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Why is avatar such a cultural blank? @ 2023/05/17 11:00:50


Post by: Herzlos


So both Avatar and the sequel were huge box office successes, by a well regarded director and a huge budget.

But I've seen the first one and couldn't tell you anything about it, and I've seen no mention of either of them by anyone, there's been no memes, they just don't seem to have existed as far as any cultural awareness or legacy is concerned.
Even Googles auto-complete for "avatar" shows "the last airbender" before the movies.

So why have we as a culture just forgotten that the exist? Have they really had zero impact? Were they just a successful action/adventure movie distilled down to be so generic that there's nothing of note to them?

Are there any other "successful" movies we've just totally forgotten about?


Why is avatar such a cultural blank? @ 2023/05/17 11:07:55


Post by: Tsagualsa


Herzlos wrote:
So both Avatar and the sequel were huge box office successes, by a well regarded director and a huge budget.

But I've seen the first one and couldn't tell you anything about it, and I've seen no mention of either of them by anyone, there's been no memes, they just don't seem to have existed as far as any cultural awareness or legacy is concerned.
Even Googles auto-complete for "avatar" shows "the last airbender" before the movies.

So why have we as a culture just forgotten that the exist? Have they really had zero impact? Were they just a successful action/adventure movie distilled down to be so generic that there's nothing of note to them?


They are too pitch-perfect; nothing in it deviates from the dramatic arc or from Hollywood norms and conventions in any way - if you told anyone who has watched 'the Classics' the expose or set-up of these movies, they could tell you the whole film, including details, almost perfectly. As a result, nothing deviates from the norm and nothing in the movie is in any way memorable. It leaves a short, flashy event, but it does not engage with your imagination at all like e.g. Star Wars or Star Trek did. These good movies have an intense feeling that there's a whole world beyond what we're shown on screen, that is interesting and fun to visit again, and you automatically start to wonder about it. Avatar, in contrast, feels like a theater stage that is fundamentally empty and just furnished with set pieces for the movie - once it told its entirely predictable story, all the figures become limp and go back to their storage boxes.


Why is avatar such a cultural blank? @ 2023/05/17 11:26:45


Post by: Gert


There are memes, they just aren't funny.
I'd argue that the first movie was a really big deal with the CGI and 3D stuff but the amount of time between it and the second one just meant that the hype for the sequel had come and long gone.
How James Cameron still has the studio on-side for the three more sequels I'll never know.


Why is avatar such a cultural blank? @ 2023/05/17 11:42:25


Post by: Tsagualsa


 Gert wrote:
There are memes, they just aren't funny.
I'd argue that the first movie was a really big deal with the CGI and 3D stuff but the amount of time between it and the second one just meant that the hype for the sequel had come and long gone.
How James Cameron still has the studio on-side for the three more sequels I'll never know.


James Cameron has made three movies that earned over 2 billion dollars each, and held the record for the highest-earning film of all times at several points in time. He also has a personal net worth somewhere between 700 million and 1,2 billion dollars, and is not averse to putting some of it towards movies if they're short on cash, like he did for Titanic. Avatar 2 still had a box office of 2,32 billion dollars and is the third-highest grossing film of all time, behind Avatar 1 and Avengers:Endgame, and the highest-grossing ever in about 20 countries.

I guess 'I can make you 6 to 8 billion dollars' is a very good argument.


Why is avatar such a cultural blank? @ 2023/05/17 11:43:26


Post by: EightFoldPath


$$$

Yes, a complete mystery that one Gert.

$$$

Edit: Darn you Tsagualsa! I checked no one else had replied just before I wrote this. :(


Why is avatar such a cultural blank? @ 2023/05/17 13:13:35


Post by: Lord Damocles


They're not very good/deep stories, nor original, and don't ask any questions of their universe beyond puddle- depth.

They mostly exist as a tech showcase, with a very mild environmentalist message stretched over the top.


Why is avatar such a cultural blank? @ 2023/05/17 13:49:14


Post by: Overread


I've not got around to Avatar 2 yet, but 1 was just.... Well visually its amazing with the technology and I've heard that those who saw it at the Imax and such really were blown away by the visuals.

However I'd say that the visuals are insanely impressive on a technological front, but perhaps not as amazing in art.

For example I find that many scenes in Starwars 8 are by far and away more intense and cinematic and awesome and memorable.

In contrast Avatar is technologically stunning, but it lacks "cinema" or cinematic quality. It's a subtle thing all told and there are various styles, but I feel like it doesn't lean into actually telling a story or a scene with the visuals.

It's very much a tell not a show kind of film.

If you want the opposite end you could look at things like the Spaghetti Westerns where you might have 5 min scene where hardly anything happens. No action, no shooting, no big event and yet the presentation and style from the visual to the musical elements hooks you into the scene.




The next layer is the story itself which in Avatar 1 I felt lacked on two fronts
1) It doesn't really have a very good story. It's really simple and, as noted above by another, it doesn't feel like there's a world around the story or a setting. There's no government, or planet home, or even tribes outside of the single one we interact with. Everything is neat and simple and tightly contained with no sense of a wider setting or world. Which when the story itself is both simple and tries to be far reaching to a global scale; ends up feeling really hollow.

2) The characters are under-developed. Granted a big part of this is them covering too much in too little time; but many of the characters don't feel like people but rather roles. Unless its the lead character; most of the others feel shoe-horned into specific tropes and themes and that's it. They don't deepen nor get screen time enough to be people and diverse characters.










So yeah Avatar is visually stunning and it captured people for a moment in time to be a massive box-office-hit.
However the lasting impact is that story and cinematic wise it wasn't as big an impact; which means it sits in the mind far far less. As a result it ends up being a blip.


Also I'd argue that whilst you could say the same for something like Jurassic Park; I'd argue that whilst JP was a massive revolution in visual technology; Avatar is more an evolution of what we already have. At least for those seeing it in normal cinemas and at home. Had it come with home 3D cinema style screens and such being affordable for the lay person en-mass then it might have had more impact on that front.





So its not outright bad, its just shallow with everything except the CGI budget.


Why is avatar such a cultural blank? @ 2023/05/17 13:58:53


Post by: Voss


They're extended (fake) nature documentaries with the Sir Attenborough's commentary taken out and replaced by bad war journalism.

There just isn't anything worth remembering.


Why is avatar such a cultural blank? @ 2023/05/17 14:11:12


Post by: Vulcan


They're visually spectacular... but the story is very shallow. So the visuals are what sticks, because there's really nothing else to the movie.

Although I do have to give him kudos in the sequel. Jake is actually portrayed as an involved and competent father, something which is generally anathema to modern Hollywood. Nowadays dads are either uninvolved deadbeats, or rather stupid and incompetent.


Why is avatar such a cultural blank? @ 2023/05/17 14:56:23


Post by: Slipspace


Avatar is just an utterly empty story. There's nothing particularly memorable or exciting about it. It's not really saying anything interesting, the plot is obvious and the technology it was designed to demo feels similarly empty and soulless, probably because of how it doesn't really help the story at all.

Contrast that with a similar Cameron movie that showcased a CGI leap forward: Terminator 2. Sure, it was helped by being a sequel to a great movie, but T2 was itself a very good movie and the new tech helped realise the story in a way that would have been impossible previously. The two are linked and help service one another.


Why is avatar such a cultural blank? @ 2023/05/17 15:09:45


Post by: Tsagualsa


 Overread wrote:



Also I'd argue that whilst you could say the same for something like Jurassic Park; I'd argue that whilst JP was a massive revolution in visual technology; Avatar is more an evolution of what we already have. At least for those seeing it in normal cinemas and at home. Had it come with home 3D cinema style screens and such being affordable for the lay person en-mass then it might have had more impact on that front.


Jurassic Park is a good comparison because it demonstrates in many ways what Avatar lacks:

It's got several narrative strands (the Science plot with the visitors debating Hammond, the egg-thief subplot that leads to the disaster, the lost children plot with the chase/action/suspense scenes) that weave in and out of each other and flow together organically to form the overall arc of suspense and a coherent plot

It's got memorable, multi-dimensional characters that have actual dialogue and voice opinions that the audience can evaluate without forced exposition

While it involves a lot of innovative, top-of-the-line (for the time) technology, it does not do so indiscriminately, and does not rely on the technology to carry scenes or the plot overly often. Coincidentially, this is stuff the JP sequels fail to do, and they are worse movies for it.


Why is avatar such a cultural blank? @ 2023/05/17 15:35:42


Post by: LunarSol


I think this is an easy question to half answer. As has been said, the story is pretty stock template, Dances with the Last Samurai, stranger in a strange land, white savior tropes. There's no particularly interesting systems in place or lore to chew on and it doesn't have the sort of wish fulfillment fantasy behind it to give people a place to see themselves in the world.

What that fails to answer is why the movies are so incredibly successful in spite of its well known shortcomings. I think that entirely comes down to it being more of a sensory experience than a traditional narrative film. Like, despite multiple attempts to prove otherwise, roller coasters and other attractions don't really carry a lot of lore, but people love to repeat the experience. I think Avatar caters to a similar crowd, which, lets be clear is a pretty huge crowd given my experience with theme parks in general. There are just a lot of people perfectly happy to take that sensory thrill ride at face value, repeatedly and don't really need it to exist outside of the moment for it to create a cultural touchstone like other major franchises.


Why is avatar such a cultural blank? @ 2023/05/17 15:36:52


Post by: H.B.M.C.


You never bet against Cameron. Anytime someone says "No one cares about Avatar!", they are proven wrong a few billion times over.

Yes, the films do not have the cultural zeitgeist, like, at all. They do not linger. We are not talking about them a month after they happen. But we all go see them, and go see them more than once, enough to raise them to the levels of highest grossing movies in the history of movies.

10 years from now people will still be able to articulate their exact feelings on the final season of Game of Thrones. They'll also say "Yeah it was alright I guess" when you ask them about Avatar. But by then the Avatar series will probably have hit $10 billion overall, and it won't matter if people think they're just ok.


Why is avatar such a cultural blank? @ 2023/05/17 15:40:33


Post by: Tsagualsa


 H.B.M.C. wrote:
You never bet against Cameron. Anytime someone says "No one cares about Avatar!", they are proven wrong a few billion times over.

Yes, the films do not have the cultural zeitgeist, like, at all. They do not linger. We are not talking about them a month after they happen. But we all go see them, and go see them more than once, enough to raise them to the levels of highest grossing movies in the history of movies.

10 years from now people will still be able to articulate their exact feelings on the final season of Game of Thrones. They'll also say "Yeah it was alright I guess" when you ask them about Avatar. But by then the Avatar series will probably have hit $10 billion overall, and it won't matter if people think they're just ok.


Ironically (considering its themes) it operates on the same core principles as McDonalds: it hits the lowest common denominator, and hits that exactly the same, every time, and makes tons and tons and tons of money with mediocre blandness. Can't hate a playa for winning the game.


Why is avatar such a cultural blank? @ 2023/05/17 15:43:10


Post by: Overread


Lets also not ignore the fact that it gets marketed like crazy. Sometimes amazing films get overlooked just because they aren't marketed enough; or don't have a big famous superstar in a lead role or are in a medium that people have the wrong expectations about (its animation, its for kids)

So sometimes that too plays a huge part in blockbusters. Sure you've still got to have a solid film underneath it for enough of a market; but you can get away with insane marketing to get bums on seats.


Heck I'd argue that's how the Transformers films keep happening despite having insanely bad writing


Why is avatar such a cultural blank? @ 2023/05/17 16:22:47


Post by: warhead01


I enjoyed the first avatar the first time I watched it but found it less interesting the next times. It's just kinda meh. Not bad just noting to write home about, imop. I've seen this movie called a Tarzan movie and that's not meant as a complement by the people who called it that. Their point is valid.
Haven't seen the second one mostly due to no excitement to see it on my part. I feel like the sequel is several years too late.

Didn't care for any of the transformer movies. I don't fee like they translate well to live action. I sat there and wondered - "why are the robots talking". And the granular bits of robot all animated as I recall , poorly, during their movement or transformations or what ever was just difficult to look at and know what I was seeing. The best bits for me were the army dudes who seemed really out of shape in one of the movies. But beyond that total Meh. Big pass.

Not really a fan of either franchise I guess.


Why is avatar such a cultural blank? @ 2023/05/17 17:51:00


Post by: Voss


 H.B.M.C. wrote:
You never bet against Cameron. Anytime someone says "No one cares about Avatar!", they are proven wrong a few billion times over.

Yes, the films do not have the cultural zeitgeist, like, at all. They do not linger. We are not talking about them a month after they happen. But we all go see them, and go see them more than once, enough to raise them to the levels of highest grossing movies in the history of movies.

10 years from now people will still be able to articulate their exact feelings on the final season of Game of Thrones. They'll also say "Yeah it was alright I guess" when you ask them about Avatar. But by then the Avatar series will probably have hit $10 billion overall, and it won't matter if people think they're just ok.


Well, it matters if you want to talk about movies in terms of craft or narrative or characters or story.

If you just want to think of movies simply as an inconvenient way to move money around, I guess that's fine.


Also, for the record: I haven't seen them. I doubt I'm alone, 'highest grossing' nonsense or not.


Why is avatar such a cultural blank? @ 2023/05/17 17:52:05


Post by: Ahtman


It's a set of dangling shiny keys and mass audiences are raccoons; it doesn't have to be good it just has to get their attention momentarily.


Why is avatar such a cultural blank? @ 2023/05/17 17:53:42


Post by: Easy E


I have never seen either Avatar movie.


Why is avatar such a cultural blank? @ 2023/05/17 19:06:15


Post by: Flinty


You watch A star for the amazing vehicle design surely. The VTOLs and mechs from the first one are awesome. Not seen the second yet.


Why is avatar such a cultural blank? @ 2023/05/17 19:58:52


Post by: NapoleonInSpace


Military bad. Primitives good.

In those four words, I just summed up the first movie. That's why I didn't bother seeing the second one.


Why is avatar such a cultural blank? @ 2023/05/17 20:09:57


Post by: AduroT


 NapoleonInSpace wrote:
Military bad. Primitives good.

In those four words, I just summed up the first movie. That's why I didn't bother seeing the second one.


But you summed up the second movie’s plot so perfectly!


Why is avatar such a cultural blank? @ 2023/05/17 21:36:31


Post by: BobtheInquisitor


 NapoleonInSpace wrote:
Military bad. Primitives good.

In those four words, I just summed up the first movie. That's why I didn't bother seeing the second one.


This dismisses the subtext: military has cool toys.

Such cool toys.


Why is avatar such a cultural blank? @ 2023/05/18 01:49:21


Post by: H.B.M.C.


Voss wrote:
Well, it matters if you want to talk about movies in terms of craft or narrative or characters or story.
Yes for the former, not so much for the latter two.

Avatar is remarkable from a technical standpoint, but not from anything else. I think it's greatest achievement is that you can be two hours into Avatar 2 and completely forget the fact that damn near everything you're watching is 100% CGI.

Voss wrote:
Also, for the record: I haven't seen them. I doubt I'm alone, 'highest grossing' nonsense or not.
You can call it nonsense all you like, but if a guy gets one of his films to the top 5 of all time, it's a success. Twice it's amazing. Three times, well, there's something there. He's no fluke.


Why is avatar such a cultural blank? @ 2023/05/18 02:10:01


Post by: Voss


 H.B.M.C. wrote:
Voss wrote:
Well, it matters if you want to talk about movies in terms of craft or narrative or characters or story.
Yes for the former, not so much for the latter two.

Avatar is remarkable from a technical standpoint, but not from anything else. I think it's greatest achievement is that you can be two hours into Avatar 2 and completely forget the fact that damn near everything you're watching is 100% CGI.

I 100% don't believe you. There is zero way to not know you're watching CGI.

Voss wrote:
Also, for the record: I haven't seen them. I doubt I'm alone, 'highest grossing' nonsense or not.
You can call it nonsense all you like, but if a guy gets one of his films to the top 5 of all time, it's a success. Twice it's amazing. Three times, well, there's something there. He's no fluke.

Fluke isn't the issue. Or even suggested. I don't give a festering rat carcass if a film makes millions or tens of millions or hundreds of millions (and honesty the scale there is kind of gross and wasteful, frankly). If it doesn't have craft or narrative or characters worth watching (which you just acknowledged is actually the case), I don't find it worthwhile.


Also, the tech stuff isn't Cameron. He puts the scenes together as a film, but the CGI and the tech aspect is tens of thousands of hours by hundreds of artists, animators and programmers.
The 'technical improvements' aren't on this one guy with his name on the movie.


Why is avatar such a cultural blank? @ 2023/05/18 02:15:09


Post by: Commissar von Toussaint


 H.B.M.C. wrote:
You can call it nonsense all you like, but if a guy gets one of his films to the top 5 of all time, it's a success. Twice it's amazing. Three times, well, there's something there. He's no fluke.


Is that in constant dollars? Because otherwise there's an inherent bias towards modern films.

There is now a global audience that values spectacle rather than characters or plot. See also: superhero movies.

I haven't seen either movie and never felt the need to do so.

I suspect that Blade Runner - which was regarded as a commercial failure when released - has had a far larger cultural impact.


Why is avatar such a cultural blank? @ 2023/05/18 02:25:33


Post by: H.B.M.C.


Voss wrote:
There is zero way to not know you're watching CGI.
*sigh*

I didn't say "not know". Of course you know it's CGI. You'd have to be some kind of blithering idiot (or a young child, I suppose... that's fair) not to know. What I said was that you forget. The FX are so good that you adjust and nothing seems like it's obviously standing out as CGI vs real.

Voss wrote:
If it doesn't have craft or narrative or characters worth watching (which you just acknowledged is actually the case), I don't find it worthwhile.
So often I see this sentiment as a justification for dismissing the Avatar films. It usually falls into the spectrum of the "Nobody cares about Avatar!" argument, and argument that is so clearly and demonstrably wrong.

Voss wrote:
Also, the tech stuff isn't Cameron.
That's like saying Lucas had nothing to do with ILM. Cameron is the driving force behind all of it. Guy spends his life - to use a South Park trope - raising the bar. He's a nut-case, and always has been, but he is always driving things forward in the process of film making with his films. To say that it "isn't him" is ludicrous.

Commissar von Toussaint wrote:
I suspect that Blade Runner - which was regarded as a commercial failure when released - has had a far larger cultural impact.
For real? Avatar may not have an attachment to the cultural zeitgeist, but it is ubiquitous. Blade Runner though?

That's obscure sci-fi at best for most people.



Why is avatar such a cultural blank? @ 2023/05/18 02:49:02


Post by: Commissar von Toussaint


 H.B.M.C. wrote:
For real? Avatar may not have an attachment to the cultural zeitgeist, but it is ubiquitous. Blade Runner though?

That's obscure sci-fi at best for most people.


When Rutger Hauer died, the final words of "Roy" were clogging the internet, as they should have.

Are there any memorable lines from Avatar?



Why is avatar such a cultural blank? @ 2023/05/18 02:51:10


Post by: nels1031


I feel like one reason its kind of culturally blank is because the lead is Sam Worthington. While I liked him in Manhunt: Unabomber, the rest of his stuff just falls flat. Dude is just plain vanilla.

Matt Damon was offered the role but the timing interfered with his Bourne series. I feel like had it been a Damon starred project, it might’ve had a greater impact. Coincidentally, the Bourne series, for better or worse I feel did have a cultural impact.


Why is avatar such a cultural blank? @ 2023/05/18 05:01:13


Post by: Ahtman


Commissar von Toussaint wrote:
Are there any memorable lines from Avatar?


When John Scurvy loads his weapon before the big fight and says "It's Avatarin' time!"


Why is avatar such a cultural blank? @ 2023/05/18 05:47:47


Post by: cody.d.


 NapoleonInSpace wrote:
Military bad. Primitives good.

In those four words, I just summed up the first movie. That's why I didn't bother seeing the second one.


I swear people remember small soldiers details more than they remember avatar details.


Why is avatar such a cultural blank? @ 2023/05/18 06:51:17


Post by: Ahtman


cody.d. wrote:
 NapoleonInSpace wrote:
Military bad. Primitives good.

In those four words, I just summed up the first movie. That's why I didn't bother seeing the second one.


I swear people remember small soldiers details more than they remember avatar details.


That is crazy who could forget such a magnetic figure as Jim Survey?


Why is avatar such a cultural blank? @ 2023/05/18 08:49:11


Post by: Mad Doc Grotsnik


I think it’s just an odd “must see because it was such a landmark in film making”.

In terms of plot it’s really nothing special. Indeed “Fern Gully In Spaaaaace” is a nickname for a reason.

But it has truly dazzling visuals, and the cast do a really good job. Like Jurassic Park, it marked a high point in the evolution of modern CGI, and what can be done with it. It blurs the line between live action and animation.

And I think that’s it. It clearly struck a chord with audiences, because you don’t make nearly $3Bn just by being dazzling. But the main draw was “Come And See The New Thing, It Will Dazzle And Delight”.



Why is avatar such a cultural blank? @ 2023/05/18 09:14:59


Post by: Overread


I think the important thing to realise is that for a lot of people the cinema is

“Come And See The New Thing, It Will Dazzle And Delight”


They go; see a film; chat about it for a bit after and then they are off home and that's it.
The film doesn't have to ask big meaningful questions; or have a vast lore you can dig into after the film; or be based on some major point of history.
It just has to deliver very quick, easy and instant entertainment.

It's why utterly dross scripts can work because many people are purely there for the visual spectacle and they are happy with explosions and huge mechs fighting each other and more explosions and such.




We on Dakka likely notice because we are the kind who will actually read the book a film is based on; or dig into the lore; we want to know more about the interactions of creatures in the ecosystem; or how the mechs work; or the long history of the peoples of the world; or the political system back on Earth etc...

We are the kind who buy and read source books; who want to go deeper. So when something comes up that's just purely shallow it does surprise us when it becomes such a massive thing.

I'd also say that geeks are perhaps more likely to associate with characters on screen who are non-human. We are concerned that the Transformers film is more about bad highschool drama love flicks and explosions; rather than speeches and fights and interactions from Optimus Prime. "My Bad" as the first lines of the great leader Prime in the first film isn't just a funny quip for a scene, but kind of an insult to a character who should be a mighty inspiring leader.


Why is avatar such a cultural blank? @ 2023/05/18 09:23:39


Post by: Mad Doc Grotsnik


Entirely fair points.

I’m one to encourage growing your media literacy. Not from a snobby “oh you like that sort of movie” way. More that since I worked on mine (and I’m barely more than an enthusiastic amateur) I’ve found my enjoyment of movies and TV has increased.

It’s the difference between enjoying something, and understanding why you enjoyed it.

For instance, I watched a movie called The Black Book the other week. Low budget anthology movie which wasn’t very good. But, I was able to enjoy it. Not in an ironic way, but because I’ve learned to appreciate the difference between a lazy hack, and someone who genuinely tried their best, but their best just wasn’t very good. It had interesting ideas, and I hope to see more from the team behind it, as I think they may be able to provide some better movies in the future as they learn their craft.

Likewise, I can explain and articulate why I liked the new Godzilla Movies, whilst ragging on the Transformers movies, despite them being largely the same appeal (big things beating each other up).


Why is avatar such a cultural blank? @ 2023/05/18 10:12:04


Post by: Overread


 Mad Doc Grotsnik wrote:

Likewise, I can explain and articulate why I liked the new Godzilla Movies, whilst ragging on the Transformers movies, despite them being largely the same appeal (big things beating each other up).


I'd say there's a few things in that

First up the original films were the same. Godzilla or Kong have always been a big thing stomping through cities smashing stuff up. Heck the early ones were literally guys in costumes smashing stuff up on set.

The monster characters don't have spoken lines. The story is about the interaction of people with these monsters rampaging through cities like they'd rampage through the wilds. So the story in terms of narrative and spoken lines has always been carried by the human cast and there's always been this disconnect with the monsters. If anything this actually meant that giving Kong more personality time in Kong VS Godzilla actually deepened Kong as a character and not just a monster.

In contrast in Transformers the original stories were all about the robots. They did the talking, the drama and the humans were 100% side characters. Many comic or TV episodes the humans didn't have to even appear on set. Heck drop into something like Beast Wars and humans don't even appear.


I think that's why fans find the new monster mashup films fine; because they were always just low brains smash stuff with humans carrying the narrative of the story. Nothing's really changed save that the budget and effects are way better.
Transformers is a massive shift on many fronts which changes the whole dynamic.
It then doesn't help when the plot is written daft. Deceptacons able to play as fully human robots who are unable to kill 1 teenager at highschool; every machine in human history being a hiding autobot/deceptacon; the inability for anyone to fix Bumblebee's brain for ages so that he shifts from a character with attitude into almost a side-kick pet kind of role .


Why is avatar such a cultural blank? @ 2023/05/18 10:29:18


Post by: Gert


 H.B.M.C. wrote:
For real? Avatar may not have an attachment to the cultural zeitgeist, but it is ubiquitous. Blade Runner though?

That's obscure sci-fi at best for most people.

