Much was made of Denis Villeneuve's adaptation of Ted Chiang's The Story of Your Life. I thought it was OK, but I didn't really
enjoy it as I hoped I would or as enthusiastic reviews had led me to believe I
might. From a science-fiction aspect I found the movie interesting but
unchallenging. Conversations with others after the film led me to believe that
this may be mostly to do with an unusual familiarity on my part with some of
the subjects the film deals with.
Hidden Lore in Avatar
James Cameron's Avatar
is a bit of a forgotten pop-cultural relic. No doubt this will soon change with
the eventual release of Avatar 2 and
subsequent sequels. I say forgotten because outside of its impact at the
box-office and on spearheading the 3D theatre experience, it is seldom
discussed. In an age that has no shortage of big bombastic blockbuster
spectacle franchises, this should not be unexpected. I don't think you can
point to Avatar's lack of
'stickiness', for lack of a better term, in people's minds as a specific
failing of the film in comparison to other franchises. Franchises like Star Wars became popular in a time where
such films were an incredible rarity and more modern franchises like Harry Potter released films in quick
succession after each other at regular intervals. And all of these 'sticky'
franchises had countless merchandising: toys, cereals, lunchboxes, cartoon
spin-offs, etc. that kept them present in the minds of the public. So Avatar's lack of 'stickiness' could
easily be due to its self-imposed hibernation, rather than resulting from any
lacking aspect of the film itself.
But because Avatar
has been forgotten, there has been little digging into the lore of it that
usually accompanies such large spectacle films (although admittedly such
speculation tends to cluster around franchises after they have more than one
film rather than around singular event-style films). Avatar was also saddled with a straightforward story that didn't
give audiences much to chew on after the euphoria of the visual spectacle had
worn off. This has caused many to ask what could possibly be worth exploring in
the world of Avatar to warrant Avatars 2, 3, 4 and 5. However, as with
any nascent imagined universe, there are countless possibilities still out
there and avenues to be explored. In this space I want to pick up on a few
interesting wrinkles hiding just under the surface of the world presented in Avatar that could make the world
potentially worth revisiting.
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