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?

  • Echo Dot@feddit.uk
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    Well it had James Cameron as a director which automatically meant was going to make money. Also it was technically very impressive for the time which was kind of the point. Cameron made a huge deal of how this was a story that he’d wanted to tell for ages but hadn’t been able to until the technology got to the point where he could use it.

    After the movie came out there wasn’t really any obvious path forward. It wasn’t supposed to be a franchise it was just a movie that stood on its own. So nothing happened for years.

    Then things like the volume came along and it started getting used even in TV productions, and suddenly a whole new level of capability arose and so they decided that they would make another movie only this time why stop at just one?

  • Mike Hunt@lemmy.ml
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    Semi related: i once lost an internet friend because he mentioned avatar and my dumb arse thought he was talking about the movies when he was talking about the anime

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    it is unapologetically in favor of preserving nature, anticapitalist, and anti military. the boys from chapo trap house like it and point out that its one of the few movies with a mainstream theatrical release in which the audience is made to cheer on the blue furry hippie throwing a bunch of US marines out of a helicopter to their death.

    • Zorque@lemmy.world
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      Or Fern Gully, or Dances With Wolves… it’s not exactly an uncommon story.

    • simple@piefed.social
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      Yes but Disney’s Pocahontas was boring to tears while Avatar has cool hair-sex and explosions

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        And it is otherwise entirely dull and forgettable. Despite making so much money, it barely made any cultural impact. Nobody quotes Avatar like ever.

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          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.

          • Bob Robertson IX @discuss.tchncs.de
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            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.

            • IncogCyberspaceUser@lemmy.world
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              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.

              • Bob Robertson IX @discuss.tchncs.de
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                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.

              • lime!@feddit.nu
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                no the tech was very much the focus at the time. they did some incredible stuff for that film.

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            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.

        • CitizenKong@lemmy.world
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          Doesn’t help that its dialogue is so boring, its most well known quote is literally just “I see you”.

    • ZoteTheMighty@lemmy.zip
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      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?

      • otacon239@lemmy.world
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        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.

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      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.

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        You don’t see the same criticisms for every bank heist movie that all follow the same basic premises as each other

        That’s because I generally don’t have to hear about every bank heist movie; you can’t avoid Avatar

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        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.

  • 🇰 🌀 🇱 🇦 🇳 🇦 🇰 🇮 @pawb.social
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    The first one used some crazy tech that is now regularly part of making video games. The movie itself is rather mid, IMO (I mean, it’s just Fern Gully but sci-fi instead of fantasy 🤷‍♂️), but the stuff that went into making it is fascinating as hell.

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    They pushed ocean sims to the max in the last one, I enjoy watching cgi/vfx idrc about the plot, also the naavi are hot, tall alien baddies when

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    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.

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      It’s bizarre how much “stuff” there is

      It’s not…

      James Cameron spent a lot of money to make the first one, and wants to keep making them.

      So the studio decided to just pretend that everyone wants more, and the entertainment media repeats it so the studio stays happy and tells them things.

      The people don’t want, but that doesn’t really matter anymore. Enough will go see anything the media says is good, and just believe it’s good.

      Lots of people are idiots, which explains a lot about capitalism

      • Onomatopoeia@lemmy.cafe
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        Yep.

        I have some acquaintances that raved about the movie. I finally read the story and could only think how terrible.

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        I don’t understand the appeal of Avatar. I really don’t. The writing is beyond lazy, and while the visuals may be impressive or whatever, the things they’re depicting just look weird and unappealing to me.

        But even I can’t pretend that its success is only due to hype. There are plenty of successful movies that don’t deserve their success, but you don’t get as successful as Avatar without giving the audience something. People aren’t that dumb.

        • givesomefucks@lemmy.world
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          I didn’t say no one liked the first one.

          They loved it, everything about it except the story. It was groundbreaking CGI and visually stunning.

          No one wanted it a franchise except James Cameron though.

          And when you strip away the story from any movie and rely on flashing visuals…

          Dumb is the target demographic, they didn’t care about the story anyways.

          • moakley@lemmy.world
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            The second one is the third highest grossing movie of all time. So clearly some people wanted more.

      • Zagorath@aussie.zone
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        So the studio decided to just pretend that everyone wants more, and the entertainment media repeats it so the studio stays happy and tells them things.

        I think you just described a non-political example of manufactured consent.

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      Sure, the movies aren’t very deep, but the world-building and visuals are pretty great. The emotional beats tend to hit as they should too so it’s entertaining fluff. Sure, I enjoy a fancy steak, but I’m also going to fully enjoy cotton candy at the carnival too.

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      Yeah, i remember going to see it mostly because of 3D (which probably helped a lot in becoming one of the most successful movies ever, thanks to the novelty and higher ticket price).

      But left so little impact that i can hardly remember anything about it and have no interest whatsoever in seeing the sequels.

      The theme park in animal kingdom was fine

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      Yah I saw the original in 3D and on acid, and it was incredible.

      I also will probably never see the sequels.

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        I had a chance to get to watch it in 3d when it had just come out.

        What they failed to tell was that it was with 3d sound but 2d visuals 🥳

        Well, 3d all the same. What’s the difference anyway?

    • TheRealKuni@piefed.social
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      The Pandora section of Animal Kingdom is pretty cool, especially at night. And the Flight of Passage ride is incredible, a very easy suspension of disbelief once you’re on the “banshee” and feeling it breathe beneath you, and the wind and the spray of water as you fly.

      Say what you will about Disney, they know how to make a theme park experience.

      • Zagorath@aussie.zone
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        Say what you will about Disney, they know how to make a theme park experience.

        The only Disney park I’ve been to is Hong Kong. And to be honest, it was a very subpar experience. Much worse than the other parks I’ve been to like Movie World & Dreamworld in Australia, or Lotte World in Korea.

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    “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.

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      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

      • hydroptic@sopuli.xyz
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        like give me a single quote, anything memorable from the story itself

        Well there was the part where the… uh… the guy, whatshisface said…

        Wait, no… ok well how about when the… um… there was that one part in… err, either the first or the second movie, one of the aliens did… umm…

        You know what, I’ll get back to you on this one

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          It’s kinda funny how sexualized the aliens in Avatar are when they canonically have no genitalia except for their dreadlocks. It kinda defies the sci-fi trope; a sexy alien species that humans can’t have sex with (unless you get a avatar body with its accompanying penis perm of course).

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    I want to hear the original version of the soundtrack. I do not care about the actual film at all, but supposedly Cameron hired a bunch of leading ethnomusicologists to attempt to create something unlike any music on Earth, only to then ditch the majority of what they made because it sounded too weird

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    Man, it’s just so friggin boring. I gave up on the second movie halfway through and I struggled through the first one. I don’t understand why it became a global blockbuster.

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    In “How To With John Wilson” he finds an actual Avatar fan group who like to dress up as blue aliens, but it still felt super niche for a multi billion dollar film series. It’s like everyone simply forgets about it when there’s not one on in cinemas.

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    Are we not going to talk about the fact that the logo uses something that is almost identical to the Papyrus font?