Amph James Cameron's Avatar (The Way of Water + sequels)

I don't think any of the recent 3-hour movies relied heavily on 3D as part of the appeal.

 

Considering how much movie tickets cost, I'm not taking a chance on missing the coolest moment of the story by walking out without being able to pause the action. If you're going to make movies that are too long for the average bladder, bring back intermissions.

 

Remember George Lucas never planned to heavily supervise and run the show. When the Empire Strikes Back got into serious production problems Lucas had no choice but to throw in. Knowing Lucasfilm wouldn’t survive a second production like Empire required George to be heavily involved with Jedi.

I think James Cameron is being a smart showman saying we might not get Avatars 4 & 5. That leaves the audience wanting more before they even get more. Also it’s sort of daunting for an audience and invites backlash to push 4 movies from the start.

 

Yeah, the roadshow version of The Hateful Eight had one.

 

He seems to be missing the pretty glaring difference between binging a TV show (or even watching a long film) at home and watching a film at a cinema - at home you can hit the pause button at your leasure. He says "it's okay to get up and pee", but I wouldn't want to miss anything just because I need to go to the loo.

 

yah I've heard Judd Apatow (who makes 2 and half hour comedies on average) compare binge watching to longer movies but honestly the setting, personal comfort and ability to, y'know, pause and not miss anything makes them pretty awful comparisons. He's basically saying go ahead and miss a chunk of the movie which goes against it being that long.

Anyway that's just gripes, this quote I think is more relevant about Cameron's view on what the box office benchmark should be

"If we did 20 per cent or 30 per cent less because the market simply doesn't exist anymore, that would be bad."

Honestly, I think he's overshooting it on it's box office return being "bad" at 20 or 30 percent less. I mean Avatar made 2.84 billion dollars. Less 50% would still be a billion, that's great! Even 900 million, still great! 800 million, maybe a slightly raised eyebrow but still like fairly great. 700 million, people will probably start freaking out but it's also 700 million fer crissakes.

 

The poor man is confused because he has a personal theater. "Let them eat cake" = "Let them pee"

 

What? You poors don't have these?

 

The surround sound bounces off that oven like nothing else. Makes ya feel right there on Pandora.

 

He always has, so shouldn’t be a surprise.

Also, Cameron is a good technician/ craftsman, but a really mediocre artist, in my view. And he’s sensitive about that. So when his artistry is criticized, he gets super defensive. And often preemptively dickish, as he does here. I never understood the lionization of Cameron, and never will.

What a blowhard. As if he has even an ounce of the creative talent Tolkien had.

One of the finest questions I’ve ever seen on these boards. The answer is that there are people who do it, but psychologists and other social scientists have no idea why.

 

Still have yet to see a single image that makes me really at all interested in this. Not a single "I need this in my eyeballs now" moment. Maybe he's saving the **** for the next trailer. So far, yeah, the sea life imagery, and water, and all the Navi, looks nice n all...but....I dunno.

It's still a big ol' shrug for me.

 

Well 20 years ago i could sit in a 3 hour Lord of the Rings films without going to bathroom , no way would i be able to see Return of the King today in theatre without going to bathroom twice maybe 3 times lol

 

Yeah, but he's just so annoyingly arrogant about having had to "write the books first!"

His ego gets in the way of the truth of the matter: he's making a bunch of Fern Gully in Space with Big Cats movies.

 

I have actually seen Fern Gully, dear, and I'll tell you, Avatar is no Fern Gully!

 

Yeah, I know. He just annoys me.

He’d be less annoying if his creations were actually impressive. But they’re just so cliched, derivative and mediocre. That makes his self-aggrandizement much worse.

Lucas has a claim to beings genius creator, as does Tolkien. Cameron is miles below that level.