Spoilers Avatar: The Way of Water (2022) - Full Spoiler & Review Thread

[Kai "the spy"]

Okay, the movie's out. Several users, me included, have already seen it, so time for a full spoiler and review thread.

I've been a huge fan of the original, and the sequel delivered for me. I liked that Cameron didn't make a big mystery out of how Sigourney Weaver and Stephen Lang came back, but right out of the gate, here, this is how. Now, being honest, I'm not sure I buy the resurrection of Quaritch and his team made sense from a business perspective, but that's something I can easily shrug off. Some beats were similar, the Sullys learning the Metkayina's way of life mirrored Neytiri teaching Jake in the first film, the bully son of the chief was quite similar to Tsu'tey bullying Jake, and Lo'ak's tulkun friend served a similar function as Toruk in the respective finale. But there was more than enough new stuff, like the family dynamic, the broadening of the world, Quaritch as an avatar, Spider, and the hints of Kiri's true nature , and the familiar beats didn't even bother me.

And above all, the movie is just beautiful to look at.

The only thing I didn't like as much as the first movie was the theme song.

 

[mr.peany]

This was a massive disappointment for me. One of the worst films of the year for me, and I say that having sat through Jurassic World: Dominion.

Sure it’s visually appealing, but even that got a bit tiresome after the 54th tour of the ocean. I tired of the son continually being told to not do something, then immediately go and do it. The whole Tarzan son storyline was dull and Nekryteri literally got turned to into a screaming housewife.
The Aussie whaling captain was beyond irritating and on that note, I highly doubt that that key to eternal youth would only be worth 80 million.

I dunno, maybe I was just tired going into this, but I loved the first one. It had heart. This just felt like it was going through the motions. Cameron seemed overly concerned about whether or not he could as opposed to whether or not he should. The characters became had to distinguish. The death of the eldest son left me feeling cold and he did ship sinking better in Titanic.

3/10 for me. And that’s just for the visuals. Even that after a while felt like I was just watching a video game.

 

[valkyrie013]

10 for me, quite loved it.
Love Sigourney character.
Visually was absolutely stunning. The antimatter plume drop was ..damn..

But do agree, was a bit of a retread in a way, hope 3 goes a different direction.

 

[NCC-73515]

Even better than the first one. The animals are just beautiful, so many whale scenes (my favorite animals), the Na'vi look great again, and it had many little references to earlier JC movies (trapped in a sinking ship like in Titanic, the whole underwater theme like The Abyss, mechs like The Terminator, choppers similar to the Aliens dropship...). Glad to see that space shuttle thing return as well, it was the coolest of the Earth designs in the first one. "This is only your memories and your personality..." as he shows a little chip thing - I bet that chip is gonna get destroyed in Avatar 19 at the end

 

[John Clark]

Just back from seeing it.

Overall, I did enjoy it, though parts felt stretched out.

 

[Rich Watson]

Only managed sixth highest opening day of the year after Doctor Strange, Black Panther, Thor, Jurassic World and Batman.

Not good for a movie that in Cameron's own words needs to be one of the highest grossing ever before it makes a profit.

 

[John Clark]

There were only five people (Three of which were my group) in our showing, though admittedly, it was the first of the day and in the local town rather than the big cinema one.

 

[Kai "the spy"]

Only managed sixth highest opening day of the year after Doctor Strange, Black Panther, Thor, Jurassic World and Batman.

Not good for a movie that in Cameron's own words needs to be one of the highest grossing ever before it makes a profit.

You really can't wait to proclaim the movie a failure, huh?! Couldn't even wait for the first full weekend.

History lesson: The first Avatar had a domestic opening weekend of $ 77 million. Even twelve years ago, that's far from a huge record. In fact, the only record it set was as second-highest December opening, after I Am Legend. Now, that still means it had a bigger opening than any of the Lord of the Rings movies, which were massive December releases just a few years earlier, but still, earlier that year J.J. Abrams' Star Trek had an opening BO of $ 79.2 million, and Transformers: Revenge of the Fallen made $ 109 million on its first weekend.

What Avatar had more than any other movie that year was legs. On its second weekend, Avatar made $ 75.6 million. That's a drop of about $ 1.5 million, most movies tend to drop around 50-60% from the first to the second weekend. On its third weekend, it still made 68.4 million, so a drop of about ten percent from an already exceptionally high second weekend. And the following weekends saw similarly slow drops. People kept going to see it.

And that's just the domestic part, meaning North America. Avatar grossed "only" $ 760 million in the U.S. and Canada, but $ 2.12 billion in all other markets.

So, even if the domestic opening weekend of The Way of Water is less than the projected $ 150 million, it would still be in a good position compared to the first film at the same point during its run.

 

[thribs]

I was a bit disappointed with how it was just the humans as the baddies again and how they explained the return of Quaitch. I was expected something more.
Speaking of the humans, I did find them rather cartoony with their villainy. They just assume they have the right to take another planet which has people on it, and that they can kill sentient species. These are supposed to be humans in our future. Not the 19th century.
Anyway I hope there is more to that. They are a rebel group or something.

 

[XCV330]

I loved this movie, and the imax 3d experience was incredible. I enjoyed the plot more than the first one.

I do have to wonderhow Neytiri and Spider are going to get on, if at all. Was she just EXTREMELY good at bluffing or was she willing to kill the poor kid? I'm going with the latter. There were already signs of relationship trouble between Jake and Neytiri. I don't think they're about to approach a blue judge to discuss division of the furniture, but somehow i feel she wasn't asked about adopting Spider.

