Revisiting AVATAR for the first time since 2009
In advance of its sequel, how does James Cameron’s blockbuster hold up?
A few years back, I had a brief moment of quasi-fame when an email of mine was read on The /Filmcast (now The Filmcast). In it, I argued that the 1993 Whoopi Goldberg comedy Sister Act had more cultural impact than 2009’s Avatar, the highest-grossing movie in the world.
It was a tongue-in-cheek shower thought. I heard the song “My Guy” playing in the background of something else, and it immediately called to mind that film’s parody, “My God.” It got me thinking about how weirdly successful a comedy about a singing nun had been; it inspired a sequel and a Broadway play, and whispers occasionally circled about a remake or reboot (indeed, one is on the way for Disney+). Just the fact that an old Motown song made me – a native Detroiter – think of that movie was proof of its cultural footprint.
Meanwhile, James Cameron’s Avatar came out in 2009 and dominated the box office for several weeks. It is still the highest-grossing film in the world. But, I argued, where was the cultural impact? Do kids wear Na’Vi T-shirts or pretend to be Jake Sully on the playground? Where were the fan-imagined short stories or even officially licensed comic books or novels? Where were the angry message board arguments?
I was proud of the email not because I took the argument super seriously, but because it made co-hosts Dave Chen and Davindra Hardawar – along with guest host Tasha Robinson – laugh; it also made co-host Jeff Cannata angry. I was just proud to have what I considered to be a pithily worded film theory read on one of my favorite podcasts.
And, I do think there was something to it. Avatar was a phenomenon upon release, but it didn’t become embraced by the entire world after its box office run. It wasn’t wholly without any follow-ups. There was a random Cirque du Soleil show in Vegas. And well before Disney purchased 20th Century Fox, they made a deal with Cameron to build an immersive, Pandora-themed area at Walt Disney World that opened five years ago. But the Cirque du Soleil show closed after four years. And while Pandora – The World of Avatar has received impressive reviews, it hasn’t inspired the same fervent pilgrimages that fans have made to similar theme park lands centered around Star Wars or Harry Potter. It would seem that audiences were eager to visit Pandora when it was on the big screen, but rather disinterested in exploring the world once the credits rolled.
Like many others, I assumed this cultural shrug spelled the end for Cameron’s fictional universe. And while I was curious when the director announced he’d finally begun work on the first of four sequels, it seemed like hubris. People don’t care about Avatar; I thought. Why should James Cameron’s next decade or so be spent trying to change their minds?
Well, revisiting Avatar this week for the first time in 13 years, I’m ready to admit I was wrong. I think when Avatar: The Way of Water opens this weekend, it’s going to be another of the director’s box office behemoths. I think people are not just ready to return to Pandora – they’ve been waiting for it. And I think the world’s going to re-learn a lesson Hollywood has had to teach since Terminator 2 was poised to be an overpriced fiasco: Don’t bet against James Cameron.
And I think that I owe Jeff Cannata an apology – because I’m beginning to think that the lack of follow-ups might be key to why Avatar will once again dominate the box office. It may not seem to have a cultural footprint, but I think Cameron’s original film was like a splinter in the moviegoing consciousness; it’s not so much that we’ve been disinterested in Pandora – we’ve just been waiting for the filmmaker to take us there on his terms.
Welcome to Pandora
I should note that any thoughts I had about Avatar’s cultural footprint were not meant to be a statement of quality. Whatever jokes I lobbed, I was quite taken with Avatar when I saw it opening weekend in December 2009. My girlfriend (now wife) and I settled down for an IMAX 3D matinee and were both blown away by how Cameron immersed us in his world. It was far from my first IMAX or 3D film, but it was the most impressive use I’d seen of either tool. I would still rank that viewing of Avatar just below Alfonso Cuaron’s Gravity as one of the single-most amazing moviegoing experiences of my life.
It was so amazing, in fact, that I didn’t see the film again until this past weekend. That immersive experience was so key to my enjoyment that I decided that if I couldn’t see Avatar in IMAX 3D again, I didn’t want to see it at all. I was convinced that it would fall flat on a home entertainment system; I thought even a slightly smaller movie screen would dull it. I wasn’t able to see it again in its original theatrical run, and I elected to wait until it was inevitably re-released on its 10th anniversary to see it again. That re-release didn’t happen, but it was brought back into theaters this fall to prime the pump for the sequel. Unfortunately, it was gone before I was able to clear time to see it.
