The _Avatar_ sequel, presumably also directed by James Cameron

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=d9MyW72ELq0

I feel in his heart of hearts Cameron would have preferred to just make an IMAX movie of people scuba diving, but he probably also thinks millions of people around the planet have been wondering what's up the magical world of Avatar and its colorful characters.

all I can think of are those sea monkeys that used to be advertised in the backs of comic books

"Blrrb. Blurrble blurb blur."

"Blurbbb!!! Blurrr bla blurb brbbble!"

omg someone call burt stanton, mystery finally solved

grimreaponium

“We’re in a different world now than we were when I wrote this stuff, even,” Cameron continues. “It’s the one-two punch—the pandemic and streaming. Or, conversely, maybe we’ll remind people what going to the theatre is all about. This film definitely does that. The question is: How many people give a shit now?”

The final runtime of James Cameron's 'Avatar: The Way of Water' is 3 hours and 12 minutes, three minutes shorter than 'Titanic.' pic.twitter.com/gLKPPHpSyA

— The Film Stage 📽 (@TheFilmStage) November 21, 2022

Well I’ve chipped in to the Let Cameron Be Cameron fund — $100 for four IMAX seats on the opening Friday night.

And $100 for the motorman's friend you'll need.

Especially with the $20 beer I'll probably buy.

Not that I always get my movie opinions from Uproxx, but I want to believe.

AVATAR: THE WAY OF WATER: Yeah never bet against James Cameron. Trying to spare hyperbole, but I’ve never seen anything like this from a technical, visual standpoint. It’s overwhelming. Maybe too overwhelming. Sometimes I’d miss plot points because I’m staring at a Pandora fish

— Mike Ryan (@mikeryan) December 6, 2022

it’s gonna be dope

Wider range of reactions here, some complaints about thin story and characters (duh) but basically everyone's like, Yah, this is cool.

https://variety.com/2022/film/news/avatar-2-first-reactions-james-cameron-masterpiece-1235451389/

These post screening "first reactions" dumps are always the same. "Cameron's best movie yet!" Like, no one thought it wouldn't look cool, no one thought Cameron was going to shit out some totally inept effort. Looking cool and being well-made are the minimal Cameron standards. Lately (which is to say, his last 30 years/three films), good acting and story and writing ... not so much. And those are the things that will keep me away, not the run-time.

can't even be spared of your opinion of this movie you haven't seen and won't see

Gonna stick with the knockoff mockbuster:

https://i.ytimg.com/vi/LkXg1YnbuU4/maxresdefault.jpg

Looks dope!

boosters otm itt

The first avatar definitely one of those movies that looked ridiculous in the trailer and then wound up being genuinely good and even likable in its sincere willingness to appear silly and have the audience identify wholly with a newly created alien species and against the human villains. I agree with some of the consensus that the first film maybe didn’t have some sort of massive pop culture impact but that may also be due to the overwhelming ubiquity of the Disney machine taking up a lot of the air in the room w marvel and Star Wars. At the same time it really was a singularly massive success and that success is probably even more impressive considering its lack of ties to any pre-existing material.

I'm excited as hell for the new one but let's not pretend that the first one was not a James Cameron movie with a major studio marketing budget, not exactly the Little Indie Movie That Could

no one's pretending that ffs

it is a labor of love with a major studio marketing budget, the domain of spielberg and cameron pretty much exclusively these days

I saw the trailer for this in the cinema and I absolutely cannot wait not to see this. The purples and teals are like a Thomas Kincade painting, kitsch beyond kitsch, the beings are fully CGI as far as I can tell, with all the problematic mouth movements that implies.. I mean I guess if your favourite part of Marvel movies are the entirely CGI scenes of large groups of magical beings swirling around each other then this is for you

justice for roger dean, i will not rest

I didn't really care about the story in the first one, and barely even remember what it was about, but it looked dope in 3D and felt worth it for that alone.

I was at the premiere in Leicester Square last night! Well I walked past it and it was very loud and there were people watching from the 1st floor of Burger King, then much later I realised what it was. It was as obnoxious as any other premiere in Leicester Square.

xxxxxxxxxxxxetcp Brad, my post wasn't responding to you but also, I get that it's a labor of love but my point being, it's not exactly a miracle that it made $$$$$ at the box office

I barely remember the first one for its plot - but I remember that I saw it in 3D at the cinema in a particular bleak period (weather-wise) between Christmas and New Year and it was like a mini-holiday of a film.

the first movie was dull and looked horrible, there was never any justification for sequels beyond the pursuit of cash, this blockbuster rollout fills me with ennui

Reasonably interested in this following the reviews even though I hated the last one

My chance of wanting to wear someone’s previously warmed-up 3d goggles in the covid era is a strong zero percent however

The thing that actually got me psyched for this movie was doing the 3D Avatar ride at Disney World back in February. That was awesome and made me want more.

