Avatar – Never say for Ey’wa

Full transcript of Avatar – Never say for Ey’wa.

0:00KT: It's another week in the For Your Reference household and we are starting off with the new Unguesmi. So Oti, take it away. Mhmm.

0:10Oti: KT, tell me, who was the most annoying character in this in three, two, one? Jake, Augustine.

0:20KT: Oh, oh. Alien royalty? How dire. Let's get on with the show. Hey, friends and lovers. Welcome back to the For Your Reference podcast. You got your host, KT

0:20Oti: And Oti.

0:20KT: And braid your tentacles because we are ready to enter your foreign places. Oh. Was true. In the 2009 epic Avatar.

1:09Oti: Mhmm.

1:11KT: Epic in every sense of the horde. There's been almost two decades since this film has come out, and there's been a lot that has been said. And by golly gosh, a lot more will be said in this episode. Mhmm. So let's quickly dive into the stats, which is what we do around here. Directed, written by the ever eternal James Cameron. We refer to him as Jim, just like the actors Sam Worthington and Zoe Saldana do.

1:44KT: And this isn't the first rodeo in the For Your Reference household for James Cameron. We've also covered Titanic. Mhmm. Mhmm. And I so I've I've already mentioned a couple of the cast, Sigourney Weaver. And if I can mention one more person, Laz Alonso.

1:59Oti: Oh, Mother's Milk.

2:01KT: Baby's milk according to the interviews. I will you thought I was gonna say Giovanni Ribisi. Right? Oh, you know we love a good sneaky Marius. A sneaky Marius. So there you go. Those are the initial stats. Let's just quickly go to the box office for Avatar. The budget, you know, if if you have a it's not even Denari. I don't even know what the currency was. Maybe they didn't spend enough time in the Na'vi world. But in regards to the budget of this film, $237,000,000.

2:42KT: It kind of evens out, especially if you bought like the deluxe Blu ray box set and you've got hours and hours of the behind the scenes. When you see what was involved in making this film, 237,000,000 isn't that bad. The cumulative gross Oti Mhmm. Two point almost eight billion dollars.

3:08Oti: Wow.

3:09KT: Yep. On pretty much every list on the interwebs, if you look for the highest grossing films in history, Avatar should pretty much more often than not in these lists will be on the top. Unless you like have gone like with Gone With The Wind or inflation, for example. But Avatar tops the list in regards to blockbusters.

3:34Oti: Oh, yeah. For sure. And box office.

3:37KT: And it was it was really it was really the epicenter at the time in 2009 of what cinema could be, what cinema was. And I guess just rattling off the three Oscars, best achievement in cinematography, best achievement in visual effects, best achievement in art direction. I guess the only qualm I would have is Andy Serkis not being a part of this at all. But he has had

3:37Oti: Well, he had his hands full.

3:37KT: He has had decades, decades long career. And we are all most welcome indeed.

4:11KT: Welcome, welcome, welcome friends and lovers to the For Your Reference podcast. If by some chance you haven't watched Avatar, we are going to be as invasive as those tentacles and we are going to pleasure all of your spoiler places. So beware. I don't, but Oti loves to film shame because he's nasty. So I don't expect you to have watched Avatar if you've never watched it because there are young kids out there Oti. Mhmm. And maybe they just haven't come across it. Maybe they just haven't watched it yet.

4:11Oti: Yeah. I'm I'm not shaming for Avatar.

4:44KT: No. It's weird to think that there's a generation that thinks Leonardo DiCaprio is old. Right? Because he was like the young playboy and now he's playboy. Playman. Who knows? So let's dive into first impressions. Like we mentioned, this has been worked on essentially, it was supposed to be slated to come out right after Titanic. So in the before the early two thousands, late nineteen nineties. But with the technology that was available and there was going to be an extra 400,000,000 in budget

5:22KT: in order to do that. So, you know, along the line, we got it in 2009. But this has been worked on for quite a long time. But even then, 2009 was a long time ago. I think for the both of us, we've watched Avatar three times including just now. Yep. Correct? Okay. I think it might be useful just to give a bit of your experience when you watched it the first time, second time, and even now, does it still hold up? Is it better? Is it not better?

5:50Oti: Wherever you wanna go, my love. Alright. So I watched this when it came out, and I think there was so much hype and excitement over it. Mhmm. Because it was something different. Motion capture at its finest, you know. And from that level, it did not disappoint one bit. And I remember watching it the first time and feeling like, okay. Wow. This this is an alright movie. You know? Cool.

6:13Oti: Cool movie. Second time I watched it, I I don't think anything changed in that regard. Third time, I think the story could have done a little bit more work. Mhmm. But still, the technology sort of holds up. And I think from a sort of techie perspective, I was more sort of intrigued by it because of so much detail, and you'd know so much time went into so much time got spent doing this. Yeah. So I appreciated it on on that sort of level,

6:46Oti: albeit it being the fact that, well, the story wasn't that strong.

6:53KT: Oh, absolutely. I definitely agree, we'll go into more detail with that. I also watched Avatar when it came out in cinemas in Australia. I went to it didn't mean to, but it just happened to that I was watching it with my mom and also my cousin. And for a long time, I guess it's because I was watching it with my mom. I remember that tentacle sex scene being a lot more than it was. I think I got a

7:17KT: bit disappointed when we watched it this time around and it wasn't as splooshy as I thought it was.

7:17Oti: What were you watching? I I don't remember it's being anything

7:27Oti: remotely erotic or whatever you'd call it.

7:29KT: Well, if no. Well, even if it isn't, if you're watching it with a parent, it kind of heightens that. Does it not? Like, even though it's not that bad, it feels bad because you're sitting next to your parent.

7:29Oti: Yeah. Maybe so.

7:29KT: Well, you watch Tip Drill with your parents. So I guess you don't really have a gauge of what's appropriate and what's not appropriate. But maybe at the same time, I think I was watching the Tobias Funke analrapist.

