National Treasure

Everything About Fiction You Never Wanted to Know.

Riley: So let's recap: We've broken into Buckingham Palace and the Oval Office, stolen a page from the President's super-secret book and actually kidnapped the President of the United States. What are we gonna do next, short-sheet the Pope's bed?
Ben: Well, you never know.

—National Treasure: Book of Secrets trailer (lines cut from the finished Film)

A couple of Disney films from Jerry Bruckheimer which can be best described as The Da Vinci Code meets Indiana Jones.

National Treasure (2004) Ben Gates (Nicolas Cage) is the latest in a long line of the "treasure hunter" Gates family. The family myth is that the founding fathers of the United States hid a treasure that was gathered over the course of thousands of years and protected by The Knights Templar (although sympathetic in this story). Finding a financial backer in the form of the English Ian Howe (Sean Bean) and with his close friend and resident tech guy Riley Poole (Justin Bartha) they find the missing clue to lead them to the treasure's location. What they realize is that the next clue resides hidden on the back of The Declaration of Independence, and Ian reveals his Evil Brit side and intentions to steal it.

Ben and Riley decide to steal the Declaration first so that Ian can't. Doing this not only makes them an FBI target, led by Director Sadusky (Harvey Keitel), but they also have to dodge Ian and his team of mercenaries. Along the way they accidentally pick up the historical records agent Abigail Chase (Diane Kruger) and Ben's sarcastic father Patrick Gates (Jon Voight). The rest of the story leads to a Linked-List Clue Methodology that takes them across many patriotic landmarks and (of course) finding "the treasure to end all treasures."

National Treasure 2: The Book of Secrets (2007) After the Templar treasure find, Ben and his father are well-respected historians making rounds at various universities and lectures. During one of their lectures, Mitch Wilkinson (Ed Harris) shows up with a missing page from John Wilkes Booth's diary that implicates their ancestor Thomas Gates being involved with the Government Conspiracy to kill Abraham Lincoln. The crux of the accusation involves the idea that Thomas was actually plotting to kill Lincoln instead of eliminating a part of a map to a treasure that would have given the South the financial ability to win the civil war.

If the treasure exists, it will prove Thomas Gates story. To restore his family's reputation, Ben reunites with Riley to set out on yet another set of clues leading to yet another treasure. Of course the rest of his team show up eventually, including Ben's mom Emily (Helen Mirren). But at one point they run into a jam with the clue list, which requires a (highly illegal) meeting with the President of the United States to locate his "Book of Secrets."

A third film is currently in development, scheduled for release in 2014.[please verify]

These films provide examples of:

"We play poker together, Ian, you know I can't bluff..."

  • Can't Kill You - Still Need You: Invoked. in the first film, Patrick Gates knows that the villains will only keep them alive so long as they need help finding the treasure, and so encourages Ben to maintain that status quo.
  • Chekhov's Boomerang:
    • The meerschaum pipe.
    • On a smaller scale, the ultraviolet ink on the campaign button.
  • Chekhov's Hobby: A surprising subtle one in the first film. When the FBI rattle off Ben's history they mention he was in the Navy ROTC and a certified Navy Diver. Later when getting a change of clothes and looking up the clue to the Liberty Bell, Ben mentions his watch was a rather expensive diving watch. It is all suggested so quickly it doesn't come across as "In Your Face" but only adds validity to the moment when Ben escapes the FBI. Truth in Television, as large number of treasure hunters are certified divers because a great deal of treasure hunting involves shipwrecks.
  • Chekhov MIA: Ben's mother was briefly mentioned in the first movie, and the dialogue implied (though did not actually state) she may have passed away. (The dialogue could be interpreted as indicating a failed marriage, rather than death, which was confirmed when she appeared in the second film.)

Patrick Gates: At least I had your mother, for however brief a time! At least I had you! What do you have?

