Speaking to Empire, James Cameron has made a couple big reveals about his upcoming Avatar: The Way of Water. Firstly, it is a very long movie. And, secondly, he is already in a huff about how he correctly imagines we’re going to mock it as much as we did the first Avatar.
“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 said. And yes, nobody does give a shit nor remembers one damn thing that happened, but come on—we all know JAKE SULLY! He’s our favorite! As portrayed by our favorite Hollywood star, SAM WORTHINGTON!
“Then they see the movie again and go, ‘Oh, okay, excuse me, let me just shut the fuck up right now,’” Cameron continued, insanely. No one watched Avatar AGAIN, man. They either watched it once and completely dismissed it, or they watched it a bizarre number of times. Let’s be real here, Jim. No one is like, “You know, I’ve reconsidered my stance on the ugly, gangling, blue cat-people that humans can possess or something and have sex with their braids or tails maybe?” You somehow made a massive worldwide success, but it isn’t retroactively winning anyone over. It’s the band Imagine Dragons as a movie where you literally imagined dragons.
Cameron also said that the film is currently clocking in at around three hours, and was quick to get preemptively pissy about how people will feel about that, too.
“I don’t want anybody whining about length when they sit and binge-watch [television] for eight hours,” he said. “I can almost write this part of the review. ‘The agonizingly long three-hour movie…’ It’s like, give me a fucking break. I’ve watched my kids sit and do five one-hour episodes in a row. Here’s the big social paradigm shift that has to happen: it’s okay to get up and go pee.”
Sorry, but what?
This guy was all about how you have to see the cerulean people on the big screen in 3D, and now he’s like, “Well, yeah, but if you need to miss five minutes to take a piss, go nuts.”
The reason we’re able to watch TV like that is because we just largely let it wash over us inactively. A capital-M Movie is asking for proper attention, and if it’s three hours without an intermission, it’s hard to maintain that. This is like saying, “What, asshole, you can play Super Mario World straight through but can’t read a 900-page book in one sitting!?” The medium is the message, Jimmy! Some things are more easily digestible in large quantities!
Anyway, the one where Jake Sully swims hits theaters December 16. Feel free to take a dump or whatever at any point in it.
