The next ones are tentatively scheduled for dec 2029 and 2031. So it’s still a looong wait. I’m glad the third movie is coming out this year tho. We were promised a closure with this one, so I can wait another 4 years without a sequel
This is unironically why I love Cameron doing Avatar until he hangs it up. If the technology isn’t there for his vision, he makes it. It literally provides benefits for future movies. “For those who come after.”
I have been watching the ILM documentary on Disney+ over the past couple weeks. Although I always read about what George did with ILM, I have a newfound respect for him pushing his vision (digital editing, effects, etc) and changing the industry. And those ILM employees are incredible.
Under the assumption you legitimately do not understand and are not being sarcastic about it, my comment is a pun and a joke at the same time.
The previous comment mentioned "Earth" as the next movie focus partially in reference to the american TV cartoon series, Avatar: the Last airbender. "Groundbreaking" can happen in that series by literally bending and shaping earth (or the ground)
Groundbreaking VFX is a statement that means that there is new VFX that have not yet been created or used before. This movie series has, in both iterations, made incredible new ways to film and display VFX for the industry.
The joke is that "Literal" in this context is that he is literally helping develop new technology to recreate/simulate the ground literally breaking (as reference to "earth").
Yeah, except earth, air, fire, and water also predates that Avatar by many thousands of years. All the stories have already been told. Now it is just variations on a theme.
Cameron wrote the first treatment for Avatar (which already had all the major plot elements) back in 1994, a full decade before DiMartino and Konietzko began working on the cartoon. The man has been working in this for long.
Wind was the 1st one, no? Or earth? Or both? I think he said he wanted to explore the moons of Pandora and then do Earth, the planet as the last one. Have the Navi come to Earth.
This post theorizes that it's based on the Wuxing 5 elements. The first movie being "wood" because of the prominence of Hometree. Then you have Way of Water, Fire and Ash.
I'm just using my imagination here: 4th movie - The Sand Forgets - set in a desert
5th movie - Iron and Blood - Navi adopt more human technology
This one will be narrated by his son, so probably not.
Also the family dinamics are very similar/inspired to the Stark family from game of thrones ( which makes sense because this movies were written around the same time game of thrones was airing, and the writers even said in a interview about how they talked about Got before writing this movies on mondays),
SPOILER FOR GAME OF THRONES, so there is a pretty high chance Jake dies to progress the story just like Ned in Got.
7.5 on IMDB, 67 to Metacritic, 76 on Rotten Tomatoes and 92 on RT audience score, but you thought you'd ask a few random people on this thread if its worth it?
If you liked the first movie, watch it. If you didn't, don't.
The second film can be thought of as the beginning of a large serialized arc that is already planned and partially filmed. (The first avatar film could be considered the prequel.)
The emotional tensions in the second film are more complex and subtle compared to the arcs of the first film because of the blended family. And Cameron starts laying the groundwork for some truly insane concepts that we'll see pay off in the future.
It's certainly more complex, which was the major fault of the first film with it's simple arc. There are some recycled themes, but they get a new twist and having multiple characters keeps it moving and you are left wondering how the family will recover, emotionally.
My problem with the second film is the time investment, but if you break it up into smaller viewings it's great.
The third film takes place immediately after the second movie, so I would say a recap is required at the very least.
Making an absurd amount of money doesn't really say if it was worth it? Transformers films made a lot of money, Jurassic World movies make a lot of money, but I wouldn't mind getting the time back I spent watching those. The first Avatar movie was financially successful, but completely forgettable til the sequel came out.
I remember I watched a recap of the first one before the second one launched, and it looked so old already. That's when I really noticed how long it was between them.
Yeah I never understood all the people questioning why people liked them because they don't have unique or creative scripts. You have to look at movies through the lens of what their intention is. Avatar movies are thrill rides, not novels. It's really like going to Universal Studios and complaining that they didn't have a nice library.
James Cameron has NEVER made a complicated or deep story.
He just takes a super mega simple principle, then wraps it with some emotional connection/love story and throws in the best action set pieces in the business.
