Home
Creators
Search Recent Random
Posts
Search DMs Popular Hash Lookup Tags Random
Importer
Import FAQ
Register Favorites Keys Review DMs Logout
Community
Telegram ThePornDude
Home Creators Posts Import Register Favorites Logout

694 - Tulkun King (1/2/23) (Patreon)

Published:
2023-01-03 04:30:01
Imported:
2026-06

Downloads

Content

It’s finally time to return to Pandora: we review Avatar: The Way of Water. James Cameron expands and improves on his otherworldly saga of colonization and resistance in about every conceivable way, including revolutionary whale violence, CRAB MECHS, and competing visions of eternal life, one blessed & one damned. Saddle up your Skimwing and join us once again in this consciousness-raising blockbuster fantasy world of blue guys.

Tickets for the Hell on Earth launch show/party @ Littlefield in NYC 1/20/23 here: https://littlefieldnyc.com/event/?wfea_eb_id=479703214227

Files

Comments

Ian Stano

I feel like iv been gas lit into watching this movie

Jonathan Szerszen

Saw it last night, I really hope this makes a difference

cwen

I feel like the role of Payakan was meant for Will. Lost opportunity.

Marina

I finally saw it, so I finally listed to this ep. I’m glad you guys had the same inkling about Quaritch “converting” to Na’avi. You saw little glimmers of compassion returning to him in his interactions with Spider. I also liked how Quaritch had his turn becoming “baby” and having to learn the native ways. His deconversion will probably take longer than Jake’s because his brain was fried more severely by his time as a Marine.

Kiva

Finally saw this. Made me miss growing up in Florida. We used to swim out to the mile markers in the intracoastal and jump off. Also, some bridge jumping on special occasions. There isn’t much of that in Austin. Swam in shoal creek when it was flooding once but that rarely happens/ is not generally a great thing for the potable water supply when it does.

Kiva

Also love that military guys do the valley girl thing of shortening words unnecessarily. From the first Avatar: “That’s when the ‘dozers get in.” Yeah totes bestie.

ploob

We were fish before we were wolves, no?

Chris Knutson

Relistening to this prior to seeing the Way of Water on the big screen again tonight 🐳

Jordan

Yeah I’m listening after having just rewatched wow. Required slop.

Laurel

✌️ Happy New Year, Chapo fam.

Don Tickles

Thanks boys I'm sorry for my earlier tantrum

Baron

Rewatched it today for the second time, glad to have this in review. Coming away from it both times, I truly believe the forward-looking optimism that Cameron is building with Avatar, considering the it’s overwhelming (but temporary) immersion and clear political asks of the audience, will be a buoy for the practical left in the years to come. It’s a mutual, joint-stock world, in all meridians! Here’s to a resilient 2023❤️

Don Tickles

I don't hate you boys Im sorry- actually for real though? I got serious love

woof dog

it was a good movie I saw it yesterday

Jeremy

Not a bit fam

phillypostmaster

Guys who spend 40% of their podcast riffing on Twitter drama: “Glass Onion is too online”

Reuben Simpson

That was legendary street fighter Bryan who said that y u hatin?? shit was garbage anyways. It’s a movie not a Fuckin podcast Lmaoo

Ricardo Pleasure

armored core is good, zone of the enders sucks

Greg

I'm going to drive 2 hours to see it a second time tomorrow

parker

It's actually kind of better in this. Basically the explanation in the movie is that Pandora is now the new frontier and humanity is basically trying to migrate eventually to it. And that's the project now.

Bob Chappell

Weaponized spacecraft exhaust has been in books before but i cant ever remember seeing it in screen.

Scott

Saw the movie twice last week, worth every goddamn penny. The most openly Maoist movie that has been made since Sorry To Bother You, and a true masterpiece, one of the grandest filmmaking experiences of my lifetime. I feel terrible for all the liberal race hustlers, reactionary psychopaths, and pencil dick dweebs whose souls are too narrow to encompass its greatness.

Antipaganda

Yeah! A great sci-fi concept just thrown in as one of many details in this beautifully realised world.

Max

Dear Patreon podcast, My grandson took me to see the new Avatar last night, and you guys are right, it was the bees knees. I have a concern though, you compared the Navi to the Taliban, making me think you missed the entire point. The Navi are actually the good guys, while the Taliban are the bad guys. America is like the Navi, with our clear goodness, and the invading humans, with their high tech weapons, greed, and clear badness are like Iraq/Afghanistan.

Thom

took me a sec to get the reference (kinda high) but yeah Fromsoft mech game just better

Kerri

It's Mr. Chapo actually, might wanna edit that

Max

My grandson bought me the Patreon app for Christmas so I can listen to the Patreon podcast. I've been told it's a funny political show like Red Eye with Greg Gutfield

Gulb

I don’t get it. Who gives a shit about this movie?

Bob

boo this man

Scott

Millions of people

Thom

listening to this in a bath with candles and wine

plainwrap

It sucks that the CIA gets hundreds of millions of dollars for their fictionally-generated sadness but none of us are gonna get a dime for our post-Avatar movie malaise. Pandora Syndrome is real.

D.O.D

Agreed with everything about Avatar2, but Glass Onion was also good

CoatCheckDream

WTF, a eulogy for Gangsta Boo but no mention of Jeremiah Green? The Lonesome Crowded West was the start of my journey from homophobic-but-otherwise-mostly-liberal Catholic to moron teenage atheist libertarian to moron atheist liberal to now moron baby leftist.

