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shae-la-hyene · 2 months ago

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National Treasure ethical crimes in order of appearance

Prefacing this by signalling that I'm not american and thus think that the white supremacist national fanatism of the very disney very white-only movies is absolutely hilarious and they are comfort movies for me especially because they're so bat shit crazy.

Ben dragging his dirty blood accross the priceless artefact that is the white pipe like a fucking heathen. Wtf is wrong with this guy ??

The destruction of The Charlotte. Mind you, it happens within the first twenty minutes of the movie. So take that. It's a ship that is hundred of years old. The ship and its crew got lost in the ice then and died there. It's tragic. It's a horrible way to die. Still the captain chose to have his last moment be spent protecting a pipe from his own dying angry crew with guns until they were all dead. And then those fucking guys in plastic parkas and monster trucks come in, dig a hole through the side of the ship to get in, get one look at them and discard their ice preserved corpses in an instant to get to that fucking pipe, argue for a bit, and decide to have a row right there and then, that ends with setting the gunpowder alight and blowing up the entire ship, all of them leaving unscathed but with everything destroyed in their wake. Ben could have played the long game, and went along with Yann at least for a while. But no. He chose to take a moral stance in the worse way possible, risking his life and Riley's over it, all to say he does NOT want to borrow the stupid paper. Instead he consciously chose to destroy the ship generations of his family looked for, along with everything and everyone in it. And even if you overlook the precious historical artefacts and knowledge that blew up, think about those poor men who died in the ice, trapped there because their captain was following some greater good bs plot to save a fucking pipe, and whose only hope in death was that maybe someday, someone would find them and take them home to their family to get a proper burial. But no. Their perfectly preserved corpses, instead, blew up in a pointless, petty fight without a second thought.

I decided to ignore Ben assuming rightfully that the inuit village was going to generously accept his credit card and provide him with a way to contact his home and get a way to get back to it, as well as shelter and food in the meantime. While fucked up it does not technically constitute a crime. It's just very obnoxious.

Ben passing as 'Paul Brown' because his family is rightfully known as being conspiration theorists to deceive Abigail does count as an ethical crime but it's one of his lesser sin.

When Ben tried to haggle the price of the reproduction to the underpaid (black) woman working the gift shop during the big rich people gala. That was just wrong.

Stealing the declaration is ofc one of the crimes but since I really don't give a shit about it personally I really don't mind the stealing it, especially since they had a very safe sterile clinical plan to examine it.

Squeezing fucking lemon zest and heating it with a hairdryer, that I cannot forgive. Nope. No.

About the DoGood letters (is this a real thing ?? So on the nose). They had access to it, enough to get scans for their personal use. Ben's grandfather found them in an abandoned desk or whatever. They did not keep a digital copy of them. Riley is a fucking tech genius and they thought about packing paper photocopies before backing them up on a server so that they'd have access to them if they damaged the paper, and or if someone else was interested in reading them. Media preservation took a hit on this one. We can find a shitty ass porn movie made in the 60s on the Internet Archive (will be forever grateful) but significant documents written by a founding father ? That's private collection material only. Ben's dad did the only right thing there was to do and it was give them to a museum to be public.

The way they treated the glasses overall. I am aware that if an antique is useful it should be used and not stripped of its meaning. But you can't tell me that those thin wire and fragile glass panes are in any condition to be treated in any way than with gloves and intensive care. They look ready to snap. They were created by the Benjamin Franklin y'all seem to worship. Don't just put them on like they're cheap plastic. Don't just stuff them in your pocket. Don't let a fbi agent use them as a fidget toy. Don't plunge in a river from up high with them in your pocket after they spent centuries stuck in a brick barely protected by the elements. Have the tiniest bit of respect for the object that is more than 'it's a tool/clue to get to the treasure'

That time they had a gunfight in a cemetary and damaged tombstones was iffy at best.

The way they store the declaration deteriorated dramatically through the movie. At first it was in an acid free plastic bag with an extra exterior protection. Then they split the two. And by the time they're in trinity church the paper is being rawdogged in a leather satchel. And apparently Abigail is ok with that. I, for one, am not.

