Marvel's Multiverse of Maddening Returns

[Corvinus85]

16 hours ago, Ser Rodrigo Belmonte II said:

Avatar feels like the new Transformers. These films come out, make a shit ton of money, but are instantly forgotten a week later.The Avatar films dont even have a strong expanded universe and merchandising setup, yet they somehow make tons of money and are of very average quality.

This is completely wrong. The first Avatar came out on December 2009. At the next Halloween people were still dressing up as Na'vi. There was stuff in the news about how people went nuts for months about the world of Pandora. It had a good presence at the Oscars. Disney has a section of its theme park in Florida dedicated to it. Now sure it's nowhere near the MCU or Star Wars, and on the video game side it hasn't had a hit, but to say these movies become forgettable after a week is an ignorant exaggeration.

[polishgenius]

22 minutes ago, Corvinus85 said:

At the next Halloween people were still dressing up as Na'vi. There was stuff in the news about how people went nuts for months about the world of Pandora.

 

The Halloween thing I guess I can believe since I just don't really pay attention so I'm sure there were some. But did people really go nuts about the world of Pandora? Genuinely I don't remember that at all.

 

The comparison I have in my head for cultural impact is Terminator. It never got as much money, but those films literally changed the language. To this day we talk about AI and robotics in part in terms defined by those movies, and aside from that 'terminator' has being essentially an idiom for someone relentless and unstoppable. 

It also inspired not just spinoffs but unrelated influences, parodies, nods etc etc. There's time for Avatar to generate that still, but I don't think it's got anything like that depth either. 

 

 

Like, did it literally disappear? No, obviously. But its impact compared to its box office is not what you'd expect.  

[Corvinus85]

50 minutes ago, polishgenius said:

 

The Halloween thing I guess I can believe since I just don't really pay attention so I'm sure there were some. But did people really go nuts about the world of Pandora? Genuinely I don't remember that at all.

 

The comparison I have in my head for cultural impact is Terminator. It never got as much money, but those films literally changed the language. To this day we talk about AI and robotics in part in terms defined by those movies, and aside from that 'terminator' has being essentially an idiom for someone relentless and unstoppable. 

It also inspired not just spinoffs but unrelated influences, parodies, nods etc etc. There's time for Avatar to generate that still, but I don't think it's got anything like that depth either. 

 

 

Like, did it literally disappear? No, obviously. But its impact compared to its box office is not what you'd expect.  

The huge time lapse between movies is definitely an issue. If Cameron had been able to put out a movie every 2-3 years, it could have kicked off something. Because so far each movie has generated enough buzz before and immediately after its release. The world Cameron created is meticulously crafted, enough that it should allow for the creation of companion content like games or graphic novels. For some reason that didn't quite pick up.

This game came out a month ago, it has decent reviews but haven't heard much about it. https://james-camerons-avatar.fandom.com/wiki/Avatar:_Frontiers_of_Pandora It is Ubisoft, and personally I largely swore off that company.

[IlyaP]

10 hours ago, Heartofice said:

That was one of the reasons I quite liked that first transformers movie. The actual transformers are incredibly boring, the fights are incomprehensible, the story is some nonsense mcguffin plot. The only thing holding that movie together was Shia the Beef and the throwback Bay comedy stuff. As soon as the story concentrated on actual Transformers I had to check out mentally.

Probably why I never bothered with the rest of the movies.

And it has one of my favorite lines ever from a movie, that's just so ludicrous and yet spoken with *such* conviction: 

"50 years from now, when you're looking back on your life, don't you wanna be able say you had the guts to get in the car?"

I laughed at the line when I saw it upon release with my girlfriend at the time, and I still laugh at it now. It's just so z-grade and yet spoken with such conviction, and timed perfectly with the slow fade-in of a perfectly-chosen Goo Goo Dolls song. It's probably my favorite moment from the movie. 

[Werthead]

20 minutes ago, Corvinus85 said:

The huge time lapse between movies is definitely an issue. If Cameron had been able to put out a movie every 2-3 years, it could have kicked off something. Because so far each movie has generated enough buzz before and immediately after its release. The world Cameron created is meticulously crafted, enough that it should allow for the creation of companion content like games or graphic novels. For some reason that didn't quite pick up.

This game came out a month ago, it has decent reviews but haven't heard much about it. https://james-camerons-avatar.fandom.com/wiki/Avatar:_Frontiers_of_Pandora It is Ubisoft, and personally I largely swore off that company.

