Avatar: Fire and Ash

We went back to Pandora and we all fell in love with a very special lady. She’s a bit prickly. A bit unconventional. But boy, is she something! Join us as we chat Avatar: Fire and Ash, aka VARANG: THE AWAKENING, the third installment in Big Jim’s Sully family saga. Yes, this movie’s a bit messier than the previous ones. Yes, it repeats many of the same beats as The Way of Water. No, we do not care. We are too distracted by our new Na’vi queen. Listen to Big Jim drop Big Lore on The Town with Matt Belloni (Part 1 https://podcasts.apple.com/us/podcast/part-1-james-cameron-on-avatar-misconceptions-ais-skynet/id1612131897?i=1000738091636 - Part 2 https://podcasts.apple.com/us/podcast/part-2-james-cameron-on-avatar-4-and-5-movie-biz/id1612131897?i=1000738182258) If you're in the area check out Nitehawk Trivia https://nitehawkcinema.com/prospectpark/movie-trivia-nite/ Watch the Anaconda Trailer to have 3 Bad Minutes https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=az8M5Mai0X4 Sign up for Check Book https://blankcheckpod.substack.com/welcome, the Blank Check newsletter featuring even more “real nerdy shit” to feed your pop culture obsession. Dossier excerpts, film biz AND burger reports, and even more exclusive content you won’t want to miss out on. Join our Patreon for franchise commentaries and bonus episodes. http://www.patreon.com/blankcheck Follow us @blankcheckpod on Twitter https://x.com/blankcheckpod?lang=en, Instagram https://www.instagram.com/blankcheckpod/?hl=en, Threads https://www.threads.net/@blankcheckpod?xmt=AQGzctAh4mbWTwYzCV1pzNT6AMV9o99EOfymi8TLR5mTde0 and Facebook https://www.facebook.com/blankcheckpodcast/! Buy some real nerdy merch https://kinshipgoods.com/blankcheck Connect with other Blankies on our Reddit https://www.reddit.com/r/blankies/s/gpcOkQr8Sv or Discord https://discord.gg/Q6YGSR3JrA For anything else, check out BlankCheckPod.com https://www.blankcheckpod.com/ Hosted on Acast. See acast.com/privacy https://acast.com/privacy for more information.

Speaker names marked ? are inferred from speaking time and the show’s known hosts — they are not voice-verified.

• 0:02Griffin Newman?

  David. Yep. We did a live show. Yeah, remember? Ranking Scorsese at the Bell House in Brooklyn. We did the definitive power ranking of Martin Scorsese things. Uh, it was so fun. Uh, it was very silly. Ben and Marie were with us and they're with us right now. Yeah. Hey.

• 0:18Speaker 01

  Hey, everyone. Or should I say, oh? Oh.

• 0:22Griffin Newman?

  And thanks to our friends at Dynasty Typewriter. It was livestreamed for the first time ever. But also the replay is still up there, but only until October 30th. So just a few more days. Yes. You can get it at dynasty.tv. Dynasty.tv. It's $20. We had a blast and the Spreadmaster really got to work. Oh, yeah. I was moving things around. Laptop was on.

• 0:46Speaker 01

  I don't know if I'd have seen you that happy.

• 0:48Griffin Newman?

  You were thrilled. You were like a pick and share. I was locked in. Yeah, very locked in and you were funny. Thank you. You were funny. You were also funny. Oh, thank you. And if you want to see like, you know, Griffin's shine box on camera, it's the only way to see it. You might see me shine Marie's shoes. Exactly.

• 1:05Speaker 01

  Yeah, if you're into that sort of content.

• 1:07Griffin Newman?

  If that gets you off.

• 1:09Speaker 01

  Okay.

• 1:10Griffin Newman?

  So once again, that's at dynasty.tv.

• 1:39Griffin Newman?

  Your podcast has no dominion here. Now imagine when you hear me say that. Yes. Imagine I'm the hottest fucking creature to ever exist.

• 1:52Speaker 01

  I am so turned on right now.

• 1:54Griffin Newman?

  You are the hottest creature to ever, says Griffin Newman.

• 1:57Speaker 01

  No.

• 1:57Griffin Newman?

  David, can I say it? David is warm today. He's cozy. He's been cuddly. He's been warm. That's so funny because I'm like, I gotta get out of here in two and a half hours. David's hearing a crying baby in the hallway and it's triggering 20 things in him. And I am coming off a Thanksgiving week of travel and stress that is, uh, a blood curdling tale that I cannot share.

• 2:20Speaker 01

  You guys went somewhere?

• 2:21Griffin Newman?

  Yeah.

• 2:21Speaker 01

  Why?

• 2:23David Sims?

  Why, why, I don't know. I have family and I love them.

• 2:27Speaker 01

  They should come to you.

• 2:29David Sims?

  Traveling to see family caused you stress? Especially if you want to drive three small children to Boston on Thanksgiving weekend, be my guest.

• 2:38Speaker 03

  I'd love to come back. When was your travel day back?

• 2:41David Sims?

  Saturday.

• 2:42Speaker 03

  Okay, not as bad as Sunday. That's when I came back from New England and it was a fucking nightmare.

• 2:47Speaker 01

  Yeah, I think Ben has you beat, David.

• 2:49David Sims?

  No, he doesn't because, no, he doesn't. No, he doesn't because you don't know what happened to me.

• 2:54Speaker 01

  Do you know what happened to Ben?

• 2:55David Sims?

  No, what happened to Ben? Compare your stories. Did you get shot with a gun and die?

• 3:00Speaker 03

  I'm still here, so I'm pretty sure I have you beat, but go right ahead, please.

• 3:04David Sims?

  Okay, well. Ben and David have both taken out dual curved.

• 3:08Speaker 03

  No, I want to hear it. I want to hear it.

• 3:10David Sims?

  Flaming sabers.

• 3:11Speaker 03

  I want to hear it. Okay, so I went up to my in-laws.

• 3:14David Sims?

  Yes, you did. Up in New England.

• 3:16Speaker 03

  New England. Yeah, and I brought my cat, my lovely cat, my 17-year-old cat, Pig. On the ride home, unfortunately, about an hour and a half in, Pig peed on me. She peed in her case, on my leg. And then the ride, all in all, took seven hours. So it was a nice, long ride of soaked in pee.

• 3:36David Sims?

  Well, my friends, I have you beat so fucking bad, you're about to run out of here blushing.

• 3:41Speaker 01

  Were you shot with a gun and did you die?

• 3:42David Sims?

  Friday night. Oh, my God, David is bleeding. Friday night. So the night before, we have to travel, right? So I've been a, my, one of my twins starts barfing in the middle of the night. Get him up. He, you know, throws up, you know, 50 times. Then the other one starts barfing. I'm holding the other one barfing.

• 4:00Speaker 01

  Why did you still go?

• 4:02David Sims?

  No, no, no. Friday night, we've, we're there. You're already there. We're there. It's the day after Thanksgiving. It's the day after Thanksgiving. I'm not in my home. I'm in someone else's home.

• 4:10Speaker 01

  No.

• 4:11David Sims?

  Guess what's happening while the second child is barfing? And it's really, it's, I'm not, like, it sucks when a baby's barfing because they hate it and they don't know what's going on and you feel really bad for them, right? Can I take a guess? Yeah. Your oldest child starts barfing? Nope. Does someone start shitting? Nope. Well, I mean, probably.

• 4:25Griffin Newman?

  Does Ben's cat pig pee on you?

• 4:28David Sims?

  No, I start barfing. You start barfing? And it was this moment where my wife is in the bathroom with me. Again, not our bathroom, my poor cousin's bathroom. We're staying, you know, with them. And I'm like, I think you gotta get out of here for a sec. You just, yeah. And she's like, what? I'm like, are you still holding a barfing baby? I'm holding one of them. She's holding the other.

• 4:46Griffin Newman?

  Yeah.

• 4:47David Sims?

  And she's like, okay. I throw up a bunch. Then she comes and she's like, I'm so sorry. And I'm like, it's okay. Not my first rodeo. And then I drove back.

• 4:56Griffin Newman?

  Can we get?

• 4:57David Sims?

  The next morning, my stomach seizing up. No coffee, no food through five and a half hours of like traffic from Boston to New York.

• 5:06Griffin Newman?

  You did take a power chain clothes?

• 5:07David Sims?

  My cat peed on me, which God bless. That sounds annoying.

• 5:11Speaker 03

  It sucked. I mean, I did get to pull over and change and wipe my leg off.

• 5:15David Sims?

  I was just driving like, I mean, people have said to me like, wait, what? Like, how did you drive? And I'm like, I don't know. I just went into like, you know, fugue state.

• 5:25Griffin Newman?

  Can I ask a couple of follow up?

• 5:26David Sims?

  Like fucking, what does Verrang do to, you know, I go into Verrang brain.

• 5:30Griffin Newman?

  We need to, the world's biggest pin on the board about Verrang. We're going to get back to Verrang and we're going to talk about Verrang so much. But I just want to clarify, you're holding a baby. Let's say Rocksteady.

• 5:41David Sims?

  Uh, I, I always forget which is supposed to be which, but I think I was holding Bebop.

• 5:47Griffin Newman?

  I bought them big plush Bebop and Rocksteady heads. And each one is pitched, picked one naturally.

• 5:52David Sims?

  Oh, so they picked their own identity? I believe I was holding Bebop.

• 5:55Griffin Newman?

  That's the progressive way to raise children is you let them self identify as a Bebop or a Rocksteady.

• 6:00David Sims?

  Their turtle villain of choice.

• 6:01Griffin Newman?

  Okay. So you're holding Bebop.

• 6:02David Sims?

  Yeah, I think so.

• 6:03Griffin Newman?

  Your wife is holding Rocksteady.

• 6:04David Sims?

  That's right.

• 6:05Griffin Newman?

  They are vomiting onto your bodies?

• 6:07David Sims?

  Uh, sure. I mean, you know, it's baby vomit. So yeah.

• 6:10Griffin Newman?

  But you got the little like towel on the shoulder or whatever.

• 6:13David Sims?

  Like whatever you can get. We have paper towels.

• 6:15Griffin Newman?

  Then you start feeling sick.

• 6:16David Sims?

  This was really rough, by the way. It was very traumatic. Yes.

• 6:19Griffin Newman?

  You start feeling sick. Do you hand Bebop to Forky?

• 6:22David Sims?

  No, how could I? She had a baby.

• 6:24Griffin Newman?

  So where are you puking into a toilet?

• 6:26David Sims?

  A toilet.

• 6:26Griffin Newman?

  So you walk to the bathroom, holding Bebop.

• 6:29David Sims?

  I was sitting in there already luckily, cause you know, they were already sort of. Gross. So we kind of needed.

• 6:34Griffin Newman?

  And where's the boss baby during all of this?

• 6:36David Sims?

  Boss baby, thank the Lord, was sleeping with her cousins upstairs.

• 6:40Griffin Newman?

  Fun.

• 6:41David Sims?

  Cause she saw that her cousins all sleep in a room together.

• 6:43Griffin Newman?

  We need to code name the cousins as well.

• 6:46David Sims?

  And was like, I want to sleep with them. And they were, we were like, you sure? Like, you know, you won't be near us. You're going to be upstairs. And she was like, yes. And thank God she made that decision.

• 6:53Speaker 01

  Independent of her. I'm so proud of her.

• 6:55David Sims?

  We were proud of her too. I was feeling so great until around one in the morning.

• 6:59Griffin Newman?

  How many, how many cousins are there?

• 7:01David Sims?

  So I have two cousins in Boston, my lovely cousins who I love so much and I grew up with. And between all of us, there's eight children.

• 7:08Speaker 01

  Oh, Jesus Christ.

• 7:09David Sims?

  So that, you know, one has three, one has two and I have three.

• 7:12Griffin Newman?

  Okay. So Huey, Dewey, Louie is like one.

• 7:15David Sims?

  And Gippendale.

• 7:16Griffin Newman?

  The other.

• 7:19David Sims?

  The crazy thing is that I drove back, but it was just one of those things where it was like, I, we have to get home.

• 7:24Griffin Newman?

  But you weren't caked in the vomit. This was the next day?

• 7:26David Sims?

  I, I had showered.

• 7:27Griffin Newman?

  Okay. I just want to. I worry about you, buddy.

• 7:30Speaker 01

  Is this like a food poisoning scenario?

• 7:32David Sims?

  Initially, I thought it was.

• 7:33Speaker 01

  Okay.

• 7:34David Sims?

  But then a couple of days later, my daughter barfed. So it was like, no, this is just like a bug, you know?

• 7:40Griffin Newman?

  Do you know what it sounds like to me?

• 7:41David Sims?

  Yeah.

• 7:41Griffin Newman?

  It sounds.

• 7:42David Sims?

  At least she did that in my home where I have laundry and services.

• 7:45Speaker 01

  You felt safe.

• 7:46David Sims?

  Yes.

• 7:47Griffin Newman?

  Do you know what it sounds like to me? It sounds like your whole family came down with a brutal case of avatar fever.

• 7:56David Sims?

  So true. As I was throwing up, I was like, I can't wait to see Berang, David Thewlis guy. Is Joel David Moore going to be back?

• 8:05Griffin Newman?

  Your vomit has no dominion here.

• 8:07Speaker 03

  So David, I'm going to put down whatever the fuck that weapon is that you referenced.

• 8:11Griffin Newman?

  Dun dun dun.

• 8:12Speaker 01

  You're gonna kneel. You need to kneel.

• 8:14David Sims?

  I texted some other parents.

• 8:16Speaker 03

  Yeah, it's all right.

• 8:18Speaker 01

  You're Taruk Maktou.

• 8:20Griffin Newman?

  You are Taruk Maktou.

• 8:21David Sims?

  I was just like, this is like S tier parent nonsense that this is like this, a story that will be told when they're far older.

• 8:31Griffin Newman?

  Yeah, much like.

• 8:32David Sims?

  Versus like the usual, like, oh, you got a stomach bug and it sucked like.

• 8:35Griffin Newman?

  No, it's, it's the saga of the Sully family. These, these stories will be passed on from clan to clan, generation to generation. These are important.

• 8:43Speaker 01

  Yeah.

• 8:43Griffin Newman?

  Dare I say it? Cause we're rounding out the year and I'm committed to the retirement of this totemic story.

• 8:51David Sims?

  I was doing a totem sign.

• 8:52Griffin Newman?

  Marie, I'm calling the shot. 2026, totemic retired.

• 8:56David Sims?

  Are there any others?

• 8:56Speaker 01

  Are you just retiring it because mean people on the Reddit called you out on it?

• 9:00Griffin Newman?

  Excuse me, nothing mean has ever been said on the Reddit. I never read it and it doesn't live in my head.

• 9:07David Sims?

  It's definitely not affected my emotions ever. No.

• 9:10Griffin Newman?

  I checked, I checked my head recently. No tenants. Empty.

• 9:17David Sims?

  Landlords opening pockets, moths flying out.

• 9:20Griffin Newman?

  It's weirdly unoccupied and yet I am receiving rent. It's the opposite of living in my head rent free.

• 9:26David Sims?

  What's this podcast called?

• 9:27Griffin Newman?

  This podcast is called Blank Check with Griffin David. I'm Griffin.

• 9:31David Sims?

  I'm David.

• 9:32Griffin Newman?

  It's a podcast about filmographies and vomit.

• 9:35David Sims?

  Sometimes.

• 9:36Griffin Newman?

  Directors who have massive success early on in their careers. For example, making The Terminator, Terminator Two, Titanic, Avatar.

• 9:48Speaker 01

  Titanic.

• 9:49David Sims?

  Everything okay?

• 9:50Griffin Newman?

  Avatar.

• 9:51David Sims?

  Avatar.

• 9:53Griffin Newman?

  Wave of water.

• 9:56Griffin Newman?

  Also True Lies in the Abyss.

• 9:57Speaker 01

  They did include True Lies in the original Avatar trailer.

• 10:01Griffin Newman?

  No, no, no. When they're- Yes, they really, well, because they were like, we need to remind people how many things he made that they like. Because everyone is, has their knives out. Benoit Blanc style for this fucking movie. Arguably the most successful filmmaker of all time. Certainly relative to how few movies he has actually made.

• 10:21David Sims?

  That's the thing, like you might have the Spielberg's of the world who put up more quantity and so, but, but Cameron's per game average is pretty high.

• 10:29Griffin Newman?

  He is also currently the only person with three of the 10 highest grossing films of all time, if not three of the five. He's three of the 10.

• 10:38David Sims?

  I can look it up.

• 10:39Griffin Newman?

  I mean, he, he for over a decade held the record of the highest grossing film in history and then dethroned himself.

• 10:46David Sims?

  We've, we've noted that over the years.

• 10:48Griffin Newman?

  Himself. Big Jim Cameron, the deepest director alive, has returned and graced us with another installment of the Avatar saga, the ongoing story of the Sully clan. Avatar, Fire and Ash.

• 11:05David Sims?

  He has three of the top five.

• 11:07Griffin Newman?

  Okay, yeah.

• 11:08David Sims?

  Avatar, Avatar, Wave of Water and Titanic are all in the top five, along with your two other favorite films, Avengers Endgame and Naja Two.

• 11:15Speaker 01

  Did you see Naja 2, Griffin?

• 11:17Griffin Newman?

  I tried to watch Naja 1.

• 11:20David Sims?

  I was told that you shouldn't do that.

• 11:22Griffin Newman?

  Yeah.

• 11:22David Sims?

  By people who saw.

• 11:23Griffin Newman?

  Maybe kind of a rookie mistake.

• 11:24David Sims?

  Where they were like, I think you can skip it. Like, I think you can just go right into Naja 2.

• 11:28Griffin Newman?

  I was, I was struggling and I'm not even saying this in like a pejorative, quantitative way. I was just like, this is just, this is something I don't understand.

• 11:38David Sims?

  Yeah, which is, I think, sometimes a humbling and useful experience for people to have of like, right, I cannot touch every piece of culture, right?

• 11:46Griffin Newman?

  I've heard my, my, my little cousin, the off-reference George's younger sister is obsessed with Nija 2, which makes sense because she's got big Nija energy.

• 11:55David Sims?

  Because it's a little girl who has like a stick or something?

• 11:58Griffin Newman?

  It's a.

• 11:59David Sims?

  Is it a boy?

• 12:00Griffin Newman?

  It's a boy. It is a boy, but it's.

• 12:02David Sims?

  I've just seen a little cartoon of a person.

• 12:04Griffin Newman?

  It's a little demon they try to teach to be good.

• 12:06David Sims?

  Oh, well, wait a second, this sounds kind of cute.

• 12:09Griffin Newman?

  It, yeah, I don't know, maybe I gotta give another go. Look, here's the important part.

• 12:13David Sims?

  Yeah.

• 12:14Griffin Newman?

  Fire and ash in this economy?

• 12:17David Sims?

  Oh, it is a little boy.

• 12:18Griffin Newman?

  In one movie.

• 12:20David Sims?

  It's a popular mythological character. Yes, well, we've got this film, what's it called? Avatar Fire and Ash.

• 12:26Griffin Newman?

  Avatar.

• 12:27Speaker 01

  Colon.

• 12:27Griffin Newman?

  Fire and Ash.

• 12:29David Sims?

  It is James Cameron's 10th movie.

• 12:32Griffin Newman?

  That's crazy that it's.

• 12:34David Sims?

  12 if you include the two docs, I guess.

• 12:36Griffin Newman?

  Okay.

• 12:36David Sims?

  Yeah.

• 12:37Griffin Newman?

  But we're, I mean, I guess he discounts Piranha 2, the spawning.

• 12:42David Sims?

  Well, then he's down to nine.

• 12:43Griffin Newman?

  Yeah.

• 12:44Speaker 01

  Why doesn't he count that?

• 12:45Griffin Newman?

  Because he says he got fired off of it.

• 12:47David Sims?

  Fired and like, I wasn't fucking. Does the new Billie Eilish one count?

• 12:51Speaker 01

  I was asking, are we gonna cover it? Because he is directing it.

• 12:55Griffin Newman?

  That might be some real Patreon shit.

• 12:56David Sims?

  I think that's some Patreon shit. What is this? He directed a, like a tour documentary, like a concert movie for Billie Eilish that's coming out next year.

• 13:05Griffin Newman?

  David, I must correct you.

• 13:06David Sims?

  He co-directed.

• 13:07Griffin Newman?

  With?

• 13:07Speaker 01

  Billie Eilish.

• 13:08Griffin Newman?

  Yeah.

• 13:08Speaker 01

  Who's also in the editing room with him. She's like learning on the job.

• 13:12Griffin Newman?

  Yeah.

• 13:12David Sims?

  And his editing room is 10 feet, 10 miles down.

• 13:15Griffin Newman?

  He's really into Billie Eilish.

• 13:17Speaker 01

  But not in a creepy way, I don't think.

• 13:18David Sims?

  Just because his kids like Billie Eilish or whatever?

• 13:21Griffin Newman?

  Okay, let, let me just finish, let me just say, we did a series many years ago, early in our show's run, called Podinator 2 Judgment Cast. That ended with Avatar. Three years ago, we were able to return to Pandora to talk about Avatar, Way of Water, a movie that, as, as you coined the term on this film, owns bones. Sure does. As I recently said on Letterboxd, makes me cum buckets.

• 13:47Speaker 01

  Ew.

• 13:52Speaker 01

  You said that before seeing Fire and Ash?

• 13:56Griffin Newman?

  Yeah.

• 13:56Speaker 01

  Cause that, this is the sexiest of the three, in my opinion.

• 13:59Griffin Newman?

  It is the sexiest and the funniest. That's disputable, yeah. This movie certainly fucks the most.

• 14:04Speaker 01

  Yeah.

• 14:05Griffin Newman?

  I, I saw the Way of Water, uh, re-release, whatever it was, two months ago. That movie has only grown for me in the last three years. Basically think it's perfect now.

• 14:15Speaker 01

  Yeah, I re-listened to our episode this weekend.

• 14:18Griffin Newman?

  Yeah.

• 14:18Speaker 01

  And I was like, what am I complaining about?

• 14:20Griffin Newman?

  There were some still processing stuff. I, I, let's call it out in advance. All four of us, I think, like, loved this movie, had a great fucking time watching it. Absolutely.

• 14:28Speaker 01

  Yeah.

• 14:29Griffin Newman?

  But also, you saw it slightly earlier in the day, Marie Barty, Party Barty, Salinas, producer Ben Hosley. Three of us saw it together, walked out, were like, thumbs up. Also, how the fuck are we gonna talk about this thing? It, these movies are hard to process on one viewing, for how much everyone likes to say they're so simple. It's just fern gully in space.

• 14:50Speaker 01

  There's so much going on.

• 14:52Griffin Newman?

  That is such an original, clever, achingly funny thought. I am achingly funny. You guys aching right now?

• 15:00Speaker 01

  I am, actually.

• 15:01Griffin Newman?

  My funny bones, yeah. This is a tough movie to talk about. I, I walked out of it, I'm like, I think that's, I think Way of Water's the best now, even though when we recorded our Way of Water episode, I was like, the first one's better, but this one rules. Now I'm like, Way of Water's clearly top. Way of Water's just one of those, like, take me there any day of the week. I love it so much. And this feels like third in, you know, a competition between three golden movies. And yet, I'm like, am I gonna watch this 10 more times? And think it's perfect?

• 15:31Speaker 01

  There, there are silly things in this movie that I'm like, I can say, be like, yeah, that was dumb. That was silly.

• 15:37Griffin Newman?

  There's stuff in it. There's things that feel like minor missteps. It also feels like the messiest of the three of them. In a way that for me, I'm like, it's overflowing with ideas.

• 15:46Speaker 01

  Yeah.

• 15:47Griffin Newman?

  They're not always organized perfectly.

• 15:48Speaker 01

  I think I said this maybe on our trap episode. Some, like, it happens a lot with Avatar or with John Malone, where people...

• 15:56Griffin Newman?

  Here's the disclaimer, we're gonna point to the sign.

• 15:59Speaker 01

  How do you think these movies are good? They are objectively bad.

• 16:03Griffin Newman?

  I think you're lying.

• 16:04Speaker 01

  You that, yeah, we're not like, here's the thing with these movies. I don't care. I don't care that like certain threads are complicated or plot hole. Whatever. Like, I do not care. The entire movie, I was sitting right by Griffin Newman. I saw you lean forward in your seat.

• 16:22Griffin Newman?

  Twenty times.

• 16:23David Sims?

  I would, that was me. I was, I was not with you guys, but that was.

• 16:26Speaker 01

  I had my hands gasped, like clasped to my face, my mouth agape. I was just, I was enjoying it.

• 16:34Griffin Newman?

  If you don't like these movies, you should just fucking not listen to this episode because we're going to talk about everything.

• 16:38David Sims?

  Okay, let's all stop getting mad at imaginary people, guys.

• 16:41Griffin Newman?

  I'm getting that out of the way so we can stop like straw man.

• 16:43David Sims?

  This is my thing. It's just like what you guys are talking, I'm just like, I'm in Pandora. I'm so happy to be here.

• 16:48Speaker 01

  Pandora.

• 16:49David Sims?

  Fucking, when they go to the fucking Edie Falco base where it's just a bunch of grumpy humans, even then I'm like, ah, it's nice to be here.

• 16:56Griffin Newman?

  Digital fucking water.

• 16:58Speaker 01

  They're weird, they're weird phones. Everyone, do they have social media on the, on the fucking army base?

• 17:04David Sims?

  So many questions.

• 17:05Griffin Newman?

  Giovanni Ribisi's character.

• 17:08David Sims?

  The son of the chairman.

• 17:09Griffin Newman?

  That he's a nipple?

• 17:11David Sims?

  I mean, he had that energy.

• 17:12Griffin Newman?

  Who's his dad? Are we gonna be his dad in the fourth one?

• 17:16David Sims?

  We better.

• 17:16Speaker 01

  Who is his dad?

• 17:17Griffin Newman?

  That line gets thrown out. I'm like, oh my God, who the fuck are they gonna cast?

• 17:21David Sims?

  Ben, what did you want to say?

• 17:23Speaker 03

  I just felt like I wanted to reach out the whole time.

• 17:25David Sims?

  Yeah, well, that's what he's trying to get you to do.

• 17:28Speaker 01

  I want to reach out and touch Varang.

• 17:31Griffin Newman?

  It is astounding how good this movie looks and it's astounding that James Cameron, after, you know, hundreds of millions, if not billions of dollars of R and D, groundbreaking technology, combined with disciplined, focused, heartfelt storytelling, has finally cracked the code on creating the hottest creature that could ever fucking possibly exist.

• 17:55David Sims?

  Hottest mean Navi.

• 17:56Griffin Newman?

  Varang rules my fucking world. It's one of those things. Guys.

• 18:04David Sims?

  So first she has to learn about capitalism and then she can

• 18:06Griffin Newman?

  She'd learn it quick.

• 18:07Speaker 03

  She would love it.

• 18:09Griffin Newman?

  She would.

• 18:09Speaker 03

  She loves it.

• 18:10David Sims?

  I know, I know. That was, that was sort of my joke. But it's so funny that like the two Avatar movies came out and they have romance and sex in them, you know, but it's blue aliens and everyone's like a little like chuckling at it.

• 18:21Speaker 01

  My main complaint about Way of Water was that there wasn't enough romance.

• 18:25David Sims?

  It's a lot of face stroking and I see you.

• 18:28Speaker 01

  It's a lot of family stuff and I'm like, okay.

• 18:29David Sims?

  Well, I find that a little bit like, but, but you know, but you learn about people being like, I'm, I'm horny for Navi and you're like, oh, okay, that's insane, but okay. And then you watch this one and you're like, well, now we're all horny for Navi.

• 18:42Griffin Newman?

  I get it. Now, excuse me, I came correct for this episode. I did purchase the world of Avatar visual exploration because I want to try to get some of this terminology correct, but I feel like there's a moment in the movie because this movie really explores new territory in terms of pony braid fucking.

• 18:57Speaker 01

  Yes.

• 18:59David Sims?

  Yeah, both consensual and non-consensual.

• 19:02Speaker 01

  Yeah, I was wondering, is it, is it considered assault?

• 19:05David Sims?

  I think so.

• 19:06Speaker 01

  If you forcefully combine your braid with someone else's.

• 19:08David Sims?

