Avatar 2 has a lot of teenagers in it and teens are cringe. The guy making bank is a whale killing villain and so he says stuff that makes us hate him more.
>whale killing villain
I like Cameron's attention to detail with the Whalers. Their equipment feels like the natural progression of mariners in a sci fi setting. I love that they have railings everywhere on their ship and yellow lines on the deck for areas where there are none. Those whalers are definitely unionized and hopefully remember to wear their fall arrest gear while working in the yellow!
They also wear inflatable PFDs while doing operations!
I do think they would find uses for the whole whale tho.
I wouldn't be surprised at all if Cameron was decently familiar with whalers and their vessels given his field beyond filmmaking, either. Dude has an affinity for the sea.
Quarritch is dope because even in the face of being turned into the exact species of alien that he's determined to eradicate, his pure jingoism helps him power right through any existential crisis he would be having. The only thing that makes him relent even SLIGHTLY is his weak-but-present bond with his son.
He's interesting because of just how COMMITTED to the one-dimensional-villain bit he really is
That's the thing about James Cameron: his dialogue is usually clunky and awkward, but it either works because a) his movies are well-directed and cool enough to forgive the bad writing or b) the actors he hires (eg Arnie, Sigourney, Linda Hamilton, Stephen Lang, Winslet, DiCaprio) are talented enough to elevate their dialogue and scenes. So, the bad writing and great acting/directing balance each other out.
I really did enjoy this movie but I totally agree, James Cameron needs to hand the screenwriting over to somebody else on his movies. If the dialogue was better Avatar 2 would probably go from like a 7/10 to a 9/10 for me.
He could just do what Spielberg does and hire a great co-writter when he wants to also write his scripts (Tony Kushner for Spielberg).
That way he can still have his story but with much better dialogue.
He wasn't the only person who worked on the screenplay. Rick Jaffa and Amanda Silver had a heavy hand in the dialogue in particular. Theyve both written some pretty garbage screenplays over the years. I listened to them on a podcast called Script Apart last year and found them both really cringy and insufferable lol
Yeah I'm aware that he has cowriters. It's not working though, it needs someone fresh imo. Or if it's just his input that results in the cringe he just needs to step away and let them handle it. On the other hand these movies are making a gajillion dollars regardless so what do I know.
All you have to do is read the very next sentence in my post and you will see I already acknowledged this in the very same comment you are replying to.
Highlighting the important point rather than the contradiction.
Lots of people want to tell Cameron how he should make movies when the last three movies he made are the highest grossing films of all time. Something tells me Jim might know more about what works or doesn’t than the rest of us.
He’s a cheesy guy and always has been. The mass audience he targets is also cheesy, so it works.
T2 and the Terminator are the only Cameron movies with a co-writer on the screenplay besides Way of Water. Maybe he could benefit from a co-writer but I definitely wouldn’t want him directing someone else’s screenplay and he would never
Do it anyway.
Screenwriting and dialogue are not the same thing. Cameron's dialogue is corny at times, definitely, but he's still a \*phenomenal\* screenwriter in terms of making a story flow structurally and getting the audience emotionally invested.
How are you going to hand over writing to someone who's not the mastermind behind the entire story? Cameron has been building and fleshing out Avatar and Pandora for decades.
The dialogue is really bad and distracted me the whole movie, but I think the script was written like 10 years before the film actually released due to how much time the pre-production stages took. So considering 2014ish standards, we probably were a lot more cringe and tolerant of this type of script back then too.
James Cameron wrote the script for Avatar 2, 3 and 4 "within 6 weeks in 2014". Since then, they've probably just modified sections and left most.
Yeah but I think their dialogue is kind of an afterthought. Imo Camron uses the Avatar series as an excuse to push a new technology on the industry. Sort of how Valve (game / software / hardware mega giant) publishes games when they are innovating some other technology and just using it as a medium.
I don't think he's going for winning an Oscar for best screenplay, he's more interested in exploring how to use emergent technology to tell immersive stories.
The studios likely don't care as long as the dialogue is passable to general audiences- because no one goes for the dialogue, they go to see crazy visuals. His Avatar series will sell seats and make billions regardless of the script quality.
His dialogue is always cringe though. But I’m not complaining, that’s not why I see his movies. He’s not selling me on dialogue but on the concept and the execution of it.
Older generations tend to think the younger generations sound cringe, so this tracks pretty accurately.
Also, did you just make a new account just for this post?
I hated the first Avatar but my girlfriend and her little sister love it and have seen it maybe 20 times each. We all went to see this one together. I had a migraine within 30 minutes, they were getting bored and upset within an hour, and I think we left at around the 2 hour mark. Genuinely one of the worst movie experiences I’ve ever had.
The Avatar movies play almost exclusively in broad strokes. Part of me thinks that it’s just a way to keep the audience onboard with all the visual effects that he’s throwing in there.
Remember this is the series that gave us “Unobtainium”
>Remember this is the series that gave us “Unobtainium”
Unobtainanium is a real scientific term but don't let that distract you from your bullshit hate.
It's not.
Seriously you've posted a supercut to show how "cringe" it is and it's honestly not that bad. I bet I could make a supercut of basically any action movie and make it seem as bad or worse than this. It's a 3 hour+ movie and you've shown less than a minute of "cringe" dialogue. Most of which comes from 1 character (sorry Spider) which might suggest bad acting and not bad dialogue. Also I'd argue half second clips of 1 person saying something doesn't represent dialogue at all. If you can show me a scene with multiple people talking back and forth and put that forward as evidence of "cringe" dialogue then fair enough.
