Anastasia died, Dimitri conned EVERYONE!

Who would win in a fight? Jafar, the Grand Vizier, or Rasputin, the advisor to the Russian throne? This is pre-Most Powerful Sorcerer on Earth. I mean, Jafar wins. I think I like Rasputin better because he's voiced by Christopher Lloyd. I love both of them. I know. But I think Jafar wins, right? Because Rasputin does nothing but just fail constantly, right? He killed the entire royal family. He didn't. He just tried to take credit for it. Right. They were going to do that anyway. His little demons opened the gate. Everything he does is something that could have happened on its own, as we might talk about in this episode. Anastasia, came out in 1997, is a ridiculously star-studded cast. He's got Meg Ryan, John Cusick, Kelsey Grammer, Christopher Lloyd, Hank Azaria. Don Bluth has two kinds of films that he makes. There's the one kind that is like edgy and adult and clearly he made for himself.

And then there's the other kind that's just like garbage. Just like he hated himself, right? Like he was just like, this is a kid's movie and that is as far as I care about it, right? Yeah, it's true. So I think we have good examples of both of those in the Anastasia series. Oh, we certainly do. I mean, clearly you're referring to Bartok the Magnificent. The very fondly remembered sequel. I mean, I think the word remembered is being kind. The widely forgotten sequel. No, right now we're talking about Anastasia. So I love Anastasia. I know you love Anastasia. We grew up like we must have watched it like literally a hundred times. We would watch it and then we would click rewind on the VHS player and watch it backwards. And then watch it again forwards. it's completely true like we would literally do that oh it's so funny watching it backwards it's pretty good it's like wow that giant demon just unbroke that bridge

the train just flew off out of that crevice now it's going backwards no we made up our own story it was like a story of him taking anastasia back to the orphanage yep he was bringing her back to the orphanage he dropped her off in st petersburg she tried to escape at the train station but the old lady's like go go get back to the get back to the orphanage oh man i love backwards anastasia well speaking of our own interpretations boy have i got a fan theory for you today we all know the story of anastasia it's about you know dimitri vlad they're con artists they just want to cash in on the whole anastasia situation they want to convince the dowager that this orphan girl is anastasia but it turns out she actually is anastasia and they all live happily ever after that's pretty much pretty straightforward huh yep i mean there's a few wrinkles like rasputin trying to kill her the whole time you could argue that rasputin could

be removed from this movie and it would be the same movie it certainly which is because it was based on a play and there's actually a 1956 film that was also based on this play uh and the play was based on the life of a woman named anna anderson who oh yeah at some point claimed to be anastasia or other people claimed she was anastasia and eventually she kind of like uh embraced it and eventually but she was not anastasia genetically not anastasia but anyway the the play and also the 1956 movie is also about these people finding a woman who they intend to pretend is Anastasia so they can get her inheritance from the dowager. That sounds a lot like the cartoon I just watched. Yeah. And it's kind of just a ripoff of My Fair Lady, which itself was just a remake of Pygmalion. It's actually really weird and something I've always noticed about the animated Anastasia. Like the cinematography of this movie is really similar to a play or a musical, right? Another

interesting little wrinkle is that like while this may have started being adapted from a play that play was not a musical and don bluth adapted it into a musical and then don bluth's adaptation was adapted into a broadway musical oh hey that's really cool anastasia is a broadway musical and i just think that's crazy like i love don bluth uh but like there is like don bluth is he got a broadway musical that's pretty cool yeah way to go dude i mean that's actually cool i didn't i didn't even know that let's put on our our conspiracy theory hats let me lay this one on you so what if dimitri was actually not conning the dowager what if he was actually conning everyone even vlad his best friend what if anastasia was not anastasia she was just an orphan girl and he was conning her too he wanted to get anya to fall for him so that he could get the reward and the inheritance like you said the original uh play was all about the inheritance

right right he wanted the inheritance he didn't just want the 10 million rubles right yeah i think that vlad only kind of caught on to this near the end which is why he lamented you know i never should have let them dance uh he realized that they were starting to fall in love and it was screwing his chances to get the the reward okay i think dimitri staged all of the attacks every time rasputin showed up he positions himself as the hero he creates a relationship between himself and anya he constantly i think throughout the movie is drugging her and brainwashing her into believing that she actually is the real anastasia while winning her trust now i'm dead serious though the Rasputin attacks only start after Anastasia meets Dimitri yeah that is true he's there for every single attack and he's the only one there for every single attack right and he's manipulating Anya non-stop throughout the movie however you look at it he's manipulating her

right and he also commits horrific crimes like kidnapping the dowager basically kidnapping Anya Foraging papers, scamming, conning. I mean, however you look at it, even the normal interpretation of this movie, he is trying to get Anastasia to believe that she is actually Anastasia. He does not believe that she is. And he is teaching her to also be Anastasia at the same time. Exactly. That's literally his plan. So, I mean, it's hard to argue against that. But the main hurdles that we'll probably have to get over as we talk about this movie would be certain things that she remembers that like, how did Dimitri, if she's not actually Anastasia, how did Dimitri get her to remember those things? And the magic. Another big hurdle is why did he give up the money in the end? He knows that the Dowager, she's smart, she's shrewd, and she is too smart to just hand over the entire inheritance. He knows he can get the reward, but not the inheritance.

