{"id":36832,"date":"2016-03-15T15:48:18","date_gmt":"2016-03-15T20:48:18","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/news.medill.northwestern.edu\/chicago\/?p=36832"},"modified":"2016-03-15T15:48:18","modified_gmt":"2016-03-15T20:48:18","slug":"the-force-awakens-vs-avatar-box-office-record-may-not-be-sign-of-longevity","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/news.medill.northwestern.edu\/chicago\/the-force-awakens-vs-avatar-box-office-record-may-not-be-sign-of-longevity\/","title":{"rendered":"“The Force Awakens” vs. “Avatar”: box office record may not be sign of longevity"},"content":{"rendered":"

By Tim Rosenberger<\/strong><\/p>\n

What makes one film popular and memorable and another movie not may be open for new debate.\u00a0\u201cStar Wars: The Force Awakens\u201d is approaching the end of its theatrical run with a new all-time domestic box office record and mostly positive feedback from viewers and critics. This was not the case for most previous\u00a0domestic champ, James Cameron\u2019s sci-fi film \u201cAvatar.\u201d The situation is curious since both films have been criticized \u00a0for similar reasons.<\/p>\n

<\/p>\n

\u201cForce Awakens\u201d – the seventh and newest film in the hit sci-fi, fantasy franchise \u2013 has currently brought in around $929.2 million at the domestic box office, approximately $168.7 million more than the overall domestic take of \u201cAvatar\u201d in 2009.\u00a0 But why so many people who derided \u201cAvatar\u201d are now praising \u201cStar Wars\u201d is hard to understand since the primary criticism of both films, a derivative plot, is the same.<\/p>\n

The latest \u201cStar Wars\u201d film follows new, young heroes who have to team up with Han Solo (Harrison Ford), General Lei Organa (Carrie Fisher) and a group of freedom fighters called The Resistance. They need to defeat the evil First Order and find the missing Jedi Master Luke Skywalker (Mark Hamill). That process will strike \u201cStar Wars\u201d fans as very familiar<\/p>\n

Our young heroes must return a droid with important information to The Resistance, much as Luke Skywalker returned R2D2 to the Rebels in the first \u201cStar Wars\u201d film, \u201cA New Hope.\u201d They must also destroy a giant space station that can obliterate entire planets, like the first movie\u2019s Death Star. Finally, they have to defeat a dark Jedi who shares a connection with some of our heroes, as Darth Vader did in the second film, \u201cThe Empire Strikes Back.\u201d<\/p>\n

\"A
A “Star Wars: The Force Awakens” bag depicting The First Order, with the lead baddie, Kylo Ren (center), who many people compared to Darth Vader. (Tim Rosenberger\/MEDILL).<\/figcaption><\/figure>\n

\u201c\u2018The Force Awakens\u2019 is a retelling of \u2018A New Hope\u2019 and \u2018Empire Strikes Back,\u2019\u201d said David Tarleton, sci-fi buff, moviemaker and film professor at Columbia College Chicago. \u201cThere are some basic ways in which huge elements from the movies are just recycled, but they\u2019re recycled in ways that felt, to me at least, fresh.\u201d<\/p>\n

This may very well be the response of the millions of viewers around the world who have poured into to see \u201cForce Awakens\u201d since its premiere in December. Even as word of mouth spread about the film\u2019s derivative elements, the movie continued to rake in money.<\/p>\n

Dean Martin, founder of Liberty Street Geek Media and host of all its sci-fi related podcasts, is not bothered by story repetition.<\/p>\n

\u201cThere\u2019s not a lot of conflicts left in the writing world,\u201d Martin said. \u201cThere\u2019s only so many different conflicts you can have. I don\u2019t mind if something is derivative. It doesn\u2019t always bother me. I\u2019m more about the execution of it.\u201d<\/p>\n

\u201cForce Awakens\u201d is repetitive, but Martin thought it was well executed. He enjoyed \u201cForce Awakens\u201d more the second time around, and his opinion did not change the third and fourth times he saw the movies. That was not the case with \u201cAvatar.\u201d<\/p>\n

