Avatar: Fire and Ash

25:56They're not the Navi. Like, I like this. They got smited, kind of. Yeah, they did. They got reasons to be grumpy. Yeah. They got fired. Maybe move away from the volcano? That's just my point. Like, my only thing in Avatar is like, why doesn't everyone live in the cove? I'm like, this is a great place to live. It's nice. Really, really nice. It really is nice, but I feel like most people, they haven't developed the like... Yeah, they haven't evolved the water skills. So they just don't have... They're not really... They can't really like get into the water shit as much as the Metcalf. You're right.

26:27You're right. You're right.

26:32David? Yes. This episode is brought to you by MUBI, the global film company that champions great cinema. It champions it. Unlike the others. No, they... To cry it. Barbarian it. From iconic directors to emerging auteurs, there is always something new to discover. With MUBI, each and every film is hand-selected so you can explore the best of cinema. You can log on to MUBI and check out all the movies they got. You know, Art House, you know, cool indie stuff, foreign stuff. Okay, this is awesome. There's a movie star movie now streaming on Mubi in the U.S. covered on blank check soon. Well, I think that's the headline.

27:10Yeah, Die My Love. Yes. You're going to need to watch it if you want to keep up with the show. True. True. I mean, I guess, you know, do what you want. You don't have to, but we recommend viewing the film. Please view the film. Die My Love, Lynn Ramsey's film. Great film. It came out last year. It was a canon that came out last fall in 2025. It's a visceral and uncompromising portrait of a woman engulfed by love and madness starring Jennifer Lawrence, who was nominated for Golden Globe, Robert Pattinson. It's kind of mostly those two. They're very heavy on the two of them. Yeah, some top shelf.

27:42Nolte? I was going to say, some seasoning of Nolte and Spacek. Like dry age, let me tell you. Oh. Yeah, you've got them in there. But yeah, it's a lot. It's a big showstopper movie for J-Law. And R-Pats. Yeah. Even our Pat's nose. He's playing sack and fiddle. Sure, but then there's a lemon pepper dry rub of Nick Nolte. I love lemon pepper, guys. I love Nick Nolte. I love Nick Nolte, too. Look, it's Lynn Ramsey making her eagerly awaited filmmaking return. Obviously, that's why we're covering her on the pod. We've been waiting for her to make another movie. And it was on the shortlist for cinematography, the 90th Academy Awards.

28:25I didn't even know that. That's awesome. It's a passionate, complicated, destructive love story between two major stars in Lawrence and Pattinson who'd never been together on screen before. I know. I guess that's not that surprising, but they are quite a pair. The bat and the cat. K-A-T-N-I-S-S. Oh, Katniss. Yeah. The bat and the steek. Mystique, that is. Oh, sure. Yeah, it's an awesome movie. The steek and the freak. Is that something he's played a lot of freaks? Sure. Spoiler alert for the episode, but I was a big fan of the film. I know you were, Ben. Have you seen it yet? I haven't seen it yet.

28:58Whoa! I think you're going to like it a lot. It's also based on a book by Ariana Harwick. Mm-hmm. Anyway. There's so much good stuff to watch on Mubi. There's also awesome other good stuff. Look, if you're not a member, this is a perfect month to sign up in order to keep up with the show. To stream the best of cinema, you can try Mubi free for 30 days at Mubi.com slash blank check. That's M-U-B-I dot com slash blank check for a whole month of great cinema for free.

29:33David. Yes. I am so excited about this episode sponsor. Yes. Me too. Might truly be the most excited I've ever had for anything to sponsor this podcast. We're excited to like sponsors that tell you how to like help your finances. Hey, easy. Okay. Sorry. Sorry. Sorry. Easy. Today's episode of Blank Check is brought to you by Nirvana, the band, the show, the movie. Nirvana, the band, the show, the movie. Marie's here too because everyone's so excited. I love this movie. I mean, I love this band, this show, this movie. Yes. Important correction. This film is finally coming to theaters. February 13th is the start of the theatrical rollout.

30:12Yeah. From our friends at Neon. Neon's bringing it out. We have been waiting impatiently for other people to see this film. We saw this at South by Southwest. One of the best screenings of my life. Truly. Truly. It was an unbelievable experience. Ben, you were there. Had a blast. And I had never seen or engaged with this show previously. Me neither. Most of the group had not. Don't really need it. It was like seven of us. You don't need the context to enjoy. Absolutely. It's a big thing. I think you need to know what Toronto is. Because you knew nothing other than us hyping you up for you. Well, this was the problem.

30:45And we should say, it's a city in Canada. Yes. I went in you guys had just been like it's the best thing ever and not just you other people I can't believe how good and I was like this is so overhyped and here's the great thing about David I'm walking in like I felt mad about it where I was just like they've primed it too much for me I like that you acknowledge this because sometimes if we tell you something's good I see you go like put your fists up well I'm just like relax because I need to I can't go in with too much hype because that's not good for my critical experience of a movie and then I thought it was better than the hype this is the thing This movie is truly a miracle.

31:19I think it is the funniest movie of the last 10 years easily. And listeners of the show know I am often bemoaning the state of the theatrical comedy. And this is a movie that provides the thing I've been longing for, which is you go see this with a crowd. It is just electric every five seconds, rolling laughter. And the movie just builds and builds and builds. This is a movie for Matt Johnson. Yes. Director Blackberry, one of my favorite movies the last couple of years. Him and Jay McCarroll started as a web series, became a TV series, and now is a movie. But you don't need to know any of that.

31:53This works as a clean entry point. It's a movie about two friends who are obsessed with their band playing at one venue. They want to play at the Rivoli. They want to play at the Rivoli. That's all you need to know about these guys. Before the lights went down at the South by Southwest screening, I believe you turned to me and said, what do I need to know? And I said, all you need to know is they want to play the Rivoli. They got to play the Rivoli. I've been to Toronto many times. Have you been to the Rivoli? Never. I've stayed on Queen West, though, and I've certainly walked by the Rivoli many times.

32:20And I've always been like, oh, yeah, the Rivoli. There it is. It's not Carnegie Hall. No, it's a fucking bar. And you never see these guys. What do you mean? It's the most important music venue in Canada. You never see these guys practice their music. But all you know is that every episode starts with, here's the plan. Here's how we play the Rivoli, right? We got to play the Rivoli. And this movie starts from there and explodes in unbelievable ways. I think this movie is truly like a magic trick. beyond just how funny it is and for how much it's caked in the deep lore of this Nirvana, the band, the show universe that's existed for 15 years.

32:51You can just go in knowing nothing and be blown away. And for a movie that seems kind of slapdash and roughly made from the start, it starts to pull off genuine, like cinematic magic tricks where you cannot believe how this thing was made. What was my Letterboxd review, Griff? Did you see it? No, please tell me. LOL, how did they make this? Truly. That was how I thought. How did this get made? I was also just like, how did they make this? I don't get it. You don't understand how they're getting away with it legally. You don't understand how it was cleared for release. And there is a melding of scripted and non-scripted, them engaging with real people on the street where the line between what is planned and what is not boggles your brain.

33:35It was my favorite thing I saw all of 2025. And now it's coming out in 2026. Now, listen, I do have to do some talking points. Nervana the Band the Show the Movie is in theaters February 13th. Get tickets now. We must say this. Nirvana the Band the Show the Movie. They're very clear that we have to say the title of this thing a few times. Nirvana the Band the Show the Movie. Why? It's a really simple, easy title. Nirvana the Band the Show the Movie really is a kind of like going cold expecting something fun. I don't think you need too much more than that. I know it sounds unwieldy or whatever, but just like I think you're going to have a pretty good time.

34:12If you trust our opinion at all, take this recommendation. Yes. Don't look it up. Go in. And I really, really doubt there is any chance you will be disappointed. In theaters, February 13th. Get your tickets now. Get your tickets now. Nirvana and the Man, the show, the movie.

34:37Okay, another major development. Drugs. Drugs. Sure. What do we think the substance is? Ayahuasca. Some kind, I agree. It's some kind of D &T kind of thing. It's like they're finding some natural herb or whatever. This is the headline for this movie, and I hope no one listening to this has yet to see the film. I hope you're not learning this from the podcast, but Korich gets stoned and fucks. Korich does, so our... She blows shit up his nose and fucks his pony braid hard. These are all things that happen. And one assumes also fucks his dick hard. Although we don't see. And let me say this. Drugs and pony braid fucking?

35:18That's a potent. My first text to David after we got out of the film, because David saw it before us, was QuarchFox. QuarchFox. All caps in Terribang. And you said, all caps, and does space drugs. He does do space drugs. I mean, I know it's technically Pandora and drugs. And does space drugs. She like blows Navi cocaine up his nose from a dick. distance out of a dark Wolf of Wall Street style. I thought that was going to be a dildo. Yeah, right. You thought that she was going to introduce pegging. It might get there. It might get there. Right. And I was like, right, gotta save something for Avatar 4.

35:54At least. What are some other things? So Fire and Ash, it's a straight sequel to Way of Water in a way that Way of Water is not to Avatar. Right? It is very much part two of a two-part story. It's in a lot of the same environments. It's got mostly the same ensemble. What I think has become very clear, and he's basically cop to this as well, is... This was one movie. Yes. That he broke into two. Right. Avatar comes out in 2009. 2010, Avatar 2 and 3 are announced. Originally announced for 2014 and 2015. That's when they came out. So this movie is coming out fully 10 years after the original announced release date, right?

36:33Then 2013, delayed, but fourth film added. 2016 delays, fifth film added. In that time, he establishes a writer's room. They start breaking story. He's got this whole notion of, I want these to tell a larger saga, but I also want the films to have their own inherent concerns. What's become clear with Distance is, what was originally supposed to be the second film in his planned trilogy got so unwieldy that it became two films. It's the George H. Martin problem. And it was planned to be his third film, broken to two. So, Way of Water and Fire and Ash are the middle chapter. It's a two-part middle chapter.

37:07He is now once again threatening us with who knows if I'll actually make the other two. I'm retired. Who knows exactly? I don't know. I'm not thinking about Avatar 4. Am I thinking about stacks of cash? Maybe. Wavewater definitely ended with a lot of like, here we go. Like there's stuff we're going to jump right back into. This movie does not have like crazy dangling threads, but it also does not feel like a resolution at all. Which I think will drive some people crazy. I think so too. I think it's not quite a, right. it's not quite a definitive enough conclusion maybe. I went in expecting like, Jake's gonna die.

37:42There will be some kind of capper here. Then as I'm watching it, four and five are really different, really weird, and people won't believe like how much of a left turn. It's just cars racing. It's just, you know how George Lucas would talk about his experimental movies. But they talk. It's just cells. You know, you're just gonna watch cells. They have tongues and mouths. It is so crazy they have tongues in cars. Yeah. You know, like, I was like, right, there'll be. And then I was watching this movie while they're still grappling with the death of their son. And I immediately was like, no, Jake's not dying.

38:12Neytiri's not. That's not what this is. And instead, the big thing that happens in this movie is like, like Jake and Neytiri and Loa and, uh, uh, Kiri and all. Well, they get, I'll get, you know, they all make these sort of evolutionary like leaps in their thinking, spider being kind of crucial to all of them. this movie is really about Spider in a way that I maybe should have seen coming because he is the character where you're like, why are they doing this? And then you're like, right, I guess they're doing this because this is sort of the crux of it. You don't put them on the table for no reason.

38:48There's intent. You're not just, I mean, the last line of this movie, do you guys remember what it is? Something like, we welcome you, Spider. No, that's like the second last line. The last line is Spider saying, no shit, because they're like, Spider, well, you are now one of the people. And he goes, no shit. And then it says Avatar Fire and Ash directed by James Cameron. James Cameron could die tomorrow or could decide to go make other movies. And that could be the last word in Avatar is Spider. Is humans joining the Navi fold and their reaction being, whoa, no shit. Whoa, I'm a fucking Navi now.

39:27One of the people. I think - How do we feel about Spider's performance? We're going to get to it. Let's put a pin in that. I think Wavewater... That was me putting a pin in it. Look, we've been early Avatar defenders, right? Yeah, I love Avatar. People were fucking clowning Avatar before it came out. Then it obviously has this massive success, like a huge kind of like Oscar upswing. People, I think, kind of forget how much it was seen going into that night as this is probably going to sweep. As a possible favorite. Yes. It was kind of 50-50. This David Goliath narrative with, of course, his ex-wife, Catherine Bigelow, also covered on the show.

40:05And apparently, best friend? He said Guillermo del Toro and Catherine Bigelow are his two best director friends. It's really great of him to say. I mean, I really think that he mostly lives in New Zealand and doesn't hang out with people. What do you mean? He builds models at Guillermo del Toro's house with Steven Spielberg and J.J. Abrams. They all hang out. James Cameron did this two-part interview on The Town that is incredible. every single thing he says in it casually is like 17 new volumes of lore just dropped. There's an incredible moment. You talking about like James Cameron could die tomorrow, right?

40:36And Bellamy is saying like, so now you're saying you might not do four and five. Is the Hiroshima movie happening? And he went, look, we don't even have a script for that. That just came up in an interview. So people assume that's what's next. I got like five things in development. I don't even know what the next thing's going to be. You know, I'd love to make other Avatar movies. But look, also like I'm 70. You know, I who knows how many movies I have left in me. And then in the most James Cameron statement of all time, he goes like, I mean, best case scenario. What? I only have 30 or 40 years left in me.

41:08That's a good case scenario, my friend. You know, like Martin Scorsese does these interviews where he's like, look, I'm in my 80s. Maybe I only make one or two more films. James Cameron's like, I'm in my 70s. You know, maybe I don't make it past 110. I might only have seven giant films that take five years and the economy of an entire country I mean James is the kind of guy that he might know something we don't I hear him say that and I believe it yeah I love that interview so much there's so much good shit just some other tidbits when he's introduced Matt Bellamy is like you know filmmaker writer producer Technologist, futurist.

41:53Is there anything I'm missing? And then James Cameron, like, really casually is like, deep sea explorer. He said that there's a semi-regular hang in which Guillermo del Toro, Steven Spielberg, J.J. Abrams and himself build old school model kits. And that Guillermo sometimes flies to Japan to pick up materials because they have the best shit. He said he and J.J. went together and shipped a truck full of model kits back. And he said, but you got to come correct. You need to know what you're doing. We don't let noobs in. And he's like, what do you build? And he was like, I mostly like rebuilt the Aurora creature from the Black Lagoon because I'm familiar with that one.

42:34I have experience with that kit. He was just throwing up my hands. But when he says this 30, 40 years thing. Can't they go hunt humans for sport or something? You know what I mean? They're rich, famous people. But they're so dorky. They're just like... He says this 30, 40 years thing, and he's like, look, I went vegan. That added another 10 years. Power of positive thinking. You know, he's also like, I'm assuming the technology is going to catch up, you know? Oh, there's also the crazy part where he talks about his friendship with Elon Musk, where there were so many things that got pulled out as clickbait headlines from that interview that sound really shitty.

43:13But then when you actually listen to it and you hear him explain himself, it's like the most rational shit in the world. I'm like, oh, yeah, I get it. So, like, him being friends with Elon Musk was not something that I knew. But apparently, oh, we were... I know Elon way back from the Mars Society in the late 90s. Right. He's like, I've been talking to this guy for 30 years. All the weird, rich people who are like, do we need to fund space ourselves? And he's basically like, I've known him forever. I basically disagree with everything he thinks and does now. Right. But for better or worse, this guy like controls the levers of power and there needs to be like positive influences in his ear.

