Avatar 2: Does Anyone Still Give a Shit?

Rewatched the original last night in preparation to see the sequel today. Jake tells us he was in cryosleep for 6 years before getting to Pandora. So assuming that he was in cryo for the entire voyage and that he came from Earth (I don't think it is explicitly said that they launched from Earth as opposed to some other world/colony), it seems fair that the remnants of the Earthers would take about six years to go back home, a year or two to raise resources for Operation: Na'vi MurderDeathKill, and then six years to fly back. That would coincide with the time it would take for Jake and Neytiri to have kids that appear to be teen-ish.

So, it's possible that this would have raked in more money if it hadn't been for the pandemic and cold weather.

Quick spoiler-free review: I enjoyed it more than the original and it was a beautiful if shallow film that you have to set your brain to low to enjoy. It makes me sad that they continue to under-explore the interesting sci-fi concept of a world where everything is interconnected and the ramifications of that.

The ramifications are Swamp Thing and Sandman.
Read those books instead.

I won the complete graphic novel run of Sandman off a friend by betting that Clinton was not going to repeal Don't Ask Don't Tell even though he easily could. Best bet I've made, although I may have to buy my own set because that one is pretty beat up from use over the years.

Thank you for reminding me that I'd just picked up Sandman Overture and had not read it yet.

I also am familiar with the Alan Moore run on Sandman and probably have most of those in individual issues somewhere.

But anyway, I am more interested in the concept of a planet where life evolved/was created to be so interdependent and interconnected, and the tangible, provable existence of an entity that has lasted beyond recorded history than the escapades of Jake Sully (now with family) versus incompetent space marines. I just have to resign myself to the fact that we will probably only ever superficially talk about what that means.

Heard one commentator describe the film as "Even more 'Dances With Smurfs' than the first one." This was by somebody who liked it, BTW.

Interestingly, even though this one is making piles of money, it doesn't seem to be having any kind of cultural impact. When the first one came out it was all over social media, the news, and protestors were dressing up like the Navi. Now? Basically none of that by comparison.

God, I've never wanted a movie to crash so damn much

Sick thing is, theaters need this beast to save their asses so I can still see Avengers 6 in 2030.
It's like needing Dayton's bone marrow to live.

Balls. Doesn't matter if theaters are still a thing in 2030 or not, so long as Disney's making money from Marvel, there will be an Avengers 6, and probably before 2030, if we're honest. They're at like 4 now, and we've got 7 fucking years before we hit 2030, so plenty of time for them to pump them out, regardless of what theaters are doing.

I am just glad cameron is doing the smurfs rather than another terminator or Titanic 2. If you are going to piss on a work of shallow CGI Avatar is the movie.

I am waiting for avatar Mockingjay under the new moon to cringewatch the whole series.

I dunno...I don't remember the first one having that much cultural impact even though it was a box office smash. Social media was very different then, but I don't remember seeing memes or discussion about it much. Nobody quoted lines from it the way people do regularly from, say, Terminator or Aliens or a number of other pop culture movies. Other than the visuals, the original movie was eminently forgettable.

Oh, we had them here. @Bailey and I and others talked about it a lot.

The lack of quotable lines is a common feature of a lot of big movies today.

James Cameron Sees Writing on the Wall, Says Avatar Sequels Will Happen

I didn't mind the first one, but this was definitely a weaker story IMO. The story is secondary to the FX showreel, of course. Strip the CGI away and - well - there wouldn't be much of anything, obviously. Makes me wonder what innovations Cameron can muster for subsequent entries to keep the novelty factor going. I think - given the rest of the series will be locked in and released much closer together than 1 & 2 - they'd have to expect diminishing returns from this point on.

How to create a blockbuster behemoth:

1) First, you have to make the largest grossing film of all time.
2) Wait 13 years to release the sequel.
3) Double check you're James Cameron, because only James Cameron can James Cameron.
4) Tell the press you really need this to be one of the highest grossing films of all time.

Magic!

