Sci-Fi – Page 2 – Trekking with Dennis

So, uh… yeah. Avatar 2. Or to give it its proper title Avatar: The Way of Water. It’s a film. It was released almost a year ago. I was planning to write a review of it. And I completely forgot that it existed until a couple of days ago.

The growing Avatar series – which will soon include a big-budget video game adaptation along with two films – has all of the elements of what should be a successful multimedia franchise. The original film was a Best Picture nominee at the Academy Awards, director James Cameron has incredible pedigree as a filmmaker, the world of Avatar is visually gorgeous, a lot of effort has gone into constructing things like a full-blown Na’vi language, and it’s backed up by the almost limitless budget of the Walt Disney Company. So… why is Avatar still so incredibly forgettable?

I forgot all about Avatar until now…

I didn’t hate or even dislike The Way of Water. For the three-plus hours that it lasted, I had a decent time with the film. It was a swashbuckling sci-fi adventure; a blockbuster worthy of the title that transported me to a faraway planet and a sci-fi future that was entertaining to see. But as the credits rolled I just… switched off. The Way of Water, like its predecessor before it, didn’t leave a lasting impression.

And for a series backed up by Disney’s money, turning a massive profit at the box office, with a new video game adaptation and an expensive theme park attraction… I just don’t get it. Why is Avatar – to use some Gen Z lingo – so “mid?” Why do I find myself caring so little about The Way of Water that I literally forgot it existed? And why isn’t the series making an impact on our collective cultural conversation?

A section of the themed Avatar land at Walt Disney World.
Image Credit: Avatar/Walt Disney World

Although I’m not the most active person online or on social media, I follow a bunch of websites, blogs, and channels that talk about the same kind of things I enjoy discussing here on my website: sci-fi, pop culture, cinema, and geeky entertainment topics. But since The Way of Water was in cinemas, none of them have so much as mentioned the series. If anyone had been talking about it, perhaps I wouldn’t have completely forgotten about Avatar this year.

For a film that made so much money – The Way of Water is currently the third-highest-grossing film of all time, behind only the first Avatar and Avengers Endgame – it’s so strange to be talking about it in this way. A huge audience clearly turned up for The Way of Water… but within weeks it was all but forgotten. I don’t expect to see it winning any of the big awards, which isn’t a slight against it; there’s a lot of competition. But for a film that aims to really kick-start a wider connected universe, I’m just not sure how successful The Way of Water can have been when it’s dropped off the face of the earth so readily.

Director James Cameron with the stars of Avatar: The Way of Water at the film’s premiere.

There is absolutely room for a new sci-fi franchise, especially under the Disney umbrella. Marvel and Star Wars are both seeming to stumble and falter, and the MCU is perhaps coming to the end of its life in its current iteration. There’s definitely space for another multimedia “shared universe” to come along. Avatar should be in prime position to occupy that kind of slot… but if it can’t offer something memorable, something for fans and audiences to retain and keep in mind after the credits have rolled, then it won’t even come close. Realistically, Avatar should be challenging Star Wars, Star Trek, DC Comics, and even Marvel in the upper tiers of sci-fi cinema. But right now, it doesn’t feel anywhere close.

Although we can lay part of the blame for this, in theory, on the long gap between the original Avatar and this new sequel – twelve years is a long time to wait, after all – I don’t think that’s a fair explanation. The original Avatar, as I’ve noted in the past, was not an especially memorable film either, and the universe that it attempted to create felt limited to the characters and story that unfolded on screen. I’ve never really gotten the sense from Avatar that there was more to the world of Pandora or to this futuristic depiction of Earth and humanity that I needed to see explored. In fact, I could’ve lived a happy life without ever seeing a single sequel to Avatar – let alone four.

Boating across Pandora…

So is The Way of Water “unnecessary,” then? That seems a bit harsh! The ending of the first film left the door open to a sequel or spin-off, and it’s worth acknowledging that. But the story was also one that we could’ve considered complete; I never felt that Avatar was crying out for either a direct sequel or for more stories set in this world. “Unnecessary” might be overstating it… but I’d certainly say that I wasn’t champing at the bit for The Way of Water.

All of that could’ve been irrelevant if The Way of Water had been more memorable. I may not have been desperate to see a sequel, but I’m always up for watching a good film, so the “necessity” or otherwise of The Way of Water wouldn’t have mattered if the film itself had something to say. For all of the money invested in it, though, and for all of the technical achievements that James Cameron and his team brought to the table in terms of the way it was created, The Way of Water just didn’t leave a lasting impression. In fact, I don’t feel that the Avatar series or franchise has really made much progress with this instalment – at least in terms of cultural relevance and its potential place in the upper echelons of sci-fi.

A rotorwing aircraft.

And because of that, The Way of Water can feel… forced. If there was no organic groundswell of public opinion craving a sequel – no letter-writing campaign like there had been for Star Trek, no “expanded universe” of comics and novels like Star Wars created, and no real Avatar fan community in general – why was it even made? The very existence of the film – and the upcoming video game adaptation, too – feels very “corporate,” as if a group of executives have decreed that “Avatar is to be the next big thing,” without really understanding what makes a series popular and beloved to begin with – let alone failing to acknowledge that such things can never be manufactured.