  • The Chick: Abigail Chase.
  • Cobweb Jungle
  • Cool Shades: Benjamin Franklin's multi-colored-lensed ocular device from the first movie. Come on, you gotta admit they look cool.
  • Dangerously Genre Savvy: Ian. "And tell the FBI agents listening in on this call if they want the Declaration back, and not just a box of confetti, then you'll come alone."
  • Deadpan Snarker: Riley Poole.
  • Disney Villain Death: Shaw. It is a Disney movie, after all.
  • Disposable Fiance: Connor, the White House guy at the Sequel.
  • Drives Like Crazy: Invoked in the sequel; the villains are chasing after Ben for a piece of wood with a clue on it. Ben runs a red light, holds the wood up to the traffic camera so that it gets a picture of it, and has Riley hack the police database so that he can pull the picture up. Ben then fakes giving the wood to the bad guys before chucking it into the Thames to delay them.
  • Drop What You Are Doing: Riley, with extremely valuable treasures, on being asked for an autograph. Technically he was holding food and drinks.
  • Durable Deathtrap: Played straight in the second film, but inverted in the first. The mineshaft leading down to the treasure room is a deathtrap specifically because the wooden stairway and elevators the Freemasons built to get down safely have rotted away after two hundred years.
  • Eagle-Eye Detection: A necessary skill to find the various clues and advance the plot.
  • Establishing Character Moment: When Ben, Riley, Abigail, and Ben's dad are looking for Ben's mom's office at the university (she's a professor), they aren't sure whether they've found it, until one of her frustrated students angrily storms out of the office shouting "I hate her!" Ben's dad looks at the others and says "We're in the right place."
  • Eureka Moment: Lots of them.
  • Evil Brit: Ian Howe, the villain of the first movie, has a British accent, as do most of his Mooks.
  • Fake American:
    • Helen Mirren as Emily Appleton.
    • Canadian Bruce Greenwood plays the President of the United States.
  • Flat What:
    • Ben responds with this when his dad tells him he doesn't have the Silence Dogood letters.
    • Also used by Riley when Ben tells him he is going to steal the DOI and again in the sequal when Connor refers to him as "Ben's assistant."
  • Foot Focus: Abigail gets plenty of this in the first film while she and Ben are changing clothes, including an instance where she curls the toes of one of her feet and taps it against the floor.
  • French Jerk: Subverted, for a change, in the second film.
  • "Friend or Idol?" Decision: Ben has to save either Abigail or the Declaration of Independence - he Takes A Third Option and saves them both. It is Subverted in that Ben makes it clear that the Declaration was his first priority, and Abigail supports this, saying she would have done the same thing had the situation been reversed. Which confuses Ben.

Riley: I would have dropped you both. Freaks.

