0:18

Hello, everyone, and welcome to the Filmcast,

0:20

a podcast about movies.

0:23

I'm David Chen, and I feel the need

0:25

to point out that the plural is not avatar

0:27

the way of waters, but it's Avatar the

0:30

way of water. Joining

0:33

me today is dipping your hard work. I

0:35

can't wait for Avatar three, the

0:37

rage of fire, and Avatar four,

0:39

the air upon us. I see what

0:41

you're doing, Dave again. And

0:43

Jeff Kanata. I'm

0:44

Jeff Kanada, and I just want everyone

0:46

to know, I

0:48

accept your apology. Well,

0:51

those are, of course, all vague and oblique references

0:53

to the fact that today in the podcast, we're going to

0:55

be reviewing Avatar The Way

0:57

of Water, The New Filmcast

0:59

James cameron.

1:01

You can find more episodes of this podcast at

1:04

Filmcast dot com. Email us at slash filmcast

1:06

at gmail dot com and find us on TikTok, Twitter,

1:08

YouTube, and Instagram at the

1:10

film cast pod. Today,

1:12

it is our seven hundredth

1:15

episode. Whoa. Wow. Watch the Filmcast?

1:18

We made Seven seven hundred episodes dot

1:20

com bonuses in afternoons. And

1:24

I thought we should take a moment reflect

1:26

on that. So we're gonna do that at the beginning of the show, and then it's

1:28

going to be an avatar extravaganza,

1:31

an avaganza. An

1:35

epicanza. Where

1:37

we're just gonna dive into Avatar

1:39

the way of water. We're gonna talk

1:42

in-depth about our thoughts on seeing the

1:44

film, the format of that we saw the film in,

1:46

the plot, the stories, the themes. Could

1:49

there be could there be a more

1:50

perfect movie for the seven hundredth

1:53

episode of the film cast. It's

1:55

all led up to this moment.

1:57

It was meant to be.

1:59

I just wanna thank I you know,

2:02

just right away, I wanna thank James Cameron

2:04

for delaying the movie enough times. Mhmm.

2:07

That it worked out to be the seven hundredth

2:09

episode. I mean, it was a very interesting thing

2:11

for him, but waiting for this movie. Yeah.

2:13

Yeah. Yeah. Well, so let's let's start

2:15

just by reflecting briefly on

2:17

seven hundred episodes. I mean, I

2:21

wanna

2:21

start by saying, who to thought?

2:23

Who to thought, guys? Get them out that

2:25

we'd ever make it to seven hundred

2:27

of them. Might just die every day,

2:29

you know. Left and right. Who to thought,

2:31

who to have wanted, who to wanted, who

2:34

to wished, who to have ever who's

2:37

paying attention? Why

2:39

haven't people stopped us yet? Legally,

2:42

it should be not allowed that we are continuing.

2:45

But in all seriousness,

2:48

I am extremely grateful to

2:50

our listeners and especially to our

2:52

patrons who really stepped up and made sure

2:54

that we could continue doing this podcast long

2:56

after we have

2:57

a desire to keep doing it fated away.

3:01

No. Honestly, the the, you know, we

3:03

say it a lot, but it it bears repeating it

3:05

here on seven hundred is

3:07

this

3:07

show

3:08

probably wouldn't have made it to seven hundred if

3:10

it wasn't for the Patreon, a hundred percent.

3:12

Oh, absolutely. So thanks to all the patrons

3:14

at patreon dot com slash phone podcast for making

3:16

it happen. But go ahead, Jeff, finish everything. No.

3:19

It's just an amazing thing. It's an amazing

3:21

thing that people value this

3:24

show as a part of their lives enough

3:26

to give their dollars

3:28

to it. And the fact

3:30

that we get to keep making it

3:33

in an uncertain economic environment

3:36

is is is incredible.

3:38

And I will tell

3:40

you guys I know that you know this, but I'm

3:42

gonna repeat it again too. This

3:46

is some of the best hours of

3:48

my week getting to hang out with YouTube

3:50

and laugh and

3:52

disagree and celebrate

3:55

movies and all the things that we get to

3:57

do

3:58

just

3:59

just by virtue

3:59

of the fact that people care enough to hear our

4:02

voices in their ear know. Absolutely.

4:04

And then statement is either a strong

4:07

testament to the beauty and strength

4:09

of this podcast or a stirring

4:11

indictment about the rest of Jeff's life. You

4:13

know? I mean, I think it

4:15

goes for all of us. Do

4:19

you remember what you said? It goes for all of us.

4:22

But also disagreeing. I

4:24

love disagreeing with people in

4:26

a in a way that is fun

4:28

and engaging and, you know, it doesn't feel

4:30

mean and I've always enjoyed that. I also do what

4:32

it's like to do. Podcasts where you don't

4:34

feel great with people. So, you know, we've

4:36

kept it going. Because something you're is

4:39

working. Right? Clearly -- Yes. Yes. -- I mean,

4:41

yeah, there's there's something about the dynamic that

4:43

people keep coming back for and

4:45

really appreciate that. You know, I

4:47

was reflecting on

4:49

when I was about to go see Avatar the way of

4:52

water, which is around, like, a

4:54

week before Jeff Kanoa saw it. Oh, I'm sorry. I

4:56

didn't think I'm on. I'm

4:58

just I'm playing because we've all seen it, Jeff.

5:00

So it doesn't matter. It doesn't matter anymore. Right?

5:02

It still stings somehow.

5:04

It will stink forever. Yeah. But

5:06

I was reflecting on how I

5:08

was actually

5:09

really excited about it because

5:12

the One of the first

5:15

experiences I ever had as

5:17

host of the film cast or the

5:19

film cast back in the day was going

5:21

to Comic Con and watching

5:23

James Cameron present the very first footage

5:25

for Avatar one in two I think it was,

5:27

I guess, two thousand eight, maybe two thousand

5:29

nine at that point. Jeff Kanata, were you

5:31

in hall h at that time? I was. We

5:33

we were not sitting together. We might have been sitting

5:35

together. I think we were. Here's what I

5:37

remember about the footage. Okay? I'm pretty

5:39

sure it was one of

5:41

the first times it it was like the first time that

5:43

Jake and Nateri met. Mhmm. It was

5:45

not that it was the scene it was the scene where

5:47

Jake wakes up in the as

5:49

an avatar for the first time, smashes up

5:51

the thing and runs out and

5:53

finds Sogoni Weaver. That's Okay. Yeah. So

5:55

Very fair enough. It was it was, like, what are the early on the

5:57

Filmcast? That's what I remember. And

5:59

and I remember being between ten and twenty

6:02

minutes long, the village. And We

6:05

got to the end of the footage

6:06

and everyone

6:07

was like pretty amazed by it because it looked pretty

6:09

cool at the time and

6:10

still does. They they passed out three

6:12

d glass and presented Right. Ready. It was cool. And

6:14

then James Cameron was like, how cool was

6:16

that? And then he's basically like, do

6:18

you wanna see it again? Let's

6:20

play it again. And we literally

6:22

just played the ten to twenty minute

6:24

footage again, which by the way, you know,

6:28

certainly at the time, I don't know what the practice is

6:30

now, but they might show a trailer

6:32

and, like, a one minute trailer and then they'll be, like, you

6:34

wanna see it again? And then they play the one minute trailer

6:36

good? James Cameron is

6:38

the one that's like ten

6:40

to twenty minutes of footage. We're gonna see

6:42

that whole thing again. Yeah. Also,

6:44

I do wanna talk to you nerds. For -- Yeah.

6:46

-- guys, in higher hours, and we could

6:48

just download the footage. Yeah. Yeah.

6:51

But it does feel fitting that

6:55

you know, this is our seven hundredth episode

6:58

to review a sequel that

6:59

at many, many points in time, we did not

7:02

know if it would ever come out. So Mhmm.

7:05

And it's nice that it it finally has come out.

7:07

I was sad to see that

7:08

James Cameron couldn't

7:10

go to the premier that he spent a decade

7:12

of his life working towards -- Man. --

7:14

because he got COVID, which is really,

7:16

really sad. But hopefully,

7:19

the adulation that is being heaped upon

7:21

the Filmcast as we speak now,

7:23

that will be enough consolation He he can

7:25

once again tell himself he's the king of the world

7:27

because I do think a lot

7:29

of things we were worried about.

7:31

Maybe don't prove true with this movie. So,

7:33

yeah, Well, let's see. We haven't gone we haven't gone to the

7:35

review at Devindra. So Yeah. We'll see. We'll

7:37

see. Maybe maybe some people are just Maybe

7:39

some people on the podcast might disagree.

7:41

Might be with the consensus thing down.

7:43

Yeah. It's true. The the

7:45

seven hundred, though, I right

7:48

before we started recording, I

7:50

asked you if you knew Yeah.

7:52

The episode that I became regular

7:55

on the show -- Yes. --

7:57

and I wish what we had

7:59

done is you had asked me to

8:01

guess that because I didn't know it offhand. Mhmm.

8:03

And you you you looked it up.

8:06

Yeah. It's

8:06

a much smaller number than I would have

8:09

guessed. It is okay. So

8:11

here, you know, I want the listeners at home to

8:13

play along. Okay. Like, what is the

8:15

episode at which you think Jeff Kanata became

8:17

a permanent third co host of the podcast.

8:20

I'll give you a second to just

8:22

lock in your guesses and I'm gonna reveal the

8:24

actual number in, like, five seconds. But

8:27

what is the episode at which Jeff Canada

8:29

became a permanent third co host? It

8:31

was on June fifth twenty fourteen,

8:33

we published episode two hundred seventy

8:35

five reviewing Doug Lyman's film Edge

8:37

of Tomorrow. The full eight

8:40

years of Man. So there's been

8:42

more episodes with me than without

8:44

me guys. I think it's interesting, like,

8:46

people still think of you as, like, the new

8:48

cohort. It's a story of me that way.

8:50

Yeah. The more recent codes, but there's

8:52

now been significantly more

8:54

episodes of with you on it -- Yeah. --

8:56

than without you on

8:58

it. And

8:59

the And,

9:00

you know, Jeff, it it

9:03

raises like, thinking about this also

9:05

before the podcast when we started recording,

9:07

raises the specter of another

9:09

situation, which is

9:12

that

9:13

there will soon be more

9:15

years I've been doing this podcast in my

9:17

life. Then here's where I

9:19

haven't been doing the podcast. So,

9:21

I mean, that's gonna be a while. Yeah. But -- Yeah.

9:23

-- you know?

9:24

You're you're really going to the

9:27

longest timer there or the longest

9:29

countdown for yourself. I mean, it's not that it's not

9:31

that much longer. But anyway Yeah.

9:33

I mean, we've only You're

9:35

more than twenty years old, Dave. I'm

9:37

sorry. I'm

9:40

twenty years old in my heart. Yeah. I'm

9:42

twenty years old in my heart. Anyway, I just wanted to

9:44

take a moment to pause and

9:46

reflect on the fact that we've been

9:48

doing this for a really long time. We're

9:50

grateful to be able to keep doing it.

9:52

Grateful to our listeners, grateful to our patrons,

9:55

and of course, grateful to each other.

9:57

Happy holidays, everyone.

9:59

But anyway, That's not why we're here

10:02

to talk today. We're not here to just

10:04

we're not here to wax poetic about the history

10:06

of the film cast. We

10:07

are here To

10:08

talk about the new, what's coming next, the

10:10

cutting edge, we're here to talk about

10:13

Avatar the way of water.

10:16

Gather.

10:20

I know

10:21

you think I'm crazy.

10:27

But I feel

10:28

her. I

10:35

hear her feet. Just

10:39

so close.

10:48

So what is her heartbeat sound like

10:57

Mighty. This

10:59

is

10:59

the film cast. We are about to

11:01

dive into our view of Avatar the way of water.

11:03

What we're gonna do is we're gonna start by talking

11:06

about the format in which we saw the film. Then

11:08

we're gonna talk about overall thoughts, and then we're gonna

11:10

try to do as detailed of a plot breakdown

11:12

as we can. So let's

11:14

get into it folks. Before we

11:16

even talk about

11:18

Anything about the story of this

11:20

movie or how much we enjoyed it, I

11:22

wanna talk about the

11:23

format. Now, I saw this movie in

11:26

three d Dolby Atmos --

11:28

Mhmm. --

11:28

with a variable with a variable frame. Right?

