Avatar 2 - The Way of Water Dec 2022

[footle]

The 3D and HDR was great. The HFR was great. The bits where it skipped out of HFR to  standard frame rate not so great to the point that some bits looked like bad videogame cutscenes.

action good. Middle bit probably five to ten minutes too long. Plot - it’s an excuse for lots of water scenes and some action. Character names - who knows?!?!?!

[footle]

Loik - you’d definitely have noticed the framerate change thing. (My wife didn’t but did notice the bits where “it looked really rubbish”)

[sid]

Absolutely loved it in imax 3d. there were moments where  I could not believe what I was watching , utterly stunning what’s going on up there on the screen. Moves fx and actor performances forward for sure.

 

but with the ads at the front of the film you are sat on your arse for 3h 50m, half an hour of the bastards.

 

If you liked the original you’ll love it, but see it in the best possible cinema you can. Not sure what I’d have thought of a 2d shit-o-vision of experience 🤷

[Thor]

1 hour ago, footle said:

The bits where it skipped out of HFR

Whoa, it really does that? Seriously? 

 

Fuck watchimg this in the cinema then. That's a cardinal fucking sin. 

[footle]

57 minutes ago, Thor said:

Whoa, it really does that? Seriously? 

 

Fuck watchimg this in the cinema then. That's a cardinal fucking sin. 

It’s tricky. There are other bits where it’s the biggest awe inspiring image (like looking through a window) I’ve seen since seeing the first HDTVs back in Japan in about 2003.

 

it was the Dolby cinema at the Odeon West End though, so I’d maxed out my chances.

 

if you’re more interested in plot, characters and not stunning picture quality and extended action sequences, it isn’t the film for you.

[Thor]

Yeah, I think I'll wait until it's on Disney+

 

Edit: I wonder if they'll release the HFR version on D+... 

[footle]

20 minutes ago, Thor said:

Yeah, I think I'll wait until it's on Disney+

 

Edit: I wonder if they'll release the HFR version on D+... 

 

It’s a cinema film. It’ll lose all of its impact on a tv. Even a big tv.

someone mentioned a theme park ride earlier - it’s that.

[HarryBizzle]

I enjoyed reading Loik’s post but am sort of wondering what people who feel so strongly about it were expecting when the first was terrible too. 

[Loik V credern]

1 minute ago, HarryBizzle said:

I enjoyed reading Loik’s post but am sort of wondering what people who feel so strongly about it were expecting when the first was terrible too. 

 

Well after watching the trailer i knew what to expect in terms of tone, dialogue, the gist of it and that overall I probably wouldn't like it but it's still fair to think there would be something, good action, some tension somewhere (like I really like the water filling up scene in Titanic that i expected the recycling of that in this to be effective but that too manages to be lame as it's tacked on and so brief as to be pointless). There were things the trailer didn't reveal and none of them are worthwhile.

 

A lot of times when I watch seasons of tv I think that season 2 will carry over from 1 then 3 will freshen it up with new characters. Obviously this is just film 2 but it's not like it ends a story from 1. It's set up nothing for 3 but ended nothing, it's so redundant. You'd think so much of the future of Avatar depends on this film that he'd put everything into it. I guess more will be done with the kids but they're all terrible.

 

why the comparison to tv when it's a film, I don't know. Maybe because with so many sequels announced it's like when tv writers decide on how many seasons left then there's suspicion they pad it out with back and forth pointless drama episodes. With tv obviously like with Lost it's just so popular the channel wants more and the writers just want a set date to end. With Cameron wishing to make so many more it gives the impression he just has too many ideas to fit into another film or two, but that doesn't seem true at all with how Way Of Water goes. So it's more just how to extend the bullshittery about Avatar being some otherworldly experience distinct from any other cgi heavy fair and hoover up money. 

