‘You’ve hated Avatar for 13 years, it’s OK, I forgive you’

Everyone loves to hate on Avatar. You probably think it makes you cool. But you’re wrong – very, very wrong.

OPINION

I’m granting you an amnesty. An opportunity to just put aside all of those incorrect, silly things you may have said about James Cameron’s film Avatar in the decade-plus since the original movie was released.

You were just caught up in the wave of online snark directed at the film and have forgotten the majestic experience you felt that summer of 2009/10 when you first entered the world of Pandora.

It wasn’t your fault. The drumbeat of negativity just got louder and more intense as snark begat more snark. You were just caught up in it.

And sure, you said some really dumb things – “It is just a live-action FernGully,” and, “For a movie that made almost $3 billion, it’s telling that it has no cultural footprint.”

Just put the negativity aside and know that you are:

• wrong on both complaints

• going to buy your movie ticket to Avatar: The Way Of Water and not only will you enjoy it, you’ll probably have such a good time with it that you see it a second time before it stops playing in cinemas

• going to be wildly enthusiastic about buying pre-sale tickets for the third Avatar film due next Christmas.

The first Avatar grossed $US2.92 billion. Picture: 20th Century Fox

You have mocked me and my Pandora-loving brothers and sisters for many years now, but we want you to have a great time with it. You’re in a safe space. We want you to learn the way of water.

Here’s what you need to understand:

Never bet against James Cameron

Avatar writer/director James Cameron has not only directed many of your favourite films of all time (see: Terminator, Terminator 2, Aliens), but he has also directed several of the biggest box office earners of all time.

The 2009 film Avatar is the biggest box office earner of all-time with $US2.92 billion. His previous film is third in the all-time box office earnings. You may have heard of it, a little film called Titanic ($US2.2 billion).

If anyone has earned your faith that he’ll deliver a huge crowd-pleaser, it’s Mr Cameron.

James Cameron and Sigourney Weaver have been working together for decades. Picture: Chung Sung-Jun/Getty Images

It’s just FernGully?

Did you even see that movie? I did not, because I was a mature 12-year-old back in 1992 when that movie came out.

It’s not that I don’t care for the comparison – it’s that I don’t understand your dumb 30-year-old reference that has even less cultural relevance than the box office champ that gave us unobtanium, Na’vi, Jake Sully, and interlocking tails that still have us blushing.

A quick glance at Wikipedia tells me that FernGully is “set in an Australian rainforest inhabited by fairies including Crysta, who accidentally shrinks a young logger named Zak to the size of a fairy”. They then band together to stop some loggers. And sure, fine, that’s a similar plot comparison. But in a world of multiple superhero origin stories each year where heroes and villains are given miraculous powers because of some sort of lab accident, I’m OK with two similar films made 20 years apart existing.

It’s not like anyone stopped going to see Fast & The Furious movies just because the first one is a blatant rip-off of Point Break.

And real talk: The strong environmental themes of the Avatar films are far more welcome today than they were back in 2009. There is something heartening about moviegoers the world over sitting down to watch a big-budget spectacle that is so unashamedly heart-on-sleeve about positive environmental messaging. What the world needs now is not subtlety – it’s action.

Maybe what we need to be asking is this: Why aren’t there MORE films like FernGully?

Beloved animated classic FernGully. Picture: Kroyer Films

You don’t remember it because you only watched it at the cinema

Avatar is unique in that there was no reason you would ever watch it again once it left the cinema.

You may have gone back to the cinema a few more times to see it (a box office that high means some of you did), but once you took those 3D glasses off, part of the magic of Pandora was lost.

Avatar is so far the only Hollywood movie to properly make use of filming natively in 3D – all those 3D films that came after Avatar were filmed in 2D and upconverted to 3D. And you can tell the difference. The recent re-release of Avatar into cinemas was a reminder of just how incredible native 3D can be.

And if you have seen the trailer for Avatar: The Way Of Water on the big screen in 3D? Whoa baby – stamp my passport and get out of my way.

Avatar: The Way Of Water is in cinemas this week. Picture: 20th Century Fox

These are not films made to be watched at home. They’re huge budget spectacles created by one of the very best filmmakers in full control of every technical visual trick that will give you a great big-screen experience.

Watching Avatar at home is just a bit sh**ty in comparison. It’s little wonder most people haven’t re-watched the film in the years since it was released.

Years of Avatar-shaming will come to an end on December 14 as Australian audiences are once again whisked off to the far-off moon planet of Pandora located in the Alpha Centauri star system and/or your local Westfield multiplex.

Audiences will slide on their glasses and be reminded just how wild and transforming the world of Avatar can be.

When that happens, you’ll have a choice: Side with the cynical neck-bearded edge lords and tsk tsk about the movie, or join the rest of us having a blast with a bunch of really tall blue folk teaching us all about the way of water.

I’ll see you at the candy bar.

Dan Barrett writes the TV and streaming newsletter, Always Be Watching

Originally published as ‘You’ve hated Avatar for 13 years, it’s OK, I forgive you’