Speaker 1: The adventure in Pandora continues as the Sully family mourns
Speaker 1: the loss of their eldest son, Nataeum. As they decide
Speaker 1: the fate of their adopted son, Spider, they're faced with
Speaker 1: a new enemy. It's Avatar Fire and Ash. I'm Ronald
Speaker 1: Young Jr. And I'm leaving the theater. All right. This
Speaker 1: is Ronald and I am leaving the theater after seeing
Speaker 1: Avatar Fire and Ash. Avatar Fire and Ash written by
Speaker 1: James Cameron, Rick Jaffa and Amanda Silver, directed by James Cameron,
Speaker 1: starring Sam Worthington, Zoe Saldanya, Sigourney Weaver, Stephen Lang, Una Chaplin,
Speaker 1: Cliff Curtis, and Kate Winslett. And for complete cast listing,
Speaker 1: as always, you could go to the link in our
Speaker 1: show notes. It is just me today. For those of
Speaker 1: you that are in the Patreon, you probably saw my
Speaker 1: review of Avatar and Avatar The Way of Water, the
Speaker 1: first two installments of the Avatar Saga epic, whatever you
Speaker 1: will call it. This is the third movie in what
Speaker 1: is currently planned to be five movies. And I say
Speaker 1: currently planned because if it keeps making money, they can
Speaker 1: make ten of these easily. This is the third installment.
Speaker 1: Avatar Fire and Ash is the third installment. I'm not
Speaker 1: going to talk a lot about the plot of the
Speaker 1: first two movies because I do a lot of that
Speaker 1: in the on the Couch episode. So if you want
Speaker 1: to check that out. If you're a Patreon, you can
Speaker 1: go check that out. If you're not a patron, and
Speaker 1: hint patreon dot com slash Oh it's big ron. This movie,
Speaker 1: we find it is very much a direct sequel to
Speaker 1: the Way of Water in both positive and negative ways.
Speaker 1: The positive ways is that it picks up right after
Speaker 1: the action of the Way of Water. It shows us
Speaker 1: a family that is grieving. They have adopted Spider, who
Speaker 1: is Korich's Sun, which you find out very early in
Speaker 1: Avatar The Way of Water. So if this is a
Speaker 1: spoiler for you, you missed an entire movie. And we
Speaker 1: find that the family is navigating their life with the
Speaker 1: Reef people and trying to think about ways to take
Speaker 1: the fight back to the sky people aka the humans
Speaker 1: of Earth, and in engaging that fight, they discover a
Speaker 1: new enemy, which is another Navi clan called the Ash People.
Speaker 1: I don't actually think they're called the Ash People. I
Speaker 1: think they have an actual official name, but they are
Speaker 1: referred to as the Ash Clan or even the Ash people.
Speaker 1: Who knows this movie desperately wants to be a four
Speaker 1: star movie. It desperately wants to be a four star movie.
Speaker 1: And when I say that, I'm saying that as as
Speaker 1: if the movie were sentient itself. It wants to be
Speaker 1: four stars so bad, and it has at least four
Speaker 1: plot points that probably could have gotten it there if
Speaker 1: they weren't all done at the same time. I think
Speaker 1: they could have max done three of these, and I
Speaker 1: want to point out I am saying four plot points.
Speaker 1: Let me check my notes. I actually have five written down.
Speaker 1: I think they only had enough room in this film
Speaker 1: to actually explore three of the five plot points, but
Speaker 1: they chose to go with all five. And sure, this
Speaker 1: is probably seeding things that are going to happen in
Speaker 1: future movies, but they are such large portions of the
Speaker 1: movie that I'm watching right now that it constantly feels hamstrung.
