Warning, This podcast indeed spoilers for the first Avatar and the sequel Avatar Way of Water in Theater.
Now.
Hello, my name is Jason Concepsio, and welcome to Expert Vision The Crooked Podcast, where we dive deep into the beautiful blue waters of Pandora to talk about your favorite shows, movies, comics, and pop culture. Of this episode, on the previously on Lots of News, We're gonna be talking about the new Across the Spider Verse trailer. I'll be talking about some stuff that I saw at the Game of Thrones convention. We're gonna have a discussion of AI and the recent
AI art controversy. In the airlock, Folks, we're going to Pandora. Baby, We're getting in cryos sleep, we're sawing out, We're like putting on our little breathers, and we're gonna be running around in the forest and then diving into the crystal blue waters and joining me today with all of that to commune with Awa together. She's the number one Pandora historian, the number one harvester of whale brain juice.
It's a great Rosie Dadea. I must say I have never harvested a whale's brain juice. That would makes sense when you see Avatar.
When you see Avatar Way of Water.
Yeah, how are you doing?
I'm doing well.
I'm doing well.
You know, my voice is coming back after doing so much talking over the weekend. I was speaking so much. And uh, you know, I'm hopped up on on Pandora buzz after seeing three hours of J. James Cameron's latest masterpiece, Avatar Way of Water. You're just living luxurious and amazing.
I'm just living. How are you?
Yeah?
I reordered, I ordered my comic book collection. I put like everything in order, and yeah, and God's feel I want to keep and give away like in separate piles.
I feel good.
How are you? Yeah? I loved Tarry Yeah, yeah, same. I was. I was immersed. I was fully immersed for three hours and ten minutes in the vibrant three D of Avatar A Way of Water. I actually that was always my biggest complaint about their original Avatar. Is somebody who likes a three D movie where like an axe comes at your face or like, you know, one of my favorite three D movies is the My Bloody Valentine three D remake that they did. I thought that was like the peak of three D. The three D and
this is really good. I was very immersed.
It's tasteful three D.
It's tasteful, but it was pushing the boundary. At one point, uh NATERII did almost shoot an arrow in my face, which I appreciated. And also there was moments when you're underwater where it feels like things are past your face. I felt like the boundaries of the three D was quite limited in the originals. I was. I was loved. Three D's back, baby, make every movie in three D, but like real three D, I want to see a ladder coming towards my face like I'm in Muppets four D.
All right, let's get into it. Let's get into it for something previously on.
Tell us all about the Game of Thrones Official fan convention, because that is very very cool and you already it was you and Greta, right, it was all.
Fan and I.
This was the first time we'd ever met in person, which was wild.
Here's the thing.
I don't know if this happens to you, but when you meet people for the first time and now in the COVID era, I don't know about you, but it doesn't even register almost anymore, like it feels like we have met you and all this time I met in person, I was like, somebody mentioned, all, this is the first time you guys meeting.
I was like, oh, oh yeah, yeah, just feels cool.
Yeah, like almost like it feels so normalized now. Anyway, it was the first time Greta and I had met in person. Uh, and it was just I got to see old friends, uh, you know, uh our friends from History of West Rosays He using Ashaia were there, which was wonderful.
They were covering the whole thing.
Kim Renfro from Insider was there. Uh, and it was just it was so fun. We were hanging you know, just like hanging out in the green room and like this one fun moment where like as Maybianca was there played Rosst.
One of my old time favorite characters.
And then Daniel Portman, who played Patrick Payne aka sex God Pod, came in and they started catching up and you know, like Grant and I are pretending like, oh, this isn't cool, We're just very just we're just like hanging out and they started having this conversation.
Esmey was like, oh did you live? Did you make it to the end?
He's like, yeah, I did, I made it. I lived all the way to the end of series. All these like fun little moments occurred. It was great seeing everybody in costume, and then I was really just like pleasantly surprised at how generous everybody was with their answers. We interviewed Kit Kit Harrington ever heard of him, the famous John Snow aka the Bastard of Winterfell, aka the King in the North, aka the Lord Commander of the Night's Watch, and he like he was just like so wonderful with
his answers, took time with all the audience questions. You could you could really sense how important like connecting with these people was to a lot of the fans who got to ask their questions, just how delighted they were to see everybody. There was a great moment where we were interviewing Patty Patty and Steve Patty who plays King Vissaras and Steve Dussant, who plays Cortless.
Filarian, and I don't think Patty.
Had fully realized like how beloved Vicea's was after this season, because I, you know, we had been talking for a little while and I said, you know, I'd be remiss if I didn't ask you about that incredible scene in the throne room where Visara's comes in to defend his daughter and just like the crowd exploded, and I mentioned it it was cold. I love, it was so cool.
So, oh, this is a funny thing.
So we're there for three days Friday, Saturday, Sunday by Sunday.
Listen.
It's great, great fun, but I'm beginning to.
Get like a little t.
So what happened was we had a panel and I forget what it was, but we had like an extra fifteen minute like break on top of our existing fifteen minutes because Greta was like introing some behind the scenes video. So I went up to the green room where all the talent was, like everybody from the cast was in there, and various people who were also like handlers and you know, Alfie Allen's manager and stuff like that.
So it was like I go in.
There and all the there's like three round tabe four round tables, and all the seats are taken because it's like Kit Harrington sitting there, Alfie Allen is sitting there, Danny Portman is sitting there, like fucking Jack Lease and like so I go and lay on the ground to
just kind of like relax for a little while. Next thing I know, I fall asleep and I wake up to one of the one of the convention people being like, oh my god, we've been looking for you, and like we've come in this room like four times, and this is the first.
Time the street.
So I was like, I was like out in the open, like if you take four steps into the green room and by the way, you can see, Yeah, it was the same. It was where were we for the La Comic Con. We were at four h two, Yeah, we like in that we were four oh seven. So we're literally down at the end of the hall and if they would have taken five steps or three steps into the room, it would have been obvious that I was right there. But they didn't do that, so they missed
me like a million times. And so I woke up and I hear the music for the panel going on, and they're like, it's it's starting right now. Do you want to like run on stage. I'm like, no, that would be fucking weird. I guess I just missed this one. And so it was the Patty that that one was Patty's like solo panel which I which I watched from the side of the stage.
It was really fun. He came out like.
Tottering on a invisible cane, you know, when they opened the doors, he pretended to like totter out like Visara's. It was that was super fun. It was just it was a really great time. Like everybody wash was clearly so excited. You know, it's whenever someone gets up on the mic to ask a question and their voice is shaking, it's like wow, it's you realize, like how this series
really just it just means a lot to people. And again, everybody was really really great with their you know, in answering the questions, and it was just a fun time. I love cosplay, I love conventions.
I love the at all. I got it.
I got a a corless and vices Funko pop, not a single funk I got two Fungo pops.
Yeah.
Yeah, now Visaras without the Golden mask, but it's so it's like younger Visas. But it was really fun. It was a great time, man, it was it was. It was a long time, but it was really really fun and it was cool to see how much it meant to the fans.
