0:00

Hello listeners. Before we get

0:02

into this episode, we wanted to

0:04

say something to raise awareness

0:06

about a particular current event. Our

0:09

guest Ali Noddy speaks about this

0:11

at the end of the episode, but we wanted

0:13

to stick it here at the top as well to

0:16

make sure as many people here about it as

0:18

possible. Right now,

0:20

in Canada, in Winnipeg, police

0:22

are refusing to search for the

0:24

remains of four Indigenous

0:26

women who have been murdered

0:28

by a serial killer. The women

0:31

are Morgan Harris, Rebecca

0:33

Countois, Marcedes Myron, and

0:36

a fourth unidentified woman. This

0:39

speaks to the pervasive

0:41

problem in Canada and elsewhere

0:43

in the world of Indigenous women

0:46

going missing, being murdered, and

0:48

officials doing little to nothing

0:51

about it. So we wanted

0:53

to raise awareness about this. We've

0:56

included more information in the

0:58

show notes, and we encourage

1:00

you to learn more about this and

1:03

other issues that affect Indigenous

1:05

people and communities. All

1:08

right onto the episode. On

1:10

the be Dol cast, the questions asked

1:13

movies have women inum? Are

1:15

all their discussions just boyfriends and husbands

1:17

or do they have individualism? The

1:20

patriarchy? Zef invest

1:22

start changing it with the beck Del Cast.

1:26

Jamie Yes I see you,

1:28

Caitlin, I see you. Do

1:32

you want to mate for life with me? Yeah?

1:34

Where's your tail at? Here is great

1:37

to come

1:40

and then we kiss Kis kiss under the tree, iconic

1:43

moment in cinema for better or worse.

1:46

People remember it, they really

1:48

do. Hello and welcome to the Beck

1:51

Dol cast. Oh my goodness.

1:53

Here's one that has been a

1:55

long time request, a long time

1:57

coming, and an episode we thought we

2:00

may never release because we were not convinced that the

2:02

sequels are actually going to come out. And yet

2:04

here we are, and here we are the Avatar

2:06

episode. How you feeling, Caitlin, I'm

2:09

nervous. I feel underprepared.

2:12

Even though I did a lot of reading. There's

2:14

truly so much to go through. And

2:17

there's also like, there's like fifteen

2:19

years worth of production,

2:23

criticism, waves

2:25

of different takes on this. But it's

2:27

just been it's been a real journey, it really

2:30

has, and I'm excited to get into it.

2:33

We have. I think I think we should

2:35

just get started. I'm like, I'm ready, I'm ready.

2:38

You can breeze. Let's just breeze past.

2:40

Look the show we analyze movies, but

2:46

you know, figure, let's tell it must

2:48

tell him. Let's tell him. Okay, um

2:51

like, you're like fun this show. We're

2:56

gonna be here for three hours. Buckle In um

2:59

So analyzed

3:01

movies through an intersectional feminist lens,

3:03

using the Bechtel tests simply as

3:05

just a baseline jumping off point to initiate

3:08

a much larger conversation. What

3:11

is the Bechtel test? Though Jamie Well

3:14

I can tell you what it is. It is

3:16

a media metric originally created

3:19

by queer cartoonist Alison Bechdel,

3:21

sometimes called the Bechtel Wallace Test.

3:24

Uh. She made it for her incredible

3:27

comic dikes to watch out for, originally

3:29

as a joke, but it is now kind of become

3:31

a common media metric that we use

3:34

on this show and also in the world. A

3:37

lot of different versions of the test, but the one

3:39

we use is this. To pass

3:41

the Bechtel test, there must be two

3:44

characters with names of a marginalized gender

3:46

talking to each other about something other

3:48

than a man for more than two lines

3:51

of dialogue. Some

3:53

things do it, a lot of things don't. And

3:56

that's just kind of what it

3:58

is. How did how did I do so

4:00

well? We're off to a great start, and

4:05

now is the time to get our guest into

4:07

the mix. I'm so pumped returning

4:10

guest. You know her from our episodes on

4:12

Aquaman and Frozen two. She's

4:15

an Anisha Nabe, writer, founder

4:18

of the Ali Naughty Test formerly known

4:20

as the Ala Test. It's Ali Naughty,

4:23

welcome back. I'm back with

4:25

my braided tails. Hell yeah,

4:28

I got one for each of you. Welcome

4:33

to the Three Timers Club. I

4:37

told them I was like, I called DIBs on Avatar.

4:39

Nobody else is allowed to do this. I have so

4:41

much to say, and yes I

4:43

did. You saw my Google doc had

4:46

so much to say. I've seen forty

4:48

two page google doc. I'm

4:50

so we talked about this,

4:52

uh, I think two years ago, like the first

4:54

time you were on the show. En. Yeah,

4:57

and the moment is here. Avatar two

4:59

is come out. It's happening. I thought it

5:01

would never happen, and it probably shouldn't happen.

5:03

But we'll see. I hope it's good.

5:06

James Cameron's pretty good with sequels, so we'll

5:08

see. We'll see. That's true.

5:10

Titanic too is a classic. Ever

5:13

when he came back, when

5:16

she woke up, she

5:20

woke up? Yeah, So Ali,

5:22

what is your your history relationship

5:25

with Avatar? Oh so

5:27

this is a history. Okay. So it

5:30

came out like two thousand nine. I want to say I

5:32

was probably around like eighteen nineteen ish,

5:35

and it came out at an interesting

5:37

time. This is obviously way

5:40

before the Ali Naughty Test. The

5:42

Alt Test was ever a

5:45

discussion the way that it is now

5:48

and the film itself was

5:51

cathartic in a lot of ways for

5:53

me that I've discovered

5:55

that it really isn't now, But

5:58

at the time in two thousand nine, I was like,

6:00

I can't believe that there's

6:02

a movie like this. As far as the

6:05

Natives win, which

6:07

I didn't see coming. Everybody else saw it coming.

6:09

I'm like, no, we never win. Like this

6:11

is gonna be Titanic level sadness

6:14

because everybody's gonna die and it's

6:16

pain, and that didn't happen. I

6:19

did not expect the girl to live. Nay

6:22

Terry did not expect that. I didn't expect

6:25

her to like because and and I'll talk

6:27

about this later, but like in a lot of movies,

6:30

when the native female

6:33

character falls in love with the white

6:35

male character and he

6:37

ultimately ends up betraying her,

6:39

she usually like takes his side

6:42

like no, no, I love him

6:44

and we can work together. And

6:48

I was hoping that that wouldn't happen.

6:50

I was afraid it was going to happen. It did not

6:53

happen. I'm like, ah,

6:56

what is this movie? Right? So

6:58

then I get online and

7:01

so many people like hated

7:04

it, just did not like it. They're like, it's pocahontast

7:06

space, it stands as with wolves in space.

7:09

It's white guilt, it's liberalism,

7:11

it's you know, just all of this stuff. And

7:15

I knew something in it was kind of rooted

7:17

in anti Native racism.

7:19

I just didn't have the words for it. And

7:22

obviously, like as the years have gone

7:24

by, I found the language

7:27

to like kind of point out what exactly

7:30

like these criticisms which aren't

7:32

wronged but also are very

7:37

yes. So then I

7:40

almost kind of like the Avatar out of spite

7:42

in a way, just because I'm like, screw you,

7:44

guys. I like this movie. But

7:49

I'll be honest, after rewatching it and

7:51

especially rewatching it now,

7:55

I didn't like it as much. And I'm

7:57

like, Okay, I know everything that's kind

7:59

of I know everything that's wrong with it, but

8:02

I still liked it. In spite of it. But I'm like,

8:04

you know, after Rhymes

8:06

three Young Gules and Reservation

8:08

Dogs and Rutherford Falls and Wendell

8:11

and Wild and all of these indigenous

8:13

films usually made by indigenous people.

8:15

Um, I say with full confidence

8:18

that if Native creators

8:20

were given the same the

8:23

same amount of power and

8:27

opportunity as James Cameron, they

8:29

could do it just as good, if

8:31

not better than. Avatar would

8:33

probably be something you'd never see before, right,

8:36

Yeah, that's what I think. Yeah, I

8:38

mean absolutely, it's always where does

8:40

the money go and who gets the opportunities? Yes,

8:44

exactly that. So that's my very

8:46

complicated history with Avatar. I

8:49

love it, Jamie, what about you? What's

8:51

yours? It's a disaster

8:53

kind of it's all over the place of like

8:56

I feel like you've

8:58

been witnessed to it, and in large part,

9:00

Caitlin, like, I saw this movie in high school,

9:03

um, along with I think the rest

9:05

of the world. It seems like

9:08

I saw this movie in three

9:10

D. I remember, Like I just wasn't. I

9:12

mean, I guess like people don't maybe

9:15

because the show has been on for so long, like I

9:17

was originally your co because I just like

9:19

I didn't know a lot about movies and

9:21

didn't have like a huge passion

9:24

for them growing up. So I saw it because it was like

9:26

compulsory, it felt like, and I was like, I

9:28

liked it, Sure, that was fun. And

9:30

then as time went on and

9:33

Ali you were alluding to this, there was like just

9:35

there's always the shifting discussion around

9:38

what this movie meant

9:40

culturally, what it meant about

9:42

you, if you liked it versus you didn't. Like

9:44

I feel like it's just flip flopped a million times.

9:47

Um. I think there was a huge chunk of time where

9:49

they were like Avatar like

9:51

has been forgotten, like lost to time,

9:54

and you know, like why

9:56

everyone saw this movie but no one can remember a

9:58

thing that happens in it, which like I

10:00

was like, well, I don't remember. And then

10:02

I think sometime around the Lockdown,

10:05

I took on a shreky

10:08

in appreciation of Avatar,

10:11

where it did seem like a lot of people uh

10:14

with with like time on

10:17

their hands, like got back into Avatar

10:19

kind of like spitefully and ironically where

10:21

they're like, well, I remember what happened in Avatar,

10:24

and and I was I was kind

10:26

of like I was kind of doing that for a while

10:28

because I was you know, lockdown

10:30

mental illness. I don't really know, like I

10:33

can't really speak to it. I know it was happening.

10:35

I know I bought a lot of books

10:38

in because there was I

10:41

think actually the video

10:43

that like got me back into wanting

10:45

to understand more about the movie. Because I rewatched

10:48

the movie, I still like, I don't

10:50

know, I feel like my opinion on the actually the

10:52

movie itself has changed

10:54

for a lot of the reasons you're describing Ali Like, I

10:57

think that a lot of the there's

10:59

a lot of of course, like extremely valid criticism

11:01

of this movie that we need to talk about. And

11:04

then there's also a lot of like overly

11:06

simplistic comparisons

11:08

that you're describing that, Um, I

11:10

think you're interesting to discuss. Like, but

11:13

it's it's it's very it's a very

11:15

movie movie. I don't know, it's like a blockbuster

11:18

where it just kind of washes over the movie. That

11:20

feels like a movie. Would you say that the

11:23

movie it feels like

11:25

like a movie. It's what I would say,

11:28

um, a movie with blue cats.

11:33

It's oh god,

11:36

I just dude, fox cats

11:39

a cat does James

11:43

Caeron, Like, I it's really I'm

11:45

always going to give James Cameron a

11:48

chance to impress me, and he's

11:50

such a weird man, Like I just don't

11:52

like. The things that he really commits himself

11:55

to are baffling to me, and I'm excited

11:57

to talk about it. Um. But yeah, I kind of came all

11:59

the way around because I saw a

12:01

YouTube video by a creator named

12:03

sideways. Uh yes,

12:07

right, so I think maybe we talked about

12:09

you about. It's this incredible

12:11

video that they made about how

12:13

the Avatar score was composed

12:16

and then kind of uncomposed of like all

12:19

of this work and resources that James

12:21

Cameron um and the production put

12:24

into like creating a unique,

12:26

very specific NAVI culture and then

12:28

they basically used none of it

12:30

and they got like overwhelmed, and then

12:32

they're like, um, let's do a pretty

12:35

standard James Horner score and

12:37

that will basically be in So I got more interested

12:39

in the production side of the movie because

12:42

there was a lot more thought

12:44

and intention that went into it than I would have

12:46

guessed based on what the movie is like. So

12:50

ultimately I would say the movie feels like a movie.

12:53

Um. And I

12:55

I still I mean, I am kind

12:57

of excited to see the second one can't lie like

12:59

I, you know, so Gurdi, we were playing

13:01

a teenager. I've been trigued.

13:04

I don't know. I don't know, but there's

13:06

a lot of problems. I don't know. Yeah, my

13:08

relationship with Avatar is fraught, but

13:11

you know, so is mine. All right, well what's your

13:13

relationship with Avatar? So I

13:16

saw this in theaters I think twice.

13:19

I was in my early twenties

13:21

at the time, and I

13:24

loved it. I was like, this movie rules.

13:26

I know you loved it. Whoa

13:31

Asterix At the time. I

13:33

was like, damn, this movie is awesome. It's

13:35

so good James Cameron, he's done

13:37

it again. And then like some

13:40

weeks passed and people were like, yeah,

13:43

I mean, I guess I liked it, but was it that good?