43:52Yeah, he's just like, I, we mostly just talked about space shit. Right. And I'm like, okay, cool, I get that. Right, and he's like, I gotta give him credit. Like, he basically saved the space program. Also, he's done a lot of other horrible shit. And then he like talks about the AI stuff, which has been like clickbaited. Everything he says is really rational, which is just like, I don't trust these people to use it responsibly. There's no way we're going to be able to stop them. So, like, what I'm fighting for is how to, like, self-enforce regulations now to cut it off at the pass, and he breaks it into two things.

44:24Let's get back to Avatar. Okay, okay, okay. Well, let's get back. Segway, I hope that this is in front of every screening of the film. You guys had it too. Yes. We would never use generative AI. Yeah, we had the Cameron intro where he says that this is not, none of this is AI. All of Avatar, Fire and Ash is made by humans. Now, he's talked about not being opposed to some AI stuff to like help along. Yeah, let's veer us off the subject. No, I'm just saying like I would close this quickly. There's a difference between generative creative AI and AI that's used to, This is something people all yell about.

44:59I know, but just to represent his thoughts here, which I am wary of all AI. Sure, sure, sure. It all fucking freaks me out. We're all a little wary. I'm worried that the entire black planet is going to collapse. And especially coming from the guy who like created the fucking Terminator mythology when like these quotes were coming out that seemed like, well, let's like fuck around with AI a little bit. He was like, AI is basically now this catch-all term for a couple different things. And he was like, basically like automated, like actual independent intelligence is Skynet. And if we open that Pandora's box, we're fucked.

45:35The second that like a missile system is connected to a computer, society's over. Like, it's game over, right? He was like, there's generative AI, which, like, is now the thing that everyone's trying to use to cut corners. And he basically was just like, the film industry's collapsing. These movies are getting too expensive, and they're performing less and less. But also, it's harder to convince an audience to go unless you're selling them on that level of spectacle. I think we need to find a way to integrate these things into our systems, to use them, to help bring costs down, because few filmmakers are given the freedom and the budgets that I have.

46:11And Bellany was like, isn't that putting people out of work? And he's like, same number of artists getting it done in half the time. And his argument is, I need to be on the forefront of this to ensure that that's the way it's used rather than how a lot of studios and tech companies want to use it, which is replacing people. It's all a fucking slippery slope that no one knows how it's going to settle. But he very much now is like, audiences don't believe shit they see on screen anymore and everyone thinks that everything must just be like mysterious, magical AI. And so he's like, these are all performance-driven actors in the volume, not manipulated, not animated.

46:50And done by him. My problem with that video was just a bit of a spoiler. For? After Fire and Ass, the movie I was about to see. It had clips from the movie in it. Yeah, but I don't think that... I was like, get the fuck out of here. Because it was like side-by-side. Yeah, which I appreciate showing these are the actors performing. Yeah, my dumb ass was like, oh, are they from Way of Water? I didn't even block that they were. This is tipping my hat on emotional conversations that are coming up. Can we slash should we attempt to do the plot? I know I'm going to be forgetting 50%. I wish I had a deeper synopsis in front of me, but the film hasn't come out yet when we're recording this episode, so that hasn't really been done up.

47:33So we can try. But the movie, it's a bit different from the... I worried it would be like at Way of Water of the true first chunk is getting everyone's bearings, big action sequence, we move to another place. And that's kind of what the first chunk of this movie is. We're getting our bearings. The big battle from Way of Water happened. The sun died. Everyone's feeling bad. Let's go in this airship with David Thouless and go. And I was like, oh, and they're going to go to the fireplace. And then are we going to meet the fire people, learn their culture? Is it going to be the same? But that's not already a couple big points that are like coming up here right and talking about our audience is gonna like uh struggle with this a little more than the last one and there were all the naysayers last time being like who fucking gives a shit about avatar anymore it's been too long it being that long i think really did help that movie yeah that it felt like it was new we've been exciting living through 15 years of all these fucking franchises getting milked to death and this is the one that we've actually like haven't seen in a while.

48:36You know, the entire basic fucking Marvel Cinematic Universe happens between the first and second Avatar, save for the first two movies, three. And so, yeah, that was helpful. It also is like Way of Water acknowledges the time jump. Things have changed a lot. The opening of the film is like catching you up with the new status quo. I had fucking kids. Also, there's Spider. Also, there's Kiri. There's a lot for you to understand. And we're forgetting the first flight. Oh, well, we did, we did, we did experience it. A Cirque du Soleil show about the first Tariq Macto, the first person. Yeah, a narrative I remember in great detail.

49:13Certainly. But I remember your review of Way of Water where you were like, it's an Avatar movie. And we were like, David, that doesn't describe it. And then I saw it and I was like, he has basically turned this into a genre and it is following the kind of like story structure of how an Avatar movie works. Yes, and then in the last act, when everything is on the board and suddenly it's all activated at the same time, you're just like, whoa, like I didn't. Yeah. And this one. Does not really have that in the same way. No, but it is just spinning a lot of different plates. And then when you're in the final act, I think I expected like, okay, we'll have another big battle.

49:47Yeah. And it'll be super exciting. And there is a big battle and it is super exciting, but it's more that you're just kind of like, I cannot believe how many characters, how many like big functional characters with arcs we are flitting between right now and that I have the grounding for it. Not just like what's up with Spider, what's up with fucking Kate Winslet? What's up with her daughter? What's up with Pyakon? What is up with Pyakon? And why has Zoran not appointed him to his cabinet? He's got to be part of the transition team. Pyakon should be operating at all levels of life. Yes. My rivers commissioner will be and he rises from the sea.

50:23Let me throw this out. Can we put him in charge of transportation? Because if you grab Pyakon's Finn, it feels like you get where you're going fast. Imagine him in like a labor negotiation. He just rises from the sea. The first movie, it's like the central emotional arc that resolves itself is like Jake Sully's like exploration of identity, right? And finding himself and like waking up at the end, his eyes opening in the new Avatar body. He is fully a Naveen now, right? The second movie has the kind of self-contained emotional arc of like Jake Sully needing to figure out what kind of fucking father he is, right?

50:56It is the self-reflexive movie of what Cameron's talked about, this very personal thing of him realizing, like, maybe it's time for me to stop being an asshole and, like, intimidating everyone as my love language to get what I want. And is this movie of kind of like an emotional maturation. This movie opens with Loak in the narration position. Why did he do that? I mean, I know you don't have the answer. That was one thing that I didn't love. It's like, why are we? I like it. Part of me was like, is Jake going to die? I like it as a change of perspective because I also think this movie is less hinged on Jake's internal journey.

51:32It's spread out a little bit more. And I also think there's the transference happening, especially with the death of... Yeah, when the son dies... I always forget the other son's name. Netayim? I feel so embarrassed. It's like I'm at a party. And how are your sons? I think, yeah. Loak, Tuuk, yeah. And then Loak is the other son. Yeah, Loak is little. Loak is the living son. Yes. Okay. and then Spider and Curie. I will, I mean, in the second movie, the older son is the son where I was like, I don't care about this character. And then he dies. And I was like, all right. This is one of those perfect examples of why Because he's just like the good kid.

52:05I think Way of Water grows on second, third, plus viewings. Is the first time you're watching it, you're like, what's with this extra kid? And once you know he's like doomed for death and he's kind of a cautionary tale and that he's mostly there to like inform Loak's journey, I think it's like representative of the story now moving into like Loak being in this position of pressure of you are the inheritor of all of this. You are the oldest. Jake's trying to fucking chill out to some degree while also trying to keep his family safe and the clan safe, you know, that he's putting more and more on his son while trying to be emotionally in tune with what he's going through.

52:47And so it helps to get that perspective a little bit. But it also makes you think, oh, is this really going to be like a low-arc movie? And as you said, it's like 15 fucking characters. A lot of characters have arcs that are pretty complete in this movie. Like, you know, they have a start and end, which is impressive. But you can't say there's like a key overriding, emotional, self-contained story to this movie. No, it's Spider. Spider's the closest. Spider's the closest. Yeah. But Spider is also, throughout it, so guileless, down to No Ship, his last line in the film, which is the last line spoken in the Avatar series.

53:21Down to also when Jake Sully is about to murder him. I don't remember him saying no shit. He says no shit. Yeah. When Jake Sully's about to murder him, his adoptive father, he's like, this sucks. Yeah, but I get it, man. I guess you gotta do it. Damn. That was fucking crazy. That seems incredible and I started crying. But I'm just saying, right, it's more about how people are reacting to Spider versus Spider himself who, you know, it's water off a duck's back with him, like you're saying. Like, he's usually just kind of like, Okay, this is the situation, I guess. Yes. Spider's become this hot potato, the biological son of Korich, who is dead, but now his consciousness has, of course, been reanimated within an avatar body, which is a pretty potent mix.

54:04And there's the whole interesting kind of paternal tension of how much he does or does not want to identify as this kid's father, because it's like, I'm literally not your father, but I'm also like a body with the backup hard drive of the man who fathered you. And him weaponizing how much he does or doesn't care. Sometimes it becomes his weakness. Sometimes he uses it like a political football. And then the Sully clan, which have taken him in and are increasingly becoming wary of like, is treating him like a son, putting not only our family, but our species in danger Right. The jump, initially it's like, right, is this kid target on our back?

54:49And then the jump becomes like, oh, should he even be alive now that he's this hybrid? Is he the thing that they backwards invent a human Navi sort of breathing system out of? Even before that, I mean, we're just immediately picking up the threads of the last one. We've got a lot of rules. One of my favorite moments in Way of Water is at the end where Korich is holding Kiri. Or is it Loak at knife point? Quaritch is holding the little girl at knife point at the end of the end of the end of the knife point of their family. To prioritize her biological children. Right. And this movie's like immediately in the fallout of that, of like something was revealed in that moment about her feelings, which then shakes up this whole thing we've already alluded to.

56:00And she is sad because her son did just die. Right. I like her little morning veil. Me too. And her morning makeup. I'm never going to prioritize a human above a Navi. Does that speak to an inherent disgust with the notion that you are with someone who was originally a human and thus your biological children are partially human. And this whole kind of like internal struggle in her, which she is so, she is really knocked down in focus in Way of Water. And I like how much this movie brings her back up to kind of the main story. Yeah, and I was just so there for her to have in the Binding of Isaac moment, which we're jumping all around.

56:37Everyone's fighting for Spider and what he represents. And in a moment where they are struggling, he's losing oxygen they need to get him a new mask they need to get him to the lab that's not what I was talking about but yeah sure he almost dies and Kiri connects to what is not the mother tree but like the mother root underwater yeah the mother coral mother reef I don't know and basically figures out how to do a successful version and a much smaller scale of what they tried to do what they successfully did with Jake's body at the end of the first movie no no no wait wait wait okay okay okay she merges him with Awa yeah that's not what they did with Jake's body.

57:13What they do with Jake's body is fully transfer. They transfer his body. Yeah, they just use the data. Yeah, what she does with spiders is completely crazy. She creates a hybrid. Right, she puts like a bit of fucking, you know, magic pod in his mouth and then he, right, he evolves into a new creature. It's nonsense. It almost feels though more like it's nature-based, not tapping into AWAP. Right, it's not neural, it's like, right, it's physical. It's biologics neurally connecting and then using the environment. No, she doesn't really connect. The floppy things. Yeah, she sees like the thing that looks like the Awa pod float on by and she's like, fuck.

57:50She can't connect to Awa Griffin. I'm pretty sure she's being rejected. There's a firewall. She's being rejected. And then she comes up with this alternative idea. And she doesn't know how she came up with it. It's sort of an expedited version aided by her of just like natural adaption to an environment. But it creates this like incredibly loaded notion of oh my god if humans can adapt to live here comfortably without the aid of technology then there's nothing stopping them they don't need a fucking avatar body they don't need vehicles they don't need to wage complicated war yeah sorry this is completely unrelated to anything but this is just kind of crazy the NBR list came out and Hamnet isn't in their top 10 films of the year interesting is Fire and Ash in there yes I think it is it is that is Interesting.

58:41Yeah. And Spider was nominated for Best Supporting Actor? Best Supporting Spider. Okay. And the Matriarch was nominated for Best Supporting Tulku? Yes. I have some questions about the Matriarch. Ask away. When did she get her piercings? What are they made out of? She goes to Williamsburg like anybody else. She attends the semester at the new school. No, it's just like... So a thing that happens in the Way of Water is we meet the Tulku and we learn of their pacifist ways. Piracan the outcast Tulkun. He kills Nubu. And that, you know, that the humans are now, they've moved on from Unobtainium and they're getting goo out of the Tulkun.

59:24Emily Rutakowski. What was that? What? They call the brain juice Emrata. Do they now? Is that what they call it? It's with an A though. And it's like, and it's his like Kiwi accent or whatever that guy. Scoresby, is that his name? I came up with that joke while I was watching the movie and I was like, I'll probably get like a two from the board. Instead, you got a, huh? And then a mild brownie chuckle. And, you know, so Pyakon, the triumphant thing in Way of Water, Pyakon helps defeat these evil whalers, right? In the words of the great Scott Gerdner, podcast The Ride, he chops Scoresby's arm off like a fucking samurai blade.

1:00:01It's so true. And then in this one, instead of the whale, the tulkun being like, thank you, that was actually a good call. these guys are really fucking us up. They're like, okay, first things first, Pyakon, you are so banished. You should not have done that. It is not allowed. And it's like, see, I told you guys, Pyakon's good. And they were like, first of all, we can't believe you're talking to Pyakon. Silence! We're still not over that. Second of all, Pyakon, slow the fuck down. Pyakon, go away. And then like, Scoresby's just like, all right, well, my strategy won't change at all. I guess I'll just continue to attack these guys with a robot arm now.

1:00:39Yeah. So that's the kind of stuff that I think people might see this movie and be like, eh, is it recycling? Or is it like kind of hitting the same beats a little bit? I think especially the big final set piece, even though there's so much more that is new going on narratively in terms of the actual action, the big final battle in this is basically combining the big final battle from the first movie and the big final battle from the second movie happening simultaneously. Which is cool. And there's repeated imagery. And then he gets into whole new shit. Then it gets trippy. Well, the one thing I thought in the final sequence that felt new was when they're on that in the magnet field thing and they're all kind of tumbling around.

1:01:19So that showed up with the eclipse? There's like... Yeah, I might have missed a line. And then it feels like there's an Aurora Borealis. I almost thought that was an extension of Awa. Was I wrong? I don't think they really set that up. Or they did and I forgot. Or it's in Wavewater. They're like, oh, this fucking magnet thing. I remember them saying in this movie is that they had to do the hunt as fast as possible for... The bad guys had to get the tulku as fast as possible because they couldn't get into the vortex. Right. These movies are not nuanced, but they are incredibly dense, and it is hard to absorb on one viewing, especially when it's three hours and 15 minutes long, and every scene introduces 15 new ideas that it asks you to download really quickly.

1:02:03I think they also, though, have to go because all the younglings are in one place. It's the like, it's like the, the cap, what'd they call it? Like the calf something? It's when the calf, it's like a big spawning thing with all the, all the whales gather, the tukun. I love that you call it a convention. Well, they're like fundamentally pacifists and they're freaked out by the fact that like Payakan defended himself, right? Right. I guess they're just being like Democrats. They're bunched out because Payakan's like, I resisted and they're like, You are not a Democrat anymore. Can we, like, reach across the aisle and have a sensible conversation?

