Went and watched it last night.

3D glasses kept slipping down.

But otherwise.

Absolutely the most visually stunning movie I've ever seen.
To see burning embers drifting down out of the screen onto the audience in front of you is rather surreal.
The 3D is so good it is like when you go from analogue TV to a 200Hz LCD. BAM! it slaps you in the face. Crystal clear and adds a huge amount to the pic.


Great fight scenes.

On the down side:
The hippy/earth mother etc storyline got a bit 'meh' but Cameron needed a Juxtaposition between modern mining techniques and 'natives'


The bonding ceremonies at the end verged on the ridiculous, but my wife cried, she got so into it.

3 hours is 10-15 minutes too long.


To wrap up:
I'd say definitely go see it.
See it in 3D

So, is the 3-D more subtle than, say Beowulf? Because that movie gave me a migraine.

Yeah, saw it last night too. The movie is by no means subtle, but Beowulf was rubbish anyway. The 'earth mother' thing was fine in my opinion, because it came with a biological explanation and was more believable than the outright mysticism it could have been.

Gonads, it didn't go for three hours. It was more like... oh... 10-15 minutes short of three hours.

The last fight will appeal to all 40K fans, trust me. It really is worth seeing in the cinema, and I don't say that often.

Already planning to see it anyways, Thanks for sharing.

seeing it over x-mas break. . . can't wait for the last fight scene. . . saw the the mechs and thought SPESS MARIENSSS

I've got an opportunity to check it out on the midnight showing tonight, sounds like it'll be a good time as long as I can stay awake

Waaagh_Gonads wrote:Absolutely the most visually stunning movie I've ever seen.

So you are telling me when you spend 300 million and 13 years on special effects they turn out to be good? Huh, never would have guessed.

Yeah, what a fether investing personal time and money in order to create something.

avantgarde wrote:Yeah, what a fether investing personal time and money in order to create something.

Nice strawman. It is very pretty and has nothing to do with wqhat was actually posted. Very good.

Since when am I supposed to stay on topic? That's ridiculous, I mean you don't go up in polite conversation and tell people to stay on topic. What are you some kind of conversational sturmbahnfurer?

PS I saw Avatar and didn't think it was that great.

PPS I'm glad you like my strawman, I worked very hard on it.

I just came from seeing it, and I have not been this blown away by a movie since Star Wars waaaaayyyyy back in 1977. Yes, the whole nature message was sort of heavy handed in parts, but it was for a reason. And the 3-D was the best I've ever seen. I actually thought a guy was walking through the audience at one point!!! I thought they should have turned the sound up a little more, but then again, I like action movies loud. Now I've got to wait until Clash of the Titans. Damn!!!

avantgarde wrote:Since when am I supposed to stay on topic? That's ridiculous, I mean you don't go up in polite conversation and tell people to stay on topic. What are you some kind of conversational sturmbahnfurer?

What? You're not even on topic for what you went off topic about. Are you posting drunk?

It was a strawman because it had nothing to do with what was being said. I said that I would hope after all the time, energy, and money that the effects were good. It would be a huge waste if they pored that much into it and they were 'meh'. What you were trying to twist it into was that I was saying that it was silly to waste time on creative acts, which had nothing at all to do with what was stated.

London's The Metro gave it 4/5. Their verdict was that the plot is very thin but you don't notice because the visuals are so good.

I am booked to see it at the BFI IMAX 3D screen in January.

My two favourite characters:



AND

Yep, I'm all booked up for the 3D Imax on sunday - thinking of getting high first. Thoughts?

A six-pack of the OPT should do it.

Albatross wrote:Yep, I'm all booked up for the 3D Imax on sunday - thinking of getting high first. Thoughts?

Don't you want to be fully lucid for the gripping story and characterization!?

"I love you. You're my fething best friend, you are."

You see, that's the effect of a six pack of OPT so it will suit the in-depth character building quite nicely.

I saw it last night @ midnight, 3-D of course which is the only way to go and I'll definitely be watching it again instead on an IMAX screen next week with the family. George Lucas said years ago that 3-d movies were the wave of the future but I was always a skeptic especially since the last movie I saw in 3-d was Beowulf.

Its definitely a cliche story with character archetypes that won't be new to anyone but thats arguably a trait for all of Cameron's movies. His previous best film, Aliens, for example has the traditional Lt. that doesn't know how to stay calm and lead the situation, evil corporation guy, human-machine that can't feel emotion, gung-ho Marine, scaredy cat-Marines (GAME OVER MAN), etc. However despite this potential drawback he still is able to immerse you in his worlds and make you care for whats going on-screen while at the same time being an incredible entertainment experience.

However its also definitely the most visually impressive movie I've ever seen and a smorgasbord of greatness for scifi fans. Makes ya wish that Cameron was a fan of 40k since he seems like one of the few directors that could do the franchise justice.

9.5/10

BTW that Marine Colonel was a typical bad ass but bad ass nonetheless.

The scenes where they are climbing up the floating rocks is rather sickening if you are scared of heights/have vertigo.

Albatross wrote:Yep, I'm all booked up for the 3D Imax on sunday - thinking of getting high first. Thoughts?

dunno man apparently it's sooooo good and if you got high first you might miss parts of it, happens to me everytime, I forgot my friends name the last time

there have only been a few movies i have ever really wanted to go back and watch agian while in the cinima...

went and saw it today, and avatar just made that list.


the only thing i dident like about it was the bunghole mexicans sitting behind us that kept talking in spanish throught the WHOLE movie... o well, that just gives me a valad excue to go see it again

I just went and saw it. Loved the movie, story line; all of it was great, but please all the military guys out there, tell me you connected to the marines more then the blue aliens. During the epic final fight, I actually got a little angry. It didn't help that people were laughing and cheering on the deaths, but I hated the black and white of the conflict. Maybe it's just a "been deployed" thing, but seeing those soldiers die rather upset me. Any other ground pounders feel the same way?

The A.V. Club wrote:These days, advancements in movie technology are inevitably accompanied by retreat in other areas, as filmmakers become so tied up in digital brushstrokes that they forget the painting. George Lucas’ Star Wars prequels are the classic example of a director stranding actors in green-screen wonderlands, and Peter Jackson turned a delicate literary device in Alice Sebold’s The Lovely Bones into a distractingly splashy celestial waystation. Over the years, James Cameron has fared better than most in wedding cutting-edge special effects with strong, meat-and-potatoes genre storytelling, but Avatar, his supremely goofy science-fiction/action spectacular, finds him lost in a $250 million aquamarine light show. As the film’s technical marvels grow commonplace, it will look like a clunky old theme-park attraction, a Captain EO for our time.

Avatar opens with images of zero-gravity life that really do seem like something new, with astonishing depth and color that further the recent advances in 3-D. Then the banality kicks in, as Cameron introduces the cartoon world of Pandora, a lush foreign planet where humans have come in search of a precious resource called “Unobtainium.” Pandora’s indigenous peoples, the blue-skinned, peace-loving Na’vi, are naturally suspicious of these alien invaders, so the humans try to infiltrate their population with “Avatars”—genetically engineered bodies that look like Na’vi but are controlled by plugged-in users. Sam Worthington stars as one of those users, a paraplegic veteran who comes to respect the Na’vi culture and question the mission.

Look past the New Age beauty of Cameron’s Pandora—and whenever the camera swoops through its verdant, psychedelic wonders, that isn’t easy to do—and Avatar is a weak patchwork of his other films: the leaden voiceover from Terminator 2 here, the military/civilian conflict from Aliens there, even a Jack-and-Rose-style forbidden love story cued to adult-contempo soundtrack. And if that weren’t enough, Cameron tacks on ham-handed environmental messages and a one-size-fits-all anti-war metaphor that references Native Americans, Vietnam, and the current oil-fueled quagmires. In the past, charismatic actors (Arnold Schwarzenegger, Sigourney Weaver, Leonardo DiCaprio, and Kate Winslet) have usually covered for Cameron’s weaknesses as a screenwriter, but Worthington can do nothing to animate his stock warrior. On a story level, Cameron has invested the bare minimum necessary to call Avatar into existence, and while there’s no doubting his meticulousness, the film is more demo than drama.

Grade: C

Fattimus_maximus wrote:I just went and saw it. Loved the movie, story line; all of it was great, but please all the military guys out there, tell me you connected to the marines more then the blue aliens. During the epic final fight, I actually got a little angry. It didn't help that people were laughing and cheering on the deaths, but I hated the black and white of the conflict. Maybe it's just a "been deployed" thing, but seeing those soldiers die rather upset me. Any other ground pounders feel the same way?

Thanks for the insight. I think I may skip this until it comes on DVD. As a Jarhead I really dont like slaughter of men in uniform regardless of context. I guess the sheeple are all to quik to forget.

ounumen wrote:

Fattimus_maximus wrote:I just went and saw it. Loved the movie, story line; all of it was great, but please all the military guys out there, tell me you connected to the marines more then the blue aliens. During the epic final fight, I actually got a little angry. It didn't help that people were laughing and cheering on the deaths, but I hated the black and white of the conflict. Maybe it's just a "been deployed" thing, but seeing those soldiers die rather upset me. Any other ground pounders feel the same way?

Thanks for the insight. I think I may skip this until it comes on DVD. As a Jarhead I really dont like slaughter of men in uniform regardless of context. I guess the sheeple are all to quik to forget.

I'm an injured Marine and loved the flick. Part of the beauty of the story was that you did sympathize with the grunts since they were the ones who didn't have an omniscient perspective of the situation and instead were exploited by corrupt brass and greedy corporations. The few Marines that did realize what was going on sided with their conscience and made a stand; something the Tom Cruise character in "The Last Samurai" could relate to since he had haunting flashbacks of his unit shooting unsuspecting Native American women and children.

Don't watch movies like Starship Troopers or Aliens either since they also had some brutal deaths involving uniformed men and women.

I thought the best character, by far, was the Colonel (or whatever his rank). He was a little crazy, but when he jumped out of the expploding dropship in a combat suit I was definitely ok with that.

A close second is the single marine who shoots the (New) Chieftan. No messing around with him.

Cane wrote:

ounumen wrote:

Fattimus_maximus wrote:I just went and saw it. Loved the movie, story line; all of it was great, but please all the military guys out there, tell me you connected to the marines more then the blue aliens. During the epic final fight, I actually got a little angry. It didn't help that people were laughing and cheering on the deaths, but I hated the black and white of the conflict. Maybe it's just a "been deployed" thing, but seeing those soldiers die rather upset me. Any other ground pounders feel the same way?

Thanks for the insight. I think I may skip this until it comes on DVD. As a Jarhead I really dont like slaughter of men in uniform regardless of context. I guess the sheeple are all to quik to forget.

I'm an injured Marine and loved the flick. Part of the beauty of the story was that you did sympathize with the grunts since they were the ones who didn't have an omniscient perspective of the situation and instead were exploited by corrupt brass and greedy corporations. The few Marines that did realize what was going on sided with their conscience and made a stand; something the Tom Cruise character in "The Last Samurai" could relate to since he had haunting flashbacks of his unit shooting unsuspecting Native American women and children.

Don't watch movies like Starship Troopers or Aliens either since they also had some brutal deaths involving uniformed men and women.

Easy man. Like I said I dont need the crowd cheering there deaths. As a Marine you know the truth of our brotherhood and how it is constantly misrepresented. War is not pretty but we have a fraternity that only we can share. Those out side do throw there own vision of it on film from time to time. I have the upmost respect for you and any other service member who has earned the Purple Heart and honestly I have no desire for it. I would rather not see Marines killing Marines wearing the same uniform. Guess I am crazy like that. I bet one of the senior brass was represented as Gen. Mattis because we know what a war monger he was. Enjoy your flick though.

Actually, apart from the main character (who is swayed over by the power of Luvvv) there is only one other soldier who swaps sides. And she's a pilot.

Isn't it great how this thread became a propaganda tool?

Isn't it great how paranoid some people are?

ounumen wrote:

Fattimus_maximus wrote:I just went and saw it. Loved the movie, story line; all of it was great, but please all the military guys out there, tell me you connected to the marines more then the blue aliens. During the epic final fight, I actually got a little angry. It didn't help that people were laughing and cheering on the deaths, but I hated the black and white of the conflict. Maybe it's just a "been deployed" thing, but seeing those soldiers die rather upset me. Any other ground pounders feel the same way?

Thanks for the insight. I think I may skip this until it comes on DVD. As a Jarhead I really dont like slaughter of men in uniform regardless of context. I guess the sheeple are all to quik to forget.

What about a conventional war movie like Battle Of The Bulge, for example?

I just realized that the movie is just a really expensive IG vs Kroot battle report.

ounumen wrote:

Cane wrote:

ounumen wrote:

Fattimus_maximus wrote:I just went and saw it. Loved the movie, story line; all of it was great, but please all the military guys out there, tell me you connected to the marines more then the blue aliens. During the epic final fight, I actually got a little angry. It didn't help that people were laughing and cheering on the deaths, but I hated the black and white of the conflict. Maybe it's just a "been deployed" thing, but seeing those soldiers die rather upset me. Any other ground pounders feel the same way?

Thanks for the insight. I think I may skip this until it comes on DVD. As a Jarhead I really dont like slaughter of men in uniform regardless of context. I guess the sheeple are all to quik to forget.

I'm an injured Marine and loved the flick. Part of the beauty of the story was that you did sympathize with the grunts since they were the ones who didn't have an omniscient perspective of the situation and instead were exploited by corrupt brass and greedy corporations. The few Marines that did realize what was going on sided with their conscience and made a stand; something the Tom Cruise character in "The Last Samurai" could relate to since he had haunting flashbacks of his unit shooting unsuspecting Native American women and children.

Don't watch movies like Starship Troopers or Aliens either since they also had some brutal deaths involving uniformed men and women.

Easy man. Like I said I dont need the crowd cheering there deaths. As a Marine you know the truth of our brotherhood and how it is constantly misrepresented. War is not pretty but we have a fraternity that only we can share. Those out side do throw there own vision of it on film from time to time. I have the upmost respect for you and any other service member who has earned the Purple Heart and honestly I have no desire for it. I would rather not see Marines killing Marines wearing the same uniform. Guess I am crazy like that. I bet one of the senior brass was represented as Gen. Mattis because we know what a war monger he was. Enjoy your flick though.

While I understand where you're coming from I still think its a foolish perspective especially since its a scifi action-adventure movie and not Saving Private Ryan or Flags of our Fathers. Don't watch Aliens, Starship Troopers, or play games like HALO, etc. Imo James Cameron does an excellent job of representing grunts and Avatar isn't that different.

Apparently it opened to $27 million, not even placing it in the top 100 for first days. Investors are probably not that happy about it. Still, the east coast is getting nailed by bad weather and Titanic didn't crack the top 100 opening day either so it isn't a flop yet by any stretch.

Awesome film, stunning and encapsulating.

Plot wasn't too brilliant, too cheesily RESOURCE CONSUMPTION BAD! which is a bit 2007.

I think it's on the line of being my favourite film, not sure. It would definately be if it wasn't for the stupid, cliche facets to the plot. Otherwise I found myself completely siding with the Smurfs in a way I would have not thought I could have, bravo Cameron.

sA

Just saw it. Visually wonderful, but the plot and characters are quite weak. The line between the goodies and the baddies is ridiculously stark- none of the humans that don't completely side with the Navi are believable characters. I also thought yer man's defection wasn't handled as well as it could have been at all.

But it is enjoyable for the action sequences and beautiful, inspiring visuals. It certainly gave me a lot of material to loot for when I'm GM'ing D'n'D. I'd say go and see it, but if you dislike OTT messages you'll be a bit irritated at times.

Ahtman wrote:I just realized that the movie is just a really expensive IG vs Kroot battle report.

This wins the the thread.

Ugh.. saw it yesterday in the IMAX 3D place at Bradford.
Visually it was excellent, awesome action, and im glad i saw it.. but...

Ridiculously bad story, possibly the corniest film i have ever seen.

I cant believe some of you guys! The plot wasnt brilliant?

It was shocking! It was basically dances with wolves with blue people crossed with fern-gully.

Seriously, i will reel off the things i found to be ridiculously cheesy and see if you guys can help me out, i know i have seen them in tons of films but i cant put my finger on it.

Foreign Man trying to fit in with natives, everyone laughs at him when he falls off a horse

Foreign Man is mocked and everyone says "he will die now" but he suprises them and is pretty good at stuff.

Man is disliked in a childish way by natives, but then they all love him when he learns their ways.

Man gets forced to be "tutored" by woman who complains "its not fair" but really you know for a fact she is going to start banging him

Man sleeps in bizzare cocoon like web thing after climbing down loads of branches (what do you do if you need a piss in the middle of the night?)

Man is outcast when the other Foreign Man turn up and start burning things

Foreign Man is reaccepted with crap speech.

Foreign Man ends up the leader

Foreign Man has a mano e mano fight with a big boss at the end.

It was absolutely shocking. Worse then the Ewoks beating the Stormtroopers.

And how come the arrows bounced off the gunships at the start but killed everyone easily at the end?

And WARPAINT on a HELICOPTER?!!

Jesus!

I could go on all night..

Honestly, i would still say go and see it, i mean, its only 6 or 7 quid, and it looks great.. but christ... its just a little kids film with no broader appeal. Starwars is kinda childish if you are being critical, but at least it was not utterly purile like this.

mattyrm wrote:Ugh.. saw it yesterday in the IMAX 3D place at Bradford.
Visually it was excellent, awesome action, and im glad i saw it.. but...

