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Speaker 1: the show. Welcome Friends Podcasts podcast show Jacky and Brian.
Speaker 2: They're talking about the group. I guess I'd like to
Speaker 2: talk to you about a fresh start in a new world.
Speaker 2: You're not in Kansas, anymore. You're on Pandora.
Speaker 1: The concept is to drive these remotely controlled bodies Coda avatars.
Speaker 2: You should not be here. I need to help Quorish
Speaker 2: is no longe and there's no stopping.
Speaker 1: Hip going up against gunships.
Speaker 2: Well, I guess you better stop here, Avatar. This film
Speaker 2: has not yet rated. Welcome to a movie film commentary track.
Speaker 2: My name is Zaki Hassan. I'm here with Brian Hall.
Speaker 1: Hey, how's it going, Zachie?
Speaker 2: Brian? Have you ever woken up and wished you belong
Speaker 2: to the Omatakaya?
Speaker 1: Uh? Yeah? You know what's funny though, those dreams, I
Speaker 1: can't tell which is the dream and if my reality
Speaker 1: is more the dream itself.
Speaker 2: You know you say it sounds to me like you
Speaker 2: wish that you were Turuk Makto.
Speaker 1: Well, as I'm fumbling lines from the movie over here
Speaker 1: that I'm trying to repeat, I actually thought about googling
Speaker 1: things in NAVI for this opening to try to say
Speaker 1: to you, And now I'm like, oh, he did it.
Speaker 2: Damn it.
Speaker 1: I could have like I could have kept.
Speaker 2: Up with him. You know, Awa is very disappointed in you.
Speaker 2: That's all I know.
Speaker 3: What else is new?
Speaker 1: Yeah? No, no, you know what, I'm gonna save it
Speaker 1: because we've got plenty of time ahead.
Speaker 3: I'm gonna keep this brief.
Speaker 2: We got some time to fill. We are watching Avatar,
Speaker 2: the two thousand and nine film that made almost three
Speaker 2: billion dollars since its release. So this is a this
Speaker 2: is this, This is the most beloved not beloved film
Speaker 2: of all time.
Speaker 1: It's a case study, right, Yeah, I I am.
Speaker 2: I'm endlessly fascinated by the More more than the film,
Speaker 2: I'm fascinated by the discourse by all the people every
Speaker 2: few years or like, nobody cares about Avatar because it
Speaker 2: hasn't left any cultural footprint. And I would disagree with
Speaker 2: that assertion, if only because it has left the cultural
Speaker 2: footprint of people wondering where its cultural footprint is.
Speaker 1: That's pretty good.
Speaker 2: Yeah, you know we Yeah, we got to Avatar Fire
Speaker 2: and Ash. That's that's due out in the weeks ahead.
Speaker 2: As we're recording this, and and I thought, hey, you
Speaker 2: know what what better time than to than right now
Speaker 2: to to visit that magical, far off land of Pandora.
Speaker 1: I'm excited because this isn't a movie I've watched a
Speaker 1: lot over the years, so this was kind of I
Speaker 1: remembered a lot of it. Yeah, but you know, it
Speaker 1: was still kind of fresh watching again this week. So
Speaker 1: I'm excited to have this conversation with you.
Speaker 2: And certainly, I mean, you know, we we do try
Speaker 2: to let movies ferment a little before we'd give them
Speaker 2: the old commentary treatment. And and there's something to realize,
Speaker 2: Oh my gosh, this movie is sixteen years old already.
Speaker 1: Yeah, right, wild.
Speaker 2: I mean, when when we started doing this show, it
Speaker 2: was a mere three years old. And back in those days,
Speaker 2: we spent a big chunk of the early and not
Speaker 2: even like the first two thirds of this show's life
Speaker 2: being like Avatar sequel, I'll believe that when it happens, And.
Speaker 1: Isn't that a funny artifact? And then now in the
Speaker 1: past couple of years, we've gotten two sequels.
Speaker 2: Yeah, so you know, never never bet against James Cameron
Speaker 2: is the takeaway. Yep. But we are watching we're watching
Speaker 2: the theatrical version. By the way, we should say, oh right, yeah,
Speaker 2: there's there's like an extended cut and then there's like
Speaker 2: the super duper standed cut, and we're watching neither of those.
Speaker 2: But but for the purposes of backs drop on this,
Speaker 2: I watched the three hour version, did you.
Speaker 1: Oh, I considered it, but I didn't. Yeah.
Speaker 2: I was like, I watched it, and I was like, well,
Speaker 2: I you know, I mean, if I figure, I'll be
Speaker 2: able to notice the differences and you know, add some
Speaker 2: context to the discussion that we're having. And then I
Speaker 2: was like, have I seen this before? And I think
Speaker 2: I have, but I don't remember because you know, they
Speaker 2: re released the movie in theaters a few years ago. Anyway,
Speaker 2: we'll talk about yeah, yeah, yeah, for this, if you
Speaker 2: want to watch along with us, we're doing the theatrical cut,
Speaker 2: the two hours and forty two minute version.
Speaker 1: Yeah, please create a halou with us, and let's go
Speaker 1: for a ride on an eleu.
Speaker 2: You see, you got this, You get this. You sound
Speaker 2: like one of the people. So we're gonna we're gonna
Speaker 2: get started right right this moment, Brian. So we'll do
Speaker 2: the usual thing. We'll go one, two, three, play again.
Speaker 2: If you want to watch along with us, you can.
Speaker 2: If not, uh, you know, we'll certainly try to keep
Speaker 2: the conversation interesting enough to have you engaged for the
Speaker 2: for the entire almost three hours. Uh. So let's do this. Ready,
Speaker 2: I'm ready, and here we go one, two, three, play it.
Speaker 1: Right?
Speaker 2: So the version I'm watching says twentieth Century Studios, how
Speaker 2: about you, Sam? Yeah, so that's a little swapperoo that
Speaker 2: Disney did.
Speaker 3: Yeah right.
Speaker 2: Even though this this this film predates the Disney purchase
Speaker 2: of twenty eeth century Fox by a cool decade.
Speaker 3: Wow, man, it's like, where do you even begin?
Speaker 1: Well, I will say I did remember things that I
Speaker 1: didn't see in this version, so I must have seen
Speaker 1: the extended version at some point, Like I remember in
Speaker 1: the beginning seeing Jake kicked out of a bar.
Speaker 3: Yes, that's right, right, which.
Speaker 2: I kind of So that's that that I knew was
Speaker 2: not in this cut. And yeah it I think it
Speaker 2: was a really good idea to have that in it initially.
Speaker 2: And it's odd that they made that cut because you're
Speaker 2: looking at three minutes tops, you know, and it is
Speaker 2: that you'd be adding to a two hours and forty
Speaker 2: two minute movie, you know.
Speaker 1: Yeah.
Speaker 2: Yeah.
Speaker 1: And then it basically it gives you a little glimpse
Speaker 1: of what life is like on Earth and how Jake
Speaker 1: really doesn't have anything that's right.
Speaker 2: But he does have he has a sense of doing
Speaker 2: the right thing.
Speaker 1: Yes, Oh that's right. That's right. Yeah, he's like doing
Speaker 1: something kind of noble, like defending someone or something. Right.
Speaker 2: Yeah. So there's a guy who's who's beating up on
Speaker 2: his girlfriend in a bar, and Jake, who is in
Speaker 2: a wheelchair, intervenes and ends up getting tossed out, at
Speaker 2: which point these these fellas come in and they they're like, hey,
Speaker 2: you know your brother died and that whole thing. So
Speaker 2: instead it's like inter cut into this sequence here, which
Speaker 2: which I guess you know. First of all, I should
Speaker 2: say I remember watching this in the theater and just
Speaker 2: being blown away by how absolutely immersive the three D
Speaker 2: was in this sequence.
Speaker 1: I isn't that amazing? I mean, yeah, you say, sixteen
Speaker 1: years I remember this too as if I just saw it.
Speaker 1: I remember seeing those water droplets yep, in three D.
Speaker 1: It's a great little tease, isn't it. Where he's like, oh,
Speaker 1: you like the little little water drop there, check this out,
Speaker 1: And then he goes into that I don't know what
Speaker 1: it is, like hibernation bay or something, and it's just
Speaker 1: like whoa. It just goes so deep.
Speaker 3: And there's people floating around.
Speaker 2: I mean this Oh yeah, good, sorry, just real quick, yeah,
Speaker 2: I mean, just to put a button on that prologue
Speaker 2: sequence that got cut out. It wasn't very much, and
Speaker 2: I just to echo the point you were making, I
Speaker 2: think it showed us the state of just how shitty
Speaker 2: life is on earth. Yeah, and I think it would
Speaker 2: have provided at a necessary contrast, because we don't get
Speaker 2: that at all in in the in in this version.
Speaker 2: And you know, I don't think it would have been
Speaker 2: that much of a burden in terms of the run time,
Speaker 2: So kind of kind of a weird choice that honestly.
Speaker 1: Yeah, I mean I guess in a way, if I
Speaker 1: didn't know it existed, I would still think that, oh,
Speaker 1: this is a great exposition efficient at the beginning here,
Speaker 1: and I get it. And it's sad that his brother
Speaker 1: died and they you know, he can do this. It'll
Speaker 1: give his life some purpose. I mean, I'll hear.
Speaker 2: Well, yes and no, because because the one of the
Speaker 2: single loudest critiques of this film following its release was
Speaker 2: that our main character, Jake Sully played by Sam Worthington,
Speaker 2: is a bit of a cipher. Yes, right, I mean
Speaker 2: he's sort of he you know, he he's a pastiche
Speaker 2: of similar characters in similar movies, and we don't get
Speaker 2: a clear sense of what drives him, and I I
Speaker 2: think whatever little bits of character development you could sneak
Speaker 2: in and the crevices would have been helpful.
Speaker 1: Well, I definitely agree with that, yes, with some character things,
Speaker 1: but I also feel like I saw some of the
Speaker 1: people that they considered for Jake, you know, including Jake, Jillenhall,
Speaker 1: Matt Damon, I think even Channing Tatum James Cameron talked
Speaker 1: about recently, and I was like, all three of those
Speaker 1: people with the same role, the same script, they have
Speaker 1: a little bit more persona, you know what I mean,
Speaker 1: just even in their their voices, in their mannerisms that
Speaker 1: I think would have rounded out Jake a little bit
Speaker 1: more so he doesn't feel so cipher like. And I
Speaker 1: feel bad saying that because I do like Sam Worthington.
Speaker 1: I was talking about this with my brother. He's very
Speaker 1: good in this, Like he feels like in real life
Speaker 1: what this guy would be like. But this isn't real life,
Speaker 1: you know what I mean. This is a movie, and
Speaker 1: we need especially if he's going to become this blue
Speaker 1: creature that looks like every other two hundred blue creatures
Speaker 1: I'm looking at, he really needs to pop, you know
Speaker 1: what I mean, Like, I mean, that is like a
Speaker 1: I came away from this movie.
Speaker 3: Okay, let's go even back.
Speaker 1: It's interesting to me that this is a movie when
Speaker 1: you just say Avatar, think of Avatar. Speaking for myself,
Speaker 1: I think it inspires a reaction like maybe even like
Speaker 1: a snicker, like you know what I mean, which is
Speaker 1: too bad because as I was watching this, especially the
Speaker 1: back half of this movie, I was like, you know,
Speaker 1: this movie's really cool. Like it it's got a lot
Speaker 1: we'll talk about a lot of it, but at the
Speaker 1: end of the day, I think it really does what
Speaker 1: James Cameron set out to do, and he dazzles when
Speaker 1: it's time to dazzle, you know. And for me, speaking
Speaker 1: for myself, he made me feel when he wanted me
Speaker 1: to feel. But there's it's hard to take the whole
Speaker 1: thing seriously because these people, I think I still can't
Speaker 1: get over the fact that they do look like three
Speaker 1: hundred blue walking talking cats, you know what I mean,
Speaker 1: Versus like Dances with Wolves, which is a very similar story.
Speaker 1: When I take that movie very seriously, yeah, you know,
Speaker 1: and feel very moved by it, and in this one,
Speaker 1: I feel like there is like a good, you know, straightforward, compelling,
Speaker 1: enough story here, but you can't help but stifle a
Speaker 1: little bit of a snicker as you observe portions of it.
Speaker 1: And I feel like that is just always going to
Speaker 1: be attached to the experience.
Speaker 2: I yeah, I I okay. So a couple of thousand,
Speaker 2: number one and we were talking about this before we
Speaker 2: started recording. I have now seen this film four times, totally, okay,
Speaker 2: right once I saw it in the theater during its
Speaker 2: initial run. Yeah, and then in twenty nineteen, so I
Speaker 2: didn't revisit it for ten years. In twenty nineteen, I
Speaker 2: wrote a piece for the paper doing like a ten
Speaker 2: year look back at Avatar. So I put it on
Speaker 2: and I was like, it's all right, and it's fine,
Speaker 2: you know. In my thing, I actually wrote the verdict,
Speaker 2: it's dot dot dot fine. And then and then they
Speaker 2: re released this one to theaters, you know, three years
Speaker 2: ago or whatever it was two years ago, whenever the
Speaker 2: last one came out just before that, and I was like, oh,
Speaker 2: this is great. And then I watched this again. It
Speaker 2: was commentary, and I had to space that out over
Speaker 2: three days, you were, you know, just because it's long.
Speaker 2: And I was like it's fine. I'm like, I think
Speaker 2: that the big screen and the three D is like
Speaker 2: a magical part of the mix. This is like the
Speaker 2: Scooby snack that gets the whole thing going. You know.
Speaker 1: You see the American flag by the way in the
Speaker 1: background with the blinds and the like machine.
Speaker 3: Have you ever noticed it?
Speaker 2: Yeah? Yeah, very clever and actually real quick before before
Speaker 2: you go further, I want to just point out, while
Speaker 2: Stephen Lang is front and center, yes, what a freaking
Speaker 2: great bad guy. I was just yeah, I was like,
Speaker 2: chef's kiss. There's a scene later where he's drinking coffee
Speaker 2: while just all all kinds of ungodly shit he unleashed,
Speaker 2: just going on. I'm like, this is a guy who
Speaker 2: loves being a bad guy.
Speaker 1: Dude, I wrote down when he is watching them annihilate
Speaker 1: the tree and he's standing in that like warship and
Speaker 1: he's sipping coffee and he goes, let's make this quick.
Speaker 1: I want to be home by dinner. I was like, whoa,
Speaker 1: And it's him too, you know, like his Yeah, he's perfect.
Speaker 1: I was thinking, if they hadn't used the name I
Speaker 1: know this came first, but if they hadn't used the
Speaker 1: name Lockjaw in one battle after another, like he could
Speaker 1: totally be like Colonel Lockjaw.
Speaker 2: Okay, sorry you were saying. I didn't mean to interrupt you.
Speaker 1: No, no, well, I have so many things before I
Speaker 1: even started this, and I hadn't watched this in years.
Speaker 1: I don't even know it more than five six seven.
Speaker 1: I didn't see it when it was re released, but
Speaker 1: I literally, you know, like when a song you think
Speaker 1: of a song, you think of like the hook, like
Speaker 1: a little like appear in your head. For some reason,
Speaker 1: I was like, oh yeah, Zachie and I are watching Avatar,
Speaker 1: and I was like, eat your ass like Jujubes for
Speaker 1: some reason that line. And I couldn't even remember when
Speaker 1: it said or why he says it, but I just
Speaker 1: kept thinking, your eyes like Juju Be's. And so when
Speaker 1: I saw him rallying his troops here and he's warning
Speaker 1: everyone basically about how dangerous Pandora is, He's like, everything
Speaker 1: out there wants to kill you and eat your eyes
Speaker 1: like Juju Bests.
Speaker 2: You're like he said it, he said the thing.
Speaker 1: He said it? No, so yeah, I like it's funny,
Speaker 1: Like I I I feel like even if I mentioned
Speaker 1: to people like oh yeah, Zaki and I are doing
Speaker 1: a commentary and Avatar this week.
Speaker 3: There's a little bit of a h.
Speaker 1: You know, kind of attached to it. I mean with
Speaker 1: almost every single person I brought it up with, and
Speaker 1: then I watch it and I'm like, yeah, that is there.
Speaker 1: But at the end of the day, like it's pretty good.
Speaker 1: I don't know, like that was kind of my feeling.
Speaker 1: Although I want to I want to agree with you.
Speaker 1: I did find I had a wandering eye a little
Speaker 1: bit occasionally watching this at home, which I don't tend
Speaker 1: to do when I'm watching stuff, like I try to
Speaker 1: keep my phone away from me, and so there is that,
Speaker 1: like it is a different experience. Yeah, and it's funny.
Speaker 1: I think that's something. There was such a conversation about
Speaker 1: this came out two thousand and nine. He was promising sequels.
Speaker 1: The years were going by, we weren't getting sequels, and
Speaker 1: then that conversation was started. Does anyone even like remember Avatar,
Speaker 1: Like things from Avatar haven't seeped into the culture. We
Speaker 1: don't repeat lines, you don't see people on Avatar t shirt?
Speaker 2: Well you clearly did repeat Jujub has never left me
Speaker 2: and I see you.
Speaker 3: I remember joking about I see.
Speaker 1: You with you ever ever since it came out, But
Speaker 1: that became part of the conversation. And then the sequel
Speaker 1: comes out and everyone's like.
Speaker 2: And by the way, speaking of I don't know how
Speaker 2: many times I said, who's got my goddamn cigarette? Right right?
Speaker 1: I'm just doing which by the way, I read that
Speaker 1: that cigarette is CGI. I don't know if it's a
Speaker 1: prop in the smoke of CGI or something, which I
Speaker 1: that was amazing because I didn't notice, which reminded me.
Speaker 1: I watched the latest fifth season of Stranger Things recently,
Speaker 1: and why non a writer is smoking the most obvious
Speaker 1: CGI cigarette I've ever seen in my life, and I
Speaker 1: was like, Wow, funny progressed in our CGI cigarettes. But no,
Speaker 1: just what I'm basically trying to get at is what
Speaker 1: we have learned. So the sequel comes out, Everyone's like,
Speaker 1: there's no way he can do this again. We've had
Speaker 1: this conversation for over a decade. These movies don't last
Speaker 1: in the consciousness, and he's like, the only way this
Speaker 1: movie can be successful is if it becomes the biggest
Speaker 1: movie of all time. And everyone's like, you shouldn't say
Speaker 1: things like that, mister Cameron, and then it becomes, you know,
Speaker 1: the most successful movie of all time or second or
Speaker 1: whatever it is. And so I think then we all
Speaker 1: had the realization these movies rock in theaters, yep, And
Speaker 1: we don't take them home with us, we don't watch
Speaker 1: them on Disney Plus. But when the next one comes out,
Speaker 1: we're all going and like and that's not even like dismissive.
Speaker 1: It's like, that's what these movies exist to do for us.
Speaker 1: These are, that's right, theatrical experiences. We will all go
Speaker 1: and enjoy together and make it the third highest grossing
Speaker 1: movie of all time or whatever, and then we will
Speaker 1: move on from it until the next one, and we.
Speaker 3: Go back to the theater, which is what other movie exists.
Speaker 2: Like that, That's what I'm saying, man. I mean, it
Speaker 2: occupies a very specific space. And you and I are
Speaker 2: well established in terms of wanting the theatrical experience to
Speaker 2: remain central to movie going. And while it may not
Speaker 2: remain central, here's at least one thing that is central,
Speaker 2: and that we'll get people going into the theater, you know.
Speaker 1: And I mean that's strangely, I mean, that was kind
Speaker 1: of what Spielberg and Lucas predicted several years ago, right,
Speaker 1: that the theater going would become more niche, and it
Speaker 1: would have to be these big event type movies that
Speaker 1: would actually get people out of their homes versus being
Speaker 1: willing to check out some sort of mid you.
Speaker 3: Know, budgeted drama or something.
Speaker 1: And it feels like, as that's become more and more true,
Speaker 1: it may be less you know, oh it's a block
Speaker 1: of Godzilla or whatever. Those are in the mix now,
Speaker 1: but those might even become more like HBO Max exclusives
Speaker 1: or something, and it's going to be the avatars. They're like, no,
Speaker 1: you go to the theater for this, and that's where
Speaker 1: this thing is the thing and what it's for. And
Speaker 1: you know what I mean.
Speaker 2: Oh yeah, I mean when you've got an eighty five
Speaker 2: inch TV high deaf at home, I mean, you know,
Speaker 2: it gets it gets harder to justify, you know, getting
Speaker 2: something that different from from theatrical. But I mean again, Avatar,
Speaker 2: when you're looking when you're doing the IMAX three D,
Speaker 2: I mean, it's it's it's it's unique, you know, totally totally.
Speaker 2: Here's Giovanni Rubisi as Paul Reiser.
Speaker 1: Oh yeah, yeah, you're so right. It's yeah, one thing.
Speaker 2: We can tell about about James Camera, and he has
Speaker 2: he has certain storytelling, you know, peculiarity, it's one of them.
Speaker 2: He's not a fan of big corporation, right, and I
Speaker 2: respect that.
Speaker 1: Yeah, yeah, I.
Speaker 2: Mean this is this is This is one thing that
Speaker 2: becomes very clear to me watching this film is that
Speaker 2: it's very earnest, yes, and its heart is very much
Speaker 2: on its sleeve about where where its loyalties are. You know,
Speaker 2: this is not it's not particularly subtle, no, right, And
Speaker 2: and that was that was the critique. It took a
Speaker 2: lot up back when it came out, like oh, it's
Speaker 2: so it's Dune and fern Gully and dances with Wolves
Speaker 2: and da da da dah film in the blank, right,
Speaker 2: John Carter, you know, even though that came later. But
Speaker 2: what you realize is that this for for a lot
Speaker 2: of folks, this is their first that story, and so
Speaker 2: it needs to kind of be at that level because
Speaker 2: because it's making a broader point, and I think an
Speaker 2: important one, right, because it's about valuing nature and recognizing
Speaker 2: how we're all connected. I mean that's good. We don't
Speaker 2: have to be on Pandora to love the earth, right,
Speaker 2: and to recognize that there are forces that are trying
Speaker 2: to take it away from us. And I really like
Speaker 2: that that's the story he's telling. He's clearly very passionate
Speaker 2: about that, and I think it means something very different
Speaker 2: to the people who were nine when this came out
Speaker 2: versus who were twenty nine when it came out.
Speaker 1: I completely agree with that, and I would it's kind
Speaker 1: of fascinating, I think maybe for you and I where
Speaker 1: there's movies that come out and we're like, huh oh,
Speaker 1: that was the thing, and we just kind of move
Speaker 1: on because we were thirty five when we saw it
Speaker 1: or something, and then ten years goes by and you
Speaker 1: find out that there's a generation of people passionate about
Speaker 1: that thing because they saw it when they were an
Speaker 1: enterten and I'd be very curious. I haven't really heard
Speaker 1: kids who have grown up since this came out if
Speaker 1: this is in their you know, beloved Cannon.
