The new Avatar sequel is said to be three (3+?) hours long. Its director, James Cameron, already has a response for audiences with a weak bladder. Saying the following in Empire magazine:
“I don’t want anybody whining about length when they sit and binge watch (television) for eight hours.” He also added “I can almost write this part of the review. ‘The agonizingly long three-hour movie..’ It’s like give me a fucking break. It’s okay to get up to pee.”
Look, I think most films are too long. Ninety minutes is the ideal length for a Sci-Fi, Action or any other genre-bending movie. Actually it’s the ideal length for any movie that isn’t a historical drama or something in that vein. Lately, it feels like the studios are responding to complaints about high ticket prices by indulging the directors’ excesses more to create longer movies that aren’t necessarily better (the last James Bond springs immediately to mind); I know that’s an over-simplification but I’ve never assumed those execs were geniuses.
It’s always disingenuous if directors like Cameron or Judd Apatow bring up binge-watching when whining that no one likes their over-long epics. Binge-watching is a choice the viewer makes. A three or four hour movie cut is a choice the director makes and asks/expects/demands the viewer go along with. They can make that choice if they want, of course — but it’s then on them to make damn sure they use it wisely. They’re not owed the viewer’s time, patience or fawning praise, especially not if they make a three-hour movie that could have at least forty-five minutes to an hour trimmed out of it.
We have been watching LONG movies in theaters for eighty years. The problem is pacing, not length. Goodfellas is roughly as long as Avatar and I could watch that movie on a loop because it’s perfectly paced. Avatar is paced like Jello, This isn’t a difficult problem to comprehend. Most filmmakers simply aren’t telling stories that need to be over two hours long, or are doing so in ways that don’t work; that’s not the viewer’s fault. Editing is truly an underappreciated art.
The fact that people are going to need to pee in the middle of your opus is incredibly predictable and also a direct side effect of how everyone involved is making money, so maybe just stick a GD intermission in there? Even TCM includes the intermissions in movies like Lawrence of Arabia and My Fair Lady. I would think that movie theaters would wise up to an opportunity to sell more concessions. Financially this entire house of cards is constructed on the foundation of pumping tankard’s of sugar water and snacks into as many movie-watchers as possible. Do they still have the deal where if you get the extra-super-large you get free refills?
At the very least accept that the combined methods you and the theaters showing your works use to maximize profit don’t always equate to a perfect viewing experience for the audience, and quit whining about the mildest criticism of the situation from the hoi polloi before you make enough to buy another mega-yacht.
-Dagobot