Thread: Avatar

Originally Posted by gwahir

Pandora is lacking in imagination. Big cats, angry lemurs and things that are basically horses. Riiiiiight. Someone got paid a whole lot to come up with animals that already exist and give them another leg or something. It's not even done with panache. It's done with tedium, it just thinks it's being really imaginative.

While I can't comment on the benefits or appeal of extra appendages, the creatures of Pandora are a mix of both being foreign and familiar. If the creatures were created to solely be imaginative and the envionment was to be the most bizarre and alien setting of any Hollywood movie, Avatar did fail to do this. However, your dealing with James Cameron and not Michael Bay, and everything was done with a reason.

Iif you really want to knock imagination knock on some guy who wrote about humanoids living extended lifespans in the forest that lived simultaneously amongst really short and stocky humanoids that lived in mountains that loved rocks that lived during a time of giant eagles. And furry-feeted hobbits.

Originally Posted by Gwahir

I'm fine with aliens slaughtering humans, and I'm even fine with a guy having to shed his human form in order to truly be one of the good guys. I get that it's a metaphor for shedding the uglier parts of humanity, etc. The Na'vi are people just as much as humans are -- except that they're lacking in any depth of character. That's what I can't get on board with. Cameron obviously thinks the Na'vi are incredibly wise and in touch with higher spiritual knowledge, but they're idiots who talk to trees and have no personality whatsoever.

Well, they are incredibly wise and and in touch with higher spiritual knowledge because they can connect with all things of nature including Pandora and their ancestors either to listen to or speak with.

Originally Posted by Gwahir

If you want to make up a race that is wise and spiritual, make them wise and spiritual. The only reason they weren't pummelled in the final battle is that Cameron resorted to a literal (!) deus ex machina. There was nothing new, special or clever about them, just tired old Deepak Chopra-style hack spiritualism.

That is not deus ex machina. Jake's prayer was answered by Eywa. This is the biggest piece of evidence that more than suggests that everything is connected in way that transcends science. It was a "big fuck you and get out of my solar system" of nature as a unified front trumping the overbearing firepower of science. Maybe if the Na'Vi never had the ability to connect with animals or nature, which would of course change a lot of the movie, would I agree to saying "Wtf, where did all these animals come from?" and believe Avatar to be a visual pleasing romp through bad story.

Originally Posted by Syme

Yeah, I agree with gwahir. I just found the Navi incredibly uncompelling. Maybe I would have been able to take them a little more seriously if they weren't such an incredibly thinly veiled pastiche of Native American references and generic, shallow "noble savage"/"respect for nature" stereotypes. More effort should have been put into making them and their culture truly alien, and different from anything we've ever seen on Earth. Yeah, it would have been hard--it would have required a lot of intelligent, innovative conceptual design and writing. But if any movie had the capability to pull it off, this one did.

And yeah, it also made me roll my eyes that the Pandoran wildlife was all "space versions" of Earth wildlife. You had your space horses, space wolves, space panthers, space pterodactyls, a big space dragon, and so forth. With a guy like James Cameron, and such a huge budget and project development cycle, and such an imaginative vision behind it all, I was kind of hoping for some alien life that was a little more innovative and truly alien. Not taking Earth animals, adding an extra set of legs and some long tentacle-ears, making them blue with glow-in-the-dark spots, and calling it a day. But while the wildlife was fairly unimaginative, it was nothing compared to the Navi themselves--nearly identical to human beings except bigger, bluer, with tails and broad noses and elf ears. I guess Cameron felt he needed them to be so human-like so audiences could relate to them? I don't know.

I think that was his point, so the audiences could relate to the Na'Vi and to the destruction of the planet/their home. You have to give our writer and director a lot of credit here. This guy is tops amongst Spielberg and Lucas. There is no doubt he could have done something crazy and show us an alien world akin to that of a space version of Willy Wonka and the Chocolate Factory.

Originally Posted by Syme

I dunno, I guess different people have different standards for what makes a setting rich or engrossing. I mean yeah, they never acted so ridiculously that I was jolted out of the movies reality, and of course I agree that the setting was rich and engrossing in visual terms, but I couldn't really get into the film on a deep level because of the flat acting and crappy dialog. For me, real immersion requires that the human elements as well as the visual elements be compelling. The acting/dialog/characters don't have to be Oscar-worthy but they do have to be good enough to be convincing. That's what makes Aliens (for instance) a much better movie than Avatar, IMO. Don't get me wrong, I enjoyed watching Avatar. I don't regret spending money on my ticket. It was fun. It looked great, the battles were cool, all that. But it would have been a much better movie if the characters (especially Sam Worthington) were more compelling. To me, an eye-rolling plot and unimpressive acting/dialog surrounded by really cool CGI environments isn't enough to create a world that's truly engrossing.



Frankly, I don't buy this. Since he couldn't produce compelling characters, dialog, etc., in the first movie, I doubt the sequels will be much better. I would love to be proven wrong on that point, but when a director shows so little concern for those aspects in one movie (especially one that he's apparently been working on for so long and cares about so much), I'm skeptical that it was because he was just "setting the scene" for sequels where he will do a better job. I don't expect much of an improvement in these areas in the sequels.

The characters all had their own motives, but I wish a little more backstory was shown rather than leaving the audience to draw its own conclusions. Jake Sully's character alone is diverse and ever changing - being a crippled Marine veteran turned down from regenerative therapy who is offered a once in a lifetime opportunity to take his late brother's place as an avatar operator and earn bank to possibly pay for the procedure. He even goes as far as once again taking orders like a good marine in exchange for his legs back. But being a worn out and tired veteran has taken its toll on him, and he's given a second chance as an avatar to fall in love, find acceptance through perilous trials all in a brand new and better body, and discover a whole new spiritual meaning through the network of the planet which ultimately leads him to deny his own kind and a chance to get his legs.

