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Oct. 29, 2024 - Minion Death Cult

01:18:56

#666 Despicable Me

It’s time. In honor of this special episode we turn to the namesake of this podcast and perhaps the root of our twisted timeline: da minions We reflect on the 7 years of this show and recount some personal experiences with minions before diving into the stunningly revealing 2010 film. Get a bonus episode every week by signing up at http://patreon.com/miniondeathcult for only $5/month Music: Cursed - Reparations

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Time	Text
	The liberals are destroying California.
	And conservative humor gone awry...
	Conservative humor gone awry is going to fascist for you today.
	So stay tuned.
	We're going to take a few pictures of the desert and how their policies are actually messing it up.
	It's not beautiful when you go across that border.
	But stay tuned, guys.
	We'll show you exactly what...
	I'm Alexander Edward.
	And I'm Tony Boswell.
	And we are Minion Death Cult.
	The world is ending.
	We are responsible.
	Yep.
	But we're documenting it.
	That's right.
	That's accountability, folks.
	We're making it worth it.
	You know?
	Yeah, happy episode 666, Tony.
	Yeah, it's about time.
	We've been waiting so long for this one in particular.
	It's a special number to a lot of us.
	And I'm happy we finally got here.
	I can't believe we made it.
	Thanks for coming along with me to this journey.
	I'm happy we could do this together.
	All the way to 666.
	Absolutely.
	Yeah, people may not know this, but when you get 666 episodes, that's when they finally let you do syndication on the Dirtbag Leftist Podcast Network.
	Yeah, yeah.
	About time, about time.
	Yeah, and, you know, I typically don't do things for specific numbered episodes.
	Like, we didn't do anything for episode 500, I don't think.
	And thank you for nobody giving me a hard time for that.
	I think, like...
	Episode 400-something was when I finally started keeping track of what number we were.
	And then I was like, oh, fuck.
	That means I'm going to have to do something for 500.
	Psych.
	Not if you're lazy enough.
	But we also knew if we did 500, then 600-66 wouldn't feel as special and wouldn't get the attention and respect it deserves.
	Yeah.
	Right, I don't know.
	Some things you can ignore, but episode 666, it felt special.
	And I feel like, very special.
	And we're going to commemorate this episode by entering the true heart of darkness.
	For the last seven years of Minion Death Cult, we've been reporting on some of the vilest evil imaginable.
	American flags that are way too big.
	Mm-hmm.
	Comedy sketches where you pretend to be gay with your twin brother to own Don Lemon.
	Mm-hmm.
	Mm-hmm.
	Asking Donald Trump to adopt you so he can trigger Democrats with a black son.
	Yep, yep.
	Christian biker gangs, cop rappers, landlord protection agencies.
	Just despicable entities.
	Disgusting stuff.
	Some of the lowest forms of life on this earth.
	Filthy, filthy things.
	But in the back of our minds, we always knew these were mere symptoms of a greater evil, one which may lay at the very genesis of this abhorrent timeline.
	Yep.
	And that greater evil is, of course, the actual minions.
	The real deals.
	The little yellow fellas.
	Yeah.
	I always thought of this podcast as sort of covering like real life minions, you know, Facebook commenters, racist aunts, disgruntled dads, angry cops.
	I remember I was working on election day, delivering packages on election day, 2016, and I delivered a package to a woman wearing a despicable me or deplorable me Oh, hell yeah.
	That had a minion on it with a Trump hat.
	And I think maybe even holding like a Trump teddy bear as well.
	And in my hubris, I was like, well, this is just so absurd and so funny.
	I asked her, I was like, hey, can I take a picture of you and your shirt?
	And she's like, yeah.
	And then I posted it on Instagram and I was like, looks like they got this thing locked up.
	And of course, later on, I found out they did.
	They did.
	They did.
	I mean, people don't talk about it, but that was actually that movement.
	The Minion MAGA movement was a huge force in 2016.
	They brought us laughter, we thought, but in the end, they really brought us tears that evening when everyone...
	Oh yeah, when we were all crying.
	I wasn't crying so much for myself as I was just for how Hillary must have felt, you know?
	Oh, see, you know me, I was crying for every woman.
	For every woman ever.
	That's who I was crying.
	Even the bad ones.
	Even the bad women.
	I was crying for them, too.
	Even the Karens, Tony?
	Even the Karens.
	Wow.
	Even the Karens.
	Yeah, this was a year before this podcast started.
	The podcast would start in November 2017.
	So I think, of course, given the name of the show, I knew we'd always have to address this film at the very least.
	And I'm glad we did...
	With our minds full of knowledge, with the experience we have under our belt, hindsight is 20-20, and that's, I think, maybe a perfect way to look back at this movie.
	Yeah, I really appreciate that we were able to approach this with the knowledge.
	Because the naivete we had back then, I don't think we would have really been able to appreciate it and really understand it in the way that we did in this watching.
	Because I was really blown away.
	It's kind of like that thing where, you know, when you watch a movie when you're a kid, and then you grow up and you get all the jokes that were for the adults.
	But this time, I think we were able to really read the Matrix on this one and really see what was really going on with this movie.
	Yeah, we were able to watch it closely in the hopes of piercing through the veils of time and reality to shape some semblance of solid ground beneath our feet in this current moment.
	So why don't we go ahead and kind of, you know, we're not going to go through the whole plot, but I think there are some extremely key moments in this movie that we watched.
	What did you, I guess, overall, like...
	It was maybe better than I thought, but I still didn't like the Minions.
	Oh, see, no, I did like the Minions, and I liked the Minions in this particular iteration of Despicable Me, the first one.
	Mind you, we are talking about the original, and watching it, I realized that the Despicable Me franchise suffers from the similar thing that the Aliens franchise does.
	Surfers from where people think about aliens and they think they're thinking about alien.
	They think they're thinking about alien one, but they're not.
	They're thinking about aliens.
	And there's a lot of that in this, where a lot of the things that we identify, that we put on this movie, that doesn't happen until later on.
	And I didn't really know.
	They didn't even mention bananas in this.
	No, they did.
	Oh, I missed the bananas.
	I was waiting for bananas the whole time.
	Sorry, bro.
	I'll tell you all about it when we get there.
	Fuck.
	I can't believe I missed the bananas.
	I was waiting for bananas so hard.
	I don't know how I missed that.
	But there were a few things like that where I was like, oh, this is...
	Because I don't think they realized what this movie was going to become.
	I don't think they could have possibly anticipated that.
	So there are some things I feel like weren't fully fleshed out.
	And it was like the real raw.
	So you're talking about just the minions themselves, like studying the...
	So you prefer this more of a sketch of what a minion is?
	Is that what you're saying?
	Yeah.
	I think I liked it when there was less...
	I think they took on rules.
	There were laws that were applied to the way the minions act.
	I don't think that happened yet.
	Okay, yeah, I haven't seen any of the other movies.
	I mean, you know, I like, like, Gremlins, too.
	In fact, you know, some of the more inane moments of this movie reminded me of, like, a mid-Gremlins.
	Okay.
	Like, when they go to the grocery store and start causing havoc, I'm like, I get the appeal.
	We could maybe ramp this up a little bit.
	Okay, but...
	Starts off with the Illumination Production logo.
	Basically calling its shot like fucking Babe Ruth.
	It does like the Dolby Digital swelling music thing.
	But also like intense glow from the Illumination logo itself.
	It's giant.
	It's towering over a little minion.
	It's blasting the minion in the fucking face.
