What the corpus says about Avatar (2009)

The 60 lines php artisan corpus:ask hands a model, in the order it gets them, and nothing else. The model writes a clerk's answer from these and only these.

What was said about it (26)

[The Big Picture · The Great ‘Avatar’ Debate · 0:26:24 · unknown (0.40)] John Carter of Mars ⇒ Avatar (the host's read) · lineage · Avatar reads like a John Carter of Mars style story. · "Yeah, it's very like John Carter of Mars or whatever."
[The Big Picture · The Great ‘Avatar’ Debate · 0:42:25 · Sean Fennessey (0.50)] The Wizard of Oz ⇒ Avatar (the host's read) · lineage · Avatar is described as a deep Wizard of Oz homage. · "In case you were wondering, this is a deep wizard of a homage, among other things."
[The Big Picture · The Great ‘Avatar’ Debate · 0:52:25 · unknown (0.40)] Avatar ↔ Aliens · lineage · Cameron's 1995 pitch for Avatar was much closer to Aliens in tone. · "It was much closer to aliens in tone."
[The Big Picture · The Great ‘Avatar’ Debate · 0:53:51 · unknown (0.40)] The Wizard of Oz ⇒ Avatar (the host's read) · lineage · Avatar is an original story but inspired by Oz and John Ford movies. · "It's just like hugely inspired by not just the Wizard of Oz, but like lots of John Ford movies"
[Blank Check — Patreon · RoboCop (2014) · 0:38:34 · Griffin Newman (0.50)] Avatar ⇒ RoboCop (the host's read) · lineage · The robot-waking sequence is beat for beat the first act of Avatar, down to testing the new body's powers. · "It is crazy actually how much this sequence is like beat for beat, the Avatar, right?"
[The Big Picture · The Great ‘Avatar’ Debate · 0:55:09 · unknown (0.40)] Avatar ↔ Dances with Wolves · theme · Avatar belongs to the interloper-story family but is not like Dances with Wolves or The Last Samurai. · "something like Dances with Wolves, Last Samurai, whichever one of these movies you want to throw out there. Interloper movies."
[The Big Picture · The Great ‘Avatar’ Debate · 1:07:47 · unknown (0.40)] Avatar ↔ Galaxy Quest · theme · The human-looking avatars are compared to Galaxy Quest's aliens who look like convention fans. · "There is a version of this story"
[The Big Picture · The Great ‘Avatar’ Debate · 1:13:28 · unknown (0.40)] Avatar ↔ Buddy-cop films · theme · Neytiri, not Jake, kills Quaritch, unlike films where the white lead gets the kill. · "This is a movie where Natiri is the one who ends up pumps him full of arrows."
[Blank Check · Wendell & Wild · 1:52:28 · Griffin Newman (0.50)] Wendell and Wild ↔ Avatar · craft · Big sci-fi blockbusters like Inception and Avatar earn their virtuoso final acts with an hour of clumsy exposition; Wendell & Wild operates the same way. · "And they're things like Inception or Avatar, where you're like, you know what?"
[The Rewatchables · ‘F1’ · 0:03:50 · Chris Ryan (0.50)] F1 ↔ Avatar · craft · Simmons reacts to F1's filmmaking the way he is supposed to react to Avatar's tech. · "I feel the way, the way I'm supposed to feel about Avatar, I feel that way about F1."
[The Big Picture · The Great ‘Avatar’ Debate · 0:14:17 · unknown (0.40)] Avatar ↔ Aliens · craft · Cameron gave Avatar a Hudson-type scene-stealer as a fifth lead, but this cast is less iconic. · "Cameron has given us like a Hudson as the 5th lead of your movie"
[The Big Picture · The Great ‘Avatar’ Debate · 0:14:43 · unknown (0.40)] Avatar ↔ Aliens · craft · Avatar's side characters are fun but not as indelible as Aliens' Marines. · "It's not like in aliens where you're like the 15th guy in aliens."
[The Big Picture · The Great ‘Avatar’ Debate · 0:40:03 · unknown (0.40)] Avatar ↔ Jurassic Park · craft · Both Avatar and Jurassic Park must front-load complicated sci-fi premises; Jurassic Park is the cited good example. · "Jurassic Park has them watching a movie about how Jurassic Park works."
