‘Avatar’ The Most Overrated Film of the Decade
The first and only time I watched Avatar was on its opening weekend in December 2009. It’s hard to remember exactly how I felt about it then, but I was probably just as enthralled by its visual spectacle as everyone else in the country. I may have even thought it was a good movie. Over the years though? I’ve grown bitter about Avatar and its box office and critical success. This bitterness mostly comes from a place of deep personal bias as I believe that all of Avatar’s box office records belong to more worthy films, such as those taking place in the Star Wars galaxy. I tell you that so you know that everything I say going forward will be drenched in that bitter bias, but it doesn’t change the fact that Avatar just isn’t very good and in fact might be quite bad.
The only thing Avatar had going for it originally was that at the time of its release it may have been the best looking movie of all time. James Cameron waited decades to make the film until the available technology caught up to his imagination. It pushed the boundaries of 3D, IMAX, and motion capture and brainwashed people’s eyeballs into making the movie billions of dollars. Avatar and what it accomplished technologically was supposed to be the future of cinema. Unfortunately for the film’s legacy, this was not the case. 3D had a huge boom after the movie released but has been on a steady decline in popularity ever since, with IMAX recently deciding to focus more on 2D than 3D. The gimmick has finally worn off, just in time for the 37 planned Avatar sequels.
Despite having an unoriginal story and writing flatter than the Earth (kidding) (or am I) (I am) (??), future scholars fingering through the pages of history would be led to believe that Avatar is one of the greatest artistic endeavors ever embarked upon by man. Most critics loved the movie, along with it being an incredible box office success. Peter Travers of Rolling Stone said “…Avatar is no Hollywood wankfest. It extends the possibilities of what movies can do. Cameron’s talent may just be as big as his dreams.” Which is a wankfest of a quote if I’m being fair. Even Roger Ebert, famously anti-3D, loved Avatar saying “Watching Avatar I felt sort of the same as when I saw “Star Wars” in 1977.” Which, first of all, fuck you Roger (also, rest in peace) but comparing Avatar and the original Star Wars should be a felony offense. Star Wars not only advanced the technology of movies and changed them forever, but was also the beginning of one of the greatest science fiction stories ever told. Avatar is what would’ve happened if whoever made FernGully had a 300 million dollar budget. But seriously though:
“FernGully is set in an Australian rainforest inhabited by fairies including Crysta, who accidentally shrinks a young logger named Zak to the size of a fairy. Together, they rally the fairies and the animals of the rainforest to protect their home from the loggers and a malevolent pollution entity, Hexxus.”
Now watch what happens when I change some key names and phrases:
“Avatar is set on the planet Pandora inhabited by the Na’vi including Neytiri, who accidentally stumbles upon a young marine named Jake who is using an Avatar to become one of the Na’vi. Together, they rally the Na’vi and the animals of Pandora to protect their home from the human military contractors and a malevolent pollution entity, Colonel Miles Quaritch.”
See? Same movie.
Unfortunately for FernGully it only made $32,710,894 worldwide whereas Avatar made $2,789,968,301. Avatar making almost 3 billion dollars is like if I did a color by number and they immediately decided to hang it in the Guggenheim. The only solace I can find is that Thanos snapped Avengers Endgame into the top spot for the worldwide box office and Star Wars The Force Awakens is still number one domestically… *he repeated for the 100th time in therapy.*
Not only did the critics love Avatar. Not only did it make enough money to make Scrooge Mcduck wet himself, but it was an Oscar’s darling too! It was nominated for 9 awards and won for Cinematography, Visual Effects, and Production Design. Which, fine, the movie still looks pretty great on a viewing in 2019. BUT THAT’S THE ONLY NICE THING ILL SAY ABOUT IT. It’s still a 2 hour and 41 minute long movie that’s mostly CG, about characters no one remembers, with terrible writing, and WAS NOMINATED FOR BEST PICTURE. Luckily for my sanity, James Cameron also lost the Best Director award to his ex-wife and better director Katheryn Bigelow.
If those aforementioned future scholars decided to actually turn on their eyeball screens or whatever they have, they’d quickly realize that Avatar is one of the weirdest, most unoriginal, yet universally successful movies in history. While The Matrix may have been influenced by earlier James Cameron films like Alien or Terminator, Avatar straight up steals from the Wachowskis’ trilogy. Whether its “plugging in” to the Avatar’s themselves or the exact same mechs with machine guns, its surprising Jake Sully isn’t referred to as The One.
Also like The Matrix, it looks like Avatar will be getting sequels. Four of them! James Cameron wants to spend the next (almost) decade of his life inside a giant painted-blue warehouse filming people in motion capture suits. Whatever floats his boat (or sinks his Titanic) I guess. I actually have a bet with my friend that the total gross box office of all the Avatar sequels will be less than what the original movie made. I’m probably going to lose, but I had to stick to my convictions. Please don’t go see the sequels, my financial health depends on it.
Plus, if the FernGully sequel The Magical Rescue is any indication:
“Two FernGully faeries leave the rain forest to save three baby animals from poachers.”
Avatar 2 Pandora Rescue won’t be worth the price of admission anyway.
