The Avatar Sequels Need More Compelling Stories
Avatar sold itself almost entirely as a tech demo first and a narrative experience a distant second, and it sold very well. However, being visually impressive as the entire selling point of a film only works once, and the numerous upcoming sequels are going to have to figure something else out.
Though the first Avatar is the best-selling film ever made, the prospect of a sequel has always been questionable. Director James Cameron's intentions to make half a dozen entries in what would become his longest-running franchise have been considered less than necessary.
Can The Avatar Sequels Possibly Live Up To A Decade of Hype?
Avatar: The Way of Water is coming to the big screen at the end of this year, along with the original film taking up screens in multiplexes in September. This is a very clever move and not just because it's been thirteen years since the film dropped. Given that the most notable cultural impact of the film between the first film's theatrical run and the sequel's trailer was a meme about how forgettable its characters were, some work needed to be done. There's simply nothing particularly memorable about the original film's story. It's a patchwork of existing concepts woven into a deeply unoriginal narrative. The sequel starts from an unusual point, dealing with the weight of positive and negative expectations.
One could reasonably argue that Avatar is closer in presentation to a sci-fi tone poem than it is to traditional cinematic storytelling. At its heart, it's a simple story about a culture of profit-obsessed colonizers crushing the society of nature-connected natives until a single connection changes the two culture's relationships. Comparisons to Pocahontas or Dances with Wolves are common enough to be
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