It’s the highest-grossing film of all time by most accounts, it was everything anyone could talk about in 2009, it was one of the first animated incursions into the Oscars, it was James Cameron’s grand return — and yet, for all its merits, it’s almost as if no one remembers what made Avatar so great back in the day of its release. However, those very conditions also make Avatar: The Way of Water one of 2022’s most intriguing cinematic events.

Nowadays hating on Avatar isn’t even cool; it’s basically mandatory. However, such a position does beg to ask why not even Marvel’s mighty Avengers can dethrone Cameron’s CGI sci-fi spectacle. To look at Avatar so many years later demands one’s acceptance that if Pandora and the Na’Vi were lacking depth or meaning, everyone still fell for it — even more so, that a film so popular in its heyday turned out to be so forgettable should be the best reminder that Cameron can indeed pull off the same trick twice. And now, he's armed with the lesson that all the fancy special effects in the world can’t make up for a shaky script.

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Avatar’s Video Game Approach

Avatar: The Way of Water scenery landscape sky

In 2009, Avatar was almost bleeding-edge 3D tech. Cameron had new methods built from the ground up to satisfy his visual needs in order to make Pandora the most expressive cinematic world that humanity had seen up to that point. That focus is not too distant from what many triple-A games often do: placing the story quite low on the list of priorities in terms of time and budget because, well, not every game can conjure George R.R. Martin’s magic like Elden Ring can.

Sure, there are fantastic games with amazing stories like Alan Wake, but even for all its greatness, that particular Remedy masterpiece is on the verge of having its sequel stretch as far from the original as Avatar. Then there are games like Far Cry, Dark Souls, or even Mario, where a lackluster story is no obstacle for numerous sequels because they’re all about gameplay — and this is no detriment to their acclaim or success.

Although Avatar falls somewhere in between, its hiatus serves to highlight that besides the bombastic appeal of Michael Bay’s Transformers, Fast & Furious, or Resident Evil, movies (especially big budget ones) rarely get away with such sins. That’s where Avatar should borrow a page from the video game playbook to come up with its own loosely related sequel. Like many games, what made it successful wasn’t intricate storytelling, but rather the experience it brought to theaters.

Because people barely remember its Pocahontas-inspired plot, Avatar can turn the tables like video games often do and abandon what little story elements it built upon 13 years ago. This premise assumes Cameron can once again deliver the best (or at least some of the best) cinematic visuals of 2022, but if so, Avatar can still be cool again.

A Clean Slate For Avatar

Na'vi swimming in water Avatar 2 trailer

In many ways, The Way of Water’s sole title is a good omen for Avatar, as the synopsis for Cameron’s long-awaited sequel teases exactly the kind of time jump needed to turn the franchise into something better. “Set more than a decade after the events of the first film” suggests exactly the kind of change Avatar needs to work again, now with the premise of water possibly as the main playing ground and a scarce resource worth fighting for.

While it’s easy to dismiss Avatar’s original plot as simplistic, the themes of colonialism (which many other works explore far better than Cameron's) were and still are relevant in the world today, in the same way the commodification of water currently is in today’s geopolitical climate. It’s a mystery how the tides of war shaped the Na’Vi race after such a long time; nevertheless, this element can easily be tossed aside if what Cameron built to move forward holds up as any good movie should.

Avatar: The Way of Water human Na'vi soldiers

Like many games, if Avatar can come up with a better story and characters than what it offered before, all with the same ability to shock and awe audiences (Cameron’s “gameplay”), forgiving or ignoring a decade-old unoriginal storyline won’t be hard for newer moviegoers.

In terms of demographics, it's the new generation that never saw the first Avatar but may be watching the new trailer who can tackle this blockbuster with a fresh set of eyes free of any preconceptions. Pass that test, and suddenly Cameron’s idea of three more Avatar sequels doesn't sound all that wild. For gamers, this is a common occurrence, not so much for movies.

Hardly anyone will get mad if Avatar: The Way of Water’s story is nothing like its predecessor’s, and that’s largely because the script wasn’t selling all those tickets in 2009. If Avatar is to succeed once more, Cameron ought to have learned what truly made his sci-fi epic so special. It wasn’t the story, but luckily now he even gets a do-over on that front.

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