Avatar (SPOILERS)

[uss]

Hello, long time no see. Feels nice to revisit the place where I spent a considerable part of my puberty. And it feels especially nice to see that the interface is mostly the same and that many oldies are still here. Now, on to Avatar..

I usually can't stand movies that are too Hollywood or too EPIC. And I almost never go to the cinema. With Avatar though, I hadn't heard any of the hype. I had only heard that A) it's James Cameron's first movie after many years and B) it's a visually stunning masterpiece. Since I'd seen the first 3 movies of the Alien tetralogy recently and my brother was planning to see Avatar anyway, I joined him. Surprisingly enough, I watched it 2 more times over the next 2 weeks.

This movie somewhat baffled me. Before seeing it, I liked rating movies on a scale of 1 to 10 - for example, to me, Inglourious Basterds was QT's masterpiece, so it'd have to be a 10/10. I definitely wouldn't call Avatar a better movie, and yet, seeing IB in the cinema once was enough, but not for Avatar. Apparently, it's got an entertainment value of 11/10.

Anyway, what do you think were the movie's best and worst aspects?

For me, it's:

+ quoting Captain Obvious here: the visuals. The 3D experience, the zooming effect, the scenery, the close-ups on sensations (Ist time Jake's avatar's feet touched the ground, the banshee's pupil, etc) and so on. This is definitely the number one reason to see the movie.

+ Neytiri. Her facial expressions for all emotions were all really well done. The voice actress was also very good. She carried the movie for all the time she was on the screen.

+ The main character. His dialogue fit well and he was all-round sympathetic.

- The bad guys' personalities. Selfridge's (Industrialism) and Quaritch's (Militarism) one-sidedness. That "Nothing's over while I'm still breathing!" shout was kind of ridiculous. The "Those are just goddamn trees!" reply to Weaver's character's monologue was funny though.

- The facial expressions of some avatars, save Neytiri. They looked a bit off at times. Especially Tsu'tey's expressions at 2 instances. And Sigourney Weaver's avatar was just one big NOOOO. Looked too much like herself, which made it look awkward next to the other ones. Very cringeworthy, methinks.

- The music. I'd have preferred it to be less tribal and more electronic. (I did like the track that played while Hometree was being devastated, though.) I'm personally a NIN fan and I think something like his instrumentals would have fit perfectly. Oh well, nothing's perfect.


What were your thoughts on the movie?


Paul

[Gabrielles blades]

i thought the movie was awesome! I kinda glazed over its bad points in lue drooling over its sheer awesomeness.

though i do agree some characters looked a bit weird.

[Wolf Rider2]

The storyline seemed stolen from other movies, in some parts. However, the special effects were amazing. Saw 3D and 2D. 3D is good if the glasses don't slip down your nose. 2D is good when you don't want a lot of other people in the cinema.

Great movie.

[Timber Loftis]

Warning........


SPOILERS AHEAD.......




YOU WERE WARNED!!!!!!!!!

[Gabrielles blades]

Its really retarded that people are dissing this movie because of its plot being similar to other movies.
I mean honestly, there are so many books and movies already created that it would really be just about impossible to be *really* different when it comes to plot. After all, no matter how different you think it is, there is always going to be a lot of similarities to something that has already been done.

[uss]

@ Timber Loftis

Yeah, I've also read the movie script, it's not too bad. After reading that, I feel like I have to see Pocahontas, to see how much of Avatar was taken over from that. Because I recently watched Dances With Wolves, which is also said to be exactly like Avatar, but those movies' story elements had so many differences it isn't even funny.



By the way, if you read the actual original scriptment of Avatar or at least the summary of it which is also provided in this link, you'll see that the movie Cameron had originally intended would've been far different. Aspects like:

- It's revealed the Avatar program exists to train Na'vi to be an indigenous workforce for the Corporation, since it's so expensive to send human workers.
- There are more humans, including a bioethics officer on the take, a video journalist, a head of the Avatar program and a second military .....

:and many others somewhat remind me of Alien(s), and make me think how Avatar at one time could've been more like that. I guess that at some point the director had to choose between making a really badass deep sci-fi and a decent, simplified, all-round likeable cash-cow and he chose the latter. Can't say I blame him. Like some guy at the imdb.com forums put it, it's surpising to see that the cocky all-time nr 1 box office champ James Cameron (from Titanic) was beat by an even more cocky James Cameron.

[Timber Loftis]

I enjoyed the movie. It was a leap forward in graphics and special effects, and was so beautifully rendered.

But the plot was blase and the dialogue was cringe-worthy, typical of Cameron. Like Titanic, it was entertaining and epic film-making, but not good cinema.

[Edit] Oh..... and this was just TOO funny not to share: