WEBVTT - Avatar (2009) with Ali Nahdee 0:00:00.360 --> 0:00:04.320 Hello listeners. Before we get into this episode, we wanted 0:00:04.360 --> 0:00:08.480 to say something to raise awareness about a particular current event. 0:00:09.119 --> 0:00:12.200 Our guest Ali Noddy speaks about this at the end 0:00:12.240 --> 0:00:14.440 of the episode, but we wanted to stick it here 0:00:14.560 --> 0:00:16.880 at the top as well to make sure as many 0:00:16.880 --> 0:00:21.040 people here about it as possible. Right now, in Canada, 0:00:21.120 --> 0:00:25.320 in Winnipeg, police are refusing to search for the remains 0:00:25.400 --> 0:00:29.280 of four Indigenous women who have been murdered by a 0:00:29.360 --> 0:00:35.400 serial killer. The women are Morgan Harris, Rebecca Countois, Marcedes Myron, 0:00:35.680 --> 0:00:41.120 and a fourth unidentified woman. This speaks to the pervasive 0:00:41.159 --> 0:00:45.480 problem in Canada and elsewhere in the world of Indigenous 0:00:45.479 --> 0:00:50.479 women going missing, being murdered, and officials doing little to 0:00:50.640 --> 0:00:55.080 nothing about it. So we wanted to raise awareness about this. 0:00:55.560 --> 0:01:00.040 We've included more information in the show notes, and we 0:01:00.240 --> 0:01:04.440 encourage you to learn more about this and other issues 0:01:04.520 --> 0:01:09.839 that affect Indigenous people and communities. All right onto the episode. 0:01:10.760 --> 0:01:13.720 On the be Dol cast, the questions asked movies have 0:01:13.880 --> 0:01:17.760 women inum? Are all their discussions just boyfriends and husbands 0:01:17.800 --> 0:01:22.880 or do they have individualism? The patriarchy? Zef invest start 0:01:23.000 --> 0:01:27.679 changing it with the beck Del Cast. Jamie Yes I 0:01:27.840 --> 0:01:32.560 see you, Caitlin, I see you. Do you want to 0:01:32.920 --> 0:01:35.640 mate for life with me? Yeah? Where's your tail at? 0:01:36.000 --> 0:01:40.880 Here is great to come and then we kiss Kis 0:01:40.959 --> 0:01:44.960 kiss under the tree, iconic moment in cinema for better 0:01:45.120 --> 0:01:50.240 or worse. People remember it, they really do. Hello and 0:01:50.280 --> 0:01:53.880 welcome to the Beck Dol cast. Oh my goodness. Here's 0:01:53.960 --> 0:01:57.480 one that has been a long time request, a long 0:01:57.520 --> 0:02:00.600 time coming, and an episode we thought we may never 0:02:00.680 --> 0:02:02.680 release because we were not convinced that the sequels are 0:02:02.680 --> 0:02:04.960 actually going to come out. And yet here we are, 0:02:05.120 --> 0:02:08.760 and here we are the Avatar episode. How you feeling, Caitlin, 0:02:09.440 --> 0:02:13.600 I'm nervous. I feel underprepared. Even though I did a 0:02:13.600 --> 0:02:16.560 lot of reading. There's truly so much to go through. 0:02:17.360 --> 0:02:24.680 And there's also like, there's like fifteen years worth of production, criticism, 0:02:24.880 --> 0:02:28.040 waves of different takes on this. But it's just been 0:02:28.080 --> 0:02:31.000 it's been a real journey, it really has, and I'm 0:02:31.040 --> 0:02:34.720 excited to get into it. We have. I think I 0:02:34.760 --> 0:02:36.919 think we should just get started. I'm like, I'm ready, 0:02:37.120 --> 0:02:41.200 I'm ready. You can breeze. Let's just breeze past. Look 0:02:41.320 --> 0:02:48.160 the show we analyze movies, but you know, figure, let's 0:02:48.160 --> 0:02:51.240 tell it must tell him. Let's tell him. Okay, um like, 0:02:51.440 --> 0:02:56.840 you're like fun this show. We're gonna be here for 0:02:56.880 --> 0:03:02.200 three hours. Buckle In um So analyzed movies through an 0:03:02.200 --> 0:03:06.040 intersectional feminist lens, using the Bechtel tests simply as just 0:03:06.120 --> 0:03:10.000 a baseline jumping off point to initiate a much larger conversation. 0:03:10.840 --> 0:03:14.919 What is the Bechtel test? Though Jamie Well I can 0:03:14.960 --> 0:03:17.680 tell you what it is. It is a media metric 0:03:18.000 --> 0:03:22.120 originally created by queer cartoonist Alison Bechdel, sometimes called the 0:03:22.160 --> 0:03:27.160 Bechtel Wallace Test. Uh. She made it for her incredible 0:03:27.200 --> 0:03:29.919 comic dikes to watch out for, originally as a joke, 0:03:30.000 --> 0:03:32.680 but it is now kind of become a common media 0:03:32.720 --> 0:03:35.720 metric that we use on this show and also in 0:03:35.760 --> 0:03:38.480 the world. A lot of different versions of the test, 0:03:38.760 --> 0:03:41.560 but the one we use is this. To pass the 0:03:41.560 --> 0:03:45.240 Bechtel test, there must be two characters with names of 0:03:45.240 --> 0:03:48.720 a marginalized gender talking to each other about something other 0:03:48.800 --> 0:03:52.080 than a man for more than two lines of dialogue. 0:03:52.960 --> 0:03:56.040 Some things do it, a lot of things don't. And 0:03:56.120 --> 0:03:59.040 that's just kind of what it is. How did how 0:03:59.040 --> 0:04:02.440 did I do so well? We're off to a great start, 0:04:05.400 --> 0:04:07.680 and now is the time to get our guest into 0:04:07.680 --> 0:04:11.200 the mix. I'm so pumped returning guest. You know her 0:04:11.240 --> 0:04:15.760 from our episodes on Aquaman and Frozen two. She's an 0:04:15.800 --> 0:04:19.960 Anisha Nabe, writer, founder of the Ali Naughty Test formerly 0:04:20.000 --> 0:04:24.400 known as the Ala Test. It's Ali Naughty, welcome back. 0:04:24.960 --> 0:04:28.400 I'm back with my braided tails. Hell yeah, I got 0:04:28.440 --> 0:04:34.920 one for each of you. Welcome to the Three Timers Club. 0:04:36.920 --> 0:04:39.320 I told them I was like, I called DIBs on Avatar. 0:04:39.440 --> 0:04:41.520 Nobody else is allowed to do this. I have so 0:04:41.600 --> 0:04:44.440 much to say, and yes I did. You saw my 0:04:44.480 --> 0:04:48.200 Google doc had so much to say. I've seen forty 0:04:48.360 --> 0:04:52.800 two page google doc. I'm so we talked about this, uh, 0:04:53.120 --> 0:04:55.000 I think two years ago, like the first time you 0:04:55.040 --> 0:04:58.279 were on the show. En. Yeah, and the moment is here. 0:04:58.640 --> 0:05:01.600 Avatar two is come out. It's happening. I thought it 0:05:01.640 --> 0:05:04.560 would never happen, and it probably shouldn't happen. But we'll see. 0:05:04.920 --> 0:05:08.000 I hope it's good. James Cameron's pretty good with sequels, 0:05:08.000 --> 0:05:11.360 so we'll see. We'll see. That's true. Titanic too is 0:05:11.360 --> 0:05:17.640 a classic. Ever when he came back, when she woke up, 0:05:20.000 --> 0:05:23.520 she woke up? Yeah, So Ali, what is your your 0:05:23.640 --> 0:05:29.440 history relationship with Avatar? Oh so this is a history. Okay. 0:05:29.480 --> 0:05:32.200 So it came out like two thousand nine. I want 0:05:32.240 --> 0:05:35.240 to say I was probably around like eighteen nineteen ish, 0:05:35.360 --> 0:05:38.960 and it came out at an interesting time. This is 0:05:39.400 --> 0:05:43.239 obviously way before the Ali Naughty Test. The Alt Test 0:05:43.400 --> 0:05:47.040 was ever a discussion the way that it is now 0:05:48.200 --> 0:05:52.479 and the film itself was cathartic in a lot of 0:05:52.520 --> 0:05:56.560 ways for me that I've discovered that it really isn't now, 0:05:57.839 --> 0:06:00.240 But at the time in two thousand nine, I was like, 0:06:00.440 --> 0:06:03.680 I can't believe that there's a movie like this. As 0:06:03.720 --> 0:06:08.400 far as the Natives win, which I didn't see coming. 0:06:08.400 --> 0:06:11.240 Everybody else saw it coming. I'm like, no, we never win. 0:06:11.480 --> 0:06:15.479 Like this is gonna be Titanic level sadness because everybody's 0:06:15.480 --> 0:06:19.480 gonna die and it's pain, and that didn't happen. I 0:06:19.520 --> 0:06:23.080 did not expect the girl to live. Nay Terry did 0:06:23.080 --> 0:06:26.800 not expect that. I didn't expect her to like because 0:06:26.880 --> 0:06:29.359 and and I'll talk about this later, but like in 0:06:29.400 --> 0:06:34.039 a lot of movies, when the native female character falls 0:06:34.040 --> 0:06:38.360 in love with the white male character and he ultimately 0:06:38.600 --> 0:06:42.240 ends up betraying her, she usually like takes his side 0:06:42.360 --> 0:06:46.520 like no, no, I love him and we can work together. 0:06:46.839 --> 0:06:51.159 And I was hoping that that wouldn't happen. I was 0:06:51.200 --> 0:06:53.599 afraid it was going to happen. It did not happen. 0:06:53.800 --> 0:06:59.200 I'm like, ah, what is this movie? Right? So then 0:06:59.800 --> 0:07:04.479 I get online and so many people like hated it, 0:07:04.640 --> 0:07:07.080 just did not like it. They're like, it's pocahontast space, 0:07:07.160 --> 0:07:10.000 it stands as with wolves in space. It's white guilt, 0:07:10.280 --> 0:07:13.480 it's liberalism, it's you know, just all of this stuff. 0:07:14.160 --> 0:07:17.280 And I knew something in it was kind of rooted 0:07:17.320 --> 0:07:21.160 in anti Native racism. I just didn't have the words 0:07:21.240 --> 0:07:25.800 for it. And obviously, like as the years have gone by, 0:07:25.920 --> 0:07:28.320 I found the language to like kind of point out 0:07:28.840 --> 0:07:33.720 what exactly like these criticisms which aren't wronged but also 0:07:33.840 --> 0:07:41.160 are very yes. So then I almost kind of like 0:07:41.240 --> 0:07:43.800 the Avatar out of spite in a way, just because 0:07:43.840 --> 0:07:48.600 I'm like, screw you, guys. I like this movie. But 0:07:49.080 --> 0:07:53.640 I'll be honest, after rewatching it and especially rewatching it now, 0:07:55.000 --> 0:07:57.720 I didn't like it as much. And I'm like, Okay, 0:07:57.720 --> 0:08:00.480 I know everything that's kind of I know everything that's 0:08:00.520 --> 0:08:03.280 wrong with it, but I still liked it. In spite 0:08:03.280 --> 0:08:06.320 of it. But I'm like, you know, after Rhymes three 0:08:06.320 --> 0:08:11.040 Young Gules and Reservation Dogs and Rutherford Falls and Wendell 0:08:11.120 --> 0:08:14.480 and Wild and all of these indigenous films usually made 0:08:14.480 --> 0:08:18.480 by indigenous people. Um, I say with full confidence that 0:08:18.560 --> 0:08:24.440 if Native creators were given the same the same amount 0:08:24.680 --> 0:08:29.720 of power and opportunity as James Cameron, they could do 0:08:29.800 --> 0:08:33.600 it just as good, if not better than. Avatar would 0:08:33.600 --> 0:08:37.280 probably be something you'd never see before, right, Yeah, that's 0:08:37.320 --> 0:08:40.800 what I think. Yeah, I mean absolutely, it's always where 0:08:40.800 --> 0:08:44.080 does the money go and who gets the opportunities? Yes, 0:08:44.360 --> 0:08:48.400 exactly that. So that's my very complicated history with Avatar. 0:08:49.000 --> 0:08:53.000 I love it, Jamie, what about you? What's yours? It's 0:08:53.000 --> 0:08:55.680 a disaster kind of it's all over the place of 0:08:55.760 --> 0:08:59.800 like I feel like you've been witnessed to it, and 0:09:00.040 --> 0:09:02.319 in large part, Caitlin, like, I saw this movie in 0:09:02.400 --> 0:09:05.520 high school, um, along with I think the rest of 0:09:05.559 --> 0:09:09.280 the world. It seems like I saw this movie in 0:09:10.000 --> 0:09:12.920 three D. I remember, Like I just wasn't. I mean, 0:09:13.200 --> 0:09:15.760 I guess like people don't maybe because the show has 0:09:15.760 --> 0:09:18.200 been on for so long, like I was originally your 0:09:18.240 --> 0:09:20.640 co because I just like I didn't know a lot 0:09:20.679 --> 0:09:24.120 about movies and didn't have like a huge passion for 0:09:24.160 --> 0:09:25.840 them growing up. So I saw it because it was 0:09:25.920 --> 0:09:28.800 like compulsory, it felt like, and I was like, I 0:09:28.840 --> 0:09:32.160 liked it, Sure, that was fun. And then as time 0:09:32.160 --> 0:09:34.480 went on and Ali you were alluding to this, there 0:09:34.520 --> 0:09:38.240 was like just there's always the shifting discussion around what 0:09:38.320 --> 0:09:42.960 this movie meant culturally, what it meant about you, if 0:09:43.000 --> 0:09:45.080 you liked it versus you didn't. Like I feel like 0:09:45.080 --> 0:09:48.240 it's just flip flopped a million times. Um. I think 0:09:48.240 --> 0:09:50.200 there was a huge chunk of time where they were 0:09:50.360 --> 0:09:54.320 like Avatar like has been forgotten, like lost to time, 0:09:54.440 --> 0:09:57.920 and you know, like why everyone saw this movie but 0:09:57.960 --> 0:10:00.040 no one can remember a thing that happens in it, 0:10:00.120 --> 0:10:02.679 which like I was like, well, I don't remember. And 0:10:02.720 --> 0:10:06.520 then I think sometime around the Lockdown, I took on 0:10:06.720 --> 0:10:12.520 a shreky in appreciation of Avatar, where it did seem 0:10:12.600 --> 0:10:16.839 like a lot of people uh with with like time 0:10:16.880 --> 0:10:19.800 on their hands, like got back into Avatar kind of 0:10:19.840 --> 0:10:22.760 like spitefully and ironically where they're like, well, I remember 0:10:22.800 --> 0:10:26.160 what happened in Avatar, and and I was I was 0:10:26.240 --> 0:10:28.240 kind of like I was kind of doing that for 0:10:28.280 --> 0:10:31.680 a while because I was you know, lockdown mental illness. 0:10:31.920 --> 0:10:34.040 I don't really know, like I can't really speak to it. 0:10:34.120 --> 0:10:36.600 I know it was happening. I know I bought a 0:10:36.720 --> 0:10:41.679 lot of books in because there was I think actually 0:10:42.080 --> 0:10:45.880 the video that like got me back into wanting to 0:10:46.000 --> 0:10:48.480 understand more about the movie. Because I rewatched the movie, 0:10:48.840 --> 0:10:50.800 I still like, I don't know, I feel like my 0:10:50.920 --> 0:10:55.040 opinion on the actually the movie itself has changed for 0:10:55.080 --> 0:10:57.000 a lot of the reasons you're describing Ali Like, I 0:10:57.320 --> 0:10:59.840 think that a lot of the there's a lot of 0:11:00.000 --> 0:11:02.600 of course, like extremely valid criticism of this movie that 0:11:02.679 --> 0:11:05.280 we need to talk about. And then there's also a 0:11:05.320 --> 0:11:10.600 lot of like overly simplistic comparisons that you're describing that, Um, 0:11:10.640 --> 0:11:14.480 I think you're interesting to discuss. Like, but it's it's 0:11:14.480 --> 0:11:16.839 it's very it's a very movie movie. I don't know, 0:11:16.880 --> 0:11:19.280 it's like a blockbuster where it just kind of washes 0:11:19.320 --> 0:11:21.480 over the movie. That feels like a movie. Would you 0:11:21.520 --> 0:11:26.600 say that the movie it feels like like a movie. 0:11:26.840 --> 0:11:34.120 It's what I would say, um, a movie with blue cats. 0:11:33.960 --> 0:11:39.680 It's oh god, I just dude, fox cats a cat 0:11:39.960 --> 0:11:46.280 does James Caeron, Like, I it's really I'm always going 0:11:46.320 --> 0:11:49.880 to give James Cameron a chance to impress me, and 0:11:50.160 --> 0:11:52.920 he's such a weird man, Like I just don't like. 0:11:53.120 --> 0:11:55.840 The things that he really commits himself to are baffling 0:11:55.920 --> 0:11:58.439 to me, and I'm excited to talk about it. Um. 0:11:58.480 --> 0:11:59.839 But yeah, I kind of came all the way around 0:11:59.840 --> 0:12:04.319 because I saw a YouTube video by a creator named sideways. 0:12:04.920 --> 0:12:09.920 Uh yes, right, so I think maybe we talked about 0:12:09.200 --> 0:12:13.280 you about. It's this incredible video that they made about 0:12:13.640 --> 0:12:17.120 how the Avatar score was composed and then kind of 0:12:17.280 --> 0:12:20.800 uncomposed of like all of this work and resources that 0:12:21.280 --> 0:12:25.440 James Cameron um and the production put into like creating 0:12:25.559 --> 0:12:29.360 a unique, very specific NAVI culture and then they basically 0:12:29.480 --> 0:12:32.680 used none of it and they got like overwhelmed, and 0:12:32.679 --> 0:12:35.800 then they're like, um, let's do a pretty standard James 0:12:35.880 --> 0:12:38.839 Horner score and that will basically be in So I 0:12:38.880 --> 0:12:41.560 got more interested in the production side of the movie 0:12:41.640 --> 0:12:45.640 because there was a lot more thought and intention that 0:12:45.679 --> 0:12:47.560 went into it than I would have guessed based on 0:12:47.640 --> 0:12:50.959 what the movie is like. So ultimately I would say 0:12:50.960 --> 0:12:55.360 the movie feels like a movie. Um. And I I 0:12:55.480 --> 0:12:58.120 still I mean, I am kind of excited to see 0:12:58.160 --> 0:13:01.360 the second one can't lie like I, you know, so Gurdi, 0:13:01.440 --> 0:13:05.160 we were playing a teenager. I've been trigued. I don't know. 0:13:05.400 --> 0:13:07.920 I don't know, but there's a lot of problems. I 0:13:07.960 --> 0:13:11.160 don't know. Yeah, my relationship with Avatar is fraught, but 0:13:11.200 --> 0:13:13.319 you know, so is mine. All right, well what's your 0:13:13.320 --> 0:13:17.760 relationship with Avatar? So I saw this in theaters I 0:13:17.800 --> 0:13:22.080 think twice. I was in my early twenties at the time, 0:13:22.920 --> 0:13:26.920 and I loved it. I was like, this movie rules. 0:13:26.960 --> 0:13:32.760 I know you loved it. Whoa Asterix At the time. 0:13:33.520 --> 0:13:35.920 I was like, damn, this movie is awesome. It's so 0:13:35.960 --> 0:13:39.839 good James Cameron, he's done it again. And then like 0:13:40.160 --> 0:13:43.520 some weeks passed and people were like, yeah, I mean, 0:13:43.520 --> 0:13:45.320 I guess I liked it, but was it that good? 0:13:45.360 --> 0:13:47.880 I'm not sure. And I was like, well, I don't know, 0:13:48.080 --> 0:13:50.480 was it? And then more weeks passed and people are like, 0:13:50.640 --> 0:13:53.200 maybe that movie actually kind of sucks, and like the 0:13:53.240 --> 0:13:54.840 same thing that you were talking about Alie is about 0:13:55.360 --> 0:13:57.560 and you jam me like and then I was like 0:13:57.600 --> 0:14:00.960 seeing all these things on this social media of the time, 0:14:00.960 --> 0:14:05.400 which was Facebook, people being like, it's just it's fern Gully, 0:14:05.760 --> 0:14:07.800 you know, James Cameron ripped off fern Gully, he ripped 0:14:07.840 --> 0:14:10.959 off Disney's pocahon Is it's blah blah blah. And then 0:14:10.960 --> 0:14:13.640 I also remember a very specific criticism that so many 0:14:13.679 --> 0:14:18.080 people were like the things called unobtainium. That's so ridiculous, 0:14:18.120 --> 0:14:21.320 and it's like, first of all, it's I think, intentionally 0:14:21.360 --> 0:14:24.720 on the nose. Secondly, have you seen some some of 0:14:24.760 --> 0:14:28.560 the elements on the periodic table are called there's an 0:14:28.560 --> 0:14:32.960 element called einstein Um, like they have some ridiculous names. 0:14:32.960 --> 0:14:36.160 Like Also, it's like everything about this movie is extremely 0:14:36.200 --> 0:14:39.240 on the nose, like right, it's not trying to be subtle, 0:14:39.400 --> 0:14:42.200 so like it's not really James Don's thing. People being 0:14:42.240 --> 0:14:46.480 like unobtainium that's so like that. I don't think it's 0:14:46.480 --> 0:14:49.040 a valid criticism. But then I was like, oh, yeah, 0:14:49.040 --> 0:14:51.600 I guess it is kind of like pulling from stuff 0:14:51.640 --> 0:14:53.480 and maybe it isn't as good as I thought. And 0:14:53.520 --> 0:14:55.640 I was like young enough that I was like too 0:14:55.680 --> 0:14:59.760 easily influenced by other people's opinions. Still, so I was like, yeah, 0:15:00.040 --> 0:15:04.600 reminds this movie it's not good. And then a decade passes, over, 0:15:04.640 --> 0:15:07.800 a decade passes, I don't watch the movie again until 0:15:08.120 --> 0:15:10.800 three days ago, and then I watch it again. I'm like, no, 0:15:11.040 --> 0:15:14.320 I was right the first time. This movie rules. But 0:15:14.880 --> 0:15:19.800 with the caveat that, there are right. With the caveat that. 0:15:19.880 --> 0:15:22.440 There are a lot of issues with it, which we 0:15:22.600 --> 0:15:26.400 are about to discuss. But from a just like kind 0:15:26.400 --> 0:15:29.880 of strictly narrative standpoint, I'm like, James Cameron, he did 0:15:29.880 --> 0:15:33.400 it again. He can tell a dam cinematic story, does it? 0:15:33.840 --> 0:15:36.920 He kind of always does it. There's a fun James 0:15:36.920 --> 0:15:40.120 Cameron thing that I noticed on this one was because 0:15:40.120 --> 0:15:43.080 there's just like a lot of good killing the bad 0:15:43.120 --> 0:15:45.880 guys moments towards the end of this movie. But the 0:15:45.920 --> 0:15:48.560 most the closest thing to the propeller moment Titanic is 0:15:48.600 --> 0:15:52.480 when the guy gets crushed between the two steel boxes. 0:15:52.520 --> 0:16:01.680 You're like, why he's a sick oh, and then that's 0:16:01.680 --> 0:16:06.480 what you get, colonizer. A lot of good colonizer kills. 0:16:06.600 --> 0:16:09.800 It was pretty exciting so many that's why so many 0:16:09.840 --> 0:16:11.960 white people did not like it. Let me tell me, 0:16:13.360 --> 0:16:16.840 oh my god, because this movie. I mean, I only 0:16:16.840 --> 0:16:20.800 lived in one small country in Europe, you know, so 0:16:20.920 --> 0:16:24.520 I can't say that this applies outside of the US. Everywhere. 0:16:24.920 --> 0:16:27.840 But the movie made so much money for a reason, 0:16:28.280 --> 0:16:31.040 and I'm pretty sure it's because the bad guys in 0:16:31.080 --> 0:16:35.680 Avatar are so American codd Like you don't see American 0:16:35.760 --> 0:16:38.800 flags or anything like that, but there's no British people 0:16:39.000 --> 0:16:42.440 and there's no all the white people have American accents, 0:16:43.400 --> 0:16:49.360 except for Sam Worthington, who's really I love million can't 0:16:49.440 --> 0:16:51.880 make an Australian guy sound American. Tell you there was 0:16:51.920 --> 0:16:55.080 one part where he is like, your life comes down 0:16:55.080 --> 0:17:00.800 to one moroment, and you're like, it just made them 0:17:01.040 --> 0:17:08.000 Australian because they still have a history of colonialism anyway. 0:17:08.040 --> 0:17:10.199 But yeah, and I think that's why, because the Americans 0:17:10.280 --> 0:17:13.560 lose in this one. Like I feel like the rest 0:17:13.560 --> 0:17:15.960 of the world kind of has a very at least 0:17:16.000 --> 0:17:19.840 my experience in Finland, they have a very Disney Princess 0:17:20.440 --> 0:17:25.879 cowboys and Indians understanding of Native history and Native people 0:17:26.560 --> 0:17:29.040 as far as Native American I should say, even if 0:17:29.040 --> 0:17:32.280 it's not as blatantly racist over there, there's still elements 0:17:32.359 --> 0:17:35.120 of it where it's like, oh, but you know, we're 0:17:35.200 --> 0:17:39.440 sympathetic kind of, you know, we're way more sympathetic, and 0:17:39.480 --> 0:17:43.320 we'll play the Indian in our games more than the Cowboy, 0:17:44.040 --> 0:17:46.199 you know that sort of thing. So to have a 0:17:46.240 --> 0:17:50.439 movie like this where the cowboys lose to the Indians, 0:17:50.680 --> 0:17:53.639 I can absolutely see and they sign the Americans packing. 0:17:53.680 --> 0:17:55.160 I mean, of course the rest of the world loved 0:17:55.160 --> 0:17:59.320 this movie. Of course, of course the white Americans hated it. 0:17:59.359 --> 0:18:03.720 It made two point nine billion dollars. Bill yawns, Billy, 0:18:06.040 --> 0:18:09.399 I always forget and get mad again. It's like, there's 0:18:10.000 --> 0:18:13.280 people have accused James Cameron of ripping off a million 0:18:13.359 --> 0:18:16.760 different stories in this, but there's also just like so 0:18:16.840 --> 0:18:19.840 much of James Cameron ripping himself off to for like 0:18:19.880 --> 0:18:22.000 that moment at the end. It reminded me so much 0:18:22.000 --> 0:18:24.080 of like when Mr. Is May survives and you get 0:18:24.119 --> 0:18:27.320 one shot on like this motherfucker lived, and they do 0:18:27.400 --> 0:18:29.320 the same thing with like the bad guy that's not 0:18:29.359 --> 0:18:33.960 the colonel. What's his name? Yeah, yes, yeah, I don't 0:18:33.960 --> 0:18:37.240 know that the character's name. I know the Parker Parker 0:18:37.880 --> 0:18:41.440 when the colonel gets into the like large robot thing, 0:18:41.720 --> 0:18:44.400 that's what Ripley does at the end of Aliens, Like yeah, 0:18:44.560 --> 0:18:48.440 like Dave's Cameron's using his own playbook to do. Oh 0:18:48.480 --> 0:18:50.680 that scene is so I'm like it's so weird. I'm like, 0:18:50.760 --> 0:18:54.760 I like, it's a good movie. There, I forgot. I 0:18:54.800 --> 0:18:57.359 haven't seen in a couple of years, and I think, 0:18:57.520 --> 0:18:59.240 you know whatever, your brain kind of trains you to 0:18:59.280 --> 0:19:04.560 expect the worst in every movie, especially when you do 0:19:04.640 --> 0:19:06.840 this show for six where the hosts of the back 0:19:06.920 --> 0:19:10.760 to cast. Yes, but I always feel myself clenched up 0:19:10.760 --> 0:19:13.720 where I'm like, he's not gonna let na Teri kill 0:19:13.800 --> 0:19:16.800 the colonel. Izzy, He's gonna let's he's gonna let's sull 0:19:17.000 --> 0:19:19.439 kill the colonel. He let's say Terry kill the colonel. 0:19:19.480 --> 0:19:22.919 And it's so exciting, and the whole theater cheered and 0:19:22.960 --> 0:19:28.120 it was awesome. The catharsis good job movie. We're gonna 0:19:28.160 --> 0:19:32.119 have so much fun. Let's take a quick break and 0:19:32.160 --> 0:19:36.040 then we'll come back to recap the movie. So we'll 0:19:36.080 --> 0:19:46.160 be right back, and we're back. All right, here's the recap. 0:19:46.320 --> 0:19:49.680 I had to gloss over some details and I even 0:19:49.680 --> 0:19:52.080 like leave out certain characters just because there's like so 0:19:52.160 --> 0:19:54.760 much and the movie is almost three hours long, so 0:19:55.600 --> 0:19:58.240 bear with me. But um, here we go. Better not 0:19:58.320 --> 0:20:01.680 cut out my friend Dr mac a k, the guy 0:20:01.880 --> 0:20:06.040 from Dragged Me to Hell. Wait, who is his name, 0:20:06.160 --> 0:20:10.240 Dr Max? It's Dr Max Ptel Oh, yes, Um Deelippe 0:20:10.400 --> 0:20:14.520 Row who's also in inception playing a very solar character. 0:20:15.320 --> 0:20:17.280 Kind of this is he was on kind of an 0:20:17.359 --> 0:20:20.639 unprecedented run in two thousand nine and ten and then 0:20:20.680 --> 0:20:24.320 I think James Cameron kidnapped him and um, he is 0:20:24.480 --> 0:20:29.719 stuck in Pantora forever forever. At least he's living off 0:20:29.760 --> 0:20:34.479 the royalties for the rest of his life. Truly, he's chilling. Okay, 0:20:34.520 --> 0:20:38.119 So we meet Jake Sully played by Sam Worthington, and 0:20:38.160 --> 0:20:42.760 we get his backstory. He is a marine who became 0:20:42.800 --> 0:20:46.359 disabled during battle. He's now paralyzed from the waist down 0:20:46.800 --> 0:20:49.399 and he has been approached with an opportunity to go 0:20:49.520 --> 0:20:54.240 to a far away planet called Pandora and do something 0:20:54.280 --> 0:20:57.840 we don't quite know what yet because his twin died, 0:20:58.119 --> 0:21:00.560 which I feel like is very glad used over that 0:21:00.640 --> 0:21:03.200 he's actively mourning his brother. His brother died like four 0:21:03.240 --> 0:21:06.240 minutes ago. Yeah, I know that. They just cremate him, 0:21:06.280 --> 0:21:08.600 like right in front of him. I'm like no, and 0:21:08.640 --> 0:21:11.720 he's just like damn dude, and he's like, we need 0:21:11.720 --> 0:21:16.040 you for science, and he's like he's Okay, these cans. 0:21:17.200 --> 0:21:20.440 He's like, all right, sleep it off science in the morning. 0:21:21.680 --> 0:21:24.399 And also no one cares that he just lost his 0:21:24.440 --> 0:21:28.919 twin brother, like weavers, like, um, okay, what are you 0:21:28.960 --> 0:21:34.479 doing here, you loser? I need your brother. Oh yeah, okay. 0:21:34.520 --> 0:21:37.920 So then Jake arrives on Pandora and he learns about 0:21:37.960 --> 0:21:43.920 the planet. It's dangerous wildlife and it's indigenous population called 0:21:43.960 --> 0:21:49.480 the Navvy, who are tall, blueskinned humanoids. Uh, your cat 0:21:49.600 --> 0:21:54.040 like the cat cat features with cat features. Jake meets 0:21:54.240 --> 0:21:57.000 Norm and the two of them are going to be 0:21:57.040 --> 0:22:01.359 avatar drivers. So basically, scientists have spliced human and NAVI 0:22:01.760 --> 0:22:06.480 d NA to create these avatars that Jake and Norm 0:22:06.520 --> 0:22:11.800 and other people will remotely operate by hooking the people 0:22:11.960 --> 0:22:16.000 up to these avatars via a like neural link, which 0:22:16.040 --> 0:22:18.240 is why they wanted Jake for this because he has 0:22:18.240 --> 0:22:20.520 the same DNA as his brother. They originally built this 0:22:20.560 --> 0:22:23.639 avatar for his brother, but it'll still work with Jake, 0:22:23.960 --> 0:22:27.320 and that always messes me up because it's like they 0:22:27.400 --> 0:22:30.320 do nothing with that. It's like if it's his brother's 0:22:30.440 --> 0:22:33.119 d n A. I mean, this whole movie is about 0:22:33.119 --> 0:22:36.719 accessing memory and accessing like history and stuff have them. 0:22:36.760 --> 0:22:40.600 They never did anything like that where he enters his 0:22:41.280 --> 0:22:45.480 brother's avatar and elements from like his blood memory or 0:22:45.520 --> 0:22:48.000 something like that is still there so he can feel 0:22:48.080 --> 0:22:51.640 his thoughts or something. They never do anything with it. 0:22:51.920 --> 0:22:54.680 That's such a good point. I've never thought about that, right, 0:22:54.680 --> 0:22:57.080 because it's like that would fit into the theme of 0:22:57.080 --> 0:23:01.439 the movie. And Jake's always like underdeveloped, but it's not 0:23:01.480 --> 0:23:04.600 like you don't know anything about it. Damn. Yeah. And 0:23:04.800 --> 0:23:09.159 NATII and the deleted scenes has a sister who died, 0:23:09.680 --> 0:23:13.200 and these guys never bond over that, Like you both 0:23:13.240 --> 0:23:17.040 lost your siblings like recently, and that's not something you 0:23:17.040 --> 0:23:22.119 guys would talk about during your forced fucking romance. And 0:23:22.160 --> 0:23:24.480 you would also think that, like I don't know that, 0:23:24.600 --> 0:23:28.000 like Jake might. I don't know, Like Jake doesn't feel 0:23:29.240 --> 0:23:32.200 culpable enough for any of this the entire movie, when 0:23:32.240 --> 0:23:35.560 it is like, so his fault a lot of the 0:23:35.720 --> 0:23:38.000 like most of the time. But it was like also 0:23:38.080 --> 0:23:41.920 on top of that, his brother would be so disappointed 0:23:41.960 --> 0:23:44.919 in him for like it sounds like his brother was 0:23:44.960 --> 0:23:49.600 a very like, well liked ethical scientist who would be 0:23:49.680 --> 0:23:54.760 probably devastated to learn that his brother like Mick fucked 0:23:54.760 --> 0:24:06.160 his entire like up on such unprecedented scale. Truly, they 0:24:06.200 --> 0:24:09.000 be doing that. Um okay. So then we meet the 0:24:09.040 --> 0:24:13.560 head of the Avatar project, Grace Augustine played by Sigourney Weaver. She, 0:24:13.920 --> 0:24:16.760 like we mentioned, is not thrilled with Jake being there 0:24:16.800 --> 0:24:20.040 because he's not a trained scientist. But Jake being there 0:24:20.160 --> 0:24:24.800 was Parker self Ridge's idea. That's Giovanni Ribisi. And then 0:24:24.800 --> 0:24:27.760 we learned why people have come to Pandora. It's to 0:24:28.119 --> 0:24:35.280 collect parentheses steal an extremely valuable element slash mineral called unobtainium. 0:24:35.920 --> 0:24:38.560 And Parker's whole thing is that he'll stop at nothing 0:24:38.640 --> 0:24:44.200 to obtain this unobtaini um um, yeah, James Cameron does 0:24:44.240 --> 0:24:47.600 the classic thing of like capitalism is one guy and 0:24:47.640 --> 0:24:51.840 the military industrial complex is also another guy. It's not 0:24:51.920 --> 0:24:57.040 subtle storytelling, but you know, but it's also right, like 0:24:57.160 --> 0:25:01.440 it's also correct, which is the worst part. So obviously 0:25:01.480 --> 0:25:05.560 the nov don't want them to do this. So right now, 0:25:05.600 --> 0:25:08.480 the humans are trying to find a quote unquote diplomatic 0:25:08.640 --> 0:25:14.040 way to colonize the Navy and steal their resources. So 0:25:14.080 --> 0:25:18.080 then Jake gets neural linked to his Navy avatar for 0:25:18.119 --> 0:25:21.600 the first time. He gets acclimated to his new body, 0:25:21.760 --> 0:25:25.000 and the movie telegraphs to us that it's exciting for 0:25:25.119 --> 0:25:28.239 him because his in his human body, he's paralyzed from 0:25:28.240 --> 0:25:31.280 the waist down, but in his navy body he can 0:25:31.359 --> 0:25:35.200 walk and run, and he really takes to his new 0:25:35.240 --> 0:25:40.960 body very quickly. This is interesting because there is absolutely 0:25:41.000 --> 0:25:44.840 some able is um for sure in this movie. We'll 0:25:44.880 --> 0:25:48.679 talk about that. Yeah. Yeah, there's a really wonderful line though, 0:25:48.720 --> 0:25:52.399 because obviously people with disabilities are not I hate to 0:25:52.400 --> 0:25:54.679 say not a monolith, but that's the only thing that 0:25:54.720 --> 0:25:58.120 came to mind. You know, there's many different types, uh, 0:25:58.160 --> 0:26:01.359 and it's different for each person. So there was a 0:26:01.480 --> 0:26:05.520 quote when I was doing my research where a woman 0:26:06.000 --> 0:26:09.720 who was able bodied and then couldn't use her legs 0:26:09.760 --> 0:26:12.760 anymore and as in a wheelchair, said that the scene 0:26:12.880 --> 0:26:16.800 where he goes from his wheelchair into the avatar where 0:26:16.840 --> 0:26:21.160 he's walking and playing basketball and running, it's really touching. 0:26:21.320 --> 0:26:23.679 She's like, I had a spinal cord injury in a 0:26:23.680 --> 0:26:25.879 car accident when I was five years old, so it 0:26:25.920 --> 0:26:29.760 gave me chills. I'm in a wheelchair for twenty years. 0:26:29.840 --> 0:26:32.200 I can't even remember what it was like, and he's 0:26:32.280 --> 0:26:34.720 just stretching his legs out and it must have felt 0:26:34.800 --> 0:26:39.280 just so like the ultimate stretch. And then other people 0:26:39.440 --> 0:26:45.320 were like, uh no, this is actually quite awful. Yeah, yeah, 0:26:45.320 --> 0:26:48.000 there's a whole conversation to be had around that. And 0:26:48.040 --> 0:26:53.080 I saw similarly like mixed responses um and ultimately the 0:26:53.200 --> 0:26:57.800 actor should have been a disabled actor exactly, a disabled actor, 0:26:57.800 --> 0:26:59.840 a good actor. You know, there's a lot of part 0:26:59.840 --> 0:27:03.960 your not a white actor, a lot of choices could 0:27:03.960 --> 0:27:06.120 have been made differently. I think, yeah, we'll get into 0:27:06.160 --> 0:27:09.600 the conversation around disability a little later. But I was 0:27:09.680 --> 0:27:12.840 interested that there was such a kind of diversity of 0:27:13.320 --> 0:27:17.479 opinion because what was hitting for me And it's like, 0:27:17.720 --> 0:27:21.480 I'm able bodied, Like I don't have a voice in 0:27:21.480 --> 0:27:24.200 this conversation really, but but I you know, there are 0:27:24.240 --> 0:27:30.360 constant insults thrown Jake Sully's way. They are generally from 0:27:30.440 --> 0:27:33.879 characters we are not supposed to like. So it's like, 0:27:34.000 --> 0:27:37.000 I don't know, it's it's it's a it's an interesting one, 0:27:37.160 --> 0:27:39.920 it's complicated, and from characters that we do like it, 0:27:40.200 --> 0:27:43.760 even Grace At sometimes that's yeah, she's saying some ablest 0:27:44.040 --> 0:27:51.679 slurs at him. Yeah, it's like, okay, Grace smoking a 0:27:51.720 --> 0:27:55.600 cigarette in the lab. Oh yeah, She's like, where's my 0:27:55.640 --> 0:27:58.800 goddamn cigarette? What's wrong with this picture? That was iconic, 0:27:58.960 --> 0:28:03.640 that was great. You don't need a sig you need 0:28:03.760 --> 0:28:08.720 but her able ism was disappointed and consistent too. It 0:28:08.840 --> 0:28:12.159 like became like a term of endearment. It seems like, yeah, 0:28:12.520 --> 0:28:17.120 really gross. Um. So back in his Jake body, he 0:28:17.200 --> 0:28:22.080 meets Trudy. That's Michelle Rodriguez. She's a pilot who will 0:28:22.160 --> 0:28:25.960 bring the avatars into the wilderness so they can do 0:28:26.000 --> 0:28:31.520 their science uh and colonizing. Um. Jake also reports to 0:28:31.840 --> 0:28:37.119 Colonel Quaritch his whole thing is science people are losers. 0:28:37.280 --> 0:28:40.160 Military people are awesome, And I want you to spy 0:28:40.320 --> 0:28:43.080 on the Novi and find out their weaknesses so I 0:28:43.120 --> 0:28:45.920 can kill them more easily. I love this bad guy. 0:28:46.000 --> 0:28:48.680 I know I shouldn't, but I love this bad guy. 0:28:49.160 --> 0:28:54.920 He's such a ham He's so campy. He seems camping, cartoonish. 0:28:55.000 --> 0:28:58.080 But also I feel like there are people like this, 0:28:58.600 --> 0:29:01.960 oh for sure. So just like this, in any other movie, 0:29:02.000 --> 0:29:04.680 he would be the hero. James Cameron just made him 0:29:04.720 --> 0:29:07.360 the bad guy this time, but changed nothing like this 0:29:07.360 --> 0:29:11.200 would be Arnold in the Goddamn Jungle looking for the Predator. 0:29:11.840 --> 0:29:15.520 This could be any action hero in the eighties. It's 0:29:15.560 --> 0:29:20.360 the exact same character. He's just bad this time and 0:29:20.480 --> 0:29:24.760 it's Stephen Lange and he's just so fucking perfect and scoofy. 0:29:25.280 --> 0:29:28.560 It's very good casting. Stephen Lange really seems like he's 0:29:28.560 --> 0:29:31.280 having the time of his life being the worst man ever. 0:29:32.120 --> 0:29:34.760 And I mean the same with Giovanni Ribisi's character, where 0:29:34.760 --> 0:29:37.800 you're like, he's just fucking despicable and it's so like 0:29:38.160 --> 0:29:40.920 played up, and then when they're in the same room, 0:29:40.960 --> 0:29:43.040 you're like, oh, it's the most evil room in the world, 0:29:43.240 --> 0:29:46.600 and you're reculing there are people that are those people 0:29:46.840 --> 0:29:49.240 are just like this do you have on ABC? Is 0:29:49.320 --> 0:29:52.240 interesting though, I feel like his character would have been 0:29:52.320 --> 0:29:56.160 this one dimensional, you know, sort of comic book character 0:29:56.360 --> 0:30:00.360 like Stephen Lane, but he um. I think the actor 0:30:01.120 --> 0:30:04.920 gives it a nuance where he's like conflicted, where it's like, 0:30:04.960 --> 0:30:07.200 because you even see it in the movie sometimes where 0:30:07.200 --> 0:30:10.160 he's like he'll give like a heavy sigh, We're going 0:30:10.240 --> 0:30:13.040 to kill these people and well they're not people, they're 0:30:13.840 --> 0:30:17.120 cats in a tree. Whatever. They can go to another tree. 0:30:18.160 --> 0:30:21.920 But we're gonna kill babies, you know. So it's like 0:30:22.160 --> 0:30:25.280 you kind of like see the mental gymnastics he's doing, 0:30:25.560 --> 0:30:26.960 or like the you know, the things that he has 0:30:26.960 --> 0:30:29.680 to do to justify his choices, which does make it 0:30:29.760 --> 0:30:35.880 worse because he still Yeah, yeah, not to brag or anything, 0:30:35.920 --> 0:30:39.400 but I saw Giovanni Ribis getting ice cream in my 0:30:39.440 --> 0:30:44.520 neighborhood one time. Wow. All I did was see Taylor 0:30:44.600 --> 0:30:47.400 Lawton or screaming at a moon juice. It's not fair. 0:30:48.600 --> 0:30:51.360 I met Scott McNeil a and he told me I 0:30:51.440 --> 0:30:56.760 was beautiful. Hell yeah, okay, I do. That was Piccolow 0:30:56.960 --> 0:31:01.120 from Dragon Ball Z and all of my nineties heroes 0:31:01.680 --> 0:31:07.760 hell yoh okay. So, Jake, Norm and Grace in their 0:31:07.800 --> 0:31:13.840 avatars go into the forest. They encounter some big, scary animals. 0:31:14.400 --> 0:31:17.440 One chases Jake and he gets separated from the others 0:31:17.520 --> 0:31:21.560 and lost in the forest. Then he encounters a navvy 0:31:21.680 --> 0:31:26.120 woman Natieri played by Zoey Soldanna, who saves him from 0:31:26.680 --> 0:31:29.840 the animals who were swarming him. But she's really pissed. 0:31:30.000 --> 0:31:32.880 She's like, those animals didn't need to die, but because 0:31:32.920 --> 0:31:36.840 you were careless and flopping around like a baby, I 0:31:36.880 --> 0:31:41.400 had to kill them. And he's like, Oopsie, well how 0:31:41.400 --> 0:31:44.280 about you teach me to be better at this? And 0:31:44.320 --> 0:31:47.840 she's like, no, you suck. But then the seeds of 0:31:47.960 --> 0:31:51.640 the Sacred tree float down and surround him as if 0:31:51.720 --> 0:31:55.440 to say he's special, He's the chosen one. I know, 0:31:55.560 --> 0:31:58.480 there's so many chosen one shots. And then I've kind 0:31:58.480 --> 0:32:01.040 of always forget that. It culminate in like and also, 0:32:01.120 --> 0:32:04.120 Jake Sully can kind of talk to God and she 0:32:05.040 --> 0:32:10.880 listens to him. What God answers to Jake Sully, what 0:32:10.920 --> 0:32:17.360 are you talking about? Atlantis Morrissette would never talk about. Also, 0:32:18.320 --> 0:32:23.240 Zoe Seldana just like one thousand percent, just embodies this 0:32:23.400 --> 0:32:26.640 character like she's the best. She's the best actress in 0:32:26.640 --> 0:32:31.400 the movie. I love, like just the physical performance, the 0:32:31.480 --> 0:32:35.160 way she moves, the way she the way she hisses 0:32:35.200 --> 0:32:39.640 like a cat. Yes, she's so good. They said that 0:32:39.680 --> 0:32:42.840 she was a former ballet dancer, so she was able 0:32:42.880 --> 0:32:47.120 to do like all the stunt work and stuff like yeah, 0:32:47.160 --> 0:32:50.239 because she was in that movie that we covered and 0:32:50.280 --> 0:32:53.920 it was called Center Stage. Yes, yeah, that was like 0:32:53.960 --> 0:32:56.960 her big debut. Yeah, I forgot that she was Yeah, 0:32:57.200 --> 0:33:01.120 Jews dance trained man. So he sail. Donna also on 0:33:01.320 --> 0:33:03.800 a hot streak because she's also in the Star Trek 0:33:03.840 --> 0:33:07.680 movie this year and Guardians of the and yeah, like 0:33:07.760 --> 0:33:10.200 she's queen a sci fi she's in a lot of 0:33:10.240 --> 0:33:13.440 space movies. Yeah, she's She's also in the Britney Spears 0:33:13.560 --> 0:33:19.520 classic Cross Crossroads. Yes, I did not know that true story. 0:33:19.640 --> 0:33:21.840 I feel like I feel like DNA would prefer it 0:33:21.880 --> 0:33:25.680 that way. It's not a very good movie written by 0:33:25.680 --> 0:33:31.320 Shonda Rhymes though. Okay, So Natieri takes Jake to Home 0:33:31.400 --> 0:33:38.960 Tree where the Navi live. We meet her father. Yes, 0:33:39.040 --> 0:33:40.800 I know that with him as soon as I saw him, 0:33:41.000 --> 0:33:44.000 Like he just has a very distinct looking face, even 0:33:44.080 --> 0:33:45.920 before I even knew he was in the movie. It's 0:33:45.960 --> 0:33:48.680 like as soon as it was like, okay, native coded characters, 0:33:49.160 --> 0:33:54.680 they need a chief there. He is beautiful man. Yeah yea. 0:33:55.080 --> 0:34:00.000 So he's the clan leader. And we also meet Natieri's mother, 0:34:00.000 --> 0:34:03.960 their Mowatt, played by cc H pounder Um. She's there 0:34:04.040 --> 0:34:08.400 like spiritual leader the Sahik. She's incredible. She is the 0:34:08.440 --> 0:34:12.280 best looking one. I love her design. Her design is awesome. 0:34:12.560 --> 0:34:15.480 First of all, that was so Mowatt is the only 0:34:15.840 --> 0:34:18.480 character in the film that passes the Ali Nati test, 0:34:19.120 --> 0:34:21.040 oh because she never falls in love with a white 0:34:21.080 --> 0:34:25.200 man and she doesn't die and all that other good ship. 0:34:26.680 --> 0:34:31.319 But yeah, so she Uh. Usually in stories like this, 0:34:31.440 --> 0:34:36.080 there is never a chief's wife, like there's usually the 0:34:36.160 --> 0:34:40.080 chief's daughter, the Indian princess type, but you never see 0:34:40.200 --> 0:34:43.799 like the spouse of the chief, which is interesting because 0:34:43.840 --> 0:34:47.320 a lot of Native society is not all but many 0:34:47.440 --> 0:34:53.480 are matrilineal, so the bloodline usually follows the mother, so 0:34:53.560 --> 0:34:56.640 you never really see a character quite like this anyways. 0:34:57.120 --> 0:35:02.799 But then she just her design is beautiful. I just 0:35:03.320 --> 0:35:06.600 love how every aspect of this character. You look at 0:35:06.600 --> 0:35:10.800 her and it tells a story. I by that she's 0:35:10.880 --> 0:35:14.799 the chief's wife, that she's the spiritual leader. Um, the 0:35:14.840 --> 0:35:18.640 fact that she's bilingual suggests that she probably tried to 0:35:18.640 --> 0:35:22.600 be diplomatic and then realized there's no salvaging this. So 0:35:23.000 --> 0:35:25.839 you know, it's just such a really interesting I wish 0:35:25.840 --> 0:35:29.320 we saw more of her and less of Jake. I 0:35:29.680 --> 0:35:32.560 like less of Jake on the whole. I hope that 0:35:32.600 --> 0:35:35.880 the second movie really runs with the whole concept of 0:35:36.200 --> 0:35:41.040 less Jake. The trailers tell us anything, though, I feel 0:35:41.080 --> 0:35:43.440 like he's in the movie a lot sid Founder. I 0:35:43.760 --> 0:35:47.760 didn't because I'm like, I don't know anything about linguistics. 0:35:47.920 --> 0:35:51.319 I'm I'm just a baby. I'm seventeen years old. You're 0:35:51.400 --> 0:35:55.920 Jake Sully flopping around in the forest. So that's that 0:35:56.239 --> 0:36:00.439 I'm not that bad. But but um in in that 0:36:00.640 --> 0:36:05.239 sideways video that sort of unpacks how you know, this 0:36:05.280 --> 0:36:09.320 movie invested in building an entire language, kind of Elvish style, 0:36:09.960 --> 0:36:13.680 and like hired a dialect coach to teach each actor 0:36:14.280 --> 0:36:18.319 um how to speak Navi and speak it correctly. I 0:36:18.320 --> 0:36:20.520 guess C. C. H. Pounder is like the m v 0:36:20.640 --> 0:36:23.480 P of speaking Navy in a way that it was 0:36:23.520 --> 0:36:26.080 like very authentic and convincing. And there's like a whole 0:36:26.120 --> 0:36:29.200 sequence of like how she I don't know, it's really 0:36:29.239 --> 0:36:35.960 cool cool anyway, shoutout C. H. Pounder. Hell yeah, shout out. Okay. 0:36:36.080 --> 0:36:40.040 So most of the nov are hostile towards Jake, understandably 0:36:40.160 --> 0:36:44.040 they see him as an outsider. But Ma Watt says 0:36:44.239 --> 0:36:47.359 that Jake Sully should learn their ways because she's like 0:36:47.680 --> 0:36:51.560 she interprets the will of a wa, which is their deity. 0:36:51.640 --> 0:36:54.840 So Mo Wat's like, Okay, you can learn our ways 0:36:55.040 --> 0:36:57.919 and NATII, you're going to be the one to teach him, 0:36:58.080 --> 0:37:03.160 which she's not thrilled about. Back in human world, everyone 0:37:03.880 --> 0:37:06.680 is thrilled that Jake has gotten so close to the 0:37:06.719 --> 0:37:13.240 Navy grace for like science and anthropological reasons. And Parker 0:37:13.440 --> 0:37:16.480 because under the Navy palm tree is one of the 0:37:16.600 --> 0:37:21.440 largest obtanium deposits on the whole planet um and so 0:37:21.520 --> 0:37:25.360 he's giving Jake three months to convince the Navy to 0:37:25.840 --> 0:37:29.400 move so that they can come and steal the unobtainium. 0:37:29.440 --> 0:37:34.160 Otherwise bulldozers will go in and destroy the place. So 0:37:34.239 --> 0:37:38.960 back in Avatar body, Jake begins to learn the culture 0:37:39.000 --> 0:37:43.720 and customs of the Navy. Also, they call themselves omata kaya, 0:37:44.680 --> 0:37:48.959 so I'll like probably use those words interchangeably from now on. 0:37:49.000 --> 0:37:51.760 Although they refer to themselves, they never referred to themselves 0:37:51.800 --> 0:37:54.719 as the Navy. Is that correct. I think it's part 0:37:54.800 --> 0:37:58.680 of their language. Yeah, Because there's a scene where she's 0:37:58.760 --> 0:38:02.040 yelling and I here not be I wonder if it's 0:38:02.040 --> 0:38:05.720 like their word for like people maybe or something, because 0:38:05.960 --> 0:38:10.680 I think is the name of their clan, their clan, Okay, 0:38:10.760 --> 0:38:13.879 because I think other yeah, other like regional clans are 0:38:14.000 --> 0:38:18.680 referenced later on when they're building their the army against 0:38:19.320 --> 0:38:26.319 against Mr. Military. Yes, Stephen Lan, Yeah, I love when 0:38:26.320 --> 0:38:29.640 Stephen Lan dies. It's so exciting. Okay. So, because they 0:38:29.680 --> 0:38:33.120 refer to themselves as amata kaya, all from this point 0:38:33.160 --> 0:38:38.040 on use that um to refer to them. So Jake 0:38:38.239 --> 0:38:44.000 learns how to ride this horse like creature, and Naterie 0:38:44.320 --> 0:38:49.000 explains that he needs to form a bond called sahlu 0:38:49.600 --> 0:38:54.200 with the creature, which is the like. So they all 0:38:54.239 --> 0:38:57.640 the Amakaya people have this long braid and at the 0:38:57.719 --> 0:39:01.640 end of the braid are these how would doc Yeah, 0:39:01.680 --> 0:39:07.400 tentacles more or less little like nerve endings. It's very um, 0:39:07.440 --> 0:39:11.439 You're just like James Cameron. It's what are you thinking 0:39:11.480 --> 0:39:15.160 about in that big old house? That's what he was saying. 0:39:17.920 --> 0:39:24.080 Can't girls and tentacles? I'm just saying, really, it's so funny. 0:39:24.120 --> 0:39:26.680 I'm like, I wouldn't even say that's him knowing his audience. 0:39:26.719 --> 0:39:31.399 I think that's him broadening his audience. So it's like, well, 0:39:31.640 --> 0:39:36.960 fuck the horse with your tentacle braid. Yeah, and that's 0:39:37.000 --> 0:39:40.600 how you create this meaningful bond with animals and trees 0:39:40.719 --> 0:39:44.879 and um, basically any living thing on Pandora. There's also 0:39:44.960 --> 0:39:48.360 this flying animal, the Akron, but he's not ready to 0:39:48.880 --> 0:39:52.880 form a halu with one of those yet, because this 0:39:52.960 --> 0:39:59.640 is like advanced stuff, advanced tentacle sex. He's not ready 0:39:59.640 --> 0:40:06.319 for its. It advanced hantai Hanti two one is yeah, 0:40:06.360 --> 0:40:09.520 but he is learning the language, he's learning how to hunt, 0:40:09.600 --> 0:40:13.319 he's learning how to see things from an omata kaya perspective. 0:40:13.480 --> 0:40:18.680 He learns about the deity Awa and eventually Natteri deems 0:40:18.760 --> 0:40:22.840 him ready to try to form this bond with an Ikron, 0:40:23.520 --> 0:40:27.200 which he successfully does. Also side note, there is an 0:40:27.239 --> 0:40:31.160 alpha version of the Akron, but it's very very rare 0:40:31.239 --> 0:40:34.400 for anyone to bond and fly with one, so just 0:40:34.480 --> 0:40:36.760 put a little pin in that. It's like the guy 0:40:36.880 --> 0:40:42.960 Fieri iron like. It's got flames on this side like 0:40:43.880 --> 0:40:47.520 it's the cool He's very big, you can tell because 0:40:47.520 --> 0:40:54.200 he's got flames. Oh, speaking of cat like creatures, Ali's 0:40:54.200 --> 0:41:00.400 cat just showed up. Heard the call ah Piku, I 0:41:00.440 --> 0:41:05.040 too would like to learn about the cats, the fellow 0:41:05.120 --> 0:41:11.799 dragon fucking cats. Okay, so Jake and Naterie they fly 0:41:12.000 --> 0:41:19.000 together and also they flirt together. Nobody asked for this, 0:41:19.560 --> 0:41:22.600 and yet I'm kind of rooting for them. There I 0:41:22.600 --> 0:41:25.439 said it, you weren't. That was I was honestly brave 0:41:25.520 --> 0:41:28.520 to say, because no one else did. I feel like 0:41:28.600 --> 0:41:33.320 at every turn, you're just like Nigeria can do better 0:41:33.719 --> 0:41:37.960 so much among these faceless navi that do we know 0:41:38.000 --> 0:41:41.120 that it's such a large population, Like, surely, surely someone's 0:41:41.160 --> 0:41:44.440 here that isn't Jake Sully. But I feel like, you know, 0:41:44.520 --> 0:41:46.920 in in the in the real world, we often end 0:41:46.960 --> 0:41:50.080 up with the Jake Sullies of the world. Told me 0:41:50.080 --> 0:41:51.759 about it. You never think it's going to be you. 0:41:52.560 --> 0:41:55.080 The worst part is that the guy she's hooked up with, 0:41:55.120 --> 0:41:56.920 the one who is going to be the next clan leader, 0:41:57.040 --> 0:42:02.800 his name Suite. Those two they're like betrothed. I guess 0:42:02.840 --> 0:42:07.560 they become a mated pair eventually, but you don't really 0:42:07.560 --> 0:42:10.919 see them interact much at all, Like they really don't 0:42:10.960 --> 0:42:14.799 have much of a relationship, which is unfortunate because the 0:42:14.840 --> 0:42:18.040 actor is super hot, and yet they give my man 0:42:18.160 --> 0:42:23.160 this fucking atrocious hairline and these tiny ears and these 0:42:23.200 --> 0:42:28.600 any bodies small nipples. I want to like you, but shit, 0:42:29.920 --> 0:42:35.200 I mean, las Alonzo is gorgeous. They did him so dirty. 