Ep 61 - Avatar The Way of Water

[00:00:00] Speaker A: The way of water 2022. In a distant future, after squandering their own resources, humans plan on relocating to the planet of Pandora, years after already being exiled by the local Na' Vi for trying to ravage their lands. But will the native peoples of Pandora happily forgive and forget about the human's destructive nature? I wouldn't hold my bre. [00:00:31] Speaker B: Completely overrated. [00:00:33] Speaker C: This episode is brought to you by Radique Audio. Radique Audio Enjoy the music. Hello, everybody, and welcome back to our rating the show where I get together with two of my buddies, we take a movie franchise, break it down by movie, give it an overall score, and throw it up back on the board to see where it compares to the other movie franchises. This week we're talking about Avatar, the Way of Water, getting ready for Avatar. Fire and Ash coming out in a few short weeks. Will, how are you doing this week? [00:00:57] Speaker A: I'm so ready for Fire and Ash. I'm so ready. [00:01:01] Speaker C: Excellent. You're just looking forward to it, I'm sure. Not at all waiting for this whole franchise to be done with. How are you doing this week, Brian? [00:01:07] Speaker B: I'm great, Dan. How you doing? [00:01:08] Speaker C: I'm. [00:01:09] Speaker A: You know what? [00:01:09] Speaker C: I'm pretty excited. I needed this this week. It's been a good week, but I'm still just ready to be here and hang out with you guys talking about what is sure to be one of our favorites here on the program. [00:01:20] Speaker A: Oh, yes. Hey, what do you got there in the back, Brian? What's that? What's your background there? [00:01:26] Speaker B: Well, it's either something phallic or it's a whale thing adjacent. Whale, whatever. So did you guys notice that almost everything in this movie has like an Earth analog of it? [00:01:44] Speaker A: Yeah, absolutely. [00:01:47] Speaker B: Behind me is a whale. It's not. They didn't call it a whale, but it's a whale. What I did think was weird is that there is a character in here who goes by two names, Spider or monkey boy. There are no spiders or monkeys on the planet of Pandora. So why do they call him that? Why don't they call him the analog of a spider or a monkey? [00:02:06] Speaker A: Right. [00:02:07] Speaker B: Wouldn't that make more sense? I thought that was weird. [00:02:09] Speaker C: That's a fair point that I hadn't thought of. I mean, in fairness, Jake Sully is theoretically still human, so he would know what a monkey or a spider is, but. And for that matter, they might have aliens that look like monkeys on that planet. And the alien translation or the English translation would be monkey. [00:02:25] Speaker A: Right. When we don't, we haven't seen all the inhabitants of this planet. I'm sure we'll find more in the next installation. What I found odd is more the, the way they change the. The language. Like they're talking. They talk way too much English overall, I find. But they were like. They changed from English into Navi, but then cut the subtitles and be like, okay, you're talking navi now. They did do that. [00:02:52] Speaker C: Yeah. [00:02:52] Speaker A: But I still didn't love it. I would love that there was more. If there was more navi language incorporated in like, it didn't have an English alternate. [00:03:02] Speaker B: I, I didn't need a Universal translator to watch this movie. I would go with subtitles. It'd be fine. [00:03:07] Speaker C: Yeah, no, that's fair. I think there's a lot of movies that do that though, right? Like you can see it in. Oh yeah, it's Hunt for Red October where they speak Russian for like a minute and then just switch to English and, you know, they're still speaking Russian, but it's just the way of like, okay, let's not overbear the audience with subtitles for no reason whatsoever. I do like your idea of like, well, that word doesn't have a translation. So we're going to keep calling them that, which I guess they kind of do with things like the Tolkien, which are those whales in the back? [00:03:31] Speaker A: The name of. Yeah, the actual name of animals, except for Spider. Monkey Boy. [00:03:38] Speaker C: Fair. Not a native, though. That was a brought in thing. I will touch on this quickly because I know. Well, I'm assuming I'm gonna be more positive on this movie than you guys were as of last and probably, you know, two weeks ago in. In Fire and Ash as well. But I'll start negative because there are a couple things that did bother me, but they're all very close to the beginning. And one of them is Monkey Boy or Spider. I don't actually remember them calling him Monkey Boy. I believe you. I just remember him being called Spider. I really hated how they introduced some of the characters at the very beginning of this. Like the, like the Jake Sully and his wife getting pregnant. Totally fine. But the like weird immaculate conception of Kitty. Kitty. And then like all of a sudden, you know this. The sergeant or the Colonel from the first movie, like, had a kid that he never once mentioned in the first movie. [00:04:25] Speaker A: Like why? [00:04:26] Speaker B: Yeah, why? Didn't have to be no illusion to that in the previous film. Right? There was no illusion. They. There was an opening for Kitty, like, but they could have alluded to it a little bit more and Led us up to it. So that when they said the Immaculate Conception, it didn't sound as dumb as Immaculate Conception. [00:04:42] Speaker C: Well, and I mean, even the Colonel himself being reincarnated, his whole squad reincarnated under Project Phoenix, I would have been okay with, well, maybe the Immaculate Conception, but, like, I would have been okay with the other two. If you'd given us any hint that you'd thought about this ahead of time, where this feels 100% like James Cameron had an idea in, like, 2017 and was like, oh, we should put that in the movie. And it didn't. It didn't fit. Admittedly, this is not a unique concept. Like, Star wars did this quite a bit. Where, like, you go from Star wars, like, Episode four and Episode five, and it feels like that doesn't feel like that was the plan all along. And we kind of go with it, but it felt like there was a lot of it really close back to back. At the beginning of this movie, we're like, oh, and this character returned. Oh, and this happened again. Just like. [00:05:25] Speaker B: And when they bring back characters that are killed off, I always feel cheated. I always feel cheated. Especially in this instance when they didn't allude to it. Had they killed off the Colonel and. And then mentioned Project Phoenix at the end of the movie and I'd been like, what's Project Phoenix? And then they brought it in, I'd have been like, okay, you alluded to it. It was the little hook there. I get it. But this was completely like, hey, let's bring back this character. And it felt cheap. I felt ripped off. I don't like when they do that. [00:05:52] Speaker C: I would have. I would have been totally fine with them putting. Because they show you him talking to his dead self, essentially. And it's not Paul Giamatti. What's the actor's name? Ribisi. Whatever. His. That actor. The. The main captain that actually comes up [00:06:08] Speaker B: behind me, we should call him, because he was still pretty flat in this movie. Well, he has as bad as the first one, but he was still two lines. [00:06:16] Speaker C: But, like, you could have shown that scene even. Not even mention what it is, but at least you're like, oh, okay, I retrospectively understand what that was. [00:06:24] Speaker A: Right. [00:06:24] Speaker C: But, like, literally, they gave us nothing. And then it's just like some. Somehow the Colonel returned and you're just like, oh, okay. [00:06:31] Speaker B: No, thanks. [00:06:32] Speaker C: I didn't like it when Star wars did it. I didn't like when this did it. [00:06:35] Speaker A: The Colonel was better in this movie. I'll say, yeah, not by. Not by much. He didn't have quite as many horrible one liners and drinking coffee while he's flying around bombing things, but. Well, he did seem a little bit better dialogue wise, I'll, I'll give you that. [00:06:51] Speaker C: But I don't think, no offense to the actor, but I don't think the character is interesting enough to justify at least two movies. And spoilers. He's alive at the end of this one, so he could very well be the enemy again. And I'm just like, you're just not interesting enough to warrant this. I'm sorry. [00:07:10] Speaker A: Even before all this. Okay, here's my issue with this movie. One, it's scary, scarily close to the first movie all over again. And two, did the humans learn nothing? Like Jake Sully admitted on his little journal cam that they'll never leave, they'll never give in to the human ways. Now humans are just going to come populate and they're not just going to scorch Earth before they do. Like it makes no sense. [00:07:38] Speaker C: And I mean they did also mysterious amounts of Earth there. That was a pretty impressive scene. [00:07:42] Speaker B: Also, why did we switch commodities? We had Unobtainium and now we're going after the Fountain of youth. The Unobtainium led to deforestation. The fountain of Youth is now wailing. [00:07:54] Speaker