[The Big Picture · The Great ‘Avatar’ Debate · 0:40:14 · unknown (0.40)] Avatar ↔ Jurassic Park · craft · Jurassic Park is the usual example of exposition done right; Cameron just gets Avatar's exposition done bluntly. · "Jurassic Park is always site as an example of like, they figured out the right way to do it."
[The Big Picture · The Great ‘Avatar’ Debate · 1:04:08 · unknown (0.40)] Aliens ⇒ Avatar (the host's read) · craft · Making Aliens (a voiceless monster) is what let Cameron individualize the humans there and flip that in Avatar. · "I wonder if he hadn't made aliens if he could have arrived at that."
[The Big Picture · The Great ‘Avatar’ Debate · 0:48:04 · unknown (0.40)] Avatar ↔ Star Wars: Episode IV – A New Hope · contrast · Avatar is an efficient workmanlike story, not one with fascinating margin detail like Star Wars. · "And it is because it is not a movie like Star Wars where you're so fascinated by all these little things happening at the margins, right?"
[The Big Picture · The Great ‘Avatar’ Debate · 0:49:58 · Sean Fennessey (0.70)] Avatar ↔ Doctor Strange in the Multiverse of Madness · contrast · Avatar has no visible seams, unlike franchise movies such as Doctor Strange 2 that lop off swaths. · "You were talking about Doctor Strange 2 and how there are huge swaths of that movie that you can just see, they just lopped off."
[The Big Picture · The Great ‘Avatar’ Debate · 0:55:56 · unknown (0.40)] Avatar ↔ The Last of the Mohicans · contrast · Avatar's body-swap makes Jake literally become the people, unlike a Mohicans-style interloper. · "imagine if there was a movie about, like, if, like, the last of the Mohicans was about Daniel Day-Lewis entering the constructed body of a Native American."
[The Big Picture · The Great ‘Avatar’ Debate · 0:59:28 · unknown (0.40)] Top Gun: Maverick ↔ Avatar · contrast · Top Gun starts with a known franchise; Avatar has to set up everything and pay it off. · "Avatar does have to one set everything up, which is a huge challenge."
[The Big Picture · The Great ‘Avatar’ Debate · 1:01:05 · unknown (0.40)] Dune ↔ Avatar · contrast · Dune looks good on a TV and feels more tactile and realistic than Avatar's world. · "Personally, I prefer the world of Dune over the world of Avatar because it feels like more tactile and realistic"
[The Big Picture · The Great ‘Avatar’ Debate · 1:03:39 · unknown (0.40)] Avatar ↔ Aliens · contrast · Avatar's humans are not meant to be charismatic like Aliens' Marines; the audience is supposed to side with the Navi. · "When people go, why aren't the Marines in this as compelling as the Marines and aliens?"
[The Big Picture · The Great ‘Avatar’ Debate · 1:35:29 · Sean Fennessey (0.60)] Avatar ↔ The Hurt Locker · contrast · Avatar lost Best Picture to ex-wife Kathryn Bigelow's The Hurt Locker. · "up against James Cameron's ex-partner, Catherine Bigelow, who at the during the same year, made the Hurt Locker"
[The Big Picture · The Great ‘Avatar’ Debate · 1:09:04 · unknown (0.40)] Titanic ⇒ Avatar (the host's read) · career · Avatar could only be made because Titanic gave Cameron the clout. · "I'd never have gotten to make it if he hadn't made Titanic."
[The Big Picture · The Great ‘Avatar’ Debate · 0:56:57 · unknown (0.40)] Avatar ↔ Top Gun: Maverick · verdict · Avatar works like Top Gun: Maverick: cliched lines but an emotional rush that works in a crowd. · "a movie I feel similarly about is Top Gun Maverick, which I also saw 3 times in theaters."
[The Big Picture · The Great ‘Avatar’ Debate · 1:00:14 · unknown (0.50)] Avatar ↔ Dune · verdict · Avatar is compared to Dune as a movie that rewards giving yourself over to it. · "Can I compare it to another more recent movie that I was reminded of when I watched yesterday was Dune."
[The Big Picture · The Great ‘Avatar’ Debate · 1:34:45 · unknown (0.40)] Avatar ↔ Lawrence of Arabia · verdict · Avatar is not as good as Lawrence of Arabia but is a similar must-see event. · "Avatar is not as good as Lawrence of Arabia, but it is like Lawrence of Arabia."

