Blank Check with Griffin & David - Avatar: The Way of Water with Marie Bardi

Episode Date: December 18, 2022

The gang went to see AVATAR: THE WAY OF WATER and we all got soaking wet. Fully submerged. Drenched! We’re communing with space whales, chugging coffees with Edie Falco, and learning how to hold our breath for long stretches of time to commemorate the release of James Cameron’s long-awaited sequel to the biggest movie of all time. Are we one with Eywa now? How does Kate Winslet’s Na’vi accent stack up against her previous linguistic efforts? Is the Regal Cinemas Agave Aquarita the perfect cocktail to accompany your trip back to Pandora? Will Marie end up buying the Lego “Home Tree” set, or is that too complicated for the crew? Plus, check out the Slow Xmas 2022 holiday music compilation now on Spotify and Bandcamp! Please support the bands/artists featured on this album. Nicky Francis Spotify Apple Music Soundcloud Gravity Proof Spotify Apple Music Bandcamp YouTube Instagram Greeensleeves Spotify Apple Music Bandcamp Instagram Heavy Gus Spotify Apple Music Bandcamp YouTube Website Instagram TikTok Facebook Evan Kertman Spotify Apple Music Bandcamp Bandcamp (Ben Varian) Website (Miles Wintner) Instagram Instagram (Ben Varian) Join our Patreon at patreon.com/blankcheck Follow us @blankcheckpod on Twitter and Instagram! Buy some real nerdy merch at shopblankcheckpod.myshopify.com or at teepublic.com/stores/blank-check

I know one thing wherever we, this podcast is our fortress. That's good. Now, we were saying... You wanted to do The Way of Water. But they don't have the full version online. The only part I could do is The Way of Podcast connects all things before your birth and after your death. But I want the full...

I know. It was beautiful. What a mission statement. Yeah. One of 12 moments in this movie that almost made me cry. Hell yeah. Almost. I never got there. Yeah. I wasn't...

Look, I put up no guard. Friend of the show, Katie. She's seen it twice. Uh-huh. She says she just cries the whole last hour. Cool. But especially one moment in particular. I mean, I think Griffin...

Correct me if I'm wrong here. You don't have children. Hold on, hold on, hold on. Let me check. No, I don't. I do not. I think that's what we're missing in terms of the crying factor. I don't cry often at movies.

Griffin's not really a crier. I get choked up. I cry at everything. You cry at a Fableman's. I cry at Fableman's. That was unusual. It was a little unusual. Okay. It was a little unusual. I get choked up. You cried at Fableman's. I cried at Fableman's. That was unusual. It was a little unusual. It was a little unusual. Yeah.

Yeah, but you didn't cry, but you did see. Cheer. You did cheer. Yeah. Come? Question mark. Great noise from me and Marie in stereo there. Well, I think we also

we need to get into our viewing experience. I know. Great noise from me and Marie in stereo there. Well, I think we also... We need to get into our viewing experience. I know. We have a story. Introduce the podcast. Hello, everybody. Hello. Welcome.

It's the end of the year. Woo! And here's what I say to our listeners. He's doing the thing. He's doing the hand motion. I see you. You may be hearing us right now, but I see you. I see you too.

This is Blank Check with Griffin and David. I'm Griffin. I'm David. Lightning fast. Because someone, spoiler alert for future episodes, someone Bigfooted me. Yeah. You'll see.

Yeah. This is a podcast about filmographies. Directors who have massive success early on in their careers, such as making Terminator 2, True Lies, Titanic, and Avatar in a row. And are given a series of blank checks.

Possibly the biggest checks ever offered to anyone. To make whatever crazy passion products they want, such as five Avatar movies. Now maybe threatening up to seven. And sometimes those checks clear, and sometimes they bounce, baby. Sometimes they skim on the water,

like the mighty skimwing. Is that what they're called? Yes. They're actually two different, similar-looking species of that size. There's the elu, and there's the skimwing. What's the difference? I there's the Skimwing. What's the difference?

I don't know. They look similar. They might be the same. The Skimwing seems to maybe have a longer nose and shorter wings. They're different. They're different. They do seem to be different. I didn't know they had names. I just was like, oh yeah, the underwater band. The Skimwing fly. Oh, so the Ilu do not fly. The wet flyers.

So that's like the difference. The elu are like the dire horses. Gotcha. And the skin wings are like the, you know, mighty ikran. Uh-huh. And then, of course, we have our lovely space whales. The tulkun. The tulkun. Have you introduced the show?

I forget. Yeah, I did the introduction. Today, we return to Pandora. We return to one of the earliest filmmakers we ever covered who has taken 13 years to make another movie. He has. Remember when the Titanic first four miniseries, right?

felt long and somehow this is longer? Yes. He beat it by a year. Yes. It's probably because of the pandemic, but... Sure, that's true. There's a world where this came out a couple years ago, I guess. At least a year. I of the pandemic, but... Sure, that's true. There's a world where this came out a couple years ago, I guess. At least a year.

I think the pandemic pushed it back one final year. It is wild that it actually exists, that it is in theaters, and we have now all seen it. Yay! I remember when I tweeted about this. Like, oh, guys, we have an Avatar 2 release date, December, whatever. Yeah. Multiple people tweeted at me saying, oh, guys, we have an Avatar 2 release date, December, whatever.

Multiple people tweeted at me saying eh, not gonna happen. I'll believe it when I see it. People were just like, uh-huh. It's the same people... Whatever. People made that joke about Top Gun Maverick. They made that joke about... Sometimes, it actually

happens. Sometimes it actually happens. And it did happen We have returned to Pandora And I could have stayed a little longer That was my first criticism of the movie Too short I mean truly ring me out There was

Because I got wet Oh good Ben basically turned to me halfway through and said I disavow ever being a dry guy. That's true. That was an ill-begotten phase. I'm back. Wow, Marie, I'm looking at every tweet you've ever written about Avatar.

Some good ones in here. Thank you. You're welcome. Thank you. It feels incredible that we've seen it. And there was truly a point where I could tell, like, oh, we've, like, clicked into the final act I've heard so much about with the relentless action. And I got sad recognizing, oh, this've like clicked into the final act I've heard so much about with the relentless action.

And I got sad recognizing, oh, this means this is it. I'm closer to the end of this film. Yeah, we're almost done. Because, look, we like Avatar on this podcast. Something that has somehow become a controversial stance. Although maybe things are finally coming back around to that being a normal opinion people are allowed to have without being viewed as some, like, provocative contrarian take. Oh, whatever. Don't worry about all that.

Everyone's dumb. Yeah. But that having been said, weirdly, ironically, the opposite of what Avatar haters say, where they're like, no one remembers the story. No one cares about the characters in Avatar. People just liked it because it was an experience and it was 3D and the visuals and everything. My love of Avatar has almost always been based in that movie's pure functionality

in, like, its kind of narrative construction, its epic, you know, sincere storytelling. Okay. As much as I appreciate all these other qualities, I never was one of those people who had the post-Avatar effect that people talked about

where it's like, I want to live in this world. I wish I was in Pandora. I want to live here. Watching this movie, I fully fucking felt it. I don't know if it says more about what's changed

in the last 13 years in movies and myself, whatever, but I truly halfway through entered a zen state Where I'm like I want to be here for the rest of time That's cool What's the film called? Avatar The Way of Water

Thank you When we're still in the intro I just enter like a stasis We're at the intro Now we're out Podnator 2 Judgment Cast That's really what we did When we're still in the intro, I just enter like a stasis. We're at the intro. Now we're out. We're here to discuss. Podinator 2 Judgment Cast. That's really what we did.

Our 2016 miniseries now finally. 2016? Was it 2016? I think he was, because I think we did Cameron Crowe and James Cameron back to back. I think he was the fourth guy we ever covered. He was the fourth guy we ever covered. Yeah, I guess we started. Shyamalan Machowski.

We started in 2016 Yeah Oh we tipped into the beginning of 17? Just with the Avatar Land episode Okay so it's been Okay Oh that doesn't even count That was later

To rip the first flight was December 16 So here we are Six years later We've seen the way of water First flight was December 16th. Yeah. So here we are. Six years later. We've seen The Way of Water. Yes. His sequel to Avatar. Uh-huh.

It's opening today, basically. We went to the public preview screening Thursday early. Right. Let us tell you, folks, it was not easy. It was not easy. I was not with you guys yesterday. I was at my staff holiday party for The Atlantic. I had seen

the film a week before. I knew you guys were going to see it at 5 o'clock. You had an additional 10 days of having seen The Way of Water that I will never get back. I will never catch up with. You'll never forgive me. No. But so, I'm not aware. I just know that there were some shenanigans last night

and I want to hear about them. So as we introduce we get into the meat of this episode first. We should also mention it's a party party. Marie party party party is here today. What's up? Ben's here as always. I'm here. Getting wet. And I don't really know what happened last night. I just know there was some chaos

and I want to hear about it. And then we'll talk about the film Avatar the Wayward. Start all this just by prefacing. I've been waiting 13 years for this movie. Right. You're a little excited. Yeah. You have some buildup here.

Also, by the way, a little nervous. Okay. Even though at least there had been reactions that were positive. There's relief there. But it felt similar to the first time. The whole never bet against Jim Cameron thing. The reason that exists is because... I had to cancel so many bets. I had so many bets in.

You really... You know, Howie... What's his last name? Howie Ratner? Yeah, Howie Ratner on the phone like, cancel all my Cameron bets! I'm screwed! Paul Sorvino keeps knocking on our fucking studio door.

No, but the reason that exists is because almost any time James Cameron does anything, you're like, hmm, sounds maybe catastrophic, but he's never wrong, right? Where he's like, right, I'm going to do a sequel to Avatar, and I'm like, logical. And he's like, Sigourney Weaver's playing a teenager. And I'm like, oh, really?

We're writing four of them at the same time. We're doing it all together. We're bringing back all dead characters and adding eight children. Yeah, it's going to be mostly kids. There's going to be a white kid with dreads. And I'm like, oh. Hey.

And the reviews are good. You've seen it. You like it. All of that. But you're still like, I want him to transport me. Right? This movie, the tickets finally go on sale. Whatever it was, like three weeks ago, four weeks ago.

He has talked about the fact that this is the most different formats a movie has ever been released in. So I immediately feel the stress of, what is the right way to see this movie? Right. Where do we want to see it? At what time? On what day? Is it better to go to the earliest possible screening?

Is it better to go where there's going to be more of a crowd? Do we want to see it in high frame rate 3D, in IMAX 3D, but without high frame? It's so unclear what the best way to see it. Dolby, Laser, Prime, any of these things, right? Right. Basically, Regal seems to be the only chain that is advertising which screenings are high frame rate. Okay.

We go to the Union Square Regal Theater. There is RPX, which is now their largest and most premium screen. That is essentially what they call these days. There's an abbreviation Prime format or whatever Minimax or whatever No not that It's like right

You know PFR or something Sure Where it's like It's not IMAX It's not anything in particular Maybe they have a laser projector That's their brand basically But it's just nice seats

Because AMC has the Dolby Cinema partnership And this is like their equivalent of that. Premium large format. PLF. Thank you. That's it. Right. And they're like this is our biggest screen. This is our best projection. All of this. In general trying to guarantee you a better experience here. Absolutely. And we're like it's 3D. It's high frame rate. The tickets

are expensive. They basically cost as much as the 40X in the same theater. But I was like much I love 40X. I don't want to watch this movie in 40X for the first time, but I was like, once I love 40X, I don't want to watch this movie in 40X for the first time. Absolutely not. Right? Right.

So... I mean, we would have been fucking soaking. Yeah. Well, they don't even run the jets. They just seal the room and then... Slowly. Slowly. It's the end of Titanic.

They hand out little floaties you put on your arm. They handcuff you to a pipe So let's set the scene for yesterday The day has finally come I arrive at Regal About 20 to 15 minutes early And

I have the tickets Griffin has the tickets A mistake A profound mistake I was not aware that that was the situation Because I wasn't involved Griffin has the tickets. Griffin has the tickets. A mistake of profoundness. Yes. I will say, I was not aware that that was the situation because I wasn't involved. Huh? But when that text came in, where Griffin was like, I have the tickets.

I'm at Grand Central waiting on the 4 train. Right. There were 10 minutes before showtime. Yeah. And I also talk about being excited for the screening. Yes, we're excited for Avatar. But we also are really excited for the previews that will be attached to everyone knows about oppenheimer and then on the day people start being like yo they're just playing the barbie trail yeah so i didn't know

i wasn't even preparing to see that was a surprise i mean oh we'll get into it but so you know i'm watching my i'm watching the clock i gr is, you know, 30 blocks uptown. The train hasn't come yet. I'm starting to freak out. He's about to say that he's one stop away, but. We know he's not. It's a long express stop. It's an express.

But it is technically one stop away. Yeah, but Toni Collette over here isn't happy. I understand. She's a clock watcher. I know I got it. And five comedy points. Clock Watcher. No, I got it.

And five comedy points. My timeline was, I got into Grand Central at like 5.01. We have a five o'clock screening. You mean Union Square. Yes. Sorry. Sorry.

I get there at five. We're basically in the theater at like 5.06. Correct. But Marie texts at like 4.55 from the lobby and says, I am buying my own ticket because I don't want to miss the trailers.

Yeah, because also with the way that it works for getting into the theater, it all... And this is not the way of water. No, the way of Regal. This is the way of Regal, and it's bullshit. It sucks.

Everyone needs to be there at the same time. There's only one ticket for all of us. Right, so it's like the monthly ticket, or if you do the printout, then you have to find a way to leave the other two tickets with someone. Yeah, it's stupid. So we're meeting friends of the podcast, Jordan Fish, Ray Tantori also go to the screening

with us. They bought their own tickets together. Right. So they're there. Marie's there. Ben then arrives. I arrive. Ben's waiting for me in the lobby.

I retrieve our three tickets. There's now been four tickets bought for the three of us. That means I'm there in spirit. Like, of course. Yes. We get there. Marie is like, they've just been doing the pre- us. Oh, that means I'm there in spirit like Elijah. Of course. Yes, we get there. Marie is like, they've just been doing the pre-roll. This is the first trailer.

Great. Right? We've been doing the Regal shuffle. So you're really annoyed because Griffin actually got there. Well, just you wait. Just you wait. Just you wait. So they do the thing that they also did for Top Gun Maverick,

which I love, where they have like branded commemorative popcorn buckets. This is a new thing. And plastic cups. Merchandise Specialite. Oh, he brought it. Yeah. Merchandise Specialite. Is that what I just said?

Merchandise Spotlight. Griff's bringing out a metal popcorn container with a bunch of tulkuun on them. Yes. Oh my God. He's got like four items in there. So I think, how much did this cost? This was like $20, $25.

I think it was $25 with free refills. They fought me on it a little bit. I want to say, Griff. Yeah. Katie. Yeah. Text me from her screening in North Carolina. The Great Kitty Rich.

Great Kitty Rich. She got a glowing bowl. Yeah. Hers glows in the dark. That is the AMC. Yeah. I will be going there for my second viewing. I will be getting that in their different collector cup.

Yeah. So this is a tin, a popcorn tin, Maurice. Maurice says, I already bought the combo so you don't have to get one. And I said, fuck that. You think I'm not taking home my own bucket. Right. So you get this reusable cup with all the sea creatures on it. Yeah.

There were special branded Avatar 3D glasses. Navy blue. They have the logo on them. That's nice. glasses. They're blue. They have the logo on them. In classic Big Jim Cameron style, the bags for the glasses were paper instead of plastic.

Great. Can we get some sound effect of that? Here's what the tin sounds like. Puffer tin sounds like this. I do not need sound effects. This is not an oral experience. And then the last... Oh, I'm sorry. You got like a mason jar there. This was for my cocktail experience. And then the last, oh, oh, I'm sorry, I'm sorry.

You got like a mason jar there. Right, well, this was for my cocktail, which we'll talk about in a second. That's just Regal branded. And then you got a little, Oh, a little guy. A little toklun. Is that a toklun?

No, that looks like a, This is an elu. Elu, yes. Like a little, a little elu. Yeah, so this was the combo. Right. We get two of these. So I already got, Also, they just had bones and all Polaroids. Right. That this was the combo. Right. We get two of these. So I already got. Also, they just had bones and all Polaroids.

Right. That has nothing to do with this movie. So I let everyone know excitedly, guys, I got the combo. And then Griffin's like, fuck you. I need my own combo. So Griffin leaves right as the Barbie trailer. The first two trailers play. And they're both trailers that have been in circulation for like four or five months.

Right. Whatever the first trailer was. No, it was john wick was the first one and i think trailer two was barbie no no no because trailer two was shazam and i was oh you're right you're right i can fucking go get concessions while shazam i saw there wasn't a line i'm gonna go and i go and i think i'm pretty quick and while i'm checking out marie text me they played the Barbie trailer is a 2001 homage shot for shot and then I walk in and the Oppenheimer trailer is like media res yeah as I'm trying to get through the aisles how's the opera I haven't seen that one oh it's great oh my god David as David Sims of the Atlantic would say it owns bones hell yeah it's it's the master meets interstellar. Do you know that Owens Bones was quoted in Vulture's Oscar handicapping piece about Avatar's chances as a best picture contender?

Nate Jones. That's great. That's great. I have seen the Barbie trailer. However, it's online. Barbie trailer is incredible. And it's very, very funny. Yeah, also Owens Bones.

Because like at the beginning, I'm like, I'd already heard the 2001 parody thing. So I'm watching. I'm like, oh, this is funny. She did the magic cut. I mean, it's all really good. A little belly laugh there. And I also like that there's genuine... Look, people have said we're connoisseurs of context.

I think there's an important framing context for this movie to be like, it was revolutionary that there was a doll that was an adult who was fashionable. Right, there wasn't just a fat baby. She had boobs yeah go off yeah barbie um so yeah barbie trailer great so okay i bet you guys are thinking okay well griffin missed the barbie trailer that's couldn't get worse yeah right right couldn't get worse and we're a little stressed about getting there in time whatever but like we're settling in we're starting to feel

fine they turn the 3D on they play a couple Marvel trailers in 3D the 3D is working this is an important part of the story like it did work when they did this so you got Guardians of the Galaxy Ant-Man and Guardians and maybe there's another fucking trailer with shitty post

conversion 3D that plays the 3D is working. And then the movie Avatar The Way of Water starts. And you're pretty excited. We're thrilled, and I look across the aisle, and all five of us are doing the exact same thing. We're taking our 3D

glasses and lifting them and lowering them, and then closing one eye and closing the other eye, and going like... And you ain't watching Godard's Goodbye goodbye to language no some something is up right and then it like keeps going on i'm throwing some crazy references out you're coming in hot today that movie has the anyway yeah the more the movie goes on we're talking the first like 90 seconds right we've caught a couple times now you have those established shots at the beginning, but now we're in like, you know,

teary in the forest with the bow, pregnant, whatever. And we're like, it's clearly not. There's no depth to this whatsoever. You take the glasses off, there's no blur. So the 3D is simply not on.

Correct. It has not been turned on. Now, the second part of this is, the image is glitching. I can only describe it as like, the effect in Spider-Verse. Yeah, yeah, yeah. When the characters are being torn across realities

and it's like... So the DCP is just broken? Yeah. The DCP must have been corrupted. There were like red and green strobing lights any time there was like something bright in the background.

I hope Big Jim doesn't hear this because he's about to go rip someone to pieces. This is the other thing. So we're turned to each other and we're like, this is fucked. This is fucked.

This is fucked. And A, we're stressed out that we've we're like, this is fuck. This is fuck. This is fuck. And A, we're stressed out that we've been waiting so long to see this movie. But two, it's like, you can't even, you don't even want to watch this at all.

Then we start panicking about the implications of this. Are we going to do the podcast? No, no, no. Not even implications for us. We mean, what if they're all fucked up? Maria and I are turned

to each other within two minutes of this movie breaking down and going like, fuck, his gambit's going to fail. If they were having trouble opening night, first screening, screening this movie, is this happening? We weren't like, there's a virus. We didn't think it was Y2K.

Threw the package a little too hard out of the airplane. But the other thing was, like, Jordan and Ray, who are really well-versed in all the technical sides of these things. Yes, Jordan will tell me where the best bulbs in Manhattan are. Yes, and both of them love 3D and stereoscopic projection, all this sort of shit. They're both like, it has to be the file. The projector's not fucked. The file is fucked.

The file for this movie is obviously complicated. Sure. What are the odds that, like, this isn't happening other places? Not that it's y2k and it's all collapsing but whatever so we're at this point sounds like you guys were maybe just a little stressed out in general i'm shaking yeah so 90 seconds into this two minutes tops right yeah yeah i just go fuck it i'm why i like you gotta run out you gotta run out no one else is running out so i run out and i'm i literally i say it to the guy and it's that thing where I can

tell the second I start verbalizing it, I'm, I'm embarrassingly close to crying. It's just, it's just not the images and you're, you're like, I'm more trembling. You're like someone bursting into a hospital being like, is there a doctor? It was truly a weird 13 and it is fucked. The projection is fucked. And they were like, what's wrong? And I'm like, everything is wrong. I mean, I can't even.

Okay. It was so dramatic. And then Griffin comes back and we're like, okay, so are they going to fix it? He's like, they're troubleshooting the problem. I'm like, the man followed me in. He recognized that there was a problem. Because I have had this problem at that theater once before where I saw jungle cruise which was misprojected i didn't care as much sure i went out and complained the guy followed me in and he went that's just how the movie looks

and i was like look i know this movie sucks but it's not supposed to look like let's give yeah let's share his flowers his visual stylist the man understands the technical aspects of filmmaking. But so this, the guy goes like, oh, fuck, this is a problem. And also this is Avatar. It's really hard to work those theaters when there's like the big movies. And like, so he's, it's not like Jungle Cruise where he's like, motherfucker, I don't know. It's Jungle Cruise. Like, it's like, okay, we can't, we can't be showing this wrong.

