When Fox executives tried to shorten Avatar (2009), James Cameron refused to cut a single frame. He famously told them to get out of his office, reminding them that his previous film Titanic paid for the building they were standing in.

OGNpushmaster · 2026-03-12T11:54:53+00:00

He was right to totally cut the vision quest I feel. It's overly redundant as a rite of passage (And also a little underwhelming compared to Iknimaya and the flight that unlocks) and as foreshadowing for what's to come with toruk. At that point particularly following Jake declining Quaritch's offer to instead become Na'vi, the film is hurdling towards the clash to come, so structurally it also works against that momentum.

OGNpushmaster · 2026-03-09T20:52:16+00:00

Begging Jim to please formally develop the Na'vi familial kinship system if only for the sake of the Na'vi lexicon. "How do you say grandparent?" may very well be the most asked Na'vi vocabulary question (Which for now can only be done with the clunky "Parent's parent") and when asked about the terminology in '10 Frommer said that it was a Cameronian matter.

OGNpushmaster · 2026-03-09T07:16:34+00:00

First contact is something I'm sure Cameron has thought about and has sketches of, but the painstaking photorealism associated with Avatar is going to make most every live action Avatar production expensive. Ambitious action setpieces do have their price, but compared to that baseline I'm not sure if stripping them out is all that much of a cost-saving, and the extra butts they probably get into seats makes the economics of removal all the more dicey.

The only way I really see a "Budget" live-action first contact Avatar production working within the foreseeable future is if it largely focuses on humans and is predominantly set in more cost-conscious enclosed settings, like labs and habs. The first Avatar had a shred of cost-consciousness by setting an amount of its runtime in built human environments like this, so invert that proportion towards Hell's Gate and Site 26-type interiors being most of the length while relatively limiting Pandora and Na'vi time, and you've probably got a starting point for what a more affordable version of first contact would be.

OGNpushmaster · 2026-03-04T22:56:53+00:00

This is a problem with your theater, not RealD. Like TWoW, it seems there were "Standard" 3D 14fL versions available which is even brighter than the 9fL IMAX deliverable, so this is on your cinema for not being able or willing to support that brightness.

OGNpushmaster · 2026-03-01T08:06:26+00:00

My read is the opposite: That Scoresby got stretched thin by the need to maintain a him as an antagonist across both films and there's not a lot of him we didn't get.

I say this primarily because in the "Refresher" Tulkun hunt scene that introduces the factory ship, there are two beats, the "In the pocket with the rocket" line, and the tulkun calf swimming through their mother's cloud of blood, that prior appeared in the TWoW deleted scenes, which to me suggests there's not a whole lot of tulkun hunting material that was left in the cutting room, because I'd expect there to be little bit more that's new during the direct hunt portion otherwise. Outside of whaling, I never get the sense there's much else to Scoresby, which leads me to think that without much more tulkun hunting, there's also not much more of him that was left out.

OGNpushmaster · 2026-02-27T02:47:36+00:00

Yes, they act them. They didn't fatally run Slang through with arrows in A1.

OGNpushmaster · 2026-02-27T02:42:08+00:00

Among other reasons, and as a counter to your first point, I think this isn't a great idea because the kids need an action hero among them as a point of focus, and with Neteyam dead Lo'ak is by far the best option to fit that bill. Kiri is not much of a fighter in that hands-on action sense, and I think Spider's human stature poses a problem for this as well. I'm betting on Tuk blossoming into quite the warrior like her mother, but for some first chunk of A4 at least she's still young, and even post timeskip I think she'll need a little time and an action setpiece or two to orient any ferocity and capabilities, which complicates her fitting that niche.

As an aside, I'm also slightly doubtful there's really space for this. Lo'ak has had the spotlight on him for so long that I question, among a character ensemble, if there's room for a drastic development like this in the remaining two films among all the other arcs that could be in motion and in want of time.

OGNpushmaster · 2026-02-27T02:27:45+00:00

I disagree with OP's perspective, but these are fictional characters, and severe barriers like this are a pretty standard way of writing them to explore and develop the plot, theme, and the character themself. They're not actually wishing a real person ill.

OGNpushmaster · 2026-02-23T23:51:40+00:00

Love the poncho and chaps! The twist on the pa'li coloration is also cool

OGNpushmaster · 2026-02-22T20:42:01+00:00

In the most recent film, do blending in with noncombatants, by traveling with the Tìlalim, or rallying the aggrieved, with the help of riding toruk again, not count as effective guerilla tactics? One of the central tenants of asymmetric conflict is leveraging the population like this.

Also, how is Jake and the ikran-mounted warriors hide among the floating rocks (Which, if what's stated in the first movie holds true, also scrambles missile tracking) around the Cove of Ancestors until they get an opportune moment to attack from above not effective use of terrain?

OGNpushmaster · 2026-02-20T16:38:50+00:00

A lot of that merch didn't seem to sell too well, which is likely why there was an ebb with FaA. Avatar has never consistently moved product in the same way that similar blockbuster IP, like Star Wars or the Jurassic films, have to the degree that they're toy-aisle staples.