Speaker 2: Well, I can't speak to Beloved Cannon, but I mean,
Speaker 2: just anecdotally back and forth with my students who are now,
Speaker 2: you know, like eighteen nineteen, right, so they were little
Speaker 2: teeny tinies when this one came out. You know, they
Speaker 2: speak with great affinity for both this and the sequel,
Speaker 2: So okay, it's definitely in the mix, you know.
Speaker 1: Yeah, And it's like you were saying, though, it's like
Speaker 1: how straightforward it is. It's very simply stated, easy to understand,
Speaker 1: universal themes. You can see why this was the biggest
Speaker 1: movie in the world, Like the whole world could lock
Speaker 1: into this story.
Speaker 2: Yeah, you know.
Speaker 3: I mean you could even watch it with the sound
Speaker 3: off and follow it, you know.
Speaker 2: Very much so, and that was clearly Cameron's intent, you know.
Speaker 2: I mean, I think he did probably sand off a
Speaker 2: lot of the subtlety or the subtler edges, and that's
Speaker 2: kind of a shame. I mean, you know, this sequence here,
Speaker 2: I remember reading about how one of the earliest versions
Speaker 2: has Jake sort of got onto the grass and instead
Speaker 2: of running, you know, he sort of he collapses to
Speaker 2: his knees and starts to cry, you know, And I
Speaker 2: almost wish they would have kept something like that in.
Speaker 1: You know, I agree, I agree. I thought that was
Speaker 1: what was going to happen, Like I thought he was
Speaker 1: going to burst out the door and kind of fall
Speaker 1: or something and get the hang of it, which is
Speaker 1: interesting because then it made me think, you know, there's
Speaker 1: this kind of famous anecdote where James Cameron wanted to
Speaker 1: make Jurassic Park. That's right, you know, when that book
Speaker 1: was coming out, and then Spielberg got it first, and
Speaker 1: Cameron said, you know what, it's probably for the best
Speaker 1: because if I had made it, I would.
Speaker 3: Have made Aliens with dinosaurs. It would have been r rated.
Speaker 1: And then you see what Spielberg did, and he made
Speaker 1: something for everybody, for kids, and like dinosaurs are for kids,
Speaker 1: My movie would have been the wrong movie, right, And
Speaker 1: I think that's so interesting, you know, you know, it's
Speaker 1: sort of like a Disney movie, is what he said, Like,
Speaker 1: you know, I wouldn't made the Disney movie version of that,
Speaker 1: which is funny. I was thinking about that as I
Speaker 1: was watching this, because I thought, this, it feels like
Speaker 1: a Disney movie, you know, and it's funny that that's
Speaker 1: coming from James Cameron, right.
Speaker 2: Right, well, and I think that's part of the reason
Speaker 2: why he didn't really skip a beat after the the
Speaker 2: Disney purchase of Fox, right. I mean, you have to
Speaker 2: imagine that they're just staying out of his way. They're like, hey,
Speaker 2: just keep doing what you're doing because there's no real
Speaker 2: you know, conflict with that company's goals, you know.
Speaker 1: And which is kind of interesting too, because you know,
Speaker 1: James Cameron had this relationship with Fox, made Titanic, biggest
Speaker 1: movie in the world, and he had an eighty page
Speaker 1: treatment for this, a version of what would become that.
Speaker 2: This is like post true Lies, pre Titanic.
Speaker 1: Yeah, middle nineties basically, but he was realizing that the
Speaker 1: technology wasn't there, but when it looked like it could
Speaker 1: possibly be there, which I think happened after Lord of
Speaker 1: the Rings, right, he saw Gollum yeah, and Davy Jones
Speaker 1: and one of the Pirates movies and was like, maybe
Speaker 1: we could do this, and so he presented it to
Speaker 1: Fox and Fox was like, I don't know, man, you know,
Speaker 1: like this is a lot. We're not so sure. So
Speaker 1: then Cameron went and spoke with Disney, and Disney's like,
Speaker 1: we're in, and so then Fox was like, who, we'll
Speaker 1: hold on and then they exercise their first right of refusal,
Speaker 1: was like, all right, well Disney wants it, you know,
Speaker 1: we'll take it. And of course that was the right gamble.
Speaker 1: But it's funny that Disney was interested in it, because
Speaker 1: this does feel disney esque, and then Disney would eventually
Speaker 1: get it because Disney.
Speaker 2: I mean even before the purchase, the whole world of
Speaker 2: Pandora Disneyland thing was in development, right, this is before
Speaker 2: Yeah yeah, So I mean, you know, the overlap is
Speaker 2: as clear as day. M hm. It is interesting to me,
Speaker 2: by the way. We you know, I think I think
Speaker 2: overall the effects work holds up pretty darn well. Uh.
Speaker 2: There are moments of like Uncanny Valley that like, like,
Speaker 2: I don't think I ever get used to that first
Speaker 2: shot of Grace in her avatar body.
Speaker 3: When they introduce her in the Stanfordshire. Yeah, yeah, her
Speaker 3: face I get pretty good.
Speaker 2: Yeah, there's just I think it's just because we're so
Speaker 2: we know what Sigourney Weaver sounds like sure sure, sure,
Speaker 2: sure right, like and it's it's not you know, it's
Speaker 2: not like she's voicing a cartoon character. It's meant to
Speaker 2: be a you know, a room let person. By the way,
Speaker 2: here's Michelle Rodriguez playing her character. Yeah, she's got like
Speaker 2: one lane. It's a good she does it well.
Speaker 1: But she's you know, oh yeah, I like her. I
Speaker 1: mean I remember seeing her all the way back in
Speaker 1: Girl Fight. You know, she's special, like she she really
Speaker 1: popped in that movie. And she's found her thing, you know,
Speaker 1: so I'm happy she's hung in there well. In two
Speaker 1: thousand and nine, the early part of the year saw
Speaker 1: her character Letty die in in Uh Fast and Furious,
Speaker 1: and then at the at the very end of the
Speaker 1: year she dies again on screen. So she got doubled it.
Speaker 2: I mean, Letty came back later, but as far as
Speaker 2: men you she was, she was dead.
Speaker 1: Yeah, no, but touching on the oh so he Actually
Speaker 1: I wasn't gonna say this, but when Lang says that
Speaker 1: there's low gravity, I was like, Oh, that's like a
Speaker 1: nice thing to throw in there for when the bodies
Speaker 1: look a little floaty when they're jumping. Yeah.
Speaker 2: I don't know.
Speaker 1: I don't know if that was a consideration. We talk
Speaker 1: about that sometimes with visual effects, where they can miss
Speaker 1: a little bit of the the theft, you know, like
Speaker 1: when you see a CGR car crash into something, Like
Speaker 1: in my head, I always think like it's missing the
Speaker 1: kuchunk that you would feel or sense when you see
Speaker 1: a real car hit something. Sometimes they nail it and
Speaker 1: you're like, oh, they got the kachunk. But yeah, to
Speaker 1: your point, I think sometimes when they leap and land
Speaker 1: on things, you can sense the lack of connection, yeah,
Speaker 1: between the characters and the things they're touching, and then
Speaker 1: like when they're holding ropes or when they're being bound
Speaker 1: by things, you can kind of.
Speaker 2: Yeah, because you can't you can't exactly articulate gravity in
Speaker 2: a computer, you know it like the weight of movement,
Speaker 2: you know. Sometimes it's tricky.
Speaker 3: Yeah, And I mean for this that's the thing too.
Speaker 1: I wish I could go back to my two thousand
Speaker 1: and nine Eyes because I do remember being blown away
Speaker 1: by this, and I feel a lot of it is
Speaker 1: still mind blowing for me. I think when it's nighttime
Speaker 1: it's a little less successful. But whenever it's daylight and
Speaker 1: you see those trees and there's some sort of haze
Speaker 1: going on, and you see the military vehicles in the air,
Speaker 1: and even like you can see more of the pores
Speaker 1: on right all the daytime stuff.
Speaker 3: I'm like, this still looks incredible.
Speaker 2: It holds up remarkably well. Yeah, I mean you can.
Speaker 2: I mean they busted their ass back then to sort
Speaker 2: of have the movie stand the test of time, and
Speaker 2: I think they succeeded. Yeah. Actually, speaking of two thousand
Speaker 2: and nine Eyes, I'll tell you one thing. I distinctly
Speaker 2: remember watching this opening night and this part right here.
Speaker 2: I was like, Oh, okay, this is how the movie
Speaker 2: is gonna end, introducing this vehicle this I was like, Oh,
Speaker 2: so Quorich is in his Avatar and Jake is going
Speaker 2: to be in his Avatar and they're gonna have a
Speaker 2: throw it. I was like, yeah, right here. When he
Speaker 2: does that, I was like, Oh, that's the ending of
Speaker 2: the movie right there. Wow, that's pretty good. I remember
Speaker 2: very distinctly being like, mental note, but let's put a
Speaker 2: pin in that and we'll come back to it. That
Speaker 2: is really funny. It is funny though, because the title
Speaker 2: of the film has no bearing on anything after this movie.
Speaker 2: I was thinking about that.
Speaker 1: M It's like the knives Out movies, where it's like, right,
Speaker 1: wake up, dead Man, a knives out movie.
Speaker 2: It's like I was like, I was like, no one's
Speaker 2: an Avatar anymore. Literally, no one is an Avatar anymore.
Speaker 3: That's a great point.
Speaker 2: It's a great all the NAVI like Colonel Koritch is
Speaker 2: a Navy, but he's like a real Navy now, you know,
Speaker 2: you know Grace, No, it's not even Grace, it's what
Speaker 2: the daughter. I mean, every every noave character is an
Speaker 2: actual navy Yeah.
Speaker 1: How funny.
Speaker 3: See this this stuff is stunning.
Speaker 2: No, it's beautiful. Yeah, I mean it looks and in
Speaker 2: four K especially, man, it looks like Planet Earth or something,
Speaker 2: you know, the documentary series.
Speaker 1: But I mean if the creatures look good, but even
Speaker 1: like the nave here or there, I guess they're the avatars.
Speaker 1: But well, this stuff, like I mean, the misty treaties
Speaker 1: and everything just.
Speaker 3: Looks like you said, looks like the Earth documentary.
Speaker 1: But I don't know. Something about the characters in sunlight
Speaker 1: really makes it look amazing. And then I feel like
Speaker 1: they become a little more cartoon looking when.
Speaker 2: It's when you've got like the luminescence at night and stuff.
Speaker 2: You know, I think partly because you know, the sunlight
Speaker 2: forces us to view it through the lens of what
Speaker 2: we know, what's familiar. You know, it's a great point
Speaker 2: and it has to be animated that way, and then
Speaker 2: you know it it becomes a cgi wonderland and it's
Speaker 2: beautiful to look at it. But yeah, it feels a
Speaker 2: little more more unnatural.
Speaker 1: Yeah, well kind of interesting. I mean speaking of you know,
Speaker 1: the bioluminescence, uh nighttime look of the planets and and
Speaker 1: even the characters themselves. I mean, all this stuff came
Speaker 1: from dreams, which is a familiar story with James Cameron, right,
Speaker 1: Like he imagined the Terminator coming out of like rubble
Speaker 1: in a nightmare, like a fiery rubble.
Speaker 2: And he's like, I want to have whatever weird spicy
Speaker 2: sushi or whatever shit he's eaten.
Speaker 3: Well, I was gonna say so. So he as a kid.
Speaker 1: Had a dream about like a bioluminescent planet where when
Speaker 1: you took steps it lit up beneath your foot. And
Speaker 1: then his mom, he says, had a dream about a
Speaker 1: twelve foot tall blue woman with six breasts, and and
Speaker 1: so then he was like, well the breast didn't work,
Speaker 1: so we got rid of that. But like not a
Speaker 1: bad not a bad dream, huh. And I was like, yeah,
Speaker 1: the Camerons have very profitable dreams.
Speaker 2: Geez. Meanwhile, and well my mom has. My mom has
Speaker 2: dreams where I'm not a disappointment to her, right, And
Speaker 2: then she was I'm joking. I'm sure I'm not a disappointment. No,
Speaker 2: I see you, thanks man. See see the navvy grace.
Speaker 2: There is something uncanny Valley about her, more so than
Speaker 2: than any of the other ones, and I don't know
Speaker 2: why that is.
Speaker 1: You know what's strange, though, is I I will say,
Speaker 1: she's the one that looks most distinctive, more so than
Speaker 1: any of the others, and she has a little bit
Speaker 1: more of a human nose. Maybe that helps me identify
Speaker 1: her more as Sigourney Weaver, whereas.
Speaker 3: Yeah, I don't know.
Speaker 1: I just I feel like it doesn't help that they
Speaker 1: look so similar and that they don't act very different
Speaker 1: from one another than Novi. And then it makes me
Speaker 1: think of the sequel. I remember that he has these
Speaker 1: kids and they're like the main characters in those And
Speaker 1: you know, I saw the movie. I enjoyed it enough,
Speaker 1: but I don't remember any of them or their personalities,
Speaker 1: you know, So it's not like I'm really important to
Speaker 1: see you don't remember. Look, yeah, you know what I mean.
Speaker 1: So it's exactly. But but I'm eager to see the
Speaker 1: new one because I know it'll be an experience. But
Speaker 1: it would be nice if I could lock onto these
Speaker 1: characters better than I do.
Speaker 2: So Jake Sully kind of an idiot.
Speaker 1: Huh, just touching everything.
Speaker 2: Yeah, I'm like, hey, stupid, why don't you Why don't
Speaker 2: you just like uh, you know, uh, hold back slightly,
Speaker 2: like carry yourself with I mean, he's supposed to be
Speaker 2: a marine. He's not a moron, right.
Speaker 1: Right right this Actually that would be kind of interesting. Yeah,
Speaker 1: if he was just like the dopey brother, like he
Speaker 1: was Uncle buck you know what I mean? Whoa, that's
Speaker 1: the movie I want to see where Uncle Bucket but
Speaker 1: his scientist brother couldn't you know, got killed, so he
Speaker 1: has to go. And then they play wild thing by tone.
Speaker 1: Look in the trailer, whoa, everything glows playing the drums
Speaker 1: on things.
Speaker 2: I think this Christmas. I'm I'm I'm in man. Yeah,
Speaker 2: I think the first you know whatever. However, many minutes
Speaker 2: of this movie we're into a lot of it is
Speaker 2: like the throat clearing because when you think about it,
Speaker 2: like the whole business of what the avatar is and
Speaker 2: how it works and the DNA and everything. They they
Speaker 2: speed ramp past it as much as they can, Yeah,
Speaker 2: because it's all a bunch of argyll bargle. Yeah yeah, yeah,
Speaker 2: And it's just you got to figure out how to
Speaker 2: get Jake into this body? Why does it you know?
Speaker 2: But it's not his body. They made for his brother,
Speaker 2: and so he's not there, you know, like that's all
Speaker 2: the the stuff that you just have to get past. Which,
Speaker 2: going back to what I was saying earlier, it makes
Speaker 2: it even more funny to me that the movie is
Speaker 2: called Avatar, because it is kind of like a generic
Speaker 2: nothing of a title. Yeah, you know what I mean.
Speaker 2: I almost feel like they should have called it Pandora.
Speaker 2: That would have been a better title.
Speaker 1: Yeah.
Speaker 3: Yeah.
Speaker 1: Well, and then for the sequels, like you were saying earlier,
Speaker 1: he certainly or Fire and Ash yeah you know, yeah,
Speaker 1: I don't know, maybe the music service wouldn't allow it
Speaker 1: or something.
Speaker 2: Oh that's a good point. Yeah, no idea. Well, speaking
Speaker 2: of music, thing that really did stick out to me
Speaker 2: this time was how much I miss James Horner.
Speaker 1: I had the same feelings. He is just man, talk
Speaker 1: about someone like you just hear a few notes from
Speaker 1: the man. Yeah, and he just I don't know, chills.
Speaker 1: He really he's so good at sweeping this, you know,
Speaker 1: I think of you know, obviously Titanic, Brave Heart rocketeer,
Speaker 1: you know what I mean, Like he just captures grandeur
Speaker 1: and sweepingness and I don't know, majesty so well, yeah,
Speaker 1: I just oh gosh, I miss him.
Speaker 2: Yeah, I you know, because because he did not do
Speaker 2: the music for well either Seaguals. But I think he
Speaker 2: had started writing music for the first time. But I
Speaker 2: mean obviously not at all involved in in the most
Speaker 2: recent one, which I have seen and you have not.
Speaker 2: We should mention as a as a little stick pin
Speaker 2: in time here and having just seen the third one
Speaker 2: back to back with this one, this one after like, man,
Speaker 2: he's really missed.
Speaker 3: Oh really Okay, I mean not even like I don't.
Speaker 2: I don't mean that to sound like a ding on
Speaker 2: on the new movie, but I'm just like, the score
Speaker 2: doesn't do what this one does for me.
Speaker 1: You know, I do remember, as someone who maybe saw
Speaker 1: the movie twice, this the first one, then saw the sequel,
Speaker 1: I do remember hearing like the four note theme, you know,
Speaker 1: the don.
Speaker 2: That's more.
Speaker 1: But I remember thinking like, oh, yeah, I'm I'm back
Speaker 1: in like a place that I enjoy yeah, like and
Speaker 1: I give that credit to Horner. He created something that
Speaker 1: I enjoyed hearing that made me feel like I enjoyed
Speaker 1: being there, you know, it gave me an emotional feeling.
Speaker 2: Yeah, So just well that that that isn't the new
Speaker 2: and you'll definitely hear that, but you know, James Horner
Speaker 2: was what really was singular. You know, he's been I
Speaker 2: mean for he's been gone for ten years now recording this. Wow.
Speaker 1: But yeah, but I I think along with what you're saying,
Speaker 1: it's it's not just the themes, and the themes are great,
Speaker 1: but it's the music that's in between the themes also,
Speaker 1: like the underscore underscore, and you know, he you even
Speaker 1: hear a little bit of alien in this, you know
Speaker 1: where you hear that what sounds like someone hitting a
Speaker 1: steel Annville, you know, you know, like and it just
Speaker 1: gives you this real like sense of urgency.
Speaker 3: And yeah, he was he was one of the masters.
Speaker 2: Yeah, I I remember, you know, and James Cameron, sorry,
Speaker 2: James Horner was known even when he was alive for
Speaker 2: you know, he would reuse many of his motives, you know,
Speaker 2: and at the time, you know, you would sort of
Speaker 2: nudge him good naturedly about that. And now it's like, ah,
Speaker 2: that's that thing that he did all the time and
Speaker 2: nobody else did or does, you know, so you miss
Speaker 2: it even more, you know, and I love how it
Speaker 2: makes me feel, Yeah, like there's this way it's like you.
Speaker 1: Know he is oh yeah, yeah, the horn.
Speaker 2: Yep.
Speaker 3: Yeah, you'll hear any movie he scores, you'll hear that.
Speaker 2: Yep. It's so funny.
Speaker 3: I'm admiring. What are we thirty minutes in? Just about
Speaker 3: thirty two minutes in.
Speaker 1: Just the well the efficiency I was you were talking
Speaker 1: about it earlier, but just how quickly. There's a lot
Speaker 1: to explain, but they do it as efficiently as possible.
Speaker 1: I get it.
Speaker 3: And he's already in his avatar and he's on.
Speaker 1: A hunt and it's like twenty some minutes in, Like
Speaker 1: that's pretty great. And then I don't know, just watching
Speaker 1: this with the sound off and you know, seeing this
Speaker 1: warrior about to you know, shoot Jake. But then these
Speaker 1: magical little fluffy things come down to land on the
Speaker 1: arrow like telling her no, Like it's that's just making
Speaker 1: it's making me feel something, you know. It's like it's
Speaker 1: I got to give the movie that, Like it's it's
Speaker 1: still somehow can't shake a little bit of a silliness,
Speaker 1: you know, this movie, but.
Speaker 2: It also works, you know, I agree. And by the way,
Speaker 2: those magical fluffy things they're called taylu by the.
Speaker 1: Please don't do you have something like open in front
Speaker 1: of you, like yeah, I just pulled it up. It's amazing.
Speaker 1: Excuse me, Brian.
Speaker 2: But I remember, like after this movie came out reading
Speaker 2: articles about people who left the movies and were like
Speaker 2: depressed that they didn't live on Pandora. You know, yeah,
Speaker 2: same and and and I remember, you know, people kind
Speaker 2: of chuckled and or pointed fingers at those type of stories.
Speaker 2: But I think that speaks to sort of the purity
Speaker 2: of what Cameron was attempting to do.
Speaker 1: Escape One.
Speaker 2: Yeah, he wanted to create a place that, in addition
Speaker 2: to offering escapism, felt so immersive that you felt like
Speaker 2: you felt like Jake when he lies down in his
Speaker 2: little that that bed and he you know, and he's
Speaker 2: in his knobby body. That's what he wanted audiences to feel.
Speaker 1: Yeah.
Speaker 2: And look, you know, money doesn't lie. I mean, this
Speaker 2: movie did not make three billion dollars almost from hate watching.
Speaker 3: Yeah, yeah, that's a great point, Like.
Speaker 2: You have to you have to look at that. It's
Speaker 2: one thing if the movie tanks, you say, Okay, well
Speaker 2: it didn't succeed. No, no, you make that kind of
Speaker 2: money because people are going back again and again to
Speaker 2: watch it.
Speaker 1: You know, I want to comment on what you just said,
Speaker 1: You're so right. I hadn't appreciated it enough. But the
Speaker 1: world is so immersive, every detail. And one of the
Speaker 1: things that's been driving me crazy in the past maybe
Speaker 1: ten ish years, is when you see characters in another
Speaker 1: planet or a weird sort of space, it doesn't really
Speaker 1: go that far back visually, like I mean, one of
Speaker 1: the first examples that comes to mind is Rise of Skywalker,
Speaker 1: when Ray is in the Emperor's Arena and it's so
Speaker 1: vague the space that she's in. It's all dark and
Speaker 1: shadowy and almost like they didn't quite know what they
Speaker 1: wanted to put there and then just decided, what if
Speaker 1: we didn't put anything? You know.
Speaker 3: And I know this isn't a great.
Speaker 1: Example, but I think of Deadpool and Wolverine where they're
Speaker 1: in that wasteland, and which it is a wasteland, to
Speaker 1: be fair, but it also reminds me of a lot
Speaker 1: of these settings we see now that are you know,
Speaker 1: dropped in through visual effects, that our characters are wandering
Speaker 1: through in other planets where there's just.
Speaker 3: It's just kind of nothing, you know what I mean.
Speaker 1: There's not a lot of texture or detail or anything
Speaker 1: behind them. It's just it's very vague. It's more like
Speaker 1: a color that they're wandering through, you know, like a
Speaker 1: ground and sort of a out of focus you know, background,
Speaker 1: and this, Yeah, this feels like a place that I
Speaker 1: can imagine walking through. I can close my eyes and
Speaker 1: picture what it would be like to walk on those
Speaker 1: branches and there the vines and.
Speaker 2: All of that, you know, and well and and see.
