Film Corner - Avatar: Fire And Ash

[BELL RINGING] Code blue. Code blue. It is a fifth Wednesday. We know that. The one thing we've always said is we would never put out an episode on a fifth Wednesday. That's still a chance. It's true. We're sure. We're sure we don't do that. And this isn't an episode. No, this is an emergency. It's sure it looks like it might be an episode. But A, it's an emergency and B, it's-- we're taking a journey into the realms of extreme fantasy. And in a way, it's appropriate, isn't it? Because we've swore to our forefathers and our forefathers is forefathers that we would never, ever transmit on a fifth Wednesday, haven't we? Because the earth mother-- Contanto-- herself-- has said it must not be so. [NON-ENGLISH SPEECH] So if anything, this is the exception that proves the rule. And anyway, there is no such thing as Wednesday on planet. [NON-ENGLISH SPEECH] Yes, because James Cameron, without anyone noticing, has snuck out another Avatar movie and we need to review it. So this is a special episode of our normally patron-only film corner. We're going to be talking about Avatar 3, Fire and Dash. Enjoy. Brace his elves. [MUSIC PLAYING] This is an emergency. This is an emergency. [MUSIC PLAYING] Please go to the muster point. Please go to the muster point. Wear upon, please, master. Please do not go to the muster point. We don't want to repeat it last year's day, Barcl. You must, master. Postage? You've never genuinely gone to a muster point. Have you? Like, that isn't as part of a drill. How I see. Oh, I have. Have you? Yeah. But quick, two-- two, two, two, two. Two, two, quickly. Ben, all you're saying there is you've never been involved in a maritime disaster, which isn't an amazing bit of news. But my CAS, which isn't a matter of-- also, but secondarily, what we're letting is that my CAS has been involved in a maritime disaster, which is fucking incredible. Contribute is a several years. So normally you're not on the muster side of it. You're more at the kind of-- Musterification, provocation. Yeah, you're in musterification provocation. Yeah. I say, tell us more. Well, I've mastered on dry land. I think you can muster on dry land. How can you? Where have you mustered? I think the closer I came to a real proper muster was when I was in hospital accommodation. This is in a former life, living in a sort of shared flat area, quite high up in this block. And there was a guy who was trying to do some deep frying, just with a huge amount of oil in a pan, who was also on his phone to his mother, who was a few thousand miles away. And then I came out my room. I was worried there was a very thick sort of smoke against the ceiling sort of everywhere in the shared area. So I went in to see what was going on. And just smoke was pouring out. There was no flame. And this guy kind of came in at the same time as I called. Oh dear. And there was a bit of a panic. But then he then made the move of-- instead of turning off the heat and covering it, he sort of panicked and sort of pushed the oil across the stove, thus allowing the oil to mix with air and creating a fireball, which did nothing for his level of panic and then off when the fire alarms. So did he push the oil across the hobbaz if he was planning a military campaign like with a little stick? Yeah, exactly. But with his hand and with none of the gravitas of an Napoleon, but with all the confidence of Napoleon, the misplaced confidence of Napoleon pushing his armies into Moscow. Exactly. So fireball, big ol' fireball, and the fire alarm had been clearly taken its time off until that point, because it hadn't gone off even though the entire shared living space was filled with thick, thick smoke. But then it decided it would go off. We managed to stop the fire before there was a fire. But we did think we should probably leave, because the fire alarm has genuinely gone off. And which probably shouldn't just wait here. But even in that situation, it shows how sort of guinea pig-like and sort of rat-like in a way, the human brainers, isn't it? Which is even in the situation where you've seen a man create a fireball out of fat fire, even then, it's only when the alarm goes off to confirm that there's a problem. The group psychology is happy to make a decision in the-- Yeah, we're here. I've got a problem here, isn't it? Yeah. You know what? I've just had a memory come back to me. When I was at university, I'm pretty sure that there was a-- someone on you was living in quite a multi-story building and they had a little kitchen right at the top of it. There was some utterly absurd looking Heath Robinson device that you were supposed to use in the event of a fire. But I think you had to harness yourself onto a sort of long-thin blanket and sort of hurly yourself out of the window. [LAUGHTER] Genuinely, it was like a mad series of steps you were supposed to have. Well, what do you do? Do not land on the grass. For God's sake, don't land. If you land, that's your decision. It's not our problem. It's not the problem of the university. Yeah, we've covered the first bit. We've covered the ejection. We'll get you down there. What you're doing the last couple of inches between landing and not landing on the surface of you. Our response was the ends, three inches above the soil. [LAUGHTER] But I think it was one of those things where you could tell it had been in-- this was pre-health and safety-- Gone mad here, I think. So I think you could tell that there was some basic-- What a peak Victorian invention. It was peak Victorian. He's from some Ruben Goldberg style. Yeah. And it was peak very much the idea of the Renaissance man. The idea that a man could be a great water colorist and also design fire escapes for students. It was actually a utopian thing. For airborne students. It was based on the early Leonardo da Vinci Cuxscrew helicopter, wasn't it? That's right. And so you could tell that this thing had been installed. It was never going to work. It was a mad idea. But it was also very unlikely to create a muster situation, isn't it? Even if you've got corresponding contraptions in adjoining rooms, they're not going to be firing to the same muster point. There's no way. It's going to be very much scattergum. I mean, I think every individual student was going to be scattered about over 12, 12 to 15 muster points. Yeah. And some deeper into the flames, presumably. And some right back into the flames. But you could tell it it was that it ticked a certain set of boxes that were enough for someone to go and go, "Yeah, that's all right, Mike. Check." On a clipboard. Do I regret the way I've characterized that person? Looking back, yes. [LAUGHTER] Too late now. But you could tell it was like a multi-sthor thing. So we need a contraption. And it was like a-- I think you had to sort of use-- you had to create a papiomashade chair out of napkins. And set in it. Then place your head into the into the into the scooped out safety watermelon. [LAUGHTER] Yep. And then trust in some sort of 18th century guano-derived pseudo-elastic to propel you through the windows. So this is an emergency episode. But it's not because of a fire or any kind of disaster like that. But it's a disaster in its own way. It's a cultural explosion. Fire is related. Fire is related indeed. Because David Cameron, former British Prime Minister-- Has done it again. He's done it again. He's done it again. And he's released the third installment of his memoir in film. That's right. There was a new avatar film. It was called Avatar Fire and Ash. This is probably something like that. Yeah. It really snuck out. Like I didn't realize it was coming out until it was out almost. And then I think I'd text you both. And I was like, there's a new avatar. Yeah, no, I had an idea. And I was discussing this as my sister, who's also completely unaware. And I thought, yeah, I just kind of thought-- we were discussing it's crazy that it's under the radar in any way, shape or form. It should be all anyone's talking about. Or maybe we're just three people where our fingers are so far from the polls. It could be. If you just often spend that much money, you would want people to come and see it. There weren't many people in the cinema when I went to see it. I mean, it wasn't a maternity. But it was also the day of release. And it was also a day when a lot of schools broke up. So it should have been-- It should have been Rambo Jamboad. Well, because in terms of Ben, you said about fast-forward fingers not being on the polls. I've shown a worker, is this the poll? Because actually, is this the polls? This film or not? Like, what's going on in relation to the polls and this film? I think James Cameron must think it is the poll. He must think it's the polls. But he's a boomer. Isn't he? He's a serious boomer. But this is the avatar enigma. What's the word? The avatar paradox, right? Which is that they are in pure money terms and numbers terms, the biggest films of all time. Right. Like, they've made more money than any other movie franchise. In profit, is that? Or in terms of-- In profit, yeah. Yeah, yeah. They've just