Epic win.
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Epic win.
SHUT UP
Looks like it will be cool but I'm a bit disappointed that it's not the air bending Avatar.
astounding, extraordinary visuals.
emotionally lacking.
narratively lazy. INORDINATELY long, and it drags (and takes a long time to take off). terrible rhythm; no flow. badly in need of an editor -- both script and film.
moralising but morally empty.
the story and characters are not at all engaging. but it looks GOD DAMN AMAZING
a summary of the last 20 years of mainstream cinematographyQuote:
Originally Posted by gwahir
this is a really useless and silly commentQuote:
Originally Posted by sycld
christ gwahir it is true. most films that are billed as "action" flicks are 2 and a half hour special effects extravaganzas with shallow characters, and plots that would be forgettable if they weren't so simple. They often too are nauseatingly moralizing.Quote:
Originally Posted by gwahir
Just finished watching about an hour ago. I enjoyed it. Saw it 3D and the theater was packed that I was forced to sit in the front row and the people next to me were commenting on every little thing. Spent half the movie thinking about what I could do to get those people to be quiet but something cool would come up and my mind would be blown.
I agree with you. Most films now days you can figure what's going to happen next and that doesn't engage you very much. They got visuals and that's all.Quote:
Originally Posted by sycld
yes, what you're saying is right, but it's also stinkingly obvious. it's also not new. terrible movies were always being made -- they're just more popular these days. and there's more of them -- but of course there are, because there are millions more movies these days than there were.Quote:
Originally Posted by sycld
but it's also not fair to lump "the last 20 years of mainstream film" into that category, because as we'd all agree, some truly great movies have come out of mainstream film in the last 20 years.
Anyone who is refusing to see this movie or waiting for bluray is missing out. Go watch it in 3D.
so basically it looks amazing but the film in general isn't actually that good?
hey, you're the one that summed up the "strikingly obvious" ways in which many popular movies suck, not me.Quote:
Originally Posted by gwahir
yeah, yeah, it's called hyperbole, big whoop, wanna fightaboutit?Quote:
but it's also not fair to lump "the last 20 years of mainstream film" into that category, because as we'd all agree, some truly great movies have come out of mainstream film in the last 20 years.
i would add that the best films are often less popular among audiences, but of course that would be "strikingly obvious."
firstly i said stinkingly obvious lrn 2 adverbQuote:
Originally Posted by sycld
anyway this has not always been true; in the past, better movies got more recognition and audience love than they typically do nowadays
anyway what i did was summarise my criticisms of this movie in particular and all you did was say that i could apply that to lots of other movies -- not that useful a comment really
No. The movie unravels well up until in anticipation of the clashing of the forces between the natives and the humans. Everything really ramps up.Quote:
Originally Posted by ShitFace
While the visuals are extraordinary, everything else is very good. Stereotypical marine colonel doing his gung-ho thing waiting to slaughter those weird looking smurfcat people that those brainy science pukes call Na'Vi. He abides his time while working with the stereotypical company executive who wants to obtain the highly valuable unobtainium(yes, that is what causes this whole buttfuck calamity, unobtainium), but the company guy has to worry about public relations and their limited resources considering that they are nearly four light years away from Earth. OH, did I mention that the biggest pile of unobtainium is underneath a tree as big as Mt. Everest where the Na'Vi live? FUCK. But you know what? These guys are the bad guys and they don't need some sophisticated back-story to why they want to kill the mother-fucking forest and every living thing so they can sell rocks for cash. They just want money, and honestly, I don't think anything more needed to be done with them or could be done to greatly improve the movie.
To be honest, they aren't really evil at all. They're just lost space wayfarers who believe money is power and power is happiness and happiness can bring a long and peaceful life, but these strange savages who love these alien animals and plants that keep killing us so much are in our way. So we got to put a stop to this and get this job over with. Its not like any person, business, or government is like that or ever has been like that ever in the history of human kind. Its all just fantasy and some Freudien psychology thing going on here and it's very entertaining.
As for the good guys, I don't know how anyone could say they are not engaging characters. I could be wrong, but I think anyone who says these characters are shallow are just regurgitating bullshit from their favorite online christian review site(http://www.movieguide.org/box-office/7/10075/avatar), but if someone can explain as to why they are shallow I would be delighted to read.
