Awater: The Way of Vatar (2022)
Sequel to 2009's Avatar, a production notable for being the highest grossing movie of all time (not adjusted for inflation) and not very much else. You know, thinking back of the original Avatar I think I remember kinda liking it back in 2009. I have never bothered to watch it again, though.
The Way of Water sees protagonist Jake Sully, having turned his back on humanity to live and fight side by side with the natives of planet Pandora, and his wife Neytiri, as the parents of four children, two boys and two girls. When Earth's military, led by a clone of Colonel Quaritch in an Avatar body, returns to take revenge for their lost battle in the first movie, Sully and his family flee their home to take refuge with a coastal tribe of Na'vi, having to learn their ways and traditions before inevitably facing off with humanities colonial forces again.
There's a bit more going on than that, but then again, not very much. James Cameron is clearly very invested in Avatar as a series, having talked about his plans of making up to five more movies, but if he sees some great potential to build on the groundwork laid by the first one, Way of Water doesn't make much of a case for it.
If there is anything I kinda admire about the Avatar movies, and if there is anything that sets them apart from other current blockbuster productions, it's the fact that their core philosophy is that of protecting and preserving an utopian society. The fact that there was a somewhat documented niche phenomenon where some viewers felt a feeling of homesickness for the movies setting of Pandora speaks to that. It's not concerned with preserving the integrity of current society with all its shortcomings, but about protecting a beautiful world with beautiful and kind people against the very forces corrupted the one we live in.
What I just can't relate to is how James Cameron envisions that utopian world as an idealized, pre industrial, pre agricultural, hunter gatherer society. It just feels overly idealistic to me to imagine a civilisation like that as being in a state of perfect symbiosis with nature, rather than at the mercy of it. For me, that just undermines the aspirational character he assigns to the Na'vi's lifestyle.
There's a lot of subtext, a lot of it probably not even intentional, to sink your teeth into in regards of what the morals and messages of the Avatar movies are. What they suggest about colonialism, whether they can justify the way they employ outdated narrative templates regarding noble savages and white saviours in a relatively unreflected way in what is pretty much an environmentalist variation on Edgar Rice Burroughs pulp adventures. It's hard to just take these movies as entertainment first action blockbusters with how overtly escapist and didactic they are.
Either way, just looking at Avatar 2 as an action blockbuster it has some good stuff, though it's pretty backloaded that way. The climax has Cameron serving up some of the strongest choreography in his entire career and honestly, it made me wish the earlier parts of the movie would have had some more of it. Needless to say, the movie in general looks very good, but also, perhaps not quite as good as you might hope.
We are more than a decade into the age of CGI dominated, quasi animated high budget action movies, and god knows we've come a long way since Attack of the Clones. And frankly, I can't, in good conscience, say that Way of Water's cinematography was any more impressive than that of Zack Snyder's Justice League, much less productions that forego live action elements altogether like Into the Spiderverse or Arcane.
You know, when I, as a movie nerd, write about video games, I sometimes feel like the guy who shows up to a football game with a hockey stick. I love video games, been playing them since I was a toddler, but I still catch myself talking about them from the perspective of a movie guy. That said, this is one of those moments where I feel vindicated, because I can confidently say that some of the most impressive feats of 3D animated cinematography haven't been in high budget action movies, but in the cutscene direction of veteran game directors like Hideo Kojima or Tetsuya Nomura. I think there is more in the way of rich imagery and dynamic direction in the announcement trailer of Death Stranding 2 than in the entirety of Way of Water. Games like Death Stranding 1 or Final Fantasy 7 Remake really show just how much directors who have never known anything other than 3D animation can make the medium sing.
I feel like it's partly a generational matter, I think seasoned live action directors like Cameron have internalized the constraints of live action cinema too much to fully embrace the possibilities of animation. There are slightly younger directors, The Wachowski Sisters, Zack Snyder, Edgar Wright, Gore Verbinski, even Michael Bay who have a better grasp on just what it is you can do with modern technology.
I digress. Avatar: Way of Water is... well, it's what it sounds like. It's more Avatar, and there is a lot of water in it. There have, surely, been people who've been eagerly awaiting an opportunity to return to and immerse themselves again in the world of Pandora. I take it, those will be happy with what they get. It has the beautiful environments, and the pretty tribal alien people and the vibrant flora and fauna, and the action packed anti colonial struggle. I feel like I might have had more fun with it if it had been about 30 minutes shorter, but aside from that, there's nothing particularly wrong with it as a movie. If Avatar is what you're into, it'll give you three more hours of it on effectively the same level of quality as its predecessor.