even after anastasia you know remembers how how she escaped and after the uh the dowager kind of believes that she's still clearly suspicious um if dimitri took the money and then tried to get with anastasia she would know that something's up right like yeah he's in this for the long con and he's willing to do everything he has to do to get that inheritance right and you know all he has to do is outlive the dowager and get everything as long as he gains her trust all right okay we're going to have a lot of fun with this so let's start at the beginning with you at the very beginning in the past uh rasputin dude he's crazy like he's insane just look at his face why did they ever hire him he's clearly evil i know like he walks in looking all crazy he doesn't change how he looks when he's like a rotting corpse man he was always i love how he keeps saying like look at me i'm falling apart i'm a wreck he doesn't look any different it's the same why did they hire him

why did they suddenly fire him in public that to him is a grievous mistake he's like i'm gonna curse your entire family and then goes around like leaping from bridges into icy water to murder little anastasia with his bare hands apparently like he went from being kind of a passive participant in the revolution to a very active participant very quickly. A little strange. How do you explain Rasputin shooting down that chandelier? I don't think anything in that beginning thing happened. I think it's just stories, right? Like maybe it's kind of how the grandma remembers it. Maybe it's kind of stories Anastasia's heard about it, maybe from Dimitri. I kind of think that there is a very key moment in that beginning that really helps support your theory, which is the fact that Dimitri is spying on the grandma. No, and that part definitely happened. You're right. I don't know how to explain any of the stuff

involving Rasputin at the very beginning. But as you said, it's fairly inexplicable. No, I want to get this out of the way real quick. I think Rasputin, as we see him in this movie, doesn't exist. Rasputin is a story that Dimitri tells Anastasia. And it kind of makes sense due to the fact that Rasputin never actually shows up. He lives in limbo, right? Yeah. He's just kind of influencing them from behind the scenes. I think he's the boogeyman of this movie that Dimitri is kind of putting in Anastasia's head. Whenever he drugs her, he's kind of brainwashing her and telling her stories about Rasputin and the Romanov curse. So I think maybe he told her he destroyed the palace. He shot down the chandelier with his lasers. I mean, yeah, I got to make it interesting. So yeah, you think that story we're getting at the beginning is Dimitri's retelling of it and the only part that really happened that we know happened are the parts where Dimitri was there spying on the dowager.

So pretty soon after that, we are introduced to a grown Dimitri. He's a grown man and his best friend Vlad. Throughout this entire opening segment while they're singing Have You Heard? There's a rumor in St. Petersburg, Dimitri is constantly reassuring Vlad, right? Like, we're in this together. He says, we have three tickets out of here. One for you, one for me, and one for Anastasia. And then he announces, who else could pull it off but you and me? He really wants Vlad to not suspect that he's going to ditch him. This checks out because, of course, he 100% needs Vlad because he can't get to the dowager without getting to Sophie. And he knows that Vlad knows Sophie. At the end of the movie, however you look at it, Dimitri totally screws over Vlad. He denies the reward. Vlad should have gotten half of that 10 million rubles. I believe that Vlad did get the reward because he's like dressing up all fancy and he seems super happy.

I think he got his portion of the reward. No, no, no. At that point, Vlad is just cozying up to Sophie so that he can live a life of luxury with Sophie in Paris. That's all he's trying to do. OK, look, we got to point something out at the end of this song. Have you heard the biggest gun in history? I think I think that we're going to get really crazy here. and people listening are being like no no this con couldn't be that weird dimitri couldn't be that evil right he tells you it is he literally tells us at the beginning of this movie this is the biggest con in history he'll say this is just some random con and later on in the movie the dowager says she's seen so many people bring in other people who they've trained to look like anastasia so clearly he's not referring to training someone to look like anastasia and act like Anastasia. That's not the biggest con in history. Everyone's doing that. So clearly if

this is the biggest con in history and he needs to declare that to all of St. Petersburg, you know, I think he's got something to back it up. You know what the biggest con in history would be? It would be finding an orphan with no memory, convincing her she's Anastasia, training her to be Anastasia, bringing her to Anastasia's grandma, convincing the grandma that this orphan is Anastasia, convincing this orphan to marry you and then taking Anastasia's inheritance for yourself. That would be the biggest con in history. That would indeed be a big con. There is some basis for this. In real life, I mean, Anastasia, she died. It's been proven. Her bones were also there, just kind of further away from the other bones. However you look at it, Anya is not Anastasia because Anastasia is dead. Cut to Anya leaving the orphanage with Comrade Flemingkopf. Comrade Flemingkoff, for anyone who doesn't know, is the lady who says, and be grateful, Anya.

Yeah, sorry. Didn't realize other people wouldn't know the names of inane, unimportant side characters in this movie. Yes, Comrade Flemingkoff is the lady who kind of runs the orphanage. Now, I believe Comrade Flemingkoff was working with Dimitri. I think that he asked Comrade Flemingkoff to deliver him a girl with no memory of her childhood, who was the right age. Anya, as she leaves the orphanage, has this gold necklace around her neck. Comrade Flemingkopf points it out and even handles it. She's reminding Anya of it and the fact that all it says on it is together in Paris. I think if Anya had really turned up with this necklace and no memory, the orphanage would have kept it. Comrade Flemingkopf would have kept it and pawned it. Well, I mean, I think just lying down on the train tracks in the middle of St. Petersburg during a revolution, someone might take her gold blocket. Definitely. I think Dimitri had the necklace, just like he had the music box that goes with

the necklace. And he said, give this to the girl that you're going to deliver to me. Tell her that she had it when you found her. He wants her to think that she needs to go to Paris. I also think that Dimitri trained Puka the dog to lead her to him. Now that I can agree with. That's an evil dog. What does Puka mean? Is it a Russian name? Well, you might think so. I always did. I think thought it was just a russian word that maybe means dog but in the russian version of this movie they actually renamed puka because puka is not a russian word they renamed it to some russian word that means fluffy but the word puka hey you might remember if you know anything about mythology a puka is a mythological spirit a capricious and usually evil spirit from ireland from irish myths oh well hey where was the studio that made this movie yeah you may not know this But like Don Bluth, his animation studio for a very long time was based in Ireland.

So if they chose the name Pooka, they chose it for a reason. A lot of times these Pookas are like leading people astray in swamps and stuff to their doom and things like that. I can think of a few times this dog leads her astray to her doom. Literally leads her astray to her doom at the end. Yeah, for no reason too. Like he just runs out of there and leads her to Rasputin. I had to rewatch that again because I was like, I thought he left for a reason. I thought it was like chasing one of those demon things. When Rasputin was saying his plan for how he's going to kill Anastasia at her party, I was trying to remember how it happened. And I was like, well, but I know that nobody sees Rasputin. Like, how does he lure her out? And then the dog just lures her out. I'm like, was Rasputin really going to rely on that dog? Like, how did that happen? Is that just a coincidence? It was Puka. He's an evil Irish spirit dog.

So I want to point out that as Anya is walking down the road alone, she's totally crazy. She's talking to herself. She's screaming to herself, asking for signs that she should go to Paris because the necklace told her to. Anya ends up in St. Petersburg. She's trying to get a ticket to Paris and an old lady tells her to go and see Dimitri. So does this mean Dimitri had this old woman who just skulks around the train tracks, finds young girls who want to leave to Russia. And if they can't leave to Russia, she sends them to Dimitri because she knows that like he'll be able to like blackmail them into working for him because he can get them out of Russia or something. Yeah, that's exactly what I think. We know he's running all kinds of shady rackets. Who knows? He might be in human trafficking. I hope you don't like Dimitri. No, I hope you do like Dimitri because you're going to see him in a whole different light

now well wait wait wait so dimitri is actually holding auditions for anastasia why is he doing this if he's already set up a long con where he placed this locket with her in an orphanage oh that's for vlad's sake okay vlad doesn't know about the thing okay because he's gonna screw over vlad at the end all right he needs vlad to think that they're completely coincidentally going to run into this girl and be able to use her like vlad is his only way in with the dowager so he needs Vlad in on it, so he's got to convince Vlad that all this is happening above the table. Anya makes her way to the palace where Dimitri is staying. Her first hallucination occurs just after she enters the palace that Dimitri and Vlad live in. She looks at a plate and sees young Anastasia dancing with her dad. And she says, this place, it's like a memory from a dream, which is a weird thing to say. And I think implies that she's feeling a little fuzzy.

Right. I would agree on that. Definitely. Or it could be that she's really Anastasia and she actually remembered it. No. I mean, even if she is Anastasia, she's crazy because she starts singing and then ghosts pour in through the windows and start dancing with her. And she bows to them and interacts with them and they give her a necklace and she sprouts a dress. You could say this is like a musical, but I will say it is very different from like St. Petersburg is gloomy. St. Petersburg is bleak musical we got just a few minutes ago, that there was no hallucination in that, just people singing and dancing. I mean, we're kind of going at this whole thing from the angle that there is no magic. This is the real world, right? So if she's seeing ghosts, then she's crazy because there are no ghosts. Yeah. She does first hallucinate when she enters the palace and it starts when she blows dust off of a plate. Do you think there was like

hallucinogenic dust on that plate? Yeah. I think that somehow Dimitri managed to deliver some hallucinogen to her as she entered the palace. In the movie itself, the reliquary is in the ballroom right over her head. So the reliquary is where he stores his mind-controlling drugs, whatever he's using, whatever hallucinogen he's using. Yeah, some sort of, who knows, LSD derivative. Yes. Because anytime she starts one of her hallucination sequences, that reliquary is what starts it. It's always around when it happens. And I believe that's because she's seen it, but she's also kind of out of it because she's being drugged. So she just kind of incorporates it into her delusion. And it is literally right over her head when she has her first hallucination. Her hallucination ends when Dimitri ends it, yelling, hey, what are you doing in here? He's controlling this whole thing. I always thought it was weird, too, when he walks up to her and he's like, how did you get in here?

Do you think he was getting a little drugged? I took it from the angle that he knows who she is. He's been waiting for her and he immediately begins manipulating her. Like he's acting absolutely flabbergasted. He does a double take. He stutters like he is overacting the point that he thinks she looks just like the painting behind her, which she looks nothing like. he wants to convince her from his overacted reaction that she looks like it his jaw drops and he's just gaping at her and he turns to vlad and he's like do you see what i see and then vlad immediately joins in the act going yes yes with his mouth like the size of two heads dimitri plants the idea in her head by gesturing melodramatically towards the painting and saying i'm sorry anya it's just that you look an awful lot like what is interesting how quickly he goes from being absolutely flabbergasted to being super cocky and confident exactly yes when she

tells him that she remembers nothing from before she was eight years old dimitri says that's perfect yeah why yes dimitri it is perfect if and only if you plan on brainwashing this girl to think she's actually Anastasia. Right, which is completely true. Like, that is the plot of the movie. Like, you can't argue with that. Most people would be like, maybe he wasn't using drugs, but... They both immediately, like, without missing a beat, begin trying to manipulate her into believing she's Anastasia. Definitely. And they attach the ultimatum that she can only come to Paris if she does believe she's Anastasia. They're associating it with a reward for her. They point out that she has no memory. She wants to go to Paris. She's the right age. None of these things imply that she is Anastasia. And yet they're gaslighting her to believe that these things imply that she is Anastasia. I mean, just both of them are talking to each other as if she's clearly Anastasia to make her believe that it's true.

And she catches on. they start walking away, Vlad clearly has other plans than Dimitri. Dimitri says, why give away a third of the reward money? I just want to point out, if Dimitri is that iffy on giving away a third of the reward money, why give away half of the reward money to poor old Vlad, right? Yeah, that's true. At the end of this scene, Bartok is sitting up above them, watching them with the reliquary. And then the reliquary rockets off with Bartok in tow, rockets through the floor, through a bunch of weird like viscous, slimy mucus fluid through some weird inner looking tunnel with electricity that looks like neurons to me through this weird like sperm wall. Yeah. Before it gets to a floating globe that is made of bone. It's a skull. This is the bottle that Dimitri is using to drug Anastasia. This is a symbolic scene that represents him getting into her head, into her skull. And I think that Rasputin is him.

Rasputin represents Dimitri trying to screw with and mess with Anastasia. And I think that maybe Bartok represents Anastasia's common sense. Okay. Because he's kind of trying to like push back just a little bit against Rasputin in most of the things that Rasputin does. And he tries to break the reliquary. And at the end, when Anastasia goes all in and is like, I'm going to marry Dimitri, that's right when Bartok is like, I'm out of here, right? Her common sense just left her. He leaves, he's done. And also he finds his own love. Right, at the exact same time that, you know, Anya found her love, Bartok just finds another love, right? You know, I think he represents her. When Bartok says I'd give her a ha and a hi-ya and a wah and I'd kick her, sir. Is that just like her beating herself up? Dude, she's beating herself up. You know, she knows that like, I'm not Anastasia. Like subconsciously, I'm not Anastasia.

Why am I going along with this? Wow. Well, and this is extra cool because her inner self's devotion to, you know, Bartok, her inner self, clearly. Her inner self's devotion to Rasputin is mirrored in her own kind of unwilling devotion to Dimitri as she becomes more and more attached to him as the movie goes along. Bartok gets roped further and further into Rasputin's evil plans. They get on the train and this train is going to Germany, I think, so they can catch a boat from Germany. And at this point, they have kind of like that typical rom-com-y relationship where they're like bickering with each other, but we're supposed to believe they like each other. They love each other. And Vlad says she has a mind of her own, to which Dimitri replies, yeah, I hate that in a woman. I know. Which is like, this is the woman he wants to bring. She's supposed to be doing what he wants. She's supposed to be his brainwashed slave at this point, right?

And she's got a mind of her own. He hates that. It's not part of his plan. Either way, like what a horrible thing to say. Don Bluth reuses his character designs a lot. Yeah, clearly. And also if you go back to like Disney's alternate movies in the 70s. Like back when Don Bluth worked for Disney. He's reused most of those character designs from Robin Hood in his other movies. Maybe he just has a very specific style. Yeah, yeah. But I mean also, Kale from Titan A.E. is Dimitri. The prince in Thumbelina is Dimitri as well. And Thumbelina in Thumbelina is Anastasia. That's true. But she's a little different. The one thing I really wanted to say was actually I think Anastasia's character design is really good. Especially her original peasant outfit I think is great. Especially when she's wearing Fievel's hat. Yep, she sure does put on Fievel's hat. So they're on the train. While Anya is asleep on the train, something apparently goes wrong with their papers.

Dimitri and Vlad go out to do some stuff and then they burst into the room and wake her up on the pretense of moving her to the dining car. As soon as they're in that car, suddenly something explodes the link between the two cars and all the other cars go, you know, sailing away down the road while they're still attached to the engine. Vlad notices that something's wrong with the engine. So Dimitri goes to have a look and he's the only one who goes to have a look at the engine he enters this unbelievably hot engine and shouts very loudly anybody here despite it being like a three foot by three foot room where there's clearly nobody there he's clearly just shouting this for the sake of anya and vlad so you think he just went and then came back and said no one's driving this train we're gonna have to jump yeah i think so yes now i will say though that like They do open the door and Anya and Vlad can see that there is fire coming out of the smokestack.

So I think Dimitri might have sabotaged the train. I think he might have killed the driver. He might have killed the engineer. Oh, Dimitri. Oh my God, you're just getting worse and worse. He's a bad person. Now, this is one thing that I can't quite explain. I think maybe the giant green demon breaking the bridge was just in Anya's imagination. I don't know. Or a power of suggestion, Dimitri just shouts the bridges out and Anya believes him. That's kind of what I was thinking is maybe she just, that's her interpretation was like evil demons are trying to stop me from getting to Paris. None of them ever see those evil demons until the end. Right. Even if Dimitri didn't sabotage the train, everything, at least so far, that those green demons do can just be explained as things that happen. Like when they opened the gate for the mob to invade the palace. The coupling between the trains exploding.

That happens all the time. Right, but there could have just been problems with this train, right? Bridges do go out and sometimes train cars decouple and sometimes there's fire. But my point is, like, what just happened was actually insane. But when they get off, Dimitri's just like, I'm never riding a train again. They just act like it was a minor inconvenience, right? No, they keep doing that throughout the whole movie. I don't know. To me, it kind of seems like maybe there were just some train problems and they got off. Because all this started when Anya was asleep. So perhaps he slipped her some drugs. She fell asleep. Something happened, maybe with their papers, and they had to jump off the train. Yeah. And this is her dreamed up version of it. Right. She's pretty loopy still. Yes. And also, it's like she kind of gets to be the hero, right? Like, what do they teach you in those orphanages?

She hands him a lit stick of dynamite with no warning. And it's like burning all the way down. It has no time left. It has zero wick left and stares at it for three seconds. Even as a kid, I was like, why did they not cut off that shot? Like five seconds earlier, everyone who watched that was like, Dimitri, what are you doing? There's no wick left. Don't stare at that dynamite. Why are you still staring at it? You're still staring at the dynamite, Dimitri. Like a good five seconds. So it's at this point in the movie where they start to instruct her about what her memories are. Saying things like, you were born in a palace by the sea. A palace by the sea? Could it be? From this point on, actively brainwashing her, telling her, this is your life. Remember it. She does have the common sense to be like, I don't want to lie. I don't actually remember being a duchess. But they just flatter her and stuff until she agrees.

