I tried to hold off as long as I could, but it's time for the official review/discussion post since PTPers *who have actually seen the movie* are starting to chime in...

Critical reviews have been surprisingly stellar (even The GOAT is convinced, even though y'all keep trynna discredit him); the general consensus is that the story is eh while the effects are OH SHIT

Suddenly, it smells like 1997 all over again

Hate away, haters, but "Cam Dogg" © Bass is fitna to piss you contrarian bammas off all over again

Ya'mo be there first show tomorrow

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and didnt get an anchor..

ANYWAYS I've never seen a theatrical movie in 3d is it gonna be on some honey I shrunk the kids type ish(Universal Studios) or have theatrical 3d films(my bloody valentine, The Final Destination been done alot more poorly)

Don't remember ever seeing that one before at that theater. Will have to catch it later on in the week.

There were a few corny moments with the dialogue, but it really was an awesome movie. Probably the best looking movie I've ever seen (the 3-D may have had something to do with that). Great story, great execution, great everything. It really sucked me in and had me on the edge of my seat the entire 3 hours. Loved it.

I doubt it will do numbers like Titanic did, but I thought it was that level of great. I really can't explain how good this movie was visually. Just stunning. I thought the story was excellent also. The movie really draws you in. Very few movies have me emotionally involved with the characters, but I was with this one.

Oh, so you mean it's terrible? But seriously the story was formulaic and predictable. I know it took Jimmy Cam a long time to make this but do we really need another allegory to the Iraq War in 2009. That being said, the effects were amazing and have raised the bar tremendously. I actually felt a rapport with an imaginary race of creatures made on a computer. That's never happened before. Even in Pixar movies it's really only implied. The scene where the tree is rocketed and the Navi are on the ground crying and screaming was gut wrenching for me. The 3D was really well implemented, especially with all the foliage in the forest, but the fact remains that this film is not a classic by any stretch.

. I actually felt
>a rapport with an imaginary race of creatures made on a
>computer. That's never happened before. Even in Pixar movies
>it's really only implied. The scene where the tree is rocketed
>and the Navi are on the ground crying and screaming was gut
>wrenching for me.

Same here. That's what made it such a good movie to me.

it costs more to go to the movies nowadays. I wouldn't say it surpassed titanic based on that.

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I can't believe the level of CGI they reached. At some point you completely forget that you're watching a glorified cartoon.

Yes, like another poster said, some cheesy moments, but I'd argue that they really couldn't be avoided.

So many breathtaking scenes. Wow. The sheer beauty and imagery of this film is unsurpassed and Cameron has raised the bar substantially.

I actually didn't know much going into this movie, so I was geeked as fuck to see Sigourney Weaver in it. More than a few nods to Aliens, Terminator and yes, even Titanic.

And the 3D added immensely to the film.

Must see.

I'm assuming 3D will be good, but just had to ask.

************************

in 3d, but dubbed into czech

or seeing just the normal version in english.

is the 3d still worth it, given i'm not quite fluent in czech?

i'm basing this on the 20 minute sneak peak i attended in 3-D with the original english speaking audio, and also on my knowledge of the story.

the story seems like a classic easy-to-follow archetype timeless template that a child could follow on mute.

the visuals were absolutely stunning in 3-D

not to mention the dialog i heard almost makes me wish i had the option of watching it dubbed in czech myself

crowds of school groups.

but then I hate dubbing and think that it should be illegal.



PEACE

you can flip it and spin it a million ways, the story is shit and everyone knows it. only the idiots who are buying the BIGGEST MOVIE EVER HYPE are coming out like ZOMG AMAZING everyone else says nice effects blah story.

any idiot see it.


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Your contrarian troll schtick won't save you now.

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it's funny how only the dumbasses are the ones falling for it.

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i'm bout to start cysing book of eli...you can have in if you want.

i just feel sorry for you.

I honestly can't say enough about the 3D. I remember when it was them bullshit cardboard glasses with the red and blue and the 3D didn't even work or look good. These niggas last night gave out the Fendi 2010 version, in fact I'm wearing them bitches to work next week to style on niggas. But yeah I feel like how it must have felt when people saw color tv I can only imagine what a great mob movie or action drama made in 3D would look like. Can't say enough.


All in all I'll say it was decent 3/5 stars with 2 1/2 of those purely due to the technology and visual effects.

*********SPOILER ALERT*************


As for the story itself, its pretty basic. Dances with Smurfs is how South Park described it and thats pretty accurate. I really wish however that there was a more complex reason for the humans to be on Planet Pandora. That really took away some of the story honestly just how basic/boring/predictable it is to paint humans as evil and greedy. Also the characters to me were mostly boring and predictable. It was really a classic good guy/bad guy story with the protagonist choosing the goodness of spirit over corporate greed. And in the end the indigenous people win. Yay, yarn.

The trailers really don't do it any justice...there promo team should be fired. Best action/fantasy/adventure/sci-fi movie of 2009/10ish!

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Shit was FIRE

There were logic holes aplenty, and some hokey moments (including that score by James Horner), but damn if that movie didn't look ABSOLUTELY FANTASTIC, fuck if the action wasn't on-point, holy shit at the performances from the great Stephen Lang and Sigourney Weaver, and I'll be damned, it all adds up to James Cameron shocking the world again...

You lames will continue to be contrarian, but don't worry, I'll be here to hand out the L pussys as needed...

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that score was WAY to average for a film as epic as this.

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oh i get it you wanna say the story has been done before well your right..it has..

a billion times..in some of the worst movies ever and some of the best movies ever.....

I dont get what your looking for.

And by great I mean game changing?

Everything looked fine, but I did not detect any quantum leaps here.

With the sole possible exceptions being the facial work in the close ups, particularly of Saldana's character. That was just remarkable, remarkable work. That kind of emotion from a computer? Crazy. Nothing uncanny about it at ALL.

But nothing else looked like it hadn't already been done by George Lucas or Bay.

It was "really, really good" motion capture, and "really really good" robots/military hardware. But nothing to redefine the genre and certainly not film.

To be honest none of the mechs looked as good as Optimus.

Dat Zoe hissin and cryin and screamin was fire tho.

Edit: the 3-d was amazing, but it was my first 3-d film so I have nothing to really compare it to, although I hear this was the best application yet. But the movie didn't cost $300M because of the 3-d.

because that shit was mind blowing.

these folx pooh-poohing the visuals - i really gotta question wtf they were watching

that might be the best-looking movie i've ever seen

I didn't even REALIZE till right now reading your reply, that the aliens were all CG the whole time. Like it didn't strike me that I was watching completely computer generated creations until this very moment. They all hit like real actors albeit in face makeup and shit.

I'm a little shocked this very moment I must say, that the CG elements as a whole, which was fucking EVERYTHING, never caught my attention for criticism.

Incredible and Stunning visuals...the 3D was amazing.

As pedestrian and predictable the plot was and the corny dialogue I would still reccomend people see it for the motherfucking effects in 3D!

that appears to be the ridiculously silly logic i've been hearing for months now from avatar haters.

so many of the most enduring stories are rooted in timeless archetypes and beloved old devices.

there's classic archetypes, and there's wholesale copying.

they're not the same, that you're too dumb to understand that isn't surprising.


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like said before the visuals and 3d worked amazingly well and i was in awe throughout the entire 3 hours.

the story literally is dances with wolfs meets FernGully. I knew what was going to happen throughout but the visuals kept me interested.

Cameron hastook visual storytelling to another level and it was mind bending throughout. However, I honestly don't see myself seeing this move again cause it can't compare to IMAX in 3D. It takes away from the overall effect. Without that whole package the movie slips to a 7.5 or 8.

For the first hour and a half the visuals literally keep you engaged/enthralled/distracted from the story or lack thereof...and then...it begins to get progressively cornier...
the humans--specifically the Colonel and Giovanni's characters lose any semblance of being real people/three-dimensional--and the Navi, specifically Netari(or whatever the Zoe's character name is), begin to grow progressively more illogical, naive, silly...

the final hour, which is, no spoilers here, the part of the movie that obviously contains the climactic scenes--fell apart for me b/c at this point the story is the weakest, or maybe it isn't the story that deteriorated so much as the fact that I was relatively accustomed to the visuals by that time so I naturally focused on the story more...and for this movie, focusing on the story is a bad thing.

I just couldn't get over the savior role of Sully...and just how insane it was that the Navi were so accepting of him...

If you can just go and lose yourself in the visuals, then yeah, it's "fun" and you will be interested in the very least for the duration of the film...If, however, you are someone that has a hard time excusing irrational behavior in characters--the film will start to grate on your nerves after the first hour or so...

I saw it in 3-D by the way, so I can only assume that the effectiveness of the visuals and the power of those effects to eclipse the lame story would be significantly lessened in the standard format.


Visuals: 3.75 on a scale of 1 to 4 (in 3-D)
Story: a weak 2 on a 1 to 4 scale

Cameron has already said there is an obvious connection to the film...so I don't know how yall trying to use that as a negative.

Like every movie you like hasn't ever been done before

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STFU NIGGA

that just makes all of you trying to claim it ISN'T look even dumber

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there's a reason people can already name at *least* three different stories with the same basic underlying plot (dances, pocahontas, fern gully) and why there's probably several others: its a classic story, begging to be told over and over in various ways...like how most human storytelling is done.

that's not gonna stop white people from telling it tho.

no surprise you'd love it.

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Right.

Slippery slope you on doggie. Because you're going on and on about how the movie actually sucks because the plot isn't new. This implies that every movie you've ever praised in PTP has an original plot.

You really don't wanna play that.

Lookin dumb as fuck right now lol.

Movie's excellent. Deal with it.

you can tell stories in new ways. or you can tell the same old story well.

avatar does neither.

that it's the same old white guilt bullshit doesn't help.

http://io9.com/5422666/when-will-white-people-stop-making-movies-like-avatar?skyline=true&s=x

bitch.


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http://latimesblogs.latimes.com/herocomplex/2009/08/james-cameron-the-new-trek-rocks-but-transformers-is-gimcrackery.html

GB: There’s also maybe some heritage linking it to “Dances With Wolves,” considering your story here of a battered military man who finds something pure in an endangered tribal culture.

JC: Yes, exactly, it is very much like that. You see the same theme in “At Play in the Fields of the Lord” and also “The Emerald Forest,” which maybe thematically isn’t that connected but it did have that clash of civilizations or of cultures. That was another reference point for me. There was some beautiful stuff in that film. I just gathered all this stuff in and then you look at it through the lens of science fiction and it comes out looking very different but is still recognizable in a universal story way. It’s almost comfortable for the audience – “I know what kind of tale this is.” They’re not just sitting there scratching their heads, they’re enjoying it and being taken along. And we still have turns and surprises in it, too, things you don’t see coming. But the idea that you feel like you are in a classic story, a story that could have been shaped by Rudyard Kipling or Edgar Rice Burroughs.

^^^Pretty much deads your whole argument in one easy to digest paragraph. Particularly

"It’s almost comfortable for the audience – “I know what kind of tale this is.” They’re not just sitting there scratching their heads, they’re enjoying it and being taken along."

Ahem.

You can moan all you want that the story is weak, doesn't make it true. And I COMPLETELY disagree that this same story shouldn't have been presented yet again. I say now more than ever this story needs to be retold for various reasons. And I'm not even on that tree hugger shit, but the theme of the film hits pretty close to home for some of us

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Basarwa

I lived in Botswana for ten years so I know this shit goes on TODAY.

Besides all that, the film is great.

U lost.

************************

this story doesn't make white people want to stop genocide you dumb shit.

its an easy fairytale people can slip into if they're idiots, then keep doing what they've always done.

you're an idiot. I'm not.

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where u get genocide from?

what does white people have to do with anything I wrote or the links I provided?

lol

calm down and breathe doggie.

u so mad right now u might need to log off and collect your thoughts.

genocide?

lol

************************

take oneself too seriously much?

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And gave an example why I think so, re the Basarwa people of Botswana. If I showed this film to a member of that clan they'd get it immediately because it generally tells their story almost word for word.

You're mad that hollywood keeps making this film, I'm saying they need to keep on fucking making these films.
************************

this is dumber than when you said the ps3 would beat the 360 is 2007, 2008, or 2009


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classic e-thuggery tho, make a pointless insult and sidestep the argument.

lol

Don't really work with me so foh with that predictable shit.

We're derailing the thread anyway.

************************

you don't want to talk about the movie sucking.

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always trying to bash people, insult people, see the worst in everything. why? is everything ok?

you're an idiot.

that doesn't make me sad.

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claiming that i'm mad. this is how you prove that i'm the one who is sidestepping.

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that's technically true.

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LMAO

>But the
>idea that you feel like you are in a classic story, a story
>that could have been shaped by Rudyard Kipling or Edgar Rice
>Burroughs.
>
>^^^Pretty much deads your whole argument in one easy to digest
>paragraph. Particularly

actually, James Cameron referencing Rudyard "White Man's Burden" Kipling in a positive fashion pretty much completely proves rjcc's point. Do you really not see how the swipe you provided DIRECTLY supports the argument rjcc is putting forth?

Which simply means he feels double white guilty, and compensates for it by writing essays admonishing white guilt. He tries to slip his whiteness in in the last paragraph so you don't notice, but I caught it. Because I'm triple white guilty.

But there really isn't any white privilege in Avatar because being a human clearly sucks in this story. The Na'Vi on the other hand are ballin outta control the whole time. Ridin fly ass pterodactyls, surrounded by naked women and talking to trees and shit. Meanwhile Sully is surrounded by assholes, with a dying homeworld and a pair of busted legs.

And what's the fairy tale ending? He stops being a white guy.

become the "down" white guy fully accepted into the other culture and bang the #1 fly chick. you can't get whiter.

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On Pandora, there is no mayonnaise.

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RJCC stop being black and smart, it hursts white peoples feelings. I loved the movie visually and felt moved by certain scenes AND I can still deduce all the colonial, racial, psuedo-savior angst from the damn movie. mofos be acting like it wasn't obvious. that nigga cameron doesn't cast black heros/protagonist because it will not be the blockbuster, it has become. Please save all the Will Smith arguements. the fact that "our hero" he is a war vet who can't use his legs (AND WHITE) tapps into the regret and betrayl many white men in middle america who have served in America's military can relate to

This mugfucker stole every scene he was in.

One of the most compelling "villains" in my recent memory at least.

************************

I thought he was one of the flatter characters (which is kind of saying something), though I guess you're right about the scene stealing

It's my first time to watch a film in IMAX, my first time to watch a film in 3D and it's my first time to watch a James Cameron film in the theaters. I hope it's as good as people say it is.
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it's kinda shitty. The final battle is essentially the Battle of Endor but very awesome. The movie looks great though.

He did what I thought couldn't be done, which is push visuals even further than The Matrix did.

yeah, the story was not his most original, but at some point which archetypes, ain't nothing new to be said. i did appreciate the melding of science and spiritualism, doe.

this movie puts cameron at the top of the sci fi directors heap. he has shown lucas how to tell a story AND meld visuals together in a compelling way and his female characters are MUCH better than spielberg IMO.

and the environmental aspect was fresh too
(thinks FORT MCMURRAY sized project mining for that element)
corny they called it un-obtainium tho.

http://www.prixpictet.com/files/artworks/modified/165/2297.zoom.jpg

http://i2.cdn.turner.com/cnn/2009/images/02/23/canadian_oil_003.jpg

loved it. she is the audience that helped titanic do numbers.

i can't see how this won't do numbers, too.

Planning on taking my daughter....she's 8.

Wondering if anyone would warn me against that. I'm pretty liberal about showing her movies and she doesn't get nightmares.....

Some background....I won't let her watch Family Guy (of course) but one of her favorite movies is Jaws. Any reason why she shouldn't see this? Would an 8 year old get bored? Is it too violent?

************************

It's pretty easy to get attached to some of the blue people, and some pretty bad things happen to them.

If she can tolerate Jaws devouring people, than blue aliens shooting arrows at robot suits is nothing. A few explosions here and there too and wild creatures getting killed, but there weren't any on screen visually visceral HUMAN/HUMANOID ALIEN deaths other than one particular character being shot with arrows.

There is an emotional scene involving the death of a family member too, fyi.

I'd let my 9 year old nephew see it, and he is tortured with a crazy sheltered life from my brother and his wife.

I had to cancel on getting tickets at the IMAX in Raleigh because the roads were still too bad. I'm still reserving tickets for Monday though.

lol

Fucking everything up.

_

the scene where they blew up that big tree had a nigga with a bit of a lump in his throat lol

He raised the bar of effects with this one, that's for sure.

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Saw it in 3d for $8 too.

For anyone saying it's not a game changer visually, ummmm what? Has a CGI/live action movie ever looked this believable? There was no uncanny valley here, it all looked natural. This wasn't Liam Neeson and Ewan McGregor walking next to Jar Jar in the Phantom Menace or or A Christmas Carol or Sam Jack getting eaten by the shark in Deep Blue Sea, this actually worked.

And Killa Cam didn't invent the damn concept, but told the story well and put some hammerhead rhinos in it and big ass flying monsters. GOOD.

but with such a big budget movie, you almost have to be - a looooot of people have to love this.

that said, they will. because its very, very well done.

i dont think it will hold up very well over time. i think it will come off pretty corny in as little as 5 years.

but its entertaining as hell. and its pretty staggering visually.

but yo - they had a preview for this nasa jawn before the movie, and the 3-D in that preview was UNBELIEVABLE. every time ive seen "3D" in my life, its ranged from a joke to good but less than i was expecting, but that NASA shit - the satelite was IN MY LAP. the 3d in the actual movie was good, but as far as TRUE depth, something that really starts to fuck with your mind, that preview really blew me away.

but that's okay.

If you're looking for a very different theme, con't watching indie films
bcuz this is big budget hollywood. The special effects were stunning, and Pandora was breathtaking. The only mistake I made was not driving an hour to see it on IMAX.

and watch the 3D version

They're not gonna spend $400mil+ and NOT make a cliche filled film that appeals to the most amount of people possible. It is what it is.

I went in not knowing much about the plot, thinking the Jungle Smurfs looked kinda goofy, and more or less wanting to clown the movie in general. Well, change of plan. From the moment dude hops into his Avatar I was pretty much into it. GODDAMMY that first chase scene through the jungle was fire. The effects were fantastic and the world of Pandora was a feast for the eyes and fleshed out wonderfully. I don't like when a story creates new worlds and proceeds to cram its mythos down your throat. We only got the need to know information and our imaginations were allowed to run wild regarding all the flora and fauna that was on screen but wasn't explained to us.

Probably the best looking effects laden blockbuster I've ever seen.

And I can't really hate on the story either. It shares qualities with other movies, which shared qualities with movies that came before it, etc. But it does it WELL and brings enough new stuff to the table to keep you still feel like you're getting something new and relevant. Of course the story had to end a certain way, but I forgot all that while in the theater. And a few things happened that I didn't see coming at all. It might be paint-by-numbers to some, but holy shit is that a nice looking canvas. And there are some colors there you haven't seen before.

Speaking of colors - My main gripe about these 3D glasses is the tint... It has a tendency to dull out the colors onscreen. And damn, it's almost 2010 in this bitch, do we really still need to be fucking with plastic eyewear? How about no glasses, and a multi-tiered screen? So yeah, Avatar didn't just raise the bar for how we make movies, it should serve as motivation for us to keep pushing ALL aspects of the technology, because pretty as this thing is to look at, we ain't quite *there* just yet.

before you talk about it, because most of what you said is wrong.

just because you saw it at, i'm assuming, a dolby 3d theater, doesn't mean that's the only technology available.

and if you think 3d without glasses is going to be used anytime soon then you're just an idiot.

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The colors onscreen are brighter with the glasses off. Should I learn more about colors?

I don't like how the glasses fit on my face, either. Should I learn more about glasses too? Or faces?

I don't want to learn about 3D. I want the people who already know about it to keep making it better. Then I want to watch those movies. Avatar was a cool visual experience, and it got me thinking of ways the experience could improve is all.

Now serious question, because I've yet to see anything in iMax 3D- Are those colors brighter/more accurate? I've only seen a handful of these new wave of 3D films, and I've found that I have 2 general complaints: The motion is too blurry and the glasses kill the color.

>before you talk about it, because most of what you said is
>wrong.

What was wrong about it, specifically?

>just because you saw it at, i'm assuming, a dolby 3d theater,
>doesn't mean that's the only technology available.

Cool, what would have been the best way to see Avatar? And was it available on that technology?


>and if you think 3d without glasses is going to be used
>anytime soon then you're just an idiot.

Nah, I really don't expect it to happen soon, but it seems like the logical progression.

>The colors onscreen are brighter with the glasses off. Should
>I learn more about colors?

no you should learn more about the different types of polarized glasses and how they work

>
>I don't like how the glasses fit on my face, either. Should I
>learn more about glasses too? Or faces?

you should get used to it, they aren't going anywhere. don't worry tho, you'll be able to buy your own custom joints soon.


>
>I don't want to learn about 3D. I want the people who already
>know about it to keep making it better. Then I want to watch
>those movies. Avatar was a cool visual experience, and it got
>me thinking of ways the experience could improve is all.

ok, keep making stupid suggestions because you know more than the people who actually make it. why doesn't my car fly or go in the water? I want Toyota to make it better. MAKE IT BETTER


>
>Now serious question, because I've yet to see anything in iMax
>3D- Are those colors brighter/more accurate? I've only seen a
>handful of these new wave of 3D films, and I've found that I
>have 2 general complaints: The motion is too blurry and the
>glasses kill the color.
>
>>before you talk about it, because most of what you said is
>>wrong.
>
>What was wrong about it, specifically?

nearly everything


>
>>just because you saw it at, i'm assuming, a dolby 3d
>theater,
>>doesn't mean that's the only technology available.
>
>Cool, what would have been the best way to see Avatar? And was
>it available on that technology?

there are several ways to see it, go ahead and look around.

I'll give you a hint: active shutter lcd


>
>
>>and if you think 3d without glasses is going to be used
>>anytime soon then you're just an idiot.
>
>Nah, I really don't expect it to happen soon, but it seems
>like the logical progression.

you want it, so it should happen. I want cheap public space travel,seems like a logical progression. unfortunately, there's specific reasons why both of us will continue to be disappointed for the foreseeable future.


>


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Not asking for the moon here

you were talking that glasses free nonsense

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I haven't seen you this riled up and taking shots at people for just chatting in a LOOOOOOOOOOOOOOONG time.

love for a shitty movie and complete misunderstandings about technology, so it's a perfect storm for me.

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You mean like trying to make your penis bigger by typing things onto a message board?

wait...

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log on, go looking for rather benign people enjoying themselves and hit them with name-calling rants about how lame/wack/stupid/evil/etc they are

and knowledge....wait

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'Avatar' blasts off to No. 1 start with $73M

(AP) – 22 minutes ago

LOS ANGELES — Audiences are trekking to see James Cameron's science-fiction saga "Avatar," which has opened as the weekend's No. 1 film with $73 million domestically.

It's a strong start for a film opening in December, though it fell short of the $77.2 million record debut for the month set two years ago by Will Smith's "I Am Legend.

"Avatar" stars Sam Worthington and Zoe Saldana in a love story amid human-alien conflict on a distant moon in the 22nd century.

The previous weekend's No. 1 movie, the animated musical "The Princess and the Frog," slipped to second place with $12.2 million, raising its total to $44.8 million.

And it's going to have LEGS

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just got hate in their heart imo. i really have nothing bad to say about this film. i can understand if it wasn't your kind of movie or you thought it was decent. i'm not expecting people to say it was the best thing they've ever seen. but to say you HATED it or it was WACK or CORNY?? come on fam, just stop it.

i personally thought it was a very well done film.

& it isn't "dances with smurfs" South Park was reaching.
it has nothing remotely to do with smurfs story-wise or whatever else, except that the Na'vi are blue-ish.

The world they created (Pandora) is amazing.

The story engaging.

one of the best moviegoing experiences I've had in a Looooong time.

this weekend.

Many people here in Maryland are snowed in this weekend who will most likely see it next weekend with Princess & the Frog and Sherlock Holmes.I wanted to see it bad but its just not happening by the end of today...

if so, that's fucking inexcusably lazy.

besides that, the movie was ooooooohkay. definitely not a "game changer". not even close. not even a great movie. it won't be a movie anyone goes back to with much frequency like T2 or Aliens.

it actually reminded me A LOT of Peter Jackson's King Kong. good character FX...dinosaur-like creatures inhabiting an alien landscape...horrible, clumsy exposition dialogue and generic, boring characters supported by entertaining action set pieces.

one beef i have is how everyone's raving about all the imagination that went into the creation of Pandora. REALLY?!?

Cameron had a biological blank canvas and he basically just gave us impractical versions of existing animals on earth.

"let's start with a horse, add a few more legs and put some glow sticks on its back".

"add some monkey hands to a dog and make it look like a burn victim."

"strap a hammerhead's face on a rhino and give it peacock feathers around the neck."

