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The tide similarly turned onAvatarback in 2009.
I recall Dana GoodyearsepicNew Yorkerprofilethat depicted Cameron geeking out over seemingly imperceptible VFX details.
(That fuckin rocks!
And then, we saw the damn thing.
The rest is history as it was withTitanic, as it was withTerminator 2: Judgment Day.
The word went forth, and the word remains: Never underestimate James Cameron.
That silly take, of course, contains its own rebuttal.
IfAvataris so forgotten, how come some new person needs to remind us every week that its so forgotten?
This is a good thing.
Others failure can be a measure of your success, too.
All that fussing over maxilla bones and gill-like membranes, it turns out, pays off.
A term for it began to stick: Post-AvatarDepression Syndrome.
Theres no pretension or condescension with such characters, even when theyre cartoonish villains, as they are inAvatar.
you could tell Cameron on some fundamental level likes these guys.
He did, after all, co-writeRambo: First Blood Part II.
But his heart is with the romantics and the dreamers.
We will fight terror with terror.
But this was actually par for the course for big action movies during this era.
See also: George LucassStar Warsprequels, which were even more politically pointed.)
The general premise of the picture is, as everybody and their mother have reminded us, not new.
Cameron clearly feels every beat of the story along with his viewer.
Theres nothing pro forma about Jakes falling for Zoe Saldanas Neytiri.
Camerons a little in love with her himself.
Its so clear that Cameron wants the Navis world of bioluminescent veins and mystical spirits to be true.
He wants it to be true so much that hes created an entire science for it.
Whereas most movies would have their heroes ultimately reconcile themselves with reality,Avataragain goes in the opposite direction.
It urges us to leave all that behind.
It becomes an allegory for Camerons own inability to let go.
And its clear he still hasnt.
Hes reportedly working on four sequels.
Long may he dream.