I have tickets to see The Way of Water this Friday night with my 10-year-old son. He’s been curious about it, and I decided that even though it was a subpar way to experience the original, we’d watch it on Disney+. I just had to prepare him that it was a movie intended to be seen on a giant screen, so it might seem a bit underwhelming.
But here’s the thing: It’s not. Even on our flat screen – 50 inches, which isn’t huge but isn’t nothing – the movie still plays.
Even in 2D, it’s apparent that Cameron created this with depth in mind. One of the first shots is of Jake Sully (Sam Worthington) waking in his cryopod after a six-year nap, a drop of water perfectly suspended in front of him. In crystal-clear IMAX 3D, I remember the shot being astonishing. While it doesn’t quite have the same effect at home, it underscores just how much thought Cameron put into Avatar’s technical aspects. As the scene shifts to show weightless men and women floating around a spaceship, you get a glimpse at how crucial it was for Cameron to use 3D to expand the world and immerse audiences, not use it as a cheap gimmick to throw stuff at the screen or – as studios would use it in Avatar’s aftermath – tack on up charges for family movies.
Avatar has a lot to explain in its first 10 minutes. It has to introduce audiences to a future world where humans have located and begun to exploit another planet. It has to let us know that there’s a native species on this planet that humans have had to deal with — and plant seeds about whether this species is friendly or hostile. And it has to sell us on its biggest aspect: that scientists have found a way to create models of these natives using their DNA and ours as a way to build alliances and gain trust.
Cameron’s script is economical in these opening minutes. A few shots of protagonist Jake Sully (Sam Worthington) in the shadows of military equipment give a sense of the immense scale the director is playing with, and arrows stuck in these vehicles’ tires hint at the presence of the Na’Vi. By making our hero a Marine grunt brought in to take the place of his deceased scientist brother, Cameron creates a character who discovers this world alongside us. The script uses the familiar tropes of military and scientific briefings to deliver exposition tied directly to the character’s emotions; he’s a military man who feels out of place amid the more compassionate and curious scientists. By making the character a paraplegic, Cameron creates an emotional reason to connect Jake to his Avatar – when he wakes up, Jake’s over-enthused about the opportunity to walk again. And it’s his military connection and desire to regain use of his legs that allow a Marine Colonel (Steven Lang) to manipulate him into providing crucial information that will allow the Marines to eventually overtake the native Na’Vi.
This all plays out in the no-nonsense, ball-busting dialogue Cameron characters tend to favor. He’s a director long associated with Space Marines and other military types, and while Colonel Quaritch’s dialogue might be one-note jarhead banter, Cameron and Lang know how to make it sing. Likewise, Sigourney Weaver’s anthropologist character, Dr. Grace Augustine, carries the no-bullshit attitude that has fueled many of Cameron’s characters; the instant she comes out of her Avatar, she demands a cigarette, and she’s bluntly skeptical that Jake will be of any use to her. I also like Giovanni Ribisi as the type of weasley CEO who might be a distant cousin of Paul Reiser’s Aliens character; Ribisi knows how to play sleazy with the right amount of humor, and the scene where he explains why his company is on Pandora and what they want is a great piece of exposition and character reveal all at once.
We meet all these characters within the film’s opening 20 minutes and then Jake bounds into Pandora in his Avatar. It’s worth noting that the much-heralded motion capture CGI holds up. When Weaver’s Avatar first showed up on screen in 2009, I gasped at how much the character looked like the actress. The effect is still incredibly impressive. Just a month before I saw Avatar, I saw Robert Zemeckis’ motion capture take on A Christmas Carol with Jim Carrey, and that film still struggles to break free of the dead eyes and plastic skin that plague The Polar Express and Beowulf. Avatar has no such issue; the Na’Vi are tactile and believable; their eyes sparkle with joy or simmer with rage. Whether it’s the increased budget or just that James Cameron is a much more meticulous craftsman, I’m not sure; probably both. But the Na’Vi were real in a way few other CGI creations had been – I’d argue maybe only Gollum came close. The effect still works today.
Cameron’s a noted perfectionist. It’s the reason why so many people have struggled working with him – if something doesn’t work 100%, he’s going to keep going at it until they have it right. While that’s often hell for his collaborators, the result is undeniable. It’s why the chase sequences in Terminator 2 have yet to be topped, and why Titanic captivated an entire movie-going public. James Cameron understands what he wants on the screen, what impression he wants to create in the audience, and he’ll be damned if he’s not going to get it.