	Or maybe the back.
	I don't remember.
	With this glow.
	And all we're about to see of him left is a shadow on the wall.
	But then the music stops and he collapses.
	And this is Illumination telling us what they were going to do to our grandparents and military-style cousins.
	Even back then, they were mocking us.
	Hiding it in plain sight.
	Okay, cut to a North African goat herder.
	And my military cousins definitely loved this movie.
	That's what I'm thinking as I'm watching it.
	It opens with a North African guy hurting.
	And I'm like, my cousin's probably used a still from this movie to make a meme.
	Yeah, this semi-racist caricature.
	Of a North African sheep herder?
	I just, you know, it doesn't even have to be, the depiction doesn't even have to be racist, you know, but it's just like, it's like a funny guy, you know, it's like a guy they put on screen to entertain people, who then gets, I guess, hit, looks like he gets hit by a tourist bus, which is playing Sweet Home Alabama.
	Which I love.
	And I'm looking for meaning in this movie.
	I'm looking to try and see what effects it may have had.
	An Afghan goat herder gets hit by a tourist bus playing Sweet Home Alabama.
	This was like...
	How riotous was the theater when this happened?
	Yeah, it probably got pretty loose then.
	Pretty much, like, pretty quickly, all my, like, those tingling sensations I'm getting from this imagery comes to, like, a culmination when we discover that the pyramids of Giza that they're visiting are actually fake and not real.
	Mm-hmm.
	Mm-hmm.
	That was a good little surprise.
	This has, like, everything.
	This movie has, like, everything for everyone.
	Like, there was somebody in the audience being, like, called it.
	And it was cool, because I was like, oh, shit, we're here for...
	This is going to be, like, a Da Vinci Code-style movie.
	You know, there's been a heist.
	And I'm a sucker for a heist film.
	I'm a sucker for, like, a mystery film.
	You know, a national monument-type thing.
	This is good stuff.
	Yeah, absolutely.
	And the thing is, is it's probably based on reality.
	A reality that we're normally not allowed to see, but they are allowed to sort of transmit through animated pictures because it's part of their society, part of their system of justice is they have to leave a breadcrumb trail for us to follow.
	And that's what I'm getting from this movie so far.
	It's also this whole thing where they're telling you what's really happening through a cartoon so that you just kind of laugh it off and ignore it.
	But let me ask you a question.
	Have you ever touched the pyramids, Alex?
	I heard that you're not allowed to touch the pyramids.
	I wonder why.
	And they say it's, oh, it's because you don't destroy history or whatever.
	But it could be because the pyramids are actually just an inflatable balloon.
	Yep, I think that's exactly what it is.
	Yeah, I think they're just inflatable.
	And you would know that the second you put your hand on them.
	No, the justification they give for presenting this striking imagery of fake pyramids is that the Pyramid of Giza has been stolen, which leads other nations to take measures to protect their landmarks.
	So China shoots a bird out of the air with a tank as it flies over the Great Wall.
	The French protect the Eiffel Tower, I think with mimes or something.
	I wasn't really paying attention during that little brief second.
	And then a redneck dude protects his, like, sideshow attraction.
	The Big Bear!
	Yeah, I love that.
	Which is 16,000 fluid ounces.
	And he protects it by pointing a shotgun, like, at the camera.
	And this is kind of, like, this part kind of shocked me.
	Because at this point, we don't even know the minions exist.
	And at this point, I'm like, they're taking pot shots at America here.
	Between, you know, the sweet home Alabama to signify these are American tourists who are idiots who are going to fuck shit up.
	And then this depiction of a redneck.
	I'm thinking, how is this going to turn around?
	And turn around they do.
	So I, well, just before we turn it around, like I, you know, This was pretty funny.
	This was, you know, the China shooting the bird over the...
	You know, it doesn't make any sense, but it's still...
	You know, it was fairly...
	There's a lot of, like, violent humor in this movie.
	Yeah.
	Which felt...
	I felt myself being drawn in.
	I'm like, fuck.
	Like, I need to stay impartial.
	You know what I mean?
	In order to give a measured look at these things.
	But I'm like...
	Damn, that's kind of funny.
	And I know what you're saying about, like, is this movie anti-white, right?
	We have to ask.
	It's something we ask about every movie that we watch.
	Does this movie hate white people?
	And yeah, the redneck guy who's protecting his big can of beer, he's got like a messed up tooth.
	He's got like a sort of comical southern accent.
	The tourists are like fat white people with sunburns and And, you know, some would say like, oh, well, this is so they could say they make fun of everybody, you know, anybody's fair game.
	We're like the Simpsons or we're like South Park, right?
	Yeah.
	I think it was actually put there intentionally to give white genocide people something to point to as evidence.
	I think that's smart, yeah.
	Because they view this as more of a documentary at this point.
	They're just showing what's happening in the way they're being depicted in the media, and it's pretty messed up.
	I like that.
	That was raw.
	Well, it's like, okay, so if you're a corporation, you're pretty fairly right-wing, you know what I mean?
	And if you want to give the right an edge, you could do stuff to, what do you call it, nag at them.
	And you're advertising or something, get a little pushback going, get you a good tax break.
	You know what I'm saying?
	The fire and the fuel going, you know?
	Yeah, they're like looking at these tourists.
	The white genocide people watching this movie.
	That's mean.
	They're like, they want you fat and docile and oblivious.
	Like the dad who gets knocked out by his son after he bounces off the fake inflatable pyramid.
	I work out so I don't get knocked out by my son bouncing off a pyramid.
	That's why I go to the gym.
	That's why I eat a raw meat diet.
	Okay.
	So we meet Gru, right?
	Gru is like the star of this movie.
	Gru is the evil villain mad scientist who owns and created the Minions, by the way.
	I discovered evidence of the Minions' origin in this movie.
	Voiced by Steve Carell, doing like a Russian sort of accent or a Slavic accent of some kind.
	Actually, I did have to look into this because I was watching this movie and I had some questions.
	So I did ask the question.
	I said, is Gru Jewish?
	I asked the internet.
	I said, is Gru Jewish?
	And according to DreamWorks Illumination, because they did have to answer this question before I asked it, apparently.
	Gru is Romanian.
	He is not Jewish.
	And I thought it was anti-Semitic in that direction, and then I realized it's actually anti-Semitic in the other direction.
	I don't think there are any actual Jews depicted in the movie, which is pretty sad.
	So, yeah.
	I had to scroll...
	Interesting.
	I had to scroll down to find in my notes.
	Gru also has an overbearing mother who's apparently never satisfied with her child's accomplishments.
	I'm wondering if Gru is supposed to be a Russian Jew?
	Nope.
	Just a plain Romanian.
	We're not going to talk about any other background, I guess.
	But yeah, Illumination did let us know.
	Gru is, in fact, not canonically Jewish.
	What if when they were trying to settle people down and give a PC answer, but they used the G word?
	Which one?
	You know, the one for Romani.
	Yeah.
	Oh, yeah.
	Yeah, that would have been crazy.
	That would have been crazy.
	I'm happy they didn't do that.
	Like, ah, fuck!
	And they gotta issue an apology for the apology, you know?
	It's like some Larry David shit.
	I'm glad they didn't use the slur though, I guess.
	Absolutely.
	Absolutely.
	Okay, so when we meet Gru, we first see him doing three things in rapid succession.
	Remember, I'm trying to watch this movie to figure out why it has a hold on people.
	Why it has infected the public consciousness to this degree.
