It's a teaser, not a trailer. Teaser trailers are always just vibes.
The King James Victory Parade - Avatar: The Way of Water and sequels
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It's a teaser, not a trailer. Teaser trailers are always just vibes.
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1. Mulan released at possibly the worst time for any film.
2. Ahead of the release of the original Avatar, a number of people spent a lot of their time predicting how big of a flop it was going to be. How did that turn out for them?
It was the same thing with Titanic, incidentally. People thought that film was going to sink more than just a recreation of the boat. Turned out to be one of the most successful movies ever made.
I don't know that Avatar: The Way of Water is going to be a success. No one knows that, and no one can. What I do know, and what everyone should know by now, is that you don't bet against James Cameron.
Old Spice Guy
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I don't think it will flop. I think it will burst the banks like balloons with how much money it makes. Then I think it just won't be talked about much, and the next one may not do as well. I say may here because ooooooh pretty is a very powerful impulse and that much is guaranteed.
Now if it wins Best Picture or people rave about the story, then I will be incredibly surprised.
Now if it wins Best Picture or people rave about the story, then I will be incredibly surprised.
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It's obviously going to be a success in the sense that it makes at minimum several hundreds of millions at the box office. The real question is whether it can capture anything close to the first film. There's a huge difference between literally the highest-grossing movie of all time and even a cool billion dollars these days.
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I already am preemptively cringing at the Neytiri-Spider family drama, where she'll blame him for getting her kids in trouble with the RDA because he's a human like the ones that killed her father and sister, and him going 'I NEED TO CONVINCE BLUE CAT MOM I'M WORTHY OF HER LOVE!' until last second emotional resolution where everyone cries and hugs.
Which movies get talked about with such great frequency many years after their release, and where? Excluding of course neverending franchises where the mere idea of the franchise is what's talked about rather than any individual movie within it?
Like really, this isn't a thing.
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Carrnage
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So excluding the movies popular enough to become enduring framchises no movies have endurig popularity?
Claudette Savagely
Ball of flies
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Citizen Kane, Jurassic Park, The Godfather Part 1 and 2, Grease, Silence of The Lambs, Anand, Sholay, Triumph of The Will, The Great Dictator, M, Metropolis, Birth Of A Nation, Bobby (yes, I know, I'm just mentioning Amitabh and Rishi when they were starting out, if I tried to touch the rest of the catalogue we'd be here all day) Mad Max...
Loads of films have had a cultural impact lasting years and years and even decades after their release, which translates to their being talked about endlessly, posted about endlessly, written about endlessly, copied endlessly, and even featured in other films as snippets of footage during pivotal scenes. People make tribute programmes, compilations on YouTube, set up mailing lists, record podcasts, and write blogs. Whole shelves worth of cinema theory have been written about this stuff and get studied for decades after by thousands of people who then go on to make more films using what they have learned directly from those movies.
Plenty of films are carried forward by the culture, dude.
It's ok if something you or I or whoever likes doesn't get talked about a lot after it comes out, you know?
And for the record, for all its tremendous flaws, I really liked the first Avatar. Saw it in IMAX way back when, loved it despite the problems.
Really looking forward to this one and can't wait to book my tickets either.
☺️
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Franchise != movie.
Let's take the MCU - are people still talking about ... I dunno .... Iron Man 2? No. They're not. It's just another disposable instalment of a popular brand. You're confusing the brand with its often quite medicore and disposable components.
Where is this lively ongoing discourse about these movies taking place? Like sorry, but listing movies widely acknowledged to be great movies doesn't mean there's some lively ongoing discourse about them which Avatar exists outside of.
It's not even about movies being carried forward by the culture. I just think some people are really invested in this narrative that 'nobody' cares about Avatar for some reason, merely because it didn't become a Big Brand with a Capital F Fandom.
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Claudette Savagely
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My guy, America, just America alone, has a huge and decades old academic complex dedicated to studying and transmitting this material forward to a new generation of professionals, which has been in continuous operation for that time.
The first result on Google is this:
The Top 25 American Film Schools
As cultural, social and technological change rock the entertainment industry, these top colleges and universities — from USC to AFI — are training the next generation of cinematic geniuses.
www.hollywoodreporter.com
That's 25 enormously influential and very large places this stuff is talked about all the time, in just one of the many categories I mentioned.
If you want me to compile a list of TV programmes, blogs, podcasts, articles, famous critics, or whatever, going back decades because "obviously 25 specialised academic institutions have no relevance, they're not where real people talk about things" then I can certainly get started, but maybe think about why you need to deny the whole history of cinematic criticism and study in its entirety (indeed, why you deny the concept of cultural memory!) to defend a totally meaningless metric used by no one important on a nerd website that doesn't matter and which can't negatively affect the thing both of us like.
Just like, have a think first.