13:45

I'm not sure. And I was like, well, I

13:47

don't know, was it? And then more weeks

13:49

passed and people are like, maybe that movie actually kind

13:51

of sucks, and like the same thing that you were

13:53

talking about Alie is about and you jam

13:55

me like and then I was like seeing all

13:58

these things on this social

14:00

media of the time, which was Facebook, people being

14:02

like, it's just it's

14:04

fern Gully, you know, James Cameron ripped

14:06

off fern Gully, he ripped off Disney's pocahon

14:09

Is it's blah blah blah. And then I also

14:11

remember a very specific criticism that so

14:13

many people were like the things called unobtainium.

14:16

That's so ridiculous, and it's like, first

14:18

of all, it's I think, intentionally

14:21

on the nose. Secondly, have you seen

14:23

some some of the elements

14:26

on the periodic table are called there's

14:28

an element called einstein Um,

14:30

like they have some ridiculous names.

14:32

Like Also, it's like everything about

14:35

this movie is extremely on the nose, like

14:37

right, it's not trying to be subtle,

14:39

so like it's not really James Don's thing. People

14:41

being like unobtainium that's

14:44

so like that. I don't

14:46

think it's a valid criticism. But then

14:48

I was like, oh, yeah, I guess it is kind of like

14:50

pulling from stuff and maybe it isn't as good

14:52

as I thought. And I was like young enough that

14:54

I was like too easily influenced

14:56

by other people's opinions. Still, so

14:59

I was like, yeah, reminds this movie it's

15:01

not good. And then a decade

15:03

passes, over, a decade passes, I

15:06

don't watch the movie again until three

15:08

days ago, and then I watch it again. I'm like, no,

15:11

I was right the first time. This movie rules.

15:14

But with the caveat that, there

15:16

are right.

15:18

With the caveat that. There are a lot of

15:21

issues with it, which we are about

15:23

to discuss. But from

15:25

a just like kind of strictly narrative

15:27

standpoint, I'm like, James Cameron, he

15:29

did it again. He can tell a dam cinematic

15:32

story, does it? He kind of

15:34

always does it. There's a fun

15:36

James Cameron thing that I noticed on this

15:38

one was because there's just like a lot

15:40

of good killing the bad

15:43

guys moments towards the end of this movie.

15:45

But the most the closest thing to the propeller

15:47

moment Titanic is when the guy gets crushed

15:49

between the two steel

15:52

boxes. You're like, why

15:55

he's a sick oh,

16:01

and then that's what you get, colonizer. A

16:04

lot of good colonizer kills. It was

16:06

pretty exciting so many that's

16:09

why so many white people did not like

16:11

it. Let me tell me, oh

16:13

my god, because this movie. I mean, I

16:16

only lived in one small country

16:19

in Europe, you know, so I can't

16:21

say that this applies outside of the

16:23

US. Everywhere. But the movie made

16:26

so much money for a reason, and

16:28

I'm pretty sure it's because the bad

16:30

guys in Avatar are so American

16:33

codd Like you don't see American

16:35

flags or anything like that, but there's

16:37

no British people and there's no all

16:40

the white people have American accents, except

16:43

for Sam Worthington, who's really I

16:46

love

16:48

million can't make an Australian guy sound

16:50

American. Tell you there was one part where he is like,

16:53

your life comes down to one moroment,

16:56

and you're like, it

17:00

just made them Australian because

17:02

they still have a history

17:04

of colonialism anyway.

17:08

But yeah, and I think that's why, because the Americans

17:10

lose in this one. Like I

17:12

feel like the rest of the world kind of has

17:15

a very at least my experience in Finland,

17:17

they have a very Disney Princess

17:20

cowboys and Indians understanding

17:22

of Native history and

17:25

Native people as far as Native

17:27

American I should say, even if it's not as

17:29

blatantly racist over there, there's still

17:31

elements of it where it's like, oh,

17:34

but you know, we're sympathetic kind

17:36

of, you know, we're way more sympathetic,

17:39

and we'll play the Indian in

17:41

our games more than the Cowboy, you

17:44

know that sort of thing. So to have a

17:46

movie like this where the cowboys lose

17:49

to the Indians, I can absolutely

17:51

see and they sign the Americans packing. I mean,

17:53

of course the rest of the world loved this movie. Of

17:56

course, of course the white Americans hated

17:59

it. It made two point nine billion dollars.

18:01

Bill yawns, Billy, I

18:06

always forget and get mad again.

18:08

It's like, there's people have accused

18:11

James Cameron of ripping off a million

18:13

different stories in this, but

18:15

there's also just like so much of James Cameron

18:17

ripping himself off to for like

18:19

that moment at the end. It reminded me so much

18:22

of like when Mr. Is May survives and you get

18:24

one shot on like this motherfucker

18:26

lived, and they do the same thing with like the bad

18:28

guy that's not the colonel. What's his

18:30

name? Yeah, yes,

18:33

yeah, I don't know that the character's

18:35

name. I know the Parker Parker when

18:38

the colonel gets into the like

18:40

large robot thing, that's what Ripley

18:42

does at the end of Aliens, Like yeah, like

18:45

Dave's Cameron's using his own playbook

18:47

to do. Oh that scene is so I'm like it's

18:50

so weird. I'm like, I like, it's a good

18:52

movie. There, I forgot.

18:54

I haven't seen in a couple of years, and

18:57

I think, you know whatever, your brain kind of trains

18:59

you to expect the worst

19:01

in every movie, especially

19:04

when you do this show for six where the hosts

19:06

of the back to cast. Yes, but

19:09

I always feel myself clenched up where I'm

19:11

like, he's not gonna let na Teri

19:13

kill the colonel. Izzy, He's gonna let's he's

19:15

gonna let's sull kill the colonel. He

19:17

let's say Terry kill the colonel. And it's so

19:20

exciting, and the whole theater cheered

19:22

and it was awesome. The catharsis

19:26

good job movie. We're gonna have

19:28

so much fun. Let's

19:30

take a quick break and then we'll come

19:32

back to recap the movie.

19:35

So we'll be right back, and

19:43

we're back. All right, here's the

19:45

recap. I had to gloss

19:47

over some details and I even like leave

19:50

out certain characters just because there's like so

19:52

much and the movie is almost three hours

19:54

long, so bear with me.

19:56

But um, here we go. Better not cut

19:58

out my friend Dr mac a k,

20:01

the guy from Dragged Me to Hell.

20:04

Wait, who is his name, Dr

20:06

Max? It's Dr Max Ptel Oh,

20:08

yes, Um Deelippe Row who's

20:11

also in inception playing a very

20:13

solar character. Kind of

20:15

this is he was on kind of an unprecedented

20:18

run in two thousand nine and ten and

20:20

then I think James Cameron kidnapped him

20:22

and um, he is stuck

20:25

in Pantora forever forever.

20:28

At least he's living off the royalties for the

20:30

rest of his life. Truly,

20:33

he's chilling. Okay, So we meet Jake

20:35

Sully played by Sam Worthington, and

20:38

we get his backstory. He is

20:40

a marine who became disabled

20:43

during battle. He's now paralyzed

20:45

from the waist down and he has been approached

20:48

with an opportunity to go to a far

20:50

away planet called Pandora

20:52

and do something we

20:54

don't quite know what yet because

20:56

his twin died, which I feel

20:58

like is very glad used over that he's actively

21:01

mourning his brother. His brother died like four minutes

21:03

ago. Yeah, I know that. They just cremate

21:06

him, like right in front of him. I'm like no,

21:08

and he's just like damn

21:10

dude, and he's like, we need you for science,

21:12

and he's like he's Okay, these

21:15

cans. He's like, all right,

21:18

sleep it off science in the morning.

21:21

And also no one cares that he just

21:24

lost his twin brother, like weavers,

21:26

like, um, okay,

21:28

what are you doing here, you loser? I need

21:30

your brother. Oh

21:33

yeah, okay. So then Jake arrives

21:35

on Pandora and he learns about

21:37

the planet. It's dangerous wildlife

21:41

and it's indigenous population

21:43

called the Navvy, who are tall,

21:46

blueskinned humanoids. Uh,

21:49

your cat like the cat cat features

21:51

with cat features. Jake meets

21:54

Norm and the two of

21:56

them are going to be avatar drivers. So basically,

21:58

scientists have spliced human and

22:01

NAVI d NA to create these

22:03

avatars that Jake and

22:05

Norm and other people will

22:08

remotely operate by hooking

22:11

the people up to these avatars

22:13

via a like neural link, which

22:16

is why they wanted Jake for this because he

22:18

has the same DNA as his brother. They originally

22:20

built this avatar for his brother, but it'll

22:22

still work with Jake, and that always

22:25

messes me up because it's like they

22:27

do nothing with that. It's like if

22:29

it's his brother's d n A. I mean, this

22:32

whole movie is about accessing memory

22:34

and accessing like history and stuff have them.

22:36

They never did anything like

22:39

that where he enters his brother's

22:41

avatar and elements

22:44

from like his blood memory or something like that is

22:46

still there so he can feel his thoughts

22:48

or something. They never do anything

22:51

with it. That's such a good point. I've

22:53

never thought about that, right, because it's like that

22:55

would fit into the theme of the movie.

22:59

And Jake's always like underdeveloped,

23:01

but it's not like you don't know anything about it. Damn.

23:04

Yeah. And NATII and the deleted

23:06

scenes has a sister who

23:08

died, and these guys never

23:11

bond over that, Like you both

23:13

lost your siblings like recently, and

23:16

that's not something you guys would talk about during

23:18

your forced fucking romance. And

23:22

you would also think that, like I don't

23:24

know that, like Jake might. I

23:26

don't know, Like Jake doesn't feel culpable

23:29

enough for any of this the entire movie,

23:32

when it is like, so his

23:34

fault a lot of the like most of the time.

23:36

But it was like also on top of that, his

23:39

brother would be so disappointed

23:41

in him for like it sounds

23:44

like his brother was a very like, well liked

23:46

ethical scientist who

23:49

would be probably devastated to learn

23:51

that his brother like

23:54

Mick fucked his entire like up

23:59

on such unprecedented scale. Truly,

24:05

they be doing that. Um

24:07

okay. So then we meet the head of the Avatar

24:10

project, Grace Augustine played by

24:12

Sigourney Weaver. She, like we

24:14

mentioned, is not thrilled with Jake being

24:16

there because he's not a trained scientist.

24:19

But Jake being there was Parker

24:21

self Ridge's idea. That's Giovanni

24:23

Ribisi. And then we learned why people

24:25

have come to Pandora. It's to collect

24:28

parentheses steal an

24:30

extremely valuable element slash

24:33

mineral called unobtainium. And

24:36

Parker's whole thing is that he'll stop

24:38

at nothing to obtain this

24:40

unobtaini um um,

24:43

yeah, James Cameron does the classic thing of

24:45

like capitalism is one guy

24:47

and the military industrial complex is

24:49

also another guy. It's not

24:51

subtle storytelling, but you know,

24:54

but it's also right, like

24:57

it's also correct, which is the worst

24:59

part. So obviously

25:01

the nov don't want them to do

25:03

this. So right now, the humans

25:06

are trying to find a quote unquote diplomatic

25:08

way to colonize the Navy

25:11

and steal their resources. So

25:14

then Jake gets neural linked to

25:16

his Navy avatar for the first time.

25:18

He gets acclimated to his new body,

25:21

and the movie telegraphs to us

25:23

that it's exciting for him because his

25:26

in his human body, he's paralyzed from

25:28

the waist down, but in his navy body

25:30

he can walk and run, and he really

25:33

takes to his new body very

25:35

quickly. This is interesting

25:38

because there is absolutely

25:41

some able is um for sure

25:43

in this movie. We'll talk about that. Yeah.

25:46

Yeah, there's a really wonderful

25:48

line though, because obviously people with disabilities

25:50

are not I hate to say not a

25:52

monolith, but that's the only thing that came to

25:55

mind. You know, there's many different types, uh,

25:58

and it's different for each person. So

26:00

there was a quote when I was doing my

26:03

research where a

26:05

woman who was able

26:07

bodied and then couldn't use her legs

26:09

anymore and as in a wheelchair, said

26:11

that the scene where he goes from

26:13

his wheelchair into the avatar where

26:16

he's walking and playing basketball and

26:19

running, it's really touching.

26:21

She's like, I had a spinal cord injury

26:23

in a car accident when I was five years old,

26:25

so it gave me chills. I'm

26:27

in a wheelchair for twenty years. I

26:29

can't even remember what it was like, and he's

26:32

just stretching his legs out and it must

26:34

have felt just so like the ultimate

26:36

stretch. And then other

26:38

people were like, uh

26:41

no, this is actually quite

26:44

awful. Yeah, yeah, there's a whole conversation

26:46

to be had around that. And I saw similarly

26:49

like mixed responses um

26:51

and ultimately the actor should

26:53

have been a disabled actor exactly,

26:56

a disabled actor, a good actor.