Films put beside it more than once (6)

[pairs] Avatar ↔ Aliens · said 5 times in 1 episode
[pairs] Avatar ↔ Titanic · said 3 times in 1 episode
[pairs] Avatar ↔ Black Panther: Wakanda Forever · said 2 times in 2 episodes
[pairs] Avatar ↔ Top Gun: Maverick · said 2 times in 1 episode
[pairs] Avatar ↔ Jurassic Park · said 2 times in 1 episode
[pairs] Avatar ↔ The Wizard of Oz · said 2 times in 1 episode

Fun items about it (6)

[The Big Picture · ‘Black Panther: Wakanda Forever’ Is Here! · 0:48:43 · Van Lathan (0.85)] Avatar · fun · Van says he goes into Avatar and falls into wonderment, saying 'ooh' at the Na'vi and unobtanium, before getting into the mech-suit fight with Jake Sully. · "So I go into Avatar and I just fall into wonderment."
[The Big Picture · The Great ‘Avatar’ Debate · 0:09:24 · unknown (0.40)] Avatar · fun · Re-release in China helped it pass Endgame again. · "that gave it like another $150000000 worldwide that bumped it above endgame again."
[The Big Picture · The Great ‘Avatar’ Debate · 0:13:42 · unknown (0.40)] Avatar · fun · On a jury in 2010, everybody said seeing Avatar felt like being there. · "It was like I was there."
[The Big Picture · The Great ‘Avatar’ Debate · 0:34:37 · unknown (0.40)] Avatar · fun · The extended cut includes 20 minutes of dystopian Earth with a drunk Jake, which Cameron once tried cutting from the opening. · "It's the worst footage in the movie"
[The Big Picture · The Great ‘Avatar’ Debate · 0:34:46 · unknown (0.40)] Avatar · fun · Cameron asked editors for a cut that opens on Jake waking up in the pod. · "And apparently at some point went to his editors and went, just give me a cut where it opens on him waking up in the pot."
[The Big Picture · The Great ‘Avatar’ Debate · 0:36:19 · unknown (0.40)] Avatar · fun · On unobtanium: you can't obtain it. · "Because you can't obtain it."

One hop out: what recommends the films most often joined to it (15)

[Blank Check — Patreon · Alien³ · 0:09:08 · Griffin Newman (0.40)] Aliens ↔ Mission: Impossible – Ghost Protocol · programming · Both franchises are auteur-rich without one definitive director, which is why the Patreon series covered them. · "Uh, but like Mission Impossible Aliens, perfect examples of franchises that uh, have a tours, but do not have one definitive director."
[The Big Picture · ‘Killers of the Flower Moon’ Is Astounding · 0:35:48 · Amanda Dobbins (0.50)] Titanic ⇒ Killers of the Flower Moon (the host's read) · lineage · The car make-out scene is a funny Titanic callback. · "I thought there was a really funny callback to Titanic when they're making out in the car."
[The Big Picture · The Great ‘Avatar’ Debate · 1:37:26 · unknown (0.40)] Avatar: The Way of Water ↔ Black Panther: Wakanda Forever · programming · Both sequels arrive within a month of each other. · "Now, both getting sequels within a month of each other."
[Blank Check · Dune · 0:19:09 · unknown (0.50)] Dune ↔ Dune · lineage · The episode cannot be done without comparing Lynch's film to the Villeneuve movies. · "We can't do this episode without comparing this movie to the Villanova films"
[Blank Check · The Lost World: Jurassic Park · 1:03:46 · unknown (0.30)] Jurassic Park ⇒ The Lost World: Jurassic Park (the host's read) · lineage · The hosts judge the sequel as normalizing the dinosaurs too fast and dropping the wonder-before-terror structure of the original. · "This movie normalizes the dinosaurs way too much."
[Blank Check — Patreon · Alien³ · 0:30:17 · Matt Singer (0.40)] Aliens ⇒ Alien 3 (the host's read) · lineage · Alien 3 follows Aliens; watched back to back, Aliens ends on a new family that Alien 3 then kills. · "you watch aliens and that has this ending of, you know, this new family that has been created."
[The Big Picture · ‘Killers of the Flower Moon’ Is Astounding · 0:27:38 · Sean Fennessey (0.50)] Titanic ⇒ Leonardo DiCaprio (the host's read) · theme · His broken, dim characters read as a rejection of Jack in Titanic and the matinee-idol image. · "maybe all of this is a one long rejection of Jack from Titanic"
[The Big Picture · ‘Black Panther: Wakanda Forever’ Is Here! · 0:17:32 · Sean Fennessey (0.85)] Black Panther: Wakanda Forever ↔ Black Panther · lineage · The first film's theme was isolation versus justice (Killmonger vs. T'Challa); the sequel has a real-world theme too, about allyship between Latinx and Black communities, but is not done as well. · "his movies always have a big dynamic real world theme in them in a way that I don't think many Marvel movies do."
[Blank Check · Nausicaä of the Valley of the Wind · 1:28:42 · David Sims (0.50)] Nausicaä of the Valley of the Wind ↔ Dune · theme · Blasted world with creatures the people cannot understand, and Nausicaä as a feminine Fremen-like figure who learns to coexist with the land, versus industrial nations running roughshod. · "Nausicaa is sort of like the feminine, you know, like the feminine Dunehurst sort of like they can work the land."
[Blank Check · The Lost World: Jurassic Park · 1:37:19 · unknown (0.30)] Jurassic Park ⇒ Anaconda (the host's read) · lineage · Anaconda is called the final lapping of the Jurassic Park creature-feature wave. · "that's like the final lapping of the Jurassic Park ripple, sort of washing up on the beach."
[Blank Check — Patreon · Alien³ · 0:50:21 · Griffin Newman (0.40)] Alien ⇒ Aliens (the host's read) · lineage · Cameron's sequel to Ridley Scott's film shifted the genre, which raised expectations for any follow-up. · "some other fucking guy is coming in and making a sequel to Ridley Scott's movie."
[Blank Check · As Good as It Gets · 1:32:42 · unknown (0.30)] As Good as It Gets ↔ Titanic · craft · Unlike Titanic's Jack, the drawings here are actually impressive because they are by a real artist. · "more so than Titanic this same year where they want you to be like aghast with Jack's drawings."
[The Big Picture · ‘Black Panther: Wakanda Forever’ Is Here! · 0:32:14 · Van Lathan (0.85)] Black Panther ⇒ Black Panther: Wakanda Forever (the host's read) · theme · Van explains that in the first film T'Challa saw his father on the ancestral plane because he had questions for him, while Shuri saw Killmonger because she wanted revenge, the same motive Killmonger had. · "Shuri did not want to be the Black Panther to protect Wakanda."
[Blank Check · Nausicaä of the Valley of the Wind · 1:33:15 · David Sims (0.50)] Nausicaä of the Valley of the Wind ↔ Dune · theme · The promise that you can grow plants in a place everyone says you cannot is central to Dune and to Nausicaä's ending. · "And everyone's like, you can't grow anything on Dune."
[The Rewatchables · ‘Twister’ · 0:05:47 · Chris Ryan (0.50)] Twister ↔ Jurassic Park · lineage · Twister is aesthetically closer to Jurassic Park than to superhero movies, prizing intelligence over strength and wonder over fixing things. · "I think it's more aesthetically closer to like Jurassic Park."