A: Yeah. [00:07:54] Speaker B: I was like, why? Because one environmental issue at a time, please. [00:07:59] Speaker A: They are, I mean they switched. [00:08:02] Speaker C: So there's, there's two trains of thought on that one. One is they did blast a good chunk of the forest and sent a bunch of those people home, like spent them running. And I mean maybe they now have the access to it on Obtainium. But you're not going to just go for one resource. If you've got a planet that size, you're going to go for all the resources. And Jake Sully, our character is no longer in the forest, so they might be ravaging the forest for all the Unobtain they can possibly get. That's where Rabisi's characters. I'm going to blank on that for a while doing that. But now you've got the military moving on to the next area. And the next area is the whales who are the Fountain of Youth. [00:08:37] Speaker B: Like, well, I mean it's not like replacing planet, but the, the whales are funding this mission because it's liquid gold, right? [00:08:46] Speaker C: But I mean we as humans, we you know, steal from the oceans and the land and the mountain. You know what I mean? Like we're not right single one place characters. Just, that's where the story is taking [00:08:54] Speaker B: place that that brings me. So we've kind of touched on a couple of things and all of these things kind of revolve around Spider, believe it or not, who I think is an. Actually a genius move on the writer's part by bringing his character in because he solves through three issues that I had a big problem with in the first Part One, he is a visual representation that this movie isn't entirely cg. [00:09:19] Speaker A: Right. [00:09:20] Speaker B: There's a lot of big stretches where they're in the woods and everybody's blue and they have to bring in Spider to remind you this is still a liveaction movie. And so he does that. He also softens the misanthropy in this film. If you don't know what that word means, it's speciesism. It's like being racist but against another species. And in the first movie, they're very hardcore against being human. They're. They just showcase humans as being horrible people. And they do it again in this one. But now we actually have a flesh and blood human being going through this film who reminds us of better parts of humanity. [00:09:58] Speaker A: Right. [00:09:58] Speaker B: Instead of just like one or two scientists in the background who are cringing when they blow up a tree, we actually have Spider who is showcasing true human emotion, a true range of human emotion throughout this film. And trying to kind of bring down that exospieism down a little bit, which is nice. But they were still pretty grotesque. The body count of humans is ridiculous. And then the third thing is, is that he brings in the daddy issues with the colonel. Right. Evolving that character a little bit, which is fair. [00:10:31] Speaker C: I just wish you're famous for being anti child actors. I really hated the actor of Spider in this one. He. He really. [00:10:40] Speaker B: Oh, yeah, absolutely. [00:10:41] Speaker C: It was terrible time. He was on screen 100. Okay. He's my biggest issue. [00:10:48] Speaker B: Right. I wish they would have brought somebody better in there. I wish they would have made him a better character in the people he interact. Everything was not fleshed out well enough. [00:10:55] Speaker C: Yeah. [00:10:56] Speaker B: But inserting him in the film did a lot for this film and, and, and helped it out in a lot of ways that I didn't like in the previous one. Did you guys. What did you guys think of the. The wailing? We had deforestation and all humans are horrible people. In this one we had wailing. We didn't have as much military stuff. They specifically said this isn't a military boat. This is a whaling ship. Still look like they had some pretty big guns on it. How do you guys feel about being a Human watching this movie. [00:11:24] Speaker C: I don't take as much of offense as a human being watching this sci fi movie as you do. I get what you're saying. 100%. Like, it is very like, man, look at, look at humans in the mirror. They do some pretty terrible things. But, I mean, humans do some pretty terrible things. Like, that's not science fiction, that's just fact. [00:11:42] Speaker A: Right? So it didn't really. [00:11:45] Speaker C: I mean, it bothered me, but it wasn't like, oh, my God, this is really like punching me in the face with this. It just, it just. Is it hurt a little bit watching those scenes? Because you do know that these are very intelligent creatures. I mean, like, a lot of sea mammals are fairly intelligent, but these ones are like, actually could be the dominant species on their home planet, kind of a thing. Like they are. [00:12:07] Speaker B: They even talk about how intelligent they are and how overly emotionally developed they are as they're drilling into its brain. [00:12:15] Speaker C: Yeah. [00:12:17] Speaker A: Okay. [00:12:18] Speaker B: I think we'll see this over the head with the disgustingness of humanity. [00:12:21] Speaker C: Myself, I will say one quick thing. The ship, the whaling ship, one of my favorite designs. Absolutely love that thing. Every time it's on screen. I get that the whaling is, you know, you're not supposed to enjoy it, but I, I just. Something about that ship just, I think is so freaking cool. Sorry. [00:12:36] Speaker A: That's fair. No, that's totally fair. I have long ago come to accept that humans are terrible. And that's why I don't do anything outside of this small, dark room with my avatar here. Just me and them for life. But what I was more intrigued about throughout the whole whaling escapade was that Jermaine Clements was the, I don't know, bio doctor, whatever he was. Scientist, biologist. I was like, what is this guy doing in this movie? Why isn't he singing funny songs and giving us some good laughs? He didn't give me any laughs at all. So I was just confused throughout it. [00:13:17] Speaker B: He's the voice of the crab from Moana, right? [00:13:21] Speaker A: Yeah, yeah. He sings amazing song in that too. He's amazing. He's. [00:13:25] Speaker C: He's. [00:13:25] Speaker A: If you don't know who he is, he's half of the Flight of the Concords News New Zealand Folk Band, I guess. I don't know what you even call them, but yeah, I, I was just like, what is he doing in this movie? [00:13:39] Speaker B: What? [00:13:39] Speaker A: Why is he acting so serious right now? I am so God smacked by this. I don't even know what to think. So anything else that happened with the whales? Was. I really kind of missed that. Because I was just intrigued by that. [00:13:52] Speaker C: Fair enough. I don't know who that was. I had to look him up while you were talking about him, so it didn't bother me one way or the other. Yeah, I mean, everybody wants to stretch their legs, right? And if you can get a piece of this pie, this being like, what, the largest grossing movie of all time, why not? [00:14:05] Speaker A: Yeah, go for it. [00:14:05] Speaker C: Get on him. Take your shot. [00:14:07] Speaker A: Yeah. [00:14:08] Speaker B: So to go back to one of the other things, one of the other points, the previous movie had very flat, one dimensional characters that didn't grow, grow or change or have much of an arc. And in this one, both with the Colonel and with Jake, we had. They were parent issues that they had to deal with. These were not well fleshed out. They didn't really go anywhere. But it was something more to the character. Right. I kind of thought that at some points Jake Sully was like the worst parent ever. In fact, the Colonel was doing a better job parenting than Jake Sully was at some points in the film. But they tried to give a little bit more dynamic range to the characters. So props for them trying. They didn't do a very good job, but at least we added something in there. We had a lot of the family issues, a lot of different people and how they interacted with like, right, the Na' Vi went out and. And communicated with the whales and everybody's looking at babies and lots of family, lots of clans, lots of tribes. That was really present in this film. That's a good thing. They didn't do a great job of all that, but they put more into [00:15:12] Speaker A: it as far as character development went. I think they did a better job with the children's characters. I felt like they had character arcs and reasons for the way they acted. You know, some of it is their adolescence and they think they're invincible and they're just going to screw up. But you could feel like middle child syndrome a little bit and first child being, you know, the one everybody loves and all these, you felt those things. So that was nice. But yeah, Jake Sully was still a complete waste of screen time as far as I'm concerned. [00:15:45] Speaker C: I think this wasn't Jake Sully's movie. Like, I think the first. [00:15:47] Speaker B: No, it wasn't. It was his youngest son's movie. [00:15:50] Speaker C: His kids movie. Yeah. And I think they did a pretty good job of passing that baton. You still get quite a bit of Jake Sully. You get the whole family dynamic, but. But, I don't know, you care a bit more about his kid than you do about