Will you watch Avatar again for 8 extra minutes?

20 July 2010

John Howell

It's hard to forget the amount of media attention James Cameron's Avatar received when it was first released. This website, like many other media outlets, was caught up in an Avatar frenzy - James Cameron,Titanic director extraordinaire, will revolutionise film making forever! In fact, we were probably one of the worst offenders. We've written at least ten articles on Avatar already, not including this one.

Well now it appears Avatar will be released in theatres again 27 August, and the frenzy can begin anew. This time though, Avatar has been significantly improved; this time there will be a "massive" eight minutes of extra footage. Yes, I know you're overwhelmed, eight minutes is a huge amount of time, so I'll repeat it again just to be ultra clear, just so that it sinks in properly: the new version of James Cameron's Avatar will feature an extra eight minutes of new, unseen, never before witnessed footage. That's eight discrete 60-second time segments. The original theatrical release ran 162 minutes in length, the extended "Special Edition" runs for a whopping 170 minutes of normal human time. The film is likely to be completely and utterly transformed. The plot will be better, the effects will resonate longer, and Pandora will look so stunning you'll think that last time you visited it was in 2D, in black and white, and there was no sound. Sam Worthington's acting will improve too.

Actually, that last bit is probably a bit over the top.

Is it just me, or does re-releasing a film in theatres less than a year later with just eight extra minutes of extra footage seem like a shallow, money driven exercise, with little real value to the film going public? I know Avatar made a large amount of money and is massively popular, I know there are a lot of fans out there waiting for the sequel, desperate to experience more, but this whole special edition, extended footage, enhanced blu-ray, digital sound remastered, rebalanced alpha waves nonsense has got to stop. Forcing hypnotised, wide-eyed sci-fi maniacs (myself included) to keep handing over cash for every subtly different version of an original film has become an extremely cynical, profit driven exercise. It's become – dare I say it – evil. Does James Cameron need more money? Does the studio? Perhaps they can back off a bit now and treat their fans with a little more respect. Perhaps they can give everyone that extra eight minutes for free? It's only the highest grossing film of all time for God's sake! Or at least they could release the TOTALLY NEW VERSION (ha ha) as a charity-screening event. I'd feel better then anyway.

I blame Star Wars director George Lucas. Lucas released endless theatrical and special editions of the original Star Wars Trilogy (in fact, it's fair to say he got carried away) and then Hollywood went nuts and decided this is something that had to be done with every blockbuster movie (especially if it's a trilogy in the science fiction or fantasy genre). New Line and Peter Jackson followed this pattern by releasing the special edition of The Lord of the Rings Trilogy on DVD only. The blu-ray version is coming later, right after they've sucked every crazy hobbit fan dry, manipulating them into buying the special edition DVD version first (remember that they've already released a standard theatrical version). Of course, Mr Lucas' still hasn't released the Stars Wars trilogy on blu-ray yet (he's saving this perhaps for when he experiences financial difficulties and has to sell his house to pay back the banks - or something). And then he can convert everything into 3D and sell them all over again. Later he can rework the original Star Wars movies once more (a special special edition) and touch up the three new ones and tie them all up in a special Star Wars ribbon - maybe adding never before seen footage of Jar Jar Bink's falling down a hole and getting his head smashed in by intergalactic space monsters too (that last sentence didn't really work, I just wanted to describe Jar Jar Binks getting his head smashed in by intergalactic space monsters). I'm not advocating communism or socialism (at least not today) but can everyone please stop the re-releases and enhanced digital bullshit unless the new release contains demonstrably significant improvements on the original work. Otherwise I shall go mad.

Anyway, 20th Century Fox is releasing the extended Avatar "Special Edition" in theatres 27 August. Watch the Avatar "Special Edition" trailer on YouTube below to catch fleeting glimpses of those elusive eight minutes.

Sadly, after writing all of the above, I'll probably end up paying again to go and see it in the cinemas myself (after all, I'm a wide-eyed, sci-fi maniac too).

You can read about the plot of Cameron's Avatar sequel (Avatar 2?) and its ocean setting here. Follow this link to read our original Avatar review.

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