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Avatar (2009) with Ali Nahdee · The Bechdel Cast

• 0:00
  Speaker 1: Hello listeners. Before we get into this episode, we wanted
• 0:04
  Speaker 1: to say something to raise awareness about a particular current event.
• 0:09
  Speaker 1: Our guest Ali Noddy speaks about this at the end
• 0:12
  Speaker 1: of the episode, but we wanted to stick it here
• 0:14
  Speaker 1: at the top as well to make sure as many
• 0:16
  Speaker 1: people here about it as possible. Right now, in Canada,
• 0:21
  Speaker 1: in Winnipeg, police are refusing to search for the remains
• 0:25
  Speaker 1: of four Indigenous women who have been murdered by a
• 0:29
  Speaker 1: serial killer. The women are Morgan Harris, Rebecca Countois, Marcedes Myron,
• 0:35
  Speaker 1: and a fourth unidentified woman. This speaks to the pervasive
• 0:41
  Speaker 1: problem in Canada and elsewhere in the world of Indigenous
• 0:45
  Speaker 1: women going missing, being murdered, and officials doing little to
• 0:50
  Speaker 1: nothing about it. So we wanted to raise awareness about this.
• 0:55
  Speaker 1: We've included more information in the show notes, and we
• 1:00
  Speaker 1: encourage you to learn more about this and other issues
• 1:04
  Speaker 1: that affect Indigenous people and communities. All right onto the episode.
• 1:10
  Speaker 1: On the be Dol cast, the questions asked movies have
• 1:13
  Speaker 1: women inum? Are all their discussions just boyfriends and husbands
• 1:17
  Speaker 1: or do they have individualism? The patriarchy? Zef invest start
• 1:23
  Speaker 1: changing it with the beck Del Cast. Jamie Yes I
• 1:27
  Speaker 1: see you, Caitlin, I see you. Do you want to
• 1:32
  Speaker 1: mate for life with me? Yeah? Where's your tail at?
• 1:36
  Speaker 1: Here is great to come and then we kiss Kis
• 1:40
  Speaker 1: kiss under the tree, iconic moment in cinema for better
• 1:45
  Speaker 1: or worse. People remember it, they really do. Hello and
• 1:50
  Speaker 1: welcome to the Beck Dol cast. Oh my goodness. Here's
• 1:53
  Speaker 1: one that has been a long time request, a long
• 1:57
  Speaker 1: time coming, and an episode we thought we may never
• 2:00
  Speaker 1: release because we were not convinced that the sequels are
• 2:02
  Speaker 1: actually going to come out. And yet here we are,
• 2:05
  Speaker 1: and here we are the Avatar episode. How you feeling, Caitlin,
• 2:09
  Speaker 1: I'm nervous. I feel underprepared. Even though I did a
• 2:13
  Speaker 1: lot of reading. There's truly so much to go through.
• 2:17
  Speaker 1: And there's also like, there's like fifteen years worth of production, criticism,
• 2:24
  Speaker 1: waves of different takes on this. But it's just been
• 2:28
  Speaker 1: it's been a real journey, it really has, and I'm
• 2:31
  Speaker 1: excited to get into it. We have. I think I
• 2:34
  Speaker 1: think we should just get started. I'm like, I'm ready,
• 2:37
  Speaker 1: I'm ready. You can breeze. Let's just breeze past. Look
• 2:41
  Speaker 1: the show we analyze movies, but you know, figure, let's
• 2:48
  Speaker 1: tell it must tell him. Let's tell him. Okay, um like,
• 2:51
  Speaker 1: you're like fun this show. We're gonna be here for
• 2:56
  Speaker 1: three hours. Buckle In um So analyzed movies through an
• 3:02
  Speaker 1: intersectional feminist lens, using the Bechtel tests simply as just
• 3:06
  Speaker 1: a baseline jumping off point to initiate a much larger conversation.
• 3:10
  Speaker 1: What is the Bechtel test? Though Jamie Well I can
• 3:14
  Speaker 1: tell you what it is. It is a media metric
• 3:18
  Speaker 1: originally created by queer cartoonist Alison Bechdel, sometimes called the
• 3:22
  Speaker 1: Bechtel Wallace Test. Uh. She made it for her incredible
• 3:27
  Speaker 1: comic dikes to watch out for, originally as a joke,
• 3:30
  Speaker 1: but it is now kind of become a common media
• 3:32
  Speaker 1: metric that we use on this show and also in
• 3:35
  Speaker 1: the world. A lot of different versions of the test,
• 3:38
  Speaker 1: but the one we use is this. To pass the
• 3:41
  Speaker 1: Bechtel test, there must be two characters with names of
• 3:45
  Speaker 1: a marginalized gender talking to each other about something other
• 3:48
  Speaker 1: than a man for more than two lines of dialogue.
• 3:52
  Speaker 1: Some things do it, a lot of things don't. And
• 3:56
  Speaker 1: that's just kind of what it is. How did how
• 3:59
  Speaker 1: did I do so well? We're off to a great start,
• 4:05
  Speaker 1: and now is the time to get our guest into
• 4:07
  Speaker 1: the mix. I'm so pumped returning guest. You know her
• 4:11
  Speaker 1: from our episodes on Aquaman and Frozen two. She's an
• 4:15
  Speaker 1: Anisha Nabe, writer, founder of the Ali Naughty Test formerly
• 4:20
  Speaker 1: known as the Ala Test. It's Ali Naughty, welcome back.
• 4:24
  Speaker 1: I'm back with my braided tails. Hell yeah, I got
• 4:28
  Speaker 1: one for each of you. Welcome to the Three Timers Club.
• 4:36
  Speaker 1: I told them I was like, I called DIBs on Avatar.
• 4:39
  Speaker 1: Nobody else is allowed to do this. I have so
• 4:41
  Speaker 1: much to say, and yes I did. You saw my
• 4:44
  Speaker 1: Google doc had so much to say. I've seen forty
• 4:48
  Speaker 1: two page google doc. I'm so we talked about this, uh,
• 4:53
  Speaker 1: I think two years ago, like the first time you
• 4:55
  Speaker 1: were on the show. En. Yeah, and the moment is here.
• 4:58
  Speaker 1: Avatar two is come out. It's happening. I thought it
• 5:01
  Speaker 1: would never happen, and it probably shouldn't happen. But we'll see.
• 5:04
  Speaker 1: I hope it's good. James Cameron's pretty good with sequels,
• 5:08
  Speaker 1: so we'll see. We'll see. That's true. Titanic too is
• 5:11
  Speaker 1: a classic. Ever when he came back, when she woke up,
• 5:20
  Speaker 1: she woke up? Yeah, So Ali, what is your your
• 5:23
  Speaker 1: history relationship with Avatar? Oh so this is a history. Okay.
• 5:29
  Speaker 1: So it came out like two thousand nine. I want
• 5:32
  Speaker 1: to say I was probably around like eighteen nineteen ish,
• 5:35
  Speaker 1: and it came out at an interesting time. This is
• 5:39
  Speaker 1: obviously way before the Ali Naughty Test. The Alt Test
• 5:43
  Speaker 1: was ever a discussion the way that it is now
• 5:48
  Speaker 1: and the film itself was cathartic in a lot of
• 5:52
  Speaker 1: ways for me that I've discovered that it really isn't now,
• 5:57
  Speaker 1: But at the time in two thousand nine, I was like,
• 6:00
  Speaker 1: I can't believe that there's a movie like this. As
• 6:03
  Speaker 1: far as the Natives win, which I didn't see coming.
• 6:08
  Speaker 1: Everybody else saw it coming. I'm like, no, we never win.
• 6:11
  Speaker 1: Like this is gonna be Titanic level sadness because everybody's
• 6:15
  Speaker 1: gonna die and it's pain, and that didn't happen. I
• 6:19
  Speaker 1: did not expect the girl to live. Nay Terry did
• 6:23
  Speaker 1: not expect that. I didn't expect her to like because
• 6:26
  Speaker 1: and and I'll talk about this later, but like in
• 6:29
  Speaker 1: a lot of movies, when the native female character falls
• 6:34
  Speaker 1: in love with the white male character and he ultimately
• 6:38
  Speaker 1: ends up betraying her, she usually like takes his side
• 6:42
  Speaker 1: like no, no, I love him and we can work together.
• 6:46
  Speaker 1: And I was hoping that that wouldn't happen. I was
• 6:51
  Speaker 1: afraid it was going to happen. It did not happen.
• 6:53
  Speaker 1: I'm like, ah, what is this movie? Right? So then
• 6:59
  Speaker 1: I get online and so many people like hated it,
• 7:04
  Speaker 1: just did not like it. They're like, it's pocahontast space,
• 7:07
  Speaker 1: it stands as with wolves in space. It's white guilt,
• 7:10
  Speaker 1: it's liberalism, it's you know, just all of this stuff.
• 7:14
  Speaker 1: And I knew something in it was kind of rooted
• 7:17
  Speaker 1: in anti Native racism. I just didn't have the words
• 7:21
  Speaker 1: for it. And obviously, like as the years have gone by,
• 7:25
  Speaker 1: I found the language to like kind of point out
• 7:28
  Speaker 1: what exactly like these criticisms which aren't wronged but also
• 7:33
  Speaker 1: are very yes. So then I almost kind of like
• 7:41
  Speaker 1: the Avatar out of spite in a way, just because
• 7:43
  Speaker 1: I'm like, screw you, guys. I like this movie. But
• 7:49
  Speaker 1: I'll be honest, after rewatching it and especially rewatching it now,
• 7:55
  Speaker 1: I didn't like it as much. And I'm like, Okay,
• 7:57
  Speaker 1: I know everything that's kind of I know everything that's
• 8:00
  Speaker 1: wrong with it, but I still liked it. In spite
• 8:03
  Speaker 1: of it. But I'm like, you know, after Rhymes three
• 8:06
  Speaker 1: Young Gules and Reservation Dogs and Rutherford Falls and Wendell
• 8:11
  Speaker 1: and Wild and all of these indigenous films usually made
• 8:14
  Speaker 1: by indigenous people. Um, I say with full confidence that
• 8:18
  Speaker 1: if Native creators were given the same the same amount
• 8:24
  Speaker 1: of power and opportunity as James Cameron, they could do
• 8:29
  Speaker 1: it just as good, if not better than. Avatar would
• 8:33
  Speaker 1: probably be something you'd never see before, right, Yeah, that's
• 8:37
  Speaker 1: what I think. Yeah, I mean absolutely, it's always where
• 8:40
  Speaker 1: does the money go and who gets the opportunities? Yes,
• 8:44
  Speaker 1: exactly that. So that's my very complicated history with Avatar.
• 8:49
  Speaker 1: I love it, Jamie, what about you? What's yours? It's
• 8:53
  Speaker 1: a disaster kind of it's all over the place of
• 8:55
  Speaker 1: like I feel like you've been witnessed to it, and
• 9:00
  Speaker 1: in large part, Caitlin, like, I saw this movie in
• 9:02
  Speaker 1: high school, um, along with I think the rest of
• 9:05
  Speaker 1: the world. It seems like I saw this movie in
• 9:10
  Speaker 1: three D. I remember, Like I just wasn't. I mean,
• 9:13
  Speaker 1: I guess like people don't maybe because the show has
• 9:15
  Speaker 1: been on for so long, like I was originally your
• 9:18
  Speaker 1: co because I just like I didn't know a lot
• 9:20
  Speaker 1: about movies and didn't have like a huge passion for
• 9:24
  Speaker 1: them growing up. So I saw it because it was
• 9:25
  Speaker 1: like compulsory, it felt like, and I was like, I
• 9:28
  Speaker 1: liked it, Sure, that was fun. And then as time
• 9:32
  Speaker 1: went on and Ali you were alluding to this, there
• 9:34
  Speaker 1: was like just there's always the shifting discussion around what
• 9:38
  Speaker 1: this movie meant culturally, what it meant about you, if
• 9:43
  Speaker 1: you liked it versus you didn't. Like I feel like
• 9:45
  Speaker 1: it's just flip flopped a million times. Um. I think
• 9:48
  Speaker 1: there was a huge chunk of time where they were
• 9:50
  Speaker 1: like Avatar like has been forgotten, like lost to time,
• 9:54
  Speaker 1: and you know, like why everyone saw this movie but
• 9:57
  Speaker 1: no one can remember a thing that happens in it,
• 10:00
  Speaker 1: which like I was like, well, I don't remember. And
• 10:02
  Speaker 1: then I think sometime around the Lockdown, I took on
• 10:06
  Speaker 1: a shreky in appreciation of Avatar, where it did seem
• 10:12
  Speaker 1: like a lot of people uh with with like time
• 10:16
  Speaker 1: on their hands, like got back into Avatar kind of
• 10:19
  Speaker 1: like spitefully and ironically where they're like, well, I remember
• 10:22
  Speaker 1: what happened in Avatar, and and I was I was
• 10:26
  Speaker 1: kind of like I was kind of doing that for
• 10:28
  Speaker 1: a while because I was you know, lockdown mental illness.
• 10:31
  Speaker 1: I don't really know, like I can't really speak to it.
• 10:34
  Speaker 1: I know it was happening. I know I bought a
• 10:36
  Speaker 1: lot of books in because there was I think actually
• 10:42
  Speaker 1: the video that like got me back into wanting to
• 10:46
  Speaker 1: understand more about the movie. Because I rewatched the movie,
• 10:48
  Speaker 1: I still like, I don't know, I feel like my
• 10:50
  Speaker 1: opinion on the actually the movie itself has changed for
• 10:55
  Speaker 1: a lot of the reasons you're describing Ali Like, I
• 10:57
  Speaker 1: think that a lot of the there's a lot of
• 11:00
  Speaker 1: of course, like extremely valid criticism of this movie that
• 11:02
  Speaker 1: we need to talk about. And then there's also a
• 11:05
  Speaker 1: lot of like overly simplistic comparisons that you're describing that, Um,
• 11:10
  Speaker 1: I think you're interesting to discuss. Like, but it's it's
• 11:14
  Speaker 1: it's very it's a very movie movie. I don't know,
• 11:16
  Speaker 1: it's like a blockbuster where it just kind of washes
• 11:19
  Speaker 1: over the movie. That feels like a movie. Would you
• 11:21
  Speaker 1: say that the movie it feels like like a movie.
• 11:26
  Speaker 1: It's what I would say, um, a movie with blue cats.
• 11:33
  Speaker 1: It's oh god, I just dude, fox cats a cat
• 11:39
  Speaker 1: does James Caeron, Like, I it's really I'm always going
• 11:46
  Speaker 1: to give James Cameron a chance to impress me, and
• 11:50
  Speaker 1: he's such a weird man, Like I just don't like.
• 11:53
  Speaker 1: The things that he really commits himself to are baffling
• 11:55
  Speaker 1: to me, and I'm excited to talk about it. Um.
• 11:58
  Speaker 1: But yeah, I kind of came all the way around
• 11:59
  Speaker 1: because I saw a YouTube video by a creator named sideways.
• 12:04
  Speaker 1: Uh yes, right, so I think maybe we talked about
• 12:09
  Speaker 1: you about. It's this incredible video that they made about
• 12:13
  Speaker 1: how the Avatar score was composed and then kind of
• 12:17
  Speaker 1: uncomposed of like all of this work and resources that
• 12:21
  Speaker 1: James Cameron um and the production put into like creating
• 12:25
  Speaker 1: a unique, very specific NAVI culture and then they basically
• 12:29
  Speaker 1: used none of it and they got like overwhelmed, and
• 12:32
  Speaker 1: then they're like, um, let's do a pretty standard James
• 12:35
  Speaker 1: Horner score and that will basically be in So I
• 12:38
  Speaker 1: got more interested in the production side of the movie
• 12:41
  Speaker 1: because there was a lot more thought and intention that
• 12:45
  Speaker 1: went into it than I would have guessed based on
• 12:47
  Speaker 1: what the movie is like. So ultimately I would say
• 12:50
  Speaker 1: the movie feels like a movie. Um. And I I
• 12:55
  Speaker 1: still I mean, I am kind of excited to see
• 12:58
  Speaker 1: the second one can't lie like I, you know, so Gurdi,
• 13:01
  Speaker 1: we were playing a teenager. I've been trigued. I don't know.
• 13:05
  Speaker 1: I don't know, but there's a lot of problems. I
• 13:07
  Speaker 1: don't know. Yeah, my relationship with Avatar is fraught, but
• 13:11
  Speaker 1: you know, so is mine. All right, well what's your
• 13:13
  Speaker 1: relationship with Avatar? So I saw this in theaters I
• 13:17
  Speaker 1: think twice. I was in my early twenties at the time,
• 13:22
  Speaker 1: and I loved it. I was like, this movie rules.
• 13:26
  Speaker 1: I know you loved it. Whoa Asterix At the time.
• 13:33
  Speaker 1: I was like, damn, this movie is awesome. It's so
• 13:35
  Speaker 1: good James Cameron, he's done it again. And then like
• 13:40
  Speaker 1: some weeks passed and people were like, yeah, I mean,
• 13:43
  Speaker 1: I guess I liked it, but was it that good?
• 13:45
  Speaker 1: I'm not sure. And I was like, well, I don't know,
• 13:48
  Speaker 1: was it? And then more weeks passed and people are like,
• 13:50
  Speaker 1: maybe that movie actually kind of sucks, and like the
• 13:53
  Speaker 1: same thing that you were talking about Alie is about
• 13:55
  Speaker 1: and you jam me like and then I was like
• 13:57
  Speaker 1: seeing all these things on this social media of the time,
• 14:00
  Speaker 1: which was Facebook, people being like, it's just it's fern Gully,
• 14:05
  Speaker 1: you know, James Cameron ripped off fern Gully, he ripped
• 14:07
  Speaker 1: off Disney's pocahon Is it's blah blah blah. And then
• 14:10
  Speaker 1: I also remember a very specific criticism that so many
• 14:13
  Speaker 1: people were like the things called unobtainium. That's so ridiculous,
• 14:18
  Speaker 1: and it's like, first of all, it's I think, intentionally
• 14:21
  Speaker 1: on the nose. Secondly, have you seen some some of
• 14:24
  Speaker 1: the elements on the periodic table are called there's an
• 14:28
  Speaker 1: element called einstein Um, like they have some ridiculous names.
• 14:32
  Speaker 1: Like Also, it's like everything about this movie is extremely
• 14:36
  Speaker 1: on the nose, like right, it's not trying to be subtle,
• 14:39
  Speaker 1: so like it's not really James Don's thing. People being
• 14:42
  Speaker 1: like unobtainium that's so like that. I don't think it's
• 14:46
  Speaker 1: a valid criticism. But then I was like, oh, yeah,
• 14:49
  Speaker 1: I guess it is kind of like pulling from stuff
• 14:51
  Speaker 1: and maybe it isn't as good as I thought. And
• 14:53
  Speaker 1: I was like young enough that I was like too
• 14:55
  Speaker 1: easily influenced by other people's opinions. Still, so I was like, yeah,
• 15:00
  Speaker 1: reminds this movie it's not good. And then a decade passes, over,
• 15:04
  Speaker 1: a decade passes, I don't watch the movie again until
• 15:08
  Speaker 1: three days ago, and then I watch it again. I'm like, no,
• 15:11
  Speaker 1: I was right the first time. This movie rules. But
• 15:14
  Speaker 1: with the caveat that, there are right. With the caveat that.
• 15:19
  Speaker 1: There are a lot of issues with it, which we
• 15:22
  Speaker 1: are about to discuss. But from a just like kind
• 15:26
  Speaker 1: of strictly narrative standpoint, I'm like, James Cameron, he did
• 15:29
  Speaker 1: it again. He can tell a dam cinematic story, does it?
• 15:33
  Speaker 1: He kind of always does it. There's a fun James
• 15:36
  Speaker 1: Cameron thing that I noticed on this one was because
• 15:40
  Speaker 1: there's just like a lot of good killing the bad
• 15:43
  Speaker 1: guys moments towards the end of this movie. But the
• 15:45
  Speaker 1: most the closest thing to the propeller moment Titanic is
• 15:48
  Speaker 1: when the guy gets crushed between the two steel boxes.
• 15:52
  Speaker 1: You're like, why he's a sick oh, and then that's
• 16:01
  Speaker 1: what you get, colonizer. A lot of good colonizer kills.
• 16:06
  Speaker 1: It was pretty exciting so many that's why so many
• 16:09
  Speaker 1: white people did not like it. Let me tell me,
• 16:13
  Speaker 1: oh my god, because this movie. I mean, I only
• 16:16
  Speaker 1: lived in one small country in Europe, you know, so
• 16:20
  Speaker 1: I can't say that this applies outside of the US. Everywhere.
• 16:24
  Speaker 1: But the movie made so much money for a reason,
• 16:28
  Speaker 1: and I'm pretty sure it's because the bad guys in
• 16:31
  Speaker 1: Avatar are so American codd Like you don't see American
• 16:35
  Speaker 1: flags or anything like that, but there's no British people
• 16:39
  Speaker 1: and there's no all the white people have American accents,
• 16:43
  Speaker 1: except for Sam Worthington, who's really I love million can't
• 16:49
  Speaker 1: make an Australian guy sound American. Tell you there was
• 16:51
  Speaker 1: one part where he is like, your life comes down
• 16:55
  Speaker 1: to one moroment, and you're like, it just made them
• 17:01
  Speaker 1: Australian because they still have a history of colonialism anyway.
• 17:08
  Speaker 1: But yeah, and I think that's why, because the Americans
• 17:10
  Speaker 1: lose in this one. Like I feel like the rest
• 17:13
  Speaker 1: of the world kind of has a very at least
• 17:16
  Speaker 1: my experience in Finland, they have a very Disney Princess
• 17:20
  Speaker 1: cowboys and Indians understanding of Native history and Native people
• 17:26
  Speaker 1: as far as Native American I should say, even if
• 17:29
  Speaker 1: it's not as blatantly racist over there, there's still elements
• 17:32
  Speaker 1: of it where it's like, oh, but you know, we're
• 17:35
  Speaker 1: sympathetic kind of, you know, we're way more sympathetic, and
• 17:39
  Speaker 1: we'll play the Indian in our games more than the Cowboy,
• 17:44
  Speaker 1: you know that sort of thing. So to have a
• 17:46
  Speaker 1: movie like this where the cowboys lose to the Indians,
• 17:50
  Speaker 1: I can absolutely see and they sign the Americans packing.
• 17:53
  Speaker 1: I mean, of course the rest of the world loved
• 17:55
  Speaker 1: this movie. Of course, of course the white Americans hated it.
• 17:59
  Speaker 1: It made two point nine billion dollars. Bill yawns, Billy,
• 18:06
  Speaker 1: I always forget and get mad again. It's like, there's
• 18:10
  Speaker 1: people have accused James Cameron of ripping off a million
• 18:13
  Speaker 1: different stories in this, but there's also just like so
• 18:16
  Speaker 1: much of James Cameron ripping himself off to for like
• 18:19
  Speaker 1: that moment at the end. It reminded me so much
• 18:22
  Speaker 1: of like when Mr. Is May survives and you get
• 18:24
  Speaker 1: one shot on like this motherfucker lived, and they do
• 18:27
  Speaker 1: the same thing with like the bad guy that's not
• 18:29
  Speaker 1: the colonel. What's his name? Yeah, yes, yeah, I don't
• 18:33
  Speaker 1: know that the character's name. I know the Parker Parker
• 18:37
  Speaker 1: when the colonel gets into the like large robot thing,
• 18:41
  Speaker 1: that's what Ripley does at the end of Aliens, Like yeah,
• 18:44
  Speaker 1: like Dave's Cameron's using his own playbook to do. Oh
• 18:48
  Speaker 1: that scene is so I'm like it's so weird. I'm like,
• 18:50
  Speaker 1: I like, it's a good movie. There, I forgot. I
• 18:54
  Speaker 1: haven't seen in a couple of years, and I think,
• 18:57
  Speaker 1: you know whatever, your brain kind of trains you to
• 18:59
  Speaker 1: expect the worst in every movie, especially when you do
• 19:04
  Speaker 1: this show for six where the hosts of the back
• 19:06
  Speaker 1: to cast. Yes, but I always feel myself clenched up
• 19:10
  Speaker 1: where I'm like, he's not gonna let na Teri kill
• 19:13
  Speaker 1: the colonel. Izzy, He's gonna let's he's gonna let's sull
• 19:17
  Speaker 1: kill the colonel. He let's say Terry kill the colonel.
• 19:19
  Speaker 1: And it's so exciting, and the whole theater cheered and
• 19:22
  Speaker 1: it was awesome. The catharsis good job movie. We're gonna
• 19:28
  Speaker 1: have so much fun. Let's take a quick break and
• 19:32
  Speaker 1: then we'll come back to recap the movie. So we'll
• 19:36
  Speaker 1: be right back, and we're back. All right, here's the recap.
• 19:46
  Speaker 1: I had to gloss over some details and I even
• 19:49
  Speaker 1: like leave out certain characters just because there's like so
• 19:52
  Speaker 1: much and the movie is almost three hours long, so
• 19:55
  Speaker 1: bear with me. But um, here we go. Better not
• 19:58
  Speaker 1: cut out my friend Dr mac a k, the guy
• 20:01
  Speaker 1: from Dragged Me to Hell. Wait, who is his name,
• 20:06
  Speaker 1: Dr Max? It's Dr Max Ptel Oh, yes, Um Deelippe
• 20:10
  Speaker 1: Row who's also in inception playing a very solar character.
• 20:15
  Speaker 1: Kind of this is he was on kind of an
• 20:17
  Speaker 1: unprecedented run in two thousand nine and ten and then
• 20:20
  Speaker 1: I think James Cameron kidnapped him and um, he is
• 20:24
  Speaker 1: stuck in Pantora forever forever. At least he's living off
• 20:29
  Speaker 1: the royalties for the rest of his life. Truly, he's chilling. Okay,
• 20:34
  Speaker 1: So we meet Jake Sully played by Sam Worthington, and
• 20:38
  Speaker 1: we get his backstory. He is a marine who became
• 20:42
  Speaker 1: disabled during battle. He's now paralyzed from the waist down
• 20:46
  Speaker 1: and he has been approached with an opportunity to go
• 20:49
  Speaker 1: to a far away planet called Pandora and do something
• 20:54
  Speaker 1: we don't quite know what yet because his twin died,
• 20:58
  Speaker 1: which I feel like is very glad used over that
• 21:00
  Speaker 1: he's actively mourning his brother. His brother died like four
• 21:03
  Speaker 1: minutes ago. Yeah, I know that. They just cremate him,
• 21:06
  Speaker 1: like right in front of him. I'm like no, and
• 21:08
  Speaker 1: he's just like damn dude, and he's like, we need
• 21:11
  Speaker 1: you for science, and he's like he's Okay, these cans.
