# Rate Avatar (James Cameron)



## Krug (Dec 19, 2009)

So what did you think of James Cameron's much-awaited 3-D flick?


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## Joker (Dec 19, 2009)

Technically and visually stunning.  It is a visceral experience, nothing more.  I came out having enjoyed myself which for me was the goal.

However, full immersion is hard to experience when you're aware of the goggles on your face.  And I've always found it a bit jarring when you go from a live-action to a completely CGI shot.  The knowledge of it being "more fake" takes me out of the experience.

Still, it's worth seeing.  It is without a doubt one of the prettiest films I've seen in a while.


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## Umbran (Dec 19, 2009)

I saw the 2d version.

Very, very pretty, to the point of visually stunning.  And it isn't cheaping out at 90 minutes - you are there for a solid two and a half hours.

Are there plot and science holes?  Of course! And the morals of the story are applied with sledgehammer subtlety - but that's from the point of view of someone who's seen a lot of movies, and read a lot of stories with similar messages.  Someone who hasn't seen as many won't feel so beaten over the head.  And, honestly, it is good messages, and sometimes we ought to be beaten over the head with them, so I don't find that too big a flaw.

An enjoyable experience.  Worth seeing.  Not Great Art, and it doesn't "change filmmaking" except in technical senses, but a solid evening's entertainment.


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## Truth Seeker (Dec 21, 2009)

I enjoyed as well, just got back from seeing the 3D verison.

And the 2 hours and 40 minutes, went by, very fast...no drag.

A mighty 8.


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## Thanee (Dec 21, 2009)

10 is clearly overrating, it simply has some areas where it is lacking (the story, for example), but a 9 seems fair enough. 

Bye
Thanee


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## RangerWickett (Dec 21, 2009)

8 here. I expected mediocrity with prettiness. Instead I got two average acts, and a truly excellent final act (plus prettiness). Since I often complain about how much people drop the ball on movies' final acts, I'm very satisfied with what I got.


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## Darth Shoju (Dec 21, 2009)

I really enjoyed it. Visually it was jaw-dropping. The plot was very familiar but still executed skillfully. Like Roger Ebert said, at least there is one person in Hollywood who knows what to do with 300 million dollars.


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## Mustrum_Ridcully (Dec 21, 2009)

I give it a 9. 
[sblock]
Known Story? Yeah, maybe this is like Winnetou, Dancing with Wolves or similar movies. That said, these movies were kinda succesful when they first came out and mostly had their story and acting for them going. 
No intriguing special effects, right? 

Since I never saw the aforementioned, Avatar is a very decent way to be introduced in this "same old" story. 

That said, there are lots of interesting "Sci-Fi" stuff in that movie, too.
Basically, the planet is an example of "organic technology" without genetic manipulation. 
It seems every living creature has a organic USB dataport that they can use to connect with each other. As a result, there is a kind of "world conciousness", linking all life on the planet together. The myths of the "Noble Wild" in Avatar are not simply cute superstition, they are real. And they are great science fiction material. 
[/sblock]


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## Plane Sailing (Dec 21, 2009)

My favourite film of the year. I really liked the while thing - story, visuals, everything!


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## catsclaw227 (Dec 21, 2009)

I gave it a 9, and I really think the 3d was done well (as well as I have ever seen).  Sometimes you felt a bit of a 3d jar, but mostly it was done well with excellent visual depth provided in some subtle ways.

The story was solid, writing was good, acting was good, a very few minor holes, but overall a great experience.


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## Krug (Dec 22, 2009)

Gave it a 7. The story was basically _Dances with Wolves_ all over again. Still, you gotta commend them for making a piece of art. The creature design was beautiful, though was slightly disappointed the vehicles resembled/were those from *Aliens*. But I think best thing about it was how natural the creatures looked. Far enough from being human that you never once tried to do the Uncanny Valley thing with them, yet human enough that one could emphatise and understand their facial expressions.


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## Hand of Evil (Dec 22, 2009)

Gave it a 9, it was the creation of a believable CGI world, not just a 3D one.  This was fantasy, with sci-fi and it worked.  Yes, the plot is that of Zulu or Custer and done for as long but hey, that is who we are, sure I would have like to have seen more morality from the CEO but I did not expect it.  


In my life I have seen only a handful of movies that changed things:
Star Wars - saved Hollywood
Indiana Jones - Action / Adventure and set the stage for the 80's 
Die Hard - Re-defined Action / Adventure the 90's 
Waterworld - first movie to cost over 100 million to make 
Titanic - first movie to make over a billion 
Lord of the Ring - the movie they said that could not be made

Now Avatar for creating the visuals and a world.


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## Mustrum_Ridcully (Dec 22, 2009)

Hand of Evil said:


> Gave it a 9, it was the creation of a believable CGI world, not just a 3D one.  This was fantasy, with sci-fi and it worked.  Yes, the plot is that of Zulu or Custer and done for as long but hey, that is who we are, sure I would have like to have seen more morality from the CEO but I did not expect it.



Well, he gave them an hour to find a diplomatic solution. I suppose they could have spend more on him and the conflict with the security commander... But that's less time spent on the beautiful CGI world!


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## Krug (Dec 22, 2009)

BTW calling the macguffin un*OBTAIN*ium (geddit? geddit?) was like something out of a bad SNL sketch.


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## Mustrum_Ridcully (Dec 22, 2009)

It was honest. Who cares what it was? Dilithium, Neutronium, Einsteinium, Admantium, Mithril, Space Oil, In-Gold-Pressed-Latinum...


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## catsclaw227 (Dec 22, 2009)

Acutally the term Unobtainium is a real reference.

Unobtainium - Wikipedia, the free encyclopedia

It may have started as a humorous reference, but it has been used by scientists for decades.


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## Krug (Dec 22, 2009)

Mustrum_Ridcully said:


> It was honest. Who cares what it was? Dilithium, Neutronium, Einsteinium, Admantium, Mithril, Space Oil, In-Gold-Pressed-Latinum...




It took me out of the movie everytime it was mentioned. Thankfully it was just mentioned a couple of times.


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## delericho (Dec 22, 2009)

Well, the special effects were stunning. However, we're now at a point where good special effects don't make a good movie - now that a director can pretty much put whatever he can imagine up on the screen, good special effects are a minimum requirement (at least from Hollywood).

Fortunately, that's not all "Avatar" had going for it. The world they created, and the actually 'alien' aliens were utterly convincing, at least to me. I was amazed by that part of it.

I was less enamoured of the story, though. As others have said, it was just "Dances With Wolves" all over again.

Also, the 3-d shakycam work gave me awful motion sickness.

I give it a 7 - a good but not stellar result. Better than almost all of the films I've seen this year, though. This has not been a good year for films.


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## Hjorimir (Dec 25, 2009)

I thought it was fantastic! I never found myself not enjoying whatever was on screen. I gave it a solid 9 and I'm sure to watch the movie again and again over the years.


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## Aeolius (Dec 27, 2009)

I just got the chance to see the movie this evening. Holy Chrome! That was the most visually stimulating movie I have ever seen!

   The story was suitably predictable, but I was so drawn into the world of Pandora that it was never a concern. It was like "The Dark Crystal" on steroids!

   I think it definitely helps to have an overactive imagination; the ability to surrender to one's "willing suspension of disbelief". My wife, who dislikes TV specials like Discovery often shows, the ones where they depict how life might look in millions of years, would most likely not enjoy "Avatar".

   I will be seeing this movie again, while it's in theaters.


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## DreadPirateMurphy (Dec 27, 2009)

Story originality as a concept is over-rated...mostly because it doesn't actually exist.  The volume of works in different media is so great that artists struggle to simply provide an attractive and entertaining presentation that seems fresh to the audience.  In my mind, Cameron succeeded tremendously well on that.

As an example, the story of _Star Wars_ was trite a thousand years ago.  It was a stereotypical heroic arc where the farmboy finds he was born to greatness, overcomes great evil, and saves the world/galaxy.  The imaginative presentation by Lucas was what made the movie stand out as remarkable.  Avatar is in the same vein, and it pushes the bounds on SFX in a similar manner.

Avatar shows the kind of loving attention to detail that Tolkein used in creating Middle Earth -- that kind of world-building should be very familiar to the folks on these forums!  I found it completely immersive.  The characters were archetypes, but they weren't two-dimensional.  The villian seemed to honestly care for his men, the noble scientist was an abrasive chain-smoker, and the jealous rival put aside his differences at the right time.

I didn't find the references to unobtainium distracting.  The whole point of the reference was to say to the savvy audience, "Yes, we know the properties of this substance are poorly explained and scientifically questionable, but we want eye-candy scenes set in floating mountains, so just roll with it."  It is refreshing to have a wink at the audience rather than an assumption that we're all morons who won't notice the details.

I gave it a 9.  It was, as everybody keeps saying, visually stunning, and the plot was good enough to not detract from the film. That, in the year of an awful Transformers film, is a big plus to me.


