Front Burner - Avatar: The forgotten blockbuster

Episode Date: December 16, 2022

James Cameron has directed Titanic, Terminator, and Aliens. But he says the project that kept him from giving up on filmmaking entirely was Avatar. But for all of the film’s initial success Avatar’s lack of cultural impact has become a running joke over the years – there’s even a Buzzfeed quiz called: “Do You Remember Anything At All About Avatar?” Now today, 13 years later, its sequel, The Way of Water, arrives in theatres. CBC Entertainment reporter Jackson Weaver takes us through the first film’s fall from grace, what the sequel’s all about, and whether James Cameron has another big commercial hit on his hands.

In the Dragon's Den, a simple pitch can lead to a life-changing connection. Watch new episodes of Dragon's Den free on CBC Gem. Brought to you in part by National Angel Capital Organization, empowering Canada's entrepreneurs through angel investment and industry connections. This is a CBC Podcast. Hi, I'm Jamie Poisson. Today, we're going back to December 2009. Stephen Harper was prime minister. Empire State of Mind by Jay-Z and Alicia Keys was at the top of the charts.

And Avatar had just arrived in theaters. It was awesome. Like, mind-blowing awesome. It's changed the way I've seen movies before. I've seen 3D, but not like that. The effects are just astounding. It's just a juggernaut of effects, the whole movie. Director James Cameron's sci-fi action story broke box office records. It was the first film to earn more than $2 billion, and to this day it holds the title of

overall highest grossing film. Some fans were so captivated by the fictional world James Cameron had created, they couldn't cope with reality. Check out this comment left on a fan website. Here it is. When I woke up this morning after watching Avatar for the first time yesterday, the world seemed gray. It was like my whole life, everything I've done and worked for, lost its meaning. Lost its meaning after watching this movie. Cases of Avatar syndrome were reported from the U.S. to Europe. But for all that initial success, the blockbuster has mostly been forgotten. There's even a BuzzFeed quiz called, Do You Remember Anything at All About Avatar?

Now, 13 years later, its sequel, The Way of Water, comes out in theaters. My colleague Jackson Weaver is here. He's a senior writer with CBC Entertainment. And he's going to take us through the first film's fall from grace, what the sequel's all about, and whether director James Cameron can produce a massive commercial hit again. Jackson, hey, it is so great to have you on the show. It's great to be here. So it's been a while since I've seen this film. It's been a while since I even thought about it, to be honest with you.

And maybe remind me what the original Avatar was about. That's actually kind of funny. Small caveat, the new movie just assumes that you don't remember anything. So the first about 10, 15 minutes is just this rehash. But so you can be prepared before going to that. This movie is about a guy by the name of Jake Sully. It's the mid-22nd century. He is a former Marine, and they are on their way to a distant moon of a gas giant.

That moon's called Pandora. They're going there because, one, the main reason is there's this mythical, amazing mineral on Pandora called unobtainium worth so much money. Everyone wants it. It's going to save Earth, which is not doing so well right now. But also there's another side project where this tenacious scientist played by Skrini Weaver wants to get her technology off the ground. wants to get her technology off the ground and that technology lets humans take on an avatar of an alien race by the name of the Navi. So these avatars are coded to only the specific DNA of a specific person because Jake Sully shares the DNA with his twin brother who is now deceased. He can take on this avatar that was built for his brother. It'll be a fresh start in a new world. You can do something important. You can make a difference. When he gets to the planet his ultimate goal is stated by this, you know, military-industrial

complex that he is working under. He is supposed to befriend the Navi, a tribe, and you know help the humans get this unobtainium from them. Look Sully, I want you to learn these savages from the inside. I want you to gain their trust. I need to know how to force their cooperation or hammer them hard if they won't. You do that for me, son? Hell yeah, sir. When he's there he is infatuated with natiri one of the heads of this tribe slowly falls in love with her his goals shift he ends up being on the side of the navi