Speaker 2: I think what that gets to is how deeply you
Speaker 2: think through the fantasy environment your characters are in, right,
Speaker 2: because you could be like, oh, you know, everything these
Speaker 2: days it's they're not shooting on real location. Everything's on
Speaker 2: a green screen, right. Well, I mean this is obviously
Speaker 2: green screen, right, but you know, as what I read
Speaker 2: is that Cameron took you know, Zoe Saldana and Sam
Speaker 2: Arthington to Hawaii and they were just trapesing through the
Speaker 2: forests to get a feel for what that's like, you know. Yeah,
Speaker 2: and we know he's so he's so a detail oriented
Speaker 2: that he would really want all of the footfalls and
Speaker 2: everything to really have have, you know, to have some
Speaker 2: degree of physics behind it, you know. And I think
Speaker 2: unfortunately we're in a time now where there's a sense
Speaker 2: of like, oh, just have the CGI artists to do
Speaker 2: it and without giving them the proper runway to really
Speaker 2: execute maximally. Right.
Speaker 1: I'm glad you said that, because yeah, there's nothing wrong
Speaker 1: with the visual effects or the visual effects artists. It's
Speaker 1: a lack of you know, thinking things through and it's like, well,
Speaker 1: what's back there, Like I don't know, fill it in,
Speaker 1: you know, whereas James Cameron, like this place exists in
Speaker 1: his mind and obviously he has you know, the cachet
Speaker 1: that he has where he could have Fox pay him
Speaker 1: for eighteen months just to develop a world, you know,
Speaker 1: and hire artists to come up with all these things.
Speaker 1: Not everybody has that luxury. But you know, his passion
Speaker 1: for this and the proof that this has existed for
Speaker 1: decades in his mind is all on screen here.
Speaker 2: That's really I you know, I think anybody who signs
Speaker 2: up to work for James Cameron knows what they're getting,
Speaker 2: you know, and he's going to be exacting. But I mean,
Speaker 2: to his credit, he holds himself to a high standard
Speaker 2: in terms of the movies that are put out there.
Speaker 2: You know. Yeah, I heard tell that, Like he kept
Speaker 2: a nail gun on him and if anybody's phone rang,
Speaker 2: he would nail it to the wall, and I'm like,
Speaker 2: what kind of frickin dumb ass person he would show
Speaker 2: up on, of all sets, a James Cameron set without
Speaker 2: your phone silenced?
Speaker 1: Yeah, you know, I mean I've heard I've heard stories
Speaker 1: about you know, they make crew T shirts that are
Speaker 1: just blocks of text of all the insults that he
Speaker 1: lobbed during the entire shoot. And they're like they're not
Speaker 1: even like, you know, like clever and creative, They're just like,
Speaker 1: you know what, effing idiot.
Speaker 3: You know, they're just very mean.
Speaker 2: You know.
Speaker 1: But it's like people are like, yeah, James Cameron, It's
Speaker 1: just it's just one of those people that can kind
Speaker 1: of get away with that.
Speaker 2: Yeah, I mean, I I don't think I would. I
Speaker 2: would want to be anywhere anywhere near a film set,
Speaker 2: like a James Cameron film set. I'd love to sit
Speaker 2: at a table and talk about like freaking like like
Speaker 2: Blade Runner with him or something. Yeah, you know, like
Speaker 2: not even movies he's made, just movies he likes.
Speaker 3: Mm hmm.
Speaker 1: Actually I would do.
Speaker 2: And as I said before, I'd be like, so, so, Jim,
Speaker 2: what do you think of Stockton Rush? And then I
Speaker 2: just kind of sit lean back for the next eighteen
Speaker 2: hours as he just went off. You know.
Speaker 1: But that's the thing, right, like you don't we don't
Speaker 1: get a lot of long form interviews with him. But
Speaker 1: with this latest you know, Fire and Ash coming out,
Speaker 1: he has done a couple of podcasts and I've.
Speaker 3: Gobbled them up because I'm very interested to hear what
Speaker 3: what's on his mind.
Speaker 2: Yeah, well, I mean, sorry, that.
Speaker 1: Cracks me up by the way, where these like magical
Speaker 1: creatures are like choosing him and being like you are
Speaker 1: the chosen one, and he's just flicking them away like
Speaker 1: stop it at that cracks.
Speaker 2: Me up.
Speaker 1: Anyway.
Speaker 2: Sorry, I had to point that out. No, what was
Speaker 2: I saying? Yeah, yeah, I think that the desire that
Speaker 2: he has to give all of this authenticity is you know,
Speaker 2: it's reflected in sort of the exacting nature, and I
Speaker 2: think that's part of why fifteen years later, we're able
Speaker 2: to look at this this frame right here and say
Speaker 2: it's a beautiful frame and it still holds up. They
Speaker 2: didn't cut corners and that makes the difference, you know. Yep,
Speaker 2: It's it's somewhat ironic because the first time I ever
Speaker 2: heard the phrase and his temporary film is Forever was
Speaker 2: attributed to Peter Jackson on the Lord of the Rings trilogy.
Speaker 3: Oh interesting, I was for me it was Zamechas.
Speaker 2: Yeah, right, I think with regards to the future, probably right, Yeah,
Speaker 2: And that was a quote that I you know, I
Speaker 2: put it in my well, maybe Zamechas conveyed it to
Speaker 2: Peter Jackson because they he produced The Frighteners.
Speaker 3: Oh interesting, Oh interesting, yeah.
Speaker 2: Right, But anyway, I remember that quote as something like,
Speaker 2: you know, you put in the effort at this stage.
Speaker 2: It's it's hard, but I mean, this is a movie
Speaker 2: that's going to live forever. And I contrast that with
Speaker 2: and I've told you about this before when you watch
Speaker 2: the behind the scenes footage of the Hobbit trilogy, where
Speaker 2: Peter Jackson is is somewhat like just a husk of
Speaker 2: a man, right trying to you know, because because that movie,
Speaker 2: that trilogy was supposed to be two movies, and then
Speaker 2: at the eleventh hour Warner Brothers like, no, it's going
Speaker 2: to be three, and he has to sort of contrive
Speaker 2: an ending, a cliffhanger for movie two to lead into
Speaker 2: movie three. And you see him on this sid it's
Speaker 2: just a green screen, and he's like and then you're
Speaker 2: gonna go like this, this, this, and he's like acting
Speaker 2: out motions and these actors like okay, you know, the
Speaker 2: kind of shruggling shoulders and that sequence in the film.
Speaker 2: I will just say, even though I like that trilogy,
Speaker 2: that sequence is not it's not great. Sure, sure, because
Speaker 2: you see the stitches a little bit, you know, and
Speaker 2: you know, it's like even Peter Jackson got broken a
Speaker 2: little bit, you know, And so I respect that James
Speaker 2: Cameron at this point, correct me if I'm wrong. This
Speaker 2: right here. Avatar it's the only filmmaker driven franchise left
Speaker 2: in town.
Speaker 1: Yeah.
Speaker 2: Yeah, he's the only one who's got the juice yea
Speaker 2: to be like, we're gonna do it my way. My
Speaker 2: way is the only way, and that's it, you know.
Speaker 2: And I think part of it is because he can
Speaker 2: be like, look, you guys want to make an Avatar
Speaker 2: without me, go nuts, right try, you know, right right,
Speaker 2: good luck.
Speaker 3: That's a good point.
Speaker 1: And it's I heard him on a podcast. I wish
Speaker 1: I could remember which one it was, but and he
Speaker 1: was even saying, you know, about the changing landscape of
Speaker 1: theatrical movies, and he was like, there's just not an
Speaker 1: ecosystem for another meed to happen. Yeah, and he's like,
Speaker 1: so I get to make this, He's like, but there
Speaker 1: could be someone else out there who's got this a
Speaker 1: thing like this living in their brain and they'll never
Speaker 1: get to share it with anybody. And so then you
Speaker 1: know you've got like these you know, exciting filmmakers coming up.
Speaker 1: What's the guy Predator bad Lands? Oh yeah, Dan Trackenberg
Speaker 1: and and I bet he's got something in there like this,
Speaker 1: but like, he's gonna have to keep making Predator movies
Speaker 1: and I like them, but that's the only thing that
Speaker 1: people are a trust to be made in this moment.
Speaker 1: And so it's kind of like cool, but like, what
Speaker 1: are we missing out on? That could be the thing
Speaker 1: that you could be, the new thing you could be
Speaker 1: dining out on for the next twenty years.
Speaker 2: You know, that's really something. Yeah. I mean, Avatar could
Speaker 2: only happen because the movie before it was Titanic.
Speaker 1: Oh, I mean yeah, you think about if Titanic hadn't happened,
Speaker 1: we still might we might not have gotten Avatar from
Speaker 1: even James Cameron. Titanic allows you to be.
Speaker 3: Like blue people that cost three hundred million, Okay, Yeah, yeah.
Speaker 2: That's exactly it. Yeah, so did you know that Dad
Speaker 2: here is played by Wes Study.
Speaker 1: I did because I had done some research before I
Speaker 1: watched it, but I don't know that I would have
Speaker 1: remembered that.
Speaker 2: Yeah. I looked it up after. I was like, well,
Speaker 2: I'll be damned. I love West Study.
Speaker 1: He's a great Yeah. Yeah, you know, I thought was
Speaker 1: kind of interesting by the way, and some of the
Speaker 1: research I did, so, you know, Fox obviously took a
Speaker 1: big gamble, and this was kind of you know, speaking
Speaker 1: of like a blank check, you know, like Cameron's earned
Speaker 1: his blank check movies. The one thing that they wouldn't
Speaker 1: allow him to do was because he wanted to make
Speaker 1: this shoot it in three D. He wanted the action
Speaker 1: sequences to be at forty eight frames per second. Oh okay, gotchay,
Speaker 1: And so they were like no, that was like a
Speaker 1: line that they drew, like, you know, all movies are
Speaker 1: twenty four frames, this is going to be twenty four frames.
Speaker 3: What I thought was interesting.
Speaker 1: Was then when he re released it, the action sequences
Speaker 1: arened forty eight frames per second. Because after he made,
Speaker 1: you know, a three billion dollar movie, he could be
Speaker 1: there like, uh, yeah, I guess what you're paying for
Speaker 1: on this re release.
Speaker 2: The thing I hate forty eight fps. It drives me bananas.
Speaker 3: Well, it's gonna say.
Speaker 1: And then the second one had that during the action
Speaker 1: sequences forty eight frames per so he got to do
Speaker 1: it on first go, and I assumed the third one
Speaker 1: has it. It does yeah, yeah, and so yeah, yearning
Speaker 1: load it?
Speaker 2: I load it? Yeah, tell tell me?
Speaker 3: Why can you? Can you describe it?
Speaker 1: What it it looks?
Speaker 2: I can't. Well, and actually, real quick, before you know,
Speaker 2: you talk about how this movie very much falls into
Speaker 2: the tropes of these type of pictures. You know, the
Speaker 2: character Sutek who initially is like you know this outside
Speaker 2: or whatever. It's like you know, you you you know
Speaker 2: the rhythms of these things. Oh, it's like that's the
Speaker 2: guy who's gonna hate him initially, and then they're gonna
Speaker 2: become best friends, you know, right, he's he's wind in
Speaker 2: his hair or whatever, you know, all the things, you know,
Speaker 2: and so again you always have to look at it
Speaker 2: from the lens of like, Okay, but imagine this is
Speaker 2: somebody's first time watching this, right, they'll appreciate that character progression.
Speaker 2: But but yeah, forty eight frames for a second. I
Speaker 2: think I told this story many many moons ago, so
Speaker 2: at this point it's been long enough. My first encounter
Speaker 2: with forty eight frames a second was actually watching the
Speaker 2: first Hobbit film, an unexpenditure, and it was it was
Speaker 2: IMAX three D forty eight frames a second, and I
Speaker 2: don't know what it was. I think it was that
Speaker 2: particular mix of ingredients. It's like it's like The Jokers,
Speaker 2: Poisons and bat nine where certain things together, and that
Speaker 2: was the mix. And about a third of the way
Speaker 2: into that movie, I was like, I'm gonna throw up
Speaker 2: or pass out. And since I got up and I
Speaker 2: left the theater and I literally did pass out, wow,
Speaker 2: because one of the people working at the theater woke
Speaker 2: me up. Really, so you were like not for long,
Speaker 2: maybe maybe for maybe thirty seconds if that, but for
Speaker 2: sure I was, you know, like I was like, what happened?
Speaker 2: You know? Yeah? So that's obviously that's like a data
Speaker 2: point where a bad mix. It didn't happen with with
Speaker 2: with the avatar. But to me, weirdly, even though forty
Speaker 2: eight frames a second, see, that was my point of
Speaker 2: view right there. The AMC guys like, hey, buddy, you okay,
Speaker 2: you know, I think forty eight frames a second is
Speaker 2: meant to be closer to normal movement, right, that's the
Speaker 2: filmmak impetus behind it. Sure, but I think that well,
Speaker 2: and I think, sorry, I think Cameron wants it because
Speaker 2: it reduces like the jutter that happens when the camera's
Speaker 2: moving around fast.
Speaker 1: So there's like a you know, the so for three D.
Speaker 3: He thinks it's a better experience if you're seeing less flicker.
Speaker 2: But here's the problem. To me, it looks like video
Speaker 2: game cutscenes.
Speaker 1: Yeah, or like a soap opera, you know. It's like
Speaker 1: that terrible motion smoothing thing on your exactly.
Speaker 2: It's too smooth, you know. I think that that persistence
Speaker 2: of vision and sort of there's an aspect of twenty
Speaker 2: four frames a second that lets your brain do some
Speaker 2: of the work that gives it more smoothness weirdly than
Speaker 2: forty eight frames a second. And so I hate it.
Speaker 2: I just don't like it. And I think in my
Speaker 2: you know, now, one, two, three avatars I've seen with
Speaker 2: that forty eight frames a second, it it's distracting because
Speaker 2: the character scene don't have it, And then you go
Speaker 2: to wide shots with action and it's very prominent and yeah,
Speaker 2: yeah that that transition is very distracting.
Speaker 1: Yeah, yeah, mixing them. If you're gonna do the whole
Speaker 1: thing one way, maybe you'll calibrate. But yeah, I'm trying.
Speaker 3: Remember the first time I ever saw it was that
Speaker 3: Will Smith movie Gemini Man.
Speaker 2: Yes, oh that's right, Yeah, which.
Speaker 1: I remember is seeing just for that reason, like I
Speaker 1: didn't have a lot of interest in it, but I
Speaker 1: was like, I want to see what that looks like
Speaker 1: because I hadn't seen to that point, and I was like, yeah,
Speaker 1: I just I don't know, it doesn't do anything for me.
Speaker 2: Yeah, I know filmmakers seem to have just a heart
Speaker 2: on for it, but some of them do.
Speaker 1: Yeah, I know, well Jackson and then ang Lee remember that,
Speaker 1: and it was like maybe even like.
Speaker 2: Listen Gemini Man, Anglee, wasn't that him? Or that was
Speaker 2: John who directed that Gemini Man?
Speaker 1: Actually, I literally.
Speaker 3: Just I had it up and then I wasn't it Angley?
Speaker 1: Maybe I don't even remember.
Speaker 2: That movie was pretty pretty mid Yeah is that funny?
Speaker 1: Yeah? Oh yeah he did that Billy was it Billy.
Speaker 3: Lyn's Halftime Walk?
Speaker 2: That was another one where yeah, the whole thing was Yeah,
Speaker 2: I just think I don't think people like it, you know,
Speaker 2: I think we're used to the image that twenty four
Speaker 2: frames a second gives us. M hm, you know, well
Speaker 2: to your point, I don't like the jumping between them.
Speaker 2: I find that distracting very much.
Speaker 1: So yeah, yeah, not like this is it like a
Speaker 1: whole story thing where it's basically these scientists have studied
Speaker 1: these people for a long time, and obviously they're the
Speaker 1: ones who would like to connect. But this this guy
Speaker 1: somehow found his way in is he gets this guy
Speaker 1: who's a little jealous of it.
Speaker 2: Now, didn't you get the sense that that norm like
Speaker 2: that would be more of a thing that he's jealous
Speaker 2: of Jake? And right, like it almost feels like that
Speaker 2: was something that maybe they thought of early on and
Speaker 2: they just decided not to do.
Speaker 1: Yeah, I mean it's it's here, we get it in
Speaker 1: this scene, but it's not something that continues, I guess, right.
Speaker 2: I mean, by by the second act, you know, they're
Speaker 2: they're sympatico. But it almost it almost felt like that
Speaker 2: would have been some kind of a plot line.
Speaker 1: I could see that. I mean, maybe it was in
Speaker 1: his director's cut that's like over three hours and then
Speaker 1: they're like this.
Speaker 2: The super duper extendo version.
Speaker 1: Yeah, yeah, which I actually have.
Speaker 2: I have.
Speaker 1: I had a friend that worked at Fox and he
Speaker 1: got me the Blu ray that has all the additions.
Speaker 1: Now I'm kind of regretting I didn't watch the longer
Speaker 1: version so I could have it as comparison, right now.
Speaker 2: Yeah, the three hour cut. It's see, it's weird because
Speaker 2: that's what I watched. And other than that, that prologue sequence,
Speaker 2: that's the thing that sticks out as the most like,
Speaker 2: oh yeah, that definitely wasn't in the theatrical. The rest
Speaker 2: of it is. It's all just texture mostly, you know,
Speaker 2: And I I think, you know, we've talked about this
Speaker 2: before where I think Cameron's instincts are pretty good in
Speaker 2: terms of what to what to cut for the theatrical
Speaker 2: and knowing that he can he can he can make
Speaker 2: his longer version anyway, you know, because he's done that
Speaker 2: with Alien, he did it with T two.
Speaker 1: Yeah, yeah, abyss, you know that's right, Yeah, almost every
Speaker 1: almost everyone.
Speaker 2: Yeah, it's interesting. Yeah, I think other than like Titanic
Speaker 2: and True Lies, you know. Yeah, and you know, like
Speaker 2: Aliens is a good example, right because the special edition
Speaker 2: I think is pretty darn good. But if if, if
Speaker 2: you if you're just coming in and you're not already
Speaker 2: on board, then you know, what theatrical cut gives you
Speaker 2: is is plenty.
Speaker 1: I kind of feel that way about the Abyss, although
Speaker 1: I mean it significantly alters the other that one, I
Speaker 1: feel like you're in the minority on because I think
Speaker 1: most people tend to prefer that the director's cutter the
Speaker 1: special I like.
Speaker 3: The changes to the third act.
Speaker 1: I would keep the director's cut third act, but I
Speaker 1: feel like he adds some things that just move a
Speaker 1: little bit of the snap remove you know, it lacks
Speaker 1: a little snap for the first two acts that I
Speaker 1: prefer in the theatrical cut. But I do like, yeah,
Speaker 1: everything that happens in the third act, which is a
Speaker 1: lot more. But anyway, we avatar.
Speaker 2: Yeah, so well, we were talking about, you know, at
Speaker 2: least for me, the little bit of Uncanny Valley with
Speaker 2: the Grace Nave, I don't get that at all.
Speaker 3: With Natiri, she's the best. To me, I think the
Speaker 3: best realized.
Speaker 2: That's amazing. What's crazy is it is clearly Zoe Saldana, Yes,
Speaker 2: Like I mean you can see that it is her,
Speaker 2: and yet it is not her, it's extraordinary.
Speaker 1: You know. Yeah, And I just feel, I don't know,
Speaker 1: I kind of wonder too if there was like tears
Speaker 1: to the level of detail.
Speaker 3: For certain shots where it's like, Okay, this is kind.
Speaker 1: Of like a more wide shot. Maybe we don't need
Speaker 1: to go as hard on this just for the sake
Speaker 1: of time, you know, money or whatever. But then sometimes
Speaker 1: you see these close up shots in the tirie where
Speaker 1: there's like sun behind her and you can see, you know,
Speaker 1: the light through her hair like this, the detail on
Speaker 1: her is insane. I feel like I noticed it more
Speaker 1: on her than anyone else.
Speaker 2: Yeah, well, I think that the challenge is she has
Speaker 2: to look alien, but she's also kind of gotta look
Speaker 2: hot too, right.
Speaker 1: Like, yeah, because we need to, you know, understand our
Speaker 1: human character falling in love with her.
Speaker 2: Right And that's kind of that's a balancing act, you know.
Speaker 3: But I hadn't even thought about it till right now.
Speaker 3: But it is interesting.
Speaker 1: I feel like Sigourney Weaver's avatar is the only one
Speaker 1: that looks more it looks more human like than any
Speaker 1: of the others.
Speaker 2: I think that's the problem, is it looks too much
Speaker 2: like her. Yeah, that's the That's why it irks me
Speaker 2: a little.
Speaker 3: So like when she smiles or something, You're like, that
Speaker 3: doesn't look great.
Speaker 2: Yeah, because because the the the Kiri character her the
Speaker 2: Grace's daughter, who also Sigourney he replaced. I don't get
Speaker 2: that same uncanny valley with her, not in the same
Speaker 2: way these. Look at these, I mean look at the
Speaker 2: the the the just bonkers vision that James Cameron has.
Speaker 2: You know, let's on these mountains.
Speaker 1: That float, you know, yeazing beautiful in these like vines
Speaker 1: connecting some of them, and like, yeah, it's it's gorgeous.
Speaker 2: Gotta be honest, though, I I like how the ships
Speaker 2: are very like Ron Cobb alien alien style. I mean,
Speaker 2: they feel like they could fit into his Aliens universe,
Speaker 2: you know, James Cameron.
Speaker 3: That's a great point.
Speaker 1: I didn't think about that, but that's probably why I
Speaker 1: like them.
Speaker 2: And and yet I mean, look at this right here
Speaker 2: like that, I mean that could be the Salaco you know,
Speaker 2: m yeah, but it but juxtaposed with this utterly, utterly
Speaker 2: transporting you know, fantasia around them, I think that's what
Speaker 2: that's what makes it work for me. You know, this was.
Speaker 1: Actually there was two things that I was going to
Speaker 1: bring up. Well, you know, I'll bring this up first.
Speaker 1: I always find it fascinating when new languages are created
Speaker 1: for films.
Speaker 2: Oh yeah, like.
Speaker 1: What a like that's wild, Like that just feels like
Speaker 1: a lot of work, you know, coming up with I
Speaker 1: don't know, sentence structures and certain words and how to
Speaker 1: pronounce them. And so they yeah, they brought in a
Speaker 1: linguist for this movie and created the Navi language from scratch.
Speaker 1: I don't know.
Speaker 3: I just find that kind of amazing.
Speaker 1: Yeah, you know, and they, I mean, they do that
Speaker 1: for a lot of films, but you know, well Lord
Speaker 1: of the Rings, right, Elvin and everything that's right, I
Speaker 1: don't know, And so I just think it's it's it's
Speaker 1: one thing to make a movie and it takes place
Speaker 1: in Japan and you learn some Japanese words, you're like, oh,
Speaker 1: I know a few of these words, and you kind
Speaker 1: of can build off of that. But here it's like
Speaker 1: this just comes from absolutely nowhere, and you've got to
Speaker 1: learn all this language and then have someone tell you
Speaker 1: you're doing it wrong, you know, right, I don't know.
