Avatar’s Changing Title Treatment?

So I, like millions of others, have seen the movie Avatar, and I really enjoyed it. I think it will hold a place in history for its groundbreaking special effects and the story was better than I had anticipated.

I have seen all of the designer hoopla about the use of Papyrus as the subtitle typeface, and yeah, I cringed when it first came on the screen, but I shrugged it off and went with it, no biggie. Admittedly, it has been entertaining reading design blogs about the decision to use Papyrus by Cameron.

It has been pretty well documented that the main title treatment isn’t strictly Papyrus either, but a slight variation. I am sure a designer somewhere fought pretty hard for that. I actually think it works fine for the main title treatment, it is a display font after all, and with the wide kerning and subtle changes I think it works fine. I do think that it falls somewhat short in its application as a subtitle typeface, but like I said, it is definitely not a deal breaker.

What did really bother me however, was at the end of the movie, the last scene takes place and then the screen goes dark for an instant, then the audience sees the word Avatar again, only this is a completely different font and color from anything you’ve seen before. It looks more like a bastardization of the original title, which for the life of me, I can’t imagine why they would elect to do that. I know it sounds trite and all, but it really brought everything to a jarring halt for me, my immediate reaction was, whaaaa?

I like the idea of ending on the name of the movie, it was a fun, roller coaster ride of a picture, and the reiteration of the title treatment (done properly) would serve as a nice punctuation mark on the whole experience. But the inconsistency of the title treatment really surprised me and makes me wonder how that decision was ever made in the first place, (see Avatar Art Director, Creative Director, Graphic Designer, Typographer, etc.). Maybe they will fix it for the DVD release?