11:30

Jeff, did you see it in you saw it on the

11:32

inside as well? In fact, the longest I've ever

11:34

driven to a press screen, and they went they

11:36

did a a theater that they don't usually

11:38

use. Mhmm. Mhmm. And

11:40

drove drove quite a ways to get there, but it

11:42

it definitely had variable frame rate,

11:44

which I noticed quite frequently in the

11:47

movie. And specifically yeah. The

11:49

so I also saw it that way at the

11:51

the AMC Lincoln Square. Pretty much my favorite

11:53

theater on Earth. Actually, I was in New York

11:55

for three days. I matched

11:56

just the Avatar two at that theater.

11:59

So, yes, that

11:59

worked out. But as South Adobe

12:02

Theatre, there are two It's variable frame rate to

12:04

but to be clear, it is using the forty

12:06

eight FPS high frame rate format in

12:08

some scenes, and then it goes back to twenty

12:10

four FPS in other scenes and the way

12:12

he did it is kind of ingenious too. So it's all

12:14

very cool. Yeah. Well, I I wanted to start

12:16

by asking you guys, what did you think of the variable

12:18

framework? It sounds like you really enjoyed

12:20

it, Devendra, So yeah. Yeah. It's

12:22

I I've written about this stuff before. If you

12:24

look at my look at my work and engage it, my

12:26

write up of Gemini Man, where I talked to Unlee

12:29

about how he implemented high frame rate

12:31

stuff. People have done this before.

12:33

It's mainly been Gemini

12:35

Man, and it's been the Hopitt. And

12:37

also Billy Lin's long half time walk.

12:39

So also the Avatar Rerelease,

12:41

if you don't know. Av also the Avatar Rerelease, which I

12:43

never realized I did not see in high frame rate,

12:45

even though you you could kinda tell in some

12:47

sequences. But I I think

12:49

this technology is really interesting. I think it

12:51

has a lot of problems, and I think this is

12:53

probably the best use of it yet even

12:55

though it is not seamless, like,

12:57

at all because at times this movie

12:59

will be in beautiful, silky,

13:01

forty eight FPS and everything looks super

13:03

smooth and beautiful. And and

13:05

then, like, in that same scene, it will cut

13:07

down back to twenty four FPS

13:09

people talking. And the issue with

13:11

high frame rate the people have had

13:13

since since the Habit and since Billy

13:15

Land is that, saved with people just

13:17

talking, look look

13:19

uncanny. Like, they look hyper real in a

13:21

way that you're like, the magic

13:23

of movies is gone. And that's always

13:25

been a complaint. The good part of high

13:27

framing is that for a fast

13:29

action, especially with three d and things

13:31

like that. Like, you will not get everything

13:34

looks super smooth. You don't get the strobing

13:36

or juttering that you get with

13:38

panning. Camera and things like that. Like, everything just

13:40

looks good. This movie tries to balance

13:42

it. I think I think it worked for me,

13:44

but it also takes some time to get used to

13:46

because, typically, in these

13:48

things, like, your brain is like, okay, this looks

13:50

wrong. This looks wrong in fifteen minutes and

13:52

it gets used to it. Because

13:54

it goes back and forth, you you never

13:56

really get that time. To be like, oh, I

13:58

am in the view of this movie. So I

14:00

think there is work that needs to be done there, but

14:02

it's it's the best implementation of

14:04

HFR I've seen Jeff Kanata, your

14:06

thoughts on the high frame rate or variable frame rate

14:08

that you experienced? I agree with DaVendra. I you

14:11

know, I'm I

14:13

think the

14:15

the ideal is

14:17

that you don't notice it as at all

14:19

and that is not what happened. I noticed

14:21

it absolutely Filmcast every

14:23

time. I mean, I have no idea how many

14:25

times they're are in the movie, but

14:27

frequently I noticed it. And

14:29

I think that the goal would be

14:31

that it it it it is not it doesn't

14:33

present itself necessarily. Mhmm.

14:36

Having said that, I thought

14:38

it worked really really well because it

14:40

kicks in in those very

14:42

kinetic sequences, high

14:44

action moments, And having

14:46

just watched the rerelease of Avatar

14:49

in theaters in three d,

14:51

there are sequences, you

14:53

know, sequence where Jake Solly is running from

14:55

the that Panther in the -- Mhmm.

14:57

-- in the forest, that

14:59

are almost too

15:02

too hard to follow in three

15:04

d on a big screen at twenty four

15:06

frames per second. Yep. But when it

15:08

kicks in and you you notice when it kicks in, but

15:10

when it kicks in, everything is

15:12

clear, crisp, you follow the action,

15:14

it

15:14

works, and I think it's useful even

15:17

if it's noticeable. Mhmm.

15:19

Mhmm. Well, and what's gonna be foreshadowing

15:21

the rest of this review, I think. I

15:23

thought the I I have seen your

15:25

Mastodon to it. Thank

15:27

you. Thank you. I am I thought the implementation

15:30

was disastrous. I

15:32

I

15:32

thought it was awful. Honestly,

15:34

at many times where I was watching this movie,

15:36

I was like, I wish I

15:39

could leave this theater and

15:41

come back and watch it in, like, all

15:43

twenty four frames per second. Right. Right.

15:45

Every time the frame rate change. And

15:47

it it changes, I would estimate

15:49

at least one hundred times during the

15:51

course of the movie. Yeah. Frequently

15:53

within the seat. Within the mid seat,

15:56

like, yeah. Shot reverse shot. Your the

15:58

reverse shot is, you know, a high

15:59

frame rate and the, you know, going back is

16:02

not.

16:02

Every every

16:04

time it happens. It ripped me

16:06

out of the movie. Like, I was just like, yeah. I

16:09

I so wish I could just go back and, like, rewatch.

16:11

And in fact, I as we're recording it,

16:13

we're recording this on Tuesday

16:15

before the movie has come out.

16:17

So I am so curious that,

16:19

like, we don't know anything. About

16:21

what the audience's reaction is gonna be to

16:23

this, how people are gonna write about it and talk about it.

16:26

I've I've seen a lot of critics. I've seen some

16:28

people say it looks great. Actually, some people can

16:30

believe that it's the worst thing they've ever seen. And I

16:32

know some people can be Yeah. I you

16:34

know, I what I shared about this

16:36

online because we were we were allowed to

16:38

share very brief reactions to the film

16:40

prior to now. And some people are

16:42

like, hey, thank you for letting me know because, like,

16:44

that that you're describing would make me dizzy

16:46

or would give me a, you know --

16:48

Sure. -- like, would have an effect on me. I would

16:50

also say I think people should

16:52

try it. I think people should try it. Well,

16:54

okay. So, like, even if it sounds bad. Yeah. Here's

16:56

what I'm gonna say. Here's what I'm gonna say. So, like, I

16:58

like, your mileage may vary. As you can hear from just

17:00

the three of us, your mileage may vary.

17:03

Here's what I'm gonna say. The

17:05

underwater stuff, and I don't think it's

17:07

supposed to say, there's stuff in this movie

17:09

that happens underwater. There are way It looks

17:12

amazing and incredible. Like, it's just like,

17:14

oh my this is like, when I saw it, I

17:16

was like, I understand why he wanted

17:18

to do high frame rate. Like, this is the reason like,

17:20

it looks so good in high frame

17:23

rate. And I wish they had taken a

17:25

different approach like Like, Chris Nolan, you

17:27

know, with his iMac

17:29

stuff. Like, he'll shoot an entire scene

17:31

with an iMac's full format.

17:34

And then, like, it will go back to the rest of the movie, and then it's like, okay.

17:36

It's not that you would ever want less of

17:38

the back and forth and Yeah. No. No. No. No. No.

17:40

No. No. No. Here's an action scene. It's

17:42

all gonna be in high frame rate. Yeah. Like, that would've been fine with me.

17:44

But, like, the way it's implemented, I

17:47

just thought was was

17:50

It literally like, in my

17:52

opinion, ruined my first movie. It

17:54

it takes you out of the movie. It does take you out

17:56

of the movie, and I heard that from many,

17:58

many people The thing

18:00

is have you

18:01

seen any other high freight rate movies, Dave?

18:03

The Hobbit? Yeah. So the Oh, yeah. I forgot

18:05

the Habit. But think here's here's the

18:07

here's the other thing I'll say is

18:10

I

18:11

have spent the last couple years,

18:14

the like, starting to

18:15

value sixty FPS in my video games. Like,

18:17

like, sure. You know, like, I got a -- Yeah. --

18:19

thirty RTX thirty eighty, like, I

18:22

enjoy p when I'm PS5I always put it on performance mode.

18:24

Like Mhmm. And so I can tell

18:26

the difference between sixty frames per second and

18:29

the culture we we are we want

18:31

sixty FPS. I'm looking at a lot of YouTubers

18:33

now. They're shooting in four k sixty

18:35

FPS. And You you say that because many people

18:37

who, like, leave motions moving on their TVs that

18:39

don't even know the different you know, so, like, there's many

18:41

people out I I doubt they listen to this

18:43

podcast. But if you are out there and

18:45

you don't care or that kind of stuff doesn't

18:47

bother you, like, motion smoothing doesn't bother you. You can't

18:49

tell the difference. Where they like it? Where they

18:51

or you like it? You'll probably

18:53

you'll probably enjoy the implementation in

18:55

this film. So Your

18:57

mind was me, Mary. Hey, Josh. Cauches

18:59

it as if you have bad taste.

19:01

No. I didn't say you're bad taste. I just said

19:03

if you you leave motion smoothing on your

19:05

TV, if you don't pay attention. If you

19:07

don't listen to this podcast, maybe you'll

19:10

like it. That's exactly

19:12

how you've framed it. How many seven hundred

19:14

episodes will. Alright. Let's

19:16

take a big break for sponsors. We'll be

19:18

right back with more conversation about the format of

19:20

Avatar and then dive into the film itself.

19:22

Let's

19:22

take a break for a moment. And

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talk about life insurance. If you are

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listening to this Gerber Life guaranteed

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expenses or anything else. Your

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restrictions.

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So I'm not trying to be

20:57

insulting of the audience. I but I I didn't I

20:59

know there's there's people like

21:01

just I think there's a big I think,

21:04

honestly, I

21:05

think it works really well for the action scenes,

21:07

and I think it works really poorly

21:10

for dialogue scenes -- Mhmm. -- which is

21:12

what we've said. And that's

21:13

exactly how it's implemented. That's not exactly

21:15

it. That I don't think it's accurate. Like, it will

21:18

there's shots in the action scenes

21:20

-- Yeah. -- that are at twenty four frames per second.

21:22

Like, that's the problem. It's very it's very

21:24

weird. Like, maybe it would have been better just

21:26

to, like, do a whole scene, f forty eight

21:28

FPS, but also watching

21:30

anything in high frame rate with people just

21:32

talking, it's weird as

21:34

hell. Yeah. If it's just, like, static thing. The problem with the

21:36

hobbit. Like, the hobbit is, oh,

21:39

yikes. Why did they shoot this on video

21:41

when it You know? Mhmm. Yeah. And the thing with the

21:43

HOP is that Peter Jackson never, like,

21:45

shifted the way he was shooting to take

21:47

account for, like, the hyperreels and for

21:49

his FPS. So all the sets look

21:51

bad. All the commodity seems like awful. And maybe

21:53

with a movie like this, it's less of a

21:55

problem if it's all artificial. So they

21:57

have made some progress there,

21:59

but So it's bad for dialogue. I that's a great point to Vindra,

22:01

which is that, like, the

22:03

best that high frame rate looked in

22:05

this movie is way better

22:08

than anything I saw of high frame rate in

22:10

the hobbit. Like, for sure. Just in terms of, like,

22:12

how it feels and how it looks and

22:14

and kind of

22:15

the texture of, you know, like And there's

22:18

never a moment that's equivalent

22:20

where I'm watching characters that I'm

22:22

supposed to think are in

22:23

a in a movie, and it looks like I'm watching, like,

22:25

a bad video of RAM. You know, that

22:27

-- Right. -- that never happens in this movie. Yeah.