1:02:42Can we return to normalcy? And Payakan's like, no fucking way. And it's also the, what, the Mekaina, who are the water tribe? Am I getting their name right? You know, have also struggled with this feeling that, like, Jake Sully being Tariq Mekto, being more of a warrior, being an ex-human. He brought the fight to them, and they were not super down with that. I really love that Cliff Curtis performance. He just always looks like he wants to tell Jake to go away, but he can't. Tonewari. Yeah, great character. God damn it if I don't respect you. You know, there's that vibe to it. And it's the weird incongruity that is addressed in this movie a lot of like Jake's the only Navi that carries a weapon.

1:03:24He's a fucking Marine. Because he is a Marine and he's never quite... And I learned something. I was rifling around on the Avatar Wikipedia, which is of course... Rifling? Do you guys know about the three laws of Ewa? Please give them to me Is it that all energy is only borrowed? It's sort of like that But no, it's like so Because I was learning about the three laws of Ewa Because Varang, our big new character in the film Played by Una Chaplin The leader of the Ash people Ay-yi-yi Hachimachi Does not obey the three laws of Ewa And they are You shall not set stone upon stone you shall neither shall you use the turning wheel nor use the metals of the ground now i've never thought about this but it makes sense because you watch avatar and you're like you know it's like the navi are quote-unquote primitives right they don't have technology and you're kind of like is this supposed to be some sort of thing of like the humans are more advanced than it's like no no no no they don't do it because they don't want to fuck up their planet so they're like we're not We know about wheels.

1:04:26We're not stupid. Their vehicles are coexisting. We coexist with flying and running and swimming things. We don't need to have wheels. We don't need to have vehicles. We know about mining. We don't want to do that because that fucks with the planet and you can't, you know, fix it. We want to use what the planet already gives to us, not pull things out of it. And you shall not set stone upon stone. This is a good tip. is, you know, you can't build anything that's not already kind of organically there. So like you want to build something in a tree, that's fine. Yeah. But you can't go around building buildings.

1:05:00Also, did you see that new high rise they're building next to the mother tree? It has a gym. It's got like washer dryer in unit. Oh boy. And like, I just like that thinking of like, right, it's like the Navi live in this, you know, which is set out all the way back in the first movie, in this coexistence with Pandora. but I like thinking about it as like, it's a philosophy. It's not just like an advancement level or whatever. No, and it's a connection with a consciousness. You know, it's like this movie physicalizes and literalizes a god that is also a representation of nature, but also the collective memory of the history of their species.

1:05:40And that, right, the coexistence with the creatures, the pony braid connections, is this like sense of communication. And it's this, James Cameron utopian vision of like, what if we had never messed with our planet? You know what I mean? We just left it. And of course, drawing from indigenous people. Of course. As always. But sometimes you worry like, oh, is he fetishizing or romanticizing these things? But this movie hit me every time that Varang et al are like, no, give me the guns. Where you're like, no, man, this is fucked up. It doesn't look right. Yeah. But it's also this interesting tension of Jake.

1:06:18She would the drugs. That's all right. Good. I'll take all that you got. We're all given a big thumbs up. Please give it to me. It's what's interesting about Jake that not only is he someone who like uses those kinds of weapons, but he has the psychology of a Marine. It is weird. He's trained like a Marine and they all have this uneasy relationship with him where they're like, even when it's effective, are we like letting something dangerous into our culture now? Are we like opening doors we can't close again? which extends to you know now maybe she's got reason to be mad maybe a volcano blew up her family possibly and then no one came to their aid well maybe someone should have come to her aid I mean none of the other tribes I mean that's part of the bitterness the other tribes didn't show up Ewa didn't hear her yeah to be fair Ewa was on a call is that right with Delta trying to get a refund interesting and where do you think that landed below or above the Imrata joke below firmly below subterranean.

1:07:18I think I could have maybe found a different specific that would have made it work. I think Delta was not the right choice. Avatar 4 Mole Navi? Subterranean? Ooh, sick. Isn't that fun? Because, you know, they've now done all the elements if you think about it. Like, if you think of the originals as the kind of Earth Avatar, the tree people. And we've met the water people and the fire people. And then David Thulis and his gang seem to be the sort of air people. I wish we spent more time with them. I would love to hang out more with the got wind traders. You know what I like? Those jellyfish they got that flop in the air.

1:07:51But I found it interesting how they even talk about their politics of like, we're neutral because we're benefiting from trading with both sides of this war. Well, and they're very grounded. He has to stick out. Yeah, you're right. Past history. I don't want to fuck with whatever, you know. Right. They got to move through territories so they don't want anyone mad at them. Right. And that's again what Varang is like, She doesn't play by any of those rules. Now, let's make it clear. Air people different from the sky people. Well, yes. Sky people are humans. The humans who came from the sky. You don't like that.

1:08:23And ruined everything. They're bad. One of the most incredible things about this franchise is how firmly anti-human it is. Someone in this movie says, like, kill all the humans. And you're like, yes! Finally, someone's a rational person. It is teaching the audience, every single member of the audience, to innately root against your species. And the couple of good human allies are like exceptions to the rule, small roles. It's not like we're getting a ton of Norm Spellman. No, they're all like Martin Freeman and Black Panther level. Like, yeah, 15th on the call sheet. The only good human is like a full-on species traitor.

1:08:59I surrender my body and give myself over to you permanently. It's just like, I cannot think of another series like this that demonizes all of humanity in a way where like, there are so many other ecologically based, this is the harm of the humans or, you know, this is the harm we're inflicting upon animals or the planet or nature that comes to some resolution of like, we've learned a difficult lesson here today. Thank you, Mumbles the Dancing Penguin for teaching us that we need to protect, you know, the oceans. And these movies do not offer humans like any path for redemption. No, they're getting They gotta go.

1:09:38They gotta go. They're getting murked as hell. They gotta fucking go. And the more they're there, the worse they're making. Everything goes worse. They suck. Yeah. And the city that they've built, you know, that's in Ray of Water and that's here, it sucks. Yeah, it sucks. It's really cool to go there. Like this like industrial, like soulless, no trees, no, you know, like, but yeah, it's a bummer. Is it still called Hell's Gate? No, I think Hell's Gate is what they call the first one. Let me look this up. A fascinating moment for me in this film. And these movies just have all these like little Bridgehead is the name of the city in this.

1:10:13Yeah. It looks like something you'd see off the turnpike. Yeah. It's very like New Jersey refineries. Yeah. These little things where I'm like, wait a second. I want to hear about that for 10 hours. I want to read about this shit. When Jake Sully is captured and put in like a fucking orange prison jumpsuit inside a glass like Hannibal Lecter box on display, like a freak show en route to being executed. Yeah. And he is surrounded by all these fucking humans with their like stupid smart devices, filming him on the screens. And you realize like, oh, like to these people, is Jake Sully like Edward Snowden?

1:10:55He's like fucking Benedict Arnold. There's a narrative we're not covering of. He's reported on the news. There's a news crayon that says terrorist captured. He's not like a terrorist, but he's like the ultimate traitor to them. And everyone's cheering as if it's like, we got bin Laden finally. It's a thing. I think about this yeah it's a thing that the movies can't really get into because it's just too big a kettle of fish right because I think about Avatar one as like you know having so much of a rock in it you know like the destruction of home tree and all that and just about like the RDA and all of it it's like it's this foolish overextension like what are they doing they've gone all the way over there and the mining for resources and they're mine and it's like they're obviously but like so in one sense I'm like, are there not people on Earth who are like, can we fucking get out of Pandora?

1:11:44It's a quagmire. Like, all we keep doing, we sent Edie Falco there? Now where's my nurse Jackie? I don't get, you know, like, and instead this is presenting this narrative of like, no, no, no, no. The propaganda over there has worked. People want their tulkungu. They want their unobtainium. And like Jake Sully is persona non grata on Earth. Well, there's also a couple lines about how like Earth is like ruined. Earth is just strip mined. So I guess if you want to continue the human race, we have to look for other... It's the same shit that happened in history, though, with colonialism. Shit that's happening now.

1:12:20We justified shit that will forever have. We fucking need our sugar. Okay? Because we got to put sugar in our tea because it tastes better. I get that as the... Sugar is tasty. But as the more old fat... But when I was thinking about modern reactions, two things like the Middle East wars where there's no thing where some soldier, you know, where America's been like, yes, we, I would think that Earth is being like fucking Pandora. Like, who knows what goes on over there? There has been strong speculation that when Cameron's like four and five or swerve, they're going to surprise people that what he's alluding to is that there is a stronger element of Earth in those.

1:12:59Hey, I'd be interested to know what's going on. Which feels like now the interesting thing to circle back to, of course, there's the whole opening he shot for the original film that is quite bad. Yeah, that sucks. that's like shitty dystopian drunk getting recruited shit rainy city stuff because that stuff kind of feels like it's not canon because it wasn't in the theatrical version but also so much time has passed in universe at this point you can do whatever but I am I would be very curious to hear what Earth's relationship is to the idea of whatever we're fucking doing on Pandora if the idea is to like terraform it to adapt to it if it's just about using those resources ourself, if it's just a thing about supercharging the economy.

1:13:41You know, I mean, the unobtainium, which everyone used to mock and now basically never gets referenced in these movies anymore, was the idea of like, right, the most precious mineral, right? But the emirata is like, this cures all diseases. This is like the magical potion. And one vial of this is worth like a billion dollars. But that's disconnected from the idea of, can we move here? Which Spider really opens up. and Cameron was talking about this a lot on the town and this kind of, you know, versus all these other big tech moguls who are talking about like, when he says that he's been involved in the Mars Project since the 90s and whatever and he's like, so you're one of these guys who's like believing in colonizing?

1:14:25And he's like, no, I believe we gotta fucking save Earth. We're never gonna find a planet that's better for us. Like there's nothing we've discovered that is like 1 % as hospitable as what we have right now and we're fucking ruining it. You know? And I think that's so much of what Avatar is about, that it's like imagining a Fantasia of a dominant species that not only appreciates the planet they were given, but lives in perfect tandem with it. Yes, and we're coming along and we're being like, can you move your tree? Right. It's on our shit! And we're like, hear us out. We're really good at ruining planets.

1:15:03It is crazy that even in movie three, fucking Jermaine Clement by this point, it's like, these are like living, you know, conscious. And they're like, can he be? Yes, go away. We need their goods. Money. So much money. Hundreds of billions of dollars.

1:15:25David. Yes. Happy New Year. Yay. That was a little party horn. Yeah. Yeah, it's February, but it's still the new year. I mean, I liked it. I'm not going to call it out. But with the new year comes a kind of time for reflection, right? You think about the past year. You think about your aspirations for the year to come. Yes. And you start to think about your finances. It's true. But look, paying off debt, building an emergency fund, saving for something major like buying a home or college or retirement, stuff like that. I plan to do all three of those in 2026. You're going to go back to school?

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1:18:09Ding dong. Ding dong. Oh my god. Hello, Creek. Hey, how's it going? And who are you? Mack Black. And what's that? That's my name. You asked who am I? That's my name. What are you doing here? What do you want? I'm a construction worker, obviously. As you can tell from my general demeanor, temperament, and this hard hat here. Yeah. I'm sure you've noticed the interruption, the sound. Yeah, I guess I... Jack Hammers. Boom, boom, boom, boom, boom, boom, boom, boom, boom, boom. We've been hearing some construction noise. In the building. Mm-hmm. But I've been struggling. Yes. What's the matter? This construction project's not going well.

1:18:46I have no idea what's going on. I explained to you my name is Mac Black. I'm a construction worker. I've been working in the building. He's winding up. He's winding up. He's winding up. I don't know what's going on in your life. I knocked on the door. I open. I'm interrupting. I don't know what's going on in your life. You're struggling. What's going on? This construction project's not going well. Okay. Okay. Been trying to build a better wardrobe. There it is. Yeah. And so what you're referring to, of course, is the sort of the furniture, the physical thing. Incorrect. That's a weird assumption for you to make.

1:19:16I'm talking about pieces that work together and hold up over time. Well, Mac, we've got news for you. Come on in. Take a seat. I have a pair of pants and I've been jackhammering them for months and nothing's coming together. We have ad copy people can't see with prompts that are a little esoteric. And one of the people who works for our show responds to those prompts in interesting ways. But nobody knows what like it's like going to an improv show where you didn't hear what someone yelled out. David, excuse me. I'm sorry to interrupt. Mac doesn't know any of that. He's living his own life. You're right.

1:19:47Mac is such a he's such a thoughtfully realized character. Thank you. I'm a construction worker, surly demeanor, hard hat, and I've been taking the jackhammer. Is Mac short for Macintosh? Absolutely. Macintosh, Blackintosh. That's pretty funny. Thank you. Quince has the everyday essentials. You got to go to Quince to get a good wardrobe. Well, that's the recommendation I've been waiting for. What took you so long? I said fast. Turn his mic off. Quince has the everyday essentials I love with quality of the last, organic cotton sweaters, Polos for every occasion. Lighter jackets to keep you warm in the changing seasons.

1:20:21List goes on. I love Quince. I've got a nice quarter zip that I've been sporting around. Well, well, well. You're looking pretty smart if I dare say so myself. You know, they got obviously very, very cheap and comfortable cashmere stuff. Merino stuff. A lot of good. I got myself a cashmere scarf from Quince. It's cold in New York City. You need to bundle. Now, I'm a little bit wary. Quince sounds good, but is this one of those companies that works with bottom factories and cuts in the middlemen? No, they're top only. Top factories cutting out the middlemen. Oh, that's the exact opposite. Just to be very clear.

1:20:58Yes. That's what I was worried about. You're not paying for brand markup. It's just quality clothing. Everything's built to hold up to daily wear and look good season after season, okay? And let's not forget that, of course, every night I sleep under a Quince comforter and Quince sheets. So it's not just your wardrobe. Everything. Everyday life. Ben, can I say how much I appreciate that I feel like you're making the effort to communicate with me? You're making eye contact. You're giving me recommendations. What can I say? Unlike Silver Spoon Sims over here. Refresh your wardrobe with Quinz. Go to quinz.com slash check for free shipping on your order and 365 day returns.

1:21:33Now available in Canada too. That's quince.com slash check. Free shipping and 365 day returns. Quinz.com slash check. That's great news because I live in London, Ontario. Mac, see you later, man. By the way, big fan of the pod.

1:21:51There's this sense in this movie, like you say, of like Parker Selfridge, the great Giovanni Ribisi. Nepo Baby. Nepo Baby, son of the chairman. Maybe has different designs than, say, Edie Falco's character does. I mean, Edie Falco's kind of there to be like, we need to, you know, quell the resistance and we need to... It's not a monolith. Right. And Parker is a little more like, well, wait a second. If Spider can do this, maybe we need to focus on that. You know, like, so it's not right. There's not one plan. It almost reads to me as if there was a large corporate effort to extract the elements that they can monetize from this planet, which they built a kind of war around, right?

1:22:37Much like what has happened many, many times. Yeah, sure, sure. to get the military involved, to like create a reason for a crisis, for a need to explore, even this notion of, right, there were sort of the three tracks of like scientific exploration and outreach, a militarization, and like a mining for pure capitalist reasons. And now those three things have gotten like tangled and disconnected simultaneously where they exist in opposite tracks, but they can't like completely separate themselves from each other. And it feels like there's like now this kind of like propaganda-induced blood vendetta that exists within the military of like, they're savages, we have to stop them, which is a direct byproduct of the self-defense and the escalation of their war against the natural citizens of this planet that is now at odds with the corporations being like, can we just get more of the fucking goo?

1:23:34Stop making this so messy. I'd like some of that goo. I'll just say it. Apparently it makes you live forever or whatever. I don't want to be immortal. No, it would suck. But you know, they could be kind of immortal by just becoming Navi. Well, and that's maybe something Parker is realizing. Are there couches, though, like in the afterlife? Great question. What is the vibe? They were all just kind of standing around. They're all just standing around. Oh, like when you connect to A1. After an hour, you're like, can I just sit down somewhere? Can I sit on the ground? It's the end of the fish. Everyone you've ever known is waiting for you.