• 21:17
  Speaker 1: He's like, all right, sleep it off science in the morning.
• 21:21
  Speaker 1: And also no one cares that he just lost his
• 21:24
  Speaker 1: twin brother, like weavers, like, um, okay, what are you
• 21:28
  Speaker 1: doing here, you loser? I need your brother. Oh yeah, okay.
• 21:34
  Speaker 1: So then Jake arrives on Pandora and he learns about
• 21:37
  Speaker 1: the planet. It's dangerous wildlife and it's indigenous population called
• 21:43
  Speaker 1: the Navvy, who are tall, blueskinned humanoids. Uh, your cat
• 21:49
  Speaker 1: like the cat cat features with cat features. Jake meets
• 21:54
  Speaker 1: Norm and the two of them are going to be
• 21:57
  Speaker 1: avatar drivers. So basically, scientists have spliced human and NAVI
• 22:01
  Speaker 1: d NA to create these avatars that Jake and Norm
• 22:06
  Speaker 1: and other people will remotely operate by hooking the people
• 22:11
  Speaker 1: up to these avatars via a like neural link, which
• 22:16
  Speaker 1: is why they wanted Jake for this because he has
• 22:18
  Speaker 1: the same DNA as his brother. They originally built this
• 22:20
  Speaker 1: avatar for his brother, but it'll still work with Jake,
• 22:23
  Speaker 1: and that always messes me up because it's like they
• 22:27
  Speaker 1: do nothing with that. It's like if it's his brother's
• 22:30
  Speaker 1: d n A. I mean, this whole movie is about
• 22:33
  Speaker 1: accessing memory and accessing like history and stuff have them.
• 22:36
  Speaker 1: They never did anything like that where he enters his
• 22:41
  Speaker 1: brother's avatar and elements from like his blood memory or
• 22:45
  Speaker 1: something like that is still there so he can feel
• 22:48
  Speaker 1: his thoughts or something. They never do anything with it.
• 22:51
  Speaker 1: That's such a good point. I've never thought about that, right,
• 22:54
  Speaker 1: because it's like that would fit into the theme of
• 22:57
  Speaker 1: the movie. And Jake's always like underdeveloped, but it's not
• 23:01
  Speaker 1: like you don't know anything about it. Damn. Yeah. And
• 23:04
  Speaker 1: NATII and the deleted scenes has a sister who died,
• 23:09
  Speaker 1: and these guys never bond over that, Like you both
• 23:13
  Speaker 1: lost your siblings like recently, and that's not something you
• 23:17
  Speaker 1: guys would talk about during your forced fucking romance. And
• 23:22
  Speaker 1: you would also think that, like I don't know that,
• 23:24
  Speaker 1: like Jake might. I don't know, Like Jake doesn't feel
• 23:29
  Speaker 1: culpable enough for any of this the entire movie, when
• 23:32
  Speaker 1: it is like, so his fault a lot of the
• 23:35
  Speaker 1: like most of the time. But it was like also
• 23:38
  Speaker 1: on top of that, his brother would be so disappointed
• 23:41
  Speaker 1: in him for like it sounds like his brother was
• 23:44
  Speaker 1: a very like, well liked ethical scientist who would be
• 23:49
  Speaker 1: probably devastated to learn that his brother like Mick fucked
• 23:54
  Speaker 1: his entire like up on such unprecedented scale. Truly, they
• 24:06
  Speaker 1: be doing that. Um okay. So then we meet the
• 24:09
  Speaker 1: head of the Avatar project, Grace Augustine played by Sigourney Weaver. She,
• 24:13
  Speaker 1: like we mentioned, is not thrilled with Jake being there
• 24:16
  Speaker 1: because he's not a trained scientist. But Jake being there
• 24:20
  Speaker 1: was Parker self Ridge's idea. That's Giovanni Ribisi. And then
• 24:24
  Speaker 1: we learned why people have come to Pandora. It's to
• 24:28
  Speaker 1: collect parentheses steal an extremely valuable element slash mineral called unobtainium.
• 24:35
  Speaker 1: And Parker's whole thing is that he'll stop at nothing
• 24:38
  Speaker 1: to obtain this unobtaini um um, yeah, James Cameron does
• 24:44
  Speaker 1: the classic thing of like capitalism is one guy and
• 24:47
  Speaker 1: the military industrial complex is also another guy. It's not
• 24:51
  Speaker 1: subtle storytelling, but you know, but it's also right, like
• 24:57
  Speaker 1: it's also correct, which is the worst part. So obviously
• 25:01
  Speaker 1: the nov don't want them to do this. So right now,
• 25:05
  Speaker 1: the humans are trying to find a quote unquote diplomatic
• 25:08
  Speaker 1: way to colonize the Navy and steal their resources. So
• 25:14
  Speaker 1: then Jake gets neural linked to his Navy avatar for
• 25:18
  Speaker 1: the first time. He gets acclimated to his new body,
• 25:21
  Speaker 1: and the movie telegraphs to us that it's exciting for
• 25:25
  Speaker 1: him because his in his human body, he's paralyzed from
• 25:28
  Speaker 1: the waist down, but in his navy body he can
• 25:31
  Speaker 1: walk and run, and he really takes to his new
• 25:35
  Speaker 1: body very quickly. This is interesting because there is absolutely
• 25:41
  Speaker 1: some able is um for sure in this movie. We'll
• 25:44
  Speaker 1: talk about that. Yeah. Yeah, there's a really wonderful line though,
• 25:48
  Speaker 1: because obviously people with disabilities are not I hate to
• 25:52
  Speaker 1: say not a monolith, but that's the only thing that
• 25:54
  Speaker 1: came to mind. You know, there's many different types, uh,
• 25:58
  Speaker 1: and it's different for each person. So there was a
• 26:01
  Speaker 1: quote when I was doing my research where a woman
• 26:06
  Speaker 1: who was able bodied and then couldn't use her legs
• 26:09
  Speaker 1: anymore and as in a wheelchair, said that the scene
• 26:12
  Speaker 1: where he goes from his wheelchair into the avatar where
• 26:16
  Speaker 1: he's walking and playing basketball and running, it's really touching.
• 26:21
  Speaker 1: She's like, I had a spinal cord injury in a
• 26:23
  Speaker 1: car accident when I was five years old, so it
• 26:25
  Speaker 1: gave me chills. I'm in a wheelchair for twenty years.
• 26:29
  Speaker 1: I can't even remember what it was like, and he's
• 26:32
  Speaker 1: just stretching his legs out and it must have felt
• 26:34
  Speaker 1: just so like the ultimate stretch. And then other people
• 26:39
  Speaker 1: were like, uh no, this is actually quite awful. Yeah, yeah,
• 26:45
  Speaker 1: there's a whole conversation to be had around that. And
• 26:48
  Speaker 1: I saw similarly like mixed responses um and ultimately the
• 26:53
  Speaker 1: actor should have been a disabled actor exactly, a disabled actor,
• 26:57
  Speaker 1: a good actor. You know, there's a lot of part
• 26:59
  Speaker 1: your not a white actor, a lot of choices could
• 27:03
  Speaker 1: have been made differently. I think, yeah, we'll get into
• 27:06
  Speaker 1: the conversation around disability a little later. But I was
• 27:09
  Speaker 1: interested that there was such a kind of diversity of
• 27:13
  Speaker 1: opinion because what was hitting for me And it's like,
• 27:17
  Speaker 1: I'm able bodied, Like I don't have a voice in
• 27:21
  Speaker 1: this conversation really, but but I you know, there are
• 27:24
  Speaker 1: constant insults thrown Jake Sully's way. They are generally from
• 27:30
  Speaker 1: characters we are not supposed to like. So it's like,
• 27:34
  Speaker 1: I don't know, it's it's it's a it's an interesting one,
• 27:37
  Speaker 1: it's complicated, and from characters that we do like it,
• 27:40
  Speaker 1: even Grace At sometimes that's yeah, she's saying some ablest
• 27:44
  Speaker 1: slurs at him. Yeah, it's like, okay, Grace smoking a
• 27:51
  Speaker 1: cigarette in the lab. Oh yeah, She's like, where's my
• 27:55
  Speaker 1: goddamn cigarette? What's wrong with this picture? That was iconic,
• 27:58
  Speaker 1: that was great. You don't need a sig you need
• 28:03
  Speaker 1: but her able ism was disappointed and consistent too. It
• 28:08
  Speaker 1: like became like a term of endearment. It seems like, yeah,
• 28:12
  Speaker 1: really gross. Um. So back in his Jake body, he
• 28:17
  Speaker 1: meets Trudy. That's Michelle Rodriguez. She's a pilot who will
• 28:22
  Speaker 1: bring the avatars into the wilderness so they can do
• 28:26
  Speaker 1: their science uh and colonizing. Um. Jake also reports to
• 28:31
  Speaker 1: Colonel Quaritch his whole thing is science people are losers.
• 28:37
  Speaker 1: Military people are awesome, And I want you to spy
• 28:40
  Speaker 1: on the Novi and find out their weaknesses so I
• 28:43
  Speaker 1: can kill them more easily. I love this bad guy.
• 28:46
  Speaker 1: I know I shouldn't, but I love this bad guy.
• 28:49
  Speaker 1: He's such a ham He's so campy. He seems camping, cartoonish.
• 28:55
  Speaker 1: But also I feel like there are people like this,
• 28:58
  Speaker 1: oh for sure. So just like this, in any other movie,
• 29:02
  Speaker 1: he would be the hero. James Cameron just made him
• 29:04
  Speaker 1: the bad guy this time, but changed nothing like this
• 29:07
  Speaker 1: would be Arnold in the Goddamn Jungle looking for the Predator.
• 29:11
  Speaker 1: This could be any action hero in the eighties. It's
• 29:15
  Speaker 1: the exact same character. He's just bad this time and
• 29:20
  Speaker 1: it's Stephen Lange and he's just so fucking perfect and scoofy.
• 29:25
  Speaker 1: It's very good casting. Stephen Lange really seems like he's
• 29:28
  Speaker 1: having the time of his life being the worst man ever.
• 29:32
  Speaker 1: And I mean the same with Giovanni Ribisi's character, where
• 29:34
  Speaker 1: you're like, he's just fucking despicable and it's so like
• 29:38
  Speaker 1: played up, and then when they're in the same room,
• 29:40
  Speaker 1: you're like, oh, it's the most evil room in the world,
• 29:43
  Speaker 1: and you're reculing there are people that are those people
• 29:46
  Speaker 1: are just like this do you have on ABC? Is
• 29:49
  Speaker 1: interesting though, I feel like his character would have been
• 29:52
  Speaker 1: this one dimensional, you know, sort of comic book character
• 29:56
  Speaker 1: like Stephen Lane, but he um. I think the actor
• 30:01
  Speaker 1: gives it a nuance where he's like conflicted, where it's like,
• 30:04
  Speaker 1: because you even see it in the movie sometimes where
• 30:07
  Speaker 1: he's like he'll give like a heavy sigh, We're going
• 30:10
  Speaker 1: to kill these people and well they're not people, they're
• 30:13
  Speaker 1: cats in a tree. Whatever. They can go to another tree.
• 30:18
  Speaker 1: But we're gonna kill babies, you know. So it's like
• 30:22
  Speaker 1: you kind of like see the mental gymnastics he's doing,
• 30:25
  Speaker 1: or like the you know, the things that he has
• 30:26
  Speaker 1: to do to justify his choices, which does make it
• 30:29
  Speaker 1: worse because he still Yeah, yeah, not to brag or anything,
• 30:35
  Speaker 1: but I saw Giovanni Ribis getting ice cream in my
• 30:39
  Speaker 1: neighborhood one time. Wow. All I did was see Taylor
• 30:44
  Speaker 1: Lawton or screaming at a moon juice. It's not fair.
• 30:48
  Speaker 1: I met Scott McNeil a and he told me I
• 30:51
  Speaker 1: was beautiful. Hell yeah, okay, I do. That was Piccolow
• 30:56
  Speaker 1: from Dragon Ball Z and all of my nineties heroes
• 31:01
  Speaker 1: hell yoh okay. So, Jake, Norm and Grace in their
• 31:07
  Speaker 1: avatars go into the forest. They encounter some big, scary animals.
• 31:14
  Speaker 1: One chases Jake and he gets separated from the others
• 31:17
  Speaker 1: and lost in the forest. Then he encounters a navvy
• 31:21
  Speaker 1: woman Natieri played by Zoey Soldanna, who saves him from
• 31:26
  Speaker 1: the animals who were swarming him. But she's really pissed.
• 31:30
  Speaker 1: She's like, those animals didn't need to die, but because
• 31:32
  Speaker 1: you were careless and flopping around like a baby, I
• 31:36
  Speaker 1: had to kill them. And he's like, Oopsie, well how
• 31:41
  Speaker 1: about you teach me to be better at this? And
• 31:44
  Speaker 1: she's like, no, you suck. But then the seeds of
• 31:47
  Speaker 1: the Sacred tree float down and surround him as if
• 31:51
  Speaker 1: to say he's special, He's the chosen one. I know,
• 31:55
  Speaker 1: there's so many chosen one shots. And then I've kind
• 31:58
  Speaker 1: of always forget that. It culminate in like and also,
• 32:01
  Speaker 1: Jake Sully can kind of talk to God and she
• 32:05
  Speaker 1: listens to him. What God answers to Jake Sully, what
• 32:10
  Speaker 1: are you talking about? Atlantis Morrissette would never talk about. Also,
• 32:18
  Speaker 1: Zoe Seldana just like one thousand percent, just embodies this
• 32:23
  Speaker 1: character like she's the best. She's the best actress in
• 32:26
  Speaker 1: the movie. I love, like just the physical performance, the
• 32:31
  Speaker 1: way she moves, the way she the way she hisses
• 32:35
  Speaker 1: like a cat. Yes, she's so good. They said that
• 32:39
  Speaker 1: she was a former ballet dancer, so she was able
• 32:42
  Speaker 1: to do like all the stunt work and stuff like yeah,
• 32:47
  Speaker 1: because she was in that movie that we covered and
• 32:50
  Speaker 1: it was called Center Stage. Yes, yeah, that was like
• 32:53
  Speaker 1: her big debut. Yeah, I forgot that she was Yeah,
• 32:57
  Speaker 1: Jews dance trained man. So he sail. Donna also on
• 33:01
  Speaker 1: a hot streak because she's also in the Star Trek
• 33:03
  Speaker 1: movie this year and Guardians of the and yeah, like
• 33:07
  Speaker 1: she's queen a sci fi she's in a lot of
• 33:10
  Speaker 1: space movies. Yeah, she's She's also in the Britney Spears
• 33:13
  Speaker 1: classic Cross Crossroads. Yes, I did not know that true story.
• 33:19
  Speaker 1: I feel like I feel like DNA would prefer it
• 33:21
  Speaker 1: that way. It's not a very good movie written by
• 33:25
  Speaker 1: Shonda Rhymes though. Okay, So Natieri takes Jake to Home
• 33:31
  Speaker 1: Tree where the Navi live. We meet her father. Yes,
• 33:39
  Speaker 1: I know that with him as soon as I saw him,
• 33:41
  Speaker 1: Like he just has a very distinct looking face, even
• 33:44
  Speaker 1: before I even knew he was in the movie. It's
• 33:45
  Speaker 1: like as soon as it was like, okay, native coded characters,
• 33:49
  Speaker 1: they need a chief there. He is beautiful man. Yeah yea.
• 33:55
  Speaker 1: So he's the clan leader. And we also meet Natieri's mother,
• 34:00
  Speaker 1: their Mowatt, played by cc H pounder Um. She's there
• 34:04
  Speaker 1: like spiritual leader the Sahik. She's incredible. She is the
• 34:08
  Speaker 1: best looking one. I love her design. Her design is awesome.
• 34:12
  Speaker 1: First of all, that was so Mowatt is the only
• 34:15
  Speaker 1: character in the film that passes the Ali Nati test,
• 34:19
  Speaker 1: oh because she never falls in love with a white
• 34:21
  Speaker 1: man and she doesn't die and all that other good ship.
• 34:26
  Speaker 1: But yeah, so she Uh. Usually in stories like this,
• 34:31
  Speaker 1: there is never a chief's wife, like there's usually the
• 34:36
  Speaker 1: chief's daughter, the Indian princess type, but you never see
• 34:40
  Speaker 1: like the spouse of the chief, which is interesting because
• 34:43
  Speaker 1: a lot of Native society is not all but many
• 34:47
  Speaker 1: are matrilineal, so the bloodline usually follows the mother, so
• 34:53
  Speaker 1: you never really see a character quite like this anyways.
• 34:57
  Speaker 1: But then she just her design is beautiful. I just
• 35:03
  Speaker 1: love how every aspect of this character. You look at
• 35:06
  Speaker 1: her and it tells a story. I by that she's
• 35:10
  Speaker 1: the chief's wife, that she's the spiritual leader. Um, the
• 35:14
  Speaker 1: fact that she's bilingual suggests that she probably tried to
• 35:18
  Speaker 1: be diplomatic and then realized there's no salvaging this. So
• 35:23
  Speaker 1: you know, it's just such a really interesting I wish
• 35:25
  Speaker 1: we saw more of her and less of Jake. I
• 35:29
  Speaker 1: like less of Jake on the whole. I hope that
• 35:32
  Speaker 1: the second movie really runs with the whole concept of
• 35:36
  Speaker 1: less Jake. The trailers tell us anything, though, I feel
• 35:41
  Speaker 1: like he's in the movie a lot sid Founder. I
• 35:43
  Speaker 1: didn't because I'm like, I don't know anything about linguistics.
• 35:47
  Speaker 1: I'm I'm just a baby. I'm seventeen years old. You're
• 35:51
  Speaker 1: Jake Sully flopping around in the forest. So that's that
• 35:56
  Speaker 1: I'm not that bad. But but um in in that
• 36:00
  Speaker 1: sideways video that sort of unpacks how you know, this
• 36:05
  Speaker 1: movie invested in building an entire language, kind of Elvish style,
• 36:09
  Speaker 1: and like hired a dialect coach to teach each actor
• 36:14
  Speaker 1: um how to speak Navi and speak it correctly. I
• 36:18
  Speaker 1: guess C. C. H. Pounder is like the m v
• 36:20
  Speaker 1: P of speaking Navy in a way that it was
• 36:23
  Speaker 1: like very authentic and convincing. And there's like a whole
• 36:26
  Speaker 1: sequence of like how she I don't know, it's really
• 36:29
  Speaker 1: cool cool anyway, shoutout C. H. Pounder. Hell yeah, shout out. Okay.
• 36:36
  Speaker 1: So most of the nov are hostile towards Jake, understandably
• 36:40
  Speaker 1: they see him as an outsider. But Ma Watt says
• 36:44
  Speaker 1: that Jake Sully should learn their ways because she's like
• 36:47
  Speaker 1: she interprets the will of a wa, which is their deity.
• 36:51
  Speaker 1: So Mo Wat's like, Okay, you can learn our ways
• 36:55
  Speaker 1: and NATII, you're going to be the one to teach him,
• 36:58
  Speaker 1: which she's not thrilled about. Back in human world, everyone
• 37:03
  Speaker 1: is thrilled that Jake has gotten so close to the
• 37:06
  Speaker 1: Navy grace for like science and anthropological reasons. And Parker
• 37:13
  Speaker 1: because under the Navy palm tree is one of the
• 37:16
  Speaker 1: largest obtanium deposits on the whole planet um and so
• 37:21
  Speaker 1: he's giving Jake three months to convince the Navy to
• 37:25
  Speaker 1: move so that they can come and steal the unobtainium.
• 37:29
  Speaker 1: Otherwise bulldozers will go in and destroy the place. So
• 37:34
  Speaker 1: back in Avatar body, Jake begins to learn the culture
• 37:39
  Speaker 1: and customs of the Navy. Also, they call themselves omata kaya,
• 37:44
  Speaker 1: so I'll like probably use those words interchangeably from now on.
• 37:49
  Speaker 1: Although they refer to themselves, they never referred to themselves
• 37:51
  Speaker 1: as the Navy. Is that correct. I think it's part
• 37:54
  Speaker 1: of their language. Yeah, Because there's a scene where she's
• 37:58
  Speaker 1: yelling and I here not be I wonder if it's
• 38:02
  Speaker 1: like their word for like people maybe or something, because
• 38:05
  Speaker 1: I think is the name of their clan, their clan, Okay,
• 38:10
  Speaker 1: because I think other yeah, other like regional clans are
• 38:14
  Speaker 1: referenced later on when they're building their the army against
• 38:19
  Speaker 1: against Mr. Military. Yes, Stephen Lan, Yeah, I love when
• 38:26
  Speaker 1: Stephen Lan dies. It's so exciting. Okay. So, because they
• 38:29
  Speaker 1: refer to themselves as amata kaya, all from this point
• 38:33
  Speaker 1: on use that um to refer to them. So Jake
• 38:38
  Speaker 1: learns how to ride this horse like creature, and Naterie
• 38:44
  Speaker 1: explains that he needs to form a bond called sahlu
• 38:49
  Speaker 1: with the creature, which is the like. So they all
• 38:54
  Speaker 1: the Amakaya people have this long braid and at the
• 38:57
  Speaker 1: end of the braid are these how would doc Yeah,
• 39:01
  Speaker 1: tentacles more or less little like nerve endings. It's very um,
• 39:07
  Speaker 1: You're just like James Cameron. It's what are you thinking
• 39:11
  Speaker 1: about in that big old house? That's what he was saying.
• 39:17
  Speaker 1: Can't girls and tentacles? I'm just saying, really, it's so funny.
• 39:24
  Speaker 1: I'm like, I wouldn't even say that's him knowing his audience.
• 39:26
  Speaker 1: I think that's him broadening his audience. So it's like, well,
• 39:31
  Speaker 1: fuck the horse with your tentacle braid. Yeah, and that's
• 39:37
  Speaker 1: how you create this meaningful bond with animals and trees
• 39:40
  Speaker 1: and um, basically any living thing on Pandora. There's also
• 39:44
  Speaker 1: this flying animal, the Akron, but he's not ready to
• 39:48
  Speaker 1: form a halu with one of those yet, because this
• 39:52
  Speaker 1: is like advanced stuff, advanced tentacle sex. He's not ready
• 39:59
  Speaker 1: for its. It advanced hantai Hanti two one is yeah,
• 40:06
  Speaker 1: but he is learning the language, he's learning how to hunt,
• 40:09
  Speaker 1: he's learning how to see things from an omata kaya perspective.
• 40:13
  Speaker 1: He learns about the deity Awa and eventually Natteri deems
• 40:18
  Speaker 1: him ready to try to form this bond with an Ikron,
• 40:23
  Speaker 1: which he successfully does. Also side note, there is an
• 40:27
  Speaker 1: alpha version of the Akron, but it's very very rare
• 40:31
  Speaker 1: for anyone to bond and fly with one, so just
• 40:34
  Speaker 1: put a little pin in that. It's like the guy
• 40:36
  Speaker 1: Fieri iron like. It's got flames on this side like
• 40:43
  Speaker 1: it's the cool He's very big, you can tell because
• 40:47
  Speaker 1: he's got flames. Oh, speaking of cat like creatures, Ali's
• 40:54
  Speaker 1: cat just showed up. Heard the call ah Piku, I
• 41:00
  Speaker 1: too would like to learn about the cats, the fellow
• 41:05
  Speaker 1: dragon fucking cats. Okay, so Jake and Naterie they fly
• 41:12
  Speaker 1: together and also they flirt together. Nobody asked for this,
• 41:19
  Speaker 1: and yet I'm kind of rooting for them. There I
• 41:22
  Speaker 1: said it, you weren't. That was I was honestly brave
• 41:25
  Speaker 1: to say, because no one else did. I feel like
• 41:28
  Speaker 1: at every turn, you're just like Nigeria can do better
• 41:33
  Speaker 1: so much among these faceless navi that do we know
• 41:38
  Speaker 1: that it's such a large population, Like, surely, surely someone's
• 41:41
  Speaker 1: here that isn't Jake Sully. But I feel like, you know,
• 41:44
  Speaker 1: in in the in the real world, we often end
• 41:46
  Speaker 1: up with the Jake Sullies of the world. Told me
• 41:50
  Speaker 1: about it. You never think it's going to be you.
• 41:52
  Speaker 1: The worst part is that the guy she's hooked up with,
• 41:55
  Speaker 1: the one who is going to be the next clan leader,
• 41:57
  Speaker 1: his name Suite. Those two they're like betrothed. I guess
• 42:02
  Speaker 1: they become a mated pair eventually, but you don't really
• 42:07
  Speaker 1: see them interact much at all, Like they really don't
• 42:10
  Speaker 1: have much of a relationship, which is unfortunate because the
• 42:14
  Speaker 1: actor is super hot, and yet they give my man
• 42:18
  Speaker 1: this fucking atrocious hairline and these tiny ears and these
• 42:23
  Speaker 1: any bodies small nipples. I want to like you, but shit,
• 42:29
  Speaker 1: I mean, las Alonzo is gorgeous. They did him so dirty.
