Avatar 2 - The Way of Water Dec 2022

[Broker]

I think what people underestimate about Cameron is how good he is at making something that everyone thought was pretty good. That sounds like a joke but most blockbuster movies have a hardcore audience of people who fucking love them, then casual viewers, then a bunch of people who think they’re utter shite or just wouldn’t ever even consider watching them.

 

Cameron movies have an insanely broad appeal, where there never seem to be those hardcore fans, but there’s also not a lot of people who look at them and decide they’d never watch that. Their casual audience of people who see them and then go “yeah that was pretty good” is fucking colossal. Even when people aren’t overwhelmingly enthusiastic about them everyone finds something in them that they thought was pretty good. I’m not a fan of Avatar but it had great effects and the mech stuff was great, as was the performance from the angry soldier bad guy. Other people might like the strong ecological message, or the love story. Someone must have liked Sam Worthington. There’s something for everyone to enjoy and that leaves the film in a position where it’s good enough for a lot of people.

 

I’m a bit young to have seen Terminator 2 at the cinema but I feel like everyone I knew’s parents had it on video. They all saw it at the cinema, including a lot of people who I now would be very shocked if they went to see a robot murder movie. Everyone likes a bit of Titanic. Cameron’s power is a broadness of appeal that nobody else seems to be able to match. 

[Loik V credern]

Is that true? I hated Avatar at the cinema, yeah there's things i liked as with any film, but overall it was massively disappointing and a chore to get through. Many people say they find Titanic too cloying to endure, i like it as a background watch but even as like that it takes forever to get going and the interesting stuff about class it skirts over. There is extreme dislike for it, maybe a lot of that is disappointment the director of Terminator would direct a soppy love drama in order to make as much money as possible, and that it became the most successful film ever and won loads of oscars but there's definitely plenty of people who can't stand it. Not everyone is like 'it's alright, fun to watch as it sinks'. He's only released 2 films in 27 years, i'm sure after the 3rd or 4th Avatar more people will register their dislike of how broad and uninteresting and long his films are through the frequency of watching them. When it's 2 in 27 years they're not.

 

It's not that Titanic and Avatar are slightly broad, but that they couldn't be any more broad. How many films do people watch where there's a specific decision that seems quite eccentric to make, an odd idea, a character doing something unusual, some life injected into it without caring about how it fits into the whole. Cameron removes anything like that. Just a procession. Everyone knows about 80% of this next Avatar already.

 

I don't know what Avatar 2 and 3 need to make to allow a 4th and 5th, but is there any certainty just because he was successful 12 years apart in two very different films when you've got Pixar's Lightyear only making $188,855,663 from a budget of $200m? Avatar was an event film, 3d, fear of missing out, i don't think that's happening repeatedly every few years. Like casuals who don't buy a new console because they alreay have a playstation 2, why get another, people will look at the 3rd Avatar and think they've already seen it. The again, the 4th Transformers made a billion so scratch all that, there's not much logic to any of it.

 

I do think anyone who feels deep passion for Pandora and watching the Avatar 2 trailer releases something in them should just go scuba diving some time.

[glb]

Much like Spielberg, Cameron taps into universal themes, then backs them up with wonderous, often groundbreaking visuals. He's a maniac but knows how to do cinema on a scale that few other directors even attempt, let alone can match.

 

I enjoyed Avatar (that and Gravity felt like the only films that properly utilised the most-recent 3D push instead of just having a few objects poke out the screen). I don't think the world needed another four Avatar films, but jokes aside, there's little doubt the next one will be one of the biggest titles of the year in terms of box office. Top Gun: Maverick showed there's a thirst for simple, classic narratives coupled with spectacular visuals, and think Avatar 2 will offer that in spades, boosted by a gargantuan marketing budget.

[monkeydog]

4 hours ago, Loik V credern said:

I don't think Rodriguez is a bad shout. 

 

Alita was ok, as a project he inherited from Cameron. His Fett episodes were terrible.