22:29

The few the few times we get live action

22:31

people, they're in, like, sets that are

22:33

probably built to to, you know,

22:36

take into account that these cameras are looking at

22:38

things at a higher, you know, higher refresh

22:40

rate. One thing I want to

22:42

mention there is a movie that actually took high frame rate

22:44

even further. The the best way

22:46

to see Gemini Man, which I think nobody

22:49

wasn't really ever able to see.

22:51

Was a hundred and twenty FPS -- Right. --

22:53

4K3D And I

22:55

would yeah. I was probably lucky enough to be one

22:57

of the few people to see that at the Dolby screening room in

22:59

New York, but That looks

23:01

incredible. But I can't I could tell you

23:03

it looks good, but you won't believe

23:05

it. Problem is deleted. Yeah.

23:08

More frames. More more. It's not it's

23:10

not that there's not that sixty's too

23:12

many. It's that it's not enough. It's not

23:14

enough. Well, there are there are choices we

23:16

need to make. gonna

23:18

I'm gonna say this, like, I appreciate,

23:21

like, you know, there's this idea

23:23

of, oh, it it should be twenty four frames

23:25

per second. And that that's what

23:27

cinema is and we should never try to change it. I

23:29

don't necessarily agree with that. I

23:31

appreciate that people like Ondley and James Cameron

23:33

are being like, twenty

23:35

four frames per per second can't hold

23:37

me back. I need to do more than that. I need

23:39

to try more. Why why shouldn't cinema evolve? And

23:41

I'm not opposed to that,

23:44

but at the same time as I feel that

23:46

way, I just can't imagine that this

23:48

is what he thought was the ideal.

23:51

Like, they probably just ran out of time

23:53

rendering frames. Is my get like, you know,

23:55

like, I can't imagine that he wanted to shift

23:57

back into this office. Dude, he has been

23:59

talking about this four years. I

24:01

link back to articles in twenty sixteen, and

24:03

he's like, Angli. No. No. No.

24:05

No. Don't don't do that, Angli. Because he's saying

24:08

his thing is high frame rate is

24:10

a tool not a format. And that is a quote he's been

24:12

saying forever and ever. So he wants to use

24:14

it like three d. Right? Or he

24:16

doesn't seem like a guy who's big on

24:18

compromise. Well, Jeff, like, my understanding is

24:20

this movie was finished literally weeks ago.

24:22

Sure. Weeks ago. So it's like and

24:24

there is the saying, like, films are

24:27

finished. They're just abandoned. And my guess is like he's

24:29

just like, okay. Well, this is what we could do in

24:31

this time. And I'm sure my my guess is

24:33

he would have wanted at least, whole scenes to

24:35

be all high frame it? I I don't know. I don't know.

24:37

I don't know. Like that. That's what I

24:39

mean. You don't you you think he wanted

24:41

to go back and forth. This is what he

24:43

has been talking about. Like, I as

24:45

somebody made a memorial scene. Okay.

24:48

Yeah. Alright. Yeah. He has within that

24:50

possibility. Yeah. It bugs me out

24:52

that it It affected

24:53

the experience so much for you,

24:56

Dave,

24:56

because to my mind, you are way

24:59

overstating how jarring it

25:01

is. But it can it can be. Like, here's the here's

25:03

the problem. Like, depending in your

25:05

brain and how this stuff, like, affects you, it

25:07

can just be like, oh, this is garbage.

25:09

I never wanna see this again in my face. And that

25:11

is the problem facing high frame rate is that I

25:13

think a lot of people will just reject it

25:15

outright because I sort of did with the hobbit

25:17

because of how badly it was implemented. It. So

25:20

III don't know. I am similarly

25:22

surprised, you know, at your reaction, Jeff,

25:24

just because, like, I'm sure you've

25:26

played, like, video games at sixty FPS. And then

25:28

when there's that's, like, not in sixty FPS

25:30

It's, like, really jarring. Now imagine more

25:32

Yeah. So you're on a war. But now imagine

25:34

that happening a hundred times, you know, like,

25:36

during the course of it's just, like, I

25:39

just and I think it's

25:41

it's only because I've gotten used to

25:43

sixty FPS or high frame prior frame it's, like, if

25:45

I, you know,

25:48

if I hadn't started looking at a bunch of sixty

25:50

FPS stuff over the course of the last -- Yeah. --

25:52

few years, maybe I wouldn't I wouldn't feel

25:54

it as well. To be clear, sixty FPS is where we were,

25:56

like, maybe a decade ago -- Mhmm. -- gaming because

25:59

now, like, I'm looking at five

26:01

hundred hertz monitors. You know, people want

26:03

frame rates, like, is Metro thinking,

26:05

like, their eye forty two hundred and forty hertz

26:07

is like -- Yeah. -- the standard The

26:09

the tech guys for monitors say, like, our

26:11

eye refresh rate should is probably

26:13

around, like, hundred hertz.

26:15

Right? So -- Wow. -- some people are trying to,

26:17

like, pump this up as much as possible

26:19

for for really fast gameplay. Sixty

26:21

FPS seems actually very little right now,

26:23

but because of how movies have not

26:25

moved on much, it seems

26:27

weird. There have been older technologies that

26:29

have tried to change this a bit. If

26:31

you guys look at this on Disney plus the version

26:33

of Oklahoma that is on that

26:36

service is actually a thirty

26:37

FPS. And it's

26:38

like A4K rerelease of Oklahoma that

26:41

was using like some new super wide screen

26:43

technology or something. But it looks uncanny. It

26:45

looks really smooth. But it looks

26:47

interesting. So Mhmm. I don't know. I think we gotta explore some

26:49

of these stuff. It's interesting that the the

26:51

possibility Devinger that you raised that, like, this

26:53

could have been intentional because he doesn't

26:55

want it want it to all be

26:57

hybrid. He wants it to he wants to deploy it, like,

26:59

selectively, which is just like, I

27:01

I'm just not bored with that. You know, if

27:03

it's really dark. It is really jarring. All of Yeah. I'm cur I'm

27:06

so curious, like, what people think about it. Like,

27:08

we we have no idea at this point. So,

27:10

like, obviously, we'll see

27:12

your emails slash from casitima dot com, we'll

27:14

see people's tweets and TikToks about

27:16

it. I'm so curious. Like, feel free to share

27:18

your thoughts on how the high

27:20

frame rate worked or did not work for you. But I'm glad

27:22

that we have, like, a diversity of perspectives

27:24

on this podcast about this issue. So I I'll make

27:26

one prediction. I think there will be a

27:28

huge generational divide -- Really? --

27:30

because the kids kids

27:32

are used to their sixty FPS on

27:34

Fortnite and everything. Right? Like and they're used

27:36

to youtubers kind of cranking things up all

27:38

the way. Some some car

27:40

reviewers I I watch regularly now

27:42

doing four k sixty FPS. It actually I

27:44

don't think it looks as good as their older

27:46

videos, but they're doing it because people want it.

27:48

So there is, like, a rising demand for this.

27:50

Yeah. But let let's just be clear. I

27:52

love four k sixty FPS too. Like, I'm not saying

27:54

I don't like it. It's just the it it would be like

27:56

if you're watching a YouTube video that's four k

27:58

sixty FPS and then there's many, many shots that

28:00

are twenty four IPSF. Right. Right. Right. That's the

28:02

issue I have. It's not with four k sixty FPS

28:04

or anything higher frame. It's it's

28:06

with the jarring transition between the

28:08

two of them. Mhmm. And I wish it had just been one or the other

28:10

for longer sequences. One one

28:12

thing I wanna point out too, like, the the way

28:14

Cameron kinda did the twenty four FPS stuff

28:16

is that The entire film is

28:18

actually running at forty FPS. And for

28:20

those slow scenes, the dialogue scenes,

28:22

he's doubling the frames, so

28:24

you're eyes are seeing, you know, double the frames in this can't quite

28:26

tell. It's a it is fascinating.

28:28

Like, interesting here. Yeah. Yeah. Yeah.

28:31

Opposed to, like, actually projecting it a twenty four four. Exactly. Because you

28:33

can't do that. You can't do that. You can't do that. Yeah.

28:35

I'll just do that. When Peter Jackson was, like,

28:37

every theater needs high frame rates

28:40

that was, like, a massive push towards getting new

28:42

projectors into theaters. And it was it was

28:44

a disaster because it looked awful on that

28:46

movie. And I think a lot of theaters felt that

28:48

was a bad investment So the camera is

28:50

kind of working with the tools he has right now

28:52

and the the projector tech we have right

28:55

now. So at the end of the day, I've

28:57

gotten this question a lot after

28:59

I, like, posted about it is,

29:01

like, how can I

29:03

know which format I'm seeing the movie

29:05

in? And I

29:07

actually don't really know at this point? Like, if you will Yeah.

29:09

So there there is a good if you

29:11

search IMAX, you know, the

29:13

way water screenings, there's a good

29:15

breakdown on Reddit. But there multiple

29:17

IMAX projectors or if you get, like,

29:19

the big ass IMAX theater, you you

29:21

will most likely get HFR. If

29:24

you have Hi, Freeman. Yep. Hi,

29:26

Freeman. If you have certain

29:28

of their of their

29:30

dual dual laser projectors -- Mhmm. -- can

29:32

do it as well. Some can only do

29:34

2K3D and high

29:36

frame rates, so and that's IMAX. If

29:38

you go to Adobe and AMC Dolby

29:41

Theatre, it's guaranteed -- Yeah. -- getting If if you go to Dolby,

29:43

you'll get the variable frame rate. So for me, Devinger,

29:45

like, honestly, I'm like, you know, my wife has asked

29:47

me, which screening of avatar or the way water might you

29:49

see next? I'm like, I want the,

29:52

like, the cheapest, the shittiest

29:54

one. The shittiest one you have, so I

29:56

can watch the I can be guaranteed.

29:58

There's no variable frame rate for this one, baby.

30:00

So, anyway, I'm glad you

30:03

guys worked you know, I'm glad

30:05

the high frame might work for you guys, and

30:07

it did work for me at some

30:09

points. Anytime it was longer than, like, a minute,

30:11

you know, I was like, this is awesome.

30:13

But it it overall didn't work

30:15

for me, unfortunately. So anyway,

30:18

Those are some thoughts on the format

30:20

of Avatar The Wave Water. We're

30:22

half an hour into this episode. We haven't even gotten

30:24

to the movie yet. Let's let's Well,

30:26

I don't wanna say I just I do wanna say

30:29

the

30:29

three d

30:31

is glorious. Mhmm. Yeah. Okay. Let's

30:33

look real good. I mean, you

30:35

talk about format, I the fact that I don't even know, is this

30:37

movie being shown in two d?

30:40

No. Yeah. It it absolutely is.

30:42

Yeah. I think that would be a

30:44

mistake if any. They predicted that it

30:46

would have basically the most formats

30:48

ever out of any film.

30:50

In the history of mankind, basically. So

30:53

you got your true d. You got your real d. You got

30:55

your d box, your 4DX you know,

30:57

like every single format. Is

30:59

gonna have this movie. So I do think that the the

31:01

three d is That's why

31:02

you would text me this movie. Yeah. I will

31:04

say for this one in preview of

31:06

our review, I guess, at least if you watch this 12D

31:08

it's still a good movie. So, you know.

31:12

Well, let's dive into our

31:14

overall thoughts. On Avatar the way of water.

31:16

I'm gonna read the plot summary from the

31:18

studio. Quote, set more

31:20

than a decade after the events of the first film. Avatar

31:22

the way of water tells the story of the sunny

31:25

family the trouble that follows them, the lengths they go

31:27

to keep each other safe, the battles they

31:29

fight to stay alive, and the tragedies they

31:31

endure, end quote. Alright,

31:35

folks.

31:35

Overall thoughts,

31:37

opening volly.

