Links 22
Jamie Lauren Keiles: “Though the first ‘Avatar’ was the world’s top-grossing movie not once, but twice, reclaiming the title from ‘Avengers: Endgame’ after a 2021 rerelease in China, its most oft-cited claim to fame is its surprising lack of cultural impact. While films of similar scale and ambition — ‘Star Wars,’ ‘Jurassic Park,’ ‘Iron Man’ — have spawned fandoms and quotable lines and shareable memes and licensed merchandise, ‘Avatar’ has spawned mainly punch lines.”
“‘This, I’ve answered before,’ he cried. ‘Tell them, screw the identity parade. Tell them, we are snakes who shed our skin. Tell them we just moved downtown from Carnegie Hill. Tell them we were born yesterday. Tell them we materialised by magic, or arrived from the neighbourhood of Alpha Centauri in a spaceship hidden in a comet’s tail.’”
“Who has the energy to smile at strangers all day, anyway?”
