Reason #1:Box offices metrics suck
There’s some talk that Avatar is going to unseat Titanic as the highest grossing movie ever. I find this repulsive, both because this is a terrible way to judge how good or bad a movie is, and because, well, I use it all the time myself (this past year specifically in reference to the dark iron horse Fast and Furious) and I don’t want Avatar to win.
But, my hypocrisy notwithstanding, there are some very important things to take into account regarding Avatar’s box office numbers.
In 1997, I paid $7 to see Titanic.
In 2009, I paid $15 to see Avatar.
Even adjusted for inflation, this is insane.
I tend to like densely populated places, so these were both fairly high prices for movie tickets at the time, and location isn’t a major contributor toward the change in ticket price. Yes, I saw Avatar in 3D, but the 3D is there specifically to raise the price of the ticket, not because of the higher costs. It’s price inflation disguised as a “value-add.” For the sake of box office numbers, that doesn’t really matter, now does it?
Furthermore, according to the World Bank:
In 1997, combined global gross domestic product was $30.1 trillion in nominal terms.
In 2008 (the latest year of available data), it was $60.6 trillion.
So, between Titanic and Avatar, the price of my ticket more than doubled, and the size of the global economy also more than doubled. Talk about a fair fight.
But, to offer a little more insight, from the same source:
In 1997, the gross domestic product of China in dollar terms was $953 billion.
In 2008, it was $4.33 trillion.
That’s an increase of 354%.
None of this takes into account inflation, exchange rates, PPP, or anything like that. But the important conclusion is that there is a lot more money out there to be made today than there was in 1997, especially overseas, where there are also a lot more movie theaters with much higher ticket prices than there were 13 years ago. Plus, the distribution technology and logistics have caught up with the marketing, so studios can plan truly global launches for movies. They didn’t used to be able to do that, and they lost a lot of momentum for their tentpoles outside the United States.
Avatar is doing significantly better, relative to past blockbusters, overseas than it is doing in the United States. Not that it’s doing anything other than gangbuster business in either place, of course. I called this pretty early on — that if Avatar broke records, the records that would fall fastest would be global. There’s just simply more people out there watching movies, and they have more money to spend on movies, so if you make a movie that almost everybody who watches movies wants to see — which apparently they did with Avatar, kudos for that — it’s going to bring home a bigger haul than movies that people might have liked more, seen more often, or flocked to in greater concentration or with greater enthusiasm.
You don’t think they spent all that $150 million marketing budget in the United States, did you?
Until there is some sort of unified audience response metric that can adjust an individual film’s relative performance for the overall growth of the human population, the global economy, the movie industry and the price of tickets, individual movies will continue to take sole credit for the size of their piece of a larger pie.
And that means Avatar gets to take credit for a decade and a half of seismic global macroeconomic trends, thong-butted cat people and all.
That is, a movie with a ludditic, anticolonial, antiglobalization, anticapitalist message made by a major corporation gets to use the spread of global capitalism, technology and corporate supply chain management as proof that its computer-generated message about a nature goddess resonates with real people (who are also cats).
Overthinkers, I can think of few sentences I have ever written that have sucked more than that one.
Oh, yeah, Fenzel? Here's five reasons YOU suck: 5. You're pedantic 4. You don't edit your posts enough 3. Too many page breaks 2. I am awesome and you are wrong; FAIL! 1. Nobody cares about overeducated late twenty-somethings from New Jersey. RAWR!
“Avatar would be a lot more interesting if the aliens were like people in the important ways, but unlike people in superficial ways – like if they looked like rocks and didn’t appear to move much, but were individually sentient and communicated and built relationships with each other through speech or vibration.”
So, basically, you want the Horta in the next Star Trek movie?
@Fenzel: I love this article. Thanks for doing it. I’ve been spending most of the last two weeks defending my position on Avatar, and now I no longer have to. I can just send everyone to this post.
@Matt Alvarado: Horta in the next Star Trek movie? Best. Idea. Ever. (“PAIN! AAAAAIGH! PAIN!” — Classic.)
Yea! to the rss feed having the whole article.
Yea! to the awesome article.
Boo! to the fact that for all it’s awfulness and pain; I will join the masses and pay top dollar because this is a movie that should be watched on a big screen, not because watered down characters dressed with Calvin Klein fashion sense in a retread movie make me hot.
Nature is beautiful. We must defend it at all costs. Capitalism is evil. It is soulless and destroying the universe. Eat Burger King!
-A message from James Cameron
I dunno.
