Yup, Avatar Is Still a Once-in-a-Generation Experience

(SPOT.ph) For over a decade now, James Cameron's Avatar has been the highest-grossing movie of all time (unadjusted for inflation, of course, because Lord knows we don't need any more of that news). While there was a brief period wherein the Marvel Cinematic Universe's culminating achievement Avengers: Endgame overtook it, Cameron quickly reclaimed the crown with the 10th-anniversary re-release of the picture. Just as with the recently concluded sovereignty of Queen Elizabeth II—the second-longest ruling monarch in world history—we can hardly remember a time before Avatar's box office reign.

As a film of such magnitude and without sequels to carry its name (for now), the legacy of Avatar has been brought into question by many critics over the years thinking they're smarter than the picture. What is Avatar's cultural footprint? Can you even name the film's lead characters? Does it "deserve" to be the highest-grossing film of all time? Over the years, these questions undoubtedly have sought to have audiences retroactively think of the blockbuster as an "undeserving" film in the grand scheme of things.

Only, Cameron provides the answer with the release of his latest remastered version of the film and, well, the numbers don't lie. With a U.S. $30-million opening weekend for an almost 13-year-old film, Avatar proves that it's still a once-in-a-generation theatrical experience.

Also read: Here's Everything We Know About Avatar 2...and 3, 4, 5

Here's why James Cameron's Avatar still holds up after all these years:

"Well, all films work on different levels. The first is surface, which is character, problem and resolution. The second is thematic. What is the movie trying to say? But Avatar also works on a third level, the subconscious." Cameron stated in an interview with The Times UK. This was the conclusion he and his writing team for the sequel Avatar: The Way of Water came to, after spending months trying to crack down on what made audiences come out in droves, more than once, to see the first film.

Without a doubt, Avatar's selling point does not come in the form of an intricately crafted narrative designed to make you meditate on complex human emotions. Even the biggest fan of the film will tell you that. Like epics of old, the film's story communicates its emotions in sweeping strokes. 

The film introduces Jake Sully (Sam Worthington), who he is and what his desires are; then the film introduces its co-lead and Sully's love interest Neytiri (Zoe Saldana), who she is, what attracts them to one another, but how that relationship causes doom for the rest of the Na'vi tribe. The problems inevitably manifest, then the resolution comes when the main characters make the grand gesture of inner change. It's your average three-act narrative, accompanied by a voice-over monologue where Sully even describes what he's feeling as each story beat passes.

It's typical and familiar, but hardly worn-out, as the film and the performances are still able to elicit the emotions out of you with each crucial moment. The final "I see you" moment between Neytiri and a regular-bodied Sully hits every time, simply because you feel you've lived the adventure with them, without paying any mind as to how structurally and thematically similar it is to films such as Pocahontas or Dancing With Wolves.

"I see you." It's not a witty, inventive, or even thematically rich line. It's simply the release of air the film allows you to make at exactly the right moment, after being immersed in the film's world for so long. Rewatching the film in IMAX 3D, it's easy to be reminded why the film became a global phenomenon in the first place. Furthermore, it's enlightening to the idea that many of its naysayers may have likely come from the years in which you could only watch the film at home, on a television set with motion-smoothing on (that's right, check your TV settings. You know who you are).

On IMAX 3D, it's astonishing just how quickly you get sucked into the world of Pandora and how difficult it is to want to leave that headspace. From grand visuals such as the vibrant illuminating colors of Pandora's fauna and the impeccable water simulations—yup, most of the water scenes in the film are all computer-generated, but that doesn't register as you're watching the film—to subtle aspects such as light casting upon dust falling in the 3D space or leaves positioned in the foreground seemingly protruding from the screen, Avatar creates immersion that has never been seen before and hasn't been replicated to this extent since its initial release in 2009.

Even the film's premise lends itself to this immersion-first experience of the film, as the story literally revolves around a human entering a machine in order to escape into a more advanced humanoid body and immerse themselves in a fantastical world. 

"Everything is backwards now, like out there is the true world, and in here is the dream," says Jake Sully in a video log about his experiences on Pandora. Sully records these video logs most of the time in isolation within a dark room lined with blinking lights and idle screens. Sully longs for the escape into a better body on the world of Pandora, just as we long for the escape through the theatrical experience; so why get all fixated on Avatar's "cultural footprint" or why general audiences don't remember the main character's names or the lack of memes on this film, when you can nerd out in your cinema seat about gorgeous water simulations instead?

It feels as though the best review of a film covers the experience of the film, rather than the word-of-mouth around it. As it's always been, "I see you."

Also read: 10 Beautiful Places From Movies That You Can Actually Visit

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