The Hello Welcome to the extra credits of James Cameron's
Avatar, Fire and Ash. I'm Trey.
And I'm Kelsey. Hope you're all having a great
start to 2026. It's only a few days into the
new year and we basically spent all of 2026 so far in Pandora
because we watched 3 Avatar movies in three days to start
the new. Year, that is true, yeah.
We've also been prepping for Titanic on the Patreon because
we're covering that right now, probably tomorrow night.
So we're very much in James Cameron mode.
We are in his mind, yeah. We are in James Cameron's mind.
And I'm not sure I'm enjoying it.
I don't think I am. It's been an experience.
If I have to hear one more person explain how James Cameron
single handedly built the Titanic from the ground up, I'm
going to lose my fucking mind. My favorite thing in the he.
Built Pandora. Rewatch.
Oh yeah, he built. Pandora with.
His bare hands. Yeah.
People talk about James Cameron like he's this like modern
scientist. They're like, you know, and not
only is like, you know, I respect what he has done in in
visual effects, skilled craft. I respect what he has done as a
filmmaker. We have covered him on Patreon
before, right, With aliens, plural.
And I, and I think, you know, we've talked about him like on
and off a very annoying person and we'll get into that today.
But also like I'm very in and out on his movies.
And that will be the experience of the podcast today.
People do defend him like he is AWA though if that makes sense.
They yeah, he's like a a cinema God, you know, to a lot of
people. And I understand why I I loved
the Titanic. You know, growing up I was
obsessed with Titanic, which I will talk about on the Titanic
pod. I will save that for that
conversation for there. But I just, you know, like I get
it and I don't. Yeah.
And that will be the topic of today.
I mean, he's the highest grossing film maker of all time,
so I think that has a lot to do with it.
And he's made like 10 movies. And if you don't count the
Piranha one, he's made like 9. So it's pretty crazy.
So Avatar, Fire and Ash, Yeah. I'll be honest, we were very
reluctant to cover this film. I'm kind of surprised we are
recording this. Me too.
If you're new to the show, this is not a franchise that we love,
and many people do. So we're not here to hate on
what you love. We are here to give film
criticism, good and bad. And I think Avatar at this point
is kind of like culturally unavoidable, right?
It feels like an obligation to discuss it if you have a movie
podcast however it. Feels like a Titanic level movie
right? Has a cultural footprint.
It's a bigger movie than Titanic, though I would argue
maybe has a smaller cultural footprint than Titanic, which is
interesting. Which is, I think, is a debate
that people. Had online has gone to see it,
right, Possibly like it's a Christmas movie.
I know, especially when it first came out, it was like, have you
seen Avatar? But if I asked most people on
the street, right, to explain the plot of Titanic to me, I
think they would not because it's a historical, you know, you
know, actual thing that happened.
But if I asked them, you know, to explain what happens in
Avatar, I'm not sure so many people could could tell me,
right? Or if they they could tell you
all of a sudden it would sound real problematic.
They'd be like. Yeah, they'd be like and the
white soldier. He becomes blue and.
Has dreads, he becomes the king of right the.
The whole community. He becomes a better Navi than
the Navi themselves. So anyways, this movie came out
weeks ago and we were probably the only podcast in this movie
space that was like, no, thank you.
Not for us. Like I said, I think we're very
much in the minority of not loving these films.
However, we rewatched the first Avatar on New Year's Day,
immediately threw on Way of Water the next night.
And I think both of us, I don't want to speak for you.
At least for me, I enjoyed being teleported into Pandora and
meeting a lot of the characters and seeing the imaginative world
building and I was like, these movies are strangely good movie
experiences, but also bad and really fascinating ways.
So I figured, why not go see Fire and Ash?
We did. And we were like, let's talk
about these films 'cause I think there's a lot to discuss.
Yes, because they're actually like very kind of simple stories
visually, like astonishing, right, but manipulative in in
terms of like what the story is actually doing.
And so have we given our warning yet?
I know you said this isn't what we usually do for new listeners,
but should I go ahead and do kind of like what I do on the
Marvel podcast? I mean we we at least have
already like 3-1 review right? One star.
Maybe I should have done it sooner.
From just this past five. Minutes for any new.
Listeners, we've been one star bombed in 5 minutes multiple
times. From all the the courages of the
world who see themselves in general.
Porch. OK, so here's the here's the
warning for new listeners or new ish listeners.
We usually talk about movies not only as as if it's like a good
movie or not, right. We talk about the cultural
impact of movies. We're both in education and
we're interested in like what a movie is actually saying, what
people are taking from it in terms of a message.
And that is what we will talk about today.
So we'll have a lot of critiques about what the Avatar movies are
doing in terms of a like colonial story, right, and a lot
of problematic tropes. And then we'll also kind of like
celebrate the the achievements in, you know, filmmaking that
that are happening here. So we're going to have like a
balanced review. But my warning to I can't
imagine, you know, women are doing this.
It's probably men, so, you know, take that with whatever. 99%
sure it's yeah. 99% sure if you feel that you can't, you know,
listen to a podcast that has different opinions than your own
and you, you know, are so tethered to the Avatar story and
Pandora itself, OK. Which is OK if you're tethered
to. These stories, that's fine if
you if you like these stories, but I say the same thing for
Marvel because it feels like people just cannot handle right
handle a conversation that is not just like overly celebrating
it. And so we say go listen to any
corporate podcast who you know, isn't really like interrogating
the text fully. And that's fine.
There are many other podcasts that are doing what you want,
celebrating the film. So just emotionally check in
with yourselves. You know, we are an independent
podcast and we tend to. Funded by our.
Yes, it's funded by our listeners on Patreon.
We we love you. Shout out happy new.
Year we here for you. Yes, we do, but you know, we
always like have, you know, great a great community, like
over there on living plus and just from our listeners in
general, like love hearing your feedback.
And often times, even if listeners disagree with us, like
they'll reach out and say like, I saw this differently.
That's cool. Like that's why we created a
podcast because we want a discourse around movies and
film. I was going to say and movies,
but sorry last thing is just that they should.
Replace Nicole Kimmons thing in AMC theatres with what you've
been doing for the past 3 minutes because I love it.
Keep going. I mean, the last thing is that
we tend to like if we map out, you know, the stats of when we
get like these one star reviews, it is always from when we drop a
marvel like esque podcast, it's always when we drop that and
it's like new listener. So like, if you are that man who
feels that you need to like drop, you know, a one star for
an independent podcast who is not funded by a corporation,
yes, you need to check in with yourself and please see the
door. That's it.
This podcast is not for you. How many minutes are we in?
They've probably already listened.
Yeah, hopefully, yeah. Maybe you've already done it.
Honestly, I challenge you to hate listen and then just never
listen again. I don't.
Challenge. You might find it interesting
you. Never know.
You never know. Yeah, it is interesting how
people, Avatar fans, and I'm going to generalize for a
second, seem to defend this franchise as if an independent
studio financed it, as if, you know, these movies are somehow
the pinnacle of the art scene, right?
Like, and it's really interesting to see them defend
it as if there's a war in Avatar that is as strong and as
powerful as like Star Wars or Dune, because to me, these films
are not that and that's not what people come to them.
So I, I do think it is really fascinating to watch the Avatar
fan defend itself and, and defend this property as if it is
a religion. It is really, really
interesting. And maybe that's part of the
text too, because spirituality is a big theme in fire and Ash,
which we'll get to and faith alike.
OK, so fire and Ash, I do want to talk about the first 2 Avatar
films and our relationship to them and re watching them and
how I like them quite a bit more than I've ever liked them
before. Even though I think ultimately
that they're you know, there's a lot of problematic missteps in
both films. And I think in the at the
foundation, the root of Avatar, there's a lot of kind of like
just bad writing that we'll get to, even though they are just
kind of immersive spectacles that are really effective
blockbusters. With this third installment,
let's do quick reactions. Did you, were you excited going
into Fire and Ash after watching these first two again, did you
feel like you came out feeling pleased or satisfied with Fire
and Ash? Did you have Avatar fatigue?
You know, putting aside, of course, our theater experience,
which was bad. Should we talk about that after
our reaction? Probably.
Yeah, OK. I think so.
Yeah. OK.
So my reaction to Fire and Ash I, again, we both don't have a
relationship to these movies. So like, I wasn't feeling
strongly either way. I wasn't going in with super
high expectations anything like that, right?
I was actually surprised, you know, in a rewatch of the 1st
and 2nd Avatar that I liked being immersed in the world,
especially when we get to Way of Water, which I think is the best
movie of the three, being in this like water world, all the
animals. I had a spine surgery last year.
James Cameron elephant documentary got me through a lot
of that. 3:00 AM up at night. And here you are criticizing
this man who made you an elephant documentary.
He's also made several other ones.
There's one where he becomes one of the five men who's gone to
the bottom. Of the ocean, bottom of the
ocean, and I'm sure he tells every person he meets about.
It for what reason? Because why not?
He's got fuck you Avatar money. And Titanic money, that's true.
And Terminator money. And aliens.
Money. I cannot wait to talk about all
the Titanic experiments that he we did after this the film from
the reaction of that that movie. We have a lot to talk about on
the Patreon. Yes so back to Avatar I I really
loved being immersed in the world.
I was way more connected to the family, like and rewatch,
especially in Way of Water, especially the kids, right?
Maybe minus Curie, but we'll talk about that.
And then so going into we, we literally, you know, ended Way
of Water maybe like 5 minutes before we left for the movie,
right? And then went straight into Fire
and Ash. And so yes, Fire and Ash is an
extended kind of story. A lot of people have criticized
it for being a, you know, kind of extension, not its own movie
like Way of Water Part 2. And yes, it does feel like that,
but I don't really care because I like to being in the way of
water world. So I think if it was named Way
of Water Part 2 instead of Avatar 3 or Fire and Ash,
whatever it's called, I I think there would have been maybe a
more positive reaction to it, right?
