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This message comes from BetterHelp. The holidays bring traditions and joy, but they can be tough, too. Therapy helps you care for yourself so you can truly show up for what matters most. Visit betterhelp.com NPR for 10% off.
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James Cameron's Avatar series has produced some of the most expensive and lucrative films that ever made. Set on a faraway moon, trillions of miles from Earth, the movies tell ambitious stories about a clan who must fend off a human military invasion. In Fire and Ash, the story continues in a visually stunning nearly three and a half hour movie full of epic battles, uneasy alliances, human assimilation and debates with whales. I'm Stephen Thompson. Joining me today on NPR's Pop Culture Happy Hour is freelance music and culture journalist Rhianna Cruz. Hi, Rihanna.
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C
Hey, Stephen.
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On Also with us is writer Chris Klimek. Hey, Chris.
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D
Yes, Steven. I've asked you repeatedly to introduce me by the title I have earned, Taruk Maktou. Maybe next time.
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Have you been learning Na' Vi just for this conversation?
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Papyrus subtitles beneath my face Say yes. Yes, I have.
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All right. It took more than a decade for director and co writer James Cameron to make a sequel to his audacious special effects blockbuster, Avatar. But the wait paid off handsomely with the Way of Water. A few years ago, the film grossed billions of dollars worldwide and was nominated a Best Picture Oscar. Now Cameron returns with another chapter called Fire and Ash, in which the Na', Vi, they're the blue guys, are chased by a human military that seeks both resources and revenge on the Na'.
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Vi.
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They're especially interested in the one with the very non Na' Vi name, Jake Sully, played by Sam Worthington. He's a former human Marine who switched sides and bodies in the first film. In Avatar, Fire and Ash, the human military is still largely personified by Colonel Miles Quaritch, played by Stephen Lang. You want to spread your fire across the world?
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C
Yeah.
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E
I'll give you guns.
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B
I'll give you comms, RPGs for that.
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Strong magic command from a distance, strike like lightning.
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The military teams up with a clan led by the fearsome Varang, played by Oona Chaplin. Suffice it to say that summing up the plot beyond that would take a very long time. And besides, what really stands out here is the spectacle of it all. The hyper realistic alien realms, the stunning water effects, and the many, many, many, many battles. Fire and Ash is in theaters now, though I think I can speak for James Cameron when I say that the experience would lose nothing if you wait and watch it later. On your phone. Rihanna. Cruz, I'm gonna start with you. What did you think of the latest installment?
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All right.
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C
I was very excited to plug into the Tree of Eywa for this one. Fire and Ash.
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You know the lore. You're already one step ahead.
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C
I'm locked in, baby. I'm an Avatar head. You know, I spoke on the episode that we did on Way of Water. The three of us, I think. Exactly.
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That's right.
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We're reconvening the Council.
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C
Absolutely. For pop culture happy hour. And, you know, I said that I walked out of the Way of Water and I was upset that I left Pandora. And since then, I've been kind of itching to visit my friends again, as I call them my friends Payakan, my friends Loak, et cetera, et cetera. No, but here's the thing. I know these movies are flawed. I know these movies have their issues. I know that there are plot details that you could see from a mile away. I know the metaphors are clumsy. I know that certain characters, you don't really know what to do with them. Namely Spider. Right. But the thing is that I don't really care, frankly. I need theatrical experiences, especially in this day and age. Stephen, you mentioned the word spectacle. And that's what I came away from Fire and Ash with, is that, you know, I know that the plot isn't the best. I know that the character motivations are one dimensional. But I'm really there to see what James Cameron can do with the cinematic medium. I'm there to see the aforementioned battles. I'm there to see what he does with the space of Pandora. And in that, I really was satisfied. I mean, I left Fire and Ash thinking that it was a great addition to the franchise. Way of Water has become one of my favorite movies over the past few years, frankly. And this did not reach those heights for me. But still was a pretty solid entry into the franchise. And I will be going back and seeing it. Hashtag, see it five times. As me and the Avatar lovers have come up with. So I enjoyed it.
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B
So that's why those movies have made $8 billion.
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C
There is a campaign for Avatar, Fire and Ash. That's like almost in jest. That's like, seeit five times.
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B
This is some Taylor Swift stan culture. Buy 25 copies of the Life of a Showgirl to help it on the charts. Energy.
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C
I know I don't ride for any other franchise like this. Like, I'm not a franchise lover. Avatar. I'm like, there's a hint of irony to it. And that's why I love it. Like it's so sincere that I really dig it.
