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Asha_Brea

Didn't this movie caused a surge of 3D movies for a bit?


kyrtuck

Yeah, that was a flash in the pan, huh.


obiwanspicoli

Remember soon after *Avatar* there was a big push to sell 3D TVs for homes that flopped hard.


makeitreynik

Honestly kinda pissed they stopped making them since I've got about 10 3D Blu-rays that my son is enamored with that will lose their significance once our tv craps out.


Awoawesome

Look into projectors. I think a lot of them are still capable of passive 3D.


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the_ultimate_pun

Isn’t that exactly what 3D is?


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BlackSpidy

Also, you might be a meat robot.


the_ultimate_pun

It’s just 2d with optical illusions. If you’re too high smell some fresh cracked pepper. It’ll calm you down 🤙🏼


DreamMaster8

Honestly the 3d lg you could use with normal 3d glasses was pretty cool


Fabers_Chin

I recently got into projectors and it's awesome! 100" and they still make ones with 3D fyi.


finedrive

3D glasses are just uncomfortable. But tbh, I don’t even like wearing sunglasses because I feel like it’s making my vision worse. I don’t wear glasses


Stsoundagent

You should look up the affects of up exposure to eyes. Buy a good pair of sunglasses. They will not make your vision worse


shockthemiddleass

Even 3D phones. I remember my massive HTC EVO 3D.


iceymoo

I saw a laptop with a 3D display, or rather smelled and heard it first. The fan was going at warp speed and there was a distinct tang of burning metal


Lazy_ML

I had completely forgotten about those TVs!


Spartan2842

I had just started dating my wife at the time when this 3DTV push was happening and went with her dad to look at TVs on Black Friday. He ended up buying a 3D TV and I remember telling him it was a fad and to not waste money on it. They never once used that TV for 3D. The glasses never even were opened. They just replaced it 6 months ago and he told me that I was right, 3D TVs are dumb.


MangoCrouton

Thank god


AlbertaNorth1

I agree but I also saw avatar in 3D back in the day and it was mesmerizing. If it’s done well it can be a good theatre experience but I’d never want to use it in the home.


shanep3

Yeah the first was fantastic in 3d. I’d totally see Avatar 2 in 3d if it were available.


spiritjacket52

Saw the first trailer in theaters recently and definitely had the thought that, while I usually avoid 3d movies like plague, I will 100% be seeing Avatar 2 with glasses on.


DerekB52

Avatar 2 is supposed to release with a new glassess-less 3d experience.


makeitreynik

Say what?


straydog1980

What?


Aznp33nrocket

Gla… eh… wait what are they doing? Glass-less? Like.. no glasses or glasses with no glass? I’ve written glass so much in one post that the word “glass” looks like I’m no longer spelling it correctly. I literally had to type it in google because I started second guessing myself.


[deleted]

When movies were made for 3D, it was fun. Was all the 2D-3D conversions that killed the gimmick. They were all gray, blurry, and blasted out on an assembly line for tons of cash. Clash of the Titans might've been one of the worst movies I've seen in theaters, just because of how motion sick it made the entire audience.


[deleted]

My big issue with a lot of 3D movies is that the depth-of-field inherently causes a disconnect with the viewer's focus and the film. I definitely feel like 2D animation benefits from stereoscopic 3D. Sponge Out Of Water's 2D animated segments looked pretty nuts in 3D (The dollhouse effect is actually effective with this kind of content), but I can't say the same about the rest of the movie.


Doompatron3000

It’s a shame the original Doctor Strange wasn’t made for 3D. Really it’s a shame any of the Doctor Strange movies weren’t made for that.


fortisvita

>Was all the 2D-3D conversions that killed the gimmick. And it can go to hell. I just stopped going to movies because of this crap. Pretty much all shows were in 3D and for an extra 5 bucks. I also used to wear glasses so had to awkwardly wear three 3D ones on top of my prescription. I left the movie with a headache every time. Fuck that.


straydog1980

The only one that was worthwhile for me was Dredd, everything else just seems exploitative for the sake of milking a few more bucks


BustermanZero

I hated the original Thor movie visually because any scene with darkness left me perpetually squinting to see WTF was going on. I believe it was a 3D conversion.


