Jay G.

Looking this up, I guess it's been nominated for some Golden Globes, as well as being one of the AFI and National Board of Review’s top picks of the year.
https://www.polygon.com/23505364/ava...nations-oscars
https://www.goldenglobes.com/article...been-announced

It sort of makes sense, since these are critic's awards, and critics have seen the film. It seems a bit of a runaround any review embargos, like "I can't tell you my opinion of the movie, but I did nominated it for a Golden Globe."

It's probably more common than we think, but probably more often it's a lower-profile film that's had a few fesitival screenings before a late December premiere.

LOTR: ROTK technically didn't get nominated before wide release, but only by a day: it premiered December 17, 2003, and was nominated for Golden Globes the next day 12/18/2003
https://playbill.com/article/61st-an...oms-com-116954
https://www.the-numbers.com/movie/Lo...he#tab=summary

That same year, Cold Mountain was nominated on the 18th as well, but wasn't released until the 25th:
https://www.the-numbers.com/movie/Co...in#tab=summary

dex14

Reviews starting to drop: https://www.rottentomatoes.com/m/ava...e_way_of_water

https://www.metacritic.com/movie/ava...e-way-of-water

dstrauss

I have never owned a tv with 3D, and I've bought quite a number of decent sized ones in the last dozen years. The fact that 3D televisions existed had literally zero effect on my purchases.

Remember that the Golden Globes are utterly useless. There are 105 members of the Hollywood Foreign Press Association. That's not a typo. A hundred and five. They throw the awards just so they get an excuse to get to hang out with the people they usually cover and kiss their ass. There's zero reason to count them as important in any way.

GuessWho

If I had two separate categories to judge James Cameron’s motion-capture epic “Avatar: The Way of Water,” I’d give it four stars for Visuals and two and a half for Story, and I’m in charge of the math here so I’m awarding three and a half stars to “TWAW” for some of the most dazzling, vibrant and gorgeous images I’ve ever seen on the big screen.

That’s more than enough to forgive a borderline corny, frequently repetitive, cliché-riddled storyline that features elements of everything from “Free Willy” to “Titanic” to “Die Hard” to “Apocalypse Now” and I swear there’s even a sequence that reminded me of that scene in the “Karate Kid” where poor Daniel gets jumped by those bullies in the Halloween skeleton costumes.

--Richard Roeper

Gunde

Well, pretty visuals is not enough for me to suffer through over 3 hours of blue CGI-creatures. Guess I'm officially old and cranky

ViewAskewbian

I was young and cranky and I did it for the first movie...TWICE. Then griped how terrible the film was story-wise but how amazing it looked visually and then, of course, bought the blu-ray.

Sooooo, I'm going to see this on Christmas Day.

Rob V

I don't have high hopes for the story being too original but do plan to see this over the winter break... mostly because I do love the theater experience and there hasn't been much reason to go the last few years.

GoldenJCJ

What are the chances this gets a 3D blu-ray release? I think that will depend on whether I try to venture to the theater to see this or wait for Blu-ray.

As much as I’m curious about the visuals, this sounds like more of the same extremely mediocre story as the first one. I’m not exactly champing at the bit to see this.

But seriously, FOMO is messing with my head and making the decision harder than it should be.

Alan Smithee

If it does get a 3D Blu-ray it won’t be high frame rate, so it’ll be one I’m not buying and will venture to the theater to see.

DJariya

Old men complaining about not wanting to see a 3+ hour movie that is mostly special effects driven.

TomOpus

I'm an old man and I got my ticket for IMAX 3D next Tuesday. That's the soonest I have a chance to see it.

JackoOnHisBacko

At least give us old men an intermission, so we can use the bathroom!

Troy Stiffler

Nice half hour talk. In case you like listening to these two.

Dr. DVD

Got a ticket for Friday afternoon since I'm off work at that time for an RPX 3D showing. Been to this theater often, and the Men's room is right next to this auditorium, so there is that. I saw the original three times in theaters, two of them in IMAX. I'm only going into this looking for visuals as that seems to be the selling point. A shame Cameron hasn't really written a deep story since T2, he delivers on all the other fronts, so I'm good if he does it again. I could also kind of see his fingerprints all over Alita, but unfortunately that also bled into the script which had a very cringe love story.

joe_b

I haven't been to the movies in almost a year. I was planning to see this in 3D on the next discount day, but Cinemark is suspending discounted tickets until after the new year.

I'm in no hurry, but it looks like it's getting pulled from my local Cinemark's one premium screen after Jan. 5 (to make way for what, M3GAN? ). So I went ahead and reserved a couple discount tickets for Jan. 3 for me and my dad. I hate paying the service charge, but I just noticed they added one row of D-Box motion seats to the big auditorium. I've always wanted to try that gimmick out.

ViewAskewbian

Back in the height of the pandemic one of local cinema's did all tickets same price for older flicks. I did a Dbox for $5 for Wonder Woman and, maaaaan, it just made me sick and I left it to a regular after about 30 min. Kinda took me out of the flick, too, so YMMV.

joe_b

Thanks for the info. I am prone to motion sickness (at least with shaky cam movies), so hopefully I don't lose my lunch. At least there are supposed to be controls on the chair to tone it down or turn it off.

Throwing Copper

Surprised this only did $17 million in previews. That’s less than Jurassic Park and Thor

RichC2

From the looks of it, a lot of people are waiting to catch it on premium formats, and those are all full.

Alan Smithee

My parents wanted to see it on Christmas but all the D-Box seats are already sold out so we’re going on New Year’s Eve.

csant

I do want to watch this, and I eventually will. But I do not feel like I need to rush to go out and see it.

stvn1974

Since I didn't like the first film and I am reading reviews of there not being much of a story in this one I have decided to just spend three hours staring into my fish tank.

TomOpus

Saving your strength for Oppenheimer, eh?

stvn1974

I've managed to avoid Dunkirk and Tenet just fine. I am excited for the 20 minute scene of exposition in Oppenheimer where Gary Oldman's character explains the difference between nuclear fission and fusion to the audience. Hopefully someone puts it up on youtube.

GatorDeb

I reupped my precovid a list membership for an iMax 3d showing of this on Saturday. Can't wait!