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 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.

 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?

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.

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.

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

 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.

 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.

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.

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.

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.

 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.

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.

 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.

 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?

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…

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.

*coffcoffHoldoManeuvercoffcoff*

 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).

 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.

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?

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.

 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.

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.

 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....

 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.

 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.

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).

 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.

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.

 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"?