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I haven't seen the second Bluvatar movie because the first one was just scifi trope: the movie. He actually named the macguffin "unobtanium" ffs. Not even close to what I've come to expect from the person that gave us The Abyss, Aliens, and T2.
Meanwhile, The Last Airbender is the only cartoon to ever make me cry.
The second one felt like an extended visual demo.
I can name 2 characters from the entire movie. And one of them was a side character. Jake Sully and Spider.
The story was inconsequential (meaning everything that happened progressed nothing) and forgettable.
i maintain that cameron should just have gotten david attenburough and made a kickass scifi documentary about pandora, much like how apple did with prehistoric planet
I think the "unobtanium" was just lampshading. It would come off better if the rest of the plot was more innovative or self-aware, but I think they knew what they were doing for that bit at least.
FYI since you appear to be stuck on this point. Unobtainium is used in science and engineering for a material that can meet requirements but is too expensive, yet to be discovered or inaccessible by any means. https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Unobtainium
That being said bluvatar was a cookie cutter adventure story. Nothing special but it has mass appeal. For those of us who enjoy movies and television typically acknowledge that ATLA has a rich story, tons of depth and conveyed meanings and somehow doesn't take itself to seriously. ATLA is a work of art, bluvatar was a cash grab.
Unobtainium is used in science and engineering for a material that can meet requirements but is too expensive, yet to be discovered or inaccessible by any means.
That was their point. It's a sci-fi trope, a stand-in term that describes a thing that doesn't exist, and Cameron decided nah, it's not a stand-in term anymore, that's just what this blue stuff is called. Most fictional media names it Adamantine, or Vibranium, or Stellarium, or something.
Avatar is one of the greatest animated shows to have been released in at least the last 30 years
It's the greatest animated kids show ever made.
Avatar is great but I don't think it's the greatest animated kids show. For instance I would put Bluey above Avatar.
The biggest cultural impact from the Avatar movies is on the technology developed that will be used for other movies. The stories, characters and even world-building are not all that great, however the film-making is astounding and will reverberate through the industry for decades.
Definitely, but I feel like the second had a much lesser impact than the first
It's amazing how this meme/whinging was going on for a decade on the internet, only for James Cameron to make a second movie and even that made 2 billion dollars (and could have surpassed the first one had there not been an outbreak in China).
And even after all of that, you guys actually think that people don't care or remember about the films?
I think that people know and care about the films, but I've never seen anyone make a reference to it outside of discussions that are explicitly about it
The films are super popular but again after the sequel it was like everyone immediately went back to literally never mentioning the Na’avi or Pantera.
The *people you hang around with
I disagree: for most of my country, whenever the term 'Avatar' was mentioned before WotW was announced, it was always that movie with the blue aliens that blew away their minds back in 2009; most of the adults, whenever we discussed the latest hollywood flicks always asked me if there was any news about the second movie. the visuals of Avatar was something that stuck deeply with them
The movies seem to be something for the cinema. I think they lose a lot of magic at home, mostly because they were designed 100% for the 3d tech which is now dead.
You could show it in VR, but wearing a headset for 3 hours is not going to be a particularly enjoyable experience, and nobody really seems interested in bringing them all to VR anyway. Apparently Disney are planning on having it on the ludicrously expensive Apple VR thing, so hopefully somebody will rip it in it's variable framerate 3D glory so I can watch it on my lesser peasant VR headset.
It really wasn't all of that on the Cinema either. I watched the first Avatar on 3D when it premiered and was bored out of my mind 40 minutes in. I admit the tech involved, the CGI and the 3D stuff was super cool and interesting, I'm a nerd for high tech, but the script is so mid, the cinematography so cliche, the characters are cardboard cutouts and the subject matter so pedestrian that I just lost interest. When I heard the Way of the water was 3+ hours long I knew I would never watch it on theaters. Saw it at home in 45 minutes chunks as a mini-series and it confirmed it to me, the script is somehow even worse and even more forgettable, I'm glad I didn't spend a dime on going to the movie theater for that one. The CGI is impressive but nothing new or unique that we haven't seen before a dozen times already, there have even been better CGI movies than Avatar before.
The thing about the entire franchise being based on how good the CGI looks is if you wait 5-10 years the CGI will look dated and all you're left with is a mediocre script.
Meh, I've always got to ask because while it's certainly only every going to be the first thing in my mind I know way more people that have watched the movie with blue people and not the show.
I've neverwatched the show. Still I think of the show rather than the movie (which I have seen) when someone says Avatar
An avatar is a profile picture in old phpbb forums for me.
Don't know anything about the last airbender apart from its existence, and Space Pocahontas was a meh movie with great effects.
That or the embodiment of a god on the material plane for me. (D&D)
When I saw Avatar in the theater in 2009, it was a family outing while visiting relatives. I thought it was an Avatar: The Last Airbender movie and wondered why everyone had chosen it. I knew very little about Airbender (still don't), but must have seen previews or something for the actual Airbender movie that came out in July the next year, while I somehow missed seeing anything about Avatar. It was maybe five minutes into the movie when I realized this wasn't a preview for some sci-fi flick, it was the actual movie I was there to see.
Movie is shit, the more recent one is ok but still nothing does justice to the show XD
So small that I took a good 20 seconds to remember what the other Avatar even was lol.
I first thought this was a stab at Korra..
for millions of people, avatar has nothing to do with either movies or shows. it means incarnation of god in human form.
more accurate term would perhaps be western people.
Which is also a definition that aligns more with the show because the Avatar is essentially the current in a long line of reincarnations of a god-like being who can bend all four elements. The blue avatar refers to using technology to allow humans to inhabit/control a digital or physical being.
Though I think a lot of people in the West wouldn't automatically think of either show or movie if "avatar" is used in the context of "an avatar of x" or "my avatar jumps when I hit spacebar". Some might not know what you mean, but it's probably enough context that they don't think it's the show or movie (or movie about the show).
Avatar of Khaine for me.
I’ve never seen either…