Avatar skepticism was at an all-time high during the run-up to The Way of Water's release in December 2022. After a 13-year wait for the sequel to the biggest film of all time, did anyone still care about Pandora and its blue-hued natives? Turns out they did, to the tune of some $2.3bn at the global box office. Doubt Big Jim Cameron at your peril.
And yet, Na'vi naysayers still found a way to downplay the film landing at #3 in all-time box office charts, touting the peerless technical achievements while claiming that the story and characters fell short. "No cultural footprint" is a common jibe.