Well, it's called Fire Nash, and it has Verrang, the leader of
the volcanic clan, at the top of the poster.
But this, yeah, so this is my biggest problem with it because
I don't, I don't have any expectations that I'm like,
upset about. And I thought the movie was
fine. It dragged in the front and then
the end, you know, whole battle looked really good, was
exciting. I was I was pretty like locked
in. But if you're going to name the
movie Fire and Ash especially, you know our generation is
Avatar the Last Airbender, right, viewers?
I definitely thought about that a lot.
And a lot of people maybe are because during the pandemic, you
know, it became like popular again to rewatch it, but it was
airing when we were children. So like, we were very connected
to the fire, water, Earth, air tribe, right?
And so I thought we were going to go, we were going to get a
like the the water tribe. And sorry, I'm not using
specific. I will be calling in the Water
clan and tribe today. Because I yeah, I I have only
seen these movies like once. So but the fire tribe to get
them in the story as like a plot device for courage and not have
them be a focus of the movie and learn more about them and have
them be like an actual addition to the movie as the title and
poster, you're right, suggests being at the very front.
That was disappointing. So because I wanted more of that
the the Fire tribe or, you know, whatever their specific name is
in this fictional story. Also incredibly, incredibly
problematic and wild to see in a 2026 movie.
What the clan? Yes, the Fire Fire tribe.
We'll talk about. It yeah, which we'll talk about
so like those are my biggest takeaways of the movie.
But again, it's not something that like it's interesting that
people are talking about the fire tribe and what it had
potential for in terms of what was interesting of like Awa
turning her back on them about like the loss of religion, about
the the idea of like, you know, their tribe in comparison to
what we've learned about the Nabi people like the the forest
right tribe, the water tribe. So like that was could have been
interesting, had the right it was.
It was something that could have been explored more and wasn't.
And people are like talking about it as if that was
explored. If that makes.
Sense. And so it wasn't.
It was a fine movie. It was the worst of the three.
That's my initial reaction. No, I think I agree.
I was pretty mixed on it walking out.
I think I like it more thinking about it, but it's still kind of
AI think it's a surface level, though has a lot of themes.
Entertaining, incredible looking half a billion dollar budgeted
movie. And I want to like highlight the
fact that this movie cost close to half a billion to make,
because everyone always talks about these movies making a
billion or or 2 billion, whatever these movies cost like
this is five budgets of these are 5 sinners basically to make
this movie or five one battle after another's.
Do you know what I'm saying? That's that's pretty crazy.
And those are already very expensive films, like such a
such expensive movies that it was a big deal that Ryan Cooper
was able to make a original $100 million movie or for PTA to make
$100 million, you know, espionage, you know, dark
comedy, thriller. I'm only noting that because I
do think that these movies are, again, I don't want to talk
about this too much, but coveted too much for their box office
success. I don't think that box office
equates to cultural impact or success, like narratively, if
that makes sense, or cinematically.
All that to say, movies like this that cost 4 to $500
million, that are superhero films or fantasy films don't
always look incredible, but this movie does look incredible.
So it uses its resources effectively.
So I want to, you know, give its flowers for that.
I think mainstream audiences are getting their money's worth of
spectacle in all three of these films.
The action is really immersive. James Cameron is a great action
filmmaker. He also really knows how to hit
basic emotional beats extremely well.
He did it in Aliens. He did it in the Terminator
films and he does an Avatar movies, which is doing the kind
of bare minimum of stakes in like found family or family
dramas, which is put kids in danger, put innocent animals in
danger, put those families in danger.
And then so all of those emotional beats in Avatar that
feel sort of like formulaic, but like a very successful formula.
I think he really, I think he designs those really well with
the writers, even if it is, as you said, at the top, a little
bit manipulative what he gets up to in this movie, which I don't
want to, you know, just spoil at the top here.
But there are some choices made emotionally with some characters
that go through some hardships that I don't think are totally
deserved that feel manipulative that we can get to.
But as a movie, I don't, you know, going back to your point,
I don't think this was totally memorable.
You know, it feels like, it feels less like a new chapter on
Pandora and more like what you said, Way of Water Part 2
stretched into its own installment.
Though I kind of, I would have liked, to your point again, I
would have liked it more if it was just Way of Water Part 2 and
maybe we didn't introduce the fire and ash tribe because I
think that's really the draw of the film for me.
I liked learning about the water tribe outside of the forest
tribe in the way of Water. I was excited to come into this
movie to learn more about this, you know, volcanic tribe and
what the fire and ash represent to them and what Awad means to
this tribe or or does it mean to them for a variety of reasons
and for all the things the movie does to iterate on the the past
movies like wave water successful elements which were
like Neytiri and her family or the Tolkien sea life.
In this new film, all that comes back with the fire and ash
people, those those not or sorry, the Navi.
They are supposed to be the most interesting parts of this movie.
And it was really frustrating how we only got a few scenes
that really unpack their motivations or their history.
Like there's a moment where the Fire and Ash tribe briefly
explains in like a scene or two that they have this revenge, you
know, plan against Awa, that they are basically like
ecological terrorist and that they've been radicalized because
Awa was not there for them. And the volcano basically Awa,
who controls, you know, Pandora killed their people.
And so they have this, you know, vendetta against the deity of
Pandora, which I think is a fascinating riding decision,
especially when you look at these as like, you know, anti
colonial allegories, these stories and you can map on a lot
of different cultures into what they're trying to say in this
movie. And I also think that the fire
Nash kind of crisis of faith tribe, I think they're supposed
to be paralleling other characters having a crisis of
faith in this film, like Neytiri or Curie or even Jake to a
certain degree, but it just doesn't totally work or isn't
totally balanced. And so then going to your point
just to give you some evidence, because some people might be
confused about what you mean about it being problematic.
The way that the Fire and Ash tribe are depicted in this film,
the Fire and Ash tribe are basically sidelined as a hyper
violent like group of sexual caricatures of indigenous.
You know, tribal members and in place of, you know, the story
and their story, like contextualizing them and
actually featuring them as main characters, the film makers
choose to focus instead on other characters like Spider, who's
the white boy with dreads and him becoming or wanting to
become like Jake Sully, a Navi. And then it decides to not only,
you know, continue that story arc, it brings courage back to
give him sort of a more complicated arc where he begins
to sympathize with the Navi as he assimilates in there, you
know, fire and Ash community. And then sort of suggest like a
minor redemption arc, which then I found to be kind of
questionable. And then halfway through the
movie, I'm like, why the hell are we not learning about this
new tribe? Why are we spending so much
time? Why is this Spiders film?
I found this to be really head scratching.
And it's not to say that there weren't some interesting parts
about Spider or Courage in this movie or or Kiri.
I just found those to be a lot less interesting.
Like with Kiri, like she has a spiritual journey with Awa in
this film. Where we see this, I don't want
to spoil it, we'll get to in spoilers, but we see a
representation of what Kiri's been dealing with in her own
kind of crisis of her connection to Awa.
Meanwhile, like as you're trying to take in all that Curie
subplot, because she is sort of a new character that was
introduced just last film and Wave Water.
You have the other kind of newer character, which is Spider in
the film basically becomes about Spider and his relationship to
his father and his father being this fascist who also hates the
Navi but is also getting this redemption arc.
And it's kind of a Luke Skywalker situation where Spider
is the Luke because he also has this like romantic thing with
his found family sister Carrie, which I found to be quite a
choice. My dad has blown up planets, but
he's not all that bad. And also my sister.
Yeah. So I, you know, I found there to
be some of a good emotional scenes with Spider that we can't
spoil right now that people probably know.
If you've seen the movie, There's one in particular that
were effective. But I just don't understand why
they pivoted so many times from who they should be focusing on
this story in such an imbalanced way.
Like for example, the Jake and Neytiri's son Lolac, who in the
1st 30 minutes of this movie is narrating the film, is basically
the main character and it is sort of a epilogue of Way of
Water to start this movie, which is fascinating.
And his arc is really complex. He's grieving his brother.
He's trying to get his father's approval.
He has a possible romantic interest with the Water Tribe
Princess, I think, or or young girl who's like in in the family
who's the head of the tribe. Yeah, I think it's yeah.
She's the daughter of the two like tribe leaders.
Right. And there's cultural differences
between the tribes, so you kind of wanted to get to know their
relationship a little bit more in this movie, or that's what I
thought was going to get. But then after those first 30
minutes where they establish all these kind of complexities to
his character, most of his arc is sidelined for Spider for
literally the next three hours of the film, which I thought was
just a bad choice considering they didn't really complicate
Spider in any real meaningful way.
There were other people's arcs around him who were complicated
in ways that I did not find meaningful, that I found to be
actually pretty problematic. That we can get to.
There's actually a moment in this movie where I thought
Spider was going to actually turn from the Luke Skywalker
figure into an Anakin figure where he might become a villain
corrupted by his absent families that both turn against him.
You know, his biological father being and then his adoptive
parents all using him as a tool and not seeing him as a human
being or person rather. And maybe he was even like,
maybe people are willing to kill him if it's suited their agenda.
And I really liked that vibe. The story was like kind of
falling into, but then it pivots out of that too, and it chooses
a different route that's a lot more safe and simple.
You're right. I feel like after the scene that
you're talking about, what you will get to, we could have had
like a not from my point of view and.
The end of this movie is deeply revenge of the sith inspired
like, aesthetically and visually like but.
It doesn't go there. You're you're very right.
It doesn't go there emotionally, which I found to be really
interesting, and in fact they end that sequence that that
ending action scene in this movie with a joke.
