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damalc 
"last watched: Sausage Party"
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 Posted - 12/31/2009 : 00:38:56
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liked it a lot except for a few things.
story? seen it before. effects? haven't seen that before. did anybody else gasp at the floating mountains?
Conan The Westy beat me to my first review idea  and has gotten a vote, though i was gonna use 'blue' instead of 'alien.'
p.s.
and enough of the not-so-subtle shots at W and the wars. he hasn't been president for almost a year now. let's move on. |
Edited by - damalc on 12/31/2009 00:46:44 |
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Chris C 
"Four words, never backwards."
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Posted - 12/31/2009 : 10:22:20
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Had a family trip to see it yesterday. Gave up trying to get into the early showing, as we couldn't even get into the car park. Went back later and saw the 3D version. The place was busy, but it was Sherlock Holmes that was sold out.
Visually, the film is a feast. Lots to look and marvel at. It's the first 3D movie I've seen (apart from Friday 13th part 3 many years ago, and that was pants). The 3D was used well to enhance the story rather than as a bolt-on extra (not too many arrows coming out of the screen at your face...). I did have problems on 2 or 3 occasions with blurry stuff in the background at the edge of shot, but maybe that's just me. The whole planet is beautifully realised, and at times reminds me of a sequence from Fantasia. The CGI of the aliens, particularly their facial movements, is better than any I have seen before.
The story? Yes, it does have shortcomings, as others have discussed previously. There are more than a few hints here of the "Company" from the Alien series as bad guy. Unobtainium? Come on Cameron, lets be a bit more original. The opening shot of Sully coming down the aircraft ramp onto Pandora? Dead ringer for the opening to Platoon. After 10 years and $300M, a little more money spent on the script may have paid off.
Is this the best thing Cameron has ever made? Arguably, yes. Would I see it again? Yes. Should you go and see it? Yes, in 3D if possible.
Interestingly, I heard on the radio yesterday that Alvin & the Chipmunks has replaced Avatar at the top of the UK box office listings. I guess the only excuse for that is that it's the Christmas holidays.
However, it looks like he's got his money back, and Avatar 2 could be on the way.
Next up for us - Sherlock Holmes on Friday. |
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Chris C
"Four words, never backwards."
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Posted - 12/31/2009 : 15:07:19
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quote:
Originally posted by Mr Savoir Faire
The racist implications of this film are staggering: Have white people killed all other people in the future? Or is it that the company mining unobtainium doesn't employ anyone else? Why is it that literally the only non-white pilot (Michelle Rodriguez) doesn't follow orders and defects? Why is it that the natives are unable to fight without a white guy leading them (who, despite having his body only for a little bit, is by far the best warrior)?
Mrs C says:
I agree and find that kind of "hidden" racism worrying. However, I did wonder whilst I was watching the film whether Cameron was making a comment (ok, often made before) on how the native Americans were treated when the white man first arrived in the US (and subsequent years haven't done much to improve their situation).
You could also argue that the only one "defecting" (non-white) was also the only one with a conscience and a mind of her own - oh, and she happened to be a woman... Sometimes over analysing can make things disappear up behinds... I would also hate a production that appeared to have a checklist of "have we covered this gender/that culture", ticking boxes to ensure lack of bias - so I guess I'm just hard to please re discrimination.
BTW thought the film was fantastic - don't care that the plot was weak/seen before with mainly 2 dimensional characters. I wanted to go and see a film and be mesmerised and entranced - and I wasn't disappointed. Don't always want to analyse a film for its "inner meaning" afterwards - it's just great entertainment. It's the only film I've gone to see that I've immediately wanted to see again.
Having said that, I can see the criticisms already made are valid - they just don't bother me... |
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Chris C
"Four words, never backwards."
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Posted - 01/03/2010 : 17:53:54
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quote:
Originally posted by Mr Savoir Faire
In the future, it looks like health technology has progressed. People can heal cripples, use mind links to control bodies that were cloned for the purpose, et cetera. However, it seems that military equipment has taken a step backwards. Wouldn't it have been easier just to launch a few Tomahawk missiles at the tree, rather than lead a bomb raid with the slowest planes in the universe? He might has well have been leading a bunch of Zimmerman blimps through the forest.
Isn't this the same premise as Aliens? Interplanetary travel, suspended animation, high-tech planet forming, but the same old guns, bombs and exploding ordnance. Perhaps Cameron thinks these sort of things make for better movies than pulse-laser-photon-cannons. |
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chazbo 
"Outta This Fuckin' Place"
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Posted - 01/06/2010 : 01:21:25
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I rarely go to the cinema these days, but I thought that this movie, hailed as an astonishing spectacle, would be worth the $15 to see in 3-D IMAX.