	And so we see him doing these three things in quick succession.
	Upsetting a child for fun.
	Making a scene at Starbucks and driving a giant militarized super tank through the suburbs, which I have to say are three very conservative coded things.
	Absolutely.
	That was basically his daily driver is a killdozer.
	The child in the balloon, he makes a balloon for a child who's crying because it's already upset, and it's a balloon animal, he gives it to the child, and then when the child is finally settled down and loves its new pet and is hugging it, he pops it and laughs.
	And to me, this is like when you give children school lunches for a year, and then you tell them that they're $300 in debt at the end of it.
	Hey, listen, enjoy the free lunch.
	If you don't pay this up, your parents are going to prison.
	Then he goes to Starbucks and freezes all the...
	He gets mad that he has to wait in line and he freezes all the customers.
	This is like when the average conservative goes into Starbucks, the line is too long, and then no one laughs at your let's go Brandon joke.
	So you start mentally disarming and incapacitating each of them in turn.
	I mean, I'm assuming, they didn't say, but I'm assuming that all those customers, too, were ordering a triple Frappa Kappa latte upside down, triple foam whipped, you know, some dumb lib shit, you know, and I'm trying to get some guidance.
	I would love to use my freeze gun.
	In the Starbucks.
	Yeah, I can in California.
	Nope.
	Nope.
	Not openly, at least.
	The driving a tank to go pick up your coffee thing is pretty self-explanatory, but I mean, come on.
	But there's a fourth thing, too.
	He threatens to kill his neighbor's dog for shitting on his lawn.
	Yes.
	Which...
	To be fair, it's just a human thing.
	Like, that appeals to everybody, you know?
	Yeah, I mean, you can tell this.
	I don't think this took place in Florida, because I think he would have killed the dog, because I think that's stand your ground.
	I think if you kill a dog for shitting on your lawn, that's just stand your ground, castle doctrine type shit.
	Right, it's, yeah, it's a defensive measure, self-defense.
	Um...
	I begin to see maybe what the movie is doing.
	We see this villain and he's performing what we'd all love to do in our darkest of hearts.
	And he's giving us, like Trump did, a permission structure to be our worst selves.
	Well, not only that, but I think he's doing all these things and they are saying, look at these things he's doing.
	He's a villain.
	He's a bad guy for doing these things.
	But then we're going to learn about this character and we're going to see an arc.
	And I think that's where they identify with.
	Like, listen, I do all these things.
	You know, I yell at people at Starbucks.
	I drive my big truck.
	You know, I'm kind of an asshole.
	But...
	I have redeeming qualities.
	But at least I care about my fucking kids.
	At least I care about my kids.
	Exactly.
	Exactly.
	It's exactly what this fucking movie is, dude.
	I mean...
	It's no, I haven't gone to a single one of my child's performances, but you can bet if a carny tried to cheat him out of a stuffed animal, I'd fuck him up so fucking bad.
	So fast.
	Yeah, absolutely.
	Like, listen, I might not be really there, but when I am there, I'm ready to fucking murder.
	Um, okay, yeah.
	Uh, so this is, uh, he, he gets, he gets back home, uh, and this is where, uh, the doorbell rings.
	So like any good suburban imperial subject, he hoists a like 40 pound club mace onto his shoulder, uh, to look through the peephole.
	He's going to murder whoever is on the other side of that door.
	Um, Also, like, 60% of suburban racist aunts, he has a small ratty pet animal that is severely socially fucked up and traumatized because it was both neglected and tortured by her daughter when she adopted it at 16.
	It barely resembles a dog at this point.
	It's funny because you do say animal and you do say dog and it's a dog but they also try to say it's not a dog even though they don't do enough to make it not a dog.
	It's a fucked up little dog but it's also a weird creature that's not a dog.
	Kind of like a reptile mixed with a dog or something.
	And I think what that really was, was like, that's like when you make your dog a canine.
	It's no longer a dog anymore.
	It's now a weapon.
	And that's kind of what this dog was.
	It's not a dog anymore.
	It's actually a hund.
	Yeah, I'm not responsible for what happens with it because, you know, it's been transferred.
	I told you, and it's kind of a wild beast now that is also a weapon.
	Yeah.
	So, yeah, it was the girls at the door...
	The three young girls, he tells them to go away and pretends to be a recorded message.
	I mean, it's kind of funny.
	It's not a bad scene.
	And they go away.
	Now he gets word from a mad scientist friend, Dr.
	Nefario.
	Do you know who did this voice, Tony?
	I do.
	The one and only Russell Brand.
	Do you think Despicable Me is a Christian text?
	No.
	I think it is now.
	I think that what happens is that once you get saved, what happens in retrospect becomes a Christian text.
	I think that that character was a Christian at least.
	There were some biblical things about him.
	Yeah.
	I think things like, you know, I think the way he kind of forgives Gru over and over again and kind of believes in him.
	Yeah.
	And, you know, continues to come back, you know.
	It's pretty Christian.
	It's pretty Christian of him.
	I thought it was pretty cool.
	He's also in that mobility scooter.
	See those at the megachurches, you know.
	Yep, yep, yep.
	Also, misunderstands things a lot.
	Uh, just doesn't, just is told one thing and doesn't hear it correctly at all.
	Um, and then like, it's kind of like, you know, when you hear the gospel and you're like, cool, so gay people are bad.
	It's similar.
	It's a similar thing that happens with him.
	So yeah, this might be a Christian character.
	Uh, he, the Dr.
	Ferri, a voice by Russell brand doing like a, trying to do like a gravelly type for a deeper voice, uh, informs, uh, I
	want to press them through a Play-Doh mold into a star shape.
	Yeah, they are very annoying.
	We haven't been around them long enough for them to start being charming.
	I think that's what's happening here for you.
	They had their moments, but the bigger jokes, not very good.
	Like, oh, they're all doing jazzercise.
	That's not that funny to me.
	No.
	I thought it was kind of a miss.
	I wonder if it was going to be yoga, and then Russell Brand said, don't do that.
	It's disrespectful to me.
	Don't mock my culture.
	Okay, Gru comes out to greet his minions like a rock star.
	They're like losing their minds like he's a boy band or whatever.
	The minions, they all love him, and he even knows their names.
	And I'm thinking, he's like, hey, Kevin, oh, good job, Brad, or whatever.
	They all have white guy names.
	They all have generic white guy names.
	Yeah, generic white guy names, for sure.
	And I'm thinking, wow, he's such a good boss, right, Tony?
	Look at how much he relates to his minions, his employees, and how he knows their name on a personal level.
	And they all love him so much.
	And it's like, okay, I get it now.
	Clear anti-worker propaganda.
	It seems to me like the minions themselves might be anti-worker propaganda.
	The way they're bumbling around.
	They're fairly inept at their jobs.
	There's a couple jokes at their expense later.
	I'm not saying anti-worker propaganda can't be funny.
	Extract.
	The movie Extract.
	Or even on The Simpsons.
	But I think maybe...
	I think maybe Gru is a small business owner.
	That's not even a maybe.
	That's for sure.
	That's in the plot.
	And I think if we look at it through that lens, we might see some interesting stuff.
	Yeah, I think absolutely.
	And that's something that we're going to see is the plight of the small business owner as well.
	So I think that kind of goes along with the anti-worker propaganda we're seeing here is also because you're supposed to kind of empathize with the small business owner because I think you're fantasizing and one day you can have your own villain industry.
	You can have your own villain company.
	You can have your own minions.