It is a horrible ice rain night in New York City. It's a nasty night. The theater is not packed. It's not like they're overrun. Well, and also, you're there at five, which is weirdly early. Like, I feel like classically, those showings start at seven.

Correct, correct. So, yeah. We went to the earliest possible showing, and we're like, the first one in the most premium screen is failing. When I went also to complain, the one employee turned to the other employee and went, Avatar, are you sure that's supposed to be in 3d and i was like yes it's avatar but i forgot to mention this when i bought my own ticket to get into the theater early

the woman didn't give me 3d glasses and i was like excuse me ma'am is this for james cameron heard that he'd be bursting blood this is new y York City, too. It's a big theater. He worked so hard to make 3D a viable thing. Then everyone else fucked it. And he's like, look, obviously, it's been a rough couple years. The foot went off the gas. For 3D for six or seven years, I'm coming back to show people how to do it right. And this movie's being misprojected.

So then at some point, they flip a switch, right? The movie goes black for like a millisecond. And then it comes back basically at the moment where spoiler alert we'll get into all of this miles core which is reawakening to be clear we will be spoiling the every single aspect of this movie much like regal spoiled our first attempt at watching the film um they flip the switch and you're like okay i think it's in 3d now and we put it on and we're like, what's going on? And Jordan is basically immediately identifies what the problem is. And he is like, the like layers are flipped.

They have the polarity flipped. So the background elements are being forefronted. And it almost sounds interesting. It was unwatchable. Viewing eight. I would have gotten sick. Right. Of course, your brain's not supposed to interpret that.

It felt like goodbye to language. It did feel like dual exposure, double exposure stuff in goodbye to language. But you're watching it and you're just like, there was a 3D effect going on, but in a way that breaks my brain. Yeah. It's everything that everyone who dislikes 3D

complains about where you're like, I immediately have a headache. The strobing is out of control. So we go out and complain again. And we just hit the point. We're now like 15, 20 minutes into the movie. And Marie just finally says it. She says like,

this is it. We're never going to get over this. And even if they fix it. I've already missed like what all of the table setting in the first like five, ten minutes. We restarted

and we're so stressed out at this point. You can't be doing this. So we all storm out. Yeah. We lead a revolt of audience members. People start following us

like Pied Piper. We made no announcement, but everyone else was starting to recognize something's wrong here. So, but we're the first to complain. But by the time we leave, there's like a big line behind us. And they basically like,

we're like, look, we're not gonna lie to you. We're not restarting the movie. We can refund you immediately. And so we're getting refunded. And Maria identifies like, there's another screening starting in 10 minutes. It's also 3D high frame rate and a smaller screen. We can buy seats.

We're sitting in the third row now. It was before we had triangulated the perfect place to sit for 3D lines of sight, whatever. But we're like, okay, let's do it. We get there. We settle down and we're like, okay, clean start. We're all sort of like knocking on wood, crossing our fingers. This is when you text. There's some text in the chain

Like 550 And I'm at my holiday party and I see it and I'm like The fuck is going on over there Ben texts us where are you guys And I say at the second floor concession stand Getting refunds And David is like what the fuck is happening Leading a revolt

Yeah and then also at this point, Griffin is very distressed. And so we decide that he needs a cocktail. Right. Because Regal Theaters now have these cocktails. Daddy needs his medicine. These bars. These full bars, right?

I wouldn't say daddy. I would say baby. You're right. Baby needs a baba. Baby needs his bar. So Ben sees the bar. And I'm like, I want to sit down immediately because I don't want to miss the Barbie and Oppenheim trailer for a second

time. And Ben's like, great, I will get the drinks. I say, Ben, can you send me a photo of the menu when you get to the bar? All right, can we go over the cocktails? Yes. Well, first he sends me this photo. That's just the classic Regal bar menu, margarita, spiked lemonade. And right in the corner, I see the

little cardboard standee of what I want. And I said, Ben, take the photo of what I clearly want to see. Point that camera down. The way of cocktails. This is not branded. This doesn't seem to be official. There are no Fox trademarks on this. But Regal has come up with four themed drinks to coincide with Avatar the Way of Water.

Spiked moon milk, deep blue sea rock candy martini the true blue vodka lemonade all of these are fluorescent and they all have rock candy uh stirrers which they didn't give me i know i noticed that there was spiked blue salt on the rim but there was no rock candy stirrer and what i got was the agave aquarita which was you want to pick out of four? I guess it's a loser's choice here. De Kuyper, Blue Caracao, Curacao? Curacao, yeah. Lime juice and agave nectar. It was delicious. It was also so fucking potent.

I think Ben can attest, at five times during the movie, I took a sip and then started choking. Because it felt like I was drinking moonshine. I couldn't tell if that was the drink or if it was popcorn. Drink, drink, drink. Because I do remember you coughing a lot. But it did chill me the fuck out.

And I needed to get brought back down. And Marie, I think you said this after the movie, but it was very wise. You were like, it was actually good we had that failed experience. Because it brought us down to earth a little bit. It reset us. It got the nerves out of our system. The worst possible thing happened. You shook your sillies out. Yeah, yeah, yeah.

And the movie starts up. The first three shots, the establishing welcome back to Pandora shots, are a little flat. Like, by design. We were holding our breath. Reintroduce you to 3D. And it's not until that first interior close-up, and we all just like I'm like looking at Ray Tintori

being like, are we good? Are we good? He was like, I think we're good. That's the great thing is we have Ray and Jordan to be able to like parse everything for us. But then we just we fucking, the water is warm. We step in. We soak. Can I talk about

my viewing experience? Yes, please. I my viewing experience? I saw this film at the AMC Empire on 42nd Street. That's where the press screening was. The Dolby? The Dolby Prime. I had those... With the high frame rate sequences? Absolutely. Because they're not advertising this. Good to know. And I had

those special glasses that they have for the prime yes where if you walk out of the theater with them on like to go to the bathroom right because they're like expensive enough that they they don't want you walking out okay i'll make that one of my six viewings of this um and i had a great time i was there with david erlich and various other sundry members of the press but i was not going to the evening screen i went to the daytime screening the minute they had a daytime screening, I was like... And I saw Avatar

colon The Way of Water. I had a Five Guys burger beforehand. And which of the cocktails did you have from the way of cocktails? No cocktail. I will say... I think I had a Diet Coke. None of the AMCs in New York City have bars right now. Some of the AMCs in other parts of

the country have... MacGuffins is what they call them. MacGuffins. My mom's AMC in New York City have bars right now. Some of the AMCs in other parts of the country have MacGuffins is what they call them. My mom's AMC in Georgetown has a bar. Probably where I'm going to go see Babylon next week. Someone tweeted at us the specialty avatar cocktail that AMC has, which also looked pretty good. Yeah, yeah.

Also, they did put in effort. Blue drinks. It was on the Reddit, I think. Okay. That's not important. Anyway, I saw the film and I had Drinks. It was on the Reddit, I think. Okay. Anyway, that's not important. Anyway, I saw the film, and I had a great time. I do want to see it again. Yeah.

You want to go back to Pandora? I'm going on Sunday to the IMAX, Lincoln Square, the big one. I might see another IMAX this weekend. I want to try seeing it non-high frame rate 3D, although I do think this is far and away to try seeing it non-high frame rate 3D. Although I do think this is far and away the most successful

use of high frame rate. I would agree. I'd be curious to see the normal speed version. Yeah. For those who don't know, we've talked about high frame rate twice before

on our Ang Lee episodes. And we had a funeral for frames on our Patreon. Because it seemed like that was done. A failed experiment. Cameron basically was like, no, the whole thing is you can't do it for the whole movie. Do it selectively.

Right. That is James Cameron's gambit. And it's 48 frames as opposed to 120. Yeah, although isn't there all this stuff where like some elements in the frame are moving at different speeds than other elements? Yes. So the two basically hacks he came up with are,

it's like, well, how do you do variable speeds? The projector can't switch. And he's like, what I do is, for any sequence that is quote unquote at 24 frames per second, we copy paste each frame two times. So the frame repeats, which makes it appear to move at normal speed right but you're just doubling up the image and then when the sequences are 48 you just go into regular actual pure but then there's this company that i forget

who are the ones who came to him that used the re-release as the test balloon to say, like, we have figured out how to isolate different elements in the frame. If you only want to have the background moving, or only have the characters moving, or one character moving, so that he has a greater sense of control over what he can do with high frame rate. Whereas Ang Lee,

it was like, all or nothing. I think I would put Gemini Man number one. As the best use of? Yeah. Because I just don't, it's sort of like, I just don't think this needs it.

I will say though. Not that I'm, I'm not anti, I'm fairly neutral. Yeah. And I should, I should see it without to compare.

Yeah. There was a point towards the end of the movie. Because, Avatar the Way of Water... Avatar the Way of Water. Avatar the Way of Water. The first half of the film, the way he used it felt like when you see

a movie in IMAX that was partially shot in IMAX. Yeah, where it suddenly clicks into, like, oh, we're in some sort of visual effects sequence. Or, oh, we're, you know... The ratio changes. More that you feel

that immediate shift of, like, oh, now it's gone taller. And for this establishing shot or this one action sequence now, there's a new clarity, there's a new shape, all of that. Way of Water. There's a new way. Right. The first half of the movie, he'll

use it sparingly for little blurts and stuff, and then once you go underwater for the first time, he basically says, like, underwater, everything's high frame rate. Which is pretty dazzling. And it is incredible. If anything anything not to question big jim i'm like if he didn't do it once until you went underwater for the first time it would maybe almost feel like dorothy opening the door to us i agree it would have been i think it would have been more effective but it'd be cool right does feel like

he's trying to like slowly get the audience used to it before he's going to start using it more aggressively yeah maybe that would be good and then in like the last hour to it before he's going to start using it more aggressively. Yeah, but maybe that would be good. And then in, like, the last hour of the movie, he's using it in, like, dialogue coverage, close-ups, the exact kind of thing that seemed to foil Ang Lee. Right. And it starts feeling normal. This is why I think it's more successful than Gemini Man.

Sure, sure. I don't know. There gets to a point where he's using it for innocuous things rather than the money shots and I no longer was thinking about how weird it looked I want to go around the room here what did you think of Way of Water? loved it, bones bones

I loved it as well, Marie? I liked it I'm sensing reservations from the corners here Marie had a couple reservations that I think are very valid. But what should we do now? Can we go around again and just refresh people on what... Well, people don't know what I thought of the original Avatar, but... Avatar, 2009.

Okay, 2009. Griffin. Loved it. Owns bones. Sure. Okay. Yeah, fucking rules. I loved Avatar number one. You tweeted that it should have won Best Picture over The Hurt Locker.

Yeah. I stand by that. Marie, was that your first impression from the movie, or is it one that has grown on you? No, it was my first impression from the movie. I saw it at opening weekend, Lincoln Square IMAX, Big Theater, which I will be going to again on Sunday. How old were you when you did this?

I was in 2009. So I was... 13 years younger than you are right now 20 yeah and um i i really loved it sucks to think about actually yeah we're the exact same age it sucks to think i was i could not legally drink i know when the last you couldn't have gotten your agave aquarita if we, if I couldn't. Yeah. Not that, not that any theater would be. Right. It was illegal at that point in time. Yeah.

But no, I love the first one. I saw it again with my family the week of Christmas in Washington. And, you know, I saw the re-release. I saw the re-release. I had not really rewatched it since 2009. Right. Because so much of what Avatar was at the time was the in-theater experience whereas i've seen it multiple times on planes yeah no not not not me it's really good on a plane so griffin when you earlier were like people say avatar

is all about the visual experience but i'm really into the relationship with the characters. Great impression of him, by the way. To me, that felt like I read Playboy for the articles. I want to make it clear. I love the visuals of Avatar. All I was trying to say is that I, for me, the thing was never

this is pure immersive experience transporting. You know, it was like i like how well built this thing is uh in in a way i get emotionally caught up in it but i do feel like the things i get emotionally caught up in are the narrative and the characters which everyone else is like dismissive of because they are obviously very broad right he paints with a the broadest brush possible right it is very like primal mythic storytelling i like the visuals the thing i never got was the i want to live in pandora thing part of that admittedly is i'm not a nature boy i was about to say you're just not outdoorsy absolutely and of all the elements water may be the one i like the least

i don't swim. I don't like the beach. Any of this shit, right? And I watched this and it was, for me, I was like, I'm still liking everything I liked about the first movie. But I am more feeling the transportive, I just want to be in this. I could just watch them swim for two hours. Do you think that's because like a big chunk of the movie, like at least an hour of it,

there is no war? There's just swimming around. Yeah. Yeah. But this film has, look, I already said this in my review, but this film has the same structure as Avatar 1.

Identical. This is my whole thing with this film. I'm sitting down. I really know nothing because. They didn't make you stand they didn't make me stand and that was nice of them actually that's really this was not a standing room only screening good because disney can basically demand anything they want british soccer game in the 70s we're all just like it depends yeah a little bad crowd i'm sitting down in my own seat

didn't even have to share was it like jet blue where you had to pay extra to pick your own seat? No. Okay. Extra leg room. No, I didn't pay anything at all. This was a press screening. Nice work if you can get it. Obviously, there's been a trailer,

and we know the things that have been talked about for years. There's kids in this movie, you know, like things like that. But, like, I really don't know. I'm really sitting down being like, is this movie going to, like, be shot out of a cannon and completely insane? Right. Like, is this going to be like a total left turn kind of like, this ain't your daddy's avatar?

Like, you know, like, does it open minute one with Jake Sully, like getting an arrow in his head? Is he rewriting the rules? And then it's like 14 years later. You know, like I really have no notion of what's going on. And then the film film the first 45 minutes of the film i had the same tingles that i feel like everyone has when they watch avatar one the first time and then we felt watching the rewatch of like you know where you're like

it's a lot of like story time and like narrative setup it's clunky you're putting the weight on fucking voiceover narration to be like here are 18 more rules of this universe and I'm thinking like oh this okay so this is just okay like is that gonna be in the back of my mind I'm like

I know how Cameron likes to build like you know I'm not like completely giving up but you're like you haven't refined any of the things that people complain about the opening of the first movie. Right. And then the second hour hits and we're in the water. Yeah. And we're learning things and we're meeting creatures.

And I was like, fuck, right. I know there's action coming. Like, I know there's a big war coming. But I was like, I forgot this is the best part. He's basically quantified Avatar Into a genre in and of itself Or a sub-genre at least And been like this is the structure of

An Avatar movie And I said that I tweeted that before the film came out That it's like I was like it's like an Avatar movie And everyone was like lol there's only been two And I was like you don't understand He just like clearly Because I'm sure they wrote 40 million scripts. He's talked about how they had like other

pitches that they worked through and rejected. And I think at the end of the day, they were like, you know what? That worked. Not only that, I mean, he's made it very clear that like, you know, they finally make the deal to make the sequels, right? Which took a little bit after the first movie becomes the highest grossing movie in history.

And then was like, if I'm going to do this, I want to like shoot him back to back. I want to try to replicate what Peter Jackson did. That feels like the better model to do this rather than put all this energy into one movie at a time. The problem is we don't have books to adapt. I want to assemble a writer's room to build out a whole mythology

so that we can reverse engineer, plot it out all at once, have a sense of where we're going, reuse assets, whatever. Right. And he basically said he puts this room together. And for the first like two months of the room, he's like, before we start talking about any new ideas, the job is to quantify why the first movie was successful. He was like, I want us to study the first movie and figure out the things that people respond to.

Which is funny that he's sort of like, why did that thing work? Absolutely. That's the vibe. We'll get into it. But I think a lot of what worked about the first movie is missing from this. I don't think it's perfectly replicated.

This is madness. I can't believe it. I don't think it's perfectly replicated. This is madness. I can't believe it. I don't think it's perfectly replicated. I think you have the one specific you've called out that I don't disagree with. Well, I have two things. I just need to hear it. I'm in deep suspense here. So my first thing is I missed the romance. That's

the one I accept. Yeah. I think in all of these movies, these big epics, we've got Titanic, Blast the Mohicans, Crouching Tiger, Hidden Dragon. Yeah. Dances with Wolves.

Dances with Wolves, Avatar. There's got to be a love story. And especially in an era where blockbuster films often get called out for sexless. They are. Although Avatar was called out

for being too sexy. People were like, I don't like their hair lengths up. I'm not objecting. I think that is so fucking cool. Yeah, it rules. I love it. I wish I could do it.

So I did feel like the focus on the kids, it feels like they're setting stuff up for movie number two. I know who our star-crossed lovers are going to be there. Indeed. But I was... Sure, you're missing that. I was missing the sweeping romance. The Jake and A. Terry meet cute.

Yeah, yeah. Oh, you moron. You don't know how to get on the horse. But when, like, the water princess is showing up and flirting with the two older Sully boys, Marie was, like, rubbing her hands together, and she was like, here we go. Yeah, I was like, oh, here we got hot, sexy avatar team. And instead, that's more of a breadcrumb-y thing. Yeah.

That's more of a... And then the other thing, and this I didn't bring up to you because I just brought this up with Ben today before you guys arrived. I liked the device in the first movie where Jake Sully, the Marine, is paralyzed. And that him being an avatar.

It's part of the freeing experience for him he can walk he's got his legs again yeah and i also think that's a really great way to bring the audience into this world yeah and i know you don't have to do that anymore because we're already familiar with the world challenge the movie has right but it also introduces the quaritch as an avatar thing but we don't really... I don't know. I just miss the... I understand what you're saying. The, like...

I feel like the discovery that we have in this film is how cool the water people are. Yeah, I mean, that's... But I don't think that's as arresting an experience as the first movie. Can I offer a counter?

Yes, please do. One, obviously you can't... It's hard to replicate the first movie. Can I offer a counter? Yes, please do. One, obviously you can't, it's hard to replicate the first movie. Two, I do think there's something going on with Quaritch here where he's actually having that kind of experience without admitting it to himself. And that is a very interesting, fun arc

for the movie to have. But it also feels like because now he's thinking across five movies or four movies at once. Right. We're not getting as it's too breadcrummy for me. Like I felt a similar way after finishing Dune where I'm like, I can't evaluate. That's half a movie.

Yeah. I feel less that way about this. Certainly. But I do think, you know, it's one of the reasons why i questioned to make an avatar 2 let alone avatar two three four five is that jake sully's arc is so fucking complete in the first one it feels like yeah i think cameron's very smart about being like kids fundamentally change the stakes of the thing also if you go to different parts of the planet with different rules you somehow somehow take Jake back to a place of being an outsider. You know?

You once again put him in the hole. I do feel like it is impressive the way he figures out how to re-engineer some of that, right? Like taking Jake's status away, giving him new things to learn, somehow giving him outsider status again. When the first movie ends with him being

the most powerful B'vi Turek Mokhtar but what you're saying I think is impossible to replicate it is the thing that is so daring about the first movie that you end it with him being like and he is never going to be a human again

I do think yeah what do you think it did with his body? Throw it in the trash? Didn't he get swallowed up by the little glowing things? I don't know. I don't know what they do with it. Yeah, is it like the little glowing vines

grow over it? Or did it do with Dr. Grace Augustine's body either? They get reabsorbed into Awa. I think they fuck them. You know, Griffin. What? You're complaining there's no romance in this movie.

Yeah, romance, not sex. Avatar, The Way of Water, is set a decade, more than a decade, after the first film. Much like 2022 is set more than a decade after 2009. Yes. Yes. A lot of things have changed. Yeah. You know, he just published, he's been publishing this comic, David.

Avatar the High Ground. Not interested. Well, do you know what this is? No. Is it like fill in the blank time? Is it like, you know. This was his original Avatar 2 idea. And then he started being like,

fuck, I have too many ideas. I'm just going to zoom past this. So basically there was an entire concept for a movie that is glossed over in this opening 15 minutes of Jake Sully catching you up on the last 10 years. Yeah. That he's now published in comic book form.

But it does feel that way where people were like, does he have enough story for five Avatar movies? And then you watch this and the first 45 minutes or him breezing over what could be five complete movies. Like he's in such a hurry at the beginning to just get so much shit out of the way to get you to a starting point. Can I ask some questions about the timing of things?

Like how old are their children supposed to be? I think the oldest one is probably like, so the oldest child of course is called, sorry. It's like N something. Netayam. Netayam, okay. You know it's probably like

what, 14, 13? I was gonna say the two boys I'm thinking older. The boys feel like 15, 14 to me. They felt like 18, 19. The actors might, but we don't know how Navi aged. Excellent point. Spider's the oldest. Spider, I've got so many questions about. Yeah.

I don't know if we have answers, but you can ask them. He's being played by a 19-, but you can ask them. Yeah. He's being played by a 19-year-old actor. Right. Yes. But also, I mean, obviously, the process of these movies were very long. One of the reasons why Cameron was, like, the first major film to restart production during the pandemic in summer 2020 is he, like, wrote a letter to the New Zealand government and was like, this kid is aging so fast. If we don't get back in and finish the live action part of this

in the next two months, everything we've shot will not cut together. And they basically were like, any crew or cast you can fit onto one plane who all quarantine together. You have permission to start filming under strict supervision in like July, June or July 2020.

Maybe even earlier. I was shocked to find out that kid was 19. I thought he was like 27. And that was like one of my issues with the movie. He is one of those kids who just... I'm sorry, he's 18. He's not even 19. Okay.