0:42:35.320 --> 0:42:37.520 They didn't pretty dirty, I don't. I mean, there's like, 0:42:37.640 --> 0:42:40.240 I think the element of Jak and Dyteri's love story 0:42:40.360 --> 0:42:43.400 that worked for me, although I was like a little 0:42:43.480 --> 0:42:48.319 unclear on what the Navvy mating practices work because it 0:42:48.320 --> 0:42:51.560 was like, yeah, they referenced that you would be betrothed, 0:42:51.600 --> 0:42:54.200 you didn't have a say in who you married. But 0:42:54.320 --> 0:42:56.640 then it's like, I guess they just didn't really go 0:42:56.680 --> 0:42:58.200 into it. I'm sure it's in one of my many 0:42:58.280 --> 0:43:01.440 Navvy guide books that I have back in Los Angeles, 0:43:01.600 --> 0:43:04.000 but I am not there right now, so I couldn't 0:43:04.000 --> 0:43:08.920 consult my my small avatar library that I manically purchased 0:43:08.920 --> 0:43:13.279 second hand. Please don't judge me, okay, um, but I 0:43:13.280 --> 0:43:15.319 think that the element of the Jake and Naterry love 0:43:15.360 --> 0:43:18.480 story that worked for me was like her choosing Like 0:43:18.520 --> 0:43:22.080 that was cool, That's what I liked to Yeah, and 0:43:22.120 --> 0:43:25.040 even Jake Sully was like and she must choose me 0:43:25.440 --> 0:43:32.360 because he's an Australian. She's like she already has kiss 0:43:32.440 --> 0:43:38.120 You're right, Yeah, that's the part. I like, let's fatantical 0:43:38.160 --> 0:43:43.480 six then, but yeah, Jake is a romantic partner? Is um? No? 0:43:43.719 --> 0:43:48.759 Thanks pass? Okay, So back in human world. Jake is 0:43:48.800 --> 0:43:52.160 having an identity crisis because he has gotten so immersed 0:43:52.280 --> 0:43:55.799 in the Omakayah way of life that he feels that 0:43:55.800 --> 0:44:00.920 that's his real life and him as a humans like 0:44:00.960 --> 0:44:06.040 a dream. Basically, they say he stopped showering. You're like, Jake, Yeah, 0:44:06.200 --> 0:44:10.520 get it together, man, Seriously. He is then officially made 0:44:10.800 --> 0:44:13.839 a member of the Oma Takaya, so he is now 0:44:14.040 --> 0:44:17.040 one of them. Can I just say this takes place 0:44:17.080 --> 0:44:22.680 over three months? I know this motherfucker becomes the best navvy, 0:44:22.800 --> 0:44:26.560 the best Indian ever in three months. I don't want 0:44:26.560 --> 0:44:30.000 to hear anybody complain about Ray from Star Wars ever again, 0:44:30.840 --> 0:44:35.480 ever again? Where was that energy for Jake? Selling? Yeah? 0:44:35.800 --> 0:44:39.040 I found that hard to believe, both that he could 0:44:39.120 --> 0:44:41.920 master a language in three months and like just like 0:44:42.000 --> 0:44:45.560 master all of the culture and customs, and that the 0:44:45.640 --> 0:44:49.120 Alma Takaya people would so readily accept him in such 0:44:49.120 --> 0:44:51.400 a short amount of time. I was like, nothing adds 0:44:51.480 --> 0:44:55.440 up here, No disconnected natives, Like obviously not all natives 0:44:55.440 --> 0:44:58.879 are the same, but so many disconnected natives who are 0:44:58.960 --> 0:45:04.719 displaced because of colonization, residential schools, foster care, or just 0:45:05.000 --> 0:45:08.439 some growing off the reservation like there's such an anxiety 0:45:09.000 --> 0:45:12.719 when it comes to reconnecting to your own people that 0:45:12.880 --> 0:45:16.120 the fact that this dude who has nothing to do 0:45:16.160 --> 0:45:18.640 with any of these people and has no history with 0:45:18.680 --> 0:45:20.560 any of these people can just walk right and be 0:45:20.680 --> 0:45:27.480 like oh yeah. There's so many gross moments, like especially 0:45:27.480 --> 0:45:31.879 once he becomes immersed in like o Mentakaya culture, like 0:45:32.000 --> 0:45:35.239 where he repeatedly is like I need to speak and 0:45:35.280 --> 0:45:39.080 it's like, Jake, you don't, like you've just got here 0:45:39.160 --> 0:45:43.000 my man, Like really shouldn't? That, I would say is 0:45:43.080 --> 0:45:47.000 my biggest beef with this movie. Yeah, Jake is really 0:45:47.080 --> 0:45:51.360 taking up quite a bit of space for being a guest, 0:45:51.440 --> 0:45:54.680 for being a new, like a new random white guy 0:45:54.840 --> 0:46:01.640 that is actively ruining everyone's life, Like yeah, fucking Jake Sully. 0:46:01.680 --> 0:46:04.680 But he's one of them now. And um he gets 0:46:04.719 --> 0:46:07.560 to choose a mate and he chooses nay Tieri and 0:46:07.600 --> 0:46:10.760 she's like, I choose you back, and then they kiss 0:46:10.880 --> 0:46:14.919 and have tentacle sex under a tree. It's kind of hot. 0:46:15.080 --> 0:46:20.680 It's confusing, you're corny. James Cameron knows how to make 0:46:20.960 --> 0:46:24.719 a sex scene that will even if you don't like it, 0:46:24.719 --> 0:46:27.520 it's going to stick with you. It's good, you're gonna 0:46:27.520 --> 0:46:30.080 be thinking about it. I remember when I thought that 0:46:30.120 --> 0:46:32.480 scene was so weird when I saw it for the 0:46:32.520 --> 0:46:35.839 first time, and then I a couple of years later, 0:46:35.880 --> 0:46:39.319 I started playing mass Effect and the Love of my 0:46:39.400 --> 0:46:45.960 Life is this cricket looking dinosaur, fucking alien man with 0:46:46.040 --> 0:46:50.400 a very nice voice, So it's not weird. Yeah, his 0:46:50.480 --> 0:46:52.600 pictures in there. If you want to check your the 0:46:52.600 --> 0:46:56.239 Google duck like I do. I do want to check 0:46:56.840 --> 0:47:03.080 Wait what page? Page twenty the very top is the 0:47:03.120 --> 0:47:07.399 Love of my life? Oh my god. Okay, he's kind 0:47:07.400 --> 0:47:11.640 of hot, adores you. It's kind of got a Mr. 0:47:11.760 --> 0:47:16.399 Darcy vibe to like, he's complicated, but I can get 0:47:16.400 --> 0:47:24.160 through to him. His code name is Archangel. Oh my good. Okay. 0:47:24.200 --> 0:47:29.120 So Jake and Nati are smooching and they fall asleep 0:47:29.120 --> 0:47:32.320 together and the next morning a huge bulldozer comes crashing 0:47:32.360 --> 0:47:35.799 into the tree where they're at and Naterian Jake have 0:47:35.920 --> 0:47:40.640 to run away. Colonel Quaritch and Parker, the two big 0:47:40.640 --> 0:47:43.440 bads of the movie, realized that Jake is trying to 0:47:43.480 --> 0:47:47.200 sabotage their mission, and they are piste and they're about 0:47:47.239 --> 0:47:50.560 to go back in guns blazing, and Jake is like stop, 0:47:50.640 --> 0:47:52.759 let me talk to them and see if I can 0:47:52.920 --> 0:47:56.879 negotiate something here. A detail that I didn't really think 0:47:56.920 --> 0:48:01.319 about that I appreciated on this uh one was that 0:48:02.320 --> 0:48:04.920 Grace knew the whole time, like she was able to 0:48:04.920 --> 0:48:07.439 figure out very I feel like a lesser script would 0:48:07.440 --> 0:48:10.280 have been like and she had no idea because women 0:48:10.800 --> 0:48:15.160 can't brain. But I like that she figures out because 0:48:15.360 --> 0:48:18.000 that is like logical, Like he is a marine first, 0:48:18.719 --> 0:48:21.759 um so, and he's around the two most evil people 0:48:21.800 --> 0:48:23.600 ever all the time, and so she's like, oh, I 0:48:23.640 --> 0:48:25.719 need to get him out of here because like I 0:48:25.800 --> 0:48:29.239 need the information he can get me. And of course 0:48:29.239 --> 0:48:30.920 he's going to go with these guys because that is 0:48:30.960 --> 0:48:35.440 like his kind of degree or whatever. Yeah, he hates 0:48:35.480 --> 0:48:38.959 science and he's not he's he's refused to mourn his brother, 0:48:39.120 --> 0:48:42.160 so he's kind of a loose cannon. He forgot all 0:48:42.200 --> 0:48:46.320 about his brother. Yeah, never hear about him ever? Again, 0:48:46.400 --> 0:48:49.120 what was his name? Even do we ever? Commy? We 0:48:49.160 --> 0:48:54.680 do learn his name? Tommy Sully? Horrible, horrible, pouring one 0:48:54.680 --> 0:48:59.800 out for Tommy Sully tonight, Jeeves, just why not Sullivan? 0:49:00.239 --> 0:49:04.480 Why not? Anyway? Shout out to your character Sully though 0:49:04.760 --> 0:49:09.600 from Santa University. I it's look, he's coming back this 0:49:09.680 --> 0:49:13.680 year because it's you're the Sully, Thank you so much? 0:49:14.719 --> 0:49:17.440 All right, so so bad guys are about to go 0:49:17.520 --> 0:49:20.319 back in, guns blazing, and Jake's like, let me talk 0:49:20.360 --> 0:49:23.879 to them, so he goes back in. But NACKTII is like, 0:49:24.200 --> 0:49:27.680 what you knew this would happen? I trusted you and 0:49:27.760 --> 0:49:30.880 you betrayed us. Favorite scene in the movie. Favorite scene 0:49:30.920 --> 0:49:33.640 I talked about this and Frozen too, but I'll say 0:49:33.640 --> 0:49:36.720 it again. Uh, this was the point in the movie 0:49:37.040 --> 0:49:40.239 where I was like, Okay, this can only go one 0:49:40.239 --> 0:49:42.720 of two ways. If it goes one way, I hate 0:49:42.719 --> 0:49:44.880 this movie and it is the worst thing ever made. 0:49:45.640 --> 0:49:48.800 If it goes the other way, I love this movie. 0:49:48.960 --> 0:49:52.279 It's the best thing that's ever been made. I feel 0:49:52.320 --> 0:49:56.080 differently now. The stakes are very high, but literally, like 0:49:56.120 --> 0:49:58.600 I said earlier too, it's all like in movies like 0:49:58.640 --> 0:50:01.799 this and stories like this, especially with a character like this, 0:50:02.000 --> 0:50:05.560 it's you know, oh, well, we can reach something peaceful 0:50:05.560 --> 0:50:07.959 because I love him and he loves me, and love 0:50:08.080 --> 0:50:11.960 saves love consol racism, and it doesn't. So what it 0:50:12.239 --> 0:50:17.040 is is you knew this was happening, and We're gonna 0:50:17.080 --> 0:50:22.200 lose our home. People are going to die, and we 0:50:22.320 --> 0:50:25.880 trusted you. You shouldn't even be here and we've already 0:50:26.000 --> 0:50:31.040 trusted you. And Zoey sell Donna's emotional just rage in 0:50:31.120 --> 0:50:34.719 that scene was so good and I'm like, good, you 0:50:34.880 --> 0:50:38.440 fucking kill his ass, like yeah, and she leaves him 0:50:38.480 --> 0:50:40.880 for dead because she leaves dead. I love that she 0:50:40.960 --> 0:50:44.319 leaves him for dead. Perfect because they tie Jake and 0:50:44.320 --> 0:50:47.600 Grace up to a tree knowing that the bulldozers like 0:50:47.680 --> 0:50:51.600 on its way and like missiles are coming, so leaves 0:50:51.640 --> 0:50:54.560 him for dead. The military shows up to fire at 0:50:54.600 --> 0:50:59.000 home Tree, but then Moa is like, you know what, Jake, 0:50:59.160 --> 0:51:01.480 if you are one of us, help us, So she 0:51:01.520 --> 0:51:05.839 sets him free conflictive feelings about the home tree is destroyed. 0:51:06.000 --> 0:51:11.640 It's absolutely devastating. I'm crying. And Natieri's father is killed 0:51:11.680 --> 0:51:16.040 among others in this attack. Someone brought up how despite 0:51:16.080 --> 0:51:19.880 how anti military and anti imperialist Avatar tries to be, 0:51:19.960 --> 0:51:23.560 they did kill the only native actor in the movie. 0:51:24.560 --> 0:51:29.200 I'm like, you're not wrong. That scene was sad, though 0:51:29.480 --> 0:51:35.040 I love with study and Zoey's performance again just so 0:51:35.120 --> 0:51:38.080 sad because Jake Sulley is once again trying to insert 0:51:38.160 --> 0:51:42.080 himself into one of the most personal moments one can have, 0:51:42.520 --> 0:51:46.480 and it's I think one of the things that has 0:51:46.600 --> 0:51:48.120 I don't I mean, I don't remember how I felt 0:51:48.120 --> 0:51:52.040 about anything when I was seventeen. Probably incorrectly it's safety, 0:51:52.440 --> 0:51:55.920 but I do think that the movie obviously there's a 0:51:56.120 --> 0:51:58.960 shipload of stuff calling on. It's like we're approaching the 0:51:58.960 --> 0:52:03.040 climax of the movie. But wish that they took more 0:52:03.080 --> 0:52:08.080 time to dwell on that loss, because we lose this 0:52:08.320 --> 0:52:13.600 amazing character. It is this really really moving, well performed moment, 0:52:13.719 --> 0:52:17.320 and then we kind of don't revisit it, and it's 0:52:17.480 --> 0:52:19.880 I mean, obviously everyone's in crisis, but it's like it 0:52:19.880 --> 0:52:22.200 would have been nice to see, you know, like her 0:52:22.239 --> 0:52:25.120 mother's reaction, to see the community's reaction. But we get 0:52:25.160 --> 0:52:28.080 way more airtime to like we have to save Grace, 0:52:28.360 --> 0:52:30.680 which is like, sure, Grace is a great character, but 0:52:30.719 --> 0:52:32.960 why are we focusing on a white lady we've known 0:52:33.000 --> 0:52:38.360 for like a couple, you know, months, versus like our leader, Yeah, 0:52:38.360 --> 0:52:42.560 like your parent that like your parents. Oh my god, 0:52:43.080 --> 0:52:46.360 I could not like having lost a parent. I promise 0:52:46.440 --> 0:52:49.880 I won't cry anymore. But having lost a parent, Like 0:52:50.440 --> 0:52:53.920 there's no forgiving someone if they get your dad killed, 0:52:54.160 --> 0:52:56.920 you know what I mean? Like how I get it, 0:52:57.000 --> 0:53:00.360 Like I get it as well, like find out later 0:53:00.400 --> 0:53:03.960 with the Toroka and everything and the story and but 0:53:04.200 --> 0:53:07.120 even so, I mean two things can exist at once, man, 0:53:07.160 --> 0:53:11.120 and you killed my dad. You know, I'm I fuck this, 0:53:11.680 --> 0:53:15.840 fuck you because I didn't mention this, and yet I 0:53:15.840 --> 0:53:19.920 don't think. But Jake Selly has been feeding information about 0:53:20.000 --> 0:53:24.080 like the tree, the home tree, to Colonel Quaritch, So 0:53:24.200 --> 0:53:27.600 he's like gathering this intel that he's now able to 0:53:27.680 --> 0:53:33.280 use against the Omakaya people in this attack. So he's evil. 0:53:33.560 --> 0:53:37.000 So then Jake finds Nteri in the rubble as she's 0:53:37.120 --> 0:53:40.360 mourning the death of her father. She wants nothing to 0:53:40.400 --> 0:53:42.200 do with him. She's like, get away, never come back. 0:53:43.080 --> 0:53:47.360 Then the military bad guys pull the plug on Jake 0:53:47.480 --> 0:53:50.680 and Grace and so they wake up in their human bodies. 0:53:51.080 --> 0:53:54.919 They put them plus Norm in a holding cell. But 0:53:55.080 --> 0:53:59.200 Trudy remember her, she's in the movie. She she would 0:53:59.239 --> 0:54:04.160 the equip about every forty minutes, and you're like, um, 0:54:04.200 --> 0:54:06.840 she breaks them out of prison and they get in 0:54:06.920 --> 0:54:10.399 Trudy's ship and escape this military base, and they head 0:54:10.440 --> 0:54:12.920 to the Tree of Souls, which is the amatokaia is 0:54:13.000 --> 0:54:19.000 most sacred place um where they have relocated and Jake 0:54:19.080 --> 0:54:21.959 needs to prove his worth to be able to rejoin them, 0:54:22.000 --> 0:54:27.560 so he forges a bond with the Alpha Akron, the 0:54:27.560 --> 0:54:30.480 the one that has like spinners on the wheels. I 0:54:30.600 --> 0:54:33.240 just kept thinking it was like the coolest car ever. 0:54:33.840 --> 0:54:38.200 He's got a spoiler on the back. Yeah. Um. So 0:54:38.320 --> 0:54:42.320 Jake shows up with the torok at the Tree of Souls. 0:54:42.800 --> 0:54:45.880 He pulls up, he pulls up. Yeah, he kind of 0:54:45.920 --> 0:54:50.240 tokyo drifts into the I mean, if we have Michelle 0:54:50.280 --> 0:54:53.920 Rodriguez of the movie and everything exactly. Um, and everyone 0:54:53.960 --> 0:54:58.400 reveres him now and Nati is like, maybe you're okay 0:54:58.440 --> 0:55:03.840 again instant forgive nous. Yeah. And then during the escape earlier, 0:55:03.920 --> 0:55:07.640 Grace was shot, so the Omakaya tried to save her 0:55:07.680 --> 0:55:13.120 by transferring her consciousness permanently to her avatar her Oatcaia body, 0:55:13.360 --> 0:55:16.600 but she's too weak and she dies. But she dies 0:55:17.200 --> 0:55:20.799 at peace. Yes, it's a really good scene. Yeah, it's 0:55:20.880 --> 0:55:23.279 very touching, for sure. It's nice. And I also like, 0:55:23.360 --> 0:55:24.960 again it just like I feel like a lot of 0:55:24.960 --> 0:55:28.359 movies would have not had the courage to kill her off, 0:55:28.520 --> 0:55:31.279 especially like a big but it's like, no one can 0:55:31.320 --> 0:55:35.440 die in franchise movies now because not now. But James 0:55:35.480 --> 0:55:39.040 Cameron is not shy about killing people off. So oh, 0:55:39.200 --> 0:55:40.840 get yeah, you're we're about to see a lot of 0:55:40.960 --> 0:55:48.280 colonizers get squished. That Jake gives the biggest, dumbest speech, 0:55:48.440 --> 0:55:54.120 but ID it's cringe, but I dig it. Yeah, it's cringe, 0:55:54.200 --> 0:55:56.680 but I dig it. And the reason I dig it 0:55:56.719 --> 0:56:00.800 is because this is where the Pocahonas and space Trope 0:56:00.880 --> 0:56:05.120 just goes to die. Because again, you know, especially with 0:56:05.200 --> 0:56:09.040 a character like this, a story like this, it's always 0:56:09.080 --> 0:56:12.640 our love can save the day and peace and understanding, 0:56:12.760 --> 0:56:16.560 and this is no, we are beyond that. Now we 0:56:16.640 --> 0:56:19.880 have to fight. Now they need to fucking leave. And 0:56:19.920 --> 0:56:22.920 that never happens in movies like this, where it's like 0:56:23.000 --> 0:56:26.000 pieces not an option. We are hell and gone from diplomacy. 0:56:26.040 --> 0:56:28.880 You have to fucking go. And you never see this 0:56:28.960 --> 0:56:34.280 in like movies about indigenous people, let alone movies about 0:56:34.360 --> 0:56:39.759 indigenous people by non indigenous people, like especially rich white 0:56:39.840 --> 0:56:42.919 dudes in the film industry. So yeah, because it's them 0:56:42.960 --> 0:56:46.319 trying to rewrite history. To be like, no, we it 0:56:46.440 --> 0:56:49.280 was so peaceful when we came here and colonized people 0:56:49.440 --> 0:56:51.920 and murdered them. Yeah. One of my one of my 0:56:51.960 --> 0:56:56.720 grandma's was a princess, was anobby. She plugged her tail 0:56:56.760 --> 0:57:02.400 into my dad, did she though? Yeah, that that's a 0:57:02.480 --> 0:57:06.680 very James Camerony moment. And it's also like, I don't know, 0:57:06.719 --> 0:57:09.879 like I always truggle with Like, I totally agree with you, Ali, 0:57:09.960 --> 0:57:12.719 and I think it's like it is a really unusual 0:57:12.760 --> 0:57:15.600 subversion in a movie of this scale to to do. 0:57:15.719 --> 0:57:19.280 And then it's also like why Jake Sully, like of 0:57:19.320 --> 0:57:21.720 all people, when he's like, this is our land, It's 0:57:21.760 --> 0:57:27.640 like it's our our land, not your your say this 0:57:27.720 --> 0:57:32.320 is your land, Jake, you just got here. It would 0:57:32.320 --> 0:57:33.720 have been cool if he said this is your land. 0:57:33.760 --> 0:57:36.880 I don't know. So yeah, So Jake is rallying the 0:57:37.000 --> 0:57:41.160 Oma Takaya to launch an attack against the humans or 0:57:41.200 --> 0:57:44.160 the sky people as he calls them as if he's 0:57:44.240 --> 0:57:49.560 not one of them, but um, Colonel Quaritch and the 0:57:49.640 --> 0:57:54.040 humans are planning a preemptive counterattack with their you know, 0:57:54.200 --> 0:57:57.760 more advanced weaponry and their aircrafts and missiles and all 0:57:57.760 --> 0:58:00.800 of that. So Jake goes and pray is to Awa 0:58:01.040 --> 0:58:04.560 for help. The Awa scene with it's just Jake Sally 0:58:04.680 --> 0:58:07.280 is like so embarrassing all the time. So he goes 0:58:07.440 --> 0:58:11.880 to Awa to pray essentially, And I did think it 0:58:11.960 --> 0:58:15.160 was kind of funny how that scene and where Natia 0:58:15.240 --> 0:58:17.120 comes in and she's like, yeah, that's like not how 0:58:17.200 --> 0:58:20.760 this works, and Jake's like, oh man, well it was 0:58:20.800 --> 0:58:24.080 worth a dry and then she's like, okay, let's go 0:58:24.120 --> 0:58:27.600 to bed. That's like the scene, but then it ends 0:58:27.680 --> 0:58:31.480 up working like but then, yeah, God is listening to 0:58:31.560 --> 0:58:36.400 Jake Sally, I think not. I think not. Atlantis morsets 0:58:36.440 --> 0:58:39.320 in the tree like all right, okay, just this once. 0:58:40.400 --> 0:58:45.320 Let's hear this Australian guy out. Let's see. So the 0:58:45.360 --> 0:58:49.320 next morning, the humans come to the mountains with you know, 0:58:49.320 --> 0:58:53.160 their heavy firepower, but the Alma Takaya have the hometown 0:58:53.200 --> 0:58:59.040 advantage and they have Jake as Turuk makto um because 0:58:59.040 --> 0:59:04.840 he's on the big pterodactyl with flames on the side convertible. Yeah, 0:59:05.080 --> 0:59:09.040 so he is in charge and there's a long battle 0:59:09.360 --> 0:59:12.760 and eventually it seems like all hope is lost for 0:59:13.160 --> 0:59:17.120 Jake and the tie and the Amatacaya and Trudy who 0:59:17.160 --> 0:59:21.920 shows up to help, and Norm, who's fighting with them, 0:59:21.960 --> 0:59:26.280 has a gun. It's silly. It's like, why are we 0:59:26.360 --> 0:59:29.160 letting Norm have a gun? He's not contributing. Come on, 0:59:32.600 --> 0:59:38.440 Norm's an indoor kid, Like, what's he doing here? So 0:59:38.560 --> 0:59:42.280 Quarich is headed towards the Tree of Souls to destroy it, 0:59:42.720 --> 0:59:46.080 but then the big animals from earlier in the movie 0:59:46.440 --> 0:59:49.600 come charging in and they drive out the bad guys. 0:59:50.240 --> 0:59:55.040 Seems as though Awa has answered Jake's prayer, and so 0:59:55.080 --> 0:59:57.720 the Almatacaya get the upper hand and there's a final 0:59:57.720 --> 1:00:01.800 showdown between quar Rich and Jake and the Tiri and 1:00:02.120 --> 1:00:06.400 they defeat Karrich and a Ti gets like the killing blow. 1:00:06.760 --> 1:00:10.120 Two killing blows were also forgotten on the re release 1:00:10.200 --> 1:00:14.280 that she gets. She gets him twice just to be sure. Yeah, 1:00:14.480 --> 1:00:17.160 it's so satisfying. I love it when the James Horner 1:00:17.200 --> 1:00:24.240 that she pulls up. It's good. The movie feels like 1:00:24.280 --> 1:00:29.880 a movie when I'm watching. That's so good. And then 1:00:30.240 --> 1:00:34.240 the Alma Takaya send the humans home and the movie 1:00:34.360 --> 1:00:39.800 ends with Jake's consciousness being transferred to his avatar to 1:00:40.040 --> 1:00:45.200 make him permanently one of the Alma Takaya the and 1:00:46.840 --> 1:00:49.240 so let's take another quick break and we will come 1:00:49.240 --> 1:01:00.840 back to discuss and then we're back. Okay, Ali, where 1:01:00.840 --> 1:01:05.000 would you like to start a preference? Where do we begin? 1:01:05.400 --> 1:01:10.400 There's so much, there's so much to say. Uh, okay, 1:01:10.400 --> 1:01:15.080 how about we begin with any questions you might have 1:01:15.240 --> 1:01:20.600 for me? Well, so we already we touched on a 1:01:20.640 --> 1:01:24.400 lot of the criticisms that I think we're going to 1:01:24.440 --> 1:01:29.000 have against this movie already during the recap. But yeah, 1:01:29.120 --> 1:01:33.240 I mean, for me, the big thing is, you've got 1:01:33.280 --> 1:01:39.120 this like white guy who like appropriates the body of 1:01:39.160 --> 1:01:45.800 an indigenous person comes in. He's flopping around and they're like, no, no, no, 1:01:45.960 --> 1:01:49.720 You're the chosen one though, and it doesn't make sense, 1:01:50.360 --> 1:01:53.120 but he's the chosen one. He doesn't have imposter syndrome 1:01:53.200 --> 1:01:57.440 for one single second, which I guess is very white 1:01:57.440 --> 1:02:00.320 guy of him. He has a very inflated ego about 1:02:00.360 --> 1:02:02.640 the whole thing. Yeah, but yeah, it is. It is 1:02:02.760 --> 1:02:07.600 like a white savior top to bottom. So the question, 1:02:07.640 --> 1:02:11.160 so my question is what in a in a movie 1:02:11.160 --> 1:02:15.520 with a similar premise where you know, like white capitalist 1:02:15.560 --> 1:02:21.640 colonizers come in and are trying to colonize and steal 1:02:22.120 --> 1:02:25.920 the land and still the resources of Indigenous people. What 1:02:26.120 --> 1:02:29.400 is a version of this story or what changes would 1:02:29.640 --> 1:02:32.280 you make or do you think could be made to 1:02:32.680 --> 1:02:37.920 eliminate the issues that we see in Avatar? Okay, So 1:02:38.000 --> 1:02:40.400 I've thought about this a lot, because a lot of 1:02:40.440 --> 1:02:45.600 the issues stem back to Jake, like massively, for all 1:02:45.640 --> 1:02:49.880 the reasons that we suggested, I feel like, even if 1:02:50.000 --> 1:02:52.040 if nothing else were to change about the film, and 1:02:52.040 --> 1:02:55.000 it would have been the exact same movie and the 1:02:55.040 --> 1:02:58.480 exact same steaks and everything as problematic as it was, 1:02:59.160 --> 1:03:04.960 if someone like Adam Beach or Anthony Mackie or a 1:03:05.080 --> 1:03:11.960 character of color, specifically a disabled and preferably an Indigenous 1:03:12.000 --> 1:03:16.120 actor playing Jake instead, I feel like it would have 1:03:16.160 --> 1:03:19.840 had more gravity. As much as I like Sigourney Weaver's character, 1:03:20.880 --> 1:03:26.040 she's so sympathetic to the knobby that I was like, okay, 1:03:26.040 --> 1:03:32.600 but scientists, unfortunately, are not that sympathetic to Indigenous people. 