7:56KT: Maybe I was watching some other tentacle porn. I don't know. I don't know. But generally, I feel like Avatar is essential to the movie going experience. I think even if you're not a film student, I think it's important to understand where this film lands in regards to the cinematic landscape of world history. I think it's important from that point of view, know, even watching behind the scenes and featurettes, it was so fascinating that technology was being developed onset.

8:34KT: And when they had first done the prototype, which wasn't even that easy to do to start off with, they had only done it with two actors and to have to scale that to a 100 actors and incorporate horses and to be able to achieve that is something that should definitely be applauded and accolade. And even to twenty twenty, eleven years later, the graphics still stand up. It's not Harry Potter fighting on top of the troll.

9:05Oti: How shit was that? In the Philosopher's Stone. Wow. It wasn't bad at the time. It wasn't bad at the time. But rewatching Harry Potter, you're like, Jesus Christ.

9:14KT: But see Crikey, mate. But now we only cringe because of JK Rowling, but we don't know who that is. Daniel Radcliffe had shouldered the whole Harry Potter series. He wrote the books himself. We're just gonna cancel this straight out. But I I feel like it's it's really important. And whether you love film or whether you don't love film, I feel like it's a very important movie to watch. Yep. I I don't understand how there's been a changing sort of perception of Avatar because it got all of the accolades, you know, critical mass

9:48KT: in every sort of sense. And I it might just be a sense of like recent meme culture. I don't really know, but it's like people make a lot of jokes about Avatar now. And I don't know if that discredits it or if it's just for the lols and the references. I'm not really sure.

10:06Oti: Pop culture sucks. You know? It's the same sort of thing we did when you're talking about Lebowski. Lebowski was bang on average when it came out, and then Damn. Ten, fifteen years later, everyone's gizzing over it. And then Avatar, something got was literally technologically breaking barriers. And then ten years later, everyone's shitting on it just doesn't make sense to me.

10:33KT: Welcome to the true crime aspect of For Your Reference where we find out that Oti is the abandoned Coen brother. You're harboring a lot of anger, my love.

10:45Oti: I'm just saying, I'm speaking my truth.

10:48KT: Your Na'vi truth?

10:48Oti: My Na'vi truth.

10:48KT: Your Na'vi truth. But yeah, I feel like I did enjoy it watching it the third time than I did the second time. But the first time was a whole experience.

10:48Oti: Oh yeah.

10:48KT: And to be in the cinema as well, to be on the frontier of emerging technology, think is very exciting. I also felt I feel like I felt more of the effort in this than I did in Titanic, even though Titanic had achieved a lot of feats as well.

11:24KT: To be able to scale and to be able to film Titanic, it wouldn't have been easy either. It was on a grand scale as well. But I think I saw a lot of the innovation in Avatar. So yeah, I definitely wanna give the accolades there because I'm going to say some very real things about this movie in particular. So I just wanted to put the accolades where accolades are due.

11:52KT: We can definitely talk about the characters, but there are some themes that I definitely wanna touch on before we go into characters, Oti, if that's okay with Thank you, sir. Thank you kindly. James Cameron. I I obviously don't know him personally, even though I like to call him Jim. I'm not sure how how much of his filmography speaks to his environmentalism because he is very passionate about it. Again, I just like to brag that we do have the special deluxe edition. Well, we pay for it, so you have to hear about it.

12:28KT: And he would talk a lot about his inspiration for Avatar and how he traveled to the Amazon and how he pulled lots of influences from you know, even in Indonesia and Thailand and even Polynesian culture to a certain extent, even African culture to a certain extent. So he does have this sense of environmentalism. He also spoke at relevant sort of conferences where he brought his influence and he was really impactful in trying to push that change, which was very honorable, which was was very nice. But I guess

13:10KT: one of the things that I thought was interesting was as much as I could feel the heart of what James Cameron was saying, I didn't feel like this was an environmental film.

13:21Oti: Well, it's not like Miyazaki's Mononoke Uh-huh. Where it speaks to the love or the relationship between man and nature. It's more geared towards okay. So we know there's, like they're prefacing a lot of things that apparently Earth is just doomed or whatever. Uh-huh. And then they've gone to space and found this new civilization, and they're getting all this. Unobtanium? Unobtanium? Unobtanium.

13:49KT: Yeah. Oh, blah lazy. That was lazy. I'm sure whatever the placeholder name was Unobtanium, so they just had that there.

13:56Oti: Yep. But I think that's more geared towards, okay, people do care for whatever the environment, but we don't get to see what issues Earth is facing and why they're all here. We don't know the importance of this. You've been unobtanium, what it does, and why it's so valuable. So I think they skip a lot and just focus more on the Na'vi people relationship with nature.

14:23KT: It was a very ambitious narrative. I'll definitely say that. In regards to environmentalism, like you mentioned, Oti, Miyazaki, thank you for mentioning Princess Mononoke. Mononoke-hime, if you are learned. It's interesting because there definitely, especially when you hear James Cameron talking, there are definitely environmental sort of commentary that he wanted to hit in this movie. But I feel like a lot of people can watch this and it wouldn't make them second guess their own actions.

14:54KT: And if that's what he wanted to do, I think that there is a bit of a failure on that part only because the Na'vi are a completely new world. Right? So then we kind of get lost in that. We get interested in them as a species, you know, as opposed to, you know, their whole homes being destructed. That's kind of in the background.

15:16KT: That's not that's not necessarily what we're focusing on, which is absolutely fine. But it was very interesting to hear how passionate James Cameron was, but I really didn't feel like it came through.

15:16Oti: Yeah. Fair enough.

15:16KT: In Avatar. Because when you watch I think it's Nausicaa has a WWF logo at the front of the movie. It is very clear that even though there are fantasy elements to Princess Mononoke and Nausicaa, Upskirt of the Wind, go and check out our episodes in our Reference Degustation. Even though there were fantastical elements in those films,

15:55KT: it was still grounded enough for you to even think about, oh, shit. Maybe I am like, me as a as a as a as a person, maybe I am contributing to the destruction of nature.