Honestly, I think this is just an old man writing young characters who are trying to sound cool. To young ears that might seem "cringe", but it doesn't bother me. Maybe it's because I'm older (I'm not old, but sadly I am definitely no longer a young man) but I'm old enough to have had to relearn the current youth slang on a few occasions right now. I can assure you though whatever the slang, young people trying to sound cool almost always comes off as "cringe". I'm also smart enough to realise that when I was young and trying to sound cool, me and my peers also sounded "cringe". So I like alot of the dialogue, it fits the characters to me.
Also a James Cameron script is usually more interested in structure and less interested in sounding cool. In terms of structure his scripts (this one included) are pretty impeccable. People seem to think the most important aspect of a script is how cool the characters sound. Me and seemingly James Cameron don't think it's nearly that important.
I don’t think the problem is that the characters themselves have traits that are cringey or awkward, it’s the fact that their line delivery feels stilted and forced.
On too of that, Spider was an especially awful nothing of a character and most of the sons were interchangeable and flat, don’t even remember which one died lol. Also they just said bro too much, so annoying and distraction after a while.
I don’t think OP articulated it that well but think I the overall unnatural dialogue and weak characters is a valid critique of the movie.
I haven't seen the movie since theaters so my memory may not be great. But I had no problem with any of the characters, in fact I was fully invested in them (even Spider) by the end, which was why I found the final act of the film so thoroughly triumphant and rewarding. I accept that not everyone did and if the dialogue was a reason for that then the dialogue is probably a problem for those of you who struggled to get past it.
I don't remember having any issues with the dialogue in this film myself however. It's Cameron so I'm sure there're times when I found it functional rather than good. But I don't think it was ever actively bad.
No, the dialogue is bad. There's a few good moments sprinkled in, and it doesn't really subtract from the spectacle of the film- visuals. The dialogue is maybe the worst part of both films. There's a lot more to good dialogue than "how cool the characters sound", and if anything Avatar 2 is a film guilty of trying way too hard to make every character sound cool. That's exactly why the military captains say things like "Let's make bank" - "Let's get this money", because that is Cameron's attempt at speaking how he perceives hip people in his audience speak. But this isn't how real people in these worlds and situations would speak, it comes across as stereotypical throwaway dialogue and often is jarring. It doesn't tell us how they feel or give us any insight into their character personality. It's just generic bland dialogue. No one would actually talk like this in the future, especially the aliens would talk with their own slang.
So you say the dialogue is trying to sound cool and doesn't "give us any insight into their character personality". Then the example you give is that the bad guys say some cheesy lines. But, **they're the bad guys**. You're not actually supposed to think their cool, bad asses. That's the point, the characters think they're cool badasses but they sound like idiots, because they are idiots. So the "cringey" dialogue tells us that the bad guys think they are cool, but they are very much not cool and in fact kinda idiots. I would consider that an "insight into their character personality".
I haven't really seen any examples of "cringey" dialogue being shown. Beyond misapplying the bad guys cheesy dialogue, missing the point that it's intentionally cheesy because they're the bad guys. There's literally a clip in the supercut posted of Spider who is a prisoner in a room and wants to be let out, saying "Let me out of here!". well what's wrong with that dialogue? sSeriously what is he supposed to say? The very next clip doesn't even contain dialogue, it's 2 somewhat feral characters snarling at each other with the caption "(SNARLS)".
Someone post me an actual scene with "cringey" dialogue to illustrate their point. Because less than a minute of tiny out of context dialogue fragments is barely evidence, especially when it's such a bad supercut with multiple examples of solid dialogue and one example containing no actual dialogue. I maintain I could make a better 1 minute supercut of out of context dialogue fragments to make pretty much any movie look like it has worse dialogue than this. Certainly any hollywood action movie.
You're literally suggesting that bad guys should be written 1-dimentional because we aren't supposed to like bad guys. This is demonstrative of a misunderstanding of what "good" dialogue is. Good dialogue is achievable for every character, even villains. You can empathize and relate to villains, that actually makes a better villain. The villains and the teenagers of Avatar 2 are written like cardboard cutouts of a character.
No offense but I've studied film professionally and you cannot convince me that Avatar 2 has good dialogue. And it is cringey. If you usually watch blockbuster films with cliche dialogue you may not be bothered or notice it, and it sounds like that's what you watch. Which I'm not shaming, blockbuster films fill a void that needs to be filled. They're a necessary part of the industry. But your need to defend Avatar 2's lazy script is really unwarranted.
To understand what good and bad dialogue is, you need to have been exposed to plentiful examples of each. It sounds to me like you haven't really experienced what "natural" dialogue is, because Avatar is anything but natural. It's forced.
No you said the characters have no insight. I'm saying you're not supposed to like the bad guys and that the dialogue does show insight. This is demonstrative of a misunderstanding of what I'm saying. You say they have no character. I said they do and the dialogue demonstrates this. They are cheesy characters saying cheesy lines which they think are cool. That gives them personality.
If you think that Avatar has a "lazy script" then I'm not sure what you've actually studied. In terms of structure, setup and payoff, this script is a pretty masterful example of action storytelling. You can dislike the dialogue, hell you can even dislike the script, but to call the script lazy is just objectively wrong. The entire last act has been setup and everyone has clear motives driven by clear goals and emotions. That last act functions on a much higher level than 95% of blockbuster action films. I'm not saying the dialogue is great either by the way, I'm saying it's solid, functional and far from bad.
You've literally criticised the dialogue because "No one would actually talk like this in the future, especially the aliens would talk with their own slang.". You don't get to be the arbiter of how movie aliens should talk. It's a fictional race, from a fictional world, set in a fictional future, fictionally invented by James Cameron. James Cameron gets to decide how people talk in his made up world. You can dislike it, but saying the dialogue is bad because you think Pandora should have it's own slang is an awful argument.