  If we're just gonna be jumping all over the place. So in the His Dark Materials series, you know, those they have, everyone has their demon, which is like a little animal.

• 19:16Speaker 01

  I've never read, I've never read it.

• 19:17David Sims?

  Okay, well, in His Dark Materials, in the world that they're largely set in, humans, souls, or whatever, sort of, it's the best way to describe is their souls is animated as a, as a creature that lives alongside them they can talk to, right? It's called your demon and nobody is allowed to touch anyone else's. And there's a moment late in the first book when suddenly the kids, like people start grabbing their demons and it's like such a deep violation. And you're so in, in the book, you're reading this and you're like, oh, you know, you can't believe this. And that's what her doing the braid, you know, assault felt like, where it's like, you're not supposed to do that. That's like against natural Navi law, right? It's like, you can't just be. You know, US being into people.

• 19:59Griffin Newman?

  And the most fascinating thing is that Quarch is like, I think I like this a lot.

• 20:03David Sims?

  Wow, we ain't in Kansas anymore. It's a potent mix.

• 20:08Speaker 03

  He sounds like fuck or like.

• 20:11Griffin Newman?

  It is kind of what he sounds like.

• 20:13David Sims?

  I say, I say.

• 20:14Speaker 03

  This was our last.

• 20:16David Sims?

  This, this is an episode, we're gonna talk about Avatar Fire Nation. We're just gonna talk about that because there's lots to talk about.

• 20:23Griffin Newman?

  Still processing thoughts for a movie that made us all cheer.

• 20:26David Sims?

  The Stephen Lang character of Miles Quaritch.

• 20:29Griffin Newman?

  One of the greatest.

• 20:30David Sims?

  Is one of the great characters in movies.

• 20:32Speaker 03

  Fascinating art.

• 20:33Griffin Newman?

  I thought he was so much fun in the original film.

• 20:36David Sims?

  I love him. In the original film, you're like, great. He's doing what's on, what he's being asked, he's being a hard as nails, evil general guy. And he's serving it up perfectly.

• 20:46Griffin Newman?

  Tenderly chewing the scenery.

• 20:47David Sims?

  Exactly.

• 20:48Griffin Newman?

  Skillfully. And then Cameron announces he's gonna be the villain for all of them. He's Darth Vader. And I immediately went, is that a little uninspired?

• 20:55David Sims?

  That's a little silly, right? Like, can we think of something better?

• 20:58Griffin Newman?

  And it's all gonna be him.

• 20:59David Sims?

  And they're like, no, no, no, no. The implications of Avatar technology is that you could be a soldier who lived to kill Na'Vi, dies at their hand, and then one day is reborn in the body of your enemy. But with the, the human hatred of Na'Vi coded in, what would that be like? And I think these two sequels, Way of Water and Fire and Ash, explore, that is the thread they explore that is the most fascinating to me.

• 21:24Griffin Newman?

  Yup.

• 21:24David Sims?

  Is like, and it's like, yeah, okay, you can, you know, people will be like, oh, no, come on, it's obvious. Like, he starts out villain, he becomes sort of an anti-hero, you know, he, he has this dark version of the Jake Sully journey, but it's weirder than that. It's so interesting.

• 21:40Griffin Newman?

  It's so much weirder. When people fucking knock these movies for being broad and simplistic and like hitting these tropes of a thousand stories they've heard before, it's like, that's the foundation. And then on top of that, James Cameron does the weirdest shit in the world. There is stuff in this movie that is so strange. And Colonel Miles Quaritch, it's the opposite of, of the great Norm MacDonald joke about Adolf Hitler. The more I learn about this guy, the more I like him.

• 22:09David Sims?

  Miles Quaritch?

• 22:10Griffin Newman?

  Yeah.

• 22:12Griffin Newman?

  Norm MacDonald's Adolf Hitler joke is, I've been reading about this Hitler felon. I gotta tell you, the more I read about him, the less I like him. But Quarch, I'm just like, I'm not saying, I'm not saying I support all of his actions.

• 22:24David Sims?

  Sure. You do not in fact have to hand it to him.

• 22:26Griffin Newman?

  But I am fascinated by everything going on in this guy.

• 22:29Speaker 01

  It is, it is interesting because we get the kind, in this movie, we get the like inverse of the Jake and Nitiary love story. But like, you're excited.

• 22:40David Sims?

  Like he's brought over, he's brought closer to Navi culture, but by someone who's rejected it.

• 22:44Speaker 01

  Yeah.

• 22:45David Sims?

  What also amuses me is that there are the other grunts who also became Avatar in Navi. And they're just like, yeah, I just want to like, wear sunglasses and like drink beer. Like they have no interest in engaging with the culture.

• 22:57Griffin Newman?

  Yes.

• 22:58David Sims?

  But can we just shoot him? Isn't our job to shoot Jake Sully? And Quarch is like, in a minute. It's like the guy's like, Jesus fucking Christ.

• 23:06Griffin Newman?

  I'm trying to find the name of it because they throw it out in this when they discover that in saving his life, they have now given Spider his own connection port in the back of his head.

• 23:18David Sims?

  Yeah, yeah, sure.

• 23:19Griffin Newman?

  And there's a term they throw out when they find.

• 23:21David Sims?

  Oh, for what it's called?

• 23:22Griffin Newman?

  Yes.

• 23:23David Sims?

  What's the braid called in Avatar?

• 23:24Griffin Newman?

  Yes, but, but specifically the little squishy part.

• 23:27David Sims?

  It's called Sahelu, Sahelu.

• 23:31Griffin Newman?

  But is there another term they use there?

• 23:32David Sims?

  They called it a Q. Uh, what else they call it? I don't know.

• 23:36Speaker 01

  Wait, so Spider gets a little braid?

• 23:39David Sims?

  You didn't notice?

• 23:40Speaker 01

  No, I know he got the braid, but I thought he got the braid as part of Grace.

• 23:43Griffin Newman?

  Yes.

• 23:44Speaker 01

  And you said he got the braid because he saved.

• 23:47Griffin Newman?

  No, but in saving him, Spider was gifted.

• 23:51Speaker 01

  Spider.

• 23:52Griffin Newman?

  Yes.

• 23:52Speaker 01

  Oh, I thought you meant because Spider saves Quarch at the end of the movie.

• 23:55Griffin Newman?

  No, no, no.

• 23:56Speaker 01

  And so I was like, I didn't connect to that at all.

• 23:58David Sims?

  Which is such a cool, like world building-y kind of thing where mushroom spores.

• 24:05Griffin Newman?

  Yeah, right, right, right.

• 24:06David Sims?

  And are able to then rework his biology.

• 24:10Griffin Newman?

  It's like a fungousy thing of some sort.

• 24:12David Sims?

  But I kind of like how it's not even that preposterous. Like it is a thing that could maybe be real.

• 24:18Griffin Newman?

  Curie is team god.

• 24:20David Sims?

  Yeah.

• 24:21Griffin Newman?

  The fucking mother tree impregnated.

• 24:25Griffin Newman?

  The avatar, the dead avatar body of Dr. Grace Augustine.

• 24:30David Sims?

  Any questions?

• 24:32Griffin Newman?

  Planted the seed.

• 24:33David Sims?

  Yeah, it's sort of.

• 24:34Griffin Newman?

  Her avatar body was the seed bearer and she is the seed that was born.

• 24:38David Sims?

  Yeah, it's an Anakin Skywalker situation. Like, her mom is the Force.

• 24:43Griffin Newman?

  Yes.

• 24:43David Sims?

  You know, it's like, you know, the Force in Star Wars is very similar to Awa. And then it's like, well, what is it? It's like, well, it's an energy thing that's basically just all consciousness, right? And Awa is sort of, what I like about Awa, what I like, we're hearing a lot of things about Awa.

• 25:00Griffin Newman?

  And I gotta say, the more I read about her, the more I like her.

• 25:02David Sims?

  Is that, yes, she's there, she's their Gaia goddess, and you can think about it however you want, but the way the scientists talk about her in the first movie where they're like, it's just everyone's memories getting plugged in to a natural network that then is like this collective of all their memories.

• 25:18Griffin Newman?

  But also in this movie, you see that she's got a big fucking head in the sky.

• 25:22David Sims?

  That's a representation of her, Griffin.

• 25:24Speaker 01

  Can we just, can we just walk through all of the, like, major developments in this movie? We see Awa has, Awa's a big white head. Spider can breathe.

• 25:35Griffin Newman?

  Well, Spider is converted. He becomes basically the first hybrid.

• 25:39David Sims?

  Yeah.

• 25:39Griffin Newman?

  By being saved by God.

• 25:41David Sims?

  Well, it's kind of like, the first evolutionary leap that gets made happens in the first Avatar movie, which is like, they grow these unnatural Na'vi bodies.

• 25:49Griffin Newman?

  Host bodies.

• 25:50David Sims?

  And those, you know, can get integrated, right?

• 25:52Griffin Newman?

  Right.

• 25:53David Sims?

  Like Jake gets integrated.

• 25:53Griffin Newman?

  You can do a short-term stint.

• 25:55David Sims?

  Spider is now the next stage where it's like, now we can actually bring a human to, uh, fucking Pandora and integrate them.

• 26:03Griffin Newman?

  Well, there's another thing, too. Let's, there's a step in between, which is the half-breeds. You have Jake Sully fully converted.

• 26:08David Sims?

  That's what I was saying. That's what I was saying.

• 26:09Griffin Newman?

  And then he's.

• 26:10David Sims?

  Then he has these.

• 26:11Griffin Newman?

  Children, right.

• 26:12David Sims?

  Mutant children with five fingers on their hands.

• 26:16Griffin Newman?

  The sky people, the pink people.

• 26:18Speaker 01

  Did they say pink people in any of the previous movies? Cause I didn't remember that.

• 26:22Griffin Newman?

  I don't know. I need to re-watch them all every day for the rest of my life.

• 26:27David Sims?

  Yeah. Do they say pink people? That was kind of a new one.

• 26:30Griffin Newman?

  Yeah.

• 26:30David Sims?

  Kind of like toasters and Battlestar Galactica. I love fake slurs.

• 26:33Griffin Newman?

  Yeah. I just like that there's been this ticking time bomb within a theory.

• 26:39David Sims?

  Oh, well, but it's in the second one. It's just after, after her son dies, she can go full wrong kid died.

• 26:46Griffin Newman?

  Yeah.

• 26:46David Sims?

  You know, and after her son's dead, she's like, why do I have to fucking look at spider all the time? I tolerated this.

• 26:51Griffin Newman?

  Trump's got to be elected. Now she feels comfortable saying the words again. I'm sorry.

• 26:56David Sims?

  Okay. So you wanted to talk about, uh, major revelations.

• 26:58Griffin Newman?

  Yeah. Major breakthroughs. Right.

• 27:00Speaker 01

  Yes.

• 27:01Griffin Newman?

  There are bad Navi.

• 27:02Speaker 01

  Yes.

• 27:02Griffin Newman?

  Outcast clans.

• 27:03Speaker 01

  Who don't believe in Awa.

• 27:05David Sims?

  That was what I liked.

• 27:06Speaker 01

  Yeah.

• 27:06David Sims?

  I initially was worried that they would just kind of be like, well, our thing is this. And it's like, no, no, these are Navi who have left the sort of Navi way.

• 27:13Griffin Newman?

  They're not like, I like that.

• 27:15David Sims?

  They were. They got smited.

• 27:16Speaker 01

  Yeah.

• 27:16David Sims?

  Yeah.

• 27:17Speaker 01

  They did.

• 27:17David Sims?

  They got, hey, they got reasons to be grumpy. Yeah. They got fired. Maybe move away from the volcano.

• 27:23Griffin Newman?

  That's just my.

• 27:25David Sims?

  Like my only thing in Avatar is like, why doesn't everyone live in the cove? I'm like, this is a great place to live. Nice. Really, really nice.

• 27:32Speaker 01

  It really is nice, but I feel like most people, they haven't developed the like.

• 27:36David Sims?

  Yeah. They, they haven't evolved.

• 27:37Speaker 01

  The gills and stuff.

• 27:38David Sims?

  The water skills.

• 27:38Speaker 01

  So they just don't have, they're not really, they can't really like get into the water shit as much as the Metcalf.

• 27:44David Sims?

  You're right. You're right. You're.

• 27:50David Sims?

  David?

• 27:50Griffin Newman?

  Yes.

• 27:54David Sims?

  Is that the city has cow?

• 27:56Griffin Newman?

  The city has cow is back.

• 27:56David Sims?

  Haven't heard from her in a while.

• 27:58Griffin Newman?

  Yeah. She's reactivated because she's horny for chicken fingers.

• 28:03David Sims?

  Okay.

• 28:03Griffin Newman?

  And she's excited for the streaming debut of teenage sex and death at Camp Miasma.

• 28:08David Sims?

  Wow.

• 28:08Griffin Newman?

  The cow likes chicken.

• 28:11David Sims?

  Remember cow and chicken? Let's look it up. Well, while you, while you tell the, the great listeners about the great stuff on movie.

• 28:17Griffin Newman?

  Well, movie is a global film company, bringing great cinema to the world and to you, curating and elevating visionary filmmaking, all handpicked always. That's what movie does. Teenage Sex and Death at Camp Miasma.

• 28:29David Sims?

  Yes.

• 28:29Griffin Newman?

  One of my favorite movies of the year.

• 28:31David Sims?

  Absolutely.

• 28:32Griffin Newman?

  You can feel the rush now at home. There's a hole at the bottom of the lake where the movies come from.

• 28:37David Sims?

  That is a line in the movie.

• 28:39Griffin Newman?

  In the new movie from Jane Schomburn, Past and Future Guest.

• 28:41David Sims?

  Past and Future Guest, a great filmmaker, a great podcast guest.

• 28:45Griffin Newman?

  Yes.

• 28:45David Sims?

  Great friend.

• 28:46Griffin Newman?

  Yes.

• 28:47David Sims?

  Um, this movie rocks. It's got, of course, it stars Hannah Einbinder and Gillian Anderson.

• 28:52Griffin Newman?

  Uh huh.

• 28:52David Sims?

  You know, legends, and I tip my cap, but Zach Cherry.

• 28:55Griffin Newman?

  Performances, friend of the show.

• 28:56David Sims?

  Friend of the show, Zach Cherry.

• 28:58Griffin Newman?

  Zach Cherry.

• 28:59David Sims?

  Also in it.

• 29:00Griffin Newman?

  This is true.

• 29:01David Sims?

  Such a cool movie. Won the Queer Palmitcan. If you haven't heard about this movie, I don't know what's going on with you, but like, it obviously has, it was out in theaters, uh, this summer and now it's on movie.

• 29:11Griffin Newman?

  Hannah Einbinder plays the filmmaker attempting to reboot the Camp Miasma franchise, trying to track down the original final girl from the first movie to, to make some sort of legacy sequel, who's played by Gillian Anderson, who lives at the summer camp.

• 29:25David Sims?

  Yes. And you know, and then they hang out and it's regular.

• 29:29Griffin Newman?

  What happens? It's, it's one of those Hollywood's out of ideas. No, it's very much a movie about Hollywood being out of ideas while being, uh, an example of there still being new stories to tell.

• 29:41David Sims?

  It's now streaming exclusively on movie and you can try movie free for 30 days at movie.com slash blank check. That's M U B I dot com slash blank check for a whole month of great cinema for free.

• 29:54Griffin Newman?

  They got so many great movies on there to watch, but worth it for 30 days for Miasma.

• 29:58David Sims?

  Damn right.

• 30:05Griffin Newman?

  David.

• 30:05David Sims?

  Yes.

• 30:06Griffin Newman?

  Shop.com is giving away $1 million in Shop Cash.

• 30:10David Sims?

  Wow. Shop has all the stores you love and lets you track every order in one spot.

• 30:15Griffin Newman?

  I love that. It's very convenient.

• 30:17David Sims?

  And now 1,000 shoppers are each gonna win $1,000 in Shop Cash just in time for the holidays.

• 30:24Griffin Newman?

  You get gifts for everyone on your list or get yourself something a little merry and bright. Find exactly what you're looking for at shop.com.

• 30:33David Sims?

  Uh, that stocking stuffers maybe.

• 30:36David Sims?

  The sickest luxury items. Cookware to kicks, toys to high tech, even tinsel and tree toppers. Type in what you're looking for to instantly search every shop at once. Okay, that's shop.com. You can just go click around, find brands you love, search across all the stores, track every order in one spot.

• 30:56Griffin Newman?

  From cult favorites to the world's biggest brands, score suite deals and checkout fast all at shop.com. Enter to win the $1 million shop cash giveaway from now until November 1st. Just go to shop.com. There are so many ways to win. That's shop.com. Shopping designed around you. No purchase necessary. Restrictions apply. Official rules available at shop.com.

• 31:27Griffin Newman?

  David.

• 31:28David Sims?

  Hmm.

• 31:28Griffin Newman?

  It's not cuffing season for me. It's hosi season for me. And this year, that meant finally upgrading my new mattress from Lisa.

• 31:36David Sims?

  Lisa.

• 31:37Griffin Newman?

  It's supportive, comfortable and just what my body needs after a long day. It makes crawling into bed on a chilly fall night feel like luxury.

• 31:44David Sims?

  Yeah, I have a Lisa too. They've got a lineup of beautifully crafted mattresses tailored to how you sleep.

• 31:50Griffin Newman?

  Mm hmm.

• 31:51David Sims?

  Each mattress is designed with specific sleep positions and feel preferences in mind. They've got eco-friendly materials.

• 31:57Griffin Newman?

  Maybe you hear eco-friendly and you go, oh, but I'm going to sacrifice comfort.

• 32:01David Sims?

  No.

• 32:02Griffin Newman?

  Nope.

• 32:02David Sims?

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• 32:48David Sims?

  Okay, another major development?

• 32:50Speaker 03

  Drugs.

• 32:51Speaker 01

  Drugs.

• 32:52David Sims?

  Sure. What do we, what do we think the substance is?

• 32:55Speaker 01

  Ayahuasca.

• 32:56David Sims?

  Some kind, I agree.

• 32:57Speaker 03

  Naviwaska.

• 32:59David Sims?

  It's like they're finding some natural herb or whatever.

• 33:02Griffin Newman?

  This is the headline for this movie, and I hope no one listening to this has yet to see the film. I hope you're not learning this from the podcast. But Corrit Gets Stoned and Fucks.

• 33:14Speaker 01

  Corrit, Corrit does, so our, our-

• 33:17Griffin Newman?

  She blows shit up his nose and fucks his pony braid hard.

• 33:21David Sims?

  These are all things that-

• 33:22Speaker 01

  We text-

• 33:23David Sims?

  And one of the Sims also fucks his dick hard, although we don't see.

• 33:26Griffin Newman?

  And let me say this, drugs and pony braid fucking, that's a potent-

• 33:31Speaker 01

  What, my first text to David after we got out of the film, because David saw it before us, was Corrit fucks-

• 33:38Griffin Newman?

  Corrit fucks.

• 33:38Speaker 01

  All caps, and Tarabang, and you said, all caps, and does space drugs.

• 33:43David Sims?

  He does do space drugs. I mean, I know it's technically Pender and drugs, but-

• 33:46Speaker 01

  And does space drugs.

• 33:47Griffin Newman?

  She like blows Navi cocaine up his nose from a distance, like out of a dark-

• 33:52David Sims?

  Wolf of Wall Street style.

• 33:54Speaker 01

  I thought that was going to be a dildo.

• 33:57David Sims?

  Yeah, right. You thought that she was gonna introduce pegging.

• 33:59Griffin Newman?

  It might get there. It might get there.

• 34:01David Sims?

  Right. And I was like, right, gotta save something for Avatar IV.

• 34:05Griffin Newman?

  At least.

• 34:07David Sims?

  What are some other things? So, so Fire and Ash, it's a, it's, it's, it's a straight sequel to Way of Water in a way that Way of Water is not to Avatar, right? It is very much part two of a two-part story. It's in a lot of the same environments, it's got mostly the same ensemble.

• 34:22Griffin Newman?

  What I think has become very clear, and he's basically cop to this as well, is-

• 34:27David Sims?

  This was one movie.

• 34:28Griffin Newman?

  Yes.

• 34:28David Sims?

  That he broke into two.

• 34:30Griffin Newman?

  Right. Avatar comes out in 2009, 2010 Avatar two and three are announced, originally announced for 2014 and 2015.

• 34:37David Sims?

  And that's when they came out.

• 34:38Griffin Newman?

  So this movie is coming out fully 10 years after the original announced release date, right? Then 2013, delayed, but fourth film added. 2016, delays, fifth film added. In that time, he establishes a writer's room, they start breaking story, he's got this whole notion of, I want these to tell a larger saga, but I also want the films to have their own inherent concerns. What's become clear with Distance is- What was originally supposed to be the second film in his plan trilogy got so unwieldy that it became two films.

• 35:09David Sims?

  It's the George Martin problem.

• 35:11Griffin Newman?

  And what was planned to be his third film broke into two. So Wave Water and Fire and Ash are the middle chapter. It's a two-part middle chapter. He is now once again threatening us with who knows if I'll actually make the other film.

• 35:23David Sims?

  I'm retired. Who knows exactly? I don't know. I'm not thinking about Avatar four. Am I thinking about stacks of cash? Maybe.

• 35:29Griffin Newman?

  Wave Water definitely ended with a lot of like, here we go. Like there's stuff we're gonna jump right back into. This movie does not have like crazy dangling threads, but it also does not feel like a resolution at all.

• 35:40David Sims?

  Which I think will, will, will drive some people crazy.

• 35:44Griffin Newman?

  I think so too.

• 35:45David Sims?

  I think it's not quite a, right. It's not quite a definitive enough conclusion, maybe. I went in expecting like Jake's gonna die. There will be some kind of tapper here. Then as I'm watching it.

• 35:56Griffin Newman?

  Four and five are really different, really weird, and people won't believe like how much of a left turn.

• 36:00David Sims?

  It's just cars racing. It's just, you know how George Lucas would talk about his experimental movies?

• 36:05Griffin Newman?

  But they talk.

• 36:06David Sims?

  It's just cells.

• 36:07Griffin Newman?

  The windshields of their eyes. They have tongues and mouths.

• 36:11David Sims?

  Um, it is so crazy. They have tongues in cars.

• 36:14Griffin Newman?

  Yeah.

• 36:15David Sims?

  You know, like I, I was like, right, they'll be, and then I was watching this movie while they're still grappling with the death of their son. And I immediately was like, no, Jake's not dying. Nate Terry's not, that's not what this is. And instead, the big thing that happens in this movie is like, like Jake and Nate Terry and Loa and, uh, yeah, Terry and all.

• 36:35Griffin Newman?

  Spider.

• 36:36David Sims?

  Well, the get, I'll get, you know, they all make these sort of evolutionary like leaps in their thinking. Spider being kind of crucial to all of them. This movie is really about Spider in a way that I maybe should have seen coming because he is the character where you're like, why are they doing this? And then you're like, right, I guess they're doing this because this is sort of the crux of it.

• 36:57Griffin Newman?

  You don't put them on the table for no reason. There's intent.

• 36:59David Sims?

  You're not just, I mean, the last line of this movie, do you guys remember what it is?

• 37:04Speaker 01

  Uh, something like, we, we, we welcome you Spider.

• 37:07David Sims?

  No, that's like the second last one. The last line is Spider saying, no shit. Because they're like, Spider, well, you are now one of the people. And he goes, no shit. And then it says Avatar Fire and Ash, directed by James Cameron. James Cameron could die tomorrow or could decide to go make other movies. And that could be the last word in Avatar is Spider.

• 37:31David Sims?

  Humans joining the Navi fold and their reaction being, whoa, no shit. Whoa, I'm a fucking the Navi now. One of the people.

• 37:40Griffin Newman?

  I think. Feel about Spider's performance? We're gonna get to it. Let's put a pin in that. I think Wave Water.

• 37:46David Sims?

  That was me putting a pin in it.

• 37:47Griffin Newman?

  Look, we've been early Avatar defenders, right?

• 37:49David Sims?

  Yeah, I love that.

• 37:50Griffin Newman?

  People were fucking clowning Avatar before it came out. Then it obviously has this massive success, like a huge kind of like Oscar upswing. People, I think, kind of forget how much it was seen going into that night as this is probably gonna sweep.

• 38:06David Sims?

  As a, as a possible favorite.

• 38:08Griffin Newman?

  Yeah.

• 38:08David Sims?

  Yes. It was, it was kind of 50 50.

• 38:10Griffin Newman?

  This David Goliath narrative with, of course, his ex-wife Catherine Bigelow.

• 38:15Speaker 01

  And apparently.

• 38:16David Sims?

  Best friend.

• 38:16Speaker 01

  Best friend?

• 38:17Griffin Newman?

  He said Guillermo del Toro and Catherine Bigelow are his two best director friends.

• 38:21David Sims?

  It's really great of him to say. I mean, I really think that he mostly lives in New Zealand and doesn't hang out with people.

• 38:26Speaker 01

  Uh, he, what do you mean? He builds models like Guillermo del Toro's house with Steven Spielberg and J.J. Abrams. They all hang out.

• 38:32Griffin Newman?

  James Cameron did this two-part interview on The Town that is incredible. Every single thing he says in it casually is like 17 new volumes of lore just dropped. There's an incredible moment, you talking about like James Cameron could die tomorrow, right? And Bellamy saying like, so now, now you're saying you might not do four and five. Is the Hiroshima movie happening? And he went, look, we don't even have a script for that. That just came up in interviews, so people assume that's what's next. I got like five things in development. I don't even know what the next thing's gonna be. You know, I'd love to make other Avatar movies, but look, also like, I'm 70, you know? I, I, who knows how many movies I have left in me? And then in the most James Cameron statement of all time, he goes like, I mean, best case scenario, what? I only have 30 or 40 years left in me?

• 39:19David Sims?

  That's a good, that's a good case scenario, my friend.

• 39:21Griffin Newman?

  You know, like Martin Scorsese does these interviews where he's like, look, I'm in my 80s. Maybe I'll only make one or two more films. James Cameron's like, I'm in my 70s. You know, maybe I don't make it past 110.

• 39:35Griffin Newman?

  I might only have seven giant films that take five years and a the economy of an entire country.

• 39:44David Sims?

  I mean, James Cameron is the kind of guy that he might know something we don't.

• 39:47Griffin Newman?

  I hear him say that and I believe it.

• 39:49David Sims?

  Yeah.

• 39:50Speaker 01

  I love that interview so much.

• 39:52Griffin Newman?

  There's so much good shit.

• 39:54Speaker 01

  Just some other tidbits. When he's introduced, Matt Bellamy is like, you know, filmmaker, writer, producer, technologist, futurist. Is there anything I'm missing? And then James Cameron, like really casually is like, deep sea explorer.

• 40:11Griffin Newman?

  He said that there's a semi regular hang in which Guillermo del Toro, Steven Spielberg, J.J. Abramson himself, build old school model kits.

• 40:20Speaker 01

  And that Guillermo sometimes flies to Japan to pick up materials because they have the best shit.

• 40:25Griffin Newman?

  He said he and J.J. went together and shipped a truck full of model kits back. And he said, but you gotta come correct. You need to know what you're doing. We don't let noobs in. And Bellamy is like, what do you build? And he was like, I mostly like rebuilt the Aurora creature from the Black Lagoon because I'm familiar with that one. I have experience with that kit.

• 40:47Speaker 01

  Damn, it's just throwing up my head.

• 40:50Griffin Newman?

  But when he says this 30, 40 years thing.

• 40:52David Sims?

  Can't they go hunt humans for sport or something like, what are they like, you know what I mean? They're rich, famous people.

• 40:56Griffin Newman?

  They're so dorky.

• 40:57David Sims?

  They're just like.

• 40:59Griffin Newman?

  He says this 30, 40 years thing and he's like, look, I like went vegan. That added another 10 years. Power, positive thinking. You know, he's also like, I'm assuming like the technology is going to like catch up, you know?

• 41:12Speaker 01

  Oh, there's also the crazy part where he talks about his friendship with Elon Musk, where like that got, there were so many things that got pulled out as clickbait headlines from that interview that sound really shitty. But then when you actually listen to it and you hear him explain himself, it's like the most rational shit in the world. I'm like, oh yeah, I get it. So like him being friends with Elon Musk was not something that I knew. But apparently, oh, we were, I know Elon way back from the Mars Society in the late 90s.