Who said it, by their latest sketch (4)

[speaker] Sean Fennessey · latest sketch, The Big Picture · ‘Resident Evil’ Absolutely Rips! · Loves gory, funny, fast genre movies with craft and confidence, especially 87-minute films that never overstay. Can't stand ponderous elevated horror that fills out its runtime with introspection and sad family history. A sucker for the Carpenter-era lineage, Die Hard homages, and directors who break studio dogma. · stances: Resident Evil is one of the best films of the year; Horror movies have become a drag; fun genre experiences are needed; Short running times are a virtue; Video-game films work best when great filmmakers get creative license
[speaker] Griffin Newman · latest sketch, Blank Check · The Last Temptation of Christ · Calls Last Temptation his college-era favorite Scorsese; loves Scorsese's smaller 80s and the film's closing transcendence and Gabriel score. Cannot stand fundamentalist outrage at it. A sucker for casting trivia and Tom Cruise-silliness. · stances: Hot take: Last Temptation structurally mirrors New York, New York as a better version; Outrage over the film is stupid; it is respectful to Jesus; Scorsese's smaller 80s work beats his later baroque phases
[speaker] Chris Ryan · latest sketch, The Rewatchables · ‘Friday the 13th’ · A franchise and genre scholar who likes Jason, the early sequels, and Manhattan; attention to trivia, tropes and critic reception. Treats slashers as a canon with tiers. · stances: Parts 1, 2, 4 and Manhattan are the good ones; The series finds its legs at 4
[speaker] Van Lathan · latest sketch, The Rewatchables · ‘Friday the 13th’ · Enjoys the series for its sleaze, hang value and cheesy lines. Roots for Black-cast-free sendups and loves a flex category. Gravitates to Freddy and likes Kevin Bacon. · stances: Friday the 13th is a movie that did not need Black people; Rewards bad-hang awards and flex lists

The shows' running bits (3)

[bits] The Big Picture: Drafts (Hosts and guests draft films in rounds; every pick is a recommendation with an argument); Hall of Fame (A star's or director's best, ranked and argued); Countdowns (Ranked lists, top five or top ten)
[bits] Blank Check: The box office game (Guessing the film's opening weekend and what it was up against); The sung theme ("Blank Check with Griffin and David", sung; the transcriber garbles it)
[bits] The Rewatchables: Apex Mountain (The moment a star peaks; where on the mountain a performance sits); Who Won the Movie (The hosts name the person who came out of the film best off); The Ebert review (Roger Ebert's original review and star rating read aloud. Ebert is cited, never on the show); Casting what-ifs (Who was almost cast, or who should have been); Most rewatchable scene (The scene each host would stop on while flipping channels); Aged best / aged worst (What holds up and what does not); Picking Nits (The little things in a film the hosts love that they don't think totally work: the nits); Double feature (The film each host would pair it with; a programming pick)

The whole prompt

As the model gets it, from app/Ai/Prompts/CorpusAsk.md

You are a clerk at Video Culture, a video store. A customer just finished Avatar (2009) and wants to know what to watch next.

Below is what people who love movies said on three podcasts (Blank Check, The Rewatchables, The Big Picture) about Avatar (2009) and the films around it, one line each. Every line starts with where it came from, in brackets: [show · episode · time · speaker (how sure we are it was them)]. A [pairs] line says how often two films were put side by side. A [speaker] line says what that person likes. A [bits] line lists a show's running bits: a format, not an opinion.

