Oh no there’s a dude who wears Avatar merch completely unironically. Jimmy from my high school went full LOTR nerd but for avatar in 2009. Dude was one of the “heart throb” popular kids until he proudly showed pretty much everyone his collection of 5 avatar blue rays. One for watching, one for “display”, one for safe keeping/ prosperity, one for his future wife, and one to sell later because he was sure it would be super valuable. Watching the light of dozens of teen girls crushes fade during his monologue is a core memory for me
I never got into or understood the hype around Avatar. But the idea that the small Avatar fanbase gets together for "conservation meetups" is incredibly wholesome. You keep doing your thing, Avatar Fans.
Yeah like the plot and characters are mid at best, and there are some concerning noble savage tropes, but my god that world, those visuals, it's slightly more common these days, but still not exactly common to just feel like you are in another world cause it sells you on that so much.
As a child I was a huge Avatar fan. You could catch me running around in our countryhouse's backyard with handmade bow and arrows and a blue sash as a tail... I was cringe but I was free
Pandora in Disney World is also an anomaly. I’ve been multiple times and the lines are hours long, but no one’s in the gift shops and you don’t see anyone with Avatar souvenirs or shirts.
It’s to see that one impressive animatronic and that’s all they got Ironically that animatronic is like the movies, super impressive visually and shows how far tech has come.. but afterwards you don’t really care about it anymore
People want to experience the alien world as a setting. The movies and a theme park will give them that, but nothing else will. Unless you have a ton of money to redo your whole house.
Not surprising, every ride is hours wait except wheel of progress and the presidents one. It's just so many people all the time from all around the world.
here in Italy, we have a small animated movie called "Aida degli alberi"... Aida, the protagonist, is a blue, feline-like girl who lives on a forest-like planet... and this movie was released in 2001.
I was also writing a story that featured this.. until I saw an ad for Avatar and realized no one'd ever believe I didn't steal the idea so I abandoned it.
I remember in my high school years a girl I hung out with was so obsessed with the blue people to the point that she was truly depressed she couldn’t be one. “They’re beautiful” she would remark.
@@TheSuperNyanKittyI was 9 when the movie came out and I was genuinely very upset I couldn’t be a blue man 😂 I would still probably take the offer if it was possible.
I am also depressed that I am not one of the blue cat people lol. I mean the planet is beautiful and you don't have to wake up at 7 am for work everyday LOL.
"Nobody is talking about avatar!" -the guy who's tracing any cultural relevance of the first avatar for 13 years and still wondering until now how it became no. 1 in box office
@@tarantinoburrows1406it’s true tho. Avatar made a ton of money but no one talks about it. There also aren’t memes or videos on it. It doesn’t trend randomly on social media. I’ve personally never seen someone with a avatar profile picture either. It functional doesn’t exist past it’s launch in theaters.
@@baathy1374 all of your points are purely anecdotal though. I've seen tons of memes of it and people who like Avatar and I've enjoyed it since I was a kid along with many other people I know. Just because you haven't seen something in your own subjective bubble of life doesn't mean it isn't a real thing that exists. Just the very fact that both movies are in the top grossing films of all time disproves your claim that nobody likes them or cares about them. If nobody cared about the first movie past it's release the second one would've never made as much money as it did (ESPECIALLY in a time when ticket sales are at an all time low and most people don't have the attention span for a three hour movie). Just because the people who like Avatar aren't chronically online and constantly arguing about it the way Star Wars fans do doesn't mean people don't like it. It's just more popular with normal people who don't care to whine about movies on the internet.
I feel that Avatar is good at selling the world, but not at selling the characters, and from my experiences with fandoms, characters are the main drawing card for a lot of people. Just look at many not-so-good shows with memorable characters - even if people are hating on the plot, they will still write thousands of rewrites and AUs for their faves
Avatar was the peak 'water cooler movie'. "Hey Bill you seen that new movie?" "With the blue guys? Yup" Barely something to talk about but everyone knows it
@@angelsunemtoledocabllero5801 Nobody said Avatar was a commercial failure. Just that it's entirely forgettable. What is there to say about it, aside from talking about the visuals?
@Mirthful_Midori That it was a fun time, maybe? Who cares? I don't understand the point of this discourse. "Avatar had no cultural impact". Ok. Now what? Like is this supposed to be a point against the quality of the movie? An insult? A way to kill time arguing a point nobody is really interested in refuting? I really just don't get it lmao
The thing people always fail to account for when pointing out that Avatar is the highest grossing film is that 3D movie tickets cost almost twice as much as normal tickets. So, in the case of Avatar, highest grossing doesn't mean the most people saw it, it just means that people paid more to see it.
I absolutely told every person I was friends with that they had to see it in 3D. Some people didn't know that it was designed to be watched that way, so I had to tell them. I would count myself as part of the fanbase 100%
I'd say its massive popularity yet seeming non-existence online stems from mainly older demographics liking the series. Those people dont tend to congregate online and obsess over this universe. Atleast this would be my guess considering my grandparents absolutely adore this movie and watched like ten times. Guess what the most viewed series in the US is? Yellowstone. This doesn't really have a huge fandom online despite millions watching it, again, mainly older people.
This. My 90 year old gran is absolutely obsessed with the movies but she's not in the demographic to buy merch or cosplay. I gave her a book by the artists that designed the world building but that's it.
I was also thinking this. Not just specifically old people but also just people who don't really do online. I've met a bunch of 30 somethings who just don't go online much. It's a "normie" film.
Tf is Yellowstone? Never even heard of it lol. Makes me think that maybe we (Z) are just as disconnected from the boomers as the boomers are from us. They don't know anything about anime, and we don't anything about the stuff they watch.
@@corbanbausch9049 this actually isn't even an age thing. There are also young people out there who've never touched an anime in there life either. I have a friend who hasn't really watched a single television show; this includes anime, they only play video games as a activity.
@juliaboon9741 I know, that was just an example, I only started watching anime myself in 2020, and I’m 24. Video games, movies, and other stuff like D&D can be examples too.
I think what people miss, whenever they talk about Avatar, is that things can be popular yet intrascendental. Avatar made a lot of money because people like the effects and rememeber having a good time watching it, but they gain so little out of it regarding its characters that it will never mass any sort of constant following. People who say no one cared aren't wrong, but didn't understand that most people aren't that much into film discussions and they mostly want to spend they spare time, and Avatar 1 and 2 serve that purpose and little more
No, we understood, and we got that. It's when people try to justify their interest in these films beyond admitting they just like it for presentation that contention starts.
remember when Final Fantasy: The Spirits Within was still in the theaters? Anybody watch Siskel & Ebert critique it ? I didnt agree with ANY of what they both said -probably because i was still a teenager- but when i became older i'd noticed how it was cool to see/watch but did they not connect it to the video game series on purpose? OR did they? I've never seen any of the video-game played. so IDK
I think one of the things that hurt Avatar/Pandora from becoming a sci-fi fandom perennial was a lack of easily-accessible presence between movies. Compare it to how the OG Star Wars movies put out books, comics, & cartoons to keep themselves in the public eye between the years. Meanwhile, all Avatar has is... a world at a single expensive theme park. I don't think there were even comics, which is a niche of a niche now.
What hurt Avatar from becoming a popular franchise was the movie being so poorly written that trying to speculate about the setting is an exercise in futility.
I think you might have cause and effect reversed here. There were Star Wars books, comics and cartoons because there was a fanbase ready to receive those things. Avatar never had an audience with any interest so nobody would make books, comics and cartoons, because it would be throwing money away. Audience drives supplementary material not the other way around.
I think you may be on to something, also the fact that it didn’t feel like there was a real world with deeper lore that they didn’t have time for in the movies that would be fun to dive into. Ironically showing more of the humans side would have deepened it and made them feel less like cartoon villains (or interesting ones at least). Besides the deeper and more realistic themes and honestly better filmmaking, I think the new Dunes were helped by the fact that people who did enjoy them and wanted to know what happens next can go out and buy the books. Part 2 had so many people going out to buy them or haunting book online fandom. That there is an established fandom for that that can keep things alive between films helps too
I think the secret sauce is that the real star of the AVATAR movies is the world itself. Yes there's character, heroes/villains, technology... but it's all in service of an incredibly realized, vivid, and immersive world. You can't really box that up and sell it as a LEGO set or a t-shirt. The folks who love AVATAR talk about things like community, culture, and conservation. You can't put that on as costume and cosplay it.
Pretty much, the immersive visual feast was always its strongest point. It did a few other things well too, like the ship designs, the atmosphere being unbreathable (which is accurate), and the Pocahontas/Ferngully plot was good enough. But the rest of the film doesn't really hold up on its own, those are sideshows compared to the big tent of vivid visualization in imax.
Yes yes yes you get it! I will admit that the characters aren’t the strong point for me, but the world is where the meat’s at. The wonder kid me felt at seeing Pandora’s creatures come to life is something I will never forget. And I feel like we don’t explore a lot of alien civilizations in sci-fi other than high tech grays. It’s just fun to see cool worldbuilding.
Its one of the best things about Monster Hunter World. Just gathering resources and seeing the monsters actually interact with eachother and the environment always felt good, but its a game. Not a movie I feel rewatching does near nothing.
Precisely, it also adds to mention Wane Barlowe was involved, he is a master at worldbuilding. An Avatar game would work better if it where a large open world survival game focused on PvP (but with a single player option, thers folks like me who just want to play survive) , think Ark Survival but you're on Pandora, the Navi get to tame animals and humans make their mechs.
Recently, I got into a binge of creating my own species and I just realized, Avatar's biggest failure is that none of the characters are instantly recognizable. They're literary is no variety with the Navi.
I think you're spot on, the world building in avatar is phenomenal but all the navi except for one (due to all the jewellery) look almost identical from afar 🤔
Even just having different body types would have helped! From what I’m aware the reason the Na’vi are so tall and lithe is because that’s James Cameron’s type, but they’re basically just elongated humans, so while having Neytiri have that body type to a T would have been fine it’d be interesting to see a diversity in body types. Like everyone literally looks the same. The closest I’d say we got to this is Tsireya, whose short compared to the others, but I mean that’s a stretch. You could argue that they’re all built like that because of their lifestyle, and while yes they may all be stronger and more agile than your average Joe, in real hunter gatherer societies there’s still body diversity.
Avatar was the movie equivalent of a fire work show, you like fire works, we all like fire works, it's fun to see, we will pay to see a good one, we will get freinds and go see one, we look forward to the next one, but at no point in the day after the fire works will you go "hey Todd, those fireworks were so cool." You will see it, smile, clap, and walk away
There isn’t a Avatar fanbase because it’s actually the James Cameron fanbase, where like a few filmmakers have a huge passionate driven fanbase that’ll go out and see their work no matter what, especially the likes of Christopher Nolan, Denis Villeneuve (currently developing), Tim Burton (used too), and Steven Spielberg (in his prime) have.
