Rick Jaffa & Amanda Silver On Avatar: Fire And Ash — An Empire Podcast Interview Special

0:14Hello Pod, I'm Chris Hewitt and welcome to the last Empire Podcast spoiler special of the year 2025. But what a way to go out folks, as we sit down with Rick Jaffa and Amanda Silver, the co-writers, along with James Cameron of course, of Avatar Fire and Ash, the third movie in the Avatar series that has been kicking ass, taking names, and seeing you at the box office since it opened a week or so ago. It is well on its way to a billion dollars worldwide already. Wowzers. In this deep dive interview, our very own Avatar expert James Dyer, who admits that he infinitely prefers Pandora to Earth, sits down on Zoom with Chaffa and Silver, the married couple who have also written the likes of the most recent Planet of the Apes movies, and also Avatar The Way of Water and, should Cameron proceed with them, Avatars 4 and 5.

1:11It's a fascinating interview in which they get into all kinds of big questions, plot and otherwise, from the off about Fire and Ash. So, as ever, if you haven't seen it, maybe stop this, pause, go out, see it, come back, and then you can listen to it for everyone else. Do please enjoy. well guys thank you so much for joining us on the show now this is a spoiler interview so we can talk about absolutely everything including the end of the film so don't feel you need to censor yourselves um but i wanted to start actually with a with a more general question just about process really so it's been what eight years essentially on this film like it's been a it's been a while well i guess we were in the writer's room in 2013 okay so a lot longer than that yeah yeah but 2017 i guess and since production started you know and and the films were shot back to back and and so it has been a while that these have been on their way to to screens and i'm curious like was there time or even the capacity to take a beat and look at the reaction to the way of water and incorporate aspects into fire and ash well i think the answer as yes, meaning that Jim did watch or did gauge audiences' reaction to Way of Water.

2:29But also, you know, there were things that as cuts came in for Way of Water, that there were thoughts of, oh, my gosh, there are things that happen in Fire and Ash that we want to move forward. And I know that there was some of those things. And those were all Jim's decisions. Although I would say that, you know, Steve Rifkin, the editor and, you know, our beloved producer, John Landau had a lot to do with it, too. But so, you know, I would I guess the answer is it's a living, breathing organism. Yeah. These two movies. And there was back and forth. and uh also like like if you have like a season of a tv show you know there's a character who we realize is is doing a great job and in a landscape of other characters maybe you want to shoot a couple more things maybe there's a you know because when you get things on their feet um stories have a way of letting you know what they need um and so well characters too and the thing about performance capture and Jim's close association with Weta is they can go and they can shoot more and figure out how to how to get it in there um Jim always says you know you you have to meet the audience where they are yeah you mentioned characters there and I wondered if Mick Scoresby was one such character because he has a relatively small role in The Way of Water but he was a real crowd pleaser and we get to see a lot more of him in this film I would say definitely yes to that.

4:00I think the reaction to Scoresby in the first film was, maybe Jim wasn't surprised, but I have to say that I was. I guess that you were. Well, we saw an early cut and we were like, can we cut? Isn't that a little bit, it's a lot for the audience with Scoresby. Like, are we sure we want to go there? And Jim was like, we're going there. And of course, he was right. The audience loved it. He was right. We were lucky enough that we we see cuts and we give Jim our thoughts and sometimes they land and sometimes they don't. And, and, but I remember giving him notes on scores, be after two during, during, yeah.

4:42Saying, I don't know, it's this or it's that, can we lose the thing with the arm? You know, and then we're, they were sitting at the premiere. It's the first time we'd seen it with an audience. I guess we'd seen maybe a couple of test screens, but anyway, He was sitting at the premiere, and the audience loved him. And without an arm flying off, the place went crazy. But I think also that's because, and this is my screenwriter brain coming in, that Jim really did also nail home how violent and vicious the attacks were on the Tolkoun, on the Wailers. Yeah. So they go hand in hand, that joy of what happens to Scoresby and the depiction of the violence.

5:29Yeah, you can think of it maybe as a cartoon-ish character, but I would argue that there's an immense amount of emotional involvement the audience has with Scoresby. It is, yeah. Well, if you can't get out of it, get into it. i lose that quote all the time by the way jim used to say that back in the in the writer's room like he would he you know he would say that to his kids all you know yeah you can't get out of it it's good advice actually it's very good advice um i want to pivot a little bit to the end of the film and specifically the final scene of the film here and i wonder if you could talk about the decision to end this film where you do with spider inside the mycelial network sort of seeing the ancestors and the people who have gone before why was that the note that you thought this would be the point to end on again speaking to the uh thought that uh it's a living these movies are living breathing organisms um that was something that jim came to uh i believe in post-production uh the thing and he would have to speak to this more than us but he the thing is is that once Once Fire and Ash was assembled, all, not all, but most of the big dramatic moments, Spider was kind of in the center of.