 

 

Cameron has shown he's good at taking the exact same story in a sequel in Terminator 2 and for better or worse depending on who you ask simply making it fresh and new. He even uses your expectations and flips it. There's so many other ways it could go or surprise, instead we get 

 

Spoiler

the out of nowhere reveal of the life extending brain juice from the whales. It's too simplistic 'these people are bad they are chasing Jake you're supposed to like Jake'. 

[footle]

Let’s be honest. Cameron’s problem is purely that he didn’t have source material as good as the first three books of A song of ice and fire.

 

the GoT producers had the same problem when they moved onto filming book four before starting to have to complete it on their own.

[Loik V credern]

34 minutes ago, footle said:

Let’s be honest. Cameron’s problem is purely that he didn’t have source material as good as the first three books of A song of ice and fire.

 

the GoT producers had the same problem when they moved onto filming book four before starting to have to complete it on their own.

 

Well when put like that it's not meant to be a farsical comparison, Cameron is not going to match a novel writer like GRR Martin and I'm not expecting him to.

 

It's not like the Lord Of The Rings films had great dialogue either but each film offers something the others don't and it properly moves forward all the time. Slow bits, earnest bits, boring bits, but overall not going through the motions.

 

There's so much more weight into everything Gandalf says than Jake which again seems silly to even compare as he's not going to but Avatar is constantly re enforcing it's importance without anything to back it up. The Lord of The Rings is consistent about the threat that you're rightly scared of.

 

Way Of Water ignores Unobtainium and you never get a sense of the scale of threat or hierarchy of command because it wants to do some lame revenge story for the villain. (There's so much cool stuff that could have been done with Jake being this terrorising freedom fighter isn't there than what we got? I think so. Show the scale of destruction, show the scale of the opposition. It's not interested.)

 

Lost didn't have great dialogue either so it doesn't even have to be that exceptional because I'd always look forward to two characters interacting who never had previously. 

[Oracle]

I saw it yesterday in imax 3d HDR, HFS and enjoyed it. The plot was better than the first and I’m glad I watched it in the cinema. The 3D seems much improved since 2012, great sense of depth and no eye strain! I’m most proud of not needing a wee!

I’m looking forward to the next one. 
 

Spoiler

I found the whaling kill v uncomfortable to watch (as intended. 
 

How did they find out that the brain goo stops aging?
 

Did bam bam know that the bad guy had killed the brother before saving him? 

 

I don’t get why earth is sending piecemeal offensives to clear out the natives, if it’s that important a small unit isn’t going to cut it  

 

The seizure storyline kinda went nowhere? I assume 7 hour the directors cut will probably explain more.  

 

[Oracle]

Why do people watch trailers these days? If it’s a film I’m interested in I make sure to stay in the dark ahead of the first viewing. 

[footle]

@Oracle

Spoiler

I imagine the seizure storyline is delved into more in the next film. So far we have “child of a dead avatar who also weirdly has her mum’s voice”, “child seems to commune with sea creatures without thinking about it”, “child who hears somethings heartbeat”, “child who has seizures when touching the spirit tree”. 
 

that’s all going somewhere, and the tag for the next film suggests it’s about her.

 

[RubberJohnny]

So my brother in law dragged me to see this over the Xmas Holidays, and it's fine? There's surprisingly little onboarding of the concepts for people like me who saw the original on a plane and haven't seen it in the 10 years since.

 

It is a smaller scale and more character driven film than I expected - that sounds a bizarre thing to say about the biggest of the big blockbuster budget, but it's kinda true, the larger scale humans vs navi plot is sidelined and the focus is put on the characters and their arcs, with a massive chunk of the middle just being regular family drama, with the kids struggling with the move to a new town and getting bullied at school, but with blue cat people, in space. The finale too, is smaller scale and with very personal stakes - I thought this was one of the things that worked really well and hopefully it marks a sea change (fnar fnar) for other blockbuster films, I think we're well into diminishing returns on everything going bigger and more epic.