Yeah, the game is supposed to be incredibly beautiful and sells the idea of being on Pandora, but it is a somewhat standard Ubisoft game, albeit made by Massive, who have been doing their online stuff like The Division recently and have never made a standard singleplayer Ubisoft collect 'em up before. The big shift is that they try really hard not to rely on map markers and make it more organic in how you get to locations, but apparently that's a bit hit and miss.

Damn, I remember Massive from their RTS days. Ground Control 1 and 2 and World in Conflict are three of the best games in that genre ever made. Genuinely annoyed when Ubisoft turned them into another one of their Standard Content factories.

[Ser Rodrigo Belmonte II]

So in that sense the Avatar game captures the movies perfectly- beautiful to look at on the surface, completely shallow and generic once you look for some depth. Anyone calling Cameron’s world building for Avatar compelling or original needs to go watch Dances with Wolves and I’m guessing they missed the part where the McGuffin is literally called “unobtanium” sigh… talk about bad dialogue. 
 

Comparing Avatar to Terminator is far more unfair IMO, T1 and T2 are much better films than Avatar. Hell even Titanic is more engrossing.Avatar stands on some over saturated visuals right out of a fever dream which people seem to think is immersive for some reason….

[Deadlines? What Deadlines?]

6 hours ago, Corvinus85 said:

This is completely wrong. The first Avatar came out on December 2009. At the next Halloween people were still dressing up as Na'vi. There was stuff in the news about how people went nuts for months about the world of Pandora. It had a good presence at the Oscars.

Yeah they did.

https://www.cnn.com/2010/SHOWBIZ/Movies/01/11/avatar.movie.blues/index.html

53 minutes ago, Ser Rodrigo Belmonte II said:

So in that sense the Avatar game captures the movies perfectly- beautiful to look at on the surface, completely shallow and generic once you look for some depth. Anyone calling Cameron’s world building for Avatar compelling or original needs to go watch Dances with Wolves and I’m guessing they missed the part where the McGuffin is literally called “unobtanium” sigh… talk about bad dialogue. 
 

Comparing Avatar to Terminator is far more unfair IMO, T1 and T2 are much better films than Avatar. Hell even Titanic is more engrossing.Avatar stands on some over saturated visuals right out of a fever dream which people seem to think is immersive for some reason….

"Unobtainium" is a brilliant bit of dialogue. Also not really common parlance before the first Avatar film came out. If he can figure out how to get "Retro Encabulator" into one of the sequels, that noise you hear will be engineering grads in the audience jizzing in their pants. 

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Unobtainium

[Heartofice]

One test of the durability of Avatar, is that I can’t think of a single scene from the movie. Usually the best films have something iconic that you remember, but Avatar has.. nothing.

Really it’s not a movie but a theme park ride. 

[polishgenius]

1 hour ago, Ser Rodrigo Belmonte II said:

 

Comparing Avatar to Terminator is far more unfair IMO, T1 and T2 are much better films than Avatar.

 

And if I had said 'the Avatar films are like the new Terminator' instead of the literal opposite you'd have a point. 

 

 

1 hour ago, Ser Rodrigo Belmonte II said:

Anyone calling Cameron’s world building for Avatar compelling or original needs to go watch Dances with Wolves

 

 

Okay, I think the worldbuilding on Avatar ranged from 'meaningless' to 'woeful' but the similarity of the plot to Dances with Wolves doesn't have a lot to do with it, except in where they adapted the worldbuilding they had done to better fit with that plot. 

 

(here's a video that highlights some of the issues Avatar had with its worldbuilding, framed via the approach to the score. This specific stuff isn't things I would have noticed myself, not being a musician at all, but I think you can notice the issue they talk about, of Cameron having this deep lore built and then stamping on it when it actually came to making the film, in things like them crafting an entire Navi culture based on jungle living, certain weaponry etc, but the structure of the film he had in his head demanded a pitched, head-on battle for the finale so that's what they did even though it makes no sense. )
 

 

[Ser Rodrigo Belmonte II]

1 hour ago, Deadlines? What Deadlines? said:

Yeah they did.

https://www.cnn.com/2010/SHOWBIZ/Movies/01/11/avatar.movie.blues/index.html

"Unobtainium" is a brilliant bit of dialogue. Also not really common parlance before the first Avatar film came out. If he can figure out how to get "Retro Encabulator" into one of the sequels, that noise you hear will be engineering grads in the audience jizzing in their pants. 