made so much money. And so many people have seen them. OK. But they've had no impact on the general culture whatsoever. So no one ever references them, no one mentions them. You never see a kid with an avatar t-shirt on. They have turned a healthy profit there, never the years. I think it's the biggest selling film of all time, isn't it? It's really. Let me look it up. Because he's definitely had his finger on the past in the past. I mean, he's absolutely nailed it to be fair to him in the past. He's made amazing films. OK. So the highest grossing film of all time-- Yeah. --is Avatar. The highest grossing. He made $2.9 billion. I was like, you know what? That's maybe, maybe, off fingers. I'm quite a jack straight into the mainframe of the pulse. So I thought I was basically giving the pulse. - A lot of prostate exam. - You've taken the wrong pulse. You've basically taken the wrong, you've taken your own pulse. You put your thumb up your own ass. - I thought it was the pulse. - It's all your pulse. - It's your own pulse in your ass. - Avengers End Game is the second highest-grossing film and then the third highest-grossing film of all time is Avatar The Way of Water. - What? - Then the fourth high-ranking film is Titanic. - It's with the Titanic. - It's with the Titanic, the bottom of the book. (laughing) - It's Titanic, so he's got three out of the top four. Okay, so what, okay, okay. What the f***? - Okay, so that's a good, that's a useful caveat from the get-go, isn't it? 'Cause it suggests that, 'cause I feel I'm already sensing that we maybe are on the same side of the fence of this film, we've not discussed it yet. But it feels like we might be wrong in some way. And that the audience, whoever is listening, dear list, I understand that the market appears to potentially disagree with us. Yeah, make of that what you will. - Yeah. - But the market also really likes war, so the market can get stuff to think. - Oh, Mike. - Oh. - Mike showing his cards. - For the first time. - Yeah. - Oh. - Hello. - He thinks the capitalism leads to war. (laughing) - In my trust. - I think Hot Take is just saying he's not actually that pro-war as a conflict. (laughing) - Unless it's La Revolución. Oh my god, he's a traitor. - Oh, what are we gonna do? I've got a dangerous traitor when I'm pissed. I think he meant La Sexy Revolución. (laughing) - I'm bringing short shorts back. - It's like the short shorts back. - That's what I mean. (laughing) - Mike is from now on, you're only gonna wear those shorts, where the pockets are longer than the shorts. (laughing) - Let's stick out under the shorts. But once you see that little pocket sticking up below the shorts, you don't even need to check for the ball bag. (laughing) - Exactly where it's gonna be. - Or I'll phone in that one. (laughing) - And that ball bag's gonna be winking at you, isn't it? (laughing) - Okay, come on. - Do you agree with me though, that it's had no cultural impact? Like, you never see a kid wearing an avatar t-shirt. - So yeah. - Is that how you measure cultural impact? Is the t-shirt? - Yeah. - Yeah. - It's not affected the fashions. - Yes, that's true. There aren't people who are going out in sort of leads on a Friday night dressed. I don't know, dressed as whatever they are. - Like, if you went out on leads, I don't know what to make leads on a Friday night. We're recording this before Christmas. You'd see someone dressed in a Christmas stormtrooper outfit of some sort. - Yes. - Absolutely. - Do you mean stormtrooper from Star Wars? - Yeah. - See us. (laughing) - No, the stormtrooper from Manon Desource. - Yeah. - Okay. - Yeah. - But avatar hasn't done that. - Oh, I see. Okay, so you mean, it hasn't had like, of other movies like Star Wars. - Yeah, there'll be a sexy Chewbacca Halloween. Halloween, for example. It can be anything, but it's never, ever, ever, anyone from the Danah-Ruffee or whatever. - Yes. 'Cause there aren't any great characters in it. - No. - Other, I mean, that's one of the problems. - But why is it, what is going on then with these films being so massively high-grossing, they didn't seem to have a cultural cut through. No one talks about them, there's no t-shirts. You go out again, we said again, leads. (laughing) - Leads on a third. - Some of them lead just gotta get in touch with us. 'Cause we have spent some time there recently, but we don't have enough answers. - We did two tour dates and leads. We didn't see a single person dressed as the Navi in a couple of dudes. - No. - Or any of those weird talking whales. Or any of those luminescent squids. (laughing) - Is it just that so many people are going to see it then because we feel we should? Is it actually reassuring about mankind that we feel they've got such an effort? - It is that, so much money. We can't knock it. It's like someone who's made a basket cheesecake, they've made it fresh, so we have to. We've said we'd go. It'd be very, very rude. But how would you say we've got a flu? They'll know we haven't got flu. But it's a basket, again, it's a basket. - Cheesecakes. - It's hard to get right. - It doesn't have the biscuit base. So you're gonna, it's not, it's gonna be shit. - It's gonna be shit. - It's not pointing to really dry around the edge. - You want the biscuit base, that's why you like cheesecake. It's basically, it's a, it's a permissible, it's a, it's a, it's a, it's a bit of cream on top. - It can't put cream on top of a biscuit. You know how to do this. - It's cocculous. - Finally got permission to put cream on a biscuit. (laughing) - And eat it in a, no, pudding. (laughing) With, with people, you can look people in the eye. - With a cream. - You can look, you can, you can, you can be looking at your brother and Lauren the eye. - And eating a biscuit covered in cream with cutlery. - It's, yeah. (laughing) - It's a bit like you're playing not to turn up and then you, not to turn up and then you get a text message saying that Chloe's really looking forward to playing her flute for everyone. - Right, yeah, yeah, yeah. Which is making it worse, but again, you can't, you can't, you can't, you just, yeah. - Well, no, I'm sorry, we're all going. - Yeah. - I'm sorry. - Yeah. - Get in the car. (laughing) - I mean, that should be the slogan of all we have at our film, "Doesn't it get in the car?" (laughing) James has worked very hard on this. - That's worked so hard on this. - This means a lot, look, it's not about, why does everything have to be about you? This isn't about you, okay? It's not about you, it's about James. (laughing) That's what it should say on the post as well. - It's not about you, it's about James. - Get in the car. - Because basically for reasons that no one understands, he has stopped making all of the films and instead has just made Avocel films now for 15 years. - Yeah. - And no one really knows why he's done that. He's so successful. Like his, his back catalog is just, most people would chew their arm off if he were involved in filmmaking for that. - Yeah. - And he's got the timing, he doesn't have any of the usual forces that keep the rest of us in check. - Oh yeah. - Of like money, time management, God take the dog for a walk. He's able, he's got unlimited time, there's no constraints, non-stopping him. We need that in society. Otherwise people keep making Avocel films. - Yeah, yeah. It's too much power, you're right, it's too much power to one person. It's that thing people talk about, isn't it? They say, sometimes they say, oh, you know, this director or whatever, did their best work when they had more constraints on them? - Yeah. - So earlier on in their careers and then when they're less and less constraints. - You didn't have to think about who's watching it. - You didn't have to think about anything. - No. - You just have to have, he's just having a lovely time in some sort of strange film lab during, during a usually large blue people, some with quite wide arms. - Are we imagining that when he was making the original Terminator film, and he's there with Arnie and Arnie's on a motorbike and stuff, he's thinking, I mean, this is fine, but I wish he was a blue alien who lived in a, oh, he's doodling, oh, he's doodling. When Arnie's gone off for his lunch, he's doodling his little notebooks full of little blue. - And you know, it's still his blue crayon at your peril. (laughing) That's the one time James Cameron is going to be chewing out a member of the screw 'cause if his blue crayon's gone missing. - So he gets through blue crayons. It would have been noticed at the time. He's just getting through the blues. All the others are getting discarded. Your beiges, your yellows. I could keep going, your pinks. (laughing) I could keep going, your greens. They're getting discarded. - He's just, he's absolutely, - Yeah, there's a great parliament. - The thought well, there's a passenger seat of his car. Just, yeah. - Yeah. - I mean, it's open the packet, tears out the blue, chucks the rest of them down on the floor. - He, also, at that time, when he was making the Terminator films, I reckon he would have occasioned, he'd been looking at the distance and in his ears he'd been hearing. (singing in foreign language) - Yeah. - Hummer, hey, hey, hey. - At that time, if you heard Hammer Howe then you were probably watching something that was, it was felt that the time was pretty worthy. - Yeah. - Yeah. Either worthy or very, very exciting. 