 

[thribs]

In the prequel comic she doesn’t like Spider very much so I’m betting she would have killed him.
Spider wasn’t adopted by them. The human scientists raised him. He just likes hanging around her kids. Especially Ciri.

 

[Lakenheath 72]

It's Kiri.
Humans are not consistent in their progress, and when they are threatened, they will resort to the ends justify the means mentality. Earth is dying (the description of Earth in the first movie's script makes it more clear how dire the situation is on the human home world- see the Avatar wiki [Earth | Avatar Wiki | Fandom]), and there is a world nearby that can sustained human life, so they would do everything they could to seize it for their survival.

James Cameron was influenced by the Vietnam War. People have complained about Quaritch's people doing bad things, like burning the villages and killing the animals. These things did happen in that war, as part of the allied American-South Vietnam effort of pacifying the population.

I felt that Spider was tolerated by most of the Sully family. I don't remember that much of a bond between Neytiri and him. It will be interesting to see how the sea reef clan respond to him.

The most distressing event in the movie for me was the hunting of the mother tulkun. Damned that was tough to watch.

My favorite new characters are Kiri and Tuk. The latter's jumping up and down when she was first in the sea reef village was adorable. I still have trouble with identifying the brothers Neteyam and Lo'ak.

 

[thribs]

They could colonise Mars and Titan. I'm sure they could find some McGuffin there to make them a lot of money.

Just don't go to Callisto.

 

[Lakenheath 72]

Did you mean Europa?

The film is not making as much money as some predicted. There are people who are celebrating this. For me, if it makes a good solid performance this weekend, that would be a thing to celebrate as China is in the grip of COVID and my country, the US, is seeing an increase in people getting sick and being sent to the hospitals.

 

[thribs]

No, Callisto. If you played the Callisto Protocol you would know why.

 

[StarMan]

Hmm. The first movie rejigged for the water world experience, with an expanded cast.

On the visual front - what else is there to say? Wow.

The Colonel's resurrection was unexpected. Glad to have him back - he was a good antagonist. Sigourney's character was interesting, as was the rogue whale. I quite enjoyed the relationship between the Na'vi and sentient whales.

I enjoyed it, in spite of a fairly predictable story and trite characterizations. Cameron has assembled a reasonably entertaining outing and jaw dropping visual feast, but it doesn't equal its predecessor. Yes, there is some magic there, but not to the same extend the original served up with an unparalleled visual experience, the introduction to Pandora and of course Jake and Neytiri's love story.

I'm not confident I see all the ingredients needed to catapult this into the top five grossing flicks of all time (which I mention only given Cameron's recent comments).

Did we need more Avatar? It was a special movie and has held up well on repeat viewings, but it never screamed for a sequel in my view. Well, if Cameron has his way, we're in for several. I hope if this does well enough to justify the outlay for follow-ups past #3, the formula gets a good shake up.

 

[XCV330]

One thing I don't understand is why humans need a new planet if they're capable of star travel. They could just build giant O'neil cylinders, and re-terraform Earth while they wait. That kind of "planetary chauvinism" as Asimov or O'neil called It (I can't recall, it was in a conversation between the two of them on a tv show) is what you come to expect from sci fi writers that just kind of write for a simple audience, but I wish that would stop. It's like still having computers that go beep beep boop when you type on a keyboard, or hidden bombs that blink and make noises.

But apart from that no issues. I just wish they'd have a better reason why humans are screwing up Pandora, apart from hte now largely forgotten unobtanium and now the whale gland juice .

 

[Smellmet]

Just got back from watching in IMAX 3D. Generally speaking I'd say it's on a par with the first, with obviously upgraded visuals. I thought it was a bit on the long side without the plot to justify it and I found the end battle, whilst still exciting, to be much more smaller scale than the original.

It is however absolutely jaw droppingly gorgeous to look at. It's almost too good on this front, scenes that would have you open mouthed in a 'normal' film are just everyday mundane sequences in this you get that used to the visuals and the world they inhabit.

I also found the HFR distracting at first (it's the first time I've seen a movie with this to be fair) but I quickly got used to it and ended up liking it eventually.

The cast were all great especially weaver and lang, and I'm looking forward to seeing more from this world, but I do think the story needs shaking up a bit. The potential is there for a lot more.

Bottom line is as a cinema experience it's probably the best one I've ever had, or at least since the 2009 movie. To be honest I feel like I need to watch it again on the big screen.

 

[Markonian]

Saw it earlier today.
Blown away. I knew the visuals would be great and I got some of the toys already, like the plesiosaur-like Ilu!
But the story has heart and is delightfully free of plotholes. The children are credible and likeable characters, I could relate to my own teenage years and see friends and siblings in them.

The groundwork is laid to send Quaritch down a slow path to redemption.

One of my favorite aspects were the documentary-style end credits. I would be amazing if there was a Attenborough-style mockumentary about Pandoran sealife.

 

[Lakenheath 72]

No, Callisto. If you played the Callisto Protocol you would know why.

I was thinking about the film 2010, where Humans were told by the monolith aliens not to go to Europa. I haven't played Callisto, so I don't what the situation is.

It looks like there will be only one film left in the Avatar franchise. Cameron said that if this film does not succeed, that he will complete the story in the next film. Avatar 2 underperformed and was lower than the lowest prediction.