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

[somebody85]

16 hours ago, Cochofles said:

 LOL And this thing that fanboy trolls do ("MY opinion is this, therefore the general audience thinks the same") is still happening. That's why we have people still saying things like, "Nobody liked Avatar...MOS was hated by everyone who saw it...only teenage girls liked Titanic...the BVS trailer got a bad reaction and everyone loved the CW trailer..."

It's a very special kind of delusion that makes one think that one's opinion is representative of millions and millions of people. 

But that's the internet! :-)

Okay cool, so can't say anything not pro about this movie here. The articles I posted are all unbiased and contain plenty of positive comments too, it wasn't just negativity. I guess you guys complaining didn't read them? I did and there is a strong sense of people not happy about the announcement. Now will that change once the marketing kicks in for this? Who knows. But saying the negativity is just coming from Avatar haters is a lie.

 

The GA argument has some merit here though. It's not delusion when there are multiple articles about it. Ignoring these articles might be though.

 

These are not fan boy articles. It's just news on the movie and the rest are an honest question some have. It was Slate who posted "Avatar sequels 2-3-4 announced and no one cares" after polling Twitter. Isn't that a pretty big publication? How much more GA can you get then Twitter? And how can you say that some of the GA isn't sharing that opinion? That "oh they are just Avatar haters and James will prove them wrong just like he did last time!" But that's just not looking at the information out there.

Because at that point what becomes the GA? People who don't visit the internet? Social media is one of the biggest areas to see film news and trailers nowadays but I guess any negative comments are all just "haters" too.

 

I guess some think that "oh there are tons of people who are excited but they just don't bother to post. Thats the GA!"Okay...and what if it was like that for any other franchise? Would people think those movies would be an insane success like some predict this to be? It wouldn't be a big deal if Avatar wasn't the biggest movie in the world but it is.

 

And regarding the sequel being an automatic success because the first move was without any hype too...yeah lightning sometimes only strikes once in a bottle. That doesn't mean it's going to happen again.

 

Once again, not trying to bash this movie. I searched Avatar sequels on google and posted the links that came up. I didn't search "no one wants avatar". 
 

 

Edited January 8, 2016 by somebody85

[Dementeleus]

1 minute ago, somebody85 said:

It was Slate who posted "Avatar sequels 2-3-4 announced and no one cares"

 

Slate is notoriously contrarian.

 

In terms of the general audience, of course they don't care right now. They simply don't care about 2017... yet. Heck, most of the GA doesn't even care about most of 2016 releases either.

 

We can gauge interest after the teaser, whenever that is.

[somebody85]

22 minutes ago, Telemachos said:

 

Slate is notoriously contrarian.

 

In terms of the general audience, of course they don't care right now. They simply don't care about 2017... yet. Heck, most of the GA doesn't even care about most of 2016 releases either.

 

We can gauge interest after the teaser, whenever that is.

Okay I didn't know that, I don't follow Slate but know they are (or at least used to be a top critic on RT). The article itself was tweets after Sigourney Weaver made the announcement. It's easy to say the article very well could have been cherry picked to only include negatives but I'm not sure. That's why I looked it up afterwards at all those links to see if there really was excitement about these movies and what I mostly saw was the same thing Slate said.

I don't agree that the GA doesn't visit those sites and I definitely don't agree that the GA isn't Twitter. 

 

The GA would care if it were news related to Star Wars Episode 8. I would bet that anything released would be a top trending story on facebook and picked up by every major entertainment outlet and have tons of comments even though it's not until 2017 either.

All this research is in defense to some like Kal, IronJimbo claiming that there is a massive demand for these movies. And once again I'm really fascinated by the lack of Avatars pop culture impact after being the biggest movie in the world.

But yeah the teaser could change everything but so far the demand is not what they claimed.

Edited January 8, 2016 by somebody85

[BadAtGender]

10 minutes ago, Telemachos said:

 

Slate is notoriously contrarian.