Yeah. I mean it was the first ever official Game of Thrones fan con, right, which is why you had so many unbelievable that was like a stacked cost of guests. It was everyone. You can't want to be there, I mean Kit.
Yeah, like, holy shit, there he is.
It's fucking Jon Snow And you never know what to do, you know, Like our friend Kenny who is my manager, was like he was there for day one because uh his wife is also is Daniel Portman's rep. And you know, just there to support Grant and I and he and you know like Elvi Allen is there and Jack Lison were there, and Tom Glencarney was there, you know, plays egg on the Elder.
He said, oh, you.
Go go say go say how to the dollar? And I was like, you introduce yourself over the panel.
You gotta do that. You gotta do that.
You make sure that you know they know who you are and stuff like that, and I'm.
Like, gosh, I don't want to bother them. They're just like, you know there.
Everybody was ballad.
It's the balance. But everybody was like super super sweet and super charming. There were some really thirsty asked questions at times, like there was oh my god, I had I had Tom.
Uh.
It's interesting. Day one.
The original setup was Greta and I were gonna, like, you know, like trade off panels and certain bigger panels we do together just to kind of save our energy. But then we got to the end of day one and did the panel together and we're like, let's just do all the panels together.
It's so much better and so much easier.
But so originally Day one I did Tom Glencarney just by myself, and someone got up and was like, first question was hello Tom, You're very handsome, and we were like, okay, that's not a question. Yeah, And then another person was like, Hi Tom, just so you know, I call you King Poppy Chulo.
To be and Con is like a you are like the teacher and the fan and the historian and the question asker and the bodyguard.
New York Comic Con I did a movie premiere and one of the people the lot I should have stopped before the last question, but the last question the guy came up and Jake Lacy was in the movie is this really fun movie called Significant Other with Michael Momroan and Jake Lacy and the last guy came up and just made some really weird comment about how lucky Jake Lacy was that he'd like rolled in the hay with It wasn't even in the panel like jess I think
it was Jessica Chastain or something, and I had to be like, let's keep it clean, let's get and everyone was like I could just be like I was like, I should never have let that last guy ask the question. But that's always the way people are excited to talk to these But it's that balance. It sounds like it was respectful fast at the game of.
Was mainly respectful for Thirst.
There was like a point five percent of like things that were like, okay.
It was. It was a it was a very respectful Thirst.
When the questioner was like I call you King, Tom was like, what's that mean?
He like leaned over to me and I.
Was like, I was like, oh, that's like a it's like a very handsome guy. Basically there was and forget it for Patrick Payne because who we always who of course, you know sex guy pod he made the eight he you know, the whoors of King's landing. We're giving him, you know, rolls in the hay for et cetera. There was they were giving him money, they were giving him him money. There were so many questions about, like, so, what do you think he did?
What do you think it was?
Then?
What was the backstory is? What was what was specialty? Yeah?
What was it?
He was like, oh my gosh, it was.
It was. It was a wonderful fun time, absolutely fun time. Shall we talk about the Across the Spider Verse trailer?
That is, it's very exciting.
Full trailer for the highly anticipated Spider Man Across the Spider Verse dropped this week. Of course, loss of returning characters Miles Morales, his dad, his father, Jefferson Davis.
One of the most perplexing choices in.
Recent comics history done of course, Gwen Stacy, Peter Parker, et cetera. And lots of new characters appear in this trailer, just Spider Woman, the Vulture, various Spider Man variants. We get a Spider Punk, shots of fucking zig and it just man, it just seems extremely fun. I am of the opinion this is not a controversial opinion that into the Spider verses.
Like.
Top two comic book movies ever like it certainly want to maybe rejectively the best one.
Maybe everything everything else is like your own feelings, but it's definitely the best Spider Man movie. And I love that Tom Holland mcu Spider Man movies. I love Andrew Garfield, I love Toby, but that movie is unbelievable. I thought
this was so much fun. I love They managed to do this great job with the trailer where they ground it in this conversation that Miles is having with his mom Rio where she's kind of just like, I spent all my life just looking after you, and I don't want you to be in a situation where I'm not able to do that. And if I'm not doing it, then I need you to do it and to take on that responsibility. And they ground it with that human like love and heart, which was such a big part
of the movie. And then they're just like boom bombastic bag man, like, oh that's spider Man. May Day Parker by the way, Oh yes, so Peter B. Parker looks like he had a baby with Mary Jane. They revealed an image of the baby. We don't see it in the trailer. He's wearing the baby beyond, but it is made a Parker. But then there's also grown up may Day Parker. We see in this there's so many different people. They have the PS four Spider Man, they have like
silver Armor Spider. There's all different kinds of variants. It's real. Oh, we don't it's hard to see him in the trailer, but they released a really cool character design for Spider Man India, So there's a lot of characters here. And then we have Spider Man twenty ninety nine. And this is the biggest question of the movie is what is his role because in this and in the pre trailer, it looks like he is either an antagonist or a
straight up villain. And at the end it ends with I think it's Spider Gwen who says, oh, I thought it was supposed to be the good guys, and then he says we are. But he's like smashing miles his face into the ground. So it's unclear what kind of cataclysm and drama they're doing here. Also, so Jessica Drew Spider Woman here played voice by its Array and they did black Jessica Drew. I think that is going to be and I think Jessica Drew is going to be black in the MCU too.
I agree with you. I think I think that that is going to be the case. I'll say I'll go a little.
This, I'll go a little further on on this. I think that this animation style, I think you could make an entire like Marvel animated universe.
I agree, and.
Just do do do Avengers do West Coast Avengers, do x Men?
Like?
Do all do a whole universe of stories that's separated from the from the mcun like this, because I just think the animation startup is so engaging and exciting.
A long time ago, we'd said, maybe it was around the time of What If. I don't remember, but we were like, they should use Marvel animation to basically tell different famous comic book arts. Yeah, I would love to see that in the Sony studio space where you're reaching
literally no joke. I was on my Instagram the day the trailer came out, and like every cool artist that I followed was like, so proud this is out, so happy I got to do a bit of work on this, Like they bought like the best of the best illustrators, animators, everyone in to make this sequel, and I just feel like there's so much space. I mean, think about how
great Kingpin was in that first movie. Obviously, Miles is movie like it's it's all about Miles, but I think so much about the visualization of Kingpin and how terrifying he was and how interesting and how visually exciting, and I think I would love to see, you know, you could even do a Punisher movie like this. And I'm not someone who's out here always advocating for many Punisher stories,
but Punisher, that's a Spider Man villain. You know, that could be a really interesting space, and they do so much intriguing animation. I'd love to see them do Silk. You know, we know that Sony is now doing this Amazon deal where they're going to be making TV shows like Silk, and I would be really interested to see that.
I'm also very interested to know and to think about when the animated Miles and Miles's movies will inevitably spit a real live action Miles into the MCU, because it's just it's so it's gonna happen.
It has to happen, it feels and.
Here's my question, is it do they do it when Tom is like on his way out, Tom's gonna die, or you know, at the end of his contract. He doesn't want to do it anymore. Is that when they bring in Miles or is there a period of time where we get both of them?
