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On Avatar Forums, he found others who felt trapped, who yearned for a chance to start over on Pandora or dreamed of leading a Na’vi lifestyle here on earth. He first saw “Avatar” at the local cinema and woke up the next day feeling empty and lost. Hill was 17 at the time, living with his parents in Borås, Sweden. One of the afflicted, Ivar Hill, told CNN, “I was depressed because I really wanted to live in Pandora, which seemed like such a perfect place, but I was also depressed and disgusted with the sight of our world.” For the people posting on the thread, watching was not enough they wanted to live inside Cameron’s world, to fly through Pandora as a 10-foot-tall blue alien, in perfect symbiosis with nature. Here, the source was a multipage thread on the independent fan site Avatar Forums - “Ways to cope with the depression of the dream of Pandora being intangible.” By that point, January 2010, even certain well-adjusted people had seen the movie two or three times, lured back to theaters by the all-consuming tale of an ex-Marine fighting to save the Na’vi race from the venal designs of a mining corporation. This was at the dawn of the era when a small group of people acting weird online could set off a dayslong cycle of news. It was marked by despair and suicidal ideation, brought on by the insurmountable gap between real life and Cameron’s C.G.I. After that, the story reversed: Reality was no match for “Avatar.” The condition went by different names: “Avatar” Syndrome, Post-Pandoran Depression or PADS (Post-“Avatar” Depression Syndrome). In just over two weeks, it grossed $1 billion, quieting doubters, at least temporarily.
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In late 2009, before “Avatar” came out, skeptics warned that the visual-effects behemoth would never recoup its unearthly budget, estimated to be upward of $237 million. įirst it was said that James Cameron was no match for reality.
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