fights back against the human colonizer metaphor and the film ends with i mean it's a bit of a spoiler alert but it was 13 years ago and you really need to know this going into the second movie. It ends with him permanently going into this Avatar form. He can never go back to his human form. He's always going to be an Avatar. He's always going to be a Navi. And the Navi kick out most of the humans for the time being. And side note, because this is important for this other movie,

the scientist played by Sigourney Weaver, Grace Augustine, tries to also permanently inhabit an Avatar body. That fails, and so she kind of dies. But the main thrust of it is Jake Sully is now one of the Na'vi, and they have triumphed over the human interlopers. Okay, that's just like a very comprehensive recap. Thank you very much for that. Okay, so obviously people were into it at the time

because of the Avatar stuff. That was pretty cool and novel, but it was also because this was such a visually striking movie, right? And give me a sense of what made the visual effects so impressive, so cutting edge at the time. Well, I think the main thing is James Cameron. Obviously, it's James Cameron. But this movie being made by James Cameron is what ended up being so astounding. Because one, everyone was really, really excited for a new James Cameron movie. It had been like a decade since they'd seen the last one. And two, James Cameron, if you know anything about him,

he is a guy that's obsessed with his vision on what he wants to see happen. And he had to invent a bunch of stuff for Avatar to possibly exist. You know, I wanted to do something really big and I wanted it to be cutting edge and I wanted it to incorporate CGI, CG animation. And I had kind of been one of the pioneers with that,

with the Abyss and then with Terminator 2. Stan had done Jurassic Park. We now saw that, in a sense, almost anything was possible. So we wanted to do something so big that it would really push things. And when I brought it in and I let my guys at Digital Domain break it down, say, all right, what can we do? What tools do we need to develop to do this?

They said, you're basically out of your mind. We're not going to be ready to do this for years. So instead, they went the route of developing new 3D technology. Now, 3D movies had already kind of existed, but they used something that they had previously invented called Fusion Camera System. they had previously invented called Fusion Camera System. And that essentially captures multiple 3D images to create a stereoscopic 3D image, which is just a way of saying it feels more immersive. They also used a thing called a swing cam or virtual cam that lets actors act out on a virtual stage. They don't have to, you know, look down a camera lens. They're kind of being captured in any sort of angle that they

could possibly need for the movie itself. And initially, when James Cameron apparently first saw the first images, he was a little bit disappointed in the digital aspect of their faces. It was kind of uncanny valley. So they added more technology, heaped more money onto it. And the end result was definitely a movie unlike anything we'd seen before. And, you know, pairing that with the desperate, desperate wait for anything new by James Cameron, it ended up being eventually the huge hit that we know that it was, even though, like you said earlier on, not a lot of people can really remember. And so why do you think that is, that it kind of dropped off, right? Like,

highest grossing film of all time, technologically cutting edge. What is it about the film that made it so kind of forgettable, you think? James Cameron would cry if he heard you say that. But it's kind of been the running joke for so many years, like ever since it came out, or maybe a couple years after it came out, there's been the perennial, you know, no one remembers the names of Natiri,

no one remembers the names of Jake Sully, no one remembers any of the plot beyond just the spectacle of Natiri, no one remembers the names of Jake Sully, no one remembers any of the plot beyond just the spectacle of what it was. And I think that's kind of the main reason that that has happened to a lot of people, is that this movie wasn't a landmark achievement of narrative heft. This is a story that we really know by now. I mean, James Cameron has kind of talked about this, where he wrote the idea of the story years and years before, but like afterwards, Pocahontas, it's basically the same story. The Dances with Wolves, really, really, really similar. The one that I actually think is the most similar, but doesn't get talked about quite as much is

Fern Gully. It's almost the exact same story. And the reason is because it's it's almost the exact same story and the reason is because it's not really an innovative story and that's usually what people grab onto when they are you know thinking about something down the line but also at the same time we kind of have a different idea or relationship with movies now I mean post-marvel we have this idea of a huge fandom. If a movie is worthwhile, worth talking about, it's because we write endless think pieces on it. We have all this fan fiction and we expand the universe. We have game releases. We have side books. We have all of this deep, deep headcanon. And Avatar kind of came largely before any of that. And we didn't really have that relationship with movies.

