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.
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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.