Speaker 3: It's always impressive to me.
Speaker 1: And I was reading too when they were considering it,
Speaker 1: just well they came up with about a thousand words,
Speaker 1: and they were like Cameron's order was, and it has
Speaker 1: to sound nice to the audience, you know what I mean.
Speaker 1: So it's like just now go get to work. Yeah, yeah,
Speaker 1: like something that's pleasing to listen to. I don't know,
Speaker 1: it's interesting.
Speaker 2: There. There's one bit of backstory in the in the
Speaker 2: special edition that I thought was I don't believe it's
Speaker 2: it's in this It's where Grace talks about how how
Speaker 2: NITII had a sister. Oh, and she taught both of them,
Speaker 2: like that's why she said, Na Tiri and her sister
Speaker 2: were like two of her best students. And the sister
Speaker 2: was killed by the by the Marines or whatever. And
Speaker 2: and I'm like, you know, I definitely I understand cutting it,
Speaker 2: probably just just for the sake of pacing. But I
Speaker 2: also thinks as a bit of backstory, I think that's
Speaker 2: that's helpful just in terms of broadening out the world
Speaker 2: before we get here. You know, this stuff all looks
Speaker 2: Oh it's fantastic.
Speaker 1: Yeah, And I mean she looks and I was talking
Speaker 1: about you know, heft and weight and things like the
Speaker 1: way that she's positioned on that thing and soaring through
Speaker 1: the air like that, you know, it just it looks
Speaker 1: very good. Yeah, this was one of the first times
Speaker 1: I remember reading about and maybe it was developed for
Speaker 1: this film. But Cameron had a virtual camera system, okay,
Speaker 1: where he could you know. I had read that the
Speaker 1: acting portion of this was captured in like thirty one days,
Speaker 1: you know, because why not, right, Like, you don't have
Speaker 1: to set up shots. They're literally just in like an
Speaker 1: open area in these capture suits. Act out the whole movie.
Speaker 1: Then you have the data, put it into a computer.
Speaker 1: Then Cameron goes in and crafts, well, let's make this
Speaker 1: a close up, you know, like it just he's got
Speaker 1: all of it. It can be anything he wants, so he
Speaker 1: can choose, well, let's swoop around this, let's look at
Speaker 1: this from behind, let's put the camera up hi over here,
Speaker 1: just with everything he's already captured in the thirty days.
Speaker 1: But when he was there capturing that stuff, he had
Speaker 1: a virtual camera system where he could look through the
Speaker 1: camera and see what the actors would kind of look
Speaker 1: like in a rudimentary way as their characters, but also
Speaker 1: see forest behind them, you know, like fill in the background.
Speaker 1: He said it was like a big, powerful game engine.
Speaker 1: You know, we're like he sing, so he could get
Speaker 1: an idea of what it would look like if they
Speaker 1: were in a big open field versus, oh, they're on
Speaker 1: top of a mountain or you know.
Speaker 3: Yeah, but I feel like I've seen that since. But
Speaker 3: I think that might have been something he developed for
Speaker 3: this right.
Speaker 2: By the way, one one effect that doesn't get commented
Speaker 2: on nearly enough is how they how they made Jake's
Speaker 2: legs look you know, atrophye, emaciated, you know, emaciated. Yeah,
Speaker 2: very subtle effect, but effective, you know.
Speaker 1: Yeah, I was reading that they found someone who didn't
Speaker 1: have use of their legs, who was kind of the
Speaker 1: same build as Worthington, and they made molds and so
Speaker 1: Worthington his legs are like hidden in the wheelchair. He's
Speaker 1: in a wheelchair and then they have the prosthetic things.
Speaker 2: That's great.
Speaker 1: Yeah, yeah, it's effective for sure.
Speaker 2: And that's the thing.
Speaker 1: I forgot about that component, by the way, Sorry, just
Speaker 1: I forgot about the component where he's someone yeah, who's
Speaker 1: lost the ability to walk, and then through this experience
Speaker 1: he's able to you know, walk and run and jump
Speaker 1: again like that. That's just like a component i'd forgotten
Speaker 1: about his character.
Speaker 2: Yeah, and you know they established that early on, where
Speaker 2: you know, if you have the means, then you don't
Speaker 2: have to be be crippled, you know. And and Korich,
Speaker 2: Colonel Korich says, you know, you do you function as
Speaker 2: our you know, as our trojan horse, then you know
Speaker 2: you'll get your legs back. Mm hmm. But and that's
Speaker 2: where I think having you know, showing that the prologue
Speaker 2: sequence of how just how shitty life is on Earth,
Speaker 2: where I think that would have been helpful just in
Speaker 2: terms of really cementing for Jake, like, Okay, I get
Speaker 2: my legs back, but what kind of what kind of
Speaker 2: life do I want to live? You know?
Speaker 1: Interesting to the subtle different and says between the Avatars
Speaker 1: and the true Nave, where the Nave have less fingers, yeah, right,
Speaker 1: like the avatars have five fingers on each hand and
Speaker 1: they have excuse me, they have eyebrows, the avatars.
Speaker 2: Right, don't see. I also think it's interesting that it's
Speaker 2: not meant to be like they're hiding who they are
Speaker 2: from the Noave, Like the Nave they know the drill,
Speaker 2: you know, right right. And I was thinking, I was
Speaker 2: like I kind of like that, because it it sort
Speaker 2: of implies that they're not morons.
Speaker 1: You know, yeah, right right right, you.
Speaker 2: Know, it gives them the courtesy of being treated like
Speaker 2: intelligent people, you know.
Speaker 1: But to them are hue or are the avatars? Is
Speaker 1: it like if we were to see the guy from
Speaker 1: Men in Black and the Edgar suit, like you one,
Speaker 1: just like you, let's shoot some hoops and he's like
Speaker 1: like hobbling everywhere, like does it?
Speaker 2: Well? I think it's it's more like the the you know,
Speaker 2: the little alien guy inside the head, you know.
Speaker 1: Yeah, I no idea much better. Yeah, yeah, all this
Speaker 1: stuff looks amazing, the way the light's bouncing off of them.
Speaker 2: So this too. For Zoe Saldania, the Star Trek was
Speaker 2: was just a few months before this. Yeah yeah right,
Speaker 2: she too had a pretty good pretty good on nine,
Speaker 2: pretty pretty good on nine, and just a good career
Speaker 2: in general, considering like one of her first gigs was
Speaker 2: was Crossroads opposite Britney Spears.
Speaker 1: Oh yeah, how funny she's done alright?
Speaker 2: Yeah.
Speaker 1: Well I was curious about Sam Worthington because I was like,
Speaker 1: had he done something.
Speaker 2: Before this or he your salvation before this?
Speaker 1: Well it came out the same year. That's right, So
Speaker 1: it wasn't like like this, and this was probably shot,
Speaker 1: I imagine years before he.
Speaker 2: Got Terminator off off of James Cameron's recommendation.
Speaker 1: Okay, and then he did Clash to the Titans the
Speaker 1: next year, and I'm sure that was off of like
Speaker 1: Avatar heat. So this was like kind of a breakout
Speaker 1: for him.
Speaker 2: Yes, yeah, yeah, and I mean he, you know, he,
Speaker 2: I mean, he's never stopped working. He's had a pretty
Speaker 2: good run. But I mean, you know, he did a
Speaker 2: movie called Sabotage opposite Arnold Schwartzenegger, which what's his name,
Speaker 2: David David Air directed, which isn't the worst movie. Actually,
Speaker 2: I think you might enjoy that.
Speaker 1: Okay, Oh yeah, here on is i NDV.
Speaker 2: But this this Christmas if you remember, because this came
Speaker 2: out and right around the same time with Sherlock Holmes
Speaker 2: the first the Robert Downey one, and both ended up
Speaker 2: doing pretty well. And you know, this is one of
Speaker 2: those rising tide lifts all boat situations, because you know,
Speaker 2: it's not like one hit movie is going to swallowp
Speaker 2: all the oxygen. People are going to go to movies,
Speaker 2: they'll see trailers for other movies and they'll come back, like,
Speaker 2: I mean, it's a good movie going environment for all
Speaker 2: the studios. And and the fact that this movie just
Speaker 2: played and played I think a lot well into twenty ten,
Speaker 2: you know, I think a lot of other films ended
Speaker 2: up benefiting as a result of that.
Speaker 1: Yeah. Well, and this was actually helped me. Remember, I mean,
Speaker 1: so this movie, it was a big deal that this
Speaker 1: was in three D. It's like, if you're going to
Speaker 1: see it, you got to see it in three D.
Speaker 1: And then there was that whole run for a while
Speaker 1: where movies are either shot in three D or converted
Speaker 1: to three D.
Speaker 2: Yeah, everyone and their cousin was like, oh, let's just
Speaker 2: you know, legally blonde three let's put that in three
Speaker 2: D or whatever. I mean, you know, like things that
Speaker 2: it's not even remotely appropriate. And most of the post
Speaker 2: produced three D was was disastrous. Yeah, you know, you
Speaker 2: mentioned Clash of the Titans. Unfortunately, Clash of the Titans
Speaker 2: has become the poster child for lousy post produced three D.
Speaker 2: That process has been refined since then. It's gotten a
Speaker 2: lot better. But unfortunately there was a bit of a
Speaker 2: stink because of those early you know, because you had
Speaker 2: Tim Burton's Allis in Wonderland. Yeah, right, that's what happened
Speaker 2: because this was three D, and then Alison's Alison in
Speaker 2: Wonderland very shortly, also in three D, did very well,
Speaker 2: and so the studios are like, oh shit, there's you know,
Speaker 2: people just showing up for three D movies. And so
Speaker 2: you had Clashes the Titans, you had Avatar, the other Avatar,
Speaker 2: the last Airbender movie. Oh was that okay, which is
Speaker 2: the following summer summer of twenty ten, and so that
Speaker 2: was post produced three D and my I remember watching
Speaker 2: that in three D and like my eyes were going
Speaker 2: to rip themselves inside out.
Speaker 1: Oh really it was.
Speaker 3: It was ghastly Okay.
Speaker 2: You know, again, this is fifteen years ago, so the
Speaker 2: process has been substantially improved where I don't think you
Speaker 2: can really tell the difference anymore. Right, But at the time,
Speaker 2: I remember Jim Cameron being like, look, I shot it
Speaker 2: with three D cameras, I'm doing it for real, And
Speaker 2: he was sort of, you know, snickering at all everyone
Speaker 2: trying to you know, grab his coat tails, you know.
Speaker 1: Yeah, but I mean it makes a lot of sense
Speaker 1: studios wanting to do that because you can charge more
Speaker 1: per ticket.
Speaker 2: Yeah, so between IMAX and three D, I mean there
Speaker 2: there's a decent chunk of why this movie did as
Speaker 2: well as it did.
Speaker 1: Yeah, which is funny because yeah, Cameron's got his three
Speaker 1: D and Christopher Nolan, you know, it's such a stand
Speaker 1: for IMAX.
Speaker 3: You know, they got there. It's interesting that they each have.
Speaker 2: What they believe is the Yeah, Nolan is like anti
Speaker 2: three D.
Speaker 3: Oh is he really?
Speaker 2: Oh yeah, he's not. He's not a fan.
Speaker 1: I don't really love it either, to be honest, I
Speaker 1: have had good experiences with it, but by and large
Speaker 1: I don't prefer it.
Speaker 2: I think, by and large, for me, the Avatar movies
Speaker 2: are it.
Speaker 1: Yeah, you know, yeah, I remember I saw oh wow,
Speaker 1: it just completely slipped my mind. Oh Titanic, okay, and
Speaker 1: I was like, this is incredible, okay, and that's clearly
Speaker 1: post produced three D post produced. But it looked amazing,
Speaker 1: truly immersive, and you know when anytime you're on the water,
Speaker 1: it did this crazy thing where I really felt like
Speaker 1: I was on the surface of the water looking at things,
Speaker 1: you know, in front of me. It was if it
Speaker 1: came back in theaters, I would, without question go see
Speaker 1: it again because it was such a cool experience. And
Speaker 1: then Jaws actually when it came out of going three D,
Speaker 1: it was really well done. I you know, it's I
Speaker 1: think those things are at their best when they're not
Speaker 1: calling attention to themselves, right, you know, and they're just
Speaker 1: you almost forget about it. You just are experiencing a
Speaker 1: dimensionality in front of you. You know, people crossing in
Speaker 1: front of you, or trees crossing in front of you
Speaker 1: as people are walking. Right, It's pretty cool.
Speaker 2: Yeah, I mean, I mean old timey three D. I'm
Speaker 2: talking like fifties, sixties, you know, when it when the
Speaker 2: first time it was a fad, you know that that
Speaker 2: they would do like here's a pizza and it's like
Speaker 2: shoving it at the screen, and it's like, well, that's
Speaker 2: not how life works, you know, right right, you just
Speaker 2: sort of moved through life, and that's you know, I
Speaker 2: think there's a naturalism that certainly these films evoke with
Speaker 2: regards to the three D.
Speaker 1: You know, well, and there's so many like this scene
Speaker 1: we're watching right now, is it let me refer to you,
Speaker 1: is it an e klon? Is that what he's taming here?
Speaker 2: I will go ahead and say, maybe.
Speaker 1: Okay, this is one of the scenes that I remember
Speaker 1: most from this movie. It's very cool where he's brought
Speaker 1: up and they're like, okay, well you got to get
Speaker 1: your horse, so to speak. And the way to do
Speaker 1: that is you kind of have to tame it and
Speaker 1: you have to make a connection and then you're bonded
Speaker 1: for life, you know, and just how dangerous it is.
Speaker 1: And then once it works, the way that he connects
Speaker 1: with the creature and the way they're soaring through the
Speaker 1: air with all the mountains floating in the background. I mean,
Speaker 1: I think this was for me when I think of
Speaker 1: this movie. This is one of the scenes I remember,
Speaker 1: and I can imagine being like, yeah, i'd want to
Speaker 1: see is in three D. I want to be on
Speaker 1: that cliff's edge and then soar with that creature.
Speaker 2: Right, I mean, the whole concept of you know, your
Speaker 2: little your little tail doo dad and bonding with the
Speaker 2: thing and then you create this this bond with the animal.
Speaker 2: I mean, it's it's so uh you know, it's so nutty,
Speaker 2: you know. Yeah, I mean it's like nutty in a
Speaker 2: cool way, right, Like like it's like, yah know who
Speaker 2: thinks of this stuff? You know?
Speaker 1: I just feel like i'd be worried about it, like
Speaker 1: getting it dirty, you know, just it was like something
Speaker 1: that shouldn't be exposed. Yeah. Yeah, Like if someone were
Speaker 1: to tell me, like, hey, read my script and it
Speaker 1: had that component in it, I'd be like, uh, I
Speaker 1: don't know, like let me wrap my head around that.
Speaker 1: But then when you watch it and cameraon executes it,
Speaker 1: You're like, yeah, I still, like you said, nutty is
Speaker 1: a great word for it. But it's like, yeah, but
Speaker 1: I get it kind of works. I like the idea
Speaker 1: of the way that they I mean because like you said,
Speaker 1: this movie is all about connection with the earth and with creatures. Oh.
Speaker 1: We we were talking over it, but I wanted to
Speaker 1: call it that scene where that creature earlier that's sort
Speaker 1: of like scary dog thing is you know, following Jake
Speaker 1: and then Terry save his life and she's like, oh, thanks,
Speaker 1: glad you killed that thing and she's like this is
Speaker 1: a bad thing, Like this is you know like that.
Speaker 1: I love that. I love I don't know, Yeah, I
Speaker 1: like that ethos in this movie, you know, the respect
Speaker 1: for everything. Even when we kill something and it's providing
Speaker 1: us food, we thank it, you know. Kind of So
Speaker 1: I don't know the connection thing feels like a nice
Speaker 1: extension of that, a nice component of like, no, like
Speaker 1: you don't just ride this creature, like you truly connect
Speaker 1: with one another.
Speaker 2: Right, it becomes an extension of yourself.
Speaker 1: Yeah, and it's funny then you know where he'll he'll
Speaker 1: tell it, you know, like bank left and so they're
Speaker 1: connect Banks left. Yeah, you can steer it that way.
Speaker 2: I think that, you know, going back to what we
Speaker 2: were talking about earlier, right, like the the conversation about Oh,
Speaker 2: it's it's so much like this other thing or that
Speaker 2: other thing, like it misses, it misses what it's going
Speaker 2: to mean for the people who are entering with this.
Speaker 2: And you know, it's kind it's kind of like you
Speaker 2: look at Star Wars. It's not like Star Wars was
Speaker 2: wholly original Star Wars. Yeah, yeah, self a pastiche of
Speaker 2: Flashcoordon and Buck Rogers and all that stuff, all of
Speaker 2: all of George Lucas's influences and he put them into
Speaker 2: a queens and art and he got, you know, something
Speaker 2: some extraordinary. Well, Cameron's doing the same thing, you know,
Speaker 2: mm hmm. I mean shit, even Terminator is same, right,
Speaker 2: I mean, that's that's Oh's inspiration to t X, Y,
Speaker 2: and Z things, and he kind of shone a new
Speaker 2: light on it absolutely.
Speaker 1: I mean he I was reading some interviews and he
Speaker 1: said that his inspiration was every single science fiction book
Speaker 1: he read as a kid, and he name checked John Carter.
Speaker 2: One hundred percent. I mean, this is so John Carter,
Speaker 2: you know.
Speaker 1: Yeah.
Speaker 2: And the problem is it did John Carter better than
Speaker 2: John Carter, which is why John Carter is now unfortunately
Speaker 2: thought of as John Carter.
Speaker 1: Yeah. Yeah, well, and it's you know, there was a
Speaker 1: lot of criticisms too, saying like, oh, he just remade
Speaker 1: you know, friend Guali or Pocahontas. But he himself I
Speaker 1: actually double check this to see if he actually said this,
Speaker 1: but he's like, oh no, yeah, and Terry's Pocahontas.
Speaker 2: Yeah, you know.
Speaker 3: And so you know, you take the things.
Speaker 1: And but you know what I find interesting about the
Speaker 1: Hole Lucas thing with Star Wars being inspired by all
Speaker 1: the things he loved as a kid. I've brought this
Speaker 1: up many, many times. But the things he loved as
Speaker 1: a kid we're not super familiar with, that's right, Like
Speaker 1: we just know his riff on it. But the things
Speaker 1: that we were passionate about as kids have never gone away,
Speaker 1: like just the way that culture has changed through maybe VCRs.
Speaker 1: You know, we're able to watch these things more easily,
Speaker 1: and Hollywood is like allergic to new ideas, so they
Speaker 1: just keep remaking the things that already exist. So if
Speaker 1: you were then trying to try to make your pastiche
Speaker 1: on Star Wars, which is like almost fifty years old,
Speaker 1: because it's still at the forefront of you know, public consciousness,
Speaker 1: they'd be like, well, you're just riffing on Star Wars.
Speaker 1: You'd be like, well, yeah, but I mean, well Lucas
Speaker 1: did it.
Speaker 3: No one got mad at him.
Speaker 2: You know.
Speaker 3: Is that kind of an interesting phenomenon?
Speaker 2: It is, And it's I mean, I would say it's
Speaker 2: a depressing phenomenon honestly, you know, yeah, because we live
Speaker 2: in a world where we're talking about a potential Matrix
Speaker 2: five instead of the next matrix, and you know, we'll
Speaker 2: never have that experience of what it was like in
Speaker 2: April of ninety nine watching the Matrix for the first
Speaker 2: time and not knowing what the hell we were watching
Speaker 2: and just being enveloved by it. Yeah, or watching the
Speaker 2: first Avatar ten years after that, or you know, you
Speaker 2: know what I mean, like the thrill of the new.
Speaker 2: Uh huh, because because studios don't want the thrill of
Speaker 2: the new, because new means untested mm hmmm, and they don't.
Speaker 1: And when these things cost as much as they do,
Speaker 1: he want are right.
Speaker 2: And and the unfortunate uh you know. Outgrowth of that is,
Speaker 2: you know, just to keep it in the Star Wars
Speaker 2: neighborhood for a second. I think that's what leads to
Speaker 2: the sequel trilogy being I think you and I would
Speaker 2: both agree maybe less than it could have been m hm,
Speaker 2: because it was beset by by safe choices and not
Speaker 2: wanting to second guess.
Speaker 1: You know, yeah, give them what we know they like exactly.
Speaker 2: And that's one thing you can say like or dislike.
Speaker 2: Lucas with the prequels was like, this is what I
Speaker 2: want mm hmm, you know, like like or dislike. And
Speaker 2: you know, eventually it seems like the world sort of
Speaker 2: came around to him where he was, you know, right
Speaker 2: right now, this too, this scene right here, we back
Speaker 2: in O nine. I'm like, okay, so uh literally, I
Speaker 2: was like, so he's going to have like a little
Speaker 2: he's going to lose the trust of the people, and
Speaker 2: then he's gonna ride the giant Lenoptricks and that's how
Speaker 2: he's gonna win their their their trust back, and he's
Speaker 2: going to become the chosen one.
Speaker 1: You know, like right right right.
Speaker 2: So I'm just sort of counting down, you know, I'm
Speaker 2: checking the boxes, like what what beats the story has
Speaker 2: to has to cycle through, you know.
Speaker 1: Yeah. Yeah, although it is satisfying, it still feels satisfying.
Speaker 1: Although we don't really see him tame it, we just
Speaker 1: see him approach it and then show up on it.
Speaker 2: That I So I had that thought. Yeah, I mean
Speaker 2: I was going to bring it up later, but yeah,
Speaker 2: one of the weirdest decisions. I'm like, why not make
Speaker 2: the early taming scene maybe slightly less detailed and then
Speaker 2: demonstrate the challenge of trying to tame the giant leannoptrics later? Yeah,
Speaker 2: that would make that a sequence, you know.
Speaker 1: Yeah, that's that's a tough decision because then you would
Speaker 1: lose the discovery and magic of that moment, which I
Speaker 1: said was like one of my most memorable scenes in
Speaker 1: the movie for me.
Speaker 2: Well, like, I'm not saying cut it entirely, I'm saying
Speaker 2: I'm saying show it as slightly challenging and then and
Speaker 2: then show the latter sequence.
Speaker 1: As much more possible.
Speaker 2: Yeah, you know, and and he doesn't have the benefit
Speaker 2: of anybody telling him what to do, and he has
Speaker 2: to do it all on his own. Yeah. I do
Speaker 2: like all this business where, you know, he's starting to
Speaker 2: grapple with the moral question of what he's doing, you know.
Speaker 1: Yeah, yeah, I mean it's one thing to go in
Speaker 1: there and just feel sort of like a tourist, but
Speaker 1: you're you're developing these real relationships and emotional connections with
Speaker 1: people when you went in knowing you weren't in for
Speaker 1: the long haul. Oh there's the American flag again in
Speaker 1: the background.