I think it's so. It might just be my own Miles bias, right, but I believe that the way that they ended No Way Home, it essentially establishes a world where Miles can exist because Peter doesn't have any personal connections.
Now in the comics it's that Peter died inverted commerce whoever dies, but people thought Peter was dead in this the notion that Peter Parker doesn't exist, even though Spider Man as a figure does, that could inspire Miles to become a local Spider Man and then to have that duality.
So my fingers are crossed, and I think, you know, Spider Verse is really the most successful multiverse kind of accessible storytelling that we've had, So it makes sense that there could be a world where that multiverse spills into them see you. But I also think that Sony is probably keeping Miles Morales very close to their chest.
They're not going to give him yeah for nothing, that's going to be a negotiation. Looks so great if he does come in, wait if and when he does come into the live action world while Peter Parker is there. Man, think about how heart wrenching a death of Spider Man like an ultimate Spider Man end of Peter Parker's run.
How just like good punch level that would be exactly screen.
They're establishing so many of the character relationships that would need to be set up for that to happen in these Spider Verse movies. And my gut says that with the looming threat of DC attempting this kind of wildly ambitious James Gunpeter Saffran led animation TV film into Connected Universe in a more streamline way, because DC has been doing that for a while, but it's not been widely recognized.
I think that that pushes that likely pushes Marvel to wanna can in spite of us with the MCU in a more distinct way.
Yeah, up next, AI art. You may have noticed lots of people you follow on social media sharing various portraits of themselves that are done in this kind of like artistic way. Here they are in space, Here they are in a forest, Here they are is some kind of comic book warrior. This is probably the lensa AI app that allows people to create portraits of themselves according to whatever prompt the user might input into the user interface.
But this technology is raising a lot of red flags with artists, as in it rosie.
Yeah. So LENSA AI works on open source image the text model called stable Diffusion, and that is run by a non profit company and what it does is it scrapes are from the Internet without artists' consent to train the AI. Now that in itself is its own wider ethical issue. The problem that really upset people was lens is actually charging people for this, so it's no longer nonprofit.
And as many different people managed to source there was some really great kind of just like community journalism, where it became quite obvious that you could actually still see signatures in the corner of the art because the AI is trained off of people's artwork that had signatures, and for some artists it was very easy to see an image that somebody shared off LENSA that was clearly kind of what you would say, like biting their art style.
But in this it's less of a human choosing to plagiarize, and the nature of the way that the AI is being trained is on the art of others. So for a lot of cartoonists and the illustration community, this is
like a big kind of upset. Understandably so because a lot of conversations about the ethics of AI have been very widely agreed upon, and I think for a lot of people in the comic book community and the cartooning and illustration community, this felt like everyone was just like, oh wait, but I want to look see what I would look like as a call like Superhero, So I'm just gonna pay my eight dollars and put in my
ten photos. And then outside of that that, which is a huge part and is like the main issue that
a lot of people have had. My understanding is that the nature of the way that Stable Diffusion works and the company laio N who run this nonprofit your photos once they are in there, not only are we talking about a likeness rights which they will own and that is in the terms and conditions, and many people have done great reporting on that, but also they can then use your photos and will use your photos to try your AI to do stuff like facial recognition that can
then be used in like a surveillance state. So there's a lot of different layers to what to the problems with it and the different ways that it can be exploited, most of which has come from the fact that it's new technology and a lot of us don't really understand it.
I think that.
To your point, there's a lot of different implications of this is obviously kind of you know, not to overstate it, but AI in general is world changing technology that you know, change the way we generate ideas, change the way a.
Lot of people will work creatively.
And I think on the one hand, it's it's unstoppable in the sense that it's moving so fast that it's here and it's kind of not going anywhere. That said, because of the way it works and the stuff that it scrapes to build out how it works, it is
essentially at this point theft. You know, it's intellectual property theft. Now, I guess the people who are very pro AI would say, well, you know, we're working on safeguards and things like that, but it's also like, you know, this is moving so fast that it's kind of you can't really stop where this is going, and therefore, you know, it's better to you know, to support this kind of progress than worry too much about the various eggs that are going to
be broken, yeah, to which I would counter, you know, this is you know, artists are not the illustrators that we know are not like they're not raking it in an exactly.
I think this is the This is the bigger problem is that artists already, whether it's the artists who draw your favorite superhero comics or it's an artist who's trying to make their own independent work, they are already being exploited and undervalued. And the biggest problem with that approach to this is that it essentially erases all the work that has been done and the years of work the artists have done to even be able to train the AI in the first place, let alone just to learn
how to do art. And then I've been reading some really interesting, more kind of philosophical questions about it, which is kind of the notion of like what does art mean to you?
Like?
Is art just a series of photos or images that tell a story? And if so, then how does that change when it's AI or it's a human Because if a human is making that art, that art is a long ges stating result of their ideas and their experiences and their influences. And I'm not a verse. I'm very much like I think a lot about like I grew up on sci fi, right, so I have a lot of feelings about the nature of AI and the possibilities of sentient AI and the rights. Nobody is like AI
art is bad forever blanket banned bad. The problem is that right now, with stuff like LENSA, companies are profiting off art that is stolen from artists who didn't give their consent, and it's seeing kind of widely accepted as the norm, which makes it more easy for corporations and singular people to exploit artists. I saw multiple examples of some really. Some of the stuff that shocked me the most was after I'd learned about LENSA, which I was
down on from the beginning. Some I love creator rights, so I'd always felt suspicious about it. But some of the wildest stuff I saw was other artists who had had their art style directly stolen and fed into AI generators, and then had people sharing their art and winning comp petitions with their art and getting paid for the art that they just fed somebody else's art into the generator. And that's the other side of it, is it. It makes it a lot easier to plagiarize a specific art
style or to take work away from working artists. So it's it's really complex, and I feel like this is probably just the beginning of like a much bigger conversation.
Like this is before we even get into the questions of AI generated revenge porn, and also you can create propaganda using AI created art, whether or not the AI algorithm and the underlying mathematics and it were created with inherent biases.
You see the images, you see the examples. I think it was Megan Fox who had said it. I think Nissi Nash had sheared some, but there was The Guardian did a piece about where they put images of famous women men who had done historically notable things, and one of them was one of the ones that got spout was like Emilia earhartlight laying naked on a bed and Megan Fox all of her pictures were just all just the boobs. That was just all it was. Yeah, I mean, and they make people skinnier and life.
Before even before we even get to that like philosophical part of it.
It really what we're really dealing with.
Is uh a transfer of It's really a transfer of wealth from artists to capital because listen, art this is not in the short medium, and I would dare to say even the long term. This is not going to replace artists and real art at the top level. Like you know, this is not people aren't going to walk into a gallery and buy an AI generator or piece. Maybe they will, but very successful, well did they?
Or is that just a scam? Perfect? I so?