While Tarleton and Martin may have walked away from \u201cForce Awakens\u201d mostly pleased, Adrian Czarny, webmaster of the Cameron fansite jamescamerononline.com, left the theater feeling underwhelmed.<\/p>\n

Once the nostalgia of revisiting old characters like Han Solo and Luke Skywalker wears off, he said, people will judge \u201cForce Awakens\u201d differently. It will not be forgotten, but that may have more to do with the \u201cStar Wars\u201d brand rather than the film\u2019s own merits.<\/p>\n

\"From
From 1970s to the present, the “Star Wars” series has spawned countless novels, comic books, video games and action figures, with items still on store shelves today. A shopper would be hard pressed to find much of any of that for “Avatar” today,\u00a0 however. (Tim Rosenberger\/MEDILL)<\/figcaption><\/figure>\n

Where \u201cForce Awakens\u201d failed, \u201cAvatar\u201d succeeded, Czarny said, with its unmatched action and its ability to connect with people emotionally.<\/p>\n

\u201cAvatar\u201d \u2013 which still holds the international box office record of $2.8 billion, about $700 million more than \u201cForce Awakens\u201d so far\u2013 follows a paraplegic ex-marine, Jake, who travels to a planet named Pandora in 2154. The planet\u2019s atmosphere is poisonous to humans. To allow Jake to research the untamed planet and its intelligent, blue-skinned natives, scientists have devised an avatar body he can inhabit.<\/p>\n

Trouble arises when authorities at a mining operation want Jake to infiltrate the natives\u2019 society to help the operation acquire a valuable mineral called unobtanium. Jake sides with the natives to protect them and their natural habitat from the forces that would destroy them.<\/p>\n

The \u201cAvatar\u201d plot resembles such films as the 1992 animated movie \u201cFerngully: The Last Rainforest,\u201d Disney\u2019s 1995 \u201cPocahontas\u201d and Kevin Costner\u2019s 1990 Academy Award-winning film, \u201cDances with Wolves.\u201d All of them dealt with environmental themes and\/or hostile characters immersing themselves in a native culture only to come to love and protect the natives in the end.<\/p>\n

\u201cAvatar\u201d was derivative by design, Czarny said. Cameron wanted to use a classic archetype story but tell it in a way nobody had ever seen.<\/p>\n

That the movie recycled plot elements is not important to Czarny. He appreciates how they are combined to create something new.<\/p>\n

\u201cSomeone once said that if you put vodka, apple sour and melon mix together you get an Apple Martini,\u201d Czarny said. \u201cAll of those ingredients pre-existed the drink, but they were never together. \u2018Avatar,\u2019 and any other movie for that matter, is just that.\u201d<\/p>\n

Czarny would not say \u201cAvatar\u201d has been entirely forgotten. There has just been an enormous drop in public interest in the film.<\/p>\n

\u201cAvatar\u201d suffers from the same syndrome as Cameron\u2019s \u201cTitanic,\u201d Czarny said. It was loved when it premiered, but people have not seen it since and their faded memories do not do the film justice. Another possibility, he said, is, like \u201cTitanic,\u201d people might have seen \u201cAvatar\u201d so many times that it became overkill.<\/p>\n

Czarny\u2019s views on \u201cAvatar\u201d are not shared by everyone. Martin, for example, liked \u201cAvatar\u201d a lot when it came out, but once the spectacle of the film wore off, he found that it lacked depth. He also did not really care about the underdeveloped characters.<\/p>\n

\"Neytiri,
Neytiri, a Pandora native played by Zoe Saldana, falls for Jake over the course of ‘”Avatar,” but the relationship lacked character development for some viewers. The above picture is a photo realistic drawing. (DeviantArt user Chowyj Y.J.\/DEVIANTART)<\/figcaption><\/figure>\n

Despite his declining enthusiasm, Martin still considers \u201cAvatar\u201d a good film. Its impressive computer technology\u00a0 is one reason he thinks the movie set box office records. Its immersive CGI world offered a technological spectacle that no one had ever seen before.<\/p>\n

Also, Martin said, the idea of people living through avatars speaks to the generation of young people who live through computers, Twitter profiles and expansive online games like \u201cWorld of Warcraft.\u201d<\/p>\n