31:38

DaVinder

31:39

hardware

31:41

hit us. So it has

31:41

come to this. I have

31:44

said I wasn't interested in more

31:46

Pandora stories. I have

31:48

said I was worried about James

31:50

Cameron spending all of his time here

31:52

in this universe. And you know

31:54

what folks I can finally say,

31:56

I see you,

31:58

Avatar. What? Yes.

31:59

I think this movie is a

32:02

triumph. I think this movie is

32:04

fantastic. Yes. It's gonna be a surprise, Kendra.

32:06

Oh, no, did you? Well, I will still put down the first

32:08

movie, Jeff, because Of course.

32:11

But I I

32:11

it it is an epic. Like, this is what you

32:13

want from an epic you

32:15

know, cinematic experience. It's a sweeping story. There's a lot

32:17

of redaction. It's a really personal

32:20

story at the same time. It's a story about

32:22

hashtag family. A story

32:24

about the lengths, you know, parents will go to protect

32:26

their children. It's about, you

32:28

know, man's endless desire to, you

32:30

know, reap more capital from

32:32

the environment. It's about all these things and

32:34

looks great. And I think the best thing is

32:36

that it's not James Cameron

32:38

writing the script himself. Because I think

32:40

that was, like, such a

32:42

such a I don't know, Killing Blow for the first

32:44

movie for me where it was basically

32:46

all troops. I hated like most of the dialogue

32:48

in my first movie. I looked at Avatar one

32:50

as an experience because like, oh, this three

32:52

d looks better than anything I've ever seen before,

32:54

but as a movie, it was something I never wanted

32:56

to rewatch. I think this one is a

32:58

genuinely great movie. Because he had he

33:00

has some screenwriting help from some of the

33:02

folks behind the plane of the apes trilogy. We

33:05

wink, Jaffa, and Amanda Silver have

33:07

screen play credits. Yep. And I think Josh

33:09

Friedman too who worked in the Saricana Chronicles has,

33:11

like, story credits. So, like, he had a writer's

33:13

room for this. There are a whole bunch of people

33:15

there gonna be accredited for the future movies, I

33:17

believe. But it's

33:19

just it's well written. It has

33:21

characters I care about. I care

33:23

about Jake Solly now. Mostly

33:25

because I care about this family. And I

33:27

think it just touches on so many things that are

33:29

just genuinely meaningful. I found this

33:32

movie incredibly moving. So,

33:34

yeah, I I adore I adore this

33:37

movie. I I was

33:39

still fully justified in saying, like, I

33:41

don't know. I don't know if I

33:43

want more of this because based on the

33:45

evidence in front of us, that

33:46

previous movie, I was worried. But

33:48

at

33:48

least now, I'm very glad that I don't

33:51

have to be as worried. I think this is a

33:53

generally great movie, and I'm glad that James Cameron

33:55

has, like, a play kind of

33:57

a sandbox. To test out new technology and

33:59

test out new ideas. And, yeah, I hope

34:01

he gets to make more of these. This

34:03

actually makes me really

34:05

happy because I because I think DaVendra

34:07

has been I guess they wanna hate

34:09

this movie, guys. I was

34:11

regretting disliking it. Yeah. I I think well, I I

34:13

think you have been let me let me put it this way down here. Tell

34:15

me if you agree with this characterization. Okay? You have been the

34:18

most skeptical out of those three

34:20

of us. About James Cameron spending another twenty years of his life

34:22

in Pandora. Right? And,

34:24

literally, the rest of his life. Yeah. And

34:26

and I'm I'm happy

34:30

that, like, you feel like at least some of that

34:32

time might be worth it. Mhmm. So that's

34:34

that's just nice to see. Jeff

34:36

Kanata, what are your overall thoughts on

34:38

avatar the way

34:40

of water? Well,

34:41

Dave, I guess

34:43

you could say my

34:44

overall thoughts on Avatar,

34:46

the

34:47

way of water,

34:48

the way of water are

34:50

best summed up in

34:52

the form

34:53

of several limericks. What

34:58

a treat What a

35:00

treat. Here

35:01

we

35:02

go. This

35:03

room has

35:05

an unmentioned

35:08

elephant. It's the notion

35:09

of cultural relevance.

35:12

This sequel is so good.

35:14

It rightfully should.

35:18

Make that question itself irrelevant.

35:20

I don't know

35:23

about rewriting risk history

35:25

here, but okay. Is

35:27

a limited number two.

35:30

I'm ready. You're gonna I'm ready. My body's

35:32

ready. So those who

35:33

expected this

35:36

faster thinking

35:36

every delay meant disaster. Your

35:38

shod and Freud just got

35:42

destroyed. Behold. Filmcast

35:46

master. I

35:47

don't think we're

35:49

being hyperbolic enough,

35:50

Jeff. Can you give me one more?

35:54

Sure. Here's one more.

35:56

I knew God is named

35:58

Camry. Telling Dave,

35:59

there's

35:59

no v.

36:02

Was

36:02

farceacle. And

36:04

watching him squirm was

36:07

cathartic.

36:07

Well, the way

36:10

of water could

36:11

not have gone harder. It earned its definitive

36:12

article.

36:15

I'm

36:18

clapping. Wow. I can't see

36:20

there. I'm clapping. Those are my

36:22

favorite for

36:24

Avatar. Whatever way out of water.

36:26

You ended ended ended with an inside

36:28

joke. So for those who don't know what Jeff was talking about

36:30

there, Jeff and I for many episodes

36:33

debated the existence of the in

36:36

front of the way or way of

36:38

water. Yeah. I was like, it's the way of water. And

36:40

then Jeff would come in and say, Actually, there's no

36:42

the David, and he was dead

36:44

wrong every single time. Every

36:46

time. Every time. Yeah. And the This

36:48

avatar way of water just

36:50

doesn't work. It's the title. I

36:52

don't I I don't get it. Yeah. I would agree. It

36:54

doesn't it doesn't flow as

36:56

trippingly. It is the way of

36:58

water. Yeah.

36:59

com Guys.

37:02

This is

37:03

why he hated it. This is why I

37:05

go to the movies. That's why I go to

37:07

the movies. I mean, I love all kinds of movies.

37:09

You know that? I like small movies. I like movies,

37:11

which is two people in a room talking for an hour and a half. I like all

37:13

kinds of movies,

37:16

but this

37:17

This is what I go

37:20

to the movies for.

37:22

It's

37:23

the dream that

37:25

I'm always chasing I go

37:27

to the movies, big audacious, exuberant,

37:30

impossible filmmaking. I mean,

37:33

it is working on the

37:35

highest level imagination and storytelling in on the grandest

37:38

scale. This

37:40

is like the light

37:42

This is the thing you go into this movie and you come out of it thinking

37:46

I I How

37:48

how

37:48

is this even possible?

37:51

I I wanna

37:52

watch this movie again as soon

37:54

as I possibly can just like I did

37:56

with the the first Avatar, I

37:58

wanna see it again and again and

37:59

again and again on the big

38:02

screen in the movie theaters.

38:04

It's it's an

38:04

experience I mean, I got

38:07

home from the screening and

38:08

We were not allowed to bring guests to to

38:11

the press screening. My wife said, how was it honey? Did

38:13

it live up to your expectations? I said, we

38:15

need to find a babysitter. Because

38:18

I wanna take you to this movie. I wanna bring people that's

38:20

how it was with the first Avatar. The reason I

38:22

saw it six times in the movies, I kept

38:24

bringing more different people to see

38:27

it. I wanna wanna

38:28

like sit next to someone

38:30

while they experience this movie

38:32

for the first time. It's

38:35

magic. It's beauty. It it

38:38

it it is I

38:40

love being

38:40

in this That's why

38:43

I wanna see it again and again. I love being

38:45

in this place and Cameron

38:48

takes the time.

38:48

I mean, this is a three hour

38:50

and ten minute long movie. But

38:52

he takes the time and grateful he

38:54

does

38:55

to just let

38:56

you

38:57

be in this place and

39:00

experience the beauty of it and sort of explore it.

39:02

I mean, there's a whole sections

39:05

of this movie

39:07

when you're just living

39:09

there. You're just just like Not scary

39:11

footage at times. Yeah. It's you're just

39:14

exploring the beauty of this place with

39:16

him, the wonder of

39:18

this place.

39:19

there

39:19

And it

39:21

takes the

39:24

time to

39:26

feel joy. Why

39:28

is that so rare in movies these

39:30

days? It like, it

39:32

takes the time to just be joyous.

39:35

To say, oh look, here are characters in

39:38

this world experiencing

39:40

joy. Is there drama? Is there

39:43

sadness is is Yes. All of that

39:45

happens in this three hour

39:46

and ten minutes, but there

39:48

are large sequences where it's just

39:50

exuberant and

39:54

joyous and beautiful and wonderful and you're

39:56

just in this

39:58

place like I

39:58

mean, guys, I I

39:59

cried

39:59

multiple times in this

40:02

movie. Several of them were

40:03

just like crying at the

40:05

beauty and the Like, there's

40:07

a grin on my face the whole time. I mean, it is

40:09

-- Mhmm. -- it's

40:11

an amazing experience

40:13

and there

40:14

are, I I would

40:16

say,

40:17

zero shots in

40:18

this movie that don't

40:20

include some CG character

40:22

of some kind, you know.

40:25

It's

40:25

very much like you. It just went to another

40:27

planet. It Yeah. The movie there. That's what it

40:29

seems like. It seems like I mean,

40:32

the way the movie shot, we talked about this

40:34

when we about the first Avatar movie again a few weeks ago, he

40:36

shoots these movies not like their effects

40:38

movies. He shoots them like their

40:40

regular movie, and that's a credit to

40:42

how the shot in the volume and how

40:44

he can have handheld camera and all that

40:46

stuff.

40:46

that But there are

40:48

multiple there are there are long sequences in

40:50

this movie where I kind of forgot I

40:52

was looking CG characters. I was just looking at

40:54

characters. I was just looking at characters, emoting, and

40:56

acting, and and relating to

41:00

them, and there are sequences where like there's like four or five kids

41:02

sitting in a circle talking. And I never

41:04

thought, oh, I'm looking at

41:05

a video game or

41:07

I'm looking at I'm looking at

41:10

all CG. It it it You

41:11

just buy into this world.

41:14

And I mean, there's one shot in particular toward the

41:16

end of the movie. Where, like, there's this this

41:18

really intense thing happening. And then he, like,

41:20

pulls the camera back and

41:22

you see, like, water splashing up

41:24

and we're far away from it. And it's, like,

41:26

that's what

41:27

you would do if you're on set and you could pull the camera

41:29

back and you don't have to render that

41:31

water and, you know, like, but he

41:33

still does it. The

41:36

whole movie is shot

41:38

in a way that makes

41:39

the the effects kind of they're

41:42

still

41:42

wondrous and spectacular and

41:45

and overwhelming and

41:48

gorgeous, but they

41:50

also recede into the

41:53

tapestry of the story and

41:55

you get to just live in that

41:57

place and be in that world,

41:59

and

41:59

that is

42:02

It's

42:02

like magic. It's like watching magic. And there are there

42:04

are sequences like, I I don't Jeremy,

42:06

don't worry you guys. I just wanna

42:08

take a quick break. So let's

42:10

take a quick break for sponsors, and I wanna hear more from Jeff Kanada about

42:13

his thoughts on average other way water coming up right

42:15

now. Hey, I wanna jump in here and

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44:44

Alright, Jeff. Go ahead. Sorry. Demeter wrote.

44:47

No. That's okay. I'm rambling, but

44:49

I'm gonna continue rambling for testimony and

44:51

if you don't believe me. No. For

44:53

a while if you The the the

44:55

other thing about

44:56

this movie

44:58

and this

45:00

franchise this franchise is

45:02

that it wears

45:04

its heart on its sleeve.

45:06

And I think, honestly, one

45:08

of the reasons I feel so connect

45:11

to this franchise, which now is a franchise,

45:14

is I think I

45:16

share a lot of sensibilities with it.

45:18

You know, this movie,

45:20

this franchise, is corny,

45:23

like, undeniably, you know,

45:25

unobtainium is corny. Other aspects of

45:27

it are corny.

