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Avatar: The Way of Water is a 'damp squib'
BBC ^ | 13 Dec 2022 | Nicholas Barber

Posted on 12/14/2022 1:52:40 PM PST by Rummyfan

It's been 13 years since James Cameron's Avatar beat his previous blockbuster, Titanic, to become the highest grossing film ever released. But now at long last he has returned to the jungle moon of Pandora - and roughly 13 years have passed there, too. Jake Sully (Sam Worthington), his mind now permanently installed in a blue alien Na'vi body, is the chief of his clan, and he and his wife Neytiri (Zoe Saldaña) have four children.

They spend their time lolling around in skimpy loincloths, thinking about how happy they are, but inevitably their Edenic and slightly risqué tranquility ends when spaceships from the planet Earth roar down from the skies. The invaders raze miles of jungle in a fiery apocalypse, much like the one at the start of Terminator 2. Then they stomp around in massive robotic exoskeletons, much like the ones in Aliens. It's clear pretty quickly, then, that Avatar: The Way of Water, is a James Cameron's Greatest Hits: as the "Water" in the subtitle might suggest, several sequences come straight from The Abyss and Titanic.

Anyway, with the humans intent on total conquest, Jake wages a guerilla war against them, blowing up railway tracks and stealing weapons. He is a stripy-blue Robin Hood - and he has a stripy-blue Sheriff of Nottingham to contend with. The villainous Colonel Miles Quaritch (Stephen Lang) was killed at the end of Avatar, but his memories were transferred to a Na'vi body, so now he is just as super-strong and super-tall as Sully. He's also understandably bitter about the small matter of his own death.

...

But then Cameron takes the film in a new direction - and The Way of Water becomes a damp squib.

(Excerpt) Read more at bbc.com ...


TOPICS: News/Current Events
KEYWORDS: 0chat; avatar; avatar2; chat; newsforumabuse; thewayofwater
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Was planning to give it a miss anyway.
1 posted on 12/14/2022 1:52:40 PM PST by Rummyfan
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To: Rummyfan
Yes, we may have had a 13-year wait for the first Avatar sequel, but apparently there are three more due to come out in 2024, 2026 and 2028. If The Way of Water is anything to go by, that's not a prospect to relish, but let's hope Cameron uses those sequels to address one key point, at least. How is it that 22nd-Century humans can travel all the way to Alpha Centauri in spaceships packed with robots and clones - but they still haven't developed glass which is strong enough to withstand a wooden arrow?
2 posted on 12/14/2022 1:56:40 PM PST by Rummyfan (In any war between the civilized man and the savage, support the civilized man. )
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To: Rummyfan

Wounded Knee under the Sea.


3 posted on 12/14/2022 1:57:04 PM PST by MMusson
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To: Rummyfan

LOL!


4 posted on 12/14/2022 1:59:20 PM PST by DallasBiff (Kamala is not the sharpest knife in the drawer)
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To: Rummyfan

Humans=destroyers. Pandorans=goodness and light. 😲🤔


5 posted on 12/14/2022 2:00:07 PM PST by rktman (Destroy America from within? Check! WTH? Enlisted USN 1967 to end up with this? 😕)
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To: Rummyfan

Squib? Did Harry Potter coin a new word, or did this pre-exist HP?


6 posted on 12/14/2022 2:03:50 PM PST by dangus
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To: Rummyfan

“Jake wages a guerilla war against them, blowing up railway tracks and stealing weapons. He is a stripy-blue Robin Hood ...”

Lawrence of Arabia would be the proper comparison here, not Robin Hood.


7 posted on 12/14/2022 2:03:59 PM PST by Boogieman
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To: Rummyfan

4 kids in 13 years? The liberated ladies aren’t going to like the thought of his wife being pregnant and nursing for at least half of that time. How patriarchal. //sarc


8 posted on 12/14/2022 2:05:32 PM PST by Vermont Lt
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To: dangus

That word has been around for a very long time. They are a type of explosive, kind of like a primer, that was often used to set off cannons.


9 posted on 12/14/2022 2:06:14 PM PST by Boogieman
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To: MMusson

The first one was Fern Gully. At least that had Tone Loc.

My kids used to get angry when I pointed that out to them.


10 posted on 12/14/2022 2:06:35 PM PST by Vermont Lt
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To: Vermont Lt

“The liberated ladies aren’t going to like the thought of his wife being pregnant and nursing for at least half of that time.”

How do you know the gestation cycle of the aliens is at all similar to humans though?


11 posted on 12/14/2022 2:06:51 PM PST by Boogieman
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To: dangus

Squibs are the primers for canon. When they are set off by themselves (no other powder) they make a bunch of smoke, a little light, and a “pop”…not a boom.


12 posted on 12/14/2022 2:08:16 PM PST by Vermont Lt
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To: Boogieman

You are right. Aren’t they part salamander-like. She might just lay eggs and hope they turn out OK.


13 posted on 12/14/2022 2:09:27 PM PST by Vermont Lt
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To: Rummyfan

Flying dragons—pooh! Four-eyed whales—pshaw. I want to know about the perfect teeth of the Pandorans. Maybe the humans just want to steal their computer-generated dentures.


14 posted on 12/14/2022 2:09:45 PM PST by ingeborg
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To: dangus

It’s kind of similar to how we say something was a wet firecracker.


15 posted on 12/14/2022 2:10:45 PM PST by Codeflier (My voting days are over. Let it burn...give the people what they want good and hard. )
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To: dangus
Long before "Hairy Trotter, the colt who lived" Squib was a word. And it is used correctly in this article.
16 posted on 12/14/2022 2:12:06 PM PST by Harmless Teddy Bear (The nation of france was named after a hedgehog... The hedgehog's name was Kevin... Don't ask)
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To: Rummyfan

Movies with “Water” in the title fare poorly. This one joins WataerWorld and “The Waterboy”.


17 posted on 12/14/2022 2:12:24 PM PST by Dr. Sivana (But yet the Son of man, when he cometh, shall he find, think you, faith on earth? (Luke 18:8))
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To: Rummyfan

I thought the first one was propaganda and didn’t watch it.

However I later learned that it was banned in China: because the corrupt politicians/land developers would push people out of their family houses and traditional farms to build China’s empty cities and make money. And the Chinese government was afraid of the movie encouraging protests.

One wonders if Hollywood was aware that this was about China, not just western civilization that they love to hate.


18 posted on 12/14/2022 2:13:21 PM PST by LadyDoc (liberals only love politically correct poor people)
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To: Dr. Sivana

Ah, but what about “The Shape of Water”? That was a hit.


19 posted on 12/14/2022 2:16:59 PM PST by Boogieman
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To: Rummyfan
It's been 13 years since James Cameron's Avatar beat his previous blockbuster, Titanic, to become the highest grossing film ever released.

That those two films are the highest grossing movies of all time reminds me of the old H.L. Menken pseudo-quote:

”No one ever went broke underestimating the intelligence of the American public.”

20 posted on 12/14/2022 2:17:05 PM PST by Sicon ("All animals are equal, but some animals are more equal than others." - G. Orwell)
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