#141. 'Avatar'
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The episode covers the theatrical re-release of James Cameron's Avatar ahead of the Way of the Water sequel, and it's a movie of wild contrasts among the three hosts. Sonny endures an epic odyssey just to see it — a canceled screening, a highway blocked by cops, a wrong-theater ticket mixup, and finally watching in 2D while wearing his own 3D lenses out of habit — and comes away calling it a technical marvel wrapped around a "rote to the point of annoyance" story full of stock characters and hackneyed dialogue. JVL insists that criticism misses the point: Avatar isn't really a movie but "the best theme park ride ever released," and he marvels at how well the visuals and immersion held up on rewatch even as he argues the film, despite reshaping Hollywood's box-office economics for a decade, left almost zero lasting cultural footprint. Vic, a 3D skeptic, found the film a dull slog until his glasses' second lens mysteriously "unblacked" mid-screening and the movie transformed into something immersive; on his Quadrant scorecard he awards an A+ for plot, an F- for duration, a B (B+ in 3D) for action/violence, and a C for sex/nudity. Before the movie talk, the guys spend a long stretch riffing on the spread of digital tip-jar culture (sparked by Sonny's old McDonald's tip-cup prank story) and picking apart a lopsided box-office weekend, mocking Bros star Billy Eichner's claim that homophobia tanked his film and marveling at horror surprise Smile's $22 million opening. Tangents pile up throughout, including the wave of shoddy post-conversion 3D movies Avatar spawned, a deep-cut G.I. Joe vehicle debate (Snow Cat vs. Polar Battle Bear), and The Lion King musical's Broadway grosses, before the episode closes with Sonny recapping a Smashing Pumpkins concert and the trio arguing over the band's real lineup and best song.
From the show notes
Misadventures galore as the guys go watch Avatar . Plus, JVL needs some snowblower advice.
Full transcript
Guest00:00:00Outstanding. You haven't gotten lost in the woods, have you? Did you forget what team you're playing for? Strong prey on the weak, and nobody does a thing. You've got one hour. You knew this would happen? Everything changed. Jake, it's crazy here. The core is just rolling and there's no stopping him. We're going up against gunships with bows and arrows. Well, I guess we better stop him.
Vic00:00:43Hello and welcome to another edition of The Sub-Beacon. I'm Victor Matus along with Sonny Bunch and Jonathan V. Last. Just a reminder, The Sub-Beacon is now available through Patreon. Go to subbeacon.com, you'll easily find us. Please subscribe, tell your friends, and don't forget about The Sub-Beacon.
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Sonny00:05:56Sub-Beacon.com.
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Sonny00:13:26You can't possibly ever hit that. That would be... You think they don't notice that? You'd be banned. Get it. You'd be banned.
Vic00:13:32Yeah, how do you feel about it? Well, I guess I know how you feel about that. You still...
Sonny00:13:36I mean, I think it sucks. Well, I mean, so I used to work at a McDonald's. I've talked about this a little bit before on the show, but I went for like three years in high school from like age 15 to 18.
Vic00:13:45Good for you.
Sonny00:13:46I worked at a McDonald's and it was awesome. It was the best job I ever had because I got to work with complete idiots all the time and I felt superior to them. It was wonderful. But no, but like one day as a joke in the window of the drive-thru, I put up a little cup that said, you know, tip cup. Because like it's a funny joke because I work at a McDonald's, so I shouldn't get... I don't get tips. I'm not a like waiter. And I did that and like I swear to God, like 15 minutes later, the manager came around and was like, what are you doing? Why are you getting tips from people? I was like, nobody's giving me any tips. It's a joke. I'm not... Because I'm not a... You have to get rid of... You have to get rid of that and you have to return any money. I was like, there's no money in there because nobody's giving me tips because... But that has changed now. Oh, you'd fill that up. The world has changed. I feel it in the air. I feel it in the water. Because every place I go now, every place, everybody gets tips. Everybody gets a tip for something. But those people don't get... Those people aren't getting like... I would... I mean, I don't know this for sure, but I would assume that they are not being paid the tipped wage. Now, like this is... This is a big thing. So, I mean, like there... I know... I know a lot about this, again, from having worked at McDonald's for a long time, but also like having done a lot of minimum wage policy work and like op-ed, writing op-eds and stuff. Like it... It's... There's a... There's a federal minimum wage and there's a minimum tipped wage. And like if you are a... If you... If most of your income comes from tips, you get like $2.23 an hour. Maybe... That may have gone up some. I don't remember. And the minimum wage, you know, the regular minimum wage is much higher than that. It's... I don't even know what it is now. Eight something.
JVL00:15:26But that's because the... Those are jobs where the tips are a substantial portion of the income. I believe that in this new universe, the answer is almost nobody tips. And the... The number of tips is quite small.
Sonny00:15:40I don't think that's true. I don't think that's true at all.
JVL00:15:43I...
Sonny00:15:43I would be... I think I... I... Maybe I'm just a sucker. Maybe I'm just a sucker who gets guilted into it.
JVL00:15:50No. Well, the percentage is also misleading. The percentage is very, very small.
Vic00:15:54The percentage is also misleading. Because when... If I... If I go to a certain place that are like a coffee shop called the Starnut McLean, and I get a coffee and I... You know, it'll show you, oh, 18%. And it's like 39 cents. You know what I mean? Because I'm just getting a small coffee. I'm like, oh, what the heck? Of course, I'll click that on or whatever the higher number is. But again, as J.V. Ellis says, you know, I mean, it's... It's otherwise meant for, you know, restaurants where, you know, a waiter is, you know, somebody just ordered... You know, the Chateau Lafitte, and you're going to get, you know, 20% of $1,000. I mean, I think about this...
Sonny00:16:31Do you tip on the wine, Vic?
Vic00:16:32What? Do you tip on the wine? I do. I do. I do.
JVL00:16:36Well, I mean, somebody's tipping. Sorry. So think about Starbucks, right? So Starbucks was very early to this. And the tip... There was a huge thing within Starbucks, right? At one point, Starbucks said, we're going to do away with the tips. And then the partners really revolted. And they brought back the tip jar. And for a very, very long time, it was only physical tips, right? It was... There's no credit version of it. And I don't know. Like, I would watch and... I think it looked like a store. A store might pull $100 a day in tips. Total. Right. And that's at Starbucks where you know your baristas and you become friends with them. It's not like, you know, random, like, I'm at the Poke Bowl.