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Okay, how about you, Chris?
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D
Boy, I wish I could give this more of a full throated endorsement than I'm going to. Certainly. I think my sort of failure to be as jazzed by this as I have by prior installments of Avatar and prior James Cameron movies is maybe down to the release strategy. Because this is not a part three. This is like part two. Part two. You know, there were 13 years that elapsed in the real world between Avatar and the Way of Water. Roughly the same amount of time has passed in the story. You know, discounting the fact that like what's a year on Pandora, it's a part of a different solar system, who knows? But I mean, they don't have kids in the first movie. Jake and Neytiri have four kids. I think when the Way of Water opens. So, I mean, the story has progressed literally a generation. There's enough expansion of the story and just, you know, physical production value, expansion of the world. We get the whole undersea culture, the sentient talking whales, Payakan and all that stuff. And the last one, that it was worth the wait. You know, in the same way that like the Empire Strikes Back so exponentially expanded the world of Star wars and felt so rewarding and mysterious for that reason, Way of Water, you know, kind of paid off on that long delay. And I think like had this come out maybe a year after Way of Water the way that Wicked just did, I might have been a little more responsive to it. But I mean, after a three year gap, that's just all post production. I'm sure this is the most complicated, you know, post that any movie has ever had. You do expect more than just like, and here's the rest of what you were just watching. It doesn't expand, it doesn't, you know, iterate in the way that the gap between one and two did. It just feels a little bit like more of the same. And the quality of that more of the same is so high. You know, I feel a little ungrateful saying this, but yeah, I mean, certainly if you care at all about the big screen experience, you gotta go, you gotta go. And I'll be going back a couple more times. I, you know, what's my life worth? I got another six and a half hours for Jim Cameron. Yeah, I wish I could be more enthused.
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I think it's really important when you're watching a film like this. Like there are very few movies that look this technically advanced, if any, right? Like, these are stunning to look at. There are, like, visual set pieces in this film that are just absolutely remarkable. And it really is worth taking a moment to just kind of set aside the critical piece of your mind that's maybe not into the storytelling and just take a moment to kind of revel in how beautiful this spectacle looks. Cause it is gorgeous. Where I really struggled with this movie was in the pacing and in the length. And I know that's such a lazy critique to be like, it's too long. You know, you spent $400 million in how many years?
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I was too entertained.
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I was too entertained. Give me less movie. But there are points in this movie. There's one point kind of late in the film where I admit I kind of peeked at my phone to see what time it was. There was 45 minutes left, and I was like, all right, we're gonna bring this baby in for a landing with the most lavish battle of them all. And it's gonna set us up for the fourth film and all that. And then they stop for a debate with the whales. I just was like, this is too much movie. You know how some TV creators will be like, I don't think of my TV show as a TV show. I think of it as an eight hour movie. This feels like five episodes of a very big budget Avatar TV show strung back to back to back to back to back. I felt like it felt significantly longer than three hours and 17 minutes, which really takes some doing. There's kind of lore piled on top of lore piled on top of lore, kind of culminating in what I found to be a really, actually very anticlimactic final battle. I think that the visual gifts of this team are unparalleled. The risk in that in the long term, and something that I kind of want to get to in our next kind of round of discussion here, particularly from Rihanna, is like, when your movie is so focused on being the state of the art, technologically speaking, the passage of time tends to dull the effect of that as everybody else catches up. When I watched the original Avatar in the run up to the Way of Water three years ago, I was really taken aback by how much it looked like a video game. And I wonder if the effects of these films is gonna get dulled as everybody catches up. Because as you kind of alluded to Rhianna, the there are faults and flaws in the storytelling, in the characterizations. The whole plot kind of centers on this white savior narrative that we've seen play out A million times. Like, the dialogue is a little video gamey. Are these gonna age well?
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I mean, that's a great question, and I don't really think so. I think I'm gonna come down and say that I'm not sure, because the flaws with these movies have always been the scripts. You know, I remember, like, first one, the classic, you know, meme of unobtainium being the thing that they can't obtain. Like, these things permeate over the course of the franchise. I don't know if they'll age well, I could say, because I watch Way of Water once every, like, three months at this point. I've spent a lot of hours of my life in Pandora, and I'm very happy to. Way of Water is aged perfectly. Frankly, I don't think the industry has caught up yet.
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I agree.
