Children of Men (2006)

Jordan: It's literally like a nothing happens in this ******* movie. Hey everybody, welcome to the Alpha Trunk Pod with Jordan and Darius. My name is Jordan. You can find me on all socials at Jordy B Writing.

Darius: And I'm Darius. That's D's all up in the area on all socials.

Jordan: And this is our movie review segment. Today we're going to be reviewing Children of Men, another movie recommended by a good friend of the pod, Erica. Shout out to you. That's where I got it from.

Darius: It was on my list of things to do. And I was like, why did I put this on here? As I'm watching, I'm like, this isn't, who did I get it? Because it was like next, because I have a note with the list. That makes sense. Shout out Erica. Appreciate that.

Jordan: Yeah, shout out Erica.

Darius: 2 + 2 is 4. That makes sense.

Jordan: A little patron and fan engager of the pod.

Darius: Yeah, soon to be. co-host. Spoiler alert. Anyways, back to your drop.

Jordan: Yes, starring Clavo and Julianne Moore, Michael Caine, Alfred from Batman, Claire Hope Ashete, and Chiwetel Ejiwafor. This movie is in a place in a dystopian world in 2027, where human infertility has led to a global collapse. A jaded civil servant, Theo Faron, is hired to protect a young refugee. He must escort her on a perilous journey out of militarized Britain after discovering she holds an American secret she's pregnant. This makes her the most important person on earth. So I'm gonna set this up to send it over to you for act one.

Darius: Act one, we're going to call a world without hope. A weary bureaucrat, Theo Faron, is living a disillusioned life in a crumbling, infertile 2027 Britain. Nothing makes me feel older than future movies being the current here. He's reluctantly.

Jordan: I was like, what?

Darius: Yeah. They're like, in a far distant time. In a place far, far away. And it's like, yes, it's like last year. He's reluctantly tasked by the strange. activist ex-wife with a dangerous mission, securing transit for a valuable young refugee. And I always like to point out when there's a post-apocalyptic movie, because a lot of center-right people, conservative people, Republicans, whatever you call themselves, complain that Hollywood is like, all their movies have a liberal band. And Hollywood is very liberal place and it has a lot of liberal movies. But I like to always point out that post-apocalyptic movies are inherently conservatives because they're basically an ode to the Second Amendment. They show the downsides of having a big powerful government. They emphasize self-reliance and they show what a world would be like with like a total population collapse. And so these movies are basically what these movies basically highlight the advantages of conservative principles. So Walking Dead, The Last of Us, Children of Men, if you hated the big government and owned a bunch of guns and believed in growing your own crops and relying on yourself, you would do really, really well in a post-apocalyptic world.

Jordan: So 1984, Fahrenheit 451.

Darius: You know, so just want to point that out. Toss it to you. Act one. What you got?

Jordan: So I want to shout out the director of this movie, Alfonso Cuaron. He actually directed Harry Potter and the Prisoner of Azkaban, the third Harry Potter film, largely considered the best film in the series. Shout out to all the Potterheads out there, so I want to shout him out.

Darius: And the red bag was stupid.

Jordan: Oh yeah, for sure. He literally like, I think he said, I think when we did interviews, like, dude, they wanted to do the 4th one because he did such a great job. And he was like, dude, I'm tired. I can't even, I can't even think about making another movie. It took like 2 years off after that.

Darius: I know. I mean, he probably never, I mean, he probably is up 100 M's just off that one.

Jordan: Probably.

Darius: Just directing one Harry Potter movie. He's, it's amazing. He's still working. Anyways, shout out to him.

Jordan: And this is a couple years after that. So I will say I really liked it. What was unique to me about this movie is it is set in the future, but everything looked old. I thought that was a really cool touch and very creative, especially considering the way it showed just how much things had fallen apart, so to speak. It reminded me a lot of like the Hunger Games kind of **** where it was just like bearing everywhere. But it also, you saw the class difference as well, where you could kind of see who's in that one condo with the guy who had that weird machine, son of that crazy machine. And then he goes outside and there's just people like damned around horse and carriage in the street.