1:03:32.840 --> 1:03:36.480 They're the ones that are stealing their remains and putting 1:03:36.520 --> 1:03:40.480 them in the Smithsonian against people's wishes and stuff, you know, 1:03:40.800 --> 1:03:45.000 or conducting the research to prove that you know, Sami 1:03:45.080 --> 1:03:49.040 people aren't human enough or not as advanced enough as 1:03:49.080 --> 1:03:53.200 like Swedish or Finnish people. You know, so if you 1:03:53.240 --> 1:03:56.840 were going to have that character like the Scientists character, 1:03:57.720 --> 1:04:00.480 if she were indigenous, if she were played by Tantu 1:04:00.600 --> 1:04:06.800 Cardinal or even Irene Bedard Roads go back to Pocontas, 1:04:06.920 --> 1:04:11.920 or even like if you wanted someone sassy but smart 1:04:12.000 --> 1:04:15.880 and you know, still had that ferocity. Even Jennifer Pademski 1:04:16.760 --> 1:04:20.160 would have been perfect in that part. I think, be great. 1:04:20.520 --> 1:04:24.080 She would have been great. She's hilarious and she's badass, 1:04:24.760 --> 1:04:27.040 because I think that that would have been an interesting 1:04:27.080 --> 1:04:32.480 subversion because her school in the movie. That was another thing. 1:04:32.920 --> 1:04:37.040 And Connor Beard was talking about this on TikTok. He 1:04:37.160 --> 1:04:41.560 was talking about how Avatar has many problems. He's from 1:04:41.560 --> 1:04:46.800 the Lumbi tribe, and he said specifically that the school 1:04:47.240 --> 1:04:50.919 being used as a positive in the film is kind 1:04:50.920 --> 1:04:55.480 of toned off, if not really offensive, because residential schools 1:04:55.560 --> 1:05:00.880 were so bad too native children and they aren't in 1:05:00.880 --> 1:05:03.760 this movie. And I feel like that was probably just 1:05:03.840 --> 1:05:07.720 to bridge the communication error, you know what I mean, 1:05:07.760 --> 1:05:10.240 like or the conflict or you know, it's like we 1:05:10.280 --> 1:05:12.320 need we need to be able to talk to these people. 1:05:12.440 --> 1:05:15.200 They need to be able to blah blah blah. But 1:05:15.520 --> 1:05:18.880 like what if it was Tantu Cardinal and she was 1:05:18.920 --> 1:05:22.280 teaching them a nish nabe mowen instead of English or 1:05:22.320 --> 1:05:25.760 along with English. So it's like, you know, we can 1:05:25.800 --> 1:05:30.480 communicate a little more privately and not in a language 1:05:30.520 --> 1:05:32.480 that would like front you off in front of the 1:05:32.560 --> 1:05:35.400 real bad guys or something, you know, because then that 1:05:35.440 --> 1:05:38.520 would be subversion. That would also be kind of decolonizing 1:05:39.400 --> 1:05:43.840 that sort of premise of the school if you were 1:05:43.880 --> 1:05:46.680 going to have that, because if they want to come 1:05:46.880 --> 1:05:51.160 in and like actually engage in some kind of diplomacy, 1:05:51.160 --> 1:05:53.600 why is it, oh, we have to teach you English 1:05:53.600 --> 1:05:56.080 so that you can communicate with me versus and to 1:05:56.160 --> 1:05:59.600 be fair grace like does no Navi And like the 1:05:59.640 --> 1:06:02.680 other sidecientists seemed too as well. And I wonder if 1:06:02.720 --> 1:06:05.240 that was just almost a choice to be like, well, 1:06:05.360 --> 1:06:07.360 we don't want to have too much of the movie 1:06:07.920 --> 1:06:11.200 in a language other than English, because that Holly Mr. 1:06:11.240 --> 1:06:18.000 Hollywood thinks that that tends to put off American letters audiences, 1:06:18.120 --> 1:06:20.640 So like we have to as much as possible have 1:06:20.720 --> 1:06:24.800 the nov or have the omata kaya speak English. So 1:06:24.880 --> 1:06:27.160 I wonder if like that's just how they justify But 1:06:27.240 --> 1:06:29.360 then but like to have it be like they set 1:06:29.400 --> 1:06:33.160 up a school to teach Indigenous children English, Like you said, Ali, 1:06:33.320 --> 1:06:36.760 the historical parallels to that are atrocious, and it doesn't 1:06:36.760 --> 1:06:41.160 seem like the filmmakers considered the implications of making that choice. 1:06:41.920 --> 1:06:44.760 That was like something that popped for me this time 1:06:44.760 --> 1:06:48.720 where it's like the there's no like even even with Grace, 1:06:48.720 --> 1:06:51.480 because I feel like Grace is and the science and 1:06:51.600 --> 1:06:55.720 you know, Norm, Dr Max, etcetera. Are are all presented 1:06:56.000 --> 1:07:01.600 pretty uncritically as good guys. But on this rewatch specifically 1:07:01.640 --> 1:07:04.440 like with Bechdel goggles on your like this actually like 1:07:04.920 --> 1:07:08.280 the movie should be far more kind of interrogating what 1:07:08.320 --> 1:07:11.120 it is they're doing, because it's like Grace is also 1:07:11.240 --> 1:07:15.280 appropriating an Indigenous body, Like she's doing that consistently, and 1:07:15.360 --> 1:07:19.760 the ethics of that are not questioned, um by any 1:07:19.840 --> 1:07:23.280 of the characters in the movie. It's like, because she's 1:07:23.320 --> 1:07:28.160 not giving information to the kernel, it's made to seem like, well, 1:07:28.200 --> 1:07:30.000 so what she's doing is above board. But it's like 1:07:30.040 --> 1:07:34.120 if if she's starting you know, the equivalent of a 1:07:34.280 --> 1:07:39.120 residential school on Pandora, there's no reciprocity where it's like 1:07:39.320 --> 1:07:42.960 the nov don't have an opportunity to to you know, 1:07:43.280 --> 1:07:46.200 it all takes place on Pandora because that is where 1:07:46.240 --> 1:07:49.880 the humans interests lie is like mining these natural resources. 1:07:50.440 --> 1:07:54.760 And Grace is absolutely complicitly in that, Like she knows 1:07:54.880 --> 1:07:57.840 that to the point where she is able to, you know, 1:07:58.440 --> 1:08:02.200 predict that Jake is going to leak information to the 1:08:02.240 --> 1:08:04.880 colonel and she gets them out of there, which puts 1:08:04.920 --> 1:08:07.360 a band aid on the problem. But she's still aware 1:08:07.400 --> 1:08:10.320 of exactly what's happening, and she's you know, she has 1:08:10.360 --> 1:08:13.960 like some quips and she's she you know, doesn't seem 1:08:14.000 --> 1:08:16.840 to agree with it, but she she's participating. She's a 1:08:16.840 --> 1:08:20.679 willing participant and that is not really interrogated at all. Yeah, 1:08:20.920 --> 1:08:27.080 that's right. I agree. And uh, my friend Aaronnach, who's wonderful, Uh, 1:08:27.160 --> 1:08:30.599 they have a really wonderful YouTube channel. We were talking 1:08:30.640 --> 1:08:32.720 about this because I was sharing my notes and I 1:08:32.760 --> 1:08:36.040 was trying not to share my deeper notes, just more like, oh, 1:08:36.080 --> 1:08:39.160 look this funny thing I said, you know, while I'm 1:08:39.240 --> 1:08:43.120 doing research. But they said, they're like, I think this 1:08:43.200 --> 1:08:47.200 film is so forgettable because it almost does something worthy 1:08:47.200 --> 1:08:49.240 of note and then went, well, how can we make 1:08:49.280 --> 1:08:52.040 a white guy the hero and the weirdest way possible? 1:08:52.240 --> 1:08:55.880 And I'm like, yeah, that's the biggest failing of this 1:08:55.960 --> 1:09:01.679 film is that Jake is in it, just because it 1:09:01.680 --> 1:09:07.280 feels like Natari should be the hero. Absolute like if 1:09:07.320 --> 1:09:09.200 you're going to have the school and stuff like that 1:09:09.280 --> 1:09:11.720 in it, I mean, like, why couldn't it begin with 1:09:11.840 --> 1:09:15.080 nat Terry being a student in the school and then 1:09:15.880 --> 1:09:18.800 seeing her sister be murdered like they say happens in 1:09:18.880 --> 1:09:22.640 the deleted scenes and stuff, and then becoming disillusion and 1:09:22.720 --> 1:09:28.679 disenfranchised with this idea of diplomacy, you know, because there 1:09:28.800 --> 1:09:33.280 is no diplomatic way to forcibly relocate people that's genocide. 1:09:33.840 --> 1:09:36.760 Like that's exactly I love. I mean, I love what 1:09:36.800 --> 1:09:40.759 you're talking about in terms of casting native actors um 1:09:40.960 --> 1:09:44.120 on the human side of the conflict, because that doesn't happen. 1:09:44.120 --> 1:09:47.320 And I feel like that problem scales up to what 1:09:47.400 --> 1:09:50.040 you were discussing at the beginning of the episode, which 1:09:50.080 --> 1:09:53.320 is like that would be an incredible, like I think, 1:09:53.479 --> 1:09:56.120 a far more impactful way to tell this story and 1:09:56.160 --> 1:10:00.200 also probably not a story that James Cameron has any 1:10:00.240 --> 1:10:03.520 business writing. And so it's again, it's like a resources 1:10:03.600 --> 1:10:06.280 thing of like, you know, who is getting the opportunities. 1:10:06.760 --> 1:10:09.840 James Cameron's using his own playbook to try to tell 1:10:09.880 --> 1:10:14.240 this story, but he's limited and what he can do, 1:10:14.479 --> 1:10:18.000 I don't know. It's very outsider's perspective. And the way 1:10:18.000 --> 1:10:22.799 that Dances with Wolves was um but but to Dances 1:10:22.800 --> 1:10:27.519 with Wolves credit the native characters in that movie are 1:10:27.600 --> 1:10:30.840 flushed out way more than the Navy are in Avatar. 1:10:31.520 --> 1:10:33.760 It's like when I watched Dances with Wolves when I 1:10:33.760 --> 1:10:36.280 was very young. I really liked the movie because there 1:10:36.320 --> 1:10:40.000 was kind of a Catharsis of I don't like Kevin 1:10:40.040 --> 1:10:42.800 Costner and I don't really look like Kevin Costner, but 1:10:43.479 --> 1:10:47.639 to see someone who kind of looks like me being 1:10:47.680 --> 1:10:51.799 accepted in a group of people who look like my dad, 1:10:52.479 --> 1:10:57.000 you know, was kind of like really special. And especially 1:10:57.040 --> 1:10:59.920 with the stands with the Fisk character. But even then, 1:11:00.080 --> 1:11:04.040 it's like Graham Green's character, who is a holy man 1:11:04.479 --> 1:11:08.840 in that movie. He's hilarious, he's wonderful, he's dignified, he's 1:11:08.880 --> 1:11:12.679 open to communication, but he's also like, you know, why 1:11:12.840 --> 1:11:15.960 is this guy rolling around on the ground with like 1:11:16.000 --> 1:11:19.280 that thing on his shirt? And then the other native 1:11:19.479 --> 1:11:23.519 character whose name I forgot, but he's very much like 1:11:23.600 --> 1:11:27.679 this dude's fucking crazy. Let's leave, you know, and I'm 1:11:27.720 --> 1:11:31.120 not afraid of you. You know, like the time spent 1:11:31.200 --> 1:11:36.320 in the village, what those characters are more sympathetic and interesting. 1:11:36.920 --> 1:11:40.600 You really don't get that an avatar, no matter how 1:11:40.640 --> 1:11:44.479 sympathetic or understanding they're trying to be, because like, does 1:11:44.560 --> 1:11:48.639 NATTERI have brothers and sisters? Does she have friends? Does 1:11:48.680 --> 1:11:53.639 she have anties? Like you just nothing know so little, 1:11:53.720 --> 1:11:58.000 to the point where like her parents are important characters, 1:11:58.520 --> 1:12:02.040 but I only mentioned each of them like twice in 1:12:02.080 --> 1:12:04.920 the recap, and I so like they're just they're not 1:12:05.080 --> 1:12:10.360 that They're pretty secondary honestly to this story. And it's 1:12:10.400 --> 1:12:14.960 really only Naterie who we get any real insight into. 1:12:15.040 --> 1:12:19.240 And despite Zowey Sodanna's incredible performance, we still don't get 1:12:19.280 --> 1:12:23.120 that much about her backstory, about her life. We know 1:12:23.160 --> 1:12:26.840 a little bit about what is in store for her future. Um, 1:12:26.960 --> 1:12:29.719 she's going to take over the role as like spiritual 1:12:29.800 --> 1:12:32.840 leader for her mother, but like, we don't know that much. 1:12:33.160 --> 1:12:38.680 And then speaking of speaking of indigenous actors playing characters, 1:12:38.880 --> 1:12:45.040 so the actors who play the Alma Takaya characters. Um 1:12:45.040 --> 1:12:49.000 of the ones who get speaking roles, they're mostly black actors, 1:12:49.120 --> 1:12:53.599 except with one exception of West Study, who plays Naterie's father, 1:12:54.120 --> 1:12:59.040 A Tookan. He is an actor of the Cherokee Nation. 1:13:00.040 --> 1:13:02.200 But it seems to me and correct me if I'm 1:13:02.240 --> 1:13:05.600 misinterpreting this, but it feels like a lot of the 1:13:05.640 --> 1:13:10.479 imagery and iconography they're pulling from as far as just 1:13:10.560 --> 1:13:15.360 like cultural things, historical things about the Alma Takaya seem 1:13:15.479 --> 1:13:19.760 to be pulled from indigenous people of Northern America, So 1:13:19.800 --> 1:13:25.000 it feels weird to not cast more Native Americans in 1:13:25.040 --> 1:13:28.640 those roles. And if they're playing a character that's not 1:13:28.720 --> 1:13:32.360 even human, you know, like if it's going to be 1:13:32.479 --> 1:13:36.479 indigenous coded, then there's so many indigenous people that you 1:13:36.479 --> 1:13:39.160 could reach out to. You could cast Sami actors, you 1:13:39.160 --> 1:13:42.559 could cast Maudi actors or why. It could be the 1:13:42.560 --> 1:13:46.400 whole spectrum of indigenous people, But it would be nice 1:13:46.400 --> 1:13:49.400 to see them as humans. Took Well, that's the thing. 1:13:49.479 --> 1:13:51.839 Is like on top of that, it's like, how often 1:13:52.720 --> 1:13:55.200 like people of color in general, but you know, specifically 1:13:55.680 --> 1:13:59.759 Indigenous Americans are Indigenous people in general, are like other 1:14:00.640 --> 1:14:03.759 in I mean, this is like a pretty aggressive mothering 1:14:03.960 --> 1:14:08.679 of I don't know. Yeah, we're curiously science fiction. Yeah, yes, exactly, 1:14:08.840 --> 1:14:15.719 especially since colonizers use language and rhetoric against indigenous people 1:14:15.840 --> 1:14:20.400 to justify killing them and stealing from them. And one 1:14:20.400 --> 1:14:23.000 of the ways they do that is to reduce them 1:14:23.439 --> 1:14:29.000 or liken them to animals, and so to make the 1:14:29.040 --> 1:14:35.799 Almatya have animal features, pentacle porn cats. This is the mark, 1:14:36.160 --> 1:14:39.920 just a bit the other thing. Okay, so even back then, 1:14:40.960 --> 1:14:43.600 the thing that makes me just cringe the most, it's like, 1:14:43.640 --> 1:14:46.839 you you've got cat people, I know their native coded 1:14:47.800 --> 1:14:50.200 Why are they leallying? I mean, I know there's an 1:14:50.200 --> 1:14:52.240 actual word for it. I just forgot what it is. 1:14:52.280 --> 1:14:58.400 But it's where I'm going to move away from my mic. It's, yes, 1:14:58.520 --> 1:15:03.599 why why are they doing that? They're cats? Right, like 1:15:03.840 --> 1:15:10.240 they're cats. They should be saying even the even that 1:15:10.360 --> 1:15:13.840 thing that they do that, you know what I mean, 1:15:14.800 --> 1:15:18.000 Like it's yeah, I I saw a lot of criticisms 1:15:18.040 --> 1:15:21.840 around the battle cries that seemed kind of like randomly 1:15:22.280 --> 1:15:26.360 and offensively selected for the Omedicaiah, And yeah, I haven't 1:15:26.400 --> 1:15:29.360 seen an effective argument against it, Like it just seems 1:15:29.400 --> 1:15:33.000 like that was a straight up offensive, lazy, shitty choice. 1:15:34.000 --> 1:15:36.640 It just made me. I was like, oh, you know, 1:15:37.600 --> 1:15:39.840 first time I saw it too. Every time I see it, 1:15:39.880 --> 1:15:42.759 I'm like, oh, why are you doing that? That's so strange. 1:15:43.120 --> 1:15:45.880 There's a whole montage where it's like just that over 1:15:45.960 --> 1:15:49.120 and over and over and over and and and then 1:15:49.120 --> 1:15:51.840 the context of that scene is that Jake Sully is 1:15:51.960 --> 1:15:57.759 randomly the general now like that was. He just shows 1:15:57.880 --> 1:16:01.599 up on his large pterodactyl and he's like, I'm the captain. 1:16:02.360 --> 1:16:05.960 We're left to think that, like there is some collaboration 1:16:06.000 --> 1:16:08.080 going on between Jake and Suit, but it seems like 1:16:08.120 --> 1:16:09.719 at the end of the day, Jake is in charge 1:16:09.760 --> 1:16:13.800 because Jake like walkie talkies ton A ri at the 1:16:13.840 --> 1:16:16.479 peak of the action, it says that's an order. I 1:16:16.520 --> 1:16:20.280 was like, dude, you don't. You're not stop, You're not 1:16:20.320 --> 1:16:24.000 in charge. You just got here. You can't make an order. 1:16:24.840 --> 1:16:29.320 And I mean, speaking of cat like features of the 1:16:29.400 --> 1:16:33.480 Oma ta Kaya people, there's I think a whole conversation 1:16:33.720 --> 1:16:37.360 around their character design. I mean, there's like a lot 1:16:37.400 --> 1:16:41.960 of things to unpack as far as like lack of 1:16:41.960 --> 1:16:46.360 body diversity, costume design, skin color, just like everything that 1:16:46.439 --> 1:16:51.479 encompasses the character design of the Navy or the Ama 1:16:51.520 --> 1:16:54.639 ta kaya. So friend of the show, I just want 1:16:54.640 --> 1:16:58.040 a quickly shot. Friend of the show Janish Meeting has 1:16:58.240 --> 1:17:01.160 pointed this out for years, is the lack of body 1:17:01.200 --> 1:17:05.200 diversity in avatar characters. And it's also um because she's 1:17:05.240 --> 1:17:08.360 the funniest person ever, like turned it into a bit 1:17:09.040 --> 1:17:10.880 um where she's like, I'm going to get cast as 1:17:10.880 --> 1:17:13.840 a Navy and the game's gonna change, but like she's 1:17:13.960 --> 1:17:17.120 she was the first person I heard talking about that, 1:17:17.200 --> 1:17:20.800 because there already think so many like problematic elements to 1:17:20.840 --> 1:17:23.000 the way the Navy are designed that that sort of 1:17:23.080 --> 1:17:28.040 gets overlooked a lot of the time. Well not only that, um, 1:17:28.160 --> 1:17:31.800 elders play such an important role in indigenous community. So 1:17:31.880 --> 1:17:35.280 the fact that we don't really see like an elderly 1:17:35.800 --> 1:17:39.880 navvy character, you know other than the terries parents or 1:17:39.920 --> 1:17:44.080 you know, like not everyone in a society like this 1:17:44.240 --> 1:17:48.120 is a warrior, you know, So what do they look 1:17:48.160 --> 1:17:50.920 like when they're not in like peak shape all the time. 1:17:51.600 --> 1:17:55.559 And what about the warriors who um, you know get 1:17:55.640 --> 1:17:59.640 hurt or get injured or are disabled or something, what 1:17:59.800 --> 1:18:03.280 they're a bad hunt and the dinosaur thing bite your 1:18:03.400 --> 1:18:07.439 arm off, right, We don't see any of that, and 1:18:07.479 --> 1:18:10.320 it would have been interesting to see Jake like interact 1:18:10.439 --> 1:18:15.439 with some of those veterans you know. Actually, right, so 1:18:15.479 --> 1:18:20.000 many like overlaps between Jake and Navy culture that just 1:18:20.000 --> 1:18:24.599 just goes completely unexplored by this, uh, by this movie, right, Yeah. 1:18:24.640 --> 1:18:27.320 And then yeah, as far as like just the body type, 1:18:27.560 --> 1:18:32.719 every single Navy person has the same exact body type, 1:18:33.000 --> 1:18:36.840 so they all have frog butts. Theyll frog butts. There's 1:18:36.920 --> 1:18:40.320 not a booty to be found. Well, I think that that, 1:18:40.560 --> 1:18:43.080 Like I kind of wonder. I've watched a lot of 1:18:43.120 --> 1:18:45.679 behind the scenes features on this movie in the past, 1:18:45.720 --> 1:18:47.759 and I like, I know that it's kind of tricky 1:18:47.760 --> 1:18:49.800 because in some ways, I want to say that they're 1:18:49.840 --> 1:18:53.479 almost animated characters. I know that it's motion capture. So 1:18:53.520 --> 1:18:57.200 it's like it's either animation trips we've talked about before 1:18:57.439 --> 1:19:02.400 where it's like very rigid two body types available, which 1:19:02.439 --> 1:19:05.160 I think does kind of carry through this movie, or 1:19:05.200 --> 1:19:08.639 it's a casting issue and they only cast to body types. 1:19:08.720 --> 1:19:12.080 So either way, it's you know, a fucking wash and 1:19:12.920 --> 1:19:15.479 you know, like it just I don't know, it doesn't 1:19:15.520 --> 1:19:19.200 just like reinforce um rigid stereotypes we see all the time. 1:19:19.240 --> 1:19:24.040 It also like lessons the richness of Pandora because you're 1:19:24.080 --> 1:19:27.200 just like completely ali, like what what are other people 1:19:27.320 --> 1:19:30.920 up to? Like it? Can't they appear to be thriving? 1:19:31.240 --> 1:19:34.160 You would think there are other things and elements of 1:19:34.520 --> 1:19:37.320 this culture that just are like not referenced or explored 1:19:37.360 --> 1:19:40.200 at all. And don't cants always have like that, you know, 1:19:40.439 --> 1:19:50.120 belly fat that like flops the run and they famously 1:19:50.200 --> 1:19:55.519 have eight nipples, So why don't they Alma Takaya have 1:19:55.880 --> 1:20:03.479 eight nipples? They just have tentacles nipples on the nipples scales, um. 1:20:03.520 --> 1:20:05.760 And then as far as and this is something I 1:20:05.800 --> 1:20:08.439 think we've touched on in different episodes in the past, 1:20:08.520 --> 1:20:12.360 but there's a pretty um a precedent has been set 1:20:12.400 --> 1:20:16.320 somewhere along the line that in sci fi and fantasy, 1:20:16.880 --> 1:20:19.799 especially because these are the genres where you would usually 1:20:19.840 --> 1:20:26.240 have like non human human like characters. So in this case, 1:20:26.479 --> 1:20:29.720 the Novi, the Alma Takaya have blue skin. And this 1:20:29.760 --> 1:20:32.640 is something we see a lot where um, you know, 1:20:32.680 --> 1:20:38.120 like humanoid characters who are coded as indigenous, they're coded 1:20:38.200 --> 1:20:42.320 as people of color in general, they will have blueskin, 1:20:42.600 --> 1:20:46.640 green skin, purple skin, some skin color that does not 1:20:46.760 --> 1:20:52.080 exist on humans, and um, just like kind of further 1:20:52.240 --> 1:20:56.280 others these characters who are coded as people of color. 1:20:56.600 --> 1:20:59.280 And I noticed that this is something that happens a 1:20:59.320 --> 1:21:03.000 lot in sci fi, where even if they cast like 1:21:03.040 --> 1:21:07.320 an actress of color, they usually cast her as an alien, 1:21:07.840 --> 1:21:12.440 like even um Star Trek, which is pretty diverse anyways. 1:21:12.479 --> 1:21:14.840 And I'm referring to like the J. J. Abrams movies 1:21:14.880 --> 1:21:20.719 because I am not a tricky how Dare You? Also 1:21:20.800 --> 1:21:23.799 starring Zoe's Seldonna, but this time she gets to actually 1:21:23.880 --> 1:21:28.440 have her actual skin, Carna skin. But but Sophia Botella, 1:21:28.520 --> 1:21:30.160 I think that's how you say her name. And the 1:21:30.200 --> 1:21:35.960 third movie is an alien with white skin, but she 1:21:36.080 --> 1:21:40.200 looks awesome and she's great, but you know, like it's 1:21:40.240 --> 1:21:44.800 not her also, but it's always held Donna, and like 1:21:44.840 --> 1:21:49.679 Guardians of the Galaxy has green skin, and uh, I 1:21:49.720 --> 1:21:53.040 love costume and makeup designs and stuff like that, especially 1:21:53.040 --> 1:21:56.400 when you're making monsters like Doug Jones is a fucking 1:21:56.479 --> 1:22:01.479 g and I love how Boy and everything, but it 1:22:01.640 --> 1:22:06.080 is a trope I've noticed like a lot, even in 1:22:06.160 --> 1:22:08.559 Star Wars. It's like you get Lupetea n Ago when 1:22:08.560 --> 1:22:13.120 you make her that ugly little alien. God do it. 1:22:13.240 --> 1:22:16.400 I will never get over that. I just like you 1:22:16.479 --> 1:22:21.200 did what with that casting decision? You did nothing, nothing 1:22:21.240 --> 1:22:25.000 with the casting decision, the most beautiful, talented person and 1:22:25.080 --> 1:22:28.880 you did what there. I was, Yeah, I don't even 1:22:28.920 --> 1:22:31.240 give a shit about Star Wars particularly, but I was 1:22:31.600 --> 1:22:34.400 enraged to fight that. I would also be curious to 1:22:34.439 --> 1:22:37.519 hear what listeners think on that issue, because I don't know. 1:22:37.520 --> 1:22:41.200 I've seen that point made about Zoe Salbanda's career quite 1:22:41.200 --> 1:22:44.040 a bit of like her too biggest or you know, 1:22:44.080 --> 1:22:47.840 I guess best remembered roles. Although there are those crossheads 1:22:47.880 --> 1:22:51.240 people out there, those cross roads cross the cross Heads 1:22:51.400 --> 1:22:55.920 from hell. Um, Okay, two SIPs of Miller Lite and 1:22:55.960 --> 1:23:01.520 I'm I'm cooked. Um. But yeah, I like I I 1:23:01.560 --> 1:23:05.280 think that that is like absolutely no accident. And I 1:23:05.320 --> 1:23:08.479 wish that sci fi were at a place where, like 1:23:09.000 --> 1:23:10.479 you know, sci fi can be like in a really 1:23:10.520 --> 1:23:16.280 amazing place to explore like more diverse world. If you 1:23:16.400 --> 1:23:19.800 have diverse voices, they're also behind the camera, which is 1:23:19.800 --> 1:23:24.800 not really happening in Avatar. And I think the you 1:23:24.880 --> 1:23:29.040 always run the risk of racial stereotyping anytime you code 1:23:29.360 --> 1:23:34.200 non human species as an existing group of actual people. 1:23:35.160 --> 1:23:39.360 I think Frozen two and even Avatar The Last Airbender 1:23:39.560 --> 1:23:42.519 do this better, where it's like, yes, they're coded as 1:23:43.160 --> 1:23:48.120 Inuit or they're coded as Sammy, but they're not you know, 1:23:48.200 --> 1:23:52.519 their water tribe, their Nothaldra, you know so, but they're people. 1:23:53.080 --> 1:23:57.520 You know, they're like actual human characters, even if the 1:23:57.600 --> 1:24:03.320 tribe or the races is not. I hope I said 1:24:03.360 --> 1:24:06.439 that correctly. No, I know what you mean. Yeah, And 1:24:06.479 --> 1:24:10.320 this wouldn't be as much of a concern if in 1:24:10.439 --> 1:24:15.200 these genres you had white actors also playing like, you know, 1:24:15.560 --> 1:24:18.160 blue skinned aliens, like it wouldn't be And then and 1:24:18.200 --> 1:24:22.120 that there was no specific like racial coding attached to 1:24:22.160 --> 1:24:25.760 any any of the characters. It's just like, this is 1:24:25.840 --> 1:24:30.080 just a person, like a doctrine with purple right, Doug Jones. 