Boy, was I wrong!
I was not expected very much apart from the special effects. I have long thought that all Cameron's work is very overrated--lacking in plot, characterization, and dialogue. This one, like many have said, continues that trend. I, too, was disturbed by that old imperialist cliche that the natives are helpless until one of the colonizers swoops in, shows them just how much more native he can go, and leads them to victory. The connection the Na'vi have to nature--their ability to link up with a network of bio-memory--is nice, but by no means original (lifted, quite possibly, from Octavia Butler's Xenogenesis trilogy). The story is very predictable, down to the trite ending, and there is much that is underdeveloped (Tarkovsky's Solaris and Gattaca come to mind as films that better deal with issues never developed in Avatar).
But I was prepared to let those criticisms go and allow myself be swept away by the sheer inventiveness of Cameron's world. Granted, Pandora is a spectacular place, but I guess what really made the experience disappointing for me was that the 3-D was so underwhelming. There was so much out of focus in a shot that it was distracting. Maybe the IMAX screen exaggerated this, but is it impossible to achieve anything like depth of field in 3-D? I recently took my kids to see the 3-D version of Zemeckis's A Christmas Carol (at the same IMAX theater), and the visual effects were much more effective.
Of course, the theater erupted in applause at the end, the movie is making insane amounts of money, and Cameron will no doubt continue his string of inane action flicks in the future. I'm just glad to have done my part to keep the ball rolling! |
Edited by - chazbo on 01/06/2010 01:25:51 |
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benj clews 
"...."
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Posted - 01/06/2010 : 09:48:41
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Having finally seen Avatar, I've come to the conclusion every 3D film should be over 2 and a half hours long and save all the best shots for the last hour. I must have spent the first hour fiddling with my specs almost constantly wondering if I'd got them on right, then a further half hour just accepting that was as good as it'd get and having my eyes adjust. I highly suspect that during this time there was a shitload of filler that could probably have gone but I was so inawed by the occaisional glimpses of what the 3D was capable of, it really didn't much matter one jot.
When the final hour kicked in and my eyes had finally stopped resisting the defocussing or whatever it is they needed to do I finally saw what all the fuss was about. No longer were distant or near blurry objects not quite working and the in focus objects were crystal clear with only the very slightest ghosting occaisionally creeping in. Now the 3D was suddenly a revelation. All the raving about the immersiveness of 3D suddenly made sense and the final fight sequence had me sucked right in and grinning like a mad thing.
I feel like I need to see this film again (probably in 2D) to get a decent perspective (pun not intended but begrudgingly accepted) on the film itself which I'm sure probably isn't any kind of a classic, story-wise at least. However, in terms of spectacle (Christ, not another pun) and pure, balls-out mecha-bashing machismo- two things I feel Cameron has always been unsurpassed at, this film absolutely delivered for me. The most cinematic fun I've had in a very long time.
Oh, and I feel also special praise goes to the baddie. He began merely as 'Captain Bastard' but by the end of it he was 'King Shit'. This is what all bad guys should be like  |
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silly
"That rabbit's DYNAMITE."
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Posted - 01/06/2010 : 20:13:07
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Just some thoughts:
1) A character that smokes and cusses like a Marine? Not very politically correct, but I loved her for it.
2) Given the way things are going, it won't be white people or Americans but the Chinese that will be able to finance and engineer a deep space mining expedition, something Serenity acknowledged. I would have loved to see that but of course that wouldn't work for the obvious box office reasons.
3) I figured the big rhino-things were herbivores but may be wrong. We were only seeing one part of the moon, a rather dense jungle and of course a particular mountain range where some weird shit was going on.
4) They went out of their way to make it clear that the military was a private security company, I liked Captain Badass (or whatever his name was) because he was so over the top. He's telling people how easily they can die if they aren't alert and Sully says something like "nothing like a pep talk to put your mind at ease." Does he have a Happy Meal yet? I mean, if Vader can have one, so can Mr. Blue People are just in my way.
Obviously (and I think I said this a couple weeks ago) I ate it up and had a blast. There are plenty of ways to pick apart the story (did someone mention Pocahontas?) or the science or whatever, but that's true in so many movies I enjoy. Harry Potter, Luke Skywalker, Mad Max, Frodo, they were all Chosen Ones too.
And speaking of bad effects and a horrible script in this day and age, go see A Sound of Thunder.