Sequel to 2009's Avatar, a production notable for being the highest grossing movie of all time (not adjusted for inflation) and not very much else. You know, thinking back of the original Avatar I think I remember kinda liking it back in 2009. I have never bothered to watch it again, though.
The Way of Water sees protagonist Jake Sully, having turned his back on humanity to live and fight side by side with the natives of planet Pandora, and his wife Neytiri, as the parents of four children, two boys and two girls. When Earth's military, led by a clone of Colonel Quaritch in an Avatar body, returns to take revenge for their lost battle in the first movie, Sully and his family flee their home to take refuge with a coastal tribe of Na'vi, having to learn their ways and traditions before inevitably facing off with humanities colonial forces again.
There's a bit more going on than that, but then again, not very much. James Cameron is clearly very invested in Avatar as a series, having talked about his plans of making up to five more movies, but if he sees some great potential to build on the groundwork laid by the first one, Way of Water doesn't make much of a case for it.
If there is anything I kinda admire about the Avatar movies, and if there is anything that sets them apart from other current blockbuster productions, it's the fact that their core philosophy is that of protecting and preserving an utopian society. The fact that there was a somewhat documented niche phenomenon where some viewers felt a feeling of homesickness for the movies setting of Pandora speaks to that. It's not concerned with preserving the integrity of current society with all its shortcomings, but about protecting a beautiful world with beautiful and kind people against the very forces corrupted the one we live in.
What I just can't relate to is how James Cameron envisions that utopian world as an idealized, pre industrial, pre agricultural, hunter gatherer society. It just feels overly idealistic to me to imagine a civilisation like that as being in a state of perfect symbiosis with nature, rather than at the mercy of it. For me, that just undermines the aspirational character he assigns to the Na'vi's lifestyle.
There's a lot of subtext, a lot of it probably not even intentional, to sink your teeth into in regards of what the morals and messages of the Avatar movies are. What they suggest about colonialism, whether they can justify the way they employ outdated narrative templates regarding noble savages and white saviours in a relatively unreflected way in what is pretty much an environmentalist variation on Edgar Rice Burroughs pulp adventures. It's hard to just take these movies as entertainment first action blockbusters with how overtly escapist and didactic they are.
Either way, just looking at Avatar 2 as an action blockbuster it has some good stuff, though it's pretty backloaded that way. The climax has Cameron serving up some of the strongest choreography in his entire career and honestly, it made me wish the earlier parts of the movie would have had some more of it. Needless to say, the movie in general looks very good, but also, perhaps not quite as good as you might hope.
We are more than a decade into the age of CGI dominated, quasi animated high budget action movies, and god knows we've come a long way since Attack of the Clones. And frankly, I can't, in good conscience, say that Way of Water's cinematography was any more impressive than that of Zack Snyder's Justice League, much less productions that forego live action elements altogether like Into the Spiderverse or Arcane.
You know, when I, as a movie nerd, write about video games, I sometimes feel like the guy who shows up to a football game with a hockey stick. I love video games, been playing them since I was a toddler, but I still catch myself talking about them from the perspective of a movie guy. That said, this is one of those moments where I feel vindicated, because I can confidently say that some of the most impressive feats of 3D animated cinematography haven't been in high budget action movies, but in the cutscene direction of veteran game directors like Hideo Kojima or Tetsuya Nomura. I think there is more in the way of rich imagery and dynamic direction in the announcement trailer of Death Stranding 2 than in the entirety of Way of Water. Games like Death Stranding 1 or Final Fantasy 7 Remake really show just how much directors who have never known anything other than 3D animation can make the medium sing.
I feel like it's partly a generational matter, I think seasoned live action directors like Cameron have internalized the constraints of live action cinema too much to fully embrace the possibilities of animation. There are slightly younger directors, The Wachowski Sisters, Zack Snyder, Edgar Wright, Gore Verbinski, even Michael Bay who have a better grasp on just what it is you can do with modern technology.
I digress. Avatar: Way of Water is... well, it's what it sounds like. It's more Avatar, and there is a lot of water in it. There have, surely, been people who've been eagerly awaiting an opportunity to return to and immerse themselves again in the world of Pandora. I take it, those will be happy with what they get. It has the beautiful environments, and the pretty tribal alien people and the vibrant flora and fauna, and the action packed anti colonial struggle. I feel like I might have had more fun with it if it had been about 30 minutes shorter, but aside from that, there's nothing particularly wrong with it as a movie. If Avatar is what you're into, it'll give you three more hours of it on effectively the same level of quality as its predecessor.
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