[Film] James Cameron's Avatar

[Themaninblack]

For a bunch of anime fans, I can't believe you guys are criticizing this film for having cliche characters and a bunch of re-hashed genre tropes. It's not like 99.99% of anime doesn't suffer from exactly these same problems. Oh wait, but they have animated tits, and aren't in English, so they are "good."

Didn't this have animated tits too? 99.99% of everything is jack shit, not just anime. We all make fun those pieces of trash as well Brik, they just have a different opinion then you.

I thought it was a good action film B+, but not worth all the hype.

[Hexon.Arq]

For a bunch of anime fans, I can't believe you guys are criticizing this film for having cliche characters and a bunch of re-hashed genre tropes. It's not like 99.99% of anime doesn't suffer from exactly these same problems. Oh wait, but they have animated tits, and aren't in English, so they are "good."

They also don't cost $300 million. :3 I don't expect a salad to taste like good pie.

It wasn't a bad movie at all; it just didn't seem to have any effort that wasn't invested in its visuals. The same could be said of a lot of (if not most) huge fare, but the buzz surrounding Avatar led me to think I could expect an exception. It contained nothing at all that I would consider to be a curve or surprise; even the lesser anime I have yet seen have had at least one half-decent "oh shit" moment that at least made me chuckle softly (even if it is occasionally the product of filler). With Avatar you know how it's going to end from the beginning (I would say from the trailer), but everything that happens along the way happens in such a bald, unadorned or unaltered fashion that had me constantly thinking, "...oh, that's like in The Matrix.", "...oh, like Pocahontas.", "...kinda like The Last Samurai.", "waitaminute, these are fucking Native Americans.", which is a mode of thought I rarely enter when not necessary, and would rather not when seeing any movie for the first time. I've heard Dances With Wolves mentioned so often with regard to this movie that I wonder if it wouldn't have been terrible to call it a liberal adaptation from the onset.

Maybe I'm just getting old. What it basically boils down to is that for me, other than the welcome surplus of blue ass and nice gorings, it really, really felt like a kids' movie. Maybe that's precisely what it was, and the fact was simply lost on me. Whatever the case, I feel minutely troubled as my expectations are usually low enough to prevent me from ever feeling let down. Unless this becomes a mega-franchise, I don't see how I'm going to remember it in twenty years. Normally I wouldn't pick on a film that gave me that impression (or talk about it at all), but sometimes it feels like the magnitude of a work's arrival--whether pushed or earned--warrants it.

[UrsusArctos]

Wow, that movie was amazing but after playing so much Halo I have to admit that some of the vehicles look pretty UNSC-esk, pretty sure I saw a Warthog when they first came down to the planet.

I saw that myself. But then, Halo borrows from Cameron's Aliens- take a good look at the marines in the first game, for instance, or Echo 419's dialogue.

They also don't cost $300 million.

Exactly. The amount of potential that's been wasted, story-wise, is just unbelievable, and I'm not talking cliches and plot holes here. Cameron could have left stuff like this hanging around-

1. Did someone create the Na'vi to resemble human beings? I mean, you can't create a cow on Earth from a human embryo, and it'd be a real stretch to grow a chimp or a gorilla from a human embryo. Why are these blue-skinned, nine-foot aliens from another star system somehow compatible? It can't be merely future technology here! Did someone have something special in mind, for the Na'vi, and for us as well?

2. Are the Na'vi themselves Avatars- for someone else? They have four limbs, as opposed to the six other species on Pandora have. Were they made to resemble humans, or another humanoid race out there? Were they bodies for souls that could be downloaded from elsewhere?

3. Tree of souls/ magnetic vortex / Pandora as a brain- Was the whole moon meant as some kind of giant library, an information store of sorts, and were the Na'vi sitting on unobtanium deposits precisely because of that? A room temperature superconductor could hold huge amounts of information, you know...and it need not be native to Pandora itself.

He could have leveraged in questions like this- and start leaving humans wondering if they had some other role to play, one beyond their understanding. Food for thought, but he didn't insert any of it.

Also, I would've liked it more if the Jake-Neytiri bond wasn't one of sexual love but maternal love. Rather, what if Neytiri had a son who died, and Jake sort of became her (alien) replacement?

[Soljer13]

havnt seen it yet. but for those tghat think its unoriginal. remember that hollywood ran out of original ideas years ago.

[Mr. Tines]

He could have leveraged in questions like this

But then it would have stopped being right-on liberal-guilt Gaia-worship tree-huggery and actually been SF.

If he ever does do the Gunnm movie, I sure hope he rediscovers his earlier self who did Aliens.

[Merridian]

If he ever does do the Gunnm movie, I sure hope he rediscovers his earlier self who did Aliens.

But even Aliens was more suspense/action than actual sci-fi, though. I didn't mind the movie, but Ridley Scott's Alien has it beat in almost every regard, and it even incorporates more of that 'food for thought' SF material (still not a whole lot, but more than Cameron's follow-up did). Aliens had bigger props, bigger set designs, and more impressive special effects, but it seems that sort of big-budget “vision” is about as close to SF as Cameron can get. He coulda have replaced the aliens with rabid Rottweilers and the effect would have been roughly the same.

[Mr. Tines]

@Merridian
Aliens didn't have any deep message to preach.