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C
I think one day we'll look back on these movies and the spectacle won't be there, and then we can evaluate them perhaps more effectively, perhaps more appropriately. But I think we don't really get epic capital E movies a lot these days. And I think that's really what floors me. There's a lot of narrative threads that, like, I kind of just throw out the window. You know, they kind of go to the back of my mind every time Spider is on screen. I know I keep bringing him up like, Spider is the.
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The human son of Colonel Quaritch who has sort of become assimilated into the Na', Vi, but, like, requires the help of, like, a breathing apparatus to even survive on this planet.
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His given name is Miles and his nickname is Spider. And then they give him another nickname, which is Monkey Boy, which, if your name is already Spider, just seems like prude. You know, that's a hat on a hat on a hat.
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Just his mere character kind of gives me the ick, so to speak.
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It's not the performance, too, though, a little. I mean, dramatically expanding his screen time from the Way of Water was not an asset to this film, in my opinion.
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Well, that's, like, the one flaw that I have with this movie is that, like, I think it spends a little bit too much time on the places that it doesn't need to spend time. I'm totally for the Tulkun Tribal council, Steven. I thought that was one of my favorite scenes. I don't know what you're talking about.
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They're arguing with whales. It's two and a half hours into the movie.
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You know, I remember that, like, when they introduced the idea that the whales are gonna talk in the last One and Payak first line subtitled in Papyrus's it's too painful. I was like, yes, we're doing this. We're subtitling the whales, baby.
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I will say, in defense of the whales. There is at least a full blown action payoff to the whales in this film that I did enjoy.
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Like the wailing guy who we all cheered when he got his arm severed by a vengeful Moby Dick in the last movie. Like, he's back with just a little prosthetic arm. And it's like, you know, that's maybe a metaphor for some of my issues with this movie is like, it does kind of feel like we're just playing all the hits from the last one.
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Yeah. On the playing the hits part, I think that's why I come down so positively about this movie is because it's essentially way of water 2, right? Like it's way of water 1.5 or whatever you want to call it. Like, it fills the same needs as the last one. And there's even some scenes in Fire and Ash that are kind of bar for bar, exact scenes from Way of Water. Like there's a scene where like Spider is taken by the humans. He's held in like a cell in the lab or whatever you want to call it. And Quaritch comes in in Na' vi form, has basically the same conversation with him that they have in the last.
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Movie, gives him his dog tag again. Again, like, you did that dad, right?
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He's like, I'm your father. Spider's like, you're not my dad. They have a dog tag exchange, like, same exact conversation.
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Felt like something that maybe wasn't essential to this movie being 3 hours and 17 minutes long.
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See, you keep bringing up the runtime, Stephen, but, like, I am all for the runtime. Personally, I think Avatar movies kind of like serves a balm of like the age we live in, you know, because, like, we live in an era of like, attention grabbing slop between like, TikTok, Netflix originals, whatever. I love the Avatar movies because they're so devoted to the craft of filmmaking, and that's like, not something you really see anymore. It's a movie that's designed to immerse you in a world and that could probably equate to the video gamey qualities. But that's what I love about it. It feels very immersive and it feels like I'm making an active choice to go to Pandora and participate in a film, which I do often. You know, I've seen over 100 movies in theaters this year, but it really compels me and it really draws me in in a way that other movies don't. Because it's so full throatedly for the art of filmmaking and the art of plant and payoff, even though it might not seem like it. There's threads in Fire and Ash that I noticed being planted in way of water that are picked up here and expanded on. I kind of just see them as a whole saga. It reminds me of the Planet of the Apes movies, the Matt Reeves Planet of the Apes franchise, which does share.
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A set of screenwriters, I think.
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Oh, does it?
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Yeah, they were in the writer's room that Cameron assembled for this, which kind of speaks to some of my issues here. Cameron had a writer's room. You know, he wasn't writing all of these solos. So there was certainly ample and talent on board to iron out some of these issues. I mean, some of this is just the insoluble problem that, like nothing I experience in my middle late age life will ever be as cool as, you know, seeing Terminator 2 was at the age I was when Terminator 2 came out. But Cameron was once, like before, he was the king of the world. You know, he was the king of economy, the king of stretching a buck. And art really does thrive on restriction, right? I mean, he came out of the Roger Corman workshop, right, where everything was dirt cheap. And if you weren't in this scene acting, you were moving lights or painting the set for the next scene where there was this real DIY aesthetic. And I mean, that does carry through in the sense that Cameron is still famously the guy who can do every job on a movie set, which I'm sure is one of the qualities that makes him such a joy to work for. But. Yeah, but I mean, I think a little restriction, you know, someone to tell him no could only help him at this point.