And at the same time, NFTs are basically digital versions of human created art anyway, But the way this will be applied is I am a movie studio. I don't
want I want to cut costs anywhere I can. Therefore, when I'm storyboarding out a script, rather than pay an illustrator, I will put my script into an AI, and that AI will create a storyboard that is using art styles and details scraped from actual artists, and I will create this product that will then help me create my other product, and that is one or two or a handful of illustrators that now don't have a job because I've cut that part out of it or storyboard yeah, or if
i'm you know, or if I'm like mocking up graphics for a book or for definitely or assigned for my bakery. You know, now, all of a sudden, you're transferring the monies that would have gone into the pocket of an actual human being, an illustrator, and you're moving it towards the technologists who have created this AI.
So should you should we be doing that?
Is a is a kind of basic question, I think is going to be the more everyday question that we have to grapple with before we start grappling with these kind of really big and obviously you know, super impactful questions about like, Okay, what if someone wants to create a picture of me committing a crime and then report me to the police, Or what if somebody wants to create uh, you know, completely realistic propaganda, or what if somebody wants to get back at their X and create
nudes of them? Like those are all issues that are going to get dealt with as well, and they're probably going to get dealt with at the governmental level because they're just salacious and huge. But stuff like what about the illustrator that lost a storyboarding gig because you know this and that company used an AI rather than them, Those are the things that we should be saying right now, because that's the that is an application that's going to happen like tomorrow, Yeah.
If it's already yeah, if it's not already happening in some studio. And the other thing is as well that So there's a there's a website coote that you can look at called have I Been Trained dot com and you can put in any image and see if it was used to train the AI stable diffusion or the different processes. The most interesting thing about it is that when people started to look into it, they also realized
that there was some unhinged things collected in there. And this is kind of the the problem that this massive data set that isn't necessarily regulated, you know, offers up.
Is there was a Twitter user called the pen who found that a bunch of before and after medical photos that she had had taken by a clinical physician had ended up on there, and then through that people started to realize that there were thousands of medical photos and all different kinds of things that had ended up on there that again really start to blur the lines of consent, because there's the consent of oh, you put yourselfie on Instagram and anyone can look at it and use it.
But then there's the consent of something that is private, like a medical image or a nude which other people found on there, and these are the things that are being used to train it. So it's just very messy.
And I think Jason, you made a really great point that really the most direct question to ask yourself is like would I rather give money to an independent artist or would I rather give money to somebody who is creating this tool that, as we said, has like multiple ethical questions surrounding it before we even just get to that baseline question of could I just pay an artist? And I will say, you can just pay an artist.
Guess what?
You can commission an artist? A lot of artists on Instagram will are open to commissions your favorite artists. You can pay someone like Jim Lee. He'll do a charity commission. It'll be ten thousand dollars. If you're wealthy, maybe you want a Gimley commission to someone who's doing a ten dollar commission of your favorite character for charity. There is every range. You can get. Portrait commissions like lens. A
lot of artists do those. I have had multiple portrait commissions done of me and people that I love, and it's a really great way to support art and you get something that's absolutely unique. So I think that's just the most important thing is to just say support artists. And at this point, I think that's the kind of the baseline of our response that we can have to this because it's incredibly complex, and like Jason said, it's not going anywhere, It's only gonna get more complex.
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Folks were stepping out of the airlock and into the mouth of a beautiful baby toulcun God. I love him so much for Avatar the Way of Water in theaters. Now, folks, Avatar Way of Water, the long, long, long awaited seql to two thousand and nine Avatar.
Let's do it.
A quick recap of Avatar Way of Water, which follows ten plus years do they I forget now we're just it's about ten years after after Jake and his Navvi allies have evicted humanity from Pandora. From the planet of Andorra, Jake and Tierri have family together, a growing family, and their family is, you know, at this point, like their eldest son is of warrior age, their youngest son is not quite there but clearly like the equivalent of a human teenager.
And then.
In that time they also have two daughters. When an adopted daughter, Kirie, who is the the the daughter of doctor Grace played by Sigourney Weaver in the first film, and has something of her personality still and her there's clearly some kind of like chosen one aspect.
It was essentially an immaculate conception from all that we know how Cirie was born of Grace's seemingly dead avatar.
But one day everything's beautiful on the on the beautiful topian planet of Pandora. But then one day the sky people aka the human beings come back. And then we fast forward another year and the sky people have basically brought Colonel Miles Quaritch, who is the antagonist from the first film played by Stephen Lang. The fucking ageless Stephen hes like he's seventy years old.
I believe, and he's He's in every action movie, every crazy horror movie. He's doing it all.
He's fucking it's it's truly insane. The first time I ever saw him was in a little, little remembered action movie called Band of the Hand from the eighties, which I don't know if anybody but me has ever seen, and it's basically about it's kind of like Miami Wece meets twenty one drum Street. There's like this cop who takes these teenage runaways and turns them into like a special like DEA like special forces fighting group anyway, and
Stephen Lang was their captain. So and the sky People return. Colonel Miles Quaritch is his His consciousness that you know, or at least the consciousness that existed before his death, is uploaded into a Navvy body grown from hybrid NOVI slash human DNA. He's leading a bunch of other similar Navvy marines and their mission is find Jake Sully, wipe him out, stop his insurgency by decapitating it in order
to save his people, the you know, spare them. The trouble and heartache of the attacks that are that they know are coming. Jake and Natiri decide to flee to the coast.
They go to the and there they are taken in by the reef.
People who not quite you know, kind of grudgingly like take them in. They learn new ways, They learn the way of water, much like the much like the title says, they learn about how important the toolcon are to the to the reef novve and this, you know, the toolcoon are like these uh, these whales, whale like creatures that are intensely smart and intensely emotional, and they go on
these long, long journeys throughout the ocean. But over time they come back and they return to the various villages to commune with the nave, who have an almost like familial kinship bond with individual toolcoon whales. And they come back and they'll tell each other stories about what's been going on with their lives. But unfortunately, the brain usee of these toolcoons is worth a lot of money. Unobtainium, which you might remember from the first movie that is no longer the mcguffin.
The new mcguffin. They don't care about.
That they don't even say it.
It's off. It's fucking off the board. The new thing is this, uh, this juice that is that is secreted in the Toolcoon's brain. Is this beautiful amber liquid that can only obviously only be harvested by brutally murdering these creatures.
Uh.
The juice is then harvested and is shipped to Earth, where apparently it just flat out stops human aging according to the men who harvest this this substance.
Yeah, we're getting into like deep seeding territory to the potential next three movies, because not only are we going to have an ageless elite thanks to the brain juices of the tolcoonuices of the tool pot, as Edie Falco's character, General Francis Ardmore says, wiping on optainium off the board as as super projuice. A soul hilariously just pointed out in the chat they obtained the unobtainium. They they obtained it. So she says, you know, we're not mining anymore, they're terrorforming.
They they want to make.
Cashed out.
Yeah, so they want That's going to be the long battle here is Pandora is being targeted as a place for them to bring the rich and the wealthy and probably the age list thanks to the brain juices, and that is probably seeding the next three potential movies.
So we're over in the coast, but eventually uh Querich in his navvy body manages to track the Jake to the coast.
Look, I know what I'm about to do it.
He is aided.
He is aided in.
