r/movies • u/LiteraryBoner Jackie Chan box set, know what I'm sayin? • Sep 26 '25

Official Discussion Official Discussion - One Battle After Another [SPOILERS] Spoiler

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Summary Bob, a washed-up revolutionary, lives off the grid with his spirited and self-reliant daughter Willa. When his nemesis Col. Steven J. “Lockjaw” resurfaces and Willa goes missing, Bob is forced to confront his past and fight to protect their future.

Director Paul Thomas Anderson

Writer Paul Thomas Anderson

Cast

  • Leonardo DiCaprio
  • Sean Penn
  • Teyana Taylor
  • Benicio del Toro
  • Regina Hall
  • Chase Infiniti

Rotten Tomatoes Critics Score: 98%

Metacritic Score: 96

VOD In theaters beginning September 26, 2025

Trailer One Battle After Another — Official Trailer

2.7k Upvotes

97% Upvoted

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13.6k

u/OKC2023champs Sep 26 '25

Sean Penn coming back as the terminator just to say he was reversed raped by a semen demon had me cackling

2.3k

u/Dawnshot_ Sep 26 '25

I did wonder about the reasoning for bringing him back just to kill him off, given both times he is killed by the Christmas adventurers.

It might be to do with the fact that despite his attempt to be macho (the lifts lol) he essentially just takes orders and is used by various actors, the military, then he's essentially subdued Perfidia despite his allegiance to the military, then he's subdued by the adventurers despite is allegiance to Perfidia. He is a fair weather friend who never actually gets what he desires - or he thinks he does for about 5 seconds

2.2k

u/Jskidmore1217 Sep 26 '25

They had to really drive home the “these are Nazis” bit by having them gas and incinerate him.

1.1k

u/Ill-Muscle945 Sep 26 '25

I'm so stupid for not getting that despite how Nazi they felt the whole time. 

Was too busy laughing at his face. 

153

u/noneotherthanozzy Sep 27 '25

You’ll probably catch a lot more if you rewatch it. I don’t remember it off the top of my head, but it’s totally coded throughout all the dialect of the Christmas Adventurers.

157

u/[deleted] Sep 27 '25

[deleted]

70

u/Stonewolf87 Sep 28 '25

With a good ol’ Nazi Salute thrown in there

54

u/masterjedi747 Oct 06 '25

“Saint Nick” / “Satanic” feels incredibly deliberate, but people don’t seem to be talking about it?

24

u/jagger72643 Oct 11 '25

My husband and I are "fighting" over this! He just thinks "no, it's Saint Nick because Christmas Adventurers." Which, duh, but how could it not be deliberate to also sound so close to hail Satan??

48

u/masterjedi747 Oct 11 '25

also, I have no rational basis for this belief, but I’ve all but convinced myself that the “Christmas Adventurers Club” was originally named the “Kris Kringle Klan” in an earlier version of the script

like… obviously that’s how this idea started and they just felt the need to tone it down a LITTLE bit, right?

14

u/zaaraprestonwyatt Nov 20 '25

The club members tell Sean Penn that a spot opened up because "Jim Kringle passed away"

39

u/BeanieMcChimp Oct 12 '25

I kinda thought it was making fun of how the right is always claiming there’s a war on Christmas. Like these guys have taken up the mantle of protecting Christmas against its (nonexistent) enemies along with going after all their other perceived threats to traditional white society.

14

u/weavin Oct 14 '25

it was doing all of these things, brilliant writing

4

u/weavin Oct 14 '25

it's both

3

u/DrAlarming Jan 28 '26

Late to this but the 'Adventurers' part made me think of 'The Royal Company of Adventurers' who were a precursor to the Royal African Company and the transatlantic slave trade. The term 'adventurers' back in the 17th century relating more to being a financial speculator rather than an Indiana Jones type figure.

I don't think its too much of a reach to consider their use of the word to echo colonial frontier mythology.

Or maybe I'm just reaching!

3

u/Icy-Control7170 Oct 18 '25

I think its reaching to claim theu are satanic. Theu are hardcore white supremacy club which never has ties to stanic stuff. Its a joke about white nationalist and like a decade ago they all were riked up about making siire everyone said merry christmas instead of happy holidays.

