I'll lay this out front: James Cameron's Avatar was one of the worst films I've ever seen, and the only reason I saw it was (1) my girlfriend at the time dragged me to it and (2) she let me drink alcohol (Alamo Drafthouse, ftw!). I am not Curtis Yarvin and I am nobody's relationship coach, but we'll take that as an example of Compromise. Anyway - on to the movie.
After the (bad) movie raked a LOT of money for a pastiche of the most-obvious tropes of Dances With Wolves and Fern Gully, some fans cropped up to the extent the conlang Na'vi got bespoke for a year or two. Lockheed stole the Venture Star spaceship's name for a X-33 replacement. In 2012 Stephen Baxter put out a science book. He may even have restrained himself from raping anybody in it.
We are now asked to survey its Legacy. There might not have been one. We don't see, say, meme gifs on Twitter much - even ironically. Critical Drinker deems it all a failure.
Cameron announced sequels at the time and every now and then floats the notion to the media, but he isn't a moron (financially) so he has to know that nobody wants more.
As far as this movie's Long Tail, the CGI advances were real, so various Marvel movies have been possible, and even a coming Dune remake that might not embarrass future generations. It may be that the most lasting contribution is the Venture Star spaceship model, which Winchell Chung more-than-less endorsed, although - again - I am unsure how well this holds up since 2012, and we have The Expanse now.
No comments:
Post a Comment