6:57That really kind of emerged when Jim was, you know, cutting the movie and putting it together. And when we took the job, John Landau said to us that, you know, he said, Jim really does three drafts of the script, meaning the actual writing of the script. So what we did was considered the first. And then the second is how it changes in production. Performances. Performances, what Jim and the actors discover together. And then the third is when they're cutting the movie. And so I think that's a good example of the story coming together in a certain way that was surprising to Jim. And I would also say it's a little bit challenging because these movies have their ensemble pieces, really.

7:45So each character has things that you're you're concerned about that they're moving through. So Loak, for example, is a narrator of this movie. And he is my one of my personal favorites. And maybe they're all my favorites, but I particularly love Loak. And he has a journey in this movie that you could end on Loak. Like I could see a version where you end on Loak. You could end on Jake. Jake has a journey in this movie. Nate Teary has a journey. Certainly Kiri does too. So you could, and hopefully at the end of the movie, I think that they did a great job. And we really worked hard on this also, on braiding all these stories together and having them end up at a place that's satisfying for the audience.

8:30But I think what you said, Rick, is true, that it emerged that because spiders need to become a Navi, to belong, to be part of this ancestral world, became a really important note for the film to end on. Also, by the way, Quaritch and Varong have also things that need to be resolved. So, and the magic of these movies are too, or the trick of the hat trick also is that you want them to feel complete in and of themselves, but also leave some questions and hanging ideas for the next movie. Well, I mean, that's an interesting point there, because Fire and Ash and Way of Water obviously began their life as a single film.

9:18And I wonder if you could discuss how easy that was to unpick those things, because obviously it's not as simple as sort of drawing a line at the midway point in the story and just breaking it in two. You have to extract the separate threads and create two distinct narratives. So was it a case of you thought, okay, we've got the sort of outline to the Way of Water. If we're going to pull one thing forward, it's the spider thread, and that's what we're going to pin the structure of Fire and Ash around. I think the challenge or maybe the opportunity is that the second movie naturally, I think, attempts and then achieves what the second half of a script would, meaning stakes are higher, tensions elevated, threads start to come together.

10:04And so the first real draft that we did, I would hope to think achieved that anyway. So it was a bit of a kind of a drawing, a line. We, you know, the natural place was going to be after the sea battle at the end of what became Way of Water. But because Natayan, the older brother, died at the end of our draft, that first draft, and the air breather creation happened earlier in that movie. By separating those two seismic events, it allowed the second movie, or A3, to put the Sully family in a place of processing grief when the air breather is created. in it that changed some things but it was a smart i think it was a smart way to do it yeah i don't know if i'm making and if we're talking about insights we've kind of gone into our heads yeah i feel like we're going to yeah this is all good because i know exactly what you i know exactly what you mean so you you get this sort of like this central almost sort of messianic sort of like you've got there are a few messiah stories you've got the torok makto messianic i think kiri has a messianic arc and then of course spider almost does as well because what he ends up as as we get to the end of the film it's not even just an air breather he's essentially a human navi hybrid you know with a kuru so so there's there's so much more going on there but as you say when that journey begins it starts against the background of neytiri's grief which is all-consuming and almost manifests itself in this kind of xenophobic hatred which which which is a very interesting dynamic for spider to be a part of because that he wants to be a part of that family yes well i would the whole family is really going through the grief You know, obviously, Neytiri is dealing with grief in her own fashion.

11:57And Jake is very much, you know, the macho, you know, let's just get busy, you know, and collect guns and this and that. And then, of course, Loak blames himself. And he hasn't really processed that. So, yeah, so much of what Nate Tiller is going through is not only the loss of her son, but the loss of her home, of her community, of her, you know. She's still a fish out of water. She's still a stranger in a strange land. A stranger in a strange land. So there's a lot to process, and that really dovetails into what Barang is suffering from, meaning the loss of community. And then I would argue spirituality, meaning that they teary, says to Jake, all I have is my faith, and I've lost my son, I've lost my home, I've lost this, I've lost that, and all I have is my faith.