Well, he must have been like 16, 17 when they were filming the movie. He just turned 18. Yeah. So, but he... He was cast at 14. I think most of the filming happened when he was 15 or 16.

Because that character felt like it was written for a 14-year-old. Yes. A lot of the butthole, like, I don't care, Dad. You know, like all that stuff feels like it should be a young teen.

But this kid, I think I said to you guys last night, he looks like the teen friend of someone on Full House in 1991 being played by a 27-year-old guy named Scott. Jack Champion's the name of the actor? Yep. Good name. It is not his fault. I know. He does just innately feel more like an adult playing a kid than an actual teenager. It's something about his voice and his face and whatever it is.

He's so ripped. He really is jacked. He's too jacked. Yeah. Yeah. None of this was a problem for me. You know why? Why?

It's set in a fucking alien world. I just don't care. But he's a human. I don't care. I'm not. I'm just like, this is like a weird movie. I'm not. The minute the movie was just like, there's a Rasta kid who we like are growing up and

he paints his body blue. I was like, I love this. Here's my movie. The minute the movie was just like, there's a Rasta kid who we like are growing up and he paints his body blue. I was like, I love this. Here's my thing. I love this. This is bananas. I conceptually love everything about Spider. This performance is the one

that doesn't work for me. I have a hard time identifying what it is. Some of it might be the weird vibe that Marie's talking about that's not his fault. And I don't think he's bad, but he feels like Worthington is a lot more comfortable in this movie.

Sure. And he feels like he's in the Worthington position where it's like some scenes feel forced. Some scenes he just feels a little wooden. It's also just mixed up with how he has two allegiances kind of. It gets muddy in a lot of places I don't think his performance

really like dug into the duality there it feels a little one and a little surfacy to me I don't think he is bad but it's like the character where you would love to see someone come in with a

really dynamic dynamite. It would be great to see this character pop or at least just have an actor who has a certain energy that's grabbing you. I think he's fine. I like Spider. I want to love Spider. Do you want to hear about Spider? I just read reading this interview with

please started filming when he's 13. Crazy. And I see that picture on the internet of that football player who was like 12 years old and has a mustache? I don't, I don't, I think that's, I don't buy it. That's a hoax. That thing's a hoax. That hadn't been said, Marie, though. From what I read about, like,

the pandemic concerns, I would be surprised if basically anything from when he was 13 is still in the movie. I'm sick. I think this kid aged so fast and so dramatically that they, like, yeah. He started shooting at 13, and he said, basically, they were like,

within two years, you're going to need to look good shirtless because the whole point is that you are a jungle Navi. Yes. You swing from trees. You have an insane physique because you have to keep up with all these guys. You need to take a twilight glow up. Yeah.

And so, you know, they gave him a personal trainer who basically was like, you're going to just do CrossFit and weightlifting all the time and like eat so much protein. Yeah. It sounds like my teen years. Kind of not good for you to do as a person at that age. Anyway. I can, you know, I have no comment.

You can basically, I will say that you can basically do whatever you want to yourself at that age and probably figure it out later. One's body is more resilient back then. But yeah. Anyway, that's the deal with him. He got to work out with Arnold Schwarzenegger a few times. James Cameron set them up.

James Cameron knows Arnold Schwarzenegger. He made the Terminator film. Really? Yeah. True Lies. He directed True Lies. Oh, wow. That's so cool. And they're friends in addition to being trusted collaborators on set. A thing I like that I heard, there was the good Sam Worthington profile in Hollywood Reporter

about sort of like what happened to him in between movies and him coming back and sort of like, yeah, and he was like, I didn't handle the pressure of fame well. He had a big drinking problem. He sobered out. He sort of like found himself. And I think he's actually better in this movie

than he is in the first one. I don't think he's terrible in the first one, but you do feel he's a lot more comfortable in this one. Sure. But what was I going to say? He said that it was really jarring for him when he went from Avatar to like the Clash of the Titans movies and Terminator Salvation

because he was like Cameron is actually really good at not letting the actors at the center of his movies feel the weight of the production and they had a quote from Cameron where he's like I really want to make actors feel safe and I want them to feel creative and I want to insulate them from all this and I really hold their make actors feel safe, and I want them to feel creative,

and I want to insulate them from all this, and I really hold their hands, and I tend to them, and I listen to them and all this. For a guy who's known for being pretty brash, right? Domineering, whatever. Yes, whatever. You don't think McG's like that? I don't know.

Similarly, there's a thing I heard that I think says a lot about Cameron. One of the kids, maybe the youngest kid who plays Took, has like not been doing the interview press junket stuff. Sure.

And people were like, is there a reason why? And the answer was, Cameron specifically put it in all of the kids' contracts that they were not obligated to do any press. Right.

That girl is like 13 years old. Yeah. Right. And he basically was like, you're going to be working on this for years. This press thing is a whole other rigmarole. This is scary and disorienting. I don't want you

to be contractually obligated to do anything you don't want to do. All I have hired you to do is the movie. If you want to go to premieres and shit, you can do that and I will look out for you. I'm trying to shield you from as much of this as possible. Which I think is kind of cool. Yes. And they're not visible

in the film, apart from Champion. Right. Who plays Spider. They're gifted a sense of anonymity if they want to. So, speaking about actors feeling safe, and people who are older playing younger, can we talk a bit about

our girl Sigourney? Sigourney Weaver. Sigourney? We absolutely can. Sigourney Weaver. Sigourney Weaver plays Kiri. Which I thought was Kitty the whole time. Well, because they have this sort of Navi accent. Maji. Maji.

Maji. Navi accent. Listen to me. This was announced early. You know, it when this year. Sigourney Weaver, we always knew she would be returning to Avatar, but it would be kind of like, you know, we'll let you know how that works. When we did our episode six years ago, my prediction on Mike was,

I think she is going to play the tree. I think even though they failed to transfer Grace's consciousness. You and I both were picking up on like, look, there was this thing that happened with the tree. It think even though they failed to transfer Grace's consciousness. You and I both were picking up on like, look, there was this thing that happened with the tree. It didn't stick. So that's the dangling thread they can pick up. Right. Her spirit got uploaded somewhere. But we were both thinking right, she would be kind of a vague

character. You know, like one of those scenes in Star Wars where they go talk to her. Right. And she's like, hi. Which they give her that scene as well. They do have a scene like that. But we were playing checkers and James Cameron was playing chess. He was playing like high lie or something. Right.

Yeah. He's playing a whole different sport. With like rocks. Yeah, right. Because, and it was announced, Sigourney Weaver will be playing a teenage character. A 14 year old girl. Right. And I was like, whatever, man. Like, sure. You know, great. Love it. A 14-year-old girl. Right. And I was like,

whatever, man. Like, sure. You know, great. Love it. No studio notes for you, buddy. When the first teaser comes out and there's no dialogue really in it, there's the one young... She has the dialogue.

She's the... How does her heart sound? Mighty. Well, no, that was the second trailer. I'm saying the first teaser we saw before Doctor Strange, there's the shot and you're like, that kind of looks like Sigourney.

Is he fucking doing this? And you're talking about sitting down and being like,ney is he fucking doing this and you talking about sitting down and being like I don't know what this movie is going to be it is fascinating that we knew for so long Stephen Lang is back Sigourney Weaver is back how I don't know don't question it this movie in the first like 10 minutes

devotes one sentence to each of them it's not like any sustained mystery and they're like here's the deal but no I truly was like Astonishing So he's like He's in voice over he's like years have passed We've had kids I'm like I knew it

I knew you fuckers would have kids You had that vibe Two boys of their own Two boys and a girl A little girl And then there were some leftover orphans. You know, there was a leftover orphan from the humans because you can't put babies in cryo.

And I'm like, what a great concept. I love that. Clever bit of sci-fi. I thought you would have gone back to Earth. He's like, you can't put babies in cryo, asshole. Great concept. Makes total sense. Probably true even in the vague understanding

of how that might work cool so there's like a human kid left over and i'm like oh he thinks he's a navi love that right he's the tarzan boy exactly yes and then they're like and then also there's this like weird thing where like grace's avatar body had a baby and i was just like what so they show up the movie and he's like no i'm not gonna stop we're gonna keep going they show her dead avatar body not it's not even dead it's like comatose because it doesn't have a brain but they fail to transfer the consciousness yeah so it's just kind of like a vessel they show with a pregnant belly they sure and they go like we never quite figured that one out anyway we've raised

and then like minute 12 of the movie she's like climbing on top of the the tube to talk to her mother and they're mocking her being like we think fucking norm spellman's your dad the rudest thing you could ever say to they are claiming i guess that either norm had sex with the avatar body right before everything went down or are they claiming that norm had sex with, like, the comatose Avatar body? Nobody really talks about it. Now, somehow, I don't know how... This is where, again, where the timing is not really, you know...

Our friends at Podcast The Ride had been... All of December, they're doing Feliz Navidad. Yes. The Way of Winter. I love that. A month of Avatar content, which is great. And they had heard the thing that it's like, Kuri is the child of Grace Augustine.

And before seeing the movie, we're trying to parse that where they're like, did she fuck when she was a human? Did she fuck in the Navi body? If she did, did another Navi fuck her? Was it another Avatar or true Navi? Was a human fucking her? All this stuff.

And so I'm caught up in my head about like, how are they going to fucking explain this? And I basically like that. They're just like, we, we don't know. I don't know. Anyway,

she's here and that's Sigourney Weaver. And I think Marie and I agreed giving a committed performance as a teen. Incredible. Dig into a lot. Incredible. Marie and I agree. And I wonder if you have the same read. Yeah.

I feel like Kiri is like, is like the reincarnation of the tree. Basically in the tree, basically. In the failure to transform. She is. She's Awa. Awa is her mother. Right. That's how I think of it.

Right. And I'm sure that will be, you know, their fodder in sequels. No one fucked the Grace Augustine avatar. We can just stop saying fuck. I'm going to say fuck a couple more times. When avatars, when Navi reproduce. Yeah. Is it through the braids?

No, I don't think so. We don't. They have genitals. Right. She's pregnant. She's pregnant. She has a womb. Right.

So there's, you know, she's not giving birth out of the braids. Because they're not fucking the banshees. When they join their braids together, I think it's just a very sexy experience. They're fucking the trees. But I kind of thought they were. No. That's part of it. That's why it's cool.

But it's like, what if you could cool They're like mounting the banshees What if you could have sex with each other And at the same time make like a weird mental Connection Yeah that's so cool But they're two separate things happening simultaneously Do they ever show toilets? They don't get into that

They never get into it That'll be the fourth movie Jake Sully's like man I gotta take a shit The third one is Let me show you how that works. She has, you know, the women, Navi, have breasts. I believe someone

in, like, some scientist back in the day was like, that would not make sense given how, like, the biology of this works. And James Cameron was like look the girls have boobs what do you want from me i don't know like there's certain sacrifices i'm making for visual storytelling that maybe he shouldn't have i don't know but the heavy rumors of the third movie is called the seed bearer that has long been the rumored title this is correct which

makes me wonder if we're getting into all that more but yes i think we all have the same interpretation that something happens in the process of trying to transfer Grace's dying consciousness into the Avatar along with the mother tree dying and them connecting to A1 something where it's Jesus right well the Anakin Skywalker thing is obviously a little inspired by old JC

I don't know if you ever heard of the tale of Darth Plagueis the Wyatt no I don't want to talk about him but no yeah and like but this is the thing I was worried it was going to be more of a Rise of Skywalker situation where like Palpatine's like, I had children. And you're like, bitch, you had children. How did you have to? What's the, when did you, did you go to bed with someone?

Did you take a shower before? Like, you know, you immediately start thinking about mechanics and it's like, don't think about it. Yes. When they set up the, no, she doesn't know who her father thing is. I got worried. And the more it became clear, like, no, she is like a manifestation

of all these things. I felt such a sense of relief. I like this character so much. It is such a good performance. It is an incredibly winning performance. It also was the most exciting aspect of the film to me to think about future like, future implications for the technology.

Yes. Where we've talked a lot about actors doing de-aging. I mean, we saw the Indiana Jones trailer before. Which, look, the brief glimpses in the trailer, that is far and away

the most successful de-aging I've ever seen in anything. It actually seems to work. We'll see if it holds up when he talks. But this is more interesting yeah it was it clearly was her face yeah on a blue body yeah the age and it looked great and he she did all the stuff she did mocap acting she learned to dive you know i kept thinking

about her on set doing like child acting it felt like very like acting exercise. This is what I'm... And that felt... I loved that. I was like, oh, she probably had so much fun playing around with this. A lot of the actors who have done mocap, like established film actors for decades

who then do one of these mocap volume movies say like, it's great. It takes you back to your experimental theater days. You're in a black box. You takes you back to your experimental theater days. You're in a black box. You're only relating to the other actors. You're not thinking about the camera. And suddenly you can play all these things that you couldn't literally play on camera.

And you do feel that thing. She talks a lot about in interviews that he showed her the first design for the character. And she, like, looked like just a slightly younger Sigourney. And she was like, no, she should be awkward. Her proportion should be off. Her limbs should be gangling.

I was a weird tall teen who didn't know how to move my body. Like, I want her to be more uncomfortable. And you can tell Sigourney is relishing the chance to move her body in that way, in a way that no one would ever let her literally play on screen. On stage, she could do it, no one would question it. Wow, what a good performance. FYI, 14 years.

That is the definitive answer. Just looked it up. This is 14 years after Avatar. Well, she's basically... So it's in real time. Essentially. And the oldest kids, if we're assuming Kiri is kind of the same age as the oldest boy, are 13, 14.

13, 14. Okay. They're a little... It seems like these boys develop early in the Avatar. You know, Pandora, the boys develop early. I don't know what that's a reference to. All these boys seem older. Kind of. What do you mean, though?

Like, what do either of you mean? I don't know. Like, what, do you want them to have body hair? They don't have body hair in Avatar. No, I don't know. I'd love to have want them to have? Body hair? They don't have body hair in Avatar. I don't want them to have body hair. They seem mature. They seem mature. And also, in my head, I'm thinking about romance. And I'm like, well, it's got to be the teens have to fall in love.

How old is Neytiri? You don't have an answer to that question because you don't know. I thought she would have been like 18, 19. 47. But this doesn't come up because it's all nonsense. But Spider being a human is really fucking with my perception of things. He's a teen. We want permission to want to see a romance.

Yeah. Interesting. You can have a cute teen romance. It feels like you're setting up a Curie Spider fan love thing. Right, right. This is what I said after we got out of the screening where I'm like, God, Spider's too old. He's got to be a 14-year-old kid, which I guess he was, but he

didn't look like that to me. But I'm like, well, if he's going to have a love scene with Sigourney Weaver in a mocap suit, he can't be a 13-year-old. Yes. He's got to be of age. It's the Jacob thing. He needs to be a little bit of a man.

I like her bangs. I like everything about her. I think she's so cool. She rules. I like her bangs. I like everything about her. I think she's so cool. She rules. Yeah, I don't know. I'm just going to leave all of that and just kind of push it out to see on a big ice flow.

A lot of these are, as we said, dangling threads about what he has in store. Certainly there's more coming. And it's the first time he's ever done that.

Yes. Obviously, he's made sequels. He's made two of the great sequels. Yep. Aliens and Terminator 2. But Terminator 1, you know, kind of has that vague, like, who knows what the future holds thing. But, like, it's not made with the intent.

This is the first time that he is doing any sort of serialized thinking. Like, you know, this film is ending and I'm like, oh, there's a lot, like, to be revealed. This is his whole thing. We have to design all of these together. But that's a risk. Absolutely. As you guys were saying. He's now basically talked about like, all of

three is in the can. Yeah. Three's coming out, no matter what. Pieces of four. This thing could make $8 and I think they probably still like, well, we might as well release the ring. It's coming out in two years like clockwork. It's done. They've shot some pieces of four and basically none of five. And he basically

has said like, if this flops, three will come out, but we maybe don't make four and five. I have designed this in that like three kind of has an off-ramp closing point. And then four and five reinvent the thing a little bit. So it won't feel

incomplete if we only get to three. But you definitely feel like a lot of this is setting up stuff for three. Not in a way that I think is... I sometimes find frustrating with middle chapters, especially in these we-always-planned-it-as-a-trilogy

kind of series. I do think this is a full meal on its own. I agree. But there's certain things like the Quaritch arc, what Kiri becomes, Spider, where you're like,

these are leaving us on an ellipses. Yeah. So they live, the Sully family lives with the Amidakaya, the clan, the forest clan we all know, in the trees. They live way up there in the Magic Mountains,

the Floating Mountains now, right? Not in Hometree. No. R.I.P. One of the greats. Salute. Bless up.

Let's pour one out. Yeah, pour one out. Yeah. And they have kids and like, you know, things are fine. The flash photo of the Sully family. Whatever, man. I love it. The eyes being blown they're like yeah we're navi and then once in a while jake's like look i know i'm a navi now but like can we do like this

human thing like you know yeah it made me think of the end of uh old dogs oh yes they should all have crazy old crazy faces but then i can't believe it one day they see something in the sky Big bright flashes And that's right the humans are back The sky people have returned They're giant ass fucking ships decelerating It's pretty cool actually They come out in their amp suits

These humans are not going to stay away for long They make a new city called Bridgehead City Giant By just burning everything down. Yeah. And one of the people among these new folks, of course we've got Edie Falco. Of course.

We love to see her. General exposition. In a stilt suit that is very cool. I knew she was in the movie. I did not know who she would be playing. I knew she was playing a bad guy. I knew she was playing a boss. The minute I know who she would be playing. I knew she was playing a bad guy. I knew she was playing a boss. The minute I saw Edie Falco in a mecha suit,

I lost my shit. Shrinking coffee. She is using her controls to have the robot arm hold a giant coffee cup. And why not? It is great. This is the galaxy brain shit that only Cameron has the balls to do.

I think it was you or someone else last night who brought up the humans' reliance on coffee. Yes. But it is interesting because isn't that like a resource that we mine from indigenous communities? We did. I mean, it's not like coal or something. You can plant more coffee, obviously. And absolutely. Grace also has her like fucking cigarette vice in the first movie, which is similarly like a thing from the earth that we have like, you know, I do. It's just it's a recurring motif. These people in the RDA fucking downing their coffee smugly.

coffee smugly um yes it is i mean i think it's partly just cameron loves that kind of old school like you know storytelling like of we're introducing grace she wants a cigarette it's like i get this this is like kind of a hard-bitten lady who you know and the same with the coffee it's like agree with me i do think it has a little bit of a deeper thematic yeah sure but i also just think you know right they're easy character signifiers too you know exactly in the morning etc i mean he likes you know this is the thing people dig him for but he likes relying on on cliches and tropes as shorthand because he has so much fucking world building to do that it's like look if i can get you to understand what type of character this is this gives me the time to set up the things that are more complicated or

allow you to spend an hour just swimming rather than really having to build a nuanced backstory pretending to float right now um so they show up and of course along with ed falco who i could watch a whole movie about her just running this base is uh colonel miles quaritch okay he's back baby what a good explanation this whole time i've been like how do they fucking explain this he wakes up in this navi body and they play him a video that's quaritch being like look if you've seen this the video is so good it's so he's like look i'm not gonna die but you're making me do this these fucking pussies are making me back my consciousness up into the cloud that's basically this navi body wakes up and is an iCloud backup of miles core rich and the rda is like look you want to take this big

dramatic theatrical grandstand against the navi go to war with them that's fine let's back you all up so if this doesn't work, you all come back as giant tall blue people and we do it our way. So all these grunts are waking up. Here's a big question we debated. Yeah. Do you think the Navis or the soldiers

are built with their tattoos on or do they upon waking up going, my tattoo is a key part of my personality. Please reapply it. My guess is the second. Interesting. I thought they were just... But I don't think tattoos work that way.

I agree. You know, they're not like... But what if in the future... Maybe. The tattoo is now part of our... Designer engineering DNA mix. That's fine. I'm on board with that.

Obviously, that is not textually established. But you did notice that he didn't have the scars, right? He doesn't have the scars. Right. You know, he doesn't. He is a baby. He's a baby.

In one way, he is Miles Quaritch. All the same memories up to before his death, up to the day before he died. But in another way, he's a brand new person. I like that it's kind of a

prestige thing where you're like, this guy both is and isn't. Exactly. He understands that a lot of his sense of self is false. He's filled with human resentment, but he is not human. Right. He is father to Spider, spoiler alert. Although anyone can figure that, but he's actually not.

And when he says that shit, he's not bluffing. He's not being an asshole. I think he's conflicting. He's working it out in his own head, because it's complicated. Yes. The other guys are stupid. They're just like, whoa, we're Navi now.

All right. You know, like, they don't have a lot going on. You weren't excited to see Private's Pike and Wayne fleetback? Sure. I love their wraparound sunglasses. Oh, yeah. Great sunglasses. I just love these tacky Navi bros.

I know that they're like, we're Navi now, but I got my Oakleys. Like, come on. And then the lady marine with her bubble gum yes the video is the only time we see Giovanni yeah this is the only time we see Giovanni who I'm sure was like de-aged for the video because he looks

exactly the same yeah I think clearly do the same with Siguruni as well in the video when Kiri talks to her very well done Giovanni Urbisi showing up in the background when Kiri talks to her. Very well done. Jeevan Irbisi showing up in the background of a voice memo, a video memo for 30 seconds.

Gets single card billing. Probably gets paid twice as much as I've ever paid for anything in my entire life. I just was doing the math while watching it. And good for him. But he may be in another one. Who knows? Maybe he shows up in the third meeting. Alright, you guys are fucking up. Come on, I'm here to fix things. I would love be in another one. I'm guessing. Like maybe he shows up in the third meeting. All right, you guys are fucking up.

