bengraven
Member
I love film. I read film sites, I usually keep up even on movies I have little interest in. Avatar never really hit my radar. Maybe it was because it was so long in development, having heard rumors for almost a decade, that I kept waiting for the moment it was going to become "real" and when it did it never registered. Most of the articles and buzz online, including here, seem to make it out be a spectacle for it's revolutionary 3D.
When the movie became the top grossing film of all time, I was shocked. "How?" I still ask myself that. Like the article states, nothing about the movie stands out as particularly amazing, iconic, legendary. But when people say "Avatar" I say, "Oh that kung fu fantasy show on Nick a few years ago".
I like the movie. I saw it twice. I liked it, was moved by it, enjoyed the cinematography and attention to detail that made it look like a "real" sci-fi universe. I own it - I got the extended cut for Christmas three or four years ago. I haven't watched more than 30 minutes of it, though I remember that I was liking it.
But nobody fucking talks about it and if it isn't mentioned by name, I completely forget it even exists.
Article: http://screencrush.com/back-to-pandora-why-is-avatar-forgotten/
When the movie became the top grossing film of all time, I was shocked. "How?" I still ask myself that. Like the article states, nothing about the movie stands out as particularly amazing, iconic, legendary. But when people say "Avatar" I say, "Oh that kung fu fantasy show on Nick a few years ago".
I like the movie. I saw it twice. I liked it, was moved by it, enjoyed the cinematography and attention to detail that made it look like a "real" sci-fi universe. I own it - I got the extended cut for Christmas three or four years ago. I haven't watched more than 30 minutes of it, though I remember that I was liking it.
But nobody fucking talks about it and if it isn't mentioned by name, I completely forget it even exists.
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.
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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.
In other words, ‘Avatar’ isn’t a brand; it’s a movie, perhaps one of the last that will ever be made of its scale and scope. In the five years since ‘Avatar’’s release, the five biggest hits at the box office have been sequels (‘Toy Story 3,’ ‘Harry Potter and the Deathly Hallows - Part 2,’ ‘The Hunger Games: Catching Fire’ or Marvel movies (‘The Avengers,’ ‘Guardians of the Galaxy’, and Hollywood has become almost entirely focused on building, subdividing, and perpetually extending movie series as long as they possibly can. Those films haven’t been forgotten because we have not been allowed to forget them—because they have been sold to us over and over as books and shirts and Halloween costumes and breakfast cereals and Blu-ray box sets and a million other branded products.
‘Avatar,’ in contrast, wasn’t primarily a product, it was an idea; the somewhat flawed but deeply felt creation of one guy. No amount of test screenings or focus groups would create a movie as conflicted, confused, weird, messy, and beautiful as ‘Avatar.’ Ironically, if anyone but that one guy was in charge of ‘Avatar,’ the film probably wouldn’t have been forgotten, because if anyone but James Cameron was in charge of ‘Avatar’ Fox probably would have already cranked out one or two sequels and who knows how many other ancillary materials. ‘Avatar’ would be remembered—and grossly watered down.
Article: http://screencrush.com/back-to-pandora-why-is-avatar-forgotten/