Avatar 2: The Way of Water

[DireWolfSpirit]

27 minutes ago, Kyoshi said:

I'm finding the conversation very interesting because I've always wondered how it gets decided that movies are impactful/audiences actually connect with them, because I must be one of few people who were genuinely waiting for this film. My whole family, in fact. We've already had repeat watches because we genuinely enjoy the franchise, can connect with the strong environmental themes, and are eagerly awaiting the so-called Ash people rumoured for Avatar 3.

This isn't directed at you, but I personally find most of the criticism against the franchise rather lazy, like one guy made a bunch of bullet points against it and now everyone just sort of picks from that list to argue why the movies are "bad." Stuff like "can you even name the main character at the top of your head?" The answer doesn't matter IMHO. My favourite book of all time is "The Remains of the Day" and I kid you not when I say I couldn't name the main character two weeks after putting it down. Bit it still remains the most profound story I've ever read.

I guess what I'm trying to say, in a roundabout way, is that people might simply enjoy the franchise. At least enough to explain the ridiculous box office numbers. The story is "simple," sure enough, but some things, IMHO, are allowed to be. I'm South African, my history dictates that I NOT have to imagine overly complex motivations for human cruelty. Humans are shit, for the most part. Especially when you factor in capitalism. A lot of mines and petroleum companies STILL have to be bullied into prioritising human life and the environment over money. Just a year ago (IIRC) the Wild Coast was in danger from Shell. There's nothing complex about that. If someone wrote that story, it really would be that straightforward. So I guess the "it's too simple" argument kind of baffles me.

I think the majority of Avtr2 critics ive heard are just trying to come off as edgy and attempting to appear as trendy with thier exaggerated complaints.

There's like a decade of kids who've grown up on the Avtr1 DVD, ive seen kids literally addicted to watching SpongeBob and Avatar hours a day whenever parents were otherwise occupied. This franchise has been literally a sibling for millions.

It doing billions in box office is like the least surprizing thing ever to many who were around those youngsters and witnessed how mesmerized by Avatar 1 they were.

Eta: Spider is a little shit, that needs to go rogue, not be a boring redemption !

Edited January 22, 2023 by DireWolfSpirit

[Deadlines? What Deadlines?]

6 hours ago, IlyaP said:

As in - Endgame made a lot of its money quickly, whereas A2 could keep going and overtake it if it maintains the current consistent pace it's at. 

 

4 hours ago, BigFatCoward said:

Could it? I was under the impression it was being pegged for about 2.5 max. But who knows, Cameron film don't perform normally. 

It's possible I guess; but it has a long way to go. It might get there by the end but I'm doubtful.

29 minutes ago, Kyoshi said:

I'm finding the conversation very interesting because I've always wondered how it gets decided that movies are impactful/audiences actually connect with them, because I must be one of few people who were genuinely waiting for this film. My whole family, in fact. We've already had repeat watches because we genuinely enjoy the franchise, can connect with the strong environmental themes, and are eagerly awaiting the so-called Ash people rumoured for Avatar 3.

This isn't directed at you, but I personally find most of the criticism against the franchise rather lazy, like one guy made a bunch of bullet points against it and now everyone just sort of picks from that list to argue why the movies are "bad." Stuff like "can you even name the main character at the top of your head?" The answer doesn't matter IMHO. My favourite book of all time is "The Remains of the Day" and I kid you not when I say I couldn't name the main character two weeks after putting it down. Bit it still remains the most profound story I've ever read.

I guess what I'm trying to say, in a roundabout way, is that people might simply enjoy the franchise. At least enough to explain the ridiculous box office numbers. The story is "simple," sure enough, but some things, IMHO, are allowed to be. I'm South African, my history dictates that I NOT have to imagine overly complex motivations for human cruelty. Humans are shit, for the most part. Especially when you factor in capitalism. A lot of mines and petroleum companies STILL have to be bullied into prioritising human life and the environment over money. Just a year ago (IIRC) the Wild Coast was in danger from Shell. There's nothing complex about that. If someone wrote that story, it really would be that straightforward. So I guess the "it's too simple" argument kind of baffles me.