I mean it depends, doesn't it? Sci-fi is such a broad category that many would consider most of the Marvel films sci-fi, especially after the first Avengers film because it has aliens and lasers. I read "Do Androids Dream of Electric Sheep" and "I Am Legend" when it was about 12/13ish but before that my exposed to "classic" sci-fi was limited to sporadic reruns of Enterprise when I was off sick from school and Star Wars. With how many superhero movies are out there and other kids' stuff, "classic" sci-fi isn't really big outside of TV anymore because it just doesn't sell nearly as well.


Why is avatar such a cultural blank? @ 2023/05/18 11:11:24


Post by: NapoleonInSpace


 AduroT wrote:
 NapoleonInSpace wrote:
Military bad. Primitives good.

In those four words, I just summed up the first movie. That's why I didn't bother seeing the second one.


But you summed up the second movie’s plot so perfectly!


INCREDIBLE AIN'T IT???


Automatically Appended Next Post:
 BobtheInquisitor wrote:
 NapoleonInSpace wrote:
Military bad. Primitives good.

In those four words, I just summed up the first movie. That's why I didn't bother seeing the second one.


This dismisses the subtext: military has cool toys.

Such cool toys.


There is that.


Why is avatar such a cultural blank? @ 2023/05/18 11:48:57


Post by: AceXT


 Overread wrote:

They go; see a film; chat about it for a bit after and then they are off home and that's it.


I think that's a key point. The engagement of geeks, fans, whatever you call it with media is different in kind and intensity from the larger part of the audience, and I say this without judgment of either group. You're not silly NERRRDS if you spend more time and thought on a movie, and you're not shallow and stupid if you don't. To use a gaming analogy, Avatar is huge with casuals. They love it, they may watch it multiple times in the theater, and that's it. They feel no need to do fan art, or buy merchandise, or design a homebrew tabletop minis game, because that's not how they engage with media. But when a sequel shows up thirteen years later, they show up in the millions and bring their families. The biggest movie in the world can't possibly be a "cultural blank," especially not if its sequel instantly becomes the second biggest movie in the world. People loved the first part enough to go watch the second, that's cultural impact. Movie criticism, professional as well as amateur, hasn't really been able to grasp this phenomenon.

For me, Way of Water wasn't necessarily the best movie I saw last year, but it was probably my favorite theater experience. I have no interest in watching it at home, which doesn't make it a bad movie, but one that is fully focused on being a 3D theater experience.



Why is avatar such a cultural blank? @ 2023/05/19 09:55:38


Post by: Vulcan


 AceXT wrote:
 Overread wrote:

They go; see a film; chat about it for a bit after and then they are off home and that's it.


I think that's a key point. The engagement of geeks, fans, whatever you call it with media is different in kind and intensity from the larger part of the audience, and I say this without judgment of either group. You're not silly NERRRDS if you spend more time and thought on a movie, and you're not shallow and stupid if you don't. To use a gaming analogy, Avatar is huge with casuals. They love it, they may watch it multiple times in the theater, and that's it. They feel no need to do fan art, or buy merchandise, or design a homebrew tabletop minis game, because that's not how they engage with media. But when a sequel shows up thirteen years later, they show up in the millions and bring their families. The biggest movie in the world can't possibly be a "cultural blank," especially not if its sequel instantly becomes the second biggest movie in the world. People loved the first part enough to go watch the second, that's cultural impact. Movie criticism, professional as well as amateur, hasn't really been able to grasp this phenomenon.

For me, Way of Water wasn't necessarily the best movie I saw last year, but it was probably my favorite theater experience. I have no interest in watching it at home, which doesn't make it a bad movie, but one that is fully focused on being a 3D theater experience.



I see where you're coming from, and I can't disagree with your points.

HOWEVER.

I would argue that Avatar has had little cultural impact all the same. Sure, the movies made a ton of money... and that's all they did.

Here it is nearly 60 years on, and Star Trek is still culturally relevant and talked about. Not quite fifty years on and Star Wars is still culturally relevant and talked about. Back in the 1980s I can safely tell you NO ONE was having the sort of mass conversations about the movies and radio plays of the 1920s and '30s like those two franchises are still discussed.

Avatar? People saw the movie and moved on, and for 13 years there was pretty much nothing. Avatar 2 comes out, people saw it and moved on and there's pretty much nothing. I'll bet when Avatar 3 comes out it'll make another boatload of money as people go see it... and there will still be pretty much nothing afterwards.

That's the difference. Avatar is something you go watch and that's it. Star Trek, Star Wars? Those are things you watch and talk about afterwards. It shows up in places other than within it's own franchise. That's why Star Trek and Star Wars are culturally relevant.... and Avatar is pretty much a cultural blank despite making upward of five billion dollars so far.


Why is avatar such a cultural blank? @ 2023/05/19 12:46:11


Post by: AceXT


I similarly can't disagree with most of your observations, but I think the idea of cultural relevance is too limited here. Relevance isn't just measured by the fan culture you attract, because culture isn't just what is created and sustained by fans. Sure, Star Trek is still talked about by fans, and there's more product put out by the franchise. But how many people watch Trek, shows or movies, and how many people watch Avatar? I think the latter is dismissed because it's easier to track fan cultures, and we're lacking a framework that accounts for the exceptional reception of Avatar (I don't have one either, I'm sorry to say). And obviously, we're geeks here, and we tend to approach things from a geek point of view. Now, if the question had been "Why doesn't Avatar have more of a visible fan culture, given its undeniable success?" I'd have given a different, though not much more helpful response.


Why is avatar such a cultural blank? @ 2023/05/19 13:41:03


Post by: Easy E


 Vulcan wrote:
Back in the 1980s I can safely tell you NO ONE was having the sort of mass conversations about the movies and radio plays of the 1920s and '30s like those two franchises are still discussed.


A slight quibble, people were still talking about the Orson Welles War of the Worlds broadcast.


....and to think about it, many of those old radio plays had been re-made into serials, comics, TV shows, and movies by then. Shows/Movies like Annie, Lone Ranger, The Shadow, Elliot Ness, Flash Gordon, Superman, etc. So, they may not have been talking about the radio serials anymore, because they had been replaced with new versions of them on the TV or film screen all ready.


Why is avatar such a cultural blank? @ 2023/05/19 17:17:29


Post by: epronovost


Avatar didn't reach the same level of fanbase and cultural impact than Star Trek or Star Wars for a few reasons in my opinion.

First, while it has some potential to be, Avatar is not very ''toyetic''. Star Wars and Star Trek both produced an enormous quantity of toys than both represented what was seen on screen and even expanded it a little bit. Being a popular household toy allows you to build a dedicated fanbase. Similarly, those movies were advertised like movies. There is no massive amount of Avatar T-shirts and the like. The marketing for the movie is less agressive, more in line with other non big franchise movies.

Second, Avatar doesn't create a particularly original universe. It creates a beautiful environment, but it doesn't have to scope and mysticism of Star Wars. It doesn't have the politics of Star Trek either.

Third, the movies were released too far appart and were too self contained, more akin to a chronicle of a planet than an actual multi-part ongoing story.




Why is avatar such a cultural blank? @ 2023/05/19 17:49:51


Post by: Flinty


I'm not sure that's quite true on the merch side. There were a lot of Avatar branded Kinder Easter eggs around a couple of months back. Also there are the expected toy ranges supporting the film, and Amazon at least have an awful lot of t-shirts available.

Maybe less in the novel space, but there appear to be several visual dictionaries and sticker books and suchlike.


Why is avatar such a cultural blank? @ 2023/05/19 18:55:28


Post by: Gert


 Flinty wrote:
I'm not sure that's quite true on the merch side. There were a lot of Avatar branded Kinder Easter eggs around a couple of months back. Also there are the expected toy ranges supporting the film, and Amazon at least have an awful lot of t-shirts available.

Maybe less in the novel space, but there appear to be several visual dictionaries and sticker books and suchlike.

Yeah, but this is the second movie and there was nothing for the first film in terms of tie-in merch. Hell, the Lego sets are going back to the first film to retroactively make merch for it.


Why is avatar such a cultural blank? @ 2023/05/19 19:50:07


Post by: Ahtman


I've seen a lot of merchandise but I've never seen anyone buying it or using it. Star Wars/Star Trek/WWE/Marvel stuff I see evidence of it moving but the Avatar stuff just sits there collecting dust.


Why is avatar such a cultural blank? @ 2023/05/19 20:48:14


Post by: ccs


 AceXT wrote:
I similarly can't disagree with most of your observations, but I think the idea of cultural relevance is too limited here. Relevance isn't just measured by the fan culture you attract, because culture isn't just what is created and sustained by fans. Sure, Star Trek is still talked about by fans, and there's more product put out by the franchise. But how many people watch Trek, shows or movies, and how many people watch Avatar? I think the latter is dismissed because it's easier to track fan cultures, and we're lacking a framework that accounts for the exceptional reception of Avatar (I don't have one either, I'm sorry to say). And obviously, we're geeks here, and we tend to approach things from a geek point of view. Now, if the question had been "Why doesn't Avatar have more of a visible fan culture, given its undeniable success?" I'd have given a different, though not much more helpful response.


Well that's an easy question to answer. It's because Avatar doesn't have any fans. No matter how much $ it makes, it's hard to have a fan culture without fans....


Why is avatar such a cultural blank? @ 2023/05/19 21:10:21


Post by: Herzlos


 H.B.M.C. wrote:

Commissar von Toussaint wrote:
I suspect that Blade Runner - which was regarded as a commercial failure when released - has had a far larger cultural impact.
For real? Avatar may not have an attachment to the cultural zeitgeist, but it is ubiquitous. Blade Runner though?

That's obscure sci-fi at best for most people.



Blade Runner is an interesting example here, I rather shamefully, have tried to watch it and 2049 and failed to make it all the way through on any occasion, despite hearing great things about it. It just didn't have a pace that hooked me. I've seen Avatar the whole way through.

I still know more about Blade Runner than Avatar. But that's probably from the occasional meme or pop culture reference.



Why is avatar such a cultural blank? @ 2023/05/19 21:34:09


Post by: BertBert


Avatar never established itself in pop/geek culture because it is fundamentally lacking substance, nuance and interesting characters. It's a simplistic story propped up by gorgeous (and at the time of Avatar one's release groundbreaking) visuals. I'd lie if I said I didn't enjoy it for the sheer spectacle back then, but I can't say I've spent much time thinking about it since.


Why is avatar such a cultural blank? @ 2023/05/19 22:05:23


Post by: OrlandotheTechnicoloured


Pleasant and pretty, but without much substance,

what is more culturally significant (but won't be thought about by most folk) is all the new CGI tech developed to make it which then became the foundation of so much other stuff

(in the same way Terminator 2 perfected and popularized the 'liquid metal' animation effect, but alas i can't point to something quite as specific from avatar, but if i was a CGI geek i probably could)


Why is avatar such a cultural blank? @ 2023/05/19 22:42:55


Post by: Nevelon


Herzlos wrote:

Blade Runner is an interesting example here, I rather shamefully, have tried to watch it and 2049 and failed to make it all the way through on any occasion, despite hearing great things about it. It just didn't have a pace that hooked me. I've seen Avatar the whole way through.

I still know more about Blade Runner than Avatar. But that's probably from the occasional meme or pop culture reference.



I’ve talked about movie pace with a couple of more cinemaphile friends before. Modern movies are paced completely different than older films. Bladerunner (both of them) are paced like classic noir films.

People complain about the new marvel movies being non-stop CGI fight scenes. They are not alone in this. Modern films are more action, cut, more action. If you looks at how they are cut and edited, how long each scene is, everything is faster. No time to wait, not time to watch a cigarette slowly turn to ash in a mood filled room.

If you grew up on modern films, older ones will just seem to drag.

And not to get all yelling at clouds grumpy old timer, but I liked it better the old way. You got more evocative moments, became more grounded in the movie. Modern movies feel all flash, no substance sometimes.


Why is avatar such a cultural blank? @ 2023/05/19 23:43:48


Post by: Overread


 Nevelon wrote:
Herzlos wrote:

Blade Runner is an interesting example here, I rather shamefully, have tried to watch it and 2049 and failed to make it all the way through on any occasion, despite hearing great things about it. It just didn't have a pace that hooked me. I've seen Avatar the whole way through.

I still know more about Blade Runner than Avatar. But that's probably from the occasional meme or pop culture reference.



I’ve talked about movie pace with a couple of more cinemaphile friends before. Modern movies are paced completely different than older films. Bladerunner (both of them) are paced like classic noir films.

People complain about the new marvel movies being non-stop CGI fight scenes. They are not alone in this. Modern films are more action, cut, more action. If you looks at how they are cut and edited, how long each scene is, everything is faster. No time to wait, not time to watch a cigarette slowly turn to ash in a mood filled room.

If you grew up on modern films, older ones will just seem to drag.

And not to get all yelling at clouds grumpy old timer, but I liked it better the old way. You got more evocative moments, became more grounded in the movie. Modern movies feel all flash, no substance sometimes.



When you consider that films like the Spaghetti Westerns are still popular and still big films I think that many people do still like slower films. We also still get them, Lord of the Rings has a good few slower parts to the story, same as Harry Potter and many others.

I think the issue is more that we have a few things going on
1) The way we engage with films has shifted. Some films are very much made to be action flicks. No brains wall to wall action to fill a time slot of pure entertainment that isn't designed to ask big questions; but to fill a gap where the film might even be secondary to what's going on.

2) Focus groups and theories. I figure this is a big issue in that we might well have suits who have identified the parts of films that people "talk" about the most and get them excited and then they just hyper focus on those scenes. Not quite realising or appreciating that sometimes that big climatic battle with explosions and all - was big and impactful because of the slow steady build up toward it. That seeing characters fight it out in epic battles is made more engaging and gripping when those characters have growth and development time within the film; which includes slower parts and areas where it might be more talk than action. Parts that people might not engage with as readily, but which build into the whole experience.

3) Writers/directors who are making too much in the extreme or trying to cover too much. Marvel/DC films do this a LOT. Esp when they have team mashups with a lot of characters at once. They throw so much into the film that there's not enough room for any one plot or character to get full time and development. So to reach their target ending they have to rush.
This can be made worse because even after the film is made; the cutting room can slice out whole chunks (and this is nothing new, its been a curse for films for a long time - heck Alien 3 was torn apart on the cutting room whilst Sergio Leonie also had huge problems with his films being cut up).



I think on some fronts there's an overt move to make fast action flicks; but then again we had them in the past too and they had lots of explosions and action and worked without being so rushed.
I do think we've perhaps a generation of hollywood in certain key roles who are resulting in these rushed feeling films and that its a result of a few moving parts and elements that come together to produce them.


I do worry that the "Age of Streaming" that we are very much in and growing into; could even make this worse. A cinema film only has to get you in the door and your bum on the seat. In theory its work is done then; and yet even that resulted in fast films. So steaming where they not only need your bum on a seat, but your attention through the whole streaming film/series (and where they 100% can monitor you and everyone else to know just how much is being watched even down to what parts get repeated and what are skipped past and all); That kind of environment could make suits seeking maximisation of engagement focus insanely on those "that scene gets watched 50 times so lets just make a whole film that's that scene".


Why is avatar such a cultural blank? @ 2023/05/20 00:26:23


Post by: Commissar von Toussaint


 Overread wrote:
I think on some fronts there's an overt move to make fast action flicks; but then again we had them in the past too and they had lots of explosions and action and worked without being so rushed.
I do think we've perhaps a generation of hollywood in certain key roles who are resulting in these rushed feeling films and that its a result of a few moving parts and elements that come together to produce them.


I cut some of your points for clarity's sake, but while I agree with you overall, I think you have the causation wrong.

CGI has made special effects effectively free. If you are already using a green screen with digital landscapes, digital sets, adding F/X to it is a marginal cost at best.

Moreover, you can add whatever you want. Rampaging oversize elephants cost the same as period-perfect Hawker Hurricanes.

In pre-CGI movies, even "action films" had a budget. Prop ammo cost money, as did explosives, renting a helicopter, etc. If you wanted a superlatively big effect, you got one take.

You also had to work around real-world constraints, such as: there is not a squadron worth of flyable Hawker Hurricanes out there. So either make a different movie, or substitute late-war Spitfires and hope no one notices.

This meant that writers and directors had to fill the empty minutes with something else, like character development, plot movement. Action was used to highlight these moments, but could not replace them.

A classic example is Star Wars and lightsabers. pre-CGI, these were difficult and expensive effects, and lightsabers were only ever ignited to underline a major plot point (there are videos on this).

CGI Star Wars can have endless lightsabers doing endless things. No need to save igniting one for a dramatic moment.

There is also the growth of the "overseas" markets - China, India, even into Africa and the Middle East. American culture does not necessarily translate well, but everyone loves big explosions, so that's what we get. You can do an entire film of race cars racing around and make gobs of money. The story is an afterthought.

That's basically "Avatar" in a nutshell - exquisite visuals to entertain, and no need to worry about anything else. Honestly, it's almost a return to silent films.

I will add that film school and writing classes have become hackneyed and stereotyped, packed with tropes and paint-by-the-numbers stories. Older movies were written by people who had done something in life prior to film school and that they could draw upon.

People point to how much character development happened in The Empire Strikes Back, well who was the writer? The same guy who would go on to do The Big Chill, an iconic ensemble movie about nothing more exciting than college friends coming together for a friend's funeral over a long weekend.


Why is avatar such a cultural blank? @ 2023/05/20 08:34:02


Post by: Geifer


 Nevelon wrote:
Herzlos wrote:

Blade Runner is an interesting example here, I rather shamefully, have tried to watch it and 2049 and failed to make it all the way through on any occasion, despite hearing great things about it. It just didn't have a pace that hooked me. I've seen Avatar the whole way through.

I still know more about Blade Runner than Avatar. But that's probably from the occasional meme or pop culture reference.



I’ve talked about movie pace with a couple of more cinemaphile friends before. Modern movies are paced completely different than older films. Bladerunner (both of them) are paced like classic noir films.

People complain about the new marvel movies being non-stop CGI fight scenes. They are not alone in this. Modern films are more action, cut, more action. If you looks at how they are cut and edited, how long each scene is, everything is faster. No time to wait, not time to watch a cigarette slowly turn to ash in a mood filled room.

If you grew up on modern films, older ones will just seem to drag.

And not to get all yelling at clouds grumpy old timer, but I liked it better the old way. You got more evocative moments, became more grounded in the movie. Modern movies feel all flash, no substance sometimes.


I'd argue that in the case of Blade Runner it's specifically the noir style you need to get behind to get something out of the movie. I like slower movies just fine, but found Blade Runner miserable to watch. I can't even detail anymore what it was about the movie that prevented me from engaging with it, or if the director made choices I didn't agree with and that soured me on the experience. I watched it once, thought cyberpunk fans or whatever are a bunch of emos and moved on. No desire to give it another try.

But at least in the case of Blade Runner I can see how people interested in that kind of stuff could get a memorable experience out of the movie. I haven't watched the second Avatar yet, but the only thing I remember about my reaction to the first movie is that it is an incredibly mediocre movie, completely flavorless with nothing that stands out as memorable. In my opinion that's what makes Avatar both successful and prevents it from having much of a cultural footprint. It's nothing more than a pretty, mildly inoffensive movie that was sold on the 3d cinema experience. Bland and inoffensive seem like advantageous traits to me when the point is to get as many people to sign up for the event surrounding the movie rather than the movie itself.



Why is avatar such a cultural blank? @ 2023/05/20 12:40:07


Post by: Commissar von Toussaint


 Geifer wrote:
I'd argue that in the case of Blade Runner it's specifically the noir style you need to get behind to get something out of the movie. I like slower movies just fine, but found Blade Runner miserable to watch. I can't even detail anymore what it was about the movie that prevented me from engaging with it, or if the director made choices I didn't agree with and that soured me on the experience. I watched it once, thought cyberpunk fans or whatever are a bunch of emos and moved on. No desire to give it another try.


Blade Runner is film noir that uses a futuristic setting. It has sci-fi elements, but does so in the traditional way, like The Omega Man or Soylent Green. Both of those movies are also quite slow. If you like other film noir, you will enjoy Blade Runner immensely. If you don't, you won't get much out of it.

People who want to better understand it should dig into the vast library of film noir. The Maltese Falcon is widely claimed to be the first film noir, and Double Indemnity came out soon after. One of the key elements of noir is that the protagonist is flawed, burned-out, and is being played much of the time. He's tough, but also gets beaten up and/or shot.

Here's my take on Blade Runner from a geek perspective. https://bleedingfool.com/blogs/blade-runner-the-original-version-is-still-the-best/

Appreciating classic films isn't necessarily a generational thing - almost all film noir was done before I was born. It's just like reading ancient literature or anything else - if it resonates, you will get into it. I like noir because it takes time to unfold and isn't a frenetic car-chase/city-destroying special effects spectacular.

Noir can have action, and violence is obligatory, but it's treatment is very different. Here's a write-up on Deckard's "blaster", which the prop masters never even bothered to name. https://bleedingfool.com/blogs/geek-guns-part-4-deckards-blaster-from-blade-runner/

That's typical of how noir handles weapons - they just are, nothing special or epic. Most of the time, the make and model of what even famous characters use is irrelevant. In action films, the weapons are very important, and Star Wars (to give an obvious example) names everything. Every gun gets a label. In noir, 99.9% of the time, the hero carries an anonymous snub-nosed revolver which we may not even see well enough to identify.

What noir does have is intense character portraits and often crisp dialogue. Blade Runner's dialog isn't that sharp, but it has its moments and it makes up for it with incredible visuals and music.


Why is avatar such a cultural blank? @ 2023/05/20 14:16:25


Post by: Tyran


Another issue is that it is harder to achieve a lasting cultural impact these days, at least as cinema originals are concerned.

I mean Star Trek and Star Wars? They are old franchises that most of us watched when we were kids. And I struggle to think about a recent movie that achieved cultural relevance without being an adaptation, reboot or sequel.


Why is avatar such a cultural blank? @ 2023/05/20 14:41:06


Post by: BertBert


 Tyran wrote:
Another issue is that it is harder to achieve a lasting cultural impact these days, at least as cinema originals are concerned.

I mean Star Trek and Star Wars? They are old franchises that most of us watched when we were kids. And I struggle to think about a recent movie that achieved cultural relevance without being an adaptation, reboot or sequel.


That's a good observation. If anything, series formats seem to be a lot more successful in that regard. Things like Game of Thrones, Mandalorian, Walking Dead and Breaking Bad seem to be a lot more present than movie franchises these days. The only exception in recent years that comes to mind is Avengers, which left a clear mark in pop culture and is heavily referenced today. I wonder if this is an indication for a shift in consumer preference towards series formats in general, where stories are more drawn out and characters have more time to develop, with lots of twists, turns and cliffhangers to keep people engaged.


Why is avatar such a cultural blank? @ 2023/05/20 14:59:18


Post by: Commissar von Toussaint


 BertBert wrote:
That's a good observation. If anything, series formats seem to be a lot more successful in that regard. Things like Game of Thrones, Mandalorian, Walking Dead and Breaking Bad seem to be a lot more present than movie franchises these days. The only exception in recent years that comes to mind is Avengers, which left a clear mark in pop culture and is heavily referenced today. I wonder if this is an indication for a shift in consumer preference towards series formats in general, where stories are more drawn out and characters have more time to develop, with lots of twists, turns and cliffhangers to keep people engaged.


Series formats always left a mark, though. Shows like "Cheers" or "Friends" or "Seinfeld" were important even as original blockbuster movies were rolling out.

Moviemaking is going through a crisis of originality and I think an overlooked element is the fact that so many studios are now under the Disney umbrella. Look how much content they control. They see a franchise and buy it.

It's arguably worse that the studio system because at least the movie moguls had strong rivalries against each other. Now there's more collusion than competition.


Why is avatar such a cultural blank? @ 2023/05/20 15:10:03


Post by: epronovost


 BertBert wrote:
 Tyran wrote:
Another issue is that it is harder to achieve a lasting cultural impact these days, at least as cinema originals are concerned.

I mean Star Trek and Star Wars? They are old franchises that most of us watched when we were kids. And I struggle to think about a recent movie that achieved cultural relevance without being an adaptation, reboot or sequel.


That's a good observation. If anything, series formats seem to be a lot more successful in that regard. Things like Game of Thrones, Mandalorian, Walking Dead and Breaking Bad seem to be a lot more present than movie franchises these days. The only exception in recent years that comes to mind is Avengers, which left a clear mark in pop culture and is heavily referenced today. I wonder if this is an indication for a shift in consumer preference towards series formats in general, where stories are more drawn out and characters have more time to develop, with lots of twists, turns and cliffhangers to keep people engaged.


For a movie to have a big cultural footprint, you need it to be a series of movie or a genre movie with plenty of very similar movie. Halloween or Friday the 13th, individually, are not significant. Together, they form the backbone of the most popular and recognizable genre of horror movie giving them presence. The same goes for film noir, spaghetti westerns or 90's American macho movie starring Sylvester Stallone, Bruce Willis or the Governator. Stand alone movie with a large cultural footprint that are not of a genre tend to be historical epics since they can attach their relevance to actual famous historical events like Titanic, Saving Private Ryan, Glory or the Schindler's List. Holiday movies who are shown over and over every year can also achieve that status like Home Alone though it did devolve into sequels each less interesting than the precedent one) or Groundhog Day for example. In fact, I can't think of a singular movie that isn't part of a series, a historical movie or part of a well established and popular genre at the time that gained any sort of cultural relevance and impact. Those, while still good and popular, tend to fade rather quickly.