him. [00:16:02] Speaker B: Yeah. [00:16:04] Speaker C: I couldn't tell you the kid's name to save my life, but. Right. [00:16:07] Speaker A: Unfortunately, though, it kind of meant that Zoe Selden got kind of sidetracked a little too. Like, she was barely in this movie, and it. I. I missed that because she was like, one of the better parts of the first movie. [00:16:21] Speaker B: And she had. She had great scenes in this movie when her son died, and she was, you know, screaming and crying, and I look over and go, yeah, hey, buddy, that's how you act right there. Look at that. That's how you act. Quit waiting for your mocap sensors to give you emotion. I can do it. [00:16:37] Speaker C: I'm not going to argue that Sam Worthington is an incredible actor. He's definitely not on Zoe Saldana's level. But, I mean, you know, generally speaking, men don't show the same level of emotion that women do. I'm not trying to be sexist. I'm just like. [00:16:51] Speaker A: But no, that was terrible acting. [00:16:53] Speaker B: That wasn't not showing emotion or being manly or masculine over his son's death. That was just terrible acting in that scene. [00:17:00] Speaker A: It was horrible. I did feel like there was amazing masculinity in this because he did say, a father protects. That's what he says. That's all he says. And that is not all a father is. That is like toxic masculinity on a. On a plate for you. So maybe that's what they were going for. Maybe. Maybe James Cameron's like, well, this guy can't act, so let's just. Just write him full of toxic masculinity and. [00:17:25] Speaker B: And that'll do the work, you know? [00:17:26] Speaker C: Good thing you made him the star of your multi billion dollar franchise. Good call. [00:17:29] Speaker A: That's why they shifted. [00:17:30] Speaker C: That's why they shifted to the kids. Maybe it's actually story about the kids. Who knows? [00:17:33] Speaker B: Toxic, but rather they whittled him down to the simplest of things, right? They whittle him down to being a protector for his family, which is one tiny facet of being a father. You're right. But, like, that's all the character can handle. That's all the writing could handle for this film. 3 hours and 15 minutes. We still couldn't get Jake Sully to. To. To have any kind of development arc, really, other than at the very end, he's like, I see you, son to his youngest son. That was like it. [00:18:04] Speaker A: That was. [00:18:06] Speaker C: Was terrible. [00:18:07] Speaker A: To the point where they end the movie pretty much in the exact same place they end the first movie. Right. He opens his Eyes being like, now I know what I need to do against these humans. We got that for the first three hours of the first film. Like, you lost all of that in the next three hours. And it crippled me to have to watch it all over again. [00:18:27] Speaker B: So on same kind of thing, but on the other side of the table, you have the Colonel with Spider, and he's trying to reconcile his son. I really enjoyed the take of him seeing himself on the tv, and then he's like, that's not me. I'm somebody else. And when he finds his dead body, he crushes that skull and he wants to believe that the Colonel died, he is something or someone new, and that he just has those memories. And then they. They tried to make it real interesting at the end when they're holding children hostage, which was very awkward. And he says, no, don't hurt my son. And he accepts that Spider was his son, which means he accepts that he is the Colonel. And I thought that was really interesting. Again, didn't pull that off very well. They didn't pull it off very well, but they were trying for a higher dynamic range with the character, and more so than Jake Sully. I think the Colonel pulled this one off a little bit better. It was very interesting to see that take on who he is and who he's becoming. So that was interesting, I thought. [00:19:35] Speaker C: Yeah. I think to some extent, Spider is also the last remnant of the Colonel. Right. Like, even if he doesn't believe that that's who he is, he has to understand that that is a part of him on some level. And he doesn't strike me as a family man. I don't think he's got anything waiting for him back on Earth. But Spider is like the last remnant of who he was, or his legacy, as it were. Again, they didn't really touch on that. That's just me bringing that to the table. I. I didn't love that part. Like, I didn't love that that was the one thing that he connected to as this kid that he didn't even know that he had. I mean, yes, he did know that he had him, but he assumed that he was sent back to Earth to be, you know, part of the foster system or something. I. I just. I never got the impression that he really cared. And then when Spider saves him at the end, I never really understood why Spider care. You know what I mean? Like, both of those turns were just kind of like, okay, you clearly under, like, blood is thicker than water. Their family. I get it. But at no point did you show me any reason why either one of them should care about the other person. [00:20:34] Speaker A: Spider's care makes more sense because Spider is a good person. [00:20:39] Speaker B: He's raised by the navi. [00:20:40] Speaker A: Exactly. At no point in the movie do you think Spider is, like, out to betray anybody or backstab anybody. He's a genuinely good person raised by the navi and the good scientist humans on this planet. And so when the Colonel showed some sort of care and wouldn't, you know, just off these kids and wouldn't let Spider be killed, he's like, I can return that favor. Whether he accepts him as his father, I don't think that's where it's going. I think it's more like, you saved me, I saved you. That's because that's what good people will do, you know? [00:21:17] Speaker C: Do you think I'm predicting for the next movie they're going to try and give. Is it Quaritch? That's the Colonel. Do you think they're going to try and give him a redemption arc like pretty much every Disney product does, where eventually the bad guy becomes the good guy or redeemable or something? And if so, do you want that at all? [00:21:36] Speaker B: No, I don't want it at all. [00:21:38] Speaker C: No. [00:21:38] Speaker A: I mean, that's like. [00:21:39] Speaker B: No. [00:21:40] Speaker A: Do you want another Avatar movie, Dan? [00:21:43] Speaker B: What I would like. So, in the previous movie, I felt all of the characters were very flat, very one dimensional, and I wanted them to expand on that, and I wanted them to build on the world. They did build on the world. We had a whole new set of tribes, a whole new area to explore. We had a whole new angle that humanity is trying to destroy it. And we had these characters who were developing families and tribal ties and trying to find their belonging. So though they didn't do a good job of any of these stories or arcs or character building or development, they did a terrible job of it all. They tried. They tried to do exactly what I wanted to see in this movie. And so it was an improvement in that they attempted it. Now I would like to see them continue that, do a better job. And I would like for them to stop making everything so damn black and white, good and evil. It is not like that in the real world. It is very gray and muddled and shades of color everywhere. And everybody's a little bit bad and everybody's a little bit good, and you got to kind of work those things out, and they're messy, and that's what makes life interesting. And this is so boring to me. That is so just bipolar. There's bad humans destroying the planet and there's good navi, and they're gonna stop them. And that. That was kind of it. [00:22:58] Speaker C: This episode is brought to you by Radik Audio Radik Audio Enjoy the music the R8.2 is the new flagship Bluetooth adapter brought to you by the fine people at Radiq Audio. This tiny but mighty device delivers best in class range and clarity to your music and gives you three versatile modes with which to use it. First off, if you have a vintage stereo setup or an older vehicle that doesn't have Bluetooth, this little guy works as a Bluetooth receiver and allows you to stream music or podcasts like this one wirelessly from your phone to your system. 