Speaker 1: It just feels like every time this movie wants to
Speaker 1: move forward and continue being a movie that is well edited,
Speaker 1: that is kind of well written, when it tries to
Speaker 1: do those things, it's just hamstrung. By Oh, but here's
Speaker 1: this other really massive plot point that we need to
Speaker 1: talk about right now, and we may or may not
Speaker 1: resolve it in this film. This movie is also held
Speaker 1: up by the fact that it is slowing down obvious
Speaker 1: beats that we know are coming. Whether it be because
Speaker 1: while this movie is not entirely a retread of the
Speaker 1: first two movies, I would say they started off in
Speaker 1: a different direction, and when they got there, they found
Speaker 1: familiar story beats that made sense to them, and then
Speaker 1: just started doing those again. When I say that, I
Speaker 1: mean initial conflict, discovery, setback, large, setback, huge battle. And
Speaker 1: that's all three of these movies. If you rewind and
Speaker 1: say the four or five things I just said, that
Speaker 1: is the blueprint of all of these films. Now, let
Speaker 1: me tell you about the five plot points specifically. So
Speaker 1: there are five very good ideas. One of them is
Speaker 1: ash people introducing those characters, which is what the preview
Speaker 1: is set on, which is part of what the the
Speaker 1: the name of the film is Fire and Ash and
Speaker 1: also talks a lot about grief. There's like a there's
Speaker 1: kind of an illusion to grief. There a lot of
Speaker 1: grief in this film, very destructive grief. Grief that overlaps
Speaker 1: and in a lot of ways is another part of
Speaker 1: what hamstrings the plot in that it's not the type
Speaker 1: of grief that people are moving through, it's the type
Speaker 1: of grief that people are just sitting in. And if
Speaker 1: you're writing a story, you can't have five or seven
Speaker 1: people sitting in five or seven different types of grief
Speaker 1: in a movie that's supposed to be an action adventure,
Speaker 1: like We've Got to Move Forward, and there's large swaths
Speaker 1: in which characters are learning lessons I think they should
Speaker 1: have learned a full three hours ago. This movie is
Speaker 1: three hours and seventeen minutes. The second movie was three
Speaker 1: hours and fifteen minutes. The first movie was two hours
Speaker 1: and forty five minutes. There's lessons y'all should have learned
Speaker 1: many many minutes ago, many many many minutes ago, and
Speaker 1: they're still learning them in this film. I think that's
Speaker 1: the negative way that this film is connected as a
Speaker 1: direct sequel to the Way of Water, meaning that large
Speaker 1: swaths of Jake Sully's relationship with his son are the
Speaker 1: main plot of the Way of Water, and then they
Speaker 1: also become the main plot of this movie in a
Speaker 1: way that made me said, all right, already. Just be
Speaker 1: proud of your son, be be good to your son.
Speaker 1: Why are we Why are we still doing this? I
Speaker 1: don't understand like this. I don't want to do this anymore.
Speaker 1: And and let me let me say the other four.
Speaker 1: So the first one is the ash people. The second
Speaker 1: one is the abilities of humans to breathe atmosphere on Pandora,
Speaker 1: And I'll just leave it at that and say that
Speaker 1: it is a part of the story Quorich changing his mind.
Speaker 1: And I'm not saying whether he does or not, but
Speaker 1: I'm saying grappling with the idea of him maybe not
Speaker 1: being an antagonist. Uh. And I'm just saying grappling with
Speaker 1: the idea. Before y'all listen and say that's a spoiler,
Speaker 1: it's not. I'm telling you that is grappling with the
Speaker 1: idea of who he is. It's something that was in
Speaker 1: the way of water when he's deciding what to do
Speaker 1: with his son and whether or not he has a
Speaker 1: relationship with his son. The next one is the whales.
Speaker 1: Obviously the whales are a huge plot point. And the
Speaker 1: final one is whether or not Kirie, which is Sigourney
Speaker 1: Weaver's character, whether she is some sort of all powerful
Speaker 1: you know, able to commune with I keep wanting to
Speaker 1: call it Gaya, but it's not Ay. Whether she's able
Speaker 1: to commune with Awa, control the earth all of that.
Speaker 1: Those are five distinct directions in a movie that is
Speaker 1: this even that is three hours and seventeen minutes. You had,
Speaker 1: you could do three of those, and on top of
Speaker 1: that everything I just mentioned, only one of those was
Speaker 1: directly dealing with what the humans are doing? What are
Speaker 1: the humans doing? I don't know what's happening on Earth.
