I remember when James Cameron’s Avatar (the one that’s not The Last Airbender) came out vividly, because I remember when all the boys in my high school came to school praising it and saying it was the best movie they’d ever seen, and I went to see it and came out thinking that it was aggressively fine. As the years went on and the praise continued, I felt like I was losing my mind, and now even Cameron himself seems unable to believe that people who just don’t like—or don’t even care about—this movie, or this franchise, exist.
Now that the Avatar cinematic universe is coming our way, talk about the world of the Na’vi and Pandora is expanding, and the more we learn about their story, the more we’re going to have to deal with being told that criticisms of this film franchise are just … being trolls? Talking with Empire, Cameron opened up about those trolls and how, if they rewatch the movie, they just “shut the f**k up” after it, apparently.
“The trolls will have it that nobody gives a shit and they can’t remember the characters’ names or one damn thing that happened in the movie,” Cameron told Empire. “Then they see the movie again and go, ‘Oh, okay, excuse me, let me just shut the fuck up right now.’ So I’m not worried about that.”
I’m sure that James Cameron means just trolls in general, but while it may be the highest-grossing movie of all time, it’s weird for Cameron to act like everyone on the planet remembers it all these years later and universally agrees that it’s a great film. Again, I think it’s fine. I’m going to see these movies for Jake and my love of Sam Worthington, and that’s more than fine by me. But I don’t think anyone who “trolls” or doesn’t like Avatar rewatches it and suddenly has a change of heart, either …
To be fair, most of my anger comes from the need to keep rereleasing Avatar so that it says in that highest-grossing spot instead of letting anything else take that spot. Rereleasing it when Avengers: Endgame was taking over? My villain origin story. And now, with the new films coming out 13 years later, it’s just been 13 years of this.
James Cameron didn’t just stop at “trolls” having something to say about Avatar, either. He went on to talk about people who complain about movie length and how we can sit and binge-watch television shows for longer than a movie—the difference being that we can pause the television and run to the bathroom so we don’t miss anything without having to come back to the theater and see the three-hour movie again just because we had to use the bathroom.
Anyway, some people don’t have to like Avatar, James. It’s okay if they “troll” online because they don’t like it.
(featured image: 20th Century Fox)