[The Big Picture · The Great ‘Avatar’ Debate · 0:26:24 · unknown (0.40)] John Carter of Mars ⇒ Avatar (the host's read) · lineage · Avatar reads like a John Carter of Mars style story. · "Yeah, it's very like John Carter of Mars or whatever."
[The Big Picture · The Great ‘Avatar’ Debate · 0:42:25 · Sean Fennessey (0.50)] The Wizard of Oz ⇒ Avatar (the host's read) · lineage · Avatar is described as a deep Wizard of Oz homage. · "In case you were wondering, this is a deep wizard of a homage, among other things."
[The Big Picture · The Great ‘Avatar’ Debate · 0:52:25 · unknown (0.40)] Avatar ↔ Aliens · lineage · Cameron's 1995 pitch for Avatar was much closer to Aliens in tone. · "It was much closer to aliens in tone."
[The Big Picture · The Great ‘Avatar’ Debate · 0:53:51 · unknown (0.40)] The Wizard of Oz ⇒ Avatar (the host's read) · lineage · Avatar is an original story but inspired by Oz and John Ford movies. · "It's just like hugely inspired by not just the Wizard of Oz, but like lots of John Ford movies"
[Blank Check — Patreon · RoboCop (2014) · 0:38:34 · Griffin Newman (0.50)] Avatar ⇒ RoboCop (the host's read) · lineage · The robot-waking sequence is beat for beat the first act of Avatar, down to testing the new body's powers. · "It is crazy actually how much this sequence is like beat for beat, the Avatar, right?"
[The Big Picture · The Great ‘Avatar’ Debate · 0:55:09 · unknown (0.40)] Avatar ↔ Dances with Wolves · theme · Avatar belongs to the interloper-story family but is not like Dances with Wolves or The Last Samurai. · "something like Dances with Wolves, Last Samurai, whichever one of these movies you want to throw out there. Interloper movies."
[The Big Picture · The Great ‘Avatar’ Debate · 1:07:47 · unknown (0.40)] Avatar ↔ Galaxy Quest · theme · The human-looking avatars are compared to Galaxy Quest's aliens who look like convention fans. · "There is a version of this story"
[The Big Picture · The Great ‘Avatar’ Debate · 1:13:28 · unknown (0.40)] Avatar ↔ Buddy-cop films · theme · Neytiri, not Jake, kills Quaritch, unlike films where the white lead gets the kill. · "This is a movie where Natiri is the one who ends up pumps him full of arrows."
[Blank Check · Wendell & Wild · 1:52:28 · Griffin Newman (0.50)] Wendell and Wild ↔ Avatar · craft · Big sci-fi blockbusters like Inception and Avatar earn their virtuoso final acts with an hour of clumsy exposition; Wendell & Wild operates the same way. · "And they're things like Inception or Avatar, where you're like, you know what?"
[The Rewatchables · ‘F1’ · 0:03:50 · Chris Ryan (0.50)] F1 ↔ Avatar · craft · Simmons reacts to F1's filmmaking the way he is supposed to react to Avatar's tech. · "I feel the way, the way I'm supposed to feel about Avatar, I feel that way about F1."
[The Big Picture · The Great ‘Avatar’ Debate · 0:14:17 · unknown (0.40)] Avatar ↔ Aliens · craft · Cameron gave Avatar a Hudson-type scene-stealer as a fifth lead, but this cast is less iconic. · "Cameron has given us like a Hudson as the 5th lead of your movie"
[The Big Picture · The Great ‘Avatar’ Debate · 0:14:43 · unknown (0.40)] Avatar ↔ Aliens · craft · Avatar's side characters are fun but not as indelible as Aliens' Marines. · "It's not like in aliens where you're like the 15th guy in aliens."
[The Big Picture · The Great ‘Avatar’ Debate · 0:40:03 · unknown (0.40)] Avatar ↔ Jurassic Park · craft · Both Avatar and Jurassic Park must front-load complicated sci-fi premises; Jurassic Park is the cited good example. · "Jurassic Park has them watching a movie about how Jurassic Park works."
[The Big Picture · The Great ‘Avatar’ Debate · 0:40:14 · unknown (0.40)] Avatar ↔ Jurassic Park · craft · Jurassic Park is the usual example of exposition done right; Cameron just gets Avatar's exposition done bluntly. · "Jurassic Park is always site as an example of like, they figured out the right way to do it."
[The Big Picture · The Great ‘Avatar’ Debate · 1:04:08 · unknown (0.40)] Aliens ⇒ Avatar (the host's read) · craft · Making Aliens (a voiceless monster) is what let Cameron individualize the humans there and flip that in Avatar. · "I wonder if he hadn't made aliens if he could have arrived at that."
[The Big Picture · The Great ‘Avatar’ Debate · 0:48:04 · unknown (0.40)] Avatar ↔ Star Wars: Episode IV – A New Hope · contrast · Avatar is an efficient workmanlike story, not one with fascinating margin detail like Star Wars. · "And it is because it is not a movie like Star Wars where you're so fascinated by all these little things happening at the margins, right?"