The plot is simple and formulaic, but is told well and the action great combined with the most beautiful visuals you've seen in any movie that its lameness has no overbearing effect(reiterate: unobtainium). As for the narrative, there is much that happens and you really just don't know what to expect up until when trouble brews and then you realize most of the movie was like a big introduction to getting to know and feel for the characters and one long teaser that poked the reptilian part of your brain giving you urges to secretly pet your erection through the thin lining of your pocket to giant scantily-clad smurfcat women(READ: possible pro-furry propaganda).
This movie was what Star Wars 1 - 3 should have been. You should watch this movie, and if you can, watch it in 3D.
i wish we had that :rolleyes: smiley still, cause if we did i'd be rolleyes'ing like a mothaQuote:
Originally Posted by gwahir
well instead will show :chiyo: an what it does to you an hour later :potty:
EDIT: OH SNAP WE DO HAVE :rolleyes:
SO YEAH :rolleyes: @ U GWAHIR
:rolleyes: @ U
well
look
this is a pretty silly discussion sycld so i'm bowing out now; seems like the thing to do
seriously?Quote:
Originally Posted by Mad Pino Rage
jake is irritating. there's not all that much to him, and his narration is largely needless.
sigourney weaver is the most interesting character of the lot. and she's not all that interesting.
and as for the na'vi? typical nature-loving savages. so wise and in tune with the earth, in contrast with our ignorant cavalier consumerist "intelligence". none of them are actual CHARACTERS. not even archetypes, just simple stereotypes held up as some bland, simplistic ideal.
too late; i already bowed out of the discussion wif the :rolleyes:Quote:
Originally Posted by gwahir
Yeah, it does sound pretty stereotypical to me mpr...the stereotypical marine you were talking about, the nature loving race etc as gwahir put them...
I'll probably still watch it, but it sounds like another generic 'lots of special effects with nothing really to it' film to me.
You're joking, right?Quote:
Originally Posted by Mad Pino Rage
Yeah, you MUST be joking.Quote:
Originally Posted by Mad Pino Rage
Hahah good one!Quote:
Originally Posted by Mad Pino Rage
This movie's plot was kludged together out of pop-history cliches from European colonialism and US westward expansion. The ruthless cavalry, err, Marines launch a brutal attack on the noble nature-loving Indians--sorry, blue cat people--because there's gold, I mean unobtainium, under their sacred hills--tree, I mean--and they won't leave so that the white men, oops I mean corporation, can get at it. So Kevin Costner's character from Dances With Wolves--uhh, some utterly forgettable chump--switches sides to help them defend it. I get that this movie was supposed to be a visually impressive action flick rather than a thought-provoking piece of art, but for fuck's sake, James Cameron can make much better movies than this; if he's willing to spend $400 million and ten years on a movie, would it really have required that much extra effort to make it even remotely good in any respect other than the visuals? It's a toss-up between which is more painful to sit through, the thematic content or the dialog. Also all the military aspects of it were pretty laughable, I know most people don't care about that but I did kind of expect better from James Cameron.
Good points of this movie included the scientifically accurate spaceship that you see for about ten seconds at the very beginning, the fact that it included a main character who smoked cigarettes without anything ever being made of it, the fact that they never tried to provide any explanation of what the unobtainium really is or what it's really used for, and the fact that they called the stuff "unobtainium" in the first place (I don't see why people have a problem with that). Plus everything did look gorgeous.
EDIT: Of all the ham-handed stereotypes in this movie, Giovanni Ribisi's character was by the far the worst. He wasn't even a stereotype, he was a caricature of a stereotype. He didn't belong in a movie about ruthless corporate exploitation, he belonged in an sketch-comedy bit about it.
Point #1: syme you white man no tell me proud brown man about co-loe-nee-a-lie-zsation
Point #2:
i think people should be able to smoke if they want to, and by "smoke" i mean both tobacco and marijuana, neither of which i smoke.Quote:
Originally Posted by Syme
but come on. i can't remember ever seeing smoking obviously demonized in the movie theater aside from some "documentaries" where there was full disclosure about the film's message and what person is sending that message, and you're telling me that you don't ever notice "good" characters smoking in movies? the majority of movies have some smoking in them, and often it's the good characters that smoke.