26:58

You know, there's a lot of part your not a white

27:00

actor, a lot of

27:03

choices could have been made differently. I think, yeah, we'll

27:05

get into the conversation around disability

27:08

a little later. But I was interested

27:10

that there was such a kind of diversity

27:12

of opinion because

27:14

what was hitting for me And

27:17

it's like, I'm able bodied, Like I don't

27:19

have a voice in this conversation

27:22

really, but but I you know, there are constant

27:25

insults thrown Jake

27:27

Sully's way. They

27:29

are generally from characters we are

27:31

not supposed to like. So it's

27:33

like, I don't know, it's it's it's a

27:35

it's an interesting one, it's complicated,

27:38

and from characters that we do like it, even

27:40

Grace At sometimes that's yeah,

27:42

she's saying some ablest slurs at

27:44

him. Yeah, it's like, okay,

27:46

Grace smoking

27:51

a cigarette in the lab. Oh

27:54

yeah, She's like, where's my goddamn cigarette? What's

27:56

wrong with this picture? That was iconic, that

27:59

was great. You don't need a sig

28:03

you need but her

28:05

able ism was disappointed

28:07

and consistent too. It like became like a

28:09

term of endearment. It seems like, yeah,

28:12

really gross. Um. So back

28:14

in his Jake body, he

28:17

meets Trudy. That's Michelle Rodriguez.

28:19

She's a pilot who will

28:22

bring the avatars into the

28:24

wilderness so they can do their

28:26

science uh and colonizing.

28:29

Um. Jake also reports to Colonel

28:32

Quaritch his whole thing is

28:35

science people are losers. Military

28:37

people are awesome, And I want you to spy

28:40

on the Novi and find out their weaknesses

28:42

so I can kill them more easily. I love

28:45

this bad guy. I know I shouldn't, but

28:47

I love this bad guy. He's

28:49

such a ham He's so campy.

28:53

He seems camping, cartoonish. But

28:55

also I feel like there are people

28:57

like this, oh for sure. So

29:00

just like this, in any other movie, he would

29:02

be the hero. James Cameron just made

29:04

him the bad guy this time, but changed nothing

29:06

like this would be Arnold in the Goddamn

29:09

Jungle looking for the Predator. This

29:12

could be any action hero

29:14

in the eighties. It's the exact same

29:17

character. He's just bad this time

29:20

and it's Stephen Lange and he's just so fucking

29:23

perfect and scoofy. It's

29:25

very good casting. Stephen Lange

29:27

really seems like he's having the time of his life

29:29

being the worst man ever. And

29:32

I mean the same with Giovanni Ribisi's character,

29:34

where you're like, he's just fucking despicable

29:36

and it's so like played up,

29:39

and then when they're in the same room, you're

29:41

like, oh, it's the most evil room in the world, and

29:43

you're reculing there are people that

29:45

are those people are just like this

29:48

do you have on ABC? Is interesting though, I feel

29:50

like his character would have been this

29:52

one dimensional, you

29:54

know, sort of comic book character like Stephen

29:57

Lane, but he um.

29:59

I think the actor gives it

30:01

a nuance where he's like conflicted,

30:03

where it's like, because you even see it

30:06

in the movie sometimes where he's like he'll

30:08

give like a heavy sigh, We're

30:10

going to kill these people and well they're

30:12

not people, they're cats

30:14

in a tree. Whatever. They can go

30:16

to another tree. But we're

30:19

gonna kill babies, you know. So it's

30:21

like you kind of like see the mental gymnastics

30:24

he's doing, or like the you know, the

30:26

things that he has to do to justify his choices,

30:28

which does make it worse because

30:31

he still Yeah,

30:33

yeah, not to brag or anything,

30:35

but I saw Giovanni Ribis getting

30:38

ice cream in my neighborhood one time.

30:41

Wow. All I did

30:43

was see Taylor Lawton or screaming

30:45

at a moon juice. It's

30:46

not fair. I met Scott

30:49

McNeil a and he told me I

30:51

was beautiful. Hell yeah,

30:53

okay, I do. That

30:56

was Piccolow from Dragon Ball

30:58

Z and all of my nineties

31:00

heroes hell yoh

31:03

okay. So, Jake, Norm

31:06

and Grace in their avatars

31:08

go into the forest. They encounter

31:11

some big, scary animals.

31:14

One chases Jake and he gets separated

31:16

from the others and lost in the forest. Then

31:19

he encounters a navvy woman

31:22

Natieri played by Zoey Soldanna,

31:24

who saves him from the

31:26

animals who were swarming him. But

31:29

she's really pissed. She's like, those animals

31:31

didn't need to die, but because you were

31:33

careless and flopping around like a baby,

31:36

I had to kill them. And

31:38

he's like, Oopsie, well

31:41

how about you teach me to be

31:43

better at this? And she's like, no, you suck.

31:45

But then the seeds of

31:47

the Sacred tree float down and

31:50

surround him as if to say he's

31:53

special, He's the chosen one. I

31:55

know, there's so many chosen one shots.

31:57

And then I've kind of always forget that. It culminate

32:00

in like and also, Jake Sully can kind

32:02

of talk to God and she listens

32:05

to him. What God

32:08

answers to Jake Sully,

32:10

what are you talking about? Atlantis

32:13

Morrissette would never talk

32:15

about. Also, Zoe

32:18

Seldana just like one thousand

32:21

percent, just embodies

32:23

this character like she's the best.

32:25

She's the best actress in the movie. I

32:28

love, like just the physical performance,

32:31

the way she moves, the way she the

32:34

way she hisses like a cat. Yes,

32:37

she's so good. They said that she was

32:40

a former ballet dancer, so

32:42

she was able to do like all the stunt work

32:44

and stuff like yeah,

32:47

because she was in that movie that

32:49

we covered and it was called Center

32:51

Stage. Yes, yeah, that was like

32:53

her big debut. Yeah, I forgot

32:56

that she was Yeah, Jews dance trained

32:59

man. So he sail. Donna also on

33:01

a hot streak because she's also in the Star

33:03

Trek movie this year and Guardians

33:06

of the and yeah, like she's queen

33:08

a sci fi she's in a lot of space

33:10

movies. Yeah, she's She's also in the Britney

33:13

Spears classic Cross Crossroads.

33:16

Yes, I did not know that true

33:19

story. I feel like I feel like DNA

33:21

would prefer it that way. It's

33:24

not a very good movie written by Shonda Rhymes

33:26

though. Okay,

33:28

So Natieri takes Jake to Home

33:31

Tree where the Navi live.

33:34

We meet her father. Yes,

33:39

I know that with him as soon as I saw him, Like

33:41

he just has a very distinct looking face,

33:43

even before I even knew he was in the movie. It's

33:45

like as soon as it was like, okay, native coded

33:48

characters, they need a chief

33:50

there. He is beautiful

33:52

man. Yeah yea.

33:55

So he's the clan leader. And

33:57

we also meet Natieri's

33:59

mother, their Mowatt, played by cc H

34:02

pounder Um. She's there like

34:04

spiritual leader the Sahik.

34:07

She's incredible. She is the best looking

34:09

one. I love her design. Her design

34:11

is awesome. First of all, that was so Mowatt

34:14

is the only character in the film

34:16

that passes the Ali Nati test, oh

34:19

because she never falls in love with a white man and

34:22

she doesn't die and all that

34:24

other good ship. But

34:27

yeah, so she Uh. Usually

34:30

in stories like this, there is never a chief's

34:32

wife, like there's

34:35

usually the chief's daughter, the Indian

34:37

princess type, but you never

34:39

see like the spouse of the chief,

34:42

which is interesting because a lot of Native

34:45

society is not all but many

34:47

are matrilineal, so

34:50

the bloodline usually follows the

34:52

mother, so you never really

34:54

see a character quite like this anyways.

34:57

But then she just her

35:00

design is beautiful. I

35:02

just love how every aspect

35:04

of this character. You look at her

35:06

and it tells a story. I by

35:10

that she's the chief's wife, that she's

35:12

the spiritual leader. Um,

35:14

the fact that she's bilingual suggests

35:16

that she probably tried to be diplomatic

35:19

and then realized there's no salvaging

35:22

this. So you know, it's just such a

35:24

really interesting I wish we saw more

35:26

of her and less of Jake. I

35:29

like less of Jake on

35:31

the whole. I hope that the second movie really runs

35:34

with the whole concept of less

35:36

Jake. The trailers tell

35:38

us anything, though, I feel

35:41

like he's in the movie a lot sid Founder.

35:43

I didn't because I'm like, I don't know

35:45

anything about linguistics.

35:47

I'm I'm just a baby. I'm

35:50

seventeen years old. You're Jake Sully flopping

35:52

around in the forest. So

35:55

that's that I'm not that bad. But

35:59

but um in in that sideways

36:01

video that sort of unpacks

36:04

how you know, this movie invested in

36:06

building an entire language, kind of Elvish

36:08

style, and like hired a

36:11

dialect coach to teach each

36:13

actor um how to speak

36:15

Navi and speak it correctly. I

36:18

guess C. C. H. Pounder is like the m

36:20

v P of speaking Navy in

36:22

a way that it was like very authentic and

36:24

convincing. And there's like a whole sequence of like

36:27

how she I don't know, it's really cool

36:29

cool anyway, shoutout

36:32

C. H. Pounder. Hell yeah, shout out.

36:35

Okay. So most of the nov are hostile

36:38

towards Jake, understandably they see

36:40

him as an outsider. But Ma

36:42

Watt says that Jake

36:45

Sully should learn their ways because she's

36:47

like she interprets the will of a

36:49

wa, which is their deity. So

36:52

Mo Wat's like, Okay, you can learn our

36:54

ways and NATII, you're

36:56

going to be the one to teach him, which she's

36:59

not thrilled about. Back

37:01

in human world, everyone is

37:04

thrilled that Jake has gotten so close

37:06

to the Navy grace for

37:08

like science and anthropological

37:11

reasons. And Parker because

37:14

under the Navy palm tree is one of the

37:16

largest obtanium deposits on

37:19

the whole planet um

37:21

and so he's giving Jake three months

37:23

to convince the Navy to

37:25

move so that they can come and steal the

37:28

unobtainium. Otherwise bulldozers

37:30

will go in and destroy the place. So

37:34

back in Avatar body, Jake

37:36

begins to learn the culture

37:39

and customs of the Navy.

37:41

Also, they call themselves omata kaya,

37:44

so I'll like probably use those words

37:46

interchangeably from now on.

37:49

Although they refer to themselves, they never referred

37:51

to themselves as the Navy. Is that correct. I

37:54

think it's part of their language. Yeah,

37:56

Because there's a scene where she's yelling

37:59

and I here not be I

38:01

wonder if it's like their word for like people

38:04

maybe or something, because I think is

38:07

the name of their clan, their clan, Okay,

38:10

because I think other yeah, other like

38:12

regional clans are referenced later

38:15

on when they're building their

38:17

the army against against

38:19

Mr. Military. Yes, Stephen

38:24

Lan, Yeah, I love when Stephen

38:26

Lan dies. It's so exciting. Okay.

38:28

So, because they refer to themselves as amata

38:31

kaya, all from this point on

38:33

use that um to refer to

38:36

them. So Jake learns

38:38

how to ride this

38:40

horse like creature, and

38:43

Naterie explains that he needs

38:45

to form a bond called

38:48

sahlu with the creature,

38:51

which is the like. So

38:53

they all the Amakaya people

38:56

have this long braid and at the end of the braid

38:58

are these how would doc

39:01

Yeah, tentacles more or less little like

39:03

nerve endings.

39:06

It's very um, You're just like James

39:08

Cameron. It's what

39:10

are you thinking about in that big old house? That's

39:14

what he was saying. Can't

39:18

girls and tentacles? I'm just saying, really,

39:23

it's so funny. I'm like, I wouldn't even say that's

39:25

him knowing his audience. I think that's him broadening

39:27

his audience. So

39:30

it's like, well, fuck the horse with your

39:33

tentacle braid. Yeah,

39:36

and that's how you create this meaningful bond with

39:39

animals and trees and um,

39:41

basically any living thing on Pandora. There's

39:44

also this flying animal, the Akron, but

39:47

he's not ready to form

39:49

a halu with one of

39:51

those yet, because this is like advanced

39:54

stuff, advanced tentacle sex.

39:58

He's not ready for its. It advanced hantai

40:01

Hanti two one is yeah,

40:06

but he is learning the language, he's learning

40:08

how to hunt, he's learning how to see

40:10

things from an omata kaya perspective.

40:13

He learns about the deity Awa and

40:16

eventually Natteri deems

40:18

him ready to try to form this

40:21

bond with an Ikron, which

40:23

he successfully does. Also

40:26

side note, there is an alpha version

40:28

of the Akron, but it's very very

40:30

rare for anyone to bond and fly

40:33

with one, so just put a little pin

40:35

in that. It's like the guy Fieri iron

40:39

like. It's got flames

40:41

on this side like it's

40:44

the cool He's very big,

40:46

you can tell because he's got flames.

