't agree with in any reasonable way that doesn't seem to be any way to hold them democratically to account. Sometimes you feel like, you know, mutiny or armed resistance even control that environment. Also, I'm satisfied. Even. Yeah, I don't know how to well you condemn. You mean, able see him in Nagel? I will never condemn Nagel and there's no point

trying to get me to. Nagel exists within a historical context. It's one of these things. You have to go back quite far in time to 1805 even. It's really easy to start of this. Anyway, we're going to scour me. No, it's just a bonus. I think so. I mean, the thing is just by a way, it's a bonus of closing remarks. I'll say that this for me articulated something that I've tried, I've seen attempted in a lot of war movies to varying levels of success. I think this clarifies this. I would say about as well as I've seen, which is, in a generation kill kind of did this as well, which is war can be fun, it can be stirring, it has these very strong typically male friendships, but what you're using them to survive is inhuman at times. It's kind of like, if you had to put a really, really short button on it, it's like dudes rock in the death machine.

Yeah, right. And as a response to being in the death machine to make it bearable, that's what I would say. But also the dudes rocking sustains the death machine. Yeah, but the dudes rocking requires the death machine to exist as a pre-work wizard, so it must necessarily recreate the conditions of the death machine. You're, you're, you're urged as a dude to rock and can be easily suborned by the death machine. Correct. And I mean, this is at, at some point in very, very soon, I want us to

do a film called Fury, because I think Fury is the first and most influential fascist film of the 21st century, I think it's absolutely a kind of war film that tries to articulate that and goes, this is good, right? Oh, yeah, we have. This is like grimly necessary. The dudes must rock. Billions of dudes must rock. Billions must rock.

Yeah. Yeah, whereas in this, I think it's more ambivalent than people give it credit for. And I think it's been done a disservice, and it's been flattened by people who go, oceans are now battlefields, yeah. And it's like. Oh, Napoleon, Napoleon's not in this movie.

And this is a movie about two. No bodies who are in a big tiff. There's nothing to do with Napoleon, there's nothing to do with Nelson. They are half the world away. You're in the Galapagos suffering because you want to be like those people. Also, the phrase oceans in our battlefields is horrible.

The racial relationship with Nelson. Genuinely. It's like a horrible ocean. It should be battlefields. I love the oceans and I haven't been to many battlefields but they mainly have bad vibes whereas the ocean is lovely. And should not be be battlefield. I love the oceans and I haven't been to many battlefields But they mainly have bad vibes whereas the ocean is lovely and should not be a battlefield Also the ocean is most of the stuff you should have a battle on most of things 60% most of stuff is battlefield

Most of stuff is battlefields the vibe some mid This is we cannot do a shirt with that on it. We cannot do a shirt with that on it. We cannot do a shirt with that on it. We cannot do a shirt with that on it. We cannot do a shirt with that on it. Master's, master's, master's, master's, Master's, master's, master's, Master's, master's, master's, Master's, master's, master's, master's, Master's, master's, master's, master's,

Master's, master's, master's, master's, Master's, master's, master's, master's, Master's, master's, master's, master's, master's, Master's, master's, master's, master's, master's, Master's, master's, master's, master's, master's, Master's, master's, master's, master's, Master's, master's, master's, master's, Master's, master's, master's, master's,

Master's, master's, master's, master's, Master's, master's, master's, master's, Master's, master's, master's, master's, Master's, master's, master's, master's, Master's, master's, master's, master's, Master's, master's, master's, master's, Master's, master's, master's, Master's, master's, master's, master's, Master's, master's, master's, master's, Master's, master's, master's, master's, Master's, master's, master's, master's, master's, Master's, master's, master's, master's, Master's, master's, master's, master's, master's a guy. Listen, listen, give me, I'm speaking directly to Hollywood here, give me infinity million dollars, give me the MCU money, give me every actor in the world. I will make you the Aubrey, mature and series. I will cast Abbey as Diana Veliers.

Um, and I'll be Aubrey. I don't give a shit. I just want to be one of the crew. I don't even need to say anything. I just want to be there. Yeah. Yeah. I mean, people keep talking about doing a sequel. When they talk about doing a sequel, they often talk about adapting the reverse of the

metal. Do not fucking adapt the reverse of the metal and main emotional hit if that is dependent on you having read another like 17 books. But you know, people also talk about doing a prequel, which yeah, fine, listen, my message to Hollywood, do it again and do it properly and put me in charge of it thank you goodbye sign up to it's like a billion of you sign up to nebula we couldn't make that happen yeah yeah okay my next project after tracking is like school for industry this you call to master to man does it really like it up here. It's mistrusting, Commander.

I mean, listen, they made this for $150 million, which is a lot of money, but when you look at how much it costs to make Ant-Man fucking like go up inside a dude's your re-throw or whatever, it's a bargain. It's cowardly. The answer to you. Yeah. But yeah, so I guess unless anyone

housed in the closing thought, we should say thank you for five million downloads. Thank you You know which do to do rock gender neutral all of you Yeah, it's an honor. It's an honor to be your commanding officers We hope that you continue to have a parasocial relationship with us always remember that one time that we asked you to pass the salt. I met Alice after a live show and I always remember the thing that she said to me, get the fuck out of my way. I buy one drink for one person per live show just trying to gin up these kind of conversations about me. No, no, I don't need a boat. My love for podcast keeps me like having to like execute one of the hogs to save the podcast because they're acting as a see anchor. If you come to one of our live shows and actors of see

anchor it's fucking over for you. Never act as a see anchor. Okay. Thank you. Thank you genuinely, though, for supporting all of us for making it possible to do this. We hope you enjoy it. We will be back. This kicks off the start of the holiday season for Killer James Bond. So the next free episode is Die Hard 2, which is a Christmas movie. And after that, it's Gold Finger with no notes. Jesus. So pray for us. I tried to recall a James Bond movie where James doesn't do anything apart from rape women. That's all he does in that movie.