And the most interesting thing about the Avatar franchise is
that like it has potential to to kind of like do what you're
saying like have a sort of Anakin arc in Spider or yeah,
just like, I guess the, the reason why I'm kind of shocked
that Avatar has such a like positive fandom is that the
movie doesn't even seem like interested in interrogating the
characters in the same way that Star Wars does or like Dune rate
franchises. And so it, it's just like
fascinating how people are able to just kind of like view this
out in arm's length and celebrate Spider as our, like,
main character. Yeah, I think this is a good
time to jump into re watching the 1st 2 Avatar movies because
I think we're going to be hopefully we don't repeat
ourselves too much. We're going to talk about 3
movies at once basically. But I think it's a good moment
to try to maybe establish our own thoughts on this franchise a
little bit more clearly because I think we're still parsing them
out because we're not super fans.
So he's we've only seen the first two films twice, I think,
and we just saw this third film like last night basically, but
like positives first. I've I've already said this, but
I want to repeat it maybe in a different way that I think is
more interesting. Every time I watch these movies,
I always tell Kelsey or like just the other day, I told Kels.
Every time I see a scene from these movies, rather because I
don't really watch the whole films, I feel like I'm being
incepted into the screen. I feel like I'm being
Christopher Nolan into. The screen.
And it's, it's awesome. It is like an indescribable
feeling that you, you to in a very Nolan way, you just have to
feel it right. And every time we're seeing
Pandora with the imaginative kind of like design of
everything, the world building, the ecosystems, the sea life,
the Tolcoon, which are like the whale sea life, the flying
creatures, the even the new kind of inventions in this third film
with the the kind of tech designs of the air sails that
come. Out like Jelly.
Ballistic Jelly. Thank you.
They are like jellyfish designed and even the tech with the
harpoon chips is really fascinating, even though those
are really like upsetting poaching sequences.
And both Way of Water and Fire and Ash, there's just a general
meticulous design to all three of these films.
But in rewatch, the first two, especially Way of Water, I was
like, holy shit. The digital and practical kind
of seamlessly blend together. And I assume it's because there
are hundreds of designers on these movies behind the scenes
that James Cameron always gets credit for, which is not his
fault. That's more of a it's more of a
studio system fault for not putting those names out there
more frequently. But if I was to give a very
charitable reading of these movies, I would say that there
are you don't have to think too hard, but you can because the
themes are there. So you're able to just enjoy
them as roller coasters. But they can also be thoughtful
intellectual exercises for its fandom.
Because there's enough quote UN quote ideas in both the first
two films and especially in this third one that you can kind of
convince yourself that they are masterpiece level text, which is
a charitable reading of these movies.
That's the problematic stuff aside, if that makes sense.
So I can see how, because I have friends who love these movies, I
can see how people can fall in love with these films.
I can see how people can get immersed in the world, which I
totally agree is the biggest strength of these movies.
And shout out to everyone who works on them in terms of, like,
creating this world that feels like we were talking about,
especially in Way of Water and National Geographic documentary,
except it's like cinema. So you're able to like, make,
have people make friends with whales and like, yeah, watch
them underwater. They're talking to each other.
Yeah, they're you have the kind of like echo in the fire and ash
movie of the whales communicating when the waves are
kind of vibrating. Like, it all looks amazing.
And I, yeah, I do feel like it's a a sort of like what people,
you know, when VR was invented, like imagined, like people
really being immersed fully into a world, like you're putting
your avatar headset on. And and I understand also like
there are a lot of themes that are kind of talking about the
lack of like connection to nature, right?
And there is a very like clear cut in terms of the stories
logic like good and evil forces. And there's a very like kind of
general, I guess bad guy, right, which is kind of like a a vague
W like Western military force. But most likely like USI don't
know if they have any like patches on them but.
It's a broad morality tale. Yeah, right.
Like, but I, I think, you know, are we getting into the first
movie? Here.
OK, the first movie, for example, just at the very start,
like while while yes, that is like on the surface, maybe like
a a theme that I understand, like why broad audiences connect
to like, Oh well, there's these like capitalists and this
military state who is hunting whales and basically taking
resources. Right.
Wait, what?
The The whales of the Tolkun. OK.
Thank you. Yeah.
I think it's the tolcoon. OK.
I apologize if it's not, I'm just.
Going to call him whales. I know it's fictional, but
people are very defensive. That is fine.
Which? I understand why they feel real.
OK, whatever. So the whales and then the
forest like, right. Obviously like this is a, this
is a colonial like metaphor, right?
Extracting resources like killing people.
An anti very anti capitalist movie.
Yeah, very clear cut too. In the kind of like CEO in the
first movie, he was like, yeah, we tried, you know, building an
education system and like teaching them our culture and
building roads and infrastructure and they don't
want our way of life. So now let's go ahead and take
it violently. Like they're very clear cut.
That's the CE OS like almost word for word, right?
Plan about like what is going on and why.
Again, this is, yeah, like an evil force, right, that is
coming to the planet of Pandora. But I think also at the opening
is very clear in terms of the flaws of the movie where Jake
Sully's character, while he is still in human form and he finds
out, right, Like his twin brother died.
And so he's going to now, because they made an Avatar body
for like funding purposes, he's going to be someone who's who
can be put in this body because he shares the same DNA, right?
And as he's told us many time and time again, he is a Marine.
He's not going to bring a knife to a gunfight.
And as a father, his responsibility.
Oh, sorry, also is to. Protect his family.
Also, he's a protector. My bad.
Anyway, so while he's still in human form, right, the minute he
gets off the ship, the dialogue is so like telling, I guess of
like where we're going to go in this franchise and where he says
basically that on on Earth, right where he comes and it's
supposed to be basically like the US or a Western military.
This seems like. There's some kind of Wall-e
situation on. Earth, yes, it because at one
point they say that like there there are no resources on Earth
anymore. Yeah, I think it's like a Blade
Runner situation. Yeah, some kind of
corporatocracy is taken over a large part of Earth or.
Something right, so, but as he's coming off the ship and we're
meeting his character, he says the the military here, right,
used to fight for freedom on Earth and here they're just
hired guns for a company. I said, Oh no, Jake Sully.
I said Jake Sully. No Jake Sully.
Sully, I said you got it wrong at the jump.
Jake. Jake So the just that kind of
like dissonance, right? The I guess Tamron's worldview
at the very start here, just simplifying the idea that a
military of a state that is a a colonial right like.
Occupying force. Is associating that military
with fighting for quote UN quote freedom is is literally
detaching Why people, I think, you know, in your charitable
reading why people actually think Avatar is interesting,
right as like an imperial allegory.
But I think, you know, there's so many what like what we'll
talk about in a second here in terms of the the issue issues
with it that keep unfolding of like, oh, like does James
Cameron slash the creators not actually think this is happening
on Earth, even though they're creating a whole story about how
this is a metaphor for what's happening on Earth?
It's very like it's allowing people to enjoy something and
not actually critically, you know, engage with like what the
message is because it allows the white audience because those are
the characters who are at the forefront, right?
Like we talked about like Kiri being like corny Weaver, Jake
Sully and and spider and then now courage and I keep saying
like porridge instead of like porridge, It's like porridge.
I'm going to keep saying porridge like porridge and I
just don't care. But anyway, regardless the the
did you. Just say Stephen Lang.
No, that's the actor. No Colonel Miles.
No, the Colonel. Sure.
OK. So the Colonel though, right?
Like anyway, we'll get into everything with like Jake Sully.
I'm just saying that like the the idea that the movies are
actually about the Navi people and actually about extracting
resources and actually about this evil force in this military
state that's coming in to take over this planet.
The movies actually are not about that.
Like on the surface they are, but it allows audiences who are
viewing this, who are a part of that, that worse that's taking
over Pandora to comfortably position themselves in
opposition to them and to be more in relationship to Jake, to
Spider and to the other white characters who again, we will
talk about are the somehow the most spiritual successful and
maybe not Spider, but whatever members of the the Nabi people.
Cosign everything you just said. I do want to also add that it is
like an ambitious goal that James Cameron set for himself in
2008 and his team to want to create a science fiction late
capitalist kind of 10 Commandments meets Lawrence of
Arabia biblical saga that also meets Dune in Star Wars.
And be like how we were just saying unapologetic in its
themes of anti imperialism, anti capitalism while being this
environmental epic, right? Like that's a pretty awesome
pitch. And I think that's what he
pitched originally. All of your observations are
right on. It seems as if the movie did not
want to push the way it's very broad target audience too too
much because it does have a global interest.
We still have to make our billion back.
Exactly. And so as much as it wants to
critique greed and militarism and capitalism and, and the
villain that is this occupying private military force from
Earth that is extracting resources from the Navi and
Pandora and the wildlife, the studio system is also a part of
all this. You can't disconnect Hollywood
from capitalism. And so like, it is kind of a
major issue of all like commercial art at this scale.
And so even movies like Dune have had issues that we've
discussed in depth of this episodes.
Those movies are like, you know the top tier of anti imperialist
text with big blockbuster budgets like 200 million plus.
So this it's not fair to compare Avatar and do thematically to
me. But when it makes the issues you
know it or has the problems it does, it is necessary to
interrogate them. You hit on the the biggest issue
with the first Avatar film that that is the foundation of the
problem of all these movies to me, which is that these movies
are seemingly about the Navi, but not really about the Navi.
Like that's the real problem to me about these films is that
it's like, here's an occupying force that is extracting
resources from an indigenous people on this planet that we
think is a planet. Because it seems like it's also
like this spiritual orb. Because we're going to get in
spoiler territory now. So turn this off if you haven't
seen Fire and Ash. But basically, we know that
there's a giant baby controlling Pandora.
It's a Teletubby situation. It is a Teletubby situation. 28
years later meets Avatar. It was always the Teletubby.
No, I think it's a grown custard.
It's a grown, glowing person at the center.
Yes, we'll, we'll get to it. I think it says a lot that it's
kind of indistinguishable from being a human baby and a Nabi
baby. I don't.
Think it's a baby. I think it looked like a It
hasn't. Baby like face to me, I think I.
I think you were really just connecting with.
The No, I've, I've read a lot of reviews on this movie, too.
People identified it as a baby. Yeah, that's interesting.
You didn't it remind me of the 2001 Space Odyssey.