Like, come on, I'm here to fix things. I would love to see him back. We all know. Because then he could be older. I love Parker Selfridge. Me too. One of the great characters of cinema. Evil industrialist Parker Selfridge.

Loves cheddar. His vice. Yes, exactly. But of course, a thing we don't know and is not revealed until the third act of this movie, basically, or the end of the second act, is that unobtainium, that shit is old news. We've moved on. They don't even care about that anymore. I mean, maybe they do and maybe they're still getting it, but it's kind of like, yeah, sure. We've got some new currency, baby. I'm just going to say it now.

Yeah. That the basically brain matter. Yeah. Of the whale species that lives on this planet. Spaceball brain juice. Yeah, just call it what it is. Brain juice makes you immortal. Yeah.

It's the fountain of youth. Which I truly love because I wasn't really thinking about it. And then, of course, I'm realizing in the movie, I'm like, why are they hunting the whales, though? What's going on here? And when the guy's like that stuff, and I'm like, he better not be about to say that it's a clean fuel. Like, that's boring. And he's like that stuff and i'm like he better not be about to say like that it's a clean fuel like that's boring and he's like that is it's vanity that is a real world analog though because we do kill whales for um makeup yes amber gris they're they're a little

special stuff but you know a movie i like a lot that James Cameron was involved in, Terminator Dark Fate, where some people felt like this is annoying and cynical because it undoes any sense of success from Terminator 2. They didn't stop Judgment Day, right? It's the whole problem with doing a Terminator sequel. Of course. To a great Terminator sequel. What I think he does well in that movie, what Cameron did as a writer and producer and sort of organizing the story for that thing. well in that movie, what Cameron did as a writer and producer and sort of organizing the story for that thing,

and I think it's a thing that similarly Lon Wachowski did very well on Matrix Resurrections that I like, is it doesn't feel like this flip kind of like, I don't know, it didn't work. They're both getting at this thing where it's like, stop it, but you know the basic fucking impulses of human beings.

We don't learn from our lessons. We repeat history. So in Terminator Dark Fate, it's dark fate it's like yeah you stop judgment day and then guess what they a new company a different company cyberdyne didn't activate sky but someone else figured someone else fucking did it and similarly in this it's like you don't tame thing is over we're never gonna stop trying to mine this planet and this one more than in the first one they start acknowledging like we all know earth is fun well this is i was about to say this that's the other thing falco is very clear about that right we need to colonize this planet because earth is bad now jake does say get the resources and bring them back to earth but longer term plan we need to live here jake does say in

the first movie when he hooks up with a what if you remember before the battle or he's like my world you know it's broken it's not green anymore's not nice. So you have that sense in the first film, but this is much more explicit where it's like, this is not just some offshore mining operation. Humanity is on a hundred year plan to fully move to this place. We can live here, even though obviously they can't breathe the air. So I don't know what the plan is there, but my guess is terraforming or something insane like that.

Anyway, that's what they're doing. They're there. And so there begins the sort of first act action stuff, which is that Jake and company become like kind of a, you know, an insurgency cell. Like they're guerrilla fighters. They're disrupting RDA supply lines. They blow up a train.

They, you know, all that shit. The other part of it too is that like Korich wakes up and immediately is like, Sully! Right. Like, his overriding emotion is, I hate that guy. I do find it interesting that he doesn't remember that Neytiri is the one who really actually kills him.

Because he doesn't know. It doesn't happen to him. Right. But Sully was obviously his main rival. So he's got this personal vendetta against, like, I understand the marching orders i have from the company but also i just want to fucking kill jake sully for myself correct so target on jake sully's head anything he's trying to do as a leader and as a father is is greatly compromised

by the fact that he's putting everyone around him in danger there's a little of that yeah by his very existence. Right. They're always going to have a target on their head. Yeah. His kids will always be in danger because they can be used against him. It's Cameron's running on empty. But there's also, yes.

They were the weather underground and now River Phoenix can go to music school. But then there's also this sort of thing of like, Jake runs his family like a military unit because he's a Marine. Like that is how he kind of understands things, right? His kids call him sir yes he's not like an unloving father but there's like you know he seems to struggle with discipline right you know like it's kind of like he's like why won't they just do what they're told you know and they're teenagers he doesn't get that it's all very cute and interesting he's a he's a fairly flawed dad. Which the movie is about. It's not like the movie is ignoring that.

I would argue it becomes James Cameron's most personal film ever. A take I've seen other people have. Did you read, I think it was in the Empire long form interview with him. This thing about the Cameron family meeting. Oh my God. I'm already impressed, but go ahead. This is good. No, no.

I'm not. Yes, yes. But it's going to hit like a ton of bricks, okay? The structure of his family is very similar to the structure of this movie. Basically, I think... He has four kids, I believe, over... He had two kids with Susie Amos, his current wife. Yes. Susie Amos has one or two kids from a previous marriage, James Robards.

Is that his first name? Am I getting it wrong? Sam Robards. Sam Robards. Is that his first name? Am I getting it wrong? Sam Robards. Sam Robards. And then they have the oldest child is the child that he had with uh... Linda Hamilton. But all those kids lived under the same roof for a long time, right? This sort of like built

family. Yes. Um, he goes and makes the first Avatar movie. very intensive process uh takes years is wildly successful and he's like i run my family like a military operation i run it like a business everyone has to speak to each other with radical honesty i don't believe in like saying things to spare people's feelings we have to be direct to each other because i have no room for inefficiency or whatever super chill right and he's like that's how I operate I finish avatar I come

back home to decompress and my wife is like James we have been waiting for you to be done we understand you've been busy but we're overdue for a family meeting and he's like okay what's up and they're like we have some gripes with you here's your system we're turning it back on you kids floor is yours and they're like

you're a shitty dad you're a shitty dad. Sure. You're a shitty dad and an asshole. Right. You barely have time for us. And beyond that, you only know how to relate to us in telling us what you would do and how you would do it. You do not relate to us as people.

Stunning that that's James Cameron's vibe as a dad. Can't believe it. Yes. And also they probably were like, stop going underwater, you freak. Right. We don't die. that right but also don't go away for months on end to fucking go down the mariner be like i'll be gone for 18 months if i ever make it back from the deepest darkest parts of the sea the belly of the earth um and sigurani on a trench mariana trench that's what's called

sigurani has talked about like to be clear he's mispronouncing her name deliberately guys just FYI it's a bit that we did a million years ago

yes but she has said like how radically different he was on this movie than any time she's worked with him in the past she's obviously worked

with him twice before and he's been like I kind of learned how to become a nicer person in between Avatar and Avatar 2 my children like really got through to me it's been 13 years made me reassess my life he does seem

chill in a way that he has not before I'm not saying I know anything about the man but this press tour he'll take his snipey little funny shots at like Marvel movies and all that and I and you'll be like ah Jim you rascal you know but like that's fine but it generally does seem a little blissed out like considering he's been working on these things I've learned that I can still be demanding and exacting about what I want but I can also

get those things out of people by being nice to them whereas I previously thought the only way you could do that was through intimidation anyway all of the Jake Sully arc stuff I do think he's poured a little of that himself. A lot. A lot. But yes, the Jake Sully certainty of, I know what

I'm doing, I'm doing the right thing. And basically getting to the point where the family's like, you need to chill out. You are causing problems. That's what sort of is building to. But like, I don't know how you guys felt, but when Jake is like, we gotta go. We gotta go. We gotta leave the Amidakaya. We got to leave this place because they're always going to be chasing us. I cannot be Turok Mukto anymore.

I'm going to resign. This guy here, you know, Jimmy the Na'vi, he's a great guy. He's going to be in charge now. I renounce my wish. I love how there's just like, there's that guy who's like, huh? You're the chieftain now. I asked this question last night Because I remember Jake bonding with the big

Banshee Turok Was a big deal in the first one So this guy just gets grandfathered in No no no Jake doesn't even ride Turok Jake's got his regular guy That he still rides Well then who's riding Turok

Nobody Turok's wild There are two different titles that Jake Sully has that he still rides. Well, then who's riding Turok? Nobody. You don't fucking ride Turok. That guy is a scare-ass. Marie, there are two different titles that Jake Sully has, right? One is the title he essentially inherited from Wes Studi of like the leader of the clan. He's the chieftain.

Right. He passes that title on to the Dave of this universe. I want to see Avatar 3 be about Sam Worthington playing a milquetoast guy from a small town where they're like, you look kind of like Jake Sully.

Do you want to fill the role? And there's a Navi Frank Langella who's like, stick to the script. That's what I want to see. But Tariq McToe, the title is over. He's like, I had that. You don't have to be that unless you are a writer of the last show. There hadn't been one of those in generations.

And I resign my title. No one is that. I thought he was giving that title to the new viewer. And I'm like, that is unfair. He gives the other title. He gives the chieftain title. But when he's making this decision, my point is I was kind of like, this is a bad move

because what's going to happen is what happens in the movie. They're just going to find you wherever you go anyway. You might as well fight. And so much of the movie is building to Neytiri being like, find you wherever you go anyway. You might as well fight. Right. And so much of the movie is building to Neytiri being like, we have to stop doing this. We have to just fight.

But at the same time, is he right? But they're also, they're traumatized after the destruction of Home Tree. They probably don't want to put their people through that again. Right.

And you know, it's fine. Yeah. But essentially, they move to like Canada. It's like they live in Florida and they move to Winnipeg Yes

Because they like show up you know to the ocean clan And they're like hey guys You're the ocean guys right can we hang out here Like we're sorry Yes Right like he's moving to a whole other country Yes It's the Simpsons going to Alaska

I would say it's less Canada more like going to New Zealand Yeah Or Hawaii By the way is another thing that happens I would say it's less Canada, more like going to New Zealand. Well, exactly. Or Hawaii. I was just doing drastic shift. You're right. By the way, is another thing that happens in between Avatar and Avatar 2 is James Cameron moves to New Zealand, takes his whole family there and chills the fuck out. And makes this entire movie there, obviously, and all the sequels.

Yeah, so they go to the Met Hyena clan. Yes. No, it takes a while to get, like, enough has happened to get to the water? Yeah. I think more than that. Maybe an hour. Yeah, it felt like that was, like, the first third of the movie.

Yeah. I think it's an hour and change. Well, you didn't want to get a cramp. Most of the movie is with the Met Caina. I'm just saying, because I know when we walked out of the first screening where the things went wrong, at minute, like, 35, you're still in Jake voiceover filling you in.

Then you have the extended sort of raid, train, sequence, whatever. I think it's basically like an hour, hour 15 where they go to the water. Because I remember it being deep enough in where I was like, oh, right, this movie is about water. This is the main location we're actually going to live in now for the next two hours. But I do love, they show up, and this is new, right? I didn't know this. They have five fingies, and that marks them as different from regular Navi. It is visually established in the first movie, but never called out.

Right, I didn't know that. It's the one signifier between the avatars and the true N'Vie Is they have the human number of digits They have human hands And N'Vie I guess only have four fingers They also have longer fingers They have Mickey Mouse hands but with long ass fingers I mean good for them I guess they're more like Jack Skellington hands

Yes but I just love that they're showing up We know nothing James Cameron is really good at this Yes At just being like don't worry we'll fill in as we go. Same with things like the whale stuff. There's that one moment in the first movie where Jake Sully's like, I had to unite all the clans.

Yeah. And you see him just fly to like three clans and go like, hey, and you don't hear what he's saying. All right, I'll see you later. So you know there are these other communities, but he hasn't fleshed these out at all for us. And only dorks think about this. I think 99% of people who saw Avatar 1 was like,

all Na'vi live in the forest. Right. Even though there was the big implication like, no, there's like water Na'vi, there's mountain Na'vi, there's, you know, name a place. There's one of those. Desert. Fire Na'vi? We talked about this. Yeah, we want either underground mole people Na'vi

or desert Na'vi. We don we want either underground mole people Navi. Cool. Or desert Navi. We don't want, not either. We have five, seven movies to go. You want all of these. Yeah. I want worm Navi. There's definitely, I was browsing the Avatar wiki. There's all kinds that have already been established

and all the bullshit, you know, that can clearly be dispensed with. I think you can almost argue that the, Video games and such. The clan in the first movie is like the air clan, right? Because they're like, rooted in the Banshees, the flying mountains,

obviously the tree and whatever. There is a more air clan than them. Really? Yes. The Omidakaya are the forest clan. Okay, specifically. They're forest. The big air clan,

and I want to look this up. Let me just, let me just, fucking blue sky here. We want like subterranean mold people, Nivi, who we're saying maybe they like glow bright green.

Or have like giant eyes. Correct. I also want subterranean mole people, Nivi, who are saying maybe they like glow bright green. Or have like giant eyes. Correct. Yeah. I also want to learn more about like mushrooms, fungus, like all that stuff. Great call. Yeah. Bugs. As much as Ben disavowed being a dry guy. The Kekunan

clan. Okay. The greatest Banshee riding clan of them all. Wow. Known for their fast reflexes And bright boisterous colors That Kekutan love nothing more than to leap and dance From one floating mountain to another I like it So that's like probably

You know more of a banshee focused clan I guess I don't know Jordan Fish pitched Avatar the Gust of Dust So that's like desert The desert clan right And I want fucking Fire Navi Fire Navi that's cool With like fucking red stripes

Avatar the Eternal Flame Let's see there's also apparently The Olangi clan who are migratory They're nomadic They move from place to place Those have to be our Yeah they're versed But those should be our... Yeah, they're verse. But those should be our desert guys.

There's the Rekhanu clan who live in arid highlands. And they are more farmers than hunters. Okay. Sound boring. Yeah. Sound like the kind of guys who get their asses kicked in that one. I'm looking here. There's the Jones clan, which is like gated housing communities. They sort of have like NIMBY energy.

And they're just like, just give me my space. Give me my little McMansion. And, of course, again, all of this can, I'm sure, just be, like, dumb, because this is all from, like, video games and comic books mostly. But I like that the Takami clan

are kind of like, they're like the religious, they're like the keepers of A1 knowledge, right? Because I love that idea. Oh, so, so, that you would meet some kind of, like, priest-type guys. on a voyage to them

in one of these movies. To become, you know, head priestess. Maybe meet the seed bearer. Maybe that's who the seed bearer is. Yeah. Someone's got to be bearing that seed. Right? Yeah. Can I say something? I know we've passed this part in the movie, but I do want to shout this out. Because when it happened,

I turned to Ben and Griffin and I was like, I cannot believe he just did that the when we first meet the teen sons of sully jake and nateri yes and yep and there's like a jake voiceover line he's like you know i got so fluent in in avi have to talk about this it sounds like english it sounds like English and then the rest of the movie is in English. But it's implied that they're actually speaking. No, they are. It's not implied. It was a huge question for me. Right. I cannot believe he did that.

They built an entire Na'vi language. Everyone in the movie is speaking Na'vi. A lot of the dialogue in the first movie happens in the subtitles. The only reason there's so much in English is because he spends a lot of the movie speaking to humans and they have to speak to him. They have to speak like sky people because he won't understand this movie barely has human characters exactly my fear was i was like he's not gonna are they just gonna get about me right yeah no no i thought it'd be the other way interesting because like james

cameron does love his you know his world no i saw i mean i love that they're like pretty quickly like anyway but and the subtitle dissolves. It does. It's amazing. It's really clever. Yeah. I think it's a really good story choice. I just think he's so smart about which things fall into who gives a shit category where you're just like, this is the full amount I need to explain this.

I'm doing it this way because it makes it easier for you to watch. It makes this film less alienating. I've come up with an explanation in the body of the film that supports it and then just go with it. It also had me wondering the entire movie, like, what the Navi term is for bro and cuz. Yeah.

Because they keep saying it. Although, that's the thing. You do know that they don't speak Navi well, because Spider has to be their translator. No, he's just saying the teens. The teens are always like, hey, fuck you guys. But I'm saying the grunts say bro a lot, too. That's translator. No, he's the grunts. The teens. The teens are always like, hey, fuck you, guys. But I'm saying the grunts say bro a lot, too. That's true.

Well, they're speaking English. No, I know. That's what I was going to say. Sorry. We're confusing threads. Yo, bro, you want to step to me right now, bro? Like, let's take this outside, bro. And I'm like...

I mean, we know that they have a word for moron. Scone. Scone. Scone. Scone. That's in the first movie. So, yeah, maybe they have kind of a colloquial dialect i wish that they said full-on cousin and not just cuz because you know like i i just want to continue the vibe of the

bear oh yeah well but the bear owns cousin that's true the bear actually has that all to itself uh bear should cross over with there should just be i kept doing that like with game of thrones i was like my new game of thr Thrones show is just gonna be Guy has to open a restaurant His brother died Just to do that in every world Speaking of Game of Thrones I thought that there was a lot of House of the Dragon energy

With the teen brothers I guess there's a little bit of that Of this sort of like The um The crown looms And then you've got the rival brothers That are like the the um you know the um yeah the crown looms right like you've got the rival brothers that are like the the bad boys i'm gonna spoil something right away okay not right well now not right we've been recording for like 40 hours right yeah i'm watching the film and i'm a little alarmed that i don't really know the difference between the two kids. I'm not alarmed in terms of like my personal safety.

I feel safe and comfortable. One's got a ponytail. But I was just like, huh. James Cameron's usually pretty good at kind of like giving me distinct guys. They're so close in age. They're close in age. They look so similar.

They have very similar personalities. They're Navi. Like, am I supposed to be really? Like, you know, I can't even. Obviously, there's the younger son. I'm getting more of his arc because he's disappointing his dad he's kind of a little easily led into you know being in trouble then the older son i'm like who is he like is there anything here and then about 90 minutes in the movie i was like oh he's he's dead he's dead i i just immediately clicked

and i was like oh because like i thought watching this i think we've talked about i was like are they gonna kill off jake sully are they gonna kind of do the rude yeah Sam Worthington sorry your time is up Hollywood says no more so you actually have to die to make some stakes here yes and then quickly realizing no this movie is very invested in Jake Sully Jake Sully's not going anywhere that having been said at the end of the film sure at the end of the film I'm wondering if anyone's I truly believed it and I would have felt like if you kill him at this point, it's not rude. You've sort of vindicated him. Yeah, but I knew they wouldn't.

I knew because the son of a dog. I knew they wouldn't give us two deaths. Our buddy Jordan Fish made a great point. I just immediately was like, oh, fuck this kid who I don't know anything about. He's he's doomed. I think that's too boring. I think we should have known a little bit more. You think so?

I just think they're a little bit interchangeable. And then it gets to the point. The moment where you realize the older brother is going to die is the moment where the younger one starts developing an actual personality. Oh, I don't agree with that. I think the younger one's personality is very clear. It's that the older one has no personality. That's what I'm saying, don't you? I kept getting them.

Oh, sure. You don't mean literally when you think he's going to die, like when he's been shot. You mean like when it's kind of dawned on you. When the younger brother starts getting meat put on the bones, I'm like, this is my character. Once he's bonding with the whales and everything, I'm like, this guy's now become a character. I care about him.

I can pluck him out of the lineup. The older one is shifting further and further into the background. The little girl is cute. She's a cute little girl. She sticks in the head. And the older brother is the one who's like, why are you? Right.

Can I ask? Because I thought they looked alike too. Who is the hot reef girl into? Which brother? The younger brother or the older brother? The older one, right? Because she's holding his dead body when he dies.

No, she's into the younger one. She's into the younger one. Really? Yes. They have a forbidden romance. I also felt like she was kind of pitting them against each other. The older one is only in love with

saying yes sir to his dad. He doesn't have anything going on. See, I think if older brother had the romance, there just needs to be something more so that if... It's fine, but it's a three hour ten minute movie. Because, I mean... They made their choices. For House of the

Dragons, spoiler for the series, if you haven't watched it, the brother we know more about is the one that. I truly think you could have James Cameron devoted three minutes to it and had most of it play out in the backgrounds or watch shots. The two of them holding hands. No, but I don't. He doesn't want that. He wants the romance to be because the whole thing with the middle kid. I just think it would have worked better. But then the middle kid's got nothing.

No, kid connects to the whales. No, kid has the whale. Yeah, but he needs to be with the girl in movie three. Then we can get to that after the older brother does it. Because she's mourning the death of older brother. I'm with Dave. It makes him more conflicted. I hate the I'm dating my brother brother's widow girlfriend fuck that i mean

hunter biden did it i hate that peter bogdanovich did it i you guys are naming some of the most cursed individuals who ever existed in american society i just think that's compelling in terms of the art i don't think that's compelling for a family kind of keeps putting the older brother in danger he kind of keeps pulling him in. The older brother keeps being like, we shouldn't do this, but okay. You know, like that's kind of his, like he's just, he's just Jake Jr. Yeah, he really is. No, he's

not Jake Jr. Because Jake took risks. Well, you're right. You're right. He's Jake's model son. He's a rule follower. He's boring. Get rid of him. No one cares. That's what they do. He's the son Jake thinks he wants. Right. Whereas he recognizes the other son is actually more like him.

When he says, I see you, that got me. You guys are just explaining why this is good. Yeah, that's why he wants bone. Yeah, exactly. It's not a problem at all. I agree with Marie on some of these things. By the way, I'm not like digging the movie, but there are things where I'm just, and part of it is, it's hard to just fully gauge because you're like where's he

going with all of this especially this is why I'm very excited to see it again because I won't be too worried about like okay what's next I did say last night there's a lot to process on first year one of the first things I asked Griffin was like how do you feel about this

compared to Top Gun Maverick and I think that's an unfair question for a lot of reasons because Marie I saw Top Gun Maverick? And I think that's an unfair question for a lot of reasons. Because Marie, I saw Top Gun Maverick with you. I know. And you were not sure how you felt about it. And then when I saw it the second time, I was like, masterpiece, five stars. I'll say, I had a similar thing where I enjoyed Top Gun

the first time I saw it. The second time I saw it, it really like soared for me. But it took flight in your imagination one might say right it built a ramp out of the wreckage of a non-specific military base from a foreign enemy whose faces are never seen um no i i my response to marie was i think top gun is more successful in delivering just like fucking satisfying popcorn clean entertainment. Absolutely. I think this is a more sophisticated movie. And I don't say that in any backhanded way.

