Avatar: The Way of Water | 16 DEC 2022 | Don't worry guys, critics like it

[dashrendar44]

Never said Titanic and Avatar weren't good films that struck a chord with audiences. They're just not very good screenplays. I've been a Cameron fan longer than most people here and I've just been disappointed with his work of late. The blind worship he gets and refusal to acknowledge his flaws is very similar to how Bay fanboys attack anyone who criticizes him. Not that Cameron has sank to Bay's level, of course, but the defense is the same. Their movies look great and are popular so that seems to excuse any flaws in some people's eyes.

 

The filmed script is 100% effective as everything that is set-up got a pay-off, all the little things that make the experience fulfilling and rewarding like there is no random fat that serves no purpose in the story. Everything happens for a reason in a cause/consequence string of events that builds up to an epic crescendo and moving finale.

 

Moreover, the movie is a frame narrative juggling with timelines as the whole Titanic section is a flashback told from the POV of the old woman serving as our doorway to the events, the old woman that keeps the secret macguffin the present day explorers  are looking for.(In a way, it's a mise en abyme as well with another level of subtext as Bill Paxton's character is actually James Cameron himself that did the same quest and shared the same obsession of exploring the remains of the Titanic with sub depicted in the movie to understand how it sank and show what it is left before time and nature do their deed. It's like a documentary on James Cameron that becomes a historical drama. Titanic, Mankind's delusion of grandeur, defied Nature with its then state-of-the-art technology but ultimately got defeated by its Hubris like Icarus vs The Sun).

 

The way it intrincates Rose's character with the boat's fate (See the sequence when Jack and Rose are playfully running through the different decks and levels of the boat so we get a full realization of the gigantic nature of the boat, its struggling classes inner construction as a reproduction of society's ladders on a biblical arch of some sort, so later we are are not disoriented when shit hit the fan as that sequence made us familiar with the different set pieces we get to see later in a more dramatic settings) as we get to see this short-lived boat and ensuing tragedy through the prism of her existence. So a screenplay that works:

 

*Emotionally, as the movie is a story within a story from a character's POV intimately linked to the Titanic.(Rose was a conceited and boring young maiden when she got on-aboard, she blossomed into a passionate woman hardened by passion and adversity. Titanic's tragedy cristallized that turning point as an individual, how it impacted History on a macro and micro-level).

 

*Thematically, as it points out the hubris of Man against Nature (like most Cameron's movie not called True Lies, you got that underlying theme riffing on the fascination and repulsion of technology since Terminator) 

 

*Mythologically, as Titanic is an ark, an almost biblical tragedy.

 

That makes it a good screenplay to pull that structure off. There is nowhere near that intricacy between characters, text and subtexts in any of Bay's screenplays which are all straight-forward stories up until Pain & Gain. Even his Titanic aka Pearl Harbor didn't have that structure.

 

Most filmmakers and screenwriters would have written the movie to take place in 1912 at the beginning (showing us the construction of the boat for hence) and finish after sinking when survivors come back to NY in a straight-forward disaster movie story like The Poseidon Adventure with no mise en abyme or frame narrative. Cameron's screenwriting choices emphasize what the Titanic represents to the modern world, the popular memory we have and what it really was (from a fictional POV), like a Sepia still photograph coming alive. That's why the movie opens in modern day and not in 1912 in media res. The notion of transmission from the ancient to the young to preserve our history like the old times when stories were only carried orally. There's a constant bouncing back and forth between past and present to hit that home. Cameron says the technology can show us what the Titanic looked like in its few golden days in a skewed representation but the human factor, how it felt like to live on the Titanic, that emotional anchor is Rose's character and we get to live it through her eyes. So question that scriptwriting choice and that was a conscious choice all those previous Titanic movies didn't make then see who connected the most thanks to that scriptwriting choice...

 

Did you read Project 888 (aka the first draft of Avatar), that script is dope. Even though he got to drop off interesting material that brought much more POV and depth to streamline a costly project to the barebone (like journalists investigating Pandora to bust out the company or the Avatar pilot that became depressed when his Avatar was killed exploring the dependance one can develop when migrating their minds. However that latter point was quickly hinted in the movie in a montage in which we see Sully forgetting to sustain his human body becoming more addictive to the Avatar's body than living in his human body as days go by and Norm's avatar being shot in the battle)

 

Didn't say it sucked. But the writing division of the Academy (who you think would know a thing or two about screenplays) obviously didn't think much of it. In the last 50 years, only Sound of Music and Titanic have won best picture without even being nominated for screenplay. Cameron's last two movies succeeded in spite of his writing, not because of it. Case closed.