Sonny00:17:25But I don't think that... I don't think you can tip on credit cards at Starbucks still. I don't think. Yeah, I'm not sure. I don't think you can.
Vic00:17:39I think it's still just cash.
JVL00:17:40I think I must have given...
Sonny00:17:42You just put whatever the change is that you get, you put it in the tip jar.
JVL00:17:45Those jars are not overflowing.
Sonny00:17:47Well, no, no. But no, but this is different, though. This is frictionless percentage tipping. Yeah, all you have to do is... And I bet it's a much higher percent than that. I bet it's...
JVL00:17:57Maybe. I'd be surprised.
Sonny00:17:59I would be curious. I wish I had some numbers on this because I would be very curious to see what it is.
Vic00:18:03And Sonny, by the way, I can understand your McDonald manager's concerns because it might have been a joke to you, but you were basically competing with Ronald McDonald House on the spare change. I mean, really.
Sonny00:18:17I was. I was taking it right out of those cancer kids' mouths.
Vic00:18:20I know, those poor kids. Okay. You wanted to go next or did you want to do boxers? Box office and then talk about the movie. What do you want to do?
Sonny00:18:28We could... Well, let me... Yeah. So, we're talking about Avatar. Yes, we are. And I just want... I had a bit of an adventure getting to see it this week. So, I was going out on Tuesday night. I was going out on Tuesday night and I was going to go to an 8 p.m. showing at the AMC North Park. It's the closest theater to me.
Vic00:18:51So, you did an AMC as well.
Sonny00:18:53Okay. I was... Well, I was going to. And I... But I didn't buy my tickets. I didn't buy my tickets until... I usually buy my tickets like 30 minutes ahead of time because, like, I don't buy earlier in the day, whatever. And as I was getting ready to leave, as I was getting ready to leave my house to go to the theater, I pulled up the app and I was going to buy my tickets. So, I go... And they canceled the screening because nobody bought any tickets. Wow. So, this is now... I'm like, oh, that's not good. That's... How am I going to go see this movie? So, I start... I pull up Fandango and I, like, go... I go to the app and I'm scrolling through and I'm like, oh, okay, there's an 8.15 showing at the Cinemark. The Cinemark. So, I was like, all right, I'll go to that instead. So, I buy that ticket and I go to get my car. Like, I got to go. I got to go because the Cinemark's further away. I got to go. So, I get my car and I'm driving down the highway. I get to the entrance of the highway. Entrance of the highway is closed. Entrance. The 630... The beltway around Dallas. Entrance to the highway is closed. Cops just in front of it saying, no, can't come. Can't come this way. And I, like, literally put my hands up in the air. Like, you guys can see me. I got my hands up and I'm like, what am I supposed to do? And cops said, I don't care. You just can't come here. So, I then have to... I literally... So, this is... Again, it's like a beltway style road. So, it's not like there's, like, an easy parallel road that I can get on and then get up to the next... I can't just do a U-turn and, like, go up to... So, I, like... I'm, like, kind of panicking at this point because I'm running behind because I have to go to a different theater. It's further away. I, like... I do a loop all the way back around. I loop all the way back around and I get on a... I get on... I find a parallel highway road to get on. I get on that and I'm like, all right, I'm going to take this to the exit and I'll get on there. And I'm following it and I realize I'm going right back to the same exit. I'm going right back to the same exit. And I get there and I'm like, oh, fuck. I got to... And luckily, I don't know... Thank... You know, praise to the heavens on this one, but the cops were finally moving everything out of the way. I don't know if there had been an accident or what. But, like, they were moving. They were moving out of the way. And I, like, did the hands thing again and he just, like, shook his head and, like, waved me through. He was like, all right, idiot.
Vic00:21:00Was it the same guy? Was it the same cop? Same guy. Same guy. That's funny.
Sonny00:21:03Same guy. And it... But, like I said, they were, like, clearing out. So, whatever. So, I'm... Now, I'm on the highway and I'm, you know, ate the... Yeah. But I'm just, you know... Of course, people are screaming past me on the left because in Texas, nobody does under 90. It's, you know... But I'm driving... I'm driving about as fast as I feel comfortable. That's... It's the freest state. So, I'm driving and I get there and I pull into the parking lot and the parking lot... So, the Cinemark parking lot, it could probably fit, like, 400 cars. I mean, like, an enormous number of cars. It is half full. It is half full on a Tuesday night at 8.15. I'm like, what the fuck is going on? What is happening?
Guest00:21:47You're going to have to take a shuttle.
Sonny00:21:48So, I was like, all right, I'm going to park right at the front. I'll just run right in and get, you know, get seated and everything. I have to park halfway back in this parking lot. I get up there and there are approximately 500 Indian people milling about because one of the... They're having one of the special screenings of the, like, you know...
Vic00:22:08Oh, yes, yes, yes. The ones that every now and then make it into the box office.
Sonny00:22:12It's like a one-night thing and the whole Indian community of Dallas has shown up at this one theater to watch this movie. So, I'm like, all right, whatever. I go and I get my popcorn. I go and I get... I get my popcorn. I wait in line and I, you know, get my soda and I'm like, all right, it's 8.15. It's 8.15. I'm right... I'm here. It's perfect timing. I go up to the ticket booth and I show the guy my... The ticket, you know, that I have on the Fandango app and I show it to him. I'm like, hey, here you go. And he scans it. He scans it and he looks at me. He's like, uh... He scans it again. He's like, no, sir. This is for the Cinemark on 75 up the highway. This... You are at the wrong theater. And I'm like, ah, fuck. I am at the wrong theater. So I pull it up on my map and I look at it. I'm like, oh, it's like 30 miles away.
Vic00:23:04I was going to say, and it's Texas, so you're probably an hour away.
Sonny00:23:07It's not a close theater.
JVL00:23:08Do they have an avatar screening at this theater?
Sonny00:23:10Well, so I go up to the box. He's like, you got to go to the box office and get a ticket for the next showing. So I'm like, all right, well, let's go see what the next showing is. So I go to the box office and the previous showing had started at like 6.30. Which meant the next showing wasn't going to start until 10.15.
JVL00:23:26That's right.
Sonny00:23:2710.15. And if I started watching Avatar at 10.15 at night, I would not get home till 2 in the morning. 2 in the morning.