Paul F. Holzfäller

The presence of colorism among the Na’vi was hilarious. Was holding out for the kids of the water and forest tribe to start hurling slurs at each other.

Dick Wolf

Shouts out to everyone who knew the exact Indian commercial Felix was talking about.

chronye

chinas zero c0vid policy hurt the opening week

dingbat44

fucking finally jesus fucking christ the movie was shit the adam friedland show is gonna over take this shit for sure and i know i watch cnn

Mia Johnson

I’ve never been so happy to se a Patreon notification

Chubby Justin

I think my eyes did a 1080 somersault in my skull when i heard that term in the first movie. More like "unoriginalum" right guys/ladies?

Chubby Justin

I mean this in the best possible way: can we call JC dickriders "camgirls/camboys"?

Ardy Rezv

I didn’t particularly like this movie but I watched it on my phone so the visuals kinda sucked. The story was very Disney.

Ardy Rezv

It’s so obvious it’s a bit

Ardy Rezv

Bro I this so some chapo sub Reddit shit. Right before the post complaining about virginity.

Alberto Suarez

So I'm skipping this episode to actually watch this in 3-D then come back to get completely belittled for it. Thanks Chapo

Enoch

This is Cameron's answer to Zero Dark 30, where he posits if Bin Laden's kids were best friends with Moby Dick a certain night in Abbottabad might have gone a bit different

YukiNukem64x

Holy shit Father crimes discussed 40 minutes in.

Kamran Husain

the second i saw the oakleys on the operator avatar i burst in to tears

BigBoto

Jacques from SD is NOT amused

Flesh Colored Subaru

@scott durbin millions also died in the holocaust, that doesn't make it "good"

AbeLinkin

I hope this ep is unlocked. Pretty sure this film radicalized my pastor father-in-law

Terrance McDonald

There were lots of morbius memes but no one saw it. Memes don’t equal success people!!

Dylan Wintersteen

This movie would have been perfect without narration. Every time Sam Worthington opens his mouth I wanted to leave.

etienne

but yeah also people who said the first didn't have memes weren't paying attention, people were photoshopping general Quaritch in the helicopter with different backgrounds out the window. That scene was in the trailer

etienne

it's the rare Earnest Bit

Jon W

The Quibi-fication of the Western Male

Joshua Garcia

I hope there aren’t spoilers. Or is it soilers? I finally tried watching the first one last night and fell asleep - not out of boredom but of waking up too early, exercise and cannabis. I love to love you all.

Jon W

No podcast is complete unless the titular character is on hiatus and the producer talks with his favorite guest about hooking up with your step sibling.

Ser Connington

I've been waiting for this episode for months.

etienne

thing is that in 2009, only weirdoes and young people were online, so of course most people missed out on Avatar Discourse '09

James Roche

Please let this be the end the Avatar is good bit

William

3.5/5. probably worth a re-listen in a few months while data entry/whatever. It's fun to hear them excited about something. Movie just feels like Dune - heavy on aesthetics and world building but light on a compelling story. In my conception of a compelling story, it compels you to do things, like, remember the names of the characters because it makes you want to know every aspect, every detail of the story. I've never been a fan of reading too much into any fictional story - feels like projection after a certain point and a desire to want to be as smart as the author for "understanding" what he/she/they "trying to tell you." Also feels like these guys fall for the same thing they say libs fall for - watching this movie will change people's hearts and minds. Don't know how serious they were about that stuff. Anyways, just my opinion; we can have different opinions. I'm not going to fight you if you enjoyed the movie. I don't care that much

MEAT CLOWN

It feels weird to admit but I also prefer to listen to them talk about something they hate. Stop enjoying movies!!!

C. Ries

This movie was mid, children in movies are almost always a mistake because most child actors aren’t that good and most people in Hollywood are too old and out of touch to write a believable adolescent. Also— “Save the Whales!” seems like a less incendiary and even less relevant topic than “Stop mining indigenous lands” like the first one.

TangiePower

I liked the part where Payakan the Tulkan was like “Guess I gotta be who you say I am!”

etienne

rip Ken Block, another kinema visionary

Piers d'Orgée

Never bet against Box Office Jim 😎

etienne

there's something off about how much of our culture pretends to be against industrialization when in the aggregate the overwhelming majority of people want industrialization and its spoils. There's never a real interrogation of what it is that we want and what are the tangible impacts, just ooey gooey messages about the trees and the whales. The political message always ends up being, no we refuse to see the bad parts of this industry, get it out of here, never, here's how we can concentrate and mitigate the impacts so we still have the spoils and be honest about it. In practice this way of thinking forces the people in charge of politics and resouce allocation to organize things in ways that are actually way more fucked up and counterproductive just so that the stack looks not so bad to the end consumer.

C. Ries

In like 2015 I saw a meme of general quaritch sipping coffee like a badass and the text was tiny and 3 paragraphs long on why humans were superior to the navi and the fact that they could travel through space and understand The Science™️ gave them the right to destroy hometree. The seething was palpable

Oliver Compton

Didn’t know I needed the hour and half recap of my 3 and a half hour movie 😌

etienne

off the top of my head, here are the instances of Fucked Earth I've seen on my TV or read in novels recently: - Altered Carbon - The Expanse - KSR's Mars trilogy - Neuromancer did we all just give up? it's all just greenfield planets defending against Earth colonists now? or trillionaires trying to safeguard their Zen Guardens?