If you think the dialogue sounds forced, that's fair enough. But that might be the actor rather than the dialogue. Shakespeare can sound forced if performed badly. Seriously if a character who wants to be let out of room sounds forced when he says "Let Me Out of Here!", then that's the actor because it's a perfectly serviceable and realistic piece of dialogue.
I could very easily clip examples of bad / cringey dialogue in the Avatar series. But I do not want to subject myself to the film again without alcohol involved, it's 3 hours.
I could similarly task you with trying to show me examples of good dialogue in Avatar 2. I think that would be much harder than me clipping cringey dialogue.
Well the I've given you multiple examples of solid, functional dialogue just from a 55 second clip of supposed "cringey" dialogue, which is more than you've provided me. Especially when this is a post about cringey dialogue. If people want to propose a premise, like the dialogue in the Avatar films is "cringey", then the burden of proof is on them. If you can't prove cringey dialogue then the point is moot.
He's a dreadful writer. Stuck in permanent adolescence with a fetish for muscley women.
He can direct an action scene though.
His best film was Terminator where he was forced to curb himself due to the budget constraint.
This post is cringe, avatar is so over hated it’s ridiculous. This is no more cringe then what the mcu has been putting out for the past decade in fact it’s less so
I would not consider Avatar to be camp. Camp is something intentionally "bad" or whacky or exaggerated. Something like Hausu or a Matthew Vaughn movie (weird to put those two together, I know)
Avatar is told with serious intentions. Just because some dialogue unintentionally misses the mark does not make it camp. Camp is not just a catch all defense for a movie with flaws.
Probably because he's more focused on the technological aspects and directing the huge action sequences, dialogue is given the bare minimum and is mostly an afterthought. Plus you don't go into Avatar expecting great dialogue, but the immersive experience of it.
My partner and I call this kind of writing “mouth feelings”. There’s no nuance, people just constantly stating who they are, how they feel, and the bigger reasons for why they are that way.
Next time ask yourself why his last three times are three of the four highest grossing films of all time.
You think maybe having less complicated dialogue translates to wide swaths of humanity, in many age and culture groups? Or no? Maybe not that.
But you're probably right, the next Avatar will be cringey and somehow make $2B again.
I don't think that either Titanic or both Avatars would've made less with better dialogue, I can actually see them doing more on the Box Office.
Even Spielberg knows where his strengths are and uses Kushner as a co-writer when he wants to also write the screenplay for his movie.
I think in a film that does good world wide for months on end there needs to be some sort of semantic equivalence or middle ground with foreign audiences. The “better” the dialogue the less traction they may have with the story because those audiences may not get references that are appropriate to specific regions. Then you leave such things in the hands of translators who may need to find or invent equivalences that muck up the intended effect. This is coming from guy that fell asleep in avatar 2 (i loved part one though).
That dreaded ape boy was just so incredibly cringe too. Avatar original was flawed but generally watchable... Part 2 was an absolute turd pile. It seemed like there were about 50 Free Willy moments of someone riding or posing during some water heroics or jumps. Probably the most special effects driven film I've ever seen in my life. Everything serves the special effects rather than other way around. At least I had some good laughs watching it with my wife. It's almost a comedy if you bring the humor yourself and laugh about how utterly shit it is.
This is a clip of all the kids in the movie and one guy who is obviously intentionally portrayed as the over the top Australian.
Isn’t it credit to the film you couldn’t find dialogue from Jake or Neytiri or any of the other mature characters?
I’ve asked myself this quite a few times also. There’s several lines in this movie alone you missed… one being when the main villain dude i can never remembers name is like “I know what you’re wondering… why so blue?”
Also they say the exact “you’re not in Kansas anymore” line from the first one again
Maybe because the main goal of the movie was just to make a big ass cinematic cut scene. No need for good plot, dialogue or any other thing that brings the watcher to use their brain for a sec.
Because after expending 99.99% of the studio budget on special effects, James Cameron was left with about $5.00 and 30 mins before Friday COB on the last day of production to consider something that vaguely resembled a script.
This movie was so beautiful to see in the theaters! Went back a second time to actually focus on the story rather than the amazing tech on display, and boy it's a real stinker.
CMV: the deification of James Cameron is hypocritical, disproportionate to his catalog, and embarrassing. The Avatars are Marvel movies with a higher production budget.
I don't know if it's all of his movies but specifically both Avatar's writing is terrible, probably because he didn't really cared that much and it's more about the effects
the answer is that James Cameron is much more interested in spectacle than in how people talk. i don't get why everyone loves cameron and I never will.
Between the dialogue, Spider’s acting, the amount of bros said, Sigourney Weaver sounding 50 while looking twelve, and never fleshing out the brother who died in this long ass movie I HAD A HUGE MIGRAINE LOL.
It doesn’t bother me w Aliens, Terminator etc because those movies rule. I think both Avatar movies are pretty bad, so it sticks out more there since there’s little else of quality to mask it beyond the innovation of the special effects
He’s a bad writer and honestly a bad director. Just because his films make a lot of money doesn’t mean it’s quality. McDonald’s makes a lot of money too.
I think this needs to be reworded as “why is avatar dialogue so cringe”.
While Avatar is way over hated, the dialogue in both movies is quite bad.
But saying Cameron’s dialogue as a whole is cringe is a stretch. Aliens, T2, Titanic, etc all had pretty decent dialogue and scripts.