But I think this is like also a lot more sophisticated than the first movie. The thing that's fascinating to me, what you were saying, I had sort of been predicting for a while of like, is Jake Sully going to die in the first like 20 minutes of this movie? And then the narrative is going to get passed on to someone else? The thing that was surprising to me was, this is truly an ensemble movie, where once you get past the first 30 minutes of Jake doing the narration table

setting, this movie basically has 10 primary characters, and we'll just shift between them. And one of them's a whale? Yeah. If anything At least 10 characters. If anything the character with the most screen time Might be Quaritch Because he's really like in charge of

Anytime he's on screen But I'm like it's Quaritch, Keary, Spider The Whale, Jake Natiri The second youngest son Yeah the second youngest son's way above Natiri doesn't get anything to do in this movie I would say that's sort of the biggest gripe I have.

Yeah. Again, I am like, it's a three hour, ten minute movie. I put Cliff Curtis in there as well. Love him. Yeah. We haven't talked about. We're gonna. Yeah.

You mean the water people? I mean. Kate Winslet. Yeah, let's catch back up to where we were. They've gone on the land. They arrive. Yes. And I just love this vibe.

Uh-huh. It's like if like the president of France, I guess, had just been deposed. And he showed up in Britain. And he was like, hi, it's me, the president of France. Diplomatic immunity? Yeah. And they're like, well, we have to take him seriously. He's not nobody.

But they're just having this vibe like, ah, on our doorstep. We have our own thing here. They're the main characters, as you know, are played by. We saw the first Avatar. We didn't like it. We think it's unmemorable. People only like it for the visuals. It was a 3D experience.

Tonowari. You can't even name the character. You are the guy. Can you remember your own name? What's your name, motherfucker? Tonowari. Yes. Played by Cliff Curtis.

Is the chief of the Metcaina. The reef people. The pocket. Let's just say, James Cameron announces Cliff Curtis Is going to play the chief of rival tribe Pretty logical That casting is so obvious Is the performance going to be boring There's a version of it where you're like

What I like is like He's good but I don't know what you guys thought But like he's like He's genuinely conflicted I really felt that he's like I don't know what to do about this Like not in some henpecked way. No, he's... Because they're like,

watch out for his wife. It's not performative. It's not showboating. He's truly like... You feel him being like, I want to help these guys out, but I also, like, I don't like the vibe.

What am I bringing up to my doorstep? And this is the other... The magic trick... When he gets mad later, he doesn't, like, turn into some thundering guy either. He's conflicted. The magic't like turn into some thundering guy either. He's, he's conflicted. The magic trick of Cameron figuring out how to repeat the effective story beats from the first movie in new ways with new layers extends to this where it's like the human shit in the first Avatar is like so annoying that once he finally settles into Pandora in the forest with interior,

she's showing him everything. You're like, what a relief. Yeah, this is a fucking better way to live. Right. And we got it figured out. When you get to the water people, you feel like those forest people are so high strung. This is like they actually figured out a better way to operate. Not just that the water is pleasant, but it's like these are chiller vibes.

He's a lot less of a, like, showboat than Westudy, even. Yeah. Motherfucking basket houses, y'all. With the, like, bouncy floor. They have, like, trampoline floors. I know. It's nice. It looks like a resort in Bali. It does. It looks like Sandals Jamaica or whatever.

I want to go to their... They're pale blue, rather than the sort of... I'd say they're more teal. They're greenish. They've got a different color scheme. We'll see, we'll see. They kind of have flipper hands. Question about their arms. Are they different sizes?

I can't tell, because I just, like, looked up some official... They don't argue they have a dominant swimming arm. I think one hand is... One arm is bigger than the other. And it's for, like...

It doesn't look like that there, I will say. I don't know. This is official too. It's very official. He found, well, we were talking about the DK. Ben's reading the DK dictionary. I did like that immediately they're like,

look at their shitty fucking tails. Yeah. Oh yeah, they got thick tails. Yeah, because they're swimmers. Ronell is played by Kate Winslet. Yes. Academy Award winner. Getting the end in this movie. Returning to

the fold with Big Jim Cameron. As Scott so beautifully pointed out in one of their Avatar PTR episodes recently. 10 plus years, 20 years, Kate Winslet does these interviews where she's like, look, I'm happy I did Avatar. That was a brutal shoot. It was terrible.

Sorry. Brutal shoot. It was really tough. It went on forever. And like eight months of it was us in freezing cold water. I got hypothermia. James Cameron's barking at us.

He's not very sensitive. I basically didn't want to make a Hollywood movie for five years. Didn't she like accidentally eat chowder laced with PCP? No, everybody did. Everyone did. Yes.

Including James Cameron. Yes. I think Leo was the only one who didn't because he's vegan or whatever. I don't know. There's like a few people who didn't. There's just that famous story of James Cameron's eyes being like bloodshot. And he's like, I don't know who's done this. Like, whatever.

But it's like, not only did she return to the fold, but he's also like, cool. So you want to go underwater for seven minutes at a time? Yeah. She broke a record. You want to play the most water person? She broke the record for free diving. On screen. I want to make this clear. Because, she broke a record. You want to play the most water person? On screen. I want to make this clear.

Because the video came out recently. Or for an actor free diving or whatever. They basically do this training because so much of it is they have to train your brain to not freak out. He's like, you can hold your breath for longer if you're not spending the mental energy, the panic, the not thinking about it.

You have to slow down your heart. I mean, people do freedive. Train your rhythms, you're monitored, whatever. The thing where she did seven and a half minutes was her sitting face down in the water just to test how long she could hold. Cameron was like, you get up to that length so your stamina is that high

when you're not doing anything else. When you're actually doing takes and you have to think and you have to perform, the most you get out of anybody is two and a half or three minutes. We had to get them all close to six so they could last two and a half to three. You can hold your breath for six minutes? You never, you know, these like

the pearl divers who can go underwater for hours. Six months of military training, yeah, which they all did, and Kate broke the record, but she was doing it not while diving. She was doing it just the test of the hold I'm going to test myself right now there's a video of her coming up when she broke the record and you see her she's just sitting

basically on the steps of the pool with her face down to be clear she did not break like the world record she broke like the film record the world record longest breath held underwater 16 minutes price is right rules World record. You want to guess? Longest breath held underwater. 16 minutes.

16 minutes? Price is right rules. Closest without going over? Yeah. I'm going to go 14. Marie's holding her breath. Marie is currently holding her breath and she's been going for 18 seconds. I'm going to guess that Marie will break the record and it will have to be updated after this.

That's right. Marie's definitely going to hold her breath for longer than 24 minutes and after this. That's right. Marie's definitely going to hold her breath for longer than 24 minutes and 37 seconds. That's insane. I don't know. Budmir Sobat of Croatia doesn't agree with you. The current record holder. You know what the other wild thing that Kate Winslet said was?

She was like, don't do this at home. There's a reason they train you for this for months and you have supervision. Marie's still holding her breath. She's going to break the record. She's going for it how long it wasn't even a minute well it was 53 the thing she said that i found fascinating was she was like uh the place where people actually fuck themselves up and experience like health problems or like fuck up their brains and trying to do this isn't in the hold and depriving the oxygen for that long it's that when they come up they like start taking huge breaths and they basically pass out and they like conk out right

yeah yeah right right because you're yeah it's free right and it's like the biggest thing they teach you is that when you come up, you go like... For like 30 seconds before you say anything, but it's very measured, paced, rhythmic. Yeah. I thought it was cool that the reef people didn't have gills. They just had trained themselves to hold their breath for a long time. Yes. Now, they do have weird butterfly aliens that they can tie to their backs.

Oh, I love those. That will extend underwater butterfly jellyfish things. But that comes up. It looks beautiful. It's incredible. But you also go like, is he giving himself a cheat code to make this movie easier? And then they basically don't use them again for an hour. They only use it once in a while, yeah, which is good.

He is selective. Damn, does the underwater scenes just look incredible. Everything about it. It's just like the colors, the way he like has made it just feel so real. Their hair movement. The hair, my God.

It's also, this is where the high frame rate stuff is like, oh, it helps that. Because I feel like when he goes in a high frame rate for the aerial battle stuff, it still sometimes has that soap opera effect where you're like, this is moving too fast. The fluttering wings still feel a little manic versus once they're submerged, they're naturally moving slower,

but there's just a clarity to the image and like the ripple effects in the water and whatever. And it is truly captivating shit that I could have watched forever. Here was my fear Was just that there was going to be A lot of like You know we're swimming we're swimming

And then like you know Jake Sully and company Are like you know Wait up you know they do a little of that And then pretty quickly you know And like the Clansmen being like This is so annoying. Basically just a repeat of the first movie where Neytiri's like, I have to teach this guy everything.

Yeah. And then pretty quickly it's like, everyone's having a good time. Yeah. Underwater. Being pals. Except those teen kids. Okay. So two big dramatic things happen.

They do. One is Kiri goes down deep and connects to the tree. Their water tree. Yes. Oh, yeah. And then she has a seizure she has a she sees her mother in a vision dr grace augustine uh in a in a a memory palace uh desktop computer and then she turns into her of course stanford t-shirt wearing navi body but she's talking to

both of them but i do appreciate the curious, it's not just like, mom, it's so good to see you, but it's like, who is my dad? How was I born? Like, you know, she's like,

got some questions for you, by the way. And there's a thing, look, she fully accepts Natiri and Jake as her parents. She refers to CCH Pounder as her grandmother, a true honor, a thing we all wish we had the right to do.

If CCH Pounder was my grandmother, I don't know. I would never complain about having to fix her devices. If CCH Pounder was my grandmother, I don't know. I would never complain about having to fix her devices if CCH Pounder was my grandmother. About logging her into Netflix. Go to the Upper East Side and be like, how many times have I told you what your password is? Right.

I don't have a password. You do. Everyone has a Netflix password. I don't. Anyway. She's the only one. CCH Pounder would say it with gravitas. That's the difference.

There is that thing of like, don't discredit she doesn't have the angry you're not my real dad you're not my real mom thing but she does just have this feeling of mystery of longing of connection to this woman she cannot know um and just who am i what's my fucking deal but then it all goes haywire and she has a senior. Yeah. And this is diagnosed by, we haven't mentioned them yet, Joel David Moore and D'Lee Brow, who are just still like hanging out on Pandora. They're just popping in a little bit. Which is nice to see them.

Yeah. Yeah. I liked the bit that Kate Winslet was pissed that they brought the human scientist to check her out. Because she's like, have you forgotten about the ways of the Navi? Well, I really like that scene. Yeah.

Because it is scary. Like, Neytiri is there and she's obviously freaked out. Right. And they are taking Jake aside and they're being like, look, she clearly has epilepsy or something. She shouldn't be plugging into that tree anymore. I, the viewer, am like, they are wrong. That's definitely not what this is.

And they're sort of like... But Jake's like, okay, okay. Jake and Neytiri are coming at it from this angle of like she has questions she is inquisitive we have to let her go on her journey and then the water tribe is like she will die this is dangerous it is ill advised no it's not the water tribe say that it's dilly brown yes yes but no but then they were also like that water tree is powerful yeah true but most people couldn't take kate winslet is like get them out of here. And then it does some sort of, you know,

tribal stuff, you know, like, but yeah. But they fucked up. They fucked up. Because they sent a ship over and humans are able to track that ship. Right, that's when they start to be like, all right, they're over there somewhere. Well, this is the other huge dramatic thread

that is established, which is there they start to be like, all right, they're over there somewhere. Well, this is the other huge dramatic thread that is established, which is there are these beautiful sea whales, space sea whales. Okay, so here we go. The tool coon. This is where the movie really, like, clicks into a whole other gear. He...

Because we've already met the, like, oh, they ride, like, sort of sea ikron. Skim wings. You know, and you have to make the connection. You got to hold on. And I'm like, okay, okay. So they got their own version met that. Oh, they ride like sort of sea ikron. Skim wings. You know, and you have to make the connection. You got to hold on. And I'm like, okay, okay. So they got their own version of it. And they're like, no, we have another thing that you guys don't have any version of this.

Right. We are symbiotically bonded to these whales that like travel the world. They're kind of the roaming mother trees. But they also have trees. Right. So it's like this is new, right? Like there's no real one-to-one here. But talking about the parallels within

the narrative structure this and the first movie, right? The beat where they kill the mother whale is very similar to the destruction of the... 100%. It's playing the same narrative role, the whales and the tree. Yeah. But it is different. It's different. They narrative role, the whales and the tree. Yeah. But it is different.

It's different. It's different. They're like, everybody, the implication is that everyone has a tulcun that they're kind of bonded with. Right. You swim into their mouth and plug your hair into their brain through their, like, you know. Yeah. It feels like they're uvula. Yeah, they're uvula, whatever.

And you kind of have this shared thing with them. Their predator mouth opens up like six ways. I mean, the design of the tulcuns is so sick. We were saying it's like a whale, but a catfish, but a sea turtle. Yeah, there's like a turtle texture on top. You have the two eyes on each side. Then the underbelly feels like it has tribal tattoos, but it's like are those

natural? Are their tattoos mimicking the patterns? I don't know. I love all of it but I also love that this information is kind of slowly revealed. Like just how important they are. They set up very quickly. They're like hey by the way

that Tulkun is bad. He's bad news. He's got bad vibes. He's a negative influence. Don't hang out with him. He smokes. It's because there's, so this gets class. He's the bad boy, which only makes me want him more. Absolutely. Loak is the middle son, right?

That's the, he gets in a fight. Yes. With the brother of the, the girl he likes. Trying to show up. They have that fight. Yeah. And then they, that's when they go out on like the big trip and they kind of strand him. Right. He's like, I bet you couldn't

fucking do this. I can't fucking do it. And they're sort of daring each other. Essentially, it's the cart race from the end of Greece. Yes. But that's where he meets Paiakon, which is what you're talking about. The outcast Chokun. But doesn't this also, this exact thing happens in

Avatar the first, where he's being chased by one scary thing, and then it's then taken out by an even bigger, scarier thing? Sure. You have the, what are they called? The Night Vipers. Yeah. The Thanator or the. Right. Whatever it is.

Yes. Yes. Yes. Same thing. But this is different because it's like The Tulcun is not actually violent But he has the Cut flipper

And when Loac's like Hey he's missing a flipper They're like oh well he's no good Because he did something bad And he like broke their code That's what they say In general right exactly And then one of my favorite moments In the movie is when Loac goes back broke their code. He kills in general. Right, exactly.

And then one of my favorite moments in the movie is when Loa goes back to see him and sort of they communicate. Oh, the whale vision stuff. But first he's like, what's up with you? And the whale says, it's too painful. Oh man, I love that. That's the first time they're really talking and you're just like, wait, wait, wait.

What's going on? That's the preview sequence we saw after the re-release, right? But he's taking the thing out. He's taking the thing out. Yeah, and it ends with them just holding hands. I mean, that is, look, I liked that out of context just as like a mood piece after the re-release, but it didn't make a ton of sense. Right, you didn't know what was going on, really.

And then to re-watch the scene now with the build-up into that point, one of many moments that nearly brought me to the edge of tears. Some of the other moments were just something looked really pretty, and I was overwhelmed. But that moment emotionally got to me. Right. And it's

a real... It's what I predicted was the moment that would really cause Ben to lock in in because it feels very tied to ben's anytime in a movie someone is nice to an animal when they don't have to be yeah and he takes the uh the hook out of his fin yeah and he's sort of like i can tell you're scared hold on yeah i'm here to help you but so he's essentially bonding against the rules with this outcast but you don't know him like I do. And they're like, I know him.

His parents are shitty. So it's all lovely. What if this is a commentary on cancel culture? What's out of control? It's out of control. God damn it. Cancel culture will not come to Pandora. Thank God.

Tar did nothing wrong. And that's what the movie is about. And the movie is a binary. Yeah, right. That movie is definitely just about what's happening to her is not fair. Yes. Right. Yeah, yeah, yeah. That's definitely Tar's vibe. Okay, so maybe should we jump over to sort of the bad guys?

Because we haven't really talked about that. During all of this Yes. He's doing kind of a scorched earth thing and, you know, he'll land at some town and he'll be like, where's Jake Sully? And they'll be like, we don't know! And he's like we don't know And he's like fucking burn it all down Until they tell me He's taken in Spider

He quickly pierces I forgot about that Because Spider knows who his dad is They invoke it But he also says to Curie Maybe you're lucky that you don't know who your fucking dad is And they hard cut to Navi You figure it out

He doesn't hold any of these secrets but there's an early scene in the first act of the movie where they have a big fight and Spider gets taken hostage right and they basically keep him he's like you're gonna be translator

yeah there's that scene where Korich goes into the cell with him yes and is like look I get it I get it you don't want to betray your kind I get it

I respect it there's the insane torture scene where they put him that crazy machine that's fucked up man and like the evil MRI yeah Edie Falco's don't like that wanted to betray your kind i get it i respect the insane torture scene where they put a machine that's in like the evil mri yeah ed falco's don't like that he's got like the face mask on yeah and then then quarrel turns it off and it's like let's you know let's kill him with kindness here let's try and like you know kind of give him a this is what i do like about spider as a character on paper is he is genuinely conflicted. He hates his

father. I thought Cameron might go for the easier fuck. The allure of his dad being back is enough to make him turn on his chosen family. Right. But the reality is, no, he doesn't like this guy, and yet he can't ever fully reject him. Right. You know? Right.

He's being held against his will, but it's not like he gets a fucking quarrel pilled um no he does a little but only a little just a little tempted gets the chance he you know escapes it's the thing he likes when his dad gives him any positive doesn't want his dad to die yeah yeah and his dad doesn't want him to die either. Both of those thoughts are kind of against their internal codes and yet they kind of overrun. He doesn't want to be his dad and he seems pretty angsty the whole time

he's with them versus how he seems with the Sully clan. I just didn't and I mentioned this before, I just didn't feel like the performance. It's not. That's fine. The performance is less complicated than the writing. I think his vibe should be weird and so I don't really mind the performance. I think it should be weird. And I like it when he's

just rubbing himself blue with paint and he's like, I'm kind of like, this is normal, right? And you're just like, oh my god, this poor kid, he's so confused. I felt this was a huge missed opportunity for an awesome moment where I don't know why they kept Spider in the loincloth the whole time. Which is a good take from her.

They should have put him in little like human. Courts should have made him wear the RDA standard issue. That's all fine. No, they gotta have him rip it off. He should have been wearing cut off jeans referencing arrested development.

And that's final. But I think Marie's take is put him in the human clothes against his will so he has the moment where he makes the choice. There needs to be, I just wanted a change. But I think, you know, he's feral to them. Like, they cannot control him at all. So whatever. They're like, all right, buddy,

you want to be fucking shirtless Tarzan boy? All right. I think by the time that he's like working with them, I think he's already accepted. But he isn't because the first minute that Quaritch shows up at a village and starts burning things down, he freaks out. He's not like wincing and going

like, oh, this is terrible. He's like, you have to stop this right now. This is so bad. And he stops it. Quaritch is like, alright, alright. But he's about to execute someone and Spider loses his mind. At no point does Spider go like, look,

I see both sides of this. He's always on the other side. Just that he doesn't want his dad to die. That's all. He doesn't want his dad to die and he'd love for his dad to have a modicum of respect for him, even if he doesn't want to do it by playing by his dad's rules.

He also knows that he can interfere and hopefully do some good. He can maybe mitigate. And the court doesn't want to kill him. He's valuable. Can we circle back to Kate Winslet for a second? Because I have an atomic hot take that I pinned last night. What is it?

I put forward the notion that this is the best accent work of Kate Winslet's career. An accent that doesn't exist. I'm going to run down some accents. You say it doesn't exist, but of course she could at least go off what had been done in the first movie that other

actors had sort of tried. But new tribe, new rules. So what are some accents she's done over the years? Australian. Well, I'm going to take this chronologically. In the film Titanic, she sort of had an American accent. It's a sort of fancy, you know. Mid-Atlantic. No, before then

she's always doing English accents. In Heavenly Creatures she has an English accent. She's playing an English girl. Sure. But in Holy Smoke she is Australian. Yes. We talked about this in the Holy Smoke episode. That's why I'm bringing this back. That I think she is. She's great with accents. This is my thing. I think she over this back. That I think she is... She's great with accents. This is my thing. Well... I think

she overdoes her accents. I think she, like, over cranks them. She puts a little mustard on them. She puts a little mustard. What do you think of a Holy Smoke accent? But I never care. This is my Holy Smoke take. I'm like, Eternal Sunshine... I don't remember it bothering me too much. I want to do this chronologically. My point is just... Holy Smoke.