"oh, and make sure every creature has 6 vagina blowholes on its chest."

there wasn't much true creativity outside of the whole biological USB port thing. that was a great concept handled pretty well.

as far as the special effects...

some of the close-ups of the Na'vi were truly stunning and really looked like actors in makeup (my girlfriend refused to believe that they were all-CGI shots). but alot of the full-body action shots didn't look any better than what we've already seen before. the first shot of Jake running out of the lab was especially bad. the physical weight of the characters is just OFF. they feel floaty and not grounded in the world. that shot of the two avatars playing basketball was horrendous. it just looked like a high-quality video game cut scene. not even close to "photo-real".

and if this is as good as 3D gets, i'm officially done with it. i went out of my way to see it in a Sony 4K Real-D setup and while it was probably the best 3D i've seen so far, it still desaturates the colors, there's still a slight, VERY annoying image flicker, and just the fact that you're wearing glasses (with thick ass black frames) takes me out of the movie. i honestly never felt like i was watching a movie - it felt like an extended pre-ride video at Universal Studios.

so, ultimately... i'm glad i saw it. i guess i would recommend it to action-movie fans. i wish i could've completely avoided all the hype...i might've liked it a little more. but that wouldn't have cured the horrible dialogue and forgettable characters.

my biggest complaint is that i never felt fully engaged by Avatar. because all of the characters are so generic there's nothing to emotionally latch onto, so you're just left to oggle the beautiful visuals.

p.s. - "Unobtanium"...SERIOUSLY?!?!

Clearly Pandora is an earth-like planet, so it makes perfect sense that alot of the flora and fauna would have evolved similarly enough. Evolution is intelligently random after all. Having watched an entire weekend of Darwin documentaries on the BBC Knowledge channel, I was actually pleasantly surprised at the thought that went into the design of the creatures on Pandora.

The one thing I didn't get was those floating mountains.

Like...why?

************************

I mean, say the humans had actually been successful in obtaining it, then would they have to change its name? Werichbitchonium?

As for the world of Pandora, that was probably my favorite aspect of the movie. I think all one really can do is pull inspiration from lifeforms that already exist, I can't think of an example of a story that successfully built fantasy worlds completely from scratch. I wasn't really studying the animals from any sort of Darwinian point of view. They all seemed to move well enough and fit the world they inhabited. And I got a strong sense that the world wasn't just limited to what was showing on screen at the time.

I'm sure the razzle dazzle of the CGI and 3D contributed greatly to all that, but I feel like it will still hold up when it hits the home DVD market.

>I mean, say the humans had actually been successful in
>obtaining it, then would they have to change its name?
>Werichbitchonium?

from one character to the other URKED THE FUCK OUT OF ME. It is such a lazy, don't you dare fucking write that shit move.

That old "You know why we are here, for THIS, UNOBTAINIUM WHICH SELLS FOR 20 MILLION DOLLARS. THIS IS WHY WE ARE HERE. THIS IS THE REASON FOR THIS STORY AND MOVIE IN CASE YOU WERE WONDERING, AUDIENCE. THAT'S WHY I AM EXPLAINING IT TO ANOTHER CHARACTER WITHIN THE MOVIE SO YOU UNDERSTAND WHATS GOING ON. NEVER MIND WE HAVE BEEN HERE FOR 10 YEARS OR SO AND THE CHARACTER I AM EXPLAINING THIS TOO WOULD ALREADY FUCKING KNOW IN THE CONTEXT OF THIS REALM. BUT ANYWHO, PLOT ESTABLISHED BITCHES."

I let out a deep sigh on that part like, Really Hollywood/Cameron?
Really?
We are pulling out this rookie shit?
Word?

I could barely keep from walking out of the theater.

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what would have been a better way to explain why they were there?

the name of the rock wasn't even a bush and these dudes are complaining as if it were half the forest.

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Fuck off.

and did momentarily take you out of the movie. i mean yeah it was minor and hardly ruined the movie or anything, but regardless the shit was still dumb.

and is one thing I've always known to NEVER do in writing as taught to me by my professors and in all the reading I've done.

Fuck the name of the rock, I couldn't care less what the fuck they called it.

if you criticize shit about this movie, you must be wrong. it was perfectly written

^^^what the muthafuckas would say.


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...is the best way to handle this scene? should he have explained it to the Jake who just got there? cuz i'm sure he already knew about the rock too. he said he grew up hearing about Pandora since he was a kid. there would have basically been no one that didn't already know about unobtainum and what it was worth.

so again (cuz you never answered my question), how should this scene have been handled?

of what he says.

he rambles for a good two minutes about something everyone knows, but it's clearly written for someone who doesn't know what's going on.

you can do this better. clearly it has to be done, but it wasn't done well there.

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Sorry, had to be said.

Because instead of trying to pry a good answer out of me, you would already know that the mugfucker was NARRATING for the first 30 minutes of the fucking film.

EASY ASS WAY TO THROW THAT BIT OF INFO IN FOR THE VIEWER.

Problem solved.

>what would have been a better way to explain why they were
>there?

or keep the scene btwn Ribisi and Weaver, only finesse the dialogue some more. It wasn't a torpedo to the entire picture, but it _was_ bad writing.

the planet is supposed to have lower gravity than earth. And they were supposedly graceful creatures to begin with. that said, i dont know if everything done in the movie was intentional so maybe that's something cameron never considered.
also, real alien life is probably so vastly different from us that the average person wouldnt be able to wrap their heads around it in 2.5 hours. we as an audience have to find the love interest attractive and the dangerous animals frightening.
their language seemed very much like a foreign earth language. a real alien language could be anything. it would probably sound like nothing we're used to hearing as "language".
as audiences, we have to be able to relate to things.

>the planet is supposed to have lower gravity than earth. And
>they were supposedly graceful creatures to begin with. that
>said, i dont know if everything done in the movie was
>intentional so maybe that's something cameron never
>considered.

He's mostly talking about the early scenes when Jake first starts to walk. They do come across a little herky-jerky and improperly captured from the mocap, especially compared to what comes later.

I was like "....he DIDN'T."

I was DYING at some of dude's facial expressions. Particularly the ice grills he kept giving to Sully.

He went out like a G too.

Took my niece to see it in 3D, but that one was totally packed. We had to wait 30 minutes for the next one.

The shit felt every bit like 3 hours, but I like the fact that a lot of that time was used establishing the rules of Pandora and the Navi.

Likes:
Even though the story was pretty simple and arguably formulaic, the fact I gave a shit about the characters tells me the movie did its job.

The special effects were the best I've seen in years and they didn't take away from the story. However, when there weren't any humans in the scene, I kept thinking I was watching an animated film, which I pretty much was, but I haven't decided if that was a good or bad thing yet.

Zoe Saldana is even sexy as an alien.

You could easily use this film as some subversive, revolutionary subtext sort of thing, if you're into that sort of thing.

Despite the length, it moved quickly. I mean, you were into the action and the world in about 15-20 minutes, as opposed to 45 minutes to get there, so that was a plus.

Overall, it was a solid A grade film, but...

Dislikes:
Unobtainium? Really? I could have accepted it if Giovanni Ribisi said something like, "we call it, unobtainium" because the actual name was impossible to say.

Is it possible to humanize the bad guys at all? When Jake decided to side with the Navi and head marine dude (whose name I never caught) was all like "you just sold out your race," my immediate response was "huh?". That's the first I heard of it. It was implied and mentioned Earth was dying, but was it that serious. And it seems like if it was that serious, once the battle was over, Jake would have hooked them up with some unobtainium or something.

Not enough Michelle Rodriguez.

Also, during the big battle at the end and the "bomber" is destroyed. That motherfucker still blew up and destroyed a big ass chunk of their land.

...jumps in that plane? I was screaming HOLY SHIIIIIT in my theater. Going out like a G doesn't BEGIN to describe it.

whiteboy stole his pussy right out from under him and then sent him to his death.

that's a catastrophic L if there ever was one. losing that saldana chick to some cripple and then falling a million miles to your death is never qualified as going out like a G.

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I certainly wouldn't want to *be* him... But dude was on that warrior shit and seemed to forget about ol' girl soon as he found out they were gonna get them tribes together and fuck shit up. You could see it on his face during that big speech, it was the first time the entire movie he stopped sneering. I like to think, in those final moments, he was happy. Though maybe on his way down, just before hitting the ground, he might have thought 'on second thought this IS kind of fucked up right here'

of


"..... bitch ain't even gimme no pussy. (c) Dude from skit on Com's Resurrection album"

Was the fact it was HIM who originally said lets all arm up and attack those bastards, and the idiot white dude convinced everyone not to. THEN the white dude comes back and says attack riding a slightly bigger bird to everyone else, and everyone's on board with him. That dude never got a break.

LOL LOL
and i still enjoyed this shit. next time I watch the movie will be more of a comedy than action-drama

saw it in 3d and i dont remember the last time i had that much fun watchin a flick

As in it actually stands as a metaphor for the hopelessness of greed. The desired end result of greed is unobtainable by definition since greed begets greed.

Or something.

It stuck out far too much. How do you flesh out the Na'vi so intricately, language and allm and then come up with 'unobtainium'

Which will be dismissed as "bullshit" and "plea copping" around here, but whatever...

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it's literally like "Unobtainium" was a placeholder name in the script and he forgot to replace it before production started.

that seriously

Which is something else that will be ignored around here, in favor of another round of everyone telling everyone else how "lazy" and "terrible" a filmmaker James Cameron is for not naming a substance...


wikipedia.org:

>Unobtainium is a humorous name for any extremely rare, costly, or physically impossible material needed to fulfill a given design for a given application.

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cuz it makes no sense and you know it.

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>it's literally like "Unobtainium" was a placeholder name in
>the script and he forgot to replace it before production
>started.

seriously? you're upset about the name of the rock? so adamantium, vibranium, carbonite, elementium are all ok? ya'll know the Avatar people didn't make unobtainium up right? WHO CARES what the name of the rock was? i really thought so little about this while watching the movie. they might have said the name of the rock like once or twice. what it's called is not the main point!

There are nitpicks one could have with this movie, absolutely, and the name of the element is by far the dumbest one to have, and the one that least affects the enjoyment of the film.

also, that whole part, and most of the beginning, is not even average writing. his speech to her makes sense as an explanation to the audience, but not as a discussion of two characters who already know the plot. it just doesn't work, and then he says unobtanium and its like gtfoh


naming your dumb plot device dumb plot device is not tricky, edgy, cool or in any way acceptable. ronin "get the case" - smart. q-dogg "never say what's in the case" doesn't matter


there's so few details about anything in this movie, it sticks out.

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if you are on your chill boy and just enjoy the flick you will. If you're looking for flaws you'll allow it to ruin the experience. Nothing in the movie was glaringly bad to the point where it'd make you frustrated with the experience as a whole.

I didn't suffer a closed head injury prior to watching this flick. I knew there was something else on my to do list

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"Unobtanium" is just a weird, poor choice.

it certainly didn't ruin the movie for me, but it was a laughable moment that took me out of the film for a second.

and i've heard it used by a few people in real life situations. it's simply a colloquialism for something you need but can't get, or can't get easily. my mechanic used to use the word in regard to certain parts of his old mitsubishi because it was a pain in the ass to get the parts he needed for that car.

i haven't seen the movie yet so i don't know the purpose of the name for this substance but it's an actual term, though it's an interchangeable, situational one.

it does seem a little lazy but it could be tongue in cheek, an inside joke, or as this guy is saying, intentional and meant to serve as metaphor.

The best part about the film is how forthcoming it is in film making. The CGI is amazing, it's hard to distinguish what's computer animated and what's real, hell Pandora was really drawn out well, that it seem real. As for the story, is very unoriginal but I felt it was new at the same time. Also, it had so many cliche moments, you can tell what was going to happen but in a better way. Overall it's a great experience on the IMAX 3D.
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Could have used some more well-developed characters, but it is what it is. Seemed like Sam Worthington's character is the only one who had more than one note to him. I wish they fleshed out Giovanni Ribisi's character more, I thought he was great but there was a lot of unexplored inner conflict.

the visuals and the pacing were off the chain. So, I give it a thumbs up.

Yea, I've seen this plot before but not executed like THAT. Shit was beautiful, and how Cameron made me, not just give a fuck, but actually care about these computer generated beings is still givin me goosebumps. The pacing was great - the na'vi and pandora were explained in great detail but it never felt like I was burdened w/ information. The final action sequence was great. Liked it a lot, prolly the best movie going experience I had this year (not necessarily best film, just most fun I had in the theater).

there was one more well developed character than I predicted (the main character)

there was one thing I wasn't able to predict exactly before I ever saw the movie (I thought he would permanently join the navi prior to the last battle, not after)

worthington slipped back into his british accent wayyyy too many times.

this story was dumb as shit and written for people with a 3rd grade reading level, so I'm not surprised at the love it's getting. there is no thinking necessary or encouraged at any point in this movie.

unfortunately, there were only a few parts where I thought the 3d effect really helped the movie, it was mostly a wash, I thought, but i'd have to see it in 2d to be sure.

wayyyy too long.

merely a below average movie, not the worst I've ever seen, or even the worst I saw this weekend

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from watching a few interviews of Cameron, he was basically saying he wanted to focus on the main character and make a story that is familiar to everyone but drop them in an unfamiliar world. The movie would suck if you are asking it to push for a boundary that would personally satisfy a staunch critic like yourself but based on the formula he intended it delivered beyond expectation. I get why you would not like it tho, why spend so much money to make dances with wolves in space if its not going to push movies as we know it.

luckily i didn't pay for it, otherwise i'd want some of my money back.

everyone who's given it high marks has lost some credibility w/me.

I feel like these people would be defending it. I don't get it.

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i dunno what movie these ppl saw that i missed. maybe they had special 3D glasses or something.

several critics have lost credibility on this 1.

you were right...folks avoided talking about the story for a reason. b/c it SUCKS. like, painfully so.

Even if your response is "just barely," I think you know it is. In terms of effects, it's unquestionably better. In terms of character development, even if both are lacking, you at least admitted one character in Avatar is sort of developed, whereas there's zero development of any sort in Episode 1.

Come on now, Rj.

(yes I watched the first 10 minutes of that 70 minute Phantom Menace review)

we should expect nothing in terms of character development and plot from sci fi action.

that's ok for you.

so what's wrong with tpm in that respect? pacing, backstory, interaction, they all don't matter. we can just be braindead watchers of the movie, as long as the soundtrack tells us its epic, and tpm has that.

what do you watch movies for again?


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It also has a better and more interesting setting. It has better pacing, better characters, better acting, better staged action, and a more satisfying action-packed final act. TPM has the better score and a better villain, even though the Avatar villain gets a better death.

Even if you think both suck, which is fine and is an opinion I won't argue against, these are fairly clear-cut. If you measure levels of suckiness in your mind, Avatar will be less sucky.

that negates any other bonuses it has

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>worthington slipped back into his british accent wayyyy too
>many times.



What the blood claaat ???

...man, Worthington's accent slipped a lot. Like... a lot, lol.

I found the script, while following a familiar storyline, to be more nuanced than some of y'all are claiming. It's on some hippie shit, but it's a new world, with interesting characters, plant life, and the development of the past human/Navi interactions within the script intrigued me. It was like Pocahontas, if the conquistadors tried several years ago to ask nicely for their land and were mulling over their options. That was an interesting twist for me.

Saldana killed it, imo. Weaver and Lang also did very nice work, and Worthington was a good hero.

The effects... yeah, they were bananas. Just as impressive as the characters was the detail in Pandora. Holy shit, I've got to see a doc on how they filmed this, because I can't remember the last time I saw such gorgeous lighting/scenic design in a CGI world. It was like Cameron saw other CGI worlds and firmly pointed a middle finger in their direction. The colors were as strong as any colors I've seen in a 3D flick too.

But with film being primarily a visual medium, Avatar delivered the goods in a serious way. They used the effects to tell a somewhat formulaic story in a very creative and vivid manner. Me likey.

it was merely there to explain the fact that the navi could speak english, and even their english wasn't well thought out

it went from esl to basic to college level and back within characters.

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I just liked that additional facet to the relationship between the two.

I'm not going to sit and pretend that the plot/dialogue reaches Citizen Kane status. I can see your perspective, and I can understand why you didn't like it. But what bothered you just didn't bother me.

the movie from being 3/4 subtitles.

that's it. it was a pleacop with no explanation and it made the story weak.

other than that she likes stanford t shrits, they never said ANYTHING about grace's background, why the school was closed, what it was like when it was open, what initial relations were like, or what they've been like since.


too bad they didn't have any time for that in this THREE HOUR MOVIE.

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*shrug*

You don't want to know anything about the planet that cam dogg didn't tell you?

sweet.

so the fact that the story makes no sense without these details is not a problekm, and you don't want it to make any sense because....

yeah.

cuz you're a fucking dumbass who's looking for a plea to cop, not someone with a real thought about why this movie is good or not.

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and SoWhat - the nigga that said The Matrix was the same movie as The Surrogate. Jus hop on one of Basa's new 'gendas. Shit, he's funny at least.

>You don't want to know anything about the planet that cam
>dogg didn't tell you?

So those specific events = everything about the planet?!?! And you claim to have an above 3rd grade reading level? You stupid dog.

>so the fact that the story makes no sense without these
>details is not a problekm, and you don't want it to make any
>sense because....

The story does make sense ma man. You the only one lost in this bitch. Callin everyone else an idiot when you can't even follow what you yourself called a simple story made for 3rd graders. Who's on the run again?

If I see you in the street Ima pistol whip you while wearing an "E-Thug" t-shirt humming Empire State of Mind........Mad? not me, lol

that you have to be a thinking person to realize it doesn't make sense doesn't make it good.

you have to be able to understnad how one thing leads to another thing.

if you're the kind of gullible motherfucker who will believe any idiocy you're handed, like you, then you don't even want to know <<<your words what the story is.

jesus that's violently stupid behavior.

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You the dumb fuck who said it's a simple story you've seen several times before that now complains about it being incomprehensible. The story is easy to undertand and is well paced. That's a fact, no matter how many times you try to convince readers of this back and forth with the "you idiot" dumbfuckery. You concentrated on the trees and got lost in a light forest. You lost. The agenda failed. Give up and start planning for a new campaign. I'll help you if you need it. It's getting silly now.

so because it's a ripoff of other stories, that means it makes sense?

I can't imagine a dumber idea for a person to have. this pisspoor excuse for a story is a ripoff, and it doesn't make sense. period.



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You're just a retard grasping at straws to help further this pointless agenda. You lost. Quit or get pistol whipped.

it ain't make no sense and all the threats on the internet won't change that.

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I have no idea who you are or what threats you've made in the past. if you could format them in a spreadsheet i'll be glad to file that away so I can recall your grievances next time.

as we've established, not having a proper backstory can be very frustrating. I don't think your character has been fully fleshed out, what's your motivation?

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Nah, not really. FOH, lol.

I'm taking notes.

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you have no idea why she does what she does, or what her discontent with the company is stemming from. of course you don't care, because you don't think a story is necessary.

this movie has no story.

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She talks about her motivation and her discontent several times in the film.

type out her actual motivation for being on the planet, what brought her there and what she hopes to achieve.

you can't, because you don't know because it is never said.

all you get is generic "you just want to shoot them, lets talk it out" whining. this is what I mean by third grade level.


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>type out her actual motivation for being on the planet, what
>brought her there and what she hopes to achieve.

She came to discover the new species that were there, and fell in love with the creatures that inhabited the planet. She does talk about it.

there's a 70 minute tpm review you should watch.

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Sometimes, people take jobs because that's who they are. She is a bitch who loves plants, and who has fallen in love with the people there. She's a tree-hugger from Stanford. It's obvious.

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and in general want to destroy the people/plant life on Pandora.

then she proceeds to never act like that ever

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man, please.

I was pleasantly surprised that the movie didn't *over* do it. With the budget this thing had, it could have gotten realllllllly corny and overindulgent. You can see where the money went, but you aren't beaten over the head with it. It's all there to serve the story, which, fundamentally is a good one. It's a simple story, and a familiar one, but a lot of our best stories are.

"It's a simple story, and a familiar one, but a lot of our best stories are."

other stories are simple and good, this one is simple, so it's good.

fantastic logical leaping there.



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>"It's a simple story, and a familiar one, but a lot of our
>best stories are."
>
>other stories are simple and good, this one is simple, so it's
>good.


That's not even remotely what I said.


Look, I didn't say Avatar was one of our best stories, but it's worth pointing out that just because a story is simple doesn't automatically make it bad. If you want to point out ways that Avatar was a 'bad' story, that's OK by me. But don't say 'it was written for 3rd graders' and leave it at that.

because a 4th grader would wonder how you can bulldoze the forest all the way to the home tree and only get spotted at the last minute.

or why th school was ever closed or what happened with that.

3rd grade level storytelling.

you want to make an epic, it should be epic. a 4th grader can read LOTR and see that this shit isn't even fucking where the red fern grows next to it.


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>because a 4th grader would wonder how you can bulldoze the
>forest all the way to the home tree and only get spotted at
>the last minute.

This is a legitimate gripe.

>or why th school was ever closed or what happened with that.

This though, I dunno. The only reason a 4th grader wouldn't ask is because maybe they hadn't taken enough world history classes yet. This is where the familiarity of a story works as an advantage, because we have enough of our own historical context to make inferences about things. When you watch a WW2 movie, you don't really need a flashback scene explaining what made the Nazis the bad guys. When you watch Avatar, you shouldn't need a whole lot of background info on the Human/Na'Vi tensions. It's obvious why there's tension, because this sort of thing has happened before.

the navi have what the humans want.

but they make a one sentence reference to previous efforts and attempts to get at it, which have obviously taken place over several years and never, over the course of a NEARLY THREE HOUR MOVIE flesh that out in any way whatsoever.

the problem is it's not story, it's just an excuse for this not to be a subtitle heavy movie, because morons wouldn't go see that.



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But I like what it contributed to the story too

It made the Human/Na'Vi relationship feel more real because you could see indications that it had evolved over time. And that previous attempts at diplomacy were beginning to fizzle out as the humans were getting antsier about the un... the unob... the unobta... fuck it, I can't bring myself to even type it. THE SHIT UNDER THE TREE.

By the time we get to Pandora as viewers, the humans had been there a minute. This story isn't about establishing that first contact. And it's not a history of Human/Na'Vi relations either. I don't think a detailed history would have enhanced the story in any way. That would have actually made it more of a Phantom Menace type flick - a whole lot of 'explanation' that we don't really need.

And I mean, science fiction has come up with worse excuses as to why an alien species can speak and comprehend english.

>It made the Human/Na'Vi relationship feel more real because you could see indications that it had evolved over time.

how had it evolved over time? we don't know, they never said.

there's no way, that in a three hour movie, you could only afford one line about the entire past of human/navi interactions. that is not acceptable.

grace's character has no depth directly as a result of this.

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The human/Na'Vi dynamics are changing throughout the entire course of the movie. And as for what has taken place before the movie starts... what do we really need to be told? We know the humans come from Earth, so it's clear that they are newcomers on the Na'Vi's turf. We know they've made peaceful attempts to connect with them, hence the schools and other "goodwill" efforts. We know the school was shut down and the general attitude of the humans and Na'Vi toward each other is precarious at best, so clearly something went wrong with those peaceful negotiations they were trying to have. Because the Na'Vi don't want anything the humans have to offer. None of this is a mystery. Like you said, the story is written for 3rd graders.

Now, the character development thing, I agree on. That tends to be my main beef with these archetypal stories. Just because everyone knows what purpose a character is supposed to serve, it's not a free pass for the screenwriters to gloss over character development. I could have used more depth from pretty much everybody in the movie.

was that before or after relations went south or was it the cause of it.

I don't need a half hour flashback, but at least a conversation between characters about the past would have filled in some of the motivations on both the navi and human side.

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Gonna be gettin' money both ways!


OK the real answer is "I do not know" - I could guess that the school itself didn't cause the trouble, as they did reluctantly accept The Science Lady™ back into their tribe eventually. Not knowing the specifics of that particular development didn't bother me personally.

but it leaves a hole that provides no motivation for why the na'vi view humans the way they do, or even, how they view them at all, we never really find out, and no understanding of why grace does what she does.

it could have been filled in with an extra 30 seconds of details in a movie that was 2 hours and 40 minutes long

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>because a 4th grader would wonder how you can bulldoze the
>forest all the way to the home tree and only get spotted at
>the last minute.
>

Or why, after seeing hometree destroyed, and the chief killed, the wife of the chief would spare the life of the human who LITERALLY made both things happen.


Or why the nig- I mean Na'vi would ever NOT kill ol' boy on site thereafter

jake is not a fucking hero

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>Or why the nig- I mean Na'vi would ever NOT kill ol' boy on
>site thereafter

And everyone knows that flying in on big big giant red pterodactyl thangs absolves you of being an accomplice to murder, genocide, and cultural destruction.

The whole apparent defeat and winning back of the people moments were almost comically rushed through.

i saw it in 3D in a theatre where i could drink. i was bored after the 1st hour when the novelty of the 3D wore off.

not worth it at all. i've played video games that were more interesting.

There were a couple moments during Avatar where I felt like I had stopped watching a movie and had started watching a cut scene. Like being overwhelmed with beauty and artifice at the same time.

and then pulled out a humongous bowie knife after he lost his gun, i lost it. I didn't really like it either.

