Avatar: The Way of Water

[ebor]

The reason I bring up repeat viewings all comes down to how much you care about whale bonding and illegal whaling especially illegal whaling on Alpha Centauri lol

I do wish…..spoiler ahead…

The main whaler bad guy got a better death.

He will ‘be back’. And he will need ‘a bigger boat’. And he will have a hook for an arm

 

[jye4ever]

I still can’t believe this movie was shot inside a boring brown warehouse.

The world felt so freaking real this time.

That HFR is something else especially in the hands of this madman.

It truly is Avatar on steroids.

 

[jye4ever]

You mentioned wanting to see more Na'vi vs. machines...it seemed to have another aspect that echoed T2 in that T1 was humans vs. a machine and then T2 was machine vs. machine while A1 had human vs. avatar compared to avatar vs. avatar in A2.

If I were to guess where this is going I would lean toward humans vs. Na'vi conflict resolved next movie and then both fighting a common enemy (new alien invaders perhaps) in the fourth. Supposedly whatever happens in the fourth movie shocked the studio execs when Cameron pitched it to them.

Regardless of what happens all I know is fighting to protect their kids >>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>> fighting to protect a tree, lol.

HFR train heist...

Woohoo!

I can't speak for anyone else's take on rewatchability but I saw this three times in one week (9 hours! ) so yes it definitely holds up for me, lol.

I'm not going to bother with spoiler warnings since it's been two full weekends now so if you haven't seen it (and haven't let the whole movie be spoiled by YouTube parodies which is just crazy to me) then continue reading at your own risk.

I did like that Quaritch yielded for the sake of Spider. IMO they planted the seeds for that with him interrupting the mind probe interrogation and continued it with their growing camaraderie throughout the film. In fact I thought they had established it so well that I was actually surprised when he first acted like he didn't care if Spider died. I was even a little disappointed that they were seemingly taking the easy road of making him a one-dimensional "evil" villain. But when he showed his cards and yielded I immediately realized that to me he is an absolutely awesome character and easily the best movie villain of the year.

Obviously Spider's existence is a retcon to expand the story (more on retcons later, a couple of them are strikes against the movie) but I think that introducing him in a seeming vacuum with no connection whatsoever to his father as portrayed in the previous film actually allowed the audience to see him as nu-Quaritch did. Just a kid with an intellectual connection to the character (implanted memories) but not actually by blood and with no real history to speak of. But Spider's character was so well written and so well portrayed by the actor that I found it very easy to believe that Quaritch would allow his mental awareness of Spider's connection to his previous life to develop into a real bond. And of course it offers another facet to the overarching theme that fathers protect their kids at the expense of all else.

And this might be the single most pro-father movie we've seen in a generation! Two dads willing to give up everything to protect even their adopted kids (Kiri and Spider) while Neytiri was willing to sacrifice both! A father portrayed as logical and pragmatic and a mother portrayed as emotional to a fault? What year is this again?? lol

Going back to Quaritch though I didn't realize it at first but I also love that we're getting an evolution of the "Uncle Bob" thematics. You take the villain from the first movie, put all of his intelligence/knowledge onto a little rectangular CPU, put it in a new body that can learn on its own and voila, Uncle Bob "Avatar" style. And it was awesome!

And yeah, I can't say enough about the kids. I finally learned the girls' names after three showings (Kiri and Tuk) but I'm still working on the brothers, lol. The younger brother was pretty much the main character of this movie and man did he do an unbelievable job of carrying his scenes. The acting across the board was just on a whole other level compared to the first, especially Sam Worthington. He conveyed so much even in silence when reacting to everything that was going on around him. I got emotional all three times he "visited" his son at the end.

My only nitpicks are what I consider to be some minor dumbing down of the lore to make way for the new direction he is taking the story. Things like the super isolated sea Na'vi already knowing English when the first film was quite clear that the only Na'vi who spoke it were the ones educated at Grace's school. Also the viperwolves ignoring Quaritch's team on account of them being avatars contradicts the pack that attacked Jake his first night in the woods. But that's pretty much it and on the scale of "headcanon tweaks" are pretty easy to justify. I'll just assume that in the 15 or so years since the first movie Jake used his Tarok Motko status to get the word out on learning the Sky People's language and I guess I'll have to assume that the viperwolves attacked Jake because they were annoyed by his fire, lol.