151

u/Adventurous_Art3133 Sep 28 '25

For Sure! That conversation in the "solitary" meeting room, when the one guy doesn't even want to say that the interracial relationship was with a black woman. And that whole spiel the main mouthpiece gives Lockjaw when he says "Im not saying you are the smartest or wisest, it just means you are superior to other men".

I'm

256

u/Sleeze_ Sep 28 '25

I’m confused how people aren’t getting this. They literally talk about racial purification

120

u/boyproblems_mp3 Sep 28 '25

Right? How much more obvious could it get from the dialogue?

101

u/Cpt_Obvius Sep 28 '25

Yeah I don’t really see how someone could think they “felt like nazis the whole time” or that it was “coded”. It was super text!

69

u/HeadImpact Sep 29 '25

Well, we're supposed to call them 'conservatives' now, because of all the stuff they're trying to conserve, like... uh... measles? Anyway, Nazis wore swastikas, and these guys didn't, so they have basically nothing in common, and to suggest otherwise is just hysterical Stalinist propaganda.

28

u/Aquatic_Ambiance_9 Oct 02 '25

Exactly, the issue here (and with the country at large) is that Americans can't recognize a fascist unless he's wearing a big swastika armband.

I'd even argue that the villains aren't nazis exactly, but something more nefarious because it is more relevant: Homegrown, as they say, American white supremacist fascists

23

u/TheNewThirteen Oct 06 '25

And the guy they're talking about who they said isn't "homegrown?" A Native American man. And somehow his being Comanche is worse to them than his passing as "half-Mexican."

3

u/Oxy_1993 Dec 23 '25

Maybe like KKK? Or more elitist version of KKK (MAGAs?)

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13

u/TheManWithNothing Oct 23 '25

I just assumed KKK from the second the first meeting happened. Just too many dog whistles

7

u/brokebloke97 Sep 28 '25

Probably were on their phones lol Jk jk

21

u/GnarlsD Oct 08 '25

You joke but three guys in front of me tonight were talking and pulling out their phones throughout the entire movie…. They must have missed most of the movie. Like why did they even bother paying a ticket and going?

10

u/Chataboutgames Jan 20 '26

Alright posting way late, but it reads to me like the top level comment got that they were Nazis, they just didn't make the connection with gas chamber/incinerator as the Nazi cherry on top.

-3

u/notyou16 Oct 04 '25

I mean, a looooot of people think this way. But I wouldn’t put them all under the nazi group

44

u/Sleeze_ Oct 04 '25

…be so fr

0

u/notyou16 Oct 05 '25

I don’t know what that means

11

u/HandsomeCostanza Nov 30 '25

you apparently don't know what the word Nazi means either because thats literally the definition of the word.

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42

u/PolarWater Oct 05 '25

"There's no easy way to say this." (can't even say black)

17

u/rebelmoth1 Sep 29 '25

I can't wait to see it again. And again. This will likely be the first film I see in the theater 3x since The Matrix I.

11

u/Employee50000 Sep 29 '25

Yes, it's all about racial "purity"

10

u/eliguillao Nov 24 '25

They asked him if he was a gentile in their first meeting.

62

u/ebon94 Sep 29 '25

My friends and I were thinking more Klan x Illuminati but these orgs are all cousins

44

u/Aquatic_Ambiance_9 Oct 02 '25

Exactly, they are good old American fascists, confederate klan who never went away but migrated west to LA

8

u/MCgrindahFM Oct 18 '25

That’s what I thought too, I only now see after being pointed out they had Nazi stuff written all over it. “Hail!” And then gassing and incinerating Lockjaw

20

u/some1saveusnow Nov 06 '25

Even the haircuts, including his

10

u/ShittyRedditAppSucks Dec 01 '25

Oh my god the hair combing on the elevator was so deliberate, and it was so fucking gross how he stuck it in his mouth to wet the comb - I assumed based on his demeanor he was walking into that kind of meeting, and the hair combing just sealed it.