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## Pseudonym (Dec 27, 2009)

I just got back from seeing it in IMAX 3D.  I loved it, and gave it a 9.  Yeah, they story wasn't heavyweight, but I didn't expect that going in so I don't find it to be a flaw overall.  It was certainly visually stunning.  I'll have to see it again, because I am sure I missed things.


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## Hand of Evil (Dec 28, 2009)

two weeks out and Avatar has taken in...

Domestic:  $212,268,000 (34.5%) + Foreign:  $402,900,000 (65.5%) = Worldwide:  $615,168,000

Also, it only dropped 3% from last week in box office take!


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## zen_hydra (Dec 28, 2009)

As others have said, I found the story to be a retread of paths covered too many times already.  I wasn't sold on the 3D at first.  It took me a while before it stopped feeling gimmicky, and I stopped constantly noticing my glasses.  When it finally did, and I found myself immersed in awesome alien world I was blown away.  The movie tried to pass itself off a little too much like hard sci-fi, but was really purely a fantasy film.  The Na'vi are bit too cat-girl/elf to be even remotely plausible as an independently evolving humanoid species, which also happens to have compatible DNA with humanity, and culture and language nearly identical to humanity.  Right, willing suspension of disbelief.  Beyond the rehashed story, and the "aliens" that were designed to be physically attractive to humans, the biggest plot hole is why the Na'vi would know that the spirit tree could do the switcheroo thing you saw it do later in the film.  They had no reason to have had need of that ability until the humans came along, and it was portrayed as unprecedented until it was tried.  ...but even with all of my gripes, I thought it was entertaining and a brilliant proof-of-concept for the technology.


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## Plane Sailing (Dec 29, 2009)

zen_hydra said:


> which also happens to have compatible DNA with humanity.




FWIW information about the film explains that the Na'vi don't have DNA at all, and there was a handwavium process by which human DNA could be effectively merged with Na'vi cellular information transcription mechanisms.

I can understand why they didn't try to put that into the film though - not enough time for effectively low-story-value information.

Cheers


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## Klaus (Dec 29, 2009)

Plane Sailing said:


> FWIW information about the film explains that the Na'vi don't have DNA at all, and there was a handwavium process by which human DNA could be effectively merged with Na'vi cellular information transcription mechanisms.
> 
> I can understand why they didn't try to put that into the film though - not enough time for effectively low-story-value information.
> 
> Cheers



Na'vi have DNA. Jack specifically mentioned the avatars were created by using human DNA with DNA from the natives.

"Handwavium"? HA, love it! Yoinked!


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## Plane Sailing (Dec 29, 2009)

Klaus said:


> Na'vi have DNA. Jack specifically mentioned the avatars were created by using human DNA with DNA from the natives.




My memory was pulling information from this source the_avatar_program [Pandorapedia] which may well be non-canonical. I've not seen the book "pandora field guide" or whatever it is called, but it would be interesting to see how they describe it there.

After all, Jake was "just a grunt, no offense"


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## Mistwell (Dec 29, 2009)

Krug said:


> BTW calling the macguffin un*OBTAIN*ium (geddit? geddit?) was like something out of a bad SNL sketch.




Um, Krug, I think you missed that it was a joke.

In the movie, we're never told the real name of the mineral.  They just use the normal engineering "this stuff is super valuable" name.

Either that, or it is scientists paying homage to the term.  Essentially "we've been using this word for centuries to mean any nearly-magical perfect substance, and now we actually found it".

Either way, I don't find it cheesy at all.  But, you'd have to actually know the term to get that context though.


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## Klaus (Dec 29, 2009)

Plane Sailing said:


> My memory was pulling information from this source the_avatar_program [Pandorapedia] which may well be non-canonical. I've not seen the book "pandora field guide" or whatever it is called, but it would be interesting to see how they describe it there.
> 
> After all, Jake was "just a grunt, no offense"



A warrior of the Jughead clan!


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## Krug (Dec 29, 2009)

Mistwell said:


> Um, Krug, I think you missed that it was a joke.
> 
> In the movie, we're never told the real name of the mineral.  They just use the normal engineering "this stuff is super valuable" name.
> 
> ...




Uh well it was a poorly done joke. The way it was said (and I think corp guy used the term twice) came across as if that was the actual name. But humour has never been Cameron's strong point...


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## Hand of Evil (Dec 30, 2009)

Daily BoxOffice -- Also opens in China this weekend.


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## Richards (Dec 31, 2009)

Klaus said:


> A warrior of the Jughead clan!



Uh, I think you mean "Jarhead" there, Klaus.  

Johnathan


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## Merkuri (Dec 31, 2009)

Krug said:


> BTW calling the macguffin un*OBTAIN*ium (geddit? geddit?) was like something out of a bad SNL sketch.




I have to agree that this name came the closest to pulling me out of my immersion, closer than the CGI, which I think was beautifully done.  As my fiance said, the fact that the only noticeable CGI was for alien creatures explained their "unrealness" as less of a "this is artificially added to the movie" thing and more of a "these are so alien they are unreal" thing.

But yeah, I had to groan at the name "unobtainium" because I was unaware of the joke in the scientific community.  My fiance's comment on this was, "It sounded like a name they used at first as a placeholder and forgot to change for the final script."  Now that I know the history of the phrase I guess I can kinda see its place in the movie, but I think I might have been happier if they had called it "space rock" or even "this stuff" or really anything other than what sounded like a meta joke.

How did they do the floating mountains?  If that was CGI it was some of the most impressive CGI I've ever seen.

This was the first 3D movie I've seen since... let me think... probably since I went to Universal Studios ten years ago and saw the Terminator attraction.  I thought it was okay in Avatar.  I forgot about the glasses a half hour into it or so until somebody stood up in the theater in front of us and put a big black in-set appearing blip on the screen or when things got slightly out of focus, which made me think my own prescription glasses were on crooked.  It was a little awkward wearing two pairs of glasses like that at first, but like I said, I did get used to it.  My fiance got a headache from the 3D, but said he'd give it one more try before he decides whether the headache is worth it or not.

I was not terribly impressed overall with the 3D, though.  After a while I stopped noticing it unless it did something "wrong", like go out of focus in my peripheral vision or I tried to focus on something close to the camera which was out of focus.  If I stopped noticing it then in theory it wasn't adding much to the movie.  I suppose I'd need to see the same movie in 2D before I could make a sure comparison on whether the 3D was worth the extra couple bucks.

Actually, there was one effect that made me notice the 3D in a good way.  The most impressive 3D parts were the flying ash or bugs in a few scenes, anything small like that which was close to the camera.  They weren't hit-you-in-the-face 3D, but I actually lifted my arm to try to swat away the flies at one point.  Big things that pop out in 3D tended to annoy me (especially when they were out of focus), but those little tiny bits floating through the atmosphere really made me feel like I was there.


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## Klaus (Dec 31, 2009)

Richards said:


> Uh, I think you mean "Jarhead" there, Klaus.
> 
> Johnathan



But just imagine: Avatar Archie!


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## Plane Sailing (Dec 31, 2009)

Merkuri said:


> Actually, there was one effect that made me notice the 3D in a good way.  The most impressive 3D parts were the flying ash or bugs in a few scenes, anything small like that which was close to the camera.  They weren't hit-you-in-the-face 3D, but I actually lifted my arm to try to swat away the flies at one point.  Big things that pop out in 3D tended to annoy me (especially when they were out of focus), but those little tiny bits floating through the atmosphere really made me feel like I was there.




I found that one of the impressive benefits of 3D was when Jake looked over a precipice (e.g. especially when they were up in the tree getting the banshee, he peers over the edge of the tree limb and it did "feel" high up to me).


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## Merkuri (Dec 31, 2009)

Plane Sailing said:


> I found that one of the impressive benefits of 3D was when Jake looked over a precipice (e.g. especially when they were up in the tree getting the banshee, he peers over the edge of the tree limb and it did "feel" high up to me).




I don't need 3D to do that.  I'm petrified of heights when there's nothing between me and the drop, so even 2D movies make me nervous when the characters walk next to a high drop or start to fall off of a cliff. 

(Strangely enough, I'm not afraid of heights at all if there's a wall or fence or glass or something between me and the edge.  I think I'm more afraid of my own balance than the drop itself.)


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## catsclaw227 (Dec 31, 2009)

Merkuri said:


> How did they do the floating mountains?  If that was CGI it was some of the most impressive CGI I've ever seen.



That was awesome wasn't it?  I was really impressed by those scenes as well.


Merkuri said:


> This was the first 3D movie I've seen since... let me think... probably since I went to Universal Studios ten years ago and saw the Terminator attraction.  I thought it was okay in Avatar.
> 
> <snip>
> 
> ...



Too bad you didn't get to see Up in 3D.  It was well done and not in your face.  I agree about the little floating spirits.   They really helped with the immersion.