 

These films are still missing an 'X factor' though, someone said no one could remember a line of dialogue from the original, and I can't remember any from this despite seeing it a few days ago, or the names of any of the main characters kids. You can kind of see why Marvel sticks humour in when one of the things I can remember is the Aussie comic relief guy, and I don't think he even has a name in the movie!

 

2 hours ago, footle said:

@Oracle

  Hide contents

That’s all going somewhere, and the tag for the next film suggests it’s about her.

 

Spoiler

She's implied to be a virgin birth and literally gets wings later in the film, Cameron loves his Christian allegories and references, ever since Judgement Day.

[Oracle]

The most memorable line from the film is also the most cringeworthy:

 

Spoiler

Sullys stick together

 

I still have no idea why he is raising his family like a platoon. 

 

[IcEBuRN]

All you mentioning the screens you saw it in. I feel gutted now I saw this in a regular Sony Xplus. Massive screen, big sound, amazing lazy boy style chairs, but not HFR presentation, and clearly not a hope in hell of HDR,  if not using a laser projector. The 3D was awesome, but I forgot just how damn dim it is if it's not a very specialist setup, plus being spoiled by true HDR OLED and QLED TVs at home the difference is so jarring and it often annoyed me I was missing some detail, on a film you absolutely do not wanting to be missing, being it's the primary selling point.

 

It does make me excited to wat the spectacle again at home though, on a proper screen! I hope this isn't going to dwell in cinemas for months as they try to hit that $2bn threshold...

[Loik V credern]

People think there's a contradiction in Cameron being repulsed by the violence (he said this:)

 

Quote

I actually cut about 10 minutes of the movie targeting gunplay action. I wanted to get rid of some of the ugliness, to find a balance between light and dark.

 

I look back on some films that I’ve made, and I don’t know if I would want to make that film now. I don’t know if I would want to fetishize the gun, like I did on a couple of Terminator movies 30+ years ago, in our current world. What’s happening with guns in our society turns my stomach.

 

...and it still being obvious he loves the military imagery, the helicopters, soldiers, harpooning whales. I do think a problem with the film is that you don't see enough of the invading force though besides all that familiar imagery, like reducing it to just a revenge story limits the scale of their operation and any realism there is left.

 

I actually loved the War Of The Planet of The Apes film, saw it at the cinema and was taken by its seriousness rather than bored, the additional writers on Way Of Water wrote the previous Apes films but not that one, although the writer who did contribute to that along with director Reeves also wrote Total Recall, Live Free Or Die Hard so not great. The additional writers on Way Of Water contributed to Jurassic World so maybe that's why Cameron brought them on board. 

 

I'm not sure where Cameron goes from here, action is what he does, he can't do tranquil earthiness on a cgi planet with trite art direction, horrible dialogue and cardboard characters. He's not Malick and he wouldn't be able to do it with Avatar either. That Cameron has hit this juncture, of being a vegan and loving nature but also clearly loving the bro ness of the military is maybe why we're not getting anything that's particularly strong. 

 

I wouldn't say Terminator fetishizes guns, Terminator 2 when they open that armoury and find the mini gun...yeah probably. True Lies not really, it's not like Michael Bay who is obsessed by it in every film he does. 

 

Part of being numbed to me means that people forget to even expect things like suspense and tension. 

 

Spoiler

His kids get kidnapped repeatedly and you don't care. 

 

The lack of mystery or horror is kind of significant to me, why can't there be some other threat the humans have created that increases the stakes, why can't there be any mystery there at all, you're introduced to the water Na'vi and it's just a shrug, you don't wonder about what else is on the planet because it has increasingly narrowed its creativity. 

 

There's a clear divide between people blown away by the visuals and those who aren't. Any extra detail is just incremental to me by now, like new games consoles. The leaps that stunned me that I can think of, like Metroid Prime or Resident Evil 4 you're talking about graphics previously to me completely unseen. Just the detail, the ships in Metroid Prime, environments that look sculptured, Resident Evil 4 the detail in the decorative castle rooms, the lighting when it's raining. 