Speaker 2: Yeah, that's clever.
Speaker 1: That's very clever. I love this, like Cameron Steely Blue too.
Speaker 2: This is the like whenever we're in in the base,
Speaker 2: we get these very traditionally James Cameron looking shots, you know.
Speaker 1: Yeah, yeah, Yeah. It's a weird time to bring it
Speaker 1: up because we're watching a full live action scene here,
Speaker 1: But I might forget. I saw this fact earlier. I
Speaker 1: was as they were writing those creatures and it looked unbelievable,
Speaker 1: and the waterfalls and the floating rocks. I read that
Speaker 1: some of the scenes took like forty seven hours to
Speaker 1: render Holy which made me think like, oh yeah, like
Speaker 1: when I render this podcast, like especially like a longer
Speaker 1: one like this, it's going to be about two and
Speaker 1: a half hours.
Speaker 3: Like takes a bit of time.
Speaker 2: But you think.
Speaker 1: About like one frame with all that light and all
Speaker 1: the detail and all the you know, just one frame. Yeah,
Speaker 1: oh the size that this movie take up, Like you
Speaker 1: I just don't even think about the logistics of it
Speaker 1: and the server farms and everything they must you know,
Speaker 1: and what if something crashes and it's just even.
Speaker 2: Imagine, Oh my god.
Speaker 3: Yeah, I wouldn't want to be it on this film.
Speaker 3: That's what I'm trying to say.
Speaker 2: You know. I remember Stephen laying in one point talking
Speaker 2: about how he would have liked to play cable.
Speaker 1: Mm hm, I can.
Speaker 2: See that, right, And you just see him here You're like,
Speaker 2: oh yeah, I can, I can. I can totally see that. Yeah, totally.
Speaker 2: So if I'm in this position, they come to me,
Speaker 2: they're like, we need you to do this, uh man,
Speaker 2: I would betray those NAVI so hard.
Speaker 1: I'd just be because because the legs.
Speaker 2: Oh yeah, I want my legs. I'd be I'd be
Speaker 2: I'd be betraying him even after I had my legs.
Speaker 2: I just just just just for sure.
Speaker 1: Well, you know what's funny, actually what they could have
Speaker 1: done here is he's you know, like, hey, man, like,
Speaker 1: don't get lost in the weeds here, like you know,
Speaker 1: you got a mission. I just got your legs approve.
Speaker 1: And then it suddenly cuts now to him having this
Speaker 1: like war pain apply and he's going to be brought
Speaker 1: into the tribe. It feels like it'd be more realistic
Speaker 1: for her to be doing this and her feeling great
Speaker 1: about it and him like uh oh.
Speaker 2: Nah, he's like pulling his imaginary or like his little necklace.
Speaker 1: Yeah, she's like, you know, like clearly in love with him,
Speaker 1: and her parents are all in on it, and.
Speaker 2: Yeah, and of course, Brian, I would not actually betray
Speaker 2: the nobby. My god, you believed me, didn't you People
Speaker 2: listening to this show being like cancel their Patreon, you know.
Speaker 1: But it would be like difficult because I would like
Speaker 1: to go back to like indoor plumbing at some point, sure,
Speaker 1: you know what I mean, But like I don't want
Speaker 1: to betray them either, Like I I'm not sure it
Speaker 1: would be hard, like.
Speaker 3: Circumstances kind of force them into.
Speaker 2: Well, I don't know, Brian, I mean, bounce us off.
Speaker 1: Ya.
Speaker 2: Sure, indoor plumbing has its pluses, But on the other hand,
Speaker 2: just pain in the woods whenever you feel like it,
Speaker 2: wherever you feel like it.
Speaker 3: It's not the peing I have a problem with.
Speaker 2: Okay, Touchet.
Speaker 1: And who says I don't do that now? Anyway, Moving
Speaker 1: on the prayer tree, I like this. I think this
Speaker 1: is very beautiful. Actually, I think the tree looks beautiful,
Speaker 1: but I love the idea again. I mean, as long
Speaker 1: as you're gonna have these little tendrils you know of
Speaker 1: yours that can connect to these things connecting to this
Speaker 1: you know tree that has all the voices of the ancestors,
Speaker 1: It's it's pretty beautiful.
Speaker 2: Well. I like that we create a framework to allow
Speaker 2: for the mystical and sort of supernatural that that has
Speaker 2: like a weirdly grounded framing, you know what I mean,
Speaker 2: you know, And I think I think that manifests in
Speaker 2: ways that are very effective, especially in the later films.
Speaker 2: I mean, I said before you know to me in
Speaker 2: the second film, you know, I don't remember much about it,
Speaker 2: but I remember the end where Jake connects with you know,
Speaker 2: the whatever, the the underwater you know, version of a
Speaker 2: or whatever, and he sees his son who died as
Speaker 2: a little boy. I remember watching that. That's in the
Speaker 2: second one. Yeah, I wouldn't be spoiling the third one,
Speaker 2: but that's at the end of the second one, and
Speaker 2: I remember getting very emotional watching that.
Speaker 1: You know, you know, I mean, you're making me remember,
Speaker 1: you know, like you were saying, people watch this movie.
Speaker 1: It was reported that a lot of people, yeah, felt this.
Speaker 2: But look at that right there that you see Zoe's
Speaker 2: Heldana's face right.
Speaker 3: Oh, she's so emotive.
Speaker 1: I think she's the most, Like I said, I think
Speaker 1: her character is the best realized. Yeah, it looks like
Speaker 1: you said, it looks like like her.
Speaker 3: It's very emotive.
Speaker 1: But Worthington's is I don't know it's good, but sorry,
Speaker 1: it sounds like I'm claning on him. I just wish
Speaker 1: they all felt as distinctive and a motive as she does.
Speaker 1: And I don't do you know.
Speaker 2: You know what would be funny right here is we
Speaker 2: got this great like three D amazing four case goes
Speaker 2: and then we cut to like grainy hand crank footage
Speaker 2: of like a train entering a tunnel like a rocket
Speaker 2: taking off, like.
Speaker 3: An oil drill in the desert, a little pump or whatever.
Speaker 2: Yeah, sorry you were saying no, but again, well he
Speaker 2: says it here.
Speaker 1: But yeah, as they're like starting to like make love
Speaker 1: or whatever, it would be like again him like, but
Speaker 1: he does it in a much more tactful way where
Speaker 1: he wakes up in his pod. It's like what am
Speaker 1: I doing? Yeah, which, uh yeah, oh this. I was
Speaker 1: gonna say something, but now I'm like caught up in
Speaker 1: the movie this. I like this. I love this whole
Speaker 1: conceit here like waking up and it's like, really, you know,
Speaker 1: they share this intimate moment, but then this like thrashing
Speaker 1: machine or thresher or whatever, like coming through and and
Speaker 1: him him not being in the pot. I remember loving
Speaker 1: that the first time I saw it, Like the whole idea, Yeah,
Speaker 1: what a great idea, you know, if you're going to
Speaker 1: play with it. The fact that he's not always present
Speaker 1: in that body, right, and when she needs him to move,
Speaker 1: he's not there. So Okay, we were talking about how,
Speaker 1: you know, we have some sort of like mixed dish
Speaker 1: probably feelings on this movie.
Speaker 2: Yeah, but I was honestly from this point to the end.
Speaker 2: It it always is cracking for me.
Speaker 1: You were just you just took it right out of
Speaker 1: my mouth, like so yeah. Well, unfortunately, just due to
Speaker 1: the week that I had, I had to split this up,
Speaker 1: which I didn't want to do, but I did. And
Speaker 1: the first half of the movie I was like, yeah, no,
Speaker 1: I remember, this is really beautiful and innovative, and you know,
Speaker 1: I understand why these tropes connect. But yes, from this
Speaker 1: moment on, I'm like, this movie's really good, like it
Speaker 1: really yeah, like he said, crackles, it connects, it works,
Speaker 1: it's thrilling. Well and when real quick I did the tree.
Speaker 1: That's what did it for me. When I saw the
Speaker 1: tree go down after they had shared that moment and
Speaker 1: we heard the ancestors' voices, I felt really genuinely sad
Speaker 1: seeing that tree come down, and that was when I
Speaker 1: was like, oh, I'm really connecting with this.
Speaker 2: You know. Well, well, James Cameron would say he did
Speaker 2: his job then, right.
Speaker 1: Yeah, he would be like, no shit, it is Cameron, baby,
Speaker 1: what do you think was gonna happen? Shut up?
Speaker 2: Probably what he said that sounds that sounds about about right. Yeah,
Speaker 2: Jivanni were basis such a freaking dudeude. I love this.
Speaker 1: He's like chomping on food and he puts his one
Speaker 1: finger on the like the joystick. It's so good. And
Speaker 1: I mean obviously he's playing like yeah mustache spoiler, but
Speaker 1: like he's playing it well yep, so do you have mouthful?
Speaker 2: See?
Speaker 1: He moved so good.
Speaker 2: Now, now you may not recognize Jake Sully in his
Speaker 2: in his NAVI Avatar, but Colonel Korich has no problem.
Speaker 2: He catches that ship right away.
Speaker 1: That is that is very true. I just like everything
Speaker 1: about this. I think it's devastating watching the tree get
Speaker 1: knocked over. I like that machine because it's very scary,
Speaker 1: and I love the idea of him, like how do
Speaker 1: he stopped at the thing while you don't? So you
Speaker 1: go up and you damage its camera so I can't
Speaker 1: see any longer.
Speaker 3: Right, that's good.
Speaker 1: And then of course, yeah, now you have all the
Speaker 1: conflict right where he represents the outsiders and he has
Speaker 1: to confess to like, well, yeah I knew they wanted
Speaker 1: the thing under the tree. And then everybody hates you,
Speaker 1: and you know we've been here before if you watch movies.
Speaker 1: But like it, just but I I'll be.
Speaker 2: Darned if I didn't didn't feel it, well, that's the thing, right,
Speaker 2: I mean it, at roughly this point in the runtime
Speaker 2: of Dances with Wolves, you're like fully on board with
Speaker 2: John Dunbar joining you know, the you know whatever whatever
Speaker 2: the nation is that he ends up joining that in
Speaker 2: that film, you know, like you're you're you're fully You're like, oh,
Speaker 2: the American military, they're the bad guys, you know. And
Speaker 2: so Cameron, I mean, the front end of the movie
Speaker 2: is all just like laying that track very methodically to
Speaker 2: get us here and here is the story. He clearly
Speaker 2: was like really antsy to get us into, you know.
Speaker 2: And we know that because because the second and third
Speaker 2: film are just fully you know, we're fully not novefied
Speaker 2: by then, you know, right, which.
Speaker 1: By the way, I meant to bring this up earlier
Speaker 1: when Ribci first showed up. But unobtainium, Yeah, I haven't
Speaker 1: really talked about that.
Speaker 2: It's a real term.
Speaker 3: It's a real term, and I think most people trip
Speaker 3: over it, that's right.
Speaker 2: You know.
Speaker 1: Actually I brought up watching this movie to my brother
Speaker 1: and he went unobtainedingum, and I was like, yeah, like,
Speaker 1: and I think the mistake Cameron made was not pointing
Speaker 1: out that it's a real term that people use and
Speaker 1: that maybe they cheekily decided to call this mineral that
Speaker 1: and then it stuck, like one sentence would have explained that,
Speaker 1: and then we'd understand. But if you don't understand that,
Speaker 1: it's like a concept, you know, science fiction writers used
Speaker 1: to use for like a magic mineral that you know,
Speaker 1: you know, you get stuck on how silly it sounds,
Speaker 1: and you're like, that's all James Cameron. He came up
Speaker 1: with all this stuff, but he couldn't come up with
Speaker 1: a better name for this mineral, like right, you know,
Speaker 1: I think if he had let us in on the joke,
Speaker 1: people wouldn't talk about it as much.
Speaker 2: I agree. I remember writing in my review at the
Speaker 2: time like something to the fact of like, oh what
Speaker 2: what mcguffinite was taking?
Speaker 3: Yea, yeah, yeah, yeah exactly. Yeah, I mean I think
Speaker 3: that's how it sounds to everyone.
Speaker 2: Yeah yeah, but it is an actual term used by
Speaker 2: engineers and whatnot.
Speaker 1: Yeah, it describes a I just pulled it up so
Speaker 1: I could say it more clearly, a material that is
Speaker 1: perfect for an application but does not exist.
Speaker 3: So like, yeah, mcguffin, mcguffinite that's good.
Speaker 1: Yeah, or here says sci fi enthusiasts use it for
Speaker 1: any fictional substance that is needed to build a certain
Speaker 1: device that is crucial to the plot.
Speaker 2: Yeah.
Speaker 3: Yeah, everybody used inother movies. It's been in other books
Speaker 3: and things.
Speaker 2: But yeah, why don't you You guys, you make your
Speaker 2: own avatar and have have makeed the you know, three
Speaker 2: billion dollars and called the substance whatever you want right
Speaker 2: right there?
Speaker 1: Oh boy, popping the notes. I love the wheel his
Speaker 1: meat out of here. He has like such a funny line.
Speaker 1: So I remember earlier he says something about any shaved tail, Louis.
Speaker 1: I was like, shaved tail Louis. So I actually googled
Speaker 1: it because I was curious. And it has to do
Speaker 1: with like the cavalry and when people were like, you know,
Speaker 1: lower ranking soldiers, they would shave the tail their horses,
Speaker 1: so you knew it's almost like having the you know,
Speaker 1: beware a driving student stick around a ares.
Speaker 2: I had no idea. Yeah.
Speaker 3: I do love his look too, like the claw marks
Speaker 3: on the side.
Speaker 1: Of his head.
Speaker 2: Oh that's great.
Speaker 1: Yeah, yeah, yeah, it's great.
Speaker 2: Well, and he even says, like, now that I think
Speaker 2: about it, is it in this version or the a
Speaker 2: special edition, but like he he could have got it fixed,
Speaker 2: but he's like, he likes the way it looks.
Speaker 3: Yeah no, that's in the theological version.
Speaker 2: Okay. I'm like, yeah, if I had cool, like a
Speaker 2: cool scar, i'd probably keep it.
Speaker 1: Uh huh uh huh. He's got to be cool looking
Speaker 1: the obviously exactly. Yes, it just so happens. It's pretty cool.
Speaker 1: But that was what his point he was making was
Speaker 1: that he underestimated the planet and that was the last
Speaker 1: time he'll ever do that.
Speaker 2: Yeah, that's right, that's right. Yeah, gotta gotta be like Quorich, Brian,
Speaker 2: be like Kortch.
Speaker 3: It's just funny too, Like the scientists like the trees.
Speaker 1: It's a network, it's connected to their deity. And Rebece
Speaker 1: is like who can hairs? He's so good at doing
Speaker 1: what he is at, you know, like whatever executive. Yeah no,
Speaker 1: there's the idea.
Speaker 3: What the hell have you been smoking?
Speaker 2: Ha ha?
Speaker 1: That's good.
Speaker 2: But I mean what you know what Grace is saying,
Speaker 2: you know, the wealth of this world isn't in the ground,
Speaker 2: it's all around us. I mean, that's that's our world,
Speaker 2: you know, and we don't value it. You know, it
Speaker 2: is remarkable. And we look at what's going on right
Speaker 2: now where you know, the AI industry is built on
Speaker 2: the pillage of our natural resources. I mean, this is
Speaker 2: truly a fight for the future that is happening right now.
Speaker 2: Right where's our Jake Sully, God, damn it, where's our
Speaker 2: where's our tour motto? Or whatever?
Speaker 1: But yeah, you know, get like a line or two
Speaker 1: where they describe Earth and they say that there's no
Speaker 1: green left. Yeah, right, But I mean, I don't know,
Speaker 1: maybe we don't need to see it, but it there's
Speaker 1: something you know, Yeah, I guess poetic or about it
Speaker 1: right where we've we've run out of green. We ran
Speaker 1: our green into the ground. So now we're going to
Speaker 1: a poor, beautiful planet and we're gonna do the same
Speaker 1: thing there.
Speaker 2: Right And and you know, I mean I think it's
Speaker 2: worth you know, thinking about how for all of the
Speaker 2: sort of tropiness of this story. And you know, we've
Speaker 2: seen these these patterns before. It's like whose side does
Speaker 2: the story put us on? Right? It's not the colonizers,
Speaker 2: you know, And that speaks to something basic about like
Speaker 2: we have it all of us, an inherent recognition of
Speaker 2: like what is right and what is wrong?
Speaker 1: You know, Yeah, and then stories like this can you know, illuminate,
Speaker 1: like maybe you can, even in the real world, start
Speaker 1: to lose sight of certain things just because of reasons.
Speaker 3: I mean this is like like, um, you.
Speaker 2: Know how many how many people planted a tree because
Speaker 2: of watching Avatar? You know, I don't know that stuff matters,
Speaker 2: you know, right.
Speaker 1: Yeah, that's what good science fiction can do though, right,
Speaker 1: Like it heightens everything, but then it helps it.
Speaker 3: Like wait a minute, that reminds.
Speaker 2: Me of I mean, look, I remember watching Planet of
Speaker 2: the Apes as a little kid, and that that film.
Speaker 2: I mean, you know you don't. I don't need to
Speaker 2: tell you this, but it had a very profound impact
Speaker 2: on me in terms of how we treat animals and
Speaker 2: how we think of our role and all this, you know,
Speaker 2: at a very young age for me, and so truly,
Speaker 2: like when I always I always imagine the ten year
Speaker 2: old watching something like this and how is it playing
Speaker 2: for them?
Speaker 1: Mm hm, you know, I like this moment, by the way,
Speaker 1: I didn't remember this, and it's not like they really
Speaker 1: dig into it, but where Ribisi's like, look, we need
Speaker 1: the thing under the tree, so we're gonna do the
Speaker 1: thing we gotta do. But then they're Sigourney Weaver and
Speaker 1: Worthington are like, like, there's people there, there's like kids there,
Speaker 1: like them trying to explain how important it is means
Speaker 1: nothing to this executive. But when they're like there's kids, women, children,
Speaker 1: like you're gonna kill women and children. And he has
Speaker 1: this moment like one hour. Yeah, like I like that
Speaker 1: at least a moment of humanity. Yeah, and he'll he'll
Speaker 1: do it even if those people don't move. He'll do
Speaker 1: it in an hour, I'm sure. But yeah, I kind
Speaker 1: of liked that, and I realize also you just kind
Speaker 1: of need it for the story to get him back
Speaker 1: out there.
Speaker 3: But like, I don't know, it resonated with me this time.
Speaker 2: Well, yeah, I know I agree with that, and I
Speaker 2: also think, you know, partly like you know, Colonel Korich
Speaker 2: is our Johnny mustache twirlers.
Speaker 3: Yes, he will not be moved.
Speaker 2: Yeah, and we only need one of him, you know.
Speaker 3: Yeah, that's a good point.
Speaker 2: Yeah, this moment, I mean, honestly, it it plays. Look
Speaker 2: at her face. You know, it's remarkable how well the
Speaker 2: cgi and the performance intermingle. For just look at that,
Speaker 2: Look at it. Look at it, look at the emotions
Speaker 2: all playing on her face. Yeah, extraordinary.
Speaker 1: Yeah, I remember this even from the first time I
Speaker 1: watched it, like the how how much it hurt to
Speaker 1: watch her anguish?
Speaker 2: Yeah, after I betrayed those Nave, I wouldn't feel a thing, Brian,
Speaker 2: I'll tell you not me. Oh no, they're blue and weird.
Speaker 2: This this bit bit too, actually, I think is very
Speaker 2: interesting where you know, the they get pulled out of
Speaker 2: their their avatar bodies, right, so they're just you know,
Speaker 2: it's just the the avatars, and yet the Nave carry
Speaker 2: those avatars with them mm hmm. Like we see a
Speaker 2: scene later where they're they're taking graces, you know, like
Speaker 2: she's being carried in like a in like a you know,
Speaker 2: in a what are you you know, uh, like a
Speaker 2: stretcher kind of thing. And I'm like, to me, like
Speaker 2: the respect they have even then, m right, like yeah, yeah, yeah.
Speaker 3: All this stuff is i mean, visually incredible, but it's
Speaker 3: it's it's beautiful.
Speaker 1: And devastating the destruction, you know, Like I I I
Speaker 1: thinking about that nothing in the frame is real, right,
Speaker 1: and it looks so real is amazing, but also like
Speaker 1: I'm I'm like you said the rest of this movie.
Speaker 1: I'm if if I was having moments where I was
Speaker 1: having a hard time plugging in earlier, maybe by certain
Speaker 1: things like I am completely locked in now and it
Speaker 1: really breaks my heart washing them destroy this tree.
Speaker 2: Yeah, I think in terms of I mean, they've established
Speaker 2: the emotional stakes, but I was thinking in terms of
Speaker 2: creating something immersive. One thing Cameron does it's very smart,
Speaker 2: is I mean, he takes advantage of what he can
Speaker 2: do with his camera and this and that, but he
Speaker 2: doesn't he shoots it as if it's a real environment. Right, Yes,
Speaker 2: So the camera isn't swooping in and out and doing
Speaker 2: stuff that's very obviously phony. Yes, because that's something I
Speaker 2: see a lot of filmmakers do and it pisses me off.
Speaker 1: I know, I know we've talked about this because yes,
Speaker 1: me too. I'm like, if when you're moving the camera
Speaker 1: in a way that a camera can't move. Now, to
Speaker 1: be fair, I've enjoyed it in the past in some
Speaker 1: like older David Fincher movies, like it felt like a novelty,
Speaker 1: like Fight Club or like Panic Room when the camera
Speaker 1: goes through the coffee pot or whatever. Right, right, right,
Speaker 1: But yeah, when you're you're doing like action sequences and
Speaker 1: the camera's like swooping down and up and through this
Speaker 1: and whatever, then it feels like a video game. It
Speaker 1: doesn't feel tethered to any sort of reality, that's right,
Speaker 1: And so then I don't care because then I'm like,
Speaker 1: nothing's at stake that I'm witnessing here, right, you know?
Speaker 1: And so yeah, I think you know, Cameron does like
Speaker 1: you said, he does it so well here where he's
Speaker 1: putting the camera even though there is no camera where
Speaker 1: only a camera could go. And I remember Christopher Nolan
Speaker 1: talking about that with Interstellar, when he was doing a
Speaker 1: lot of visual effects. He was like, I made it
Speaker 1: look like the camera was attached to the wing of
Speaker 1: the spacecraft because that's what we're used to seeing from
Speaker 1: real footage to spacecraft. So in your brain you're like,
Speaker 1: I'm looking at a real spacecraft, and I think that's
Speaker 1: that's what the greats, that's how they think.
Speaker 2: Yeah, you know, that was something the old not the old,
Speaker 2: the the reboot of Battlestar Galactica, which is itself kind
Speaker 2: of old now because it's like twenty plus years. But
Speaker 2: but Ronald D. Moore, he talked about how when they
Speaker 2: were doing their the external like space battle footage that
Speaker 2: theypproached it like if if there was a news photographer
Speaker 2: in space, how what would you be seeing? You know?
