Avatar: Fire and Ash

Avatar Fire and Ash

Dan: So we've had some really lively few minutes here. Pete has

Pete: I quit my job

Dan: at length. He's quit his job. We've opened a bottle of wine that may be corked and we're drinking it.

Poisonous.

Sidey: could be poisonous. Yeah,

Dan: it could be poisonous. We may not make it, but Peter has seen a film. And that's what we're really here to talk about.

Pete: I have seen a film and I'm not here to defend or. Attack, the the avatar

Reegs: try and convince

Pete: or, or try and convince anyone about the

Dan: or tell anyone about the

Reegs: or yeah,

Pete: Or tell anyone about the film. So,

Reegs: so good

Pete: end of this episode. No. So what we,

Sidey: we're jumping at number three, is that right?

Pete: Jumping in at number three? Yes. Because I think most people on the planet have seen the first avatar. Well, according to the numbers.

Dan: most people

Reegs: numbers are

Pete: Big, big, big numbers.

Yeah, yeah, yeah. They're

Dan: strong. I watched the first one and that convinced me not to watch the second one.

Pete: Okay. Right. So what what we can do is if we deal with the film, this film, [00:01:00] which is the third iteration of the,

Dan: this on the

Pete: it is, it is indeed.

yeah. It's called Avatar Fire and Ash. Okay. And so what this is is I mean, I'll probably be a bit cynical about it. It's like another rehashing of the

Sidey: well, we've had formula, the first one, which was what, like jungley stuff.

Pete: So the best way of dealing with this, I thought about this is the best way of explaining it, is, is we're gonna talk about jungle people sea people,

and now we're gonna talk about fire people.

Yeah. The jungle people are called the. I think that's how, exactly how it's pronounced. I can't remember the C people, they begin with an m that we saw in Avatar way of the water.

Sidey: Not way, I

Pete: Well, we, we anyone else see Avatar way of the water? Daniel, did you see Avatar way of the water? I did not.

Okay. So the second one is underwater. A lot of it. And the third one, this is now

Sidey: Sigourney Weaver, isn't it? In this one?

Pete: Sigourney weaver's in all

Reegs: em. All of them,

Sidey: Oh, she, yeah. Yeah. Right.[00:02:00]

Pete: yeah. 'cause she was in the first one as a, as a, like a legit, like human folk, a sky person. So the sky people, jungle people and sky people are humans.

Yeah, Sigourney Weaver was a research like professor type Garth on the

Sidey: planet, even though she's a woman,

Pete: But on Pandora, yeah. Where they're trying to get unobtainium. Do you remember? Like, that's disappeared completely from the narrative of, of the whole of avatar now, but yeah, she died but was, was somehow resurrected through awar, which is like this, like the god that controls all living beings.

And that's when all the animals came out and won the day in the first one.

And she, but now there, there's been a child called Kiri who is born, but is, is voiced by Sigourney Riva and she's basically the child of Awa the

Sidey: Jesus.

And she's Jesus.

Yeah.

Pete: there's, she is an immaculate conception essentially.

Yeah. Yes. Her sire is awa like a goddess, and her mum is sk reeva.

Dan: Pete, can I just

Pete: this isn't anything to do with the actual [00:03:00] film. Yeah.

Reegs: you're scene setting.

Pete: I am. Scene setting. Go Daniel. Go.

Dan: I'm just wondering are you kind of a fan of these films from the

Pete: deal with that afterwards. Let's, let me tell you about the film quickly.

Dan: Right?

Sidey: What's the, what's the runtime of this film? Because they're fairly,

Pete: hours and 10 minutes.

Sidey: not, can we make the run, can we make the breakdown of it shorter than

Pete: that? Yes. Yeah. Yes we can. Essentially where we pick it up is for those who watched way of the water and for those who didn't, one of Jake Sully, the main character and his miss is one of the children died.

Sidey: Wow.

Pete: Big spoiler. You know that you've just gone, oh, but you saw way of the water. Yeah. He died at the end of way of the water. So you, yeah. You knew that.

Reegs: Oh right, okay.