Darius: We take for granted just how much engineering and human capacity and governmental functioning goes into like making sure when you turn your faucet on, it's clean water every time. like making sure that when you touch your light switch, the electricity just works. That's not magic. Like a lot of government capacity and modern engineering goes into that. A lot of places on earth, it's not the case that every time they turn their faucet on, clean water comes out. It's clean water. The fact that like you take your trash and put it in a dumpster and it's gone in the morning and you don't know where it goes. No one talks to you. don't have to call anybody. It's just gone.

Jordan: Right.

Darius: Like that is like people don't realize that like that doesn't have to happen. And it's like, you know, if things collapse, it will stop happening. And I promise you, if your water stops running, you will feel it very quickly.

Jordan: Yeah. And anyone who's traveling around the country knows just how important clean water or the difference in clean water. Because I remember I went to Jamaica once and I accidentally tried some of like the water, their water. Yeah. And I almost threw up like right away. It's such a difference. It's crazy.

Darius: And when I was in Cancun, man, we you didn't even want to get ice in your cocktails because it was like, I don't really know. Can I get that margarita with no ice? Because I mean, they use their water. They're not using filtered water for the ice.

Jordan: Right.

Darius: So it was bottled water and cocktails with no ice. But it was all inclusive and they was free. So I still got the stuff. So one day on the pod, I'll tell the story about Me getting concussed in Cancun. So question for act one. Yeah. Do you have a go bag? Do you know what a go bag is? Basically a bag if things go left, you know.

Jordan: Yeah, like if the world were to fall apart, I just pack grab that or pack my **** and go, do I have a go bag?

Darius: Climate change gets so bad. We actually get hit with a real hurricane and there's flooding and you got to get in the car and go and you don't have time to think. You just got to go.

Jordan: Yeah. I could pack pretty quickly. Yeah. I can pack pretty quickly.

Darius: I mean, I'm not a doomsday prepper, but I have a go back. Birth certificate, social security card, a couple 100 bucks cash. Clothes, batteries, flashlights, first aid kit. Just a duffel bag that I keep. I'm not gonna say where I keep it, but yeah, I gotta grab that and grab something else. And then I'm out the door and I could be, I mean, it wouldn't even be 5 minutes. And so I think I always tell people, man, Always have a go bag because you never know when you're going to have to evacuate. And it doesn't have to be something this apocalyptic, but like, right, you know, your building catches on fire. Smoke is blowing in. You can't, you know, it's hot as a ************. You don't know. You can't see ****. You got, you know, you what if your medicine, you might have blood pressure medicine. I got.

Jordan: Yeah.

Darius: You got to go bag, you know. Always have a go bag because you never know when you'll have to evacuate.

Jordan: Yeah, that's true.

Darius: That's my advice for the people. Keep a go bag.

Jordan: Yeah, I mean, I have a book bag and a whole bag that I kind of keep just in case I need to pack and run somewhere where there's something like that. Yeah, I can pack pretty quickly if I need to. I know pretty much what I would grab in case of emergency.

Darius: Also have proof of citizenship. I don't know.

Jordan: Yes.

Darius: Your ID is not proof of citizenship. I keep my passport in my go bag. and my birth certificate, which are both proof that I was born in the United States of America.

Jordan: Yeah, and that is really important nowadays.

Darius: The 14th Amendment is still real.

Jordan: Yes.

Darius: It's basically impossible to amend the Constitution, so we'll be fine as far as the 14th Amendment. But anyways, Act 1, what you got? What else you got?

Jordan: Yeah, actually, I was going to say, I was like, this movie was really, really far ahead. Well, it's based on a novel, but it's really far ahead of its time considering everything's kind of going on. Like when they show like the cityscape and things that are going on amongst the, in this, not archive, but abandoned society basically. With the kids in cages and all, they just made me think of ice and all that kind of stuff too, which I thought was pretty crazy. I guess I just wanted to ask you what, oh, go ahead.

Darius: No, go ahead. I was gonna say, I think it was Thomas Jefferson who said, what do we have? It was like a democracy if you can keep it. People think Democracy is just something that exists. It's like, no, it's something you have to protect.

Jordan: You have to fight for every single day.

Darius: What were you going to ask?

Jordan: Yeah, I was going to say, did you, did seeing that movie and kind of thinking of the parallels of today's things that are going on in today's world, did it make you like anxious at all or fearful or maybe less hopeful for the future?

Darius: No, not really. Obviously, I'm not unconcerned, but I am, generally speaking, not very alarmist. And it's not good that the institutions have had to hold, but they have held. And it helps that he's 80 years old. You know, if he were 25 years younger, I'd be a lot more concerned.