I should go see it again, now that I know the story, so that I can focus on the technology and properly analyze why this film will change film making in the years to come (or so they say).


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## Merkuri (Dec 31, 2009)

catsclaw227 said:


> ...I can focus on the technology and properly analyze why this film will change film making in the years to come (or so they say).




I can't help but do this whenever I see a film with CGI.  I took a computer graphics course in college and now I always find myself evaluating the CGI I see anywhere.  It's actually a testament to how good Avatar was that I found myself more pulled into the story than I was judging the graphics.  I was absolutely blown away by those floating mountains, though.

I didn't see Up in 3D, but I did see it in 2D recently, and I have to say what stunned me most was the fabrics.  At one point I wondered if they had switched to claymation instead of CGI, the fabric looked so real.  The motions of the balloons and how they interacted with each other and other objects was pretty awesome, too.


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## catsclaw227 (Dec 31, 2009)

Merkuri said:


> I didn't see Up in 3D, but I did see it in 2D recently, and I have to say what stunned me most was the fabrics.  At one point I wondered if they had switched to claymation instead of CGI, the fabric looked so real.  The motions of the balloons and how they interacted with each other and other objects was pretty awesome, too.



That movie was unbelievable on many levels.  Laugh, cry, laugh, cry...  The people at Pixar are amazing storytellers.


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## Plane Sailing (Jan 1, 2010)

catsclaw227 said:


> I should go see it again, now that I know the story, so that I can focus on the technology and properly analyze why this film will change film making in the years to come (or so they say).




I think that the main point about 'change film making' isn't so much in terms of what we see on the screen, but the camera technology which was invented in order to make Avatar - specifically the way in which Cameron could be filming the actors against the greenscreen and see a rendered version of them in a rendered environment at run time (as it were). In one video interview I saw, they make the point that Cameron can point the camera at the actors with stuck on ears and see Na'vi, point it down and see grass, point it up and see Hallelujah mountains.

_That_ is what is likely to change film making (I don't know whether that will be evident from watching the film per se).


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## catsclaw227 (Jan 1, 2010)

Plane Sailing said:


> I think that the main point about 'change film making' isn't so much in terms of what we see on the screen, but the camera technology which was invented in order to make Avatar - specifically the way in which Cameron could be filming the actors against the greenscreen and see a rendered version of them in a rendered environment at run time (as it were). In one video interview I saw, they make the point that Cameron can point the camera at the actors with stuck on ears and see Na'vi, point it down and see grass, point it up and see Hallelujah mountains.
> 
> _That_ is what is likely to change film making (I don't know whether that will be evident from watching the film per se).



Sounds pretty damn significant to me.


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## Olgar Shiverstone (Jan 2, 2010)

Finally saw it yesterday.  "Technically and visually stunning" is accurate, and it was engaging enough to overlook the derivative plot and wooden acting of most of the actors, as well as the heavy-handed thinly-disguised political commentary.  The visuals lived up to the hype; the rest not so much.

I have to say though that 3D ruined the experience for me, and in retrospect I'd have preferred to see it in 2D.  I dislike the distraction caused at the edges of vision where the 3D images no longer line up, and the "forced focus" that comes with 3D.  I like to range around and watch little details to the sides and in the background, and that just wasn't possible in 3D.

Overall, a 7.  Probably the best sci-fi movie I've seen this year; I was sufficiently entertained.


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## Merkuri (Jan 2, 2010)

Olgar Shiverstone said:


> I have to say though that 3D ruined the experience for me, and in retrospect I'd have preferred to see it in 2D.  I dislike the distraction caused at the edges of vision where the 3D images no longer line up, and the "forced focus" that comes with 3D.  I like to range around and watch little details to the sides and in the background, and that just wasn't possible in 3D.




I wouldn't say that 3D ruined it for me, but yeah, that about summed up my thoughts about the 3D experience.


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## Hand of Evil (Jan 3, 2010)

Well, AVATAR broke the billion dollar mark this weekend!  The question; Does it have the power to take out TITANIC!  (This was a week ahead of my thoughts).

Domestic:  $352,111,000 (34.6%) + Foreign:  $666,700,000 (65.4%) = Worldwide:  $1,018,811,000


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## Krug (Jan 4, 2010)

Olgar Shiverstone said:


> Finally saw it yesterday.  "Technically and visually stunning" is accurate, and it was engaging enough to overlook the derivative plot and wooden acting of most of the actors, as well as the heavy-handed thinly-disguised political commentary.  The visuals lived up to the hype; the rest not so much.
> 
> I have to say though that 3D ruined the experience for me, and in retrospect I'd have preferred to see it in 2D.  I dislike the distraction caused at the edges of vision where the 3D images no longer line up, and the "forced focus" that comes with 3D.  I like to range around and watch little details to the sides and in the background, and that just wasn't possible in 3D.
> 
> Overall, a 7.  Probably the best sci-fi movie I've seen this year; I was sufficiently entertained.




Wow no way that this was better than *District 9* or *Moon*. 

Anyway, *Avatar* only dropped 10% from the previous weekend, and with hardly anything to compete against it I think it does have a fairly good chance of beating *Titanic* in global box-office.


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## shilsen (Jan 5, 2010)

I just got back from the movie. It's very likely the prettiest movie I've ever seen and I can see why the effects impress a lot of other people as much as they do. It's a pity that the story itself is so derivative and hackneyed. I wasn't expecting anything great in that area, partly because it's Cameron and partly because of what I'd heard about the movie, but it's exceptionally weak in that area. Admittedly it's a plot which is as popular as it is simplistic and overdone, but it would have been nice to see something smart in that area. There's literally not a single part of the movie I can think of that was at all unexpected, and there are some big chunks which I was expecting well before they arrived. It doesn't help (at least not with me, though it won't bother most people, I think) that Cameron's depiction of the noble savage is one which got outdated sometime around the 16th century and is very blindly ethnocentric. 

I'd give it a 6.


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## catsclaw227 (Jan 5, 2010)

shilsen said:


> It doesn't help (at least not with me, though it won't bother most people, I think) that Cameron's depiction of the noble savage is one which got outdated sometime around the 16th century and is very blindly ethnocentric.



Could you elaborate on this?


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## Banshee16 (Jan 5, 2010)

I gave it a 9....very strong sci-fi/fantasy movie, excellent visuals, and despite the fact that the story has many elements we've seen before, I still found it enjoyable.  I went with my wife who didn't really care for seeing the movie, my sister who generally dislikes sci-fi movies, and her boyfriend, a former gamer, and after coming out, everyone said they thoroughly enjoyed it, and that they'd go see it again.

It's no Saving Private Ryan, but it was a lot of fun, and a genuine feast for the eyes.

Banshee


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## Jeremy Ackerman-Yost (Jan 5, 2010)

catsclaw227 said:


> Could you elaborate on this?



I'll take a brief stab....

The Na'avi were Indians in a Nathaniel Hawthorne novel, only cooler, prettier, and more awesome.  They were, however, also nearly terminally dumb and hidebound.  That view of them is simultaneously reverent and paternalistic.  The mix doesn't sit well.

Once I realized I was watching "Ferngully PG-13" I was able to turn off my frontal lobes and half the left hemisphere of my brain and just enjoy the pretty.  But, my word.... the villains in Disney movies aren't that broad and illogical.

Fun movie, but it had some issues.


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## Fast Learner (Jan 5, 2010)

Indeed, both strong ethnocentrism and a heavy dose of Mighty Whitey. Still an amazing film, but it could have been much more.


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## Plane Sailing (Jan 5, 2010)

Canis said:


> Once I realized I was watching "Ferngully PG-13"




I've seen many people complain that it was too like Ferngully, but I have to wonder whether people have actually watched ferngully, as I can't really see any points of contact at all (apart from perhaps in one film a bulldozer knocks over an evil tree and in the other film a bulldozer knocks over a good tree? And they both have a swimming scene?).

Cheers


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## Gog (Jan 5, 2010)

Plane Sailing said:


> I've seen many people complain that it was too like Ferngully, but I have to wonder whether people have actually watched ferngully, as I can't really see any points of contact at all (apart from perhaps in one film a bulldozer knocks over an evil tree and in the other film a bulldozer knocks over a good tree? And they both have a swimming scene?).
> 
> Cheers




A human, transformed into a native creature, comes along to save the noble locals from the big evil company. Although comparing the two is like comparing Doc Hollywood and Cars. Yeah they are similar but it's hardly a story unique to those two movies.


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## Plane Sailing (Jan 5, 2010)

Well, Doc Hollywood == Cars, so I don't think that is a particularly good comparison.

In Ferngully the guy is shrunk by the fairies to their size (doesn't become a fairy), and he isn't there to save the noble locals from the big evil company, but from the evil supernatural spirit released from a tree by a logging company (and it isn't him that saves them either)

To my mind 'Dances with wolves'/ 'man called horse' are slightly more similar in theme. Ferngully though? Not at all!


