If Avatar were released 70 years earlier...

[The Controvert]

James Cameron is born 70 years earlier. Toiling away in secret, he releases his opus, Avatar in December of 1939. How would the viewing public receive this work?

What difference, if any, does this make to our society in 2011? I'd imagine there would be fan clubs (a la Star Wars) and people would dress up as Na'vi on Halloween, just as we get a lot of Dorothy, Toto, Tin Man, Scarecrow and Cowardly Lions on Halloween even today.

But how would the film impact our culture today and would it have any effect on the decisions made in that era that would impact historical events?

How would the film affect the course of Hollywood? Will audiences be sorely disappointed when nothing else matches up to the excellence of the advances seen in Avatar? Were audiences disappointed after The Wizard of Oz? Would Citizen Kane have the same reception a few years after the Avatar release?

Assuming this film competes in the crowded 1939 field for Academy Awards, amongst The Wizard of Oz and Gone With The Wind, what awards does it win? Keep in mind that The Wizard of Oz did not win the award for Best Visual Effects that year. (Although it was certainly remembered for its visual effects, and I daresay it is better known for visual effects than the actual winner)

Some points:
- Cameron does not reveal his technological secrets in creating the film and does not release any other films. The actors are unknowns and the technology used to create the film is never revealed to the public.
- The film looks as good as the 2009 release can look using 1939 projecting technology.

[drastic_quench]

It's an insane, unanswerable question because of how absurd it would be to develop all of that technology - down to each microchip - in secret, for a movie.

It's to the point where I guess people would just say he's a wizard, but not how we use the term - they'd think he was an actual wizard. But also that the story sucked.

[John Mace]

Originally Posted by drastic_quench

But also that the story sucked.

Well, that didn't change!

[RealityChuck]

It would never have been made. Not for any technical reasons, but because big budget science fiction films were just not done in 1939. None of the studios would have greenlighted it and the economics would have made it untenable.

Assuming it was made, it probably would have flopped. The concept would have been confusing and the story would have been weak. People did not go to movies for flashy visuals; they went for plot, characterization, and seeing their favorite stars. It might have had some interest for film buff and may have become a cult film, but expecting it to be a major hit makes as much sense as expecting Stagecoach to become a major hit if it were first released today.

[The Other Waldo Pepper]

Originally Posted by RealityChuck

Assuming it was made, it probably would have flopped. The concept would have been confusing and the story would have been weak. People did not go to movies for flashy visuals; they went for plot, characterization, and seeing their favorite stars.

Do you figure STAR WARS could have been a success in '39?

[kenobi 65]

Originally Posted by The Other Waldo Pepper

Do you figure STAR WARS could have been a success in '39?

On the one hand, Star Wars was, in many ways, just an upscaled version of a space opera, such as Flash Gordon, which was popular in the late 1930s (note that Lucas did Star Wars after failing to secure the rights to do a remake of Flash Gordon).

OTOH, Flash Gordon was done as serialized shorts, rather than as a feature-length film. I wonder if audiences of that era would have accepted a space opera as a full-length film.

[The Controvert]

I think the release date impacts the public opinion for a work such as Avatar much more than the responses would indicate. If The Wizard of Oz were released in 2009, most people would say the visual effects were dated and the plot sucked. Released in 1939 and the same film is a seminal work. Same with Citizen Kane.

[Biffer_Spice]

people would have still bewilderingly become the staunch fans of ferngully they became after avatar's launch - apparently the first time a film had ever followed a similar plot to another film. ever. in the history of film. (the apparent fact that ferngully itself wasn't original as it was the same plot as dances with wolves, which probably also wasn't original and yet because it was more arty and included worthy american indians, scooped millions of oscars and remains rightly revered).

it would have come out, wowed everyone, and then a load of snooty people would have said it was rubbish and cried into their ferngully duvets, despite not knowing what ferngully is.

[shijinn]

Originally Posted by RealityChuck

... Assuming it was made, it probably would have flopped. ...

your objectivity is in question if you are seriously putting forth that a modern day film would flop against something made 70 years ago. the technical achievements alone are remarkable even today, not least a time before anyone even left Earth for outer space.

[Jophiel]

Originally Posted by shijinn

your objectivity is in question if you are seriously putting forth that a modern day film would flop against something made 70 years ago. the technical achievements alone are remarkable even today, not least a time before anyone even left Earth for outer space.

My first thought was that it would have flopped as well. I just don't think the plot would have been as accessible nor that the willing suspension of disbelief would have been there. We watch it today with a foundation of science faction that just didn't exist back then and I think the mixture of incomprehensible "science", pseudo-spirituality and the technical imagery would have had a hard time resonating on a wide-scale. Even science fiction at the time like Flash Gorden or Metropolis had some anchoring points to their present day. Avatar's anchoring points are to 2010, not 1939 so even those would be alien.