	Yeah.
	Temporarily embarrassed villains is who's empathizing with him.
	So...
	Yeah, here it is.
	Right on cue.
	Gru is like complimenting all of them on their work for the year.
	He's like, you know, we did a good job and you guys are all right in my book.
	And then one of the minions raises his hand and Gru cuts him off immediately and says, no, no raises.
	You're not getting any raises.
	And we're meant to laugh at this.
	This is supposed to be funny that we see the idea of an employee asking for a raise is a joke to these people.
	Yeah, absolutely.
	It's for laughs.
	They want you humiliated.
	And I don't know what a living wage is for a minion.
	But they're clearly not getting paid that much if they still need a race because housing is provided.
	It seems like food is provided.
	So they don't even have the means to just have hobbies or a life.
	And that's pretty fucked up.
	Yeah, it's incredibly insulting, not just to the minions, but to you and me as wage earners, as the working class.
	This is what they think of us.
	I do like that he stole the Times Square Jumbotron.
	That's pretty funny.
	Yeah, as his response, as his like...
	Well, one of the accomplishments, you know, it's just they zoom out and it's up there behind him.
	It's pretty good.
	Also, in this scene, we get one of the minions in the crowd doing a negligent discharge with the rocket launcher because he got too excited about their new evil plan.
	And I'm like, okay, yeah, they know their audience well.
	Like, I think they know what they're doing here.
	And it's like, sure, they might be mocking a dumb person who does a discharge, but But, it's funny when it happens, right?
	It is, and it can be funny when a discharge happens.
	Like, we've seen it happen in this movie, or when that cop was doing the safety demonstration for the kids, and he shoots himself in the leg.
	Hilarious stuff can happen with a discharge.
	Yeah, and so it's safe to laugh at, you know?
	Um...
	We meet Gru's mother.
	She's not impressed with any of his accomplishments.
	You know who does the mother's voice?
	Because the cast is crazy.
	Julie Andrews?
	Yeah, Julie Andrews.
	Julie Andrews is the mom.
	You wouldn't expect because she's kind of a bitch.
	And she also has like four lines in the whole movie.
	Yeah, yeah.
	Like the average American, Gru gets into several intentional car accidents on the way to the bank where he's going to get a loan to fund his new project of trying to shrink and then steal the moon.
	So he goes into the bathroom of this bank and puts his eye up to the urinal flush sensor, which is actually a retinal scanner.
	It takes him to the secret bank, but this confirms my worst fear that those little sensors in the urinals have cameras in them, and they're recording my penis to use as blackmail or revenge porn later.
	Or also because you have all those security locks where it uses a dick print to let you in.
	They can now 3D render your penis.
	Never turn on dick print sensor on your phone because cops can just put the phone up to your dick and get access.
	I mean, you can get a fucking clone-a-cock kit at your local adult store, at your local Spencer's.
	Anyone can do that.
	It's not safe.
	Well, the reason I don't want them to have it is because it uses blackmail in case I get too close to dismantling the Matrix or whatever.
	They could be like, well, we're going to flood the market with these pictures.
	Well, I don't know if I told you this, but I got my dick encrypted.
	Is it non-fungible?
	It's a non-fungible dick now.
	So even if it's a replica, people will know it's a replica because it's not going to have the proper data behind it.
	That's the best thing to do is just digitize it and then forget about it.
	Yeah.
	Yeah.
	Yeah, okay, so he goes into the Bank of Evil, parentheses, formerly Lehman Brothers.
	Pretty good joke.
	And again, I'm being, like, pulled into the orbit of this movie.
	I'm like, wow, there's something for me in here, too.
	I get that joke.
	Um.
	We cut to a flashback where child Gru gets traumatized by his mom for wanting to become an astronaut.
	He says something like, I'm gonna go to the moon.
	You know, they're watching the moon landing on TV when he's a kid.
	And she says, oh, too bad they stopped sending monkeys like you, you little piece of shit.
	You get it?
	You fucking little dumb idiot monkey.
	And I'm like, wow, a bitch mother as the root cause of his villainy?
	Interesting.
	Very, very interesting movie.
	And again, this is another moment where the viewers, the audience, are now empathizing with them because this movie, one of the big arcs is dealing with childhood trauma.
	There is no movie without childhood trauma.
	That's so true.
	And I know so many people here, their moms aren't talking to them anymore.
	You know, it's like their mom is a standing for all the family they've lost.
	And who didn't believe in them and called them crazy.
	The dad's not there, you know?
	Yeah, there's no mention of the dad.
	Yeah, it's definitely like...
	Well, the mean mom probably scared the reasonable dad away, is what I think happened.
	More than likely.
	He probably wanted to be there.
	He didn't want to leave.
	Yeah.
	He's out there.
	The reason why I didn't see him is because he was fighting for custody the whole time.
	And by fighting for custody, I mean posting about how he doesn't have custody and how badly he wants it.
	By fighting for custody, he means looking up the address of the judge and trying to find a shortcut.
	Okay, so Gru, he can't get the loan from the bank because he doesn't have the working shrink ray and the bank is like, get the fucking, you know, proof of concept before we'll give you any money.
	So Gru steals the shrink ray from...
	Is this the North Koreans?
	Is that...
	I think they're supposed to be North Koreans.
	I think that makes sense.
	There's like some isolated island, uh, and, but it's, you know, they, they're the cartoon because the, the animation, I don't, you know, I, I kind of like the animation.
	I'll just say the animation's not too bad.
	Um, The design on these people, they're meant to look somewhat realistic.
	People have probably seen this movie, but they don't have yellow skin.
	They have flesh-toned skins, colored skin.
	And these guys looked Asian to me.
	So I'm like, is he stealing the shrink ray from China or from North Korea?
	This is clearly some more imperial propaganda, I would say.
	I'm looking at the IMDB and it just says nefarious Asians.
	Does it really?
	No.
	No.
	I mean, because IMDB, I think that's like user edited.
	I think that's like Wikipedia.
	Maybe that's just kind of what they decided on.
	Okay, so Guru steals the shrink ray from the North Koreans or whoever.
	But then Vector, who's the younger, hotter villain, who's not actually hotter.
	He's like a dork.
	He's the one who stole the pyramids.
	He steals the shrink ray from Gru, and we enter a chase scene where Gru is chasing after Vector to get the shrink ray back.
	I liked this animation here.
	I liked the design of Gru's ship.
	The vehicles, like the Everything else looks kind of normal, but like a little heightened, but like the gadgets and inventions, it looks like Dr.
	Seuss shit, which I appreciated.
	And I think it was probably like, they probably know it looks like Dr.
	Seuss shit because one of the children is wearing a Lorax shirt the whole movie, practically.
	But, you know, it'd be like big fat body of the ship with like a little tiny stem for the rear...
	Whatever is a rear propeller or whatever.
	Very spindly kind of gizmos and gadgets.
	It looked cool.
	The ship's reminding me of the Jetsons or what Marvin the Martian ship, actually.
	You know, like the big ship and then like the small rudder type thing going on, like the aerodynamic, like long rudders.
	It was really cool.
	I like the design of that.
	And I also did like their balance of some real science happens in the movie.
	Some real science happened in the movie.
	What was the real science that happened in the movie?
	It's kind of spoilers.
	There's some real science that happens involving the moon.
	Oh, okay.
	Where the waves disappear when they steal the moon.
	That was real science.
	That's true.
	I was waiting to see if they were going to know.
	If the movie was going to know that the waves would disappear.