[The Big Picture · The Great ‘Avatar’ Debate · 0:49:58 · Sean Fennessey (0.70)] Avatar ↔ Doctor Strange in the Multiverse of Madness · contrast · Avatar has no visible seams, unlike franchise movies such as Doctor Strange 2 that lop off swaths. · "You were talking about Doctor Strange 2 and how there are huge swaths of that movie that you can just see, they just lopped off."
[The Big Picture · The Great ‘Avatar’ Debate · 0:55:56 · unknown (0.40)] Avatar ↔ The Last of the Mohicans · contrast · Avatar's body-swap makes Jake literally become the people, unlike a Mohicans-style interloper. · "imagine if there was a movie about, like, if, like, the last of the Mohicans was about Daniel Day-Lewis entering the constructed body of a Native American."
[The Big Picture · The Great ‘Avatar’ Debate · 0:59:28 · unknown (0.40)] Top Gun: Maverick ↔ Avatar · contrast · Top Gun starts with a known franchise; Avatar has to set up everything and pay it off. · "Avatar does have to one set everything up, which is a huge challenge."
[The Big Picture · The Great ‘Avatar’ Debate · 1:01:05 · unknown (0.40)] Dune ↔ Avatar · contrast · Dune looks good on a TV and feels more tactile and realistic than Avatar's world. · "Personally, I prefer the world of Dune over the world of Avatar because it feels like more tactile and realistic"
[The Big Picture · The Great ‘Avatar’ Debate · 1:03:39 · unknown (0.40)] Avatar ↔ Aliens · contrast · Avatar's humans are not meant to be charismatic like Aliens' Marines; the audience is supposed to side with the Navi. · "When people go, why aren't the Marines in this as compelling as the Marines and aliens?"
[The Big Picture · The Great ‘Avatar’ Debate · 1:35:29 · Sean Fennessey (0.60)] Avatar ↔ The Hurt Locker · contrast · Avatar lost Best Picture to ex-wife Kathryn Bigelow's The Hurt Locker. · "up against James Cameron's ex-partner, Catherine Bigelow, who at the during the same year, made the Hurt Locker"
[The Big Picture · The Great ‘Avatar’ Debate · 1:09:04 · unknown (0.40)] Titanic ⇒ Avatar (the host's read) · career · Avatar could only be made because Titanic gave Cameron the clout. · "I'd never have gotten to make it if he hadn't made Titanic."
[The Big Picture · The Great ‘Avatar’ Debate · 0:56:57 · unknown (0.40)] Avatar ↔ Top Gun: Maverick · verdict · Avatar works like Top Gun: Maverick: cliched lines but an emotional rush that works in a crowd. · "a movie I feel similarly about is Top Gun Maverick, which I also saw 3 times in theaters."
[The Big Picture · The Great ‘Avatar’ Debate · 1:00:14 · unknown (0.50)] Avatar ↔ Dune · verdict · Avatar is compared to Dune as a movie that rewards giving yourself over to it. · "Can I compare it to another more recent movie that I was reminded of when I watched yesterday was Dune."
[The Big Picture · The Great ‘Avatar’ Debate · 1:34:45 · unknown (0.40)] Avatar ↔ Lawrence of Arabia · verdict · Avatar is not as good as Lawrence of Arabia but is a similar must-see event. · "Avatar is not as good as Lawrence of Arabia, but it is like Lawrence of Arabia."
[pairs] Avatar ↔ Aliens · said 5 times in 1 episode
[pairs] Avatar ↔ Titanic · said 3 times in 1 episode
[pairs] Avatar ↔ Black Panther: Wakanda Forever · said 2 times in 2 episodes
[pairs] Avatar ↔ Top Gun: Maverick · said 2 times in 1 episode
[pairs] Avatar ↔ Jurassic Park · said 2 times in 1 episode
[pairs] Avatar ↔ The Wizard of Oz · said 2 times in 1 episode
[The Big Picture · ‘Black Panther: Wakanda Forever’ Is Here! · 0:48:43 · Van Lathan (0.85)] Avatar · fun · Van says he goes into Avatar and falls into wonderment, saying 'ooh' at the Na'vi and unobtanium, before getting into the mech-suit fight with Jake Sully. · "So I go into Avatar and I just fall into wonderment."
[The Big Picture · The Great ‘Avatar’ Debate · 0:09:24 · unknown (0.40)] Avatar · fun · Re-release in China helped it pass Endgame again. · "that gave it like another $150000000 worldwide that bumped it above endgame again."
[The Big Picture · The Great ‘Avatar’ Debate · 0:13:42 · unknown (0.40)] Avatar · fun · On a jury in 2010, everybody said seeing Avatar felt like being there. · "It was like I was there."
[The Big Picture · The Great ‘Avatar’ Debate · 0:34:37 · unknown (0.40)] Avatar · fun · The extended cut includes 20 minutes of dystopian Earth with a drunk Jake, which Cameron once tried cutting from the opening. · "It's the worst footage in the movie"
[The Big Picture · The Great ‘Avatar’ Debate · 0:34:46 · unknown (0.40)] Avatar · fun · Cameron asked editors for a cut that opens on Jake waking up in the pod. · "And apparently at some point went to his editors and went, just give me a cut where it opens on him waking up in the pot."