Renewal
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Yeah, frankly there are a ton of excellent, one-off properties that just never coalesce into a noticeable fandom. Like, I'll consume a great work, be jazzed up to find fanfic and keep consuming stories about the property, and there's just nothing. The internet is just very fandom-centric overall, and there's a good correlation between a work's quality and the existence and productivity of its fandom, but neither does the existence of a thriving fandom imply a work is good, nor does the absence of one imply a work is bad.
And I'm not even super invested into Avatar as a property, it just feels like a weird bludgeon to use the lack of fandom discourse against it.
tankdrop24
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Again, it's strange that the most culturally relevant Avatar has been up until now is an SNL skit complaining about the font the movie's title card used.
But I think it's really unlikely that this will happen again, as if nothing else Cameron has burnt through the simple plot, and him and Disney both intend to be churning out sequels at a regular pace.
But I think it's really unlikely that this will happen again, as if nothing else Cameron has burnt through the simple plot, and him and Disney both intend to be churning out sequels at a regular pace.
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What does anyone here actually mean by 'culturally relevant,' exactly?
tankdrop24
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Well, internet memes and direct references.
Though to be fair, I think it may also be something of a Spirits Within situation is it's aesthetic is massively influential, even if for whatever reason most people don't drawn an automatic line between them.
Though to be fair, I think it may also be something of a Spirits Within situation is it's aesthetic is massively influential, even if for whatever reason most people don't drawn an automatic line between them.
My guy, America, just America alone, has a huge and decades old academic complex dedicated to studying and transmitting this material forward to a new generation of professionals, which has been in continuous operation for that time.
The first result on Google is this:
And it lists 25 film schools. 25. Many of which have alumni whose epochal credits are themselves the stuff future generations of professionals would then study.The Top 25 American Film Schools
As cultural, social and technological change rock the entertainment industry, these top colleges and universities — from USC to AFI — are training the next generation of cinematic geniuses.
That's 25 enormously influential and very large places this stuff is talked about all the time, in just one of the many categories I mentioned.
If you want me to compile a list of TV programmes, blogs, podcasts, articles, famous critics, or whatever, going back decades because "obviously 25 specialised academic institutions have no relevance, they're not where real people talk about things" then I can certainly get started, but maybe think about why you need to deny the whole history of cinematic criticism and study in its entirety (indeed, why you deny the concept of cultural memory!) to defend a totally meaningless metric used by no one important on a nerd website that doesn't matter and which can't negatively affect the thing both of us like.
Just like, have a think first.
Literally none of this has anything to do with the tedious discourse that 'noone' cares about Avatar we're talking about. Like if you really think when some blue check on twitter tells the "no one cares about Avatar" line for some clout for the thousandth time or some dipshit website writes a "nobody asked for an Avatar sequel" piece they're thinking about the erudite discourse going on in a film school about Citizen Kane, I don't know what to say to that other than that's clearly wrong.
Like this is a tangent that has nothing to do with the topic, and the assertion that I'm "denying the concept of cultural memory" and "the whole history of cinematic history" is like - baffling to me. It's so far away from the topic or anything I've said it might as well be in a different universe. Like I literally said what this discourse is actually about (see the words: Brand and Fandom) and you want to talk about film schools. Its ... totally off base.
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Claudette Savagely
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Youi implied that no one cares much about films after they come out.
I proved you wrong.
That's literally it. That's all I'm contesting.
You said what you said and I read it as it was written.
You will also note, because I don't think this has gotten through to you yet, that I don't care if people think avatar doesn't matter or doesn't have a fandom or whatever. I don't think this is a useful idea to be attached to. I don't think it's worth caring about. I don't see why anyone should even bother contesting it, or indeed more broadly the idea that films only "count" if people talk about them afterwards.
But the bit I disagree with you on was , and is, and can only be restricted to, the idea that no one talks about films after X period of time.
That's wrong.
It's also got nothing to do with Avatar, which I like and which I think we both like.
Let's agree that Avatar was cool and fandom is meaningless as a measure of value, yes?
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Jenny
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Tbh, I'd much rather the $1 billion allocated thus far to the four Avatar sequels have gone to creating significantly more smaller-scale projects, particularly original/non-franchise stories by creative teams who haven't already made ungodly sums off previous films.
But that's not the safe bet, alas.
(This is a bit unfair, that wouldn't have happened if there were no Avatar sequels, we'd've just gotten some other franchise films probably.)
But that's not the safe bet, alas.
(This is a bit unfair, that wouldn't have happened if there were no Avatar sequels, we'd've just gotten some other franchise films probably.)
I do though, because that's the context in which I made my statement in the first place. And nothing I said could ever be reasonably interpreted into "no one much cares about films after they come out". That's ridiculous. If you want to insist that your tangent was justified because you read a post as written or whatever you can, but that's not what I meant so you can stop rebutting an argument I didn't want to make and have disavowed already.