45:29

It it embraces simplistic

45:31

notions of morality and and right and wrong. And

45:33

it does things in in a in a way that I

45:35

think a lot of people have criticized the first movie

45:37

for in that it

45:40

is this

45:40

sort of generalized story that we've

45:42

seen a number of times. But, like,

45:45

I feel like I

45:46

am

45:48

corny

45:48

and, you know, have a

45:50

have a I

45:52

embrace the simplistic notion of right

45:55

and right. Like, I share that and I

45:57

love its heart and this movie has

45:59

so

45:59

much heart. It it

46:02

really does

46:02

really does

46:04

express a a

46:05

thing that so many movies,

46:07

especially in the last

46:10

ten years.

46:10

years

46:12

We

46:12

haven't really seen because everything

46:14

is so I mean, the world we

46:16

live in is grimmer and darker than the world

46:18

I grew up in in the eighties. Right?

46:21

And and the

46:23

our art,

46:24

our culture,

46:26

our movies have reflected that,

46:28

and we've seen things get

46:31

grimmer and darker. I mean,

46:33

there's obviously exceptions to that rule as

46:35

outliers. But I think generally especially

46:38

in our fantasy storytelling, in our

46:40

we 700 things like Game of Thrones is the

46:42

biggest fantasy thing in the last ten years.

46:44

Right? It's such and and even

46:48

Harry Potter, gets real grim and real

46:50

dark. You know, it's like the there isn't this, like, exuberant

46:54

joyous. Mhmm.

46:54

Vision

46:56

of the future that is hopeful and positive

46:59

and

46:59

has a heart like this and has

47:02

this

47:04

sort of you know, this

47:05

sort of simplistic heroism

47:08

that

47:09

stirs something in me, like stirs

47:11

AAAAA thing that

47:13

has gone dormant in my soul a

47:15

little bit. And I

47:16

think this franchise does that and I

47:19

I love that. I love feeling that. I

47:21

love like, I

47:22

I wanna I

47:23

wanna be in this place, but

47:25

not because of

47:26

Pandora is a cool fantasy world. It

47:28

is. And there's so

47:29

much more of it we get to see

47:31

and so many new

47:32

cool ideas, like, it's such

47:34

awesome I mean, we'll

47:35

get to some of it in in in spoilage, but such

47:37

awesome, like, new technologies and new stuff that we

47:39

get to see. That's

47:42

awesome. It's just like on a pure awesome

47:44

level is awesome. But that's

47:46

not even what I'm talking about when I say I

47:48

wanna be in this place. It's just like

47:50

the feelings it's it conjures the way

47:53

it wraps me in this

47:56

intense feeling of competency from the

47:58

filmmaker

48:00

like I know I'm in

48:02

good hands the whole time. I know there's so many

48:04

details, so many little things

48:08

that didn't have to happen that way, but

48:10

happen that way and just are just the perfect way

48:12

for that to happen. Mhmm. It

48:13

just

48:14

there is nothing like this.

48:17

There's It's not One thing

48:18

I wanna say, Jeff, it is

48:21

both mythic storytelling like you're saying,

48:23

but also very, very specific and

48:25

very much like It it is not it is grand and sweeping, but

48:27

it's also, like, clearly somebody who has done their homework

48:30

about this stuff. Yeah. And it

48:32

is not cynical at all.

48:34

And I do feel like cynicism

48:36

has really infected like so many things

48:38

because it's not just grim dark. Like, I think the

48:40

MCU stuff is full of joy, but it's

48:42

also like you know, built

48:44

upon, you know, the personality of Tony

48:46

Stark, really. And everyone's been responding to

48:48

him. And he is, like, the most

48:50

cynical, you know, billionaire

48:52

playboy that they're kind of

48:54

is and that tone kind of has been reflected

48:56

throughout much of like what the marble

48:58

stuff has been. So to have something that is

49:00

free of that completely

49:02

is just Yeah. Open hearted and genuinely

49:04

heroic and

49:06

doesn't shy away from

49:07

its emotions, I think is it's pretty

49:09

rare. That feels refreshing. You

49:11

know, that is so well said, Devendra, that

49:14

beautifully put, and and I think you're right,

49:16

cynical is the word that I was searching

49:18

for. You're

49:20

right. And so much of my, you know, my

49:22

life when I was doing the Totally RAD show and and sort

49:24

of starting in the in the public eye and and

49:26

being, you know, front facing to an audience in

49:28

that way. A

49:29

lot of what I

49:31

wanted to stand

49:32

for and and and the message that I liked

49:34

putting out into the world is that

49:38

cynicism is

49:38

the

49:39

enemy. Right? Be less cynical, like, care

49:41

more.

49:42

hair more

49:43

And cynicism

49:44

cynicism has

49:46

been thrust upon me. You know? And

49:48

in in a lot of ways. And you're

49:50

absolutely right. Like, it is so awesome

49:52

to, like, peer out of that little

49:55

tunnel of darkness that I certainly have been

49:57

in in the last five years or

49:59

more, and see this

50:01

thing, this ray of sunshine and hope that

50:04

they just feels

50:06

I mean, I can't even say it better than you did,

50:08

Devendra. I think you put it beautifully.

50:10

But, I mean,

50:12

that that's the feeling I get being

50:14

in this world and being in watching this

50:16

movie. And I can't wait to talk about

50:18

the specifics of the story because I think

50:20

it does some really fun cool stuff. And

50:22

the action sequences, like,

50:24

there's only one human being

50:26

I think on Earth that could make this

50:30

movie. It's just

50:30

insane that that that's the case, that

50:31

that's the truth like. And it's the guy

50:34

who self designed his own submarine

50:36

and took it to the bottom of

50:38

the ocean. Gosh. I made a movie

50:40

about it too. Like, it's crazy. I

50:42

didn't say that he's a real person. The way

50:44

the way he structures

50:46

action sequences the

50:47

clarity of the moment

50:49

to moment, it's music,

50:52

man. It is There there are There were a

50:54

number of times where I

50:56

just yelled at something that

50:58

happened that, like, was this

51:00

crescendo at the at the end of an action sequence

51:02

because it built in

51:04

such a beautiful, methodical way and

51:06

the detail of what was happening. It was

51:08

so clear. It was so precise. And it

51:10

was so it it

51:12

built up to a moment that

51:14

just unleashed that

51:16

feeling, that that climactic moment of Yeah.

51:18

Our heroes did a thing

51:19

or whatever. It it is Like,

51:21

it's an

51:23

art you know, it's a

51:25

it's a science at the same time. It it is this beautiful

51:28

construction of a sequence

51:30

that so

51:32

few filmmakers

51:32

filmmakers do at this level. And,

51:35

man, this movie feels impossible, and

51:38

it kind of is. Like, no one else can

51:40

make it. It costs so much money. It's like, what

51:42

you're seeing on screen is,

51:44

you

51:44

the know,

51:46

digital people in digital inside

51:48

digital water alongside real

51:50

people too, some scene. So --

51:53

Exactly. I've been talking long enough. Let let Dave take

51:55

a crap on what I

51:57

just said.

51:59

I mean, you're

52:00

you're ready. I I have seen the toots. I am ready for this

52:02

discussion. For for those who don't know, by the

52:04

way, toots are the Mastodon equivalent tweets

52:07

just shows everything that comes out of Dave's

52:10

mouth. Wow.

52:14

Wow, Jeff. Wow.

52:16

I mean,

52:16

the here here's

52:18

the thing, Jeff. People

52:20

when I hear

52:23

Jeff give a impassioned, endemic

52:25

speech like that one,

52:27

who can't who cannot help a who among

52:29

us cannot help but be moved by

52:31

Jeff being moved? Who among us?

52:34

You you among us,

52:36

not too. III say this

52:38

very genuinely because I'm like, oh,

52:40

like, on the one hand,

52:42

like, I love that you love it.

52:44

You know, I love and and I think people

52:46

listening to this love that you love

52:48

it. And that's why

52:50

people tune in. They love love to hear Jeff loving

52:52

things. And, like, there's

52:54

something very exciting and alive and vibrant about that love, you

52:56

know? And and I don't wish

52:58

to do anything

53:00

to even potentially

53:02

come close to extinguishing even a

53:04

part of that love. You know what I'm saying? Like,

53:06

I don't wish to yuck your yum and even

53:09

the slightest. And yet, at the same

53:11

time, I must stand in my truth and say, I did

53:13

not think this movie was very good.

53:16

Really? Yeah. I I

53:18

find that so hard

53:20

to believe. Like, I don't understand. Someone can go

53:22

through this experience of three hours and ten

53:24

minutes and walk out and go. Like,

53:26

of all the things in

53:27

the world, I I just I find it. I

53:29

just find it so unbelievable to even

53:32

understand, but I'll let you explain.

53:34

Well, I

53:36

think

53:37

i think

53:38

On

53:40

the one hand,

53:41

let's talk about some of the

53:43

things I really loved about the movie, which is stuff

53:45

that you've already said. Right? The

53:48

visuals in the movie are incredible. They spent

53:50

hundreds of millions of dollars in this movie.

53:52

It's all there on the

53:54

screen. And we

53:56

have talked about how James Cameron is trying to push

53:58

the medium of cinema

54:00

word does forward.

54:02

It does. And

54:02

does in this movie

54:04

are arguably Unbelievably.

54:05

Yeah. Right? The in

54:08

in particular, the underwater stuff is

54:12

just Like, you you've never seen anything like it before in

54:14

a theater. There's a shot of one of the

54:16

characters, like, from beneath and the

54:18

giant whales above them

54:20

and the sun is outside the water. I'm like, this looks like the

54:22

best planet Earth shot I've ever

54:24

seen. Right. You know, he's just like it's one

54:26

thing. It looks like a major

54:28

documentary except

54:30

it's all alien creatures that -- Yeah. -- dreamed up.

54:32

But, you know, it still looks photorealistic. And

54:34

it's just like, wow. It's mind blowing some

54:36

of the visuals that can be achieved this

54:38

film. You've already talked about the

54:40

action as well. Love the action. James

54:42

Cameron has not lost a step. Whenever

54:44

there's an action scene in this

54:46

movie, It's amazing. Like, it's it's just like, wow. I it's

54:48

so thrillingly shot edited, and

54:50

there's there's multiple moments that we'll talk about

54:52

in spoilers. I'm just like, I can't believe

54:56

I'm seeing what I'm seeing. It's looks so

54:58

cool. What

54:59

I'm seeing. So you're thinking

55:01

to

55:01

yourself, well, Dave, that

55:02

sounds awesome. Why did you love the movie?

55:06

That sounds like a movie you enjoy. Yeah. Sounds

55:08

like a movie I would enjoy. And I think, you know,

55:10

I I didn't love almost

55:14

anything else about the movie. Like, I didn't

55:16

love the story. I didn't love

55:18

the characters. We're introduced to a

55:20

bunch of new characters in

55:22

this movie. And I didn't find any of them

55:24

interesting. I'm just gonna put that out there. Like, I didn't I

55:26

didn't like any of the new

55:28

characters. And because we are following all these

55:30

new characters,

55:32

we're not following the original

55:34

couple from the

55:35

first Avatar as much, Jake and

55:37

Nittiri. And I felt

55:40

their arc this movie

55:42

was shortchanged as a result. I

55:44

will agree that I think my

55:46

biggest criticism of the movie is that

55:48

Nate Terry is almost

55:50

completely side lines. Yeah. And it does it's a she's by far the best

55:52

part -- Yeah. -- typing, you know. And it's always Saldana

55:54

is incredible, and she remains

55:56

incredible in this movie, but she only has about three

55:58

things to do. Yeah. And one of

55:59

them is incredible. But

56:02

but for the I was like, oh, I miss

56:04

I miss near history. But it really

56:06

it

56:07

really becomes, you

56:09

know,

56:09

Avatar the next generation. Yes.

56:12

And I

56:13

was really worried about

56:15

that. It was like, oh, we cast the kids. It's gonna be a movie about

56:17

the kids. And I'm like -- Yeah. -- oh, this is how you

56:19

ruin a franchise. But that's exactly

56:22

what and I feel like

56:24

my fears we're all played out. Personally, I just yeah. I just away

56:26

completely I mean, I don't know.