Why is avatar such a cultural blank? @ 2023/05/20 15:10:33


Post by: BobtheInquisitor


I don’t think Blade Runner is as simple as “do you like noir?”. I’ve seen two different cuts of the first movie, and “miserable” is a great descriptor for the feeling I got watching it. But I loved Blade Runner 2049. I love a few noir movies. There’s something else off-putting about the first Blade Runner.


 Tyran wrote:
Another issue is that it is harder to achieve a lasting cultural impact these days, at least as cinema originals are concerned.

I mean Star Trek and Star Wars? They are old franchises that most of us watched when we were kids. And I struggle to think about a recent movie that achieved cultural relevance without being an adaptation, reboot or sequel.


Pacific Rim? Everything Everywhere All At Once? The Conjuring universe? Any recent Tarantino film?

There just aren’t enough wide release films that hit huge audiences today that aren’t sequels, reboots or adaptations.


Why is avatar such a cultural blank? @ 2023/05/20 15:19:38


Post by: Tsagualsa


 BobtheInquisitor wrote:
I don’t think Blade Runner is as simple as “do you like noir?”. I’ve seen two different cuts of the first movie, and “miserable” is a great descriptor for the feeling I got watching it. But I loved Blade Runner 2049. I love a few noir movies. There’s something else off-putting about the first Blade Runner.


 Tyran wrote:
Another issue is that it is harder to achieve a lasting cultural impact these days, at least as cinema originals are concerned.

I mean Star Trek and Star Wars? They are old franchises that most of us watched when we were kids. And I struggle to think about a recent movie that achieved cultural relevance without being an adaptation, reboot or sequel.


Pacific Rim? Everything Everywhere All At Once? The Conjuring universe? Any recent Tarantino film?

There just aren’t enough wide release films that hit huge audiences today that aren’t sequels, reboots or adaptations.


There's also the general churn to consider - the 'classic' Sci-Fi movies that spawned huge fandoms did so (at least in part) because there wasn't that much stuff in that genre that was both recent and popular that you could be a fan of. Nowadays it's much more sleek, corporate and mechanistic, with regular releases for all sorts of niches and genres. As the meme puts it, 'Just consume product and then get excited for next product' - lasting, creative engagmenent with brands and properties is not something the companies behind these properties actively foster, or even want at all.


Why is avatar such a cultural blank? @ 2023/05/21 00:10:42


Post by: Commissar von Toussaint


 BobtheInquisitor wrote:
I don’t think Blade Runner is as simple as “do you like noir?”. I’ve seen two different cuts of the first movie, and “miserable” is a great descriptor for the feeling I got watching it. But I loved Blade Runner 2049. I love a few noir movies. There’s something else off-putting about the first Blade Runner.


Yes, it is very off-putting. That's the whole point.

Imagine a studio taking a risk like that today - picking a famous leading man, pairing him with an eclectic ensemble, use otherworldly special effects and music to tell a story like that.

As others have pointed out, everything is safe, everything is franchised, everything has a reliable, bankable fandom.

All the studios have been consolidated, so there is no experimental filmmaking, no desire to score an offbeat hit. Think about hit movies of that era. Can you imagine anyone greenlighting "Witness" today?


Why is avatar such a cultural blank? @ 2023/05/21 00:58:46


Post by: Ahtman


All of these criticism will be lost to time, like tears in the rain.

Looking over the thread it seems the consensus is that the reason it is such a cultural null is that it is primarily propped up as spectacle, or visual tech porn if you will, with everything else being aggressively middle of the road. It is neither god nor bad; while not great it is not awful; even the messages or subtext are as banal and vanilla as they come.

There are other little factors, such as being a wide variety of options for viewers, but that seems to be the principle for behind it being such a pop culture void.


Why is avatar such a cultural blank? @ 2023/05/21 04:37:57


Post by: BobtheInquisitor


Good point. Even failures like the SW sequels and Cats have had a bigger cultural impact than Avatar.


Commissar von Toussaint wrote:
 BobtheInquisitor wrote:
I don’t think Blade Runner is as simple as “do you like noir?”. I’ve seen two different cuts of the first movie, and “miserable” is a great descriptor for the feeling I got watching it. But I loved Blade Runner 2049. I love a few noir movies. There’s something else off-putting about the first Blade Runner.


Yes, it is very off-putting. That's the whole point.

Imagine a studio taking a risk like that today - picking a famous leading man, pairing him with an eclectic ensemble, use otherworldly special effects and music to tell a story like that.

As others have pointed out, everything is safe, everything is franchised, everything has a reliable, bankable fandom.

All the studios have been consolidated, so there is no experimental filmmaking, no desire to score an offbeat hit. Think about hit movies of that era. Can you imagine anyone greenlighting "Witness" today?


Studios are still taking risks today, just not the big three or four. Look at a review for Beau is Afraid, a movie still in theaters. Audiences just don’t pay to see risky movies in theaters any more.

I’d love to see the big studios decent budgets to more alternative types of movies. That’s why I try to go to the theaters to see stuff like Sisu, The Green knight, Upgrade, EEAAO, Barbarian, M3gan, Pearl, etc. only by supporting those kinds of films when they are made will we get the studios making more of them.


Why is avatar such a cultural blank? @ 2023/05/21 07:37:35


Post by: Flinty


It costs so much to go to the cinema now that even the audiences don’t want to take a risk.


Why is avatar such a cultural blank? @ 2023/05/21 10:54:02


Post by: Nevelon


 Flinty wrote:
It costs so much to go to the cinema now that even the audiences don’t want to take a risk.


True.

When costs were a lot more reasonable, I’d take more risks. If I didn’t like it, it just just a few bucks and a couple hours. Shrug and move on with my life. But I feel like I need to budget movies into my expenses these days. They are above the line for impulse spending.

I also agree that “safe” movies have less impact. There is nothing for hate to latch onto, but also fewer points to grab onto for a legacy. It just comes to the theater, smoothly sails past making money, and then slips away. No drama, but no impact. Just profit. Which the companies are probably fine with.


Why is avatar such a cultural blank? @ 2023/05/21 14:55:19


Post by: Vulcan


 AceXT wrote:
I similarly can't disagree with most of your observations, but I think the idea of cultural relevance is too limited here. Relevance isn't just measured by the fan culture you attract, because culture isn't just what is created and sustained by fans. Sure, Star Trek is still talked about by fans, and there's more product put out by the franchise. But how many people watch Trek, shows or movies, and how many people watch Avatar? I think the latter is dismissed because it's easier to track fan cultures, and we're lacking a framework that accounts for the exceptional reception of Avatar (I don't have one either, I'm sorry to say). And obviously, we're geeks here, and we tend to approach things from a geek point of view. Now, if the question had been "Why doesn't Avatar have more of a visible fan culture, given its undeniable success?" I'd have given a different, though not much more helpful response.


Good point.


Why is avatar such a cultural blank? @ 2023/05/21 15:01:21


Post by: LordofHats


I have a general theory about fandom and it's growth that mostly comes down to one question;

What if?

Fandoms grow wildest around media rife with what if, and it takes a certain abstract sort of flexibility in narrative and characters. There needs to be a sense that things could have gone a different way, or that characters could have done things differently.

That really doesn't exist in Avatar. Avatar has a very linear narrative that kind of just 'adds up' and wraps up by its end sequel be damned. There's not a lot of room for 'What if?'

Compare that to the likes of Star Trek, Pokemon, or Harry Potter, which are almost more rife with what ifs than actual plot.


Why is avatar such a cultural blank? @ 2023/05/21 18:06:11


Post by: Voss


My own theory is a variation on that, where the most popular fanfics are settings that are interesting, and either there is a LOT of room, or the author completely dropped the ball.

One of the most popular fandoms for fanfics in the 90s was Ranma 1/2, (which for those who don't know, is a manga/anime starring a talented but arrogant martial artist, cursed to turn into a girl with cold water. And there are an absurd amount of potential relationships). There's a lot going on there with gender roles, sexuality, magic, curses, etc, etc. Then the author flipped out on a fan asking if the main couple... experiments... with the gender curse. This triggered an angry rant and basically a 'compulsory heterosexuality only' sticker on the entire thing, which is completely at odds with the themes she set up. So fanfic authors ran with all the potential she dropped.

Similar dropped potential fits for Harry Potter, Star Wars, and even the dreaded Twilight, which are still some of the biggest fanfic arenas to this day.


Why is avatar such a cultural blank? @ 2023/05/21 18:17:49


Post by: LordofHats


That's another way of seeing it.

Things with unexplored potential will spawn more fandom than things with less.

EDIT: Though I don't know that I'd say 'dropping the ball' has any necessary meaning here. Perfectly good things don't necessarily spawn active fan interest. Compare Worm and Ward by Wildbow. Worm has a huge fanfic community that is lively and going ten years after the original finished. Ward, despite being a sequel, has almost no fan interest. Anything interesting from Ward tends to be absorbed backward into the Worm fandom and appears in Worm fanfics. Almost no one writes, or even talks, about Ward. And there are reasons for that imo, but it's not that Ward is bad so much as Ward has a much tighter narrative and far less unexplored potential or what if possibilites.


Why is avatar such a cultural blank? @ 2023/05/21 19:06:36


Post by: Mad Doc Grotsnik


 Ahtman wrote:
All of these criticism will be lost to time, like tears in the rain.

Looking over the thread it seems the consensus is that the reason it is such a cultural null is that it is primarily propped up as spectacle, or visual tech porn if you will, with everything else being aggressively middle of the road. It is neither god nor bad; while not great it is not awful; even the messages or subtext are as banal and vanilla as they come.

There are other little factors, such as being a wide variety of options for viewers, but that seems to be the principle for behind it being such a pop culture void.


It’s….Pizza.

Avatar is Pizza.

It’s a crowd pleaser. Something pretty much anyone can watch and enjoy. It does have a message about the environment and for want of a better word, Corporate Imperialism. The acting is fine. The script is fine. The effects are quite mind boggling, given there’s no actual people on screen.

It’s interesting enough to hold the audience.

Avatar, like Pizza, is the sort of thing a family can order and be confident everyone will enjoy. It’s easy watching.

This may sound like feint praise or a back handed compliment. It’s really not intended to be. Whilst it’s not a film I ever think “you know what I’ve not watched in a while”, it’s far from something I’d switch the channel from.

Its sheer averageness is its strength. Bright enough to engage kids. Paced enough to engage the casual viewer. Enough of a message for those with an interest in picking films apart to find plenty to pick apart, whether positive or negative. And it does it without quite being merely mediocre.


Why is avatar such a cultural blank? @ 2023/05/21 20:00:38


Post by: BobtheInquisitor


Voss wrote:
My own theory is a variation on that, where the most popular fanfics are settings that are interesting, and either there is a LOT of room, or the author completely dropped the ball.

One of the most popular fandoms for fanfics in the 90s was Ranma 1/2, (which for those who don't know, is a manga/anime starring a talented but arrogant martial artist, cursed to turn into a girl with cold water. And there are an absurd amount of potential relationships). There's a lot going on there with gender roles, sexuality, magic, curses, etc, etc. Then the author flipped out on a fan asking if the main couple... experiments... with the gender curse. This triggered an angry rant and basically a 'compulsory heterosexuality only' sticker on the entire thing, which is completely at odds with the themes she set up. So fanfic authors ran with all the potential she dropped.

Similar dropped potential fits for Harry Potter, Star Wars, and even the dreaded Twilight, which are still some of the biggest fanfic arenas to this day.


Kind of amusing that the Harry Potter franchise has transformations and poly juice potion and an author who very much does not want the implications explored.


Of course, that setting also has love potions and the Imperius curse, which really raise troubling issues regarding ‘romance’ fanfiction, so maybe best to steer clear.


Why is avatar such a cultural blank? @ 2023/05/21 20:27:07


Post by: Voss


 LordofHats wrote:
That's another way of seeing it.

Things with unexplored potential will spawn more fandom than things with less.

EDIT: Though I don't know that I'd say 'dropping the ball' has any necessary meaning here.

No, it does. Quite a few authors (or directors) came up with a really interesting framework or setting and then just rammed their narrative straight into the ground.
Its rather different from offerings that are tepid all the way through.


Why is avatar such a cultural blank? @ 2023/05/21 20:48:50


Post by: Mad Doc Grotsnik


 BobtheInquisitor wrote:
Voss wrote:
My own theory is a variation on that, where the most popular fanfics are settings that are interesting, and either there is a LOT of room, or the author completely dropped the ball.

One of the most popular fandoms for fanfics in the 90s was Ranma 1/2, (which for those who don't know, is a manga/anime starring a talented but arrogant martial artist, cursed to turn into a girl with cold water. And there are an absurd amount of potential relationships). There's a lot going on there with gender roles, sexuality, magic, curses, etc, etc. Then the author flipped out on a fan asking if the main couple... experiments... with the gender curse. This triggered an angry rant and basically a 'compulsory heterosexuality only' sticker on the entire thing, which is completely at odds with the themes she set up. So fanfic authors ran with all the potential she dropped.

Similar dropped potential fits for Harry Potter, Star Wars, and even the dreaded Twilight, which are still some of the biggest fanfic arenas to this day.


Kind of amusing that the Harry Potter franchise has transformations and poly juice potion and an author who very much does not want the implications explored.


Of course, that setting also has love potions and the Imperius curse, which really raise troubling issues regarding ‘romance’ fanfiction, so maybe best to steer clear.


Love Potions and Imperius Curse are one thing. Sirius Black being falsely imprisoned in a universe where literal truth potion exists is quite another.

Likewise where are the magic based Purple Nurbles, Atomic Wedgies and other such childish nonsense things?


Why is avatar such a cultural blank? @ 2023/05/21 21:19:42


Post by: Flinty


Correct me if I’m wrong but I’m pretty sure the Harry Potter universe is as rife with corruption as it is with truth potions…


Why is avatar such a cultural blank? @ 2023/05/21 21:31:44


Post by: Overread


Plus chances are that even though you've got things like Truth Potions, there would be counters and such.

Eg it might only be able to reveal some truths or it might be possible to twist the results or have counts and such.


It's also not abnormal that writers focus on their story so much that the greater implications of what they've made and created don't always register with them. Heck even in video games we get this all the time - someone makes a game work a certain way and then it only takes one person to find out a different way and boom you've got an exploit or something really odd that is totally legitimate, but was not intended.



Why is avatar such a cultural blank? @ 2023/05/21 21:54:59


Post by: Flinty


*coffcoffHoldoManeuvercoffcoff*


Why is avatar such a cultural blank? @ 2023/05/21 23:27:26


Post by: Commissar von Toussaint


 Mad Doc Grotsnik wrote:
It’s….Pizza.

Avatar is Pizza.

It’s a crowd pleaser. Something pretty much anyone can watch and enjoy. It does have a message about the environment and for want of a better word, Corporate Imperialism. The acting is fine. The script is fine. The effects are quite mind boggling, given there’s no actual people on screen.


I think the issue is that commercial success does not automatically bestow artistic quality. Avatar made big bucks based on a huge global audience, most of which does not speak English. It is very easy to dub, which makes it popular for governments nervous about content to ensure no naughty things are said.

It is also a beneficiary of inflation, which guarantees that new movies will make more money in current dollars than old ones. If one instead looks at film grosses in constant dollars or number of tickets sold, Avatar becomes much less of a blockbuster.

Furthermore if one goes back through top-grossing films by year, there will be several stinkers on the list. I'm specifically thinking of 1970s disaster movies like Earthquake, The Towering Inferno, or (Lord have mercy) the Airport series.

Ironically, those did have a cultural impact through the Airplane! films. In fact, I bet far more people have seen the parody than the films it was mocking (the same is true of Dr. Strangelove vs Failsafe).


Why is avatar such a cultural blank? @ 2023/05/22 00:10:05


Post by: Ahtman


 Mad Doc Grotsnik wrote:
It’s a crowd pleaser.


It's a people "ok"'er. You don't leave pleased you leave thinking "that was ok". That is part of the point was that it was made to appeal to as broad an audience as possible, which ends up being a pretty diluted group.

 Mad Doc Grotsnik wrote:
Something pretty much anyone can watch and enjoy.


It is spectacle once then after that it isn't really worth running in the background while working.

 Mad Doc Grotsnik wrote:
It does have a message about the environment and for want of a better word, Corporate Imperialism.


Yes, the aforementioned banal and vanilla messaging and presentation of those messages.

 Mad Doc Grotsnik wrote:
The acting is fine. The script is fine.


Fine gets you nothing; good or bad gets you memories; they are both "meh".

 Mad Doc Grotsnik wrote:
The effects are quite mind boggling, given there’s no actual people on screen.


Yes, the CGI porn is the spectacle that is the shiny to wave at the raccoon.

 Mad Doc Grotsnik wrote:
It’s interesting enough to hold the audience.


If that were true we wouldn't be having a discussion about why the most expensive tech demo ever made is practically a non-entity beyond its box office numbers.

 Mad Doc Grotsnik wrote:
Its sheer averageness is its strength.


If you're an investor that is correct but past that it is disposable media at its zenith.

 Mad Doc Grotsnik wrote:
And it does it without quite being merely mediocre.


It isn't merely mediocre it is aggressively mediocre in all things not computer generated.


Why is avatar such a cultural blank? @ 2023/05/22 02:07:00


Post by: BobtheInquisitor


So, if you don’t want to take a risk on unknowns, do you prefer to spend your ticket budget on an aggressively mediocre spectacle flick that will entertain you for 2 hours and leave you with nothing to talk about, or do you watch an MCU/DCU movie with the caliber of a Multiverse of Madness or a Black Adam, knowing it will be dreck you can poop on for weeks?


Why is avatar such a cultural blank? @ 2023/05/22 02:16:34


Post by: LordofHats


That just goes back to my opinion that the worst thing you can be is mediocre.

Awful is better than mediocre because at least awful has an impact on the audience.


Why is avatar such a cultural blank? @ 2023/05/22 02:29:08


Post by: Ahtman


 BobtheInquisitor wrote:
So, if you don’t want to take a risk on unknowns, do you prefer to spend your ticket budget on an aggressively mediocre spectacle flick that will entertain you for 2 hours and leave you with nothing to talk about, or do you watch an MCU/DCU movie with the caliber of a Multiverse of Madness or a Black Adam, knowing it will be dreck you can poop on for weeks?


I don't know how to tell you this but you have more options than "meh", Marvel/DC, or smaller films, and this part will really blow your mind, but if there isn't a film that appeals to you at the moment you aren't actually forced to see one. Not required by law or anything! You can choose just not to go to the theater at that time. Police won't show up or anything.


Why is avatar such a cultural blank? @ 2023/05/22 06:26:22


Post by: artific3r


Avatar never tried to be anything but a wildly successful theme park ride. Nothing wrong with being the absolute best-in-class at what you do.


Why is avatar such a cultural blank? @ 2023/05/22 06:37:53


Post by: ccs


 Ahtman wrote:
 BobtheInquisitor wrote:
So, if you don’t want to take a risk on unknowns, do you prefer to spend your ticket budget on an aggressively mediocre spectacle flick that will entertain you for 2 hours and leave you with nothing to talk about, or do you watch an MCU/DCU movie with the caliber of a Multiverse of Madness or a Black Adam, knowing it will be dreck you can poop on for weeks?


I don't know how to tell you this but you have more options than "meh", Marvel/DC, or smaller films, and this part will really blow your mind, but if there isn't a film that appeals to you at the moment you aren't actually forced to see one. Not required by law or anything! You can choose just not to go to the theater at that time. Police won't show up or anything.


Agree. If I want to watch something & don't see anything that looks interesting at the theatres? Well, I've got 4+ streaming services & about 100 cable channels. I can find something....


Why is avatar such a cultural blank? @ 2023/05/22 09:59:14


Post by: Overread


 LordofHats wrote:
That just goes back to my opinion that the worst thing you can be is mediocre.

Awful is better than mediocre because at least awful has an impact on the audience.


I dunno - awful films don't make much money; if avatar is mediocre its made a boatload - twice.

The only awful films that make money are those that manage to kind of be awful for one segment of the population (original fans) but be good for a different segment of the population. So its not so much outright bad, its just bad for group A and not group B.


This theory might shift a bit though now that we've the internet and such where streaming services (if its popular and many people are already signed up) might well show high viewer numbers for bad series because people come to watch the train-wreck. The recent Velma animated series might be one to watch for that. However I suspect its not a pattern that studios would like to build on.


Why is avatar such a cultural blank? @ 2023/05/22 10:58:33


Post by: Commissar von Toussaint


 Ahtman wrote:
I don't know how to tell you this but you have more options than "meh", Marvel/DC, or smaller films, and this part will really blow your mind, but if there isn't a film that appeals to you at the moment you aren't actually forced to see one. Not required by law or anything! You can choose just not to go to the theater at that time. Police won't show up or anything.


A big part of the problem is the overall deterioration of film quality. As recently as the 90s, you could see a movie coming out with an actor or even director you knew and liked and could trust that it wouldn't be garbage warmed over.

You also might see a sequel coming and think "How bad could it be?"

None of that can be trusted today. You have studios openly announcing that "true fans will hate what we did with this," and actors doing social media drinking a glass of "fanboy tears."

I don't get it, but that's where we are. Disney has completely trashed its reputation for quality entertainment, and since it owns half of the universe, that's a problem.

James Cameron has kept his nose clean so the "Avatar" brand is still respected and the second film delivered. First and foremost, it did not insult the audience, which is somewhat unique these days.

I will say that the biggest movie surprise I've ever had was "Maverick," which I was certain was going to stink and actually was quite excellent.


Why is avatar such a cultural blank? @ 2023/05/22 15:47:38


Post by: Paint it Pink


Okay, I've red the thread, and what I'd say is that birds of a feather flock together.

By that I mean Dakka hosts people the majority of whom don't like Avatar.

I like Avatar, it's not my favourite SF movie, but it's up there. I suspect that the fans of the film are not on this forum, I could be wrong. Or, people don't want to get into confrontations over something like whether or not Avatar is a good film.

The fact that one of the first complaints were the theme of climate catastrophe, and mankind's hand in this happening. It made a lot of people very angry.

So angry, I would argue that removes the ability of most people to appreciate what works and what doesn't work in the film.

The film is both lighter and darker than such a response warrants. Lighter, because the technology of travel between the stars has been achieved. Darker, because Pandora is not a planet of primitives that you think it is, rather it is test that the humans are likely to fail.

Everythign on Pandora are constructed to lure the humans in. A test of sorts, the sort that determines whether mankind should be eliminated.

It is in short, the worst scenario; it is the Dark Forest (a greater threat exists and that threat is what made Pandora).


Why is avatar such a cultural blank? @ 2023/05/22 15:53:50


Post by: BobtheInquisitor


 Ahtman wrote:
 BobtheInquisitor wrote:
So, if you don’t want to take a risk on unknowns, do you prefer to spend your ticket budget on an aggressively mediocre spectacle flick that will entertain you for 2 hours and leave you with nothing to talk about, or do you watch an MCU/DCU movie with the caliber of a Multiverse of Madness or a Black Adam, knowing it will be dreck you can poop on for weeks?


I don't know how to tell you this but you have more options than "meh", Marvel/DC, or smaller films, and this part will really blow your mind, but if there isn't a film that appeals to you at the moment you aren't actually forced to see one. Not required by law or anything! You can choose just not to go to the theater at that time. Police won't show up or anything.


I think we’re talking at cross purposes here. If one is complaining that all the big movies are mediocre pablum, and one wants that to change, just staying home doesn’t help. Supporting riskier movies will lead to more interesting movies being made.

Never going to the movies again is a solution, but not one that leads to better movies. I like going to the movies. I don’t want to surrender to the complete creative death of an institution.


Why is avatar such a cultural blank? @ 2023/05/22 17:58:27


Post by: Albertorius


Must admit that my first though when looking at the title of this thread was "What are you talking about? Both The Last Airbender and The Legend of Korra are extremely popular! Yes, the movie was crap, but... oh. Wait. You mean the Cameron movie."

So... yeah, I guess ^^

Slightly more seriously, both movies are incredible in the technical side, both have really good cinematography and craft, and both are... mostly very forgetable. But the people involved clearly like what they do, IMHO.


Why is avatar such a cultural blank? @ 2023/05/22 18:05:04


Post by: Ahtman


 BobtheInquisitor wrote:
If one is complaining that all the big movies are mediocre pablum


So how did we transition from Avatar being so middle-of-the road it hurts, in a thread specifically about how the only cultural footprint Avatar has is its box office, to pretending people are arguing that "all big movies are mediocre pablum"?


Why is avatar such a cultural blank? @ 2023/05/22 19:09:38


Post by: BobtheInquisitor


Just about every thread in this sub forum is about how the MCU sucks, DCU sucks, Star Wars sucks, Disney sucks, Indiana Jones sucks, etc., that studios only play it safe by making sequels and reboots, and that Avatar is forgettable because it plays it safe, appealing to all quadrants and foreign markets, not challenging the audience. It’s the same issue. The only thing Avatar/2 even tries to innovate on are special effects. It made a huge amount of money because people don’t want challenging movies or risky movies. They want to play it safe and see big empty spectacles, for which Avatar is …the avatar. This forgettable movie is one of the most profitable ever made because everyone who complains about creative bankruptcy and rehashes and bland safe movies is lying.


