It showed up out of nowhere, made the most bank in history (for a movie), refused to explain and disappeared for like 15 years, then came back out of nowhere with a sequel movie, a AAA game, and like 3 more movies in the works.
Pretty sure it now has a theme park or something, doesn’t it?
It’s bizarre how much “stuff” there is for the blue people Avatar franchise, considering what a tiny lasting cultural impact the original movie had.
The original movie was an incredible tech demo. It was an utterly forgettable movie. I had no desire to bother watching the sequel.
otacon239@lemmy.world 2 days ago
It’s all a lot less fantastical when you compare it to Pocahontas:
Image
Zorque@lemmy.world 2 days ago
Or Fern Gully, or Dances With Wolves… it’s not exactly an uncommon story.
moakley@lemmy.world 2 days ago
Ah, but before Avatar came along it was never quite so poorly written!
kata1yst@sh.itjust.works 2 days ago
Dances with Smurfs
simple@piefed.social 2 days ago
Yes but Disney's Pocahontas was boring to tears while Avatar has cool hair-sex and explosions
dustyData@lemmy.world 2 days 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.
ZoteTheMighty@lemmy.zip 2 days 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?
otacon239@lemmy.world 2 days 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.
Grimtuck@lemmy.world 2 days 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.
Revan343@lemmy.ca 1 day ago
That’s because I generally don’t have to hear about every bank heist movie; you can’t avoid Avatar
otacon239@lemmy.world 1 day 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.