Baby, have you seen that movie? I have seen that movie but I'm
forgetting the visual. Well, at the very beginning you
mean. The very end.
The very end it's a space baby. Oh, I was mixing up just Barbie
with. It there's also sort of I guess,
wait, no, that's there is a big baby in Barbie, right?
Yes. OK, we're getting off topic.
Yeah, yeah, the point was there's another.
Movie that has like a glowing it.
Doesn't matter, OK? It doesn't matter.
Basically, in this first Avatar film, we watch the Navi fight
back and defend themselves to protect their existence, right?
Which is a powerful story that we've all consumed before, but
still powerful nonetheless. And it is for a multi billion
dollar blockbuster. But nonetheless, it's a
thematically thoughtful blockbuster.
The problem is the Navi are portrayed in all three films,
but especially in this first one, which sets the foundation
for how these movies can move moving forward.
They're all the Navi are portrayed as fictionalized
amalgamations of indigenous cultures, right?
There's not no specificity in the Navi.
They they are made just alien enough that the movie in all of
these movies can borrow from real histories and imagery of
indigenous cultures that Western audiences or global audiences
that are consuming this content could be sort of aware of or
vaguely recognize without the film makers taking any
responsibility for what they're depicting and who they cast
because it's so non specific, if that makes sense.
And I think that's where a lot of avatars issues lie
politically. Because if the Navi were not ten
foot tall blue aliens and you remove the digital blue paint,
it would be impossible in and remove the height difference
obviously from humans. It would be impossible to defend
these movies. You can't defend these films
because if you just remove the paint and they become human
beings, you look at these films, you go this superficial, you
know, deeply problematic storytelling with tons of.
A white savior story which people don't immediately
identify because you're right. Because it's science fiction.
Yeah, they're like this is a fictional people, the Navi.
But you're right, the Navi are a constructed like amalgamation of
other in position to like the West like western characters
right of the military and then Jake Sully.
Right. And I wrote about this on
Letterbox recently the other day, but I think it's important
to just like repeat. So I'm sorry if people have read
that, but you nailed it to like Avatar.
Offers a very comforting fantasy this first movie in 2009 where
you're watching a seemingly progressive blockbuster that is
also a mega budget escape, you know, roller coaster where
audiences and even critics, usually white critics get to
feel like spiritually connected to nature where they feel kind
of seen like they want to be back in touch with nature and
they their. Screen time is up.
Yes, right. And they get to imagine
themselves as the quote UN quote good ones who, like Jake Sully,
want to live in a pure world, whatever that means to them
without exploitation and walk into Pandora and feel absolved
of their quote UN quote sins rather than challenged about how
they are also being represented on screen by the courage is by
the occupying force, which is I think that dissonance that you
identified is exactly why critiquing these movies feels so
challenging to people like us. Because when you are critiquing
them, you have to be careful because the fandom feel so
personal to them. There's like an there's an
attachment that is moral and political to the movies, if that
makes sense. Not to psychoanalyze the entire
fandom, but that's what I've noticed online, even from some
of my favorite critics who love these movies.
You can you can sense the the the uncomfortability of trying
to unpack their own connection to these movies and their lack
of like critical analysis of what the Navi, how the Navi are
being Co opted, which basically means how marginalized
communities are being Co opted to make money.
Yeah. And I think like, if anyone's
listening at this point and you're, you're a Avatar fan and
we've already talked about like the reasons that like, I can
understand why someone is totally immersed in the world,
but I feel that a lot of people would be like, well, it's not
that serious. You know, it's just like a
fictional story about Jake Sully.
It's a love story at at its heart.
And then also like the Navi are a fictional like alien people.
And it is actually is like, I, I would argue that because Avatar
is getting such a big budget and also has such a huge like
audience that's going to see it and is able to because of the
manipulation of the story that we're like having to untangle
and unthread. It actually kind of is that
serious, because it's such a a huge project that that people
are are seeing and you're right, like get to just identify with
Jake Sully and immediately like through this like faith kind of
and and magical magically realized awa, like sparkling
forest. It's beautiful.
They're able to yes, you're right, like be absolved and and
especially like in spider in the third one, it does this like
even more so. It, it is a, a fetishizing of
like a tribal culture in a native culture that James
Cameron continues to do to like the Navi characters in these
movies that I find to be like incredibly distasteful and like
weird and upsetting. And that I feel crazy coming out
of these movies all the time. Because even though I get
immersed, like I already said in the film making, I don't need to
like give it as flowers anymore. I still go back to read the
reviews and like how are people not talking about this every
single fucking day? That the main character of the
Avatar franchise was forgiven by the God Awa and his brain was
connected to a Navi body. And then he becomes not just
like a Navi, but he becomes the chosen settler figure.
Who becomes the king? He, he, he becomes the head of
the the community. He becomes Torok Maktu, who in
this movie, in this franchise, is this historically important
symbolic figure across several Navi cultures.
Yeah, 'cause even the when we get to way of water right, the
sea tribe like recognizes him because this is his only been
done because he he's able to unite all the clans is what the
kind of like the Turok Mach 2 is supposed to represent is
supposed to represent which he does an avatar ash and fire.
Is that the title of the third movie?
Thank you. What she does, but because he's
a white character uniting all the clans.
And you're right, like when the teary says, like my grandfather
was this person also, and it's only happened like since kind of
like the like genesis of our like history, right, Like the
the songs are for what she calls it, but it's only happened like
three or five times. I forget.
But so like the fact that he is the one to do it is already like
a wild thing just at the end of this movie.
And you're so connected to I think Natiri.
And so like, you are connected to the fact that she does like,
love Jake Sully. She's the first one who absolves
him. But it's wild that like a lot of
people really dismiss like, oh, people call this Fern Gully in
space or whatever. And like, yeah, I think it is.
And that's, I liked Fern Gully a lot growing up.
I haven't seen it in years, but it's more so like a Pocahontas
story. Yeah, sure.
There's Dancing with Wolves. Yeah, but it's like I, I guess
wild that we at this stage can't like see past a love story and
see like what? What is the main character
representing? Here, my issue isn't that it's
like a like he's a good settler and this is a good settler
fantasy. My issue is not that It's my
issue is that the movies don't operate as cautionary tales like
Jake Solely's arc is. It is not Lawrence of Arabia.
It's not Paula Tradies from Dune.
Does that make sense? Like Paul Treaties works because
the need directs those films and Timothy gives a performance that
conveys manipulation, self-interest, greed, wanting
revenge for the death of his family and his empire and
willing to take advantage of and Co opt millions of people to do
his bidding for him. Those movies are getting across
that commentary quite like subversively and really well.
But Jake is doesn't hate himself for what he stood for as a
Marine. He doesn't hate the Marine.
Yeah, he still heavily identifies as a Marine.
Right, there's not a lot of self-awareness or.
Nuance, you know, like gendered movie 2 of like mother father,
like Jake Sully has all to say in the relationship.
It's kind of wild. Now for The Way of Water.
This movie is like how we already said, I guess,
legitimately good, not because it fixes a lot of the politics
that we're discussing, which are still a mess in this movie.
But to me, the reason The Way of Water Works as a movie and a
story, even with messy politics, is because it reframes the story
around a family movie. Exactly.
Yeah. With the revenge arc from
Courage, which is like just a fun, like almost like Disney
villain thing where he comes back from the dead.
It feels like a Disney sequel in some ways, so that that's why I
think strangely the film just works as a family drama with
less political baggage because it doesn't do like the colonial
imperialist stuff and then bite itself in the ass because it has
all these contradictions. Yeah, and it follows the kids,
right? So it's a coming of age journey
for a lot of the movie. And like, LOAC in particular is
having the younger brother, right, is having a really hard
time, like acclimating to this new space.
Natiri, right, had to leave her home and her family.
Her father just died in the last film.
Exactly. Yeah.
So there's a lot of kind of like sacrifice and like personally
and thinking about like the new conflicts as a family as they
are in this new space and took and took took so cute.
I know. And I think like, so that really
works. Like because we follow the kids
for so much of this movie and we get away from Jake Sully.
Neytiri also has a really strong presence in the sequel in Wave
Water and she's a bad ass fighter and has great set
pieces, even better ones and Fire and Ash which I can't wait
to talk about. Zoe Saldana is actually acting
her ass off in these films which I appreciate.
Even though this is a nitpick, which I know people don't do
against Zoe Saldana unless she's starring in Amelia Perez, I
think her performance in these movies does veer into the very
issue with this franchise when it comes to just like
appropriation. Because I think a performance
veers into a caricature sometimes that I think will be
called racist. If she didn't have a performance
capture suit on that was like colored, you know, digitally
colored blue. And I think if she was just
playing like her, like looking like Zoe Saldana on screen doing
what she's doing, people would say that's racist, I think.
I mean, I think that's, I think that's the situation for most
of. The entire franchise, yeah,
exactly. Because there's like, I think
there's a there's a white boy playing Lowac throughout this
franchise in real life. And like, that's another example
of you wouldn't even think to look, you know, the fans of this
of these movies don't seem to even care if the movies are even
trying to cast from Indigenous communities across the world,
which would be really interesting.
Like that would be an interesting move to try to
design the Navi Indigenous community, these based on
different regions across the globe and cast locally like
that. That would just make everybody
more invested in this franchise. There's not like they're using
Sam Worthington to sell tickets, you know what I mean?
Kate Winslet, everyone is. That's fucking insane.
Queen of the the Sea Tribe. Right.
And I know there are actually some indigenous people cast in
these movies, but I just mean, like more of the main roles.
Yeah. But yeah, so Neytiri is
interesting in this film, and Zoe Saldana is doing, you know,
I'll give her a credit. She's doing a good job of
conveying really complex human emotions, like rage for the sky
people or grief for the loss of her father or the loss of her
son, the oldest son in this movie, which is just fucking
tragic at the end of Wave Water. It makes me cry every single
time. And Venom.
Wave Water were also introduced to other characters.