the one thing she actually remembers yes i recall is a cat and they say i don't believe we told her that so i as a kid i always thought they said i can't believe we told her that and i thought like they were playing a prank on her by telling her that this guy had a yellow cat and there's never been a yellow cat anywhere there's like orange cats so there's a yellow cat i thought this was like some crazy prank that they're screwing themselves over because when she talks about this guy's yellow cat they're gonna laugh and laugh that's what i thought as a kid no but that's the one thing that they didn't tell her i think it's just wrong i think they're like what's she saying no one has a yellow cat we didn't tell her that i don't believe we told her that i think that's just her brain kind of have because it's going off the rails trying to make things up and pretend that it remembers this stuff it's right here that they show kind of the

map of their route to paris pretty efficient route isn't it so they go down from russia through the baltics and then kind of through poland into germany they could just go through germany past denmark to catch a boat in like hamburg all the way to paris but instead they catch the boat in stralsund which is before they pass denmark this forces them to sail up and over denmark just to it around it, they have to sail up and over and then back around and down again. It basically doubles the length of their trip. Maybe Don Bluth just kept the same route from the play, because in the play, they actually were going to Copenhagen. But not to Paris. It's a stupid place to catch a boat to Paris. It's a nonsensical place to catch a boat to Paris. Kind of seems like Dimitri, for whatever reason, wanted to really lengthen their boat voyage. I wonder why he exactly he doesn't want them to get there too fast he needs more time to brainwash Anastasia

to teach her what to say as he said he would so they get to the boat Vlad and Dimitri are playing chess on the boat Vlad is clearly straight up completely cheating I mean he's not he's decimating Dimitri Dimitri is in a horrible position he has like three pawns and a king Vlad has like all his pieces. He's got like two bishops. His two bishops are both on black, which would never happen in a game of chess. He's either completely moronically moved his pawn to the other side of the board, promoted it to a bishop instead of a queen, and did it on black instead of on white. Or he's cheating. He, at one point during the game, moved his bishop onto the wrong square. But if he's so obviously cheating, why would mastermind Dimitri not notice? He did notice. He wants Vlad to think that he's in control. He needs Vlad to think that he's the genius so that he won't suspect when he convinces Vlad of the con that they are trying to pull that Anya is Anastasia.

What you're saying is as he's playing chess, he's like playing chess. Yes, he's playing mental chess. Dimitri and Anastasia at this point start dancing. Dimitri, who has demonstrated throughout this movie, however you watch it, he is incredibly skilled at social engineering and acting. I think that he is not flustered by Anastasia. Right. He starts like acting all timid and weird and stuff. None of this makes any sense. Like in the normal version of the movie, it's like he sees her in a normal dress and suddenly he's in love with her. Like up until this point, he was being super cocky, confident, annoying to her. And now he's like kind of being like this lovestruck teenager kind of thing. He's trying to get her to fall for him. He's like, I hate women who have a mind of their own method wasn't working very well. Right. So he's changing it up. He's like, OK, I'll just play the guy that she wants.

He's making her feel in control. He says stupid things like, it's a nice dress. You should wear it. And allows her to correct him with the unbelievably obvious phrase. I am wearing it. He then says, feeling a little dizzy, lightheaded, probably from the spinning. Maybe we should stop, even though they've been stopped for about 10 seconds. And she says, we have stopped. He's throwing her softballs. And this is shown by the fact that the instant they start dancing, he lets her lead. He's doing the same thing to Vlad. He's letting them both feel like they're in control because he is social engineering them. He then shows that he is in control because he leaves her hanging on the kiss. She moves in for the kiss. He does not move in. He then looks at her, backs away and says, you're doing fine. He should have tried this one to begin with. Exactly. When Anya and Dimitri are dancing, Vlad starts to realize that he's about to lose his cut.

He says, I taught her well. I just forgot romance. Vlad, how could you do this? How could we get through this? I never should have let them dance. You think he figured out that Dimitri is going to marry her and get the inheritance and not let him have any of it? Even in the normal interpretation, the only threat that this poses to him is if these two team up and cut him out of the reward. That's the only possible threat he could be worried about right now. Okay, okay. I don't know why he would care if they fall in love. So no matter how we look at it, he's afraid he's going to lose his reward. He still believes they're doing their original plan. He just thinks he's going to get cut out of it. Or he thinks that at least there's a chance he could. I would try to argue with you. But in the very next scene, Vlad is like bemoaning his fate. And Anastasia asks what's wrong. And he points to Demetrius and says, just riddled with envy.

Look at him. Yep, exactly. He's not, he's not seasick. He's really, really worried that he's jealous. He's like, oh, I'm so jealous. Like Dimitri is going to win. He's going to, he could get all the money right now and push me out of the deal. He's got all the cards now and I have no cards. Like he knows that his only card is the connection with Sophie. Okay. Okay. It's around here that Anya grabs the music box. Well, actually Puka fetches the music box when it falls out of the bag and takes it to Anastasia. It's true. As soon as Anya touches the music box, she hallucinates and sees dancing people. It's a trigger. He's been using this music box every night while he's doing his little drug-induced hypnosis. He's probably been playing the music box for her. And that's the trigger to put her in her dissociative state. At this point, Dimitri wakes up and starts another episode for her. He slips her some drugs symbolized by Rasputin saying, I'll get inside

your mind where you can't escape me and then green hallucination smoke fills the room and she has a crazy dream about butterflies and romanovs and demons and curses she sleepwalks out of bed onto the deck it's all stormy and she tries to jump off the boat to her death yeah dimitri braves the storm like he suddenly wakes up realizes she's gone runs out there and swings on a rope to rescue her, like freaking Indiana Jones. She wakes up in Dimitri's arms on deck, just rambling nonsense about the Romanov curse. And I keep seeing faces, so many faces. To which Dimitri replies, it was just a nightmare. This is not just a nightmare, Dimitri. Like in the normal interpretation of this movie, Dimitri goes out there and he's like, wake up, Anya, wake up you see her doing this you wouldn't think she's asleep yes she's crazy she just walked out and then after this totally insane thing happened you're like oh don't worry about it it's just a

bad dream and you're like oh crap this lady is like insane and trying to kill herself they are alone on deck now keep in mind she woke up literally in his arms he carried her out there And he's been whispering in her ear things like, the Romanov curse. He's going to get you. The Romanov curse. He wants her to wake up and think that he saved her. That's it. He's her hero. No, and the movie 100% implies that he's evil. In her hallucination, an evil bat demon comes up behind her and grabs her and it becomes Dimitri. Like he is a demon in her mind. She knows this subconsciously. Like it couldn't get any more clear than that. So this is the part where I need to talk a little bit about some MKUltra Monarch Mind Control stuff. You love that stuff. Apparently an expert. So yeah, the last time we talked about MKUltra Monarch Mind Control was in our They Live episode, which you should go back and listen to if you haven't, because it's a great episode.