This is the right answer. 

A lot of the "no cultural impact" discussion seems to be centered around some pretty superficial, primarily American phenomena. The lack of memes; the lack of merchandise; the lack of people dressing up like Avatar characters at comic-con. There's more to it than that I guess.

Fundamentally, I think these people were mostly just trying to fill column inches with words about Avatar before the sequel came out. And yeah, it's lazy.

But you know what? That's fine. The predictions that the film would fail have aged like milk. The film crossed a threshold of box office success where I get to see where this story goes. I'm good.   

[Deadlines? What Deadlines?]

1 hour ago, DireWolfSpirit said:

I think the majority of Avtr2 critics ive heard are just trying to come off as edgy and attempting to appear as trendy with thier exaggerated complaints.

If they genuinely don't like the movie that's fine. But this media ecosystem has, for a decade, heaped unalloyed praise on every new MCU, Star Wars, and "fill in the blank" franchise reboot. Some of those films are genuinely good.  Many are overrated. Many are downright boring and incredibly derivative. So I'm not having it. 

Quote

ive seen kids literally addicted to watching SpongeBob and Avatar hours a day whenever parents were otherwise occupied.

Those are some pretty amazing kids. We need to get a team under them and put them to work immediately. 

[DireWolfSpirit]

1 hour ago, Deadlines? What Deadlines? said:

Many are downright boring and incredibly derivative. So I'm not having it. 

^^^Exactly!!

[Kalbear]

To be clear I don't think it's bad. I think its hard to find anyone who thinks it's bad, which again makes it a Dennys. It isn't bad, it's just largely inoffensive. Some people will love it, many will like it, but almost no one will hate it.

It also has an advantage in that it isn't burdened by a crazy amount of lore or backstory (a problem star wars has) so people who don't remember the first one aren't totally confused or needing a lot of exposition. It's a movie that relies heavily on visual storytelling which makes it significantly easier to sell overseas. It's not a movie done by committee or plagued with reshoots- it has a singular vision and direction. It doesn't have any given nationality as the bad guys and if it does that bad guy is at best the US, which also plays well.

To be clear I firmly believe James Cameron is one of the best filmmakers ever. He is technically gifted, understands special fx and construction of movies as good as anyone, and has had a consistent strong feminist viewpoint for a long time. Making a movie that appeals to a lot of people is a talent and one he appears to have more than anyone other than perhaps Spielberg. But there is a reason it has such broad appeal, and one of those reasons is that the movies are relatively simplistic, mythical and unchallenging. This is EXACTLY what made star wars such a classic too, mind you. 

 

[IlyaP]

35 minutes ago, Kalnestk Oblast said:

To be clear I firmly believe James Cameron is one of the best filmmakers ever. He is technically gifted, understands special fx and construction of movies as good as anyone, and has had a consistent strong feminist viewpoint for a long time. Making a movie that appeals to a lot of people is a talent and one he appears to have more than anyone other than perhaps Spielberg.

He did something I liked *a lot* in this movie. Every single scene with Spider and Quarritch gave us more insight into the ship they were on, including its various parts, locations, and names. Which came in handy by film's end, as that meant audiences knew exactly what Spider was referring to, when explaining to Jake and co. where to find X or Y. He slyly set up the geography of the boat and mapped it out for viewers to make sure they understood the geography of the thing for the finale. 

That kind of attention to detail pleased me, as a film viewer. 

[Ran]

The thing that Avatar does, near as I can tell, is that it maximizes the impact of seeing it in the theater. You can't just say, "Eh, I'll wait for it to stream" as you can with most of the other films. You actually feel like the experience of seeing it in IMAX or 4DX is actually worth it rather than just a gimmick. A lot of the big blockbuster films released of late feel very same-y and been there, done that, but Cameron pushes the technological and cinematic envelope in a way that's actually noticeable to the audience.

You get enough people wanting to see it that way, and you start getting sold out theaters and people talking about how everyone seems to want to see it because of the buzz around the fully-booked premium screenings, and that buzz breeds more ticket sales and more sold-out screenings.

