Good to see someone else admit to liking these most successful of films (unless I missed some sarcasm), so that makes two of us. I have never understood why these films are met with such hostility and pilloried for doing what countless blockbusters do (relatively simple plots, conflicts and relationships), but what they do well, they do better than anything else.mfunk9786 wrote: Tue Jan 28, 2025 4:20 pm The only contribution I have to make on this discussion is that revisiting the first two Avatar films, I was completely wrong about them the first time around*. Utterly brilliant mass entertainment, leaps and bounds ahead of the way other blockbuster films are made and packaged. He can tell me to move out of mom's basement all he wants.
*I might need to blame the terrible theatrical 3D experience for this in both cases, but I know that ultimately it falls on me completely missing the point.
Technically, of course, they are absolute marvels, I don't have to suspend my disbelief with these films, they really take me to another world. The first Avatar still doesn't look dated and the bioluminescent environments are beautiful and unlike anything else out there. In terms of world-building, not much can touch it. Cameron knows how to stage set pieces and shoot action scenes like no one else, and while some of his dialogue is a little on the nose, he puts more effort into characterisation than most.
When they came out, most of the reviews were great, but there still seems to be this idea in the public consciousness that these are bad films, and considering their popularity, they don't have much of a cultural footprint.
I wasn't too keen on the second Avatar film at first, but I also had a bad experience at the cinema (I was the only person in a huge theatre who didn't seem to be talking or playing with their phone for the whole show. It was the last time I went to the cinema for a general release of a new film). I watched it again at home on my 3D projector and enjoyed it almost as much as the first film.
