A Catholic's Analysis of Dear Santa (A Blasphemous Christmas Movie?)

*Sigh* well this is a movie I have thoughts on. Hello catholiccontriversy here and while scrolling through paramount plus I came across a movie called "Dear Santa," "a movie about a kid who writes a letter to Santa and a spelling error causes a crazy mix-up" according to the description. I've heard the joke about "dyslexic kid writes a letter to Satan on accident," I knew what this was going to be from the set-up, and I had some kind of calling to analyze this. If you're new here, don't think I'm one of those "Harry Potter is the work of the devil" people (I've actually defended it on multiple occasions), nor am I one of those "to show evil is evil" kind of people (to know what to be on guard against one first must know what to even look for), but "strait up Satan" is not something to be taken lightly since one of his tricks is he makes you think he's nothing to be worried about, and "a dark comedy about a boy and Satan from religion mocking Hollywood for a platform that also has Satan submitting to the President of the United States" does not exactly instill confidence of "this will treat the subject of eternal damnation with the seriousness it deserves." First I'll get the "technical stuff" out of the way, as a movie it's very mid; it's a direct to streaming movie and it shows, not a lot of special effects but as a "reality based movie" it doesn't need much, the acting is serviceable but there isn't really much that needs emotion, Jack Black is kind-of playing Jack Black but it is different from his other roles, if it wasn't for the themes of the movie neither I nor Pokematic would be talking about it because it's just so nothing. If you just want an entertaining movie, don't bother with this. The movie is also PG-13 and earns it; there's an above average amount of swearing so even if you think the themes are "just fantasy" it's still "not for little kids." With that out of the way, time for the reason I'm talking about it. Oh, and spoilers ahead.

As I said, the plot of this movie is an 11 year old boy writes a letter to Santa, he doesn't fully believe in Santa but he's kind of doing a Pascal's Wager of "if he's not real, I wasted 10 minutes writing a letter to no one, but if he is real then I'm getting my wish." He also has dyslexia, so when he addresses the letter it goes to Satan (played by Jack Black, who I'll refer to as going forward to differentiate him from actual religious analysis) and not Santa. Jack Black then materializes in the boy's room one night saying "I got your letter, I don't get a lot of kids writing me" and the boy thinks he's Santa, but is confused by how he doesn't have a white beard or a red suit and how he has antlers instead of the reindeer. Jack Black picks up on this and tells the kid "I just dresses like this to not get noticed, here I'll show you" and then turns into a classic icon of Santa. Jack Black then tells the boy "tell you what, instead of giving you presents on Christmas I'll just give you 3 wishes right now, they can be anything, do we have a deal" (for which the rest of the deal is after the 3 wishes he gets the boy's soul, that he didn't tell him about) and the boy doesn't really know what he wants, but he would like the girl he has a crush on to give him a chance, and Jack Black says "done, you'll see tomorrow." So this first thing was pretty good; Satan does deceive, he makes himself look like someone to be trusted and that's how he gets you. While generally not quite as literal, he does present himself as "trustworthy leaders" and "good looking temptresses" and such, and to the eyes of a child Santa Clause would be fall under that category. Additionally, Satan doesn't directly tell you about the true consequences of your sins; in the Garden of Eden Satan through the serpent made a promise to Eve about what the fruit would do but didn't tell her the consequences of that action (God did, he warned them "if you eat this fruit you will die," but not Satan), so Jack Black not telling the boy the consequences of the wish is not far off. Allegorically, this is a decent depiction of Satan's temptation and deception.