• 41:42Griffin Newman?

  Right. He's like, I've been talking to this guy for 30 years. All the weird, rich people who are like, do we need to fund space ourselves? And he's basically like, I've known him forever. I basically disagree with everything he thinks and does now. But for better or worse, this guy like controls the levers of power and there needs to be like positive influences in his ear.

• 42:03Speaker 01

  Yeah, he's just like, I, I, we mostly just talked about space shit. And I'm like, okay, cool. I guess.

• 42:09Griffin Newman?

  I gotta give him credit. Like, he basically saved the space program. Also, he's done a lot of other horrible shit. And then he like talks about the AI stuff, which has been like clickbaited. Everything he says is really rational, which is just like, I don't trust these people to use it responsibly. There's no way we're going to be able to stop them. So like what I'm fighting for is how to like self enforce regulations now to cut it off at the pass. And he breaks it into two things.

• 42:35David Sims?

  Let's get back to Avatar. Okay, okay.

• 42:37Speaker 01

  Let's get back to segue. Our, I, I hope that this is in front of every screening of the film, but.

• 42:43David Sims?

  You guys had it too.

• 42:44Speaker 01

  Yes.

• 42:45David Sims?

  The, we would never use generative AI.

• 42:47Speaker 01

  Yeah, we had, yeah, we had the Cameron intro where he says that this is not, none of this is AI. All of Avatar, Fire and Ash is made by humans.

• 42:56David Sims?

  Now, he's talked about not being opposed to some AI stuff to like help along.

• 43:01Griffin Newman?

  Yeah, let's veer us off the.

• 43:02David Sims?

  No, I'm just saying like.

• 43:03Speaker 01

  There's a difference between generative creative AI and AI that's used to.

• 43:09David Sims?

  This is something people all yell about.

• 43:10Griffin Newman?

  I know, but just to re-present his thoughts here, which I, I, I am wary of all AI. It all fucking freaks me out.

• 43:17David Sims?

  We're all a little wary.

• 43:18Griffin Newman?

  I'm worried that the entire planet is going to collapse. Uh, and especially coming from the guy who like created the fucking Terminator mythology. When like these quotes were coming out that seemed like, well, let's like fuck around with AI a little bit. He was like, AI is basically now this catchall term for a couple of different things. And he was like, basically like automated, like actual independent intelligence is Skynet. And if we open that Pandora's box, we're fucked. The second that like a missile system is connected to a computer, society's over. Like it's game over, right? He was like, there's generative AI. Which like is now the thing that everyone's trying to use to cut corners. And he basically was just like, the film industry is collapsing.

• 44:03Griffin Newman?

  These movies are getting too expensive and they're performing less and less. But also it's harder to convince an audience to go unless you're selling them on that level of spectacle. I think we need to find a way to integrate these things into our systems to use them to help bring costs down. Because few filmmakers are given the freedom and the budgets that I have. And Bellamy was like, isn't that putting people out of work? And he's like, same number of artists getting it done in half the time. And his argument is, I need to be on the forefront of this to ensure that that's the way it's used. Rather than how a lot of studios and tech companies want to use it, which is replacing people. It's all a fucking slippery slope that no one knows how it's going to settle.

• 44:44Griffin Newman?

  But he very much now is like, audiences don't believe shit they see on screen anymore. And everyone thinks that everything must just be like mysterious magical AI. And so he's like, these are all performance driven actors in the volume, not manipulated, not animated and done by hand.

• 45:01David Sims?

  My problem with that video was just a bit of a spoiler.

• 45:04Griffin Newman?

  For?

• 45:05David Sims?

  After Fire and Ness, the movie is about to see. It had clips from the movie in it.

• 45:08Speaker 01

  Yeah.

• 45:09David Sims?

  I was like, get the fuck out of here.

• 45:11Speaker 03

  Cause it was like side by side.

• 45:12David Sims?

  Yeah, which I appreciate showing like these are the actors.

• 45:16Speaker 03

  Right, right.

• 45:16Speaker 01

  Yeah, my dumb ass was like, oh, are they from Way of Water? Like I didn't even walk that they were.

• 45:22David Sims?

  This is giving me, you know, this is tipping my hat on like emotional conversations that are coming up.

• 45:27Griffin Newman?

  Can we slash, should we attempt to like?

• 45:31David Sims?

  Do the plot?

• 45:32Griffin Newman?

  The basic, but it's, I'm like, I know I'm going to be forgetting 50%.

• 45:36David Sims?

  I wish I had a synopsis, a deeper synopsis in front of me, but the film hasn't come out yet when we're recording this episode. So that hasn't really been done up. So we can try, but the movie, it's a bit different from the, I thought, I worried it would be like Way of Water of the true like first chunk is. Getting everyone's bearings, big action sequence, we move to another place. And that's kind of what the first chunk of this movie is. We're getting our bearings. This, the war, the big battle from Way of Water happened. The sun died. Everyone's feeling bad. Let's go in this airship with David Thewlis. And go, and I was like, oh, and they're gonna like, go to the fireplace. And then are we gonna like, meet the fire people, learn their culture? You know, is it gonna be the same? But that's not what they do.

• 46:19Griffin Newman?

  Already a couple of big points that are like coming up here, right? And talking about our audience is gonna like, uh, struggle with this a little more than the last one. And there were all the naysayers last time being like, who fucking gives a shit about Avatar anymore? It's been too long. It being that long, I think really did help that movie.

• 46:36David Sims?

  Yeah.

• 46:36Griffin Newman?

  That it felt like.

• 46:37David Sims?

  It was new.

• 46:38Griffin Newman?

  We've been like.

• 46:38David Sims?

  It was exciting.

• 46:39Griffin Newman?

  Living through 15 years of all these fucking franchises getting milked to death. And this is the one that we've actually like, haven't seen in a while? You know, the entire basic fucking Marvel Cinematic Universe happens between the first and second Avatar? Save for the first two movies, three? And so, yeah, that was helpful. It also is like Way of Water acknowledges the time jump. Things have changed a lot. The opening of the film is like catching you up with the new status quo.

• 47:05David Sims?

  I had fucking kids. Also, there's Spider. Also, there's Kiri. There's a lot for you to understand.

• 47:10Speaker 03

  And we're forgetting the first flight.

• 47:12David Sims?

  Oh, well, we did, we did, we did.

• 47:14Griffin Newman?

  A Cirque du Soleil show about the first Tarik Macto, the first person.

• 47:18David Sims?

  Yeah, a movie, a, a, a narrative I remember in great detail. Certainly.

• 47:24Griffin Newman?

  But I remember your review of Way of Water where you were like, it's an Avatar movie. And we were like, David, that doesn't describe it. And then I saw it and I was like, he has basically turned this into a genre. And it is following the kind of like story structure of how an Avatar movie works.

• 47:38David Sims?

  Yes, and then in the last act, when everything is on the board and suddenly is all activated at the same time. You're just like, whoa, like, I didn't, yeah. And this one.

• 47:46Griffin Newman?

  Does not really have that in the same way.

• 47:48David Sims?

  No, but it is just spinning a lot of different plates. And then when you're in the final act, I think I expected like, okay, we'll have another big battle.

• 47:57Griffin Newman?

  Yeah.

• 47:57David Sims?

  And it'll be super exciting. And there is a big battle and it is super exciting, but it's more that you're just. Just kind of like, I cannot believe how many characters, how many like big functional characters with arcs we are flitting between right now. And then I have the grounding for it. Not just like, what's up with Spider? What's up with fucking Kate Winslet?

• 48:17Speaker 01

  Yeah.

• 48:17David Sims?

  What's up with her daughter?

• 48:18Speaker 01

  What's up with Pya Khan?

• 48:20David Sims?

  What's, what is up with Pya Khan? And why has Zora not appointed him to his cabinet?

• 48:25Griffin Newman?

  He's got to be part of the transition team.

• 48:27David Sims?

  Pya Khan should be operating at all levels of life.

• 48:30Griffin Newman?

  Yes.

• 48:30David Sims?

  My new, my rivers commissioner will be, and he rises from the sea.

• 48:34Griffin Newman?

  Let me throw this out. Can we put him in charge of transportation? Because

• 48:37David Sims?

  Sure.

• 48:37Griffin Newman?

  If you grab Pya Khan's fin, it feels like you get where you're going fast.

• 48:42David Sims?

  Imagine him in like a labor negotiation. He just rises from the sea.

• 48:46Griffin Newman?

  The first movie, it's like the central emotional arc that resolves itself is like Jake Sully's like exploration of identity, right? And finding himself and like waking up at the end, his eyes opening in the new avatar body. He is fully in a V now, right? The second movie has the kind of self-contained emotional arc of like Jake Sully needing to figure out what kind of fucking father he is, right? It is the self-reflexive movie of what Cameron's talked about, this very personal thing of him realizing like, maybe it's time for me to stop being an asshole and like intimidating everyone as my love language to get what I want. And is this movie of a kind of like an emotional maturation? This movie opens with Loa in the narration position.

• 49:25Speaker 01

  Why did he do that? I mean, I know you don't have the, that was one thing that I didn't love. It's like, why are we?

• 49:32Griffin Newman?

  I like it.

• 49:33Speaker 01

  Part of me was like, is Jake gonna die?

• 49:35Griffin Newman?

  I like it as a change of perspective because I also think this movie is less hinged on Jake's internal journey. It's spread out a little bit more. And I also think there's the transference happening, especially with the death of

• 49:50David Sims?

  When the sun dies.

• 49:51Griffin Newman?

  I always forget the other sun's name, Natayin?

• 49:54David Sims?

  Feel so embarrassed. It's like I'm at a party and how are your sons?

• 49:58Speaker 03

  I think, yeah. Yeah. And, and then Loak is the other son.

• 50:02Speaker 01

  Yeah.

• 50:02David Sims?

  Loak is the living son.

• 50:04Speaker 03

  Yeah.

• 50:04David Sims?

  Okay.

• 50:05Griffin Newman?

  Uh, and then Spider and Cutie.

• 50:06David Sims?

  I will, I mean, in the, for, in the second movie, the older son is the son where I was like, I don't care about this character. And then he dies and I was like, all right.

• 50:13Griffin Newman?

  This is one of those perfect examples of why.

• 50:15David Sims?

  Cause he's just like the good kid.

• 50:16Griffin Newman?

  I think Way of Water grows on second, third plus viewings is the first time you're watching it. You're like, what's with this extra kid? And once you know he's like doomed for death and he's kind of a cautionary tale and that he's mostly there to like, inform Loak's journey. I, I think, I think it's like representative of the story now moving into like Loak being in this position of pressure of you are the inheritor of all of this. You are the oldest. Jake's trying to fucking chill out to some degree while also trying to keep his family safe and the clan safe, you know, that he's putting more and more on his son while trying to be emotionally in tune with what he's going through. And so it helps to get that perspective a little bit, but it also

• 51:01Griffin Newman?

  makes you think, oh, is this really going to be like a Loak movie? And as you said, it's like 15 fucking characters.

• 51:07David Sims?

  A lot of that characters have arcs that are pretty complete in this movie. Like, you know, they have a start and end.

• 51:13Griffin Newman?

  But you can't say there's like a key overriding emotional self-contained story to this movie.

• 51:19David Sims?

  It's Spider. Spider's the closest.

• 51:21Griffin Newman?

  Spider's the closest.

• 51:22David Sims?

  Yeah. But it's Spider is also, um, throughout it's so guileless.

• 51:27Griffin Newman?

  Yes.

• 51:27David Sims?

  Down to no ship. Uh, his last line in the film, which is the last line spoken in the Avatar series.

• 51:32Griffin Newman?

  Down to also when, when Jake Sully is like about to murder him.

• 51:36Speaker 01

  Saying no shit.

• 51:37David Sims?

  He says no ship.

• 51:37Griffin Newman?

  Yeah. When Jake Sully is about to murder him, his adoptive father, he's like.

• 51:40David Sims?

  This sucks.

• 51:41Griffin Newman?

  Yeah, but I get it, man.

• 51:43David Sims?

  I guess you gotta do it. Damn.

• 51:44Speaker 01

  That was fucking crazy.

• 51:45David Sims?

  That seems incredible and I started crying, but, uh, I'd just say, right. It's more about how people are reacting to Spider versus Spider himself, who, you know, it's, it's water off a duck's back with him. Like you're saying, like, he's usually just kind of, okay, this is the situation, I guess.

• 52:00Griffin Newman?

  Yes. Spider's become this hot potato, the biological son of Korch, who is dead, but now his consciousness is of course, been reanimated within an avatar body, which is a pretty potent mix. And there's the whole interesting kind of like paternal tension of how much he does or does not want to identify as this kid's father, because it's like, I'm, I'm literally not your father, but I'm also like a body with the backup hard drive of the man who fathered you and him weaponizing how much he does or doesn't care. Sometimes it becomes his weakness. Sometimes he uses it like a political football. And then the Sully clan,

• 52:45Griffin Newman?

  which have taken him in and are increasingly becoming wary of like, is treating him like a son, putting not only our family, but our species in danger?

• 52:55David Sims?

  Right. The, the, the, the jump initially, it's like, right. Is this kid target on our back? And why are, and then the jump becomes like, oh, should he even be alive now that he's this hybrid? Is he the thing, right? That they backwards, you know, invent a human Na'vi sort of breathing system?

• 53:12Griffin Newman?

  But even before that, I mean, we're just immediately picking up the threads of the last one. It rolls. One of my favorite moments in Way of Water is at the end where Korich is holding Kiri or is it Loach at knife point?

• 53:27David Sims?

  Korich is holding the little girl at knife point at the end of the story.

• 53:30Griffin Newman?

  He's holding Kuk at knife point and the Tiri takes Spider. And it's this moment where she's like saying like, I swear to God, I will fucking kill him.

• 53:38David Sims?

  Yeah. And Korich.

• 53:38Griffin Newman?

  Testing like you do care about him as much as you want to say he's not your son. But what's scary about that moment is Nateri is so feral and so protective that you cannot tell if it is a bluff or if she actually truly is ready to murder what is like ostensibly an adoptive son of her.

• 53:55David Sims?

  Yes, absolutely. A member of their family.

• 53:57Griffin Newman?

  To prioritize her biological children.

• 53:59David Sims?

  Right.

• 53:59Griffin Newman?

  And this movie's like immediately in the fallout of that, of like, something was revealed in that moment about her feelings, which then shakes up this whole thing we've already alluded to.

• 54:10David Sims?

  And she is sad because her son did just die.

• 54:12Griffin Newman?

  Right.

• 54:12Speaker 01

  I like her little morning veil.

• 54:14David Sims?

  Me too.

• 54:15Griffin Newman?

  And her morning makeup. I'm never going to prioritize a human above a Na'vi. Does that speak to an inherent like disgust with the notion that you are with someone who was originally a human and thus your biological children are partially human. And this whole kind of like internal struggle in her, which she is so. She she is really knocked down in focus and way of water. And I like how much this movie brings her back up to kind of the main story.

• 54:41David Sims?

  Yeah, and I was just, I was just so there for her to have in the binding of Isaac moment. Which we're jumping all around.

• 54:48Griffin Newman?

  Everyone's fighting for Spider and what he represents. And in a moment where they are struggling, uh, he's losing oxygen. They need to get him a new mask. They need to enter a lab.

• 54:58David Sims?

  That's not what I was talking about, but yeah, sure.

• 54:59Griffin Newman?

  He almost dies and Kiri connects to what is not the mother tree, but like the mother root underwater.

• 55:07David Sims?

  Yeah, the mother coral, mother reef, I don't know.

• 55:09Griffin Newman?

  Uh, and basically figures out how to do a successful version and a much smaller scale of what they tried to do. What they successfully did with Jake's body at the end of the first movie.

• 55:19David Sims?

  No, no, no, no, no. Wait, okay, okay, okay.

• 55:21Griffin Newman?

  She merges him with Awa.

• 55:23David Sims?

  Yeah, that's not what they did with Jake's body. What they do with Jake's body.

• 55:25Griffin Newman?

  Is fully transferred.

• 55:26Speaker 01

  They transfer.

• 55:26David Sims?

  Yeah, they just use.

• 55:27Griffin Newman?

  The data.

• 55:28David Sims?

  Yeah, what she does with Spider is completely crazy.

• 55:30Griffin Newman?

  She creates a hybrid.

• 55:31David Sims?

  Right, she puts like a bit of fucking, you know, magic pod in his mouth and then he, right? He evolves into a new creature. It's nonsense.

• 55:39Speaker 03

  It almost feels though more like it's nature based, not tapping into Awa.

• 55:45David Sims?

  Right, it's not, it's not neural. It's like, right, it's physical.

• 55:48Griffin Newman?

  It's biological. She's neurally connecting and then using the environment.

• 55:52David Sims?

  No, she doesn't neurally connect the, the, the floppy things.

• 55:56Speaker 01

  Yeah, she sees like the thing that looks like a bit of a dandelion.

• 55:59David Sims?

  Float on by and she's like, fuck.

• 56:01Griffin Newman?

  Yeah.

• 56:01David Sims?

  She, she can't connect to Awa.

• 56:03Speaker 03

  I'm pretty sure she's being rejected.

• 56:05Griffin Newman?

  There's a firewall, there's a firewall.

• 56:06David Sims?

  There's a firewall, she's being rejected.

• 56:08Griffin Newman?

  Fire and Ash.

• 56:09Speaker 03

  And then she comes up with this alternative idea.

• 56:11David Sims?

  Yes.

• 56:12Speaker 01

  And she doesn't know how she came up with it.

• 56:13Griffin Newman?

  It's sort of an expediated version aided by her of just like natural adaption to an environment. But it's, it creates this like, uh, incredibly loaded notion of, oh my God, if humans can adapt to live here comfortably. Without the aid of technology, then there's nothing stopping it. They don't need a fucking avatar body. They don't need vehicles. They don't need to wage complicated war. Yeah.

• 56:39Speaker 01

  Sorry, just completely unrelated to anything, but this is just kind of crazy. The NBR list came out and Hamlet isn't in their top 10 films of the year.

• 56:46Griffin Newman?

  Interesting is Fire and Ash in there.

• 56:49Speaker 01

  Yes.

• 56:49David Sims?

  I think it is.

• 56:50Speaker 01

  It is.

• 56:50Griffin Newman?

  That is interesting.

• 56:52Speaker 01

  Yeah.

• 56:53Griffin Newman?

  And Spider was nominated for best supporting actor?

• 56:55Speaker 01

  Uh, top, best supporting Spider.

• 56:57Griffin Newman?

  Okay, and the Matriarch was nominated for best supporting Tolkien?

• 57:02Speaker 01

  Yes.

• 57:02David Sims?

  I have some questions about the matriarch.

• 57:04Griffin Newman?

  Ask away.

• 57:05David Sims?

  Well, okay.

• 57:05Speaker 01

  When did she get her piercings? What are they made out of?

• 57:09David Sims?

  She goes to Williamsburg like anybody else.

• 57:13Griffin Newman?

  She attends the semester at the new school.

• 57:15David Sims?

  No, it's just like, so a thing that happens in the way of water is we meet the Tulku and we learn of their pacifist ways and.

• 57:23Griffin Newman?

  Pya Khan, the outcast Tulku, he kills nothing.

• 57:25David Sims?

  And that, and that, um, you know, that the humans are now, they've moved on from unobtanium and there, there's getting goo out of the Tulku.

• 57:34Griffin Newman?

  Emily Radikowski.

• 57:36David Sims?

  What was that?

• 57:36Speaker 01

  What?

• 57:36Griffin Newman?

  They call the brain juice Emrata.

• 57:40David Sims?

  Do they now? Is that what they call it?

• 57:42Speaker 01

  It's with an A though.

• 57:43David Sims?

  And it's like, and it's his like Kiwi accent or that guy Scoresby, is that his name?

• 57:48Griffin Newman?

  I came up with that joke while I was watching the movie and I was like, I'll probably get like a two from the board.

• 57:52David Sims?

  Instead you got a huh?

• 57:54Griffin Newman?

  My old friend.

• 57:57David Sims?

  And, you know, so Pya Khan, in the triumphant thing in Way of Water, Pya Khan helps defeat these evil whalers, right?

• 58:05Griffin Newman?

  In the words of the great Scott Gerdner, podcast the ride, he chops Scoresby's arm off like a fucking samurai blade.

• 58:12David Sims?

  So true. And then in this one, instead of the whale, the Tulku being like, thank you, that was actually a good call. These guys are really fucking us up. They're like, okay, first things first, Pya Khan, you are so banished. You should not have done that. It is not allowed.

• 58:30Griffin Newman?

  And it's like, see, I told you guys Pya Khan's good. And they were like, first of all, I can't believe you're talking to Pya Khan.

• 58:35David Sims?

  Silence!

• 58:36Griffin Newman?

  We're still not over that. Second of all, Pya Khan, slow the fuck down.

• 58:41David Sims?

  Go away. And then like Scoresby's just like, all right, well, my strategy won't change at all. I guess I'll just continue to attack these guys with a robot arm now.

• 58:49Griffin Newman?

  Yeah.

• 58:50David Sims?

  So that's the kind of stuff that I think people might see this movie and be like, eh, is it recycling? Or is it like, kind of hitting the same beats a little bit?

• 58:58Griffin Newman?

  I think especially the big final set piece, even though there's so much more that is new going on narratively, in terms of the actual action, the big final battle in this is basically combining the big. Final battle from the first movie and the big final battle from the second movie happened simultaneously.

• 59:15David Sims?

  And which is cool.

• 59:16Griffin Newman?

  And there's repeated imagery. And then he gets into whole new shit. Then it gets trippy.

• 59:21David Sims?

  Well, the, the one thing I thought in the final sequence that felt new was when they're on that in the magnet field thing and they're all kind of tumbling around.

• 59:30Speaker 01

  So that, that showed up with the eclipse.

• 59:33Griffin Newman?

  There's like, yeah, there's like

• 59:35David Sims?

  Yeah, I might have missed a line.

• 59:36Griffin Newman?

  There's an Aurora Borealis. I almost thought that was an extension of AWOL. Was I wrong?

• 59:40Speaker 01

  I don't think they really set that up.

• 59:42David Sims?

  Or they did and I forgot, like, or it's in, in Way of Water, they're like, oh, this fucking magnet thing.

• 59:47Speaker 01

  I remember them saying in this movie is that they had to do the hunt as fast as possible for the, the bad guys had to get the Tulkun as fast as possible because they couldn't get into the vortex.

• 59:59David Sims?

  Right.

• 1:00:00Griffin Newman?

  These movies are not nuanced, but they are incredibly dense and it is hard to absorb on one viewing, especially when it's three hours and 15 minutes long. And every scene like introduces 15 new ideas that it asks you to download really quickly.

• 1:00:14David Sims?

  I think they also though have to go because all the younglings are in one place.

• 1:00:19Speaker 01

  It's the like, it's like the, uh, the cat, what'd they call it? Like the calf something?

• 1:00:24David Sims?

  It's when the calf It's like a big spawning thing with all the, all the whales gather the tukun.

• 1:00:30Griffin Newman?

  I love that you call it a convention.

• 1:00:33Griffin Newman?

  Well, they're like fundamentally pacifists and they're freaked out by the fact that like Pya Khan defended himself. Right?

• 1:00:39David Sims?

  Right. I guess they're just being like Democrats.

• 1:00:44David Sims?

  They're a bunch of like Pya Khan's like, I resisted and they're like, you are not a Democrat anymore.

• 1:00:49Griffin Newman?

  Can't we like reach across the aisle and have a sensible conversation? Can't we return to normalcy? And Pya Khan's like, no fucking way. And it's also the, uh, what the Mekayina? Who are the water tribe? Am I getting their name right?

• 1:01:02Speaker 01

  Yeah.

• 1:01:03Griffin Newman?

  You know, have also struggled with this feeling that like Jake Sully being Taruk Mekto, being more of a warrior, being an ex human.

• 1:01:11Speaker 01

  He brought the fight to them and they were like not.

• 1:01:14David Sims?

  Again, I really, I really love that Cliff Curtis performance. He just always looks like he wants to tell Jake to go away, but he can't.

• 1:01:21Griffin Newman?

  Tonawari.

• 1:01:22David Sims?

  Yeah. Great character.

• 1:01:24Griffin Newman?

  God damn it, if I don't respect you, you know, there's that vibe to it.

• 1:01:27David Sims?

  It's also, and it's the weird incongruity that is addressed in this movie a lot of like Jake's the only Navi that carries a weapon.

• 1:01:34Griffin Newman?

  He's a fucking marine.

• 1:01:36David Sims?

  Because he is a marine and he's never quite, and I learned something. I was rifling around on the Avatar Wikipedia, which is of course.

• 1:01:44David Sims?

  Do you guys know about the three laws of Awa?

• 1:01:46Griffin Newman?

  Please give them to me.

• 1:01:48Speaker 01

  Is it that all energy is only borrowed?

• 1:01:51David Sims?

  It's sort of like that, but no, it's like, so, so, cause I was learning about the three laws of Awa because Varang, our big new character in the film, played by Una Chaplin, the leader of the Ash people.

• 1:02:01Griffin Newman?

  Ay, ay, ay. Hachi machi.

• 1:02:04David Sims?

  Does not obey the three laws of Awa. And they are, you shall not set stone upon stone. You shall, neither shall you use the turning wheel, nor use the metals of the ground. Now, I've never thought about this, but it makes sense because you watch Avatar and you're like, you know, it's like the Navi are quote unquote primitives, right? They don't have technology. And you're kind of like, is this supposed to be some sort of thing of like the humans are more advanced than them? It's like, no, no, no, no, no. They don't do it because they don't want to fuck up their planet. So they're like, we're not gonna, and we know about wheels. We're not stupid.

• 1:02:39Griffin Newman?

  Their vehicles are coexisting.

• 1:02:41David Sims?

  We coexist with flying and running and swimming things. We don't need to have wheels. We don't need to have vehicles. We know about mining. We don't want to do that because that fucks with the planet and you can't, you know, fix it.

• 1:02:54Griffin Newman?

  We want to use what the planet already gives to us, not pull things out of it.

• 1:02:58David Sims?

  And you shall not set stone upon stone is, you know, you can't build anything that's not already kind of organically there. So like you want to build something in a tree? That's fine. But you can't go around building buildings.

• 1:03:10Griffin Newman?

  Although, did you see that new high rise they're building next to the mother tree?

• 1:03:15David Sims?

  It has a gym.

• 1:03:18Griffin Newman?

  It's got like washer dryer in you.

• 1:03:20David Sims?

  Oh, boy. And like, I just like that thinking of like, right, it's like the Na'vi live in this, you know, which is set out all the way back in the first movie, right? In this coexistence with Pandora, but I like thinking about it as like, it's a philosophy. It's not just like an advancement level or whatever.

• 1:03:35Griffin Newman?

  No, and it's a, it's, it's a connection with a consciousness. You know, it's like this movie physicalizes and literalizes a god that is also a representation of nature, but also the collective memory of the history of their species. And that, right, the coexistence with the creatures, the, the pony braid connections is this like sense of communication.

• 1:03:58David Sims?

  And it's this James Cameron utopian vision of like, what if we had never messed with our planet? You know what I mean? We just left it.

• 1:04:07Speaker 03

  And of course, drawing from indigenous people.

• 1:04:09Griffin Newman?

  Of course.

• 1:04:10Speaker 03

  As always.

• 1:04:10David Sims?

  But it's sometimes you worry like, oh, is he fetishizing or romanticizing these things? But this movie hit me every time that the Varang at all are like, no, give me the guns. Where you're like, no, man, this is fucked up.

• 1:04:25Speaker 01

  It doesn't look right.

• 1:04:26David Sims?

  Yeah.

• 1:04:27Griffin Newman?

  But it's also this interesting tension of Jake.

• 1:04:29David Sims?

  When she with the drugs.

• 1:04:31Griffin Newman?

  Good, good. I'll take all that you got.

• 1:04:33Speaker 03

  We're all giving a big thumbs up.

• 1:04:34Griffin Newman?

  Please give it to me. It's what's interesting about Jake, that not only is he someone who like uses those kinds of weapons, but he has the psychology of a marine.

• 1:04:44Speaker 01

  It is weird.

• 1:04:45Griffin Newman?