Speaker 1: I know that in this movie, somehow they've built an
Speaker 1: entire city, and none of the humans that are in
Speaker 1: the city except for the three leaders. We'll go with Quorich,
Speaker 1: We'll go with Giovanni Ribisi, whatever his name is, and
Speaker 1: we'll go with Uh. We'll go with old girl from
Speaker 1: the Sopranos, Edie Falco. Those three people are the only
Speaker 1: ones we get any real interiority on. We don't understand
Speaker 1: how the other humans feel about everything going on. They're
Speaker 1: kind of depicted as this angry, bloodthirsty mob. So I'm
Speaker 1: gonna say those five plot points again, and then I'm
Speaker 1: gonna point out what I'm trying to say. It all
Speaker 1: Ash people, humans, the ability of humans to breathe air,
Speaker 1: and when I say breathe air, I'm sorry, I'm saying
Speaker 1: humans breathing air, breathing the atmosphere on Pandora, Quorich changing
Speaker 1: his mind, the whales, and whether or not Kiri is
Speaker 1: a super being entity whatever. The name of the movie
Speaker 1: is Fire and Ash, so let's just deal with the
Speaker 1: Ash people and call it a day. But the Fire
Speaker 1: and Ash and the Ash People are only one aspect
Speaker 1: of the movie, and of those five plot points, they
Speaker 1: are the least important. They are the least important, and
Speaker 1: their existence directly hamstrings Quorich's ability to have the journey
Speaker 1: that they're signaling for him to have in the first
Speaker 1: act of this film. So later on in the film,
Speaker 1: when we see what's happening with Korich, I remember thinking,
Speaker 1: why do you keep having Jake have these heart to
Speaker 1: heart conversations with Korich that are never going to go
Speaker 1: anywhere in this film? They're setting us up, And I'm
Speaker 1: sure if you're listening to this, you're like, well, they're
Speaker 1: setting it up for future films. That may be the case,
Speaker 1: but then don't spend so much time in this film
Speaker 1: convincing me of something that's not going to happen. It's
Speaker 1: like they're waving around, I believe it's called Chekhov's Gun,
Speaker 1: just waving around, being like, we're definitely gonna fire this bullet.
Speaker 1: And then not only do they throw the gun away,
Speaker 1: they pull out a knife and say we're gonna stab
Speaker 1: someone and say, psych, we're not even gonna use any
Speaker 1: weapons in this there's no action in this movie at all.
Speaker 1: Look up Chekhov's Gun if you don't know what I'm
Speaker 1: talking about. And I'm being honest with y'all. I thought
Speaker 1: all of those were good threads. I thought they were
Speaker 1: a good direction for these films to go in. But
Speaker 1: because they had so many of them, you might as
Speaker 1: well have had none of them, because all of them
Speaker 1: were hurting each other, none of them were really working together.
Speaker 1: And the thing is, maybe three of them could have
Speaker 1: found a way to work together. Because the whales become
Speaker 1: a really bad And I know they're not called the whales,
Speaker 1: but I'm not gonna sit here and try to they're
Speaker 1: called till I'm not gonna do it. I'm gonna have
Speaker 1: to look it up. They're called whales, they're whales. They
Speaker 1: are whale surrogates. That's what they are. Don't get mad
Speaker 1: at me. They're whale surrogates. That's what they are. The
Speaker 1: whales end up being a big part of what is
Speaker 1: the final battle in the film. So if that's where
Speaker 1: we're going, then let's talk about that. And I said five,
Speaker 1: I didn't even I'm just mentioned the sixth, which is
Speaker 1: Jake Sully's relationship with his son, and then there's all
Speaker 1: these interpersonal things going on with the Sullivan family, which
Speaker 1: might as well be a seventh. So I'm saying all
Speaker 1: that to say, it's too much dip on the chip.