What I meant is that when I saw Sigourney Weaver light up for the first time, I thought to myself "man, before this movie ends, someone is going to hassle her about smoking, or she'll decide to give it up, or something". Then I was pleasantly surprised when it didn't happen. That's not the same thing as expecting smoking to be "demonized", BTW. And yeah obviously there have been recent movies where "good" characters smoked, but I think you are overstating how often it happens, at least in big-name blockbuster-type movies (like Avatar). A quick google research expedition reveals this: http://www.cnn.com/2009/HEALTH/06/03...ies/index.html, suggesting that smoking in such movies really has become fairly rare in recent years--certainly it does not appear in a "majority" of such movies, if you have to watch four such movies (on average) to see a single smoking scene. Anyhow, I don't want this thread to become a discussion about smoking in movies, so again, all I meant was that I expected something to be made of it in Avatar and nothing was. Maybe it was the overly-preachy nature of Avatar in particular that gave me that expectation, who knows. Or the way in which they had a very famous actress very prominently smoke in her first appearance in the film, that seemed like kind of a set-up. And I don't smoke tobacco either, except for the occasional cigar, and don't smoke weed at all.
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.
Was interesting until the end. Ending was weak and expectedha
Makes sense. Also, my bad: I was citing a out-of-date statistic...Quote:
Originally Posted by Syme
Really? I found myself extremely impressed with the movie's ability to make me care so deeply for the protagonists that I was actually rooting for another species to kill humans.Quote:
Originally Posted by Syme
Even if I agreed with the assessments that the characters were boring, that's hardly a problem with this movie. Pandora is extremely rich and engrossing. The characters didn't act in ridiculous ways to take me out of their reality, and it was great to be transported to this existence to experience a new world. Mr. Cameron has plans for two sequels, so I believe they are where the rich storytelling and characters will come to fruition. Now that the groundwork has been laid for the world and people are used to it, the really interesting stories can follow.
Avatar definitely reminds me of the first Star Wars movie. Almost all the characters in it are stereotypical and the story isn't anything special, yet it's still completely engrossing as we are introduced to this new galaxy with great potential. It isn't until The Empire Strikes Back and Return of the Jedi that the characters gain more depth and become quite interesting.
The characters in the first Star Wars movie aren't stereotypical, they're archetypal, and the story is certainly something special.
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.
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.
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.
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.
EDIT:
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.Quote:
Originally Posted by UnreasonablyReasonable
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.Quote:
Originally Posted by UnreasonablyReasonable
I don't think this analogy holds up; the characters in New Hope may have been fairly steretypical (farmboy who wants to see the wider world, self-interested rogue with a heart of gold, etc.), but their actors do a fairly good job and the dialog isn't cringe-inducing. The characters and plot in New Hope are a good bit more compelling than anything in Avatar; New Hope is a much better-executed even if it's built just as solidly on well-worn archetypes. And while New Hope's plot isn't anything special, I think it is still a good bit better than Avatar's in concept as well as execution.Quote:
Originally Posted by UnreasonablyReasonable
He wasn't literally working on it for 10 years. He was ready to make it 10 years ago, but he didn't have the tech. After he watched LOTR: TTT and saw how Gollum interacted with everyone, he started work on a new filming/CGI system. So it really took like, 4 years.
Also, I loved it. I didn't consider the characters to be cliches, I considered them to be tropes. And I was glad to have a plot that was a little easier to follow than most sci-fi fare because I was being constantly bombarded every fucking second by how gorgeous everything was. Not just the forest, but the military base. I don't really mind that it was Dances with Smurfs; it was a familiar plot. While I did find the Na'Vi to be a little hard to take, there were humanizing touches throughout the entire thing, especially with Neytiri. She went from callous soldier/don't fucking like humans one bit no sir Action Girl to a fairly compassionate central character. And uh, Tek-Ruh or whatever the fuck his retarded name was, the de-facto leader after the elder kicks it - he wasn't constantly scheming to kill Jake or anything. In fact, I thought they would be at odds until the end, but they seemed to work out their differences quite well. And quickly.