Also the majority of the "fanbase" is just normies. When Way of Water came out my electrician and lumberjack cousins asked me how it was. So did my uncle who mostly watches golf I think
You named my favorite directors, Spielberg being my most, I think Nolan is the succesor of Cameron, same way Villeneuve is the succesor of Nolan, they dominante sci-fi blockbusters in IMAX, but also made historical films that earned awards, which people love or hate (Titanic and Oppenheimer, Villeneuve needs to do the Cleopatra film). As for Burton fanbase, is very true, many friends and I grew with his films and love him, mostly girls (who also love Harry Potter), but they tend to ignore the Batman duology due to a lack of interest in superheroes, or not knowing Burton directed them, Batman fans are the ones who cares (even 40 or 50 yo men people who most likely only love Beetlejuice and Batman). What about Quentin Tarantino, Wes Anderson, David Fincher? Even Michael Bay, pretty sure they have a fanbase, even GOAT's like Marty Scorsese or Stanley Kubrick (dead, I know) have them (well deserved).
@@NoahToledo-xo5pjyes but you have to consider three things: 1. most of the movies in these franchises weren’t directed by james cameron 2. unlike with terminator, the alien franchise wasn’t even created by james cameron 3. both franchises also have tons of additional pieces of media (comics, games, TV shows, etc.)
@@Ty-wy7yq It does not change anything. One light year is absurdly far. It can be 4,4 light years or 4,4 million light years away from us. The scale is so insane that there is no difference. One, four, or four million is just as impossible. It's like someone would ask you to stay under the water with a single breath for a year and then say, "I'm sorry. My mistake. A year would be way too long. It was supposed to be one week." 😆
@@HanSolo__Well, with those timescales it would be more like years to seconds. 4LY is doable, insanely difficult but we can get there within a lifetime and plausible tech. 4 million LY is so ridiculously far that light itself has a hard time with it.
We seen the same thing with movies like "Gravity"(2013) that lose all appeal outside an Imax theater. Without the immersive experience, those type of movies struggle to hold up on their own.
@@Noob-yx1cu "Huge" is relative to production costs. Unclear numbers as all sequels are filmed together. But with estimates close a half a billion per movie, it takes a billion to cover production and marketing. While the second movie did over two billion, it was not as profitable as the first. Unless the third one offers something completely different, I doubt the returns will be higher.
Same with Dredd (2012), it's actually uncanny to watch in 2D because it has a lot of these long, boring slo-mo scenes that are there purely for the spectacle of 3D imax theatres. It's a shame as well because unlike avatar the story was solid and could have launched a more modern Judge Dredd franchise, but it flopped because they fell for the 3D meme.
@@captainweekend5276 "Dredd" failed due to poor marketing and for being unfairly compared to "The Raid", that was released earlier that same year with a very similar plot. Even without the 3D, the context behind the slow motion keeps us invested and separate both movies. Different types of action and different visual styles make "Dredd" and "The Raid" memorable in their own ways.
An important note on Avatar’s record breaking box office numbers is that Avatar actually didn’t sell that many tickets. If you look at movies by individual tickets sold Avatar doesn’t break the top 10. The reality is that Avatar’s box office records are owed to the inflated ticket price of 3d and IMAX showings.
I liked when humanity returned and created a parking lot on top of this planet. What a nightmare world. All things can mentally stimulate eachother. That’s disgusting. Imagine being able to stick your finger in the butt of any animal and having a psycho/sexual relationship with them. Pandora needs to be glassed. Don’t send a mining company first. Send the bio weapon scientists to create a disease that eliminates all life on the moon.
those shows are dope, but also gay as fuck, but also so dope. So I bet that one was mad cool. I'd torrent them Cirque dvds if I were still trippin, but I'm not for now, but damn, I def know how fun those can be. Pretty trippy. That one woulda been extra
It was okay but didn't really make it over the bar. Cirque du Soleil is at its best when the performance is centered around a more original concept or theme instead of a franchise.
Are you saying that football/sports fans are not cosplayers? Do they not gather in masses to dress up to support their favorite fandom? Know all the statistics by heart? Know all the chants that are like greetings to each other.. they are nerds too
@@Rise_O-te_Phoenix 90% of them literally just sit on the sofa and watch the games on tv and occasionally, like once in a year, go to gatherings or games
A part of me still wonders whether the producers saw people online going insane about "avatar" and just assumed it was their movie and not the animated show and just didn't look any closer.
I know about at least three of you including the host - the third one had a YT channel as well. But actually there's no actual proof you 3 are even real now that I think about it.. 😅
@@THEbackbender420 If you spend time at mecha or tokusatsu online spaces then Pacific Rim is mentioned every single time when a discussion about films are brought up
its sad pacific rim doesn't have a sequal but its probably for the best so they dont drop the ball on it cause while i don't doubt that they could've but it would be hard to re catch the lighting the first movie had
@@spazzey0 pffft what's this pacific rim uprising it doesn't exist but I do agree the "anime" (bc it was made in America) did a good job but that story felt more right for a series rather than a movie
I was in college when Avatar 2009 came out, sure I remember all the hype around it, how it's so realistic and lifelike and that it was at the very peak of cutting edge CGI; then nothing. I enjoyed the movie, it was good but it wasn't an "i'm gonna rewatch this movie every year" good. Despite the hype around it, I think the one thing that made it be so hyped up was because James Cameron produced and directed it, especially from fans of his movies including me. The one thing that I believe made it disappear almost completely was because of its very forgettable and simplistic storyline and plot of "humans bad nature good", unobtainium sounds too much of a placeholder name, Jake Sully switching sides just came off as him reeeeally wanting to get some blue action, Michelle Rodriguez's character swtiching made no sense, Jake Sully's whole species reassignment surgery was flimsy AF and just made the last part of the movie feel like Jake Sully died and anything from that point was all a dream or something.
The number one take on this I will never forget is Jacksfilm's classic "man on the street" interview segment of: "Can you name one single character from the highest-grossing film of all time, James Cameron's 'Avatar'?" Lemme tell you, there were NOT a lot of winners.
I only would have won that because my parents really liked the movie and the protag's name is drilled into my mind - although part of that is because "Jake Sull(e)y the blue person" makes me think of Sully from Monsters, Inc. and that's honestly a very effective mnemonic
They say this as if you wouldn't get the same result if you made someone watch a movie with primarily Korean/Nigerian/Mongolian names and then asked them to remember their names.
This reminds me of the Assassin's Creed fandom. While it is one of the biggest video games franchise, the fandom (as in fans who are actively in the community and stay, instead of just posting one fanart of it and not thinking about it anymore) reduced in size with each game. Today the fandom is a smaller continuation of the fandom of earlier games, and the amount of new fanarts and fanfics have reduced to almost nothing
but horse girls LIKE HORSES so.... do avatar fans LIKE AVATAR? Wow, what a stupid and self-contradictory thing to say if your point was nobody likes Avatar. This knob just uses whatever garbage came off his head five seconds ago as the premise for his next one-liner irrespective of whether it supports his thesis or not.
@@TheSuper200 because a lot of horse girls are actually autistic, and horses are their special interest. the whole "horse girl" joke is making fun of them for being weird and "obsessed" with horses. it's ableist. but even when it comes to allistic (non-autistic) horse girls, it's still pretty fucked up to make fun of people for liking something and engaging in their hobby.
NGL, avatar is mostly blue, naked with only loincloth and random unintelligible language and scream so thats really small amount of materials to work with for avatar fans fans couldnt imitate fckn CGI environment also the bad guy isnt that well written, they are just your generic military vilain
But also lifeless. That's the irony: to be alive is to be in conflict, and the only way to guarantee no "fandom bullshit" is to not have an active fandom.
@@LordVader1094it’s not immune to fandom bs because they don’t exist. It’s immune to fandom bs because they’re all touching grass instead of arguing online
Here’s the weird thing about Avatar that really speaks to how unpopular it is: Look at how much Rule34 there is for Avatar(Blue) and then look at how much there is for Avatar(Bending).
Yeah I thought about a very similar metric, but in a different place. Na'vi are clearly furry bait, so it makes sense to check the numbers on the monosodium glutamate site - and currently they are at just ~500 pictures, after so many years for pictures to accumulate. For comparison we have the Zonai, who were introduced* in the new Zelda game less than a year ago and they were basically just 2 characters only* seen in the flashback cutscenes, and they currently sit at ~1k. It really is wild just how little impact the Avatar franchise has given the money it made
21:29 "It's almost like negativity sells, and a cynical outspoken minority will create an echo chamber that amplifies a perceived sentiment that actually isn't widely shared. Who knew?" Damn, I *felt* that
No a lot of ppl liked it. But it was just a visual spectacular and nothing with substance. So ppl saw it once said that was cool. And never thought of it again
I have watched Avatar 2 three times and I still can’t remember much about it. I know space whales are tortured/ killed for some gold stuff that stops aging, and that there is a freaking kid legit named Spider, lmao.
Kaltxì! Okay, I am a huge Avatar fan and always will be. I really connected with the first movie and the Na'vi culture, and since then, I've been learning the language. I've always found the fandom amazing and full of the kindest people. I feel like the fanbase is pretty large, though I'm not in any big popular mainstream fandoms so what seems big to me may not be big to other people. This video was funny and entertaining, and though like everything, Avatar means so so much to me. Hayalovay Edit: forgot to mention but I fricking LOVE Frontiers of Pandora, and my family and friends do too. Also have a lot of merch but I've talked to people who have so so much! I would also love to go to the theme park
Oel ngati kameie🩵 I'm also huge fan of AVATAR and always will be. I can talk about it all the time. There's so many layers to the story and characters it's just amazing. I think that some people are generally closed-minded and just don't want to understand the movie and it's message. Let me quote "Sky People cannot learn. You do not See" the words speak for themself. Eywa nhagu🩷
i actually used to be a hardcore Avatar fan, i wrote fanfics, learnt the language and was super invested. i still really admired the universe JC created. and there’s actually quite a big Avatar fandom, you just need to dig into it a bit hehe. yeah i’m the Avatar apologist!
@@koobs4549Point Break is one of my favorite movies, have you seen the remake? I like it, it's set on my country (Venezuela) with our most famous star: Edgar Ramírez.
i feel like it’s also bc of how difficult it is to cosplay any characters from the movies. cosplay is a huge part of pop culture and when ur characters are too hard to replicate on any and all bodies… it’s tough.
also they're like 3 or 4m tall, which is why they have no Na'vi characters in the disneyland park, which is weird and makes it into a creepy ghosttown.
It was like watching CGI cutscenes from a video game, so it honestly didn’t feel like anything new. I’m honestly mad that the original soundtrack was so different from what we got, a shame really.
@@LordVader1094 There's a lot of reasons for it, but I don't have the time to explain, so see the video "Why Avatar has the Most Ironic Soundtrack of All Time"
When the movie first came out, I was in the middle of writing a fantasy novel. I was low-key obsessed with the movie when it came out because the Na’vi reminded me of a race I was creating in my story-which also pissed me right off, because I had to completely rethink my race now lol
I think the lack of in between content is part of the reason why there’s no fandom. There’s nothing to really hook anyone on a decade between. There’s some fandoms that survive with a lack of official content, i.e. Avatar TLAB, Steven Universe, Undertale, etc. But at least with those there was a strong enough story for the fandom itself to get it off the ground and keep something going. Or there were comics, animated series, events, etc. like with Marvel, DC, or Star Wars. But Avatar has virtually nothing other than a mid game every decade with the movie. Encanto and Puss in Boots 2 had more ongoing fandom for a one off than this.