16:07Oti: Right? Do you feel like it was so far removed from reality for you to sort of relate back those emotions to to yourself as to what the nature or what the environment the kind of role it plays in your life, or is it just more of the story wasn't really tackling it so you don't really think you thought about it that much?

16:35KT: The latter definitely the latter because we can watch things that aren't necessarily wholly grounded in reality and still feel those messaging's right even if we're gonna stay in Miyazaki's world even with Spirited Away right There was so much lessons that Chihiro had to learn. She was a human. So you have Jake Sully as a human. Right? But she was interacting with a fantasy world, but you still got those messages that you needed to get. And I think also, I love Sam Worthington because by default, because he's an Australian. Right? I love him by default. But Jake Sully as a character wasn't that interesting.

17:09KT: And I think maybe that was the problem. We were just peeking around the corner trying to see what the Na'vi were up to. We weren't really showing up for Jake Sully, in my personal opinion, but we can talk more about that. But I guess I just wanted to it would be interesting to know, friends and lovers that are listening, did you feel like the messages of environmentalism was first of all prominent in this film?

17:37KT: And did it make you reflect in any way? Because film and art is a very interesting thing. And sometimes, even on an unconscious level, it can make us change our habits for better or worse. Right? And if the I I guess it's just it's just weird to hear James Cameron be so passionate about the environment and it was more about the Na'vi people. That's all.

18:00Oti: Yeah. Fair enough. I I think most of it is due to the fact that they had to cut a lot of stuff because the movie's runtime is two hours fifty eight minutes or fifty minutes. Two two hours and forty two. Yeah. So it's quite a long thing. And especially when you're looking at the extended version, you get a bit more background into Jake Sully. And I think that brought that made the movie feel sort of diff kind of different for me at the start

18:29Oti: where we get to be introduced in Jake Sully as who he is as a person Yep. Or what he was going through and how he found out about his brother passing away, and all those aspects where it sort of humanized him or just made him a bit more likable to me before him being immersed into the sort of Na'vi world.

18:52Oti: So I don't know. I feel like watching the extended version made me feel appreciate Jake Sully a bit more. One scene. It was that one scene, but it made diff it made a difference. It's it's five minutes added at the start of the movie Yep. That I think sort of gave me a different outlook on Jake Sully going in.

19:12KT: Well, I think that's also an interesting thing because, you know, investing in a character, establishing a character and also determining whether we should care or whether we shouldn't care about a character, especially with a protagonist is very important to the emotional investment of a movie. Yeah. So in that sense, yes, that scene was very it helped to further that because at least it's not just him there because his twin brother died, but you can see that as a young man, he still had a lot of potential, but that got cut short, unfortunately.

19:42KT: So we do start to see, you know, that gruffness that he has and not necessarily a chip on his shoulder, but he didn't fucking care. Right? And a lot of this film, it unfolded in his path to care. Albeit perhaps appropriating another species, but I guess that's a story for another day. I jest. I jest. Okay. So the the next theme that I wanna come into, which is kind of what we were touching on a little bit earlier was

20:19KT: and I did enjoy this film because I feel like I I don't want it to be too negative, but I do wanna say this from the outset. I feel like the Na'vi culture, the Na'vi people, it didn't feel lived in to me. And this is even after watching hours of behind the scenes of getting a linguist, getting a movement coach. Mind you, there are professions everywhere guys. If you have a niche or as Americans say, a niche, stick to it and hopefully James Cameron will pay you. They have a movement coach,

20:53KT: the costume designers, every single piece of jewelry that you see in this film was designed by a costume designer. It was it was a bit of a shame that they were snubbed by the Oscars in light of knowing all of this. But anyway, like so much went into the work of it. Right? However, I did feel like the Na'vi people weren't anything more than what was on the page, so to say. And I guess the way I can distill it is

21:27KT: James Cameron kept talking about how he would get influencers and they will get weavers from Asia and they would bring in animators from New Zealand and he would bring in people from the Pacific, and then they cut to two white women weaving. Hey. There are some light Tongans, but come on now. Come on. I know my people. And, you know, and they would Captain Cook spread his word, mate.

21:57Oti: And his seed. And his seed.

21:59KT: They're actually there's a lot of German heritage in Tonga.

21:59Oti: I know. I know.

21:59KT: Well, you're not German, so I don't know how you know that. Because I can see you, mate. You fucking perv. And then we also have a choreographer that was bringing a lot of African, you know, influences to not just the dancers, but also movement in this film. And, yeah, it's cool. You can pick and pluck from wherever you want, but then is it really its own culture or have you just cut and pasted like a serial killer magazine?

22:33Oti: Oh, wow. No.

22:35KT: It's just like cutting out whatever you want and just slapping it on a page. It was it was visually beautiful, but I don't think there was a lot of depth in regards to the culture. I would love to hear your thoughts on this because yeah, I did watch behind the scenes, but also at the same time, what who were the Na'vi and sorry, sorry, I know I keep telling you to talk and I don't let you. Hello.

22:35Oti: I'm used to it by now.

22:35KT: You love it. Fucking sub.

23:05Oti: In regards to because they don't call me Jermati for nothing.

23:11KT: Yikes. Mega mega yikes, kids. I think we earned our explicit tag. We try to earn it every episode. Right? As far as we understand, up to 1,000 words, the linguists put together for this film. Up to a thousand words. I don't understand why they didn't use all of those thousand words. And there were times where they would speak in English. I'm like, you spent all this time, right, getting the phonetics, getting the way like you literally created your own papyrus language.

23:44KT: Right? So why the fuck aren't you using it? Why are you using 10% of all of this energy that you're putting in? Sorry, sir. So the initial question, my gasbagging around, the initial question is, did you feel like the Na'vi culture was lived in, or was it only created in what we could see in the scenes?