Heck, the Colonel and and Giovanni Ribisi's character, Parker Selfridge, are not as bad as anyone makes them out to be. They had been their for years trying to assimilate the indigenous population by offering them education, medicine, and other prospects only to be rejected and refusing to move or be a part of. They could have easily annihilated or force move them despite the bad PR and have easily justified it through the energy crisis. But they didn't. They tried endlessly with Sigourney Weaver and her scientists working on the Avatar project trying to work in harmony. But it is Jake's intervention with the bulldozer and his vlog that convinces Quaritch and Selfridge that force is the only way.

Originally Posted by Syme

Getting back to Avatar, let me also say that I had kind of a hard time cheering for the protagonists in the final battle, since it basically amounted to cheering as alien monsters slaughtered my fellow human beings. Maybe I reveal my shameful speciesist bigotry by saying so, I don't know. I was kind of left wishing that the humans would come back with a much better-equipped expeditionary force and mop the floor with the aliens. Certainly if real-life human history is any guide, and if that unobtainium stuff was valuable enough to justify the initial expedition, that's probably what will happen. Which made it kind of stupid, IMO, when the movie implied that it was all over and the humans would never come back again since their first try didn't work out. Of course they are just going to come back again with more guys and more guns.

I would think they would come back seeing as they need unobtainium and the largest deposits known just happens to be on Pandora. But they have to travel a total of eight light years (four back to Earth and four back) so they gives Jake, Neytiri, and all the tribes some time to make significant advances in how we view Pandora next time around. Who knows, maybe they'll embrace some of the leftover technology.

Originally Posted by Mad Pino Rage

If the creatures were created to solely be imaginative and the envionment was to be the most bizarre and alien setting of any Hollywood movie, Avatar did fail to do this. However, your dealing with James Cameron and not Michael Bay, and everything was done with a reason.

Originally Posted by Mad Pino Rage

I think that was his point, so the audiences could relate to the Na'Vi and to the destruction of the planet/their home. You have to give our writer and director a lot of credit here. This guy is tops amongst Spielberg and Lucas. There is no doubt he could have done something crazy and show us an alien world akin to that of a space version of Willy Wonka and the Chocolate Factory.

If you think we're saying he should have done something closer to what Michael Bay would have done, or closer to "a space version of Willy Wonka and the Chocolate Factory", you have radically misunderstood our complaint about the design of the Navi and other alien life in the movie.

Originally Posted by Mad Pino Rage

Jake Sully's character alone is diverse and ever changing - being a crippled Marine veteran turned down from regenerative therapy who is offered a once in a lifetime opportunity to take his late brother's place as an avatar operator and earn bank to possibly pay for the procedure. He even goes as far as once again taking orders like a good marine in exchange for his legs back. But being a worn out and tired veteran has taken its toll on him, and he's given a second chance as an avatar to fall in love, find acceptance through perilous trials all in a brand new and better body, and discover a whole new spiritual meaning through the network of the planet which ultimately leads him to deny his own kind and a chance to get his legs.

Yes, I saw the movie, I do know what the main character did. I'm not denying that Sam Worthington's character had a potentially interesting story and character arc. There's certainly no doubt that he changed over the course of the movie. The problem is not that the character didn't develop, but that the acting and dialog were flat and uncompelling, which basically squandered the character's potential and made his change emotionally ineffective.

The character concept for Jake Sully was great. The execution of that concept was lackluster and unimpressive.

Originally Posted by Mad Pino Rage

Heck, the Colonel and and Giovanni Ribisi's character, Parker Selfridge, are not as bad as anyone makes them out to be. They had been their for years trying to assimilate the indigenous population by offering them education, medicine, and other prospects only to be rejected and refusing to move or be a part of. They could have easily annihilated or force move them despite the bad PR and have easily justified it through the energy crisis. But they didn't. They tried endlessly with Sigourney Weaver and her scientists working on the Avatar project trying to work in harmony. But it is Jake's intervention with the bulldozer and his vlog that convinces Quaritch and Selfridge that force is the only way.

Again, you are misunderstanding the criticism. It's not that I found those two characters' actions to be unbelievable or implausible. It's that the characters themselves--in their dialog, mannerisms, etc.--were pretty ridiculous, ham-handed, exaggerated caricatures of their archetypes. Compare Paul Reiser's character in Aliens with Giovanni Ribisi's character in Avatar. Both are clearly derived from the "greedy unethical corporate bastard" trope or archetype. But Paul Reiser's character makes it convincing and believable, while Giovanni Ribisi's character comes out as an almost comically overstated cliche. That's not a problem with Giovanni Ribisi either, he's a good actor and I like him in other stuff. It was a problem with his dialog and the way he was directed. Same deal for Stephen Lang's character (although he was less offensively over-the-top than the corporate guy).

Originally Posted by Mad Pino Rage

I would think they would come back seeing as they need unobtainium and the largest deposits known just happens to be on Pandora. But they have to travel a total of eight light years (four back to Earth and four back) so they gives Jake, Neytiri, and all the tribes some time to make significant advances in how we view Pandora next time around. Who knows, maybe they'll embrace some of the leftover technology.

Maybe so, maybe not; either way, that's not really relevant to my complaint about the tone of the movie's ending. Although now that it's apparently going to be a trilogy, that particular complaint isn't so meaningful.