# The (lack of) cultural impact of Avatar **URL:** \ **Category:** Cafe Society\ **Created:** [March 8, 2018, 9:18pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/the-lack-of-cultural-impact-of-avatar/810261 "2018-03-08T21:18:51Z")\ **Posts on this page:** 20\ **Page:** 2
**Author:** ![GuanoLad](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/guanolad/32/42_2.png) [@GuanoLad](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/GuanoLad)\ **Post date:** [March 9, 2018, 1:33am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/the-lack-of-cultural-impact-of-avatar/810261/21 "2018-03-09T01:33:19Z")
I thought it was fine when I saw it, and like others was dazzled by the 3D, but I admit I have never watched it a second time. I think the new sequels will revive its popularity because James Cameron really does know what he’s doing, and ten years of CGI improvements will likely be noticeable, but I’m not sure it will do the same numbers and justify the continuing sequels beyond. ---
**Author:** ![Bryan\_Ekers](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/bryan_ekers/32/183_2.png) [@Bryan\_Ekers](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Bryan_Ekers)\ **Post date:** [March 9, 2018, 1:35am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/the-lack-of-cultural-impact-of-avatar/810261/22 "2018-03-09T01:35:11Z")
The sequels going straight to DVD would probably be a bad sign. ---
**Author:** ![Northern\_Piper](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/northern_piper/32/5304_2.png) [@Northern\_Piper](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Northern_Piper)\ **Post date:** [March 9, 2018, 1:35am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/the-lack-of-cultural-impact-of-avatar/810261/23 "2018-03-09T01:35:24Z")
That’s not supported by the list of Top 10 that **Jonathon Chance** posted above. Of those, only Jaws and Star Wars had sequels. ---
**Author:** ![running\_coach](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/running_coach/32/15836_2.png) [@running\_coach](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/running_coach)\ **Post date:** [March 9, 2018, 1:37am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/the-lack-of-cultural-impact-of-avatar/810261/24 "2018-03-09T01:37:24Z")
> [@Northern\_Piper](#): > > That’s not supported by the list of Top 10 that **Jonathon Chance** posted above. Of those, only Jaws and Star Wars had sequels. I believe that Gone With The Wind:Giving A Damn wouldn’t have done well. 😃 ---
**Author:** ![Banquet\_Bear](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/banquet_bear/32/373_2.png) [@Banquet\_Bear](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Banquet_Bear)\ **Post date:** [March 9, 2018, 1:58am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/the-lack-of-cultural-impact-of-avatar/810261/25 "2018-03-09T01:58:58Z")
> [@SenorBeef](#): > > What movies that have come out in the last 20 years that have had a cultural impact at all like that? …I would suggest that Black Panther fits the bill. ---
**Author:** ![Isamu](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/i/7c8e57/32.png) [@Isamu](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Isamu)\ **Post date:** [March 9, 2018, 2:10am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/the-lack-of-cultural-impact-of-avatar/810261/26 "2018-03-09T02:10:56Z")
I thought it was robbed at the Oscars by a much much worse movie, Bomb-hunter. Avatar was beautiful to watch (for me, but I am red-green color blind) and the blending of human and alien forms was ambitious but pulled off well. It had an interesting premise which was heavily weighed down by a hackneyed storyline about white-boy winning the native girl by showing how strong and good white-boys are. It may have suffered from some kind of uncanny-valley problems too, for some people. ---
**Author:** ![dzeiger](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/d/46a35a/32.png) [@dzeiger](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/dzeiger)\ **Post date:** [March 9, 2018, 2:37am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/the-lack-of-cultural-impact-of-avatar/810261/27 "2018-03-09T02:37:14Z")
> [@Jonathan\_Chance](#): > > Sure, it’s going to be at Disney this year, The Pandora area actually opened last year. And it is possibly telling that while it is an amazing place in terms of visuals and ride technology, they set the area 20 or 30 years after all of Cameron’s proposed sequels. So they took the visuals and the basic world concepts and basically completely created their own stories around it. ---