As someone who’s dispassionate about AVATAR (thought I didn’t hate it), I wish I could agree with all the points… but you missed what I think is far and away reason #1 the movie doesn’t work: the dialogue.
Cameron’s never been known for his writing. I get that. But while I’m willing to give a pass on the story structure and overfamiliarity — after all, how many stories are similar to those that have been told before? — I can NOT excuse his dialogue. It was the one place he could have actually made it original and/or interesting… no such luck. Absolutely terrible.
Here’s a sample:
Sigourney Weaver: “Hey, numbnuts!”
Michelle Rodriguez: “Get a load of me, bitch!” or “Suck it, bitch!” or “Can you pass me a napkin, bitch?!”
Stephen Lang: [insert random military cliche, like "Hoo-ah!" or "Lock and load!"]; alternately, “Here’s a reference to a movie from 200 years ago, that none of us have ever heard of or seen: ‘You’re not in Kansas anymore!’”
Without halfway believable or decent dialogue, it hamstrings the actors, who for the most part aren’t good anyway (I totally agree re: Worthington). And JESUS — it was like Giovanni Ribisi walked on to the wrong set, giving one of the worst performances I’ve seen in the last few years.
It made me realize: while the marines of ALIENS were about as cliche… that movie was supposed to be fun. A thrill ride. AVATAR, however, is “important.” While it’s also a thrill ride, it’s ultimately a message movie. And I think that hurts it most of all. (Also, compare Paul Reiser — no great actor himself — and the character of slimy corporate weasel Burke from ALIENS. Now compare Giovanni — better actor — and the character of slimy corporate weasel I-can’t-remember-his-name. Night and day. Except that Cameron’s character from 23 years ago was far, far richer and interesting, with about the same number of lines.)
Every time Cameron cut back to the humans, I immediately panicked… because I knew it meant more of his dialogue. As long as we were out running through the landscapes, I was fine with it. (The absolute star of the movie? Weta.)
Finally, I hate to see you bring in talk of box office totals — sure, the media doesn’t account for inflation, but what do you expect? Smart, balanced reporting? Instead, take solace in inflation-adjusted figures, and realize that AVATAR will never, ever have the total audience worldwide as classics like GONE WITH THE WIND, STAR WARS, etc. Isn’t that victory enough?
Found the criticism spot on. One thing I haven’t heard discussed is how Cameron glosses over the most fantastic idea of his premise, which is the actual mental-assumption of the avatar. With the humans cloning a being sans consciousness, they’ve essentially discovered eternal life. The ability to transfer consciousness from one body to a second (unthinking) one, would eliminate the many moral questions inherent in such an operation were the avatar to possess a sentient mind.
For this technology to have developed in the Avatar-World, I’m sure they’d have to have unlocked a myriad of mysteries of the mind/brain along the way. If they could transfer the data intact, they could potentially upload the same information to a network, and humans could live forever even without bodies, similar to what the Na’vi do biologically.
If the actual avatar body were simply a shell of neurons responding to remote commands from the scientists’ pods, (though it seemed a bit more involved than that to me), then their scientists would still need to possess an incredible understanding of the mind. Because James Cameron decided to focus on the other (less-inspired) visions of future technology like the mech-suits when featuring the humans, he avoided an altogether more intriguing focus. He could have raised new questions or new angles on old questions by asking What is consciousness? What constitutes a living being? If Jake assumes his avatar’s mind, is he robbing that being of its own future experiences, essentially aborting it? A true conflict could arise were the avatar to somehow become sentient and engage Jake in some sort of mind-conflict. Instead Cameron went with Capitalists:bad, natives: good. (By the way, I doubt any rational company would wreak havoc on an eco-system like that; there would be so much more money to be made by mining while still preserving the Life-Trees or whatever, in the ways of medical research, alternative fuels, etc.)
I think it goes along with Fenzel’s point about how the characters don’t reflect enough on their (incredible) situation. Jake gets a new body, and it’s just like “Sweet, now I get to be with my girlfriend.”
I second everything Mlawski said.
And I’ll also second what Brian Williams said (tell Tom I’m still sad he didn’t speak at my college graduation, for me, will ya?). And I’ll piggyback a bit and say I actually was expecting him to go in that “what is consciousness” direction at first, myself. When the hints about the plot started coming out, I thought it was going to be a mental battle between the human and the avatar, not a physical one between the Natives and the colonists. After all, it’s CALLED ‘AVATAR,’ not ‘Na’vi’ or ‘Battle for Pandora’ or anything like that. And, call me crazy, but I thought Cameron would go for something more edgy and less racistImeanunoriginal.