I feel this way about Holy Smoke. I think she overdoes the Australian, but I think she's someone where her overdoing the accent never actually is an impediment to the quality of the performance. I just want to see how good I can be at this. Okay, go for it. The next accent she did

was in The Life of David Gale. She has an American accent. It's a bit of a... It kind of makes your teeth hurt. I remember it. It's one of those sort of English people doing an American accent where you're like,

this doesn't sound like it's from anywhere. It is often. But then... The children's TV thing. She follows it up with Eternal Sunshine where she feels more natural. More of a natural performance. I do think some of that performance is like, Joel, this is what you do. But that's

an incredible performance. It fits with the character. I don't criticize at all. This is my point. I also think her Australian accent in Holy Smoke is good. I don't remember that accent bothering me. That's not the accent we're going to talk about. Romance and cigarettes. Does she do an American accent in that one? I don't remember that accent bothering me. That's not the accent we're going to talk about. Romance and cigarettes. Did she do an American accent in that one? I don't remember. She does a lot of New York-y shit in that.

All the Kingsmen, I'm assuming she's doing kind of a Southern accent in that. I haven't seen that. Down in Dubai, you. Champagne, come over here. Hey, Kingfisher. Go roll in the hay with old Kay Winslet over here. I'm making oyster po' boys for dinner.

I say, I say, let me throw these there beignets in the powdered sugar. The princess said the frog is underrated. Look. Little children. My friend Ray is in love with the moon.

He wants to fuck. My friend Louie is a gator who plays the trumpet. He wants to be a jazz musician. I can't breathe. You okay, Marie? Are you all right? I shouldn't have held my breath earlier. I'm Kate Winslet.

Little children think she did an American accent that was similar to her past American accent. Yes. The holiday, she's English, obviously. The reader is where I'm just like, get the fuck out of here with this. If I was German, I'd be so mad at that performance. Kate Winslet, one of my favorite actors ever, I would argue. I was just doing my job. Arguably her worst performance ever in that movie.

It's not a performance I like that much I don't like the film that much either Revolutionary Road back to You know Slightly more like dialed up We need to break out of this Contagion She's American Contagion

She works for the American government She's really good in that Labor Day that's where That's more where I would Is she doing Southern there? I don't remember She's really good in that. I just rewatched it. Labor Day, that's where, that's more where I would say. Is she doing Southern there? I don't remember. I didn't see that movie.

There's only so much time in life. I know. Divergent, was she Divergentee's accent there? Yeah, absolutely. Yeah. The other big one, you have to talk about it. There are two big ones.

Yeah, you're right. There's two big ones. What's the other big one? Steve Jobs. A movie that will never be discussed on this podcast. Steve, you cannot do this. You know, like, know like you're in like but then other scenes she's like hey steve listen you can't do this i think it is an amazing performance i agree and i kind of love

the accent but if i was polish maybe i would have some notes this is my whole thing i always think i i never think she has given a performance where the accent feels particularly natural. But I also think it is never to the detriment of the performance itself. There's two more. I think the performance always transcends. Before Navi. There's Triple Nine where she plays like a Russian gangster. She is insane in that movie.

She's kind of fun in that movie. That movie is forgotten. A mob boss sister to Gal Gadot. One of the weirdest forgotten movies that doesn't exist. With the most stacked cast in the world. Oh my God. And then there's Wonder Wheel. What's the matter with you?

Justin Timberlake, why won't you fuck me? Or whatever was happening in that movie. Maybe you want to eat poison. Sure. And then Mare of Easttown is the one where I think the thing starts getting meme-ified. But like that was something where she, people were like, she worked hard on this, and you know what? Most people get it wrong. Good for her.

As the resident. As the yinzer among us. Yeah. No, not yinzer. I know you're not a yinzer. Oh, my God. Wrong side of the stake. I know, I know.

No, like, the way, no, she talks about the. Part of the water clan when you're one of the forest people. It's Avatar, the way of water. Water. Water. Water. And, uh. Water race. The Way of Water Water There's a Prowler on Grub Road She does it You should all be shot into space

She's so good But I think I think Griffin this is a blistering Hot take I don't agree with you I think Mare of Easttown is, if nothing else. I don't mean it backhandedly. I just think that even when she's accurate,

I think her accents are always accurate, but they are a little oversold. And in this one, I felt like I couldn't hear Kate Winslet in there. Here's my question. This is my question. If you didn't know Kate Winslet was in it Would you know that was Kate Winslet?

Absolutely not I don't think so Because I know people who've seen it And were like that was Kate the Mole I can tell her face when she cries I agree She does like a grimace thing with her jaw But I love Kate Winslet

And also obviously I knew she was in the movie But I had a couple people say to me like I was like Kate Winslet huh? And they were like who was she? I didn't see her I think she disappears into this. They're like David, Edie Falco was them. Right, right.

Don't confuse me. It's easy to see how rude, David. It's easy to say like, well, of course she disappears. She's painted over a blue makeup. But I'm like, you know who every other actor is. Pretty much. You see them in the design of the characters. You see it in their expressions.

The Cliff Curtis guy really has that hey dog Cliff Curtis face. Right. And I really think she like disappears into this in the way that we. I mean, Loak, he looks like Britton Dalton so bad. I was like, this guy is Britton Dalton-ing all over the place. The second the V. Wayne Fleet showed up, I went, I know Wayne Fleet anywhere. I know from Wayne Fleet. No, we said in our, we went on the Big Picture podcast with our buddy Sean Fennessey to talk about Avatar a couple months ago. The humble rag that we

did that and you should listen to that episode, but I'm now just so jealous that I wasn't on the episode where he and Tim Simons just talked about Blu-rays for an hour and a half. Tim just dropped that in our text thread and was like by the way, called you guys out a bunch in an episode where we talked about physical media. And I was like, oh, I'm listening to it. And we weren't invited.

Do you know what I did? You're the one who asked us which edition you should buy, Tim. I didn't tell you guys this, but I, of course, listened to the episode. It ends with Tim being like, all I want to do is go to the Criterion Closet. Did you set it up? Set it up. He's only been once, though, right? I don't think he's ever been.

You know what the problem is. Okay, well, actually, eat a bowl of turds. But no one ever took a video of me there. So, waiting on that. Hillary, what the hell? Come on, Hillary. The problem is the ceiling's too low for him. He's going to have to hide. He's going to be tight.

A crimp in his neck. Yeah. I think, like, we said in the Big Picture episode that Saldana's performance is the one that actually makes you believe this is a real cult film. She's the most successful element of the first one. But I think Winslow is doing a similar thing here episode, that Saldana's performance is the one that actually makes you believe this is a real cult film. Right? She's the most successful element of the first one. But I think Winslow is doing a similar thing here, where whenever she does anything, I

like, I buy the language. It's why I think the accent's so impressive, because you're going off an abstract thing. All the actors are sort of doing something a little different. Saldana has hit it the hardest, but she's not just copying that, and just down to her movements and her energy and all this. I like fully buy this. Can I raise a complicated question? Sure.

I think you know I'm going to ask. Yes. So they made a big deal out of how in the first movie, the Navi were all played by non-white. Actors of color. Yes. Indigenous. Yes. Performers.

Mm-hmm. Kate is a white lady. So are a lot of the people playing. Britton Dalton, who I just shouted out, who plays Loac, he's white. Well, no, I'm just wondering, if you're talking about this conversation about Kate being so authentic and stuff,

what are we just, you know? Authentic to a made-up thing. Right. This is why I bring up the Saldana point, which is just like, she makes this feel like there is a specific thing here. It's not like I feel like she's being authentic in that, like, she's pulling from this real thing in the world. The whole trick he pulls, like, is that it's not specific enough to any culture for you to start asking too many questions.

But her performance makes it feel specific. I think Winslet and Saldana are the two. To not be culture. Yeah. Her performance makes it feel specific. I think Winslet and Saldana are the two. To not be culture. Yeah. To a made-up phony baloney thing,

rather than being like, oh, they're sort of just pulling from this. I don't know. Her performance is fascinating in this. I think it's a good performance. I wanted more. Well, tune into Avatar 3. I think she's, in theory,

signed up for all of them. Right? It's unclear with all of these actors. She said she did a month. She was very clear that she was not on set for very long so she was kind of like my character is important thematically but I am not like some screen time soaker upper like you know I'm used sparingly here yeah so I'm sure she'll be in three okay but you know I was very moved by her connection with the mommy ful and the baby tulcoon.

Yes. And like that is, as you said, the loss of that tulcoon is kind of a, oh shit, you know, a death of home trade. It's when they bring in the... The danger theme, it's called. Is that, is the harpoons with the inflatable... Balloon harpoons. The balloon harpoons, are those real?

I bet you they are. I bet you they are. There's some fucked up shit like that that exists, right? That sucks. Is that a Cameron thing or is that just a whale? I'm guessing it's a Cameron. I made it 10% more extreme than reality. But doesn't it feel kind of real?

I teched it out a little bit. Which is, of course, part of the cleverness of these movies. Whale, balloon, harpoon. Well, you know, like we've got, you know, Karch is doing his kind of old school Like I'm just going to point guns at people Until they tell me where Jake Sully is Pointing guns at people

That's a potent mix Hey Kate Winslet What do you think about this Stephen Lang is having a ball In this movie he is just clearly Loves this But eventually they're like well You know they're clearly out in the ocean so why don't you

Hitch a ride with you know Some of our sort of ocean guys But those guys who's the guy Who's the guy Brendan Cowell is the actor Obviously Jermaine Clement is on these And we'll talk about him in a second But Brendan Cowell's character is like look I got quotas

Like you want to go see, but I've got quotas. And he's like, right. He's like a gross Australian slob. Yeah. Yeah. Who's just like, I got job to do. Get him on fucking what? And we quickly realized like his job is hunting.

Yes. The Tulcun. He doesn't like to go near the coast. No. Because he's like, those are the ones that are like fucking bonded to the Navi and they'll get mad. And so usually near the coast. No. Because he's like, those are the ones that are like fucking bonded to the Navi and they'll get mad. So usually we avoid that.

Right. Jermaine Clement, whose name is Jermaine, not Jermaine, as I previously said in a Moana episode where I also identified him as not having a Maori background. Great job by you. Thank you.

I've never, ever gotten anything else wrong in the history of this show. Of course not. By the way, in the novel Shaft, the character is written as being African American. in the history of this show. Of course not.

By the way, in the novel Shaft, the character is written as being African-American. But he plays the sort of empathetic whale scientist who is taking the money to fund his research, but in the process giving them the information that helps them successfully hunt the whales. And then every time they kill a whale, they're kind of like, this pays for your research, mate.

And he's like, hmm. He's a compromised character. I think it's a fairly interesting character. Doing a pretty successful American accent for Jermaine. Although kind of confused. Why not just let him use his natural, especially when the other guy I didn't even catch it was an American accent. I thought he was just

doing his normal. He's sort of like, yeah, I just want to save these whales. But he's not really saving the whales. No. Doing a bad job, Dr. Ian Garvin. Now, Marc Maron said on the Siguruni episode of WTF recently that he auditioned for that part.

I want to see Marc Maron play a human in an Avatar movie. He would not be right for that role. He would be right for the rowdier, fuck you, kill the fucking whales for me i got the harpoon or honestly the falco yeah i don't you know i want him grunting just drinking coffee i want him drinking coffee and talking shit about the movie no we need a ball i saw your act i get

the thing what do you do the thing with the fucking tree? I guess it's cute. So how long can you do? 45 minutes an hour? Would he have had to be doing just WTF from a cat ranch in New Zealand? The dream! Exactly. Interviewing Paul Williams every week? Exactly what I want.

Our entire, well I don't know if it was the entire audience, definitely our row burst out in it was the entire audience. Definitely our row first out in the entire audience. When, uh, the bad harpoon man got his arm ripped off. You get that fucking moment where I went like this, smack the table and cheered.

You get the moment where like this metal tether, right? This like steel, right. It's pinning him against the wall. And we all sort of look at each other and the tension is building for something right what's against the arm and we're just like is jim gonna do it and then it's like boat capsizes arm flies off in one wide shot it's not like he's obscuring it anyway so good the fucking ship we i mean like all of the different

than like parts of the ship yeah the submarines, the crab ships. The crab things are so cool. I like that the Master Ship folds out like a Mighty Max playset. It feels like it's like, here's our battle mode, and then here's where you can see all the pieces. They have to make that into a toy, right?

I mean, that is designed for a giant toy with all the different little elements. Pin an hour and 15 minutes for merch spotlight at the end of this episode. Go on, Marie. Should I hold? Yes. All right, I'll hold off.

Let's say two hours and 15 minutes. All right, great. We still got plenty of time. Marie wants to present something to the table. And by the table, we mean David. So I was thinking about getting us a group project.

Can we talk about we don't do enough things together. We didn't do like a holiday party. Something we've never said. You know, like. Uh-huh. So I'm like, well, my therapist's office is next to the Lego store. Yes.

Up on Nomad? Yeah, yeah, yeah. 23rd Street. By Eataly. They got a home tree Lego set. Okay. And I thought, wouldn't that be fun for us all to do together? That's a great idea.

But I didn't want to, I was just going to buy it and bring it today, but I didn't want to spring a Lego set on you not knowing your schedule. You know? Oh, you mean like do it today? Not get it done one day, but it's like, there's a commitment. We'll do this over time. Couldn't it more be, yeah, it's kind of like we would sort of maybe just put out a table. It's kind of like when you have like a thousand piece puzzle.

It's like, you know, I'm going to work on the puzzle for 10 minutes, you know. But I just built my first ever Lego set. You never had them as a kid? No, I'm a girl and I had no brothers and my dad's gay. It's a unisex toy. Well, there's a reason they invested $500 million in the market research to develop the Lego Friends brand, because even though it is ostensibly a unisex toy, there is a stigma against girls.

I agree with you, Marie, that it was coded as a bit of a boy toy. I played Lego with girls and boys. My fiance... Hey, fucking keep in your pants. My fiance brought me the Seinfeld Lego set as a surprise gift the other night. One of my favorite TikToks because the apartment is the Lego set as a surprise gift the other night. One of my favorite TikToks

because the apartment is the main set, correct? Yes. But then there is a stand-up. Correct. And one of my favorite TikToks is the TikTok that's like, Emma, no.

That's the audio. And it's someone just taking the creamer from the apartment and putting it on the stand-up set. That's good. Now, I did bring a much lower commitment. Oh, you've got a toy. I got the Avatar-themed Kinder Joys.

Oh, cool. Oh, I can eat those. Oh, dessert. Exactly. You can eat, and there's a little Avatar animal friend to build inside. Should we do this now? Yeah, we're at the halfway point in the episode, right? What do you say, 2.15?

Halfway point. We're roaring into the finale. So this is the dumb American Kinder Joy where you can't put the toy in the egg, so you split it. Oh my God, that's so weird. Right?

And then one side of the egg, you have to package them separately. Oh, this is so business. Because this is not how Kinders were when I was a kid. Yes. Oh, okay. My German au pair would bring us

the authentic one. Everywhere else in the world, it's still the normal thing. Oh, it looks like I got a, you know when I was a kid. My German au pair would bring us the authentic ones. It's still the normal thing. Oh, it looks like I got a, you know, I got a, what's the, elu? I got a fishie. I got an etiri, I think. Did you?

Yeah. I got a dire horse. That's fine. I think I got one when I was in Rochester and I got, I got to rock. Got it. There's like instructions. Yeah, you don't really need them. You can piece it together. What do you get, Ben?

What is this? Let me see. Let me look at that. It might be a skim wing. Yeah, I don't know. You gotta put it together. Oh yeah, it's a skim wing. Or it might be Naturi's banshee. Look at this nice little tapestry

of, what a nice little intermission, you know? Not an intermission, not the halfway point. We're halfway through. We're halfway through. Ooh, we can download a free avatar app. Oh, I downloaded the app. It's complicated. Okay, so our renegade whale

is like the big hero in this fight scene. I fucking love. Because he keeps on sort of saying like, I know my parents don't like you, but I just need to like, I'll bring you around and I'll show them what's cool about you. And they keep on being like, don't fucking talk to him. Yeah, he's a killer. He finally

shares his memories and explains like I did do violence, which is against my like Tolkien code. But it was because they were hunting us. It's against the Dent Act. Let's also mention. It was justified. They killed his mother in front of him um but the whole the whole right thing is like yes they have this kind of built-in we don't do that we don't fight but he's like look man the rules are changing because these dang humans you know they don't respect how things

work in pandora the hierarchy of power in the Avatar universe has changed. It sure has. And he needs to change along with it. Yeah. I have no idea how to put this together. It is so fucking complicated. Oh my god. We get to see two of them perform surgery and get that whale juice, which is really gruesome. It looks like just a

giant dentist tool. It sucks how banal and like sort of like wrote their whole processes. And the only part he gets any joy out of it is when he's holding it up and he's like, this thing's worth fucking 200 million. And he says 80 million and then he does the classic

ooh? Ah, just kidding. And Spider's like, wait, what are you going to do with the rest of it? And they're like, I don't know, nothing. They don't use every part of it. They usually just sink it, but they're like, we'll leave it for them to discover. Right, Quaritch is like, let him know I...

I mean, he says something about it maybe being a pretty potent mix. Yeah. Leaving a dead body to spite them, that's a pretty potent mix. Put it on my tab. Put it on my tab. Remember that? Do you remember that scene where Quaritch turns to the camera and he's like, oh, hello there.

I bet you thought I was dead. Although, you never did see me die, did you? Did see him die. He got shot full of fucking arrows. We all know there are no crimes in art. As I've always said crumbs and art that's a pretty potent You do it

You do it Marie and I are big and clever We knew how to build our tiny toys I'm bigger than both of you No but you're not clever David does this only have two pieces? No the other piece is there It's dropping pieces

Okay Okay three pieces and David doesn't know how to put this together Have fun Korok is looking for them Loak finally links with Pyakon Who is the Tul'qun that he's got Learns how he was cast out

And they basically They go to their dad And say Like, this is for real We have to deal with this. At the same time, Loak, her name is Syria, I think,

the chieftain's daughter, and Took, little Took, are captured by Quaritch. And so that's when, like, it's like, game on, right? Well, that happens when the brother dies. I put your little thing together for you. I gotta use my delicate fingers to finesse.

Clever. Yeah. It's a little fishy guy. I think it's pretty clear it's going to do the heavy lifting on the Tree of Life Lego. I know. Home Tree Lego. Home Tree Lego. What if there was a Tree of Life Lego set?

Right. It is there. Drinking coffee angrily. Office buildings at forcedly. Author. Office buildings at forced perspectives. Right. Sean Penn's character

just spinning around on a beach. A wheat field. Yeah. I was sick. The D-E-E-T truck. We'll let David build like a bush or something

and we'll take the tree, the home tree. No, but the whole thing that happens is they attack the older brother and in trying to save the brother he lets the two girls get captured so when jake sully when they bring the dead body to jake sully and he's like obviously beside himself upset angry beyond that he's like wait fucking on top of this where are your sisters because quaritch has called in he's like i wait, fucking on top of this, where are your sisters? Because Quirch has called in and is like, I have them here on the boat.

He thinks they're playing chess. Well, yeah, but he captures the three of them before the son dies. Yeah. But they don't go after them. Well, no, they do. The boys don't go after them. They say because they bring the body to. What body of what?

The body of the older brother. No, no, we're not there yet. We're not there yet. No, no, no, no, no, no. Loloch and his siblings go to chase the whalers and get captured. Remember, they're on the boat. Yeah, weren't they going... They were going to warn the bad boy. Yeah. And then they get captured. So that's when they're handcuffed to the boat. Yeah, weren't they going, they were going to warn the bad boy.

Yeah. And then they get captured. That's when they're handcuffed to the boat. Okay. That's when Jake and Neytiri and the Menti Kanya, the whole chief clan, go out to war.

Okay. And, you know, they're on their fucking flappy ichthyosaur thing. Oh, sure, sure. Not sure, sure. That's when Kate Winslet is like, we ride, you know, when she's pregnant,

and he's like, you should probably stay home, and she's like, we're not staying anywhere. No, they killed my whale, bitch. I'm going out. It's a lot of movies. I saw less than 24 of them. No, no, I'm not mad. I'm just saying, you gotta get it.

Because, like, the thing, even more than the guy getting his arm cut off, that made me go fucking ape shit, was when they are in, they're on their, what are they called? The, you know, the flying things. Skim wings! There you go. They're skim wings. You know, and they're coming at the humans

and then it's suddenly like, you know, coming closer, closer, closer, and then it's like action time and they dive. Oh my god. And you're just like, ah! Yeah. They can dive underwater! Yeah. It's so cool! Of course, I knew they could do that. This is been proper world building. So I understand the rules

of how everything works. Yeah, but when you finally see it, it's so good. It's like, it's like, you know, the feeling you get when from Top Gun Maverick

when they've explained what they're going to do the entire movie and then they do it. No, but I mean, if I can, can I do one minute on Top Gun Maverick?

Yes. The genius of Top Gun Maverick. Marie, you and I have discussed the genius of just setting up like a heist movie, right? Spend the whole movie being like, here's the plan, here's the plan. You understand the rules of how it should go. But the entire time in Top Gun, it's not even

that. They keep saying like, so then we're going to do this, sidewinder, up, down, you got to hit the target, then you climb out, and then you got to deal with the you know, the plane. Then you got to make it home. They don't, but they just kind of they yada yada that last part. They're like, and then, you know the plane then you gotta make it home they don't but they they just kind of they yada yada that last part yeah they're like and then you know you know because they keep me concentrating on everything else and you don't think about it that hard and then when they finally pull it off

and you're like they did it they blew up the thing and then you immediately realize like oh shit the most difficult part like the hardest thing is about to happen and now no rules apply and now everything they've learned is gone and they have to go by instinct and that's what Maverick was teaching them all along. That's why he threw

the book in the garbage. Five stars. Yeah. Fuck, remember when he threw the book in the garbage? Oh, God. Jon Hamm didn't want him to do that.