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## Gog (Jan 5, 2010)

Plane Sailing said:


> Well, Doc Hollywood == Cars, so I don't think that is a particularly good comparison.
> 
> In Ferngully the guy is shrunk by the fairies to their size (doesn't become a fairy), and he isn't there to save the noble locals from the big evil company, but from the evil supernatural spirit released from a tree by a logging company (and it isn't him that saves them either)
> 
> To my mind 'Dances with wolves'/ 'man called horse' are slightly more similar in theme. Ferngully though? Not at all!




Well yeah I think those two are more simliar also, doesn't make Ferngully less similar though.


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## Desdichado (Jan 5, 2010)

6.  A very pretty movie, but it's like eating cotton candy.  Nothing's really there except sugar and air.


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## shilsen (Jan 5, 2010)

Canis said:


> I'll take a brief stab....
> 
> The Na'avi were Indians in a Nathaniel Hawthorne novel, only cooler, prettier, and more awesome.  They were, however, also nearly terminally dumb and hidebound.  That view of them is simultaneously reverent and paternalistic.  The mix doesn't sit well.






Fast Learner said:


> Indeed, both strong ethnocentrism and a heavy dose of Mighty Whitey. Still an amazing film, but it could have been much more.




That about summed up my response to catsclaw227's question. Ironically, Cameron's presentation of the fictional aliens (which, BTW, were alien only in the sense that elongating a supermodel and painting it blue is alien) was just as othering as the attitude of the villains in the movie.


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## Desdichado (Jan 5, 2010)

Yeah, I've never seen Fern Gully, so I don't know.  I did find this kinda funny, and quite accurate, though.


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## Plane Sailing (Jan 5, 2010)

Hobo said:


> Yeah, I've never seen Fern Gully, so I don't know.  I did find this kinda funny, and quite accurate, though.




Brilliant!


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## Klaus (Jan 5, 2010)

Yeah, Pocatar == Avahontas.


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## Desdichado (Jan 5, 2010)

This might not be the right venue for it either, but the Circvs Maximvs thread on Avatar has been derailed by a tongue in cheek argument about which wall to wall porn movie is the most important movie of our generation, so I'm not going to hold out much hope that any good discussion's going to happen there for a while.

The question of the white man's guilt fantasy and the "mighty whitey" cliche that so permeate Avatar and other movies of that ilk (Dances with Wolves, Last Samurai, etc.) is an interesting one.  I read an online article recently where it said, rather than have a "mighty whitey" character that the audience can identify with, who after a few weeks of crash courses in native culture is suddenly a better native hero than any actual natives, plus the chieftain's daughter now has the hots for him, why not tell the same story with an actual native character?

Of course, the answer to that is: Robin Hood.  Oppressed Anglo-Saxon native who rises up to halt the colonial Normans and put a stop to their exploitative ways, etc.


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## Jeremy Ackerman-Yost (Jan 5, 2010)

Fast Learner said:


> Indeed, both strong ethnocentrism and a heavy dose of Mighty Whitey. Still an amazing film, but it could have been much more.



Indeed.  The white human male takes what?  Two months?  To become the bestest Navi EVAR!  (Or at least in 3 generations or so).

The Ferngully parallels are almost as obvious as that Pocahontas summary.  Dude almost gets killed in the forest, but is saved by Magic Native Chick.  Dude and Chick have adventures and fall in love.  Big bads make their move.  Dude is revealed to be technically aligned with the big bads, but is totally reformed now, man!  Big battle scene arrives.  Natives start off getting their butts kicked all over the place, but the power of the Earth and the badassery of the Chick save the day.

FernGully at least had the balls to opt out of the happy romantic ending and send Dude and Magic Native Chick back into their separate worlds, both older and wiser.  In that respect, it was a more challenging film than Avatar.


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## Desdichado (Jan 5, 2010)

I'm just glad that the Navi had more credibility than the Ewoks when they went to go fight an entire legion of the Emperor's best troops... er, I mean a highly trained and well equipped mercenary outfit in 40k-looking battlesuits and trashed them in a jungle showdown.


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## RangerWickett (Jan 6, 2010)

You got something against Ewoks?


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## Mustrum_Ridcully (Jan 6, 2010)

Canis said:


> Indeed.  The white human male takes what?  Two months?  To become the bestest Navi EVAR!  (Or at least in 3 generations or so).
> 
> The Ferngully parallels are almost as obvious as that Pocahontas summary.  Dude almost gets killed in the forest, but is saved by Magic Native Chick.  Dude and Chick have adventures and fall in love.  Big bads make their move.  Dude is revealed to be technically aligned with the big bads, but is totally reformed now, man!  Big battle scene arrives.  Natives start off getting their butts kicked all over the place, but the power of the Earth and the badassery of the Chick save the day.
> 
> FernGully at least had the balls to opt out of the happy romantic ending and send Dude and Magic Native Chick back into their separate worlds, both older and wiser.  In that respect, it was a more challenging film than Avatar.



One could also spin this into a general "positive message".

Don't distrust every foreigner. He can be just as good as you are, if you just give him the chance. It can be construed as a story of the "superiority" of a certain race or species. Or it can be construed as a story of a successful integration. 
It can also be a story about overcoming obstacles. Here is this foreigner that no one really trusts. But he makes an effort to gain the trust, to learn the things that are strange and alien to him, and he exceeds beyond all expectations. Because that is what _heroes_ do. Not white men, not Anglo-Saxons, not humans. Heroes overcome obstacles and challenges. They don't give up. They excel. 

There are stories like these where the foreigner is not the "dominant race/species/origin" of the audience, too. Tarzan for example. (In a way, it's a story of both - first the "exemplar of dominat group" adapts to the wilderness, but then he returns to the "civilization". Crocodile Dundee might a be a numerous representative, too.


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## Klaus (Jan 6, 2010)

Hobo said:


> This might not be the right venue for it either, but the Circvs Maximvs thread on Avatar has been derailed by a tongue in cheek argument about which wall to wall porn movie is the most important movie of our generation, so I'm not going to hold out much hope that any good discussion's going to happen there for a while.
> 
> The question of the white man's guilt fantasy and the "mighty whitey" cliche that so permeate Avatar and other movies of that ilk (Dances with Wolves, Last Samurai, etc.) is an interesting one.  I read an online article recently where it said, rather than have a "mighty whitey" character that the audience can identify with, who after a few weeks of crash courses in native culture is suddenly a better native hero than any actual natives, plus the chieftain's daughter now has the hots for him, why not tell the same story with an actual native character?
> 
> Of course, the answer to that is: Robin Hood.  Oppressed Anglo-Saxon native who rises up to halt the colonial Normans and put a stop to their exploitative ways, etc.



Another example: Braveheart's William Wallace.

And the Na'Vi were on the losing side until the Primal power source got into the fight.

As for the Ewoks, how different it would've been if the final battle happened on the wookiee homeworld, as originally intended...


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## shilsen (Jan 6, 2010)

Mustrum_Ridcully said:


> One could also spin this into a general "positive message".
> 
> Don't distrust every foreigner. He can be just as good as you are, if you just give him the chance. It can be construed as a story of the "superiority" of a certain race or species. Or it can be construed as a story of a successful integration.
> It can also be a story about overcoming obstacles. Here is this foreigner that no one really trusts. But he makes an effort to gain the trust, to learn the things that are strange and alien to him, and he exceeds beyond all expectations. Because that is what _heroes_ do. Not white men, not Anglo-Saxons, not humans. Heroes overcome obstacles and challenges. They don't give up. They excel.




I'd say that one could spin it into a positive message if one ignored the context. And the context is that these stories are invariably always about the white man being the one who excels and leads the poor benighted savages to victory. Emphasis on "white" and "man". _Avatar_, for me, would have been much more interesting if Cameron was intelligent enough to do something slightly different or subversive. For example, having Michelle Rodriguez's character (or Sigourney Weaver's) be the one to go to the Na'vi and do what Sully does. Or having one of the Na'vi come to the humans, learn their ways, and use it to kick their asses. But that never happens in these stories.



> There are stories like these where the foreigner is not the "dominant race/species/origin" of the audience, too. Tarzan for example. (In a way, it's a story of both - first the "exemplar of dominat group" adapts to the wilderness, but then he returns to the "civilization". Crocodile Dundee might a be a numerous representative, too.




Wait a second - how is Tarzan not a member of the dominant race/species/origin of the audience? He's very explicitly not only male and white, but also nobility. And Burroughs makes a lot of capital of the fact that it's his noble origin and blood which makes Tarzan as incredible as he is. Hell, he teaches himself to read and write English, simply because being a British lord makes him so smart. There's a reason why Tarzan is Lord Greystoke. It's a total colonialist fantasy, just like _Avatar_ is.