And the nerd fucker, the guy from Bones. I expected him to rat out Sully at several points, but his character - a jealous side-kick - managed to swallow his goddamn pride and realize that Jake was doing something that wasn't entirely awful, no matter how jealous he was.
I think there was a little more substance than people are willing to give it credit for. Familiar plot =/= bad plot.
Also, I wish I could USB link with horses :( And keep a Tree of Souls in my basement to store all my music and movies on. Just walk over, wrap my hair around it, upload, download. Yeah. It could work.
I mean really saying he's been working on it for 10 years is like saying one of my stories, which I wrote 15 years ago and I re-wrote for publication now, has been in the making for 15 years. It's technically true, but ignorant of circumstance.
If he was ready to make it 10 years ago but lacked the tech, that's even less excuse. He had all that time to work on story, dialogue and character. Your humanising touches didn't do it for me. They were just character turnarounds. I mean I didn't have a problem with any one turnaround, I just didn't think they were executed at all well enough to be a "humanising touch". Just more plot.
I didn't have a problem with the plot being familiar. I don't really care. Lots of plots are familiar. I just think it was lazy, uninspired, and meandering. But EVEN THAT is not really my problem with the movie; that one goes to the characters. They were way more than tropes. They fell asleep on the train and blew right past Tropes Station. They're cliches and then some. They're cliches who lack the depth of character that cliches usually have.
well i mean ham-handed moralizing relying on overused cliches is the best way to make an impact with the audience
avatar gets completely ruined in discussion itt
still will see it though i imagine
there is no way to ruin this movie in discussion; the only way the movie could be ruined for someone is by blinding them
lol is that a compliment to the film or an insult
i think it could be either tbh
but i mean ill assume insult
well it's a compliment to its uncontroversially stunning visuals and an insult to everything else
I guess the line seperating cliche from trope, stereotype from archetype, is vague or thin or in different places for different people. It's one of those eye of the beholder type deals, what strikes one person as an archetypal character strikes another person as a stereotypical one. But at least in the case of Avatar's main villains--Stephen Lang's character and especially Giovanni Ribisi's character--James Cameron blasted across that line, wherever it lies, without even slowing down. In fact he kept going beyond that line and plowed across the NEXT line, the one separating stereotype from ridiculously overdone caricature. I'm okay with a movie that assumes a black-and-white moral difference between antagonists and protagonists, but come on.Quote:
Originally Posted by MalReynolds
And like gwahir said, I don't really have a problem with a plot that's less than totally original (Alien is basically just a haunted-house horror flick with a spaceship instead of a house, yet it's a great movie); but there are degrees of unoriginality, and to a large degree, how much unoriginality you can get away with depends on how well-executed the movie is in plot terms. Avatar falls pretty flat there, so the unoriginality of it's plot is really in-your-face and irritating/tedious. A plot that incorporates elements that have been used in other movies, but still does something interesting and maybe new with them (e.g. Alien) is a little different from a plot that transparently rips off a bunch of cliches that are frankly already tired, and tries to serve them up like they are fresh and thought-provoking.
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.Quote:
Originally Posted by gwahir
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.
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.Quote:
Originally Posted by Gwahir
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.Quote:
Originally Posted by Gwahir
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.Quote:
Originally Posted by Syme
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.Quote:
Originally Posted by Syme
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.
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.Quote:
Originally Posted by Syme
Quote:
Originally Posted by Mad Pino Rage
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.Quote:
Originally Posted by Mad Pino Rage
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.Quote:
Originally Posted by Mad Pino Rage
The character concept for Jake Sully was great. The execution of that concept was lackluster and unimpressive.
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).Quote:
Originally Posted by Mad Pino Rage
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.Quote:
Originally Posted by Mad Pino Rage
It's a deus ex. Literally. It is God coming to the rescue. Jake can't save them, their own wisdom can't save them, having allies like Trudy couldn't save them. God had to come to the rescue.Quote:
Originally Posted by Mad Pino Rage
The Na'vi are imitation wise. A cheap, unoriginal version of wise. Nothing they have or do is based on wisdom. Cameron makes a point of trying to tell us it's wisdom, but he forgets about the part where he created all the rules of that universe. He created the rules, and the Na'vi happen to know them (for, what we are shown, are completely biological reasons moreover). Wise characters have to be wise without the specific rules of that universe for them to be actually compelling and their wisdom to mean anything.