• 42:35
  Speaker 1: They didn't pretty dirty, I don't. I mean, there's like,
• 42:37
  Speaker 1: I think the element of Jak and Dyteri's love story
• 42:40
  Speaker 1: that worked for me, although I was like a little
• 42:43
  Speaker 1: unclear on what the Navvy mating practices work because it
• 42:48
  Speaker 1: was like, yeah, they referenced that you would be betrothed,
• 42:51
  Speaker 1: you didn't have a say in who you married. But
• 42:54
  Speaker 1: then it's like, I guess they just didn't really go
• 42:56
  Speaker 1: into it. I'm sure it's in one of my many
• 42:58
  Speaker 1: Navvy guide books that I have back in Los Angeles,
• 43:01
  Speaker 1: but I am not there right now, so I couldn't
• 43:04
  Speaker 1: consult my my small avatar library that I manically purchased
• 43:08
  Speaker 1: second hand. Please don't judge me, okay, um, but I
• 43:13
  Speaker 1: think that the element of the Jake and Naterry love
• 43:15
  Speaker 1: story that worked for me was like her choosing Like
• 43:18
  Speaker 1: that was cool, That's what I liked to Yeah, and
• 43:22
  Speaker 1: even Jake Sully was like and she must choose me
• 43:25
  Speaker 1: because he's an Australian. She's like she already has kiss
• 43:32
  Speaker 1: You're right, Yeah, that's the part. I like, let's fatantical
• 43:38
  Speaker 1: six then, but yeah, Jake is a romantic partner? Is um? No?
• 43:43
  Speaker 1: Thanks pass? Okay, So back in human world. Jake is
• 43:48
  Speaker 1: having an identity crisis because he has gotten so immersed
• 43:52
  Speaker 1: in the Omakayah way of life that he feels that
• 43:55
  Speaker 1: that's his real life and him as a humans like
• 44:00
  Speaker 1: a dream. Basically, they say he stopped showering. You're like, Jake, Yeah,
• 44:06
  Speaker 1: get it together, man, Seriously. He is then officially made
• 44:10
  Speaker 1: a member of the Oma Takaya, so he is now
• 44:14
  Speaker 1: one of them. Can I just say this takes place
• 44:17
  Speaker 1: over three months? I know this motherfucker becomes the best navvy,
• 44:22
  Speaker 1: the best Indian ever in three months. I don't want
• 44:26
  Speaker 1: to hear anybody complain about Ray from Star Wars ever again,
• 44:30
  Speaker 1: ever again? Where was that energy for Jake? Selling? Yeah?
• 44:35
  Speaker 1: I found that hard to believe, both that he could
• 44:39
  Speaker 1: master a language in three months and like just like
• 44:42
  Speaker 1: master all of the culture and customs, and that the
• 44:45
  Speaker 1: Alma Takaya people would so readily accept him in such
• 44:49
  Speaker 1: a short amount of time. I was like, nothing adds
• 44:51
  Speaker 1: up here, No disconnected natives, Like obviously not all natives
• 44:55
  Speaker 1: are the same, but so many disconnected natives who are
• 44:58
  Speaker 1: displaced because of colonization, residential schools, foster care, or just
• 45:05
  Speaker 1: some growing off the reservation like there's such an anxiety
• 45:09
  Speaker 1: when it comes to reconnecting to your own people that
• 45:12
  Speaker 1: the fact that this dude who has nothing to do
• 45:16
  Speaker 1: with any of these people and has no history with
• 45:18
  Speaker 1: any of these people can just walk right and be
• 45:20
  Speaker 1: like oh yeah. There's so many gross moments, like especially
• 45:27
  Speaker 1: once he becomes immersed in like o Mentakaya culture, like
• 45:32
  Speaker 1: where he repeatedly is like I need to speak and
• 45:35
  Speaker 1: it's like, Jake, you don't, like you've just got here
• 45:39
  Speaker 1: my man, Like really shouldn't? That, I would say is
• 45:43
  Speaker 1: my biggest beef with this movie. Yeah, Jake is really
• 45:47
  Speaker 1: taking up quite a bit of space for being a guest,
• 45:51
  Speaker 1: for being a new, like a new random white guy
• 45:54
  Speaker 1: that is actively ruining everyone's life, Like yeah, fucking Jake Sully.
• 46:01
  Speaker 1: But he's one of them now. And um he gets
• 46:04
  Speaker 1: to choose a mate and he chooses nay Tieri and
• 46:07
  Speaker 1: she's like, I choose you back, and then they kiss
• 46:10
  Speaker 1: and have tentacle sex under a tree. It's kind of hot.
• 46:15
  Speaker 1: It's confusing, you're corny. James Cameron knows how to make
• 46:20
  Speaker 1: a sex scene that will even if you don't like it,
• 46:24
  Speaker 1: it's going to stick with you. It's good, you're gonna
• 46:27
  Speaker 1: be thinking about it. I remember when I thought that
• 46:30
  Speaker 1: scene was so weird when I saw it for the
• 46:32
  Speaker 1: first time, and then I a couple of years later,
• 46:35
  Speaker 1: I started playing mass Effect and the Love of my
• 46:39
  Speaker 1: Life is this cricket looking dinosaur, fucking alien man with
• 46:46
  Speaker 1: a very nice voice, So it's not weird. Yeah, his
• 46:50
  Speaker 1: pictures in there. If you want to check your the
• 46:52
  Speaker 1: Google duck like I do. I do want to check
• 46:56
  Speaker 1: Wait what page? Page twenty the very top is the
• 47:03
  Speaker 1: Love of my life? Oh my god. Okay, he's kind
• 47:07
  Speaker 1: of hot, adores you. It's kind of got a Mr.
• 47:11
  Speaker 1: Darcy vibe to like, he's complicated, but I can get
• 47:16
  Speaker 1: through to him. His code name is Archangel. Oh my good. Okay.
• 47:24
  Speaker 1: So Jake and Nati are smooching and they fall asleep
• 47:29
  Speaker 1: together and the next morning a huge bulldozer comes crashing
• 47:32
  Speaker 1: into the tree where they're at and Naterian Jake have
• 47:35
  Speaker 1: to run away. Colonel Quaritch and Parker, the two big
• 47:40
  Speaker 1: bads of the movie, realized that Jake is trying to
• 47:43
  Speaker 1: sabotage their mission, and they are piste and they're about
• 47:47
  Speaker 1: to go back in guns blazing, and Jake is like stop,
• 47:50
  Speaker 1: let me talk to them and see if I can
• 47:52
  Speaker 1: negotiate something here. A detail that I didn't really think
• 47:56
  Speaker 1: about that I appreciated on this uh one was that
• 48:02
  Speaker 1: Grace knew the whole time, like she was able to
• 48:04
  Speaker 1: figure out very I feel like a lesser script would
• 48:07
  Speaker 1: have been like and she had no idea because women
• 48:10
  Speaker 1: can't brain. But I like that she figures out because
• 48:15
  Speaker 1: that is like logical, Like he is a marine first,
• 48:18
  Speaker 1: um so, and he's around the two most evil people
• 48:21
  Speaker 1: ever all the time, and so she's like, oh, I
• 48:23
  Speaker 1: need to get him out of here because like I
• 48:25
  Speaker 1: need the information he can get me. And of course
• 48:29
  Speaker 1: he's going to go with these guys because that is
• 48:30
  Speaker 1: like his kind of degree or whatever. Yeah, he hates
• 48:35
  Speaker 1: science and he's not he's he's refused to mourn his brother,
• 48:39
  Speaker 1: so he's kind of a loose cannon. He forgot all
• 48:42
  Speaker 1: about his brother. Yeah, never hear about him ever? Again,
• 48:46
  Speaker 1: what was his name? Even do we ever? Commy? We
• 48:49
  Speaker 1: do learn his name? Tommy Sully? Horrible, horrible, pouring one
• 48:54
  Speaker 1: out for Tommy Sully tonight, Jeeves, just why not Sullivan?
• 49:00
  Speaker 1: Why not? Anyway? Shout out to your character Sully though
• 49:04
  Speaker 1: from Santa University. I it's look, he's coming back this
• 49:09
  Speaker 1: year because it's you're the Sully, Thank you so much?
• 49:14
  Speaker 1: All right, so so bad guys are about to go
• 49:17
  Speaker 1: back in, guns blazing, and Jake's like, let me talk
• 49:20
  Speaker 1: to them, so he goes back in. But NACKTII is like,
• 49:24
  Speaker 1: what you knew this would happen? I trusted you and
• 49:27
  Speaker 1: you betrayed us. Favorite scene in the movie. Favorite scene
• 49:30
  Speaker 1: I talked about this and Frozen too, but I'll say
• 49:33
  Speaker 1: it again. Uh, this was the point in the movie
• 49:37
  Speaker 1: where I was like, Okay, this can only go one
• 49:40
  Speaker 1: of two ways. If it goes one way, I hate
• 49:42
  Speaker 1: this movie and it is the worst thing ever made.
• 49:45
  Speaker 1: If it goes the other way, I love this movie.
• 49:48
  Speaker 1: It's the best thing that's ever been made. I feel
• 49:52
  Speaker 1: differently now. The stakes are very high, but literally, like
• 49:56
  Speaker 1: I said earlier too, it's all like in movies like
• 49:58
  Speaker 1: this and stories like this, especially with a character like this,
• 50:02
  Speaker 1: it's you know, oh, well, we can reach something peaceful
• 50:05
  Speaker 1: because I love him and he loves me, and love
• 50:08
  Speaker 1: saves love consol racism, and it doesn't. So what it
• 50:12
  Speaker 1: is is you knew this was happening, and We're gonna
• 50:17
  Speaker 1: lose our home. People are going to die, and we
• 50:22
  Speaker 1: trusted you. You shouldn't even be here and we've already
• 50:26
  Speaker 1: trusted you. And Zoey sell Donna's emotional just rage in
• 50:31
  Speaker 1: that scene was so good and I'm like, good, you
• 50:34
  Speaker 1: fucking kill his ass, like yeah, and she leaves him
• 50:38
  Speaker 1: for dead because she leaves dead. I love that she
• 50:40
  Speaker 1: leaves him for dead. Perfect because they tie Jake and
• 50:44
  Speaker 1: Grace up to a tree knowing that the bulldozers like
• 50:47
  Speaker 1: on its way and like missiles are coming, so leaves
• 50:51
  Speaker 1: him for dead. The military shows up to fire at
• 50:54
  Speaker 1: home Tree, but then Moa is like, you know what, Jake,
• 50:59
  Speaker 1: if you are one of us, help us, So she
• 51:01
  Speaker 1: sets him free conflictive feelings about the home tree is destroyed.
• 51:06
  Speaker 1: It's absolutely devastating. I'm crying. And Natieri's father is killed
• 51:11
  Speaker 1: among others in this attack. Someone brought up how despite
• 51:16
  Speaker 1: how anti military and anti imperialist Avatar tries to be,
• 51:19
  Speaker 1: they did kill the only native actor in the movie.
• 51:24
  Speaker 1: I'm like, you're not wrong. That scene was sad, though
• 51:29
  Speaker 1: I love with study and Zoey's performance again just so
• 51:35
  Speaker 1: sad because Jake Sulley is once again trying to insert
• 51:38
  Speaker 1: himself into one of the most personal moments one can have,
• 51:42
  Speaker 1: and it's I think one of the things that has
• 51:46
  Speaker 1: I don't I mean, I don't remember how I felt
• 51:48
  Speaker 1: about anything when I was seventeen. Probably incorrectly it's safety,
• 51:52
  Speaker 1: but I do think that the movie obviously there's a
• 51:56
  Speaker 1: shipload of stuff calling on. It's like we're approaching the
• 51:58
  Speaker 1: climax of the movie. But wish that they took more
• 52:03
  Speaker 1: time to dwell on that loss, because we lose this
• 52:08
  Speaker 1: amazing character. It is this really really moving, well performed moment,
• 52:13
  Speaker 1: and then we kind of don't revisit it, and it's
• 52:17
  Speaker 1: I mean, obviously everyone's in crisis, but it's like it
• 52:19
  Speaker 1: would have been nice to see, you know, like her
• 52:22
  Speaker 1: mother's reaction, to see the community's reaction. But we get
• 52:25
  Speaker 1: way more airtime to like we have to save Grace,
• 52:28
  Speaker 1: which is like, sure, Grace is a great character, but
• 52:30
  Speaker 1: why are we focusing on a white lady we've known
• 52:33
  Speaker 1: for like a couple, you know, months, versus like our leader, Yeah,
• 52:38
  Speaker 1: like your parent that like your parents. Oh my god,
• 52:43
  Speaker 1: I could not like having lost a parent. I promise
• 52:46
  Speaker 1: I won't cry anymore. But having lost a parent, Like
• 52:50
  Speaker 1: there's no forgiving someone if they get your dad killed,
• 52:54
  Speaker 1: you know what I mean? Like how I get it,
• 52:57
  Speaker 1: Like I get it as well, like find out later
• 53:00
  Speaker 1: with the Toroka and everything and the story and but
• 53:04
  Speaker 1: even so, I mean two things can exist at once, man,
• 53:07
  Speaker 1: and you killed my dad. You know, I'm I fuck this,
• 53:11
  Speaker 1: fuck you because I didn't mention this, and yet I
• 53:15
  Speaker 1: don't think. But Jake Selly has been feeding information about
• 53:20
  Speaker 1: like the tree, the home tree, to Colonel Quaritch, So
• 53:24
  Speaker 1: he's like gathering this intel that he's now able to
• 53:27
  Speaker 1: use against the Omakaya people in this attack. So he's evil.
• 53:33
  Speaker 1: So then Jake finds Nteri in the rubble as she's
• 53:37
  Speaker 1: mourning the death of her father. She wants nothing to
• 53:40
  Speaker 1: do with him. She's like, get away, never come back.
• 53:43
  Speaker 1: Then the military bad guys pull the plug on Jake
• 53:47
  Speaker 1: and Grace and so they wake up in their human bodies.
• 53:51
  Speaker 1: They put them plus Norm in a holding cell. But
• 53:55
  Speaker 1: Trudy remember her, she's in the movie. She she would
• 53:59
  Speaker 1: the equip about every forty minutes, and you're like, um,
• 54:04
  Speaker 1: she breaks them out of prison and they get in
• 54:06
  Speaker 1: Trudy's ship and escape this military base, and they head
• 54:10
  Speaker 1: to the Tree of Souls, which is the amatokaia is
• 54:13
  Speaker 1: most sacred place um where they have relocated and Jake
• 54:19
  Speaker 1: needs to prove his worth to be able to rejoin them,
• 54:22
  Speaker 1: so he forges a bond with the Alpha Akron, the
• 54:27
  Speaker 1: the one that has like spinners on the wheels. I
• 54:30
  Speaker 1: just kept thinking it was like the coolest car ever.
• 54:33
  Speaker 1: He's got a spoiler on the back. Yeah. Um. So
• 54:38
  Speaker 1: Jake shows up with the torok at the Tree of Souls.
• 54:42
  Speaker 1: He pulls up, he pulls up. Yeah, he kind of
• 54:45
  Speaker 1: tokyo drifts into the I mean, if we have Michelle
• 54:50
  Speaker 1: Rodriguez of the movie and everything exactly. Um, and everyone
• 54:53
  Speaker 1: reveres him now and Nati is like, maybe you're okay
• 54:58
  Speaker 1: again instant forgive nous. Yeah. And then during the escape earlier,
• 55:03
  Speaker 1: Grace was shot, so the Omakaya tried to save her
• 55:07
  Speaker 1: by transferring her consciousness permanently to her avatar her Oatcaia body,
• 55:13
  Speaker 1: but she's too weak and she dies. But she dies
• 55:17
  Speaker 1: at peace. Yes, it's a really good scene. Yeah, it's
• 55:20
  Speaker 1: very touching, for sure. It's nice. And I also like,
• 55:23
  Speaker 1: again it just like I feel like a lot of
• 55:24
  Speaker 1: movies would have not had the courage to kill her off,
• 55:28
  Speaker 1: especially like a big but it's like, no one can
• 55:31
  Speaker 1: die in franchise movies now because not now. But James
• 55:35
  Speaker 1: Cameron is not shy about killing people off. So oh,
• 55:39
  Speaker 1: get yeah, you're we're about to see a lot of
• 55:40
  Speaker 1: colonizers get squished. That Jake gives the biggest, dumbest speech,
• 55:48
  Speaker 1: but ID it's cringe, but I dig it. Yeah, it's cringe,
• 55:54
  Speaker 1: but I dig it. And the reason I dig it
• 55:56
  Speaker 1: is because this is where the Pocahonas and space Trope
• 56:00
  Speaker 1: just goes to die. Because again, you know, especially with
• 56:05
  Speaker 1: a character like this, a story like this, it's always
• 56:09
  Speaker 1: our love can save the day and peace and understanding,
• 56:12
  Speaker 1: and this is no, we are beyond that. Now we
• 56:16
  Speaker 1: have to fight. Now they need to fucking leave. And
• 56:19
  Speaker 1: that never happens in movies like this, where it's like
• 56:23
  Speaker 1: pieces not an option. We are hell and gone from diplomacy.
• 56:26
  Speaker 1: You have to fucking go. And you never see this
• 56:28
  Speaker 1: in like movies about indigenous people, let alone movies about
• 56:34
  Speaker 1: indigenous people by non indigenous people, like especially rich white
• 56:39
  Speaker 1: dudes in the film industry. So yeah, because it's them
• 56:42
  Speaker 1: trying to rewrite history. To be like, no, we it
• 56:46
  Speaker 1: was so peaceful when we came here and colonized people
• 56:49
  Speaker 1: and murdered them. Yeah. One of my one of my
• 56:51
  Speaker 1: grandma's was a princess, was anobby. She plugged her tail
• 56:56
  Speaker 1: into my dad, did she though? Yeah, that that's a
• 57:02
  Speaker 1: very James Camerony moment. And it's also like, I don't know,
• 57:06
  Speaker 1: like I always truggle with Like, I totally agree with you, Ali,
• 57:09
  Speaker 1: and I think it's like it is a really unusual
• 57:12
  Speaker 1: subversion in a movie of this scale to to do.
• 57:15
  Speaker 1: And then it's also like why Jake Sully, like of
• 57:19
  Speaker 1: all people, when he's like, this is our land, It's
• 57:21
  Speaker 1: like it's our our land, not your your say this
• 57:27
  Speaker 1: is your land, Jake, you just got here. It would
• 57:32
  Speaker 1: have been cool if he said this is your land.
• 57:33
  Speaker 1: I don't know. So yeah, So Jake is rallying the
• 57:37
  Speaker 1: Oma Takaya to launch an attack against the humans or
• 57:41
  Speaker 1: the sky people as he calls them as if he's
• 57:44
  Speaker 1: not one of them, but um, Colonel Quaritch and the
• 57:49
  Speaker 1: humans are planning a preemptive counterattack with their you know,
• 57:54
  Speaker 1: more advanced weaponry and their aircrafts and missiles and all
• 57:57
  Speaker 1: of that. So Jake goes and pray is to Awa
• 58:01
  Speaker 1: for help. The Awa scene with it's just Jake Sally
• 58:04
  Speaker 1: is like so embarrassing all the time. So he goes
• 58:07
  Speaker 1: to Awa to pray essentially, And I did think it
• 58:11
  Speaker 1: was kind of funny how that scene and where Natia
• 58:15
  Speaker 1: comes in and she's like, yeah, that's like not how
• 58:17
  Speaker 1: this works, and Jake's like, oh man, well it was
• 58:20
  Speaker 1: worth a dry and then she's like, okay, let's go
• 58:24
  Speaker 1: to bed. That's like the scene, but then it ends
• 58:27
  Speaker 1: up working like but then, yeah, God is listening to
• 58:31
  Speaker 1: Jake Sally, I think not. I think not. Atlantis morsets
• 58:36
  Speaker 1: in the tree like all right, okay, just this once.
• 58:40
  Speaker 1: Let's hear this Australian guy out. Let's see. So the
• 58:45
  Speaker 1: next morning, the humans come to the mountains with you know,
• 58:49
  Speaker 1: their heavy firepower, but the Alma Takaya have the hometown
• 58:53
  Speaker 1: advantage and they have Jake as Turuk makto um because
• 58:59
  Speaker 1: he's on the big pterodactyl with flames on the side convertible. Yeah,
• 59:05
  Speaker 1: so he is in charge and there's a long battle
• 59:09
  Speaker 1: and eventually it seems like all hope is lost for
• 59:13
  Speaker 1: Jake and the tie and the Amatacaya and Trudy who
• 59:17
  Speaker 1: shows up to help, and Norm, who's fighting with them,
• 59:21
  Speaker 1: has a gun. It's silly. It's like, why are we
• 59:26
  Speaker 1: letting Norm have a gun? He's not contributing. Come on,
• 59:32
  Speaker 1: Norm's an indoor kid, Like, what's he doing here? So
• 59:38
  Speaker 1: Quarich is headed towards the Tree of Souls to destroy it,
• 59:42
  Speaker 1: but then the big animals from earlier in the movie
• 59:46
  Speaker 1: come charging in and they drive out the bad guys.
• 59:50
  Speaker 1: Seems as though Awa has answered Jake's prayer, and so
• 59:55
  Speaker 1: the Almatacaya get the upper hand and there's a final
• 59:57
  Speaker 1: showdown between quar Rich and Jake and the Tiri and
• 1:00:02
  Speaker 1: they defeat Karrich and a Ti gets like the killing blow.
• 1:00:06
  Speaker 1: Two killing blows were also forgotten on the re release
• 1:00:10
  Speaker 1: that she gets. She gets him twice just to be sure. Yeah,
• 1:00:14
  Speaker 1: it's so satisfying. I love it when the James Horner
• 1:00:17
  Speaker 1: that she pulls up. It's good. The movie feels like
• 1:00:24
  Speaker 1: a movie when I'm watching. That's so good. And then
• 1:00:30
  Speaker 1: the Alma Takaya send the humans home and the movie
• 1:00:34
  Speaker 1: ends with Jake's consciousness being transferred to his avatar to
• 1:00:40
  Speaker 1: make him permanently one of the Alma Takaya the and
• 1:00:46
  Speaker 1: so let's take another quick break and we will come
• 1:00:49
  Speaker 1: back to discuss and then we're back. Okay, Ali, where
• 1:01:00
  Speaker 1: would you like to start a preference? Where do we begin?
• 1:01:05
  Speaker 1: There's so much, there's so much to say. Uh, okay,
• 1:01:10
  Speaker 1: how about we begin with any questions you might have
• 1:01:15
  Speaker 1: for me? Well, so we already we touched on a
• 1:01:20
  Speaker 1: lot of the criticisms that I think we're going to
• 1:01:24
  Speaker 1: have against this movie already during the recap. But yeah,
• 1:01:29
  Speaker 1: I mean, for me, the big thing is, you've got
• 1:01:33
  Speaker 1: this like white guy who like appropriates the body of
• 1:01:39
  Speaker 1: an indigenous person comes in. He's flopping around and they're like, no, no, no,
• 1:01:45
  Speaker 1: You're the chosen one though, and it doesn't make sense,
• 1:01:50
  Speaker 1: but he's the chosen one. He doesn't have imposter syndrome
• 1:01:53
  Speaker 1: for one single second, which I guess is very white
• 1:01:57
  Speaker 1: guy of him. He has a very inflated ego about
• 1:02:00
  Speaker 1: the whole thing. Yeah, but yeah, it is. It is
• 1:02:02
  Speaker 1: like a white savior top to bottom. So the question,
• 1:02:07
  Speaker 1: so my question is what in a in a movie
• 1:02:11
  Speaker 1: with a similar premise where you know, like white capitalist
• 1:02:15
  Speaker 1: colonizers come in and are trying to colonize and steal
• 1:02:22
  Speaker 1: the land and still the resources of Indigenous people. What
• 1:02:26
  Speaker 1: is a version of this story or what changes would
• 1:02:29
  Speaker 1: you make or do you think could be made to
• 1:02:32
  Speaker 1: eliminate the issues that we see in Avatar? Okay, So
• 1:02:38
  Speaker 1: I've thought about this a lot, because a lot of
• 1:02:40
  Speaker 1: the issues stem back to Jake, like massively, for all
• 1:02:45
  Speaker 1: the reasons that we suggested, I feel like, even if
• 1:02:50
  Speaker 1: if nothing else were to change about the film, and
• 1:02:52
  Speaker 1: it would have been the exact same movie and the
• 1:02:55
  Speaker 1: exact same steaks and everything as problematic as it was,
• 1:02:59
  Speaker 1: if someone like Adam Beach or Anthony Mackie or a
• 1:03:05
  Speaker 1: character of color, specifically a disabled and preferably an Indigenous
• 1:03:12
  Speaker 1: actor playing Jake instead, I feel like it would have
• 1:03:16
  Speaker 1: had more gravity. As much as I like Sigourney Weaver's character,
• 1:03:20
  Speaker 1: she's so sympathetic to the knobby that I was like, okay,
• 1:03:26
  Speaker 1: but scientists, unfortunately, are not that sympathetic to Indigenous people.
• 1:03:32
  Speaker 1: They're the ones that are stealing their remains and putting
• 1:03:36
  Speaker 1: them in the Smithsonian against people's wishes and stuff, you know,
• 1:03:40
  Speaker 1: or conducting the research to prove that you know, Sami
• 1:03:45
  Speaker 1: people aren't human enough or not as advanced enough as
• 1:03:49
  Speaker 1: like Swedish or Finnish people. You know, so if you
• 1:03:53
  Speaker 1: were going to have that character like the Scientists character,
• 1:03:57
  Speaker 1: if she were indigenous, if she were played by Tantu
• 1:04:00
  Speaker 1: Cardinal or even Irene Bedard Roads go back to Pocontas,
• 1:04:06
  Speaker 1: or even like if you wanted someone sassy but smart
• 1:04:12
  Speaker 1: and you know, still had that ferocity. Even Jennifer Pademski
• 1:04:16
  Speaker 1: would have been perfect in that part. I think, be great.
• 1:04:20
  Speaker 1: She would have been great. She's hilarious and she's badass,
• 1:04:24
  Speaker 1: because I think that that would have been an interesting
• 1:04:27
  Speaker 1: subversion because her school in the movie. That was another thing.
• 1:04:32
  Speaker 1: And Connor Beard was talking about this on TikTok. He
• 1:04:37
  Speaker 1: was talking about how Avatar has many problems. He's from
• 1:04:41
  Speaker 1: the Lumbi tribe, and he said specifically that the school
• 1:04:47
  Speaker 1: being used as a positive in the film is kind
• 1:04:50
  Speaker 1: of toned off, if not really offensive, because residential schools
• 1:04:55
  Speaker 1: were so bad too native children and they aren't in
• 1:05:00
  Speaker 1: this movie. And I feel like that was probably just
• 1:05:03
  Speaker 1: to bridge the communication error, you know what I mean,
• 1:05:07
  Speaker 1: like or the conflict or you know, it's like we
• 1:05:10
  Speaker 1: need we need to be able to talk to these people.
