China's Love For 3D Kaiju, One-Eyed Monsters, And Stereo Raptors

As we enter a new season of movie-going, the Chinese box-office continues to buck worldwide trends in 3D movie attendance. A month ago, the industry had written off Pacific Rim as a well-intentioned exercise in geek-pandering. Jurassic Park 3D had proved that audiences were never going to go crazy for 3D re-releases. Monsters University was a middling Pixar effort. Midway through September though, China has re-written the history books for all three films, and again challenged expectations of the global audience for 3D.

Pacific Rim's experience was the most startling for the industry: a gigantic movie in every sense of the word, it was always destined to do earn more "internationally" than "domestically". It's reasonably common for big Hollywood action pictures to earn 60% of their total gross in the wider worldwide marketplace, and the other 40% or so of their gross comes from the avidly movie-going State-side domestic audience. What no-one expected to happen this year though? A case where a Hollywood tentpole earned less in the USA than it earned in China. At the time of writing, Pacific Rim has just pipped over the $100 million mark in the US... and in the People's Republic it has earned $111 million, with more on the way. In fact, Pacific Rim's opening weekend  was Warner Brothers' highest ever.

So, why did China go ga-ga for Pacific Rim? For one thing, the Guillermo Del Toro picture feels tailor-made for a global audience; it doesn't feel like an American-flag waving sci-fi pic in the vein of Transformers, and it certainly avoided the New York-set locations that giant monsters like King Kong, Cloverfield and 1998's Godzilla have already ravaged. In fact, Pacific Rim's largest fight scenes were set in Hong Kong, and that surely played a part in the Chinese audience's affection for the film.

Of course, the other thing Pacific Rim had going for it was Rinko Kikuchi playing a pivotal starring role. While she's not Chinese, she is an Asian woman cast as the main character in a film that would ordinarily been stacked full of Ben Affleck / Bruce Willis / Liv Tyler types. There is no doubt that this helped sell Pacific Rim as a 'different' feeling blockbuster. And if 2013's box-office grosses are anything to go by, people are actively avoiding anything that feels too 'samesy' these days. That's true no matter what country you live in. Worldwide audiences have passed on RIPD, partly because it felt too similar to Men In Black. Many avoided The Lone Ranger on the basis that it was Johnny Depp doing his usual schtick. Pacific Rim, to Western audiences at least, might well have seemed like more of the Godzilla / King Kong gimmickery they're accustomed to. But to China, it felt sufficiently unique to justify a near-stampede through their multiplex turnstiles.

That 'special difference', from their perspective? 3D, and some stunning CGI. China's certainly seen its fair share of kaiju films (which are historically more of a Japanese cinematic phenomenon), but there's never been one this expensive. There's a saying that you've gotta spend money to make money, and Pacific Rim's Chinese box-office grosses prove there's still some truth to that expression. Audiences there determined they weren't going to watch this on a pirated VCD or DVD: Pacific Rim in 3D was a family event that had to be experienced on the big-screen. Certainly the Del Toro film's outstanding performance proves that Chinese movie-goers still think that 3D elevates a film to 'event status', provided the film's content matches their tastes. On the basis of Pacific Rim's performance, you can expect to see fewer big-budget cowboy films in the next decade, and a much larger number of 3D monster films set in China!

Speaking of 3D monster films... Jurassic Park 3D has exceeded all expectations in China. Its opening day was the fourth highest of the year (trailing only the 3D films Man Of Steel, Pacific Rim and the 2D Furious 6). The 20 year old movie has now ruled the Chinese box-office two weeks in a row. So, why the love for Jurassic Park? In the West, Jurassic Park 3D's middling success was considered by most to be fuelled by a general nostalgia for the film. It's a beloved classic these days, regardless of its flaws, and the re-release was generally well-received by Western media. In 1993, Western audiences were watching the film repeatedly, while China's movie theatres missed out on the Spielberg dino-pic entirely. There was no doubt a pent-up and long-held desire by many Chinese to see the film on the big-screen for the first time. Still, that doesn't explain why the film gripped their box-office for a fortnight. Hollywood explanation? Again, China's apparent love of 3D movie-going. It costs roughly $20 million to post-convert a 2D classic film to 3D, but given that China alone has earned Jurassic Park 3D $50 million+  (with more to come) then it's safe to expect more 3D re-releases that are targeted specifically for the Chinese market's tastes. Don't expect to see Saving Private Ryan 3D any time soon, but we at 3Defence wouldn't be surprised if we see a Jaws 3D conversion released soon!