Ridiculously bad story, possibly the corniest film i have ever seen.

I cant believe some of you guys! The plot wasnt brilliant?

It was shocking! It was basically dances with wolves with blue people crossed with fern-gully.

Seriously, i will reel off the things i found to be ridiculously cheesy and see if you guys can help me out, i know i have seen them in tons of films but i cant put my finger on it.

Foreign Man trying to fit in with natives, everyone laughs at him when he falls off a horse

Foreign Man is mocked and everyone says "he will die now" but he suprises them and is pretty good at stuff.

Man is disliked in a childish way by natives, but then they all love him when he learns their ways.

Man gets forced to be "tutored" by woman who complains "its not fair" but really you know for a fact she is going to start banging him

Man sleeps in bizzare cocoon like web thing after climbing down loads of branches (what do you do if you need a piss in the middle of the night?)

Man is outcast when the other Foreign Man turn up and start burning things

Foreign Man is reaccepted with crap speech.

Foreign Man ends up the leader

Foreign Man has a mano e mano fight with a big boss at the end.

It was absolutely shocking. Worse then the Ewoks beating the Stormtroopers.

And how come the arrows bounced off the gunships at the start but killed everyone easily at the end?

And WARPAINT on a HELICOPTER?!!

Jesus!

I could go on all night..

Honestly, i would still say go and see it, i mean, its only 6 or 7 quid, and it looks great.. but christ... its just a little kids film with no broader appeal. Starwars is kinda childish if you are being critical, but at least it was not utterly purile like this.

You should go find a monastery to live at, seriously.

Wait, so, how do the natives know that the dude is foreign, and why do they accept him given that knowledge?

Plot.

The movie was very good. Some minor plot element that bugged me, it was a bit to cheezy for me.

graphics were awsome,14/10, i kew it would be good but i wasn't expecting that and if they brought out DECENT modles of those things (troopers, VTOLS, Mechs etc.) i would start a gaurd army

I would have been okay with the plot if the mythical essence of the planet had stayed just that. Mythical. But no, they had to explain through science that their God actually does exist. It wasn't really worth the effort IMO. Sure, they can say it's sacred ground, to the natives. But when they say that this stuff actually works in ways one can appreciate scientifically it got me a little skeptical.


Automatically Appended Next Post:
And yes, it is wierd how arrows do nothing at first, but then suddenly they're crashing through windows killing pilots left, right and centre.

I just saw it. The entire nature beats machince deal was crap in my opionion. though hamerhead ow things where sweet. I am deffentily gonna see it in three-d when I can.
The col. was deffintly my favorite character, and I think offing the chief charcter like that was sweet and should be part of more movie cause that has happened to my warboss a few times

After the trailers I want to see the movie so bad but I´m afraid that the lack of plot will make me leave the cinema in a rage. 3 hours of visuals without an original story are too much for me.

M.

The plot sucked, the designs were dumb (lol GI joe planes), but the visuals were stunning. I didn't get to see it 3d sadly.

6/10

Do you think if you saw it in 3-d, you would give it a 7/10?

I simply cannot imagine this movie ever living up to the hype at this point, so a veritable B-, is almost a cap for me at this point. Funny how marketing spam is effective though; if I can find a friend that wants to go, I'll see it in 3-d.

I did get a bit turned off by the lack of good conceptual design from the ads though. The navi looked waaaay too furry friendly... so... yeah; but the dreadnought looked pretty cool though. I expect to be engrossed in the backgrounds (sets or whatever) far more than pretty much anything else in the movie. I love Ghost in a Shell 2 though.

If this flick can do twice as much as they did in GS2, in terms of ridiculously intricate backgrounds, I will end up liking this flick.

Do you think if you saw it in 3-d, you would give it a 7/10?

Yeah, it's a visual showcase, not a romance. The reason the film cost such a silly amount to make was because of the highly advanced 3d tech used. Seeing it outside of that is inevitably going to rob it of a large amount of its punch.

Actually, I don't think I was ever able to fully appreciate the enviroment in 3-D. While the two lovers (or whatever) are talking I'd be looking at the corner of the screen thinking "Oooh, look at the purtily butterfly!" The problem is that the main characters are so highlighted they kinda...get in the way.

Guys I think you're forgetting what's important:



The Colonel was a bad ass.

avantgarde wrote:Guys I think you're forgetting what's important:



The Colonel was a bad ass.

Qoute For Fething Truth.

Too bad he just HAD to wave the knife in front of 'lover-boys' face before doing him in. Villians do that all the time.

Emperors Faithful wrote:Actually, I don't think I was ever able to fully appreciate the enviroment in 3-D. While the two lovers (or whatever) are talking I'd be looking at the corner of the screen thinking "Oooh, look at the purtily butterfly!" The problem is that the main characters are so highlighted they kinda...get in the way.

Different kind of 3d. This ones uses true depth of field due to a special type of camera produced specifically for the movie. They are able to do more than just push things foreword at you, it actually is meant to feel like you're there. Things will feel like they're farther away than the screen, rather than just closer, as was about all older 3d techs could do well. There's a popsci article on it, it's supposedly like looking through a window into the movie happening in front of you.

Yay James Cameron made another successful movie! ,
now go make BATTLE ANGEL! ( waits for it T-T )

Disclosure: James Cameron is the reason why, as an 18-year-old, I went to film school. Aliens was my favorite movie when I was a kid, to the point where I could probably recite most of it. Watching James Cameron movies is what made me want to make movies.

That feeling went away after three years of learning about how the industry actually works and realizing that my choice was to move to L.A. or try to finance indie films by myself most likely at the price of going severely into debt in the process. I didn't want it bad enough, and I'm happy with my choice seeing as how most people we see in the industry are miserable people whose personal lives are train wrecks...but I never lost my love of film and filmmaking.

Avatar made me feel like I did back when I was a kid watching Aliens. It made me want to make movies again, for the pure joy of realizing just what could be done with cinema.

Does Avatar have a deep story? No. Calling it "Dances with Wolves in space" is not too far from the truth. The storyline is predictable. The characters aren't particularly deep, and if you know movies at all you'll be recognizing the direction the film is taking very early, and very often.

If you see this movie in 3D which IMHO is the only way to see it, even to go so far as to say that if you don't see Avatar in 3D you're not actually seeing Avatar but some other movie, then you're not going to care about the story. It's predictable, but that doesn't make it bad. The characters are shallow, but that doesn't make you not care about them. Not if you truly let yourself get swept up by the spectacle that is this movie.

Even if "spectacle" is all Avatar has going for it...what a spectacle it is! To say that James Cameron has raised the bar on every technical achievement in the world of cinema is the flat truth but somehow also a supreme understatement. When you're in the CiC of the human mining colony, the holographic displays are RIGHT in front of you. When a burning tree falls in the jungle, the floating, burning embers are right in the room around you. When characters are walking through the jungle, the little insects are literally flitting on and off the screen.

There are times when the sheer beauty of the visuals will distract you from the 3D as it's not overused. That was my biggest concern going in, that the 3D would distract from the frame and the action, but it doesn't. It flavors the frame, it seasons it, but the film doesn't depend on the 3D to pack its punch.

The CG is unparalleled. George Lucas should hang his head in shame at having been so deftly outmaneuvered. Okay, James Cameron spent 10 years developing the technology he needed to do this, but still - the Na'vi and the human Avatars actually give performances. I'm not sure how I can say that in a different way if you don't get what I mean...but think about someone who is technically an "actor" but who doesn't have any emotions in his or her eyes, has no variety of expression, who really doesn't sell you on being the character they are supposed to be. Then think about the best actor you're aware of, someone who truly sublimates into their roles and literally becomes someone else. Someone who actually gives a performance.

I may have to see Avatar again a few times, and maybe watch some of the Star Wars prequel trilogy to try and nail down precisely what Avatar did which other films featuring CG characters didn't, but the only way I can say it right now is that the CG characters in Avatar were actually made to act. They performed. There's a dual meaning in the title of the film that breaks the fourth wall but perhaps that was part of James Cameron's point, that we've reached the point that has been talked about for years but never really accomplished before - the computers have replaced the actors.

A lot of the hater-reviewers are bitching about the cultural insensitivity of the film, but I think more than anything it's the frustration of those who couldn't realizing just what's been accomplished here. While there are some themes of depth in Avatar that revolve around the concept of the "race traitor," Cameron usually stumbles into those themes rather than intends them. Aliens has volumes of critical literature written about it by film theorists in regards to feminist iconography that I am sure were never intended to be there by the filmmaker.

None of this really matters, however, if you allow yourself to be swept up in the pure majesty of this movie. There's enough going on in the frame to warrant multiple viewings just to study it all, which for me is always the hallmark of a truly great film because that's what we did in my film program which was extremely "art intensive" even though most of us hated it. We would watch movies and scenes over and over again and study the framing, the lighting, the camera movement, everything that went into the science and art of filmmaking.

That science and art have really changed forever. Maybe it's just the fruition of something that Lucas promised us and took the huge step of pioneering. Maybe it's truly something we lay down on Cameron's doorstep for realizing what needed to be done in order to truly make due on this promise and putting the decade of work into getting it done. I think that's a larger conversation only for people who are really into geeking it up about filmmaking.

All I know is that as someone who loves film more than almost anything in the world, there were times when I literally had tears of joy in my eyes just for realizing what could be done, now. If the right filmmakers get their hands on this technology, we're going to be in for some seriously amazing films over the next decade or so, until someone else makes the next, great technical leap.

Avatar recycles old themes, but so does everything. I'd call it the spiritual successor of Aliens in every way, and it's something that anyone who loves movies absolutely HAS to see in 3D.

A trick for you: the best seats in any regular theater are 2/3 of the way up, and directly in the middle of the row. The screen should be at eye level so that you don't have to swivel your head in any direction to take in any part of the frame, but just move your eyes and the minimum amount required to shift your focus. You are also directly in the middle of the sound system such that the speakers and bass will be as balanced as you can get.

Get to those seats when you see this movie to make sure you get the fullest effect of the 3D. You'll thank me later.

A very good post there, Cairnius. I just want to qoute one thing in particular.

Cairnius wrote:
While there are some themes of depth in Avatar that revolve around the concept of the "race traitor," Cameron usually stumbles into those themes rather than intends them.

I felt the exact same thing. I knew pretty much how the story would go, but still about 2/3rds through I felt a 'You killed Kenny' sort of moment:

"That guy betrayed the whole human race for a some blue alien bootay?"

"That bastard!"

I went to film schools as well and I had the exact opposite reaction. The technical side is the best aspect and I wouldn't call it majestic or moving; the technical aspect is very clinical and cold. It is very interesting but not very emotional. I also disagree that the only reason people notice racial/ethnic subtext is because they aren't as smart as you. Much of it is just sitting there in the audiences face. Am I the only one that has noticed that the evil human side is composed of almost entirely white actors and that the tribal people are almost all African-Americans (and Wes Studi, a Cherokee)? And that in the end they still need a white man to lead them to victory? For minorities these kinds of things pop right out and have more impact.

Well, I think you're reading a BIT too much into it. But yeah, it is strange how all the baddies were white.

I was totally unimpressed with the motion capture done for Jar-Jar Binks in the star wars movies, because he seemed like a shaved rabbit that talked like a crude racist stereotype from some Hustler magazine cartoon. Not that I think that's what George Lucas was going for, he was just clueless. It was not until I saw Gollum in the Lord of the Rings movies that I was really impressed with what the technology could do. Gollum was not just some CGI monster to marvel at, he was an actual character that you cared about. Now, with movies like District 9 and Avatar, the line between actors and effects has truly been breached. I don't think that the technology is really ready to replace the actors, because it was still their performance that was the foundation which the effects were laid over. What it does, in my opinion, is give filmakers an entirely new world of options. I've not gone to film school, but I have seem a hell of a lot of movies and engaged in many long discussions about them with friends and sought out information on special effects and movie making. Like I said in the thread where the guy on the Youtube video slams the Phantom Menace, if you could take a setting like Star Wars (and a massive budget) and put it in the hands of some director like Quentin Tarrantino, that would be one awesome movie.

Emotion can be put into cartoons and inorganic characters such as Wall-E and Eve.

The problem with 'realistic' non-human characters is that the closer they come to seeming 'real' the worse the danger of falling into the uncanny valley.

It will be extremely difficult to portray non-humanoid aliens without using a human actor as the base because we need understandable human emotions to underlie the performance and to be expressed via human-like features.

The Na'vi seem quite similar to modern Elves and the actors from the Lion King musical.

I went to the movie not for the story, but for it to be pretty, and it has to be By Far the most pretty movie I have Ever seen. And hey, while predictable, the story wasn't too bad either! I may end up seeing it in the theater again, which might be a first for me.

Don't not watch it in 3D. It's more of an experience, even with silly glasses - some parts are breath taking (namely with the ashes: if you've seen it, you'll know what I mean) and you can hear the whole theatre sigh.

sA

lol.

Yeah the colonel was bad ass. I was rooting for the humies at the end, that guy was fething awesome.

mattyrm wrote:lol.

Yeah the colonel was bad ass. I was rooting for the humies at the end, that guy was fething awesome.

Dude was a dick, but yeah. He was the most hardcore thing on a planet of superpredators.

If only the Colonel had an iron arm and chest like Straken. I imagine its only a matter of time before someone starts converting an excellent Avatar-themed IG force.

Cane wrote:If only the Colonel had an iron arm and chest like Straken. I imagine its only a matter of time before someone starts converting an excellent Avatar-themed IG force.

You have no idea how tempted I am. The main problem I see is that I would want lots of Valkyries and Sentinels, and they share the same force org slot.

Ahtman wrote:I just realized that the movie is just a really expensive IG vs Kroot battle report.

This.

+

Cane wrote:If only the Colonel had an iron arm and chest like Straken. I imagine its only a matter of time before someone starts converting an excellent Avatar-themed IG force.

This

= WIN

Yea that would be some great stuff. Imo the biggest hurdle would be greenstuffing a bunch of those facemasks however I suppose you could say they were on Earth instead of Pandora.

And in Avatar movie news; its clocking in @ $232.2 Million Weekend worldwide:

http://www.foxnews.com/entertainment/2009/12/20/avatar-takes-flight-million-weekend/?utm_source=feedburner&utm_medium=feed&utm_campaign=Feed%253A+foxnews%252Fentertainment+%2528FOXNews.com+-+Entertainment%2529

So it's still not living up to it's budget yet?

I saw it today and loved it.

I'm not a fan of ALL-things Cameron (indeed, Pirahna 2 was crap and Titanic was not much better) - but it is the movie I have been looking forward to since I found out about it (around about the time of T2) and more since I read a copy of the screenplay 6 months ago.

I'll take the mrs along to see it next time.

Cane wrote:Yea that would be some great stuff. Imo the biggest hurdle would be greenstuffing a bunch of those facemasks however I suppose you could say they were on Earth instead of Pandora.

Nah, that's what Pig Iron's for.

http://www.pig-iron-productions.com/hd7-heavy-infantry-closed-head-sprues-p-23.html

3 words.....

Best Movie Ever

GG

1. you HAVE to watch it in 3d. Not watching it in 3d = fail.

2. Its only been 2-3 days since launch, bringing together 232$ mill or so, is really good.

East coast in the USA is hit with fat snow storms, and random stuff to prevent full potential.

Also - each showing around my area have been consistently 'sold' out.



-The movie is nearly 3 hours long. This means that less showings is possible, due to the time.
-The movie is mostly wanted to be seen in 3d/Imax.

There aren't as much 3d screens/imax as there is normal screens. Thus the ability and quantity of viewing the movie is not the same.

It'll pick up finely without problems.



Its a great movie.

But because it's 3D the ticket prices are also higher.

£15 for the BFI Imax 3D at Waterloo.

Emperors Faithful wrote:So it's still not living up to it's budget yet?

Dude, first weekend, that's still a pretty impressive number. Also, longer movies don't make as much because there are fewer showings of them.

I saw it Friday and I was pretty skeptical going in. Yeah the plot is pretty derivative but the spectacle of the movie was pretty astonishing and the action scene at the end made me want to recreate it in 40k soooooo bad. Plus, there were times I forgot that I was looking at 9 ft. tall blue people, much the same as I did while watching Gollum in LotR.

There is obviously some confusion in regards to my comment. This is either the fualt of the interwebz, apeoples profound lack of humour or a mix of both. That remark was a joke.

The medium, is the message.

Besides the simple storyline. heh

Ok, now this has been annoying me.

Does the girl find out he's human? Is he still even human? Or does he kinda keep things "under wraps"

It cost me £9 (I'm a student) - and I must say, it's the best £9 I've ever spent.

I loved it - it MUST be seen on 3D IMAX, though. I liked the story - Ok, it was LITTLE formulaic, but Star Wars was basically just a western in space....no-one's going to spend $300 zillion on an 'art-film', are they?

Interestingly, original Star Wars was based on the Kurosawa samurai film Hidden Fortress.

Other westerns were based on samurai films, e.g. The Magnificent Seven (Seven Samurai) and A Fistful Of Dollars (Yojimbo.)

It shows that certain basic themes and plots are common to many genres. The costumes and scenery are just window dressing for a universal truth.

Evil corporations are evil, and we should worship trees or else they'll hurt us.

Kilkrazy wrote:Interestingly, original Star Wars was based on the Kurosawa samurai film Hidden Fortress.

Other westerns were based on samurai films, e.g. The Magnificent Seven (Seven Samurai) and A Fistful Of Dollars (Yojimbo.)