I still have not seen Avatar and I don’t intend to so I can’t really add much to the plot-based analysis that’s been going on, but just wondering – has anyone seen the recent news articles about people who leave Avatar “depressed and suicidal” because they’ll never get to go to Pandora? I mean, are the 3-D effects really that good? I would really, really love to meet one of these people and pick their brain about what they thought of the plot, or if they even noticed it at all.
On a side note, excuse me Avatar Jake, but you best be respecting overeducated New Jerseyans. There are more of us than the Jersey Shore would have you believe.
(And speaking of which, thanks for the Scotch Plains shout-out on 30 Rock, Brian Williams. My whole town was very excited.)
I think the worst thing about Avatar was not its flawed character design or dialogue. (I wasn’t too off-put by either.) What got me was the incredibly cliche’ed conclusion of the film, the macho showdown. This battle played out just as you’d expect it to, and there was very little difference from watching a battle in Lord of the Rings.
Now I actually enjoyed the first hour of the film because I like hardcore science fiction. I thought it was interesting how they made it seem like Pandora was “real,” like it was a place people work and live in. I liked how the Na’vi religion and spiritual stuff was scientifically explained… But once the whole “fight for survival!” stuff came, I felt like I was watching the battle at Pelinor Fields, but with blue direhorses instead of real ones. I was expecting to find a magic ring that controlled the entire Pandora ecosystem.
First of all, however much they spent on it, it was worth it. The movie is just jaw-dropping. I’ve never seen anything that looks remotely close.
HOWEVER… is there such a thing as a movie being TOO beautiful for its own good? I watched it on IMAX, and I don’t think anyone even BREATHED during this thing. No one cheered when something awesome happened, laughed at a joke, or even went to the bathroom (that I noticed). Everyone sat in stunned silence. I honestly think the overpowering visuals got in the way of connecting to the story and the characters.
Then again, it might have been that there wasn’t much to connect to. When I think about my favorite moments of the Lord of the Rings trilogy, a lot of them are Viggo or Ian McKellan doing or saying something awesome – not the big effects. Don’t get me wrong, big effects are peachy. But not to sound like a cliche, but what people loved about The Dark Knight was Heath Ledger, what they loved about Iron Man was Robert Downey Jr., what they loved about Star Trek was the prefect casting in general, etc. Sam Worthington may be a good actor, but he has precious little to do here.
Pete, I’m totally with you about the silliness of the Na’vi’s full frontal attack on the space marines. I can’t believe that was Jake’s master plan. Just charge with bows and arrows. I mean, he of all people should know their firepower and tactics. Can’t the Na’vi at least TRY to flank them or something? Build a couple of Ewok-style booby traps? His argument the scene before that was, “We know these mountains well, and they don’t.” But that doesn’t seem to really help them, does it?
My all-time favorite stupid movie battle tactics has to be The Matrix Revolutions, in which both sides are completely insane. The robots choose to kill hundreds of thousands of humans by literally stabbing them all to death, individually. Instead of, you know, dropping a big bomb, or some nerve gas canisters. And the humans have the ability to release these EMPs that will instantly kill any robot within a mile. And they choose not to do this because… actually, I’ve never understood it. Why, when on the verge of complete annihilation, do they not just use the damn EMP. Instead, Jada Pinkett Smith has to show up and use it. And then she gets scolded for reasons I don’t comprehend.
@Belinkie: “Sam Worthington may be a good actor…” Wow, that took balls.
;p
In all seriousness, though, do you enjoy it when you’re in the theater and people jeer and cheer and make a bunch of noise during the film? I see that happening more at event and hype movies than I do at “serious” ones. So it not happening for you at _Avatar_ was pretty strange, I’ll grant you, given the “event movie” nature it had/has, but I’m not surprised for reasons you yourself said: the script was lacking. The “comedic relief” wasn’t very funny (or at least wasn’t lolworthy- maybe tiny chuckles at most); what should have been big emotional, cheer-worthy moments (like Fenzel’s example of when Mighty Whitey turns down his legs) left a lot to be desired; when the main villain finally gets it; etc. I don’t really think it had to do with the visuals depicted onscreen, but just the lack of awesome in what was *happening* onscreen.
(So as a sidenote, I’ll postulate _Avatar_ was both a success and failure as an event movie. Yeah, it generated a lot of pre- and post-release hype (and is still raking in uber $$$$), but it didn’t generate the emotional experience and group enthusiasm *during the showings* more successful event movies have and do.)