[The Big Picture · The Great ‘Avatar’ Debate · 0:36:19 · unknown (0.40)] Avatar · fun · On unobtanium: you can't obtain it. · "Because you can't obtain it."
[Blank Check — Patreon · Alien³ · 0:09:08 · Griffin Newman (0.40)] Aliens ↔ Mission: Impossible – Ghost Protocol · programming · Both franchises are auteur-rich without one definitive director, which is why the Patreon series covered them. · "Uh, but like Mission Impossible Aliens, perfect examples of franchises that uh, have a tours, but do not have one definitive director."
[The Big Picture · ‘Killers of the Flower Moon’ Is Astounding · 0:35:48 · Amanda Dobbins (0.50)] Titanic ⇒ Killers of the Flower Moon (the host's read) · lineage · The car make-out scene is a funny Titanic callback. · "I thought there was a really funny callback to Titanic when they're making out in the car."
[The Big Picture · The Great ‘Avatar’ Debate · 1:37:26 · unknown (0.40)] Avatar: The Way of Water ↔ Black Panther: Wakanda Forever · programming · Both sequels arrive within a month of each other. · "Now, both getting sequels within a month of each other."
[Blank Check · Dune · 0:19:09 · unknown (0.50)] Dune ↔ Dune · lineage · The episode cannot be done without comparing Lynch's film to the Villeneuve movies. · "We can't do this episode without comparing this movie to the Villanova films"
[Blank Check · The Lost World: Jurassic Park · 1:03:46 · unknown (0.30)] Jurassic Park ⇒ The Lost World: Jurassic Park (the host's read) · lineage · The hosts judge the sequel as normalizing the dinosaurs too fast and dropping the wonder-before-terror structure of the original. · "This movie normalizes the dinosaurs way too much."
[Blank Check — Patreon · Alien³ · 0:30:17 · Matt Singer (0.40)] Aliens ⇒ Alien 3 (the host's read) · lineage · Alien 3 follows Aliens; watched back to back, Aliens ends on a new family that Alien 3 then kills. · "you watch aliens and that has this ending of, you know, this new family that has been created."
[The Big Picture · ‘Killers of the Flower Moon’ Is Astounding · 0:27:38 · Sean Fennessey (0.50)] Titanic ⇒ Leonardo DiCaprio (the host's read) · theme · His broken, dim characters read as a rejection of Jack in Titanic and the matinee-idol image. · "maybe all of this is a one long rejection of Jack from Titanic"
[The Big Picture · ‘Black Panther: Wakanda Forever’ Is Here! · 0:17:32 · Sean Fennessey (0.85)] Black Panther: Wakanda Forever ↔ Black Panther · lineage · The first film's theme was isolation versus justice (Killmonger vs. T'Challa); the sequel has a real-world theme too, about allyship between Latinx and Black communities, but is not done as well. · "his movies always have a big dynamic real world theme in them in a way that I don't think many Marvel movies do."
[Blank Check · Nausicaä of the Valley of the Wind · 1:28:42 · David Sims (0.50)] Nausicaä of the Valley of the Wind ↔ Dune · theme · Blasted world with creatures the people cannot understand, and Nausicaä as a feminine Fremen-like figure who learns to coexist with the land, versus industrial nations running roughshod. · "Nausicaa is sort of like the feminine, you know, like the feminine Dunehurst sort of like they can work the land."
[Blank Check · The Lost World: Jurassic Park · 1:37:19 · unknown (0.30)] Jurassic Park ⇒ Anaconda (the host's read) · lineage · Anaconda is called the final lapping of the Jurassic Park creature-feature wave. · "that's like the final lapping of the Jurassic Park ripple, sort of washing up on the beach."
[Blank Check — Patreon · Alien³ · 0:50:21 · Griffin Newman (0.40)] Alien ⇒ Aliens (the host's read) · lineage · Cameron's sequel to Ridley Scott's film shifted the genre, which raised expectations for any follow-up. · "some other fucking guy is coming in and making a sequel to Ridley Scott's movie."
[Blank Check · As Good as It Gets · 1:32:42 · unknown (0.30)] As Good as It Gets ↔ Titanic · craft · Unlike Titanic's Jack, the drawings here are actually impressive because they are by a real artist. · "more so than Titanic this same year where they want you to be like aghast with Jack's drawings."
[The Big Picture · ‘Black Panther: Wakanda Forever’ Is Here! · 0:32:14 · Van Lathan (0.85)] Black Panther ⇒ Black Panther: Wakanda Forever (the host's read) · theme · Van explains that in the first film T'Challa saw his father on the ancestral plane because he had questions for him, while Shuri saw Killmonger because she wanted revenge, the same motive Killmonger had. · "Shuri did not want to be the Black Panther to protect Wakanda."
[Blank Check · Nausicaä of the Valley of the Wind · 1:33:15 · David Sims (0.50)] Nausicaä of the Valley of the Wind ↔ Dune · theme · The promise that you can grow plants in a place everyone says you cannot is central to Dune and to Nausicaä's ending. · "And everyone's like, you can't grow anything on Dune."