  He's trained like a marine and they all have this uneasy relationship with him where they're like, even when it's effective, are we like letting something dangerous into our culture now? Are we like opening doors we can't close again?

• 1:04:57David Sims?

  Right.

• 1:04:58Griffin Newman?

  Which extends to, you know?

• 1:05:00David Sims?

  Now, maybe she's got reason to be mad. Maybe a volcano blew up her family.

• 1:05:04Griffin Newman?

  Possibly.

• 1:05:05Speaker 03

  And then no one came to their aid.

• 1:05:07David Sims?

  Well, maybe someone should have come to her aid.

• 1:05:09Speaker 03

  I mean, none of the other tribes, I mean, that's part of the bitterness.

• 1:05:11Griffin Newman?

  The other tribes didn't show up. Awa didn't hear her.

• 1:05:14Speaker 03

  Yeah.

• 1:05:16Griffin Newman?

  To be fair, Awa was on a call.

• 1:05:17David Sims?

  Is that right?

• 1:05:18Griffin Newman?

  With Delta trying to get a refund.

• 1:05:20David Sims?

  Interesting. And where do you think that landed? Below or above the Imbrada joke?

• 1:05:26Griffin Newman?

  Firmly below, subterranean. I think I could have maybe found a different specific that would have made it work.

• 1:05:33David Sims?

  Avatar four.

• 1:05:33Griffin Newman?

  Not the right choice.

• 1:05:34David Sims?

  Avatar four mole Navi?

• 1:05:36Griffin Newman?

  Oh, ooh.

• 1:05:37David Sims?

  Yes.

• 1:05:38Griffin Newman?

  Yes.

• 1:05:39David Sims?

  Isn't that fun? Cause you know, they've now done all the elements. If you think about it, like if you think of the, the originals as the kind of earth avatar, the tree people. And we've met the water people and the fire people. And then David Thewlis and his gang seemed to be the sort of air people.

• 1:05:52Speaker 01

  I wish we spent more time with them. I would love to hang out more with the sky, wind traders.

• 1:05:57David Sims?

  I would, you know what I like? Those jellyfish things that like flop in the air.

• 1:06:01Speaker 03

  But I found it interesting how they even talk about their politics of like, we're neutral because we're benefiting from trading with both sides of this war.

• 1:06:12Griffin Newman?

  Well, and they're.

• 1:06:13David Sims?

  Yeah, yeah. He has to stick out. Yeah, you're right.

• 1:06:16Speaker 03

  Past history.

• 1:06:16David Sims?

  I don't want to fuck with whatever.

• 1:06:18Griffin Newman?

  Transformers, you know?

• 1:06:21David Sims?

  Right. They got to move through territories so they don't want anyone mad at them.

• 1:06:24Griffin Newman?

  Right.

• 1:06:24David Sims?

  And that's again, with Varang is like, she doesn't play by any of those rules.

• 1:06:27Griffin Newman?

  Now let's make it clear, air people different from the sky people.

• 1:06:30David Sims?

  Well, yes.

• 1:06:31Griffin Newman?

  Sky people are humans who came from the sky.

• 1:06:33David Sims?

  You don't like them.

• 1:06:33Griffin Newman?

  And ruined everything. They're bad. One of the most incredible things about this franchise is how firmly anti-human it is.

• 1:06:39David Sims?

  Someone in this movie says like, kill all the humans. And you're like, yes, finally someone's a rational person.

• 1:06:45Griffin Newman?

  It is teaching the audience, every single member of the audience to innately root against your species. And the couple of good human allies are like exceptions to the rule, small roles. It's not like we're getting a ton of norm spellmen.

• 1:07:00David Sims?

  No, they're all like Martin Freeman in Black Panther level. Like, yeah, 15th on the call sheet.

• 1:07:05Griffin Newman?

  The only good human is like a full on species traitor. I surrender my body and give myself over to you permanently. It's just like, I cannot think of another series like this that demonizes all of humanity in a way where like, there are so many other ecologically based, this is the harm of the humans or you know, this is the harm we're inflicting upon animals or the, the planet or nature that comes to some resolution of like, we've learned a difficult lesson here today. Thank you, mumbles the dancing penguin for teaching us that we need to protect, you know, the oceans. And these movies do not offer humans like any path for redemption.

• 1:07:47Speaker 03

  No, they're getting

• 1:07:48David Sims?

  They gotta go.

• 1:07:49Griffin Newman?

  They gotta go.

• 1:07:49Speaker 03

  They're getting murked as hell.

• 1:07:50Griffin Newman?

  They gotta fucking.

• 1:07:51David Sims?

  The more they're there, the, oh, the worse they're making.

• 1:07:54Griffin Newman?

  Everything.

• 1:07:54David Sims?

  They suck.

• 1:07:55Griffin Newman?

  Yeah.

• 1:07:56David Sims?

  And the city that they've built, you know, that's in Ray Water and that's here sucks.

• 1:08:03Speaker 01

  Yeah, it sucks.

• 1:08:04David Sims?

  It's really cool to go there, like this, like industrial, like soulless, no trees, no, you know, like, but, uh, yeah, it's a bummer.

• 1:08:11Speaker 01

  Is it, is it still called Hell's Gate?

• 1:08:13David Sims?

  No, I think Hell's Gate is what they call the first one. Let me look this up.

• 1:08:18Griffin Newman?

  A fascinating moment for me in this film, and these movies just have all these like little.

• 1:08:22David Sims?

  Bridgehead is the name of the city in this. Yes.

• 1:08:24Speaker 03

  It looks like something you'd see off the turnpike.

• 1:08:27Speaker 01

  Yeah, it's, it's very like New Jersey refineries.

• 1:08:31Griffin Newman?

  Yeah. These little things where I'm like, wait a second, I want to hear about that for 10 hours. I want to read about this shit. When Jake Sully is captured and put in like a fucking orange prison jumpsuit inside a glass, like Hannibal Lecter box on display, like a freak show en route to being executed. And he is surrounded by all these fucking humans with their like stupid smart devices filming him on the screens. And you realize like, oh, like to these people is Jake Sully like Edward Snowden?

• 1:09:06David Sims?

  He's like fucking Benedict Arnold.

• 1:09:08Griffin Newman?

  Narrative, we're not covering up, he's reported on the news.

• 1:09:11Speaker 01

  There's a news cry on that says terrorist captured.

• 1:09:13Griffin Newman?

  Right. He's not like a terrorist, but he's like the ultimate traitor to them. And everyone's cheering as if it's like, we got Bin Laden finally.

• 1:09:21David Sims?

  It's a thing, I think about this.

• 1:09:22Griffin Newman?

  Yeah.

• 1:09:23David Sims?

  It's a thing that the movies can't really get into because it's just too big a kettle of fish, right? Cause I think about Avatar one as like, you know, having so much of a rock in it. You know, like the destruction of home tree and all that. And just about like, like the RDA and all the, it's like, it's this foolish overextension. Like, what are they doing? They've gone all the way over there.

• 1:09:45Griffin Newman?

  And the mining for resources.

• 1:09:46David Sims?

  And they're my, and it's like, they're obviously, but like. So in one sense, I'm like, are there not people on Earth who are like, can we fucking get out of Pandora? It's a quagmire. Like, all we keep doing, we sent E. Falco there? Now where's my Nurse Jackie? I don't get, you know, like, and instead, this is presenting this narrative of like, no, no, no, the propaganda over there has worked. People want their tulku goo. They want their unobtanium and like Jake Sully is persona non grata on Earth.

• 1:10:13Speaker 01

  Well, there's also a race trait, a species traitor. A couple of lines about how like Earth is like ruined.

• 1:10:19David Sims?

  Or Earth is just stripped mine. Right?

• 1:10:20Speaker 01

  So I guess like if you want to like continue the human race, we have to look for other.

• 1:10:26David Sims?

  There's the whole.

• 1:10:26Speaker 03

  It's the same shit that happened in history, though, with colonialism, right?

• 1:10:30David Sims?

  That's happening now.

• 1:10:31Speaker 03

  We justified, you know, we fucking need our sugar. Okay. Cause we gotta put sugar in our tea. It's a taste better.

• 1:10:37David Sims?

  I get that as the, it doesn't, sugar's tasty, but uh, that as the, the more old fat, but like, when I was thinking about like modern reactions, like, you know, two things, like the Middle East wars, where like, you know, there's no thing where some soldier, you know, had, and where, where America's been like, yes, we, I would think that of Earth is being like fucking Pandora. Like who knows what goes on over there.

• 1:10:59Griffin Newman?

  There has been strong speculation that when Cameron's like four and five or swerve, they're going to surprise people that what he's alluding to is that there was a stronger element of Earth in those.

• 1:11:10David Sims?

  Hey, I'd be interested to know what's going on.

• 1:11:12Griffin Newman?

  Now the interesting thing to circle back to, of course, there was the whole opening he shot for the original film that is quite bad.

• 1:11:18David Sims?

  Yeah, that sucks. That's like shitty dystopian.

• 1:11:21Griffin Newman?

  Getting recruited shit and you put it back in for the special edition.

• 1:11:25David Sims?

  Right.

• 1:11:26Griffin Newman?

  Because that stuff kind of feels like it's not canon because it wasn't in the theatrical version, but also so much time has passed and universe at this point, you can do whatever. But I am, I would be very curious to hear what Earth's relationship is to the idea of whatever we're fucking doing on Pandora. If the idea is to like terraform it, to adapt to it, if it's just about using those resources ourself, if it's just a thing about supercharging the economy, you know, I mean, the, the unobtanium, uh, which everyone used to mock and now basically never gets referenced in these movies anymore, was the idea of like, right, the most precious mineral, right? But the emrata is like, this cures all diseases. This is like the magical

• 1:12:06Griffin Newman?

  potion and one vial of this is worth like a billion dollars, but that's disconnected from the idea of can we move here? Which spider really opens up.

• 1:12:18Griffin Newman?

  And Cameron was talking about this a lot on The Town and this kind of, you know, versus all these other big tech moguls who are talking about like, when, when he says that he's been involved in the Mars project since the 90s and whatever. And he's like, so you're one of these guys who's like believing colonizing? And he's like, no, I believe we gotta fucking save Earth. We're never gonna find a planet that's better for us. Like, there's nothing we've discovered that is like 1% as hospitable as what we have right now and we're fucking ruining it. You know? And I think that's so much of what Avatar is about, that it's like imagining a fantasia of a dominant species that not only appreciates

• 1:13:01Griffin Newman?

  the planet they were given, but lives in perfect tandem with it.

• 1:13:05David Sims?

  Yes. And we're coming along and we're being like, can you move your tree?

• 1:13:09Griffin Newman?

  Right.

• 1:13:09David Sims?

  It's on our shit!

• 1:13:11Griffin Newman?

  And we're like, hear us out. We're really good at ruining planets.

• 1:13:15David Sims?

  It is crazy that even in movie three, fucking Jeremy and Clement by this point is like, the whale, these are like living, you know, consciously like, can he be, yes, go away.

• 1:13:25Griffin Newman?

  We need their money! So much money!

• 1:13:29Speaker 01

  Hundreds of billions of dollars.

• 1:13:36Griffin Newman?

  David?

• 1:13:36David Sims?

  Yeah.

• 1:13:37Griffin Newman?

  This episode is brought to you by XYZ Films and the acclaimed new documentary, Capturing Bigfoot. On October 20th, 1967, Roger Patterson captured 59 seconds of film showing a creature walking through the Northern California woods. I wonder if you can log that on Letterboxd?

• 1:13:54David Sims?

  It is an iconic video.

• 1:13:55Griffin Newman?

  Footage that became the most analyzed and debated in history. 59 years later, a reel of 16 millimeter film discovered in a safe changes everything. Capturing Bigfoot reveals the untold story behind the world's greatest mystery, told for the first time by Patterson's own son and the people who were there. This is a story about family legacy, broken friendships, and how far people will go to protect a secret.

• 1:14:18David Sims?

  Of course, you got the classic, what they call Patterson Gimlin film, everyone knows, of Bigfoot out in the woods, like the famous Bigfoot picture. This has other stuff shot by him that no one's ever That's what makes this movie different.

• 1:14:29Griffin Newman?

  But we're also talking brand new 4K scans of the original film taken from the Patterson family archives that some historians have called the best rendering of the footage ever seen.

• 1:14:38David Sims?

  I feel like we've all seen that footage as like grainy.

• 1:14:41Griffin Newman?

  Yes.

• 1:14:42David Sims?

  You know, that you see, you know, whatever. You see it in a documentary for two seconds, but this is restoring it and making it look much more clear.

• 1:14:49Griffin Newman?

  There's also a companion podcast, the Capturing Bigfoot Podcast, which goes deeper into the legend and lore of Bigfoot and the Patterson Gimlin film, featuring weekly episodes with experts in cryptozoology, urban legends, and filmmaking.

• 1:15:03David Sims?

  I'm something of an expert in cryptozoology.

• 1:15:05Griffin Newman?

  Well, of course, yes, but that's more of a hobby.

• 1:15:07David Sims?

  Yeah, this podcast, Capturing Bigfoot Podcast, is hosted by the director of the film, Mark Evans, and it's available for free on YouTube and Spotify with exclusive episodes and content available on Patreon to members of the Capturing Bigfoot Society.

• 1:15:23Griffin Newman?

  Capturing Bigfoot is now available to rent or own on Amazon Prime Video. Learn more about Capturing Bigfoot at capturingbigfoot.com.

• 1:15:40Griffin Newman?

  David?

• 1:15:40David Sims?

  Yes?

• 1:15:41Griffin Newman?

  Nobody likes bank fees. Why would you like them?

• 1:15:45David Sims?

  When I was younger.

• 1:15:46Griffin Newman?

  Mm hmm.

• 1:15:47David Sims?

  I really would have benefited from a bank that did not charge me fees anytime I did anything, basically, which is, I feel like, what I was always dealing with.

• 1:15:55Griffin Newman?

  Chime. That's where Chime comes in. Chime.

• 1:15:58David Sims?

  They're changing the way people bank. They're not like traditional banks who charge fees and get keep perks and rewards. They offer the most rewarding fee-free banking, all with no overdraft fees, no monthly fees, and no minimum balance fees. Okay?

• 1:16:12Griffin Newman?

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• 1:16:13David Sims?

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• 1:16:19Griffin Newman?

  My two favorite things.

• 1:16:20David Sims?

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• 1:16:33Griffin Newman?

  Fee-free?

• 1:16:34David Sims?

  So join the millions who are already banking fee-free with America's number one choice for banking. Head to chime.com/blankcheck.

• 1:16:42David Sims?

  That is chime.com/blankcheck. Sign up now. It only takes a few minutes.

• 1:16:49Speaker 04

  Chime is a fintech, not a bank. Banking services and Chime card provided by Chime's bank partners. Qualifying direct deposits required. Terms and limits apply. Go to chime.com/disclosures for details.

• 1:17:11Griffin Newman?

  David?

• 1:17:11David Sims?

  Yes?

• 1:17:12Griffin Newman?

  People cut the cord. Means the death of the repeat, the rerun. But where, where do repeats still exist? In your closet.

• 1:17:21David Sims?

  Ah, the sweater that goes with everything, Griffin. The tee you somehow always reach for first?

• 1:17:26Griffin Newman?

  It's, it's, we know the feeling.

• 1:17:28David Sims?

  Those are the pieces that make getting dressed easy. That's what Quince does best.

• 1:17:31Griffin Newman?

  Quince.

• 1:17:31David Sims?

  This is true for me. I will say, I go to Quince, I buy a thing like a polo shirt, a sweater, whatever. And I'm like, oh, I like that. Guess I'll get a bunch more. Cause now that's what I'm gonna put on.

• 1:17:42Griffin Newman?

  Quince focuses on high-quality wardrobe staples made with premium materials like 100% Mongolian cashmere, organic cotton, and merino wool. The styles are timeless, versatile, and designed to become the dependable pieces you reach for day after day.

• 1:17:57David Sims?

  Love it. They got those 100% Mongolian cashmere sweaters. Those start at just $60.

• 1:18:01Griffin Newman?

  I love those.

• 1:18:02David Sims?

  Giving you the softness and quality you'd expect from a luxury brand. Without that luxury price tag. And, look, it's starting to get chillier. You're gonna need layers, right? How about you just do Quince for every layer, huh?

• 1:18:15Griffin Newman?

  Yeah.

• 1:18:15David Sims?

  Jacket, sweater, shirt.

• 1:18:17Griffin Newman?

  David, you know what I love?

• 1:18:18David Sims?

  What?

• 1:18:18Griffin Newman?

  The ultimate commuter pants.

• 1:18:20David Sims?

  Oh.

• 1:18:21Griffin Newman?

  Cause I'm commuting constantly.

• 1:18:23David Sims?

  Beep beep.

• 1:18:24Griffin Newman?

  Yep, that's me. David, I like these. They're just clean. They're comfortable. They got the right amount of pockets.

• 1:18:30David Sims?

  Wow. Find your next fall favorites at Quince. Download the Quince app for app-exclusive offers, or go to quince.com. Get free shipping on your order and 365-day returns. Now available in Canada and the UK too. And when Quince asks where you heard about them, let them know. It was Blank Check. It's the best way to support the show.

• 1:18:55David Sims?

  There's this sense in this movie, like you say, of like Parker Selfridge, the great Giovanni Ribisi.

• 1:19:01Speaker 01

  Nepo baby.

• 1:19:02David Sims?

  Nepo baby, son of the chairman, maybe has different designs than say Edie Falco's character does. I mean, Falco's kind of there to be like, we need to, you know, quell the resistance and we need, you know, like, she's a little more. Right. And Parker is a little more like, well, wait a second. If Spider can do this, maybe we need to focus on that. You know, like, so it's not right. There's not one plan.

• 1:19:24Griffin Newman?

  It almost reads to me as if there was a large corporate effort to extract the elements that they can monetize from this planet, which they built a kind of war around, right? Much like what has happened many, many times.

• 1:19:43David Sims?

  Sure, sure.

• 1:19:44Griffin Newman?

  To get the military involved to like, create a reason for a crisis, for a need to explore, even this notion of, right, there were sort of the three tracks of like, scientific exploration and outreach, a militarization, and like, a mining for pure capitalist reasons. And now those three things have gotten like tangled and disconnected simultaneously, where they exist in opposite tracks, but they can't like completely separate themselves from each other. And it feels like there's like now this kind of like propaganda induced blood vendetta that exists within the military of like, they're savages, we have to stop them, which is a direct byproduct of the self-defense and the escalation of their

• 1:20:26Griffin Newman?

  war against the natural citizens of this planet. That is now at odds with the corporations being like, can we just get more of the fucking goo? Stop making this so messy.

• 1:20:40David Sims?

  I'd like some of that goo. I'll just say it. Apparently makes you live forever or whatever.

• 1:20:44Speaker 01

  I don't want to be immortal.

• 1:20:46Griffin Newman?

  No, it would suck.

• 1:20:47Speaker 01

  But you know, they, they could be a kind of immortal by just becoming Na'vi.

• 1:20:52David Sims?

  Well, and that's maybe something Parker is realizing.

• 1:20:55Speaker 03

  Are there couches, though, like, in the afterlife?

• 1:20:59David Sims?

  Great question.

• 1:21:00Speaker 03

  What is the vibe?

• 1:21:01Griffin Newman?

  They were all just kind of standing around. They're all just standing around.

• 1:21:03Speaker 01

  Oh, like, and when you connect to A W A.

• 1:21:06David Sims?

  After an hour, you're like, can I just sit down?

• 1:21:08Griffin Newman?

  It's the ending of Big Fish.

• 1:21:09David Sims?

  I gotta sit on the ground?

• 1:21:10Griffin Newman?

  It's the ending of Big Fish. Everyone you've ever known is waiting for you.

• 1:21:13Speaker 01

  It's the ending of Titanic.

• 1:21:15David Sims?

  It is the ending of Titanic.

• 1:21:16Griffin Newman?

  You're right. No shit.

• 1:21:17Speaker 03

  I don't want to stand the whole time.

• 1:21:19Griffin Newman?

  Yeah. It'd be funny if Kate Winslet, you know, embraced Leo in the afterlife or whatever. And he was like, welcome to the afterlife. And she said, no shit.

• 1:21:28Speaker 03

  It's kind of.

• 1:21:29Griffin Newman?

  What'd you do with the jewel? I dropped it in the ocean. No shit. I was surprised they killed her off in this. Who? Yes, her character is Renaud. Renaud.

• 1:21:40Speaker 01

  How fucking cool was it though, that she like?

• 1:21:42Griffin Newman?

  She's like, I'm gonna give birth to this baby.

• 1:21:43Speaker 01

  She's giving birth, Nateri is helping deliver the baby. At one point, Nateri was like, hold on, sorry. And then shoots the fucking arrow.

• 1:21:50Griffin Newman?

  Fucking. Okay.

• 1:21:52Speaker 01

  Okay, back, back.

• 1:21:53Griffin Newman?

  Push. That moment of like, she's gotten the thing shot into her chest. She's like fucking 800 months pregnant, right? She like claws her way back up onto land and goes to Nateri and is like, I'm dying. And Nateri's like, don't say that you're not. And she's like, I'm dying. And Nateri's like, okay, you're right. Let's deliver this baby. Like, there's this incredibly intense sequence of like, there is no chance you're making it out of this alive. The priority is just get the child out of you.

• 1:22:22Speaker 01

  It was so cute.

• 1:22:23Griffin Newman?

  Yeah. Is that the first? Go ahead. No, the child's name is.

• 1:22:27Speaker 01

  Preo.

• 1:22:27Griffin Newman?

  Johnny Carson. Preo.

• 1:22:32Griffin Newman?

  Is that the first what?

• 1:22:33Speaker 01

  Baby that we've seen?

• 1:22:34Griffin Newman?

  Yeah, cuz I know there's like, sort of creepy AI art about.

• 1:22:38Speaker 01

  No, we see baby, especially when they're doing the like, the fast forward.

• 1:22:42Griffin Newman?

  Yeah, the beginning of Way of Water.

• 1:22:44Speaker 01

  And they talk about them expanding.

• 1:22:45Griffin Newman?

  Right. You see his children being born. But you, I think you see babies as well in your.

• 1:22:48Speaker 01

  But you know what we didn't see? We did see in this movie, the little otters.

• 1:22:53Griffin Newman?

  Yeah, I love those otters. They're cool. And they're like the squid guys too.

• 1:22:56Speaker 01

  Oh, the fucking squid guys.

• 1:22:58Griffin Newman?

  When they, Cameron Diaz, the counselor, those fucking. When the squid are just beaking people to death, you know?

• 1:23:05Speaker 01

  That was so sick.

• 1:23:06Griffin Newman?

  That was. But they also fuck the windshields until they crack.

• 1:23:11David Sims?

  Um, the squid, uh, sorry, the crab, um, ships.

• 1:23:16Griffin Newman?

  Yeah.

• 1:23:16David Sims?

  Are in the last one.

• 1:23:17Griffin Newman?

  Yeah.

• 1:23:18David Sims?

  Are the sort of torpedo-y squid ones in there too? I felt like that was a new ship. I couldn't quite remember. I love all the looks of those, uh, ships.

• 1:23:26Griffin Newman?

  Love the look of fucking everything. Here's the other James Cameron magic. Marie, you watched the, the two things on Disney plus, right?

• 1:23:33Speaker 01

  I, you know.

• 1:23:35Griffin Newman?

  Okay.

• 1:23:35Speaker 01

  Had them on.

• 1:23:36Griffin Newman?

  They're like two 40 minute making of things. It's like a two part, uh, what's it called? Fire and water. That is good, but you also wish it was like 18 hours long. And it feels like it mostly exists because of James Cameron's, uh, sudden, uh, prioritizing of conveying to people that these movies are not made with AI. Of like really explaining the process and pulling back the curtain more than he had previously. But, uh, the big thing with these movies and why they like look better than anything else is not just the amount of money and the amount of time he's given. But James Cameron just has that insane, we are going to spend as much time as it takes to figure out the internal logic of how every single thing works. There is nothing on screen where you're like, that's cool.

• 1:24:22Griffin Newman?

  And you feel like that was the beginning end of the process. It's like if a creature's created, you can just tell in these fucking movies that someone spent nine months figuring out the biology.

• 1:24:32Speaker 01

  I mean, those squid looked so fucking real.

• 1:24:34Griffin Newman?

  And the function of these creatures where he talks about this, where he's like, I will not let there be a design element just because it looks interesting.

• 1:24:41David Sims?

  Right.

• 1:24:41Griffin Newman?

  There has to be an argument.

• 1:24:42David Sims?

  To have a function.

• 1:24:43Griffin Newman?

  Why that species has evolved to need that in order to survive. And I feel like all the military vehicles are the same thing where you're, oh, fuck, it works like that. And he's the best at this shit where he just visually teaches you how something works. And then like sets it up so that it could come back later and you have the shorthand in your head. That's where these movies are fucking complex. It is why he like, you know, goes blunt and uses kind of shorthand and, and cliches and tropes in certain areas because it's like. Some of the stuff I'm gonna have to fucking teach you is so complicated that I need to like clear the path in certain areas in order to download all this other fucking shit into

• 1:25:26Griffin Newman?

  your brain, which will result in your final 40 minutes where you're like, I'm maintaining 15 narrative threads and understanding like 40 different species and how the ecology works and how all this technology works. And the movie doesn't have to slow down and explain itself then.

• 1:25:43David Sims?

  Right, right. I mean, no wonder these things cost like $1 billion to bake in totality or whatever.

• 1:25:49Griffin Newman?

  And take a decade.

• 1:25:49David Sims?

  Yes, and take forever and

• 1:25:50Griffin Newman?

  Right.

• 1:25:51David Sims?

  Whole languages had to be thought up and all this stuff. And it's like, on the one hand, it's in service of a world that like 99% of viewers will never get beyond like the first foot up, right? Like, they'll never go deeper. Maybe super fans will eventually be handed bibles and encyclopedias that they can read.

• 1:26:13Griffin Newman?

  I got this fucking book here, but even I'm like

• 1:26:15David Sims?

  There'll be more.

• 1:26:15Griffin Newman?

  I wanted like a definitive 800-page volume where I could just like, I want an encyclopedia Britannica. And it's the thing that people will throw out against these movies where they're like, but does anyone fucking care about Avatar? Like, no one talks about this shit. And there's no fucking like, fanfiction and there's none of this fucking shit.

• 1:26:32David Sims?

  There is, but yeah.

• 1:26:33Griffin Newman?

  Right.

• 1:26:34David Sims?

  I mean, I write it.

• 1:26:35Griffin Newman?

  But it does feel like it's not as culturally omnipresent as the things we know.

• 1:26:39David Sims?

  Yeah, yeah, yeah.

• 1:26:39Griffin Newman?

  Right? That like dominate the tip of pop culture. Certainly the things that are as successful as the Avatar franchise is. But what is interesting is that, yes, it's like, all this work is done under the hood to basically service a thing that it seems like a majority of the audience goes like, yeah, they're fun to look at, without doing the like, I want to read all the backstory.

• 1:27:00David Sims?

  The other thing that strikes me is that a universe like Star Wars, or even Star Trek, or what are some other big nerd?

• 1:27:07Speaker 01

  Game of Thrones.

• 1:27:08David Sims?

  Well, let's put that one aside for a second. Well, let's think of like, those things.

• 1:27:12Griffin Newman?

  Lord of the Rings.

• 1:27:14David Sims?

  Well, let's put that one aside. But let's start, let's do Star Wars.

• 1:27:16Griffin Newman?

  Okay.

• 1:27:17David Sims?

  Yes, George Lucas wrote down a bunch of. Weird shit.

• 1:27:21Griffin Newman?

  Yeah.

• 1:27:21David Sims?

  But that's a, you know, he started with this and they just started to add shit on to it.

• 1:27:26Griffin Newman?

  98% backfilled and constantly changing.

• 1:27:28David Sims?

  And Star Trek was the same where like, as they develop it, they're like, well, it's okay. So what would the wider world of this look like? Game of Thrones, even he probably, you know, added as he went along, he had more maybe a holistic idea. But like for Cameron to like, no, no, no, we're going to start with a whole functioning thing. And then we'll build a story.

• 1:27:46Griffin Newman?

