Avatar (December 18, 2009) ¯\_(ツ)_/¯

[Cichy]

Wait. Really, people are arguing that Avatar is deep? Is this like when the third Matrix movie came out, and if you weren't impressed by the "subtle" Neo=Jesus! symbolism and the DBZ fight in the rain you just didn't get it?

Avatar was so shallow and heavy handed I wanted to walk out on it. The first hour or so of the movie I was alright with, willing to see where we were going with it, but the answer eventally was: nowhere new. We dont even get very interesting monster designs or ecosystems, just take some earth fauna, add extra legs and shoulder nostrils, and color shift everything over a few points. By the time we were getting to the climax of the story I was sunk in my seat, praying for it to end soon and going over my mental checklist of the ground we had to cover before that could happen.

I am all about archetypes, but a story needs to do something new too... Give me good dialogue, character chemistry, role reversals, anything. If you're not going to do something new, as a director and storyteller, why even bother?

Cameron put all of his risk taking into the 300million dollar graphics budget, and then played it ultra middle of the road safe with the story, either because that's his idea of a good time or because he was too afraid of alienating the average theater goer, I'm not sure. But if that's the case why take any risk at all? Make a shitty, predictable CHEAP movie, like everybody else.

Than you should have walked out of it. Bottom line is, Cameron made a movie that 95% of the audience enjoyed and had an amazing experience. Bottom line is that he will be remembered for his work for many years and he made billions of dollars. I know you dont get the concept because your parents pay for your living but money is the only thing that is important in life. If you can do it better why dont you.

[Beckwin]

nah I really doubt that avatar is going to be immortalized as far as film goes. people still remember Titanic mainly because of DiCaprio and Winslet; the only thing memorable about Avatar is the visuals but those will be commonplace within a decade.

[promethius]

watched it today thought it was great but i didn't watch it in 3D should i be regretting it?

[Shade]

Than you should have walked out of it. Bottom line is, Cameron made a movie that 95% of the audience enjoyed and had an amazing experience. Bottom line is that he will be remembered for his work for many years and he made billions of dollars. I know you dont get the concept because your parents pay for your living but money is the only thing that is important in life. If you can do it better why dont you.

lol?
Okay. Are we going to use financial success as the sole measuring stick for quality, now? 95% of the audience enjoyed the movie with the singing chihuahuas, I guess its a masterpiece of cinema too.

[Tanthalass]

Than you should have walked out of it. Bottom line is, Cameron made a movie that 95% of the audience enjoyed and had an amazing experience. Bottom line is that he will be remembered for his work for many years and he made billions of dollars. I know you dont get the concept because your parents pay for your living but money is the only thing that is important in life. If you can do it better why dont you.

I like how you counter valid points with made up statistics and calling someone a basement troll. Please teach me more.

That aside, this movie was Cameron throwing $300 mill into making something really really pretty. It's really cool to look at, and I'm sure its even cooler to look at when you're high. That doesn't make the film, which is mediocre, amazing.

[Obev]

Than you should have walked out of it. Bottom line is, Cameron made a movie that 95% of the audience enjoyed and had an amazing experience. Bottom line is that he will be remembered for his work for many years and he made billions of dollars. I know you dont get the concept because your parents pay for your living but money is the only thing that is important in life. If you can do it better why dont you.

How about you shut the hell up?

[Kyo]

I like how you counter valid points with made up statistics and calling someone a basement troll. Please teach me more.

That aside, this movie was Cameron throwing $300 mill into making something really really pretty. It's really cool to look at, and I'm sure its even cooler to look at when you're high. That doesn't make the film, which is mediocre, amazing.

And its going to look really cool on blu ray :3

[Brill Weave]

Jesus crispies you guys are still going on about this lol?

[Gulkeeva]

Avatar is serious business, enough to make people want to commit suicide to go to "pandora" apparently

http://www.theregister.co.uk/2010/01/12/avatar_blues/

[Tyrath]

Avatar is serious business, enough to make people want to commit suicide to go to "pandora" apparently

http://www.theregister.co.uk/2010/01/12/avatar_blues/

I checked out the forum the article mentioned, oh my god this has to be a troll

http://www.avatar-forums.com/showthread.php?t=43

So I've seen this phrase a couple of times in this thread "Live like the Na'vi" and you know what? It was good advice, I needed to live more like the Na'vi. The very first thing I did was remove my bedding from the house and set up a hammock in my bedroom instead (it would be outside but it's very cold right now ) I know this is very superficial so please don't judge me, but one step at a time right?

The next thing I know I need to do is have a respect of the enviroment. I used to drive a ranger ,but I realized that was hurting mother Earth, or terra as I've affectionatly called her. So anyways I took the beast for one last drive and left it downtown with the keys in it, I won't be a devil anymore!!! Since then I've found a horse on Craiglist and starting barning it in my empty garage. My "moron" neighbors are complaining, but you know what they haven't woken up yet, those big jerks.