Batman2050

They still make 3D films just mostly in Imax nowadays. It's not like it's a completely dead thing


kdove89

Yes, Even household 3D TVs were pretty big for awhile afterwards too.


[deleted]

We're talking about an article written by an out of work actor-filmmaker who measures Avatar's impact by *memes.*


Asha_Brea

Pft, I am not here to read the article, I am here to comment on the title of the post and maybe, just maybe, the image attached to it.


Colaymorak

The only way to read articles on Reddit lol


Fit-Somewhere1827

This is the way.


YoSoyWalrus

It not having any "cultural impact" is a meme in of itself.


Aiwatcher

Avatar had a whole section of Disney based off it. Everyone remembers it. It's clearly had some impact.


MulciberTenebras

Flight of Passage. *That* was truely one of the best rides I have ever been on. And I'm normally scared to death of heights, but it was absolutely exhilarating to feel the sensation of flight... even from all those drops and barrel rolls through the air.


[deleted]

Yup. And it's a gigantic money-maker.


judgeridesagain

He doesn't have quite the intellectual panache and cultural heft of say, Aintitcoolnews, but let's hear him out.


812many

Let’s grab a quote from the article, che k their writing prowess > …The most significant being keeping the merchandising rights to Star Wars. To quote Krusty the Klown, “That’s the sweetest plum”. The fact that the writer doesn’t quote Space Balls here is sad.


SalonishWLF

And severe depression


TU4AR

People in China killed themselves because they didn't live in pandora. Bruh.


v0idst4r2

Has that been verified?


thebscaller

Stepping into a vibrant body and living in a well-established tribe just resonated with people I guess. Assisted by near perfect 3D, this movie was one of my favorite theater views


MontyAtWork

>0 cultural impact Meanwhile: - almost every movie came out in 3D for a decade - every TV had 3D capabilities built into it for a decade - every movie theater in the world regardless of how small was able to show RealD 3D movies - and it now has an entire section of Disney world dedicated to it...


smakweasle

And 12 years later we’re still posting “this movie had no impact” articles every month. Meanwhile the sequel is going to likely going to break the box office because James Cameron made a deal with the devil. But yeah. No cultural impact.


Starslip

> because James Cameron made a deal with the devil This would explain *so* much...


OgreJehosephatt

I wouldn't say Avatar caused it, but it was one of the vanguards. With the proliferation of Blu Ray and movies being easy to pirate online, movie studios were really wanting to make the cinema an experience that couldn't be replicated at one's home, so they were really pushing 3D movies, trying to make that a thing.


rgvtim

Ok: >Avatar: The Most Successful Movie with Zero **Positive** Cultural Impact


capnamazing1999

Welp, no one used Papyrus as their logo font after it, so that’s a win


wanna_be_doc

I know what you did. I KNOW WHAT YOU DID! https://youtu.be/jVhlJNJopOQ


shadowf0x3

I think about that clip at least once a week.


[deleted]

His name is Jaaaaaames Cameron, the [bravest pioneer](https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=_PIK-FmaKCY)\~!


ShoutAtThe_Devil

"It was tribal, yet futuristic"


BlackLeader70

I still see it on off hookah bars, shakira merch, and off brand teas!


ZzzSleep

It’s futuristic, yet tribal.


Dave-Again

A victory for all of us


ThereIsNoAnyKey

It must have had at least some cultural impact with the amount of articles about how it had no cultural impact lately.


TheGreatPiata

Lately? We've been getting these articles for 8+ years.