Pete: okay. But you are quite stoned, so,

Reegs: no, it was more because I just, I

Pete: you miss that

Reegs: remember these films very so long.

Pete: They are really long. I know. I'm gonna try and make this. So anyway, they're, they're, they're struggling with all of this. So the mother, I can't remember her name, Tiri Zoe Salano is, is plays the, does the stuff, the

Sidey: Motion [00:04:00] capture

that

Pete: stuff? Yeah. So she's now really got it in for the sky people. I mean, they fucking burn her, her like tree to the ground in the first one and, and everything.

So she, she had the ass with him. Now her son's dead. She's really, really

Sidey: That's legit motive. Yeah.

Pete: So what you have is this character called Spider, who is the son Spider Dijon. It is Spider Dijon, who is the son

Reegs: of Steven

Pete: Stephen Lang, who is quite qua rich, who died, but has been brought back cleverly as a, as an avatar, as a, as a,

Reegs: did he die in way of the

Pete: No, he died. No, he didn't die in way of the water. He died in, in Avatar, the first one, but he was, they'd already made like a Oh

yeah. An avatar for him so that if he ever died, they just download his memories and he could be a cat. It's preposterous as I'm saying

Dan: a fucking ball of string this so

Pete: Yeah, yeah, yeah, yeah.

But anyway, spider is, is pivotal to this film, especially because he is a sky person. He has to wear like a face mask

Reegs: He's got dreadlocks.

Pete: He's got dreadlocks. He wears a [00:05:00] loin cloth. He thinks he's a, a, a A. Oh Mat, but he's not what are they called? Like the navi? He thinks he's a navi, but he, he's not he's not one of them.

And the, the misses Jake Sully's misses is not having him. She's basically like, he's a pink skin. I don't fucking want him around us 'cause they're all assholes. So we need to get him out.

Reegs: It's cultural appropriation. Get

Pete: rid. Exactly right. So, they want rid of him. The Sky traders come in and they see as an opportunity to kind of.

Go. Right. Well, why don't we go over there and we'll give him to the science guys and he can live with them and come and see us from time to time. And that seems to be nice. Anyway, they go on this, this journey up in the sky with the, with these traders, and then they are attacked by another. Tribe of Navi.

We've already had the water people and the jungle people. This is now the fire people.

Dan: Mm-hmm.

Reegs: people.

Pete: And they are, they're the pagans. They're the savages. They don't even believe. They've like, they don't even believe in, they are that fucking pagan. They believe in fire. You hear a bit of [00:06:00] backstory where essentially their tribe was pretty much wiped out by a volcano.

So rather than move away from the fucking volcano, they've decided to live right near there and they worship it. The leader Ang is played by, it's like motion capture. It's, it's Una Chaplin.

Dan: Is she

Sidey: Charlie's

Reegs: she is related to Charlie.

Pete: She is fit. She's even fitter as a fucking, like Navi, pagan navi. Like, like yeah.

Small, hard on watching this entire, like, film player. And

Reegs: so mate, you can get avatar porn

Sorry.

Pete: so. Even Horner is so, so ca because Qua or whatever his fucking name is, Steven Lang, his son is Spider. Spider is running out of oxygen with his tank. Yeah.

Because he can't breathe.

Reegs: Yeah.

Pete: In, in their atmosphere. And yeah, he basically starts dying and ki it was like Sigourney weaver's kid kiri.

Like lays him on the grounds and all the fucking [00:07:00] fungus and stuff go into him. And then he basically is then able to, to breathe their air. So he becomes known as the air breather.

What that causes is the, the, if the humans, the sky people get hold of that, they can reverse engineer that so that humans can breathe the air on Pandora and they can really like start fucking

Reegs: everything bring, start drilling for

Pete: And then what you get is Steven Lang. He starts shagging the, the like, the Ang Un Chaplin and giving them guns.

'cause obviously they're, you know, they're, they're anti, like giving them

Dan: guns at the same time.