It shows that certain basic themes and plots are common to many genres. The costumes and scenery are just window dressing for a universal truth.

The problem isn't that we repackage old stories, it is how the old story is repackaged. Star Wars told an old story in a way audiences hadn't really seen in some time, and for younger viewers the first time, in a way that was refreshing. It would seem that, for all it's technological wonder, this isn't coming off that way to many viewers even going by the comments here or by the critics. What is interesting in the number of times I've read that someone loved the special effects, thought everything else was so-so and then proclaimed it the best evar. Seems a bit contradictory. Even the critics have been doing it as well. They would write a paragraph about the effects then spend four thrashing the other elements then proceed to give a high score. That would seem to make it a decent movie but not a near perfect movie.

Yeah the story was just predictable.

Oh well, it topped it off with some kick arse graphics.

Lets see the $$$ bank they are going to make now.
for taking the risk.


Crap ton.

RogueMarket wrote:Yeah the story was just predictable.

Oh well, it topped it off with some kick arse graphics.

Lets see the $$$ bank they are going to make now.
for taking the risk.


Crap ton.

Maybe, but I bet it's ratio is not nearly as pleasant as Paranormal Activity, which made almost 1000x's it's budget.

As someone who gets sucked into many a film and forget that Im watching one I really enjoyed this movie. 3D was crazy never seen anything in 3D before.

Love it.

My gf called it "fern gulley on crack." I have to agree. But it was probably the most visually stunning movie I've ever seen. If you don't see it in 3D you're wasting your time.

All around 10/10

And you'r reading that from someone who saw it in 2D , im going to see the 3D v. tonight

God i love it ..

Merged other Avatar thread.

http://www.dakkadakka.com/dakkaforum/posts/list/0/270783.page#1202707

I absolutely loved the movie. I didn't see it in 3D (Not a huge fan of 3D movies, and I'm really sorry I didn't decide to see it in 3D) but it was still visually stunning all the same. And yes, the plot was fairly predictable, but the way they were presented (Along with the fantastic musical score) were extremely moving and epic. There were actually moments I was almost in tears, like when the marines tear down the Hometree and drive the Na'vi out.

The ending was really cool, by the way. That final fight scene was INCREDIBLE, especially when the colonel leaps out of the exploding ship using one of those Dreadnought walker things. Holy crap, was that guy badass...and a total donkey-cave. ("Hmm, we can't breathe on Pandora, and I'm in a room full of people. I think I'll kick down the airlock to try and stop the traitors.")

Emperors Faithful wrote:So it's still not living up to it's budget yet?

Well it took a while for Transformers 2 to do that, didn't it?

RogueMarket wrote:1. you HAVE to watch it in 3d. Not watching it in 3d = fail.

Personally I think a movie that has to be seen in 3D to be considered "good" = fail. But to each their own...

Lint wrote:If you don't see it in 3D you're wasting your time.

Good to know! I'll just save my money and not watch it then if it's such a "waste".

Sidstyler wrote:

Lint wrote:If you don't see it in 3D you're wasting your time.

Good to know! I'll just save my money and not watch it then if it's such a "waste".

Owned


Automatically Appended Next Post:

Locclo wrote: but it was still visually stunning all the same. And yes, the plot was fairly predictable, but the way they were presented (Along with the fantastic musical score) were extremely moving and epic. There were actually moments I was almost in tears, like when the marines tear down the Hometree and drive the Na'vi out.

I completely agree Like you took it out of my mouth

Sidstyler wrote:
Personally I think a movie that has to be seen in 3D to be considered "good" = fail. But to each their own...

Sidstyler wrote:
Good to know! I'll just save my money and not watch it then if it's such a "waste".

The general consensus of this thread is that the story was pretty weak, but the 3D element is something none of us has experienced on this scale, or of this quality. So yes, save your money isf you're looking for an all-time epic. But if you want to experience some mind blowing cgi, then peel off a couple bills and stop being such a negative nancy.

This was the first feature filml I had seen in IMAX, not to mention IMAX 3d. I am sooooo glad this was the first one I had seen in this format. It definately was awesome to watch in IMAX 3d, however I am pretty sure I would have enjoyed the movie in regular format.

GG

Just saw it in 3D. Wow.

It makes LotR look like a Sci Fi original motion picture.

Lint wrote:then peel off a couple bills and stop being such a negative nancy.

It's my keyboard and I'll bitch if I want to!

It makes LotR look like a Sci Fi original motion picture.

Christ, that's harsh.

Kid_Kyoto wrote:

It makes LotR look like a Sci Fi original motion picture.

I'm going to have to steal that line

Glad you saw it in 3-d, imo it was one of the most awesome cinematic experiences.

Sidstyler wrote:

Emperors Faithful wrote:So it's still not living up to it's budget yet?

Well it took a while for Transformers 2 to do that, didn't it?

RogueMarket wrote:1. you HAVE to watch it in 3d. Not watching it in 3d = fail.

Personally I think a movie that has to be seen in 3D to be considered "good" = fail. But to each their own...

Lint wrote:If you don't see it in 3D you're wasting your time.

Good to know! I'll just save my money and not watch it then if it's such a "waste".

Sid, who pissed in your Cheerios? You've been acting like a dick lately.

I just got back from seeing it, and damn...the most visually stunning, and dare I say it, most beautiful movie that I have ever seen. And I hate using the word beautiful but it's all that works.

Sure it's like Dancing with Wolves (in spaaace) but who gives a damn?

James Cameron does it again and sets the bar way up high. That's my final verdict.

Vladsimpaler wrote:Sid, who pissed in your Cheerios? You've been acting like a dick lately.

I just got back from seeing it, and damn...the most visually stunning, and dare I say it, most beautiful movie that I have ever seen. And I hate using the word beautiful but it's all that works.

Sure it's like Dancing with Wolves (in spaaace) but who gives a damn?

James Cameron does it again and sets the bar way up high. That's my final verdict.

QFT.

I just saw it in normal mode and now I have snuck into the IMAX 3D show... It's sold out so I guess someone will hafta stand.... Hurrrrr!

G

Sid, who pissed in your Cheerios? You've been acting like a dick lately.

...you mean I wasn't a dick before?

Here is what I liked about the movie:

The main character portrays himself as just another grunt but turns out to be a great leader.

The tribe is based upon a combination of Africans, Amazons and Native Americans.

The 3D was amazing.

G

And you're still permitted to post here because...?

dogma wrote:And you're still permitted to post here because...?

...I haven't done anything wrong that I can think of? Other than having a different opinion at least.

Someone must not think I'm all that bad or I wouldn't be here.

GBF, not you.

Not to go OT , i want this thread alive , but why should'nt he be alowed to post ?

The visuals are truly a thing of beauty and really do a good job of overwhelming the audience into not noticing the glaring faults of everything that isn't a pixel. The story is ok at best, same for the acting. The cinematography is generally workmanlike with a few beautiful shots. The score is probably the worst part of the film, as it is just so....there. I suppose it is serviceable, but not really memorable. I take that back, the pop song at the end is atrocious. The underlying messages, whether purposeful or not run the gammut from fairly pedestrian all the way to racist. It isn't an awful movie, but if you pull back the curtain that 300 million in fx buys you, you find an ok movie.

As a tech demo it succeeds wildly, so that gets an A. As a piece of cinema it won't surprise anyone in the least at any moment in almost any way. I'll give this a C. It isn't great, but it isn't that bad either.

I will add the caveat that it really is worth seeing for the effects in 3D, if nothing more to see what the future will hold.

Now I'm off to go see Sherlock Holmes.

Just saw it a second time, and it's still awesome.

Something I didn't notice the first time, but heard about and looked for this time were some of the physical differences between Avatars and natural Navi. The Navi have 4 fingers, while the Avatars have "normal" human hands. What makes Weaver's Avatar look odd, is that she's got a human nose, while the others are more cat-like. Cool little details like that are nice.

I noticed that as well and thought it was very cool. Definitely one of my favorite movies for 2009. Looking forward to Wolfman in February.

G

Sidstyler wrote:

Sid, who pissed in your Cheerios? You've been acting like a dick lately.

...you mean I wasn't a dick before?

Well, I didn't think so. Or does this surprise you?

Wow just wow...

* facepalm *

Sidstyler wrote:

Lint wrote:then peel off a couple bills and stop being such a negative nancy.

It's my keyboard and I'll bitch if I want to!

It makes LotR look like a Sci Fi original motion picture.

Christ, that's harsh.

Just calling it like I see it. Fellowship is what, 10 years old now? Think of what Elfland would look like under Cameron's direction. Course Jackson shot all 3 on a lower budget than this one...

When referring to RotK looking like a SyFy Original, do you mean in respect to the special effects, or the movie as a whole?

Ahtman wrote:When referring to RotK looking like a SyFy Original, do you mean in respect to the special effects, or the movie as a whole?

With respect to integrating actors and CGI and creating an alien environment.

Someone said seeing this was like seeing T2 or Jurrasic Park. Or the first talkies or first color film I guess. After this other films are just going to look dated.

Kid_Kyoto wrote:

Ahtman wrote:When referring to RotK looking like a SyFy Original, do you mean in respect to the special effects, or the movie as a whole?

With respect to integrating actors and CGI and creating an alien environment.

Someone said seeing this was like seeing T2 or Jurrasic Park. Or the first talkies or first color film I guess. After this other films are just going to look dated.

So the special effects.

No. Vision plays a role as well.

The amazing thing about Avatar is it looked like the Amazon rain forest, but then it went 3 steps beyond. The plants, the luminesence, the animal life, it was amazing.

LotR in contrast gave us some tree houses (very nice tree houses) and called it a magical land of wonder. Of course Jackson was limited by what could be done, what he could afford to do and bound to the books, but all in all suddenly my memories of Middle Earth are not too impressive.

There was also the fact that he had the magnificent backdrop of New Zealand to shoot against, instead of having to create so much of it wholesale.

WOOO!!! AVATAR!!! WOOO!!!! Yeah, it had a ify story line but hey who needs story line when you have Dreadnought walker things shoting the crap out of tau!!! FRINKIN TAU!!!
One bit of the story line did screw me a bit where all the animals come to help WTF!!??!!
ANd can anyone tell me what happened to the scientist not the dead one but the one that got his avatar killed.

Ahtman wrote:The visuals are truly a thing of beauty and really do a good job of overwhelming the audience into not noticing the glaring faults of everything that isn't a pixel. The story is ok at best, same for the acting. The cinematography is generally workmanlike with a few beautiful shots. The score is probably the worst part of the film, as it is just so....there. I suppose it is serviceable, but not really memorable. I take that back, the pop song at the end is atrocious. The underlying messages, whether purposeful or not run the gammut from fairly pedestrian all the way to racist. It isn't an awful movie, but if you pull back the curtain that 300 million in fx buys you, you find an ok movie.

As a tech demo it succeeds wildly, so that gets an A. As a piece of cinema it won't surprise anyone in the least at any moment in almost any way. I'll give this a C. It isn't great, but it isn't that bad either.

I will add the caveat that it really is worth seeing for the effects in 3D, if nothing more to see what the future will hold.

Now I'm off to go see Sherlock Holmes.

Word. The effects were good, but I had no emotional attachment to the film, other than liking the bad guy. I didn't get bored, but I definitely was not WOWED! once the shock of the wonderful effects wore off.

Now to see Nine.

Kid_Kyoto wrote:No. Vision plays a role as well.

The amazing thing about Avatar is it looked like the Amazon rain forest, but then it went 3 steps beyond. The plants, the luminesence, the animal life, it was amazing.

LotR in contrast gave us some tree houses (very nice tree houses) and called it a magical land of wonder. Of course Jackson was limited by what could be done, what he could afford to do and bound to the books, but all in all suddenly my memories of Middle Earth are not too impressive.

Everything you are describing is a special effect. The jungle was generated, not real. The plants didn't exist and had to be generated. You aren't saying the story was so much better, or that the acting was so much better, or that you connected to the characters in a meaningful way, or that the cinematography was the best you've ever seen; you are giving it some artificial bump over a superior film because, and only because, it's artifice is slightly less noticeable.

What isinteresting to me is that Cameron is know for tight plotlines. T and T2 were tight, crisp ideas-essentially good stories. Titanic, was essentially a good story to get you emotionally involved in the wreck itself.

This one didn't seem tight at all.

Frazzled wrote:This one didn't seem tight at all.

There is a joke here, I just know it.

Ahtman wrote:

Frazzled wrote:This one didn't seem tight at all.

There is a joke here, I just know it.

Probably.

I thought the storyline was fine. I never once found myself checking my watch and I watched the movie twice in a row.

G

I thought it was a really great movie. There's a lot to be said for taking a simple story and telling it really well.

mattyrm wrote:Ugh.. saw it yesterday in the IMAX 3D place at Bradford.
Visually it was excellent, awesome action, and im glad i saw it.. but...

Ridiculously bad story, possibly the corniest film i have ever seen.

I cant believe some of you guys! The plot wasnt brilliant?

It was shocking! It was basically dances with wolves with blue people crossed with fern-gully.

Seriously, i will reel off the things i found to be ridiculously cheesy and see if you guys can help me out, i know i have seen them in tons of films but i cant put my finger on it.

Foreign Man trying to fit in with natives, everyone laughs at him when he falls off a horse

Foreign Man is mocked and everyone says "he will die now" but he suprises them and is pretty good at stuff.

Man is disliked in a childish way by natives, but then they all love him when he learns their ways.

Man gets forced to be "tutored" by woman who complains "its not fair" but really you know for a fact she is going to start banging him

Man sleeps in bizzare cocoon like web thing after climbing down loads of branches (what do you do if you need a piss in the middle of the night?)

Man is outcast when the other Foreign Man turn up and start burning things

Foreign Man is reaccepted with crap speech.

Foreign Man ends up the leader

Foreign Man has a mano e mano fight with a big boss at the end.

It was absolutely shocking. Worse then the Ewoks beating the Stormtroopers.

And how come the arrows bounced off the gunships at the start but killed everyone easily at the end?

And WARPAINT on a HELICOPTER?!!

Jesus!

I could go on all night..

Honestly, i would still say go and see it, i mean, its only 6 or 7 quid, and it looks great.. but christ... its just a little kids film with no broader appeal. Starwars is kinda childish if you are being critical, but at least it was not utterly purile like this.

This is why you & my father made it as Bootnecks No soul!! He's the same, he'd of liked the look of the movie, but not the content. Me?... I'm a dreamer and liked the "theme" of the movie, even if it is corny

Just to add fuel to the military paranoia... I finished Call of Duty Modern Warfare 2 yesterday, that's 2 stories that involved yanks being the bad guys, and both made by American company's!!

I uh.. damn. Visuals are great but the rest, ugh. Good fights and oooh, alien genocide. But all in all, not as great as I hoped it to be. At least the battles with the armoured suits looked great, but the whole deus ex machina in the end was horrible.

And WARPAINT on a HELICOPTER?!!

You know you would.

Also:

It would be great if he developed the military stuff into a movie where you could get behind them. The kit and the characters were awesome so would love to see them in their own movie.

A potential sequel would probably need even more brutal humans who will fight the filthy alien cat people with guerilla warfare not much unlike Rambo. That or the humans deploy more filthy cat people of their own.

I assume they painted the copter so they knew which side it was on.

And with the arrows, first time, they're firing from a standing position. Second time they're in a full dive on their birds, adding to the inertia of the shot.

Exactly.

I thought Worthington did a fine job.

G

Aduro wrote:I assume they painted the copter so they knew which side it was on.

And with the arrows, first time, they're firing from a standing position. Second time they're in a full dive on their birds, adding to the inertia of the shot.

That still wouldn't crack the canopy on a modern Apache, let alone a vehicle that far into the future.

Yeah the lack of solid realism always has turned me off to hte scyfy genre in general. What were they thinking???

G

Ahtman wrote:

Aduro wrote:I assume they painted the copter so they knew which side it was on.

And with the arrows, first time, they're firing from a standing position. Second time they're in a full dive on their birds, adding to the inertia of the shot.

That still wouldn't crack the canopy on a modern Apache, let alone a vehicle that far into the future.

These are Pandora arrows and gravity we're talking about! C'mon, the blue aliens after all have naturally reoccurring carbon fiber underneath their skin.

Green Blow Fly wrote:Yeah the lack of solid realism always has turned me off to hte scyfy genre in general. What were they thinking???

G

It was never a question of realism, though JC has gone to great lengths to explain to us how much time they spent trying to make it as such. It is a question of a film following it's own internal logic, of which this had none. It would constantly change the rules and for no apparent reason. One moment Arrows don't penetrate bulletproof glass, the next they go through it no problem. That is poor writing, not fantastic.

Also, science fiction, real science fiction is supposed to be based on a foundation of reality. That is why it is science fiction, not fantasy. The uniformed tend to call anything in space Sci-fi, but that isn't correct. Your reasoning doesn't hold up specifically because it is sci-fi. They put a great deal of time into trying to create a realistic environment and science behind the species, a real sense of verisimilitude in the integration of all the elements. Then they turn around and just say screw it on occasion and it just screws the movie. You can try and rationalize it all you want but it doesn't change that it is poor writing. The fact that you have to stretch so far to manufacture justifications is just further proof of it.

@Cane: Again, one moment stone and wood arrows can't penetrate, the next they can.

To the arrow's credit we have no idea if they were loaded up differently since they were only effective after they realized how bad their first volley was. Not only that but they were fired point blank on top of very quick flying dinosaurs which may have an impact on the movie's physics.

