The news that James Cameron has at least four Avatar sequels reminds me that I initially went to see a preview of 15 minutes’ footage back in August 2009. The idea was to whet audiences’ appetites.
This is what I said in 2009:
…Somehow I wasn’t as completely bowled over as I’d perhaps liked to have been. There were a few too many “pointy” incidents where sequences had been filmed in such a way as to purely show-off the 3D. While things weren’t quite coming out of the screen in a cheesy manner, they were clearly there for no other reason than to remind the audience that it was watching a 3D film.
It’s possible that this is because Cameron has edited together lots of sequences that exaggerate this to an audience that’s only seeing 15 minutes, but it was overdone in my view.
The other issue is that while the world Cameron’s created is bizarre and thoroughly imaginative, it’s also a little – well muddy. I don’t know if it’s the 3D process and the polarising lenses in the glasses as opposed to the colour palette Cameron has used to portray this imaginary world, but it all felt like it needed brightening up a bit. I’d love to compare the same footage in 2D and 3D to see whether this is the case. Remember that I was seeing this footage on perhaps the best IMAX screen in the UK…
Then I went on to add this:
I’ll certainly go and see this film when it comes out, although I’m not actually sure that I want to see it in 3D on the basis that it might actually sparkle a little more in 2D.
Well that was not true. I did not go to see Avatar, and I still haven’t seen it, despite numerous TV airings. And you know what? It may have made more money than any other film in history, but I still have no desire to see it. Nor the upcoming sequels.
3D was new when Avatar was released – or at least had been newly rediscovered. Was it just the experience that saw such large audiences going to Avatar? I guess when the sequels belatedly start appearing, we’ll find out.
I’m just nonplussed about the whole thing.