  Well, it's what to me speaks to a larger issue and how we like engage with pop culture. And this idea of like, how fandom has kind of poisoned everything. And our sense of cultural purchase and weight is connected to the intensity of the fandom. Of like, Star Wars is this thing that became basically a world in and of itself and bordering on like a religion. And a thing that people will study. And people have been trying to reverse engineer that kind of shit for decades, which often distracts from like actual storytelling. Which is the number one thing.

• 1:28:24David Sims?

  You don't want to get lost in your world building, right?

• 1:28:26Griffin Newman?

  James Cameron is just like, the world building is like, whatever. It's like means to an end. I care about all this deeply, but it's all in service of making this story work for the three hours you're sitting there. And people, like, it's the thing that happens every time a fucking Avatar movie comes out where they're like, that looks dumb. Then they go see it and they're like leaning forward in their seat. And then six months later, they're like, that sucked, right?

• 1:28:48David Sims?

  It was dumb, right? It looks dumb in my memory. I mean, I just saw an interview with him where he was talking about Titanic and the guy was some, whoever was like, you just wanted to go to the Titanic, right? And he's like, yeah, yeah. I mean, and then I was like, I guess I could set a story on the Titanic. And I guess I was like Romeo and Juliet and like, and he admitted like, he was like 90%. I just wanted the fucking technology to visit the Titanic.

• 1:29:14Griffin Newman?

  And Doris is like a fucking thing he started noodling with when he was 16. Where he's like, what's the coolest fucking planet that could ever exist?

• 1:29:21David Sims?

  So, yeah, so, you know, he, he's the first to admit his stories are elemental and basic.

• 1:29:29Speaker 01

  I saw, and I don't know if it was on the town or if it was CBS Sunday morning or whatever, but another James Cameron interview where he was like, yeah, I, my biggest insecurity as a filmmaker is that I'm not as. It's like strong of a writer. And so I try and really focus on the visual showmanship and like those sorts of elements to try and mask what I think are my weaknesses.

• 1:29:50Griffin Newman?

  And the communication of larger story ideas and more like primal emotions. I mean, these movies in so many ways, like I was like, what is the closest analog to what he's doing now? Because it doesn't, it's not really fair to compare it to what else is happening in like blockbuster cinema or TV or anything. And it's like, he's making like insane original sci-fi versions of like what used to be the biblical epic.

• 1:30:14David Sims?

  Sure.

• 1:30:14Griffin Newman?

  In a way.

• 1:30:15David Sims?

  Right. Like a Cecil B. DeMille movie.

• 1:30:16Griffin Newman?

  And these very like broad, huge, sweeping emotion statements about like humanity and the nature of existence, except rather than riffing on the things that we've all known and lived with forever, he's like pulling from all these different myths and then building his own mythology and then still getting back to stories of like, yeah, but it's about like what it means to be a dad.

• 1:30:35David Sims?

  Well, I mean, a lot of people pointed out Way of Water is about him moving his family to New Zealand to make Avatar one.

• 1:30:42Griffin Newman?

  Right. And his children being like, can you chill the fuck out?

• 1:30:45David Sims?

  What the fuck, man?

• 1:30:46Griffin Newman?

  You don't know how to talk to us as people.

• 1:30:48David Sims?

  Right.

• 1:30:48Griffin Newman?

  And the first and third movies are both about, you know, when you have that like pony braid so good, it makes you go crazy.

• 1:31:00Griffin Newman?

  The two movies mirror themselves in that way where they're like, we all know this guy and we know what his deal is and he knows who he is. But what if a pony braid is so fucking good that you actually lose your mind?

• 1:31:12Speaker 01

  Can I bring something up that we haven't really talked about?

• 1:31:14David Sims?

  Yes.

• 1:31:14Speaker 01

  And this was something that I brought up to you guys after we stopped watching the movie that was on my mind, is that between Way of Water and Fire and Ash coming out, John Landau dies.

• 1:31:25David Sims?

  He did die. But I mean, he was very involved, obviously.

• 1:31:27Speaker 01

  He was very involved.

• 1:31:28David Sims?

  He died very recently.

• 1:31:29Griffin Newman?

  And these two movies were basically captured together. It's been more of an extended post-production process with the footage that was mostly done in 2020.

• 1:31:38David Sims?

  John Landau, to be clear, has been Karen's producer since Titanic.

• 1:31:43Griffin Newman?

  Was a Fox executive.

• 1:31:45David Sims?

  Right.

• 1:31:45Griffin Newman?

  And then became his number two guy at Lightstorm Entertainment.

• 1:31:49David Sims?

  And you basically just always would hear. Like, well, Jim's a, you know, Jim can be a little tough to handle and John's really good at kind of finessing. You know, helping him explain things to people with money and things like that.

• 1:32:02Griffin Newman?

  Interesting to me because I know you watched the ILM.

• 1:32:05David Sims?

  Yeah.

• 1:32:06Griffin Newman?

  Disney Plus series recently. It feels like such an inverse of the George Lucas Rick McCallum dynamic.

• 1:32:11David Sims?

  Right.

• 1:32:11Griffin Newman?

  Where you're like, George is this like very soft spoken.

• 1:32:14David Sims?

  And then he has a. Yeah. Be Suboma and McCallum's like, if I don't see 50 Subomas.

• 1:32:20Griffin Newman?

  Yeah.

• 1:32:20David Sims?

  Yeah.

• 1:32:21Griffin Newman?

  He's like, if you don't bring the visual effects budget down $50,000 in the next hour, I will murder you. And then John Lando is by everyone's account, the like ultimate fucking mensch, but also was really into the sort of like maintaining of the ecosystem of the Avatar world. And the sort of quality control of all the other stuff that came out of it.

• 1:32:42Speaker 01

  I was really struck by just thematically, and I know that these movies were like written before he passed away.

• 1:32:47Griffin Newman?

  And largely filmed. Yeah.

• 1:32:48Speaker 01

  But how much of the processing of grief of like losing a brother is part of the text of the movie?

• 1:32:56Griffin Newman?

  I, I think it's a great example of like the, the story maybe didn't change much at all, but the emotions of the person telling the story. Affected the way in which it was told. It just feels like there's a different tone to this. It feels like a slightly more serious and haunted movie, even though it has certainly tons of Avatar silliness in it. I mean, this is another thing.

• 1:33:22David Sims?

  There's also the Titans submersible imploded and we all know James Cameron felt really bad for those guys. And he was very, very compassionate about that. Every time he was interviewed on CNN where he was like, I heard they blew up and I like it.

• 1:33:34Speaker 01

  That guy's a fucking Parker Selfridge.

• 1:33:36David Sims?

  Yeah, I know. I was just thinking about how he's kind of Parker Selfridgey. Yeah, yeah. Stockton Rush. He said, his name sounds like fucking Parker Selfridge.

• 1:33:43Griffin Newman?

  But this is another thing he explained very well on The Town is that like these movies, basically he gets to just capture everything with the actors. At this point, there's so little footage. Using live action actors playing themselves, right? Spider is really the primary one, and then you'll occasionally cut to scenes with Edie Falco as Sergeant Nurse Jackie and, and what have you. But so the majority of the film is like shot like a black box, like a performance rehearsal space in this weird wireframe grid. And he just gets the performances he wants. And then he's like, all of the like filmmaking decisions I make later in the computer.

• 1:34:25Griffin Newman?

  The only thing I care about when I'm with the actors is the performances and communicating the characters. And then I get to with that data, figure out the shot composition, where the cuts are, how I'm lighting them, how I'm rendering the environment. And so it's like narratively, everything is captured years before. And then the very long process is how do you actually get it visualized on screen?

• 1:34:47David Sims?

  Actors though get dunked.

• 1:34:49Griffin Newman?

  Go on.

• 1:34:50David Sims?

  And I'm wondering though, if they ever have to hold their breath for a period of time.

• 1:34:55Griffin Newman?

  Kate Winslet broke the record.

• 1:34:56David Sims?

  Oh, really?

• 1:34:57Griffin Newman?

  Yeah.

• 1:34:57David Sims?

  Did you?

• 1:34:58Griffin Newman?

  I know. Hearing this for the first time.

• 1:35:00David Sims?

  I do think, I do think.

• 1:35:03Speaker 03

  This never came up at all.

• 1:35:04David Sims?

  But I mean, this was the thing that was so expensive.

• 1:35:07Speaker 01

  I think I made myself sick on the last episode by trying to hold my breath.

• 1:35:10Griffin Newman?

  Oh yeah, that sounds right.

• 1:35:12David Sims?

  That's because you were throwing a tantrum because we wouldn't get you a toy.

• 1:35:15Griffin Newman?

  Yeah.

• 1:35:16David Sims?

  Just standing there, holding your breath.

• 1:35:18Griffin Newman?

  Weird, David, that feels like.

• 1:35:20David Sims?

  My daughter has not pulled the holding her breath. I, I think of that as such a classic like kids book thing, right? And I'm like, I've never seen a kid actually do that because it's such an insane thing to do.

• 1:35:31Griffin Newman?

  Can we get a quick side tangent that has made me really happy?

• 1:35:35David Sims?

  What's that?

• 1:35:35Griffin Newman?

  You have started talking about how you have gotten into the, the system of being able to communicate with your daughter via toy.

• 1:35:45David Sims?

  Okay, sure.

• 1:35:46Griffin Newman?

  Especially in, in the like efforts to like, uh, sleep schedules.

• 1:35:50David Sims?

  Keep her in bed, keep her in bed. If she fills up a sticker chart, she gets it.

• 1:35:54Griffin Newman?

  Right.

• 1:35:55David Sims?

  Bribery.

• 1:35:55Griffin Newman?

  Right. And that you now are keeping like active tabs on the entire line of Spidey and his amazing friends and Iron Man and his awesome friends.

• 1:36:04David Sims?

  Why is there not a Swarm toy?

• 1:36:06Griffin Newman?

  Do you know this, that he texts me about this, that he knows every fucking figure that exists in these lines and any character she asks about, he gets so stressed.

• 1:36:13Speaker 01

  You must love this Griffin.

• 1:36:14Griffin Newman?

  It makes me so happy. And he's clearly, he doesn't ask me for advice that much because he clearly takes some pride in that he's able to figure these things out himself.

• 1:36:22David Sims?

  Myself, yeah.

• 1:36:23Griffin Newman?

  But then that makes me proud when he's like, so I had to find a different thing figure in a compatible scale because they technically haven't made him.

• 1:36:31David Sims?

  Like a three and a half inch thing, four inch, whatever it was. Iron Man and, uh, his awesome friends is, you know, the new Spidey.

• 1:36:38Speaker 01

  I don't, I don't understand how the dinosaurs factor into this.

• 1:36:42Griffin Newman?

  That's a season five thing, right?

• 1:36:43David Sims?

  Well, that's in Spidey, that's season three. Uh, it's just so funny how.

• 1:36:47Speaker 01

  I did buy my nephew a Lego set that has like dinosaurs and Spidey.

• 1:36:51David Sims?

  It's just the cracked out Disney plus fucking boardroom where they're just like, okay, so the kids love Spidey, but you know, how many times can Spidey save the day? What else? They love dinosaurs? And someone's just like, what if they just turn into dinosaurs? How? Figure it out. Season three is them turning into dinosaurs.

• 1:37:08Griffin Newman?

  You know, they were doing some of this in the comics too recently, even before the kid show, whoever the guy is who like sat up after, I'm sure Varang blue like fucking Navi dust up his nose and said, Venom, Venom source Rex, is that anything? They handed him like a national medal of honor.

• 1:37:26David Sims?

  You haven't lived until you've seen Electro turn into a velociraptor, which is like an episode. There's also a pirate ship season. They just were truly like, what else do kids like? Pirate ships, dinosaurs. There's, I don't know. There's, there's glowing.

• 1:37:40Speaker 01

  Trains, trucks.

• 1:37:42David Sims?

  Done trains. I mean, there's a lot of good vehicles. They should do cowboy.

• 1:37:44Griffin Newman?

  They sort of haven't made Swarm as a toy yet?

• 1:37:46David Sims?

  No, so, so now I suppose Swarm is one of the villains in the Iron Man series.

• 1:37:50Griffin Newman?

  And that's a newer series, so the line hasn't gotten that deep in terms of character selection.

• 1:37:53David Sims?

  The only toys they've released so far are Iron Man, Ironheart, Iron Hulk and Ultron.

• 1:37:58Griffin Newman?

  Okay.

• 1:37:59David Sims?

  And, uh, my daughter really wants a Swarm doll. So if anyone wants to make a Swarm doll, that'd be great.

• 1:38:03Griffin Newman?

  Okay.

• 1:38:03David Sims?

  Uh, there's also of course Absorbing Man and, uh, you know, they've got some other guys.

• 1:38:08Griffin Newman?

  I'll ping my folks at Hasbro. I'll see what they say.

• 1:38:10David Sims?

  I'm sure it's all, you know, in the works. It's all, it's all in the assembly line. What's up?

• 1:38:15Speaker 01

  Do you, have you talked to your daughter about Red Hulk?

• 1:38:17David Sims?

  It's a good question. I haven't. I think she would just kind of be like Hulk is green.

• 1:38:21Griffin Newman?

  Cause you know, the Iron Man show has Iron Hulk.

• 1:38:25David Sims?

  Yes, Iron Man show has Iron Hulk, but he is also green.

• 1:38:27Griffin Newman?

  So Spidey Show has natural biological Hulk.

• 1:38:29David Sims?

  Hulk, as my daughter calls him.

• 1:38:31Griffin Newman?

  And then Iron Man has Amadeus Chow, Iron Hulk, who wears a mech Hulk suit.

• 1:38:35David Sims?

  Cool. And I think it's just, again, my daughter just gets it where she's just like, Iron Hulk. I get it. He's like Hulk. I get it.

• 1:38:43Speaker 01

  Yeah, well, Red Hulk, he's like Hulk, but he's red and he's president. What else?

• 1:38:47Griffin Newman?

  Well, see, but the president's where it becomes a trickier conversation.

• 1:38:50David Sims?

  Thing. I don't think Liv Tyler or Cherry Blossom plots are really going to move her either. And if I'm just like, he just needs his pills. He's 80 years old.

• 1:39:00Griffin Newman?

  It's just a shame you haven't let her watch Brave New World yet. Cause I, when you talk about like having trouble getting her to fall asleep at night, I know it's often her asking you questions of like, will they ever resolve the plotlines of 2008's The Incredible Hulk? When are we going to get follow up on the leader Samuel Sterns?

• 1:39:17David Sims?

  Yeah, right, right, right.

• 1:39:18Griffin Newman?

  Eddie Ross.

• 1:39:19David Sims?

  It would be so funny if they dropped the doomsday trailer and it's like, the first shot is Red Hulk. Like that they're just like, we're not giving up on this.

• 1:39:25Griffin Newman?

  No, I, can I one up you?

• 1:39:27David Sims?

  Yeah.

• 1:39:27Griffin Newman?

  The funniest thing would be if the doomsday trailer opens with Ty Burrell as Doc Sampson. If they're like, we're not done with Incredible Hulk characters.

• 1:39:33David Sims?

  Litigating everyone from that movie. Thank God we got some Red Hulk talk in. Phew. How's he, how do you think he's doing right now?

• 1:39:39Griffin Newman?

  And let's quickly just salute our president up there. Yeah.

• 1:39:43Speaker 01

  Uh, I haven't seen a single piece of media with Red Hulk in it.

• 1:39:47David Sims?

  Well, there's only the one.

• 1:39:49Speaker 01

  My only, well.

• 1:39:50Griffin Newman?

  It's a limited canon.

• 1:39:51David Sims?

  So far.

• 1:39:53Speaker 01

  Well, I haven't seen it and uh.

• 1:39:55David Sims?

  You don't want to see it after the acclaim? Was it on the MBR?

• 1:39:59Griffin Newman?

  Yeah, it made the 10, right? Who got best supporting Red Hulk this year? Can you believe 2025 has been so long?

• 1:40:06David Sims?

  Yeah.

• 1:40:07Griffin Newman?

  That Brave New World came up this year.

• 1:40:10David Sims?

  I believe it was January, was it not?

• 1:40:11Griffin Newman?

  I think it was February. I think it came up president's day weekend.

• 1:40:14Speaker 01

  It is so.

• 1:40:15David Sims?

  I think it did. I think you're right.

• 1:40:16Speaker 01

  It is, it is so.

• 1:40:19Griffin Newman?

  We salute.

• 1:40:20Speaker 01

  Crazy.

• 1:40:22Speaker 01

  Um, we went, we went to Texas this year.

• 1:40:25David Sims?

  Not me.

• 1:40:26Griffin Newman?

  Oh, yeah, we did. Yes. Yes.

• 1:40:27Speaker 01

  Yeah.

• 1:40:28Griffin Newman?

  Yeah.

• 1:40:28David Sims?

  Yeah.

• 1:40:29Speaker 01

  We saw that Michael Bay parkour documentary that still hasn't gotten.

• 1:40:33David Sims?

  It's where we discovered certain grill master.

• 1:40:36Speaker 01

  Yeah.

• 1:40:37Griffin Newman?

  Well, you discovered what had already existed.

• 1:40:39David Sims?

  He discovered the truth.

• 1:40:41Griffin Newman?

  Time immemorial. Uh, also crazy. I went to fucking Santa Barbara this year and saw Horizon.

• 1:40:46Speaker 01

  That was this year?

• 1:40:48Griffin Newman?

  American Saga, Chapter Two, a movie that may never come out.

• 1:40:51David Sims?

  Ah, what do you mean? Red, Red Hulk is on that. He'll, he'll, he'll liberate it.

• 1:40:54Griffin Newman?

  We ran into Bill Goodberry, the great Bill Goodberry, past and future guest, uh, after the screening and was, uh, I was talking to him and we were both like, yeah, everything we hear makes it really feel like it might truly never be seen.

• 1:41:07David Sims?

  He's a tough son of a bitch, that Kevin Costner, you know, he just might, uh.

• 1:41:11Griffin Newman?

  He's, he is his, his own greatest champion, his own worst enemy.

• 1:41:15David Sims?

  Exactly.

• 1:41:16Griffin Newman?

  That pancake eating motherfucker.

• 1:41:17David Sims?

  Isn't he in a deep sea diving era?

• 1:41:19Speaker 01

  He is.

• 1:41:20Griffin Newman?

  He's flirting with.

• 1:41:21Speaker 01

  Not so much deep sea as he is treasure hunting.

• 1:41:24Griffin Newman?

  Doesn't he also have like a Disney plus special called like A Very American Christmas?

• 1:41:29Speaker 01

  I mean, who fucking knows?

• 1:41:30Griffin Newman?

  Isn't there some?

• 1:41:30Speaker 01

  I'm currently Googling James Cameron, Kevin Costner to see if they've ever like talked about each other because I feel like they have so many common interests.

• 1:41:39Griffin Newman?

  That feels like, uh, magnets, uh, turn to opposite sides that would repel across the room.

• 1:41:44Speaker 01

  They both, uh, they both worked on the, you know, relief for the Gulf, uh, Mexico oil spill.

• 1:41:51Griffin Newman?

  They have shared interests. I don't think those two guys, I, I don't think there is a room with enough oxygen to maintain both of those guys at the same time.

• 1:41:59David Sims?

  The funniest paycheck gig Costner could take to try to get the money to like, figure out his, like, what, like dumb ass franchise does he have to parachute into to like, start collecting, you know, to like, to stabilize?

• 1:42:13Griffin Newman?

  I got the answer for you, my friend. Composite Hulk. Do you, are you familiar with composite hulks?

• 1:42:17Speaker 01

  What the fuck is?

• 1:42:17Griffin Newman?

  Who's half green Hulk and half red Hulk?

• 1:42:20Speaker 01

  Is this real?

• 1:42:21Griffin Newman?

  Yeah.

• 1:42:22Speaker 01

  Does that make him a half president?

• 1:42:25Griffin Newman?

  This is, these are the questions Kevin Costner will have to answer.

• 1:42:28Speaker 01

  He's president. Like, what, what, what else is his?

• 1:42:30David Sims?

  Well, it's actually, it's kind of the big twist of the movie, which of course the trailers revealed right away because they were really worried.

• 1:42:36Griffin Newman?

  Right.

• 1:42:37David Sims?

  Because no one would go see the movie.

• 1:42:38Griffin Newman?

  That's the thing the movie's created. In the comics, it's just like, oh, you know, Red Hulk, who turns out in a twist to be

• 1:42:46David Sims?

  Thunderball Ross.

• 1:42:47Griffin Newman?

  The father of the military general who hates Hulk and is the father of his

• 1:42:51David Sims?

  When Red Hulk was introduced, it was just like, who is Red Hulk was the big mystery? And it was like Hulk's out there and he's red and he's smashing people. Who could he be? Turned out he was Thunderball Ross.

• 1:43:00Griffin Newman?

  The guy who hates the Hulk the most.

• 1:43:01David Sims?

  He also had a gun.

• 1:43:02Griffin Newman?

  And whose daughter loves the Hulk the most. And in this movie, he gets elected president and he keeps taking these pills. And they're like, what are those pills for?

• 1:43:10David Sims?

  He's the president. He's like, we gotta work out a trade deal with Japan. Where are my pills? And was like, why do you need these pills? I just need them for no reason!

• 1:43:18Griffin Newman?

  And it turns out the pills are the only thing that are stopping him from rolling out. And the pills can only be prescribed by Samuel Sterns, who's Tim Blake Nelson with a fucking scrotum head.

• 1:43:28Speaker 01

  Okay.

• 1:43:29Griffin Newman?

  Yeah, he's got like a gross brain.

• 1:43:31David Sims?

  Yeah.

• 1:43:31Speaker 01

  I had to look that up for whatever episode. Was that the Buster Scruggs episode?

• 1:43:36Griffin Newman?

  Yeah, the leader.

• 1:43:40Griffin Newman?

  Spoiler, Marie, but Brave New World ends with him in jail.

• 1:43:44David Sims?

  Does.

• 1:43:44Griffin Newman?

  He's on the raft.

• 1:43:45Speaker 01

  Wow.

• 1:43:45David Sims?

  He goes to jail for it.

• 1:43:46Speaker 01

  Wouldn't that be great?

• 1:43:53Speaker 01

  Thank you.

• 1:43:53David Sims?

  Wow, Ben, very half-heartedly clapping there.

• 1:43:55Griffin Newman?

  I can think of another strangely huge president who I'd love to see in the raft.

• 1:44:01David Sims?

  Oh, yeah?

• 1:44:02Griffin Newman?

  Donald, Donald.

• 1:44:03David Sims?

  Oh, not, it's not like William Howard Taft or something?

• 1:44:05Griffin Newman?

  No. I said strangely huge.

• 1:44:07David Sims?

  Oh, huge. I thought you were saying huge.

• 1:44:10Speaker 01

  I thought you said huge too.

• 1:44:11David Sims?

  Yeah, I was like, I mean, I guess Donald Trump's got that.

• 1:44:13Griffin Newman?

  In the words of Tiger Wiger, the orange buffoon.

• 1:44:16David Sims?

  Oh.

• 1:44:17Griffin Newman?

  So we got Imbrada. What's the other joke?

• 1:44:20David Sims?

  I don't even remember the other one, but it was no good.

• 1:44:23Griffin Newman?

  The problem is, I came in loaded. It was the Delta Airlines being on board. It was a bad one. And by the way, never forget, never forget that joke.

• 1:44:32Griffin Newman?

  Many laughs were lost when I tried and failed to land that joke.

• 1:44:36Speaker 01

  There's gonna be a Reddit thread that's like, uh, is, is anyone else picking up on how like Griffins just like lost the sauce?

• 1:44:43David Sims?

  Look, I Someone needs to write it.

• 1:44:45Griffin Newman?

  Much like James Cameron sometimes giving you blunt dialogue because he's got larger story design to play, I came in with too many perfect big brain takes on Avatar that my, my funny bone is just on, on shore leave today.

• 1:44:58Speaker 01

  Yeah, I mean, I think we do take this film and this franchise very seriously.

• 1:45:03David Sims?

  If you, if your brain grows, other bones disappear.

• 1:45:07Griffin Newman?

  Some says you gotta leave a bone on the bench for a little while.

• 1:45:12David Sims?

  Ooh, new Paranormal Activity movie in the works.

• 1:45:14Griffin Newman?

  Congratulations, David.

• 1:45:15David Sims?

  I get to complete my, uh, my franchise.

• 1:45:18Griffin Newman?

  This play is apparently very cool.

• 1:45:20David Sims?

  I know. I guess I gotta check out the play if it coming. I'm sure it'll come to New York.

• 1:45:23Speaker 01

  There's a Paranormal Activity play?

• 1:45:25David Sims?

  Yeah, it's in Chicago currently, but I think it's got good reviews.

• 1:45:29Griffin Newman?

  Eva Anderson loved it.

• 1:45:30Speaker 01

  I've only ever seen one horror play and it was that one Tatiana was in that we saw together.

• 1:45:35Griffin Newman?

  Oh, yes. Why am I already forgetting the name of that play?

• 1:45:37David Sims?

  Oh, what was it called? It was called like The Old Gray House.

• 1:45:40Griffin Newman?

  I saw a horror show once on Broadway. It was called Seussical the Musical.

• 1:45:45Speaker 01

  A person's a person, no matter how small.

• 1:45:48Griffin Newman?

  Hit me up at night.

• 1:45:49Speaker 01

  Wait, why? What's, what's your beef with Seussical?

• 1:45:52Griffin Newman?

  That thing's sloppy as hell.

• 1:45:54David Sims?

  Seussical from the, I just saw Ragtime, which is same composer.

• 1:45:57Griffin Newman?

  Yeah, and they're very similar shows.

• 1:45:59David Sims?

  Um, you know, the, the scariest thing I ever saw, uh, I think like movie play, whatever, was The Woman in Black, which was a long running thriller.

• 1:46:07Speaker 01

  Yeah, that is a very, very famous horror play.

• 1:46:10David Sims?

  Yes. Uh, and it was one of those, maybe I was just a teenager and I was more impressionable or whatever, but like, it was one of those things where I could not believe how scary.

• 1:46:18Griffin Newman?

  Apparently like Terminal Activity has like very good unshowy stage magic shit like that where you're like, I can't believe.

• 1:46:24Speaker 01

  I am way more.

• 1:46:25Griffin Newman?

  I'm watching a Paranormal Activity live in front of me.

• 1:46:28Speaker 01

  I am way more interested in that than I am in like the Stranger Things, like where it's like, just like a lot of.

• 1:46:33David Sims?

  Well, the Stranger Things show I think is just right. It's like big.

• 1:46:36Griffin Newman?

  People like it, right? It's like good.

• 1:46:38David Sims?

  I think it's okay. Again, it's the stagecraft is so impressive.

• 1:46:42Griffin Newman?

  Saying it's good.

• 1:46:44David Sims?

  Stranger Things is one of those, I mean, obviously, as I've said, I watched it three times. Every time Barb died and I stopped watching, I tried three times with that show. I got to Barb dying and for what I didn't keep watching because I found it boring, but it's sort of makes it seem like I just couldn't get over the death of Barb.

• 1:47:03Speaker 01

  Like you were just like really into watching her die. You rewatched her die three times.

• 1:47:09David Sims?

  She dies, I throw my remote.

• 1:47:11Griffin Newman?

  It's like Trump, like fast forwarding through the dialogue scenes and kickboxer. You just have a supercut of just Barb dying over and over again. I'm still a Stranger Things unicorn.

• 1:47:19David Sims?

  Well, I basically am too, apart from Barb.

• 1:47:22Griffin Newman?

  I've never even made it that far.

• 1:47:23David Sims?

  Right. But I mean, it's one of those.

• 1:47:24Speaker 01

  I tried, well, I didn't finish.

• 1:47:25David Sims?

  As this new season is dropping, it really feels like this is just an emperor has no clothes thing where everyone is just kind of like, I guess I'll watch it because I watched the rest of it. So I guess I should finish, but I'm not detecting a lot of people being like, can you believe what happened on Stranger Things? And instead I'm seeing a lot of people going like, they're just like finding the fucking guy in the upside down again, like.

• 1:47:48Griffin Newman?

  It's also like the most expensive TV show of all time. The TV show is like four movies. It has the most complicated release.

• 1:47:55David Sims?

  Two hours. Yes.

• 1:47:56Griffin Newman?

