At this point, I think it’s safe to say that James Cameron’s “Avatar” has surpassed Wal-Mart, fluorescent light bulbs and baby leashes on the scale of popularity. It has accumulated more than a billion dollars worth of profit since its release back in December of last year and is currently listed as #119 on Internet Movie Database’s Top 250 films, of which “The Shawshank Redemption” has been crowned at top film by the website’s users. Needless to say, I find it almost impossible finding a single person who hasn’t at least heard of the film, which has been named a technical masterpiece. Now of course, that meant everyone had their fingers crossed for some mind-blowing extras in the film’s inevitable DVD/Blu-Ray release….and let’s just say that many people were severely disappointed.
Besides the loss of excitement, which stemmed from seeing “Avatar” in all its glory in IMAX 3D, viewers who spent their hard earned money hoping to get an extra dose of the “Na’vi” and the lush environments of Pandora were served with absolutely no extra features. That’s right, not even half-assed interviews were bothered to be included in order to please the faithful, who actually made “Avatar,” the phenomena that it is today.
But if that wasn’t enough of a slap to the face, Cameron has the audacity to release “Avatar: Special Edition” in theaters (it was released on August 27th) in IMAX 3D, which of course means that a single ticket can cost up to $30, depending on your location. Being that I have absolutely no social life, I decided to see this re-release of “Avatar,” and boy, besides from my wallet being $19 lighter, I came out terribly, terribly, terribly frustrated.
I won’t even bother giving a review for anything besides the special features because I feel like the summaries and the praise for the film’s tech has been regurgitated way too many times and besides, the only reason a person would even see “Avatar: Special Edition” is for the extras. Sadly, unless you actually remember the entire film scene-for-scene, then you won’t be able to differentiate the extras from the regular footage, which pretty much sums up the quality of these scenes. Even the “very powerful emotion scene” as Cameron described it, is extremely hard to find without the help of the trusty internet.
Overall, there’s nothing really special about “Avatar: Special Edition.” I did enjoy seeing the film on the big screen once again, but I would recommend anyone who has seen the film and is hoping for the epic extras that the DVD lacked to stay at home – James Cameron has enough money at this point and this shameless re-release is absolutely disgusting.
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Follow Mariusz Zubrowski on Twitter at http://twitter.com/ItsJustMariusz.
I couldn’t agree more. This is a shameless money grab, especially in this economy with people losing their jobs; their houses; their savings. This smacks not only of greed but also bombasity on both Cameron and the studio’s part. “Look at how much money we’ve made. No other movie will ever come close. And we’re making more by the day.” It borders on immoral IMO.
I have to agree. This wasn’t really worth seeing again.