Pete: Yeah, yeah, yeah. Shagging them and giving them guns. And then what it. All culminates in his like, yet another absolutely enormous like set piece battle that we've already seen in the first one and in the second one, this one is he becomes Toro.

Mattau again,

Dan: could I, could I argue it didn't work in the first one.

Pete: Not at this point. You can't, Daniel, maybe after I've finished telling you how.

Sidey: are we even an hour in [00:08:00] yet?

Pete: I've, I've now, I've now

Reegs: near the end,

Pete: right near the end, I've just cut, cut to the chase. Yeah. Essentially they get, they get cap captured, tortured quick, quick scrap with the ish red barren.

Yeah, yeah, yeah. It's

Every time carriage can just kill Jake Sully. He doesn't, there there's, there's a few bits where they have to work together because they both have a love for spider ones that Yeah. And that's kind of what keeps them having to like, not kill each other at any point in time. But anyway, big set piece, big fight at the end.

Carriage A again

Sidey: Michael Carriage,

Pete: Yeah. Dies, but we don't see him actual, like he just flings himself off this like rock and you never, you don't actually see his dead body. So I'm imagining he's gonna be back in the fourth one again. What they, how they resolve this one. Oh. But, you know, what's his name? Car?

What's her name? Carmela Soprano. The,

Yeah. She's like the general, it's such, it's the worst casting I think I've ever seen. Yeah. She's so unbelievable as a general, like [00:09:00] military general. But she, yeah, they, they're coming to fucking try and wipe out the navi again. What the water people have done is keep a secret which is that there's some kind of like magnetic flux in like a cove that they've got just around the corner, which is useful because what it does is it sucks all metal things up into the sky and destroys them.

Reegs: That is

Pete: That is useful. That is useful because

Reegs: isn't it?

Pete: when you think all the machines that, that, that the humans have that are made of metal and all the stuff that the Navi people have got isn't

Reegs: yeah. No. Oh, it's genius,

Pete: So it's, it's fucking, and and they kept it entirely quiet until the very end of the third film. We didn't know it was there.

It, it was quite convenient and yeah. So yeah.

Reegs: Do you think you can just go into a war zone with a fucking massive magnet? Just put it there and just, and

Pete: Well, I think Avatar three

Reegs: has proved

Pete: that, that that can, can work. It should work. So, yeah, again, loads of people die, but none of the, [00:10:00] and and anyone who dies in this is definitely gonna get brought back.

'cause I think everyone who has died apart from the sun. Jake Sully's son who died that you couldn't remember. So yeah. And then everyone

Reegs: but now they might be able to brief

Pete: what's his name? Yeah, but they didn't manage to reverse engineer it. So, spider is an air breather. He's got he's grown a, a Kuru or whatever it's called, the bit for, at the back of his head so he can connect to plants and stuff.

Yeah. And he can ride animals and things like that. And that's pretty much it, and it set us up for avatars 4, 5, 6, 7, and eight.

Sidey: I think he has said there's gonna be at least another two, hasn't he?

Reegs: there is gonna be

2,

Pete: it? Four, four and five. They've done like principle photography and some scenes for, and they've got footage from other ones that they would use in that they wanted to make sure really cynically like saying.

Which I guess they do, but to, to sort of like overtly say it, but you go, oh, well, we'll see how this one gets on. And this one again is gonna be a billion dollar movie.

Sidey: Yeah. Let's talk about that for a

Pete: right. Well, we can [00:11:00] do, yeah. Okay. What I wanna say is, I was pretty cynical about all of it there. I sat and I watched it made like I sat and watched it, but for as cynical as I am and a regurgitation of the same theme from the first and the second film and everything like that.

Visually, like I, I, I will not sit here and

Reegs: tell

Pete: for somebody,

to tell me, oh, it looks shit. It is not possible. It is fucking

Reegs: Yeah, it does. look amazing.

Pete: single scene, every, like the world building of, you know, and the, the visional, the visionary visual aspect of that is fucking mind blowing. And what these films now are, to me, is another in my like, easy watching backgrounds.