The next day the girl the boy has a crush on says she likes him too, and Jack Black shows up in a hamster cage to tell the boy to go ask her out. Jack Black also gets the boy tickets to a Post Malone concert "as freebies" because "give me a chance" wasn't enough of a wish, and shortly after this the boy's best friend points out that he's not talking to Santa, he's talking to Satan, which after that realization the boy doesn't want anything to do with him but can't get away because he already made a wish. This is when things get a little complicated. First, good on the boy for immediately rejecting Satan, once one realizes he's sinning he should do all that he can to stop. I know there is debate between denominations about "is sin the act or the intent, and is ignorance of the sin or accident not a sin," but once an act is understood to be a sin then it is definitely a sin, and once the boy knew what he was doing he wanted to stop. He also argues that he didn't know, but Jack Black tells him "too bad, you already set this train in motion," and the boy does all that he can to not make another wish. Again, a decent depiction of "the spiral of sin." Once a sin is done it can't be undone (you can receive forgiveness, but you can't rewind time), and with many sins once you get that first hit it's really hard to not do it again. He got his wish and it felt great (more than great because Jack Black over delivered), but at a really high cost, and it was really hard to then deny himself that pleasure so as to not incur the cost. Again, not exactly "a bad allegory." Jack Black also over delivers, because the wish was "just to get a chance" but Jack Black give him "an amazing date." I am of 2 minds here, because this is presented as "Jack Black is just a nice guy who wants to do you a favor." On the one hand, sin has a way of over delivering on the rush; you think "it's not that bad" and then get a flood of pleasure to where you want to do it again, and the movie could be showing that in a more literal sense. On the other hand, this could be the movie saying to the viewer "Satan isn't that bad of a guy, he wants to make you happy," and is Satan working through the movie to make you lower your guard to him. It's not really clear which way it goes, either in the moment or in hindsight (which I will cover later). The same can be said with all the times Jack Black helps the boy to lie to or otherwise antagonize troubling adults in the movie (like when Jack Black makes a guy that's harassing the boy get violent diarrhea) which the boy doesn't necessarily want (he likes it but doesn't want it); it could be "Satan lures you into a false sense of security" or "Satan is friendly," and since it's not exactly shown to be "in the wrong" aside from the fact that "a clearly evil being is doing it" it's hard to really say.

After much temptation and rejection, the boy makes a second wish to fix his best friend's teeth so he can have the confidence to ask a girl out, after rationalizing "I'll still have 1 wish left, and I'm doing it for someone else." This is a decent depiction of the kind of mental gymnastics we humans do when we choose to sin. There are many situations where we say "well I've already done a bad thing, so long as I don't cross this line I'll be fine to continue, plus it's for a good cause;" an example of such would be stealing a loaf of bread and giving it to a homeless person, and then stealing a pack of lunch meat to also give to the homeless person "because it's just a loaf of bread and a pack of lunch meat, it's not like I'm holding the cashier up at gun point, and I'm feeding the hungry so it's a good thing." And to the movie's credit it does seem to treat it with the seriousness it deserves. Soon after the wish, the boy also ends up in the hospital and Jack Black shows him his best friend "hitting it off with the girl he likes" to hurt him and tempt him to make his third wish. This is not a bad depiction of the negative results of "sinning for good," the boy thought he was doing a good thing but then he feels bad about it afterwards. It's not guilt, but it is a negative emotion, and it is hard for him to not give into temptation again, and does have an element of "Satan is NOT your friend" to it.

There is even more temptation and rejection, and seeing the trouble this has caused the boy fully rejects Jack Black and says he's never going to make that 3rd wish. That is until his parents fighting comes to a head and he makes his third wish that his parents wouldn't get a divorce, to which Jack Black tells him to "bump it up since there are a lot of unhappy people who are still married," and he makes is pack with Jack Black that for the price of his soul he wants his parents to be happy. Now this is where the movie starts to go in the bad direction. The boy using his 3rd wish to make his parents happy is treated as a good act, a selfless deed. No, don't do that. That is not something to be shown as a good thing, that is bad. It's not "the tragic corruption of a good kid who gives into temptation and evil," it's "I can do good while doing bad," and that is the "don't take Satan seriously" messaging I was worried about going in. Also, the way Jack Black talks up "don't you want to make your parents happy," doesn't come off as "Satan over delivering to lure you into a false sense of security and get you addicted to the rush," it's very much framed as "Satan is looking out for you" since the boy is "already defeated and accepted his fait of eternal damnation;" at that point Satan is just going to take you and this movie is trying to get you to like Jack Black Satan.