And Monsters University 3D? Why does that warrant a mention? Well, in comparison to some of Pixar's efforts in China, the Billy Crystal-voiced effort absolutely dominated the box-office. It smashed the record for a highest grossing single-day of an animated film in Hong Kong, beating the tallies of several other 3D films, including Pixar's own Toy Story 3. In mainland China too, the film is on its way to surpassing Toy Story 3's grosses, to become Pixar's most successful film ever there. Traditionally, Pixar films have underperformed in China, especially when compared to their counterparts like Dreamworks or Blue Sky Studios. Most marketing in the country is handled by the same two firms, so advertising is usually not blamed for this phenomenon. Rather, the studio's films - that often praise rebellious and forward-thinking anti-hero figures - are considered the reason Chinese audiences don't gravitate towards Pixar films. Brave, Pixar's first film about a woman, was criticised there for being "too American", despite being set in Scotland and starring Billy Connolly! So why would Monsters University - set in a very American campus, rampant with variants of beer pong and college frat-boy hijinks - not suffer the same fate? Could we attribute that to a continued desire to see 3D films? Or is it just that Monsters Inc. was an already established brand in the country? It's hard to say. In any case, the prequel's performance this year is noteworthy, if only because the film itself is regarded much worse by Western critics than films like Brave and Up. If the next Pixar film outpaces Monsters' performance, then we'll know for sure that 3D is continuing to drive the Chinese box-office.

Is The Guardian Correct? Are Superhero Films Done For?

In a week's time, it'll be the first X-Men film's 13th birthday. The movie's critical and commercial success gave Hollywood the excuse it needed to revitalise the comic-book-movie 'genre'. X-Men delivered the industry a template of sorts that has largely remained unchanged in the decade that followed. That template required an ensemble cast, mixing up A-list stars with Academy Award winning actors, character veterans, relative newcomers and a few nerd favourites. X-Men also set a visual-effects precedent that eschewed the overblown Batman And Robin 'look' in favour of more modern effects in the vein of The Matrix. The revised superhero film template also required the X-Men ditch their traditional bright yellow-and-blue tights for... very Matrix-esque black leather costumes. And, just like that, a modern genre was born.

Or, rather, reborn. The superhero 'genre' had merely been laying dormant. In the decades since Richard Donner's Superman, we'd seen various attempts at Batman, Supergirl, Dick Tracy, The Phantom, The Shadow and The Rocketeer. Some of those films had a significant impact on pop-culture, but none rejuvenated an entire industry in the same way as X-Men. Why was that? 3Defence argues that it was X-Men's striking modernity that made it connect with film producers and audiences alike. This superhero film featured women kicking as much butt as their male peers did. It was set in the 'not too distant future', and had a hip bent towards sci-fi conventions that other comic-books had previously neglected. Crucially, X-Men had an interesting subtext; prominently featuring a mutant-superhero allegory for the Gay and Civil Rights movements. For the first time, Hollywood was presenting a superhero film that (successfully...) had something important to say.