But I still got 10,000 shares invested.

it was already established every grunt there was just on some mercenary get the dough shit.

so why is he going on a suicide mission when all is clearly lost?

it makes sense that the scientists would risk their lives to help the na'vi, they've made a decision, but there's no reason for him to continue. he's never shown any mental instability prior to this in the flick, but at the end he's a complete lunatic.

maybe if he had a backstory....

what did he do before pandora? what brought him there? who is this guy anyway?

you know, story elements. in a three hour movie, you'd think they would exist.

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...or betrayed his "kind" rather ...plus he was just a crazy old school marine dude

I wasn't expecting amazing dialogue but it seems like Cameron saw that Lucas made a billion bucks with the prequels so he didn't even try.

This movie was about the effects and there haven't been any this good yet. It was entertaining and epic. Completely sucked you into its world. Just compare all the CGI work to Terminator Salvation and there is a leap of difference (think of the CGI Schwartzenegger to the Aircraft). Who cares if it didn't have some kind of deep, scratch your head type of storyline. You know if it did, the same complaining folks would have said that they tried to hard to make it deep.

Unobtainium is a known term in the engineering world, so it wasn't so corny to hear it in the movie. It is basically a theoretical element with perfect properties that scientists theorize may be present on other planets besides earth. Sorry it sounds corny to you, but this term existed before this movie and in the scientific community.

If anything for those that thought it sucked, I feel bad for you. I had a great time, and yall are acting like you were watching paint dry for 3 hours. I'm starting to think that the average Forum posters are just a bunch of miserable, pissy complainers while the rest of the world is enjoying life.

then you can keep it.

I love how because this movie is ass, anyone who notices is an unhappy person, not just a thinking human being. yall need to go vote palin in 2012 because that's what people who enjoy life do.

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but this one is "ass"? Explain

I never said the story had to be original, but there has to be a reason for why people do the things they do.

these characters and plot have no reason for the things that happen.

you're an idiot who needs his hand held to follow a story, so I can see how you'd have missed that.

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That was your MAIN complaint leading up to the movie loser. Face it, you lost.....I'm done dumb fuck.

until after I actually saw it?

I never said "oh, it's unoriginal." I complained that i was a direct copy. you find me one movie cloverfield was a direct copy of, in part or in whole(hint, it doesn't exist).

you have no idea what you're talking about.

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We can keep going back and forth like this if you want, I'm ready!!!!

cuz if there was a good answer for it, whew, my argument was fucked.

luckily, i'm right and you're a fucking idiot.

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Once you told me that you werent able to understand this simple story I realized I was dealing with an insufferable cunt with a limited IQ. I'm done....Pistol whip?

I love how it's "simple" so it doesn't have to make sense.

you should try that some time. when someone asks you where you went yesterday, just say you flew to the moon. it's simple ad classic and has been done before, and yet I think they'll have more questions.

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>I love how it's "simple" so it doesn't have to make sense.

No, but seriously, what are you arguing about? Peace and love fam, I wish you health.

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>
>http://card.mygamercard.net/lastgame/rjcc.png
>
>www.engadgethd.com - the other stuff i'm looking at

it's hard for me to understand your motivations.

now, tell us what your daddy did to you.

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http://www.hoodfever.com/wp-content/images/Bria-Myles-33.jpg

Lets get this shit live!

ugly

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>it's hard for me to understand your motivations.
>
>now, tell us what your daddy did to you.


I chortled!

You really gonna sit there and say Cloverfield is not based in part on some old monster film...like, oh I don't know...Godzilla maybe?

Shit, how about fucking Blair Witch?

lol

Cloverfield?

************************

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>>you find me one movie cloverfield was a direct copy of, in part or in whole(hint, it doesn't exist).<<


You gonna tell me Cloverfield is not "in part" (your words) a direct copy of Godzilla?

You gonna tell me the storytelling device used in Coverfield is not a direct copy of Blair Witch?

You lost.
************************

you ain't got it.

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You sure picked the wrong movie to make your point.

Avatar CGI >>> Weak-ass monster in Cloverfield CGI

C'mon, the two aren't even comparable.

and in fact, I brought up cloverfield at all.

read the replies.

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boo.

at least it was real pretty paint.

the entire planet is a networked psychic brain right?

or at least, that na'vi can see from their eyes and they're pretty adept at flying all over the place and crawling through the jungle.


so....for three months they never noticed the bulldozers approaching Home Tree?

were they dropshipped in? cuz that diagram on ol boys computer sure looked like a road.

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how would they detect something not connected to the network?

plus, they CAN FLY AROUND AND SEE SHIT

they really didn't see those bulldozers rolling up at least a couple miles off? they had to get RIGHT ON TOP OF THEM before anyone noticed anything was wrong?

that must be the quietest armed fleet of bulldozers that ever existed.

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in film or in real life, why would they be different?

The Mayans

The tribe from Apocalypto

The aborigines

The indians from around plymouth rock.

The Souix

The Aztecs

The Mandinka tribe

name any indigenous tribe and ask yourself if any of them ever saw it coming?

it's literal.

they literally couldn't see big ass slow moving bulldozers on the horizon.

it's not the same.

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so one would assume they can see at least a mile or two off in the distance.

They could have just had the dozers plowing through the forest on their way to the home tree, I feel like that would have been enough to get the dramatic effect across. But just having them show up at home tree out of the blue like that, was pretty dumb

I don't remember much about the logistics of their approach

they were bulldozing.

i'll accept that maybe they were like, coming from space and just weren't there yet and got airdropped in, but even that is flimsy as all hell. I mean nobody saw shit?

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Maybe it was a road, maybe they were air dropped, maybe what was on the screen was a flight path...who knows.

************************

I mentioned that possibility. even if that's the case, it still doesn't make sense that no one saw this coming. it's a plot hole.

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For one thing, no, the entire planet is NOT one "networked psychic brain" Where did you pick up that garbage from? Oh, because the good doc happened to mention something about the number of interconnections in the forest being greater than those in the human brain or something...right. So her scientific conjecture (read, guess) instantly became fact to you?

Think doggie. Think.

In fact when Sully was busy praying to this "networked psychic brain" he was told to dead all that since this "networked psychic brain" didn't take sides in conflicts.

This in turn leads me to think that...suppose the Na'vi did happen to see these bulldozers crawling through the forest...ok...and? Would they have appeared as some sort of threat or just a weird curiosity in the forest?

I'd say that until the bulldozers started directly harming the Na'Vi (which ONLY started to happen when they reached Home Tree) they probably had little interest in the goings on of the machines. They wouldn't even have know what they were. The fact they tried to use bows and arrows against airships says as much.

I really don't think it's that serious, and at the same time I really don't think every little detail has to be spelled out. It's a dead simple story.

************************

you didn't even watch this shitty movie

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nm

it just seems to me like if you're going to be sending a gang of people (there were a LOT of lil avatars running around at the beginning) into what amounts to a deep cover situation, you might want to make sure at least a few of them have something to come back home to.

matter of fact, does anyone in the entire movie have anything back on earth to relate to at all?

business guy has the shareholders and ......


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He seems to have the same main complaint regarding Pandora's biology...namely that it's too similar to Earth. But an interesting read, nonetheless...



http://www.aintitcool.com/node/43440

First, a little background: I’m a professor of astrophysics who has
searched for planets, worked on SETI (Search for Extraterrestrial
Intelligence) programs, and taught classes on life in the universe.
Right now, I’m helping to build a global network of telescopes to
search for planets and supernovae.

That is a long-winded way of saying that it is part of my job
description to think about the possibility of life on other worlds.
So when James Cameron makes one of the most expensive movies ever
made, and one that puts us right in the middle of an alien culture… in
3D.... well to say I’m interested doesn’t begin to cover it.

Since the movie has already been reviewed to death, I’m going to focus
on something that hasn’t been covered yet – the science. But while
this is interesting exercise, for me it is story first, and science
second. I’d put it like this:

Copernicus’ Law of Science Fiction: Bending the laws of
physics out of service to the story is fine, doing it out of ignorance
is unconscionable.

I don’t mind if the ships in Star Trek can go faster than the speed of
light – otherwise the story would be pretty boring. And I know
there’s no sound in space, but I want Star Destroyers to
rumble, and the Millennium Falcon to have that iconic whine. But if a
director casually gets science wrong for no real reason other than
that he is stupid or lazy (see ARMAGEDDON, THE CORE, and THE DAY AFTER
TOMORROW, to name a few), then to hell with him. If the filmmakers
don’t respect the intelligence of the audience, I’m not going to
respect the movie.

Fortunately, James Cameron has a knack for science that rivals his
moviemaking skills.


THE SCIENCE OF AVATAR

Historically, movie directors have had their asses kicked by
astronomers as far as taking us to exotic worlds. For the most part,
movie planets look like an extreme form of Earth -- they almost always
have an oxygen atmosphere at an Earthlike pressure and gravity. Movie
planets don’t even come close to matching the diversity of worlds in
our solar system: the surface of Io is a mottled, sulfurous
orange-yellow, constantly being repaved by volcanoes shooting hundreds
of miles into the sky. Titan has a thick smog atmosphere that blots
out the sun and rains hydrocarbons. Mars has planet-wide dust storms
and a 17-mile-high volcano that nearly reaches above the atmosphere.
Venus has a crushing, choking sulfur dioxide atmosphere with a
pressure 92 times that of earth, and a temperature that can melt lead.
Enceladus shoots ice geysers into space. And the real Pandora orbits
within the rings of Saturn. These are only a few of the hundreds of
planets, minor planets, and moons in our solar system: we’ve
discovered hundreds elsewhere in the galaxy, some of which seem even
crazier: super-Earths, nearly boiling puffed-up Jupiters, and objects
that may be free-floating rogue planets without a star.

So I can’t think of a better use for 3d and a few hundred million
dollars of effects than filmmakers starting to raise the bar to
finally approach the awesome reality of nature. Due to the limits of
budgets, finances, and creativity, I can’t think of another film that
has attempted something near the scale of what Cameron has done here.

I’ll address the different aspects of the science in sections.


FLORA AND FAUNA

From a visual perspective, Avatar’s Pandora is breathtaking. While
most movies have only hinted at the exotic nature of their worlds with
an establishing matte painting or two, here Cameron takes us on an
elaborate three-dimensional tour though various habitats, from the
treetops to the forest floor. He’s created a whole ecosystem, from
semi-intelligent trees to giant land and air creatures. Most seem
inter-related via symbiotic relationships. In fact, Cameron has taken
the Gaia hypothesis, that the biosphere of the Earth is itself a kind
of living entity, and sexed it up – the biosphere of Pandora is
essentially a god, and it’s networked! Creatures can plug into each
other via what amounts to USB hair and fiber optic roots. While some
of these ideas are not without their faults (see below), Cameron gets
points for creativity – this is true science fiction, not space opera.

I do have one minor complaint, that given their networking abilities,
the Na’vi should not be so technologically inferior to the humans. On
Earth, the largest barrier to technological progression was that
information that existed in the brains of primitive humans could not
be easily shared or preserved. As soon as writing was developed,
suddenly it was possible to store information outside of the brain,
and record and build upon knowledge. The knowledge available to a
human or tribe went from one brain’s worth (and a minimal amount of
oral tradition), to thousands, and ultimately billions of brains’
worth. The result was a technological and social explosion. Hominids
have had technology like spears for about half a million years, but
only 7,000 years after the development of writing we had left the
planet. And the sharing of knowledge is still undergoing a revolution
with the development of the internet. Now we have instantaneous
access to the combined knowledge of the entire history of humanity.

Since the Na’vi have had the ability to download information and share
it in a massive network for long periods of time (evolutionary
timescales), they should be way ahead of us in terms of technological
development. Still, I have to give Cameron a pass here. It is
thematically necessary that the Na’vi are technologically primitive,
and their root-network is necessary to the plot. Maybe you could say
that they could have evolved more technology, but they don’t need it
or want it. Still, that reeks of the “Noble savage” idea, and I have
to agree with Stephen Pinker that that is a bunch of hoo-ha.

But my major complaint from an evolutionary standpoint is that there
is no way in hell that life on Pandora would evolve to look so similar
to Earth life: there are humanoids, space horseys, hammerhead
rhinoceri, and pseudo-pterodactyl beasties. And to make it worse,
they have DNA, and the DNA is close enough to our own that Na’vi and
human DNA can be combined! Again, I have to give Cameron a pass.
First, it is easier for the audience to relate to familiar things.
And more than that there is a significant plot point that I won’t
spoil towards the end of the film that hinges on humans and Na’vi
having similar DNA.

One way out of both my evolutionary nitpicks is the panspermia
hypothesis -- that life in the galaxy was seeded in multiple places by
an advanced civilization. But even then the odds against evolution
producing such similar animals on different planets is astronomical.
Since we have a clear record of evolution on Earth, some civilization
would have had to keep taking specimens from earth, first
pterodactyls, and ultimately humans (after they evolved), and then
would have had to deliver them to Pandora, possibly modified via
genetic engineering. That would be an interesting sequel: humans and
Na’vi come together to confront their godlike humanoid ancestors!

Grade on astrobiology: A for the scale of the ecosystem, C for being
too much like Earth – call it a B overall.

WORLD AND STAR SYSTEM

Pandora is a moon of Polyphemus, a fictional gas giant orbiting Alpha
Centauri A. I’ve always wanted to know what the view would be from
the moon of a gas giant. Can you imagine a quarter of the sky being
taken up by a massive cloud-covered planet visible night or day? We
get to see it in Avatar, and since Jupiter is the king of the gods,
maybe majestic is an appropriate word to describe it. I wonder if
Cameron’s choice to set this on the moon of a gas giant wasn’t a slap
in the face to Lucas, as if to say “this is RETURN OF THE JEDI done
right.” (I know it is ambiguous in the Star Wars universe whether or
not Endor orbits a gas giant.)

But what had me really geeking out is the choice of the star system.
Alpha Centauri A is perfect. First, as the closest star system to the
sun (4.37 light years), it may well be the first star we travel to.
Second, it is familiar in that you can see it with the naked eye if
you live in the southern hemisphere – it is the brightest star in
Centaurus. Actually, what appears to be a single star can be resolved
as a binary system if you use a telescope. It is Alpha Centauri A, a
bit more massive than the sun (1.1 solar masses), and Alpha Centauri
B, a bit less massive than the sun (0.9 solar masses). The choice of
G-type stars near the mass of the sun is great – they last for
billions of years – plenty of time for life to evolve. They are in an
elliptical orbit around a common center of mass, which means they come
together and drift apart over the course of one 80 year orbit. The
two stars get as close as 11 astronomical units (an AU is the average
Earth-Sun distance; 11 AU is about the distance to Saturn), and get as
far apart as 36 AU (about the distance to Pluto).

Would you see the companion star (Alpha Cen B) in the sky from
Pandora? That depends on where it is in its orbit. At the farthest
distance it would be a few hundred times the brightness of the full
Moon as seen from Earth. But your eyes are logarithmic detectors, so
it would actually only seem a few times brighter than we perceive the
Moon. At its closest approach, Alpha Cen B would be a few thousand
times as bright as we see our Moon. This is not all that bright – in
comparison, on Earth the Sun is about half a million times brighter
than the Moon. So on Pandora, if Alpha Cen B is up in the daytime
then you might not even notice it, depending on how far away it is in
the sky from Alpha Cen A. But if it is up at night (as it would be
for half the year), it would never get completely dark – the sky would
just be kind of dark blue.

Technically, there is a third star in the system, Proxima Centauri,
but it is a tiny red dwarf a huge distance, about 12,000 AU, away – it
is not even clear it is bound to the system. At any rate, it would
not be prominent in the sky as seen from Pandora. Incidentally, my
first job as a graduate student was to help calibrate the fine
guidance sensors on the Hubble Space Telescope to help my advisor look
for planets around Proxima Centauri. Sadly, we didn’t find any.

It is an interesting question as to whether planets around either
Alpha Cen A or B could exist in stable orbits that would last for
billions of years. You might think they couldn’t because the gravity
of the other star would perturb any forming planet.
However, simulations show that at least at Earth-like distances,
stable planets can form in that system.

Grade for astronomy: for the choice of star system, setting in on a
moon, and around a gas giant, Cameron gets an A+.

THE STAR’S EFFECT ON LIFE

Electromagnetic radiation comes in many forms, gamma rays, x-rays,
ultraviolet, visual, infrared, and radio. Our eyes evolved to see in
the narrow range that the sun has its peak output -- the visual band
-- and the flora and fauna of Earth evolved pigments and colors that
work at these wavelengths. But this isn’t universal -- some animals
can see a narrower region of the spectrum than us, and others see
farther into the ultraviolet or infrared. Our cornea blocks most UV
light, but bees, for example, don’t have one and can see farther into
the UV. They can see patterns in flowers that we can’t.

In fact, colors are really something manufactured in our brain –
physically colors are just different wavelengths of light ranging
uniformly from short wavelengths (violet) to long (red). What we see
as blue or green or red helps us differentiate sky from grass from
blood, but to a creature from another world, all these things might
appear as the same color. In fact, you could imagine that bats might
use echolocation to “see” rough surfaces as one color and smooth
surfaces as another. So since colors are something created by our
brains and not intrinsic to the universe (only wavelengths of light
are), it is virtually certain Pandorans would see color differently
than we do.

Alpha Cen A has almost the same temperature as the Sun, but it is just
a bit hotter. As a result, the star puts out most of its light at
visual wavelengths just like the Sun. But the star’s output is only
part of the story – the oxygen and ozone in our atmosphere block much
of the ultraviolet light from the Sun, and water vapor blocks some of
the infrared light. Pandora doesn’t have an oxygen atmosphere (if the
movie mentioned what gasses it contains, I didn’t catch it), so we
might expect more of the ultraviolet light to reach the surface. The
creatures there might be able to see farther into the ultraviolet.
There might be all kinds of patterns that the inhabitants of Pandora
can see that just look blue to us. Maybe that’s which there are so
many blue colors in the film. To take this a step farther, I would
have loved to see a scene where a character sees beautiful colors or
patterns as an Avatar, only to have this beauty evaporate into a
uniform sea of blue when he sees the same vista with human eyes.

Another feature of Pandora adding to the ubiquitous shades of blue is
that bioluminescence seems to be a staple of the ecosystem. As
Massawyrm points out, this makes sense for a world that may spend days at a time
shrouded in darkness. Remember that a day occurs when Pandora rotates
on its axis. But it might take a month or so to orbit its gas giant,
which we know looms large in the sky, and could blot out the sun for
days.

Grade for the astrophysics: For the fact that this world doesn’t have
an oxygen atmosphere, and the plausible use of color, A.


PHYSICS

Since Pandora is a moon and is presumably smaller than the Earth, the
gravity would be lower. This is alluded to in the film, and creatures
do grow larger and survive falls from greater heights than you could
on Earth. I wonder if Cameron dialed in a different gravity to the
physics engine rendering everything. To my eye, for at least the
human scenes, the gravity looked just like Earth gravity, but then
again if the gravity is close the differences can be subtle.
Virtually all science fiction movies feature planets with gravity at
1g, since, of course, until now, filming has always been done on
Earth. Since here so much of the world was created inside the
computer, I would have liked to see this aspect pushed a bit farther.

In one of my biggest pet peeves regarding the science of Avatar, there
is one scene where the gas giant, Polyphemus, can clearly be seen to
be rotating in the span of about a second or two. Let’s say it
rotates about a degree out of 360 degrees in those 2 seconds. That
means it makes one rotation in 720 seconds, or 12 minutes! Jupiter
takes about 10 hours to rotate. So the gas giant in Avatar rotates
about 50 times faster than Jupiter. Winds on Jupiter can exceed 100
meters per second, so the winds on Polyphemus would have to exceed
5000 m/s – this is supersonic and clearly implausible. Here’s one
case where Cameron opted for visual effect over realism, but to me the
bargain isn’t worth it. It looks unrealistic and takes me right out
of the movie. But I do like the look of the clouds on Polyphemus –
they look like a cross between Neptune and Jupiter. The highlight is
a giant storm resembling Jupiter’s Great Red Spot. That is
particularly appropriate for Polyphemus, named after a mythological
cyclops.

But my biggest beef in Cameron’s trading physics for visuals is those
goddamn floating mountains. Seriously, floating mountains? How the
hell do they stay up there? This is such an egregious flouting of the
laws of physics that surely there is some reasoning behind it.

Between the fact that Pandora seems to be sort-of at 1g, the
impossible rotation of Polyphemus, and the floating mountains, physics
is one one area AVATAR gets a marginal fail on Copernicus’ Law of
Science Fiction. But on all the other aspects of science, Cameron
gets either a pass or passes with flying colors.

The dream of interstellar travel will only become a reality far beyond
our lifetimes. But I love the fact that today I can be deeply
immersed in not just a plausible, but a compelling alien world just by
putting on a pair of 3D glasses and visiting my local theater. Even
if I have to drive 100 miles to see it in IMAX, that is nothing
compared to interstellar distances! And I love that there is a
filmmaker that plays more than lip service to the science in his
films, stimulating discussion and thought about distant worlds among
geeks everywhere. I was inspired to do astronomy after seeing STAR
WARS as a kid. I’m willing to bet that a fair fraction of tomorrow’s
astronomers will have decided to devote their life to the discovery of
new worlds because of AVATAR.

by tying it to pop culture

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I only have beef with him having a problem with Pandora being so earth like. The statistical chances of there being an earth like planet out there somewhere are about equal to there not being one.

Other than that, great read.

************************

someone needs to tell this guy about vaginas.

no way in hell their life forms would be so similar to that of earths? really? completely impossible, eh?

don't get me wrong, i'm sure he knows this, since his job is to think about all the life forms in the universe.

should i email him and ask him to give me an abridged rundown of the thousands of extraterrestrial life forms he's cataloged, so that he can show us precisely how absurd this concept is?

and then he whines about all the sci-fi planets having such similarities to earth. note how all of the environments in the planets and moons he describes are completely uninhabitable? yeah, there's a reason these planets aren't like venus, because a fucking planet like that cannot support life. you know, characters.

sure, a writer could adapt those characters and civilizations and write a story that explains how life came to be in that environment, which i would have no problem with personally. but then this guy would write another piece detailing how life couldn't exist in such harsh environments.

another thing: this is probably going to become a tent-pole franchise. there is a good chance a greater mythology will be developed, and who the fuck knows, perhaps the two civilizations are connected to a single source going back several millenia. who the fuck knows. it's a story, for crying out loud. when you write, you make the rules. you decide how shit works. he can compare this to "real" science all he damn well pleases, but this is the james cameron world, with james cameron rules.

oh and i laughed at the ridiculous panspermia notion. sure, a civilization could have come and populated this one, but then... who the fuck made them? oh, another civilization? and on and on it goes, but that progression cannot go on forever, as the universe does have a definite beginning. so at best, that takes us all the way back to the very first sentient beings on a habitable planet, and the question still remains: where did THEY come from?

of course then you could revert back to unaided evolution as the cause, which would be all to convenient and a total copout if you ask me....

but yeah, i didn't even make it past the flora and fauna section. this guy blows.

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but I got exactly what I expected. Avatar was good and didn't disappoint.

As far as the CGI/3D effects, I really like how Cameron didn't just throw stuff at the screen like most of these 3D films. The best part to me was how seamless the 3D and the non-3D was together.

The story was average...but very entertaining. Truthfully, I was actually more invested emotionally in the battle at Hometree more than I have been in any other film this year.

The only gripe I have about this movie is that I felt Cameron could've delved a little bit more into Jake having to give up his humanity to help the Na'vi. I don't care how shitty your life is, that's a big decision and it should weigh on a person far harder than it did on Jake. Also, I wish that Giovanni Ribisi's character had a little bit more to him other than being snotty to all subordinates. That was kinda minor to me though since his snotty sarcasm was at least mildly amusing at times.


And I wish there was more Michelle Rodriguez.

Then again, if you didn't know this by now, you haven't been here long enough.

and based on the movie you watched

and not made up cuz you dug the marketing hype.

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If one of my homies, who's opinion I always value, hadn't told me to see I wouldn't have cause the trailers looked kinda shitty to me.

>and based on the movie you watched
>
>and not made up cuz you dug the marketing hype.
>
>http://card.mygamercard.net/lastgame/rjcc.png
>
>www.engadgethd.com - the other stuff i'm looking at

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anyone who dared to like the movie were victims of marketing schemes and therefore "couldn't think for themselves" about how bad the movie was going to be beforehand... *smh*

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Yall niggas were celebrating the motherfucking trailers and claiming I was a hater then.

now, the trailers sucked. let's cop more pleas, please.

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>Yall niggas were celebrating the motherfucking trailers and
>claiming I was a hater then.
>
>now, the trailers sucked. let's cop more pleas, please.
>
>http://card.mygamercard.net/lastgame/rjcc.png
>
>www.engadgethd.com - the other stuff i'm looking at

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it still somehow far exeeded my expectations.

it was even more beautiful on the eyes than i thought it would be (and i had been to the 15 minute imax preview).

but beyond that, if it was just an insanely amazing piece of 3 hour eye candy i would have been happy, and that's all i really hoped for.

well, i did not expect to become so emotionally involved in this movie. and i sure as hell did not expect there to be the kind of character development that took place. despite all indications to the contrary (after seeing that 15 minute preview), i became very invested in these characters to the point where i was actually kind of missing them after leaving the theater.

yes the story followed that familiar arc...and thankfully so. its a timeless one, and allows people to enjoy the wonder and emotion of it all rather than the "cleverness" of the plot. its one of those important and prevailing themes in the tales of mankind (springing from our past, our present, and probably our future). and there are other themes beyond the "pocahontas" thing. it was largely an old familiar story, but still unique to itself.

the native american stuff was an appropriate and good aesthetic source to dip into for the na'vi. it works. this is a tale told by people who grew up learning about native americans, etc. it will always be a part of their inner creative library.

i could go on forever right now about this movie, but i couldn't figure out for the life of me how anyone with a pulse, a set of eyes, or a heart could come out of that film hating.