Jordan: That's fair.

Darius: So yeah, I'm aware and some things are alarming. But no, my hair is not on fire. So that's to answer your question. So you.

Jordan: Okay. Yeah, because for one, it's almost like, okay, if all you need to do is see one person do it to know that it can be done. And it's like, if you can see one person ruin, like break democracy in this country, then what reason is there for it to start back up again in a sense? Or how hard would it be to resume it? And then more than that too, it's also like, okay, it's his followers. Like what would they do? What lengths would they go to encourage and protect that as well?

Darius: But none of them are as charismatic as him.

Jordan: That's fair.

Darius: They're not as funny as him. They're not as charming as him. They're doing like a bad impersonation. But also, you know, that's why I harp on people. As you know, I've said in a previous pod, you know, if you truly believe that this is an existential threat, then you need to be willing to do the art of persuasion and convince people. If it's truly like your life, you think the country's at stake, but you're not willing to fold on any policy issues, then you don't believe the country's at stake. You know, it's like, it was, I think it was Jon Stewart who was, you know, he did the the thing where he says, he has an uncle that's a Trump supporter and racist and people did the thing where they're screaming in the comments, like, if you could talk to him, then you, it's like, okay, well, do you believe this is an existential threat or not? Because if you're not willing to do anything that makes you uncomfortable, then you don't believe this is an existential threat. That's because your goal is should be if he's amenable to it. your goal should be persuasion. And if you're not willing to do that, if you're willing to just storm out of every room when someone, some Trump supporter says something you don't like, then you don't believe this is truly dire because you're not willing to do anything that makes you uncomfortable. You just, you're pretending to, but your actions, you know, reveal that you don't actually believe it's as dire as you say. So I'm willing to for work. That's why I, you know, and flexible in position taking. That's why I listen to people because I take the threat seriously. And I don't, I have very little patience for people who just want to storm out of every room that's, you know, to the right of center. Not even, I mean, these people to the right of Pete Buttigieg, they just want to storm out of every room. And it's like, well, then you don't believe this is a real threat. You just, you're pretending to because it's easy to fundraise that way. So no, I mean, Look, there are some images that are definitely disturbing and the movie can be a bit prophetic in that way. But no, I mean, it's democracy if you can keep it. these things, Rome, at one point, the emperors of Rome thought this would be forever. It's not guaranteed you'll be on top forever. It's not guaranteed this will be a country forever. You have to fight for it. You have to be willing to, you know, protect it. And so, you know, go out and do that every day. You got anything else for act one?

Jordan: So I was going to say, we talked about this before in, I think when we did a weapons review where the couple had lost a child and they were on that double decker bus and they were talking. And it was almost word for word, the conversation that we had talked about where both parents are grieving and they're heartbroken in different ways, but one kind of moves on and one just like can't let go in a sense or not. I mean, they both can't let go, but in they're not letting go, one tries to just move on as best they can. And the other one just kind of It just stuck in that quicksand, so to speak. And I like that they had that conversation because it really showed an example of a perfect example of kind of how that can break a relationship and break a human, So I really like that conversation that they had.

Darius: It's almost like 100% predictive. Like one parent will move forward and one parent will, I hate to say self-loath, but I don't know what else to say. And it will almost, they will resent each other for the choices they make if they will divorce. It's just, it's almost guaranteed. You know, you can write it in stone. So ready to get an act two of this platformer movie?

Jordan: Let's get it.

Darius: So the audience should know the movie is very linear. And so it's interesting. It holds your attention because it's a lot of stuff is going on, but it, you know, there's not, It's very much like if you've ever played like God of War video game and it's like, it's not really like a free-flowing like RPG choose your own adventure and just do your tasks and you go to the next task. So Act 2, the reluctant guardian, Theo begins a high-stakes cross-country trek to deliver the refugee to a secret sanctuary known as the human project. With both militant groups and the government pursuing them, he must rely on old friends to survive the intensifying chaos. Did you ever watch season one of True Detective? Yeah, I did. So Russ Cole, when he does that long shot, the 8 minutes when he's undercover and then he gets a guy and then it reminded me so much of this movie reminded me like those long one take shots where I just love season one of two detective. It's been awful ever since. But like Russ is undercover and then there's like the raid breaks out and he has to basically kidnap a guy and it's all in one take and it's all one long shot. And this movie reminded me of that. Also, I love when post-apocalyptic movies give us a glimpse of like the world that was before. Like you saw the Picasso paintings in this one. If you ever play like The Last of Us, they're in Seattle and you go into this huge convention space and you see like anime and it's like, what is this? And this, it's 40 years past the time, but it's like decaying. So it's a nice way to, ground the movie in reality. And so, yeah, what you got for that too?

