Welcome to Second Thought, the Free Press guide to what’s going on in the culture, both online and off. First up: I spent some time with the fantasy franchise that just won’t die.
I didn’t have high hopes for the third Avatar movie. And still, it shocked me with its terribleness. Watching it was like falling asleep while someone plays a video game next to you.
I’ll admit to liking the first Avatar, when it came out in 2009. I ate up all of those behind-the-scenes videos of actors wearing spandex suits. The movie was epic. Set on a faraway planet that’s rich in some mineral that greedy human corporations want to suck out of the ground, it followed a Marine, Jake Sully, who defected to become part of the planet’s indigenous group—the Na’vi—whose holy sites are being ruined by the evil colonizers.
Basically, it was a mash-up between Pocahontas and Ready Player One. And the ending is conclusive. When the sequel (Avatar: The Way of Water) came out, I thought: What more could there possibly be to say? I didn’t bother seeing it; but when the third installment, Avatar: Fire and Ash, dropped this week, my curiosity got the better of me. I regret that.