HOW COULD YOUR HEART COME OUT OF THAT FILM HATING!?!?!?


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right from when white people started culture 2000 yrs ago

There can't possibly stories and themes older than that

yup

man, I'm saying

pictures you've seen.

and your general tolerance level towards seeing another one.

>but i
>couldn't figure out for the life of me how anyone with a
>pulse, a set of eyes, or a heart could come out of that film
>hating.

why does barrel chested army guy decide to go down guns blazing at the end?

his title is apparently security officer, he states his job is to keep them safe, and he keeps scars on his head to remind him of the danger that can be found on pandora. seems like a guy who is into self preservation.

there's no evidence of some religious or philosophical need to kill the na;vi, other thna that it's the simplest solution to his current problem.

so at the end of the movie, instead of pulling back or surrendering once all is lost, he throws his life away in an insane attempt to kill his enemy. unless he's entirely mentally unstable, which he hasn't shown any evidence of, why would he do this?

It goes against everything we know about his character, which is little. continuing to press without the tactical advantage is not true to the character, just another silly plot device and example of shitty writing from avatar.

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Like someone said above, dude wnt frombeing a three-dimensional person to a one-dimensional second-rate Disney bad guy or comic book supervillain.

Perhaps dude did go insane (especially when he goes outside into unbreathable air to try and pop a few caps at our ragtag team of scientists as they take off in a stolen helicopter)...but was there sufficient motivation for him to flip out in such a manner?

He hammed it up real nice and was fun to watch, but there really wasn't any substance there.

then he just goes completely crazy, and it doesn't seem reasonable that it would matter to him that badly.

if we knew more about him, perhaps that he had some ridiculous temper, or some old war story, maybe that would provide context for the change, but as it was there was no reason to expect him to do that or for it to make sense he would.

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I just didn't expect him to go *all the way* into black-hat Snidley Whiplash territory. Especially when he ran out and started trying to gun down the motherfuckers in air he can't breathe (and NO ONE came to restrain/arrest/commit his ass?)

He thought dude was more like him, but he misjudged him and didn't want him to "win". Droppin' the bombs was part of the mission, but after that failed, he HAD to take out Jake.

And I don't think he was being that literal when he called himself "security".


catch a swollen heart, from not rollin' smart

sure it was personal and he wanted to hurt jake, but to the level of an insane and likely suicidal rampage instead of saving his own ass?

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Obviously the visuals were good.

Strangely though, my favorite looking thing in the movie was the beginning when everybody was floating around.

I was ready to go with the story,
but I got bored fairly quickly and stayed bored until the war began.

And the pacing was... strange.

It'd be 20 minutes of him learning something new with the Nabi then
BOOM
20 seconds of plot development.
Then 20 minutes of him learning something else then
BOOM
20 seconds of plot development.

And "Aliens" had better acting than this.
Worthington was boring,
but Giovanni and Lang were both great.
I thought the most interesting characters could have been the mother (CCH, waddup!), father, and SPOILER-ex-SPOILER lover,
but they were given very little to do throughout.

Overall I am glad that I saw it in 3D (though it did start to hurt my eyes after awhile)
but I will prolly not see it again.

And I saw it for free so I feel no pain in my wallet.

about what happened to the school

>>I thought the most interesting characters could have been the mother (CCH, waddup!), father, and SPOILER-ex-SPOILER lover,
but they were given very little to do throughout.


all we get from every single navi is a general "don't like / trust humans" but there's never any unique reactions, any unique interactions, any scenes with the navi where jake isn't there and we have no idea how the two sides have actually been coexisting up to this point.

that's not even third grade level story in that part of it.

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My friends response: "Oh, they have to show that, don't worry."

mhm.

so no luck there.

I have zero desire to ever watch this movie again

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a 4th grade education.

we needed that context to make the story go

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For a minute there I thought we were in for something kind of weird and Kubricky when that happened.

cause Sam was blurry.
then i realized the focus was on a tiny water molecule.

move on and become blissful. It's just a movie you didn't like. *wink*

The end.

"fuck blue alien bitches then gun down all the people that used to be your friends"

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You don't owe that sour-ass bamma any explanations, fuck him in his miserable bamma ass...

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cam dogg lost.

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>cam dogg lost.

nah dude, cam dogg won big, regardless of what you think of the movie.

movie's bringing in

If that fool made what he called "Fuck You" money offa Titanic, he makin' "Eat a Dick Forever, World" money offa this shit

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with a lot of Pocahontas in the mix too. Basically, all the "noble savage" or "explorer from our world encounters strange new culture/world and falls for comely wench therein" pictures tossed together.

I had to turn my brain off to do so, but I was entertained.

The animation and special effects are wonderful. For once, mocap didn't make me want to throw up in my mouth.

It's not the next "Star Wars", and not quite a 3-hour "demo reel" as I'd thought it might be from early reports, but the movie's at it's best when Jake is going through his training to become one of the Na'vi, exploring the forest, etc. Anything involving the actual plot, the military, and that pulp western G.W.-Bush-on-steroids mustache twirler is eyeroll worthy until gunshots and bombs start appearing.

All the Na'vi look like mixed Black/Native Americans painted Smurf blue (notice how there are no African American humans with dialogue in the entire film, but at least two black actors voicing the Na'vi). Natiri looks an awful lot like Beyoncé to me for some reason.

Nice to see Giovanni Ribisi working again.

And oh yeah, Sigourney Weaver walks funny.

>And oh yeah, Sigourney Weaver walks funny.

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>All the Na'vi look like mixed Black/Native Americans painted
>Smurf blue (notice how there are no African American humans
>with dialogue in the entire film, but at least two black
>actors voicing the Na'vi).

ALL the aliens were black/native folks. And there was ONE black soldier that was placed prominently in a LOT of shots, but he ain't do much but nod and grunt once the treehouse trail of tears started to come

He looked Dominicano to me, lol (j/k)

>ALL the aliens were black/native folks. And there was ONE
>black soldier that was placed prominently in a LOT of shots,
>but he ain't do much but nod and grunt once the treehouse
>trail of tears started to come

but the
>movie's at it's best when Jake is going through his training
>to become one of the Na'vi, exploring the forest, etc.
>Anything involving the actual plot, the military, and that
>pulp western G.W.-Bush-on-steroids mustache twirler is eyeroll
>worthy until gunshots and bombs start appearing.

And I think that this is very key to whether or not you enjoy this movie. If you want lots of Na'vi training, you will like it. If, like me, you are more interested in the military aspect, you will probably be disappointed.

>
>All the Na'vi look like mixed Black/Native Americans painted
>Smurf blue (notice how there are no African American humans
>with dialogue in the entire film, but at least two black
>actors voicing the Na'vi).

CCH Pounder!!!!

It's something we've seen a million times in fiction and thoughout history, so I don't see why so many belabor that point. I could see if it was a complete rip-off of those movies, but I doubt many feel like, "pssssh I've seen 3 or 4 similar and more obscure movies, so I didn't need to see this at all!". It's not like movies about Atlantis or Pocahontas were that original.

I think the avatar process was fairly original. I liked the fact that they actually knew what they were, but didn't just try to insert them into tribe and no one noticed. And unlike movies where they fully accept the outsider into their fold, he actually became like them, permanently. It was kinda contrived that he had this "magical spirit/heart", but the fact that he was willing to sacrifice his humanity, it almost justified it.


catch a swollen heart, from not rollin' smart

>It's something we've seen a million times in fiction and
>thoughout history, so I don't see why so many belabor that
>point. I could see if it was a complete rip-off of those
>movies, but I doubt many feel like, "pssssh I've seen 3 or 4
>similar and more obscure movies, so I didn't need to see this
>at all!". It's not like movies about Atlantis or Pocahontas
>were that original.

That's the point: those films weren't original (at all), and neither is this one. It's true that no idea is truly oriignal, but if I've figured out the entire plot of your picture a third of the way in, and it plays EXACTLY like I figured it would, we have a problem. And a LOT of people are saying that "Avatar" feels just like "such and such movie(s) I've already seen" (and since when were any of the films "Avatar's" been compared to obscure?)

>
>I think the avatar process was fairly original.

Only if you've never seen "The Matrix".

I liked the
>fact that they actually knew what they were, but didn't just
>try to insert them into tribe and no one noticed. And unlike
>movies where they fully accept the outsider into their fold,
>he actually became like them, permanently.

Oh, so Sam Worthington is The Little Mermaid?

It was kinda
>contrived that he had this "magical spirit/heart", but the
>fact that he was willing to sacrifice his humanity, it almost
>justified it.

Yeah, white guilt tends to make the lead character do that (or as close to "that" as possible/necessary) in these types of pictures.

the most expensive film ever, and this is the plot you come up with?

Lemme ask y'all this:

why was Jake even necessary in this film?

Let's say we keep the character Jake, and have him be an Avatar...is it too much to ask that he meets the Chero - i mean Na'vi, and work WITH them without being the chosen one who gets the baddest chick? I mean buddy been unconscious CRIPPLE for 6 years, to an avatar body for 3 months, to leader of the pack/lord parakeetdragonbat rider almost immediately after? Couldn't he just have stumbled upon a plot involving angry black man Na'vi (y'all know who i mean) leading the people to war, and just HELPED?

And y'all ain't tired of seein movies with whiteboy heroes doin plucky white boy shit, when the shit is TOTALLY uncalled for? Listening to buddy talk shit while doin dumb shit made me wanna push over the first white dude in a wheelchair i saw after the film. I mean all that time showing him giddily running, or cavorting with the sellout chick could have been spent fillin in some of the truck sized plot holes in this movie.

my friend walked out the movie just shaking her head saying, "goddamn, white people just can't help themselves".

I been on a big non-white sci-fi kick lately in my reading, and yeah, this movie is ass

which tells you something about the people who are in love with it.

by and large they do not want to talk about the story, I doubt most of them even remember it.

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at the tree of souls? two white people


never mind the fuckin CHIEF, or the CHIEF-IN-WAITING could have used a hook-up...the white dude who provided the schematics for the destruction of your ancestral home gets the hook-up.

I just kept hearin fredrostarr smurfalien askin "why is he not dead?"

>never mind the fuckin CHIEF, or the CHIEF-IN-WAITING could
>have used a hook-up...the white dude who provided the
>schematics for the destruction of your ancestral home gets the
>hook-up.

>And y'all ain't tired of seein movies with whiteboy heroes
>doin plucky white boy shit, when the shit is TOTALLY uncalled
>for? Listening to buddy talk shit while doin dumb shit made
>me wanna push over the first white dude in a wheelchair i saw
>after the film.

I mean, my eyes rolled a bit at the "yeah, what, bitch!?!?" type remarks that popped up every now and again from Jake, but DAMN....LMAOOOOOOOOoo. I could just see you going to the VA and running AMUCK, pushing motherfuckers over.

is because there's nothing stopping black film makers from making it from their own perspective.

How u gonna go into this film KNOWING what to expect (and lets not act like anybody went in not expecting this exact plot and ending), but how do u go in knowing the plot and outcome and still walk out mad at white people anyway.

It's like being shocked at the blatant racism of a Scorcese film.

************************

aren't most movies plot + visuals?

And, white sci-fi bothers me becuz there are so many good stories left on the table in order to tell the same exact story over and over again.

(I ain't just talkin about movies either - comics, fiction, TV - just about the same shit every time)

does jake have a choice about whether or not to go with the navi?

after he breaks the cameras, he's locked up and his chance of getting his legs fixed is history and his brother's already dead. the only good life he can possibly have is on pandora where he's a ten foot tall god.

some hero tale this is. it's the story of a pussy

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Or do u mean if the Na'vi had lost the battle? If they'd lost he'd have been considered a traitor by the human mercs and he'd not got his legs back, but technically he'd still be a 'hero' by definition.

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to my query.

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Or at least that's how I read it.

************************

and was locked up.

he hadn't actually fought against the humans, only stopped the bulldozer, but he was fucked, legswise. he had no choice but to join the navi.

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Choice B: die fighting, coz that shit was basically a suicide mission

There's no way he could have predicted that they'd win that battle since what swung it was the forest animals. So he chose to say fuggit.



************************

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he had nothing in one hand and a slim chance of success in the other.

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why?

cause at least he did break the cameras.

he literally woke up and was on the run for his life, and then did what he had to do to stop the machine as a result. he STILL wasn't trying to fight the marines after that, and he could have started right there.


he only started fighting post-locked up.

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.

He could have very easily stepped to the side and let the machines keep going.

They were not trying to kill the Navi here,
and the only reason his life was in danger after he woke up is because he put himself in front of the tank to stop it.

he only wants time to get the navi to move first.

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he doesn't want them to move so they can fight back. he just tells them to leave. he is not saying "we'll get them later"

at that point he has no plan of ever going head up against the armed forces until he actually gets locked up.

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Also, I missed the first 5 or so minutes due to crazy long snack queues

************************

with this little speck of light floating and you(the audience) and jake are both staring at it. very nice initial introduction to 3D in my opinion.

nobody told me that JD from Grandma's Boy was in it. Everytime he was on screen I couldn't take it seriously.

It was of course amazing visually. It didn't do much to advance plot lines or elevate our minds. But it was rehashed material that was done well. I don't dig too much into the plot since it isn't supposed to be much. Just an enjoyable movie experience.

i probably won't say anything that hasn't
already been said, but i figured this is
worth mentioning.

i have an astigmatism in one eye, & have
NEVER been able to enjoy 3D movies w/these
old school lenses:

http://retrothing.typepad.com/photos/uncategorized/2007/04/09/3dglasses.jpg

b/c one eye is significantly stronger
than the other.

however w/the new(?) 3D technology,

http://sdpnoticias.com/blogs/victor/files/2009/07/reald.jpg

i FINALLY got to see what all of the hooplah
was about, & enjoyed my very first movie
in 3D. AMAZING. for some reason my bum
eye completely processed the 3D, so it was
like....some sort of surreal visual
experience for me.

this is the ONLY WAY to see this movie.
had i watched it on a regular screen,
i'd have much more criticism, but i
was in such awe of what i was looking
at, i gave some very weak plot specifics
a pass.

but let me get down to a few things that
bothered me the most:

1. the whole white man destroys the
world/white man saves the day theme is
kinda tired. the culture co-opting,
falling in love w/the 'savages', leading
said savages...*rolls eyes*

2. as the astrophysicist said in an
above reply, given their fundamental level of
intelligence---it didn't really make
sense to me that they were still viewed
as 'savages'. or that they hadn't
technologically evolved. BUT...to reference
him again, maybe they just didn't want
to? and that answer is good enough,
i suppose.

3. WTF @ sam worthington's accent!! he slipped
out of it so many times, i feel like they
should've just let him talk in his native
accent, or recast that bitch.

4. LOL @ how black the na'vi were. why weren't
there any black human leads though??

definitely worth watching (IN 3D ONLY!!!)
i wasn't disappointed.

It was clear to me that the Na'vi were at far greater level of evolution than humans.

Their lack of technological advancement shouldn't be seen as a negative at all.

and i agree.

Plot hole.

And I know someone will say "Well, no one had masks on in the helicopter", but then that's an even bigger plot hole.

because the cockpit was pressurized. you could clearly see the only part of the helicopter that required masks was the gun turret in the rear. none of the pilots had to wear masks but the gunners did. not a difficult concept.

i don't think it's possible to overstate how great this movie is. spend the extra $5, see it in IMAX 3D. it's like looking through a window into the most spectacular world ever put on film. i went in knowing next to nothing about the movie. i never got into the years-long hype, the commercials/trailers didn't look all that great, but the hyperbolic praise in some of the reviews (particularly ebert's) convinced me to take the leap.

the first five minutes, i thought the 3D was cool but kind of gimmicky, like with shots of long hallways and stuff. once it got to pandora, it was essential. like, i'm going back next week cause the thought of never seeing this again in 3D is crazy. the CGI is near flawless, to the point where at times the only way you can tell they're using CGI at all is because you know these things don't exist in the real world. several times i forced myself out of the movie just to marvel at the fact that NOTHING ON THE SCREEN RIGHT NOW IS REAL. absolutely incredible.

yeah, we've seen the story before, but rarely has it been this well done. james cam threw a couple iraq war references in there ("shock and awe," "win the hearts and minds," etc.) but i thought the allegory was mostly held in check and i could enjoy the story for what it was. hard not to fall in love with zoe saldana or whatever the main navi girl was called. i was a little like "uh-oh" at the african accents/garb in the beginning, but it worked tremendously well. the spiritual aspects and imagery with the navi's connection to the sacred tree and their ancestors was done so well, absolutely beautiful. when hometree came down and we saw all the wailing and gnashing of teeth, it was hard not to get choked up and then start thinking about our own ancestors and other people that this kind of stuff actually happened to (and worse).

my wife, who generally hates sci-fi/fantasy/action films, was completely and totally into it. i can't tell you how big a compliment to this film that right there is. we left the theater discussing whether anything can top that for best picture. hands down, the best theater-going experience i've ever had, topping even jurassic park back when i was a teenager. the nitpicky critics in here and elsewhere are a joke to me (only 83% on RT? come on). complaining about accents and names of rocks, when this is clearly the most visually spectacular film ever made, with a story that is at least as good as many other films we consider classics. anybody hating on this is just looking for attention/page views. calling avatar boring and overrated is like calling sex boring and overrated, it says more about you than it does anything else. james cameron won.

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http://65.79.227.222/display.php?id=38244

Adjectives such as “beautiful” and “breathtaking” have been thrown at Avatar, and they’re apt. But I’ll throw in a third B: Boring.

http://www.dustinputman.com/reviews/a/09_avatar.htm

Unfortunate though it is, "Avatar" isn't even worth a fraction of its built-in hype.

http://www.nypress.com/article-20710-blue-in-the-face.html

Avatar is the corniest movie ever made about the white man’s need to lose his identity and assuage racial, political, sexual and historical guilt.

http://www.newsreview.com/reno/content?oid=1342868

Without a doubt, this is Cameron’s worst film since Piranha Part Two: The Spawning, and that film may’ve actually had better character development than can be found in the bloated Avatar.

http://www.efilmcritic.com/review.php?movie=18294&reviewer=389

The result is just a big, dull and noisy bore that desperately wants to be the next grand step in the evolution of cinema but which winds up being little more than this decade’s “The Phantom Menace,” both in terms of the intense expectations that it has generated and the shockingly banal ways in which it fails to live up to them.

more here:
http://www.rottentomatoes.com/m/avatar/?page=1&critic=approved&sortby=rotten&name_order=asc&view=#contentReviews

because all the people who are dumb enough to use words like "overrated" are also dumb enough to like avatar.

quit making shit up.

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it's called language. also there's this:

http://www.associatedcontent.com/article/2512057/avatar_looks_good_but_overrated.html?cat=40

and this:

http://www.associatedcontent.com/article/2529439/avatar_good_graphics_good_advocacy.html

if you need me to help you use google, i can point you toward some helpful resources. like www.google.com.

to find people who say things like "overrated"

not anyone on this site, not any real reviewer, something 1 million notches down the scale of an opinion.

if you hadn't googled that shit, zero people would have ever read it, but now THEY'RE the trolls, not you, the guy who wants to do anything he can to avoid talking about how much the story sucked ass.

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you spent 200 posts in here arguing that avatar is overrated, and now you're arguing that nobody is saying it's overrated. i really do understand the desperation now that james cam got your money and everyone else's and avatar is being widely acclaimed as this generation's star wars, but switching sides is rarely a good look. you can't rabbit season/duck season your way out of this L, homey.

because I don't use stupid terminology like that.

I said it had a terrible story. it does.

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you should have used it to buy a domain name and blog your thoughts. avatartears.com is still available.

http://hd.engadget.com/2009/12/22/engadget-hd-podcast-168-12-22-2009/

thx for the advice.

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it's always free somehow for the haters. you should do a podcast about how to write your avatar ticket off on your taxes.

or any number of other things

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>avatar is being widely acclaimed as this generation's star wars

hahahahahahahahahahahahahahahahahahahahahahahaha


a movie no one's going to remember a year from now isn't this generation's anything.

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>>avatar is being widely acclaimed as this generation's star
>wars
>
>hahahahahahahahahahahahahahahahahahahahahahahaha
>
>
>a movie no one's going to remember a year from now isn't this
>generation's anything.

becuase that's not what overrated means, but a dumbass like you doesn't understand that, hence your usage of words like "overrated."

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"Unfortunate though it is, "Avatar" isn't even worth a fraction of its built-in hype."

sounds like "overrated" to me

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dude spent 200 posts calling the film overrated in 200 different ways, then wants to hide behind the fact that he never specifically used the word "overrated." and i'm not even sure why really. he has no problem calling it "shitty" and "blah" and "a cheap ripoff" and "white guilt bullshit" but somehow "overrated" is beneath him or something. got that?

then you're dumb enough to say overrated while expressing your opinion, or, to like avatar.

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.

-the human characters were too one-dimensional. even the good guy ones, i didn't really care about them much until they became the avatars. but the bad guys could have had a lot more depth while still remaining the bad guys. they could have shown more guilt about killing their former planet while also showing hesitation about killing the next one. if not hesitation, at least show that their in denial of that guilt. they kinda touched upon this, but then went back to "humans are evil!" even if you're right that's still pretty lazy.

-dialogue was pretty corny. story wasn't great, but i don't think it was as bad as some people are making it out to be.

-looooong. none of it was particularly weak or boring, but they still could have cut out 20-30 minutes. not all of it was essential. specifically the training sequence and the last battle.

-speaking of the training: he RARELY spoke in their language even though he seemed to be doing fine learning it. just took it for granted that they had learned english.

-unobtainium IS a bad name (would have been funny if that was the unofficial name the businessman gave it), but it's not worth huffing and puffing over.

-we get the political/social message. you don't need to shove it down our throats. it's implicit in the plot yet you spell it out for us every chance you get. you really think in the year 2154 they're still going to be using the term "shock and awe." no, no one will get that reference.


honestly though, i enjoyed it, but i don't see it as a trilogy.

>-we get the political/social message. you don't need to shove
>it down our throats. it's implicit in the plot yet you spell
>it out for us every chance you get. you really think in the
>year 2154 they're still going to be using the term "shock and
>awe." no, no one will get that reference.


They go to such great pains to draw the parallel between the troops on Pandora and american soldiers (preemptive strike, fight terror with terror, shock and awe, etc.) not to mention that all soldiers sound and look american. So when the Navi start spearing them through the chest with the triumphant music blaring, am I supposed to cheer or something?

It's like Cameron wanted to play it both ways. This is a relevant commentary on current events, but when the people start getting killed, it's just action flick fun, folks.

There's a difference to me between being opposed to a war, to cheering when the american stand ins get killed in battle. Not that it upset me, just really drained the drama out of the big final battle for me. Would have worked so much better if he just left the already corny topical references out of the dialog.

jake was pretty well into killing every soldier he could, considering he'd probably been eating lunch with those guys a week ago.

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That point is brought up within the first 2 minutes of the film.

************************

We know what they were supposed to represent.

They were godless mercs hired by a greedy corporation.

Probably, the idea was to make the scenario you described more palatable. And yes, you were absolutely supposed to cheer when they got they asses kicked because of it.

This wasn't an Oliver Stone film.

I don't doubt that JC used it as a copout, but without it, this film doesn't get made.

************************

the way some of you were describing it, i was expecting transformers-level bad writing

the fuck movie did you watch?

cause you were NOT watching AVATAR, son! lol!

avatar is about 100 times better than that piece of shit transformers

avatar is even with BOTH of those other films in regard to shitty dialogue...

and nearly two weeks later, the film is STILL selling out! (i was at the first showing and i'm glad i got my ticket online cause i got the LAST seat in the theater)

so the pros:

visually, the movie was amazing. the 3-D glasses (cause the old school ones would have fucked up my eye sight big time) were great cause it really helped with being able to really experience the movie

--Sigourney Weaver: LOVE HER! She was perfectly cast as Dr. Grace Augustine. I'm glad Jim Cameron had the decent enough sense to GIVE her a role to play with...I almost was expecting her to go Ripley on a motherfucker in the scene where the solider came to arrest her, Jake and the other dude, on some "GET OFF ME, YOU BITCH!" but, she was great...as always.

--Zoe Saldana: folk are MISSING what she did in this film. I mean, she managed to make what is basically an imaginary alien be HUMANISTIC and REALISTIC...she was very good here. Given that she's only using her imagination and what little cues Cameron gave her, she had a VERY fully realized, three dimensional performance here. I can't hate on her AT ALL..she was great.

the cons:

Story has NEVER been James Cameron's strongest point in his filmmaking...EVER. So, I knew the dialogue and plot would be very average/piss poor..and it was...