Thirdly I've tried to engage in activism, you see in the suburbs the city routinely decides to remove trees because they are pushing up their cement!! Can you believe that? Maybe their cement is bugging the trees roots or something. So I've ridden around on silver lightning (my horse he's such a sweetie) and found these people and had very heated arguments with them. They don't understand what it's like to be a tree and how truely alive they really are. I've been mostly unsuccessful , but a couple conceded and decided not to tear the trees down!! I'm currently in the process of creating my own bow and arrow to intimidate these cretins (i'd never use it though)

Lastly it was clear that the Na'vi hate greed so I'm going to write some very strongly worded letters to wallstreet and Ford telling them what they've done to this earth.

Living like the Na'vi has changed my life, when it gets warmer I plan on just wearing a burlap sack around my waste, man was not meant to be fully clothed.

Thank you for this site so I can meet other like minded people.

[Brill Weave]

Well played Na'vi troll. Well played. The question is how many people are dumb enough to take him seriously?

[Tyrath]

One of the mods there took it hook, line, and sinker. On page 52.

[tyven]

this movie would have been better if it was the book of eli

[Kyo]

Needed more Denzel killing mexicans tbh.

[ZarakiKujata]

This movie was Cameron's masterpiece, just like Denzel shoving that explosive up that mexicans ass in Man on Fire was his.

[Kaylia]

I checked out the forum the article mentioned, oh my god this has to be a troll

http://www.avatar-forums.com/showthread.php?t=43

What the fuck. Now I feel like not defending avatar against the hater. But seriously, if it's not a troll, then i dont know...but again, there is furry, so it could be real.

Yet Watchmen, being such an "obscure" title by mainstream standards, still grossed nearly $200 million at the box office (Dragonball Evolution on the other hand, a mere $9 million). Franchise name alone doesn't sell tickets.

That's what I was saying. That said, some franchise are used because the writer/producer can do something good with it, but other are picked simply because they think they can milk it (sometime they fail, sometime they succeed). Dragon Ball failled hard time, but the name is probably the only reason why they picked it in the first place(otherwise, I dont fucking understand how you can explain the movie)

I don't think the choice of Gunnm, a relatively obscure title, is a "safe value" for hollywood. After titanic and Avatar, it would probably feel like a step down to people who arent used to that kind of darker story (especially not the older audiance).

Beyond that, you get much more developed relationships among the characters (and races). We could go on and on, but it's safe to say that LotR has a lot going on that you simply can't precisely predict on a first reading. It simply has more substance to it's plot, settings, and characters.

So what would I have liked to see in Avatar? I dunno, there are loads of possibilities. Why not some sort of romance developing between Jake and Weaver instead of the predictable and contrived one between Jake and Neitiri? That would've made Weaver's death much more meaningful. Why does Jake have to be the sole savior of the Navi? Basically every other prominent Navi shown to us is killed off as fodder, aside from necessary love interest Neitiri. The presence of some non-mining corp entity from earth might've added some complexity to the struggle.

And certainly, any of the human characters developing any sort of significant relationship with any Navi outside of Neitiri would've been welcome- we're led to simply assume that Jake makes good buddies with a few, but we're never shown that development. This lack basically gives a very simple, dehumanizing view of the Navi- they've got one open-minded female and then a bunch of simple-minded earth-worshippers. The earth-worship in and of itself is fine and central to the plot, but why do the rest of the Navi have to be portrayed as so flat, simple, and uninteresting? To again compare to The Last Samurai, where's the Katsumotto? Where's the bow and arrow guy with the sense of humor? Where are the children? Where's Bob?

Neitiri's mother was also open minded as far as we know. Personally, I don't feel that way about the social situation. It feel like at some point, they were a lot closer to the human (to the point of learning their language), but the situation slowly degenerated to what we saw, because of the pression put by the company on them.

Excluding the avatars, there wasn't many important navi (4, or maybe 5?), and quite frankly, it's better this way since I had trouble telling them apart (although, they could/should have addressed that before). 2 major one died in the last segment of the movie, and I agree their death was more or less needed, but I don't think it's a major issue either.

Concerning your last point, I've no issue agreeing with you on this, but do you think everyone want to see this? Do you think doing this would make the complain in this thread step? Maybe you and I would have liked it better this way, but from the comment I read, people werent looking for something that deep.

[Brill Weave]

My one and only comment about this movie. I enjoyed it. I found the plot to be completely simplistic and the few moments of "deep" thinking were nothing more than filler between the action sequences that had absolutely no bearing or impact on the movie's outcome. This was cowboys and indians with the indians winning.

[Mamimikun]

Loved it first 3D movie ive seen

[Kyo]

Loved it first 3D movie ive seen

[Kyreth]

My one and only comment about this movie. I enjoyed it. I found the plot to be completely simplistic and the few moments of "deep" thinking were nothing more than filler between the action sequences that had absolutely no bearing or impact on the movie's outcome. This was cowboys and indians with the indians winning.

What amuses me is that people think that Avatar was supposed to be a deep film.

It's about as deep as Titanic was. Cameron just managed to make a fuck-awesome visual world, used a tried-and-true storyline, and just bent it to his own ends and added liberal amounts of honest-to-goodness cool.

Quality or not, a movie is measured on it's success, and Avatar is as successful as it's ever gotten. Critics can therefore criticize it all they like, but Cameron and the studio are still swimming in dollar bills, audiences are leaving happy, and the sequel is greenlit so hard you can see emerald dawn on the other side of the planet from Hollywood.