James Cameron’s ‘Avatar’ opened on December 18, 2009, five years ago this month. In a theatrical release that would stretch on for 34 weeks, Cameron’s motion-captured 3D spectacle grossed $749 million in the U.S. and an additional $2 billion overseas. Box-office-wise, it is the biggest movie in history by an absurd margin; it tops its closest competition, Cameron’s own ‘Titanic,’ by some $600 million. That’s more than ‘The Dark Knight’ made in its entire domestic theatrical run.
To be totally honest, I didn’t remember it was ‘Avatar’ anniversary. That’s not unusual though; as Scott Mendelson wrote in Forbes earlier this month, the film—which, again, is the number one movie of all time—seems to have “left no pop culture footprint” whatsoever. Millions upon millions of people paid to see ‘Avatar,’ and millions upon millions of people have apparently forgotten about it completely:
Kids don’t play ‘Avatar’ on the playground nor with action figures in their homes. There is little-if-any ‘Avatar’-themed merchandise in any given store. Most general moviegoers couldn’t tell you the name of a single character from the film, nor could they name any of the actors who appeared in it ... ‘Avatar’ didn’t inspire a legion of would-be ‘Avatar’ rip-offs, save perhaps for Walt Disney’s disastrous ‘John Carter.’ It didn’t set the mold for anything that followed save its use of 3D which turned the post-conversion tool into a valuable way to boost box office overseas.
There were ‘Avatar’ action figures; most are available on eBay for cheap. eBay is full of discount ‘Avatar’ merchandise, in fact; the PlayStation 3 game will run you a measly dollar plus shipping, and a licensed T-shirt costs about the same. Search for used ‘Avatar’ DVDs on eBay and you’ll see lots of “Or Best Offer”s next to the prices—whatever you’re willing to pay, the sellers will consider. Clearly, there’s plenty of supply and little demand.
Mendelson’s right about the ‘Avatar’ knockoffs as well; there haven’t been many, although there have been lots of 3D movies—so many, in fact, that they seemed to have killed audience’s appetite for the format (and their willingness to pay a surcharge for it, at least in the United States). That’s about it as far as ‘Avatar’’s cultural legacy goes—at least until James Cameron and Fox start releasing a trilogy of ‘Avatar’ sequels in the winter of 2016, and Disney opens a brand new “Avatar Land” in their Animal Kingdom amusement park sometime in 2017.
Although Mendelson himself says that he believes ‘Avatar’ holds up, many of the comments around his piece and the general obliviousness of the public to its fifth anniversary imply that the movie is unworthy of its status as the biggest of all-time. How could a huge blockbuster vanish so quickly into obscurity? ‘Titanic,’ the previous “biggest movie ever” at least launched Leonardo DiCaprio and Kate Winslet to mega-stardom and generated zeitgeist-defining lines of dialogue that are still quoted to this day. (“I’m the king of the world!”
Sam Worthington and Zoe Saldana are still working in Hollywood, but neither became huge, iconic figures in pop culture (Saldana arguably generated more buzz in ‘Guardians of the Galaxy,’ a much smaller movie). And no one quotes ‘Avatar.’ Hell, I just re-watched ‘Avatar’ last night and I can’t quote a single line of dialogue from it.
(Wait! Yes, I can! Stephen Lang saying “You are not in Kansas anymore. You are on Pandora!” But that’s it. And it’s mostly cribbed from a line in ‘The Wizard of Oz.’ Also, it’s not particularly quotable, except in a conversation about ‘Avatar.’
Given the fact that ‘Avatar’ hasn’t made a lasting cultural impact, I approached my re-watch skeptically, expecting to find a dated, silly, ugly film. Because that would explain it, right? That would make ‘Avatar’ less of a movie than an event, one that swept up people in a storm of publicity about its high-tech special effects and immersive 3D imagery. A naysayer could look at ‘Avatar’s record-breaking box office and the general apathy around the film just five years later, and declare the film nothing more than a bunch of noise. I had a hunch I would find a movie that deserved to be forgotten.
But that’s not what happened.
True, ‘Avatar’ doesn’t offer much in the way of quotable dialogue. But “I’ll never let go, Jack” notwithstanding, dialogue has never been Cameron’s strong suit; going to one of his movies for the words is like going to Red Lobster for a steak. Cameron’s strength have been and always will be as a visual storyteller, and even without the benefit of a massive screen and some of the best 3D effects in history, ‘Avatar’ is still a gorgeous movie. At home, you feel the repetitiveness of the many (many) flying scenes —mostly because you can’t feel the visceral height and speed of those flying scenes without 3D—but even on a small screen, ‘Avatar’ looks beautiful. The crazy colors of Pandora, this alien world populated by strange and terrifying creatures and bioluminescent plant life, still pop. Wandering that planet at night, when the forest is illuminated by these crazy dayglo colors, is still an intoxicating experience.