And the reason I think it occurs that way is the nature of the presentation. Event and hype movies generate a sort of group mentality and appreciation, so it feels safer to make noise and stuff when viewing one. Whereas other movies, it doesn’t feel as “right” or “acceptable” to do so. When it *does* happen at “regular” (for lack of a better term) movies, the person is labeled by everybody else as “that” person. “*That* guy.” “*That* gal.” Basically, you’re part of the mob at an event movie if you do something that could be taken as distracting at another kind of movie. In the former, you’re one of many, in the latter, you’re a lone jerk.
And I hardly ever see people get up to go to the bathroom during movies, which is just a practical thing, imo- it costs a lot of $$ to go to the movies, so I assume people want to get their full monies’ worth and stay for every second of the film they possibly can. I know _I_ always go to the restroom right before previews to avoid getting up, and I’ve never been to the movies with people that did things differently. So I have trouble accepting they didn’t take a piss because the movie looked so pretty- my assumption is they already did it. And even without the fiscal aspect, it’s still distracting to get up in the middle of a movie, so again, back to what’s “acceptable” at movie theaters. Do you really want to single yourself out as “That Guy,” the one that couldn’t hold it in for twenty more friggin’ minutes? YEESH! It’s a matter of courtesy to your fellow viewers to relieve yourself in a timely fashion before the movie starts.
Of course, one could argue _Avatar_ was *so* pretty that they wet themselves in their seats.
@Belinkie in re: comment number 2 (you must have posted that as I was typing my first response to you… Ahem…) (so sorry for this double-post)
It sounds rather facetious, but I think your beefs with _The Matrix Revolutions_ are easily explained by the lack of religious (namely Christian) symbolism in the solutions you propose. Killing the robots with the EMP would have taken out opportunity for Neo to act as Jesus, etc. Jada getting scolded? That’s what happens when those Not Chosen try to play God or act above/beyond what God has planned for them- it’s naughty, they need to know their place. Both sides were protected by very blatant Plot Armor, ergo both sides acted totally stupid.
@Ken: I would watch the hell out of blue cat hobbits.
This review speaks the truth about this movie. I love how the story wasn’t denounced for its lack of originality but rather because that story is bad. However, I thought about none of these things when I saw the movie, twice. It’s weird, everything written is true, but I just don’t care.
It’s odd because I agree with the whole story problem, acting problem, and the idea that this article is critical for the sake of being over-critical. However, for people who don’t (I don’t know, write…..review….etc) the problems listed are non-issues. It was a fun movie, not dumb like Transformers but not emotionally character driven like The Blind Side (or whatever, you know, that movie that pulled on your heartstrings and made you think). Avatar uses its visuals to cover up some of these problems. Why not accept this? People don’t go to someone’s house and pick up the couch cushions to see if there’s a stain on the other side. Sure, the stain is there, but no one cares because you can just sit on the clean side.
Besides, now Cameron can write a story in this millenium. The sequel will, if Cameron follows logic, be better. He most likely won’t use a crummy formulaic storyline this time and he can work on his dialogue. This trilogy hopefully will not follow the current progression of sequel qualities. I’m talking about Spider-Man and Pirates of the Carribean.
I think Avatar is the Debbie Does Dallas of special effects porn.
@Tim, thanks for that comment. I think you’ve captured my feelings on this movie and these criticisms of Avatar in your words.
As for the sequel, if I were to trust anyone with making a sequel of anything, it would clearly be James Cameron. Terminator 2. Aliens. ’nuff said.
As for other recent sequel problems, sure, the 2nd and 3rd Pirates movies were crud-tacular, but 2nd Spider-Man movie was quality, no? The 3rd was a stinker, yes, but the first Spidey sequel in some ways exceeded the original.
It seems pretty inevitable that there will be an Avatar sequel, and I think it’ll be significantly better than the original. However, as with most franchises, it’ll start to stink pretty quickly after that point.
My prediction. You heard it here first.
Cameron is a hack, plain and simple. Why not just make a cartoon? Why go through all the time and money to develop this more “realistic” CGI when it borders on the cartoon form anyway. Show a cartoon in 3D; show it in IMAX. This is not ground breaking to me. Making a cartoon look less like a cartoon is not advancing the art of making films. It is advancing the art of making Hack-Films. I would have been more impressed if Cameron was actually creative by stripping off the gimmicks, (i.e. most of the movie) by filming in actual locations and putting actors in blue-laxtex and trying to create a BELIEVABLE world that way. Instead, Cameron creates the most expensive cgi-cartoon ever made. Cameron did indeed advance movie-making, he is the greatest hack who ever directed a movie.
AVATAR: The Sequel
(Several Earth months after the first movie, a NA’VI comes to one of the human research stations to find all the humans preparing to evacuate)
NA’VI: What’s going on? Where is everyone going?