56:30

i I don't make this about

56:32

having kids or not having kids. Yeah. Yeah. Yeah.

56:34

But there's very much a movie. There's a lot of

56:36

-- Yeah. -- this movie that's about being a parent.

56:40

And I mean, I was crying many times because, like, oh,

56:42

my daughter has said those

56:43

words out loud to me. You know, like,

56:46

specifically about being

56:48

a father. Yeah. That that is also, you know, a a knock against it

56:50

because Nateria's perspective is

56:52

not nearly there as

56:54

much, but you know, those

56:56

things hit me, certain things that

56:58

happen towards the end, like, talk about crying

57:00

behind two pairs of

57:02

glasses. Yeah. It is I think that

57:04

happened multiple times. Right. I don't

57:06

I I would say

57:08

that it is highly likely that

57:12

if you are a parent or a father specifically that, like,

57:14

this movie would speak to you in specific ways. I'll I'm

57:16

also just gonna point out the obvious. There's people

57:19

who aren't parents that also love the movie, and there's people who are

57:21

parents who didn't enjoy it. You know? So it's like Perfect.

57:23

It's not it's not like that is

57:25

a decisive factor I I do I

57:27

want it to fall along those lines on this podcast, but I don't think it's, like, you know

57:30

For sure. It it's one thing, Jeff mentioned.

57:32

I do think it

57:34

would help. Like, it does help that perspective. Like, you sure, lot

57:36

of these movies we're seeing this year are

57:38

about older directors who are, like, taking stock

57:40

in their lives. And in some ways, using

57:44

movies to sort of, like, reflect on them and maybe make peace with,

57:46

like, the things they couldn't do for their own

57:48

families or for their own lives. One thing you had

57:50

mentioned, though, in

57:51

a toot Dave. And I

57:54

will never tire saying too. Yes.

57:56

Apparently. You said that this movie is basically

57:58

a remake of the first one. And

57:59

I

57:59

don't know if you still believe that. Because I do I do

58:02

believe did not. I do believe it. We can talk about it instead.

58:04

Yeah. I do I do believe that. III

58:06

basically said, I described this as, like, the force

58:08

awakens of avatar.

58:10

And, yes, there are some new

58:12

characters and, like, the you know,

58:14

I think you guys find the theme of family to

58:16

be very substantive. And that's cool, but I did

58:18

not personally as rendered in this film.

58:22

And and and here's

58:24

the thing. Lots of people love the

58:26

Force Awakens. I think the function of the force awakens. Yeah.

58:28

Avatar of the way water can be to do what the

58:30

force awakens did, which is to introduce

58:32

avatar to a new generation

58:34

of filmmakers. I was writing film

58:36

go b. I can't say filmakers. Film

58:38

goers thirteen years after the

58:40

original movie came out. And so there's it's not, like,

58:42

necessarily a

58:44

bad thing. But I found many of the emotional beats to be

58:46

very similar to the first one.

58:47

And

58:48

we can talk more about that when we get to

58:50

spoilers. I wanna I

58:52

wanna say a couple let I wanna let you

58:54

finish. No worries. No worries. Go ahead.

58:56

I wanted to relate

58:59

to you guys some

59:01

anecdotes of my

59:02

experience. So

59:06

saw this

59:08

movie out of press screening as you know.

59:10

Yeah. I

59:11

would say maybe

59:13

twenty

59:14

people in the audience

59:16

maybe maybe a few more. Not, you know, obviously massive

59:19

auditoriums. So big,

59:21

mostly empty theater.

59:24

The

59:24

movie

59:25

before the movie, three out

59:27

and ten minute long movie. Before

59:29

the movie, the

59:32

oftentimes we'll have, you know, somebody

59:34

come out at a press screening and say, hey,

59:36

just, you know, please put your cell phones away

59:38

if we see anybody using phones

59:40

would be asked to leave. It's it's it's standard.

59:42

Standard. Because it's gonna be super awesome to shoot three

59:45

d HFR footage on a

59:47

cell phone. That's really you're

59:49

gonna make your money. Yeah. I really guess. I I

59:51

respect that. But this

59:54

time we had somebody pop back in after they'd

59:56

already made that announcement and go, hey, just want to

59:58

know there's

59:59

no end credit sequence.

1:00:02

You don't have to stay for the EU. Yeah. This is

1:00:04

a long movie. You don't have to stay for don't wait

1:00:07

anything. There's no end credit sequence. The

1:00:08

CFO. After the movie. Yeah.

1:00:11

Yeah. So I

1:00:14

am I am sitting in the at the

1:00:16

end of the movie.

1:00:17

weeping Weeping. It

1:00:18

is sitting in my seat, listening

1:00:20

to the score as this credits are going.

1:00:22

And the lady comes out to me and

1:00:25

she's like, Oh, did

1:00:25

you not hear the announcement? There's no end to

1:00:27

credit sequence? That's

1:00:29

it. I'm like

1:00:30

I mean, I'm having

1:00:32

a moment. Let me just sit with this. Okay.

1:00:34

A moment here. Theater. Yeah. So

1:00:36

so I get up and III

1:00:39

leave the theater. I don't know if

1:00:40

this happens to you guys. I suspect it

1:00:43

does, but oftentimes press people will

1:00:45

be standing at the door asking the critics. Yes. Just

1:00:47

quick thoughts. Like, just what

1:00:49

did you think? Yes. Both

1:00:51

of the press people are occupied by the time I

1:00:54

get out. But as I

1:00:55

walk by, I hear another

1:00:58

critic who I don't I'm not familiar with. I don't know

1:01:00

who it's specifically it was, but

1:01:02

another critic standing there talking to the press

1:01:04

person. And

1:01:05

he says,

1:01:06

and i quote

1:01:07

and I quote, God

1:01:08

damn it. I did not want to like this dumb

1:01:10

movie

1:01:12

as I walk

1:01:13

by. Yeah.

1:01:17

Couldn't help himself Did he feel not wanting

1:01:19

to like it? Couldn't help himself. I

1:01:21

get III walk into the

1:01:23

bathroom around ten minute movie. I gotta go I

1:01:25

gotta pee afterwards. I

1:01:26

walk into the bathroom and I I

1:01:28

finished what I'm doing, go and

1:01:30

wash my hands. Another guy washing

1:01:34

his hands next to me, he just turns his head I

1:01:36

don't know who this has never met him. Turns his head

1:01:38

and looks at me and he goes,

1:01:40

James Cameron,

1:01:43

man. Yep. While is it

1:01:45

while you're, like, at the urinal? No. No. No. We're

1:01:47

washing our hands. No. You're washing our hands. No. You're washing our hands. Did

1:01:49

you miss a theater conversation at the urinal.

1:01:51

It has happened to me multiple times. Cameron, but I thought like

1:01:54

There's your review. Here's your

1:01:55

review. Yeah.

1:01:58

Cameron, man. Yeah.

1:01:59

I mean, it's it's so

1:02:02

fascinating to -- Mhmm. -- to

1:02:04

hear people's reactions because I left the theater

1:02:06

and I was like, oh, Everyone's

1:02:08

gonna agree with me.

1:02:10

Everyone's gonna think that movie wasn't

1:02:12

that great other than the actions and the

1:02:14

visuals, not actions and visuals. And

1:02:16

as we're recording this, I I I'm just intensely You

1:02:19

seem to be turning green. You seem to

1:02:21

be gaining a menacing, like,

1:02:23

a grim of Well,

1:02:26

anyway, let's take a

1:02:28

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1:02:30

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slash film Filmcast else to

1:04:37

say before we get into sport. What

1:04:39

was your what was your p strategy

1:04:41

going into this guys? Because

1:04:43

I had a strategy in mind because I thought

1:04:45

it was gonna be at the big the big

1:04:47

old IMAX theater at AMC sixty

1:04:50

a Street,

1:04:52

is one of the best screens on Earth. It's also

1:04:54

a disaster if you need to use the

1:04:56

bathroom because it's like real big

1:04:58

ass IMAX

1:05:00

with like huge rows and no aisles in between. So you're in

1:05:02

the middle of there. If you're in the sweet

1:05:04

spot, you're not leaving. You're trapped

1:05:06

there. So I was like, okay. I'm just

1:05:08

gonna, like, I'm gonna take, like, a

1:05:10

side ish c, and maybe if I have to

1:05:12

walk over a couple people, it's not as bad as, like,

1:05:14

being in the center. But it ended up being at

1:05:16

an AMC at a Dolby Vision

1:05:18

screen, which had nice full

1:05:20

rows in between everybody could get up. You

1:05:22

could go use the bathroom. You don't really

1:05:24

annoy people. Anything up not having to go the

1:05:26

bathroom at all. But what was your concern? was planning

1:05:28

for this? I didn't, you know yeah. IIII

1:05:31

was gonna roll the dice and I ended

1:05:33

up I I went

1:05:35

right before. Yeah. That's right. And then I and then I didn't have

1:05:37

to go during that day. So our screenings

1:05:39

started at seven PM.

1:05:42

And

1:05:42

I six fifty eight, I went up and got went to the bathroom to make

1:05:44

it as -- That's way to go. -- before

1:05:46

as possible. Yeah. Yeah. Yeah. Yeah. Yeah.

1:05:49

I I didn't find myself having to I mean, I was just enthralled the

1:05:52

whole town. I was like, if the movie I

1:05:54

did I couldn't have even told you it was three hours

1:05:56

and ten minutes. Yeah. Like, if they'd

1:05:58

started it again after I was done, I would've

1:06:00

sat there and watched it again. It was like I I didn't

1:06:02

really feel it either. And there are sometimes in some

1:06:04

movies I'm like, I just gotta go to

1:06:06

the bathroom. Like, I'm not having a good time here.

1:06:08

I need a break from this movie. Never

1:06:10

really felt any healing like that during

1:06:12

this. Yeah. Alright,

1:06:13

folks. Well, shall we

1:06:14

get to spoilers for Avatar the

1:06:16

way of water? Start talking about the plot in-depth?

1:06:20

Yeah. Alright. Here we

1:06:22

go. Spoiler starting right now for

1:06:24

Avatar the wave water.

1:06:25

Now you're looking for

1:06:26

the secrets. Can I see it's

1:06:27

coming? No. But you won't find because,

1:06:29

of course, we're not gonna see this come. You're not

1:06:32

really looking. I have been puzzled

1:06:34

of how it works. You don't really want

1:06:36

to work it out. What was in

1:06:38

the bar? Time they would die in the deli. How are you

1:06:40

doing? We want to

1:06:42

be food. Let's do

1:06:44

it folks. Let's talk about the

1:06:45

actual plot of the movie. So

1:06:48

there's so much to

1:06:49

unpack about those premise. And there

1:06:52

there's one thing to start with,

1:06:54

which is

1:06:54

we saw that Steven Lang was cast in this movie. Yeah. Right?

1:06:56

Years ago, weaver. And since we were in

1:06:58

a weaver. Yeah. And we were like, okay. So

1:07:02

they died. What's what's gonna happen there? And I

1:07:04

think it's really interesting what this movie did

1:07:06

with both of them even if

1:07:10

the the child character, Kiri, the

1:07:12

security we've replaced even though, like, a lot of that is

1:07:14

unexplained, clearly setting up stuff for, like,

1:07:16

future movies. Mhmm. But the

1:07:18

corded stuff, and

1:07:19

the idea of, like, recombinant and, like, okay,

1:07:21

taking the Avatar technology back and

1:07:24

sort of, like, figuring out a way to just,

1:07:26

like, push put humans into these things and making

1:07:28

clones, it's kind of a cool idea. I

1:07:30

kinda dug it. I don't know how you guys felt. Oh, yeah. I

1:07:32

I thought it was so

1:07:34

efficiently conveyed Like, we don't spend we

1:07:36

don't spend an hour dealing with

1:07:38

it. It's like, this is how it you

1:07:40

know, one video message and we're in.

1:07:42

Yeah. I didn't thought that was to, like, boom.

1:07:44

Yeah. Yeah. I I agree with the

1:07:46

economy of, like, how it was conveyed, but

1:07:47

that was my first big disappointment with the movie.