Thirteen years later, we've seen 3 actors play Hulk, 2 actors play Superman, one actor play Batman 3 times, a former Hollywood punchline play Iron Man 5 times and we're about to see Hugh Jackman play an X-Men character for the 6th time. We've even seen two variations of Catwoman, and Ryan Reynolds (Blade 3, Wolverine: Origins, The Green Lantern) is days away from the release of his fourth comic-book adaptation! It's easy to feel over-saturated by it all. Of course, this is how it's always felt when you walk into a comic-book store: cross-over titles, mash-ups, alternate universes, one-shots, long-running series, and retrospective collector's editions... the 'comic' world of heroes has never been particularly shy about throwing any old thing against the wall.

Maybe it was that scatter-shot approach that erked The Guardian enough to write a recent piece entitled "Man of Steel: does Hollywood need saving from superheroes?" A fortnight later, The Hollywood Reporter released a piece condemning the genre's bias towards fight-scenes, entitled "Why Has Destruction Become the Default' in Movies?" Kiwi favourite Funerals & Snakes has a great write-up arguing the destruction in the genre has become an arms-race. Tech-focused Wired magazine has just released an article asking, "Is the Superhero Movie Genre as Invulnerable as Its Iconic Characters?" A quick Google search reveals a simmering 'genre malaise' from the media has been around for some time, and will likely be around for much longer. The Wall Street Journal supposed audiences were tiring of the genre in 2011. USA Today asked - amusingly, in retrospect - "Are Superheoes Done For?" in... 2008. So, The Guardian, Wired and THR's recent articles are nothing altogether new, but it's interesting they all use Man Of Steel as a divining rod for the fate of the wider genre.

***Warning! Spoilers within this paragraph about Man Of Steel! If you've not seen the film, then skip this paragraph!*** What is it about Superman's latest film that has convinced the mainstream press of the genre's imminent demise? Perhaps it's their expectations of Superman himself that's the cause of the issue. Historically, he's been considered the Big Blue Boy Scout of superheroes (even if that's not actually been the case in the last 25 years of comics). So, perhaps it was all a bit too shocking for average audiences to watch that Boy Scout break his nemesis' neck, after having levelled several dozen city blocks. Indeed, even many modern comic-book readers were shocked by this moment, and were outraged that Superman allowed citywide catastrophic damage to occur in his mammoth battle with Zod's troops. This was meant to be the most 'super' of heroes, but instead we saw an inactive character who was focused on fighting his adversaries in a retaliatory manner. ***Spoilers over now, continue***

More importantly though, Man Of Steel is a significant departure from the X-Men-issued genre template. The cast is hardly heavy-hitters like those seen in The Dark Knight or Iron Man series; Man Of Steel's veteran actors haven't anchored a film in well over a decade, and most have been involved in straight-to-video fare for years. Man Of Steel's special-effects aren't facsimiles of other industry benchmarks either. Superman embraces his bright blue & red costume too; no hip dark leathers here. And, most importantly, there is a dearth of subtext.

In the days since X-Men, critics have delighted in subtextual readings of superhero films. The Dark Knight series has been remembered as a commentary on the Bush administration's anti-terrorism tactics; Ang Lee's Hulk was a musing on Classical mythology; Watchmen was a cautionary tale about 'checks and balances'; V For Vendetta provided a big-screen adaptation of a comic-book interpolation of Orwell's 1984. Iron Man even spoke to the perils of the arms trade. So... what does Man Of Steel speak to? Being facetious, we could say the subtext is that it's rude to terraform planets that don't belong to you, and also rude to punch people. Being more generous (though still with a healthy helping of snark) it's possible to read Man Of Steel as a cautionary tale in the age of Big Data: keep your secrets to yourself, no matter what, or else the government will screw things up. But, yes, that's being generous. There's actually bugger all subtext going on in Man Of Steel. It's another case of too much plot, and too little story. And, as The Guardian points out, perhaps we're a little tired of relying on a bootstrapped operation to right the ills of government. Maybe the media are onto something, maybe there really is something broken with Hollywood's approach to the genre?