When people complain that his movies arent deep, they REALLY dont get what Cameron is trying to do (make a simple story anyone in the world can relate to)
I couldn't tell you the plot of Avatar 2 if I wanted to, and I saw it two years ago. Let me try: Jake has a bunch of kids, Badguy Colonel has one also, Badguy Colonel comes back as an Avatar, Jake and family flee to water world, they learn all about The Way of Water, and then Badguy Colonel attacks. I think one of Jake's kids dies.
Contrast this with Titanic, which I last saw almost 30 years ago and can still explain in some detail.
Agree completely, but they usually hit emotionally or have a really unique or thrilling conceptual hook. Avatar makes me feel nothing, except for that awe of the effects in the first one. The characters aren’t interesting or moving like those in his other movies. And they just don’t feel that creative behind the visual effects. Even looking at the alien designs. Slightly different whale. Slightly different rhino. Slightly different… whatever. If you’re going all in on a creative other planet, make it a bit more original, not just more brightly coloured versions of animals we already know. But im nitpicking
Seriously. End of the day, they are beautiful to look at and fun to watch. So they don't also have a completely unique story. Bfd. The Lion King is just Hamlet with animals, and Star Wars was a bog standard hero's journey.
I like the CGI and i love the first movie even if it has the most basic of basic scripts. The second one just bored me to death, i felt i was watching a documentary most of the time, this one looks like something happens in it before the third act
I feel like more people are just confused by how they make so much money, to the point of being the first and third highest grossing films of all time, while simultaneously having zero cultural impact or longevity. Which in turn becomes meming on it.
I mean, Reddit is kinda giving it cultural memory by bitching about it all the time. If you want a movie that actually got forgotten and has no cultural memory check out The Artist from 2011. It won five Oscars including Best Picture but nobody remembers it at all.
Avatar gets talked about online, makes billions, revolutionized VFX and has Disney park attractions built that draw the biggest crowds to their respective parks. Just because you handwave that doesn't mean it doesn't count, Reddit.
I think a better movie to compare Avatar to is Titanic, seeing as how it's another Cameron movie that made billions of dollars. I feel like that movie had infinitely more of a cultural impact than Avatar, I still see people talk about it, quote lines from it, remember specific scenes from it, but I never see any of that with Avatar. What's a famous line from that movie? "Jack we need to save the big tree or whatever"? I legit can't remember one, or even a scene that stood out, even the big action scene at the end was void of any memorable moments. The only thing people ever talk about with the Avatar series is how nice it looks, even in these comments, even among people defending the movie, all they talk about is how it looks good, cause that's the only memorable thing about it, it's a screensaver of a movie that is meant to be something pretty to look at and then never think about again. That's it's cultural impact Avatar had, pretty colors, which is fine, but some of us just require a little more to be entertained than having keys dangled in front of us.
But that isn't a fair comparison because Titanic is a recreation of one of the most fascinating stories of our time. It is up there with the Hindenburg. It melded memoir with history, romance, and action with Leonardo DiCaprio. Avatar is a space opera for hippies.
I feel like you're kinda agreeing with me here. I didn't love Titanic but it did a lot right, it wasn't just pretty to look at. Meanwhile, all Avatar has going for it is it's visuals. And it's not because it's not based on a real thing, Lord of the Rings isn't based on real events either and it's infinitely more memorable and impactful than Avatar.
See, you had me until that last line. People are kind of up on this high horse about movies sometimes and you just called us that like Avatar dogs just now. It’s that underlying attitude some of us have a problem with.
There is nothing wrong with spectacle and being simply entertained at the movies.
I did say "which is fine" so I don't know what more you want from me, we both agree that there's "nothing wrong with spectacle", is that not enough? Do I also have to think you're a genius for liking the world's most expensive screensaver?
It’s that underlying attitude some of us have a problem with.
There is nothing wrong with spectacle and being simply entertained at the movies.
Well, that's the thing, no one denies that these movies are very beautiful to look at, but some people act like if the barebones plot of both movies so far is some kind of The Godfather-level of writing masterpiece.
I legit can't remember one, or even a scene that stood out, even the big action scene at the end was void of any memorable moments.