No character development: so you beef up the lead women's roles, but don't give CCH Pounder ANYTHING to do? Michelle Rodqiguez (well, she's inconsistent as an actress as it is...)...everyone else? it makes no sense...

EDIT, DAMMIT! EDIT! I would have been MORE invested in this movie it they had CUT 40-50 minutes of unnecessary scenes with Jake learning to be Na'vi, Jake's wack ass narration and much of the final battle...that goes to con #1. But, i guess Cameron THOUGHT the long battle scene would make up for the lameness...

the white hero saving noble savages and taking the alien princess as his sexual concubine, ahem, i mean, bride/lover: i'm so OVER this...but this IS what hollywood is good at unfortunately


given all this, it was a good movie, not outstanding in an overall sense of the word...not anything id want to see again either.

__________________________________________

http://www.artisticalliance.org

had a couple of false claps
that the audience twittered at
because the movie ain't over


i really didn't feel the length
and that was my biggest worry

i liked it
it had flaws

worth the imax 3D movie for sure

oh and my cuz called it one big greenpeace ad
i was like but a good ad at that!
lol
~~~~
smart dumb niggas i see is the theme of the week on okp (c)esb
~~~~
When you are born, you cry, and the world rejoices. Live so that when you die, you rejoice, and the world cries.
~~~~
You cannot hate people for their own good.

Im going back to see it in Imax 3d

Oh, and I was an initial hater

The film is brilliant

it was alot better than I expected.

...everyone LOVED it ..of course we saw the 3D IMAX version ..the audience cheered at the end of the film, which is something i haven't seen since E.T. when i was a kid

But I think he's more rebeling against the fervor and acclaim this movie has unwarrantedly recieved.

Visually stunning
above average acting considering the circumstances.
Story is a retread.

Personally, I liked starship troopers better. More or less that same story. Except the ants aren't hot.

Oh and starship troopers was set up to be the next best thing since star wars.

>Oh and starship troopers was set up to be the next best thing
>since star wars.

You'll hate yourself if you didnt

Archive this post as an example of all that's going wrong on this board.

108 posts from a single poster???

I say close this - archive it .

12-15 posters are dominating this board.

or you could just talk about the movie according to the rules of the board.

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You can add me to it immediately.

100+ post in a thread? And 75% of them of you just being an asshole against someone else you think is an asshole.

Let's change the the thread, or the forum, name to : RJCC argues with folks.

High Tech could be: Kill yourself if you have a Mac

I didn't realize until this week the list of all the forums is from Less Bullshity to More Bullshity.

if you want to post about me, go to GD. you want to talk about avatar, post here. real simple.

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And your 100s of postings in this thread.

OK??

perhaps you've seen it.

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We waited 15 years for this James? Really?

I'll admit, the movie did look fantastic, and the 3D was done better than anything else to this point. I could have done without so much day glo flourescent coloring, but hey, maybe the Na'vi rave at night. But you're going to tell me in 15 years this is the best story you could come up with? I don't care if it's a familiar storyline that has been done and will be done again. At least do it well, and storywise, that shit was not done well to have that long a runtime and that long a gestation period.

Like RJCC and others have brought up, there are plenty of things that were just wrong, ranging from minor nitpicks to full scale 'C'Mon Son, getthfuckoutofherewiththatbullshit' moments. If you want to say unobtanium is used elsewhere, fine. Still seems like a sucky placeholder AND was bad story exposion the way it was handled. White man savior of all? More annoying, but this is Hollywood, so... There really was no explaination of the interaction between the humand, Na'vi and the avatar Na'vi. Obviously they'd tried it before and it didn't work (or was it obvious? You's never know), so why this time, this guy, manages to get it right in 3 months what others couldn't in however long they were on this planet? Right, Hollywood again... Why the fuck did we need to see them shooting arrows at the helicopters? Like that shit was going to work. Really?

What I can't understand is how the hell they didn't see this coming? First, if you live in the biggest tree on the fucking planet, you have the best vantage point in the world. You should have seen anybody coming for weeks. Even if they dropshipped them in you can't tell me you wouldn't notice shit falling from the sky from up there. And not that 'I see you' shit, or interconnected planet shit. We're talking simply waking up, rubbing the crust out your eyes, looking from the perch of your big ass tree and seeing FUCKING BULLDOZERS IN THE DISTANCE. It's hard as fuck to sneak up on anybody with one of those.

And they obviously knew something was up or had tense moments between the humans since at the beginning of the movie the tires had FUCKING ARROWS SHOT AT THEM. To have the dozers just show up and start mowing over shit just didn't make much sense. To have the Na'vi not have a clue what was about to go down doesn't make any sense either. But, if they did, they couldn't have the white man jack into their matrix and tell them that shit just got real. If the planet and people were as interconnected as was implied, they should have know shit was real long time ago (but that was just the implication, so if you want to let that slide, fine). Soldier Boy going commando when all was lost looked cool, but did seem like a big change of MO for him. This was the guy that calmly sipped his coffee while blowing the tree to bits (which I thought was funny as shit). I mean, if this was a cash grab, that doesn't seem to be the best way to get paid. But, if you want to say he was an old never-say-die Marine who could't accept failure or retreat, fine.

The day glo tribal resurrection rave at the tree to turn puppetboy to a real boy was also some bullshit. If I want to see some real tribal ceremonies, I'l turn on NatGeo.

Smurf sex? Really? Didn't need that.

Not enough Michelle Rodriguez either. She's going to be in typecast hell, but she's good to look at onscreen.

In all, not the worst movie in the world, but far from as great as many say it is. Glad I saw it, but won't be in any rush to see it again.

I must see it.

I didn't read any replies but I can see him raging on folk in here. if he really hates it I will really enjoy the movie.

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Cos I don't wanna be sitting here all night arguing about miniscule details with RJCC. But I was expecting a visual extravaganza, and it was way more visually exciting than I even expected. Literally amazing looking film.

Not to say there aren't plenty of cons. Mostly it being yet another piece of racist rubbish about the superiority of white people. What I really hated was Tsu'tey (or whatever his name was) being portrayed as the ignorant hater, and him being the only person with an African accent. That and the fact he wasn't being ignorant (although he was hating). I wonder how his character would've played out with a Kansas accent?

http://www.bigempire.com/filthy/


Epic sci-fi crap typically ain't my cup of tea. I get a lot of angry e-mails from people whose bottle of Mountain Dew it is. The notes are usually pretty threatening, as though me not liking something these people love is a matter of utmost importance. As though the fact some asshole with a web site doesn't care for what they do threatens the substance of their passion.

My nephew Jimmy is one of these people. He is spurred to action only when someone insults the shit he likes. Then, his first reaction is to insult whomever doesn't share his opinion. The kid knows his sci-fi shit, though, and he talks the fanboy language for whom Avatar is finally a reason to take a shower, pour on a bottle of Axe body spray, wear that homemade quilt sweater the Aunt gave them last Christmas and get out of the basement to go someplace other than Best Buy or Gameforce. I will be spending a lot of time with Jimmy over the next couple of weeks. Christmas is at his mother's, and I have to act like a nice guy if I want to be invited. I will because they spike the punch with grappa and always forget to lock the medicine cabinet. Two years ago I scored birth control pills that made me feel unbelievably pretty and a delicate for two months.

So, Jimmy joined me for a Friday-night showing of Avatar in 3-D. We didn't talk much, which was nice because he's a fucking dork, but we at least sat together (with an empty seat between us) so we didn't look like guys who go to movies alone on Friday nights. Now, Jimmy joins me in reviewing Avatar.

Filthy: Welcome, Jimmy. You're still wearing Aunt Filthy's sweater?
Jimmy: Maktu.
Filthy: What?
Jimmy: Maktu Mendo.
Filthy: What the hell is that?
Jimmy: I will explain this once and only once. I speak Na'vi, the language of the indigenous people in Avatar, out of respect for their ancient culture. Anything I have to say will only be heard by people who understand Na'vi. Nikto Filt'y.
Filthy: Well, that's going to make for a shitty review.
Jimmy: Benta.
Filthy: Okay, I'll get this started. Avatar is a major crapload.
Jimmy: Jik jik jik!
Filthy: It is! It looks great, like a truckload of diamonds for sure. But, good lord, the story is a trite, patronizing pile of Hollywood arrogance. The new agey theme and cornball dialog nearly drowns out any goodwill earned by the movie's fancy-ass creation of a fantastic new world.
Jimmy: Jik jik jik!
Filthy: Jimmy says he agrees with me.
Jimmy: Oen ontu teya lu
Filthy: Get your hands off me. Jesus, you smell like a gay brothel in a sweat sock. Avatar's plot is virtually identical to Ferngully, a shit-for-brains, message-heavy kids' cartoon about pixies who must stop loggers from destroying their rainforest. One human pretends to be a pixie and falls in love with the pixies and discovers how precious their world is. That is the plot of Avatar, except this new mega-production isn't handled as maturely as the kiddie movie, and it has a shitload more carnage.
Jimmy: Rapa Nui!
Filthy: I don't understand a word you're saying. One-hundred-fifty years into the future, the earth has been mined for everything worth a shit or giggle, so humans have moved on to mining alien worlds. Their interest is in a moon or planet named Pandora (Yes, seriously, it's named that on-the-nose).
Jimmy: Feno-me'go te!
Filthy: Jimmy agrees, that is a corny name because, get it, opening it up will be like, well, duh. How clever. Anyway, Pandora is a somewhat earth-like place with giant, blue humanoids living with fantastic dinosaurs, proto-mammals and flying reptiles. That's all pretty cool. As are the giant trees, the luminous plants and the "hanging" mountains. It is very King Kong is the way the humans discover and interact with a lush prehistoric world. Not so cool is the horseshit about the natives linking their pretty braids with other living things to communicate with them. That's pretty lame.
Jimmy: Ong Bak 2.
Filthy: He said I'm a genius.
Jimmy: Skxawng!
Filthy: Pandora is being strip mined by an American company that I assume, in Cameron's oversimplified analogy of the Bush-era war machine, is supposed to represent Blackwater. Oops, sorry, I mean Xe. They have huge leeway to beat the shit out of locals for their own benefit, and have all sorts of fancy, high-tech gear to do it. Robocop-style killing machines, hovering copters and big-ass guns. The hardware is a role-playing-game geek's wettest wet dream. One small and relatively ignored division of this make-believe Blackwater is a group that tries to "win the hearts and minds" of the locals by building schools and pretending to give a shit about them. That is meant to pacify them so they're easier to kill or rob.
Jimmy: Kilvan ngim lu.
Filthy: Jimmy said he likes to jerk off to Sony PS3 commercials on G4.
Jimmy: Na.
Filthy: And that he has Team Edward footie pajamas.
Jimmy: Jik jik jik!
Filthy: Avatar's hero is Jake Sully, played by Sam Worthington, an Australian playing an American but with a poorly-masked accent. Why Jake Sully? Why not Butch Brassballs or Turd Tuffguy? How about Jack Armstrong, the All-American Boy, as long as you're making up generic stud names? Speaking of which, Blackwater is on Pandora to collect the rare metal "unobtanium". No, that isn't the placeholder name director-writer James Cameron gave it in the rough first draft. He actually gave it the same name that a boring asshole office worker calls non-dairy creamer when he can't get any.
Jimmy: Chew'a inoue tonn 'nik.
Filthy: Right, you are, Jimmy. Unobtanium is also what Jimmy calls a girl who will play Evony with him.
Jimmy: Skxawng!
Filthy: Worthington is wheelchair-bound. But on Pandora, he is given control of his dead brother's avatar, a facsimile of the indigenous blue people that can be mind-controlled as it infiltrates the local culture. Just like Zack, the human shrunk to pixie size in Ferngully, Worthington drifts from his mission of figuring out how to best screw the locals. He hooks up with a Na'vi girl, falls in love, discovers how fucking precious the local rituals and traditions are, and decides to help them fight the evil, greedy corporation who wants to destroy their land.
Jimmy: Brr'rrawneee kw'kr p'krup'r.
Filthy: Beyond ripping off its plot from a cartoon for little girls, there's a bunch of other shit I thought sucked the cat's tits about Avatar. First is its patronizing vision of the indigenous people. It's like Cameron was channeling some long-haired asshole who sells turquoise roadside near Sedona. The movie treats the natives as simpletons, idiot savants full of pure goodness and new-agey magical powers, the same way guilt-ridden white people of limited intelligence think of American Indians. Cameron gives them the ability to see into the hearts of others. As far as I know, the only people who believe nonsense like that are folks with shit to hide. They're the ones who worry good people can see right through them.

The Na'vi talk to the earth and the animals. They live in harmony with nature. Through them, Cameron preaches the same simpleton back-to-the-earth bullshit as those phonies who go to Pow-wows and talk out their asses about magical American Indians. Hell, I'm surprised there isn't a cameo by Iron Eyes Cody. It's a really insincere message in a movie ripping off Ferngully's plot as its excuse for big-ass explosions and massive battles. "Fighting is bad. Here's some more!"
Jimmy: May I say something?
Filthy: I don't understand you.
Jimmy: I'm speaking English now, you moron.
Filthy: Na'vi only, Jimmy. The people who matter will understand.
Jimmy: Suck it, Uncle Filthy.
Filthy: You are disappointing your people.
Jimmy: I didn't see Ferngully. I only watch awesome movies. Like Avatar. Avatar fucking kicks ass.
Filthy: I believe that translates to, "I asked for a Ben 10 backpack or Christmas."
Jimmy: Shut up, and so what if I did? Anyone who goes to see Avatar for one of your stupid foreign-movie plots about gay people dying in filthy, weird countries is a dumbass. It's an action movie, it has its own language, and it looks so cool it deserves like a zillion of your dumb fingers. It has flying reptiles fighting helicopters. It has a guy riding a dragon. There are mountains floating in midair and these things that look like rhinos crossed with hammerhead sharks. The Na'vi chicks are sort of hot looking.
Filthy: It also has villains like Giovani Ribisi and Steven Lang. They are portrayed as meritlessly evil and vile to the point it is impossible to believe anyone would do what they ask. They aren't shaded with charm or even the hint of personality. They are just fucking cheesy bad guys. As for the good guys, Worthington at least starts out as a gung-ho marine who doesn't listen so good, but even that shading quickly disappears. As the center of the movie he's a big fat, baby-faced zilch. Michele Rodriguez as a helicopter pilot says shit like "I didn't sign up for this." What does Cameron think: he's writing the next Steven Seagal flick? The Na'vi girlfriend, voiced by Zoe Saldana, is too fucking pure to be interesting. She's Pocahontas-lite. Being that pure and simple makes your every move pretty damn predictable.
Jimmy: None of that matters! What matters is when they blow up the big tree. Or when they run through the forest and the ground lights up under their feet. Or how Cameron's computer-generated people's eyes look real, not dead.
Filthy: It matters. The story is what ties all the big-ass special effects together. It gives them context. Without something decent to think about all you're left with is a very, very pretty travelogue of a place that doesn't exist. Without a good story, you're stuck with people saying, "Oh, shit!" about a half-dozen times. People in movies should rarely shout, "Oh shit!" That's what a bad screenwriter puts on paper when he has nothing to say. Rather, the movie should make the audience say it while those on screen react.
Jimmy: Great, The Filthy Critic is putting down Avatar for saying shit. You're a hypocrite. You always were. My mom doesn’t even like you.
Filthy: If a movie is going to be 160 minutes long, it better give us something to care about.
Jimmy: I cared about the Inkaras.
Filthy: What's an Inkara?
Jimmy: Uh, derrrrr, only the flying reptiles that the Na'vi become one with. Hellllooooo? They look awesome and would be a killer chapter of a video game.
Filthy: I wouldn't say I hated Avatar, but I sure as hell didn't enjoy it.
Jimmy: Because you're retarded.
Filthy: Possibly, but I think it's because I was bored out of my fucking skull. There isn’t a beat of the movie that isn't predictable. From the first time Worthington and Saldana meet, you know they are going to hump. Only, you don't know that scene is going to be so damn cheesy and awkward. The first time you see the bigger-than-the-rest dragon and hear that only the bravest warriors can ride it, you know Worthington will. The first time you feel how slimy the bad guys are, you know how they will act and that they will lose. You also know the movie will invent some lame way to get Worthington physically into the body of his avatar so he can live with the Na'vi. Yeah, it looks great. It looks like a really nice place to go on vacation. I didn't want that, though. I wanted a good story.
Jimmy: You're an idiot.
Filthy: That's been established.
Jimmy: Six fingers for Avatar, the greatest movie ever made. Six fingers, because that's how many the Na'vi have, and I am now one of them.
Filthy: Two Fingers.
Jimmy: Everyone should be my friend on Facebook.
Filthy: What's Facebook?
Jimmy: It's Na'vi. You wouldn't understand.

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thank you.

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you don't want to talk about what he's talking about. the story of the movie.

It's understandable why you wouldn't.

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am I the only one who couldn't take this part of the movie seriously at all?

I mostly know him from bones


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the voice of the young cook working with the rat.
a trip to IMDB proved me wrong though.



7c

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But the phosphorescence was dope!

Anyone else think the plot was taken straight out of some random teen movie where the guy makes a bet but ends up falling in love with the girl and feeling guilty? Had to keep my nitpicking to myself so I didn't ruin it for the other person so this thread kinda makes me feel laid back in contrast lol.
IMHO!!!!!!!!!

does anyone care?

what was that casket thing and how come sleeping triggered the change in states?

best decision of this movie was to not explain that shit at all because it made zero sense.

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Like, how the fuck does the light saber in star wars work? Or the holo-deck in star trek...or anything in the matrix, or, or, or.

It's Science Fiction, emphasis on "Fiction"

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that's weird to me.

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Because it 'made sense' right?

foh with that.

I don't get the cloverfield obsession.

what didn't make sense about some alien monster attack in cloverfield?

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Thats at least as dumb an idea as the concept of an avatar surely.

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cuz you're clearly a crazy person.

you have to realize when you've gone too far.


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to make sense of it

like did it have something to do with how they "grew" the avatars?

was it like the matrix where they installed something in the hosts body so they could link in?

maybe i should've watched more closely but it seemed like that was something that they wanted us to take for granted.

And didn't that shell-looking thing on the lid of the coffins (for lack of a better term) help complete the body transfer?

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cuz then you'll have to ask how they stayed connected after it left the tube and why he only woke up in the coffin thing when his vatar went to sleep.

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Some serious cornballishness going on, but that's Cameron's steez.

On the visual point, worth every penny. Gorgeous looking and almost believable. CGI is still 10-20 years away from being imperceptible from reality or pseudo-reality.

Story was decent, but not worth an Oscar nod. If it wins B.P, I'll shit myself the same way I did when L.A. Confidential lost to Titanic.

A movie where the intention was never to deliver some epic, groundbreaking story....but a movie where the intention was to deliver a groundbreaking visual journey. One where the viewer actually can identify with Sully when he says 'i couldnt tell what was reality anymore' because the cgi is that ridiculous.

Yeh the movie was predictable and some of the characters def cliched(the general of course comes first to mind).....but cotdamn, the environment that was created and how immersive the movie became was amazing.

The realism of the cgi characters and some of the shots Cameron used within a cgi format have never been seen before because no one has acheived this level of detail in a cgi format before. The limitations that cgi presents were overcome. The threshold between realism and special effects has never ever come this close to being blurred. Kudos.

It was a win for Cameron even though I thought the film was only OK and the more I think of it, the less I like it. It would have been nice for some of the humans to show a bit more personality. I thought the characters were weak and the relationships were almost afterthoughts.

Oh, and even ignoring the whole accent slipups, I'm not buying Sam Worthington as the next big thing.

$350 mil domestic in 17 days.

$1 bil worldwide.

Yeah, we know, it was helped by IMAX and higher ticket prices, but still... yeah.

http://www.deadline.com/hollywood/new-years-day-another-big-avatar-payday-the-blind-side-crosses-200m-domestic/

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some of y'all are miserable as shit

Thought it was a good popcorn flick with awesome visuals.

17 day run.. CRAZY.

I love how the problem is that i'm just not enjoying life/movies/sex etc.

meanwhile the same cats refuse to discuss the plot of the movie at all

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then the white savior technique and overall cheesiness was too much

feels like i wouldnt have enjoyed it as much on regular siver screen. like my receptions compromised cause i was amazed at the screen shots. it was a beautiful movie though

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That was pretty spot on. The first thing I said coming out the theatre was that was a visually mind blowing futuristic Pocahontas, but I don't think I remembered how the two were LITERALLY identical.

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I enjoyed the movie but it would have been better if Cameron kept some of his original ideas in.

Long but interesting read...

http://chud.com/articles/articles/21969/1/PROJECT-880-THE-AVATAR-THAT-ALMOST-WAS/Page1.html

PROJECT 880: THE AVATAR THAT ALMOST WAS
By Devin Faraci Published 12/27/2009 News

This summer I wrote an article about the development process of Terminator Salvation and how it led to a movie that, in the end, didn't go as far as it could have. While I still think Salvation is a more or less okay entry in the franchise - much better than Rise of the Machines - the decisions made along the way still intrigue me. For that column I had access to original scripts and some insider info; when it comes to Avatar I don't have that. All I have is the 114 page scriptment that Cameron wrote after Titanic, a scriptment known at the time as Project 880. This scriptment is very similar to the final movie in broad strokes, but in the details it's quite different. Much has been lost from the original scriptment, and much of what has been kept was abridged. I don't have much behind the scenes info on this - I don't know why Cameron made the changes that he made - but I think a film closer to the original scriptment would have been noticeably different and, in my opinion, much, much better. Some of this would be added depth of the world - a friend who read the scriptment compared it to seeing a Harry Potter movie and then reading the book upon which it was based; all of a sudden things are richer and make more sense - but some of it would have added depth of character and emotion.

I hope you find comparisons of different phases of a movie's life as interesting as I do; I'd like to do more articles like this in the future, tracking the changes that have been made on long-in-development projects.

In the meantime, if you're sick of reading about Avatar or any of my thoughts on Avatar, please feel free to skip this article. Comments complaining about another Avatar article will be immediately deleted.

For those who don't want to read this all, some bullet points. Read the entire piece for in-depth description and analysis, but these bullet points are the main, stark differences between Project 880 and Avatar:

- Earth and its environmental problems are explored
- We see Josh Sully's Avatar being born
- It's revealed the Avatar program exists to train Na'vi to be an indigenous workforce for the Corporation, since it's so expensive to send human workers
- There are more humans, including a bioethics officer on the take, a video journalist, a head of the Avatar program and a second military dickwad
- There is an Avatar controller who is burnt out because his Avatar died with him in it. He committed Avatar suicide because he had fallen in love with a Na'vi girl who had been killed by the military
- The Avatars have a Na'vi guide named N'Deh, who is sleeping with Grace
- Grace survives the soul transfer
- Josh Sully gains the Na'vi trust by being a member of the community. He also excels in a major hunt
- Josh Sully shows his leadership not by taming a dragon but by leading a raid on Hell's Gate to rescue prisoners
- Josh Sully isn't the only Na'vi to ride a big dragon
- Pandora is a living entity and it sees the humans as a virus; it has been mobilizing the plants and animals to attack all along because it wanted to force the humans out
- There is no unobtainium beneath Hometree. The military just wants to wipe out the local Na'vi to send a message to all the tribes that they must be obeyed.
- Some of the humans and the Avatar controllers rise up in the final big battle
- Josh Sully tells the Earth that Pandora will give any humans that return a disease that will wipe out humanity

The differences between the scriptment (which I'll call Project 880 from here on in) and the finished film are immediate from the first page. In Avatar Cameron feels like he is rushing to get to the Na'vi, and we begin the movie off Earth. Project 880 spends time establishing Earth and the life of wheel-chair riding ex-Marine Josh Sully (there are a number of character name changes between 880 and Avatar); the opening page of 880 presents a very Blade Runner dystopia - rainy and gray and filthy and high tech. The people are miserable and stink because of water shortages. The entire surface of the Earth is essentially industrialized, and there are even cities spread out across the Moon. There are no longer national parks, and Yosemite is pointed out as a posh condo community. Josh lives in a megalopolis that takes up the entire Eastern seaboard of the United States, and his cramped, prison-like apartment is located where North Carolina is today.

This is the Earth of 100 years from now, and Project 880 takes its time setting this world up. Earth isn't just polluted (with filth as well as waste from nuclear terrorism) and ugly, it's literally doomed; extinctions have destroyed the planet's biodiversity and its entire ecosystem has collapsed. Humans scrape by because they can turn sea algea into food, and most waterfront property has been turned into manufacturing for the protein farms. This is an Earth where the people aren't just urban, they've completely and utterly lost touch with anything green. Keep this in mind, because this is one of the guiding elements of what makes Josh fall in love with Pandora.

Josh's cramped apartment has a huge TV screen that takes up an entire wall. It's on this TV that we learn about the state of the environment in the wake of a news report about the death of the last lion outside of captivity. Then Josh watches a report on a massive fire on the Boston subway that asphyxiated one hundred commuters; soon we'll learn one of those commuters was his twin brother.

In Avatar Jake's twin brother was killed for 'the paper in his pocket' - a robbery. It's an interesting change, probably made because it's easier to get across to the audience in a quick voice over. In Project 880 the Boston fire is a not uncommon event, and it's an illustration of the world that is quickly going to shit in every conceivable way. Project 880 has Josh attending his brother's cremation - Tommy is cremated in a cheap cardboard box in a non-descript municipal building with no ceremony, really hammering home the ugly hopelessness of Earth - and we see him sitting down to dinner with two agents of RDA, the Resources Development Alliance. In Avatar we see them come to Jake in flashback, here we see their whole spiel, a spiel that really explains why Pandora is important.