And this is all nitpicking and something that happens in just about any movie especially in scifi. You do seem to not like Avatar also which is understandable why you focus on such details like these

Different ships. The first time they are firing at the main ship and the other times they are firing at the smaller ships. I don't remember seeing any arrows penetrating the main ship in the final fight sequence.

Oh and I thought it was pretty obvious (and kinda cool) that they painted the 'rebel' copter so that the Navi would be able to tell it from the enemy.

Cane wrote:To the arrow's credit we have no idea if they were loaded up differently since they were only effective after they realized how bad their first volley was. Not only that but they were fired point blank on top of very quick flying dinosaurs which may have an impact on the movie's physics.

DING DING DING: poor writing alert.

Sci-fi doesn't get a free pass for inconsistency and bad plotting. You are thinking of fantasy where you can use the excuse "it's magic, I ain't gotta explain ".

Ozymandias wrote:Different ships. The first time they are firing at the main ship and the other times they are firing at the smaller ships. I don't remember seeing any arrows penetrating the main ship in the final fight sequence.

Oh and I thought it was pretty obvious (and kinda cool) that they painted the 'rebel' copter so that the Navi would be able to tell it from the enemy.

It makes little sense that the materials would be that radically different. I also didn't have a problem with the war paint on Trudy's Scorpion. It made sense.

Ahtman wrote:

It makes little sense that the materials would be that radically different.

It does make it not a mistake though. Frankly we don't know if the mega ship has transparent aluminum windows and the little ships only get glass.

I also didn't have a problem with the war paint on Trudy's Scorpion. It made sense.

Yeah that part wasn't directed at you.

Ahtman wrote:

Cane wrote:To the arrow's credit we have no idea if they were loaded up differently since they were only effective after they realized how bad their first volley was. Not only that but they were fired point blank on top of very quick flying dinosaurs which may have an impact on the movie's physics.

DING DING DING: poor writing alert.

Sci-fi doesn't get a free pass for inconsistency and bad plotting. You are thinking of fantasy where you can use the excuse "it's magic, I ain't gotta explain ".

Sure it does otherwise people would nitpick their brains to death over all the details and inconsistencies present in every major scifi franchise. Focusing such angst and hatred over the details of an arrow really shows your agenda of just being negative. It'd be like constantly posting in the "new Nids thread" about how GW and the new Nids sucks.

Did you even watch the movie? The movie basically alluded to an "energy force" somewhat reminiscent of the "force" from Star Wars except it was driven from that planet's deity and ancestors. Thats a main reason why the protagonist and Co. succeeded in the film. So there's your "magic" for ya. Sci-fi movies do this all the time whether its Star Wars and the force or Serenity/Firefly and psychics. You just flat out don't like Cameron and Avatar

It makes little sense that the materials would be that radically different. I also didn't have a problem with the war paint on Trudy's Scorpion. It made sense.

Imo it also makes little sense to argue about details that we clearly don't have all the information on except for what we saw in the movie. So long range arrows fired at their heaviest gunship doesn't work, but flying on top of very fast dinosaurs and firing arrows point blank at the smaller vehicles does work. You don't have to like it but thats the movie's "logic'.

You listed Star Wars as Sci-Fi. That just shows how far you are willing to defend your delusions. It is hard to take anything esle you say about it that serieously when you don't know the difference between Science Fiction and Fantasy.

No one has said you can't think the movie is the greatest thing ever. With that in mind someone also thought Ernest Goes to Camp was the greatest movie ever so that doesn't really mean much does it? If you like it, that is fantastic, but don't try and sell the rest of us that a lump of crap is gold just because you REALLY REALLY want it to be.

- The arrows might have been made out of different material after the Na'vi saw that the originals did'nt work at first .

- The Na'vi are the good guys , they are SUPPOSED to win in the last fight ... its not only this movies logic , its like 99% of all movies logic . Even (some) horror movies use that logic .

- The Scorpions might have different fabric than the main ship . Kind of like a SM Land Raider must have stronger armour than an SM Bike .

- If the Na'vi were flying on high speed that would add more power to the impact of the arrows . That too might be a factor .

- The warpaint was most propably painted on to tell the diffrence between Trudy's Scorpion and the rest . Otherwice the Na'vi might shoot her down , taken that she looks exaclty like the rest of the enemy's .

Ahtman wrote:You listed Star Wars as Sci-Fi. That just shows how far you are willing to defend your delusions. It is hard to take anything esle you say about it that serieously when you don't know the difference between Science Fiction and Fantasy.

Delusions? How about you also overlooking the fact that I mentioned Firefly/Serenity and their reliance on psychics which is more or less the same kind of plot characteristic as magic. You must also cringe whenever you see Star Wars on top of the "greatest scifi movies ever made lists" which it usually constantly ranks at the top in. And again this seems more like obsessing over minor points in order to just repeat your negative view on Avatar and Cameron.

No one has said you can't think the movie is the greatest thing ever. With that in mind someone also thought Ernest Goes to Camp was the greatest movie ever so that doesn't really mean much does it? If you like it, that is fantastic, but don't try and sell the rest of us that a lump of crap is gold just because you REALLY REALLY want it to be.

Of course not but it'd be like a guy constantly posting why the new Tyranids, GW, and tabletop gaming/painting sucks in a thread about the new Tyranids. We all get your beef and some of the criticisms are sound but ultimately its a movie the industry and most movie goers enjoyed by quite a bit. In recent posts the minor detail of Pandora's arrows have already been discussed and the "movie logic" is there. Yeesh, I'm sure if the internet was around when Star Wars was released it'd have a similar reaction from that kind of crowd. You're basically being the guy you describe except harping on its negative qualities and coming up with ridiculous hyperboles in order to rationalize constantly posting negative posts and repeating your already heard views.

I never said the movie sucked. I said it was ok. I was entertained, but I've been entertained before and I'll be entertained again. The special effects were what was good about the movie, the rest is so-so. I never called for Cameron's head or hoped this would fail. I just have an objective view of the film. I tend to emphasize story and characterization, you prefer pew pew pew and pretty colors. Different strokes and all that. Enjoying something doesn't mean you can't be critical of it.

Ozymandias wrote:Different ships. The first time they are firing at the main ship and the other times they are firing at the smaller ships. I don't remember seeing any arrows penetrating the main ship in the final fight sequence.

Oh and I thought it was pretty obvious (and kinda cool) that they painted the 'rebel' copter so that the Navi would be able to tell it from the enemy.

The craft taking arrows through the canopies were light VTOLs, whereas the big one was specifically referred to as a gunship, so it's not at all odd that the latter is much more heavily armored.

Wow it's been a long time since I seen someone get as worked up as Ahtman over a movie. Movies are primarily intended as a form of entertainment, not a dissertation on spacial physics. Get over it already.

G

Ahtman wrote:It was never a question of realism, though JC has gone to great lengths to explain to us how much time they spent trying to make it as such. It is a question of a film following it's own internal logic, of which this had none. It would constantly change the rules and for no apparent reason. One moment Arrows don't penetrate bulletproof glass, the next they go through it no problem. That is poor writing, not fantastic.

There was one heavy craft that was described as a gunship. It deployed at the front of the formation and drew the arrows in the attack on the tree, and wasn't affected. In the later attack, led by a guy with military training, the na'vi ambush the convoy by allowing the heavy ship to pass and attack the light VTOLs. The na'vi have far greater success attacking the light aircraft.

Also, science fiction, real science fiction is supposed to be based on a foundation of reality. That is why it is science fiction, not fantasy. The uniformed tend to call anything in space Sci-fi, but that isn't correct. Your reasoning doesn't hold up specifically because it is sci-fi.

English is an evolving language and terms can come to mean a lot of different things. Sci-fi has changed its use considerably, so that a lot of people who know all about the term and its origins will use it describe fantasy movies set in space.

You can like that or not, but it is what it is.

They put a great deal of time into trying to create a realistic environment and science behind the species, a real sense of verisimilitude in the integration of all the elements. Then they turn around and just say screw it on occasion and it just screws the movie. You can try and rationalize it all you want but it doesn't change that it is poor writing. The fact that you have to stretch so far to manufacture justifications is just further proof of it.

I think you're putting a lot of emphasis on the idea that arrows penetrated the cockpits of aircraft. To the point where I have to admit to being quite baffled about what you look for in a movie.

I wasn't worked up about it, just discussing it. I disagree that it makes perfect sense. The Scorpions aren't light VTOL's either, unless an Apache is suddenly a Light VTOL. The big ship was a dedicated transport, more like an Osprey. The birds themselves did more damage then the arrows ever could anyway. The inclusion of the shot seems superfluous and ridiculous.

As far as science fiction goes, it isn't really a like or dislike scenario. It would be more akin to the pronunciation debate. My definition is perhaps more traditional, but that doesn't make it any more wrong than it makes someone elses loose definition right. Just having spaceships doesn't make something sci-fi any more than someone using a revolver makes them a cowboy.

I don't see why everyone thinks that be talking about this one scene it is a denigration of the whole plot. We aren't even actually talking about the scene, but just one moment in the whole scene. Again, being critical of something does is not the same as disliking the whole of something. Why so defensive because someone didn't fall in love with something you love? Do you really need others to feel the same way to justify your feelings for it?

You kept bringing up the scene so it seemed like it ruined hte movie for ya. Glad to know that weren't the case.

G

How close is the story to "Battle for Terra"?

Not close at all.

G

Good to know. I didn't feel like shelling money out to see a rehash of a movie I already took the kids to earlier this year.

The Battle for Terra featured floating landscapes, primitive aliens trying to fight evil Earthmen by using primitive tech and trained beasts. There was the heroic Earthman who overcame his initial concept of the aliens to end up helping them.

I was just concerned Avatar would be more of the same.

Well, given that production on Avatar well predates Battle for Terra...

(and what a terrible name - I was wondering how I'd managed to miss hearing about a movie all about a big fight for the Earth. I had to go to the wiki to figure out what was going on )

Saw it today.

LOVED EVERY MINUTE.

The bioluminessence, the awesome mech suits, the floating mountains, the cryo chambers. Need I go on?

And another thing to consider about the arrows is that in the first scene they were a) scratching the glass b) from long long range and c) were against the windows at an angle as opposed to the later scene where they were impacting against a flat surface (top of the canopy).

I definately am going to see it again.

A) The colonel is a fething badass. "Oh, I'm on fire. I'll let it burn for a bit as I get in my battlesuit."

B) ARMOR PIERCING ARROWS. Bullets can't go through bulletproof glass, but arrows can? Perhaps we are spending money researching the wrong things!

C) 3D was just... Stunning. To say the least.

D) Battlesuits in general were really really really... Jaw dropping. I want one for my birthday...

E) ARMOR PIERCING ARROWS.

F) A bit disappointing how there was the whole "Business is bad, we screwed the Indians, save our Earth, baaaaaaw" but what would movies be if not a medium for expressing one's views? It's crazy when you compare the Indians to the Omaticaya. The Omaticaya had indian-ish war calls, there were the "plains Omaticaya" and the "coastal Omaticaya", the Omaticaya were kicked off their land for monetary gain, the Omaticaya were "one with nature", etc etc.

G) Oh, and I heard the movie cost 500 million dollars. That's unfortunate, but it was so... good...

Overall, I can ignore the blatant leftist ties because it was, simply put, an amazing movie.

Rico...


Automatically Appended Next Post:

Sternguard_rock wrote:One bit of the story line did screw me a bit where all the animals come to help WTF!!??!!
ANd can anyone tell me what happened to the scientist not the dead one but the one that got his avatar killed.

Mr. Semi-Terminator dude says "Hey, Eywa, I need some doods". Eywa says "lolno, i only balance life". Later, Eywa is all like "jk, have all my doods" and Mr. Semi-Terminator dude says "Gtfo you wee little humans, all your base are belong to me."

Rico...

Ahtman wrote:I wasn't worked up about it, just discussing it. I disagree that it makes perfect sense. The Scorpions aren't light VTOL's either, unless an Apache is suddenly a Light VTOL. The big ship was a dedicated transport, more like an Osprey. The birds themselves did more damage then the arrows ever could anyway. The inclusion of the shot seems superfluous and ridiculous.

Yeah, didn't mean to imply you were worked up about it, just saying that it was a really minor element of the movie.

The Scorpions may or may not be light VTOLs, it doesn't really matter if Apaches are light aircraft because they're a completely different aircraft produced a completely different organisation, for a completely purpose, in a completely different place at a completely different time. As a result, expecting the two vehicles to have similar performance capabilities is likely an error.

For my mind, the idea that the company, failing to understand the situation on the ground, provided under-armoured vehicles isn't a flaw, in fact the idea fits well with the rest of the movie.

As far as science fiction goes, it isn't really a like or dislike scenario. It would be more akin to the pronunciation debate. My definition is perhaps more traditional, but that doesn't make it any more wrong than it makes someone elses loose definition right. Just having spaceships doesn't make something sci-fi any more than someone using a revolver makes them a cowboy.

Which is my point. You seemed to be criticising the movie for lacking hard sci-fi, or criticising people for calling it sci-fi, or something... but it that kind of space fantasy is commonly called sci-fi. Point is, like many things sci-fi can mean a lot of things. It's alright to talk about sci-fi and mean only hard sci-fi, and it's okay to mean anything set in space/the future/with time travel/whatever other themes are common.

I don't see why everyone thinks that be talking about this one scene it is a denigration of the whole plot. We aren't even actually talking about the scene, but just one moment in the whole scene. Again, being critical of something does is not the same as disliking the whole of something. Why so defensive because someone didn't fall in love with something you love? Do you really need others to feel the same way to justify your feelings for it?

Surely just as you're allowed to talk about how you didn't like a part of the film, we're allowed to discuss whether that criticism is valid?

Rico wrote:B) ARMOR PIERCING ARROWS. Bullets can't go through bulletproof glass, but arrows can? Perhaps we are spending money researching the wrong things!

Bullets were plinking right through the glass in the shoot out between the good chopper pilot and the Colonel's heavy ship.

F) A bit disappointing how there was the whole "Business is bad, we screwed the Indians, save our Earth, baaaaaaw" but what would movies be if not a medium for expressing one's views? It's crazy when you compare the Indians to the Omaticaya. The Omaticaya had indian-ish war calls, there were the "plains Omaticaya" and the "coastal Omaticaya", the Omaticaya were kicked off their land for monetary gain, the Omaticaya were "one with nature", etc etc.

While the native drew inspiration from American Indian cultures as well as others, the political message wasn't about the Indians, it was a pretty direct attack on the occupation of Iraq. The main character lost the use of legs fighting in Venezuala. He originally said he was fighting for freedom in that engagement, and later recognises that if someone is living on a valuable resource then 'they' will make those people your enemy. The Colonel even referred to 'shock and awe'.

I don't see the movie as a veiled reference to the current war in the Middle East since there is no connection with the indigneous Navi. Also it's a corporation with a mercenary fighting force than a standing army from Earth.

G

yea didn't get that at all. The movie just screamed Dances with Blueskins. I'm surprised there wasn't a Giant Furry Plant Eater Hunt lead by the Foreign Man.

I was a bit surprised frankly. I thought I'd get ticked at the plot but I didn't on apolitical baasis, just that it didn't hold together and i kept thinking "so why are they suddenly fighting the humans again? Wait why is the helicopter chick now fighting for the Navi?" I liked the speical effects but had no emotional attachment and it felt like a Disney Imax thing. To be honest I kind of got bored about 2/3rds through and the big battle was strictly meh to me.

Green Blow Fly wrote:I don't see the movie as a veiled reference to the current war in the Middle East since there is no connection with the indigneous Navi. Also it's a corporation with a mercenary fighting force than a standing army from Earth.

G

You can see it as whatever you want but it was pretty explicit. They actually referred to the Colonel's plot as shock and awe. Worthington actually says that 'if you live on something they want they'll make you their enemy' or something like that.

And yeah, there's also a heavy handed environmental message going. It's possible to be heavy handed in two ways.


Automatically Appended Next Post:

Frazzled wrote:yea didn't get that at all. The movie just screamed Dances with Blueskins. I'm surprised there wasn't a Giant Furry Plant Eater Hunt lead by the Foreign Man.

I was a bit surprised frankly. I thought I'd get ticked at the plot but I didn't on apolitical baasis, just that it didn't hold together and i kept thinking "so why are they suddenly fighting the humans again? Wait why is the helicopter chick now fighting for the Navi?" I liked the speical effects but had no emotional attachment and it felt like a Disney Imax thing. To be honest I kind of got bored about 2/3rds through and the big battle was strictly meh to me.

You didn't understand why the lady pilot was fighting with the navi? After she worked with the avatar team up until the attack, then refused to be part of the attack on the tree, then bust the science team out of prison?

Fair enough that it bored you, but I'm surprised at a complaint that you couldn't follow a character's transformation. It wasn't a subtle movie.

Yea the story should've been incredibly easy to follow.

sebster wrote: As a result, expecting the two vehicles to have similar performance capabilities is likely an error.

I feel you are twisting the facts to fit how you feel about the movie to be in error. It is a perfectly valid comparison.

sebster wrote:For my mind

See? It isn't anything in the movie, it is just what you want to rationalize. If that works for you , fantastic, but for my mind it was a just there to look cool, not because it made sense. If they wanted to stay within the internal logic of the film and still look cool they should have had the birds carrying large stones in there feet and dive bombed the Scorpions, dropping them on the propellers. It would certainly have worked.

sebster wrote:Which is my point. You seemed to be criticising the movie for lacking hard sci-fi, or criticising people for calling it sci-fi, or something... but it that kind of space fantasy is commonly called sci-fi. Point is, like many things sci-fi can mean a lot of things.