This regard by his biological son, Spider, who human little human tarzan boy with dreads who was raised among the nove certainly seems to have something of a crush on Cirie, Jake and Nattiri's daughter, but is captured by Colonel Quaritch early on in the movie and then basically acts as a mostly unwilling but actually way way too willing betrayer of the nave Ways.
He teaches fucking Colonel.
Quarris how to bond with with the the flying creatures whose name I don't know. He's like translates for them when they raid various villages.
Looking people's houses down.
Yeah, And though he's like, no, you shouldn't be doing this, he's still fucking helping.
So fuck Spider anyway.
Fuck Spider anyway, Spider is helping them, and this eventually leads to to Quaritch getting the whaling fleet to target Toolcun not in the deep ocean, but right off the coast of inhabited nav coastline. Because the understanding is that because the Nave are you know, so emotionally bonded to these creatures, killing them is a kin to murder, this is going to cause a response and this will flush
Jake out. It works, so there is a big response the Nave uh you know, strike back against the whaling fleet. They're helped by a rogue toolcoun named Piacan who has been cast out of Toulcun society because uh, he they killed.
They think he killed a bunch of them, but actually they were hunted by right and so he to the brain juice and he defended them from the brain juice harvesters.
But even that is against is against the rules of the Toolcun, who only live in non violent piece yeah, absolute peace. So Pilecan is like, you know, fuck this shit and goes free Willy on the whaling vessel.
Like you know, whipping major jump literally like free Willy.
Uh.
And then uh, there's a big showdown with Sully and Tire and Quaritch, and eventually the Whalers and Quarach are driven off. Quarich survives thanks to Spider, who saves him from drowning.
But no reason anyone can understand apart from they need him to be in the next movie.
Again.
We will talk about this at depth after the recap, but once again, fuck Spider.
Uh.
And this leads to a narration.
From Jake in which he says, you know, my family is my greatest weakness, but it's also our greatest strength. And now I realize that this is our home. The entire planet is our home, and we need to defend our home.
Uh.
And that is setting up Avatar III, in which we would imagine Jake and his Nave forces wage complete war against the human colony on Pandora. Folks, let's talk about it. We saw it in three D, which I will say, and you mentioned.
It's the spring.
He is really great, Like, it's very amassive.
It was.
It was much more three D than the first one, which I agree a fan of.
And it's not just like dumb like, oh look now the arrow is coming pointing right at your face. You know it's it's stuff like, but they do, addam, they do have a little bit of that end, but it's not just like that wow kind of stuff of like Quartz's gun is pointing directly at you, or like the beak of his flying beast is like, you know, coming out of the screen.
It's more like as they're underwater.
That's really got me.
Yeah, you see these like motes of of of light and different substances.
Just y, Yeah, that's the coolest stuff, and it just it really feels like you're underwater.
It was really cool.
Yeah, that was that to me was my favorite new development in this movie. I am not the biggest original Avatar stan and I cannot say that this film has turned me into one, but I was very immersed in that spectacle and experience, especially for me the immersive three D. I really enjoy that experience and I'd love to see that, you know, in all different kinds of movies. So that that was a big selling point for me.
Rosie, do you think people need to see this movie that need to see the first Avatar before they see Avatar where you water?
You know what, I don't think it's a full necessity because I feel like the opening of the movie does a lot of heavy list lifting when it comes to introducing the characters, introducing the family, introducing Jake's j I would also say that this movie follows a lot of similar thematic beat says the first movie. So I think
that you can really understand the world of Avatar. But I will say that I do think that if you wanted to rewatch it and also see whether you were a fan, because I feel like this is very much like if you really like the first movie, you're probably gonna really like or love this movie. So it's also a good kind of watermark. But I don't necessarily think it's a necessity to see the first one before coming
into this. I do think that if you're gonna do it, probably watch the first one before you see this, because once you've watched this one, the graphics of the first one look very dated.
Oh yeah, yeah, very very vrritated.
I'll say this, I think, what's I think if you wanted to go back and just kind of refresher, you haven't seen the first Avatar, what you need to do is watch the first thirty minutes of the First Avatar because you need to understand how the Avatar technology works, Like.
What it is.
That's how Jake came to be in the Nave body, where the Navi bodies come from. And you know, there are various scenes like the torture of Spider that kind of like hinge on the audience's understanding of how the kind of like Avatar and the high technology of this of this you know, age of humanity's like ability to peer into the human brain, like how what they can
do with that technology. And so I think it's important to kind of like have that as like an understanding of the world and the kind of world building of it, how human race came to be on Pandora, how they get there, how far it is, why they're there. I think all that stuff happens basically in the first half hour forty five minutes of the three hour plus epic
of Avatar number one, two thousand and nine. You know Avatar, And if you didn't have three hours plus to carve out, then just watch the first thirty to forty five minutes of the first Avatar to kind of understand the reality of where we are and the rest of it. You'll understand, like there's a bad guy. It's basically dances with wolves in space only this time the indigenous win.
Yeah, it's very interesting. Let's talk about something because you say that, right, and that immediately makes me feel like, you know, we talked a lot about the way that and Or dealt with real life analogous storytelling that felt radical. But you made a really great point in the lead up to this episode about your reading of the accessibility of Avatar and could you speak a little bit to that.
Sure, Well, I just think James Cameron is a is truly a master filmmaker, a truly master storyteller in.
A medium that.
Is is basically like box office blockbuster, like that is his milieu. He understands how to create a story that crosses all kinds of national, ideological and political lines, to create a story that is accessible to the biggest possible audience ever. This is one of the what five movies this year the American films that's going to open in China?
Right, they think it's going to do two hundred million in China.
Why is that?
It's because he's able to gesture at all these different kinds of groups and concerns that different groups have about stories in this extremely fractured, you know, political era that we're living. In and create something like unified out of it, and there's something almost diabolical about it.
So this is what this is. This is what I mean.
On the one hand, like we live in an age in which I think people rightly and fairly are concerned about diversity, about depictions of diversity, and they want to see themselves reflected on screen. So here is a story about an indigenous people, right, an indigenous group.
Uh.
They're essentially underdogs at the same time, so that that gives you like entree and they don't look like us, right, they have different ways of being. They're very connected to nature in a way that feels like you know, uh uh and at times almost simplistic mapping of indigenous concerns and an indigenous character onto onto a sci fi character.
At the same time, this is a group that also reaches like a cross that has an appeal beyond that kind of you know, uh, a kind of narrow sliced appeal because they're a unified ethno religious group right there there, they have they and their religion is at the center
of their existence. So they're very religious, mono culture and they have very very traditional gender roles, like at one point Jake says, a father's role is to protect, you know, Like this film opens with Jake teaching Natayam, his oldest son, like how to fish, and meanwhile, it's like Natiri, his wife,
who's the bow and arrow is her thing? Like she is an absolute fucking artist with the bow and arrow, and that is in fact in this movie, that's like her calling card, Like Korrig is able to identify like her by her arrows.
But it's Jake.
Who's teaching the kids to hunt, not Natiri who's doing Natiri not to say that, but at the same time, she is a warrior. She is a fierce warrior by that same token, and we never we see her like preparing food in a very traditional kind of way, like in the huts, chopping up fish.