JVL00:23:34Truth.
Sonny00:23:35Maybe later. We'll see. But so I like go up there. I'm like, oh, fine. Can I get like a ticket for the next day? Can I get like a ticket for Wednesday at like 6.45?
Vic00:23:48At least you know where it is now.
Sonny00:23:50Because now I know. And the guy's like, yeah. It's going to take me a minute. Let me get my manager down here. So he goes, calls up the managers coming down. And as all this is happening, I'm looking at the Fandango app again. And I see that the local, the nearest to my house, Studio Movie Grill has a showing at 8.15. It started like it's, you know, the start time was like four minutes ago on my phone. And I'm like, hmm, can I still buy a ticket? I could still buy a ticket. So I bought a ticket. I told the guy, keep your dumb, keep your dumb ticket. I got to go. And I run, I run half a mile back to my car because, again, it's like halfway out in the parking lot. I'm dumping popcorn out as I go because I want to keep, I want to keep my special Black Adam bucket. I got the Black Adam bucket. I dumped out, I dumped out like $100 of popcorn as I'm running.
JVL00:24:39Wait, you bought your popcorn first at the Cinemark?
Sonny00:24:42Yes.
JVL00:24:42Wait, you stopped for Jujifruit?
Sonny00:24:45I went, I went. Why would I, why would I go to my seat first? I would get the popcorn and then I would go to my seat. It's not like I knew I was at the. Wrong theater.
JVL00:24:53But they don't scan your ticket before you get into the popcorn?
Sonny00:24:56No, no, they scan, no, they scan your ticket. So, yeah, so at every, at every AMC I've ever been to, it's, it's like that. But, or at every Regal, it's, but at Cinemark, like you can walk in, you can.
JVL00:25:07Do things.
Sonny00:25:09You can do things.
JVL00:25:09So you can just go to the Cinemark to get the popcorn.
Sonny00:25:12You can go to Cinemark and get the popcorn.
JVL00:25:13You don't even need to see a movie.
Sonny00:25:14Get a mini pizza from. Just hang out. Sitting there for six hours.
JVL00:25:18Watch, watch the middle school girls.
Sonny00:25:21Watch the people. Uh, so I, so I, I run to my car. Now I'm going back the other way on the highway, which thankfully the entrance was open.
JVL00:25:29With your black Adam bucket.
Sonny00:25:30I'm, I'm doing, I'm doing an unspeakable speed on the highway, uh, to, to get back to the, to get back to like closer to my house. I get there. Uh, and once again, the theater parking lot is like two thirds full. I got to park all, I got to park 70 miles away from the, the actual front of the theater. And I, well, I couldn't, everybody was actually in the theater at this point, so I could, I couldn't, I don't, but I would assume, I would assume. Cause again, it's a Tuesday night at 8 PM. Well, I'm like running in and I go and I give the lady my ticket. I'm like, Oh, do I need a, do I need 3d glasses? But I don't actually need 3d glasses. Cause I brought, uh, our good friend, Tony Davis has the, gave us the, the, um, uh, you know, the little flip down lens things, you know, for the, for, for, for 3d, for 3d movies. And I was like, I'm going to wear this, but I want to have a pair of glasses just in case, just to make sure, you know, so I'm like, Hey, can I get a pair of glasses? Can I get, uh, can I get my 3d glasses? She's like, Oh, they're at the, they're at, they're at the screen. You just go to the screen and you'll get them there. I was like, Oh, okay. So I go and I walk in the screen. I'm the only person in this theater. I walk in, I walk in as I walk in as Jake Sully is like landing on Pandora. So I've missed like the first two minutes of the movie, but it's, it's fine. I'm, I'm fine. I sit down and like, as Vic had mentioned, we discussed this off, off, you know, when, when, but I was like, Oh, there's not much 3d effect right now. It must be because they haven't really, you know, he has, he's not in. His avatar body. That's when like the 3d kicks in really for real. So I was like, all right, well, I guess I'll just, I'll put on my lenses. I put it on and I start watching it. I'm like, yeah, this is great. Look at this. Even the 3d, the 3d so subtle, but it's, it's very artistic right now. And the waiter, because it's a studio movie grill waiter, he comes in and he's like, sir, would you like a drink? And I was like, I would like a drink. Cause I have had a fucking night, my man. Give me, give me a 22 ounce Velma velvet hammer. That would be lovely. A velvet hammer. And he's, and he's, he's. He pours, he go, he takes the order and he's going to leave. And I'm like, yeah, there weren't any glasses out there for the 3d. And he was like, oh no, this is a 2d screen. You get to sit there like it, sit there like an idiot with my 3d lenses on appreciating
Vic00:27:39the subtle artistry of James Cameron. Yeah. And I, you have such a good eye for these things with the black colors and things like that, you know?
Sonny00:27:47So anyway, I did see, I saw 99% of avatar. I did miss. Again, like the first minute I came in during 3d.
JVL00:27:56Did you really see it at all? But no, this was the thing.
Sonny00:27:58This is the whole point. The whole point of going to see it in the theater was I want to see it in 3d so we could talk about the 3d and blah, blah. And like, I, I did eventually get to see it so I can actually talk about the movie, but I did not unfortunately get to experience the splendor of avatar in 3d sadly. So that was my, that was, sorry, that took, took a little bit, but that was my adventure. Getting to the theater.
Vic00:28:24That is like, that is a Larry Miller-esque windup story right there.
Sonny00:28:28Thank you.
Vic00:28:31Amazing. Amazing. As you know, I was exchanging my headaches with you regarding my avatar experience. But before we get that, I think we should talk about the box office.
Sonny00:28:43Box office.
Vic00:28:44I apologize. I didn't, I didn't have an actual proper transition because I was hoping that the movie bros would penetrate the top of the box office, but it. Didn't, it spluttered over the weekend in fifth place, thank you, with $4.8 million behind Avatar, apparently. Avatar. That did like about $5 million and then.
JVL00:29:06Behind Avatar.
Vic00:29:07Behind Avatar, you know, just really closely behind. And then in front of that was The Woman King and then with about 6.8 and then Don't Worry Darling was slightly above that at 6.8 also. And then in first place. Smile, with 22, a whopping $22 million.
JVL00:29:27We should do a show on that, don't you think, Sonny?
