_Avatar_, directed by James Cameron

James Horner is Cameron's biggest liability.

― queen frostine (Eric H.), Saturday, December 19, 2009 8:26 PM (18 minutes ago) Bookmark Suggest Ban Permalink

Well, of the external ones, I mean.

― queen frostine (Eric H.), Saturday, December 19, 2009 8:26 PM (18 minutes ago) Bookmark Suggest Ban Permalink

treat the disease not the symptom dude.

If loving Titanic is wrong, I don't wanna be right, et al.

Cozwn otm. Now that this isn't a flop will be gd to see where this tech can take properly good stories.

I think the plot of this lost a ton in the cutting though.

SPOILERS

Sigourney said on radio 4 that her whole romance subplot had been cut, along with a big science substrand. There's no sign of the former. There's only a hint of the latter in the really weird scene jammed in after they've sent the bulldozers in and she's stomping about going "but that was their router! You killed their file server ... you monster!"

I think if that stuff had been given additional time it might have seemed less ludicrously gaia ex machina at the end. But if the cut dialogue was more of that stuff, it's probably best that it went.

SPOILERS

also weird gun-in-the-first-act when she puts him in the taped-up pod and goes "this is the least glitchy". In a movie so rigidly plotted the line might as well have been "this will break at an inopportune moment and you will fall from lazerbeak and bruise yr tail" but then it just didn't happen.

It's almost like a plot twist, that, in this film.

was sigourney going to hook up w/tsu'tey?

She didn't say bt that was my guess

Hi everyone, long time reader, first time poster

I liked how there was a point in this thread where the consensus became "this is going to be the shittiest movie ever". Then after the reviews started coming in, there is 1 or 2 people who claim the movie to be shit and the rest all thought it was okay, good or better.

Before I went to the movie my sister was complaining that she didn't want to go but we had already bought her a ticket. She said something like "they are all dumb looking blue people". I told her she was being prejudiced and racist. She also said something like the movie is just going to look like a video game and that kind of animation is just going to be stupid.

After the movie everyone in my family said it was B- or B+. And yes, the animation was probably the biggest asset.

Here is my brief review:

SPOILERS: The plot was better in the first half. I would have liked a huge twist at the end. A couple of the sensual moments made turn in my seat ("I see you" (which was okay the first time I heard it) and the human navi touch scene near the end (even though I realize that it probably did need to be in the movie). Overall, whenever there was scenes that explored new scenery or showed creatures - those were the coolest parts. Whenever the big action scenes started I was pumped for them. As they we're ending I was getting halfway bored with them even though all the action scenes were cool in their own right. I think the suspense just sort of died off near the end of the movie (there was no more exploration for one) and a lot of the plot was predictable.
Overall I give the movie a B
also I hate the Titanic.

i'm kinda more interested in the gross for this in a purely sportsmanlike way: http://boxofficemojo.com/news/?id=2631&p=.htm
27 mill opening day puts it at "about the same as Star Trek from earlier this year" which i guess is good for a new IP but not quite worldbeater status

i haven't covered my eyes for a love-scene in YEARS but when they first got together it was unbearable

About half the audience in my theater either busted out laughing or giggled during this.

I got turned on

posts v much in character

saw this tonight. fucking GREAT movie. one of only a few front-to-back great movies i've seen this year, and of those, by far the most consistent in tone and skillful in storytelling.

there's been a lot of negative talk on this thread about the breakthrough effects and their relationship to cinematic "wonder". and about the relationship of effects-driven wonder to real cinematic storytelling. i was surprised, therefore, by how solid the (very basic) story was and how well cameron controlled the potentially unwieldy narrative. it was exciting, moving, romantic and awe-inspiring - and not in a cheap, michael bay-style, action overdose sense. the film develops its setting, characters, themes and story arcs in a careful, thoughtful and intuitively satisfying manner. whatever i think of cameron as a person/professional doofus, he's a brilliant cinematic tale-spinner. avatar doesn't use its visuals as crutch to cover narrative weakness any more than, say, star wars or finding nemo. and it holds up just fine to such comparison.

when i say "storytelling" i'm not talking about the plot itself, which was childishly simple and sentimental. i'm talking about the way that plot becomes a tale, an act of human communication. most myths and family-appropriate adventure stories are, after all, rather simple in their conflicts, themes and plotting. simplicity allows mythic exaggeration to resonate with human experience. and cameron is clearly trying here, in the manner of star wars, to create an explicatory myth for humans in our era. i think he succeeds marvelously. i loved the depiction of the na'vi and their spiritual culture, the "don't mess with mother nature" theme & conclusion, and the brutally clear gulf war parallels.

that's not to say that it's without faults. the acting was mostly fine, but as others have said, a bit flat (though i totally stand up for sam worthington as sully - he's excellent). it felt a little long in the transition from the 2nd to 3rd act. and the rather one-dimensional portrayal of military madness and evil was, well, rather one-dimensional. but none of this bothered me much. the movie as a whole is far to good to be undone by a handful of minor missteps.

wanna say so much more, but i'll cut myself off. it's four in the fucking morning! one closing thought is that i see this movie as an invitation as much as anything else. an invitation to other filmmakers to come play with the toys offered, to make movies that in the past would have been all but impossible. fucking ringworld, dude.

i'm kinda more interested in the gross for this in a purely sportsmanlike way: http://boxofficemojo.com/news/?id=2631&p=.htm
27 mill opening day puts it at "about the same as Star Trek from earlier this year" which i guess is good for a new IP but not quite worldbeater status

― fictional, homosexual, Baltimore hoodlum (forksclovetofu), Sunday, December 20, 2009 6:18 AM (5 hours ago) Bookmark

it's longer than 'star trek' and also it's winter. otoh, 3d tickets are more expensive than 2d.

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.

also, i didn't see it in 3D. so the gee-whiz factor was probably significantly diminished. and i still loved it to death.

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!