**Author:** ![Lucas\_Jackson](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/lucas_jackson/32/303_2.png) [@Lucas\_Jackson](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Lucas_Jackson)\ **Post date:** [March 9, 2018, 2:44am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/the-lack-of-cultural-impact-of-avatar/810261/28 "2018-03-09T02:44:47Z")
Very pedestrian and ordinary story. I was VERY disappointed in this film. I’ve expressed my dislike of this movie on these very boards. And posters actually responded “but did you see it in 3D!?” 3D can not make up for a poor story line or poor dialog or poor acting. ---
**Author:** ![Snowboarder\_Bo](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/snowboarder_bo/32/229_2.png) [@Snowboarder\_Bo](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Snowboarder_Bo)\ **Post date:** [March 9, 2018, 2:57am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/the-lack-of-cultural-impact-of-avatar/810261/29 "2018-03-09T02:57:42Z")
> [@Stranger\_On\_A\_Train](#): > > It’s not that the story was too simple or trite—classic films have been made from less—but that the pacing wasn’t engaging and characters weren’t very interesting. And despite the oohing over the CGI, it really wasn’t all that extraordinary. I was more impressed with Cameron’s use of it in _True Lies_, where despite being made in the mid-‘Nineties it was nearly impossible to distinguish between the practical effects and CGI. _Avatar_ was such an overwhelming amount of obviously effect-driven visuals that it actually wasn’t all that memorable. **And any film that has the gall to call their McGuffin “unobtainium” is begging to be relentlessly mocked** by [these guys](https://m.youtube.com/watch?v=Fq00mCqBMY8). Perfectly said, especially the part I bolded. > [@Stranger\_On\_A\_Train](#): > > _Star Wars_ had impact because its use of then-cutting edge effects novel (at least for filmgoers; it was the then-best imagining of classic literary space opera) but even Lucas admitted that the effects sequences need to be in service of an engaging story, which _Avatar_ was not. _Raiders of the Lost Ark_ is a great film despite the fact that the plot doesn’t actually make any sense and the actions of the protagonist are ultimately pointless. (“We have top men working on it.” “Who?” “Top men.”). I’m sure Cameron will make money on the (four? Really?) sequels, but from a quality standpoint they’d be better off giving the catering budget to Joss Whedon to produce every play Shakespeare wrote in his backyard with his friends and spending the remainder of the budget letting Taiki Waititi and James Gunn direct their collective vision of high fantasy space opera comedy. > > Stranger I gotta give you mad props here. Not what I woulda come up with, but very impressively thought out. 😃 ---
**Author:** ![sinjin](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/s/ebca7d/32.png) [@sinjin](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/sinjin)\ **Post date:** [March 9, 2018, 3:06am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/the-lack-of-cultural-impact-of-avatar/810261/30 "2018-03-09T03:06:25Z")
> [@dzeiger](#): > > The Pandora area actually opened last year. And it is possibly telling that while it is an amazing place in terms of visuals and ride technology, they set the area 20 or 30 years after all of Cameron’s proposed sequels. So they took the visuals and the basic world concepts and basically completely created their own stories around it. Aside from not being able to get onto the two rides without a fast pass obtained 30 days in advance the area is totally meh. The waits for both rides were over three hours without the fast pass. We got one for the river ride and we were both “REALLY??” It was totally meh. Didn’t get on the other ride and maybe it’s amazing, but the whole area is just fakey goofy flowers and stuff, very plastic. I suspect this will not last long. ---
**Author:** ![eschereal](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/eschereal/32/18939_2.png) [@eschereal](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/eschereal)\ **Post date:** [March 9, 2018, 4:38am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/the-lack-of-cultural-impact-of-avatar/810261/31 "2018-03-09T04:38:51Z")
> [@Stranger\_On\_A\_Train](#): > > \*… any film that has the gall to call their McGuffin “unobtainium” is begging to be relentlessly mocked by [these guys](https://m.youtube.com/watch?v=Fq00mCqBMY8). TBCF, the heavy transient elements in row 6 had provisional names that began with not just “un” but “unun”, like ununtrium, ununpentium and ununoctium. These names are still in my periodic table app, I guess because merck just cannot keep up with the times – maybe they are doing too many drugs – but permanent names have been assigned to all of them. I was especially pleased to discover that the heaviest known element goes by the symbol “Og”. But as silly as “unobtainium” is, it is no match for the very fundamental idea that there is some unique and valuable stable element that can be mined on Pandora. For a profit, no less. The name is only the superficial silliness. ---
