Or not. Would these images entice you back to the IMAX multiplex to spend another $20 or so on Avatar?
James Cameron, from a press release:
Audiences repeatedly told me they wanted more of Pandora, and wished they could have stayed there longer. So we’re making that possible. AVATAR: SPECIAL EDITION will be exclusively in 3D, and will have eight minutes of never before seen footage, including new creatures and action scenes. Whether you already love the movie, or you’ve never seen it, with this Special Edition, you’ll be seeing it like never before.
Well, fair enough: I’m one of those who wanted to spend more time on Pandora. But I meant I’d like more story set on Pandora, not a travelogue.
Avatar: Special Edition returns to theaters in 3D and IMAX in the U.S., Canada, and the U.K. tomorrow, for a limited time. Or until James Cameron is finally rich enough.
I still haven’t seen it for the first time, so, No.
Adding eight minutes doesn’t come anywhere close enough to stoking my interest. At all.
Well, Cameron is planning a sequel so you’ll probably get your wish in that regard.
Sure, it’s a money grab, but I don’t see anything inherently wrong with a re-release if the demand is still there. If it isn’t, well, Fox learns their lesson.
Holy crap, I thought that first pic was the first wide shot of the dinos in Jurassic Park.
I second the No because I still haven’t seen it once and don’t really care to. Cameron is really good at making great settings and putting boring stories into them. After seeing the trailer I could tell almost exactly what was going to happen in the entire movie and no matter how great the visuals that just doesn’t interest me.
The extended running time plays no part in my desire to see Avatar again, I’m just a fan. What I like about Cameron’s latest movie is that is an experiential event: a movie that fully engrosses me as a viewer. The 3D isn’t gimmicky; in fact, I found it to be often understated. It takes patience, and a few moments provided by the film, to notice the very rewarding moments of outstanding 3D use, like ash falling from the air after the Tree of Life has been destroyed.
Does the movie have revolutionary narrative twists or complex characters? No, but that’s okay. I find the characters interesting and the plot’s themes of interconnectedness, identity and stewardship satisfying (but not mind-blowing). It’s the basic premise and the visual/aural execution of our exploration of Pandora that really sets Avatar apart for me.
To boot, I’m not too sure I want to see this film in 2D. This is probably it’s greatest drawback. As a traditional film, it’s not all that special. But, again, as a 3D experience, I think it’s magnificent.
Watching the film in 2D on blu-ray two things occured to me.
(1) I can’t imagine how 3D would improve this.
(2) It’s too bloody long. There’s not enough plot for two hours of film. At one point it feels as though he’s taken all of the elements of a montage sequence and played them in real time.
Adding eight minutes will solve neither of these problems.
I’m probably going to see it again, not for myself, but because a while back my dad said he wanted to see it with me. So I’d go for the bonding experience, especially for a sci-fi film, since he turned me on to sci-fi (listening to Forward the Foundation on tape during a road trip is a very fond memory). But Avatar itself never thrilled me all that much- I liked it, but I didn’t love it, and I doubt another eight minutes would make a difference.
Nope.
To make me want to watch Avatar again, I’d want to see some development of the Human side of the story. I’d love to see what the state of Earth is so you can see exactly what Jake is turning down for ‘love’. It would bring the film closer to District 9, which I think deals with the same subject matter far more effectively.
But something far more fun is coming Back to the Cinemas.
http://www.back-to-the-future.net/universal-issues-brand-new-poster-for-u-k-cinema-re-release/
Oh yes.
Add me to the ‘no’ side. If I did go see it, I’d probably spend the movie trying (and failing) to figure out what the new scenes were, in any case.
I suspect this isn’t going to do anything to rock the “Military bad, native culture good” boat. I’ll be skipping a second slog through Dances with Big Blue Kitties.
Hell no. I enjoyed the movie, but have no interest in seeing it again until the special edition Blu-ray comes out.
I loved Avatar, but won’t be seeing this version. It’s the “exclusively in 3D” that’s the big no for me. I saw Avatar twice, once in 2D and once in 3D, and found the 2D to be a much richer experience. The colours were more vibrant, and didn’t have that jitter effect when the action got fast.
I thought the movie was a C at best (B- for the graphics, which while impressive, where still extremely cartoony, D at best for the story). Adding MORE time with no story to a 500 hour movie does not help.
You have to wonder how this will do at the box office. Reading interviews with Cameron, he seems to be only doing it because he fells hard-done-by after being pushed out of IMAX cinemas for Alice in Wonderland. Which is sort of hilarious, really; the man who made the world’s highest-grossing movie thinks his film has been denied its true earning potential. Okay. Did no-one think to explain the whole “new films pushing out older ones” concept to him beforehand? It seems to me to be fairly fundamental to the film industry.
So no, I won’t be going to see it. I didn’t enjoy it the first time and I can’t imagine anything good coming from adding eight minutes to a film that needed at least half an hour cut from it.
What this might expose is how little of a ‘phenomenon’ Avatar was for a movie that grossed so much. Maybe it’s just my neck of the woods, but I remember startlingly little discussion and conversation about it, compared to other billion-plus grossers like The Return of the King, The Dark Knight and Cameron’s own Titanic.
I mean, Titanic WAS a phenomenon. It was a film that got people who never go to the cinema into a theatre, often to see it two or three times. I’m sure that, if he’d announced a reissue of that film in August 1999, it would have been a massive hit. Maybe it was, and I’ve forgotten about it. I don’t see Avatar as having inspired enough passion to earn an unusually swift reissue. Lots of people saw it, but how many saw it more than once?