Avatar: The Way of Water Is Poised to Pass the $1B Mark by New Year’s Day

Peter_Brosdahl

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While final holiday weekend global revenue numbers are not yet reported, as of yesterday, the latest installment has managed to pull in over $850 million in just 10 days and is expected to pass $1 billion by the new year.

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My son watched it and said it was alright. It's like watching a action movie after the Matrix. It's hard to be as exciting as something so new.
 
I'll definitely be waiting until it streams and even if by some miracle I like it, won't buy the physical until I'm sure he's not doing the extended whatever cut months later.
 
Even when the blu-ray rips drop, I don't think I will bother to see it.
I don’t think this is a watch it at home movie in general. Every few years since the 70s you get a special effects marvel that redefined special effects. They don’t necessarily hold up all that well and it may not carry over to the smaller screen.

If I were going to watch it, I would be in for the full IMAX viewing, but I’ve got small kids I wouldn’t take, and I’m no longer interested enough in fancy special effects to justify spending for a baby sitter.
 
I don’t think this is a watch it at home movie in general. Every few years since the 70s you get a special effects marvel that redefined special effects. They don’t necessarily hold up all that well and it may not carry over to the smaller screen.
I think I'm ok with that.

While I'm not over watching a movie for good special effects, I am over watching a movie ~only~ because it has good special effects. If it happens to roll up on D+ or something that I already happen to subscribe to, I'll probably watch it for sheer sake of curiosity - but I don't intend to pay anything to watch it, it just doesn't interest me right now.

I'll take the ability to pause, to turn up (or down) the volume, to drink a beer, to make my popcorn however I want it, to rewind... all of that stuff and more, over the ability to watch it on a 32' screen. There isn't a special effect invented, by Cameron or anyone else, that trumps those other benefits. My Home Theater isn't all that bad.

I suppose if I wanted to break it down to cost/benefit, I've probably spent more on my home theater than I would have if I watched every single movie that I have watched at home on it out in a theater. But if you add in dinner and drinks, I've definitely pulled ahead there, and I still have the ability to control the remote control - that is ~priceless~.
 
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I don’t think this is a watch it at home movie in general. Every few years since the 70s you get a special effects marvel that redefined special effects. They don’t necessarily hold up all that well and it may not carry over to the smaller screen.

If I were going to watch it, I would be in for the full IMAX viewing, but I’ve got small kids I wouldn’t take, and I’m no longer interested enough in fancy special effects to justify spending for a baby sitter.
I so dislike this big screen elitism, if a movie is trash it is trash no matter if I watch it on a bootleg VHS from the 90s, or on the hyper-super most bestest awesomest trimax dolby thx megamax.
 
I so dislike this big screen elitism, if a movie is trash it is trash no matter if I watch it on a bootleg VHS from the 90s, or on the hyper-super most bestest awesomest trimax dolby thx megamax.
I’ll use Jurassic Park as an example here. The idea the film is pretty good, and the special effects were absolutely fantastic and amazing in a THX theater in 1993. I completely loved the movie in the theater.


When it finally got around to VHS in, what, 95(?) it already had lost some luster because of how fast special effects were moving. On top of the perceived decline of the effects over 2 years, I was watching it at home on low quality VHS on roughly a 21” screen in the living room. It had lost some to most of the suspense that you had in the theater.

I caught part of it on TV a few years back, and what I was one amazed at looked pretty hokey and I didn’t bother watching past the first commercial break.

You can replace Jurassic park with first Avatar, The Day After Tomorrow, Transformers, and others that were pretty cool in the theater at release that are nothing special now.
 
You can replace Jurassic park with first Avatar, The Day After Tomorrow, Transformers, and others that were pretty cool in the theater at release that are nothing special now.
Were they special because they were in a theatre, or because they broke some ground at the time?

I mean: if they re-released Jurassic Park today, would it still be as good in a theatre? Or to ask it differently: When you watched it on VHS later, was it worse just because it wasn't in a THX theatre, or was it because what made it special at the time had already become "normal" for many other movies as well?

Yeah, I will admit that hearing the dinosaurs walking, that scene with the glass of water: it was pretty cool. It is also pretty cool on my Home Theatre with a subwoofer though, even today, and yeah, louder subs make it more intense, I admit. But not cool enough to make me give up my remote control.
 
Were they special because they were in a theatre, or because they broke some ground at the time?
Because they broke ground at the time, combined and further enhanced by an experience that couldn’t be recreated by most people at home in 93.

I mean: if they re-released Jurassic Park today, would it still be as good in a theatre? Or to ask it differently: When you watched it on VHS later, was it worse just because it wasn't in a THX theatre, or was it because what made it special at the time had already become "normal" for many other movies as well?

I tried to cover the answer to that in the 2 year delay from theater to VHS. The effects that were special had become commonplace by 95, AND the average home setup couldn’t convey the spectacle you got in the theater. In other words, Not only was I used that level of special effects, My parents certainly didn’t have the sub to make that glass of water scene work like it did in the theater.