It seems you skimmed over the conversation because that isn't close to what I wrote. I stated that Avatar is sci-fi. I said the Star Wars is not. As for the rest of your point, yes, words can mean whatever people want them to as they are arbitrary, so you can call whatever you want whatever you want. That doesn't make it right though. There is a difference between Fantasy and Sci-fi. Just because most people wouldn't know the difference between something doesn't mean that there suddenly isn't a difference. I'm somewhat surprised to see you make such an anti-intellectual argument.

sebster wrote:Surely just as you're allowed to talk about how you didn't like a part of the film, we're allowed to discuss whether that criticism is valid?

I didn't say they couldn't, but they weren't being attacked so there was little need to justify there position. I was told I was being to critical, I never said they weren't being critical enough or even questioning their right to have an opinion. That is the difference.


We could also ask/address:

How the movie portrays that being handicapped makes you less of a person.

The denigration of religion by literally removing faith from the equation.

The confusion of New Age and Indeginous Philosophy/Religion.

The one dimensional groups: Na'vi all good, humanity all bad. In the end to be good Jake literally has to become Na'vi to shed his demon body.

The movie is an argument against privileged white people coming from one of the most privileged white males on the planet.

The movie is a technical marvel that's underlying message is that evils of technology.

How, for all the things the movie is railing against, one of the is not war. Jake kills hundreds of his countrymen without batting an eye, never expressing any sort of internal conflict about what he does. It also posits that it is ok to go to war when you are absolutely right and the other side is absolutely wrong. When was the last time we had those kind of absolutes, or that each side didn't believe they were the ones in the absolute right?

The message that tolerance never works, that violence will always be the answer.

Now if Pandora is indeed a stand-in for Iraq and the Na'vi are the insurgents and the Marines / corporation are the US, than is Cameron saying it's ok when US troops get killed, because their superiors launched the invasion?

If it was an analogy for Native Americans there should also have been some groups more than happy to trade with the humans and befriend them.

When Will White People Stop Making Movies Like "Avatar"?

EDIT:

You didn't understand why the lady pilot was fighting with the navi? After she worked with the avatar team up until the attack, then refused to be part of the attack on the tree, then bust the science team out of prison?

In all fairness she had no character development, which is what I think Frazz is referring. However thin Jakes is, at least we are shown why he is a traitor. Trudy's development goes like this.

1. Hai guyz, I iz yer pilot! ^_^
2. Oh noez, we shot a tree with minimal casualties
3. Nowz I kill all the people I haz been working and living wif for the last [unknown period of time because I am not really developed].
4. Oh noez, nowz I iz dead. /sadface

I still don't see the movie as an analogy to Iraq invasion. When western Europe came to North America seems more fitting but I don't see that as the point either. Generally it just seemed like an Eco-spiritual combined message. If the Navi were depicted as nomadic tribes with a strong tie-in to the Muslim religion then I would have been more inclined to see the movie as an anti war message pointed at the Iraqi war. People should be aware that the situation in the Middle East dates back to at least the first world war when the area was purposedly split up into many countries so they would fight each other rather than work together.

G

The Iraq analogy comes more from the use of terms by the Col. like "shock and awe" and "pre-emptive strike" as well as the imagery of the destruction of Hometree as a stand in for the twin towers. It isn't the entire subtext, but an element of it.

The one dimensional groups: Na'vi all good, humanity all bad. In the end to be good Jake literally has to become Na'vi to shed his demon body.

Yeah, other than the humans who were on the Na'vi's side, and the Na'vi that wanted to kill Jake on sight just because he wasn't one of them.

Killing him on sight wouldn't have been wrong.

He was supposed to be trying to destroy their entire race.

And is it really killing if its just an Avatar instead of the actual person?

Aduro wrote:

The one dimensional groups: Na'vi all good, humanity all bad. In the end to be good Jake literally has to become Na'vi to shed his demon body.

Yeah, other than the humans who were on the Na'vi's side

Here is where you run into the white guilt. The dream that out of 100 people, 98 want you dead and are actively purshuing this agenda, but 2 don't and you want to use this as an example that they are actually not bad. Now if 98 of them wanted to help you and 2 wanted to kill you then you might have something.

Then of course, excluding Trudy, the extreme minority that sided with the Na'vi were also Na'vi themselves. To be good you not only had to side with them in idealogy, you would have to take on thier particular form.

Orkeosaurus wrote:

Aduro wrote:, and the Na'vi that wanted to kill Jake on sight just because he wasn't one of them.

Killing him on sight wouldn't have been wrong.

He was supposed to be trying to destroy their entire race.

Exactly. As evil as the humans were, their paranoia wasn't exactly unjustified.

Cane wrote:And is it really killing if its just an Avatar instead of the actual person?

Eww, excellent question. Kind of reminds me of an article about the Matrix that posits the question "If the Matrix isn't real, is Morpheus really black?".

The colonel attempted to kill the human body, not the Avatar.

The destruction of the tree I don't see as analogy to the towers... It's not like the army was destroying one of their own assets.

G

1. Hai guyz, I iz yer pilot! ^_^
2. Oh noez, we shot a tree with minimal casualties
3. Nowz I kill all the people I haz been working and living wif for the last [unknown period of time because I am not really developed].
4. Oh noez, nowz I iz dead. /sadface
****Exactly.

BUHWAHAHAHAHAHAHA!!!

Frazzled wrote: I thought I'd get ticked at the plot but I didn't on apolitical baasis, just that it didn't hold together and i kept thinking "so why are they suddenly fighting the humans again?

Suddenly? The movie basically was building up to that fight from the get-go. Were you asleep? It was plainly obvious that the evil corporation and Colonel was going to bulldoze their sacred grounds if the blue-skinned refused to move which they did. I'm not sure how you view it as sudden since half the movie involved Jake learning and falling in love with the way of the Native AmeriAliens (and them not going to let money crunchers dig up their sacred grounds) and there was plenty of contempt between the science people versus the money crunchers.

Wait why is the helicopter chick now fighting for the Navi?"

Well considering that she was the pilot for the Avatar team one can infer she knew more about the planet, its natives, and the big picture with all the events she was a part of. In case you forgot the Avatar team was around longer than Jake's three months or so stay (remember those pictures of Sigourney Weaver teaching the natives, the mountain base, etc) and IIRC she was pretty aware of why they were moving shop. Blowing up innocent and defenseless natives isn't what she signed up for; she even said something like that: "I didn't sign up for this gak." From the very beginning Jake narrated that the human soldiers were freedom fighters back on Earth and now were merely guns for hire which leads the audience to infer that they're not guys like Tom Hanks from Saving Private Ryan. And in making the escape she got shot at by the Colonel leading to the casualty of Mrs. Weaver, the head of the whole science project and detail she flew for; further reinforcing her character's actions.

The pilot's motives were not too different to what Tom Cruise felt like in "The Last Samurai" where he was part of killing a bunch of innocent natives and then later turned sides against the very country, leaders, and soldiers he fought for.

But yea the pilot was the escape ticket character and Han Solo played a similar role in Star Wars where he came out of nowhere to save Luke at just the very last second...kind of strange too if you nitpick about it like Avatar since you'd think the Death Star would've detected it or the most bad ass mofo in the galaxy (keep in mind this is before the prequels were made), Vader would've sensed a disturbance.

Cane wrote:

Frazzled wrote: I thought I'd get ticked at the plot but I didn't on apolitical baasis, just that it didn't hold together and i kept thinking "so why are they suddenly fighting the humans again?

Suddenly? The movie basically was building up to that fight from the get-go. Were you asleep? It was plainly obvious that the evil corporation and Colonel was going to bulldoze their sacred grounds if the blue-skinned refused to move which they did. and there was plenty of contempt between the science people versus the money crunchers.

So what? They were marines on a hostile world. The navi were just one more threat to them. Why would they care? You shoot at me and I'll nuke you if I can.

So what if the sciencers were have people problems with the money guys. Thats like..life.

Again, it wasn't a factor for me, but it limited my level of involvement. I really wasn't involved by any of the characters and that detracted from the enjoyment of the special effects. I had a similar reaction to ...shudder...Transformers II..shudder.

I think The Last Samuri is an excellent comparison.

G

not so hot. I didn't like that movie either. Mostly because Tom cruise sucks so bad he can mess up and otherwise good movie.

Green Blow Fly wrote:I think The Last Samuri is an excellent comparison.

G

Yep.

But Frazz the Last Samurai had hot Asian chicks FTW!



G

Green Blow Fly wrote:But Frazz the Last Samurai had hot Asian chicks FTW!



G

Yep. Plus
cool samurai (although convenienetly hiding they were real bastards in real life)
cool ninjas
cool actors
cool battle DAKKA DAKKA DAKKA!

Tom Cruise indeed sucks that bad.

* sound of universe imploding through a tiny keyhole *

that is some major lung power going on for sure.

G

sebster wrote:While the native drew inspiration from American Indian cultures as well as others, the political message wasn't about the Indians, it was a pretty direct attack on the occupation of Iraq. The main character lost the use of legs fighting in Venezuala. He originally said he was fighting for freedom in that engagement, and later recognises that if someone is living on a valuable resource then 'they' will make those people your enemy. The Colonel even referred to 'shock and awe'.

Respectfully I think the Iraq connection you therorize about is way off. To me, it was an obvious indictment of imperialism, more specifically american imperialism related to the treatment of the American Natives. Destroying the big tree was more akin to the american expulsion of the Cherokee and other eastern tribes out of the Apalachian mountains, leading to the "trail of tears".

Sadam Hussein wasn't made an enemy to take Iraqs oil, he was allready an enemy dating back to Desert storm.

GG

The motivation for Desert Storm was largely based on concern with respect to control of Kuwaiti oil. Prior to that Saddam was a US ally.

dogma wrote:The motivation for Desert Storm was largely based on concern with respect to control of Kuwaiti oil. Prior to that Saddam was a US ally.

And your point is?

I mean..... of course evryone knows that Sadam was our ally because he fought the Iranians and purchased our weapons.

If your trying to draw a parralell between Desert storm and Avatar I think it breaks down, since the Navi were not invading other planets/civilizations, like Sadam was in, invading Kuwait. There is no doubt that the economics of oil were in play during Desert storm, however Iraq was the agressor there. Unlike the Navi.

This is why I disagree with sebster, as I think it has more to do with Americas behavior towards the native americans than Iraq.

GG

I saw it 2 days in a row
with the same person i saw it the day before.
paying twice as much cause it was after 6(or 5)
it was nice still.

The way I feel about this movie is summed up in this picture.

All of those bits of shiny, are bronze. Want to know why? Ahtman knows why, and Frazzled from the sound of it as well.

This movie was a waste of my time, I enjoyed it almost solely because of the hype surrounding it. I went in thinking, "Wow, this movie, it is going to blow my mind and stuff." Well guess what, it didn't; it failed in that department. My brain makes shinier images than that on a bad day. Shinier and Grim Darkier (tm) images, that I enjoy thinking about. I don't want to make it sound terrible, after all, it did get a solid C (70%) rating from me.

If you like to be eyefecked into the next decade, then watch this film. If you care at all about story, and continuity, and generally understandable cinema; this film will sorely disappoint you.

As with the Last samurai, this movie went for the epic high shot (which marketing solely balanced to an acceptable profitability, LOOK AT THIS, NAOW, READ THIS. OR I WILL JAB YOU IN THE BRAIN WITH MORE ASKING OF YOU OF READING OF THIS... marketing...) and failed. Over the next decade, you will see exactly why this movie is nothing more than a spectacle for the unprepared. Your brain will melt ten years from now if this CGI really astounded you that much.

Moar shiny stuff in the future, news at 11.

Spoiler... I has it.

generalgrog wrote:
And your point is?

I mean..... of course evryone knows that Sadam was our ally because he fought the Iranians and purchased our weapons.

If your trying to draw a parralell between Desert storm and Avatar I think it breaks down, since the Navi were not invading other planets/civilizations, like Sadam was in, invading Kuwait. There is no doubt that the economics of oil were in play during Desert storm, however Iraq was the agressor there. Unlike the Navi.

That Saddam Husein was made an enemy as a result of the impact his actions would have on the price, and control of oil.

generalgrog wrote:
This is why I disagree with sebster, as I think it has more to do with Americas behavior towards the native americans than Iraq.

GG

Honestly, as is often the case with respect to 'white guilt' films, it seems to be primarily an indictment of imperialism in general. Though I doubt it was ever conceived in that light.

I just got back from it myself. It was pretty much what I expected.

The 3d was more of a distraction than an asset; I didn't really expect that, but I haven't seen a 3d movie since I was young. There are some still scenes that make the 3d look good, but too often things became blurry while moving fast, and too often the people who are supposed to be in the foreground look like cardboard cutouts in front of the background.

I don't know that I was ever that visually stunned by the movie. Maybe I just don't react strongly to special effects, but at no moment in the movie did I think of it as being some sort of quantum leap in visual capability. It seemed pretty much like any other modern CGI based movie.

The action scenes were done well, which is something Cameron could be counted on for. By the time they came near the end it was a welcome relief. The movie really sags in the middle, probably thanks to the movie's overall length.

The characters were weak. The only two decent characters in the movie were the colonel (as has been said a lot) and the business guy. Both of which are the "villains", of course. I found the protagonist to be less than sympathetic in the beginning, and getting more annoying as time went on. He starts out the dull "average American" who is rightly hated by both the human intellectuals and the blue master race.

Then there's some fairly entertaining running around the jungle until chief's daughter (yep) randomly finds him and decides not to kill him because he has a strong heart or some stupid gak. She saves him from space jackals and then magic dandelions land on him and he becomes The Chosen One. The Pocahontas Na'vi is really pretty boring. From secretly loving the protagonist while acting like an exasperated mother towards him for not being able to paint with all the colors of the wind (yawn) to being arranged to marry the leading brave (despite her independent tomboyish spirit), she's not really any different from the "indian princess" stereotype she was modeled after.

The other Na'vi aren't any less one dimensional. We have the dour faced chief, who has a lot of feathers, and is grim but stoic. Then we have his wife, the chief priestess of The Earth Mother, who spares the protagonist's life because the plot demands it. The token "bad not as good" Na'vi is the headstrong warrior guy, who doesn't accept "the outsider" who "doesn't belong" (which really makes sense, considering that he's getting them killed). Does this brave then begrudgingly come to accept the protagonist as one of his people after doing something courageous? Yep. The Na'vi as a whole are sort of grating. They're all watered down noble savage without any of the actual eccentricities that would have made a historical indian tribe seem like a real group of people. They fall flat on their ass as "aliens", since most real cultures are more exotic. You know the "white liberal" caricature who desperately tries to act "multicultural" by ripping a hodgepodge of traits from primitive societies that wouldn't see themselves as being particularly related at all? That's the Na'vi.

The other humans are pretty straightforward. There's the "strong female scientist with a heart of gold" who is really the most insufferable character in the whole movie (because it's all "strong female scientist with a heart of gold" all the time. It's cloying. Yes, we get it, you're excited about science). There's the nerd friend, who's just sort of "there". There's the helicopter pilot who betrays her own side for no reason and deus ex machinas the main characters to safety. (She's fairly amusing, but wasn't she already in Aliens?) The business guy is supposed to be the incompetent executive type, but he's actually one of the few characters who seems like a real person. The colonel is over-the-top, but a lot of fun.

The plotline is pretty much Pocahontas. White people arrive in a new world on a ship, searching for a precious mineral. One of the white people gets lost. The daughter of the chief finds him, and they fall in love. The white guy learns to value nature instead of wealth, and learns the ways of the natives. Then there is an incident in which the white people and natives fight, and the white guy is almost executed. He is saved at the last minute. A war is about to start between the white people and the natives, that the white guy wants to stop. The natives have animal friends. People talk to a magic willow tree (I really didn't expect this to be in both movies, but it is).

The ending is different, of course. In Avatar the protagonist "unites all the tribes" by flying around and giving speeches like in Braveheart or something. Then when the villain decides to "fight terror with terror" (which made no sense at all in the context of the movie, but scored political points maybe?) by blowing up Grandmother Willow, the natives kill them with armor piercing arrows and giant panthers. There is a pretty silly fight scene at the end, where a giant armored walker actually pulls out a knife to fight a giant panther. It can't just, ya know, bash it with it's giant metal hands, or shoot it with some sort of built in gun, it uses a combat knife (and gets into a knife fight with the hero).

The movie isn't "like nothing you've ever seen before", it's a story that I've seen so many times it gets on my nerves. The CGI is good but nothing worth seeing the movie for alone. The directing of the action scenes and the actual design of some of the aliens is where I would say the movie grabbed my interest, because the action scenes came together very nicely and some of the aliens looked pretty cool (as did some of the equipment used by the humans; not so much the goofy armored suits though). The plotline is dull. Very, very dull. It wasn't full of holes, and it did actually go somewhere (*cough* Attack of the Clones) but that's really just a base requirement. The characters are as dull as the plotline, especially the one-dimensional stereotypes of the Na'vi. The acting seemed to be done decently, especially as the faces were CGI, but there's nothing worth expressing. If you do see it I would recommend it in 2d.

6.5/10

Orkeo wrote:The ending is different, of course. In Avatar the protagonist "unites all the tribes" by flying around and giving speeches like in Braveheart or something.