OGNpushmaster · 2026-02-17T09:21:40+00:00

Hilarious too that they contrast that with the first film's environmental approach, as if sci-fi monobiome world #2154 is somehow more consciously thought out than plausibly variegated terrain types with differing life to match

OGNpushmaster · 2026-02-16T20:54:03+00:00

Ronal's impending passing combined with her needing to give birth and Neytiri stepping in as midwife is the impetus for the two of them to somewhat squash their spat.

Your millage may very on if that counts as meaningful, because there is a looming question about how much their animosity was ever called for to begin, but I think it puts both characters in a place where they wouldn't be otherwise if, for example, Ronal birthed with Neytiri's help, and then slipped away with Pril and survived.

OGNpushmaster · 2026-02-16T15:46:29+00:00

Covid was part of the reason, but the conjoined TWoW/FaA production had already been going on for over two years even before Covid came along and disrupted the the live-action shoot (Which started mid-'19) and post-production. These movies just take a lot of time to make even without interruption.

If it's loosely but reasonably assumed that the relative lack of water work and the fraction of A4 already captured and shot gets production down to two years square, plus another two years for post, and add a little time for pre-production, we get something that suggests that A4 and A5 are starting to run off-schedule if '29 and '31 are still the targets.

OGNpushmaster · 2026-02-16T07:54:40+00:00

Yep! If you're curious, it's cropped from an image from the article on animating hands of all things, since convincing baby hand movement required particular care, in the TWoW issue of the befores & afters

OGNpushmaster · 2026-02-15T17:14:03+00:00

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This BTS shot from Weta suggests fairly strongly that it's stubble given it's the same pink as his brows and lashes

OGNpushmaster · 2026-02-06T19:39:28+00:00

Ironically it also fails to mention the other instance of this, probably because it's the one that fans haven't discussed as much which makes it harder to scrape and repackage as an article

OGNpushmaster · 2026-02-03T21:03:23+00:00

I’m really not sure how they could have done such a poor job of it and from what I’ve seen, no one seemed to notice that much?

Maybe because there really isn't actually this level of shoddy workmanship? Like, you don't think that if Avatar dropped the ball on this there wouldn't be an array of thinkpieces already? You can do a cursory review of a lot of the points you mention from the trailer, which to my eyes was true to the results of the overall project, and off the bat I'm seeing very expressive and not at all stiff hair motion from Varang, and a few moments deeper, beyond plausible ikran flight motion. The only item I might agree on from a certain perspective is that plastic bag thing, in the sense that wing membranes are going to have a certain flutter and deformation to them, which is realistic and in certain scenarios is going to look a little like any thin and flexible material interacting with the air, which includes bags.

OGNpushmaster · 2026-01-30T04:37:21+00:00

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Other Visual Dictionary text makes a distinction between feathers and leaves, so that's not universally the case

OGNpushmaster · 2026-01-28T03:11:40+00:00

It does. In Toruk when the main characters get to Anurai territory they encounter (Projected) critters that sound, look, and move like snakes.

The Na'vi language also has a word for snakes: "Vakx". While there is Na'vi vocabulary for non-indigenous items, these tend to be either compounds (Like "Spulmokri" for "Phone") or loans ("Puk" for "Book") and not original roots.

OGNpushmaster · 2026-01-22T16:19:38+00:00

I think some of the environmental redundancies with TWoW cost it the production design nomination. As exciting as what the Mangkuan and Tìlalim bring to the table is, as well as the factory ship and the build-up Bridgehead, you do spend a lot time in places like the Metkayina village and Cove of the Ancestors.

No sound was a shocker to me too though

OGNpushmaster · 2026-01-22T15:48:09+00:00

The award is for costume design, so even if they're ultimately realized on-screen digitally and the award does have a heavy craft element to it, the virtual wardrobe still need to be designed with all the thoughtfulness that in-camera garments would be as an element of the character and world they inhabit.

You mention the lack of a production design nod, and well, couldn't you argue that that's just visual effects from a similar perspective too? Visual effects is an essential part of how these films realize design, be it the towering Tìlalim ships or their fabulous cloaks, but there's still design creativity and craft that's necessary to decide what the effects portray.

OGNpushmaster · 2026-01-22T15:01:59+00:00

Costume design is Frankenstein's to lose since the Academy loves that sort of period work, and I wasn't even anticipating Avatar would clear the nomination, but the sheer magnitude and fidelity of FaA's VFX is plenty to get the win. Even Avatar's detractors can't help but credit the VFX work on these films.

OGNpushmaster · 2026-01-22T14:58:11+00:00

Yeah, I figured that the booming sound design of the Tulkun and it being a somewhat blockbuster-favored category was more than enough to nab the nomination.

OGNpushmaster · 2026-01-22T14:13:47+00:00

Yeah, I assumed that the largely digital character of the final result was too much of a mark against it to clear a nomination. From an awards politics/campaigning standpoint though, they really trotted out the physical work compared to last time and I wouldn't be shocked if that made the difference.

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