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Unobtainium

Oh lol so it’s a inside joke - got it , I didn’t know about the history of this word, my bad. I still wish Cameron would go back to the type of sci fi he made in the 80s and 90s but Avatar is too damn successful….hopefully he and Rodriguez can still make Alita 2 someday….

[Ser Rodrigo Belmonte II]

55 minutes ago, Heartofice said:

One test of the durability of Avatar, is that I can’t think of a single scene from the movie. Usually the best films have something iconic that you remember, but Avatar has.. nothing.

Really it’s not a movie but a theme park ride. 

I think a theme park movie like Avengers Endgame is still more memorable though, so it falls below that bar also. Hence I had mentioned  Transformers, or that godawful movie John Carter. 

[Corvinus85]

Getting back to the MCU and upcoming Echo show - that fight scene between Daredevil and Echo does look subpar, but not that terrible. It seems there was more focus on edgy cinematography than great fight choreography. The moves are good, but there are a lot of pauses, not as fast as other Daredevil fights. And even Echo's fight scenes from Hawkeye looked better.

[sifth]

24 minutes ago, Corvinus85 said:

Getting back to the MCU and upcoming Echo show - that fight scene between Daredevil and Echo does look subpar, but not that terrible. It seems there was more focus on edgy cinematography than great fight choreography. The moves are good, but there are a lot of pauses, not as fast as other Daredevil fights. And even Echo's fight scenes from Hawkeye looked better.

I heard the lead actress had a child shortly after Hawkeye finished. I wonder if it affected her ability to do stunts.

Edited January 7 by sifth

[IFR]

I'm curious where this discussion of cultural impact comes from. What does magnitude of cultural impact indicate other than cultural impact? It has no bearing on quality.

Almost the entirety of Star Wars and Marvel property is about as lobotomized entertainment as you can get. Nearly every plot point and character decision is stupid on a deep, profound level.

Which is fine. There's entertainment in that. Lots of people enjoy both properties. But to try to detract from Avatar's accomplishment in a thread dedicated to the entertainment equivalent of stale, movie theater popcorn for a meal strikes me as bizarre. Plenty of people like it, and it has its place, but that doesn't make the movie theater candy somehow "worse" than the popcorn.

Edited January 7 by IFR

[Heartofice]

7 minutes ago, IFR said:

I'm curious where this discussion of cultural impact comes from. What does magnitude of cultural impact indicate other than cultural impact? It has no bearing on quality.

I'd say that cultural impact is indicative that a movie has had some sort of resonance with audiences, outside of the theatre. A movie would need to be able to stick in a persons head long enough for them to talk about it outside, to think about it, to imitate it, to go out and buy merch. 

That in of itself is a certain quality, and generally movies have to be pretty good to have that impact. Bland movies are labelled as 'forgettable' for a reason. You might rag on Star Wars, but the OT has so many scenes an moments that have been endlessly parodied and copied, they have become utterly recognisable (a real problem for Zach Snyder!) The cultural impact of those movies was monumental, and its mainly because they are good at what they do. 

The same could be said for some of the MCU, and maybe why the same is not true of later MCU (is anyone going around quoting Quantumania or rushing to get an Eternals T-shirt?)

The reason Avatar had so little cultural impact is because the movies are forgettable fluff, they are just a vehicle for taking you on a flashy ride, little else. Thats fine, but it doesn't make them good movies.

[polishgenius]

 

19 minutes ago, IFR said:

I'm curious where this discussion of cultural impact comes from. What does magnitude of cultural impact indicate other than cultural impact? It has no bearing on quality.

 

I mean, I just brought it up as a little poke at deadlines (who's a committed Avatar defender) because he keeps gloating about how little box office Marvels made for some reason. 

Then it turned into a conversation because other people engaged with the comment in good faith so I had to eventually explain what I meant by that.  

And in so far as bearing relevance to quality, sure, but it's got more indication than box office tbh. Box office means that people went to see it. Cultural impact means that people remembered it. 

 

6 minutes ago, Heartofice said:

The reason Avatar had so little cultural impact is because the movies are forgettable fluff, they are just a vehicle for taking you on a flashy ride, little else. Thats fine, but it doesn't make them good movies.

 

 

Honestly, one of the sad things about Avatar is that it clearly wants to be more. Like, it's a message movie. It's just bad at it.