Edited January 22, 2023 by Ran

[Kalbear]

1 minute ago, Ran said:

The thing that Avatar does, near as I can tell, is that it maximizes the impact of seeing it in the theater. You can't just say, "Eh, I'll wait for it to stream" as you can with most of the other films. You actually feel like the experience of seeing it in IMAX or 4DX is actually worth it rather than just a gimmick. A lot of the big blockbuster films released of late feel very same-y and been there, done that, but Cameron pushes the technological and cinematic envelope.

You get enough people wanting to see it that way, and you start getting sold out theaters and people talking about how everyone seems to want to see it because of the buzz around the fully-booked premium screenings, and that buzz breeds more ticket sales and more sold-out screenings.

That's a good point too. Endgame did that by making people want to see it before being spoiled, but avatar does it by making people want to have the good experience. 

[polishgenius]

2 hours ago, Deadlines? What Deadlines? said:

But this media ecosystem has, for a decade, heaped unalloyed praise on every new MCU, Star Wars, and "fill in the blank" franchise reboot.

 

TROS has 52% on Rotten Tomatoes, Book of Boba Fett 66%. Love and Thunder got 63%, Eternals has 47, Multiverse of Madness has 74. All of them worse than Way of Water.

Almost every DCEU movie has had its critical dick kicked in, as did The Mummy, so hard that the whole plan got scrapped, and franchise reboots like Terminator Dark Fate, both versions of Ghostbusters, and Godzilla did okay at best and got twitter-planed plenty.



If you think some critics are being unfair on Way of Water, okay, they might well be, I'm not gonna see it till it hits Disney+ so I don't know, but this idea that there's been a co-ordinated, or even un-co-ordinated, media reaction against it from critics who otherwise love big franchise movies without exception is as much of an invention as anything Avatar's critics might say.

[Deadlines? What Deadlines?]

1 hour ago, polishgenius said:

TROS has 52% on Rotten Tomatoes, Book of Boba Fett 66%. Love and Thunder got 63%, Eternals has 47, Multiverse of Madness has 74. All of them worse than Way of Water.

Too generous, too generous, way too generous, a bit harsh, too generous. I agree that they're all worse then Avatar 2.  And according to the coveted vegetable consensus, Captain Marvel scores higher than Avatar 2. Um, OK.

On the list of overrated DC films: The Suicide Squad, Shazam!, Wonder Woman, Definitely WW84, Birds of Prey. Are they good or bad? Each to their own, but definitely overrated. "Best DC film since TDK" has been published so many times its practically become a running joke in the CBM community. 

Regardless, what I'm addressing is the apparent lack of story, characters, "too derivative" etc, criticisms that gets leveled at the Avatar films. Criticisms that could be leveled far more credibly at every one of the films you describe. 

Edited January 23, 2023 by Deadlines? What Deadlines?

[polishgenius]

How can Love and Thunder be way too generous when it's a better film than the first Avatar, which has 82%? 

[Corvinus85]

I watched it a second time and a few things sit better with me as I've managed to pay better attention to some details. The movie is indeed a strong visual story, but there are also critical dialogue lines that helps certain stuff not feel like plot holes.

Spoiler

The humans "forgetting" about the forest Na'vi after the Sully family leaves makes more sense when you hear Quaritch say that "Sully has gone to ground." Which clearly means that the attacks on human activity had ceased, so the humans could now focus on other stuff except for Quaritch who still had his mission.

The fact that the humans, despite an even larger military presence, don't try to attack the sacred tree area again is nicely explained visually and verbally. I do wonder why they didn't try the scorched earth tactic with the big spaceships, but anyone who remembers the first movie well enough will recall that the region has powerful magnetic fields, so getting ships to descend into the atmosphere above that region might also be suicide.

I've seen comments about the silliness of bringing Quaritch back and why didn't they just do that in the first film with Jake's dead brother. Again this is explained in this movie well enough and on top of that you can add the picture of humanity that Cameron is trying to show. Jake's brother died on Earth. Quaritch and his cotterie died on Pandora where they have the Avatar tech to transfer their minds. Sure, this tech could be used on Earth, too, but would the greedy capitalists in charge think of spending money on such backups?  So in a way the greedy capitalist showrunners could have saved themselves a world of trouble if only they had invested in mental backups for all the people involved in the Avatar backup.

