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Avatar 2, 3 and 4 or how James Cameron stopped worrying and pulled The Hobbit on us


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4 minutes ago, mrbellamy said:

 

Not sure if this was shared here, good talk.

 

Beating a dead horse but I especially appreciated Cameron's take on the cinema vs home experience at 28:02, definitely how I feel about it.

I listened to this a few weeks ago. It’s interesting how Act 1 of the 3rd movie was originally in movie 2. His take on cinema vs home viewing is pretty accurate and is probably more true than the whole shared experience take which gets discussed a lot. There’s some truth to the shared experience argument and seeing Avatar 2 in a packed cinema where the audience is engaged and claps after the film is great. 
 

However Cameron’s argument is probably the truth for most people because often other cinema goers can be annoying with their loud snacks and talking. It’s the idea that you payed for a movie and can’t do whatever you want like pause or check your phone etc plus the big screen and sound system obviously.

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Thanks for sharing that Del Toro/Cameron talk. Good stuff! Del Toro is a decent interviewer (and I had no idea they were friends from way back). Oh, how Hollywood would have needed someone like Cameron in the late 40s and early 50s (which in some ways mirror the situation today).

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10 minutes ago, leeallen01 said:

I heard somewhere that apparently a long time ago, Del Toro's father was kidnapped and Cameron paid a million dollar ransom to get him back.

 

Probably not true though

 

Been watching PROOF OF LIFE again, have we? :D

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3 hours ago, mrbellamy said:

 

Not sure if this was shared here, good talk.

 

Beating a dead horse but I especially appreciated Cameron's take on the cinema vs home experience at 28:02, definitely how I feel about it.


He’s absolutely right - that’s where the value of the theater experience is for me.

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19 hours ago, leeallen01 said:

 

Indeed

 

Some box office sites still don't have the final numbers for the first Avatar Listed haha  For some reason they don't update the numbers properly. 

 

The best place to find actual full totals for box office is twitter reporting.

 

For example, this guy is great on twitter. Regular updates - 

@Luiz_Fernando_J

That must be it because I did a second count last night and it was still off but much closer

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These movies must be the most expensive movies ever made that remain culturally completely irrelevant.

The first Avatar left absolutely zero impact, and so will this one because there is nothing in there that's faintly original.

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10 hours ago, leeallen01 said:

I heard somewhere that apparently a long time ago, Del Toro's father was kidnapped and Cameron paid a million dollar ransom to get him back.

 

Probably not true though

 

This was clarified by Del Toro recently, Cameron set up and paid for the negotiator. He offered to pay the full ransom but Del Toro's family wouldn't accept it, and they paid Cameron back later. 

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It's like the great John Williams once said - "You're going to have to find a better criticism than that for this film."

 

And Spielberg responded - "I know, but they're all already dead."

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1 hour ago, Taikomochi said:


The only thing less original than the plot to the original Avatar is this feckless meme of a criticism. It is an absolutely, 100% meaningless metric that there aren’t Avatar memes on Twitter or Reddit or wherever else you source your opinions from. 

 

I source my opinions by and large by my inner compass.

And my nose tells me if movie elitists reply to open opinions with, uh, "feckless memes" of anger, then my initial assessment can't be far off.

 

Speaking of memes, someone trashing social internet platforms on social internet platforms never gets old.

What is original, however, and funny, is the underlying assumption that cultural impact is defined by internet memes LOL

So, apparently, movies before 2000 didn't have cultural impact. Funny then, how certain movies shaped entire eras of film making and brought pieces of dialogue into public consciousness.

If you ask some average guy about real classic impactful movies, they can name some dialogue or a scene or hum a piece of music.

All anyone ever remembers about Avatar is at most "oh yeah blue people".

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21 minutes ago, TolkienSS said:

 

I source my opinions by and large by my inner compass.

And my nose tells me if movie elitists reply to open opinions with, uh, "feckless memes" of anger, then my initial assessment can't be far off.

 

Speaking of memes, someone trashing social internet platforms on social internet platforms never gets old.