Why is avatar such a cultural blank? @ 2023/05/22 21:05:51


Post by: Tyran


To be fair to Avatar, while the movies themselves are very safe, their production is not.

I mean James Cameron throwing 250 million per movie with no previous buildup (and a decade between movies, plus the post-COVID cinema market) was definitely a risk.


Why is avatar such a cultural blank? @ 2023/05/22 21:18:28


Post by: NinthMusketeer


I get more entertainment from an Acti-Blizz cinematic than I did the entirety of Avatar 1. Suffice it to say I did not see 2, nor was ever motivated to engage in any community.


Why is avatar such a cultural blank? @ 2023/05/22 21:32:03


Post by: Easy E


 BobtheInquisitor wrote:
Just about every thread in this sub forum is about how the MCU sucks, DCU sucks, Star Wars sucks, Disney sucks, Indiana Jones sucks, etc.,



Hmmmm...... maybe the problem isn't that all these different forms of media sucks.......


You know the old saying. If you meet a jerk, that is one jerk. If everyone you meet is a jerk.... maybe you are the jerk.



/S..... maybe?


Why is avatar such a cultural blank? @ 2023/05/22 22:31:07


Post by: Commissar von Toussaint


 BobtheInquisitor wrote:
Just about every thread in this sub forum is about how the MCU sucks, DCU sucks, Star Wars sucks, Disney sucks, Indiana Jones sucks, etc., that studios only play it safe by making sequels and reboots, and that Avatar is forgettable because it plays it safe, appealing to all quadrants and foreign markets, not challenging the audience.


But that's not what this thread is about. It's asking a very pertinent question which I will restate: why has Avatar, despite its enormous globe-spanning success, failed to make any lasting impression on the popular culture?

A TV show that didn't even last for three full seasons from 1966 to 1968 has had a far bigger impact. How did that happen?

The answer is that it resonated. Avatar didn't. And I'll give a spoiler here - I didn't see either Avatar film. I don't feel like I missed anything. No one drops lines from Avatar that I feel compelled to look up. Are there any good lines?

Same with scenes or moments. I never saw American Pie, but I know the catchphrase "one time, at band camp," because people use it from time to time.

And that's the point - there's no cultural compelling reason for someone to see it in order to get all the cultural references. What's Avatar's equivalent to "life long, and prosper," or "may the Force be with you?"

At least Titanic had Celine Dion wailing away on every radio station on earth for a few months. "My heart will gooooo ooooonn..."






Why is avatar such a cultural blank? @ 2023/05/22 22:40:44


Post by: Overread


Heck Firefly has a cultural impact (at least in Geek Culture) and that didn't even get one full season!






I feel like if you took Avatar's technical and CGI budget and gave it the story writing and artistic design guide of a studio like Ghibli you'd be onto a massive massive winner on almost all fronts.


Why is avatar such a cultural blank? @ 2023/05/22 23:42:32


Post by: warhead01


Commissar von Toussaint wrote:


At least Titanic had Celine Dion wailing away on every radio station on earth for a few months. "My heart will gooooo ooooonn..."


All I see are 'Paint me like one of your French girls" memes. Or what ever the line is. And that's all I know about that movie.


Why is avatar such a cultural blank? @ 2023/05/23 01:28:26


Post by: ZergSmasher


It's been mentioned more than once in this thread that nobody quotes lines from Avatar, yet my friends and I do occasionally quote it. Mainly "that's a potent mix, gives me the goosebumps" in relevant situations. Maybe I just have weird friends.


Why is avatar such a cultural blank? @ 2023/05/23 03:06:52


Post by: Ahtman


 ZergSmasher wrote:
It's been mentioned more than once in this thread that nobody quotes lines from Avatar, yet my friends and I do occasionally quote it. Mainly "that's a potent mix, gives me the goosebumps" in relevant situations. Maybe I just have weird friends.


Possibly, but that isn't how "culture" works. If out of a hundred thousand people three of them are quoting the film it doesn't suddenly become culturally relevant.


Why is avatar such a cultural blank? @ 2023/05/23 06:17:34


Post by: ccs


 BobtheInquisitor wrote:
 Ahtman wrote:
 BobtheInquisitor wrote:
So, if you don’t want to take a risk on unknowns, do you prefer to spend your ticket budget on an aggressively mediocre spectacle flick that will entertain you for 2 hours and leave you with nothing to talk about, or do you watch an MCU/DCU movie with the caliber of a Multiverse of Madness or a Black Adam, knowing it will be dreck you can poop on for weeks?


I don't know how to tell you this but you have more options than "meh", Marvel/DC, or smaller films, and this part will really blow your mind, but if there isn't a film that appeals to you at the moment you aren't actually forced to see one. Not required by law or anything! You can choose just not to go to the theater at that time. Police won't show up or anything.


I think we’re talking at cross purposes here. If one is complaining that all the big movies are mediocre pablum, and one wants that to change, just staying home doesn’t help. Supporting riskier movies will lead to more interesting movies being made.

Never going to the movies again is a solution, but not one that leads to better movies. I like going to the movies. I don’t want to surrender to the complete creative death of an institution.


I like going to the movies as well. But whatever the scale of the movie, it has to interest me 1st somehow. I'm not just going to support something on the basis of it not being a CGI tentpole/costing insane amounts to produce.

In the case of the two Avatars? I knew ahead of time that the stories were "meh". I went anyways - specifically to see 3d CGI/FX spectacle(s) on an IMaX screen. Because no matter how big a TV I manage to cram into my living room? Avatar will never look as good as it did when seen in it's proper environment. And it's not worth re-watching either one story, character, or acting wise without seeing those effects properly.


Why is avatar such a cultural blank? @ 2023/05/23 07:43:24


Post by: Flinty


I wonder if it’s relevant that a fair chunk of the film uses subtitles. Half the cast uses a fictional language, which must limit the ability to get quotable lines


Why is avatar such a cultural blank? @ 2023/05/23 14:16:37


Post by: Slipspace


 Paint it Pink wrote:
Okay, I've red the thread, and what I'd say is that birds of a feather flock together.

By that I mean Dakka hosts people the majority of whom don't like Avatar.

I like Avatar, it's not my favourite SF movie, but it's up there. I suspect that the fans of the film are not on this forum, I could be wrong. Or, people don't want to get into confrontations over something like whether or not Avatar is a good film.

The fact that one of the first complaints were the theme of climate catastrophe, and mankind's hand in this happening. It made a lot of people very angry.

So angry, I would argue that removes the ability of most people to appreciate what works and what doesn't work in the film.

The film is both lighter and darker than such a response warrants. Lighter, because the technology of travel between the stars has been achieved. Darker, because Pandora is not a planet of primitives that you think it is, rather it is test that the humans are likely to fail.

Everythign on Pandora are constructed to lure the humans in. A test of sorts, the sort that determines whether mankind should be eliminated.

It is in short, the worst scenario; it is the Dark Forest (a greater threat exists and that threat is what made Pandora).

I don't think the problem is with people disagreeing with the message, so much as how clumsily the message is communicated, complete with the Great White Saviour trope to top it all off. I don't have a problem with artists pointing out humans are messing up the planet, but that doesn't mean I like the way Avatar chose to handle it. Even with that being the case, the thread is about why Avatar has had no impact on culture, which can happen even with films people don't like. It's a weird caser of being hugely successful but just an utter void of resonance within pop culture. It's not even as if it made a cultural splash at the time and then faded away.


Why is avatar such a cultural blank? @ 2023/05/23 14:17:20


Post by: Easy E


The biggest cultural impact is the name "Unobtainium".


Why is avatar such a cultural blank? @ 2023/05/23 14:32:19


Post by: Voss


 Easy E wrote:
The biggest cultural impact is the name "Unobtainium".


That was the point in the advertising that I realized it wasn't going to be worth watching.
Just hackneyed tropes that weren't even slightly obscured under a gloss.


Why is avatar such a cultural blank? @ 2023/05/23 14:43:42


Post by: Geifer


 Flinty wrote:
I wonder if it’s relevant that a fair chunk of the film uses subtitles. Half the cast uses a fictional language, which must limit the ability to get quotable lines


Just to get this out of the way, I didn't even remember that the blue guys were speaking in their own language until you mentioned it...

Anyway, I'd expect the writers to have plenty of opportunity to have the characters say something that sticks. The movie is long enough and there are still plenty of humans there. I think that if they had something they wanted to force, they could have. George Lucas managed to make something as trivial as "hello there" an identifier for a character and did so in a movie trilogy whose, let's say not entirely uncontested quality spawned countless other, competing memes. Avatar doesn't have that, not that I remember anyway, because you don't just need the quotable lines, but also the circumstances that resonate with people. You can construct this as a recurring theme or have it in only a single scene, but you have to get all the elements right. Whether by design or accident. Even if you have two hours and change of dreary protagonists and blue people no one understands that are useless in this regard, you're still left with a bad guy who could fill the role. But he's just a cardboard cutout evil military dude with nothing to set him apart either.

I don't believe quantity matters. All it takes is one guy with one line in the right circumstances. And popular culture seems to be in agreement that that's just not there.


Why is avatar such a cultural blank? @ 2023/05/23 15:01:53


Post by: warhead01


 Paint it Pink wrote:


The film is both lighter and darker than such a response warrants. Lighter, because the technology of travel between the stars has been achieved. Darker, because Pandora is not a planet of primitives that you think it is, rather it is test that the humans are likely to fail.

Everythign on Pandora are constructed to lure the humans in. A test of sorts, the sort that determines whether mankind should be eliminated.

It is in short, the worst scenario; it is the Dark Forest (a greater threat exists and that threat is what made Pandora).


I really like this concept. Now I am interested in watching the second film. The Dark Forest scenario is one I believe in strongly and I hadn't considered it with the first movie. Not sure if this is simply goin to turn out to be head cannon or not but it's an interesting enough idea and I will enjoy looking for the hints in both movies. I didn't dislike the first movie I just can't really remember it which is I think one of the problems being discussed about these movies. I also thing that too much time has passed between the first and second movie. But you have given me a reason to watch the new one. Thank you.


Why is avatar such a cultural blank? @ 2023/05/23 15:43:06


Post by: BobtheInquisitor


That is 99% fan theory with very little direct evidence on screen, although it does explain a lot.

The biggest memes I recall from the first movie were all from angry milSF fans: “glass canopies!” and “drop an asteroid on it”. Some elements of the 2nd film seem written to explain why Earth doesn’t want to nuke everything from orbit.


Why is avatar such a cultural blank? @ 2023/05/23 16:30:29


Post by: Herzlos


 Paint it Pink wrote:


By that I mean Dakka hosts people the majority of whom don't like Avatar.


I'm not sure that's fair. I'm pretty sure I remember enjoying watching the first one, but beyond some people being blue CGI and there being flying and sky islands, I can't remember anything about it. What I brought up was how it seems to have have no cultural impact despite being a well produced film that did well at the box office.


Why is avatar such a cultural blank? @ 2023/05/23 20:37:02


Post by: Ahtman


 Easy E wrote:
The biggest cultural impact is the name "Unobtainium".


I heard engineers jokingly use that term decades before Avatar came out and I'm pretty sure they didn't invent it. It was a bit odd hearing such a generic, laughable term in such a big film but then when looking at the rest of the Fergully 2.0 script it fits, I guess. Up there with "Somehow, Palpatine returned" in how much effort was put in.


Why is avatar such a cultural blank? @ 2023/05/23 20:44:16


Post by: LordofHats


 Easy E wrote:
The biggest cultural impact is the name "Unobtainium".


That term is way older than Avatar.

Herzlos wrote:
 Paint it Pink wrote:


By that I mean Dakka hosts people the majority of whom don't like Avatar.


I'm not sure that's fair. I'm pretty sure I remember enjoying watching the first one, but beyond some people being blue CGI and there being flying and sky islands, I can't remember anything about it. What I brought up was how it seems to have have no cultural impact despite being a well produced film that did well at the box office.


I don't dislike Avatar. I enjoyed the first one.

Never bothered seeing the second in theaters but sooner or later it'll be somewhere I can stream it and I'll watch it.

I think whether we like Avatar or not has little to do with the actual topic of the thread. We're not even the first people to ask it;

Reddit
Forbes
Some random website
Another random website

Literally from the moment Avatar 2 started approaching and even hitting theaters, people were talking about how weird it was that everyone went to see Avatar, that the movie was generally liked and successful, yet had no staying power on the popular imagination. Avatar 2 will probably be subject to the same discussions, as like Avatar 1 it was commercially successful, well regarded, but as well seems to be on track to have no lasting cultural impact despite its apparent success.


Why is avatar such a cultural blank? @ 2023/05/23 21:23:56


Post by: Aash


I’ve never understood the success of Avatar, it’s always struck me as average across the board with nice special effects. But the term “unobtanium” always bugged me and felt cheap, like it was a placeholder in the script and they were too lazy to come up with their own word.

It would be like literally calling the mcguffin in a film “mcguffin”, it’s just lazy.
May as well have Indiana Jones and the Mcguffin.


Why is avatar such a cultural blank? @ 2023/05/23 23:53:02


Post by: Commissar von Toussaint


Herzlos wrote:
I'm not sure that's fair. I'm pretty sure I remember enjoying watching the first one, but beyond some people being blue CGI and there being flying and sky islands, I can't remember anything about it. What I brought up was how it seems to have have no cultural impact despite being a well produced film that did well at the box office.


The Matrix gave us red pill/blue pill. A million "What if I told you..." memes.

Even the Star Wars prequels gave us memorable lines - though not always in a good way (Anakin's thoughts on sand come to mind).



Why is avatar such a cultural blank? @ 2023/05/24 09:22:15


Post by: Herzlos


Edit: Beaten to it.


Automatically Appended Next Post:
Aash wrote:
I’ve never understood the success of Avatar, it’s always struck me as average across the board with nice special effects. But the term “unobtanium” always bugged me and felt cheap, like it was a placeholder in the script and they were too lazy to come up with their own word.


It definitely seemed like an odd lazy name, but media is full of them. Mount Doom, Murderfang from planet Murder, etc.
It is a pretty bad example though because no-one would actually call a real material unobtainium, because if it was a real thing it wouldn't be unobtainable.


Why is avatar such a cultural blank? @ 2023/05/24 10:24:39


Post by: AduroT


Sometimes people use a stupid name on the spot with the intent to come up with a better one later, but then you just get used to using the stupid name that it sticks. Like I doubt the metal’s Actual name is Unobtanium, but that it picked up that nickname from the guy’s trying to actually get their hands on it. Possibly also marketing, to help pump its value with PR of how hard it is to get.

They’re after a new resource in the second movie. One Even More valuable than Unobtanium, and Even More stupid and wasteful to acquire. I don’t remember if they mentioned a name/nickname for it, but it’s also more secondary to the main plot this time.

As for Dakka having different opinions than elsewhere… I was surprised how much Penny Arcade truly and utterly hates the Willow series after it was fairly well received here.


Why is avatar such a cultural blank? @ 2023/05/24 12:50:04


Post by: Flinty


I get the point, but I would argue that Mount Doom from LOTR is not the result of lazy naming. It’s a deliberate choice that I think is appropriate for the idiom of the series. It has a name you know [/Michael Palin].


Why is avatar such a cultural blank? @ 2023/05/24 13:45:15


Post by: Easy E


 LordofHats wrote:
 Easy E wrote:
The biggest cultural impact is the name "Unobtainium".


That term is way older than Avatar.



Perhaps, but I think it popularized it much further as I have heard it from a variety of sources now on a variety of subjects.


Why is avatar such a cultural blank? @ 2023/05/24 14:00:30


Post by: Flinty


The Core did it better/worse and in much more flamboyant style that is a glorious disaster of a film


Why is avatar such a cultural blank? @ 2023/05/24 20:59:46


Post by: ZergSmasher


 Flinty wrote:
The Core did it better/worse and in much more flamboyant style that is a glorious disaster of a film

Hey now, I love that brilliantly stupid movie and have ever since I first saw it. It's a better disaster movie than it has any right to be, right up there with Geostorm (Now there's a movie nobody talks about despite Gerard Butler being in it).


Why is avatar such a cultural blank? @ 2023/05/24 22:08:23


Post by: Flinty


I had to stop watching Geostorm. It was so poor


Why is avatar such a cultural blank? @ 2023/05/24 23:53:48


Post by: Commissar von Toussaint


 Easy E wrote:
 LordofHats wrote:
 Easy E wrote:
The biggest cultural impact is the name "Unobtainium".


That term is way older than Avatar.



Perhaps, but I think it popularized it much further as I have heard it from a variety of sources now on a variety of subjects.


Social media has made old memes spread as never before. "Mary Sue" is a great example.



Why is avatar such a cultural blank? @ 2023/05/25 07:17:30


Post by: Geifer


 Flinty wrote:
I had to stop watching Geostorm. It was so poor


Curious. I remember the movie to be super predictable, but not particularly bad besides that.


Why is avatar such a cultural blank? @ 2023/05/25 15:06:01


Post by: Paint it Pink


Commissar von Toussaint wrote:
But that's not what this thread is about. It's asking a very pertinent question which I will restate: why has Avatar, despite its enormous globe-spanning success, failed to make any lasting impression on the popular culture?

A TV show that didn't even last for three full seasons from 1966 to 1968 has had a far bigger impact. How did that happen?

The answer is that it resonated. Avatar didn't. And I'll give a spoiler here - I didn't see either Avatar film. I don't feel like I missed anything. No one drops lines from Avatar that I feel compelled to look up. Are there any good lines?

Same with scenes or moments. I never saw American Pie, but I know the catchphrase "one time, at band camp," because people use it from time to time.

And that's the point - there's no cultural compelling reason for someone to see it in order to get all the cultural references. What's Avatar's equivalent to "life long, and prosper," or "may the Force be with you?"

At least Titanic had Celine Dion wailing away on every radio station on earth for a few months. "My heart will gooooo ooooonn..."

Ah catch phrases, Avatar has a bunch:

Na'vi:
I see you.
Eywa has heard you!
...We will see if your insanity can be cured.

Jake Sully has a few:
What about this one? Run? Don't run? What?
I was a Marine. A warrior... of the uh... Jarhead Clan.
Maybe I was sick of doctors telling me what I couldn't do.
All I ever wanted was a single thing worth fighting for.
Kiss the darkest part of my lily white...
What do I do? Dance with it?
I may not be much of a horse guy, but I was born to do this.

Dr. Grace Augustine:
Run! Definitely run!
Don't play with that. You'll go blind.
This is gonna ruin my whole day!

Trudy Chacon:
You're not the only one with a gun, bitch.

Quaritch has a few:
You are not in Kansas anymore. You are on Pandora, ladies and gentlemen. Respect that fact every second of every day.
If there is a Hell, you might wanna go there for some R & R after a tour on Pandora.
Out there beyond that fence every living thing that crawls, flies, or squats in the mud wants to kill you and eat your eyes for jujubes.
As head of security, it is my job to keep you alive. I will not succeed. Not with all of you.
Well... ain't this a bitch.

Selfridge this one's fun:
What the HELL have you people been smoking out there?

Scoresby: Not smarter than me.
Dr. Garvin: That is setting the bar very low.

 LordofHats wrote:
I don't dislike Avatar. I enjoyed the first one.

Never bothered seeing the second in theaters but sooner or later it'll be somewhere I can stream it and I'll watch it.

I think whether we like Avatar or not has little to do with the actual topic of the thread. We're not even the first people to ask it;

Reddit
Forbes
Some random website
Another random website

Literally from the moment Avatar 2 started approaching and even hitting theaters, people were talking about how weird it was that everyone went to see Avatar, that the movie was generally liked and successful, yet had no staying power on the popular imagination. Avatar 2 will probably be subject to the same discussions, as like Avatar 1 it was commercially successful, well regarded, but as well seems to be on track to have no lasting cultural impact despite its apparent success.

And looking at the links what I see is a bunch of people spouting opinions, because that's what people have, opinions.

The shallowness of assessing cultural impact through 'one-liners' is, well disappointing. But, there again, what do I know?


Why is avatar such a cultural blank? @ 2023/05/25 15:15:24


Post by: Voss


Eywa has heard you!

Out of that entire list, this is the only one I've ever heard.

And only mockingly, in other fantasy/sci-fi properties.


Why is avatar such a cultural blank? @ 2023/05/25 16:28:45


Post by: Gert


Avatar is not a quotable movie. The lines are generic movie speak which means they don't stick.
When the first one came out, my friends and I would sometimes use the Navi word for moron but then we stopped less than a year later. Compared to things like Halo (video game I know), Lord of the Rings, Star Wars, or even Avatar: The Last Airbender, the Avatar movie is utterly nonexistent in our quote library despite it being a big part of our youth for a good few years. It was the movie we watched when we were over at each others houses, it was what we watched when we did Warhammer hobby nights, and we put hours into the tie-in video game. But it didn't survive in our cultural memories in a significant way beyond 2011.
When the second movie came back into the spotlight our first thought was "That's still a thing?".
Avatar is an important movie due to its amazing use of CGI and 3D filming tech. The soundtrack is also really damn good but that's because James Horner was a legend.
The plot and characters were generic and the movie is a visual spectacle only.


Why is avatar such a cultural blank? @ 2023/05/25 18:46:35


Post by: Paint it Pink


Voss wrote:
Eywa has heard you!

Out of that entire list, this is the only one I've ever heard.

And only mockingly, in other fantasy/sci-fi properties.

Should that be the only you remember? Of course, if you never watched the movie then you are right.

 Gert wrote:
Avatar is not a quotable movie. The lines are generic movie speak which means they don't stick.
When the first one came out, my friends and I would sometimes use the Navi word for moron but then we stopped less than a year later. Compared to things like Halo (video game I know), Lord of the Rings, Star Wars, or even Avatar: The Last Airbender, the Avatar movie is utterly nonexistent in our quote library despite it being a big part of our youth for a good few years. It was the movie we watched when we were over at each others houses, it was what we watched when we did Warhammer hobby nights, and we put hours into the tie-in video game. But it didn't survive in our cultural memories in a significant way beyond 2011.
When the second movie came back into the spotlight our first thought was "That's still a thing?".
Avatar is an important movie due to its amazing use of CGI and 3D filming tech. The soundtrack is also really damn good but that's because James Horner was a legend.
The plot and characters were generic and the movie is a visual spectacle only.

Arguing for one moment, all you've proved is that for you, this is true.

I'm old enough to remember Star Wars when it came out, and as an adult (barely, but technically true), I was constantly being told by other fans of SF that Star Wars was 'hackneyed old rope' of pulp SF from fifty years previously, and true SF was more than visual spectacle upon the big screen.

For me, you are doing exactly the same thing to me now, as other fans did to me back in 1977. Asserting an opinion as if it is a fact.

For you, the film did not resonate, which is fair. Why should it? To all the people who went and saw the movie there must have been something that did resonate. The promise of a visual spectacle sparked an emotion within them, enough to go see the movie.

The arguments here, and elsewhere, add up to hill of nothing based on opinions.

The truth (if one can state any exist here), is that only time will tell. My guess is that in the long run, all the films that we hold dear, or not, will be forgotten, replaced by new spectacles, because that is the way of things.


Why is avatar such a cultural blank? @ 2023/05/25 18:59:47


Post by: BobtheInquisitor


Even watching the films multiple times doesn’t make any of those lines memorable. When it comes to quotable lines, Avatar is the anti-Starship Troopers.


Why is avatar such a cultural blank? @ 2023/05/25 19:06:15


Post by: JNAProductions


 Paint it Pink wrote:
Voss wrote:
Eywa has heard you!

Out of that entire list, this is the only one I've ever heard.

And only mockingly, in other fantasy/sci-fi properties.

Should that be the only you remember? Of course, if you never watched the movie then you are right.

 Gert wrote:
Avatar is not a quotable movie. The lines are generic movie speak which means they don't stick.
When the first one came out, my friends and I would sometimes use the Navi word for moron but then we stopped less than a year later. Compared to things like Halo (video game I know), Lord of the Rings, Star Wars, or even Avatar: The Last Airbender, the Avatar movie is utterly nonexistent in our quote library despite it being a big part of our youth for a good few years. It was the movie we watched when we were over at each others houses, it was what we watched when we did Warhammer hobby nights, and we put hours into the tie-in video game. But it didn't survive in our cultural memories in a significant way beyond 2011.
When the second movie came back into the spotlight our first thought was "That's still a thing?".
Avatar is an important movie due to its amazing use of CGI and 3D filming tech. The soundtrack is also really damn good but that's because James Horner was a legend.
The plot and characters were generic and the movie is a visual spectacle only.

Arguing for one moment, all you've proved is that for you, this is true.

I'm old enough to remember Star Wars when it came out, and as an adult (barely, but technically true), I was constantly being told by other fans of SF that Star Wars was 'hackneyed old rope' of pulp SF from fifty years previously, and true SF was more than visual spectacle upon the big screen.

For me, you are doing exactly the same thing to me now, as other fans did to me back in 1977. Asserting an opinion as if it is a fact.

