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:
Dances with Smurfs
“Showed up out of nowhere”, ie. in development since the mid 90’s; “made the most bank”, ie. made the 2nd most bank; “disappeared”, ie. Cameron said that there would be 4 sequels and that they’re being worked on; “came back out of nowhere”, ie. the first sequel came out more or less when it was supposed to, and Cameron said in 2020 that filming on Avatar 3 was nearly finished.
me_irl
i feel like the feeling of them coming “out of nowhere” and “disappearing” is created by how little cultural impact those movies managed to create. like give me a single quote, anything memorable from the story itself. we all remember it is a beautiful film to watch, but the plot might as well be a theme park ride around an alien world
nobody talks about it, there is nothing to talk about
Bet you’re a hoot at parties
Want to have a nice cry about it?
I saw the first movie, forgot almost completely what it was about. But I have to admit I thought it would be about the the Airbender. Half of the movie I felt stupid and cheated at the same time… Probably why I don’t remember what it was about.
Nope. I knew what I was seeing.
I usually like to challenge anyone who said they liked it to name two chsracters. I think one person ever has succeeded.
🤷♂️
Jake and Colonel Quaritch.
The problem is, the latter is a name recycled from the Aliens franchise, and Jake is so generic that it’s kind of a gimme.
Well, there’s Sully, and, uh… Well the blue people are called the Navi, does that count?
That’s even weirder really, the movie was so forgettable.
Well, it’s better than the actual ATLA movie.
Oddly enough, the Shyalaman movie is my favorite version of that whole franchise.
Ok I’m trying to be as open minded as possible here, but…how?
There is no movie in Ba Sing Se.
There also is no live action TV adaptation.
It didn’t help that it came out around the same time as the ATLA movie.
Pretty sure it now has a theme park or something, doesn’t it?
It’s bizarre how much “stuff” there is for the blue people Avatar franchise, considering what a tiny lasting cultural impact the original movie had.
The original movie was an incredible tech demo. It was an utterly forgettable movie. I had no desire to bother watching the sequel.
I think it made so much money at the box office because it was so visually stunning (for the time) and no one had made a movie like that at that point. It was very much a movie everyone said to go watch on the big screen in 3D, ideally IMAX 3D. I never did and only watched it on a DVD borrowed from my wife’s friend 6 or 7 years ago, and came away less impressed. Like, it’s fine, but the movie itself isn’t exactly the greatest story ever told, and the visuals, while groundbreaking at the time, are now pretty standard.
The thing that I think a lot of people forget about the first Avatar is that it was pretty much the first big blockbuster to be available with those RealD 3D glasses. I distinctly remember wanting to go see it so I could check out RealD and find out if it lived up to the hype.
Of course, it had the James Cameron name recognition, so it was probably going to be pretty successful regardless, but I don’t know if it would have been quite so record-shattering if it weren’t for the novelty of RealD, combined with the higher ticket price of 3D showings.
The game isn’t good. Triple AAA or not.