'Cause Hammer Howe, the Hammer Howe, I mean, it's been an absolutely cracking 15 years for the Hammer Howe lady. - Oh yeah. - Oh yeah. I mean, she's bought a massive hammer and a huge replica of a pile of Hey. - It doesn't show. - Doesn't show. - And she's caught and suspended every time. - It's in the end of a front drive, yeah. - It's in the end of a front drive. - 'Cause she said to people, "Hammah, hey, paid for this house." (laughing) And they say, "Did you bring me all the way here just to say that?" (laughing) For this weak visual pun. (laughing) And then she says, "Look, come in. "Come into the house, have a drink. "Do you want a sandwich?" And they go, "Yeah, okay." "Can I have ham or hay?" (laughing) And they go, "Is that, was this whole thing "to do a second week?" - Yeah, food pun. - Yeah. - So much work has gone into these puns. - And eventually someone says, "Do you know what?" "I'll have the hay sandwich, actually." - Yeah. - "Yeah, I'll have the bluff." - Yeah, I'll have the hay sandwich. - Yeah. - You've driven me all the way out here. (laughing) - That fucking fiberglass disc. - Fucking joke. I mean, I'm not joking a good way. That fiberglass of senity, the hammer and the hay. You've got, I did dread to think how much that cost. And how many moths had to die if I understand how fiberglass is created. (laughing) - Wow, actually absolutely don't. (laughing) - Of moth pupae, sorry. (laughing) - But that's potential moth. - Moth pups. - Moth pups, I have to die to make that fiberglass fucking obscene to you, actually. I'm gonna say it, which is completely blotted out all the light for that church next door. (laughing) So I'm gonna have the hay sandwich. You know what she then says? - Good, 'cause I actually have made the hay sandwich. - Of course. - And then David Hay comes out and clocks them, just punches them out. (laughing) How's that for a hay sandwich? - In fleas in a sheer batter. (laughing) (soft music) - So Mike, you went to a cinema that wasn't that full. Me and Henry, however, went to Britain's biggest screen. Are you in together? Did you iMacs it? We went to the iMacs yesterday. - Okay. I did it. - I didn't realize it was Britain's biggest screen until a man popped up at the beginning on a microphone and told us it was Britain's biggest screen. - Oh, they MC you in there, don't you? - I don't even see you in there. - I think I saw the last avatar there, maybe. - All the wonderful. - I think I'm maybe going, maybe sitting on the front row and getting an instant headache, is that right? - That's right, that's right. - Mike, am I right in thinking that we saw the first one together? - We did, you're right. We saw the first one in West London somewhere in a Holland Park, you're absolutely right. - And that was in the pre-podcast days. - So it's a wonderful podcast. - We did before that. So we genuinely went to see it. That shows the degree of sort of interest that that felt. - So I think we found the time that we should see it. - Yeah. - Absolutely. We just couple of hot young guys, just, just a couple of hot sexy young babes. (laughing) - Isn't it? - Just riding the culture flume all day long. - You're short, so that time it was just a belt with pockets kind of stapled on. (laughing) - They had to pass new legislation in the house with parliament so I could say that they were technically shorts. And that'll be arrested on the site. (laughing) - I remember rightly after that, we were absolutely hammered and we all went clubbing, didn't we all right? - It was the only way out of it. - It was the ATV. That's what we did. - That's kind of what we did back then. - We came free with a ticket, I think. - 'Cause we were in the BFI armacks on the weekend of release. - Yes. - I got the sense that we, me and Henry were amongst avatars fundamentalists. - Yeah, Johnnie. - It wasn't a lot of, 'cause during the film, me and you were doing a little bit of sort of the odd touch and side to each other and looking at each other and sort of shaking our heads. - Or just laughing every time. - Or just laughing. - That kid was wearing those goggles. - That's what they said. - We'll get onto the goggles. - But I mean, yeah, the audience is doing that. - No one else is doing that. - It's a strange place isn't it? 'Cause it's placed very securely in a sort of roundabout. - Yeah. - In central London. It's also very near some university campus thing. So I just wonder if there's some kind of sociology and behavioral psychology people just doing experiments on. Sort of mega-duepes. Other people who turn up. - By the way, can I say this, just quickly, this podcast is dweeb neutral, isn't it? - Completely. - We're not crowed dweeb or anti-duepes. - I think we're very, very dweeb positive. - And actually we're actually dweeb positive. We're actually incredibly dweeb positive. (laughing) - Well certainly I am. But I think the reason I knew that they would avatars dweeb was, A, they were there on opening the opening weekend. - Yeah. - B, they laughed at a lot of jokes that I didn't even see as jokes. - That's true. - Like there was nothing to laugh at in that film as far, like yeah, I don't think there was a single chuckle in our screening. But there was quite a lot of, there were some gales of laughter at points. - There were a few gales of laughter. - Also, they had the trademark uniform of the avatars fam, which is none of them were wearing avatars t-shirts. - Yeah. - Which we now know is that they wouldn't do that. - It's not a signifier of not being into avatars. I think if anything, it's actually. - Star Wars, yes war hammer, yes absolutely. They're all represented. - No avatar, merch. - And then Mike, I'm sure this didn't happen at your screening. - At the end, there was a round of applause at the screen. - No. - Yeah, that was cool. - Everyone was straight out. - That was cool. - Even though the credit sequence had like lots of video to it as well. - Yeah. - But people weren't sticking around. No one was interested if there was a sort of kind of hidden scene at the end. - If everyone was done in. - They were out. - And then when we left Mike, this is a bit of a spoiler to why I thought of the film. There was lots of stuff there, like cleaning up and things. And I caught the eye of one of them and he smiled at me. And I said, "Oh, thank you." And he said, "Did you enjoy the film?" And I said, "No." (laughing) - And he looked really crestful. - He really did. - I think it's fair to you said not really. - I said not really. - Just slightly less, slightly softer than no. - Yeah. - But still. - It looked like I'd really pissed on his Christmas. It was sad. He asked the wrong guy. He asked Britain's greatest naysay. He thought he was doing what he was doing into. - But to ask that question, after such a fucking mind-bogglingly shit film. (laughing) - To ask the question in the audience. - The expectation is so strong that it's gonna be a positive. This is, in it obviously, you love Avatar. - It must kind of be. - He spent three and a half hours watching it. - Yeah. (laughing) - So again, that shows maybe how off the pulse we are. - And it was expensive. To go to the BFI, turns out it's hugely expensive. I didn't realize. - Yeah, yeah, well for me, especially because I bought the ticket. So, if anything, I'm in a worst position. (laughing) In regards to that. I'm glad that you feel it as well, Ben. Actually, it means quite a lot to me that you feel that. - Yeah, but if Ben always has a sugar daddy for the big cultural events. - He doesn't have a sugar daddy. And he did look boom mighty good on my arm. (laughing) So, in a way, I'm getting stuff from that. - But obviously, Henry, I was obviously planning on paying you back, but then when the film is that bad, it feels like you can't really ask me for the money, can you? - No, you're enabling somehow, they're not new. - Well, the debt is underwritten by the clatter of the film itself. And the film essentially has been declared, you know, unsafe. - Yeah, so you're read to junk bonds. - Financially big. (laughing) - It's a junk bond. So, you know what you're saying there is making me, it's reminding me of an experience I once had, where I had a kind of, a bit of an epiphany while walking off a five-as-side, an indoors five-as-side pitch. Where I'd been playing five-as-like football. And I saw, so in the joining kind of unit space in this indoor sports place, there were loads of young people playing Badminton. I was just sort of observing them. I guess they were kind of student type age, Eric, and maybe late teens, early 20s. And I just remember this thought that, oh, so yeah, they're just playing Badminton, aren't they? Just like, it's the same, it's just, it's, it's, because I think a lot of the time, society thinks, oh yeah, the next generation or the young generations are completely