Speaker 2: And and camera does something very similar where like you know,
Speaker 2: the camera there will be kind of a zoom in,
Speaker 2: but it's as if somebody's filming it, you know. And
Speaker 2: and it was like documentary style or documentary style. Yeah,
Speaker 2: and and I think that.
Speaker 1: Helps a lot, you know, I agree, I agree, And
Speaker 1: then I.
Speaker 2: Feel like that I love I love this bit right
Speaker 2: here though, just her her heartbreak as she's like, just help.
Speaker 3: Us, you know, yeah, yes, yes, yeah, yeah h.
Speaker 1: They have to depend on them in some way because
Speaker 1: they know, you know those people, they know those people,
Speaker 1: and they think there's there's something so sad about watching
Speaker 1: them with their bows and arrows shooting at the ships
Speaker 1: and you just see the arrows just you know, you
Speaker 1: not connecting.
Speaker 3: Just think think thing thin ting off of the ships.
Speaker 2: I mean actually, in this moment for Michelle Rodriguez, I
Speaker 2: loved that where she's like I didn't sign up for
Speaker 2: this shit, you know, because because in every scenario like this,
Speaker 2: and unfortunately this is not unique to science fiction movies
Speaker 2: set on other planets. You know, this is this is
Speaker 2: reflective of things humans have done to other humans. But
Speaker 2: there are always people who say, no, this is not right.
Speaker 2: You know, there have to be you know.
Speaker 1: Yeah, And it's one of those things too where you know,
Speaker 1: sometimes they get recognized and you think like, wow, you're
Speaker 1: a hero, and they get recognized as a hero and
Speaker 1: some people don't. But like both of those people before
Speaker 1: they knew how that what the outcome would be, made
Speaker 1: the hard decision in the moment, and that's amazing.
Speaker 2: Look that right there, what an evil sob as Corus
Speaker 2: is sipping his coffee, you know, you just want to
Speaker 2: see him get his upens for that, you know. Yeah,
Speaker 2: I think I mentioned this to you before. But in
Speaker 2: Zotopia too, which which you know, I just came out
Speaker 2: a few weeks ago. As recording this, this is one
Speaker 2: line that I just love where Judy Hopps's character she
Speaker 2: says the world will never get better if no one
Speaker 2: is brave enough to do the right thing. And man,
Speaker 2: we need that, you know. Yeah, yeah, look at this.
Speaker 2: That's that's horrifying.
Speaker 1: Yeah, well, and speak again. I mean I'm sure none
Speaker 1: of this is real. Yeah, and we're you know, I
Speaker 1: always talk about it. It really bothers me when you
Speaker 1: don't feel the heft. I feel it here. Yeah, I
Speaker 1: think this tree coming down is conveyed really well way
Speaker 1: the way it almost feels like slow motion in the beginning,
Speaker 1: but then when it collides with the ground and yeah,
Speaker 1: seeing all the columns sort of just splinter.
Speaker 2: Apart, right, I mean, I fundamentally this is this is
Speaker 2: reflective of, you know, what happened to Native Americans in
Speaker 2: this country and the way their their culture and tradition
Speaker 2: and legacy were just ripped away from them because they
Speaker 2: were savages, you know. And you know this is something
Speaker 2: that humans do to humans. They do it a lot,
Speaker 2: It's true.
Speaker 1: I mean, yeah, you think about you know, in this
Speaker 1: movie man, all this is just so staggering.
Speaker 2: It looks so good.
Speaker 1: It's like, well, we want this and you're there, so
Speaker 1: move ye yeah, you know, and it almost feels like
Speaker 1: so we you know, mustache twarly. That's literally what happened
Speaker 1: in this country. We want this, so move or we
Speaker 1: will move you. Well, it's hard to Yeah.
Speaker 2: There there's a documentary series that I'm actually watching right now.
Speaker 2: It's called Kevin Costner's The West and it's worth watching. Actually,
Speaker 2: you should check it out. It's it's it on my
Speaker 2: my voodoo. You know. It's just looking at how the
Speaker 2: West was settled, you know, and so much of we're talking,
Speaker 2: you know, the eighteen hundreds nineteen hundreds is the the
Speaker 2: Indian Wars, you know, as as just bit by bit
Speaker 2: their lands are taken from them, for for for baubles
Speaker 2: and broken promises, you know, right.
Speaker 1: And I mean it's obviously it's happened all over the
Speaker 1: It's not unique to the United States.
Speaker 2: It's human history, yeah, exactly. Yeah, but that's that's the
Speaker 2: purpose stories like this can serve, is to play them
Speaker 2: out against a fantasy backdrop. But you know, the parallels
Speaker 2: are are apparent enough where you can where you can
Speaker 2: where you can plot them. You know, they killed West
Speaker 2: study goddamn it.
Speaker 1: Yeah, this like, yeah, I really it was devastated seeing
Speaker 1: that big chunk of wood sticking out of his stomach. Yeah,
Speaker 1: that was something I wasn't expecting. Upon revisit. I thought
Speaker 1: I was just going to go, oh, yeah, this movie
Speaker 1: looks really cool and it's you know, it's kind of fun,
Speaker 1: and I was surprised that I did get caught up in.
Speaker 3: It emotionally's Aldana. Man, she's incredible in this She.
Speaker 2: She really, I mean, especially in this film just MVP.
Speaker 3: Yeah, And you know, I think.
Speaker 1: A lot of people, you know, we know that this
Speaker 1: is motion capture, right, so these aren't just characters that
Speaker 1: have been created in a computer exclusively. It's you know,
Speaker 1: these actors, they had these dots on their bodies. So
Speaker 1: the movement is literally the actors, you know, and their
Speaker 1: faces the dots and the close camera attached to their faces.
Speaker 1: And you know, a lot of that's been poured it over,
Speaker 1: but I think Cameron feels that there's still not enough
Speaker 1: on understanding of how much it's like no, no, no, like,
Speaker 1: don't think of these as animated characters, like these are performances.
Speaker 1: And I feel like in this go around with the
Speaker 1: third movie, he's really and I wonder if it's because
Speaker 1: now he's kind of angling for like being performance awards,
Speaker 1: performance awards, yeah, and just saying like no, no, no, like
Speaker 1: these are not animated characters, like these are representations of
Speaker 1: actors performances.
Speaker 2: Yeah. Well, I remember Andy serkis making that paint point,
Speaker 2: ye know, early and often with regards to his portrayal
Speaker 2: of variety of characters, but certainly Caesar in the in
Speaker 2: the Apes trilogy where you know, again and again it
Speaker 2: was like, this is digital makeup. You know, that was
Speaker 2: how they viewed it, digital makeup. Yeah, you know. And
Speaker 2: and it's tricky, right because because I think the problem
Speaker 2: is that the discussion of the technology is so binary
Speaker 2: that either the technology, the digital technology is being foregrounded
Speaker 2: at the expense of the actors or vice versa. Yeah, sure, sure, right,
Speaker 2: because like you don't have Caesar without Andy Serkis, but
Speaker 2: you also don't have Caesar without wetted digital working their
Speaker 2: asses up. You have a truly unique creation because of
Speaker 2: both of those elements. And you know, I think it's
Speaker 2: just it's I think I think lay people don't grasp
Speaker 2: the nuances of how both of them are intertwined. It's
Speaker 2: not just one or.
Speaker 1: The other, and it doesn't cancel out the amazingness of
Speaker 1: either one.
Speaker 2: Yeah, you know, I mean clearly, like we said, I mean, look,
Speaker 2: we can see zoe sld On, Zoey Saildan's face in
Speaker 2: a in this alien you know, creature, right, and it's
Speaker 2: it's because her performance is so clear to see. But
Speaker 2: the effects folks did their thing too.
Speaker 1: Yeah.
Speaker 2: By the way, I love how deleepe row here who
Speaker 2: plays Max, he basically plays like the same guy a
Speaker 2: year later in Inception.
Speaker 1: Yeah that's right.
Speaker 2: Yeah, he's kind of got his got his niche.
Speaker 1: Yeah, that's funny. But we're moving. I'm just thinking about
Speaker 1: this in like a like a script level too. It's like,
Speaker 1: we don't spend a lot of time wallowing in the cell.
Speaker 1: It's literally they're in the cell and then they get
Speaker 1: broken out. It's very very fast, but it works.
Speaker 2: I'm not missing it. So this too. I remember, you know, nine,
Speaker 2: doing movie Math and being like, Okay, Grace is the
Speaker 2: mentor figure, so she's gonna have to die. Jake can
Speaker 2: claim his destiny on his own like I had. I
Speaker 2: had tracked that probably a third of the way through.
Speaker 1: Oh wow, I don't remember thinking that much about it
Speaker 1: as I was watching it. I was probably just I
Speaker 1: don't know.
Speaker 2: I was doing a lot of I mean, I think
Speaker 2: I just that sort of just how my brain works,
Speaker 2: where I'm like, Okay, I think this is gonna happen,
Speaker 2: and then either it does or it doesn't. You know.
Speaker 1: Yeah, sometimes sometimes I'll do that. I was actually when
Speaker 1: the Tree went down. There's a little part of me
Speaker 1: that was like, all right, that's the end of the
Speaker 1: second act and then like we've lost everything, and then
Speaker 1: we have to take what we've learned and rally again.
Speaker 1: And you know, like I was thinking that a little bit.
Speaker 2: But yeah, I love this bit here where Korich steps out.
Speaker 2: He didn't even have his gas mask on.
Speaker 1: Yes, I lost it too.
Speaker 2: You know, he's just like f these guys, man. Yeah,
Speaker 2: I a bastard, just a rat bastard.
Speaker 1: This guy he would like wade into lava, yeah, just
Speaker 1: to fire upon these people.
Speaker 2: It's funny too because Stephen laying in tombstone is such
Speaker 2: a little weasel, right, and and it's like these are
Speaker 2: like the poles of his performances. You know.
Speaker 1: Yeah.
Speaker 2: He was in the two thousand Fugitive television series. He
Speaker 2: was the one armed man.
Speaker 1: Oh interesting, Yeah, yeah, yeah, which you liked by the way, right, man,
Speaker 1: Let's good show.
Speaker 2: Yeah, that that freaking show. I don't think I've ever
Speaker 2: been as emotionally invested in a show not getting canceled
Speaker 2: as the Futuitive. I think. I think when that show ended,
Speaker 2: it kind of broke a little piece of me that
Speaker 2: that never got fixed. No, like, let me put it
Speaker 2: this way. I never before and ever since. I called
Speaker 2: Les Moonvez's office and left a message saying, please don't cancel.
Speaker 3: A few really ye wow, that's how.
Speaker 2: Much I love that show.
Speaker 1: You know what I did once out here in California,
Speaker 1: for some reason, McDonald's didn't have the shamrock shake, and
Speaker 1: so I wrote McDonald's headquarters, Wow, okay, and I was like,
Speaker 1: why don't any of the Los Angeles McDonald's have shamrock shakes?
Speaker 1: And maybe they just weren't in my area. I don't know,
Speaker 1: but by gum, now we have shamrock shakes.
Speaker 2: I'm just I will believe you made that happen.
Speaker 1: So it just shows where our passions lie. But yes,
Speaker 1: I love Quartz. Yeah, bus out there doesn't care about
Speaker 1: the atmosphere.
Speaker 2: And then then this guy runs out handsome his oxygen.
Speaker 2: I see, Oh yeah, I guess I.
Speaker 3: Should be exactly just a yeah thanks and puts it on.
Speaker 1: Yeah.
Speaker 3: You know, it was interesting.
Speaker 1: I was. I couldn't remember what critics thought of this,
Speaker 1: and it's somewhere in the eighties, I think on Rotten Tomatoes,
Speaker 1: and but I saw like everyone from like Ebert to
Speaker 1: even Steven Spielberg. They compared the experience of watching this
Speaker 1: to seeing Star Wars for the first Yeah.
Speaker 2: Yeah, I remember Ebert saying that. Yeah yeah. I was like,
Speaker 2: oh wow, I'm actually curious if my if they have
Speaker 2: my review for it up on you know, Rotten Tomatoes
Speaker 2: or whatever. Yeah, for for this one, yeah, yeah, I
Speaker 2: don't have to look after this. That's always my favorite
Speaker 2: thing when I pull up a movie on Voodoo and
Speaker 2: I go to the reviews and I see your little blurb,
Speaker 2: and sometimes it's very surprising, like oh wow, you know, yeah,
Speaker 2: might quote from some random thing that I forgot I reviewed.
Speaker 1: Man, you have the defense to me the definitive review
Speaker 1: of Rocky four, which is I actually, if you do
Speaker 1: you remember it exactly? You basically say like how it's
Speaker 1: like kind of a paradox, how the movie isn't very
Speaker 1: good but it's also like very good.
Speaker 2: Yes, okay, yeah I do remember that.
Speaker 3: How do you say it perfectly?
Speaker 2: I'll have to find the quote.
Speaker 1: Yeah, it's like, how kind of movie that's like not
Speaker 1: be that good but also be this good or something
Speaker 1: like that. I'm like, yeah, Rocky four, No, it's interesting too.
Speaker 1: I mean, this movie was nominated for Best Picture, you know,
Speaker 1: for being such a that's right, you know, everybody, I
Speaker 1: think could easily be like, oh yeah, the space Ferngully
Speaker 1: and the Pocahontas and you know, it's very on the nose,
Speaker 1: the exposition and the bad guys are very bad and whatever.
Speaker 1: But this movie was nominated for Best Picture, and it
Speaker 1: pitted James Cameron for Best Director against his ex wife
Speaker 1: Catherine Bigelow for The hurt Locker.
Speaker 3: I think that was what I read. That was the
Speaker 3: first time the next couple had competed against it.
Speaker 2: Wow. Well it was also like the biggest gap in
Speaker 2: like budgets. It was like the most expensive movie and
Speaker 2: the least expensive movie. You know. Oh that's interesting because
Speaker 2: the hurt Locker costs like eight dollars and thirty seven
Speaker 2: cents to make, you know, right, I mean it was
Speaker 2: it was real like, I mean, not to diminish the craft,
Speaker 2: but I mean they had to work close to the
Speaker 2: chest to really get that movie made, you know, And
Speaker 2: obviously James Cameron had a lot more resources at his disposal. Right,
Speaker 2: So here's here's that. Here's that Rocky four quote. Yes, yes,
Speaker 2: it's a bad movie, no doubt, but at the same time,
Speaker 2: and somewhat paradoxically, it's also a great movie. Figure that
Speaker 2: one out.
Speaker 1: Yeah, I mean, that's that's it. That's it should be
Speaker 1: on the box. And I mean that in a good way,
Speaker 1: because I love that movie.
Speaker 3: This sory tells the creatures like, got an idea, but
Speaker 3: you're not gonna like it.
Speaker 1: Yeah, you know. I I'm just looking at all the
Speaker 1: devastation here and then now we got this new creature
Speaker 1: we're catching up with and talking about, like how Cameron
Speaker 1: had this whole world realized. And sometimes when he talks
Speaker 1: about it, he'll even name check creatures as if we
Speaker 1: know what he's talking about, you know, And in some
Speaker 1: ways it can kind of make it seem like what
Speaker 1: a dork you know.
Speaker 2: See, But real quick, this right here, I mean we
Speaker 2: just we just I was gonna say we montage passed.
Speaker 2: We didn't even know YadA YadA, YadA, YadA passed to
Speaker 2: be the most.
Speaker 3: Difficult thing he's done in the movie so far.
Speaker 2: That odd choice. Odd choice.
Speaker 1: Yeah, but no, I I you know what I mean.
Speaker 1: And I've heard him talking about his rights rooms for
Speaker 1: the sequels, and he's like, you know, we even sometimes
Speaker 1: we just we don't even speak in English. Well we'll
Speaker 1: say things in NAVI terms because we're just so immersed
Speaker 1: and you're just like, that just sounds so weird, But
Speaker 1: at the same time, that's exactly what I want to
Speaker 1: the guy making these movies, right, That's why they work,
Speaker 1: That's why they're so potent, that's why they're so rich,
Speaker 1: you know.
Speaker 3: And and.
Speaker 1: I love that he's such a dork for these things,
Speaker 1: Like he cares about this world so much. And even
Speaker 1: when this came out, he was talking about he was
Speaker 1: going to write novels, you know, filling in backstory, and
Speaker 1: he's talked about all the sequels he's going to make.
Speaker 1: And you know, I'm in the camp where that does
Speaker 1: make me sad a little bit because I want to
Speaker 1: see him do other things as well.
Speaker 3: Right, But I got to say, there's something.
Speaker 1: I really admire about him being all in on this.
Speaker 1: He really cares about it, and it's going to show
Speaker 1: up on screen.
Speaker 2: He clearly, you know, spent a lot of time and
Speaker 2: sort of emotional energy building out this world in his mind.
Speaker 2: And they're something exhilarating about that, you know, like to
Speaker 2: have something that that that goes so deep and so
Speaker 2: wide and it's like you just want to you want
Speaker 2: to let everybody know all the things you've dreamed up,
Speaker 2: you know. I think, you know, just taking it back
Speaker 2: to Star Wars, like, I think that's the dilemma that
Speaker 2: George Lucas ran into with the prequels, is like he
Speaker 2: He's like, hey, here's more stories in this world that
Speaker 2: I created, and it was you know, the reaction was like, yeah,
Speaker 2: but it's not enough like those other things, so we
Speaker 2: hate you.
Speaker 1: Right, yeah, And it really does feel like it affected him.
Speaker 2: I think. So, you know, I think I think Star
Speaker 2: Wars fans killed Star Wars.
Speaker 1: You know, yeah, like he doesn't do as many interviews
Speaker 1: or you know, get trying to get emotional or you know,
Speaker 1: he keeps things close to the chest, it seems, but
Speaker 1: every now and then something will slip where he's like, well,
Speaker 1: people hated it.
Speaker 3: So I was like, all right, fine, you'll see.
Speaker 1: These moments where it reveals how he really feels and
Speaker 1: you're like, oh, we hurt his feelings, Like that breaks
Speaker 1: my heart. Yeah, I gave it. I think one of
Speaker 1: the most special things the modern world has been able
Speaker 1: to enjoy, and we crapped on him.
Speaker 2: It's just it's wasted on a bunch of piece of
Speaker 2: shit assholes who are miserable and they want everybody else
Speaker 2: to be miserable. That's how I feel. You don't have
Speaker 2: to cosign that.
Speaker 3: But no, no, no no.
Speaker 1: By the way, so the turn here with the brother,
Speaker 1: I do love this shot where he shows up on
Speaker 1: like the Untamable Beast or it's been tamed five times
Speaker 1: in their history since like the beginning of the dawn
Speaker 1: of their history.
Speaker 2: I think what we needed was when he goes up
Speaker 2: to climb the thing whatever, the camera just pans down
Speaker 2: and there's just the bodies of all the people who
Speaker 2: who died trying to try it.
Speaker 1: Oh yeah, right, Well I was gonna say I love
Speaker 1: this shot where he so he he rides up on
Speaker 1: this thing and everyone's like kneeling for him, and even
Speaker 1: Terry is like damn, like I thought he was like before.
Speaker 1: But then he goes up to the brother and he's
Speaker 1: just like, what's up. And then the way that it's
Speaker 1: framed is like you see the creature behind him, like
Speaker 1: it's over the brother's shoulder on Jake, and then that
Speaker 1: creature like the camera even like tilts up just a
Speaker 1: little bit to capture the creature spreading its wings like
Speaker 1: it's like a flex. I just love how the camera work,
Speaker 1: even as like yeah, damn dude, like like how it
Speaker 1: must be perceived by the brother, like well, what choice
Speaker 1: do I have, Like yeah, okay, you're the guy.
Speaker 2: Yeah yeah, you don't mess around with that.
Speaker 3: It's just such a funny and I just love the
Speaker 3: way that's captured.
Speaker 2: So I, I, uh, I just pulled up Rotten Tomatoes
Speaker 2: as we're talking, and I found they have my review.
Speaker 2: This is from from twenty nineteen. Oh, and I said
Speaker 2: rewatching it with fresh eyes ten years later. The movies
Speaker 2: pluses and minuses both rise into much starker relief. The
Speaker 2: verdict it's fine. But here's what I find am using
Speaker 2: more than my review whatever. Right underneath there is a
Speaker 2: review by Ed Koch as in former mayor of New
Speaker 2: York Ed Koch, What's who? I guess did movie reviews?
Speaker 2: H and he says, in my opinion, Avatar has been
Speaker 2: hyped beyond the point of forgiveness. We know where he
Speaker 2: landed on.
Speaker 1: All right, all right, Oh, I was going to touch
Speaker 1: on this moment a little earlier, but.
Speaker 3: You know, just I was started bringing up about how
Speaker 3: people around the world.
Speaker 1: Some people are just getting really connected with this movie
Speaker 1: and yeah, living it and stuff. And I think the reason,
Speaker 1: like you brought up was, you know, he created this tangible,
Speaker 1: beautiful place that like, why wouldn't you want to visit it?
Speaker 2: You know, right?
Speaker 1: Some people wish they could step into the film. And
Speaker 1: I remember this moment where everyone is surrounded surrounding the
Speaker 1: tree and they have their arms around each other and
Speaker 1: they're kind of doing this like chant or prayer or something.
Speaker 1: And I remember not thinking a ton about it, but
Speaker 1: I remember my brother saying, he's like, I love that moment.
Speaker 3: I was like, oh, really, why is that?
Speaker 1: And he's like connection, you know, like community, like you know,
Speaker 1: it's not like neighbors who have their fences up and
Speaker 1: don't speak with one another, Like they've come together to
Speaker 1: rally for this thing that they want to happen. And
Speaker 1: he just really emotionally connected to the connectedness of all this.
Speaker 1: And I was like, Oh, that's it's funny because I didn't.
Speaker 1: I didn't at first, and now I think about it
Speaker 1: because of him. But there's just so many things that
Speaker 1: you could connect with in this movie.
Speaker 3: And I just find that.
Speaker 2: Well and if I can just add to that, I
Speaker 2: think what Grace is saying just before she dies or
Speaker 2: she's like, you know she's real, you know, yeah, yeah, yeah, yes,
Speaker 2: spirituality right, and you know that that sense of even
Speaker 2: when we leave, you know where our loved ones can
Speaker 2: still find us, you know. I mean, who wouldn't want that?
Speaker 2: You know? I mean, yeah, I was reading sorry, just
Speaker 2: real quick, I was reading an article this morning about
Speaker 2: how you've got these AI companies that are saying, oh,
Speaker 2: you know, like when when your grandparents die or whatever,
Speaker 2: you can feed their personality into an AI and create
Speaker 2: an AI avatar of them to communicate with. And I'm like,
Speaker 2: what kind of fresh hellscape? Like what kind of messed
Speaker 2: up dystopian e fing shit are we having to live
Speaker 2: through every goddamn day.
Speaker 1: It's I mean it's literally a black mirror episode, I think, right.