Aside from maybe Peter Jackson’s original The Lord of the Rings trilogy (the Hobbit movies are hot garbage), I can’t think of another fictional world that looks as tactile and real as Pandora – my guess is that New Zealand, where both projects were shot, plays a major role in creating an environment that looks like nowhere else on our planet. The real-world beauty is augmented by some of the most imaginative and intricate ecosystem design I’ve ever seen. There are flourishes that seem to be out of a fairy tale – mountains that float, flora that light up in the evening, dragons that scream from the sky – and yet it’s all designed in a way where everything works together and makes sense together. Pandora is a world where electrical currents mingle underground and everything is connected; the braids that the Na’Vi use to plug in to plants and animals may seem silly on the surface, but make sense in the context of the film.
Cameron’s creature design is amazing. The Na’Vi are 10-foot-tall giants, and yet they move with grace and litheness. Zoe Saldana, in particular, does a fantastic job imbuing her character with emotion, and life. The wildlife of Pandora is both ferocious and beautiful – from thick-hided rhino-like creatures to the graceful yet dangerous banshees – all created in brilliant blues, greens and oranges – the better to stand out in 3D. They provide a stark contrast to the boxy, metallic gray exoskeletons and battle armor of the military. The film goes to great lengths to show how these creatures breathe, hunt and interact – it’s fantasy with deep thought given creating this world. It’s easy to see why this world impacted some people to the point where they felt depressed that they couldn’t visit Pandora in real life.
The story focuses largely on Jake’s journey with Neytiri (Saldana), a Na’Vi princess who commits to helping him learn the ways of her tribe. That means much of the movie’s runtime is given over to the two of them exploring Pandora and Jake learning about Na’Vi culture. It’s the film’s most enjoyable stretch, as we’re allowed to just sit and take in the breathtaking world Cameron and the special effect geniuses at WETA created. There’s a gorgeous hunt through Pandora forests, and the film’s highlight comes when Jake finally flies a Banshee. Honestly, more than any sequel, what I craved was a National Geographic special created to explore Pandora. Even at home, it’s one of the most amazing worlds I’ve seen created for film.
But eventually, that world has to exist within the bounds of a screenplay, which has long been one of Avatar’s most derided qualities.
Nuance is overrated
Let’s be clear: I’m not sure that James Cameron understands subtlety. He’s never going to direct a chamber piece. His films are big and sweeping; they wear their hearts on their sleeves and their themes on the surface. Terminator 2 is a bombastic action epic about the threat of nuclear eradication. True Lies is a high-tech spy movie that doesn’t try to hide that it’s about the difficulties of marriage. And Titanic is a big, gooey ode to star-eyed teenage love. This might all be too big and broad for some cineastes, but Cameron’s never pretended that he’s much interested in going small or complex.
Avatar is so on the nose that it hits cartilage. This is a movie that names its hard-to-acquire substance Unobtanium. Within two seconds of meeting the characters, my son was able to predict that Weaver’s compassionate doctor would be a hero, Lang’s Marine Colonel would be the villain and the seemingly selfish Jake would have a change of heart and become a hero. He also quickly put together that the behavior of the Marines toward the Na’Vi was similar to the way that European colonizers treated Native Americans. Nuanced, this movie is not.
But let’s just admit it: sometimes, in movies, nuance is overrated.
Avatar is absolutely uncomplex and derivative. It gives a digital gloss to stories that were told all the way back in Edgar Rice Burroughs’ John Carter books, and sprinkles in a heavy dose of Dances With Wolves. Its aesthetic pulls from Cameron’s own filmography, most notably the lifters from Aliens. It’s a story we’ve heard before.
But so was Star Wars, and no one seems to complain about that (also, this film’s Eywa, the energy that binds every living thing, is basically The Force).
The truth is, I think a broad approach is necessary when easing viewers into a world this fantastical. It creates a familiar framework in which Cameron can create this world and layer in the specifics, like the culture of the Na’Vi, the ecosystem of Pandora and the technical breakthrough of the Avatars. Playing in a familiar narrative sandbox gives audiences something to hold onto as Cameron and his digital artists create a world that’s like nothing they’ve seen before. And even if the film’s story is derivative, the themes about the exploitation of other cultures, humans’ propensity to destroy worlds for their own gain, and the dangers of hyper-capitalism are only more resonant today. Cameron’s a talented craftsman but, I’ll admit, sometimes a clumsy artist – some of the dialogue lands with a thud, and the romance between Jake and Neytiri, complete with clumsy sex scene, never really works. But overall, the broad strokes of the story are fine; it may not be deep, but it provides a toehold into this world.
