People were fascinated and excited when James Cameron took them into a world of wonder for two and a half hours in 2009 with “Avatar – Aufbruch nach Pandora”. A world that moviegoers loved to return to time and time again, eventually making the first Pandora adventure the highest-grossing film of all time.
The “Avatar 2: The Way Of Water”, which started on December 14, 2022, continues there and is already one of the biggest blockbusters in cinema history. Even six weeks after its theatrical release, the sequel is drawing hordes of people to the cinemas. But not only the success repeats itself, but also the discussions that once accompanied part 1:
A controversial statement about the “Avatar” movies: the trips to Pandora would make you sick. So much so that because of the condition that affects many Pandora enthusiasts, it’s actually common, including in the indicated designation indicates: Post Avatar Depression Syndrome (PADS).
Which stands for Post Avatar Depression or Post Avatar Depression Syndrome as follows: “[…] is the case when a person has seen ‘Avatar’ and realizes that the world they live in sucks and they will never fly, jump or live like the Na’vi.“
This is behind the “Post Avatar Depression Syndrome”
James Cameron wants to distract his audience from everyday life and catapult into another world, in which he mixes the fascination of the unknown with the familiarity of deeply human aspects to create a rousing cinema cocktail that the viewer can hardly resist. He charts the course by creating characters you can and want to empathize with, grow with, and enhance immersion using groundbreaking 3D technology to visually make audiences forget about the outside world for three hours.
“It’s meant to be the best tropical paradise imaginable,” said production designer Dylan Cole “The Art of Avatar: The Way of Water”*. And yes, the creators implemented this idea incredibly well in part 2, just like in the first film. Too good for some.
The beauty of Pandora, the colorful life on the moon of the Na’vi, their spirituality and their connection to nature make many people see our world with different eyes – as a bleak, degenerate place that seems doomed.
The Na’vi are considered ‘better people’, beings who respect and live in harmony with their environment. And the people? They are constantly destroying their home planet, so that at some point life as we know it will no longer be possible.
Many people were confronted with such thoughts after “Aufbruch nach Pandora” and now also after “The Way Of Water”. That was enough to label Pandora’s recurring problems on the Internet and in popular culture as Post Avatar Depression Syndrome (PADS).
It is now more than 13 years since moviegoers first expressed their concerns online. At first only a few, then thousands, struggled to leave Pandora behind to return to the real world after seeing the “Avatar” cinema.
Eventually, countless self-help groups were formed, in which people share their love for the universe created by James Cameron, but mostly talk about their escapism that got out of hand. You can see a mini glimpse of such an encounter in the documentary “Avatar: The Deep Dive” currently available on Disney+:
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Interestingly, in the said excerpt, an affected person addresses his pre-existing tendency to escape reality, so he doesn’t see “Avatar” as the original trigger by any means, but simply as a trigger. A place that’s just too good to be true, Pandora offered only the charms needed to get lost in it. And we can understand that only too well: although filmmakers are mainly out to immerse their audience in their world, there is hardly anyone who has mastered this discipline as well as James Cameron!
Naturally, the climate and environmental activist Cameron wanted to stage a utopia, a world that you long for – and want to return to immediately, even if you haven’t heard of it in 13 years. It is therefore not entirely incomprehensible that you then see our real world with different eyes. After all, that’s exactly what distinguishes good movies: they don’t just serve as a sprinkler, they don’t just distract from everyday life for two or three hours – they also have an effect well beyond the credits.
British environmental activist Ben Goldsmith has also recognized the topic of Post Avatar Depression Syndrome and has taken action on it voiced. He reveals in a short and simple way how to turn the influence of the “Avatar” movies into something positive after a visit to the cinema and what helps against PADS: spend more time in nature and help protect the environment!
Because it certainly wasn’t James Cameron’s intention to remind humanity that we are lost anyway. Instead, the quest for harmonious Pandora may inspire people to live more in harmony with our home planet – and perhaps even make the public feel encouraged to do a little better from now on.