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Yeah, I think someone to pare down the script would have helped this movie. But while we're speaking in defense of James Cameron here, I also just want to point out how refreshing it is. As many kind of issues as I've had with these films over the years. We sometimes lament how many blockbuster movies are built around old ip. I mean, you mentioned Planet of the Apes. So many of these franchises are really remakes and rehashes, reboots, just kind of recycling old intellectual property. And this is an original story. As many echoes as it has of other stories, this is its own lore, it has its own visual stamp. I give him credit for filmmaking ambition. I give him credit for, frankly, this movie looks like it cost $400 million. Sure, sometimes you see movies and you see that the budget is 200, $250 million and you're like, where did that money go? That is not the case here. It looks like that expensive. And so I still find myself kind of stuck on these movies in admiring them, admiring the technical craft of them, you know, being able to get swept up in the visual spectacle. But some of the emotional beats, and this film is really trying to hit a lot of emotional beats. For whatever reason, those emotional beats just don't hit me as hard as they might in a different franchise.
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That's interesting. I felt like a lot of the emotional beats landed for me personally, but I was seeing it as kind of this melodrama, a soap opera, which maybe isn't the intent, right? Like, I think maybe James Cameron is seeing it as more of like a prestige drama. But I was watching the conversations that Jake was having with Neytiri about like the race of their children as like tea spilling, right? Like, I was like, ooh, like you're having the mixed race conversation. Like, I'm tapped in, you know, And I was doing that a lot in this movie where I was kind of taking the conversations that they were having, stripping away the weight that the movie is giving to it and being like, oh, like you guys are having a link up here. Like, and I'm listening to the link up. Like, when Quaritch is talking to the fire baddie, as I like to call her, I was like, oh, like, this is like El Toxico, la Toxica. Like, we're getting into it. And I think that's what makes the movies fun for me, is that I'm watching these and I'm sitting there with my popcorn being like, there's drama here. You know, I'm being like spoon fed drama. And usually I don't really like when movies force feed me me emotion, but the drama here worked for me personally.
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All right, well, I think it's safe to say that wherever we came down on the movie, we all hugely admire the spectacle of it all. We want to know what you think about Avatar, Fire and Ash. Find us on facebook@facebook.com PCHH and on letterboxd@letterboxd.com NPRpopculture we will have a link in our episode description. Up next, what is making us happy this week?
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This message comes from Dignity Memorial and Memphis Funeral Home, one of their nationwide providers. Funeral director Mike Perry shares why he believes that attention to even the smallest details about a loved one is important to the families he serves.
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They can't take their loved one back home with them, but they can take those details, those memories back home with.
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Them and be able to share them.
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For the rest of their lives. So that's why every detail is important.
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Find a provider near you like Memphis funeral home@dignitymemorial.com this message comes from Schwab.
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Everyone has moments when they could have done better. Same goes for where you invest. Level up and invest smarter with Schwab. Get market insights, education and human help when you need it. Support for this podcast and the following message come from the University of Kansas Cancer center where the people behind the science bring new hope. New like providing proton therapy expertise that targets tumors with ultra precision and pioneering a breast cancer clinical trial that discovered a way to lessen the side effects of chemo. The University of Kansas Cancer center is shaping the future of cancer care for this community and beyond. Learn more@kucancercenter.org this message comes from Babbel. Babbel's conversation based language technique teaches you useful words and phrases to get you speaking quickly about the things you actually talk about in the real world with lessons handcrafted by over 200 language experts and voiced by real native speakers. Start speaking with Babbel today. Get up to 55% off your Babbel subscription right now at babbel.com NPR spelled B-A-B-B-E-L.com NPR rules and restrictions may apply.
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Now it's time for our favorite segment of this week and every week. What's making us happy this week? Rhianna Cruz, I'm gonna start with you. What's making you happy this week, buddy?