1:24:09No, it's the ending of Titanic. It is the ending of Titanic. You're right. No shit. I don't want to stand the whole time. Yeah. It'd be funny if Kate Winslet, you know, embraced Leo in the afterlife or whatever. And he was like, welcome to the afterlife. And she said, no shit. It's kind of. What'd you do with the jewel? I dropped it in the ocean. No shit. I was surprised they killed her off in this. Who? Kate Winslet. Yes. Her character is Ranel. Ranel. How fucking cool was it, though, that she like. She's like, I'm going to give birth to this. She's getting birth. Neytiri's helping deliver the baby.

1:24:42At one point, Neytiri's like, hold on, sorry. And then shoots a fucking arrow. Got a fucking, boop, boop, boop. Okay, back to a push. That moment of like, she's gotten the thing shot into her chest. She's like fucking 800 months pregnant, right? She like claws her way back up onto land and goes to Neytiri and is like, I'm dying. And Neytiri's like, don't say that, you're not. And she's like, I'm dying. And Neytiri's like, okay, you're right. Let's deliver this baby. Like there's this incredibly intense sequence of like, there is no chance you're making it out of this alive. The priority is just get the child out of you.

1:25:18It was so cute. Yeah. Is that the first? Go ahead. No, the child's name is... Priel? Johnny Carson. Priel. Is that the first what? Baby that we've seen? Yeah, because I know there's like sort of creepy AI art about... Oh, you see babies. especially when they're doing the like the fast forward beginning of Way of Water when they talk about them expanding. You see his children being born. I think you see babies as well in the universe. But you know what we didn't see? What? We did see in this movie? The little otters. Yeah, I love those otters. They're cool. And they're like the squid guys too. Oh, the fucking squid guys.

1:25:54When Cameron Diaz, the counselor, those fucking subpods. When the squid are just beaking people to death, you know, that was... But they also fuck the windshields until they crack. The squid, sorry, the crab ships are in the last one. Are the sort of torpedo-y squid ones in there too? I felt like that was a new ship. I couldn't quite remember. I love all the looks of those ships. I love the look of fucking everything. Here's the other James Cameron magic. Marie, you watched the two things on Disney +, right? I, you know, had them on. They're like two 40-minute making of things. It's like a two-part, what's it called, fire and water that is good, but you also wish it was like 18 hours long.

1:26:41And it feels like it mostly exists because of James Cameron's sudden prioritizing of conveying to people that these movies are not made with AI of like really explaining the process and pulling back the curtain more than he had previously. But the big thing with these movies and why they like look better than anything else is not just the amount of money the amount of time he's given, but James Cameron just has that insane, we are going to spend as much time as it takes to figure out the internal logic of how every single thing works. There is nothing on screen where you're like, that's cool, and you feel like that was the beginning end of the process.

1:27:20It's like if a creature's created, you can just tell in these fucking movies that someone spent nine months figuring out the biology. I mean, those squid look so fucking real. And the function of these creatures where he talks about this, where he's like, I will not let there be a design element just because it looks interesting. There has to be an argument for why that species has evolved to need that in order to survive. And I feel like all the military vehicles are the same thing where you're like, oh, fuck, it works like that? And he's the best at this shit where he just visually teaches you how something works and then sets it up so that it can come back later and you have the shorthand in your head.

1:28:01that's where these movies are fucking complex. It is why he like, you know, goes blunt and uses kind of shorthand and cliches and tropes in certain areas because it's like some of the stuff I'm going to have to fucking teach you is so complicated that I need to like clear the path in certain areas in order to download all this other fucking shit into your brain which will result in your final 40 minutes where you're like, I'm maintaining 15 narrative threads and understanding like 40 different species and how the ecology works and how all this technology works and the movie doesn't have to slow down and explain itself then.

1:28:39Right, right. I mean, no wonder these things cost like$1 million to make in totality or whatever. Yes, and take forever. Right. And whole languages had to be thought up and all this stuff. And it's like, on the one hand, it's in service of a world that like 99 % of viewers will never get beyond like the first foot of, right? Like they'll never go deeper. Maybe super fans will eventually be handed Bibles and encyclopedias that they can read. I mean, I got this fucking book here, but even I'm like... There'll be more. I wanted like a definitive 800-page volume where I could just like... I wanted Encyclopedia Britannica.

1:29:18And it's the thing that people will throw out against these movies where they're like, but does anyone fucking care about Avatar? Like no one talks about this shit. And there's no fucking like fan fiction. and there's none of this fucking shit. There is, but yeah. Right. I mean, I write it and it's about brain. But it does feel like it's not as culturally omnipresent as the things we know of, right? That dominate the tip of pop culture. Certainly the things that are as successful as the Avatar franchise is. But what is interesting is that, yes, it's like all this work is done under the hood to basically service a thing that it seems like a majority of the audience goes like, yeah, they're fun to look at without doing the like, I want to read all the backstory.

1:29:56The other thing that strikes me is that a universe like Star Wars or even Star Trek or what are some other big... Game of Thrones. Well, let's put that one aside for a second. Well, let's think of like those things. Lord of the Rings. Well, let's put that one aside. But let's start. Let's do Star Wars. Okay. Yes, George Lucas wrote down a bunch of weird shit. Yeah. But that's a... You know, he started with this and they just started to add shit on to it. 28 % backfilled and constantly changing. And Star Trek was the same where like as they develop it, they're like, well, it's okay. So what would the wider world of this look like?

1:30:30Game of Thrones, even he probably, you know, added as he went along, he had more maybe a holistic idea. But like for Cameron to like, no, no, no, we're going to start with a whole functioning thing and then we'll build a story. Well, it's what to me speaks to a larger issue and how we like engage with pop culture and this idea of like how fandom has kind of poisoned everything. and our sense of cultural purchase and weight is connected to the intensity of the fandom. Of like, Star Wars is this thing that became basically a world in and of itself and bordering on like a religion and a thing that people will study.

1:31:10And people have been trying to reverse engineer that kind of shit for decades, which often distracts from like actual storytelling, which is the number one thing. Right, you don't want to get lost in your world building. Right. James Cameron is just like, the world building is like, whatever. It's like means to an end. I care about all this deeply, but it's all in service of making this story work for the three hours you're sitting there. And people, like, it's the thing that happens every time a fucking Avatar movie comes out, where they're like, that looks dumb. Then they go see it, and they're like, leaning forward in their seat.

1:31:42And then six months later, they're like, that sucked, right? It was dumb, right? It looks dumb, in my memory. I mean, I just saw an interview with him where he was talking about Titanic, and the guy was, some whoever was like, you just wanted to go to the Titanic, right? And he's like, yeah, yeah. I mean, and then I was like, I guess I could set a story on the Titanic. And I guess I was like, Romeo and Juliet. And like, he admitted, like he was like 90 % I just wanted the fucking technology to visit the Titanic. Pandora's like a fucking thing he started noodling with when he was 16. He's like, what's the coolest fucking planet that could ever exist?

1:32:17So, yeah. So, you know, he's the first to admit his stories are elemental and basic. I saw, and I don't know if it was on the town or if it was CBS Sunday morning or whatever, but another James Cameron interview where he was like, yeah, my biggest insecurity as a filmmaker is that I'm not as strong of a writer. And so I try and really focus on the visual showmanship and those sorts of elements to try and mask what I think are my weaknesses. And the communication of larger story ideas and more primal emotions. I mean, these movies in so many ways, like I was like, what is the closest analog to what he's doing now?

1:32:56Because it doesn't, it's not really fair to compare it to what else is happening in like blockbuster cinema or TV or anything. And it's like, he's making like insane original sci-fi versions of like what used to be the biblical epic. Sure. In a way. Right, like a Cecil B. DeMille movie. He's very like broad, huge sweeping emotions, statements about like humanity and the nature of existence, except rather than riffing on the things that we've all known and lived with forever, he's like pulling from all these different myths and then building his own mythology and then still getting back to stories of like, yeah, but it's about like what it means to be a dad.

1:33:31Well, I mean, a lot of people pointed out Way of Water is about him moving his family to New Zealand to make Avatar 1. Right, and his children being like, can you chill the fuck out? What the fuck, man? You don't know how to talk to us as people. Right. And the first and third movies are both about, you know when you have that like, pony braid so good it makes you go crazy?

1:33:56The two movies mirror themselves in that way where they're like, we all know this guy and we know what his deal is and he knows who he is. But what if a pony braid is so fucking good that you actually lose your mind? Can I bring something up that we haven't really talked about? And this was something that I brought up to you guys after we stopped watching the movie that was on my mind, is that between Way of Water and Fire and Ash coming out, John Landau dies. He did die. But I mean, he was very involved, obviously. He died very recently. And these two movies were basically captured together. It's been more of an extended post-production process with the footage that was mostly done in 2020.

1:34:34John Landau, to be clear, has been Karen's producer since Titanic. was a Fox executive and then became his number two guy Lightstorm Entertainment and you basically just always would hear like well Jim's a you know Jim can be a little tough to handle and John's really good at kind of finessing and you know helping him explain things to people with money and things like that you know what is so interesting to me because I know you watched the ILM Disney Plus series recently it feels like such an inverse of the George Lucas Rick McCallum dynamic right where you're like George is this like very soft-spoken.

1:35:10And then he has a tack dog. I think there should be Sebulba. And McCallum's like, if I don't see 50 Sebulbas! Yeah. He's like, if you don't bring the visual effects budget down $50 ,000 in the next hour, I will murder you. And then John Lando is, by everyone's account, the, like, ultimate fucking mensch, but also was really into the sort of, like, maintaining of the ecosystem of the Avatar world and the sort of quality control of all the other stuff that came out of it. I was really struck by it just thematically. And I know that these movies were written before he passed away. And largely filmed.

1:35:44But how much of the processing of grief, of losing a brother, is part of the text of the movie. I think it's a great example of the story maybe didn't change much at all, but the emotions of the person telling the story affected the way in which it was told. it just feels like there's a different tone to this it feels like a slightly more serious and haunted movie even though it has certainly tons of avatar silliness in it I mean this is another thing the titan subversible imploded and we all know James Cameron felt really bad for those guys and he was very very compassionate about that every time he was interviewed on CNN where he was like I heard they blew up and I like it that guy's a fucking Parker Selfridge I was just thinking about how he's kind of Parker Selfridge Yeah, yeah.

1:36:36Stockton Rush. His name sounds like fucking Parker Selfridge. But this is another thing he explained very well on The Town is that like these movies, basically, he gets to just capture everything with the actors. At this point, there's so little footage using live action actors playing themselves, right? Spider is really the primary one, and then you'll occasionally cut to scenes with Edie Falco as Sergeant Nurse Jackie and what have you. But so the majority of the film is shot like a black box performance rehearsal space in this weird wireframe grid, and he just gets the performances he wants, and then he's like, all of the filmmaking decisions I make later in the computer.

1:37:21The only thing I care about when I'm with the actors is the performances and communicating the characters. And then I get to, with that data, figure out the shot composition, where the cuts are, how I'm lighting them, how I'm rendering the environment. And so it's like, narratively, everything is captured years before. And then the very long process is how do you actually get it visualized on screen? Actors, though, get dunked. Go on. and I'm wondering though if they ever have to hold their breath for a period of time Kate Winslet broke the record oh really did you did you I know hearing this for the first time I do think I do think this never came up at all but I mean this was the thing that was so expensive I think I made myself sick on the last episode by trying to hold my breath oh yeah that sounds right that's because you were throwing a tantrum because we wouldn't get you a toy yeah I'm just standing there holding your breath weird David that feels like my daughter has not pulled the holding her breath I think of that as such a classic like kids book thing right and I'm like I've never seen a kid actually do that because it's such an insane thing to do can we get a quick side tangent that has made me really happy what's that you have started talking about how you have gotten into the the system of being able to communicate with your daughter via toy okay sure especially in in the like efforts to like sleep schedules.

1:38:46Keep her in bed. Keep her in bed. If she fills up a sticker chart, she gets it. Right. Bribery. Right. And that you now are keeping like active tabs on the entire line of Spidey and his amazing friends and Iron Man and his awesome friends toys. Why is there not a swarm toy? Do you know this? That he texts about this? That he knows every fucking figure that exists in these lines and any character she asks about. He gets so stressed. You must love this, Griffin. It makes me so happy. And he's clearly, He doesn't ask me for advice that much because he clearly takes some pride in that he's able to figure these things out himself.

1:39:18I'm figuring it out myself, yeah. But then that makes me proud when he's like, so I had to find a different thing figure in a compatible scale because they technically haven't made him. Like a three and a half inch thing, four inch, whatever it was. Iron Man and his awesome friends is, you know, the new Spidey. I don't understand how the dinosaurs factor into this. That's a season five thing, right? Well, that's in Spidey. That's season three. it's just so funny because I did buy my nephew a Lego set that has like dinosaurs and Spidey it's just the cracked out Disney plus fucking boardroom where they're just like okay so the kids love Spidey but you know how many times can Spidey save the day what else do they love dinosaurs and someone's just like what if they just turn into dinosaurs how figure it out season 3 is them turning into dinosaurs you know they were doing some of this in the comics too recently even before the kids show whoever the guy is who like sat up after I'm sure Varang blew like fucking Naveed dust up his nose and said Venomsaurus Rex is that anything?

1:40:18They handed him like a national medal of honor. You haven't lived until you've seen Electro turn into a velociraptor which is like an episode. There's also a pirate ship season. They just were truly like what else do kids like? Pirate ships, dinosaurs, there's I don't know, there's glowing webs. Trains? Trucks? I haven't done trains. Cowboys. There's a lot of good vehicles. They should do Cowboys. They straight up haven't made Swarm as a toy yet? No. So now, Swarm is one of the villains in the Iron Man series. Oh, and that's a newer series. So the line hasn't gotten that deep in terms of character selection.

1:40:49The only toys they've released so far are Iron Man, Iron Heart, Iron Hulk, and Ultron. Okay. And my daughter really wants a Swarm doll. So if anyone wants to make a Swarm doll, that'd be great. Okay. There's also, of course, Absorbing Man. And, you know, they've got some other guys. I'll ping my folks at Hasbro. I'll see what they say. I'm sure it's all, you know, in the works. It's all in the assembly line. What's up? Have you talked to your daughter about Red Hulk? That's a good question. I haven't. I think she would just kind of be like, Hulk is green. Because, you know, the Iron Man show has Iron Hulk.

1:41:21Yes, Iron Man show has Iron Hulk. Because Spidey show has natural biological Hulk. Hulk, as my daughter calls him. And then Iron Man has Amadeus Chow, Iron Hulk, who wears a mech Hulk suit. Cool. And I think it's just, again, my daughter just gets it. where she's just like Iron Hulk. I get it. He's like Hulk. I get it. Yeah, well, Red Hulk. He's like Hulk, but he's red and he's president. But the president's where it becomes a trickier conversation. She's not going to get the president thing. I don't think Liv Tyler or Cherry Blossom plots are really going to move her either. And if I'm just like, he just needs his pills.

1:41:55He's 80 years old. It's just a shame you haven't let her watch Brave New World yet. Because when you talk about having trouble getting her to fall asleep at night, I know it's often her asking you questions of like, will they ever resolve the plot lines of 2008's The Incredible Hulk? When are we going to get follow-up on the leader, Samuel Stearns? Yeah, right, right. Eddie Ross. It would be so funny if they dropped the Doomsday trailer and it's like the first shot is Red Hulk. Like that they're just like, we're not giving up on this. No, no. Can I one-up you? Yeah. The funniest thing would be if the Doomsday trailer opens with Ty Burrell as Doc Samson.