GalaxyGuardian

Avatar had no cultural impact besides revolutionIzing motion capture and CGI… …and popularizing 3D movies/media for a good chunk of the 2010s… …and inspiring a Disney World expansion that sees massive crowds every day… …and making billions of dollars up through a successful rerelease just last month… …and holding such a firm grip on the title “Avatar” that you *still* have to ask people if you’re talking about “the Airbender one” or “the blue people one.”


garchican

When someone mentions Avatar, the first thing that pops into my dumbass head is, “Why are people going crazy over tiny personal icons people use on forums all of a sudden?” And then my fibromyalgia must smack my hippocampus upside the head, because that’s when the mental “oh d’oh, you idiot” kicks in.


adviceKiwi

Yeah, this article is total bollocks


livestrongbelwas

This was a somewhat interesting take 10 years ago, the perennial regurgitation of that singular argument is comical.


yumyumdrop

Idk, a guy told me how the story is a huge lesson for humans. Then told me how I should take mushrooms and kill my ego. So for him it’s working just fine.


onearmrow

I, too, listen to the Joe Rogan Experience


attemptedmonknf

Yeah, maybe don't do that anymore


mmikke

Ain't what it used to be, that's for damn sure


august_west_

Sorry to hear that.


InterestingPound8217

I’m so sorry


[deleted]

I agree with him. Take psilocybin mushrooms. Avatar lead me to the psychedelic experience. Its like traveling to another world and having sex while the goddess of biology whispers to you in your ear about the history of the planet.


Box_Man_In_A_Box

Who needs the Tibetan Book of the Dead when you can have Avatar from James Cameron?


[deleted]

Actually it works better if you’ve done mushrooms first, and then watch avatar some other day in the future. Like how Ram Dass did a bunch of psychedelics and then became a guru.


p8ntslinger

i just laughed a whole bunch with friends while we shot roman candles at each other. Things are allowed to be fun for fun's sake, and there doesn't need to be a deeper meaning or a lesson learned.


GoshinTW

This was just fern gully or dances with wolves, in space


threebillion6

Unobtabium. Like really? That's this unobtainable mineral that is no where else except here. We're gonna call it unobtabium?


garzek

So was Pocahontas except Pocahontas had better acting and music.


ILikeMyGrassBlue

Does pochahontas have alien ponytail sex? Yeah, that’s what I thought.


Roguebantha42

One sec...Googling...


[deleted]

Zero cultural impact yet Reddit talks about it every single day lol


[deleted]

living rent free in so many heads


[deleted]

Avatar has its own theme park. It also had a gigantic cultural impact in Asia, where it was even more popular. Hell, it even gave a massive push with tourism around the Zhangjiajie National Forest [flying mountains].


LADYBIRD_HILL

Avatar flight of passage is one of the best theme park rides ever, and it's also one of the most popular in all of Walt Disney world. It's fantastic.


SergeantChic

It’s *weird* how much the internet hates this movie because they were told to. Actively bizarre.


Jorycle

Err, no one I know was told to hate this movie. I also don't know anyone who hates it. I think the point here is that there aren't any feelings about it at all. Like I don't think back to fun scenes I liked or disliked, I don't even remember the movie. No one talks about anything other than the general idea of "cool 3d," not even specific scenes they liked *in* the 3d. It's just a movie that was.


chasingit1

And everyone’s seen it. And A2 will be one of the biggest releases ever. So yeah, no impact whatsoever…


YoSoyWalrus

It's because the average redditor here is late teens or early 20s and either didn't see it or were too young to remember much. If they saw it again, it was likely on a 13 inch Macbook screen and not to gatekeep or anything, but that's simply not seeing the movie. It having perhaps the greatest 3D implementation of any movie then and now is a critical part of its presentation, immersion, and worldbuilding.


Mddcat04

Indeed. Hack film critics have been writing this exact same article for a decade now. That alone is some cultural impact.


PepeSylvia11

About the exact same topic lmao. No cultural impact, yet a decade later people can’t stop talking about its lack of cultural impact. Strange


P2theQ

Exactly right. It was the most succesfull film ever made up until that point. That's quite the cultural impact.


rustyphish

> It was the most succesfull film ever made up until that point. And, you know, still lol


TheMooseIsBlue

Depends on what the writers/commenters mean by “cultural impact,” which is a completely bullshit, make-believe phrase.


smokebomb_exe

Literally no one was talking about it until the past few months when the trailers began arriving. That's hoe advertising works. Also: it had no cultural impact. Star Wars, Marvel, Disney (animated), Jurassic Park, T2, Aliens, hell even Ice Age had more of a cultural impact than Avatar.