While 3Defence can agree with the media to some extent, we can't see much benefit in pointing out a whole bunch of flaws in currently released films. We don't need Hollywood to immediately stop making any superhero films. There's clearly still an audience for them, and there's a wealth of material to draw from to continue telling interesting stories for decades to come. The media needs to move away from posturing about the 'death of the genre' and instead focus on how to 'reboot the genre' successfully in a more palatable way. To do this, we need to study other successful genre 'reboots'.

Man Of Steel's incarnation of Superman actually has a few parallels with Jason Bourne; a peaceful soul who's unsure of his identity, yet miraculously trained in combat, and ready to fight anyone who threatens him. Of course, that's where the similarities end. Man Of Steel might well mark the end of its genre's era, while The Bourne Identity is rightly regarded as a landmark event that changed the fate of the 'action' and 'spy' genres forever.

In 2002, The Bourne Identity removed wire-work and excessively balletic kung-fu from the action film. Instead of behemoths like Arnold or Sly, the averagely-built Matt Damon carried the main role. The Bourne Identity's set-pieces were staged in cramped European apartments, and cast an indie darling as the hero's love interest. Women in the series had realistic character qualities, independent lives of their men-folk, were placed in powerful positions, and ultimately became the series' moral guardians. More importantly than anything else though, The Bourne Identity and its sequels were action films that weren't afraid to embrace silence. Critics and audiences alike fawned over this breath of fresh air, and the action genre was revitalised enough to buy itself another decade in multiplexes. Single-handedly, the Bourne films also forced drastic revisions to stalwart espionage franchises like James Bond and Mission Impossible.

Not that we're trying to bash on The Guardian or anything (though we do relish taking a snipe at periodicals that hypocritically bash comic books as a "plebeian, populist artform") but in the early 2000s, The Guardian bashed on the Bond and Tom Cruise Impossible outings with all too familiar criticism. The World Is Not Enough "looks so weirdly dated" and "commonplace." MI2 was "devoid of real risk, real sweat or real danger." You can guess how The Guardian's Does Hollywood Need Saving From Superheroes article concludes, right? Yep, "it's the same movie – over and over and over again."

They've got several good points. Just look at the above image, where three superheroes essentially share the same pose. We just wish The Guardian hadn't been such snobs about it. It's not like they're also going to write an article bemoaning the sexism and monotony of the romantic comedy genre. Indeed, every article that's been written about the genre this month has had an air of 'this is kids stuff really, it's a bit beneath us adults.' And perhaps that's why The Bourne Identity is a good touchstone. Like the original X-Men film too, these two genre reboots were fearless in the way they embraced their particular genre's roots, whilst still subverting their genre-audience's expectations. People were sold a spy film with The Bourne Identity, but they also got Matt Damon having meaningful dialogue with Franke Potente (don't get us started on the 'relationship' between the era's James Bond and Dr. Christmas Jones). X-Men may have been marketed with its special-effects, but audiences were really given a film about the differing human rights concerns of adolescents and the generations that controlled their fates. Maybe the world was hoping Man Of Steel would provide a reboot in the same vein as these films, and the media has seized on the opportunity to bash it for being a merely serviceable evolution of a genre that's outstayed its welcome.

So what's stopping Hollywood from pulling a Bourne-styled rabbit from their hat? There's a few things working against them. For one thing, the vast majority of upcoming superhero films are coming from Marvel directly. They're not just licensing their comic-book content to another studio; they're becoming a fully-functioning studio themselves, in charge of their own film adaptations now. This is dangerous, because many (not all) of these comics have historically been aimed at men, and rarely feature self-contained narratives. If the studio churning out this product is left to its own devices, then it seems likely it will continue creating sprawling plots that take several films to resolve themselves, and attempt gender parity via a few scenes of a woman kicking or punching a male character.