1:42:27If they're like, we're not done with Incredible Hulk characters. Litigating everyone from that movie. Thank God we got some Red Hulk talking. Phew. How do you think he's doing right now? And let's quickly just salute our president up there. I haven't seen a single piece of media with Red Hulk in it. Well, there's only the one. Yeah. It's a limited canon. So far. Hey, look. Well, I haven't seen it. You don't want to see it after the acclaim? Was it on the NBR? Yeah, it made the 10, right? Who got best supporting Red Hulk this year? Can you believe 2025 has been so long? The Brave New World came out this year.

1:43:05I believe it was January, was it not? I think it was February. I think it came out President's Day weekend. I think it did. I think you're right. It is so crazy. We went to Texas this year. Not me. Oh, yeah, we did. Yes, yes. Yeah. We saw that Michael Bay parkour documentary that still hasn't gotten anywhere. It's where we discovered certain grill master. Yeah. Well, you've discovered what had already existed. You've discovered what had already existed since time immemorial. Also crazy, I went to fucking Santa Barbara this year and saw Horizon American Saga That was this year? Chapter two, a movie that may never come out.

1:43:47Ah, what do you mean? Red Hulk is on that. He'll liberate it for us. We ran into Bill Gabbary, the great Bill Gabbary, past and future guests after the screening and I was talking to him and we were both like, yeah, everything we hear makes it really feel like it might truly never be he's a tough son of a bitch that Kevin Costner you know he just might he is his his own greatest champion his own worst enemy exactly that pancake eating motherfucker isn't he in a deep sea diving era he is he's flirting with it not so much deep sea as he is treasure hunting doesn't he also have like a Disney Plus special called like A Very American Christmas I mean who fucking knows isn't there some I'm currently googling James Cameron Kevin Costner to see if they've ever like talked about each other because I feel like they have so many common interests.

1:44:35That feels like magnets turn to opposite sides that would repel across the room. Well, they both worked on the relief for the Gulf-Mexico oil spill. They have shared interests. I don't think those two guys... I don't think there was a room with enough oxygen to maintain both of those guys at the same time. What is the funniest paycheck gig Costner could take to try to get the money to figure out his... Like what like dumb ass franchise does he have to parachute into to like start collecting, you know, to like to stabilize? I got the answer for you, my friend. Composite Hulk. Are you familiar with Composite Hulk?

1:45:13What the fuck is Hulk? Who's half Green Hulk and half Red Hulk? Is this real? Yeah. Of course. Does that make him a half president? These are the questions Kevin Costant will have to answer. All I know about Red Hulk is that he's president. Like what else is this? Well, it's actually, it's kind of the big twist of the movie, which of course the trailers reveal. right away because they were really worried. Right. Because no one would go see the movie. That's the thing the movie's created. In the comics, it's just like, oh, you know Red Hulk, who turns out in a twist to be the father of the military general who hates Hulk and is the father of his...

1:45:47When Red Hulk was introduced, it was just like, who is Red Hulk was the big mystery. And it was like, Hulk's out there and he's red and he's smashing people. Who could he be? Turned out he was Thunderball Ross. The guy who hates the Hulk the most. He also had a gun. And whose daughter loves the Hulk the most. and in this movie he gets elected president and he keeps taking these pills and they're like what are those pills for? He's the president he's like we gotta work out a trade deal with Japan where are my pills? And I was like why do you need these pills? I just need them for no reason! And it turns out the pills are the only thing that are stopping him from rolking out and the pills can only be prescribed by Samuel Stearns who's Tim Blake Nelson with a fucking scrotum head.

1:46:23But he has a really big head? Yeah he's got like a gross brain. Yeah. I had to look that up for whatever episode. Was that the Buster Scruggs episode you guys talked about? The leader. Spoiler, Marie, but Brave New World ends with him in jail. Does. He's on the raft. Wow. He goes to jail. Wouldn't that be great? Thank you. Thank you. Wow, Ben. Very half-hearted clapping there. I can think of another strangely-hued president who I'd love to see in the raft. Oh, yeah? Donald Donald it's not like William Howard Taft or something no I said strangely huge oh huge I thought you said huge too and I was like I mean I guess Donald Trump's got that in the war Tiger Weiger the orange buffoon so we got Emrata what was the other joke I don't even remember the other one but it was no good the problem is I came in loaded it was the Delta Airlines being on the wall it was a bad one and by the way never forget never forget that joke many laughs were lost when I tried and failed to land that joke there's gonna be a reddit thread that's like is anyone else picking up on how like Griffin's just like lost the sauce someone needs to write it much like James Cameron sometimes giving you blunt dialogue because he's got larger story design to play I came in with too many perfect big brain takes on avatar that my funny bone is just on shore leave today I think we do take this film and this franchise very seriously.

1:47:58That's how organs work. If your brain grows, other bones disappear. Sometimes you gotta leave a bone on the bench for a little while. Ooh, new paranormal activity movie in the works. Congratulations, David. I get to complete my franchise. This play is apparently very cool. I know. I guess I gotta check out the play. I'm sure it'll come to New York. There's a paranormal activity play in Chicago? It's in Chicago currently, but I think it's got good reviews. Eva Anderson loved it. I've only ever seen one horror play and it was that one Tatiana was in that we saw together. Oh, yes. Why am I already forgetting the name of that player?

1:48:33Oh, what was it called? It was called The Old Grey House. I saw a horror show once on Broadway. It was called Seussical the Musical. A person's a person. That wasn't bad. No matter how cool. Wait, what's your beef with Seussical? That thing's sloppy as hell. Seussical from the, I just saw Ragtime, which same composer. Yeah, very similar shows. You know, the scariest thing I ever saw, I think like movie play, was The Woman in Black, which is a long running thriller. Yeah, that is a very, very famous horror play. Yes. And it was one of those, maybe I was just a teenager and I was more impressionable or whatever, but like it was one of those things where I could not believe how scary it was.

1:49:14Apparently, like Paranormal Activity has like very good unshowy stage magic shit like that, where you're like, I can't believe. I am way more. I'm watching a paranormal activity live. I am way more interested in that than I am in like the stranger things, like where it's like just like a lot of. Well, the stranger things show I think is just right. It's like big. People like it, right? It's like good. I think it's okay. Again, it's the stagecraft is so impressive. Saying it's good. Stranger things is one of those. Look, I mean, obviously, as I've said, I watched it three times every time Barb died.

1:49:47And I stopped. I tried three times with that show. I got to Barb dying and didn't keep watching because I found it boring but it sort of makes it seem like I just couldn't get over the death of Barb I thought you said you were just like really into watching her die you re-watched her die three times every time she dies I throw my remote it's like Trump like fast forwarding through the dialogue scenes in Kickboxer you just have a super cut of just Barb dying over and over again I'm still a Stranger Things unicorn well I basically am too apart from Barb I've never even made it that far right but I mean it's one of those I tried one.

1:50:21I didn't finish the first episode. As this new season is dropping, it really feels like this is just an emperor has no clothes thing where everyone is just kind of like, I guess I'll watch it because I watched the rest of it. So I guess I should finish. But I'm not detecting a lot of people being like, can you believe what happened on Stranger Things? And instead, I'm seeing a lot of people going like, they're just like fighting the fucking guy in the Upside Down again. It's also like the most expensive TV show of all time. The TV show is like four movies. It has the most complicated release power.

1:50:52Right, the end of it's going into theaters first. Millie Bobby Brown changed her name. Yeah, she's Millie Bobby Bon Jovi. Sorry. It's so fun to say. That is one of those things where I'm like, Our world is really good. Everyone's like, well, she got married too young. And I'm like, what do you mean? She's been a celebrity forever. How old could she be? She's 21. She's a baby. It is one of those things where every time I check her age, I think my brain is glitching. She was truly 11 when she played 11 or whatever her character is. Drake was texting her or whatever. The other one is Kaya Gerber where I'm just like...

1:51:26She's the one who's Cindy Crawford's daughter? Yes. And she's like 23 and I feel like she has been in seven five-year-long relationships. You think that because she has the name of a baby. Gerber. That's the problem. So you think she's a baby. Yeah. The Kaya Gerber baby. That's the issue. What's she in? Have I seen her? Yeah. Well, of course she played Chevy Chase's girlfriend in Saturday Night, a character that somehow had more dialogue and screen time than Gilda Radner and Lorraine Newman. I saw... And Jane Curtin combined. She's in Bottoms. I watched Bottoms. She's in Bottoms. And I saw Max Minghella, a friend of the show.

1:52:01Uh-huh. She's in Shell. I saw his movie Shell, which she has like a big scene in. I mean, she's a smaller part. I don't remember her in Babylon, but sure, she can be in... Well, she played Starlet. Oh, of course. So she's probably one of those scenes with all those stars. But she's dated Austin Butler. And if you think about it, LA is a city of stars. Pete Davidson. Isn't she dating Louis Pullman? Well, the rumor now is that she has... Has this been debunked? This is debunked. She's dating some other random guy, but it was fake news that she was dating Richard Gere's son, which was notable because Cindy Crawford and Richard Gere were married.

1:52:33Kind of a sliding doors incest relationship. Yeah, but I don't think that is real. But apparently it's not happening. I don't think that's real. So, fire and dash. We haven't even talked that much about Vareng. One thing I will say about Vareng, a character I loved and I was very excited to meet the Ash people. She's merely a player on the board. She is, I suppose, the closest thing to the biggest villain in this movie. They're pushing her very hard. But she's one of many characters. The main marketing image, the poster, is her face. Like, first movie was Natiri face, second movie was Kiri face, third movie is Varang face.

1:53:10Oh, on the poster, yeah, yeah, yeah. Right. And she's the cleanest kind of new marketing hook the movie has. Which makes sense. rocks but I did a lot of people walking out of the screening with me were like I could have used even more of her. Oh well me too. And I understood that and it is again this thing of like if this is the last Avatar movie which I don't think it is but then that's a little disappointing you know that this is all we got but obviously if she's just another element in the world that we get to play around with more then that's okay I don't know. Right. I also But there's a good hefty amount of her and she's very interesting So fucking high on these movies, especially since the public goes benoit blanc on them every single time.

1:53:51And their knife's out. And I feel like James Cameron always has this like on the eve of release. Like, I don't know if people even want these. Maybe I'll just go home kind of thing. And some of that I sometimes wonder if it's like very savvy renegotiation with the Walt Disney Corporation, especially because it basically was like they fully greenlit two and three. but four and five have kind of been like half green lit for a while and some work has been done on them but they haven't done like the major expenditures on them yet and four wouldn't be for another five years? I mean it's going to be at least that.

1:54:29I think the last they said was maybe 29 and 32. That's right. 29 and 31. Okay. But who knows. I mean Michelle Yeoh still hasn't shown up. Yeah. And supposedly James Cameron filmed her. Right. playing a scientist or something. Well, and like David Thulis, who has a very small part in this, who's intriguing, and you were like, I want to know more about these people. Cameron was like, this is a slow burn character. He's only got a little bit in this one. He's got a big arc in four or five. You know? And like, to me, I'm like, I don't think you bring David Thulis to the volume just to do this. I have to imagine he's captured other Thulis stuff that he's just sitting on unrendered.

1:55:07It's actually tough to capture Thulis. It is. He's very slippery. You know? You try to throw a net on him and he's like... Say, Nicola, do you always feel like the idea of the tax explanation with one leg to the house? No, at all. Why, tax is the tax app with which I can't do anything wrong? Wow, that means everything is safe? Yes, exactly. Why, tax is the tax app that understands you. Because tax is your whole life. Work, children, partner. You can't do anything wrong. Right, nice. It doesn't feel like tax. Tax completed? Safe. T Scripture, now.

1:56:14Okay, Varang. when she gets handed to that flamethrower, she's like, okay, okay. I feel about them how I guess like normal people or like, you know, when I say normal, like in a derogatory way, feel about like the Joker and Harley Quinn. Yeah. Yes. We're like... I do feel like Horach and Varang are now officially my Joker and Harley Quinn. Yeah. Yeah. Anytime they show them like being giddy with each other, like there was a moment where he was like holding her as she was like shooting something. And she was like smiling. And I was like, wait, I love their love. I also think there's something. It's such a basic concept.

1:56:55But the second he teased the idea of like the next movie is going to have bad Navi, you're like, holy shit. I've seen fucking six hours of these guys being so principled and so severe and so disciplined. And you're telling me there's one who likes to fuck shit up. and just watching Varang like do crazy shit and then laugh is pretty intoxicating. The tribe, the whole tribe's design, the paint, really scary. They all look the way my father describes like any alternative teenager. Like growing up in the East Village and he'd be like, oh, he'd go to St. Mark's and there's the kid with the thing through the nose and the stuff all over his face.

1:57:36That's how he'd describe like any punk kid who walked by and I'd be like, he has like an earring. No, no, no. He's got all the stuff. Does he know about Ben's earring? He does. When you think about Quaritch, I think he likes it. You know, Quaritch's job is to kill Jake Sully. Every time he meets Jake Sully, he thinks about killing him maybe, but then Jake Sully's like, I got Spider. And he's like, you got me this time, right? You know, like... I like every time he's like... Potent hostage. And instead, they have like a weird meeting of the mines, tete-a-tete. And then he's like, I'll see you again.

1:58:16And so then he's like, I don't know, maybe I'll just climb a volcano until I meet her. And then she's like, mind if I blow drugs in your face and cut a line across your chest? And he's like, don't mind at all. He's just, he's more open to things than Jake Sully was in some ways. Let's dig into this, okay? He's down. Part of his hatred of Jake Sully, obviously, is that he views him as a traitor, right? But also it's that he can actually relate to Jake Sully more than he can any of the Navi. Right? Right. Jake is the only guy who's sort of like him. Opposite side, right? It's that similar marine training.

1:58:53There's a similar psychology to them. It's established in Quirch's backstory. He's got that crazy scar in the first movie. And it's like he landed on this planet and these creatures all almost fucking killed him. And now he's like, I hate this fucking place. This whole planet's dangerous, right? And Varang has a little bit of this, like, we were left to, like, almost die. And now we hate this whole fucking thing. And both of them sort of feel like they're, like, living on borrowed time to a certain degree. Like, their existences are, like, affronts to God, which they then, like, empower themselves in, like, feeling as, like, a sense of identity.

1:59:31Especially when Quarch has literally died and been reborn. and there's this like sadistic part of them that is the thing that Kord actually doesn't relate to anyone else in that he gets like such a clear kind of like what has always felt like a somewhat sexually charged pleasure from the violence without it being overstated. And like, as you said, he's got all these other grunts who just like wear fucking like Oakleys and go like, I love guns. And Varang is like, guns. And he's like, yeah, you get it. They match each other's freak. Right, right. It's like, but like Quarch doesn't want, Quarch is just like, I'm a normal red-blooded American.

2:00:12And they're like, Quarch, there's so much going on under the hood. And it's what drives him so crazy about Jake Sully is like Jake Sully has activated a freak that he doesn't want to even have to think about. And Varang is like a healthier version of him feeling like there's a safe space to freak out. I am so curious about Spider's mom. yes there's the one scene where Quaritch talks about her a little bit that she was in the battle at the end of the first movie she was like a copter pilot and is killed I'm like what was her deal was she also like I don't know it's hard to reconcile because the Quaritch in the first movie is not horny at all he's only horny for blowing up home tree you know like and he's it's not in that character which is fine they hadn't gotten there yet that he's already had any sort of pre-existing physicalized relationship with someone else who is on that planet and is serving the same mission.