1:24:30.240 --> 1:24:38.240 Doug Jones, folks, he's a sexy fish, the sex. But 1:24:38.280 --> 1:24:43.240 because the trend tends to be that only bipoc actors 1:24:43.280 --> 1:24:46.680 are cast in these roles where their skin is a 1:24:47.479 --> 1:24:51.200 is you know, some color of the rainbow, and their 1:24:51.320 --> 1:24:55.439 character is coded as like another race. It's also because 1:24:55.479 --> 1:24:58.160 it's generally by like white writers and directors that are 1:24:58.160 --> 1:25:01.760 making that decision. Like that is a huge element of 1:25:02.439 --> 1:25:04.120 I don't know, like it does Like the way James 1:25:04.200 --> 1:25:08.880 Cameron is doing it seems like a trophy, overwrought, like lazy, 1:25:09.000 --> 1:25:13.120 kind of pretty offensive like storytelling trope, Like it's not 1:25:13.360 --> 1:25:17.800 he's not doing anything new here. Yeah, it would have 1:25:17.880 --> 1:25:20.840 more gravity if it was by a writer who was 1:25:20.880 --> 1:25:25.760 Indigenous or otherwise marginalized, right, I think. And then as 1:25:25.760 --> 1:25:29.200 far as the costume design goes, Um, I'm curious about 1:25:29.240 --> 1:25:33.600 your thoughts on this alley, But the nov across the 1:25:33.680 --> 1:25:37.760 gender spectrum of the nov, they're all like pretty scantily 1:25:37.960 --> 1:25:41.639 clad as far as their costume goes, Yes, the two 1:25:41.640 --> 1:25:45.439 body types are scantily clad. You can see all of 1:25:45.520 --> 1:25:51.000 their blueskin basically. And there is definitely another media trend 1:25:51.360 --> 1:25:55.519 where Indigenous women we see this time and time again 1:25:56.120 --> 1:26:02.600 are hyper hyper sexualized in meat. Yeah, I don't know 1:26:02.680 --> 1:26:05.000 exactly if that's what's happening here. I'm just so I'm 1:26:05.040 --> 1:26:08.599 just curious to your thoughts. So, um, this is kind 1:26:08.640 --> 1:26:11.599 of okay. So if you talk to one Indigenous person 1:26:11.600 --> 1:26:14.160 who've only talked to one Indigenous person. So this is 1:26:14.200 --> 1:26:20.479 just me personally. UM Connor Beard on TikTok, who's from 1:26:20.479 --> 1:26:22.920 the Lumbi tribe. I think I mentioned him earlier. He's 1:26:22.960 --> 1:26:27.720 doing a series of TikTok videos about Avatar and racism 1:26:27.760 --> 1:26:31.560 in it and tropes in it that are anti Indigenous, 1:26:31.960 --> 1:26:34.400 and I can co sign on most of them. I 1:26:34.400 --> 1:26:36.800 think he makes really good points. But he released and 1:26:36.840 --> 1:26:42.080 I say this respectfully. Um, he released a recent TikTok 1:26:42.320 --> 1:26:47.400 talking about how avatar uh fetishizes and sexualizes Native women, 1:26:48.000 --> 1:26:54.200 and I get it, but I don't agree entirely because, UM, 1:26:54.320 --> 1:26:57.439 I personally have a rule where if male and female 1:26:57.520 --> 1:27:03.679 characters are wearing the same costume, the costume itself isn't 1:27:03.960 --> 1:27:08.960 inherently sexualized. UM Like, Black Widow and Captain America are 1:27:09.000 --> 1:27:12.240 basically wearing the same unitard. It's just Black Widow was 1:27:12.280 --> 1:27:17.280 filmed differently, you know, So it's not really the costume 1:27:17.400 --> 1:27:21.519 that's the problem. UM. Like, someone I forgot who it was. 1:27:21.560 --> 1:27:24.439 I think it was a pop culture detective was talking 1:27:24.479 --> 1:27:31.720 about how Cora in tron Legacy is sexualized and I 1:27:31.760 --> 1:27:34.160 did not agree with that either. I'm like, she's wearing 1:27:34.200 --> 1:27:37.240 the same thing everybody else is wearing, and she's never 1:27:37.320 --> 1:27:42.400 really objectified by the camera, because there's a difference between 1:27:42.439 --> 1:27:45.400 like a character just being really sexy on the screen 1:27:45.840 --> 1:27:52.439 and the filmmakers and the filmmaking actively sexualizing that character. 1:27:53.080 --> 1:27:57.080 I watched that same TikTok um from Connor Beard, and 1:27:57.240 --> 1:28:01.280 he points out that in the screenplay for Avatar. So 1:28:01.360 --> 1:28:04.360 this makes me kind of think that James Cameron is 1:28:04.800 --> 1:28:09.960 actively sexualizing especially n No. I hate reading I hate 1:28:09.960 --> 1:28:14.639 reading James Cameron's writing. It's so stressful. Do you remember 1:28:14.680 --> 1:28:18.599 that thing from Titanic where she falls under his welcome weight. 1:28:18.920 --> 1:28:22.160 I will never stop thinking about the phrase welcome weight 1:28:22.479 --> 1:28:25.559 written by a fifty year old man. I just can't 1:28:25.760 --> 1:28:28.240 even Okay, what did he say? What did you say? 1:28:30.439 --> 1:28:36.439 I at least it translates well to strain, But he's like, 1:28:36.720 --> 1:28:39.920 I don't even think it's like an unpopular opinion to 1:28:39.960 --> 1:28:42.639 say that James Cameron is like a pretty bad writer. 1:28:43.560 --> 1:28:45.720 He's just got he's got a lot of chops where 1:28:45.760 --> 1:28:47.799 he's got a lot of chops. And then he also 1:28:47.880 --> 1:28:51.080 writes the movie he and then he writes what we're 1:28:51.080 --> 1:28:57.200 about welcome here? Okay, sorry, sorry, So This is for 1:28:57.479 --> 1:29:00.720 Naterie's character introduction, which in a screen generally has a 1:29:00.720 --> 1:29:05.479 little bit more detail um about like the character visually, 1:29:05.520 --> 1:29:08.719 like what the character looks like. So quote, Jake passes 1:29:08.800 --> 1:29:11.880 under a tree limb invisible to him, draped on the 1:29:11.920 --> 1:29:15.800 limb like a leopard. Is a striking, navvy girl. She 1:29:15.840 --> 1:29:19.599 watches only her eyes moving. She is life as a 1:29:19.640 --> 1:29:24.000 cat with a long neck, muscular shoulders, and nubile breasts. 1:29:24.800 --> 1:29:28.880 And she is devastatingly beautiful for a girl with a tail. 1:29:30.120 --> 1:29:34.599 Oh my, Jim, So do they ever mentioned the size 1:29:34.640 --> 1:29:37.759 of Jake's dick and he's going into his aftar body 1:29:37.760 --> 1:29:44.080 because not that that's telling exactly. Yeah, where's the reciprocity. 1:29:44.200 --> 1:29:47.320 Jim's going to horny jail? Again, there's one more sentence 1:29:47.360 --> 1:29:54.600 that is upsetting. In human age, she would be eighteen, 1:29:55.760 --> 1:30:00.160 so she is young, young young Jake Sully is what 1:30:00.320 --> 1:30:04.120 in his thirties, mid to late thirties, probably he could 1:30:04.160 --> 1:30:09.040 be a strong c W thirty one, you know, Dad, 1:30:09.560 --> 1:30:15.160 So that it is creepy. So like I I because 1:30:15.360 --> 1:30:17.200 I think that that is a really good rule of 1:30:17.240 --> 1:30:19.960 thumb that you're describing alley of like if there is 1:30:20.240 --> 1:30:23.879 because it's also like you, like James Cameron writes creepy. 1:30:24.040 --> 1:30:26.800 We've discussed it on the show before. It seems particularly 1:30:26.920 --> 1:30:30.840 pointed in this in this example, because he's you know, 1:30:30.960 --> 1:30:36.720 like writing about an Indigenous woman who's eighteen like man, 1:30:37.320 --> 1:30:40.400 there was like a lot of I'm glad that there's 1:30:40.439 --> 1:30:42.519 like a diversity of opinion on this, because I do 1:30:42.600 --> 1:30:47.000 think that, like the movie does not objectify Naterie the 1:30:47.080 --> 1:30:50.920 way that that couple of sentence run would imply that 1:30:51.040 --> 1:30:53.759 it would based on how creepy he's being. I didn't 1:30:53.800 --> 1:30:58.000 feel that creepiness in the camera or in the film language. 1:30:58.040 --> 1:30:59.560 I think that that is like, in spite of the 1:30:59.600 --> 1:31:02.760 fact that he's like a creepy writer, he's not a 1:31:02.760 --> 1:31:06.519 creepy filmmaker, which is, you know, an oversimplification. I'm sure 1:31:06.560 --> 1:31:09.479 he's had his creepy moments, but and he's made like 1:31:09.680 --> 1:31:12.080 R rated movies too, So if he really wanted to 1:31:12.120 --> 1:31:14.479 be creepy, he could have really been creepy and his 1:31:14.600 --> 1:31:20.439 other But but then on the other hand, it's I mean, 1:31:20.560 --> 1:31:22.439 I know that we sort of have spent a lot 1:31:22.439 --> 1:31:26.479 of this episode unraveling, like the way that like comparing 1:31:26.520 --> 1:31:31.479 Avatar to disney Spokehontas is a vast oversimplification, but because 1:31:31.520 --> 1:31:35.599 it's like the nav characters are like somewhat animated or like, 1:31:35.920 --> 1:31:38.320 I don't know how to describe motion capture really, but 1:31:38.439 --> 1:31:41.240 she looks more like a cat than a person, So 1:31:41.520 --> 1:31:46.080 it's not it doesn't I feel like Pocahontas like Disney's Pokehonas. 1:31:46.280 --> 1:31:50.360 Even Shell or Shell from the Road to Eldorado. I 1:31:50.400 --> 1:31:54.240 think that's way more offensive than the Terry because I 1:31:54.280 --> 1:31:58.240 would say that that is hyper sexualized and objectified more 1:31:58.280 --> 1:32:01.960 than nay Terry, because I also don't think that nudity 1:32:02.280 --> 1:32:06.960 is inherently sexual either, And the really the only time 1:32:07.040 --> 1:32:10.639 Nateri is ever like sexy on screen is when she's 1:32:10.680 --> 1:32:17.880 having sex, which you know, hopefully kind of the best 1:32:17.920 --> 1:32:21.599 time to be sexy is during sex. Wow, yeah, kind 1:32:21.600 --> 1:32:24.320 of weird if you're not. And even during the weird 1:32:24.360 --> 1:32:28.920 tentacle sex thing. I mean it's more romantic than sexy. Um, 1:32:30.040 --> 1:32:37.639 I guess yes. But like a worse example of this 1:32:37.720 --> 1:32:41.559 would be in Terrence Malix film The New World, where 1:32:41.760 --> 1:32:46.519 Koreanka Kulture, who is fourteen years old, is way more 1:32:46.640 --> 1:32:53.160 sexualized with her to grown male counter counter stars co stars, 1:32:53.360 --> 1:32:56.800 co stars, that's the word that counter stars. Yes, so 1:32:57.120 --> 1:33:02.160 fourteen year old Koreanka culture with that, Christian Bale and 1:33:02.240 --> 1:33:06.120 Colin Farrell, And excuse a blame, I still have not 1:33:06.439 --> 1:33:08.920 been able to bring myself to watch that one because 1:33:09.000 --> 1:33:14.080 everything I hear about it is just disgusting. She's beautiful 1:33:14.160 --> 1:33:17.720 and she's wonderful, but god, baby girl, I'm sorry. I'm 1:33:17.800 --> 1:33:21.400 so sorry, ugly ass bitch like Terance Bald, what do 1:33:21.439 --> 1:33:28.120 you do that, you fucking evil? One last thing, I'm 1:33:28.160 --> 1:33:30.519 and then then I promise I'll stop dragging Connor. But 1:33:31.880 --> 1:33:35.360 there was one more line that he says in that 1:33:35.560 --> 1:33:40.439 TikTok where so it's a line where NATII tells him, 1:33:40.479 --> 1:33:43.599 you know you're Alma Takaya now and you can make 1:33:43.640 --> 1:33:47.360 your bow from home tree and you can choose a woman, 1:33:48.080 --> 1:33:51.680 and he, you know, Jake's like, already chose, but this 1:33:51.720 --> 1:33:56.240 woman must choose me, And Connor feared makes the argument 1:33:56.439 --> 1:34:01.519 that Jake is the one being progressive and the yes 1:34:01.560 --> 1:34:03.720 the one being primitive. And I think that this is 1:34:03.720 --> 1:34:08.479 where context matters, because the Navy, with all other problems, 1:34:08.479 --> 1:34:12.439 are very egalitarian, and I don't think the women are 1:34:12.520 --> 1:34:15.960 just like, oh, you only exist to be chosen by 1:34:16.080 --> 1:34:18.840 these dudes, you know, because then why would there be 1:34:18.840 --> 1:34:23.960 women warriors? And I think it's also cousny Terry's engaged, 1:34:24.280 --> 1:34:26.720 so he's like, hey, do you want to come with me? 1:34:27.120 --> 1:34:30.840 Or you know, I know who I've chosen, but do 1:34:30.920 --> 1:34:33.040 you choose me? And I don't know. It's like I 1:34:33.080 --> 1:34:37.400 didn't think that was Yeah, I don't know. I hear 1:34:37.439 --> 1:34:39.479 you on that, like I mean, and I think that 1:34:39.680 --> 1:34:42.760 like the best. I mean, you said it yourself. Like 1:34:43.040 --> 1:34:45.879 the fact that she is engaged is not really harped 1:34:45.920 --> 1:34:48.439 on by the movie, which I appreciated because that's like 1:34:48.479 --> 1:34:51.360 a really annoying trope to like get in the mire of. 1:34:51.800 --> 1:34:55.160 But it's like it makes sense that it would be 1:34:55.479 --> 1:34:58.639 sort of like tacitly brought up in that conversation, because 1:34:59.200 --> 1:35:04.000 be weird if Jake didn't try to tacitly acknowledge like that, 1:35:04.400 --> 1:35:08.000 it's sort of him the way that Jack Dawson is 1:35:08.040 --> 1:35:11.200 like do you love him? It's just a simple question, 1:35:11.240 --> 1:35:13.320 do you love the guy or not? And Rose is like, 1:35:13.840 --> 1:35:17.280 this is not a suitable conversation. But but Jack was 1:35:17.320 --> 1:35:19.880 being being very rude. Jack was being a little devil 1:35:19.920 --> 1:35:22.599 in that conversation because he was being agro and not 1:35:22.720 --> 1:35:24.920 to hand it to Jake Sally, I don't do it 1:35:24.960 --> 1:35:27.479 and I hate to do it, but but you know, 1:35:27.560 --> 1:35:30.120 Jake doesn't get agro about it. It's like a it's 1:35:30.160 --> 1:35:33.559 a conversation. It's not like cornering you in the gym 1:35:33.640 --> 1:35:37.759 of the Titan. I'm just merely pointing out that James 1:35:37.800 --> 1:35:40.559 Cameron keeps writing more or less the same scene over 1:35:40.800 --> 1:35:43.719 he loves, he loves this one movie that he writes. 1:35:44.000 --> 1:35:50.400 And UM, my last question as it relates to the 1:35:50.520 --> 1:35:55.320 character design of the Alma Takaya, is I wasn't sure 1:35:55.360 --> 1:36:00.839 if James Cameron was referencing any specific into genius culture 1:36:01.000 --> 1:36:05.120 or cultures or nations with the Alma Takaya or is 1:36:05.160 --> 1:36:08.160 he just sort of like treating indigenous people as a 1:36:08.200 --> 1:36:13.640 monolith and like just kind of making several aesthetic references 1:36:13.720 --> 1:36:16.240 and kind of lumping them all together. And like, I 1:36:16.240 --> 1:36:19.680 don't know what's your thought on that A bit of 1:36:19.760 --> 1:36:23.520 column A and column B, Like it feels very outsiders 1:36:23.560 --> 1:36:31.120 perspective because it is when I first saw the movie, Um, 1:36:31.160 --> 1:36:35.120 it felt like I don't know if you've ever seen Apocalypto, 1:36:35.320 --> 1:36:38.360 but it kind of reminded me of that where it was. 1:36:39.000 --> 1:36:42.120 I assumed, since they're in a rainforest and the nab 1:36:42.400 --> 1:36:45.840 don't wear a lot of clothing, that it was probably 1:36:45.880 --> 1:36:51.400 inspired by a South American or Mesoamerican indigenous culture. I 1:36:51.479 --> 1:36:58.760 haven't found anything that suggested that. What I have found was, um, 1:36:58.800 --> 1:37:02.160 a lot of inspiration is from Maudi people from New 1:37:02.240 --> 1:37:05.760 Zealand and even in U the trailers for the Way 1:37:05.760 --> 1:37:07.799 of Water, I noticed that a lot of the facial 1:37:07.840 --> 1:37:10.840 tattoos on some of the New nav characters looked very 1:37:10.880 --> 1:37:14.599 much like the same ones from Polynesian cultures. Yeah, from 1:37:14.600 --> 1:37:16.760 what I've heard of and and read a little bit 1:37:16.800 --> 1:37:20.080 about the second movie, it seems like Cameron takes that 1:37:20.160 --> 1:37:23.720 direction a little more decisively in the second movie. How 1:37:23.760 --> 1:37:26.519 effective it is or how respectful it is, I don't know, 1:37:26.680 --> 1:37:30.320 but that I was. I was going through like old 1:37:30.320 --> 1:37:32.880 features trying to see if there was because there's so 1:37:32.960 --> 1:37:36.280 much written about certain elements of production. But that was 1:37:36.320 --> 1:37:39.120 not something I was able to really find. And I 1:37:39.200 --> 1:37:43.439 know that there is this tendency. Um. We were talking 1:37:43.439 --> 1:37:47.400 about this with Olivia Woodward a while ago about just 1:37:47.479 --> 1:37:51.960 like this tendency to take so many unique indigenous cultures 1:37:51.960 --> 1:37:56.040 and just like lump them all into one vague, you know, 1:37:56.160 --> 1:38:00.400 kind of trophy interpretation, which I don't know if that's 1:38:00.439 --> 1:38:02.280 really what I mean. I I just kind of struggled 1:38:02.280 --> 1:38:05.679 to find information on what he was doing. Right well, 1:38:05.800 --> 1:38:08.920 when I first saw the movie two thousand nine in 1:38:09.000 --> 1:38:15.040 the theater, there were several scenes five like major events 1:38:15.040 --> 1:38:19.320 in the film that I think mirror actual historical events 1:38:19.400 --> 1:38:26.120 in like a broader Native American history. So obviously invading 1:38:26.160 --> 1:38:29.880 Pandora is any It could be Columbus, it could be 1:38:30.000 --> 1:38:32.240 the British, it could be the French, it could be 1:38:32.439 --> 1:38:38.080 leif Ericson, you know, like any invasion colonialism, you know 1:38:38.200 --> 1:38:43.759 that's happening. Um. Obviously, there are elements that are probably 1:38:43.840 --> 1:38:49.680 inspired by Pocahontas and Jamestown and the Powetan nation interacting 1:38:49.680 --> 1:38:55.040 with the settlers, especially since John Smith, when he was kidnapped, 1:38:55.880 --> 1:39:00.040 was accepted into the tribe as kind of like a 1:39:00.120 --> 1:39:05.559 honorary member to like, you know, build diplomacy. The image 1:39:05.560 --> 1:39:09.000 of Pocahontas, like resting her head on him and saving 1:39:09.120 --> 1:39:12.360 him is kind of more of like an initiation, kind 1:39:12.400 --> 1:39:17.960 of like she's his godmother to compare it to anything. Uh, 1:39:18.240 --> 1:39:22.439 don't quote me on that one, since I'm not from 1:39:22.479 --> 1:39:26.799 those tribes, but that's my understanding of it. Any big 1:39:26.880 --> 1:39:30.879 massacre scene, but you know, a home tree getting destroyed 1:39:31.400 --> 1:39:34.120 felt like it could have been wounded me. It could 1:39:34.120 --> 1:39:37.360 have been sand Creek. It could have been any attack, 1:39:37.760 --> 1:39:41.120 any massacre really, and then you have the trail of 1:39:41.200 --> 1:39:48.320 tears afterwards. Were forcibly relocating indigenous people, um any death march, 1:39:48.520 --> 1:39:52.479 any long walks, you know. I was and again it 1:39:52.520 --> 1:39:54.040 was like it was just hard to find any like 1:39:54.160 --> 1:39:56.720 hard confirmation, But I kind of assumed that that was 1:39:57.240 --> 1:40:00.080 what Cameron was trying to reference, even in the a 1:40:00.680 --> 1:40:03.280 that Giovanni Ribisi's character was talking about it like oh, 1:40:03.320 --> 1:40:05.720 it's not a big deal. It's like a relocation. It's 1:40:05.800 --> 1:40:08.080 not like I was like, Okay, this is kind of 1:40:08.200 --> 1:40:12.880 clearly mapped on peacefully negotiate their relocation. It's like, there's 1:40:12.880 --> 1:40:18.519 no peaceful negotiation forcibly relocating. But the last one, which 1:40:18.880 --> 1:40:22.880 surprised me, and I'm happy that it ended like this 1:40:23.120 --> 1:40:26.800 was I feel like the final battle in Avatar, like 1:40:26.880 --> 1:40:30.000 the big climatic, awesome battle, felt like it was a 1:40:30.000 --> 1:40:32.479 big allegory to the Battle of a Little Big Horn 1:40:32.600 --> 1:40:35.200 or the Battle of Greasy Grass where the Lakota sue 1:40:35.760 --> 1:40:41.439 and the Cheyenne one a battle against General Custer and 1:40:41.479 --> 1:40:45.240 the U. S Army, and um, they did that because 1:40:45.320 --> 1:40:49.360 Custer thought that he was going to ambush them and 1:40:49.479 --> 1:40:52.240 murder all of them. And no, there's five thousand of 1:40:52.360 --> 1:40:56.240 us and you're dying today. And the person who shot 1:40:56.320 --> 1:41:00.200 him off of his horse was a woman fun by 1:41:01.880 --> 1:41:12.599 Buffalo calf road woman. So that pleases me. I didn't 1:41:12.600 --> 1:41:15.160 realize that's that's amazing. Yeah, she's the one who shot 1:41:15.200 --> 1:41:17.960 him off of his horse and probably delivered the killing blow. 1:41:18.360 --> 1:41:22.560 And afterwards the other women took like little needles or 1:41:22.600 --> 1:41:26.240 whatever and poked out his ear drums. And that's where 1:41:26.280 --> 1:41:30.080 the phrase, uh, that's where the phrase see what happens 1:41:30.120 --> 1:41:35.920 where you don't listen comes from. A So it sounds 1:41:35.960 --> 1:41:40.439 to me like James Cameron is pulling not only from 1:41:40.439 --> 1:41:42.240 like a design point of view of the of the 1:41:42.280 --> 1:41:46.880 Alma Takaya, but also from just like narrative events in 1:41:46.920 --> 1:41:52.000 the movie Avatar. He's pulling from a lot of different nations. So, 1:41:53.160 --> 1:41:58.559 I mean, allegory in storytelling is like you know that 1:41:58.600 --> 1:42:01.080 tends to happen where like you're you might be kind 1:42:01.080 --> 1:42:04.599 of referencing something it's an allegorical probably be weirder if 1:42:04.640 --> 1:42:08.920 you didn't pull from actual history. Like, it's not inherently 1:42:09.000 --> 1:42:12.679 negative that he did that, right, it's just the mess. 1:42:13.240 --> 1:42:16.320 It's just that, And it's the outsider's perspective that I 1:42:16.360 --> 1:42:20.920 think is really Yeah, and uh, well, I mean Indigenous 1:42:20.960 --> 1:42:25.480 people globally have a lot of shared experiences with colonialism 1:42:25.560 --> 1:42:32.200 and racism and environmental oppression and damage also, so I 1:42:32.240 --> 1:42:34.920 can see how kind of blending it together because it 1:42:34.960 --> 1:42:38.680 all kind of blows together makes sense. I feel like 1:42:38.720 --> 1:42:41.560 it probably could have been done a little more ethically, 1:42:42.560 --> 1:42:44.799 and the way to do that would be the higher 1:42:45.160 --> 1:42:52.599 native writers to write about the allegory. Um what else? 1:42:53.640 --> 1:42:56.840 Another thing I would change is that a fangirl Gene. 1:42:57.160 --> 1:42:59.120 I hope I'm pronouncing her name right. I think it's 1:42:59.120 --> 1:43:03.960 pronounced gene, but I think it's also pronounced jean j 1:43:04.160 --> 1:43:08.719 e a and n e f jean. Oh my, please 1:43:08.720 --> 1:43:13.719 don't kill me, fangro Jean. Anyway, she uh was talking 1:43:13.720 --> 1:43:16.080 about how she kind of likes and dislikes Avatar in 1:43:16.120 --> 1:43:19.040 the same way as I do, but she's like Jake 1:43:19.360 --> 1:43:22.680 should not have been allowed to stay period if he 1:43:22.800 --> 1:43:24.800 was going to, And I feel like that would have 1:43:24.880 --> 1:43:27.519 lended itself to the story a little bit better and 1:43:27.560 --> 1:43:31.599 the sincerity of the character where they're like, listen, we 1:43:31.640 --> 1:43:36.080 appreciate your help, but you put us in this situation, 1:43:36.400 --> 1:43:39.760 so at the end of all things, you can't sit 1:43:39.840 --> 1:43:43.439 with us anymore. So if it would have, at the 1:43:43.560 --> 1:43:45.479 very least it should have and he should be okay 1:43:45.520 --> 1:43:47.960 with it, if he's as good as he thinks he is, 1:43:48.080 --> 1:43:51.280 then that would have been like, that's fair, Okay, you 1:43:51.320 --> 1:43:53.360 don't get to stay with us. Yeah, I fucked up. 1:43:53.920 --> 1:44:01.320 I'll see myself out. Yeah, I will say your brother's funeral, Jake, Yeah, jeez, 1:44:01.680 --> 1:44:06.000 I will say. Um. This is my hot take is 1:44:06.040 --> 1:44:11.479 that I think, not that his story is good, not 1:44:11.640 --> 1:44:15.040 that his redemption arc is good, but all things consider, 1:44:15.320 --> 1:44:22.080 Jake's redemption arc is more satisfying or better than a 1:44:22.160 --> 1:44:26.800 redemption arc for like Kylo Wren, for example, because at 1:44:26.840 --> 1:44:29.120 the end of the day, even though Kyleo Wren or 1:44:29.160 --> 1:44:32.280 even Darth Vader turned from the dark side and do 1:44:32.360 --> 1:44:35.120 the right thing at the last moment, they die right 1:44:35.240 --> 1:44:39.479 after and they don't undo all the damage that they did. 1:44:40.000 --> 1:44:43.759 They may have stopped or prevented more damage, which good, 1:44:44.200 --> 1:44:47.400 but they never face the people that they hurt. They 1:44:47.479 --> 1:44:53.240 never like face any repercussions or consequences for the harm 1:44:53.280 --> 1:44:57.799 that they've caused. So, Jake, even though it's not great, 1:44:59.320 --> 1:45:01.800 he's still it has to prove himself if he's going 1:45:01.840 --> 1:45:05.559 to show his face again. And when he does the 1:45:05.640 --> 1:45:10.200 right thing, eventually it's like his friends die, people get hurt. 1:45:10.640 --> 1:45:13.000 He can never go back to his planet again. He 1:45:13.040 --> 1:45:15.439 can never you know. So there's a whole lot at 1:45:15.439 --> 1:45:18.960 stake that, you know, a lot of sacrifices that was 1:45:19.040 --> 1:45:21.760 made for him to do the right thing. He does 1:45:21.840 --> 1:45:26.400 have to do a lot to actually have a redemption. 1:45:27.080 --> 1:45:32.160 But he like centers himself so consistently throughout it that 1:45:32.240 --> 1:45:35.360 he's like I'm the boss now, and you're he's like 1:45:35.640 --> 1:45:37.880 or like yeah that it's I mean, which is maybe 1:45:37.880 --> 1:45:43.519 like realistic, super macho white male behavior, but like, yeah, 1:45:43.560 --> 1:45:46.320 the fact that he's like, Okay, I like, I totally agree. 1:45:46.360 --> 1:45:50.400 It's good that he recognizes that he can't just like 1:45:50.560 --> 1:45:55.679 something has to be done to try to mitigate this tragedy. 