Vic00:29:29Yeah, we should. I think you'd love it. Big on Smile. Love it, JVO. What's going on here? Box office thoughts.
Sonny00:29:37Several box office thoughts. So first off, Bros is a gigantic bum and Billy Eichner, the star, went on a rant on Twitter. He blamed it on the straights, homophobia, you know, they're not showing up. And I discussed this. I discussed this on another podcast on Across the Movie Aisle, but there are a whole bunch of reasons that's wrong. Just like, to gross the amount of money that movie grossed in the markets that it over-indexed in, you know, it probably sold about 400,000 tickets, which is not very many. Is that good? That's not very good. That is a bad number of tickets to sell. And so that means that, like, not only did the straights not show up, but the gays also didn't show up. And everybody, nobody showed up for this movie. That's what you're saying.
JVL00:30:22Is it Billy Eichner is half right? The problem is the straights didn't show up.
Sonny00:30:27The straights didn't show up. I mean, like, it's to a hilarious extent. Like, if every single ticket that was sold for this movie was sold to a member of the LGBT community, that means that 98.7% of the LGBT community did not show up for Bros. So, anyway, nobody went to see this movie.
JVL00:30:47Well, that's the other half of the problem. The problem is that basically it's a two-part problem. The first part is... The first part is the straights didn't show up and the second part is that the gays didn't show up either. And if those two things had just not gone the other way, it would have been a big hit.
Sonny00:31:00It could have been huge. It could have done smile numbers. So, and that's the other... Avatar beating out Bros is a very funny outcome. I mean, grossing not only like 1.2 million or so more, but almost doubling the per screen average because it was on 3D screens and it was on fewer screens, whatever. The most interesting thing here, two interesting things. One is that Don't Worry Darling fell off a cliff, dropped 64.6%.
JVL00:31:30Well, that's because the straights don't like powerful women directors.
Sonny00:31:34Because the straights didn't show up. That's right. Because straight men did not show up.
JVL00:31:37That's the problem.
Sonny00:31:38But the big number here is Smile at 22.6 million. And I have to say, I called it two months ago. Two months ago, I looked at like the upcoming releases of films and I was like, of all of the movies coming out since Bullet, Train, there are only two that jump out at me as possibly grossing more than $20 million. Smile and Barbarian. And one was Barbarian, which only did 10 million. And the other was Smile, which did 22 million. And Smile, I went to go see it myself. And it's terrifying. JBL would love it. Anyway. It looks horrible.
Vic00:32:15It's, yeah, I didn't find it interesting. I saw the teaser trailer. And it just didn't, I was not convinced. I was compelled by that. Oh, I was compelled, all right. Compelled to never fucking watch that movie.
Sonny00:32:28Power of Christ compels you to run away.
Vic00:32:30No, I'm, there are other scary movies that I'm more, like, curious about. But Smile is not one of them.
Sonny00:32:37I mean, I enjoyed it fine. I mean, what it is, it's the ring. It's the ring. Oh, really?
Vic00:32:41You watch something and it puts you in a permanent smiling state?
Sonny00:32:44Yeah, the smile ghost, like, jumps from body to body and it makes people kill themselves. And the trauma of having witnessed that. Makes the next host of the smile ghost kill him. It's like, it's literally about trauma.
Vic00:32:57It's not just you get the smile, but you get the smile and because you can't get rid of the smile, you kill yourself?
Sonny00:33:02Well, no, what happens is there's something tormenting the people and it's, like, making them go crazy. And people think that they're seeing things and that they need to be committed to a hospital. And then the trauma ghost goes into their mouths and takes them over and makes them do the rictus smile and then kills themselves. And the next person who sees the death. They're so traumatized that they get infected by the trauma ghost.
Vic00:33:26It transfers over.
Sonny00:33:27That's how it, yeah, it's kind of like it follows. It's like the ring meets. It follows crossed with the killing the joker.
Vic00:33:33Yeah, yeah. Well, that's great. Do you do you remember Bird Box? I do remember ridiculous movie and it was something like that where it's like, don't look at it.
Sonny00:33:44You'll kill you when she when she saw it. It made you it made you go crazy.
Vic00:33:48It was something that was flying around.
Sonny00:33:50I forget. Was it aliens?
Vic00:33:52Yes, they never tell you, but it's flying around. It was aliens. Aliens. Well, okay.
Sonny00:34:00Yeah. So, Vic, you went to go see.
Vic00:34:02So, yes. How was your what was your. I mean, honestly, I didn't really. I'd never seen. I'd never seen it before. I'd never seen a brand new experience, brand new experience. I didn't want to let alone see. And I'm not a fan of 3D. I just like nothing about this movie interests me. I got I knew the gist of the movie and I'm like, you know what? I'd be on the side of like James Cameron.
JVL00:34:21What you like?
Vic00:34:22James Cameron, which to me, his best movie. The last great movie he did was probably True Lies. You know, I mean, Titanic fine, but that's it. And I mean, he's only made.
JVL00:34:32I suspect you love every single movie he's made.
Vic00:34:36Terminator. Yeah, Terminator. Remember what Aliens said? He goes, I did movies with James Cameron during his art house days. This is what he said.
JVL00:34:46So again, unless I'm incorrect. Yeah, you love every movie. James Cameron. That's right.
Vic00:34:50I like most of it, but I just didn't like. The premise of this. And I don't like CGI, so I'm like, I have no desire to see this movie. But I said, whatever, we're doing it. I'm going in. So I go to the AMC. I get the 3D glasses, which, by the way, I have to put on top of these glasses. It's the worst. It's the worst. That is the worst, right? And I said I missed the first part of the movie because I thought there'd be more trailers. Apparently there weren't, you know, and so I sit down. It's just I came in, Sonny, around the same time that you did when you saw your movie, when he was here, what was what was
Sonny00:35:22the first thing that you that you saw?
Vic00:35:24He arrives in Pandora.
Sonny00:35:25Yeah, you missed a little bit of prologue. Did you see him? Did you see them like burning the brother's body?