**Author:** ![Alessan](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/alessan/32/465_2.png) [@Alessan](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Alessan)\ **Post date:** [March 9, 2018, 12:27pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/the-lack-of-cultural-impact-of-avatar/810261/32 "2018-03-09T12:27:25Z")
Personally, I think mainstream geek fandom has swept the movie under the rug so as not to be associated with the Furries. ---
**Author:** ![Pantastic](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/p/3bc359/32.png) [@Pantastic](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Pantastic)\ **Post date:** [March 9, 2018, 1:17pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/the-lack-of-cultural-impact-of-avatar/810261/33 "2018-03-09T13:17:09Z")
Like others have said, there just wasn’t any meat to the movie. It was visually impressive but lacked an interesting plot or characters. There weren’t memorable lines that people quoted, and it only prompted conversations about ‘that looks cool’, you didn’t get people at the water cooler arguing over what really happened 2/3 of the way in or debating whether X was a good guy. It created a world, but not enough detail for people to get into it (the laziness of calling the unobtanium ‘unobtanium’ certainly didn’t help). There wasn’t a major game, book series, TV show, or other tie-in property, and despite being visual the movie isn’t very suited for cosplay, so it didn’t really have anything to stick to SF geeks. I think it’s also telling that the list of highest grossing movies of all time other than this movie (that people rewatched for the visuals) all came out before 2000, and other than Titanic all came out before 1990. Back in the pre- and early VCR days, well before DVDs, streaming video, and DVRs, people rewatched movies in the theater a lot more, because they simply didn’t have the option of finding something interesting on Netflix or grabbing their old DVD. And there was a lot less ‘back catalog’ to compete with, especially when you go back to stuff like Gone With the Wind and Snow White. ---
**Author:** ![Mahaloth](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/mahaloth/32/1079_2.png) [@Mahaloth](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Mahaloth)\ **Post date:** [March 9, 2018, 1:50pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/the-lack-of-cultural-impact-of-avatar/810261/34 "2018-03-09T13:50:21Z")
It’s a good movie. I like it, but it lacks anything original or particularly fun. No good lines, no interesting characters. The part where they transfer his consciousness permanently to his avatar at the end was one of the best parts. :shrugs: It just doesn’t have staying power. Terminator 2 does. Titanic does, though I don’t care much for it. Maybe Avatar 2-4 will be cooler. I don’t have much confidence in James Cameron’s writing ability even if he hires screenwriters to help him out. His scripts are his weakest things, even in T2(his best movie, probably). ---
**Author:** ![icon](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/i/c6cbf5/32.png) [@icon](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/icon)\ **Post date:** [March 9, 2018, 2:14pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/the-lack-of-cultural-impact-of-avatar/810261/35 "2018-03-09T14:14:35Z")
I agree with everyone who said the visuals were the thing. If I had not watched it in 3D I am sure I would not have enjoyed it that much, especially since the story was so telegraphed you knew what was going to happen about 10 minutes before it did. Not that being predictable is necessarily bad (the “good guys” tend to always win in the end), but there was nothing new in the telling that made it enjoyable knowing what was coming next. //i\ ---