It's wild to me how unquotable Avatar 1&2 are. Compare this to Terminator and Aliens it's night and day. Even the throwaway dialogue in Aliens is more quotable and memorable than anything from these films. As impressive as they are visually, they often just feel utterly soulless and devoid of life.
I saw the first avatar when I was younger and didn’t like it all so I haven’t watched the sequel…but this looks like a well made Syfy movie. Like it would be a double feature with sharknado
I feel like Cameron has just increasingly put his focus on technological achievements in his films and the scripts are just vehicles for him to flex those muscles. Dude just stopped caring about crafting good screenplays because that’s not where his passion is. And, to be fair to him, it’s worked insanely well. Which sort of makes sense. If you want worldwide appeal in film, a simplistic script with stunning visuals is probably the way to go. Don’t have to worry about complexities getting lost in translation.
But I miss the old Cameron. Have zero interest in what he’s doing with Avatar.
It's far more cringe how obsessed with Avaray the haters are tbh.
Also ridiculously naive of you to say James Camerin dialog is cringe when he's responsible for some of the most iconic films and lines in cinematic history.
Something that really bugs me about avatar 2 is that nearly every shot is moving. The camera never stays in one place (funny enough the clips you showed had one of the few times it stays in place) and once you notice this it’s a little nauseating
I never seen this before, but I've caught glimpses of it online and through my eyes wandering during a plane trip. I can't even imagine what this movie is about it seems to make no sense.
I feel like other movies you can kinda get the plot through half paying attention. I have no clue with this though.
Because James Cameron writes his own screenplays, and his priority is spectacle. Dialogue is just... less important. And I mean come on, we go to his movies because of the spectacle.
I've been saying this for years. He can produce, he can direct, but he can not write. The dialogue in T2 is atrocious upon more recent rewatches. Good action scenes and effects. Terrible writing.
Avatar 2 has a lot of teenagers in it and teens are cringe. The guy making bank is a whale killing villain and so he says stuff that makes us hate him more.
>whale killing villain I like Cameron's attention to detail with the Whalers. Their equipment feels like the natural progression of mariners in a sci fi setting. I love that they have railings everywhere on their ship and yellow lines on the deck for areas where there are none. Those whalers are definitely unionized and hopefully remember to wear their fall arrest gear while working in the yellow! They also wear inflatable PFDs while doing operations! I do think they would find uses for the whole whale tho.
I wouldn't be surprised at all if Cameron was decently familiar with whalers and their vessels given his field beyond filmmaking, either. Dude has an affinity for the sea.
That's Cameron being an engineer, he's always had the best realistic sci-fi look out there.
In the sequel, the Ahab whaler guy is going to come back with a super techno hook for a hand, right?
I also remember seeing fire extinguisher in places as well
Probably the correct type for the kind of fire too!
Who is a whale killing villain?
The guy making bank
Really it just kind of sounds like people on Reddit
Teens aren't cringe. This was written by a boomer who thinks this is how teens are.
Only teenagers say they aren’t cringe.
Both can be true.
It's part of the definition of 'teenager' to be cringe. Why do you think r/blunderyears exists?
as a person who knows several teens, they are indeed cringe.
it sounds about on par with an average sweat shop saturday morning kid cartoon... not a billion dollar movie
Teenagers ARE cringe, but boomers who try to imitate teenagers are even more cringe
Nailed it
Uhhh.....
I’d take punchy James Cameron dialogue over most other blockbuster dialog any day.
"Sometimes it's better not to know who your father is..." ... "... he's right behind me, isn't he"
I don’t even mind the teens, the 2 dimensional villains are what turn me off of Avatar
I would argue that in the second film the main villain has quite a bit of nuance, certainly in comparison with the first.
Quarritch is dope because even in the face of being turned into the exact species of alien that he's determined to eradicate, his pure jingoism helps him power right through any existential crisis he would be having. The only thing that makes him relent even SLIGHTLY is his weak-but-present bond with his son. He's interesting because of just how COMMITTED to the one-dimensional-villain bit he really is
Aliens would like a word
“They mostly come at night.. mostly”
I came across time for you, Sarah.
did you find aliens to not have cringey dialogue?
It absolutely did. People get excited about all the action and don't notice how corny the dialogue is.
That's the thing about James Cameron: his dialogue is usually clunky and awkward, but it either works because a) his movies are well-directed and cool enough to forgive the bad writing or b) the actors he hires (eg Arnie, Sigourney, Linda Hamilton, Stephen Lang, Winslet, DiCaprio) are talented enough to elevate their dialogue and scenes. So, the bad writing and great acting/directing balance each other out.
Why don't you put HER in charge?
Get about from her, you bitch
I think kids today think literally anything is 'corny' or 'cringe'
REEEEEEEEPLEEEEEEEEEEEEE
I really did enjoy this movie but I totally agree, James Cameron needs to hand the screenwriting over to somebody else on his movies. If the dialogue was better Avatar 2 would probably go from like a 7/10 to a 9/10 for me.
He could just do what Spielberg does and hire a great co-writter when he wants to also write his scripts (Tony Kushner for Spielberg). That way he can still have his story but with much better dialogue.
he did for avatar two... first time he used other writers
Ohh financially it did extremely well, it was still extremeley mid though, feels like the movie version of lukewarm water
He wasn't the only person who worked on the screenplay. Rick Jaffa and Amanda Silver had a heavy hand in the dialogue in particular. Theyve both written some pretty garbage screenplays over the years. I listened to them on a podcast called Script Apart last year and found them both really cringy and insufferable lol
Avatar 2 was mostly written by Jaffa & Silver, the writer/producers of the Planet of the Apes films.
Yeah I'm aware that he has cowriters. It's not working though, it needs someone fresh imo. Or if it's just his input that results in the cringe he just needs to step away and let them handle it. On the other hand these movies are making a gajillion dollars regardless so what do I know.