That's it. Thank you so much, Wersanung. And we will see you next time. The Martians are disembark. Yeah, permission granted. There were some pipes piping the shore, yes. Rum. Buh.

Bye, everyone. Bye. See ya! Thank you for listening to yet another episode of Kill James Bond. I'm gonna get right into this because we've got a long list and I'm extremely grateful to all of you. Thank you so much for giving us five million downloads. And that's just on Poddapene. I don't even know where that pulls that from.

I don't know if that counts for listens on Spotify. I don't know if that counts for Apple music. I don't know what that even means quite frankly. But a five million is fucking tons. So if that's not even all of it, that's fantastic as far as I'm concerned. And thank you, first and foremost, to everybody who has ever supported our show, even if you've just shared it with someone, if you've never given us a penny, like you have been

fantastic. Thank you. Thank you from the bottom of my heart for making me able to do this as a job. It's, it means the world. But, I would be remiss if I didn't thank especially our 15 pounds above patrons. Um, and those are, Low-Bee-On's Dotter, Candy Fox, Freyre, other wishes, Itchy Cat, Wizard, Gustavo, Lyra, the Norwegian one, Thief.

Rob in me and G, uh, I definitely got that wrong, whatever. Let's go ahead and save us all a lot of time here by saying, if I get any of these wrong, please just message me a correction, I will incorporate that going forward. Thank you. Jack Holmes, Mike Berg, Hannah Oberhardt, Nick Boris Powardad, Nate Mori, George Rohak, Kentucky Fried, Kami, Drone Love, Yarrick, Mel Melody Melokonzala's Labor-Delender, S.D. Calum, Ernie J. Martin Del Trip, Library Hitman, Max Game and Heart, Jonathan Good, Mothman, Beef Crime, Jack Drummond, Kit Divine Top, O. Steve Widdishens, Maeve, Eliya, Rosie, Can't Fail, Helps, and Horses, and

Men. That won't help you on the high seas, will it? Claire, Forest, El Nouvelle, the project project, Lennina, Emory, Homassarazzi Mandeus, just the worst hell, a trans robot Joyce, who was then Hutch and Lexi-Bombe, Violet, Cybra, Isopod, Gal, Annie Ruby, Fesh, Raspberry, Jam, and Katie, Brobst, Baratsu, Cart, Bronon, Clarification, Noblesse, Oblai, be fresh raspberry jam and Katie brobzed paratso cart grown and clarification no less oblige. John to a nine-connors cool big sister sergeant Jackrum Sengchen. Alex, Liz Nash and Florenda, Covid, cut Florenda, interesting. Covid cultist Wolfcott, Quinn Valyri, Grendel Grounds, our Irwing Wolfie, Philip Smith, brackets for Routy, Bin Ross, Robert Greensmith,

Electroversyberpuppie, Abigail, Loss, Pycock, Megacombie, Emily, Queen of Sloths, Percy, Shit and Dileon, Josh Simmons, Zoe, Sheppard, Vey, Talkative Tiger, Lauren Baston, and for everyone who comes after this point, I believe that you may have been being cut off by the Patreon thing. It only shows 100 names and I never assumed that we would have more than that. So everyone who comes after this point may have been supporting us for months without a shout out. So I want to be very, very clear that thank you so fucking much to Jordan, Y Clemente, Norge, Morgan, but Dr. Crispy, Aiden, Brumsicle, Mitchell, Kerno,

Karrus, Ritner, that's definitely not right, but fucking whatever, Finn, Friend, Computer, Colton, Manica, Conor Lang, Norvindly, M. Kebler, Evelyn, your man in Japan. Why would you give me fucking something like the... Some sort of table building society, I don't know. Send me a pronunciation guy for that thank you Sebastian Sanguerazzi Calvin H. Fry semi-pronunciation guy for that as well thank you rad rad I could say I don't know sh** Aussie Tapio, Noah Swater S? A beautiful man and the designer of the pins that I'm sure you will have bought by now.

Sarah Hulpin, just this guy, you know, Moth-covered rock crisp. Jesus Christ, I should have tried to do all of these while I was drunk. Chris of some kind, Jack Finnell, a fan of probably Christopher Wu, E&B, Dameson, Mark Owen, The Nation, Eleanor Reeves, Blumpede, Oliver Jackson, Thomas Shaw, Annette, Roll History, Mistress, Angela Ailes, Reynolds, Brett, Mysterious, Corsican, and Azria, or Azria.

Thank you. So much and I'm sorry for all of that. So, yeah, Kil'Jane's Bond is Alice Abigail and Devon. This is five fucking minutes long. Alice Abigail and Devon are producers of the wonderful name, but they are editors. The beautiful Mr. Thomas O'Arnie. I was sighted by Tom Allen and our art is by Mattie Genski.

And, again, here's the 5 million more, huh? Here's the 5 million fucking more. Mwah! I love all of you.