40:50

Oh, speaking of cat like creatures,

40:53

Ali's cat just showed up. Heard the call

40:58

ah Piku, I

41:00

too would like to learn about the cats,

41:04

the fellow dragon fucking cats. Okay,

41:08

so Jake and Naterie

41:11

they fly together and also

41:13

they flirt together. Nobody

41:18

asked for this, and yet I'm kind

41:20

of rooting for them. There I said

41:22

it, you weren't. That was I was honestly

41:25

brave to say, because no one

41:27

else did. I feel like at every turn, you're

41:29

just like Nigeria can do

41:33

better so much among these

41:35

faceless navi that do we know

41:38

that it's such a large population, Like, surely,

41:40

surely someone's here that isn't

41:42

Jake Sully. But I feel like, you know, in in

41:44

the in the real world, we often end

41:46

up with the Jake Sullies of the world. Told

41:50

me about it. You never think it's going to be you. The

41:52

worst part is that the guy she's hooked

41:54

up with, the one who is going to be the next clan leader,

41:57

his name Suite. Those

41:59

two they're like betrothed.

42:02

I guess they become a mated

42:04

pair eventually, but you

42:07

don't really see them interact much at

42:09

all, Like they really don't have much

42:11

of a relationship, which is

42:13

unfortunate because the actor is super

42:15

hot, and yet they give my man

42:18

this fucking atrocious hairline

42:20

and these tiny ears and

42:22

these any bodies small nipples.

42:26

I want to like you, but shit, I

42:30

mean, las Alonzo is gorgeous.

42:33

They did him so dirty. They didn't

42:35

pretty dirty, I don't. I mean, there's like, I think

42:37

the element of Jak and Dyteri's love story

42:40

that worked for me, although I was

42:42

like a little unclear on what

42:45

the Navvy mating practices

42:47

work because it was like, yeah, they referenced that you

42:50

would be betrothed, you didn't have a say

42:52

in who you married. But then it's

42:54

like, I guess they just didn't really go into it.

42:57

I'm sure it's in one of my many Navvy guide books

42:59

that I have back in Los Angeles,

43:01

but I am not there right now, so I

43:03

couldn't consult my

43:05

my small avatar library that I manically

43:08

purchased second hand. Please don't judge me,

43:10

okay, um, but I

43:13

think that the element of the Jake and Naterry love

43:15

story that worked for me was like her choosing

43:18

Like that was cool, That's what I

43:20

liked to Yeah, and even Jake

43:22

Sully was like and she must choose

43:24

me because he's an Australian. She's

43:28

like she already has

43:31

kiss You're right, Yeah,

43:36

that's the part. I like, let's fatantical six then,

43:40

but yeah, Jake is a romantic partner? Is

43:42

um? No? Thanks pass? Okay,

43:46

So back in human world. Jake is

43:48

having an identity crisis because

43:50

he has gotten so immersed in the Omakayah

43:53

way of life that he feels that

43:55

that's his real life and

43:58

him as a humans

44:00

like a dream. Basically, they say he stopped

44:03

showering. You're like, Jake, Yeah,

44:06

get it together, man, Seriously. He

44:08

is then officially made a member

44:11

of the Oma Takaya, so he is now

44:14

one of them. Can I just say

44:16

this takes place over three months?

44:18

I know this motherfucker

44:20

becomes the best navvy, the

44:22

best Indian ever in

44:25

three months. I don't want to hear anybody complain

44:27

about Ray from Star Wars ever again,

44:30

ever again? Where

44:33

was that energy for Jake? Selling? Yeah?

44:35

I found that hard to believe,

44:38

both that he could master a language

44:40

in three months and like just like master

44:42

all of the culture and customs, and

44:45

that the Alma Takaya people would so readily

44:47

accept him in such a short amount

44:49

of time. I was like, nothing adds up here, No

44:52

disconnected natives, Like obviously

44:54

not all natives are the same, but so many

44:56

disconnected natives who are

44:58

displaced because of colonization,

45:01

residential schools, foster care,

45:04

or just some growing off the reservation

45:07

like there's such an anxiety when

45:09

it comes to reconnecting to your

45:11

own people that the fact

45:13

that this dude who has

45:15

nothing to do with any of these people and

45:17

has no history with any of these people can just walk

45:20

right and be like oh yeah.

45:25

There's so many gross moments, like especially

45:27

once he becomes immersed

45:29

in like o Mentakaya culture, like where

45:32

he repeatedly is like I need

45:34

to speak and it's like, Jake,

45:36

you don't, like you've just got

45:38

here my man, Like really shouldn't?

45:41

That, I would say is my biggest beef

45:44

with this movie. Yeah, Jake

45:46

is really taking up quite a bit of space

45:49

for being a guest, for

45:51

being a new, like a new random

45:54

white guy that is actively ruining

45:56

everyone's life, Like yeah,

46:00

fucking Jake Sully. But he's one

46:02

of them now. And um he

46:04

gets to choose a mate and he

46:06

chooses nay Tieri and she's like, I choose you back,

46:08

and then they kiss and

46:11

have tentacle sex under

46:13

a tree. It's kind of hot. It's confusing,

46:16

you're corny.

46:19

James Cameron knows how to make a sex

46:21

scene that will even

46:24

if you don't like it, it's going to stick with you. It's

46:26

good, you're gonna be thinking about

46:28

it. I remember when I thought that scene

46:30

was so weird when I saw it for the

46:32

first time, and then I a

46:34

couple of years later, I started playing mass

46:37

Effect and the Love of my

46:39

Life is this cricket

46:41

looking dinosaur, fucking

46:44

alien man with a very nice

46:46

voice, So it's not weird.

46:49

Yeah, his pictures in there. If you want to

46:52

check your the Google duck like

46:54

I do. I do want to check Wait

46:57

what page? Page

46:59

twenty the very top

47:02

is the Love of my life? Oh

47:06

my god. Okay, he's kind of hot, adores

47:10

you. It's kind of got a Mr. Darcy vibe

47:12

to like, he's

47:14

complicated, but I can get through to him.

47:16

His code name is Archangel. Oh

47:19

my good. Okay.

47:24

So Jake and Nati are smooching

47:27

and they fall asleep together

47:29

and the next morning a huge bulldozer

47:31

comes crashing into the tree where they're at

47:34

and Naterian Jake have to run away.

47:37

Colonel Quaritch and Parker,

47:40

the two big bads of the movie, realized

47:42

that Jake is trying to sabotage their mission,

47:44

and they are piste and they're

47:46

about to go back in guns blazing, and

47:49

Jake is like stop, let me talk to them

47:52

and see if I can negotiate something here.

47:54

A detail that I didn't really

47:56

think about that I appreciated on this

47:59

uh one was that Grace

48:03

knew the whole time, like she was able to figure

48:05

out very I feel like a lesser script

48:07

would have been like and she had no idea

48:09

because women can't brain.

48:12

But I like that she figures

48:14

out because that is like logical, Like

48:16

he is a marine first, um

48:19

so, and he's around the two most

48:21

evil people ever all the time, and so she's

48:23

like, oh, I need to get him out of here because

48:25

like I need the information he can get me.

48:27

And of course he's going to go with these

48:30

guys because that is like his kind

48:32

of degree or whatever. Yeah,

48:35

he hates science and he's not he's

48:37

he's refused to mourn his brother, so he's

48:39

kind of a loose cannon. He forgot

48:42

all about his brother. Yeah,

48:44

never hear about him ever? Again, what was his

48:47

name? Even do we ever? Commy? We

48:49

do learn his name? Tommy Sully?

48:51

Horrible, horrible, pouring

48:54

one out for Tommy Sully tonight, Jeeves,

48:58

just why not Sullivan? Why not? Anyway?

49:02

Shout out to your character Sully though from

49:05

Santa University. I it's

49:08

look, he's coming back this year because

49:10

it's you're the Sully, Thank you so

49:13

much? All right,

49:15

so so bad guys are about to go back

49:17

in, guns blazing, and Jake's like,

49:19

let me talk to them, so he goes back in.

49:22

But NACKTII is like, what

49:24

you knew this would happen? I trusted

49:26

you and you betrayed us. Favorite

49:29

scene in the movie. Favorite scene I talked

49:31

about this and Frozen too, but I'll

49:33

say it again. Uh, this was the point

49:36

in the movie where I was like, Okay,

49:39

this can only go one of two ways. If

49:41

it goes one way, I hate this movie and

49:43

it is the worst thing ever made. If

49:45

it goes the other way, I

49:47

love this movie. It's the best thing that's

49:50

ever been made. I feel

49:52

differently now. The stakes are very high,

49:54

but literally, like I said earlier too,

49:57

it's all like in movies like this and stories

49:59

like this, especially with a character like

50:01

this, it's you know, oh, well, we

50:03

can reach something peaceful because

50:05

I love him and he loves me, and love

50:08

saves love consol racism,

50:10

and it doesn't. So what it is

50:12

is you knew this was happening,

50:15

and We're gonna lose our

50:18

home. People are going

50:20

to die, and we trusted

50:22

you. You shouldn't even be here and

50:25

we've already trusted you. And Zoey sell Donna's

50:28

emotional just rage

50:30

in that scene was so good

50:33

and I'm like, good, you fucking kill his

50:35

ass, like yeah, and she

50:38

leaves him for dead because she leaves dead.

50:40

I love that she leaves him for dead. Perfect

50:42

because they tie Jake and Grace up

50:44

to a tree knowing that the bulldozers

50:47

like on its way and like missiles

50:49

are coming, so leaves

50:51

him for dead. The military shows up

50:53

to fire at home Tree, but

50:55

then Moa is like, you

50:58

know what, Jake, if you are one of us,

51:00

help us, So she sets him free conflictive

51:03

feelings about the home tree is destroyed.

51:06

It's absolutely devastating. I'm crying.

51:09

And Natieri's father is

51:11

killed among others in this attack.

51:13

Someone brought up how despite

51:16

how anti military and anti

51:18

imperialist Avatar tries to be, they did

51:20

kill the only native actor

51:23

in the movie. I'm like, you're

51:25

not wrong. That

51:28

scene was sad, though I love with

51:30

study and Zoey's performance

51:32

again just so

51:35

sad because Jake Sulley is once again

51:37

trying to insert himself into one

51:39

of the most personal moments one

51:41

can have, and it's I

51:44

think one of the things that has I don't

51:46

I mean, I don't remember how I felt about anything

51:48

when I was seventeen. Probably incorrectly it's

51:51

safety, but I do

51:53

think that the movie obviously

51:55

there's a shipload of stuff calling

51:57

on. It's like we're approaching the climax of the movie.

51:59

But wish that they took

52:02

more time to dwell on

52:04

that loss, because we

52:07

lose this amazing character.

52:10

It is this really really moving, well

52:12

performed moment, and then we

52:14

kind of don't revisit it, and

52:17

it's I mean, obviously everyone's in crisis,

52:19

but it's like it would have been nice to see, you

52:21

know, like her mother's reaction, to see the community's

52:24

reaction. But we get way more airtime to

52:26

like we have to save Grace, which

52:28

is like, sure, Grace is a great character, but

52:30

why are we focusing on a white lady we've

52:32

known for like a couple, you know, months,

52:35

versus like our leader,

52:37

Yeah, like your parent that

52:40

like your parents. Oh my god,

52:43

I could not like having lost

52:45

a parent. I promise I won't cry anymore. But

52:47

having lost a parent, Like there's

52:50

no forgiving someone if they get your

52:53

dad killed, you know what I mean? Like how

52:56

I get it, Like I get it

52:58

as well, like find out later

53:00

with the Toroka and everything and the story

53:02

and but even so,

53:04

I mean two things can exist at once,

53:06

man, and you killed my dad. You know,

53:09

I'm I fuck this,

53:11

fuck you because

53:14

I didn't mention this, and yet I don't think.

53:16

But Jake Selly has been feeding

53:18

information about like the tree,

53:21

the home tree, to Colonel Quaritch,

53:23

So he's like gathering this intel

53:26

that he's now able to use against

53:29

the Omakaya people in this attack.

53:31

So he's evil. So then

53:33

Jake finds Nteri in the

53:36

rubble as she's mourning the death

53:38

of her father. She wants nothing to do

53:40

with him. She's like, get away, never come back. Then

53:43

the military bad guys

53:45

pull the plug on Jake and Grace

53:48

and so they wake up in their human bodies. They

53:51

put them plus Norm in

53:53

a holding cell. But Trudy

53:55

remember her, she's in the movie.

53:58

She she would the equip about every

54:00

forty minutes, and you're like, um,

54:04

she breaks them out of prison and they

54:06

get in Trudy's ship and escape this

54:08

military base, and they head to the Tree

54:10

of Souls, which is the amatokaia is

54:13

most sacred place um

54:15

where they have relocated and

54:18

Jake needs to prove his worth to be able

54:20

to rejoin them, so he forges

54:23

a bond with the Alpha Akron,

54:25

the

54:27

the one that has like spinners on

54:29

the wheels. I just kept thinking it was like

54:31

the coolest car ever. He's

54:34

got a spoiler on the back. Yeah.

54:36

Um. So Jake shows

54:39

up with the torok

54:41

at the Tree of Souls. He pulls up,

54:43

he pulls up. Yeah, he kind of tokyo

54:46

drifts into the I

54:49

mean, if we have Michelle Rodriguez of the movie and everything

54:51

exactly. Um, and everyone

54:53

reveres him now and Nati is

54:56

like, maybe you're okay

54:58

again instant forgive nous. Yeah.