And preparing stuff for the family life, an act we never see Jake doing.
Right, So it's able to appeal to people who care about diversity and also people who are like, there's too much diversity in this world. It's able to open in China, right because who are the fucking bad.
Guys in this movie?
The American military, the American corporate and military interests are the bad guys in this film. Who are the and why can't it open in America? Also because who's the good guy in this film? An American soldier, a white guy. The greatest Nave in the history of NAVI is a white man named Jake. We love shit like that, and
so it's really interesting the way he is. He has like crafted this story that just has absolutely massive universal appeal, not just to people like who you know love movies quote unquote the way they used to be, but people who care about like uh about representation and things now, Like that is it's diabolical what he's done. It's really crazy what he's done it and it absolutely works, Like is there a cynical element to it?
Yeah? I think so, yes.
At the same time, like when Pyocan starts wrecking shop and hurling whalers like into the water and slapping them with his tail so that their bodies just like fucking go rag dolling across the deck and then the Nave show up and start spearing dudes like out of their quad copters. I'm like, fuck, yeah, kill them absolute, let's kill these fucking bastards, please, like kill them all.
I love it.
So this shit really works, like it's it's it's amazing and it's got and there's a through line with a lot of the stuff that James Karen has cared about for basically hisn entire filmmaking career, which is, you know, militarism, the the effects, the wide ranging effects of corporate power, the effects of capitalism outside of the view of the kind of.
The general public.
Like this is, it's always like what happens when a corporation goes to space with military power, What happens when a corporation, you know, is mining off world as in aliens. What happens when they're when they're placing colonies on another earth in another world? Excuse me, what happens when they're mining outside of the view of the press and stuff like that. This is like the kind of shit he cares about. What happens when when technology runs amok. This
is the stuff that James Karen cares about. And of course we all know he absolutely loves the oceans. This guy loves them, So it's how incredible what he has done here.
Yeah, I think that your point is so astute about that wide appeal. I think that's why for some people like myself, it's not always going to hit because that the vagaries or the the lack of making a solid commitment to a message or a story, you know. And I also something that I struggle with after watching last night that ABC twenty twenty special Avatar The Deep Dive about making this movie. I think that there is a very interesting conversation to be had by different people than me,
but I will be seeking it out. The way that the Navvy have always been very coded towards like different races, but then the people that are brought in to play the characters, like I was very surprised to find that Ranal, who is the wife of the you know, the Mechcane, the water People's leader. Again, she's the wife and he's the he's the husband and he's the leader. She's played by Kate Winslet, even though they're very obviously inspired visually
by the Maori and married communities. Now her husband is played by a married actor. But there's just some things like that for this and the kind of the choices that they make in representing this kind of alien indigenous community that just doesn't really sit for me. But I will say it does follow many of the traditions of things that we love about comic books. It is an analogous story. It's just now we're living in a great time.
Twenty twenty two has been an amazing year for indigenous entertainment made by Indigenous people, whether it's Spirit Rangers on Netflix or Prey or you Know Well, which wasn't made by an Indigenous person but had a lot of Indigenous people working on it, including the producer. Also you know obviously Reservation Dogs. Ye. So I think like that puts
it into a different light. I feel like this is still a very two thousand and nine story even in twenty twenty two, and I think that for me, shines through a little bit more narratively because of the other entertainment that we kind of get to imbibe in the stories that we get to experience. But it is a it's a wild spectacle and an absolute feat of kind of showing what you can do with CGI. I also like to think this movie took you know, like thirteen years to get made.
Yeah.
I like to think that it's like the I hope that this is not wrong and there won't be horror stories coming out, but I like to think that this is like the most sustainable CG heavy movie that's ever been made and that everyone who worked on it got like a long time to do all the effects and everything, because like that's the horrible thing about watching a Marvel movie or a DC movie, a Star Wars movie. You know, you hear all these horror stories about the incredible v
effects artists just being run into the ground. And I love the idea that James Cameron's just like chilling taking his time, giving everyone like a really good amount of time to walk on the movie. This seems like a very James Cameron move.
It really does.
This movie needs to make over a billion dollars just to like break even, So that's gonna be something to watch.
Yeah, COVID, how do you think that's going to go? Because we are in a different cinematicandscape.
I think this movie is gonna make I think it's gonna make billions of dollars. I think it's going to do it again because I think, you know, I was struck when I was doing my research for for rewatching Avatar ahead of watching Way of Water. How why again, how wide raging the peel of that movie was. There was like a story from two thousand and nine of these Palestinian protesters dressed up like they had painted their
bodies like nave. And again you have this story that appeals to people who feel on who feel like they fall on either side of the various conversations about imperialism and colonialism, like to name one of the of the many dualities that this movie manages to straddle. In this these two movies manages to straddle. It's it's honestly really crazy that he's managed to do this. And I feel the same way about you in terms of like the
the maor codedness. Obviously the first one, you know, when I was rewatching it the other night, it is like striking how how American indigenous coded. It is like it's not even you can't even see coded because it basically is like from the war yelps to the casting of West Study to you know, like this is what it is, you.
Know, the strange like the one thing that I think I saw some reviewers kind of astutely point this out, but like the costume designs, they lean into this strange sexualization of the characters even and that I think is something that feels more in line of the outdated kind of coding of how how those characters were often portrayed. So it's those little things that I think. But you know what if it if it gets people to feel a little bit more thoughtful about this stuff, that's always a good thing.
Now I will say that I think I liked it. Clearly I liked it more than you. I had a good time because you know, I for me, it's like the story is whatever. I feel the same way about the First Avatar. It's like that movie opens up and half an hour into it, it's like, Okay, I understand what's happening here. Yeah, it's such This is not a subtle movie. And it's the same thing with Way of Water.
You know, this is not a movie where you know, you get to the end of act two and you can feel the story mechanisms working adequately so that like the villains, you hate them more to you know, like more than anything else in the world, and you want the heroes to just like whoop their asses, and you understand that this movie is going to give it to you. There's never a moment where you're like, this movie is not going to give me that hero is kicking the villain's assets moment.
So I enjoyed it for the spectacle.
And because there's almost something again mathematical archetetical about and about the amount of kind of thought that Cameron has put into crafting a story that you know, super producer Sol and I were talking about like tropes of sci fi and how many various tropes and of sci fi and storytelling were at large that the Avatar series uses.
That it's really beyond tropes the way the way this story and Cameron is able to take themes and things that different groups care care about and kind of like boil them down into the most universal like ideals that people hold, like it's important to protect the family, and that your land is worth defending, that people should have a connection to their community, that religion is important and is worth respecting. That you know, unchecked consumerism that destroys cultures.
Is bad, you know.
And at the same time, there are a lot of things here like I'm interested to see what the response from the Marory communities, Like, there are a lot of things here where I'm like, gosh, I wonder how people are going to feel and talk about this, because again.
I'm interested to see that.
And it feels like the most consciously apolitical movie that we've seen, certainly in a long time.
Now.
The other thing that I do like about.