Everybody on Earth knows Pandora - it's been big news for years now. What these guys tell Josh that's really interesting (and answers a huge number of questions from Avatar) is that RDA is chartered by the ICA - Interplanetary Commerce Administration - the future Earth trade regulating body. This charter allows RDA to exploit any moon, planet, etc they want, but they must follow strict rules, chief among which is they are allowed a limited military presence and no weapons of mass destruction.

There's more. As in Avatar they want Josh because his brother has a Na'vi composite clone growing in a tank, to be used in the Avatar program. In Project 880 it's explained that this is a particularly big deal because only one in a hundred human/Na'vi composites actually take, making the Tommy Sully Avatar growing in a tank a very rare and very valuable thing indeed. And there's more: the avatar program in Project 880 isn't just a meet and greet program. Because interstellar travel takes massive amounts of energy - it essentially costs one million dollars for every pound of matter flown to Pandora - RDA is hoping to train the Na'vi as an indigenous workforce, saving them money on ferrying people back and forth. They want the Na'vi to work in Pandoran refineries - it's cheaper to refine the metals they mine on site, making them weigh less, before shipping them back home.

That's a pretty huge wrinkle to the Avatar program in general, and it makes the reasoning for spending so much money on it clearer. In Avatar it feels like a PR stunt, which is especially weird as there's no PR entity involved. In Project 880 the billions spent on Avatars means saving trillions on workers.

Another major difference: nobody promises to give Josh his legs back. In Project 880 the Avatar program itself is the way Josh gets his legs back, by being in a walking Avatar body. There's no promise of future reward for Josh, the program is the reward itself. This is one of the few places where Project 880 doesn't feel like an improvement on Avatar; while 880 really sets up why Earth needs Pandora, and why Josh would be happy to get offworld, it doesn't offer Josh a reason to ever stop being an Avatar.

And so Josh is off to Pandora. All of this is stuff that happens before the first frame of the movie Avatar. But there's still more that's different before Josh gets to Pandora. Coming out of hibernation, Josh is brought in to see the birthing of his Avatar body. It's an intriguing scene because the Avatar is shown to be alive on its own without having its controller plugged in. We're told that the newborn Avatars react better when seeing their controller in the room (the Avatar and controller have spent the entire trip linked psionically; Cameron describes it as formatting a hard drive). If the Avatar is a separate being, is it right for Sully to impose his will on it - a question that mirrors the larger question of whether humans should be imposing their will on Pandora. It's complex and intriguing, and the birth scene would have made good cinema. It also would have had Sully touching his Avatar, something that I do not believe he ever does in the film (I may miss some details about what's missing from the film; I've only seen it once. Corrections will be made to the text when pointed out).

Cameron fills the approach to Pandora with tons of jargon and science fact; I'm not sure how much any of it would have made it in any version of this movie, but there are a lot of interesting facts presented, including a description of just why those floating mountains float. It's actually a description that would have been welcome in the film, as it ties into unobtainium. In the script it's mentioned that unobtainium was the joke name for the metal, which happened to stick; unobtainium is a room-temperature super-conductor, pretty much the only reason the expense of a Pandora trip is worthwhile. It's also what makes up much of the floating mountains; Pandora, while as big as a planet, is a moon of Polyphemis, a huge gas giant with a super magnetic field. The unobtanium levitates in a high magnetic field (Cameron really explains all the science in the scriptment), and thus the mountains. Which, by the way, are very holy to Na'vi.

On Pandora Josh meets a group that is quite different from who Jake meets in Avatar. But first he discovers how deadly Pandora is - as he is disembarking from the shuttle there's a shriek from the jungle and giant sentry guns spray fire into the darkness. Immediately we see that Hell's Gate is a place that is under constant siege.

At the base Selfridge greets the newbies and gives them the speech that Quaritch gives in the film. He also drops some heavy info - no one gets colds on Pandora. See, the planet's thick biosphere has managed to create antiviruses for every single virus the humans bring with them. RDA is actually bringing those antiviruses back to Earth and curing the common cold. It's an example of the depths of what Pandora can offer - a heavy handed example, as it's a scifi version of the old trope 'the rain forest you're burning may contain the cure for cancer,' but a cool one.

Selfridge next introduces everybody to Parrish, the bioethics officer from ICA. He's there to make sure that RDA is following all the rules, and he's heavily on the take. It's a more nuanced view of how this stuff works; RDA games the system in Project 880, as opposed to being just monolithically evil in Avatar. This is how it happens in the real world, too.

The next new character is Marcia de los Santos, a videographer who sends home footage for advertising and PR.

Next is Giese, the head of the Avatar program. This is not the Sigourney Weaver character from Avatar, but rather a new character and her superior.

Finally Josh meets Quaritch, and right from the start doesn't like him. Quaritch seems impressed with Josh's disability, so Josh tells him he got injured drunkenly falling out a window at a base party. Quaritch doesn't like the attitude.

Josh's meeting with Grace, the Weaver character, is more or less the same (with the cigarettes and everything); his first Avatar link experience involves him first meeting a couple of Pandoran creatures that are set up in a small zoo on the base. Among these are weird fish that I can't recall from Avatar.

The next big change is the first Avatar link. In the film Jake wakes up in his Avatar body, has no trouble adjusting and then disobeys every single order given to him and runs around in the wild. In Project 880 it's nothing like that. Josh can barely stand, and his motor skills are weak. But when he gets on his feet and begins walking he has a very different reaction than Jake Sully - he cries.

It's a great moment, a truly beautiful little character moment. Jake Sully acted like a kid who had finally been let out of a car after a long ride; Josh acts like someone who never thought they would walk again.

In Project 880 the strange hotness of Grace's Avatar doesn't go unnoted - 'Ain't I a babe?' she says when Josh first sees her.

Project 880 then has a long montage of the weeks of training Josh undergoes to learn to control his Avatar (including basketball, as seen in the film). Meanwhile, Quaritch is telling Selfridge that attacks are getting worse; he's lost twice as many men as he did last year, and he's already blown through his ammo budget. Selfridge tells Quaritch to cut a newer, bigger safety perimeter around Hell's Gate.

In Avatar we are told how deadly Pandora is. In Project 880 we are shown it. Quaritch, outfitted in a power suit, walks with the huge machines that clearcut trees around Hell's Gate. He sees the forms of Na'vi in the woods, and fires on them. Stingbats attack him and he splatters them. Then nettle plants shoot little needles at him. We see the planet attacking the humans, and we see Quaritch having a good time killing the planet.

The controllers are presented as sort of MMORPG players - kind of smelly, pale, only interested in being plugged in to the computers. They all eat together in the mess hall, and they're served by a guy who seems like a drug addict. But it turns out his story is crazier, and the fact that he was left out of Avatar mystifies me.

The guy is Hegner, and he used to be a controller - until his Avatar body was killed by a Slinth (a creature I don't believe is in the final movie). And not just killed - eaten alive. The shock of experiencing his own death and then the withdrawl from his Avatar has left Hegner a shell. And it gets better; later in the film it's revealed that Hegner committed Avatar suicice because he had fallen in love with a Na'vi girl and married her - and she was killed in an incident where five Na'vi were shot by human soldiers. This incident caused the rift between Na'vi and humans, and is the reason why the Avatars are no longer working with the Na'vi.

Hegner's story is the dark counterpoint to Josh/Jake's, and it's integral, if only because it shows us what happens when an Avatar dies. In Avatar it's vague, and then at the end is shown to be sort of no big deal; with Hegner we see that it's a major issue and is about more than inconvenience. Hegner's failed romance also reflects Sully's coming romance, and it establishes the idea that 'going native' is actually an issue, not something that begins with this crippled guy.

When Josh makes his first trip into the brush of Pandora he has a very different reaction than Jake - Josh has never seen a forest. Ever. He's actually kind of scared of it, and he doesn't know how to deal with it. Grace has to lead him through it all, showing him what he can and can't touch. In Project 880 the Avatars can see into the ultraviolet spectrum, and the fauna looks very different to them. It's hinted that there are POV shots.

Josh's first trip into the wilds of Pandora does not end with him being separated from the others, and his first Na'vi is not the one he falls in love with. The Avatars have a Na'vi guide, named N'Deh, and this is the first Na'vi Sully gets to know. This makes it seem less like he falls in love with the first alien he encounters. While his first trip isn't a disaster, there's a big problem - the human security detail decides to kill three direhorses while waiting for the research team. N'Deh is heartbroken, while Grace is furious. The human security guy is about to shoot Grace in the head when Josh throws him twenty feet, breaking his arm.

This leads to an interesting philosophical point back at base: no court would convict that guy of killing a cloned biological construct. It's another moment where the super-otherness of the Avatars is highlighted. But while the philosophy is interesting, it all leads to a very concrete situation: Geise wants them out of Hell's Gate. He sends Grace and the rest of her Avatar team to a remote site to work.

In Project 880 the remote site is there because the flying mountains screw up the psionic link with the Avatars, so they need a stronger signal closer to the mountains. Grace and the team head to the mountains to do some research and it's here that Josh gets separated from the crew.

While Avatar has Jake running from a couple of monsters, Project 880 is way more involved. First, Josh is snatched by a Medusa, a huge flying jellyfish, which takes him off the floating mountain on which the team is working. As Josh tries to get free the team follows in their chopper, which gets crashed by a leonoptyrx (the huge dragon that Jake rides at the end of the movie). Josh kills the Medusa, but ends up in a tree made of snake heads. Then he ends up meeting the animals that Jake meets in Avatar, but he has less of a chase with the Manticore (that's 880's version of the Thanator).

Interestingly, the creatures in Project 880 act more like real animals than the ones in Avatar. The Manticore doesn't really care about Josh - it's just attacking the big rhino monster he was staring down (much as Jake stares one down in Avatar). And the Medusa gets killed largely because bansheerays attack it, drawn by blood from Josh hacking at its tentacles.

While all of this is happening, a Na'vi is watching Josh. As night falls and Pandora becomes bioluminescent, Josh finds himself surrounded by viperwolves. He doesn't make a torch, though, which makes sense as how would an ultra-city boy ever think to make a torch? He fights off the viperwolves best he can and is rescued by Zuleika, Project 880's Neytiri. Except in Project 880 she doesn't save Josh because a puff fell on her arrow - she does it because she likes his bravery.

Josh follows her into the forest; much of this is the same as Avatar, except with many, many animals along the way. There are dozens more species in Project 880, some of which are truly weird. The slinger throws its head at enemies; the head is actually its young - it's complicated and very bizarre. Then there are Moonwraiths, odd insects that swarm together to look like a bansheeray.

As in Avatar Josh does eventually get covered in puffballs, which gives Zuleika, who has a crush on him, an excuse to bring him to the village. And Grace and the team are already in the village. This is a major departure from Avatar, obviously.

The head of the clan decide to keep Josh around, and they want Zuleika to train him as a Na'vi - for reasons that seem sort of dilettantish, saying they want to see if it's possible. There's a montage, much like the one in Avatar, but interestingly the Project 880 montage has much more of Josh involved in the Na'vi community life, to the point of having a scene where he is teaching Na'vi kids how to play baseball. The differences in the hunting and such seem to come down to Project 880's Pandora having a much, much wider biodiversity than Avatar's, but otherwise it's all similar montages.

After taming his bansheeray, Josh engages in a massive hunt with the Na'vi, which is being filmed by de los Santos, and in which he is incredible. Everybody is very impressed with Josh's feats, except the rival guy in the tribe (the same dude as in Avatar). Back at the Hometree there's a big dance; we see that the Na'vi use the bioluminescent spots on their body to tell stories and express emotion. We also see that Grace is actually schtupping N'Deh.

It turns out that Grace is very close to the Na'vi, but Josh has gotten closer. It's explained that because she's a scientist Grace can't quite throw herself into the animistic world of the Na'vi, but Josh has no compunction - he has come to them like a baby, totally unfamiliar with nature, and has learned to see it through their eyes (a huge thematic element in both 880 and Avatar, but much more clear in 880).

Much of what comes next in Project 880 is the same as in Avatar: Josh and Zuleika go off and do it, and are woken up by the machinery crashing through the jungle. In Project 880 Josh has never worked for Quiritch, though, and Grace tries to stop the machines by calling Parrish, but he's so in the bag to RDA that he can't help at all. Josh tells the Na'vi what the humans are up to, everybody is mad at him. As he fights the alpha male guy, the soldiers pull Josh out of his Avatar link.

The Avatar program is shut down. Giese explains that the real treasure on Pandora is the biodiversity and that the world holds more secrets. How did it wipe out the cold? How do the Na'vi communicate long distances? If RDA fucks this one tribe, the other tribes will know.

Selfridge doesn't care. He thinks Avatar is a failure, and they'll never get the Na'vi to work for them. Instead he'll breed his own slave Na'vi race from the Avatar bodies. Everybody is being sent home.

In the forest we see that the humans are cutting a firebreak. They set a huge chunk of the forest ablaze.

Josh runs to the controller room and delivers an impassioned speech telling the other controllers that Pandora is Eden, not hell. That the Na'vi are being fucked and only the controllers can really understand. They won't rise up, though - the pay is too good.

That night a Na'vi raiding party attacks Hell's Gate and destroys machinery. That gives Quaritch the excuse he needs and he launches an attack on Hometree. In Avatar they want Hometree because of the unobtanium beneath it; in Project 880 it's all in the mountains. In 880 Quaritch wants to send a message to all the Na'vi on Pandora by wiping out this tribe - this is the shock and awe campaign he's talking about in Avatar, and the night raid was the terror he says must be met with terror. Those lines are obvious holdovers from the Project 880 script.

de los Santos tells Josh the attack is happening. He and Grace hijack the controller room (Josh breaks a soldier's nose) and de los Santos keeps guard as they jack in. Much of what happens here is the same as the movie, except with more mech suit action. Also, Zuleika is captured by the humans.

Eventually the soldiers get into the controller room, and there's a small fight and Josh and Grace and de los Santos are put in jail. It's Hegner who breaks them out, though, and he's the one who stays behind as Josh's man on the inside.

Parrish flips out that RDA is burning the forest, but he's threatened into silence.

Grace is mortally wounded, she dies in the Well of Souls. N'Deh takes her Avatar body away to keep it alive.

Josh has a plan to free Zuleika and the other captured Na'vi. He gets identity cards from Hegner, and he and a raiding party slip into Hell's Gate. They rescue the prisoners but get caught on the way out. There's a huge chase/running battle as the Na'vi head back into the forest.

All of the local Na'vi have assembled in a holy valley. Josh gives them a speech and when it's over he gets congratulated by... Grace. She's alive in her Na'vi body. They did a soul transfer.

She tells Josh that Pandora is alive. It's the Gaia theory - planet as bio-organism - writ large. Pretty much the same explanation as in Avatar, but with more detail, and with the allusion that maybe Earth was like this. But this is why the colds get cured, and why the animals kept attacking - the humans are seen by Pandora as a virus. The planet is trying to expel them. Josh wants to know if the planet can be told the true extent of the threat, and they try to talk to Gaia.

The next morning the humans attack, and in Project 880 the wildlife are in the fight from the start. Josh rides a leonopteryx, but it's no big deal for the Na'vi, since his rival, the alpha male guy, is also riding one.

de los Santos flies around in a helicopter with Chacon (the Michelle Rodriguez character, who has not been terribly prominent), sending a live feed back to the base so that the human workers can see what the military is doing.

Back at Hell's Gate, Norm Cheesman (the Joel David Moore character in Avatar), who has not been involved in any of this, has seen enough, links in to his Avatar and takes up arms. So do the rest of the Avatars.

All of the many animals of Project 880 battle the humans, including a huge swarm of Medusae.

At Hell's Gate Selfridge wants to blow up the link room, but Parrish finally finds his balls and puts a gun to Selfridge's head, telling him no way.

There's a second military jerk, Wainfleet, who takes on some of Quaritch's jerkiness. When the alpha Na'vi rival guy is injured, Wainfleet scalps him, cutting off his braid, which plugs him into the planet. He's the guy in a mech with a big knife, not Quaritch; Zuleika and her Manticore (Thanator in the movie) kill him.

Quaritch gets in a mech suit and heads to the remote base, where Josh's body is. He and Josh's Avatar fight, but instead of killing him, Josh lets a pack of direwolves rip him apart.

They've won. Josh and the Avatars take control of the base. Some Avatars will stay, all humans will go. Josh does a video with de los Santos, telling Earth that Pandora will not allow humans to step foot on it again, so don't bother coming back. In fact, if humans come again, Pandora will send them home with a horrible virus that will wipe out humanity. Josh tells Norm there really isn't such a virus.

Just like in the movie, Project 880 ends with Josh transferring his consciousness into his Avatar. The end.

The changes are major and go throughout. The third act is the closest to Avatar, but Project 880's greater biodiversity and larger cast makes the ending somewhat different.

The major changes are in character beats and story points. Obviously, much of Project 880 should have been condensed, but some elements - like Josh proving his leadership in the great hunt and cementing it in the raid on Hell's Gate, are so good you wonder why they got cut. Also, Hegner, the shattered controller, seems like a weird cut to make. He adds a layer of pathos as well as drama - we see what will happen if our heroes' Avatars are killed.

Some of the action set pieces are a bit much. The scene where Josh gets cut off from the team would be over 20 minutes long if shot as written. That said, the first Na'vi raid on Hell's Gate feels very important; the natives getting restless makes the big battle feel more organic. In Avatar the humans attack Hometree because they're just sick of waiting to get at the unobtainium. Moving unobtanium to Hometree makes much of Avatar's storytelling more streamlined, but it also makes the flying mountains nothing but a novelty and creates a weird lack of urgency in the humans' mission.

The survival of Grace is a welcome change. While it makes Josh's switch at the end less 'dangerous,' it isn't too dangerous in the movie anyway. Grace is gutshot - it seems likely that she would be too far gone to save. Of course 880 Josh has nothing to lose - he has no legs to gain, his homeworld sucks, he has no family, and he knows he won't die in the transfer - but Josh is a much more active hero than Jake Sully. His affinity for Pandora is also explained in a way that's very convincing and that Jake's never is. We see Josh fall in love with the planet and understand why his mind is so blown.

The addition of more humans is welcome, also. Parrish's arc is nice because it not only shows that it's never too late to change, it shows that not all humans are dicks. In Avatar it's only the humans in the Avatar program (and only the small hero group) who get the problem on Pandora; in Project 880 many of the humans figure it out. And more importantly, we see the other controllers stepping up - they're missing at the end of Avatar.

I would liked to have seen a movie version of Project 880. I can't say for sure why Cameron so severely streamlined his own story, but 880 feels like a Cameron film. Avatar feels like the footnotes of that. Many of the problems I had with Avatar's story are addressed in Project 880's scriptment. I like Josh Sully better than Jake, although I suspect my biggest problem with the character lies in Sam Worthington. But other characters have more flesh, and the story unfolds at a pace that feels interesting and not like it's on rails. Project 880 relies less on Josh being ordained or chosen and more on him proving his worth. He's never torn between humans and Na'vi (although he barely is in Avatar; the scenes of Jake informing to Quaritch feel really perfunctory and the two characters seem to have no relationship), and he doesn't become the leader of the Na'vi in quite the obvious way he does in Avatar (it's hard to say who he's leading at the end of Project 880, but it's probably just the remaining Avatars and few support workers, not the Na'vi themselves). The rival alpha male guy is also given his own role and moments, and his death feels actually tragic.

Project 880 isn't much more subtle with its allusions than Avatar; at one point Josh actually compares the plight of the Na'vi to the Sioux and the Navajo. The scriptment also has very little dialogue, although what is in there tends to stink ("I'm your wingman, babe," Josh says to Zulieka when he first tames his bansheeray), so no improvement there.

Obviously this scriptment would have made a five hour movie. Things needed to be cut. I just wish Cameron had been able to keep the decent story and rounded characters along with his deeply designed world. But when you're spending that much money, it's the story and characters that get canned before the FX.

Thats if this is real

************************

damn hollywood's contempt for its audience is something ain't it?

and shows even better what a complete pile of shit avatar is in comparison.

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>- Earth and its environmental problems are explored
this would just highlight the central allegorical flaw that Pandora is really NOT like Earth, because unlike Pandora, Mother Earth is just a figure of speech

>- We see Josh Sully's Avatar being born
gross

>- It's revealed the Avatar program exists to train Na'vi to be
>an indigenous workforce for the Corporation, since it's so
>expensive to send human workers

the anti-capitalist streak is thankfully kept to a minimal 'we've got precious ore, a douchebag CEO and a private army' cliché, if Cameron actually went into more detail about the corporation it would just get offensive

>- There are more humans, including a bioethics officer on the
>take, a video journalist, a head of the Avatar program and a
>second military dickwad

a bioethics issue to, like, highlight the complex ethical issues for us? FOH
Jake Sully takes on the video journalism duties, thereby giving more depth to his character

>- There is an Avatar controller who is burnt out because his
>Avatar died with him in it. He committed Avatar suicide
>because he had fallen in love with a Na'vi girl who had been
>killed by the military

painting the corporation as villainous from the get-go, removing any tension in the plot completely

>- The Avatars have a Na'vi guide named N'Deh, who is sleeping
>with Grace

so romance supplants any other motivating values/principles

>- Grace survives the soul transfer

the deal was just to try and save her; the fact she died and Jake still recognized the best-intentions of the Na'vi and kept up his side of the bargain reinforced the newfound trust between both parties

>- Josh Sully gains the Na'vi trust by being a member of the
>community. He also excels in a major hunt

doesn't he, like, do that in the film?

>- Josh Sully shows his leadership not by taming a dragon but
>by leading a raid on Hell's Gate to rescue prisoners

so instead of a half hour segment whereby Jake Sully just uses his extra bravery and tactical know-how to rescue prisoners who only exist for this purpose, we get a 30 second badass clip where he turns Na'vi mythos/superstition to his advantage by mounting a fucking flying dragon. the latter is just a tad more inventive

>- Josh Sully isn't the only Na'vi to ride a big dragon

see previous point

>- Pandora is a living entity and it sees the humans as a
>virus; it has been mobilizing the plants and animals to attack
>all along because it wanted to force the humans out

as if the anti-man, anti-technology, anti-life motif isn't strong enough, the now get told by the good guys that the human race is a VIRUS?


>- There is no unobtainium beneath Hometree. The military just
>wants to wipe out the local Na'vi to send a message to all the
>tribes that they must be obeyed.

yeah thereby removing any complexity of motives and moral ambiguity whatsoever and just boiling it down to 'good vs. obviously evil'. they shoulda had the colonel guy choke one of his lieutenants at the start for not being hard enough on the natives

>- Some of the humans and the Avatar controllers rise up in the
>final big battle

(that's what happened)

>- Josh Sully tells the Earth that Pandora will give any humans
>that return a disease that will wipe out humanity

so the potential learning of new/better principles is replaced by simple fear

naw all that stuff was taken out for obvious reasons (if it's even real)

your opinion is invalid.

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maybe i'll make a separate post to explaining why
maybe you'll make a post actually addressing anybody's points
who knows

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http://www.nytimes.com/2010/01/08/opinion/08brooks.html

January 8, 2010
Op-Ed ColumnistThe Messiah Complex By DAVID BROOKS
Every age produces its own sort of fables, and our age seems to have produced The White Messiah fable.

This is the oft-repeated story about a manly young adventurer who goes into the wilderness in search of thrills and profit. But, once there, he meets the native people and finds that they are noble and spiritual and pure. And so he emerges as their Messiah, leading them on a righteous crusade against his own rotten civilization.

Avid moviegoers will remember “A Man Called Horse,” which began to establish the pattern, and “At Play in the Fields of the Lord.” More people will have seen “Dances With Wolves” or “The Last Samurai.”

Kids have been given their own pure versions of the fable, like “Pocahontas” and “FernGully.”

It’s a pretty serviceable formula. Once a director selects the White Messiah fable, he or she doesn’t have to waste time explaining the plot because everybody knows roughly what’s going to happen.

The formula also gives movies a little socially conscious allure. Audiences like it because it is so environmentally sensitive. Academy Award voters like it because it is so multiculturally aware. Critics like it because the formula inevitably involves the loincloth-clad good guys sticking it to the military-industrial complex.

Yet of all the directors who have used versions of the White Messiah formula over the years, no one has done so with as much exuberance as James Cameron in “Avatar.”

“Avatar” is a racial fantasy par excellence. The hero is a white former Marine who is adrift in his civilization. He ends up working with a giant corporation and flies through space to help plunder the environment of a pristine planet and displace its peace-loving natives.

The peace-loving natives — compiled from a mélange of Native American, African, Vietnamese, Iraqi and other cultural fragments — are like the peace-loving natives you’ve seen in a hundred other movies. They’re tall, muscular and admirably slender. They walk around nearly naked. They are phenomenal athletes and pretty good singers and dancers.

The white guy notices that the peace-loving natives are much cooler than the greedy corporate tools and the bloodthirsty U.S. military types he came over with. He goes to live with the natives, and, in short order, he’s the most awesome member of their tribe. He has sex with their hottest babe. He learns to jump through the jungle and ride horses. It turns out that he’s even got more guts and athletic prowess than they do. He flies the big red bird that no one in generations has been able to master.

Along the way, he has his consciousness raised. The peace-loving natives are at one with nature, and even have a fiber-optic cable sticking out of their bodies that they can plug into horses and trees, which is like Horse Whispering without the wireless technology. Because they are not corrupted by things like literacy, cellphones and blockbuster movies, they have deep and tranquil souls.

The natives help the white guy discover that he, too, has a deep and tranquil soul.

The natives have hot bodies and perfect ecological sensibilities, but they are natural creatures, not history-making ones. When the military-industrial complex comes in to strip mine their homes, they need a White Messiah to lead and inspire the defense.