  • Funny Background Event: In the sequel when Riley is discussing the Book of Secrets in front of the White House, the men on top of the White House in the background are real Secret Service snipers keeping eyes on the film crew.
  • Gambit Pileup: Such gambits are pulled by Ben, Ian, and even the FBI ("Someone's gotta go to prison, Ben.") in the course of the first film. The last gambit had Ben turning Ian and his Mooks in to cover his own ass.
  • Gentleman and a Scholar: Benjamin Gates.
  • Genre Blind: Apparently none of our heroes have ever seen an Indiana Jones movie.
  • Getting Crap Past the Radar: In his dad's house, Ben pulls off his glove by the middle finger when his father has given away the Silence Dogood letters.
  • Guile Hero: Ben Gates is one of these. He gets through most of the first film by cleverness, only having to actually hit a Mook once in the entire movie and even though he gets shot at several times, he never holds a gun or other weapon and he lets the cops take care of Ian Howe instead of beating him up and killing or turning him over to them like an action hero would.
  • The Gump
  • Held Gaze: The first variant occurs twice between Ben and Abigail. First, when they are arguing about her coming along with them to keep the Declaration safe: they gaze deeply into each other's eyes and Ben gives in to Abigail, with the Jefferson Memorial in the background. The second time it happens is when the adventurers are down in the tunnel beneath Trinity Church; Ben grabs Abigail, and they look deeply into each other's eyes soulfully before they kiss.
  • The Hero: Ben Gates
  • Hero Insurance: Addressed and ultimately avoided in both films. In the first, Ian was used as a scapegoat for the Declaration being stolen, mostly due to being the most criminal in their general actions, including fighting against the FBI. The public don't know Ben and family were involved with that part. In the second, the President covered for Ben's actions. Absolutely massive bribes of money and history also helped.
  • Hey, Catch!: Done with a flare in a room filled with gunpowder to escape being shot.
  • High Concept: A treasure map hidden on the back of the Declaration Of Independence. Concepts don't get much higher than that.
  • Hollywood History: There were founding fathers, and several were part of an organization known as the Freemasons, which some claim was related tangentially to the Knights Templar. But part of the movie's premise is that there was a Secret History of the Freemasons and Knight Templar, so it can also be labeled under Artistic License.
  • I Have Your Wife:
    • Or rather your girlfriend and funny sidekick.
    • The sequel plays it more straight...sort of. Pike holds Gates Sr.'s ex-wife hostage
  • Imperial Stormtrooper Marksmanship Academy - Every single one of Ian's Mooks. But maybe the trope is even averted, because Ian's Mooks are the only ones shooting throughout the whole movie. Still, there are up to 3 casualty-less shootouts. The same mooks also might not wish to damage the Declaration or what else the heroes picked up.
  • Impossible Mission: Some of the loftiest ever devised, from stealing the Declaration Of Independence to kidnapping the President of the United States.
  • Keep the Reward: Double subverted. It's mentioned they were offered 10% of the worth of the treasure, but they turned it down. Then it's revealed they accepted 1% of ten billion dollars, which is 100 million.
  • Kiss of Distraction: In the second movie, Abagail and Gates have to search the US President's antique Resolute desk. Abagail gets them into the Oval Office via a White House staff member she's dating, then pretends to lose an earring which they both crawl about on the floor trying to find, while Gates secretly checks out the desk. The staff member 'finds' the earring, and when Abagail sees Gates still needs more time, she begins to snog him passionately to show her 'gratitude', much to the bemusement of her ex-boyfriend Gates.
  • Landmarking the Hidden Base: Invoked for Mount Rushmore in the sequel. It is said from a document that it was deliberately made to hide a clue.
  • Landmark of Lore
  • Lemming Cops: The car chasing them out of the library of Congress in NT 2.
  • Linked-List Clue Methodology: Lampshaded/deconstructed in the original. Ben's Dad points out that there are a lot of clues, and everyone who's tried to follow them ended up wasting their life.
  • Load-Bearing Hero
  • Match Cut: The second film features a dissolve between the dome of St. Paul's cathedral in London and the Capitol Dome in Washington D.C.
  • A Match Made in Stockholm: Ben and Abigail.
  • Meaningful Name:
    • In the first film, the characters' names are nods to Revolutionary War figures.
    • All the Gates men in the series are named after them. Thomas Gates(middle name unknown, could be any of the five Thomases that signed the Declaration of Independence), Charles Carroll Gates, John Adams Gates, Patrick Henry Gates, and Benjamin Franklin Gates.
  • Meta Guy: Riley
  • Mission Control: Riley
  • Never Trust a Trailer: The Book of Secrets, despite containing all the nation's best-kept secrets, is actually not the major goal of the second movie. It's really just a small piece of a bigger puzzle.
  • Our Presidents Are Different: Bruce Greenwood as the President. More specifically, Greenwood is a President Personable, and is depicted as being a genuinely noble person who is sympathetic to Gates's quest.
  • The Password Is Always Swordfish: "VALLEYFORGE"
  • The Plan: This is how Ben operates. He makes a plan and follows through it.
  • Plucky Comic Relief: Riley Poole
  • Redemption Equals Death: Mitch Wilkinson
  • Rise from Your Grave: Played with when Ben bursts out of a Freemason crypt after finding the treasure. Freaking out a guy examining the the skeleton and disintegrating wood coffin that were left when they entered.
  • Rule of Fun
  • Screw the Rules, I Have Money: Ian Howe. To some degree acknowledged by Ben when he finds the treasure.
  • Sequel Hook:
    • The original ending of the first film was changed because it was actually mistaken for a sequel hook, when it was meant to just be a funny ending. The Alternate ending can be still viewed at the extras of the DVD release, however.
    • The second film has a more traditional one in the form of "Page 47."
  • Shout-Out: In the second film when Ben sticks his hand into an opening he plays a prank reminiscent of Roman Holiday.
  • Soft Water: Used and lampshaded both at the New York Harbor in the first movie and the Thames River at the second. Justified, since they showed Ben diving the correct way, feet first with arms crossed. There was an earlier mention that Ben studied in a Naval academy for wreckage diving — he would likely have learned how to dive from heights "correctly" to avoid worse injury.
  • Something They Would Never Say: Occurs in the sequel.
  • Status Quo Is God: Riley gets audited and loses his fortune so he actually has a reason to tag along. He gets the car back thanks to a pardon from the President but ends up crashing it five seconds after starting it up.
  • Steal the Surroundings: Ben does this with the frigging Declaration of Independence! After breaking into the National Archives Building (during a gala), he becomes pressed for time, due to the bolts securing the display case taking longer than he anticipated. When Riley loses his video feed, Ben forgoes the original plan and takes the whole damn thing! At least as far as the elevator, where he finally removes the Declaration from its display case.
  • Stock Aesop: Subverted. Near the end of the first film, after being left underground by Ian, Ben and his group find a medium-sized, underground room with nothing in it. They think someone else found and looted the treasure already, and Ben's father tells him that the room is real, the clues leading there were real, so the treasure itself has to be real; in essence, "It's not the destination, it's the journey." Ben accepts that, but points out that the original diggers would have dug another tunnel for air and in case of cave-ins. Scouring the room more closely leads them to the real treasure room.
  • Sundial Waypoint: One clue requires observing the shadow of a particular landmark at the right time of day to fall on a wall where the next clue was hidden behind a marked brick. While the sun's exact position would change over the course of the year, for the majority of the year it would land upon said wall where the marked brick was. Ben still has to look around for the right brick, though, which is helpfully marked.
  • Take a Third Option:

"Mr. Sadusky, I'm still not against you... But I found door no. 3, and I'm taking it."

    • Painfully subverted in the second movie, however.

Ben Gates: "We can figure this out! We can all get out!"
Mitch Wilkinson: "It's not a puzzle! No more puzzles Ben! We're all gonna die , or it could just be me!"

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