Sam

I think there is also this concept in the movie that Chapo boys didn't mention: The sully family runs away. Yes, its to take the eyes off the forest navis, but he also always repeats "I have to protect my family", referring to his nuclear family. And I don't know you guys, but to me it reads as a very colonial understanding of the family. Because what family actually is; is the community. It takes a village to raise a child and all that. This whole movie challenges Sully's understanding of the concept, and by the end, he realizes this and decides to make his stay permanent: because protecting his family means protecting the tribe, it means fighting against the threat of the empire. Both phsically, to get them out of Pandora, but also mentally, to get that empire's understanding of life and family off of his mind.

Jessica S

Hmm, Bezos did breathe life back into The Expanse. I hear he really enjoyed it and was like, “hey! I have a TV channel!” I wonder which show I’d choose to revive if I were obscenely rich… have to think on that.

etienne

to me it fell off a cliff after he bought, but whatever. also he wanted to do The Culture but start with Consider Phlebas, which pisses me off. Oh and Apple is adapting Neuromancer, as if they weren't basically one of the bad guys from the book. great time for contradictions heightenings.

Hugh-Jassol

Best movie you have see to date

Brandon Tillett

Y'all need to find a way to have sex with Cameron and then move the hell on.

Richard Perez

Chapo fans who hate the Avatar bit have failed to develop a Movie Mindset smh

etienne

I'm Blue, da ba dee ba da bee, da ba dee da ba dee, I'm blue

justdave

I'd bring back Bill Nye the science guy, but with a more 'center left' political appeal

Gubriel

I remember in Capitalist Realism, Mark Fisher goes into this about Wall-E, where your consumption of anti-capitalist media is what allows you to continue to participate in the system. You could only stomach yourself playing along with it if you have a small personal myth of rebellion, so that's what is produced to satiate you. I think it's something similar with the us consuming and excreting our entire planet, the more aware of it we are the more we need something to tell us it's not happening.

justdave

There is a film with a more realistic depiction of colonialism and capitalism and even a more detailed plan to dismantling it. Rife with better revolutionary politics, waaaay less rascism, better visual effects, fucking dance numbers and it's hilarious! I am of course talking about 'Chicken Run'

etienne

it's all California Ideology shit, the Santa Barbara oil spill and the derricks you can see are the worst thing that ever happened in history, and you got the EPA to declare a big conservation zone around the Catalina islands, but you're still putting gas in your stupid VW Bug and the Oil Shocks make you vote for Reagan. Zero systemic view and zero introspection. Nice to see that the message is still exactly the same but with a couple technical terms and place names swapped out.

etienne

it fucking owns

No

This is the first successful crossing of uncanny valley, it's Cameron's Austerlitz.

etienne

although the "plan" is like, some fuzzy wuzzy pseudo-pastoral subsistence commune farming bs. but whatever for a cartoon for babies it whips ass

etienne

the actual commies at least had the balls to venerate real industry.

No

Communism is not love. Communism is a whale we use to crush the enemy

T

The first episode of the week is always unlocked, so this one is unlocked.

T

It's all spoilers.

will field

Yeah he got rid of unobtanium and now there’s a substance like ambrosia found in the hyper intelligent whales species that halts the human aging process. A good decision imo because the Unobtanium bit was really dumb

will field

I wanna plug into my dog

justdave

The workers actual 'labor' is their unborn children, the Navi eat their handicapped (which I thought was implied) and Mel goddamn Gibson plays the pseudo 'revolutionary' american, who's nihilistic self indulgent revisionism of his own history (liberalism) is the true enemy

Thom

you sky people gotta chill out

justdave

'This is a chicken farm, and we're the chickens'

dingbat44

"We can't say the movie sucks or we will look stupid so we will say it was good despite reality"

Hassan

Look at the list of all the movies that have grossed 1 billion dollars or more, and you’ll find that the Avatar movies and arguably the Joaquin Phoenix Joker movie are the only films that actually have some substance and meaning to it. Everything else is cash grab garbage.

james petitious

Very polarizing but we can all agree it certainly is 3 hours long

etienne

this dumb cock deserved life gulag for counterrevolutionry treason, but hey, cartoon for babies

justdave

You obviously haven't seen Fast and the Furious, Fate of the Furious

BB

i can't wait until we meet the mountain blue guys

skrrt vonnegut

Do you think Cameron's alien whale immortality juice is an answer to Ridley Scott's Peter Weyland asking the Engineer for Immortality and being subsequently executed?

Ian

go see it in Dolby 3D RIGHT NOW

Ian

pipe down nerd!

Ian

haven't listened to the episode yet but let me just say I went to see avatar with my whole family. We laughed, we cried, we cheered, and at the end we were all happier, healthier, and closer as a family.

justdave

I think it's wrong to do blue face

john badal

The tail slap made me laugh uncontrollably, like when ive had to goto church. I couldnt stop laughing despite my efforts and annoying everyone around me. Looking forward to reliving that joy in meme form.