Speaker 2: You know, and and you know, the the inverse of
Speaker 2: that is this this idea of like, no, you get
Speaker 2: to you know, you you move on from this plane,
Speaker 2: but you're part of something bigger and and you know
Speaker 2: your people can still find you, you know. I mean
Speaker 2: that's something that we would all love to have, you know.
Speaker 1: Yeah, yeah, yeah, I just don't feel like, I mean,
Speaker 1: I think I'm saying something obvious, but I just don't
Speaker 1: think that's healthy.
Speaker 2: I mean, it's not obviously, and yet we have people
Speaker 2: falling in love with chat bots.
Speaker 1: I was gonna say, and it's gonna appeal to the
Speaker 1: people that maybe have the tendency to get most lost
Speaker 1: in those sorts of things. It's gonna be very unhealthy
Speaker 1: for people. Well, yeah, and and and that sort of thing.
Speaker 2: You know, there's a lot being said these days about
Speaker 2: the crisis of loneliness, right, And this is obviously something
Speaker 2: that gets talked about a lot when it comes to
Speaker 2: young men, right, But just more broadly, I think people
Speaker 2: are lonely, right. And you know, I think about, like,
Speaker 2: for me, I lead a pretty busy life and you know,
Speaker 2: I got my kids and whatever. But for me, one
Speaker 2: of the joys of any given week is me hopping
Speaker 2: on Mike and chatting with you and just doing this
Speaker 2: because we're just we're just shooting the ship. And how
Speaker 2: much that means for me, just as like I get
Speaker 2: to do something where I'm just having fun and shooting
Speaker 2: the ship. And I think about, like, how many people
Speaker 2: don't have that person they can just about whatever, Like
Speaker 2: in I mean, granted we're not occupying the same space,
Speaker 2: but you're a real human being as far as I know.
Speaker 2: And how many people don't have that just there shoot
Speaker 2: the ship friend, yeah sure, right yeah, And in the
Speaker 2: absence of that, those needs manifest in weird, unhealthy ways.
Speaker 1: Right right. Yeah, Yeah, that's that's I feel very thankful
Speaker 1: for it. And like I I appreciate all the people
Speaker 1: who are listening right now and the people who reach
Speaker 1: out to us and they continue the conversation.
Speaker 3: I mean, that's what I've always viewed this as.
Speaker 1: Like I always think when we watch a movie and
Speaker 1: then you go to like a restaurant or a coffee
Speaker 1: shop afterwards, and you just want to you got to
Speaker 1: talk about it. It's not even it's not quite a review,
Speaker 1: just a conversation about what you've just witnessed and all
Speaker 1: the thoughts that are fresh in your mind. And I
Speaker 1: love to join our conversation, you know. I love having
Speaker 1: it with you, and I love that people join in
Speaker 1: on it as well.
Speaker 2: Yeah, And I mean I mean that stuff matters, right,
Speaker 2: because it's just it's just human connection. Yeah, And and
Speaker 2: like I said, I mean, it's being drained out of
Speaker 2: our day to day existence, and so then you have, hey,
Speaker 2: you want you want, you know, cgi Grandma to tell
Speaker 2: you she loves you. Here you go, and people people
Speaker 2: are gonna be like, oh cool, all right.
Speaker 3: Yeah.
Speaker 1: I don't know, man, I don't know. All I know
Speaker 1: is twenty thirty years from now are not going to
Speaker 1: look like anything I would have imagined even now. I
Speaker 1: was gonna say, like ten twenty years ago. But no, seriously,
Speaker 1: you know by the way that shot, when I think
Speaker 1: about rendering and time and all that stuff, that shot
Speaker 1: with all those flying creatures going over the crashing waves.
Speaker 2: Yeah, gorgeous. Well, and we're talking twenty nine, right, so
Speaker 2: how long like now, render times have probably gotten shorter? Yeah, yeah,
Speaker 2: So I mean how much time was spent just rendering
Speaker 2: out so much of this movie? Yeah?
Speaker 1: Man, you think about sticking with James Caermon. I mean
Speaker 1: that water tentacle in the Abyss. I was like, yeah, man,
Speaker 1: that took like seven months to render, like who knows
Speaker 1: in nineteen eighty nine.
Speaker 2: You know, isn't that amazing? Twenty years between the Abyss
Speaker 2: and Avatar?
Speaker 3: That is amazing?
Speaker 2: Right?
Speaker 1: You know? I know the movie Babylon is a little polarizing. Yeah, yeah,
Speaker 1: and she's all movie, yeah, Margot, Robbie, and yeah it
Speaker 1: and rightfully so it's flawed, but there's a lot of thing.
Speaker 1: There's enough things in there that resonated with me and
Speaker 1: that I found kind of powerful that I can't help
Speaker 1: but think of it like fondly and one of the
Speaker 1: things that happened, I'm.
Speaker 3: Just gonna spoil it. Basically, there's like a guy.
Speaker 1: Who work in pictures and he goes through all these
Speaker 1: things and you know, ups and downs, and you know,
Speaker 1: even when you're having the worst day possible, it can
Speaker 1: wind up with you getting the shot and that shot
Speaker 1: could live forever and it was worth it, you know.
Speaker 1: And the movie ends with him many many years later,
Speaker 1: you know. I think this is like the thirties or
Speaker 1: twenties or something like that. And then it ends and
Speaker 1: I want to say the fifties or sixties, and he
Speaker 1: walks into a movie theater like I'm gonna go watch
Speaker 1: a movie, and he's an old man and he sits
Speaker 1: down and I don't remember what movie it starts with,
Speaker 1: but then it has this thing where it shows singing
Speaker 1: in the rain, and then it shows the French connection,
Speaker 1: and then it shows back to the future, and then
Speaker 1: it shows Terminator too, and you see the you know,
Speaker 1: the liquid metal visual effect, and then it goes to
Speaker 1: Avatar and it's basically the movies, like they're the movies, Yeah, exactly,
Speaker 1: but it's like they will continue going, they will continue
Speaker 1: to innovate, and they will dazzle in different ways and
Speaker 1: in ways that you know, like it'll never stop and
Speaker 1: it will continue evolving and showing us things you never
Speaker 1: could have imagined. And then it cuts back to him
Speaker 1: in like nineteen fifty or sixty something. I don't know.
Speaker 1: I just and I know that was itself was a
Speaker 1: polarizing scene for people, but I found it beautiful.
Speaker 2: That's interesting. Now you say that was polarizing. Why that scene?
Speaker 1: It was weird? You know, because or weird? Did that
Speaker 1: sum it up for you?
Speaker 2: Zachy?
Speaker 1: It was weird?
Speaker 2: I think it was.
Speaker 1: It just felt like incongruous or something with everything we'd
Speaker 1: seen because it was a period movie and then all
Speaker 1: of a sudden you're seeing images from Avatar and you're like, what, Like,
Speaker 1: I think some people just didn't make the leap with
Speaker 1: it because it's I don't have impression this sticks the
Speaker 1: right word, but you know, it's like, like, what, he's
Speaker 1: watching a movie and all of a sudden he's seeing
Speaker 1: the future. I don't understand. Why are we watching all
Speaker 1: these movies from the future, right, I don't know, but
Speaker 1: it was to me, it was a feeling, and I
Speaker 1: really loved that feeling because maybe I'm I'm very passionate
Speaker 1: about these things.
Speaker 3: Yeah, and so I I don't know, I don't even
Speaker 3: remember how I got on.
Speaker 1: This, but oh, because we're talking about the leap from
Speaker 1: Abyss the Abyss, yeah, only in twenty years, and I remember,
Speaker 1: I think that's what I loved about that sequence, was
Speaker 1: just seeing the leaps made in seconds. Yeah, you know.
Speaker 1: And and it's about the people. That movie is about
Speaker 1: the people who make these things and how much they
Speaker 1: mean to them. And there are a lot of work
Speaker 1: and they could ruin your life and they could also
Speaker 1: give you one of the most profound days of your life.
Speaker 1: You know. Just it's all of it. It's all of
Speaker 1: it at once, and I feel like that's what that
Speaker 1: montage at the end is kind of encapsulating and how
Speaker 1: they make people feel.
Speaker 2: Wow, that's really something. Yeah.
Speaker 1: But it also the same movie has literally has an
Speaker 1: elephant crapping onto the screen. So there's that too, you know,
Speaker 1: there is that too. It's a mixed bag now again
Speaker 1: going into all the components that Cameron, I don't think
Speaker 1: it was. It could have been calculated, but I feel
Speaker 1: like all these things are probably important to him, but
Speaker 1: just things for people to latch onto. Like we were
Speaker 1: just talking about, we have this moment where he's very
Speaker 1: confident he's tamed this untamable beast. He's about to go
Speaker 1: into battle, but he also takes a moment to kneel
Speaker 1: and pray. Yeah, you know, it kind of reminds me
Speaker 1: of that moment I always love in The Phantom Menace
Speaker 1: with a Qui Goun where it's like the heat of
Speaker 1: battle with Darth Maul, but then when he's got one
Speaker 1: moment where they're separated, he takes a moment to center himself.
Speaker 2: And Darth Maul is pacing back and forth like a
Speaker 2: caged animal. Yes, yes, but difference be dartham.
Speaker 3: Light center and yeah, meditating and there's just something.
Speaker 1: Oh, by the way, I love that. Sorry, that moment
Speaker 1: where the ships are taking off and one of them
Speaker 1: hits a soldier out did you see that? It hits
Speaker 1: him and knocks his hat off and you see him going.
Speaker 2: Ah, no, I missed that. I love that.
Speaker 3: I wonder if that was on purpose or it was
Speaker 3: a happy accident.
Speaker 1: But it just adds a reality.
Speaker 2: To it, you know, as you're talking about about you know,
Speaker 2: the that meditation, you know, I wonder if it would
Speaker 2: have been worth delving into who Jake is. I mean,
Speaker 2: you know that those deleted scenes or that, you know,
Speaker 2: that get into his fundamental unhappiness with life on earth.
Speaker 2: You know, they tease at it, but you know, the
Speaker 2: idea that he finds what he finds among the nove
Speaker 2: you know, the the piece that he finds, the love
Speaker 2: that he finds. How is it different from who he
Speaker 2: was before? Yeah? I don't feel like we get enough
Speaker 2: of that, Like we get we get enough where sort
Speaker 2: of like the broad strokes are pretty clear, you know,
Speaker 2: and just sort of the the general uh you know,
Speaker 2: movements of these types of stories, but you know a
Speaker 2: little bit more.
Speaker 1: Yeah, yeah, I agree. I think it would make everything
Speaker 1: even richer. Feel Yeah, those suits, this this tech.
Speaker 2: Is so great. I love it. The what the tech,
Speaker 2: you know, the hardware and everything. Yeah, I'm kind of
Speaker 2: surprised we don't have these by now. I'm gonna say,
Speaker 2: I'm glad we don't have these right now.
Speaker 1: You know, you're right. I mean, obviously they could help it,
Speaker 1: you know, I was gonna say they could help it.
Speaker 3: You know with lifting heavy things and whatever.
Speaker 1: But maybe we you know, we just do robots, don't
Speaker 1: we Like why you you know.
Speaker 2: I'm glad we don't have ED two O nine's right now.
Speaker 1: You know it's like touche yeah, because it would be
Speaker 1: used to like rob Banks. Basically, yeah, let's be grateful,
Speaker 1: you know, rip vault doors off all bad news.
Speaker 2: You know.
Speaker 1: Man, that's a movie I want to see now, where
Speaker 1: like someone somehow like it's fired from a company or something,
Speaker 1: so they steal one of these like powerloaders, and they're
Speaker 1: going to use it to like rob Banks. So it's
Speaker 1: not like the future future like where everything around is dazzling.
Speaker 1: It's like kind of the world we know, but someone
Speaker 1: as like you know, it's stole one and they use
Speaker 1: it for crazy things. Can a funny movie.
Speaker 2: I think you need to start writing it all right.
Speaker 2: I mean that this is the you know, the dilemma
Speaker 2: of a lot of technology is is you know these
Speaker 2: sci fi movies show like, oh, all this stuff that's
Speaker 2: so cool looking. But like usually these are cautionary tales. Yeah,
Speaker 2: and we tend not to pay attention to the cautionary part.
Speaker 3: They're like, hey, we can build that.
Speaker 1: Yeah you know, yeah, I mean yeah, the AI and
Speaker 1: the Terminator series cautionary tale.
Speaker 2: Yeah. It has been amusing watching Cameron, you know, when
Speaker 2: he chimes in on the AI boom and kind of
Speaker 2: just being incredulous, like, didn't you guys pay attention?
Speaker 1: You know, yeah, I guess yeah, were you listening or
Speaker 1: we just thinking it's cool when his arm turns into
Speaker 1: a blade. You didn't even listen to my story? You know,
Speaker 1: we're about to go in this amazing battle. But this
Speaker 1: was seeing them with all the warpaint. This reminded me.
Speaker 1: I saw this story and I double checked this to
Speaker 1: make sure this was real. But apparently James Cameron visited
Speaker 1: a Brazilian rainforest several times after receiving outcries from tribal
Speaker 1: leaders oh wow that were inspired by this film, and
Speaker 1: you know, they wanted to highlight things that were happening
Speaker 1: to their land that they weren't happy about, and so
Speaker 1: they went to James Cameron. And so James Cameron went
Speaker 1: out to go meet with them. And during one visit,
Speaker 1: he was like covered in war paint and had a
Speaker 1: spear in his hand and met with all these indigenous
Speaker 1: leaders to plan a battle to stop the construction of
Speaker 1: a proposed dam. Wow, And all I thought was, you
Speaker 1: just have no idea where James Cameron is On a Wednesday.
Speaker 1: He could be at the bottom of the ocean floor
Speaker 1: where he could be covered in war paint planning a
Speaker 1: battle with indigenous leaders to stop the building of.
Speaker 2: A Damn Like you just I want a Saturday Morning
Speaker 2: animated yes, called the Adventures of James Cameron. It would
Speaker 2: be like the old Mister t cartoon. Yes, yes, he's
Speaker 2: in a bus with a team of gymnasts, I guess,
Speaker 2: and they're you know, helping native tribes, you know, just
Speaker 2: every week. You never know.
Speaker 1: He would he'd be in his headquarters. He'd have to
Speaker 1: have some sort of talking animal sidekick. You know. I
Speaker 1: had like a little did he do? Did he? Did?
Speaker 2: He?
Speaker 1: Did?
Speaker 2: He did?
Speaker 3: He?
Speaker 2: Oh?
Speaker 1: Oh they need me you know in Brazil, So he
Speaker 1: gets in his pod or whatever you want.
Speaker 2: I'd watch it.
Speaker 1: I would too if it looked like those old eighties
Speaker 1: cartoon Yeah, yeah, oh.
Speaker 2: Yeah, he I have told you about this before, but
Speaker 2: he had this this terrific documentary series called James Cameron's
Speaker 2: History of Science Fiction.
Speaker 3: Yes, I remember that, dude.
Speaker 2: You I mean, you got you got all these talking
Speaker 2: heads talking about you know, theoretical stuff and the various
Speaker 2: films and stuff. But to me, the centerpiece of this
Speaker 2: entire series is James Cameron sitting at a table with
Speaker 2: George Lucas, with Steven Spielberg, with Ridley Scott, with Christopher Nolan,
Speaker 2: and and you know, these guys are like there, they
Speaker 2: are so much the top of their class that there's
Speaker 2: not even any competition anymore, you know what I mean.
Speaker 2: And so it's just you get to see them just
Speaker 2: shoot the shit. You get to see Christopher Nolan and
Speaker 2: James Cameron talking about time travel. Hmmm, right, Like.
Speaker 3: How have I not watched this?
Speaker 2: I mean you you will, you will absolutely love this series.
Speaker 1: Yeah, I mean, I just find Cameron to be such
Speaker 1: an interesting person. And he's obviously brilliant, and he knows
Speaker 1: he's brilliant. So sometimes he can be a little you know, yeah,
Speaker 1: challenging listen to, but like, we don't get a lot
Speaker 1: of that, and I do, and Joy hearing his thoughts. So, yeah,
Speaker 1: I'm surprised I haven't watched that off to do that, right.
Speaker 2: I like it.
Speaker 1: Rodriguez has got the war paint.
Speaker 2: Yeah, kind of a bummer. She taps out.
Speaker 1: Here, Yeah, a little unceremoniously, right, Yeah, it'd be nice
Speaker 1: if but she goes out a hero.
Speaker 3: She does, and she did the right thing.
Speaker 1: That was my feeling when I that's kind of it, right,
Speaker 1: Like she just kind of crashes.
Speaker 2: I kind of wish she had taken something out with her.
Speaker 2: I think we get another shot doing it.
Speaker 1: Okay, I can't remember. So I love this, Like, I
Speaker 1: think this is a really emotional battle. You know, we
Speaker 1: know what the stakes are and we want to see
Speaker 1: them stop these people from destroying their planet and everything.
Speaker 1: And I remember this. If you were to ask me
Speaker 1: the plot of Avatar one, I'd be able to tell you,
Speaker 1: honestly don't remember the plot of Avatar too. And I don't.
Speaker 1: I don't mean that to like, you know, sound like
Speaker 1: a jerk, Like I just don't.
Speaker 2: No. So I had a similar thought because well with
Speaker 2: regards to the second one, but even the third one,
Speaker 2: which you know I've seen about about two weeks ago,
Speaker 2: as were recording this, and I was telling you before
Speaker 2: we got on. I was like, I kind of remember
Speaker 2: what it's about, right, right, right, But I think these
Speaker 2: movies are about feelings. Yeah, yeah, that's that's really it, right,
Speaker 2: And and I think the feelings are what gets you
Speaker 2: to come back, if not to the specific films, to
Speaker 2: the world. Yeah, you know, like I told you, like
Speaker 2: my clearest memory, so yeah, see this is where Trudy,
Speaker 2: like we see her check out.
Speaker 3: Okay, we see your ship crash.
Speaker 2: But but like the my clearest memory of movie two
Speaker 2: is when Jake sees his his grown son who died,
Speaker 2: but he sees as a little child. And I remember
Speaker 2: what that made me feel.
Speaker 1: Like hmmm, you know, like I remember the boy connecting
Speaker 1: with that whale. Yep, and I liked it, Like, yeah,
Speaker 1: it's right, it's feelings. You're right.
Speaker 2: And I will say this about Movie three. If you
Speaker 2: ever wanted to see a bunch of whales put another
Speaker 2: whale on trial, well, hey, your whale is coming in.
Speaker 3: I swear I don't know if you're making it up
Speaker 3: like that.
Speaker 2: I assure you I am not.
Speaker 1: You know, I I know I'm going to be disappointed
Speaker 1: because I'm picturing them sitting upright in a human courtroom.
Speaker 2: Are you picturing like the dolphins in that Simpsons episode.
Speaker 1: Right right, yeah, yeah, yeah, yeah, but I'm still I'm
Speaker 1: still interested. So Snorky or whatever.
Speaker 2: That was, you picked that one as one of your favorites.
Speaker 2: If I recall of your of the Treehouse of Horror, yep, yeah, yeah, yeah,
Speaker 2: I remember that was the Dolphin.
Speaker 1: It was very funny, but also I remember it went
Speaker 1: really dark, especially for those those horror ones go dark anyway,
Speaker 1: but that one I remember being like, wow, like this
Speaker 1: is all the humans march into the ocean.
Speaker 2: Yeah, that's right.
Speaker 1: We've had some good sort of I don't know call
Speaker 1: him set pieces, but moments here, like we had the
Speaker 1: brother when he goes into that one ship, right and
Speaker 1: he's battling all those guys.
Speaker 2: That's right.
Speaker 1: Yeah, it's kind of striking when you see the nave
Speaker 1: next to humans, you forget that they're ten peece auld
Speaker 1: their size. Yeah, but it's cool like seeing him in
Speaker 1: there and slow mo using his bow and taking all
Speaker 1: those guys out.
Speaker 3: But ultimately.
Speaker 2: I also like that in terms of the story, you know,
Speaker 2: Jake doesn't assume leadership of the people. You know, he
Speaker 2: once he's you know, conquered the giant leon optics. He's
Speaker 2: not like, all right, I'm the boss now. He's like, look,
Speaker 2: I'm here to help, but you need to lead kind
Speaker 2: of thing. Yeah, and then that guy gets taken off
Speaker 2: the board, and then at that point Jake steps up.
Speaker 3: Yeah, and that's that's a great point.
Speaker 1: Yeah, I want to be like, this is my tribe now.
Speaker 2: Yeah, exactly, Neil bitch like that might have been countering
Speaker 2: to it.
Speaker 1: This is good. I'd forgotten about these creatures, so I
Speaker 1: was like, oh, yeah, these guys, these are perfect.
Speaker 3: To take these people off the board.
Speaker 2: Well, that guy who just got got pounded and flattened.
Speaker 2: He comes back as as one of the Nave clones
Speaker 2: alongside Koricho in two and three.
Speaker 3: It's funny.
Speaker 1: I do remember that. Actually, you know what, The thing
Speaker 1: I remember most about two, which I freaking loved is
Speaker 1: when Korich sees his skeleton.
Speaker 2: Yeah. I thought that was really cool.
Speaker 1: Right, So it's like he's in the NAVI body now,
Speaker 1: but he picks up his own skull and then.
Speaker 3: Crushes it because that iteration of him is no more.
Speaker 1: And I remember thinking that is one of the coolest
Speaker 1: things I've seen in a sci fi movie being.
Speaker 3: Able to do that to yourself.
Speaker 1: We'll get to it. Yeah, here's a couple of years.
Speaker 2: Yeah, I feel like we're we're committing at this point, right.
Speaker 2: You know, as I watched this just real quick, I'm like,
Speaker 2: you know, I don't think I would do well on Pandora.
Speaker 2: I'm just gonna put that.
Speaker 1: That's what I was saying earlier. Man, Like, I get it.
Speaker 1: I'm in love in the tierry. I'm really glad I
Speaker 1: could help, But like I'm kind of feeling like, do
Speaker 1: you want to come back to Seattle with me? You know, like, yeah,
Speaker 1: you're walking around with your ten foot tall Yeah, furry
Speaker 1: blue girlfriend.
Speaker 3: Tell me you don't see it?
Speaker 2: Come on.
Speaker 1: What I was gonna say was, you know, I worked
Speaker 1: on a movie now You See Me, and it had,
Speaker 1: you know, visual effects in it, and it was really
Speaker 1: cool to be in the meetings with Louis La Terrier
Speaker 1: and he would have a laser pointer. They would show
Speaker 1: the visual effects people would show him, you know, the
Speaker 1: shots that involve visual effects, and you'd have a laser pointer.
