Avatar: The Way of Water is approaching the $2 billion mark at the global box office and a big part of the reason the movie is doing so well has to be chalked up to the fact that viewers are springing for more expensive 3D movie tickets, and that anybody who wants to have the complete experience has to have it in the theater. This may lead some to see Avatar 2 more than once because even when they can watch it at home, it won’t be the same. Unsurprisingly, James Cameron thinks you’re “missing the point” if you watch Avatar on your phone, but not necessarily because you’re getting a bad audio/visual experience.
The day will come, and it’s likely not too far away now, that Avatar: The Way of Water will be available to anyone with a Disney+ subscription, and when that happens everybody will be able to watch the movie on TVs, tablets, phones, and basically any other connected device. One big question is just what watching the movie will be like. Will it really feel the same way? James Cameron tells NPR that watching the movie at home will still be a good experience, for a lot of people anyway…
If you watch ‘Way of Water’ at home on a reasonably large flat screen TV with a decent sound system and you sit close enough and that way across the room, you’re going to have a good experience.
While this description will certainly cover a lot of people, it also does have the potential to exclude some. While it’s unclear what we’re considering reasonable when it comes to screen size here, certainly there are going to be people whose primary TV falls below that threshold. And while a lot of people own some sort of external sound system, because built-in television speakers almost universally suck, there are also those that use them every day.
But ultimately, while directors like Martin Scorsese don’t love the idea of people watching their movies on tiny screens, James Cameron says that screen size isn’t the thing that truly matters. When people inevitably watch Avatar: The Way of Water on their phones, the problem with that won’t be that the screen is small, it’s that people likely aren’t giving the movie proper attention. Cameron continues…
When you start looking at something on a phone, you’re sort of missing the point. Going to a movie theater is less about the size of the screen and the perfection of the sound system. And it’s more about a decision to not multitask.
The fact is that when we’re watching movies on our phones it’s frequently because it’s just the best available option in the place where we are. It’s certainly true we may not be focused and dedicated to what we’re watching. For Cameron, it seems that’s the thing that matters. So if you’re waiting to see Avatar: The Way of Water at home, it seems you can still have the right experience, however you do it, as long as you give the movie the proper focus.