Yeah, go check it out. I actually really like that episode. Now, there are a few little details that I need to point out about this dream sequence. It starts with just a huge flock of butterflies just partying. Yeah, ridiculous amount of butterflies. Then it is three butterflies that lead Anastasia into this dreamland, this dissociative state. Why did Don Bluth pick butterflies? Well, I would say it's a reference to monarch mind control. Monarch! Monarch butterflies! Monarch mind control is an unconfirmed subsection of the confirmed MKUltra experiments. It's claimed by conspiracy theorists that the Hollywood elite use monarch mind control techniques to brainwash young stars, create alternate personas for them that they can control and then exploit them to make money. So Illuminati conspiracy theories are crazy and stupid and they used to be fun. And then QAnon came along and literally took all of them.

And QAnon's not funny. And, of course, there certainly are actual real-world examples of people with a lot of power abusing that power to control other people. Like the NXIVM sex cult that Allison Mack from Smallville was involved in. Wow, dude, that was crazy. That was nuts. And that is essentially what people are claiming Monarch Mind Control more or less is. Allison Mack can't get within 10 feet of NXIVM without turning into a total freak show. Basically, in Monarch Mind Control, through calculated abuse and drugs, the handler, which is the name of the person kind of controlling you, takes a victim, put them into weird dissociative states by forcing them to watch movies like Wizard of Oz and Alice in Wonderland. Those become triggers to like go over the rainbow or go through the looking glass, which is dissociating and going into your alternate personality that they created through abuse.

And that alternate personality can be controlled by them. This isn't a real thing, guys, but you can supposedly use this to put false memories into people, stuff like that. Anyway, but the symbol of monarch mind control that, again, Illuminati conspiracy theorists will say is put into lots of different Hollywood movies. is the butterfly itself. And you can find examples in other movies that deal with brainwashing of, like, butterflies leading people places. Okay. It's symbolic of mind control. All right, all right. So they go to see Sophie. During the interview with Sophie, Anastasia appears to remember that she escaped during a siege on the palace. Why do you think Dimitri looks so concerned about this, though? I believe that Anya is just acting, and so is he. Of course he told her this. There's no way he wouldn't have told her his one interaction with Anastasia. The one thing he knows that nobody else knows that he can use to prove that she is

Anastasia. Right? She may believe that she's remembering it. She's just remembering what he told her. I mean, my interpretation was that like, when she says there was a boy, he opened a wall, Like, I think to me, it's clear that she goes into her dissociative state for a minute. I thought the reason that Dimitri was worried is because he didn't necessarily think he was going all catatonic. I don't think he thought she was necessarily ready to answer that type of question yet from Sophie. I think he thought she was going to get those from maybe the dowager, but Sophie was just going to do like the broad level questions. And he hasn't necessarily finished brainwashing her yet. And so he was worried, but he did a good enough job that she actually did remember it. After this, Dimitri kind of wanders away, lost in thought. He appears to have a bit of a change of heart. What's really happening is that we have reached the second phase of his plan.

Oh, yeah, dude, that's exactly what I wrote. This is him starting the second phase of his plan. Well, this is it, though. Like, they've now done it. They're in with the Dowager. Now he needs to convince Vlad that she really is the Princess Anastasia. It's interesting that this happens right after Vlad has outlived his usefulness. He did the one thing he was useful for, which is get them to Sophie. He does not need Vlad anymore. Vlad comes out screaming, we did it. Yeah. We get the 10 million rubles right in front of Sophie. And Dimitri is no longer happy for some reason. He doesn't want Vlad to get the 10 million rubles. Vlad is just gushing about how I almost believed her. And Dimitri takes this and runs with it. And he mutters, Vlad, she really is the princess. He's planting that idea in Vlad's head. And he's doing it subliminally, right? Like, he doesn't just tell Vlad until later. He does this by degrees, just like he did with Anastasia.

So he continues to act aloof but lovestruck during the next song and dance number. Perry holds the key to her heart. He needs her to think that if she goes back to the dowager, she loses Dimitri. So they go shopping in France, and my interpretation of this is that this is like a drug bender they go on. Like, this is one last, like, mind-bending thing that Dimitri does. People flying around, Freud walking by. This is insane. No, but there's also a lot of things that don't actually make any sense that is clearly somewhat hallucinated. During that sequence where Sophie is singing to the french sailors the first time we see them they are in a wide shot they all have french mustaches then it cuts to a close-up shot they all have no mustaches they have some face stubble but i want to note that the one that sophie picks and drags away by his neckerchief doesn't even have stubble on his lip no no stubble on his lip just stubble on his chin and then it cuts to a wide while she

is dragging him away he has a massive french mustache on his face again just huge like go back and watch it again and pause like that mustache just hops in and out of existence and while she's dragging him away with his mustache that wasn't there a minute ago vlad and dimitri and anya are staring at her in horror like what's going on with that mustache it's because she's supposed to be with Vlad right now she chose some other girl because they know that Anya is hallucinating and she's clearly like what's a mustache just hopping around on and off of that kind of thing yeah what's going on the guy has no mustache he's got a big mustache do you think that Anya jumped up on stage and started doing the can-can yeah well that's the next the very next scene they're watching can-can dancers all six of them look exactly like clothes of anya but they have slightly different colored hair like i mean this is a clearly a drug-induced dream sequence i think anya just like jumped

up on the table and started can canning and she imagined it as like a troop of can canners because dimitri panicked right he panicked when they were when they were doing the thing with sophie like oh she wasn't ready for those more subliminal questions yet i need to like like give her as much drugs as possible and really get this stuff into her head and so they went on this bender and audio is just acting crazy just getting up and dancing like oh there's five of me now and then they go up to the top of the eiffel tower that nothing weird about that but they're on top of the elevator instead of in the elevator yeah why are they on top of it they're sitting at the steps of the russian ballet and dimitri says we don't have anything to be nervous about she's the princess and vlad says i know i know and then dimitri says no you don't know i was the boy in the palace the one who opened the wall she's the real thing vlad