Seeing it again made me realize that the beginning of the movie was made in part to setup the tragic ending. The first time I saw it I had forgotten some of those scenes because of how long the movie is. 

I'm not sure about the symbolism of the sunset shots throughout the movie. (other than the one when the older son dies) But that does make me wonder about Pandora's day/night cycles. Being a moon of a gas giant, I have to assume the people of one of Pandor's hemispheres experience varied cycles with some nights being much longer than others. 

 

[Corvinus85]

1 minute ago, polishgenius said:

How can Love and Thunder be way too generous when it's a better film than the first Avatar, which has 82%? 

ha, no.

[IlyaP]

1 hour ago, Ran said:

The thing that Avatar does, near as I can tell, is that it maximizes the impact of seeing it in the theater. You can't just say, "Eh, I'll wait for it to stream" as you can with most of the other films. You actually feel like the experience of seeing it in IMAX or 4DX is actually worth it rather than just a gimmick. A lot of the big blockbuster films released of late feel very same-y and been there, done that, but Cameron pushes the technological and cinematic envelope in a way that's actually noticeable to the audience.

I want to agree, except that anything I see in Imax produces a horrifyingly painful headache that makes those theater experiences, well, not ones that I can sadly enjoy. Much as I would like to, as I am inclined to agree with you, @Ran, there's something in there, in the DNA of the thing, that strikes me as being inherently the kind of thing best enjoyed on a whoppingly huge screen. 

[Deadlines? What Deadlines?]

Just wait 'till Cocaine Bear blows Quantumania out of the water...

 

[Deadlines? What Deadlines?]

This is based on estimates, but considering how close it was yesterday, you can take this to the bank. Boom.

Next up is Star Wars: The Force Awakens @ $2.064 Billion, which will definitely get crushed beneath Tuk's dainty blue feet this weekend. BOOM!

p.s. Not that it matters, but I'm seeing a lot of comments on r/boxoffice and r/movies that this is just "Disney vs. Disney". That's not actually true. The MCU is produced my Marvel studios; wholly owned by Disney. SW is produced by Lucasfilm; wholly owned by Disney.

The Avatar films list three production companies: 20th Century Studios (owned by Disney), Lightstorm Entertainment (Cameron's outfit), and TSG Entertainment. The latter is probably providing a significant fraction of the financing for the Avatar films. This is more of a "Joker" situation than it is SW or the MCU. 

Edited January 26, 2023 by Deadlines? What Deadlines?

[Deadlines? What Deadlines?]

At the end of its 6 week, A:TWoW has overtaken The Force Awakens at the world wide box office. 

Domestically, it's definitely slowing down but its still got some energy. It will overtake Incredibles 2 this weekend. The Last Jedi will probably get demoted next week.   

[BigFatCoward]

1 hour ago, Deadlines? What Deadlines? said:

At the end of its 6 week, A:TWoW has overtaken The Force Awakens at the world wide box office. 

Domestically, it's definitely slowing down but its still got some energy. It will overtake Incredibles 2 this weekend. The Last Jedi will probably get demoted next week.   

It's still looking like 2.5 absolute max. Huge failure, failing bigly. 

[Myrddin]

1 hour ago, BigFatCoward said:

It's still looking like 2.5 absolute max. Huge failure, failing bigly. 

No one will ever trust Cameron to make another film. 

[Deadlines? What Deadlines?]

1 hour ago, Myrddin said:

No one will ever trust Cameron to make another film. 

He didn't even accept notes! That guy needs an attitude adjustment.

I'm guessing there's a reason he's literally producing these films in a bubble city on the other side of the world. 'Makes it hard for studio executives to just "pop in". 

Oh, Bob Eiger want's to see me?  He can get his ass on a plane then. From L.A. it's only a thirteen hour flight. Enough time to watch three of the highest grossing films of all time!!