55:02

And then during the escape earlier, Grace was shot,

55:05

so the Omakaya tried

55:07

to save her by transferring her consciousness

55:09

permanently to her avatar her

55:11

Oatcaia body, but she's

55:13

too weak and she dies. But

55:16

she dies at peace. Yes,

55:18

it's a really good scene. Yeah, it's

55:20

very touching, for sure. It's nice. And I

55:22

also like, again it just like I feel like a lot of

55:24

movies would have not had

55:27

the courage to kill her off, especially like a

55:29

big but it's like, no one can die

55:31

in franchise movies now

55:33

because not now. But James Cameron is

55:36

not shy about killing people off. So

55:38

oh, get yeah, you're we're about to see a lot of

55:40

colonizers get squished. That

55:45

Jake gives the biggest, dumbest

55:47

speech, but ID

55:51

it's cringe, but I dig it. Yeah,

55:53

it's cringe, but I dig it. And the reason

55:55

I dig it is because this

55:58

is where the Pocahonas and space Trope

56:00

just goes to die. Because

56:03

again, you know, especially with

56:05

a character like this, a story

56:07

like this, it's always our love can

56:09

save the day and peace

56:11

and understanding, and this is no, we

56:14

are beyond that. Now we have

56:16

to fight. Now they need to fucking leave.

56:19

And that never happens in movies

56:21

like this, where it's like pieces not an option.

56:24

We are hell and gone from diplomacy. You have

56:26

to fucking go. And you never see

56:28

this in like movies about

56:30

indigenous people, let alone

56:33

movies about indigenous people

56:35

by non indigenous people, like

56:38

especially rich white dudes

56:40

in the film industry. So yeah, because

56:42

it's them trying to rewrite history. To be

56:44

like, no, we it was

56:46

so peaceful when we came here and colonized

56:48

people and murdered them. Yeah.

56:51

One of my one of my grandma's was a princess,

56:53

was anobby. She

56:55

plugged her tail into my dad, did

56:59

she though? Yeah,

57:01

that that's a very James Camerony moment.

57:04

And it's also like, I

57:06

don't know, like I always truggle with Like, I

57:08

totally agree with you, Ali, and I think it's like it

57:11

is a really unusual subversion

57:13

in a movie of this scale to to

57:15

do. And then it's also like why Jake Sully,

57:18

like of all people, when he's

57:20

like, this is our land, It's like it's our

57:23

our land, not your your

57:27

say this is your land, Jake,

57:29

you just got here. It

57:32

would have been cool if he said this is your land. I don't know.

57:34

So yeah, So Jake is rallying the

57:37

Oma Takaya to launch an attack against

57:39

the humans or the sky people

57:42

as he calls them as if he's not one

57:44

of them, but um,

57:47

Colonel Quaritch and the

57:49

humans are planning a preemptive counterattack

57:53

with their you know, more advanced weaponry

57:55

and their aircrafts and missiles and all of

57:57

that. So Jake goes and pray

58:00

is to Awa for help. The Awa

58:02

scene with it's just Jake Sally is

58:04

like so embarrassing all the time. So

58:06

he goes to Awa to pray

58:09

essentially, And I did think it was

58:12

kind of funny how that scene and where

58:14

Natia comes in and she's like, yeah, that's like not

58:16

how this works, and Jake's like, oh man,

58:19

well it was worth a dry and

58:22

then she's like, okay, let's go to bed.

58:25

That's like the scene, but then

58:27

it ends up working like but then,

58:29

yeah, God is listening to Jake Sally,

58:32

I think not. I think not.

58:35

Atlantis morsets in the tree like

58:37

all right, okay, just this once. Let's

58:40

hear this Australian guy out. Let's

58:43

see. So the

58:45

next morning, the humans come

58:47

to the mountains with you know, their

58:49

heavy firepower, but the Alma

58:51

Takaya have the hometown advantage

58:54

and they have Jake as Turuk

58:57

makto um because he's

58:59

on the big pterodactyl with

59:01

flames on the side convertible.

59:04

Yeah, so he is in charge

59:08

and there's a long battle and eventually

59:10

it seems like all hope is lost for

59:13

Jake and the tie and the Amatacaya

59:16

and Trudy who shows up to help, and

59:18

Norm, who's fighting with them,

59:21

has a gun. It's

59:24

silly. It's like, why are we letting

59:26

Norm have a gun? He's not contributing.

59:28

Come on, Norm's

59:33

an indoor kid, Like, what's

59:35

he doing here? So

59:38

Quarich is headed towards

59:40

the Tree of Souls to destroy it, but

59:42

then the big animals from

59:45

earlier in the movie come charging

59:47

in and they drive out the bad

59:49

guys. Seems as though Awa

59:52

has answered Jake's prayer,

59:54

and so the Almatacaya get the upper hand and

59:57

there's a final showdown between quar Rich and

1:00:00

Jake and the Tiri and they

1:00:02

defeat Karrich and a Ti gets

1:00:04

like the killing blow. Two

1:00:07

killing blows were also forgotten

1:00:09

on the re release that she gets. She gets him

1:00:11

twice just to be sure. Yeah,

1:00:14

it's so satisfying. I love it when the James

1:00:16

Horner that she

1:00:20

pulls up. It's

1:00:22

good. The movie feels like a movie

1:00:25

when I'm watching. That's

1:00:27

so good. And then

1:00:30

the Alma Takaya send the humans

1:00:32

home and the movie ends with

1:00:35

Jake's consciousness being transferred

1:00:37

to his avatar to

1:00:40

make him permanently one of the

1:00:42

Alma Takaya the and

1:00:46

so let's take another quick break and we will

1:00:49

come back to discuss and

1:00:57

then we're back. Okay,

1:01:00

Ali, where would you like to start a

1:01:03

preference? Where do we begin? There's

1:01:05

so much, there's so much to say.

1:01:08

Uh, okay, how about we

1:01:11

begin with any

1:01:13

questions you might have for me? Well,

1:01:18

so we already we touched on a

1:01:20

lot of the criticisms

1:01:22

that I think we're going to have against

1:01:25

this movie already during the recap.

1:01:27

But yeah, I mean, for

1:01:29

me, the big thing is, you've

1:01:33

got this like white guy

1:01:35

who like appropriates

1:01:38

the body of an indigenous person

1:01:41

comes in. He's flopping

1:01:43

around and they're like, no,

1:01:45

no, no, You're the chosen one though, and

1:01:48

it doesn't make sense, but he's

1:01:50

the chosen one. He doesn't have imposter syndrome

1:01:53

for one single second, which

1:01:56

I guess is very white guy of him. He

1:01:58

has a very inflated ego about the whole

1:02:00

thing. Yeah, but yeah, it is. It is

1:02:02

like a white savior top

1:02:05

to bottom. So the question, so

1:02:07

my question is what in

1:02:10

a in a movie with a similar premise

1:02:13

where you know, like white capitalist

1:02:15

colonizers come in and

1:02:18

are trying to colonize

1:02:20

and steal the land and still

1:02:23

the resources of Indigenous people. What

1:02:26

is a version of this story or

1:02:28

what changes would you make or

1:02:30

do you think could be made to eliminate

1:02:34

the issues that we see in Avatar? Okay,

1:02:37

So I've thought about this a lot, because a

1:02:39

lot of the issues stem

1:02:42

back to Jake, like massively,

1:02:45

for all the reasons that we suggested,

1:02:48

I feel like, even if if

1:02:50

nothing else were to change about the film, and it would

1:02:52

have been the exact same movie and

1:02:54

the exact same steaks and everything as

1:02:57

problematic as it was, if

1:02:59

someone like Adam Beach or

1:03:02

Anthony Mackie or a

1:03:05

character of color, specifically

1:03:07

a disabled and

1:03:10

preferably an Indigenous actor

1:03:13

playing Jake instead, I

1:03:15

feel like it would have had more gravity.

1:03:17

As much as I like Sigourney Weaver's character,

1:03:20

she's so sympathetic to the

1:03:23

knobby that I was

1:03:25

like, okay, but scientists,

1:03:28

unfortunately, are not

1:03:30

that sympathetic to Indigenous people.

1:03:32

They're the ones that are stealing

1:03:35

their remains and putting them in the Smithsonian

1:03:37

against people's wishes and stuff, you

1:03:40

know, or conducting the research

1:03:43

to prove that you know, Sami

1:03:45

people aren't human enough or

1:03:47

not as advanced enough as like Swedish

1:03:49

or Finnish people. You know, so

1:03:52

if you were going to have that character like

1:03:55

the Scientists character, if

1:03:58

she were indigenous, if she were played by Tantu

1:04:00

Cardinal or even Irene

1:04:02

Bedard Roads go back to Pocontas,

1:04:06

or even like if you wanted

1:04:09

someone sassy but smart

1:04:12

and you know, still had that ferocity.

1:04:14

Even Jennifer Pademski would

1:04:17

have been perfect in that part. I think,

1:04:19

be great. She would have been great. She's

1:04:21

hilarious and she's badass,

1:04:24

because I think that that would have been an interesting

1:04:27

subversion because

1:04:29

her school in the movie. That was

1:04:31

another thing. And Connor

1:04:34

Beard was talking about this on TikTok.

1:04:36

He was talking about how Avatar has

1:04:39

many problems. He's from the Lumbi

1:04:42

tribe, and he said

1:04:45

specifically that the school being

1:04:47

used as a positive in

1:04:49

the film is kind of toned off, if

1:04:52

not really offensive, because residential

1:04:55

schools were so bad

1:04:57

too native children and

1:05:00

they aren't in this movie. And

1:05:02

I feel like that was probably just to bridge

1:05:04

the communication error,

1:05:07

you know what I mean, like or the conflict or

1:05:09

you know, it's like we need we need to be able to talk

1:05:11

to these people. They need to be able to blah blah

1:05:13

blah. But like what

1:05:16

if it was Tantu Cardinal and

1:05:18

she was teaching them a nish nabe mowen instead

1:05:21

of English or along with English.

1:05:23

So it's like, you know, we can communicate

1:05:26

a little more privately and

1:05:29

not in a language that would like front

1:05:31

you off in front of the real bad guys

1:05:33

or something, you know, because then that would be subversion.

1:05:36

That would also be kind of decolonizing that

1:05:39

sort of premise

1:05:42

of the school if you were going

1:05:44

to have that, because if they want to

1:05:46

come in and like actually

1:05:48

engage in some kind of diplomacy,

1:05:51

why is it, oh, we have to teach you English

1:05:53

so that you can communicate with me versus

1:05:55

and to be fair grace like does

1:05:58

no Navi And like the other sidecientists

1:06:00

seemed too as well. And I wonder

1:06:02

if that was just almost a choice to be like, well,

1:06:05

we don't want to have too much of the movie

1:06:07

in a language other than English, because

1:06:10

that Holly Mr. Hollywood thinks that

1:06:12

that tends to put off American

1:06:15

letters audiences,

1:06:18

So like we have to as much as possible

1:06:20

have the nov or have the omata kaya

1:06:23

speak English. So I wonder

1:06:25

if like that's just how they justify But then

1:06:27

but like to have it be like they set up

1:06:29

a school to teach Indigenous children

1:06:31

English, Like you said, Ali, the historical

1:06:34

parallels to that are atrocious,

1:06:36

and it doesn't seem like the filmmakers considered

1:06:38

the implications of making that

1:06:40

choice. That was like something

1:06:43

that popped for me this time where it's

1:06:45

like the there's no like even

1:06:48

even with Grace, because I feel like Grace is

1:06:50

and the science and you know, Norm, Dr

1:06:53

Max, etcetera. Are are all

1:06:55

presented pretty uncritically

1:06:57

as good guys. But

1:07:00

on this rewatch specifically like with Bechdel

1:07:02

goggles on your like this actually like the

1:07:05

movie should be far more kind

1:07:07

of interrogating what it is they're doing, because it's

1:07:09

like Grace is also appropriating

1:07:12

an Indigenous body, Like she's doing

1:07:14

that consistently, and the ethics of

1:07:16

that are not questioned, um

1:07:19

by any of the characters in the

1:07:21

movie. It's like, because she's not giving

1:07:24

information to the kernel,

1:07:27

it's made to seem like, well, so what she's doing is

1:07:29

above board. But it's like if if she's starting

1:07:32

you know, the equivalent of a

1:07:34

residential school on Pandora,

1:07:37

there's no reciprocity where it's like

1:07:39

the nov don't have an opportunity

1:07:41

to to you know, it all

1:07:43

takes place on Pandora because that is

1:07:45

where the humans interests lie is like mining

1:07:48

these natural resources. And

1:07:50

Grace is absolutely complicitly

1:07:53

in that, Like she knows that to the point

1:07:55

where she is able to, you

1:07:57

know, predict that Jake

1:08:00

is going to leak information to

1:08:02

the colonel and she gets them out of there, which

1:08:04

puts a band aid on the problem. But she's

1:08:06

still aware of exactly what's happening, and

1:08:08

she's you know, she has like some quips

1:08:11

and she's she you know, doesn't

1:08:13

seem to agree with it, but she

1:08:15

she's participating. She's a willing participant and that

1:08:18

is not really interrogated at all. Yeah,

1:08:20

that's right. I agree. And uh, my

1:08:24

friend Aaronnach, who's wonderful,

1:08:27

Uh, they have a really wonderful YouTube

1:08:29

channel. We were talking about this because

1:08:31

I was sharing my notes and I was trying not

1:08:33

to share my deeper notes, just

1:08:35

more like, oh, look this funny thing I

1:08:37

said, you know, while I'm doing

1:08:39

research. But they

1:08:42

said, they're like, I think this film is so forgettable

1:08:44

because it almost does something

1:08:46

worthy of note and then went, well, how can

1:08:49

we make a white guy the hero and the weirdest

1:08:51

way possible? And I'm like, yeah,

1:08:53

that's the biggest failing

1:08:55

of this film is that Jake

1:08:57

is in it,

1:09:00

just because it feels like

1:09:02

Natari should be the hero. Absolute

1:09:06

like if you're going to have the school and stuff

1:09:08

like that in it, I mean, like, why couldn't

1:09:11

it begin with nat Terry being

1:09:13

a student in the school and then seeing

1:09:16

her sister be murdered like they say happens

1:09:18

in the deleted scenes and stuff, and then

1:09:21

becoming disillusion and disenfranchised

1:09:24

with this idea of

1:09:26

diplomacy, you know, because

1:09:28

there is no diplomatic way

1:09:30

to forcibly relocate people that's genocide.