I still personally love Avatar. Sure it's not really for _everyone,_ but it'll always be my cup of tea. I especially adore the vehicles, especially the ones from The Way of Water. No I am not in a room being held at gunpoint, forced to read out a script. Edit: srsly tho, I love the films
Only thing I liked was the world and I dont include the blue people. So I never understood why it made so much money, because im not going to watch such a long movie to see glimpses of the world. Others can enjoy it I will just not understand why and thats fine. Hope a third movie doesnt take another decade for you.
@@angelsunemtoledocabllero5801 The problem is that the reason why the humans while greedy needed resources to help earth since they're having alot of problems like overpopulation and energy, although what they did was wrong I sympathise their struggles for survival and their desperation. I feel like the movie would be better if both the Humans and the Na'vi are both morally grey with Jake Sully and his team finding a way to tone the violence down between both sides than just him becoming a simp and a traitor to get some alien pussy.
I’ve honestly always thought of Avatar as the movie version of a tech demo, no one is particularly invested in the plot, characters, etc. but are just there to see the cool CGI and shit, it’s literally like a tech demo for movie studios to show off their newest abilities in editing, graphics etc.
It's wild to me. McFarlane made some KILLER action figures for this last movie. The sculpts were some of the companies best. They did really cool scales, some great playsets. All of them, clearance. No one bought them. I found some at a weird discount store recently, that literally, nothing in the store had a legit name brand, except a bunch of avatar figures. I've been to all sorts of conventions, no cosplay. Nothing. I will admit, that game tempted me. I love the Far Cry engine, and it's basically a scifi Far Cry game. Haha
I mean with very few exceptions I feel like most actuon figures just always end up on clearance. As toys they are very meh, so unless someone wants to collect them they just end up in the landfill.
I love how you're slowly becoming the Canadian Brutalmoose with these edits. But I'll always remember when I took my grandma to go see this when it first came out and she said to me: "The effects were good, but everything else was so BORING." I still miss you grandma :(
Avatar explores the themes of greed, the use of technology for the consolidation of power vs the origin of organic comunity as the product of a spiritual foundation and relationship with nature. Most people are too brainwashed to even seriously consider these themes and their importance to the future of humanity. Technology is their god and consumption their saviour.
It always felt like to me that the entire selling point of this movie was just the high end CGi effects. No one I know ever said anything about the movie other than how good the effects were or how good it looked on their new 4K tv's. Had no idea what the movie was even about until years later when I saw a youtube summary of it.
All I know is somehow through pacing he made a 3 hour movie feel like a 90 minute film, it ended and I was like there is no way that was that long. Kinda a pacing masterpiece ngl
Yeah, the pacing is masterful, and the tension building in the second one, though not subtle in the slightest, is second to none. James Cameron knows what he is doing.
Die hard Avatar fan here, I thought this was a very good and fair video which brought up a lot of valid points, I can corroborate the no new content for a decade angle because it's exactly what happened with me. I watched the first movie when I was 10 and loved it, I played the game obsessively and read the annual, but over time my interest in the franchise tapered off since there wasn't anything new coming out. I think the last time I watched the movie was in 2015 before it exited my mind completely save for the occasional piece of news i'd read about the upcoming sequels. Fast forward to 2022 and I see the title announcement and hear about the trailer being exclusive to some marvel capeshit I don't remember the name of I started to get excited about the franchise again, I was talking to someone at work about movies and I brought up that the new trailer was out for Avatar 2 and he said he'd seen it the night before when he watched said marvel movie and we started talking about Avatar, I was asking him questions about what the trailer had etc, then we started talking about the first movie and even though it had been 7 or 8 years since i'd last seen it I was really surprised at how much of the film I actually remembered. When I got home later that day the trailer was leaked and I was watching it over and over until it came out officially on UA-cam. Getting excited for Avatar again made me feel like a kid again, and it looks like this excitement about the franchise isn't going anywhere for a very long time. However I would like to give a reason why the Frontiers of Pandora videogame just came and went with no effect on the fandom - it's a 7/10 Ubisoft open world game, I have never found it hard to engage with anything related to Avatar because i'm very well versed with the lore and story so far but I don't know how they managed it but FoP just isn't very engaging or interesting for me. In a way, I kind of like that despite the franchise being as huge as it is the fanbase is relatively small and close nit, it feels like a small town where everybody knows each other and the fanbase itself is one of the nicest and most welcoming fanbases i've ever seen, there's a fan meetup planned in Paris in a couple months which is shaping up to be a great time for those lucky enough to attend.
I like how you refer to marvel as "capeshit" when that so called "cape shit" is alot more relivent and popular then avatar ever was...more people can remember those movies and there characters then they can avatar and there characters
@@ToiletGrenade except there plenty of marvel movies that are good quality made movies that capture the hearts and imaginations of the audiences thst watched them and had more cultural impact and relivence .. basically you don't need to shit on one film series in order to prop up one you like... you could of said i saw the trailer for the second movie at a marvel movie but no you had to take lazy pot shots for no reason labeling them all marvel capeshit and undermining the amount of success they have made becoming one of the biggest movie series to exist...the reason marvel has remained relivent is because they have released constiently good movies with good likeable character that carried the story's of the movies they are in that have made cultural impacts around the world and captured the hearted and imagination of the movie going audiences..in fact the level of success the marvel movies have had is almost unheard off and almost impossible to repliacted which has been proven hy other movie studios jumping ont he shared universe bandwagon and failing ...when it comes to most film series often they either get worse and worse or they make less and less box office gross or some times both...for example alien the first 2 masterpieces but everything else after it kept getting worse and worse and made less and less..or terminator...after the second one the movies got worse and worse and made less and less but for marvel movies this wasn't the case...phases 1-3 of the mcu was a gigantic cultural event juggernaut of a film entertainment series where almost every movie with a few exceptions was a success and constanlty broke box office records and was heavily well reviewed and recieved by film critics and genral audiences... have they tripped and fell over in recent years yes...have they made bad movies of course every movie series has stumbled and made failures and the MCU is no different in that regard but labeling everything marvel has done as just bad cape shit just undermines the legitmately good quality movies they have made...iron man 1, captain america: the winter soilder the avengers movies, the guridans trilogy, civil war etc was all good quality movies and pretending they aren't to hop on the hate bandwagon is completelty disingenuous and objectively wrong.
@@ToiletGrenade you can like them or not that's fine but the point is that you saying relivence of there's doenst equal to quality is completely wrong because theres loads of good quality marvel movies that prove your point wrong the level of success these movies have achieved is unmatched and unparalleled and is basically the new starwars for a new generation of the 2010,s ...atleast there characters are more likeable, memorable and more interesting then avatars and have actually good characters and development...the avatar movies put all there focus on there cgi special effects that everything else about those movies from characters and story is so underwritten and developed to the point they arnt very memorable outside of the special effects while the better marvel movies puts most of its focus in to it's characters and making them interesting and likeable which is why people continue to remember these characters more so which is why they remain to have a larger cultural relivence....thanos will go down in history as one of the best and most well known movies villains in movie history up there with Darth Vader while the generic genral army dudes anrt even remembered now by the public never mind in the future.
Avatar is great example of what Aldous Huxley called 'The Feelies' in Brave New World. Basically a visual spectacle to provide some eye candy and give you a dopamine hit while not making you go through the difficult effort of actually having to think. Bread and circuses to provide copium to the great unthinking masses.
I’m a fan of Avatar. I like how hippie dippy it is. Plus the music is good and it’s truly a world I can get lost in. It’s blue aliens on dragons with machine guns.
If you love Avatar you'll LOVE 40k. What about _green_ aliens riding jumbo-jet sized dinosaur tanks with IMPRACTICALLY LARGE AND OVERDESIGNED machine guns?
I think it’s ok for it to have been wildly successful in theaters without much staying power. The point was the stereoscopic filming that was absolutely mind-blowing on an IMAX screen; something you sadly cannot experience again en masse. Compared to the cheesy 3D done in post processing for every other movie, nothing would come close without having licensed that technology from JC. It was basically a giant VR demo of a bioluminescent fantasy world, and it was a genuine experience both times.
That cut to you suddenly wearing sunglasses just so you could take them off was genius I love the effort that goes into making every part of the video entertaining
A fandom like star wars or Sonic will sustain itself for years because there's so much to discuss (and pointlessly argue over). Avatar just dosent have characters or lore that lead to interesting theories or discussions, it's all pretty cut and dry.
Yet it smokes the other two when in comes to success In theaters. That’s what really matters. I dare sonic execs to release sonic 3 against avatar 3 in December 2025 lol we will see if that fandom talk is really relevant.
Not sure if you want to use the Sonic fandom as a positive example here. We at least don't have weirdos like Chris Chan or that guy that nuts into Sonic plushies and other loud crazies that in the long run taint the fandom.
So you haven't been to the Avatar subreddit and Discord (Kelutral having the largest amount of members), read the comics, or go down the James Cameron's Avatar Wiki + Pandorapedia rabbit hole, do you?
When it first released I was turning 8 and obsessed with avatar. My mom dyed my skin blue and gave me markings with a blue dress and gems on my skin to resemble the glowing they have. Also she baked my cake and decorated it as the tree of souls and the mcdonalds direhouse dolls around it
I met a guy who told me he was learning the N'avi language and my friend desperately wanted a cardboard cut out of Jake Sully xD I think I received a book about Pandora too? The fans definitely existed but they were so short lived compared to other fandoms. Seeing it in 3D it really felt like that was the way Cinema would head forever but even that was a short phase as well.
Nowadays, a lot of the fanbase just consists of people making creepy fanfictions/thirst traps for all the child characters. It’s disgusting. It’s somewhat embarrassing to be an Avatar fan on instagram because of this
Ok I watched this again and I have to point out that the overall quality of the video is outstanding. You hit all the beats. Perfect transitions, funny delivery, really good variety of b-roll, tiiiiiiight editing. Great work bro
@@Noob-yx1cuan on rail video game means a very linear game that basically leads you on a path, think of like those arcade games where all you do is aim your gun while the game moves itself.
My High School senior prom (2012) was Avatar-themed. Some poor prom committee kid built an intricate paper-mache Great Leonopteryx, about 6" across. They hung it from the ceiling. They really committed.
The problem with the toys and video games is that nobody truly cares for the main characters of the movies. The main protagonist, Jake and Neytiri barely have a substantial fanbase independently. Even by pairing standards, they don't have staying power. What makes the Avatar movies work is the world building, the action and the cinematography. I can watch both and it doesn't require me to think too hard but I can still enjoy it.
I was stoked to stock up on RDA troops and vehicles from the new movie. Lo and behold though, we only got Quarritch and an AMP suit. I wanted marine squads, the helicopters, atv's, submarines, the works. And all I could find was named characters, and an army of Quarritch's just doesn't really do it for me. At least other figures can fit in the amp suits. With some paint they fit right into Star Wars, Halo, Aliens and more.
