That depends entirely on the "people" you're talking to... There's plenty of people who would think of the Avatar films.

I haven't seen the second Bluvatar movie because the first one was just scifi trope: the movie. He actually named the macguffin "unobtanium" ffs. Not even close to what I've come to expect from the person that gave us The Abyss, Aliens, and T2.

Meanwhile, The Last Airbender is the only cartoon to ever make me cry.

Avatar is one of the greatest animated shows to have been released in at least the last 30 years

The biggest cultural impact from the Avatar movies is on the technology developed that will be used for other movies. The stories, characters and even world-building are not all that great, however the film-making is astounding and will reverberate through the industry for decades.

It's amazing how this meme/whinging was going on for a decade on the internet, only for James Cameron to make a second movie and even that made 2 billion dollars (and could have surpassed the first one had there not been an outbreak in China).

And even after all of that, you guys actually think that people don't care or remember about the films?

I disagree: for most of my country, whenever the term 'Avatar' was mentioned before WotW was announced, it was always that movie with the blue aliens that blew away their minds back in 2009; most of the adults, whenever we discussed the latest hollywood flicks always asked me if there was any news about the second movie. the visuals of Avatar was something that stuck deeply with them

The movies seem to be something for the cinema. I think they lose a lot of magic at home, mostly because they were designed 100% for the 3d tech which is now dead.

You could show it in VR, but wearing a headset for 3 hours is not going to be a particularly enjoyable experience, and nobody really seems interested in bringing them all to VR anyway. Apparently Disney are planning on having it on the ludicrously expensive Apple VR thing, so hopefully somebody will rip it in it's variable framerate 3D glory so I can watch it on my lesser peasant VR headset.

Avatar was just Fern Gully remastered.

for millions of people, avatar has nothing to do with either movies or shows. it means incarnation of god in human form.
more accurate term would perhaps be western people.

When I hear "avatar" I think of a PFP.

Meh, I've always got to ask because while it's certainly only every going to be the first thing in my mind I know way more people that have watched the movie with blue people and not the show.

I hear "Avatar", I instantly think "Ultima".

So small that I took a good 20 seconds to remember what the other Avatar even was lol.

When I saw Avatar in the theater in 2009, it was a family outing while visiting relatives. I thought it was an Avatar: The Last Airbender movie and wondered why everyone had chosen it. I knew very little about Airbender (still don't), but must have seen previews or something for the actual Airbender movie that came out in July the next year, while I somehow missed seeing anything about Avatar. It was maybe five minutes into the movie when I realized this wasn't a preview for some sci-fi flick, it was the actual movie I was there to see.

It has an entire section of Animal Kingdom dedicated to it in Disney World and both movies made a stupid amount of money breaking multiple records. It had plenty of impact of pop culture, just look at how often people say this exact thing on a regular basis without a shred of self awareness. I love ATLA but this claim has always been silly.

Avatar of Khaine for me.