The movie began to lose me here (a little bit earlier actually).

Then when the villain decides to "fight terror with terror" (which made no sense at all in the context of the movie, but scored political points maybe?) by blowing up Grandmother Willow, the natives kill them with armor piercing arrows and giant panthers.

This is when I started having one worded conversations in my head about the movie, such as "Yeah... what?", and "Okay... what?".

There is a pretty silly fight scene at the end, where a giant armored walker actually pulls out a knife to fight a giant panther. It can't just, ya know, bash it with it's giant metal hands, or shoot it with some sort of built in gun, it uses a combat knife (and gets into a knife fight with the hero).

The knife will never stop bugging me, ever. After the mechs are highlighted as a shiny special effects prop that they spent a lot of time on, they gave one a knife, stuck the (one of the two) best character/s in it; and just said feth this and end the movie already. Abrupt, strange, and completely lacking in substantive awesome. The controls of the mech are strange as well. I can understand why you would have direct controls for some functions (you punch, the mech punches, makes sense), but what sense does it make to require you to actually pretend to hold a gun. It. Makes. No. Sense.

There is one scene that shows this in detail, and it reminded me of an arcade shooter... with a pretend gun. Kind of like trying to play the guitar at a live gig, when you forgot your guitar. The birth of the air guitar was cooler than using an imaginary gun, to fire a real gun...

I thought it was strange that for all the over-armed vehicles (transport gunship had quad-linked vulcan cannons ffs) the mechs just had the rifle. Where are the shoulder mounted missles or the mech sized flame-thrower, perfect for a jungle environment.

Well, advanced military and skilled professional operators deployed in a timely and relevant fashion would succeed in putting down the tribal insurrection...

We wouldn't want to ruin our do-good underdog protagonists' heartwarming and seemingly improbable victory, would we?



...ah, screw it. Send in the Sentinels.

Frazzled wrote:1. Hai guyz, I iz yer pilot! ^_^
2. Oh noez, we shot a tree with minimal casualties
3. Nowz I kill all the people I haz been working and living wif for the last [unknown period of time because I am not really developed].
4. Oh noez, nowz I iz dead. /sadface
****Exactly.

It's bizarre that you saw the events of the movie and thought you were seeing 'we shot a tree with minimal casualties'. The film was showing armed men force native people from their homes so they can profit from the resources there, something which some people oppose, including the helicopter pilot.

At this point it's obvious you're being obtuse for the sake of it.


Automatically Appended Next Post:

generalgrog wrote:Respectfully I think the Iraq connection you therorize about is way off. To me, it was an obvious indictment of imperialism, more specifically american imperialism related to the treatment of the American Natives. Destroying the big tree was more akin to the american expulsion of the Cherokee and other eastern tribes out of the Apalachian mountains, leading to the "trail of tears".

Yeah, at first I thought it was shaping up as a fairly straightforward 'generic imperialism is generically bad' but a few direct references were made. He lost his legs fighting in Venezuala - they didn't have to mention where, and they certainly didn't have to mention a major oil producing nation. The 'shock and awe' comment. The comment about making people you enemy to take their stuff.

There were pointed and not very subtle references to recent political events.

Sadam Hussein wasn't made an enemy to take Iraqs oil, he was allready an enemy dating back to Desert storm.

GG

Nor was either attack on Iraq, in my opinion, based on oil. But we aren't talking about my point of view or yours here, we're talking about the intended message of the movie and its creators.

I thought it was dump of here to paint here heli(or whateva) and fly over shooting the gun ship.
she could have just flew infront of the cockpit and shoot a missle into the cockpit. problem solved battle over.
on a side note they believe a sequal will be releashed late 2011.

sebster wrote:

Frazzled wrote:1. Hai guyz, I iz yer pilot! ^_^
2. Oh noez, we shot a tree with minimal casualties
3. Nowz I kill all the people I haz been working and living wif for the last [unknown period of time because I am not really developed].
4. Oh noez, nowz I iz dead. /sadface
****Exactly.

It's bizarre that you saw the events of the movie and thought you were seeing 'we shot a tree with minimal casualties'. The film was showing armed men force native people from their homes so they can profit from the resources there, something which some people oppose, including the helicopter pilot.

It is reasonable that this incident might have made Trudy question what was going on, but one incident of blowing up a tree is rarely enough by itself to make someone a traitor. If they had targeted the Navi and just started blowing them away it would have been more believable. It is also the only inciting point for her to turn her back on everything. We don't even get to see her agonize over it or even think about it. It just happens. She also just took off in the middle of an operation with apparently no consequences. Last I checked, even in a mercenary force (especially a stand in for the USMC) wouldn't take that to kindly. If there were consequences we never see it or here anything about it.

sebster wrote:At this point it's obvious you're being obtuse for the sake of it.

Sebster going ad hominem because someone feels differently about a movie on my Dakka? It's more likely than you think.

Saw this film yesterday, and regardless of whatever else has been said in this thread, I thought it was pretty much the most awesome film ever.
I spent about ten minutes straight looking exactly like this:


The rest of it was pretty sweet too

Ahtman wrote:It is reasonable that this incident might have made Trudy question what was going on, but one incident of blowing up a tree is rarely enough by itself to make someone a traitor. If they had targeted the Navi and just started blowing them away it would have been more believable. It is also the only inciting point for her to turn her back on everything. We don't even get to see her agonize over it or even think about it. It just happens. She also just took off in the middle of an operation with apparently no consequences. Last I checked, even in a mercenary force (especially a stand in for the USMC) wouldn't take that to kindly. If there were consequences we never see it or here anything about it.

Keeping her freedom after ignoring orders to fire on the tree and flying off was a plot hole, I agree with you there.

But I'm not sure you understood the significance of the tree. The Na'vi stored the memories of their ancestors in trees like that one. Having worked with the Avatar team during that period the pilot understood that... or maybe she was the only person unwilling to force people from their homes.

We don't see her agonise over the issue, but she's a minor character in a big movie. Stopping the flow of the narrative for the sake of some angst from a peripheral character with a simple character story is the kind of thing bad directors do... good ones like Cameron know how to fit the stories of minor characters into the overall narrative.

Sebster going ad hominem because someone feels differently about a movie on my Dakka? It's more likely than you think.

Saying someone is being obtuse is an ad hominem? Meanwhile, describing the assault on the home of a people to which they had a direct, physical connection as attacking a tree with minimal casualties... is taking such a wrong headed approach to the events that it couldn't possibly be a genuine misinterpretation.

Ahtman wrote:It is reasonable that this incident might have made Trudy question what was going on, but one incident of blowing up a tree is rarely enough by itself to make someone a traitor.

Exactly. It wouldn't have been terribly difficult to work this out either. All they would've needed was an early scene with Trudy expressing distaste at being assigned to a military operation. It isn't too difficult to believe that RDA would shuffle flight qualified personnel as the situation might require, even if they lacked military experience.


Automatically Appended Next Post:

sebster wrote:
Saying someone is being obtuse is an ad hominem?

Yeah. Anytime you make a statement which can be phrased as "X makes you sound like Y" you're making an ad hominem argument. That doesn't mean your point is invalid, it just means that X isn't necessarily related to Y. Though the two might be reasonably related.

sebster wrote:But I'm not sure you understood the significance of the tree.

I understood the significance of the tree, but I'm watching the whole thing from a nearly omniscient perspective. Trudy on the other hand would not have understood the significance of the tree. She was a merc pilot, not in the avatar program.

sebster wrote:Having worked with the Avatar team during that period the pilot understood that... or maybe she was the only person unwilling to force people from their homes.

That is an assumption. No where in the film are we given this idea or information. For all we know she only sees them when she picks them up and drops them off. How hard would it have been to put in a scene of her and Jake talking for just a minute where he is relating to her what he has seen and learned?

sebster wrote:We don't see her agonise over the issue, but she's a minor character in a big movie.

So she is minor enough that it doesn't matter, but important enough to imagine justification for her poor character transition. She is so minor we as an audience are supposed to care when she dies. Hell, she is the only human that can't turn into a 10 foot alien that fights back.

sebster wrote:Stopping the flow of the narrative for the sake of some angst from a peripheral character with a simple character story is the kind of thing bad directors do... good ones like Cameron know how to fit the stories of minor characters into the overall narrative.

That is just a load of dog feces. Aliens was able to create believable minor characters with little moments w/o 'disrupting the flow of the film. Cameron screwed the pooch on this one. Just as a general rule, fleshing out characters is the sign of a good screenplay and director, not of bad ones.

Sebster wrote:Saying someone is being obtuse is an ad hominem? Meanwhile, describing the assault on the home of a people to which they had a direct, physical connection as attacking a tree with minimal casualties... is taking such a wrong headed approach to the events that it couldn't possibly be a genuine misinterpretation.

It was minimal casualties. They didn't target the inhabitants and hardly any of them were killed. If a military bombs a town but hardly kill anyone in it, that is minimal casualties. They could have decimated them if they wanted to target the Navi, which they didn't. It isn't a judgment on the rightness or the wrongness of the action but an observation of it. I'm also pretty sure that when we are talking about a character arc and you keep changing the subject to try and say I am justifying their actions is a straw man. No one has argued that they were in the right in the slightest. And again, the only people that really understood what the tree meant beyond being shelter, were not shooting at it in the first place.

I am amazed at the contortions and rationalizations you are willing to manufacture to try and gloss over such obvious deficiencies. As I said before I did enjoy the movie, but that doesn't mean I'm blind to all the faults of it, of which there are many.

Ahtman wrote:

sebster wrote:But I'm not sure you understood the significance of the tree.

I understood the significance of the tree, but I'm watching the whole thing from a nearly omniscient perspective. Trudy on the other hand would not have understood the significance of the tree. She was a merc pilot, not in the avatar program.

sebster wrote:Having worked with the Avatar team during that period the pilot understood that... or maybe she was the only person unwilling to force people from their homes.

That is an assumption. No where in the film are we given this idea or information. For all we know she only sees them when she picks them up and drops them off. How hard would it have been to put in a scene of her and Jake talking for just a minute where he is relating to her what he has seen and learned?

sebster wrote:We don't see her agonise over the issue, but she's a minor character in a big movie.

So she is minor enough that it doesn't matter, but important enough to imagine justification for her poor character transition. She is so minor we as an audience are supposed to care when she dies. Hell, she is the only human that can't turn into a 10 foot alien that fights back.

sebster wrote:Stopping the flow of the narrative for the sake of some angst from a peripheral character with a simple character story is the kind of thing bad directors do... good ones like Cameron know how to fit the stories of minor characters into the overall narrative.

That is just a load of dog feces. Aliens was able to create believable minor characters with little moments w/o 'disrupting the flow of the film. Cameron screwed the pooch on this one. Just as a general rule, fleshing out characters is the sign of a good screenplay and director, not of bad ones.

Sebster wrote:Saying someone is being obtuse is an ad hominem? Meanwhile, describing the assault on the home of a people to which they had a direct, physical connection as attacking a tree with minimal casualties... is taking such a wrong headed approach to the events that it couldn't possibly be a genuine misinterpretation.

It was minimal casualties. They didn't target the inhabitants and hardly any of them were killed. If a military bombs a town but hardly kill anyone in it, that is minimal casualties. They could have decimated them if they wanted to target the Navi, which they didn't. It isn't a judgment on the rightness or the wrongness of the action but an observation of it. I'm also pretty sure that when we are talking about a character arc and you keep changing the subject to try and say I am justifying their actions is a straw man. No one has argued that they were in the right in the slightest. And again, the only people that really understood what the tree meant beyond being shelter, were not shooting at it in the first place.

I am amazed at the contortions and rationalizations you are willing to manufacture to try and gloss over such obvious deficiencies. As I said before I did enjoy the movie, but that doesn't mean I'm blind to all the faults of it, of which there are many.

Given the length of the movie, it could be a clearer explanation will emerge in the directors cut? It could be that Cameron decided it didn't impact too much if he removed it from the general release version. I for one tend to accept that there must be a reason for a characters actions, but don't dwell too much on it if it's not clear as I know you can bog the movie down other wise.

I for one tend to accept that there must be a reason for a characters actions

But they still have to be believable. She goes from 0-60 (97 for kph) in 4 seconds with little explanation. The real explanation is that it is automatically assumed the audience won't notice because she is siding against the bad guys and because they needed a deus ex machina to be able to hide the base away. They couldn't haul the trailers into the floating mountains w/o a pilot so *KABOOM* instant traitor. Just add water.

It's bizarre that you saw the events of the movie and thought you were seeing 'we shot a tree with minimal casualties'. The film was showing armed men force ALIENS OUT so they can profit from the resources there, something which some people oppose, including the helicopter pilot.

At this point it's obvious you're being obtuse for the sake of it.

No you're being a fool if you think anyone in their right mind would turn like that. they are marine pilots. They've probably seen their own people die to these aliens. The 40K mantra "PURGE THE ALIEN" is really appropriate here. After all, clean the place up a bit and its a new colony for humans, for you know, the pilot's own species.

On the positive I corrected your typo.

What I loved the most about the movie was that the character played by Sam Worthington at first seemed just like another dumb smuck (jeez, he should post here on OT) then by the end of the movie you finally figure out that he is a very humble totally bad arse alien Messiah! That rawked by gnads!!!

G

Ahtman wrote:

sebster wrote:But I'm not sure you understood the significance of the tree.

I understood the significance of the tree, but I'm watching the whole thing from a nearly omniscient perspective. Trudy on the other hand would not have understood the significance of the tree. She was a merc pilot, not in the avatar program.

Ah , but she was in the Avatar program if you think about it . She was their pilot , so she must have known at least something about the tree etc...

gretar wrote:Ah , but she was in the Avatar program if you think about it . She was their pilot , so she must have known at least something about the tree etc...

That does not follow in the least. That's like suggesting that a truck driver for intel must know the inner workings of their chips because he hauls the crap around.

Frazzled wrote:
No you're being a fool if you think anyone in their right mind would turn like that. they are marine pilots. They've probably seen their own people die to these aliens.

Well, ex-marine pilots anyway. The easy fix would've been an "I didn't sign up for this" scene regarding Trudy. Of course, it wasn't there, so the criticism applies in the form of a deus ex machina, or a plot hole.

Frazzled wrote:
After all, clean the place up a bit and its a new colony for humans, for you know, the pilot's own species.

Of course, humans can't breath on Pandora, and the aliens are sufficiently anthropomorphic to be sympathetic. Many people squirm at the notion of killing bunnies without just cause, there's no reason to believe that said squeamishness wouldn't be even more pronounced with respect to a big, blue, intelligent kitty.

the one thing that bothered me about the movie, ununpentiom an unstable gaseous element that can't exsist for more then a tenth of a second

Could you repeat that last part in a way that makes sense?

dogma wrote:Yeah. Anytime you make a statement which can be phrased as "X makes you sound like Y" you're making an ad hominem argument. That doesn't mean your point is invalid, it just means that X isn't necessarily related to Y. Though the two might be reasonably related.

It's the difference between 'your opinion is faulty' and 'you're faulty'. I would think my comment that fraz was being obtuse would refer to his argument, not to him, but I can see how mileage can vary.

Ahtman wrote:I understood the significance of the tree, but I'm watching the whole thing from a nearly omniscient perspective. Trudy on the other hand would not have understood the significance of the tree. She was a merc pilot, not in the avatar program.

I didn't know her name until just then, cheers for that (as an aside... Trudy? Who names a character Trudy?)

The importance of the tree to the na'vi was a fairly basic piece of knowledge, it's very unlikely she wouldn't have picked up on that given her time working with the science team.

That is an assumption. No where in the film are we given this idea or information. For all we know she only sees them when she picks them up and drops them off. How hard would it have been to put in a scene of her and Jake talking for just a minute where he is relating to her what he has seen and learned?

No, we aren't given that information. Do we really need it, and every other detail spelled out? This is a fairly universal story, one that's been told many, many times now. Personally, I just assumed she was going to turn and fight with the Na'vi from the moment we saw her taking the scientists out to the hanging rock place, and I think most people could assume the same. Wasting screen time explaining a very simple thing (soldier doesn't agree with army and joins scientists) would be bad story telling.

So she is minor enough that it doesn't matter, but important enough to imagine justification for her poor character transition. She is so minor we as an audience are supposed to care when she dies. Hell, she is the only human that can't turn into a 10 foot alien that fights back.

To the extent that people on-line are complaining about it, is the extent to which I've thought about why she might have turned. Personally it made sense given the narrative, and didn't really need any more explanation... "pilot sees a thing happen that we all know is bad and decides not to be a part of it. She changes side and dies heroically.'

That is just a load of dog feces. Aliens was able to create believable minor characters with little moments w/o 'disrupting the flow of the film. Cameron screwed the pooch on this one. Just as a general rule, fleshing out characters is the sign of a good screenplay and director, not of bad ones.

Sbuh? The characters in Aliens were given just as much explanation for their basic drives. And no, 'fleshing out' is not a sign of good or bad direction, because you can have far more complex characters in bad movies, and far simpler characters in great movies. Knowing exactly how much detail is needed given the story you are telling is the mark of a talented director.

Did you see the Matrix sequels? Or Transformers II? Where they spent so much time explaining the complexities of whatever it was they kept talking about? And then you compare it to a film like Die Hard... where by then end we knew little about villain other than his sociopathy and greed. The latter is a great movie, the former are terrible movies, because the latter knew when to drop unecessary detail to maintain the pace.