Man, how do you recognize the main characters? I can only see a flashy background. I refused to acknowledge that Cameron did this. I still can't believe, so many people went to the cinema to watch it. I mean, good for Cameron it earned a lot of money. Intelligent children laughed while watching Avatar. Weaver looked like she wanted to leave as soon as possible.
Btw the fandom does exist, they’re just hiding out in Reddit and Tumblr because they wanna be left alone and not get bullied for being “cringe” by the rest of the internet.
@@nessarolla I’m part of the fandom in both and let me tell you, the tumblr side is thriving. Also yea it’s probably the algorithm, I looked at one atwow post and my entire homepage is rip neteyam posts lmao 😂
Avatar fans painting themselves blue and going out in public - ooof the cringe. Avatar fans going out in nature and doing conservation work and camping trips - deeply wholesome and kinda awesome.
It seems Avatar's influence in the realm on cinema isn't in story or writing, but cinematography. It showed how to film fictional, CGI worlds in ways that actually looked appealing or at least "believable" without being glaringly obvious it was CGI. The overuse of CGI in modern movies is a valid complaint, but it takes a trained eye to notice some CGI tricks nowadays compared to when the technology was used decades ago, and Avatar helped other directors see how to use those tricks. Of course, special effects is hard to base a pop culture fanbase around. They can argue all day about story or characters or lore, but knowing the best place to put the camera when filming is something only a handful of people notice and even fewer know how to do well. There's a reason so many writing advice channels focus on the reason two characters will fight, but will say little about the choreography or cinematography or effects and all that.
To be fair, there is quite a decent online fandom for Avatar (especially Avatar 2) on TikTok and Tumblr, regarding fanart and edits. Fanfiction for it on AO3 is pretty huge too.
TikTok especially. There's many edits that thrist over Jake Sully, and there's plenty of memes that edit existing memes with Avatar characters (particularly the Sully kids).
I literally just quoted the Ao3 metrics elsewhere. There's like, 5000 fics for Avatar. Which, while not a small number, is dwarfed by the likes of AVATAR The Last Airbender. Eight times as many. Or the MCU, 100 times as many.
@@bushybeardedbear 5000 fanfics, where about 90% of them are after The Way of Water. That's a decent number of people who want to be continuously attached to the franchise. Not to mention, there are 3 more films being developed with an extra 2 more in consideration. We could see as many as 7 films in the Avatar franchise. The first Avatar admittedly had few fanfics, but that was at the era of the internet where fandoms were forming for all kinds of franchises. Now with Avatar getting a fandom surge, it's a bit unfair to compare it to The Last Airbender, which has had content being developed across the 2010s unlike Avatar. Only now is Avatar getting comics and other side-media. That said, Avatar's doing relatively fine as a fandom, especially one that is booming since late 2022.
Im genuinely amazed to heae youve been doing this all by yourself. This level of productions rivals that of avatar yet blows it out of the water by you actually having a fan base
Just so you know, I just found your channel today and I literally love it. Your sense of humor, candid coverage, interesting topics- I adore it. Please keep it up. Would love to see you cover some other Internet related nostalgic subject matter. ❤
It's truly awe inspiring that in 2024 one man in his bedroom can make a technically sophisticated youtube video that graphically rivals a billion dollar movie from 2009
Honestly at this point the best move for Avatar as a franchise is to double down on it as a technology showcase franchise than a proper franchise. Release something once a decade, demolish the standards of movie tech, rake in billions, and then disappear for another decade.
i watched avatar for my environmental science class and i fell in love with the movie haha seeing this video pop up in my notifications made me smile, great video!!!
I do not believe Avatar 2 made even half of its reported box office numbers. I don't have evidence to prove this and there may be evidence to the contrary, but I will die on this hill.
I think the major problem with Avatar was there weren't more movies. Look at any major fan bases, and what's the one thing they have in common? Multiple movies. A universe so to speak. Star Wars? Half dozen movies. Harry Potter? Same thing, plus books. Star Trek? That's aa TV series, so you have a constant roll of episodes. Avatar took a decade to release a second movie
I remember when the sequel premiered in my country. There was this thing where couples just began showing up to this movie to use the film as a backdrop to cuddle to, saying nothing else actually about the movie afterwards.
Being an Avatar fan saves you so much money. All the merch is on steep discount and you only have to go to the theater every decade.
That's a billionare mindset if ever I've heard one!
Move over, dave ramsey!!!!
😂😂
There's merch?
There's also, like, 3 volumes worth of tie-in Comics, and like 2 lore-relevant games
In 10 years
They commission artists for a decent price, so they're chill in my book.
Avatar 5 is the first film we know of, that willl be released in the 2030's.
Oh no there’s a dude who wears Avatar merch completely unironically. Jimmy from my high school went full LOTR nerd but for avatar in 2009. Dude was one of the “heart throb” popular kids until he proudly showed pretty much everyone his collection of 5 avatar blue rays. One for watching, one for “display”, one for safe keeping/ prosperity, one for his future wife, and one to sell later because he was sure it would be super valuable. Watching the light of dozens of teen girls crushes fade during his monologue is a core memory for me
I wear my Avatar merch proudly where I can. 🙂
Avatar merch is more effective birth control than condoms.
My brother is that dude, wild how anyone can become obsessed with anything
I thunk I have some of the kinder eggs. They're, nice I guess. Kinda embarrassing really
Bro hyperfixated so hard he scared the hoes
I never got into or understood the hype around Avatar. But the idea that the small Avatar fanbase gets together for "conservation meetups" is incredibly wholesome. You keep doing your thing, Avatar Fans.
The hype is the technical feat of making the movie, not the movie itself. Also the setting is really cool if you’re into speculative biology
Yeah like the plot and characters are mid at best, and there are some concerning noble savage tropes, but my god that world, those visuals, it's slightly more common these days, but still not exactly common to just feel like you are in another world cause it sells you on that so much.
The world really takes all kinds
As a child I was a huge Avatar fan. You could catch me running around in our countryhouse's backyard with handmade bow and arrows and a blue sash as a tail... I was cringe but I was free
Cringe but free sounds pretty fun tbh. Lol
Same.
"Doktor, turn off my cringe inhibitors."
Aww that sounds really fun actually
As a kid I loved this movie soo much, j constantly rewatched it and I pretended the white dandelions were the seeds of the secret tree.
Pandora in Disney World is also an anomaly. I’ve been multiple times and the lines are hours long, but no one’s in the gift shops and you don’t see anyone with Avatar souvenirs or shirts.
It’s to see that one impressive animatronic and that’s all they got
Ironically that animatronic is like the movies, super impressive visually and shows how far tech has come.. but afterwards you don’t really care about it anymore
People want to experience the alien world as a setting. The movies and a theme park will give them that, but nothing else will. Unless you have a ton of money to redo your whole house.
That flight of Pandora ride was pretty damn amazing
@@KingOfGaymesboth the rides in the land are great and it’s the best looking land in the park
Not surprising, every ride is hours wait except wheel of progress and the presidents one. It's just so many people all the time from all around the world.
here in Italy, we have a small animated movie called "Aida degli alberi"... Aida, the protagonist, is a blue, feline-like girl who lives on a forest-like planet... and this movie was released in 2001.
I was also writing a story that featured this.. until I saw an ad for Avatar and realized no one'd ever believe I didn't steal the idea so I abandoned it.
Also in Russia, Avatar was big event, like, first 3D film. So, there a shittion of comedy-related shows that made Avatar parodies.
The development of Avater one started in 1994 - it is very possible that someone on the set got "inspired".
(not on the set but just working on pre production)
avatar if it was good
I remember in my high school years a girl I hung out with was so obsessed with the blue people to the point that she was truly depressed she couldn’t be one. “They’re beautiful” she would remark.
I heard that avatar depression was a real problem. People wanted to live amongst them so baddd after watching the movie.
Now it all makes sense. It was James Cameron and this movie that killed the 2000s.
I must have my revenge ...
@@TheSuperNyanKittyI was 9 when the movie came out and I was genuinely very upset I couldn’t be a blue man 😂 I would still probably take the offer if it was possible.
I am also depressed that I am not one of the blue cat people lol. I mean the planet is beautiful and you don't have to wake up at 7 am for work everyday LOL.
My dad tried to drag me to go but even back in my teen years I knew it was just a vapid CGI demo.
The discussion around Avatar lacking cultural impact was in itself cultural impact.
It made as much impact as a wet fart
@@feathercat9118Which is why the sequel made 2 billion dollars, because nobody cares about the first one . . .
"Nobody is talking about avatar!" -the guy who's tracing any cultural relevance of the first avatar for 13 years and still wondering until now how it became no. 1 in box office
@@tarantinoburrows1406it’s true tho. Avatar made a ton of money but no one talks about it. There also aren’t memes or videos on it. It doesn’t trend randomly on social media. I’ve personally never seen someone with a avatar profile picture either. It functional doesn’t exist past it’s launch in theaters.
@@baathy1374 all of your points are purely anecdotal though. I've seen tons of memes of it and people who like Avatar and I've enjoyed it since I was a kid along with many other people I know. Just because you haven't seen something in your own subjective bubble of life doesn't mean it isn't a real thing that exists. Just the very fact that both movies are in the top grossing films of all time disproves your claim that nobody likes them or cares about them. If nobody cared about the first movie past it's release the second one would've never made as much money as it did (ESPECIALLY in a time when ticket sales are at an all time low and most people don't have the attention span for a three hour movie). Just because the people who like Avatar aren't chronically online and constantly arguing about it the way Star Wars fans do doesn't mean people don't like it. It's just more popular with normal people who don't care to whine about movies on the internet.
I feel that Avatar is good at selling the world, but not at selling the characters, and from my experiences with fandoms, characters are the main drawing card for a lot of people. Just look at many not-so-good shows with memorable characters - even if people are hating on the plot, they will still write thousands of rewrites and AUs for their faves
Well said
The characters are great tho
Pretty much this. Great Sci-fi set pieces and everything else is completely forgettable.
Prime example: My Little Pony.
@@trixie2558Just replying to see the circus that this thread is about to become
I met a guy who told me Avatar is his favourite film of all time and I felt like I had found bigfoot.
It's not my favorite but it's definitely high on the list for me
I judge those people
@@octogonSmugglerWhy? For enjoying something?
@@steffimaier7297yes
I'VE MISREAD IT AS YOU FOUND A BIGOT 😭
Avatar was the peak 'water cooler movie'.
"Hey Bill you seen that new movie?"
"With the blue guys? Yup"
Barely something to talk about but everyone knows it
exists
And yet it makes a billion dollars every time is on cinemas.
@@angelsunemtoledocabllero5801 Nobody said Avatar was a commercial failure. Just that it's entirely forgettable. What is there to say about it, aside from talking about the visuals?
The most popcorn movie that ever popcorned.