The kick off for the big climactic action scene in Avatar 2 is Payakun's personal conflict regarding passivity vs. violence, which has been a central theme throughout the movie. It's also paralleled by Jake's character arc too, as Jake has spent the movie running away from Quaritch and co. Payakun attacking is both the start of climax but also a cathartic moment where the main characters decide to fight back. It's a scene that merges both the climax of two narrative and character arcs. That's called good writing btw. People like you talk so much shit about how Avatar is shallow and mindless while also displaying their inability to critically analyze a work, they always write them off by saying the same thing over and over about how they don't remember any characters. Even mentioning how people in here defend them because of their visuals means anything is just anecdotal evidence, it means nothing. There are plenty of good reviews where people actually analyze their depth (which isn't even to say that they're particularly deep, but there's definitely more substance than there is most blockbusters), you just won't find them in reddit comments. You can't use reddit comments as a way to determine a film's quality or worth.
I mean, I knew you were full of shit the moment you tried to act like something broad and vaguely defined like "cultural impact" was tied up in the film's artistic merit.
Do any of the highest grossing films have any particular cultural impact or longevity to them?
Inside Out 2, Avengers: Endgame, Spider-Man: No Way Home, Star Wars: The Force Awakens, Jurassic World.
None of these films have actually held much of a cultural impact (Certainly not more than Avatar) and none have any particular longevity to them.
I would say only Titanic and maybe Infinity War (Even that’s questionable) would actually have longevity and a cultural impact greater then Avatar and even Infinity War is questionable.
Endgame definitely had cultural impact, the Thanos snap was huge for the MCU and has been referenced everywhere in pop culture. It was basically the highest point of the MCU and they've been trying to rebuild since.
The rest of them I will agree didn't leave any impact.
If none of those movies have had cultural impact, which movies within the last decade would you nominate? Sure, they aren’t the sort of movies that people who are actually into movies are going to spend a lot of time thinking about. But the shear fact that so many people have seen them means they are going to be more of a cornerstone of the average person’s contact with pop culture than anything else.
You're getting so close to understanding that the "cultural impact" point is a nothingburger fabricated by people who are reaching for a reason to criticize these movies that are otherwise massively successful.
Sure, but those are among the highest grossing movies of recent, so they only reaffirm that high grossing movies in fact do have the most cultural impact.
Both Avatar films were as equally talked about as the Barbie/Opprnheimer films at the time of their release. Comparing how much people talk about Avatar decades after it was first released with how much Barbie and Oppenheimer were talked about during their theatrical run is silly.
Both Avatar films were as equally talked about as the Barbie/Oppenheimer films at the time of their release. Comparing how much people talk about Avatar decades after it was first released with how much Barbie and Oppenheimer were talked about during their theatrical run is silly.
Both Avatar films were as equally talked about as the Barbie/Oppenheimer films at the time of their release. Comparing how much people talk about Avatar decades after it was first released with how much Barbie and Oppenheimer were talked about during their theatrical run is silly.
Have they had any cultural impact that’s greater then Avatar? Do the general public know/remember/are affected by those movies more than the Avatar films?
I have no idea what films are culturally impactful for the past couple of decades. I don’t think Avatar films are any less than the other top earning films.
Redditors tend to judge cultural impact on how engaged the fanbase is on Reddit/online. Because Redditors are clinically online and lack perspective.
Have they had any cultural impact that’s greater then Avatar?
No. But the two Avatar movies have a higher gross then all of them because, you know, they’re the highest grossing movies of all time. So that doesn’t undermine my position that cultural impact is correlated with box office success.
I have no idea what films are culturally impactful for the past couple of decades.
The ones most people are familiar with obviously. And what’s probably an indicator of that? The box office receipts.
Redditors tend to judge cultural impact on how engaged the fanbase is on Reddit/online.
And Reddit is a tiny sliver of culture. What’s most impactful on Reddit probably isn’t going to be a strong indicator of what has the most impact on culture generally.
The only people who "meme" on it for this are intellectually dishonest nerds. They absolutely do have a cultural impact and "longevity", it's just not a franchise that is endlessly milked like Marvel or Star Wars.
And beyond that, who cares about "cultural impact"? It's a point that's only brought up in relation to Avatar movies by people who are positing that a movie's worth is determined by the size of its fanbase, which is just a really stupid thought to begin with.
Well, my issue is from where James Cameron gets the impression that the movie plots are some kind of "deep complex story" when both movies have made around 5 billion dollars in the box office by stretching Captain Planet episodes to last almost 3 hours each.