[The Rewatchables · ‘Twister’ · 0:05:47 · Chris Ryan (0.50)] Twister ↔ Jurassic Park · lineage · Twister is aesthetically closer to Jurassic Park than to superhero movies, prizing intelligence over strength and wonder over fixing things. · "I think it's more aesthetically closer to like Jurassic Park."
[speaker] Sean Fennessey · latest sketch, The Big Picture · ‘Resident Evil’ Absolutely Rips! · Loves gory, funny, fast genre movies with craft and confidence, especially 87-minute films that never overstay. Can't stand ponderous elevated horror that fills out its runtime with introspection and sad family history. A sucker for the Carpenter-era lineage, Die Hard homages, and directors who break studio dogma. · stances: Resident Evil is one of the best films of the year; Horror movies have become a drag; fun genre experiences are needed; Short running times are a virtue; Video-game films work best when great filmmakers get creative license
[speaker] Griffin Newman · latest sketch, Blank Check · The Last Temptation of Christ · Calls Last Temptation his college-era favorite Scorsese; loves Scorsese's smaller 80s and the film's closing transcendence and Gabriel score. Cannot stand fundamentalist outrage at it. A sucker for casting trivia and Tom Cruise-silliness. · stances: Hot take: Last Temptation structurally mirrors New York, New York as a better version; Outrage over the film is stupid; it is respectful to Jesus; Scorsese's smaller 80s work beats his later baroque phases
[speaker] Chris Ryan · latest sketch, The Rewatchables · ‘Friday the 13th’ · A franchise and genre scholar who likes Jason, the early sequels, and Manhattan; attention to trivia, tropes and critic reception. Treats slashers as a canon with tiers. · stances: Parts 1, 2, 4 and Manhattan are the good ones; The series finds its legs at 4
[speaker] Van Lathan · latest sketch, The Rewatchables · ‘Friday the 13th’ · Enjoys the series for its sleaze, hang value and cheesy lines. Roots for Black-cast-free sendups and loves a flex category. Gravitates to Freddy and likes Kevin Bacon. · stances: Friday the 13th is a movie that did not need Black people; Rewards bad-hang awards and flex lists
[bits] The Big Picture: Drafts (Hosts and guests draft films in rounds; every pick is a recommendation with an argument); Hall of Fame (A star's or director's best, ranked and argued); Countdowns (Ranked lists, top five or top ten)
[bits] Blank Check: The box office game (Guessing the film's opening weekend and what it was up against); The sung theme ("Blank Check with Griffin and David", sung; the transcriber garbles it)
[bits] The Rewatchables: Apex Mountain (The moment a star peaks; where on the mountain a performance sits); Who Won the Movie (The hosts name the person who came out of the film best off); The Ebert review (Roger Ebert's original review and star rating read aloud. Ebert is cited, never on the show); Casting what-ifs (Who was almost cast, or who should have been); Most rewatchable scene (The scene each host would stop on while flipping channels); Aged best / aged worst (What holds up and what does not); Picking Nits (The little things in a film the hosts love that they don't think totally work: the nits); Double feature (The film each host would pair it with; a programming pick)

Recommend three to six films, and only films that appear in these lines. A series, a TV film, or a franchise counts too when a line recommends it or pairs it with Avatar (2009); name it the way the line names it. Don't recommend Avatar (2009) itself. For each one, give one short reason in your own words and say whose reason it is: the show, named exactly as the brackets name it, and the speaker when the line names one (an "unknown" speaker is just the show). If the lines are thin, say so plainly rather than stretching them.

Keep a contrast a contrast. When a line sets two films apart, the reason is how they differ; never turn it into a way they're alike. A line with ⇒ puts the source first and what drew on it second, and one marked "the maker said so" is still the host reporting it: say who said it, and never state an influence as fact.

You know only what's on these lines. Add no fact they don't state: not who directed a film, not what kind of film it is, not when it came out, unless a line says so. Say nothing about the store or how anything rents here.

Talk the way a clerk talks to a customer at the counter: plain text, titles written plainly with no asterisks or other markup, no headings, no lists of more than six, no JSON.