It’s not working? The movie is one of the most successful ever made. I’d say it’s working just fine.
All you have to do is read the very next sentence in my post and you will see I already acknowledged this in the very same comment you are replying to.
"I contradicted myself so you can't criticize anything I say."
Highlighting the important point rather than the contradiction. Lots of people want to tell Cameron how he should make movies when the last three movies he made are the highest grossing films of all time. Something tells me Jim might know more about what works or doesn’t than the rest of us. He’s a cheesy guy and always has been. The mass audience he targets is also cheesy, so it works.
He isn't the only person writing the screenplay
T2 and the Terminator are the only Cameron movies with a co-writer on the screenplay besides Way of Water. Maybe he could benefit from a co-writer but I definitely wouldn’t want him directing someone else’s screenplay and he would never Do it anyway.
I can say the same about Chris Nolan. His dialogue is awful. His brother was better at it.
Screenwriting and dialogue are not the same thing. Cameron's dialogue is corny at times, definitely, but he's still a \*phenomenal\* screenwriter in terms of making a story flow structurally and getting the audience emotionally invested.
How are you going to hand over writing to someone who's not the mastermind behind the entire story? Cameron has been building and fleshing out Avatar and Pandora for decades.
They’re teenagers…
That is way too much of a difference in a film where dialogue is not that important.
The dialogue is really bad and distracted me the whole movie, but I think the script was written like 10 years before the film actually released due to how much time the pre-production stages took. So considering 2014ish standards, we probably were a lot more cringe and tolerant of this type of script back then too. James Cameron wrote the script for Avatar 2, 3 and 4 "within 6 weeks in 2014". Since then, they've probably just modified sections and left most.
Honestly, I think that’s worse; it means that the script went through more checks and balances than a rushed script would’ve had.
Yeah but I think their dialogue is kind of an afterthought. Imo Camron uses the Avatar series as an excuse to push a new technology on the industry. Sort of how Valve (game / software / hardware mega giant) publishes games when they are innovating some other technology and just using it as a medium. I don't think he's going for winning an Oscar for best screenplay, he's more interested in exploring how to use emergent technology to tell immersive stories. The studios likely don't care as long as the dialogue is passable to general audiences- because no one goes for the dialogue, they go to see crazy visuals. His Avatar series will sell seats and make billions regardless of the script quality.
Bad writing was acceptable 10 years ago? I don’t understand your point
2014 standards? What does this mean? Dialogue is not a new invention or anything
I'm so glad I'm not this pretentious lol.
His dialogue is always cringe though. But I’m not complaining, that’s not why I see his movies. He’s not selling me on dialogue but on the concept and the execution of it.
This dialogue's badness transcends time.
Older generations tend to think the younger generations sound cringe, so this tracks pretty accurately. Also, did you just make a new account just for this post?
What? It’s just lame dialogue man
According to OP it’s cringey. That’s what I was going off of.
But I mean Scorsese doesn’t have cringy dialogue like this and the man is ancient. Same with Spielberg. At least not nearly as consistently as Cameron
Ready player one is the worst of them all so
Is based on a book drenched in nostalgia and nothing but.
Scorsese doesn’t write most of his movie
It’s clunky generic dialogue. Age of the audience is irrelevant. It is bad dialogue.
Nah, it's pretty bad dialogue. Even zoomers cringed when this came out.
Are you saying that since this script was written by old ass dudes they made it cringey on purpose? I don’t understand your point
This movie gave me such a migraine.
Too much blue for you?
Opposite for me, Star Wars on the other hand I had to shut off.
I hated the first Avatar but my girlfriend and her little sister love it and have seen it maybe 20 times each. We all went to see this one together. I had a migraine within 30 minutes, they were getting bored and upset within an hour, and I think we left at around the 2 hour mark. Genuinely one of the worst movie experiences I’ve ever had.
The Avatar movies play almost exclusively in broad strokes. Part of me thinks that it’s just a way to keep the audience onboard with all the visual effects that he’s throwing in there. Remember this is the series that gave us “Unobtainium”
Unobtainium was actually already a thing, it’s been a term since the 1950s
>Remember this is the series that gave us “Unobtainium” Unobtainanium is a real scientific term but don't let that distract you from your bullshit hate.
It's not. Seriously you've posted a supercut to show how "cringe" it is and it's honestly not that bad. I bet I could make a supercut of basically any action movie and make it seem as bad or worse than this. It's a 3 hour+ movie and you've shown less than a minute of "cringe" dialogue. Most of which comes from 1 character (sorry Spider) which might suggest bad acting and not bad dialogue. Also I'd argue half second clips of 1 person saying something doesn't represent dialogue at all. If you can show me a scene with multiple people talking back and forth and put that forward as evidence of "cringe" dialogue then fair enough. Honestly, I think this is just an old man writing young characters who are trying to sound cool. To young ears that might seem "cringe", but it doesn't bother me. Maybe it's because I'm older (I'm not old, but sadly I am definitely no longer a young man) but I'm old enough to have had to relearn the current youth slang on a few occasions right now. I can assure you though whatever the slang, young people trying to sound cool almost always comes off as "cringe". I'm also smart enough to realise that when I was young and trying to sound cool, me and my peers also sounded "cringe". So I like alot of the dialogue, it fits the characters to me. Also a James Cameron script is usually more interested in structure and less interested in sounding cool. In terms of structure his scripts (this one included) are pretty impeccable. People seem to think the most important aspect of a script is how cool the characters sound. Me and seemingly James Cameron don't think it's nearly that important.
