Comment on Avatar (the one with the blue aliens) is such a weird franchise

otacon239@lemmy.world ⁨1⁩ ⁨month⁩ ago

• Zorque@lemmy.world ⁨1⁩ ⁨month⁩ ago

  Or Fern Gully, or Dances With Wolves… it’s not exactly an uncommon story.

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  • moakley@lemmy.world ⁨1⁩ ⁨month⁩ ago

    Ah, but before Avatar came along it was never quite so poorly written!

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    • ChaoticNeutralCzech@feddit.org ⁨1⁩ ⁨month⁩ ago

      It’s in a unique spot in the 3D space of script quality, time spent refining it, and revenue.

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• kata1yst@sh.itjust.works ⁨1⁩ ⁨month⁩ ago

  Dances with Smurfs

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• simple@piefed.social ⁨1⁩ ⁨month⁩ ago

  Yes but Disney's Pocahontas was boring to tears while Avatar has cool hair-sex and explosions

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  • dustyData@lemmy.world ⁨1⁩ ⁨month⁩ ago

    And it is otherwise entirely dull and forgettable. Despite making so much money, it barely made any cultural impact. Nobody quotes Avatar like ever.

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    • kurcatovium@piefed.social ⁨1⁩ ⁨month⁩ ago

      The reason it was such a hit at the time was mainly its visuals, IMO. Story might be predictable and shallow, but you can't deny it looks beautiful. All the colorful jungle, alien species, green mountain peaks and needle rocks, it's all just very pleasant to look at. What also helped it being directed by big Hollywood name.

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      • Bob_Robertson_IX@discuss.tchncs.de ⁨1⁩ ⁨month⁩ ago

        I’ve always looked at the Avatar movies as being more about advancing movie making technology than about creating a good movie. I think James Cameron will be more remembered for his technical advances than for this storytelling.

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      • pishadoot@sh.itjust.works ⁨1⁩ ⁨month⁩ ago

        Also it came out right at the time when 3D movies were at their (very short lived) peak.

        And it did a GREAT job using that tech. I’ve never seen better.

        The movie is a visual masterpiece and a king of theater-watching cinema.

        Sure the story is bland but ain’t nobody watching that movie for the story.

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      • themeatbridge@lemmy.world ⁨1⁩ ⁨month⁩ ago

        Yep, IIRC someone committed suicide because, in part, he would never see real life floating jungle islands.

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    • CitizenKong@lemmy.world ⁨1⁩ ⁨month⁩ ago

      Doesn’t help that its dialogue is so boring, its most well known quote is literally just “I see you”.

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• ZoteTheMighty@lemmy.zip ⁨1⁩ ⁨month⁩ ago

  Yeah, that’s kind of the point? Was the comparison between the Na’Vi and native Americans too subtle for you to notice before you saw this meme?

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  • otacon239@lemmy.world ⁨1⁩ ⁨month⁩ ago

    Not for me personally. Just find it funny how 1:1 it is with the original. This meme has been around since the year the movie came out.

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• Grimtuck@lemmy.world ⁨1⁩ ⁨month⁩ ago

  But you could do this with every story/movie trope that’s been repeated throughout our species history. The concept of retelling stories in different contexts is itself not new but for sure reason Avatar gets overly criticised for it.

  You don’t see the same criticisms for every bank heist movie that all follow the same basic premises as each other. I just did it a bit weird why so many people are against this particular trope. Is it because it tries to deal with our history of oppression and colonisation? I honestly don’t know.

  I doubt there are any truly original stories that couldn’t be shown to be a retelling of another. I would even argue that some genres wouldn’t exist if this wasn’t a thing.

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  • Revan343@lemmy.ca ⁨1⁩ ⁨month⁩ ago

    You don’t see the same criticisms for every bank heist movie that all follow the same basic premises as each other

    That’s because I generally don’t have to hear about every bank heist movie; you can’t avoid Avatar

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  • otacon239@lemmy.world ⁨1⁩ ⁨month⁩ ago

    For me, I will dog on any kind of retelling like this. If you’re not teaching anything new and are just retelling the story for profit, I don’t care about your story. There were no new story beats and no twists that caught me off guard.

    When the movie was new, anytime you threw it shade, the first follow-up question was, “Well, did you see it in IMAX 3D?” That shouldn’t matter. If your story relies on visual gimmick to make it anything more than a reskin, I’m not interested.

    I have the same feeling towards the live action Disney movies. They’re not adding anything new. I see about 5-10 new movies a year now compared to the 20-30 I used to because so little is not just a rehash of something from last year.

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