**Author:** ![Chronos](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/chronos/32/134_2.png) [@Chronos](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Chronos)\ **Post date:** [March 9, 2018, 2:22pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/the-lack-of-cultural-impact-of-avatar/810261/36 "2018-03-09T14:22:35Z")
Is it ever claimed that unobtainium is an element? All we actually know about it is that it’s found on Pandora, there’s a high concentration of it right under Home Tree, it’s extremely valuable, and it’s a high-temperature superconductor (and that last is only known from promotional material, not from the movie itself). I would think that the default assumption would be that it’s a compound of some sort, and there’s no practical limit to the number of possible compounds, and we’ve only barely scratched the surface of them. ---
**Author:** ![eschereal](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/eschereal/32/18939_2.png) [@eschereal](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/eschereal)\ **Post date:** [March 9, 2018, 2:27pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/the-lack-of-cultural-impact-of-avatar/810261/37 "2018-03-09T14:27:33Z")
> [@Mahaloth](#): > > Maybe Avatar 2-4 will be cooler. I don’t have much confidence in James Cameron’s writing ability even if he hires screenwriters to help him out. His scripts are his weakest things, even in T2(his best movie, probably). _Avatar_ was pure formula. Half (or more) of the audience already knew what was going to happen. _Star Wars: A New Hope_ was also pretty formulaic, but the application of that particular formula in that sort of environment was new enough as to be not cliché. And Lucas borrowed structural ideas from other great filmmakers. Cameron was not very original at all in how he constructed _Avatar_. It was all mapped out clearly, and even the thing with the ponytails was wow-meh. ---
**Author:** ![eschereal](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/eschereal/32/18939_2.png) [@eschereal](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/eschereal)\ **Post date:** [March 9, 2018, 2:29pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/the-lack-of-cultural-impact-of-avatar/810261/38 "2018-03-09T14:29:22Z")
> [@Chronos](#): > > Is it ever claimed that unobtainium is an element? Name a compound that ends in “-ium”. ---
**Author:** ![Jophiel](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/jophiel/32/66_2.png) [@Jophiel](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Jophiel)\ **Post date:** [March 9, 2018, 2:32pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/the-lack-of-cultural-impact-of-avatar/810261/39 "2018-03-09T14:32:15Z")
I guess this thread will be a lot of repeating the same thing: It was pretty but lacked a decent story, script or memorable characters. Aside from “Wasn’t that neat to look at?” there was nothing to really discuss about it or draw off of. No fun quotable lines and it failed to capture a “feel” like Star Wars/Indiana Jones adventure, Aliens’ menace, Titanic’s romance or Terminator’s general badassery. It was just pretty to look at. Oh neat, they have lots of LED vines and six legged cats. That’s cool, I guess. Also the climatic ending battle included a robot knife fight which I recall being profoundly silly. ---
**Author:** ![k9bfriender](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/k9bfriender/32/3283_2.png) [@k9bfriender](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/k9bfriender)\ **Post date:** [March 9, 2018, 2:40pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/the-lack-of-cultural-impact-of-avatar/810261/40 "2018-03-09T14:40:02Z")
> [@Chronos](#): > > Is it ever claimed that unobtainium is an element? All we actually know about it is that it’s found on Pandora, there’s a high concentration of it right under Home Tree, it’s extremely valuable, and it’s a high-temperature superconductor (and that last is only known from promotional material, not from the movie itself). I would think that the default assumption would be that it’s a compound of some sort, and there’s no practical limit to the number of possible compounds, and we’ve only barely scratched the surface of them. I would have been much more pleased with the unobtanium is they had had a line setting it up. “This is why we are here, the high temperature superconductor hexadresdinecarbonaxle… they call it ‘unobtanium’” Then it is just a nickname, maybe even one with the irony built in, and I can handle that. [Previous page](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/the-lack-of-cultural-impact-of-avatar/810261.md?page=1) [Next page](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/the-lack-of-cultural-impact-of-avatar/810261.md?page=3)