Which is to say, if the movie successfully approximates an amazing theme-park ride, I'm in. (Sorry Morbs, R.I.P.)

I found the Avatar 3D ride equally disappointing, although I did enjoy the Pandora boat ride, it was more chill and psychedelic

god of war looks better than this, no idea why anyone would want to return to this nonsense cycle

One of the most credulous-unto-bootlicking reviews I've ever read of anything. "I still believe in him." What are you, eight?

Still remember the day I found out James Cameron wasn't real :(

Lol

Surely it would've been cheaper to just release the first one again?

They dare to hunt sacred water animals in stunning sequences during which you have to remind yourself that none of what you're watching is real.

i don't think i would have to remind myself that none of what i'm watching is real

Surely it would've been cheaper to just release the first one again?

He likes making these films and his audiences like watching them, so where's the harm in churning out a sequel or two? Or five? It keeps him busy and employs a whole bunch of visual artists.

Surely it would've been cheaper to just release the first one again?

The thing that actually got me psyched for this movie was doing the 3D Avatar ride at Disney World back in February. That was awesome and made me want more.

― a man often referred to in the news media as the Duke of Saxony (tipsy mothra), Wednesday, December 7, 2022 11:48 AM (one week ago) bookmarkflaglink

I was a skeptic going in but was ultimately sold on Avatar Land. It's a cool space with cool rides. Which is what this franchise should be centered on because the movie was like a whole lotta nothing. And the trailer for the new one is like...Cameron, have you taken a gander at any of the sci-fi/fantasy stuff made in the past decade? Because this looks like a mash-up of all that stuff which already exists (and which probably partly ripped you off but still).

It keeps him busy and employs a whole bunch of visual artists.

This reminds me of a story I saw somewhere about how both The Abyss and True Lies have basically been ready to release on Blu-ray for ages--transfers, new extras, the works all ready to go--but they need Cameron to go over everything and sit for his own contributions (interviews, commentaries etc). The producers approached him a few years ago asking for like a week tops to work with them and he said he couldn't even spare a couple days because of everything Avatar.

It's been a long enough time now that they'll have to (if they haven't already) rescan everything now for 4K & above so these things can be released.

Avatar: James Cameron's New Jersey.

Get to know Spider, a human friend of Jake and Neytiri's children in #AvatarTheWayofWater https://t.co/SX6II6W2yk

— rob delaney (@robdelaney) December 16, 2022

More seriously, I just learned that at least some screenings of this are high frame rate. Has any blockbuster tried that since the shitty Hobbit movies, which also looked shitty?

ang lee's gemini man?

once again can't wait to see avatar 2

I had the afternoon off so took in a matinee of this.

Why Cameron thinks he needs 5 movies to tell this story is kinda beyond me when there’s really barely a story in this 3 hour movie. Looks great, as to be expected, but after the novelty wears off this world and its conflicts and characters are still unfortunately just… dull. Why main dude has like, idk, 5-6 kids in this who take up a lot of screen time yet are mostly indistinguishable and given just shards of a personality is beyond me.

Only really takes off during the action sequences and when cool military tech shows up. The stuff Cameron’s always good at. But even that’s kinda wearing thin and feeling repetitive.

So yeah, it’s an Avatar movie I guess. Don’t know what I expected. Maybe that it would build into something more interesting after the stage setting of Pt. 1, but unfortunately it doesn’t.

RE: frame rate. Not sure if there’s a full 48 FPS version of this, but my screening would switch between 24 and 48 frames per second. 48 for the Big Spectacle Moments obv. The 48 stuff definitely popped more, I kinda dug it even though motion smoothing features on TV’s make me gag.

As expected, I enjoyed the new one. It has all the same strengths and weaknesses of the first one - can't imagine it will interest anyone who didn't like the first movie. The story was a little more complex this time around, but the extra runtime it added was not really worth it; it takes like an hour to get to any new locale. Pare the story and number of characters down and this could have been a tighter movie without losing any of the best parts

But man, pretty much any shot showing above or below the ocean is gorgeous

Also kinda funny that the final set piece is like 3-4 different Cameron movies in a blender