2:01:08Isn't that like frowned upon? Because I'm assuming if he's like the commander of everyone on base then she'd be his subordinate. So like what the fuck? I don't know. I don't know. Maybe she was his superior. Potent. Dynamic. Power dynamic. I do kind of appreciate that they don't like do the fucking Spider-Man 3 like a cut in an actress who wasn't there in the first movie. Yeah, no, that would suck. I loved the moment in this movie where he and Spider are having that conversation when Spider's been captured and brought back to the base. And he's telling, you know, Korich is telling him about his mom and was like, you know, you have me and her and you, you're, you know, you're a fighter or whatever.

2:01:51And then for a moment, you're like, oh, are they really bonding? Because Spider asks for his dog tag. And I'm like, oh, this is. This is like a next level kind of relationship. Oh, okay. So they're going to develop. No, Spider's being smart. No, Spider just uses the dog tag as a fucking screwdriver to escape. The story... Like, Quarage kind of gets it in a way. In that he goes to Varang, meets her on her terms, gets some hot Navi poontang, and really locks in with those guys. And of course, I just love the whole dynamic of Quarage at the first... Initially being, yeah, I'll go get Jake Sully for you.

2:02:28and by this movie he's like these are 50 Ash Navi they hang out with me now they're gonna make camp around and he Falco's like what is going on they brought their tents here like what the fuck he's like don't worry about it I gave them all free passes um but whenever he sees Jake Jake is like dude you can live on this planet and tap into the magic of it in a way that others can't You're a Navi now There's a whole world for you to understand If you want to understand Quarch is like No thank you He can't quite do it And Spider does do it He loves a Navi woman Well that's what I'm saying So there's some movement But the fundamental thing I almost thought he was going to die At the end of this movie Instead he just Once again is like Oh fuck And like jumps off a thing And we'll see him later We think that Varang is going to Like catch him She's going to like fly I ain't worried about Quarch She ain't dead.

2:03:25It is one of the things that would make this film the most frustrating if they don't make four and five. He has a Disney villain falls off a cliff into a cloud thing where you kept waiting for them to cut to him landing on something or Vrain catching him in the way that the last movie does where you think he's maybe left for dead and then Spider pulls him up onto the rock. And instead, this movie just leaves him as a complete dot, dot, dot. Ben, I like what's happening on your computer screen right now. I thought but my point was just that I thought Quaritch might die just in this sort of like he never fucking quite got it.

2:04:00You know what I mean? Like that at the end of the day the planet would betray him in some way and it would be like if you'd only kind of like really listen to your Navi site. Now maybe that's his ultimate arc. I think his ultimate arc is that he gives up on being an RDA guy. Right. And Cameron's already made it clear that he will always be the dominant villain of this franchise. But that moment where it almost feels like they're going to do a fucking Last Jedi, like maybe we have to team up together moment where they're both feeling a kind of parental protection towards Spider. And their fight almost kills Spider and they both have to like work together to save him in a moment.

2:04:38Which is interesting. But then, and then right, my point about Spider is just, Spider does care about Pandora much more than his dad. He's sort of intrigued by his dad, maybe, but like much more intrigued by Pandora by being part of his people. he gets it. He like locks in. Now, does Jack Champion's performance always convey this? So Natiri has this early scene where she's just like... Okay, nobody wants to talk about that. No, no, I want to get... I'm building up to this, okay? Natiri has this early scene where she's just like, we gotta fucking drop him. Enough. He's gone. He is like a danger.

2:05:13And this is even before he becomes like a hybrid, right? And then Jake later in the movie is like, you were fucking right. And it hurts me to say it, but you're right. Like, nothing good will come of him existing. Even after Spider saves him. Yes. Right. And he's like, I consider him my son. And yet... Well, I guess Jermaine Clements also saves him, too. A lot of people save him. Sure. And he, like, takes Spider out to the woods, and it is this like, incredibly bizarre mice and men scene, where he's like, where are we going? He's like, just keep walking. And then he brings him to a rock and makes him kneel down and you see Spider process it and he takes out his blade and he's like ready to murder him.

2:05:56He's gonna do it. It's the binding of Isaac. Spider has this acknowledgement of like, I get where you're coming from. Right. I am an abomination. Right. And Jake is admitting how much he loves him. So here's the thing. Doesn't totally work for me. I think you said this when we walked out of the theater, Marie. You were like, the arc of these movies is kind of mirroring my relationship to Spider, which is like Like, increasingly, I'm like, fuck, do I kind of care about this guy? Yeah. And he's not great in this, but I was sort of like, I'm acclimating to him more. And then this is the scene, which I do think is dramatically so interesting.

2:06:29And I think Worthington crushes where I'm watching it and I'm like, he's just not totally stepping up. No, Worthington is. The stakes of this scene. And anytime they ask him to do anything a little more complicated, it feels a little. My mean joke after the movie was like, isn't this James Cameron, the guy who notoriously will yell at people for hours until something is perfect? And this is like the performance that made the final cut in the film. And I think you look at like Edward Furlong in Terminator 2, who can be like wooden and odd and is obviously like very green in that movie, but has like such a distinct energy and vibe and charisma and conveys like the most important things that character needs to.

2:07:15And sometimes Spider just feels a little bit like a placeholder performance of an idea. There's an innocence to him that sort of helped that scene for me, the Binding of Asics, you know, the scene where he's going to sacrifice him. Because he's such a sweetie, I guess. And you're sort of like, you do feel for him. The stuff with Kiri, I think, is when he's the best. The monkey boy stuff. Right. It's so crazy. Just Sigourney Weaver and this fucking shirtless teenager. It's so... And he's like 12 when they shot these. And he's older than that, but yeah, yeah, yeah. That was this big thing where he was...

2:07:51The productions got shut down during the lockdown. COVID, yeah. And Cameron had to write this letter to like the New Zealand government and he's like, this kid's body is changing every hour. Puberty is like running like a bullet train through this fucking kid. If I don't get footage in the next two months, everything we've shot so far will be thrown out. And we're back to square one. and I noticed there are sequences in this movie where Spider looks entirely CGI in a way that made me think it must have been stuff they couldn't reshoot it's possible and it was part of why they maybe had to get like two and three done together because there's maybe a time jump happening four and five because Jack Champion is showing up in other movies now and he looks different and I also feel like I have liked him more in the stuff I have seen him in recently these are still performances that were shot like largely five years ago.

2:08:42Yeah. But like, that scene still moved me. I thought, you know, Neytiri and Jake, you know, like their realizations emotionally clicked for me. So I was moved. I agree. Even if Spider's like, oh shit, I guess so. Okay. Kill me, daddy. Right. I also think in certain ways, and I'm saying that to Quaritch. You raised some good points. Blade to his neck. in certain ways it helps the movie that he's a little annoying because the whole thing is like you can't like him too much right he needs to be kind of a pain in the ass but I just think anytime it becomes like a slightly more complicated emotional dynamic it has a little bit of like Clint Eastwood working with young actors feeling where I'm not even like really throwing him under the bus as much as I'm just like I don't know if he was really helped to get where he needed to go.

2:09:41Maybe not entirely. Yeah. Which is okay. Should we talk about whale stuff? Yeah, I was about to say. Because that's like, I feel like another whole little separate storyline that we haven't really touched upon. So Payakan is like AOC and the rest of the Tolkhum are like a bunch of fucking Chuck Schumer. Right. He goes to try to... Yeah, I did notice their glasses were at the bottom of me. Way down. Below all five of their eyes. he goes to try to find his lost clan and there's the one he finds whose eyes have been gouged out oh my god she's been blinded she's got harpoons and shit in her it was so sad this is the kind of stuff that really upsets me and kind of reintroduces us see this is like the savagery this is why we need to fight we need to defend ourselves we cannot be passive we also kind of need to talk a bit about Loak's arc in that the movie opens with him talking about how, you know, he's grieving his brother and all of the guilt that he feels.

2:10:42He feels like it was his fault. And he's dealing with some did the wrong kid die sort of. Right. And there is like that classic dynamic of like the young son wanting to impress the father. Jake Sully not really wanting to view him as an equal. You know, you're still, you know, you're not ready for this yet. you're not allowed to touch guns, you're not allowed to do this, you need to stay safe. And he's like, no, I want to, you know, I've got to do this. But he like really sort of finds his voice through his advocacy for Piacon. Yes. I also, I think that speaks to like the very personal thing Cameron's working through in these movies.

2:11:20A certain type of very extreme, very successful person who doesn't really know how to help guide children to be anything other than what he is. Like, this is how I've succeeded and how I function, and all of my guidance I provide for you is through that prism. And the second movie is so much Jake Sully being like, do I need to, like, chill the fuck out? And so I think he's struggling with knowing how to guide Loak in this. Because he's like, I don't know if, like, telling you what has worked for me is the best advice. Well, it's also like, his first son really responded to Jake's parenting method, which was treating him like he was part of the army.

2:12:00And his first son locked right in and was clearly good at it or whatever. And Loak's just not good at following orders and maybe has some ADHD. He's always forgetting his comms, necklace. You know what I mean? He just needs a slightly alternative kind of approach. And Jake's kind of like, I just... What about be a Marine doesn't translate for you? You know, he's just not the best. Loak's like building a gaming PC. and he's like what are you going to do with this? What is the career that comes out of this? And like meanwhile May Terry is like gazing off in the distance and going like because she's upset.

2:12:37Right. She's not totally there for him either. Terry's like plugging into everything and then like having seizures. Took is the easy one. Yeah, Took's pretty chill. It's just it's nice. She didn't get a lot to do. Well, you know what? They gave Took one thing to do which is when Kiri has to plug into Awa to get Awa going and then Spider joins in, you know, to help and you're like, and then Took's like, you know what? I'm gonna fucking throw my bait on there. I didn't realize that Took is, I guess she's the girl in Life of Chuck who he dances with at the school dance. I wanted to shoot that scene in the sun.

2:13:12I wanted to write a letter of an apology to Zach Braff when I saw that fucking scene. And I was relatively into the first act of Life of Chuck. Oh, I was very into the first part. You know, I was like, oh, this is interesting. I think the first act is a masterpiece. I think that movie is 30 minutes long. That makes my 10. It was very, and I was like, oh, I want to see where this goes. And they were like, it's going here. Yeah. It's going here. And I was like, well, now I, now I'm very upset. What an odd film. And what an odd, like, oh, it won the Toronto audience choice awards. Yeah. Then it like sits on the shelf for nine months and then it comes up and people are like, what the fuck is this?

2:13:52I think at TIFF they were smoking that those gooey kind of movies will translate and it's a gooey movie it's all I can say I don't know what came second let's see the people thought was gonna Emilia Perez and then Anora was the second runner up now Anora obviously is the best movie of those three but I guess it's the spikiest you know and like remember Emilia Perez talk about a hallucination. I swear to God. Someone must have like fucking plugged their brain into the back of my head without permission. Just the six months of only Oscar voters being like, I think this is the best movie I've ever seen.

2:14:36Everyone else being like, you, what? What are you talking about? Are you talking, yes. It really opened my eyes. To what? What did this movie communicate to you? Yeah. It would be hard if this happened to you. If what happened? Explain.

2:14:57that's the craziest thing about that movie is people were like it really made me understand the issues and you're like what issues and then anyone involved with anything related to the issues was like it understands something about any of the issues I want to punch this movie transgender issues not it's not on the level she smells like cigars and guacamole her daughter sings at her what I was going to say is I think you know Emilia Perez exists to get Zoe Saldana an Oscar because they were going to they were never going to give it to her for playing Nateri watching this movie I was just like and was talking to our friend Mal about this but I'm like yeah in my mind I've just shifted it over to like of course Academy Award winner Zoe Saldana who won her Oscar for playing Nateri I'm fine with her having an Oscar on a shelf.

2:15:52I love her and I will just never think about the performance that she won it for again. Man to woman. Navi to man.

2:16:05There's a lot more interesting dynamics at play in the Avatar universe, I would say. That really did feel like a mass hallucination. Fully. Do you remember this? It was at Nighthawk Movie Trivia. We should thank, of course, Oh, God. Yes. That was cool. Are you sure to think Red Hulk? Yeah. Shae Fillmore and Kevin Cecil, who run the Nighthawk Trivia and are the fucking best. And the Nighthawk Trivia, if you're ever in New York, if you live in New York, if you live in any neighboring area, if you're ever visiting twice a month, they run the best movie trivia night. And they let us host once. And people said it was easy.

2:16:41David, your round was real hard. My round was a little too hard. I do apologize for that. I think I overestimated people's interest in my topic. Well, I did the same. I thought that mine was easy as well. This was really good, I thought. Thank you. I thought mine was like a classic like trivia. I did, for those who don't know, I did a round of Penny Marshall trivia, you know, to... Our next miniseries. Yeah. But it really did kind of hammer the point home that we probably should cover her because people are sleeping on this one. Let me be clear. It's an interesting filmography. It's a long-running bit to say that she's coming next.

2:17:17And that bit... It's over. She's coming next. She's coming next. But that bit is not rooted in the idea that we would never cover. No, it's rooted in a dumb Reddit joke you made that makes Marie and I so angry at you. No, you're forgetting that it predates that by so many years. I am. It was the first time Ben and I went on The Best Show. Oh, see, I don't listen to, no offense to our great friend Tom Sharpling, but I don't listen to The Best Show. This was like eight years ago. And I forget what prompted me to make it, but Sharpling was doing his antagonistic bit. What? and was like tell people what's coming next and I I just like I picked Penny Marshall and that was early enough in the run of the show when the idea of doing Penny Marshall next would have seemed crazy in terms of just like how many people we still had to get to and then I have revived it into a Reddit bit that drove you crazy but Penny Marshall would be a good series sure we'll do her sometime I don't know and especially because every time we cover a female filmmaker people are people are really normal the Reddit gets more normal One could say it's kind of a potent...

2:18:20Whatever. You got this, David. You got this. I don't. I don't. I'm landing. Sadly, landing. What we're saying. Oh, Trivia Night. Kevin did a question, like a round one question, which is a sense will be supposed to be in general knowledge, easier round, like over the summer. Uh-huh. I got it right. Less than four months after the Academy Awards ceremony that was named the movie with these four character names. And it was Amelia Perez. And most of the room got it wrong. And he was like, I correctly gauged that this is the last possible moment you could have made this a question that anyone could have gotten right.

2:18:55Rita Castro, Jesse Del Monte, Gustavo Brun. I'm just naming other characters. I think it was Rita. Emilia Perez clearly was not one of the listed things, but it was Rita that I got it from. But yeah, that was... It's just wild because It's Jacques Arnaud's main movies I liked. He's made many films. I like a tremendous amount. And he also made Emilia Perez. And just quickly, if I can just lead our whole audience in a sing-along. Emilia. This works, right? If you just start the song into the mic and assume that everyone else is going to join you. Remember when... Remember the Delta joke? Remember the thing at the Oscars?

2:19:35Yeah, remember when she... When the lady was like talking about butterflies or something? I thought that was a good bit and I thought that was going to redeem the Delta bit. Oh, I don't remember. Wait, was this something one of the winners did. It was the best song. They tried to lead the whole audience in singing along and they put the audience and they're like, we don't fucking know the words. Even we think the songs are bad in this and we voted for you. And she's the lady who did the nice rat song in Ratatouille. It's Camille. And she did the fucking song from the SNL French Teenagers sketches.