13:01And so part of her grieving process is to desperately remain connected to the spiritual side of the Navi culture, Awa specifically, whereas Varong is dealing with the grief of loss through disconnection. And you see how each one manifests itself. Yeah. But Varang sort of rejects Ewa, but there seems to be a real sort of shamanistic sort of thread going through the Mung Kwan, which I found really interesting. So they reject the sort of teachings of Ewa, but like when you go into Varang's tent, I mean, it's like a heavy metal concert in there. Like it's very, you know, idealistic. There's a lot going on in there.

13:48And I wondered, you know, because there seems to be a religious element to that because we have the kind of the kamikaze attack on the wind traders, which speaks to a kind of religious zealotry. And I wondered, you know, where do you see the Mung Kwan faith lying, if not with Ewa? I think what you have is, as Rick was describing, a character who has lost, you know, who has felt betrayed by Ewa. Ewa did not come. They called for Ewa. The fire came and Ewa did not come. And so she takes Ewa, she rejects Ewa, as you said. And in that rejection, there's a kind of a power of like a self. How would you even say it?

14:34Like she's that she's. Well, I'd say she's there's a replacement theme or issue, meaning she's replaced Ewa with A with herself. Yeah. And then, you know, what she does is she leans into the very thing that destroyed her village and her community and her family. So she leans into that and tries to face her. Yeah, she faces the fire, the destructive force, and kind of incorporates that. And so, you know, there's a lot of, like you said, zealotry. I'd say idolatry too, you know. But it's fascinating. But for me, the most fascinating thing is this connection versus disconnection. It's just really so.

15:25That she's gone bitter and dark and angry and vengeful because she's disconnected from Ewa. Yeah. Because she's lost her faith. I think she's a fascinating character. The way that Una plays her, she has almost like a wide-eyed childlike wonder to her. I mean, not just the way she looks at the weapons, which is obviously in a very specific way, but she does have an almost childlike quality to her, as well as being this kind of very hard leader. Was that deliberate? Was that something that Una brought to the role? Well, I would back up to say that when Jim first presented the character of Varong and the Ming Kwan to the writer's room, there was a spark and a level of excitement from us because, oh, my God, that's really cool.

16:12Because, you know, up until that idea, the Na 'vi had all been just really great guys. guys you know you know they're connected they love each other they you know connected to nature and all that uh and they're fighting you know the rda um so there was a spark there and when amanda and i first wrote started writing her as a character uh we knew immediately that there was gold i mean we were so excited and uh she kind of came alive on the page yeah especially when she She was in the same page as Quaritch. Yes. And so that immediately was juicy. But then Una. Let me finish. Go ahead. I was just going to say, when we finished that first scene with Quaritch and Una, I'm sorry, Varang together, I cannot tell you how excited we were in our office.

17:07My God, the world's going to love this. They're going to love these two characters together. They're going to love her. But we had no idea how even greater that excitement would be until we saw Una's performance as Varong. We were just. And her costume. Which is Deborah Scott, the brilliant costumer. Deborah did such a brilliant job with that. And so we were so excited. And to the fact that, you know, we've met a lot of the cast over the years. We had never met Una. And that was the one thing we wanted to do at the premiere, is just say hello to her and just tell her how thrilled we were at her performance and how brilliant it was.

17:51So I would think a lot of that childlike, to get back to your original question, that childlike thing was more her performance than us. Although when Courage does introduce her to the weapons, it was two things. It was a childlike excitement, but there was also something distinctly sexual. Yeah. And that was also something new, if I may, to the Avatar franchise, because it's extremely sexy with these two characters. But I think she's falling for Quartz, too. There's an innocence there. Yes, right. I mean, I think you take this fierce, fierce leader and you create this kind of vulnerability, like a taste of vulnerability.

18:45And I think that adds that feeling of innocence. Someone asked me what my favorite part of the movie was. It's so hard to answer a question like that. But I have to say that the moment where Quaritch says, I can't remember word for word, but I can give you the one thing you've never had. Yeah. An equal. Yeah. And the look on her face was just perfect. It was perfect. it was just i think you just said this but it's just the right amount of vulnerability and epiphany and excitement it's just it's just brilliant stuff i love the way that stephen lang plays quaritch because he turns on a dime and he goes from i've got to save spider to the second he gets that assault rifle out he is flirting with her like as you say it's a very sexual sequence as She's showing her how to fire the gun.