 

I think Resident Evil Village has the best graphics I've seen, not quite 'can't believe my eyes' but very close.  

 

I'm not sure how it's possible to be in awe by cgi underwater scenes in 2022, but people evidently are. Though different Finding Nemo was 19 years ago, still great lighting. You just expect don't you, those who work in computer graphics to get it right as with the fur in Monsters Inc that took them a lot of time to perfect. 

[jonamok]

23 hours ago, Loik V credern said:

harpooning whales

Wait. There’s harpooning of lovely whales in this?

[James Lyon]

37 minutes ago, jonamok said:

Wait. There’s harpooning of lovely whales in this?

 

Yeah, it's a weird extended scene of the bad guys hunting an alien whale. I didn't think it seemed to fit the tone of the rest of the movie, although I was a bit sleepy at the time.

[jonamok]

Feel free to spoil me, does lovely whale actually get harpooned?

[Hanzo the Razor]

1 hour ago, jonamok said:

Feel free to spoil me, does lovely whale actually get harpooned?

 

Are you the whale version of this guy?

 

[James Lyon]

13 hours ago, jonamok said:

Feel free to spoil me, does lovely whale actually get harpooned?

 

Spoiler

Yes, for plot reasons.

 

[Darwock]

I very nearly got to go and see this today, as the sister-in-law that has been staying with us fancied going to see it after dropping mother-in-law off at the airport (which is very close to a cinema).

 

We were all set, and the kids were on board too until my wife went to book the tickets and saw the run time. Decision instantly reversed. Doubt I’ll ever get round to it now, I’ll only go by myself for things I’m really motivated for - and this isn’t that.

[BitterToad]

Hello everyone. I'm looking to book tickets to this at Vue Westfield tomorrow (whilst avoiding this thread for spoilers) but can see Vue give the option of £2 for RealD 3D glasses. Do I need these or are they fancy pants 3D glasses/glasses I get to keep. Basically if I don't pay for them online now will I be provided with any 3D glasses at all or have to pay on the day anyway?

[macosx]

Spoiler

“The dead speak! The galaxy has heard a mysterious broadcast, a threat of REVENGE in the sinister voice of the late COLONEL MILES QUARITCH.

A new leader GENERAL ARDMORE dispatches a force to gather intelligence, while JAKE, the last hope of the NA’VI, trains for battle against the diabolical RDA “

Could have reduced the runtime by a third by using the exact text opening crawl borrowed from another film.

[RJames]

Saw this at the BFI IMAX yesterday - so all bells and 3D HFR whistles. What an odd film. Some light spoilers.

 

The most impressive aspects are surely all around the technology. The CGI water was especially impressive, with the next most impressive thing I actually think was all the design and implementation of the human technology - especially the big hovercraft-y avengers carrier thing. Important to remember though that the water isn’t all CGI - absolutely tons of it was really filmed and filmed underwater - hence the famous Kate Winslet holding the current record for an actor holding their breath (7 minutes) story.

The HFR looked really great and because we’re so used to it from videogames now, I think it actually doesn’t have the ‘soap opera’ effect problem nearly so much anymore. It just looks WAY more real. The issue here is the switching in and out of it is super noticeable. I guess they wanted the action and wide shots to be HFR and the people to be at 24 to feel more ‘cinematic’? I think it should’ve just all been in HFR though, or a much higher proportion. There was also at times a weird tilt shift effect - the opening(ish) action scene with the train looked very much like a toy train than remotely like a real thing and place.

The next thing I’ll address is the production (and relatedly culture) design, which apart from some of the human tech I think is pretty bad. As per Avatar 1 - the alien design and flora and fauna is all a bit childish and basic and with such a uniformly saturated colour palette that everything looks the same. The Na’vi are also boringly basic in their tribal spears and fishing technology. And the messaging around family too is really oldschool - the males are the hunters and protectors, etc.