It was minimal casualties. They didn't target the inhabitants and hardly any of them were killed. If a military bombs a town but hardly kill anyone in it, that is minimal casualties. They could have decimated them if they wanted to target the Navi, which they didn't. It isn't a judgment on the rightness or the wrongness of the action but an observation of it.

It's a completely obtuse, and entirely wrongheaded approach to the event. The Indians were moved from the Black Hills with minimal casualties, but it'd be the stuff of dark comedy to spend any time talking about how the operation was performed with minimal casualties. The point is when resources were found the native people were moved on, and that's wrong, and everything else is detail.

I'm also pretty sure that when we are talking about a character arc and you keep changing the subject to try and say I am justifying their actions is a straw man. No one has argued that they were in the right in the slightest. And again, the only people that really understood what the tree meant beyond being shelter, were not shooting at it in the first place

I'm doing what now? Maybe I've lost track of something in the conversation, but where did I say you were trying to justify their actions. And I think you're making a big assumption in thinking Trudy (Trudy?!) had no idea that the tree was more than just a home. Or that it needed to be more than home for some people to consider it wrong to force them away from it.

I am amazed at the contortions and rationalizations you are willing to manufacture to try and gloss over such obvious deficiencies. As I said before I did enjoy the movie, but that doesn't mean I'm blind to all the faults of it, of which there are many.

I'm amazed at people's ability to nitpick over the trivial. I could point out that the zero-g mineral they were mining was apparently measured in weight, which makes exactly zero sense but affects the quality of the movie about as much as the parsec line affected the quality of Star Wars. You have to look at what a movie is focussed on, and understand that worrying about things outside of will likely interupt the pacing or confuse the premise. Spending time showing the personal journey of a peripheral character as she came to make a decision that fit nicely within the narrative would be bad storytelling.


Automatically Appended Next Post:

Frazzled wrote:No you're being a fool if you think anyone in their right mind would turn like that. they are marine pilots. They've probably seen their own people die to these aliens. The 40K mantra "PURGE THE ALIEN" is really appropriate here. After all, clean the place up a bit and its a new colony for humans, for you know, the pilot's own species.

On the positive I corrected your typo.

Umm, they're aliens when they're on our planet. When they're on their planet they're natives, and we're aliens.

And if you walk into the movie thinking that we're humans so damn right we should be able to force aliens off their land to build ourselves a new home... then I can see how you might not enjoy the movie all that much.


Automatically Appended Next Post:

Tyyr wrote:That does not follow in the least. That's like suggesting that a truck driver for intel must know the inner workings of their chips because he hauls the crap around.

Nah, because chips don't talk but people do. So it'd be more like taxiing an intel research team around. And the inner workings of the chip are high level science, whereas 'the tree contains the memories of their ancestors' is a pretty basic thing to understand.

So it's about as plausible as a research team's driver knowing that his research team is developing a chip that isn't faster, but just consumes less power as that'd be useful in a laptop. Which a very plausible thing.


Automatically Appended Next Post:

dogma wrote:Well, ex-marine pilots anyway. The easy fix would've been an "I didn't sign up for this" scene regarding Trudy. Of course, it wasn't there, so the criticism applies in the form of a deus ex machina, or a plot hole.

I don't understand what you mean here. She said 'I didn't sign up for this' during the attack on the tree, and in her next scene she was helping the Avatar team escape.

sebster wrote:

Ahtman wrote:I understood the significance of the tree, but I'm watching the whole thing from a nearly omniscient perspective. Trudy on the other hand would not have understood the significance of the tree. She was a merc pilot, not in the avatar program.

I didn't know her name until just then, cheers for that (as an aside... Trudy? Who names a character Trudy?)

The importance of the tree to the na'vi was a fairly basic piece of knowledge, it's very unlikely she wouldn't have picked up on that given her time working with the science team.

So was the Black Hills being sacred but guess what happened there? Knowing a species holds something sacred doesn't mean you think they are right, especially if you look at history.

sebster wrote:This is a fairly universal story, one that's been told many, many times now.

Actually it isn't that universal considering the extreme parallels to US history. And as with many stories that are told and retold, it is in the telling that makes it special, not the just the fact that it has been retold. This didn't tell it very well. It brought nothing new other than technology used in filming it to the table.

sebster wrote:Personally, I just assumed she was going to turn and fight with the Na'vi from the moment we saw her taking the scientists out to the hanging rock place, and I think most people could assume the same. Wasting screen time explaining a very simple thing (soldier doesn't agree with army and joins scientists) would be bad story telling.

No, it is bad storytelling no matter how much you wish it were otherwise. It wasn't even really foreshadowed. As you said, you just assumed it. The characters are so paper thin you could see exactly where everyone was going as soon as the credits were finished.

sebster wrote:To the extent that people on-line are complaining about it, is the extent to which I've thought about why she might have turned. Personally it made sense given the narrative, and didn't really need any more explanation... "pilot sees a thing happen that we all know is bad and decides not to be a part of it. She changes side and dies heroically.'

Again, you are making excuses that don't hold water. Your summary isn't any more obtuse than the one you were rallying against. People are also complaining in real life as well. I'm not sure why it would matter unless it is somehow supposed to be a way of minimizing the arguments just becuase they are online. Of course that would minimize a defense as well. Either way it is an unnecessary distraction from the discussion.

sebster wrote:The characters in Aliens were given just as much explanation for their basic drives. And no, 'fleshing out' is not a sign of good or bad direction, because you can have far more complex characters in bad movies, and far simpler characters in great movies. Knowing exactly how much detail is needed given the story you are telling is the mark of a talented director.

It isn't a question of complexity and never has been. You are adding goal posts. Now we are on a True Scottsman argument. You can have character develpment without it being overly complex. There is a distinct difference between simple character development and a complete lack of it. As for Aliens, did anyone do anything that just didn't make sense? No, within the diegisis of the film everyone's actions fit what we knew and were shown of them. That is different than this in the we are really shown nothing and told nothing, we are just supposed to accept it.

sebster wrote:Did you see the Matrix sequels? Or Transformers II? Where they spent so much time explaining the complexities of whatever it was they kept talking about? And then you compare it to a film like Die Hard... where by then end we knew little about villain other than his sociopathy and greed. The latter is a great movie, the former are terrible movies, because the latter knew when to drop unecessary detail to maintain the pace.

Apples and oranges. Those movies were bad (worse really) but for different reasons. There is also a difference between explaining the complexities of a plot and creating a believable character development. Transformers had no character development whatsoever: everyone was the same at the end as they were at the beginning. It didn't suck becuase they made Sam to complicated. If you want to talk about plot development that is fine, but that isn't what we have been discussing here at all. Again, you are changing what the discussion is about. As for Hans Gruber, we actually do get some information on him so it isn't as if he is just a parer suit, which is one of the reasons he is remembered. There is another key difference: he didn't have a radical change at any point in the film. If had just suddenly turned and decided to not go through with it for no reason it would have been bad. He starts as a bad guy and ends as a bad guy.

sebster wrote:

Ahtman wrote:It was minimal casualties. They didn't target the inhabitants and hardly any of them were killed. If a military bombs a town but hardly kill anyone in it, that is minimal casualties. They could have decimated them if they wanted to target the Navi, which they didn't. It isn't a judgment on the rightness or the wrongness of the action but an observation of it.

It's a completely obtuse, and entirely wrongheaded approach to the event.

Besides getting dangerously close to ad hominem again, you are just flat out wrong. You are proffering your personal opinion as absolute fact. You, and this suprises me, are only able to view this from one very myopic perspective. You seem more intent on seeing at as you would see it in real life and not through the eyes of the characters in the film. And again you want to make it about the morality of the incident, which no one is arguing. You keep pretending that people are supporting the action when no one is. And again this discussing has never been about the assualt on the tree, you keep attacking those critical of the film for something we aren't even arguing.

sebster wrote:The Indians were moved from the Black Hills with minimal casualties, but it'd be the stuff of dark comedy to spend any time talking about how the operation was performed with minimal casualties.

And how many soldiers involved with that left the military and turned traitor to their country because of it?

sebster wrote:The point is when resources were found the native people were moved on, and that's wrong, and everything else is detail.

Well having studied Native American history for four years in college I really didn't know that. Thanks for taking something that was actually more complicated and making it into a bumper sticker.

sebster wrote:

Ahtman wrote:I'm also pretty sure that when we are talking about a character arc and you keep changing the subject to try and say I am justifying their actions is a straw man. No one has argued that they were in the right in the slightest. And again, the only people that really understood what the tree meant beyond being shelter, were not shooting at it in the first place

And I think you're making a big assumption in thinking Trudy (Trudy?!) had no idea that the tree was more than just a home.

You just said a few sentences ago you were the one making the assumptions. My problem is that you have to guess in the first place.

sebster wrote:I'm amazed at people's ability to nitpick over the trivial.

If it were actually trivial you wouldn't be putting so much energy into poorly defending it. But setting that aside, if we go by this reasoning we should shut down every book club, film club, literature course, film course, art course, ect ect. The details matter. Personally choosing to ignore them doesn't change that fact. You don't have to be a Professor of English or Film Studies to care about these things. It isn't trivial becuase it is systemic of the failings of the film as a film.

sebster wrote:Automatically Appended Next Post:

Tyyr wrote:That does not follow in the least. That's like suggesting that a truck driver for intel must know the inner workings of their chips because he hauls the crap around.

Nah, because chips don't talk but people do. So it'd be more like taxiing an intel research team around. And the inner workings of the chip are high level science, whereas 'the tree contains the memories of their ancestors' is a pretty basic thing to understand.

So it's about as plausible as a research team's driver knowing that his research team is developing a chip that isn't faster, but just consumes less power as that'd be useful in a laptop. Which a very plausible thing.

I'm going to guess you haven't spent a lot of time around pilots, especially military. It isn't that familiar. You get to know faces and names but you aren't buddy buddy. Especially considering the way Sigourney Weavers character feels and acts about the Mercs. Oh that is right, she doesn't like them except this one for no real good reason we are given, but we should just accept it because we need it to happen. Again, fantastic storytelling. Of course, we don't need storytelling when you have a special message that makes us feel better about ourselves because we know they are bad bad people, but not us.

sebster wrote:Nah, because chips don't talk but people do. So it'd be more like taxiing an intel research team around. And the inner workings of the chip are high level science, whereas 'the tree contains the memories of their ancestors' is a pretty basic thing to understand.

So it's about as plausible as a research team's driver knowing that his research team is developing a chip that isn't faster, but just consumes less power as that'd be useful in a laptop. Which a very plausible thing.

No, it's not. I will admit that my intial analogy was flawed. However lets go with taxing around the intel research team. Do you ever get into detailed business conversations with your taxi driver? The pilot hauls the people around, it doesn't mean they are going to include her in their conversations or she's going to care what they're talking about. Yes, they're in proximity but why would either of them push for a dialogue?

The copter pilot was the "Everyman" character. This character was essentially the avatar for the movie viewer. Therefore there was no need to "flesh things out" since the veiwer knows what's going on and that's all that matters for the "everyman" character. The "everyman" character allows the viewer to place themsleves in the role of the "everyman" character and "be in the film". The idea is that the copter pilot did what a lot of the viewers wanted to do, and thats why she was the "everyman" character.

GG

generalgrog wrote:The copter pilot was the "Everyman" character. This character was essentially the avatar for the movie viewer. Therefore there was no need to "flesh things out" since the veiwer knows what's going on and that's all that matters for the "everyman" character. The "everyman" character allows the viewer to place themsleves in the role of the "everyman" character and "be in the film". The idea is that the copter pilot did what a lot of the viewers wanted to do, and thats why she was the "everyman" character.

GG

Respectfully, I don't believe that AT ALL.

Typically you don't have a minor side character be the protagonist and even if you do you have to flesh the character out and make them real.

generalgrog wrote:The copter pilot was the "Everyman" character. This character was essentially the avatar for the movie viewer. Therefore there was no need to "flesh things out" since the veiwer knows what's going on and that's all that matters for the "everyman" character. The "everyman" character allows the viewer to place themsleves in the role of the "everyman" character and "be in the film". The idea is that the copter pilot did what a lot of the viewers wanted to do, and thats why she was the "everyman" character.

GG

Makes sense to me. I was too busy thinking "Yeah! Do the right thing, betray those evil guys!" to wonder whether her actions made sense or whatever.

Taken from Wiki:

In literature and drama, the term everyman has come to mean an ordinary individual, with whom the audience or reader is supposed to be able to identify easily, and who is often placed in extraordinary circumstances. The name derives from a 15th century English morality play called Everyman.

The contemporary everyman differs greatly from his (or her) medieval counterpart in many respects. While the medieval everyman was devoid of definite marks of individuality to create a universality in the moral message of the play, the contemporary storyteller may use an everyman for amoral or, to some ways of thinking, immoral purposes.

Ahtman wrote:So was the Black Hills being sacred but guess what happened there? Knowing a species holds something sacred doesn't mean you think they are right, especially if you look at history.

Yeah, the Black Hills happened anyway. Pointing out that things don't actually work like they do in the movies means that just about every movie is a fail. Is that actually your point?

Actually it isn't that universal considering the extreme parallels to US history. And as with many stories that are told and retold, it is in the telling that makes it special, not the just the fact that it has been retold. This didn't tell it very well. It brought nothing new other than technology used in filming it to the table.

What's history got to do with this being a classic story? Most commonly told stories have no real parallels to the real world. Again, is your complaint that the events of the movie wouldn't happen in real life?

No, it is bad storytelling no matter how much you wish it were otherwise. It wasn't even really foreshadowed. As you said, you just assumed it. The characters are so paper thin you could see exactly where everyone was going as soon as the credits were finished.

I assumed it because that's how this story goes, and Cameron was cluey enough to know that we know that's how it goes. I mean, were you surprised when Luke blew up the Deathstar, or when John McClain was reunited with his wife?

Again, you are making excuses that don't hold water. Your summary isn't any more obtuse than the one you were rallying against. People are also complaining in real life as well. I'm not sure why it would matter unless it is somehow supposed to be a way of minimizing the arguments just becuase they are online. Of course that would minimize a defense as well. Either way it is an unnecessary distraction from the discussion.

Folk out in the real world that I've talked to liked it, or didn't like it and gave reasonable reasons why (my favourite criticism was 'hippy claptrap').

The only place I've seen people making criticisms that are missing the point is on-line.

It isn't a question of complexity and never has been. You are adding goal posts.

Oh come on. You said fleshing out characters was the sign of a good screenplay and director. I said that characters can be overdrawn and it can hurt the flow of the movie. I haven't added any goalposts, and it wouldn't make any sense for me to add goalposts. You're the one trying to establish the film's failings... so you'd be the one setting goalposts.

You can have character develpment without it being overly complex. There is a distinct difference between simple character development and a complete lack of it. As for Aliens, did anyone do anything that just didn't make sense? No, within the diegisis of the film everyone's actions fit what we knew and were shown of them. That is different than this in the we are really shown nothing and told nothing, we are just supposed to accept it.

I have no idea how much more development you'd need to have a character see a sacred artifact of the na'vi being destroyed and not want to be a part of it.

Apples and oranges. Those movies were bad (worse really) but for different reasons. There is also a difference between explaining the complexities of a plot and creating a believable character development. Transformers had no character development whatsoever: everyone was the same at the end as they were at the beginning. It didn't suck becuase they made Sam to complicated. If you want to talk about plot development that is fine, but that isn't what we have been discussing here at all. Again, you are changing what the discussion is about. As for Hans Gruber, we actually do get some information on him so it isn't as if he is just a parer suit, which is one of the reasons he is remembered. There is another key difference: he didn't have a radical change at any point in the film. If had just suddenly turned and decided to not go through with it for no reason it would have been bad. He starts as a bad guy and ends as a bad guy.

What about Maclean's wife? At the beginning she hated John, at the end the marriage was back on. Basically, she fell in love with again because he killed a pile of criminals. It makes no real world sense, but that's only a problem if you form the idea that a good action movie needs to make real world sense.

What matters is making sense according to the narrative.

Besides getting dangerously close to ad hominem again, you are just flat out wrong. You are proffering your personal opinion as absolute fact. You, and this suprises me, are only able to view this from one very myopic perspective.

I cannot see for the life of me how saying an argument is obtuse is ad hominem at all. I'm challenging the quality of the argument, not the arguer. You've then said my argument is myopic... is that an ad hominem?

You seem more intent on seeing at as you would see it in real life and not through the eyes of the characters in the film. And again you want to make it about the morality of the incident, which no one is arguing. You keep pretending that people are supporting the action when no one is. And again this discussing has never been about the assualt on the tree, you keep attacking those critical of the film for something we aren't even arguing.

No, I'm not looking at it how I'd act. I very much doubt I'd act like that at all. I'm looking at it in terms of how the character would act.

And how many soldiers involved with that left the military and turned traitor to their country because of it?

Hardly any, if any at all. I read a while back about the 100,000 odd Germans that were declared traitors during WWII. There's been hesitation in Germany to remove the charges entirely, out of concern that some might have committed acts that harmed other Germans. But no incident has been found where any of the declared traitors threatened German lives. But that's real life.

In real life I'm also left wondering how many wives fell in love with their husbands again after he shot up a bunch of criminals in an office building...

Well having studied Native American history for four years in college I really didn't know that. Thanks for taking something that was actually more complicated and making it into a bumper sticker.

Yeah, and if you were presenting a series of lectures on the history of the Lakota I'd expect a much more complex story. In the context of a three hour action adventure movie with parallels to Native Americans among other things, any more detail would likely bugger things up.