Doug Cartel

Cameron just knows a truth that we all have: Evil as it may be, military tech is super cool when it's not shooting at you it's a contradiction you'll never resolve

C. Ries

The joker movie is left wing idk why the media went insane about “incel propaganda”

Adrienne Suydam

JC’s The Abyss is where the blue face fetish began- Virgil chucks his wedding ring down the toilet after a fight with Lindsey and the ships blue toilet water stains his hand for most of the movie despite his multiple encounters with water that could have worn it off. It also has a few scenes where the characters are in peril because of the water slowly filling an enclosed area, particularly when Virgil has to let Lindsey drown in freezing water so he can tow her body back to the rig and subsequently revive her with cpr & heat, after which she is injured from him pounding on her chest. Virgil has to drown in the technological pink amniotic fluid in his helmet to be able to descend and disable the nuke that Navy SEALS on “coffee” mishandled. The underwater angels are the OG Navi of the sea (Atlantis) civilization and resurrect the rig & surrounding crew to the surface on a massive sea castle/ NTI rig. There is a magical negro trope, the navy SEAL in charge is named Coffey & the original rig malfunction is from a storm that hits the above water oil drilling ship attached the Virgil’s rig by an umbilical cord. I don’t know what kino means, but JC seems to really embrace the “When the student is ready, the Master appears” relationship betwixt humans (shadow self) & Navi /Atlanteans (light self). 34 year Spoiler alert, apologies.

Dan

The one part on Avatar 2 that didn't make sense is that Jake Sully and Neytiri leave their tribe so that their community won't face Human reprisals; this is the same tribe that has been waging guerrilla war, just destroyed a train and looted weaponry, killing numerous Humans in the process. Also, it seems like Cameron has an incomplete understanding of Colonial Counter-insurgency doctrine: the Human occupiers wouldn't need cause or justification to slaughter every Navi settlement that they encountered. James Cameron drew on several examples of historical conquest and colonization for inspiration, but somehow missed accounts of genocide. Every Navi on Pandora would be a "military-age male" as soon as the spaceships touched down.

C. Ries

Women are immune to this delusion

C. Ries

The idea that the military would get tunnel vision and only focus resources on finding and killing one man and his family, regardless of his charisma and importance, seemed hard to believe. I get that he knows the most about human tech and society, but the stakes seemed strangely lower for this movie than the first.

justdave

My minds eye shows me a giant cervix as the alien ship/base, am I remembering right?

HarshMalarkey

I just clean trash out of the local streams and creeks of the suburban area i live in, I've done it on a nearly daily basis for about 2 years. If half the zoomers who watched this movie started cleaning up like that the world would be a much better place.

will michel

me, getting the email that the podcast i enjoy has released their 90 minute review of a film i have absolutely no intention of watching whatsoever: “finally!”

justdave

Geronimo. Cmon guys

HarshMalarkey

Dude how have you not seen it yet you gotta go tonight

Adrienne Suydam

Yes but I think there’s also phallic parts as well when it breaches

Poppy Chulo

Seems to me there's always more crybabies crying about any naysayers than there are actually naysayers.

SF

This episode was really moving.

Elliot Matheny

“Save the whales” is a secondary moral didactic in the movie, though. It exists to showcase another layer of American capitalist imperialist brutality. Edie Falco lays out the stakes early in the movie: the corporate American military aims to dominate and colonize the entirety of pandora (which has always been an analogue of the capitalist rape of the earth’s rainforests and now ocean). All of these brutal extractions and colonizations are cumulative, they don’t replace or erase the others.

Poppy Chulo

Because democrats are not really left wing, and the ideals of actual left wing films incite their ire when the main character is a white guy. For neoliberals the racial and gender dynamics of casting a film has become more important than any other aspect of a film.

Elliot Matheny

It was fucked up when the water tribe kids called Lo’ak a land n*****. Uncalled for

Elliot Matheny

Agreed, this is a great detail. Cameron is laying out in no uncertain terms, pacifism is not a viable avenue. The only way to save our families and our planet is violent revolt against capitalist empire.

Jonny Debacle

Could the girls do a straight month?

Yacobum

As an unremarkable Jake myself, I love this.

Elliot Matheny

He has resolved it, though - capitalizing on cool military tech aesthetics in film is a way for us to enjoy these things without them being applied on innocent living things. Never question Jammin Jim

Kyle Smyth

Saw it twice a week apart. Packed theater both times, 3d and Dolby 3d. Cameron just consistently calling his shots, it's crazy. The only part that looked a little video gamey to me was the train crash at the beginning. Rest of it was pure gas. Total immersion even with a white kid in dreads saying 'bro' about 20 times. That's hard to do

Sam

YOOO it would be sick if chapo boys did a chicken run episode

Cindy Carrot

It's the sourpusses bellyaching about the crybabies that get me more than the crybabies crying about the naysayers

Quasimoto Miyamoto

Way of Water is magnitudes better than that beige, smooth, tasteless content pellet Dune

Jeremy

Gangsta Boo was on the show a while back, makes sense that they’d talk about her.

Matthew Dunn

I don’t know, I feel like the 1st one was better, maybe I’m just older and more jaded. I also find it hard to appreciate the family story from JC who’s been married like 4 times. Plus is this a bit I can’t tell if they genuinely love this film or are mocking it. Or are they just mocking the idea that movies can change things?

Gulb

How many of those millions are under the age of 10 though?

James Blackmon

Has anyone called Spider a wanna'vi yet?

