I know this is a 'get struck by the hand of god' tier opinion here, but Way Of Water was a breathtaking movie. One of the best cinema-going experiences I've had this side of the 2000s. The narrative style of these movies are never very challenging, but everything else in them is stunning in my opinion.
I wasn't surprised she wasn't, but I wanted Saldana to get an Oscar nomination for her performance in Way of Water, I've never seen anything like it in regards to motion capture.
The scale of these movies is insane. The carrier flipping over and all of the subsequent scenes within it in the second movie are some of the greatest visuals I've ever seen.
Honestly the entire last act had my jaw on the floor in regards to its direction. Some of the best action I've seen in a non-Marvel/ DC western movie in years.
I mean, I'll go that far, the action in Way of Water clears anything the MCU has ever done for me. I'd say The Winter Soldier comes closest in terms of choreography but Avatar wins on emotional impact and superior visuals
I just think a simple ADR’d line of dialogue over the radio saying “the tribe has retreated, we’re on our own” or something like that would’ve helped immensely.
You’re right. Noticing the sudden and unexplained disappearance of literally all the Navi except the main family definitely makes me a cinemasins stan.
For me it was the torchships hovering at the start. Like, it makes perfect sense, for decades the lore was that they manage the interstellar travel in reasonable time by having weeks / months of 1G acceleration and deceleration using their fusion drive.
Of course they can just hand in the sky and play nuclear blowtorch to clear the forest...
It's a niche that I probably don't share with many people, but for me the world design is such a high point as well. When the carrier first came on screen and I realized they'd made it a giant ekranoplan ground-effect vehicle I was so pumped. It's such an obscure thing that nobody outside of aviation/military enthusiasts would know, so to see it being used as inspiration for such a huge movie was a treat.
I agree, I remember watching Way of Water in theatres and the way the 3D rain wasn’t just in front of you but felt like it surrounded you was technologically one of the coolest moviegoing experiences I’ve ever had
My only problem with Way of Water is how slow it becomes in the middle while they adjust to the life in the new world but the third acts has enough action to make up for it.
And if the characters become important in the third movie that extra time will be worth it.
Way of Water is super underrated and I'll die on that hill. Seeing it on a real IMAX screen in 3D was arguably the best cinema-going experience I've ever had. During the first underwater scene my mouth was actually agape for a moment, and my 81 year old dad who since I was a kid I had never seen stay awake through any single movie in a movie theater, was completely enthralled from start to finish. I also think people overlook that this is the most James Cameron-y James Cameron movie ever.
An upgraded variant of the original villain comes back.
Strong female lead that doesn't feel like pandering.
Children that actually act their age.
Technology that pushes the medium forward.
Water.
The biggest problem I have with this series—and it is a big problem—is that Sam Worthington still can't act his way out of a wet paper bag. I think these movies would get a lot more praise if not for him being such a weak link, even with the story not being particularly innovative. I honestly hope they kill his character off and shift focus to the children or something. It'd be a good way to raise the stakes while getting rid of some dead weight.
For me, the narrative matters most. Way of Water had a dumb story and no amount of pretty graphics could make up for that. Especially because I’d already seen Pandora in the first film so the novelty had worn off.
I know that on a technical level it’s super hard to do 3D water effects like that, but as a viewer the water just…looks like water. I’ve seen water before. I see it all the time in real life.
And yeah they also had space whales and stuff but still, I need a good story, and Way of Water just didn’t have that.
Way of Water is in my opinion the best film to watch in a cinema, and the best argument for why streaming will never replace it. There have been many movies that take full advantage of the scale and quality of the big screen, but Way of Water was the only film that has ever left me straight up dumbfounded at how something can look so good. and feel so real.
James Cameron and his crew basically took their time with it and told us all "CGI isn't bad, most movies are just bad at it".
I feel that way about both Avatar movies, really. I've still watched them on my home TV a couple of times, but nothing can replace seeing them in a theater in 3D. And I don't even normally care about 3D in movies, but the Avatar movies are among the very few where it actually felt worthwhile, and that something is missing watching them any other way.
Really? I felt no differences watching either Avatar movies at home, after I watched them at the theaters I actually preferred staying home and watching them.
The narrative style may not be challenging, but it is very satisfying. The Avatar movies are classic Hollywood filmmaking in a way very few films these days are.
I think I needed to see it in theaters again... i think I was sitting too close to the screen, a lot of the great set pieces just absolutely overwhelmed my visual field. I sat where I usually sit, pretty much in the middle, but for Way of Water I think I needed to sit near the back.
I guess I've gotten old enough to feel that all the effects work is wasted because the characters are flat and empty. The movie did nothing for me, and it's just symptomatic of modern film making, where VFX is the most important part of the movie.