1:45:55.760 --> 1:45:59.640 That is in a huge part his fault, but his 1:46:00.000 --> 1:46:02.960 ocean is like I have to be the lead captain 1:46:03.040 --> 1:46:08.240 of And then he's rewarded by being like, Okay, you're deaf. 1:46:08.320 --> 1:46:11.800 You're one of us again, and you're permanently one of us, 1:46:11.960 --> 1:46:14.720 and we're gonna do this like spiritual ceremony to make 1:46:14.760 --> 1:46:19.000 you shud be back on a trial basis at very 1:46:19.120 --> 1:46:23.320 least like for real. It's like you're answering for crimes 1:46:23.360 --> 1:46:30.800 against right. Hey, here's another question I have for you, ali, Um. 1:46:30.800 --> 1:46:34.639 Throughout the movie, there's a lot of emphasis on the 1:46:34.680 --> 1:46:38.680 Alma Takaya's connection to the earth and this like spiritual 1:46:38.680 --> 1:46:42.360 connection to the wildlife the floor and the fauna, and 1:46:43.240 --> 1:46:47.479 obviously pulling from you know, indigenous culture in the connection 1:46:47.520 --> 1:46:50.920 that indigenous people have with the earth. But the movie 1:46:51.000 --> 1:46:56.000 introduces this like kind of sci fi fantasy element to 1:46:56.280 --> 1:47:03.080 that with like the tentacle angling network and then yeah, 1:47:03.320 --> 1:47:06.720 and and I'm just curious about your thoughts about that 1:47:06.800 --> 1:47:10.400 and what implications you think that has good or bad 1:47:10.520 --> 1:47:16.839 or neutral. Okay, this is why Natives need to make stuff. 1:47:19.160 --> 1:47:21.840 Kim Natives the same budget, and we will make something 1:47:21.880 --> 1:47:26.800 better than Avatar. I promise. I promise, Um, because I 1:47:26.840 --> 1:47:33.920 mean to James Cameron's credit, he's been an environmentalist activists 1:47:33.920 --> 1:47:38.360 since like high school, so there are good intentions there. 1:47:38.400 --> 1:47:42.040 He Um said in an interview very recently. I think 1:47:42.040 --> 1:47:44.439 it was like James Cameron breaks down his most iconic 1:47:44.680 --> 1:47:48.920 roles or something like that. Yeah. Yeah, he Um was 1:47:49.000 --> 1:47:52.960 talking about like as he was making Avatar, He's like 1:47:53.000 --> 1:47:55.479 Indigenous people were reaching out and saying, you know, a 1:47:55.479 --> 1:47:59.479 lot of the stuff that's happening in your movie is 1:47:59.520 --> 1:48:02.679 happening in real life in our community. So there were 1:48:02.720 --> 1:48:07.559 things like UM and even Sophia yanoku'sa Sami activists UM, 1:48:07.600 --> 1:48:11.479 when she gave her TED talk about mining companies in 1:48:11.640 --> 1:48:15.800 Lapland in Sami territories and the damage that had done, 1:48:15.840 --> 1:48:22.120 she said that Avatar felt like that, Like she definitely 1:48:22.160 --> 1:48:28.000 resonated with the damage that's done to these um ecosystems 1:48:28.080 --> 1:48:32.160 and these sacred territories and everything, and how Avatar has 1:48:32.200 --> 1:48:35.639 a happy ending, but in real life, we're still fighting 1:48:36.760 --> 1:48:39.680 in Lapland, and the same can be said in like 1:48:39.800 --> 1:48:45.520 Brazil and Standing Rock, West Uotan and all these other places. 1:48:46.320 --> 1:48:50.400 And when you think of like just the spiritual aspect 1:48:50.479 --> 1:48:53.080 in Pandora, I mean it's a movie, so they kind 1:48:53.080 --> 1:48:57.759 of have to ham it up. But I mean people 1:48:57.840 --> 1:49:03.679 are not like usually in indigenous cultures or the way 1:49:03.720 --> 1:49:06.760 that we believe in these things. People are not at 1:49:06.760 --> 1:49:10.400 the top of the pyramid and then everything is beneath us. 1:49:11.120 --> 1:49:13.679 Indigenous people tend to be stewards of the land who 1:49:13.680 --> 1:49:18.160 believe that we are actually part of an ecosystem. And 1:49:18.200 --> 1:49:20.479 as much as we need the land, the land also 1:49:20.560 --> 1:49:24.280 needs us to take care of it. And the land 1:49:24.360 --> 1:49:29.280 is very much as alive and as sentient as people 1:49:29.479 --> 1:49:33.000 and as animals. So I see what he was trying 1:49:33.040 --> 1:49:38.000 to do. Uh, he's just kind of it's just kind 1:49:38.000 --> 1:49:40.760 of out of his element because he's not part of 1:49:40.800 --> 1:49:46.520 the community. You know, there's like a something lost in translation. 1:49:46.560 --> 1:49:50.520 I guess there's a disconnect because it's so very outsider's perspective, 1:49:51.320 --> 1:49:53.800 and it's a good idea. I mean, I do like 1:49:53.920 --> 1:49:57.280 the idea of you know, like you can plug your 1:49:57.280 --> 1:50:01.920 tail into the willow tree and here your ancestors singing 1:50:02.040 --> 1:50:09.640 and stuff like. That's beautiful, but not when they're aliens, right, 1:50:10.720 --> 1:50:14.240 It's almost to me it reads is like um an 1:50:14.240 --> 1:50:20.120 outsider's perspective looking at Indigenous spirituality and being like it's 1:50:20.280 --> 1:50:26.040 so mystical, it's so magical, it's almost science fiction, and 1:50:26.080 --> 1:50:29.880 then like so as to be alien and then just 1:50:29.920 --> 1:50:32.920 like leaning into that and then putting it in a movie. 1:50:33.479 --> 1:50:37.080 Yeah yeah, and in a way that kind of dehumanizes 1:50:37.160 --> 1:50:40.880 indigenous people that you're trying to be sympathetic towards. Anyways, 1:50:41.000 --> 1:50:45.719 and the deleted scenes. There's a really awesome deleted scene 1:50:45.840 --> 1:50:49.640 where Jake, before he becomes one of the people, undergoes 1:50:50.000 --> 1:50:54.040 a vision quest. I guess I don't know if you've 1:50:54.080 --> 1:50:57.840 seen that. I have not seen that scene. Now. Yeah, it's, um, 1:50:57.880 --> 1:51:01.080 it's an incomplete deleted scene and they must have ran 1:51:01.200 --> 1:51:04.679 out of money because the CG isn't there. But it's 1:51:04.680 --> 1:51:07.559 where he like, um, it's when he tells core Rich 1:51:07.840 --> 1:51:10.360 or Stephen Lane, you know, I have one more thing 1:51:10.400 --> 1:51:12.280 I have to do and then I'll be one of 1:51:12.360 --> 1:51:14.720 them and blah blah blah. And then it cuts to 1:51:15.280 --> 1:51:18.720 nay Terry putting the war paint on um and then 1:51:18.760 --> 1:51:23.240 he goes into like this chamber and Moat is like 1:51:23.720 --> 1:51:26.599 lighting the incense and the herbs and stuff, and like 1:51:26.680 --> 1:51:29.600 this beetle or whatever, like he eats a worm and 1:51:29.600 --> 1:51:31.720 then this beetle like stings him on the back of 1:51:31.760 --> 1:51:34.040 his neck or whatever, and he has a vision quest 1:51:34.120 --> 1:51:38.160 and when he survives it, they're like, oh, well you're alive, 1:51:38.280 --> 1:51:42.360 so let's all hug and touch each other. But there's 1:51:42.400 --> 1:51:45.320 a scene where he's talking to Grace before he does it, 1:51:45.360 --> 1:51:49.280 because she's like, dude, you cannot do this because actual 1:51:49.400 --> 1:51:52.320 navvy have died doing this and we have no idea 1:51:52.400 --> 1:51:55.160 what an avatar is going to do. But it's Jake 1:51:55.240 --> 1:51:58.560 and he has his plat armor, so he'll be fine. 1:51:58.760 --> 1:52:02.559 But the chosen one he can't die. Yeah, he's God, 1:52:03.080 --> 1:52:06.240 he should I should have died in the first second 1:52:06.400 --> 1:52:09.680 when he goes in as an avatar when those like 1:52:10.320 --> 1:52:14.360 rhinoceros like animals are like plowing him over, Like, yeah, 1:52:14.520 --> 1:52:17.240 he should have been done for I found I found 1:52:17.240 --> 1:52:20.519 it so frustrating. How like anytime n Teria was about 1:52:20.520 --> 1:52:23.040 to bail on him, which was constantly because he sucks, 1:52:23.960 --> 1:52:29.080 Like there's a sign from the from Pandora from Awa 1:52:29.280 --> 1:52:32.960 that Jake's a really cool guy. You're like, oh my god, 1:52:34.560 --> 1:52:38.360 in what way? But anyway, So the thing is he 1:52:38.400 --> 1:52:42.120 tells Grace what he's doing, then he goes They don't 1:52:42.160 --> 1:52:45.040 even have a word for lie. They had to learn 1:52:45.120 --> 1:52:49.919 it from us. I'm like, dude, what, In my opinion, 1:52:50.960 --> 1:52:54.240 it dehumanizes Indigenous people when you say something, even if 1:52:54.240 --> 1:52:56.280 it's meant to be flattering, Like they don't have a 1:52:56.280 --> 1:52:59.599 word for lie. You know, they don't even lie. That's 1:52:59.640 --> 1:53:01.920 the other side of the coin, for there's no word 1:53:01.960 --> 1:53:04.920 for thank you and doth racky. You don't know what 1:53:04.960 --> 1:53:09.800 I mean. It's like it's another form of just degrading. 1:53:10.160 --> 1:53:13.680 They cannot possibly comprehend the concept of x y Z 1:53:14.120 --> 1:53:16.400 or that like an indigenous character would not be capable 1:53:16.439 --> 1:53:22.960 of lying, like the full spectrum of being you know, alive. Yeah, ridiculous. 1:53:23.720 --> 1:53:28.040 I found it interesting. I looked into James Cameron's first 1:53:28.120 --> 1:53:30.200 round of interviews for this movie and then his current interview. 1:53:30.280 --> 1:53:33.160 It does seem like I mean, I'm just like, I 1:53:33.240 --> 1:53:36.880 guess I'm just interested in how avatar to works out 1:53:36.920 --> 1:53:38.919 for him. But in the first one I was curious 1:53:38.920 --> 1:53:42.960 of like how explicitly he was, how explicit he was 1:53:43.000 --> 1:53:45.240 and saying like where his influences were coming from, because 1:53:45.240 --> 1:53:47.519 this was something he started working on in the nineties, 1:53:47.560 --> 1:53:49.960 like during the production of Titanic. He was it is 1:53:50.080 --> 1:53:55.800 very nineties environmentalists Captain planet E right, and we were like, 1:53:55.960 --> 1:53:59.800 I see the intent, but the follow through is But 1:54:00.040 --> 1:54:03.360 he said, like, I was surprised at how open he was, 1:54:03.400 --> 1:54:07.639 A like being influenced by movies like Dances with Wolves, 1:54:07.760 --> 1:54:11.880 movies like Lawrence of Arabia in terms of a movie 1:54:11.920 --> 1:54:15.920 I like. He He references Princess Mononoke uh several times 1:54:15.920 --> 1:54:20.040 as another inspiration, but he does kind of explicitly say like, yeah, 1:54:20.080 --> 1:54:25.680 these you know, very white savior sympathetic colonizer stories are 1:54:25.720 --> 1:54:28.800 like ones I was pulling from when I was making 1:54:28.800 --> 1:54:33.600 this and and so there's that I just wanted to 1:54:33.640 --> 1:54:36.600 share and you can tell, and you can tell, and 1:54:38.520 --> 1:54:41.640 Precess Mononoke does it so much better, just does it 1:54:41.800 --> 1:54:45.800 so much better. And it also features an indigenous main 1:54:45.920 --> 1:54:50.640 character because Ashitaka is Amish. Love it my indigenous king. 1:54:51.600 --> 1:54:57.480 But uh, okay, so elephant in the room. Let's talk 1:54:57.520 --> 1:55:03.920 about the comparisons may between this movie and Pokehonas, because 1:55:03.920 --> 1:55:08.160 that's usually how everybody dismisses the film. It's Pokehonisan space. 1:55:09.320 --> 1:55:12.760 Oh and James Cameron also says that he mapped early 1:55:13.240 --> 1:55:17.800 plots about Materia onto. He says the Pokehontas story. But 1:55:17.840 --> 1:55:19.640 I'm like, well, what do you even mean when you 1:55:19.680 --> 1:55:22.680 say that? It sounds like he's he's referring specifically to 1:55:22.760 --> 1:55:26.760 the Disney version of it, because the real version of 1:55:26.800 --> 1:55:32.440 that story, you're fifty years old. Yeah, so um so 1:55:32.520 --> 1:55:37.200 to begin, I mean, obviously, the reason I haven't stepped 1:55:37.240 --> 1:55:39.600 up to do a Pokehonas episode is because I'm not 1:55:39.800 --> 1:55:43.840 from her tribe and there's a lot of insight that 1:55:44.600 --> 1:55:49.040 I cannot provide that someone from her tribe would. But 1:55:49.400 --> 1:55:51.960 you know, obviously, the way I look at it, when people, 1:55:52.120 --> 1:55:54.800 you know, try to dismiss it as Pokehonisan space, I 1:55:54.880 --> 1:55:58.840 always say, I'm like, Pokehonas is an actual person who 1:55:59.720 --> 1:56:04.360 saw heard and terrible things happened to her, So she 1:56:04.880 --> 1:56:07.960 deserves more respect than that. And these stories are not 1:56:08.000 --> 1:56:11.760 the same, you know, like full stock. It's like, you know, 1:56:11.840 --> 1:56:15.120 the same way that people make fun of Elizabeth Warren 1:56:15.600 --> 1:56:17.640 and call her Pocahonas, And it's like, you know, you 1:56:17.680 --> 1:56:23.480 can criticize both this film and Elizabeth Warren for numerous 1:56:23.560 --> 1:56:26.800 valid reasons, but you can do it without being racist, 1:56:26.920 --> 1:56:30.320 and you can do it without using an abused child 1:56:30.960 --> 1:56:35.280 as a punchline. But the other thing is is that 1:56:35.800 --> 1:56:39.240 the story of pokeahon Is how it like, actually not 1:56:39.320 --> 1:56:43.560 even the story of Pocahons, but the romanticized account of 1:56:43.640 --> 1:56:46.560 Pocahonas that people are very familiar with that was used 1:56:46.560 --> 1:56:50.640 in this movie and the Disney movie and everything is 1:56:50.800 --> 1:56:55.040 much older. And it says there's this article and it's 1:56:55.040 --> 1:56:59.520 called the pocona Is perplex and it says that it 1:56:59.680 --> 1:57:03.040 was um Originally there was this old Scottish ballad. It 1:57:03.080 --> 1:57:05.680 was called like Lord Bateman and the Turkish King's Daughter, 1:57:06.480 --> 1:57:11.120 and it was this really well known ballad in Europe 1:57:11.200 --> 1:57:15.080 at the time where an English adventurer goes to a 1:57:15.160 --> 1:57:20.320 foreign land and meets like the sultan's daughter or an 1:57:20.360 --> 1:57:25.440 African king's daughter or something, and she's beautiful and when 1:57:25.520 --> 1:57:28.120 he's in a dungeon and he's about to die, she 1:57:28.280 --> 1:57:33.000 saves him and then they fall in love. He goes 1:57:33.080 --> 1:57:36.000 back to his homeland and she goes after him and 1:57:36.000 --> 1:57:38.440 shows up on his wedding day and they love each 1:57:38.440 --> 1:57:43.400 other even though she's darker. And people who read John 1:57:43.400 --> 1:57:48.000 Smith's accounts of his stories in the New World, we're like, 1:57:48.080 --> 1:57:52.240 oh my god, it's that story John Smith. And Pocahonas 1:57:52.400 --> 1:57:55.720 is like Lord Bateman and the Turkish king's daughter would 1:57:55.760 --> 1:57:58.080 be like, you know, oh my god, it's like Jack 1:57:58.160 --> 1:58:02.120 and Rhose from Titanic, you know, like it was that level. 1:58:02.520 --> 1:58:06.120 So that's what started the whole thing. So there are 1:58:06.200 --> 1:58:09.640 elements where, you know, like you can compare the two, 1:58:09.720 --> 1:58:14.960 but it's not the Pocahonta story specifically, because that is 1:58:15.000 --> 1:58:20.000 a very different story. When people were, you know, criticizing 1:58:20.040 --> 1:58:23.360 Avatar for ripping off or seemed to be ripping off 1:58:23.360 --> 1:58:26.640 so much from Disney's Pocahontas, and I remember like fern 1:58:26.680 --> 1:58:28.920 Gully being a thing too that everyone was like, it's 1:58:29.000 --> 1:58:33.120 ripping off a fern gully. And yeah, as I was 1:58:33.160 --> 1:58:38.480 watching the movie this time, I was like remembering that criticism, 1:58:38.520 --> 1:58:41.640 but I was thinking, well, no one was talking about 1:58:41.680 --> 1:58:45.400 how this movie is just pulling from a lot of 1:58:45.480 --> 1:58:51.560 historical events, like in history. Yeah, yeah, his history, like, 1:58:52.080 --> 1:58:54.880 but that was never part of the mainstream conversation about 1:58:54.880 --> 1:58:58.040 this movie. And yes, as we've discussed, James Cameron did 1:58:58.040 --> 1:59:01.160 not handle certain things in this movie well, but people 1:59:01.200 --> 1:59:04.800 were so hung up on similarities to existing movies. But 1:59:04.880 --> 1:59:07.880 it's like a lot of what happens in Avatar, there's 1:59:07.920 --> 1:59:12.520 a very clear historical precedent of colonizers stealing land and 1:59:12.560 --> 1:59:17.160 committing genocide against Indigenous people for capitalist gain and for power, 1:59:18.040 --> 1:59:21.440 and that not being part of the conversation about this movie, 1:59:21.640 --> 1:59:24.920 I feel like speaks to what you were saying earlier, 1:59:25.360 --> 1:59:27.120 like at the very beginning of the episode Ali as 1:59:27.160 --> 1:59:33.080 far as like people finding reasons to not like this movie, 1:59:33.240 --> 1:59:38.320 and that it felt very steeped in like anti indigenous racism, 1:59:38.400 --> 1:59:42.080 and the colonizers are very clearly presented as the bad 1:59:42.120 --> 1:59:45.040 guys in this movie, which is not true of Disney's 1:59:45.040 --> 1:59:48.120 Pocahontas other than it's like I think again, it's like 1:59:48.240 --> 1:59:51.200 colonization the one guy and all the other guys are great, 1:59:51.200 --> 1:59:53.840 and one of them is Christian Bail and you're just like, well, 1:59:54.400 --> 1:59:56.640 what the fuck? And the guys in that movie are 1:59:56.840 --> 2:00:00.960 terrible and they're never held account bowl for all of 2:00:01.360 --> 2:00:05.640 singing about killing Indians and stuff like that. So it's like, oh, well, 2:00:05.680 --> 2:00:09.280 this guy is worse than you because this is your 2:00:09.480 --> 2:00:13.720 John Smith's friends. So if you work nice, you know, 2:00:13.920 --> 2:00:19.320 and and Avatar doesn't do that right right. I yeah, 2:00:20.040 --> 2:00:22.920 it didn't register for me certainly at the time, but 2:00:23.120 --> 2:00:27.360 I I I think that the the original backlash to 2:00:27.520 --> 2:00:30.160 I mean, like whatever, it's problematic on so many levels, 2:00:30.560 --> 2:00:33.360 and I know that word is overused, but first of all, 2:00:33.400 --> 2:00:36.400 it's like, well, it doesn't bode well for James Cameron 2:00:36.440 --> 2:00:40.280 if he's being criticized for ripping off a famously historically 2:00:40.320 --> 2:00:45.600 abysmal children's movie. That's not great to begin with. But 2:00:45.880 --> 2:00:48.880 I also feel, yeah, it like speaks ill of the 2:00:48.960 --> 2:00:53.080 general audiences at the time and of film criticism, or 2:00:53.080 --> 2:00:55.480 at least you know, prominent film critics at the time, 2:00:56.160 --> 2:00:59.400 which we've talked about a million times always skew white guys, 2:01:00.080 --> 2:01:03.600 and the the implication there is like, well, we've already 2:01:03.640 --> 2:01:06.560 had a movie that talks about colonialism. We don't need 2:01:06.920 --> 2:01:10.720 more where you're just like, no, like not to say 2:01:10.760 --> 2:01:15.240 that Avatar deals with it anywhere, approaching perfectly, but for 2:01:15.280 --> 2:01:20.160 the conclusion to be like imperialism and colonialism and racism 2:01:20.200 --> 2:01:22.920 against indigenous populations is like, what, we have that movie, 2:01:23.000 --> 2:01:24.760 we don't need another one. It's like, well, okay, I'll 2:01:24.760 --> 2:01:29.560 go fund yourself. No, yeah, well I noticed that back then, 2:01:29.760 --> 2:01:32.120 and I'm sure it hasn't gone away. But back then, 2:01:32.520 --> 2:01:37.400 when I was like spite liking it, the white reviewers, 2:01:37.560 --> 2:01:42.280 like on YouTube and on different um platforms, we're criticizing 2:01:42.360 --> 2:01:44.440 the film, and the biggest thing that kept going if 2:01:44.440 --> 2:01:47.320 they didn't just outright dismiss it as dancers with wolves 2:01:47.320 --> 2:01:50.880 in space or Poconisan space, they would say things like 2:01:51.480 --> 2:01:55.560 white guilt, and you know, like, oh, well, what am 2:01:55.600 --> 2:01:58.760 I supposed to do? You know, And it's like Hollywood's 2:01:58.760 --> 2:02:01.600 making these movies where I'm supposed to feel bad for 2:02:01.680 --> 2:02:03.960 being a white guy, and all of these white guys 2:02:03.960 --> 2:02:05.960 in this movie are the bad guys. And I'm like, 2:02:06.000 --> 2:02:10.440 if that's your takeaway from it and not the anti 2:02:10.520 --> 2:02:14.120 indigenous like racism in the film, even if it is, 2:02:14.560 --> 2:02:17.560 you know, not nearly as bad as it has been 2:02:17.560 --> 2:02:21.040 in the past, but it's still problematic, Like you have 2:02:21.160 --> 2:02:24.600 a bigger problem with not being the good guy this time, 2:02:25.640 --> 2:02:29.120 when you know, there's so many other problems with the 2:02:29.120 --> 2:02:32.000 film that you could be talking about that, you know, 2:02:32.080 --> 2:02:36.160 Indigenous people have even talked about, like I like the movie, 2:02:37.200 --> 2:02:41.480 but lots of Indigenous people don't, for like many valid reasons. 2:02:41.720 --> 2:02:44.200 And it's like none of those reasons that I've heard 2:02:44.320 --> 2:02:48.440 Indigenous people complain about have ever been said by any 2:02:48.480 --> 2:02:51.080 of like those reviewers from the past at all because 2:02:51.080 --> 2:02:53.520 they just weren't even thinking about it. It's like their 2:02:53.600 --> 2:03:00.960 ego was just so fragile. There the hell of this 2:03:01.000 --> 2:03:05.000 movie was vaguely critical of me and I hate fire. 2:03:06.160 --> 2:03:08.000 You're just like still at the end of the day, 2:03:08.000 --> 2:03:10.640 it's like, I mean, this movie was made by a 2:03:10.880 --> 2:03:16.600 fabulously wealthy white guy, like and the other thing. Um, 2:03:16.680 --> 2:03:20.400 because I used to think back then, I used to think, Okay, 2:03:20.440 --> 2:03:23.080 maybe the bad guys are a little too on the nose, 2:03:23.120 --> 2:03:26.600 maybe they're too cartooning, maybe they're you know, not subtle enough. 2:03:27.000 --> 2:03:32.880 Until Standing Rock happened, and that really I'm like, rewatching 2:03:32.880 --> 2:03:37.280 this in a post Standing Rock era, post Missing and 2:03:37.360 --> 2:03:41.440 Murdered Indigenous Women era, I'm like, this is exactly how 2:03:41.560 --> 2:03:44.920 these people think, you know, Like this is how they talk. 2:03:45.480 --> 2:03:48.440 So let's see. There's a couple quotes from the movie 2:03:48.600 --> 2:03:51.720 that really stood out to me. Um. The first one's 2:03:51.800 --> 2:03:56.040 Joe Bonny Rubus's character when he's talking to Jake about 2:03:56.040 --> 2:04:01.680 relocating them, and he says, look, kill the Indigenous looks bad. 2:04:01.720 --> 2:04:04.920 But there's one thing that shareholders hate more than bad press, 2:04:05.000 --> 2:04:09.560 and that's a bad quarterly statement. Yes, that is like yes, 2:04:10.040 --> 2:04:13.320 that's not a cartoon villain. That's how it works. That's Enbridge, 2:04:13.680 --> 2:04:17.160 you know what I mean. That is Oca, you know, 2:04:17.240 --> 2:04:19.760 the Oca crisis for people who don't live in the 2:04:19.840 --> 2:04:26.520 United States, is every mining facility in sami Land, you know, 2:04:26.600 --> 2:04:30.520 in Lapland. And that's how they think. That's that's how 2:04:30.560 --> 2:04:34.600 it is. There's a quote from I think it's in 2:04:35.040 --> 2:04:39.760 Jake's voiceover, so it shouldn't be him who says this. 2:04:39.840 --> 2:04:42.800 It should probably be material who says this. But the 2:04:42.880 --> 2:04:45.440 quote is something like, you know, make them the enemy 2:04:45.600 --> 2:04:48.480 and you can justify killing them, which is what has 2:04:48.520 --> 2:04:52.760 happened all throughout history when genocides have happened. Is like again, 2:04:52.840 --> 2:05:00.960 rhetoric and mental gymnastics are used to justify by killing 2:05:01.360 --> 2:05:03.880 entire populations of people. And you see that happening in 2:05:03.880 --> 2:05:07.680 the movie where like the Omanakaya people are referred to 2:05:07.960 --> 2:05:13.680 are like references being roaches and you know Blue Monthly 2:05:14.160 --> 2:05:18.720 and yeah, anti indigenous slurs are used several times. Their 2:05:18.760 --> 2:05:22.200 intelligence is insulted, like it's just all these things to 2:05:22.280 --> 2:05:27.440 dehumanize them and make them the enemy to justify killing them. 2:05:27.480 --> 2:05:30.320 And I found the line while a line from the movie. 2:05:30.400 --> 2:05:34.440 It says, it's grace telling him these are people in 2:05:34.840 --> 2:05:38.680 Giovanni Ribisi's character says, no, they're fly, fly bitten savages 2:05:38.720 --> 2:05:40.760 that live in a tree. All right, look around. I 2:05:40.760 --> 2:05:42.680 don't know about you, but I see a lot of trees. 2:05:42.800 --> 2:05:46.280 They can move. So I said, you know, this is 2:05:46.360 --> 2:05:51.680 genocide and action. You know, granted they're not human, but 2:05:51.960 --> 2:05:54.480 you strip them of their humanity and it becomes easier 2:05:54.480 --> 2:05:59.000 to kill them. And then in colonial terms, like this 2:05:59.080 --> 2:06:02.200 is something I don't a lot of people understand when 2:06:02.240 --> 2:06:06.520 you talk about colonialism, and you know, white imperialists coming 2:06:06.800 --> 2:06:11.680 to America, for example, in America is huge, Like the 2:06:11.720 --> 2:06:17.120 continent of North America is gigantic, the United States is massive. 2:06:17.480 --> 2:06:21.080 That is a lot of land that was stolen, you know. 2:06:21.200 --> 2:06:24.960 So anyways, it says, you know, like let's not even 2:06:25.080 --> 2:06:27.320 break it down. Let's break it down to like it's 2:06:27.320 --> 2:06:29.880 not even an entire continent. Let's say it's your house 2:06:30.400 --> 2:06:34.960 and someone comes to your house and they're like, oh, well, 2:06:35.440 --> 2:06:37.920 why don't we just share your house? You know, like 2:06:37.960 --> 2:06:40.320 we want to live here, We're here, I brought my 2:06:40.360 --> 2:06:42.680 whole family. Let's just live in your house. I mean, 2:06:42.720 --> 2:06:44.240 what do you tell them do you say, oh, yeah, 2:06:44.320 --> 2:06:46.280 here's the room set up for you, or do you 2:06:46.280 --> 2:06:51.040 tell them get the funk out of my house. Yeah, 2:06:51.120 --> 2:06:53.959 it's like, no, we're not sharing our home with you. 2:06:53.960 --> 2:06:57.880 You have to fucking get out of my house. Even 2:06:57.920 --> 2:07:00.880 in the event where okay, okay, we'll leave Home Tree 2:07:00.880 --> 2:07:03.080 and we'll go someplace else, they're not going to stop 2:07:03.080 --> 2:07:06.800 at Home Tree. They're going to obliterate them, absolutely, because 2:07:06.840 --> 2:07:10.960 they immediately switched and threatened to kill, like we're threatened 2:07:11.000 --> 2:07:14.800 to the next Yeah, yeah, yeah. And it's like that's 2:07:14.840 --> 2:07:18.120 the other thing I mean, like, again, Turtle Island is massive, 2:07:18.160 --> 2:07:21.080 The United States is massive. That is a lot of trees. 