1:07:49

I was like, how Like,

1:07:52

the the oh, here here's ultimately, like, what my

1:07:54

big issue with this movie is. Right?

1:07:57

Is Avatar avatar one

1:08:00

one felt like a monumental event

1:08:02

in these people's lives. Like, it

1:08:04

felt like, oh, we're gonna divide

1:08:07

history

1:08:07

into, like, before and after

1:08:09

Avatar one app. Mhmm. Right?

1:08:11

Avatar

1:08:11

two felt like a chapter in this --

1:08:13

Yeah. -- these people's lives. It's it's the beginning of

1:08:15

a new trilogy. It feels like And and and as a

1:08:17

result, like, III liked it quite a lot

1:08:19

less and also

1:08:21

felt it repeated many of the same things in the first film. One of

1:08:23

the big ones being, it's Corsican. Yes. He's

1:08:25

he has Navi powers now, but it's

1:08:28

Corsican. Right? Well, I think

1:08:29

-- Yeah. -- this movie in

1:08:31

a lot of ways is Corsh's

1:08:33

movie. And I think we're gonna see -- Yep. -- an evolution of Corsh over the

1:08:35

course of the next several movies -- Mhmm. -- because

1:08:38

he basically

1:08:38

goes through the Jake's Sully

1:08:42

story himself -- Yeah. -- and

1:08:44

does it his own way. And I think it's

1:08:46

so interesting to see that, like, two sides

1:08:48

of the same coin -- Mhmm. --

1:08:51

and how he retains his sort

1:08:53

of dark

1:08:53

heart through it. And I think, you know, with

1:08:55

the

1:08:55

revelation of him having a son and

1:08:57

the son the way the son saves him

1:08:59

at the end, I

1:09:02

think all of that is gonna play large in

1:09:04

the next -- Yeah. -- over the course

1:09:06

of whatever this trilogy story is. There is

1:09:08

like a Darth Vader narrative that's going

1:09:11

on here with and I felt, but also

1:09:13

the movie I think humanizes him in ways that are really, really interesting.

1:09:15

First of all, we didn't know anything about a kid in

1:09:17

the first movie. Right? Like, that's just like,

1:09:19

hey, by the way, quartet kid.

1:09:21

The kid couldn't go to hypersleeper. The kid couldn't like go to cryo. So -- Yeah. -- he's

1:09:23

here now. You set that up. But

1:09:28

also, The

1:09:28

dude, this court is a clone

1:09:30

of the memories of the first court court before

1:09:35

his death. Yeah. It's him dealing with that

1:09:37

and seeking revenge for

1:09:39

himself and so

1:09:42

rad. It's it's there's so many things going on that I think are really

1:09:44

fascinating. Yeah. The the this

1:09:46

movie is like throwaway ideas are,

1:09:50

like, a killer Cifi

1:09:52

ideas. Like, you know, I love how Chorus

1:09:54

just treats himself like a different person than his clonal

1:09:56

way. He's like, I'm not your dad,

1:09:58

dude. Yeah. But that's not other guy.

1:10:02

Sure. I have all of his life memories

1:10:04

and experiences and basically am

1:10:06

a carbon copy of him,

1:10:08

but, like, that's not me. Like

1:10:10

that alone is such a fascinating sci

1:10:12

fi concept of like, are you your

1:10:14

is the clone

1:10:16

You does it should

1:10:17

it should it have to pay back your, you know, personal business loan? Or It is ends

1:10:20

up being, like, he he is pretty

1:10:22

much his dad. Like, it is at that

1:10:26

bomb, that connection is still there. So the spider

1:10:29

stuff, I

1:10:29

felt like that was kind of annoying. You

1:10:31

know, so I feel bad

1:10:33

for that actor who is probably in these very

1:10:35

cold sets and is in freaking

1:10:38

Tarzan loincloth the entire time.

1:10:40

Yeah. Poor dude. But we're

1:10:42

gonna Yeah. The interaction between

1:10:44

a real person and a CG everything

1:10:46

in this movie is -- Yeah. --

1:10:48

incredible. On re I mean, Not

1:10:51

unreal. Real it looks seamless. It

1:10:53

looks seamless. I agree. It looks

1:10:55

unbelievable. Yeah. Yeah.

1:10:56

But yeah. I mean,

1:10:58

I I thought that that the

1:11:00

sequence where Korch and

1:11:01

his men come

1:11:02

to the final battle location from

1:11:04

the end of the first movie

1:11:06

and he finds his own corpse,

1:11:09

which he has no memory of happening. Yep. Yeah. That was an and

1:11:11

then that's cool. It's incredible

1:11:13

moment.

1:11:16

And it Yeah. It's it's, like, Harkens

1:11:18

back to Terminator and and and, like, stuff that he was working with, like, young girls. This really harkens

1:11:21

back to

1:11:24

everything seems in his desk, like, doing which he's managed

1:11:26

sequences or Yeah. It's it's so red. But, like, that moment where he picks up his own

1:11:28

skull and he looks at it

1:11:30

-- Mhmm. -- and then crushes it

1:11:33

Like, that cinema, dude. That's cinema because you don't know what's going through his head

1:11:35

and then you seem crushing it. It's it's

1:11:37

Shakespeare. Yeah. It's it's

1:11:40

like it's Yeah.

1:11:42

Pure digital storytelling. Last four

1:11:44

York, I knew him. You know, it's like

1:11:46

it's it's I am him. Yeah.

1:11:49

Yes. I I would say that that the

1:11:51

core stuff is some of the stronger stuff. And, like, yeah, when he takes the you to

1:11:57

think about how you would feel in that situation

1:11:59

where, like, you, you know, you have you happen upon, like, your own

1:11:59

death, basically. You know,

1:12:02

your witness to your own

1:12:04

corpse. And like Have

1:12:06

you guys played this game? To him. Yeah. It's a sequel. And then they find it, and they watch the It's

1:12:08

like such a I've

1:12:11

never seen that particular

1:12:14

version of that That's my fine

1:12:16

idea. You know, play out like that. And then, like,

1:12:18

the way the skull is so tiny in his

1:12:20

big Avatar hand. Like, is this

1:12:22

it's awesome. Did you know what we're gonna

1:12:23

say? Have you guys played the game returnal?

1:12:26

Yes. Because I think kind

1:12:27

of Explorer is similar territory to

1:12:29

it is similarly, like,

1:12:31

creepy and interesting. But yeah, I this

1:12:33

is why I'm like, I sure, this movie does follow some similar

1:12:36

beats of the first movie,

1:12:38

but I feel like there's a

1:12:40

lot more going on here. Right?

1:12:42

Because it's not just Jake and they teary. It's not just Jake, like, stumbling into this whole thing and being a leader like

1:12:44

an idiot. It is him

1:12:46

trying to back up. Okay.

1:12:49

I I've done the whole hero thing. I

1:12:51

just need to keep this family safe. And I do feel like in this era right we're like,

1:12:56

hey, that in the

1:12:58

pandemic area too. Like, that is something that's just always on my mind. I think of their big excursion from the forest

1:13:01

to the

1:13:04

ocean to very much I can relate

1:13:06

to. And I know you can't do, Jeff. If you're like, okay. Well, it's not safe here. So we go

1:13:12

there. And That is also very dangerous, but let's

1:13:14

go there and resettle. There's a lot of that in here. I also do you appreciate the fact

1:13:16

that Jake

1:13:19

Solly remains a big dumb dumb too. Like, he's not he's

1:13:21

not, like, a super enlightened person because he's,

1:13:23

like, not a great

1:13:25

dad. Nature is, like, you know, These aren't soldiers. These are

1:13:27

your children. But also the whole plan of

1:13:30

like, well, being here is dangerous for

1:13:31

the forest

1:13:34

people. So we're

1:13:34

gonna go put the water people in danger. I did. Not

1:13:37

a Well, you know Yeah.

1:13:39

Again, yeah, I mean, your point I'm glad

1:13:41

you've liked that part. You're pointing out reasons like,

1:13:43

you know, Yeah. But he did a movie saying he's still a big

1:13:45

dumb dumb dumb. Yeah. The central sort

1:13:47

of storyline of the

1:13:49

film, I was just

1:13:52

like, okay. They're they're trying to escape, but then courts are still

1:13:54

going like, why is why why does he think leaving

1:13:57

will put

1:13:57

him out of day I I guess, theoretically, it could. Is there

1:13:59

unlike the way far You're supposed to be

1:14:02

far away in writing, but they should be, like,

1:14:04

away from any people

1:14:06

to be to be really safe. Yeah. Well, also it's like

1:14:08

it's like why is Jorge still after him?

1:14:10

Because I I get the idea of

1:14:12

like, okay. He

1:14:15

is like mhmm. He's basically

1:14:17

like a terrorist. Right? Like, he the character of Jake Salt is

1:14:19

basically a terrorist. He's, like, going around, blowing up trains to go

1:14:21

terrorists. Hard yeah. He could, you know,

1:14:23

harvesting things like that. And

1:14:26

then it's like, okay. We gotta stop that guy. Right?

1:14:29

Mhmm. And

1:14:29

so then

1:14:31

he, like, flees and goes, wait.

1:14:33

So then why do but he's no longer

1:14:35

leaving terrorist acts. Like, why do they still need

1:14:37

to Well, that's that's a simple thing. Coric

1:14:40

also wants

1:14:42

actual revenge for his own death. Absolutely. And also, like, his

1:14:44

own existence. Like, basically, you have

1:14:46

this movie gives us Eddy Falco in

1:14:48

a mech suit. I'm like, I

1:14:50

also want to be like, this Yeah.

1:14:53

If I thought I'd see Deepak go like this. This is something comment in a subject. You

1:14:55

know, like, I come on. It's

1:14:59

so good. But but Ida Falco in

1:15:01

full on general mode to, like, her being the new courage and kind of laying down the

1:15:03

law for him. She it's

1:15:06

also, like, a thing she

1:15:08

wanted. Like,

1:15:09

she they're here. They're here to, like, bring, you know,

1:15:11

bring the peace for the humans. That involves taking down the biggest human traitor

1:15:15

that there is. He

1:15:17

he also he's also become the thing he

1:15:19

hates. Yeah. And he he literally wakes

1:15:21

up as the thing

1:15:23

he's always hated. And

1:15:25

one person is responsible for it. Mhmm. So he has the added benefit of

1:15:27

the military. His employers

1:15:30

want that person dead And

1:15:35

so he's like, yeah, give me that give me

1:15:37

that mission. This is the best What's born for

1:15:39

this? Yeah. And so when that

1:15:42

person becomes Less of a problem for the military. It doesn't

1:15:44

become less of a problem for Korch. Korch

1:15:46

still wants that dude dead. I I

1:15:48

totally understand why Korch wants it dead. So that

1:15:50

that I get. But it just it felt like

1:15:52

such smaller stakes to me than

1:15:54

the first film. Right? The

1:15:57

first film felt like I

1:15:58

I could convince myself,

1:15:59

like, oh, maybe, like, this will actually

1:16:02

stop the sky people from ever coming

1:16:04

back to Pandora. Like, maybe if they

1:16:06

succeed, like, we're gonna repel them forever. And

1:16:08

it felt so, like, consequential and important like a prophecy

1:16:10

was being fulfilled. And this one just felt like -- Yeah.

1:16:12

-- it's a it's a blood feud.

1:16:14

You know? It's like, hey. Yeah. It's

1:16:17

a revenge mission and it's like, okay. That's not

1:16:19

unentreated. It's not, like, completely devoid of any merit,

1:16:20

but

1:16:22

it's just more, like, the first one just felt like so weighty by comparison. First,

1:16:24

that that reading of the first movie too is

1:16:26

one of the things I really disliked

1:16:29

about it too is

1:16:31

being like, oh, well, we we blew

1:16:33

up these machines, we sent them back to their home planet, and all our problems

1:16:35

are solved. Right. And I don't think I don't think that's

1:16:37

a good, like, that's a good story

1:16:39

for one movie. That's

1:16:42

not a good story for, you know, if you're gonna continue

1:16:44

this as a franchise. And also, that's to

1:16:47

me, like, that's a level of

1:16:49

unrealism where I'm like, I feel like if you're actually

1:16:51

trying to say something about humanity and the way our

1:16:53

relentless drive for capitalism will like force

1:16:55

us to destroy pretty much everything.