  Right. The end of it's going into theaters first.

• 1:47:59Speaker 01

  Millie Bobby Brown changed her name.

• 1:48:01Griffin Newman?

  Yeah, she's Millie.

• 1:48:03Speaker 01

  Millie Bobby Bon Jovi.

• 1:48:06Speaker 01

  So fun to say.

• 1:48:07David Sims?

  That is one of those things where I'm like.

• 1:48:09Griffin Newman?

  Our world is really.

• 1:48:10David Sims?

  Well, everyone's like, well, she got married too young. Like, and I'm like, what do you mean? She's been a celebrity forever. How old could she be? She's 21. She's a baby.

• 1:48:17Griffin Newman?

  It is one of those things where every time I check her age, I think my brain is glitching.

• 1:48:21David Sims?

  She was truly 11 when she played 11 or whatever her character is.

• 1:48:25Speaker 01

  Drake was texting her or whatever.

• 1:48:27Griffin Newman?

  The other one is Kaia Gerber, where I'm just like.

• 1:48:30David Sims?

  She's the one who's Cindy Crawford's daughter?

• 1:48:31Griffin Newman?

  Yes. And she's like 23 and I feel like she has been in seven, five year long relationships.

• 1:48:37David Sims?

  That because she has the name of a baby, Gerber.

• 1:48:40Speaker 01

  Yeah.

• 1:48:41David Sims?

  So you think she's a baby.

• 1:48:43Griffin Newman?

  Yeah, that's.

• 1:48:44David Sims?

  The Kaia Gerber baby.

• 1:48:45Griffin Newman?

  That's the issue.

• 1:48:47David Sims?

  What's she in? Have I seen her?

• 1:48:49Griffin Newman?

  Yeah, well, of course she played Chevy Chase's girlfriend in Saturday Night, a character that somehow had more dialogue and screen time than Gilda Radner.

• 1:48:56David Sims?

  You know what?

• 1:48:56Griffin Newman?

  Lorraine Newman.

• 1:48:57David Sims?

  I saw.

• 1:49:00David Sims?

  She's in Bottoms. I watched.

• 1:49:01Griffin Newman?

  She's in Bottoms.

• 1:49:02David Sims?

  And I saw Max Mago, a friend of the show.

• 1:49:05Griffin Newman?

  Uh huh. She's in Shell.

• 1:49:06David Sims?

  I saw his movie Shell, which she has like a big scene in.

• 1:49:09Griffin Newman?

  Yeah.

• 1:49:09David Sims?

  She's a smaller part.

• 1:49:11Speaker 01

  I don't remember her in Babylon, but sure, she can.

• 1:49:13David Sims?

  Well, she played Starlit.

• 1:49:14Griffin Newman?

  Oh, of course.

• 1:49:15David Sims?

  So she's probably one of those scenes with all those stars.

• 1:49:17Griffin Newman?

  But she's dated Austin Butler.

• 1:49:19David Sims?

  And if you think about it, LA is sort of a city of stars.

• 1:49:21Griffin Newman?

  Pete Davidson.

• 1:49:23David Sims?

  Isn't she dating a Louis Pullman?

• 1:49:25Griffin Newman?

  Well, the rumor now is that she has. Is this been debunked?

• 1:49:28Speaker 01

  This is debunked. She's dating some other random guy, but it was fake news that she was dating Richard Gere's son, which was notable because Cindy Crawford and Richard Gere were married.

• 1:49:37Griffin Newman?

  Sliding doors incest relationship.

• 1:49:40Speaker 01

  Yeah, but I don't think.

• 1:49:41Griffin Newman?

  But apparently it's not happening.

• 1:49:42Speaker 01

  I don't think that's real.

• 1:49:44David Sims?

  So fire that.

• 1:49:46Griffin Newman?

  We haven't even talked that much about Verrang.

• 1:49:49David Sims?

  One thing I will say about Verrang, a character I loved and I was very excited to meet the Ash people. She's merely a player on the board. She is, I suppose, the closest thing to the biggest villain in this movie.

• 1:50:03Griffin Newman?

  They're pushing her.

• 1:50:03David Sims?

  But she's one of many characters.

• 1:50:06Griffin Newman?

  The main marketing image, the poster is her face. Like first movie was Nateri face, second movie was Kiri face, third movie is Verrang face.

• 1:50:13David Sims?

  Oh, on the poster. Yeah.

• 1:50:15Griffin Newman?

  Right. And she's the cleanest kind of new marketing hook the movie has.

• 1:50:19David Sims?

  Which makes sense and she rocks, but I did, a lot of people walking out of the screening with me were like, I could have used even more of her.

• 1:50:25Speaker 01

  Oh, well, me too.

• 1:50:26David Sims?

  And I, I understood that. And it is again, this thing of like, if this is the last Avatar movie, which I don't think it is, but then that's a little disappointing, you know, that this is, this is all we got. But obviously if she's just another element in the world that we get to play around with more, then that's okay.

• 1:50:44Griffin Newman?

  Yeah.

• 1:50:45David Sims?

  I don't know.

• 1:50:45Griffin Newman?

  Right. I also.

• 1:50:46David Sims?

  But there's a good hefty amount of her and she's very interesting.

• 1:50:49Griffin Newman?

  So fucking high on these movies, especially since the public goes Ben LaBlanc on them every single time. And they're knives out. And I feel like James Cameron always has this like on the eve of release, like, I don't know if people even want these. Maybe I'll just go home kind of thing. And some of that I sometimes wonder if it's like very savvy renegotiation with the Walt Disney Corporation, especially because it basically was like, they fully greenlit two and three, but four and five have kind of been like half greenlit for a while. And some work has been done on them, but they haven't done like the major expenditures on them yet. And four wouldn't be for another five years?

• 1:51:31David Sims?

  I mean, it's gonna be at least that.

• 1:51:33Griffin Newman?

  I think the last they said was maybe 29 and 32.

• 1:51:37David Sims?

  That's what I 29 and 31.

• 1:51:38Griffin Newman?

  Okay.

• 1:51:39David Sims?

  But who knows? I mean, Michelle Yeoh still hasn't shown up.

• 1:51:42Griffin Newman?

  Yeah.

• 1:51:43David Sims?

  And supposedly James Cameron filmed her.

• 1:51:45Griffin Newman?

  Right.

• 1:51:45David Sims?

  Playing a scientist or something.

• 1:51:47Griffin Newman?

  And like David Thewlis, who has a very small part in this, who's intriguing. And you were like, I want to know more about these people. Cameron was like, this is a slow burn character. He's only got a little bit in this one. He's got a big arc in four or five, you know? And like, to me, I'm like, I don't think you bring David Thewlis to the volume just to do this. I have to imagine he's captured other Thewlis stuff that he's just sitting on unrendered.

• 1:52:11David Sims?

  It's actually tough to capture Thewlis.

• 1:52:12Griffin Newman?

  It is.

• 1:52:13David Sims?

  He's very slippery. You know, you're trying to like throw a net on him and he's like.

• 1:52:20Speaker 03

  Okay, Fereng.

• 1:52:21David Sims?

  Yeah.

• 1:52:22Speaker 03

  A moment I really love is when she first uses the fire launcher. I can't think of the proper name of the weapon.

• 1:52:32Griffin Newman?

  Flamethrower?

• 1:52:32Speaker 03

  Thank you. Flamethrower. And then she immediately is like, this is incredible. I need to fuck.

• 1:52:38David Sims?

  Yeah, you're right. It's not just because first she, you know, she's like, I want the thunder, you know, bring the thunder essentially, show me how to use the guns. She uses the gun. She likes that. But then when she gets handed that flamethrower, she's like, okay, okay.

• 1:52:53Speaker 01

  I feel about about them, how I guess like normal people are like, you know, when I say normal, like in a derogatory way, feel about like the Joker and Harley Quinn.

• 1:53:04Griffin Newman?

  Yeah.

• 1:53:07Griffin Newman?

  I do feel like Korach and Varrang are now officially my Joker and Harley Quinn. Yeah.

• 1:53:13Speaker 01

  Any anytime they show them like being giddy with each other, like there was a moment where he was like holding her as she was like shooting something and she was like smiling and I was like, wait, I love their love.

• 1:53:26Griffin Newman?

  I also think there's something, it's such a basic concept, but the second he teased the idea of like, the next movie's gonna have bad Navi, you're like, holy shit. I've seen fucking six hours of these guys being so principled and so severe and so disciplined. And you're telling me there's one who likes to fuck shit up? And just watching Varrang like do crazy shit and then laugh is pretty intoxicating.

• 1:53:53Speaker 03

  The tribe, the whole tribe's design, the paint, really scary.

• 1:53:56Griffin Newman?

  They all look the way my father describes like any alternative teenager. Like growing up in the East Village and he'd be like, oh, he goes to St. Mark's and there's the kid with the thing through the nose and the stuff all over his face. That's how he describes like any punk kid who walked by and I'd be like, he has like an earring.

• 1:54:16Speaker 03

  No, no, he's got all the stuff and the.

• 1:54:18Speaker 01

  Does he know about Ben's earring?

• 1:54:20Griffin Newman?

  He does.

• 1:54:21David Sims?

  When you think about Korach.

• 1:54:22Speaker 03

  I think he likes it.

• 1:54:24David Sims?

  You know, Korach's job is to kill Jake Sully. Every time he meets Jake Sully, he thinks about killing him maybe, but then Jake Sully's like, I got Spider. And he's like, ah, he got me this time, right? You know, like.

• 1:54:38Speaker 01

  I like every time he's like.

• 1:54:42David Sims?

  Potent hostage. And instead they have like a weird meeting of the minds, tada, tat. And then he's like, I'll see you again. And so then he's like, I don't know, maybe I'll just climb a volcano until I meet her. And then she's like, mind if I blow drugs in your face and like cut a line across your chest? And he's like. Don't mind at all. Like, he's just, he's more open to things than Jake Sully was in some ways.

• 1:55:05Griffin Newman?

  Let's dig into this, okay?

• 1:55:07David Sims?

  So he's down.

• 1:55:08Griffin Newman?

  Part of his hatred of Jake Sully, obviously, is that he views him as a traitor, right? But also, it's that, like, he can actually relate to Jake Sully more than he can any of the Navi, right?

• 1:55:20David Sims?

  Right. Jake is the only guy who's sort of like him.

• 1:55:23Griffin Newman?

  Opposite side, right? It's that, like, similar, like, marine training. There's a similar psychology to them. It's established in Quirch's backstory. You know, he's got that crazy scar in the first movie. And it's like, he landed on this planet and these creatures all almost fucking killed him. And now he's like, I hate this fucking place. This whole planet's dangerous, right? And Varang has a little bit of this, like, we were left to, like, almost die. And now we hate this whole fucking thing. And both of them sort of feel like they're, like, living on borrowed time to a certain degree. Like, their existences are, like, affronts to God, which they then, like, empower themselves in, like, feeling as, like, a sense of identity.

• 1:56:05Griffin Newman?

  Especially when Quirch has literally died and been reborn. And there's this, like, sadistic part of them that is the thing that Quirch actually doesn't relate to anyone else in. That he gets, like, such a clear kind of, like, what has always felt like a somewhat sexually charged pleasure from the violence, without it being overstated. And like, as you said, he's got all these other grunts who just, like, wear fucking, like, Oakleys. And go like, I love guns. And Varang is like, God. And he's like, yeah, you get it.

• 1:56:38Speaker 01

  They match each other's freak.

• 1:56:40Griffin Newman?

  Right, right. It's like, but like, Quirch doesn't want, Quirch is just like, I'm a normal, red-blooded American. And they're like, Quirch, there's so much going on under the hood. And it's what drives him so crazy about Jake Sully. It's like Jake Sully has activated a freak that he doesn't want to even have to think about. And Varang is like a healthier version of him feeling like there's a safe space to freak out.

• 1:57:02Speaker 01

  I am so curious about Spider's mom.

• 1:57:07Griffin Newman?

  Yes.

• 1:57:08David Sims?

  There's the one scene where Quaritch talks about her a little bit.

• 1:57:11Griffin Newman?

  That she was in the battle at the end of the first movie. Where she was like a copter pilot.

• 1:57:15David Sims?

  Right, sure.

• 1:57:16Griffin Newman?

  And is killed.

• 1:57:17David Sims?

  Right, right.

• 1:57:18Speaker 01

  I'm like, what was her deal? Was she also like?

• 1:57:21David Sims?

  I don't, it's hard to reconcile because the Quaritch in the first movie is not horny at all. He's only horny for blowing up home tree. You know, like, and he's, he, it's not in that character, which is fine. They hadn't gotten there.

• 1:57:32Griffin Newman?

  The notion that he's having, that he's already had any sort of pre-existing physicalized relationship with someone else who was on that planet. And is serving the same mission.

• 1:57:42Speaker 01

  Isn't, isn't that like frowned upon? Because I'm assuming if he's like the commander of everyone on base, then she'd be his subordinate. So like, what the fuck?

• 1:57:51David Sims?

  I don't know.

• 1:57:52Griffin Newman?

  I don't know. Maybe she was his superior.

• 1:57:54David Sims?

  Mm hmm. Potent, dynamic, power dynamic.

• 1:57:59Griffin Newman?

  I do kind of appreciate that they don't like do the fucking Spider-Man three, like a cut in an actress who wasn't there in the first movie.

• 1:58:06David Sims?

  Yeah, no, that would, that would suck.

• 1:58:07Speaker 01

  I loved the moment in this movie where he and Spider are having that conversation when Spider's been captured and brought back to the base. And he's telling, you know, Quaritch is telling him about his mom and was like, you know, you have me and her and you, you're, you know, you're a fighter or whatever. And then for a moment, you're like, oh, are they really bonding? Because Spider asks for his dog tag and I'm like, oh, this is.

• 1:58:33David Sims?

  This is like a next level kind of.

• 1:58:35Speaker 01

  Oh, okay. So they're going, so like develop, but then he just, no, Spider just uses the dog tag as like an, as a fucking.

• 1:58:43David Sims?

  Look.

• 1:58:43Speaker 01

  Screwdriver to escape.

• 1:58:45David Sims?

  The story, like Quaritch kind of gets it in a way in that he goes to Vrang, meets her on her terms, gets some hot Navi poontang and like really locks in with those guys. And of course, I just love the whole dynamic of Quaritch at the first, you know, initially being, yeah, I'll go get Jake Sully for you. And by this movie, he's like, these are 50 Ash Navi. They hang out with me now. They're gonna make camper and he Falcon's like, what is going on?

• 1:59:11Speaker 01

  They brought their tents here? Like, what the fuck?

• 1:59:15David Sims?

  He's like, don't worry about it. I gave them all free passes. But whenever he sees Jake, Jake is like, dude, you can live on this planet and tap into the magic of it. In a way that others can't. You're a Navi now.

• 1:59:30Griffin Newman?

  Yeah.

• 1:59:30David Sims?

  You, there's a whole world for you to understand. If you want to understand Quaritch is like. No, thank you. You know, like he can't quite do it.

• 1:59:38Speaker 01

  But he loves it.

• 1:59:39David Sims?

  Spider does do it.

• 1:59:40Speaker 01

  He loves the Navi woman.

• 1:59:42David Sims?

  Well, that's what I'm saying. So there's some movement.

• 1:59:44Speaker 01

  Yeah.

• 1:59:44David Sims?

  But the fundamental thing, I almost thought he was gonna die at the end of this movie. Instead, he just, once again, is like, oh, fuck, and like jumps off a thing and we'll see him later.

• 1:59:53Speaker 01

  That Varang is gonna cat, like catch him. She's gonna like fly.

• 1:59:57David Sims?

  I ain't worried about Quarr. She ain't dead.

• 1:59:59Griffin Newman?

  It is one of the things that would make this film the most frustrating if they don't make four and five. Is he has like a Disney villain falls off a cliff into a cloud thing where you kept waiting for them to cut to like him landing on something over and catching him in the way that the last movie does where you think he's maybe left for dead and then Spider pulls him up onto the rock. And instead, this movie just leaves him as like a complete like dot, dot, dot. Ben, I like what's happening on your computer screen right now.

• 2:00:26David Sims?

  I thought, but my point was just that I thought Quarrich might die just in this sort of like, he never fucking quite got it. You know what I mean? Like that, at the end of the day, the planet would betray him in some way. And it'd be like, if you'd only kind of like really listen to your Navi side. Now, maybe that's his ultimate arc. I think his ultimate arc is that he gives up on being an RDA guy.

• 2:00:47Griffin Newman?

  Right. All together. Cameron's already made it clear that he will always be the dominant villain of this franchise. But, but that moment where it almost feels like they're gonna do a fucking Last Jedi, like maybe we have to team up together moment, where they're both feeling a kind of parental protection towards Spider. And their fight almost kills Spider and they both have to like work together to save him in a moment.

• 2:01:11David Sims?

  Which is interesting, but then, and then, right, my point about Spider is just Spider does care about Pandora much more than his dad. He's sort of intrigued by his dad, maybe, but like much more intrigued by Pandora by being part of his people. He gets it. He like locks in. Now, does Jack Champion's performance always convey this?

• 2:01:33Griffin Newman?

  So Nateri has this early scene where she's just like, no, no, I want to get, I'm building up to this. Okay. Nateri has this early scene where she's just like, we gotta fucking drop him. Enough. He's gone. He is like a danger. And this is even before he becomes like a hybrid. Right. And then Jake later in the movie is like, you were fucking right. And it hurts me to say it, but you're right. Like, nothing good will come of him existing. Even after Spider saves him. Yes. Right. And he's like, I consider him my son. And yet. Well, I guess Jermaine Clements also saves him. A lot of people save him. Sure. And he like takes Spider out to the woods and it is this like incredibly bizarre mice and men scene.

• 2:02:18Griffin Newman?

  Where he's like, where are we going? He's like, just keep walking. And then he like brings him to a rock and makes him kneel down and you see Spider process it and he takes out his blade. And he's like, ready to. He's gonna do it. It's the binding of Isaac. Spider has this acknowledgement of like, I get where you're coming from. Right. I, I am an abomination. Right. And Jake is admitting how much. Great performance. He loves him. So here's the thing. Doesn't totally work for me. I think you said this when we walked out of the theater, Marie. You were like, the arc of these movies is kind of mirroring my relationship to Spider, which is like increasingly, I'm like, fuck, do I kind of care about this guy?

• 2:02:55David Sims?

  Yeah.

• 2:02:55Griffin Newman?

  And he's not great in this, but I was sort of like, I'm acclimating to him more. And then this is the scene, which I do think is dramatically so interesting. And I think Worthington crushes where I'm watching it and I'm like, he's just not totally stepping up. No, Worthington is. The stakes of this scene. And anytime they ask him to do anything a little more complicated. It feels a little, my mean joke after the movie was like, isn't this James Cameron, the guy who notoriously will yell at people for hours until something is perfect? And this is like the performance that made the final cut in the film. And I think you look at like Edward Furlong in Terminator two, who can be like wooden and odd and is obviously like very green in that movie.

• 2:03:40Griffin Newman?

  But has like such a distinct energy and vibe and charisma and conveys like the most important things that character needs to. And sometimes Spider just feels a little bit like a placeholder performance. Of an idea.

• 2:03:55David Sims?

  There's an innocence to him that sort of helped that scene for me, the binding of, you know, the scene where he's going to sacrifice him because he's such a sweetie, I guess. And you're sort of like, you do feel for him.

• 2:04:08Griffin Newman?

  The stuff with Carrie, I think, is when he's the best, the Monkey Boy stuff. Right.

• 2:04:13David Sims?

  It's so crazy. Just Sigourney Weaver in this fucking shirtless.

• 2:04:18Griffin Newman?

  It's so, and he's like 12 when they shot these.

• 2:04:21David Sims?

  He's older than that, but yeah, yeah, yeah.

• 2:04:23Griffin Newman?

  That was this big thing where he was, the productions got shut down during the lockdown. And Cameron had to write this letter to like the New Zealand government and he's like, this kid's body is changing every hour. Puberty is like running like a bullet train through this fucking kid. If I don't get footage in the next two months, everything we've shot so far will be thrown out and we're back to square one. And I noticed there are sequences in this movie where Spider looks entirely CGI in a way that made me think it must've been stuff they couldn't reshoot.

• 2:04:55David Sims?

  It's possible.

• 2:04:56Griffin Newman?

  And it was part of why they maybe had to get like two and three done together because there's maybe a time jump happening four and five because Jack Champion's showing up in other movies now and he looks different. And I also feel like I have liked him more in the stuff I have seen him in recently. These are still performances that were shot like largely five years ago.

• 2:05:15David Sims?

  Yeah, but like that scene still moved me. I thought, you know, Nate Terry and Jake, you know, like the, their realizations emotionally clicked for me, so I was moved.

• 2:05:28Griffin Newman?

  I agree.

• 2:05:29David Sims?

  Even if Spider's like, oh shit, I guess so. Okay.

• 2:05:32Speaker 03

  Kill me daddy.

• 2:05:33David Sims?

  Right.

• 2:05:34Griffin Newman?

  I also think in certain ways.

• 2:05:37David Sims?

  And I'm saying that to Quaritch.

• 2:05:40Griffin Newman?

  You raise some good points. Blade to his neck. In certain ways, it helps the movie that he's a little annoying because the whole thing is like, you can't like him too much.

• 2:05:51David Sims?

  Right. He needs to be kind of a pain in the ass.

• 2:05:53Griffin Newman?

  But I just think anytime it becomes like a slightly more complicated emotional dynamic, it has a little bit of like Clint Eastwood working with young actors feeling.

• 2:06:06Griffin Newman?

  Where I'm not even like really throwing him under the bus as much as I'm just like, I, I don't know if he was really helped to get where he needed to go.

• 2:06:15David Sims?

  Maybe not entirely.

• 2:06:17Griffin Newman?

  Which is okay. Should we talk about whale stuff?

• 2:06:19Speaker 01

  Yeah, I was about to say.

• 2:06:20Griffin Newman?

  That's like, I feel like another whole little separate storyline that we haven't really touched upon. So Pyacon is like AOC and the rest of the Tol'Kum are like a bunch of fucking Chuck Schumers. Right. He goes to try to- Yeah, I did notice the glasses were at the bottom of my- Wait.

• 2:06:36Griffin Newman?

  Below all five of their eyes.

• 2:06:40Griffin Newman?

  He goes to try to find his lost clan and there's the one he finds whose eyes have been gouged out.

• 2:06:46Speaker 01

  Oh my god, she's been blinded. She's got harpoons and shit in her. It was so sad.

• 2:06:51Griffin Newman?

  This is the kind of stuff- Very affecting. Really upsets me. And kind of reintroduces us like, see, this is like the savagery. This is why we like need to fight. We need to defend ourselves. We cannot be passive.

• 2:07:04Speaker 01

  We also kind of need to talk a bit about Loaak's arc in that the movie opens with him talking about how, you know, he's grieving his brother and all of the guilt that he feels. He feels like it was his fault.

• 2:07:17Griffin Newman?

  And he's dealing with some, did the wrong kid die?

• 2:07:20Speaker 01

  Right.

• 2:07:20Griffin Newman?

  Sort of, right.

• 2:07:22Speaker 01

  And there is like that classic dynamic of like this, the young son wanting to impress the father. Jake Sully not really wanting to view him as an equal. You know, you're still, you know, you're not ready for this yet. You're not allowed to touch guns. You're not allowed to do this. You need to stay safe. And he's like, no, I want to, you know, I've got to do this. But he like really sort of finds his, his voice through his advocacy for Pyacon.

• 2:07:49Griffin Newman?

  Yes. I also, I think that speaks to like the very personal thing Cameron's working through in these movies. A certain type of very extreme, very successful person who doesn't really know how to help guide children to be anything other than what he is. Like this is how I've succeeded and how I function and all of my guidance I provide for you is through that prism. And the second movie is so much Jake Sully being like, do I need to like chill the fuck out? And so I think he's struggling with knowing how to guide Loaak in this. Cause he's like, I don't know if like telling you what has worked for me is the best- Advice.

• 2:08:27David Sims?

  Well, it's also like his first son really responded to Jake's parenting method, which was treating him like he was part of the army. And his first son like locked right in and was clearly good at it or whatever. And Loax just not good at following orders and maybe he has some ADHD. You know, he's always forgetting his comms necklace. You know what I mean? Like, he just needs a slightly alternative kind of like approach. And Jake's kind of like, I just, what about be a marine doesn't like translate for you? You know, he's just not the best.

• 2:08:58Griffin Newman?

  Lowax like building a gaming PC and he's like, what?

• 2:09:02David Sims?

  What are you gonna do with this?

• 2:09:03Griffin Newman?

  What is the career that comes?

• 2:09:05David Sims?

  And like meanwhile, May Terry is like gazing off in the distance and going like, yeah, because she's upset.

• 2:09:11Griffin Newman?

  Right.

• 2:09:12David Sims?

  She's not totally there for it either.

• 2:09:13Griffin Newman?

  Plugging into everything and then like having seizures. Two is the easy one.

• 2:09:19David Sims?

  Yeah, two's pretty chill.

• 2:09:21Speaker 01

  She didn't get a lot to do.

• 2:09:23David Sims?

  Well, you know what? They gave two one thing to do, which is when Kira has to plug into Awa to get Awa going. And then Spider joins in, you know, to help. And you're like, and then two's like, you know what? I'm gonna fucking throw my.

• 2:09:34Speaker 01

  I didn't realize that Tuuk is, I guess she's the girl in Life of Chuck, who he dances with at the school dance.

• 2:09:42David Sims?

  I wanted to shoot that scene.

• 2:09:46David Sims?

  I wanted to write a letter of an apology to Zach Braff. When I saw that fucking scene, I, and I was relatively into the first act of Life of Chuck.

• 2:09:56Griffin Newman?

  Yeah.

• 2:09:57Speaker 01

  Oh, I was very into the first.

• 2:09:58David Sims?

  You know, I was like, oh, this is interesting.

• 2:10:00Griffin Newman?

  I think the first act is a masterpiece. I think that movie is 30 minutes long. That makes my 10.

• 2:10:04David Sims?

  It's, it was very, and I was like, oh, I want to see where this goes. And they were like, it's going here.

• 2:10:09Griffin Newman?

  Yeah.

• 2:10:09David Sims?

  Yeah, yeah, yeah. It's going here. And I was like, well, now I, now I'm very upset.

• 2:10:15Griffin Newman?

  What an odd film. And what an odd like, oh, it won the Toronto Audience Choice Awards. Then it like sits on the shelf for nine months and then it comes out and people are like, what the fuck?

• 2:10:26Speaker 01

  I think at TIFF, they were smoking that.

• 2:10:28David Sims?

  Well, it's those gooey kind of movies will translate. And it's a gooey movie. It's all I can say. I don't know. I, I, well, what came second? Let's see. The.

• 2:10:40Griffin Newman?

  I'm trying to remember what people thought was gonna.

• 2:10:41David Sims?

  Emilia Perez.

• 2:10:45David Sims?

  And then Enora was the second runner up. Now, Enora obviously is the best movie of those three, but I guess it's the spikiest, you know, and like, remember Emilia Perez, talk about a hallucination. I swear to God.

• 2:11:00Griffin Newman?

  Someone must have like fucking plugged their brain into the back of my head without permission.

• 2:11:05David Sims?

  Just the six months of only Oscar voters being like, I think it's the best movie I've ever seen. Everyone else being like, you, what?

• 2:11:12Griffin Newman?

  What are you talking about?

• 2:11:12David Sims?

  Are you, yes.

• 2:11:14Griffin Newman?

  It really opened my eyes. To what? What did this movie communicate to you?

• 2:11:19David Sims?

  Yeah.

• 2:11:21David Sims?

  It would be hard if this happened to you.

• 2:11:23Griffin Newman?

  If what happened?

• 2:11:31Griffin Newman?

  That's the craziest thing about that movie is people were like, it really made me understand the issues. And you were like, what?

• 2:11:39David Sims?

  And then anyone involved with anything related to the issues was like, it understands nothing about any of the issues.

• 2:11:46Griffin Newman?

  I want to punch this movie.

• 2:11:48David Sims?

  Transgender issue. Not, it's not on the level.

• 2:11:52Griffin Newman?

  She smells like cigars and guacamole.

• 2:11:56Griffin Newman?

  Her daughter sings that to her?