2:20:05Oh, that's fun. All her other songs are good. I own several of her albums. I listen to them. Oh, several. And now quickly, if our listeners would just join me and singing a meal. Okay. Avatar, Fire and Ash. Fire and Ash. This film, you know, it's getting rolled out by Disney with all I feel, the appropriate fanfare. It was screened for the awards voters, which is why I saw it early. It's why you guys saw it pretty early. It's not like Way of Water where we saw it like week of release. It's the Christmas movie, right? I mean, like, it's going up against fucking Marty Supreme and Anaconda. Wait, Anaconda's coming out this year?

2:20:46Yeah, it comes a Christmas day. It is one of the strangest Christmas programming decisions. I haven't even seen a trailer for it. Well, you can watch the trailer if you want to have three bad minutes in your life. Marie, I know you love it when eye lines don't match, right? It's my favorite thing in the world. Well, get ready for that happening in a$60 million Sony kitchen. Does anyone do like a weird Cajun accent? No. They should be. That already sounds better. The premise is so fucking convoluted. It's like they go to the jungle to remake Anaconda. Yeah, go for it. Do you know that like the story of the kids who like remade Raiders of the Lost Ark?

2:21:24Yeah, yeah, yeah. So this movie is about four nerdy kids who grew up remaking Anaconda in their backyard. So Jon Voight's performance exists in the world of this. Yes, they want to pay homage to the 1997 or whatever. And as children, they made a home video remake of Anaconda. Of course, four childhood best friends, Jack Black, Paul Rudd, Steve Zahn, and Tundeeway Newton. And they were kids in the 90s? What? Yes. Sure. And they're like, you know what we should do? We should go to the real jungle where they shot Anaconda and remake it again with better production values. Ben is like diagonal in his chair right now.

2:22:05And then it's like almost a Tropic Thunder thing where they get too deep and the snakes are real. and they were like, we thought we were making a movie, but now the snakes are actually trying to kill us. You know what movie is wacky? What? It's Luis Llosa's Anaconda. Yeah. That movie's crazy. Have you ever seen Anacondas? No. Search for the Blood Orcans? I've never. I never searched for the Blood Orcans. It is a great title. It is a great title, and they should use that more. Yeah. Fantastic Four, Search for the Blood Orcans. Everything about that trailer, I was struggling to understand what the concept of the movie was over how loud I was sighing at every single reveal in the trailer.

2:22:44It's the least excited I could possibly be for a Saving Silverman rate team. Oh, God. This year, we got really into Saving Silverman. That's a great movie. We should screen it. We should. I need to watch it first. Yeah, you do. Oh, it's so good, David. You should do that over the holiday break. Yeah, let's just flash back in a decade of dreams to earlier this year when I said Saving Silverman's pretty good and you finally said, I was like, what? Saving Silverman is not good. I was, I was, it was truly like, you were like, as we all know, like toxic fumes should be breathed. And I was like, wait, I thought we all agreed 20 years ago.

2:23:18That was bad. Erlich has seen it like three times now. Yes. I've successfully Silverman people. And by the way, so many people like big strong men came up to me, tears in their eyes. And we're like, Griffin, by the way, you're right about saving Silverman. You're brave to say it. Yeah. I've been waiting for someone to say it in your position with your power. And I feel like Have you seen Have you seen Song Song Blue yet? No I hear Everyone is basically like The first half's pretty charming And you're like Huh why didn't this like Go to TIFF Why didn't this And then the second half Is like incredibly depressing And maudlin And kind of lost everybody I have a screener I guess I could watch it Well you should double feature it With Saving Silverman Why?

2:23:59Because they both are about Neil Diamond cover bands You don't know how much Saving Silverman's about Neil Neil Diamond is in Saving Silverman I also don't care about Neil Diamond. We're almost done. Look, I got so much more to say. You don't need to care about Neil Diamond. I am just waiting for the day. Do you have more to say about Avatar? Yeah. Let's do that. We barely talked about Vering. Griff, we're getting closer to I have to go time. So, all right, what do you want to talk about with Avatar? Fire and Ash. Not Saving Silverman, which we can table till 2026. It's not going anywhere. Can I ask you right now?

2:24:33Yes. will you commit to watching Saving Silverman at some point absolutely in the calendar year of 2020 I'll fucking watch it right now well no hey hey this is a workspace let's see if it's on some raunchy things happen in that movie I'm gonna have to rent it can we stinks if we do a screening of Saving Silverman you will consider it if we can get a 35 I'm happy to watch Saving Silverman tomorrow on Apple if we do a screening could we do it of a movie I like or at least care about a little bit yes we can but maybe I mean first can I watch Saving Silverman just to see what I think of it you're gonna you're gonna love it I'm not opposed to his greeting I'm just saying Amanda Peet plays the Vareng of Saving Silverman I'm aware Amanda Peet is the most Vareng coded character that has existed in a pre-Fire and Ash world largely considered a somewhat sexist portrayal of a character at the time well I would argue the film is almost kind of a satirical take on the inherent misogyny of the sex comedy of the late 90s and early 2000s It's twisting it to such a gnarled kind of like...

2:25:35Did all the big, strong people say that to you too? Yeah, many, many smart people. Richard Brody said that to me. He hugged me really, really tight, whispered into my ear, you get it. Was Richard Brody at your avatar screening, David? I'm not sure if Richard was there. I mean, I just saw him at the Critics Circle, of course, and he was as lovely as ever. Did you have a nice day? For me, it's now that I'm not the chair anymore and I'm just back to counting. I'm always like, I can't wait. I'm so excited for the counting. And then I forget that it's like, there is no break for the counter. because I'm just like doing math and then like the categories over and I'm like, okay, I have to start like prepping the next category.

2:26:08But it's always fun. It's so cool to see how it develops. I did hear that. Can I say about like people getting votes, like performances getting votes? Sure, maybe. What do you want to say? That Una Chaplin as Varang got some supporting actors. She got some votes. Not enough in my opinion, but. Here's the genuine thing for me. I love the world of these movies. Good to know. It would be weird if you didn't. I just, I love everything happening within them. I am endlessly fascinated by anything else he wants to tell us. And I am somewhat, look, he's put enough of it out there that I think Way of Water won some people over who were more skeptical to the first movie.

2:26:57I don't think this movie will convert any new viewers. worse. No. At this point, it's basically like, did you like Way of Water? You'll probably buy by this. Right. Have you never been into Avatar? This will not win you over at all. Right. Ben and I were talking to the great Bob Marshall last night who we ran into and he was like saying like, have you guys seen Fire and Ash? We were like, yeah, it rules. And he was like, really? I thought it was a mess. And I was like, what do you think of the first two? And he's like, I've never gotten them. And I'm like, yeah, this one is admittedly more of a mess than the first two.

2:27:28But to me, it's like they open the doors to the fucking all-you-can-eat buffet and we're just like, how much avatar do you want to put on your plate? And I don't care if all the, like, items on the plate aren't totally meshing together because I'm like, I'll just eat a little mac and cheese and then I'll have, like, a slice of pizza and then I'll have an egg roll. I like all of these individuals. ice cream, why not? Absolutely. That sounds great. I like everything they make at this restaurant and if you don't like this restaurant, you don't like the decor, you don't like the music they play, like, at this point, it's your fault for going through the door?

2:27:58It's the Rainforest Cafe, actually. It really is. Do you want to go into the world of the Rainforest Cafe? I do. Some might find it cheesy. Yes. Some might find it a little over the top. Yes. Not me. Do you think they're going to have Varang at a Disney park? Or is she too... I'm sure not. Great question, Murray. I love that. Well, so they don't... This was one of the areas that John Lando really took the lead on in terms of maintaining the integrity of Avatar in the parks, right? And the idea is that it's like you are a human tourist visiting Pandora. And mostly the people you interact with are like Norm Spellman-esque, kind of Grace Augustine.

2:28:38Yeah, the other human scientists. Exactly. Yeah, it'd be too fucked up for you to try to go into Pandora. And his big thing is like, we don't want walk around Navee because that will like destroy the magic of the thing. You like are not going to be able to get the scale right. like someone walking on stilts they won't be able to animate. It will like diffuse it. So you don't really see Na 'vi other than inside the rides. And you're mostly dealing with like the ecology of it. They announced that they're doing an expansion to Disneyland. At Disney World, it is basically the first movie and like sent around the floating mountains and like the mother tree.

2:29:14And at Disneyland, apparently it's going to be more way of water. And the big question is, will you be able to see and or touch Paiacan? I would like to. which is what I really want. But they have more representations of the animals and the tech and the flora and fauna. And then it's like, the rides will have within those controlled environments. But like, Jake Sully's not there. Natira's not there. Varang's not there. Which is a shame because if Varang were there... No, it's not a shame because then you would never leave Disney. I would be leaving a griffin-shaped hole in the door of our fucking office.

2:29:48You would try to move in there and you'd be arrested. I would be running on foot to Orlando. Is Spider there? They could fucking have Spider. That's a good question. I think their big thing is like, we don't want to do anything that clashes with the narratives of the movies, especially because they're ongoing. So you're dealing with like original characters here. And it's more just like the world of Pandora. But I mean, I'd love to meet Spider and just be like, what is your deal? I don't know, man. We're annoyed by him, but like if we met him, we'd probably be like, Like, oh, you're sweet. I thought he was good in Freaky Tales.

2:30:25And it was one of those things, my favorite movie to invoke that doesn't exist. But I was just like, who's this guy? Why does he like look familiar? And it's like a five years older Jack Chan. I mean, he's in Scream 6, I think. And he's totally fine in it. Yeah. Is there anything else we want to talk about with Avatar? I mean, did we talk enough about Paya Khan on trial? He was up. We did the Chuck Schumer joke like three times. I feel like we're all just worried. but the answer is there's much we haven't talked about because we only saw it once and I'm like you know just kind of like casting around but like let's speak around some stuff perhaps my favorite moment in the movie is I think it's the matriarch just goes ham and this is where people are like oh the movie just repeats all the same shit from the end of the second one and it's like oh she like flops on top of one of the boats the big boat though the biggest boat she's the biggest Tolkoun and you're like oh it's the same beat and then she's like I'm not done flopping.

2:31:20And she flops like 10 times. She just keeps fucking destroying them. I'm very in favor of Tokun smashing things. That's just good. Eat Scoresby? They sort of drag him down to the depths. Like they grab him in their mouths and go all the way down. They stopped and rush him. Yeah, the injured ones. Yeah, the blind one gets the revenge. My hope is that Scoresby comes back in the next movie and he's got like a robotic lower body. Yeah, right. He's like, you can't kill me. I'm just like half a face. Edie Falco did die and I was either disappointed that she didn't get much of a death scene or a little baffled if she had survived she says abandoned ship but then you see the whole thing kind of blowing up and I was kind of like I don't think she made it but I don't know that was one thing where I was kind of like kind of rooting for an Edie Falco going you know sipping her coffee while everything blows up around her you know like that and the Quaritch just like falling into a cloud thing makes me wonder if Cameron's like, if I make four and five, they're still alive.

2:32:22And if not, I like didn't want to leave them unresolved. So I left their death kind of ambiguous where it's like, maybe they just didn't make it. Trying to think like, I think the action sequence I loved the most was the first big one with the airships just because of like, that was new and different and cool. I mean, I like the big final sequence plenty, but you know what I mean? And the airships to our earlier point are like these giant fucking like flying jellyfish squids that are being used as like the balloons and hot air balloons with woven baskets underneath them. She like shot a fire arrow into them.

2:32:55And it blows up and they're like skidding down the balloons and stuff. Yeah, that was crazy. Just some random stuff. I love the like the bone sculptures in the Ash world. And that was in 28 Years Later. They have the big emotional bone temple. Where CTH pounders. I think they're in both. Yeah, you're right. You got to tell Kiri what she is and they explain to her that it's like, it's the best for understanding you're a god. To go back to your earlier thing where you said it was... Nice to see C.C.H. Brown. Love it. Like Anakin Skywalker. Anakin Skywalker, of course, I subscribe to the theory that he is a baby conjured by Darth Plagueis, the wise.

2:33:29No, if we're talking seriously. Oh, yeah, of course. I feel like that is. That Darth Plagueis made the Force make him. Right. Versus the narrative he is told, which is like, the Force just created a baby. No, they were right. There was some nefarious action. But Curie, it's almost like, there is a slight kind of Jesus element of like God has decided he needs a physical form to be able to interact on the ground with people. And then it's like Awa couldn't revive Grace, but could do that. And there's this recurring thing of like the seizure thing from the previous movie of every time she tries to connect, there's a firewall, there's a blockage.

2:34:03And then you have the moment where we said her siblings come and like protect her. And then as it's happening, you have this like, it almost feels like the dream child from the end of 2001. That's exactly what it looked like. Where there's this like big white like sort of like structure and then it slowly starts rotating and you realize it's a head and Awa is going to look at you and maybe talk to you and you get to like three quarter profile and then they get pushed out of it. But this notion of Awa having like any kind of physical representation felt very enticing to me. The idea that Awa is someone you could have like a traditional conversation with even if it is, dare I say it, just an avatar she is creating.

2:34:44Yeah, just a representation of... Consciousness can be absorbed by other people. Yeah, right. How to reckon with God. But at the end, like they have found this way to plug in to the great consciousness, the collective of everyone they've lost. I think they've always had that. I think it's more that we're seeing that. Like that's what plugging into the Tree of Souls is. And it's, but of course now, Spider can do it too. No shit. I was satisfied that Jake and... that the family was together, that there wasn't some bigger hammer blow, no more sacrifices. I mean, yes, we lose Kate Winslet and maybe her daughter died, right?

2:35:22No. Her son? No. A son. Yeah, yeah, yeah. It's the kids who fuck with Lowak in the previous movie. They're kind of mean in the first one. You know, there were some more secondary characters that died in the battle. If there is a main story concern in this movie, it's the idea of like the principle of... if you're willing to surrender your family, then, like, what morality, like, what are your values as a human being, right? Like, the idea of killing Spider as, like, a strategic chess move to, like, protect your king is, like, yeah, but if you kill your son... Then you're just, you're gonna live with that forever, and you're disobeying a what?

2:35:57You're going against all this natural order, like, and that's what Natira realizes, which I really like. I think she plays that really well. Jermaine Clement, it's a recycling of Deli Brow's arc. Yeah. Nice to see Deli Brow. I'm always happy to see him literally show up on screen, collect a check. Residuals. But, you know, like, but Jermaine Clement having the moral moment. But he's funny and like he played the jailbreak well. Like that was cute. Still incredibly funny to imagine Marc Maron having to play those same scenes. So you're like Jake Sully, huh? We have the whole like Jake writing. Oh, to Rick McToe.

2:36:36And that was something. together all of the clans, which I like did, I did kind of want to... It's fascinating because it's like, that is the thing that's almost a carbon copy. Yeah. And Loak is narrating it and the narration seems almost identical where it's like, he got on like Turok and then he went from like clan to clan. The evolution, of course, is now they get the Tulkun too. Right. Did I miss that he kind of was like, I'm not Turok Macto anymore in the last one or something? Yeah. That was a big thing in the last. He's like, I'm not taking that. I forgot that. Right? He like heads over.

2:37:11I forget what the other term is. Because they're getting in and off, on and off those things like Honda Civics. You know, like after the first movie, he's like, you're bonded to your guy. And then in this one, everyone's like, is there a random bird I can plug into a flyer? We covered this in the Way of Water episode, but basically he was holding two positions. Like one was the West Studi position of basically like the chief of the tribe. Right? Yes, yes, yes. And then the other one was like Taruk Makto, which is maybe closer to being like the Pope. Yeah, that's like an honorable, right, to all Navi.