It might have been some counter-culture or avant-garde hit though among the younger and opium riddled crowd

[Telperion]

Originally Posted by shijinn

your objectivity is in question if you are seriously putting forth that a modern day film would flop against something made 70 years ago.

Well, the ticket price in 1939 was 23 cents and the global population was at 2,3 billion. That means even if every man, woman and child on planet Earth went and saw Avatar, it would just about break even.

[Zebra]

What is really insane is saying that James Cameron made Avatar. Just him and some tech.


Look at the credits to that, or any, movie sometime.



(no way all that stuff stays secret)

[shijinn]

Jophiel

but Avatar's anchoring points are its visual effects. plus there is no need for suspension of disbelief, it can simply be marketed as a documentary about our distant cousins' adventure in space and serve as a herald for our new Internet God Eywa. since special effects skills then were at best some saucer thrown from the kitchen into the air, the film would either have to be taken as gospel or be condemned by the Pope as unholy or something.

[DrFidelius]

People were familiar with cartoons in 1939. Just because no one had taken the time or talent to paint each cel at the level of detail Avatar shows does not mean the visuals would have been inconceivable.

[guizot]

Originally Posted by The Controvert

I think the release date impacts the public opinion for a work such as Avatar much more than the responses would indicate. If The Wizard of Oz were released in 2009, most people would say the visual effects were dated and the plot sucked.

It's not only about the technology behind the special effects. Film editing, blocking and lighting are all part of a language that evolves rapidly. When the first movies came out with counter-shots it made the audiences dizzy or gave them headaches, and many people had to leave the theater.

So it would probably be viewed as though it were animation. Beyond the technology, the film would be as forgettable in 1939 as it was in 2009.

[Bryan Ekers]

Cameron would probably be called a Red for letting the communal natives defeat the capitalists, or something.

[Jophiel]

Originally Posted by shijinn

it can simply be marketed as a documentary about our distant cousins' adventure in space

The government may wish to question why this "documentary" has them in space with giant metal suits, looking for special minerals.

I don't agree with you regardless but that part jumped out.

[Marley23]

Originally Posted by Bryan Ekers

Cameron would probably be called a Red for letting the communal natives defeat the capitalists, or something.

That was what I thought of, too. In the days before the term "military industrial complex" was coined, I am not sure if a filmmaker could get away with making American industry and the military look so evil. And in 1939 the story would still be crummy.

[shijinn]

Originally Posted by Jophiel

The government may wish to question why this "documentary" has them in space with giant metal suits, looking for special minerals.

I don't agree with you regardless but that part jumped out.

that was hyperbole, but the point is that it would have been an important physical evidence of something irreplicable. certainly it does not deserve the dismissive attitude based on the distaste for its story which, incidentally, would have been original then.

[drastic_quench]

Originally Posted by shijinn

that was hyperbole, but the point is that it would have been an important physical evidence of something irreplicable. certainly it does not deserve the dismissive attitude based on the distaste for its story which, incidentally, would have been original then.

Nope. See: Tarzan of the Apes, King Solomon's Mines, et al. Not that lack of originality was the sole reason for Avatar's story sucking.

[Greg Charles]

I'm not sure how it would have been received in the 1930s, but the interesting part of this question to me is the comparison to "Star Wars". "Avatar" sold a lot of tickets, and was genuinely beautiful, but does it have the same impact that "Star Wars" had? I can't even remember any character names from "Avatar", whereas I know most of them from "Star Wars". That may just be because "Star Wars" came out when I was a kid though.

[Beware of Doug]

Avatar could only have been a serialized novel in the '30s. As Chuck alludes, sci-fi was nothing the big studios wanted anything to do with. Thanks were due largely to Metropolis (1927), which bombed at the time yet is a classic today - and Mysterious Island (1929), an ill-advised undersea epic that took 3 years to make and had to be crudely dubbed with sound before release to a newly-all-talking market.

[Sampiro]

Given the 1930s climate it would still have had a strong (some would say heavyhanded) message about tolerance for other cultures but would have had a shuffling black character running around bug eyed and scared of the aliens.

[Bryan Ekers]

Were there any reports on how people over the age of 80 responded to Avatar? That's one possible source for a 1939 view.

[JohnT]

Originally Posted by Bryan Ekers

Cameron would probably be called a Red for letting the communal natives defeat the capitalists, or something.

He said 1939, not 1949.

I think much of the movie would have been confusing for a 1939 audience, not so much for the plot itself, but what the plot and other story elements assumes the audience knows. If I recall correctly (I only saw the film once), the film assumes the audience has some basic familiarity with Gaia theory, computer networks, and post-Vietnam anti-militarism, none of which a 1939 audience would be familiar.