 

If the Academy says so it must be true then...There are plenty of great movies that didn't get their screenplays nominated like Heat, Raging Bull or Shining. That doesn't make them lesser screenplays or lesser works in general. Especially when Ghost and Shakespeare In Love won best screenplays, the Academy can be a real joke.

Edited August 25, 2014 by dashrendar44

[Cochofles]

The problem with the Academy and Cameron is jealousy and snobbery. Plain and simple. “Cameron is too rich and popular, we are gonna give him Oscars too? Fuck him. He can't write.” These flaws that detractors claim his scripts have always come down to “he is not original” and “his characters are cardboard,” which, if taken seriously, should be an indictment of 99.9 % of films that Hollywood churns out.

[Cochofles]

Didn't say it sucked. But the writing division of the Academy (who you think would know a thing or two about screenplays) obviously didn't think much of it. In the last 50 years, only Sound of Music and Titanic have won best picture without even being nominated for screenplay. Cameron's last two movies succeeded in spite of his writing, not because of it. Case closed.

Case closed? Not really. You just want to parrot the same ole tired narrative: “the film was crap because the script was crap.” Tell us why you think it was crap? We've already told you why we think the script is solid. If your argument is that the film is not original, then you must not like Hollywood films at all. If your argument is that the characters are cardboard, tell us why. If your argument is that the characters don't change throughout the film, sorry, but you're wrong. ;-)

[Ethan Hunt]

This excites me more than any of the upcoming movieshttp://www.insidethemagic.net/2013/10/avatar-land-revealed-set-to-open-in-2017-at-walt-disney-world-with-new-nighttime-animal-kingdom-entertainment/

Holy crap!

[Kalel009Shel]

I want Cameron to make exactly what he wants to make. He has earned it.

amen he is the greatest pound for pound directtor who has ever lived. He will show he is king of the world for the 3rd time

in a row.

[AniNate]

So, has there been any actual news in the last six months?

[Moviedweeb]

So, has there been any actual news in the last six months?

 

They revealed how the sequels are being written which is really unique and original. 

[RobinHood26]

Now with this and new Star Wars attractions they are stepping up

 

Again, waiting til I see the attractions. Disney hasn't really used a new innovative ride system in over a decade. Universals last 2 rides are one of a kind in the themepark world.

 

People forget Disney was offered Potter but only was willing to spend 80 -100m.... Universal turned around and spend over 300m and the expansion of Diagon Alley alone was 500m. California Adventure as a whole thempark in 2001 cost 600m.

[Kalel009Shel]

Again, waiting til I see the attractions. Disney hasn't really used a new innovative ride system in over a decade. Universals last 2 rides are one of a kind in the themepark world.

 

People forget Disney was offered Potter but only was willing to spend 80 -100m.... Universal turned around and spend over 300m and the expansion of Diagon Alley alone was 500m. California Adventure as a whole thempark in 2001 cost 600m.

what!? where you heard universalspent 600m Jay buddy

[Warmaster506]

 I really like Avatar, but IMO its Cameron's 5th best film. 

[Kalel009Shel]

cv

James is about to send the world a message. damn 3 to 3.6b for av2 and the next ones 4b to 5b plus?! Avatar saga=12-14b just from bo alone! :wub:

[Heat Vision]

I really like Avatar, but IMO its Cameron's 5th best film.

I agree. The movie is visually stunning and launched a new era of film making though. Edited August 30, 2014 by Heat Vision

[Kalel009Shel]

 I really like Avatar, but IMO its Cameron's 5th best film. 

its  the greatest movie experience of my life.  Warmaster i think titanic is james most perfect fillm . Though special

mentions to T2 and Aliens

[Warmaster506]

 Yes, it did.  Which is why I liked it.  I like T-1 the best, but that is just me.

Edited August 30, 2014 by Warmaster506

[Kalel009Shel]

I agree. The movie is visually stunning and launched a new era of film making though.

Dont forget the most spiritual and immersve film of all time guys!

[Kalel009Shel]

Sort of crazy that just 2 films willput juggernaut saga at 6.5b to 7b!

[Warmaster506]

My fave Cameron scene remain's the police shootout from T-1.  

[Klingo]

My fave Cameron scene remain's the police shootout from T-1.  

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=QLWrmlIWb_w

[Heat Vision]

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=QLWrmlIWb_w

Time to watch this movie again.

[Kvikk Lunsj]

I just want James Cameron to finish up Avatar do another movie project.