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## Kobold Avenger (Jan 6, 2010)

Some movies that I think are sort of reversals of that are the Might Whitey stories are ones staring a Martial Arts star from China or Hong Kong such as Jet Li or Jackie Chan, who goes to America or Europe and saves a bunch of people there.  Granted they've usually haven't saved American/European civilization in the movie.

I'm also surprised no one has done comparisons to Dune and Avatar.


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## Plane Sailing (Jan 6, 2010)

shilsen said:


> I'd say that one could spin it into a positive message if one ignored the context. And the context is that these stories are invariably always about the white man being the one who excels and leads the poor benighted savages to victory. Emphasis on "white" and "man".




Sounds a little like your personal prejudices showing here? If you are determined to read it in one way, then nobody can do anything about it, but you are rather quick to dismiss Mustrum's alternate reading.

The discussion is starting to get a little political, so I suggest that this aspect of the subject gets dropped.

Thanks


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## catsclaw227 (Jan 6, 2010)

So, who cares if it is a retelling of another story?  

It was really entertaining, the visuals were awesome, the technology will be ported to some more challenging stories in the future and everyone (the movie-goers, theaters, studios, actors, producers, CGI techs, etc) comes out of the movie happy.

Aren't we all striving for happiness?


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## Jeremy Ackerman-Yost (Jan 6, 2010)

catsclaw227 said:


> So, who cares if it is a retelling of another story?



I don't.  I care that it was a _lazy_ retelling of other stories.  If you're going to spend a gazillion dollars, at least hire good writers and listen to them.



> Aren't we all striving for happiness?



That's exactly what I'm doing.  I did so in the theater by deliberately shunting my brain away from the plot holes and what not.  But I'm not in the theater now.  So I shall strive for happiness by asking for better movies in the future.

I can't do that by claiming this was a great film.

Already, Hollywood is probably learning the wrong lessons here.  They are learning that pretty CGI is more important than good narrative, good acting, or even plot coherence.  They are learning that you can recycle the tropes we rejected as a culture a couple decades ago about ethnic differences by slapping a coat of blue body paint on people.  They are re-learning that tech is more important than script and pretty visuals will overcome plot holes you can drive an aircraft carrier through.

These are bad lessons.  They will create more bad movies than good movies based on the box office receipts and praise heaped upon Avatar.  The last couple times this happened we went through cinematic Dark Ages.  Middle-budget films are already going the way of the dodo.  Let's not hasten that process.


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## catsclaw227 (Jan 6, 2010)

Canis said:


> I don't.  I care that it was a _lazy_ retelling of other stories.  If you're going to spend a gazillion dollars, at least hire good writers and listen to them.



OK, that's fair.



Canis said:


> That's exactly what I'm doing.  I did so in the theater by deliberately shunting my brain away from the plot holes and what not.  But I'm not in the theater now.  So I shall strive for happiness by asking for better movies in the future.
> 
> I can't do that by claiming this was a great film.




I know this is just anecdotal, but of all the people I know that saw the movie (at least 20), only one had to shunt their brain away from plot holes as you did.  Everyone else just enjoyed it, admitting to some holes but not caring.

It's possible that you are in the minority in your belief about it not being a great film.  And what makes it a great film for you may be different that others.  Obviously the box-office receipts show that it was a great film for a large group of people.




Canis said:


> Already, Hollywood is probably learning the wrong lessons here.  They are learning that pretty CGI is more important than good narrative, good acting, or even plot coherence.  They are learning that you can recycle the tropes we rejected as a culture a couple decades ago about ethnic differences by slapping a coat of blue body paint on people.  They are re-learning that tech is more important than script and pretty visuals will overcome plot holes you can drive an aircraft carrier through.
> 
> These are bad lessons.  They will create more bad movies than good movies based on the box office receipts and praise heaped upon Avatar.  The last couple times this happened we went through cinematic Dark Ages.  Middle-budget films are already going the way of the dodo.  Let's not hasten that process.



If I may be so bold, the lesson they are learning is that all these things you mentioned above made a ton of cash.  The lesson is that film making like Avatar will make you lots of money so you can make more movies like the ones you want and still be OK if they lose money.

I think despite some of the negative things you mentioned, there are some good lessons in the film for young kids.  And they don't have anything to do with framing it with "Mighty Whitey and the poor, poor subhuman natives".

(Actually, I didn't get that Mighty Whitey vibe at all. What if Jake Sully had been played by someone like Taye Diggs?  You have to understand, I didn't see "color" or race in the Earthlings. So if the crew of the mission had been more ethnically diverse would the Mighty Whitey comment even be valid?)


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## Jeremy Ackerman-Yost (Jan 6, 2010)

catsclaw227 said:


> I know this is just anecdotal, but of all the people I know that saw the movie (at least 20), only one had to shunt their brain away from plot holes as you did.  Everyone else just enjoyed it, admitting to some holes but not caring.



Oh, I admit I might be a picky jerk.  I'm not good at effusive praise even when I really, really like something.  That might be because I can _always_ think of a way to improve things, even if it's minuscule.  I think that's an important drive in society, so I don't squash it.

Everyone I was with enjoyed it more than I did, but I'm not sure that kind of thing holds up under scrutiny.  I remember being in a theater for each of the Star Wars prequels, surrounded by people who were eating it up with a spoon and walked out talking about how awesome it was.  Many of these people, when consulted 24 hours later, went on to insist that the movie was a steaming pile of excrement and that they hated it.

People are fickle, to say the least. 



> It's possible that you are in the minority in your belief about it not being a great film.  And what makes it a great film for you may be different that others.  Obviously the box-office receipts show that it was a great film for a large group of people.



We could seriously debate that.    I double dog dare you to take a list of top grossing films and try to find anyone who would accept it as anything like a quality measure.  There's a HUGE amount of noise in movie grosses in any case.



> (Actually, I didn't get that Mighty Whitey vibe at all. What if Jake Sully had been played by someone like Taye Diggs?  You have to understand, I didn't see "color" or race in the Earthlings. So if the crew of the mission had been more ethnically diverse would the Mighty Whitey comment even be valid?)



Yes, but less so.

It would still be the outsider from a fundamentally Western culture showing up and being more awesome than everyone else, which is a little dodgy.


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## Aeolius (Jan 6, 2010)

DVD/Blu-ray sales are sure to skyrocket: Avatar DVD/Blu-ray to include blue alien sex scene


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## catsclaw227 (Jan 6, 2010)

Canis said:


> Oh, I admit I might be a picky jerk.  I'm not good at effusive praise even when I really, really like something.  That might be because I can _always_ think of a way to improve things, even if it's minuscule.  I think that's an important drive in society, so I don't squash it.



That's good.  No need to hold back the emotions or the drive for innovation and improvement.



Canis said:


> Everyone I was with enjoyed it more than I did, but I'm not sure that kind of thing holds up under scrutiny.  I remember being in a theater for each of the Star Wars prequels, surrounded by people who were eating it up with a spoon and walked out talking about how awesome it was.  Many of these people, when consulted 24 hours later, went on to insist that the movie was a steaming pile of excrement and that they hated it.
> 
> People are fickle, to say the least.



True, but I haven't had that experience with this movie, and with the Star Wars prequels, almost everyone I know was ambivalent to upset about them.



Canis said:


> catsclaw227 said:
> 
> 
> 
> ...



That's funny, cause I originally had "Taye Diggs or an actor with Asian roots like Ken Watanabe or Roger Yuen" as my example but I edited them out because I didn't want to muddle the issue and I figured you would understand I meant a "non-white American or typically western dude". 

I guess I should have left that part in as my point would have been clearer.

And for what it's worth, it got the highest opening weekend box-office ever in China over the weekend.  That's a very non-western audience.


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## shilsen (Jan 7, 2010)

Plane Sailing said:


> Sounds a little like your personal prejudices showing here? If you are determined to read it in one way, then nobody can do anything about it, but you are rather quick to dismiss Mustrum's alternate reading.




That's amusing. You're rather quick to assume, with no evidence either way, that I was quick to dismiss Mustrum's reading. And it's funny that you assert that my personal prejudices are showing here, without considering whether there are any personal prejudices at play for anyone who dismisses the comments I (or the others arguing that there are some serious issues with _Avatar_) have made. One could just as easily assert that it's personal prejudice which makes people write it off as not a big deal.

That said...



> The discussion is starting to get a little political, so I suggest that this aspect of the subject gets dropped.
> 
> Thanks




Fair enough. I'll drop the subject.


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## Jeremy Ackerman-Yost (Jan 7, 2010)

catsclaw227 said:


> That's funny, cause I originally had "Taye Diggs or an actor with Asian roots like Ken Watanabe or Roger Yuen" as my example but I edited them out because I didn't want to muddle the issue and I figured you would understand I meant a "non-white American or typically western dude".



Wouldn't really have mattered.  The movie presented a corporate culture with entirely Western norms.  I think we are to assume, as Hollywood generally prefers, that in the future, _everyone_ is part of a Western culture.


