Classic Film Review #36: Avatar and Avatar: The Way of Water
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The commercial impact of James Cameron’s films has always been clear for all to see. Whether it’s Aliens, Titanic or The Terminator, the Canadian auteur is about as much of a sure bet as you can get when it comes to box office returns. However, Avatar and to a lesser extent its sequel, The Way of Water, occupy a different financial stratosphere to those films, with the first instalment of the planned five-film franchise still standing proudly as the highest grossing picture of all time.
That is a testament to Cameron’s own bravado, which saw him work in parallel with the visual effects powerhouse Wētā FX to devise pioneering motion capture techniques which allowed Avatar to blaze a trail for the 3D and 4D viewing experience. Even today, the film cannot help but be viewed as a technological triumph, while its aforementioned sequel demonstrated an even deeper commitment to innovation by being filmed back-to-back with its planned sequel and also being the first picture to include performance capture material that was shot entirely underwater.
When you take all of this into consideration, you certainly cannot question the Avatar films’ willingness to challenge the status quo. Nonetheless, their legacy become more problematic to define when you begin to consider their cultural impact (or lack thereof). Narratively speaking, both films are cumbersome and predictable, with their gratuitous running times and grating white saviour complex not helping proceedings. Their characters, with the exception of Zoe Saldana’s Neytiri, are also forgettable and burdened by dialogue that is more often than not lazy but, at its worst, could rightfully be viewed as an act of cultural appropriation.
There is also a broader question to be asked around just how much Avatar’s technical innovations are of benefit to cinema. It is of course imperative that filmmakers push the boundaries of their medium, but one has to wonder just how palatable a future in which over three-quarters of a picture’s content is computer-generated would be. Such quandaries essentially are of course a matter of taste, but I for one am not overly enamoured by such a concept.
