Opinion: Avatar 12 Years Later

Before being unseated by Avengers: Endgame in 2019, James Cameron’s Avatar held the title of highest grossing movie of all time. Uniquely, this movie was not based on an existing franchise but told a story with original characters in a totally distinct and beautifully designed alien world. Just as uniquely, it took 12 years for a sequel to come out with Avatar: The Way of Water coming out this December. This latest theatrical release of the original film upscales the visuals to 4K while bringing audiences who may not be as familiar with the movie up to speed for the newest entry.

Avatar follows Jake Sully (Sam Worthington) who takes his recently deceased twin brother’s position within the Avatar program on the far-off world of Pandora. While out on the planet in the Avatar body, he meets with Neytiri (Zoe Saldana), a native of the Na’vi people and learns their ways at the coaching of Colonel Quaritch (Steven Lang) who is working to get a large amount of “unobtanium” from under the tribal home of the Na’vi.

Going into the screening, I had some mild trepidation about the effects. I had seen the movie three times previously, once theatrically during its original run when I was in high school, once on TNT or TBS or some other commercial-driven cable network, and once in college on a special edition Blu-ray that I bought to test the new 4K television I bought on Amazon (it was not actually 4K, or it was but it was 4K for static images but didn’t have High Dynamic Range, either way that’s a story for another article). I remembered that the movie was truly something special seeing it the first time, then the subsequent viewings, it did not feel as big as it did initially. After seeing it now, it is apparent that Avatar as a viewing experience really only works in a theater. Despite the fact that 3D television fizzled out, even watching the movie at home does not measure up to the same experience as seeing it in a theater does. Seeing it in a theater also allows the viewer the ability to forget some of the clunkier parts of the movie like the heavily expository dialogue and how any time Jake isn’t in the Avatar body the movie is very boring.

The other thing worth addressing with this movie is the criticism of the plot that has been levied since its original release, including by me for a good amount of time. Undoubtedly viewers have seen this archetype of movie, even if they never watched Avatar before. It’s the colonialism/white savior story that has been done to death between Dances With Wolves, FernGully, Pocahontas, and to a lesser extent Dune, however for what Avatar is trying to be, a simplistic storyline helps the movie greatly. The point of Avatar was to show what CGI could do and the movie accomplished that.

The other problem with the “it’s just Dances With Wolves but with blue space cats” criticism is that it dismisses the point of the movie in a flippant sort of way. As a genre, science fiction exists to hold up a mirror to society’s ills using futuristic technology to cast the reflection. That criticism phrased that way dismisses the fact that that the actions taken to try and obtain the unobtanium are simultaneously in line with what would have happened during the colonial eras in reality and also what would happen if humans discovered a resource somewhere in space that had a tribe of indigenous people living near it. Saying it’s just derivative of a historical fiction movie makes it easy to dismiss the critique of society when, somehow, the movie has managed to become more timely in the 12 years since its release.

As for the viewing experience, I used the opportunity to see a movie I was already very familiar with to try out the 4DX (dubbed MX4D at Island 16 and broadly Showcase Cinemas) experience. For those who do not know, a MX4D screening costs a bit more (a matinee in this case ran $21) than a standard screening but it functionally turns the theater into a motion ride, similar to what one would experience at a theme park like Disney World. The experience is cool, though this theater could probably use a little work. Some of the “name brand” 4DX screenings feature additional screens on the wall to open up the experience, since the point of this type of screening is designed to be fully immersive for the viewer. This screen does not do that, though that could be because it was a 4DX screening the same as one would experience at a Regal. While other screens at Island 16 have large walls between them so the viewer cannot see what the audience in front of them are doing, this does not exist in this theater which makes the motion of the other rows in the theater distracting. On top of that, the seats creek and the air/water jets make a ton of additional noise which does harm the immersion that this theater boasts. It’s a unique experience that should be experienced at least once, but that said it is best used for a movie that someone has seen before so if dialogue gets drowned out by the noise of the air jets they aren’t missing much.

The best thing about this edition of the movie is the inclusion of a post-credit tag that showcases Avatar: The Way of Water. It’s not a spoiler driven tag, simply showcasing how the new movie looks compared to the original. To say that there has been an upgrade in the visuals is an understatement to the point where the original movie ages well until that post-credit sequence which makes the original look like The Avengers or any number of other CGI-driven action movies that Avatar paved the way for.

Avatar is now playing in theaters in all formats and Avatar: The Way of Water opens on December 16th, 2022.