different. Like, they can't be understood by the older generations. It's like, you know, they're actually, they're so in-matched in technology in different way and their values are so different and everything's, and I just have this epiphany of, yeah, but fundamentally, they're just playing Badminton. It's just the same fucking shit. You know what I mean? Everyone just gets into the same, it's not actually that different. It's just the same, it's just bad, you know, like, they do still want to burger and to play a game. They want to burger and they want to pat bit, and it's just a stupid shuttlecock and it's just ridiculous. But they're doing, and I wonder what does this have to do with Avatar? - Because in my mind, there's no way that like, this film should be successful, should be chiming with people in any way. For me, it's clearly a sort of bloated product of a sort of boomer who was talented and is talented, but has gone completely narcissistic and is creating just a bloated mess of like half thought out philosophy and just absolute crap. Just stupid fucking irrelevant shit. (laughing) - Right. - Like Badminton. - I've got nothing against Badminton. Badminton is a great sport. But what I mean, but actually maybe no. So in my mind, I would think this would now be, you know, the younger generations now would be like, no, this isn't for us because this is the old bullshit. But no, it's just badminton. It's just actually, no, it's fun to bend it is the same. Just hum, hum, hum, hum, hum, (singing) - Okay, and pretty cool stuff. And machine and some, a few, some loads, loads of long sort of fights and stuff. - Is there something in the fact that also people just do actually still quite like going to the cinema with some friends or family as it turns out, after all, even though we don't do it so much. And this is one of the few films where it's event cinema, right? Yeah, you're more likely to bother going, if you are gonna see it, you're gonna see it in cinema. If you didn't see it in cinema, you probably will never see it in your life, right? - Yeah. - See one of those as opposed to like, you know, knives out or whatever, even if you fancy that, you'll be like, "Oh, I'll be on Netflix in a bit." - So maybe it's more like, you know what it is actually, it is more like a ride at a theme park or something than a film. It's an interminibly boring and I would argue, shit, ride. - Most of it's killing. - Three hours of killing. And I suppose when you go to a ride at a theme park, you just, it's there, it's massive. So you go, I mean, you don't really come off, come out of it with a sophisticated idea of whether that was a good or not good ride. Maybe, I don't know. I think I've never been on rollercoaster, by the way. So I'm fessing up. (laughing) But I think you might be right, Mike, it's not so much, because if that film wasn't on that scale, if you made a kind of indie version of "Ever-Tile" that you've done on a shoestring budget. - Yeah, which by the way is a great idea. (laughing) - But, yeah, luminous jellyfish on fishing rods. (laughing) People in green onesies in the background, try to, yeah. - And with what it turns out, is a toxic amount of blue shoe polish applied to everyone's faces, (laughing) and the cast to become more loyal and gradually to die, of course, of the film. - Without the sense of scale. And also the fact that it's a massive film. It's almost like, once something is big enough, it sort of can't fail. That isn't true, I don't think, is it? - But I think there's something like the length. So the length of the film is far too long. - It's a great film. - It do not need to be this way. - Three hours, 20 minutes. - Mad, mad. - But I think that the length itself leads to the idea that it's an event. Do you know what I mean? There's something about it, which almost guarantees its success. 'Cause it's like, oh my god, it's so long. - Yes. - It's this huge thing, which makes it feel a little mentist in some fashion. Although when you're actually watching it, like, oh my god, this is so long, this is awful. But as a kind of prospect, it makes it feel like more of a thing you should go and see in the cinema, right? - Well, because there's a thing, there's a celebrated thing in Hollywood that sometimes there's an alter who makes a slightly longer film than they should have done. And that's because of their bold vision. - Yes. - It's your costaners and that kind of stuff, you know? - But it's usually a bum steer. - It was also the same. films of the last film. This Avatar film. Yeah. Yeah. Oh yeah. Exactly the same. Exactly the same film of the last. The only difference is the main body, the sort of kernel soldier, it gets a girlfriend. It's quite nice for him. Yeah. Anyway, should we talk about the film itself? Let's do that. Can we have just a quick pause here, actually? I might do a little wee. Okay. And have a coffee. And then we're going to get into it hard. And then we'll do the review proper. Okay. Yeah. You bet. We normally edit out the bit when Henry tells us he's going to have a wee, but I'm going to leave it in this time. Yeah. Because that'll show me for paying for your ticket for Avatar, right? Absolutely. Magins. Okay, cool. So, so, Avatar, Fire and Ash. Yeah. So called because I think they introduce a new tribe of, I guess they are Navi people, but they're not blue, they're sort of white and black, by saying that's because they've covered themselves in ash because they live in a volcano. Yeah, they live by a volcano. Yeah, it's just that a volcano has had to destroy their lands, but they sort of stayed there. They also have the same build. They've all got the same build. The, I thought this, the, what do we call it? Aliens or recalling them? The Navi. So the Navi is the particular, oh is it? Blue tribe is, or are they all Navi? I don't know. But they all have the same build, which is basically beefy, Nicholas Lindtast. It's beefy Lindtast. And that's because he mo-capped most of the characters as well. He mo-capped. He's incredibly good at mo-capped. It's all that experience from doing only falls and horses, isn't it? Where he mo-capped Uncle Albert. Now, I'm going to say that I think this film is better than Avatar 2, I think, which I think is probably the worst from a vev scene. Yeah. I think that Stockholm Syndrome is Stockholm Syndrome. Do you think, okay, is it because there's a character that's more prominent? I spring break made flesh. There's a sexy alien. No, I mean the, the human boy. Oh no, no, no, he's the worst. He needs his own section. I'm talking about, I think the, the only thing I liked about this is that there was an alien I found a bit sexy and they've decided to go sexy with it. Are the evil queen alien? She was, she was good. I liked her. She had a kind of vibe of, she had a slight sort of like Kate Moss on 90s supermodel. She did. So the way she's prowled around. It was quite cool. I liked her. So I think it's become clear that me and Henry thought she was sexy. Mike is looking very impassive though. Yeah, yeah, yeah. She didn't do, I mean I can see why he's thought. I can see how James Cameron tracks you and your basic primordial brains into the right point. Yeah. Her sexy. And that was entirely the plan with that alien. Yeah, yeah, yeah. She's meant to be sexy because she's mentally sexy. Yes. There's a kind of sexing where they go in a tent together. Yeah. Oh, it's very, later on they're draped over one another. It's very clear that they're banging. I liked that. I know you did. You, you, you, you, you and BP in that room. You, you, you, you do e-port. We would have been bone as a hoi, wouldn't it? But an absolutely grotesque sight. If someone was to put a sort of heat, heat sensitive infrared camera at the audience at that point. Well, that sort of dot matrix would have been disgusting. Well, that's why the IMAX theatre is that shape and whites in the middle of that roundabouts because the amount of dwee boners that can happen in one moment mean the whole thing has to be on a, um, on a sort of gyroscope. So, why all the hot water, the hot loose station can't it? Yeah, it can, yeah. That's why when the guy at the end said, did you enjoy that? And I said, not really. He couldn't believe it because he was like, well, I saw the size of your boner. I monitored it using the boner cam for seat 34 or 9. For £17 you can have your readout. I thought it was weird for James coming to invoke the idea of them having sex because it made me think like, so what's going on down there? We never know, have they got a cloaca? No, but I think if anything, that's him just for a moment having a think about the milieu in which he's in because it's, there's a bit of me that thought, oh yeah, he's he's remembering how much people loved it when Captain Kirk copped off with an alien. People loved it. Any suggestion and include people, including the mystery of what are the mechanics of this? Yeah, yeah, yeah. Exactly. Because with these guys, the mechanics are easy because they've both got alien bodies, right? Even though the kernels are human. They are the same species, I think. He's