	Because I know that.
	Yeah, I felt pretty smart when I saw that coming.
	And so that lets you know, they do understand science, and these villains have overcome science.
	Yeah.
	So that was pretty cool to me.
	I liked that Gru's inventions looked...
	Not like steampunk, but sleek and metal and kind of homemade and hand-hammered.
	Well, minion-hammered, probably.
	Whereas the Vector guys' technology looked like iPhone shit.
	All white and smooth and...
	Well, that's kind of a part of, I think, what they're trying to express with those characters is because, you know, when we meet Vector, we're almost kind of surprised that Vector's the guy who did it because all we know about Vector at some point is that he's a villain.
	He's kind of a nerd.
	I mean, the invention we see him bring to the table is a gun that shoots piranhas.
	It's a piranha launcher.
	And you're like, wait, this guy who made the piranha launcher that doesn't work very well is the same guy who stole the pyramid?
	Yeah.
	It's a good little indicator of what might be to come.
	How is this dumb, little, incompetent, little asshole so good at this stuff?
	How does he have this stuff?
	Where are the resources coming from?
	Right.
	Yeah, that's a good point.
	Yeah.
	I like the sort of cartoonish violence that happens here, firing all the rockets at the ships.
	And it ends with Vector shrinking Guru's entire ship with that shrink ray so that he and the minions have to ride it home like it's a little RC plane.
	Good little jokes here and there.
	We cut to Gru in a hilarious Rasta man disguise attempting to infiltrate Vector's compound in broad daylight for some reason and he gets clocked immediately when he tries to look over the top of the wall with like a fake dog that's actually a periscope and the dog gets just fucking obliterated.
	And he comes back wearing like all black and night vision goggles, even though it's in broad daylight.
	And I feel like this is just mostly so we can see all the insane gadgets and weapons that Vector has to injure anyone who would like dare cross his property line, you know, and that to me, I'm a homeowner.
	That's interesting to me, watching all these interesting home defense kits.
	Like, if I were a scientist, like, I mean, you know, I'm not going to tell you what I've been working on, maybe, but, you know, I'm liking where his head's at.
	Like, it's like, oh yeah, I got the punji spike pits, but I'd love to have the saw blades that run along the side of the house in case anyone attempts to scale the walls for like a top-down infiltration.
	Well, I'm a simple man, so I really just want the bouquet of automated guns that come out on an arm and point at whatever is there for you.
	I have a few extra guns, and I can just go ahead and whip those up on some sort of arm mechanism with a sensor on it.
	That one I thought was pretty cool.
	Well, you got, I mean, you got the Omnius, what's the Tesla robot called?
	Omnius Prime?
	Optimist.
	Uh, you got the Optimist coming out real soon.
	I would just maybe wait for that.
	That's like, buy three or four of those to patrol the perimeter of your house.
	Give them guns?
	Yeah.
	I do need to see a video of an Optimist, like, shooting a Glock.
	No.
	No, don't put that out there.
	Uh, Okay, so he fails to get into Vector's compound to get the shrink ray, but he sees the three little girls that he didn't answer the door for.
	They are welcomed into Vector's compound because they have the cookies.
	They're selling the cookies that he likes.
	We've seen, I think, the girls back at the orphanage that they're from being harassed and bullied and intimidated by the headmistress or the owner of the orphanage into selling more cookies.
	There's boxes.
	She puts the kids in a box if they don't sell enough cookies or if they don't respect her or if she gets mad or whatever.
	I do think they did a really good job at depicting adoption and orphanages and how that goes.
	That kind of goes throughout the movie.
	I think it was pretty...
	I'm happy they kind of were critical of that system.
	Yeah, absolutely.
	I mean, we need more resources for orphanages so they don't have to sell cookies.
	Yeah.
	But this gives Gru an idea.
	He decides to go adopt these three girls so that he can exploit them and use them to gain access to Vector's compound.
	Also very conservative coded.
	Yes.
	He's not using them to work his farm or to raise the babies of the other child brides in the church, but he is using them for personal gain.
	Yeah, he's not using them to start a YouTube series where he pranks the kids or anything like that.
	Or to pit the adopted kids against his actual children, the minions.
	He doesn't do that.
	At no point does he lock one of the kids away in a closet for not participating with the YouTube antics.
	That doesn't happen.
	No family annihilation.
	Well, there is a scene right after this where he puts food in dog bowls and paper down for pee-pee and poo-poo and tries to lock them in the kitchen.
	And I'm wondering how many Mormon mommy YouTubers this inspired.
	True, because this was worse.
	Not for like all their children, but just for the ones with like demons inside of them.
	Yeah, and by demons we mean don't want to be on YouTube being filmed all the time.
	Which is, you know, why would you not want to be filmed unless you had demons?
	It's pretty funny when it looks like the middle girl gets killed inside Gru's Iron Maiden.
	It's just a bunch of kids walking around picking up guns and shooting them at each other, which is pretty funny.
	I guess they get away with this because they're like laser guns, but they still vaporize.
	They still disintegrate when they disintegrate her toy, in fact.
	Mm-hmm.
	Mm-hmm.
	But yeah, one of them wanders into an Iron Maiden, which then snaps shut, and we see a red liquid come out of it, but it was just her juice box.
	Pretty funny.
	Despite us knowing now that the Iron Maiden is a lie, was never really used, and it's just like, what do you call it, like an object of fascination for perverts.
	Interesting inclusion in this movie, I would say.
	Now, I did have a brief second where I was like, oh no, this child is dead, but then I remembered there were sequels.
	So unfortunately, but I could imagine being in the theater seeing it for the first time, you know, having no idea.
	Like, oh, this villain really did kill a kid.
	One thing I thought was really funny was, because you're thinking, why would this man be able to adopt these children?
	But he does ensure the woman at the orphanage that he is a widower, and the only thing that's going to cure his loneliness is children, which...
	Don't ever let a guy who says that adopt a kid.
	He then also pretends to call her beautiful in Spanish in order to seduce her into letting him adopt the three young girls.
	Which would maybe be another red flag, I think.
	If he's trying to trick a favor out of you, maybe you should...
	Could there be something else going on?
	Yeah.
	Okay.
	The kids eventually discover Gru's hidden underground headquarters.
	They accidentally disintegrate the youngest girl's stuffed unicorn.
	She's obviously very upset about that.
	So Gru sends two minions to go on an errand to replace the toy.
	And we get a sort of insight into their vernacular, into their speech here.
	Because he says, go get a toy.
	And the one minion says, like, a popoy to the other.
	And he goes, no, a popoy.
	And they go, oh, a popoy.
	And Gru goes, toy.
	And the minion goes, yeah, yeah, popoy.
	So that's like their word for toy is popoy.
	Popoy.
	Because I think it's mostly been just, like, gibberish, or at least I didn't have the patience to figure out if they were saying, but I'm, like, getting, you know, it's like, I feel like I'm Antonio Banderas in the 13th Warrior, and I'm finally, like, picking up on their language, you know?
	Yeah, so the girls are like, what are these things?
	What are these creatures?
	What are these freaks?
	And Gru says, oh, these are my cousins.
	So again, I'm like, wow, this movie has such relevance.
	These jabbering things that are uncomfortable to be around and seem to be like agents of chaos.
	I know cousins like this.
	Yeah, I have a few of them for sure.
	Okay, so we see the minions that are running this errand.
	They're at the grocery store, cosplaying as like a 1950s nuclear family.