This movie, actually love about this movie is that we haven't had a smoke a big joint and just like sit back movie to watch the movie, I haven't we have not had one of those in a long time, Like you know the MCU movies. You kind of have to understand what happened in like thirty three other films. Uh, there hasn't been like an epic, just like Get Baked and enjoy the visuals movie in a long time. And
in that sense, I actually quite liked Avatar. And again when the nove in the third act start striking back, the story mechanisms absolutely worked on me, and I was like, yes, show me in slow mo, you know, sixty frames a second detail. Show me a novey grab a guy by the head and throw them.
Off the ship into the water.
Show me show me a nove hitting them in the face with their bows.
Shood chopped off in three D and coming towards you into the light.
Show me PIU can like fucking bouncing a explosive harpoon off his metal skulp plate. So that was pretty badass. So that it hits another boat and those soldiers.
Go flying like that part of it was really cool.
But I will again, there's a level, there's a way to look at the way this entire story is structured and fuel like there's just like a lot of cynicism here.
I I'm very the funniest thing is right. I think talking to you about it as always has enlightened me. I think I think the major reason, one of the major reasons that I didn't love the first one, and I still have not been fully converted, though I did enjoy this one more with the visuals. You know, I really I do not enjoy war movies. They are not
something I've ever particularly enjoyed. There's obviously exceptions of movies that are like masterpieces, like all Quite on the Western Front and Come See and stuff like that, but like generally a militarized movie about like giant people there then they're shoot Well, if it was giants, that would be cool, but like big guys and they got guns and they're killing a bunch of people. That's never appealed to me. And those were actually the moments, the militarization aspects, even
though they are portrayed negatively. And I do love to see American very negative negatively that to me, the stuff where I'd feel myself really getting immersed is like swimming under the water and seeing some cool creatures, and then as soon as it got back to the like violence and the military and stuff, that's kind of where I would lose my immersion in the movie and my kind of enjoyment. So I think that's it is in some ways,
and this is the nature of the movie. It's a war movie, it's an anti war movie, but through the lens of here are the horrors of war, and in this case that is not necessarily what I'm looking for. In a way, I kind of like the more the aspects of it where it feels more like Europe. I used to go to the Imax a lot when I
was a kid in London. They have a big Imax there there that for a long time was the biggest one in the world, and you could go and pay like five or six dollars and see a twenty five minute to forty five minute long movie that was made specifically to show off the Imax, and it would be I saw ones about like the X Games, I saw ones about dinosaurs, I saw one about under the sea, and there was a lot of moments in this where I was just like, I just wanted to lose myself
in that huge spectacle of the vibe and experience a different world. And this does deliver that at certain points, but there's just things that were kind of taking me out of it. And I think it's that aspect of a story about war. I've always found that hard to connect with, even you know, throughout my life as a
film lover. So yeah, I think it is. It's a very interesting conversation piece, and I think the conversations about it will be far more complex and long running than the kind of meme of the original Avatar, which was kind of like, oh, it's forgettable, even though it's the biggest movie in the world. This feels like there's going to be a lot more kind of in depth conversation had about it.
Let's talk about Spider, So Spider, we must talk about Spider. So Spider again, the son, the biological son of Colonel Quaritch. He's raised on Pandora. He is both part of their world and not part of their world. He puts on blue body paint in a way that feels, you know, both you know, a nod and a kind of there's some you know, like a nod to the culture that he is immersed in, but also feels like weirdly, it just feels weird that.
He's like doing that.
Yeah, and Quarch captures him, uh, and then he is tortured, which is awful, but then kind of bonds with his father in an interesting.
Way even though so so we just need to say, like James Cameron in avatat too way of what goes out of his way many times to say he is not technically the biological son of this Quaritch, because this Quoritch is like a random avatar. He is the biological son of the other Quoritch who all of his brain matta memories and on a USB drive went into the avatar.
So they do have a connection, but they don't, and they play on that a lot to kind of do this like moral gray area where or like will they look after each other will they not?
And they do obviously, And so Spider really becomes Quaritch is begrudging at times but really right hand person, like he helps with translations, He teaches them how to bond with animals using their braids, and in a moment that I think actually burns the character because all throughout Spider you can tell is empathizing with the various you know Nave who are being brutalized by these bi quartchs military
forces and they're search for Jake. He he stops at various times his father from just like flat out murdering the Navi, like just to find Jake and to like send a message. But after the kind of like climactic battle between Jake and Quorich under the water where Jake chokes out Corrich, Spider, who is who has entered the wreck of this whaling vessel, sees his you know father and Nave form there drowning and decides, fuck it, I'm
gonna save him. And it's a weird moment because on the one hand, this story is like wants you to feel for Spider as a as a as a being without a home, without a father. Yeah, his only father figure is not his father. He feels more at home amongst an alien species who don't who are very very kind and accepting to him as a family. They don't fully embrace him, right, They're never mean to him in anybody.
Is cold, but the kids see him as a sibling. But really it's only Carrie.
Who truly embraces him, right, and for him to save the life of their tormentor for reasons.
It just has to be narrative reasons.
That's that, yes, But sure, I mean, like obviously it's because no, because there isn't even the narrative reason.
Like because they want him to be in the movie next time.
But that doesn't even that doesn't even make sense because they've already established at the beginning of this movie that death doesn't matter. Just upload another fucking version of that saved on the hard drive into another Navvy body and be done with it.
No, you don't need.
Him, he can't die.
I really felt that choice, which is hilarious because like Spider, I mean, to me, that's a classic, like it's almost become a trope that like young sidekick, human sidekick that kind of annoys people. But the funny thing is the moment that I found most powerful in this whole film, in its message about family, was when Spider turned up. He's at the end of the movie, he's on the ship.
He's obviously binning hooots with Quorich and everything, But the moment he sees his you know, his Navy siblings, the people who he's been raised with. He wants to help them. He helps them, and not for a single second to any of them question why he was with them, judge him. They're just like, we're happy you're here. You're making the
right choice right now, and that's all that matters. I thought that was such an empathetic, interesting, compassionate choice, and I was so deeply bummed to see that final choice, which sells out the character. But also, just like you said, it doesn't really make sense. Just upload a new one, make a new Super Super Navy or something, Which is.
Why I feel like the I think the way the movie is going, or the series is going, is that eventually Spider is going to be you know, Originally, the reason they create these avatars is to, you know, to send humans into Navi society so that they could learn for them and hopefully find a diplomatic solution to the fact that the human race needs on obtaining them and various other resources from Pandora and the Navy, you know, are rightly and fairly and justly and brutally defending their homeland.
So how do we come to an agreement on this? And then eventually Quartz is like, Okay, Jake, you're going to go in. You're going to learn from the enemy. You're going to learn their way so that we can more effectively destroy them from within. I think, if I'm right, I think that's what Spider is being set up to do. Spider, they are going to, like Quarch, eventually they're going to move him aside and the true villain.
I hope this is what they're doing.
