Whale Rider was a movie produced in 2003, and it is about a girl named Paieka, or Pai. She is the granddaughter of Nanny Flowers and Koro. In the beginning of the movie, Koro has a good relationship with Pai. He brings her to school everyday by giving her a ride on his bike, and everything is good between them. Later on in the movie, Koro is worried about the rest of his people since they are drifting away from the traditions. People are smoking, the men are drinking and shooting pool, and the children do not take the ancestor celebrations seriously. Koro realizes that there is going to have to be a new leader, but his only option would be to have his granddaughter be leader, which goes against tradition. Pai is determined to prove to Koro that she could be a good leader even though she is female, and throughout the film, she tries to get Koro to acknowledge that she would be the best option for leader. Koro starts a school for the boys to find out who would be the best leader out of all of the boys in the village. He does numerous things with the boys to train them to be a chief, and Koro is planning to eventually pick the best leader out of everyone that he is teaching. Koro does not allow Pai to learn how to be chief in his training school since she isn’t a man. Pai learns how to stick fight from her uncle, and eventually defeats a boy in a stick fight. Koro saw this, and yelled at Pai for it, since that is not what women are supposed to do. Pai later wrote a speech dedicated to Koro and the ancestors, but he did not get to hear it. He was going to the school to attend the concert Pai was in, but he noticed some whales on the beach as he was walking there. He and the other villagers tried to get the whales back into the sea, but they could not. Even when they used a tractor, the rope eventually broke! When Pai wanted to approach the whale, Koro told her to go away, since she has caused enough harm already. Pai eventually went over to the whale, and coaxed the largest whale back to the ocean by riding the whale, and the rest followed. Pai almost drowned while riding the whale! Nanny Flowers gave the whale’s tooth to Koro, and when he asked which boy retrieved the tooth, he realized that it was Pai that retrieved it. Koro went to see Pai in the hospital, and said that she was the new leader of the village. The movie ends with Pai and Koro in a boat being rowed by many people, with one of the people being Pai’s own father. Overall, I liked this movie. I think the actress that played Pai did a good job. However, I had a tough time seeing how it related to Theology class, even with our sheet. Nonetheless, I liked this assignment anyway. To me, this film is staying true to tradition. Even though Pai was not a male, and therefore, was breaking the tradition that only males become leaders, she followed everything else. I think she would make a very good leader, since she took all of the traditions seriously, while the boys in the village did not. She was serious during the celebration for the ancestors, and called to the ancestors. The boys liked the idea of being leader, but they still did things like goof around when they should show respect to the ancestors. The only part of tradition that was broken was when Pai trained to be leader. The breaking of this tradition was a big thing to break, but even though this tradition was broke, it was for the better, since Pai would make a great leader, at least in my opinion that is. The Catholic Church still keeps to its capital T Traditions. We follow the teachings of Jesus and the Apostles. We also follow the teachings in Scripture. We follow things like the Golden Rule that was taught to us by Jesus. The Catholic Church has also changed its’ lower case t traditions in a few ways. We changed the wording of the mass, changed the language, and allowed females to be altar servers, to name a few tradition changes. Some of the tradition changes are tough to get used to, but we eventually get used to it. For example, the wording in the mass was changed, and it might be tough, but it must have been tougher when the language of the mass was changed from Latin to the language that the priest speaks! Even though we may not like the tradition changes, they are for the better. It’s tough to think of what other tradition changes will happen, and how different the Catholic Mass and Church overall will be in 100 years from now! Whale Rider can relate to our lives in a way. Like Pai, we want the best for our lives and ourselves. We want to help others when we can (hopefully) like Pai wanted to help the whales when they needed help. We stick to the Traditions like the teachings of Jesus, as Pai and Koro stuck to the traditions of their ancestors. We try to convert other people to Catholicism, and Koro wanted the villagers to respect their ancestors. We also may have struggles with close family members in our lives, just as Pai had a struggle with Koro about who the chief would be. Even though this may happen, we hope that it will be better and have faith that it will be, just like how Pai kept at trying to prove to Koro that she would be a great leader.