Vic00:35:31No, no. What year is it, by the way? The future. Okay. So then I put it on this glasses and I'm like, you know, I can only see. Well, nobody can see us here because, you know, we don't have video, but I can only see out of one lens. The other one is black. I'm supposed to watch a movie like this, like it's like one is tinted and one is clear, so I'm like, I can't watch it like this. Besides, if I take it off, I like I feel like I'm watching a regular movie anyway, so I'll just watch it as a regular movie. And by the way, as a regular movie, I find this very uninteresting. It's boring. Nothing's happening, whatever, whatever. Even and he's there, nothing. It's just not doing it for me. And then he goes into the planet and he's in his avatar body now, right? They're exploring things in the in the planet. And then those awful looking CGI hyenas attack him, right? I'm like. Oh, just like how much longer do I have to sit through this? And he's fighting them off. Middle of the fight. The screen goes blurry. Hmm. And I go, wow. I go, what? You know, like I want to walk out now. But instead, let me just put on my 3D glasses, get boom. It is suddenly now clear in 3D. The black lens is now clear because it's magic. You know, that's how the 3D thing works now. It's like now I can see mysteriously out of both because that's the way it works. And it was like a whole other movie. Like you are immersed in it, even though it's glasses on top of glasses. And that experience you I it's not meant to be watched. Now, remember, I mentioned this to you, JVL and Sonny, where I wanted to watch it at home and Amazon is doing this thing where they're migrating out of the TVs onto your phones and computers like, oh, you want to rent this movie? You got to rent it on your computer. So I'm like, do I really want to watch Avatar on this as rent or buy? And they tell you how to watch it. And I can't watch it on the on my TV for some reason.
Sonny00:37:26Do you not have I'm sorry, do you not have prime video on your.
Vic00:37:28I do. I do. But this was like not available. And so I had to say either purchase it on your phone or your or your computer. And I'm like, do I really want to watch it there? It really is not meant. And I think if I watched the whole movie, which is a very long movie as a regular non 3D movie, I would not be interested. And even though I still didn't really like it per se, although I mean, I like I like I like the humans with their military hardware is great. It's a sad ending for them. Does have a sad that movie does have a sad ending, but it was much more compelling because you're immersed in that world. It's look, it's quite a remarkable technological feat. I will say that it is a with the exception of the lousy hyenas, which even in 3D is something weird about them. But everything else was was was eye opening.
Sonny00:38:19I will say this is why I wanted to go see it in 3D. Is because I do think it is a legitimate technical marvel. The story is so incredibly boring. And well, it's dancer dances with the navi. It's just it's it's dances with wolves in space. You know, with with everybody's made all the jokes and that's fine. Like all the jokes are accurate because it is it is a very derivative, very basic, but still like very well structured and very well. I mean, like James Cameron knows what he's doing. He knows how to make how he knows how to make a movie like this. But it is a technical marvel. And there are things like again, I wish I had I really wish I'd been able to watch it in 3D because I wanted to experience that again. But the even watching it in 2D, what jumps out at you is, you know, some of the some of the some of the 3D stuff that is in mid in mid range shots. So where you're just seeing like people moving and the navis with the humans, it doesn't it doesn't look quite right just because it like it looks kind of rubbery or whatever. It's the close ups on the faces that are amazing that still hold up today as well as any CG close up on the Navi faces, the close up on the Navi faces that are, you know, it's totally CG rendered like that stuff holds up today as well as any computer generated images in in movies in on TV, whatever I like.
Vic00:39:45I would I would I would say I would say you're partly right, but it's on a par with I think the Book of Boba Fett, which had some great CG. Does it hold up for you guys? You saw it in the theaters, both of you at the time.
Sonny00:39:58I feel I feel it's funny. So for the last couple of months, I've like thought to myself, you know, I gave this a negative review on Rotten Tomatoes when it first came out. Maybe I was too hard on it. Maybe it was, you know, I feel like I was probably I'm really I'm actually looking forward to this. I'm excited to go see Avatar two. I think it's going to be interesting. And I'm sitting there watching. I'm like, Oh no, this is actually this is still very boring. It's still the whole story is very, very boring. It looks great. The action sequence our sequences are spectacular, but the dialog is so hackneyed and kind of corny. And like the characters are such stock characters, like the nerdy science guy who's like, Oh, you don't know what the floating mountains of the hut. And it's just like, Oh, fuck off.
Vic00:40:44And there's also like, you know, among the Navi, there's there's also like the West duty character, you know, feeling like, Oh, I don't trust the humans.
Sonny00:40:52You know, so like the it's it's it's all of these like awful stock characters with awful corny dialog surrounded in like some of the most stunningly rendered imagery I've ever seen on a big screen. It's a very it's a very confusing movie to me because there are like things I admire and love about it, but it is just as a simple piece of storytelling. It is rote to the point of annoyance JVL.
JVL00:41:18I mean, it's not a movie. It's a theme park ride. And it is the best theme park ride ever released into movie theaters. Complaining that the story is bad and the dialog is bad is like complaining that the ride for the mummy at Universal Studios is like complain that the the the plotting is bad on that, right? The plot on that ride is bad.
Vic00:41:43Same level of place.
JVL00:41:45No, that's not the point. The point is the ride in that that's what this is. I you know, it's funny. I actually just saw it the same theater. I saw it the first literally the same theater that I saw the first time I was up in Jersey when it came out in 2009 and I went to the local mall. They only have one IMAX screen that local mall is now my local mall. Oh my gosh, I just went over there. Same screen. And I was stunned at how well the technology held up. Honestly, this movie has held up better than the IMAX screen itself in this theater. The screen itself in this theater, I could notice like flaws in it. And it's done. They bothered me. But this thing looks like a million bucks and the use of 3D as for immersion purposes, you know, is stunning. The the economic importance that this movie was to Hollywood where it gave a. Decade of giant bumps in receipts because people started paying an extra 20% for IMAX 3D. I mean, everybody in Hollywood got basically 20% more dollars for ten years because of this movie.
Vic00:43:08Yeah.
JVL00:43:08Like, you know, everybody ought to name their Malibu, their second Malibu house after Jim Cameron, because he paid for that. Yeah. With this. And you know, like I. I here's the thing. I remember very, very well leaving the theater in 2009. And when I came outside, it was nighttime and the real world felt unreal. And that's because of the immersion, right? And I felt the exact same damn thing this time, too. And I it's just an amazing achievement. It's an amazing achievement. It's still it still defies logic. That this thing did not win Best Picture because, again, in terms of importance to the industry as far in a way, the most important movie of 2009 and.