Jack Champion's spider is introduced in this film.
Which isn't it? I just.
Don't like this character. Yeah, I know we've already
talked about him a little bit, but I've just never really been
able to connect with him. I think it's the direction of
the performance, the, sorry, the direction of the performance to
be like, cartoonishly like, cheesy and corny.
And I think the movies would benefit from just letting LOAC
basically be the second protagonist to the two parent
figures, or even the first protagonist.
The franchise keeps defaulting to a human POV because I think
it thinks the audience will connect more.
Yeah. I think the audience will be out
if we don't have a white protagonist.
And I think like the spider thing you can still have,
especially in Fire and Ash, you can still have Loac be like at
the center of that and then have the conflict with Spider needing
the, you know, the humans are going to like try to study him
in reverse engineer the ability to breathe on Pandora.
Like you can still have that in the story and have it be a
meaningful like steak. But yeah, I agree.
I just such a confusing choice. And I think like in this movie,
Spider wasn't as prominent in Way of Water and I liked kind of
like seeing the the different like when Lolac goes out and
meets the whale Piacon. Yes, that was dope.
And then like defends, right? Like Piacon, we spent.
Like 45 minutes swimming in the ocean, It's awesome.
And then it's like also the boys kind of relationship to Jake
Sully, right, where Lolac like kind of is wants to like
disagree with things and and Jake Sully is like know your
place. So like those things, you know,
at least add a little bit of human drama, but that's it.
Curie Curie is introduced in this movie as well, played by
Sigourney Weaver or the voice of Sigourney Weaver.
Maybe the physical performance of Sigourney Weaver 2?
I have no idea. Kind of an odd choice, but
Sigourney Weaver tries her best to, I guess, evoke a teenager.
Yeah, it the character grew on me the second time I watched it.
The first time I was like, this is so weird.
I agree. Why are we doing this?
It worked the second time. But the second time I was like,
OK, I feel like she is, you know, an adopted daughter of the
family. It was a little bit strange when
they first introduced Kiri as really connected to Awa, right?
That's like the first one of the first things we're told about
her. And we're in spoiler territory
now so we can. We've been in spoiler territory.
I know. I'm just reminding people.
Yeah, yeah. And so that was like strange
when we immediately meet her because of the same things that
we've been talking about with like Jake Sully being the focus,
right? And, and being able to do all
these things that haven't been done for generations, right?
So her spiritual connection that is so strong and stronger than
anyone we've seen or, or we don't really meet a lot of the
Nobby people in the first movie either as like characters, we
know who they are but don't really like get to know them.
Right, she's literally chosen as a Messiah.
Exactly. So, so to have her be the Jesus
of Pandora coming from a a sky person who was born of Awa and a
sky person, it is a wild thing to do because it's it is
clearly, you know, obviously this movie is like very focused
on faith. The the Jesus figure, like
Sigourney Weaver is like Mary. So it just in, oh, it was such a
weird thing to do. Well, I mean, I think.
That we can learn, more so in Fire and Ash, but they talk
about it in Way of Water. I do think the main ethos of
James Cameron in in in making these movies is trying to say we
all bleed the same blood, which is not a take I love to hear
from anybody politically. But I do think that in terms of
like what the real motivations are behind saying that.
And I do think that is like a major theme of this biblical
saga that he's making to me. And I think that's the reason
why he chooses the sky person who becomes, you know, a Navi to
become the most spiritual, you know, being on the planet
because that's his choice. Three times, he's trying to make
Spider a Navi. Yeah.
Solely A Navi. This is, like, what feels like
forced assimilation is also just, like, it feels like this
strange cultural appropriation just to make a white person feel
better about themselves. Like, that seems to be like the
kind of dissonance that Cameron's missing in a lot of
the storytelling here. Yeah, Well, the interesting
thing about like AWA at the beginning of this franchise,
right in the first movie, like AOL was used as a way for Jake
Sully to kind of like see through new eyes, Like he keeps
kind of like telling courage to do in the third movie, right,
that the world isn't like for taking.
And I think also kind of like opening his eyes to really the
destruction and death that is really devastating at the end of
the first movie. And why I understand people, you
know, can kind of look at the movie, at least the first one,
in terms of this colonial allegory that we've been talking
about of like, I mean, it's just like really devastating to see
the forest, like. Burns incredibly upsetting.
All the death and and so like a was uses that kind of that kind
of storyline, right? And I I think Jake Sully like as
we get the story suggests as we get closer that Awa can like
help others see. It's kind of like positioned as
this like not equalizer, but like this this kind of like
force, right? That his yeah, his like not only
nature, but like understanding, right, like human connection,
right. And or just like connection in
general. And I think that's what James
Cameron's going for in like what the argument that you're talking
about that he probably would say that phrase the again, the the
kind of like issue of like looking at a wise as like a
political figure in the movie. And and also like pointing to
Cameron's total like kind of lack of understanding going into
this to me. And is a strange thing to just
like accept as a audience is that when we get a sky person
Jesus figure, it's like very, you know, again, there's a lot
of like lack of the ability to be like this maps on in a way
that is favorable or like sorry, maps on in a way that is like
not an issue in the real world, right?
Like if we think about how like Jesus is like portrayed as
white, right, Or we think about like even just, you know, we
talked about this on the Christmas adventurers 1 battle
after another. But the the whole like happy
holidays debacle, like Santa Claus is white on Fox News,
right? Like that is so embedded in Kiri
being right a Jesus figure for the Navi.
Yeah, it's a continuation of the white savior.
That's why it's like it's just a wild thing to even see that
happen as a a plot device. And it's, as you can hear from
us, difficult to unpack somebody else's like inconsistencies,
inconsistencies as a writer and political contradictions as a
storyteller. Even though James Cameron isn't
like the sole writer on these movies, obviously, and there's.
Yeah, but he has like, if you listen to him, like he has his
hands and. And stuff, even if it says like
Amanda Silver, Rick Jaffa, like those are writers who are, you
know, very successful, worked on the Planet of Apes films.
There's a lot of Planet Apes DNA in these movies, I think for
sure. Or vice versa too.
But yeah, he has his hands on the story.
Absolutely. I think we can kind of
transition into Fire and Nash now.
I I think this I want to do it by kind of jumping to the middle
of the story real quick and we can go back to the beginning.
Sorry. I just think it, it kind of fits
perfectly with what we're discussing.
Because I think the the big issue I'm having now 3 movies
into this franchise is that these movies are deeply nervous
about letting a Navi character kind of fully carry the story
without a human character taking over.
And Fire and Ash double s down on that problem.
And you can tell the writers, I think maybe I'm reading too much
into this because I have like my own criticisms of the franchise.
But I think the writers are worried about backlash in this
franchise in the future because they make the fan favorite Navi
character Neytiri, who we already said is our probably our
favorite character of this franchise.
They make her big quote, UN quote bigoted in Fire and Ash.
And yeah, let's get into it after her son is killed in
Scott. What is it way of water by the
occupying sky people? Which also like a devastating
like the the end of the first movie was devastating, but a
devastating thing that also feels manipulative because we
don't get to really like know the the brother that dies.
But it works because you're like here are the stakes.
I respect also that James Cameron like shows death is
willing to kill like main characters.
Yeah, in most of his movies. But anyway, it's.
A child being shot. Yeah, Yeah.
So it's a it's a serious image, even if it is again going back
to the blue alien thing. Ultimately her son, her family
son is killed by the occupying sky people and the film makers
frame Nytiri's justified rage at the humans, the Sky people as
quote, UN quote racism, which is fucking insane, insane, insane
because Nytiri's it's like this character in this fictional
world. Her hatred of humans is not a
random prejudice or generalization against human
beings. It is a reaction to being
invaded, occupied, and now the death of her son.
But Fire and Ash keeps reframing her grief rage as quote, UN
quote bigotry, especially because of the way that they
frame her talking about Spider and his body and his skin and
his hands in the writing uses that to redirect critique away
from the franchise's deeper issues.
So then you don't think about Jake as a quote UN quote
problematic good settler fantasy.
And instead you map on your issues on to Neytiri because
you're like, oh, this is like a reverse racism commentary.
This is so interesting, as if she's the one that needs to
learn. But actually not interesting at.
All they have the crazy thing is they have Jake monologue to her
at night time like that. She's the one that needs to
learn moral nuance which is why they have her like her him
speechify to her so that she like the audience feels like
invested in that argument. If that makes sense.
It's deeply manipulative, and maybe I'm being cynical, but I.
No it. I don't think I am.
These are like billion dollar projects.
It's deeply cynical in like how honestly, like how dumb it is
and how condescending it is. And I can't believe that I heard
Zoe Saldana talk about how her characters racist in an
interview. I can't believe how I've read
some of my favorite critics from podcasters to, you know, writers
talk about her characters being an interestingly like
thematically written character because she's racist in this
film. It is insane.
I feel like it's a Truman Show thing where I feel like I'm
about to step like I'm in like AI don't know a James Cameron
created virtual simulation politically.
Anyways, sorry I had to crash out about that, even though
that's not the beginning. Of the movie, I think that has
been, yeah, maybe the most shocking thing like because I
think we've already, you know, addressed many times.
So at the, you know, I'm sorry we're being repetitive, but it,
it, the reason we are is because so many people, you know, have
these movies as like their beloved franchise, right?
Yeah, it feels like we're reviewing the movie, but also
talking to that audience. Exactly.
So it's like I again, I understand you're immersed in
it. I am too, but like to to
basically, yeah, reframe the Jake Sully white savior
character and to hear critics who yeah, like I I think have
like great interesting takes on other projects and are able to
see the political aims and other projects or consequences.
And to frame her character as as racist, like within this context
and not even address it is a really yeah.
It's just like a a wild thing to to see happening.
You're right, it feels. I mean, I don't know what my
version of the Truman Show thing is, but and.