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And as a bonus for my listeners, if you enter coupon code Mongoolie at checkout, you'll get a $10 Canadian off of the purchase of every Twin 2 unit that you buy. The more you get, the more you save and the more your support. R rating the RA Twin 2 comes with a USB charge cable as well as a dual RCA to 3.5mm cable. But if you want to upgrade to the Twin 2 bundle, you'll also get the Multi Port USB fast charger as well as a Gold Series 3.5 to dual RCA cable upgrade and the Gold Series 1/4 to 1 8TS cable. When bundled, you save on all three additional components and when you use coupon code Mongolia checkout, you will get an additional saving as well. Thank you very much to Radiq Audio for sponsoring this episode and thank you for not skipping the ad. You didn't skip the ad, right? These movies are relatively thin. I'm not going to argue about that. I'm not going to say like, oh no, they're super deep and I really get a whole lot of meaning out of them. But there's something about them. The first one a little bit. This one much, much more so. And I admit I am, I am totally biased because I love the ocean and water animals and stuff like that where I could just live in this world for like three hours now, especially in the big screen. Like watching it in the movie theater was quite an experience for me that I thorough thoroughly enjoyed watching it at home. They are really long movies and they, I don't mind that because I love being in the world, but I do mind that because it means it doesn't want to. Like, I don't want to revisit it very often because I don't want to. Like when do I have three and a half hours to set aside to watch this? But like so much of the first movie and so much of this movie is just kind of exploring this world that we'll obviously never get to see in real life through Jake Sully's eyes, through these characters eyes who are somewhat discovering them for themselves. And I really like that. Like there's something legitimately magical about this, this franchise, about these movies for me, which is just like there's not a deep purpose to it. There's not necessarily, like, super fit characters. You know me, I really like, like, dialogue heavy movies. These are not dialogue heavy, Mo. But there's just something about living in that world and seeing the spectacle of it that I find so captivating that I do thoroughly enjoy. And I am legitimately looking forward to Fire and Ash. I know I kind of twisted both your arms into doing this franchise, but, like, the idea of going back to the movie theater and getting to spend another three hours in this world, I'm legitimately excited. Like. Like, say what you will about the characters and the plot, James Cameron makes an incredibly visually interesting movie in a way that not a lot of other directors can or do. I know that I'm just gushing at this point. I'm sure you're both gonna rip me apart after this. But, like, the scenes with the whales, the scenes where they're just swimming around, the scenes where they're just, like. They're just enjoying life. I was enjoying my life through them, whatever the. [00:27:40] Speaker B: Yeah. [00:27:41] Speaker C: By proxy. And I. I really enjoyed that aspect of these movies. Do you get none of that joy or. Because I know when people talk about this franchise, it's with vitriol. Like, people hate, hate these movies for reasons I can't quite understand. Like, I was talking to somebody earlier and I was like, oh, you like, they're talking about watching the third one. I'm like, are you gonna watch the second one? Like, oh, I'd rather like stick my tongue down a belt sander. I'm just like, okay, it's just a movie, but okay, that's. [00:28:08] Speaker B: That's a visual right there. Right? So I think that these are visually stunning films. There's no doubt about that. This one was every bit as good as the last one. It was underwater, so they kind of drew back from some of the cheesy 3D effects for the 3D glass goers. But then you drop underwater and then it's all there naturally and looked real good. I watched this without 3D and it was still impressive where when you watch the first one without your 3D glasses, it looks kind of dumb because they're trying to show off all those 3D effects. And it doesn't look good until you get into the aerial battles. And then in this one, they kind of step back and. But when you drop into the water, then you get all that three dimension again, and it looks natural whether you're watching with 3D glasses or not. So they did a good job making this one visually stunning regardless of how you view it. And that was great. But it's three hours and 15 minutes of it. And I felt every minute of three hours and 15 minutes, it was just too much. This movie was so long. That's one of my biggest complaints, is that after a while I was like, I get it. It looks great. Get on with it. You know, like, I gotta go to bed today. I think. [00:29:19] Speaker A: I think that's my biggest issue as well, is like, yeah, it looks fun, it looks great, but everything else just doesn't keep me interested. And even, like, the world building doesn't keep me interested because they're just floating around with whales or flying fish. Like, it's not unique enough to keep me enthralled with it throughout the time of the movie. And obviously the characters don't hold up. [00:29:48] Speaker C: The. [00:29:48] Speaker A: The plot doesn't hold up. So it's just too long for a spectacle. If it was shorter or had more points in those other areas, then I could get on board. You know, we could float this raft, so to speak. But for me, it's just like, oh, this is Avatar all over again, with slightly better effects. And now it's in the water. So I've seen it. I don't need to see it again. [00:30:17] Speaker C: Interesting. I mean, I don't. I agree that the length of this movie is its biggest downfall for me, but again, mostly because it. It deters me from wanting to re. Watch it. Like, I, I. Ironically, I would say, like, I will easily spend three hours living in this world because I really do enjoy it, but I don't want to sit in the same three hours over and over again, you know, I mean, like, I don't want to watch this movie four or five times, but, like, I'll happily go to the theater on the 18th or 19th or whatever it is to watch the next one. [00:30:42] Speaker A: Like, Right. [00:30:43] Speaker C: Whether we were doing this show or not, I would probably be going opening weekend with my family and, and checking it out. It's just. I don't know, it just does it for me. And I watched this, I watched both of them, actually, with my twin twins, and they were shocked when I said there were people that don't like these movies. [00:30:58] Speaker A: Right, right. [00:30:59] Speaker C: Like, it just. I don't know. [00:31:03] Speaker B: So I don't know where to go with that. But, I mean, I think we just kind of all stand at a little bit different spot. So let's take it someplace else. Let's talk about Sigourney Weaver. Oh, because. Because I want to talk about Sigourney Weaver, damn it. And the kitty character who had a Quasi. Sigourney Weaver voice. Quasi looked like Sigourney Weaver. And honestly, it put me in some sort of a Sigourney uncanny valley where I didn't like it. And it kept. It was a very interesting character, even though I didn't like how she was just kind of dropped on us in that weird way, like, hey, we're gonna bring her back. But it just kept creeping me out when I heard Sigourney Weaver's quasi filtered voice coming out of this character. And I'm like, she died in the last one, and we don't really know how she's made. Is she Jake's daughter? Is she. [00:31:50] Speaker C: Where. [00:31:50] Speaker B: What's going on here? And it would. It just confused me. It was frustrating. But I did really enjoy how she interacted with the world, and that's a whole bigger topic. So what did you guys think about Sigourney Weaver and how they brought her back into the story? Again, [00:32:06] Speaker C: Sigourney Weaver is credited as playing Kiri. [00:32:09] Speaker B: Is that Kiri? I thought they were saying Kitty. Okay. [00:32:12] Speaker C: I thought they were saying Kitty, too. That's why I'm just like, is it the same. Like, is she actually playing that character? [00:32:17] Speaker A: She plays the. The young girl? Yes. [00:32:20] Speaker C: Okay. I didn't see the uncalled uncanny valley of it. I just. I just saw the character, and I liked her for the most part. But again, I hated the way she was just brought in in this weird, makes no sense way, like. Because I don't remember in the first one, like, when her body dies and they're trying to merge her with, you know, the. The earth, they don't bring her back to the factory or wherever? Like, they don't put her back in a water chamber. Like, don't they just tie her up and bury her like they do, like, in the. [00:32:47] Speaker A: So, yeah, I thought she just got a little envelope. [00:32:50] Speaker C: Yeah, yeah. [00:32:52] Speaker B: And she was fertilizer. [00:32:53] Speaker C: So how did they find out that she was pregnant? Like. Like, none of that makes sense. It would have made more sense if she just, like, the little kid just walked in from the forest. Be like, where'd that come from? Like, that would have made more sense to me than what they actually did. Not that that would have been okay. I still would have thought that was dumb, but I think is terrible. The actual character, I have no issue. [00:33:12] Speaker B: Character itself didn't bother you? Just the introduction, right? We're all on point with the introduction. But the character itself didn't bother you? [00:33:17] Speaker A: I like the character as well because of the. It's Another interesting thought of, like, I'm out of place in this world. [00:33:25] Speaker B: Yeah. [00:33:25] Speaker A: And where do I actually belong? Where did I come from? Which is fine. The whole. Her connecting to the Earth and then having a seizure and never being able to connect again was super weird as well. Like, there was just such weird things with the character that it definitely made me wonder, like, why are they doing this? And I also thought the young Sigourney Weaver voice was