Yoda is wise even without the Force. Gandalf is wise even without his wizarding powers and knowledge of Middle-Earth history. Take away all the shit that Cameron made up and what you're left with is a bunch of haughty smurfs.
You're not seriously suggesting there is a deficit of imagination in any of the work by the single most influential fantasy writer in history, are you? Yep, you're trolling. Okay.Quote:
Originally Posted by Mad Pino Rage
i'm gonna echo gwahir here and mention that, at the time of it's writing, lord of the rings was totally original work. it synthesized common folklore of mythological creatures and turned that into lore and ancient, mysterious history, something which hadn't been done on that scope before. he created that world (and the attendant languages, which is incredibly impressive from a dedication standpoint, although the end result is pretentious fanboys learning them to LARP their faggoty hearts out) entirely on his own, establishing the archetypes that haunt every pulp-fantasy story that have followed ever since. you really can't compare cameron to tolkien in any respect, especially not avatar to lotr
Wait, how can Yoda be wise without the Force? What are you even basing that assumption off of? All those times Yoda was stripped of the force and was totally wise? I'll give you Gandalf. He seems absolutely level-headed, but once again, what are you basing his wisdom off of? You never see him without his wizardry. Each character plays by the rules that were created specifically for their universes. The Na'vi are no different.
I'd argue the fact that they aren't wise is more based off the fact that nothing they do shows wisdom. They have confirmed that their God is real, therefore, their worship comes from fact, not faith, and their 'wisdom' is handed down from a higher being. All they're doing is following orders.
I still liked them, but if every time I stepped outside my hair tangled with the trees and God went, "Hey, by the way, I'm real, and all your friends are in heaven with me," it would not make me wise to believe in God. It would, however, make me quite stupid not to.
You misunderstand; I'm not saying that it's not the Force that makes Yoda wise, or that it's not his powers that make Gandalf wise. I'm saying they're wise in ways that don't relate only to the Force -- the things they say and the wisdom they espouse is actually relevant in this universe, without wizarding powers and the Force. "Do or do not; there is no try" is a wise thing for anyone to have said, with or without the Force. The wisdom high-handedly spouted by Cameron and the Na'vi, on the other hand, is only "wisdom" on Pandora. I'm saying this makes it false, cheap, imitation wisdom, and Cameron should have done better.
But you're right as well.
That's another good point, actually. The movie's environmental message loses some of it's relevance when you think it through and notice that the Pandoran environment and ecosystem had special traits which real-life environments and ecosystems don't, and which created a reason to save them that doesn't apply to their real-life counterparts. That weakened the film's thematic content (which was already pretty cookie-cutter).
I have not heard one person say anything bad about this movie.
if you'd read this thread you'd hear several people saying several bad things about this movie!
lol burn
Did anyone else think the helicopter pilot chick looked like gina?
If you'd read reviews of this movie, you'd also have heard people saying bad things about it. It's not just snooty bastards like gwahir, coq, and I who noticed that it has flat dialog, weak acting, a cliched plot, and ham-fisted thematic content.
Well, I enjoyed the movie. I don't feel the need to write four hundred pages about why it was good (nor could I), because it's just possible that I have no taste whatsoever and the fact that I enjoyed this movie makes me a plebeian and a moron.
to be fair, i haven't watched the movie, but i do have snooty tastes in films (unless they're action movies)
This is true that the reviewers haven't been too kind to this movie, it has a mere 83% from Rotten Tomatoes. It does slightly better with a 94% from top critics, but that's still some distance from perfection.Quote:
Originally Posted by Syme
Many reviewers have had overall reactions that were positive, while still mentioning that the plot, acting, characterization, and dialog are unimpressive. I didn't say "lots of reviewers have rated it poorly", I said lots of reviewers have pointed out the same shortcomings that gwahir and I have.
