Where I Watched it: Disney Plus

English Audio Description provided By: Deluxe

Narrated By William michael Redmond

I swear these films need a companion piece for the blind community that describes Pandora in extreme detail. The reason being is that the world is all make believe. There’s really nothing based in reality here, except for the concept of humans. The tech used in the film is futuristic, the ships are a pipe dream, and the Na’vi are living in a world far removed from our own. While the audio description really is trying to always mention as much of it as it can, it never really is an immersive experience because Cameron’s visual effects are so off the charts, that it’s hard to squeeze it in.

And, you have to largely squeeze it in where there isn’t action, which is also a challenge. At one point in the film, it just feels like the remaining portion is a race to the finish of this over three hour film, giving you a wildly sustainable action sequence. I ahve to give it to Cameron for his immersive experience, and also the action is non stop. he does make a really tough choice at least once in the film, and I think plot wise, making that choice made a more grounded film.

But what is this actually about? It’s been out forever, and all I kept hearing about were these damn whales. yes, sea life exists, but not at the extent film critics made you think. This isn’t Free Willy, and the main character is not a whale. it’s still our two leads from the last film, now that Jake is a full on Avatar, and their kids. One of those kids is now Sigourney Weaver, and we don’t get a ton of explanation on that. It’s just something magical that happened. Also, there’s a human kid, Spyder, who was with the remaining colonists, who hangs out a lot. He’s freakishly important to the plot, though his breathing apparatus is described at a cursory level.

So, who comes in to fuck shit up this time around? if you believed the hype, you heard it was Edie Falco. hah. No. It’s Stephen lang, who is now downloaded into an Avatar, and watches a message from his old self before he sets off to destroy what he wanted to destroy the first time around. So, just like Jake, he now lives on.

Cameron doesn’t always make sequels. he actually makes very few movies. but, when he last made a sequel to his own film, he knew he had to raise the stakes, and we got Robert Patrick as the next level Terminator in judgment Day. Here, this is just like if Arnold was still the villain in the sequel, but they made some upgrades. So, it’s not quite as cool. While the film does actually set up a promising third entry, it can’t just keep leaning on Stephen Lang to be the villain that never forgets or forgives, and is here to mess up Jake’s life no matter what.

Even though Cameron found ways to make it different, it still felt like a lot of the same. And considering the wait, I was a little let down. Perhaps the visuals for the sighted audiences are just that amazing. but with those effects needs to come a story, and even though the first film was basically Ferngully, it had a plot all its own. Here, it’s just the same villain is back, and stronger than before. And whales.

It’s not that the audio description is bad, it’s that Avatar is such an incredible amount of stuff needing description. Just like when I watched the first film, I felt like it did the primary focus of helping us understand the plot, but it struggles on the secondary function of creating an immersive experience. It’s been handed War and Peace and must read it in under an hour. It’s basically impossible.

I was able to see when the first Avatar came out, and since then, I lost my sight. So Avatar 2 was this completely different experience. There were parts I could visualize based on what i remembered from the first film, but other parts that were new I kinda used a little of my own imagination. I don’t mind filling in those gaps, but I know others do. I enjoy audio description by William Michael Redmond, and he’s easily one of my favorite narrators, but at the end of the day, I think it came down to the plot of the sequel.

Cameron originally got a lot of flack from the internet for too many similarities to other films with the plot of the first Avatar, though here he has no sequel to lean on. He just has his own creativity to launch from, which is why we got a tale that involved the sea, something he’s been very invested in. That personalization should have resonated more, and created a deeper plot, but instead we got something that always felt like it was chasing the first film, instead of taking what the first did and making it even better.

Final Grade: B