As has already been talked about plenty the plot is basic, but not even in a good nuts and bolts way. It fundamentally doesn’t make sense that they’d only care about Sully. If the war leader/tactician with knowledge of your weapons and tactics runs away and goes to ground, why wouldn’t you just smash the natives that he was helping not-get-smashed before? Also, the writing-with-a-sequel-in-mind is super obvious too. Nothing gets resolved in this film, they just ‘survive’. There’s no closure to the arc.

The script is just terrible. Don’t need to re-tread that.

Overall, I went for the spectacle and it *kind of* delivered, but the plot and narrative and production design were disappointing enough to really pull it down. Also, I don’t mind a long film, but there’s simply no reason whatsoever for THIS film telling THIS ‘story’ to be this long. 2 hours would’ve been completely fine.

 

Spoiler

Most frustrating to me was that there were a lot of interesting sci-fi ideas that are super super glossed over that it would’ve been interesting to dive into more: how do the avatars vs. implanted memory Na’vi work/differ? What’s the implication for the main bad guy being dead but being reincarnated from just memories? How do the Na’vi / human hybrids work? How does Na’vi racism work? Why are they racist? If the planet is ‘aware’ / intelligent, how is that expressed through the big tree vs. big underground coral thing, etc? How did the human’s discover that the whale juice made them immortal? You could make a whole interesting movie just about the whaling part. What about the Flight of the Conchords guy, how did he get involved? Wouldn’t it be good to have some sympathetic characters on the human side too? What about the relationship between Spider and his ‘dad’. There’s no exploration done there either. He’s not upset that the mother used him as a hostage?

Oh and the your human medicine sucks, our native acupuncture is much better just made me 🙄🙄🙄 so hard.

Everything is a couple of throwaway lines and instead we spend much more time with a cheesy kids-learning-to-ride-animals section that we’ve all seen 100 times before.

It’s not a terrible film, but it’s just a 5/10 mish mash of stuff that at the very very least needed a much tighter edit.

[Melon_Bread]

I quite enjoyed it. Had no idea who anyone was for the first hour, the story was a bit of a mess and jumped around a lot, but the visuals and 3D were a step up from what we've seen before, it was almost VR like at points.

My fave character was the whale.

[Oracle]

Spoiler

I’m assuming that they want to kill jake for the damage it would

do to morale, and that other things are happening elsewhere  

 

it was strange that they didn’t just wipe out the tribe from orbit once he was identified  

 

[James Lyon]

9 hours ago, RJames said:

 

  Reveal hidden contents

Most frustrating to me was that there were a lot of interesting sci-fi ideas that are super super glossed over that it would’ve been interesting to dive into more: how do the avatars vs. implanted memory Na’vi work/differ? What’s the implication for the main bad guy being dead but being reincarnated from just memories? How do the Na’vi / human hybrids work? How does Na’vi racism work? Why are they racist? If the planet is ‘aware’ / intelligent, how is that expressed through the big tree vs. big underground coral thing, etc? How did the human’s discover that the whale juice made them immortal? You could make a whole interesting movie just about the whaling part. What about the Flight of the Conchords guy, how did he get involved? Wouldn’t it be good to have some sympathetic characters on the human side too? What about the relationship between Spider and his ‘dad’. There’s no exploration done there either. He’s not upset that the mother used him as a hostage?

Oh and the your human medicine sucks, our native acupuncture is much better just made me 🙄🙄🙄 so hard.

Everything is a couple of throwaway lines and instead we spend much more time with a cheesy kids-learning-to-ride-animals section that we’ve all seen 100 times before.

It’s not a terrible film, but it’s just a 5/10 mish mash of stuff that at the very very least needed a much tighter edit.

 

I think I pretty much agree with all your criticism about the plot, although  I liked it a bit more than you it seems.

 

Most of the things they glossed over can probably be put down to having to stretch the humans vs nature plot over five movies. Based on what they've hinted at, though, I hope it goes in a completely wild direction by the end of the third but who knows.