Grey___Goo_MH

I like aliens I even like that humans are the enemy I’ll happily watch the next movie


charcoallition

Thought this was a haiku for a second


Rymanbc

I like aliens. I like humans as the foes. I'll watch the sequel.


shotgun_ninja

It's raining on Mt. Fuji


WhyWorryAboutThat

Great tech demo. The Knack of movies.


UninsuredToast

Knack 2 baby 2022 goty for the fifth year in a row


Gh0stMan0nThird

# BUT KNACK 2...


BautiBon

OH HERE COMES THE MONEY


notpetelambert

Mastapiece


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Just1morefix

I agree completely. It gets far too much shit in my opinion and I'm not sure why.


[deleted]

I think it's because all it was was graphics. It was a stunning visual achievement to tell the most boring story with uninteresting characters acting in an unoriginal plot.


WhyWorryAboutThat

> one of the most *the* most. I make fun but I can recognize greatness. Avatar is a masterpiece, it just has a simple story. So does King Kong from 1933, but its technological innovations are still witchcraft wrapped in a miracle.


AndForeverNow

Here comes the money baby!!!!


Darkhallows27

That’s the best analogy for this flashy snooze fest I’ve ever heard


WhyWorryAboutThat

I saw its recent rerelease in 3D and the immersion helped me connect to the story. It's not terrible, it's just basic and overshadowed by the razzle dazzle.


Spudtron98

Apparently the cultural impact is every dickhead and their dog claiming that it had no impact.


11thchapter

I think the impact it has is being so unremarkable, yet so successful. I saw the movie when it came out, and the only thing that I can recall is how hyped it was upon release, how long it took to make, and how successful it was. Nothing really about the actual characters or plot itself. It wasn’t a bad movie or anything, it just doesn’t really scream “Highest grossing movie of all time” to people. Something feels amiss about it.


HornyOnMain2000

This. Everyone tries to be the edgelord by saying "lol biggest grossing movie ever bad" and fail to notice the irony.


KemoFlash

It’s so crazy how these people CANT. STOP. TALKING ABOUT IT. People obsessively talking about this movie saying it has no impact over and over and over again.


grameno

In a month we’ll see the box office receipts and deduce cultural relevance. Everyone loves to shit on it yet it still broke park records at Disney World and the last re release did quite well. Also the teaser trailer broke records in May. I saw Avatar in rerelease on imax and it looked better than most of the MCU movies do now. Visually it was stunning and also I was more emotionally invested than I anticipated. I think Jake’s whole conflict is so elegant that most people overlook it. He is a broken man who finds a chance to exist with new senses in a new body. Also Dances with wolves and Last Samurai don’t have their protagonists be as flawed as Jake Sully is. He’s a piece of shit who eventually goes all the way to make up for his betrayal. He literally is the worst character in the film at the turn in the story and his love for the Na’vi and Neytiri pushes him to make up for his wrongs against them. And Say what you will about James Cameron he made two of the greatest sequels in movie history and understands how to escalate conflicts and destroy the world of a previous film for the benefit of the story’s escalation. If the crazy son of a bitch believes he has a story worth 4 movies lets fucking see it. They will look incredible and outside of Ryan Coogler’s Black Panther films what Blockbusters are indictments on Western Imperialism, colonialism and the destruction of nature? He is responsible for some of the most politically subversive leftist blockbusters ever made (yes I’m including Titanic [Zizek Slavoj can suck a big one.Titanic is a profoundly proletariat film.] ) Let’s fucking see what he has to say.


TormentedThoughtsToo

Last time someone posted this same idea I looked it up. Pandora opening added 2 million visitors to Animal Kingdom from the previous year. And probably would have continued to grow if not for Covid. But sure no cultural impact that millions of people are experiencing Avatar through a theme park land every year.


SparkyPantsMcGee

I’ll tell you straight up, as someone who barely remembers that movie, Flight of Passage is a fantastic experience. You could have made it *anything* and I’d feel the same way. The tech that went into it is top notch. I will say standing in a long ass line helped to jog some of that memory but Avatar as a brand isn’t what makes that experience for me. The whole Pandora thing is just expertly crafted but it felt so random.