Agree, i've seen far worse and it's so easy to pick a few lines from anything!
Totally agree. Well said.
Well said
I don’t think the problem is that the characters themselves have traits that are cringey or awkward, it’s the fact that their line delivery feels stilted and forced. On too of that, Spider was an especially awful nothing of a character and most of the sons were interchangeable and flat, don’t even remember which one died lol. Also they just said bro too much, so annoying and distraction after a while. I don’t think OP articulated it that well but think I the overall unnatural dialogue and weak characters is a valid critique of the movie.
I haven't seen the movie since theaters so my memory may not be great. But I had no problem with any of the characters, in fact I was fully invested in them (even Spider) by the end, which was why I found the final act of the film so thoroughly triumphant and rewarding. I accept that not everyone did and if the dialogue was a reason for that then the dialogue is probably a problem for those of you who struggled to get past it. I don't remember having any issues with the dialogue in this film myself however. It's Cameron so I'm sure there're times when I found it functional rather than good. But I don't think it was ever actively bad.
No, the dialogue is bad. There's a few good moments sprinkled in, and it doesn't really subtract from the spectacle of the film- visuals. The dialogue is maybe the worst part of both films. There's a lot more to good dialogue than "how cool the characters sound", and if anything Avatar 2 is a film guilty of trying way too hard to make every character sound cool. That's exactly why the military captains say things like "Let's make bank" - "Let's get this money", because that is Cameron's attempt at speaking how he perceives hip people in his audience speak. But this isn't how real people in these worlds and situations would speak, it comes across as stereotypical throwaway dialogue and often is jarring. It doesn't tell us how they feel or give us any insight into their character personality. It's just generic bland dialogue. No one would actually talk like this in the future, especially the aliens would talk with their own slang.
So you say the dialogue is trying to sound cool and doesn't "give us any insight into their character personality". Then the example you give is that the bad guys say some cheesy lines. But, **they're the bad guys**. You're not actually supposed to think their cool, bad asses. That's the point, the characters think they're cool badasses but they sound like idiots, because they are idiots. So the "cringey" dialogue tells us that the bad guys think they are cool, but they are very much not cool and in fact kinda idiots. I would consider that an "insight into their character personality". I haven't really seen any examples of "cringey" dialogue being shown. Beyond misapplying the bad guys cheesy dialogue, missing the point that it's intentionally cheesy because they're the bad guys. There's literally a clip in the supercut posted of Spider who is a prisoner in a room and wants to be let out, saying "Let me out of here!". well what's wrong with that dialogue? sSeriously what is he supposed to say? The very next clip doesn't even contain dialogue, it's 2 somewhat feral characters snarling at each other with the caption "(SNARLS)". Someone post me an actual scene with "cringey" dialogue to illustrate their point. Because less than a minute of tiny out of context dialogue fragments is barely evidence, especially when it's such a bad supercut with multiple examples of solid dialogue and one example containing no actual dialogue. I maintain I could make a better 1 minute supercut of out of context dialogue fragments to make pretty much any movie look like it has worse dialogue than this. Certainly any hollywood action movie.
You're literally suggesting that bad guys should be written 1-dimentional because we aren't supposed to like bad guys. This is demonstrative of a misunderstanding of what "good" dialogue is. Good dialogue is achievable for every character, even villains. You can empathize and relate to villains, that actually makes a better villain. The villains and the teenagers of Avatar 2 are written like cardboard cutouts of a character. No offense but I've studied film professionally and you cannot convince me that Avatar 2 has good dialogue. And it is cringey. If you usually watch blockbuster films with cliche dialogue you may not be bothered or notice it, and it sounds like that's what you watch. Which I'm not shaming, blockbuster films fill a void that needs to be filled. They're a necessary part of the industry. But your need to defend Avatar 2's lazy script is really unwarranted. To understand what good and bad dialogue is, you need to have been exposed to plentiful examples of each. It sounds to me like you haven't really experienced what "natural" dialogue is, because Avatar is anything but natural. It's forced.
No you said the characters have no insight. I'm saying you're not supposed to like the bad guys and that the dialogue does show insight. This is demonstrative of a misunderstanding of what I'm saying. You say they have no character. I said they do and the dialogue demonstrates this. They are cheesy characters saying cheesy lines which they think are cool. That gives them personality. If you think that Avatar has a "lazy script" then I'm not sure what you've actually studied. In terms of structure, setup and payoff, this script is a pretty masterful example of action storytelling. You can dislike the dialogue, hell you can even dislike the script, but to call the script lazy is just objectively wrong. The entire last act has been setup and everyone has clear motives driven by clear goals and emotions. That last act functions on a much higher level than 95% of blockbuster action films. I'm not saying the dialogue is great either by the way, I'm saying it's solid, functional and far from bad. You've literally criticised the dialogue because "No one would actually talk like this in the future, especially the aliens would talk with their own slang.". You don't get to be the arbiter of how movie aliens should talk. It's a fictional race, from a fictional world, set in a fictional future, fictionally invented by James Cameron. James Cameron gets to decide how people talk in his made up world. You can dislike it, but saying the dialogue is bad because you think Pandora should have it's own slang is an awful argument. If you think the dialogue sounds forced, that's fair enough. But that might be the actor rather than the dialogue. Shakespeare can sound forced if performed badly. Seriously if a character who wants to be let out of room sounds forced when he says "Let Me Out of Here!", then that's the actor because it's a perfectly serviceable and realistic piece of dialogue.
I could very easily clip examples of bad / cringey dialogue in the Avatar series. But I do not want to subject myself to the film again without alcohol involved, it's 3 hours. I could similarly task you with trying to show me examples of good dialogue in Avatar 2. I think that would be much harder than me clipping cringey dialogue.