2:37:39Right. And there's like a wilder responsibility and power that comes from that's almost dangerous. And he like hands over the chief title to someone else. Steps down from Tariq Mekto and is like, no one should be Tariq Mekto. Right. It's too scary, too bloody. But it does, that is the one area in the film where I'm just like, really? You're like going to pull this move and then just sort of be like, yeah. And then, you know, he'll do all the same stuff. They yada yada some stuff in the movie, which I don't love, but that's okay. But, you know, someone said some version of that, like, why didn't we see one?

2:38:11And I'm like, I don't know, man. It's a three-hour, 20-minute movie with, like, 30 characters, and they're all doing things, and you just have to make choices at a certain point as to what's going to be in the movie. They've been publishing all these, like, comics miniseries, Dark Horse, that are all basically things that Cameron cut out of the script. Right. Like, they're not just, like, assigning writers to come up with like expanded universe shit. Like Cameron's like, this was like a 30 page chunk that I just didn't have room for. So I'll like hand it over to a comics writer and go like, do you want to get 12 issues out of this?

2:38:44There's so much stuff. Yeah. I'm not going to read that. Some of them are good. Maybe I will. Maybe I will. Maybe they'll make another video game. They made Avatar the Game. There's one now. Frontiers of Pandora. It's fucking rad as hell. Should I play it? Wait, is it? Yeah. What are you doing? I was messaging you this when I was playing it. Is it on the PS5? It was the most actively I got into a game in the last couple of years. Okay, I do remember this. It's so crazy how these things come out and God knows this must have cost a fortune to make. It's like a fucking AAA game that seems to have done over.

2:39:10Everyone's just like, okay, yeah, right. It was neither like a colossal flop nor like a total success and they're still, they just did like a major DLC update. You fly around and shit? They've done like season pass, like every six months there's a new fucking major story arc. Let's get the bundle. So Ben sent a bundle of McFarlane toys. Excuse me. That's not his name. His name is... Todd. T-Dog Mac. Including a Varang. That's Patreon lore. You can get... Obviously, you can get Quartz. You can get Jake. But the Varang has like... Her default face, she's going like this. But she's also got one that's kind of like this.

2:39:49So you can swap her head out to have her be a little more nice, I guess. Yeah. Also, can we call up Ray Zielinski quickly before this package arrives. I want to use his ray to like fucking embiggen that Varang action figure, if you know what I'm saying. And so Ray Zolinski. Oh my God, that took me. That was a real throwback. Honey, I blew up the kids. Right, right. So you want his ray from the second film that made things bigger. And then what do you do with the big toy? Well, I think Griffin's going to do something. No, excuse me. Oh no, okay. I will merely dump my cat. Oh, okay. Go, my lady.

2:40:31And respectfully keep a distance. I do think Avatar 4 should have the first Navi lady, short king, human, boy, sex relationship. Hold on one second. Let me just email my manager quickly. You know what I mean? Like this nine foot tall woman walks in with a five foot eight guy. David, slower. I'm just trying to transcribe this quickly. Isn't that But isn't that what's happening with Kiri and Spider? A little bit They do have a little kiss Of course Kiri isn't full height yet So she's still kind of like Spider-ish size And Sikorny's so fucking good She's fantastic I nominated her for Way of Water She's great in this one too I was just kind of like There's nothing like this Performance In a movie so shocking because for years he was so mum on how he was bringing her back and then it's like she's playing a teenager what are you talking about and then there was the sort of like novelty factor of holy shit this is a good performance in this you just kind of like take it like you accept it and then every like 30 minutes I'd be like right that's like Sigourney Weaver playing a child and she says in that you know little preamble video about no AI like she's like yeah because of this I can play a teenager and you're like, yeah, that's what this is for.

2:41:56For like crazy swings like this. Like this weird technology is for this. It's, this is what I said when we walked out of the theater. It's what I put in my letterbox log. It is easily the best Avatar film I've seen in the last three years. That's so true. And that's, that's, that's my ultimate takeaway. If you like Avatar movies, it's the best one of 2025 and better than anything that was released in 24 or 23. It's a movie where I thought I might watch it and be like, that's great and I'm glad James made these and maybe it's time for him to make something else I don't know instead I watched and I was like I think I need Avatar 4 announced pretty soon I think I need him to be back in the lab I was getting itchy I think I need a couple more of these versus the hey if James Cameron wants my old joke wants to make Avatar movies then I want to see him now I'm like James I think I want you to make more I don't think I want you to use your powers to melt my face with Hiroshima.

2:42:52Like, no. Beyond that, I'm also like, James, you sure you can wrap this up in two more? Yeah, right. Feel free to like stretch out. Doing a taffy sort of sign. We're recording this pretty early. Yeah, the box office situation is that I assume this will be the number one film. Well, you're forgetting it's going up against the second weekend of Ella McKay, which is kind of an interesting Disney cannibalizing the Avatar franchise by putting it in the direct pathway of a buzzsaw. I think Ellen McKay will open to 600 to 700 mil, but is going to be very front loaded. And then drop. Look, come on. It's going to be like Demon Slayer.

2:43:31Like the day one is going to be like 50%. Friday, huge. Then it starts to drop. I mean, it's one of those things where it was a flop fall, as we've been joking, you and I in our text threads and all that. But it's largely a byproduct of just... Just not enough product. Horrendous scheduling from the studio. Yes. And like fucking Wicked Crush, Zootopia Crush. Yeah. Five Nights at Freddy's 2, which I'm sure is utter dog shit. She's about to just like easily make a bunch of money on top of those two. It is what is... Ella McKay, of course, is swinging in. What is maddening is that like we had like eight weeks that were really dire, but they were dire because a couple big things moved off the schedule, including Respect to Ben, Mortal Kombat 2, which they moved because it was testing so fucking well that they were like this should be in the summer.

2:44:21Yeah. Yeah. Totally. And also it makes sense as a summer movie like dumb fun. Yeah. Right. And obviously fucking Demon Slayer and Conjuring Crush but then there was this like real fucking Conjuring movie it's so bad. Fallow period. Yeah. I contend there's no movie that flopped where you're like Why'd that flop? And then things like Predator Badlands would like do all right. Do all right. Yeah. Right. Like now you see me as doing all right but it feels really stupid that like they kind of scrunched Zootopia, Wicked, and Avatar pretty close together. You just want those like holiday legs. I mean, it makes, you know, you make so much money.

2:44:56But everyone was like wringing their hands and you're like, hey, there's like three movies that are guaranteed to make a combined$5 billion coming. Have you seen Predator Badlands? Yeah, I enjoyed it. I really liked it. Yeah. It's totally good fun. I saw it this week. It was like the first movie I've seen in a while that gave me some of the like Avatar vibes. I was about to say the exact same thing. Like jokes aside, it is the only movie I have seen since Way of Water in between Way of Water and Fire and Ash that scratched some of the itches of what I like about the Avatar movies. And I like its like world building.

2:45:30It's literal building of its like physical world. Yeah, the plants fucking rule. I like all that stuff. But yeah, I mean, the first movie opened to 70 and people were like, not a great start. Highest grossing movie of all time. The last movie opened to like 130. and people were like, that's not that great. And a post-Endgame reality ended up... People forget that it is still the highest grossing film post-pandemic. It made more money than Barbie, No Way Home. Everything except for Avatar and Titanic. I mean, Avatar and Endgame. Truly. For how much credit Top Gun, Barbie, Oppenheimer, and No Way Home get for saving the box office, Wavewater outgrossed all of them.

2:46:09It did. It made$684 million domestic. Right. Now people are like, I guess Fire and Ash is going to open to$150 ,000, but is that good enough? The bar keeps getting raised. I would not be surprised if there's a bit of a dip on this one, but I also... I think it'll open a little lower, and it'll have good legs, and it probably will make the least of the three Avatar movies. But that will still be a tremendous amount of money. All right, so here's the question. Is it going to make more or less than Zootopia, too? Well, Zootopia is making this sort of bewildering amount of money in China. Yes. That's hard to gauge.

2:46:41But isn't Avatar also big in China? so we'll see I don't know 2W2 great time you had a good time yeah I had a great time love that I've yet to see it saw it with my daughter Humblebrick it's the first first run movie I've seen with her I think right yeah because I've only taken her to Ghibli movies and Toy Story wow I don't know where this ends up exactly I'm curious to see what the larger public response to this is but also like the public's response to Avatar as a general thing is so weird and tortured yeah we all had a really good time I'm very excited to see this movie multiple more times you're gonna go to 40X I assume yeah almost definitely I liked the the Miley song every time we dream we dream I don't think I really sat with it I think I'll need to listen to that again I sat yeah I was seated uh yeah and then right next week is Marty Supreme and hopefully that'll hit Anaconda I assume will be a smash but Avatar's just gonna it's gonna have that fucking magic holiday corridor.

2:47:43It'll have really nothing troubling it until that bone temple. The thing that really fucking boggles my brain, and I said this, Ben's rubbing his hands in one of our group texts the other day, is I just like, do not understand why they're releasing the fucking SpongeBob movie at Christmas and they didn't put that thing in fucking October. Well, I'll tell you that my daughter covered her eyes at the trailer for that. Too scary! Ooh. Really? She doesn't like the pirates. She doesn't like... There's the ghostly pirates. The Flying Dutchman. Yeah. and then the cat in the hat trailer came on and I was like oh boy she's gonna love this and instead she was kinda like okay well I got great news for her she can look forward to seeing that trailer for the next 18 months cause that movie keeps getting pushed back it does keep getting pushed back they have to they keep having to record new intros with Bill Hader looking more suicidal guys I cannot wait to show you the first look at my new film trailer of this movie I'm the cat in the hat have you seen this clip yeah they played it in front of my trailer's in front of Like he has been captured in like the Balkan War.

2:48:42I didn't actually, they didn't have like real life Bill Hader. Yeah. I think it's on YouTube. It's like on YouTube. It's worth watching. And he's like, guys, I'm literally so excited. The cat has a striped hat and I'll show you worlds you could never imagine. The trailers I got in front of Zootopia 2 were Goat, the movie about a goat that wants to play basketball. I didn't get that one. Yeah, Steph Curry's movie, yeah. And then, yeah, Cat in the Hat, Spongebob, Spongebob, big guy, pants, okay. I was telling Ben that, my little cousin George, off reference on the show, could not be more excited for Goat.

2:49:14And usually when I see him, his question is like, what's the next couple Marvel movies coming out? And now the last three times I've seen him, it's just been, so Goat's coming out soon, right? Is he going to be a sports kid? He is a sports kid. So of course he's excited for Goat. He's like a fucking really good baseball player. Oh, right. You were talking about this on our recent episode. He's like traveling to like play games. I didn't put that together that that was George because I was like, isn't that kid like five? George has varied interests. He's a very well-balanced young man. How old is he now?

2:49:41He just turned 10. Oh, my God. Yeah. Practically a grown-up. Yeah. And he's a slugger. Good for him. Nice. So we're not going to play the box office game. No, we did that already. I mean, I would say... I mean, we can't. And I think we should just address that part of why we were recording at the time that we were recording this episode. Griffin booked a job. And so we just had to kind of get that in before... I have to travel out of the country. it is a thing that when it manifests, uh, I think, uh, will be, uh, like a fun kind of surprise cameo thing for, uh, our listeners. And for anyone who is not familiar with this podcast, they'll just be like that guy with three lines.

2:50:24Uh, but it will be fun. And I will not say anything further about it. It's draft day. It's draft day. It's draft day. It's back. Always got a$40 million check for it. This time he draft Griffin. Drafting an American. I'm quarterback.

2:50:42and he gets thrown into an asylum. I'm really trying to win cousin George's respect. He watched draft day because he's like really into fantasy football. Sure. And also he loves Black Panther and I was like, I was in a movie with Black Panther, which is like a pretty limited list of movies, sadly. Yeah. Right? And he watched it and I was like, what do you think? And he was like, I never would have made those choices. Unrealistic. He truly was just like, he gives away three first round picks. It's insane. He was like, he could not stop scoffing. He was like, I do not understand what that guy's doing.

2:51:10This is our last episode of 2095. I forgot that next week is dark. It's our one annual dark week. But then the week after is when you will hear us question if a thing is on. Remember that, Ben? Oh, yeah. Yeah. Bradley Cooper's is this thing on. We will discuss to kick off the new year. But this is the end of our decade of dreams. A perfect way to end it with Jimmy C and Varang and all of her friends. Yeah, and a great way to... Old friends, Jake Sully. New friends, Frank. It's a great way to kickstart our second decade of dreams. And yes, the next proper miniseries coming up is Lin Ramsey, as we have already announced, but repeating here, which I'm very excited about.

2:51:56One of my favorite filmmakers. And then Peter Weir after that because it's a short series, Lin Ramsey. But the first two episodes of the year before we get to Lin Ramsey will be Bradley Cooper's Is This Thing On and Park Chan-wook's No Other Choice. One of my absolute favorite movies of 2025 and one of my absolute least favorite films of 2025. And I'll keep you all in suspense. I saw Lee Byung-hung just today waiting in the lobby of Criterion. Boy, is he handsome. Did you see him? I did not. He is one of those guys who looks like he does in the movies. He was shiny. Yeah. And his hair was perfect and he had a glass jacket on.

2:52:37I just can't believe that he's also Guima. Look, he's in so many cool things. He's Storm Shadow. Yeah, exactly. I mean, God bless him. What a year. What a year. What a year. Hey, thank you all for riding with us, our clan. This podcast is a fortress. It really is. It really is. It is. It's so true. Whether we like it or not, it's become a fortress, and we live inside of it. That's right. I keep trying to bring down Home Tree, but it just won't come down. We keep getting reanimated in new Avatar bodies behind these microphones. We joke, we love doing this show. It's, uh, it's, it's, I'm gonna say, it's an absurd privilege that this has somehow become a thing that we get to spend our lives doing.

2:53:25Absolutely. And now Ben and I get a month off from our, from this job. You owe me so much for booking a job. Okay. Okay, slowly roll. We're such a solid here. We still got two episodes to record. I don't get a month off. What do you mean? Social media never sleeps. We're in real time, baby. This is true. The grind. The Varang memes. The memes. Yeah. I hope they release some sort of fun new filter. Yeah. For, you know. Can we, let me just call this out. I just want to create a fan art challenge to our listeners. Please feel free. No AI, but whether Photoshop or any kind of tactile visual art by hand sculpture, I'm putting out a call for artistic representations of me being a proper gentleman to Varen.

2:54:17Taking Varen to... Nope. No. Okay, I take it back. I take it back. Maintaining a safe distance. And just... I'll let you interpret it how you want, but nothing untoward is happening. Yeah. Yeah. Because she would wear you like a jacket. If you tried anything. Would I want to see that? Yes. I'm not asking you to depict that. Respectful! To be clear, don't depict that. What I want is me just maintaining a safe distance and the little tip of the cap. I'm seeing here Varang is now the new environmental secretary. Jesus. She's an interesting choice. I really want Pat Reynolds to Photoshop me as Varang for this episode art.

2:54:57Well, we can talk about him. But is that... I feel bad asking for that. No, I think you've earned that right. Ben, of course, is Spider again, a thing that makes him happy. You better be. And then I feel like you are Jake Sully and I'm the interior. Sure. You often end up the lady. I do. I feel like maybe we should switch it so you're Korich. That's a pretty potent idea. Potent Photoshop. All right. Bye. Thank you all for listening. Please remember to rate, review, and subscribe. And see you in 2026. And as always, I think you have to admit a pretty potent podcast you're right you're not wrong oh I thought you were gonna end with no shit no shit no shit no shit