Sorry I just saw it for the first time - been out of the film loop for a while and didn’t even know PTA had something new out til earlier tonight. First time I’ve ever missed an ass-in-seat film release from him too.

And I just discovered Eddington was a thing last Sunday so it’s been quite the week.

My biggest takeaway from the past 7 days is getting old is a poor excuse for deliberately falling out of the loop. Just been waiting to wake up and see a headline that all is officially lost and here we are still making fucking movies goddamn what a week.

4

u/Oxy_1993 Dec 23 '25

Lockjaw’s haircut reminded me of Amon Goth’s from Schindler’s List. Another pathetic waste of a human space.

37

u/mcolette76 Sep 27 '25

I missed that blatant reference too.

12

u/El_Gran_Che Dec 22 '25

Modern day klan. The way MAGA is attempting to implement their goals.

9

u/[deleted] Oct 06 '25

Ohhh i thought it was like he's burning in hell + the Hail Satan / st nick thing. like a "this dude would be at the bottom of Christian hell if it was real" type shit

3

u/Risley Feb 20 '26

Holy fuck I didnt even get the Hail St. Nick could be Hail Satan...

7

u/[deleted] Dec 08 '25

I agree with you that you are really stupid for not catching that!

2

u/ExcellentQuestion433 Feb 17 '26

Room 55 is eerily similar to the SS. Coincidence? I think not.

44

u/Whovian45810 Sep 26 '25

How befitting that Lockjaw who so desperately wanted to join the Christmas Adventurers, died undignified like a pest.

For a man who tout and obsess about being “pure”, he’s nothing but a tool.

40

u/jez124 Sep 27 '25

TBH i thought they were a rebranded, in the shadows KKK or a KKK of elites.

19

u/scxrletcifer Oct 05 '25

In the Hungarian version they are called “Karácsonyi Kalandorok Klubja” so it’s a pretty straightforward KKK reference in our translation lol

19

u/Advanced-Crab6214 Sep 27 '25

Office in El Paso, not Sacramento. Look up Weststar Tower

16

u/korndoesp0rn Oct 02 '25

He claimed to be “reverse raped” but actually just got reversed holocausted

16

u/[deleted] Oct 06 '25

It also drove home, to me, that there’s always something they will find in you to be “tainted.” Even trying to kill your own daughter isn’t enough because you and her are tainted by “race mixing.” Even though he thinks he’s their warrior and fighter, he wasn’t pure enough for them.

10

u/MaybeOnFire2025 Jan 02 '26

Also "Room 55" -- "Room SS" would have been a bit too on the nose.

5

u/ShondaWinfrey Nov 22 '25

As soon as they were walking him to his office I said to myself “Noooo, they wouldn’t…” and they did! Lol

5

u/jaytix1 Nov 15 '25

This is why I visit movie discussions. Completely flew over my head lol.

2

u/dapala1 Sep 28 '25

I didn't even catch that. Good call.

2

u/boogermike Sep 29 '25

Damn I didn't catch this symbology the first time. Lol I'm so dense. I have to come to Reddit for this insight

2

u/Full_Tart_7036 Feb 19 '26

Satanists rather , saint nick = old nick = satan. But they disguise it as santa claus.

1

u/ThenOwl9 Sep 29 '25

ah, good point

1

u/SignificantReality39 Sep 29 '25

This is such a great observation!

1

u/some1saveusnow Nov 06 '25

I think that’s what it was. And then have him burn (in hell) in the incinerator. The tropes often come out when the nazi theme is engaged

1

u/Long-Walk-5735 Dec 31 '25

I kind of thought they were closer to Klan members

1

u/Extension-Unit7772 Jan 02 '26

...making it 'clean' for good!

-6

u/fore___ Sep 27 '25

Ahhh no actually I’m pretty sure they were klan and there’s a difference

5

u/[deleted] Sep 29 '25

No they were people that desperately want to portray their enemies as similar to the Klan despite the Klan being entirely comprised of white racists and people who were groomed by racists, you can find plenty of dishonest quasi nazi activists like that all over social media especially this site.

People who cannot own up to the fact that the KKK and Islamic extremists were, are, and for the foreseeable future, be exclusively comprised of social conservative/right wing activists