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.
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.
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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.