If you actually read through those reviews on rottentomatoes, including the Top Critics reviews, you will find that most reviewers make mention of those shortcomings but still gave the film a positive rating because it was so visually impressive. Looking over the POSITIVE reviews in the rottentomatoes Top Critics section, I see the following phrases used to describe the plot and characters and dialog of Avatar: "Corny", "a cartoon", "the Michael Bay demographic", "a crock", "predictable", "tin-eared", "clumsy", "cliche-filled", "dramatically simple-minded", "childishly two-dimensional", and my favorite, "10-foot blue people re-enact the plot of Pocahontas". Again, all of these were taken from the POSITIVE Top Critics reviews, and I only skimmed a handful of those reviews to find these phrases. I'm sure that a comprehensive search would find many more, since every review I looked at seemed to say something about how unimpressive the plot, dialog, or acting was.
So to repeat myself: If you read reviews of this movie, you will find plenty of people airing the same criticisms that gwahir and I have made. That doesn't mean all reviewers hated it, but they DID all pretty much notice that the script, performances, and plot were weak.
Nice try though.
I enjoyed it too, as I said to UnreasonablyReasonable earlier in the thread. I had fun watching it, it looked great and it was an entertaining action movie. In fact I'll probably go see it again this week. It's numerous flaws don't stop it from being enjoyable, they are just somewhat disappointing coming from James Cameron, since he has a track record of making great sci-fi/action movies that don't suffer from those flaws. And honestly most of what I've said about it's flaws in this thread has been in response to people claiming those flaws don't exist; I' m not just shitting on it because I hated it so much or something like that.Quote:
Originally Posted by solecistic
I didn't enjoy it only because the combination of 3D glasses and my regular glasses really hurt my eyes. But I mean I liked the actual movie.
Gwahir says "the story and characters are not at all engaging." Also "jake is irritating. there's not all that much to him, and his narration is largely needless." I take it you agree?Quote:
Originally Posted by Syme
Sure, it's true to say "many" agree with these points, but certainly not most. Let's take a look at one of the articles from which you took quotes out of context:
"Mr. Cameron lays out the fundamentals of the narrative efficiently, grabbing you at once with one eye-popping detail after another and on occasion almost losing you with some of the comically broad dialogue. He’s a masterly storyteller if a rather less nimble prose writer. (He has sole script credit: this is personal filmmaking on an industrial scale.) Some of the clunkier lines (“Yeah, who’s bad,” Jake taunts a rhinolike creature he encounters) seem to have been written to placate those members of the Michael Bay demographic who might find themselves squirming at the story’s touchier, feelier elements, its ardent environmentalism and sincere love story, all of which kick in once Jake meets Neytiri, a female Na’vi (Zoë Saldana, seen only in slinky Na’vi form)."
Yes, SOME lines were written to appeal (according to this reviewer) to a "Michael Bay demographic." Oh no, I guess that means the dialogue completely sucks now...
Though I doubt this discussion has any serious potential. So probably just disregard all of this.
"Many but not most"? The passage you cite is kinder than most of those in the Top Critics reviews, so I think your accusation that I've taken things out of context is not broadly correct. If anything, it looks like you are cherry-picking one of the more positive of the reviews and trying to use that one review to make it look like I've overstated the degree to which reviewers noticed Avatar's crappy plot and dialog. Go back and read more of those reviews, you will find that most of their criticisms of Avatars plot and characters are not surrounded by such complimentary language. So that I myself won't be accused of cherry-picking the more negative reviews, let's take a look at what the first ten Top Critics reviews on rottentomatoes have to say about Avatar's plot, characters, and/or dialog:
From the first review, David Eidelstein for New York Magazine: "Yes, on one level it’s a crock: predictable, sentimental, and tin-eared. It’s an attempt to rewrite (and reanimate) American history in the form of a barely disguised parable of Native Americans triumphing against white imperialists who would drive them from their ancestral lands — aided by a white imperialist (a Marine) who has Gone Native.... ...The narrative would be ho-hum without the spectacle. But what spectacle!"
From the second review, Ann Hornaday for the Washington Post: "Is the dialogue corny? You bet."
From the third review, A.O. Scott for At The Movies: This review is in video form, not written. It suggests that "Cameron the writer" sometimes undermines "Cameron the director", that the military-vs.-natives plot is "very ham-handed", and that the script is "kind of obvious".
From the fourth review, Manohla Dargis for the New York Times: This is the one you quoted above, which says the dialogue is "comically broad". It's gentler than most of the other reviews.