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So we talked about a movie filled with spectacle and high budget antics. I'm paring it back for my what's making me happy? I picked up a DVD the other week, just finally watched it. Where the heart is from 2000. Directed by Matt Williams. It's a Natalie Portman movie in which she is pregnant and lives in a Walmart and has to give birth in the Walmart in Oklahoma. Her boyfriend abandons her roadside and she's in this town in Oklahoma and she's meeting all of these quirky characters. Everybody has fun names, you know. Natalie's name in this movie is Novalee Nation Stalker. Channing plays a character named Sister Husband and she kind of finds her way around the town. There's a lot of drama, There's a tornado, this, that and the third happens. It kind of plays out like a stage play where it ended, the credits rolled. I started clapping because I felt like I like lived a journey in my living room. But it's really great. Ashley Judd is in it. She's amazing. Joan Cusack, like a very well rounded cast, all playing these really interesting southern characters. I had not heard anything about this movie anywhere. My partner was like, I didn't even see this on cable at any point in time. But I recommend it. Where the heart is from 2000 starring Natalie Portman. If Natalie Portman giving birth in a Walmart sounds interesting to you, check it out.
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That is where the Heart Is. You can find it available to rent online.
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Oh amazing. So I went through all that work for nothing. Amazing.
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Nothing wrong with owning physical media.
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And I have a copy of it on Betamax right here.
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All right, thank you. Rhianna Cruz. Chris Klimek, what's making you happy this week?
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D
Well, on the subject of bifurcated epics, Stephen, I made a trip last weekend up to your backyard, the AFI Silver Theater in glorious Silver Spring, Maryland to see what I am calling Kill Bigger, Longer and so so many cuts. The film has actually been released under the title Kill the Whole Bloody Affair. This is the restoration to a single five hour endurathon of the two films initially released in 2003 and 2004 directed by Quentin Tarantino. You know, and we spent a lot of time on whether there's enough story in these latter two Avatar movies to warrant the six and a half hour investment. Kill Bill is just a revenge story with Uma Thurman playing a former member of the Deadly Viper assass the Nation squad who's out to talk about so many battles yet even Steven with the man who killed her wedding party and so she thinks killed her unborn child. And really seeing this as a single unbroken experience, although There is a 15 minute intermission included in the presentation, just does make it richer, more thrilling, more everything. I was particularly moved since we talked about the way the pacing slows down towards the end of Fire and Ash as like again, as you said, after some of the most incredible martial arts you have ever seen in any movie. When we finally get to the confrontation with the villain David Carradine, it unfolds just as a conversation and then a very quick pithy battle just when you feel like your endurance truly is as an end, I cannot handle another 20 minute melee. It just knows exactly how to put a powerful bit of punctuation on the end of this experience. This is in general release, but if you are lucky enough to live next to one of the venues that is showing it in 35 or 70 millimeter film. That is definitely the way to do it. So it's kill the whole bloody affair. It made me very happy.
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Thank you so much, Chris Klimek. So what is making me happy this week? An album that has me absolutely obsessed. It's called the Boy who Played the Harp. It's by the London rapper Dave. My brilliant colleague Sheldon Pierce has been shouting from the rooftops about this record for months. I only recently got around to actually heeding his very, very smart advice. This record is stunning. It's lavishly produced, it's deftly performed, deeply introspective, reflect, insightful. You can get a sense of that in just a few seconds from the album's title track.
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In 1960, if I had to fight for the rights of my people and lay down my life on the line so my grandkids could live a life that's peaceful, would I be on that? Would I be Frontline? That's what I'm thinking. If I was alive in a 1912 and a Titanic and it was sinking, who am I saving? Am I fighting women and children or am I waiting? I wonder what would I do in the next generation?
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There are impeccably chosen guests kind of scattered throughout this record that speak to its overall aesthetic. People like James Blake, Thames, Jim Legacy. But the centerpiece is Dave and his pursuit of something bigger and braver than himself. It's a gorgeous, haunted, searching record that, for me anyway, is filling out 2025's remaining days with rich and rewarding musical discovery. That is Dave and his fantastic new album, the Boy who Played the Harp. That is what is making me happy this week. If you want links for what we recommended plus some more recommendations, sign up for our newsletter@npr.org popculturenewsletter that brings us to the end of our show. Rihanna Cruz, Chris Klimmick, thanks so much for being here.
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C
Happy to be here. I see you, Steven.
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Blessings of Eywa be upon you, Steven.
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This episode was produced by Car Carly Rubin, Kayla Latimore and Mike Katseff and edited by our showrunner, Jessica Reedy. Hello. Come in. Provides our theme music. Thanks for listening to Pop Culture Happy Hour from npr. I'm Stephen Thompson and we will see you all next week.
- [26:34]
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This message comes from the Council for Interior Design Qualification. Interior designer and CIDQ president Siavash Madani discusses why certified professionals know that good design is more than just how something looks.
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