To start with, I should say that I’m a Star Wars fan. I’m not as into it as I used to be (not a fan of the sequels) but I still enjoy the original trilogy and the mythos that it has created. To make the comparison, I’ll only be taking the first Star Wars movie (A New Hope) and do my best to keep it in the setting of when it was originally released.
The first obvious comparison between these two movies is the success that they both enjoyed. Star Wars made in 1977 270 million dollars domestically (U.S.). This was a huge amount of money in those days. To give it perspective, in ’76 the top earner was Rocky with 56 million and in ’78 Grease took it with 98 million. Not even adding up the tally of 1977’s #2 to #5 do they equal Star Wars. All of these figures come from Box Office Report, btw. So this tells us that it was a huge commercial success, specially given its production cost of 11 million dollars. Info obtained from Box Office Report and Box Office mojo.
In the case of Avatar, it’s been the biggest box office draw in history with a domestic total of $668 million and counting. Where Avatar makes its big money, though is on Foreign markets with a worldwide total of $2.35 billion. Huge amounts of money indeed.
So, they’re both massive economic hits. What else?
Even before their releases, both movies had buzz surrounding them regarding their special effects. I won’t go into anything too deep, as I don’t know much on the topic, I’ll just go by my impressions as a viewer. STAR WARS caused an impression on moviegoers because of the action scenes. To start the movie, we see a chase: a small craft followed by an immense bright, white ship that covers the majority of the screen. This was a powerful visual statement to start a movie.
After that, we are treated to several scenes throughout the movie where innovations are presented; some of them are small: laser beams from blasters, lightsabers. Others were major: synchronization between the use of models and cameras to create the effect of ships moving through space, and oh, what explosions! When the original version is seen today, not much seems to be impressive but that is because SW created much of the language which succeeding movies would use.
In the case of Avatar, two major things grab people’s attention. The motion capture and the 3-D. Regarding the motion capture aspect, it is not only impressive on its own, but the fact that it integrates fairly seamlessly with both backgrounds and other elements (humans, ships, other CGI creatures). Gollum in “Lord of the Rings” was the first time we saw so integrated a performance by a motion capture CGI, it turned a special effect into another actor. In Avatar, we had dozens of characters doing this. Granted, there were some shortcuts to obtaining the effect (the aliens are blue, which is an easier color to manipulate and hide certain defects or errors; the backgrounds and much of the environment is CGI so the integration is easier) but ultimately, the effect is created.
The other aspect is 3-D. It’s been promoted very heavily how this is the first movie that is actually filmed in 3-D, that special cameras were created via a partnership with Sony. How is all this used? It’s not only used for the typical 3D effect where something comes up to the viewer’s face, but is mostly used to create the illusions of space and depth. Some of these are pretty subtle and enhance the sensation of a real environment.
Both of these movies are technological milestones. They have created new technology to make the universes they present a more real and palpable experience for the viewers.
Another similarity between these two movies is the sense of deeper storylines and mythology. Both movies do a good job giving the spectators the idea that there is much more that is not shown in the movie, that there is more history to be explored. The potential for a grand back-story and mythology are in place. I’ll give the edge to Star Wars, for two reasons:
a) SW deals with a whole galaxy, compared to the one planet Avatar is set in.
b) A New Hope starts in the middle of a story. There isn’t a beginning that we are presented to. The Rebellion has already started, there have been wars, allegiances have been established, etc.
Sure, we can be curious and wonder about the alien’s past history and the initial contact between the humans and the Na’vi, but there is no comparison in the richness in story and characters between these two movies.
So far we’ve seen how these movies are similar in ways that would give them long-term visibility and fan following. What follows is how they differ.
While both movies did a good job at obtaining a wide spectrum of audience, Star Wars promoted itself more heavily to children and younger audiences. Avatar, as the PG-13 rating reflects, went to a more mature audience. This is further demonstrated by the romance angle and the stronger fight scenes and deaths.
The advantage or hooking an audience while young is pretty obvious: you make an impression on them while being kids, you feed this with toys, magazines, clothing, trading cards, etc., and that will get them ready for the sequel and whatever more Star Wars material that comes out. As time goes by, these kids grow older and they turn into adults having been a raging fan for over 30 years. This is the key to the SW phenomenon: people who were hooked on a product from an early age and grew up without losing the interest in the property. And of course, these people have children of their own themselves and introduce their passion to the next generation.
Something that is needed for audiences to latch on to a property is characters: interesting character with interesting personalities and interaction between them. SW has many advantages over Avatar on this area. To begin with, very few characters from that movie died. Except for Obi-Wan, all characters that are given significant screen time survived and were able to go into whatever material would go next. In Avatar’s case, about half the cast is gone by the end of the movie.
Next thing, the characters in Star Wars are actually interesting. Their personality is more developed, they all have their story, they interact in a natural or interesting manner with the rest of the cast and the writing gives the audience a chance to actually like them. In Avatar’s case, most of the cast seems to be present to fill a role in the movie instead of being an actual character. This is added to the fact the dialogue is wooden, boring and flat. There isn’t really a desire in the part of the audience to know more about any of the given cast.
The lack of depth in characterization ties into the survival rate of the cast. In SW we had interesting characters that people would want to see more. In Avatar, once the character’s role is accomplished, they are no longer necessary; either that or they are more important dead than alive, the typical case of a death to simulate pathos in a movie.
The last point of difference I’ll add is the overall quality of the movies. Granted, Avatar is by far the most polished of the movies, but that’s the only advantage I can give it. Star Wars has a better story, better pacing, better characters and offers a better movie experience. Avatar is beautiful to look at, but doesn’t work well as a movie. If Avatar had been released in the summer, along with that year’s blockbusters, it’s a safe bet it wouldn’t have made as much money or it wouldn’t have gotten as much attention. Here are the movies Avatar competed against on its first 5 weeks (movies that premiered): “Did you Hear about the Morgans?” “Sherlock Holmes” “Alvin and the Chipmunks: the Squeakquel”, “It’s Complicated”, “Daybreakers” and “Book of Eli”. There’s only one movie in the bunch that could be considered an actual competition to this type of movie.
As it stands today, I don’t see the possibility of Avatar growing into as huge a fan phenomenon as Star Wars. Of course, there are plans for sequels; with a strong direction towards good stories and characters and an expanding universe, who knows? It might prove to be one of those rare times where the sequels are better than the original.
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