M.R. Alchemist

Part 3: Na'vi establish symbiosis with some vacuum megafauna to down the human mothership. Part 4: Na'vi Jesus mindmelds with the entire planet of Pandora. Utilizing its massive magnetic fields to bend space and warp to earth to do a based JDPON on humanity

C. Ries

The US Army fought Geronimo in the pre-algorithm days

C. Ries

Idk whales are an obsolete natural resource (their oil used to light almost every lamp in Europe and America for a time) and so the powers that be have no issue being anti-whaling nowadays, I'm pretty sure every industrialized nation is anti-whaling except Japan and thats cuz they like whale meat. It felt a bit too hippy to me or maybe I'm an incorrigible maotard

Josiah

its genuine

retrocalie

I feel like I’m the only one that thought this movie was just alright—enjoyable experience, certainly. Beautiful cinematography—definitely. The story however, is fine. Nothing you wouldn’t get out of an old Disney movie and while the themes are strong the application of them is so basic that it doesn’t leave any lasting impression. I get it pretty movie, boundary pushing cg, amazing water scenes. Beyond the gloss though it’s just ok there’s no real risks or outstanding character moments, but hey a “just ok” franchise from JC is something I’ll gladly take nowadays.

etienne

I saw a breadtuber do a like 45 minute half-serious analysis on it and basically it's a big joke because both how obvious it is that it's a analogy to a socialist revolution and how dumb it is to make 45 minutes of commentary on a cartoon for babies. I love chapo but I don't think they would be able to generate something less ridicoulous.

Scott

No, the point is that it’s Sully (a dumb guy who just happens to be brave) that has an incomplete understanding of colonial counter-insurgence doctrine. Cameron wrote the movie where Sully takes his family and runs halfway across the world to escape the forces of capital, and it does not work. The entire movie is a case for protracted people’s war, despite the terrible costs. On Pandora, an entire planetary ecosystem organized communistically, the whales are correct to be rigorous pacifists. When capitalism breaks into frame it will always be war to the death.

ZeeBee

Kind of surprised they didn't mention that the Marines were wearing Project Phoenix patches on their vests

Matthew Black

Is anybody willing to defend this bit

Chris Dobson

Hopefully he means the book?

etienne

scroll up, the ratios speak for themselves

Salt M. Bank

“A marine can’t be defeated. You can kill us, but we’ll just regroup in hell.” Is such a good line. The quaritch crew is so meat-headed they know they’re creating their own hell but they think it’s cool

justdave

Yes I stole the bit, you can kill me now if you want

Government Acid

Okay, genuine question, is "Avatar Is Good" actually a bit to them, or do they actually like Avatar? I started out thinking it was a bit, but this is like, what, their fourth or fifth episode exclusively or almost exclusively dedicated to Avatar? Is this a real thing or is this not a real thing?

Matthew Black

There are anti-imperialist movies that were actually done completely straight, sincerely and effective like Battle of Algiers, why would you argue the merits of Avatar 2 instead

etienne

because it would be difficult to craft succint and efficient riffs on top of a war drama from the 60's

etienne

you'd have to find an angle where you say it's objectively bad but ironically good, or that it says something profound but accidentally. You can't take a good movie and say it's good. that isn't analysis, that isn't comedy.

Matthew Black

It was funny the first time around because it was an improbable move, they sounded like they’d been brainwashed, and the Avatar series is a weird cultural artifact. Now they’re just beating the joke into the ground

TangiePower

The tree Navi are now living in the mountain area (from first movie) that has a magnetic field which fucks up the human navigation systems etcetera, so they are relatively safe except from the marine Avatars.

Major bit me

Sometimes it’s nice to get brainwashed just for a little bit

Fat Cobra

Fuck this blue life's matter bullshit

SF

It's not a bit. It’s a good movie and they like it. And yes we've all seen The Battle of Algiers, you're not impressing anyone.

SF

It’s a good movie and they like it.

Peter Fishbeast

How could you not be able to tell from listening to this?

Jon Lyons

Calling it now, the series ends with a "Project Zero Dawn" hybrid-Pandoran re-wilding of Earth for preserved human gametes or more uploaded brainstates to create new a new generation to start over.

Seb

Well said, I was thinking about this during the film as well. Thankfully, and as the boys pointed out, this movie takes its time and allows the viewer to reflect on what is happening on screen in real time.

Seb

It’s 100% not a bit

the lord commander

100% great decision to make the lead whaler a shit-head Aussie. I was cursing the pg-13 rating when that cable only cut his arm off

EaZy E

I haven’t seen it, but I also don’t care.

HarshMalarkey

What makes you think I'm joking? I'm quite serious about it.

Jamin Kreighbaum

Yeah, there weren't enough black and white still shots of a dead child's footprint in the sand for it to be intellectually stimulating.

Jamin Kreighbaum

They like it, their fan base is just too attached to the deep-dive into irony to appreciate anything for it's own sake aymore.

Peacock Jive

As a R word who loves guns I was gitty when Matt dropped "kimber 1911"

K102.1FM Mornings w/ Jonny Corndogs

As a fellow R-word gun enthusiast, it got a raised eyebrow out of me the first time around. It's like "you're a NYC podcast guy, you're not supposed to know that word, what?!"

Alexandr

It's not a bit because Avatar is good.

