It's 2025 And I Just Watched 2009's Avatar For The First Time – These Are My Honest Thoughts

I have a spotty history with "Avatar," the 2009 movie about blue people made by writer/director James Cameron. I recall, quite clearly, going to see the film with some friends during Christmas break while I was home from college, and the reason I recall it so specifically is that I went to one of the hyped-up 3D screenings. This is a three hour long movie, right? About an hour in, I almost used my popcorn bucket as a barf bag because the 3D glasses were making me so unbelievably nauseated. I tried to take the glasses off thinking that might help, but then the distortion of the images made me dizzy. That's when I walked out.

Clearly, this isn't the fault of "Avatar," per se. Any movie presented in this way would have toppled me, weak as I apparently am when it comes to 3D technology. After that slightly dramatic episode, though, I basically forgot about "Avatar" writ large, and then the sequel "Avatar: The Way of Water" came out in 2022, and everyone went wild over it. Now, with the threequel "Avatar: Fire & Ash" heading to theaters, I thought maybe I should revisit the original movie without any 3D effects whatsoever. (Also, my editor asked me to.)

I'll get into more specifics shortly, but first things first: "Avatar" takes place in the 22nd century and centers on Jake Sully (Sam Worthington), a human Marine who helps an organization known as the Resources Development Administration, or RDA, to mine the moon Pandora for a substance called unobtanium (I rolled my eyes too, but it's technically a real scientific term), which the ravaged Earth sorely needs to try and rebuild. Guided by Sigourney Weaver's Dr. Grace Augustine, Jake uses his titular avatar to infiltrate the native Pandoran tribe, the Na'vi.

I need to get something off my chest, and that's that the narration in "Avatar" sucks. James Cameron is an objectively good filmmaker when it comes to iconography and spectacle, but I really wish he'd hired somebody else to write the movie's script; starting things off with an exposition dump in voice-over is just part of the problem here. Jokes have been made over the years about how "Avatar" is blue "Pocahontas" or blue "Dances with Wolves," and it's not not either of those things, if I'm being honest. After Jake gets the Na'vi, especially his eventual mate and the tribe's princess Neytiri (a motion-captured Zoe Saldaña, who's spent an inordinate amount of time at this point being either green or blue on-screen) to trust him, he comes to understand and even respect their way of life, turning against the RDA so that Cameron can stage a massive battle during the film's third act. (The battle, I will say, looks awesome.)

Between stuff like "unobtanium" (which, again, I get is a "real word," but it still makes me groan) and the script's general clunkiness, I found it hard to fully give myself over to "Avatar," fantastical and beautifully designed as it may be. Every character over-explains every single plot beat half to death, which left me rolling my eyes in moments where, presumably, a less crabby viewer might've been swept away by the spectacle. Not a whole lot happens other than Jake undertaking a journey to become a true Na'vi, which he does during the movie's final moments (and which, I assume, kicks off the events of "The Way of Water"). This created a viewing experience where I just ... didn't care about what was happening.

My biggest gripe with "Avatar" ties into the script issue, which is that I don't care about anybody in this movie. Jake Sully, a protagonist whose name I could not have recalled before rewatching this film if you'd paid me handsomely, is given a tragic backstory — an injury that results in him being physically disabled and a dead brother — but there's not much substance there, and it was really hard for me to feel concerned any time he was in danger. Neytiri was a bit more compelling, but the best thing I can say about her character is that she's one of only a few prominent women amongst the Na'Vi; I could not, for the life of me, tell any of the men apart. (For example, I kept mixing up Neytiri's dad and her previous suitor, and I still don't know their names off the top of my head.)

Aretha Franklin once said, when asked to review the work of singer/songwriter Taylor Swift, that Swift wears "Great gowns, beautiful gowns." While I firmly believe that Franklin only said this because she passed away before "folklore" came out, this honestly sums up how I feel about "Avatar." The gowns — meaning the world, the groundbreaking special effects, and the lush, whole-cloth creation of Pandora — sure are beautiful in this movie, but that's as far as it goes, at least for me. The story beats are, again, very familiar, and "Avatar" doesn't leave enough of a mark to fully move past the fact that it's telling a tale we've already heard dozens of times. Maybe the sequels kick things up a notch, and I'll consider checking them out next time I have several hours to spare.

"Avatar" is streaming on Disney+.