1:09:33

Like that's exactly I love. I mean,

1:09:35

I love what you're talking about in terms

1:09:38

of casting native actors

1:09:40

um on the human side of the conflict,

1:09:42

because that doesn't happen. And I feel like that problem

1:09:45

scales up to what you were

1:09:47

discussing at the beginning of the episode,

1:09:49

which is like that would be

1:09:51

an incredible, like I think, a far more

1:09:54

impactful way to tell this story and

1:09:56

also probably not a

1:09:58

story that James Cameron has any business

1:10:00

writing. And so it's again, it's

1:10:02

like a resources thing of like, you

1:10:04

know, who is getting the opportunities. James

1:10:07

Cameron's using his own playbook to try

1:10:09

to tell this story, but he's

1:10:12

limited and what he can do, I

1:10:14

don't know. It's very outsider's perspective.

1:10:17

And the way that Dances with Wolves

1:10:20

was um but but

1:10:22

to Dances with Wolves credit the

1:10:25

native characters in that movie

1:10:27

are flushed out way more than the Navy are

1:10:29

in Avatar. It's like

1:10:32

when I watched Dances with Wolves when I was very

1:10:34

young. I really liked the movie because there

1:10:36

was kind of a Catharsis of I

1:10:39

don't like Kevin Costner and I don't really

1:10:41

look like Kevin Costner, but to

1:10:43

see someone who kind of looks

1:10:45

like me being accepted

1:10:48

in a group of people who look

1:10:50

like my dad, you know, was

1:10:53

kind of like really special. And

1:10:56

especially with the stands with the Fisk character.

1:10:59

But even then, it's like Graham

1:11:01

Green's character, who is a holy

1:11:03

man in that movie. He's

1:11:06

hilarious, he's wonderful, he's dignified,

1:11:08

he's open to communication, but he's also

1:11:11

like, you know, why is this

1:11:13

guy rolling around on the

1:11:15

ground with like that thing on his shirt?

1:11:17

And then the other native character

1:11:19

whose name I forgot, but he's

1:11:22

very much like this dude's fucking crazy.

1:11:25

Let's leave, you know, and I'm

1:11:27

not afraid of you. You know, like

1:11:30

the time spent in the village, what

1:11:32

those characters are more sympathetic

1:11:35

and interesting. You really

1:11:37

don't get that an avatar,

1:11:40

no matter how sympathetic or understanding they're

1:11:42

trying to be, because like, does

1:11:44

NATTERI have brothers and sisters?

1:11:46

Does she have friends? Does she have

1:11:49

anties? Like you just nothing

1:11:52

know so little, to the point where like her

1:11:55

parents are important characters,

1:11:58

but I only mentioned each

1:12:00

of them like twice in the recap,

1:12:02

and I so like they're just they're not

1:12:05

that They're pretty

1:12:07

secondary honestly to this

1:12:09

story. And it's really only Naterie who

1:12:13

we get any real insight into. And

1:12:15

despite Zowey Sodanna's incredible performance,

1:12:18

we still don't get that much about her

1:12:20

backstory, about her life.

1:12:22

We know a little bit about what is in store

1:12:24

for her future. Um, she's

1:12:27

going to take over the role as like spiritual

1:12:29

leader for her mother, but like, we

1:12:32

don't know that much. And then speaking

1:12:34

of speaking of indigenous

1:12:36

actors playing characters, so

1:12:39

the actors who play the

1:12:42

Alma Takaya characters. Um

1:12:45

of the ones who get speaking roles,

1:12:47

they're mostly black actors, except with

1:12:50

one exception of West Study, who plays

1:12:52

Naterie's father, A Tookan. He

1:12:56

is an actor of the

1:12:58

Cherokee Nation. But it

1:13:00

seems to me and correct me if I'm misinterpreting

1:13:03

this, but it feels like a lot of

1:13:05

the imagery and iconography

1:13:08

they're pulling from as far as just like cultural

1:13:11

things, historical things about

1:13:13

the Alma Takaya seem to be pulled

1:13:16

from indigenous people of Northern

1:13:18

America, So it feels weird

1:13:20

to not cast more Native

1:13:23

Americans in those roles.

1:13:26

And if they're playing a character that's

1:13:28

not even human, you

1:13:30

know, like if it's going to be indigenous

1:13:33

coded, then there's so many

1:13:35

indigenous people that you could reach out

1:13:37

to. You could cast Sami actors, you could

1:13:39

cast Maudi actors or why.

1:13:42

It could be the whole spectrum of indigenous

1:13:44

people, But it would be nice to see

1:13:46

them as humans. Took Well,

1:13:48

that's the thing. Is like on top of that, it's like,

1:13:51

how often like people

1:13:53

of color in general, but you know, specifically

1:13:55

Indigenous Americans are Indigenous

1:13:58

people in general, are like other in

1:14:01

I mean, this is like a pretty aggressive mothering

1:14:03

of I don't know. Yeah, we're

1:14:06

curiously science fiction. Yeah, yes,

1:14:08

exactly, especially since colonizers

1:14:12

use language and rhetoric against

1:14:14

indigenous people to justify

1:14:17

killing them and stealing from them.

1:14:20

And one of the ways they do that is to

1:14:22

reduce them or liken

1:14:24

them to animals,

1:14:27

and so to make the Almatya

1:14:30

have animal features, pentacle

1:14:33

porn cats. This is the mark,

1:14:36

just a bit the other thing. Okay,

1:14:38

so even back then, the

1:14:41

thing that makes me just cringe the most,

1:14:43

it's like, you you've got cat people, I

1:14:45

know their native coded Why

1:14:48

are they leallying? I mean, I know there's

1:14:50

an actual word for it. I just forgot what it is.

1:14:52

But it's where I'm going to move away from my mic.

1:14:54

It's, yes,

1:14:58

why why are they doing that?

1:15:01

They're cats? Right,

1:15:03

like they're cats. They

1:15:05

should be saying even

1:15:09

the even that thing that they do that,

1:15:12

you know what I mean, Like

1:15:15

it's yeah, I I saw a lot

1:15:17

of criticisms around the battle

1:15:19

cries that seemed kind of like randomly

1:15:22

and offensively selected for

1:15:24

the Omedicaiah, And yeah, I haven't seen

1:15:26

an effective argument against it, Like

1:15:28

it just seems like that was a straight up offensive,

1:15:31

lazy, shitty choice. It

1:15:34

just made me. I was like, oh, you

1:15:36

know, first time I saw it

1:15:38

too. Every time I see it, I'm like, oh, why

1:15:40

are you doing that? That's so strange. There's

1:15:43

a whole montage where it's like just that

1:15:45

over and over and over and over and

1:15:48

and and then the context of that scene is that

1:15:50

Jake Sully is randomly the

1:15:53

general now like that

1:15:55

was. He just shows up

1:15:58

on his large pterodactyl and

1:16:00

he's like, I'm the captain. We're

1:16:02

left to think that, like there is some

1:16:05

collaboration going on between Jake and Suit,

1:16:07

but it seems like at the end of the day, Jake is in charge

1:16:09

because Jake like walkie talkies

1:16:12

ton A ri at the peak of the

1:16:14

action, it says that's an order. I was like,

1:16:17

dude, you don't. You're not stop,

1:16:19

You're not in charge. You just got

1:16:22

here. You can't make an order. And

1:16:25

I mean, speaking of cat like features

1:16:28

of the Oma ta Kaya people,

1:16:31

there's I think a whole conversation around

1:16:34

their character design. I mean, there's

1:16:36

like a lot of things to unpack

1:16:39

as far as like lack

1:16:41

of body diversity, costume

1:16:44

design, skin color, just like everything

1:16:46

that encompasses the character

1:16:48

design of the Navy

1:16:50

or the Ama ta kaya. So friend

1:16:53

of the show, I just want a quickly shot. Friend

1:16:55

of the show Janish Meeting has

1:16:58

pointed this out for years, is

1:17:00

the lack of body diversity in avatar

1:17:02

characters. And it's also um because

1:17:04

she's the funniest person ever, like turned

1:17:07

it into a bit um where

1:17:09

she's like, I'm going to get cast as a Navy and the

1:17:11

game's gonna change, but like she's she

1:17:14

was the first person I heard talking about

1:17:17

that, because there already think so many like problematic

1:17:20

elements to the way the Navy are designed that that

1:17:22

sort of gets overlooked a lot

1:17:24

of the time. Well not only

1:17:27

that, um, elders play such

1:17:29

an important role in indigenous

1:17:31

community. So the fact that we don't really see

1:17:33

like an elderly navvy

1:17:36

character, you know other than the terries

1:17:38

parents or you know, like not

1:17:40

everyone in a society

1:17:43

like this is a warrior, you

1:17:45

know, So what do they

1:17:47

look like when they're not in like peak shape

1:17:50

all the time. And what

1:17:52

about the warriors who um,

1:17:55

you know get hurt or get injured or

1:17:57

are disabled or something, what they're

1:18:00

a bad hunt and the dinosaur

1:18:02

thing bite your arm off,

1:18:05

right, We don't see any of that, and

1:18:07

it would have been interesting to see Jake

1:18:09

like interact with some of those

1:18:11

veterans you know. Actually,

1:18:14

right, so many like overlaps

1:18:17

between Jake and Navy culture

1:18:19

that just just goes completely unexplored by this,

1:18:22

uh, by this movie, right,

1:18:24

Yeah. And then yeah, as far as like just the body

1:18:27

type, every single Navy

1:18:29

person has the same exact

1:18:31

body type, so they all have frog

1:18:34

butts. Theyll frog butts. There's

1:18:36

not a booty to be found. Well,

1:18:39

I think that that, Like I kind of wonder. I've

1:18:42

watched a lot of behind the scenes features

1:18:44

on this movie in the past, and I like, I know that

1:18:47

it's kind of tricky because in some ways, I want

1:18:49

to say that they're almost animated

1:18:51

characters. I know that it's motion capture.

1:18:53

So it's like it's either animation

1:18:55

trips we've talked about before where it's

1:18:58

like very rigid two

1:19:00

body types available, which I think

1:19:02

does kind of carry through this movie, or

1:19:05

it's a casting issue and they only cast

1:19:07

to body types. So either way, it's

1:19:10

you know, a fucking wash and you

1:19:13

know, like it just I don't know, it doesn't

1:19:15

just like reinforce um rigid

1:19:17

stereotypes we see all the time. It also like lessons

1:19:21

the richness of Pandora

1:19:23

because you're just like completely ali, like

1:19:25

what what are other people up to?

1:19:27

Like it? Can't they appear

1:19:30

to be thriving? You would think there are

1:19:32

other things and elements of this

1:19:34

culture that just are like not referenced

1:19:36

or explored at all. And don't cants

1:19:38

always have like that, you know, belly fat

1:19:41

that like flops the run

1:19:48

and they famously have eight

1:19:51

nipples, So why

1:19:53

don't they Alma Takaya have eight

1:19:56

nipples? They just have tentacles

1:19:58

nipples on the nipples scales, um.