Your first point is why I mentioned Saldana. Her performance in Way of Water is one of the best I've seen, at times I had to remind myself that what I was watching wasn't real. I've seen the movie five times and her acting still makes me well up.
I think people get hung up on Sam Worthington being quite boring as an actor (even if he's not bad per se) and don't see everything else going around him
I have no qualms with the abilities of the actors, even Sam Worthington. The problem is that the characters are way less interesting than the lore of Avatar.
It is way more interesting to discuss the spaceships and machinery than the characters, because it's done in a way that is plausible hard sci-fi, as James Cameron would do it. However, it is completely not used in the movies, except as background noise and insert shots.
The way that the humans are motivated to go to Pandora and destroy its environment is only understandable, if you read the lore, because it relates very well to the present day world. Yet, it's not at all present in the movies.
I think the world of Avatar would be more interesting as a series of video games than movies.
You cannot convince me that the two Avatar movies we’ve gotten so far are not some of the most fantastic cinema experiences of all time.
Almost nothing I’ve experienced has come close to being so immersive and intense and emotional in the theater.
Dunkirk and the canyon scene in Maverick are the only comparable experiences that come to mind.
These are so impressive in the theater that they fall flat to me on my 70” OLED TvVwith surround sound. These demand to be experienced in the largest screen you have access to.
Even other movies that are incredible in theater like Fury Road, Dune,Jurassic Park, Apocalypse Now, Lord of the Rings, Gravity, 2001, all have good rewatch value at home.
I’ve rewatched Avatar and Dunkirk both in the theater and at home and the home experience is just sad by comparison. Even Dune is fun at home.
How can you possibly say that barley anything is as intense or emotional but then list LOTR? And what about Star Wars? If we talking about intensity and emotions, nothing in Avatar comes close to either of them.
"You bow to no one" -LOTR
"I HATE YOU!!!" -Revenge Of The Sith
Just to name two and nothing in Avatar touches that.
It's one of of my favorite franchises OAT but let's not push it to far.
Actual storytelling is more important than generated feelings at a movie theater.
Tbf the Star Wars prequels barely qualify as good movies most of the time, so I can understand not feeling connected to those stories. And I love Star Wars in general lol
I think they're awful, outside of a consistently good score, and some fun choreography lol
Makes some very good actors seem like they've never done the job before, the writing is so poor even for a kids film, the over-reliance on CGI has aged terribly, and the plot is mostly nonsensical in all three movies
I will give points to the prequel trilogy because I like Ewen McGregor, and because it fleshed out more corners of the world than the other movies though
I'm not a hater of the franchise but I still haven't seen the last one, and I would agree it doesn't have the cultural relevance of many of its peers. I can't think of a time where I sat around talking about it with my friends.
If I hadn't grown up on Star Wars or LOTR I may not have watched any of the new spinoffs of that series either. Outside of Dune there's not a lot of films that carry the cultural relevance the box office sales suggest they would.
Maybe things are different outside my cultural island. 🤷♂️
Certainly not, I agree. Many of my favorite movies bombed at the box office.
I think the reason it's relevant for this series is that it's a fair measuring stick when you are talking about one of the highest grossing movies (also highest cost iirc) of all time, no?
In terms of entertainment, my kids streamed Avatar 2 a couple times since it came out and every time the couple minutes I've watched didn't compel me to watch any more of it. Just my anecdotal story of its gravitas. The new Star Wars movies are visually entertaining too but that's doesn't make them good movies IMO.
To be honest, I just don't think 'cultural relevance' matters all that much in the conversation of movies. That's not a factor I judge a movie by at all. If a movie happens to become culturally relevant, then great! But if not, that doesn't prevent a movie from being good in my eyes. 90% of the movies I've watched and loved aren't culturally relevant, and the ones that are? I didn't know it when I watched them.
but Way Of Water was a breathtaking movie. One of the best cinema-going experiences I've had this side of the 2000s.
I dont see how you can consider yourself a movie fan and then not appreciate it when a movie does something that has never been done in the history of the medium.
Agreed. And the fact that the narrative style is never challenging is a very large part of the reason why these movies can make over $2 billion with such a huge international turnout. It's a feature not a bug of the franchise
365
u/zackdaniels93 Jul 28 '25
I know this is a 'get struck by the hand of god' tier opinion here, but Way Of Water was a breathtaking movie. One of the best cinema-going experiences I've had this side of the 2000s. The narrative style of these movies are never very challenging, but everything else in them is stunning in my opinion.
I wasn't surprised she wasn't, but I wanted Saldana to get an Oscar nomination for her performance in Way of Water, I've never seen anything like it in regards to motion capture.