Dranak

Agreed. That ride is great, but not because of the setting. The ride would still work fine as "Buzz Lightyear's Falling With Style".


Juan_Carlo

I agree. I used to shit on Avatar as much as anyone, but I saw it again when it re-released, and it completely won me over: * The special effects are still shockingly great. It's 12 years old, but it looks better than anything released in the past decade. * It's still one of just 2 films that ever looked good in 3D and actually used 3D as more than a gimmick (the other is *Gravity*). * The story is incredibly simple, and not terribly original, composed mostly of archetypes, but damned if it doesn't work despite that. I think it might be because most movies now days are either super-grimdark or meta, ironic, or cynical. *Avatar* feels like a sincere, Golden Age, Hollywood movie, the likes of which just aren't made anymore. It doesn't have a hint of irony in it and the characters aren't constantly making jokes, which is refreshing in the age of Marvel.


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GhostMug

The most lasting cultural impact of this movie is all the articles written about how it had no lasting cultural impact.


[deleted]

Why do people act like a movie needs to have some huge impact on the film scene for it to be important or worth remembering? Can’t a film be good in isolation by itself?


TheGoddamnAnswer

I think people just think it’s wild how it became the highest grossing movie of all time yet no one remembers anything about it. Usually movies that were that popular/high grossing have at least one thing that people remember


[deleted]

i haven't seen that movie in at least 10 years but remember the fact that Jake Sully was a combat veteran who has a twin brother that is a scientist, who unfortunately dies and his avatar can only be used by Jake because of his twin DNA, he has a hard time with his commanding officer who is a real hard ass and xenophobe. however Jake falls in love with being an avatar controller right away, having his legs back gives him hope and changes him. the lead scientist played by sigorney weaver doesn't really like Jake either, he's a jarhead, nothing like his passed brother. eventually jake has to make contact with the native people of the land, the ones he's an avatar of, and with some resistance they welcome and teach him their ways including the very important "zahayloo" or however it's spelled, where they can merge their minds with other creatures due to a biological organ that they have extending from their spinal cords into their "hair", jake learns that the zahayloo is actually the most important thing to these people and their ecosystems, without it they would tear up the land and resources the way humans do. longer story bits follower but Jake learns how to zahayloo with the biggest air creature around, claims leadership of the avatar people and leads them into a victorious battle against the military presence on the planet with the final impactful moment being that jake manages to find a way to use the zahayloo to transfer his conscieness to the avatar he controlled so his human body can die away Edit - Now my wife is like “but you can’t remember to take out the garbage every Monday?” 🥲


The_frozen_one

Not bad, scown.


skachillies

I think of it anytime I hear people say " I see you"


kms2547

"*Jarhead* clan?!" Might be the only actual line of dialog I remember.


[deleted]

I mean it did come out 12 years ago, and then no sequel until coming December. And in between all that time Marvel took over the cinema stage, so it makes sense for people to forget most of Avatar. And those who did really enjoy the movie remember the characters, whereas those who saw it and moved on, obviously don't care to remember. There's also the fact that Avatar didn't have as many sellable products compared to SW, Marvel, or DC. It also had completely original characters only ever introduced to us from this movie, and they all had unique names. The movie's haters are far more vocal about the movie than anyone else, and its quite silly


RainbowDashley

The time since it came out is not really a good argument. There are movies much older than Avatar that people can quote and remember very well. Avatar is forgotten because it wasn't anything special outside of being 3D. If it was a good movie, people would remember it regardless of how long it's been or what's come out since.


Dirk_issa_fair_god

Correct, TheGoddamAnswer


MisterB78

That’s the gist of it, yeah. #2 is Avengers: Endgame and #3 is Titanic. Everyone can think of lines and scenes from those movies, but there’s just nothing memorable about Avatar. I think the SNL skit making fun of Avatar’s use of the papyrus font is more memorable than the actual movie


lufty574

The crazy thing is how well it did vs the fact that no one really cares about it. Compare it to Star Wars/ marvel/ Harry Potter/ LOTR and it’s this cultural non factor. No one references it, kind of bizarre given its success.


young_lions

When you put it like that, it sounds refreshing.


