There are two things that come to mind when someone hears the word “avatar”: Nickelodeon’s Avatar: The Last Airbender and James Cameron’s Avatar. Though the first one is great, the second one is the movie that is being the talk right now - or rather, its sequel.
Despite being the director who gave us the scary Aliens, Cameron is still being questioned about whether or not it was a good idea to continue Avatar. Here are 5 Reasons Why We Still Want To See Avatar 2 (& 5 Why We Don’t).
We Don’t Want: A Lot Of Time Has Passed Since Avatar
The first Avatar was released more than a decade ago, way back in 2009. But even though almost every human being on Earth knows about this movie, there will still be many people who haven’t watched it or who have already forgotten about it completely.
Nowadays, sequels are made within a few years after the movie before them. This ensures that the audience remembers the plot and the characters from the first film and will understand the events from the new installment. Obviously, an eleven-year gap might impact the way Avatar 2 will be perceived.
We Want: It Was Intended To Be A Trilogy
Not many people know that James Cameron actually intended Avatar to be a trilogy rather than one feature film. In fact, the director got so inspired by the idea of this story that he started working on many other details about Pandora and Na’vi that had to be left out of the original movie for the sake of a reasonable runtime.
Logically, this leftover material would need to be used in some way. It was inevitable that Cameron would come back to this story and decide to continue it. It even sounds somewhat similar to the story with George Lucas and Star Wars.
We Don’t Want: There Will Be Even More Movies After That
The flipside of this extensive world-building is that there will be even more movies after Avatar 2. In fact, Disney and James Cameron have already planned three more movies, so the franchise will consist of five feature films in the end.
Allegedly, Cameron’s second and third installments in his trilogy had to be divided into two movies each because of the amount of content they have. The bad news is that this often leads to the story worsening with every new film no matter how hard the filmmakers try to make it better.
We Want: Cast and Characters
But let’s not forget about the good sides of the original Avatar. The cast and characters were pretty good even though not every actor was as well-known as they are now. Yet, the acting was pretty good nonetheless though many actors had to perform in motion-capture suits and then CGI was applied onto their movements.
The sequel will see such actors as Sam Worthington, Zoe Saldana, Sigourney Weaver, and Stephen Lang returning while such actors as Kate Winslet, Oona Chaplin, Vin Diesel, Cliff Curtis, and others will join the cast and bring some new characters that will make the story fresher.
We Don’t Want: The Story Is Overused
Speaking of the story, it has been used many times before to an extent that it has become overused. In fact, Avatar has been accused of plagiarizing many other movies, TV shows, cartoons, books, comics, and even paintings including such well-known creations as Pocahontas, Dances With Wolves, and others.
That being said, it’s not actually plagiarism (though it did lead to some lawsuits) because there are clear historical parallels to the conquest of America and literally any other land where the conquerors would try to kill the local native people of the region.
We Want: New Details About The World
This is perhaps one of the biggest pros for James Cameron fans because we will finally get to know more new details about the world. As mentioned earlier, the director has thought through nearly every element of Pandora and the Na’vi people that live there.
Just imagine the kind of fantasy sci-fi franchise this could create! Most people love learning about fictional worlds because it helps you to forget about the real world and “go on adventures” with your favorite characters that you feel so strongly for.
We Don’t Want: The First Movie Was Not That Good
Let’s be honest… the first movie was not that good. Yes, it was a breakthrough of its own kind (which will get to in the next point), but the story was told before multiple times and didn’t bring anything new to it which ultimately made it predictable and even kind of boring.
Of course, James Cameron promises to bring more to the scene and show us a whole new interesting and engaging world, but will it really be something original? We can’t say. The only thing everyone can do is wait and hope that it doesn’t turn into a classic “humans bad, aliens good” movie.
We Want: Potential Technical Breakthrough
As mentioned above, the first Avatar was a breakthrough, mostly in the technical department. James Cameron started working on the story way back in 1995, but he realized that what he wanted to do was impossible at the time (much like with Terminator 2).
It is safe to assume that Cameron will be aiming for some kind of technical improvement in these continuations too. For instance, he has announced that some theaters will allow audiences to watch the movie in 3D without using the 3D glasses (as long as the theaters have a special projector for it).
We Don’t Want: We Don’t Need Another Sequel
Even though it might be exciting to get a new Avatar movie and learn about more and more details about the world of Pandora and its people, most viewers will agree that we don’t really need another sequel considering that there are already so many being made.
We are already getting so many sequels, prequels, spin-offs, reboots, and remakes that it would be a little sad seeing even the “ancient” Avatar get its own taste of this frenzy. If you truly think about it, we don’t need another sequel - studio bosses need it.
We Want: James Cameron Is Directing
The biggest advantage of Avatar 2 is undoubtedly the fact that James Cameron is directing. Say what you will about the movie itself but you can’t deny the fact that James Cameron is a genius and everything he makes will almost always guarantee high quality.
Everything is subjective, so it’s really up to viewers to consider all the negative sides of this sequel and decide whether or not the fact that Cameron is directing is enough for you to go to the cinema and pay for the ticket.
