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Thursday, March 28, 2024

Korked Bats

That Funny Sports Blog

PREDICTION: We Don’t Care About ‘Avatar 2’ But We’ll All Still See It.

This past week, I held fast to my tradition of watching ‘Avatar’ once every thirteen years. 2009, 2022…haven’t missed it.

The last time I saw ‘Avatar’ was in a movie theater, and of course it was impressive. At the time, nothing measured up to the 3D special effects and the crisp CGI visuals. Nowadays it seems like every big-budget Disney or WB project is in 3D and 90% CGI. We’ve grown calloused towards it. Watching it at home 13 years later was also quite the let-down in comparison. Now I don’t want to throw it under the bus completely–it still looks good even though it’s 13 years old and not in mind-blowing 3D. It isn’t a terrible movie either, but ultimately it’s forgettable. No wonder I haven’t watched or even really talked about it since Christmas Break 2009.

The problem with ‘Avatar’ is that it’s a gimmick. Granted a very good-looking and well put-together gimmick, but a gimmick all the same. It didn’t really have anything profoundly original to say, and the story and acting were very much over the top. James Cameron woke up one day, watched ‘Dances With Wolves’ and decided he wanted to remake it…with the Blue Man Group starring…and all in 3D. The 3D effects distracted us from how sub-par ‘Avatar’ was from a storytelling point of view. Without the effects at home, it’s painfully obvious.

Fast-forward 13 years later and ‘Avatar: The Way of Water’ is less than one week away from a theatrical release. The effects certainly look crisper than they did in 2009. Other than that, the main promotional strategy seems to be, “Let James Cameron Be A Grumpy Bastard”.

I’m here for it.

This whole past year Cameron seems to be calling out people for takes similar to the one I have just presented. The man is in his twilight years and his films have grossed enough money buy Twitter. He has zero shits left to give. Why not go after every take he disagrees with in the most public way possible? Him and Brian Cox should go on tour together. No clue what the show would be but I’d buy a ticket.

As much as I love Jim Cameron Uncut though, I must say that ‘Avatar 2’ is feeling like it will be much of the same. It will gross $50 zillion-bajillion dollars and none of us will really care what the story is about. We just want to see the Blue Man Group fly alligator-birds out of the screen and into the theater. If you’ve heard our takes on The CineBoiz Podcast you know none of us particularly care about the film either, but now that it’s almost here? The smart money is on all of us going to see it.

We’re all lizard-brained people who want the next big thing. James Cameron knows it. His mastery isn’t so much film-making as it is knowing what people want to see and delivering. Even if the movie is a forgettable story with sub-par performances, we’ll all still enjoy it and talk about for the next few weeks.

Then we’ll forget about it until 2035 when ‘Avatar 3’ comes out.

Kenny

Kenny lives in Austin, TX and is one of the co-hosts of the CineBoiz Podcast. When he isn’t talking about or watching movies he can be found kicking it with Mickie the Dog and re-watching the Kansas City Chiefs win Super Bowl 54 for the 25th time.

Kenny