H.L. Merkin

Matt sells the bit best, by far. When Will and Felix talk about things they actually care about (think Felix donning his rap historian hat or Will interviewing someone with leftist bona fides) they speak more slowly and become inarticulate, for fear of misspeaking. In this ep it’s just an avalanche of complete bullshit.

Ian

It's clear that we need more episodes like this, to fix how broken so many fellow listeners are.

Justin Roll

morovuhh, ice must be destroyed

Poppy Chulo

I am surprised anyone could listen to this entire episode and not get that they genuinely enjoyed the movie.

Adam B

It’s a great movie. I enjoyed the ep and don’t think it’s a bit, but when they go so hard by saying that this is all we have and that the “revolutionary proletariat isn’t walking thru that door” is when I check out. If we can only hope to enjoy the right kind of entertainment as we are in the throes of complete collapse then there’s no movie in the world that will pull me out of a debilitating depression

Arthur G. Pym

You might think those themes are not “relevant” but watch the movie and tell me that Cameron doesn’t believe 100 percent in that stuff. And that’s what matters really

Saga

Agree with Will about the 'Arrival of the Arks' scene. Given there's no dialogue, it's amazing how powerful the storytelling is through imagery alone. Before we've even established a motive, when we're at our most passive, humanity can't help but destroy everything in its way. Peaceful cohabitation with humans isn't an option. Nice nod to Maori mythology too - the storyline with Payakan has some similarities to the myth of the Whale Rider (Paikea).

Comrade Trash Panda

To all the naysayers heed my words and listen: Your gesticulations to civic virtue will not save you from the coming apocalypse. These social justiceTM cultural fetishes you cling to will not place you among the elect. No. The Avatar way, the Jake Sully way, the way of laying down your life in service of the revolutionary struggle is the only way. To dismiss such things as appropriation and white savior narratives is to speak the language of the sky people. To speak the language of the demon. Eywa has no use for you, you are already full and must bear the shame of being useless.

Greg Danielius

I liked the part when Lowtax asked the Tulkun or whatever if he had stairs in his house.

Derwood

Those of you speculating whether or not this is a bit, what are you afraid of? Getting duped into enjoying a popular movie? Oh no! You’re gonna get brain washed into thinking that it’s fun to watch imperial troops get impaled by 7 ft arrows in an imaginative 3D alien environment. Bit or not, the movie is fun and James Cameron should be the de facto leader of the world.

AbeLinkin

What’s the significance of that? Sincerely, a dumb dumb

Kerri

I'm not sure about the others, but I'm certain it's not a bit for Matt at the very least.

Greg Danielius

Oh, I'm curious as to whether or not it's a bit but I'm a 48 yo man who doesn't actually need these admittedly loveable scamps to tell me what I'm supposed to like or not like. I completely understand they see value in the film's ideology but if you've heard the episode where they talked about the first movie, the political allegory aside, it *completely* came across as sarcastic.

ZeeBee

I assume it's a reference to the Phoenix Program in the Vietnam War. The CIA/military operation responsible for the torture and murder of tens of thousands of civilians for suspicion of supporting the Viet Cong.

etienne

I think Matt revealed something pretty profound when he said "oh you guys are saying that our Napoleon is working in entertainment, well that's the best that our society can produce because [...]". Well there you go. There are industrialists out there who claim to strive to save humanity with their riches and authority and it's valuable to call them out as charlatans, but Cameron already did that for you by being in a inconsequential industry in the first place. You can just enjoy. I don't think there's any problem with that. Chapo and Avatar are two entertainment products that do political commentary, so if you think Avatar has power to change things, then you think Chapo does, and if you think Chapo doesn't have any power to change things and it's just entertainment, then you believe that of Avatar too. It's self-contained.

Travis Gabe

This has to be a bit- every autistic person

Bob

Just saw it, movie rules, see it in 3D, I would say take the kids but lmao

Major bit me

Watch Zoolander - the story of how one extremely privileged American, who was born into a working class coal miner family in USA’s most godforsaken state, was ready to lay down his life successfully defending the international proletarian struggle. Against all odds, the protagonist managed to turn himself “left,” with world-historic consequences

constitutional Peasant

I really appreciate this episode. I saw it in 3d IMAX and basically was tearing up/ full on crying for a bit of it. The action scenes are mesmerizing, The characters are lovable and interesting, the story moves.... idk how anyone could convince themselves that this movie is anything but good as hell. This episode was a great way to remember everything I witnessed in the theater.

constitutional Peasant

The way of water has no beginning and no end. Our hearts beat in the womb of the world. Water connects all things, life to death, darkness to light. The sea gives and the sea takes.

THEKILLERWHALE

He is even close friends with a guy named Spider.

AbeLinkin

Was Qarich’s crushing of the skull in any way an homage to the opening scene of Terminator 2 when the machine steps on and crushes a skull?

Dante

I remember when the first one came out their was a bunch of Warhammer 40k memes about killing navi Which is funny since 40k is about how a rotting collapsing Empire (for 40k the British) is still dangerous and the Navi are a perfect stand ins for Eldar exodite world right down to the world having a mind made of all the Eldar that died and can control the animals ect

Gregor Cunningham

The varied frame rate looked like ass but otherwise 2 thumbs up from me.

Turlough Kelly

I never know if the Avatar stuff is meant to be a bit. I kind of hope it is.

D.O.D

is this why Virgil isnt on the show anymore?