Jordan: Speaking of long shots, it's interesting. I'm glad you brought that up. This movie came out before the movie I'm about to reference, but it reminded me a lot of that movie Birdman. I don't know if you ever saw that with Michael Keaton.

Darius: I've heard of it. I have not seen it.

Jordan: Really, really good movie. And the whole movie is basically like 1 long continuous shot. And that's definitely what kind of jogged my memory when I went and when I saw this movie. Yeah, I really did like the long shots because I feel like that's kind of the The testament to a really, really good director. For one, just commanding the attention of a cast and crew for that amount of long period of time and everyone being locked in and knowing what they're supposed to do for that long period of time. Because, you know, it's maybe a 7 minute sequence, but they had to be doing the action before the camera started rolling and then keep doing it after, you know. And so it's really like a 15 minute probably setup. And you're doing that over and over and over again. Like people don't understand how many takes you do in a movie. And so I just really commend the production for their effort on that.

Darius: And as a viewer, it almost focuses you, forces you to focus in a way.

Jordan: Correct.

Darius: When you're watching a movie with a lot of jump cuts and a lot of scene switches, it's just easy to get distracted. And like this one, you really feel like you're there with them because it's not jumping around. And so, yeah, I agree. That's.

Jordan: It almost for me at least it, because I didn't find the pace. I wasn't a big fan of the pace of the movie, but it almost, because of the long continuous shots, you almost didn't want to break like with pausing and, **** like that. And so it almost makes you feel like you're locked and trapped in this world, which as a citizen, you would be locked and trapped in this world, which I thought was really, really cool. Excuse me, a really cool effect. of the storytelling method that he decided to use for this film.

Darius: So the movie never explained the fertility crisis. What do you think it was?

Jordan: I don't, I mean, I'm trying to think. Because they weren't, no one was really communicating with each other. Like the doctors weren't communicating with the other doctors and hospitals weren't communicating with the government and so on and so forth. I almost wonder if it was some sort of like, almost like a diet type thing or like some sort of technological like glitch or something, like maybe like something in the DNA that went haywire or they were having too much of some sort of insulin. I don't know what would cause that, obviously, but Was it a birth rate?

Darius: So were people infertile? Did they explain that? Or was it just no babies were divorced?

Jordan: Yeah, she said first people were miscarrying. Like a lot of she was having a lot of miscarries. She was a doctor or a midwife. And then They happen more often and then they happen sooner in the terms.

Darius: Yeah.

Jordan: And then I guess eventually no one was able to get pregnant.

Darius: Interesting. It's probably, I mean, they didn't explain this. I doubt they know, but it almost seems like an evolutionary adaptation, but there's no reason for any animal to evolve, not to reproduce.

Jordan: Right.

Darius: You know, we're, I mean, we're currently as a species in a fertility crisis, at least most developed nations. And that's my question for later in the show. But yeah, it's just it's weird. It's hard to call it evolution. Yeah, I wish they would explain that. artistic people like to leave things ambiguous, which I think is often just lazy. So yeah, I don't know. Did it impact your enjoyment? I don't think it did for me. I don't think it impacted my enjoyment. Did it impact yours?

Jordan: It didn't impact my enjoyment it just made me I just found it to be a storytelling flaw yeah or like a plot hole because I mean if the whole move like okay this is just dystopian society but it's because humans are basically going extinct yeah you kind of need to explain the root of the extinction you know we watched dinosaur movies watch dress part they talked about the ******* that the meteors **** you know what I mean like it just didn't make any sense yeah and also.

Darius: Why would a fertility crisis inherently cause society collapse? People still seem pretty young. It wasn't an aging society.

Jordan: People weren't dying sooner too.