For you, the film did not resonate, which is fair. Why should it? To all the people who went and saw the movie there must have been something that did resonate. The promise of a visual spectacle sparked an emotion within them, enough to go see the movie.

The arguments here, and elsewhere, add up to hill of nothing based on opinions.

The truth (if one can state any exist here), is that only time will tell. My guess is that in the long run, all the films that we hold dear, or not, will be forgotten, replaced by new spectacles, because that is the way of things.
Do you feel that Avatar has had large cultural impact?
I don't. I enjoyed the first film (saw it in theaters) for the spectacle, but that's about it. I don't plan on seeing the sequel, because the spectacle was enough the first time, but I hold no ill will towards those who do want to see it.

It's good for what it is-a spectacle. The effects and cinematography were absolutely AMAZING... And that's about it. As a result, while it's a fun movie to watch on the big screen, it doesn't have much impact outside that.


Why is avatar such a cultural blank? @ 2023/05/25 19:33:29


Post by: Gert


 Paint it Pink wrote:
Should that be the only you remember? Of course, if you never watched the movie then you are right.

It's not a quotable movie though and all the ones you picked out are just a variation on what is just generic action movie stuff. The Kansas speech by the Colonel is itself a reference to another film for god's sake. Nobody thinks "Avatar" when the phrase "You/We aren't in Kansas anymore" because it's from The Wizard of Oz, a film with more cultural impact than Avatar will ever have.

Arguing for one moment, all you've proved is that for you, this is true.

I'm old enough to remember Star Wars when it came out, and as an adult (barely, but technically true), I was constantly being told by other fans of SF that Star Wars was 'hackneyed old rope' of pulp SF from fifty years previously, and true SF was more than visual spectacle upon the big screen.

For me, you are doing exactly the same thing to me now, as other fans did to me back in 1977. Asserting an opinion as if it is a fact.

For you, the film did not resonate, which is fair. Why should it? To all the people who went and saw the movie there must have been something that did resonate. The promise of a visual spectacle sparked an emotion within them, enough to go see the movie.

The arguments here, and elsewhere, add up to hill of nothing based on opinions.

The truth (if one can state any exist here), is that only time will tell. My guess is that in the long run, all the films that we hold dear, or not, will be forgotten, replaced by new spectacles, because that is the way of things

Just because people went to see the movie doesn't mean it had a meaningful or lasting impact on them. It had an impact on the film industry as it showed that movies that used huge amounts of CGI were not only possible but could look spectacular.

The difference between Star Wars and Avatar is that when Star Wars came out, it did create a cultural spectacle that spawned two more movies in its original run and one of the biggest franchises of all time. George Lucas was able to fund Empire and Return off the back of the Kenner action figure sales from New Hope.
Avatar was big in 2009 and got re-released in 2010 with the extended edition but then had a decade of nothing until 2022 when the second film came out. In that timeframe, Star Wars got a whole new trilogy, Marvel built a film empire, and DC tried and failed to do the same. Avatar had no follow-up, and no push to keep the franchise relevant. The only thing people ever heard was how it was definitely getting sequels at some point.

So far the only arguments you seem to have are that it made a lot of money and that because you can quote the film, everyone else is wrong. Sorry if I don't find that very convincing.


Why is avatar such a cultural blank? @ 2023/05/25 19:47:02


Post by: Not Online!!!


i wouldn't call the new trilogy something that had impact at all either tho. contrary, it pretty much destroyed star wars for most people


Why is avatar such a cultural blank? @ 2023/05/25 19:50:36


Post by: Gert


The point I was making in regard to the sequel trilogy was more to the idea that we have done the entire Star Wars cycle in the time it took for a second Avatar film to come out.
Hype for the new trilogy, big divides form, the online fanbase gets super toxic and harrases actors off of social media, everything settled down a while after the final film was released, and now a whole new movie featuring the main character from that trilogy has been announced.
And just to point out, there was an impact even if it was largely negative.


Why is avatar such a cultural blank? @ 2023/05/25 19:55:09


Post by: JNAProductions


Not Online!!! wrote:
i wouldn't call the new trilogy something that had impact at all either tho. contrary, it pretty much destroyed star wars for most people
That IS an impact.
Not a good one, but an impact all the same.


Why is avatar such a cultural blank? @ 2023/05/25 20:35:08


Post by: BobtheInquisitor


Not Online!!! wrote:
i wouldn't call the new trilogy something that had impact at all either tho. contrary, it pretty much destroyed star wars for most people


That’s a pretty big impact. They killed a $4-$12 billion franchise and embittered millions. When Fonzie jumped the shark, he only cost the studio a few hundred thousand at best, and we still remember.


Why is avatar such a cultural blank? @ 2023/05/25 20:38:26


Post by: Paint it Pink


 JNAProductions wrote:
Do you feel that Avatar has had large cultural impact?
I don't. I enjoyed the first film (saw it in theaters) for the spectacle, but that's about it. I don't plan on seeing the sequel, because the spectacle was enough the first time, but I hold no ill will towards those who do want to see it.

It's good for what it is-a spectacle. The effects and cinematography were absolutely AMAZING... And that's about it. As a result, while it's a fun movie to watch on the big screen, it doesn't have much impact outside that.

The answer to that is that feelings are not facts.

The only facts that can be measured are the revenues, and even they are arguable.

As I said before, if I were looking for fans of Avatar to bond with, I wouldn't come here, because here there are none.


Why is avatar such a cultural blank? @ 2023/05/25 20:43:28


Post by: Overread


 Paint it Pink wrote:
 JNAProductions wrote:
Do you feel that Avatar has had large cultural impact?
I don't. I enjoyed the first film (saw it in theaters) for the spectacle, but that's about it. I don't plan on seeing the sequel, because the spectacle was enough the first time, but I hold no ill will towards those who do want to see it.

It's good for what it is-a spectacle. The effects and cinematography were absolutely AMAZING... And that's about it. As a result, while it's a fun movie to watch on the big screen, it doesn't have much impact outside that.

The answer to that is that feelings are not facts.

The only facts that can be measured are the revenues, and even they are arguable.

As I said before, if I were looking for fans of Avatar to bond with, I wouldn't come here, because here there are none.



I mean quite a few have said that they liked and enjoyed it. Clearly there ARE fans here; just not die-hard ones.

Heck a good many have expressed that they really like the CGI work from a technical standpoint; and also the artistic and style designs used in the film. Visually many of us are fans; the issue is that the story and setting and presentation of both are very casual/plane/simple and that results in a setting that hasn't "hooked" people the same way other films have.


Why is avatar such a cultural blank? @ 2023/05/25 21:03:29


Post by: Gert


 Paint it Pink wrote:
The answer to that is that feelings are not facts.

The only facts that can be measured are the revenues, and even they are arguable.

As I said before, if I were looking for fans of Avatar to bond with, I wouldn't come here, because here there are none.

Then where would you go? Give examples of where the apparently massive Avatar fanbase is.
You're saying people here are wrong or only using feelings instead of facts but all you've offered up is opinion. You keep saying that those who say the movie didn't have a cultural impact are wrong but haven't provided any evidence to the contrary. The only thing you mention is that the movies made a lot of money.


Why is avatar such a cultural blank? @ 2023/05/25 21:22:21


Post by: Commissar von Toussaint


 Paint it Pink wrote:
Ah catch phrases, Avatar has a bunch:


All of those lines are generic and most of them include references to other, more memorable movies.

And looking at the links what I see is a bunch of people spouting opinions, because that's what people have, opinions.


That's why we're here! I save my "facts don't care about your feelings" discussions for the rules disputes.

The shallowness of assessing cultural impact through 'one-liners' is, well disappointing. But, there again, what do I know?


How else can one assess it? Punch in some of your favorite Avatar lines into a search engine and compare the number - and popularity - of hits vs "May the Force be with you," or "Live long and prosper."

I'll even go farther, I'll say that the Airbender Avatar has a far larger impact. "Everything changed when the Fire Nation attacked," is a line I've used many times and it always gets a response. Lots of kids (and their parents) saw that series, which is why - despite an awful live-action film - the franchise still has legs.



Why is avatar such a cultural blank? @ 2023/05/25 21:28:57


Post by: LordofHats


Honestly there's maybe something worth considering that, assuming cultural memory works on an economy of sorts, Avatar the Last Airbender maybe muscled Avatar the movie out a bit. By sharing the same name, and existing at roughly the same time, one Avatar by being so much more memorable and popular generally than the other, occupied the entire cultural economy for things named 'Avatar.' And Last Airbender was a bit forgotten for a time until the show hit Netflix and was all the rage on social media for 2-3 months with thousands of new memes being spawned by resurgent interest in the show.

That could squeeze in with the idea that the movie's struggle to be relevant owes a lot to its lack of distinctiveness. Its plot and characters are frequently compared to Dances with Wolves and Ferngully but in space. It's most distinct distinction is marvelous effects and CGI, but those tend to have limited staying power in isolation. Even it's title is ultimately eclipsed by something far more popular and memorable.

And the end result is just that everything good about Avatar is good, but not distinctive enough to be more memorable than anything else it shares names, motifs, or features with.


Why is avatar such a cultural blank? @ 2023/05/25 21:32:43


Post by: BobtheInquisitor


Is Avatar the Last Airbender the series where “There is no war in Ba Sing Se” comes from?


Why is avatar such a cultural blank? @ 2023/05/25 21:37:05


Post by: LordofHats


 BobtheInquisitor wrote:
Is Avatar the Last Airbender the series where “There is no war in Ba Sing Se” comes from?


That and 'until the fire nation attacked' are probably it's most famous memes.

And 'there is no war in ba sing se' also goes into how cultural memory plays with and off of current events, as that meme especially hit a huge peak on the internet during the years of 2019-2021 during COVID as a response to <censored political topics> that won't be mentioned here, but that's another way something just kind of endures culturally. It has something about it that gets picked up on, spreads, and persists because for some reason or another it's seen as currently relevant. And that hasn't happened with anything from the Avatar film as far as I know.

The furthest anything got on that front were jokes about 'tail head sex' spawned by a robot chicken gag skit.


Why is avatar such a cultural blank? @ 2023/05/25 22:02:10


Post by: Ahtman


I am more likely to run across a Big Trouble in Little China reference this week than an Avatar one.


Why is avatar such a cultural blank? @ 2023/05/25 22:13:39


Post by: JNAProductions


 Paint it Pink wrote:
 JNAProductions wrote:
Do you feel that Avatar has had large cultural impact?
I don't. I enjoyed the first film (saw it in theaters) for the spectacle, but that's about it. I don't plan on seeing the sequel, because the spectacle was enough the first time, but I hold no ill will towards those who do want to see it.

It's good for what it is-a spectacle. The effects and cinematography were absolutely AMAZING... And that's about it. As a result, while it's a fun movie to watch on the big screen, it doesn't have much impact outside that.

The answer to that is that feelings are not facts.

The only facts that can be measured are the revenues, and even they are arguable.

As I said before, if I were looking for fans of Avatar to bond with, I wouldn't come here, because here there are none.
Revenue=/=Cultural Impact


Why is avatar such a cultural blank? @ 2023/05/25 22:20:20


Post by: LordofHats


Evident by basically most Michael Bay movies, nearly all of which bring in the bucks but only a handful have any meaning beyond jokes about Bay himself.

Hilariously, michael bay as a man is probably more relevant culturally than any of the movie's he's made.


Why is avatar such a cultural blank? @ 2023/05/25 22:25:19


Post by: BobtheInquisitor


It’s odd that I feel more impact and more presence from an Avatar I’ve never seen than from the two movies I have seen.


 Ahtman wrote:
I am more likely to run across a Big Trouble in Little China reference this week than an Avatar one.


Indeed!


Why is avatar such a cultural blank? @ 2023/05/25 22:25:59


Post by: LordofHats


The power of memes and cultural osmosis is a might power.


Why is avatar such a cultural blank? @ 2023/05/25 22:29:25


Post by: Aash


When it comes to revenue, I think merchandise sales and memorabilia would be a better way to measure cultural impact than box office revenue.


Why is avatar such a cultural blank? @ 2023/05/25 22:35:15


Post by: Overread


Aash wrote:
When it comes to revenue, I think merchandise sales and memorabilia would be a better way to measure cultural impact than box office revenue.


Can anything touch Starwars or Bond then?

Granted those are also big cultural impacts, but its missleading in the sense that a culturally impactful film might just be one film; whilst a big saga that keeps running can generate insane sums from revenue.


Plus money reporting from Hollywood is a wild and crazy thing depending on how you put the numbers together. Being such massive complex beasts that they are the finances are also complicated. Is that revenue per film; revenue per film within X number of years after release etc...


Granted you can indeed get a generalist sense of impact.


Also lets not forget some big impactful films just don't have legions of merch made for it. Meanwhile some other films are built with merchandise in mind from the get-go. So some films are going to generate insane merch profits even if the film itself is only average; whilst others might generate very little in merch, but had a huge cultural impact.




Edit - eg Cars apparently hit over $10Billion; as reference on the 5seconds of googling the same site listed Starwars as $12Billion.
So yeah make a film for kids and merch the heck out of it and a film that likely has very low cultural impact, can generate a fortune in toy sales (which isn't saying Cars is a bad film)


Why is avatar such a cultural blank? @ 2023/05/25 22:49:44


Post by: Commissar von Toussaint


 LordofHats wrote:
And the end result is just that everything good about Avatar is good, but not distinctive enough to be more memorable than anything else it shares names, motifs, or features with.


That's exactly it. It is pleasant, pretty, but beyond that, unremarkable.

To be memorable, a film should stir powerful emotions. The divide over Blade Runner is indicative of this. People love it or can't bear to get through it.

And for the record, Big Trouble in Little China is a great film.


Why is avatar such a cultural blank? @ 2023/05/25 22:53:22


Post by: Overread


Commissar von Toussaint wrote:
 LordofHats wrote:
And the end result is just that everything good about Avatar is good, but not distinctive enough to be more memorable than anything else it shares names, motifs, or features with.


That's exactly it. It is pleasant, pretty, but beyond that, unremarkable.

To be memorable, a film should stir powerful emotions. .


I think it should also ask questions and leave some parts of the story or characters unresolved.

This was one of the big things that I noticed when I first got into watching anime. Many western TV series tend to wrap everything up at the end of each season; only leaving story cliffhangers rarely and often only if they 100% know they are getting a next season. Otherwise you hit the end and its all over.

Anime often ended things with a sense of the world, characters and setting living on; often ending on a cliffhanger. Granted as I watched more I learned this is oft the result of the series either running out of funding or catching up and hitting the limit of the manga at the time and having to wait (during which time it can, again, run out of funding).

But still there is a sense of a different style of storytelling. Even within the stories there's often lots of little bits that don't get fully explained; meanwhile your standard western/hollywood film often hand-holds you explaining everything it can to leave no questions. Everything must be in-your-face-basic, which can mean that by the end of the film there isn't really anything to debate or discuss. There's no "ooh what if' element or "well I think it could be XYZ because of that scene where so and so said ZYE" etc....

Of course there's a balance, answer too few questions or answer them too late and you cna lose interest of the audience as they are left too confused.


Why is avatar such a cultural blank? @ 2023/05/25 23:06:45


Post by: Aash


 Overread wrote:
Aash wrote:
When it comes to revenue, I think merchandise sales and memorabilia would be a better way to measure cultural impact than box office revenue.


Can anything touch Starwars or Bond then?

Granted those are also big cultural impacts, but its missleading in the sense that a culturally impactful film might just be one film; whilst a big saga that keeps running can generate insane sums from revenue.


Plus money reporting from Hollywood is a wild and crazy thing depending on how you put the numbers together. Being such massive complex beasts that they are the finances are also complicated. Is that revenue per film; revenue per film within X number of years after release etc...


Granted you can indeed get a generalist sense of impact.


Also lets not forget some big impactful films just don't have legions of merch made for it. Meanwhile some other films are built with merchandise in mind from the get-go. So some films are going to generate insane merch profits even if the film itself is only average; whilst others might generate very little in merch, but had a huge cultural impact.




Edit - eg Cars apparently hit over $10Billion; as reference on the 5seconds of googling the same site listed Starwars as $12Billion.
So yeah make a film for kids and merch the heck out of it and a film that likely has very low cultural impact, can generate a fortune in toy sales (which isn't saying Cars is a bad film)



I wasn’t trying to say it’s a perfect metric or anything close, just that merchandise sales is primarily a better metric than box office for indicating a film’s cultural impact. And I think the cars franchise probably has a bigger cultural footprint than Avatar, especially amongst the generation it was aimed at.

It’s worth noting that the revenue figures you quoted appear to be for one year, not an overall total.


Why is avatar such a cultural blank? @ 2023/05/25 23:23:50


Post by: Commissar von Toussaint


 Overread wrote:
I think it should also ask questions and leave some parts of the story or characters unresolved.

This was one of the big things that I noticed when I first got into watching anime. Many western TV series tend to wrap everything up at the end of each season; only leaving story cliffhangers rarely and often only if they 100% know they are getting a next season. Otherwise you hit the end and its all over.


"Western TV" is a pretty broad category. British TV famously does single-season story arcs, which are generally self-contained, but at least have a story arc.

American TV traditionally came up with a premise, and milked it until the audience got bored. Cliff-hangers were a way to keep the audience hooked on the show, even though there wasn't an actual story arc.

The "jump the shark" concept comes from an American show ("Happy Days") that just went on too long. The ultimate cliff-hanger was the "Who Shot J.R.?" episode of "Dallas," which subsequently had to zero out an entire season as a dream sequence.

Obviously, anime is quite different.

I will say that the "leave some things unexplained" concept used to apply Western entertainment until creative exhaustion created the "rise of the prequels," wherein every single aspect of a character had to be plotted out and charted.

This is alien to the Western storytelling tradition, which usually created suggestive but vague backgrounds. All an audience had to know was that someone was "noble," or "wronged," or "a scoundrel," and that was enough. Now we need to plot it with geometric logic [bonus film reference] so that no facet of the character is unexplored.


Why is avatar such a cultural blank? @ 2023/05/25 23:37:48


Post by: LordofHats


There's also a much stronger prevalence to adhere to 'Canon' in western media, while media from Asia tends to be less concerned with continuity between separate entries over time.


Why is avatar such a cultural blank? @ 2023/05/26 06:49:44


Post by: ccs


 Paint it Pink wrote:
 JNAProductions wrote:
Do you feel that Avatar has had large cultural impact?
I don't. I enjoyed the first film (saw it in theaters) for the spectacle, but that's about it. I don't plan on seeing the sequel, because the spectacle was enough the first time, but I hold no ill will towards those who do want to see it.

It's good for what it is-a spectacle. The effects and cinematography were absolutely AMAZING... And that's about it. As a result, while it's a fun movie to watch on the big screen, it doesn't have much impact outside that.

The answer to that is that feelings are not facts.

The only facts that can be measured are the revenues, and even they are arguable.


BS. If you want to try & measure the effects of a film on culture? Try Star Wars. Just the original from 1977.
Sure, it made crazy $$ for it's day. But it also:
*gave us characters, imagery, dialogue, & music that'll still be remembered come 2077
*greatly affected what types of films (and TV) were produced in its wake,
*affected the entire FX industry tech wise
*drastically affected the careers of its stars
*radically changed how movies were merchandised
*Propelled ILM to the top of the FX industry for many years to come
*Lifted the toy company Kenner to the height of it's industry - wich in turn affected both toy manufacturing & big retail.
*People remember where, when, & with whom they saw this movie for the 1st time.
*and into the '80s? Go look up "Star Wars" as related to the Cold War.

Avatar?
Yes,it made a crap ton of $$
No doubt it also affected the tech of FX/CGI (Cameron's films are known to do that)
Beyond that? Nil.



Why is avatar such a cultural blank? @ 2023/05/26 08:10:30


Post by: Haighus


LordofHats wrote:
 BobtheInquisitor wrote:
Is Avatar the Last Airbender the series where “There is no war in Ba Sing Se” comes from?


That and 'until the fire nation attacked' are probably it's most famous memes.

And 'there is no war in ba sing se' also goes into how cultural memory plays with and off of current events, as that meme especially hit a huge peak on the internet during the years of 2019-2021 during COVID as a response to <censored political topics> that won't be mentioned here, but that's another way something just kind of endures culturally. It has something about it that gets picked up on, spreads, and persists because for some reason or another it's seen as currently relevant. And that hasn't happened with anything from the Avatar film as far as I know.

The furthest anything got on that front were jokes about 'tail head sex' spawned by a robot chicken gag skit.

I think "that's rough buddy" is the other big one.

BobtheInquisitor wrote:It’s odd that I feel more impact and more presence from an Avatar I’ve never seen than from the two movies I have seen.

The animated Avatar series are genuinely worth a watch. They fall into the category of media aimed primarily at kids that doesn't (erroneously) assume kids are dumb. As a result, the story and characters are very compelling. There are some really good character arcs.

I also recommend The Dragon Prince by the same writers.


Why is avatar such a cultural blank? @ 2023/05/26 08:57:00


Post by: Overread


 LordofHats wrote:
There's also a much stronger prevalence to adhere to 'Canon' in western media, while media from Asia tends to be less concerned with continuity between separate entries over time.


If anything its a kind of yes and no.

If we compare something like Ghost in the Shell which has several continuities now in anime. The original films, the Stand Alone Complex series and film and the origin story series. Each one is separate and yet each one could "almost" work as a single continuity (honestly the only thing that kind of breaks it is Togusa as he's a rookie to the team in the films which makes it hard for them to follow the SAC series).

Meanwhile with the USA each time they re-invent a story they often make massive sweeping changes to things. Granted there's also the DC/Marvel setup where you get both kinds, though one could argue that the sheer volume of reboots and restarts and such going on there just beats past any patterning through sheer weight of numbers.



I think the concept of Canon is interesting. For me its not so much that people require every part of a story to be fleshed out; but more that people "want to know more". The issues often stem from the fact that the company side of "showing more" is often more a case of "follow the money" which means it enters the state of being a company product. I think Starwars 7-9 is a good example here of films made by a company machine rather than by an author/creator who had a very clear singular vision and drove that forward through the production process. Even if that vision would have been changed through production you can very clearly tell the differences between structured films that are made to work to a grand plan and those that are thrown out based on company formulas and such structuring things.

There's also just the fact that some prequels and such just get - well - bad writing.


Why is avatar such a cultural blank? @ 2023/05/26 09:23:08


Post by: Paint it Pink


 Gert wrote:
 Paint it Pink wrote:
The answer to that is that feelings are not facts.

The only facts that can be measured are the revenues, and even they are arguable.

As I said before, if I were looking for fans of Avatar to bond with, I wouldn't come here, because here there are none.

Then where would you go? Give examples of where the apparently massive Avatar fanbase is.
You're saying people here are wrong or only using feelings instead of facts but all you've offered up is opinion. You keep saying that those who say the movie didn't have a cultural impact are wrong but haven't provided any evidence to the contrary. The only thing you mention is that the movies made a lot of money.

Okay, I think you've got the wrong end of my argument, which is my fault. Let me restate the issue.

The question asked is this; why has Avatar, despite its enormous globe-spanning success, failed to make any lasting impression on the popular culture? Compared to a TV show that didn't even last for three full seasons from 1966 to 1968 has had a far bigger impact. How did that happen?

The argument then expands to this means the film's success is down to spectacle, and that at best it is mediocre; the pizza of films.

The point pivots on these assumptions:

1. The importance of memes.
2. The importance of quotable dialogue.
3. The lack of a visible fanbase.

And this leads to the conclusion that Avatar has had no impact on our culture.

But, that's all they are: assumptions.

If one uses them as a measure of cultural impact, and by extension the measure of the value, then the arguments leads to absurd conclusions.

For example, Star Trek lasted for three full seasons from 1966 to 1968 has had a far bigger impact. How did that happen?

It happened because at that time, and in those days before cable, before the internet, it met an unfulfilled demand. It was a time when SF changed from being Geeky rubbish, below contempt, to Geeky rubbish that made money.

Today, with SF being no longer unacceptable because it makes money, and capitalism is all about making money, there has been a glut of SF made. So much made that it totally dominates the media.

And here is the question restated again; why is Avatar such a cultural blank?

The question is laden with assumptions.

If you take this assumptions as true, then one is led inexorably to one conclusion.

If one challenges said assumption then one has to defend them against the received wisdom of the group.

This leads to confrontations, and the number one strategy for dealing with confrontations is avoidance.

Just because you can rally a majority to agree with the assumption doesn't make it true. It just makes it the majority viewpoint. History is full of majority viewpoints that were wrong.

My harsh, but fair IMO ;-) viewpoint is that Dakka Dakka membership doesn't like Avatar. That's it, the totality of my argument. End of discussion.


Why is avatar such a cultural blank? @ 2023/05/26 11:12:06


Post by: Albertorius


Commissar von Toussaint wrote:
I'll even go farther, I'll say that the Airbender Avatar has a far larger impact. "Everything changed when the Fire Nation attacked," is a line I've used many times and it always gets a response. Lots of kids (and their parents) saw that series, which is why - despite an awful live-action film - the franchise still has legs.

Not long ago they KSed an RPG for the franchise, and it did $9.5M, the biggest RPG Kickstarter yet:

https://www.kickstarter.com/projects/magpiegames/avatar-legends-the-roleplaying-game

I would say the main "problem" for Avatar fans is that there's not enough stuff for them to consume, because everything released sells like gangbusters.