This is actually what I hope that they're doing, and that eventually Spider becomes that dagger pointed directly at the heart of the novey. Who understands their ways, who is raised amongst them, let's really speak their language perfectly, who understands the way they think, the way their cultures work, the things they care about. And it's eventually in the further movie, in the you know, the later sequels, Spider, who is going to be the uber weapon of humanity
that Jake never was, that Jake rejected. That's the only way this makes sense to me.
I think that makes a lot of sense, especially there would be a lot of good, sad kind of irony in Spider in the fourth or fifth movie getting to become Novvey and using an avatar himself and being able to achieve the one thing that he'd always wanted to achieve, but in a space where he's using it to destroy them also makes a lot of sense on a narrative level if we think about the fact that him and k have this deep connection, and something this movie clearly
sets up is it's almost implied that Kiri is sort of the daughter of Pandora. Kiri is partially made of Pandora. Kiri Knight.
She has a connection with the planet and the planets like bio consciousness.
That is, she's.
Able to command, She's able to command the plant life and the and the and the animal.
Life to attack, uh.
Like the human naval forces in a way that is clearly superhuman super navy.
Yeah, and super navy. I like that, Yeah, And I think it would make a lot of sense because then you can have the inevitable conflict between Spider and Kirie. But the real truth is that then Spider would likely come in the final moments, would make the right decision because Kurrie is the person that he was connected with.
Now, if that is the case, if if they are setting up Spider to eventually be like the Uber villain of this series. I actually think, now this is a really interesting Now I'm really interested in this.
Now I'm like, wait a.
Minute, because I think the implications of him saving him beyond the plot, because again I think it doesn't matter for the plot.
Because because I like your point the us upload, I.
Think the implications are really interesting because like what happens when Spider tells them.
I'm assuming he doesn't tell them that's right, and then that becomes the third movie is really about the conflict of them finding out and Korwich being an active player, or you have a kind of situation where Quorich is still injured and in the forest and Spider is secretly helping keeping him alive while they do this kind of greater battle against the sky people.
I hope that that that that is the case, because this conversation reminds me a little bit of the the Iniatu movie The Revenant starring Leo, which which is a movie that I enjoyed for the spectacle, but also kind of disagreed with in the sense that you know, there's
Leo's character. The movie didn't seem to understand that Leo's character, while a hero, in the course of the story is also like the vanguard of this European invasion that is like pressing its way into the heart of the indigenous lands. Like the fact that he is out there like looking for furs, and yes, he has a mohawk wife, But the fact that he is out there leading people deeper and deeper and deeper into this territory, albeitly in a peaceful way, is like forging the path for the conflict
that is coming. And in that sense, like Jake and then Spider after him, make you grapple with the question of is there any way for a technologically advanced society to interact with with a less technologically advanced society in a way that is at all equitable? Like is there any way that those two groups can come to an understanding based on the values, knowledge, and material culture that they both have. And in that sense, like again, if
Spider is the villain, that's interesting. If it's just like a weird thing to keep the plot going, then I think this is terrible, But I'd be fascinated to see what happens when Jake and his family find out that fucking Spider. Yeah, they have been nothing but great too, nothing but wonderful.
Love understand.
They fucking raise this kid. They let him hang out with them, pull on their tails. He hisses like a novvey when he's threatened. When they find out that he saved the life of their greatest tormentor, I wonder what their reaction will be, I.
Really do, And we will get to find that out. Because Avata three yet untitled that we can probably guess it might have something to do with you know, fire or win this point fire, Yeah, you know exactly. You know those are all great, but we Avatar three was actually filmed alongside this. So whatever happens, however this Avatar performs in this post COVID landscape, Avatar three will come out, so we will find that the question is whether it will perform well enough for Avatar four and five to
be made. So whatever happens, we'll find out what happens in the third movie. And James Cameron, as he always is in his fox jacket, had a very cool, chill viewpoint on it on the special I watched where he was kind of like, audiences have changed, things that people like have changed. Let's just see how it goes. I hope people connect with it, and if they don't, that's also okay, and he's.
Like, this guy is so fucking rich.
He's created, he has created, like with Titanic and Avatar. He is twice directed, the biggest ever in.
Terminated Too, was like the most expensive movie ever made when it came out. And I will just say Spider does fit into in my opinion, he is the worst version of but look Aliens, now, James Cameron put a kid in there and they'll.
Ragtag kid who needs to see also had made.
He's the best version of that character in my book, John Connor in Terminator Too. If you're making a James Cameron sequel, you've got to have a small child. Sadly, Spider, he's low on the ranking for me of the James Cameron small child sequel trope. But yeah, I'll be very interested. I really like that. It's so funny how I never really thought I never really been like getting deep into like Avatar theories.
You know.
My theory is very much in the in the comic book movie and action movie kind of franchise horror space. But I'm very invested in your Avatar theory. I think if that's the way they're leading, that could go somewhere pretty interesting.
Yeah, I think that that's when you know this story has been Again, it's pretty basic. It's all about the spectacle, like if you're looking like, oh my god, well, I'd be spoiled blusb to warn about it. But if they go in that direction, if they go in that direction, I actually think, you know, the questions about like how again, how you how I technologically advanced culture can interact with a with a more you know, with a more naturalistic culture,
I think is a really interesting one. And if they explore that via Spider, who I think is terrible and maybe.
That's pretty interesting. I'll be interesting to see what happens. A big thank you.
To Rosie Knight for joining us on X ray Vision. Rosie plug stuff plug Plug Plug plug Plug.
It's me.
Uh. You can read my writing at noticed iegen Den of Geek, all those cool places Polygon. We just had our big comic books Best comic books of the Year. I w was shouting out some of my faves. That Wash Day Diaries such a great comic. Also, my aunt is the Monster Ths too, of my favorite this year. You can find me on lab box, at Instagram at Rosy Marx and.
Here catch the next episode in December twenty third. That's gonna be our live panel taped at La Comic Con from a few weeks ago. We will be taking the last week of December in the first week of January off and we hope that you're able to do the same.
Our first episode of twenty twenty three will be Wednesday, January eleventh, and then, folks, are you sitting down, We're gonna be doing two episodes a week starting then for the rest of time, we're just gonna be doing them two a week, So get ready for more X ray Vision than your ears can possibly hold. This means episodes of Extra Vision every Wednesday and Friday starting January eleventh,
twenty twenty three. Don't forget Subscribe to the show on YouTube, follow at xer vpod on Twitter and hopefully somewhere else soon and check out the discord where you can hang out with lots of other amazing fans of X ray Vision plus Rosie and I five star ratings, five star reviews. We love them. We gotta have them, we need them. It's like the whale brain juice. We need them to stop our aging. Here's one from Egypt Brown Essential Listening.
Rosie and Jason have quickly become one of my favorite podcasts. The pair not just knowledgeable, but funny as heck too.
Thank you, Thank you, We Travis, We try our best.
X ray Vision is a Crooked Media production. The show is produced by Chris Lord and Soul Rubin. The show is executive produced by myself and Sandy's Rhard Are editing and sound design Who's by Vascillis Patopoulos, Dilon Villanueva and Matt De Group provide video production support. Alex Reller for Handle Social Media. Thank you Brian Vasquez for O theme music. See you next time, folks,