19:43In fact, it brings to mind the moment in Aliens when Hicks is showing Ripley how to use the Pulsar Rifle. That's right. It felt like a nod to that. In fact, there's a line in here, I think, where when Kiri sees Verong off and she basically says the equivalent of get away from her, you bitch, which I thought was that. Are these intentional homages? I would say, yes, they are. A lot of it's intentional from the beginning and some of it they find when they're on the set. Like, wouldn't it be cool if I said this? But it's also Jim having a great time. Jim knowing what he's doing and having a good time.

20:16Yeah, that's so true. Expressing himself. Yeah. What do you make of Quaritch? Because it's interesting because he goes from, he is absolutely hell-bent on Jake's destruction. And then they meet, they have that kind of detente where they're kind of like, okay, we've saved Spider from Varong. You know, they're chatting as well. We're not going to go on long walks together. But you feel like there's humour between them. And there's, if not an affection, there's a respect. And the fact that Jake always calls him Colonel, he never calls him Quaritch. Like there is a respect there between the two of them.

20:47And then when he's broken away, he's still quite committed to, no, we are going to catch him and we are going to execute him. And I wondered what you thought was Quaritch's mindset there. Is it because for him, loyalty is the ultimate authority and to violate that is, you know, there's no coming back from that? Do you think that's his line, essentially? Well, it's so interesting because you think of Quaritch as, you know, the villain. But he's so much more than that. It's so much deeper and more interesting than that. And I can promise you, we don't think of him as a villain. And Stephen Lang doesn't think of him as a villain.

21:18I promise you that Stephen Lang does. So this is a guy, yes, for him, loyalty, military loyalty is the first thing. And his mission is very clear. He fights for the RDA. He never loses sight of that. That's his North Star, right? But within that, he's having a huge identity. he's growing. His character is learning and growing. When he wakes up blue at the beginning of AA2, there's shock and it takes him a while to figure out how to get an Ikran, how to walk through the forest. He's learning Navi in this movie, and he's learning what it means to be a father. Exactly. There's a lot that he's figuring out about who he is, but always with that North Star.

22:07He never loses that well he's a marine is the thing and uh and so there's a code by the way jim jim uh brother i think was is a marine or was a marine but he really understands that once you're a marine you're always marine but he really he really understands the code and uh and well first let me just back up i think it's funny almost tongue-in-cheek to say he's having an identity crisis when he wakes up and he's 10 feet tall. So yeah, I would guess that would be a bit of identity crisis. Sorry about him, dog. And then he falls in love. But yeah, but the thing is, is that what I loved about Quartz in the original Avatar was that he was a character on task.

22:53And up until his last breath, he was just like, this is my mission. This is my purpose. It's clear. And he was unwavering. And when we were in the writer's room, you know, we get up and we exercise every morning. But I was on an exercise machine, an elliptical machine, listening to music and thinking about, you know, the script and developing ideas and such. And I was thinking about Quaritch and the Talking Heads Life During Wartime came on. I don't know if you know that song. I got so locked into Quaritch with that song. Not just him, but Wayne Fleek and all the guys. I love the guys, yeah. So, but anyway, so I love that about him in the first.

23:37But what was great about then these next two is introducing the complexity of surprise and identity. And, you know, he really is struggling with who he is. And the beauty of, if I may, the dovetailing, the fact that he's discovering what it is to be a father when so is Jake, you know. So in Way of Water, you know, you take the two of the fiercest warriors, you know, in movie history, perhaps, and give them the one thing they're terrified of, and that is having teenage children. so uh and courts is kind of struggling through the same thing and it's a beautiful thing so i also remember that in the writer's room we wanted to find a way where this to work towards some kind of daytime as you say and then the idea was well let's put them in a dangerous a mutually dangerous situation meaning then barang has their kids and they've got to team up together for the greater for the greater good and that was early in the writer's room and uh yeah the bromance we called it the bromance yeah it's just like you know let's throw them in there together and see what happens yeah really and so we did and it became very clear that there uh the priority would be the safety of both their kids you know uh and uh they would have to put decide their differences there's that moment where jake first of all he's like you know untie me yeah yeah and and then he's like okay give me the knife and wayne fleet's like what are you doing boss uh but but uh but that kind of puts quarch in the position of like what's his priority and his priority is spiders in that moment so it forces that question on him you feel him being pulled in so many different directions in this film and obviously at the very end uh he makes his own choice in that final moment.

