It showed up out of nowhere, made the most bank in history (for a movie), refused to explain and disappeared for like 15 years, then came back out of nowhere with a sequel movie, a AAA game, and like 3 more movies in the works.
Edit: I think it now has like a Lego line too?
It’s all a lot less fantastical when you compare it to Pocahontas:
Or Fern Gully, or Dances With Wolves… it’s not exactly an uncommon story.
Ah, but before Avatar came along it was never quite so poorly written!
It’s in a unique spot in the 3D space of script quality, time spent refining it, and revenue.
Dances with Smurfs
Yes but Disney’s Pocahontas was boring to tears while Avatar has cool hair-sex and explosions
And it is otherwise entirely dull and forgettable. Despite making so much money, it barely made any cultural impact. Nobody quotes Avatar like ever.
The reason it was such a hit at the time was mainly its visuals, IMO. Story might be predictable and shallow, but you can’t deny it looks beautiful. All the colorful jungle, alien species, green mountain peaks and needle rocks, it’s all just very pleasant to look at. What also helped it being directed by big Hollywood name.
PS: unrelated, but it has amazing OST.
I’ve always looked at the Avatar movies as being more about advancing movie making technology than about creating a good movie. I think James Cameron will be more remembered for his technical advances than for this storytelling.
On the other hand, he directed Titanic, which probably also had tech advances, but is recognized more for the story. Is that a fair observation? I was still a kid when it came out, so I know less about it than Avatar.
He helped to further submarine technology to get the shots of the Titanic for the movie, and he developed cameras that could withstand the pressures down there. He also helped design a small rover camera called Snoopy that actually went inside the Titanic to get shots of the staircase.
no the tech was very much the focus at the time. they did some incredible stuff for that film.
Agreed, I’ve always seen it as more of a tech demo than a feature film
Also it came out right at the time when 3D movies were at their (very short lived) peak.
And it did a GREAT job using that tech. I’ve never seen better.
The movie is a visual masterpiece and a king of theater-watching cinema.
Sure the story is bland but ain’t nobody watching that movie for the story.
Yep, IIRC someone committed suicide because, in part, he would never see real life floating jungle islands.
Doesn’t help that its dialogue is so boring, its most well known quote is literally just “I see you”.
Yeah, that’s kind of the point? Was the comparison between the Na’Vi and native Americans too subtle for you to notice before you saw this meme?
Not for me personally. Just find it funny how 1:1 it is with the original. This meme has been around since the year the movie came out.
But you could do this with every story/movie trope that’s been repeated throughout our species history. The concept of retelling stories in different contexts is itself not new but for sure reason Avatar gets overly criticised for it.
You don’t see the same criticisms for every bank heist movie that all follow the same basic premises as each other. I just did it a bit weird why so many people are against this particular trope. Is it because it tries to deal with our history of oppression and colonisation? I honestly don’t know.
I doubt there are any truly original stories that couldn’t be shown to be a retelling of another. I would even argue that some genres wouldn’t exist if this wasn’t a thing.
That’s because I generally don’t have to hear about every bank heist movie; you can’t avoid Avatar
For me, I will dog on any kind of retelling like this. If you’re not teaching anything new and are just retelling the story for profit, I don’t care about your story. There were no new story beats and no twists that caught me off guard.
When the movie was new, anytime you threw it shade, the first follow-up question was, “Well, did you see it in IMAX 3D?” That shouldn’t matter. If your story relies on visual gimmick to make it anything more than a reskin, I’m not interested.
I have the same feeling towards the live action Disney movies. They’re not adding anything new. I see about 5-10 new movies a year now compared to the 20-30 I used to because so little is not just a rehash of something from last year.