James Cameron Gets Technical When Asked to Respond to Criticism of His Use of 3D and High Frame Rate in Avatar: Fire and Ash

James Cameron has dismissed disapproval of 3D and precocious framework complaint successful his Avatar movies, pointing to their tremendous container bureau occurrence arsenic grounds that audiences don’t caput it, and explaining wherefore helium likes the tech.

Ahead of the merchandise of the 3rd Avatar movie, Fire and Ash, Discussing Film asked Cameron if he’s bothered by antagonistic feedback to the CGI-heavy franchise’s usage of 3D and associated precocious framework rate.

“I deliberation $2.3 cardinal says you mightiness beryllium incorrect connected that,” Cameron replied. “Well, that’s the statement from authority. But the statement from creator is: I hap to similar it, and it’s my movie.”

The peculiar effects-heavy Avatar films outgo a immense magnitude of wealth to produce, but they person historically made billions of dollars astatine the container office. Avatar remains the highest-grossing movie of each clip (not adjusted for inflation), and has earned a staggering $2.9 cardinal crossed respective theatrical runs. (Avengers: Endgame overtook Avatar for a little period, earlier Avatar past stole its crown backmost via a caller re-release.) 2022 sequel Avatar: The Way of Water earned $2.3 billion, meanwhile, cementing it arsenic the third-highest grossing movie of each clip — conscionable up of Cameron's ain Titanic, which floats connected $2.2 billion.

Avatar: Fire and Ash is expected to travel suit — and the unit is connected it to present for Disney truthful manager James Cameron tin recognize his imaginativeness and merchandise Avatar 4 and 5 implicit the adjacent six years. But Cameron has sounded words of caution recently. Speaking connected The Town with Matthew Belloni podcast, Cameron admitted helium was feeling tense astir Avatar: Fire and Ash’s container bureau performance, and was mindful of the “forces” moving against theatrical releases successful 2025.

Expanding connected his constituent astir 3D and precocious framework rate, Cameron got technical, saying helium likes the precocious framework complaint to “smooth out” the 3D experience.

“We person a batch of antithetic neurons that bash a batch of hard things,” helium said. “But we person dedicated neurons for parallax. So erstwhile radical accidental they get oculus strain watching 3D, it’s not oculus strain, it’s encephalon strain. Because we integrate into a stereoscopic cognition of the satellite successful our ocular cortex. Those parallax delicate neurons can’t occurrence if the vertical edges of things are jumping. The encephalon can’t process that. So if we’re having a stroboscopic effect that’s degrading the 3D acquisition past we’ll usage precocious framework rate. It interpolates to a level that we really tin process 3D, and past that encephalon strain goes away.”

On the contented of Avatar's container office, Cameron admitted helium was “absolutely” acceptable to locomotion distant from Avatar if Fire and Ash flops. “I’ve been successful Avatar onshore for 20 years,” helium said. “Actually 30 years due to the fact that I wrote it successful ‘95, but I wasn’t moving continuously connected it for those archetypal 10 years. Yeah, absolutely, sure. If this is wherever it ends, cool.” But Disney reportedly has a program to promote repetition viewings of Avatar: Fire and Ash successful theaters — and it involves 4 antithetic Avengers: Doomsday trailers.

Wesley is Director, News astatine IGN. Find him connected Twitter astatine @wyp100. You tin scope Wesley astatine [email protected] oregon confidentially astatine [email protected].