23:44Oti: I think

24:06Oti: as a culture, we didn't get much of what the Na'vi were all about. They looked cool. They looked cool. I think they went they made sure that they looked the way they did, like, cool, and you could sort of buy the love aspect with Jake Sully and and Neytiri. All that. Fair enough. And I do get the fact that the culture was a bit unexplored, but that's not what the movie was about, I reckon.

24:35Oti: And I think to some extent, at least at the back of their mind, I'm hoping. Uh-huh. That they thought they'd have a sequel to sort of flesh out what the Na'vi was.

24:35KT: Get for what you wish for because it seems like they've planned up to Avatar five.

24:49KT: I'm not kidding.

24:51Oti: And we'd get to see more of what the Na'vi all about, the culture, the sort of interesting things that we want to know more about them rather than just nature them being in sync with nature. You know? And also,

25:05KT: you know, James Cameron and the linguist, they were talking about how they didn't they wanted it to be easy enough for actors to learn, but they didn't want it to sound like another language. But in James Cameron's early drafts, he was writing all these Polynesian words. And it's like, okay, fine. We're not in world cinema, but we still exist. So it is a language.

25:25Oti: JK has crossed the border.

25:30KT: Oh, man. But I I really don't feel like the the culture is anything beyond what's on the screen.

25:38Oti: Yeah. Yeah. Yeah. And I see that. I I take it as, you know, I think they'd need more time to sort of explore that aspect, and I hopefully, in our two our tattoo, we get to see that rather than just there being a new conflict and then them trying to resolve it.

25:52KT: I feel like it would have been a way more interesting film if we just lived in the Na'vi world. Why do we need to have human intervention? That's where it gets a bit muddy to me.

26:06Oti: Because you gotta get that white savior, mate. Otherwise

26:11KT: Of the Aussie variety in this movie. Aussie variety.

26:14Oti: Otherwise, they would have been done for. You know?

26:18KT: Seriously, though. What's worse, this or Green Book?

26:25Oti: Toruk Makto. Think it was fine. I think the story was a bit too light, and and and I and I take that sort of cultural aspect of it. And I think maybe they wanted to sort of cast the net net wide enough so it should have mass appeal and attraction for everyone.

26:43KT: But then what are you saying? If you're not succinct, what are you saying? If you have such a powerful message, why are you diluting it by ambiguity of culture?

26:52Oti: Because you gotta rope people in. You gotta rope people in. You know you know how, like,

26:57Oti: in religious in religion where they sort of castigate everyone. Oh, you will burn in hell if you don't come into this church, you know. You don't wanna do that.

26:57KT: So I think people would burn in hell if I went in the church.

26:57Oti: Let's them rope let's rope them in fast with candy, and then and then we can sort of tell them the message once they're in.

26:57KT: Okay. That's Sam. That'll be creepy, but

26:57Oti: let let let let's attract them faster like the Pinnacle of Oti.

27:22KT: It literally sounds like exactly what you would be doing, sir. Oh, dear lord. Wow. I thought we were gonna leave religion alone in this episode. You can't, can you? We cannot. And we will have a real conversation, friends and lovers, whenever you're ready. But, yeah, I I guess I just wanted to bring that point up. Not to say that there's anything wrong with creating your own culture, but to give homage to the fact that you've borrowed from lots of different cultures, it feels

27:55KT: a bit disingenuous to me. It's like I'm living my best white savior fantasy in this sexy alien world. Yeah. Can I tell you one of the most vomit inducing moments I felt in this movie was near the end where you have Jake Sully talking about how the aliens went back to where they came from, and he was referring to the humans as if he was one of them? He was one of them by then.

28:24Oti: He'd already been accepted into the clan mate.

28:24KT: Is this his 8 Mile?

28:24Oti: Yep.

28:30KT: I don't like, I just didn't I didn't care for it. I didn't care for it. And it again, it was very vomit inducing. But anyway, anyway, anyway, anyway, let's move forward to another theme. Know, a lot of the times it is good versus bad. It is the, you know, the working man against the man with all of the authority. I just wanted to talk a little bit about the characters that exist and the structures that are being represented. So we have sneaky Marius's

29:04KT: what what's his character? He's like a bigwig. He's like a corporate. Yeah. Parker Selfridge. Of course, that's his name. Mhmm. So you have Parker Selfridge, which he all of his interests are into being able to monetize unobtanium. Having lived in this world, having lived for a couple of decades, unfortunately, that's how the world fucking works. And if anything can be monetized, I think one of the worst curses that you can have as a culture is having valuable resources on your land.

29:39Oti: Oh, yeah. For sure.

29:39KT: Especially if you're not you're not in an economy where you can say no or where you can fight back.

29:50Oti: Oh, true. Like, all the sort of African countries that got colonized, they had oil and, you know, all the sort of effects that are happening right now. Like, a lot of what even African countries are colonized by France are still being paying reparations to France and shit. Like, it's just fucking ridiculous what's going on. So

29:50KT: No. This is Na'vi, and it's unobtanium.

30:10Oti: But they're talking about colonization at the fact at the end of it. And I think James Cameron even brought it up in sort of behind the scenes where he brought off aspects of colonization Yeah. And its effect on the people and and what it does to society. So, clearly, he was at the forefront of his mind. So me bringing it up is not me coming off the left field and being, hey. This is what happened on this.

30:31KT: No. No. I completely agree with you. That's why I'm like that's why I was being cutesy about it because I'm like, what are you actually trying to say in this film? Like, are you fighting for the Amazon? Are you fighting for Africa? Are you fighting for Polynesia? Like, who are you trying to fight for?

30:45Oti: Lovely people. And I think he did to an extent where, you know, he he got them this savior who managed to unite all the clans in the kingdom.

30:56KT: Yeah. Actually, yeah. And he even turned around Tsu'tey, who's our Laz Alonso, which I felt like was completely out of character.