Darius: That society will collapse if population collapses, but not sure why in this world it had already done so. Because like the main character is like 35 years old and most of the people around him were of similar age. So why would they? stop, making sure the water comes out clean. Why would they stop making sure the electricity is right? Like, it's weird that they just, we sort of skipped some steps.

Jordan: Yeah. And I can't remember if they talked about this or not, but I know obviously they lost their child, but did that fertility issue cause kids to die younger also? Like, I can't remember if they really specified that. Also, like logically speaking, this is not good, obviously, but if less people are being born, there's more resources for everyone. So wouldn't the economy be better?

Darius: Not necessarily. This movie doesn't because everyone is young, but like, there's the reason why in modern world, people, when people say, why do we care that the population is declining? And it's like, well, for starters, I mean, it's just, you don't want an aging society because you lose your innovation. Most Fortune 500 companies are founded by people under 40. But 2, like, people have to, the labor needs to be, someone has to pick up your garbage and if you run out of people to do that. Right, that's true.

Jordan: Yeah.

Darius: So also, people are getting older, but you're not replacing them with young people. So. What happens when you run out of doctors? What happens when, who's going to take care of these old people? Because they're going to need doctors. And you run into a labor supply problem. You run into a tax death spiral because young people are productive and they work and they pay taxes to take care of.

Jordan: Less taxes, less community programs.

Darius: I know people don't want to hear this because it sounds like a conservative thing, but like one of the reasons you don't want a population to decrease is because the way Medicare is set up we pay taxes through our 20s, 30s and 40s so that we can collect in our 60s and 70s. But if you run out of people in their 20s, 30s and 40s to fund it, how are you going to pay it out? Take care of the people in your 60s and 70s. Yeah, it's, it just, it can, it can quickly go into a spiral where you don't have enough working age people to contribute their labor and their productivity and their taxes to take care to fund things, you know, and so people, societies need people. If you've ever played a video game like Donald Man or Civilization and you've ever gone through like a population collapse and like you're trying to rob here to pay Paul and there's a game called Banish where it's the same thing where you're like, you're just moving people around and you grow your civilization and the more hands you have, the more jobs you can do. But then you, let's say your society ages and they don't start having babies and it's like, okay, I need 12 pieces of iron, but I literally don't have a human being to go pick it up. And now because I don't have that iron, I can't build a house. And now this person died because they don't have shelter. And they just become, and now that person's dead. So now it's an able-bodied person who can't create a new person to add me to my labor pool. And so yeah, you definitely do not want to be in a society that's aging and dying off because it's not, yes, there'll be more resources available, but There's no one to cultivate them. There's no one to go and get them. So there's no one to cultivate them. So no, that's really all I had on that. Oh, you got anything else for act two?

Jordan: Yeah, it was. I read a lot about like the reviews and the reception to this movie and it's like critically acclaimed. And I was reading up on it and I saw a comment or quote from a reviewer or movie critic, rather. And they they were like, That car chase scene was one of those insane car chase scenes in the history of cinema or in modern cinema. And I was like, Did we watch the same movie? I thought that car chase scene was like, so it's a climactic.

Darius: Didn't the when did The Dark Knight come out, right? Oh, eight. I was going to say, I thought if it was a six, I'm like, even the most iconic one that year. Yeah, I mean, I thought the Julian Moore death was jarring and really shocking. And you rarely see a character not act bulletproof. So that was cool. Right. Michael Caine's character could have cut all of that. Don't really need to hang out in his garage. No. His cabin in the woods. Yeah. Then he died and then it literally was just like a rest point in a video game. Yeah. You know, so.

Jordan: I feel like Act 2 was, there was not a lot of happening in Act 2. I think my biggest, one of the biggest issues with this movie is it was nearly two hours and it was only about 15 minutes of like actual things happening in the movie.

Darius: Well, what about drag? Let's get to Act 3 then. Through the war zone. The final stage of the journey descends into a violent besieged refugee camp on the coast. Theo must utilize all his resources and will to navigate the deadly conflict and ensure the protected woman reaches her destination and a chance for the future. This woman is pregnant. It's revealed. And now he's like, I need to get her to the what's face to the end of the human project?

Jordan: Project human checkpoint. He has to beat the game.

Darius: So my thing is you get the baby there, then what?

Jordan: I don't know.

Darius: I mean, it's like, so I say who's?

Jordan: Going to raise the baby? Who's going to teach the baby?