• 2:12:01Speaker 01

  What I was gonna say is I think, you know, Emilia Perez exists to get Zoe Saldana an Oscar because they were gonna, they were never going to give it to her for playing Nateri.

• 2:12:11Griffin Newman?

  Watching this movie, I was just like, and was talking to our friend Mal about this, but I'm like, yeah, in my mind, I've just shifted it over to like, of course, Academy Award winner Zoe Saldana, who won her Oscar for playing Nateri. I'm fine with her having an Oscar on a shelf. I love her and I will just never think about the performance that she won it for again.

• 2:12:30Speaker 01

  Man to woman. Navi to man.

• 2:12:39David Sims?

  There's a lot more interesting dynamics at play in the Avatar universe, I would say.

• 2:12:45Griffin Newman?

  That really did feel like a mass hallucination.

• 2:12:48David Sims?

  Fully.

• 2:12:48Griffin Newman?

  Do you remember this? It was at Nighthawk Movie Trivia. We should thank, of course.

• 2:12:53Speaker 01

  Oh, my God.

• 2:12:54Griffin Newman?

  Yes.

• 2:12:54Speaker 01

  That was.

• 2:12:55David Sims?

  We should thank Nighthawk.

• 2:12:56Griffin Newman?

  Yeah, Shay Fillmore and Kevin Cecil, who run the Nighthawk Trivia and are the fucking best. And the Nighthawk Trivia, if you're ever in New York, if you live in New York, if you live in any neighboring area, if you're ever visiting, twice a month, they run the Best Movie Trivia Night. And they let us host once and people said it was easy.

• 2:13:15Speaker 01

  David, your round was real hard.

• 2:13:16David Sims?

  My round was a little too hard. I do apologize for that. I think I, I overestimated people's interest in my, in my topic.

• 2:13:24Speaker 01

  Well, I did the same. I thought that mine was easy as well. And.

• 2:13:27David Sims?

  This was really good, I thought.

• 2:13:29Speaker 01

  Thank you. I thought mine was like a classic, like trivia. I did, for those who don't know, I did a round of Penny Marshall trivia, you know, to.

• 2:13:37Griffin Newman?

  Our next mini-series.

• 2:13:38Speaker 01

  Yeah, but it really did kind of hammer the point home that we probably should cover her because people are sleeping on this one.

• 2:13:46Griffin Newman?

  Let me be clear.

• 2:13:47David Sims?

  It's interesting filmography.

• 2:13:47Griffin Newman?

  It's a long-running bit to say that she's coming next.

• 2:13:51David Sims?

  And that bit's over. She's coming next.

• 2:13:53Griffin Newman?

  Coming next. But, but that bit is not rooted in the idea that we would never cover her.

• 2:13:58David Sims?

  No, it's rooted in a dumb Reddit joke you made that made Marie and I so angry at you.

• 2:14:04Griffin Newman?

  No, you're forgetting that it predates that by so many years.

• 2:14:07David Sims?

  I am.

• 2:14:08Griffin Newman?

  It was the first time Ben and I went on The Best Show.

• 2:14:10David Sims?

  Oh, see, I don't listen to, no offense to our great friend Tom Sharpling, but I don't listen to The Best Show.

• 2:14:15Griffin Newman?

  This, this was like eight years ago and I forget what prompted me to make it, but Sharpling was doing his antagonistic bit.

• 2:14:21David Sims?

  What?

• 2:14:22Griffin Newman?

  And was like, tell people what's coming next. And I, I just like, I picked Penny Marshall. And that was early enough in the run of the show when the idea of doing Penny Marshall next would have seemed crazy in terms of just like, how many people we still had to get to. And then I have revived it into a Reddit bit that drove you crazy. But Penny Marshall would be a good series.

• 2:14:43David Sims?

  Sure. We'll do her sometime. I don't know.

• 2:14:45Griffin Newman?

  And especially because every time we cover a female filmmaker, people are.

• 2:14:48Speaker 01

  People are really normal about it.

• 2:14:49David Sims?

  It gets more normal. One could say it's kind of a potent.

• 2:14:55Griffin Newman?

  You got this, David. You got this. I don't. I don't. I'm landing. Uh, what we're saying. Oh, trivia night. Kevin did a question, like a round one question, which is a sense that we're supposed to be, oh, yeah, knowledge easier round, like over the summer.

• 2:15:08Speaker 01

  Uh huh. I got it right.

• 2:15:10Griffin Newman?

  Less than four months after the Academy Awards ceremony that was named the movie with these four character names, and it was Amelia Perez, and most of the room got it wrong. And he was like, I correctly gauged that this is the last possible moment you could have made this a question that anyone could have gotten right. Rita Castro, Jesse Del Monte, Gustavo Brun. I'm just naming other.

• 2:15:36Speaker 01

  Yeah, I think it was Rita that.

• 2:15:38Griffin Newman?

  Rita.

• 2:15:39Speaker 01

  Amelia Perez clearly was not one of the listed things, but it was Rita that I got it from. But yeah, that was.

• 2:15:47Griffin Newman?

  It's just well, because Jacques Audiard's main movies I liked. He's made many films. I like a tremendous amount. And he also made Amelia Perez. And just quickly, if I can just lead our whole audience in a sing along, Amelia. This works, right? If you just start the song into the mic and assume that everyone else is going to join you.

• 2:16:04Speaker 01

  Remember when?

• 2:16:06Griffin Newman?

  The Delta joke. Remember the thing at the Oscars?

• 2:16:09Speaker 01

  Yeah. Remember when she, when the lady was like talking about butterflies or something?

• 2:16:13Griffin Newman?

  I thought that was a good bit, and I thought that was going to redeem. Oh, I don't remember. Wait, was this something one of the winners did? It was the best song. Oh, that's right.

• 2:16:23Griffin Newman?

  And they took the audience and they're like, we don't fucking know the words. Even we think the songs are bad in this and we voted for you. Right. And she's the lady who did the nice rat song in Ratatouille. Camille. And she did the fucking song from the SNL French teenagers sketches. Oh, that's fun. All her other songs are good. I own several of her albums. I listened to them. Oh, several. And now quickly, if our listeners would just join me in singing, Amelia.

• 2:16:50Speaker 03

  Okay. Avatar Fire and Ash. Fire and Ash.

• 2:16:53David Sims?

  This film, you know, it's, it's getting rolled out by Disney with all I feel the appropriate fanfare. It was screened for the awards voters much, which is why I saw it early. It's why you guys saw it pretty early. Like it's not like Way of Water where we saw it like week of release. It's the Christmas movie, right? I mean, like what's it going up against? Fucking Marty Supreme and Anaconda.

• 2:17:18Speaker 01

  Wait, Anaconda is coming out this year?

• 2:17:20Griffin Newman?

  Yeah, it comes at Christmas.

• 2:17:21David Sims?

  It is one of the strangest Christmas programming decisions.

• 2:17:25Speaker 01

  I haven't even seen a trailer for it.

• 2:17:26David Sims?

  Well, you can watch the trailer if you want to have three bad minutes in your life.

• 2:17:31Griffin Newman?

  Marie, I know you love it when eye lines don't match, right?

• 2:17:35Speaker 01

  It's my favorite thing in the world.

• 2:17:36Griffin Newman?

  Well, get ready for that happening in a $60 million Sony picture.

• 2:17:40Speaker 01

  Does anyone do like a weird Cajun accent?

• 2:17:42Griffin Newman?

  No.

• 2:17:43David Sims?

  They should be. That's already sounds better.

• 2:17:45Griffin Newman?

  No, the, the premise is so fucking convoluted.

• 2:17:49David Sims?

  It's like they go to the jungle to remake Anaconda.

• 2:17:53Speaker 01

  Go for it.

• 2:17:53Griffin Newman?

  Do you know that, like the story of the kids who like remade Raiders of the Lost Ark?

• 2:17:57Speaker 01

  Yeah, yeah, yeah, yeah.

• 2:17:57Griffin Newman?

  So this movie is about four nerdy kids who grew up remaking Anaconda in their backyard.

• 2:18:04Speaker 01

  John Voight's performance exists in the world of this.

• 2:18:07David Sims?

  Yes, they, they want to pay homage to the 1997 or whatever.

• 2:18:12Griffin Newman?

  And as children, they made a home video remake of Anaconda. Of course, four childhood best friends, Jack Black, Paul Rudd, Steve Zahn and Tondi Uwe-Newton.

• 2:18:19Speaker 01

  And they were kids in the 90s? What?

• 2:18:21Griffin Newman?

  Yes.

• 2:18:22David Sims?

  Sure.

• 2:18:23Griffin Newman?

  And they're like, you know what we should do? We should go to the real jungle where they shot Anaconda and remake it again with the better production values.

• 2:18:35David Sims?

  Ben is like diagonal in his chair right now.

• 2:18:39Griffin Newman?

  And then it's like almost a Tropic Thunder thing where they get too deep and the snakes are real. And they were like, we thought we were making a movie, but now the snakes are actually trying to kill us.

• 2:18:49David Sims?

  You know what movie is wacky?

• 2:18:51Griffin Newman?

  What?

• 2:18:51David Sims?

  This is Luis Yosa's Anaconda.

• 2:18:55Griffin Newman?

  Yeah.

• 2:18:55David Sims?

  That movie's crazy.

• 2:18:56Griffin Newman?

  Have you ever seen Anacondas?

• 2:18:57David Sims?

  No.

• 2:18:57Griffin Newman?

  For the Blood War.

• 2:18:58David Sims?

  I never, I never searched. For the Blood Orca.

• 2:19:00Griffin Newman?

  It is a great title.

• 2:19:02David Sims?

  It is a great title and they they should use that more.

• 2:19:04Griffin Newman?

  Yeah.

• 2:19:05David Sims?

  Fantastic Four, Search for the Blood Orca.

• 2:19:07Griffin Newman?

  Everything about that trailer, I I it I was struggling to understand what the concept of the movie was over how loud I was sighing at every single reveal in the trailer. It's the least excited I could possibly be for a Saving Silverman re team.

• 2:19:23Speaker 01

  Oh, God, this this year we got really into Saving Silverman.

• 2:19:25Griffin Newman?

  That's a great movie. We should screen it.

• 2:19:27David Sims?

  I need to watch it first.

• 2:19:28Griffin Newman?

  Yeah, you do.

• 2:19:29Speaker 01

  Oh, it's so good, David. You should do that over the the holiday break.

• 2:19:32Griffin Newman?

  Yeah, let's just flashback in a decade of dreams to earlier this year when I said Saving Silverman is pretty good and you

• 2:19:39David Sims?

  I was like, what?

• 2:19:41Griffin Newman?

  Is not good.

• 2:19:43David Sims?

  I was I was it was truly like you were like, as we all know, like toxic fumes should be breathed. And I was like,

• 2:19:50David Sims?

  I thought we all agreed 20 years ago that was bad.

• 2:19:52Griffin Newman?

  Ehrlich has seen it like three times now.

• 2:19:54Speaker 01

  Yes.

• 2:19:55Griffin Newman?

  I think successfully Silverman people, and by the way, so many people like big, strong men came up to me, tears in their eyes. And we're like, Griffin, by the way, you're right about Saving Silverman. You're brave to say it.

• 2:20:06Speaker 01

  Yeah.

• 2:20:07Griffin Newman?

  I've been waiting for someone to say it in your position with your power.

• 2:20:11Speaker 01

  And I feel like, have you seen, have you seen Song Song Blue yet?

• 2:20:15David Sims?

  No, I I hear everyone is basically like, the first half's pretty charming and you're like, huh, why didn't this like go to Tiff? Why didn't this, you know? And then the second half is like incredibly depressing and maudlin and kind of lost everybody. I have a screener. I guess I could watch it.

• 2:20:30Speaker 01

  You should double feature it with Saving Silverman.

• 2:20:32David Sims?

  Why?

• 2:20:33Speaker 01

  Because they both are about Neil Diamond cover bands.

• 2:20:36Griffin Newman?

  How much Saving Silverman is about Neil?

• 2:20:37Speaker 01

  Diamond is in Saving Silver.

• 2:20:39David Sims?

  I also don't care about Neil Diamond. We're almost done. Look.

• 2:20:43Griffin Newman?

  I got so much more to say. You don't need to care about Neil Diamond. I am just waiting for the day.

• 2:20:48David Sims?

  Do you have more to say about Avatar?

• 2:20:50Griffin Newman?

  Yeah.

• 2:20:50David Sims?

  Let's do that.

• 2:20:51Griffin Newman?

  We barely talked about Brink.

• 2:20:53David Sims?

  Griff, we're getting closer to I have to go time. So all right, what do you want to talk about with Avatar? Fire and Ash, not Saving Silverman, which we can we can table till 2026. It's not going anywhere.

• 2:21:05Griffin Newman?

  Can I ask you right now?

• 2:21:07David Sims?

  Yes.

• 2:21:07Griffin Newman?

  Will you commit to watching Saving Silverman at some point?

• 2:21:11David Sims?

  Absolutely.

• 2:21:12Griffin Newman?

  In the calendar year of 2026.

• 2:21:13David Sims?

  I'll fucking watch it right now.

• 2:21:16Griffin Newman?

  Well, no, hey, let's hey, this is a workspace.

• 2:21:19David Sims?

  Let's see if it's on.

• 2:21:20Griffin Newman?

  Some raunchy things happen in that movie.

• 2:21:22David Sims?

  I'm gonna have to rent it.

• 2:21:23Griffin Newman?

  Can we?

• 2:21:23David Sims?

  It stinks.

• 2:21:24Griffin Newman?

  If we do a screening of Saving Silverman, you will consider it if we can get a 35 millimeter.

• 2:21:29David Sims?

  I'm happy to watch Saving Silverman tomorrow on Apple. If we do a screening, could we do it of a movie I like? Or at least care about a little bit?

• 2:21:36Griffin Newman?

  Yes, we can.

• 2:21:38David Sims?

  But maybe, I mean, first, can I watch Saving Silverman? Just to see what I think of it?

• 2:21:43Speaker 01

  You're gonna, you're gonna love it.

• 2:21:44David Sims?

  I'm not opposed to a screening. I'm just saying.

• 2:21:46Speaker 01

  Amanda Peet plays the Varang of Saving Silverman.

• 2:21:49Griffin Newman?

  Amanda, Amanda Peet is the most Varang coded character that has existed in a pre Fire and Ash world.

• 2:21:54David Sims?

  Largely considered a somewhat sexist portrayal of a character at the time.

• 2:21:58Griffin Newman?

  Well, I would argue the film is almost kind of a satirical take on the inherent misogyny of the sex comedy of the late 90s and early 2000s. It's twisting it to such a gnarled kind of like.

• 2:22:09David Sims?

  Did all the big, strong people say that to you too?

• 2:22:11Griffin Newman?

  Yeah, many, many smart people. Richard Brody said that to me. He hugged me really, really tight, whispered into my ear, you get it.

• 2:22:17Speaker 01

  Was Richard Brody at your Avatar screening, David?

• 2:22:20David Sims?

  Uh, I'm not sure if Richard was there. I mean, I just saw him at the critic circle, of course, and he was as lovely as ever.

• 2:22:25Speaker 01

  Did you have a nice day?

• 2:22:27David Sims?

  For me, it's now that I'm not the chair anymore, I'm just back to counting. I'm always like, I can't wait. I'm so excited for the counting. And then I forget that it's like, there is no break for the counter. Cause I'm just like, huh, huh, huh, doing math. And then like the category is over and I'm like, okay, I have to start like prepping the next category. But it's always fun. It's so, it's so cool to see how it develops and all that.

• 2:22:46Speaker 01

  I did hear that, can I, can I say about like, like people getting vote, like performances getting votes?

• 2:22:53David Sims?

  Uh, sure, maybe. What, what do you want to say?

• 2:22:56Speaker 01

  That Una Chaplin as Varang got some supporting actress votes.

• 2:22:59David Sims?

  She, she got, she got some votes. Not, not enough in my opinion, but.

• 2:23:03Griffin Newman?

  Here's the genuine thing for me. I love the world of these movies.

• 2:23:07David Sims?

  Good to know. It would be weird if you didn't.

• 2:23:09Griffin Newman?

  I, I just, I love everything happening within them. I am endlessly fascinated by anything else he wants to tell us. And I am somewhat, look, he's put enough of it out there that I think Way of Water won some people over who were more skeptical to the first movie. I don't think this movie will convert any new viewers.

• 2:23:35David Sims?

  No. At this point, it's basically like, did you like Way of Water? You'll probably buy by this. Have you never been into Avatar? This will not win you over at all.

• 2:23:43Griffin Newman?

  Right. Ben and I were talking to the great Bob Marshall last night, who we ran into. And he was like saying, like, have you guys seen Fire and Ash? We were like, yeah, it rules. And he was like, really? I thought it was a mess. And I was like, what do you think of the first two? And he's like, I've never gotten them. And I'm like, yeah, this one is admittedly more of a mess than the first two. But to me, it's like they opened the doors to the fucking all you can eat buffet. And we're just like, how much Avatar do you want to put on your plate? And I don't care if all the like, items on the plate aren't totally meshing together. Because I'm like, I'll just eat a little mac and cheese. And then I'll have like a slice of pizza. And then I'll have an egg roll. I like all of these.

• 2:24:19David Sims?

  Some soft serve ice cream, why not?

• 2:24:21Griffin Newman?

  Absolutely.

• 2:24:21Speaker 01

  That sounds great.

• 2:24:22Griffin Newman?

  I like everything they make at this restaurant. And if you don't like this restaurant, you don't like the decor, you don't like the music they play. Like, at this point, it's your fault for going through the door.

• 2:24:32David Sims?

  It's the Rainforest Cafe, actually. It's like, do you want to go into the world of the Rainforest Cafe? I do. Some might find it cheesy. Some might find it a little over the top. Not me.

• 2:24:42Speaker 01

  Do you think they're gonna have Va'ring at a Disney park? Or is she too?

• 2:24:48David Sims?

  I'm sure that.

• 2:24:49Griffin Newman?

  Great question, Mary. Well, so they don't, this was one of the areas that John Lando really took the lead on in terms of like maintaining the integrity of Avatar in the parks, right? And the idea is that it's like you are a human tourist visiting Pandora. And mostly the people you interact with are like Norm Spellman-esque. Uh, kind of grace Augustine.

• 2:25:12Speaker 01

  The other human scientists.

• 2:25:14Griffin Newman?

  Exactly. Yeah, it'd be too fucked up for you to try going to. And his big thing is like, we don't want walk around Navi because that will like destroy the magic of the thing. You like are not going to be able to get the scale right. Like someone walking on stilts, they won't be able to animate. It will like diffuse it. So you don't really see Navi other than inside the rides. And you're mostly dealing with like the ecology of it. Uh, they announced that they're doing an expansion to Disneyland. At Disney World, it is basically the first movie and like sent around the floating mountains and like the mother tree. And at Disneyland, apparently it's going to be more way of water. And the big question is, will you be able to see and or touch Pyacon? I would like to. Which is what I really want. But they have more representations of the animals

• 2:25:59Griffin Newman?

  and the tech and the flora and fauna. And then it's like, the rides will have within those controlled environments. But like Jake Sully's not there. Natera is not there. Fereng's not there. Uh, which is a shame because if Fereng, uh, were there. No, it's not a shame because then you would never leave Disneyland. I would be leaving a griffin shaped hole in the door of our fucking office. You would try to move in there and you'd be arrested. Running on foot to Orlando.

• 2:26:27Speaker 01

  Is Spider there? They could have, they could fucking have Spider.

• 2:26:30Griffin Newman?

  That's a good question. I think their big thing is like, we, we don't want to do anything that clashes with the narratives of the movies, especially because they're ongoing. So you're dealing with like original characters here. And it's more just like the world of Pandora. But I mean, I'd love to meet Spider and just be like, what is your deal? I don't know, man.

• 2:26:51Speaker 01

  We're annoyed by him, but like if we met him, we'd probably be like, oh, you're sweet.

• 2:26:56Griffin Newman?

  I, I thought he was, uh, good in Freaky Tales. And it was one of those things, my favorite movie to invoke that doesn't exist. But I was just like, who's this guy? Why does he like look familiar? And it's like a five years older Jack. I mean, he's in Scream Six, I think, and he's totally fine in it. Yeah.

• 2:27:12David Sims?

  Um, is there anything else we want to talk about with Avatar?

• 2:27:14Speaker 01

  Um, we, I mean, did we talk enough about Pya Khan on trial?

• 2:27:19David Sims?

  He was up, we, we did the Chuck Schumer joke like three times. I feel like we're all just worried, but the answer is there's much we haven't talked about because we only saw it once. And I'm like, you know, just kind of like casting around for, but like we've hit all the big things.

• 2:27:34Griffin Newman?

  Perhaps my favorite moment in the movie is, I think it's the matriarch just goes ham. And this is where people are like, oh, the movie just repeats all the same shit from the end of the second one. And it's like, oh, she like flops on top of one of the boats, right?

• 2:27:46David Sims?

  The big boat though.

• 2:27:47Speaker 01

  Yeah, that was so shit.

• 2:27:49Griffin Newman?

  The biggest tocoon. And you're like, oh, it's the same beat. And then she's like, I'm not done flopping.

• 2:27:53David Sims?

  Right.

• 2:27:53Griffin Newman?

  And she flops like 10 times. She just keeps fucking destroying them.

• 2:27:58David Sims?

  I'm very in favor of tocoon smashing things. It's just good.

• 2:28:02Griffin Newman?

  Eat Scoresby?

• 2:28:04David Sims?

  They sort of drag him down to the depths. Like they grab him in their mouths and go all the way down.

• 2:28:08Speaker 01

  They stalked and rushed him.

• 2:28:09David Sims?

  Yeah, the injured ones, yeah, the blind one gets revenge.

• 2:28:12Griffin Newman?

  My, my hope is that Scoresby comes back in the next movie and he's got like a robotic lower body.

• 2:28:17David Sims?

  Yeah, right. He's like, you caught me. I'm just like half a face. Um, Edie Falco did die and I, right? And I, I was a little, I was either disappointed that she didn't get much of a death scene or a little baffled if she had survived. She says abandon ship, but then you see the whole thing kind of blowing up. And I was kind of like, I don't think she made it, but I don't know. That was one thing where I was kind of like, kind of rooting for an Edie Falco going, you know, sipping her coffee while everything blows up around her, you know?

• 2:28:46Griffin Newman?

  But like that and the Quirch just like falling into a cloud thing makes me wonder if Cameron's like, if I make four and five, they're still alive. And if not, I like, didn't want to leave them unresolved. So I left their death kind of ambiguous where it's like, maybe they just didn't make it.

• 2:29:03David Sims?

  Trying to think like, I think the action sequence I loved the most was the first big one with the airships, just because of like, that was new and different and cool. I mean, I liked the big final sequence plenty, but you know what I mean?

• 2:29:17Griffin Newman?

  And the airships to our earlier point are like these giant fucking like

• 2:29:20David Sims?

  The jellyfish balloons.

• 2:29:22Griffin Newman?

  That are being used as like the balloons and hot air balloons.

• 2:29:25Speaker 01

  Varying like

• 2:29:26Griffin Newman?

  In baskets underneath.

• 2:29:26Speaker 01

  She like shot at like a fire arrow into them and they

• 2:29:29David Sims?

  And it blows up and they're like Skidding down the balloons and stuff.

• 2:29:34Speaker 01

  Just some random stuff. I love the like the bone sculptures in the ash world.

• 2:29:39David Sims?

  And that was in 28 years later.

• 2:29:41Griffin Newman?

  They have the big emotional

• 2:29:42David Sims?

  Grace Fiennes is just there. Bone Temple.

• 2:29:44Griffin Newman?

  Where CCH pounders like

• 2:29:45Speaker 01

  I think they're in both.

• 2:29:47Griffin Newman?

  Yeah, you gotta tell Kiri what she is and they explain to her that it's like, it's the best for understanding your God. To go back to your earlier thing where you said it was

• 2:29:53David Sims?

  Nice to see CCH pounder.

• 2:29:54Griffin Newman?

  Love it. Like Anakin Skywalker. Anakin Skywalker, of course, I subscribe to the theory that he is A baby conjured by Darth Plagueis, the wise No, if we're talking seriously.

• 2:30:04David Sims?

  Oh, yeah, of course. No, I feel like that is that Darth Plagueis made the force make him.

• 2:30:10Griffin Newman?

  Right. Versus the narrative he is told, which is like the force just like created a baby.

• 2:30:14David Sims?

  No, that they're right. There was some nefarious.

• 2:30:16Griffin Newman?

  But Kiri, it's almost like, there is a slight kind of Jesus element of like, God has decided he needs a physical form to be able to interact on the ground with people.

• 2:30:26David Sims?

  And then it's like Awa couldn't revive Grace, but could do that.

• 2:30:30Griffin Newman?

  And there's this recurring thing of like the seizure thing from the previous movie of every time she tries to connect, there's a firewall, there's a blockage. And then you have the moment where we said her siblings come and like protect her. And then as it's happening, you have this like, it almost feels like the dream child from the end of 2001.

• 2:30:46David Sims?

  That's exactly what it looked like.

• 2:30:46Griffin Newman?

  Where there's this like big white, like sort of like structure. And then it slowly starts rotating and you realize it's a head and Awa is going to look at you and maybe talk to you. And you get to like three quarter profile and then they get pushed out of it. But this notion of Awa having like any kind of physical representation felt very enticing to me. The idea that Awa is someone you could have like a traditional conversation with, even if it is, dare I say it, just an avatar she is creating so that her

• 2:31:18David Sims?

  Yeah, just a representation.

• 2:31:19Griffin Newman?

  Consciousness can be absorbed by other people.

• 2:31:21David Sims?

  Yeah, right. Of how to reckon with God.

• 2:31:23Griffin Newman?

  But at the end, like they have found this way to plug in to the great consciousness, the collective of everyone they've lost.

• 2:31:30David Sims?

  I think they've always had that. I think it's more that we're seeing that. Like, that's what plugging into the Tree of Souls is. And it's, but of course, now Spider can do it too. No shit. I was satisfied that Jake and that the family was together. That there wasn't some bigger hammer blow. No more sacrifices. I mean, yes, we lose Kate Winslet and maybe her daughter died. Right? Her son?

• 2:31:56Griffin Newman?

  No.

• 2:31:56Speaker 01

  A son.

• 2:31:58David Sims?

  Yeah, yeah, yeah, yeah.

• 2:31:59Griffin Newman?

  It's the kids who fuck with.

• 2:32:01David Sims?

  Yeah, they're, they're kind of mean in the first one. You know, there were some more secondary characters that died in the.

• 2:32:08Griffin Newman?

  If there is a main story concern in this movie, it's the idea of like the principle of if you're willing to surrender your family, then like what morality, like what are your values as a human being? Right? Like the idea of killing Spider is like a strategic chess move to like protect your king is like, yeah, but if you kill your son.

• 2:32:27David Sims?

  Then you're just, you're gonna live with that forever and you're, you're disobeying it. What? You're, you're going against all this natural order like, and that's what the interior realizes, which I really like. I think she plays that really well. Jermaine Clement, it's a recycling of Dilly Brow's arc.

• 2:32:42Griffin Newman?

  Yeah.

• 2:32:42David Sims?

  Nice to see Dilly Brow.

• 2:32:43Griffin Newman?

  I'm always happy to see him literally show up on screen, collect a check.

• 2:32:47David Sims?

  Residuals. But you know, like, but Jermaine Clement having the moral moment. But he's funny and like, he played the jailbreak well. Like that was cute.

• 2:32:56Griffin Newman?

  Still incredibly funny to imagine Mark Maron having to play those same scenes.

• 2:33:02David Sims?

  So you're like Jake Sully, huh?

• 2:33:04Speaker 01

  We have the whole like Jake riding.

• 2:33:08David Sims?

  Oh, Taruk Mato.

• 2:33:10Speaker 01

  And then bringing together all of the clans, which I like did with, I did kind of wanna.

• 2:33:14David Sims?

  First one.

• 2:33:16Griffin Newman?

  It's fascinating because it's like, that is the thing that's almost a carbon copy.

• 2:33:21David Sims?

  Yeah.

• 2:33:21Griffin Newman?

  And Lowak is narrating it and the narration seems almost identical where it's like, he got on like Taruk and then he like went from like Clan to Clan.