• 1:05:12
  Speaker 1: They need to be able to blah blah blah. But
• 1:05:15
  Speaker 1: like what if it was Tantu Cardinal and she was
• 1:05:18
  Speaker 1: teaching them a nish nabe mowen instead of English or
• 1:05:22
  Speaker 1: along with English. So it's like, you know, we can
• 1:05:25
  Speaker 1: communicate a little more privately and not in a language
• 1:05:30
  Speaker 1: that would like front you off in front of the
• 1:05:32
  Speaker 1: real bad guys or something, you know, because then that
• 1:05:35
  Speaker 1: would be subversion. That would also be kind of decolonizing
• 1:05:39
  Speaker 1: that sort of premise of the school if you were
• 1:05:43
  Speaker 1: going to have that, because if they want to come
• 1:05:46
  Speaker 1: in and like actually engage in some kind of diplomacy,
• 1:05:51
  Speaker 1: why is it, oh, we have to teach you English
• 1:05:53
  Speaker 1: so that you can communicate with me versus and to
• 1:05:56
  Speaker 1: be fair grace like does no Navi And like the
• 1:05:59
  Speaker 1: other sidecientists seemed too as well. And I wonder if
• 1:06:02
  Speaker 1: that was just almost a choice to be like, well,
• 1:06:05
  Speaker 1: we don't want to have too much of the movie
• 1:06:07
  Speaker 1: in a language other than English, because that Holly Mr.
• 1:06:11
  Speaker 1: Hollywood thinks that that tends to put off American letters audiences,
• 1:06:18
  Speaker 1: So like we have to as much as possible have
• 1:06:20
  Speaker 1: the nov or have the omata kaya speak English. So
• 1:06:24
  Speaker 1: I wonder if like that's just how they justify But
• 1:06:27
  Speaker 1: then but like to have it be like they set
• 1:06:29
  Speaker 1: up a school to teach Indigenous children English, Like you said, Ali,
• 1:06:33
  Speaker 1: the historical parallels to that are atrocious, and it doesn't
• 1:06:36
  Speaker 1: seem like the filmmakers considered the implications of making that choice.
• 1:06:41
  Speaker 1: That was like something that popped for me this time
• 1:06:44
  Speaker 1: where it's like the there's no like even even with Grace,
• 1:06:48
  Speaker 1: because I feel like Grace is and the science and
• 1:06:51
  Speaker 1: you know, Norm, Dr Max, etcetera. Are are all presented
• 1:06:56
  Speaker 1: pretty uncritically as good guys. But on this rewatch specifically
• 1:07:01
  Speaker 1: like with Bechdel goggles on your like this actually like
• 1:07:04
  Speaker 1: the movie should be far more kind of interrogating what
• 1:07:08
  Speaker 1: it is they're doing, because it's like Grace is also
• 1:07:11
  Speaker 1: appropriating an Indigenous body, Like she's doing that consistently, and
• 1:07:15
  Speaker 1: the ethics of that are not questioned, um by any
• 1:07:19
  Speaker 1: of the characters in the movie. It's like, because she's
• 1:07:23
  Speaker 1: not giving information to the kernel, it's made to seem like, well,
• 1:07:28
  Speaker 1: so what she's doing is above board. But it's like
• 1:07:30
  Speaker 1: if if she's starting you know, the equivalent of a
• 1:07:34
  Speaker 1: residential school on Pandora, there's no reciprocity where it's like
• 1:07:39
  Speaker 1: the nov don't have an opportunity to to you know,
• 1:07:43
  Speaker 1: it all takes place on Pandora because that is where
• 1:07:46
  Speaker 1: the humans interests lie is like mining these natural resources.
• 1:07:50
  Speaker 1: And Grace is absolutely complicitly in that, Like she knows
• 1:07:54
  Speaker 1: that to the point where she is able to, you know,
• 1:07:58
  Speaker 1: predict that Jake is going to leak information to the
• 1:08:02
  Speaker 1: colonel and she gets them out of there, which puts
• 1:08:04
  Speaker 1: a band aid on the problem. But she's still aware
• 1:08:07
  Speaker 1: of exactly what's happening, and she's you know, she has
• 1:08:10
  Speaker 1: like some quips and she's she you know, doesn't seem
• 1:08:14
  Speaker 1: to agree with it, but she she's participating. She's a
• 1:08:16
  Speaker 1: willing participant and that is not really interrogated at all. Yeah,
• 1:08:20
  Speaker 1: that's right. I agree. And uh, my friend Aaronnach, who's wonderful, Uh,
• 1:08:27
  Speaker 1: they have a really wonderful YouTube channel. We were talking
• 1:08:30
  Speaker 1: about this because I was sharing my notes and I
• 1:08:32
  Speaker 1: was trying not to share my deeper notes, just more like, oh,
• 1:08:36
  Speaker 1: look this funny thing I said, you know, while I'm
• 1:08:39
  Speaker 1: doing research. But they said, they're like, I think this
• 1:08:43
  Speaker 1: film is so forgettable because it almost does something worthy
• 1:08:47
  Speaker 1: of note and then went, well, how can we make
• 1:08:49
  Speaker 1: a white guy the hero and the weirdest way possible?
• 1:08:52
  Speaker 1: And I'm like, yeah, that's the biggest failing of this
• 1:08:55
  Speaker 1: film is that Jake is in it, just because it
• 1:09:01
  Speaker 1: feels like Natari should be the hero. Absolute like if
• 1:09:07
  Speaker 1: you're going to have the school and stuff like that
• 1:09:09
  Speaker 1: in it, I mean, like, why couldn't it begin with
• 1:09:11
  Speaker 1: nat Terry being a student in the school and then
• 1:09:15
  Speaker 1: seeing her sister be murdered like they say happens in
• 1:09:18
  Speaker 1: the deleted scenes and stuff, and then becoming disillusion and
• 1:09:22
  Speaker 1: disenfranchised with this idea of diplomacy, you know, because there
• 1:09:28
  Speaker 1: is no diplomatic way to forcibly relocate people that's genocide.
• 1:09:33
  Speaker 1: Like that's exactly I love. I mean, I love what
• 1:09:36
  Speaker 1: you're talking about in terms of casting native actors um
• 1:09:40
  Speaker 1: on the human side of the conflict, because that doesn't happen.
• 1:09:44
  Speaker 1: And I feel like that problem scales up to what
• 1:09:47
  Speaker 1: you were discussing at the beginning of the episode, which
• 1:09:50
  Speaker 1: is like that would be an incredible, like I think,
• 1:09:53
  Speaker 1: a far more impactful way to tell this story and
• 1:09:56
  Speaker 1: also probably not a story that James Cameron has any
• 1:10:00
  Speaker 1: business writing. And so it's again, it's like a resources
• 1:10:03
  Speaker 1: thing of like, you know, who is getting the opportunities.
• 1:10:06
  Speaker 1: James Cameron's using his own playbook to try to tell
• 1:10:09
  Speaker 1: this story, but he's limited and what he can do,
• 1:10:14
  Speaker 1: I don't know. It's very outsider's perspective. And the way
• 1:10:18
  Speaker 1: that Dances with Wolves was um but but to Dances
• 1:10:22
  Speaker 1: with Wolves credit the native characters in that movie are
• 1:10:27
  Speaker 1: flushed out way more than the Navy are in Avatar.
• 1:10:31
  Speaker 1: It's like when I watched Dances with Wolves when I
• 1:10:33
  Speaker 1: was very young. I really liked the movie because there
• 1:10:36
  Speaker 1: was kind of a Catharsis of I don't like Kevin
• 1:10:40
  Speaker 1: Costner and I don't really look like Kevin Costner, but
• 1:10:43
  Speaker 1: to see someone who kind of looks like me being
• 1:10:47
  Speaker 1: accepted in a group of people who look like my dad,
• 1:10:52
  Speaker 1: you know, was kind of like really special. And especially
• 1:10:57
  Speaker 1: with the stands with the Fisk character. But even then,
• 1:11:00
  Speaker 1: it's like Graham Green's character, who is a holy man
• 1:11:04
  Speaker 1: in that movie. He's hilarious, he's wonderful, he's dignified, he's
• 1:11:08
  Speaker 1: open to communication, but he's also like, you know, why
• 1:11:12
  Speaker 1: is this guy rolling around on the ground with like
• 1:11:16
  Speaker 1: that thing on his shirt? And then the other native
• 1:11:19
  Speaker 1: character whose name I forgot, but he's very much like
• 1:11:23
  Speaker 1: this dude's fucking crazy. Let's leave, you know, and I'm
• 1:11:27
  Speaker 1: not afraid of you. You know, like the time spent
• 1:11:31
  Speaker 1: in the village, what those characters are more sympathetic and interesting.
• 1:11:36
  Speaker 1: You really don't get that an avatar, no matter how
• 1:11:40
  Speaker 1: sympathetic or understanding they're trying to be, because like, does
• 1:11:44
  Speaker 1: NATTERI have brothers and sisters? Does she have friends? Does
• 1:11:48
  Speaker 1: she have anties? Like you just nothing know so little,
• 1:11:53
  Speaker 1: to the point where like her parents are important characters,
• 1:11:58
  Speaker 1: but I only mentioned each of them like twice in
• 1:12:02
  Speaker 1: the recap, and I so like they're just they're not
• 1:12:05
  Speaker 1: that They're pretty secondary honestly to this story. And it's
• 1:12:10
  Speaker 1: really only Naterie who we get any real insight into.
• 1:12:15
  Speaker 1: And despite Zowey Sodanna's incredible performance, we still don't get
• 1:12:19
  Speaker 1: that much about her backstory, about her life. We know
• 1:12:23
  Speaker 1: a little bit about what is in store for her future. Um,
• 1:12:26
  Speaker 1: she's going to take over the role as like spiritual
• 1:12:29
  Speaker 1: leader for her mother, but like, we don't know that much.
• 1:12:33
  Speaker 1: And then speaking of speaking of indigenous actors playing characters,
• 1:12:38
  Speaker 1: so the actors who play the Alma Takaya characters. Um
• 1:12:45
  Speaker 1: of the ones who get speaking roles, they're mostly black actors,
• 1:12:49
  Speaker 1: except with one exception of West Study, who plays Naterie's father,
• 1:12:54
  Speaker 1: A Tookan. He is an actor of the Cherokee Nation.
• 1:13:00
  Speaker 1: But it seems to me and correct me if I'm
• 1:13:02
  Speaker 1: misinterpreting this, but it feels like a lot of the
• 1:13:05
  Speaker 1: imagery and iconography they're pulling from as far as just
• 1:13:10
  Speaker 1: like cultural things, historical things about the Alma Takaya seem
• 1:13:15
  Speaker 1: to be pulled from indigenous people of Northern America, So
• 1:13:19
  Speaker 1: it feels weird to not cast more Native Americans in
• 1:13:25
  Speaker 1: those roles. And if they're playing a character that's not
• 1:13:28
  Speaker 1: even human, you know, like if it's going to be
• 1:13:32
  Speaker 1: indigenous coded, then there's so many indigenous people that you
• 1:13:36
  Speaker 1: could reach out to. You could cast Sami actors, you
• 1:13:39
  Speaker 1: could cast Maudi actors or why. It could be the
• 1:13:42
  Speaker 1: whole spectrum of indigenous people, But it would be nice
• 1:13:46
  Speaker 1: to see them as humans. Took Well, that's the thing.
• 1:13:49
  Speaker 1: Is like on top of that, it's like, how often
• 1:13:52
  Speaker 1: like people of color in general, but you know, specifically
• 1:13:55
  Speaker 1: Indigenous Americans are Indigenous people in general, are like other
• 1:14:00
  Speaker 1: in I mean, this is like a pretty aggressive mothering
• 1:14:03
  Speaker 1: of I don't know. Yeah, we're curiously science fiction. Yeah, yes, exactly,
• 1:14:08
  Speaker 1: especially since colonizers use language and rhetoric against indigenous people
• 1:14:15
  Speaker 1: to justify killing them and stealing from them. And one
• 1:14:20
  Speaker 1: of the ways they do that is to reduce them
• 1:14:23
  Speaker 1: or liken them to animals, and so to make the
• 1:14:29
  Speaker 1: Almatya have animal features, pentacle porn cats. This is the mark,
• 1:14:36
  Speaker 1: just a bit the other thing. Okay, so even back then,
• 1:14:40
  Speaker 1: the thing that makes me just cringe the most, it's like,
• 1:14:43
  Speaker 1: you you've got cat people, I know their native coded
• 1:14:47
  Speaker 1: Why are they leallying? I mean, I know there's an
• 1:14:50
  Speaker 1: actual word for it. I just forgot what it is.
• 1:14:52
  Speaker 1: But it's where I'm going to move away from my mic. It's, yes,
• 1:14:58
  Speaker 1: why why are they doing that? They're cats? Right, like
• 1:15:03
  Speaker 1: they're cats. They should be saying even the even that
• 1:15:10
  Speaker 1: thing that they do that, you know what I mean,
• 1:15:14
  Speaker 1: Like it's yeah, I I saw a lot of criticisms
• 1:15:18
  Speaker 1: around the battle cries that seemed kind of like randomly
• 1:15:22
  Speaker 1: and offensively selected for the Omedicaiah, And yeah, I haven't
• 1:15:26
  Speaker 1: seen an effective argument against it, Like it just seems
• 1:15:29
  Speaker 1: like that was a straight up offensive, lazy, shitty choice.
• 1:15:34
  Speaker 1: It just made me. I was like, oh, you know,
• 1:15:37
  Speaker 1: first time I saw it too. Every time I see it,
• 1:15:39
  Speaker 1: I'm like, oh, why are you doing that? That's so strange.
• 1:15:43
  Speaker 1: There's a whole montage where it's like just that over
• 1:15:45
  Speaker 1: and over and over and over and and and then
• 1:15:49
  Speaker 1: the context of that scene is that Jake Sully is
• 1:15:51
  Speaker 1: randomly the general now like that was. He just shows
• 1:15:57
  Speaker 1: up on his large pterodactyl and he's like, I'm the captain.
• 1:16:02
  Speaker 1: We're left to think that, like there is some collaboration
• 1:16:06
  Speaker 1: going on between Jake and Suit, but it seems like
• 1:16:08
  Speaker 1: at the end of the day, Jake is in charge
• 1:16:09
  Speaker 1: because Jake like walkie talkies ton A ri at the
• 1:16:13
  Speaker 1: peak of the action, it says that's an order. I
• 1:16:16
  Speaker 1: was like, dude, you don't. You're not stop, You're not
• 1:16:20
  Speaker 1: in charge. You just got here. You can't make an order.
• 1:16:24
  Speaker 1: And I mean, speaking of cat like features of the
• 1:16:29
  Speaker 1: Oma ta Kaya people, there's I think a whole conversation
• 1:16:33
  Speaker 1: around their character design. I mean, there's like a lot
• 1:16:37
  Speaker 1: of things to unpack as far as like lack of
• 1:16:41
  Speaker 1: body diversity, costume design, skin color, just like everything that
• 1:16:46
  Speaker 1: encompasses the character design of the Navy or the Ama
• 1:16:51
  Speaker 1: ta kaya. So friend of the show, I just want
• 1:16:54
  Speaker 1: a quickly shot. Friend of the show Janish Meeting has
• 1:16:58
  Speaker 1: pointed this out for years, is the lack of body
• 1:17:01
  Speaker 1: diversity in avatar characters. And it's also um because she's
• 1:17:05
  Speaker 1: the funniest person ever, like turned it into a bit
• 1:17:09
  Speaker 1: um where she's like, I'm going to get cast as
• 1:17:10
  Speaker 1: a Navy and the game's gonna change, but like she's
• 1:17:13
  Speaker 1: she was the first person I heard talking about that,
• 1:17:17
  Speaker 1: because there already think so many like problematic elements to
• 1:17:20
  Speaker 1: the way the Navy are designed that that sort of
• 1:17:23
  Speaker 1: gets overlooked a lot of the time. Well not only that, um,
• 1:17:28
  Speaker 1: elders play such an important role in indigenous community. So
• 1:17:31
  Speaker 1: the fact that we don't really see like an elderly
• 1:17:35
  Speaker 1: navvy character, you know other than the terries parents or
• 1:17:39
  Speaker 1: you know, like not everyone in a society like this
• 1:17:44
  Speaker 1: is a warrior, you know, So what do they look
• 1:17:48
  Speaker 1: like when they're not in like peak shape all the time.
• 1:17:51
  Speaker 1: And what about the warriors who um, you know get
• 1:17:55
  Speaker 1: hurt or get injured or are disabled or something, what
• 1:17:59
  Speaker 1: they're a bad hunt and the dinosaur thing bite your
• 1:18:03
  Speaker 1: arm off, right, We don't see any of that, and
• 1:18:07
  Speaker 1: it would have been interesting to see Jake like interact
• 1:18:10
  Speaker 1: with some of those veterans you know. Actually, right, so
• 1:18:15
  Speaker 1: many like overlaps between Jake and Navy culture that just
• 1:18:20
  Speaker 1: just goes completely unexplored by this, uh, by this movie, right, Yeah.
• 1:18:24
  Speaker 1: And then yeah, as far as like just the body type,
• 1:18:27
  Speaker 1: every single Navy person has the same exact body type,
• 1:18:33
  Speaker 1: so they all have frog butts. Theyll frog butts. There's
• 1:18:36
  Speaker 1: not a booty to be found. Well, I think that that,
• 1:18:40
  Speaker 1: Like I kind of wonder. I've watched a lot of
• 1:18:43
  Speaker 1: behind the scenes features on this movie in the past,
• 1:18:45
  Speaker 1: and I like, I know that it's kind of tricky
• 1:18:47
  Speaker 1: because in some ways, I want to say that they're
• 1:18:49
  Speaker 1: almost animated characters. I know that it's motion capture. So
• 1:18:53
  Speaker 1: it's like it's either animation trips we've talked about before
• 1:18:57
  Speaker 1: where it's like very rigid two body types available, which
• 1:19:02
  Speaker 1: I think does kind of carry through this movie, or
• 1:19:05
  Speaker 1: it's a casting issue and they only cast to body types.
• 1:19:08
  Speaker 1: So either way, it's you know, a fucking wash and
• 1:19:12
  Speaker 1: you know, like it just I don't know, it doesn't
• 1:19:15
  Speaker 1: just like reinforce um rigid stereotypes we see all the time.
• 1:19:19
  Speaker 1: It also like lessons the richness of Pandora because you're
• 1:19:24
  Speaker 1: just like completely ali, like what what are other people
• 1:19:27
  Speaker 1: up to? Like it? Can't they appear to be thriving?
• 1:19:31
  Speaker 1: You would think there are other things and elements of
• 1:19:34
  Speaker 1: this culture that just are like not referenced or explored
• 1:19:37
  Speaker 1: at all. And don't cants always have like that, you know,
• 1:19:40
  Speaker 1: belly fat that like flops the run and they famously
• 1:19:50
  Speaker 1: have eight nipples, So why don't they Alma Takaya have
• 1:19:55
  Speaker 1: eight nipples? They just have tentacles nipples on the nipples scales, um.
• 1:20:03
  Speaker 1: And then as far as and this is something I
• 1:20:05
  Speaker 1: think we've touched on in different episodes in the past,
• 1:20:08
  Speaker 1: but there's a pretty um a precedent has been set
• 1:20:12
  Speaker 1: somewhere along the line that in sci fi and fantasy,
• 1:20:16
  Speaker 1: especially because these are the genres where you would usually
• 1:20:19
  Speaker 1: have like non human human like characters. So in this case,
• 1:20:26
  Speaker 1: the Novi, the Alma Takaya have blue skin. And this
• 1:20:29
  Speaker 1: is something we see a lot where um, you know,
• 1:20:32
  Speaker 1: like humanoid characters who are coded as indigenous, they're coded
• 1:20:38
  Speaker 1: as people of color in general, they will have blueskin,
• 1:20:42
  Speaker 1: green skin, purple skin, some skin color that does not
• 1:20:46
  Speaker 1: exist on humans, and um, just like kind of further
• 1:20:52
  Speaker 1: others these characters who are coded as people of color.
• 1:20:56
  Speaker 1: And I noticed that this is something that happens a
• 1:20:59
  Speaker 1: lot in sci fi, where even if they cast like
• 1:21:03
  Speaker 1: an actress of color, they usually cast her as an alien,
• 1:21:07
  Speaker 1: like even um Star Trek, which is pretty diverse anyways.
• 1:21:12
  Speaker 1: And I'm referring to like the J. J. Abrams movies
• 1:21:14
  Speaker 1: because I am not a tricky how Dare You? Also
• 1:21:20
  Speaker 1: starring Zoe's Seldonna, but this time she gets to actually
• 1:21:23
  Speaker 1: have her actual skin, Carna skin. But but Sophia Botella,
• 1:21:28
  Speaker 1: I think that's how you say her name. And the
• 1:21:30
  Speaker 1: third movie is an alien with white skin, but she
• 1:21:36
  Speaker 1: looks awesome and she's great, but you know, like it's
• 1:21:40
  Speaker 1: not her also, but it's always held Donna, and like
• 1:21:44
  Speaker 1: Guardians of the Galaxy has green skin, and uh, I
• 1:21:49
  Speaker 1: love costume and makeup designs and stuff like that, especially
• 1:21:53
  Speaker 1: when you're making monsters like Doug Jones is a fucking
• 1:21:56
  Speaker 1: g and I love how Boy and everything, but it
• 1:22:01
  Speaker 1: is a trope I've noticed like a lot, even in
• 1:22:06
  Speaker 1: Star Wars. It's like you get Lupetea n Ago when
• 1:22:08
  Speaker 1: you make her that ugly little alien. God do it.
• 1:22:13
  Speaker 1: I will never get over that. I just like you
• 1:22:16
  Speaker 1: did what with that casting decision? You did nothing, nothing
• 1:22:21
  Speaker 1: with the casting decision, the most beautiful, talented person and
• 1:22:25
  Speaker 1: you did what there. I was, Yeah, I don't even
• 1:22:28
  Speaker 1: give a shit about Star Wars particularly, but I was
• 1:22:31
  Speaker 1: enraged to fight that. I would also be curious to
• 1:22:34
  Speaker 1: hear what listeners think on that issue, because I don't know.
• 1:22:37
  Speaker 1: I've seen that point made about Zoe Salbanda's career quite
• 1:22:41
  Speaker 1: a bit of like her too biggest or you know,
• 1:22:44
  Speaker 1: I guess best remembered roles. Although there are those crossheads
• 1:22:47
  Speaker 1: people out there, those cross roads cross the cross Heads
• 1:22:51
  Speaker 1: from hell. Um, Okay, two SIPs of Miller Lite and
• 1:22:55
  Speaker 1: I'm I'm cooked. Um. But yeah, I like I I
• 1:23:01
  Speaker 1: think that that is like absolutely no accident. And I
• 1:23:05
  Speaker 1: wish that sci fi were at a place where, like
• 1:23:09
  Speaker 1: you know, sci fi can be like in a really
• 1:23:10
  Speaker 1: amazing place to explore like more diverse world. If you
• 1:23:16
  Speaker 1: have diverse voices, they're also behind the camera, which is
• 1:23:19
  Speaker 1: not really happening in Avatar. And I think the you
• 1:23:24
  Speaker 1: always run the risk of racial stereotyping anytime you code
• 1:23:29
  Speaker 1: non human species as an existing group of actual people.
• 1:23:35
  Speaker 1: I think Frozen two and even Avatar The Last Airbender
• 1:23:39
  Speaker 1: do this better, where it's like, yes, they're coded as
• 1:23:43
  Speaker 1: Inuit or they're coded as Sammy, but they're not you know,
• 1:23:48
  Speaker 1: their water tribe, their Nothaldra, you know so, but they're people.
• 1:23:53
  Speaker 1: You know, they're like actual human characters, even if the
• 1:23:57
  Speaker 1: tribe or the races is not. I hope I said
• 1:24:03
  Speaker 1: that correctly. No, I know what you mean. Yeah, And
• 1:24:06
  Speaker 1: this wouldn't be as much of a concern if in
• 1:24:10
  Speaker 1: these genres you had white actors also playing like, you know,
• 1:24:15
  Speaker 1: blue skinned aliens, like it wouldn't be And then and
• 1:24:18
  Speaker 1: that there was no specific like racial coding attached to
• 1:24:22
  Speaker 1: any any of the characters. It's just like, this is
• 1:24:25
  Speaker 1: just a person, like a doctrine with purple right, Doug Jones.
• 1:24:30
  Speaker 1: Doug Jones, folks, he's a sexy fish, the sex. But
• 1:24:38
  Speaker 1: because the trend tends to be that only bipoc actors
• 1:24:43
  Speaker 1: are cast in these roles where their skin is a
• 1:24:47
  Speaker 1: is you know, some color of the rainbow, and their
• 1:24:51
  Speaker 1: character is coded as like another race. It's also because
• 1:24:55
  Speaker 1: it's generally by like white writers and directors that are
• 1:24:58
  Speaker 1: making that decision. Like that is a huge element of
• 1:25:02
  Speaker 1: I don't know, like it does Like the way James
• 1:25:04
  Speaker 1: Cameron is doing it seems like a trophy, overwrought, like lazy,
• 1:25:09
  Speaker 1: kind of pretty offensive like storytelling trope, Like it's not
• 1:25:13
  Speaker 1: he's not doing anything new here. Yeah, it would have
• 1:25:17
  Speaker 1: more gravity if it was by a writer who was
• 1:25:20
  Speaker 1: Indigenous or otherwise marginalized, right, I think. And then as
• 1:25:25
  Speaker 1: far as the costume design goes, Um, I'm curious about
• 1:25:29
  Speaker 1: your thoughts on this alley, But the nov across the
• 1:25:33
  Speaker 1: gender spectrum of the nov, they're all like pretty scantily
• 1:25:37
  Speaker 1: clad as far as their costume goes, Yes, the two
• 1:25:41
  Speaker 1: body types are scantily clad. You can see all of
• 1:25:45
  Speaker 1: their blueskin basically. And there is definitely another media trend
• 1:25:51
  Speaker 1: where Indigenous women we see this time and time again
• 1:25:56
  Speaker 1: are hyper hyper sexualized in meat. Yeah, I don't know
• 1:26:02
  Speaker 1: exactly if that's what's happening here. I'm just so I'm
• 1:26:05
  Speaker 1: just curious to your thoughts. So, um, this is kind
• 1:26:08
  Speaker 1: of okay. So if you talk to one Indigenous person
• 1:26:11
  Speaker 1: who've only talked to one Indigenous person. So this is
• 1:26:14
  Speaker 1: just me personally. UM Connor Beard on TikTok, who's from
• 1:26:20
  Speaker 1: the Lumbi tribe. I think I mentioned him earlier. He's
• 1:26:22
  Speaker 1: doing a series of TikTok videos about Avatar and racism
• 1:26:27
  Speaker 1: in it and tropes in it that are anti Indigenous,
• 1:26:31
  Speaker 1: and I can co sign on most of them. I
• 1:26:34
  Speaker 1: think he makes really good points. But he released and
• 1:26:36
  Speaker 1: I say this respectfully. Um, he released a recent TikTok
• 1:26:42
  Speaker 1: talking about how avatar uh fetishizes and sexualizes Native women,
• 1:26:48
  Speaker 1: and I get it, but I don't agree entirely because, UM,
• 1:26:54
  Speaker 1: I personally have a rule where if male and female
• 1:26:57
  Speaker 1: characters are wearing the same costume, the costume itself isn't
• 1:27:03
  Speaker 1: inherently sexualized. UM Like, Black Widow and Captain America are
• 1:27:09
  Speaker 1: basically wearing the same unitard. It's just Black Widow was
• 1:27:12
  Speaker 1: filmed differently, you know, So it's not really the costume
• 1:27:17
  Speaker 1: that's the problem. UM. Like, someone I forgot who it was.