Tarleton \u2013 who called\u00a0 \u201cAvatar\u201d unoriginal because of its plot similarities with \u201cFerngully,\u201d \u201cPocahontas\u201d and \u201cDance with Wolves\u201d \u2013 also found something enjoy in \u201cAvatar.\u201d He appreciated its hints at politics with Pandora standing in for Iraq, unobtanium representing oil, and the film\u2019s critique of capitalism and the military-industrial complex.<\/p>\n

Ultimately, \u201cForce Awakens\u201d will not be forgotten because \u201cStar Wars\u201d is infused into the zeitgeist, Martin said. \u201cAvatar\u201d never became part of the public consciousness in a similar way, he said, through no fault of its own. The entertainment world has changed radically since 1977 when the first \u201cStar Wars\u201d burst onto theater screens.<\/p>\n

\u201cWe are consuming movies so much faster than we used to,\u201d Martin said, \u201cunless there\u2019s this \u2013 in the science fiction world anyway \u2013 sequel attached and this saga, [movie moves into] the grind. It\u2019s in the treadmill of films that are just turning over and turning over and turning over. [\u2018Avatar\u2019] came out in that time. What\u2019s happening is we want the next movie, we want the next movie, we want the next movie.\u201d<\/p>\n

\"Director
Director James Cameron has said for years that three “Avatar” sequels are coming, but the release dates have been pushed back several times. (Steve Jurvetson\/FLICKR)<\/figcaption><\/figure>\n

There has been talk of \u201cAvatar\u201d sequels as far back as 2006, before the first film was even finished, but the proposed follow-ups have been delayed several times. Back-to-back filming of the sequels is rumored to start in April. This has not officially announced, however, and so may not happen. If the sequels ever get off the ground, Czarny is not sure they would be as successful as the first film.<\/p>\n

\u201cThat is a big mystery to me as well,\u201d he said, \u201cand their outcome will reveal whether \u2018Avatar\u2019 was just a flash in the pan or a new mythology that captures the imagination and hearts of people around the world of all generations and races.\u201d<\/p>\n

Photo at top: “Avatar” and “Star Wars: The Force Awakens” tickets sit atop a pile of old ticket stubs. (Tim Rosenberger\/MEDILL)<\/div>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

By Tim Rosenberger What makes one film popular and memorable and another movie not may be open for new debate.\u00a0\u201cStar Wars: The Force Awakens\u201d is approaching the end of its theatrical run with a new all-time domestic box office record and mostly positive feedback from viewers and critics. This was not the case for most […]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":246,"featured_media":37421,"comment_status":"closed","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[194,585],"tags":[2311,2313,2315,1446,2312,2314,2316,1858,2310],"class_list":["post-36832","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","hentry","category-arts-culture","category-winter-2016","tag-avatar","tag-box-office-record","tag-empire-strikes-back","tag-film","tag-james-cameron","tag-new-hope","tag-science-fiction","tag-star-wars","tag-the-force-awakens"],"yoast_head":"\n"The Force Awakens" vs. "Avatar": box office record may not be sign of longevity - Medill Reports Chicago<\/title>\n<meta name=\"robots\" content=\"index, follow, max-snippet:-1, max-image-preview:large, max-video-preview:-1\" \/>\n<link rel=\"canonical\" href=\"https:\/\/news.medill.northwestern.edu\/chicago\/the-force-awakens-vs-avatar-box-office-record-may-not-be-sign-of-longevity\/\" \/>\n<meta property=\"og:locale\" content=\"en_US\" \/>\n<meta property=\"og:type\" content=\"article\" \/>\n<meta property=\"og:title\" content=\""The Force Awakens" vs. "Avatar": box office record may not be sign of longevity - Medill Reports Chicago\" \/>\n<meta property=\"og:description\" content=\"By Tim Rosenberger What makes one film popular and memorable and another movie not may be open for new debate.\u00a0\u201cStar Wars: The Force Awakens\u201d is approaching the end of its theatrical run with a new all-time domestic box office record and mostly positive feedback from viewers and critics. 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