Our hero leaps in, with the help of a pack of dinosaurs summoned by Mother Earth. As he and his fellow freedom fighters kill wave after wave of Marines or former Marines or whatever they are, he achieves the ultimate prize: He is accepted by the natives and can spend the rest of his life in their excellent culture.

Cameron’s handling of the White Messiah fable is not the reason “Avatar” is such a huge global hit. As John Podhoretz wrote in The Weekly Standard, “Cameron has simply used these familiar bromides as shorthand to give his special-effects spectacular some resonance.” The plotline gives global audiences a chance to see American troops get killed. It offers useful hooks on which McDonald’s and other corporations can hang their tie-in campaigns.

Still, would it be totally annoying to point out that the whole White Messiah fable, especially as Cameron applies it, is kind of offensive?

It rests on the stereotype that white people are rationalist and technocratic while colonial victims are spiritual and athletic. It rests on the assumption that nonwhites need the White Messiah to lead their crusades. It rests on the assumption that illiteracy is the path to grace. It also creates a sort of two-edged cultural imperialism. Natives can either have their history shaped by cruel imperialists or benevolent ones, but either way, they are going to be supporting actors in our journey to self-admiration.

It’s just escapism, obviously, but benevolent romanticism can be just as condescending as the malevolent kind — even when you surround it with pop-up ferns and floating mountains.

. It also
>creates a sort of two-edged cultural imperialism. Natives can
>either have their history shaped by cruel imperialists or
>benevolent ones, but either way, they are going to be
>supporting actors in our journey to self-admiration.

This is a really great pithy summing up of my problems with Avatar, and indeed many other similar films. I really enjoyed it on the whole, but that there is nothing but truth.

99.9% of the movies we actually do like have white boys saving the day in whatever scenario you choose.

From Die Hard to The Matrix to Star Wars to Rambo, white boys will make movies that white boys will like.

At some point you either have to ignore it or be more selective in what films you choose to see.

************************

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I don't know, you seem to think OKP is the engadget forums where you rule supreme over pimply faced nerds with these one liners of yours. You're wasting your time fam, you're not in the least bit intimidating with that shit.

*sigh* But carry on doggie, it's what you do.

Anyway, my point is irrefutable. Whiteboy saving the day is 99% of all blockbusters and 100% of all Cameron films. Getting mad at it at this point is like railing at the wind.

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There's a world of difference between an action movie with a white protagonist and a movie about racial divides where the non-whites need the whites to sort shit out.

Secondly I do ignore that stuff, and as I said, I still really enjoyed Avatar.

But I should point out that it wasn't Jake that won them the war, the planet pretty much defended itself in the end implying that it would have done so with or without Jakes involvement. This fact is one of those that's purposely designed to get overlooked until you think about it a minute.

And secondly, in the end Jake specifically turned his back on being "white" anyway.

I do wonder if we'd be having this conversation if Jake had been played by Will Smith tho.

And also it was implied he convinced the planet to defend itself by talking to the tree (god that sounds absurd when you write it down!).

Also, I'm gonna take some leaps here, but him rejecting being white was kinda like the ultimate white fantasy of being down with the ethnics.

There's one aspect of it which I keep repeating but seems to have been lost on a lot of people: Tsu'tey immediately wanted to attack the humans. Jake was one of the most important factors in them not doing so. Then Jake comes back on a fucking bird and suddenly it was some kind of masterplan. The way Tsu'tey and Jake were portrayed in the movie (Tsu'tey - African accent/seemingly ignorant and irrational; and Jake - White American accent and appearance - voice of reason and conscience) summed up the bullshit. They both basically had the same ethos, only Tsu'tey never wavered from the right path, but somehow the story arc made Jake the hero. They needed the white man.

Meh - these are ramblings. As I said, I really don't care.

n/m

The shiny white messiah nonsense along with
the insipid dialogue and forgettable characters
made this movie mind-numbingly boring.
Why are people of color around the world
patronizing this mediocre movie? Aren't they
tired of this narrative being rammed down their
throats?

all-time. Ever.

Viva Hegemony-- er, Liberal White Guilt!

EDIT: Oops, forgot to mention that this was done in 20 days...

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and it really is damn near a Phantom Menace-level of crappiness in regards to the story-telling.

So damn near the crappiness of Phantom Menace dude had to go back and re-check for the margin of error.

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http://www.cnn.com/2010/SHOWBIZ/Movies/01/11/avatar.movie.blues/index.html

these people have some issues.

I wonder if these people have done any traveling at all. We got pretty shit all over.

wearing 3d glasses watching avatar.. too much

I think I can be too arrogant thinking the general public are idiots.

Then sometimes I read stuff like this. Fuck me.

If you thought that shit sounded ridiculous....


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LOL. Although I guess a bunch of screenplays were ineligible because the writers weren't WGA members.

Orignal Screenplay
James Cameron, "Avatar"
Scott Neustadter & Michael H. Weber, "(500) Days of Summer"
Jon Lucas & Scott Moore, "The Hangover"
Mark Boal, "The Hurt Locker"
Joel & Ethan Coen, "A Serious Man"

Adapted Screenplay
Scott Cooper,"Crazy Heart," based on the novel by Thomas Cobb
Nora Ephron, "Julie & Julia," adapted from "Julie & Julia" by Julie Powell and "My Life in France," by Julia Child and Alex Prud'homme
Geoffrey Fletcher, "Precious," adapted from the novel, "Push" by Sapphire
Roberto Orci & Alex Kurtzman, "Star Trek"
Jason Reitman & Sheldon Turner, "Up in the Air," based on the novel by Walter Kirn

Documentary
Richard Trank, "Against the Tide"
Michael Moore, "Capitalism: A Love Story"
Mark Monroe, "The Cove"
Robert Stone, "Earth Days"
Chris Rock, Jeff Stilson, Lance Crouther & Chuck Sklar,"Good Hair"
Bill Guttentag & Dan Sturman, "Soundtrack for a Revolution"

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Not even close

----------------------------



O_E: Your Super-Ego's Favorite Poster.


"I ORBITs the solar system, listenin..."

(C)Keith Murray, "Cosmic Slop"

I liked it a lot.

I saw the Pocahontas, Dances With Wolves shit in the movie, I saw the very simplistic plot and still enjoyed the shit out of it.

If ya liked it, that's great, if you couldn't get past the plot holes and unbelievability of traveling for 6 years in a Chryo chamber, then maybe SciFi ain't for you.

I enjoyed that 3-D I enjoyed the visual spectacle.

I'll prolly end up watching it again whether that be Blu Ray or whatever.

Cool film.

I still don't believe it'll pass Titanic domestically. I'm predicting 560 million though.

And 10 Oscar nominations.
---------------------------------------
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---------------------------------------

in about 2 weeks -- hell, it might even do it next week

The movie averages a dropoff of about 20% per week, which is amazing...

Titanic is not an unreachable goal at this point...

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no amount of money makes this movie not suck dick.

that project 880 script just means even cameron knows what a good movie is, and what this isn't, no matter how many pleas you fools cop.

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I thought Eli would edge out Avatar this weekend but Cameron killed them for a fifth week...

That #2 spot looks almost imminent now. I think Avatar might just end up the new king of the B.O. by the end of awards season.

it's environmentalist propaganda
how did nobody else call this?

i see people mentioning the 'noble savage' idea without elaborating. you realize this means glorifying/romanticizing the life of 'man in the state of nature' and ignoring the horrible hardships such a life entails?

that's what the film does. it gorges you on beautiful 3d CGI for two hours, plants archetypal characters and themes to stir your emotions, then resolves everything in a massive battle to protect the value of nature and natural living.

of course for everything to be so archetypal and un-nuanced it helps to be on a sure-footing philosophically - which Avatar isn't, with its demonization of industry and human greed/ambition, all of which is heavily bungled. not only is the philosophy wrong (like most films), but it's not expressed with any credibility or rigour.

which means there's no need to take that side of the film seriously and you can just revel in the aesthetic value. which is immense, despite the script being pretty dry

(as far as plot holes go, i mean it's not really that bad by sci-fi standards, only some minor convenience shenanigans)

*shrugs*

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"If you don't admit it, you're a fag."

You haven't posted like a fag for several years, RJ.

Glad to see old faggy Rjcc is back.

----------------------------



O_E: Your Super-Ego's Favorite Poster.


"I ORBITs the solar system, listenin..."

(C)Keith Murray, "Cosmic Slop"

cover up th fact you have no point.

you prolly haven't even seen this shit. it would fit your m.o.

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I sure have seent it, and the movie was pure heat rocks

Shit was outstanding


Cry


----------------------------



O_E: Your Super-Ego's Favorite Poster.


"I ORBITs the solar system, listenin..."

(C)Keith Murray, "Cosmic Slop"

still no points. ty.



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I'm not going to say it's the best film I've ever seen, but I can't think of another theater EXPERIENCE that had me this riveted to my seat.

Obvious Pocahontas and Dances with Wolves similarities. A good amount of stupid dialogue. Giant holes in the plot....and all of that gets a pass due to the visuals, which are unprecedented.

Sorry to say it, but from now on when people discuss the visual aspects of film in its evolution, it will have to be in terms of pre- or post-Avatar.

A very good friend of mine told me that her and her husband went, on New Year’s eve, to see Avatar in 3D at the IMAX. I instantly asked her “Wasn’t it amazing?”. She was underwhelmed by the film, she said, adding “You’re going to have to explain to me what was so great about it because I really didn’t care for it.” I went on and on about just how amazing I felt it looked and brought up several of my favorite parts. Her response then was, “Okay…what was so amazing about it , ASIDE from how it looked?”…and I think that’s the whole crux of the argument.

Inwardly I couldn’t help but feel like she missed the point entirely. I mean her and her husband went to the IMAX 3D to see the film, just like several hundreds of people that day, that week, that entire month. The local IMAX has been filled to capacity for Avatar since it opened, pretty much unheard of. I myself didn’t see it at the IMAX, only because I was impatient and didn’t want to wait another day to see it as the 12:30 showing and all the rest for that day were sold out, but I drove to two other theaters before finding one with tickets for the 3D showing…at 7pm. That theater was showing it in 3D and regularly and it seemed like both of those choices were packed with moviegoers. My whole contention is this: There’s a REASON why this film is historically popular in 3D and at the IMAX…and it has fuck all to with the story, the characters, the dialogue, exposition, score, etc…Its because James Cameron has made a 180 minute orgasm for your eyes.

As of today, January 15, 2010, people don’t even NEED to go see films at the theaters. They can download them to their TV, their computers, their gaming stations, even to their “phones” ((which is really just another computer)) and watch an immeasurable number of films. The whole reason large movie screens exist is because when film was created, due to the limitations of the technology at the time, the only way to play back the recorded events was to project the image onto a large screen. The size of the screen naturally spurred the profit motivation in several individuals, as all new technology does for those with foresight, and they began charging people to come in and see the newfangled “moving pictures”. These screenings weren’t of “movies” as we know them today but they were of simple things like a boat rocking on the water, a train pulling into a station, and of a farmer tilling his field. It was amazing enough to actually see a moving image that didn’t actually exist to get people to turn out and watch. Soon enough though, people with a more artistic bent began utilizing this new technology to express themselves creatively; again, as all new technology is utilized by those with foresight. George Mêlées comes to mind.

I honestly think Avatar is “game-changing” in that way. Filmmakers are going to have to make amazing spectacles for people to want to step out of their homes and continue watching a huge screen for a couple of hours. It would be wonderful if it could be done with a fantastic script and strong story, but even if a trend continues on with films like Avatar, with dialogue sounding like it was written by the Expositron 6000, then I’m still going to call it amazing.

©


Dolby sound will be then top crowned, when I put the needle into your groove
I got a good thing...and in full swing

strictly on the visuals ... I usually don't nit pick at a story but this shit here treats you like you're 5

So you give full access to dude just because he's the first warrior avatar? From that minute on the story was done ... things only got worse from there. Characters doing shit with no back reason or purpose just makes it hard to take seriously or total lose yourself in the film.
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Also, $516.8 mil and counting, plus another likely #1 weekend

Cry your fucking four eyes out

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(insert Cam'ron "U Mad" gif here)

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except, it is you who are mad.

I'm just right.

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Seriously wtf is that supposed to mean? So because people are flocking to a 3D movie with great visuals that somehow disproves what I'm saying about the story or characters? All we have to do is look at the top movies & TV shows to know the public really don't give a shit about quality story telling ... I mean if you liked the movie great... It doesn't piss me off or anything. But my wife and I getting bored watching a video game for 3 hours somehow makes us mad?
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Again, you didn't like the flick, that's your deal, but I'm trumpeting these numbers mainly because they don't happen that often

Not that I really owe you or anyone else here an explanation, but anyone who posts or lurks with regularity around here knows that I don't usually trumpet box office numbers UNLESS they are mind-boggling and thus a major part of the story of the film's success... and like it or not, Avatar's numbers are certainly mind-boggling...

I mean, for a big film that opened on as many screens as it did to have an average week-to-week drop rate of around 15-20% is STAGGERING and virtually unheard of... THAT's why I'll continue to be in here with reports on the numbers. You can choose to continue to be pissy about it or not, I really don't care. It just so happens that a film that I dug is doing well-deserved phenomenal box office, and you didn't. It is what it is.

What you do with your time is your business, in regards to reading and (over)analyzing my posts, but I'm still going to be here, talking shit about the amazing success of this film. As far as I can tell, no one's holding a gun to your head and asking you to read what I write. So you should probably save yourself any further consternation and simply stop doing so.

Thank you.

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That's fucking bananas.

Regardless, shit was really good. 3D IMAX was the way to see it, too. Few people can create a world of their own, and even fewer can do it with acting that isn't laughably bad. Well done, JC. Well done indeed.

And yeah, I was a serious skeptic.

Those Pandora at night shots were breathtaking.

They were fighting back. Wonderful.

Every other vertebrate we encountered on Pandora from the horses to both types of dinosaur birds to the regular birds to the weird wolf/puma things to those hammer-head elephants had four forelimbs...it would be strange for the Na'vi to have shed that evolutionary trait.

Just nerding up the place for y'all. Watched it again today with the fam (shit's still selling out in my city), and that shit was bugging me.

That's a whole lotta dick suckin'... this post's gonna look GREAT in the Archives...

*c-walks outta post*

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See the anger, be the anger

<----- NOOOOOOPE! © Basa
He the king... KING!

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cuz lord knows, and this post proves, you'll never discuss the actual movie.

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"Avatar was that john blaze shit, god" <---done



Mad?




----------------------------



O_E: Your Super-Ego's Favorite Poster.


"I ORBITs the solar system, listenin..."

(C)Keith Murray, "Cosmic Slop"

"Respond to my failed agenda switching and 'Go to hell and die' film discussion jumpoffs or be labeled an intellectual fraud!"

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you'd prefer not to admit it, and will avoid doing so by simply not talking about it.

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What is there to talk about? I, others here, and about a billion dollars worth of people liked the movie, you didn't. You really think that by sitting up and bitching-- er, "just asking questions" about the movie's "plot holes" that you're going to change niggas' minds? You honestly believe that by making 350 posts in a 500+ post thread that you're going to foster a serious film discussion? Especially since all you're really known for is being a trolling asshole?

"Yeah, Rjcc right y'all, this movie is ass, lemme go get my money back." FOH, nigga.

And don't give me that "I just want to understand" shit, either. You know exactly why you're "just asking questions" here.

I also love how you're following each of my posts on some "yeah, you don't want to answer my questions and have film discussion so that means"... what, exactly? What exactly is that supposed to mean? That I'm somehow avoiding "serious film discussion" with you because I don't know shit plus it will mean that you're "right" and also change my mind about liking the film once I see all the flaws that you oh-so-dutifully pointed out?

Or is it more likely that I don't wish to engage trolls in "serious film discussion," the likes of which (on your end) usually consists of such "serious" film discussion points as, "Yeah, well you watch shit shows" and "Fuck you, you dumb bitch?" You really think niggas are going to respectfully engage you in "serious film discussion" after seeing how you get down? FOH, nigga.

I also like how you believe you're the only cat to "see" the flaws in the movie, and by making multiple posts and switching up agendas (and for the record, they were: "he stole the plot from Pocahontas and you niggas is too dumb to see it even though King James already pointed it out but fuck that y'all niggas is not thinking for yourselfs," "the plot sucks and you guys are ignoring it," "yet another racist story of the white man taking shit from natives and you niggas are eating it up," "the plot sucks and you guys are ignoring it by not answering my questions," and "so what it's making all that money you guys are ignoring my questions and plus the movie sucks dick") that we're all going to come around to the "right" way of thinking about the movie. No. All of your agenda switching and plot hole quizzes aren't going to change anyone's mind here, or make anyone more inclined to engage you in "serious film discussion." Go cry about it.

We enjoyed the movie, flaws and all. You didn't. Cats here have explained sufficiently enough why they liked, or didn't like, the film. If that's not good enough for you, tough shit. You're not "exposing" anyone (and contrary to what you'll try to fire back with, I'm certainly not "exposing myself") by doing all of this obnoxious trolling. And you're certainly not making anyone "mad," either.

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james cameron now has the top two highest grossing films of all-time. cry.

Really should dead all the talk of how "horrible" the story is in this movie.

Star Wars: The Phantom Menace is a film in which the story ((or lack of)), plot holes, poor development of characters, etc… actually make it so you cannot enjoy what is on the screen in front of you, and no matter how packed the screen is with hoo-ha and doo-dads…no great visuals will save it. Avatar ((obviously, by the worldwide box office)) was intelligible enough across a broad enough base to hook people into it via: the understandable and explained story, the relatable characters, the development of the plot.

Seriously, as egregious as some of Avatar’s offenses were, when compared to Phantom Menace Avatar is Citizen fucking Kane.

and apparently Im in the minority with that.

It was a neat experience seeing it at the IMAX. the details put into the visuals were impressive to say the least. It was cool. Aesthetically pleasing. Im glad I saw it.

Unfortunately Im super lame and visuals alone do not make or break a movie for me. I felt premise of the storyline but didn't dig the execution.

But to be honest, my indifference to this movie probably stems from the fact that Sci-Fi really doesn't do it for me. never has. Especially big-budget Sci-Fi that aims to please all. *shrug*

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=uJarz7BYnHA


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That was the best part.

I'm curious


©

My unusual style will confuse you a while

I don't see the confusion

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©

My unusual style will confuse you a while

he shouldn't have included clips of the movie in his movie review because all that did was make me remember how awesome it was. other than that, his basic argument was that james cameron put too much thought and research into this movie in order to make it effective for audiences, therefore it was bad. um, what?

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What book was that review supposed to have closed for evermore?


©

My unusual style will confuse you a while

http://www.redlettermedia.com

In 2 parts.

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for someone not invested
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just because we didn't feel a movie?

that's some childish ass shit for real
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Unless I say your name, why is it your concern who I go around calling mad?

There's only one person I'm going at in this post, and unless that's your child, and you feel he can't defend himself, then it's really none of your concern.

You didn't like the movie, that's your deal, but that doesn't mean I have to disagree in silence, and I'm certainly going to retain the right to clown a certain bamma in this post, which I have done constantly, and will continue to do. If you don't like it, there's a back button on your browser that you can hit that will take you back to where you were. Thanks.

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and has nothing to do with anything to do with any movie or movie related thing.

you really need to get over it. I never think about you, ever.

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I'm just sayin



----------------------------



O_E: Your Super-Ego's Favorite Poster.


"I ORBITs the solar system, listenin..."

(C)Keith Murray, "Cosmic Slop"

and pushing an agenda

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You really should have gotten tired of this shit around post 100 or so

But it's you, so you're not

^^^ "Personal" shot

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I wonder who is so furious they're doing both?

I'll give you three guesses

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You came along, spouting your usual troll bullshit here and in the other Avatar posts

So when niggas decided to fight fire with fire, it's some "it's clearly personal" shit?

FOH with that Tresvanty shit, nigga

Your bamma ass is taking massive Ls here, yet you still posting "etherous" reviews, hopin' to get your "questions" answered, and talking about "personal beef" in the hopes that niggas will pay more attention to you

Run along now

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you're posting about me.

I'm worth it.

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I'm not denying that .... that "blind leading the blind" comment brought me into your little hissy fit over some people not thinking the movie was the greatest thing known to man.

So no I'm not going to "worry about it" but I thought I'd at least ask you why you seem so hurt over people not feeling the same way you do about a high tech cartoon.

The answer is you'rejust petty ... that's good enough for me
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that I'm being "childish" and "petty" about a "cartoon" that I liked and you didn't -- then you haven't paid much attention to me in this forum over the past couple of years

That's about all I can say about that

Talk about "making it about me," this is going to look great in the Archives...

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when the same people praising avatar in this post are saying "how in the hell was that flick even nominated, thank god it didn't win"

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when hurt locker is an answer on jeopardy. "james cameron's avatar is the highest grossing film of all-time, but lost the academy award for best picture to this low budget indie."

what is... slumdog millionaire?

They showed them Avatar shots on TV tonight -- in 2D, by the way -- and them shits was BRUTIFUL... the only way this shit becomes "dated" is if the technology surpasses it dramatically in the next 10-15 years... that's IT...

And don't fucking bring up Titanic as an example of a "dated" Best Picture, chicks still love that fuckin' movie and y'all KNOW that shit... y'all really better find a way to dead this Killa Cam hate, he can't write for shit and he's an asshole supreme but his movies are hits... correction, they're MASSIVE, record-breaking hits... he ain't doing this shit by accident or with smoke and mirrors, he's an expert... speaking of which...


The Hurt Locker was so skillfully made that niggas gonna be taking a gang of notes in film classes on how well Mark Bols wrote the shit, and also how well Katey Kate EXPERTLY CRAFTED that joint... BELIEVE IT!

They ain't gonna be talking about how "accurate" and "realistic" the exact details of how the soldiers behaved and walked and talked were, cause with all due respect to the dissatisfied soldiers who *just so happened* to come out of the woodwork -- around Oscar season (*rolls eyes*) -- no one gives a fuck; people'll be studying the ACTION and the SHOTS and the EDITING and the CHARACTERS and the DIALOGUE. Why? Cause first and foremost, it's a GODDAMN MOVIE, and a good, Best Picture-worthy one at that...

YEP!

I was happy with any decision the Academy came up with and would not have been mad with any vote for 9 of the 10 nominated movies... I would have raised hell had they selected The Blind Side...

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something you've never mentioned.

talk about it.

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And I actually did mention that the writing was eh, but of course since I'm not writing 12 fuckin' paragraph treatises on the "shitty" writing of Avatar this doesn't count in RjccLand, where he's "right" and everyone else is wrong... I also thought the music was terrible and the Celine Dion song at the end was horrid (or was it Leona Lewis), but not enough to prevent my enjoyment of the movie overall...

And I've also "never mentioned" in other posts that you don't go see fuckin' Killa Cam movies for the goddamn writing, you go for the effects, the visuals, the technology...

Y'know, I'm a little tired of repeating myself, as well as being accused of being a "bitch" (but never to my face, of course!) and "running" from film discussions with motherfuckers who have shown a propensity for ignorance about how stories are told as well as the people who tell them...

And it's also weird that these same motherfuckers stay riding my dick by bringing up old notes and concerns that I had with other shows and films (such as The Office and the erroneous recollection of my alleged "love" for all things Heroes), yet can't -- or most likely won't in order to keep bullshit going -- remember these details that I've mentioned before... cats think they're "challenging" me in order to disprove something or other, and they keep failing at it...

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"you don't go to killa cam movies for the writing"

true or false

terminator 2 and aliens have writing that shits all over avatar.

fuck what you do or don't go there for. the shit was ass. it was not good enough to support even the simplest action movie.

all that other misdirection is whatever it is, if you want to get called a bitch to your face, you know the way to Ann Arbor. I've never said anything about you that wasn't to you, and wasn't about your attempts to redirect the conversation away from the actual movie being discussed in this post.

now lets talk about four eyes or whatever you've ripped off of basaglia this week.


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Good movie.

Link has two or three pictures that illustrate some of the info in the article:
http://www.theasc.com/magazine_dynamic/January2010/Avatar/page1.php

Mauro Fiore, ASC helps James Cameron envision Avatar, a 3-D science-fiction adventure that combines high-definition video and motion capture.

Jay Holben