@Mirthful_Midori That it was a fun time, maybe? Who cares? I don't understand the point of this discourse. "Avatar had no cultural impact". Ok. Now what? Like is this supposed to be a point against the quality of the movie? An insult? A way to kill time arguing a point nobody is really interested in refuting? I really just don't get it lmao
The thing people always fail to account for when pointing out that Avatar is the highest grossing film is that 3D movie tickets cost almost twice as much as normal tickets. So, in the case of Avatar, highest grossing doesn't mean the most people saw it, it just means that people paid more to see it.
🧐🤯
I absolutely told every person I was friends with that they had to see it in 3D. Some people didn't know that it was designed to be watched that way, so I had to tell them. I would count myself as part of the fanbase 100%
I'd say its massive popularity yet seeming non-existence online stems from mainly older demographics liking the series. Those people dont tend to congregate online and obsess over this universe. Atleast this would be my guess considering my grandparents absolutely adore this movie and watched like ten times.
Guess what the most viewed series in the US is? Yellowstone. This doesn't really have a huge fandom online despite millions watching it, again, mainly older people.
This. My 90 year old gran is absolutely obsessed with the movies but she's not in the demographic to buy merch or cosplay. I gave her a book by the artists that designed the world building but that's it.
I was also thinking this. Not just specifically old people but also just people who don't really do online. I've met a bunch of 30 somethings who just don't go online much. It's a "normie" film.
Tf is Yellowstone? Never even heard of it lol. Makes me think that maybe we (Z) are just as disconnected from the boomers as the boomers are from us. They don't know anything about anime, and we don't anything about the stuff they watch.
@@corbanbausch9049 this actually isn't even an age thing. There are also young people out there who've never touched an anime in there life either. I have a friend who hasn't really watched a single television show; this includes anime, they only play video games as a activity.
@juliaboon9741 I know, that was just an example, I only started watching anime myself in 2020, and I’m 24. Video games, movies, and other stuff like D&D can be examples too.
when someone says Avatar,i only remember about the Last airbender,sometimes i forgot this film exist
same
Same
Ah the superior avatar
The saying, "There is no avatar movie in Ba Sing Sa" remains true
I just call this avatar “the blue people”.
I think what people miss, whenever they talk about Avatar, is that things can be popular yet intrascendental. Avatar made a lot of money because people like the effects and rememeber having a good time watching it, but they gain so little out of it regarding its characters that it will never mass any sort of constant following. People who say no one cared aren't wrong, but didn't understand that most people aren't that much into film discussions and they mostly want to spend they spare time, and Avatar 1 and 2 serve that purpose and little more
No, we understood, and we got that. It's when people try to justify their interest in these films beyond admitting they just like it for presentation that contention starts.
@@CloakofAuronExactly.
remember when Final Fantasy: The Spirits Within was still in the theaters? Anybody watch Siskel & Ebert critique it ? I didnt agree with ANY of what they both said -probably because i was still a teenager- but when i became older i'd noticed how it was cool to see/watch but did they not connect it to the video game series on purpose? OR did they? I've never seen any of the video-game played. so IDK
I think one of the things that hurt Avatar/Pandora from becoming a sci-fi fandom perennial was a lack of easily-accessible presence between movies. Compare it to how the OG Star Wars movies put out books, comics, & cartoons to keep themselves in the public eye between the years. Meanwhile, all Avatar has is... a world at a single expensive theme park. I don't think there were even comics, which is a niche of a niche now.
There’s tons of avatar comics
What hurt Avatar from becoming a popular franchise was the movie being so poorly written that trying to speculate about the setting is an exercise in futility.
I think you might have cause and effect reversed here. There were Star Wars books, comics and cartoons because there was a fanbase ready to receive those things. Avatar never had an audience with any interest so nobody would make books, comics and cartoons, because it would be throwing money away. Audience drives supplementary material not the other way around.
I think you may be on to something, also the fact that it didn’t feel like there was a real world with deeper lore that they didn’t have time for in the movies that would be fun to dive into. Ironically showing more of the humans side would have deepened it and made them feel less like cartoon villains (or interesting ones at least).
Besides the deeper and more realistic themes and honestly better filmmaking, I think the new Dunes were helped by the fact that people who did enjoy them and wanted to know what happens next can go out and buy the books. Part 2 had so many people going out to buy them or haunting book online fandom. That there is an established fandom for that that can keep things alive between films helps too
@@scarlettsibis5351for the blue people avatar or the bald kid avatar?
I think the secret sauce is that the real star of the AVATAR movies is the world itself. Yes there's character, heroes/villains, technology... but it's all in service of an incredibly realized, vivid, and immersive world. You can't really box that up and sell it as a LEGO set or a t-shirt. The folks who love AVATAR talk about things like community, culture, and conservation. You can't put that on as costume and cosplay it.
Pretty much, the immersive visual feast was always its strongest point. It did a few other things well too, like the ship designs, the atmosphere being unbreathable (which is accurate), and the Pocahontas/Ferngully plot was good enough. But the rest of the film doesn't really hold up on its own, those are sideshows compared to the big tent of vivid visualization in imax.
Yes yes yes you get it! I will admit that the characters aren’t the strong point for me, but the world is where the meat’s at. The wonder kid me felt at seeing Pandora’s creatures come to life is something I will never forget. And I feel like we don’t explore a lot of alien civilizations in sci-fi other than high tech grays. It’s just fun to see cool worldbuilding.
So we agree that Avatar would be better in a documentary style?
Its one of the best things about Monster Hunter World. Just gathering resources and seeing the monsters actually interact with eachother and the environment always felt good, but its a game. Not a movie I feel rewatching does near nothing.
Precisely, it also adds to mention Wane Barlowe was involved, he is a master at worldbuilding.
An Avatar game would work better if it where a large open world survival game focused on PvP (but with a single player option, thers folks like me who just want to play survive) , think Ark Survival but you're on Pandora, the Navi get to tame animals and humans make their mechs.
Recently, I got into a binge of creating my own species and I just realized, Avatar's biggest failure is that none of the characters are instantly recognizable. They're literary is no variety with the Navi.
I think you're spot on, the world building in avatar is phenomenal but all the navi except for one (due to all the jewellery) look almost identical from afar 🤔
Even just having different body types would have helped! From what I’m aware the reason the Na’vi are so tall and lithe is because that’s James Cameron’s type, but they’re basically just elongated humans, so while having Neytiri have that body type to a T would have been fine it’d be interesting to see a diversity in body types. Like everyone literally looks the same. The closest I’d say we got to this is Tsireya, whose short compared to the others, but I mean that’s a stretch. You could argue that they’re all built like that because of their lifestyle, and while yes they may all be stronger and more agile than your average Joe, in real hunter gatherer societies there’s still body diversity.
@@janibii_608 it's because the navi live in the wild and don't get fat like in american society.
well they are supposed to be black people but painted blue so...😂
@@geert574 They're supposed to be Native Americans except Cameron forgot that Native Americans are diverse and have their own unique cultures
Avatar was the movie equivalent of a fire work show, you like fire works, we all like fire works, it's fun to see, we will pay to see a good one, we will get freinds and go see one, we look forward to the next one, but at no point in the day after the fire works will you go "hey Todd, those fireworks were so cool." You will see it, smile, clap, and walk away
very well said.
There isn’t a Avatar fanbase because it’s actually the James Cameron fanbase, where like a few filmmakers have a huge passionate driven fanbase that’ll go out and see their work no matter what, especially the likes of Christopher Nolan, Denis Villeneuve (currently developing), Tim Burton (used too), and Steven Spielberg (in his prime) have.
I love Avatar but yeah you're mostly right
Also the majority of the "fanbase" is just normies. When Way of Water came out my electrician and lumberjack cousins asked me how it was. So did my uncle who mostly watches golf I think
You named my favorite directors, Spielberg being my most, I think Nolan is the succesor of Cameron, same way Villeneuve is the succesor of Nolan, they dominante sci-fi blockbusters in IMAX, but also made historical films that earned awards, which people love or hate (Titanic and Oppenheimer, Villeneuve needs to do the Cleopatra film).
As for Burton fanbase, is very true, many friends and I grew with his films and love him, mostly girls (who also love Harry Potter), but they tend to ignore the Batman duology due to a lack of interest in superheroes, or not knowing Burton directed them, Batman fans are the ones who cares (even 40 or 50 yo men people who most likely only love Beetlejuice and Batman).
What about Quentin Tarantino, Wes Anderson, David Fincher? Even Michael Bay, pretty sure they have a fanbase, even GOAT's like Marty Scorsese or Stanley Kubrick (dead, I know) have them (well deserved).
But Terminator and Alien do have fanbases
@@NoahToledo-xo5pjyes but you have to consider three things:
1. most of the movies in these franchises weren’t directed by james cameron
2. unlike with terminator, the alien franchise wasn’t even created by james cameron
3. both franchises also have tons of additional pieces of media (comics, games, TV shows, etc.)
0:04 Alpha Centauri is 4.4 ly from Earth not 4.4 million ly.
Yea I don’t think earth would be trying to colonize if it was 4.4 million ly away 😂
@@Ty-wy7yq It does not change anything. One light year is absurdly far. It can be 4,4 light years or 4,4 million light years away from us. The scale is so insane that there is no difference. One, four, or four million is just as impossible. It's like someone would ask you to stay under the water with a single breath for a year and then say, "I'm sorry. My mistake. A year would be way too long. It was supposed to be one week." 😆
@@HanSolo__Well, with those timescales it would be more like years to seconds. 4LY is doable, insanely difficult but we can get there within a lifetime and plausible tech. 4 million LY is so ridiculously far that light itself has a hard time with it.
yep ir was an obvious mistake
We seen the same thing with movies like "Gravity"(2013) that lose all appeal outside an Imax theater. Without the immersive experience, those type of movies struggle to hold up on their own.
Is this why avatar has a huge blueray and streaming market?
@@Noob-yx1cu "Huge" is relative to production costs. Unclear numbers as all sequels are filmed together. But with estimates close a half a billion per movie, it takes a billion to cover production and marketing. While the second movie did over two billion, it was not as profitable as the first. Unless the third one offers something completely different, I doubt the returns will be higher.
Same with Dredd (2012), it's actually uncanny to watch in 2D because it has a lot of these long, boring slo-mo scenes that are there purely for the spectacle of 3D imax theatres. It's a shame as well because unlike avatar the story was solid and could have launched a more modern Judge Dredd franchise, but it flopped because they fell for the 3D meme.
@@captainweekend5276 "Dredd" failed due to poor marketing and for being unfairly compared to "The Raid", that was released earlier that same year with a very similar plot. Even without the 3D, the context behind the slow motion keeps us invested and separate both movies. Different types of action and different visual styles make "Dredd" and "The Raid" memorable in their own ways.
I can't with Gravity is bored and pretentious
An important note on Avatar’s record breaking box office numbers is that Avatar actually didn’t sell that many tickets. If you look at movies by individual tickets sold Avatar doesn’t break the top 10. The reality is that Avatar’s box office records are owed to the inflated ticket price of 3d and IMAX showings.