weird just because I was like, it's Sigourney Weaver. But they have definitely altered her to sound younger, and it just doesn't. But she still has such commanding voice. It's so weird. It was so weird for me as well. [00:34:01] Speaker C: I knew that it was her kid, and so I knew they were trying to, like, make her look and sound Sigourney Weaver. Ish. I didn't realize it was literally her. I actually kind of want to go back and go, like, check out a scene or two. Just be like, oh, yeah, okay. [00:34:13] Speaker B: Interesting. [00:34:13] Speaker A: Just watch. Just watch the whole thing. [00:34:14] Speaker C: Oh, that's right. Watch the third one. Yeah, that's fair. [00:34:16] Speaker A: Oh, there you go. She will be in that. [00:34:18] Speaker C: Yeah. [00:34:19] Speaker B: So I. I did notice something, though. In the first one, the planet didn't really react or do anything. The. The Gaia character. I forget what they call their version of God, Earth woman, whatever. It didn't really react until, like, they. They came and they communed with the tree, and they said, hey, we need your help. And at the very end, the planet reacts. And now we know that the planet will react to regular humans getting too close to one of those, like, connection points. Right. It'll. It'll respond to them. And that's why they made the Colonel come in. So he can be Na' Vi and he can get into those places without. Without the planet reacting to them. And now you have Kia, or Kitty, whatever her name is, and she is directly communicating with the God of the planet or whatever, and directing it to do things like grab a submarine and smash it. And it was interesting. And I'm wondering, is she going to be, like, deity level in the next one? And, like, we're gonna see this keep. Continue to ramp up. Why did she have the seizure that didn't. Like, that was out of nowhere. It didn't make any sense. So I don't know where they're going with that, but I'm curious about this character. [00:35:27] Speaker A: It. [00:35:27] Speaker B: It raised some questions, didn't give a lot of explanations. Her voice was definitely creepy, and her introduction was off. [00:35:34] Speaker A: The. [00:35:35] Speaker B: Just didn't make any Sense off the deep end. Yes. There we go. [00:35:40] Speaker C: I'm gonna go ahead and guess that she didn't actually have a seizure. Medical science. Science and religion are often at odds with each other. And what one is trying to explain doesn't always make sense to the other one. So my guess is in the story that they're going to present to us, she actually did have a religious experience or something. And science doesn't know how to quantify that. So it does what it can and says, oh, well, this ticks enough boxes to be a seizure. Because even say like, oh, this is very common with people saying they're having religious experiences. It just activates the frontal chordal lobe. But we've seen like the navi's God in action, so. So, like it's not just chemicals in the brain. [00:36:21] Speaker B: I think what it was going on. She was communing and she was speaking with her mother, the. Or her mother's avatar, whatever, her sentient mother. And she had some questions and the planet God didn't want her to know those answers yet and had to like break the connection. And so it was like yanking the Ethernet cable out of your computer and you lose connection kind of hard and you get error messages. That's kind of what I thought it was, is how I figured it. [00:36:52] Speaker C: I actually don't. I don't love that, but I don't hate it. Like that makes sense. I just. I'm not curious. I'm very curious where they're gonna go with that. I. I don't really even want them to explain like who her dad is or anything like that. I kind of want them to just forget that that's a plot that even existed. Just like Carrie lives moving on. Like, I don't. I don't need it. Like, I think they're. They're obviously going with the Immaculate conception route. And she's like, can speak to the deity and make the deity do what it wants. Like, clearly she is going to be, you know, I don't even know the next like Avatar level character. Avatar the Last Airbender. Not Avatar Way of life. [00:37:27] Speaker B: Yeah. [00:37:27] Speaker C: Wow. Wow. [00:37:28] Speaker A: You're getting. But you know what I mean? [00:37:29] Speaker B: Like, stop mixing Avatar and Avatar. [00:37:32] Speaker C: Aang was the first thing that came to mind when I was thinking about that. But like, it's gonna be some sort of like a God level character. They can come out and like fix everything and save everything. [00:37:41] Speaker A: Yeah. [00:37:44] Speaker C: Left. Like, I don't need or want any of that personally. But you can kind of see that's where they're Gonna go or. That's my guess. [00:37:52] Speaker A: She's the Neo. She's the Neo. [00:37:54] Speaker C: Yeah. [00:37:55] Speaker A: Yeah, that's good. [00:37:57] Speaker B: I will say this, Dan. I enjoyed all the sequences with the boat scenes and stuff too. I didn't like seeing him harm the whales. No, I mean, obviously we're not supposed to feel good about that. [00:38:07] Speaker C: Sure. [00:38:07] Speaker B: Those guys are in there high fiving on the boats and we're supposed to be disgusted by it. And we were and everything. But if they were like, you know, they were doing battle at one point, that was kind of cool. I did like that. And it looked great. It looked fun. It reminded me of when I had like action figures and, you know, Ninja Turtles sets and stuff like that. And I would play with them that, you know, Dino riders and stuff. It reminded me of that. And it was kind of cool. It's nostalgic and it looked really neat on the big screen. It was a lot of fun. The cable getting yanked around, cutting people in half and stuff like that. [00:38:40] Speaker A: That was just poetic justice though, right? Because he shot off the fin of that one and then he wound him up and cut his arm off. [00:38:47] Speaker B: Cut his arm off, yeah. So that was cool. It all comes around. One thing that I did not really like so much was that they pressed hard into graphic violence against humans. We had decapitations, explosions, arrows going through heads and chests. I mean, body parts being thrown around, people being smashed left and right. We would see a few of the navi laying on the ground after an explosion. We saw Jake Sully's son with a bullet wound quietly passing with his family watching. And that was like it. [00:39:21] Speaker A: That was like. [00:39:22] Speaker C: So you wanted more navi getting chopped into pieces? [00:39:24] Speaker B: I don't necessarily want more navi getting chopped into pieces, but it was one of those things where they made the humans look so horribly bad that we were going to be okay with the violence that was put against them. And I don't think that's a good way that we should be going. In cinema, you shouldn't be able to decapitate somebody just because they're worse than the other guy, you know, I mean, this is more of a personal philosophy here, but I just didn't like it because they were chopping up humans like they were feeding them into a blender. And it wasn't an equal footing. They. They did it because we hate the humans for their wailing aspects. And it was a shallow move and I just didn't like it. [00:40:04] Speaker C: I mean, it's a pretty common move, though, you have to admit. Like, generally Speaking in movies, whoever the villains are, are going to get it worse than whoever the heroes are. [00:40:12] Speaker B: Sure. Take. What is it? Con Air. Right. The baddest of the villain goes on the conveyor belt and gets his head smashed. Right. Which was over the top, gratuitous violence against this guy. But he was the worst of the worst, so he gets the worst, you know, punishment. [00:40:28] Speaker C: Yeah. [00:40:29] Speaker B: So it is. I just don't like that in movies. I think that's stupid. I think in real life that doesn't happen usually. The worst of the worst get off scot free or just like a light prison sentence or something is what normally happens. And I, I don't want some sort of poetic justice. I want a reality that really entraps me and strikes emotion. And I want to be angry that they didn't get punished enough. Something like, I don't know, it was just shallow. [00:40:54] Speaker C: You wanted the reality of the blue alien movie. [00:40:58] Speaker B: That's just, I don't know, everything though. [00:41:01] Speaker A: If you want the reality. The humans come and wipe the navi off the Earth off the Pandora and we get a Earth 2.0 and they just destroy that too. [00:41:09] Speaker B: Certainly. Like, why make a beach head if they're like, yeah, we're gonna, we're gonna go to war against these guys because we want the whales. Why make a beach head and then not napalm 80 miles into the forest? Like just, just completely clear it, you know? [00:41:26] Speaker A: I mean, the difference in this one is though, the difference in this one is that humans are now coming to live here. The master plan is don't scorch Earth just to take the resources. Earth's toast. They have to move here so they can't torch it. But they do. They should have come in military, just blazing down navi, like just. [00:41:49] Speaker B: Yeah, I don't