The Other McCain

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The Apocalypse of Culture: People Spend $1 Billion to See Sucky 3-D SciFi Movie

Posted on | January 4, 2010 | 29 Comments

No need to wonder what morons did with their stimulus checks.  Two words: Avatar tickets.

When “Avatar” opened, its solid but far from stellar results left 20th Century Fox uncertain about whether the $430 million that it and two financing partners had invested to produce and market the 3-D film would pay off.
Less than three weeks later, there’s no doubt. Director James Cameron’s science-fiction epic on Sunday became only the fifth movie in history to gross more than $1 billion worldwide and, by far, was the fastest to do so.

The big question here is: Why? Is it the headache-inducing crappy 3-D? The idiotic Dances With Smurfs plot? The Rousseauan “Noble Savage” theme with characters who inspired the fatal phrase “JarJar Binks family renunion“? No, it was none of these things. Two words: Blame foreigners!

“Avatar” has been strongest overseas, where it grossed $133.5 million in 110 markets this weekend . . . It is already the fourth-highest grossing movie internationally . . .
“Avatar” already is the highest-grossing film ever in Russia, the fourth-highest in Spain and Australia, and the second-biggest U.S. movie ever in France, India and South Korea. It opens Monday in China, an increasingly lucrative market for effects-laden pictures.

The real moral leason of Avatar is that foreigners have too much money. We should invade their countries, kill their leaders and stop them from making James Cameron richer.

UPDATE: If conservative film producer Ladd Ehlinger doesn’t get $1 billion for Hive Mind, the terrorists win.

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Category: Culture, Foreigners, Hollywood

Comments

29 Responses to “The Apocalypse of Culture: People Spend $1 Billion to See Sucky 3-D SciFi Movie”

  1. Steve
    January 4th, 2010 @ 8:44 am

    I like what you’ve done with the place. And yo’ve kept Pam Anderson, who is now the semi-offical mascot of the site.

  2. uberVU - social comments
    January 4th, 2010 @ 8:55 am

    Social comments and analytics for this post…

    This post was mentioned on Twitter by rsmccain: @EdDriscoll @JTlol Apocalypse of Culture: People Spend $1 Billion to See Sucky 3-D SciFi Movie: http://bit.ly/6jBCOU (Blame FOREIGNERS!)…

  3. FilmLadd
    January 4th, 2010 @ 8:56 am

    I hope you didn’t put down your own money to see it. Please tell me you and the entire ‘Bama team snuck in through the exit. With your own candy and popcorn stuffed in your pockets.

  4. Robert Stacy McCain
    January 4th, 2010 @ 8:56 am

    Steve, as much as I hate fake boobs, they’re better than 3D Smurfs.

  5. Boy is the news boring today… « DaTechguy's Blog
    January 4th, 2010 @ 9:02 am

    [...] Here is a question: Who would be the four horsemen today? I say Robert Stacy, Michelle Malkin and the Captain would join Glenn. (Ed Morrissey will always be the Captain to me). [...]

  6. Robert Stacy McCain
    January 4th, 2010 @ 9:06 am

    The sad thing is, for a tiny fraction of what they spent to see “Avatar,” people could have sent Carol Hall with me to Pasadena.

  7. Charles Johnson
    January 4th, 2010 @ 9:24 am

    I bet you want the Na’vi to shine your shoes! Racist, racist, racist!

  8. andycanuck
    January 4th, 2010 @ 9:42 am

    Congratulations on the redesign.

    And I’m pleased that you didn’t change the blog name or URL so that when I saved the new site to my Favorites list, it just overwrote the old one so I didn’t have to delete the old one and drag the new one up to the top part of my Favorites list.

    It’s also great that the new comment boxes are the straightforward ones and not the “sign-in from some other source” type as I don’t have accounts at any of them.

    Just one complaint, the comments are in the equivalent of 6pt type. Would it be possible to make the type size (default) larger?

  9. andycanuck
    January 4th, 2010 @ 9:45 am

    And, on topic now, the last film I saw was 300; and the one before that was Master And Commander so my chances of seeing this are about zero.

  10. Charles Johnson
    January 4th, 2010 @ 10:59 am

    I love Master and Commander. I play it all the time with Kilgore and Sharmuta.

  11. Cameroonian
    January 4th, 2010 @ 11:59 am

    “We should invade their countries, kill their leaders and stop them from making James Cameron richer.”

    1. Ungentlemanly rip-off of a classic Ann Coulter shtick.

    2. Desperate bid for notoriety (see #1).

  12. K
    January 4th, 2010 @ 12:16 pm

    The tiny type! It burns!!

  13. Joe
    January 4th, 2010 @ 12:40 pm

    Margaret Atwood approves.

    Going to see Avatar is like watching The Passion, or Ben Hur, or The Robe, or something like that.

  14. Dave C
    January 4th, 2010 @ 3:06 pm

    Have you linked..

    http://pointofagun.blogspot.com/2010/01/to-james-camerons-credit.html

  15. JeffS
    January 4th, 2010 @ 3:30 pm

    Thankfully, I avoided watching this sucky movie. James Cameron peaked with Terminator.