25:43What do you think is going through his mind when he sort of kicks himself off and falls down into the, well, we don't know where. He's ending his story on his own terms. Or he's prepared to, I guess we should say. Yeah, there you go. He's making the choice to do that. Yeah. I mean, because Natiri doesn't mess about. So, you know. Yeah, and he's done that scene already, right? I mean, going back to the original Avatar. Meaning, you know, Natiri's got the bow ready to... Yeah, he says at the reef, he says, what does he say? He says, to be continued, Mrs. Sully. So, you know, and there it is, the next chapter.

26:28The message that Jake has for him all the way through is that he needs to kind of open his eyes. He wants him to kind of embrace his Navi body. And the irony, of course, is that's literally what he does. He just doesn't do it in the way maybe Jake intended. because when he walks out in the mung kwan uh war paint like he has gone native at that point hasn't he oh yeah yeah he's he's yeah yeah yeah no he's totally uh what's the word expression but yeah he's bought the program yeah yeah it's i love this whole thing about jake getting trying to get him to open his eyes because that's so much uh imagery system of the especially the first movie you know uh and and it's just right there and some characters you know that's too great well that's what jake does is he opens his eyes as a navi and he's trying to give that to the guests the very character who's been trying to destroy him over three movies now you know and it's good for jake to be able to talk about that how how it's opened his eyes it is a reflection articulate that yeah yeah reflects in his character as well yeah i want to talk about awar briefly because we do get sort of an image of awar in here there's sort of the giant face do you know what what was the reference for that image i was trying to work out whether it's sort of sigoni weaver's kind of likeness but what that was exactly you know what i wish i could answer that question i when i saw that in the cut i gasped it was a surprise to us gasped it was so haunting and moving and effective to me when I saw it, but I had nothing to do with creating it.

28:01I'm sure there was a lot of conversation with Jim and Dylan Cole and Ben Proctor to some degree. The amazing, those amazing art production designers. Yeah. So I'm sure there was a lot. And Weta too, maybe. Yeah. Yeah. A lot of back and forth. And by the way, that shot, when they're coming around on her face, there's a million questions there. How much do you see? How much do you hold the shot? you know, how much is revealed or not revealed for your, I mean, the second time I saw it, you probably had the same experience. You kind of pay attention. It's like, how much are we going to see of this face?

28:38And try to work out who is, do I recognize this face? Who can it be? Because all the way through, we're wondering whether Kiri's block from Ewa is an actual separation by design or whether she has a psychological block, whether it's within her own mind. And you're trying to sort of, is it? And I think it's at that point when you think that there's something more to it than just she's, you know, she can't get past her own issues. Yeah. I, I, uh, I think that's meant to be also something, you know, the audience is questioning for themselves, you know? And when that, that thing with the face, I, uh, uh, and again, we've only really seen that with one with at the premiere, uh, in terms of sitting with an audience, but it felt to me like the people around us, they were all kind of leaning like this, you know, to try to see.

29:25you know but i think the the effect of it is awe and mystery yeah i think it's really effective um in doing that and i think you know hopefully we'll get the next movies made there's much more to be revealed yeah there's a whole lot of there's a whole lot ahead of us for kiri and iwa what it always feels like there's this we're just there we're just seeing the top of an iceberg and there's so much beneath the surface i mean literally in this case because we're introduced to the deep ones those kind of lovecraftian squid creatures that come up to attack everyone uh you know what where did uh you know when when those were sort of being brainstormed when you were coming up with something because it is something from the depths like a deep horror uh where do you see them fitting into the kind of pandoran ecosystem i think that they're rarely they rarely surface right i mean tell me if i'm getting this wrong because there's so many creatures to keep track of and everything.

30:17But I think that they come from the depths of Jim Cameron's deep Mariana Trench imagination. I mean, he walks the walk in terms of being an ocean explorer. He loves that stuff, the stuff that comes from the deep. But we needed to find it because the Tolkoun do their thing um and we love the tolkun but we needed another another uh assist from a deep creature from a deep force trying to remember lowox voiceover right there and i'm having a hard time remembering it to be honest but he kind of comes out and says you rarely see them yeah and when you run i think he says yeah yeah there's that yeah uh but yeah they they do represent this kind of deeper danger, I guess, that we all have deep down in our subconscious, you know, and I think they're, and they're very unforgiving.

31:20So I don't know, I think that's where that comes from with Jim. Also too, you know, it's, it's the Awa response through them is different than it is in the first two movies. In other words, it's a different kind of attack, if you will, from nature than the Kron that fly in and the Tolkun that attack. Yes, they're coming from a deeper, darker place. Again, mystery. Yeah. Mysterious. It feels like there's a fury attached to it at that point that's like Kiri's awakened something. Yes, yes. I think that's what she's feeling. She really is coming into her own power. She's been, as you say, she's been struggling.