They're just trying to get us to be sympathetic to the the Sky
People because they're going to become the main characters of
the saga. And I'm sure that Jake and
Courage and Spider are going to go on some kind of like,
sacrificial end to this franchise.
Oh sorry, we also forgot to mention that Spider saves
courage. And that was crazy.
That was, and I thought it would be addressed like I thought it
would be addressed in Fire and Ash where you you basically
saved this guy who's killing our family, who is a key piece in
killing all of the nature and wildlife.
Right. It is very white to forgive
fascism, right? Star Wars had this issue with
Luke and Darth Vader. The fandom still has this
problem to this day. It is a cult.
I'm a Star Wars fan. I'm not in the cult, but I'm a
super fan, if that makes sense. And Avatar is becoming that, if
that makes sense. I'm, I'm gonna have a take at
the end of this podcast that Avatar films are the new Star
Wars prequels in terms of the ways in which they're being
defended. Like it without really any
critical lens, which I think is like a very specific and unique
sort of dissonance that's only existed with the Star Wars
prequels that I find to be like really fascinating pop
culturally. Well, I think, you know, the the
story is so watered down again, like the even the military
people are not like a character. They're just like, you know,
especially like the New Woman General, Colonel whoever.
Is like so. Like, yeah, feels like an
animated character. We don't.
Yeah, exactly. But you know, the way that they
are positioned is this like, are these fascist characters?
And it's like Spider, you like, yeah, that might be your dad,
but like, you just saved a Nazi. Like the fact that like this
franchise is not contending with this or again, the fact that
like, it's not that I need Spider to be this like morally
or like politically driven character.
Like you could still have him save his dad because that
actually would be interesting that he feels like that he has
some sort of connection or, you know, out of some sort of like
personal interest of his connection to his father, he's
going to save. That would be interesting to do
if you actually followed through and did something with.
It and deep in those relationships or characters.
Or like deepened the the reasons which spider felt motivated to
do that right that. We're having a consequence to
doing it. Yeah, because ultimately like
he, you know, like in a teary's right, that spider is a threat
like because of like that decision that he makes.
And so like for that for example, though like is again,
it's not the movie stick. Not even interested in that.
So fire and Nash picks up immediately after wave water.
We start with Loac, the youngest brother, the only brother now,
but with his brother in an afterlife which I thought I was
like in a different screening for a.
Second, I didn't understand what was happening.
Yeah, I. Thought it was cool when we
figured out what was happening, but they're just hanging out,
which is sweet and I think a really easy way and fun way
because it's exciting to be injected into Pandora all all of
a sudden. It's it's an exciting way to do
exposition of how the last film ended in the 1st 5 minutes.
And Neytiri's family is still grieving the loss.
Obviously if they're oldest, because I think it's only been a
few weeks or days. Neytiri in particular is really
muted in the first act. I think Zoe Saldana is doing a
really good job of just being hollowed out from losing her
child. But still like emoting a lot
through her face. Right, It's it's really
effective acting through the the performance technology to
represent this kind of like shattering of her life.
She's doing a great job. Another thing to represent the
shattering of her life that I thought was like one of the only
because a lot of the metaphors in Avatar are really like deeply
explicit. I thought the Broken Bow to
symbolize what she's been, what she's gone through.
And this trilogy was actually really interesting metaphor that
actually had subtext about her relationship to herself, her
family, who is now pastor mother back in the tribe and her forest
tribe that she's not with anymore.
Her culture that's absent from her, her son that's now with
Awa, her loss or contending with a potential loss of her face and
her relationship to Awa. She is this Rage Against the sky
people that is sort of all these things have sort of like
represented this broken sense of self that I thought the bow was
pretty cool to like represent that and they ended up bearing
it anyways. I know I can tell from the way
you look, maybe you don't care about the bow.
I thought it was kind of cool in as far as like multi faceted
symbols in Avatar go. Because there aren't.
No, I mean, yeah, she is, like, emotionally connected to this.
It's both like a representation of her culture, her father,
Yeah. And in the 1st chapter of this
movie, which basically again is like a, an epilogue to the Way
of Water, we get a lot of loac, loac loac story development.
The brother, right? The son, he needs someone to
talk to. He's struggling.
His father is an asshole. His mom is clearly emotionally
unavailable. And so all this comes to a head
where he is at this Water Tribe meeting and he's being denied to
speak out, I believe, and where he's trying to protest because
the elders are deciding to alienate and kind of
excommunicate Piacon. Thank you.
And I think immediately after this, his dad straight up
directly stares him down in his face.
And it's like, you're the reason your brother died, essentially.
And in a pretty shocking turn of events, he immediately goes to
commit suicide. And I turned to Kelsey when it
happened. And then I was like, is this
happening? And I looked in my theater
because I was like looking for children because.
I know I thought the same thing because I there were kids in
there. Right.
And I was like, this seems so unnecessary to include in this
movie. That's.
What I was going to ask you, did you think it was a deserved
moment? Because I'm not saying that kids
can't handle it. I was just thinking about what
would I do if I'm a parent and my 10 year old is in the
theater. Now I have to have a
conversation about what self harming.
Imagery, yeah, like it just felt.
It felt honestly like uncalled for.
Not that I think that we already got the depths of what LOAC was
experiencing. We already understood that he
felt like so disconnected from his father.
We understood that like Jake Sully was being like so unfair
in his morning and lashing out at his son and not understanding
the consequences like of that or the repercussions of that like
and so we already got the emotional depth like that just
was not needed. I'm glad you said that.
I thought it was like the most out of pocket thing I've seen in
a movie in a long time. And while I appreciate something
provocative like this in a blockbuster about mental health
struggles and the obstacles for young people to speak out or
speak, you know, speak to someone when they're going
through something or to speak out when you want to make a
difference in the world like he was trying to do, you know, with
that protest and then being denied and feeling like that was
unfair while you're always, while you're simultaneously
going through this, like, serious tragedy in your family
and your father won't accept you.
All those ideas I thought resonated.
But yeah, I felt it was like, really forced and.
And strange. Exactly.
Yeah. Misplaced choice.
So later on in this movie, Jake is convinced by Natiri to give
up Spider to protect their family, and they head toward the
human scientist camp. And I think this is where the
film really begins. You turn to me and you're like,
this is the movie now. Yeah.
I was like, is the was that an hour in?
Because I think we're, it was like. 30-40 minutes in, I think
maybe 45 Max, but I don't think it was quite an hour.
But we we basically get to travel in this cool, like as you
said earlier, Jellyfish air sailboat with a air tribe, an
air nomad tribe. We can put that together.
OK. We don't really meet them for
very long because Jake's family gets caught in this ambush by
the ash people led by their leader Verrang, who is the head
of this volcanic clan who feel that they were, you know, later
in the film we learn that they feel rejected by Awa.
And so therefore they reject Awa, They reject this Pandora
deity and and its followers. And so they basically have
become, you know, quote, UN quote, radicalized because I
know it's a loaded term in order to survive through like raiding,
through extraction resources, kind of acting like this
military force and in dealing in like neighboring warfare,
self-interest, you know, tribal interest, no collective interest
as some of the other tribes have where they're trying to protect
one another. And the solely's in the middle
of this kind of ambush get scattered.
I go to the bathroom. So I get very confused, come
back and everybody's in different places on the map.
Felt like a video game. A lot of Avatar actually feels
like a video game. And maybe that's more of a
comment on where video games have gone versus these movies.
I think they've stolen a lot from the Avatar structure.
Yeah, everyone separated. I think Nitira gets shot down.
The kids are together right there.
Yeah, there is also. How does Jake team up with
courage? At this point in the movie we
had someone who was like very sick sitting next to us and Trey
has an immune like issue where like if you.
I get sick easily. Yes, his cold is a flu or
whatever. I didn't mean that to be
dismissive. It's actually true, very true,
or whatever. You weak man, why?
Aren't you the protector of this family?
No, but Trey can get very sick very quickly.
And so we needed to move seats. And so Trey just like, went to
get us new seats. And there was also, you know,
we're at Alamo, so we ordered some food.
By the way, we were not being dramatic.
Not being dramatic. This guy coughed literally like
every 10 seconds for the 1st 35 minutes of the film.
Yeah, and there was a lot of blowing nosing.
I'd never experienced it in my entire life and I did not want
to make him feel awkward by getting up and like switching
seats. I felt so bad but he literally
would not stop coughing. It was, yeah.
And I was like, this is. Wild.
But then also our food got delivered to their table and he
put his hand in the popcorn guys, it was.
And then and then also, I think took a sip of the drink and was
like, and then wrote a note like, oh, didn't you know?
No, this isn't mine. Which whatever that happens,
maybe he's a listener. But well, get some medication.
Don't go to the movies while you're safe, while you're stay
home. Stay home.
And anyway. But then then the same food was
delivered to us. And I was like, when we move
seats. Yeah.
Yeah, I was like And beer. I had to explain to the very
nice server who was very busy. I was like I'm so sorry to do
this but. And then Jake ends up with
Korge. And then Jake ends up with Korge
somehow. OK.
I don't think it. Matters.
So basically in this kind of mix up, the big science fiction
twist of the movie is that Spider is becoming more and more
like a Nabi because after nearly dying and his kind of like face
protective tech air gear Curie connects him through AWA through
the roots of. Right, the roots, like, go all
in his lungs. And she basically co-ops
Pandora's power to mutate his cells and biology.
Yeah, I think I'm explaining this right.
To live on Pandora without any of his breathing tech.
And now he can breathe the air and he grows.
I think what they call a cue, which is that kind of like it's
like the connective tissue to to be in touch with Awa.
But also what we learned in this movie from the no leader of the
Ash people of Rang. You can also connect to other
people's. Yeah, and she can, like, torture
them through it. Yeah.
Right, so the spider arc now becomes the major plot tension
of the film an hour into the movie.
Which I thought was a choice because now he has Navi biology
and human biology mixed together.
Which I guess makes him an existential threat for Pandora
because the humans could potentially reverse engineer it
and more easily colonize the planet.