We had a relationship with Spectacle and usually is one and done maybe a couple sequels. But it wasn't the same sort of comprehensive world that is just dominating all of cinema now. So on the one hand, I think we don't really remember much of it because we have to be honest this isn't that great of a story movie it's serviceable but not earth-shattering but also you know we we watch movies differently we consume media differently and we think about what a success is differently largely because of marvel probably worth noting here too you know you touched on how there are similar narratives here to pocahontas, but I mean, those narratives are criticized too, right? For being imperialist in nature and exploitative of indigenous populations.

Yeah, this movie has kind of been through the ringer. And I'll say rightly so, because there is that really simplistic theme, but also it's kind of exploitative theme, a noble savage theme that we see in older movies. It's not as much being drawn, that well isn't being drawn on as much anymore. So this makes Avatar stand out. It oversimplifies the struggle of colonialism and the impacts of colonialism, and also adds a white savior narrative in a really weird and convoluted way. Because if you think about this movie, white man comes in and learns the true way of living, and then weirdly ends up being the hero in the last fight that wins the battle for them or alongside them. And that doesn't really feel great. It doesn't leave a good taste in your mouth. In the Dragon's Den, a simple pitch can lead to a life-changing connection.

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That's not a typo. 50%. That's because money is confusing. In my new book and podcast, Money for Couples, I help you and your partner create a financial vision together. To listen to this podcast, just search for Money for Couples. The other thing that I think is worth talking about is how the movie has in some ways become kind of a pop culture joke, right? I mean, there were some pretty cringy moments, very, like, weird moments, like when the two Navi characters connect their hair together in, like, this love scene.

And then, I don't know if you remember this, but the SNL skit where Ryan Gosling plays a character who's haunted by the choice of using papyrus. I forgot about it for years, but then I remembered that Avatar, the giant international blockbuster, used the papyrus font as its logo. Avatar, the movie from like nine years ago. You can't keep getting away with it. It's so good. It's one of my favorite SNL skits.

And just talk to me a little bit about how and why it became a bit of a pop culture joke. of Avatar because that's what it really is. When James Cameron made that 80-page treatment of it, he said that he drew on all of the science fiction books he'd ever read as a kid, and he made it in this really kind of old, classic, traditional style. And movies, I mean, even before then, even before Avatar came out and definitely since then, there's really been a terrifying fear of being seen as too conventional or too sincere but also all these movies that want to lampshade everything that want to make choices that you wouldn't expect that's not what avatar does at all that's not

what james cameron wants to do at all all these movies are very sincere very down the line very formulaic and you know where, we have movies like Jurassic Park or other movies that kind of have lines, have dialogue that really feels original, hits home. This movie is all very, very cliche. There's a lot of military elements in this. The main villain, Colonel Miles Quaritch, kind of speaks in these canned phrases like,

let's ride or... Come on, come to Papa. And it just doesn't feel like a movie that you want to admit to liking, that you want to admit being influenced by. And really, the effects didn't completely come together to handle his vision in 2009. Looking back at this movie now, it accomplished a lot of things,

but it still looks kind of weird. So given that, where does the sequel fit into that? The Way of Water, right? Which I should mention is still using the papyrus font. You know, when it comes to um you know when it comes to the narrative when it comes to the special effects like how does it compare uh to the original where does it pick up you know we're years in the future jake sully now has four kids that he has had in theory he also kind of has a fifth surrogate son who's a human kid who was kind of adopted into their family.