 

In terms of the general audience, of course they don't care right now. They simply don't care about 2017... yet. Heck, most of the GA doesn't even care about most of 2016 releases either.

 

We can gauge interest after the teaser, whenever that is.

 

My brother and I talk about movies a fair bit. I keep up on the news and all, but he doesn't. It's just not in his particular interest to know the minutia of all the production news. So I'm constantly reminding him not only when movies are coming out, but that they ARE coming out. "Oh, there's a third Captain America movie? When is that?" "This summer." "Cool. Cool." And the he'll probably forget it until I tell him again in a couple months.

 

Or my nephew. He's 12. If you remember what it was like at that age, the films you see then are the BEST in the world. Right now, his current favorites are TFA, JW, and GOTG. ("Chris Pratt is my favorite actor," he told me. And I'm thinking, "what have you seen besides those two movies," because I KNOW my sister won't let him watch Zero Dark Thirty.) So we're talking about upcoming movies and I pull out my phone and get the list of MCU movies. Civil War he knows about... and that was it. Hadn't had a clue about Doctor Strange. When I mentioned GOTG2 next year, his eyes just lit up. But he'll probably forget about it until next year sometime.

I find people like that are good barometers for the general public. If you know someone who likes movies but doesn't follow the news, find out what they know about. Chances are, they probably aren't really looking forward to anything in more than an abstract way until a few months out at best. They see the trailers, but once they notice that it's not coming until next Summer or Christmas or something, they put the information on the back burner.

 

It doesn't have anything to do with whether they're excited or not about the properties. It's just being the sort of hyper-focused fan who has to know all information months and months ahead of time really isn't appealing to most people. 

[Dementeleus]

8 minutes ago, somebody85 said:

Okay I didn't know that, I don't follow Slate but know they are (or at least used to be a top critic on RT). The article itself was tweets after Sigourney Weaver made the announcement. It's easy to say the article very well could have been cherry picked to only include negatives but I'm not sure. That's why I looked it up afterwards at all those links to see if there really was excitement about these movies and what I mostly saw was the same thing Slate said.

I don't agree that the GA doesn't visit those sites and I definitely don't agree that the GA isn't Twitter.

 

I'm not saying Slate cherry-picks anything, but they love to post articles to get a rise out of people (it doesn't even really matter who.) My point is just that for a movie that's two years away (at the earliest!), it's not surprising that there's little interest or awareness, even if its predecessor was a massive blockbuster. This is partially because AVATAR didn't (and still mostly doesn't) have any pre-existing franchises or adaptations to plug into or build awareness on. So yes, no one aside from diehard fans (whether from the movie, or Cameron, or sci-fi, or whatever) will be paying much attention to anything about it... especially since any tidbit of news has basically been proven to be meaningless (how many times have we heard that it's about to get started?).

 

But at the same time, I don't think that's a huge downside right now. All it means is that awareness needs to be raised... and there'll be plenty of time to do that by the time the first marketable material comes out.

[somebody85]

5 minutes ago, DamienRoc said:

It doesn't have anything to do with whether they're excited or not about the properties. It's just being the sort of hyper-focused fan who has to know all information months and months ahead of time really isn't appealing to most people. 

Right, I completely get your points but regarding a social media age and an entertainment industry that feeds off those updates, I think a lot of people are more aware then you think. Like the Hunger Games prequels. That was trending and those aren't planned for awhile too right? (I honestly don't know)

It seems like every little detail about these movies is now part of that trending entertainment tab despite when they come out. But do a lot of people not interested in them click on them and actually read the articles? I don't know but that these articles usually have a lot of comments. I'd say curiosity gets the best of a lot of people even if they aren't going to remember that movie is coming out a few days later. 
 

Then again maybe my facebook is tailored to my criteria since I'm a movie lover so I see all this stuff when others don't. And maybe it's just movie fans like me commenting.

I just think in this day and age that it's hard to gauge what is GA and what isn't. 

