AVATAR LAND Mommy, what were those two blue people doing with their tails?
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  • AVATAR LAND "Mommy, what were those two blue people doing with their tails?"

Here's a weird thing about Avatar: remember when it was this huge deal and everybody went to see it and Google image-searching "Avatar cosplay" offered a daily burst of depressing delights and This Ain't Avatar XXX was made (in 3D!), and it was nominated for nine Academy Awards (the real Avatar, not This Ain't Avatar), including Best Picture, and it became the highest-grossing movie of all time, and kids everywhere were snorting unobtanium, and man, all of that, everything? But then it just... disappeared? When was the last time you heard anyone refer to Avatar? As far as big cultural moviegoing events go, Avatar is a still-astonishing example; as far as ones that've actually made an impact, not so much.

But that might change in 2016, when we'll start getting not one but three Avatar sequels... and an Avatar amusement park courtesy of Disney, which is augmenting Disney's Animal Kingdom ("the first Disney theme park to be themed entirely around animal conservation") with a whole bunch of Avatar junk, where

... guests will encounter awe-inspiring floating mountains and wander through a nighttime jungle of bioluminescent plants that are alive with light and sound. Guests will also discover what it feels like to soar into the sky riding a Banshee.

More details and concept art can be found here (thanks for the heads up, The Dissolve), but I think we can all agree that the very best part of all of this is that it will be happening in Florida, a magical land even more awe-inspiring than Pandora.