In Avatar 3: The Smurfs discover fire. https://gizmodo.com/avatar-3-way-of-water-sequel-fire-james-cameron-1849993680

I suspect we may only see one more film and then the studio will pull the plug.

Why? Because even though it's approaching $2-billion at the global box office, Avatar 2 cost so much damn money to make that the studio may not make the oodles of cash it was hoping for.

Cameron’s rich enough he could bankroll the next one, though.

Nope, it cost them 250 million to make, 2 billion exceeds their expectations. We’re stuck with Avatar.

Nope, that's the "official" studio-reported budget for the film. Cameron himself has said that it cost a fuck-ton more than that and the film would need to make at least $2-billion to break even.

Hollywood accounting is incomprehensible.

Someone on FB posted this comment about the movie:

I just finished watching this and I'd say that's an accurate description. James Cameron is trying to have it both ways with this movie and the first one. He doesn't just want a dumb action flick, he also wants to tell a story with a message.

Sygourney Weaver must be worn the fuck out because she carries both movies to the finish line. Her character Grace in the first one and her character Kiri are the more interesting characters. Grace was a scientist who's trying to understand how Pandora works and Kiri is like a Jedi type character who was born of the Force, I mean born from the planet and can interact with the planet in a way that nobody else can even if they can talk to fish like Aquaman. This is what I would consider the only sci-fi element other than the setting and the time period and it was the most interesting part of the movie. This is not a hard concept to follow though, we've seen it before, but Cameron wants to stretch this concept out over three more movies. Really?

Then there's the overall story of the Sully family with Jake being our main protagonist. So this time Stephen Lang is an Avatar with the memories of the old Colonel so he's after revenge. At the same time apparently Earth is dying so they want to colonize Pandora. They make it very clear that the Earthlings are bad, very bad people. Lastly, instead of Unobtanium, there's space whales that have brain juice that stops human aging and it's worth a lot of money. So they're hunting down Jake because he's the resistance leader, colonizing Pandora and hunting whales, so it's Dances With Smurfs meets Star Wars meet Star Trek IV.

The thing about this movie that I could have gone without is the damn teenagers. I get that time has passed and they have kids now, but they have like five kids. They should have just had Sygourney Weaver's character and like one son because Kiri is supposedly special and then it would be natural for them to have a kid of their own. They have two sons, a daughter, an adoptive daughter (Kiri) and an adoptive son who's the Colonel's actual son. One of the son's die and I felt nothing, maybe kill off the son later? We barely got to know these kids.Keeping it simple, one son and an adoptive daughter would have been better, in my opinion.

The run time was another thing that kind of pissed me off.If you cut out all the teenager shenanigans, you could potentially cut it down to a two hour movie or maybe a two and a half hour movie since you need to reintroduce the audience to the Avatar universe because you took too long to make a sequel. This movie did not need to be three hours.

Overall, it's not bad. I'm glad I didn't go to the theaters to see it. I find myself saying that a lot, even with movies I love. I don't think we need three more of these, but whatever. It beats the Transformer movies and Fast and the Furious movies. It seems like they used a decent amount of practical effects and I liked all of the tech and machines they had. The action was solid, I could tell what was going on. Seeing Pandora again was cool, it felt like being on an alien planet. I don't know that we needed a sequel, but I'd say it's worth a watch.

Started watching it. Made it about halfway through and couldn't watch anymore. It was that stupid and boring.

And it also looked like I was watching a video game cut scene, the CG looked like a pre-render.

Was this before they get to Water World because if so, I agree. Once they get to the water the FX gets better.

A bit after, still boring and stupid.

Avatar 2 Made More Money in 2023 Than Most of Disney's New Releases

James Cameron Is Thinking About Avatar 6 and 7

I liked the first 2 Avatar flicks fine , but seriously , how MANY times can you keep regurgitating the same story over & over & over again?

Yeah, I am sure there won't be diminishing returns on these movies.

I am not really opposed to the idea of following the smurfs on their harrowing adventures in naked tree hair humping land, but I hope he does not think he will be breaking the bank forever with these installments.

How many Terminator movies are there?