[Flanders]

3 hours ago, Broker said:

I think what people underestimate about Cameron is how good he is at making something that everyone thought was pretty good. That sounds like a joke but most blockbuster movies have a hardcore audience of people who fucking love them, then casual viewers, then a bunch of people who think they’re utter shite or just wouldn’t ever even consider watching them.

 

Cameron movies have an insanely broad appeal, where there never seem to be those hardcore fans, but there’s also not a lot of people who look at them and decide they’d never watch that. Their casual audience of people who see them and then go “yeah that was pretty good” is fucking colossal. Even when people aren’t overwhelmingly enthusiastic about them everyone finds something in them that they thought was pretty good. I’m not a fan of Avatar but it had great effects and the mech stuff was great, as was the performance from the angry soldier bad guy. Other people might like the strong ecological message, or the love story. Someone must have liked Sam Worthington. There’s something for everyone to enjoy and that leaves the film in a position where it’s good enough for a lot of people.

 

I’m a bit young to have seen Terminator 2 at the cinema but I feel like everyone I knew’s parents had it on video. They all saw it at the cinema, including a lot of people who I now would be very shocked if they went to see a robot murder movie. Everyone likes a bit of Titanic. Cameron’s power is a broadness of appeal that nobody else seems to be able to match. 

100pc agree with this. It’s a very stark contrast to the MCU/Star Wars model, which I would argue targets a much more narrow demographic of viewers but which captures that demographic almost completely. 
 

Most of my friends and family have never seen an MCU film. As immensely successful as they are, they are still viewed as fundamentally shit for nerds by vast swathes of the movie viewing population - and I don’t mean Scorsese cineastes here, I just mean people who automatically turn away at the site of superhero costumes and actors waving their hands around to make special effects happen. All these people have seen James Cameron films.

[gizmo1990]

Get Kathryn Bigelow in and she'd knock it out of the park or at least make it as good as it can be. A fantastic director and most importantly in this case, a fantastic director of action.

[James Lyon]

I assume part four must be the slippy-slidey ice world.

[Hanzo the Razor]

Sigourney Weaver claimed a few years ago that she was already working with Cameron on Avatar 4 and 5. Maybe they've filmed some stuff but decided to get 2 and 3 finished before doing any more.

 

https://screenrant.com/sigourney-weaver-avatar-4-5-filming/

 

Maybe Cameron has heard about the lukewarm response to the Avatar 2 trailer and is concerned that Disney won't bankroll 4 and 5 if 2 and 3 don't do well enough.

[James Lyon]

10 minutes ago, Treble said:

The point about him spinning mediocrity into gold is true, but the difference here is that Cameron has never made a sequel to one of his films. 

 

You forgot Terminator.

[Treble]

I'd already deleted it as I'd forgotten Terminator

 

I still think he relies on newness though, with T2 as an outlier. 

[PK]

In fairness T2 was effectively a sequel to a film he never made, it's that different in tone to the original.

[Pelekophoros]

I think Cameron's movies lean hard into the spectacle side of cinema, and have since T2. That was heavily marketed and promoted on the basis of three things:

 

1) being the most expensive movie ever made

2) it having the biggest movie star on the planet in it

3) the special effects.

 

Point 1 and 2 were particularly important as it was building on what he'd introduced in The Abyss, a film which grossed less than T2 cost to make.

 

True Lies, a far more conventional action film, rarely gets a mention these days. Political backdrop aside, I think that's because it didn't really play on any of those things.

 

And that's what Cameron is good at: spectacle. It's why Titanic was fucking huge - widespread repeat viewing were commonplace - and even the VHS release was bonkers. I recall it also going straight to retail (and being one of the first) - there was a massive frenzy around it.

 

12 years later he does it again with Avatar, this time with 3D.

 

It's been 13 years since and both 3D and Avatar have faded significantly from public memory. CGI standards are through the roof, and the marketing so far points to a full length animated movie.

 

I'd never bet against Cameron - he was a laughing stock for both of his previous movies' costs and productions and he pulled it off both times in terms of box office - but this feels a little more stacked against him now. 

[Steve McQueef]

On 05/07/2022 at 12:23, monkeydog said:

Alita was ok, as a project he inherited from Cameron. His Fett episodes were terrible.