And it’s worth noting that this simple story likely hasn’t been experienced several times by the audience that Avatar and its sequels might seem to work best for. Like Star Wars, this is a movie that might work best for younger audiences – even if Cameron’s dialogue is a big brusquer and more adult than your typical Marvel movie – who haven’t had these stories told time and time again.
My son, who’s seen all of the Marvel and Star Wars movies, was utterly slack-jawed by Avatar. He refused to believe it was made in 2009 because he said it just looked too good. The archetypal characters helped him navigate a story that already had a few technical details that were a bit challenging for him. He was swept up in the emotion, and concerned with whether Jake would be able to be forgiven for betraying the Na’Vi (Sam Worthington’s performance might be the weakest in the film, but he capably creates an everyman for audiences to latch onto). And even though he’s seen the world put at risk in countless comic book movies, the action here riveted him more than anything he’s seen. “Why is this so good?” he asked.
“Because,” I said. “This is just what James Cameron does.”
Nobody does it better
I will confess that one question that nagged at me as the credits rolled – aside from why in the hell they chose Papyrus as the film’s default font – is whether I found Avatar so immensely watchable because it’s really that good or if it’s simply been elevated by 13 years of mediocre blockbuster filmmaking.
The Marvel movies are a lot of fun; I enjoy them all to varying degrees, even if the most recent run has left a bit to be desired. But to watch Avatar is to be reminded what crisp visual effects and dynamic action filmmaking look like. Aside from the Guardians of the Galaxy movies, the MCU’s aesthetic is largely flat and gray. Avatar bursts from the screen in an explosion of colors. The visual effects still hold up in a way that Marvel is still woefully inconsistent in (probably a factor that WETA’s artists were able to focus solely on this while Marvel is tasking effects houses to church out a half-dozen movies and streaming shows a year). The world-building in Avatar is detailed and thought out in a way that our current comic book and sci-fi movies too often aren’t – kind of crazy when you realize this is an original IP and they’re often building on worlds and characters that have existed in a variety of media over the last few decades. And the action is so much easier to follow – Avatar’s final hour is given over to a large-scale battle between Marines and the Na’Vi, and Cameron makes sure that the audience knows exactly where each character is and what’s happening. The final fight between Jake and Quaritch understands its geography and keeps its characters in full view throughout; a major improvement over the blurry, rapidly edited sequences we too often get.
And say what you will about Avatar’s derivative script. At least Cameron’s “we’re all connected” and “we need to take care of our planet” themes let the film be about something. When’s the last time a Marvel movie has had a cohesive and passionate theme? The Marvel movies are roller coasters; they’re spectacles built solely to give you a good time. That’s fine; I love a good roller coaster. Cameron might not be saying anything we haven’t heard before, but he believes in that message and attaches it to big, sweeping emotions. For those willing to go with it, it works.
And I could lay my enjoyment of the film today on the idea that they just don’t make them like this anymore — and perhaps when I see The Way of Water, it will just confirm that they still don’t make it like this. But I think the answer I gave my son was correct: James Cameron just does this better than anyone. He understands how to weaponize tone and emotion; he knows exactly what it takes to thrill an audience. He’s a tech-head who’s obsessed with pushing the envelope on the possible. That might mean his films end up as more feats of craftsmanship than artistry…but when the craft is this enjoyable, why is that a bad thing?
And it’s why I’m actually a bit thankful that there hasn’t been a huge cultural footprint for Avatar. There aren’t geeks arguing about it in the same way they fight over Star Wars and Batman, making it unbearable. We haven’t had countless sequels and TV spin-offs to take away all the mystery or make us sick of it. There aren’t T-shirts, toys and videogames that bludgeon us and turn the movie into just another IP feat. Avatar largely exists in our cultural memory as an unforgettable movie experience delivered by James Cameron; have we been disinterested in getting more of it – or are we just eager for him to do what he does one more time?
The instant Avatar started this weekend, I realized it was the latter. I’m eager to return to Pandora – but more than that, I’m only interested if I’m getting that return at the hands of the tour guide who knows the world best.
I’ll have more to say about Avatar: The Way of Water next week, after I’ve seen it.