From the fifth review, Stephanie Zacharek for Salon.com: "It is a very expensive-looking, very flashy entertainment, albeit one that groans under the weight of clumsy storytelling in the second half and features some of the most godawful dialogue this side of "Attack of the Clones."" This is the only one of these ten reviews that's actually negative, by the way.
From the sixth review, Kenneth Turan for the Los Angeles Times: "Perhaps the most surprising thing about Cameron's visual accomplishments is that they are so powerful we're barely troubled by the same weakness for flat dialogue and obvious characterization that put such a dent in "Titanic.""
From the seventh review, Amy Biancolli for the Houston Chronicle: "Once again, it features an epic length and bouts of corny dialogue." "The movie loses altitude only when it opens its mouth and unloads platitudes, some of them New-Age truisms, others the sort of inane macho outbursts most often found in low-grade action flicks."
From the eighth review, J.R. Jones for the Chicago Reader: This is the only review of the ten that doesn't say something negative about plot, dialog, or characters. Perhaps by sheer coincidence, this review is only three sentences long.
From the ninth review, Rick Groen for Globe and Mail: After #8, this is probably the most positive review of the lot, saying only that "Certainly, all this noble-savage palaver can wear thin."
From the tenth review, Peter Howell for the Toronto Star: "This saga of a so-called civilized man joining a not-so-primitive tribe is hardly original, and early suggestions that Avatar would play like an interplanetary Dances With Wolves have been largely borne out." And my favorite, in reference to Stephen Lang's character: "If he had a moustache, he could twirl it in 3-D."
So out of ten reviews by reputable film critics--reviews that were not selected by me based on their contents--we have nine that criticize Avatar's plot/characters/dialog in some terms, six or seven of which I would say are fairly clear that they found these elements to be poorly handled on an overall level. We can expand the sample size indefinitely and I think the same pattern will hold true: Most (not just "many", but most) reviewers will have noticed that Avatar had bad dialog and a cliched plot. There will be a minority of reviews that point this out with relative gentleness, like the one you quoted above, but a majority will be more to-the-point.
Anyhow, yes, I agree with gwahir. He put it more bluntly than most reviewers did, but he is saying essentially the same thing that most reviewers said: That the movie's plot, characterization, and dialog were not very good. I stand by my initial point, which was that if no_brains_no_worries "has not heard one person say anything bad about this movie" (as he claimed), then not only has he not read this thread, he has not read any reviews of the movie, because almost all reviewers seem to have more or less gently mentioned the movie's flaws even if their overall review was positive due to the film's cinematic spectacle. So his impressions of what people are saying about the movie are essentially meaningless, since he doesn't seem to have actually heard much of anyone say much of anything about the movie either way!
And I also stand by my follow-on point: That it was silly and disingenuous of you to try and pretend that because the movie got a high aggregate score on rottentomatoes.com, reviewers therefore aren't saying anything negative about it (and then, once that claim that was debunked, that it's only "many, not most" of the reviewers saying anything negative).
aaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaand scene.
I don't consider those on the internets people so I only take stock in what people I meet in person say.Quote:
Originally Posted by gwahir
But I guess this is the one movie to spring the extra bucks for and see it in a 3-D Imax theater.
I watched the movie again earlier this New Year's Eve and picked up a lot more from it. While I'm not die-hard to defend my point, I still wanted to. Now I tried to debate reasonably with Syme and Gwahir because I felt very strongly about my enjoyment of this movie. In no such degree do I think them lesser for what they tell me nor do I feel any lesser or wrong from gaining any point of perception from their views, but I still and will enjoy this movie for a very long time and was kind of engrossed trying to talk with gwahir and syme no matter how much of a plebeian moronic snooty bastards they are.Quote:
Originally Posted by solecistic
You know, I can't speak for gwahir, but I myself have said twice now that I enjoyed the movie too. What mental defect makes people think that you can either notice a movie's flaws or enjoy it but not both? And that anyone who enjoyed the movie is duty-bound to pretend those flaws didn't exist? We haven't been arguing that the movie wasn't enjoyable or that you were wrong to enjoy it, and if you think that's what this discussion has been about, you have not read the thread very carefully.Quote:
Originally Posted by Mad Pino Rage
Also I think you are misusing the word "plebeian", unless for some reason you think that noticing bad plot/dialog is a defining trait of the common people, while over overlooking them is a trait of the refined elite class.