But also: I love some movies that are all flash no substance. I also love some movies that are really dumb. But the flash in Avatar for me is unremarkable (like you are looking at pretty things but they aren't presented in an interesting way), and dumbness is far more acceptable when a film is likeable, which for me Avatar wasn't. 

Edited January 7 by polishgenius

[Corvinus85]

58 minutes ago, polishgenius said:

 

 

I mean, I just brought it up as a little poke at deadlines (who's a committed Avatar defender) because he keeps gloating about how little box office Marvels made for some reason. 

Then it turned into a conversation because other people engaged with the comment in good faith so I had to eventually explain what I meant by that.  

And in so far as bearing relevance to quality, sure, but it's got more indication than box office tbh. Box office means that people went to see it. Cultural impact means that people remembered it. 

 

 

 

Honestly, one of the sad things about Avatar is that it clearly wants to be more. Like, it's a message movie. It's just bad at it.


But also: I love some movies that are all flash no substance. I also love some movies that are really dumb. But the flash in Avatar for me is unremarkable (like you are looking at pretty things but they aren't presented in an interesting way), and dumbness is far more acceptable when a film is likeable, which for me Avatar wasn't. 

Come on, the 2nd Avatar was all about family, which is what your favorite over the top franchise is about.

[Arakasi]

I don’t know but for me avatar had far more last appeal than Endgame. Like both were good movies and maybe Endgame is a slightly better movie but with Downey and Evans going out it was always a downer of a movie in the end helping to doom anything after to being inferior. And we’ve all seen how the last 3-4 years of Marvel has gone while avatar keeps trucking on. Also we’re a distinctly NA audience and I think avatar has more worldwide appeal.

[Deadlines? What Deadlines?]

4 hours ago, IFR said:

I'm curious where this discussion of cultural impact comes from. What does magnitude of cultural impact indicate other than cultural impact? It has no bearing on quality.

Almost the entirety of Star Wars and Marvel property is about as lobotomized entertainment as you can get. Nearly every plot point and character decision is stupid on a deep, profound level.

Which is fine. There's entertainment in that. Lots of people enjoy both properties. But to try to detract from Avatar's accomplishment in a thread dedicated to the entertainment equivalent of stale, movie theater popcorn for a meal strikes me as bizarre. Plenty of people like it, and it has its place, but that doesn't make the movie theater candy somehow "worse" than the popcorn.

I think the "no cultural impact" discussion began around 2016 with a column by Scott Mendelson in Forbes (maybe). It might predate that but not by much. Others have parroted this line and its kind of taken on a life of its own. 

I'm pretty sure this comes almost exclusively from American commentators and it's pretty superficial in nature. "Why no memes?" "Why no cosplay?" "How come it doesn't have the kind of merch the way Star Wars does?".

All valid questions I suppose. But if that's so, why did the first sequel in this dormant franchise do so well at the box office? Why did it set outright box office records in some international markets? Clearly there's something going on here that isn't captured by the metrics these commentators are applying to it.

This is a more complicated topic, but consider another recent film: Joker. There's been a lot of commentary about this movie, some of it positive, some of it sharply negative. but how much "mainstream" commentary have you seen dealing with the inequality and class warfare elements of that film? Probably very little; and it's not like the film was being subtle about it. 

4 hours ago, polishgenius said:

I mean, I just brought it up as a little poke at deadlines (who's a committed Avatar defender) because he keeps gloating about how little box office Marvels made for some reason. 

Hey Hey Hey. That's unfair. It's true I didn't have much confidence in The Marvels, but I never would have predicted this and I'm definitely not gloating. More fascinated about how this could have happened. 

It's also true that I'm bearish on the CBM phenomenon in general, but what's happened in the last few years is pretty shocking. I would never root for a film to fail. 

And yes, I am probably more positive on Avatar than many people on this board. Because it's amazing. 

Quote

And in so far as bearing relevance to quality, sure, but it's got more indication than box office tbh. Box office means that people went to see it. Cultural impact means that people remembered it. 

A movie does a billion dollars at the box office: a lot of people watched it. That's not all that remarkable. plenty of forgettable films have done that kind of business.

A movie does two billion dollars at the box office: a measurable fraction of that audience went back to re-watch it. That's something else. 

And all this where the villain of the story is "humanity" writ large. 

Edited January 8 by Deadlines? What Deadlines?

[IlyaP]

2 hours ago, Corvinus85 said:

Come on, the 2nd Avatar was all about family, which is what your favorite over the top franchise is about.

Salute Mi Familia!