That might change when the Netflix action series go live, but there's movies in the works now, done by the original creators.


Why is avatar such a cultural blank? @ 2023/05/26 11:25:17


Post by: NapoleonInSpace


 Ahtman wrote:
cody.d. wrote:
 NapoleonInSpace wrote:
Military bad. Primitives good.

In those four words, I just summed up the first movie. That's why I didn't bother seeing the second one.


I swear people remember small soldiers details more than they remember avatar details.


That is crazy who could forget such a magnetic figure as Jim Survey?


I stand corrected and beg forgiveness.


Why is avatar such a cultural blank? @ 2023/05/26 11:27:31


Post by: Gert


Spoiler:
 Paint it Pink wrote:
Okay, I think you've got the wrong end of my argument, which is my fault. Let me restate the issue.

The question asked is this; why has Avatar, despite its enormous globe-spanning success, failed to make any lasting impression on the popular culture? Compared to a TV show that didn't even last for three full seasons from 1966 to 1968 has had a far bigger impact. How did that happen?

Star Trek wasn't actually talked about in the initial post at all, in fact, the other Avatar (the TV show) was. You've latched onto Star Trek for some reason though not sure why.

Spoiler:
The argument then expands to this means the film's success is down to spectacle, and that at best it is mediocre; the pizza of films.

The point pivots on these assumptions:

1. The importance of memes.
2. The importance of quotable dialogue.
3. The lack of a visible fanbase.

And this leads to the conclusion that Avatar has had no impact on our culture.

Actually far more points were brought up such as the bland characters, basic plot, and lack of merchandising. The two things people agree on are that the films made money (which is not an argument for cultural importance in the opinions of many) and that technologically it was groundbreaking.
But as to those points you mentioned they are entirely fair ones. Memes are an important part of modern culture, especially for younger generations. They've transcended the internet and made their way into common vernacular for many people. Things like "I can haz Cheezburger?" or "Roadwork ahead? Yeah, I sure hope it does" are common enough phrases to hear in certain circles. Loads of people find their humour in memes and Avatar has one off the top of my head which is itself a variation on the misinterpretation memes.
This leads into the lack of quotability in Avatar. Much like memes, movie quotes often make their way into the common vernacular, and phrases like "I am your father" or "You talkin' to me?" are used by people even if they haven't seen the media in question or are not part of the fanbase. One of the quotes you said makes Avatar quotable literally starts with a quote from another far more culturally impactful film.
And as for a fanbase, where is it? You claim it exists but then can't actually provide evidence to support that. You just keep saying "It's not on Dakka" but that doesn't prove it exists.

Spoiler:
And here is the question restated again; why is Avatar such a cultural blank?

The question is laden with assumptions.

If you take this assumptions as true, then one is led inexorably to one conclusion.

If one challenges said assumption then one has to defend them against the received wisdom of the group.

This leads to confrontations, and the number one strategy for dealing with confrontations is avoidance.

Avoidance leads to confrontation, not discussion. If you can't defend your views in a discussion then at no point do you deserve the right to sit there all content and claim you won the argument. You disagree with the conclusions people here have come to but can't argue your views beyond "You're wrong I'm right.".


Why is avatar such a cultural blank? @ 2023/05/26 12:26:15


Post by: Herzlos


Aash wrote:
When it comes to revenue, I think merchandise sales and memorabilia would be a better way to measure cultural impact than box office revenue.


I'm not sure. I can't remember seeing much, if any, Indiana Jones merchandise, but it definitely had a big cultural impact.

Even post box office purchases (DVD, Blu Ray, Streaming) would only tell you how often it'd be watched and not how much cultural impact it had.

Maybe it needs to be something less tangible like the number of people in a random group understand a reference to it. Or the number of parodies or mentions in TV shows or something.


Automatically Appended Next Post:
 Overread wrote:

So yeah make a film for kids and merch the heck out of it and a film that likely has very low cultural impact, can generate a fortune in toy sales (which isn't saying Cars is a bad film)


Ker-chow!

I think Cars has had a huge cultural impact, but remember it's a kids movie* that came out in 2006 so will only really have made an impact with people who are or have had kids at the watching ages about the.


*With lots of oblique adult humor that comes with later Disney/Pixar films. "I'm in the Piston Cup" "He did what to your cup?", and so on.

(I have kids, I know all 3 films more or less verbatim).


Why is avatar such a cultural blank? @ 2023/05/26 23:47:39


Post by: Commissar von Toussaint


 Paint it Pink wrote:
The question asked is this; why has Avatar, despite its enormous globe-spanning success, failed to make any lasting impression on the popular culture? Compared to a TV show that didn't even last for three full seasons from 1966 to 1968 has had a far bigger impact. How did that happen?


No, that's not the question, it's just one of many examples of how shows that were commercial failures nevertheless resonated in the culture. Avatar is the counter-example - a commercial success with almost undetectable cultural impact.

The argument then expands to this means the film's success is down to spectacle, and that at best it is mediocre; the pizza of films.

The point pivots on these assumptions:

1. The importance of memes.
2. The importance of quotable dialogue.
3. The lack of a visible fanbase.

And this leads to the conclusion that Avatar has had no impact on our culture.


No, those are criteria, not assumptions. To declare something culturally important, we need some sort of metric, a standard of comparison. Memes, the prevalence of quotes in everyday conversations and a dedicated fan base are clear and obvious indicators of cultural impact.

If one challenges said assumption then one has to defend them against the received wisdom of the group.


Yes, and you could do this quite easily by giving an alternative standard by which cultural impact should be measured.

This leads to confrontations, and the number one strategy for dealing with confrontations is avoidance.


Not if you want to have a meaningful debate. If your "number one strategy" for dealing with disagreement is to run away, I don't think that is very effective, or sustainable.

My harsh, but fair IMO ;-) viewpoint is that Dakka Dakka membership doesn't like Avatar. That's it, the totality of my argument. End of discussion.


That is of course at odds with the overwhelming sentiment that the film is enjoyable. Indeed, that's the point of the discussion - how is such a popular film a cultural blank? I haven't seen the films, so I can't like or dislike them. I am therefore neutral, I have no axe to grind one way or another.

And from that position of absolute indifference, I can compare it with other movies I haven't seen, that nevertheless I know about because people constantly reference them. In that comparison, Avatar loses, and badly.

Now if you have some alternative measurement, I'd like to see it, but based on my observations, social interactions, and presence on social media, Avatar's cultural irrelevance isn't an assumption but a fact, which is the reason we are asking "why?"


Why is avatar such a cultural blank? @ 2023/05/27 03:35:45


Post by: LordofHats


Another good measure of cultural impact is imitators. Like how every movie that does even moderately well is rapidly followed by a slew of similar, and often not quite as good, films with similar premises.

And there too there's an obvious explanation for why Avatar hasn't spawned any;

It was a really expensive movie. It's not going to spawn a slew of copycats like Hunger Games or Twilight.

Avatar 1 cost a quarter of a billion dollar to make. Avatar 2 cost twice that almost. They're really expensive movies and their premises and settings alienate investment from cheap imitations that would further spread the image/idea of the movie around.


Why is avatar such a cultural blank? @ 2023/05/27 08:13:13


Post by: Flinty


Avatar is a copycat in itself though. There is at least one meme of the Pocahontas premise having been edited in crayon to refer to Avatar stuff instead.


Why is avatar such a cultural blank? @ 2023/05/27 09:42:12


Post by: Overread


 LordofHats wrote:
Another good measure of cultural impact is imitators. Like how every movie that does even moderately well is rapidly followed by a slew of similar, and often not quite as good, films with similar premises.

And there too there's an obvious explanation for why Avatar hasn't spawned any;

It was a really expensive movie. It's not going to spawn a slew of copycats like Hunger Games or Twilight.

Avatar 1 cost a quarter of a billion dollar to make. Avatar 2 cost twice that almost. They're really expensive movies and their premises and settings alienate investment from cheap imitations that would further spread the image/idea of the movie around.


Thing is sometimes a movie dominates so much no one even tries to touch it. Look at Lord of the Rings. Running over multiple years and yet we never really saw a huge surge in fantasy films. If anything I'd say we've had quite a lacking of solid fantasy films and adventures on the big screen. Esp if you look at live action or outside of the Pixar style of family show.

You see the same thing in video games; Starcraft 2 and Warhammer Total War almost have their respective markets entirely to themselves. Despite selling really well and being really popular games (heck Warhammer 2 is still CA's most played game ever) there is no slew of copy-cats moving into the market.




Budget certainly comes into it since there's a bunch of Civilization computer game clones out there now and I'm willing to bet they are cheaper to put together than RTS games. Or if not cheaper, simpler/easier in some aspects.
So I can agree, you'd be hard pressed to make an Avatar film that focuses on its visuals as a clone; though you could make fantasy-sci-fi films (which is basically what it is) or such. And we kind of have had a good slew of sci-fi films in general. Though I'm honestly not sure if there's a pattern or a leader of the pack that inspires. They seem to come in small waves now and then.

That said the elephant in the room right now is the Marvel/DC superhero films


Why is avatar such a cultural blank? @ 2023/05/27 10:05:04


Post by: Haighus


 Overread wrote:
Spoiler:
 LordofHats wrote:
Another good measure of cultural impact is imitators. Like how every movie that does even moderately well is rapidly followed by a slew of similar, and often not quite as good, films with similar premises.

And there too there's an obvious explanation for why Avatar hasn't spawned any;

It was a really expensive movie. It's not going to spawn a slew of copycats like Hunger Games or Twilight.

Avatar 1 cost a quarter of a billion dollar to make. Avatar 2 cost twice that almost. They're really expensive movies and their premises and settings alienate investment from cheap imitations that would further spread the image/idea of the movie around.


Thing is sometimes a movie dominates so much no one even tries to touch it. Look at Lord of the Rings. Running over multiple years and yet we never really saw a huge surge in fantasy films. If anything I'd say we've had quite a lacking of solid fantasy films and adventures on the big screen. Esp if you look at live action or outside of the Pixar style of family show.

You see the same thing in video games; Starcraft 2 and Warhammer Total War almost have their respective markets entirely to themselves. Despite selling really well and being really popular games (heck Warhammer 2 is still CA's most played game ever) there is no slew of copy-cats moving into the market.




Budget certainly comes into it since there's a bunch of Civilization computer game clones out there now and I'm willing to bet they are cheaper to put together than RTS games. Or if not cheaper, simpler/easier in some aspects.
So I can agree, you'd be hard pressed to make an Avatar film that focuses on its visuals as a clone; though you could make fantasy-sci-fi films (which is basically what it is) or such. And we kind of have had a good slew of sci-fi films in general. Though I'm honestly not sure if there's a pattern or a leader of the pack that inspires. They seem to come in small waves now and then.

That said the elephant in the room right now is the Marvel/DC superhero films


I'm not sure. Starcraft is very popular, but it is hardly alone in the build-and-destroy RTS genre. I think a bigger issue is that the market is already saturated with great offerings- Age of Empires 2 is still releasing DLC over 20 years after it was launched, and is competing with its own sequel AoE4.

But strategy video games often have huge legs and replayability, especially with fan-made content frequently being encouraged. I don't think they are a great comparison to films as a result. Individual films are less likely to saturate a market because people are hungry for new story and cannot easily make fan sequels to a film.


Why is avatar such a cultural blank? @ 2023/05/27 12:38:39


Post by: Paint it Pink


Commissar von Toussaint wrote:
No, that's not the question, it's just one of many examples of how shows that were commercial failures nevertheless resonated in the culture. Avatar is the counter-example - a commercial success with almost undetectable cultural impact.

Okay, I see where you're coming from. Thank you.

I did film studies back in the day, and from a historical perspective there are a load of great films, which were commercial successes in their day. But now they've been forgotten. The difference between them and Avatar is time and changes in technology from social media, where we live in a hot house environment for discussing media we consume.

Commissar von Toussaint wrote:
No, those are criteria, not assumptions. To declare something culturally important, we need some sort of metric, a standard of comparison. Memes, the prevalence of quotes in everyday conversations and a dedicated fan base are clear and obvious indicators of cultural impact.

It's the choice of criteria that I have the issue with. The hypothesis is that cultural impact can be reliably measured by using these criteria.

For me, what is seen as clear and obvious is anything but. Rather, I would argue that people who like to quote dialogue, make memes etc are a self-selecting group, because not everyone quotes dialogue and create new memes. It is a specific type of fan. Good for them.

But that means, if those people don't like a film, and Avatar rubs people the wrong way with its eco-warrior is good, and corporate greed backed by military power is bad, then what I think this shows is that the group who make memes, don't. For good reasons. I'm in no way saying we should force anyone to make memes.

For me, the film played with what Major General Smedley Darlington Butler said about how America used the Marines to enforce corporate profits, in his book "War is a Racket."

Commissar von Toussaint wrote:
Yes, and you could do this quite easily by giving an alternative standard by which cultural impact should be measured.

Time. I know, how boring of me. But history is full of examples of media that was loved at the time it was made, and which has been consigned to the dustbin of history.

Commissar von Toussaint wrote:
Not if you want to have a meaningful debate. If your "number one strategy" for dealing with disagreement is to run away, I don't think that is very effective, or sustainable.

I think I haven't explained myself,and made too many assumption about what is common knowledge.

I'm a retired psychologist. From a behavioural perspective people have three responses to confrontations. Fight, flight, and freeze.

I think it's probably clear which response I've taken here in this thread.

Commissar von Toussaint wrote:
That is of course at odds with the overwhelming sentiment that the film is enjoyable. Indeed, that's the point of the discussion - how is such a popular film a cultural blank? I haven't seen the films, so I can't like or dislike them. I am therefore neutral, I have no axe to grind one way or another.

And from that position of absolute indifference, I can compare it with other movies I haven't seen, that nevertheless I know about because people constantly reference them. In that comparison, Avatar loses, and badly.

Now if you have some alternative measurement, I'd like to see it, but based on my observations, social interactions, and presence on social media, Avatar's cultural irrelevance isn't an assumption but a fact, which is the reason we are asking "why?"

And yet, here we are. Avatar had zero cultural impact, but made a shed ton of money. And repeated it again with a sequel so long overdue it was like watching a zombie rise from the grave.

And the people don't like the movie can arguably be said to overlap with those who generate memes and like to quote dialogue from media, don't.

The cultural importance of Avatar is getting bums on seats.


Why is avatar such a cultural blank? @ 2023/05/27 13:35:43


Post by: Voss


 Overread wrote:

You see the same thing in video games; Starcraft 2 and Warhammer Total War almost have their respective markets entirely to themselves. Despite selling really well and being really popular games (heck Warhammer 2 is still CA's most played game ever) there is no slew of copy-cats moving into the market.

Budget certainly comes into it since there's a bunch of Civilization computer game clones out there now and I'm willing to bet they are cheaper to put together than RTS games.


Well, on this note, people tried (the grey goo RTS is the one that really stands out to me). But the Starcraft style (well, Command and Conquer style, which is to say Dune 2 style) RTS market crashed hard after starcraft 2.
It wasn't that there weren't copy cats, but after repeated failures, people gave up on that particular wing of the RTS genre for a while. It looks like its starting to come back into vogue for another try though.

Starcraft 2 itself didn't do great outside of the e-sports arena (especially in Korea). Its reception in the general market in NA and Europe was rather... mixed.
The e-sports angle definitely more than made up for it in terms of revenue, and sent blizzard trying to force that into every game they made, which is probably its biggest lasting impact. But as a single player or casual multiplayer game it didn't do all that well.


-----
Paint it Pink wrote:The cultural importance of Avatar is getting bums on seats.

Outside of truly unexpected and dramatic failures, that's every theatrical release. That's not cultural importance, that's just the standard for the industry. That also doesn't explain why it got 30%? 40%? more bums on seats than the next film despite being a void of non-content.


Why is avatar such a cultural blank? @ 2023/05/27 17:12:06


Post by: Dysartes


 Paint it Pink wrote:
The cultural importance of Avatar is getting bums on seats.

That would be an economic importance/impact, not a cultural one, I'd've said.


Why is avatar such a cultural blank? @ 2023/05/27 17:14:43


Post by: JNAProductions


 Paint it Pink wrote:
And the people don't like the movie can arguably be said to overlap with those who generate memes and like to quote dialogue from media, don't.
Can you prove that?
Or is that just baseless conjecture?


Why is avatar such a cultural blank? @ 2023/05/27 19:40:49


Post by: Tyran


IMHO makes a movie financially successful and what makes a movie have a cultural impact are very different things.

From a financial perspective, movies are primarily a visual spectacle. They need to be able to convince crowds to pay tickets to watch them on a very big screen. Nowadays the whole cinema industry is struggling with the issue many prefer to wait a few weeks because it will be available for "free" in streaming.

Avatar succeeds at this is because visually speaking it is unchallenged. Its CGI makes the MCU look cheap in comparison, and it is best experienced in a large 3D cinema screen (which tend to be quite expensive). Moreover streaming cannot match that because we do not have personal 3D IMAX screens at our homes.

Now when it comes to having a cultural impact, there are way more variables there. How complex is the world building, merchandise and spin-offs, niche demographics that are receptive to the movie and also a good portion of sheer luck of being released at the right place and right time.

And having a movie that excels at both? it is pretty much like catching lightning in a bottle. Avatar is optimized for maximum money generation even at the cost of potential cultural impact. It is written to be as digestible as possible for as much people as possible so the plot doesn't get in the way of the CGI.


Why is avatar such a cultural blank? @ 2023/05/27 20:17:12


Post by: LordofHats


Krull was a financial failure but the modern idea of what a glaive is (nothing like the historical examples) comes entirely from Krull.


Why is avatar such a cultural blank? @ 2023/05/28 01:09:01


Post by: Commissar von Toussaint


 Paint it Pink wrote:
I did film studies back in the day, and from a historical perspective there are a load of great films, which were commercial successes in their day. But now they've been forgotten. The difference between them and Avatar is time and changes in technology from social media, where we live in a hot house environment for discussing media we consume


Are they truly forgotten, though? Avatar uses call-backs to the Wizard of Oz and all the variations of You're In the Army Now (which includes An Officer and a Gentleman, Stripes, Full Metal Jacket and countless others).

But that means, if those people don't like a film, and Avatar rubs people the wrong way with its eco-warrior is good, and corporate greed backed by military power is bad, then what I think this shows is that the group who make memes, don't. For good reasons. I'm in no way saying we should force anyone to make memes.


I cannot emphasize enough the utter irrelevance of these themes. It is universally acknowledged that protecting the environment from commercial exploitation is a good thing. My point is that this particular film is unremarkable for that very reason.

Time. I know, how boring of me. But history is full of examples of media that was loved at the time it was made, and which has been consigned to the dustbin of history.


Right, which is why we are discussing this. Avatar made big money and has no actual footprints. Weird. One might be moved to talk about it, no?

I'm a retired psychologist. From a behavioural perspective people have three responses to confrontations. Fight, flight, and freeze.

I think it's probably clear which response I've taken here in this thread.


Which is more likely to lead to a productive discussion?

The cultural importance of Avatar is getting bums on seats.


Pretty much.

Last night I watched The Princess Bride with some of my kids. All these years later, and it still cracks them up. I recall seeing it in the theater and how for years afterwards the many many quotable lines were deployed.

That's the contrast. A relatively low-budget film with no major stars (I think the most recognizable actor was Andre the Giant) that dominated the cultural space for years afterwards.

Clever dialog > special effects.


Why is avatar such a cultural blank? @ 2023/05/28 02:13:50


Post by: Tyran


Princess Bride is more on the other side of the spectrum, a highly quotable movie with a mediocre box office (although to be fair, cheap to produce movie) that eventually became a cult classic.

That being said, "dominated" is highly misleading. It is a cult classic, but it is quite obscure for mainstream culture.


Why is avatar such a cultural blank? @ 2023/05/28 04:31:22


Post by: Dysartes


Commissar von Toussaint wrote:That's the contrast. A relatively low-budget film with no major stars (I think the most recognizable actor was Andre the Giant) that dominated the cultural space for years afterwards..

At the time? Probably - Andre was always pretty distinctive, after all. Peter Falk would probably be your other option - I was going to suggest Fred Savage, too, but I didn't realise Princess Bride came out before The Wonder Years until I looked it up.

These days you could make an argument for any of Mandy Patinkin, Robin Wright or Cary Elwes being the stars of the cast (with Peter Cook, Billy Crystal or Mel Smith being second-tier there).

Tyran wrote:It is a cult classic, but it is quite obscure for mainstream culture.

Inconceivable!


Why is avatar such a cultural blank? @ 2023/05/28 08:50:44


Post by: Haighus


 LordofHats wrote:
Krull was a financial failure but the modern idea of what a glaive is (nothing like the historical examples) comes entirely from Krull.

They called that a glaive?!

Huh, now I know why the ninja tower upgrade in BTD5 is called a glaive thrower. Always found that one odd.


Why is avatar such a cultural blank? @ 2023/05/28 09:14:31


Post by: Haighus


 Paint it Pink wrote:
Spoiler:
Commissar von Toussaint wrote:
No, that's not the question, it's just one of many examples of how shows that were commercial failures nevertheless resonated in the culture. Avatar is the counter-example - a commercial success with almost undetectable cultural impact.

Okay, I see where you're coming from. Thank you.

I did film studies back in the day, and from a historical perspective there are a load of great films, which were commercial successes in their day. But now they've been forgotten. The difference between them and Avatar is time and changes in technology from social media, where we live in a hot house environment for discussing media we consume.


Commissar von Toussaint wrote:
No, those are criteria, not assumptions. To declare something culturally important, we need some sort of metric, a standard of comparison. Memes, the prevalence of quotes in everyday conversations and a dedicated fan base are clear and obvious indicators of cultural impact.

It's the choice of criteria that I have the issue with. The hypothesis is that cultural impact can be reliably measured by using these criteria.

For me, what is seen as clear and obvious is anything but. Rather, I would argue that people who like to quote dialogue, make memes etc are a self-selecting group, because not everyone quotes dialogue and create new memes. It is a specific type of fan. Good for them.

But that means, if those people don't like a film, and Avatar rubs people the wrong way with its eco-warrior is good, and corporate greed backed by military power is bad, then what I think this shows is that the group who make memes, don't. For good reasons. I'm in no way saying we should force anyone to make memes.

For me, the film played with what Major General Smedley Darlington Butler said about how America used the Marines to enforce corporate profits, in his book "War is a Racket."

I found Avatar pretty dull, and I think military adventurism supporting corporate greed is extremely bad and support environmentalism. The theme isn't the issue, at least for me. I never watched it on the big screen though, so that probably didn't help. It probably was less dull when the visual spectacle was greater.

Memes seem to be pretty common across the political spectrum amongst a large section of young people. I am frequently aware of left-wing memes (and personally encounter them more frequently than right-wing memes due to my circumstances), they are merely a common form of communication and messaging amongst online youth. I think you are going to need to back up the assertion that memes more typically support a pro-corporate anti-environment agenda to any great degree.

Essentially, it feels like a huge leap to say that Avatar has little reach in memes because of its underlying themes. The themes are not uncommon- even Frozen 2 has significant elements of environtalism and anti-Imperialism and feels to have had a bigger cultural impact outside of simply generating money.

Commissar von Toussaint wrote:
Yes, and you could do this quite easily by giving an alternative standard by which cultural impact should be measured.

Time. I know, how boring of me. But history is full of examples of media that was loved at the time it was made, and which has been consigned to the dustbin of history.

Sure. Which is why this thread exists to ask why that happens. I think we could reasonably broaden the topic to discuss other commercially successful but cultural forgotten films.

Commissar von Toussaint wrote:
Not if you want to have a meaningful debate. If your "number one strategy" for dealing with disagreement is to run away, I don't think that is very effective, or sustainable.

I think I haven't explained myself,and made too many assumption about what is common knowledge.

I'm a retired psychologist. From a behavioural perspective people have three responses to confrontations. Fight, flight, and freeze.

I think it's probably clear which response I've taken here in this thread.

I think the part folks are finding odd is not the instinctual reaction to confrontation, but the fact you are treating the level of discussion occurring here as at a level where it is a confrontation that would trigger a stress response. The discussion here does not look to have been especially confrontational, and the stress response you mention is only supposed to trigger when a person perceives a situation is requiring more than their immediate capacity to deal with it.

Commissar von Toussaint wrote:
That is of course at odds with the overwhelming sentiment that the film is enjoyable. Indeed, that's the point of the discussion - how is such a popular film a cultural blank? I haven't seen the films, so I can't like or dislike them. I am therefore neutral, I have no axe to grind one way or another.

And from that position of absolute indifference, I can compare it with other movies I haven't seen, that nevertheless I know about because people constantly reference them. In that comparison, Avatar loses, and badly.

Now if you have some alternative measurement, I'd like to see it, but based on my observations, social interactions, and presence on social media, Avatar's cultural irrelevance isn't an assumption but a fact, which is the reason we are asking "why?"

And yet, here we are. Avatar had zero cultural impact, but made a shed ton of money. And repeated it again with a sequel so long overdue it was like watching a zombie rise from the grave.