[Orestes]

1 minute ago, somebody85 said:

I just think in this day and age that it's hard to gauge what is GA and what isn't. 

 

The only thing I know for sure is that no one who posts here is, even though a few sometimes fancy themselves as such.

[somebody85]

3 minutes ago, Telemachos said:

 

I'm not saying Slate cherry-picks anything, but they love to post articles to get a rise out of people (it doesn't even really matter who.) My point is just that for a movie that's two years away (at the earliest!), it's not surprising that there's little interest or awareness, even if its predecessor was a massive blockbuster. This is partially because AVATAR didn't (and still mostly doesn't) have any pre-existing franchises or adaptations to plug into or build awareness on. So yes, no one aside from diehard fans (whether from the movie, or Cameron, or sci-fi, or whatever) will be paying much attention to anything about it... especially since any tidbit of news has basically been proven to be meaningless (how many times have we heard that it's about to get started?).

 

But at the same time, I don't think that's a huge downside right now. All it means is that awareness needs to be raised... and there'll be plenty of time to do that by the time the first marketable material comes out.

Yeah that's completely fair. The reason I researched this subject was to find out if there was any merit to what the die hards have said. As someone who does follow film sites I found it odd to hear them say that when I haven't seen much. I also would think there would be a lot more of a fandom for a movie that is the number one in the world.

But yeah I could see how the "delayed" articles could effect people in the wrong way. 

No it's not but it remains to be seen how many will be hyped to return to Pandora when that teaser does release and yes I'm sure awareness will raise a lot if it ever comes out.
 

I have a feeling though that when that teaser does release, if this disinterest from these articles carries over people will say it's just the internet trolls and that they don't represent the GA.

 

[somebody85]

11 minutes ago, Orestes said:

 

The only thing I know for sure is that no one who posts here is, even though a few sometimes fancy themselves as such.

Oh for sure, it's impossible for me to even view movies that way. But social media and the constant updates from entertainment sites about the smallest things have shifted the landscape from where it once was, in regards to awareness on big movies.

[BadAtGender]

4 minutes ago, somebody85 said:

Right, I completely get your points but regarding a social media age and an entertainment industry that feeds off those updates, I think a lot of people are more aware then you think. Like the Hunger Games prequels. That was trending and those aren't planned for awhile too right? (I honestly don't know)

It seems like every little detail about these movies is now part of that trending entertainment tab despite when they come out. But do a lot of people not interested in them click on them and actually read the articles? I don't know but that these articles usually have a lot of comments. I'd say curiosity gets the best of a lot of people even if they aren't going to remember that movie is coming out a few days later. 
 

Then again maybe my facebook is tailored to my criteria since I'm a movie lover so I see all this stuff when others don't. And maybe it's just movie fans like me commenting.

I just think in this day and age that it's hard to gauge what is GA and what isn't. 

 

It's true that as time goes on, the feedback you see online is going to be more reflective of society as a whole. However, that's an increase trend over time, and so the state of social media as it existed at the time of Avatar's release isn't anywhere close to what it's like right now.

 

Also despite not forgetting anything, the internet does have a short memory. I check Tumblr daily and I recently saw a post where someone just put together a collage of all the memes that had gone big over the course of 2015. And I swear to god, half of them I'd completely forgotten about.

 

Popular culture is very much a thing about what's in the now. Some brands do a good job about keeping their conversation in play, even during fallow periods. But that's not strictly necessary. More often, people care when there's something in relative proximity, and not at other times. The Hunger Games just had a movie a couple months ago, and that was the culmination of four movies in the past four years. Of course people still care about it. (It also had a pretty hardcore fanbase even prior to release, because there were novels that drummed things up.) If you come back in a couple years, when we're possibly in a long fallow period before the first prequel is released, people might be more like "Oh, yeah? That was fun."

 

Hell, even Harry Potter has cooled off a bit since the last movie. (Not as much, mind, because Pottermore, but some.)