I'll stick something on and it's three hours long and I know I don't have to pay attention to it. But it's something on its background. Oh, that bit's quite cool. And that's quite funny and that's a bit shit, but I'll laugh at how shit it is and blah, blah, blah, and they become like a bit of a guilty pleasure.

A bit like the Pirates of the Caribbean films or whatever. They're just [00:12:00] guilty pleasures. I'm not. Enormously into them. But what I will do is watch the next one and the one after that, unless the next one is so absolutely catastrophically awful. But they're, they're, they're still fucking ridiculous spectacles.

To behold is my take on it all. There's way better a million way better films out there, but I'll still

Dan: there's not many more

Reegs: think I largely agree with that, to be honest.

Yeah, I think that's pretty much sums up, you know, many of my feelings It's like bloated storytelling, a lot of it, but it's like also some interesting stuff there and like you say, just absolute feast.

Sidey: We've talked and I think probably.

About this that I'm gonna bring up before is that, especially the first one, I think it was. I think maybe end game overtook it, but it was the box office champ.

but there's nothing like, until the second film, there was nothing like it. It existed at the cinema. People were obsessed with [00:13:00] it.

I think there was people getting obsessed with Pandora and like losing, you know, wanting to go to this world. You know, people were like, we go see the film multiple, multiple times. But there was nothing, you would never see anything of it. No. It'd be like a Disney film. You

Reegs: Well, and who do you know who is going, oh, let's watch Avatar, like really fervently.

Yeah. I mean, you've talked about, you've described it as a guilty pleasure or whatever. We've all, I've seen them. You've

Sidey: I turned the first one off I thought was shit.

Dan: Yeah, I'm

Reegs: a lot of people are watching.

Sidey: No, it is doing, every one of 'em is doing a billion,

Pete: but,

Sidey: and it has no cultural hint.

Toland, if

Pete: you think, like, you go to, I dunno, you go to Universal Studios or Disney or whatever and you've got the Star Wars or you've got the Marvel, or you've got. There's no, there's no avatar

Sidey: There's nothing about it at all. It's so strange to me

Pete: that it seems like the only medium that it, it is just, I think, but because it is like, it is a cinematic experience to see the visual three hours and 10 minutes.

You don't need to see

Sidey: I shouldn't watch it on my phone. Should I

fucking

Pete: concerto or whatever. It's like, yeah, that's incredible stuff. Or what, 45 minutes of that is amazing, but I don't need [00:14:00] seven hours of it, but. It's, yeah, I think that's the only bit where it really hits the sweet spot is the cinema experience, because I, I will not have an argument that it, it, it looks shoddy like in any point every single fucking like scene.

Dan: it looked shoddy actually peaked, but I watched it, but I watched it on a pirate thing.

Pete: a pirate?

Dan: Yeah, on a, on a pirate. A pirate shit. It was a pirate copy. So, so, so basically you were just,

Pete: it at its best.

Dan: you were just depend dependent on the storytelling and the. The plot, and that certainly isn't strong enough

Pete: Well, you are not Mr. Sci-Fi anyway.

Really?

Dan: like a sci-fi movie as much as any I've, I've got a Star Wars.

I can see that. Yeah. I've got a Star Wars vinyl record.

Pete: didn't as, as much as, like I say, I, I, I. I am cynical about it and I'd see the fucking floor, the storytelling and the, and the, the, just the sheer regurgitation and the, and I, what I know is that [00:15:00] in the fourth one, it will just be fucking

Sidey: that's what I was thinking.

Pete: to kill Jake Sully

Sidey: You've had water, you've had fire. What's the next one? Like underground

Pete: I dunno. Yeah. Moss or whatever. It's like, it doesn't matter really. It will be

Sidey: you do have to hand it to James Cameron because. I think he might be a total bellend, possibly. I think he's renowned to be quite difficult maybe.

But the things that he creates visually and the techniques and things that he's developed in his filmmaking have been like, you know, quite incredible.

Pete: Yeah.

And and, and

Reegs: and he loves this shit, so he doesn't give a fuck. Basically. He like, I, 'cause like I sometimes think, oh, it's a bit of a shame that he didn't make some other movies and, but this is what he wants to fucking do with his time

Pete: And at what point, and you know, they say like the highest

Reegs: grossing franchise of all time.