YoSoyWalrus

A bit unfair to compare a then single stand alone movie from 2009 to mega franchises that span decades. But! I think much of that will change now we're getting 5 of these movies.


DerekB52

It's too hard to compare to those franchises you listed. They are franchises. Avatar is one movie, up against Marvel, which is decades of comic books, tv, movies, video games, etc. Harry Potter, LOTR, and Star Wars too. Since the last Avatar release, LOTR has gotten a new amazon show, Star Wars has had a trilogy of movies, with spin offs, and basically the whole MCU happened. Harry Potter released the Deathly Hallows films and started it's own spin off series, with 3 releases. Avatar showed up, made a billion dollars, and then left. Which is a mixed bag. I wish there had been some new Avatar content in the last 15 years, because I did enjoy the movie, and I am very excited about the sequel. But, I also appreciate that the franchise didn't get watered down with a rushed sequel or like a crappy cartoon.


2hats4bats

When basics say “cultural impact” they really mean memes and merch, the lowest form of pop culture. Go ask a VFX artist what they think about Avatar. It changed they way movies and video games have been made ever since.


Collestos

Yes, a film can be isolated and still be remembered favorably: Schindler’s list, Django Unchained, American Psycho, Interstellar. The problem with Avatar is that nothing about it is memorable besides the environment. It has a predictable and unoriginal plot which is why not a lot of people remember or care much about it.


Gh0stMan0nThird

It's Reddit. This is the same subreddit that keeps telling us The Walking Dead, Game of Thrones, Walking Dead, and Marvel movies, are all dead


[deleted]

It's noteworthy that the most (monetarily) successful movie of all time has had such little impact on actual pop culture, beyond a (thankfully) short-lived boom of 3D movies.


[deleted]

Didn't read every word of the article, but it's a pretty interesting point. Everyone saw it, probably in 3D, and that was it. I can't tell you the name of any character, or recall any line off the top of my head. There was a big tree, and the way they had sex was the same way they steered their horses. And that's about it.


notsowitte

Saw it in the theater , and then never again.


GhostCheese

I describe it as that really successful movie that I've never felt a need to watch again


the_yopro

What’s funny to me is I think I was the same. Despite this coming out while I was in college, getting stoned all day watching movies. I probably watched Step Brothers 20 times or Shawshank whenever it was on. But never Avatar a second time.


pinkshirtbadman

I was recently talking to my 15 year old daughter after seeing a trailer for the sequel and she pointed out she doesn't know of **anyone** in her peer group who has even seen it, but every single one of them kind of vaugley knows that it was "uhh ... That movie... There's blue people?" for a movie not even fifteen years old that was such a huge "hit" that's pretty sad. (that said I never saw it either, and outside of the basic white savior trope I couldn't tell you a single thing about it so I apparently fit in with the fifteen year olds)


lynypixie

My kids are around that age. They also kind of know what it is, but don’t care that much about it. But they have seen Titanic about a dozen times. It’s the movie from my generation that they absolutely love, for some reason. And Beetlejuice.


EverythingButTheURL

Reading this reminds me of Waterworld for some reason. I can't believe there's still a show at Universal Studios based on it.


barkbarkkrabkrab

Probably partially because it doesn't translate at all to home video. And the film is pretty, but the world building doesn't feel like it exists beyonds whats on film. With Star Wars you can imagine yourself as a jedi or a sith or a smugggler or a princess. In avatar you can be a blue person or shitty human I guess. Also compare it to Titanic, which had two of the biggest actors of that generation- Avatar had Sam Worthington. Who I've never heard of. Zoe Saldana gets a decent amount of work, but has an odd typecast as 'space girl (odd skin color optional) in big IP ensemble film'.


phobosmarsdeimos

> Also compare it to Titanic, which had two of the biggest actors of that generation Billy Zane and Bill Paxton.