The desecration of Parkington Lane's tomb. That one I'm very bitter about. Maybe I just watched too many Ask A Mortician videos but I think the dead should be given more respect. FOR CONTEXT this is the man who most likely built/oversaw the building of the Trinity church BUT ALSO the whole underground structure beneath it along with all its failsafes and secret passageways. I'll agree that doing it in wood was a poor idea but he most likely didn't think it'd take this long for people to get there. So he's a master of his craft, he spent a lot of his life on it, was definitely in on all the secrets and about the treasure and its importance. That earned him the right to be buried within the church which is very rare, but that means he is a Big Deal in the secret conspiration cult. The only reason he wasn't remembered in history along the others is because having his name associated with the mystery would risk giving the secret location away as he had vowed to literally guard the door in death. (Not because he wasn't a slave owner like the others, mind you, cuz I'm sure the hundred of workers who built the underground structure and were conveniently killed at the end to keep the secrecy weren't white.) And so this guy gets about two seconds of attention before someone smashes the plaque with his name, then his coffin is pulled out violently because we only care about the treasure and you're in the way. No 'sorry buddy. Thank you for your service now if you don't mind we need to trample your remains because we couldn't be bothered to move your coffin a little to the side in our haste to get to the treasure you've been guarding'. Not a fucking second to just quiet down and respect the sacrifice. Your resting place is just a stop for us to greater goals. Ben might think of himself as an archeologist but don't fool yourselves. Those assholes are all grave robbers and nothing more.

Setting fire to an oil tunnel that hasn't been touched in hundred of years and could have bled all over, in a giant cavern full of very fragile artefacts, many of them cannot take the smoke, many of them are paper and/or very flammable, all to see how big the cavern is. Find a treasure, burn it in five seconds.

Give the treasure, which was mainly stolen from middle east nations through centuries and centuries, to the fucking British Museum. Alright out loud he just said Cairo, the Louvre and the Smithsonian but you just know like 30% is gonna go to the british bastards.

Alright now for the second movie.

Probably irrational but I just don't like the way they use all those antiques as furniture. They're haggling over those second empire chairs. They use those chairs. There are coffee stains from when Ben read in them and spilled it. There are probably fluids there from them fucking in the fucking chairs. I just know it. Fabric/antique conservation whomst ? I don't like it.

Ben defending the honor of his stupid ancestor who uses his last breath to NOT tell his son goodbye, but rather a riddle to a clue to something. I understand that saying 'death' while you're literally dying can be open to interpretation but did you have to give your kid fucking homework on top of his trauma ?

Not really a sin but Ben taking the reality check that his family IS full of chronic conspiration therorists like a dagger to the heart is 🙄

Like yeah in the end you prove them right but you do so by commiting a lot of crimes and generally appearing fucking insane.

I'm with the fbi guy on this one. Keeping the page secreat for 140 years is not a great look. Tell me you're dealing in shady illegal antiques black market without telling me you're dealing in shady illegal antiques black market

The absolute chaos and destruction they cause to London including hurting several people and behading an old statue.

Throwing the centuries old wood plank in that dirty ass river.

The fact that the leading specialist on pre colonialism native american culture is a white woman feels very very wrong

But I suppose if they went to native americans for help to find and exploit the city of gold that belongs rightfully to them would not go very well

*don't give a shit about breaking into buckingham palace it's just another tuesday* *have a nervous breakdown at the idea of breaking into the white house*

The fact that some president found a precious wooden pre colonialism artefact and just took a bad picture of it and burned it is definitely on the list but I'll gloss over it as it's not *ben's* sin

There's no way all the 'things' the Gates family somehow found through the years were all aquired ethically. 'got it from the grand daughter of a slave' and I'm sure she was informed of what it was and justly compensated for it.

Kidnapping the president (don't care about that) leading to the destruction of the secret passageway and the mecanism of it in montvernon by his security

The very absolute crime of the disfiguring of mt rushmore somehow ridiculed by being just a clue is very insulting to native americans.

Watching National Treasure movies with native americans must be An ExperienceTM

Wilkinson burning the letter from the queen. Wholly unecessary and just plain wrong. It's the proof that Victoria was a piece of shit but noooo it's just a fucking clue to be discarded

The mockery of olmec people just being barbarians who sacrificed humans and ripped off their hearts, when we're LITERALLY watching the absolute genius of their work in building the entire thing OUT OF GOLD. SHOW SOME FUCKING RESPECT

Handing over the city to a fucking republican president from Texas...

That team of archeologists tearing the city appart ? Yep you guessed it. All white.

#national treasure #benjamin gates

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