know. [00:41:50] Speaker C: Did we not see the same opening? Like they, they did come in harsh and like, they did. [00:41:56] Speaker A: It looked like they were just landing ships and the thrusters [00:42:02] Speaker B: a big area, but. But I'm talking like wipe half a continent out kind of. [00:42:07] Speaker C: They need the resources, they need to live there afterwards. [00:42:09] Speaker A: Exactly. That's the problem. [00:42:10] Speaker B: Yeah, I know. Well, I mean, I'm a hard science fiction guy, so there's ways of ending the Na' Vi without even firing a bullet that keeps your resources. And it just seems really weird the way that they're going about, because they want to show sequences, they want to show these battle scenes and stuff. They can't actually take, you know, a spaceship loaded with sand, get it approximating the speed of light. And dump that sand and let it collide over the surface of the planet. Completely devastating everything with no nuclear fallout. Which is how you could remove the navi from the planet if you wanted to. One way. [00:42:46] Speaker C: They don't have faster than light travel, right? [00:42:48] Speaker B: Not faster than approaching the speed of light. You just got to get some kinetic sand in there. [00:42:53] Speaker C: My point is, like, what technology we have right now is not necessarily the technology they have in this film. Right? Like not all sci fi than what [00:43:03] Speaker B: we have right now. [00:43:04] Speaker C: No, for sure they do for certain. But we can't do that now. [00:43:06] Speaker A: Well, my son has some kinetic sand. I can go get it right now. [00:43:09] Speaker B: We're on kinetic sand, but yeah, [00:43:12] Speaker C: we [00:43:13] Speaker B: don't want to mold figurines. We want to wipe out a species. How do we commit genocide is what we're talking about here. No, I just, I just. Everything about the plot, the story and everything is dumb and bipolar. Just two dimensions. Good, bad, black, white. Everything is simplified to its most dumbed down thing. And I just don't like when movies treat me stupid. [00:43:38] Speaker A: I can't wait till we get to Star Wars. [00:43:41] Speaker B: I'll have things to say about that too. [00:43:46] Speaker A: I. I don't disagree though. I mean that. I think that's the problem with the movie. It is, it is, but it presents itself and has never claimed to be anything more than surface level writing and a spectacle to behold. And that's what these movies are. That's what these movies will continue to be. I have zero hopes that the plot is going to thicken and that the characters are going to be so well developed in the next edition or the one after that. It's just going to be slightly better graphics in a slightly different environment so that we can introduce slightly different animals than are on Earth. That's what I'm going to see, I feel, with fire and ash and. Oh, there's going to be some spectacle of people getting slaughtered by Navi. Maybe some more navi. I think it's the Navi's turn to take a couple of hits in the next movie. That's, that's my, that's my thought. [00:44:42] Speaker C: I think based off the trailers, it's possible some of the Navis are going to be the villains in the next movie, which I would be very okay with. As opposed to bringing Colonel Court, Quaritch back or whatever his name is. Give us somebody new, maybe somebody with some depth, even just somebody that introduces a bit of gray into the world, I'd be very okay with that. [00:45:00] Speaker B: Yeah. [00:45:01] Speaker C: Ash gray. Yeah. [00:45:03] Speaker B: Anyways, noise I think in. In short, I feel like Avatar Way of the Water attempted to shore up some of its predecessor's shortcomings. It didn't do a very good job of it because this is not what this movie is intended to do. Will said it. This is a spectacle movie. This is to showcase special effects, great features. It's supposed to be fun to watch in 3D in the theaters and. And fun for the kids, which. It was a little strange to see so many body parts flying around for such a young intended audience for this film. But I. I kind of get it. I guess they made it okay because they made the humans so bad that it's all right to do bad things to them, I guess, whatever logic that is. But they tried a little harder in this. I do think that this movie did a little bit better overall job than the predecessor, but it is still an Avatar movie. And I still am not excited about this franchise. [00:45:57] Speaker C: That's totally fair. I don't. I don't have any problem with you or anybody not liking the franchise. Like, I totally get that. You know, some things are for some people, some things are not. I just. It consistently blows me away that people are so, like, the vitriol this franchise gets. Like, people hate this franchise. And that's what I'm just, like, always kind of confused by. Like, I just don't. [00:46:18] Speaker B: Do you think a lot of that hatred for the movie comes from its massive success financially? Yeah, I think that's what it is. [00:46:27] Speaker C: Well, for me, legitimately, could be. [00:46:28] Speaker A: I wouldn't say I hate this franchise. I dislike it. I despise it. It's horrible. [00:46:36] Speaker B: How is that not hate? [00:46:37] Speaker C: We're gonna work all around hate. [00:46:39] Speaker B: Every word that isn't hate. We're gonna get them all. [00:46:41] Speaker A: But I would to say I hate this franchise, but to me, it. It does bring back. When I've. I've ranted on it before, I'll try not to rant on it again. I'll keep it short and sweet. It brings back the sheer fact that popcorn movies sell. So popcorn movies are being made, and those aren't the kind of movies I enjoy watching. So me watching these is promoting terrible movie making in the fact of bad storytelling, bad characterizations, bad acting. Like, those elements that I really go for in a movie are just absent. And so all that's left is spectacle. And spectacle is just not enough for me. And so that promotion, the. The huge success of this movie makes Hollywood say, let's just keep pumping that out. [00:47:30] Speaker B: And. [00:47:31] Speaker A: And to me, that's the Bigger issue. [00:47:33] Speaker C: So. [00:47:33] Speaker A: So I don't hate the franchise. It is what it is. But I. I hate what it leads to or potentially can lead to. [00:47:42] Speaker C: That's fair. I. I think there are still a lot of smaller, less spectacle movies getting made. They just don't go to theaters as hard as they used to because, like, people know, oh, I can watch that at home on my screen that's already 60, 70, 80 inches large. Like, that already is a big screen that I can watch that on. But if it's just gonna be three people in a room talking, I don't need to spend that kind of money to go to the theaters. I think this is the kind of movie that does keep the movie industry alive or the theater industry alive, at least, because it does pique people out to be like, oh, I kind of want to see that on a big screen. I kind of want to enjoy that in a crowded room and, like, hear all the gas and the murmurs and the, oh, my gods, you know, stuff like that. Like, this is the kind of thing that brings a crowd out. Whereas as much as you might like, you know, Martin Scorsese or something like that, picking him because he hates these kind of movies as well, his movies just don't draw audiences anymore. Like, they just don't bring people into the theater. So as much as he loves the theaters, he's not doing them any favors. And I. I kind of hate that. And I kind of, you know, evolve or die. [00:48:45] Speaker A: Here's the thing, though. You can have it all, right? You can have big spectacle with great story, with great acting, with great characters. I'll allude to maybe Lord of the Rings as just an off cuff. Sure, you can have it all. This promotes not needing it all and people eating it up even more. So. And. And that's the. That's the problem. It's not. I. I don't. I don't mind that other movies are just being made on Netflix and, you know, they're smaller budgets and you can have the more intimate things. That's totally awesome. I love that there's more avenues for those. I just don't like that it's just going so far one direction and succeeding so much because of doing that. I just don't like that. [00:49:28] Speaker B: So, yeah, for me, it's a little bit disheartening to see humans soaking this up. And then especially combined with the fact that humans in this movie are portrayed so poorly and everybody's soaking it up, and I'm sitting over here going, wait a minute, I'm human. I'm not like that. I don't want to be portrayed like that. And I don't want it to be so successful in films that everybody goes and sees this and says, look, what a bad human. There's that Run seven guy. He's a human. Let's chop him up because he's a bad human. [00:50:03] Speaker A: I. I feel like that's. [00:50:04] Speaker B: And we don't want to think about anything when we go to movies and run sevens over there. Conspiring with Will to make us think about movies. Those guys. [00:50:12] Speaker C: I don't know. Yeah, I don't think that. But. Okay. [00:50:15] Speaker A: I don't know if that correlates quite. That's like saying, like, playing violent video games