_Avatar_, directed by James Cameron

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!

;-)

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.