Taken from here

The more significant thing holding Hollywood back is the financial imperative to not change anything. Films like The Amazing Spider-Man and Iron Man 3 see overseas markets double their US-based box office grosses now. This means that superhero films regularly make 2/3rds of their money in countries that might not necessarily have grown up reading the comics the films are based on, and definitely haven't grown up with Western humour or the mythologies the genre has traditionally embraced. By necessity, blockbusters on this global scale have to play broadly, and there's not much room allowed for genre subversion, societally contextual humour, political dissidence or familial unrest. When you factor 3D into the mix... things change even more. This article's already sprawling, and we're aware we've not discussed 3D at all yet, despite this being a site devoted to 3D cinema. Let's not mince our words: 3D grosses are slowly declining in the US and some (not all) of the Western world, but 3D business is still doing gangbuster business in places like China, Brazil and Russia. Indeed, 3Defence's incoming traffic sky-rockets weekly as people from these countries ask Google (and Baidu) "should I see X superhero movie in 2d or 3d?"

If you removed 3D box office 'extra' takings from the equation, then the distribution of box-office grosses would balance more favourably again towards countries like the US, UK and Australia. Two prominent 2D superhero films, Iron Man 2 and The Dark Knight actually earned more in the US than they did worldwide. So it's no mistake that the 3D Iron Man 3 doubled the gross of its predecessor. Doubled. As long as 3D has that kind of a result, Hollywood will continue paying the estimated $10 - $20 million extra it costs to add 3D to a film. And when it makes that sort of an additional investment, Hollywood expects its money back, and will advocate for playing broadly to guarantee that happens. When you go broad, you miss out on subtleties of the kind offered by Matt Damon's Bourne character, and you certainly miss out on a subtext about the rights of homosexuals in our modern society like X-Men offered.

We're not saying that 3D is the entire problem with the superhero genre, but it's one part of the problem. If you look at the types of genres that are still being made in 2D - such as comedies, detective films, dramas, thrillers - then you also start to see that these films are the ones that cost such a small amount that they're allowed to be edgy or outside of the mainstream four-quadrant blockbuster formats. A 2D $25 million film like Anchorman costs roughly 1/10th of the budget for the 3D $225 million Man Of Steel, and the lower-budget film has a lot to say about society's casual sexism while the big-budget film has basic thoughts on the evils of... terraforming.

When you start to truly look at the problems Hollywood faces, it becomes clear there is a solution, and it's right in front of their noses. Create superhero films that embrace actual genres. Get rid of the X-Men template, which has now been distilled to a meaningless 'superheroes for superheroes sake'. Instead, look to existing titles like Powers; a detective story that features a buddy-cop pairing of a talkative but capable young woman and a brooding hulk of a world-weary man. With the successful release of the (again, 2D) film The Heat, we know there's an audience for women in the buddy-cop / detective genres. And the great thing about Powers is that, because the pair usually investigate the deaths or crimes of superheroes after-the-fact, there's little need for flashy special effects or whizz-bang 3D gimmickry. You could make a taut film adaptation of Powers for $45 million, and critics would praise the way you'd dealt with the collateral damage and psychological impact recklessly wrought by caped crusaders.

Of course, there are dozens of other titles that are just as deserving of the big-screen treatment as Powers. Batman Begins could have been made for half its budget if they'd adhered more closely to the detective-thriller Batman: Year One comic. That might have allowed more room to talk about our society's attitude to criminals, beyond Machiavellian chemical-warfare schemes. There are decades worth of Iron Man comics that realistically deal with alcoholism, as real a worldwide issue as any, but we'd be surprised if Disney/Marvel ever sanctioned a low-budget rehab drama featuring ol' Shellhead (though watching Robert Downey Jnr. tackle that would be particularly interesting!).

