_Avatar_, directed by James Cameron

i doubt this cost 1/2 a billi like the nyt said. it still cost A LOT, but i really would not be surprised if it does open the door to 3d -- for blockbusters anyway -- which is a win of a different kind for hollywood.

― Dean Gaffney's December (history mayne), Sunday, December 20, 2009 4:12 AM (27 minutes ago) Bookmark

even if it did, given the investment of time & tech development resources, i imagine that a lot of that cost is overhead not for this film specifically, but for films of this type going forward. would guess that a comparable follow-up could be produced much more cheaply and quickly.

avatar 2: in the na'vi

avatar 2: gaia harder

anyone wanna actually say another about the 'game changing effects' other than 'no uncanny valley feel'?

avatar 2: tsu'tey call

s1ock I finally saw this yesterday and I am totally with you on it.

Hopefully this helps to kill off the multi-hundred-million-dollar behemoth and usher in the age of the tighter, leaner blockbuster ([eg District 9, which is not a great movie but makes mincemeat of this one.)

any of youse who really liked this movie, would you say you really connected with the characters? is jake sully now like a classic all-time character for you? or neytiri?

looooooooooooool after all my posting last night this movie has actually left my head, as predicted

i empathized with the rhino things

if there's one thing i can't get over it's the casting of that menk from the hottie and the nottie

nobody waits til the second weekend, huh

if there's one thing i can't get over it's the casting of that menk from the hottie and the nottie

― dyao know what i mean (acoleuthic), Sunday, December 20, 2009 6:47 PM (2 minutes ago) Bookmark

i think this says more about anyone who saw the hottie and the nottie than it does about the casting of said dude

yeah seriously.

the hottie and the bluie

nobody waits til the second weekend, huh

― Rage, Resentment, Spleen (Dr Morbius), Sunday, December 20, 2009 1:48 PM (4 minutes ago) Bookmark Suggest Ban Permalink

i have no idea what you're complaining about any more

morbs it's ok this movie was enjoyable but it wasn't so much a movie experience as a cinema experience - it was valid (even pretty rad) as cinema but a bit lacking as a movie, hence not dwelling deeply on it any longer than it took for the cinema buzz to lessen

latebloomer it was late and my best friend and i found a cable tv channel showing it and it really was of noteworthy awfulness - but in all seriousness it was the worst and most repulsive acting performance i've ever seen and now he is in avatar o_O but i find it more amusing than anything so let's chill tbh

yeah as someone who has seen tiptoes more than once, watching shitty movies for the lols isn't really the worst thing ever.

Joel David Moore starred in Hatchet, therefore he blows.

any of youse who really liked this movie, would you say you really connected with the characters? is jake sully now like a classic all-time character for you? or neytiri?

no they weren't classic characters or anything but they were sympathetic enough. i thought worthington carried the movie ok. certainly more than in the terminator movie.

i can't really think of any movies i think of as "classics" where the characters aren't the most memorable thing, or at least in the top tier of memorability.

i didnt even see this movie and i know that it sucks i cant believe that people who actually spent twelve bucks on it are still defending it

oh jeez

$15.50 cdn in digital, non-IMAX 3d!

i can't really think of any movies i think of as "classics" where the characters aren't the most memorable thing, or at least in the top tier of memorability.

― akira goldsman (s1ocki), Sunday, December 20, 2009 7:24 PM (6 minutes ago) Bookmark

don't know if anyone here is arguing that it's a classic. i'm not.

yes u are

jk

$18 is pretty steep

This avoids all the old I-love-the-smell-of-Napalm-in-the-morning tropes and instead takes an approach that's far, far more relevant to the era of drone warfare.

It's not about character any more than The Thin Red Line is. It's about bugs and birds and animals and civilization and war.

I mean, folks in Langley dropping bombs on tribal weddings in Pakistan aren't thinking about the personalities of the people on the ground.

I mean, that's what I took "I see you" to mean at the end.

even after my critical-yet-generous assessment of this, the deadpan consensus among majority of everyone i know is 'yeah i'm going to see this hiiigh'
avatar in takin us all back win i guess

lol that's exactly what i said to some ilxors irl last night iirc

It's not about character any more than The Thin Red Line is. It's about bugs and birds and animals and civilization and war.

― The Hood Won't Jump (Eazy), Monday, 21 December 2009 03:45 (55 minutes ago) Permalink

TTRL is very character-driven. I don't follow you here.

the problem is that this film's ideas about animals and civilization & war are dishonest & juvenile & not well considered

seriously with all the animals six-legged the na'vi happen to be the only tetrapods? i call bullshit!

;-)

I'm amused when I run across (not here fortunately) editorials gushing about how District 9 was so much superior to this. Umm guys, *both* movies are obvious, hamfisted, and regressive.

District 9 seemed to be way more confused as to what it was about. But of course that makes it a much more interesting movie.

