stingermck

I personally did not. It was pretty but I did not care for the story, or plugging their tails into everything.

mndtrp

I only saw it once in the theater, mostly for the spectacle and 3d experience. The 3d was cool, but I didn't care for much else. I have no interest in seeing it again, or seeing any of the sequels.

Josh-da-man

I'm in that boat.

Avatar was one of the first blu-rays I bought. Watched it once, probably half-assed my way through it second time.

Didn't love it. Didn't hate it.

But I've never felt compelled to pull out the blu-ray and watch it again.

What I remember most about it that was that it was really long, had so much CGI that it might as well have been a Pixar movie, the aesthetic reminded me of 70s prog rock album covers, and that it had too much new-agey woo-woo to be taken seriously.

SmackDaddy

Never saw it in 3D, but I found it pretty average at the time. Haven't given it much thought in the years since other than when they announced Avatar land at Disney (which prompted a big What??? in my mind) and then again when they announced all these sequels. I mean, has anyone ever gone and figured out how much the 3D surcharges contributed to its box office? I know it doesn't lead in ticket sales.

milo bloom

I'd compare it to other movies that I've only ever seen once but the images and feelings have stayed with me for years, like BladeRunner 2049 or even Cameron's The Abyss.

With Avatar, it's like a deadspace in my brain. There's a file for it but it only contains a note saying "watched it. blue aliens. 3d was okay".

The Cow

Pretty much the same for me, with one addition.. Something about plugging hair into a flying horse thing in order to ride on it.

And a bad guy with a big scar on his face.

Why So Blu?

I still think the extended cut with the Earth prologue is awesome. Watched it a couple of months ago on my 4K display and it's still a reference BD. I'm sure the 4K DV/Atmos (whenever they get to it) will be epic.

JeffTheAlpaca

I thought it was ok but way overrated for all the money it made at the box office and breaking records.

mwbmis

I heard it's coming out the week after True Lies and the Abyss.

B5Erik

I like Avatar. It's a good movie with great visuals.

However, I've always been annoyed by how poorly the villain was written. He's a cardboard cut-out. Hell, that may be giving him too much credit - the bad guy is one dimensional. He's just a greedy, uncaring a-hole. He has no motivation whatsoever other than greed and being a jerk. Cameron failed miserably in that part of the script. He's an obligatory villain with almost no thought put into the character and absolutely no thought put in to his motivation.

Hell, I came up with a quick and easy way to make the story better and give the villain some legit motivation - make the substance they're mining vital to repairing the ecosystem on Earth. Tens of millions, maybe HUNDREDS of millions of people will die within a decade if this material isn't returned to Earth within a year or two, and almost everyone else will be dead within two decades. That gives him a reason to be a prick. Simple. Maybe 10 lines of dialogue in the entire movie could have been enough to carry the point and give him legit motivation - AND make the character far more interesting.

But, NO, James Cameron was too busy worrying about the visuals and 3D and all the technical stuff to actually write a great script. He did the minimum required work on the script and the maximum required effort on the technical side.

Having said that, the story, overall, isn't bad. It's fairly good, but that big flaw is just a recurring, nagging flaw that is irritating. So what could have been a great movie - a Science Fiction classic - is instead just a good movie with great visuals.

And that's why I don't trust that the sequels are going to be all that good, nor am I convinced that the first one will do any more than 1/3 of the box office of the original.

Why So Blu?

Cameron never hid that the story was basic. That was the easy part. If he would have made some complex story line then he would have lost the audience. It was a vehicle for the technology, with a simple story that everyone could follow, not just cinephiles. I'm sure going forward 2-4 will probably be more complex now that we have an established universe.

B5Erik

Giving the villain a motivation doesn't make the story more complex. It just makes the actions of the villain make sense. Making it millions of lives at stake instead of just someone being a greedy prick doesn't make it harder to follow. It just would have made it better.