Insane plot on top of plot. Very convoluted.
I guess you could say it's cool that they got they conveyed all
that pretty seamlessly. But also I just thought it was
like it's the most uninteresting character of like the lead
character of the spider. And so to do it through him, I
was like, OK, this is one way to make him interesting, I guess.
So all that is going on. Meanwhile, we have Korich who is
constantly arguing with military on the human base, which is a
cool human base. I like that that map.
If you were. Oh yeah, it looked like a city,
Yeah. And he's grown so much.
I need to find Jake Sully and question to you.
Yeah, We're a little over 15 years from the original release
of the first Avatar film, and to this day I'm a little bit
confused about the human motivation to extract Jake Sully
from Pandora. It's because Jake Sully is a
tactical threat. They frame it as if, like he, in
this movie at least. Well, in the Yeah in Way of
Water also. Like I get why they want the
unobtainium, which they kind of got away from.
They Recon that out. They're like, well, you obtained
the Onitanium, it's not that great.
And then? Now it's a focus on Jake Sully.
There's the anti aging serum coming out of the the whales,
which is the second thing they want to extract.
But for whatever reason, Jake Sully.
The whale thing was never clear to me.
The prime target. So Jake Sully is now a target
because he is like, bombing the planes that are coming in to
take over. So it's because he has, like,
knowledge of what the humans are doing.
And he knows like, essentially different ways to, you know,
like blow up the planes. So it's kind of a Caesar
situation for Planet of the Apes.
Basically, we have to go and assassinate Caesar because
Caesar lived with humans. He knows how we.
Operate. Yeah, interesting.
At least that's my understanding.
I mean, that's like, what is they're?
Really pressed about it though, and it seems kind of easy to
take a sniper out there and figure it out, but they're not
getting it done. That's so true.
It's not like Jake's that good. Like, I don't.
Anyways, I guess that's the whole point.
I mean, he's to rock Knock too, whatever.
Basically Korch is like, hey, I can't get him on my own.
We need to militarize a warring tribe which becomes the Ash
people led by Rang. And we learn a little bit more
about her, that she is this kind of like militant spiritual
leader, which resonates with Korch as they become a
romantically involved and there's a drug scene.
What you think about that? I just like visually interesting
tribe once I like continuously understood that we're going to
learn nothing about them. Once the movie was out on them,
you're like, I'm also out. It was, I was just like, what is
going on here? Especially because then it's
like you're not going to deepen their characters or like, yeah,
just any motivations. Then you also are like just
sexualizing like the main powerful figure of the tribe.
It was just so weird to me. Basically Korch effectively arms
the ash people though and he uses them as a proxy force which
I thought was thematically relevant considering these are
like anti colonial text. And I was like, I like that
possibility of like what that choice meant to what it meant
for the rest of the stories moving forward because I was
like, OK, well, Korch does with fire and ash tribe closely
mirrors a lot of colonial tactics and empire building
trench Indian war in North America.
These movies are also like, I mean, that's our most like,
that's our colonial history of this country.
But also you can think of the Avatar movies as like post 911
films where they're clear parallels to like the American
invasion of Afghanistan and intervention in the Middle East
and militarizing local militia there.
And so I was like, OK, where are we going with this?
Are we going to learn more about the fire and ash people?
Are they going to be sympathetic figures?
And then they end up like how you're saying become these kind
of cartoon, cartoonish extremists that then actually
play into the tropes of those very commentaries that I was
just saying about Native Americans in the United States
or about different Arab groups. And so I was like, how the fuck
did they mess this up? I couldn't believe that.
Yeah. And Cameron has talked about,
like, modern occupations and genocides.
And so it's so shocking to see how the fire tribe is, like,
portrayed in this movie, right? Because like each of the
characters is such a blatant caricature that we've seen as
like a constructed other in, you know, historically in Hollywood
and like Westerns. But here, like, you know,
courage is shown like as or basically the fire tribe is seen
as like easily, easily manipulated like intellectually
by porridge. They're like obsessed with
violence and and guns, right. So just like those scenes alone,
the imagery is like just so blatantly like dehumanizing.
But the the other part, right, that is like also very important
is that the audience doesn't care if these characters die
because they're portrayed as like these bloodthirsty
individuals. And so like it that is a a
shocking thing I think to see in a movie.
And also, like, again, maybe like a point to like if, you
know, people have an uncomplicated relationship to
fire and Ash and are able to just be like, well, yeah, like
maybe those, you know, characters like weren't super
well done, but the whole story is this allegory for
colonialism. But like, is it really?
And like also especially like seeing some, you know, the
portrayal of the fire tribe, especially like being, you know,
a clear example of that. Like I just the I guess it's
just the Avatar franchise is a mind boggling project.
There are a lot of convenient readings of this movie and this
franchise. I think the the word that I keep
missing that I want to use more often when talking about this
franchise is well intended. Deeply mishandled.
So like those are the 2 words, the intention and the
mishandling of that intention. And I think that is the James
Cameron project at large. It's also some of my favorite
directors and their main issues at their projects at large.
Ridley Scott comes to mind as a director is very similar to the
ambitions of James Cameron, but operates at the level of a
Spielberg in terms of like speed in his career making movies.
But sometimes like you'll hear Ridley Scott or James Cameron
speak who are very, let's say, confident speakers about their
motivations and like to hear themselves talk.
I like to listen to Ridley more than James.
But they both have, you know, they both suffer from being a
man Same, right? So I, I'm sympathetic to that,
but they both talk about their intentions, which are very like
politically left-leaning. What I mean by that is like
having critical lenses on the world and how institutions and
systems work. But they're the way about
handling those intentions sometimes gets, I think,
mishandled because of money, frankly, and mass appeal.
And I think that's, you know, I mean, the, the whole myth about
James Cameron is that he went up to the the studio and made alien
and was like money sign after alien.
Like this guy just he might be anti capitalist when he speaks
in interviews, but he's making movies that are ultimately kind
of like perpetuating what capitalism needs, which is
people to be to basically to manufacture consent from
audiences. And that's what these movies are
doing. It's like manufacturing consent
of just being OK with reducing this tribe to a fanatical
villains. And the whole thing if people
are defending, you know, the the fire and ass tribe with like how
they abandoned they felt abandoned by Awa so they are
going to then abandoned their morals.
That is not. That is a theme that they
deliver in 3 minutes. That does not mean that's a deep
end idea. Like there is a difference
between a theme and idea. That's a theme of their story.
There's not an idea planted there.
There is not a section of this where we really have a kind of
investigation of a struggle with faith.
Yeah, I think that is going to be the how people speak about
these movies. They're going to talk about them
as like 5 movie, A5 movie saga. One thing we haven't brought up
toward the end of this conversation, which we can now,
is that Avatar, Wave, Water, and Fire, and Ash were apparently
supposed to be one film, and they were broken up into two
projects, which makes sense. A lot of the defenders of this
fandom are using that as a reason to justify this movie's
mishandling of some of these issues and how they'll later fix
or correct these things in the 4th and 5th film.
To that I say it's like that's, that's like defending a
corporation. Like what are you doing?
Like what, what are you talking about?
Get it right. The first time you had $500
million to spend. Do you know where that money
could have been spent otherwise? Like what are what are we saying
here? So.
Again, like we've talked about in this podcast, been a problem
from the beginning, so right. Anyway, so the fire and ash
people are right on board. The military sets up another
resource grab. This time they want to go after
the Tolcoon again. We get a lot of these kind of
poaching sequences that are very similar to wave water.
They're very devastating. Anytime they shoot like a
missile into a the Tolcoon's chest.
That was frustrating. They have a matriarchy which I
found to be interesting. I like the elders like council
that you missed. You had to go to the bathroom.
But I did miss that it like rose up.
I came back, I felt like. An hour, which is.
Pretty cool by the by the way, before we can get to it.
Remind me Spider goes to Titanic heaven.
Remind me about this well. Wait, that's just it.
OK yeah so the the the end of this movie is a big on collision
where basically the Tolcoon are decide not to be pacifist and
help and it becomes a very violent showdown.
Jake gives himself up at one point.
Wait sorry. Before all this Jake goes to the
the military camp and teary goes to rescue him.
Spiders also there escapes with his dad's dog tag, which was a
six scene from spider. Good job spider.
They escaped together the three of them.
They teary is a complete badass in this sequence where she's
like shoot does all these like arrows with the missiles on
them. Thought that was dope.
They go they decide not to kill spider.
It was emotional. I cried.
It was manipulative because I don't really care about spider.
But it's just sad to see a character be like I'm going to
kill my son and the son being like do you love me?
And he's like, yeah, I do. And it was a.
Weird scene. Yeah, I, I didn't cry, but I, I
was like, wow, I'm surprised. Spider can just like come back
from this. That's well, that's why I was
like, oh, he's Anakin now, He was Luke, he's Anakin.
That's a cool thing to do to be like, I'm going to have both
Skywalker's in one character. How's it going?
I'm excited to meet this like actor Jack Champion as he gets
older in these films because he's this is a lot of his
younger performance. I think this was shot like 5-6
years ago, which is wild to think about.
Anyways, not to yadda yadda Spike almost Spider almost
getting bodied by his dad or you know, his adoptive father.
But we get to the end of the movie.
Curie gets closer a was power. We see the 2001 space odyssey
baby, Nabi baby, human baby. Who knows right?
This climactic epic showdown. They need the help of a wah to
defeat the sky people. Jake right now Jake Spider goes
to Titanic heaven. Do you want to set that up?
Well, that's after, well, we kind of like, is that the whole
fight? OK.
Yeah, right. Because yeah, yeah, that's at
the end. Of the whole movie, why does he
go there? But we can just say it's a scene
right out of Titanic and it feels so weird to to put in
there. Well, it's because all the Navi
are like, you're one of us now. Yeah.
And you're. And as an audience member,
you're like, why? Why?
Yeah. Why is he the focus?