Pete: And you know, they say like, obviously like, you know, film is art and stuff like that. But this is like our, in the sense of like, you know, just like as a visual spectacle, like you

Sidey: well you could just type it into a,

Pete: the storylines

Sidey: it into a [00:16:00] program now and just get it, to make it.

Pete: Yeah. I, I, I, I don't know if, if, if that could, if that kind of level of stuff, because he was talking about how he, he was actually talking about how he wanted to make, he thinks that there'd be like eight films, but he knows that he would be dead before he could make the eight film.

But he

Sidey: no, the rate they're going him now like

Pete: a protege who he can then like teach how to create all of But, Yeah,

I'll do well. I'm looking for a job. So, yeah,

Sidey: side

note, 'cause AI got me thinking about it. Has anyone been on Twitter recently?

Or

Dan: Charter

Pete: I, I was on there

Sidey: endless. It's just endless. Put her in a bikini. Put her in a, have you seen

Pete: today it isn't.

Sidey: Oh, they switched it off.

Pete: there's been,

Sidey: have they switched it off?

Pete: been a, like a complaint about it, basically saying that, you know, grok is being used

Sidey: yeah, the UK is gonna, was gonna ban x say you can't have it.

Reegs: Yeah. Well it was making pictures of underage girls and putting them in bikinis and it's

Pete: as horny as that.

But it [00:17:00] was

Reegs: but that's what it was doing. People were, and then putting

Sidey: I still have to go on it 'cause I do the social media post for this and when I go on everything, everything is either, crypto or grok and a be

Reegs: is any of it

Sidey: or non-consensual. Just a picture. Yeah. Of an influencer saying, put me in a bikini or Put me in doing that.

Twitter Oh, it's crazy.

Dan: years. I think

Pete: today it was all about Golden Globes and fucking all of that shit

Dan: res

called it as a cesspit about three years ago, and I think it's

Sidey: Way worse than that now. The

time

Dan: that I

Pete: Yeah. Yeah. It's,

Reegs: oh, you wanna see it now, Dan? It's like,

Pete: it's total bollocks. The problem. The thing is, it's like, I mean, I know we're going off on a massive tangent here, but I feel the same about Facebook, but that is actually like real people and some of them are my friends and I fucking, and I'm like, what are you talking about?

I had to come off that before I went off Twitter. Other people, I know that other people are complete lunatic, asshole wankers. And I can listen to their, look at their opinions or not, but when it's people, you [00:18:00] know, that's even worse. I, that Facebook is worse than Twitter for me.

Dan: Yeah. Well. Very rarely on either of them, but I do have Facebook because

I've

Pete: You're an

Dan: that I've, I have friends that I've got on there that

Sidey: Nice. Know

Dan: don't have

Pete: No, this

Sidey: sound very believable.

Pete: stack

Reegs: I think

social media's

Pete: It is bullshit. Yeah. Yeah.

Reegs: and I'm gonna shake my fist at a cloud.

Dan: yeah.

Pete: avatar,

Sidey: strong.

Pete: Look,

I'm looking as

Dan: three, three hours, 10 minutes.

Pete: Three hours. 10 minutes.

Dan: Are we going to the cinema? To this?

Pete: Yes. You are not gonna watch it. You are not gonna watch it. I will continue to watch these. I reckon you'll watch this and I

Reegs: I will.

I'll enjoy it. at the time.

Pete: I think you'll enjoy it at, at a similar level.

Sidey: there's another film that's three hours long.

I

don't have time to watch. Come on

Reegs: when? Oh, Lawrence of Arabia. Are you

Pete: oh, it's longer than, it's

Reegs: It's longer than three hours, but I, no, I take your point.

Dan: That's on [00:19:00] BBCI play at the moment as well. You can watch that and we are looking, I will review, I will re-review that with you when you do it.

Sidey: Strong, strong Recommend for Lawrence of Arabia.

Pete: Yeah.