And the people don't like the movie can arguably be said to overlap with those who generate memes and like to quote dialogue from media, don't.

The cultural importance of Avatar is getting bums on seats.

That appears to be a "cultural" impact relevant only to shareholders though.


Why is avatar such a cultural blank? @ 2023/05/28 10:37:53


Post by: Paint it Pink


 JNAProductions wrote:
 Paint it Pink wrote:
And the people don't like the movie can arguably be said to overlap with those who generate memes and like to quote dialogue from media, don't.
Can you prove that?
Or is that just baseless conjecture?

It's an equally baseless conjecture to assume memes are a measure of anything. And no, I can't.

But either could be tested, if one was so inclined. Even then, research doesn't prove a hypothesis, it only fails to disprove the hypothesis.

Tamagotchi's use to be a thing. Memes area thing.

I'm awaiting the next fad.


Why is avatar such a cultural blank? @ 2023/05/28 13:57:10


Post by: Dysartes


Are you still expecting this internet fad to wear off?


Why is avatar such a cultural blank? @ 2023/05/28 23:31:27


Post by: Commissar von Toussaint


 Dysartes wrote:
Are you still expecting this internet fad to wear off?


One could argue that Avatar is in fact a fad - big hit, lots of sales, disappears without a trace.



Why is avatar such a cultural blank? @ 2023/05/29 09:08:16


Post by: Herzlos


 LordofHats wrote:
Krull was a financial failure but the modern idea of what a glaive is (nothing like the historical examples) comes entirely from Krull.


I loved Krull, I'd probably list it as one of my all time favorites despite not having seen it for yours. But I don't know if it's because the film was any good, or that it was just on TV all the time when I was growing up.


Automatically Appended Next Post:
 Tyran wrote:
Princess Bride is more on the other side of the spectrum, a highly quotable movie with a mediocre box office (although to be fair, cheap to produce movie) that eventually became a cult classic.

That being said, "dominated" is highly misleading. It is a cult classic, but it is quite obscure for mainstream culture.



I'm also intrigued by the opposite thing here, with the cult classics. There are a lot of films that were total flops at the time, and then because huge cultural pieces later. Rocky Horror was so bad that the actors didn't want to be associated with it, but it's now probably the most iconic musical film in history.


There's never been any real correlation between technical ability and popularity across any medium. Sharknado is by any measure garbage, but hugely popular (I love it). Warhams 40K can't be said to be a good game but is great fun.


So at the simplest level I guess Avatar doesn't have that 'spark' that you get from stuff like Evil Dead, Princess Bride, Sharknado, etc. I don't even know if that's a tangible thing in the movie or even something as simple as a celebrity/journalist/tv scheduler/etc liked it and included an article/mention of it, and it became popular because it was popular.

Maybe Avatar will become a cult classic in another 10 years when the kids discover it, and home cinema technology has advanced to the point it can be properly appreciated again.


Why is avatar such a cultural blank? @ 2023/05/29 11:48:21


Post by: Aash


I doubt avatar will get a second wind in the future from home viewing because a large part of its appeal is the visual effects which can’t help but age like milk.
Other films that have had a done well after initial release are usually successful based on their writing or direction or the acting. I can’t think of any where visual effects were the major appeal that led to their latter day success.


Why is avatar such a cultural blank? @ 2023/05/29 12:44:49


Post by: Albertorius


I mean, the original one's visual effects are still top of the class nowadays, however many years after, and it seems that the second one only went further.

I agree on that digital effects usually age first and the most dramatically, but... there's effects and effects. There's also the fact that the series seamlessly mixes visual and practical, and build one upon the other.

From a technical POV, the movies are prodigious.


Why is avatar such a cultural blank? @ 2023/05/29 13:16:15


Post by: Haighus


Well, at some point visual effects will reach a level of fidelity that is indistinguishable from reality to the human eye, with only fantasy elements being something that can be easily picked up as CGI. The same is true of graphics quality- beyond a certain resolution, the human eye will not be able to detect any further detail compared to reality.

Once that point is reached (particularly once it is affordable), CGI effects in films will have much longer legs, with only creative choices affecting longevity. Avatar may well be approaching this, which could account for how well its visuals have aged.


Why is avatar such a cultural blank? @ 2023/05/29 13:22:44


Post by: Albertorius


One thing that usually gives away CGI visual effects is weight and inertia, as many times they look weightless and makes them stand out like a sore thumb.

One particularly clear example would be the comparison between the visual effects from Pacific Rim 1 and Pacific Rim 2. It's simply like night and day.


Why is avatar such a cultural blank? @ 2023/05/29 13:42:49


Post by: Paint it Pink


ccs wrote:
BS. If you want to try & measure the effects of a film on culture? Try Star Wars. Just the original from 1977.
Sure, it made crazy $$ for it's day. But it also:
*gave us characters, imagery, dialogue, & music that'll still be remembered come 2077
*greatly affected what types of films (and TV) were produced in its wake,
*affected the entire FX industry tech wise
*drastically affected the careers of its stars
*radically changed how movies were merchandised
*Propelled ILM to the top of the FX industry for many years to come
*Lifted the toy company Kenner to the height of it's industry - which in turn affected both toy manufacturing & big retail.
*People remember where, when, & with whom they saw this movie for the 1st time.
*and into the '80s? Go look up "Star Wars" as related to the Cold War.

Avatar?
Yes,it made a crap ton of $$
No doubt it also affected the tech of FX/CGI (Cameron's films are known to do that)
Beyond that? Nil.

I agree with all those points, but have one caveat to add, which is basically my whole and only point.

In 1977, when talking to people about Star Wars, everything I've read in this thread about how dull, uninspired et., etc. all this was said about Star Wars.

Star Wars is just Flash Gordon, the plot stolen from The Hidden Fortress, the actors think the dialogue sucks etc., etc..

But Star Wars changed how movies were financed, and upped the standards for visual effects, and here 46 years later everybody agrees about how important it is, and how culturally significant it has become.

Avatar is the Star Wars of the 21st Century. It's trajectory is different, and it may yet fail, which is why I say only time will tell.

Trying to discuss Avatar without some reflection on one's assumptions that define the box of one's thinking is difficult and complex. One has to have an argumentative nature to go against the majority, but one thing we know about majority thought is that time and again is that it is a poor measure of anything much.


Why is avatar such a cultural blank? @ 2023/05/29 14:29:52


Post by: Aash


 Paint it Pink wrote:
ccs wrote:
BS. If you want to try & measure the effects of a film on culture? Try Star Wars. Just the original from 1977.
Sure, it made crazy $$ for it's day. But it also:
*gave us characters, imagery, dialogue, & music that'll still be remembered come 2077
*greatly affected what types of films (and TV) were produced in its wake,
*affected the entire FX industry tech wise
*drastically affected the careers of its stars
*radically changed how movies were merchandised
*Propelled ILM to the top of the FX industry for many years to come
*Lifted the toy company Kenner to the height of it's industry - which in turn affected both toy manufacturing & big retail.
*People remember where, when, & with whom they saw this movie for the 1st time.
*and into the '80s? Go look up "Star Wars" as related to the Cold War.

Avatar?
Yes,it made a crap ton of $$
No doubt it also affected the tech of FX/CGI (Cameron's films are known to do that)
Beyond that? Nil.

I agree with all those points, but have one caveat to add, which is basically my whole and only point.

In 1977, when talking to people about Star Wars, everything I've read in this thread about how dull, uninspired et., etc. all this was said about Star Wars.

Star Wars is just Flash Gordon, the plot stolen from The Hidden Fortress, the actors think the dialogue sucks etc., etc..

But Star Wars changed how movies were financed, and upped the standards for visual effects, and here 46 years later everybody agrees about how important it is, and how culturally significant it has become.

Avatar is the Star Wars of the 21st Century. It's trajectory is different, and it may yet fail, which is why I say only time will tell.

Trying to discuss Avatar without some reflection on one's assumptions that define the box of one's thinking is difficult and complex. One has to have an argumentative nature to go against the majority, but one thing we know about majority thought is that time and again is that it is a poor measure of anything much.


I think Avatar had the potential to be a new Star Wars in terms of cultural impact, but where it differs is in merchandising and it’s sequels came out in relatively quick succession, striking while the iron was hot as it were.

Had Star Wars not had the merchandise or the sequels I expect it wouldn’t have the legacy it enjoys.


Why is avatar such a cultural blank? @ 2023/05/29 15:14:14


Post by: BobtheInquisitor


First of all, people weren’t saying that about Star Wars in 1977. Let me know when someone writes an Avatar based disco hit (or dubstep I suppose) or names a weapon system after it.

Some movies really are remembered more fondly for their effects over time—such as Harryhausen movies. Jurassic park is often held up for its effects, although it also has great writing, directing and acting.


Good effects are not memorable effects. People remember Krull for the glaive, the flying fire mares, and the cave spider…none of which are great effects. The music really helps there, too.


Why is avatar such a cultural blank? @ 2023/05/29 15:36:10


Post by: Commissar von Toussaint


 Paint it Pink wrote:
I agree with all those points, but have one caveat to add, which is basically my whole and only point.

In 1977, when talking to people about Star Wars, everything I've read in this thread about how dull, uninspired et., etc. all this was said about Star Wars.


One can always find a few critics who will deride any classic on its release. This proves nothing other than that there's always a dissenting opinion.

But the cultural phenomenon of Star Wars destroyed Avatar as everyone alive back then can attest. Darth Vader became the new icon of evil. Who, exactly even is the villain of Avatar?

And yes, disco Star Wars theme, the soundtrack albums actually sold out, t-shirts, and for Halloween, Darth Vader costumes as far as the eye could see - and that lasted for years, even before the sequel. I remember in 1979 that the teachers had to put tape in the Dark Vader masks to keep the kids straight because almost half the school was wearing them.

One can say savvy merchandizing played a role in this, but I'll point out that the sequel toys languished on the shelves and went to the clearance bin because the movies just were not as popular. Star Wars was obviously derivative, but it was packaged in a fun and unique way. It was arguably the first truly upbeat space movie and its message - of plucky rebels winning against a monolithic Empire - was just what people wanted to hear.

Contrast that with 2001, or Logan's Run or Space 1999, or the Forbidden Planet, Planet of the Apes, etc. Mostly gloom and doom or overly artistic. Star Wars was a blast of fresh, joyous air.

Avatar by contrast, is yet another retelling of the evils of colonialism, and while its visually stimulating, I don't think it's added a single thing to the conversation. Certainly the cast was unremarkable.

That's why it just doesn't resonate.



Why is avatar such a cultural blank? @ 2023/05/29 17:34:06


Post by: Albertorius


Commissar von Toussaint wrote:
 Paint it Pink wrote:
I agree with all those points, but have one caveat to add, which is basically my whole and only point.

In 1977, when talking to people about Star Wars, everything I've read in this thread about how dull, uninspired et., etc. all this was said about Star Wars.


One can always find a few critics who will deride any classic on its release. This proves nothing other than that there's always a dissenting opinion.

But the cultural phenomenon of Star Wars destroyed Avatar as everyone alive back then can attest. Darth Vader became the new icon of evil. Who, exactly even is the villain of Avatar?

I mean, Quaritch is one of the best things of both movies, you know... and certainly one of the most memorable, at least to me.

Then again, I like the actor too.


Why is avatar such a cultural blank? @ 2023/05/30 00:16:58


Post by: ZergSmasher


 BobtheInquisitor wrote:
Good effects are not memorable effects. People remember Krull for the glaive, the flying fire mares, and the cave spider…none of which are great effects. The music really helps there, too.

Funny that you mention the music, because both Avatar and Krull had James Horner as composer. Hence why both soundtracks slap.


Why is avatar such a cultural blank? @ 2023/05/30 01:31:26


Post by: BobtheInquisitor


I’ll take the Krull soundtrack any day. As much as Horner liked to rip himself off, I don’t recall anything in Avatar to compare to Ride of the Fire Mares, let alone his scores for Star Trek TWOK and TSFE.


Why is avatar such a cultural blank? @ 2023/06/02 00:09:37


Post by: Backfire


I think some people here are somewhat misguided in analyzing why 'Avatars' are so popular. It's not just technical brilliance, it is how it is used. 'Avatar' brings alive the planet Pandora, not completely unlike than say, a quality nature document. Compare 'Avatar' with Endor sequence from 'Return of the Jedi'. They're in many ways a same story. But Endor is shown as clearly just no different than a big forest on our own, boring Earth. And its inhabitants, the Ewoks, are simple, comical variation of 'pygmy native' cliche with no distinguishing traits other than their visual design.

By contrast, Pandora has weird plants and critters everywhere. Even the terrain itself is often shown radically different and exotic (like the floating islands region). And the inhabitants, the Navi, are shown having complicated, thought-out culture and physique. Above all, everything on Pandora is really really beautiful. Remember how when the movie came out, it was reported some people felt 'Avatar depression' as their own world felt so ugly and uninteresting after briefly visiting Pandora. People like pretty things. Only few movies manage similar effect - LotR trilogy is perhaps most notable. It's the effect of really feeling you're watching some beautiful alien world, and not just jungles of Florida with some dudes in rubber suits thrown in. Even though in basic terms you could do the movie just as well that way.

Now it's true that 'Avatar' doesn't really have very memorable characters or dialogue, and the basic story is quite predictable and done before. But all of it is still done quite well, with all kind of little touches here & there making it all 'a cut above', and thus these elements don't end up letting the visuals down. They're there, and not bad enough that they would start to actively annoy you (By contrast, the sequel does feel somewhat like it wears out its welcome once you get past the visual marvels). The strong sides of the movie do not lend easily to meme-cry or merchandise, it's true. It also means 'Avatars' are not something kids are likely to start obsessing over: lot of the 'cultural phenomenon' films or shows seem to be something you see as chilrden or teens, and then you can reminisce them in adulthood especially if you have kids of your own. 'Avatars' by contrast have little for kids, despite their relatively benign ratings, making them much less likely to appeal over generations, like Star Wars.

As per Wikipedia:
"Despite the film's financial and critical success, some journalists have questioned Avatar's cultural impact.[b] In 2014, Scott Mendelson of Forbes said the film had been "all but forgotten", citing the lack of merchandising, a fandom for the film, or any long-enduring media franchise, and further stated that he believed most general audiences could not remember any of the film's details, such as the names of its characters or actors in the cast."



Why is avatar such a cultural blank? @ 2023/06/02 06:18:52


Post by: Scrabb


Backfire wrote:
..... clearly just no different than a big forest on our own, boring Earth.


Tell me you don't like National Geographic without telling me you don't like National Geographic.


Why is avatar such a cultural blank? @ 2023/06/02 23:11:41


Post by: Backfire


Hmmm...I haven't seen that many NG documents. In general I prefer BBC style, although they also have ventured too far into silly side. '90s BBC was the bestest.


Why is avatar such a cultural blank? @ 2023/06/03 02:10:33


Post by: Commissar von Toussaint


Backfire wrote:
'Avatars' by contrast have little for kids, despite their relatively benign ratings, making them much less likely to appeal over generations, like Star Wars.


That is a big part of it. There is no "hero's journey," and kids can't related to a jaded war veteran upset about macroeconomic strategies that rely on resource exploitation.

They can relate a young farm boy and a princess who gang up with a couple of outlaws to save the universe. They can relate to kids who discover E.T. while playing D&D.

But it's more than that - the reason certain films endure is that as those kids grow up, they now see themselves in the adult roles. Mark Hamill said that when he went to the 1997 re-release of Star Wars he saw Luke in his kids, not himself. He was more drawn to Obi-wan.

That's also why the Airbender Avatar has such cultural strength - the parents could enjoy it as a kids show (and think back to their own struggles of growing up), but also relate to the adult characters. Kids who saw it's original run are now likewise taking a second look at the grown-up perspective.

A ton of failed remakes have proven that nostalgia can only get you so far. Star Wars itself has shown that if you rely on that and fail to create interesting and relatable characters, the whole enterprise will fail.


Why is avatar such a cultural blank? @ 2023/06/03 08:37:12


Post by: Overread


I don't think kids can only relate to a "hero's journey" story mechanic with kids to directly relate too. Heck the overwhelming majority of kids can't even relate to farming lifestyle as many grow up deep within cities.

There are also plenty of kids films that don't feature kids as the focal characters. Not to mention many video games.


I think its simply that Avatar didn't have a well built story. The same reason it didn't work for kids is the same reason it didn't work for adults - adults are just more likely to be able to identify and put it into words. Or bother doing it on a warhammer forum


I don't think the age of a character is as important as the actual story itself.


Why is avatar such a cultural blank? @ 2023/06/03 08:59:04


Post by: lord_blackfang


Hot take: Because it's so blatantly (some say clumsily) anti white imperialst that it's impossible for populations living on the spoils of white imperialism to divorce the message from the entertainment and enjoy the latter. So they have to forget the whole package.

Some proof of this is that an absolutely massive part on the internet unironically cheered for the caricature psycho genocidal military guy.


Why is avatar such a cultural blank? @ 2023/06/03 10:37:00


Post by: Haighus


 lord_blackfang wrote:
Hot take: Because it's so blatantly (some say clumsily) anti white imperialst that it's impossible for populations living on the spoils of white imperialism to divorce the message from the entertainment and enjoy the latter. So they have to forget the whole package.

Some proof of this is that an absolutely massive part on the internet unironically cheered for the caricature psycho genocidal military guy.

There could be some truth to that, at least in part. People do often avoid knowledge that gives them doxastic anxiety because they don't want to face having to change stuff in their life. I know I do it with the meat industry because I find it hard to give up eating meat.


Why is avatar such a cultural blank? @ 2023/06/03 11:18:07


Post by: Gert


Nah people are just stupid. How many people watch Starship Troopers and love the soldiers despite it clearly being a massive satire, something that was done on purpose because the director felt the original book was far too much of a love letter to militarism and authoritarianism.
Give people cool visuals with military doodads and they'll eat it up.


Why is avatar such a cultural blank? @ 2023/06/03 11:34:24


Post by: Overread


Yah and kids are often totally blind to the whole "colonialist" things. Heck even that is, I'd argue, a generational thing that has crept in over the last couple of decades and grown.

Plus its not a universal thing at all, I suspect its felt far more strongly in some countries over others.


I think many many people have a healthy ability to separate fiction from reality. They can cheer for Dr Evil without having to actually believe in being evil and nasty and horrible to other people.

It's exactly the same way we can play wargames; how we can blast whole planets apart in Stellaris or control an army of blood crazed cannibals on the tabletop.

You don't have to be a cannibal to play flesheaters


Why is avatar such a cultural blank? @ 2023/06/03 13:18:48


Post by: Commissar von Toussaint


 Gert wrote:
Nah people are just stupid. How many people watch Starship Troopers and love the soldiers despite it clearly being a massive satire, something that was done on purpose because the director felt the original book was far too much of a love letter to militarism and authoritarianism.
Give people cool visuals with military doodads and they'll eat it up.


Oh come on, Doogie Houser as a Gestapo Mind-Bender was hilarious. People called it Starship Troopers 90210 because it was so silly.

Also, good-looking young people in the co-ed showers. Always a crowd pleaser.

 lord_blackfang wrote:
Hot take: Because it's so blatantly (some say clumsily) anti white imperialst that it's impossible for populations living on the spoils of white imperialism to divorce the message from the entertainment and enjoy the latter. So they have to forget the whole package.


Or they're bored with being asked to do penance for the sins of their great-great-great-grandparents. Being blamed for the sins of the British Empire probably doesn't play well with the descendants of penniless Irish immigrants.

Some proof of this is that an absolutely massive part on the internet unironically cheered for the caricature psycho genocidal military guy.


Well yeah, if you can't ever be actually forgiven, what's the point in saying sorry?

The point is that Avatar's plot is primarily political, and politics are not something people relate to on a human level.

I have no idea what Han Solo felt about budgetary policy (though I gather he's an opponent of excise taxes), but I like his style and rebellious attitude. It is of no relevance whether Indiana Jones voted for FDR in 1932, because his is a story of adventure.

Star Trek always had some political messages, but they took a back seat to the personalities of the characters. It's interesting that as it gets more political, the characters recede and as a result, the audience dwindles.

Avatar's graphics and sound were a feast for the senses, so people could look past a weak plot and cardboard characters. No need to go any deeper than that.


Why is avatar such a cultural blank? @ 2023/06/03 13:36:43


Post by: Gert


I'm not saying it isn't good, far from as it is one of my favourite movies but it is not subtle about its criticisms and satirical nature yet people still think the humans are good guys because they have flashy guns, spiffy music, and the bugs are scary.


Why is avatar such a cultural blank? @ 2023/06/03 14:30:56


Post by: Geifer


 Gert wrote:
I'm not saying it isn't good, far from as it is one of my favourite movies but it is not subtle about its criticisms and satirical nature yet people still think the humans are good guys because they have flashy guns, spiffy music, and the bugs are scary.


In my opinion Starship Troopers is so overtly satirical to actually get a critical look at the fascist regime to work in the first place. It's heavy on the counterbalance because people will allow for a lot of bad in their good guys if the alternative is getting eaten by alien space monsters. In a way what you're shown in the movie is utopian, all of mankind united in a common struggle. That's an ideal to a lot of people who in real life, for lack of alien space monsters, witness time and again that mankind's worst enemy is mankind. That's a solved problem in Starship Troopers. There isn't much you can do but shine a floodlight on the exact execution of that unity if you want people to reflect on whether it's all that great because the reason for it is such an existential threat. I doubt getting into political dissent and resistance to the fascist state would suffice to get people to question the regime because it always comes back to the question of how not to get eaten by alien space monsters. Even if you are fully aware of the workings of fascism, in the situation the movie presents the threat is real and not played up for propaganda. That gets a lot of people who would usually be otherwise inclined to mellow on extreme measures.

As far as I remember (for what little that's worth*) Avatar doesn't try to get into the human perspective at all beyond the basic premise of "planet has stuff humans need, all other considerations secondary". You're asked to take the blue people perspective and consider the humans who don't do that the bad guys. You're not shown the situation on Earth and given the chance to ask yourself whether exploitation of Pandora might be justified and whether the execution could or should be handled differently. Starship Troopers puts you into that position. Avatar, quite deliberately, doesn't. That makes a hell of a difference to how much you can and want to engage with the setting.


* Since I keep coming back to this thread I should probably watch Avatar again. It's been a while and the movie just isn't memorable enough to engage in a detailed discussion after a while.


Why is avatar such a cultural blank? @ 2023/06/03 15:13:55


Post by: BobtheInquisitor


It could also just be as simple as the Colonel is the onky actor with screen charisma.


Why is avatar such a cultural blank? @ 2023/06/03 18:17:08


Post by: Ahtman


 BobtheInquisitor wrote:
It could also just be as simple as the Colonel is the onky actor with screen charisma.


Chonky?
Honky?
Okay?
Monkey?

But yes Stephen Lang is a good actor.


Why is avatar such a cultural blank? @ 2023/06/03 19:37:37


Post by: BobtheInquisitor


Autocorrect failed me when I needed her most.


I don’t know about chonky, but he thick.


Why is avatar such a cultural blank? @ 2023/06/03 21:48:27


Post by: Tyran


Commissar von Toussaint wrote:

I have no idea what Han Solo felt about budgetary policy (though I gather he's an opponent of excise taxes), but I like his style and rebellious attitude.

I find this funny because Star Wars was (and still is) extremely political. I mean George Lucas couldn't shut up about politics to the point he made a trade dispute a critical plot point in one movie and had characters talk about political systems in the next one.

And while you could definitely argue that the quality of Star Wars declined when Lucas was free to shove politics into every inch of the plot, the Clone Wars still live rent free in the heads of at least one entire generation.


Why is avatar such a cultural blank? @ 2023/06/03 22:17:51


Post by: Overread


Honestly the political side of it all is really important once you start to get to the formation of the Empire. In the first 3 films we kind of knew there was a senate and an Emperor, but we really didn't have much functional idea for how it was setup. Heck you could easily have assumed the Senate was 10 people around a regular meeting table (ergo similar to how we saw meetings on the Death Star).

The politics of Starwars is integral to seeing how things fell and all.


Why is avatar such a cultural blank? @ 2023/06/04 08:20:14


Post by: Haighus


Also, rebels fighting an authoritarian empire is a political stance.


Why is avatar such a cultural blank? @ 2023/06/04 12:56:05


Post by: Commissar von Toussaint


 Tyran wrote:

I find this funny because Star Wars was (and still is) extremely political. I mean George Lucas couldn't shut up about politics to the point he made a trade dispute a critical plot point in one movie and had characters talk about political systems in the next one.


No it wasn't. It was very apolitical. All you knew was that the Dark Side was running the Empire and the Light Side was fighting back. "Good guys vs Bad guys" can't get more blatant.

Lucas spouted off about politics because he hated how conservatives embraced it and had to save face - and he waited until after the third movie has finished it run before running his mouth.

And while you could definitely argue that the quality of Star Wars declined when Lucas was free to shove politics into every inch of the plot, the Clone Wars still live rent free in the heads of at least one entire generation.


It absolutely declined because the politics made no sense. The characters were wooden, the plots convoluted and then Disney said: "hold my beer" and made the rubble bounce.