Comparing it with Alien? After watching the first movie, I didn't feel comfortable going to the bathroom in the middle of the night. After watching the second, my arms ached from where I had been gripping the arms of the seat.

[Merridian]

Aliens didn't have any deep message to preach.

True, but it wasn't exactly SF "thought provoking" material either, which was more my point. It didn't explore a lot of the plot, and instead dived right into the action & gripped the audience by the throat from start to finish. Alien was slightly more meditative in this regard, building up the horror/suspense aspects more than the pure action. In terms of sci-fi, both films really treat the SF-aspects as secondary to the action, but my point was that Alien incorporated SF elements into its plot a little better than the sequel, and it also raised more questions regarding that whole ancestral race whatzit space-derelict thing. Aliens just gave the audience its dose of awesome.

As opposed to Avatar's hollow SF-setting & two-dimensional "right-on liberal-guilt Gaia-worship tree-huggery" :). I'm assuming you're saying that Avatar woulda been better without that whole message to begin with (which seems like what most critics are saying anyhow; I have no plan on seeing the movie any time soon so I can't comment). Without that obnoxiously heavy-handed green theme, I'm sure what would remain would be a pretty-looking adventure story--in other words, something a lot like Aliens; pretty to look at, exciting, action-packed, but still not really sci-fi.

If Battle Angel Alita gets green-lighted, it’d probably take a similar direction. I kinda doubt he’d throw in a message to Alita, since if he’s as big a fan of Alita as interviews/articles have led me to believe, he ideally wouldn’t want to ruin it with shoddy & unnecessary preaching.

[Soljer13]

Dear Lord. why cant people just enjoy movies for the superficial stuff? why must we dig for deeper meaning to everything?

[Joseph the PRPD]

why must we dig for deeper meaning to everything?

Because Eva fans must find some sort of deep meaning in everything.

[Soljer13]

Then Im not an evafan. sure I made an exception to understand the deeper meaning behind evangelion and some other anime. But goddamn...

[NemZ]

Aliens didn't have any deep message to preach.

It did have the underlying mothers/ children theme though. I'm not entirely sure if there's anything further to make of it but surely he didn't drop in the detail in the beginning of Ripley recently losing a daughter by mere coincidence, leading to the escalating threat/revenge contest with the alien queen later and her 'adoption' of Newt.

[The Eva Monkey]

@Merridian
Aliens didn't have any deep message to preach.

I don't know if it's a "message", but there are two things to consider with Aliens. It has some allegory to the Vietnam War, where a arrogantly over-confident military force got the shit kicked out of it by a technologically inferior opponent that they didn't understand. Also, like most of Cameron's films, it was a love story, mother-daughter love to be specific. There's a lot of post-traumatic stress and catharsis going on related to the loss of her daughter, and the need to take it out on the children of her tormentor. This is much more developed in the extended cut of the film, which I highly recommend viewing at some point. It's hands down my favorite film of all time.

There's no argument from me, Alien is a singular masterpiece. Wheras Aliens is concerned, it's just a really great sequel, one of the best film sequels ever, in my opinion.

[Guyver Spawn]

havnt seen it yet. but for those tghat think its unoriginal. remember that hollywood ran out of original ideas years ago.

While Avatar is not 100% original, but it's more original then most of the movies that cameout in the 15 years. Besides it's not like Star Wars was 100% original neither.

[Xard]

havnt seen it yet. but for those tghat think its unoriginal. remember that hollywood ran out of original ideas years ago.

While Avatar is not 100% original, but it's more original then most of the movies that cameout in the 15 years. Besides it's not like Star Wars was 100% original neither.

how exactly Dance with Blue skinnes aliens is original?


Basic, boring and predictable storyline + cliche characters + wooly mysticism + vidya gaem CGI + "liberal guilt" abusing = Avatar

[BrikHaus]

You guys are all a bunch of fucking idiots. When people bashed Transformers 2 for being "loud and stupid" you guys were saying shit like, "lol you're not supposed to think about it lol." But now that Avatar is out (and is a far superior film in every aspect) you are complaining that the storyline wasn't deep enough. Jesus Assraping Christ. Fuck you all.

[Guyver Spawn]

Well not every idea is pure original since every idea is based off of something else. Well as long their is a good story to tell, and good character devoplment then I'm fine with it.

[Xard]

You guys are all a bunch of fucking idiots. When people bashed Transformers 2 for being "loud and stupid" you guys were saying shit like, "lol you're not supposed to think about it lol." But now that Avatar is out (and is a far superior film in every aspect) you are complaining that the storyline wasn't deep enough. Jesus Assraping Christ. Fuck you all.

...since when I've liked either of Transformers films? WTF?

I have no doubts about Avatar being vastly superior to them

[Joseph the PRPD]

You guys are all a bunch of fucking idiots. When people bashed Transformers 2 for being "loud and stupid" you guys were saying shit like, "lol you're not supposed to think about it lol." But now that Avatar is out (and is a far superior film in every aspect) you are complaining that the storyline wasn't deep enough. Jesus Assraping Christ. Fuck you all.

Wow, no need to get that angry over a few posts.
So what if a few people don't like Avatar? It isn't for all that.

[THE Hal E. Burton 9000]

we all need to feel all intelligent and special apparently