• 1:27:21
  Speaker 1: I think it was a pop culture detective was talking
• 1:27:24
  Speaker 1: about how Cora in tron Legacy is sexualized and I
• 1:27:31
  Speaker 1: did not agree with that either. I'm like, she's wearing
• 1:27:34
  Speaker 1: the same thing everybody else is wearing, and she's never
• 1:27:37
  Speaker 1: really objectified by the camera, because there's a difference between
• 1:27:42
  Speaker 1: like a character just being really sexy on the screen
• 1:27:45
  Speaker 1: and the filmmakers and the filmmaking actively sexualizing that character.
• 1:27:53
  Speaker 1: I watched that same TikTok um from Connor Beard, and
• 1:27:57
  Speaker 1: he points out that in the screenplay for Avatar. So
• 1:28:01
  Speaker 1: this makes me kind of think that James Cameron is
• 1:28:04
  Speaker 1: actively sexualizing especially n No. I hate reading I hate
• 1:28:09
  Speaker 1: reading James Cameron's writing. It's so stressful. Do you remember
• 1:28:14
  Speaker 1: that thing from Titanic where she falls under his welcome weight.
• 1:28:18
  Speaker 1: I will never stop thinking about the phrase welcome weight
• 1:28:22
  Speaker 1: written by a fifty year old man. I just can't
• 1:28:25
  Speaker 1: even Okay, what did he say? What did you say?
• 1:28:30
  Speaker 1: I at least it translates well to strain, But he's like,
• 1:28:36
  Speaker 1: I don't even think it's like an unpopular opinion to
• 1:28:39
  Speaker 1: say that James Cameron is like a pretty bad writer.
• 1:28:43
  Speaker 1: He's just got he's got a lot of chops where
• 1:28:45
  Speaker 1: he's got a lot of chops. And then he also
• 1:28:47
  Speaker 1: writes the movie he and then he writes what we're
• 1:28:51
  Speaker 1: about welcome here? Okay, sorry, sorry, So This is for
• 1:28:57
  Speaker 1: Naterie's character introduction, which in a screen generally has a
• 1:29:00
  Speaker 1: little bit more detail um about like the character visually,
• 1:29:05
  Speaker 1: like what the character looks like. So quote, Jake passes
• 1:29:08
  Speaker 1: under a tree limb invisible to him, draped on the
• 1:29:11
  Speaker 1: limb like a leopard. Is a striking, navvy girl. She
• 1:29:15
  Speaker 1: watches only her eyes moving. She is life as a
• 1:29:19
  Speaker 1: cat with a long neck, muscular shoulders, and nubile breasts.
• 1:29:24
  Speaker 1: And she is devastatingly beautiful for a girl with a tail.
• 1:29:30
  Speaker 1: Oh my, Jim, So do they ever mentioned the size
• 1:29:34
  Speaker 1: of Jake's dick and he's going into his aftar body
• 1:29:37
  Speaker 1: because not that that's telling exactly. Yeah, where's the reciprocity.
• 1:29:44
  Speaker 1: Jim's going to horny jail? Again, there's one more sentence
• 1:29:47
  Speaker 1: that is upsetting. In human age, she would be eighteen,
• 1:29:55
  Speaker 1: so she is young, young young Jake Sully is what
• 1:30:00
  Speaker 1: in his thirties, mid to late thirties, probably he could
• 1:30:04
  Speaker 1: be a strong c W thirty one, you know, Dad,
• 1:30:09
  Speaker 1: So that it is creepy. So like I I because
• 1:30:15
  Speaker 1: I think that that is a really good rule of
• 1:30:17
  Speaker 1: thumb that you're describing alley of like if there is
• 1:30:20
  Speaker 1: because it's also like you, like James Cameron writes creepy.
• 1:30:24
  Speaker 1: We've discussed it on the show before. It seems particularly
• 1:30:26
  Speaker 1: pointed in this in this example, because he's you know,
• 1:30:30
  Speaker 1: like writing about an Indigenous woman who's eighteen like man,
• 1:30:37
  Speaker 1: there was like a lot of I'm glad that there's
• 1:30:40
  Speaker 1: like a diversity of opinion on this, because I do
• 1:30:42
  Speaker 1: think that, like the movie does not objectify Naterie the
• 1:30:47
  Speaker 1: way that that couple of sentence run would imply that
• 1:30:51
  Speaker 1: it would based on how creepy he's being. I didn't
• 1:30:53
  Speaker 1: feel that creepiness in the camera or in the film language.
• 1:30:58
  Speaker 1: I think that that is like, in spite of the
• 1:30:59
  Speaker 1: fact that he's like a creepy writer, he's not a
• 1:31:02
  Speaker 1: creepy filmmaker, which is, you know, an oversimplification. I'm sure
• 1:31:06
  Speaker 1: he's had his creepy moments, but and he's made like
• 1:31:09
  Speaker 1: R rated movies too, So if he really wanted to
• 1:31:12
  Speaker 1: be creepy, he could have really been creepy and his
• 1:31:14
  Speaker 1: other But but then on the other hand, it's I mean,
• 1:31:20
  Speaker 1: I know that we sort of have spent a lot
• 1:31:22
  Speaker 1: of this episode unraveling, like the way that like comparing
• 1:31:26
  Speaker 1: Avatar to disney Spokehontas is a vast oversimplification, but because
• 1:31:31
  Speaker 1: it's like the nav characters are like somewhat animated or like,
• 1:31:35
  Speaker 1: I don't know how to describe motion capture really, but
• 1:31:38
  Speaker 1: she looks more like a cat than a person, So
• 1:31:41
  Speaker 1: it's not it doesn't I feel like Pocahontas like Disney's Pokehonas.
• 1:31:46
  Speaker 1: Even Shell or Shell from the Road to Eldorado. I
• 1:31:50
  Speaker 1: think that's way more offensive than the Terry because I
• 1:31:54
  Speaker 1: would say that that is hyper sexualized and objectified more
• 1:31:58
  Speaker 1: than nay Terry, because I also don't think that nudity
• 1:32:02
  Speaker 1: is inherently sexual either, And the really the only time
• 1:32:07
  Speaker 1: Nateri is ever like sexy on screen is when she's
• 1:32:10
  Speaker 1: having sex, which you know, hopefully kind of the best
• 1:32:17
  Speaker 1: time to be sexy is during sex. Wow, yeah, kind
• 1:32:21
  Speaker 1: of weird if you're not. And even during the weird
• 1:32:24
  Speaker 1: tentacle sex thing. I mean it's more romantic than sexy. Um,
• 1:32:30
  Speaker 1: I guess yes. But like a worse example of this
• 1:32:37
  Speaker 1: would be in Terrence Malix film The New World, where
• 1:32:41
  Speaker 1: Koreanka Kulture, who is fourteen years old, is way more
• 1:32:46
  Speaker 1: sexualized with her to grown male counter counter stars co stars,
• 1:32:53
  Speaker 1: co stars, that's the word that counter stars. Yes, so
• 1:32:57
  Speaker 1: fourteen year old Koreanka culture with that, Christian Bale and
• 1:33:02
  Speaker 1: Colin Farrell, And excuse a blame, I still have not
• 1:33:06
  Speaker 1: been able to bring myself to watch that one because
• 1:33:09
  Speaker 1: everything I hear about it is just disgusting. She's beautiful
• 1:33:14
  Speaker 1: and she's wonderful, but god, baby girl, I'm sorry. I'm
• 1:33:17
  Speaker 1: so sorry, ugly ass bitch like Terance Bald, what do
• 1:33:21
  Speaker 1: you do that, you fucking evil? One last thing, I'm
• 1:33:28
  Speaker 1: and then then I promise I'll stop dragging Connor. But
• 1:33:31
  Speaker 1: there was one more line that he says in that
• 1:33:35
  Speaker 1: TikTok where so it's a line where NATII tells him,
• 1:33:40
  Speaker 1: you know you're Alma Takaya now and you can make
• 1:33:43
  Speaker 1: your bow from home tree and you can choose a woman,
• 1:33:48
  Speaker 1: and he, you know, Jake's like, already chose, but this
• 1:33:51
  Speaker 1: woman must choose me, And Connor feared makes the argument
• 1:33:56
  Speaker 1: that Jake is the one being progressive and the yes
• 1:34:01
  Speaker 1: the one being primitive. And I think that this is
• 1:34:03
  Speaker 1: where context matters, because the Navy, with all other problems,
• 1:34:08
  Speaker 1: are very egalitarian, and I don't think the women are
• 1:34:12
  Speaker 1: just like, oh, you only exist to be chosen by
• 1:34:16
  Speaker 1: these dudes, you know, because then why would there be
• 1:34:18
  Speaker 1: women warriors? And I think it's also cousny Terry's engaged,
• 1:34:24
  Speaker 1: so he's like, hey, do you want to come with me?
• 1:34:27
  Speaker 1: Or you know, I know who I've chosen, but do
• 1:34:30
  Speaker 1: you choose me? And I don't know. It's like I
• 1:34:33
  Speaker 1: didn't think that was Yeah, I don't know. I hear
• 1:34:37
  Speaker 1: you on that, like I mean, and I think that
• 1:34:39
  Speaker 1: like the best. I mean, you said it yourself. Like
• 1:34:43
  Speaker 1: the fact that she is engaged is not really harped
• 1:34:45
  Speaker 1: on by the movie, which I appreciated because that's like
• 1:34:48
  Speaker 1: a really annoying trope to like get in the mire of.
• 1:34:51
  Speaker 1: But it's like it makes sense that it would be
• 1:34:55
  Speaker 1: sort of like tacitly brought up in that conversation, because
• 1:34:59
  Speaker 1: be weird if Jake didn't try to tacitly acknowledge like that,
• 1:35:04
  Speaker 1: it's sort of him the way that Jack Dawson is
• 1:35:08
  Speaker 1: like do you love him? It's just a simple question,
• 1:35:11
  Speaker 1: do you love the guy or not? And Rose is like,
• 1:35:13
  Speaker 1: this is not a suitable conversation. But but Jack was
• 1:35:17
  Speaker 1: being being very rude. Jack was being a little devil
• 1:35:19
  Speaker 1: in that conversation because he was being agro and not
• 1:35:22
  Speaker 1: to hand it to Jake Sally, I don't do it
• 1:35:24
  Speaker 1: and I hate to do it, but but you know,
• 1:35:27
  Speaker 1: Jake doesn't get agro about it. It's like a it's
• 1:35:30
  Speaker 1: a conversation. It's not like cornering you in the gym
• 1:35:33
  Speaker 1: of the Titan. I'm just merely pointing out that James
• 1:35:37
  Speaker 1: Cameron keeps writing more or less the same scene over
• 1:35:40
  Speaker 1: he loves, he loves this one movie that he writes.
• 1:35:44
  Speaker 1: And UM, my last question as it relates to the
• 1:35:50
  Speaker 1: character design of the Alma Takaya, is I wasn't sure
• 1:35:55
  Speaker 1: if James Cameron was referencing any specific into genius culture
• 1:36:01
  Speaker 1: or cultures or nations with the Alma Takaya or is
• 1:36:05
  Speaker 1: he just sort of like treating indigenous people as a
• 1:36:08
  Speaker 1: monolith and like just kind of making several aesthetic references
• 1:36:13
  Speaker 1: and kind of lumping them all together. And like, I
• 1:36:16
  Speaker 1: don't know what's your thought on that A bit of
• 1:36:19
  Speaker 1: column A and column B, Like it feels very outsiders
• 1:36:23
  Speaker 1: perspective because it is when I first saw the movie, Um,
• 1:36:31
  Speaker 1: it felt like I don't know if you've ever seen Apocalypto,
• 1:36:35
  Speaker 1: but it kind of reminded me of that where it was.
• 1:36:39
  Speaker 1: I assumed, since they're in a rainforest and the nab
• 1:36:42
  Speaker 1: don't wear a lot of clothing, that it was probably
• 1:36:45
  Speaker 1: inspired by a South American or Mesoamerican indigenous culture. I
• 1:36:51
  Speaker 1: haven't found anything that suggested that. What I have found was, um,
• 1:36:58
  Speaker 1: a lot of inspiration is from Maudi people from New
• 1:37:02
  Speaker 1: Zealand and even in U the trailers for the Way
• 1:37:05
  Speaker 1: of Water, I noticed that a lot of the facial
• 1:37:07
  Speaker 1: tattoos on some of the New nav characters looked very
• 1:37:10
  Speaker 1: much like the same ones from Polynesian cultures. Yeah, from
• 1:37:14
  Speaker 1: what I've heard of and and read a little bit
• 1:37:16
  Speaker 1: about the second movie, it seems like Cameron takes that
• 1:37:20
  Speaker 1: direction a little more decisively in the second movie. How
• 1:37:23
  Speaker 1: effective it is or how respectful it is, I don't know,
• 1:37:26
  Speaker 1: but that I was. I was going through like old
• 1:37:30
  Speaker 1: features trying to see if there was because there's so
• 1:37:32
  Speaker 1: much written about certain elements of production. But that was
• 1:37:36
  Speaker 1: not something I was able to really find. And I
• 1:37:39
  Speaker 1: know that there is this tendency. Um. We were talking
• 1:37:43
  Speaker 1: about this with Olivia Woodward a while ago about just
• 1:37:47
  Speaker 1: like this tendency to take so many unique indigenous cultures
• 1:37:51
  Speaker 1: and just like lump them all into one vague, you know,
• 1:37:56
  Speaker 1: kind of trophy interpretation, which I don't know if that's
• 1:38:00
  Speaker 1: really what I mean. I I just kind of struggled
• 1:38:02
  Speaker 1: to find information on what he was doing. Right well,
• 1:38:05
  Speaker 1: when I first saw the movie two thousand nine in
• 1:38:09
  Speaker 1: the theater, there were several scenes five like major events
• 1:38:15
  Speaker 1: in the film that I think mirror actual historical events
• 1:38:19
  Speaker 1: in like a broader Native American history. So obviously invading
• 1:38:26
  Speaker 1: Pandora is any It could be Columbus, it could be
• 1:38:30
  Speaker 1: the British, it could be the French, it could be
• 1:38:32
  Speaker 1: leif Ericson, you know, like any invasion colonialism, you know
• 1:38:38
  Speaker 1: that's happening. Um. Obviously, there are elements that are probably
• 1:38:43
  Speaker 1: inspired by Pocahontas and Jamestown and the Powetan nation interacting
• 1:38:49
  Speaker 1: with the settlers, especially since John Smith, when he was kidnapped,
• 1:38:55
  Speaker 1: was accepted into the tribe as kind of like a
• 1:39:00
  Speaker 1: honorary member to like, you know, build diplomacy. The image
• 1:39:05
  Speaker 1: of Pocahontas, like resting her head on him and saving
• 1:39:09
  Speaker 1: him is kind of more of like an initiation, kind
• 1:39:12
  Speaker 1: of like she's his godmother to compare it to anything. Uh,
• 1:39:18
  Speaker 1: don't quote me on that one, since I'm not from
• 1:39:22
  Speaker 1: those tribes, but that's my understanding of it. Any big
• 1:39:26
  Speaker 1: massacre scene, but you know, a home tree getting destroyed
• 1:39:31
  Speaker 1: felt like it could have been wounded me. It could
• 1:39:34
  Speaker 1: have been sand Creek. It could have been any attack,
• 1:39:37
  Speaker 1: any massacre really, and then you have the trail of
• 1:39:41
  Speaker 1: tears afterwards. Were forcibly relocating indigenous people, um any death march,
• 1:39:48
  Speaker 1: any long walks, you know. I was and again it
• 1:39:52
  Speaker 1: was like it was just hard to find any like
• 1:39:54
  Speaker 1: hard confirmation, But I kind of assumed that that was
• 1:39:57
  Speaker 1: what Cameron was trying to reference, even in the a
• 1:40:00
  Speaker 1: that Giovanni Ribisi's character was talking about it like oh,
• 1:40:03
  Speaker 1: it's not a big deal. It's like a relocation. It's
• 1:40:05
  Speaker 1: not like I was like, Okay, this is kind of
• 1:40:08
  Speaker 1: clearly mapped on peacefully negotiate their relocation. It's like, there's
• 1:40:12
  Speaker 1: no peaceful negotiation forcibly relocating. But the last one, which
• 1:40:18
  Speaker 1: surprised me, and I'm happy that it ended like this
• 1:40:23
  Speaker 1: was I feel like the final battle in Avatar, like
• 1:40:26
  Speaker 1: the big climatic, awesome battle, felt like it was a
• 1:40:30
  Speaker 1: big allegory to the Battle of a Little Big Horn
• 1:40:32
  Speaker 1: or the Battle of Greasy Grass where the Lakota sue
• 1:40:35
  Speaker 1: and the Cheyenne one a battle against General Custer and
• 1:40:41
  Speaker 1: the U. S Army, and um, they did that because
• 1:40:45
  Speaker 1: Custer thought that he was going to ambush them and
• 1:40:49
  Speaker 1: murder all of them. And no, there's five thousand of
• 1:40:52
  Speaker 1: us and you're dying today. And the person who shot
• 1:40:56
  Speaker 1: him off of his horse was a woman fun by
• 1:41:01
  Speaker 1: Buffalo calf road woman. So that pleases me. I didn't
• 1:41:12
  Speaker 1: realize that's that's amazing. Yeah, she's the one who shot
• 1:41:15
  Speaker 1: him off of his horse and probably delivered the killing blow.
• 1:41:18
  Speaker 1: And afterwards the other women took like little needles or
• 1:41:22
  Speaker 1: whatever and poked out his ear drums. And that's where
• 1:41:26
  Speaker 1: the phrase, uh, that's where the phrase see what happens
• 1:41:30
  Speaker 1: where you don't listen comes from. A So it sounds
• 1:41:35
  Speaker 1: to me like James Cameron is pulling not only from
• 1:41:40
  Speaker 1: like a design point of view of the of the
• 1:41:42
  Speaker 1: Alma Takaya, but also from just like narrative events in
• 1:41:46
  Speaker 1: the movie Avatar. He's pulling from a lot of different nations. So,
• 1:41:53
  Speaker 1: I mean, allegory in storytelling is like you know that
• 1:41:58
  Speaker 1: tends to happen where like you're you might be kind
• 1:42:01
  Speaker 1: of referencing something it's an allegorical probably be weirder if
• 1:42:04
  Speaker 1: you didn't pull from actual history. Like, it's not inherently
• 1:42:09
  Speaker 1: negative that he did that, right, it's just the mess.
• 1:42:13
  Speaker 1: It's just that, And it's the outsider's perspective that I
• 1:42:16
  Speaker 1: think is really Yeah, and uh, well, I mean Indigenous
• 1:42:20
  Speaker 1: people globally have a lot of shared experiences with colonialism
• 1:42:25
  Speaker 1: and racism and environmental oppression and damage also, so I
• 1:42:32
  Speaker 1: can see how kind of blending it together because it
• 1:42:34
  Speaker 1: all kind of blows together makes sense. I feel like
• 1:42:38
  Speaker 1: it probably could have been done a little more ethically,
• 1:42:42
  Speaker 1: and the way to do that would be the higher
• 1:42:45
  Speaker 1: native writers to write about the allegory. Um what else?
• 1:42:53
  Speaker 1: Another thing I would change is that a fangirl Gene.
• 1:42:57
  Speaker 1: I hope I'm pronouncing her name right. I think it's
• 1:42:59
  Speaker 1: pronounced gene, but I think it's also pronounced jean j
• 1:43:04
  Speaker 1: e a and n e f jean. Oh my, please
• 1:43:08
  Speaker 1: don't kill me, fangro Jean. Anyway, she uh was talking
• 1:43:13
  Speaker 1: about how she kind of likes and dislikes Avatar in
• 1:43:16
  Speaker 1: the same way as I do, but she's like Jake
• 1:43:19
  Speaker 1: should not have been allowed to stay period if he
• 1:43:22
  Speaker 1: was going to, And I feel like that would have
• 1:43:24
  Speaker 1: lended itself to the story a little bit better and
• 1:43:27
  Speaker 1: the sincerity of the character where they're like, listen, we
• 1:43:31
  Speaker 1: appreciate your help, but you put us in this situation,
• 1:43:36
  Speaker 1: so at the end of all things, you can't sit
• 1:43:39
  Speaker 1: with us anymore. So if it would have, at the
• 1:43:43
  Speaker 1: very least it should have and he should be okay
• 1:43:45
  Speaker 1: with it, if he's as good as he thinks he is,
• 1:43:48
  Speaker 1: then that would have been like, that's fair, Okay, you
• 1:43:51
  Speaker 1: don't get to stay with us. Yeah, I fucked up.
• 1:43:53
  Speaker 1: I'll see myself out. Yeah, I will say your brother's funeral, Jake, Yeah, jeez,
• 1:44:01
  Speaker 1: I will say. Um. This is my hot take is
• 1:44:06
  Speaker 1: that I think, not that his story is good, not
• 1:44:11
  Speaker 1: that his redemption arc is good, but all things consider,
• 1:44:15
  Speaker 1: Jake's redemption arc is more satisfying or better than a
• 1:44:22
  Speaker 1: redemption arc for like Kylo Wren, for example, because at
• 1:44:26
  Speaker 1: the end of the day, even though Kyleo Wren or
• 1:44:29
  Speaker 1: even Darth Vader turned from the dark side and do
• 1:44:32
  Speaker 1: the right thing at the last moment, they die right
• 1:44:35
  Speaker 1: after and they don't undo all the damage that they did.
• 1:44:40
  Speaker 1: They may have stopped or prevented more damage, which good,
• 1:44:44
  Speaker 1: but they never face the people that they hurt. They
• 1:44:47
  Speaker 1: never like face any repercussions or consequences for the harm
• 1:44:53
  Speaker 1: that they've caused. So, Jake, even though it's not great,
• 1:44:59
  Speaker 1: he's still it has to prove himself if he's going
• 1:45:01
  Speaker 1: to show his face again. And when he does the
• 1:45:05
  Speaker 1: right thing, eventually it's like his friends die, people get hurt.
• 1:45:10
  Speaker 1: He can never go back to his planet again. He
• 1:45:13
  Speaker 1: can never you know. So there's a whole lot at
• 1:45:15
  Speaker 1: stake that, you know, a lot of sacrifices that was
• 1:45:19
  Speaker 1: made for him to do the right thing. He does
• 1:45:21
  Speaker 1: have to do a lot to actually have a redemption.
• 1:45:27
  Speaker 1: But he like centers himself so consistently throughout it that
• 1:45:32
  Speaker 1: he's like I'm the boss now, and you're he's like
• 1:45:35
  Speaker 1: or like yeah that it's I mean, which is maybe
• 1:45:37
  Speaker 1: like realistic, super macho white male behavior, but like, yeah,
• 1:45:43
  Speaker 1: the fact that he's like, Okay, I like, I totally agree.
• 1:45:46
  Speaker 1: It's good that he recognizes that he can't just like
• 1:45:50
  Speaker 1: something has to be done to try to mitigate this tragedy.
• 1:45:55
  Speaker 1: That is in a huge part his fault, but his
• 1:46:00
  Speaker 1: ocean is like I have to be the lead captain
• 1:46:03
  Speaker 1: of And then he's rewarded by being like, Okay, you're deaf.
• 1:46:08
  Speaker 1: You're one of us again, and you're permanently one of us,
• 1:46:11
  Speaker 1: and we're gonna do this like spiritual ceremony to make
• 1:46:14
  Speaker 1: you shud be back on a trial basis at very
• 1:46:19
  Speaker 1: least like for real. It's like you're answering for crimes
• 1:46:23
  Speaker 1: against right. Hey, here's another question I have for you, ali, Um.
• 1:46:30
  Speaker 1: Throughout the movie, there's a lot of emphasis on the
• 1:46:34
  Speaker 1: Alma Takaya's connection to the earth and this like spiritual
• 1:46:38
  Speaker 1: connection to the wildlife the floor and the fauna, and
• 1:46:43
  Speaker 1: obviously pulling from you know, indigenous culture in the connection
• 1:46:47
  Speaker 1: that indigenous people have with the earth. But the movie
• 1:46:51
  Speaker 1: introduces this like kind of sci fi fantasy element to
• 1:46:56
  Speaker 1: that with like the tentacle angling network and then yeah,
• 1:47:03
  Speaker 1: and and I'm just curious about your thoughts about that
• 1:47:06
  Speaker 1: and what implications you think that has good or bad
• 1:47:10
  Speaker 1: or neutral. Okay, this is why Natives need to make stuff.