2:07:21.320 --> 2:07:25.000 They had a lot of natives moved to and look 2:07:25.040 --> 2:07:30.720 what happened, you know, and it's it's so heavy. It 2:07:30.840 --> 2:07:35.280 was almost good, except it's sucking Jake, right, take Jake 2:07:35.280 --> 2:07:39.520 out of the story. I think that there was also 2:07:39.560 --> 2:07:42.920 a time where I felt like the storytelling was too unsettled, 2:07:42.960 --> 2:07:45.080 which is like also kind of ridiculous when you show 2:07:45.160 --> 2:07:47.080 up a James Cameron movie you're like, well, well, I 2:07:47.120 --> 2:07:50.440 don't know what I expected, but but I think that, yeah, 2:07:50.440 --> 2:07:54.480 like that those elements have aged very very well, and 2:07:54.640 --> 2:07:57.840 in the movie's favor. And it's also like the politics. 2:07:58.040 --> 2:08:01.240 I mean, I was not on every front, but in 2:08:01.320 --> 2:08:05.520 terms of anti military industrial complex, and I had to 2:08:05.520 --> 2:08:08.440 go back and like look up, like there were specific 2:08:08.840 --> 2:08:11.320 terms and events connected to the Iraq War that James 2:08:11.400 --> 2:08:15.600 Cameron was referencing through this that I just did not remember. 2:08:16.040 --> 2:08:24.560 Um is unobtainium oil, not your fucking mind. But uh 2:08:24.680 --> 2:08:27.080 but I thought that, Like, I mean, the politics of 2:08:27.120 --> 2:08:30.480 this movie and what it is against is pretty clear, 2:08:30.720 --> 2:08:34.360 and like the I think the metaphor and the characters 2:08:34.400 --> 2:08:37.600 that they used to make those politics clear is very 2:08:37.800 --> 2:08:42.280 very muddled, and bajillion mistakes are made, some of which 2:08:42.280 --> 2:08:44.120 we've discussed, some of which we still have to discuss. 2:08:44.720 --> 2:08:47.200 But I mean, it's like the politics of this movie. 2:08:47.360 --> 2:08:50.880 It's it's a you know, massively successful anti war, anti 2:08:50.960 --> 2:08:57.560 imperialist movie, anti capitalist corporation. Yeah, And ironically the movie 2:08:57.560 --> 2:09:02.520 made three billion dollars three bill on Tall Wars And 2:09:02.520 --> 2:09:04.600 that's why people remember it. It's because it was so 2:09:04.640 --> 2:09:08.280 good at capitalism, not because it was like the best 2:09:08.320 --> 2:09:11.040 movie ever. You know. The sad thing is that it 2:09:11.120 --> 2:09:13.560 could have been. It just needed like it have been 2:09:13.960 --> 2:09:17.920 so much better, could have been because even James Cameron, 2:09:18.000 --> 2:09:20.240 like in the YouTube video I was talking about like 2:09:20.440 --> 2:09:24.640 his most iconic films or whatever, he said, He's all like, 2:09:24.720 --> 2:09:27.560 after I did Avatar, I was hoping to like do 2:09:27.720 --> 2:09:33.000 some more environmentalist activism and like Brazil and all these 2:09:33.040 --> 2:09:35.920 other places. He's like, but I decided to make the 2:09:36.000 --> 2:09:41.520 Avatar sequels instead, And I'm like, well, instead of ocean conservation, 2:09:42.440 --> 2:09:45.000 and I'm like, dude, you could have been doing actual 2:09:45.080 --> 2:09:47.960 good stuff. But he did say, he's like, you know, 2:09:48.120 --> 2:09:51.840 film is powerful and you can reach a lot of people. 2:09:52.840 --> 2:09:58.200 For sure, I completely agree, But also film productions, especially 2:09:58.280 --> 2:10:03.480 huge budget ones like this, in the environmental impact they have, well, 2:10:03.520 --> 2:10:06.120 I would be curious to know if James Cameron has 2:10:06.560 --> 2:10:09.840 made any strides in that direction. I'm always interested in 2:10:10.640 --> 2:10:13.040 that kind of side of filmmaking because there's there are 2:10:13.120 --> 2:10:15.720 like far less harmful ways to do it. And I 2:10:15.720 --> 2:10:18.280 wonder if, like, you know, given the politics of his 2:10:18.320 --> 2:10:20.880 movies and seems like his personal politics, whether that's something 2:10:20.880 --> 2:10:25.400 that has been addressed even remotely. I hope so, but 2:10:25.480 --> 2:10:28.640 it's like you just never know with a production like that. Right, 2:10:30.080 --> 2:10:33.480 The biggest concern I have with the sequel is that 2:10:34.520 --> 2:10:37.760 how many of the characters in the film in the 2:10:37.840 --> 2:10:41.800 sequel are actors of color, and how of them, how 2:10:41.840 --> 2:10:46.120 many are Indigenous? And that's like my biggest concern. It's like, 2:10:46.120 --> 2:10:49.800 if it's more white people and blue faces pretending to 2:10:49.800 --> 2:10:52.360 be Indians. I'm like, have we learned anything? It's been 2:10:53.000 --> 2:10:57.040 fourteen years or something like, it's been eighty four years 2:10:57.120 --> 2:10:59.400 and eighty four it's felt like eighty four years since 2:10:59.400 --> 2:11:02.840 two thousand nine. To be honest, Um, Um, can we 2:11:02.880 --> 2:11:06.760 talk about the able is um a bit more? Um? 2:11:06.760 --> 2:11:08.680 We touched on a lot of the things already, but 2:11:08.720 --> 2:11:10.080 I just want to make sure it has It's like, 2:11:11.120 --> 2:11:14.120 we give it some more time. So Jake Sulley uses 2:11:14.160 --> 2:11:17.080 a wheelchair. He seems to be paralyzed from the waist 2:11:17.120 --> 2:11:21.040 down from an injury he sustained in battle as a marine. 2:11:21.840 --> 2:11:25.080 As we mentioned, that character is not played by a 2:11:25.120 --> 2:11:28.400 disabled actor, which is a problem we come upon time 2:11:28.400 --> 2:11:33.320 and time again in movies. Um, Sam Worthington is able bodied. 2:11:34.000 --> 2:11:37.600 I read a lot of responses from disabled people about 2:11:37.840 --> 2:11:41.480 the representation we get on screen in this movie, and 2:11:42.040 --> 2:11:46.720 like we mentioned already, it seems to be pretty mixed 2:11:46.800 --> 2:11:50.760 across the board, where some people saw themselves in Jake Sully. 2:11:50.800 --> 2:11:54.680 They they felt represented by his character and you know, 2:11:54.760 --> 2:11:59.920 him being a disabled character. Others criticized him as one 2:12:00.040 --> 2:12:04.160 of many movie characters who is trying to quote unquote 2:12:04.160 --> 2:12:08.520 fix his disability, right right, He's like being incentivized by 2:12:08.560 --> 2:12:11.000 the kernel of like I will like it's implied like 2:12:11.040 --> 2:12:14.600 I will make you whole again. And that's something that 2:12:14.840 --> 2:12:20.200 is said to be appealing to Jake Sully at first. 2:12:20.320 --> 2:12:23.960 That and there are interpretations and I can see how 2:12:24.040 --> 2:12:26.720 you might interpret it this way where one of the 2:12:26.760 --> 2:12:29.760 main reasons he chooses to stay in his avatar body 2:12:29.920 --> 2:12:33.240 is that his avatar body is able bodied. And of 2:12:33.280 --> 2:12:37.680 course this, you know, perpetuates this idea that disabled people 2:12:37.920 --> 2:12:40.720 are you know, quote unquote incomplete, or that they have 2:12:40.840 --> 2:12:44.320 something wrong with them. Disabled characters and movies trying to 2:12:44.480 --> 2:12:47.880 again quote unquote fix their disability is is something that 2:12:47.920 --> 2:12:50.480 you see a lot, I think, especially in movie villains. 2:12:51.120 --> 2:12:54.160 Um A friend of the show, Kristin Lopez, wrote about 2:12:54.200 --> 2:12:58.600 this in The Hollywood Reporter when Tour Story four came out. 2:12:58.640 --> 2:13:00.720 So it talks a lot about story for but it 2:13:00.760 --> 2:13:04.480 references a lot of other movie characters where this is 2:13:05.040 --> 2:13:09.240 the case so there's you know, that criticism. But then 2:13:09.320 --> 2:13:12.000 other people were like, well, but no, that's not why 2:13:12.160 --> 2:13:15.640 he chooses to stay in his avatar body. There are 2:13:15.680 --> 2:13:18.400 other reasons. So there's just like seems like it's like 2:13:18.720 --> 2:13:21.960 an original like that that first sequence where when he's 2:13:22.000 --> 2:13:25.200 in the avatar body does seem like that is a 2:13:25.240 --> 2:13:27.800 big but it doesn't seem like that remains the incentive. 2:13:27.880 --> 2:13:30.440 I don't know, or or like not that it's even 2:13:30.440 --> 2:13:32.880 an incentive, right, because then he falls in love with 2:13:32.920 --> 2:13:34.840 a woman, and then he falls in love with the 2:13:34.880 --> 2:13:39.760 culture and he becomes an indigenous person. You know how 2:13:39.800 --> 2:13:42.000 when you can be a white person and then you 2:13:42.120 --> 2:13:45.280 become an indigenous person, you know when that always happened. 2:13:46.000 --> 2:13:48.400 So the point is there's a lot of nuances to 2:13:48.440 --> 2:13:52.200 this discussion, and I'd be as always, we're just curious 2:13:52.280 --> 2:13:55.720 to hear from our listeners who can speak from from 2:13:55.760 --> 2:13:58.320 a place of experience. Yeah, I mean, because it's I 2:13:59.000 --> 2:14:03.960 also read kind of a diversity of opinion there where. Um, 2:14:04.000 --> 2:14:07.560 you know, we have we have a protagonist who he sucks, 2:14:07.560 --> 2:14:12.000 but he is our our main our protagonists is a 2:14:12.040 --> 2:14:14.280 is a disabled person and you don't see that in 2:14:14.640 --> 2:14:19.600 movies really ever very infrequently. Yeah, But on top of that, 2:14:19.640 --> 2:14:24.680 you have many of the common trophy issues with disabled characters, 2:14:24.760 --> 2:14:28.120 beginning with the fact that Sam Worthington is not a 2:14:28.160 --> 2:14:30.400 disabled actor, and it kind of goes on from there. 2:14:30.400 --> 2:14:34.560 I would be really curious to hear listener perspective on 2:14:34.560 --> 2:14:36.920 on that because I think the movie, like the movie 2:14:36.960 --> 2:14:42.080 doesn't really touch on it that much after the first act, 2:14:42.400 --> 2:14:44.520 and which I think is where the you know could 2:14:44.560 --> 2:14:46.960 could be seen us for the best, where James Cameron 2:14:46.960 --> 2:14:49.520 doesn't appear to have very much insight into that topic. 2:14:49.680 --> 2:14:54.280 But again, like who's telling the story, who is advising, 2:14:54.520 --> 2:14:57.880 and um, how does that bear out? And character for 2:14:58.360 --> 2:15:04.280 exactly exactly Jake, not like the other colonizers Sully. It 2:15:04.320 --> 2:15:06.440 seems like that choice was made in the story because 2:15:06.440 --> 2:15:08.360 when you're writing a screenplay. I don't know if you 2:15:08.360 --> 2:15:10.440 know this, but I do have the master's degree in 2:15:10.480 --> 2:15:13.080 screenwriting from Boston University. I would never bring it up 2:15:13.120 --> 2:15:18.040 on my own, but you make choices about your characters, 2:15:18.120 --> 2:15:23.080 especially a protagonist, to motivate and justify other things that 2:15:23.120 --> 2:15:25.680 will happen in the movie. So it feels to me 2:15:26.560 --> 2:15:29.600 like we need to get him from the start of 2:15:29.640 --> 2:15:32.480 the movie where he's a human white guy, to the 2:15:32.560 --> 2:15:36.000 end of the movie, he's gonna be uh member of 2:15:36.160 --> 2:15:40.760 the Alma Takaya people. What qualities or what things can 2:15:40.800 --> 2:15:44.280 we attribute to this character to justify that making sense 2:15:44.320 --> 2:15:46.120 by the end of the movie for him to want 2:15:46.160 --> 2:15:51.320 to permanently be an Alma Takaya person. And I feel 2:15:51.360 --> 2:15:53.960 like the only reason that he is a disabled character 2:15:54.040 --> 2:15:55.880 in the movie is to be like, well, that, well, 2:15:55.920 --> 2:15:58.360 that'll be one of the things that justifies him making 2:15:58.400 --> 2:16:02.200 this choice. I was about to say that because, um, 2:16:02.280 --> 2:16:05.680 one of the things now speaking also as an able 2:16:05.720 --> 2:16:10.120 bodied person, was that watching the film for the first time, 2:16:10.160 --> 2:16:13.040 I think another reason why I like Stephen Lane's character, 2:16:13.120 --> 2:16:16.080 even though he's the bad guy, was you know, he 2:16:16.120 --> 2:16:19.080 tells them, I look out for my own If you 2:16:19.200 --> 2:16:21.600 do this, I promise you you'll get your legs back, 2:16:22.040 --> 2:16:24.800 you know, And and he says, quote unquote your real legs, 2:16:25.640 --> 2:16:28.000 And it's like, you know, for me, you know who's 2:16:28.040 --> 2:16:32.959 not disabled or doesn't have a disability, I'm like, fuck, yeah, 2:16:33.000 --> 2:16:36.920 you know these things are aliens and your planets dying, 2:16:37.160 --> 2:16:40.039 So get your legs and do it and save the 2:16:40.080 --> 2:16:43.000 planet and go home. Hell. Yes, you know, and I 2:16:43.000 --> 2:16:45.879 feel like a lot of people probably felt the same 2:16:45.879 --> 2:16:48.720 way until you meet the nav and you realize that 2:16:48.760 --> 2:16:52.640 this is bullshit and he's colonizer and stuff. So at first, 2:16:52.760 --> 2:16:57.080 on paper, it makes sense. However, if that was the case, 2:16:57.240 --> 2:17:00.640 if it was do this for me, get your legs back, 2:17:01.400 --> 2:17:04.480 the downside should have been if you don't do this, 2:17:05.200 --> 2:17:09.680 you remain disabled. But there's no like lose lose He's like, okay, 2:17:09.800 --> 2:17:14.880 so I still have my body at the end, you know, so, well, 2:17:14.920 --> 2:17:18.240 that's that's that's implying that, like your punishment is that 2:17:18.320 --> 2:17:23.320 you stay disabled, as if being disabled is a punishment. 2:17:23.360 --> 2:17:26.920 So there's all these like yucky implications. And also it's 2:17:26.959 --> 2:17:30.280 like we've received no indication that like Jake Sulley is 2:17:30.760 --> 2:17:34.760 unhappy as like as a disabled man, Like that's not 2:17:34.879 --> 2:17:38.880 something that we ever hear him speak on in any like, 2:17:38.959 --> 2:17:41.120 it's just people are making that assumption about him, which 2:17:41.160 --> 2:17:43.160 is a very common, ablest thing to do. But it's 2:17:43.200 --> 2:17:46.440 like the story doesn't challenge it really, like they're like, well, 2:17:46.480 --> 2:17:49.120 of course this is true. Right at the beginning of 2:17:49.160 --> 2:17:51.840 the movie, he does make a comment where he's like, uh, 2:17:52.280 --> 2:17:54.720 they can fix it if you have the money because 2:17:54.760 --> 2:17:58.280 American healthcare in the future is still dogshit. So he 2:17:59.000 --> 2:18:02.480 is disabled because he broke But still it's like that 2:18:02.560 --> 2:18:05.120 should have been a bigger driving point if that was 2:18:05.160 --> 2:18:08.440 going to be the thing that motivates them to do 2:18:08.480 --> 2:18:11.120 the thing, right, I mean, yeah, it's like, Okay, I 2:18:11.120 --> 2:18:14.400 guess there's commentary on like the horrible state of of 2:18:14.400 --> 2:18:19.120 like American healthcare slash like veteran benefits, which is like 2:18:19.760 --> 2:18:24.119 still abysmal, But yeah, the the way that was handled. 2:18:24.600 --> 2:18:27.280 And then again, and I'm speculating here, but I think 2:18:27.280 --> 2:18:29.440 the choice was made to make him disabled to like 2:18:29.560 --> 2:18:34.359 narratively justify like him wanting to remain in this avatar 2:18:34.400 --> 2:18:37.560 body by the end of the movie. That's just like 2:18:37.600 --> 2:18:41.120 not the representation people. And I you know, I'm also 2:18:41.160 --> 2:18:44.080 speaking as an able bodied person here, but it's my 2:18:44.160 --> 2:18:47.760 understanding that people with disabilities want to see themselves represented 2:18:47.800 --> 2:18:50.480 on screen, I mean obviously far more than they already are, 2:18:50.840 --> 2:18:54.200 and in a way that just normalizes their experience rather 2:18:54.320 --> 2:18:58.720 than being some like justification for something else, some other 2:18:58.879 --> 2:19:02.080 narrative choice that's going to happen, And that's not what's 2:19:02.080 --> 2:19:05.280 happening in this movie. No, it's been like weaponized as 2:19:05.280 --> 2:19:07.760 a plot point, like it's just and like a lazy 2:19:07.800 --> 2:19:12.680 plot point at that, which is just like, I guess 2:19:12.720 --> 2:19:16.440 I can't say that the movie is necessarily above that behavior. 2:19:16.879 --> 2:19:21.240 Obviously we've been talking for two hours, but like, but yeah, 2:19:20.879 --> 2:19:24.760 it is. I would be curious to know, because I also, like, 2:19:24.879 --> 2:19:28.080 I mean, I don't want to ignore disabled writers who 2:19:28.160 --> 2:19:31.920 who did enjoy how Jake Sally was characterized. Of course, 2:19:32.600 --> 2:19:35.160 I have one last, just quick thing that I want 2:19:35.160 --> 2:19:38.240 to touch on really quickly, harkening back to the romance 2:19:38.360 --> 2:19:43.360 between Jake and the tri um. Yeah, I want to 2:19:43.360 --> 2:19:47.520 talk about anterior in general, because praising her like and 2:19:47.640 --> 2:19:51.240 you know, in different places. But yeah, yeah, and so 2:19:51.280 --> 2:19:53.199 the thing I liked about the romance and it's really 2:19:53.240 --> 2:19:55.720 just that like he's like, I have chosen a woman, 2:19:55.800 --> 2:19:58.119 but she needs to choose me, and she's like, yeah 2:19:58.160 --> 2:20:01.400 I did already you goo. Um. So I liked that, 2:20:01.480 --> 2:20:05.200 Like she's given and like that just shows how how 2:20:05.240 --> 2:20:09.440 low the bar is for a female character being given 2:20:09.480 --> 2:20:12.800 agency in her own romantic life is something that I'm like, 2:20:12.840 --> 2:20:16.080 oh my goodness, that happened. I feel like we've really 2:20:16.080 --> 2:20:18.440 been handing it to James Cameron for doing that in 2:20:18.480 --> 2:20:20.720 a way that's like, yeah, that should just be kind 2:20:20.360 --> 2:20:23.800 of should just a standard. But you know in Titanic 2:20:23.840 --> 2:20:26.640 at a period piece, you're like, oh wow, women, I 2:20:26.680 --> 2:20:32.119 know choices back then. How subversive. Then it's like, why 2:20:32.120 --> 2:20:36.959 are the Navy monogamous? Okay? I I had the same thought, 2:20:36.959 --> 2:20:38.760 because she's like, and now we had sex one time 2:20:38.760 --> 2:20:41.160 and now we're made it for life. And and again 2:20:41.280 --> 2:20:43.320 I I don't I'm not an expert on this, but 2:20:44.000 --> 2:20:48.480 it's my understanding that like hetero monogamy is a very 2:20:48.720 --> 2:20:54.039 European Christian thing. And I'm not knocking monogamy or anything, 2:20:54.480 --> 2:20:59.520 but things like heteronormativity and the quote unquote gender binary 2:21:00.120 --> 2:21:05.320 and long term monogamous pair bonding, these are all constructs that, 2:21:05.560 --> 2:21:09.000 again from my understanding, a lot of communities around the world, 2:21:09.080 --> 2:21:14.320 including many indigenous ones, don't participate in because it's never 2:21:14.360 --> 2:21:17.840 been a part of their culture or cultural evolution. I 2:21:17.879 --> 2:21:22.560 am literally reading this book called Reclaiming to Spirits, and 2:21:23.040 --> 2:21:25.080 I'm like just a couple of chapters in, but they're 2:21:25.160 --> 2:21:29.279 already talking about like how all over the United States 2:21:29.920 --> 2:21:32.600 in general, like there are so much there's so much 2:21:32.600 --> 2:21:40.199 evidence of lgbt Q relationships and polygamous relationships, not even 2:21:40.280 --> 2:21:43.800 just like one man with multiple wives, which does happen, 2:21:43.879 --> 2:21:49.200 but like a man with multiple husbands. And so to 2:21:49.360 --> 2:21:51.920 see it like done like this in a movie that 2:21:52.040 --> 2:21:56.359 is about connection and about like you know, this network 2:21:56.400 --> 2:21:58.080 of people and stuff like that. Why would she just 2:21:58.120 --> 2:22:01.920 be limited to one person she would be in love with? Yeah? 2:22:02.080 --> 2:22:06.640 Why would this? Why would they? When that's such a 2:22:06.720 --> 2:22:12.280 construct of like like such a euro Christian centric construct. 2:22:12.680 --> 2:22:17.000 It's because he's a white guy, because James Cameron. Right, 2:22:17.040 --> 2:22:19.800 it's like it does feel like a James Cameron thing 2:22:19.840 --> 2:22:23.200 where it's like he is I don't even know, like 2:22:23.240 --> 2:22:25.960 I was like who even knows how conscious, like how 2:22:26.000 --> 2:22:28.240 hard he even thought about this, because it's just like 2:22:28.280 --> 2:22:32.280 that's what happens when you have like he's giving like 2:22:32.360 --> 2:22:35.400 he's giving the navi elements of the oppressor in a 2:22:35.440 --> 2:22:40.600 way that is like what what who and for what 2:22:40.160 --> 2:22:43.880 and what and then gives us the little peanut of like, well, 2:22:43.920 --> 2:22:47.360 but Nateria got to choose her partner that you have 2:22:47.440 --> 2:22:51.040 to marry after having sex with one time, and we're like, yes, girlfa, 2:22:51.600 --> 2:22:53.960 it's amazing. So I take it all back. I'm not 2:22:54.080 --> 2:22:59.360 rooting for their relationship. She just should have snagged the 2:22:59.360 --> 2:23:02.080 white guy and that that should have been Jake, Like, 2:23:02.120 --> 2:23:05.920 wait what, because oh, I just sucked a cat with 2:23:05.959 --> 2:23:09.600 my brain tentacle thing. The one moment with Jake and 2:23:09.640 --> 2:23:13.920 Ateri that I did like was when she finds him 2:23:13.959 --> 2:23:17.480 in human form and she's holding him and then they say, 2:23:17.520 --> 2:23:21.320 I see you and you're like everywhere she he sucks 2:23:21.320 --> 2:23:24.360 in all forms, but she accepts him in all forms. Wow, 2:23:24.360 --> 2:23:31.840 it's so nice, goddamn it. But no, Niteri in general, 2:23:32.200 --> 2:23:35.800 I love her. I think that they could have done 2:23:36.040 --> 2:23:39.920 more to characterize her. We don't know very much. She 2:23:39.959 --> 2:23:43.600 gets reduced to the relationship at certain moments, not all 2:23:43.600 --> 2:23:45.680 the time, because, like you were saying earlier, Ali like 2:23:46.160 --> 2:23:51.960 she is, like I think, realistically and like tactically and emotionally, 2:23:52.520 --> 2:23:55.800 most connected to her family and to Pandora. And when 2:23:55.920 --> 2:23:58.880 Jake Fox with her family, Fox with Pandora, he's cut 2:23:58.879 --> 2:24:01.640 out of her life. That totally makes sense. But there 2:24:01.680 --> 2:24:05.600 are sequences of the movie where they're on good turn 2:24:05.680 --> 2:24:08.240 like when things are going well. All we know about 2:24:08.360 --> 2:24:11.920 Nitti is in relation to Jake. When things aren't going well, 2:24:11.959 --> 2:24:14.880 She gets these character moments, but they're also in reaction 2:24:14.920 --> 2:24:18.160 to Jake more often than not because there's not Is 2:24:18.200 --> 2:24:21.000 there a scene in this movie where two Navy characters 2:24:21.040 --> 2:24:23.480 talk to each other and Jake or Grace are not there, 2:24:23.520 --> 2:24:31.840 Like no n test. It's when Naterie and her dad 2:24:32.040 --> 2:24:34.640 are talking to each other when he's dying. He tells 2:24:34.680 --> 2:24:38.280 her to protect but then Jake shows up, but then 2:24:38.320 --> 2:24:42.520 he's still bull dozes into the scene. Okay, let me 2:24:42.600 --> 2:24:44.640 touch your shoulder to comfort you, and she's like, get 2:24:44.640 --> 2:24:47.600 the funk away from me. You ask whole She loves 2:24:47.640 --> 2:24:52.160 to insert himself. You're like, dude, I do appreciate the 2:24:52.360 --> 2:24:58.560 um Naterius never framed as a damsel. She saves Jake 2:24:58.640 --> 2:25:01.560 several times, she saves her elf several times. She's a 2:25:01.600 --> 2:25:10.039 competent warrior guy. She kills the colonel that she should 2:25:10.080 --> 2:25:14.440 have been the hero, and she should have been and 2:25:15.920 --> 2:25:18.480 she should have been that if anything was going to 2:25:18.600 --> 2:25:21.880 like be the big motivator to unite the clans, it 2:25:21.920 --> 2:25:23.920 should have been like we lost home tree, this is 2:25:23.959 --> 2:25:27.520 what's at stake. I'm getting a fucking dragon and and 2:25:27.560 --> 2:25:29.840 I think that would have been more like that would 2:25:29.840 --> 2:25:32.640 have put her people in a better, like more comfortable 2:25:32.640 --> 2:25:35.440 place to have, Like yeah, that, why would it? Why 2:25:35.480 --> 2:25:37.840 would it be Jake? This movie should have been more 2:25:37.920 --> 2:25:42.480 like the movie Prey, where it's told from her point 2:25:42.480 --> 2:25:47.600 of view, where she is like the Ultimate Warrior, where 2:25:47.640 --> 2:25:51.600 she fights the aliens who came from the sky and 2:25:52.040 --> 2:25:54.360 kills their ass. I guess it's just one of them 2:25:54.360 --> 2:26:00.360 in Prey, but still still, yeah, that would have been great. 2:26:00.520 --> 2:26:03.240 That would have been better Jake. If Jake was going 2:26:03.320 --> 2:26:07.480 to do anything, he should have like sabotaged the base 2:26:07.680 --> 2:26:11.320 from the inside, yeah, while Matery was getting shipped done, 2:26:11.320 --> 2:26:14.840 because that would have subverted everything. I think like if 2:26:14.879 --> 2:26:16.920 that would have been like, Okay, our hero fucked up 2:26:16.920 --> 2:26:19.320 and he ain't ships, so now he's in jail and 2:26:19.360 --> 2:26:22.680 if he wants to contribute, he can do something with 2:26:22.760 --> 2:26:27.680 his own people inside of jail in kind of the base, 2:26:27.840 --> 2:26:29.720 and then he should have gone back to Earth. And 2:26:29.720 --> 2:26:33.080 it's like sorry for you that the Earth is basically 2:26:33.200 --> 2:26:35.760 like mad Max Fury Road. But whose fault was that? 2:26:36.120 --> 2:26:39.600 It's not our problem was that? Yeah, it's because humans 2:26:39.640 --> 2:26:44.039 fucked it up? Um? Is there anything anyone else wants 2:26:44.080 --> 2:26:47.640 to talk about? I feel like we've only scratched the service, 2:26:47.840 --> 2:26:51.000 but I just wanted to breeze through really quickly. A 2:26:51.040 --> 2:26:55.720 few other um women in the movie. We've talked about Grace, 2:26:56.280 --> 2:26:59.320 you know, like she's it's a Sigourney Weaver characters. At 2:26:59.320 --> 2:27:01.240 the end of the day, I'm like, nice, but I 2:27:01.280 --> 2:27:05.000 do think like it's worth kind of repeating that her character. 