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Claudette Savagely
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It's not a tangent. It's a direct reply to your position in context.
Here's what you said.
First you ask if [thing you don't believe happens] happens.
Then you say [thing doesn't happen].
Thing in this case is movies being talked about after they come out, as a response to the idea that Avatar doesn't get talked about much (which you have interpreted as an attack on it). You then implicitly assert that no one talks about movies after they come out. The logical consequence of this assertion being true is that if no one talks about any film after it comes out because this doesn't reflect its quality, then it doesn't matter if no talks about avatar and that this doesn't reflect its quality. This line of argument is clear from the post you were replying to, what you've said before it, and what you've talked about since.
Your post, here, clearly asserts by implication that films don't get talked about much after they come out.
I gave many examples of places and times where they do get talked about. You chose to focus on just film schools to the exclusion of all the other examples I save (incidentally, I noted that this might happen).
So it's clear that it wasn't a tangent, and in any case if it was, I didn't start it.
The point, though, is why this matters. And it matters because for whatever reason, people here (including you) seem to be using whether or not Avatar got talked about much after it came out as some means by which to assess its general worthiness. Some people seem to think that because they didn't see it being talked about much, it wasn't worthy. You oppose this idea by stating that few films receive this reception and therefore bring into question this judgement about Avatar, because if many films aren't talked about much, then surely that means Avatar isn't bad by this metric.
I am explaining this to make it clear to you that I understand your position and the context, so that you will trust what I say next.
What I am trying to get through to you is that the metric is worthless. Who cares if people didn't talk about it? Who cares if people don't think it was culturally worthy? Who cares if it doesn't have a fandom or a brand? These don't determine how good something is artistically or how much you enjoyed it.
There is no point contesting the metric "if fandom or brand then good?" because it is a garbage way to measure things and any prominent cultural commentator using that metric about Avatar is being an idiot who can be ignored on the subject; likewise anyone who agrees with them.
Avatar rules, and if you, Vympel, like it, you have every right to ignore people who say it doesn't matter because lack of Fandom Impact or Brand Recognition or whatever.
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Lol Star Wars. Come on, your own avatar.
My Dad still has letters from the late eighties/nineties spending time talking about ANH alone.
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Arthur Frayn
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Speaking as someone who literally just graduated from one of the film schools @Claudette Savagely mentioned, I can say that while the general population is neutral-positive on Avatar there's a whole generation of up-and-coming filmmakers who regard it as a foundational text. Like I know anecdotes are worth less than nothing but I was genuinely shocked to find a half a dozen fellow would-be filmmakers who treat the first film like their Star Wars or something. A friend of mine literally was planning her first major school film to be an Avatar-inspired genre comedy (before COVID put the kibosh on it).
As for the film itself, I'll go to my grave insisting that if you swapped out human block of wood Sam Worthington for, I dunno, Chris Evans or Chris Pine the film would jump a letter grade. Worthington doesn't have the range to sell pre-Pandora Jake's burn out and nihilism, and his performance can't push through the mo-cap once he goes Na'vi (Saldana eats his fucking lunch in pretty much every scene they share). Get someone in there who can sell both sides of the character and the film instantly improves.
As for the film itself, I'll go to my grave insisting that if you swapped out human block of wood Sam Worthington for, I dunno, Chris Evans or Chris Pine the film would jump a letter grade. Worthington doesn't have the range to sell pre-Pandora Jake's burn out and nihilism, and his performance can't push through the mo-cap once he goes Na'vi (Saldana eats his fucking lunch in pretty much every scene they share). Get someone in there who can sell both sides of the character and the film instantly improves.
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Triggerhappy
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I mean, the movie was very pretty and very competently put together, I don't think anybody has denied that.
I expect this one too will turn a handsome profit before sinking into the depths.
That, I can actually believe. Like I said, Avatar is a very competent film on the level of all the things that go into making a film.
It's just a void in regards to cultural influence. In part I think because Cameron has already more less introduced everything that would capture the public imagination in his previous films.
The RDA and their corporate cynicism lean heavily on the same sort of design aesthetic and mood of the Colonial Marines, for instance.
Edit : Something doesn't have to be a cultural touch stone to be incredibly popular and profitable mind you.
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Cloak&Dagger
Definitely Insane
That sounds like a horror story lol.
It's horrific how videogame quality has been cratered by graphics eating the entire budget, I'd hate to see movies go the same way more than they already are if Avatar is apparently everyone's aspiration.
Geckonator
Occult Materialist
I'm with Cloak here for once, what the fuck.
If the next generation of American professional filmmakers are treating Avatar as their big generational touchstone then Hollywood is even more doomed than I thought and deserves it even more than I thought (the latter is really saying something).