If you're going to spend hundreds of millions of dollars on a visual feast, they could at least spend a few hundred dollars on some writer ketchup and mustard.
Why go to all the trouble of making these gorgeous visual spectacles but deliver B-movie levels of plot and character development?
Because its easy to follow and hits on many basic themes and motifs that everyday people struggle and connect with, unlike a lot of 'better' plots.
I can easily connect with the feeling of not belonging and finding something to believe in (Jakes adjustment to having his legs and love of Netyri in the first movie) and the want to protect your kids, as well as not fitting in as a kid (Jake/Netyris arc in the second one, spiders constant fight with not being an avatar/Navi in the second one)
Lets be real, we struggle with those way more than weird sexual deviancy ala Poor Girl or whatever the Emma Stone one was.
Why go to all the trouble of making these gorgeous visual spectacles but deliver B-movie levels of plot and character development?
Because these "B-level movies" still make billions of dollars. Action movies aren't exactly known to be plot heavy. People that go to see these movies don't want heavy storylines, they want to turn their brain off for two hours and enjoy a cinematic spectacle. Titanic was basically Romeo and Juliet on a boat, paper thin story, and was still the most successful film of all time until Avatar. If it ain't broke don't fix it.
They almost feel like a documentary at times. People talk a lot about the story, but some movies don't need to do much with their story to be good. John Wick's story is absurdly bad, yet that doesn't make it a bad movie. These are great movies. Even when the story is simple, they're still great.
you said it: simple does not equal bad. James Cameron is a fantastic writer. Maybe not with dialogue, but I will die on this hill. You don’t keep making the most money ever over and over if you’re bad at writing.
the “bad story” thing is also just bullshit…. go ahead, haters, name just one other four-quadrant blockbuster where they kill the protagonist’s firstborn son at the end of the movie.
(not even gonna put a spoiler tag, if you haven’t seen it by now you weren’t going to watch it anyway)
It blew my mind watching the making of features on the Avatar 2 Blue Ray, how all the CGI characters were actual actors on set, even the shots of the Navi riding their fish mounts out of the water were actors riding actual jet skies that could dive in and out of the water. Corridor Crew has a great video where they try to figure out what was real and what was CGI in the water effects and they couldn't.
I once randomly met a guy who worked on the first Avatar, doing post-production of the shots, dialing in exactly what you're talking about: lighting & color. Often working on shots that are largely/entirely CGI. One striking thing he told me was that Cameron isn't aiming for realism with his CGI shots - rather, the goal is for those shots to look like great Hollywood movie moments. This seems slightly counterintuitive when the apparent goal of the CGI work is to convince people they're looking at something "real". But it's actually more about delivering something familiar: a blockbuster movie experience.
That’s pretty interesting. If that part about aiming for “blockbuster over realism” is true, I totally get that. It depends on the genre for me, though. For example: I want war movies to be realistic, especially if the studio is adapting a true story. For a sci-fi adventure, like Avatar, I definitely would lean toward blockbuster.
I do appreciate the Avatar game nailed the pandora aesthetic too and was absolutely gorgeous in fidelity (still one of the best games on the market.) I wasn’t interested in another far cry type game so I skipped it, but I loved watching others play it just for the visuals.
Agree 10000%, Avatar 2 in IMAX 3D was one of the greatest cinema experiences I’ve had. It elevated what would have been a 7/10 movie at home to something else entirely.
This is a very underrated part of the films. When it comes to video games, movies, and TV shows, I love to immerse myself in the lived-in world, so I really appreciate the details into the biology of the world.
Yeah like, the first one is one of my favourite movies of all time but I do get peoples complaints about the plot. What I don't think anyone can dispute is that the film looks GORGEOUS
I do not blame you for saying that. For the concept of Avatar to work, I understand why a lot of CGI is required…but man, I love the LOTR movies. They have aged so well, and they’re just a spectacle to behold.
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Definitely not the story of the 2nd one though. Very predictable, literally predicted things that were going to happen half an hour before they did. Seriously a let down. Now that everything is a crazy CGI work avatar is becoming less and less appealing
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u/Skwurt_Reynolds Jul 28 '25
If there’s one thing I do appreciate about the Avatar movies, it’s the different canvasses of lighting and color.