What is original, however, and funny, is the underlying assumption that cultural impact is defined by internet memes LOL

So, apparently, movies before 2000 didn't have cultural impact. Funny then, how certain movies shaped entire eras of film making and brought pieces of dialogue into public consciousness.

If you ask some average guy about real classic impactful movies, they can name some dialogue or a scene or hum a piece of music.

All anyone ever remembers about Avatar is at most "oh yeah blue people".

 

"I don't see any conversations or cultural impact of a film that I have no interest in, nor seek out. It's weird... The postman just posted my mail yesterday without even asking me about Neytiri's questionable moral actions with Spider. It must mean Avatar has no cultural impact."

 

There are a handful of films that truly have a cultural impact. You're acting like there are countless numbers. It is impossible to measure a films cultural impact.

 

Stranger Things is one of the biggest TV shows ever, and yet I saw nothing about it in its 6 year existence, except for just knowing the name. I heard zero people talking about it around me because I never sought it out. But last year, I decided to watch it when I finally got Netflix. I fell in love with it to an obsessive level. Now I see cultural impact, because I seek it out. 

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Why do you think cultural impact matters when evaluating a film? Plenty of great films have none. How do you quantify cultural impact? Why do you think that you or the many other people I have seen parrot this critique are qualified as an arbiter of what is or isn’t culturally impactful? Have you been to China or India where the Avatar films are so popular? Do you believe studio execs or James Cameron are losing sleep over people not quoting these films that are designed to be singular theatrical experiences, rather than quotable movies, despite making oodles and oodles of cash?

 

They have no cultural impact, and yet, here you are arguing about it in the internet. Lol

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I have a friend that has connections to the Pandora theme park area in Florida, and he says it's consistently packed to a crazy level, and that people of all ages absolutely love it when they're there. Is that enough cultural impact?

 

Perhaps no one has said "I see you" to you in your life, but no one has ever said "may the force be with you" to me either.

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8 minutes ago, leeallen01 said:

I have a friend that has connections to the Pandora theme park area in Florida, and he says it's consistently packed to a crazy level, and that people of all ages absolutely love it when they're there. Is that enough cultural impact?

 

Perhaps no one has said "I see you" to you in your life, but no one has ever said "may the force be with you" to me either.

I also heard that the theme park is always packed.
 

Franglen said there is 5 hours of music written for the park. It’s a shame that only one hour was released on the CD.

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11 minutes ago, Mr. Who said:

Franglen said there is 5 hours of music written for the park. It’s a shame that only one hour was released on the CD.

 

 

Yeah there's some lovely new arrangements of Horner's themes in there. Also I like the new theme heard in the pieces 'The Shaman Call' and 'Na'vi River Journey.'

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Actually, thinking about it, jokes aside, I would love an underground Na'vi clan. Could you imagine the incredible 3D visuals involved in a vast bioluminescent cave system. And the ideas for animal and plant life that has to adapt to zero light. 

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As it has often been said, I don't think it's inaccurate at all to say that Avatar never really caught on in the cultural zeitgeist or consciousness outside of its technical/financial feats, certainly not like Cameron's past films. But then again, what was the last film that really did that anyway? LOTR? Maybe Inception

 

Outside of niche cult hits, big movies are far more "ephemeral" in memory than they used to be.

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Came across this video a few days ago and he basically addresses every criticism of Avatar, including the no cultural impact argument. Very well analysed and pretty hilarious also.

 

 

 

And he just dropped a new video about The Way of Water. Currently watching it now.

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15 minutes ago, KK said:

As it has often been said, I don't think it's inaccurate at all to say that Avatar never really caught on in the cultural zeitgeist or consciousness outside of its technical/financial feats, certainly not like Cameron's past films. But then again, what was the last film that really did that anyway? LOTR? Maybe Inception

 

Outside of niche cult hits, big movies are far more "ephemeral" in memory than they used to be.

 

Whatever you think of it, the MCU as a whole (at least through Endgame) has had a massive cultural impact.

 

 

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1 minute ago, Nick1Ø66 said:

 

Whatever you think of it, the MCU as a whole (at least through Endgame) has had a massive cultural impact.