By the way, if you want to see a movie that does a great job of dealing with corporate/colonial militarism, Aliens is the perfect example - and that film has had massive cultural impact. We're probably here because of it - space marines, proto-tyranids, Ripley's combo-flamer and the fact that it set the entire tone of the now ubiquitous "Hero stuck on space station with improvised weapons" concept.

Heavy social commentary on the military-industrial complex, but what sells it are the characters and the incredibly quotable dialog.


Why is avatar such a cultural blank? @ 2023/06/04 13:15:39


Post by: Gert


Star Wars had a group of freedom fighters going up against an empire that had, at the very start of the movie, just abolished its democratic representative. It's literally saying authoritarian regimes are the bad guys.
How in gods name is that not a political stance?


Why is avatar such a cultural blank? @ 2023/06/04 13:40:53


Post by: Commissar von Toussaint


 Gert wrote:
Star Wars had a group of freedom fighters going up against an empire that had, at the very start of the movie, just abolished its democratic representative. It's literally saying authoritarian regimes are the bad guys.
How in gods name is that not a political stance?


Hmmm, I missed the musings on the difficulties of democracy, the complexities of multi-planet rule and the need for a strong central government to maintain order.

It was made in the 1970s for an American audience that assumed democracy = good, empire/dictatorship = bad.

And just to make it blindingly obvious, there is a Dark Side and a Light Side.

It is about good guys vs bad guys using contemporary labels. Zero political discussion.


Why is avatar such a cultural blank? @ 2023/06/04 13:45:04


Post by: Tsagualsa


 Gert wrote:

How in gods name is that not a political stance?




American exceptionalism - Freedom! is so extremely the 'background radiation' of their national narrative that they do not realize that it is a conciously chosen stance at all.


Why is avatar such a cultural blank? @ 2023/06/04 13:46:06


Post by: creeping-deth87


 Gert wrote:
Star Wars had a group of freedom fighters going up against an empire that had, at the very start of the movie, just abolished its democratic representative. It's literally saying authoritarian regimes are the bad guys.
How in gods name is that not a political stance?


That's literally just window dressing... Star wars has never been anything more than a good vs evil story. Luke Skywalker is hardly preaching the merits of democracy when he takes down the emperor, he just wants to save his dad from the evil space wizard.


Why is avatar such a cultural blank? @ 2023/06/04 13:52:04


Post by: Tyran


Leia was making political statements. "The more you tighten your fist, the more slips through your fingers" is a very apt criticism of any fear and control based policy and it applies to way more than just authoritarian regimes.


Why is avatar such a cultural blank? @ 2023/06/04 14:20:05


Post by: Gert


Commissar von Toussaint wrote:
Zero political discussion.

Not everything needs to be a discussion and not every stance needs to have intense levels of nuance. Taking a side in an ideological fight between freedom and oppression is taking a political stance and Lucas chose to represent the authoritarian militarists as the oppressors.


Why is avatar such a cultural blank? @ 2023/06/04 14:33:26


Post by: Commissar von Toussaint


 creeping-deth87 wrote:
That's literally just window dressing... Star wars has never been anything more than a good vs evil story. Luke Skywalker is hardly preaching the merits of democracy when he takes down the emperor, he just wants to save his dad from the evil space wizard.


Yep. Leia throws in some political metaphors to show she's a senator and does politics and stuff.

But there is no actual politics, just a conflict between good and evil.

Because Lucas is American and so is his audience and the film came out the year after the Bicentennial celebration, the language he uses is that which associated with goodness.

A European version might have the rebels standing for the "true king" vs the usurper, but that's just local color.

The prequels tried to insert politics, and it was terrible.


Automatically Appended Next Post:
Just to hammer this home to non-Americans, 1976 was a huge national celebration of the Declaration of Independence. The film comes out in 1977.

So the decision to have "freedom fighters" (who are played by Americans) fighting against an eeevil Empire (uniformly British) was basically playing to the crowd.


Why is avatar such a cultural blank? @ 2023/06/04 14:41:45


Post by: Klickor


It is more about good vs evil than which political ideology is the best one.

The Empire isn't the bad guy just because they are authoritarian but because they are doing really evil gak. The focus is obviously on the good vs bad and not on morally light grey democracy vs morally dark grey absolute authoritarianism. There are politics in it but the details are more related to the background of the setting rather than being a commentary of the current political climate. A similar story told in a medieval fantasy world would also have some form of "politics" in it but rather try to use something a bit more subtle than trying to make the bad guys look like space nazis(I use this a bit as shorthand for any ideology we see as evil like various version of Fascism and Communism and not just WW2 German nazis). Nazis makes more sense in a more modern or futuristic setting compared to a medieval one so a more common bad guy is instead a variation of the Mongols or some religious fanatics modeled after some of the crusades or jihads. In reverse those troupes wouldn't have worked as well in Space which is why Nazis is more common theme for that. It could be a political decision but it is more likely not and just as apolitical as mongols or crusaders even though unlike them is a "current" political ideology.

Depending on how you see it everything is political and a lot of people today see the world through that lense. The people who complain that movies today are too political or have politics in them aren't literally complaining that the movie has actual politics in it but what kind of politics and how it is displayed to the audience. We want the politics in the movie to feel like they are there for the world building or plot and not to have them feel connected to what is happening in our modern world. We want escapism, not more media propaganda. If a movie subtly (or not always so subtly but still not breaking verisimilitude) can educate or give us different views on current political topics while still being escapism then most people wouldn't complain. Being political can be a good thing and might be a good way to help people learn and progress. But only if the audience feels like they aren't talked down to as being evil people. Then they will be on edge and feel resentment to characters they could otherwise have felt empathy for if the message was just more subtle and better interwoven with the rest of the movie.

A lot of current media advertisement campaigns do involve a lot of political messages which can be annoying. It also influences the products they make in bad ways. Diversity in a movie isn't good or bad for example. But the current method of focusing on that aspect before world building, script and talented actors gives subpar products that involves a lot of current day politics (that are quite divisive lately due to social media). You can't see an interview about any new Disney product, or barely anything else either, that just talks about the content of the media itself without starting out with talking about how diverse it is, how it will save lives, how it will reflect "a modern audience", how it will represent minority group X or other things like that. They even make up divisive responses to hate comments before the hate even starts and make it all about politics. Like it isn't just what is in the media but in the creation and marketing about it that tells you as the audience member that this is current year politics. These products won't age well at all since they are too reflective of the current discourse and whatever politics it is handling is so narrow in scope that if you go back in a few years and rewatch it, it will feel age just on the topic and language alone. The old Star Wars movies aren't aging badly in that regard since it is broad enough to have its politics be relevant in any time period of human history and you don't even need to have heard of Nazis to fully understand what it is all about.


Why is avatar such a cultural blank? @ 2023/06/04 14:44:15


Post by: LordofHats


 Haighus wrote:
Also, rebels fighting an authoritarian empire is a political stance.


At risk, yes.

But also no.

Lets call it 'shallow politics.'

Literally everyone (left, right, Nazi, commie, anarchist, libertarian, socialist, whatever persuasion) thinks of themselves like a rebel fighting a corrupt regime. Be my guest. Go ask them. They're all going to frame themselves the exact same way. Especially in the modern virtue-flaging rhetorical hoops politics common on the Internet where everyone has 'figured it out' and 'knows how to fix the system' but the system is too corrupt. You will find this perspective, or something like it, is basically completely free of political boundaries to the point it's the one thing everyone actually agrees on; that they are a tiny cog being trodden on by a much bigger world they don't control but would really like to.

To codify 'rebel vs authoritarian' as a political stance is such a vague and non-descript political stance me pointing at the distance and saying 'over there somewhere' is more specific.

Especially people who make their politics a central aspect of their lives. Avatar is rebels fighting authoritarians, but it's also vague enough and shallow enough, that you could view it as socialists egalitarians fighting souless capitalists. Or free peoples fighting centralizing control. Or Anarchists fighting the military-industrial complex.

People say the politics is a big part of Star Wars and I kind laugh a little because Star Wars is 'political' only in the sense that it says it ist. It has no real overriding political message. It advocates nothing except that evil is evil and good is good but evil and good within Star Wars' 'politics' are so milquetoast that you're not going to get a useful or practical perspective on politics from Star Wars. Star Wars is a morality play. Not a political drama. And you see the aspect of this in its fandom where there are literally as many people who think the Jedi were evil as Anakin could possibly imagine.

These works are far too vague, far to bland, and far too shallow. They're John Everyman politics where Hitler is obvious bad and freedom is clearly good, which works well enough for a mass audience's appeal factor but you'll probably find as many interpretations about what the politics of John Everyman are as you'll ask people on the Internet.

And maybe that's part of Avatar's issue. Star Wars at least puts the battle of obvious good vs obvious evil so front and center that it works on a moral level because it's specific enough to stand on its own even if you notice the politics of the prequel series are kind of gobbledegook. Avatar is far less clear. There is an obvious good and an obvious bad side, but the elements that define good and bad within Avatar are even blander than the conflict between the Sith and the Jedi. None of it stands out against Sully's personal story where Silly himself seems to just be along for the right (or he's just chasing some hot blue chick) and Sully never makes any sort of moral stand or realization that stands out because he just kind of goes along with the motions of the plot at every turn.

TLDR: The 'politics' of this story are so nondescript as to be basically anything, which can mean anyone can find meaning in it but also means there's so little direction in the story it never builds up the board cultural momentum to carry itself compared to something like Star Wars, which has its Good vs Evil narrative that is vague enough to be argued over but also clear enough that it can't mean whatever you could possibly want it to mean.


Why is avatar such a cultural blank? @ 2023/06/04 16:44:10


Post by: Flinty


There is political stance/position, and then there is political procedure. The original Star Wars trilogy may have a fair dollop of the former, but none of the latter, while the prequel trilogy has the latter in spades and I’m not convinced it made them better films.


Why is avatar such a cultural blank? @ 2023/06/04 18:11:24


Post by: Geifer


 LordofHats wrote:
And maybe that's part of Avatar's issue. Star Wars at least puts the battle of obvious good vs obvious evil so front and center that it works on a moral level because it's specific enough to stand on its own even if you notice the politics of the prequel series are kind of gobbledegook. Avatar is far less clear. There is an obvious good and an obvious bad side, but the elements that define good and bad within Avatar are even blander than the conflict between the Sith and the Jedi. None of it stands out against Sully's personal story where Silly himself seems to just be along for the right (or he's just chasing some hot blue chick) and Sully never makes any sort of moral stand or realization that stands out because he just kind of goes along with the motions of the plot at every turn.


Yeah, it feels like Sully is played too much as the brainless Marine following whoever happens to give him orders at the time*. The only time he assumes leadership he goes along with what his new tribe has been advocating for in the first place, so even then there's never an opportunity to explain "why we fight". It's more of a "let's do it" because everyone's on board already.

That kind of leaves me puzzled why people seem to look more favorably on Colonel Quidditch. He's a cardboard cutout whose solution is military confrontation from start to finish. It's implicit for a while, but halfway through the movie he's just overtly disgusted by the idea of a diplomatic solution and... it doesn't make a difference. He has no more need to explain why he's doing the right thing and everyone should go along with it than Sully does.


*Kind of like Luke in A New Hope. He moves on from that in the following movies, but if you compare first movie to first movie, he doesn't strike me as any different, really. But he seems to have come out just fine compared to Sully/Avatar.

 Flinty wrote:
There is political stance/position, and then there is political procedure. The original Star Wars trilogy may have a fair dollop of the former, but none of the latter, while the prequel trilogy has the latter in spades and I’m not convinced it made them better films.


I call for the formation of a committee to investigate this unsubstantiated claim.


Why is avatar such a cultural blank? @ 2023/06/05 09:24:52


Post by: Not Online!!!


Considering as to what the Empire is modelled after in SW, authoritharian isn't even the correct label. The correct one is totalitarian, which is quite distinct from mere authoritharianism.


Why is avatar such a cultural blank? @ 2023/06/05 20:38:43


Post by: LordofHats


Not to the Americans who made it.

In the US those terms might as well be synonymous (which really just goes back to why trying to gleam any meaningful political from Star Wars is a crap shoot when it comes from a culture that has a very binary/one-line mode of thought on political ideology).


Why is avatar such a cultural blank? @ 2023/06/05 21:54:27


Post by: Commissar von Toussaint


Klickor wrote:
It is more about good vs evil than which political ideology is the best one.


Yes.

It is worth recalling that the tiny bit of politics that occurs in Star Wars is entirely absent from the next two films. It was there to give a little context, tell us that the Empire is super-duper bad, and that's it. There is zero reference to politics in the rest of the original films. This is why they work so well, because the story moves into the development of the characters, who each follow a different arc. Is there an arc in Avatar? Seems like there's the one Kevin Costner type who is capable of thought, and everyone else is basically static.

Avatar is also far more political because of that.

The prequels started out as explicitly political, with Lucas even dropping "current day" references into the films. Huge turn-off for people trying to escape into a galaxy far, far away.


Why is avatar such a cultural blank? @ 2023/06/06 14:47:16


Post by: Easy E


My "favorite" Star Wars take was that the Rebels were the Vietnamese and the Empire was the US and the whole movie was a front for anti-Vietnam war propaganda!

So wrong, but so deliciously wrong. It is like the idea that the Roman Empire fell due to lead in the plumbing. So wrong, but deliciously so.


Why is avatar such a cultural blank? @ 2023/06/06 15:06:59


Post by: Voss


Commissar von Toussaint wrote:
Klickor wrote:
It is more about good vs evil than which political ideology is the best one.


Yes.

It is worth recalling that the tiny bit of politics that occurs in Star Wars is entirely absent from the next two films. It was there to give a little context, tell us that the Empire is super-duper bad, and that's it. There is zero reference to politics in the rest of the original films. This is why they work so well, because the story moves into the development of the characters, who each follow a different arc. Is there an arc in Avatar? Seems like there's the one Kevin Costner type who is capable of thought, and everyone else is basically static.

Avatar is also far more political because of that.

The prequels started out as explicitly political, with Lucas even dropping "current day" references into the films. Huge turn-off for people trying to escape into a galaxy far, far away.


Well, there was a lot wrong with the prequels. They were (according to Lucas directly) 'for children' but also about the taxation of trade routes (real kid fodder, obviously) done really poorly. Then government corruption is presented as fact, without any real legwork and finally a 'moral dilemma' that puts the protagonist murdering children (multiple times) as just a shade of grey so he can pontificate that others are true evil. Because reasons.

Its not even a 'good vs evil' story, its just an incoherent bridge to the starting point of the original films. 'Good,' as a value, needs a bit more than just being on the side of... not murdering children. I can walk around for decades without doing that. Super easy, barely an inconvenience.


Why is avatar such a cultural blank? @ 2023/06/06 15:10:40


Post by: Tyran


 Easy E wrote:
My "favorite" Star Wars take was that the Rebels were the Vietnamese and the Empire was the US and the whole movie was a front for anti-Vietnam war propaganda!

That was Lucas' take btw.

Of course, death of the author and all that.


Why is avatar such a cultural blank? @ 2023/06/06 15:25:22


Post by: Easy E


Then he is an idiot and worse writer than I thought.


Why is avatar such a cultural blank? @ 2023/06/06 15:43:06


Post by: Tyran


Lucas was a visionary, but he also was a very poor writer and director.


Why is avatar such a cultural blank? @ 2023/06/06 17:31:12


Post by: NapoleonInSpace


To be honest? I'm really just tired of getting hit over the head with the eco-stick.

That, and it just wasn't a great film.


Why is avatar such a cultural blank? @ 2023/06/06 17:59:12


Post by: Grumpy Gnome


Deleted.


Why is avatar such a cultural blank? @ 2023/06/06 23:55:49


Post by: Commissar von Toussaint


 Tyran wrote:
 Easy E wrote:
My "favorite" Star Wars take was that the Rebels were the Vietnamese and the Empire was the US and the whole movie was a front for anti-Vietnam war propaganda!

That was Lucas' take btw.

Of course, death of the author and all that.


Lucas offered that take AFTER the movies were over and Ronald Reagan called the Soviet Union an "evil empire." He had to distance himself from it, and did so in a particularly stupid way. At the height of his success, Lucas spun vast webs of lies about his future intentions, origins of the films, their meanings, etc.

But let's go with it. The Ewoks are the peaceful people of Vietnam who are stirred into rebellion by a bunch of foreigners who create a false god using a magic trick who have their own hidden agenda and no real interest in them. Heck, the rebels didn't even know they were there until they (literally) tripped over them.

Not the take I think he meant it to be.

George Lucas has many admirable qualities, but he's got the political sense of a wet dishrag.

And then he went on to make Howard the Duck.


Why is avatar such a cultural blank? @ 2023/06/07 00:10:00


Post by: ZergSmasher


And we're no longer even talking about Avatar in the Avatar thread...


Why is avatar such a cultural blank? @ 2023/06/07 07:13:17


Post by: Geifer


 ZergSmasher wrote:
And we're no longer even talking about Avatar in the Avatar thread...


It's almost as if Avatar is good enough to hold one's attention in the moment but in the long run there are more interesting things to talk about. Hmm, I'm sensing a theme.


Why is avatar such a cultural blank? @ 2023/06/07 09:10:13


Post by: Overread


Well there's that, but we are at 8 pages long and there isn't a fresh Avatar film that we are all rushing to go see right now. So with no actual new content and the same people mostly chatting its inevitable that the topic would - drift


Why is avatar such a cultural blank? @ 2023/06/07 20:50:09


Post by: LordofHats


 Geifer wrote:
 ZergSmasher wrote:
And we're no longer even talking about Avatar in the Avatar thread...


It's almost as if Avatar is good enough to hold one's attention in the moment but in the long run there are more interesting things to talk about. Hmm, I'm sensing a theme.


The most meta ending to a thread if ever there was one.


Why is avatar such a cultural blank? @ 2023/06/07 21:54:32


Post by: Backfire


 BobtheInquisitor wrote:
It could also just be as simple as the Colonel is the only actor with screen charisma.


It's bit of a same thing as why Palpatine feels cheer-able in the SW prequels, as he is almost only character who is not bland, CGI, or bland CGI.


Automatically Appended Next Post:
 Gert wrote:
I'm not saying it isn't good, far from as it is one of my favourite movies but it is not subtle about its criticisms and satirical nature yet people still think the humans are good guys because they have flashy guns, spiffy music, and the bugs are scary.


Hah, I once knew a guy who hated 'Starship Troopers' because it was 'so clearly Anti-American'


Why is avatar such a cultural blank? @ 2023/06/16 10:22:19


Post by: Aash


I’ve just watched the second avatar film, and after I finished it I realised I have no idea what the theme tune is!!

I wonder how much this has a bearing on the cultural impact. Even people who haven’t seen the movies can generally recognise John Williams’ scores from Superman, Indiana Jones and Star Wars.


Why is avatar such a cultural blank? @ 2023/06/16 11:12:26


Post by: warhead01


Aash wrote:
I’ve just watched the second avatar film, and after I finished it I realised I have no idea what the theme tune is!!

I wonder how much this has a bearing on the cultural impact. Even people who haven’t seen the movies can generally recognise John Williams’ scores from Superman, Indiana Jones and Star Wars.


I have the same problem with the majority of the Marvel movies. I can't recall any of them for the life of me.


Why is avatar such a cultural blank? @ 2023/06/16 11:52:44


Post by: Overread


There's a line between producing a theme song and producing background music. Both are highly talented and there's often a lot of music, even in films like Starwars, that's emotional and powerful that isn't the theme song everyone remembers.

That said I think also the way films start has changed. So many of the films that have big iconic theme songs, often had a fairly long intro before you got to the actual film itself. So the music for those parts had to be more of a theme than background because there was often just a few scenes or the pre-credits and such rolling.

I think as films have moved toward starting faster, with just the two or three company icons appearing and then boom right into the "film proper" we have slowly lost a lot of theme song options nad leaned more into background music that can be very dominating and powerful, but not as catchy.



It's not just an Avatar thing, I'd argue its a cinema thing in general right now.

I'd also say there's a touch of magic in it too and also in how music is blended into the film. I think some music stands out as music with the film whilst others blends right into the background and is part of the scene but isn't telling the story of the scene, its just noise. Esp in action films.


Why is avatar such a cultural blank? @ 2023/06/16 11:54:02


Post by: Flinty


 warhead01 wrote:
Aash wrote:
I’ve just watched the second avatar film, and after I finished it I realised I have no idea what the theme tune is!!

I wonder how much this has a bearing on the cultural impact. Even people who haven’t seen the movies can generally recognise John Williams’ scores from Superman, Indiana Jones and Star Wars.


I have the same problem with the majority of the Marvel movies. I can't recall any of them for the life of me.


Iron Man has a good theme based on the Black Sabbath song, while the Avengers theme is pretty iconic as well. Guardians doesn’t have one theme as such, but calls on all the period pop and rock used as its particular motif.

I think Marvel has done ok in terms of delivering good themes. There are so many films though that I don’t think it’s feasible for anyone to remember all of them.


Why is avatar such a cultural blank? @ 2023/06/16 12:38:29


Post by: Aash


I see what people are saying about the opening to films meaning we get less of a theme song. The opening of Superman is a great example of the theme song over a title sequence, but if the music is iconic enough it can still be pretty memorable. I think this is a bit of a loss for cinema to be honest, but there are still some examples of iconic movie music out there from the last couple of decades.

LOTR for example has a fairly recognisable main theme without the title sequence. And Dual of the Fates from episode 1 is pretty iconic too. Maybe not on the same scale as others with title sequences though.

As was pointed out, this isn’t an avatar thing, but I can’t help but wonder if Avatar had a title sequence and iconic title music if it would have left a more lasting impression on popular culture.


Why is avatar such a cultural blank? @ 2023/06/16 14:06:36


Post by: LunarSol


The Marvel logo has a very iconic theme as do the Avengers. Generally speaking though film scores are more built around dynamic arrangements than recognizable themes. There's some really great material out there from some major sound designers that go over things like this and why so many things these days demand subtitles.


Why is avatar such a cultural blank? @ 2023/06/16 17:23:13


Post by: Gert


Disagree about the Avatar soundtrack. The movie may be boring but the soundtrack is still amazing.


Why is avatar such a cultural blank? @ 2023/06/24 00:51:34


Post by: Commissar von Toussaint


 Overread wrote:
It's not just an Avatar thing, I'd argue its a cinema thing in general right now.

I'd also say there's a touch of magic in it too and also in how music is blended into the film. I think some music stands out as music with the film whilst others blends right into the background and is part of the scene but isn't telling the story of the scene, its just noise. Esp in action films.


The current mode of movie music is Hans Zimmer's OMINOUS CHORD. It just gets louder and louder as the film progresses.

This another deficiency of Avatar in the cultural sphere. As already noted, Star Wars actually got a disco version of its main title. Imperial March is iconic. It is now the go-to theme for a villain coming on stage.

Music composition has really taken a beating of late. The emphasis is on remixes and covers or mash-ups, including outright samples of the source material.

There are no heirs to Williams, Goldsmith, Barry, and Horner. Even the Avengers theme is just busy brass building, it doesn't have a real leitmotif as Horner's flailing horns did in Wrath of Khan.

Heck, 80s TV shows had better music than movies today.



Why is avatar such a cultural blank? @ 2023/06/24 09:53:57


Post by: Overread


I do wish the "fog horn" could be dropped from music too. They utterly freaking love that huge blaring foghorn sound. It was ok a few times, but these days it seems every time there's the big bad appearing everyone wants to reach for the foghorn.

We still have themes out there - Pirates of the Caribbean had quite an iconic theme and style.

But yes there's a lot of "busy" music in modern films that fills a moment; sometimes even dominating it. Whilst it works with the film and its emotions; we do have a lot less where you can then identify it after watching; or where its an epic bit of music in its own right.

Heck Starwars almost every other bit of music hits as heavily iconic to specific scenes, not just the Imperial March or intro


Why is avatar such a cultural blank? @ 2023/06/24 11:14:21


Post by: Henry


 Overread wrote:
Heck Starwars almost every other bit of music hits as heavily iconic to specific scenes, not just the Imperial March or intro


These are leitmotifs and Star Wars is a great example. If you have time, read this article which has a link to a document with all the leitmotifs. As bad as the last three films are, and to a lesser extent as poor as the prequels were, the music is outstanding. Phantom Menace's Duel of the Fates is solidly baked into our modern culture.


Why is avatar such a cultural blank? @ 2023/06/24 12:09:59


Post by: Commissar von Toussaint


 Overread wrote:
I do wish the "fog horn" could be dropped from music too. They utterly freaking love that huge blaring foghorn sound. It was ok a few times, but these days it seems every time there's the big bad appearing everyone wants to reach for the foghorn.

We still have themes out there - Pirates of the Caribbean had quite an iconic theme and style.


Hah! Funny you should mention that, because Hans Zimmer scored it and it uses almost the same music as the opening scene in Gladiator. Drove me nuts after I saw the first Pirates movie.

Zimmer gets way too much work. He's just not that good.

And yes, one can listen to the Star Wars soundtracks (especially Empire and Jedi) and essentially watch the film with your ears. The prequels have some moments, but their soundtrack isn't as expressive (probably due to the weakness of the films).

Huh, I see Horner did Avatar's score. Well, even the good ones have a dud now and then. Not his best work.