Sonny00:44:02Well, can we can we talk about that a little bit? Because I do think it's I think it's really interesting that like a avatar by itself was so good that it inspired people to go to see 3D movies to try and recapture that feeling for like a solid four or five years after the fact. And Hollywood fucked themselves so hard by churning. Out bad 3D movie after bad 3D movie by filming conversions. Do you remember the post the post conversions on all of those movies? Like you could there you could compare and contrast Sam Worthington movies because they did the post on the Clash of the Gods movies. And it looks like garbage. It looks like absolute. It looks like somebody pissed in your face and they told you, here's a here's a bonus for you. Here's a here's a little here's a little extra for you, because it is it's like it's a it's a slap in the face. To like charge people this extra money for this really, really shoddy product and the only movies, the only movies that did a good job with 3D after the fact were the animated ones where you could actually do this stuff on like Pixar and in the Spider-Verse movies Coraline Coraline was a movie that did really good 3D rendering and they did. And that was actually, I think, also a post thing, but it's easier to do with animation and like that. Coraline was a stop motion animated film, so there was an actual depth to the images anyway that they could like play with. But like 99% of the movies that I went to go see after Avatar were absolute trash and it's really like for as much praise as James Cameron should get for giving the industry something that they could make more money on, every other single studio head should be pilloried and put in the stocks for ruining it.
JVL00:45:51I'm trying to get on those coattails. I'll go one second back, I'll go even further, Sonny. This happened at a moment when the home video market was about to drop off a cliff and the extra revenue from IMAX 3D screens could have been a bridge to fill in that holes while the Hollywood in the studios figured out how they're going to meet streaming head on and they didn't do that either. Not only did they just, you know, piss away and misuse this new technology, which Cameron invented for them and which could have been a monstrous help to the business of movies, but they also then wasted the time which that had bought them. And yeah, these these fucking guys.
Sonny00:46:41Well, and it did. I mean, there's a secondary impact here, too, which is that, you know, the whole idea of 3D became like, all right, you got to go to this theaters to see the big events. You got to go to the big event movies because that's the those are the and those are the only things worth seeing in theaters. Everything else you can see at home. But you got to see the big event movies and the big 3D screens on the big IMAX 3D, big Dolby 3D. You got to go see it in theaters. And that just turned out like that cut out the bottom half of the industry, too, because people were like, I'll just wait to watch comedies at home. I'll wait to watch the, you know, adult dramas at home. I'll wait to watch the Oscar pictures when they get to Netflix.
Vic00:47:18I remember like every big movie. We had to have a 3D edition of that movie. And one. But but I don't I don't remember.
JVL00:47:28Despicable me. Why? We got to see that in 3D.
Vic00:47:31Despicable me in 3D. Everything is in 3D. And you got to wear the glass.
JVL00:47:33Force Awakens. Why does the Force Awakens need to be in 3D? It does. Right. This is what they all did. So a black swan should have been in 3D.
Vic00:47:43OK. So anyway, I, you know, you were talking about we were talking about the, you know, the plot being sort of like that's not the point of this kind of lowest.
JVL00:47:51Scoring quadrant movie ever. Oh, hold on.
Vic00:47:54Before we get to that, I did. It did remind me of the early years of IMAX, IMAX 3D. And, you know, you would go to a museum or a planetarium to see it, right? Just hang lighting. Yeah, that's right. That's all I was going to say. See, hang there was one, there was one movie I saw and it was like a, it was like coming to Ellis Island or something. And the, oh no, it was like, I saw that one, but there was one, they were previewing with a, it was like climbing Mount Everest or something, but one of the actors they had. Was like Peter, what's his name from 30 something, you know? And so I was like, oh, that, that guy was in a, a IMAX 3D movie. But if you, you know, if this was not in 3D, it's a terrible movie, you know, it's, you're just showing up. Yeah. Okay. As for the, the here's, here's, what's very interesting about the quadrant. Okay. So the plot, I gave the plot at a plus, it doesn't get more easy than that. It just doesn't. I. No, there's no questions. There's no questions. Really? How they go in braids work with the, I mean, there's no question about like why what's happening in terms of, you know, they're going in to get the unobtainium, no matter what, there's a big battle and the Navi were fooled. Very naive people. Okay. Duration F minus. That's the lowest grade you can give to anything is an F minus. Okay. Action and violence. I give a B, but only in 3D. Right. If without it, it's like a D right. But the beat, ah, it's amazing. Okay. Get ready for this.
Sonny00:49:21Wait, so, but it's, I'm sorry, were you, were you at it? Were you putting the two grades together? No, no, no, no, no, no. Like an A in 3D. I'd give it a B.
Vic00:49:28I'd give it a B plus if you wanted. It was really interesting in 3D. Um, sex nudity. I give it a C. I believe I saw a Navi breast when they were in the, uh, the hammock. She turns. And, uh, I say it would have gotten an A if James Cameron had the courage to show interspecies sex, if only he had the courage. Uh, I question by the way, um, how do they meet? Is it normal? And it was, what about the tails? No, nothing. I get nothing there. They don't show you this. And it was kind of disappointing. Also, she could not meet with him as a human on many levels. One, you know, because one, he's in the avatar body. What he's in the, I'm saying like in the end, she cradles. His body, you know, the human, it won't work. It just won't work. You really need to be, he's not big enough to satisfy her in human form. It's either giants. They're giants. Okay. Um, I had question. My question was, do people, thank you, Sonny. Do people, you gotta like right in there, uh, you know, just dive in. Okay. So, um, do, do people root for, did people root for the, the humans, the way like we root for the empire or no, was that a thing and they're not, they're not technically Americans per se, cause they work for, well, there's,
Sonny00:51:00there's a, there's a reason this movie, there's a reason, there's a reason this movie is enormously popular in China. This, this movie does huge, huge business in China. Anytime they rerelease it just to watch enormously popular because it is, it is like, it's the most anti-American blockbuster. And like, granted it's like, oh, you know, they're not, they're not Americans. They're working for a company. They work for the corporation, you know, but it's like, it's very clearly like the, you know, us Marines getting routed by a bunch of, and, and
Vic00:51:36they make references to that. And then they make references to serving in the, in the mil doing military service. And then, and there, and there, you know, there's a reference to shock and awe, you know, and, and, and, and the Colonel says, you know, we're going to fight, you know, we're going to, we're going to show the terror to the terrorists. Right. Ever. They said, it's like, it's Steven Lang.
Sonny00:51:53So good. It's very on the nose. I love Steven. I love Steven Lang.