And for a few different reasons, Jake, Sully, and his family have to leave the tribe that they're with, the forest people, and they go to a water tribe, the Metcaina, and they live with them. live with them. And that was the one of the main sticking points that kept James Cameron from making the new one is that he had to, again, wait for new kind of technology to film underwater to get the realism of the CGI for these new ideas that he had. But when we're coming, we're talking about whether it kind of innovates or moves things forward, it's a lot of the complaints that you might have had for the first one are probably still there. If we're talking about the imperialism, if we're talking about the way that it looks, it might be difficult for you to watch for maybe the first hour.

At least I was kind of challenged with actually enjoying what I was seeing on screen. Well, tell me more about what you mean by that. A lot of people have been championing the future of movies being high frame rate because it looks more realistic. So this movie is in, for most of it, 48 frames per second. So it's just essentially twice as many frames per second. And it looks bad for a while until you get used to it even though it's more realistic it looks unrealistic it looks like a video game cut scene it looks just weird and i know when i went to a screening there were a couple people that actually had to leave the theater because they're getting motion sickness they weren't weren't vibing with it yeah i'm just gonna say

i feel like this is something that would make me very nauseous well okay i got over it after a while but it's it's it's weird it's unsettling it's you know avant-garde it's on the forefront it's changing how we engage with movies so maybe it'll be successful maybe it won't be but it's it's a challenge we did we did see it actually before if you remember that will smith movie gemini man that everyone really hated that was 120 frames per second and that was everyone was saying nope on that one huh that was a really awful movie i um what has james cameron said about this movie and what it means to him i mean this is his opus really i mean he has so many opuses. I mean, he's done all these movies that are groundbreaking, earth-shattering. But he has come out of the gates swinging for this one. I can't even, I can't quote what he said.

He told Empire something about the haters and what they've been saying. And I don't think we can swear on Front Burner, so I can't tell you exactly what he said. But he just thinks that there's only been one entry into the movie, and people talking about how we haven't talked about it is just disingenuous. He wants people to wait for the next five movies that he has planned. He's already filmed one more. I almost bailed on being a filmmaker. The thing that kept me in the game

was the possibility of the Avatar universe reaching a lot of people with a persistent message and reaction on part of the audience to maybe fight for and protect that which we're losing. This movie, The Way of Water, it reportedly cost 250 million bucks to make. So what kind of reception does he need to see for this film to be profitable? It strikes me this is a bit of a risk, right, for these five movies. It's hard to make that kind of money at the box office these days. Yeah, I mean, it's almost impossible make that kind of money at the box office these days. Yeah, I mean, it's almost impossible if you're, you know, not Iron Man or somebody like that. But I will say that it's already come out of the gates, and it looks like it's gonna do pretty

well. But what he needs is the exact same thing that he needed for the first movie. for the first movie. He needs this movie to land in every demographic in every region. And it can't, you know, cut out any sort of the population, it has to be as digestible for Midwestern 50 year old as it is for a 12 year old in in China, like it needs to have an audience everywhere, so it can't do too much that challenges anyone. And honestly, I think that it might land. I have all these complaints about it, you know, all these complaints about how narratively it doesn't say a lot, how it doesn't progress much of the story, and I could talk about how I don't think that we really needed the sequel after the first one anyways. But what he needs is everyone to find something of value in it, of entertainment in it,

and not to have something that would stick in their craw and make them not want to watch it. And all signs point to yes, honestly, at this point. Okay. Well, even though I've also complained about it quite a few times during this interview, I think I'm going to see it too. And I'm probably going to go to a theater to see it.

Jackson, thank you. Thank you so much. All right, that is all for this week. Front Burner was produced this week by Shannon Higgins, Imogen Burchard, Lauren Donnelly, Rafferty Baker, Derek Vanderwyk, and Allie Janes. Our sound design was by Mackenzie Cameron and Sam McNulty. Our music is by Joseph

Chavison. Our executive producer is Nick McCabe-Locos, and I'm Jamie Poisson. Thanks so much for listening, and we'll talk to you on Monday. For more CBC Podcasts, go to cbc.ca slash podcasts.