got, yeah, he's he's he's got the equivalent cloacl plug, whatever it is to me. It's not quite the same as Kirk as an alien, but people really got the red hot horn for that back in the day. And he's he's, he's did Captain Kirk's long an alien? He got off with loads of layers. He got off with loads of things, didn't he? Always humanoid. It was never like there'd be like a sort of a poisonous barb spitting rock. He wasn't that adventurous. Just a bright pink flannel with an eyeball. And then leave, never to send word again. Yeah, they're always conveniently humanoid and weirdly conveniently sort of adhered to the sort of beauty standards of the time. Yeah, human beauty standards of the time. Yeah, so pracey of the story, I guess, it's that it's so hard. I was, you know, I was thinking about this this morning, I could, I could, I could, I could, I could tell you anything about the story, really. Well, it's because it's quite messy. Like, I think they've tried to have subplots. Like, there's the, the human kid has recklessly, like someone hasn't worked out that he's going to run out batteries really soon on his oxygen mask. And they've left it too late to do all that. So is that they want to get in the fact that the the wailing guy who I thought was dead is going to do some really big wailing. There's a big wailing meeting coming up, which is really important, but also comes up quite late home. Yeah, all the whales are going to be in one place. And so the humans aside, that's when they're going to kill them all. And then there's a man who wants a sunback, the colonel wants a sunback, but then he gets him back. And then for some reason, he doesn't have him back again. Also, the colonel isn't the colonel. He's a, he's a kind of genetic, yeah, clone of the colonel, right? Yeah, yeah. He's always, his main reason to be in front. Yeah. I remember the, it is all over the shop. It's over the shop. What actually is like, what's the steak? Yeah, it's happening. I tell you how far I can take you through the film in terms of the storyline. But I can remember the opening scene. The opening scene is quite irritating, which is it's two Navi boys or a boy in a car coming up, but and they're on these dragon things. And it's a classic. Basically, so I blocked that out. Yeah, these really are. These films are entirely fabricated from cliché. There's not one word sentence, camera angle, nothing, nothing is not cliché. The whole thing is a fabric of cliché. Yeah. Right. So the first thing, the first one starts with this scene, which just feels cliché, which is it's, yeah, we're just kind of Kevin Funtini, just I know a special dragon. Whoa. Whoa, bro. Can I go to the bro? They're all saying bro. Okay, bro, and it could be Wiley kit and Wiley kit. It could be an 80s movie. It could be, it could be the vehicle. Doesn't matter. So car skateboards, bicycles, weird dragons, horses. Yeah. Same. It's, it's, it's adolescent boys on some form of fast transport device, which be it sentient or not. And they're kind of dipping over things and going, whoa, Dan, hey, bro. Oh, hey, I got you back on that one. And then they land and they do this thing, which is, I didn't even ever happen to him in my life. It happens all these, which is their walking away from their vehicles. So it could be a plank of wood with some wheels attached. It could be a bicycle. It could be a, it could be an alpaca, an alpaca. So it's a bit of fires. Kilacappas bit fires. The Victoria line. But they're walking away from it. And then they go, hey, hey, you see I got you there with the thing here. Stop it, bro. And then this is, they've happened to be alive. They grab each other and they do a kind of punch on the whole stop it. Oh, I'd be really irritated if someone did that. It's sort of a nougat in a way. Yeah, it's off of BMX's. It would, it would go into an actual fight. Exactly. With actual, to adolescent boys, that's what then happens. It gets out of control and it turns into an actual fight. So what the fuck is this? We were just going to Victoria line. What the fuck, like two seconds ago, we were just getting off the Victoria line, a green park. And now you're grabbing me and you get to stop it. It's kind of like rub punch where you affectionate kind of, yeah, affectionate rub punch. Yeah. But then the thing that they think they think they try and make different in this, which is ridiculous, is that then it turns out that he's he's actually talking to his dead brother because he's yeah, we didn't get a review. Because all of them have grown like a sort of, like a USB port out of the back of their heads. And that's right. It means they can plug into heaven whenever they want, which means just there's no stakes for anything. Yes. Because if anyone dies, you're like, oh, well, don't worry about it. It's like a USB stick into some seaweed. And then it's basically really fine. You're hanging out with your brother again, but he just never has to go to the toilet. It's a better version for you and him. He doesn't have to go to Avatar. He doesn't have to to get into that. That's the only difference. And that is heaven. And so Gwani Weaver is there. That's Gwani Weaver is there. Yeah. So there's, yeah. It's about the beginning when he was playing with his brother. Yeah. And it turns out he's his dead brother. I thought, oh, this is a thing where they've managed to create a simulation of his brother that you can go and play with even though he's dead. That's what I kind of thought. So I thought, oh, okay, that's interesting. And then it's not that because at the end they go back and it turns out it's just the spirit world where people go to after they can go have died. So why doesn't everyone just, sorry to bring this up, just murder them, kill themselves immediately as soon as they're born. And then you have to live in the spirit world with everyone who's ever lived, no one ever dies, where they can't get you. And again, you don't have to watch Avatar. And you don't have to go to the toilet, I assume. And you do get to hang out with Gwani Weaver. Yeah. But it means there's no jeopardy. If someone dies, it doesn't matter because you can go and see them. That is just how the absolute very beginning of the film. Yeah, there's no jeopardy in this film at all. None. So why are they all annoyed that he's dead because they can go and see whenever they want? Yeah. Yeah. It just means he's lived in a different room with a house. Is it because they fundamentally value going to the toilet? So highly. I think that's the only time life ever means anything. Henry, you're imagining in the kind of heaven world you'd never need to go to the toilet because for me is the opposite. We literally sat on a kind of mobile toilet. In the end of the year. Consent relief. And yet so it's on the right. So we get this opening scene that they're flying. He's flying around with his brother. Then we the reveal is they're kind of plugged into a kind of the first of many luminous and mega squids. It's kind of underwater. But there's no jeopardy because of the heaven thing. And there's also no jeopardy because they've done the thing. The whole the whole magic thing normally destroys any jeopardy at all. As soon as you know, there's a very powerful wizard. There's a Gandalf. There's a Harry Potter. Whatever it is. In this case, it's I can't remember her name. It's she's the teeny-bopper. She can speak to God basically. The boy gets killed and she's hard to worry about. I'll just turn him to turn him to sort of half man half fungus for a bit. Fine now. How are we going to do this? Well, it's too we can't get into the whole plot because the whole plot is so long. I'll be taught. But also I lose track of it very quickly. Also Henry, you were unconscious for some of the film. Henry. How dare you. Goes all the blood was in his wee willy willy. I was on the the entire audience rendered completely unconscious. Yeah. First time that. Alien Buda curapiers on a dragon stallion. If we could only harness the power of this amount of dweeb boner and get hooked up with the national grid. Yes, now I can either have a boner or be conscious. It's very much deep inside with me. You did have a little nap. I think I may have also had a little nap, but it was that thing where I wasn't kind of aware that I'd missed anything, but I'm pretty sure I did. I had an app early doors. I'm jealous. I did not sleep at all. I was awake the whole thing, which is a form of torture. Okay, I think we probably need to just choose a few things to talk about rather than try and do the plot. Yeah, let's talk about the character of spider. So spider is a teenage boy who is the son of one of the kind of evil humans who for reasons I can't remember in the second film ends up living with the Navi. Yes, to where an oxygen mask because you can't live in their environment. At the beginning of the film, he's only got two oxygen masks left. Yes, they all know this. It's clear that they all know it. Yeah, and that he will die. Yeah, but they've not bothered very, very last minute to sort that out. Yeah, and then everyone's a bit upset that they have. I