 

You're making the mistake (as these article writers are) of taking the fact that people aren't invested in Avatar right now to mean that they won't ever be invested. And audience behavior doesn't really support that. As they become aware in the few months prior to release, they're likely to become interested in it again. 

 

This isn't to say that Cameron and Fox can rest easy. They do have a bit of an uphill battle compared to other brands as they get closer to release. If they slack off, they could get a John Carter situation, where an audience may be potentially interested and passingly knowledgable of the property, but aren't given a compelling reason to care at that moment.

[somebody85]

11 minutes ago, DamienRoc said:

 

You're making the mistake (as these article writers are) of taking the fact that people aren't invested in Avatar right now to mean that they won't ever be invested. And audience behavior doesn't really support that. As they become aware in the few months prior to release, they're likely to become interested in it again. 

 

This isn't to say that Cameron and Fox can rest easy. They do have a bit of an uphill battle compared to other brands as they get closer to release. If they slack off, they could get a John Carter situation, where an audience may be potentially interested and passingly knowledgable of the property, but aren't given a compelling reason to care at that moment.

Oh no, I never said people won't ever be invested, just that there isn't a lot of excitement right now at the prospect of these movies. Guys like Kal and IronJimbo made it seem like there was this huge fanbase out there. And it's not a far fetched idea. Like, really I could believe it with the official facebook page having an unbelievable 49,000,000 fans.
 

Everything I've seen is the opposite of what they said besides that though. I'm not seeing people dying to return to Pandora like they are claiming, so I thought maybe I was visiting the wrong sites.
 

I like to research things and this movies footprint is extremely interesting. It's led to many great articles that have made me question blockbusters in whole and how they are remembered. It almost seems like Avatars legacy is more based off of those then any fandom (besides box office and Camerons technological advances).
 

Edited January 8, 2016 by somebody85

[Dementeleus]

It's always worth remembering that AVATAR generated $750m in business despite zero awareness a couple of years out and much early ridicule after the first initial glimpses of footage.

[AniNate]

Cameron predicted this kind of lull when he first said he planned on doing sequels. He fully admitted he'd have to earn the audience's interest all over again

[BadAtGender]

1 minute ago, somebody85 said:

Oh no, I never said people won't ever be invested, just that there isn't a lot of excitement right now at the prospect of these movies. Guys like Kal and IronJimbo made it seem like there was this huge fanbase out there. And it's not far fetched. Like, really I could believe it with the official facebook page having an unbelievable 49,000,000 fans.
 

Everything I've seen though is the opposite of what they said besides that. I'm not seeing people dying to return to Pandora like they are claiming, so I thought maybe I was visiting the wrong sites.
 

I like to research things and this movies footprint is extremely interesting. It's led to many great articles that have made me question blockbusters in whole and how they are remembered. It almost seems like Avatars legacy is more based off of those then any fandom (besides box office and Camerons technological advances).
 

 

Like so many things, the truth is probably somewhere in the middle, because people cover a range. Yes, there are sorts like Kal and Jimbo who are wholly invested in Avatar and that never changes, even in the absence of real news. And there are people who shrugged in '09, are shrugging now, and will shrug when the sequel comes out. 

 

A lot of the metrics of social media often bely how people really approach things that they consume, media-wise. I'm just browsing my own selection of likes on Facebook, and there's a smattering of musical acts, movies, TV shows, video games, novels, and comics. I do like all of these things, abstractly, but honestly the vast majority of them I don't give any thought about most days. This is even true for things that are among my all time favorites. I -love- the Veronica Mars TV show. But I don't think about it much, because there's no reason. The like sits there, though, a signifier that, yes, I do like this thing, in whatever sense that means.

 

It's probably the same with Avatar. Those 49 million fans probably exist, but it's not 49 million people who are acting like Kal and Jimbo. It's just people who went "Oh, I like this." *click* and then went on with their day.