	One of them has like a mom wig on.
	The other one has like a dad's hat and mustache on.
	And then one of them is sickeningly dressed as a baby in a baby's diaper, riding behind them on their like...
	Dr.
	Seuss contraption to the grocery store and the baby is like giving the thumbs up to other passengers and cars.
	incredibly odd um they get to the grocery store and yeah you're basically just like watching gremlins at this point they're getting into the soda whoa the soda bottle's exploding like a missile um the mom and minions are the sorry the minion and mom drag sees a karaoke machine uh and starts performing a song and the song she performs is copacabana but she says banana
	Oh, see, I didn't even like, it didn't even register him.
	In my mind, I hear him referencing and people just saying Banana over and over again.
	Because I think it happens in later films, I guess.
	I didn't even pick up it in the song.
	Yeah, I think this is like proto-Banana, dude.
	This is like the origin, I think, of Banana.
	Because it's one guy who does all the Minions' voices.
	And I think that's the guy who wrote the short story that it's based on.
	I could be conflating two different people.
	No, I think you're right.
	And what's funny is I was curious about him because he does all the...
	His name's Pierre Coffin.
	And I was curious about him because I'm like, man, this guy must be fucking balling out of control.
	Right?
	His net worth is $10 million.
	Wow.
	Pharrell just got paid $12.5 million to do the music for Rise of Gru.
	And also, I just want to point out too, the music in this one, it's also Pharrell.
	Happy's not in this one.
	We don't get happy till later.
	Also, the music is so bad.
	All the songs he does are so bad.
	And I think this is really when we lost Pharrell.
	I think this was the moment where we lost Pharrell and he's never come back.
	I don't know.
	There was the song that they're playing while they're at the amusement park.
	I thought that one was okay for like a pop song while they're like riding the roller coaster.
	Okay, yeah, yeah.
	That was like the one song that I was like, oh, this is like it's appropriate for the scene and didn't annoy me.
	It's just funny because Pharrell has all these friends, but he was like, no, this is my bag.
	I'm going to sing on all these songs.
	He's doing several different voices in every different song.
	I'm not a big fan of really any of them.
	But yeah, I really think that Despicable Me is to blame for why Pharrell sucks now.
	Yeah, that makes total sense.
	Justice for Pierre, by the way.
	They finally get back.
	I don't know.
	They return from their mission because the kids are going to sleep and Gru isn't treating them like the ideal father that they had imagined.
	They've been trying to get adopted and they finally do.
	And their dad's a villainous jerk who obviously only wants them.
	I mean, they don't know this, but he just wants them to get into the other guy's lair.
	And so he just doesn't give a F. But the minions do.
	They get back and they give the girl her replacement unicorn stuffed animal, which is a toilet brush with a cone and googly eyes strapped to it.
	And she's a sweet little girl, so she loves it and goes to bed.
	Oh, she gives him a kiss.
	She gives the baby minion a kiss on the forehead who becomes dazed.
	And I'm like, okay.
	It's just a kiss from a little girl, dude.
	You don't...
	Well, no, it's just a kiss from that girl, but it's affection.
	They don't get affection from Gru.
	Yeah, they do.
	He knows their names.
	He's a good boss, remember?
	True, but he doesn't kiss him on the forehead or anything.
	Yeah, that's his growth.
	That literally is his growth.
	He kisses him on the forehead at the end of this movie.
	I guess you're right.
	Um...
	Okay, yeah.
	So they finally get in.
	He creates these little robots that help him infiltrate the compound.
	While they're stealing back the shrink ray, an interesting moment I noticed was he's with two minions and they're crawling through the air ducts and one of them grabs the other one and cracks him and shakes him and he turns into a glow stick.
	And I'm like, wow, what are these magical creatures?
	Because it's like not only can they just do all these bits where they pretend to be a housewife or they pretend to be a disco singer or whatever, they can also physically be so many things, it seems.
	This is the moment when it can become a glow stick and can shine that way.
	Between that and all the bits, the karaoke, the showmanship, I was like, you know what?
	The minions are pretty cunty.
	And I get it now.
	I think the minions are pretty...
	I think that they always kind of serve cunt, and I think that they're kind of coded in that way, and that's why they're a little bit sassy and a little bit silly.
	I think, yeah, I think that's a good thing.
	I think it's a good quality.
	Now, do you think all the minions can do this, or some of them have special abilities?
	I think the minion is capable of...
	An infinite number of things, given whatever the context is.
	I feel like they're kind of like this all-purpose worker bean that he invented, Gru invented.
	So there's at one point, you can see a blueprint.
	It's in the kid's bedroom.
	It's like a poster on their wall, and it says, Minion, Final.
	And it's got the final stamp on it.
	And it shows whatever...
	Two different perspectives of the menu, like a side view and a forward view.
	And it says peanut brain.
	It says tap...
	Is it tapioca?
	Tapioca material for the body.
	Or, I don't know, meringue?
	It's something like that.
	I mean, I'm just saying, this is the source of the minions.
	He didn't find them in the jungle like Willy Wonka did.
	He, like, created the minions as these, like, weird subhuman worker slaves.
	They're like house elves.
	They're like house elves in the Gru universe.
	They were just, they're like orcs.
	They're like his creation.
	Now, that was kind of disappointing to me because I thought that the minions were important because they were shining a light on the atrocities and the experiments that were done on the young Jewish children during the Holocaust, which is a conspiracy that runs through the internet.
	Have you seen this?
	Well, I mean, Jews and other people were experimented on during the Nazi regime.
	Yes, but people believe the minions are supposed to depict them.
	Because there's pictures of kids wearing almost like divers helmets.
	Oh, yeah.
	Where they have almost like a goggle on.
	And people are like, well, hold on.
	These kids in the Holocaust look like these minions.
	These minions must be more important than anything.
	I think that picture wasn't even from the Holocaust.
	I don't think so either.
	I looked at a politifact about that or something like that.
	But that's the hard part about the internet, is you kind of got to tell everyone that's seen that is now going around telling people that.
	It's also not real.
	Who likes this conspiracy theory?
	Anti-Semites?
	Pro-Semites?
	I don't...
	I think anti-Hollywood people.
	I think it's just a commentary on Hollywood and how depraved they are and how they would make light of something like this.
	Yeah, I saw this movie called Schindler's List.
	For profit?
	Wow.
	Just taking all kinds of license with that shit.
	Um...
	Yeah, okay.
	So he's trying to get rid of the kids now because he has the shrink ray.
	He still doesn't care about the kids.
	So they want to go to this amusement park.
	And so he gets the idea that, oh, I can just lose them at the amusement park, which is, again, I think a thought that 100% of suburban parents have had in their life.
	Yeah, absolutely.
	Yeah.
	The price of Disneyland is actually...
	It makes sense when you get the freedom afterwards when you lose your kid and they get lost in the underground tunnels.
	But he eventually softens up because he has to go on the rides with the kids and all this.
	And he ends up kind of growing affectionate for them and almost like growing a conscience of And the way you see this depicted is he pulls out a gun on a carny.
	And it's just like that thing, man.
	Say whatever you want about me.
	I don't care if the world sees me as a fucking villain.
	But if you say that my child didn't hit that little spaceship, I'm coming for you.
	Yeah, that's it.
	All hell's coming with me.
	Yeah, and you know what's funny is when he did do that, they're supposed to knock over this spaceship with a ping pong ball.
	And as we all know, carny games are rigged.
	They're such bad people, dude.