mean, it's a ridiculous starting point. Ben, I remember turning to you during that point and saying to you, I really hope he parishes. Yes. I think you said the words, I've got everything crossed that he parishes. So what I find really strange about the film is that because everyone's CGI and everyone's a Navi and obviously it's quite a good job. They look pretty good, but they're still a bit uncanny and they still don't quite move like a real personal animal wood. Yeah, they're a bit stiff. They're a bit, they're a bit, I mean, it's really lintesting. It's like, he's quite stiff. He's also, I'd say, is he needs 70s? Yeah, mate, he's going to only do so much with what he give them. If you give them, if you give them lint, he has covered in tennis balls, that's what you're going to get on that. And even though they've spent like a billion dollars kind of working on the getting lint, that's done board. Yeah, because it's not cheap, is it? There are still bits of it where you're like, oh, that they haven't really sorted out certain things. Some things don't look like they have any weight when they walk across things and they're just things that will always happen with those CGI things. So they're thinking, you're right, okay, you've got, you've got one human character. So this person should bring a lot. You'd hope of like real humanness into this film. But he's the worst, perhaps some comedy, perhaps some humor. Just something. Now, he's just a spring, he's spring break, spring break on legs. You see him as kind of spring break. Because, well, it's all he's, yeah, all he's, all he's lines are like, yeah, shit, yeah. That's so true. He says shit a lot, which is quite weird, isn't it? Yeah, even when he's literally been taken as a guest to heaven to meet Sigourney Lee, but all he can say is shit, yeah. Yeah, yeah, yeah, yeah. Bit of decorum for Christ sake. You're in the kingdom of the ancestors. You're talking to somebody who's actually been in some good films. Yeah, I have to be fucking respect. And he's got his dreadlocks. He's got dreads. He's wearing, he's dressed as the sort of like sort of jungle book boy. Yeah, I think because again, you can, this film has to be understood through. It's a mesh. It's a grotesque sort of quilt of clichés because yeah, he's from, he's a sort of tart young Tarzan. Tarzan. Tarzan. He's a little, the little loincloth that you wear in that situation. He's always jumping off stuff. He's good at jumping and stuff. So he's given the nickname by one of the Navi monkey boy. Yeah, there's no monkeys, but there's no monkeys. How do you know the monkey? What the fuck is monkey? What is it? That's a good point. Yeah, there are no monkeys. I don't see a single monkey. So lots of other stuff. There's no monkeys. There's no other animals. It's also in on earth on this planet. So there's no chance there's monkeys there. If they did, they'd be like a monkey squid, a bio luminescent underwater monkey squid with a series of, of your USB sockets with great connectivity. He just jumps around and as Michael saying, all he ever says is, hit all his lines like, oh, come on. Yeah, man. Okay, bro. Oh, shit, bro. Okay. Yeah. What? Come on. That kind of thing. And then he's got one man. He's such an underdeveloped character. Like he has not got one character trait. Right. He's so underdeveloped that the conteller appoints where they don't know what to get him to say because they don't know anything about him. So there's one bit where he's genuinely, probably one of his most extended bits of dialogue is just him and the background go, they land somewhere on a riverbed and he goes, "Yeah, I need a piss." Yeah. You know, he know when you need a piss. Yeah. I need a piss. Yeah, piss. Sure. I mean, it's a placeholder, but isn't it? I mean, that's classic. Any, any scriptwriting course you go on, they'll say, if you didn't order the right, just just write the character needs a piss because most people, most people need a bit of a piss at most times. But when you come round for the rewrite, we're true. Oh, you come round for the rewrite. You can't leave. You've got to leave. You should even put that in a red ink, ideally. So you know, it needs to be changed. You write in a red ink, stop art, will finesse this. Stop art. Will finesse this? And you know what I think actually happened there is because what you do is at the end when the script is ready to go, you do a final check, where you do control left search for piss. And what's happened is, in the camera, it's misspelled piss. That's where he is as a screenwriter, is that he's currently misspelling piss. There's one aspect of the film that annoyed me, but I think we talked about it last time because it annoyed me in the last one, which is the way they talk to the whales. I can't work out whether, so in this one, so in the last one, sometimes they would be subtitles. So you knew what the whales were saying. So they'd go, and then it would come up. And it would always be something like, in this one, there was one where it was like, you will never hear my song again. That made me laugh so much. Well, he's he thought he was a composer. You know, we found that in the first such a way. He's made a second film. And the composer. Yeah, that was that was someone who died. So he was a composer. What? How can you open K-pop parodies? And then you should picture a whale like working on a musical. About the life of video, I mean. Suddenly you're trying to picture a whale opening a music stand or whatever. Even the basics of, how am I going to write this stuff down? So sometimes we can understand what they're saying because they're subtitles. Sometimes there's no subtitles when we're meant to not understand them. But then they can be translated by a Navi who will translate it to the other Navi. And then there will sometimes talk in sign language. Yes. Sometimes there's sign language. Sometimes there's just talking. It's absolutely all over the place. Make a decision, pick a team. It's completely inconsistent. Yeah, there's no consistency as to how you talk to a whale. Is it like, yeah, why would you sign language as well? What do you mean? Why? Yeah. Also why? I think it seems to understand speech. Yeah, that's crazy. And also why is it there so easy to persuade to change the major rule of their culture that's existed for tens of thousands of years? Just because someone's having a bit of a whine about it. So what's that? What's that they're doing? We'll follow that bit. We're not we are we do not fight. We're not non-combatant. That's right. Yes. And then someone goes, but go on, do it. Come on. And then I'm all right. I suppose we do need big big finale. I mean, I'm actually a writer. I mean, it's mainly short fiction. But yeah, wouldn't really know how to operate in a sort of field of conflict. I might have stayed away. Given you told us that there's going to be people there to kiss, maybe instead of fighting, we'll just stay away somewhere anywhere else on the massive planet, rather than this tiny cove. Yeah, a tiny cove. Yeah, we'll just go somewhere else for a bit. Awesome, my real dream, as it happens, is to run a churros stand. So as long as I can work out how I can use it. It's one where you get a little bit of a churros, you get this little poem, I write a poem for you, in cinnamon. And if I'm honest, I thought I'd write a different poem every time, but I've just lapsed into a couple. There's a couple I do. Yeah, there's a couple. And people think they're getting a bespoke poem, but it's always about dunking your arsonism. And also every time I sort of administer the poem on top of the churros, using the little siv that I've developed, put the cinnamon through, every time I do that, I destroy the entire churros stand, because I'm just a fucking massive great whale. So that means you're probably. Take tea, the trouble, yeah. Yes, it's tea then, yeah. And also for some reason, sometimes I can talk to the customers, sometimes I have to do sign language, sometimes I can't. It's an understanding, English, seemingly, but sometimes I can't. So it's confusing for the customers, but I have paid for my subscription to Papyrus Font, so I will continue to use that till the day I die, which obviously won't be a sad day, because when I die, I go to the spirit realm. I'm not budging on that. I'm not budging on that at all. Papyrus all the way through, I'm not budging. And obviously, when I'm dead, I'll just be the same as that. I'm now, but I won't go to the toilet. And then there's a fight scene which just lasts so long. Everything lasts so long. The fight scenes are awful. All of the fight scenes are awful. And it reminds me of. I remember seeing a Jackie Chan, to be about, like, fight scenes and stunts in general, and he was talking about how much it, more impactful it is if you've got stuff in camera and you can physically see things, rather than this thing of cutting away very quickly. Choppy choppy choppy choppy choppy choppy choppy, it's supposed to feel like, "Oh, it's frantic and urgent." It just means that you don't see anything. Nothing has any visceral impact. It's