Of And you identified, Yeah, he had met, he had met like 3 or 4
of the people he first sees. Yeah.
But yeah, before we get to that, the the whole battle like looked
really good, right? We had the whole like sequence
of Jake uniting like the clans, right, and bringing the
whatever. Like they fly on.
I'm not exactly sure what they're called, but yeah,
they're great. So, so then there was the whole
fight and and the sea tribe and then a lot of the other right
tribes were actually like gaining, I guess they were like
winning right at that point against the, the people who had
underestimated them, the sky people.
And then we have Korich and the fire tribe come in on the also
the flying thing. That's right.
And that was like pretty devastating to see, like
everyone just get like killed and.
Including the water kid of the king and.
Yeah, that was Yeah. And and to see the the queen get
killed too and like, deliver her baby.
Yeah, like, that was emotional. Also.
We forgot at the very beginning. I just don't want to forget when
they like, bury their child at the very beginning of this
movie. Or maybe it was at the end of
last movie when he is absorbed by Awa, the oldest Sully child.
Yeah, that's the end of wave water.
Oh, is it? I think so.
OK, anyway. Deeply tragic.
That, yeah, I cried at. That, but also beautiful.
Yeah. OK.
So back to then the fighting, right.
So that was that whole fight sequence.
Looks really good, Yeah. And oh, you already did do this.
Sorry. And then we jump from rock to
rock like Revenge of the Sith style with courage verse Sully
and spiders tagging along. Yeah, I was actually thinking a
lot about the North men at this final sequence with Courage and
and Jake Sully, like just fighting on these rocks.
Yeah, not knowing that you're. I'm not exactly.
Like, I couldn't totally explain what happens here, Jake said.
That basically Spider goes over. They're both they're both dad to
Spider and are trying to save him.
Right, and Spider is like basically takes a side.
He's like, I'm staying on Jake's side and he shoots his dad in
the arm with the bow. The dad's kind of surprised they
teary shows up. He's like I got a fucking
surrender now. So he's like he's basically says
like a joke, like isn't this shit funny?
And then he falls off. He basically jumps off the
however physics work on this planet, but the the floating
rock into the fire, we assume he's alive because he's like the
Darth Vader of this franchise. And so I I assume he's going to
come back and he's going to live with the Fire and Ash people as
we move into the next film, if there's another one.
I hope not. I don't think he's going to.
I know you also be the villain, but like it.
It would feel like we just keep watching the same movie, of
course, just keeps coming back. It feels like we're building to
the 4th movie being like a another kind of like war
conflict between the fire and ash people and all the tribes.
Then them coming together to realize they have a common
enemy, which is the people on earth and then going to earth
somehow, which is very Dune and then going to blow up Earth.
Like that's what that's what I feel like we're leading to.
And then the white people turned Navi, you know, the Jakes, the
courage is that even the Spiders or even Curies, they're going to
have to sacrifice themselves. If this fucking franchise wants
to be politically, thematically thoughtful.
They're going to have to sacrifice themselves to assure
the survival of the Navi because they are not actually Navi
interesting and that they're avatars.
Do you want to So I think we're. Not you're welcome, James
Cameron. Besides.
Take it. We're giving that idea for free.
But we we basically got, yeah, we did the Titanic scene at the
end and the spider going into like, heaven.
But you said that you had a Star Wars take of this movie.
I want to hear it. Yeah, I mean, I don't want to,
you know, speak too much on this, but this is just something
that I identified, like when I was prepping for these episodes
and we did Star Wars this past summer on Patreon.
So I think I was just seeing some similarities in the
discourse and fandom around these franchises and obviously
in the way the franchises are like constructed because both
the Star Wars prequels, not the original films, the prequels and
then the Avatar films are both driven by these like, big,
sincere, ambitious, messy political dramas at the heart of
like war films. Basically, they're anti
imperialist, they're anti fascist, but they also show the
moral decay of fascism, the cycles of violence that is
perpetuated through fascism. And they're all these ideas are
filtered through these Messiah, you know, pseudo Jesus, pseudo
Messiah figure narratives that end up clunky and execution.
And the the Star Wars prequels were criticized immediately and
relentlessly when they came out throughout the 2000s, throughout
the early 20 tens. However, they also pioneered
digital effects, whether people want to admit it or not, like
the Avatar digital effects. And a lot of what's going on in
Avatar does not exist without like the self finance campaign
from George Lucas to try to get more digital effects designers
to prepare for the oncoming like CG fest that blockbusters will
become with the prequels. And so those those movies look
like shit today. When they came out, it was kind
of a big deal, even if they were still criticized in in different
moments in those films. Now, those movies, the Star Wars
prequels were partially reclaimed by the generation that
grew up, that grew up with them, like us, right?
Avatar feels like it's on the reverse arc where Avatar is
being massively celebrated for being successful and it's
culturally protected right now, and it's likely in my opinion to
be re interrogated much more harshly when we've had distance.
So it is like the complete reverse of what happened to the
prequels, where I think much like the Star Wars fandom, the
Avatar fandom will not have a lot of ground to stand on, no
pun intended, for the Star Wars fans.
And it's fandom will struggle to defend its political
contradictions when the criticism begins for Star Wars,
which has just become much more and like poignant, I think, as
we've kind of had time to sit from the prequels and and not
think about Padman, Anakin rolling through, you know,
Coruscant, whatever together and Attack of the Clones.
And we've actually got to look at those movies more as like
these kind of like cautionary tales of the rise of
authoritarianism that emerges sometimes out of like, broken
democracies that are really capitalist empires.
And so that franchise is really special.
And what was able to do versus Avatar, I think is going to be
looked at as like this diluted text in like 20 years.
So that's my that's my take. Yeah.
I OK, this is a very like I literally just thought of this.
So like I'm not sure if it exactly maps on, but hopefully
listeners will understand what I'm saying.
And kind of like if you're, if you are aware of the the kind of
joke of the Star Wars, right, like franchise that a lot of
like conservatives, right map on to like being a rebel, right?
Like we talked about this, Ryan Johnson has talked about this
included this joke in one of his Knives Out movies.
I won't spoil which one, but right.
So that confusion of like conservatives mapping on to the
rebels is kind of like how neoliberal audiences are mapping
on to the Navi. I can't.
Maybe that's not like a one for one right, But.
No, I think you're right. I think you've located it.
OK. But I feel that feels like
something that's happening. Yeah, no, it feels like an
evolution of people, like not realizing where they stand
politically in the moment and then going back and being like,
well, that was not a good look for me.
Yeah. So I yeah, I think there's going
to be a lot of that in the future.
Or we could be wrong. An Avatar could have like 10
films and that whoever the next young James Cameron is will, you
know, be making these movies until we're, you know, with AWA
ourselves. So.
It's true until we have our own Titanic scene.
Is quite a fate. Yeah.
Who will be in our Titanic heaven?
Who will make it? Who's invited?
All right. Thanks for listening to our
avatar Fire and ash deep dive. I know this was a little bit of
a spicy critique. I think we tried to be as
authentic as we could be, yeah. And we were probably repetitive,
but. Yeah, and we obviously are maybe
like passionate about our take on the movie, but it's not
because I'm saying like, you are a bad person for liking Avatar.
It's just like, hey, I think we should step back and kind of
like critically look at Avatar. And do you really like agree
with the ideas that are being presented in Avatar?
It's an emotionally manipulative story that does have a
successful like family archive and and familiar tropes at the
heart of it. And it's OK to reconcile movies
being inherently, like, provocative to the senses, and
they're inherently manipulative in that way.
Like when I watch Black Hawk Down, the Ridley Scott film, I
go, is this the best movie ever made?
And then I zoom out and look at the story.
I'm like, this is deeply problematic.
And that's just like, that's what movies make you contend
with, and they make you reconcile all those conflicting
feelings. And I think Avatar does
something similar. But for whatever reason, that
second wave of like critical thought and assessment is not
happening as much, which I think is just because it's sick to go
to Pandora. Yeah, Objectively, anything
extra credit wise that you gave throughout this episode that you
just want? To say is extra credit singular
to James Cameron's elephant documentary National Geographic.
Go watch it. It is wild to see all the
different elephants living in different habitats and how they
adapt and it. Yeah, go watch that.
Anyway, extra credit to obviously the visual effects.
I think we already talked about Zoe Saldana's performance.
I think that she does a lot here and adds a lot of emotion to the
story and that's my extra credit.
Extra credit to Piacons, whoever the last of his clan was who is
blinded and tortured of the military.
Dark way to go out on the podcast, but extra credit to
that because I thought that was like, I was like, this is the
direction you should be going in.
This is brutal and sad and tragic and you stay in this lane
and do less spider and everybody's going to be invested
in this like anti colonial allegory like I'm in.
When in doubt, less spider. When in doubt, less white kid
with dreads running around being like I'd be faster if I was
blue. Isn't that something he said?
Way of water. Oh God.
All right, that was the extra credits of Avatar.
We'll be back with, I don't know, Patreon, James Cameron
Titanic if you want to listen to free.
Wait to talk about Titanic. We have like 10 free deep dives
for Patreon members right now in the description of this episode,
you can sign up and just get a feel for what it's like to
listen to those live commentary episodes that are very long but
very worthy of your listen. And if you want to sign up as a
member right now, we're doing a special 50% off your first month
as a member on Patreon for the next few weeks.
I believe it's still a few weeks left on that.
Get it before it's too late and we'll be back with on the main
feed 28 years later. The Bone Collector?
Is that what it's called? What the hell is that movie?
Yeah, I don't know. I cannot wait.
I can't believe it's so close together.
I feel like we just saw the the first movie, but I'm pumped.
It was one of my. Favorite movies of the year?
The Bone Collector's a film from Denzel Washington.
Angelina Jolie. Oh my I forgot about that but
good watch. Yes, Yeah, yeah, yeah.
An A+B movie of sorts. an A + C movie of sorts.
Bye bye.