Photography by Mark Fellman

A decade in the making, James Cameron’s Avatar required four years of production and some major advances in cinema and 3-D technology in order to reach the screen. Cameron spent much of the decade exploring the 3-D format on the hi-def Imax documentaries Ghosts of the Abyss (AC July ’03) and Aliens of the Deep (AC March ’05). On both of those films, he partnered with Vince Pace of Pace HD, who adapted two optical blocks from Sony’s F950 CineAlta HD cameras to create a 3-D camera with controllable interocular distance and convergence.

With an eye on Avatar, Pace and Cameron refined their 3-D digital camera system considerably over the course of their collaborations. “A feature-based camera system needed to be quieter and react more quickly to interocular and convergence changes than our original system did,” says Pace. “The original system was perfectly suited to Imax but a bit more challenged for a feature, especially a James Cameron feature!”

The result of their refinements is the Fusion 3-D Camera System, which incorporates 11 channels of motion: zoom, focus and iris for two lenses, independent convergence between the two cameras, interocular control, and mirror control to maintain the balance of the rig (especially for Steadicam). The system can also be stripped down to facilitate handheld work. “We also devised a way to have more control over the interocular distance — on Avatar, some shots were down to 1/3-inch interocular, and others were all the way out to 2 inches,” Pace adds. “With all of those elements combined, you’ve got an intense 3-D system.”

The Fusion 3-D system can support a variety of cameras. For Avatar, the production used three Sony models: the F950, the HDC1500 (for 60-fps high-speed work) and, toward the end of production, the F23. All of the cameras have 2/3" HD chips and record images onto HDCam-SR tape, but on Avatar, they were also recording to Codex digital recorders capable of synced simultaneous playback, allowing the filmmakers to preview 3-D scenes on location. “We used the traditional side-by-side configuration in certain circumstances, but that’s too unwieldy for Steadicam work, so for that we created a beam-splitter version that comprised one horizontally oriented camera and, above that, one perpendicularly oriented camera, forming an inverted ‘L,’” says Pace. “However, there was a change in balance when the camera shifted convergence or interocular distance, so we created a servo mechanism with a counterweight to keep the camera in perfect balance. This Steadicam configuration also allowed us to get the interocular distance down to a third of an inch. There was a tradeoff: we lost 2/3 of a stop of light through the beam-splitter’s glass. And for really wide shots, we needed a larger beam-splitter mirror. With that rig, we were able to get as wide as 4.5mm , which I believe is unprecedented in 3-D. The oversized mirror wasn’t really conducive to handheld work, so we kept it on a Technocrane most of the time.”

Avatar is set roughly 125 years in the future. The story follows former U.S. Marine Jake Scully (Sam Worthington), a paraplegic who is recruited to participate in the Avatar Program on the distant planet Pandora, where researchers have discovered a mineral, Unobtainium, that could help solve Earth’s energy crisis. Because Pandora’s atmosphere is lethal for humans, scientists have devised a way to link the consciousness of human “drivers” to remotely controlled biological bodies that combine human DNA with that of Pandora’s native race, the Na’vi. Once linked to these “avatars,” humans can completely control the alien bodies and function in the planet’s toxic atmosphere. Scully’s mission is to infiltrate the Na’vi, who have become an obstacle to the Unobtainium-mining operation. After Scully arrives on Pandora, his life is saved by a Na’vi princess, Neytiri (Zoe Saldana), and his avatar is subsequently welcomed into her clan. As their relationship deepens, Scully develops a profound respect for the Na’vi, and he eventually leads a charge against his fellow soldiers in an epic battle.

For the film’s live-action work, Cameron teamed with Mauro Fiore, ASC, whose credits include The Kingdom, Tears of the Sun and The Island (AC Aug. ’05). “Jim saw The Island and Tears of the Sun, and he was apparently impressed with the way I’d treated the jungle and foliage scenes in both films,” says Fiore. “They brought me in for a three-hour interview, and Jon Landau walked me through the whole 3-D process, the motion-capture images, the promos and trailers they had done. The next day, I had a 30-minute interview with Jim, and we hit it off. They were already deep into production on the motion-capture stages in Playa del Rey, and they were preparing to shoot the live-action footage in New Zealand.”

The technology employed on Avatar enabled Cameron to design the film’s 3-D computer-generated environments (created by Lightstorm’s in-house design team) straight from his imagination. By the time Fiore joined the show, the director had been working for 18 months on motion-capture stages, shooting performances with actors who would be transformed into entirely CG characters. Glenn Derry, Avatar’s virtual-production supervisor, contributed a number of innovations that helped Cameron achieve what he wanted. With all of the locations pre-built in Autodesk MotionBuilder and all of the CG characters constructed, Derry devised a system that would composite the motion-capture information into the CG world in real time. He explains, “With motion-capture work, the director usually completes elaborate previs shots and sequences, shoots the actors on the motion-capture stage, and then sends the footage off to post. Then, visual-effects artists composite the CG characters into the motion-capture information, execute virtual camera moves and send the footage back to the director. But that approach just wasn’t going to work for Jim. He wanted to be able to interact in real time with the CG characters on the set, as though they were living beings. He wanted to be able to handhold the camera in his style and get real coverage in this CG world.

“Jim used two main tools to realize his virtual cinematography,” continues Derry. “One was a handheld ‘virtual camera,’ which was essentially a monitor with video-game-style controls on it whose position was tracked in space. Using the virtual camera during the mo-cap portion of the shoot, Jim could see the actors who were wearing mo-cap suits as the characters they were playing. For example, by looking through the virtual camera, he’d see Neytiri, the 9-foot-tall Na’vi, instead of Zoe Saldana. He’d operate the virtual camera like a regular camera, with the added benefit of being able to scale his moves to lay down virtual dolly tracks and so on. For instance, if he wanted to do a crane shot, he’d say, ‘Make me 20-to-1,’ and when he held the camera 5 feet off the floor, that would be a 100-foot-high crane.

“The other tool was the SimulCam, a live-action camera with position reflectors that could be read by mo-cap cameras,” continues Derry. “It superimposed the CG world and characters into the live-action photography by tracking the position of the live-action camera and creating a virtual camera in the CG world in the same place. The two images were composited together live and sent to the monitors on the set .” For example, when Cameron was shooting a scene in a set involving an actor and a CG Na’vi, if he tilted the camera down to the actor’s feet, the viewfinder would show not only the actor’s feet, but also the Na’vi’s feet, the entire CG environment and the CG details outside the set, such as action visible through windows. All of this could be seen in real time through the SimulCam’s viewfinder and on live monitors on the set, allowing the human actors to interact directly with the CG characters and enabling Cameron to frame up exactly what he wanted.

“With the SimulCam, you don’t have to imagine what will be composited later — you’re actually seeing all of the pre-recorded CG background animation,” says Derry. “So if you want to start the shot by following a ship landing in the background and then settle on your actor in the frame, you can do that in real time, as if it’s all happening in front of you. On every take, the CG elements are going to replay exactly as they’ve been designed, and you can shoot however you want within that world.”

Because the SimulCam becomes a virtual camera in a virtual world, it can be placed anywhere in space. Standing more than 9' tall, the Na’vi are larger than humans by a ratio of 1.67:1. If Cameron wanted a shot to be at the Na’vi’s eye level, he would ask the system operator to make him 1.67:1, which would reset Cameron’s height to that level. In other words, he could continue to handhold the camera on the real stage floor while “standing” at a height of 9' in the virtual world. “Jim used the SimulCam as a kind of virtual viewfinder to direct the performances and get the shots he wanted, and then, in post, we’d tweak things further,” says Derry. “We could redo the art direction of the set by moving a tree, moving a mountain, or adjusting the position of a ship or the background players. For Jim, it’s all about the frame; what’s in the frame tells the story.”

Virtual camera operator Anthony Arendt, who also operated the Fusion cameras alongside Cameron in the L.A. unit, recalls, “After Jim was happy with his takes from the SimulCam, they were still far from ready to send to Weta. We screened every shot in 3-D with him in a theater nicknamed ‘Wheels and Stereo,’ and he gave us meticulous notes on every aspect of the shots. He gave the virtual artist notes on the overall scene and all of its detail; he gave stereographer Chuck Comiski notes on the 3-D; and he gave me specific notes on the camera moves. Because the recorded motion-capture images lack depth-of-field, he also gave me detailed notes on depth-of-field cues that would help Weta down the line. We treated depth-of-field as if we were shooting with one of the 3-D Fusion cameras.

“As the project progressed, we figured out ways to give Jim’s SimulCam shots the specific feel of different moves: Steadicam, Techno-crane, handheld and so on. We could do that a number of different ways, depending on how the shot started and what Jim wanted to end up with. In the theater, we’d play back Jim’s SimulCam shots through MotionBuilder and then re-operate the shots according to his notes. He was very specific. For example, he gave me a note that said he wanted a shot from one of the Scorpion gunships to feel like it was shot from a Tyler mount, not a Spacecam. His attention to detail was mindblowing!”

After 18 months of motion capture, Cameron brought in Fiore to shoot live-action footage onstage at Stone Street Studios in Wellington, New Zealand. “About 70 percent of the movie is motion capture, and the rest is live-action,” says Fiore. “Although the motion-capture work was mostly finished, the actual look of the film was yet to be created. The footage we shot in New Zealand ultimately defined the overall style of the movie.”

Because all of the sets were created in MotionBuilder long before any physical construction began, Fiore was able to take a virtual tour of the sets and plan his approach. “We spent a good month in Los Angeles laying out the lighting plan in the virtual sets,” the cinematographer recalls. “We were able to position specific fixtures and see exactly what it would do in the environment. We had accurate measurements of the real stages, so we knew where we had to work around low ceilings or support beams, for example, and we could solve those problems well before we ever set foot on the stages in New Zealand. We also spent a great deal of time blocking scenes on the virtual sets. Basically, all of our tech scouts were done virtually.”

This process revealed a problem that Fiore and his gaffer, Chris Culliton, would confront in the Armor Bay set. A massive armory on Pandora, this set piece would stand 100' tall and hold hundreds of Armored Mobility Platform suits, large, robot-like devices that the soldiers can control. In reality, the set was constructed in a former Mitsubishi factory in New Zealand, and only two AMP suits were made, one functional and one purely for set dressing. The ceilings in the factory were just 22' high, so the rest of the set had to be created digitally. “The challenge was that a lot of the shots in the Armor Bay were looking up at this great expanse of a 100'-tall location that simply didn’t exist — we were looking up into our lighting fixtures and the ceiling,” says Culliton. “We had to find a way to light from above yet still have a greenscreen up there so the rest of the set could be added later.”

To solve the problem, Culliton and key grip Richard Mall took a cue from the theater world and hung greenscreen teasers of different lengths from the ceiling. The teasers were hung in between the rigging; the lights were clear to illuminate the set, but from the camera position, the teasers hid the fixtures. “We hung the teasers perpendicular to the ceiling, covering roughly 150 feet of ceiling space, with about 6 to 10 feet of space between each teaser,” says Culliton. “If you stood in the corner and looked up, it appeared as a single piece of greenscreen. On the camera side, between the teasers, we hung Kino Flos to light the green; we’d normally use green-spike tubes for greenscreen, but because of the lights’ proximity to the actors and the set, we went with standard tungsten tubes. To light the set, we hung 10Ks gelled with 1/2 CTB, and we had about 50 10-degree Source Four Lekos gelled with 1/4 CTB and 1/4 Hampshire Frost hanging between the teasers. Those gave us little hits and highlights throughout the set.”

Greenscreen, in abundant supply on the shoot, was often placed close to actors and set pieces for particular composite effects, which led to concerns about green spill. Fortunately, while touring the Weta Digital facility, Fiore found a solution with the help of fellow ASC member Alex Funke. “We went over to visit with Alex, who shoots the miniatures for all of Weta’s work, and he showed us this 3M Scotchlite material, the same highly reflective material that’s used in traffic signs and safety clothing. He put it around the miniatures and lit them with ultraviolet light, which allowed him to pull really clean mattes without corrupting the rest of the set.”

Using standard black-light fixtures, Fiore and his team began attaching the Scotchlite material to specific aspects of a set or environment that would need to be replaced in post. Nearby, they would hide a small UV black-light fixture, which would retro-reflect the bright green from the Scotchlite back to the camera without affecting the area around it. “In some situations, we also used green UV paint on various surfaces to achieve the same results,” notes Fiore. “These areas were small enough that we could light them with small sources. A 12-inch or 24-inch black-light tube was really all we needed.”

The UV technology was also applied to the avatar booths, tight, coffin-like enclosures that resemble MRI equipment. After a soldier lies down on a table, he is inserted into the booth, where his consciousness is projected into the body of his alien avatar. Circling around the opening of these machines is a spinning display of colored liquid (a CG effect). Because the CG area was very close to the actors and other set components, Fiore used the UV paint on the rim of the machine to prevent spill and create a clean matte for the CG work.

At the onset of principal photography in New Zealand, a dailies trailer incorporating two NEC NC800C digital projectors was set up so the filmmakers could view each shot in 3-D as it was completed. Playing back the recorded footage via a synchronized feed from a Codex digital recorder, Cameron and Fiore could experience the 3-D effects on location and refine them as needed, shot-by-shot. “We called it ‘the pod,’” Fiore recalls. “In the beginning, we were checking on nearly every shot to make sure the lighting was solid and the convergence and interocular were correct. It was a very laborious way to start working, but it was necessary. The cameras themselves were a bit finicky in the beginning, and sometimes getting them to match up was a challenge. If one was even slightly off in terms of focus, the whole effect was ruined.”

Avatar was Fiore’s first digital feature — he had shot a commercial on HD — and his first foray into 3-D. “One of the things that was really tricky for me was the 2/3-inch-chip 3-D cameras’ extended depth-of-field,” he says. “It’s a lot like the depth-of-field you get with 16mm. It’s really difficult to throw things out of focus and help guide the audience’s eye. Shallow depth-of-field is an interesting dilemma in 3-D, because you need to see the depth to lend objects a dimensionality, but if you have too much depth-of-field and too much detail in the background, your eye wanders all over the screen, and you’re not sure what to look at. I had to find new ways to direct the audience’s eye to the right part of the frame, and we accomplished that through lighting and set dressing. We strove to minimize the distractions in the background. I learned that if I controlled the degree of light falloff in the background, I could help focus the viewer’s attention where we wanted it. Instead of working with circles-of-confusion, I had to create depth-of-field through contrast and lighting levels, which was a really fun challenge.

“Once we started shooting, we quickly discovered that highlights in the background were a problem, because depending on the convergence of the scene, two distinct images of that highlight might diverge, creating a ghosting effect that was very distracting,” continues Fiore. “Even a practical fluorescent could cause a problem. I tried a few experiments, like putting polarizing gel on the highlight sources and a Pola on the lens and then trying to dial them out, but as soon as the camera moved, the effect was gone. So I had to bring in smoke, where I could, to bring down the contrast.”

Fiore also had to rethink his approach to composition. “Anytime you’re in a position where one lens is obstructed by an object and the other isn’t — say, when you’re shooting over someone’s shoulder or through a doorway — you get into a situation your eyes can’t comfortably handle in 3-D. Whenever we got into that type of situation, we had to be very careful to ensure both lenses were seeing both the obstruction and the clear view.”

Because so much of the film’s world is virtual, Fiore was constantly matching interactive lighting with elements that would be comped into the image in post. An example of this is a plasma storm that takes place on Pandora. “What is a plasma storm? No one knows — it’s all inside Jim’s head!” Fiore exclaims with a laugh. “We had to figure out a way to create a fantastic event that no one had ever seen before. In the scene, Scully is in a remote science lab with Dr. Augustine , and they see the storm happening outside the windows. We had to find a way to create the effect of the storm on their faces.” He turned to the DL.2, a DMX-controlled LCD projector that acts like an automated light source. By utilizing a preset “anomalous” pattern in the DL.2 and projecting the image through Hampshire Frost onto the actor’s faces, Fiore achieved a unique look for the storm’s lighting effects.

Interactive lighting was also crucial for selling process shots inside vehicles, such as the military helicopters that swarm around Pandora. “The helicopters were built on a gimbal system,” says Culliton. “The gimbals were strong and capable of some good movement, but they only created about 15 degrees of pitch and roll. Jim’s paramount concern is realism, and helicopters move a lot more than 15 degrees, especially on military maneuvers. When they turn, they turn very quickly. We had to find a way to represent that speed and velocity through light.” Fiore explains, “We put a 4K HMI Par on the end of a 50-foot Technocrane arm and used the arm’s ability to telescope and sweep around to get the feeling of movement in the helicopters. When the helicopter turned, that sunlight would move through the cockpit, throwing shadows from the mullions onto the faces of the actors. By exploiting the Technocrane’s arm, we could quickly zip the light from one end to the other and create the impression of fast movement.”

Because the light was positioned on a remote head controlled by standard camera wheels, Fiore asked his camera operators to control the light. To assist the operator, a small lipstick camera was mounted to the Par and fed back to the operator’s monitor, allowing him to operate the lamp just like a camera; he could aim the beam precisely where Fiore wanted it to hit the helicopters.

For the climactic sequence, in which a human army descends on Pandora to attack the Na’vi, the stages at Wellington weren’t large enough to hold the construction crane required to drop a mock helicopter full of soldiers. Instead, the production moved outside to the parking lot, setting the scene against a 400'-wide-by-50'-high curved greenscreen (built out of industrial shipping containers faced with plywood and painted chroma green). The sequence takes place during the day, but Cameron insisted it be shot night-for-day. “At first I thought he was insane,” recalls Fiore. “But when I thought about it, I realized it made a lot of sense. We had to be able to completely control the light without worrying about sun direction or cloud coverage. As crazy as it might seem to shoot an outdoor day scene at night, it was the right decision.”

Two 100-ton construction cranes were positioned to hold a lighting truss over the outdoor set. (A third crane supported the helicopter.) “We built a 60-by-40-foot truss structure complete with grid and walkways,” says Culliton. “We basically turned the outdoors into a working greenbed! Above the truss, we suspended a 100K SoftSun through a large frame of Light Grid and 1/4 Blue, mimicking the ambience of the Pandoran sky. We also hung a combination of 7K and 4K Xenons and 4K HMI beam projectors to get shafts of daylight through the vegetation, which was added later.”

“This entire production was extraordinary, the most extraordinary experience of my career so far,” says Fiore. “The challenge for me, and what really got me excited about the film, was to use the tools to tell the story in the best way possible. It required a lot of experimentation and a reinterpretation of how I deal with composition and lighting. There were times when it was a miserable experience, but I know that everything from here on out is going to be a lot easier! If you’re going to delve into new technology and a new world, Jim Cameron is the guy to do it with.”

latimes.com:

>Is 'Avatar' a message movie? Absolutely, says James Cameron

The Oscar-nominated director says he fought for his environmental theme. The special effects are just gravy.

By Glenn Whipp
February 10, 2010

Time may have ever so slightly mellowed James Cameron's combative, take-no-prisoners approach to life and filmmaking, but that doesn't mean he still doesn't get a kick out of rocking the boat on the way to the bank. So, as his sci-fi epic "Avatar" sails past $2 billion in worldwide box office, breaking the record set by "Titanic," his last movie, Cameron takes no small delight in the way conservative commentators have attacked the movie.

"Let me put it this way," Cameron says during a recent dinner conversation at a Hollywood cafe. "I'm happy to piss those guys off. I don't agree with their world view."

Cameron, though, does take exception to the imprecision of the attacks. Right-wing pundits have called "Avatar" a "deep expression of anti-Americanism" (the Weekly Standard), "anti-human, anti-military and anti-Western world view" (blogger and filmmaker Govindini Murty) and " 'Death Wish' for lefties" (Big Hollywood).

All off base, Cameron says -- though the "Death Wish" reference does raise a chuckle.

"I think there's something amazingly satisfying when the hammerheads come out of the forest and start mowing down all the bad security enforcers," Cameron says, referring to the movie's climactic creatures-versus-humans battle sequence. "Nature gets to fight back. It's 'Death Wish' for environmentalists. When did nature ever get to fight back in a movie?"

That question contains the core concept Cameron wanted to present in "Avatar." Yes, the movie boasts insane technological leaps for the medium. And, yes, there's a rock 'em, sock 'em action story with greed-head, colonial-minded humans battling blue-hued humanoid aliens over the resources of an Eden-like planet. But those elements are the hook, Cameron says, to make audiences absorb the movie's pro-environmentalist "medicine."

It was a medicine that 20th Century Fox executives tried to talk Cameron out of administering. When they read Cameron's screenplay, the reaction, according to the director, was: "We really like the story. It's great. But, well, is there a way to not have so much of this tree-hugging, 'Ferngully' stuff in it?"

"I said, 'Not with me making it,' " Cameron remembers. "Because that was my purpose in making the film. I wanted to make an environmentally conscious mainstream movie. And to be fair to 20th Century Fox, any of the other studios would have said the same thing. Fox ended up being enormously supportive and wrote this huge check. But they would have been much more comfortable if I had eliminated what they called the 'tree-hugging' elements."

One of the movie's key images -- the violent destruction of the towering Hometree, the center of the Na'vi world -- directly evokes the collapse of the World Trade Center. Cameron says the connection wasn't purely intentional. He was just looking to deliver an emotional gut-punch and make an explicit link to the damage he believes humans are inflicting on Earth, a planet that has become a "dying world" in "Avatar's" not-so-distant future.



'Live with less'

"And it will be a dying world if we don't make some fundamental changes about how we view ourselves and how we view wealth," Cameron says. "I consider the wealth of this nation its natural resources, not the things that we're brought up to think of as wealth. We're going to have to live with less.

"And I know people will look at me and say, 'Oh, he's a rich guy. What does he know about living with less?' I admit it's difficult once you've reached a certain level in your life. But I think there's a way to live and raise your kids with a set of values that teaches them the importance of hard work, the importance of respecting other people and the importance of respecting nature. And that it's not this consumer society where you buy something and then throw it away when you get the next new thing, filling up huge landfills with plastic and electronics."

It should be noted that this doesn't come off as a rant or a lecture or a slice of king-of-the-world arrogance. It's Cameron, at 55, a father of three young children and still every inch the science geek he was as a kid, speaking from the heart. And just as high school whiz kids are often despised for their aptitude and the whiff of know-it-all vanity that comes with it, there are plenty of people in tight-knit Hollywood reeling at the thought that Cameron might again find his way to the podium come Oscar night, as he did twice on Globes night.

These people don't even register with Cameron. But, during dinner, he circles back several times to the idea that he's somehow anti-military because of the way he depicts the corporate military contractors -- "Blackwater types," he calls them -- in "Avatar." The director repeatedly expresses his support for the armed forces, noting his Marine brother's service in Kuwait and professing deep respect for the sense of teamwork, duty and service that he believes form the heart of the Marine Corps.

His question -- and since this is Cameron, he already knows the answer -- is: Can you be pro-military but oppose the choices made by what he considers to be a corrupt Bush administration? The prevailing motif in "Avatar" about opening your eyes (it's the last shot of the film and the central image of the one-sheet) can be seen as Cameron's direct response to the Iraq war.

"I probably shouldn't have put in the direct references to the language used with the Iraq war, the 'shock and awe' line, because it takes you too much there," Cameron reflects. "But what I really was saying was, 'Listen to what your leaders are saying. Open your eyes. And understand what the run-up to war is like, so the next time it happens, you can question it.' "

Cameron has no patience for anyone attempting to make direct parallels between "Avatar" and Iraq, like the German journalist who told Cameron during a recent media conference that the film seemed like the story of the Taliban told from the movement's point of view. He finds that kind of literalism "egregious" and "willfully ignorant of the power of allegorical storytelling."

"If 'Star Wars' had been made after the Iraq war, people would have called it anti-American," Cameron says, laughing. "I mean, it was a story of a small, ragtag band of insurgents fighting a major imperial power. George Lucas would be running for his life."

Not that Cameron would ever call himself a "Star Wars" fan. He likes his science-fiction dystopian, eschewing pure escapism. It's hard to imagine Ewoks having a place in Cameron's future worlds, unless they're part of the food chain. Myths are fine but, for him, there has to be some sense of purpose behind their use other than a simple celebration of human heroism.



Best of both worlds

And what of those critics who say that "Avatar" is a success despite its message? Can audiences enjoy the movie's fantastical elements and have its cautionary content fly over their heads?

"The movie is designed to work as a straightforward adventure and a romance, and if that's all you want from a movie, that's fine," Cameron says. "But the message isn't going over people's heads. That kind of talk trivializes the movie in the same way 'Titanic' was trivialized by saying it was a movie for 14-year-old girls.

"The thing is, you're not going to convert people with a popular movie, but you can resonate with things they already believe. So the fact that 'Avatar' is resonating is meaningful. Maybe that's what gets these guys more riled up than anything, the fact that maybe they don't have their finger on the pulse of the zeitgeist like they think they do."

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people really drank the kool-aid on this one.

i would have been let down if i had not seen it in 3d

Probably would've liked it more had I seen it before all the hype set in. I was blown away when I saw the 16 minute preview back in August but there wasn't a whole lot after that impressed me after that besides the opening scene, & that big ass tree which felt like it was cavin in on the theater.

It will be interesting to see how well it holds up in a 2nd viewing on DVD tho. Especially if they release a 3D version.