D.O.D

I reckon so, along with a bit of Shakespeareanism (i.e. Yorick and the Gravedigger in Hamlet). Cameron loves referencing his own work and had like a decade-plus to think about allusions in the script

Poppy Chulo

Did you listen to the entire thing? It's obvious they genuinely like the movie.

Poppy Chulo

It's amusing how many chapo fans are confused about whether this is a bit. They spend so much time ironically liking things like edgelord hipsters they can't recognize genuine enjoyment. This is an hour and a half of them dissecting the film and talking about why they liked it, at a certain point even the most self absorbed douchebag edgelord should be able to discern whether or not it's a bit.

Michael Branes

I was thinking about how cameron makes CGI characters feel more real than any dumb pixar: it's because he uses that steady/shakey cam effect sometimes when there's a really dynamic shot with the na'vi characters. he makes them feel like they literally have weight. at least that's one element of the realness

Medellin

Get james cameron as a guest and you boys will be in the podcast hall of fame

Turlough Kelly

I'll be honest bud, I didn't, because about 20 minutes in, I decided it was either a bit that wasn't funny anymore, or else the boys' tastes are radically different from mine and it wasn't for me

LankyShooter

missed that on my first listen, but shout out to fellow gun dorks. Not a 1911 stan, but I'd stay away from Kimbers probably. Too many better value options out there.

Jack

I agree they’re being genuine but I think they’re leaning into it too. The bit isn’t that they’re pretending to like it, but theres a touch of bittyness in how they idealize it all. They like feeding into the James Cameron / Avatar mythos just as much as they like the movie itself cause it’s fun. Maybe I’m just projecting though cause I was that guy singing the James Cameron theme song on the way out the theatre

Michael Branes

also, hearing about the fire na'vi - cameron is bringing video games into cinema in the best way possible. i fucking love it! breath of the wild has similar themes around death and rebirth

Poppy Chulo

Well there you go, "bud." Why even comment when you didn't listen to the episode? Why waste everyone's time?

J.P. McD.

Waaahhhh I can’t listen to a podcast if they don’t have the exact same opinions as me on a movie

My Name

real life can’t stop people from destroying the planet but CGI will 🙏🏻🙏🏻🙏🏻

zach

Jack you’re 100% correct, it’s silly to pretend there’s no irony whatsoever at play here (though they obviously also do genuinely think the movie is great—it is!)

Agent Grange

At the risk of being one of the most annoying motherfuckers you will speak to today, I think instead of a binary of "ironic" or "genuine" (or the even more depraved "postironic") it's something akin to metamodernism aka post-post-modernism. Yeah. I know. I sound like a punchable asshole but hear me out. I don't think they're doing it intentionally, but I think they're taping into something metamodernist theories had suggested before post-irony became the dominant response to post-modernism. I think it actually gels will with the point of this episode when they talk about James Cameron making people afraid of being genuine. Essentially, we are in an environment where ironic quips is the norm as a result of all the social alienation we have that prohibits us from being sincere. Just like how irony developed in a sincere environment as a way of using social abundant genuine language sarcastically to signal you are NOT being genuine to avoid social friction by being confrontational, metamodernism is using the social abundance of irony ironically to signal you're being genuine without the social friction of seeming cringe. It's basically a double negative, being sincere by being ironic . As aging millennials this is something the Chapo boys will do automatically because they developed in a set of material and social conditions where they most abundantly had irony to express and convey their emotions. It's the same way autistic people learn to be chameleons to mask their feeling based on their social environment, but broken down to the meta parts of neurotypical socialization. It's just because most people aren't autistic we don't normally spend time thinking of the meta of socialization. Tl;dr-- James Cameron is so sincere his work is able to break through the millennial ironic cynicism that developed as a result of how shitty our media and society is. We are just so irony poisoned we only know how to express sincerity through the ironic use of irony. We are living in a simulacrum of a simulacrum, a social post apocalypse and instead of going one simulacrum deeper into post-irony Big Jim is bring us the fire of civilization once more by returning to sincerity. For now though we are just the Fallout New Vegas tribesman only able to understand the world through the ravaged wasteland we grew up in. Well not me anymore. I'm ready Jim, let's march forward backwards into the past.

Mangomoosh

Why so blue ? I was fully in after that.

Turlough Kelly

It's not really that, though. I feel like the bit is predicated on Avatar being world-historically brilliant (which is fine and funny for about 15 minutes), and if it's not a bit, I kind of feel fairly entitled to tune out of a lengthy encomium about a movie that means nothing to me. That seems fair enough?

Turlough Kelly

I'm not complaining, I've been a patron for about five years and have heard every episode, I'm just not that inclined to listen to the boys rave about a movie franchise that does nothing for me, even as a bit. I'm sure the podcast will survive.

th

ask him to make better movies then

Roger Peet

Couple of things I noticed: "that's why I drink" is a Paul Ehrlich quote, he's said it in a number of interviews over the years. Second: the small animal that swims right up to the camera in the first ten minutes if the ocean part is an Opabinia, a very strange creature from the Burgess Shale fossil deposit of the Cambrian era.