Hot take: Everything he's done post From Dusk Till Dawn, has been either mediocre or downright awful. 

[Loik V credern]

6 hours ago, Steve McQueef said:

Hot take: Everything he's done post From Dusk Till Dawn, has been either mediocre or downright awful. 

 

 

 

 

It doesn't matter what director people offer up, all of them will have more experience and more personality than any of the novices who get hired for big superhero films. 

 

Ron Howard didn't torpedo Solo: A Star Wars Story which any of the faults it has isn't due to its directing, and i liked it for its cinematography alone. Any director of Avatar might push back on the clunkiness of Cameron's dialogue. 

[monkeydog]

6 hours ago, Loik V credern said:

Any director of Avatar might push back on the clunkiness of Cameron's dialogue. 

 

Get away from Cameron's dialogue, you bitch!

[Down by Law]

10 hours ago, Pelekophoros said:

 

 

True Lies, a far more conventional action film, rarely gets a mention these days.

 

 

 

True Lies was released on VHS and Laserdisc after its theatrical release, and on DVD on May 25, 1999. The film is currently unavailable for digital purchase

 

Last home video release was 1999 lol. He's buried it

 

[Loik V credern]

He was going to make a sequel with Arnie having a fight on a falling plane but after 911 he didn't think terrorists were funny any more. thanks terrorists. i always bring this up because i want to see that film that has that in it. Is Cameron burying True Lies due to any of this, not liking where that film fits in now.

 

I couldn't believe finding out True Lies was a remake of a French film lifting whole ideas from it, that really blew my mind.

[Pelekophoros]

6 hours ago, Down by Law said:

 

True Lies was released on VHS and Laserdisc after its theatrical release, and on DVD on May 25, 1999. The film is currently unavailable for digital purchase

 

Last home video release was 1999 lol. He's buried it

 

 

Yeah, I know, but it still had 8 years or so to sink into the public consciousness before it disappeared. I'd argue that it was far less successful in that way than Cameron's other movies (I'd put The Abyss in the same category tbh).

 

Also, coming soon...

 

 

[Down by Law]

1 hour ago, Pelekophoros said:

. I'd argue that it was far less successful in that way than Cameron's other movies (I'd put The Abyss in the same category tbh).

 

 

 

Yeah I agree. I'm just salty AF because I love both those movies and I hate that a director has so much clout he can effectively remove his work from the public. 

[Paulando]

 

I still have this available on my iTunes account. I’m pretty sure the only other HD release was on HD-VHS, believe it or not 

[Nick R]

3 hours ago, Down by Law said:

I hate that a director has so much clout he can effectively remove his work from the public. 

 

[krenzler]

There's a spanish sourced bootleg out in the wild that is better quality than anything else that was available.

[Down by Law]

4 minutes ago, Nick R said:

 

 

 

[Paulando]

10 minutes ago, krenzler said:

There's a spanish sourced bootleg out in the wild that is better quality than anything else that was available.

Oooh, nice. I’ll check it out.

[Hanzo the Razor]

4 hours ago, Nick R said:

 

 

 

[Steve McQueef]

True Lies aka Obvious Stuntmen: The Movie.

[IcEBuRN]

Hang on wait. He tried to just remove the film. Explains why I've never seen it pop up anywhere. Ergh, that's a bit OTT.

 

Why was the Abyss sent in to the abyss then?

[MechE]

On 06/07/2022 at 20:50, monkeydog said:

 

Get away from Cameron's dialogue, you bitch!

Nah it's awful. I say we take off and nuke it from orbit. It's the only way to be sure.

[Ry]

On 05/07/2022 at 13:38, gizmo1990 said:

Get Kathryn Bigelow in and she'd knock it out of the park or at least make it as good as it can be. A fantastic director and most importantly in this case, a fantastic director of action.

 

I have a feeling her and Cameron don't get along...

[Loik V credern]

Both are disappointingly far from being prolific. 18 films in 40 years from both of them. Takashi Miike does that in 4 years.