Avatar is obviously a very powerful film. It causes depression, or at least CNN stories about claims of Avatar-related depression on various Internet forums. Because of Avatar, annoying apostrophe usage is up at least 5% (estimated). And Avatar has single-handedly given protesters the courage to dress up as if they were going to Comic-Con, instead of a march against Israel.
Clearly, there is something about Avatar that separates it from other movies; something that makes it not just a movie, but an experience that certain people want to bring into their everyday lives. That something isn't Avatar's arresting visuals, or its stunning 3-D setting, or it's much-lauded, pretty, pretty pictures. No, the best part about Avatar is the story—which is why, instead of making another Avatar movie, James Cameron is writing a prequel novel. If you thought watching Avatar and then returning to the real world made you depressed, just wait until you're sitting in your dingy, grey, non-blue-cat-people-filled world listening to James Cameron drone on and on about the building of Sigourney Weaver's character's schoolhouse on the Avatar: The Prequel audiobook. Stock up on Pristiq now!
From MTV News:
Now, James Cameron is beginning work on a prequel — but it won't be coming soon to a theater near you.
"Jim is going to write a novel himself," the film's producer, Jon Landau, told us when he stopped by the MTV News studios recently. "Not a novelization — and there is a distinction. A novelization basically retells the story of the movie. Jim wants to write a novel that is a big, epic story that fills in a lot of things."
"It would be something that would lead up to telling the story of the movie, but it would go into much more depth about all the stories that we didn't have time to deal with — like the schoolhouse and Sigourney [Weaver's character] teaching at the schoolhouse; Jake on Earth and his backstory and how he came here; [the death of] Tommy, Jake's brother; and Colonel Quaritch, how he ended up there and all that," Landau explained.
Although Cameron has extensive writing credentials, including the screenplays for everything from the first two "Terminator" films to "Titanic," the "Avatar" prequel would mark his debut as a novelist.
"I don't think Jim has ever written a novel before, but his first step of writing a script is often in a novella format," Landau said. "So this is just expanding that, and I think that he'll be very adept at it."
Of course he will be. Why not? And the characters and themes in Avatar are so rich and deep, the audience almost needs a prequel novel just to understand them.
Hopefully this prequel-novels-for-3-D-movies thing becomes a trend, because there are so many special-effects-heavy movies that warrant further explanation. After all, the stories are why people see these movies! Personally, I'd love to read The Final Destination 3-D: The Prequel Novel. We could finally find out why the unseen force of death gets so angry when he is cheated. What is Death's backstory? Did Death have a traumatic childhood? There are so many 3-D movie questions worth exploring via prose.