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## Fast Learner (Jan 7, 2010)

catsclaw227 said:


> (Actually, I didn't get that Mighty Whitey vibe at all. What if Jake Sully had been played by someone like Taye Diggs?  You have to understand, I didn't see "color" or race in the Earthlings. So if the crew of the mission had been more ethnically diverse would the Mighty Whitey comment even be valid?)




It wouldn't have changed my perception at all. "Mighty Whitey" is about the culturally identifiable hero of your "race" (ethnicity or cultural group is more accurate, but we use "race") being superior to those of other 
races" _at their own specialties_, and usually getting the lead girl of the other "race," usually the "chief's" daughter.

In the case of Avatar it's just more literal: the word "race" is accurate. Same story. Someone from the human race who is better at the alien race at their own game, and who gets the alien girl. The ethnicity of the human is irrelevant.


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## WayneLigon (Jan 7, 2010)

Canis said:


> The movie presented a corporate culture with entirely Western norms.  I think we are to assume, as Hollywood generally prefers, that in the future, _everyone_ is part of a Western culture.




Not an invalid assumption at all. You could certainly argue that Western culture is already the dominant First-World culture on Earth and it doesn't seem like that will change any time soon. It's not a far step to think that with disappearing informational boundaries that all first-world cultures are going to basically blend into one.

It's not implausible at all that the space-going Company is going to be primarily run and operated by Westerners, so of course that's what you're going to see. Earth itself probably has several other cultures, but they haven't bothered or are unable (fiscally, technically, lack the will to power, whatever) to mount a massive space-based operation like the exploitation of Pandora.


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## Jeremy Ackerman-Yost (Jan 7, 2010)

As Fast Learner has pointed out, culture is actually a red herring here, but in any case, perhaps I should have said "I think we are to assume, as Hollywood generally prefers, that in the future, everyone _who matters_ is part of a Western culture."

However, I think that's possibly an even more diabolical position than my original statement.  Hollywood generally clings to a very tame mass market version of pluralism.


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## El Mahdi (Jan 9, 2010)

deleted


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## Impeesa (Jan 10, 2010)

If the writing was actually lazy and hackneyed, the corporate guy would have died going into the third act while the military guy went off the rails, allowing the human side to throw away any consistent motivation for the sake of an explosion-filled finale. Search your heart, you know it to be true. Instead, their established relationships and motivations continue to matter even while we still get our explosion-filled finale. 

Also, I liked how they showed the shared evolutionary roots of all the animals via the doubled forelegs, with even the flying creatures having analogous wing structures. This gave a nice physical parallel to the universal plug-n-play nervous systems, underscoring that interconnectedness. I love this sort of worldbuilding detail. It does frustrate me now, though, trying to figure out why the Na'vi don't have four arms. :|


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## El Mahdi (Jan 10, 2010)

deleted


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## Joker (Jan 10, 2010)

It's a general criticism of the film.  The writing is particularly cringe-worthy during the Tarok Macto speech.

I liked the film a lot and it's replaced Independence Day as my favorite action spectacle blockbuster.  I just ignored what they said mostly and let my self be taken on a ride.  This is American film making at it's finest in terms of entertainment.

I took my parents to it and they absolutely loved it.  My mom was talking about it throughout the evening.  They don't see as many films as I do but that doesn't lessen their opinion of it.  They thought it was beautiful and totally engrossing.


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## Joker (Jan 10, 2010)

El Mahdi said:


> The only thing I didn't like was the portrayal of the military, but technically these guys weren't true military. They had been at one time, but now they were a private corporate army. Essentially mercenaries. Although, very well organized, disciplined and equipped mercenaries. Very few people like that exist anymore in todays modern militaries. For most people in the military today, Honor is a very real and crucial thing.




Well, the military is pretty much a cross-section of a given society.  You have people from every walk of life and every outlook.  Most *people* would not be so sociopathic but some would as you say.  However, mores and codes of honor may have changed dramatically as resources dwindled back on earth and people had to fight for basic needs.  I mean, would you really respect the aliens' desire for life and prosperity if your own people were dying from whatever it is they're dying from?


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## catsclaw227 (Jan 10, 2010)

El Mahdi said:


> Uhmm...may I ask who you are responding to?  I went back a page and a half (about a week and a half of posts), and didn't find anyone calling the writing _lazy and hackneyed_.  Perhaps you can quote the person you're responding to, or if it's a conversation outside of the thread perhaps you could let is in on the discussion?



He may have been referring to this message post, where Canis called it lazy writing and later in teh post, when describing the lessons being taught future film-makers, he infers a "hack" writing style.   I agree with the lazy part of Canis' comments, but not about lessons learned.

One good thing, is that this movie is generating discussion, and at least Cameron tried to inject a story with a message.  Now, if only the message wasn't Sesame Street level intelligence and he didn't use a nuke to deliver the message instead of a rapier.

I want to see it again so that I can look deeper at the story instead of the visuals, but the world-building and level of detail expressed in that process was like nothing I've seen before in film.


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## Impeesa (Jan 10, 2010)

El Mahdi said:


> Uhmm...may I ask who you are responding to?  I went back a page and a half (about a week and a half of posts), and didn't find anyone calling the writing _lazy and hackneyed_.  Perhaps you can quote the person you're responding to, or if it's a conversation outside of the thread perhaps you could let is in on the discussion?




Some people called it lazy (or implied as such by way of 'unoriginal' or 'predictable'), but I was also just making an observation on something a lesser writer might have done that they didn't. Had I stopped the movie halfway through to discuss, I would have put money on that guy dying.


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## El Mahdi (Jan 11, 2010)

deleted


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## Aeolius (Jan 12, 2010)

There is a ride, in EPCOT at Disney World, called Soarin'. On this ride, you strap into a mock hang-glider while watching an IMAX-like screen. As the hang-glider turns and twists, you soar over different terrains. One terrain is an orange grove. You can literally smell the oranges, mainly because they pipe in the smell. 

That is what Avatar needed - scents. Imagine if a cartridge-based device could be plugged into each theater playing Avatar and synced with the movie. You could smell flowers, wood burning, the musk of animals, and the stench of machinery. Another layer of immersion.


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## Joker (Jan 12, 2010)

Aeolius said:


> That is what Avatar needed - scents. Imagine if a cartridge-based device could be plugged into each theater playing Avatar and synced with the movie. You could smell flowers, wood burning, the musk of animals, and the stench of machinery. Another layer of immersion.




The smell of burning corpses, blood and napalm.  When they're in space they should create a vacuum in the theater and flood the room with radiation.

Looking forward to it .

As an aside, does anyone hold their breath when a character on screen does so?


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## Merkuri (Jan 12, 2010)

Joker said:


> As an aside, does anyone hold their breath when a character on screen does so?




Sometimes, but I've come to the realization that characters in the media either have practiced holding their breath more than I have or are inhumanly able to hold their breath, so lately I've been having to tell myself not to do it.


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## RigaMortus2 (Jan 14, 2010)

I thought the story was actually pretty good.  I heard people who said they were disappointed with the story aspect, but it didn't bother me.  At its root, its the typical "deep cover" story arc, where the person under cover gets sympathy for the person they are spying on and switches sides.  But I felt they added more aspects to it than that.  The three factions, the marines, the scientists and the corporation.

I though the world and setting was very original.

The effects were a 10.

I voted 8 over all because I felt there were some parts the movie seemed to drag on.  The end action needed to start quicker than it did.  I think the movie was about 30 - 40 min too long.  I generally like 3 hour movies myself, such as LotR, but this just seemed to drag in parts.


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## Bedrockgames (Jan 14, 2010)

I gave it a 9. The visuals were incredible (I say it with the IMAX glasses), the action was exciting, and the story was entertaining. I do have to agree with those who feel the message was delivered with a sledge hammer, but I don't expect subtley on that front from Cameron. The bad guy (whatever the colonel's name was) was a great, if over the top and one dimensional, villain. 

I should also point out, I went in thinking I was going tot hate it (just saw it last night). It just didn't interest me, and the comparison to Dances with Wolves (a film I just can't stand) kept me away. This was definitely more in line with Lawrence of Arabia. A really solid, going native flick.


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## Turtlejay (Jan 17, 2010)

I tease the film about being derivative, but don't we tell the same seven stories over and over again?  Romeo and Juliet was just another romantic tragedy when it was new, but we still love West Side Story because it was told *well*.

Avatar was told well, in that the universe it created is immersive and beautiful.  The characters may be a bit shallow.  The plot may be thin.  As whole it *succeeds* because of or in spite of it's parts.

I liked the world created, and would have given the movie a 9 or 10 if I felt it was a little more internally consistent.  I bow to the need to make the Na'vi more humanlike as a storytelling tool.  If they had six legs and breathed through their necks like the *rest* of the fauna in the world, I doubt the movie would be grossing over a billion dollars right now.