and then vlad just gapes at him and says that means our anya has found her family we found the air to the russian throne and you dimitri says we'll walk out of her life forever princesses don't marry kitchen boys we're going to go through this as if nothing has changed why don't she's not really a princess anymore and why can't she marry a kitchen boy she can't if she wants she's a freaking princess no i don't so then the anastasia shows up and he tells her how how beautiful you look right because he needs to quickly pivot from she's anastasia to you love me don't you the two cons he's playing well i just want to say that the ballet they're watching is cinderella which is another famous story about someone who loses their mind and thinks that they are a princess as we've proven in a past episode you're completely right and they knew that i mean they've seen why wouldn't they know that back in 1997 so after the play is over he goes to

introduce Anastasia to the dowager. And I also thought it was weird that Sophie is like, switches, like she pivots really fast from ushering them into this room, being like, the Grand Duchess will see no one, wink, wink, go and see her, to, oh, you better go. And like, Sophie, did you not expect her to be slightly ticked off? Like, she's not even super mad. Like, slightly ticked off that you did the opposite of what she told you to do? Like, come on, lady! But either way, Anastasia overhears, and she now thinks that this was all a lie correctly and she slaps dimitri and runs away and yeah she's correct it was all but at the same time like anya knew like 50 of this plan right i know like the only thing in the normal interpretation of the movie the only thing that she didn't know about was the reward and i guess the fact that dimitri was auditioning other people wow what has changed I could have assumed that.

Yeah. I mean, I agree. Like, what has changed here? She think Dimitri was doing this out of the goodness of his heart? Yeah, or she thinks Dimitri somehow saw deep into her soul that she actually literally was Anastasia and he was trying to help her remember this, but actually he wasn't. Right. He was just trying to convince her. Apparently that is what Anya thought, and that's on her, right? She should be mad at herself, which, you know, maybe she is. She's just taking it out on Dimitri. So then Dimitri straight up kidnaps the Dowager. Oh yeah, okay, Dimitri goes crazy here. He waits outside for the Dowager to leave. He gets in her car when she gets in. He drives away. He's grinning like a maniac. This is the happiest we ever see Dimitri. So when he kidnaps the Dowager, Dowager, fearing for her life, rightfully so, agrees to listen to him. She goes to see Anya, finally. And Anya says, go away, Dimitri, which is really not a good look for her.

Because it kind of looks like she's just mad at her co-conspirator that she didn't get the reward as the dowager walks in. The dowager asks, who exactly are you? And Anya says, I was hoping you could tell me. Because this is the relationship she's had her whole life. Yeah, people need to tell her who she is. Then she remembers the smell of the peppermint oil that the dowager wears on her hands. And then she remembers a specific memory about spilling the oil on the floor and the floor forever smelled of peppermint. And this is what starts to convince the dowager. The dowager then notices the necklace, asks to see it, and shows Anya the music box. Anya makes the music box work all by herself. And she starts to hum the song as she winds it up and then sings together with the dowager. You might think this puts my theory to rest because how could she know about the music box? How could she know the song?

How could she know about the peppermint? But think about it. Everything she's describing here with the music box, the song, how it works. There is one other person who knows that this is a music box. He saw the Dowager give it to Anastasia. He heard the song. And yeah, they specifically show Dimitri spying on them when he was a kid as they go through all this. She sings Once Upon a December and acts like it's their secret. But like they were singing it in front of a crowd. of people. Dmitry was there. Why did they show Dmitry spying on them right there? Unless to establish that one other person knows this secret, right? Like this is a Chekhov's gun situation. Why show a secret thing and have someone observing it if that's never going to come into play later? There is nothing in this scene or in this entire movie that she remembers that Dmitry would also not know yes as far as the peppermint goes he was a cleaning boy at the palace he would know

when the princess spilled the oil he probably had to clean it up probably asked to clean it up and he was mad because he couldn't get the smell out so he's probably complaining to anya about it right and and she's remembering his memories of like and it never came out and of course but like from the dowager's point of view like well no who would know that right he has had long in-depth discussions with his drugged-up friend Anya about all of these things. He's sung the song for her, he's showed her how the music box worked, as you said, using it as a trigger for when he wants her to enter a dissociative state, and he's told her in depth about that stupid peppermint that he couldn't get out of the rug. It forever smelled of peppermint. But that's enough for the dowager, and she seems to start to believe that Anya is the princess, Anastasia, and even like publishes a newspaper article about it.

I don't know. Then there's a scene where Rasputin is in the clock tower. He's looking for some cologne to look his best. Now Bartok, who is Anastasia's common sense, holds a picture of Anastasia and says, I'm begging you, please, like talking to the camera almost, forget the girl and get a life. Like this is her common sense telling her to forget her dreams. You're not a princess lady. Get your own life. Get out of this crazy situation. Stop letting other people give you a life, right? Stop letting other people give you random memories. Just live your own life. The Grand Dowager is sitting, you know, Anastasia's in her pajamas. They're just like chilling at whatever fancy place the Grand Dowager lives. The Dowager has a box of memories out. She is very clearly testing Anastasia. She's showing her the picture of her family. And Anastasia's like, oh, yeah, I remember them. And then she's like, oh, look, here's the drawing you gave me.

Remember? anything to say about that. Right? Like she, like the dowager wants to believe, but she's not sure yet. So she brought Anastasia home and now she's breaking out the box of memories to see what Anastasia remembers, quote unquote. And the only information that Anastasia shares about this picture that she quote unquote drew is that Olga made me so mad. She said it looked like a pig riding a donkey. A cursory viewing of the picture and dropping a name that she would know because Because Dimitri and Vlad have drilled these names into her, right? Olga. That scene at the very beginning starts out with her giving the pig riding a donkey picture to her grandma in front of Dimitri. And Dimitri would have seen that part at least. When the dowager summons him to get his reward, she says, 10 million rubles I has promised with my gratitude. He says, I accept your gratitude, your highness, but I don't want the money.