Speaker 1: It's too much dip on the chip. In the worst
Speaker 1: of ways. It's too much dip on the chip. You
Speaker 1: need more chips, You need more chips, and they don't
Speaker 1: have it here. They don't have the chips. They don't
Speaker 1: have the chips. They have a bunch of dip. You
Speaker 1: put so much dip on the chips, it's just all
Speaker 1: dip now. It's all dip now, all dip. Now. It's
Speaker 1: too much dip on the chip. Okay, okay. So the
Speaker 1: point of what I'm saying is all of those plot
Speaker 1: points swirled into a circle doesn't work for me, and
Speaker 1: I think ultimately, again, any of those done well together
Speaker 1: probably would have brought this to could have made this
Speaker 1: a four star movie. But because they weren't done well
Speaker 1: and when the movie ended, I was very confused as
Speaker 1: to what message was told. I think this movie has now,
Speaker 1: this series has now swung way back into the kind
Speaker 1: of culturally appropriationy centering white saviorism trope that it kind
Speaker 1: of was starting with in the first one. I mean,
Speaker 1: you if Kirie is this fantastic being that's able to
Speaker 1: communicate with uh, with Awa, and you have Spider whose
Speaker 1: role is expanding, Ultimately, these are two white people. Now,
Speaker 1: I know, in the confines of the story, Kirie would
Speaker 1: not be considered white, she would be Navi. Like I know,
Speaker 1: in the confines of the story, that's what the case
Speaker 1: would be. Uh. But it's still as someone just watching it,
Speaker 1: as just like a black person that's sitting here watching this.
Speaker 1: I watched this, and I'm like, I know what's up here.
Speaker 1: This is You're you're still writing a story. You're you're
Speaker 1: still writing and telling a story that is centering white
Speaker 1: folks who are now adapting to this culture and making
Speaker 1: it their own. And at one point one of the
Speaker 1: discussions in the in the movie is about how how
Speaker 1: Natiri is has too much hate in her heart and
Speaker 1: she's not doing enough to change as a result. And
Speaker 1: and I feel like that conversation just irritated me. It
Speaker 1: irritated me to know, and I was so confused as
Speaker 1: to why it was happening. I was confused as to
Speaker 1: as to what message it's trying to send in this film,
Speaker 1: especially coming from the white dude that wrote this, you know,
Speaker 1: or the white people that wrote this. I believe Rick
Speaker 1: Jaffa and Amanda Silver are both white as well. So
Speaker 1: it just it felt like I remember thinking, what was
Speaker 1: your purpose of saying back to the indigenous person whose
Speaker 1: life has been turned upside down by white folks coming
Speaker 1: in here and doing whatever they wanted to do. What
Speaker 1: was the purpose of you saying no, you're the hater?
Speaker 1: You know what I mean? Like you turned to Naetaria
Speaker 1: and say no, you need to change yourself. No, natarias
Speaker 1: every right to be upset. She has every right to
Speaker 1: be angry. It makes sense that type of hate, and
Speaker 1: she's harpering in her heart. It's sure it's hurting her,
Speaker 1: but there's a different person that should have that conversation
Speaker 1: with her certainly not Jake Sully, and I know he's
Speaker 1: married to her, but he has to have some awareness
Speaker 1: at this point. Okay, all of that being said, it's
Speaker 1: a movie that desperately wants to be good, but unfortunately
Speaker 1: it falls so short of that that while I would
Speaker 1: watch this again, it's just barely so. This is the
Speaker 1: most razor thin margin three star movie that I'll ever give.
Speaker 1: I want to give it two point nine to nine
Speaker 1: very bad, which is what I give to films that
Speaker 1: almost I would watch again, but not quite there. This one,
Speaker 1: it's just there. It's just there because I would watch
Speaker 1: it again. There are aspects of this movie that I
Speaker 1: did enjoy and I do want to see again, and
Speaker 1: it fits in with the rest of the Avatars. But
Speaker 1: I hope that for the next couple of movies that
Speaker 1: they nailed down the story details in a way that
Speaker 1: concludes the series peacefully, or at least gets to its point. Please,
Speaker 1: Otherwise they'll I mean, these movies are gonna make a
Speaker 1: billion dollars, and maybe they'll just make two more movies
Speaker 1: that are just three star movies and that's all they are.