What happens next is not good, Jack Black tells the boy he's not going to immediately die and go to Hell, "that's going to happen when his time comes in 70 to 80 years, but in the mean time, just be bad since you're already damned," and then there's a little montage of the boy being bad to the people who wronged him in the past (the crossing guard, a bully, and his teacher), which ultimately backfires as a car nearly hits him as he's ignoring the crossing guard, the bully punches him in the face and doesn't respect him, and the girl he likes says she no longer wants to be with him after what happened in class because he's a jerk now. He does receive some consequences for his bad actions, and seems like he takes a philosophy of "just because I'm screwed for eternity doesn't mean I have to be bad in the here and now," but it is missing the whole "repent for your actions" part which is bad.

Here's where the movie really loses it. It's revealed that Jack Black isn't Satan, he's a lesser demon that's trying to work up to full demon, and he gets reprimanded by Satan because he lied about being Satan and binding the boy to a contract without disclosing the terms, and that all the wishes were selfless which demonstrates that he's not corruptible, which makes the deal null and void. I'll admit that I'm not super knowledgeable about how deals with the devil work and what demons can and can't do in service of Satan, but from what I do know that's not how it works. As I said earlier, Satan deceives, so I'm not buying "you didn't tell him the rules and pretended to be someone you're not" as a "legitimate loophole," that just seems like something Satan would do. Also, "the boy is pure, I can't corrupt him" is also not valid; we are all sinners and as RedeemedZoomer says "we all deserve Hell, and it is only by the love of Jesus are we saved from eternal damnation." There's no way the boy is perfect and through his acts alone he escapes the fires of Hell, and to imply that he is is blasphemous. Also, even if his intentions were pure, he still sold his soul for 3 wishes and 2 of the times did that with full knowledge of what he was doing. That's not "a technicality," that's the mental gymnastics to justify sin, which Satan really likes since it draws you away from God. Also, Jack Black is fired after this, and it's framed as "we should feel bad for him." Even though Jack Black is revealed to not be "the ultimate evil of Satan" and instead is "one of Satan's lesser evil minions," he's still an agent of evil who tried to corrupt a good boy. Like, no, we don't feel bad for demons.

The movie ends with Jack Black going to the boy and telling him the truth about how he's "not Satan and just a demon, a fired one at that who now has nowhere to go," and that the deal is null and void, and that he still had one wish left since his parents were already making up before he made the wish, so he gave him a wish from his letter, and that he's going to miss him because he started to like him. Again, this is bad. This is meant to make you sympathize with a literal demon. This is also the "in hindsight" thing I was talking about in the beginning. For the first wish Jack Black gives the boy super tickets to a big concert "because 'giving you a chance' wasn't big enough." Since this was "before Jack Black got to know the boy" there is an argument that the over delivering was "part of the scheme to corrupt the boy," but with the added context of "I just liked the boy" it's really hard to not see it as also being "I'm a nice demon." The boy also asks Jack Black what he's going to do now, and it's directed in an emotional way of "I'm worried about your safety, don't say goodbye friend, will I ever see you again." Again, that's bad, demons are not your friends and should not be depicted as such, and the only response one should have is "I hope to never see you again," and this is trying to make you feel bad for a literal demon. Then the third wish, Jack Black had no reason to grant that since "the deal was no good," meaning he did that "because he's a nice guy," which again is bad, it's making evil look good. And the wish is that he would have his dead brother back (because the trauma of that was like what caused his parents to fight, and the reconciliation was them realizing they couldn't blame themselves or each other for the accident), and when the boy goes to the Christmas tree his brother is alive and healthy, which is meant to be a touching moment, but again it was done with dark powers by a being of evil. This happy ending is meant to make you not fear Satan and his minions, it's meant to make you think "Satan is powerful too, and he'll also look out for you," which is Satanic. And then it ends with Jack Black being the angel at the top of the Christmas tree, where the mom just before said something about "I like the angel tree topper, it's like a guardian angel looking over us." No, just no, Hell spawns are NOT guardian angels and to make them appear so is blasphemous, and there's no question that this is saying "evil beings are not that bad." 