completely meaningless mulch. You could be watching a transformer film. It sort of doesn't matter. It's just an unnerving realm. I don't know who's who. I don't care. But as opposed to Jackie Chan genuinely getting wallopped across the back with a ladder or something. You're like, "Oh!" I wish at one moment we'd seen Jackie Chan getting hit with a ladder. That would have improved it in a major way. But I think there's a lot of action, like CGI action. I think there's a lot of the temptation is to do that choppy choppy choppy. Let's go from one. Less than a second clip to another. Less than a second clip. But also there's just two, basically, there's just too much of everything. It's like the equivalent of a massive stack of waffles that's covered in cream, more waffles, entire tubs of vanilla ice cream, packets of magnums, still in the packet. Hot baked beans. Hot baked beans. We do it, it's just too much. So there's too much of everything. So that if you don't ever hold back, then you can't enjoy the moments. You know, moments can't be impactful unless there are kind of calmer moments in between. But also because the films are 100% CGI except for the worst human performance given by mankind so far in the history of acting. I don't want to be harsh on that kid though. It's not his fault. It's the part. But because it's all CGI, that's part of the problem. It's just too much. And also the film depends on this even right from the beginning. One of the things it's trying to do is create wonder. So it's in the soundtrack. It's in this thing. It's always going, it's more and more like, wow, there's a glowing squid. The music is telling you this is wonder. And then there's an even bigger glowing squid. And it's like, and you're like, you're 50 minutes in the film. And then it's like, wait, Tilly, see this fucking squid. Just give me half an hour with no squims. Please. And so the action sequences are the same. It's bigger and bigger and more and more and more and more and more wonder and more technology and more explosions and more. But so it's just shut the fuck up for a second. Also Henry, there are so many characters in this film. There are bits of the end where like, ah, so and so's arrived. You know who's this? I've never seen them before. Where if I have, I can't remember what they're up to. Well, they all look the same. Blue effect. They've got the same physical structure, the same face. They all look the same. Towards the end they try and really make it important that you're into this character whose pregnant is giving birth. I was like, everyone else, we've not seen them before. And suddenly we have to care if he's having to give birth. But you may have had an argument with the other person earlier or else you may not have done them out in some different, it's hard to tell because it's just a miscellaneous blue animation. Yes. The one thing I thought was nice. There's like a moment in it that was nice, which was the Jameen Clement character who's like a human who decides to rebel against the humans and help the Navi. And for about two or three minutes there's a little sequence where he decides to help out the main Navi character and does so in a kind of slightly fun way. And I just felt like, oh, this is not. This is like a film now. It's a character making a choice, doing something interesting. It's also because it's the only time that someone is out of their field of competency. When he's in that and they only do it for half a second, he's in this massive track where he doesn't know how to operate. That's right. It's just to explain he's a marine biologist who's unhappy with what the humans are doing. And then he snaps and decides to help. So he kind of does a bit of to rescue the hero. It's the only time in the whole film when anyone is faced with like, I don't know how to do this. That's a good point. At every other point everyone knows exactly how to do it. Like amazingly, they can fire an arrow through a whole hope if they want to. Do you want to mean ride any vehicle? Doesn't matter. Everything they're just, they are world class. Yes. But they only hovered it for half a second because then he says, oh, I've got a PhD hour going to be and it's and it's fine. You know, that's the only moment. The only wall. But I sort of, there was like this glimpse of like, oh, this is what a film should be like. Yes. It's not like a film the rest of the time. Human beings facing challenges and doing things, struggling. Yeah. Some jeopardy. Yeah. He might be killed doing this. A character with a bit of personality. Yeah. With the dilemma. Yeah. Because they make some money. Or he could, you know, is it because everything else is in this? Is it like a mythic register or something? Everything else is so high. Flown sort of like. Yes. Everyone's speaking in a really unnatural, stilltid sort of way, aren't they? And whether either doing the highfalutin, as you say, like that kind of register or they're doing like, you're bro, like, yeah, it's like a sort of imagined informal way of talking, which nobody actually has in real life. Yeah. It's frat boys or it's kind of, it's the it's the worst of like the wise native. Exactly. Yeah. Yeah. And nowhere in between. One minute, it's like, hey, bro, I got you on the thing before. Yeah. I need a piss. Do you piss? I piss. Yeah. It's piss. Okay. Yeah. Bro. And then it's like, Gujano has spoken through the bloodline. You are carrying this bow for your people and the people before you now. And when you stick your funny squid ass into this USB stick and you glow a bit. It just it echoes through the ages. That's it. Yeah. Whereas that that's briefly binary. Yeah. Whereas that brief coming over. Yeah, as you say, Jermaine, Clamant, is it? Yeah. I felt like there's a kind of person that's not just up in this mythic register, which is so fucking tedious, isn't it? To listen to that. It also kind of reminded me of Lord of the Rings. Quite a lot. Quite a lot of the time through it. But I'd really enjoy those Lord of the Rings. Yeah. Yeah. So try and look at why those are good and this is because that's all mythic register nonsense and kind of. Yeah. So there's there's there's whole species that are good and whole species that are evil. But you know why I think that's rives. I think why that's better. Is it because I mean that stuff is coming out of like, is it like Norse stuff or Saxon mythology? Yeah. It was told to study based on something. Yeah. Yeah. It was like, whereas this feels like it's it's got kind of AI's slop feel to it. It does have a dark three. Yeah. And it's because it's based on it's based on something that's based on something else. Exactly. It's exactly. It's not going directly back to Kels, it's called Norse mythology. He's not reading source material. No. He's just he's just seen a bunch of exactly. He's seen Thundercats and Lord of the Rings. He did get through. I don't know if he got through the whole Lord of the Rings. He's definitely seen Thundercats twice. And he has seen the Chalde Magostrad where they did the Hammer Hay music. Yes. Big big impact on him. Yeah. And so where does the film end? I can't remember the the humans of beaten because there's the same ending a big big battle where it's it's on the sea and it's night time and there's a sinking ship and some fire and some people go to run away. And is the thing that finally win the battle is that the mystical girl who can speak to God. Yeah. Who's called AY I think. Yeah. She plugs herself into the USB port that means you can talk to God. She's able to deploy really Larry Catalfish. And that's right. And what God does is God goes I'm just going to and send a load of like squids. - Yeah. - And they're gonna use their combi-anus mouth beak - Clarker to absolutely fuck up all the humans. - They've evolved to bring down many submarines. - Yes. - Luckily. - So, yeah. But it's kind of had a big battle in order, one of the big battles in order of the rings ends, isn't it, where there's all this jeopardy and they're all fighting. And then suddenly, just someone turns up, probably Gandalf, and then about a billion people arrive, and then just win the battle. - It's just your Deus Ex-Machiner, isn't it? And that can happen to you. Like just so many of these little squids arrive that just came over. - Ba-ba-da-ba-da-ba-da-oh. I think that's the music they say when you know something bad is happening. - Ba-ba-da-ba-oh. - It is that, yes. - That one they do. - On the old French horns. - Ba-ba-ba-ba-da-oh. - Yeah. - 'Cause the rhythm is always, someone says, we gotta do this. And then some people say, I don't wanna do it, we're doing it. - Ba-ba-da-ba-oh. - Battle. - Ba-ba-ba-oh. - We gotta go over there now. I don't wanna go there now. - Or we're gonna do it. - Ba-ba-ba-ba-oh. - Battle. - And it's ba-ba-ba-ba-oh. - Low to humans wearing mechanical lobster outfits. - Yep. - Ba-ba-ba-ba-ba-oh. - Low to humans dressed as a sort of mechanical sea slugs. - Ba-ba-ba-oh. - It's always a new adaptation of a secret. - I did enjoy the crab subs. - The crab subs are cool. - I think that was the only thing I enjoyed about Ring