31:05Oti: I think the the minute he managed to become Toruk Makto Uh-huh. That sealed it for everyone. But that was disgusting beliefs to and, you know, if someone managed to do that, then you'd probably believe it based on your culture and beliefs. So Well, maybe that's the detriment of cultural beliefs then.

31:24KT: Maybe so. Because once once the enemy learns your cultural beliefs, they can use it against you, unfortunately. Yeah. Yeah. It wasn't done in a malicious way in this film, but hey, we're getting real here because there's not enough realness in this film. But let's go back to Parker. I it was interesting. I I feel like I I was expecting to have a bit more nuance. I was expecting to have a bit more complexity. It was literally, you know, Parker is the guy that is trying to get everyone's money. And then we also have the

32:01KT: corporal the colonel, colonel Miles Quaritch. Right? And his his introductory scene is him saying all of the cliche of, yeah, you make sure you're, like, safe out there, and they're gonna eat you alive. I'm not a man man. Okay?

32:01Oti: Oh, he was a man's man man.

32:01KT: I'm not a ug ug man man, so I don't know how to do a man man speech.

32:01Oti: Breathing couldn't even get out his way, mate. He was like, fuck this air. Who needs it?

32:01KT: Exactly.

32:30Oti: Right? They had all of these safety protocols, and he's like, fuck this shit. Man, the man can hold his bloody breath. Airs for pooses, mate.

32:41KT: That's a Key and Peele reference. Oh. But, like, so you have her and then you you have him and then you also have Sigourney Weaver, Grace's character where oh my god. I don't know. It just grinded on me. Like, first of all, I love that her and James Cameron came back together after the Alien franchise. Very cute, very suitable. I'm sure it splooshed everyone that needed to be splooshed in that particular moment.

33:05KT: But as soon as we see her coming out of the Avatar sort of state, she's asking for a cigarette. Like, I feel like it was it was put on very heavy. You know what I mean? It's like, okay. You're the badass, like, scientist. And then, like, somewhere without warning, she became all soft and feeling. I don't know. Maybe they had done that in a way that made sense. Like, it was a transition of character or maybe that's how her character always was.

33:30KT: But even at the start, she was a dick to everyone. She wasn't just a dick to Parker and also to the colonel. She was also a dick to Sam Worthington or to Jake Sully, mind you. Yeah. Yep. She was a dick to everyone,

33:46Oti: and I think I think she retreated me as a character where I didn't really understand where the hostility came from. And then once we start at least watching the movie, and I think midway through, they started explaining how she was part of the community. She was accepted as part of the community where she she taught the children how to to read and speak English. Yeah. And all that got spoiled by the soldiers who came bashing in and shooting the Neytiri's sister and all. Mhmm. So I understand her frustrations with someone like Jake coming to the fold. You know?

34:21Oti: Fair enough. Like, once you get her frustrations and you get to learn what happened, I I was like, yeah. Fair enough. I I can understand how she feels.

34:21KT: No. But she became ultra pink and soft and fluffy. She became that

34:21Oti: I think one complete, like, swing of the picture. Moment was, I think, when Jake became accepted into the community Uh-huh. Jake said in a one of a one of his diary logs that I understand that I know that she's only being this nice to me because

34:52Oti: I can I can get her what she wants Yeah? Back in with the community. So she would kiss ass to get that.

35:03KT: Yeah. But even at the same time, like, I don't know. I I just it felt like a complete swing of the weaver's pendulums.

35:09Oti: Oh, weaver sweeps a lot, mate.

35:11KT: Yeah. Supposedly so. I know you're questioning what you said, but Yeah. I think I said something weird with my mouth. I like what you do with your weird mouth, and it is most welcome. Gee. I will back you up all the time, OTG and Marty. Mhmm. But yeah, to have the wealth of experience and to have the wealth of filmmaking and also writing, was definitely expecting not even the best characters, but just ones that were rounded. I was just expecting to have

35:49KT: a bit of that. The last theme that I wanna talk about in before we go to characters, It isn't that serious, but I I definitely do wanna have a discussion on it, is what is the extent of the human sensation within the Na'vi avatar experience?

36:08Oti: Oh, I think this is sort of like the striking urethra. Striking Vipers.

36:16KT: Striking Vipers. I call it striking urethra.

36:19Oti: You've corrupted my mind. The Striking Vipers black Black Mirror episode where I think once you're tethered to this avatar

36:27KT: Jordan Peele trademark.

36:29Oti: You get to feel all the sort of sensations that it feels. All the highs, all the happiness, all the sadness, and and even, you know, sexual gratification. So probably when Jake Sully woke up after having sex with Neytiri

36:29KT: When he sullied himself.

36:29Oti: Yes. He had sullied himself.

36:47KT: Oh, I love us. I I I love our in-depth analysis. It is it is exemplary. Yeah. That's that's the most that's if if you take away anything from this episode, that's it. We would never mishandle our Patreon funds, but would we also like to know if this technology is available.

37:09KT: Oti with the tail,

37:09Oti: Yes, please.

37:12KT: Back and front.

37:13Oti: Oh, wow.

37:15KT: But when he so when they were having their sex scene, do you think Jake Sully in that chamber had a boner as well? Yeah. Does that mean he ejaculated too? Yeah. That's what I meant by sullied himself. I think he did. I thought his avatar sullied him so it was it was No. His his body sullied himself. It was a double sullied sensation. Yeah. Okay. Watch out. We're going to apply for a grant in Australia

37:42KT: for the double sullied sensation coming to a dark alleyway near you.

37:45KT: We also have nerdy nerdy Norm. Norm Spellman, mind you. Mhmm. Where later on in the film, he is getting attacked. Right? And then he comes out of the chamber thing, and he's, like, holding on to his heart as if he's about to have or he had just had, like, some sort of heart murmur. Right? He was shot. Yeah. All jokes aside, do you think that he actually like, he's physically his health is affected or not?

38:15Oti: His health isn't affected because you saw him run out of the truck and start shooting immediately. I think he felt this sort of

38:15KT: Like a shock or something.