So, yes, you're reading this right. 3Defence is advocating more 2D superhero films, for at least as long as it's cost-prohibitive to make a 3D version of a movie. But then, we're cinema advocates here, not just 3D ones. A 'holy grail' situation is obviously a time when movie production and distribution costs are lowered significantly, and producers can begin releasing more 3D dramas, 3D comedies and 3D crime films. When that happens it's likely that Hollywood will finally wise-up and start inserting their A-list superheroes into these genres. When The Bourne Identity equivalent of a superhero film comes along, it's going to change everything overnight... just like the bite of a radioactive spider or a sudden burst of gamma rays. Next time you catch your favourite publication ranting about the low-brow nature of a populist form of entertainment, ask them how they suggest improving things. They have great power, and they should start taking that responsibility seriously.

How's The 3D in 'Bait'?

Background:

Bait asks the question none of us were asking: what would happen if you were trapped in a supermarket, after a tsunami... with a great white shark? Any self-respecting fan of B-movies already knows the answer to that question though: death, and lots of blood. Bait 3D caps off a year of 3D films like Abraham Lincoln: Vampire Hunter, Piranha 3DD and Frankenweenie that take the idea of 'high-concept' to ludicrously brilliant extremes. Indeed, Bait went on to become the highest-grossing Australian film released in China, so this type of 3D cinema is likely to continue.

Native 3D:

Bait was filmed in Australia by many of the people who shot the Second Unit photography in films like the Matrix trilogy and Superman Returns. Despite its many and varied challenges under-water, they filmed Bait in Native 3D. Until now, shots like the ones they pulled off have been considered one for the 'too hard' basket. Water photography has always been tough on film crews, but to get the right spacing for stereoscopic cameras has been thought to be nigh-on impossible. According to an interview here, they shot glorious footage of a submerged supermarket with the help of a uniquely designed air-cooled camera casing, which allowed the crew the flexibility to capture background depth and emotion from their performers too.

Does the 3D 'pop'?

Yes. Almost for comedic effect. The screen is usually a defined wall between the audience and the action, but every now and then a shark will jump several feet out of the water, directly aiming at the audience. There's really not much more to say about this effect - it's a return to the sort of gimmicky 3D shot we traditionally associate with 3D films made before this century. This ought to not be considered a bad thing, mind. Each time the effect was used in the screening 3Defence attended, the (admittedly very small) audience roared with 'so-bad-it's-good' laughter.

How's the depth of the 3D?

In an interview here, the film's director outlines his view on depth in 3D films: "A common misconception is that having objects really close to camera will make things look great in 3D. In fact the opposite is true – it's far more important to make sure there is a mid-ground as well, rather than just a foreground and a background." Certainly, being confined to two or three rooms for much of the film constrains the action to play out reasonably close to the camera, but every now and then the deep background is used to great effect to show off how far away a shark is at any given moment. This depth is actually the cause of most of the tension in the film, because when the depth narrows... we, the audience, know that the shark is nearing its prey.

Did it make sense to film Bait in 3D?

Technically? No. 3Defence never advocates for 3D films set in murky interior locations that lack bright light sources. For business though? Put it this way, Bait was part financed by Singapore investors, who were determined to get a 3D horror film into Chinese cinemas. Their investment has paid gigantic dividends there. Bait was made for $8 million, and has so far grossed over $25 million in China alone. The international market's desire for 3D carnage is something that has yet to be truly capitalised on, but after Bait's success in China, we suspect many more will try their hand at stereoscopic horror there.

If we had to archive one version, should we save the 3D or the 2D?

Realistically, Bait is the sort of film you should share with beer and peers. The purpose of the film is to make you laugh, whoop, holler, and have a visceral reaction caused by the odd jump you weren't expecting. All of these things would happen in 2D too. Though the odd throwback to a time where things jumped out at you in 3D is fun, it's not enough on its own to make the 3D version the 'definitive experience' of Bait. In sum, we're going to side with the 2D version on this one.

The film itself

It's brilliant! The special effects are ropey, the acting is uneven and borderline hammy, but the script hurtles along in a reasonably tight three-act structure that allows most of its characters to have a pay-off moment that makes their role meaningful. Bait has no right to be this entertaining, but it is, and it's sure to become a must-see cult film.