[Bryan Ekers]

Oh, Americans throwing around accusations of communist sympathies definitely goes back to 1939 and earlier. It was only during American involvement in WW2 (and the uneasy alliance with the USSR) that these were (barely) nudged aside for the sake of necessity.

[Biffer_Spice]

Originally Posted by Greg Charles

I'm not sure how it would have been received in the 1930s, but the interesting part of this question to me is the comparison to "Star Wars". "Avatar" sold a lot of tickets, and was genuinely beautiful, but does it have the same impact that "Star Wars" had? I can't even remember any character names from "Avatar", whereas I know most of them from "Star Wars". That may just be because "Star Wars" came out when I was a kid though.

there's the issue. i took my nephews to see it and they came out of that cinema with faces like

it didn't have the same lasting impact on them as star wars had on me, but that's about as close to me seeing star wars as i have seen on a kid's face after going to the cinema

[Greg Charles]

Do they remember the character names? Do they play with Sigourney Weaver dolls? Do they have Avatar paraphernalia?

Partly too, Star Wars was more melodramatic. The good guys were basically teenagers, and the bad ones were Nazis. British Nazis! Maybe Avatar's impact will be more subtle ... a different attitude towards nature and its preservation. Hey, I can dream.

[ralph124c]

My guess is that it would be received well-just like "Flash Gordon".
Only in those days, the bad guys were vaguely oriental- "Ming the Merciless"-and they had the flying Hawkmen.
Space opera hasn't changed all that much-heck, even ER Burroughs' "Gods of Mars" featured the brain-switching surgeon (Ras Thavas)-though thgis was not as sophisticated as the human/alien body transfers on Pandora/"Avatar".

[marshmallow]

Originally Posted by JohnT

He said 1939, not 1949.

The first red scare was back in 1919.

[digs]

Originally Posted by Sampiro

Given the 1930s climate it would still have had a strong (some would say heavyhanded) message about tolerance for other cultures but would have had a shuffling black character running around bug eyed and scared of the aliens.

Lawsy, Massa Jake Sir, why you knows ah don' know nothin' bout flyin' no dy-no-sowrs!

But don't worry about the special effects being off-putting. In 1939, the "flyin' dy-no-sowrs" would be paper-maché, with occasionally-visible fishing line making the wings flap ponderously.

[madmonk28]

Originally Posted by Sampiro

Given the 1930s climate it would still have had a strong (some would say heavyhanded) message about tolerance for other cultures but would have had a shuffling black character running around bug eyed and scared of the aliens.

Yeah, but the racist undertones of Avatar would fit in well with the time. After all, the natives are hopeless until a white man shows them the way and is able to live in their world better than they are. It is pretty much Tarzan with blue people.

[mlees]

There is some techno jargon in the dialog that modern folks are familiar with (genetically designed Na'vi puppet people, for example. What's genetics, and what's being manipulated?) that may need to be explained a little more onscreen for a '39 audience.

I wonder if there is a difference in "plot pacing" in todays films compared to older ones. Folks from '39 might be offput by what seems like a frantic pacing in Avatar.

I don't think the '39 audience would be "whooshed" by the "Noble Savage" plotline. It's an old concept.

Sci-fi that we consider classics today have a root in the thirties, which flowered in the fifties. Telepathy, and space craft, and a poisonous atmosphere would be graspable stuff. The computers the various characters use would be seen as amazing, once they saw what those tools could do.

Of course, the audience might be asking "where are the 1920's style death rays? They are still using guns?!?"

[Kozmik]

Originally Posted by drastic_quench

It's an insane, unanswerable question because of how absurd it would be to develop all of that technology - down to each microchip - in secret, for a movie.

George Lucas did it in the 1970s for Star Wars.

[Miller]

Originally Posted by Kozmik

George Lucas did it in the 1970s for Star Wars.

I'm pretty sure George Lucas never invented the microchip.

[mbh]

It would have been compared to Snow White, which Disney had released in 1938. I think the main reaction would have been "Cameron has better artists, but Disney has better writers."

Studio execs would have balked at the length and the pacing. The fast-paced editing might have turned off some viewers. Then again, the younger viewers might have loved it.

None of the plot elements was new. Most of the gadgets would have been familiar to readers of Buck Rogers and Flash Gordon. "Genetic engineering" would have been an unfamiliar term, but the concept of growing critters in a lab would have been familiar to fans of Burroughs' The Synthetic Men of Mars. Also the concept of transferring a mind from one body to another ( The Master Mind of Mars. )

The "noble savage" had been around at least since Rosseau, and had been part of American pop culture since The Song of Hiawatha and The Last of the Mohicans. The Romantic poets had been whining about the evils of industrial capitalism for nearly a century.

[Runs With Scissors]

Probably the same way I viewed Blade Runner when it came out.

People wouldn't understand a goddammed second of it.