Vic00:51:57He plays the Colonel.
Sonny00:51:58Yeah.
Vic00:51:58He's the he's fantastic. And he's jacked. He's what are the kids say? He's shredded. Um, what happened with the kids? Is that the term shredded?
JVL00:52:07He's not trying to just, he's just, he's just a big, which is great when you're at
Vic00:52:12that age, something old man being, this is something I'm aspiring to if I don't get diabetes. Really? Yeah.
Sonny00:52:19I want to sort of be, you're doing that. You're doing a lot of, you know, okay.
Vic00:52:24So, um, uh, okay. Um, what happened? My other, what happened to Sam Worthington? And I haven't seen them in any other movies or it's just me, Sonny JVL.
JVL00:52:35This is, this goes to my, I want to rehab this, the conversation we had last week about the, the cultural footprint of avatar. I'm going to read you some names of movies that are right around avatars, domestic box office. Uh, the force awakens, which made Daisy Ridley a star and gave us Kylo Ren and the lightsaber with the two things, save it, Sonny, Sonny, let JVL finish. I'm sorry, it made Daisy Ridley, a star Avengers end games, Spider-Man, no way home, black Panther, Avengers, infinity war, Titanic, the Avengers, uh, the dark night, the lion King, these are the movies, which are all right around, if you go adjusting for inflation and do the inflation adjusted, uh, the movies right around avatar are like jaws and the exorcist, uh, and Jurassic park and the return of the Jedi. These movies all take up a lot of space, culturally, culturally in and avatar takes up zero space culturally, nobody has ever even thought about it since
Sonny00:53:51they left the theater, but we're all rushing back to see it. Everybody wants to go experience Pandora because everybody wants to
JVL00:53:57go get on the, the, the roller coaster again, but that's it. It's just a roller coaster. It's not like the, the actual movie. And it's for all the reasons you say, Sonny, which is that the movie sucks. Right. And that you can, the only way to experience the movie is to experience it in IMAX three D you can't watch it at home, but you don't spend that much time thinking about the movie, you don't think about a roller coaster afterwards either. Right. You don't, you know, there's no, there's no story. To dissect. It doesn't, there's no, it doesn't deepen with rewatch it. It's not rewatchable in the way that a movie, which rewards repeated viewing is it's rewatchable in the way that going on the same, you know, going on lightning loops twice in a row is rewatchable.
Sonny00:54:40I wanna, I just wanna, I just wanna push back on this by four minutes.
Vic00:54:43If you went back to back on lightning, this it's a four minute ride. Okay.
Sonny00:54:46I want, I wanna push back on this slightly in the sense that like of the, of the movies that you listed. Like six of them are MCU movies that I have watched exactly one time and have no interest in watching again. I like, I understand that the, the Marvel cinematic universe is a huge cultural presence and like the whole series has done a whole like made it, but like at the same time, I'm not, it's not like, it's not like I'm sitting here quoting. Avengers end game lines. Like, I don't, I don't like what, what's another one, the lion, the live action lion King remake. I mean like the original lion. King.
JVL00:55:21That's the one I'm talking about is a huge, the original lion King. That's not the live action. Is it the original lion King or the, oh, not the life.
Sonny00:55:27Okay.
JVL00:55:28By the way, just at a, I went and did some digging on the lion King Broadway. Cause I was curious about it. Would you care to guess how much the musical version of the lion King has grossed? Julie Tamor.
Vic00:55:46Uh, I used to know this number because, uh, I wrote for the weekly standard, uh, a review of Spider-Man turn off the dark, which I believe
JVL00:55:55was also Julie Tamor was, and you were, you were one of the very, very few people got to see it.
Vic00:56:02Yes, that's right. And after I saw it, they re they changed. They, they, they changed a whole lot of things on that show because things that just weren't working plot wise. Uh, w how much JVL, what are we talking about here?
JVL00:56:15You're right. I was, yeah, just on Broadway 1.75. B B B that's right.
Vic00:56:24I was going to say, I was going to say a hundred million.
JVL00:56:28One point just by doing a one show at a time, one house at a time, 1.75 billion dollars, and that does not include traveling tours, what it is when you, it doesn't include merch, it doesn't include merch, the food and Bev, this is just the box office. You, you know, you can make a pretty good coin in movies, but if you make a Broadway property that hits, yeah, well, they play for 20 years.
Sonny00:57:03I mean like Phantom Phantom of the opera just closed. Like what? Not yet.
JVL00:57:07How much it's closing, but yes.
Sonny00:57:09What is, what is Phantom of the opera's lifetime? I don't know.
JVL00:57:12I can look it up, but it's yeah. The, the real money is in musicals on Broadway. Uh, okay. Uh, wow. It's just, you know, like it's like, I, I have no interest in learning anything about the avatar way of the water, but I'm yeah, I will happily go see it in IMAX. 3d do you know what, you couldn't pay me to see it in two D no.
Vic00:57:38What, what is it about?
Sonny00:57:40Do we know more navies, but like the, the sea navies, it's water navies.
Vic00:57:47Uh, okay. I hope there's some sort of a conflict or something. Um, my theory was that the humans are back and they have found an alliance much like the French and Indian war, and then you pick tribes, you know, and then, and, and, and pit them against each other.
JVL00:58:01So maybe that's, I would assume, I would assume the corporation is coming back. What was that JVL? Are they going to fight against the Wakandans?
Sonny00:58:08No, they're going to the, the Atlanteans.
JVL00:58:10Oh, the Atlanteans. The Atlanteans. Yay. All right. Now, honestly, the story is beside the point.
Sonny00:58:18Uh, JVL, did you see the, did you see the preview for? Way of the water when you, or did you show up too late to, uh, I showed up in plenty
JVL00:58:26of time and we did not get one, but I did get Nicole Kidman always.
Vic00:58:33It doesn't matter what you're there to see.
JVL00:58:34Nicole Kidman runs in front of everything. AMC is so damn committed to that. Nicole Kidman thing.
Vic00:58:40Oh, they must've paid her a lot. That said, we have to do it now because we paid her so much money. Um, it's interesting that, you know, you talk about it, uh, Sonny being the most sort of anti-American movie because of. I, the, the scene with the daisy cutter falling back into the plane and the thing blowing up and I was like, so kind of disappointed in that, that was the first thought and the second thought was, uh, JVL, uh, watching, uh, Godzilla, the awful reboot of Godzilla, the one with Matthew Broderick and Maria Pinto.