The tiny amount of digging I've done online seems to indicate that earlier drafts of the movie were more technical (hard sci fi!).  While I think a movie like that is right up my alley, James Cameron obviously knows the world's moviegoer, because this 'sci fi' movie is as soft as they come, from Unobtanium to entirely glossed over technologies (how did they get to Alpha Centauri in such a short time?  Cryosleep, growing an alien hybrid clone?).  I see rumors of a sequel, here's hoping they up the sci fi a bit.  For me?  Please?

Jay


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## shilsen (Jan 19, 2010)

Turtlejay said:


> I tease the film about being derivative, but don't we tell the same seven stories over and over again?




Nope, and it's hard to think that we do unless one ignores a lot of the stories out there, especially stories coming from different voices, cultures, historical periods, etc. 



> Romeo and Juliet was just another romantic tragedy when it was new, but we still love West Side Story because it was told *well*.




There's a big difference between doing an adaptation of an existing work for a new period (and being honest about the aim) and being derivative. _Avatar_ is like _Eragon_, in that it purports to be an original creation but is a very obvious combination of rip-offs and little else. Only it's incredibly pretty. I daresay the movie _Eragon_ would have been much more of a success if it was as pretty, but that wouldn't make it a good movie.

I think Cameron's very good at working out what puts bums on seats. That's not a very good measure of anything other than popularity, however. _Twilight_, as book(s) and movie(s), is wildly successful, but that doesn't mean it has any particular quality besides popularity.

Anyhow, I'll leave it to one of the funniest writers on the internet to expand a little further on _Avatar_: Tiger Beatdown's take on why Avatar is a hilarious movie.


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## Evilhalfling (Jan 23, 2010)

catsclaw227 said:


> Now, if only the message wasn't Sesame Street level intelligence and he didn't use a nuke to deliver the message instead of a rapier.
> 
> I want to see it again so that I can look deeper at the story instead of the visuals, but the world-building and level of detail expressed in that process was like nothing I've seen before in film.




and speaking of nukes....
why did the tavi think they had one long term? 
the option of nuke them from orbit was completately ignored.  If not nukes than atmospehere incidiaries.
humans want a buried mineral, native life is irritating ... hmmm.

I watched it and it was pretty, but the story kept irritating me. it was like a burr in my blanket.  Too predictable, too happy, and too rehashed.  And really what kind of evolutionary process provides USB ports to all species? 
Where is the predator that uses it offensively? 

Gave the movie a 5.


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## TanisFrey (Jan 23, 2010)

Nukes from orbit.  Overkill

It's far cheaper and easier to create orbital strikes.  If the company has money to spend on sleeper ships it can make high-speed impact missiles.  Get fast enough and you deliver an explosion as great as a nuke without going the hazardous process of building a nuke.  Why poison your workers by handling Pu238, when they can build a really big rocket engine.


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## Wombat (Jan 23, 2010)

Having finally seen this, my summation is:  looks pretty, mediocre story.  I wasn't bored, but I wasn't excited.  Then again, Cameron's work has rarely done anything for me.


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## Jeremy Ackerman-Yost (Jan 24, 2010)

Evilhalfling said:


> Where is the predator that uses it offensively?



That drove me batty as well.  But ultimately the Earth Mother schtick was more important to them than their ecological continuity.


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## Mustrum_Ridcully (Jan 24, 2010)

Evilhalfling said:


> and speaking of nukes....
> why did the tavi think they had one long term?
> the option of nuke them from orbit was completately ignored.  If not nukes than atmospehere incidiaries.
> humans want a buried mineral, native life is irritating ... hmmm.
> ...



Where do these orbital nukes come from? You did see that they planned to use a bundle of commercial explosives that they used for mining to blow up the Na'vi? Why do you assume that a civilian corporation owns nukes?


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## Hand of Evil (Jan 25, 2010)

Mustrum_Ridcully said:


> Where do these orbital nukes come from? You did see that they planned to use a bundle of commercial explosives that they used for mining to blow up the Na'vi? Why do you assume that a civilian corporation owns nukes?




Spaceships and manpower, they could make one with time on their side. It was time that was causing them problems, they went with a quick fix, they could have waited a few years for one to be shipped in, they just wanted to meet their quota of ore and get their bonuses for it.


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## Klaus (Jan 25, 2010)

Mustrum_Ridcully said:


> Where do these orbital nukes come from? You did see that they planned to use a bundle of commercial explosives that they used for mining to blow up the Na'vi? Why do you assume that a civilian corporation owns nukes?



Yeah, one common misconception about this movie is that the Earthlings are a military force, when they're actually a mercenary outfit for a private corporation. So low profits, bad press and budget are as much on their minds as winning.


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## Aus_Snow (Jan 31, 2010)

Visually stunning, and all 'round not as bad a movie as I was expecting it to be.

7/10 from me. And i tend to be pretty harsh when judging movies, mostly.


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## Thanee (Jan 31, 2010)

All Time Worldwide Box Office Grosses

Bye
Thanee


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## Krug (Feb 4, 2010)

And now it's the biggest in Domestic box-office gross as well..


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## Kobold Avenger (Feb 4, 2010)

You know the biggest thing I hate about that movie, is that stupid theme song.  I hate Celine Dion with a passion, and and what's worse is it's from someone who sounds just like her.


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## Dausuul (Feb 8, 2010)

Klaus said:


> Yeah, one common misconception about this movie is that the Earthlings are a military force, when they're actually a mercenary outfit for a private corporation. So low profits, bad press and budget are as much on their minds as winning.




It's a common misconception because Cameron skates over that aspect of the movie so fast it's very easy to miss. Furthermore, all available evidence on-screen indicates that the corporation has fairly free access to Earth military resources--we see marines and battlemechs and gunships everywhere--and that their concern with PR is fairly limited; the evil executive dude says (IIRC) that the one thing shareholders like even less than genocide is a poor quarterly report, which suggests that the corporation is both willing and able to commit genocide if it comes down to it.

So, it's not at all unreasonable to ask why the corporation isn't going to just come back and bomb hell out of the place. I gather James Cameron posted a whole huge reference online explaining the backstory in detail... to which I can only respond that if your movie needs an online reference to fill in all the plot holes, you need to work on your script some more.

The special effects were indeed stunning, though, and IMO could have carried the movie across the finish line by themselves if they hadn't had quite so far to carry it. Memo to Cameron: When you have two hours' worth of sheer technological "wow," do not make your movie three hours long.

(Also, was anyone else EXTREMELY creeped out by the sexual subtext of this movie? Apparently, among the Na'vi, men get to choose the women who will mate with them and the women get to shut up and take it... and the process of bonding with your mystical winged steed is more-or-less-literal rape. Gaah.)


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## Klaus (Feb 8, 2010)

"Rape"? It's much more like a "mind-meld", isn't it?


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## Krug (Feb 9, 2010)

Or rather forceful usb drive shoving.. hmm..


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## Dausuul (Feb 9, 2010)

Klaus said:


> "Rape"? It's much more like a "mind-meld", isn't it?




My impression (partly due to Grace's "Don't play with that, you'll go blind" joke) was that the tentacly thing is both USB port and sexual organ. I might be wrong though.


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## Mustrum_Ridcully (Feb 9, 2010)

Dausuul said:


> My impression (partly due to Grace's "Don't play with that, you'll go blind" joke) was that the tentacly thing is both USB port and sexual organ. I might be wrong though.



But that doesn't make it rape. 
I can store porno movies on an USB sticks. That doesn't give storing a Bible as PDF on the USB a sexual or pornographic meaning. 

I can't even begin to imagine the (sexual?) confusion humanity would go through if it met real aliens, not merely speculating about fictional creatures created for a movie.


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## Dausuul (Feb 9, 2010)

Mustrum_Ridcully said:


> But that doesn't make it rape.
> I can store porno movies on an USB sticks. That doesn't give storing a Bible as PDF on the USB a sexual or pornographic meaning.




I was about to post a counter-analogy, but I think Eric's grandma is already suffering from severe hypertension at this whole discussion and would have a massive coronary if it got any more graphic, so I'll just put it this way: The physical act of mindlinking appears to be the same as the physical act of sex. Mindlinking appears to be an emotionally charged and intimate connection... also like sex. The process of bonding with your winged mount involves forcing this connection on the mount in question. If that ain't rape, it sure looks like it.

By itself it would have been just a moment of "Uh... did he just do what it looked like he just did?" But add it to the whole "choose a mate" thing, and the implications are... unsettling. At least I found them so.

(I admit that I'm reading it in terms of social commentary rather than science fiction. By that point, my inner science fiction fan was sitting in a corner with his fingers in his ears chanting, "Just pretend it's fantasy and this is all magic, and everything will be okay.")


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## Klaus (Feb 9, 2010)

Dausuul said:


> My impression (partly due to Grace's "Don't play with that, you'll go blind" joke) was that the tentacly thing is both USB port and sexual organ. I might be wrong though.