This movie was an epic rollercoaster of both thrills and emotions, I can't believe Cameron is now 3/3 when it comes to directing sequels and kudos to him for bringing the new Planet of the Apes writers on board to help with the script because it was much more solid than the first.

a-dev be like….

 

[jye4ever]

He will ‘be back’. And he will need ‘a bigger boat’. And he will have a hook for an arm

Actually there was a thematic reason for his loss of an arm.

It matched the whale having a missing fin due to the whalers so it was whale revenge with the cable.

 

[jye4ever]

Oh btw HFR 3D gave me ZERO headache or eye strain after 3 hours!

Like I said Cameron is a madman!

 

[Khev]

Actually there was a thematic reason for his loss of an arm.

It matched the whale having a missing fin due to the whalers so it was whale revenge with the cable.

I totally did not make that connection!

Now I'm also realizing the parallel with him saying "they are very tough bastards to kill" because for a while it seemed like he himself had nine lives during that final battle until the whale finally finished him off.

 

[jye4ever]

I totally did not make that connection!

Now I'm also realizing the parallel with him saying "they are very tough bastards to kill" because for a while it seemed like he himself had nine lives during that final battle until the whale finally finished him off.

I think Cameron is going to have Denis Villeneuve direct an Avatar movie

 

[Otomofan]

You saw it HOW many times and didn't see the "arm for an arm, fin for a fin" thing?

Sheesh....I watched a crappy lo-fi camprip of it and the severed arm practically flew out of the screen and slapped me, it was so obvious!

 

[jye4ever]

If Avatar 2 breaks into the top 10 of all time Disney will own 9 out of the 10 spots!

Poor WB lol

 

[Khev]

I think Cameron is going to have Denis Villeneuve direct an Avatar movie

Tim Miller is all:

 

[jye4ever]

Tim Miller is all:

Holy crap lol

 

[Khev]

You saw it HOW many times and didn't see the "arm for an arm, fin for a fin" thing?

Yep that bit went right over my head just like his arm, lol.

 

[Misterbadguy]

Just back from seeing it in IMAX 3D (no HFR screenings close to me sadly). Few pros and cons:

Pros:
- Visuals are genuinely unbelievable, WAY ahead of the curve of anything else out there, genuinely looked photoreal for longer than just fleeting moments
- Fantastic action setpieces - a bit derivative of his previous films sure, but engaging all the same. The big finale was the star of the show in this respect
- Worldbuilding, for both the humans and Na'vi alike, remains as excellent as it was for the first film
- The kids were honestly fine as characters, there's always a risk of them being insufferable to some degree

Cons:
- Definitely too long by about 20 minutes or so
- Dialogue isn't the greatest, got quite hokey at times
- Why do they insist on using the Papyrus font for subtitles, it looks awful
- Story is certainly not going to change the way you look at film, it's definitely a retread of the first film of sorts

An easy recommendation, imo. It's got everything you'd want from a classic blockbuster.

 

[batsheva]

Just back from seeing it in IMAX 3D (no HFR screenings close to me sadly). Few pros and cons:

- Why do they insist on using the Papyrus font for subtitles, it looks awful

It's because in an interview, James Cameron said that he saw the Ryan Gosling clip about Avatar using Papyrus font, and he's like, that's it!! from now on.. We're gonna slap that font more and more in the movie!
And he kept his word.

 

[Misterbadguy]

I had to look up the Ryan Gosling thing, what a bizarre set of circumstances. Reminds me of when reshoots were done for Snakes on a Plane in order to give Sam Jackson his one-liner since it had become a meme online.

 

[Khev]

I thought it was just the opposite and Cameron changed the title font to not be Papyrus after that sketch.

 

[jye4ever]

1B in 12 days

Tied with NWH and TFA to 1B.

Only 2 faster than Avatar:

Took IW 11 days

Took EG 5 days

 

[batsheva]

I thought it was just the opposite and Cameron changed the title font to not be Papyrus after that sketch.

you can see the interview that I'm talking about here.

He's not the type that will surrender to that sketch.. hahahaha. He fights back! XD

 

[Wor-Gar]

1B means nothing to Cameron. 2B means nothing. He wants to be the first to 10B... and then 1T.

 

[ironwez20]

1B in 12 days

Tied with NWH and TFA to 1B.

Only 2 faster than Avatar:

Took IW 11 days

Took EG 5 days

So. He is a sith