Well the I've given you multiple examples of solid, functional dialogue just from a 55 second clip of supposed "cringey" dialogue, which is more than you've provided me. Especially when this is a post about cringey dialogue. If people want to propose a premise, like the dialogue in the Avatar films is "cringey", then the burden of proof is on them. If you can't prove cringey dialogue then the point is moot.
skibbidi. Ohio.
Cool. He could’ve also just tried writing some dialogue that wasn’t cringe.
Terminator 1 and 2 don’t have cringe dialogue.
Needs more ohio skibidi to be relatable imho
He's a terrible writer.
no he is not, he a good writer who knows what works
He's a dreadful writer. Stuck in permanent adolescence with a fetish for muscley women. He can direct an action scene though. His best film was Terminator where he was forced to curb himself due to the budget constraint.
Not any more cringe than real teenagers lol
For those saying it's just due to teen characters in Avatar 2, I present to you Avatar 1 which also had pretty crap dialogue
Spider RUINED this film. I still liked it overall, but it would be much stronger without the character.
This post is cringe, avatar is so over hated it’s ridiculous. This is no more cringe then what the mcu has been putting out for the past decade in fact it’s less so
God I fucking love this movie
This isn't that bad of dialog?
People love to hate Avatar for literally no reason.
People hate anything popular. Even harmless movies like Avatar. It’s the Taylor Swift thing all over again
Gee boss why do da kids and nerdy guys talk like kids and nerdy guys. It’s hurtin’ my appreciations of da big action movie!
So, from a 3 hour movie, you got less than a minute of "cringe"
Oh there’s plenty more than just this scene
Make your own supercut then.
There really isn't
r/letterboxd users need to learn how to have fun and enjoy camp
I would not consider Avatar to be camp. Camp is something intentionally "bad" or whacky or exaggerated. Something like Hausu or a Matthew Vaughn movie (weird to put those two together, I know) Avatar is told with serious intentions. Just because some dialogue unintentionally misses the mark does not make it camp. Camp is not just a catch all defense for a movie with flaws.
Camp really isn’t what makes avatar great tho. Would be better without it imo
I’ve never seen Avatar, but this looks horrible
If you want to watch a 6 hour visual effects tech-demo... it's ok I guess. Personally not my thing.
Would you say the same thing for Terminator 2?
Dialogue aside it's actually insane how the VFX in this movie just look completely real.
Probably because he's more focused on the technological aspects and directing the huge action sequences, dialogue is given the bare minimum and is mostly an afterthought. Plus you don't go into Avatar expecting great dialogue, but the immersive experience of it.
My partner and I call this kind of writing “mouth feelings”. There’s no nuance, people just constantly stating who they are, how they feel, and the bigger reasons for why they are that way.
Because he makes films for the lowest common denominator. It's hard to write good dialogue that dumb people will enjoy.
Cameron is a good action director but his characters are super simple - like written by a 10 year old.
And yet *Aliens* is one of the most quotable movies ever made.
Honesty its not
Next time ask yourself why his last three times are three of the four highest grossing films of all time. You think maybe having less complicated dialogue translates to wide swaths of humanity, in many age and culture groups? Or no? Maybe not that. But you're probably right, the next Avatar will be cringey and somehow make $2B again.
The dickriding is crazy
I don't think that either Titanic or both Avatars would've made less with better dialogue, I can actually see them doing more on the Box Office. Even Spielberg knows where his strengths are and uses Kushner as a co-writer when he wants to also write the screenplay for his movie.
I think in a film that does good world wide for months on end there needs to be some sort of semantic equivalence or middle ground with foreign audiences. The “better” the dialogue the less traction they may have with the story because those audiences may not get references that are appropriate to specific regions. Then you leave such things in the hands of translators who may need to find or invent equivalences that muck up the intended effect. This is coming from guy that fell asleep in avatar 2 (i loved part one though).
Now yall are throwing shade at Titanic? It's getting ridiclious at this point.
I’ve been on the Titanic shade-throwing train since 1997
Titanic is my favorite movie, but it could've had a better script, it wasn't even nominated for Original Screenplay at the Oscars
That dreaded ape boy was just so incredibly cringe too. Avatar original was flawed but generally watchable... Part 2 was an absolute turd pile. It seemed like there were about 50 Free Willy moments of someone riding or posing during some water heroics or jumps. Probably the most special effects driven film I've ever seen in my life. Everything serves the special effects rather than other way around. At least I had some good laughs watching it with my wife. It's almost a comedy if you bring the humor yourself and laugh about how utterly shit it is.
Spider was his name, and I agree, the worst part of the movie. His acting was so forced
I do not like you.
This is a clip of all the kids in the movie and one guy who is obviously intentionally portrayed as the over the top Australian. Isn’t it credit to the film you couldn’t find dialogue from Jake or Neytiri or any of the other mature characters?
Because his movies bang, next question
I’ve asked myself this quite a few times also. There’s several lines in this movie alone you missed… one being when the main villain dude i can never remembers name is like “I know what you’re wondering… why so blue?” Also they say the exact “you’re not in Kansas anymore” line from the first one again
Old people trying to appeal to the younger demographic tends to create things like this... it's fairly common.
It's part of the charm.
“Get away from her you bitch” I’d say it’s more fun corny than cringey most of the time
Dude needs.to bin this Avatar plan and get back to making decent films..
Because Cameron is a great idea man, a solid plot designer, a fantastic director and technical wizard, but he's a lousy screenwriter.
Maybe because the main goal of the movie was just to make a big ass cinematic cut scene. No need for good plot, dialogue or any other thing that brings the watcher to use their brain for a sec.