You just said a few sentences ago you were the one making the assumptions. My problem is that you have to guess in the first place.

You don't have to guess. The narrative is very heavy handed and explicit in making the mercs out to be utter bad guys and the na'vi out to be very innocent and nice. Having a character tied to the main heroes decide to leave the mercs and throw her lot in with them doesn't need that much explanation.

If it were actually trivial you wouldn't be putting so much energy into poorly defending it.

When something trivial is claimed to be bigger, the argument is justified even though the original issue remains trivial. If I were to claim a mispelled word of yours made you the worst poster on Dakka, the mispelling would be trivial despite your defence of the charge.

But setting that aside, if we go by this reasoning we should shut down every book club, film club, literature course, film course, art course, ect ect. The details matter. Personally choosing to ignore them doesn't change that fact. You don't have to be a Professor of English or Film Studies to care about these things. It isn't trivial becuase it is systemic of the failings of the film as a film.

If we go by the reasoning of this thread, where character arcs need to be spelled out explicitly for every character who does anything at all during a movie, and should never do anything different to how people actually act... then we should stop making films. Especially no more action films.

I'm going to guess you haven't spent a lot of time around pilots, especially military. It isn't that familiar. You get to know faces and names but you aren't buddy buddy. Especially considering the way Sigourney Weavers character feels and acts about the Mercs. Oh that is right, she doesn't like them except this one for no real good reason we are given, but we should just accept it because we need it to happen. Again, fantastic storytelling. Of course, we don't need storytelling when you have a special message that makes us feel better about ourselves because we know they are bad bad people, but not us.

Which actually sounds a lot more like a real reason to dislike this movie. It is a very moralistic and heavy handed movie. I didn't mind that so much but I can see how people might. I suspect the complaints people are giving are likely driven by that more than anything else.


Automatically Appended Next Post:

Tyyr wrote:No, it's not. I will admit that my intial analogy was flawed. However lets go with taxing around the intel research team. Do you ever get into detailed business conversations with your taxi driver?

With a taxi driver? No. With an assigned driver who is attached to my team for three months... I might. It also doesn't have to be a detailed conversation - the importance of the tree is the most basic element of their understanding of the na'vi.

I don't really have a problem with the idea that over three months someone in the research team might have mentioned the most basic important discovery about the na'vi.

You are being dense and stubborn because you just can't get past your emotional need to identify with the Navi and feel morally superior. The discussion can't go anywhere else at this point. You will constantly make new excuses or change the argument to a different area. I'm right, you are wrong, it is that simple.

"Avatar" continues to outperform expectations.

Just days ago, execs suggested the Fox-distributed pic was a lock to reach No. 2 on the all-time list of worldwide boxoffice hits by next week.

Incredibly, the forecast proved too conservative.

On Wednesday, "Avatar" passed the $1.12 billion tally by 2003's "The Lord of the Rings: The Return of the King" to become the second-highest worldwide grosser ever. James Cameron's sci-fi epic headed into Thursday with a domestic cume of $374.4 million and a foreign cume of $760.8 million, for wordwide boxoffice totaling $1.14 billion and counting.

Cameron's "Titanic" is the all-time top worldwide grosser, ringing up $1.84 billion in 1997-1998.

http://www.hollywoodreporter.com/hr/content_display/news/e3ieb1af40f51f12663a33295bb482cf100

Hopefully it passes up "Titanic" so scifi reclaims its top spot at the box office charts - having the top two highest grossing movies of all time must be nice to have on your resume. Amazing to pull out those kind of numbers since not only are we in a recession but the film is also nearly three hours long and best seen via 3-D. Avatar along with the other great scifi hits this past year like Star Trek and District 9 should hopefully further boost this genre's appeal (fantasy/mythological/comic book movies seem to have been the Hollywood craze since the Star Wars prequels) and maybe the industry is now a step closer to making a worthwhile Warhammer 40k epic

I'm going to see it for a third time this upcoming Saturday; this movie is what the cinematic experience is all about and it looks like both top critics and the general film-going community agrees from the ratings at rottentomatoes.com and IMDB, and the majority of reviews here.

Cane wrote:Hopefully it passes up "Titanic" so scifi reclaims its top spot at the box office charts

Hopefully. It is more entertaining than Titanic.

Cane wrote:Amazing to pull out those kind of numbers since not only are we in a recession

Actually, that is normal. When people aren't happy the seek escapism.

Cane wrote:I'm going to see it for a third time this upcoming Saturday

That is like being the guy wearing the T-Shirt of the band he's going to the concert to see. Don't be that guy.

Ahtman wrote:

Cane wrote:Amazing to pull out those kind of numbers since not only are we in a recession

Actually, that is normal. When people aren't happy the seek escapism.

Avatar's numbers are anything but normal especially for basically being a three hour 3-D movie.

Cane wrote:I'm going to see it for a third time this upcoming Saturday

That is like being the guy wearing the T-Shirt of the band he's going to the concert to see. Don't be that guy.

Nice trolling which is ironic since you were crying foul over perceived personal attacks

Ahtman wrote:That is like being the guy wearing the T-Shirt of the band he's going to the concert to see. Don't be that guy.

That guy still isn't as bad as the guy wearing the t-shirt from the lead singer's side project band.

youbedead wrote:the one thing that bothered me about the movie, ununpentiom an unstable gaseous element that can't exsist for more then a tenth of a second

I think he means "unobtanium".

It is not an 'element'. It is a catch-all term used by scientists and engineers to describe any material that is hard to make or refine.
It was trademarked in the 90s by Oakley for the silicon rubber nose-piece in their sunglasses, btw (I don't know whether this (tm) has ever been upheld though).

@Sebster: UnOb is not a zero gravity material (in this movie). It is a high temperature superconductor that exists in a natural state (superconductors here have to be made, and involve very rare metallic elements (like Yttrium).) It will levitate or defy gravity in a sufficiently strong magnetic field (and the floating mountains did so as they were chunks of the same, surrounded by dirt, in an area where the magnetic fields of Pandora and its primary Polyphemus coincide - this is what creates the 'vortex flux', interactions of the two magnetic fields AND the unobtanium.). This is the 'scientific' rationale given for it in the fluff.

There are two main reasons why humans can't breathe on Pandora.

1). CO2 levels are at around 18% on Pandora. On Earth (currently) CO2 is a trace gass, less than 0.04%.
2). High (relatively) concentrations of Hydrogen Cyanide, Ammonia and Methane compared to the oxygen content.


I'm used to the concept of geeks deconstructing movies as if they were real life events - they've been doing it for decades - and I just turn off from it.
"I liked it, you didn't - fine by me." is my general attitude. Bitching or whining about it changes nothing, and is merely unconstructive and petty.

Cane wrote:

Ahtman wrote:

Cane wrote:Amazing to pull out those kind of numbers since not only are we in a recession

Actually, that is normal. When people aren't happy the seek escapism.

Avatar's numbers are anything but normal especially for basically being a three hour 3-D movie.

That wasn't about the income, it was about the comment of being surprised so many people were going. During down times cinema has historically been a respite from the every day realities. It still hasn't surpassed gone Gone With the Wind or Star Wars in adjusted dollars/tickets sold. Hasn't even passed Titanic yet.

Cane wrote:I'm going to see it for a third time this upcoming Saturday

Ahtman wrote:That is like being the guy wearing the T-Shirt of the band he's going to the concert to see. Don't be that guy.

Nice trolling which is ironic since you were crying foul over perceived personal attacks

Ahtman wrote:

Cane wrote:

Ahtman wrote:

Cane wrote:Amazing to pull out those kind of numbers since not only are we in a recession

Actually, that is normal. When people aren't happy the seek escapism.

Avatar's numbers are anything but normal especially for basically being a three hour 3-D movie.

That wasn't about the income, it was about the comment of being surprised so many people were going. During down times cinema has historically been a respite from the every day realities. It still hasn't surpassed gone Gone With the Wind or Star Wars in adjusted dollars/tickets sold. Hasn't even passed Titanic yet.

Fair enough although it looks more like you're trying to strawman for the sake of arguing especially since the recession was just one of the qualities I used to demonstrate Avatar's impressive box office numbers. Thats why I also wrote its impressive because its a three hour 3-D movie. IIRC you already did something similar with a previous post about how I compared Pandora's mother nature energy to the force in Star Wars and psychic powers from Firefly; back then you just conveniently focused on Star Wars and how it doesn't count since its more "fantasy" all the while conveniently ignoring the latter. And yes I'm well aware of the fact that Avatar "hasn't even passed Titanic" since I quoted the article mentioning that earlier.

Cane wrote:I'm going to see it for a third time this upcoming Saturday

Ahtman wrote:That is like being the guy wearing the T-Shirt of the band he's going to the concert to see. Don't be that guy.

Nice trolling which is ironic since you were crying foul over perceived personal attacks

That isn't trolling, it was a joke. I was just joking with you. I thought it was fairly obvious, but I guess not. I don't care if you go see it again, it is your money after all. Have at it. Pointing out an argument is ad hominem isn't the same as 'crying fowl'. They also weren't 'perceived', they were ad hominem.

On this end its fairly obvious you seem to have an agenda of arguing for the sake of arguing and are using to make trolling remarks like the one above in addition to: "You are being dense and stubborn because you just can't get past your emotional need to identify with the Navi and feel morally superior. The discussion can't go anywhere else at this point. You will constantly make new excuses or change the argument to a different area. I'm right, you are wrong, it is that simple.".

Don't be the guy that wants to argue for the sake of it!

Cane wrote:Fair enough although it looks more like you're trying to strawman for the sake of arguing especially since the recession was just one of the qualities I used to demonstrate Avatar's impressive box office numbers. Thats why I also wrote its impressive because its a three hour 3-D movie. IIRC you already did something similar with a previous post about how I compared Pandora's mother nature energy to the force in Star Wars and psychic powers from Firefly; back then you just conveniently focused on Star Wars and how it doesn't count since its more "fantasy" all the while conveniently ignoring the latter. And yes I'm well aware of the fact that Avatar "hasn't even passed Titanic" since I quoted the article mentioning that earlier.

You are confusing two different arguments. The Star Wars thing had nothing to do with mystic side of the movie at.

Cane wrote:On this end its fairly obvious you seem to have an agenda of arguing for the sake of arguing and are using

No, I'm arguing because I honestly believe that Trudy is plot device, not a character, and that it is a key example of the films overall structural flaws.

Cane wrote:to make trolling remarks like the one above in addition to: "You are being dense and stubborn because you just can't get past your emotional need to identify with the Navi and feel morally superior. The discussion can't go anywhere else at this point. You will constantly make new excuses or change the argument to a different area. I'm right, you are wrong, it is that simple.".

To be fair, I only phrased it like that becuase the poster i was responding to used phrases like "Your being purposefully obtuse and just completely wrongheaded". Sauce for the goose Mr. Saavik. If you get that reference you gain 10 Internets.

Ahtman wrote:

Cane wrote:Fair enough although it looks more like you're trying to strawman for the sake of arguing especially since the recession was just one of the qualities I used to demonstrate Avatar's impressive box office numbers. Thats why I also wrote its impressive because its a three hour 3-D movie. IIRC you already did something similar with a previous post about how I compared Pandora's mother nature energy to the force in Star Wars and psychic powers from Firefly; back then you just conveniently focused on Star Wars and how it doesn't count since its more "fantasy" all the while conveniently ignoring the latter. And yes I'm well aware of the fact that Avatar "hasn't even passed Titanic" since I quoted the article mentioning that earlier.

You are confusing two different arguments. The Star Wars thing had nothing to do with mystic side of the movie at.

Oh yea you're right, in that instance you strawmanned me counting Star Wars as scifi as being delusional:

"You listed Star Wars as Sci-Fi. That just shows how far you are willing to defend your delusions. It is hard to take anything esle you say about it that serieously when you don't know the difference between Science Fiction and Fantasy."

Well, actually, that instance still seems similar to how you strawmanned my comments about Avatar's impressive box office numbers.

Ahtman wrote:

No, I'm arguing because I honestly believe that Trudy is plot device, not a character, and that it is a key example of the films overall structural flaws.

Characters can be plot devices and it worked out well enough considering she was the pilot of the Avatar team and had experience (flying VFR in the fog, abusing the Earthlings in the final sequence for as long as she could) and enthusiasm over Pandora's landscape ("you should see the look on your faces") particularly the floating mountains. Not to mention she acted on orders she disagreed with that resulted in the destruction of that prized tree and the "Native Aliens". And personally the less screen time Michelle Rodriguez has the better

Ahtman wrote:You are being dense and stubborn because you just can't get past your emotional need to identify with the Navi and feel morally superior. The discussion can't go anywhere else at this point. You will constantly make new excuses or change the argument to a different area. I'm right, you are wrong, it is that simple.

I don't really identify with the Na'vi. I think it might have a lot more to do with me not really identifying with the mercs... I can see how if someone had a reason to identify with the mercs, perhaps being a soldier or just thinking power armour is cool, then the film wouldn't be that enjoyable. But that doesn't mean the film had the structural flaws claimed in this thread.

Anyhow, as you've said, I think we're done here. Cheers for the discussion.


Automatically Appended Next Post:

chromedog wrote:@Sebster: UnOb is not a zero gravity material (in this movie). It is a high temperature superconductor that exists in a natural state (superconductors here have to be made, and involve very rare metallic elements (like Yttrium).) It will levitate or defy gravity in a sufficiently strong magnetic field (and the floating mountains did so as they were chunks of the same, surrounded by dirt, in an area where the magnetic fields of Pandora and its primary Polyphemus coincide - this is what creates the 'vortex flux', interactions of the two magnetic fields AND the unobtanium.). This is the 'scientific' rationale given for it in the fluff.

Ah, okay. So it's valuable as a superconductor, but happens to produce anti-gravity like effects in some situations which explains the floating piece in the bad dude's office and the floating mountains. Was that mentioned in the movie or did you pick it up from a third source?

Anyhow, thanks for that.

Third source: Well, I used to be in the SF industry, and still maintain my friendships in the community. You know how geeks gossip? Weta are no different to the pixel geeks at LFL/ILM.

Parts have been published in a "fluff" book (Activist's guide to Pandora ), some is just what I've heard from my peeps.

The Hallelujah mountains are close to one of the poles on Pandora. This more than anything enables the vortex flux from what I can understand of it.

I know a little about superconductors (very low temp ones) because I have a pair of Yttrium-cobalt superconducting magnets here (just have no Liquid nitro atm). A friend had to make some for her physics thesis - I helped out (the ceramic carrier had to be fired at 1900*C for 7-8 hours and I worked in a ceramics factory at the time).

chromedog wrote:

youbedead wrote:the one thing that bothered me about the movie, ununpentiom an unstable gaseous element that can't exsist for more then a tenth of a second

I think he means "unobtanium".

It is not an 'element'. It is a catch-all term used by scientists and engineers to describe any material that is hard to make or refine.
It was trademarked in the 90s by Oakley for the silicon rubber nose-piece in their sunglasses, btw (I don't know whether this (tm) has ever been upheld though).

@Sebster: UnOb is not a zero gravity material (in this movie). It is a high temperature superconductor that exists in a natural state (superconductors here have to be made, and involve very rare metallic elements (like Yttrium).) It will levitate or defy gravity in a sufficiently strong magnetic field (and the floating mountains did so as they were chunks of the same, surrounded by dirt, in an area where the magnetic fields of Pandora and its primary Polyphemus coincide - this is what creates the 'vortex flux', interactions of the two magnetic fields AND the unobtanium.). This is the 'scientific' rationale given for it in the fluff.

There are two main reasons why humans can't breathe on Pandora.

1). CO2 levels are at around 18% on Pandora. On Earth (currently) CO2 is a trace gass, less than 0.04%.
2). High (relatively) concentrations of Hydrogen Cyanide, Ammonia and Methane compared to the oxygen content.


I'm used to the concept of geeks deconstructing movies as if they were real life events - they've been doing it for decades - and I just turn off from it.
"I liked it, you didn't - fine by me." is my general attitude. Bitching or whining about it changes nothing, and is merely unconstructive and petty.

I must have misheard i could of sworn they said ununpentiom, my bad.

Anyone else notice that when the female pilot flew away from the attack cause she didnt agree the gunner wasnt wearing a mask at all.
Also i kinda find it funny that the guy who hated him the entire time(tsutey) just immdiatly follows his command when he fly in on his big bird. and then his girlfriend immediatly forgives him.
but one thing i wondered is whether ot not sufridge regretted what he did in the end cause when the planes flew off he seemed kinda sad or regretful. Anyone else think that.

Ahtman wrote:
To be fair, I only phrased it like that becuase the poster i was responding to used phrases like "Your being purposefully obtuse and just completely wrongheaded". Sauce for the goose Mr. Saavik. If you get that reference you gain 10 Internets.

Automatically Appended Next Post:

garret wrote:Anyone else notice that when the female pilot flew away from the attack cause she didnt agree the gunner wasnt wearing a mask at all.
Also i kinda find it funny that the guy who hated him the entire time(tsutey) just immdiatly follows his command when he fly in on his big bird. and then his girlfriend immediatly forgives him.
but one thing i wondered is whether ot not sufridge regretted what he did in the end cause when the planes flew off he seemed kinda sad or regretful. Anyone else think that.

One of the Ten Rules of Life young Padiwon,

Chicks dig hot rides, and you will get the respect of your peers. See check this hep cat:

I love my mullets dude.

G

http://imgur.com/JmRmb

ZF-