Jenny Nicholson bought more Avatar merch than everyone else combined
She was the only one wearing Avatar ears *inside the park where they're sold*
**channeling my inner Smiling Friends rotoscope guy** “IS THAT FUCKING BLUEFACE, DUDE?!”
we're talking about non-existent fanbases not simulated ones
No no no, this isn't blueface, I'm an actual Na'vi from Pandora.
@@mariopikaman1 “get the FUCK out man!” **slams face onto the floor**
I always wondered why the Na'vi were okay with avatars running around, like they didn't think it was racist as fuck?
I know that reference
The second one was basically “what if we made the same movie but with a more aquatic theme.”
Literally still haven’t seen it 😅
...and substantially worse pacing.
@@Dr.W.Krueger lmao yes
@@Dr.W.Kruegeryeah, it was so slow until the end. 3 hours is unnecessary, an entire hour could have been cut
I liked when humanity returned and created a parking lot on top of this planet. What a nightmare world. All things can mentally stimulate eachother.
That’s disgusting. Imagine being able to stick your finger in the butt of any animal and having a psycho/sexual relationship with them.
Pandora needs to be glassed. Don’t send a mining company first. Send the bio weapon scientists to create a disease that eliminates all life on the moon.
There was an Avatar-themed Cirque Du Soleil show. I know this because I saw it before I watched the movie it was based on.
Well now I've gotta look this up...
oooo i saw Avatar on Ice, cool to know there was a Cirque too
those shows are dope, but also gay as fuck, but also so dope. So I bet that one was mad cool. I'd torrent them Cirque dvds if I were still trippin, but I'm not for now, but damn, I def know how fun those can be. Pretty trippy. That one woulda been extra
It was okay but didn't really make it over the bar. Cirque du Soleil is at its best when the performance is centered around a more original concept or theme instead of a franchise.
Avatar fans: The only nerds who regularly touch grass and somehow get slagged for it
this hit me hard
Are you saying that football/sports fans are not cosplayers? Do they not gather in masses to dress up to support their favorite fandom? Know all the statistics by heart? Know all the chants that are like greetings to each other.. they are nerds too
@@Rise_O-te_Phoenix 90% of them literally just sit on the sofa and watch the games on tv and occasionally, like once in a year, go to gatherings or games
@Lvnat1c I'm talking about the superfans the ones that paint themselves and wear cheese hats and such
@@Rise_O-te_Phoenix still, if it happens 3 times in a year it's a lot
A part of me still wonders whether the producers saw people online going insane about "avatar" and just assumed it was their movie and not the animated show and just didn't look any closer.
In the video it was mentioned that no one actually likes Avatar or has any collectibles? I AM that one person that actually has Avatar collectibles 😭
I know about at least three of you including the host - the third one had a YT channel as well.
But actually there's no actual proof you 3 are even real now that I think about it.. 😅
Dude me too.
me too!
@@Aryn-cx9wnYour pro-pic confirms it.
Same!!! Avatar fans rise up!! 💙🩵🌏
Remember guys, Pacific Rim with just ONE movie have a big fanbase...
Where they all at I sure as hell don’t see em
@@THEbackbender420 If you spend time at mecha or tokusatsu online spaces then Pacific Rim is mentioned every single time when a discussion about films are brought up
its sad pacific rim doesn't have a sequal but its probably for the best so they dont drop the ball on it cause while i don't doubt that they could've but it would be hard to re catch the lighting the first movie had
@@dudesayshi2191 it did get this really weak non-canon spinoff called "Uprising", but honestly, the anime did it better.
@@spazzey0 pffft what's this pacific rim uprising it doesn't exist but I do agree the "anime" (bc it was made in America) did a good job but that story felt more right for a series rather than a movie
I was in college when Avatar 2009 came out, sure I remember all the hype around it, how it's so realistic and lifelike and that it was at the very peak of cutting edge CGI; then nothing. I enjoyed the movie, it was good but it wasn't an "i'm gonna rewatch this movie every year" good. Despite the hype around it, I think the one thing that made it be so hyped up was because James Cameron produced and directed it, especially from fans of his movies including me. The one thing that I believe made it disappear almost completely was because of its very forgettable and simplistic storyline and plot of "humans bad nature good", unobtainium sounds too much of a placeholder name, Jake Sully switching sides just came off as him reeeeally wanting to get some blue action, Michelle Rodriguez's character swtiching made no sense, Jake Sully's whole species reassignment surgery was flimsy AF and just made the last part of the movie feel like Jake Sully died and anything from that point was all a dream or something.
The editing on this is next-level holy shit
Insane he did all of it on his own.
The number one take on this I will never forget is Jacksfilm's classic "man on the street" interview segment of:
"Can you name one single character from the highest-grossing film of all time, James Cameron's 'Avatar'?"
Lemme tell you, there were NOT a lot of winners.
I would have won that no problem.
I know Jake Sulley mostly because they say his name over a thousand times between the 2 movies
I only would have won that because my parents really liked the movie and the protag's name is drilled into my mind - although part of that is because "Jake Sull(e)y the blue person" makes me think of Sully from Monsters, Inc. and that's honestly a very effective mnemonic
They say this as if you wouldn't get the same result if you made someone watch a movie with primarily Korean/Nigerian/Mongolian names and then asked them to remember their names.
My Jacksfilms number one take is : what are you doing in my house Sssniperwolf?
This reminds me of the Assassin's Creed fandom. While it is one of the biggest video games franchise, the fandom (as in fans who are actively in the community and stay, instead of just posting one fanart of it and not thinking about it anymore) reduced in size with each game. Today the fandom is a smaller continuation of the fandom of earlier games, and the amount of new fanarts and fanfics have reduced to almost nothing
Calling avatar fans the horse girls of sci-fi is so funny and so accurate. I almost lost it
Shut up
That's funny.
but horse girls LIKE HORSES so.... do avatar fans LIKE AVATAR? Wow, what a stupid and self-contradictory thing to say if your point was nobody likes Avatar. This knob just uses whatever garbage came off his head five seconds ago as the premise for his next one-liner irrespective of whether it supports his thesis or not.
@@LeavesDecayingThere's an innocent interpretation and Vaush one...
As a "horse girl" (equestrian.) And a avatar fan, your not wrong
The horse girl comment was perfection. 🤌🏻
I found it rather bigoted and disgusting, but to each their evil own.
@@penguinjay What does this even mean lol
@@TheSuper200 idk it’s actually so out of pocket i think it’s hilarious
@@TheSuper200 because a lot of horse girls are actually autistic, and horses are their special interest. the whole "horse girl" joke is making fun of them for being weird and "obsessed" with horses. it's ableist. but even when it comes to allistic (non-autistic) horse girls, it's still pretty fucked up to make fun of people for liking something and engaging in their hobby.
NGL, avatar is mostly blue, naked with only loincloth and random unintelligible language and scream
so thats really small amount of materials to work with for avatar fans
fans couldnt imitate fckn CGI environment
also the bad guy isnt that well written, they are just your generic military vilain
Idk, i kinda like the idea of a franchise being immune to fandom bullshit. Makes it calmer.
But also lifeless.
That's the irony: to be alive is to be in conflict, and the only way to guarantee no "fandom bullshit" is to not have an active fandom.
@@LordVader1094it’s not immune to fandom bs because they don’t exist. It’s immune to fandom bs because they’re all touching grass instead of arguing online
Here’s the weird thing about Avatar that really speaks to how unpopular it is: Look at how much Rule34 there is for Avatar(Blue) and then look at how much there is for Avatar(Bending).
raid shadow legends moment.
never seen any of that.
Yah, you would think that a franchise about humanoid aliens are bound to get a lot of those but the results are meh
Disturbing considering that one of those franchises features a mostly underage cast...
@@McDonaldsCalifornia (͡° ͜ʖ ͡°)
Yeah I thought about a very similar metric, but in a different place. Na'vi are clearly furry bait, so it makes sense to check the numbers on the monosodium glutamate site - and currently they are at just ~500 pictures, after so many years for pictures to accumulate. For comparison we have the Zonai, who were introduced* in the new Zelda game less than a year ago and they were basically just 2 characters only* seen in the flashback cutscenes, and they currently sit at ~1k. It really is wild just how little impact the Avatar franchise has given the money it made
21:29 "It's almost like negativity sells, and a cynical outspoken minority will create an echo chamber that amplifies a perceived sentiment that actually isn't widely shared. Who knew?"
Damn, I *felt* that
Got something that you'll feel even more: "Wide as an ocean, deep as a puddle."
Perfectly sums up Avatar.
Damn I should note that one
Almost reminds me of the current American political system, hmm.
Avatar is so weird, I don't know anyone that actually likes it and I feel like everyone's just been gaslit into thinking it's popular.
I think its alright, but man oh man is it crusty.
Fun to get high to.
I really like it. It's a cool display of alternative evolution.
My overweight auntie sue loves them
It's just James Cameron's personal fetish that everyone pretends to like so they don't hurt his feelings.
No a lot of ppl liked it. But it was just a visual spectacular and nothing with substance. So ppl saw it once said that was cool. And never thought of it again
I have watched Avatar 2 three times and I still can’t remember much about it. I know space whales are tortured/ killed for some gold stuff that stops aging, and that there is a freaking kid legit named Spider, lmao.
And there's water.
If this gold stuff stop aging I can justify why their being tortured.
I mean that tells more about you than the movie
Yeah the sequel was entertaining enough to watch once but was overall disappointing
They said the Humans don’t care about mining this time but they focus the whole movie on Whaling instead which is just another resource conflict
Kaltxì! Okay, I am a huge Avatar fan and always will be. I really connected with the first movie and the Na'vi culture, and since then, I've been learning the language. I've always found the fandom amazing and full of the kindest people. I feel like the fanbase is pretty large, though I'm not in any big popular mainstream fandoms so what seems big to me may not be big to other people. This video was funny and entertaining, and though like everything, Avatar means so so much to me. Hayalovay
Edit: forgot to mention but I fricking LOVE Frontiers of Pandora, and my family and friends do too. Also have a lot of merch but I've talked to people who have so so much! I would also love to go to the theme park
i love people like you, just completely uncaring abt the haters. keep doin what you're doin broski :D
Oel ngati kameie🩵 I'm also huge fan of AVATAR and always will be. I can talk about it all the time.
There's so many layers to the story and characters it's just amazing. I think that some people are generally closed-minded and just don't want to understand the movie and it's message. Let me quote "Sky People cannot learn. You do not See"
the words speak for themself.
Eywa nhagu🩷
i actually used to be a hardcore Avatar fan, i wrote fanfics, learnt the language and was super invested. i still really admired the universe JC created. and there’s actually quite a big Avatar fandom, you just need to dig into it a bit hehe. yeah i’m the Avatar apologist!
So Avatars fandom Unicorns are real?