For me, The Way of Water sits somewhere alongside films like the original Pirates of the Caribbean or the Indiana Jones trilogy. It was perfectly entertaining popcorn blockbuster fare… but nothing more than that. Unlike with Star Trek, Star Wars, or other top-tier franchises, I don’t have a desire to see more, to explore the universe that the film created, or to really spend much more time in its world. And if that was the ambition behind the Avatar series – to create a succession of one-and-done popcorn action flicks – then I’d say it was doing just fine. But when there’s clearly a corporate aim to push Avatar to something greater… I can’t help but feel that it isn’t meeting its goals, at least not in its current form.

Promo art for The Way of Water.
Image Credit: Avatar on Facebook

Part of the problem is originality. The world of Avatar doesn’t really have anything unique to help it stand out. The blue-skinned Na’vi are the closest it gets, but even then, the CGI-heavy aliens easily blend into a lineup of other humanoid races from other sci-fi properties. The rest of the aesthetic of Avatar is pretty generic, with spaceships, weapons, costumes, and technology that doesn’t really stand out when compared to more successful sci-fi properties.

A lot of Avatar just gets lost in the sci-fi milieu, leaving the franchise unable to differentiate itself from films, TV shows, and even video games in an expanding genre. The time should be right for a new sci-fi series to make a serious push to break into the upper echelons of the genre, thanks to a combination of a renewed interest from big corporations and the fact that some of the biggest names in sci-fi seem to be foundering – if not stalling outright. But the bland, forgettable Avatar isn’t able to make that leap.

The blue-skinned Na’vi are the Avatar series’ most unique creation.

The original Avatar was criticised in 2009 for telling a story that was unoriginal at best, and the sequel falls into the same narrative traps. Themes of environmentalism and colonialism are presented – but these have been examined before, and examined better, in other pictures and other series that have had more to say. Unoriginality doesn’t have to mean “bad,” not by any means. But if the aesthetic, setting, and narrative premise are all things that audiences have seen before, there’s got to be something more to help it stand out or communicate a message. The Way of Water just doesn’t succeed on that front.

When I first sat down to watch The Way of Water, I expected the film to really make the case for Avatar as a series. I expected a strong narrative, compelling characters, and plenty of adventure… but more than that, I needed to see the film take the world-building from its predecessor and expand upon it, creating something that I’d want to lose myself in. With three more Avatar films and a big-budget video game in production, I needed The Way of Water to not only give me a reason to keep them on my list, but to want to get my hands on them. This film was an opportunity not only to remind me that Avatar exists, but to do what the original wasn’t able to and set the stage for something greater.

The Way of Water pioneered underwater motion capture.

Star Wars still has fans turning up for its films and streaming shows even though – let’s be realistic – it hasn’t done anything truly outstanding since 1980. But because Star Wars had that strong beginning, and created an alternate reality that fans wanted to experience more of, audiences still show up forty-five years later. They still go to conventions, dress up like Darth Vader, and pay their subs to Disney+ to watch the latest offerings. For all the money that’s being pumped into it, Avatar still doesn’t feel like a series or a franchise that can attract anything like that kind of support.

So that’s it, I guess. I didn’t dislike The Way of Water; it was a competent film with some clever behind-the-scenes technologies and filmmaking techniques that ended up being a perfectly watchable popcorn adventure flick. But I just can’t reconcile the fact that this franchise has now produced two of the three highest-grossing films of all-time… yet it’s still so utterly forgettable that I literally forgot it even existed for months. And even after returning to The Way of Water to take notes and grab some still frames… nothing about it jumps out at me, nothing about it sticks in my mind, and I genuinely don’t see how Avatar as a series will ever break into the top tier of sci-fi franchises if it keeps this up.

Avatar: The Way of Water is available to stream now on Disney+ and is also available on DVD/Blu-ray. The Avatar series is the copyright of 20th Century Studios and/or the Walt Disney Company. This article contains the thoughts and opinions of one person only and is not intended to cause any offence.

Today marks what would’ve been Gene Roddenberry’s 100th birthday, so it’s a good opportunity to pause and look back at the life and legacy of the man who created Star Trek – and changed science fiction forever.

Of course it’s true that we wouldn’t have Star Trek without Gene Roddenberry. But it’s very likely that Star Wars wouldn’t exist either, at least not in any form we’d recognise, and without either of those pioneers, countless other sci-fi and fantasy films and television shows would likely have never made it to the screen. Gene Roddenberry’s legacy extends far beyond the USS Enterprise, Captain Kirk, and the franchise he created that’s still going strong in its fifty-fifth year; he quite literally transformed science fiction and started the process of making it mainstream.

I never had the opportunity to meet Gene Roddenberry. In fact, by the time I settled in to regularly watch Star Trek: The Next Generation in the early 1990s, he’d already passed away. But his creation had a huge influence on my early life and adolescence, even though I only knew the man himself as merely one name among many in the end credits. Many people have spoken about the inspirational side of Star Trek, how the franchise depicts an idealistic future free from many of the problems and challenges our society has to deal with today. For me, that was – and remains – the appeal of Star Trek.