	He does disintegrate the whole booth, and the spaceship is still standing, but it does fall down because it disintegrates.
	Also, did you know that the Carnival Barker is voiced by Jack McBriar, There's a couple voices in this.
	Yeah, it's Kent from 30 Rock.
	What's his name?
	Paige, the nerdy weirdo.
	Well, his name's Jack McBriar.
	Nobody knows his fucking real name, dude.
	I mean, I did.
	And I never know things, so I'm going to go ahead and take this one.
	That's weird.
	But did you...
	Okay, do you know that guy on Instagram who's like this light-skinned dude?
	Kenneth.
	Kenneth, there you go.
	This light-skinned dude who loves old-timey things.
	He drives a Model T and like...
	Oh, man.
	I was hoping you know, because that's who this guy reminds me of.
	He looks like him and kind of talks like him.
	The guy's weird.
	The guy's really weird.
	He only listens to an old-timey radio, and his whole thing is pre-depression era stuff.
	Yeah, it was such a good time.
	He's a weird guy.
	And it's funny, too, because he's black.
	Which is like, I'm trying not to go back to that time, bud.
	But yeah, I couldn't get him out of my head when I saw this.
	Down to the hat, because the guy wears a top hat.
	Yeah, it's pretty incredible.
	Like, I am not a violent man, but I would fuck up a carny if he tried to cheat my child.
	Absolutely.
	And I don't even have a child.
	And that was when I knew I was meant to be a father.
	When I had that thought while watching this movie, I was like, I knew what would be most fulfilling for me.
	And I know that they cheated my child because my child lost and my child does not lose.
	So he has the shrink ray, so he Skypes the bank and tells him that he has the shrink ray, but the children ruin the presentation, leading the bank manager to say that he loves the plan, but the problem is Gru, which gives Gru another traumatic flashback to his withholding mother who shrugs her shoulders and says, eh, to the actual rocket he builds at the age of 10.
	Yep.
	Okay, so yeah, he basically, he doesn't get the loan or whatever from the bank.
	I want to put this out there about the bank.
	The bank, the banker, this man who's funding nefarious things for villains.
	Yeah.
	George Soros.
	Oh, maybe.
	I think he's just supposed to be a bank manager.
	He just seems like a really hoity-toity.
	He seems like Wasp-ish more than Jewish, I guess, because that's what George Soros means, right?
	Yeah, yeah.
	This guy seemed like a stuck-up Waspy kind of bank manager.
	I'll bring this up a couple more times as the episode goes on to make it clear.
	Yeah, I think...
	I mean, I believe there are elements of this movie that are anti-bank in general.
	You know, like the Lehman Brothers, you know, the joke or whatever.
	Yeah, okay.
	So he goes to tell the minions that he didn't get the loan.
	They're going to have to cancel the project.
	The dad and mom minions are still in their dad and mom costumes.
	I don't know if you saw this off to the side drinking at the bar.
	They're like drinking martinis together and talking to each other like an actual married couple.
	And I'm like, are they just like living the cosplay now?
	Did they just really like the dynamic and wanted to wanted to keep trying it?
	I think they really fell in love.
	you I think they really enjoyed their trip to the store and I think they really fell in love and decided to give it a shot.
	I think it's beautiful.
	That is beautiful, but I think what I think is that these minions are just like the perfect organism and Gru was like, you put on a hat and a mustache, you put on a dress and a wig, you guys are going to be married when you go to the grocery store.
	And they just were like, okay.
	And he never said stop.
	We're married now and we're like good at it.
	Yeah, we nailed it.
	Oh, another thing.
	Didn't the minions exist throughout history?
	If Gru didn't build them, why did he have blueprints for them on his wall?
	This is another thing.
	This is what I'm talking about with the aliens thing.
	This doesn't actually happen to aliens, but...
	Because it got so big afterwards, Despicable Me 2 was much more successful than Despicable Me 1, even though that was hugely successful.
	But because it was so big and they took on a life of their own, they were able to take liberties.
	And that's probably my biggest problem with the...
	What's the word I want to use here?
	With the property, is I like congruency in these things.
	Yeah.
	Totally.
	Yeah, it's a pretty big plot hole.
	But I like them embodying their roles.
	Like that baby was still wearing the diaper and sucking on the pacifier.
	And it's like their personality.
	They can just become anything.
	And it's like their physical bodies, apparently.
	They can just become anything.
	They can become a balloon floating off in the air.
	They can become a glow stick.
	Yeah.
	Doesn't one of them bounce another one like a ball at some point?
	They're just malleable, pure...
	What do you call it?
	Pure matter.
	And they're also invincible, right?
	I don't think they can be killed.
	Yeah, I don't know.
	Everybody just gets soot on their faces when a bomb explodes nearby.
	Even Gru.
	I mean, Gru gets fucking domed by, like you said, a bouquet of guns outside of Vector's compound, and he just climbs out of the hole.
	Now, if Gru did create the minions, I think he can maybe impregnate his skin with whatever technology he created the minions with.
	So maybe that's why he is somewhat invincible as well.
	That would make some sense.
	Again, trying to keep real science in this and congruency.
	Yeah.
	Sure, yeah, that makes sense to me.
	So he's telling the minions that they have no more money, they won't be able to do the project, and that's when the children come up and donate their money to Gru.
	They give their little piggy bank to him, and he's like, oh, you know, that's so cute.
	And...
	The minions are like, hey, I have cash.
	Start waving wads of bills in the air, a watch, a full wallet with the cash hanging out of it.
	And Gru says, yeah, who needs the bank?
	We'll build the rocket ourselves with our own money and whatever we have around the lab.
	And for me, this is so heartwarming to see a small business owner who's given everything to his company.
	Yeah.
	Finally be paid back by the employees that he supported all these years.
	Yeah, it was beautiful.
	Yeah, and it also kind of makes you, oh, that's why he's not giving them a raise.
	They just have extra money.
	So they really are asking for too much.
	They do need to chill.
	And also, because at first I was thinking, well, that can't be that much money.
	But then I thought about it, you know, there are a lot of minions and all of them have, you know, 25 bucks.
	That's going to add up enough to build a rocket.
	That's how many minions there are.
	And that's how they're all so generous and, you know, selfless.
	I thought that was pretty beautiful.
	Seeing a minion hold cash was really fucking weird, though, I will just say.
	Like, it doesn't feel like they should exist next to, like, you know, US currency or something.
	Like, they're like an utterly fantastical, insane slug creature.
	Like, surely, you know, Neptonian coins are the currency that they would be affiliated with.
	That also speaks to the way they have been meme-ified, because we only see them either being themselves or being dressed up like the person who made the meme wants to be dressed up, whether it's a plate carrier and an AR-15, or a MAGA hack.
	A pregnant mother.
	But we didn't see him go through...
	The Bugs Bunny, Taz, Baller era, they weren't memed in that fashion, which is a shame.
	But I think it really speaks to the demographic of who's using them as the meme.
	Okay, yeah, so they build the rocket themselves.
	While they're building this rocket, Gru is clearly getting too soft on the kids and bonding with the kids too hard, and he's losing sight of their mission to shrink the moon and hold it for ransom.
	So Dr.
	Nefario, the scientist, again voiced by Russell Brand, he calls the orphanage and tells the woman there that they don't want the girls anymore.
	Which is the first time I think Russell Brand has ever tried to get underage girls out of his house.
	Yeah, yeah.
	First time he's definitely called the authorities and let him know that underage girls exist.
	That's for sure.