2:27:05.120 --> 2:27:07.640 You know, it's like, on the surface level, it's good that, 2:27:07.840 --> 2:27:11.560 you know, our highest most respected scientist is a woman 2:27:11.640 --> 2:27:14.240 who seems to have a lot of control, influence, respect, 2:27:14.360 --> 2:27:18.120 woman and stuff. On the other hand, she is ethically compromised, 2:27:18.160 --> 2:27:20.360 and no one ever wants to bring that up and 2:27:20.440 --> 2:27:24.960 complicit in genie. I do like her relationship with Jake, though, 2:27:24.959 --> 2:27:30.680 because you rarely see that mentor student relationships between men 2:27:30.720 --> 2:27:34.560 and women, where the woman is the teacher and the 2:27:34.560 --> 2:27:38.240 man is like her subordinate and there's like a genuine 2:27:38.240 --> 2:27:41.520 respect and camaraderie that I wish he would have had 2:27:41.560 --> 2:27:45.280 that with nay Terry. Also, yes, instead of whatever the 2:27:45.320 --> 2:27:48.000 fun because snag the white guy and then go get 2:27:48.040 --> 2:27:51.960 married it or don't get married, just fucking fuck monogamy 2:27:52.000 --> 2:27:58.320 and marriage. Just have just fuck. But yeah, I I 2:27:58.440 --> 2:28:00.280 that's a that's a good point. And also the like 2:28:00.320 --> 2:28:03.520 I feel like when there is a woman in the 2:28:03.600 --> 2:28:07.600 mentor role, the like Malemntee constantly brings it up of 2:28:07.640 --> 2:28:11.000 like I can't believe I'm learning from feel like I'm 2:28:11.080 --> 2:28:14.440 learning from my mom. But it's just like a and 2:28:14.560 --> 2:28:17.240 inherently respectful and like, I feel like this is these 2:28:17.240 --> 2:28:19.280 are elements of the James Cameron play a book that 2:28:19.320 --> 2:28:22.080 he's generally really good with the same goose. It's like, 2:28:22.240 --> 2:28:27.400 it's a pretty diverse team, the science team, and you 2:28:27.520 --> 2:28:31.600 also have again, she's like when the Michelle Rodriguez character 2:28:31.640 --> 2:28:35.160 is so underwritten and so underdeveloped that it's like, we're 2:28:35.160 --> 2:28:37.320 just gonna have her say fast and the furious lines 2:28:37.520 --> 2:28:42.320 in this movie. Um, but a very highly motivated character 2:28:42.640 --> 2:28:46.600 who has a whole arc about realizing that the military 2:28:46.680 --> 2:28:51.360 industrial complex is bad. Actually, but she is like she is, 2:28:51.640 --> 2:28:55.840 you know, without that character, uh, a lot of you know, 2:28:55.959 --> 2:28:59.200 Jake's return to Pandora would not have been possible, so 2:28:59.480 --> 2:29:02.119 the whole third act wouldn't have happened. So yeah, Trudy 2:29:02.200 --> 2:29:04.440 like is a very important character for someone with very 2:29:04.440 --> 2:29:08.520 little screen time. I wish that they didn't blow her up. Yeah, yeah, 2:29:08.560 --> 2:29:12.840 Trudy is what Giovanni Verese's character isn't because Giovanni Versi 2:29:12.920 --> 2:29:15.720 knows that something's wrong and he continues to do it, 2:29:15.800 --> 2:29:19.080 and Trudy knows that it's wrong, and she's like, fuck this. 2:29:19.200 --> 2:29:21.480 I didn't sign up for this, which we kind of did, 2:29:21.640 --> 2:29:24.920 but he did technically did. But maybe you didn't know 2:29:24.959 --> 2:29:27.000 exactly what you were signing up for because we can 2:29:27.040 --> 2:29:31.680 script people very very young and it's sucked up. Uh, 2:29:31.760 --> 2:29:35.480 but I did. I did generally like that character. Um. Again, 2:29:35.600 --> 2:29:39.200 very broad James camerony writing, but very easily could have 2:29:39.240 --> 2:29:44.440 been cast as a man and was not, which I 2:29:44.480 --> 2:29:46.840 think is again I feel like we're handing it to 2:29:46.920 --> 2:29:50.480 James Cameron for nothing, but most male otour directors don't 2:29:50.520 --> 2:29:52.879 do that. He did make Titanic, though, so we got 2:29:53.000 --> 2:29:56.160 to really hand it to him for a lot of stuff. Um. 2:29:56.280 --> 2:29:58.800 Shout out Norm kind of just for no reason. But 2:29:59.120 --> 2:30:02.560 I'm just like he was in Bones. He's a sweetie. 2:30:02.600 --> 2:30:09.119 He's a sweetie. Also complicit in genocide. Uh yeah. Norm 2:30:09.200 --> 2:30:12.880 originally in the deleted scenes, was supposed to be the 2:30:13.080 --> 2:30:16.120 Jake Sully character as far as like, oh well, we've 2:30:16.160 --> 2:30:18.800 got a scientist who's not threatening and maybe he's going 2:30:18.840 --> 2:30:20.400 to be the one to connect with the Navvy, and 2:30:20.440 --> 2:30:22.720 then Jake just steals his job and that's why he's 2:30:22.760 --> 2:30:29.160 piste off. And there's another deleted scene where Suite. It's 2:30:29.200 --> 2:30:34.000 after Jake hunts and is a successful hunter or whatever, 2:30:34.120 --> 2:30:37.720 and then they party and they're eating and drinking and 2:30:37.760 --> 2:30:40.920 stuff like that, and Sute is drinking and he and 2:30:41.000 --> 2:30:44.120 Jake get into like a drinking competition. He says there 2:30:44.120 --> 2:30:46.200 he's kind of drunk. He's like, I never thought a 2:30:46.240 --> 2:30:49.800 sky person would be brave. He's like, you guys fight 2:30:49.959 --> 2:30:52.880 far away and like those machines and stuff like that, 2:30:52.920 --> 2:30:54.959 you fight at a distance. I never thought one of 2:30:54.959 --> 2:30:57.080 them could be brave. And they had like a bonding 2:30:57.160 --> 2:31:03.000 moment and makes that fucking scene where he's like you 2:31:03.160 --> 2:31:06.039 made it with her like that much worse because it's like, dude, 2:31:06.040 --> 2:31:09.520 I thought we were broke and then you just And 2:31:09.560 --> 2:31:12.520 then they actually have a proper fight scene in the 2:31:12.560 --> 2:31:15.760 deleted scenes, and that one should have been good and 2:31:15.920 --> 2:31:18.080 that should have been in the re release and it's not. 2:31:18.160 --> 2:31:20.240 And I'm salty about it because he would have won. 2:31:21.040 --> 2:31:24.400 He would have won. They keep disrespecting my man, that 2:31:24.600 --> 2:31:34.199 entire fucking movie. Well, have we reached the end? I 2:31:34.200 --> 2:31:38.000 think we have what a journey, and yet I feel 2:31:38.040 --> 2:31:42.760 like there's still so much. Boy does this movie pass 2:31:42.800 --> 2:31:45.400 the back to test? Does it? Oh my gosh, I 2:31:45.440 --> 2:31:49.520 forgot to pay attention. Um, I can't. Really. There is 2:31:49.560 --> 2:31:54.080 a few that I flagged that I was like, maybe, like, 2:31:54.360 --> 2:31:58.080 there's a few close passes because like, Grace does speak 2:31:58.080 --> 2:32:01.360 to materies, like, but it's all is I don't think 2:32:01.400 --> 2:32:04.440 that it does. And now I have scholarly journal, Bechtel 2:32:04.480 --> 2:32:07.879 Test dot com up and the closest I can get 2:32:07.920 --> 2:32:11.160 to someone effectively making an argument because they're always talking 2:32:11.160 --> 2:32:15.440 about Jake. And the best argument I've been able to 2:32:15.480 --> 2:32:19.039 find was like, well, Grace talks to a what at 2:32:19.080 --> 2:32:22.920 the end window? I was like, well, that conversation doesn't 2:32:22.920 --> 2:32:27.920 even happen on screen, um, and she's literally telling Jake 2:32:28.000 --> 2:32:31.360 about it. So Jake ruins this whole movie. He also 2:32:31.480 --> 2:32:36.080 prevents it from passing the Bechtel test. Congratulations Jake Sully, asshole. 2:32:36.200 --> 2:32:39.760 Damn it. And Terry doesn't pass the Ali Naty tests. God, 2:32:39.879 --> 2:32:47.959 damn it, damn it, goddamn it, son of a bitch. Jake, Well, 2:32:47.959 --> 2:32:51.000 what about our nipple scale though scale of zero to 2:32:51.040 --> 2:32:53.600 five nipples, where we rate the movie based on looking 2:32:53.600 --> 2:33:00.440 at it through an intersectional feminist lens um, I would say, oh, okay, 2:33:00.480 --> 2:33:04.880 here we go. James Cameron, he had good intentions. I 2:33:04.920 --> 2:33:09.120 think with this movie. He tried. He wanted to tell 2:33:09.120 --> 2:33:17.560 a story about anti capitalism, anti colonialism, anti military industrial complex, 2:33:17.920 --> 2:33:21.440 and those messages are clear. However, when you dig a 2:33:21.480 --> 2:33:24.200 little deeper and you look at a lot of the 2:33:24.240 --> 2:33:29.359 implications of what's happening on screen, you realize that it's 2:33:29.400 --> 2:33:34.760 a white savior story about a white guy who fails 2:33:34.920 --> 2:33:40.320 upward into somehow being a part of this community. Which 2:33:40.360 --> 2:33:43.480 if this was a movie made by indigenous people, I 2:33:43.520 --> 2:33:46.000 don't think that would have ever happened like that would 2:33:46.000 --> 2:33:48.400 have never been written that way. That would have is 2:33:48.440 --> 2:33:50.560 not how that story would have panned out. It would 2:33:50.560 --> 2:33:53.600 have just been told from, you know, Natierie's point of view. 2:33:54.200 --> 2:33:56.840 Jake would have been eliminated from the story. In general. 2:33:57.440 --> 2:34:01.560 It would just be a story told from the omata 2:34:01.600 --> 2:34:07.000 Kaya people's perspective, and that would be the movie. So 2:34:07.400 --> 2:34:10.920 intentions good though they might have been, a lot of 2:34:11.040 --> 2:34:16.880 marks were missed as far as indigenous representation, as far 2:34:17.040 --> 2:34:21.600 as disability representation, and to some extent, I think the 2:34:21.640 --> 2:34:24.200 representation of women as well, because you could kind of 2:34:24.240 --> 2:34:27.080 easily make the argument that Niteria is presented as a 2:34:27.120 --> 2:34:31.720 plot trophy for Jake Sully doing the right thing, a 2:34:31.760 --> 2:34:34.440 prize to be one. She has more agency than that, 2:34:34.480 --> 2:34:40.480 though she does. But but again, if this movie, in 2:34:40.560 --> 2:34:44.160 our rewrite that we're going to do, um, Niteria would 2:34:44.200 --> 2:34:51.600 be which, first of all, it'll be on ice of ice. 2:34:52.959 --> 2:34:55.720 We'll find a way to work minions into the story, 2:34:55.879 --> 2:34:59.200 and Shrek will make an appearance. Obviously, minions would have 2:34:59.200 --> 2:35:01.640 worked for the current opinions, would have worked for the 2:35:01.680 --> 2:35:05.039 colonel for sure. Um, we're gonna do a rewrite. But no, 2:35:05.320 --> 2:35:08.480 the story should be Nati story like she should be 2:35:08.560 --> 2:35:11.800 the protagonist. Jake Sally didn't even need to be there. 2:35:12.400 --> 2:35:16.200 So with all of that in mind, I'll give the 2:35:16.240 --> 2:35:20.600 movie to two and a half. It's kind of where 2:35:20.600 --> 2:35:24.440 I'm at Nipples. I'll land on two and a half 2:35:24.480 --> 2:35:26.600 because at the end of the day, I still had 2:35:26.600 --> 2:35:29.400 a damn good time watching this movie. The movie felt 2:35:29.440 --> 2:35:34.280 like a movie. The movie feels like a movie. So 2:35:34.560 --> 2:35:39.959 I'll give one to Natie, I'll give one to mowat 2:35:40.440 --> 2:35:47.200 her mother, and I'll give my half nipple to Pandora mother. 2:35:47.320 --> 2:35:50.440 A wa um, I guess I'll made you there. I 2:35:50.520 --> 2:35:52.400 kind of want to dog into too. I don't really 2:35:52.720 --> 2:35:55.800 know why. I don't have a good reason to go 2:35:55.840 --> 2:35:58.400 with your guts, but I'm going on this one. That's 2:35:58.440 --> 2:36:01.959 what your braid tentacles are telling you to go with it. Yes, 2:36:02.040 --> 2:36:05.520 I just saw this really funny tweet while you're um. 2:36:05.560 --> 2:36:10.520 It's James Cameron standing at the avatar to Premier. It's 2:36:10.560 --> 2:36:13.080 just him standing in front of the words tar. And 2:36:13.120 --> 2:36:15.480 it's like even James Cameron had to see what all 2:36:15.520 --> 2:36:20.480 the fuss is about and went to see tar. Okay, 2:36:21.080 --> 2:36:24.119 moving right along, I'm gonna I think that again. Yes, 2:36:24.160 --> 2:36:27.600 I think that, like James Cameron expresses certain themes very 2:36:27.600 --> 2:36:30.320 effectively here in a way that you never see even 2:36:30.360 --> 2:36:34.160 really attempted in blockbuster movies. He's always been good with this. 2:36:34.360 --> 2:36:37.320 He's made, you know, entire movies that are explicitly critical 2:36:37.320 --> 2:36:41.280 of the L A. P. D Um. He is generally good. 2:36:41.320 --> 2:36:43.520 I think he could have been better in this movie, honestly, 2:36:43.560 --> 2:36:49.200 about putting women in prominent and um motivated and interesting 2:36:49.400 --> 2:36:52.400 action roles. Um, I don't think this is the movie 2:36:52.440 --> 2:36:53.840 where he does it best, but he does it to 2:36:53.920 --> 2:36:56.320 some extent. You know, he's doing the things that he 2:36:56.360 --> 2:36:58.879 does well well and then when he's out of his depth, 2:36:59.120 --> 2:37:02.640 it's very obvi this. Yeah, but but I think that 2:37:02.720 --> 2:37:05.199 like it's I don't know, my experience of this movie 2:37:05.240 --> 2:37:09.560 has been so kind of colored by the changing ways 2:37:09.600 --> 2:37:12.840 that we've talked about it in the thirteen years it's existed. 2:37:12.879 --> 2:37:15.240 It feels like it's been around for sucking ever. And 2:37:15.280 --> 2:37:17.400 I think that, you know, there's a lot to love 2:37:17.440 --> 2:37:20.680 about this movie that we've been encouraged not to love 2:37:21.160 --> 2:37:25.640 because of how just media in general seems to view 2:37:26.280 --> 2:37:30.360 indigenous stories and centering Indigenous characters in any way, shape 2:37:30.400 --> 2:37:32.320 or form. And that's not to say that this movie 2:37:32.320 --> 2:37:35.960 does it particularly well. So I don't know. I guess 2:37:35.959 --> 2:37:39.039 I'll go two and a half because that was mostly complimentary. 2:37:39.160 --> 2:37:43.080 Uh that said, it doesn't pass the Printles test, and 2:37:44.680 --> 2:37:48.240 you know, and only one character passes the alien Nati test, right, 2:37:48.280 --> 2:37:51.880 but not the not the main woman that you'd expect, 2:37:52.040 --> 2:37:55.520 not in a terry and um, you don't get really 2:37:55.600 --> 2:37:58.160 any you know, there's too much Jake Sully. You don't 2:37:58.160 --> 2:38:02.920 get any interior look into what the what the Omedicaia 2:38:03.360 --> 2:38:07.600 are thinking when Jake Sully isn't there, which is I 2:38:07.640 --> 2:38:10.920 think a huge missed opportunity. And that's like supposedly, if 2:38:11.000 --> 2:38:15.480 James Cameron wants to make a movie that effectively addresses 2:38:15.879 --> 2:38:19.560 you know, Indigenous issues and concerns and culture. Um, then 2:38:19.640 --> 2:38:24.320 why is Jake Sully always there? Is my two and 2:38:24.320 --> 2:38:27.920 a half napples. I'm giving one to a tie, I'm 2:38:27.959 --> 2:38:32.800 given one to Niteri's mommy, why do I have the 2:38:33.000 --> 2:38:35.680 Wikipedia page for tar Up? Oh, it's because of the 2:38:36.800 --> 2:38:40.280 um giving one to I'm not giving one to tar 2:38:40.840 --> 2:38:44.000 I'm giving one Tonteria, one to Moat, and I will 2:38:44.040 --> 2:38:53.160 give the last half twa perfect beautiful Okay. So if 2:38:53.200 --> 2:38:56.240 you were to ask me back when it first came out, 2:38:56.280 --> 2:38:59.240 I probably would have gave it four four nipples off 2:38:59.240 --> 2:39:04.600 four of them. But now you know, after enough time, 2:39:04.760 --> 2:39:10.000 and especially after talking and communicating with other Indigenous people, 2:39:10.120 --> 2:39:14.640 especially indigenous creatives, and now that I've seen better, I 2:39:14.720 --> 2:39:19.200 know that we could do better. And there's absolutely no 2:39:19.280 --> 2:39:23.160 reason why Indigenous people shouldn't be allowed to tell stories 2:39:23.800 --> 2:39:29.800 of the scale, you know, so I feel like I'm 2:39:29.840 --> 2:39:34.080 gonna give it three. I'll just commit and give it 2:39:34.120 --> 2:39:37.120 three because I did, and I did enjoy it. The 2:39:37.160 --> 2:39:40.000 stuff that I enjoyed I still very much enjoy I 2:39:40.040 --> 2:39:43.119 think it's beautiful, and I think like the special effects 2:39:43.200 --> 2:39:46.800 and everything, and the fact that the water wasn't real 2:39:47.120 --> 2:39:50.320 like blew my mind. The fact that it remotely holds 2:39:50.400 --> 2:39:53.840 up is so wild. I know it looks it looks 2:39:53.879 --> 2:39:58.080 so good and uh, but the Aliens. Now, as someone 2:39:58.120 --> 2:40:02.000 who smashes Aliens and Mass Effect act for three games, 2:40:02.959 --> 2:40:06.560 I wish that the Aliens were to that caliber of 2:40:06.640 --> 2:40:09.560 hot or at least because the characters in Mass Effect 2:40:09.680 --> 2:40:14.119 have a lot more to offer as far as like 2:40:14.400 --> 2:40:17.959 their own stories, their own histories, their own opinions on things, 2:40:18.080 --> 2:40:20.400 and all that stuff. It's a BioWare games, so you're 2:40:20.400 --> 2:40:23.240 allowed to go deep. You couldn't go deep in this one. 2:40:23.560 --> 2:40:29.400 And there were too many human characters, not enough navy characters. 2:40:29.800 --> 2:40:33.840 Jake should have had a couple navvy friends outside of 2:40:33.959 --> 2:40:39.520 Natterie and outside of his bromance with Sute, just to 2:40:39.600 --> 2:40:43.760 like kind of build on why he switches side so 2:40:43.840 --> 2:40:46.840 fast and feels this connection to these people instead of 2:40:46.920 --> 2:40:50.320 just like, well I'm here, I'm here and blessed by God, 2:40:50.560 --> 2:40:56.400 so love me God. But um, but yeah, so I'll 2:40:56.400 --> 2:40:59.040 still give it the three star, three stars, three nipples, 2:40:59.160 --> 2:41:03.560 three pasties. Um one's is gonna go to na Terry 2:41:04.200 --> 2:41:06.320 one is going to go to Mowat for passing the 2:41:06.360 --> 2:41:09.040 Alienati test, and then the last one is going to 2:41:09.080 --> 2:41:11.160 go to suite because he should at least have one 2:41:11.200 --> 2:41:15.080 regular size nipples because his are so small. On top 2:41:15.160 --> 2:41:21.160 of everything else wrong, I have to give my mad 2:41:21.320 --> 2:41:25.560 some dignity because he got almost done in this movie. 2:41:25.800 --> 2:41:27.920 He did have a great death scene, but that's not 2:41:27.959 --> 2:41:32.200 saying much. Yeah, well, Elie, thank you as always for 2:41:32.280 --> 2:41:35.800 being here. It's been an absolute delight. Three time or 2:41:36.280 --> 2:41:39.080 we love to see it. There is one last thing 2:41:39.120 --> 2:41:41.080 I want to shout out while I'm here though, This 2:41:41.360 --> 2:41:45.200 is very important. So um, this has taken place in 2:41:45.320 --> 2:41:50.920 Winnipeg right now in Canada, and since uh, we're talking 2:41:50.959 --> 2:41:54.720 about indigenous people, let's actually talk about the real ones 2:41:54.800 --> 2:41:58.600 that exist today. But there is a situation happening right 2:41:58.600 --> 2:42:02.600 now where the daughters of Morgan Harris, who is an 2:42:02.640 --> 2:42:06.680 Indigenous woman in Canada who was murdered by a serial 2:42:06.760 --> 2:42:12.240 killer along with four other Indigenous women. They believe that 2:42:12.720 --> 2:42:18.800 their bodies are in the the Prairie Green Landfill the RCMP. 2:42:19.000 --> 2:42:21.400 So the Canadian police told them that they believe that 2:42:21.400 --> 2:42:24.800 that's where the serial killer dumped their bodies, and they're 2:42:24.840 --> 2:42:29.680 refusing to investigate because they said that it isn't feasible. 2:42:30.120 --> 2:42:33.800 So there essentially telling these girls that they have to 2:42:33.879 --> 2:42:37.280 make peace with their mother staying in a dumpster and 2:42:37.400 --> 2:42:40.640 not getting a burial, and these girls are fighting to 2:42:40.840 --> 2:42:43.800 push back and search the landfill. So I really wanted 2:42:43.840 --> 2:42:47.199 to just raise awareness to that and get the word 2:42:47.240 --> 2:42:50.560 out there because I heard about it two days ago 2:42:50.959 --> 2:42:54.160 and it's just not making as much waves as it 2:42:54.200 --> 2:42:56.600 should be. So do you know, if there's any kind 2:42:56.640 --> 2:43:00.680 of go fund me or anything to support, I will 2:43:00.800 --> 2:43:03.280 definitely look it up and send it your way if 2:43:03.280 --> 2:43:05.840 I but we'll post it in the show notes if 2:43:05.959 --> 2:43:08.439 if well, at least link to a story for context 2:43:08.520 --> 2:43:11.800 as well. That's yes, sucking, unconscionable. I was seeing what 2:43:11.800 --> 2:43:13.879 you were posting about it, and yeah, I also did 2:43:13.920 --> 2:43:16.800 not hear about it before you said something, yep. So 2:43:16.959 --> 2:43:19.520 if we could do anything good, I mean, like Avatar 2:43:19.600 --> 2:43:22.320 is great, but people are going to go see Avatar too, 2:43:22.360 --> 2:43:24.880 and not enough people are talking about this. So I'm 2:43:24.920 --> 2:43:30.000 definitely yes, spread the word. Thank you for that. Absolutely. 2:43:30.560 --> 2:43:33.119 Is there anything you'd like to plug as far as 2:43:33.400 --> 2:43:37.960 your own work, Well, I am kind of limiting my 2:43:38.080 --> 2:43:41.440 Twitter access, but I'm Ali Naughty on Twitter. I'm Ali 2:43:41.560 --> 2:43:46.280 Naughty on Instagram and TikTok. I'm back on Tumbler because 2:43:46.760 --> 2:43:53.680 I don't like so especially now, but I've been more 2:43:53.760 --> 2:43:57.360 active than on the Ali Naughty Tumbler account, which is 2:43:57.360 --> 2:43:59.959 still the Ala Test because that's how a lot of 2:44:00.040 --> 2:44:04.200 people know it. So I keep it there. And my 2:44:04.280 --> 2:44:10.360 sisters and I opened up a boutique, Darlings of our Mother, 2:44:11.280 --> 2:44:14.640 So check it out and buy some stuff. Very cool. 2:44:14.760 --> 2:44:17.760 Yeah wait, that's huge for me. Okay, I can wait. Yeah, 2:44:17.800 --> 2:44:22.560 I'll send that to YouTube. Come back anytime please. Yeah. 2:44:22.840 --> 2:44:29.320 Wonderful and uh you can follow us on Instagram and 2:44:29.600 --> 2:44:34.039 Twitter at Bechtel Cast and um. Speaking of Twitter, there's 2:44:34.080 --> 2:44:39.480 a pretty good tweet that we found. Oh okay, this 2:44:39.560 --> 2:44:42.200 is It feels like an end of the Daily Zeitgeist episode, 2:44:42.320 --> 2:44:46.520 like tweets you like, okay, but this was one that 2:44:46.600 --> 2:44:50.000 really just It's from the l A Times review of 2:44:50.080 --> 2:44:52.879 Avatar Way of Water, which is a quite good review. 2:44:52.920 --> 2:44:56.800 It's getting quite good early reviews. Folks. Um, we haven't 2:44:56.800 --> 2:45:00.600 seen it yet, but the critics are sa drav ing 2:45:00.840 --> 2:45:04.720 about the Way of Water. But this is from Justin Chang, 2:45:05.280 --> 2:45:09.280 the film critic over at the l A Times. Um. 2:45:09.320 --> 2:45:13.360 He references how Avatar Too is about Jake Sully being 2:45:13.400 --> 2:45:17.879 a loving father in the second movie, and then he says, 2:45:17.920 --> 2:45:24.000 and I quote, you could say he's a police Navy dad. 2:45:25.879 --> 2:45:31.400 It's so good, twitters. It's still horrible, but there are 2:45:31.440 --> 2:45:35.400 there are moments there, moments that was my moment that 2:45:35.440 --> 2:45:38.360 really meant a lot to us. Um. You can also 2:45:38.360 --> 2:45:41.320 follow us on Instagram, where I did not receive that information, 2:45:41.360 --> 2:45:44.000 but it is. You know, it's another platform where we're at. 2:45:44.360 --> 2:45:48.600 We're also going on tour reminder West Coast. You can 2:45:48.640 --> 2:45:51.120 find that in the link in our bios and the 2:45:51.200 --> 2:45:53.480 link in this description as well. We're going to be 2:45:53.879 --> 2:45:59.080 in l A, San Francisco, Portland, and Seattle at the 2:45:59.200 --> 2:46:02.280 end of January into the beginning of February. More info 2:46:02.400 --> 2:46:04.959 about that at the link, and you can join our 2:46:04.959 --> 2:46:08.080 patrion ak Matreon. What the hell is that case, Oh 2:46:08.120 --> 2:46:11.000 my gosh. It's a place where you can get to 2:46:11.320 --> 2:46:14.640 bonus episodes of the Bechtel Cast, usually just Jamie and 2:46:14.720 --> 2:46:16.879 I hoof and goof and goofing, but we're also having 2:46:16.959 --> 2:46:21.520 awesome discourse and um and you get access to the 2:46:21.560 --> 2:46:25.120 back catalog of well over one hundred bonus episodes. So 2:46:25.160 --> 2:46:28.200 if you've run out of main feed episodes, scoot on 2:46:28.280 --> 2:46:33.480 over to patreon dot com slash Bechtel Cast. And it's December, 2:46:33.520 --> 2:46:36.440 so we're doing our cursed holiday movie round up. We 2:46:37.000 --> 2:46:41.760 have already released our Netflix original Lindsay Lohan Falling for Christmas, 2:46:41.879 --> 2:46:45.160 a movie where a little girl's Christmas, which is for 2:46:45.280 --> 2:46:48.920 Lindsay Lohan to fall off of a mountain. And we'll 2:46:48.920 --> 2:46:51.160 also be doing while you were sleeping. And I also 2:46:51.200 --> 2:46:56.359 I was getting excited today because January is the Pinocchio 2:46:56.520 --> 2:47:00.360 Wars episode and so we just we have a hell 2:47:00.440 --> 2:47:03.920 of a time over there. Joined the community, Joined, joined 2:47:04.000 --> 2:47:08.880 the movement that is the Matreon um. And finally, it's 2:47:08.879 --> 2:47:12.280 the holiday so if you're looking for gifts, last minute gifts, 2:47:12.280 --> 2:47:14.240 you can go to our store over at t public 2:47:14.280 --> 2:47:18.000 dot com slash v Bechtel Cast. We actually have some 2:47:18.080 --> 2:47:23.400 new designs just came out pretty fun feminist icon Paddington 2:47:23.959 --> 2:47:28.160 Shreky in which came up in this episode. It's cannon 2:47:28.200 --> 2:47:31.080 to the show is. And um, also just one that 2:47:31.120 --> 2:47:33.200 I kind of wanted to make for myself that we 2:47:33.280 --> 2:47:36.280 have referenced on the show, which is the Flobber Mambo. 2:47:37.080 --> 2:47:42.680 Bye Danny Alfman. So that plus classic designs including our 2:47:42.760 --> 2:47:46.600 holiday baby Grinch designs that over there get some gifts, 2:47:47.000 --> 2:47:51.640 uh and live your damn life exactly. And um, hey 2:47:51.879 --> 2:48:00.160 Jamie Ali, I see you. Bye bye m