And the one thing he knows about the dowager is that she's very shrewd and she hates him. If he took the money and then pursued Anya romantically, this old lady who hates him would suspect that something's wrong. Yeah. Instead, if he doesn't take the money, he's free to do as he pleases with Anya. Because all of a sudden, he's not the weird con man anymore. He's the wonderful savior who brought her granddaughter back. It's true. Now, I think around here is where we can pretty much prove that Vlad did not get a reward and is doing his best to try to salvage the situation. For some reason, he's now dressed as nice as humanly possible with a ton of medals and stuff. We know that these are fake medals because he immediately, when he sees the dog wearing a fake medal, takes it from the dog and pins it to his own shirt why would they show that unless they're telegraphing to the audience that none of these

medals are real and he knows that his only shot now is to make it big with sophie and the rest of the royal family so i think he's just doing his best dimitri comes in i think this is kind of a sinister situation all vlad says to him is my boy you're making a mistake and dimitri says trust me this is the one thing i'm doing right so vlad is threatening him vlad is threatening him he's saying i'm part of the royal family i will make you pay if you don't pay me and then dimitri's like try me old man basically i mean that's all they say to each other like read the lines word for word i i so i think this proves that dimitri screwed vlad cut him out of the deal turned down the reward for both of them and now vlad he's gonna make dimitri pay if it's the last thing he does oh man vlad you're gonna lose you don't understand how crazy dimitri is nuts he murdered those train conductors well that might not have happened we don't know uh right after that dimitri

turns to interact with Puka. Very soon after this, Puka is going to show up in a prominent position to lead Anya out of the building and into trouble. So I think Dimitri is giving his trusted pooch Puka one more command. It's around here that the dowager herself convinces Anya to go after Dimitri. And this is just perfect for Dimitri. Like this could not be better. His plan is going off without a hitch. This is the only way he could be accepted by the dowager. Puka then leads Anya out into the hedge maze and to quote unquote Rasputin. Now, as soon as she enters the hedge maze, things go crazy. The hedge maze starts moving, closing in around her, leading her to a bridge. The bridge itself is in like a Parisian thoroughfare and is utterly, completely deserted. When she sees Rasputin and she says, that face. That's her recognizing Dimitri. Yep. She is in her disassociative state. In this drug trip, we do see the reliquary just releasing massive amounts of like green stuff.

So this is Dimitri's final magic act where he is doing his very best to get her to run away with him. We've got crazy things happening. Statues come to life. The bridge gets blasted apart. There's magical demons everywhere. Do we really believe that this all-powerful Rasputin magician couldn't drop Anya off a bridge? Like, he tries to drop her off that bridge several times. She just, like, doesn't drop off the bridge. Seriously. Like, I think there was a real wizard trying to kill you. I think he would kill you. Unless this is all a drug trip and Dimitri didn't want her to be killed. Dimitri comes to her aid and punches out Rasputin. The worst delivered line in this film, and I think Meg Ryan does a good job in this, but when she says, right, I couldn't have said it better myself. After Rasputin is like, long live Anastasia, whatever. Yep. One thing that happens during that fight is she breaks the reliquary.

Yeah, exactly. That's when the hallucination stops. Rasputin first dissolves into slime and then crumbles into dust and then blows away, leaving that trace. Nothing left of him. No trace. And then they elope together. They are about to kiss. He's about to get his prize, you know, in the normal version of the movie of the woman he loved. And then all of a sudden, Pooka pops up with a crown, which is telling us right to our faces, the real prize was the inheritance all along. Yeah, that's what he wanted. And he trained the dog to do that as like a symbolic Pyrrhic victory. I think this is more of meta symbolism.

You might ask, why are they on a boat? Why did they elope? Like, he's got what he wanted. The dowager loves him. Anya loves him. Why not just stick around? In that letter, which he has Anya right, she says, we'll be together in Paris soon. Uh-huh. No matter how you interpret this, they were never intending to stay away. They are going to come back. They're coming back. And if they're married, Dimitri's getting that inheritance. Exactly. You got it. So he just needs to take her away, get married to her. And also, like, he didn't prepare her yet for a lifetime of questioning from the dowager. He needs to instill in her a bit more brainwashing. And then he's going to come back and poison the dowager and get his inheritance. Oh, Dimitri. He's crazy. Vlad really has no idea who he's messing with. And then we end exactly where we started, at the beginning with you. Yeah, that's everything I have to say about Anastasia.

Anastasia should have been called Anya because Anastasia wasn't even in it. What do you think of this theory? Yeah, no, I obviously I like it. I didn't really argue against you much because as I was watching the movie, I was like, wow, I can find so much cool evidence for this. It's a fun theory. What did you think when I first told you this theory before watching the movie? I mean, obviously the first knee-jerk reactions are like, no, because there was magic in that movie. So obviously that had to be real. And also the other thing is like, she actually remembered things. How do you explain that? But like every single thing she remembers is something that Dimitri would know. Everything works. Dimitri, he was a bad guy. It is based on a play and a real story where in the real version, it wasn't Anastasia. It actually was someone pretending to be Anastasia. But I love the movie Anastasia.

And I think it's fun to watch it again with a new set of goggles and see it in a different way, which is what we try to do. So have fun rewatching it. How many bat wings up would you give it? I'd give it a wah and a hee-yah and a hoo-ah. Whoa. What else would you do to it? And then I'd kick it. Well, yeah, I couldn't ask for any more. No, but if you like the show, leave a review. It'll help other people to find it. Subscribe, you know, tell your friends. Message us on Twitter at Popcorn Isn't Real. Music for this episode was provided by Christine. And remember, the popcorn isn't real. *crickets*