K

James Cameron is a visionary of our times. And he did some really cheeky things in the first Avatar. Grace Augustine wears a Stanford t-shirt. Such a simple image. And yet it recalls the just war theorist St. Augustine whose ideas legitimized the violence of Christian civilization against the non-Christians beyond Europe. And so it also recalls the oldest contiguously inhabited city in America. And her Stanford t-shirt recalls Leland Stanford, the mining and rail magnate (of all things) and future governor of California -- America's final frontier. Leland Stanford eradicated many California native peoples. There's Norm(al) Spelman. There's Miles (Roman soldier) Quaritch. And there's Jake (the first-born son to supplant) Sully (to tarnish and defile). But of course many of these characters have seen and will see redemption and salvation. You have all the phallic (technologial spaceship) and ovum (ecological Pandora) and womb (avatar pod) and coffin imagery. James Cameron is a cheeky motherfucker. He's one of the few thinkers reimagining the violent dialectic between technology and ecology as a possibility for rebirth and healing. And technology and ecology really are the parents of humanity. And yet this violent struggle will see the end of most of technology and most of ecology alike. Both are dependent on the stable capture and manipulation of energy and matter and these processes are becoming less and less viable. Aquifers are drying, topsoil is disappearing, oil wells are running dry, mines are getting deeper, forests are burning, temperature and precipitation is swinging wildly, croplands are flooding then scorching, and so on. Bridges, buildings, roads, neighborhoods, machines, public utilities and so on are falling into disrepair. Humanity does not have good chances on its current trajectory. Some online left reactions to the Avatar franchise are insane. I got downvoted to hell on r/LateStageCapitalism for praising the original film. Folks kept going on and on about "WHITE SAVIOR COMPLEX." And here I am thinking that these posting warriors probably also worship Che Guevara, a wealthy white doctor with upper class colonial landowner ancestry. In the first 15 minutes of the first Avatar we see that Jake Sully is a burned out, paraplegic vet who lives in a beat up studio apartment, gets beat up himself in a bar defending a woman, and can't even muster a tear at his own twin brother's cremation. He's treated as a subhuman grunt by the corporate, scientific, and military types on Pandora. And to them he may be more useless than the blue people. And yet Jake Sully fights to be reborn among these blue people with new legs and a family. And who really are these blue people? A lot of people took them to be Amazonians, or Africans, Native Americans, or Southeast Asians. Sure, I guess. But the blue Navi people also reference the blue people of Ancient Britain, the forgotten ancestors of the "Anglos" dominating the imperial world today. The Britons wore blue paint when they were the "savages" on the imperial periphery. Tacitus and Caesar wrote about this. And the ancient Britons fascinated Joseph Conrad. We also see unsurprising references to Apocalypse Now! in Avatar. James Cameron is reframing the conversation of the ages that has spanned millennia. And what good 'ole Jim means to say is that Jake Sully, the blue people, James Cameron himself, the audience are all much the same. We're living through a millennia-long tragedy that may see finally see its ending. And James Cameron is telling us that amidst all the death and dying there is a chance for reunion between technology and ecology that will stage humanity's rebirth. And that as children of technology and ecology we have been crawling and stumbling through history and now we must finally learn to walk on our own two legs.

Aaron Baer

Throbbing leftist alert !!! Great analysis and hopeless wishcasting on your part. We're doomed. Iron role of institutions ... Google it and black pill away from there.

Vivian Irby

I wish I could see Avatar the way the boys do, but it's really no different from an MCU movie to me. I don't have the Cameron delusion, I'm sorry

dingbat44

Go get laid jesus christ its a movie about blue cat people.

dingbat44

James Cameron funds the podcast.

Henry Klatt

Something I noticed when watching was the way they portrayed the environments of pandora depending on who we were watching. When we saw the Navi in the jungle, the jungle was full of bright lights and colorful pulsating plant and animal life. When the operator bros are in the jungle, it's the dark, oppressive jungle of a Nam movie. The same thing happens in the whale's mouth. The second son goes in and it's a beautiful, psychodelic place of wonder. The whalers go in the mouth later and it's a cold and dead corpse.

Adrienne Suydam

He’s maybe mid 40s/50’s in the movie so I imagine he’d be in rough shape or dead by now. He’d be a great guest tho

Robert Karnick

Just watched it for the second time and it’s even better. Fully intend to see it in all available formats and from many different positions in the theater

Ryan Palm

One of the best and most uplifting episodes of Chapo. Felt like a sermon but in a good way.

Joe

Love it. Do “The Menu” next.

Joe

Dude, how much do you charge to live in your brain (by the minute), please?

cwen

I saw a leaked script of Part 3 and it is revealed that Spider and Kiri are siblings. And yeah, the father is Quaritch…

cwen

Did you hear Sullys sons just dropped an album on SoundCloud? Sick.

Nathan

in mythology, phoenixes are resurrected after they die.

Elliot Matheny

I appreciate your autistic essay, but in this house, we love and cherish Che Guevara and do not disrespect his holy name. Having colonial ancestors and a medical degree doesn’t in any way tarnish my man’s stellar reputation as a revolutionary legend, a model of solidarity and direct action.

Elliot Matheny

In what Marvel movie is US capitalist extraction explicitly identified as the cause of global destruction? In what movie do the avengers ever directly confront and destroy the US military? There’s the difference, it’s not hard to see

foxy

elon *snap* half his money disappears

foxy

Great example of why this episode of the podcast was just kinda boring even if I can't disagree

foxy

incoming planet of the apes sequel where they realize pandora is just cambrian earth and their spaceships are really travelling through time not space :O