  16. William
    January 4th, 2010 @ 3:41 pm

    Actually, the reason Hollywood keeps spending the big bucks on anti-American movies is because they sell so well around the world.

    And don’t look at me RSM, I spent my two tickets worth on your trip, stupid Christmas spirit. Thank goodness it’s Jan.

  17. andycanuck
    January 4th, 2010 @ 3:43 pm

    Thanks, Joe. I thought I would be safe from CanLit references, like Atwood, here at a Confederate blog. 8=^(

  18. Bob Belvedere
    January 4th, 2010 @ 6:26 pm

    The real moral lesson of Avatar is that foreigners have too much money. We should invade their countries, kill their leaders and stop them from making James Cameron richer.

    A noble cause if there ever was one. Give me command of Third Army, Stacy [I must be allowed to fulfill my destiny!].

    Quoted from and Linked to at:
    If You Provide Aid To Our Enemy, We Will Attack You

  19. Obi's Sister
    January 4th, 2010 @ 6:44 pm

    Is it me, or does Blue Avatar Boy look like Tebow with some pretty face paint?

  20. Joe
    January 4th, 2010 @ 6:59 pm

    Call me crazy, but if this Unobtainium is so friggin valuable, why the hell are they strip mining it? Why not go in with borers and just selectively remove it? Then the blue people would not even know they were there. The only reason we strip mine coal is it is far cheaper than other excavation methods (and coal is about $35 a ton).

    And oh, I was perplexed by the floating mountains in the movie. Today by the way, is Issac Newton’s birthday. Well, I assume the laws of physics work rougly the same on some moon of Alpha Centauri and they do here in our solar system. Turns out that the back story on the floating mountains are they are made out of large deposits of unobtainium.

    Now seeing floating mountains is cool and I am not for despoiling such a grand sight, but if this stuff is worth billions of dollars a pound why wouldn’t the miners just go down with their massive mining space ships and just scoop those mountains of unobtainium up?

    And BTW–where exactly on the periodic table is unobtainium?

    But hey, why let engineering and science get in the way of a good morality lecture. Where is Christopher Hitchens to denounce this damn Gaia crap they are shoving down our throats?

  21. Joe
    January 4th, 2010 @ 7:42 pm

    Avatar was really a conservative movie? No, not really, but this commentator does have a good point.

  22. AMERICAN DIGEST
    January 4th, 2010 @ 8:28 pm

    American Digest Daybook for Tuesday…

    Please pay attention to my ADD of the day:Want to find explosives hidden on people in airports? “Here’s another better, cheaper and safer. idea: dogs.” — VDARE.com “No Smoking Gun”? What About Detroit Bomber’s Profile? [Yeah, Muslim don’t like ‘em…

  23. Larry
    January 5th, 2010 @ 12:20 am

    I am as conservative as most here, but I loved the movie: a. 3D was awsome. b. Hard Sci-fi look was terrific. c. Plot although standard “Noble Savage” stuff was at least a plot. Compare the non plot in Terminator: Salvation for instance. d. Virtual tiddies harken back to the days when National Geographic was the only source of nudity.

  24. Tom
    January 5th, 2010 @ 4:38 pm

    As a 3d animator I felt compelled to go see it. What I came away with is that technology gives you gorgeous 3D animation and special effects, and Ludditism gives you an obvious, crappy, recycled plot.

  25. Bob
    January 6th, 2010 @ 9:33 pm

    Gotta agree with Larry, a truly stand out movie. It’s very seldom that Hollywood makes a movie for me, pure escapism; the only reason I’d go see a movie at IMAX!

  26. The Greenroom » Forum Archive » It’s the Humanity, Stupid: a Conservative Dissent on Avatar
    January 8th, 2010 @ 10:00 pm

    [...] for the hate America crowd,” “Production: $183,000,000. Script: $14.25,” Dances with Smurfs – drink more vodka and 3-D headache goes away,”"a suicide fantasy, the Hollywood blockbuster equivalent of a troubled teenager’s notebook [...]

  27. In a world of their own: Conservatives and Avatar
    January 9th, 2010 @ 2:03 am

    [...] for the hate America crowd,” “Production: $183,000,000. Script: $14.25,” Dances with Smurfs – drink more vodka and 3-D headache goes away,””a suicide fantasy, the Hollywood blockbuster equivalent of a troubled teenager’s [...]

  28. In a world of their own: Conservatives and Avatar
    January 9th, 2010 @ 5:26 pm

    [...] for the hate America crowd,” “Production: $183,000,000. Script: $14.25,” Dances with Smurfs – drink more vodka and 3-D headache goes away,”"a suicide fantasy, the Hollywood blockbuster equivalent of a troubled teenager’s notebook [...]

  29. Zombie Contentions - In a world of their own: Conservatives and Avatar
    August 4th, 2010 @ 12:49 pm

    [...] for the hate America crowd,” “Production: $183,000,000. Script: $14.25,” Dances with Smurfs – drink more vodka and 3-D headache goes away,”"a suicide fantasy, the Hollywood blockbuster equivalent of a troubled teenager’s notebook [...]

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