To be clear: I meant that D9 is interesting because it is more contradictory and complex, not because being confused is interesting in itself.

the problem is that this film's ideas about animals and civilization & war are dishonest & juvenile & not well considered

― deej, Sunday, December 20, 2009 8:43 PM (1 hour ago) Bookmark

i don't think so, no more so than star wars is "dishonest & juvenile" about good & evil & the harmonies of the cosmos. it presents a fair portrait of certain realities, and also a fantasy about how things ought to be, how evil might be defeated. the fundamental messages about the sanctity of life & the value of a compassionate sense of interconnection - and about the way humans excuse their own greed & arrogance - were, i thought, right on. i'd go so far as to consider it an honest and thoughtful adventure film, though one intentionally aimed at young people & a "family audience".

i'll defend the characters, too. stephen lang as quaritch & zoe saldana as smurfette were especially vivid & memorable, and it's true that these were the film's most colorful and exaggerated characters - and that the rest were relatively bland. but i don't see that as a fault. though he was not an especially colorful presence, sam worthington was excellent as sully. i empathized with and liked the character, and would call it a quietly soulful performance rather than a bland one. human-sully's low presence, emotional fragility and weakness/disability became extremely poignant in the film's final act. (thinking of the emphasis of the physical differences between quaritch and sully in sully's "dark night of the soul" moment, and on neytiri's cradling of sully's tiny body.)

http://www.soulstrut.com/ubbthreads/images/graemlins/NO.gif

well okay then

http://i38.tinypic.com/21oymab.gif

i don't think so, no more so than star wars is "dishonest & juvenile" about good & evil & the harmonies of the cosmos. it presents a fair portrait of certain realities, and also a fantasy about how things ought to be, how evil might be defeated. the fundamental messages about the sanctity of life & the value of a compassionate sense of interconnection - and about the way humans excuse their own greed & arrogance - were, i thought, right on. i'd go so far as to consider it an honest and thoughtful adventure film, though one intentionally aimed at young people & a "family audience".

― a dimension that can only be accessed through self-immolation (contenderizer), Monday, December 21, 2009 12:53 AM (1 hour ago) Bookmark Suggest Ban Permalink

it doesnt present a fair portrait at all:

1) its not 'fair' to draw parallels w/ this world, as if you're saying something about the state of this world, and then have those dilemmas resolved by 'god.'

2) i think its pretty dishonest to set up a framework w/ an ostensible nature/tradition vs. technology/progress fight, then undercut any meaning it could have or significance by giving the guys on the side of 'nature' a bunch of guns and not allowing them to use nature to fight. how are you gonna give the na'vi guns?? if this is a grand dramatic battle between two opposing philosophies you cant have the forces of 'nature' cheating like that! those guns were developed by the forces of progress & industrialization & mining. the na'vi should have fought w/ the tools at their disposal -- im not just mad that they dont explain how they even get these guns in the first place, but that by using them the story undercuts the idea that these are not just two warring groups randomly thrown together, but that there are philosophies underlining this battle.

3) why does the main character become their leader & convince them to martyr themselves? what did he think he was doing for them, and what was the purpose of their fight? its set up like hes got some grand plan, and instead he throws them all at a bunch of guys armed with missiles and guns, where they're torn to shreds (the only way the ending could be 'happy' was that god had to interfere!)

4) He displays this battle in a dishonest fashion -- suddenly, arrows are piercing cockpit windows, and theres a point at which the battle shows one person getting arrowed for everyone one person getting shot, as if the pitched battle is 'close' at first, and despite bravery they are barely overcome ... this is so manipulative considering the framework the film sets up. i dont care if theyre eight feet tall riding six-legged horses, a bunch of dudes with machine guns are going to just annihilate them.

5) why is any parallel w/ 'differences' between groups of people undercut by allowing the main character to fully transform into a na'vi person at the end? this is a CHEAT to let the audience feel like we have a happy ending that once again undercuts any dilemma the film sets up -- its yet another dishonest resolution.

why does the main character become their leader & convince them to martyr themselves?

because he nails his INSANE MOVE

tbh i feel bad for his o.g. dragon thing, fancy getting dumped like that, barely even got to know the guy

the reason star wars works is it sets up a system where the dark side appears more powerful & is more alluring, but ends up corrupting the person who tries to use it. this isnt undercut because luke refuses to kill his father in the end; the philosophies presented in a consistent (albeit simplistic) way, and the characters' behavior reflects these philosophies.

im not even dealing w/ the second paragraph because your argument seems to be "they are memorable because they are memorable" & i just dont agree i think they are the opposite of iconic. even your writing seems pretty sheepishly defensive ("hes not bland! hes ... 'quietly soulful'!")

various deej points:

1) i don't see how the deus-ex-machina was "unfair". actually, it was set up & executed pretty honorably as such things go. and i don't see why we should be troubled that the film draws parallels to but does not exactly match real world situations. as far as i'm concerned, cameron made his socio-political points, but allowed the story to develop & conclude on its own, fantastical terms. and that's fair play.

2) i was a bit surprised by the na'vi's recourse to guns, but it made sense in character. their home had been annihilated and they were being driven to exile & possibly worse. why wouldn't they use whatever tools they had at their disposal? and i think it's pretty reasonable to assume that what few guns they did have were provided by sully @ co, from what was available in the chopper & the remote base. after all, that's who was shown using the guns for the most part - the scientists in avatar form. didn't think that the use of guns compromised the basic clash of philosophies, anyway. the two groups' philosopical/spiritual differences seemed to run much deeper than that.

3) sully became the leader because he had to, and because he's the hero protagonist. and he threw them into hopeless battle because it was all he could think to do - as it turns out he thought wrong. perhaps he hoped that more na'vi would arrive in time to overwhelm the soldiers (something the soldiers themselves seemed to fear, regardless of their seemingly superior killing tech).

4) i'm with you on the arrows-piercing-windows bit. we'd been shown previously that this was impossible, laughable. maybe range was the issue, but this should have been handled better, i'll give you that. agree also that the film "changes the frame" with regard to the power balance between the na'vi and the soldiers. early in the film, it is made clear that the na'vi are viewed by the soldiers as dangerous but eradicable. suddenly at the end, the battle is presented as an open question. this shift, however, was better explained than the suddenly pregnable cockpit glass: the "toruk makto" unified\s the local tribes, suddenly altering the balance of power.