38:15Oti: Yeah. I think he felt that. So

38:15KT: It's interesting. And then

38:31KT: cause, you know, there's talk about technology and then there's talk about technology via way of Eywa. And we see that in at least in the first instance with Grace Augustine where she's trying to be revived but it's too late for her. Yeah. Right? Do you think she was the emotional death? Because you know when you have stories there's usually an emotional death like a character gets killed off for emotional payoff.

39:05Oti: No. I didn't feel any sort of emotion with that. I think all the three times we've watched this, didn't feel anything when Grace died. Did you?

39:09KT: No. But I feel like that was supposed to be our payoff, especially if you love Sigourney Weaver as well. Right? Or not?

39:16Oti: I don't know. Probably not.

39:19KT: It it definitely wasn't as heartfelt as little Saint and You Got Served.

39:24KT: This is for you, Saint. It's been a while since I've mentioned You Got Served, so you're most welcome.

39:32Oti: Felt more when Tsu'tey died. And I think that was more of that was more of the emotional payoff where it his death meant something Mhmm. Plot wise. I don't think Grace's death meant anything, really. She wasn't that fundamental to the group. She didn't really bring anything of value to that group other than Yeah. Her just trying to probe them. Mhmm. Yeah. I think Tsu'tey was more effective because that sort of showed the transition of Jake Sully now becoming that sort of leader for the clan.

40:10KT: I'm not saying that cultures have to remain homogenous, but it just felt like fulfilling your wildest fantasies, at least from Jake Sully's point of view in my personal opinion, because let's dive in, let's start talking about characters now. Let's talk about Jake Sully. So he literally had nothing to lose. There was a bit of begrudgment from him to have to do this at all, but he latched onto this world. And let me say that is one of the things that I find qualms with when the protagonist in particular takes too long to

40:49KT: understand the world and the role that they're going to play. So I really appreciated that he just dived right in with that because we saw that he had nothing to lose essentially. And a lot of the time when he was in the Avatar, you could see he had no intention of coming back or going back to a life that would involve any sort of human experience. And we see that in

41:17KT: the two thirds of the movie where he's talking to the colonel and the colonel's promising he'll have his legs back and all that sort of stuff. I think it was made quite clear. It was like a reinforcement to the audience that he wasn't about that life. There's only so many bars he can drunkenly get kicked out of. Right? So it was interesting to have him as a character, but also at the same time, I feel like we could have more meaningfully dived into the world of the Na'vi without him.

41:50Oti: Yeah. But I think the story is from Jake's perspective rather than it being from Neytiri or anyone from Pandora's perspective.

41:58KT: Yeah. And that's why I don't think it's a great movie. And I feel like on some level, you would agree with me that's what kind of got in the way.

42:09Oti: Okay. I'm not on a surface level, the movie isn't bad.

42:14KT: No. I'm not taking that.

42:17Oti: It's it's it's sort of ticked off a lot of the sort of low hanging fruit stuff. Uh-huh. And it just didn't put too much effort in trying to ascend from that. And that's why my hope at least is that they'll cover more of that in-depth sort of thing in the sequel where we get to experience more of what Pandora is, what the fuck happened to us, who's in us, and why are they bloody Giamatti.

42:44KT: That's what happened to Earth. And why is unobtanium so important?

42:49KT: Is it vibranium? Is it is it to that level? What? You know what? Like, humans are fucking shit. Even I bet even if it didn't have any sort of remarkable qualities, they just fucking wanted it, really. And the the the the value of it is it's scarcity. And and it's it's it's unobtanium sort of a nature. Like, it's hard to get it. So that's why it's valued so high. Not necessarily because of its healing or impactful sort of qualities that it might have.

43:20KT: Yeah. Maybe so. Maybe so. Adam Sandler's character in Uncut Gems and Paul Giamatti is what happened to Earth. That's what happened. I don't think we need to shed any more light on that in particular. I feel like we definitely do need to give some respect to Zoe Saldana because we haven't even spoken to about her at all. But to be fair, we were giving out qualms and I do not have any qualms. So that's why we haven't spoken about her yet. So let's talk about Neytiri.

43:51Oti: Oh, Neytiri is solid. Mhmm. I think when you're watching the sort of behind the scenes and you sort of saw how James Cameron sort of adapted a lot of what's in the movie to what Zoe Saldana preferred. Mhmm. From her being left handed to her how she wanted the Na'vi people to sound like. Like, a lot of that was born off Saldana, which is impressive.

44:16KT: Yeah. So just to piggyback off on that, all of the archers were left because Zoe Saldana is left handed. And she informed the way that the Na'vi would speak, which I think is very important. It's nice to know that James Cameron understands how important it is to have the talent be involved in the process because she needs to feel comfortable in it. And also at the same time, it's not even an established culture. So she did have a lot of room to play around with, which

44:47KT: was quite nice. It was it was nice to see, you know, James Cameron, you know, we don't know him far from what we've seen, but he seems very generous in his space to direct and he gives a lot of boundaries and he lets, you know, the talent create their own boundaries as well. But we did talk about in our Titanic episode how James Cameron was the one that did the sketches. So the sketches that you see Leonardo do in Titanic, James Cameron actually did those and who knows how he got those sketches, but

45:20KT: through a peephole maybe. But we also saw behind the scenes of, you know, James Cameron taking the main cast out, you know, out to the rainforest, out to the jungle and, you know, just filming them before they go to the gray sort of landscape where they would be filming so they can start to get a feel for the land. And Zoe Saldana would actually be dressed the way that Neytiri would be dressed. And I I I can only think that that was very inspirational to his graphic design as well.

45:50Oti: Oh, yeah. Yeah. It gets the juices flowing.

45:55KT: And did it did it not flow all over? Yeah. It is a blue movie indeed, Oti. Mhmm. But I I love Neytiri as a character. Her strength as a character was was sullied by Jake Sully, to be perfectly honest. I think if if we had a movie that was led by Neytiri, we would have seen a a much better movie.