• 1:47:19
  Speaker 1: Kim Natives the same budget, and we will make something
• 1:47:21
  Speaker 1: better than Avatar. I promise. I promise, Um, because I
• 1:47:26
  Speaker 1: mean to James Cameron's credit, he's been an environmentalist activists
• 1:47:33
  Speaker 1: since like high school, so there are good intentions there.
• 1:47:38
  Speaker 1: He Um said in an interview very recently. I think
• 1:47:42
  Speaker 1: it was like James Cameron breaks down his most iconic
• 1:47:44
  Speaker 1: roles or something like that. Yeah. Yeah, he Um was
• 1:47:49
  Speaker 1: talking about like as he was making Avatar, He's like
• 1:47:53
  Speaker 1: Indigenous people were reaching out and saying, you know, a
• 1:47:55
  Speaker 1: lot of the stuff that's happening in your movie is
• 1:47:59
  Speaker 1: happening in real life in our community. So there were
• 1:48:02
  Speaker 1: things like UM and even Sophia yanoku'sa Sami activists UM,
• 1:48:07
  Speaker 1: when she gave her TED talk about mining companies in
• 1:48:11
  Speaker 1: Lapland in Sami territories and the damage that had done,
• 1:48:15
  Speaker 1: she said that Avatar felt like that, Like she definitely
• 1:48:22
  Speaker 1: resonated with the damage that's done to these um ecosystems
• 1:48:28
  Speaker 1: and these sacred territories and everything, and how Avatar has
• 1:48:32
  Speaker 1: a happy ending, but in real life, we're still fighting
• 1:48:36
  Speaker 1: in Lapland, and the same can be said in like
• 1:48:39
  Speaker 1: Brazil and Standing Rock, West Uotan and all these other places.
• 1:48:46
  Speaker 1: And when you think of like just the spiritual aspect
• 1:48:50
  Speaker 1: in Pandora, I mean it's a movie, so they kind
• 1:48:53
  Speaker 1: of have to ham it up. But I mean people
• 1:48:57
  Speaker 1: are not like usually in indigenous cultures or the way
• 1:49:03
  Speaker 1: that we believe in these things. People are not at
• 1:49:06
  Speaker 1: the top of the pyramid and then everything is beneath us.
• 1:49:11
  Speaker 1: Indigenous people tend to be stewards of the land who
• 1:49:13
  Speaker 1: believe that we are actually part of an ecosystem. And
• 1:49:18
  Speaker 1: as much as we need the land, the land also
• 1:49:20
  Speaker 1: needs us to take care of it. And the land
• 1:49:24
  Speaker 1: is very much as alive and as sentient as people
• 1:49:29
  Speaker 1: and as animals. So I see what he was trying
• 1:49:33
  Speaker 1: to do. Uh, he's just kind of it's just kind
• 1:49:38
  Speaker 1: of out of his element because he's not part of
• 1:49:40
  Speaker 1: the community. You know, there's like a something lost in translation.
• 1:49:46
  Speaker 1: I guess there's a disconnect because it's so very outsider's perspective,
• 1:49:51
  Speaker 1: and it's a good idea. I mean, I do like
• 1:49:53
  Speaker 1: the idea of you know, like you can plug your
• 1:49:57
  Speaker 1: tail into the willow tree and here your ancestors singing
• 1:50:02
  Speaker 1: and stuff like. That's beautiful, but not when they're aliens, right,
• 1:50:10
  Speaker 1: It's almost to me it reads is like um an
• 1:50:14
  Speaker 1: outsider's perspective looking at Indigenous spirituality and being like it's
• 1:50:20
  Speaker 1: so mystical, it's so magical, it's almost science fiction, and
• 1:50:26
  Speaker 1: then like so as to be alien and then just
• 1:50:29
  Speaker 1: like leaning into that and then putting it in a movie.
• 1:50:33
  Speaker 1: Yeah yeah, and in a way that kind of dehumanizes
• 1:50:37
  Speaker 1: indigenous people that you're trying to be sympathetic towards. Anyways,
• 1:50:41
  Speaker 1: and the deleted scenes. There's a really awesome deleted scene
• 1:50:45
  Speaker 1: where Jake, before he becomes one of the people, undergoes
• 1:50:50
  Speaker 1: a vision quest. I guess I don't know if you've
• 1:50:54
  Speaker 1: seen that. I have not seen that scene. Now. Yeah, it's, um,
• 1:50:57
  Speaker 1: it's an incomplete deleted scene and they must have ran
• 1:51:01
  Speaker 1: out of money because the CG isn't there. But it's
• 1:51:04
  Speaker 1: where he like, um, it's when he tells core Rich
• 1:51:07
  Speaker 1: or Stephen Lane, you know, I have one more thing
• 1:51:10
  Speaker 1: I have to do and then I'll be one of
• 1:51:12
  Speaker 1: them and blah blah blah. And then it cuts to
• 1:51:15
  Speaker 1: nay Terry putting the war paint on um and then
• 1:51:18
  Speaker 1: he goes into like this chamber and Moat is like
• 1:51:23
  Speaker 1: lighting the incense and the herbs and stuff, and like
• 1:51:26
  Speaker 1: this beetle or whatever, like he eats a worm and
• 1:51:29
  Speaker 1: then this beetle like stings him on the back of
• 1:51:31
  Speaker 1: his neck or whatever, and he has a vision quest
• 1:51:34
  Speaker 1: and when he survives it, they're like, oh, well you're alive,
• 1:51:38
  Speaker 1: so let's all hug and touch each other. But there's
• 1:51:42
  Speaker 1: a scene where he's talking to Grace before he does it,
• 1:51:45
  Speaker 1: because she's like, dude, you cannot do this because actual
• 1:51:49
  Speaker 1: navvy have died doing this and we have no idea
• 1:51:52
  Speaker 1: what an avatar is going to do. But it's Jake
• 1:51:55
  Speaker 1: and he has his plat armor, so he'll be fine.
• 1:51:58
  Speaker 1: But the chosen one he can't die. Yeah, he's God,
• 1:52:03
  Speaker 1: he should I should have died in the first second
• 1:52:06
  Speaker 1: when he goes in as an avatar when those like
• 1:52:10
  Speaker 1: rhinoceros like animals are like plowing him over, Like, yeah,
• 1:52:14
  Speaker 1: he should have been done for I found I found
• 1:52:17
  Speaker 1: it so frustrating. How like anytime n Teria was about
• 1:52:20
  Speaker 1: to bail on him, which was constantly because he sucks,
• 1:52:23
  Speaker 1: Like there's a sign from the from Pandora from Awa
• 1:52:29
  Speaker 1: that Jake's a really cool guy. You're like, oh my god,
• 1:52:34
  Speaker 1: in what way? But anyway, So the thing is he
• 1:52:38
  Speaker 1: tells Grace what he's doing, then he goes They don't
• 1:52:42
  Speaker 1: even have a word for lie. They had to learn
• 1:52:45
  Speaker 1: it from us. I'm like, dude, what, In my opinion,
• 1:52:50
  Speaker 1: it dehumanizes Indigenous people when you say something, even if
• 1:52:54
  Speaker 1: it's meant to be flattering, Like they don't have a
• 1:52:56
  Speaker 1: word for lie. You know, they don't even lie. That's
• 1:52:59
  Speaker 1: the other side of the coin, for there's no word
• 1:53:01
  Speaker 1: for thank you and doth racky. You don't know what
• 1:53:04
  Speaker 1: I mean. It's like it's another form of just degrading.
• 1:53:10
  Speaker 1: They cannot possibly comprehend the concept of x y Z
• 1:53:14
  Speaker 1: or that like an indigenous character would not be capable
• 1:53:16
  Speaker 1: of lying, like the full spectrum of being you know, alive. Yeah, ridiculous.
• 1:53:23
  Speaker 1: I found it interesting. I looked into James Cameron's first
• 1:53:28
  Speaker 1: round of interviews for this movie and then his current interview.
• 1:53:30
  Speaker 1: It does seem like I mean, I'm just like, I
• 1:53:33
  Speaker 1: guess I'm just interested in how avatar to works out
• 1:53:36
  Speaker 1: for him. But in the first one I was curious
• 1:53:38
  Speaker 1: of like how explicitly he was, how explicit he was
• 1:53:43
  Speaker 1: and saying like where his influences were coming from, because
• 1:53:45
  Speaker 1: this was something he started working on in the nineties,
• 1:53:47
  Speaker 1: like during the production of Titanic. He was it is
• 1:53:50
  Speaker 1: very nineties environmentalists Captain planet E right, and we were like,
• 1:53:55
  Speaker 1: I see the intent, but the follow through is But
• 1:54:00
  Speaker 1: he said, like, I was surprised at how open he was,
• 1:54:03
  Speaker 1: A like being influenced by movies like Dances with Wolves,
• 1:54:07
  Speaker 1: movies like Lawrence of Arabia in terms of a movie
• 1:54:11
  Speaker 1: I like. He He references Princess Mononoke uh several times
• 1:54:15
  Speaker 1: as another inspiration, but he does kind of explicitly say like, yeah,
• 1:54:20
  Speaker 1: these you know, very white savior sympathetic colonizer stories are
• 1:54:25
  Speaker 1: like ones I was pulling from when I was making
• 1:54:28
  Speaker 1: this and and so there's that I just wanted to
• 1:54:33
  Speaker 1: share and you can tell, and you can tell, and
• 1:54:38
  Speaker 1: Precess Mononoke does it so much better, just does it
• 1:54:41
  Speaker 1: so much better. And it also features an indigenous main
• 1:54:45
  Speaker 1: character because Ashitaka is Amish. Love it my indigenous king.
• 1:54:51
  Speaker 1: But uh, okay, so elephant in the room. Let's talk
• 1:54:57
  Speaker 1: about the comparisons may between this movie and Pokehonas, because
• 1:55:03
  Speaker 1: that's usually how everybody dismisses the film. It's Pokehonisan space.
• 1:55:09
  Speaker 1: Oh and James Cameron also says that he mapped early
• 1:55:13
  Speaker 1: plots about Materia onto. He says the Pokehontas story. But
• 1:55:17
  Speaker 1: I'm like, well, what do you even mean when you
• 1:55:19
  Speaker 1: say that? It sounds like he's he's referring specifically to
• 1:55:22
  Speaker 1: the Disney version of it, because the real version of
• 1:55:26
  Speaker 1: that story, you're fifty years old. Yeah, so um so
• 1:55:32
  Speaker 1: to begin, I mean, obviously, the reason I haven't stepped
• 1:55:37
  Speaker 1: up to do a Pokehonas episode is because I'm not
• 1:55:39
  Speaker 1: from her tribe and there's a lot of insight that
• 1:55:44
  Speaker 1: I cannot provide that someone from her tribe would. But
• 1:55:49
  Speaker 1: you know, obviously, the way I look at it, when people,
• 1:55:52
  Speaker 1: you know, try to dismiss it as Pokehonisan space, I
• 1:55:54
  Speaker 1: always say, I'm like, Pokehonas is an actual person who
• 1:55:59
  Speaker 1: saw heard and terrible things happened to her, So she
• 1:56:04
  Speaker 1: deserves more respect than that. And these stories are not
• 1:56:08
  Speaker 1: the same, you know, like full stock. It's like, you know,
• 1:56:11
  Speaker 1: the same way that people make fun of Elizabeth Warren
• 1:56:15
  Speaker 1: and call her Pocahonas, And it's like, you know, you
• 1:56:17
  Speaker 1: can criticize both this film and Elizabeth Warren for numerous
• 1:56:23
  Speaker 1: valid reasons, but you can do it without being racist,
• 1:56:26
  Speaker 1: and you can do it without using an abused child
• 1:56:30
  Speaker 1: as a punchline. But the other thing is is that
• 1:56:35
  Speaker 1: the story of pokeahon Is how it like, actually not
• 1:56:39
  Speaker 1: even the story of Pocahons, but the romanticized account of
• 1:56:43
  Speaker 1: Pocahonas that people are very familiar with that was used
• 1:56:46
  Speaker 1: in this movie and the Disney movie and everything is
• 1:56:50
  Speaker 1: much older. And it says there's this article and it's
• 1:56:55
  Speaker 1: called the pocona Is perplex and it says that it
• 1:56:59
  Speaker 1: was um Originally there was this old Scottish ballad. It
• 1:57:03
  Speaker 1: was called like Lord Bateman and the Turkish King's Daughter,
• 1:57:06
  Speaker 1: and it was this really well known ballad in Europe
• 1:57:11
  Speaker 1: at the time where an English adventurer goes to a
• 1:57:15
  Speaker 1: foreign land and meets like the sultan's daughter or an
• 1:57:20
  Speaker 1: African king's daughter or something, and she's beautiful and when
• 1:57:25
  Speaker 1: he's in a dungeon and he's about to die, she
• 1:57:28
  Speaker 1: saves him and then they fall in love. He goes
• 1:57:33
  Speaker 1: back to his homeland and she goes after him and
• 1:57:36
  Speaker 1: shows up on his wedding day and they love each
• 1:57:38
  Speaker 1: other even though she's darker. And people who read John
• 1:57:43
  Speaker 1: Smith's accounts of his stories in the New World, we're like,
• 1:57:48
  Speaker 1: oh my god, it's that story John Smith. And Pocahonas
• 1:57:52
  Speaker 1: is like Lord Bateman and the Turkish king's daughter would
• 1:57:55
  Speaker 1: be like, you know, oh my god, it's like Jack
• 1:57:58
  Speaker 1: and Rhose from Titanic, you know, like it was that level.
• 1:58:02
  Speaker 1: So that's what started the whole thing. So there are
• 1:58:06
  Speaker 1: elements where, you know, like you can compare the two,
• 1:58:09
  Speaker 1: but it's not the Pocahonta story specifically, because that is
• 1:58:15
  Speaker 1: a very different story. When people were, you know, criticizing
• 1:58:20
  Speaker 1: Avatar for ripping off or seemed to be ripping off
• 1:58:23
  Speaker 1: so much from Disney's Pocahontas, and I remember like fern
• 1:58:26
  Speaker 1: Gully being a thing too that everyone was like, it's
• 1:58:29
  Speaker 1: ripping off a fern gully. And yeah, as I was
• 1:58:33
  Speaker 1: watching the movie this time, I was like remembering that criticism,
• 1:58:38
  Speaker 1: but I was thinking, well, no one was talking about
• 1:58:41
  Speaker 1: how this movie is just pulling from a lot of
• 1:58:45
  Speaker 1: historical events, like in history. Yeah, yeah, his history, like,
• 1:58:52
  Speaker 1: but that was never part of the mainstream conversation about
• 1:58:54
  Speaker 1: this movie. And yes, as we've discussed, James Cameron did
• 1:58:58
  Speaker 1: not handle certain things in this movie well, but people
• 1:59:01
  Speaker 1: were so hung up on similarities to existing movies. But
• 1:59:04
  Speaker 1: it's like a lot of what happens in Avatar, there's
• 1:59:07
  Speaker 1: a very clear historical precedent of colonizers stealing land and
• 1:59:12
  Speaker 1: committing genocide against Indigenous people for capitalist gain and for power,
• 1:59:18
  Speaker 1: and that not being part of the conversation about this movie,
• 1:59:21
  Speaker 1: I feel like speaks to what you were saying earlier,
• 1:59:25
  Speaker 1: like at the very beginning of the episode Ali as
• 1:59:27
  Speaker 1: far as like people finding reasons to not like this movie,
• 1:59:33
  Speaker 1: and that it felt very steeped in like anti indigenous racism,
• 1:59:38
  Speaker 1: and the colonizers are very clearly presented as the bad
• 1:59:42
  Speaker 1: guys in this movie, which is not true of Disney's
• 1:59:45
  Speaker 1: Pocahontas other than it's like I think again, it's like
• 1:59:48
  Speaker 1: colonization the one guy and all the other guys are great,
• 1:59:51
  Speaker 1: and one of them is Christian Bail and you're just like, well,
• 1:59:54
  Speaker 1: what the fuck? And the guys in that movie are
• 1:59:56
  Speaker 1: terrible and they're never held account bowl for all of
• 2:00:01
  Speaker 1: singing about killing Indians and stuff like that. So it's like, oh, well,
• 2:00:05
  Speaker 1: this guy is worse than you because this is your
• 2:00:09
  Speaker 1: John Smith's friends. So if you work nice, you know,
• 2:00:13
  Speaker 1: and and Avatar doesn't do that right right. I yeah,
• 2:00:20
  Speaker 1: it didn't register for me certainly at the time, but
• 2:00:23
  Speaker 1: I I I think that the the original backlash to
• 2:00:27
  Speaker 1: I mean, like whatever, it's problematic on so many levels,
• 2:00:30
  Speaker 1: and I know that word is overused, but first of all,
• 2:00:33
  Speaker 1: it's like, well, it doesn't bode well for James Cameron
• 2:00:36
  Speaker 1: if he's being criticized for ripping off a famously historically
• 2:00:40
  Speaker 1: abysmal children's movie. That's not great to begin with. But
• 2:00:45
  Speaker 1: I also feel, yeah, it like speaks ill of the
• 2:00:48
  Speaker 1: general audiences at the time and of film criticism, or
• 2:00:53
  Speaker 1: at least you know, prominent film critics at the time,
• 2:00:56
  Speaker 1: which we've talked about a million times always skew white guys,
• 2:01:00
  Speaker 1: and the the implication there is like, well, we've already
• 2:01:03
  Speaker 1: had a movie that talks about colonialism. We don't need
• 2:01:06
  Speaker 1: more where you're just like, no, like not to say
• 2:01:10
  Speaker 1: that Avatar deals with it anywhere, approaching perfectly, but for
• 2:01:15
  Speaker 1: the conclusion to be like imperialism and colonialism and racism
• 2:01:20
  Speaker 1: against indigenous populations is like, what, we have that movie,
• 2:01:23
  Speaker 1: we don't need another one. It's like, well, okay, I'll
• 2:01:24
  Speaker 1: go fund yourself. No, yeah, well I noticed that back then,
• 2:01:29
  Speaker 1: and I'm sure it hasn't gone away. But back then,
• 2:01:32
  Speaker 1: when I was like spite liking it, the white reviewers,
• 2:01:37
  Speaker 1: like on YouTube and on different um platforms, we're criticizing
• 2:01:42
  Speaker 1: the film, and the biggest thing that kept going if
• 2:01:44
  Speaker 1: they didn't just outright dismiss it as dancers with wolves
• 2:01:47
  Speaker 1: in space or Poconisan space, they would say things like
• 2:01:51
  Speaker 1: white guilt, and you know, like, oh, well, what am
• 2:01:55
  Speaker 1: I supposed to do? You know, And it's like Hollywood's
• 2:01:58
  Speaker 1: making these movies where I'm supposed to feel bad for
• 2:02:01
  Speaker 1: being a white guy, and all of these white guys
• 2:02:03
  Speaker 1: in this movie are the bad guys. And I'm like,
• 2:02:06
  Speaker 1: if that's your takeaway from it and not the anti
• 2:02:10
  Speaker 1: indigenous like racism in the film, even if it is,
• 2:02:14
  Speaker 1: you know, not nearly as bad as it has been
• 2:02:17
  Speaker 1: in the past, but it's still problematic, Like you have
• 2:02:21
  Speaker 1: a bigger problem with not being the good guy this time,
• 2:02:25
  Speaker 1: when you know, there's so many other problems with the
• 2:02:29
  Speaker 1: film that you could be talking about that, you know,
• 2:02:32
  Speaker 1: Indigenous people have even talked about, like I like the movie,
• 2:02:37
  Speaker 1: but lots of Indigenous people don't, for like many valid reasons.
• 2:02:41
  Speaker 1: And it's like none of those reasons that I've heard
• 2:02:44
  Speaker 1: Indigenous people complain about have ever been said by any
• 2:02:48
  Speaker 1: of like those reviewers from the past at all because
• 2:02:51
  Speaker 1: they just weren't even thinking about it. It's like their
• 2:02:53
  Speaker 1: ego was just so fragile. There the hell of this
• 2:03:01
  Speaker 1: movie was vaguely critical of me and I hate fire.
• 2:03:06
  Speaker 1: You're just like still at the end of the day,
• 2:03:08
  Speaker 1: it's like, I mean, this movie was made by a
• 2:03:10
  Speaker 1: fabulously wealthy white guy, like and the other thing. Um,
• 2:03:16
  Speaker 1: because I used to think back then, I used to think, Okay,
• 2:03:20
  Speaker 1: maybe the bad guys are a little too on the nose,
• 2:03:23
  Speaker 1: maybe they're too cartooning, maybe they're you know, not subtle enough.
• 2:03:27
  Speaker 1: Until Standing Rock happened, and that really I'm like, rewatching
• 2:03:32
  Speaker 1: this in a post Standing Rock era, post Missing and
• 2:03:37
  Speaker 1: Murdered Indigenous Women era, I'm like, this is exactly how
• 2:03:41
  Speaker 1: these people think, you know, Like this is how they talk.
• 2:03:45
  Speaker 1: So let's see. There's a couple quotes from the movie
• 2:03:48
  Speaker 1: that really stood out to me. Um. The first one's
• 2:03:51
  Speaker 1: Joe Bonny Rubus's character when he's talking to Jake about
• 2:03:56
  Speaker 1: relocating them, and he says, look, kill the Indigenous looks bad.
• 2:04:01
  Speaker 1: But there's one thing that shareholders hate more than bad press,
• 2:04:05
  Speaker 1: and that's a bad quarterly statement. Yes, that is like yes,
• 2:04:10
  Speaker 1: that's not a cartoon villain. That's how it works. That's Enbridge,
• 2:04:13
  Speaker 1: you know what I mean. That is Oca, you know,
• 2:04:17
  Speaker 1: the Oca crisis for people who don't live in the
• 2:04:19
  Speaker 1: United States, is every mining facility in sami Land, you know,
• 2:04:26
  Speaker 1: in Lapland. And that's how they think. That's that's how
• 2:04:30
  Speaker 1: it is. There's a quote from I think it's in
• 2:04:35
  Speaker 1: Jake's voiceover, so it shouldn't be him who says this.
• 2:04:39
  Speaker 1: It should probably be material who says this. But the
• 2:04:42
  Speaker 1: quote is something like, you know, make them the enemy
• 2:04:45
  Speaker 1: and you can justify killing them, which is what has
• 2:04:48
  Speaker 1: happened all throughout history when genocides have happened. Is like again,
• 2:04:52
  Speaker 1: rhetoric and mental gymnastics are used to justify by killing
• 2:05:01
  Speaker 1: entire populations of people. And you see that happening in
• 2:05:03
  Speaker 1: the movie where like the Omanakaya people are referred to
• 2:05:07
  Speaker 1: are like references being roaches and you know Blue Monthly
• 2:05:14
  Speaker 1: and yeah, anti indigenous slurs are used several times. Their
• 2:05:18
  Speaker 1: intelligence is insulted, like it's just all these things to
• 2:05:22
  Speaker 1: dehumanize them and make them the enemy to justify killing them.
• 2:05:27
  Speaker 1: And I found the line while a line from the movie.
• 2:05:30
  Speaker 1: It says, it's grace telling him these are people in
• 2:05:34
  Speaker 1: Giovanni Ribisi's character says, no, they're fly, fly bitten savages
• 2:05:38
  Speaker 1: that live in a tree. All right, look around. I
• 2:05:40
  Speaker 1: don't know about you, but I see a lot of trees.
• 2:05:42
  Speaker 1: They can move. So I said, you know, this is
• 2:05:46
  Speaker 1: genocide and action. You know, granted they're not human, but
• 2:05:51
  Speaker 1: you strip them of their humanity and it becomes easier
• 2:05:54
  Speaker 1: to kill them. And then in colonial terms, like this
• 2:05:59
  Speaker 1: is something I don't a lot of people understand when
• 2:06:02
  Speaker 1: you talk about colonialism, and you know, white imperialists coming
• 2:06:06
  Speaker 1: to America, for example, in America is huge, Like the
• 2:06:11
  Speaker 1: continent of North America is gigantic, the United States is massive.
• 2:06:17
  Speaker 1: That is a lot of land that was stolen, you know.
• 2:06:21
  Speaker 1: So anyways, it says, you know, like let's not even
• 2:06:25
  Speaker 1: break it down. Let's break it down to like it's
• 2:06:27
  Speaker 1: not even an entire continent. Let's say it's your house
• 2:06:30
  Speaker 1: and someone comes to your house and they're like, oh, well,
• 2:06:35
  Speaker 1: why don't we just share your house? You know, like
• 2:06:37
  Speaker 1: we want to live here, We're here, I brought my
• 2:06:40
  Speaker 1: whole family. Let's just live in your house. I mean,
• 2:06:42
  Speaker 1: what do you tell them do you say, oh, yeah,
• 2:06:44
  Speaker 1: here's the room set up for you, or do you
• 2:06:46
  Speaker 1: tell them get the funk out of my house. Yeah,
• 2:06:51
  Speaker 1: it's like, no, we're not sharing our home with you.
• 2:06:53
  Speaker 1: You have to fucking get out of my house. Even
• 2:06:57
  Speaker 1: in the event where okay, okay, we'll leave Home Tree
• 2:07:00
  Speaker 1: and we'll go someplace else, they're not going to stop
• 2:07:03
  Speaker 1: at Home Tree. They're going to obliterate them, absolutely, because
• 2:07:06
  Speaker 1: they immediately switched and threatened to kill, like we're threatened
• 2:07:11
  Speaker 1: to the next Yeah, yeah, yeah. And it's like that's
• 2:07:14
  Speaker 1: the other thing I mean, like, again, Turtle Island is massive,
• 2:07:18
  Speaker 1: The United States is massive. That is a lot of trees.
• 2:07:21
  Speaker 1: They had a lot of natives moved to and look
• 2:07:25
  Speaker 1: what happened, you know, and it's it's so heavy. It
• 2:07:30
  Speaker 1: was almost good, except it's sucking Jake, right, take Jake
• 2:07:35
  Speaker 1: out of the story. I think that there was also
• 2:07:39
  Speaker 1: a time where I felt like the storytelling was too unsettled,
• 2:07:42
  Speaker 1: which is like also kind of ridiculous when you show
• 2:07:45
  Speaker 1: up a James Cameron movie you're like, well, well, I
• 2:07:47
  Speaker 1: don't know what I expected, but but I think that, yeah,
• 2:07:50
  Speaker 1: like that those elements have aged very very well, and
• 2:07:54
  Speaker 1: in the movie's favor. And it's also like the politics.
• 2:07:58
  Speaker 1: I mean, I was not on every front, but in
• 2:08:01
  Speaker 1: terms of anti military industrial complex, and I had to
• 2:08:05
  Speaker 1: go back and like look up, like there were specific
• 2:08:08
  Speaker 1: terms and events connected to the Iraq War that James
• 2:08:11
  Speaker 1: Cameron was referencing through this that I just did not remember.
• 2:08:16
  Speaker 1: Um is unobtainium oil, not your fucking mind. But uh
• 2:08:24
  Speaker 1: but I thought that, Like, I mean, the politics of
• 2:08:27
  Speaker 1: this movie and what it is against is pretty clear,
• 2:08:30
  Speaker 1: and like the I think the metaphor and the characters
• 2:08:34
  Speaker 1: that they used to make those politics clear is very
• 2:08:37
  Speaker 1: very muddled, and bajillion mistakes are made, some of which
• 2:08:42
  Speaker 1: we've discussed, some of which we still have to discuss.
• 2:08:44
  Speaker 1: But I mean, it's like the politics of this movie.
• 2:08:47
  Speaker 1: It's it's a you know, massively successful anti war, anti
• 2:08:50
  Speaker 1: imperialist movie, anti capitalist corporation. Yeah, And ironically the movie
• 2:08:57
  Speaker 1: made three billion dollars three bill on Tall Wars And
• 2:09:02
  Speaker 1: that's why people remember it. It's because it was so
• 2:09:04
  Speaker 1: good at capitalism, not because it was like the best
• 2:09:08
  Speaker 1: movie ever. You know. The sad thing is that it
• 2:09:11
  Speaker 1: could have been. It just needed like it have been
• 2:09:13
  Speaker 1: so much better, could have been because even James Cameron,
• 2:09:18
  Speaker 1: like in the YouTube video I was talking about like
• 2:09:20
  Speaker 1: his most iconic films or whatever, he said, He's all like,
• 2:09:24
  Speaker 1: after I did Avatar, I was hoping to like do
• 2:09:27
  Speaker 1: some more environmentalist activism and like Brazil and all these
• 2:09:33
  Speaker 1: other places. He's like, but I decided to make the
• 2:09:36
  Speaker 1: Avatar sequels instead, And I'm like, well, instead of ocean conservation,
• 2:09:42
  Speaker 1: and I'm like, dude, you could have been doing actual
• 2:09:45
  Speaker 1: good stuff. But he did say, he's like, you know,
• 2:09:48
  Speaker 1: film is powerful and you can reach a lot of people.
• 2:09:52
  Speaker 1: For sure, I completely agree, But also film productions, especially
• 2:09:58
  Speaker 1: huge budget ones like this, in the environmental impact they have, well,
• 2:10:03
  Speaker 1: I would be curious to know if James Cameron has
• 2:10:06
  Speaker 1: made any strides in that direction. I'm always interested in
• 2:10:10
  Speaker 1: that kind of side of filmmaking because there's there are
• 2:10:13
  Speaker 1: like far less harmful ways to do it. And I
• 2:10:15
  Speaker 1: wonder if, like, you know, given the politics of his
• 2:10:18
  Speaker 1: movies and seems like his personal politics, whether that's something
• 2:10:20
  Speaker 1: that has been addressed even remotely. I hope so, but
• 2:10:25
  Speaker 1: it's like you just never know with a production like that. Right,
• 2:10:30
  Speaker 1: The biggest concern I have with the sequel is that
• 2:10:34
  Speaker 1: how many of the characters in the film in the
• 2:10:37
  Speaker 1: sequel are actors of color, and how of them, how
• 2:10:41
  Speaker 1: many are Indigenous? And that's like my biggest concern. It's like,
• 2:10:46
  Speaker 1: if it's more white people and blue faces pretending to
• 2:10:49
  Speaker 1: be Indians. I'm like, have we learned anything? It's been
• 2:10:53
  Speaker 1: fourteen years or something like, it's been eighty four years
• 2:10:57
  Speaker 1: and eighty four it's felt like eighty four years since
• 2:10:59
  Speaker 1: two thousand nine. To be honest, Um, Um, can we
• 2:11:02
  Speaker 1: talk about the able is um a bit more? Um?
• 2:11:06
  Speaker 1: We touched on a lot of the things already, but
• 2:11:08
  Speaker 1: I just want to make sure it has It's like,
• 2:11:11
  Speaker 1: we give it some more time. So Jake Sulley uses
• 2:11:14
  Speaker 1: a wheelchair. He seems to be paralyzed from the waist
• 2:11:17
  Speaker 1: down from an injury he sustained in battle as a marine.
• 2:11:21
  Speaker 1: As we mentioned, that character is not played by a
• 2:11:25
  Speaker 1: disabled actor, which is a problem we come upon time
• 2:11:28
  Speaker 1: and time again in movies. Um, Sam Worthington is able bodied.
• 2:11:34
  Speaker 1: I read a lot of responses from disabled people about
• 2:11:37
  Speaker 1: the representation we get on screen in this movie, and
• 2:11:42
  Speaker 1: like we mentioned already, it seems to be pretty mixed
• 2:11:46
  Speaker 1: across the board, where some people saw themselves in Jake Sully.
• 2:11:50
  Speaker 1: They they felt represented by his character and you know,
• 2:11:54
  Speaker 1: him being a disabled character. Others criticized him as one
• 2:12:00
  Speaker 1: of many movie characters who is trying to quote unquote
• 2:12:04
  Speaker 1: fix his disability, right right, He's like being incentivized by
• 2:12:08
  Speaker 1: the kernel of like I will like it's implied like
• 2:12:11
  Speaker 1: I will make you whole again. And that's something that
• 2:12:14
  Speaker 1: is said to be appealing to Jake Sully at first.
• 2:12:20
  Speaker 1: That and there are interpretations and I can see how
• 2:12:24
  Speaker 1: you might interpret it this way where one of the
• 2:12:26
  Speaker 1: main reasons he chooses to stay in his avatar body
• 2:12:29
  Speaker 1: is that his avatar body is able bodied. And of
• 2:12:33
  Speaker 1: course this, you know, perpetuates this idea that disabled people
• 2:12:37
  Speaker 1: are you know, quote unquote incomplete, or that they have
• 2:12:40
  Speaker 1: something wrong with them. Disabled characters and movies trying to
• 2:12:44
  Speaker 1: again quote unquote fix their disability is is something that
• 2:12:47
  Speaker 1: you see a lot, I think, especially in movie villains.
• 2:12:51
  Speaker 1: Um A friend of the show, Kristin Lopez, wrote about
• 2:12:54
  Speaker 1: this in The Hollywood Reporter when Tour Story four came out.
• 2:12:58
  Speaker 1: So it talks a lot about story for but it
• 2:13:00
  Speaker 1: references a lot of other movie characters where this is
• 2:13:05
  Speaker 1: the case so there's you know, that criticism. But then
• 2:13:09
  Speaker 1: other people were like, well, but no, that's not why
• 2:13:12
  Speaker 1: he chooses to stay in his avatar body. There are
• 2:13:15
  Speaker 1: other reasons. So there's just like seems like it's like
• 2:13:18
  Speaker 1: an original like that that first sequence where when he's
• 2:13:22
  Speaker 1: in the avatar body does seem like that is a
• 2:13:25
  Speaker 1: big but it doesn't seem like that remains the incentive.
• 2:13:27
  Speaker 1: I don't know, or or like not that it's even
• 2:13:30
  Speaker 1: an incentive, right, because then he falls in love with
• 2:13:32
  Speaker 1: a woman, and then he falls in love with the
• 2:13:34
  Speaker 1: culture and he becomes an indigenous person. You know how
• 2:13:39
  Speaker 1: when you can be a white person and then you
• 2:13:42
  Speaker 1: become an indigenous person, you know when that always happened.
• 2:13:46
  Speaker 1: So the point is there's a lot of nuances to
• 2:13:48
  Speaker 1: this discussion, and I'd be as always, we're just curious
• 2:13:52
  Speaker 1: to hear from our listeners who can speak from from
• 2:13:55
  Speaker 1: a place of experience. Yeah, I mean, because it's I
• 2:13:59
  Speaker 1: also read kind of a diversity of opinion there where. Um,
• 2:14:04
  Speaker 1: you know, we have we have a protagonist who he sucks,
• 2:14:07
  Speaker 1: but he is our our main our protagonists is a
• 2:14:12
  Speaker 1: is a disabled person and you don't see that in
• 2:14:14
  Speaker 1: movies really ever very infrequently. Yeah, But on top of that,
• 2:14:19
  Speaker 1: you have many of the common trophy issues with disabled characters,
• 2:14:24
  Speaker 1: beginning with the fact that Sam Worthington is not a
• 2:14:28
  Speaker 1: disabled actor, and it kind of goes on from there.
• 2:14:30
  Speaker 1: I would be really curious to hear listener perspective on
• 2:14:34
  Speaker 1: on that because I think the movie, like the movie
• 2:14:36
  Speaker 1: doesn't really touch on it that much after the first act,
• 2:14:42
  Speaker 1: and which I think is where the you know could
• 2:14:44
  Speaker 1: could be seen us for the best, where James Cameron
• 2:14:46
  Speaker 1: doesn't appear to have very much insight into that topic.
• 2:14:49
  Speaker 1: But again, like who's telling the story, who is advising,
• 2:14:54
  Speaker 1: and um, how does that bear out? And character for
• 2:14:58
  Speaker 1: exactly exactly Jake, not like the other colonizers Sully. It
• 2:15:04
  Speaker 1: seems like that choice was made in the story because
• 2:15:06
  Speaker 1: when you're writing a screenplay. I don't know if you
• 2:15:08
  Speaker 1: know this, but I do have the master's degree in
• 2:15:10
  Speaker 1: screenwriting from Boston University. I would never bring it up
• 2:15:13
  Speaker 1: on my own, but you make choices about your characters,
• 2:15:18
  Speaker 1: especially a protagonist, to motivate and justify other things that
• 2:15:23
  Speaker 1: will happen in the movie. So it feels to me
• 2:15:26
  Speaker 1: like we need to get him from the start of
• 2:15:29
  Speaker 1: the movie where he's a human white guy, to the
• 2:15:32
  Speaker 1: end of the movie, he's gonna be uh member of
• 2:15:36
  Speaker 1: the Alma Takaya people. What qualities or what things can
• 2:15:40
  Speaker 1: we attribute to this character to justify that making sense
• 2:15:44
  Speaker 1: by the end of the movie for him to want
• 2:15:46
  Speaker 1: to permanently be an Alma Takaya person. And I feel
• 2:15:51
  Speaker 1: like the only reason that he is a disabled character
• 2:15:54
  Speaker 1: in the movie is to be like, well, that, well,
• 2:15:55
  Speaker 1: that'll be one of the things that justifies him making
• 2:15:58
  Speaker 1: this choice. I was about to say that because, um,
• 2:16:02
  Speaker 1: one of the things now speaking also as an able
• 2:16:05
  Speaker 1: bodied person, was that watching the film for the first time,
• 2:16:10
  Speaker 1: I think another reason why I like Stephen Lane's character,
• 2:16:13
  Speaker 1: even though he's the bad guy, was you know, he
• 2:16:16
  Speaker 1: tells them, I look out for my own If you
• 2:16:19
  Speaker 1: do this, I promise you you'll get your legs back,
• 2:16:22
  Speaker 1: you know, And and he says, quote unquote your real legs,
• 2:16:25
  Speaker 1: And it's like, you know, for me, you know who's
• 2:16:28
  Speaker 1: not disabled or doesn't have a disability, I'm like, fuck, yeah,
• 2:16:33
  Speaker 1: you know these things are aliens and your planets dying,
• 2:16:37
  Speaker 1: So get your legs and do it and save the
• 2:16:40
  Speaker 1: planet and go home. Hell. Yes, you know, and I
• 2:16:43
  Speaker 1: feel like a lot of people probably felt the same
• 2:16:45
  Speaker 1: way until you meet the nav and you realize that
• 2:16:48
  Speaker 1: this is bullshit and he's colonizer and stuff. So at first,
• 2:16:52
  Speaker 1: on paper, it makes sense. However, if that was the case,
• 2:16:57
  Speaker 1: if it was do this for me, get your legs back,
• 2:17:01
  Speaker 1: the downside should have been if you don't do this,
• 2:17:05
  Speaker 1: you remain disabled. But there's no like lose lose He's like, okay,
• 2:17:09
  Speaker 1: so I still have my body at the end, you know, so, well,
• 2:17:14
  Speaker 1: that's that's that's implying that, like your punishment is that
• 2:17:18
  Speaker 1: you stay disabled, as if being disabled is a punishment.
• 2:17:23
  Speaker 1: So there's all these like yucky implications. And also it's
• 2:17:26
  Speaker 1: like we've received no indication that like Jake Sulley is
• 2:17:30
  Speaker 1: unhappy as like as a disabled man, Like that's not
• 2:17:34
  Speaker 1: something that we ever hear him speak on in any like,
• 2:17:38
  Speaker 1: it's just people are making that assumption about him, which
• 2:17:41
  Speaker 1: is a very common, ablest thing to do. But it's
• 2:17:43
  Speaker 1: like the story doesn't challenge it really, like they're like, well,
• 2:17:46
  Speaker 1: of course this is true. Right at the beginning of
• 2:17:49
  Speaker 1: the movie, he does make a comment where he's like, uh,
• 2:17:52
  Speaker 1: they can fix it if you have the money because
• 2:17:54
  Speaker 1: American healthcare in the future is still dogshit. So he
• 2:17:59
  Speaker 1: is disabled because he broke But still it's like that
• 2:18:02
  Speaker 1: should have been a bigger driving point if that was
• 2:18:05
  Speaker 1: going to be the thing that motivates them to do
• 2:18:08
  Speaker 1: the thing, right, I mean, yeah, it's like, Okay, I
• 2:18:11
  Speaker 1: guess there's commentary on like the horrible state of of
• 2:18:14
  Speaker 1: like American healthcare slash like veteran benefits, which is like
• 2:18:19
  Speaker 1: still abysmal, But yeah, the the way that was handled.
• 2:18:24
  Speaker 1: And then again, and I'm speculating here, but I think
• 2:18:27
  Speaker 1: the choice was made to make him disabled to like
• 2:18:29
  Speaker 1: narratively justify like him wanting to remain in this avatar
• 2:18:34
  Speaker 1: body by the end of the movie. That's just like
• 2:18:37
  Speaker 1: not the representation people. And I you know, I'm also
• 2:18:41
  Speaker 1: speaking as an able bodied person here, but it's my
• 2:18:44
  Speaker 1: understanding that people with disabilities want to see themselves represented
• 2:18:47
  Speaker 1: on screen, I mean obviously far more than they already are,
• 2:18:50
  Speaker 1: and in a way that just normalizes their experience rather
• 2:18:54
  Speaker 1: than being some like justification for something else, some other
• 2:18:58
  Speaker 1: narrative choice that's going to happen, And that's not what's
• 2:19:02
  Speaker 1: happening in this movie. No, it's been like weaponized as
• 2:19:05
  Speaker 1: a plot point, like it's just and like a lazy
• 2:19:07
  Speaker 1: plot point at that, which is just like, I guess
• 2:19:12
  Speaker 1: I can't say that the movie is necessarily above that behavior.
• 2:19:16
  Speaker 1: Obviously we've been talking for two hours, but like, but yeah,
• 2:19:20
  Speaker 1: it is. I would be curious to know, because I also, like,
• 2:19:24
  Speaker 1: I mean, I don't want to ignore disabled writers who
• 2:19:28
  Speaker 1: who did enjoy how Jake Sally was characterized. Of course,
• 2:19:32
  Speaker 1: I have one last, just quick thing that I want
• 2:19:35
  Speaker 1: to touch on really quickly, harkening back to the romance
• 2:19:38
  Speaker 1: between Jake and the tri um. Yeah, I want to
• 2:19:43
  Speaker 1: talk about anterior in general, because praising her like and
• 2:19:47
  Speaker 1: you know, in different places. But yeah, yeah, and so
• 2:19:51
  Speaker 1: the thing I liked about the romance and it's really
• 2:19:53
  Speaker 1: just that like he's like, I have chosen a woman,
• 2:19:55
  Speaker 1: but she needs to choose me, and she's like, yeah
• 2:19:58
  Speaker 1: I did already you goo. Um. So I liked that,
• 2:20:01
  Speaker 1: Like she's given and like that just shows how how
• 2:20:05
  Speaker 1: low the bar is for a female character being given
• 2:20:09
  Speaker 1: agency in her own romantic life is something that I'm like,
• 2:20:12
  Speaker 1: oh my goodness, that happened. I feel like we've really
• 2:20:16
  Speaker 1: been handing it to James Cameron for doing that in
• 2:20:18
  Speaker 1: a way that's like, yeah, that should just be kind
• 2:20:20
  Speaker 1: of should just a standard. But you know in Titanic
• 2:20:23
  Speaker 1: at a period piece, you're like, oh wow, women, I
• 2:20:26
  Speaker 1: know choices back then. How subversive. Then it's like, why
• 2:20:32
  Speaker 1: are the Navy monogamous? Okay? I I had the same thought,
• 2:20:36
  Speaker 1: because she's like, and now we had sex one time
• 2:20:38
  Speaker 1: and now we're made it for life. And and again
• 2:20:41
  Speaker 1: I I don't I'm not an expert on this, but
• 2:20:44
  Speaker 1: it's my understanding that like hetero monogamy is a very
• 2:20:48
  Speaker 1: European Christian thing. And I'm not knocking monogamy or anything,
• 2:20:54
  Speaker 1: but things like heteronormativity and the quote unquote gender binary
• 2:21:00
  Speaker 1: and long term monogamous pair bonding, these are all constructs that,
• 2:21:05
  Speaker 1: again from my understanding, a lot of communities around the world,
• 2:21:09
  Speaker 1: including many indigenous ones, don't participate in because it's never
• 2:21:14
  Speaker 1: been a part of their culture or cultural evolution. I
• 2:21:17
  Speaker 1: am literally reading this book called Reclaiming to Spirits, and
• 2:21:23
  Speaker 1: I'm like just a couple of chapters in, but they're
• 2:21:25
  Speaker 1: already talking about like how all over the United States
• 2:21:29
  Speaker 1: in general, like there are so much there's so much
• 2:21:32
  Speaker 1: evidence of lgbt Q relationships and polygamous relationships, not even
• 2:21:40
  Speaker 1: just like one man with multiple wives, which does happen,
• 2:21:43
  Speaker 1: but like a man with multiple husbands. And so to
• 2:21:49
  Speaker 1: see it like done like this in a movie that
• 2:21:52
  Speaker 1: is about connection and about like you know, this network
• 2:21:56
  Speaker 1: of people and stuff like that. Why would she just
• 2:21:58
  Speaker 1: be limited to one person she would be in love with? Yeah?
• 2:22:02
  Speaker 1: Why would this? Why would they? When that's such a
• 2:22:06
  Speaker 1: construct of like like such a euro Christian centric construct.
• 2:22:12
  Speaker 1: It's because he's a white guy, because James Cameron. Right,
• 2:22:17
  Speaker 1: it's like it does feel like a James Cameron thing
• 2:22:19
  Speaker 1: where it's like he is I don't even know, like
• 2:22:23
  Speaker 1: I was like who even knows how conscious, like how
• 2:22:26
  Speaker 1: hard he even thought about this, because it's just like
• 2:22:28
  Speaker 1: that's what happens when you have like he's giving like
• 2:22:32
  Speaker 1: he's giving the navi elements of the oppressor in a
• 2:22:35
  Speaker 1: way that is like what what who and for what
• 2:22:40
  Speaker 1: and what and then gives us the little peanut of like, well,
• 2:22:43
  Speaker 1: but Nateria got to choose her partner that you have
• 2:22:47
  Speaker 1: to marry after having sex with one time, and we're like, yes, girlfa,
• 2:22:51
  Speaker 1: it's amazing. So I take it all back. I'm not
• 2:22:54
  Speaker 1: rooting for their relationship. She just should have snagged the
• 2:22:59
  Speaker 1: white guy and that that should have been Jake, Like,
• 2:23:02
  Speaker 1: wait what, because oh, I just sucked a cat with
• 2:23:05
  Speaker 1: my brain tentacle thing. The one moment with Jake and
• 2:23:09
  Speaker 1: Ateri that I did like was when she finds him
• 2:23:13
  Speaker 1: in human form and she's holding him and then they say,
• 2:23:17
  Speaker 1: I see you and you're like everywhere she he sucks
• 2:23:21
  Speaker 1: in all forms, but she accepts him in all forms. Wow,
• 2:23:24
  Speaker 1: it's so nice, goddamn it. But no, Niteri in general,
• 2:23:32
  Speaker 1: I love her. I think that they could have done
• 2:23:36
  Speaker 1: more to characterize her. We don't know very much. She
• 2:23:39
  Speaker 1: gets reduced to the relationship at certain moments, not all
• 2:23:43
  Speaker 1: the time, because, like you were saying earlier, Ali like
• 2:23:46
  Speaker 1: she is, like I think, realistically and like tactically and emotionally,
• 2:23:52
  Speaker 1: most connected to her family and to Pandora. And when
• 2:23:55
  Speaker 1: Jake Fox with her family, Fox with Pandora, he's cut
• 2:23:58
  Speaker 1: out of her life. That totally makes sense. But there
• 2:24:01
  Speaker 1: are sequences of the movie where they're on good turn
• 2:24:05
  Speaker 1: like when things are going well. All we know about
• 2:24:08
  Speaker 1: Nitti is in relation to Jake. When things aren't going well,
• 2:24:11
  Speaker 1: She gets these character moments, but they're also in reaction
• 2:24:14
  Speaker 1: to Jake more often than not because there's not Is
• 2:24:18
  Speaker 1: there a scene in this movie where two Navy characters
• 2:24:21
  Speaker 1: talk to each other and Jake or Grace are not there,
• 2:24:23
  Speaker 1: Like no n test. It's when Naterie and her dad
• 2:24:32
  Speaker 1: are talking to each other when he's dying. He tells
• 2:24:34
  Speaker 1: her to protect but then Jake shows up, but then
• 2:24:38
  Speaker 1: he's still bull dozes into the scene. Okay, let me
• 2:24:42
  Speaker 1: touch your shoulder to comfort you, and she's like, get
• 2:24:44
  Speaker 1: the funk away from me. You ask whole She loves
• 2:24:47
  Speaker 1: to insert himself. You're like, dude, I do appreciate the
• 2:24:52
  Speaker 1: um Naterius never framed as a damsel. She saves Jake
• 2:24:58
  Speaker 1: several times, she saves her elf several times. She's a
• 2:25:01
  Speaker 1: competent warrior guy. She kills the colonel that she should
• 2:25:10
  Speaker 1: have been the hero, and she should have been and
• 2:25:15
  Speaker 1: she should have been that if anything was going to
• 2:25:18
  Speaker 1: like be the big motivator to unite the clans, it
• 2:25:21
  Speaker 1: should have been like we lost home tree, this is
• 2:25:23
  Speaker 1: what's at stake. I'm getting a fucking dragon and and
• 2:25:27
  Speaker 1: I think that would have been more like that would
• 2:25:29
  Speaker 1: have put her people in a better, like more comfortable
• 2:25:32
  Speaker 1: place to have, Like yeah, that, why would it? Why
• 2:25:35
  Speaker 1: would it be Jake? This movie should have been more
• 2:25:37
  Speaker 1: like the movie Prey, where it's told from her point
• 2:25:42
  Speaker 1: of view, where she is like the Ultimate Warrior, where
• 2:25:47
  Speaker 1: she fights the aliens who came from the sky and
• 2:25:52
  Speaker 1: kills their ass. I guess it's just one of them
• 2:25:54
  Speaker 1: in Prey, but still still, yeah, that would have been great.
• 2:26:00
  Speaker 1: That would have been better Jake. If Jake was going
• 2:26:03
  Speaker 1: to do anything, he should have like sabotaged the base
• 2:26:07
  Speaker 1: from the inside, yeah, while Matery was getting shipped done,
• 2:26:11
  Speaker 1: because that would have subverted everything. I think like if
• 2:26:14
  Speaker 1: that would have been like, Okay, our hero fucked up
• 2:26:16
  Speaker 1: and he ain't ships, so now he's in jail and
• 2:26:19
  Speaker 1: if he wants to contribute, he can do something with
• 2:26:22
  Speaker 1: his own people inside of jail in kind of the base,
• 2:26:27
  Speaker 1: and then he should have gone back to Earth. And
• 2:26:29
  Speaker 1: it's like sorry for you that the Earth is basically
• 2:26:33
  Speaker 1: like mad Max Fury Road. But whose fault was that?
• 2:26:36
  Speaker 1: It's not our problem was that? Yeah, it's because humans
• 2:26:39
  Speaker 1: fucked it up? Um? Is there anything anyone else wants
• 2:26:44
  Speaker 1: to talk about? I feel like we've only scratched the service,
• 2:26:47
  Speaker 1: but I just wanted to breeze through really quickly. A
• 2:26:51
  Speaker 1: few other um women in the movie. We've talked about Grace,
• 2:26:56
  Speaker 1: you know, like she's it's a Sigourney Weaver characters. At
• 2:26:59
  Speaker 1: the end of the day, I'm like, nice, but I
• 2:27:01
  Speaker 1: do think like it's worth kind of repeating that her character.