makes you a violent person. I don't think that it goes either way. [00:50:23] Speaker C: Which, yeah, I think. [00:50:24] Speaker B: I think violent video games could desensitize you to violence, just like this movie could desensitize you to the violence being portrayed against humans. [00:50:32] Speaker A: Right. [00:50:33] Speaker B: They find a way to make it okay. [00:50:35] Speaker A: I don't think it will make you think that all humans are terrible people, though. Right. [00:50:39] Speaker B: Right. No, it's not. It's not. But I do feel. [00:50:44] Speaker A: What do you want? [00:50:44] Speaker B: I'm a middle aged white guy, completely heterosexual. I'm the most vanilla person there is. You are the car by this movie. [00:50:53] Speaker A: You are the car pro. [00:50:55] Speaker C: Oh, man, I. You're not wrong. They do definitely show humans in a pretty nasty light in this. I mean, the main character is human as well, but whatever, [00:51:07] Speaker B: Spider. And he's terrible in this film. [00:51:09] Speaker C: No, I mean, like, Jake Sully was raised human. Right. All of his kids have like demon blood or whatever you want to call it. [00:51:14] Speaker B: Well, Jake Sell's not a very good actor either, so. [00:51:17] Speaker C: Come on. Never said he was. We get. [00:51:20] Speaker B: We get Sigourney Weaver and they freaking alter her so much, I'm disgusted when she enters the scene. I just can't win. [00:51:28] Speaker C: That's so funny. [00:51:29] Speaker A: That is so funny. I don't know how to fix that problem for you, Ren. That's a me thing. [00:51:35] Speaker B: That's a me thing. No, you know what? It's. It's a. It's a spectacle movie and people like it. And more power to them if they want to see that. I'm not going to promote movies like this because I believe, just like Will does, I think we can have it all. I think we can have a spectacle with great writing, great character development, great storytelling. Something that's inspiring and causes you to feel very emotional without these cheap hits of making something so evil you hate it or so wonderful, you love it. We can feel more range than that. So that's what I want to try and push is, is more franchises like that. [00:52:11] Speaker C: That's fair. [00:52:12] Speaker B: Dan, how many movies is this franchise gonna have? [00:52:16] Speaker C: I think he's said he wants to have five or six. Like it was at one point like nine. And I think he cut it down pretty significantly. [00:52:23] Speaker A: So we'll say I saw. [00:52:24] Speaker C: I mean, as long as they keep making $2.5 billion, probably have 48 of them. [00:52:29] Speaker A: Yeah, exactly. Whether he's involved or not. I saw a quick little snippet interview of James Cameron and they were asking, oh, are you working on the next one? What's the next one going to be? And he's like, no, no, no, I'm. I'm unemployed right now. If this movie does well, then we'll be in talks for the next one, but right now I'm unemployed, so I'm just like. That's definitely a bogus answer, but. Well, he's just trying not to either, you know, go into the next one before this one. You know, don't, don't jump the. [00:53:00] Speaker C: I think if I remember correctly, when the first one was made, it was like, I'd love to make nine of these, but he only did the first one. And then obviously it did so incredibly well. I think 2 and 3 were contracted so like he knew that he was gonna be doing two and three. But then it's kind of like, how well did these ones do to justify 4 and 5 or 4 or 5, 6 or whatever it is after that? So it's possible that that's true, but [00:53:22] Speaker B: as, as the person who enjoys this film, in the three of us, how many would you like to see? What's the upper limit? Where you're like, okay, that's getting ridiculous. Like, you think five's good. [00:53:33] Speaker C: I mean, it's hard to say how much of something you enjoy you want to have. [00:53:41] Speaker B: Yeah. [00:53:41] Speaker A: Because like, I don't know, you've eaten too much cake until you finish the cake. [00:53:46] Speaker C: Kinda. Yeah. Where it's like, I don't want this every year and I don't want to watch it over and over again every weekend. But if you give me a three hour experience in the theaters every three years, I don't see myself stopping until I, I don't enjoy it anymore. And after two, I still enjoy it. So give me the third, give me the fourth, give me the fifth. I don't know, I. It's hard to answer that until it gets boring. Right. Like there was A time where I didn't hate the Fast and the Furious franchise. And then it just kept going and I just eventually just stopped caring. Right. I liked Transformers at the very beginning, and then I just eventually stopped caring. I'm sure it'll happen at some point, but it's hard to say after what I would consider two hits to be like, oh, yeah, no, I'm gonna get bored of this after the next one. [00:54:35] Speaker A: Right. [00:54:36] Speaker C: Who knows? [00:54:36] Speaker A: But you're also, you're still a big fan of the Marvel content coming out, right? [00:54:41] Speaker C: I am, yeah. I, I, I recognize that there have been more misses or sure or okay ones recently than there used to be. There's definitely ones that I don't like as much, but I'm definitely more of a Marvel enthusiast or a Marvel apologetic than a lot of people are like, right. Like, I will find the good in a lot of them. Where some people like, oh, that was just trash. I'm like, no, actually, that's some pretty good points. I really like this, this or this. [00:55:07] Speaker A: And are you still on the, on the Star wars train? [00:55:11] Speaker C: I was never as big into Star wars as people always think that I am. [00:55:14] Speaker A: Oh, okay. Because you're a general nerd, so people, [00:55:17] Speaker C: well, exactly like people are just like, oh, you're a nerd. You must love Star Wars. I'm like, right, fine. Like, I've always enjoyed it, but it's never been like, my number one or even number two franchise. I, I haven't even seen season two of Andor yet. And I remember really enjoying the first season. [00:55:32] Speaker B: Right. [00:55:32] Speaker C: I've seen all the movies, but, I mean, that's, there's only, what, 11 of them or something? [00:55:36] Speaker B: Only 11? [00:55:38] Speaker C: Well, compared to the MCU or something. Right. Like, yeah, that's fair. [00:55:41] Speaker A: That's fair. [00:55:42] Speaker C: Okay. There was a time, like, we're all fairly old. Like, there was a time when we didn't know we were going to get more of these things. Right. Like, right. Three Star wars for 20 something years where we had no idea we were ever gonna see 1, 2, 3, or 7, 8, 9. It was a rumor that there was nine of those movies. And, like, George Lucas had an overall story, but we never knew we were going to get that. I can. [00:56:03] Speaker B: Iron man came out and I flipped my lid because I was like, we have a Hulk movie and an Iron man movie. [00:56:10] Speaker C: Like, I, I was saying this earlier today. Like, I can remember very specifically a conversation I had with some buddies back in high school where, like, Spider man was, like, being rumored or being talked about and I was like, oh man, wouldn't it be cool if they had like a Wolverine cameo or something and they looked at me like I had three heads? Like, that'll never happen. They'll never have two superheroes in a movie. Cue to a couple years later, we get the Avengers. And like, I think that movie's incredible if only for the fact that it did it and it did it. Yeah, pretty freaking well. I realize we're super off topic from Avatar at the moment, but like, I'm loving it. I'm loving it. [00:56:40] Speaker A: I'm loving it. [00:56:41] Speaker C: Yeah. I don't know. I love what I love. And like, I, I feel like I can go both ways. Where I want a 12 angry men, which is, you know, great acting in one room. It's essentially a stage play. And I will watch the crap out of that movie. And I love it. I, I thoroughly enjoy Citizen Kane. I know Brian and I have talked about that one in the past. So, like, I can do the classics, I can do the super heavy, I can do the like deep character analysis, but I don't need everything I do to do that. I can enjoy my vegetables and a salad, but I don't need every meal. I have to be salad. I can have dessert and I can enjoy that as well. And so when I look at this movie, I don't need it to be Citizen Kane, but with blue aliens, I'm fine with it being blue aliens. Dessert is fine once in a while. [00:57:28] Speaker B: I, I accept that. I think that's, that's very solid. I guess the difference for me with the Avatar franchise is that there are some movies that are somewhat a spectacle that I go and enjoy, but they're not blockbuster, record breaking, huge franchise films. They're the Expendables or something. Right? And it's entertaining and I enjoy it. And I go there and I shut my brain off and I enjoy my popcorn, I enjoy the film and it's great. And I go home. It's that when I hear people talk about this being the greatest movie ever, I'm kind of upset because there's so much missing from it. [00:58:09] Speaker C: Has anybody ever said it's the greatest movie ever? [00:58:11] Speaker B: I've heard people say that. They