Hamm said book out of the garbage. Books don't belong in garbage. Maverick knew different. He fixed the rules. He fixed the rules of garbage. Anyway, back to pandora um but it's the same thing he's just like oh shit all these puzzle pieces suddenly came together yeah um so i i they're not puzzle pieces lego pieces yeah this we're now on it's not a puzzle it's intuitive

it's like fucking cameron does the pour. He makes sure there's a fucking rock solid foundation before he starts building architecture. So I know that there was a lot of jokes about how, you know, James Cameron's going back to the water. Yeah. With this movie.

Sure. Before anyone saw it. Oh, he can't resist. He can't resist. And, uh... Opposite of a landlubber, this one. And people say, oh, Avatar's got a lot of water. Doesn't really. It's really very foresty.

If you thought that was a lot of water, it's a way of water. When we got on this freaking boat. Yeah. With a moon pool. Handcuffed to poles. Doing the Titanic thing. And the boat starts filling up with water.

It sure does. Turning over. My body started vibrating. It was because there's that one shot in the trailer where you see like a room filling with water. And you were like, he's not going to do it. He's not going to do it. Do the whole fucking thing again, is he? There's also that. The strobing lights as they're going out was the as the boat is filling with. Oh, my God.

There's that scene where they go to Cliff Curtis and they're like, hey, you know, we got like five kids. We haven't had a night alone for a while. Would you mind watching them for a night just on a tear? And I can have like a date night. And they go into like a space car and they fuck in the back of the space car and it steams up and you see the handprint of the five finger. And I was like, I can't believe this motherfucker's doing it again. He's playing the hits. And I loved when Victor Garber's cameo as the captain of the ship and he's just fixing the little clock.

Made of iron, sir. I assure you it can. I also love when Billy Zane comes in and he's like, no one will ever care about a home tree and he throws it in the fire. Truck my butt. I do want to re-watch Titanic. Maybe I'll do that tonight. Isn't he re-releasing it yet again?

He can re-release it every day for all I care. I think he's re-releasing it in a couple of months. Sounds like my plans are made. But also Magic Mike 3 is also Valentine's Day or something. I think they'll be releasing it in a couple of months. Sounds like my plans are made. But also Magic Mike 3 is also Valentine's Day. Clever. I mean, my God, I'm going to spend all weekend at the movies.

The last half hour of that movie is dancing. I'm sorry, we're talking about the Magic Mike franchise. I know, I know. You thought it would be about whatever. Tax fraud, but no. Just a half hour dance sequence Yeah, they go to Get their kids And that is when there's the big fight

With the whalers The whales themselves start to fight You know, the big shot of the whale Jumping out of the water Oh my god god I'm overwhelmed With Little Caesars and definitely not emotion Yeah And that is when

Netayam the oldest son is fatally Shot that is when I see you Happens when Neytiri lets out her Cry of grief you know They go back to save Spider Yes He goes back to... Injured and then dies.

Yes. Right. Big mistake. There is some moment at which that's when the sisters get caught. They're on the ship. We should get them. And he's like,

we got to get this body back to dad as quickly as possible. Yes. So they sort of make the decision to prioritize that over going after the girls. I was so stressed about Neytiri and Toque being... Was it Neytiri and Toque were together in the ship?

Yes. That's a little after this. I just want to shout out the moment where Toque gets handcuffed again and shouts, she's like, I can't believe I got handcuffed again. Just cute. But like two characters I really did not want to see die especially since Neytiri doesn't have a lot to do in this movie. The moment where the Jake Sully is maybe going see die, especially since Nateri doesn't have a lot to do in this movie. The moment where the

Jake Sully is maybe going to die, I'm like he dies now, he dies with dignity and he's had a good arc. I was worried Nateri was going to die. I would have been really pissed if Nateri died. But, you know, there's the sequence where in between all of this, when they go to

get Kiri and where Khorij grabs Kiri and is using her as a hostage and Eteri just does the same with Spider. You know, the end. A son for a son! And she looks like she's gonna do it. She's gonna kill him and Quaritch is the one who stops her.

So he has that first, it's the first time his resolve breaks in any way. And it is kind of compelling. But also Spider, who doesn't fully think of himself as their kid, but as Sully says in the beginning, he just hangs around a lot. He wants to be a Na'vi. It's all he knows. He's an E.L.I.C. cash, right? He always wanted to be a Sully.

Great. You can tell when she grabs him and holds him up at knife point. He's kind of like, why is my vague mother figure doing this? But also, if this is theater, if this is a strategic play, I'm fine with it. When she cuts him across the chest,

I do think... I thought it was a real cut. And I think he plays the moment pretty fucking well of being like, wait a second, would she actually... Right.

There's a real... I'm not her real kid. And she's like mad with grief., would she actually? Right. There's a real... I'm not her real kid. And she's like mad with grief. She's incredibly sad. Right. So it just feels tense. Yeah. But that's where it all breaks up.

And we cut, you know, we break into like Jake fighting Quaritch, right? Where they have that kind of like, all right, let's just fucking do it. And Neytiri getting stuck with Took as he's, you know, down in the bowels of the ship. Looks like they're going to go Titanic style. Kiri rescues them using magical floating fish,

glowing fish, which is really nice. The kids coming to the parents' rescue in both situations is really nice because that's what happens. Jake eventually, where Luke is like, calm down, we're going to do this. I also love this thread

in the film about like adaptation and how the kids seem to get the hang of things faster. Right, they're better at it. They're younger. They can, yeah.

So they are like, kids get in technology. Yeah, they're helping their parents. They're saving their parents and helping them because they, you know. Netflix rappers.

Yeah. Helping them log on. They're not just writing things on a post-it that they then lose. Right. Talk to my grandmother, please. Please talk to her. You know. I can't shoulder this burden alone.

One thing that I love about just the Avatar world in general is whenever a Na'vi gets a machine gun. You love this or hate this? I love it. It's pretty cool. And I love that Jake. It is so good. Where's the fucking the net communicator thing?

Yeah. Love it. Jake looks cool in this movie. Okay. What do we think of his mega dreads, though? Because he is rocking. He do be rocking.

It is dicey. I think he looks good. I think he pulls it off. Because in the first movie, he has kind of the shorter hair. Yeah. Yeah.

No, I think he looks good. I think he pulls it off. I respect first movie, he has kind of the shorter hair. I think he looks good. I think he pulls it off. I respect him. What if he went to the Met Ball looking like that? What was the theme? Under the Sea. Pandora. Under the Sea.

Omidakaya. I don't know. I don't know. Yeah, no, no. Jake's cool. I think he's cool. And I like that in the first movie, he's trying so hard to be like,

I am one of you. And in this, it's sort of more like he understands his advantages having a little bit of marine brain, a little bit in the V brain. I like that he's sort of mixing the two. He's doing like face paint with... Anytime he like says human things to the kids,

it just would make me laugh and be like you're grounded they don't they don't watch friends or you know but like having a parent from a foreign country or something we're like that's not what we call it he keeps calling uh kid here uh baby girl all right baby girl and i'm like okay And that feels very James Cameron Just in general I mean I like that Jake's kind of a fucking dork He's a dork He's a

Yeah He's you know Kind of a hacky sack guy Slash with a marine Like Yes But I also do feel like A lot of the movie is about

How he's sort of tying his arms Behind his back Because he doesn't want to fight Because he thinks He'll lose Yes And he wants to protect his family Yes

Right And like it ends up I don't know if you know it But this family is a fortress right except one of them fucking dies a bonfire but it's the boring one he does cry and then sort of turns into a tear

and go like I mean if it had to be one of them obviously I love them all but like come on we would have been taking this a lot harder no it's sad it's sad it could have been taking this a lot harder. No, it's sad. It's sad. It's sad. It could have been sadder.

But, you know, Kiri saves her mother and sister. Yes. Loak saves his father. Because his ass got fucked up. Yes. Kiri's also been throughout the movie doing things like just lying face down in the water, staring at the sand. Yeah, she'll sort of zone out and kind of be in touch with nature. What is she doing? lying face down in the water, staring at the sand. She'll sort of zone out and kind of be in touch with nature. And she does this at the end to kind of summon

the glowing fishies that help. Yeah, that was cool. When she does her little Tai Chi movements. According to Katie. It's just so beautiful. When she rescues her mother. And, you know, Sully strangles Quaritch and

drowns him, but Spider rescues him, leaves him on a rock, and is like, look, I ain't all about you, but I didn't want you to die. Anyway, goodbye. I also saw it as maybe an eye for an eye kind of thing, because he kind of technically saves Spider, so it's like maybe that's sort of code, right?

Payback in that way, too. It's complicated. I like that it's a little complicated. And, um... I like complicated things. Sure. Do you like it's complicated? It's complicated on that one. I like parts of it.

I like when they make the croissants. I love that. And now here's the... I like Steve Martin being stoned. Here's the thing I wasn't sure... Yeah, nice scene. I wasn't sure what the conclusion would be here. It's kind of the Empire Strikes Back conclusion where they're like they're like okay we had a big battle we're looking out the window

what's gonna happen next but you know jake goes to tonawari yeah chieftain and he's like look this is all my fault i get it we'll leave i'm the asshole here they want me and tonawari and i was thinking like yeah is it gonna be like the exact same structure with the like, off we go. Got to climb the mountain now. Join the Everest tribe. Yeah, exactly. And he's like, no,

no, you, you're part of the clan. We love you. You can stay. So they're going to be sea people. Yes. And that's kind of how it's left,

right? Yeah. There's no post credit scene. No, thank God. Thank God. There is an end credit song from the weekend. We were talking about this over dinner.

Four out of ten. I give it a gentleman six. I don't mind his new album. This felt kind of like the Leona Lewis vibe where it's like, hmm, sending us out bad. I think we wanted him to show up riding a whale. We want a video where you're intercutting scenes from the movie with him superimposed onto a skim wing.

Or, yeah, just chilling with the whale. Wouldn't mind that at all. That would be fun. intercutting scenes from the movie with him superimposed onto a skim wing or yeah just chilling with the whale wouldn't mind that at all or he's underwater and he's signing his lyrics yeah yeah i want that um here's what i like about it i like that it exists i like that this is the one franchise that still is doing the thing of we hire someone to sing a song to the themes from the score with lyrics that are about whatever. Yes. Like that this is like, it's not just some song that technically is from this movie.

Do you think it's that he's like, we love what you do and we'd love you to do a movie, a song for Avatar. And we can like, cool. So what's Avatar 2 about? And James Cameron's like, I can't tell you. We can't tell you anything. Highly classified.

So we were having the, we were having the discussion afterwards. Where'd you guys get dinner? The Smith. It was raining so fucking hard. And we went to like six places. We were like, let's go to the closest place. Four consecutive places closed for private Christmas party. Yeah. As was

the Atlantic's office. And then like two places had closed early for dinner because the movie is long even though we saw it early. And then we finally. Yeah, you were out of there like 9.30. It was late. Went to to this man i mean nothing wrong with this man no it's fine we had a good time third and 11th yeah well don't don't dox us yeah how dare i reveal the public information of where the smith is that's true well that's the one you were at so no we were trying to figure out like

okay so let's say it's not the weekend who is the best fit to do the avatar end song right and marie was sort of saying because like jordan's a big charlie poother and he was like do you do a poof do you have a poof with do you need to cut a poop with a khalifa is jordan okay it's doing all right yeah i think jordan's doing all right um and it was like is billy eilish too obvious has she been doing that too much lately? Can't hurt her. Do you need to wait for Avatar 7? Do you need to let it go through a couple of rotations?

I came up with what I thought was the best possible answer creatively. Just creatively, what is the best version of an Avatar in credits on? I don't know. David Byrne. Wow. I mean, sure, that's shooting high, though. But then I countered and I said no to David Byrne, yes to Peter Gabriel.

I don't think David Byrne is schlocky enough to go with Cameron. Marie's argument is that Gabriel will hit the emotions. Perfect. You need someone with a little, I mean, even Phil Collins, I know he doesn't really make music anymore, but someone with a nice, healthy dollop of cheese.

But I want maybe for another one of these middle entries, if we end up doing 12 of these, for Byrne to come in and be like, I really considered what music sounds like on Pandora. Well, that would be fine. I built the drums. But I mean, like, because I love how the Lord of the Rings movies, he was like, we're not going current here. We're going with Annie Lennox and Enya and he wanted Bjork for the second one where he's like, I want people who may kind of like trippy movie, you know, trippy, easy listening from the 90s. Like, you know, I mean, Annie Lennox. I think the problem is that this is the one aspect of the movie

that it feels like Cameron is not invested in. We were talking about last night how known it is that he didn't want My Heart Will Go On. He conceded when he finally heard it. But he was like, I don't want one of these fucking end credit songs. And it feels like this is the one like sort of Fox domain thing where they're like, please let us just an mp3 over to a popular artist and let the heart will go on thing yes it's like truly i think they're just like we can't miss out on that

right it's the very chance that we could have a hit like that i found the weekend song relaxing and pleasant we will see if it sticks with me to any degree but i like his latest album is good at the images of the whales while that played. My other galaxy brain take, and this was probably me being a little stoned at this point, where I was like, you know who would have fucking loved Avatar in general, but who died right

before the first movie came out? Oh, oh, oh. Marie is on target with this. Michael Jackson. Michael Jackson would have loved Avatar. He did a Free Willy song. Yeah, and this movie ends with a good Free Willy shot.

There would have been a decade where every interview Michael Jackson did, he was talking about Avatar instead of talking about, like, Peter Pan and Pinocchio and shit. Yeah, and, you know... He would have built, like, an Avatar wing in Neverland.

He would have, like, gotten injections to make his skin blue. Yeah, he would And, you know. He would have built like an Avatar wing and never land. He would have gotten injections to make his skin blue. Yeah, he would have turned blue and he would have. And you say this would have been good for Avatar to be associated with this man?

We're just saying this would have happened. We're just saying it's a fact. Yeah. He would have been obsessed with it. I understand. And you know, he wouldn't have made,

he would have seen Avatar 1 and was like, James, give me the song in Avatar 2. We're just saying it's a fact and the other fact is in that timeline the pandemic doesn't happen and i'm not saying it's good or bad yeah the novel coronavirus just never it never exists in this time the film was shot by russell carpenter did you notice that no reenact okay fine well he's

reenacting for his dp from titanic cool i agree i forget who shot the first movie. It has four credited editors. One of them is Cameron himself. Well, yeah. He's always credited. He was credited on Avatar. One of them died. One of them gets the dedication at the end of the movie. Avatar 1 had three editors. Mauro Fiore shot the first Avatar.

And one of them asked her for it. He sure did. My friend's brother was on the camera department uh his name's uh robin charters uh shout out uh and i saw his name in the credits and i did learn a little behind the scenes a bit uh that all of the crafty and all the food was vegan except some some of the gne guys refused They called themselves the pirates and they had a tent where they could eat meat. Wow.

Respect. Cool. I noticed there was a whole Kabuki department in the end credits. I couldn't tell if that was like a clever name for some technology or if he literally brought in Kabuki theater people to work with them,

which either one feels equally plausible to me. I don't. But there was like Kabuki department and there was like Kabuki lead assistant Kabuki. to work with them, which either one feels equally plausible to me. Yeah, I don't. I don't know. Kabuki department, and there was like Kabuki lead assistant Kabuki. I don't know, but that's cool. Yeah. Avatar the Way of Water. I

had such a good time. I'm glad you're happy. I'm excited to watch it again. More than anything. It would have been a real bummer if you were like, I really just was not vibing with it. No, I vibed so hard. And especially after the near miss of the opening. Can you imagine what this episode, like, what would we have done?

Oh my God. We would maybe end the show. Don't say that. Never. No, we just have to push it. We wouldn't have an episode come out. Yeah. That would be funny if we just tweeted like,

guys, Griffin's got to see it again. I don't know. he wasn't feeling it We're worried He's had this for a while This is his old sphere I'm ready to reconstruct the sphere Okay This is a triumphant episode as I brought to the episode last night

Of course my Child sized Direct the first flight I'm glad that you waited for 2 hours and 46 minutes into the episode to break this all out. I'm like James Cameron. You got to save some stuff for the end. That's the last 90 minutes is the most important part.

I didn't realize this was a child size sweatshirt that Griffin just put on. So I tried to put it on when we were eating dinner and I was like, oh no, this is. It's very tight. This is a youth size 12 and Griffin confessed that he buys a lot of youth size. That is not what I said. I said this was in the period of my life where I was so spendthrifty that as a small person, I would try to save $10 by buying large child sizes rather than small adult sizes, and it has rendered a lot of my clothes unwearable.

I now am willing to pay $10 extra for clothes that do not cut off circulation, such as, for example. Oh, no. What are we getting now? What are we getting now? Keep talking. Oh, God. Should we do more Kate Winslet doing a New Orleans accent? Did we really talk about the Barbie trailer? Because I think people really want us to talk about that. I thought it was really

funny. I loved it. I like the look of the Barbie world that we see beyond, you know, the jokey. Griffin is now unbuttoning his pants. Oh, no. Oh, no. Oh, Griffin just dropping trowel right now. It had to happen.

Wow, we're getting the full Newman right now. Okay. Okay, so to paint a picture for the listeners at home. You handle photos uh griffin took his pants off and he is wearing um navi tights yeah he's wearing navi tight but adult size yes and he's also wearing a navi sweatshirt that has ears and a tail and he's holding a glowing staff that is also from the Avatar franchise. One thing I liked about... Griffin, you're single, right?

I'm a little lonely. And singling. Mingling. I'm a little lonely. One thing I liked about what you did last night, Griffin, is that you changed into your N' outfit i did you you didn't you know have the balls to wear it on the subway no you got seated and then as soon as the lights went down you did not only that when our screening was like breaking down the first time i switched back

so i could complain in normal human clothes and not look like the most insane man in america and then when we settled down, I was like, now I can go back. Oh, that's part of why you were so stressed out then. You had to keep changing outfits. I didn't have the leggings yesterday. We talked about painting our faces blue. I just got a temporary tattoo

that was in my Frosted Miniweights box. It came out really well, I felt. These are very comfy, by the way. Yeah, you look very comfortable. You look at ease. I feel in my skin. Comfortable in my skin, you know? That's good.

It's good to feel comfortable in your skin. Yeah. Box office projections. Let's see. It did $17 million on preview night on Thursday evening screenings. Which is on par with the Guardians of the Galaxy sequel. Right. Okay.

But not as good as the Black Panther sequel. Or Top Gun Maverick. Right. But basically, it puts it on track for an opening somewhere between like $120, $150.

Oh, if it's $120, that is low. That is low. The original one opened in the 70s. Oh, 70-something? But, yeah. Yeah, but it's a different world.

I know it's a different world. Obviously, the big hope for this movie is that it will have crazy legs. Right. Partly because it has no competition. Partly because, as people pointed out, it's just not built like a Marvel movie and that people have to see it immediately. There are no spoilers.

No. There's nothing you can really spoil. Well, yeah, I mean, the kid dies, but who cares? I also thought Deadline, whose box office analysis is often weird, had a really good point in their article today, which is this is actually a movie that people are going to be very strategic about how they see and when. Yeah, that's true.

Rather than needing to see it Thursday to avoid spoilers, it's also like, I want to wait to see it in IMAX. We were scanning screenings last night because we were sort of surprised by how many of the Union Square screenings were not sold out. And it was like… Partly the problem is these multiplexes are showing it like 50 times. Yeah.

There was a 5 o'clock, a 5.30, and a 6 o'clock. There's confusion over what the right format is. But you look at basically any true iMac screen and it's like sold out for the next two weeks. Yeah, yeah, yeah. Sure, sure, sure. Obviously, in those, you know, premium quality Pricey screenings is part of the whole strategy Yeah, although Owning those premium screens for

RPX fucked us Yeah Well Yeah The other thing, of course, is luckily Or maybe we could get conspiratorial about it Maybe James Cameron was behind protests across the entire nation But China has essentially lifted its COVID restrictions just in time for

Avatar to come out there. And it's tracking to open gigantic there. It's always hugely popular. It's also huge in India as well. Yes. I mean, obviously this was all part of its magic run. The first time it was,

it translated globally. They're also already like putting the emphasis on we're projecting $500 million worldwide opening weekend rather than putting the projection on, we're projecting $500 million worldwide opening weekend rather than putting the projection focus on the domestic. Right. But the other thing is, most American blockbusters have been blocked from China for the last year plus.

There's been a big run of all these films being, Hamstrung, on top of just theaters being closed and COVID. These are closed. They haven't had any movies. Yeah. No movies. Yeah. Like, nothing's open big at all.

Like, yeah, it's crazy. Number one's going to be Avatar. Yeah. And I guess number two is going to be Black Panther Wakanda Forever. Yeah. It was number one last weekend. Five weeks in a row. Just basically uninterrupted without a challenge.

$409 million. Yeah. Nice work if you can get it. A movie I think we both like. I have a soft spot for that movie. I think it's interesting. I do too you can get it. A movie I think we both like. I have a soft spot for that movie. I think it's interesting. I do too. I admire it.

It's fundamentally struggling with, you know. It is, but in possible circumstances, I think the only way that movie could be better is if you had given him like three more years to start from scratch and completely reconceive it. I basically like every idea in that movie and its execution. I don't know how much it adds up to.

Sort of the thing with all these Marvel movies. Did The Whale go wide this week? No. The Whale, I think, is opening slowly because it was only on six screens last week. You two were not fans. No. No, no, no, no.

No. My least favorite movie of 2022? As our friend Mike Mitchell of the Doughboys podcast said How embarrassing for the whale That it's not even the best whale movie Of December 2022 I don't even have it in my bottom 10 Really?