Yeah, I will admit that hearing the dinosaurs walking, that scene with the glass of water: it was pretty cool. It is also pretty cool on my Home Theatre with a subwoofer though, even today, and yeah, louder subs make it more intense, I admit. But not cool enough to make me give up my remote control.
We had the “Half hearted” home theater at my last house. Previous owners had put black carpet on the walls of the basement, put a couple speaker mounts on the walls for rears, and painted the support pole in the middle of the room Black. We put in a 67” rear projection and 5.1 surround and it was fine. In the end we found we preferred the “activity, dinner, and a movie” experience at the local ultra screen for action movies with big special effects. For something like Amelie, the home theater was fine, but so was the 36” Sony XBR too.

We will probably never get around to putting in a home theater in the new house’s basement.
 
I’ll use Jurassic Park as an example here. The idea the film is pretty good, and the special effects were absolutely fantastic and amazing in a THX theater in 1993. I completely loved the movie in the theater.


When it finally got around to VHS in, what, 95(?) it already had lost some luster because of how fast special effects were moving. On top of the perceived decline of the effects over 2 years, I was watching it at home on low quality VHS on roughly a 21” screen in the living room. It had lost some to most of the suspense that you had in the theater.

I caught part of it on TV a few years back, and what I was one amazed at looked pretty hokey and I didn’t bother watching past the first commercial break.

You can replace Jurassic park with first Avatar, The Day After Tomorrow, Transformers, and others that were pretty cool in the theater at release that are nothing special now.
That's only the first viewing bias. When you first see a movie it seems better. It happened to me with Phantom Menace which I saw first in theater, but also happened with Force Awakens which I saw first at home. Subsequent viewings reveal more and more issues that I glossed over during the first watch. If you saw Jurassic Part at home first you'd still think it was awesome at first. Hell I even thought Congo was good when I first saw it, only to be shocked when I re-watched it 20 years later.
 
Many MANY of the things that made a movie experience extra special are now replicated in a good home theater setup.

Hell a half decent dolby atmos sound bar with a sub can really deliver on the sound portion for most homes with ease. Then a TV that isn't the 'cheapest at the size I want' that most people buy at is really the next level on screens and in many cases better than what a movie theater can deliver. At least until they start making 100ft 32k OLED movie theater screens.
 
Many MANY of the things that made a movie experience extra special are now replicated in a good home theater setup.

Hell a half decent dolby atmos sound bar with a sub can really deliver on the sound portion for most homes with ease. Then a TV that isn't the 'cheapest at the size I want' that most people buy at is really the next level on screens and in many cases better than what a movie theater can deliver. At least until they start making 100ft 32k OLED movie theater screens.
Back in 2008 I certainly could never duplicate the way an IMAX can make you feel like you’re moving when I had the home theater room I described a few posts up. Even with a mid range Denon receiver, the wall mounts for rear speakers and a 10” sub, the surround sound never compared with the local Ultra Screen and forget something in 3D comparing at home to an IMAX.

In my current home, the room with the TV is the living room, so I have to deal ambient light, awkward room shape, and no realistic way of mounting any speakers anywhere but the front.

For certain movies, it honestly doesn’t matter. Amelie (like I mentioned before), Bill and Ted’s excellent Adventure, Hackers, and so on, are fine in my living room at home. For movies you go to at release to marvel at the effects (and the plot frankly doesn’t matter) like Avatar, The Day After Tomorrow, and the Avengers, sign me up for the top end theater experience because in a year those effects will be less amazing, in 5 years average, and in 10 years “meh”.

It’s really the mid range excellent action / adventure movies I kind of want the home theater for, like LoTR, The Matrix, Indiana Jones, etc. that slice of old, good movies, doesn’t justify the setup though.

In basically no case would I recommend the bog standard theater experience though. If it’s worth going to the theater for, it’s worth the Dolby Ultra Thx IMAX 9000 event.
 
We've been rocking projectors for around 10+ years now and our current 4K is likely to be the last. I'm pretty sure that when it comes time to replace the LG C9 the plan will be to get an 85" OLED of some sort. I think that'll be some years down the road still so its replacement might be 8K, we'll just have to see how things are at that point, but I'm perfectly happy with 4K as is.
 
Hell a half decent dolby atmos sound bar with a sub can really deliver on the sound portion for most homes with ease.
I used to talk some serious smack about soundbars up until I tried our first one a few years ago. We got a Vizio 5.1.2 Dolby Atmos for the bedroom which was a BF deal for $400. It's been awesome. Since then I've kept track of them in general and the good ones have really jumped in price. Basically, at this point, it's like buying a high-end version of one of those home stereo kits from the early 2000s but I feel these are much nicer and easier for the average person to work with. Something I really like about our Vizio is that the Sub is wireless and the rear satellite speakers plug into it allowing for all of the rear channels to be wireless. I'm actually on the fence as to whether or not I'm going to replace the Onkyo TX646 in the living room with a soundbar setup once it dies since all those speakers are starting to show their age. Either way, I'm looking at $1K-$2K given the current receiver or soundbar prices for a replacement that has all the features I'm after but it's also another project that's years down the road.
 
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