The best genre movies have the best, most well rounded villains. Khan, anyone? HE thought he was the good guy. That's what made him such a great villain. Kirk was in the wrong, and Khan wanted justice.

This guy just wants more money. Yawn. That's it? He's just a greedy prick? Lame.

kd5

In the many times I've watched Avatar, I've never concerned myself with how simple or complex the villain's motivation is/was. I've just been entertained overall with the whole experience, I'm not going to pick it apart and examine all the little pieces, I'd probably never enjoy another movie if I did that. I'm just going to watch it and enjoy the experience. I've yet to be disappointed with Avatar.

Jason

Of all the movies I've seen, Avatar was one of them.

Underwhelmed comes to mind. I think they were using Cameron and the 3D to promote what was supposed to be the next Star Wars, but the whole thing fell flat by ending up a Dances With Wolves redo with a cliched script. In general, the effects were a level above the then recent Star Wars prequels, but that was just the natural progression of the artform.

The thing I remember the most is the 3D worked better for the trailers, especially the IMAX astronaut one.

Quite frankly, all this talk of multiple sequels this far out from the original baffles me.

clckworang

I remember seeing this in 3D at the theater with a friend. I came out of the theater sort of exhilarated by the visuals and the experience of it but greatly underwhelmed by the script. Come to think of it, Titanic gives me a similar reaction.

Maybe it took them so long because Avatar was in itself a ripoff in plot of an earlier animated film, Ferngully.

Josh-da-man

That would make it a completely different movie, though. In that case, most in the audience would probably side with the humans over the Navi.

Such a scenario, where humanity needed the unobtanium to survive, would present a complex moral and ethical dilemma that Cameron probably wanted to avoid in this movie. It's sort of like animal testing. We can be horrified that animals are being tortured and killed to test products like cosmetics, but when it comes to life-saving treatments of deadly diseases, most are probably willing to sacrifice some monkeys for a greater good.

The best real-world analogy for Avatar is probably the Europeans coming to the New World in the 16th century to steal gold they thought the native population here had.

milo bloom

Making the Unobtanium necessary for human survival is putting the plot in Star Trek Insurrection territory.

B5Erik

Not even close. No one NEEDED anything in Insurrection. The former residents of that planet WANTED what they could get from it, and they were originally from that planet and were pissed off at the people who kicked them out. totally different plot.

B5Erik

The problem is without any stakes, the villain is just a greedy prick. Not even two dimensional. Strictly one dimensional. Not even worthy of being a cartoon villain.

And, OK, how about this - that substance isn't the only thing that will save Earth, just a quicker thing. An easier thing.

Something should have been done to give the villain some kind of motivation and make him seem like a real person, not just a moustache twisting cartoon bad guy.

clckworang

The villain being motivated purely by wealth was probably one of the more realistic aspects of the movie.

B5Erik

It's also a lazy cliche, and the way the character was written was really kind of pathetic.

OldBoy

i watched the 3D Blu last night and i gotta say, it still holds up. it's an imaginative, colorful action/adventure story with a bit of heart. i never understood the hate for this movie. the only thing that sticks in my craw is Unobtainium. that supposed mineral is the laziest writing i have seen in movies. but, minor nitpick.

Jason

There's nothing really wrong with Avatar. There's no Jar Jar Binks level stupidity from any of the Navi, there's no moment where the movie destroys itself in some weird plot twist. It's just that there's nothing compelling about it, when it was billed as some sort of life altering cinematic experience. The 3D was always going to be a gimmick, and there was nothing backing it up but a comic book level script and generic characters. That can be entertaining on it's own, but doesn't stick with people like other movies have.

IBJoel

Please tell that to... *gestures around* the Fortune 500

Kurt D

each time I see it come up on sale for 4.99 on VUDU, for instance, (and I would add that the presence of extras would make this decision even more concrete) I just shrug my shoulders and think I enjoyed the 3-D aspect back then, and I am happy to move on with my life.