So they dug enormous tunnels with long sloth claws, up to 600 m (2000 ft) into rock & earth.

These surviving "paleoburrows" form complexes, with numerous cross-tunnels, that survive long after the elephant-sized ground sloths that dug them.

It's a bit of a mystery why they're almost all in Brazil.

This feels like this might be that, but as a whole movie?

Its like how, if there was a really fun film you enjoyed 20 years ago ... and, intellectually, you're also aware that there was a straight to streaming sequel 3 years ago that sounded achingly mediocre and everyone immediately forgot about.

For a while now my thought process with anything MCU has been "If I enjoy it, great - whatever happens, the last 10 mins are mostly, sometimes ONLY, about setting up NEXT THING. Characters will be balloon-animal manipulated, no matter what you've just watched, into what they are needed to be next."

Her journey - one of overcoming her immediate biases and assumptions about what shes been thrust into, and drilling down to what the actual threats and who her actual allies are - seems symbolic, certainly

(also learning something seemingly impossible is possible and being left with 'great - how?')

(also his moral code about theft)

b) Carol's story feels very Genly Ai? - navigating an oblique, occasionally contradictory system of unspoken rules, experiencing a period of seemingly being accepted, only to learn a threat of exile, bodily violation & complete loss of freedom was underneath it all

a) There's something very Estraven-coded in Manousos clashing with Carol on one level,

(which itself is about her seemingly being helped but actually manipulated by authority)

whilst also sharing a belief with her about the world that he'll perform a deadly trek & be subject to exile just to help

Just as supermarkets don't pay you to check out your own shopping and yet magically hire far fewer staff than ever before, you'll be surrounded by a barrage of shit goods with shit pictures on them and yet it'll still cost you the same to buy even though no artist is getting paid.

-And 'I dont want to be here'. And a cast of actors marginalised by gender, race, etc, either have to spoonfeed, cheerlead, die for or get leapfrogged by a white guy.

It pretty rare to get a 'I wanted this, was certain that, even giving it my all, I couldn't do it, and I need you to get that'.

For me, its the line from the 1st trailer "This might be very hard for you to understand, but some people are not good at things".

Spectrum of 'unlikely dude saves world' movies goes between 'I'm too cool to take this seriously', 'I've always wanted to do this so the world has to bend to that end'-