46:22Oti: Why do you think her character was sullied?

46:26KT: No. Because she she was very sure of herself. There was obvious obviously a rise to eminence. And as far as we could see, maybe not being the leader, but she would be the wife of the leader even with Tsu'tey as well. I felt like there was a lot that we could have dived in with her, but that was hampered by the lessons that we had to learn through Jake Sully's character. Mhmm. That's all.

46:55Oti: Yeah. Well, fair enough. Like, I I I could see the sort of role she had at least from a sort of community. She was she was meant to be the the sort of spiritual leader, and I think Uh-huh. She did that way above. Mhmm. And the fact that she sort of pushed Jake away when she thought that he'd betrayed him Yep. Because at the end of the day, she cared about his her people

47:22Oti: Mhmm. And getting them to, you know, protecting them. So and their interest. So the fact that Jake was sort of she wasn't sure about whether or not those lines had crossed, love be damned, She did the right thing. And I I don't know. I I didn't expect any more from Neytiri at least from this. I guess that's just from my opinion.

47:40KT: Fair enough. Did you believe in the chemistry of Neytiri and John Smith? Oh, sorry. Did you believe did you believe in the chemistry of Jake Sully and Pocahontas? Oh, sorry.

47:58Oti: Oh, come and fight me people. Bloody hell. There's a theme, ain't there?

48:04KT: Did you believe in their love story? It it was obvious it was going to happen. The the first interaction that they have and the the fact that he was his first interaction was Na'vi was a sexy woman and not like some old elder man. Kind of it kind of sealed their fate. But did you did you believe in it, in their chemistry?

48:24Oti: Not really. It sort of felt a bit, ugh, this is the first interaction you've had with the Na'vi people. This is who we'll stick with. And then, I don't know. It just felt like it's a shoo in from the start till the end. I was like, didn't really give too much thought about it. Yeah. So it's just going to happen whether it feels real or not.

48:42KT: I just wanted to spend like little moment talking about Norm's character. I think he just existed to reflect Jake Sully's character development. He seemed very moody and very temperamental. Like, I get that you've learned the language, but you're also not great at it either.

49:07Oti: Well, he said he spent five years reading The Lovey. Anyone would be salty over that.

49:07KT: No. But even Grace was saying he speaks too formally.

49:14KT: So even then, it doesn't work that well.

49:18Oti: Fair enough. I think his character was more just geared towards okay. So he got really jealous that Jake got to spend time with other people. He's like, what the fuck? I'm the one who's read all about this. I'm knowledgeable. Mhmm. Why is it not me?

49:35Oti: And once he sort of realized that, oh, Jake isn't this sort of macho soldier sort of guy and he's actually interested in their culture and wanted to learn, then he sort of warmed up to him. Well, it it was needed for the stories. So I guess that makes sense. And do you think he all they also did the sort of ceremony for him at the end for him to be fully made into to become a Na'vi.

50:01KT: Norm is just that, you know, you know how you have that sibling that your parents just forget about? That's Norm. Like, you need to know your archetype. Not everyone is a lead character even in their own story. And that was Norm motherfucking Spellman. I think when he stopped self pitying himself, he could actually gain value in the world around him. And that probably helped his journey of self exploration because I'm not sure if the Na'vi are fucking with him in that sense. He's gonna have a lot of blue balls all on his own.

50:43KT: Let's spend some time talking about our man, Mother's Milk, Laz Alonso Tsu'tey.

50:50Oti: He's your sort of typical warrior, isn't he?

50:52KT: What a man. What a man. What a man.

50:56Oti: Yeah. He's we we sort of knew what we'd get with Tsu'tey. He's protective. He's he does he doesn't trust easily. And everyone had he and the fact that he actually learned English, which is surprising to me because I don't think you'd be that susceptible to it. Like, I think it's a kid. And, you know Even then, like, I feel like it was such a,

51:20Oti: oh, this is my job. This is my duty. I'll be the warrior. Yeah. Like, it's too liberal thinking. It's too liberal thinking to think that he'd, even as a kid, he'd be like, oh, let me learn English because that's what I want to do. Like, I don't know. It just felt a bit weird. That felt a bit off.

51:20KT: Maybe he was also an older boy, and it felt too real for you, Oti.

51:20Oti: Maybe so. Maybe so.

51:46KT: Feel like Tsu'tey's character unfortunately suffered because, to be perfectly honest, there was nothing really wrong with him. It's just that he got in the way of the protagonist. Yeah, his death was very impactful in the For Your Reference household. It was sad to see him go, especially because again, out of character, but especially because he had accepted Jake Sully. Yeah. Only because of the dragon or the phoenix dragon known as?

52:21Oti: Toruk Makto. Toruk Makto.

52:24KT: It just felt cheap to me. It felt like I'm going to die for you to succeed and take the throne. But before I die, I'm gonna give you an attaboy.

52:35Oti: It felt a bit like How to Train Your Dragon where, like, for for people to believe in you, to rally behind you, you need to get the thing that they're most scared of. Uh-huh. And in in How to Train Your Dragon was Hiccup, you know, learning to ride the duck what was it? The duck dragon or whatever the fuck that was. The duck dragon? I don't know. The night shadow. I can't remember. That sounds more correct.

53:03KT: Stop try stop trying to share your screenplay on our podcast. Dark shadows. But, you know, like, it's it goes hand in hand. Was it kinda like prison rules where you have to, like, beat the strongest Yeah. Person sort of thing?

53:19Oti: Yeah. Like, if you come into us, you have to get before anyone pays you respect, you know, so that kind of thing. Give it time, and Adebisi will get you. No one would want that.

53:33KT: Naughty. I do feel like and wouldn't you have enjoyed a story from Tsu'tey's point of view?

53:33Oti: Yeah.

53:33KT: Exactly. The fact that you don't care for Neytiri is a story for another day. Felt like there was so much we could have experienced with him. The fact that he had so quickly just accepted and not just accepted, but he literally handed the baton to Jake Sully. It just felt a bit too fulfilling. You know what I mean? I'm not really sure what is he like fully Na'vi now? Jake Sully?