“His name is James, James Cameron! The greatest pioneer. No budget too steep, no sea too deep. who’s that? It’s him! James Cameron”
GOAT South Park reference 😂
I just watched Point Break yesterday, such a good film
James Cameron doesnt do what James Cameron does for James Cameron…
@@malaisto925 … James Cameron does what James Cameron does because James Cameron is, James Cameron😤
@@koobs4549Point Break is one of my favorite movies, have you seen the remake? I like it, it's set on my country (Venezuela) with our most famous star: Edgar Ramírez.
i feel like it’s also bc of how difficult it is to cosplay any characters from the movies. cosplay is a huge part of pop culture and when ur characters are too hard to replicate on any and all bodies… it’s tough.
also they're like 3 or 4m tall, which is why they have no Na'vi characters in the disneyland park, which is weird and makes it into a creepy ghosttown.
An identical plot to Princess Mononoke? Not even close, Princess Mononoke did everything that Avatar failed to do.
Princess Monoke is better
It was like watching CGI cutscenes from a video game, so it honestly didn’t feel like anything new.
I’m honestly mad that the original soundtrack was so different from what we got, a shame really.
you dont even know how it sounded
Same, there is no shortage of CGI worlds.
@@Noob-yx1cuProbably would've been better than what we got though. Nobody can remember the music of the movie, much like the films themselves
@@LordVader1094 There's a lot of reasons for it, but I don't have the time to explain, so see the video "Why Avatar has the Most Ironic Soundtrack of All Time"
I’m an avatar fan. I have two ikran loungefly backpacks and 3 Christmas ornaments
I’d kill for an ikran plush from Disney (joke obviously, but I can’t go to pandora in Disney cause I don’t live in America lol)
When the movie first came out, I was in the middle of writing a fantasy novel. I was low-key obsessed with the movie when it came out because the Na’vi reminded me of a race I was creating in my story-which also pissed me right off, because I had to completely rethink my race now lol
I think the lack of in between content is part of the reason why there’s no fandom. There’s nothing to really hook anyone on a decade between.
There’s some fandoms that survive with a lack of official content, i.e. Avatar TLAB, Steven Universe, Undertale, etc. But at least with those there was a strong enough story for the fandom itself to get it off the ground and keep something going.
Or there were comics, animated series, events, etc. like with Marvel, DC, or Star Wars. But Avatar has virtually nothing other than a mid game every decade with the movie.
Encanto and Puss in Boots 2 had more ongoing fandom for a one off than this.
I still personally love Avatar. Sure it's not really for _everyone,_ but it'll always be my cup of tea. I especially adore the vehicles, especially the ones from The Way of Water.
No I am not in a room being held at gunpoint, forced to read out a script.
Edit: srsly tho, I love the films
hm (:
The only thing I don't like is the very one sided message :(
Only thing I liked was the world and I dont include the blue people. So I never understood why it made so much money, because im not going to watch such a long movie to see glimpses of the world. Others can enjoy it I will just not understand why and thats fine. Hope a third movie doesnt take another decade for you.
@@theultraatomicgamerYes, we should also listen the side of the people trying to destroy the jungle they are probably very good people.
@@angelsunemtoledocabllero5801 The problem is that the reason why the humans while greedy needed resources to help earth since they're having alot of problems like overpopulation and energy, although what they did was wrong I sympathise their struggles for survival and their desperation.
I feel like the movie would be better if both the Humans and the Na'vi are both morally grey with Jake Sully and his team finding a way to tone the violence down between both sides than just him becoming a simp and a traitor to get some alien pussy.
I’ve honestly always thought of Avatar as the movie version of a tech demo, no one is particularly invested in the plot, characters, etc. but are just there to see the cool CGI and shit, it’s literally like a tech demo for movie studios to show off their newest abilities in editing, graphics etc.
It's wild to me. McFarlane made some KILLER action figures for this last movie. The sculpts were some of the companies best. They did really cool scales, some great playsets. All of them, clearance. No one bought them. I found some at a weird discount store recently, that literally, nothing in the store had a legit name brand, except a bunch of avatar figures. I've been to all sorts of conventions, no cosplay. Nothing. I will admit, that game tempted me. I love the Far Cry engine, and it's basically a scifi Far Cry game. Haha
I mean with very few exceptions I feel like most actuon figures just always end up on clearance. As toys they are very meh, so unless someone wants to collect them they just end up in the landfill.
That's actually not entirely true. People LOVED the A.M.P. suit, you couldn't find that anywhere.
I love how you're slowly becoming the Canadian Brutalmoose with these edits. But I'll always remember when I took my grandma to go see this when it first came out and she said to me: "The effects were good, but everything else was so BORING." I still miss you grandma :(
Now that's a name I have not heard in a long time... A long time.
"Brutalmoose" already sounds like a Canadian channel
Avatar explores the themes of greed, the use of technology for the consolidation of power vs the origin of organic comunity as the product of a spiritual foundation and relationship with nature.
Most people are too brainwashed to even seriously consider these themes and their importance to the future of humanity. Technology is their god and consumption their saviour.
It always felt like to me that the entire selling point of this movie was just the high end CGi effects. No one I know ever said anything about the movie other than how good the effects were or how good it looked on their new 4K tv's.
Had no idea what the movie was even about until years later when I saw a youtube summary of it.
Thank you, this is exactly the problem with the film, it's just spectacle and no substance
All I know is somehow through pacing he made a 3 hour movie feel like a 90 minute film, it ended and I was like there is no way that was that long. Kinda a pacing masterpiece ngl
avatar 1 pacing was better
but yeah, sitting 3 hours didnt felt boiring
Yeah, the pacing is masterful, and the tension building in the second one, though not subtle in the slightest, is second to none. James Cameron knows what he is doing.
Really? I was bored out of my mind a half hour in
10:13 this joke aged really well
Die hard Avatar fan here, I thought this was a very good and fair video which brought up a lot of valid points, I can corroborate the no new content for a decade angle because it's exactly what happened with me. I watched the first movie when I was 10 and loved it, I played the game obsessively and read the annual, but over time my interest in the franchise tapered off since there wasn't anything new coming out. I think the last time I watched the movie was in 2015 before it exited my mind completely save for the occasional piece of news i'd read about the upcoming sequels.
Fast forward to 2022 and I see the title announcement and hear about the trailer being exclusive to some marvel capeshit I don't remember the name of I started to get excited about the franchise again, I was talking to someone at work about movies and I brought up that the new trailer was out for Avatar 2 and he said he'd seen it the night before when he watched said marvel movie and we started talking about Avatar, I was asking him questions about what the trailer had etc, then we started talking about the first movie and even though it had been 7 or 8 years since i'd last seen it I was really surprised at how much of the film I actually remembered. When I got home later that day the trailer was leaked and I was watching it over and over until it came out officially on UA-cam.
Getting excited for Avatar again made me feel like a kid again, and it looks like this excitement about the franchise isn't going anywhere for a very long time. However I would like to give a reason why the Frontiers of Pandora videogame just came and went with no effect on the fandom - it's a 7/10 Ubisoft open world game, I have never found it hard to engage with anything related to Avatar because i'm very well versed with the lore and story so far but I don't know how they managed it but FoP just isn't very engaging or interesting for me.
In a way, I kind of like that despite the franchise being as huge as it is the fanbase is relatively small and close nit, it feels like a small town where everybody knows each other and the fanbase itself is one of the nicest and most welcoming fanbases i've ever seen, there's a fan meetup planned in Paris in a couple months which is shaping up to be a great time for those lucky enough to attend.
I like how you refer to marvel as "capeshit" when that so called "cape shit" is alot more relivent and popular then avatar ever was...more people can remember those movies and there characters then they can avatar and there characters
@@michaelbirkinshaw8523 Relevance doesn't equate to quality.
@@ToiletGrenade except there plenty of marvel movies that are good quality made movies that capture the hearts and imaginations of the audiences thst watched them and had more cultural impact and relivence .. basically you don't need to shit on one film series in order to prop up one you like... you could of said i saw the trailer for the second movie at a marvel movie but no you had to take lazy pot shots for no reason labeling them all marvel capeshit and undermining the amount of success they have made becoming one of the biggest movie series to exist...the reason marvel has remained relivent is because they have released constiently good movies with good likeable character that carried the story's of the movies they are in that have made cultural impacts around the world and captured the hearted and imagination of the movie going audiences..in fact the level of success the marvel movies have had is almost unheard off and almost impossible to repliacted which has been proven hy other movie studios jumping ont he shared universe bandwagon and failing ...when it comes to most film series often they either get worse and worse or they make less and less box office gross or some times both...for example alien the first 2 masterpieces but everything else after it kept getting worse and worse and made less and less..or terminator...after the second one the movies got worse and worse and made less and less but for marvel movies this wasn't the case...phases 1-3 of the mcu was a gigantic cultural event juggernaut of a film entertainment series where almost every movie with a few exceptions was a success and constanlty broke box office records and was heavily well reviewed and recieved by film critics and genral audiences... have they tripped and fell over in recent years yes...have they made bad movies of course every movie series has stumbled and made failures and the MCU is no different in that regard but labeling everything marvel has done as just bad cape shit just undermines the legitmately good quality movies they have made...iron man 1, captain america: the winter soilder the avengers movies, the guridans trilogy, civil war etc was all good quality movies and pretending they aren't to hop on the hate bandwagon is completelty disingenuous and objectively wrong.
@@michaelbirkinshaw8523 If you like it hey, more power to you, I don't.
@@ToiletGrenade you can like them or not that's fine but the point is that you saying relivence of there's doenst equal to quality is completely wrong because theres loads of good quality marvel movies that prove your point wrong the level of success these movies have achieved is unmatched and unparalleled and is basically the new starwars for a new generation of the 2010,s ...atleast there characters are more likeable, memorable and more interesting then avatars and have actually good characters and development...the avatar movies put all there focus on there cgi special effects that everything else about those movies from characters and story is so underwritten and developed to the point they arnt very memorable outside of the special effects while the better marvel movies puts most of its focus in to it's characters and making them interesting and likeable which is why people continue to remember these characters more so which is why they remain to have a larger cultural relivence....thanos will go down in history as one of the best and most well known movies villains in movie history up there with Darth Vader while the generic genral army dudes anrt even remembered now by the public never mind in the future.
i had this as a video on my ipod nano, which is probably how it was intended to be viewed by james cameron
Watching videos on the go used to be such a delicate art of scarce possibilities.
na-no
Avatar is great example of what Aldous Huxley called 'The Feelies' in Brave New World. Basically a visual spectacle to provide some eye candy and give you a dopamine hit while not making you go through the difficult effort of actually having to think. Bread and circuses to provide copium to the great unthinking masses.
Underrated comment.
Thank you, this really should be higher up in the comments because it's exactly why the movie is so bad.
I’m a fan of Avatar. I like how hippie dippy it is. Plus the music is good and it’s truly a world I can get lost in. It’s blue aliens on dragons with machine guns.
50th like
@@A-Clear_Viewok and nobody cares because it’s not special or impressive in the slightest sense
@dabbingraccoons6416 I'm betting you were a middle child😂😂
If you love Avatar you'll LOVE 40k. What about _green_ aliens riding jumbo-jet sized dinosaur tanks with IMPRACTICALLY LARGE AND OVERDESIGNED machine guns?
@@LordCrate-du8zm yes literally the whole premise of 40k is ridiculously impractical over engineered soldiers and guns.
I think it’s ok for it to have been wildly successful in theaters without much staying power. The point was the stereoscopic filming that was absolutely mind-blowing on an IMAX screen; something you sadly cannot experience again en masse. Compared to the cheesy 3D done in post processing for every other movie, nothing would come close without having licensed that technology from JC. It was basically a giant VR demo of a bioluminescent fantasy world, and it was a genuine experience both times.
That cut to you suddenly wearing sunglasses just so you could take them off was genius
I love the effort that goes into making every part of the video entertaining
A fandom like star wars or Sonic will sustain itself for years because there's so much to discuss (and pointlessly argue over). Avatar just dosent have characters or lore that lead to interesting theories or discussions, it's all pretty cut and dry.
Yet it smokes the other two when in comes to success In theaters. That’s what really matters. I dare sonic execs to release sonic 3 against avatar 3 in December 2025 lol we will see if that fandom talk is really relevant.
Not sure if you want to use the Sonic fandom as a positive example here. We at least don't have weirdos like Chris Chan or that guy that nuts into Sonic plushies and other loud crazies that in the long run taint the fandom.
The sonic fandom is strongly dependant on neurodivergent adult babies and bullying
So you haven't been to the Avatar subreddit and Discord (Kelutral having the largest amount of members), read the comics, or go down the James Cameron's Avatar Wiki + Pandorapedia rabbit hole, do you?
cut and dry is a dogwhistle for racist conservative rhetoric, STOP USING IT> UA-cam JUST HASNT CAUGHT UP IN TIME TO BAN IT!
I can't wait for the 4th movie where the Navi have to deal with the Helldivers of Superearth.
TRULY What we NEED not want
I can’t tell if that’s gonna be a wipe for the Na’vi or the Helldivers. Helldivers just keep pushing through while Na’vi are stealthy as hell.
@@fulcrum6760 You’re forgetting the strategems that they can call down.
@@Lobsterwithinternet Yeah but those things compared to the RDA are just limited as hell and break easily compared to the RDA.
Superearth or the Astra Militarum. Who gets to Pandora first? Place your bets!
When it first released I was turning 8 and obsessed with avatar. My mom dyed my skin blue and gave me markings with a blue dress and gems on my skin to resemble the glowing they have. Also she baked my cake and decorated it as the tree of souls and the mcdonalds direhouse dolls around it
I met a guy who told me he was learning the N'avi language and my friend desperately wanted a cardboard cut out of Jake Sully xD I think I received a book about Pandora too? The fans definitely existed but they were so short lived compared to other fandoms. Seeing it in 3D it really felt like that was the way Cinema would head forever but even that was a short phase as well.
Nowadays, a lot of the fanbase just consists of people making creepy fanfictions/thirst traps for all the child characters. It’s disgusting. It’s somewhat embarrassing to be an Avatar fan on instagram because of this
Ok I watched this again and I have to point out that the overall quality of the video is outstanding. You hit all the beats. Perfect transitions, funny delivery, really good variety of b-roll, tiiiiiiight editing. Great work bro
Never thought I'd listen to Hiccup talk about Avatar for almost half an hour, but I'm glad I did
Watching Avatar just feels like I'm watching someone else play an on rails video game. I'd rather just play a video game.
Um… I don’t know how to tell you but there was a game released recently, I heard it was decent if that interests you!
Ubisoft @@PuffyBuffy
What does this even mean
@@Noob-yx1cuan on rail video game means a very linear game that basically leads you on a path, think of like those arcade games where all you do is aim your gun while the game moves itself.
Avatar is just 3 hours of cutscenes
oh snap!
thanks for the surprise video!
i forgot I subscribed to you.
nice to see you back.
My High School senior prom (2012) was Avatar-themed. Some poor prom committee kid built an intricate paper-mache Great Leonopteryx, about 6" across. They hung it from the ceiling. They really committed.
The problem with the toys and video games is that nobody truly cares for the main characters of the movies. The main protagonist, Jake and Neytiri barely have a substantial fanbase independently. Even by pairing standards, they don't have staying power.
What makes the Avatar movies work is the world building, the action and the cinematography. I can watch both and it doesn't require me to think too hard but I can still enjoy it.
I was stoked to stock up on RDA troops and vehicles from the new movie. Lo and behold though, we only got Quarritch and an AMP suit. I wanted marine squads, the helicopters, atv's, submarines, the works. And all I could find was named characters, and an army of Quarritch's just doesn't really do it for me. At least other figures can fit in the amp suits. With some paint they fit right into Star Wars, Halo, Aliens and more.
@@benjaminburton8135 McFarlane also made the crab tank iirc
Man, how do you recognize the main characters? I can only see a flashy background. I refused to acknowledge that Cameron did this. I still can't believe, so many people went to the cinema to watch it. I mean, good for Cameron it earned a lot of money. Intelligent children laughed while watching Avatar. Weaver looked like she wanted to leave as soon as possible.
The fact that a game about running cookies has a bigger fanbase than avatar is insane.
Running cookies? What?
@@BrandEver117Cookie Run/Cookie Run Kingdom (the latter is more popular in my experience).
Running chickens xdd
@@HazardousFox the smae fanbase moved on? Pretty much imo.
Yeah but that's a fandom for Gen Alpha
A telltale sign that a franchise has failed to create a fanbase is when no one bothers to create any good R34 for it.
There's been na'vi porn for years man. I remember seeing that shit way back when the first movie came out.
Btw the fandom does exist, they’re just hiding out in Reddit and Tumblr because they wanna be left alone and not get bullied for being “cringe” by the rest of the internet.
They need to stop being cringe over a tech demo, then.
@@CloakofAuron you are the exact reason why they’re hiding out. They’re just minding their own business, so should you.
they are like the navi hiding out within the forests of pandora, while outsiders farm their culture for content. Quite poetic
As a long time tumblr user I'm gonna chalk it up to algorithm because I've never seen an Avatar post except for a paid ad.
@@nessarolla I’m part of the fandom in both and let me tell you, the tumblr side is thriving.
Also yea it’s probably the algorithm, I looked at one atwow post and my entire homepage is rip neteyam posts lmao 😂
Your thumbnail is horrifying, and it got me to click. Kudos to you. You nailed it.
Subscribed.
IM GAY
Avatar fans painting themselves blue and going out in public - ooof the cringe. Avatar fans going out in nature and doing conservation work and camping trips - deeply wholesome and kinda awesome.
Has no cultural impact whatsoever, and is only the second most famous franchise named “avatar”
5.2 Billion dollars say otherwise.
Money is money threat why I said cultural impact, ask captain marvel about the difference
Oh you are so silly for thinking atla is more famous
@@Noob-yx1cu it is though XD
More people know this Avatar but more people like atla
Damn Pedro Pascal jr you went in hard on avatar hahaha
Great video, keep it up!
This is the first video I’m seeing from you, and what an enjoyable watch! Well done 🥰
It seems Avatar's influence in the realm on cinema isn't in story or writing, but cinematography. It showed how to film fictional, CGI worlds in ways that actually looked appealing or at least "believable" without being glaringly obvious it was CGI. The overuse of CGI in modern movies is a valid complaint, but it takes a trained eye to notice some CGI tricks nowadays compared to when the technology was used decades ago, and Avatar helped other directors see how to use those tricks.
Of course, special effects is hard to base a pop culture fanbase around. They can argue all day about story or characters or lore, but knowing the best place to put the camera when filming is something only a handful of people notice and even fewer know how to do well. There's a reason so many writing advice channels focus on the reason two characters will fight, but will say little about the choreography or cinematography or effects and all that.
0:16 Why is there a helicopter from Half-Life 2?
The production in this video is top tier, you deserve all of the support!
To be fair, there is quite a decent online fandom for Avatar (especially Avatar 2) on TikTok and Tumblr, regarding fanart and edits. Fanfiction for it on AO3 is pretty huge too.
Fr, there's even a website that gives lessons on how to read, speak, and write in the Na'vi language. Also an entire theme park land.
TikTok especially. There's many edits that thrist over Jake Sully, and there's plenty of memes that edit existing memes with Avatar characters (particularly the Sully kids).
I literally just quoted the Ao3 metrics elsewhere. There's like, 5000 fics for Avatar. Which, while not a small number, is dwarfed by the likes of AVATAR The Last Airbender. Eight times as many. Or the MCU, 100 times as many.
Even if we just lmit ourselves to fandoms with blue leads, Sonic The Hedgehog has quadruple the number of Avatar fics. 21,862
@@bushybeardedbear 5000 fanfics, where about 90% of them are after The Way of Water. That's a decent number of people who want to be continuously attached to the franchise. Not to mention, there are 3 more films being developed with an extra 2 more in consideration. We could see as many as 7 films in the Avatar franchise. The first Avatar admittedly had few fanfics, but that was at the era of the internet where fandoms were forming for all kinds of franchises. Now with Avatar getting a fandom surge, it's a bit unfair to compare it to The Last Airbender, which has had content being developed across the 2010s unlike Avatar. Only now is Avatar getting comics and other side-media. That said, Avatar's doing relatively fine as a fandom, especially one that is booming since late 2022.
Im genuinely amazed to heae youve been doing this all by yourself. This level of productions rivals that of avatar yet blows it out of the water by you actually having a fan base
24:15 made me laugh so hard I started crying for losing my breath and having pain in my sides. Instant subscribe.
Just so you know, I just found your channel today and I literally love it. Your sense of humor, candid coverage, interesting topics- I adore it. Please keep it up. Would love to see you cover some other Internet related nostalgic subject matter. ❤
It's truly awe inspiring that in 2024 one man in his bedroom can make a technically sophisticated youtube video that graphically rivals a billion dollar movie from 2009
How does this channel only have 130K subs? This video is hilarious
Honestly at this point the best move for Avatar as a franchise is to double down on it as a technology showcase franchise than a proper franchise. Release something once a decade, demolish the standards of movie tech, rake in billions, and then disappear for another decade.
i watched avatar for my environmental science class and i fell in love with the movie haha seeing this video pop up in my notifications made me smile, great video!!!
wow, they made you kids dumbasshit
I do not believe Avatar 2 made even half of its reported box office numbers. I don't have evidence to prove this and there may be evidence to the contrary, but I will die on this hill.
I also conveniently watched The Terminator last night. Cameron's best and most culturally impactful film.
I think the major problem with Avatar was there weren't more movies. Look at any major fan bases, and what's the one thing they have in common? Multiple movies. A universe so to speak. Star Wars? Half dozen movies. Harry Potter? Same thing, plus books. Star Trek? That's aa TV series, so you have a constant roll of episodes. Avatar took a decade to release a second movie
"I have never seen anybody wearing avatar merch"
and here I am wearing my avatar hoodie every other day like 😭😭😭😭😭
I remember when the sequel premiered in my country. There was this thing where couples just began showing up to this movie to use the film as a backdrop to cuddle to, saying nothing else actually about the movie afterwards.
Job well done brother! Your videos keep getting better and better! Please keep up the great work. Looking forward to more videos!
I really appreciate the effort you put into these videos. They only seem to get better and they're always entertaining to watch : )