	He's literally been in a house where he should have done that.
	Did he?
	So, you know, not cool.
	Yeah.
	Real nice stuff there, Dr.
	Nefario.
	It does speak to his acting chops, though.
	But see, leave it to him to find the one reason to get underage girls out of his house would be bad because Gru loves those girls and would never treat them the way Russell Brand has allegedly treated other underage girls.
	The woman from the orphanage shows up to collect these girls and it's a pretty crazy scene because Gru is just like, I guess he's right.
	I have to get rid of them.
	And it's like crazy because he's like literally he was like having a tea party with them when this happened.
	He's been reading them bedtime stories and at this point he's like ah but yeah just go ahead go back to the abusive exploitative orphanage again where yeah the girls have to pile back into a car saying like Don't abandon.
	Don't leave us.
	You're our dad now.
	We've been here for months.
	And he's just like, ah, you know, bye.
	And then when they get back to the orphanage, they each get put into a box of shame, a cardboard box with a lid on it and a little slot for maybe like food or water.
	And again, I think that people are identifying with this because who hasn't had to prioritize work over their children?
	And they understand how hard that is, but how it must be done.
	My kids out here, she's watching an iPad and TV right now while I'm recording.
	And I have to do it.
	I have to do it because the grind has to happen.
	Oh, you feel bad because you saw a three-year-old, five-year-old, and seven-year-old get put into small cardboard boxes and sent away from their family or whatever.
	I wonder if you feel at all bad for the fetuses that are aborted every single year.
	You know what I mean?
	Because that is...
	We're talking about abandoning your child for a career.
	I mean, that's what Gru did, and that's what these...
	You know, these inconveniently pregnant women who need to further their feminism career or their Hamas-supporting career or whatever, and so they abandon their fetus.
	You know who never gets to go to a dantricidal?
	A fetus.
	A fetus never gets to perform in a dantricidal after you've snuffed its light out.
	Okay, he successfully steals the moon without the burden of children.
	He's able to complete his mission and he shrinks the moon, but we're kind of getting glimpses that the shrink ray isn't all that it's cracked up to be because the previous...
	Previously shrunken objects are regaining their old size.
	The scientist and Gru don't notice this yet, but stuff is popping back into its regular size.
	But Gru has the moon in his pocket.
	He thinks he can still make the kids' ballet performance, but he ends up being too late.
	He gets to the auditorium after everybody's already gone, but there's a little note taped to a chair that tells him that the girls have been kidnapped by Vector.
	And then the movie becomes about how, yes, you might not have gone to a single one of your kids' events, and in fact, you actually gave up custody of them, but if an evil person kidnapped them, you would stop at nothing to enact cartoonish violence against them.
	Absolutely.
	Absolutely.
	Because, I mean, at that point, you know, they're stopping traffickers.
	Which we all know is slavery.
	Trafficking is slavery.
	It just is, folks.
	If there's one thing you're going to learn from this show, it's that trafficking is slavery.
	That's, I think, all the relevant stuff I have from this movie.
	That is the end of this movie.
	He becomes a good parent because he's able to track down his children and In the air, I believe.
	Being in the air is like being in lawless third world country.
	Yeah, there's no laws up there.
	You can do whatever you want on a private jet or your little spaceship.
	Yeah, and so the state gives him custody back of his kids.
	They admitted that they were wrong and he was actually a good father.
	Again, sort of ignoring the fact that he gave up custody willingly of them.
	And then they're all happy.
	He kisses them on the heads to say goodnight.
	And then the minions are like, we want kisses on the head.
	And then he kisses them each on the head to say goodnight.
	And a couple of them, they get in line for seconds.
	Which is greedy, but you know, it's okay.
	That's it.
	I think, I don't know.
	It was incredible how relevant this movie ended up actually being, in my mind.
	There is a message I kind of got from it that we haven't touched on at all.
	And so this is tracking two villains who are kind of working against each other for the same objective.
	They're being funded by the same thing.
	And I think this is really a lesson on infighting.
	And how bad that can be.
	Because imagine if Vector and Gru would have put their differences aside and came together over the common...
	They would have had the moon in no time.
	And they probably would have figured out the shrinking thing.
	Another thing we find out is that Vector is actually the son of the bank manager.
	Yeah, nepotism.
	He's a nepo baby.
	Which is Nepo Baby.
	And that's another lesson is, you know, I know I just said they shouldn't be working together, which I think still is important.
	But also, you can't trust them.
	You just can't trust them.
	Because they don't have the same skin on the game.
	They don't have the same thing on the line.
	Yeah.
	Totally.
	And that's also why he's this little, like, idiot who makes squid and piranha launchers, but then has all the fly shit, is because he's a Nepo baby.
	Because he's got the money.
	Yeah.
	Absolutely, Tony.
	Thank you so much.
	Yeah, I think being a villain who still actually raises their kids, goddammit, is the point of this movie.
	Yeah.
	I think it is like, you know, it's the saving grace because he is this asshole, but he's an asshole in like a enticing way.
	He's an asshole who does whatever he wants to do.
	Yeah, yeah.
	You know, and I think there's a lot of these little stinkers out there who would be even more of assholes if they had like the laser guns to back it up, you know?
	Well, not only that, but we touched on the childhood trauma earlier and how that works out.
	But after Gru does do all these things, he does accomplish these things by being an insufferable asshole and being, you know, stubborn and really sticking to it.
	The movie also does end with the mom and him watching a recital they're doing.
	And she looks over at him and says, you know, you are a good dad.
	You're a good dad.
	His mom.
	Got it.
	I was so confused.
	I was so confused for a second.
	You thought the minion mom.
	You thought it was the minion mom.
	Or you were talking about a sequel where there's a female guru.
	No, no, no.
	If you do continue down the path you're going on and you stick to your goals, maybe one day your mom will love you.
	Right.
	Yeah, that's something we can all hope for.
	Except for my mom.
	She's dead to me.
	She knows why.
	I'm just kidding.
	Sorry, I lost myself in the character.
	I'm becoming a minion.
	Yeah, it's happening.
	It's happening.
	You become a villain any day now.
	Yeah, and then with the minions, I think kind of what I had an impression of them before I even saw the movie is just that they're like a blank slate.
	You know, you could just put whatever, inject them with whatever, you know, poison or whatever ideology, and they become that thing, you know?
	And that's why they're so beloved by so many, you know, seemingly different people.
	It's because they can just be whatever, you know?
	Yeah.
	Yeah.
	Yeah, and they're also very easily influenced, and who can't identify with that?
	Totally.
	Well, thanks for listening to us, folks.
	Thanks for listening to all 666 episodes of the show, which I know you have.
	Yeah, if you're a new listener, go back and check out our previous catalog.
	We had a lot of fun episodes that I kind of referenced at the top of this show, and we've just...
	We do a bonus episode every week over at patreon.com slash minion death cult where there's hundreds of bonus episodes.
	They're full of movie reviews, TV reviews, other derangement like this.
	You'll be helping to support the show and you'll be getting a lot of good content and we're going to keep doing it.
	It's been fun.
	Let's keep doing it.
	We love it.
	We love it.
	We love y'all.
	Thanks for checking us out.
	Thanks for sticking with us for 660 episodes.
	It's pretty impressive.
	Love it.
	Love it.
	Thank you.
	Yeah.
	All right.
	Bye, everybody.
	Peace. Peace.
	Peace. Peace. Peace. Peace. Peace. Peace.
	It's not all enemies!

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