54:16Oti: Yeah. His human body's long gone, mate. So when they procreate, then the baby's gonna look real Na'vi.

54:21KT: Oh, yeah. Oh, okay. But there was so much that we could have learned but again, I don't feel like there was a lot of depth in the culture so maybe there is a reason why we didn't see it from their point of view.

54:37KT: Because even in the is it the director's cut or the extended cut or is that the same thing?

54:37Oti: The extended cut.

54:37KT: In the extended cut, we didn't even get to see more of the Na'vi culture, did we?

54:37Oti: No. We just got to see more of Jake's sort of background.

54:37KT: And then We got more flying scenes?

54:37Oti: I bought more flying scenes,

54:53Oti: animal scenes. Yeah. Just a lot more fluff that didn't really add anything to the story apart from the first five minutes.

55:01KT: I guess it's also like a gateway sort of sci fi. Like, if Avatar is your first sci fi similar in the way that Game of Thrones is your first sort of fantastical sort of drama series, then yeah, you're going to think it's the best fucking thing since sliced Na'vi bread. Right? But if you've dabbled in the genre or even if you care for a storyline and an overarching narrative, then per chance, there are going to be some qualms that you will have with Avatar that we would definitely have gone through in this episode. Mhmm.

55:40Oti: I'm just keen to see what they're going to do with Avatu Avatu, I think. That's sort of my pegging everything against that. So hopefully.

55:50KT: But I don't think that's fair. Like, it should be a standalone movie. It should be a standalone movie, but it's such a rich world with so many things to do. I really don't think it has much else to offer. You don't be disappointed in Avatar two where you see more of the white savior complex. And that's it's just him navigating. This is what white people do. This is what Na'vi people do.

56:13Oti: Who Who do you call Na'vi?

56:19KT: So I I yeah. I will watch Avatar two when it eventually comes out. But I definitely feel like, you know, there there are experiences that we didn't necessarily get to experience through this film.

56:34Oti: Either way, I think it's an it's an important movie in cinema where it it did such a lot of things, especially when focusing on the capabilities of motion capture and what that would mean in the industry. Absolutely. It's just breathtaking to watch. It's I think it it just set a trend, and, hopefully, we get to see sort of motion capture being taken a whole two different levels and directions.

57:00KT: Well, to be fair, we see that even in video games with, you know, Detroit, with Jesse Williams, with Beyond: Two Souls as well. So we've definitely seen motion capture and it is exciting and it is thrilling. I guess the last point that I wanted to mention is I think I know why this feels like superficial environmentalism to me. Because did the animals really get a feature in this film? No.

57:00Oti: Yeah. They did.

57:00KT: Not really. No. To and again, yes, I am gonna reference Miyazaki.

57:42KT: You could feel and you could understand how the animals have been trodden on and how they contribute to the overall ecosystem of the world. It kinda felt like it's environmentalism, but we're just talking about people.

57:57Oti: Well, the sort of animals were reading off up until Jake Sully prayed to Eywa, and Eywa listened to him and sent animals to attack to join the fight. Interesting.

58:09KT: Do you think wow. We are really we are really going to get in trouble. Maybe it is good that these aren't real gods. Do do you think Eywa listened to Jake Sully because he was the first one to pray about it because they didn't even think to pray about it? Or do you think that he was special? That's why.

58:32Oti: I think everyone else thought there's this fundamental balance with Eywa. You cannot ask her for you cannot ask her for favors. So no one just bothered asking. And Jake Sully's here. Yo. Yo, Eywa. Do you seize me, Eywa?

58:45KT: Wow. Do you seize me? Wow. Samson, help me. Were you watching a different movie? I I I guess it for me, it kinda fell flat. It was a bit superficial in its environmentalism, and it was superficial in its culture.

59:02Oti: Well, you gotta watch a documentary if you want all this environmentalism, You know?

59:07KT: Well, no. Because you can watch other films, and it can still move you. The fact that you brought up How to Train Your Fucking Dragon as a as a effective vehicle to explain that you need to beat up the strongest prisoner. Like, the fact that you can draw that from How to Train Your Dragon and you couldn't get it from Avatar, Mae Mae, don't even come for me, bro. But, yeah, I would I would love to hear your thoughts. First when you watched it or even if you just watched it now and

59:43KT: all of these themes, right? Because yeah, the story's cute and it's fantastical and you can exist and you can definitely escape in this world for two to three hours. But there are definitely you know, there are definitely things beneath the surface whether they exist or not that didn't get answered as well. But thank you so much, guys. Thank you for joining us on a tantalizing, thrilling, fantastical episode in the For Your Reference household this week. Mhmm. We're going to finish off in a segment we call For Your Reference.

60:19KT: Oti.

60:19Oti: I'll reference Alien. If you wanna see Sigourney Weaver, Ripley, in action. Believe it or not. Oh, man. I think Alien is just one of the best movies of its kind out there. Growing up, I watched it a lot. It's just it won't let you down. It's it has great watchability value, and it's fucking Weaver, mate.

60:44KT: It is fucking Weaver, mate. That is do you think, like, there's a cover band of Weezer called Weaver? Mhmm. And they're dressed like Sigourney Weaver?

60:44Oti: Yeah. I hope so.

60:44KT: I hope so too. I will reference, to no one's surprise, Princess Mononoke. Because if you've watched it, you know why. And we also have an episode on it. So if you haven't watched it, feel free to check out our Princess Mononoke episode. Woo hoo. And if you want to follow us on a day to day basis, we are on Twitter and Instagram @ForYourRefPod.

61:22Oti: You can write us an email at hello@fyrpodcast.com.

61:26KT: And we would most welcome any Apple review and ratings. Yeah. Like the feelings of Avatar, it can be whatever you think. And we'll see you guys next week.

61:41Oti: See you. Bye.