_Avatar_, directed by James Cameron

i think yr misconstruing the film's intent & methods, deej. and i don't accept that it needs to conclude with a real-world solution to or consequence of imperialist conquest/capitalist exploitation in order to be satisfying and "true" wr2 the issues it raises. for me, the conclusion was all the more poignant and powerful for its wish-fulfillment UNreality - because in our world, native peoples have no all-powerful gaia spirit to summon for aid, and thus are all-too-easily displaced if not slaughtered outright. we know this, and the contrast between the improbably happy ending offered in the film's fantasy world and the tragic ending that so often ensues in our own is, imo, quite moving.

suspect that we're just never gonna see eye-to-eye on this...

i don't think so, no more so than star wars is "dishonest & juvenile" about good & evil

i must admit: lol

district 9's not a fair comparison either, as it doesn't really conclude, but simply pauses in media res. we don't know in that film's case what the ultimate resolution will be. it's perhaps implied that a big ol deus ex machina is waiting out there in space to come and rain some retributive (and, wr2 the real-world parallels raised, quite improbable) revenge down on the human overseers. but i guess we have to wait and see.

main difference i see between the two is that avatar is basically a kid's flick, and it aims to inspire (while raising some very troubling and difficult issues), while district 9 is a rather grim, brutal and despairing film made for an adult audience. therefore, there's bound to be a bit more sugar in the former, but i don't think there's anything wrong with that.

x-post ha ;)

well of course it is, but not in a contemptible way

i think yr misconstruing the film's intent & methods, deej. and i don't accept that it needs to conclude with a real-world solution to or consequence of imperialist conquest/capitalist exploitation in order to be satisfying and "true" wr2 the issues it raises. for me, the conclusion was all the more poignant and powerful for its wish-fulfillment UNreality - because in our world, native peoples have no all-powerful gaia spirit to summon for aid, and thus are all-too-easily displaced if not slaughtered outright. we know this, and the contrast between the improbably happy ending offered in the film's fantasy world and the tragic ending that so often ensues in our own is, imo, quite moving.

suspect that we're just never gonna see eye-to-eye on this...

― a dimension that can only be accessed through self-immolation (contenderizer), Monday, December 21, 2009 6:18 AM (2 hours ago) Bookmark Suggest Ban Permalink

argh dude i wasnt saying it needs to have a 'real world solution' but just that if you're going to set up a system, u have to have things behave w/in that system in an honest way & i dont think this film was remotely close to doing that. i guess if yr cool with films about wish fulfillment alternate realities you can dig this, but to me it rang entirely false. i dont buy the "its powerful because instead of being tragic, it made us happy" & it feels like yr writing paragraphs of exposition to explain fairly simple ideas as if you can write your way into believing it yourself

the real problem with the oncoming onslaught of modernization/industrialization/white dudes taking over worlds thing is that the natural world is not a match for it.

Boxcutters, though...

http://www.deadline.com/hollywood/johnny-knoxville-promises-avatar-technology-in-2010-jackass-3d/

oh man a 3D Jackass might cause fainting

"We're going to take the same 3D technology James Cameron used in AVATAR and stick it up Steve O's butt."

I bet within a few years there'll be a Ronin/Bourne-type movie with this technology. Maybe the next Bond?

i hate 3d

btw can anyone confirm there are battle scenes in this scored to CARMINA BURANA? If true, how original!

So, is this worth going to in 2D? My wife insists 3D movies make her nauseated.

btw can anyone confirm there are battle scenes in this scored to CARMINA BURANA? If true, how original!

Nah, the first assault on Hometree is accompanied by Takemitsu's "A Flock Descends Into The Pentagonal Garden" and the climactic battle is some kinda Meredith Monk / Laurie Anderson mash-up.

man this movie was awesome

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

― dyao know what i mean (acoleuthic), Monday, December 21, 2009 3:57 AM (8 hours ago) Bookmark Suggest Ban Permalink

A+

I will have more to say tomorrow but I gotta lol at people attacking this from the perch of the morals and ethics of star wars

han silo saving the day certainly feels more honest than rhinos, yes

this movie shouldn't be surprising at all to anyone who has seen the abyss

i hear the fifth avatar is love

general 3-d discussion thred:

3D

is the thread in 3d?

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

― dyao know what i mean (acoleuthic), Monday, December 21, 2009 3:57 AM (8 hours ago) Bookmark Suggest Ban Permalink

A+

― akira goldsman (s1ocki), Monday, 21 December 2009 17:33 (28 minutes ago)

oh yeah totally that was sad. you know homeboy probably found a sweet lady dragon (or boy dragon, if that's his thing) soon after though.

i hear the fifth avatar is love

― fictional, homosexual, Baltimore hoodlum (forksclovetofu), Monday, December 21, 2009 5:42 PM (21 minutes ago) Bookmark

^ lol

So, is this worth going to in 2D? My wife insists 3D movies make her nauseated.

due to weird eye problems, i can't see 3D. i still enjoyed the movie (and actually did manage to see a tiny bit of the 3D which really tripped me out because it's never worked for me in my life)

this 3D is different from any 3D i've seen. even the glasses aren't those cheap red and blue things.

how do the new 3d glasses work if you *already wear glasses*?

they act as an avatar for your old glasses

they were big, i just put them over mine. if i would have known the movie was going to be in 3D i would have put my contacts in, but i wasn't paying enough attention to the hype.

how do the new 3d glasses work if you *already wear glasses*?