think. [00:58:12] Speaker C: Really? [00:58:13] Speaker A: Ever? [00:58:13] Speaker B: Yeah. And it bothers me because this is not the greatest movie ever. It is the. It is the biggest, grossest film ever. And that's. [00:58:20] Speaker C: I agree with that. That's. [00:58:21] Speaker B: Well, it made a lot of money and, and I think that's what bothers me the most is, is its success compared to other movies that have Done a better job doing a spectacle and storytelling. [00:58:33] Speaker C: So let me ask you this, both of you. This one, if this movie, obviously this is a sequel, so the first one had to do well enough that they made this one. If this movie flopped, would you enjoy it more? [00:58:47] Speaker B: Honestly? I might. [00:58:48] Speaker A: I don't. [00:58:49] Speaker C: Really. Weird to me. [00:58:50] Speaker A: I don't think so. [00:58:51] Speaker C: That sounds more honest. [00:58:52] Speaker B: Yeah, I don't think I'm gonna enjoy the movie anymore. Right. Like, like I didn't enjoy Tremors 2 anymore because it flopped. It was still pretty terrible. But I, I think part of the issue that I take with this film is that so many people think it's better than it really is. [00:59:13] Speaker C: Yeah, I'm aware of what this movie is. I just enjoy it anyways. [00:59:18] Speaker A: I, I, that comes across. That definitely comes across. [00:59:20] Speaker B: Now. [00:59:20] Speaker A: I'm not judging you at all. [00:59:22] Speaker B: For you. [00:59:23] Speaker C: No, no, no, no. [00:59:25] Speaker A: I'll judge you for some other movies probably down the line. [00:59:27] Speaker C: Yeah, it's fair. [00:59:28] Speaker A: You're very clear on, like, this movie is literally a popcorn. Turn your brain off. You like the spectacle of it, because that's what it is. And 100. That's what it is. So I can't blame you for that. That's. [00:59:39] Speaker C: That's fine. [00:59:39] Speaker A: And I don't think I'd like this movie anymore if it flopped. I think I just wouldn't push so much that it's doing bad things for future potential movies. And it is what it is. Other movie would have just taken its place. Right. It's the way things are going. It's the way things have been going for a long time, especially when you're thinking of theatrical releases. Because why go to this, like you said, Dan, why go to the theater for 12 guys in a room when you could just watch the stage play, which will be so much better. But going to this big theater experience, you want that spectacle in some way or another. It does make it better. And this one just was the one that pushed it to the umpteenth degree. And James Cameron is a genius for doing it, whether I agree with his motives or not. [01:00:31] Speaker C: I think I kind of touched on this earlier. Actually. I went into this pretty hard earlier, so I'll just say it quickly. I think movies like this help keep the theaters alive so that theaters can show the smaller movies in the office. That's a good point. In other areas. [01:00:44] Speaker A: So, like, live with the same thing. Yeah, right. They bring in the beauty and the beasts and the musicals, the big spectacles, because everybody's gonna buy those. They love the tunes. Getting stuck in their head so they can put on smaller productions of more intimate stories and, and things like that. It, it happens in theater all the time. [01:01:04] Speaker C: Well, and even with actors like you can, you can look at actors careers and you can see like they're going to do the big Marvel movie to line their budgets a little bit so they can afford to do the indie flick about the character that they actually find interesting. Like that's kind of what this movie is for the theater industry or the, yeah, the cine cinema industry because like a lot of theaters probably would have gone bankrupt without the, the mcu. Like as much as you might want to rag on the MCU and Fast and the Furious and Avatar for being terrible movies, they, they keep those theaters alive so you can go and see the Everything Everywhere is all at once or whatever movie you want to input there in the theater. I don't know, I, I, I don't obviously have the same feelings towards this that you and a lot of people do, and that's totally fine. That's what the whole show is about. But I don't think we're also going to change each other's minds anytime soon, so. [01:01:53] Speaker B: No, yeah, no, Dan, you've changed my mind. Go see Avatar 4 the necessary evil, [01:02:02] Speaker C: starring humans. [01:02:04] Speaker B: Bad ones. [01:02:07] Speaker C: Yeah. [01:02:08] Speaker B: Let's rate this thing. [01:02:09] Speaker C: Let's read this thing. If you like what we do and you want to support us, consider joining our patreon. There's a link down below. Shout out to our producers as well as our executive producers, Real Bubba, Hotep and Dino, and Our head writer, elderjm. 990. Thank you all so much. [01:02:25] Speaker B: So I'm gonna keep this one a little short. I like this one better than the original. They tried to do exactly the things that really bothered me the most from the original one. They failed, but they tried and so I want to give them props for that. Unfortunately, this was a lot the same to the first movie. They tried to add a little bit of variety and diversity to their characters and bigger story arcs and whatnot. Overall it kind of just felt a lot the same to me. I did enjoy a lot of the sequences, but this movie felt so long. There were so many sequences where it was like, okay, you're just showing off and, and those felt so, so long. It was really rough. I ended up Giving this one a 63, which is a little bit better than its predecessor. But I, after seeing the little bit of gains in the sequel, I don't have high hopes for the next one. [01:03:22] Speaker C: I'll also keep this short because Honestly, I've said pretty much everything I wanted to say about this movie already. I enjoy it. I think the world is gorgeous. I think it's a lot of fun. I know that the characters are fairly shallow, but that's something that I knew going into this movie. So I wasn't surprised by it or disappointed by it. It was kind of what I bought a ticket for. Now, could it be better written? Absolutely, it could. But there's so many movies that already fit that bill. This is one that's doing something pretty different, and I'm gonna say unique, although I'll probably get some pushback on that. And I just enjoy the world now, obviously, there's some problems with how they introduce some of these characters. The acting of Spider I thought was really unfortunately bad. And quite frankly, I also agree that this movie is just too long. Both of these movies are too long. I don't notice it when I'm in the theater, because when you're in the theater, the sound is so good, the picture is so good. You're just enjoying your life, eating your popcorn, drinking your drink. And I don't care that it's three hours. I would gladly sit through more of it because I'm enjoying myself. But when I'm sitting at home and I'm thinking, man, I've got something I need to edit. I have to get up in the morning, my kids need to go to bed. Three and a half hours or three hours and 15 minutes is a huge ask once, let alone watching this one over and over again. And so for that reason, the re watchability of this one is just not there. I can't disagree that the characters are paper thin. I'm not going to even try to to fight that. It's just when I'm enveloped in the world, when I'm seeing the creatures, when I'm seeing the spectacle, I just don't care that much. I'm gonna give this one a score, and people are gonna balk at it. But keep in mind, I am scoring movies every time I do it based on what I'm expecting to get from the movie and what I actually feel I do get from the movie. Walking into this one, getting what I got, I'm giving this1an83. I thoroughly enjoyed it. [01:05:01] Speaker A: All right, well, unlike these other two, I'm gonna make this really long. It's the same movie as the first one. If you saw it, you don't have to see this. [01:05:09] Speaker C: 56. And with that, you can see that the Avatar movie did, as predicted, come up a little bit, but wait and still not enough to overtake the Evil Dead franchise. Coming in at a 66 total 80 for me, 60 for Brian, 57 for Will. Obviously neither of you are excited about watching the next one, but I'm I. I have not high hopes, but hopes I hope that I will enjoy it. Whether you guys do or not is is kind of besides the point but [01:05:39] Speaker A: right [01:05:41] Speaker B: These films get I enjoy watching movies, good or bad and it makes it even better when I get to come and hang out in front of a live audience and talk about these with good friends. Because it's an experience and a bad experience that you get to share with good friends isn't such a bad thing. [01:06:00] Speaker C: All right, that's our rating of Avatar Way of Water, but what's yours? Leave a comment down below. I'd love to hear from you. We record this live over Twitch TV themanguly show every Thursday night at 9pm so if you want to go hang out with us live, you can meet us over there and hit the follow button. Or if you just Enjoy this on YouTube, make sure you hit like and subscribe on this video that I see you in the next one. Sam.