Darius: Does the schools exist? Where's the food? So it's a lot like The Last of Us and like the end of The Last of Us, spoiler alert. Basically the game is Joel, the main character has to get, it's a zombie apocalypse, literally apocalyptic level, damn near extinction level event. And there's a lady, there's a woman with the cure. the little girl with the cure and he has to get her to this science lab across the country and chaos ensues. And so, but I've always said in the end, he realizes that she has to be sacrificed to cultivate the cure because it cures in her brain and he kills everybody and saves her in everyone's life. Well, he sacrificed humanity to save Ellie. And I'm like, how would they have scaled up the vaccines? You know, like they're in the middle. There's a million like politics have totally collapsed. There's no government. Everyone has their own political factions now. It's the most violent world you could ever live in. It's ******* chaos. You can't even, like, it's just insane. There's cannibals. There's every building is infected with zombies. You basically have to walk out in the open. And so even if you're able to kill her and create one vaccine, how would you scale it up to get it to people? How would you get people to trust taking it? This is the like, this is Again, post-apocular movies are conservative. Why would they trust the government at this point to give you this vaccine? True. You know, like you just show up at the door. I just watched a zombie eat my husband's face off. You're like, take his jab and you're going to fix everything. It's like, I'm good on that. I am cool. It's just, I've always like how, so they get the baby to the checkpoint and then what? Like it's still a fertility issue because Right. We're just going to, for the sake of the pod, say 18, 18 years old, they can start reproducing.

Jordan: Yeah.

Darius: And so you have to wait 18 years for this baby to get of age to reproduce. And this woman can do one at a time. And that's going to take 10 months. And you're going to get one baby. And you don't want to be inbred. So who's going to, it's just, it's logistically, it's a lot harder.

Jordan: And they never explained, they never really explained like the miracle of her getting pregnant either. Like how was she able to do it and no one else was?

Darius: I mean, I'm cool with that because The Last of Us never explained why Ellie was immune. They did it in the TV show later, but like, you know, genetic anomalies. Why do some people get, you know, Lou Gehrig's disease? I don't technically know. It's just genetics. Some people get a, dealt a bad hand of cards. And so maybe there's, she has some severely recessive gene that just did not take to whatever the rest of the world takes. And so that's fine by me. There's enough rare medical things that happen in the real world for me to believe this is just a rare medical event.

Jordan: That's fair. Yeah. So did you, when I, they showed like they had like the long video game, basically battle sequence, and everybody realizes she has babies, everyone kind of stops. And then secondly, the babies pass, they're like, all right, let's kill everybody.

Darius: Well, so, it's one of those things though, like you, we take peace for granted. The fact that none of us have lived through the Iraq war.

Jordan: Correct.

Darius: But over the arc of all of human history, peace is the rare thing. That's true. We've been at the one thing our species does better than anything is killing each other. That's what they know. That's innate to their human existence. And so they're not, the baby, they probably hadn't heard a baby crying 10 years, 20 years. Right. And so that after that initial shock wars out, wears off, they get back to doing what they do best.

Jordan: Back to normal. Yeah.

Darius: But like, again, man, we take peaceful transfers of power for granted. We take like, that's what politics is. Politics is the substitution of war. It's solving political disputes peacefully. It's not like, because before that, it's just Game of Thrones. I don't like that you're on the throne. I'm just going to kill you.

Jordan: I'm going to kill you.

Darius: Know, and like that.

Jordan: And my friend's going to kill your friends.

Darius: Correct. And it's just an endless death spiral. And so there's nothing that peace is rare. And, you know, we have a constitution that is held so far, but it's not guaranteed to. And it's not at all, no one thought there'd ever be another war in Europe and then Russia invaded Ukraine. That's just our life, and so, but that is the most normal thing, land acquisition wars is as human as air. So, peace is not guaranteed and peace is rare and peace is hard. And, so that's what you To answer your question, yeah, that makes sense to me that they would just go back to war because that's all we've ever done. So.

Jordan: That's true. Yeah, I thought that was a nice touch. Did you, I liked, or maybe just reaching here, I felt like watching the movie and even just like the scene where they literally put her and the baby on the boat. It reminded me a lot of Moses, like the opening scene of like Prince of Egypt, like that, you know, this is like the savior. We're going to make sure this kid is safe. And then Jesus literal