MPR stop acting like such a pleb.
mpr is trolling, syme -- he is pretty much amazing at trolling
it's because he's secretly pleb
Pretty movie, predictable story, didn't disappoint in IMAX 3D... better than expected.
Wow, I can't believe that neither of the Smithsonian Imax theaters are showing it. Neither is the Maryland Science Center's in Baltimore.
I used to complain when it seemed like Imax theaters were getting away from educational films, but it looks like they are sticking to educational films the one time I want to see a stupid purely entertaining flick there. I mean they showed that goddamn Night at the Museum II piece of shit.
If you don't mind a trip around the beltway, the Hoffman in Alexandria is showing it on their IMAX screen.Quote:
Originally Posted by sycld
The franklin institute imax isn't showing it either and I'm pissed. The imax in king of prussia is just a big screen and isn't anything special. They showed fucking transformers there but not avatar.Quote:
Originally Posted by sycld
Well tonight my choices are either go see Dances With Smurfs or go and watch my friend's hardcore emo band. Unfortunately it'll probably be the latter because it'll mean spending my night with less douchier people. Plus sweaty beer-drenched rock-chicks are a plus.
I just saw Avatar 3D today on the regular non-Imax screen. I doubt that at this point anyone really cares about another casual moviegoer's opinion, especially since the experts have already passed down their judgement and the rest of us have discussed it ad nauseum. But I don't care.
Here's my verdict: it's a great launch to a multi-media, highly marketable IP. The goal of new games and movies is not to merely make one marketable product maybe alongside some paraphernalia for the fan bois, but rather to launch an entire line of products. The mediocre game has already been released, as well as a "making of..." book and a "compilation of scientific data" from Pandora. A novel based on the film shall soon be released. The movie's shallowness and greater emphasis on style and aesthetic rather than substance in the plot and characters probably makes it easier to be the basis for other products.
Anyway, I enjoyed the 2 and a half hours of the movie, no matter the flat characters, crappy dialog, cliched plot full of allegories into which Cameron feels the need to shove our nose (I guess in order to remove an absolute shadow of a doubt of what things mean for those that are a bit slow), etc.
However, I feel that there were occasional glimpses of what could have been done with this idea of crossing worlds from that of humanity to that of another people. I remember one moment at the beginning of the movie where I had a feeling of disorientation as the protagonist took off his avatar persona and went back to his normal human life. There was also another moment after the first kiss between Jake and Neytiri when the marine has such a deeply personal and emotional facial expression that was actually quite affecting. And even though this is probably because I'm a really sensitive moron, Signourny Weaver's enrapture into Ewya was actually not completely expected and was another moment that got me, despite the stupid ritual.
But most of the thoughts I had during the movie have otherwise been expressed. I knew exactly what to expect as soon as the seed landed on Neytiri's arrow to stay her hand. The "Paint with All the Colors of the Wind"-style communing with nature was incredibly banal, the characters were annoyingly cookie-cutter, the "noble savage" depiction of the Na'vi was so predictable and probably actually a little insulting to real Native Americans, etc. etc. etc. And I completely thought the same thing as Syme about how Pandora should be preserved because of its giant communal mind actually undermined the movie's ecological theme.
That said, I'm probably just a sentimental sucker, but I totally bought into the poetic justice revenge fantasy when the Navi were rallied under Jake's flag. I also was moved by the Trudy's conversion to the good guys, only to be martyred during the final battle of the marines alongside many other noble humans that gave up their lives for the preservation of Pandora. Well, then Ewya attacked the "bad guys," and the enchantment was dispelled as the conflict was reduced to which side had the stronger magic. And finally, the moment when Neytiri held Jake in her arms moved me too, but again I'm a sentimental loser.
And of course the visuals were amazing, everything from the reef-like forest to the floating islands. Again, aesthetics and visuals are probably a stronger basis for an IP than a memorable plot and characters.
So yeah, Avatar was about as profound and beautiful as a blond bimbo. I don't know if I'm absolutely thrilled about supporting this kind of movie with my ticket purchase, but at least it was an entertaining enough ride while it lasted even though I doubt the experience will stay long with me.