It's a rough bottom 10 Tell us what your bottom bottom film is You have to see a lot A little film called Well I probably shouldn't even tell you because it's a secret. Fantastic Beasts, a secret film. That's your worst. Okay, wow.

That was unforgettable. Well, I didn't see it. That was like malpractice. That felt like malpractice. I lied. My least favorite film is Pinocchio. Pinocchio is down there. The Zemeckis Pinocchio.

Down there. I've got a little movie called Jurassic World Dominion I'm putting Whale below these guys Whale goes below Don't Worry Darling for me Oh absolutely I have Whale just below Don't Worry Darling Don't Worry Darling at least had A plus production design Whale is very close to the bottom of the barrel for me It might be dead last

It made me angry For many reasons Some reasons I did not anticipate at all for me. It might be dead last. It made me angry. Some other things that are down there. For many reasons, like some reasons I did not anticipate at all. I also had the gray man down there. I had fleabag persuasion down there. I had fleabag. I was like, wait, what? A little hero by the name of Black Adam

is changing the balance of power down there. The hierarchy of power. And, you know, one hierarchy of power And you know One specific doctor Who you know People could have started to listen to Dr. Michael Morvius A quiet contender for worst movie I've seen this year

It had been the bottom of my list Now the whale is threatening it Just in terms of pure incompetency Zero joy And this is on me for paying money to go see this in a theater uh liam neeson's black light is a movie that i don't i don't know about what that is unforgivable i haven't even heard of i haven't even heard of that yeah and i know that these days he just makes one movie a year with a title like black light where it feels like they're just pulling it out

of a tombola i have i have seen few movies in my life that are less anything than that. That haven't been said. His other film this year, Memory, which Martin Campbell quietly directed, I think is pretty fucking solid. Because Martin Campbell doesn't really make, like, total stinkers. Like, he can make a competent memory. He cannot completely junk it up. Even as much as the protege gets close.

I didn't see that one. Yeah. That's Michael Keaton, right? And Maggie Q? Yeah, and Sam Jack. And Sam Jack's one. Yeah. That's Michael Keaton, right? And Maggie Q? Yeah, and Sam Jack. And Sam Jack's good in it. When's he bad? A couple times.

I'll listen for you off my... Okay, because I don't know about that. So I feel like it'll be Avatar, Black Panther. There's nothing else opening wide this weekend, right? There's no counter-programming. Is there a Christian thing

that's out right now? The Whitney Houston movie comes out next week. I feel like that's the only thing that's out right now? The Whitney Houston movie comes out next week. I feel like that's the only thing that's even attempting. No, next week is Babylon, Whitney Houston, Puss in Boots, and the Empire will finally expand. Lights will fill theaters.

I don't know how wide that's expanding, but it is expanding wide. Richard Lawson likes that movie, right? I think that's so interesting. You know what's really embarrassing about that movie? I'm think that's so interesting. You know what's really embarrassing about that movie? I'm not a fan, personally. You know what's, like, really embarrassing about that movie? Olivia Colman's not even getting nominated for an Oscar.

You never know. She might. You haven't seen it, right? No. It is a very big performance with a gigantic Oscar scene. So I could see it kind of just sneaking in and that's sort of like, I don't know. I think actress is too crowded. I think I agree.

She's basically become Judi Dench where if you release anything in the last two months of the year. Plus it's a Sam Mendes movie. It's like a big movie. I think if she was Mrs. Harris, she'd get nominated. If she was Mrs. Harris,

Mrs. Harris would win Best Picture. She'd win her second leading award. But I'll say this. I have four people that I'm fairly comfortable With in that category I'm not sure who the fifth is going to be Who's your fourth?

Manville's Immortal Law She didn't get a Globe nom Because it's Blanchett, Yo, Williams And then Deadweiler And then Viola Davis It feels like it's between Viola Davis Maybe Margot Robbie Depending on how that goes over,

Olivia Colman. Those feel like the strongest, and then it's kind of like this morass of like Emma Thompson, Jennifer Lawrence, like these sort of stream movies that didn't get a lot of attention. Although Brent Terry Henry has been holding on okay, which at least proves that people watch that movie.

That's why Lawrence could see it. He's so good in that movie. She's really good in it, too. That guy. Pretty phenomenal actor. Yes. He sure is. One of the most watchable people around. The whole question with supporting actor is whether two Fablemans get in. Yeah. In which case, I feel

like that's that. Right. Because, like, Keiho Kwan, Brendan Gleeson, and honestly, Barry Keegan seem kind of written in there. Well, that's the other thing. There's the two Fablemans question question and then there's the two Banshees question It's wild It's sort of this thing of like okay well Hirsch feels like

he has a good shot but like you know Dano not just that he's good in the film but like you know one of those guys who's never been nominated for an Oscar He's getting stuck in a no man's He's not the lead That is honestly I think that movie has three leads and he has more screen time than Gabriel LeBel He's getting stuck in a no man's land. He's not the lead. He's in the beginning. Griffin, that is honestly...

In the movie from beginning to end. That's a crazy thing. I think that movie has three leads and he has more screen time than Gabriel LaBelle. That doesn't matter. He's not the lead. I think Gabriel LaBelle should be nominated. I do too.

I would hear that argument. Along with Paul Dano in Best Actor. It's like a network situation. Who do you think is more likely to get the fifth actor spot? I want to remind people I'm still wearing leggings. I took my pants off. Yeah. Yeah.

Still an obby. Yeah. So we know that Frasier, Farrell, and Austin Butler are locks. And I would call Bill Nye kind of a soft sort of lock. All right. Jackman's the one who feels vulnerable. So Jackman's not. I don't think Jackman's getting in.

There was a point where people were assuming he was default just because of lack of options. Nobody likes the film or his performance That's what he's running up against I've heard something different which is that people actually Despise both with the fire Of a thousand burning flames At that movie So it's going to be

Free press greetings demanding their money back Tom Cruise getting a sort of weird Kind of I don't know what to tell you man You did it. Right. Nomination. It's basically like a key to the city nomination. Right.

It's Tom Cruise Day in Hollywood. Tom Cruise Day in Hollywood. Tom Cruise Day in Hollywood. Tom Cruise Day in Hollywood. Tom Cruise Day in Hollywood. Tom Cruise Day in Hollywood. Tom Cruise Day in Hollywood. Tom Cruise Day in Hollywood.

Tom Cruise Day in Hollywood. Tom Cruise Day in Hollywood. Tom Cruise Day in Hollywood. Tom Cruise Day in Hollywood. Tom Cruise Day in Hollywood. Tom Cruise Day in Hollywood. Tom Cruise Day in Hollywood. Tom Cruise Day in Hollywood.

Tom Cruise Day in Hollywood. Tom Cruise Day in Hollywood. Tom Cruise Day in Hollywood. Tom Cruise Day in Hollywood. Tom Cruise Day in Hollywood. Tom Cruise Day in Hollywood. Tom Cruise Day in Hollywood. Tom Cruise Day in Hollywood.

Tom Cruise Day in Hollywood. Tom Cruise Day in Hollywood. Tom Cruise Day in Hollywood. Tom Cruise Day in Hollywood. Tom Cruise Day in Hollywood. Tom Cruise Day in Hollywood. Tom Cruise Day in Hollywood. Tom Cruise Day in Hollywood.

Tom Cruise Day in Hollywood. Tom Cruise Day in Hollywood. Tom Cruise Day in Hollywood. Tom Cruise Day in Hollywood. Tom Cruise Day in Hollywood. Tom Cruise Day in Hollywood. Tom Cruise Day in Hollywood. Tom Cruise Day in Hollywood.

Tom Cruise Day in Hollywood. Tom Cruise Day in Hollywood. Tom Cruise Day in Hollywood. Tom Cruise Day in Hollywood. Tom Cruise Day in Hollywood. Tom Cruise Day in Hollywood. Tom Cruise Day in Hollywood. Tom Cruise Day Everywhere he's like really like pounding The pavement who are your Other two um wait who else Who else are we forgetting I would say the other challengers

There are Jeremy Pope Who got a globe nom for the inspection Very good pretty fucking phenomenal performance I think it's a very good performance yeah or Diego Calva again this sort of Babylon Thing of like do they like it If they like it then maybe it gets in he got a globe nom Yeah but that was because it was

Under comedy right they put Babylon Under because it was under comedy, right? They put Babel under comedy. It is a comedy. Right. But they put all this under drama. They did. It is a drama. Apparently Bohemian Rhapsody was drama.

As was A Star is Born. But Rocketman was music. Ray was musical. Walk the Line was musical. They always used to use the fucking music biopic. Except sometimes they don't. Because they want to be serious. Like A Star is Born and Bohemian Rhapsody. biopic except sometimes they don't because they want to be serious yeah like stars born and

bohemian rhapsody that's the weird year where bohemian rhapsody was named the drama of the year and green book was named the comedy of the year yeah cool um good good wait and why did they shut the golden globes down it feels like that was better than ever nothing wrong here yeah we get that globe over there uh and then you know you got like Tom Hanks and Man Called Otto maybe people are Otto yeah everyone's seen it really not me what did they say honestly I don't know the grumpiest man in America

you won't believe his you won't believe his name is it Otto oh shit did we spoil that I think people also there was talk before Emancipation came out people were like... Yeah, I'm not hearing that talk right now. Is Will Smith going to show up?

No, I don't think so. No. That just felt like one of those things where Apple was like, I don't see a good solution to this. Let's just release it and see what happens. Yeah. Right? Yeah.

I don't think waiting a year makes this any different, so just put it out. Yeah. Put it out. Worst case scenario, it's sunk cost. Yeah. It did feel like there was a moment where people were excited about it. And people saw it and they were like, I don't know, it's okay. Yeah, it did feel like there was a moment where people were excited about it. And people saw it and they were like, I don't know, it's okay.

Yeah, it's fine. It's a Fuqua. Guys, this is our last episode of 2022. It is. We will have, of course, a Patreon release coming up in a few days, which is a National Treasure Book of Secrets. We're going to open the Book of Secrets. But yes, this is our final Main Feed episode of the year.

Now, we usually take one week off the week of Christmas, the way of water. This year, we're taking two weeks off. Oh, my gosh. Wait. Someone's at the door? What is Ben doing here? All right, hold on.

Let me just see it. Okay, hold on one second. Ben just got very... Is this planned? Performative. Absolutely. Ben's opening the door. It's Ben's opening the door. Hey!

It's Ben's girlfriend, Nelly! We're actually excited to see her. Nelly! Nelly! Nelly! Nelly, I'm wearing Avatar leggings. I took my pants off. Thank you. She's saying he looks good, which is... Wait, do we have presents?

Time for presents! What? We're getting have presents? Time for presents. What? Oh, my God. We're getting Christmas presents? Half a ton. Oh, my God. Half a ton. I should have bought the fucking Lego set. Oh, my God.

You guys. Look, it's to David from Ben. Hey, mine says. Wait, should I put this under the tree? Like, what's the deal here? To David from Ben. We don't have a tree in the studio. Okay, who goes first?

Let's also say I bought Ben and Nellie a Christmas present last week. Nellie, how long have you been waiting outside that door? Okay, good. No wonder Ben wasn't yadda yadding or telling us to speed up the Oscar talk. He clearly was waiting for her to get here. I got Ben and Nellie for their home a Toxic Avenger pillow

in the shape of Toxie's head. Which goes with all of their beautiful mid-century modern decor. Which Ben was very touched by and Nellie so graciously tolerated. For now. For now. And we definitely won't get lost in any

future moves. Oh my god. I'm astounded. What is it? Okay, so I got the classic congratulations balloon hat. Yeah, yeah, yeah. Last year you gave us ornaments, if we can remember. Yes, of which you still have many. Flow Christmas ornaments. Yes.

And then the... Hey, look, it's... Well, you said it. Okay, so this is a... Griffin loves to wear baseball caps. I love baseball caps. This is an olive green baseball cap with an embroidered Popeye. The Sailor Man. Smoking a pipe. But the real nice touch...

Oh, I guess this is the name of the brand. I thought it was a personalized thing. In fact, it just says Noah. That's in the company. That's just the brand. Okay, I like this. This is a great hat. Thank you very much.

They're like a cool streetwear brand. Cool. Wait, what is this? Should I open this first? It's a tote? It looks like a cool street wear brand What is this? Should I open this first? It's a tote? Looks like a tote I love a tote I'm always going to the farmer's market Oh look

It's Schroeder and Lucy Wait what's he saying? From Peanuts Buying records cheers me up Whenever I feel low I buy some new records That's what Ben's saying He got me a record Yeah. For anyone who doesn't know. Buying records cheers me up. Whenever I feel low, I buy some new records. That's what Ben's saying. He got me a record.

Okay. It's the Charlie Brown. It's Vince Giraldi. It's the baseball one. I love this one. It's a good one. Okay. Now my turn.

Thank you, Ben. You're welcome. You're so nice. You're welcome, guys. Why am I not getting him a present? What the fuck? I know. You're behind the curve. I got him the Toxie.

Well, because I like doing this. It's a little tradition. You love it on mic. It's fun. What did Marie get? I got glasses. Two drinking glasses. Well got him the taxi. Well, because I like doing this. You love it on mic. What did Marie get? I got glasses. Two drinking glasses. Well, you just moved. I just moved. Oh my god.

These are... Oh. These are beautiful. These are really nice. Those are so nice. It's a place in Greenpoint. Nellie, get on mic. Shove his ass off. These may or may not be on my wedding registry

That is how Good of a job she did Shout out a great little store in Greenpoint Called Big Night It's a dinner party store It's on Franklin Not the Stanley Tucci Campbell Scott movie No although they do weirdly call home the store

Oh my god I love these Those were a Mrs. Haas special pick. Thanks, Nellie. Santa Haas, but Santa Haas is white. Yes, yes. I know you're not married. He does walk around the apartment going, slow ho ho.

Speaking of. Yeah, speaking of. Speaking of. This is all the cue up. All of our listeners. That's right, because it's now the third year in a row. It's become a tradition. Yeah.

I'm here to announce here at the end of this three-hour-plus episode. Whatever. Slow Christmas 2 is now available. You might catch the logic gap in what Ben just said. For the third year in a row, I'm proud to announce Slow Xmas 2. Do you want to explain why? Because I've decided that the first volume is Slow

Xmas 0. That's right. I've made things more complicated than they need to be. Because I love doing shit like that. So Slow X Christmas Volume 2, the third volume in the Slow Christmas Trilogy. Well, no,

because technically now... Series. Whatever. Technically now what? Well, I think he's saying the fourth Slow Christmas album will be Slow Christmas 3, which will be the end of the trilogy. Unless he changes the rules on us. Yeah, maybe it's a 2.5.

Could happen. What if it's just like a colon and then a subtitle? Or like a 2.1 plus remix. Do you want to announce any of the people who are on this one? Well, what I was thinking is I could announce them, but I also thought maybe just play a clip. Oh, you want to drop a clip?

I feel like this year in particular we have a past guest. Yes. Who's on Slow Christmas. Who has a track on the album. So here we go. Who slows it down. A visit from St. Nicholas.

Or alternatively. A slow visit from St. Nicholas. By Clement Clark Moore, read by Roman Mars. Twas the night before Christmas from all through the house, not a creature was stirring, not even... a mouse. a mouse. The stockings were hung by the chimney with care in hopes that

Saint Nicholas soon would be there. Now, Roman, of course, has one of the best voices in the world. Lovely voice. One of the best on-mic voices. Oh, my God. Now, Roman, of course, has one of the best voices in the world. Lovely voice. One of the best on-mic voices. Oh, my God.

On Slow Christmas, there's computers involved in the slowing down of things. There's technology. Well, Volume Zero was mostly mixed that way. Volume One, what we're now calling Volume One,

the second installment, was mostly Ben directing people to perform slowly. Yes, to perform a song live slow. Instead of tweaking it. And now we're adding spoken word. Roman just keeping it slow all by his lonesome. And I was going to say,

Roman Mars, not a Scorsese to begin with. He speaks in a very deliberate tone. He's a deliberate sounding man. I just assumed, oh, what a good fit. You can have Roman speak and it will be slower than most people tell that tale. But man, did you slow it down. Did you, is that all

direction or was that edited in post? Roman, he sat down and did it himself. He sat down and did that. He stepped away from his fucking family and did that. And that's a clean take. But he knew to really space out Mouse. Yes.

Wow. So you can listen to all 12 minutes and 26 seconds of the full reading of A Slow Visit from St. Nicholas performed by Roman Mars. We also have producer Brian from Back in the Day, our years at UCB. What a promo. He performs sort of a like heavy metal version

of We Three Kings. Sick. That fucking rules. Yeah, we have... You have like the traditional Polish holiday song. That's the one single you've already leaked. Yeah, by Heavy Gus. It's a Polish lullaby that they're performing of

course very slow remind people that all of this is real last week ben's holiday party doubled as an album listening party where he made custom napkins like embossed it was really nice foil stamp napkins that said slow christmas 2022 Listening Party and also bought a party sub and put a post-it note in front of it that said Italian-ass sandwich. Just so people knew what kind of sandwich it was. The vibes were immaculate. Yeah.

It's available now on Spotify. So please give it a listen. Give it a listen. Give it a spin. I'll, of course, have some links in the description. Yeah, thanks, guys. And look, you're going to need a Slow Crisp album to fill up the next two weeks without main feed episodes. But then we return January 7th.

Is that correct? That is correct. The next episode of Blank Check with Griffin and David will be dropping on January 8th. 8th. 8th. Sorry. No episode on New Year's Day. No episode on Christmas.

Coraline with J.D. Amato drops on January 8th. That's another fucking three hour episode, right? I mean, it has to be. There's so much to unpack. They all yell at me for not knowing. Wilvington. Wilvington's name. There is a really incredible other piece of music in that episode

And that's all I'll say Oh yes There's a lot going on in that episode Plenty going on in that episode I think it's what people want out of our dump show And then we did Wendell and Wild And then our new miniseries will begin after that And it's a secret

Keep the speculation going Secrets of Dumble Sims. Yeah. And no one will guess what we're doing based on what I watch on Letterboxd. No, no, no. No, it's possible. Yeah.

Well, anyway, that was fun. Happy 2022, everybody. Happy Avatar. I'm going to eat my Kinder. Oh, no, do I want one more slice? I don't. I'm trying to decide. Yeah.

Thanks for a great year, everyone. Yeah, well, because I, first off, I made this mistake when we were recording the other day. This shit makes me tired. The Little Caesars pizza more than any other food makes me tired. I hate this. What is this shit? You have to scoop it out. You get the little plastic.

That looks like a face. And then you use the head to scoop out the goo. Use this thing. Yeah. Yeah, it's bizarre. No, it sucks. The toys are good at least. We're talking about the Kinder Eggs. Yeah, the Kinder Joy. Doesn't Use this thing. Yeah. Yeah, it's bizarre. No, it sucks. The toys are good at least. We're talking about the Kinder Eggs.

Yeah, the Kinder Joy. It doesn't give me joy. Exactly. All right, well, Griff, can you take us out? Yeah, I was checking to make sure I didn't have anything else in my bag, but no, I revealed all my gimmicks. Thank you all for listening. For another year.

Yeah. Yeah. Coming up on eight, a thing that when I tell people astounds them they're like oh you have a podcast? how long has that been going? and they assume I'm going to measure it in months who are these people? but yes

year 8 begins soon plenty of great stuff coming we've got a really cool March Madness that we're starting to prep we're hammering out the March Madness and making some tough decisions now about what makes the couple. I think we got a really cool theme that's going to open things up in a lot of ways.

Bring back a couple returning favorite competitors, but it opens it up to a lot of new people. I think it'll be good. I was trying to think of a joke, but I couldn't. I can't either. Thank you all for listening. And let's give some special thanks. The same people we thank every week

But let's put a little extra A little extra stank on these things Because people like Marie Barty We love her Social media helps produce the show Marie the best But you know who else is the best? JJ Burch, our researcher

Taking a nice week off from this episode Not having to look up shit. Well, soon, JJ. Constantly besieged by daycare bugs. Yeah, the daycare bugs. Chubb on Pat Reynolds for artwork. Pat coming up with another beautifully cursed Photoshop of us as Navee. And, of course, Ben got spidered.

Of course. Yeah, you'll see. The photo arrived right before we started recording and Ben with resignation dropped his head and said of course I got spidered thank you to Alex Barron AJ McKeon for editing

thank you to Lane Montgomery and the Great American Novel for our theme song you can go to blankcheckpod.com for links to some real nerdy shit including our store Shopify our Shopify store. Some of those items are pre-orders, and the pre-orders will close soon. Some of them, the things that have sold out,

if the demand is there, we will do another run. We're testing out a lot of new things in terms of merch, seeing what people want and what they like, and trying not to end up with 18 boxes of spatulas that people don't want. We're working it out. You can still order those from our website. You still can.

At a reduced rate. Yeah. They're great. I used mine this week. And we're maybe six months away. Ben and I came up with a plan last night. Maybe at some point we Zazz left them. We asked for the government to bail us out on our spatulas.

We bury them somewhere. No one can ever access them ever again. We gotta write them off. We gotta write them off. Too many spatulas. Tune them somewhere and no one can ever access them ever again. We gotta write them off. We gotta write them off. Too many spatulas. Tune in next week for nothing. Reach out to the ones

you love in your life. Yeah. Have a conversation with them in person if you can. Take your family to see Avatar. Two weeks from now tune in for

once again not us. Circle back. Reach out to a friend you haven't seen in a long time. Maybe not the people you love in your life to a friend you haven't seen in a long time. Maybe not the people you love in your life,

but the people you like. See Avatar a third time. And then we'll see you back here for Coraline. And as always, I see you. I see you. I see you.