1:20:03

And then as far as and this is something

1:20:05

I think we've touched on in different episodes

1:20:07

in the past, but there's a pretty um

1:20:11

a precedent has been set somewhere along the

1:20:13

line that in sci fi

1:20:15

and fantasy, especially

1:20:17

because these are the genres where you would usually

1:20:19

have like non human human

1:20:23

like characters. So

1:20:25

in this case, the Novi, the Alma Takaya

1:20:28

have blue skin. And this is something

1:20:30

we see a lot where um,

1:20:32

you know, like humanoid characters

1:20:34

who are coded as indigenous,

1:20:37

they're coded as people of color in general,

1:20:39

they will have blueskin,

1:20:42

green skin, purple skin, some

1:20:45

skin color that does not exist on

1:20:47

humans, and um,

1:20:50

just like kind of further others these

1:20:53

characters who are coded as people

1:20:55

of color. And I noticed that

1:20:57

this is something that happens a lot in

1:21:00

sci fi, where even if they

1:21:02

cast like an actress of color,

1:21:05

they usually cast her as an alien, like

1:21:08

even um Star Trek, which

1:21:10

is pretty diverse anyways. And

1:21:12

I'm referring to like the J. J. Abrams movies

1:21:14

because I am not a

1:21:17

tricky how Dare

1:21:19

You? Also starring Zoe's

1:21:21

Seldonna, but this time she gets to actually

1:21:23

have her actual skin, Carna skin.

1:21:26

But but Sophia Botella,

1:21:28

I think that's how you say her name. And the third

1:21:30

movie is an alien

1:21:33

with white skin, but

1:21:35

she looks awesome and she's great,

1:21:38

but you know, like it's

1:21:40

not her also, but

1:21:43

it's always held Donna, and like Guardians

1:21:45

of the Galaxy has

1:21:47

green skin, and uh, I

1:21:49

love costume and makeup designs

1:21:51

and stuff like that, especially when you're making monsters

1:21:54

like Doug Jones is a fucking g and

1:21:58

I love how Boy

1:22:00

and everything, but it is a trope

1:22:03

I've noticed like a lot, even

1:22:06

in Star Wars. It's like you get Lupetea n Ago

1:22:08

when you make her that ugly little alien. God

1:22:12

do it. I will never get over that.

1:22:15

I just like you did what

1:22:17

with that casting decision? You did

1:22:20

nothing, nothing with the casting decision,

1:22:22

the most beautiful, talented person

1:22:24

and you did what there.

1:22:26

I was, Yeah, I don't even give

1:22:29

a shit about Star Wars particularly, but I

1:22:31

was enraged to fight that. I

1:22:33

would also be curious to hear what listeners

1:22:35

think on that issue, because I don't know. I've

1:22:37

seen that point made about Zoe Salbanda's

1:22:40

career quite a bit of like her

1:22:42

too biggest or you know, I guess best

1:22:44

remembered roles. Although there are those

1:22:46

crossheads people out there, those

1:22:49

cross roads cross the cross Heads from

1:22:52

hell. Um,

1:22:54

Okay, two SIPs of Miller Lite and I'm I'm

1:22:57

cooked. Um. But

1:22:59

yeah, I like I I think

1:23:01

that that is like absolutely no accident.

1:23:04

And I wish that sci

1:23:06

fi were at a place where, like

1:23:09

you know, sci fi can be like in a really amazing place

1:23:11

to explore like more

1:23:14

diverse world. If you

1:23:16

have diverse voices, they're

1:23:18

also behind the camera, which is not really happening

1:23:20

in Avatar. And I

1:23:23

think the you always run the

1:23:26

risk of racial stereotyping anytime

1:23:28

you code non human species

1:23:30

as an existing group

1:23:33

of actual people. I

1:23:35

think Frozen two and even

1:23:37

Avatar The Last Airbender do this

1:23:40

better, where it's like, yes, they're coded

1:23:42

as Inuit or they're

1:23:44

coded as Sammy, but

1:23:46

they're not you know, their water

1:23:48

tribe, their Nothaldra, you know so,

1:23:51

but they're people. You know, they're like

1:23:53

actual human characters, even

1:23:56

if the tribe or the

1:23:58

races is not. I

1:24:02

hope I said that correctly. No, I know

1:24:04

what you mean. Yeah, And this wouldn't

1:24:07

be as much of a

1:24:09

concern if in these genres

1:24:11

you had white actors also playing

1:24:14

like, you know, blue skinned

1:24:16

aliens, like it wouldn't be And then and that there

1:24:18

was no specific like racial

1:24:20

coding attached to any

1:24:23

any of the characters. It's just like, this

1:24:25

is just a person, like a doctrine

1:24:28

with purple right, Doug Jones.

1:24:30

Doug Jones, folks, he's

1:24:32

a sexy fish,

1:24:33

the sex.

1:24:38

But because the trend tends to be that

1:24:40

only bipoc actors

1:24:43

are cast in these roles

1:24:45

where their skin is a is

1:24:47

you know, some color of the rainbow, and

1:24:50

their character is coded as

1:24:52

like another race. It's

1:24:54

also because it's generally by like white

1:24:56

writers and directors that are making that decision.

1:24:59

Like that is a huge

1:25:01

element of I don't know, like it

1:25:03

does Like the way James Cameron is doing it seems like

1:25:05

a trophy, overwrought,

1:25:07

like lazy, kind of pretty

1:25:09

offensive like storytelling

1:25:12

trope, Like it's not he's not doing anything

1:25:15

new here. Yeah, it would have more

1:25:18

gravity if it was by a writer

1:25:20

who was Indigenous or otherwise marginalized,

1:25:23

right, I think. And then as far

1:25:25

as the costume design goes, Um,

1:25:28

I'm curious about your thoughts on this alley,

1:25:30

But the nov across

1:25:33

the gender spectrum of the nov,

1:25:36

they're all like pretty scantily clad

1:25:38

as far as their costume

1:25:40

goes, Yes, the two body types are scantily

1:25:43

clad. You can see all

1:25:45

of their blueskin basically. And

1:25:48

there is definitely another media

1:25:50

trend where Indigenous

1:25:53

women we see this time and time again

1:25:56

are hyper hyper sexualized

1:25:58

in meat. Yeah, I

1:26:02

don't know exactly if that's what's happening here.

1:26:04

I'm just so I'm just curious to your thoughts.

1:26:06

So, um, this is kind of okay.

1:26:09

So if you talk to one Indigenous person

1:26:11

who've only talked to one Indigenous person. So

1:26:13

this is just me personally. UM

1:26:17

Connor Beard on TikTok,

1:26:19

who's from the Lumbi tribe. I think I mentioned him

1:26:22

earlier. He's doing a series of

1:26:24

TikTok videos about Avatar and

1:26:27

racism in it and tropes

1:26:29

in it that are anti Indigenous,

1:26:31

and I can co sign on most of them.

1:26:34

I think he makes really good points. But he released

1:26:36

and I say this respectfully.

1:26:38

Um, he released a recent

1:26:41

TikTok talking about how avatar

1:26:44

uh fetishizes and sexualizes Native

1:26:47

women, and I get it, but

1:26:49

I don't agree entirely because,

1:26:53

UM, I personally have a

1:26:55

rule where if male and female

1:26:57

characters are wearing the

1:26:59

same costume, the

1:27:02

costume itself isn't inherently

1:27:04

sexualized. UM Like,

1:27:07

Black Widow and Captain America are basically

1:27:09

wearing the same unitard. It's just

1:27:11

Black Widow was filmed differently, you

1:27:13

know, So it's not really

1:27:16

the costume that's the problem.

1:27:18

UM. Like, someone

1:27:20

I forgot who it was. I think it was a pop culture

1:27:23

detective was talking about how

1:27:25

Cora in tron Legacy

1:27:29

is sexualized and I

1:27:31

did not agree with that either. I'm like, she's

1:27:33

wearing the same thing everybody else is wearing,

1:27:36

and she's never really objectified

1:27:38

by the camera, because

1:27:41

there's a difference between like a character just

1:27:43

being really sexy on the screen

1:27:45

and the filmmakers

1:27:48

and the filmmaking actively

1:27:50

sexualizing that character.

1:27:53

I watched that same TikTok um

1:27:55

from Connor Beard, and he points

1:27:57

out that in the screenplay for

1:28:00

Avatar. So this makes me kind of think

1:28:02

that James Cameron is actively

1:28:05

sexualizing especially n No.

1:28:08

I hate reading I hate reading

1:28:10

James Cameron's writing. It's so

1:28:12

stressful. Do you remember

1:28:14

that thing from Titanic where she

1:28:16

falls under his welcome weight. I

1:28:19

will never stop thinking about the phrase

1:28:21

welcome weight written by a fifty

1:28:23

year old man. I just can't

1:28:25

even Okay, what did he say? What did

1:28:27

you say? I

1:28:31

at least it translates well to strain,

1:28:35

But he's like, I don't even think it's

1:28:37

like an unpopular opinion to

1:28:39

say that James Cameron is like a pretty

1:28:42

bad writer. He's just got

1:28:44

he's got a lot of chops where he's got a lot of

1:28:46

chops. And then he also writes the

1:28:48

movie he and then he writes what we're

1:28:51

about welcome here? Okay,

1:28:54

sorry, sorry, So This

1:28:56

is for Naterie's character introduction,

1:28:59

which in a screen generally has a little bit more

1:29:01

detail um about like the

1:29:04

character visually, like what the character looks

1:29:06

like. So quote, Jake passes

1:29:08

under a tree limb invisible to him,

1:29:11

draped on the limb like a leopard.

1:29:13

Is a striking, navvy girl. She

1:29:15

watches only her eyes moving. She

1:29:18

is life as a cat with

1:29:20

a long neck, muscular shoulders, and

1:29:22

nubile breasts. And

1:29:25

she is devastatingly beautiful for

1:29:27

a girl with a tail. Oh

1:29:30

my, Jim, So do

1:29:32

they ever mentioned the size of

1:29:34

Jake's dick and he's going into his

1:29:36

aftar body because not

1:29:39

that that's telling exactly.

1:29:42

Yeah, where's the reciprocity. Jim's

1:29:44

going to horny jail? Again, there's

1:29:46

one more sentence that is upsetting.

1:29:51

In human age, she would

1:29:53

be eighteen, so

1:29:56

she is young, young young Jake

1:29:58

Sully is what in his thirties,

1:30:01

mid to late thirties, probably he

1:30:03

could be a strong c W thirty

1:30:06

one, you know, Dad,

1:30:09

So that it

1:30:12

is creepy. So like I

1:30:14

I because I think that that is a really

1:30:16

good rule of thumb that you're describing alley

1:30:18

of like if there is because it's

1:30:20

also like you, like James Cameron

1:30:23

writes creepy. We've discussed it on the show

1:30:25

before. It seems particularly pointed

1:30:27

in this in this example,

1:30:29

because he's you know, like writing about

1:30:32

an Indigenous woman who's

1:30:34

eighteen like man,

1:30:37

there was like a lot of I'm

1:30:39

glad that there's like a diversity of opinion on

1:30:41

this, because I do think that, like the movie does not objectify

1:30:46

Naterie the way that that

1:30:48

couple of sentence run would imply

1:30:50

that it would based on how creepy he's being.

1:30:53

I didn't feel that creepiness

1:30:55

in the camera or in the

1:30:57

film language. I think that that is like, in spite

1:30:59

of the fact that he's like a creepy

1:31:01

writer, he's not a creepy filmmaker,

1:31:04

which is, you know, an oversimplification.

1:31:06

I'm sure he's had his creepy moments, but and

1:31:08

he's made like R rated movies too,

1:31:10

So if he really wanted to be creepy, he could

1:31:13

have really been creepy and his other But

1:31:17

but then on the other hand, it's I

1:31:20

mean, I know that we sort of have spent a lot

1:31:22

of this episode unraveling, like

1:31:24

the way that like comparing Avatar

1:31:27

to disney Spokehontas is a vast

1:31:29

oversimplification, but because

1:31:31

it's like the nav characters

1:31:33

are like somewhat animated or like, I

1:31:36

don't know how to describe motion capture really, but

1:31:38

she looks more like a cat than a person,

1:31:41

So it's not it doesn't I feel

1:31:43

like Pocahontas like Disney's

1:31:45

Pokehonas. Even Shell or Shell

1:31:48

from the Road to Eldorado.

1:31:50

I think that's way more offensive than the Terry

1:31:53

because I would say that that

1:31:55

is hyper sexualized and objectified

1:31:58

more than nay Terry, because

1:32:00

I also don't think that nudity is inherently

1:32:03

sexual either, And the

1:32:06

really the only time Nateri is ever like

1:32:08

sexy on screen is when she's

1:32:10

having sex, which you know, hopefully

1:32:16

kind of the best time to be sexy

1:32:19

is during sex. Wow, yeah, kind

1:32:21

of weird if you're not. And even

1:32:23

during the weird tentacle sex thing. I mean it's more

1:32:25

romantic than sexy.

1:32:28

Um, I guess yes.