True, but that tends to happen when you beat everyone to death with 25 films in 10 years. The next superhero movie became the only real blockbuster on the scene. 

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7 minutes ago, leeallen01 said:

True, but that tends to happen when you beat everyone to death with 25 films in 10 years. The next superhero movie became the only real blockbuster on the scene. 

 

Perhaps. But you could make the inverse argument about Avatar...that it's lack of cultural staying power wasn't because it wasn't an impactful film, but that until recently there wasn't a sequel to build on what the first film started. Cameron himself has made this point.

 

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3 minutes ago, Nick1Ø66 said:

 

Sure. But you could make the inverse argument about Avatar...that it's lack of cultural staying power wasn't because it wasn't an impactful film, but that until recently there wasn't a sequel to build on what the first film started. Cameron himself has made this point.

 

Right. But there was a time, when you didn't have to badger and oversaturate the market with 10 films a year to stay in people's minds.

 

The MCU films benefit from saturation of the market, and easy marketable IP. But even then, I wonder if people are out there, quoting lines and re-enacting or even parodying scenes from those films.

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2 minutes ago, Nick1Ø66 said:

 

Sure. But you could make the inverse argument about Avatar...that it's lack of cultural staying power wasn't because it wasn't an impactful film, but that until recently there wasn't a sequel to build on what the first film started. Cameron himself has made this point.

 

Indeed. 

 

I believe for a piece of media to have massive cultural impact, it basically needs to have one of three conditions;

 

1) It is completely fresh and opposite to the current media landscape, e.g. Star Wars.

 

2) Quantity; the sheer number of films involved. e.g. MCU

 

3) An adaptation of an already huge culturally impactful thing. e.g LOTR and Harry Potter. 

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1 minute ago, KK said:

Right. But there was a time, when you didn't have to badger and oversaturate the market with 10 films a year to stay in people's minds.

 

True. The Matrix comes to mind. That film had a massive cultural footprint, and you could almost make the argument that the sequels detracted from its impact rather than adding to it.

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9 minutes ago, Mr. Who said:

This is a really cool behind the scenes video. Even if it’s cgi they really did everything for real with the actors and stunt people and swimmers:

https://www.instagram.com/p/CnFIzTchieS/

 

I've been waiting for something like this! I am fascinated with how films are made, especially difficult productions. I've watched the LOTR special features even more than the films themselves. I can even quote them haha.

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1 hour ago, KK said:

As it has often been said, I don't think it's inaccurate at all to say that Avatar never really caught on in the cultural zeitgeist or consciousness outside of its technical/financial feats, certainly not like Cameron's past films. But then again, what was the last film that really did that anyway? LOTR? Maybe Inception

 

Outside of niche cult hits, big movies are far more "ephemeral" in memory than they used to be.

 

 

The Dark Knight is probably the best example since the LOTR trilogy, much more so than Inception, I think

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Based on the numbers and its week to week decline percentages, it is impossible for it not to gross 2.5 billion. That is now a statistical lock. Only pulling it from theatres will stop that now. But if it has even stronger legs than now, going forward, it could reach 2nd all time ahead of Endgame. 

 

So Avatar 1 and 2 would be 1 and 2 all time haha, that would be ridiculous.

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12 minutes ago, leeallen01 said:

So Avatar 1 and 2 would be 1 and 2 all time haha, that would be ridiculous.

 

That doesn't seem ridiculous to me

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My calculations based on current percentage of decline would make it earning another 560 million overseas and 210 domestically for a 770 million more worldwide. Add that to the 1.71 billion currently, and it makes 2.5 billion. Who the hell knows though with monsters like this.

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You could make them yourself - take two of either left right and put that pair into a frame.

 

My issue with 3D was always just the discomfort of wearing glasses on top of glasses. I'd have to keep adjusting them quietly.

 

That said, I do remember Prometheus being quite a stunning experience in 3D. I got the Blu ray of that from an exchange for £2 the other week, £1 of which was the luxury of having it in 3D (because... why not).

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