Speaker 1: That's perfectly fine if that ends up being the case,
Speaker 1: but my god, I don't want to have to sit
Speaker 1: in a film for three and a half hours and
Speaker 1: wonder about retreads, wonder if it. Yeah, I just don't
Speaker 1: want to have to do that again. I don't. I
Speaker 1: don't want to have to go through this again. I'm
Speaker 1: going to keep watching the Avatar movies because they are
Speaker 1: a fun spectacle to watch in the theater. However, they
Speaker 1: could be better, and the technology is good, the visuals
Speaker 1: are good, and I'm really proud of what James Cameron
Speaker 1: is doing. This really is kind of his magnum opus
Speaker 1: in a lot of ways. But ugh, I feel like
Speaker 1: they're gonna end up remaking this fifty years from now
Speaker 1: and they're gonna fix all the problems and I'm not
Speaker 1: gonna be around, well fifty years when I might be
Speaker 1: still be around, but I might not be around to
Speaker 1: really enjoy it and critique it the way I want to.
Speaker 1: So yeah, with that, Leaving the Theater is a production
Speaker 1: of owitz Big Ron Studios. I mixed this episode and
Speaker 1: today is December eighteenth, and that means yesterday I saw Anaconda,
Speaker 1: which will not come out until twenty twenty six, and
Speaker 1: next Wednesday, December twenty fourth, I will be going to
Speaker 1: see Marty Supreme. I Am and I did Avatar on
Speaker 1: the Couch a few days ago, which went on Patreon.
Speaker 1: On the leaving the theater side of Patreon, we are rocking
Speaker 1: and rolling. We are putting out more content for y'all.
Speaker 1: You still have the ad free feed, you still have
Speaker 1: the discount code for Heartbreaker. There's still a lot of
Speaker 1: good things happening on Patreon. We have expanded the patroon base.
Speaker 1: We have added over sixty patrons, which is amazing, and
Speaker 1: we're not going to stop. We're going to continue the
Speaker 1: drive for the rest of the month. And I'm realizing
Speaker 1: that by pivoting this way and by investing more in
Speaker 1: the Patreon and investing more specifically in people that like,
Speaker 1: oh it's big Ron studios and the stuff that I
Speaker 1: put out, it is making me beholden to you the
Speaker 1: audience and you the listener. Now this doesn't mean you
Speaker 1: can just tell me what to do, but what it
Speaker 1: does mean is that I'm really really thinking about what
Speaker 1: it is that you like about these shows, continuing to
Speaker 1: give you more of that, continuing to give you more
Speaker 1: in the Patreon and it allows me to work more freely.
Speaker 1: It makes clear my directives in a way that just
Speaker 1: I enjoy. I enjoy, I appreciate. I'm glad to be
Speaker 1: doing this. I'm happy to be doing this job. I
Speaker 1: don't feel like I'm waiting for someone to give me
Speaker 1: an opportunity. I'm taking the opportunity that I have been
Speaker 1: given to continue to put out this content for y'all.
Speaker 1: If that's something that means something to you, If you
Speaker 1: appreciate this labor of love but still labor, go to
Speaker 1: patreon dot com slash oh It's Big Ron help us out,
Speaker 1: or go to the link in our show notes. Show
Speaker 1: art from Heather Wilder. Theme music by the mysterious Breakmaster Cylinder.
Speaker 1: For more information about Avatar, Fire and Ash, check out
Speaker 1: our show notes. You can follow me on Instagram, Blue Sky, TikTok, threads,
Speaker 1: or letterbox at Owitz Big Ron. That's at h I
Speaker 1: T S B I g r N. You find out
Speaker 1: more about this show and other O It's Big Ron
Speaker 1: Studio shows by following us on Instagram at Owitz Big
Speaker 1: Ron Studios. Leaving the theater will be back soon. Thanks
Speaker 1: for listening. I'm Ronald Young Junior, and I'm too much
Speaker 1: dip on the chip in the worst of ways,