32:09Well, he lingers on that shot where the Siong is moving past Kiri in the eye. The eye fastens on Kiri and Kiri gives it direction. Go get him. I mean, you mentioned the Tolkoon briefly there. And I love the fact that you have a whale courtroom drama in the middle of this film. 12 Angry Whales, if you will. And is that how you saw that scene? It's like, this is going to be our little legal section, and we're going to have a little courtroom drama with Wales. I don't know if you actually said courtroom drama. But, yeah, it was always a council of elders. It was a council of elders, yeah. That's what we called it, or that's what Jim called it.

32:43It was a test of that, and, yeah, the judgment was going to be made. So, yeah, it was always that design. It was something that I think Jim really fought to keep in the – because there's – in the movies, because there's so many elements of beauty and plot points. And he felt like that was a particularly important one, I think, because getting the Tolkoun who are peaceful to decide to attack had to be a big deal. It's not it's not a decision that's easily taken. It's forced upon them very reluctantly. But then they do what they need to do. And I think Jim really felt the need to delineate that.

33:27Well, we talked about code before, too, and the importance of that with quartz. But they have their own code, too, and they really struggle with it. When Jim first introduced us to the Tolkien in the writer's room, he was explaining a lot of it in the beginning. And the truth is we were like, wait a minute. They have culture. They have poetry. They have, I mean, language we could get because whales have language. but uh philosophy you know and so i think uh and maybe i was a little slow on the update because like wait a minute what uh how does that work and uh but the but the council though was kind of a way to bring a lot of that together you know these themes of of uh of uh anti-violence Yeah, pacifism.

34:21Yeah, exactly. And history and their communication. I don't know. And the beauty of it. The reason Payakan is sent away is because he's violent. Yeah. Yeah. But anyway, so yeah, that one, I think that's a beautiful scene. And, you know, speaking of awe, I'm like, oh, my God. But also the relationship, the respect that Tonawari and the Reef clan has for the relationship they have to the Tokun speaks also to one of the things I think that the movie, all these movies try to promote, which is that we have this relationship, this connection to the creatures around us. And I'm sorry, dog. and that that connection is important and deep as deep uh deeper probably than we realize do you see it as it's not like that the tolkun have renounced their pacifism is it that the elders essentially they shoulder the burden in this particular extreme circumstance that they will break with the tradition and they will because it's really only the elders that fight isn't it Yeah.

35:39Yeah. I think that's a really good point. And yes, that is not a complete. They haven't surrendered their principles. Surrender of their principles at all. Yeah. That they step into the void. To do what's necessary. Yeah. I mean, they're also smart. And it's very clearly presented. Like if we don't do it now, we're all going to be gone. Yeah. So there's a practicality to it. Yeah. Yeah. And again, I would. One of them, if you get to understand, one of them said, have you seen this Scorzi guy? Man, he's crazy. Like, oh, yeah, Scorzi. I remember it. But this idea of what you said earlier about the stakes going up.

36:20Yeah. And the screws tightening, the escalation, you know, when the air breather is created. And as you said, you've got this human Navi hybrid, this human able to breathe the air on Pandora. it's opening a huge problem for Pandora because if humans are able to colonize Pandora, it came over. Yeah, both species are looking at possible extinction. So that's one of the great things about these because as, you know, as Quartz's story is very much a reflection of Jake's or their reflection of each other's. It's the same with the Tolkun and the Na 'vi if all the humans, as Jake says, that they can reverse engineer this and you you know and they can just colonize this place we're over and what lowak is begging the council here is like if you don't fight back you know the tolkun way of life is is over yeah so that's kind of i i anyway so there's so much as you know there's so many storylines going on and juggling those things and interweaving them uh uh but i just love how one's really a reflection of the other without being so obvious i mean you mentioned the obviously the air breather thing being a big catalyst for what happens in this film but the scene that kind of i guess is really the most emotionally affecting the most most emotionally punchy scene is the bit where jake takes spider into the forest and makes him kneel down which is absolutely brutal because you've made jake kind of enough of an arsehole at this point that you kind of think he's gonna do it right like you feel like he goes there with the intent of actually killing his adopted son yeah well that was again early in the writer's room uh we call it the abraham isaac scene you know uh and then crafting the scene you've got to make it really feel like he's well first of all you got to lay the track as you said he's enough of an asshole i could actually do well you've also laid the track that he loves spider and he's tried to this is you know the spider's like a son to him.