Grace knew less than she'd like about the Na'vi.

And, based on the script page for the love scene between Jake and Ney'tiri, the USB port and the sweetlovemaking port are different things.


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## Plane Sailing (Feb 10, 2010)

Dausuul said:


> It's a common misconception because Cameron skates over that aspect of the movie so fast it's very easy to miss.




I was surprised that anyone missed it, it all seemed a pretty upfront and straightforward explanation from the start (and at no point was there any indication of a government involvement, so it just said 'mercenaries' all the way through to me).



Dausuul said:


> I gather James Cameron posted a whole huge reference online explaining the backstory in detail... to which I can only respond that if your movie needs an online reference to fill in all the plot holes, you need to work on your script some more.




I couldn't disagree  more. It is common practice nowadays (film & TV) for there to be a 'script bible' as it were which gives more backstory than would find its way onto the screen just to ensure that there is a consistent reference. Would that more use was made of those techniques.



Dausuul said:


> (Also, was anyone else EXTREMELY creeped out by the sexual subtext of this movie? Apparently, among the Na'vi, men get to choose the women who will mate with them and the women get to shut up and take it... and the process of bonding with your mystical winged steed is more-or-less-literal rape. Gaah.)




I've got no idea where you got this idea from. There was no concept like this in the film at all.

Cheers


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## Dausuul (Feb 10, 2010)

Plane Sailing said:


> I couldn't disagree  more. It is common practice nowadays (film & TV) for there to be a 'script bible' as it were which gives more backstory than would find its way onto the screen just to ensure that there is a consistent reference. Would that more use was made of those techniques.




I've got nothing against having a script bible and posting it online. But the purpose of the online reference should be to flesh out the background for anyone who's curious--not to make sense of key plot elements.



Plane Sailing said:


> I've got no idea where you got this idea from. There was no concept like this in the film at all.
> 
> Cheers




The scene where Neytiri tells Jake he now gets to choose a mate. At first, I figured what she meant was akin to proposing marriage and the chosen mate would say yes or no. But then Jake says he's chosen his mate, but _this one_ has to choose him back, implying that the others _wouldn't_ have to. And immediately before he says that, Neytiri is listing off his options and noting their assets, as though all he has to do is pick one and that's it.

Perhaps it's just badly written dialogue--the movie had no shortage of that--but as written, it sure sounds like it's all up to the male and the female has little or no voice in the decision.


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## Mallus (Feb 10, 2010)

Plane Sailing said:


> I was surprised that anyone missed it, it all seemed a pretty upfront and straightforward explanation from the start (and at no point was there any indication of a government involvement, so it just said 'mercenaries' all the way through to me).



I thought it was very clear that they were all ex-military personnel working for Space Blackwater (a division of Weyland-Utani) on Pandora. I also liked how that fact added a little island of of plausibility to the story: the Na'vi weren't facing the full might of a star-faring military; they faced experienced troops equipped with what was most likely out-of-date army surplus, who were, in fact, clearly _under_equipped for certain kinds of missions --the humans had to cobble together the Big Bomb out of mining explosives, presumably after blowing their wad of HE ordnance on the Tree of Life. 

As for the film, finally saw, kinda loved it. It was amazingly transporting, and that's something I've wanted out of SF/F since I was a kid.


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## Merkuri (Feb 10, 2010)

Dausuul said:


> The scene where Neytiri tells Jake he now gets to choose a mate. At first, I figured what she meant was akin to proposing marriage and the chosen mate would say yes or no. But then Jake says he's chosen his mate, but _this one_ has to choose him back, implying that the others _wouldn't_ have to. And immediately before he says that, Neytiri is listing off his options and noting their assets, as though all he has to do is pick one and that's it.




The man getting to choose his bride (and her having nothing to say about it) is not that uncommon in human history.  I don't know why it would be interpreted as a creepy sexual subtext.  It's not a culture I'd like to live in, but I found it entirely plausible and non-creepy that in this culture the man gets to choose his mate for life.  It would be creepier if the mating wasn't for life and the man had the right to go around and mate with whoever suited his fancy at that moment.

Heck, there are some modern day cultures that still do arranged marriages, where neither member of the couple gets to choose.  I actually know somebody at work who had an arranged marriage and is very happy with it.  The idea of marriage being a choice between the two married people is not a universal truth.

But also remember that we only saw one instance of this mate-choosing happen.  It's possible you misinterpreted the "this one has to choose me back" comment and that's actually the way things are done normally in their culture.  Neytiri certainly didn't slap him around with a "that's not the way we do it" comment like she had been doing the rest of the movie.  For all we know the custom is for a man to choose a woman and then the woman has to accept him ("choose him back") before the mating happens.  Maybe the man's role is just to initiate the whole thing.

And whatshisname - the guy everyone thought she was going to be mated to in the beginning - seemed pretty upset at Neytiri that she had mated with Jake as if she had a choice in the matter.  I'd think he would have had more sympathy for her (or at least less ire) if she was just a possession chosen by another man or something like that.


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## Krug (Mar 1, 2010)

Domestic box office of US$706 million just before the next big 3-D film *Alice in Wonderland* hits, and just short of US$2.5 billion...


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## Rachel (Mar 24, 2010)

*3*. Terrible.

ROTTEN TOMATOES: Rachel F.'s Review of Avatar


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## Plane Sailing (Mar 28, 2010)

Rachel said:


> *3*. Terrible.
> 
> ROTTEN TOMATOES: Rachel F.'s Review of Avatar




Hi Rachel,

I notice in your review you say:



> ...Finally, having a chance to see this much hyped blockbuster (albeit on the small screen)...
> 
> < snip >
> 
> ...The visuals are okay, despite everyone hailing them as amazing.




I don't think it is unreasonable for me to point out that visuals which are hailed as amazing on a huge cinema screen in 3D are likely to be less impressive when viewed on a TV. 

Also, I can't help mentioning that you haven't yet used 'malarky' in a sentence...

Regards,


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## Orius (Jun 20, 2010)

I give it a 7.

The visuals were pretty good (I didn't get the benefit of full 3d but whatever).  But they weren't so good that I'm going to go all Pandora syndrome anyway.  I've seen all sorts of impressive landscapes in games and my own imagination. Plus the biome we're shown seems to be tropical rain forest, and that's not a biome I'm interested in experiencing really; hot, humid, poisonous fauna everywhere (and a good bit of flora as well), the only worse biome is a swamp. 

Story, ugh where to start?  It's no surprise the TVTropes page is so damn long:

So there's the whole Unobtainium stuff they're after. No mention of why it's so important other than it costs a load of money.  And really, that's its own purpose as the story's MacGuffin, this is an anvil loaded environmentalist story so it's all about the evil corporation wreaking the planet (well moon) to get rich.  Not exactly the sort of escapism I'm looking for right now, if you catch my meaning.

I found the bio-USBs to be something that strained my suspension of disbelief.  On one hand, I find it remarkable that an entire ecosystem could evolve to be so interconnected, but OTOH, there's nothing that says it can't since there's only one limited example of evolution we're actually familiar with.  It still bothers me because it's central to the whole Gaia hypothesis setup of the plot, and tree-hugging stuff like this irritates me.  

The entire story was predictable:

-I knew Jake would get adopted into the tribe and everything.  I've seen this sort of thing dozens of times already.
-When Natyri mentioned that the most badass Na'vi warriors flew on those Chekov's flying reptiles, I knew Jake would end up jumping on one of them.
-When they tried to transfer Grace's mind into the avatar, I knew this would happen to Jake at the end. 

The characters are flat as a board.  The colonel got hurt and just wants to kill every damn thing on the planet.  The corporate executive only cares about making a ton of money (and I'm honestly surprised he survived).  The scientists are the good guys here by being peaceful hippie types (otherwise they'd be the evil god-players destroying all that is good for science).  All the soldiers are heartless killers except the ones required to be good for the purposes of plot.  Yawn.

The Na'vi themselves weren't really that interesting, they're typical aboriginal people with typical customs and typical animistic beliefs.  And of course naturally, their home is sitting on the biggest damn deposit of Unobtainium for hundreds of kilometers around.  How convenient for the plot.

I also don't see it as being that much of a happy ending; is the Unobtainium is so important, than this company isn't going to give up, they'll just send more forces.  Seriously, if they really wanted they could just have the whole moon orbitally bombarded with incendiaries, destroy the biosphere, and just strip mine a dead rock if they wanted to.  Okay, so they don't want bad press, but if the cmpany is that much of an evil capitalist strawman, they wouldn't give a damn, and they'd be controlling all the media anyway (this movie IS 20th Century Fox, after all, you think they'd know about THAT... ).

So that and some of the other points that others have brought up really stuck out like a sore thumb to me.  Not so much Mighty Whitey, probably because the green anvils were annoying me too much to really notice.  

Entertaining, but it's more style than substance.  Doesn't live up to the hype.


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