1:32:34

But like a worse example

1:32:37

of this would be in Terrence

1:32:39

Malix film The New World, where

1:32:41

Koreanka Kulture, who is fourteen

1:32:44

years old, is way

1:32:46

more sexualized with

1:32:48

her to grown male counter

1:32:51

counter stars co stars, co stars,

1:32:54

that's the word that counter stars. Yes,

1:32:56

so fourteen year old Koreanka

1:32:59

culture with that, Christian

1:33:01

Bale and Colin Farrell, And excuse

1:33:03

a blame, I still

1:33:05

have not been able to bring myself to watch

1:33:08

that one because everything I hear about it

1:33:10

is just disgusting. She's

1:33:13

beautiful and she's wonderful, but god,

1:33:15

baby girl, I'm sorry. I'm so

1:33:18

sorry, ugly ass bitch

1:33:20

like Terance Bald, what do you do that,

1:33:22

you fucking

1:33:25

evil? One last

1:33:27

thing, I'm and then then I promise I'll stop

1:33:29

dragging Connor. But there

1:33:32

was one more line that he says

1:33:35

in that TikTok where so

1:33:37

it's a line where NATII tells

1:33:40

him, you know you're Alma Takaya now and

1:33:43

you can make your bow from home

1:33:45

tree and you can choose a woman,

1:33:48

and he, you know, Jake's

1:33:50

like, already chose, but this woman must choose

1:33:52

me, And Connor feared

1:33:55

makes the argument that Jake

1:33:57

is the one being progressive and

1:34:00

the yes the one being primitive. And

1:34:03

I think that this is where context matters, because

1:34:06

the Navy, with all other problems,

1:34:08

are very egalitarian, and

1:34:10

I don't think the women are just like,

1:34:12

oh, you only exist to be chosen

1:34:15

by these dudes, you know, because

1:34:18

then why would there be women warriors? And

1:34:21

I think it's also cousny Terry's engaged,

1:34:24

so he's like, hey, do you want to come

1:34:26

with me? Or you know, I

1:34:28

know who I've chosen, but do you

1:34:31

choose me? And I don't know. It's like I didn't

1:34:33

think that was Yeah,

1:34:36

I don't know. I hear you on that, like

1:34:38

I mean, and I think that like the best.

1:34:41

I mean, you said it yourself. Like the

1:34:43

fact that she is engaged is not really

1:34:45

harped on by the movie, which I appreciated

1:34:47

because that's like a really annoying trope to

1:34:49

like get in the mire of. But it's

1:34:52

like it makes sense that it would

1:34:54

be sort of like tacitly brought

1:34:57

up in that conversation, because be

1:34:59

weird if Jake didn't try to

1:35:01

tacitly acknowledge like that,

1:35:04

it's sort of him the way

1:35:06

that Jack Dawson is like do

1:35:08

you love him? It's just a simple question,

1:35:11

do you love the guy or not? And Rose is like,

1:35:13

this is not a suitable conversation. But

1:35:16

but Jack was being being very rude. Jack

1:35:18

was being a little devil in that conversation because he

1:35:21

was being agro and not to hand

1:35:23

it to Jake Sally, I don't do it and I

1:35:25

hate to do it, but but you

1:35:27

know, Jake doesn't get agro about it. It's

1:35:29

like a it's a conversation. It's

1:35:31

not like cornering you in the gym

1:35:33

of the Titan. I'm

1:35:36

just merely pointing out that James Cameron

1:35:38

keeps writing more or less the same scene

1:35:40

over he loves, he loves this

1:35:42

one movie that he writes. And UM,

1:35:47

my last question as

1:35:49

it relates to the character design

1:35:51

of the Alma Takaya, is I

1:35:54

wasn't sure if James Cameron

1:35:57

was referencing any specific

1:35:59

into genius culture or cultures

1:36:02

or nations with the Alma Takaya

1:36:04

or is he just sort of like treating

1:36:07

indigenous people as a monolith and like

1:36:09

just kind of making several

1:36:12

aesthetic references and kind

1:36:14

of lumping them all together. And like, I

1:36:16

don't know what's your thought

1:36:18

on that A bit of column A and

1:36:20

column B, Like it feels very

1:36:22

outsiders perspective because

1:36:25

it is when

1:36:28

I first saw the movie, Um,

1:36:31

it felt like I don't know if you've ever seen

1:36:33

Apocalypto, but it kind

1:36:35

of reminded me of that where it

1:36:38

was. I assumed, since

1:36:40

they're in a rainforest and the nab don't

1:36:42

wear a lot of clothing, that

1:36:44

it was probably inspired by a South

1:36:47

American or Mesoamerican indigenous

1:36:50

culture. I haven't found

1:36:52

anything that suggested that.

1:36:55

What I have found was, um,

1:36:58

a lot of inspiration is from Maudi

1:37:01

people from New Zealand and

1:37:03

even in U the trailers for the Way

1:37:05

of Water, I noticed that a lot of the facial

1:37:07

tattoos on some of the New nav characters

1:37:10

looked very much like the same ones from

1:37:12

Polynesian cultures. Yeah, from what I've

1:37:14

heard of and and read a little bit about

1:37:17

the second movie, it seems like Cameron

1:37:19

takes that direction a little more decisively

1:37:21

in the second movie. How effective

1:37:24

it is or how respectful it is, I don't know,

1:37:26

but that I was. I was going

1:37:29

through like old features trying to see if

1:37:31

there was because there's so much written

1:37:33

about certain elements of production. But that

1:37:36

was not something I was able to really find.

1:37:38

And I know that there is this

1:37:41

tendency. Um. We were

1:37:43

talking about this with Olivia Woodward a while

1:37:45

ago about just

1:37:47

like this tendency to take so

1:37:49

many unique indigenous cultures

1:37:51

and just like lump them all into one

1:37:54

vague, you know, kind of trophy

1:37:57

interpretation, which I

1:37:59

don't know if that's really what I mean. I I just kind

1:38:01

of struggled to find information on what he was

1:38:04

doing. Right well, when I

1:38:06

first saw the movie two thousand

1:38:08

nine in the theater, there

1:38:10

were several scenes five

1:38:13

like major events in the film

1:38:15

that I think mirror actual historical

1:38:18

events in like a broader Native

1:38:21

American history. So

1:38:24

obviously invading

1:38:26

Pandora is any It

1:38:28

could be Columbus, it could be the British,

1:38:30

it could be the French, it could be leif

1:38:32

Ericson, you know, like any

1:38:35

invasion colonialism,

1:38:37

you know that's happening. Um.

1:38:39

Obviously, there are elements

1:38:42

that are probably inspired

1:38:44

by Pocahontas and Jamestown

1:38:47

and the Powetan nation interacting

1:38:49

with the settlers, especially since

1:38:52

John Smith, when he was kidnapped,

1:38:55

was accepted into the tribe as

1:38:58

kind of like a

1:39:00

honorary member to like,

1:39:02

you know, build diplomacy.

1:39:04

The image of Pocahontas, like resting

1:39:07

her head on him and saving him

1:39:10

is kind of more of like an initiation,

1:39:12

kind of like she's his godmother to

1:39:15

compare it to anything. Uh,

1:39:18

don't quote me on that one,

1:39:21

since I'm not from those tribes, but

1:39:23

that's my understanding of it. Any

1:39:26

big massacre scene, but

1:39:29

you know, a home tree getting destroyed felt

1:39:31

like it could have been wounded me. It

1:39:33

could have been sand Creek. It could have been any

1:39:36

attack, any massacre really,

1:39:40

and then you have the trail of tears afterwards.

1:39:42

Were forcibly relocating indigenous

1:39:45

people, um any death

1:39:48

march, any long walks, you

1:39:50

know. I was and

1:39:52

again it was like it was just hard to find any like hard

1:39:54

confirmation, But I kind of assumed that that

1:39:56

was what Cameron was trying to

1:39:58

reference, even in the a that

1:40:00

Giovanni Ribisi's character was talking about

1:40:02

it like oh, it's not a big deal. It's like a relocation.

1:40:05

It's not like I was like, Okay, this is kind

1:40:07

of clearly mapped on peacefully

1:40:10

negotiate their relocation. It's

1:40:12

like, there's no peaceful negotiation

1:40:15

forcibly relocating. But

1:40:17

the last one, which surprised

1:40:19

me, and I'm happy that it

1:40:21

ended like this was I feel like

1:40:24

the final battle in Avatar,

1:40:26

like the big climatic, awesome battle,

1:40:29

felt like it was a big allegory to the

1:40:31

Battle of a Little Big Horn or the Battle of Greasy

1:40:33

Grass where the Lakota sue and

1:40:36

the Cheyenne one

1:40:39

a battle against General Custer

1:40:41

and the U. S Army, and um,

1:40:44

they did that because Custer thought

1:40:46

that he was going to ambush

1:40:48

them and murder all of them. And no,

1:40:50

there's five thousand of us and you're

1:40:53

dying today. And the

1:40:55

person who shot him off of his horse

1:40:57

was a woman fun by

1:41:01

Buffalo calf road woman.

1:41:04

So that

1:41:10

pleases me. I didn't realize that's

1:41:13

that's amazing. Yeah, she's the one who shot him

1:41:15

off of his horse and probably delivered the

1:41:17

killing blow. And afterwards

1:41:19

the other women took like little

1:41:22

needles or whatever and poked out

1:41:24

his ear drums. And that's where the

1:41:26

phrase, uh, that's where the

1:41:28

phrase see what happens where you don't

1:41:30

listen comes from.

1:41:34

A So it sounds to me like James

1:41:37

Cameron is pulling not

1:41:39

only from like a design point of view of the

1:41:42

of the Alma Takaya, but also from

1:41:45

just like narrative events in the movie Avatar.

1:41:48

He's pulling from a lot of different nations.

1:41:51

So, I mean, allegory

1:41:55

in storytelling is like you

1:41:58

know that tends to happen where like you're

1:42:00

you might be kind of referencing something it's an

1:42:02

allegorical probably be weirder if

1:42:04

you didn't pull from actual

1:42:07

history. Like, it's not inherently negative

1:42:09

that he did that, right, it's just the

1:42:12

mess. It's just that, And it's the

1:42:14

outsider's perspective that I think

1:42:16

is really Yeah, and uh,

1:42:19

well, I mean Indigenous people

1:42:21

globally have a lot of shared

1:42:23

experiences with colonialism and

1:42:26

racism and environmental

1:42:28

oppression and damage also,

1:42:31

so I can see how

1:42:33

kind of blending it together because it all kind

1:42:35

of blows together makes

1:42:37

sense. I feel like it probably could have been

1:42:40

done a little more ethically, and

1:42:43

the way to do that would be the higher native

1:42:45

writers to

1:42:47

write about the allegory. Um

1:42:52

what else? Another thing

1:42:54

I would change is that a fangirl

1:42:56

Gene. I hope I'm pronouncing her name

1:42:58

right. I think it's pronounced gene, but

1:43:00

I think it's also pronounced jean j

1:43:04

e a and n e f jean.

1:43:07

Oh my, please don't kill me, fangro

1:43:11

Jean. Anyway, she uh was

1:43:13

talking about how she kind of likes and dislikes

1:43:15

Avatar in the same way as I do, but

1:43:17

she's like Jake should not

1:43:20

have been allowed to stay period if

1:43:22

he was going to, And I feel like that would

1:43:24

have lended itself to the story a little

1:43:26

bit better and the sincerity of the character

1:43:29

where they're like, listen, we

1:43:31

appreciate your help, but you

1:43:34

put us in this situation, so

1:43:37

at the end of all things, you

1:43:39

can't sit with us anymore.

1:43:41

So if it would have, at the very

1:43:43

least it should have and he should be okay with it, if

1:43:45

he's as good as he thinks he is,

1:43:48

then that would have been like, that's fair, Okay,

1:43:51

you don't get to stay with us. Yeah, I fucked up.

1:43:53

I'll see myself out. Yeah,

1:43:57

I will say your brother's funeral, Jake,

1:44:00

Yeah, jeez, I will say.

1:44:02

Um. This is my hot

1:44:04

take is that I

1:44:07

think, not that his story

1:44:09

is good, not that his redemption

1:44:12

arc is good, but all things consider,

1:44:15

Jake's redemption arc is

1:44:18

more satisfying or better

1:44:21

than a redemption arc for like Kylo

1:44:23

Wren, for example, because

1:44:26

at the end of the day, even though Kyleo Wren

1:44:29

or even Darth Vader turned from

1:44:31

the dark side and do the right thing at the last

1:44:33

moment, they die right after

1:44:35

and they don't undo all

1:44:38

the damage that they did. They may

1:44:40

have stopped or prevented more

1:44:42

damage, which good, but they

1:44:45

never face the people that they hurt. They

1:44:47

never like face any repercussions

1:44:50

or consequences

1:44:52

for the harm that they've caused. So,

1:44:55

Jake, even though it's not great,

1:44:59

he's still it has to prove himself

1:45:01

if he's going to show his face again. And

1:45:03

when he does the right thing,

1:45:06

eventually it's like his friends

1:45:08

die, people get hurt. He

1:45:10

can never go back to his planet again. He

1:45:13

can never you know. So there's a whole lot

1:45:15

at stake that, you

1:45:17

know, a lot of sacrifices that was made

1:45:19

for him to do the right thing. He does

1:45:21

have to do a lot to

1:45:24

actually have a redemption. But

1:45:28

he like centers himself so consistently

1:45:30

throughout it that he's like

1:45:33

I'm the boss now, and you're he's

1:45:35

like or like yeah that it's I mean, which

1:45:37

is maybe like realistic, super

1:45:40

macho white male behavior, but

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