Speaker 1: And I remember one where there's something projected onto a
Speaker 1: building at the end of the film, and he would
Speaker 1: point and be like, this looks awesome. It does look
Speaker 1: like a projection, but the edges don't quite look like
Speaker 1: the edge of a projection where they would sort of
Speaker 1: taper off or fade or whatever. And I was like, Oh,
Speaker 1: it's like the way that his eyes would study every
Speaker 1: inch of that frame to make sure all of it
Speaker 1: was believable, right. And I remember thinking like, it's amazing
Speaker 1: he's got this eye it. Wow, you know, it's just
Speaker 1: really got to be looking at every corner of the
Speaker 1: frame to do this. And I'm looking at this now
Speaker 1: and all of this isn't real. And you've got people's
Speaker 1: braids flapping in the wind, and you have these little
Speaker 1: you know, flaming fireballs with trailing smoke, and you know,
Speaker 1: just the flutter of the wings of the creatures, the
Speaker 1: way that the wind is playing off of it. How
Speaker 1: do you look at every inch of every second of
Speaker 1: this movie? And you know, like it really takes a
Speaker 1: certain brain, Like I admire it, Like having gotten a
Speaker 1: glimpse of that, it makes me look at that even
Speaker 1: closer and go like, wow, that's incredible, all the things,
Speaker 1: all the detail that he had to have an eye
Speaker 1: for for this.
Speaker 2: Yeah, Well and and you know, going back to what
Speaker 2: we were saying earlier about how he is so exacting
Speaker 2: with his expectations of himself and the people around him.
Speaker 2: I mean, again, it tells you something that there's plenty
Speaker 2: of folks who've worked with him who are like, I
Speaker 2: never want to work with him again, right, But then again,
Speaker 2: he's got a real loyal Coteret, you know, right, And
Speaker 2: that tells you something. I mean, even people who who
Speaker 2: said initially like it wasn't a great time, you know.
Speaker 2: I know, Kate Winslet or you know, Sigourney we were,
Speaker 2: you know, and they've come back, They've come back. You know,
Speaker 2: James Horner famously they clashed on Aliens. Oh interesting, you know,
Speaker 2: and then they ended up having a great relationship on
Speaker 2: this and on Titanic. You know.
Speaker 1: Yeah, what I was gonna say with Kate Winslet, I mean,
Speaker 1: it was a nightmare for her working in all that water, yeah,
Speaker 1: in Titanic, and then she comes back to work with
Speaker 1: Cammon to work in water again.
Speaker 2: You know.
Speaker 1: There you go, it's not just being on set with him,
Speaker 1: She's doing the very thing that I think made life
Speaker 1: miserable for her. So that's yeah, you're right that says something.
Speaker 1: Maybe there's something about seeing the finished product.
Speaker 2: I think that's really what it is, right because because
Speaker 2: with Titanic, I remember, and I'm sure you remember too,
Speaker 2: you know, the eight months to a year before the
Speaker 2: movie came out, everybody just shitting all over it. Yeah
Speaker 2: you know, I mean they were ready to write off
Speaker 2: his career a year in advance, right, And I think
Speaker 2: the last thing they expected, I'm talking pundits, was that
Speaker 2: it would be good. That did not end the calculation.
Speaker 3: Right right, yeah, yeah.
Speaker 2: And yet I love you know, he talked about this
Speaker 2: is in that video that he did for GQ or something.
Speaker 2: It's like an hour long thing.
Speaker 3: In any fair, definitely worth checking out.
Speaker 2: Oh man, so good. And he talks about with Titanic,
Speaker 2: he is a double a double page spread in this book,
Speaker 2: the Art of Titanic, and it's a painting of the
Speaker 2: sinking of the ship. And he goes to the head
Speaker 2: of Fox. He just opens it up to that spread
Speaker 2: points that it goes Romeo and Juliet on that, right,
Speaker 2: and they're.
Speaker 1: Like, go right, I love that though. I remember, you know,
Speaker 1: that's kind of the famous thing too with Aliens, where
Speaker 1: he walked apparently walked into a room and wrote. You know,
Speaker 1: he said he's going to do a sequel to Alien,
Speaker 1: And he writes the word alien on a whiteboard and
Speaker 1: he adds an S and turns it into a dollar
Speaker 1: symbol alien.
Speaker 2: And whether that's true or not, it's sure certainly sounds
Speaker 2: on brand.
Speaker 1: It tracks, It tracks, But I love that. And when
Speaker 1: you've got someone like him and that's all he says
Speaker 1: to you, You're like, I believe you exactly. So the
Speaker 1: terry kind of teamed uh, these crazy creatures. Yeah, yeah,
Speaker 1: but you know that was another moment I liked, which
Speaker 1: could be a little corny or almost Disney, but it's like,
Speaker 1: you know, that's one of their fiercest predators on their planet,
Speaker 1: but when their planet is under attack, they share an
Speaker 1: knowing look with one another.
Speaker 2: Well, Colonel Korus is just that much of an asshole, right,
Speaker 2: It transcends species. They're all like, alf this guy.
Speaker 1: Yeah, we gotta. It's kind of a funn image that look.
Speaker 2: By the time we get here, I'm like, okay, I'm
Speaker 2: checking like the last thing on my bingo card, you.
Speaker 1: Know, right right, yeah, you called it.
Speaker 3: I called it like five for five, And.
Speaker 2: Then I just got up in the middle of the theater,
Speaker 2: and I was like bingo and be like sit.
Speaker 1: Down, sorry, that's hilarious. I was picturing the like one
Speaker 1: other person in there doing the same thing, like you
Speaker 1: two were like doing the same thing, which reminded me.
Speaker 1: And then it made me think of when I saw
Speaker 1: the movie Split and then you realized that it was
Speaker 1: an unbreakable sequel.
Speaker 2: Oh su sure.
Speaker 1: And I remember being in the theater and going no,
Speaker 1: and I remember there was like one other person who
Speaker 1: went what.
Speaker 3: We were kind of like I see you, you know.
Speaker 1: Like like no one else. I remember, having explained it
Speaker 1: to the people I was with, I was like, you understand,
Speaker 1: this is.
Speaker 2: Amazing, both of you two. You lock eyes, you hug,
Speaker 2: You're like, this is what it's like dubs cry exactly.
Speaker 1: By the way, So this is something I didn't even notice,
Speaker 1: but I read it in the trivia, so now I'm
Speaker 1: gonna look for it. But apparently the like war paint
Speaker 1: on the tier, the hand on her is five fingers,
Speaker 1: so it's like jacopplied it.
Speaker 2: Ah.
Speaker 1: I like, that's a great detail.
Speaker 2: I wouldn't have even thought of that.
Speaker 1: Yeah, man, it.
Speaker 2: Looks so good. So there should have been like the
Speaker 2: handprint like on her right butt cheek.
Speaker 1: Yes, that wasn't like, that wasn't worth it. That was
Speaker 1: just like a good game. Let's let's go.
Speaker 3: Let's say, Pandora.
Speaker 2: See this now, this bit here is where you know, shortly,
Speaker 2: you know, NTEREI sees the real Jake and you know, yes,
Speaker 2: you know, and I kind of going back to what
Speaker 2: you're saying before, it'd be funny if he this is
Speaker 2: this is the the dumpy, overweight brother who's kind of homely.
Speaker 3: Right right right the version we pitched at the beginning
Speaker 3: of this.
Speaker 2: Yeah, and he looks nothing like his avatar and she's like,
Speaker 2: my chig. Oh, oh, that's funny.
Speaker 3: He's got a good heart.
Speaker 1: Dunt dun dunce wow thing. Oh man.
Speaker 2: You know we're talking about earlier, you know, James Cameron
Speaker 2: wanting to you want student novels and this and that
Speaker 2: and the other thing, and and ultimately I'm glad none
Speaker 2: of that really happened, because I think this franchise just
Speaker 2: works better as this thing that we get to experience
Speaker 2: in the movie theaters every couple of years. And that's it.
Speaker 1: That's I don't disagree, but I guess that would be
Speaker 1: a really interesting test wouldn't it to what we've just said,
Speaker 1: where this is the thing people show up for in
Speaker 1: theaters for the feeling more than anything else, the experience.
Speaker 1: But would people get into words the stories in a book,
Speaker 1: the character?
Speaker 3: Well, okay, so how actual visual spectacle.
Speaker 2: I'll allow novels because that that's gonna be that's aimed
Speaker 2: at like a niche of a niche anyway. But but
Speaker 2: I don't want your your you know, your Disney Plus
Speaker 2: World of Pandora series or whatever, you know, if that
Speaker 2: none of.
Speaker 3: That okay, if you can't see it in a theater, Yeah.
Speaker 2: I'm like, let let some things just be just be
Speaker 2: a theatrical experience.
Speaker 1: Yeah, and when you're James Cameron, maybe you can put
Speaker 1: your foot down about that thing.
Speaker 2: Yeah. Like I I don't I don't think anything's gonna
Speaker 2: come of Avatar that he doesn't sign off on. And
Speaker 2: I can't imagine he would want a series, you know.
Speaker 1: Yeah, I like this. This is good tension. You know,
Speaker 1: he's suffocating, I can't reach the mask.
Speaker 2: It's a great moment. Yeah, and you know again it
Speaker 2: lets her truly see him and still all in love
Speaker 2: with him, you.
Speaker 3: Know, it is Yeah, jarring.
Speaker 1: Seeing you know her their true sizes, that's right, and
Speaker 1: just even seeing her in that vehicle, you know that
Speaker 1: every like a human would be able to stand up in.
Speaker 2: Yeah, I think the the uh, this is the first
Speaker 2: time we see Nave in this environment.
Speaker 1: M oh yeah, yeah, you're right.
Speaker 2: Right, so there is definitely an adjustment, like we don't
Speaker 2: even see the avatars in this environment.
Speaker 3: That's a good point.
Speaker 2: Yeah, not really, except in the very beginning when Jake,
Speaker 2: you know, when Jake and Norm wake up.
Speaker 1: Mm hmm, yeah, I don't know.
Speaker 2: It could cut to the train entering the the rocket like.
Speaker 3: One of them, just cox and eyebrow, and then.
Speaker 1: Yeah, that's it.
Speaker 3: We just hear it slightly in the distance.
Speaker 1: That's funny.
Speaker 2: She's like, lately, I like this here where Jake is
Speaker 2: like the aliens went back to their world.
Speaker 1: I love that too.
Speaker 3: That's a great line, right yeah.
Speaker 2: Yeah. Giovanni Ribisi, which, by the way, that gave you
Speaker 2: an hour?
Speaker 1: Yeah, yeah, I was the.
Speaker 3: Guy like, but do you remember an hour?
Speaker 2: Come on?
Speaker 1: I read that this Ribisi saying, you know, this isn't over.
Speaker 1: Wasn't in the original version. That was in one of
Speaker 1: the director's cuts. Interesting, ever since when they did the
Speaker 1: theatrical re release, they kept that, so Cameron apparently was like,
Speaker 1: I want to keep that, And every version ever since
Speaker 1: theatrical version has included that scene that was not originally in.
Speaker 2: That's fascinating.
Speaker 3: Yeah, you know this isn't over that.
Speaker 2: That's I mean, don't I don't think you needed that
Speaker 2: to explicitly say a sequels coming. But I suppose since
Speaker 2: you know a sequel's coming, you know, you.
Speaker 1: Know, it adds a nice I don't know, we won't
Speaker 1: call it tension, but just like this is, you've got
Speaker 1: your your ending here, but this there's some things that
Speaker 1: are not resolved.
Speaker 3: Yeah, it gives you a little little hooked there. I guess.
Speaker 1: Something else I read that was kind of interesting. In
Speaker 1: excuse me, the theatrical version Worthington's brother, it says he
Speaker 1: was killed by a gun, but in the extended version
Speaker 1: he says.
Speaker 3: It was a knife.
Speaker 2: It was a knife. Here.
Speaker 3: I wonder what the thinking is why you make it different.
Speaker 2: Yeah.
Speaker 1: Yeah, I mean maybe you shoot different versions to see
Speaker 1: whatever you feel has the most impact. But I wonder
Speaker 1: why he decided, oh, this version will have this and
Speaker 1: that version will have that.
Speaker 2: The Only thing I can think of is that a
Speaker 2: knife implies something happening at close range, and there's something
Speaker 2: more savage about that mmmmmm.
Speaker 3: And more personal about just gun violence.
Speaker 2: Yeah, we don't know the context of the gun violence,
Speaker 2: but we can assume if somebody was stabbed, it happened,
Speaker 2: you know, they were being looked in the eyes by
Speaker 2: whoever did it, you know.
Speaker 3: Yeah, yeah, yeah, yeah, that's a good point.
Speaker 2: I don't know how that matters in terms of the
Speaker 2: overall story, but I mean that would be the difference
Speaker 2: between those two, you know. I like how the scene
Speaker 2: with Grace earlier allows you to set up this ending
Speaker 2: so it doesn't feel arbitrary, you.
Speaker 1: Know, which it might feel more for our hero, right,
Speaker 1: oh gee, you can save the guy, you know, the
Speaker 1: main thing.
Speaker 2: Yeah, right, exactly right.
Speaker 1: But we know this is a thing Papyrus. Yes, yeah,
Speaker 1: we haven't even talked about that yet.
Speaker 2: So there's an SNL sketch called Papyrus, which is probably
Speaker 2: one of my top five SNL sketches of all time
Speaker 2: in terms of their filmed segments, you know. And yeah,
Speaker 2: it's just it's somebody who's obsessing over the fact that Avatar,
Speaker 2: this multi billion dollar blockbuster, used Papyrus for its for
Speaker 2: its marketing font and and it is brilliant.
Speaker 1: It's so it's it's a funny idea, but then it's
Speaker 1: just so expertly executed. Yeah, that it feels not like
Speaker 1: a thriller, but you know just like a I don't know,
Speaker 1: like a horror film or something. This guy just can't grapple. Yeah,
Speaker 1: and he has to chase down the guy who did it,
Speaker 1: you know, get him through like his window did.
Speaker 2: Yeah. So funny.
Speaker 1: Yeah.
Speaker 2: Sam Worthington as our boy, yep, yep.
Speaker 3: You know a couple of things real quick.
Speaker 1: I want to bring up as this is the credits
Speaker 1: are ruling the world of Avatar at Disney World. I believe, Yes, yes,
Speaker 1: never been there, but I'm sure it's amazing. But that's
Speaker 1: you know, before we even got the sequel that opened
Speaker 1: up there, so they probably had to have a good
Speaker 1: inkling from Cameron that it was coming. If they're going
Speaker 1: to invest in all that keep Avatar alive.
Speaker 2: Yeah.
Speaker 1: I thought this was an interesting thing about Matt Damon.
Speaker 1: You know, he turned down doing Avatar and he would
Speaker 1: have netted ten percent of the movie's profits.
Speaker 2: Which was like two hundred and fifty million.
Speaker 3: Yeah, somewhere are like two nine, two hundred ninety million.
Speaker 2: He would have gotten well, And it wasn't like he
Speaker 2: wasn't like, no, that sounds stupid. He was committed to
Speaker 2: the Bourne War movies. Yeah.
Speaker 3: Yeah, I just thought that was interesting.
Speaker 1: And then also this being the number one highest grossing
Speaker 1: movie in the world of all time. Yeah, and it
Speaker 1: was challenged for a minute there by Avengers Endgame.
Speaker 2: That's right, right.
Speaker 1: Endgame got past it for a second there, and then
Speaker 1: they did a re release of Avatar that put it
Speaker 1: back in the number one position.
Speaker 2: But and Cameron said as much. You know when when
Speaker 2: when Endgame displaced Avatar, they're like, what do you think
Speaker 2: about it? He's like, yeah, we'll get it back. I'm like,
Speaker 2: you cocky son of a bitch.
Speaker 1: You're right, yeah, yeah, but I mean, adjusted for inflation,
Speaker 1: Avatar is the second highest grossing movie of all time,
Speaker 1: only behind Gone with the Wind.
Speaker 2: That's extraordinary.
Speaker 3: It was just kind of amazing about Gone with the Wind.
Speaker 2: Good lord.
Speaker 1: Yeah, and it was nominated for nine awards at the
Speaker 1: Academy Awards.
Speaker 2: Wow.
Speaker 1: So I mean just an all around gargantuan success.
Speaker 2: Yeah, which is how people will describe our commentary track.
Speaker 2: I'd like to believe, let's hope, so in years, in
Speaker 2: decades to come. Yeah, it'll be mentioned in the same
Speaker 2: breadth as Avatar, because you have to say Avatar commentary track.
Speaker 1: So you know, we haven't really seen Avatar until you've
Speaker 1: listened to the movie film commentary.
Speaker 2: So other other thoughts. This is now, this is now
Speaker 2: my fifth time watching this movie cumulatively.
Speaker 1: I don't know what this is for me, four ish
Speaker 1: somewhere around there. Yeah, I mean my main takeaway after
Speaker 1: I finished it. I finished watching it this morning, right
Speaker 1: before we hopped on. It's just almost impossible not to
Speaker 1: find poor of it silly. Yeah, you just have to
Speaker 1: grapple with certain things that just feel inherently a little
Speaker 1: silly or or on the nose or whatever. Right, And
Speaker 1: at the same time, I felt sad when it wanted
Speaker 1: me to feel sad. I felt charged up when it
Speaker 1: wanted me to feel charged up. And at the end
Speaker 1: of the day, you know, silliness aside. It works. I
Speaker 1: think this movie works. And it's no surprise it connected
Speaker 1: around the world because the themes, like you said, are
Speaker 1: just so potent and universal.
Speaker 2: I definitely agree with that.
Speaker 1: Yeah, but it is interesting though I mean for not
Speaker 1: to rehash this tired conversation, but like you don't see
Speaker 1: you know, you see people wearing Star Wars shirts or
Speaker 1: Star Wars action figures or whatever, and it's like this movie,
Speaker 1: as popular is it, or successful as it is, just
Speaker 1: doesn't connect in that way. And that's kind of interesting.
Speaker 2: That is interesting. Well, you know, my thing is like
Speaker 2: when that's a point of critique, like oh, you know
Speaker 2: people aren't buying the toys or you know, yeah, people
Speaker 2: aren't wearing the shirts or whatever, I'm like, okay, well,
Speaker 2: maybe think about yourself, like, don't don't be wearing at
Speaker 2: You don't need to wear Avatar shirts, you know, like
Speaker 2: you do. You don't need to play with the toys.
Speaker 2: Do something, do something with your life. What have you
Speaker 2: done with yourself? That's my response.
Speaker 1: Well, I did think that was an interesting conversation, you know, like, oh, yeah,
Speaker 1: I guess that's kind of true when we only had
Speaker 1: the one, it's at this point, well certainly that, but
Speaker 1: also when the second one came out and it succeeded
Speaker 1: just as well. To me, yeah, it's not a critique,
Speaker 1: it's like, well, it's just kind of interesting, you know,
Speaker 1: like these are successes.
Speaker 3: It's just we connect with them in different ways than
Speaker 3: we do with other successes.
Speaker 2: Yeah, I just I think that that's a very that's
Speaker 2: a very corporatized, reductive view when you're only looking at
Speaker 2: it in terms of, oh, what you know, action figures
Speaker 2: are you putting on your shelves or whatever, Like Okay.
Speaker 1: Well that's something Rabisi's character would say.
Speaker 2: That's right, he'll be a Rai. Don't be a Rabisi.
Speaker 1: Yeah character.
Speaker 2: I'm sure Giovanni himself is a very lovely fella, but.
Speaker 1: It's only because I can't remember the name of the character.
Speaker 1: With apologies to Giovanni Rubci Parker. Parker, Well, I like, Rubci,
Speaker 1: better pitch your Rabbisi's out here bringing up this tired
Speaker 1: talking point. I meanwhile, yeah, Giovanni Ruvizi is like restoring
Speaker 1: all these like cameras and.
Speaker 2: You're yeah, right, yeah, he's like a cinematographer and stuff. Yeah, yeah,
Speaker 2: but here we go. Okay, well, Avatar, we have seen it.
Speaker 1: Yeah, and you know what, I enjoyed it. I'm going
Speaker 1: to try to watch the second one again. Yeah, we'll
Speaker 1: see if it sticks. But like I am looking forward
Speaker 1: to the third one. I'm looking forward to the experience.
Speaker 2: Yeah, same, you know I have, I have watched it already,
Speaker 2: but but I know that my kids want to see it,
Speaker 2: and I'm like, you know, yeah I could. I could
Speaker 2: probably sneak in another viewing.
Speaker 3: Yeah, well tell me about that.
Speaker 1: So you you've seen it, it's over three hours, but
Speaker 1: you feel like you would be okay sitting through it again.
Speaker 2: I wouldn't be opposed to it. I mean, I'm not,
Speaker 2: you know, it's like I'm willing to leave the possibility. Oh,
Speaker 2: but it's it's it's not a definite no, but it's
Speaker 2: a hey maybe. And that's something sure. You know I
Speaker 2: told you this earlier with regards to the new film.
Speaker 2: I mean, it doesn't feel short, but it doesn't feel long.
Speaker 2: And okay I did not at any point check my watch,
Speaker 2: So that that tells you something.
Speaker 1: Yeah, well, tell me your your final thoughts on this
Speaker 1: one then Avatar one.
Speaker 2: Well, I think that it's it's a showcase for James
Speaker 2: Cameron's truly astonishing imagination. Yeah, and also a showcase for
Speaker 2: his technical wizardry. He's he has a well documented ego,
Speaker 2: but to his credit, he consistently demonstrates that he has
Speaker 2: every right to that ego. Yeah, you know, and you
Speaker 2: know the fact that this movie conquered the box office
Speaker 2: in a way that seems unlikely to be toppled anytimes
Speaker 2: in barring another you know Avengers endgame situation that that
Speaker 2: says more than enough. You know.
Speaker 1: Yeah, but there we go.
Speaker 2: But those are our thoughts. I know, I know. This
Speaker 2: is a film that certainly draws many of reactions from folks.
Speaker 2: So let us know, let us know your thoughts, Let
Speaker 2: us know your thoughts on our thoughts. You can email
Speaker 2: us those thoughts at Moviefilm Podcasts at gmail dot com.
Speaker 2: You can also hit like on our Facebook page Facebook
Speaker 2: dot com slash movie Film Podcast and message us there.
Speaker 2: As always, please go to Apple Podcasts and leave review,
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Speaker 2: ever done, and you also find every regular episode we do.
Speaker 2: Moving forward absolutely ad free. Our free feed will always
Speaker 2: be available, but this is our way of providing what
Speaker 2: we believe is the most satisfying way to enjoy the show. Plus,
Speaker 2: your subscription goes a long way and helping to support
Speaker 2: us and helping to sustain producing the show. So if
Speaker 2: you're interested in able, please head over to patreon dot
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Speaker 1: We'd be very grateful.
Speaker 2: And if you're looking for me online, you can find
Speaker 2: me on social media at Zaki's Corner. That's z Akis Corner.
Speaker 2: I'm also at the San Francisco Chronicle. I'm also at
Speaker 2: the Wrap and IgM. What about you, Brian.
Speaker 1: You can find episodes I've written of Puppy Dog Pals
Speaker 1: and Young Jedi Adventures streaming on Disney Plus and.
Speaker 2: With that on behalf of my partner Brian Hall. My
Speaker 2: name is Zachie Hassan. This has been our movie film
Speaker 2: commentary track for Avatar. We will catch you next time.
Speaker 2: Thanks folks,