the Bell. - I think that's the only thing I enjoyed about the entire film was the crab subs they scuttled off. But they didn't make it much. They should have used the crab subs more. - Definitely. - I wanted to see them scuffle up cliffs and things. And so the humans are vanquished. And then I can't remember what happens. They go to the spirit world to meet Sigourney Weaver. Yes, the ending didn't really feel like any sort of ending. But the whole thing is just so exhausted. You're more relieved. You don't feel any sense of catharsis or. - No, no, it's just the end of a journey at the end of the film. You just relieve that you can go. It's just the ending is just, you can go now. So the end of a detention. - Some other little points about the film, I noticed, that is bring up. The water is too clean and see through. Water isn't like that. It is on the wonderful natural planet of Pandora though. - But this type of film, - For now it is. - Fint and Tilla bloody humans come along when they're crab outfits. There's no mud. - Yes. - There is no mud in this one. So everything's wet. - Everything's wet. - There's no mud. - There's no mud. Nothing's decaying and there's no barnacle. If things are wet, they're fucked, right? Wetness just destroys things. Everything is pristine but. So I think it's like a vision of the countryside or like the rural, from the perspective of a city dweller. It's sort of like me hiking up Glencoe with an umbrella. - Yeah. - Do you mean, it doesn't. - Or an Nigel Tharage puts one of his farmers outfits on from the dressing. - I guess it's a Bible-jacking protest. - Yeah. It's got nothing to do with reality. - It's an entirely urban take on the non-urban, excuse me. Like he doesn't understand the countryside. He thinks you can have water with no mud. - It's like the London of Paddington Bay. - Yeah, it's a. - Do you want to be a sort of thing? - Yeah. - I maybe don't have a problem with that though 'cause I do feel like his whole thing is I'm creating a kind of fancy paradise. - No, that's fuck, but you're not as deep as me as a person, so. (laughing) - But often it'll be just down to that. (laughing) - That kind of thing. - And he likes his blue alien fantasy movies to be very te. - I want to be very te. - What's going on in this film? Like it's about a colonial situation, isn't it? It's about colonists and indigenous people. So in the same way that it's like an urban person's picture of like what it is to live at one with nature. It's not a person that understands nature or is ever hiked across Cambridge. (laughing) - As you have, as I have recently. - Yeah. He's never been caked in mud. So it's also like, I think it's a colonists fantasy of the indigenous. - Yeah, it's a highly patronizing noble savage try. - Yeah, yeah, yeah. - Played out. - But also, but the thing that the other thing I noticed about was that what he does not only is it the colonists sort of fantasy of the colonized, but also he takes what are beliefs. You know, the Navi people have all these complex belief systems. But he makes it literal. - Yeah. - Mix it true. - He makes it true. - It's not a belief system, not a faith or a kind of belief or a, you know, or like, it's really, so the squids, yeah, the magic, yeah, you got the squids he flies around. - You stick a US, you're tail in this hole and then physically go and see the godmother you can basically see. - Yeah, they're all sort of half profile, but you can see here. - Yeah, yeah, yeah, exactly. So it's not a mythology. - It's exactly, do you think that's a real thing? - Because in a way that's using, he's one of these people who's like, he thinks, he wants to get in touch with what he thinks is a more kind of authentic and environmental sort of way of being, right? Which he thinks is more authentic. But what he's done is taken those types of beliefs, from like cultures all over the world, and it's like a mishmash of like, Maori stuff and Native American tropes, right? And I think probably lots of other ones as well. - But he's made it technology. All he's done is kind of, he's turned it into how he thinks about the world, which is technology. So these squids are technology, plug them into stuff and they work. - Do you mean? - It's not wireless, not of his wireless. - Yeah, yeah. - It's from his era of technology as well. - Is it? - Is it? - So in a way it's kind of like, so it is a colonizing enterprise in itself. - This film. - And the indigenous tribes, they are wise and they are noble and they are beautiful and they are right and moral. But he will make sure you can always see their arse cheeks. - Okay. - We'll always see their very, very pertinal cheeks. (laughing) (soft music) - Okay, so that's Avatar, Fire and Ash. How many hot beans at a five will we give him? Henry. - Are we still using that metric? - I'm bringing it back. - Yep. - I'm gonna give it 25% of one tepid bean. - Okay. - Okay. - For the fact that the eyes are quite good, the eyes. - Like he's, they've managed to make eyes. - Look glossy and shiny and have the kind of depth of eyes. But almost too much now to the point where they really like, they just highlight the massive eyes all the time. So a quarter of a hot bean. - A quarter of a tepid bean. - A quarter of a tepid bean, okay. - Mike, I'll give it, I'll give it a bean. And I'll give it a bean, a partly for domain clement, partly for the underused crabs, crab subs. And partly just as a nod to that, would have been a huge number of people who worked for very long hours on this and fair place of them. - Yeah. - But it's only gonna be one bean. And it will be, it's the wrong kind of bean. Like it's, it's among bean when you needed it, one more black eyed bean or, do you all kidnibine or, it's the wrong sort of bean. - The wrong bean. - It's on the turn as well, I would say. And you may have, you may have fished it out of your cat's mouth. (laughing) - Okay, so I've gone on record as saying, I think it's slightly better than the last one. - Yes. - 'Cause the last one really was the pit of one can be achieved on a cinemasque green. So for that reason, I probably gave the last one one hot bean I imagine, which means I have to give this one, one hot bean, but then I likely grate a bit of another bean on top of that bean as a kind of garnish. - Yeah. - That's a completely mad thing to do, isn't it, from a culinary point of view. (laughing) - I mean, you're grating beans on beans. I mean, you've left it from the cinema, scoring point of view, the next part of the sentence. (laughing) - That mean, yeah. You'd be thrown out of any, any great culinary sort of university. - It sounds like it's averaging out at around the half beans, a half a bean between the three of us, doesn't it? - Yeah. - Yeah. - It's essential. - Oh. - I think the only thing that would have made it worse while sitting through three and a half hours or the best part of three and a half hours would have been if the, when you finally see the half profile of Mama Gaya, the god, if it had actually been the profile of, of plemons, that would have been good. - Yeah. - Even if he hadn't said a word, he'd be like, "I think that's plemons." (laughing) - That would have been, yeah. - It's possible plemons was in that film. I wouldn't, oh yeah, yeah, yeah. 'Cause at the end, Kate Windsor's name came up. - Yeah, who was Kate Windsor? - I was like, who was she? - I saw that. - Yeah, no idea. She might've just added all the noises from the cutlerfish. (laughing) - Just pop around a James Cameron's to see if she could borrow some milk. (laughing) - Is it? - Why are you here, Kate? - Popping the booth. (laughing) - We should do a shout out to the, what's she called it, is it? The actress from the soprano's, Eddie Falco. - Eddie Falco's really good with it. - Eddie Falco, she's brilliant in it. - Yeah. - I mean, she doesn't have many lines. - She doesn't have much to do, but she is, yeah, she does the best. She's good in everything she does, though. - Yes, I tried to amuse myself at one point by imagining that she was playing the same character she did in the sopranos. (laughing) - And drinking a new phase of life. - And drinking a new phase of life. (laughing) - As a pan-galactic military commander. (laughing) - Really shot up the ranks. - Yeah, I think she did, yeah. - Really taking to it. - The essential for me, I think, I think if they'd see-jeed his eyes onto the squid eyes. - Nice. - Then you'd have changed it from, you know, as it were, they were kind of the slightly terrifying glassy eyes of a squid. They don't care if you live or die. - Yeah. - Which is quite terrifying in the same way, but I feel like we could have humanized them a bit, had those soft eyes. plemons eyes and it could have been all demotereifying. Yeah. I think it would be quite good if at the end it pulled out and the planet, the whole planet was plemons-ass. Great. Well, there we go. That was Avatar Fire and Ash. We shall reconvene with an emergency film corner again when Avatar 4 comes out in and I believe 2029 is the least. Great to see yourselves. Yeah. Thank you for listening. Yeah. Thank you very much. Goodbye.