An Open Apology to James Cameron (mostly about Avatar: The Way of Water)

Dear James Cameron,

I hope this letter finds you well. It is December 23rd, 2022 as I am writing this and my thoughts are mostly on the festivities that I will be partaking in over the next 8-9 days. But I would be remiss if I did not take this time to praise your most recent film, Avatar: The Way of Water. Do I think this is the best movie you have ever made? No. Do I think it’s the best movie of the year? No. But man did I enjoy the last two-and-a-half hours of your new picture. In fact, I enjoyed it so much that I think I’ll give it an 8 out of 10. It’s definitely in the top quartile of movies I saw this year. But I am not writing this to tell you about my arbitrary rating of this new movie or to tell you which movies I thought were better than it this year. I wanted to apologize.

For the last couple of years we (the movie-going audience) kept hearing about your plans of multiple Avatar sequels; and frankly, it all seemed a little ludicrous to me. Now, a sequel getting made and being released never seemed out of the question. For goodness’ sake, the first one made almost $3,000,000,000. Any movie producer or studio worth their salt would throw themselves into a Pandoran mine to get you to make another one. But then you took 13 years to release this sequel. And you promised 4 more. And then you trashed superhero movies. And then you said that you wanted to complete all the visual effects on a NINE-HOUR version of Avatar 3 before cutting it down. And on top of all this, Fox kept re-releasing Avatar so that it could remain the worldwide box office king even after Avengers: Endgame had bested it! All of this built a petty and frankly annoying aura around any news about your space adventure franchise.

But then The Way of Water came out. Wow, did that blow me out of the water (HA). The visuals and the action are absolutely top-tier. Wandering and exploring the world of Pandora feels exciting and enticing. Each part of this world brings something new and extraordinary. And the natives of this world look incredibly life-like. Props to you and the CGI department on your picture. It puts the next best thing to shame. Those fight sequences between humanity and the Navi of this world really envelopes you too! There aren’t a million jump cuts and I can stay focused on the action. Stuff like this makes me excited to come back to this world.

I won’t tell you this story is good though. It’s fine, but it served its purpose to show off the oceanic parts of Pandora. Personally, I find it better than the last plot you wrote, which you actually just aped from Pocahontas. The focus on family and getting to know the kids of Jake Sully and Natiri was interesting at least. Particularly, I found the character of Spider (played well by Jack Champion) to interest me. The dynamic between a human native to an alien world does set up for some interesting self reflection and I hope we get to see more of him in your promised sequels.

But James, I do woe you an apology. After years of hearing about these sequels you were working on and what you were attempting to do with them to be honest, I got tired and annoyed by it all. I came into this movie expecting to be thoroughly unimpressed with it like I am with the original Avatar. But the improved story and strong CGI really made a great time in my opinion. That’s what I’m giving this movie a 7/10.

Until I see another one.

Sincerely,

Cinematic Sam