SCIENTIST: Oh dear. We didn’t want to tell you, since there’s nothing we can do about it. A huge asteroid is heading for Pandora. The impact will probably wipe out all life on the surface.
NA’VI: Can’t you do anything? Take us with you!
SCIENTIST: We wish we could, but we simply don’t have enough resources to help you.
NA’VI: But with all your advanced technology, couldn’t you push it out of the way?
CORPORATE HACK: We might be able to, but that will be very expensive. Very expensive. And frankly, without a pesky biosphere in the way, it will be easier for us to get the Unobtanium we need. It’s not like we can live on Pandora without any help, so a devastated surface won’t matter.
NA’VI: Er……..
(Of course, it was the military that diverted the asteroid onto a collision course. But that’s Top Secret…)
Thank you for an excellent article. I wish I had written it, since it sums up my feelings about Avatar perfectly.
Ok, so me and my friend went to see this thing, where both black.
This is important for one reason, the movie is overally racist.
Only when a magic white man comes along do the Navi have any chance at all he’s so special, god talks to him , blah blah.
I could rant on this fact for days, but u know what, I would of been allright with the movie if the antangonist wasn’t so plan bland.
Take the douchbag general from every nam movie, you know the guy who likes war and killing( the big tree attack looked a heck of alot like naplam). Now roll them all into one. Refuse to give him any more of a reason to fight instead of pure rage. And to top it off we NEVER find out what unotitranium is used for, up until mr protagonist talks to god we know NOTHING about the earth being used up. ONE line to make the evil general guy more real is all i ask, a “i have a family to provide for back home, i don’t do this because its fun, i need this money”, instead we get “HELL YEA, IM KILLING SOME BLUE PEOPLE.” Don’t forget that while all the other humans in the movie can not be exposed to the air for more then 5 seconds or so without suffocating, this dude runs out of the air-lock command room and just starts firing at the one pilot who decides they want to abandon the military and fight for the blue people
To top all of this off the navi want to help a human right after seeing them destroy home tree. And since you can scientifically explain the navi’s connection to there land its now important to stop attacking them.
But do you want to know the stupidest part of this entire movie, it’s like district 9 , but instead of enforcing the reality of conquer’s essentially being wrong , although there stronger, the Navi win. District 9 got it right, you see the struggle oppressed people have, and its uncertain what will happen to them, or if they’ll ever be free. Avatar says, naw its happy if the Navi win. One word on the military tactics, im sure they’d just fire a precision guided curse or ballistic missile at what ever they want to destroy. But NOOO , even with your advance technology the forest creatures come to save the day. I’m pissed since i was hyped for this movie, why the F*** did james cameron neglect his plot while coming up with special effects.
This movie needs to be taken as a comedy, the way he bumps into a navi girl that just happens to speak english, how he’s all of a sudden a good person since he gets his freak on and thinks “hey, there not so bad” . We don’t hear any negotiations that break down about a peaceful move, naw, JUST ACTION ACTION ACTION, crap plot, love story, ACTION, somehow protagonist becomes a real navi at the end.
Best looking movie ive ever seen though, just with a crap plot.
I hate it when people disagree so much over which dumb, cliched, stultifying, off-putting aspect of a movie like this is the most dumb, cliched, stultifying and off-putting aspect. Can’t we all get along?
@David – Normally, I’d agree with you. But this isn’t some dumb blockbuster that everyone understands is just there to sell Happy Meals. This movie is probably going to win Best Picture. Let me repeat that: Avatar will most likely be crowned the greatest cinematic achievement of 2009. And because of that, this movie’s flaws MATTER.
On the other hand, everytime I start to preemptively complain about Avatar winning Best Picture, I always then think, “Well, what SHOULD win Best Picture?” That’s the catch – it’s a weak year for movies (thanks writers strike). There were plenty of good movies, but nothing seemed to get much buzz going. Nobody seems EXCITED about anything, except for Avatar. In the end, I think it’ll win partially because none of the other movies have any momentum, and partially because, for all its flaws as a piece of storytelling, it is the single prettiest thing ever made.
Are 3D glasses made from unobtanium?
@Matthew
District 9 obviously, its everything Avatar wants to be and fails to capture and it didn’t suck up hundreds of millions of dollars to make. Its message was more subtly entwined into the action and bolognium rather than being smashed into your face every 10 minutes. I didn’t even particularly like the action sequences but I still left the theater with the feeling I had spent my 10 bucks well.
District 9 is a cupcake, Avatar is a shit filled twinky.