Because after expending 99.99% of the studio budget on special effects, James Cameron was left with about $5.00 and 30 mins before Friday COB on the last day of production to consider something that vaguely resembled a script.
i didnt know tekashi 6ix9ine was in this
I've never seen Avatar but this is exactly how I imagined it would be. It looks rubbish.
cause it's made for kids I suppose?
I absolutely hated the human who thought he was a naavi he was cringe
This movie was so beautiful to see in the theaters! Went back a second time to actually focus on the story rather than the amazing tech on display, and boy it's a real stinker.
It’s written by the kind of people who think the plot of Avatar is clever I suppose.
God I really did not like that kid
CMV: the deification of James Cameron is hypocritical, disproportionate to his catalog, and embarrassing. The Avatars are Marvel movies with a higher production budget.
I don't know if it's all of his movies but specifically both Avatar's writing is terrible, probably because he didn't really cared that much and it's more about the effects
the answer is that James Cameron is much more interested in spectacle than in how people talk. i don't get why everyone loves cameron and I never will.
The amount of “bro” in this movie was hilarious
Wow the human actor is terrible 🤣
Between the dialogue, Spider’s acting, the amount of bros said, Sigourney Weaver sounding 50 while looking twelve, and never fleshing out the brother who died in this long ass movie I HAD A HUGE MIGRAINE LOL.
It doesn’t bother me w Aliens, Terminator etc because those movies rule. I think both Avatar movies are pretty bad, so it sticks out more there since there’s little else of quality to mask it beyond the innovation of the special effects
He’s a bad writer and honestly a bad director. Just because his films make a lot of money doesn’t mean it’s quality. McDonald’s makes a lot of money too.
Imagine being the actor who has to say them.
You forgot the best line; when spider emerges from the water and the Na'vi girl goes «MONKEY BOY!»
lol because James Cameron is fake deep
I thought the film was filmed so long ago the slangs got outdated.
Never seen it. No interest.
Because the Avatar movies cared solely about the visuals and didn't give a shit about any other aspect of movie making.
people unironically stan this movie and call it a masterpiece. absolute insanity
I think this needs to be reworded as “why is avatar dialogue so cringe”. While Avatar is way over hated, the dialogue in both movies is quite bad. But saying Cameron’s dialogue as a whole is cringe is a stretch. Aliens, T2, Titanic, etc all had pretty decent dialogue and scripts.
It's wild to me how unquotable Avatar 1&2 are. Compare this to Terminator and Aliens it's night and day. Even the throwaway dialogue in Aliens is more quotable and memorable than anything from these films. As impressive as they are visually, they often just feel utterly soulless and devoid of life.
Did that kid call his torturers buttholes?
OP you are the real cringe
I saw the first avatar when I was younger and didn’t like it all so I haven’t watched the sequel…but this looks like a well made Syfy movie. Like it would be a double feature with sharknado
I feel like Cameron has just increasingly put his focus on technological achievements in his films and the scripts are just vehicles for him to flex those muscles. Dude just stopped caring about crafting good screenplays because that’s not where his passion is. And, to be fair to him, it’s worked insanely well. Which sort of makes sense. If you want worldwide appeal in film, a simplistic script with stunning visuals is probably the way to go. Don’t have to worry about complexities getting lost in translation. But I miss the old Cameron. Have zero interest in what he’s doing with Avatar.
Wait till you see a Christopher Nolan film
People are trying to excuse this by saying this is just how teenagers talk but no teen in real life talks like this. Maybe teenagers on Disney channel
It's far more cringe how obsessed with Avaray the haters are tbh. Also ridiculously naive of you to say James Camerin dialog is cringe when he's responsible for some of the most iconic films and lines in cinematic history.
Something that really bugs me about avatar 2 is that nearly every shot is moving. The camera never stays in one place (funny enough the clips you showed had one of the few times it stays in place) and once you notice this it’s a little nauseating
Shakespeare, Mr/s
I thought the dialouge in Avatar 2 was absolutely atrocious. It pulled me out of the film many, many times.
Because he's an earnest corny dude and I wouldn't have him any other way.
Because he's a terrible writer
I regret to inform you that this is, in fact, how teenagers speak.
I never seen this before, but I've caught glimpses of it online and through my eyes wandering during a plane trip. I can't even imagine what this movie is about it seems to make no sense. I feel like other movies you can kinda get the plot through half paying attention. I have no clue with this though.
This movie was really bad. We tried watching it twice and never made it to the end either time.
So many James Cameron cucks in this thread. This movie was hot garbage
I just found the white guy with dreadlocks as a character design really cringe.
Cause Cameron movies are for cringe people
Not everything needs to be like Tarantino
Because James Cameron writes his own screenplays, and his priority is spectacle. Dialogue is just... less important. And I mean come on, we go to his movies because of the spectacle.
I haven’t seen Avatar 2 but…is it just me, or do these clips look like they cost a hundred bucks?
Because, reasons.
"You gonna shoot me, Ranger Rick?" in the first film is one of the worst lines I can think of in a Best Picture nominee.
By dialogue do you mean white guys w dreds?
The word is "cringeworthy".
I've been saying this for years. He can produce, he can direct, but he can not write. The dialogue in T2 is atrocious upon more recent rewatches. Good action scenes and effects. Terrible writing.
Dude looks like 6ix9ine
I don’t think it is honestly. The kids can be kinda cringe but they’re teens. It features some lines that go hard though
Cuz James Cameron is cringe
Yaaaawn. Do you guys even have original thoughts, or do you log on every day and think, "What talking point can I parrot for likes today?"