1:16:58

That's beautiful and that's be of

1:17:00

nature. I feel like, no, humanity won't they will

1:17:02

be back. You know? And the question

1:17:03

is, what do you do after that?

1:17:04

And so this is the

1:17:06

beginning of a longer story. Basically

1:17:09

And and I was trying to Cameron has been explicit about

1:17:11

this. In the in the interview that you talked about on the show

1:17:13

a few weeks ago, Dave,

1:17:15

he was basically, like,

1:17:18

you

1:17:18

know, we have these great adventure stories

1:17:20

and then we don't

1:17:21

talk about what happens to these

1:17:23

people next -- Right. -- and they

1:17:26

start a family. And and That's exactly what this movie is about. It's like,

1:17:28

now we have this great

1:17:30

war hero who saved the world,

1:17:33

starts a family And now he's

1:17:35

all exactly what Devinder said. His his

1:17:37

biggest quest now is is

1:17:39

protect the family. He doesn't

1:17:41

say, let's stay here and defend the world and and save

1:17:43

the people. He's like, let's run. We're

1:17:46

running because I gotta save my family.

1:17:48

And

1:17:50

you

1:17:51

know, this notion of like the

1:17:53

sins of the father come back and

1:17:55

are visited on

1:17:57

the children. And and I think that's, you know, that's

1:17:59

a mythical

1:18:03

story trope. And

1:18:05

I think works very very well

1:18:07

here in in a sense that, yes, maybe it doesn't have

1:18:09

the level of save the planet stakes, but it's it is

1:18:11

that question of, like, Well,

1:18:14

what next? Now the most important thing isn't what it used to be. Now the most important are

1:18:17

these

1:18:20

children. And

1:18:21

I thought that worked for me. And I

1:18:23

I also liked I liked how it shifted the

1:18:23

spotlight to the kids. I thought I was gonna hate

1:18:26

that. I thought that he was gonna annoy

1:18:28

me. I like

1:18:30

all these kids, and I thought their interactions between each dynamics were

1:18:36

really well drawn and

1:18:38

and lovely. Mhmm. We haven't even

1:18:40

really

1:18:42

talked about the teenager Kiri this

1:18:44

movie who's played by Seguani

1:18:46

Weaver, massive surprise to me. I

1:18:48

don't know

1:18:48

if you guys knew this going in. But there were

1:18:50

there were a whole bunch of interviews landed

1:18:53

a couple weeks ago, and I I think I

1:18:55

specifically told you, Jeff, to stay away from the Internet because -- Yeah. -- Stephen Lang was out there talking about

1:18:57

CorEdge. Like, a a

1:19:00

lot of stuff was

1:19:02

happening. And I was like, oh, okay. Now we are starting to see how old leasing's been into place. But, yeah, certainly III

1:19:08

thought that was an amazing thing. And

1:19:10

it's kind of proof of concept of what, you know, the notion of performance capture always has

1:19:13

always, you know,

1:19:15

promised, which is

1:19:18

any actor

1:19:18

can play any part. Right? It's it's like you

1:19:21

can you know, and I thought that I

1:19:23

thought her performance was really wonderful as

1:19:25

as a young girl. It's it's it's

1:19:27

It's obviously Tsuguri Weaver and, you know, you can't

1:19:29

forget that it's Tsuguri Weaver, but she does

1:19:32

such a beautiful job, especially in

1:19:34

that sequence where she's like playing against

1:19:36

herself. I thought

1:19:38

she did such a

1:19:40

beautiful job of, like, embodying this

1:19:42

young woman.

1:19:42

So my understanding is that Grace Augustine's

1:19:46

race augustine avatar,

1:19:47

like, had a child

1:19:49

-- Yeah. --

1:19:50

spontaneously. And it was curie. Right?

1:19:52

So but we don't no.

1:19:55

I mean, there's there's, like,

1:19:57

inferences

1:19:57

that she may have gotten knocked up before she died. Mhmm. Mhmm. We

1:19:59

don't we

1:19:59

don't know if it

1:20:02

was like a, you know,

1:20:04

immaculate conception

1:20:06

or or what? I feel like they're they're building up

1:20:08

an Anakin Skywalker thing here. Yeah. So yeah. I

1:20:10

do think that the you know, clearly, she

1:20:12

has a connection to Ewa

1:20:14

that no one else has. So there's something

1:20:17

there. And we know that that Stegoni

1:20:19

Weaver in her avatar body was, like,

1:20:21

connected to Ewa as

1:20:23

she died. So I

1:20:26

expect to find out more about that.

1:20:28

Yeah. So

1:20:28

as you said, they run and they go,

1:20:30

like, all the way around the world to

1:20:34

a tribe of water people called

1:20:36

the, I think, met

1:20:39

Kayina is who they're

1:20:41

called. And then they kind of have

1:20:43

to learn their ways, and that's what the way of water that's where title. I thought

1:20:46

the concept

1:20:47

over, like, the the concept

1:20:50

over like the The abstract concept of this idea that there's,

1:20:52

like, other kinds of Navi that have, like,

1:20:54

evolved in different ways is a cool

1:20:56

one. Yeah. And certainly,

1:20:58

like, the movie uses it to

1:21:00

give you, like, access to all

1:21:03

these worlds that we didn't have access to in the first film. But

1:21:07

I curious

1:21:08

how you guys felt that whole

1:21:10

plotline played out with this new

1:21:12

group of people

1:21:15

in the Metkinah their customs and then, like, trying

1:21:17

to integrate and assimilate their family into their their group. Yeah.

1:21:20

I mean, it's it's very much a story

1:21:21

of, like, going somewhere in you and

1:21:24

just, like, being

1:21:26

the Outcast in many ways, but what was is that these Navi, these are like

1:21:29

built for

1:21:32

the sea. And sort of

1:21:34

seeing those adaptations were kind of fun too. It was like, oh, look at your puny little forest tales. You're not gonna be able to swim with

1:21:36

that, and they have, like, their fingers

1:21:38

are more, like, flippers Filmcast. like, bigger

1:21:43

So I feel like some it's just James Cameron having more

1:21:45

fun with this, like, this universe and

1:21:47

these the species and also

1:21:50

the ecology we see here too.

1:21:52

So I enjoyed that bit.

1:21:54

One thing we haven't really talked about here is that even though someone to this movie is CG,

1:21:56

I believe most

1:21:59

of the

1:21:59

main cast

1:22:01

everybody like who is on screen had to learn their free dive. Yeah. And

1:22:03

a lot of those water scenes

1:22:08

are just people underwater, like, in some

1:22:10

of the Mocap stuff probably because of holding your breath and just

1:22:12

imagining that,

1:22:15

like, going to

1:22:15

that level and also the level of hell he

1:22:17

put his actors through underwater stuff for the

1:22:20

abyss and

1:22:22

other movies. It it kind of kind of amazing to see. I think what

1:22:25

we heard is that Caitlin's ended up being

1:22:27

the, like, MVP of being able

1:22:29

to, like, free dive for,

1:22:31

like, months, minutes on So Yeah. That's also

1:22:33

another aspect of this. I think it's really, really interesting. Wait just to see more

1:22:35

behind the scenes stuff because, like, the idea of Seguarni weaver

1:22:37

playing a a child with a

1:22:39

bunch of other actual

1:22:42

children -- Yeah. -- all low suits, neat that

1:22:44

they had to learn

1:22:47

to breathe correctly

1:22:48

and and

1:22:51

hold their breath for long periods of time. And that's the

1:22:53

text of the movie. Like, the

1:22:55

characters have to learn

1:22:57

to breathe and hold

1:23:00

their breath. And

1:23:00

I I love the synergy

1:23:02

of

1:23:03

that. It's I mean, that whole sequence to me

1:23:03

is what

1:23:06

this is what is one of the things that separates this from

1:23:08

sort of a normal movie.

1:23:11

There's this extended I

1:23:13

don't even know. It feels like I

1:23:15

don't know how

1:23:15

long. We just spend just enjoying --

1:23:18

Mhmm. -- this new

1:23:19

place. We're just This is

1:23:22

new and this new sales are new.

1:23:24

Yeah. Yeah. And and

1:23:26

the the underwater ecology that we get to witness, that whole sequence

1:23:29

with the

1:23:32

the sun developing

1:23:34

a relationship with that one whale creature. All of that, I just was like, I wanna be here.

1:23:37

I

1:23:38

wanna I wanna

1:23:40

just feel

1:23:42

this joy. The movie sets aside danger for

1:23:44

long periods of time

1:23:47

to just let you

1:23:48

long periods of time to just let

1:23:50

you be in

1:23:51

this place. And there's so many lovely little

1:23:54

details like the

1:23:57

the

1:23:59

the water housing system is connected by

1:24:02

these sort of spongy nets. And the

1:24:04

way the kids are, like,

1:24:06

bouncing on the nets and And

1:24:10

I kept thinking, like, well, they clearly had to build -- Yeah. -- actual sets that kinda looked like this

1:24:12

in the mocap space for them to

1:24:14

just interact with it in those ways.

1:24:19

But it just it it adds so much and there many wonderful

1:24:22

just awesome

1:24:23

details, like,

1:24:26

how they how

1:24:27

they learn to to ride the water creatures, how

1:24:29

they then can interact with the water

1:24:31

creatures, and there's like a

1:24:33

sequence where they're just kind of run to the end of a

1:24:36

dock, jump off, call for the creature.

1:24:38

The creature swims under them. They catch

1:24:40

the harness and they're just it's

1:24:42

like, Fucking

1:24:43

rad, dude. Just just rad

1:24:45

stuff. And it just makes you

1:24:47

go. This is --

1:24:49

Yep. When I was a kid, I went, oh,

1:24:52

I want a lightsaber. You know, that's

1:24:54

the kind of feeling you have. Like,

1:24:56

I want a underwater creature

1:24:58

to ride around on. I wanna learn how to breathe through the whole my breath for minutes. It makes you it makes you go,

1:25:00

I want to see the world

1:25:02

because the world is full of wonder.

1:25:07

Let's take one last break for sponsors, and we'll be right back with more talk about

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1:27:04

Talk about the little things. I

1:27:05

do appreciate just the way this

1:27:07

movie also sets just

1:27:11

gives us the overall setting of Pandora more too, like

1:27:13

specifically. I I think it's easy to forget

1:27:15

Pandora is a moon of

1:27:17

a much bigger, you know, planet. And there

1:27:19

are sequences in this movie it's like, okay, Eclipse is happening. It's

1:27:21

a nice time. And the camera just pans

1:27:24

up and you see the

1:27:26

sun, like, arcing behind the parent

1:27:28

planet, And it's just like, it

1:27:30

is beautiful. And the way it's even rendered is sort of like, you sort of see, like, what you would imagine

1:27:32

eclipsed it would look

1:27:34

like from Earth as well.

1:27:37

I just it's those little things. It's like, look it

1:27:39

takes the time to look up. You know? It takes the time to, like, look around and show us, like, what this

1:27:41

world is like for people, which makes it feel

1:27:43

all the more real. It's

1:27:47

somebody who's always a mess. Like, I've always wanted to be like,

1:27:49

okay, I'm just on a moon of

1:27:51

another planet and I look up and

1:27:53

I see a giant, you know, body

1:27:55

in the sky. How would that

1:27:58

work? And this movie really gives you that too more so than the first one. Yeah. The

1:27:59

sequence we're talking about specifically,

1:28:02

this, like, section of the movie

1:28:04

where we're

1:28:06

sort of just learning about the new water

1:28:08

tribe. It it feels almost like

1:28:10

a vacation movie. Mhmm. You know,

1:28:13

like this wonderful escursion into this new

1:28:15

place to discover and Man,

1:28:17

it's

1:28:17

I I love that part. Dave, did

1:28:19

you were you not connecting

1:28:21

to even that sequence? I

1:28:23

can I certainly connected to parts

1:28:25

of it, you know. I think