China and its requited love for Titanic 3D

April's nearly over, so it seems appropriate to look back at its biggest 3D movie: Titanic 3D. The Western film critic community were gentle on the release, some going so far as to reconsider their opinions from 1997. The box office grosses State-side were OK enough, but they didn't reflect the massive amount of work that Cameron and his team went through to convert the 2D film to 3D. In my opinion, it's the best conversion we've yet seen. The real news though? Nope, not that film critics were once again embracing a film they were once embarrassed about. Nor was it that the 3D was tasteful and well executed. No, the real news on this film's re-release is based far away in... China.

Titanic's 3D re-release gave the film one last amazing box-office accomplishment: its launch in April became the highest grossing opening weekend ever to hit China. Ever. It made more there in one weekend than it has in the entirety of its US release to date (over several weeks of playing in American theatres). It made $67 million in one weekend, and a week later has now doubled that figure to an extraordinary $127 million. It will continue to gross more, well into May. The Wall Street Journal picked up on this and ran a brief post on it:

I'm not satisfied with their theories though. To summarise, the 'Journal suggest that Titanic's rejuvenated popularity could be due to its narrative's links to traditional Chinese folklore, and it could also be because it adds a fantasy romance into the middle of a drama about the divide between the upper and lower classes. I think they could have gone further with their theories though, so let's play some out. For one thing: it's in 3D. The previous record holder of the Opening Weekend box-office gross record was... Transformers: The Dark Side Of The Moon. That film was another epic ode to mass destruction, also lensed and distributed in 3D. Before that? The previous record was Avatar, still another epic ode to mass destruction, also lensed and distributed in 3D, and to date (I think) the highest grossing film of all time in the Chinese market. Sensing a trend here?

So. Why have three, 3D, butt-numbingly-long action films, made by two alpha male directors.. reaped in around half a billion dollars in China in 3 years? The most obvious answer is that, well, multiplexes exist there now. Huge screens, dozens of theatres in one place, hundreds of rows, all kitted out with 3D projectors. In fact, China has the second most 3D screens of any nation on the globe, and there's clearly a market there, just itching for a chance to put on their glasses. It's impossible (well, rather hard) to pirate 3D the experience of a sold-out theatre when the film's also distributed in 3D. I'd wager that the audience is there in general for any 3D film, provided it's a guaranteed spectacle. The spectacle had best be on a gigantic scale though, and preferably as close to a theme-park ride as cinematically possible. In fact, if you could just make a theme-park based on the film, that'd be ideal.

Titanic itself though, is special. I wonder if the theories on its Chinese popularity could be taken further. The film's set at the end of an era; one where stuffy colonialism is slowly being overtaken by vibrant upstarts. It's a period of time where bizarre traditions are being questioned; where the concept of female norms are being outright overthrown; and the concept of a classless society is almost within reach. Of course, at the same time, characters like Billy Zane's Cal are on the verge of busting into the mega-rich billionaire statuses enjoyed by many in the boom times of the 1920s. Titanic represents a time where the invention of new technologies made global travel possible and conceivable for the masses. I don't think it's outrageous to suggest there are more than a few parallels between China in 2012 and Britain in 1912.

There's one more idea I'd like to suggest, and it's a touch more controversial than the previous ones. I wonder if the role of 'authority' in Titanic and Avatar lend themselves to an overwhelmingly responsive Chinese audience. The characters who are 'in charge' in both films are really interesting. They're portrayed as well-meaning, deeply concerned for the well-being of their people, they're true to their belief structures, and they stand by their moral codes. They are, however, eventually shown to be unable to bend the populace to their will. Their usage of powerful, modern, technology is not enough to control and calm the masses. Deep down, I suspect all people feel these views. I wonder if Titanic's popularity is really because it's a well-made spectacle that uses a history lesson to show 'authority figures' can be wrong sometimes... despite their best intentions.