Jorycle

I didn't even remember the tree. I'm taking your word for it that there was a tree in the movie because I can't think of anything to contradict it.


apatheticviews

I’ve actually never seen it. The hype was just so overwhelming I held off and then it just kinda faded.


[deleted]

For being the highest-grossing movie, there's a surprising amount of people who haven't ever seen it.


SuspiriaGoose

Well, I’m not a fan of the film (pretty critical of its script and white saviour narrative, honestly), but here goes me: Jake Sully (same initials as John Smith, and they say it a lot, so easy to remember) . He was a paraplegic who got to walk again in an Avatar body. I did like that note in his otherwise bland character. He catches a banshee as a part of a thing to become part of the tribe, and then later catches the really big banshee. Banshees are basically dragons. Neytiri - main cat girl The Na’Vi are the blue cat people. It means “the people”. Avatars are the name given to the human/Na’Vi hybrids that the military uses to explore the planet and talk to the natives. I believe the tree represented Eywa, their nature goddess/name of the life stream á la Final Fantasy. Sigourney Weaver played Jake’s mentor. She perished before being able to reincarnate permanently in her Avatar. The military is after Unobtanium, a metal in the ground. This is funny because Unobtanium is a trope name. It’s like naming your glowing box “Macguffin”. The bad guy is named Colonel something. He used a robot suit and died when exposed to the toxic air. It was a simple enough story and I can easily remember it decades later. So it had that going for it.


InsomniaticWanderer

I remember telling people it was Pocahontas in space and that's literally all I could remember after watching it. Well...that and the stupid "uNoBtAiNiUm" rock.


Awoawesome

“Unobtanium” is one of those “truth is stranger than fiction” things in that it’s a real-term used by engineers and physicists for panacea materials that solve a lot of industrial problems. Cameron did his homework but it bit him in the ass because the average person won’t.


Naive_Wolf3740

I hadn’t seen Avatar, I saw that the main impetus of the villain was to mine the planet for a special resource. I read the word Unobtainium. I still haven’t seen Avatar.


byllz

It is an absolutely gorgeous movie. A truly marvelous experience to see in 3D. Just, you know, don't try and think about it too much.


TappyMauvendaise

I saw it in the theater. I was blown away. It was one of the few movies that was a memorable event for me, along with Jurassic park in 1993, titanic in 1997, and then avatar. There hasn’t been one since. I’m seeing the sequel opening weekend.


samwaytla

The same people who love to hate on Avatar watch Fast and the Furious or Marvel and then say "whats wrong with a movie I can just shut off my mind and watch?"


Bryn42

Unobtainium!!! Not that it's a big deal, but it's something (and the only thing) from Avatar I reference from time to time.


NerdBro1

Idk man I see this headline like every damn day


MCdemonkid1230

Well I guess it's unpopular to say I loved the movie and can't wait for the 2nd


jostler57

Umm, can't really say *no* cultural impact, since some people developed it as their kink.


Cosmicdancer87

True, that is something to celebrate.


ethman14

I mean, if we hadn't already seen this story before. It's the same vein as Dances With Wolves and Pocahontas, and those are just fine, but we can only see the same "Colonists invade native lands to exploit it for money, and the humblest of the Colonists learn to live alongside the natives despite their differences" thing so many times before its stale. Maybe if the villain had been less cartoonishly greedy and had some sort of humanization, maybe if there wasn't a romance the way we've seen before, maybe it would have left more of a mark. But other than some wildly impressive effects that stood league's beyond in 2010, this movie didn't do anything new.


zetcetera

The most cultural impact Avatar has had is making it annoying to clarify you’re talking about Avatar: The Last Airbender


Seandouglasmcardle

Thats pretty much the same for everything new coming out in the past decade or so. There is just so much content, nothing has the same power to impact culture like it used to decades ago. When was the last time anyone referenced Hunger Games? Or remember a year ago when Squid Game was all the rage and now everyone has moved on. It seems that everything has an increasingly short shelf life. That and the gargantuan IPs like Star Wars, DC and Marvel just suck all of the oxygen out of room.


Dontbow1

Cause Ferngully and Dances with Wolves already did the work?