• 2:27:05
  Speaker 1: You know, it's like, on the surface level, it's good that,
• 2:27:07
  Speaker 1: you know, our highest most respected scientist is a woman
• 2:27:11
  Speaker 1: who seems to have a lot of control, influence, respect,
• 2:27:14
  Speaker 1: woman and stuff. On the other hand, she is ethically compromised,
• 2:27:18
  Speaker 1: and no one ever wants to bring that up and
• 2:27:20
  Speaker 1: complicit in genie. I do like her relationship with Jake, though,
• 2:27:24
  Speaker 1: because you rarely see that mentor student relationships between men
• 2:27:30
  Speaker 1: and women, where the woman is the teacher and the
• 2:27:34
  Speaker 1: man is like her subordinate and there's like a genuine
• 2:27:38
  Speaker 1: respect and camaraderie that I wish he would have had
• 2:27:41
  Speaker 1: that with nay Terry. Also, yes, instead of whatever the
• 2:27:45
  Speaker 1: fun because snag the white guy and then go get
• 2:27:48
  Speaker 1: married it or don't get married, just fucking fuck monogamy
• 2:27:52
  Speaker 1: and marriage. Just have just fuck. But yeah, I I
• 2:27:58
  Speaker 1: that's a that's a good point. And also the like
• 2:28:00
  Speaker 1: I feel like when there is a woman in the
• 2:28:03
  Speaker 1: mentor role, the like Malemntee constantly brings it up of
• 2:28:07
  Speaker 1: like I can't believe I'm learning from feel like I'm
• 2:28:11
  Speaker 1: learning from my mom. But it's just like a and
• 2:28:14
  Speaker 1: inherently respectful and like, I feel like this is these
• 2:28:17
  Speaker 1: are elements of the James Cameron play a book that
• 2:28:19
  Speaker 1: he's generally really good with the same goose. It's like,
• 2:28:22
  Speaker 1: it's a pretty diverse team, the science team, and you
• 2:28:27
  Speaker 1: also have again, she's like when the Michelle Rodriguez character
• 2:28:31
  Speaker 1: is so underwritten and so underdeveloped that it's like, we're
• 2:28:35
  Speaker 1: just gonna have her say fast and the furious lines
• 2:28:37
  Speaker 1: in this movie. Um, but a very highly motivated character
• 2:28:42
  Speaker 1: who has a whole arc about realizing that the military
• 2:28:46
  Speaker 1: industrial complex is bad. Actually, but she is like she is,
• 2:28:51
  Speaker 1: you know, without that character, uh, a lot of you know,
• 2:28:55
  Speaker 1: Jake's return to Pandora would not have been possible, so
• 2:28:59
  Speaker 1: the whole third act wouldn't have happened. So yeah, Trudy
• 2:29:02
  Speaker 1: like is a very important character for someone with very
• 2:29:04
  Speaker 1: little screen time. I wish that they didn't blow her up. Yeah, yeah,
• 2:29:08
  Speaker 1: Trudy is what Giovanni Verese's character isn't because Giovanni Versi
• 2:29:12
  Speaker 1: knows that something's wrong and he continues to do it,
• 2:29:15
  Speaker 1: and Trudy knows that it's wrong, and she's like, fuck this.
• 2:29:19
  Speaker 1: I didn't sign up for this, which we kind of did,
• 2:29:21
  Speaker 1: but he did technically did. But maybe you didn't know
• 2:29:24
  Speaker 1: exactly what you were signing up for because we can
• 2:29:27
  Speaker 1: script people very very young and it's sucked up. Uh,
• 2:29:31
  Speaker 1: but I did. I did generally like that character. Um. Again,
• 2:29:35
  Speaker 1: very broad James camerony writing, but very easily could have
• 2:29:39
  Speaker 1: been cast as a man and was not, which I
• 2:29:44
  Speaker 1: think is again I feel like we're handing it to
• 2:29:46
  Speaker 1: James Cameron for nothing, but most male otour directors don't
• 2:29:50
  Speaker 1: do that. He did make Titanic, though, so we got
• 2:29:53
  Speaker 1: to really hand it to him for a lot of stuff. Um.
• 2:29:56
  Speaker 1: Shout out Norm kind of just for no reason. But
• 2:29:59
  Speaker 1: I'm just like he was in Bones. He's a sweetie.
• 2:30:02
  Speaker 1: He's a sweetie. Also complicit in genocide. Uh yeah. Norm
• 2:30:09
  Speaker 1: originally in the deleted scenes, was supposed to be the
• 2:30:13
  Speaker 1: Jake Sully character as far as like, oh well, we've
• 2:30:16
  Speaker 1: got a scientist who's not threatening and maybe he's going
• 2:30:18
  Speaker 1: to be the one to connect with the Navvy, and
• 2:30:20
  Speaker 1: then Jake just steals his job and that's why he's
• 2:30:22
  Speaker 1: piste off. And there's another deleted scene where Suite. It's
• 2:30:29
  Speaker 1: after Jake hunts and is a successful hunter or whatever,
• 2:30:34
  Speaker 1: and then they party and they're eating and drinking and
• 2:30:37
  Speaker 1: stuff like that, and Sute is drinking and he and
• 2:30:41
  Speaker 1: Jake get into like a drinking competition. He says there
• 2:30:44
  Speaker 1: he's kind of drunk. He's like, I never thought a
• 2:30:46
  Speaker 1: sky person would be brave. He's like, you guys fight
• 2:30:49
  Speaker 1: far away and like those machines and stuff like that,
• 2:30:52
  Speaker 1: you fight at a distance. I never thought one of
• 2:30:54
  Speaker 1: them could be brave. And they had like a bonding
• 2:30:57
  Speaker 1: moment and makes that fucking scene where he's like you
• 2:31:03
  Speaker 1: made it with her like that much worse because it's like, dude,
• 2:31:06
  Speaker 1: I thought we were broke and then you just And
• 2:31:09
  Speaker 1: then they actually have a proper fight scene in the
• 2:31:12
  Speaker 1: deleted scenes, and that one should have been good and
• 2:31:15
  Speaker 1: that should have been in the re release and it's not.
• 2:31:18
  Speaker 1: And I'm salty about it because he would have won.
• 2:31:21
  Speaker 1: He would have won. They keep disrespecting my man, that
• 2:31:24
  Speaker 1: entire fucking movie. Well, have we reached the end? I
• 2:31:34
  Speaker 1: think we have what a journey, and yet I feel
• 2:31:38
  Speaker 1: like there's still so much. Boy does this movie pass
• 2:31:42
  Speaker 1: the back to test? Does it? Oh my gosh, I
• 2:31:45
  Speaker 1: forgot to pay attention. Um, I can't. Really. There is
• 2:31:49
  Speaker 1: a few that I flagged that I was like, maybe, like,
• 2:31:54
  Speaker 1: there's a few close passes because like, Grace does speak
• 2:31:58
  Speaker 1: to materies, like, but it's all is I don't think
• 2:32:01
  Speaker 1: that it does. And now I have scholarly journal, Bechtel
• 2:32:04
  Speaker 1: Test dot com up and the closest I can get
• 2:32:07
  Speaker 1: to someone effectively making an argument because they're always talking
• 2:32:11
  Speaker 1: about Jake. And the best argument I've been able to
• 2:32:15
  Speaker 1: find was like, well, Grace talks to a what at
• 2:32:19
  Speaker 1: the end window? I was like, well, that conversation doesn't
• 2:32:22
  Speaker 1: even happen on screen, um, and she's literally telling Jake
• 2:32:28
  Speaker 1: about it. So Jake ruins this whole movie. He also
• 2:32:31
  Speaker 1: prevents it from passing the Bechtel test. Congratulations Jake Sully, asshole.
• 2:32:36
  Speaker 1: Damn it. And Terry doesn't pass the Ali Naty tests. God,
• 2:32:39
  Speaker 1: damn it, damn it, goddamn it, son of a bitch. Jake, Well,
• 2:32:47
  Speaker 1: what about our nipple scale though scale of zero to
• 2:32:51
  Speaker 1: five nipples, where we rate the movie based on looking
• 2:32:53
  Speaker 1: at it through an intersectional feminist lens um, I would say, oh, okay,
• 2:33:00
  Speaker 1: here we go. James Cameron, he had good intentions. I
• 2:33:04
  Speaker 1: think with this movie. He tried. He wanted to tell
• 2:33:09
  Speaker 1: a story about anti capitalism, anti colonialism, anti military industrial complex,
• 2:33:17
  Speaker 1: and those messages are clear. However, when you dig a
• 2:33:21
  Speaker 1: little deeper and you look at a lot of the
• 2:33:24
  Speaker 1: implications of what's happening on screen, you realize that it's
• 2:33:29
  Speaker 1: a white savior story about a white guy who fails
• 2:33:34
  Speaker 1: upward into somehow being a part of this community. Which
• 2:33:40
  Speaker 1: if this was a movie made by indigenous people, I
• 2:33:43
  Speaker 1: don't think that would have ever happened like that would
• 2:33:46
  Speaker 1: have never been written that way. That would have is
• 2:33:48
  Speaker 1: not how that story would have panned out. It would
• 2:33:50
  Speaker 1: have just been told from, you know, Natierie's point of view.
• 2:33:54
  Speaker 1: Jake would have been eliminated from the story. In general.
• 2:33:57
  Speaker 1: It would just be a story told from the omata
• 2:34:01
  Speaker 1: Kaya people's perspective, and that would be the movie. So
• 2:34:07
  Speaker 1: intentions good though they might have been, a lot of
• 2:34:11
  Speaker 1: marks were missed as far as indigenous representation, as far
• 2:34:17
  Speaker 1: as disability representation, and to some extent, I think the
• 2:34:21
  Speaker 1: representation of women as well, because you could kind of
• 2:34:24
  Speaker 1: easily make the argument that Niteria is presented as a
• 2:34:27
  Speaker 1: plot trophy for Jake Sully doing the right thing, a
• 2:34:31
  Speaker 1: prize to be one. She has more agency than that,
• 2:34:34
  Speaker 1: though she does. But but again, if this movie, in
• 2:34:40
  Speaker 1: our rewrite that we're going to do, um, Niteria would
• 2:34:44
  Speaker 1: be which, first of all, it'll be on ice of ice.
• 2:34:52
  Speaker 1: We'll find a way to work minions into the story,
• 2:34:55
  Speaker 1: and Shrek will make an appearance. Obviously, minions would have
• 2:34:59
  Speaker 1: worked for the current opinions, would have worked for the
• 2:35:01
  Speaker 1: colonel for sure. Um, we're gonna do a rewrite. But no,
• 2:35:05
  Speaker 1: the story should be Nati story like she should be
• 2:35:08
  Speaker 1: the protagonist. Jake Sally didn't even need to be there.
• 2:35:12
  Speaker 1: So with all of that in mind, I'll give the
• 2:35:16
  Speaker 1: movie to two and a half. It's kind of where
• 2:35:20
  Speaker 1: I'm at Nipples. I'll land on two and a half
• 2:35:24
  Speaker 1: because at the end of the day, I still had
• 2:35:26
  Speaker 1: a damn good time watching this movie. The movie felt
• 2:35:29
  Speaker 1: like a movie. The movie feels like a movie. So
• 2:35:34
  Speaker 1: I'll give one to Natie, I'll give one to mowat
• 2:35:40
  Speaker 1: her mother, and I'll give my half nipple to Pandora mother.
• 2:35:47
  Speaker 1: A wa um, I guess I'll made you there. I
• 2:35:50
  Speaker 1: kind of want to dog into too. I don't really
• 2:35:52
  Speaker 1: know why. I don't have a good reason to go
• 2:35:55
  Speaker 1: with your guts, but I'm going on this one. That's
• 2:35:58
  Speaker 1: what your braid tentacles are telling you to go with it. Yes,
• 2:36:02
  Speaker 1: I just saw this really funny tweet while you're um.
• 2:36:05
  Speaker 1: It's James Cameron standing at the avatar to Premier. It's
• 2:36:10
  Speaker 1: just him standing in front of the words tar. And
• 2:36:13
  Speaker 1: it's like even James Cameron had to see what all
• 2:36:15
  Speaker 1: the fuss is about and went to see tar. Okay,
• 2:36:21
  Speaker 1: moving right along, I'm gonna I think that again. Yes,
• 2:36:24
  Speaker 1: I think that, like James Cameron expresses certain themes very
• 2:36:27
  Speaker 1: effectively here in a way that you never see even
• 2:36:30
  Speaker 1: really attempted in blockbuster movies. He's always been good with this.
• 2:36:34
  Speaker 1: He's made, you know, entire movies that are explicitly critical
• 2:36:37
  Speaker 1: of the L A. P. D Um. He is generally good.
• 2:36:41
  Speaker 1: I think he could have been better in this movie, honestly,
• 2:36:43
  Speaker 1: about putting women in prominent and um motivated and interesting
• 2:36:49
  Speaker 1: action roles. Um, I don't think this is the movie
• 2:36:52
  Speaker 1: where he does it best, but he does it to
• 2:36:53
  Speaker 1: some extent. You know, he's doing the things that he
• 2:36:56
  Speaker 1: does well well and then when he's out of his depth,
• 2:36:59
  Speaker 1: it's very obvi this. Yeah, but but I think that
• 2:37:02
  Speaker 1: like it's I don't know, my experience of this movie
• 2:37:05
  Speaker 1: has been so kind of colored by the changing ways
• 2:37:09
  Speaker 1: that we've talked about it in the thirteen years it's existed.
• 2:37:12
  Speaker 1: It feels like it's been around for sucking ever. And
• 2:37:15
  Speaker 1: I think that, you know, there's a lot to love
• 2:37:17
  Speaker 1: about this movie that we've been encouraged not to love
• 2:37:21
  Speaker 1: because of how just media in general seems to view
• 2:37:26
  Speaker 1: indigenous stories and centering Indigenous characters in any way, shape
• 2:37:30
  Speaker 1: or form. And that's not to say that this movie
• 2:37:32
  Speaker 1: does it particularly well. So I don't know. I guess
• 2:37:35
  Speaker 1: I'll go two and a half because that was mostly complimentary.
• 2:37:39
  Speaker 1: Uh that said, it doesn't pass the Printles test, and
• 2:37:44
  Speaker 1: you know, and only one character passes the alien Nati test, right,
• 2:37:48
  Speaker 1: but not the not the main woman that you'd expect,
• 2:37:52
  Speaker 1: not in a terry and um, you don't get really
• 2:37:55
  Speaker 1: any you know, there's too much Jake Sully. You don't
• 2:37:58
  Speaker 1: get any interior look into what the what the Omedicaia
• 2:38:03
  Speaker 1: are thinking when Jake Sully isn't there, which is I
• 2:38:07
  Speaker 1: think a huge missed opportunity. And that's like supposedly, if
• 2:38:11
  Speaker 1: James Cameron wants to make a movie that effectively addresses
• 2:38:15
  Speaker 1: you know, Indigenous issues and concerns and culture. Um, then
• 2:38:19
  Speaker 1: why is Jake Sully always there? Is my two and
• 2:38:24
  Speaker 1: a half napples. I'm giving one to a tie, I'm
• 2:38:27
  Speaker 1: given one to Niteri's mommy, why do I have the
• 2:38:33
  Speaker 1: Wikipedia page for tar Up? Oh, it's because of the
• 2:38:36
  Speaker 1: um giving one to I'm not giving one to tar
• 2:38:40
  Speaker 1: I'm giving one Tonteria, one to Moat, and I will
• 2:38:44
  Speaker 1: give the last half twa perfect beautiful Okay. So if
• 2:38:53
  Speaker 1: you were to ask me back when it first came out,
• 2:38:56
  Speaker 1: I probably would have gave it four four nipples off
• 2:38:59
  Speaker 1: four of them. But now you know, after enough time,
• 2:39:04
  Speaker 1: and especially after talking and communicating with other Indigenous people,
• 2:39:10
  Speaker 1: especially indigenous creatives, and now that I've seen better, I
• 2:39:14
  Speaker 1: know that we could do better. And there's absolutely no
• 2:39:19
  Speaker 1: reason why Indigenous people shouldn't be allowed to tell stories
• 2:39:23
  Speaker 1: of the scale, you know, so I feel like I'm
• 2:39:29
  Speaker 1: gonna give it three. I'll just commit and give it
• 2:39:34
  Speaker 1: three because I did, and I did enjoy it. The
• 2:39:37
  Speaker 1: stuff that I enjoyed I still very much enjoy I
• 2:39:40
  Speaker 1: think it's beautiful, and I think like the special effects
• 2:39:43
  Speaker 1: and everything, and the fact that the water wasn't real
• 2:39:47
  Speaker 1: like blew my mind. The fact that it remotely holds
• 2:39:50
  Speaker 1: up is so wild. I know it looks it looks
• 2:39:53
  Speaker 1: so good and uh, but the Aliens. Now, as someone
• 2:39:58
  Speaker 1: who smashes Aliens and Mass Effect act for three games,
• 2:40:02
  Speaker 1: I wish that the Aliens were to that caliber of
• 2:40:06
  Speaker 1: hot or at least because the characters in Mass Effect
• 2:40:09
  Speaker 1: have a lot more to offer as far as like
• 2:40:14
  Speaker 1: their own stories, their own histories, their own opinions on things,
• 2:40:18
  Speaker 1: and all that stuff. It's a BioWare games, so you're
• 2:40:20
  Speaker 1: allowed to go deep. You couldn't go deep in this one.
• 2:40:23
  Speaker 1: And there were too many human characters, not enough navy characters.
• 2:40:29
  Speaker 1: Jake should have had a couple navvy friends outside of
• 2:40:33
  Speaker 1: Natterie and outside of his bromance with Sute, just to
• 2:40:39
  Speaker 1: like kind of build on why he switches side so
• 2:40:43
  Speaker 1: fast and feels this connection to these people instead of
• 2:40:46
  Speaker 1: just like, well I'm here, I'm here and blessed by God,
• 2:40:50
  Speaker 1: so love me God. But um, but yeah, so I'll
• 2:40:56
  Speaker 1: still give it the three star, three stars, three nipples,
• 2:40:59
  Speaker 1: three pasties. Um one's is gonna go to na Terry
• 2:41:04
  Speaker 1: one is going to go to Mowat for passing the
• 2:41:06
  Speaker 1: Alienati test, and then the last one is going to
• 2:41:09
  Speaker 1: go to suite because he should at least have one
• 2:41:11
  Speaker 1: regular size nipples because his are so small. On top
• 2:41:15
  Speaker 1: of everything else wrong, I have to give my mad
• 2:41:21
  Speaker 1: some dignity because he got almost done in this movie.
• 2:41:25
  Speaker 1: He did have a great death scene, but that's not
• 2:41:27
  Speaker 1: saying much. Yeah, well, Elie, thank you as always for
• 2:41:32
  Speaker 1: being here. It's been an absolute delight. Three time or
• 2:41:36
  Speaker 1: we love to see it. There is one last thing
• 2:41:39
  Speaker 1: I want to shout out while I'm here though, This
• 2:41:41
  Speaker 1: is very important. So um, this has taken place in
• 2:41:45
  Speaker 1: Winnipeg right now in Canada, and since uh, we're talking
• 2:41:50
  Speaker 1: about indigenous people, let's actually talk about the real ones
• 2:41:54
  Speaker 1: that exist today. But there is a situation happening right
• 2:41:58
  Speaker 1: now where the daughters of Morgan Harris, who is an
• 2:42:02
  Speaker 1: Indigenous woman in Canada who was murdered by a serial
• 2:42:06
  Speaker 1: killer along with four other Indigenous women. They believe that
• 2:42:12
  Speaker 1: their bodies are in the the Prairie Green Landfill the RCMP.
• 2:42:19
  Speaker 1: So the Canadian police told them that they believe that
• 2:42:21
  Speaker 1: that's where the serial killer dumped their bodies, and they're
• 2:42:24
  Speaker 1: refusing to investigate because they said that it isn't feasible.
• 2:42:30
  Speaker 1: So there essentially telling these girls that they have to
• 2:42:33
  Speaker 1: make peace with their mother staying in a dumpster and
• 2:42:37
  Speaker 1: not getting a burial, and these girls are fighting to
• 2:42:40
  Speaker 1: push back and search the landfill. So I really wanted
• 2:42:43
  Speaker 1: to just raise awareness to that and get the word
• 2:42:47
  Speaker 1: out there because I heard about it two days ago
• 2:42:50
  Speaker 1: and it's just not making as much waves as it
• 2:42:54
  Speaker 1: should be. So do you know, if there's any kind
• 2:42:56
  Speaker 1: of go fund me or anything to support, I will
• 2:43:00
  Speaker 1: definitely look it up and send it your way if
• 2:43:03
  Speaker 1: I but we'll post it in the show notes if
• 2:43:05
  Speaker 1: if well, at least link to a story for context
• 2:43:08
  Speaker 1: as well. That's yes, sucking, unconscionable. I was seeing what
• 2:43:11
  Speaker 1: you were posting about it, and yeah, I also did
• 2:43:13
  Speaker 1: not hear about it before you said something, yep. So
• 2:43:16
  Speaker 1: if we could do anything good, I mean, like Avatar
• 2:43:19
  Speaker 1: is great, but people are going to go see Avatar too,
• 2:43:22
  Speaker 1: and not enough people are talking about this. So I'm
• 2:43:24
  Speaker 1: definitely yes, spread the word. Thank you for that. Absolutely.
• 2:43:30
  Speaker 1: Is there anything you'd like to plug as far as
• 2:43:33
  Speaker 1: your own work, Well, I am kind of limiting my
• 2:43:38
  Speaker 1: Twitter access, but I'm Ali Naughty on Twitter. I'm Ali
• 2:43:41
  Speaker 1: Naughty on Instagram and TikTok. I'm back on Tumbler because
• 2:43:46
  Speaker 1: I don't like so especially now, but I've been more
• 2:43:53
  Speaker 1: active than on the Ali Naughty Tumbler account, which is
• 2:43:57
  Speaker 1: still the Ala Test because that's how a lot of
• 2:44:00
  Speaker 1: people know it. So I keep it there. And my
• 2:44:04
  Speaker 1: sisters and I opened up a boutique, Darlings of our Mother,
• 2:44:11
  Speaker 1: So check it out and buy some stuff. Very cool.
• 2:44:14
  Speaker 1: Yeah wait, that's huge for me. Okay, I can wait. Yeah,
• 2:44:17
  Speaker 1: I'll send that to YouTube. Come back anytime please. Yeah.
• 2:44:22
  Speaker 1: Wonderful and uh you can follow us on Instagram and
• 2:44:29
  Speaker 1: Twitter at Bechtel Cast and um. Speaking of Twitter, there's
• 2:44:34
  Speaker 1: a pretty good tweet that we found. Oh okay, this
• 2:44:39
  Speaker 1: is It feels like an end of the Daily Zeitgeist episode,
• 2:44:42
  Speaker 1: like tweets you like, okay, but this was one that
• 2:44:46
  Speaker 1: really just It's from the l A Times review of
• 2:44:50
  Speaker 1: Avatar Way of Water, which is a quite good review.
• 2:44:52
  Speaker 1: It's getting quite good early reviews. Folks. Um, we haven't
• 2:44:56
  Speaker 1: seen it yet, but the critics are sa drav ing
• 2:45:00
  Speaker 1: about the Way of Water. But this is from Justin Chang,
• 2:45:05
  Speaker 1: the film critic over at the l A Times. Um.
• 2:45:09
  Speaker 1: He references how Avatar Too is about Jake Sully being
• 2:45:13
  Speaker 1: a loving father in the second movie, and then he says,
• 2:45:17
  Speaker 1: and I quote, you could say he's a police Navy dad.
• 2:45:25
  Speaker 1: It's so good, twitters. It's still horrible, but there are
• 2:45:31
  Speaker 1: there are moments there, moments that was my moment that
• 2:45:35
  Speaker 1: really meant a lot to us. Um. You can also
• 2:45:38
  Speaker 1: follow us on Instagram, where I did not receive that information,
• 2:45:41
  Speaker 1: but it is. You know, it's another platform where we're at.
• 2:45:44
  Speaker 1: We're also going on tour reminder West Coast. You can
• 2:45:48
  Speaker 1: find that in the link in our bios and the
• 2:45:51
  Speaker 1: link in this description as well. We're going to be
• 2:45:53
  Speaker 1: in l A, San Francisco, Portland, and Seattle at the
• 2:45:59
  Speaker 1: end of January into the beginning of February. More info
• 2:46:02
  Speaker 1: about that at the link, and you can join our
• 2:46:04
  Speaker 1: patrion ak Matreon. What the hell is that case, Oh
• 2:46:08
  Speaker 1: my gosh. It's a place where you can get to
• 2:46:11
  Speaker 1: bonus episodes of the Bechtel Cast, usually just Jamie and
• 2:46:14
  Speaker 1: I hoof and goof and goofing, but we're also having
• 2:46:16
  Speaker 1: awesome discourse and um and you get access to the
• 2:46:21
  Speaker 1: back catalog of well over one hundred bonus episodes. So
• 2:46:25
  Speaker 1: if you've run out of main feed episodes, scoot on
• 2:46:28
  Speaker 1: over to patreon dot com slash Bechtel Cast. And it's December,
• 2:46:33
  Speaker 1: so we're doing our cursed holiday movie round up. We
• 2:46:37
  Speaker 1: have already released our Netflix original Lindsay Lohan Falling for Christmas,
• 2:46:41
  Speaker 1: a movie where a little girl's Christmas, which is for
• 2:46:45
  Speaker 1: Lindsay Lohan to fall off of a mountain. And we'll
• 2:46:48
  Speaker 1: also be doing while you were sleeping. And I also
• 2:46:51
  Speaker 1: I was getting excited today because January is the Pinocchio
• 2:46:56
  Speaker 1: Wars episode and so we just we have a hell
• 2:47:00
  Speaker 1: of a time over there. Joined the community, Joined, joined
• 2:47:04
  Speaker 1: the movement that is the Matreon um. And finally, it's
• 2:47:08
  Speaker 1: the holiday so if you're looking for gifts, last minute gifts,
• 2:47:12
  Speaker 1: you can go to our store over at t public
• 2:47:14
  Speaker 1: dot com slash v Bechtel Cast. We actually have some
• 2:47:18
  Speaker 1: new designs just came out pretty fun feminist icon Paddington
• 2:47:23
  Speaker 1: Shreky in which came up in this episode. It's cannon
• 2:47:28
  Speaker 1: to the show is. And um, also just one that
• 2:47:31
  Speaker 1: I kind of wanted to make for myself that we
• 2:47:33
  Speaker 1: have referenced on the show, which is the Flobber Mambo.
• 2:47:37
  Speaker 1: Bye Danny Alfman. So that plus classic designs including our
• 2:47:42
  Speaker 1: holiday baby Grinch designs that over there get some gifts,
• 2:47:47
  Speaker 1: uh and live your damn life exactly. And um, hey
• 2:47:51
  Speaker 1: Jamie Ali, I see you. Bye bye m