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Edited by - silly on 01/06/2010 20:21:19 |
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chazbo
"Outta This Fuckin' Place"
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Posted - 01/07/2010 : 04:50:14
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After reading Benj's post, perhaps my disappointment as far as the 3-D effects go is more the result of my own failing than the movie's. I just can't figure out why the 3-D seemed less than spectacular in Avatar when it worked so well (for me) in A Christmas Carol. I was expecting to be transported to a new dimension of movie viewing, and for some reason it just didn't seem all that transcendent.
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benj clews
"...."
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Posted - 01/07/2010 : 12:38:17
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quote:
Originally posted by chazbo
After reading Benj's post, perhaps my disappointment as far as the 3-D effects go is more the result of my own failing than the movie's. I just can't figure out why the 3-D seemed less than spectacular in Avatar when it worked so well (for me) in A Christmas Carol. I was expecting to be transported to a new dimension of movie viewing, and for some reason it just didn't seem all that transcendent.
I was reading elsewhere about people's reactions to the 3D and I suddenly realized most folks are seeing this film in regular cinemas with Real3D.
I should probably clarify that my comments were based purely on IMAX 3D. Real3D I've never been wowed by (in fact, I have a theory that my colour blindness plays some part in this- one eye definitely gets better clarity than the other). But yes- IMAX 3D seriously impressed me. I forgot to mention you don't feel violated 3 dimensionally by this film- no tacky tricks like pointy stuff waved in your face, but the absolute foreground stuff when it happens is simply beautiful- tiny almost insignificant things like fragments floating by you underwater, flies buzzing or, my personal favourite, the little flakes drifting around you in some of the later forest scenes. I'd say about the only trick I think Cameron missed was not having branches, grass, etc... brush aside you when tracking through jungle scenes- that would have damn near put me right there.
In summary, see in IMAX 3D if you can. If you still find the 3D crap then then I guess I should probably just quit my yapping here  |
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randall 
"I like to watch."
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Posted - 01/07/2010 : 14:55:43
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| I saw it on a normal screen with 3-D glasses and didn't have any trouble with the illusion [a SHREK trailer -- how many is it now, 4? 5? -- also looked fine], but I was constantly aware of slight pressure on my nose. |
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chazbo
"Outta This Fuckin' Place"
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Posted - 01/08/2010 : 16:32:52
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quote:
Originally posted by benj clews
In summary, see in IMAX 3D if you can. If you still find the 3D crap then then I guess I should probably just quit my yapping here
I actually did see it in IMAX 3-D, and it was by no means crap. The illusion was certainly there, but not having had any real experience watching 3-D before I think I went in with too high expectations for what it could do. It's obviously still an evolving medium.
I was also probably too distracted by what I felt were the failings of the movie in many other ways to allow myself to be completely swept away by the 3-D. The racist overtones--the Na'vi as an amalgamation of stereotyped non-white peoples (Native Americans, Iraqis, etc., with even some Balinese kachak thrown in?!) who need the messianic white-man-turned-native to rescue them--still kind of bug me. I guess you're supposed to dismiss such things in a blockbuster movie, but they were just too blantant for me.
So I'm not an immediate convert to 3-D, but if this is just the beginning it'll be very interesting to see where movies go from here.
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benj clews
"...."
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Posted - 01/08/2010 : 19:06:02
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Hmm... not really sure where 3D could go from this in terms of evolution (I thought this film was spot on aside from the occaisional visibility of the other eye's image) except for getting rid of the glasses. Or do you mean directors learning how best to use the additional dimension?
Maybe I'm oblivious to such things, but I didn't pick up on any obviously stereotyped non-white folks. The aliens just sounded and looked non-human to me.
Also, why is it not considered racist to make the evil corporation white and American? |
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aahaa, muahaha
"Optimistic altruist, incurable romantic"
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Posted - 01/09/2010 : 05:03:20
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quote:
Originally posted by benj clews
Also, why is it not considered racist to make the evil corporation white and American?
Godd point Benj, What I was wondering about exactly...
Given that most of the audience is White (in terms of monetary value if not volume), it may make sense to have one of the protagonists/ antagonists as Whites so that the audience can feel some connect. |
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Beanmimo
"August review site"
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Posted - 01/13/2010 : 14:17:26
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quote:
Originally posted by Conan The Westy
Regarding Unobtainium I was just posted a link that may prove useful to the doubters out there. 
I found the word quite funny and on further investigation i found even funnier words, like Wishalloy and Handwavium!!
...and i thoroughly enjoyed Avatar in a "turn your brain off and watch all the pretty pictures" sort of a way.. |
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Montgomery 
"F**k!"
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Posted - 02/02/2010 : 19:56:54
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I'll wait for the Wii game. Same plot. More fun.
EM :) |
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