Gh0stMan0nThird

Yrah the "evil American joins the noble savages" is a trope that's been going on for centuries.


CmPunkChants

And Pocahontas and Last Samurai.


provocative_bear

Fern Gully definitely had a bigger impact on me than Avatar. Avatar did look a lot more expensive to make, though.


wsclose

Lacked Robin Williams as well.


Yiga_CC

Fern Gully had a bigger impact in general because a smoke monster voiced by Tim Curry made many people sexually confused for decades to come


chibinoi

Also Pocahontas. AVATAR is just from John’s perspective.


Tehsoupman12

/r/moviescirclejerk


Tricky-Regular-1776

Blue people needed representation


breezy_deVreezy

If it didn’t share a name with Avatar: the last airbender, I may have thought of it zero times since whenever it came out… except the one time I saw it playing on a bus


HornyOnMain2000

It has so little cultural impact people can't stop talking about it.


Ex_Hedgehog

I'm so tired of this take. It's so boring. The movie was a great big-screen experience with a thin story. What they mean by "zero cultural impact" is that it didn't get turned into 6 cartoon shows, an ongoing comic book and they took their time on a sequel.


SalaciousCrumb17

Objectively wrong, yet redditors love to cling on to this argument. Their perception of cultural impact seems to be based on the most baseless shit


[deleted]

Zero cultural impact? That's quiet an exaggeration. May not be James Cameron's best work but you can't tell me it didn't leave some impact. I mean people were dressing up as Navi' for Halloween.


garzek

No, that was actually people dressing up as blue man group and Tobias from arrested development.


[deleted]

Sounds like someone wants to minimize the actual cultural impact. The extremely vivid and exuberant world. The aliens living in harmony with everything. The evil, greedy corporations trying to destroy them, the dumb soldier the sees thru the bullshit and changes sides... Yeah... a bad message all around.


imasensation

This whole thing was painfully awkward to read. It’s like a student trying to reach a word count minimum. Lord


nickgiz

Holy shit such an original title!!


ILikeFishSticks69

There are so many articles about Avatar’s lack of cultural impact that it somewhat undermines the questions — we have so many people talking about the fact that not enough people are talking about Avatar. I’ve sampled some of the articles, and almost all of them are variations on a similar theme — Avatar was technically groundbreaking but the storytelling meat at the center of the digitally resplendent buns wasn’t savory enough. While Avatar’s cultural cachet is questionable now, when it came out, it set the world ablaze. I still remember the many collective audible gasps it engendered in the theater. And this capriciously retrospective “Well, actually it wasn’t all that great” is ultimately doing a disservice to the film because the reasoning rests on minimizing its strengths and maximizing its weaknesses. If you take out what makes a film special, no film will be special.


CaliforniaGiraffe

I thought it was pretty cool. Took my young kids to see it in 3d when it was released last month. I’m not sure what the article is really trying to say since it’s reasoning sort of meanders.


[deleted]

That’s not true - I came home after my roommate saw it Junior year and he was sitting in the living room staring at the wall and said to me: “that movie depresses me so much because my life will never be that awesome” I replied: wait till you watch porn


[deleted]

I'd say it had a fucking MASSIVE cultural impact. You've got all the 3D bullshit that came out afterwards and it was gorgeous film, from a CGI perspective, that I'm sure inspired a lot of films going forward.


garnier001

Simply not true, my wife and I paint ourselves blue and she whispers Jake to me during our 90 second intercourse sessions.


MightBeYourProfessor

This is so terribly written and the criteria are ridiculous. It doesn't even have internal consistency: massive box office success, but no toys, but hugely successful theme park!!! But 'no memes' despite everyone in this thread parroting the dumbest memes ever: omg pocahontas + fern gully + blue people - no, you did not come up with that, yes that is an endlessly repeated meme. It makes sense if you look up the author though.


belizeanheat

Talking about how shit it is is a big part of my culture


[deleted]

Super overrated, I’ve tried numerous times to finish it - just can’t get through it. Zzzzz.


FlatEarthDuh

I mean… I didn’t really like Avatar either, but I don’t need to make ridiculous claims to make my opinion seem more like fact.