So that was Dear Santa. It wasn't all bad, there were some things that were "a good depiction of how we can be tempted by evil and fall to sin," but it really misses the mark with "the realities of evil" in the end. It also uses God's name pretty flippantly (a lot of people say "oh my G-d" as an exclamation pretty regularly, including Jack Black who is a demon who said "it's just an expression" which it certainly isn't and is wrong). The good doesn't outweigh the bad, and based on where the movie ends the good could be argued as just being a deception to get you to lower your guard for when the bad comes. I recommend against it; on top of the blasphemies and potentially pro-Satanic message, it's also just not very good. It's not the worst use of Satan in fiction (adult animation tends to make Satan "completely harmless," this at least had some "he's dangerous" elements), but "not the worst" does not mean "good" and this was pretty bad. Well, this has been Catholiccontriversy, signing off, and may God bless you.

Agent Cody Banks R-rated Edition Experience

Disclaimer, this is a joke based on an error on Amazon's listed rating.

Hey everyone, I was searching through Amazon to find some movies to watch while I do my busy work on Monday and I came across this little oddity. Back in the early 2000s it was not uncommon for would be children's movies to be extra edgy; Josie and the Pussycats was originally PG-13, and Scooby Doo was originally going to be R, Inspector Gadget has scenes that had to be cut, and similar. Well little did we know, Agent Cody Banks was also originally rated R but was edited down to get a PG rating. It was unknown in fact until it quietly surfaced on Amazon Prime Video. When I saw that they had the R-rated version, I knew I had to see it and compare it to the original. I wouldn't say that I was "a major Cody Banks" fan, but I rented it a number of times and would say that I know it pretty well. OK, so let's dive into what this movie has to offer for an edgy R-rated spy comedy. When looking at the content description that pops up, it says so for sensuality and flashing lights, so let's see what kind of sensual content this bad boy has.

So in the first 5 or so minutes the younger brother is roasting Cody about how he's had more dates than him. Cody says "playing in the treehouse doesn't count," and the brother says "it does when you're playing doctor." Oh man, that's a highly suggestive joke right there, what kind of "doctor" are they doing?

Second, before Cody's training is activated, his team mates are making fun of him in the locker room. His handler/partner walks in wearing a skin tight jump suit while "hot in here" plays, that's a pretty explicit song that's all about getting naked. Then when a team mate is hitting on her she pulls off his towel exposing him, and then another kid says "if you're pulling towels, how about you pull mine." That's some pretty sexually charged stuff right there.

Then when Cody is getting his gear he gets glasses with low level x-ray vision, that he then uses to look at his partner. That's a sex joke right there. And later in the movie he uses his x-ray glasses to look at his classmate's underwear. Very explicit.

"How to talk to a girl" is where it's really heavy. There's a hologram woman that hits on Cody and he can't talk to her. That's some kind of explicit fantasy. There's also a scientist that's showing off an anatomical manakin of a woman and he's waving around the breast muscles of the manakin talking about how they'll make you go wild. Oh man, that's something right there.

It's not just this though, there's also the driving instructor telling Cody his job is to weed out the drug using teenagers, and then before Cody cuts the instructor break line he says "damn." That's some serious stuff right there. There's also at the end when the villain gets killed by the nanobots eating him from the inside, and we see it happen.

Oh man, this is quite the explicit edition right there. No wonder this was edited down to get a PG rating. The changes are really subtle, almost indistinguishable from the theatrical cut, but it's right there on the listing. I also can't believe that no one on the lost media wiki ever documented this version that has gone unnoticed, or that people like RebelTaxi never talked about this edition. Well, here I am spreading the word that amazon prime video has the unknown R-rated cut of Agent Cody Banks, right there.

My Idea for a Live Action Lilo and Stitch Sequel

So if you don't know, Lilo and Stitch had a remake, and well, here's my review of it if you need additional context.