Gene Roddenberry (seated) with other members of the production and creative team behind *The Next Generation*.

Whole generations of people have grown up watching and loving Star Trek since Gene Roddenberry passed away. The fact that the franchise he created is still inspiring people to look to the stars – and to look to make changes for the better in the world today – a hundred years after he was born, and almost three decades since his death, is a phenomenal legacy for any one person to have. Untold numbers of people have been inspired by Star Trek to become scientists, doctors, engineers, astronauts, and even politicians, taking Gene Roddenberry’s philosophy and idealism for the future to every corner of our society. Star Trek may still be on the air, but Gene Roddenberry’s legacy has long since moved beyond the screen and into the real world.

As someone who never met Gene Roddenberry and only started watching Star Trek after he was already gone, I can’t comment on the man himself. I didn’t know him on a personal level, and I regret never having the opportunity to talk with him about the future and how our society and civilisation might evolve. But I can speak to how I perceive his legacy and how he affected the world, and though it might sound like a cliché, there are very few people who have had such a positive impact – both on my own life and in the wider world.

Gene Roddenberry with William Shatner, Leonard Nimoy, and DeForest Kelley on the set of *The Motion Picture*.

Star Trek was always double-layered for Gene Roddenberry. There was the cool sci-fi stuff; the spaceships, phasers, transporters, and the like. He brought those to life using the best available television technologies and special effects, some of which would be adopted by other productions and become mainstays of the sci-fi genre. But there was also social commentary and a desire to show audiences that the way the world is today isn’t the way it always has to be.

At a time when racial segregation was still ongoing in the United States, and when the battle for civil rights and racial equality was still being fought, Gene Roddenberry put black and white characters together on an equal footing. At a time when the United States and the Soviet Union were engaged in the Cold War, Gene Roddenberry put a Russian on the bridge of the Enterprise. And at a time when neurodivergent people were looked down on and mistreated, Gene Roddenberry created characters like Spock and Data, who present very differently to their peers but were nevertheless welcomed and accepted.

Gene Roddenberry created many wonderful and diverse characters.

Gene Roddenberry’s vision of Starfleet and the Federation was a space where everyone could feel welcome. Discrimination and hate didn’t exist in the 23rd or 24th Centuries as he saw it, and the way Star Trek depicted this vision of the future has been a force for good in the world.

On the practical side of things too, Gene Roddenberry’s legacy lives on. George Lucas has said on many occasions that Star Wars – arguably the biggest space-based entertainment property in the world – would not have come to exist without Star Trek and the trail it blazed. Countless other sci-fi and space-fantasy films, television shows, and even video games all owe a great deal to Gene Roddenberry and Star Trek. Though he didn’t invent the genre, Roddenberry expanded it in a big way. By creating one of the first connected fandoms, complete with meet-ups and conventions in which he and the show’s stars would happily participate, Roddenberry pioneered the concept of a fan community decades before the internet came along.

Jeffrey Hunter and Gene Roddenberry holding a model of the USS Enterprise during production of *The Cage*.

Later today, on what would’ve been Gene Roddenberry’s 100th birthday, a new episode of Star Trek will premiere. What would he have made of Lower Decks, the franchise’s first foray into comedy? Some folks who haven’t liked the direction that the franchise has taken in recent years might say he’d have disliked the concept, but actually Roddenberry had plans for a Star Trek comedy himself. Perhaps the most famous concept would’ve focused on Lwaxana Troi as a spin-off from The Next Generation, but he had many other ideas for Star Trek projects – including comedies – going all the way back to the 1970s.

A number of people involved in the production of Star Trek have noted how Gene Roddenberry was acutely aware of how audience expectations changed over time. One of the main reasons why his television project Star Trek: Phase II was reworked into The Motion Picture was because he’d seen the success of Star Wars in 1977 and how well audiences had responded to it. Though he may not have liked every single creative decision taken by the franchise over the years, he would at the very least understand that audiences have changed and that Star Trek has to change too. Whether he’d approve of every joke and character in Lower Decks or Discovery is thus a moot point; I think Gene Roddenberry would have understood and been supportive of the concept and of taking Star Trek to new places.

So that’s about all I have to say today, really. Though I never met him, Gene Roddenberry has had an ongoing influence on my life. As a Trekkie, I revel in the world that he created, the characters he brought to life, and the wonderfully optimistic vision of a future free from the kind of social ills that plague the world today. I believe, as he did, that the human race is capable of getting to that point. He encouraged all of us to reach for the stars – and to strive to build a better world. That legacy continues to this day – and I hope it will always be there.

The Star Trek franchise – including all properties mentioned above – is the copyright of ViacomCBS. Some behind-the-scenes photos courtesy of TrekCore. This article contains the thoughts and opinions of one person only and is not intended to cause any offence.

Tag: Sci-Fi

Oops, I forgot that Avatar 2 existed…

Gene Roddenberry at 100