 

From the point of view of these brands that's fine. They don't need to have people actively clamoring all the time, they really just need that abstract interest enough to click a like. Because when we get closer to release, those 49 million people are people who can be contacted directly about the film. (And, yeah. Fox probably would be interested in paying to make sure that every person who liked the page sees anything they post as it gets close to release.)

[somebody85]

27 minutes ago, Telemachos said:

It's always worth remembering that AVATAR generated $750m in business despite zero awareness a couple of years out and much early ridicule after the first initial glimpses of footage.

Of course, but was it just lightning in a bottle? The right circumstances at the right time?

I'd compare it to people saying "oh well Jared Leto or Jesse Eisenburg are going to be blow everyone away and be amazing villians because everyone also trashed Heath Ledgers announcement and we saw how that turned out"

Just because something happened once doesn't mean it will happen again. The same obviously goes for Star Wars Episode 8 having the same success of TFA. 

It just seems like having a famdom at least gives a big film a better chance of being a success. Unless the movie is trashed beforehand (Terminator: Genisys) those people are usually going to show regardless of how bad the movie is reviewed. This isn't to say Avatar is without fans, it just doesn't have the same geekdom as some of the bigger franchises. Does that mean failure? Probably not and I know its smart to never bet against James Cameron.

So yeah it's anyones guess as to what happens. Until the movie starts to become more of a reality, it's just speculation of what ifs, good and bad.

Edited January 8, 2016 by somebody85

[somebody85]

8 minutes ago, DamienRoc said:

 

Like so many things, the truth is probably somewhere in the middle, because people cover a range. Yes, there are sorts like Kal and Jimbo who are wholly invested in Avatar and that never changes, even in the absence of real news. And there are people who shrugged in '09, are shrugging now, and will shrug when the sequel comes out. 

 

A lot of the metrics of social media often bely how people really approach things that they consume, media-wise. I'm just browsing my own selection of likes on Facebook, and there's a smattering of musical acts, movies, TV shows, video games, novels, and comics. I do like all of these things, abstractly, but honestly the vast majority of them I don't give any thought about most days. This is even true for things that are among my all time favorites. I -love- the Veronica Mars TV show. But I don't think about it much, because there's no reason. The like sits there, though, a signifier that, yes, I do like this thing, in whatever sense that means.

 

It's probably the same with Avatar. Those 49 million fans probably exist, but it's not 49 million people who are acting like Kal and Jimbo. It's just people who went "Oh, I like this." *click* and then went on with their day.

 

From the point of view of these brands that's fine. They don't need to have people actively clamoring all the time, they really just need that abstract interest enough to click a like. Because when we get closer to release, those 49 million people are people who can be contacted directly about the film. (And, yeah. Fox probably would be interested in paying to make sure that every person who liked the page sees anything they post as it gets close to release.)

Haha very true. You'd think with as many films as I see that I'd have this huge list of movies liked on my page, yet there are very little. I don't even think I like the Marvel page. Besides Star Wars, I don't like any of the pages of my favorite movies of 2015. That's actually kind of weird...oh well.

As far as TV shows, I think just TWD, The Big Bang Theory and Mr. Robot? Maybe Daredevil? I don't know lol but I do know I watch a lot else. I just never bothered to like those pages. So yeah I completely am on board with you there.

And oh yeah FOX will take full advantage of that when the time comes.

[Dementeleus]

I'll hazard a guess what happens: if the movie is good, it'll make a solid amount of money. If it's great, it will make a ton of money. 

[BadAtGender]

3 minutes ago, Telemachos said:

I'll hazard a guess what happens: if the movie is good, it'll make a solid amount of money. If it's great, it will make a ton of money. 

 

Based on track record, Cameron tends towards great.

[somebody85]

It's been fun speculating though, so thank you DamienRoc and Telemachos for your points in this conversation. It makes Avatars legacy even more intriguing to me.

 

[Deep Wang]

Awwww man, I missed the all the Aliens talk. 

 

Definitely Team Aliens. That is one hell of a movie.