JVL00:59:11Oh man.
Vic00:59:12Okay. The fact that you're remembering, she was terrible. Petillo, Petillo, Petillo. I think it was very, very, yeah, Maria, Maria, Petillo. Awful. Um, there was a scene. Where Godzilla comes up from beneath and chomps on an Apache helicopter and we're all supposed to be cheering and it's like, yeah, I don't feel like that was, uh, I
JVL00:59:31don't believe that was, uh, I believe it was the GI Joe name for the Apache. Oh, dragon. Wild bill was a dragon fly. You know what? You're right.
Vic00:59:39It might've been a Cobra copter. I'm like, I want to see the hardware do good. I mean, that's the whole point. So, yeah. Okay.
JVL00:59:45Uh, do we have any other thoughts on avatar? Uh, I, I will say that. Vic, I texted you two things to close the loop. I saw that it was the polar battle. The polar battle bear is what we were thinking of. Not the, the snow cat was another vehicle, but not as cool as the polar battle. They are. That's the one that, that was snow jobs vehicle. That was, uh, and on the, the picture of it, you see on the, you see gung ho is riding in the back in his normal gun. So gung ho, who wears nothing, but because he's from the Bayou, so I've been like, he does not need a, uh, a jacket when riding on the polar battle there.
Vic01:00:26Yeah. The Cajuns he's the Cajuns are tough. They don't need anything on the box.
JVL01:00:30It says with twin laser cannons that you can move exclamation mark.
Vic01:00:35You, if you, when you turn it, when you turn the wheel, I think it goes in the same sort of the direction, plus the missiles on top of the skis.
JVL01:00:44Uh, so I just, I just want to say that there was a, the, an early scriptment of avatar that. That floated around the camera and wrote, that was a much different movie and frankly, a much better movie.
Vic01:00:58Yeah.
JVL01:00:58Ah, and Sonny, do you remember this? Did you read it at the time? No, I'll go dig around and see if I can find it. Um, but it, it was a much better movie. It was sort of a harder are kind of, and it was, it was all of the ways in the, what eventually came out wound up cartoonish narratively, the original scriptment was like, awesome. So very interesting.
Sonny01:01:24Like last of them. Oh, yes.
JVL01:01:26Now we're talking more sci-fi ish. It's a, I'll dig around and see if I can find it for you guys. I read it once upon a time. Um, yeah. Okay. Okay.
Vic01:01:37Spirit of the week, corrections, shout outs, anything. Uh, I, I, I have a shout out, uh, my good friend, uh, Peter Lowe was at a conference in Dallas with lawyers and he spoke to a colleague named Tom Giovanetti and it turns out Tom Giovanetti Giovanetti is a fan of the Sub-Beacon and listens to us every week. So thank you for listening down there in Dallas, in your neck of the woods, Sonny.
Sonny01:01:59My neck of the woods. That's it. I should do, I should do a Dallas meetup. Oh. I should rent out a screen at the Alamo.
Vic01:02:06You'd be like eight or there'd be at least eight or nine.
Sonny01:02:09There'd be eight or nine. We could get rent out a theater to watch Smile.
Vic01:02:13Including their families, eight or nine. The Barbarian. Yes. Sonny, uh, JVL, you found the script.
JVL01:02:17I just, I found the script and I just sent it to you guys.
Vic01:02:19All right.
JVL01:02:19All right.
Vic01:02:20All right. Uh, that is all the time we're giving to this episode. Questions, comments, compliments, tweet us at SonnyBunch at Victorino Matus. Again, be sure to subscribe to us on Patreon. Go to Sub-Beacon.com. We're there. Tell your friends. Until next time.
Sonny01:02:39All right.
Vic01:02:41You got anything?
Sonny01:02:44Uh, I went to see the Smashing Pumpkins this weekend. Wow.
Vic01:02:48Are they all still together?
Sonny01:02:50I went to a concert.
Vic01:02:51I mean, I know they broke up, but they're still alive, and it's the same band members.
Sonny01:02:54It's Billy Corgan, Jimmy Eha, and Chamber, whatever. I forget who Jimmy Chambers or Chamberlain or whatever his name is. The drummer? On the drums. I thought he died. Darcy. Darcy, the bassist, is not, or the other guitarist, I don't know. The chick. The bassist. She played bass.
JVL01:03:11Well, do you know why she left?
Sonny01:03:13Well, I remember this story. I remember, like, so she, they were going to go on tour, and she was like, I have to get, like, a hip replacement or something. Can we wait, like, six months? To do the tour? And Billy Corgan was like, no, we've already booked stadiums and stuff.
JVL01:03:25No, so the reason that the band initially split up is because Billy Corgan is such an asshole that only two members of the band play in any of the recordings. So in the recordings, Billy Corgan plays everything except for drums. That's very McCartney-esque. And his, the heroin addict drummer plays the drums. Darcy and the other guitarist are basically the, whatever the opposite of a studio musician is, right? So, you know, oftentimes- They're touring musicians. Right, they're just tour musicians. They're just touring. And so they are part of the band in the sense that they are allowed to play on tours, but not allowed to play in the recordings because Billy Corgan doesn't think they're as good as he is. So if you got like the CD, right? If you had the CD at the time of the Smashing Pumpkins and you looked in the back- They are not playing on them.
Vic01:04:19Does it mention any of their names? Or is it just the two names?
JVL01:04:22I don't know. Oh, that's weird. That's, that's, was it a good show?
Sonny01:04:27Yeah, it was fun. It was, I mean, it's, they, they, they played like a 20 song set or so.
JVL01:04:34The world is a vampire.
Sonny01:04:36They played, they played that. They played all the hits. They played like, there were like 10 songs that are, could reasonably be described as like radio singles.
JVL01:04:47They were the biggest band in America for a year.
Sonny01:04:49They were great. They were great. I, I listened to Melancholy and the Infinite Sadness a lot in 1995.
JVL01:04:58Best Smashing Pumpkin Song, go.
Vic01:05:011979, I just said it. Sonny?
Sonny01:05:03I would go, I like Tonight Tonight a lot.
Vic01:05:06Mayonnaise.
Sonny01:05:08Oh, that's a good song too.
Vic01:05:10I'm sure it's fine.
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