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

[Serveaux]

Good Vox article on the chimera of "cultural relevance:"

James Cameron’s sequel is the global smash no one is talking about

TL;DR: Too many commentators are apparently confused by the fact that Cameron's people aren't trying quite hard enough to sell us merch.

 

[The Knappos]

Having an 11 year old boy, I can confirm there's Lego and action figures in toy stores.

The Lego store had a dedicated display before Christmas. I don't think they still do though.

 

[Lakenheath 72]

Too much kiddie friendly merchandise for a franchise can lead to crap films. My favorite example is Return of the Jedi.

 

[Serveaux]

It seems to me that, now that Disney owns this franchise, that when they want to move into VR in a big way this is the natural property with which to make their forays.

 

[Serveaux]

TWOW has passed The Avengers 2012 to enter the domestic top ten all-time box office.

 

[Lakenheath 72]

Some think that Avatar will be "de-throned" from the number one spot by "A Knock at the Cabin". I am skeptical as it is a M. Night Shyamalan movie, and this director has had more misses than hits.

 

[Serveaux]

It would be awesome if TWOW rolled over Shyamalan, but it's very unlikely.

 

[The Knappos]

I think by virtue of having run this long it’s not impossible. I wouldn’t have called Knock at the Cabin as the one to do it. But theatrical runs are all very front loaded these days and Avatar 2 has had an abnormally consistent run in terms of weekly drop offs, a steep cliff gets more and more inevitable every Friday

 

[Unicron]

I finally had a chance to see it tonight. It was visually entertaining and pretty fun overall, though I do feel like elements of the film got padded out a bit to fill the run time. I also found it kind of funny that the invading forces have these cool new jets (the Seawasps), but they're fairly easy to take down by one-shotting the pilots with a spear or arrow, every single time.

 

[JD]

Having an 11 year old boy, I can confirm there's Lego and action figures in toy stores.

The Lego store had a dedicated display before Christmas. I don't think they still do though.

If they have Avatar Lego sets, then maybe we could an Avatar LEGO video game, which could be awesome.

I think by virtue of having run this long it’s not impossible. I wouldn’t have called Knock at the Cabin as the one to do it. But theatrical runs are all very front loaded these days and Avatar 2 has had an abnormally consistent run in terms of weekly drop offs, a steep cliff gets more and more inevitable every Friday

If A Knock at the Cabin door doesn't do it, I'm pretty sure Quantumania will.

 

[Rich Watson]

In a perfect example of "you couldn't make it up", Avatar 2 has been blocked from overtaking Titanic at the all-time box office this weekend by... the re-release of Titanic.

 

[Smellmet]

It's slowing up big time now, it was ahead of the first film at the domestic box office (within the same time frame) for the entirety of it's run so far and has now been overtaken by it - 661 million plays 646 million at the same point since release, and we know that the original film still had another 100m to bag domestically.

 

[Serveaux]

TWOW should settle into third place worldwide, behind the original and then Endgame - and ahead of every other film ever made.

Not bad for a thirteen-year gap between movies. It'll be real interesting to see how Avatar 3 performs.

 

[Smellmet]

TWOW should settle into third place worldwide, behind the original and then Endgame - and ahead of every other film ever made.

Not bad for a thirteen-year gap between movies. It'll be real interesting to see how Avatar 3 performs.

Assuming the third movie comes out in December 2024 I think it will be a really big test for Cameron at the box office, as whilst the second film had a 13 year gap which, on one hand had a lot of people saying 'no one cares about it any more' it was also a big enough gap to showcase some new technology, which I don't think the third can really lay claim to in this two year timeframe unless Cameron pulls something special out of the hat - which he's every chance of doing to be fair.

Personally I think it would be a big achievement if the third movie performs as well as the second one. Interesting indeed as we haven't seem Cameron bring a film out with this regularity since the 80's.

 

[Serveaux]

TWOW has passed Titanic and is now the third most successful film in history.

 

[YellowSubmarine]

If one skips the ads, there are more interesting thing about the way the things were modelled than in Behind the Scenes, including the improved facial capture that uses a deep learning model of the face and muscles, on how the water simulation was done, and a breakdown of the Spider & Quarich shot at the end. The other chapters don't seem to contain much new information, except for the hair one, but even if the underwater shooting was already in the behind the scenes, I think it emphasises why Cameron was so hell bent on shooting it actually underwater, outside of his love for submarine stuff. And also several 4K shots (potential spoilers!) that look better than they did in the low-quality trailers, and frankly better than in the IMAX theatre I watched it in.

 

[Markonian]

I am glad to hear TWOW has been successful. The kids are interesting characters and I'd like to see more of their adventures.

 

[YellowSubmarine]

They already have ingrained wisdom and perspectives their parents lack. I love them.