Short story, it wasn't good, and the ending was just terrible. Even with that though, I think there is some good to get out of it, and that is with a dark PG-13 sequel, one that takes this story in a new direction that if done would be a good apology for all that Bob Iger has subjected us to (not full forgiveness, there is still a lot of work to be done, but an accepted olive branch that is the start of the path to restoring trust). Oh yeah, MAJOR SPOILERS for the Lilo and Stitch Live Action sequel. Oh yeah, I also originally tried posting this to the Lilo and Stitch sub-reddit but because of the spoilers it needed mod approval and the mods seem to be rip van winkle since they wouldn't accept my spoiler post, so I guess my website will get all the potential traffic instead of your sub :P

It opens with an ariel view of the California coast, it's sunny and people are surfing, it looks great. We then transition to Nani in her dorm room, studying frantically as she longfully looks out at the ocean, wishing to be back in Hawaii with Lilo. We glance over at multiple low grade assignments, she's not doing well. She heads down to the cafeteria gets some food, tries to have some small talk with classmates, but it doesn't work because "all she ever does is talk about how great Hawaii is, and that marine biology was so much easier when she back home," and if she misses it so much why did she come to California instead of studying there. As they walk away she says to herself "I ask myself that every night, I can't believe I gave up learning marine biology for free at a Hawaiian state school to learn here." She sits down alone, depressed. As she starts to eat her sad meal everyone starts freaking out and looking at the cafeteria TV. It's an emergency news bulletin about mass chaos happening in Hawaii. It's like something out of a disaster movie; explosions, fires, deadly lasers, and the feed cuts off after something hits the camera.

This scares Nani, because Lilo is back in Hawaii. She runs back to her dorm and starts fidgeting with the teleporter gun. It hasn't been used for months after it broke, and because of that she lost contact with Lilo. She can't fix it, it's alien technology after all. She's now running around the city trying to find someone to take her to the island, but no one is crazy enough to go there. Defeated, Pleakly finds her and says "come with me, I'll take you to Hawaii."

When she gets there, she goes to her old house looking for Lilo. The house is a pile of rubble, completely destroyed. She runs over to the neighbor's house but she can't be found. After some searching Nani finds her under some rubble. Nani asks where Lilo is and if she's safe. The neighbor says "I don't know where she is, but she's probably safe considering she's causing all of this." "WHAT!?" "Yeah, I was trying to take care of her, but the girl was just too wild, especially with that dog. Things were OK for a little while when you were coming around, but it just got harder and harder, so I had to give her back to the state. Well when she heard that all hell broke loose. She and that dog broke out and went on a rampage, and here we are." This is really bad, Nani asks where she might be able to find Lilo, and the neighbor gives her some ideas but no real direction. She tells Pleakly to help her but Pleakly just got word that the galactic federation was going to "contain" the problem. That's good, until he explains that "contain" means completely destroy. Nani says "maybe if I talk to her I can fix this." It's a big start-up scene.

As Nani ventures into the wasteland, she's confronted by other evil experiments. When Lilo and Stitch went evil, Jumba jumped at the opportunity and said "I have 625 other evil experiments, this will make the evil all the easier." It's just a rouges gallery of different experiments, all of which are something that confronts Nani's different insecurities. I'd give more details, but unfortunately I'm not THAT big of a Lilo and Stitch fan to know all the lore and who would be right. I would have this last like a good 20 minutes at least.

After many "sub bosses," Nani finally reaches Lilo, a completely feral child sitting on a throne of destruction surrounded by evil experiments with Stitch at her side. Nani is about to get thrown out by an experiment but Lilo grants her an audience. She talks to Lilo and asks why. "You abandoned me for your California. Ohana means family, and family means nobody gets left behind. You left me behind, so we're no longer Ohana. Stitch is my ohana now, and he showed me how great it is to be bad." The heartbreak is visible, Nani is petrified as she realizes this is all her fault. "Stitch, get rid of her," Stitch laughs manically. Pleakly drags Nani away because Nani can't move.

That's as far as my flushed out idea has gotten. I don't know how I would continue it, and how Nani would redeem herself and Lilo or if this would end on a sad ending of the end of the world. "It's a Disney movie, you gotta end on a happy note," first off, this is an alternate reality where Disney recognizes their mistake and does a scorched earth "retcon" of what they made before and since this idea existing is already a far fetched fantasy I can do what I want, and second, "Ohana means abandon your only family to go to college" is not a happy ending and that actually exists in this reality. I guess I'll make 2 different endings and let the test screenings decide.