• 2:33:31David Sims?

  The evolution, of course, is now they get the Tulkuun too.

• 2:33:34Griffin Newman?

  Right.

• 2:33:34David Sims?

  Did I miss that he kind of was like, I'm not Taruk Macto anymore in the last one or something?

• 2:33:39Speaker 01

  Yeah.

• 2:33:39Griffin Newman?

  That was a big thing in the last one.

• 2:33:40Speaker 01

  He's like, I'm not taking out. I forgot that.

• 2:33:43Griffin Newman?

  Right? He like heads over. I forget what the other term is.

• 2:33:46David Sims?

  Cause they're getting in and on and off those things like Honda Civics, you know, like after the first movie's like, you're bonded to your guy. And then this one, everyone's like, is there a random bird I can plug into and fire?

• 2:33:57Griffin Newman?

  We covered this in the way of water episode, but basically he was holding two positions. Like one was the West duty position of basically like the chief of the tribe, right? And then the other one was like Taruk Macto, which is maybe closer to being like the pope.

• 2:34:09David Sims?

  Yeah, that's like an honorable, right to all Navi. Yes.

• 2:34:12Griffin Newman?

  Right. And there's like a wilder responsibility and power that comes from that's almost dangerous. And he like hands over the chief title to someone else.

• 2:34:21David Sims?

  Yeah.

• 2:34:22Griffin Newman?

  Steps down from Taruk Macto and is like, no one should be Taruk Macto right now.

• 2:34:26David Sims?

  It's too, too scary, too bloody.

• 2:34:28Griffin Newman?

  Yeah. But it does, that is the one area in the film where I'm just like, really? You're like gonna pull this move and then just sort of be like, yeah. And then, you know, he'll do all the same stuff.

• 2:34:37Speaker 01

  They yada yada some stuff in the movie, which I don't love, but that's okay.

• 2:34:42David Sims?

  But you know, someone said some version of that, like, why didn't we see? And I'm like, I don't know, man. It's a three hour, 20 minute movie with like 30 characters and they're all doing things. And you just have to make choices at a certain point as to what's going to be in the movie.

• 2:34:56Griffin Newman?

  They've been publishing all these like comics, mini series, Dark Horse, that are all basically things that Cameron cut out of the script.

• 2:35:04David Sims?

  Uh, right.

• 2:35:04Griffin Newman?

  Like they're not just like assigning writers to come up with like expanded universe shit. Like Cameron's like, this was like a 30 page chunk that I just didn't have room for. So I'll like hand it over to a comics writer and go like, do you want to get 12 issues out of this? There's so much stuff that he.

• 2:35:19David Sims?

  I'm not gonna read that.

• 2:35:20Griffin Newman?

  Some of them are good.

• 2:35:21David Sims?

  Maybe I will. Maybe I will. Maybe there'll be another video game. They made a Avatar, the game.

• 2:35:26Griffin Newman?

  There's one now, Frontiers of Pandora. It's fucking rad as hell.

• 2:35:29David Sims?

  Should I play it?

• 2:35:29Speaker 01

  Wait, is it?

• 2:35:30David Sims?

  Yeah. What are you doing?

• 2:35:31Griffin Newman?

  I was messaging you this when I was playing it.

• 2:35:33David Sims?

  Is it on the PS5 or?

• 2:35:34Griffin Newman?

  I got into a game in the last couple.

• 2:35:36Speaker 01

  Okay. I do remember this.

• 2:35:38David Sims?

  It's so crazy how these things come out and God knows this must've cost a fortune to make.

• 2:35:42Griffin Newman?

  It's like a fucking triple A game that seems to have done.

• 2:35:44David Sims?

  Everyone's just like, okay. Yeah, right.

• 2:35:46Griffin Newman?

  It was neither like a colossal flop nor like a total success. And they're still, they just did like a major DLC update.

• 2:35:54David Sims?

  You fly around and shit?

• 2:35:55Griffin Newman?

  They've done like, like season pass, like every six months, there's a new fucking major story arc.

• 2:36:00David Sims?

  Let's get the bundle. So Ben sent our bundle of McFarlane toys.

• 2:36:06Griffin Newman?

  Excuse me, that's not his name. His name is?

• 2:36:08David Sims?

  Todd.

• 2:36:09Griffin Newman?

  T Dog Mac.

• 2:36:12David Sims?

  Including a Varang.

• 2:36:13Griffin Newman?

  Patreon lore.

• 2:36:13David Sims?

  You can get, obviously you can get Quarrett, you can get Jake, but the Varang has like her default face, she's going like this. Uh, but she's also got one that's kind of like this. So you can swap her head out to have her be a little more nice, I guess.

• 2:36:27Griffin Newman?

  Yeah. Um, also can we, uh, call up Ray Zelinski quickly before, uh, this package arrives? I want to use his ray to like fucking embiggen that Varang action figure, if you know what I'm saying.

• 2:36:39David Sims?

  And so Ray Zelinski.

• 2:36:41Speaker 01

  Oh my God, that took me, that was, that was a real throwback.

• 2:36:46Griffin Newman?

  I blew up the kids.

• 2:36:47David Sims?

  Right, right. So you want his, his ray from the second film that made things.

• 2:36:52Speaker 03

  And then what do you do with the big toy?

• 2:36:55David Sims?

  Well, I think Griffin's gonna do something.

• 2:36:58David Sims?

  Oh no. Oh, okay.

• 2:36:59Griffin Newman?

  I will merely dunk my path.

• 2:37:01David Sims?

  Oh, okay.

• 2:37:03Griffin Newman?

  Go, my lady. And respectfully keep.

• 2:37:07David Sims?

  I do think Avatar four should have the first Navi lady, short king, human, boy, sex relationship.

• 2:37:17Griffin Newman?

  Hold on one second. Let me just email my manager quickly.

• 2:37:21David Sims?

  You know what I mean? Like, like this nine foot tall woman walks in with a, a five foot eight guy.

• 2:37:27Griffin Newman?

  A slower. I'm just trying to transcribe this quickly.

• 2:37:29Speaker 01

  Isn't that?

• 2:37:32Speaker 01

  But isn't that what's happening with Kira, uh, Kira and Spider?

• 2:37:35David Sims?

  A little bit.

• 2:37:36Griffin Newman?

  They have a kiss.

• 2:37:37David Sims?

  They do have a little kiss.

• 2:37:38Griffin Newman?

  A little sweet.

• 2:37:38David Sims?

  They have a little, of course, Kira isn't full height yet, so she's still kind of like.

• 2:37:43Griffin Newman?

  Yeah.

• 2:37:43David Sims?

  Spider-ish size.

• 2:37:44Griffin Newman?

  And Secorney's so fucking good.

• 2:37:46David Sims?

  She's fantastic. I, I nominated her for Way of Water. She's great in this one too.

• 2:37:51Griffin Newman?

  Yeah.

• 2:37:51David Sims?

  I was just kind of like, there's nothing like this. Performance?

• 2:37:56Griffin Newman?

  No, and in the last one-

• 2:37:57David Sims?

  Like in a movie?

• 2:37:59Griffin Newman?

  So shocking, cuz for years, he was so mum on how he was bringing her back. And then it's like, she's playing a teenager. What are you talking about? And then there was the sort of like novelty factor of holy shit, this is a good performance. In this, you just kind of like take it, like you accept it. And then every like 30 minutes, I'd be like, right, that's like Sigourney Weaver playing a child.

• 2:38:20David Sims?

  And she says in that, you know, little preamble video that about no AI, like she's like, yeah, because of this, I can play a teenager. And you're like, yeah, that's what this is for, for like crazy swings like this. Like this weird technology is for this.

• 2:38:33Griffin Newman?

  It's, this is why I said when we walked out of the theater, it's what I put in my lever box log. It is easily the best Avatar film I've seen in the last three years.

• 2:38:41David Sims?

  That's so true.

• 2:38:42Griffin Newman?

  And that's, that's, that's my ultimate takeaway. If you like Avatar movies, it's the best one of 2025 and better than anything that was released in 24 or 23.

• 2:38:52David Sims?

  It's a movie where I thought I might watch it and be like, um, that's great. And I'm glad James made these.

• 2:38:59Griffin Newman?

  Yeah.

• 2:38:59David Sims?

  And maybe it's time for him to make something else. I don't know. Instead, I watched and I was like, I think I need Avatar four announced like pretty soon. Like, I think I need him to be back in the lab.

• 2:39:08Griffin Newman?

  I was getting itchy.

• 2:39:09David Sims?

  Yeah. I think I need a couple more of these.

• 2:39:11Griffin Newman?

  I'm, I'm, I'm worried.

• 2:39:12David Sims?

  Versus the, hey, if James Cameron wants my old joke of like, wants to make Avatar movies, then I want to see him. Now I'm like, James, I think I want you to make more. I don't think I want you to be, use your powers to melt my face with Hiroshima. Like, no.

• 2:39:26Griffin Newman?

  Beyond that, I'm also like, James, you sure you can wrap this up in two more?

• 2:39:30David Sims?

  Yeah, right.

• 2:39:31Griffin Newman?

  Feel free to like stretch out.

• 2:39:34David Sims?

  Doing a taffy.

• 2:39:35Griffin Newman?

  Doing a taffy pole. We're recording this pretty early.

• 2:39:38David Sims?

  Yeah, the box office situation is that I assume this will be the number one film.

• 2:39:43Griffin Newman?

  Well, you're forgetting it's going up against the second weekend of Ella McKay, which is kind of an interesting Disney cannibalizing the Avatar franchise by putting it in the direct pathway of a buzz.

• 2:39:54David Sims?

  I think Ella McKay will open to 600 to 700 mil, but is gonna be very front loaded. And then drop.

• 2:40:00Griffin Newman?

  Yeah.

• 2:40:03David Sims?

  Look, come on.

• 2:40:03Griffin Newman?

  It's gonna be like Demon Slayer, like the day one is gonna be like 50%.

• 2:40:08David Sims?

  Friday, huge. Then it starts to drop. I mean, it's one of those things where it was a flop fall as we've been joking, you and I in our text threads and all that, but.

• 2:40:18Griffin Newman?

  Is largely a byproduct of just.

• 2:40:20David Sims?

  Just not enough product.

• 2:40:22Griffin Newman?

  Scheduling from the studio.

• 2:40:23David Sims?

  Yes. And like fucking Wicked Crush, Zootopia Crush.

• 2:40:27Griffin Newman?

  Yeah.

• 2:40:27David Sims?

  Five Nights at Freddy's two, which I'm sure is utter dog shit. He's about to just like easily make a bunch of money on top of those two. Ella McKay, of course, is swinging in.

• 2:40:37Griffin Newman?

  What is maddening is that like we, we had like eight weeks that were really dire, but they were dire because a couple of big things moved off the schedule, including respect to Ben, Mortal Kombat two, which they moved because it was testing so fucking well that they were like, this should be in the summer.

• 2:40:54David Sims?

  Yeah. Yeah, totally. And also it makes sense as a summer movie, like dumb fun. Yeah.

• 2:40:58Griffin Newman?

  Right. And obviously fucking Demon Slayer and Conjuring Crush. But then there was this like real.

• 2:41:04David Sims?

  Fucking Conjuring movie. It's so bad.

• 2:41:05Griffin Newman?

  Fallow period.

• 2:41:06David Sims?

  Yeah.

• 2:41:07Griffin Newman?

  I, I contend there's no movie that flopped where you're like.

• 2:41:11David Sims?

  Why'd that flop? And then things like Predator Badlands would like do all right. Yeah, you know.

• 2:41:16Griffin Newman?

  Right. And like now you see me is doing all right, but it feels really stupid that like they kind of scrunched Zootopia, Wicked and Avatar pretty close together.

• 2:41:26David Sims?

  Just want those like holiday legs. I mean, it makes, you know, I.

• 2:41:29Griffin Newman?

  But everyone was like wringing their hands and you're like, hey, there's like three movies that are guaranteed to make a combined $5 billion coming.

• 2:41:38Speaker 01

  Have you seen Predator Badlands?

• 2:41:39Griffin Newman?

  Yeah, I enjoyed it.

• 2:41:40Speaker 01

  I really liked it.

• 2:41:41David Sims?

  It's totally good fun.

• 2:41:42Speaker 01

  I saw it this week. It was like the first movie I've seen in a while that gave me some of the like Avatar vibes.

• 2:41:48Griffin Newman?

  I was about to say the exact same thing. Like jokes aside, it is the only movie I have seen since Way of Water, in between Way of Water and Fire Nation, that scratched some of the itches of what I like about the Avatar movies. And I like it's like world building. It's literal building of its like physical world.

• 2:42:06Speaker 01

  Yeah, the plants fucking rule.

• 2:42:08Griffin Newman?

  I like all that stuff. But yeah, I mean, the first movie opened at 70 and people were like, not a great start. Highest grossing movie of all time. The last movie opened to like 130? And people were like, that's not that great. And a post end game reality ended up, people forget that it is still the highest grossing film post pandemic. It made more money than Barbie, No Way Home.

• 2:42:30David Sims?

  I mean Avatar and like Endgame.

• 2:42:32Griffin Newman?

  Truly. Like for how much credit Top Gun, Barbie, Oppenheimer, and No Way Home get for saving the box office? Wave Water outgrossed all of them. And now there's this-

• 2:42:44David Sims?

  Six hundred and eighty-four million dollars domestic.

• 2:42:45Griffin Newman?

  Right. Now people are like, I guess Fire and Ash is going to open to one fifty, but is that good enough? Like, the bar keeps getting raised. I would not be surprised if there's a bit of a dip on this one, but I also-

• 2:42:57David Sims?

  I think it'll open a little lower and it'll have good legs and it probably will make the least of the three Avatar movies. But that will still be a tremendous amount of money.

• 2:43:06Speaker 01

  All right. So here's the question. Is it going to make more or less in Zootopia, too?

• 2:43:09David Sims?

  Well, Zootopia is making this sort of bewildering amount of money in China.

• 2:43:13Speaker 01

  Yes.

• 2:43:13David Sims?

  That's hard to gauge.

• 2:43:14Speaker 01

  But isn't Avatar also big in China?

• 2:43:17Griffin Newman?

  Yeah.

• 2:43:17David Sims?

  So we'll see. I don't know. Is it W2? Great time.

• 2:43:21Griffin Newman?

  You had a good time.

• 2:43:21Speaker 01

  Yeah, I had a great time.

• 2:43:22David Sims?

  Love that.

• 2:43:23Griffin Newman?

  I've yet to see it.

• 2:43:24David Sims?

  Saw it with my daughter.

• 2:43:25Griffin Newman?

  Humble brag.

• 2:43:25David Sims?

  It's the first first run movie I've seen with her, I think. Right? Yeah, because I've only taken her to Ghibli movies and Toy Story.

• 2:43:31Griffin Newman?

  Wow. I like, I don't know where this ends up exactly. I'm curious to see what the larger public response to this is, but also like the public's response to Avatar as a general thing is so weird and tortured.

• 2:43:46David Sims?

  Yeah.

• 2:43:47Griffin Newman?

  We all had a really good time.

• 2:43:48David Sims?

  I had a great time and I'm happy.

• 2:43:50Griffin Newman?

  Movie multiple more times.

• 2:43:51David Sims?

  You're gonna go to forty X, I assume?

• 2:43:53Griffin Newman?

  Yeah, almost definitely.

• 2:43:54Speaker 01

  I liked the Miley song. Every time we dream, we dream.

• 2:43:59David Sims?

  I don't think I really sat with it. I think I'll need to listen to that again.

• 2:44:03Griffin Newman?

  I sat. I was seated.

• 2:44:06David Sims?

  Yeah. And then, right, next week is Marty Supreme and hopefully that'll hit and Anaconda, I assume, will be a smash.

• 2:44:13Griffin Newman?

  But Avatar is just gonna, it's gonna have that fucking magic holiday corridor.

• 2:44:17David Sims?

  It'll have really nothing troubling it until that bone temple.

• 2:44:22Griffin Newman?

  The thing that really fucking boggles my brain, and I said this, Ben's rubbing his hands in one of our group texts the other day, is I just like, do not understand why they're releasing the fucking SpongeBob movie at Christmas and they didn't put that thing in fucking October.

• 2:44:35David Sims?

  Well, I'll tell you that my daughter covered her eyes at the trailer for that. Too scary.

• 2:44:40Griffin Newman?

  Ooh.

• 2:44:40Speaker 01

  Really?

• 2:44:41David Sims?

  She didn't like the pirates.

• 2:44:41Griffin Newman?

  She doesn't like.

• 2:44:42David Sims?

  There's the ghostly pirates.

• 2:44:43Griffin Newman?

  Flying Dutchman. Yeah.

• 2:44:44David Sims?

  And then the Cat in the Hat trailer came on and I was like, oh, boy, she's gonna love this. And instead she was kinda like.

• 2:44:49Griffin Newman?

  Okay. Well, I got great news for her. She can look forward to seeing that trailer for the next 18 months because that movie keeps getting pushed back.

• 2:44:55David Sims?

  It does keep getting pushed back. They have to, they keep having to record new intros with Bill Hader looking more suicidal.

• 2:45:01Griffin Newman?

  Guys, I cannot wait to show you the first look at my new.

• 2:45:05David Sims?

  Trailer of this movie.

• 2:45:06Griffin Newman?

  I'm the Cat in the Hat. Have you seen this clip?

• 2:45:10Speaker 01

  Yeah, they played it in front of my trailers in front of.

• 2:45:13David Sims?

  Like he has been captured in like the Balkan war.

• 2:45:16Speaker 01

  I didn't act, they didn't have like real life Bill Hader.

• 2:45:19Griffin Newman?

  Yeah.

• 2:45:19David Sims?

  I just saw it. It's like on YouTube.

• 2:45:21Griffin Newman?

  It's worth watching. And he's like, guys, I'm literally so excited. The cat has a striped hat and he'll show you worlds you could never imagine.

• 2:45:27Speaker 01

  The trailers I got in front of Zootopia 2 were Goat, the movie about a goat that wants to play basketball.

• 2:45:33David Sims?

  Yeah, Steph Curry's movie, yeah.

• 2:45:34Speaker 01

  Um, and then.

• 2:45:36Griffin Newman?

  Yeah.

• 2:45:36Speaker 01

  Cat in the Hat, SpongeBob, SpongeBob, Big Guy Pants. Okay?

• 2:45:41Griffin Newman?

  I was telling Ben, my little cousin George, off reference on the show, could not be more excited for Goat. And usually when I see him, his question is like, what's the next couple Marvel movies coming out? And now the last three times I've seen him, it's just been, so Goat's coming out soon, right?

• 2:45:56Speaker 01

  Is he gonna be a sports kid?

• 2:45:58Griffin Newman?

  He is a sports kid.

• 2:45:59David Sims?

  So of course he's excited for Goat.

• 2:46:01Griffin Newman?

  He's like a fucking really good baseball player.

• 2:46:03Speaker 01

  Oh, right. You were talking about this on our recent episode.

• 2:46:05Griffin Newman?

  He's like traveling to like play games.

• 2:46:06Speaker 01

  I didn't, I didn't put that together that that was George because I was like, isn't that kid like five?

• 2:46:11Griffin Newman?

  George, George has varied interests. He's a very well-balanced young man. He just turned 10.

• 2:46:17Speaker 01

  Oh, my God.

• 2:46:17Griffin Newman?

  Yeah.

• 2:46:18Speaker 01

  Practically a grown up.

• 2:46:19Griffin Newman?

  Yeah. And he's, he's a slugger.

• 2:46:22Speaker 01

  Good for him.

• 2:46:23Speaker 03

  Nice. Um, so we're not gonna play the box office game.

• 2:46:25David Sims?

  No, we did that already. I mean.

• 2:46:27Speaker 03

  I mean, we can't, and I think we should just address that part of why we were recording at the time that we're recording this episode. Griffin booked a job and so we just had to kinda get that in before.

• 2:46:37Griffin Newman?

  I, I, I have to, I have to travel out of the country. Uh, it is a thing that when it manifests, uh, I think, uh, will be, uh, like a fun kind of surprise cameo thing for, uh, our listeners. And for anyone who is not familiar with this podcast, they'll just be like, that guy with three lines? Uh, but it will be fun and I will not say anything further about it.

• 2:47:03Griffin Newman?

  It's draft day.

• 2:47:03David Sims?

  It's draft day. It's back.

• 2:47:04Griffin Newman?

  Always be drafting.

• 2:47:05David Sims?

  Costner got a $40 million check for it. This time he drafts Griffin.

• 2:47:10Griffin Newman?

  At drafting an American.

• 2:47:16David Sims?

  And he gets thrown into an asylum.

• 2:47:18Griffin Newman?

  And I'm really trying to win Cousin George's respect. He watched draft day because he's like really into fantasy football.

• 2:47:24David Sims?

  Sure.

• 2:47:24Griffin Newman?

  And also he loves Black Panther and I was like, I was in a movie with Black Panther, which is like a pretty limited list of movies sadly.

• 2:47:31David Sims?

  Yeah.

• 2:47:31Griffin Newman?

  Right? And he watched it and I was like, what do you think? And he was like, I never would have made those choices.

• 2:47:35David Sims?

  Unreal, unrealistic.

• 2:47:36Griffin Newman?

  He truly was.

• 2:47:37David Sims?

  He gives away three first round picks. It's insane.

• 2:47:39Griffin Newman?

  He was like, he could not stop scoffing. He was like, I do not understand what that guy's doing.

• 2:47:43David Sims?

  This is our last episode of 2055, right? I forgot that next week.

• 2:47:48Griffin Newman?

  It's our one.

• 2:47:49David Sims?

  Dark.

• 2:47:49Griffin Newman?

  Annual dark week.

• 2:47:50David Sims?

  But then the week after is when you will hear us question if a thing is on. Remember that Ben?

• 2:47:59Speaker 03

  Oh, yeah.

• 2:48:00David Sims?

  Yeah.

• 2:48:00Speaker 03

  Yeah.

• 2:48:01David Sims?

  Yeah. Bradley Cooper's is this thing on, we will discuss to kick off the new year. But this is the end of our decade of dreams. A perfect way to end it with Jimmy C and and Varang and all of her friends.

• 2:48:13Griffin Newman?

  Yeah.

• 2:48:13David Sims?

  Old friends Jake Sully, new friends Varang.

• 2:48:17Griffin Newman?

  It's a great way to kickstart our second decade of dreams. And yes, the next proper mini series coming up is Lynn Ramsey, as we have already announced, but repeating here, which I'm very excited about, one of my favorite filmmakers. And then Peter Reer after that, because it's a short series Lynn Ramsey. But the first two episodes of the year before we get to Lynn Ramsey will be Bradley Cooper's Is This Thing On and Park Chan Wook's No Other Choice. One of my absolute favorite movies of 2025 and one of my absolute least favorite films of 2025. And I'll, I'll keep you all.

• 2:48:52David Sims?

  Guess which is which. I saw Lee Byung-hung just today, uh, waiting in the lobby of Criterion.

• 2:49:00Griffin Newman?

  Boy, is he handsome.

• 2:49:01David Sims?

  Did you see him?

• 2:49:02Griffin Newman?

  I did not.

• 2:49:02David Sims?

  He is one of those guys who looks like he does in the movies. He was, he was shiny.

• 2:49:07Speaker 01

  Yeah.

• 2:49:07David Sims?

  Yeah. And his hair was perfect and he had a glass that jacket on.

• 2:49:10Speaker 01

  I just like can't believe that he's also Guima.

• 2:49:13David Sims?

  He's, look, he's, he's in so many cool things.

• 2:49:16Griffin Newman?

  Storm Shadow.

• 2:49:17David Sims?

  Yeah, exactly.

• 2:49:18Speaker 01

  I mean, God bless him. What a year.

• 2:49:21Griffin Newman?

  What a year.

• 2:49:21Speaker 01

  What a year.

• 2:49:22Griffin Newman?

  Hey, thank you all.

• 2:49:23Speaker 03

  Yeah.

• 2:49:24Griffin Newman?

  For riding with us, our clan. This podcast is a fortress.

• 2:49:28Speaker 01

  It really is.

• 2:49:29Griffin Newman?

  It really is. True. Whether we like it or not, it's become a fortress and we live inside of it.

• 2:49:37David Sims?

  That's right. It's just, I keep trying to bring down home tree, but it just won't come down.

• 2:49:43Griffin Newman?

  We keep getting reanimated and new avatar bodies behind these microphones. We joke, we love doing this show. It's a, it's, it's, I'm gonna say it's an absurd privilege that this has somehow become a thing that we get to spend our lives doing.

• 2:49:59David Sims?

  Absolutely. And now Ben and I get a month off from our, from this job.

• 2:50:05Griffin Newman?

  You owe me so much for working a job.

• 2:50:08David Sims?

  Okay.

• 2:50:09Griffin Newman?

  Did you start just solid here?

• 2:50:12David Sims?

  We still got two episodes to record.

• 2:50:14Speaker 01

  I don't, I don't get a month off.

• 2:50:16David Sims?

  What do you mean?

• 2:50:17Speaker 01

  Social media never sleeps for real time, baby.

• 2:50:19David Sims?

  This is true. This is true.

• 2:50:20Griffin Newman?

  The Fereng memes.

• 2:50:21Speaker 01

  The memes.

• 2:50:22Griffin Newman?

  Yeah.

• 2:50:23Speaker 01

  I hope they release some sort of fun, new filter.

• 2:50:26Griffin Newman?

  Yeah.

• 2:50:27Speaker 01

  For, you know.

• 2:50:28Griffin Newman?

  Can we, can we, let me just call this out. I just want to create a fan art challenge to our listeners. Please feel free, no AI, but whether Photoshop or any kind of tactile visual art by hand sculpture. I'm, I'm putting out a call for artistic representations of me being a proper gentleman to Fereng.

• 2:50:51David Sims?

  Taking Frank.

• 2:50:52Griffin Newman?

  Nope.

• 2:50:53David Sims?

  No.

• 2:50:53Griffin Newman?

  No.

• 2:50:53David Sims?

  Okay, I take it back. I take it back.

• 2:50:55Griffin Newman?

  A safe distance and just, I'll let you interpret it how you want, but nothing untoward is happening.

• 2:51:02David Sims?

  Yeah.

• 2:51:02Griffin Newman?

  Yeah.

• 2:51:02David Sims?

  Cause she would wear you like a jacket.

• 2:51:06David Sims?

  If you tried anything.

• 2:51:08Griffin Newman?

  Would I want to see that? Yes. I'm not asking you to depict that.

• 2:51:12David Sims?

  Respectful.

• 2:51:13Griffin Newman?

  To be clear, don't depict that. What I want is me just maintaining a safe distance and a little tip of the cap.

• 2:51:19David Sims?

  I'm seeing here, Fereng is now the new environmental secretary. Jesus.

• 2:51:23Speaker 01

  I'm really, I, I, I really want.

• 2:51:25David Sims?

  Maverick thinker.

• 2:51:27Speaker 01

  Pat Reynolds to Photoshop me as Fereng for this episode art. But is that, I feel bad asking for that.

• 2:51:35Griffin Newman?

  No, I think, I think you've earned that right. Ben, of course, is Spider again, a thing that makes him happy.

• 2:51:41David Sims?

  Of course, he better be. He better be.

• 2:51:42Griffin Newman?

  Yeah. And then I feel like you are Jake Sully and I'm Neateri.

• 2:51:45David Sims?

  Sure.

• 2:51:46Speaker 01

  But I feel like.

• 2:51:46David Sims?

  You usually, you often end up the lady.

• 2:51:48Griffin Newman?

  I do.

• 2:51:49Speaker 01

  I feel like maybe we should switch it. So you're Quaritch?

• 2:51:52Griffin Newman?

  That's a pretty potent idea.

• 2:51:54David Sims?

  Potent Photoshop.

• 2:51:57Griffin Newman?

  All right. Thank you all for listening. Please remember to rate, review, and subscribe. And see you in 2026. And as always, I think you have to admit,

• 2:52:07Griffin Newman?

  a pretty potent podcast. You're right. You're not wrong.

• 2:52:11Speaker 03

  Oh, I thought you were gonna end with no shit.

• 2:52:13Griffin Newman?

  No shit!

• 2:52:14Speaker 03

  No shit!

• 2:52:15Griffin Newman?

  No shit.