Here's the set-up for the final scenes. Pleakly talks to Nani and says we need to get out of here, but Nani is still broken by what happened. She tells Pleakly that she can't go on, how could she live knowing that she was the cause of all of this, her selfishness drove the last person she loved to a life of destruction which is going to end in the death of her last family.

Here's the "happy ending," Pleakly says something about his parents and how on his planet people screw up but don't forget the lessons they taught them, like the importance of parasites in an ecosystem (a subtle reference to his mosquito obsession in the real movie that was dropped in the remake). This is played for laughs but it gives real inspiration to Nani, and Nani finds a photo of them all together at an Elvis impersonator concert. Nani fights her way back into the throne room desperately trying to talk to Lilo, but it's no use and the guards are throwing her out, but then she yells "remember the time we went to see Elvis with mom and dad?" Lilo hears this and tells the guards to stop. Nani shows Lilo the picture and says something like "mom and dad are still here, in our memories and in me, I was the one who suggested we see the Elvis show, I know I'm not mom and dad, but I know them and remember them, and can tell you more about them so you don't forget, and I realize I was a shitty sister [yes she says "shitty," this is a PG-13 movie], but I've learned from my mistake, and I promise to be better, I'll never leave the island again, I hated California, I was failing my classes and nobody liked me, and I never got to surf, and worst of all, I didn't have you." Nani takes out her student ID and throws it over to a fire experiment where it destroys the ID. "I left you behind, and I'm sorry, but now I'm coming back to get you." Stitch gets ready to kill Nani but Lilo tells him to stop, and that all the experiments have to stop. Now they go around commanding all the experiments to stop their destruction and start fixing up the city. We cut to the galactic death ship that is getting ready to blow up the earth, but Pleakly calls the leader woman and tells her to call off the death laser, and shows her how they are repairing. She orders the laser to stop, and then demands to know what made Stitch stop. She is introduced to Nani again and Nani talks about how she learned what's really important in life, and is now going to use that to teach her little sister and dog, and as we see them rebuilding the house the social worker comes over and starts grilling her about if she's a fit guardian for Lilo. Nani then says "bitch [again, PG-13], do you realize that when I gave up guardianship Lilo and her friends almost got the earth destroyed, but now that I'm back the earth not only ISN'T blown up but the war zone that resulted from that bad decision is now being rebuilt, frankly, I'm the only fit guardian to take care of Lilo, now why don't you get off my property before I have muscles here force you to leave." The social worker a bit taken aback and startled then says "very well, I'll be on my way and you'll never hear from me again." The sisters laugh as she stumbles away, with some of the experiments scaring her. Lilo then asks Nani to tell her a story about mom and dad from when she was a baby, and we fade out of the movie as Nani starts talking about the time when Lilo got into mom's purse and changed out the real money for play money, which made for quite an interesting time to pay for the groceries that week. And they all lived happily ever after.

Now for the "sad ending." Pleakly tries to tell Nani to get on the ship to get to safety, and Nani can't decide on if she should or not. Pleakly gives some kind of speech about following the laws and doing what was right for her, and Nani is like "oh REALLY, you're going to tell me to do something that's right for me, well news flash, the last time I 'did the right thing for me' the world got a giant target painted on it for some intergalactic death ray. Everyone was telling me 'you're not fit, you're too young, you have your whole life ahead of you, don't get tied down,' and when I finally listened to them and went to pursue a degree for myself instead of taking care of my little sister she and that dog went and destroyed the island which is now going to end in the destruction of the earth, all because I wasn't there." As Nani finishes this monologue, an experiment picks up the ship and starts shaking it trying to get them to come out. Lilo is outside with an army of evil experiments wanting Nani's head. Just then, an alarm starts going off, the death ray has been fired (it's "slow movie light" so all the things I'm about to talk about have time to happen), and the ship starts taking off automatically with Pleaky and Nani on board. The docking bay door is still open, and Nani sees Lilo on the ground screaming "get back here you coward, we're not finished yet." Nani jumps out of the ship, lands on Lilo tackling her as she hugs her tight, and then the screen fades to white. Boom.

Well, which do you like? Do you like the "classic Disney happy ending" or the "mature deconstruction sad ending?" This has been Pokematic, signing off, and bu-bye.

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