― Dean Gaffney's December (history mayne), Monday, December 21, 2009 1:11 PM (3 minutes ago) Bookmark Suggest Ban Permalink

somewhere james cameron realizes this and his head explodes

i just wore the 3d glasses over my regular glasses

*head explodes*

If you put 3-D glasses over regular glasses, is the movie in 4-D?

I thought this flick was a blast. Couple of questions, for the spoiler set:

1) Who was underfunding this whole expedition? They make a point of saying it's not military, strictly mercenary, but then again, there's an awful lot of Marine talk/talk of Marines. Who's giving the orders? The government? Which government? The Company? Under whose jurisdiction? Giovanni Ribisi? It's totally unclear. There's motivation out the wazoo, but it's unclear who exactly is the one being motivated back on earth.

2) Why go through even the pretense/expense of making nice to the natives when they were clearly going to steamroll it from the very start? (I mean, don't people in the movies ever watch movies?)

3) If it takes five years to get to Pandora from Earth, how was unobtainium (heh) ever discovered on Pandora in the first place?

4) Michelle Rodriguez totally deserts/breaks ranks/disobeys orders in plain sight, then pops up on the base ship a few scenes later to free the good guys, as if nothing happened. What's up with that?

5) Where, exactly, were the vast riches of unobtainium? Under the home tree or under the fiber optics tree? I'm unclear why they bulldozed the tree.

6) Not a question, but I thought the OG dragon totally got the shaft, too, especially after they made such a point of him and it being BFF. Poor dragon! :(

http://userserve-ak.last.fm/serve/_/11952611/Jim+Martin+51215_1208437900.jpg

I always suspected the guy from Faith No More could see in 4-D.

u want it avatar but u can't have it

I like how every animal on this planet has a USB cable

xp to Josh

more spoilers etc

1) my understanding is that it was like a Chevron type corporation with Ribisi as its Pandora representative. the 'military' was a Blackwater type private security company staffed with a bunch of ex-Marines. i sort of cringed reading Ebert's review that he got this wrong and assumed it was the government.

2) it's standard procedure in the third world, isn't it? try to buy them first, keep it all on the d-low and all that. not sure why they were so worried, though; i didn't see any media on the planet.

3) who knows?

4) maybe she was waiting for her article 15. i have no idea - you make a good point. how did they not know she was going to steal a ship and all that.

5) seemed to be under the home tree. they were trying to destroy the network hub to demoralize them and disrupt their communications or something - as more of a shock and awe reaction against the huge massing of troops from around the planet. made sense to me, i guess.

6) well he let the big dragon go at the end, so maybe he brought old dragon some flowers and candy and apologized like hell.

he probably fed the old dragon to the new one

the circle of life!

the one plot point that REALLY bugs me is the fact that sully was the only one to break thru to the navis because of a mystical prophecy type shit - ie the bugs landing on him - rather than any of his actions. i hate that stuff.

also did u find that the movie sort of tipped that shaggy would be jealous of him and go bad or betray him somehow but it never happened?

i agree about the bug things landing on him. that was lame. every other 'mystical' thing i can remember was explained by physical shit.

i was glad that the jealous prince storyline didn't go anywhere. there were enough rehashed clichés in the movie - it didn't need another.

I did notice that tech-head Cameron couldn't resist tossing in not one, not two but I think three gags where head jarhead holds his breath rather than grabs an oxygen mask to save time in asskicking. Clearly Cameron's deep sea diving gave him some ideas (and not just because Pandora looks like a big aquarium).

Also, I wonder if the $300 mil spent on the movie could have built him one of those giant robot exoskeletons he so clearly fetishizes? I think by now everyone knows what to chip in and buy Jim for Christmas.

ya i didnt want that but i found it weird it was sort of implied xp

it feels like yr writing paragraphs of exposition to explain fairly simple ideas as if you can write your way into believing it yourself

― deej, Monday, December 21, 2009 6:51 AM (6 hours ago) Bookmark

i just write the way i think, deej. wandering, convoluted, whatever. at this point i'm happy just agreeing to disagree.

im not actually as down on this as i sound in this thread, but the imbalanced amount of "wow this film is the new star wars"-consensus-stuff really pushes the obvious kajlueanfekunflaeiunflaiud aspects out yknow??

ya deej i'm kind of the same way, the sheer fucking insanity of the praise this is getting (and the way it's being pushed like an agenda) is gonna end up radicalizing me

liked the way the final fight inverted the end of aliens, wr2 the character in an robo-suit/mini gundam.

I did notice that tech-head Cameron couldn't resist tossing in not one, not two but I think three gags where head jarhead holds his breath rather than grabs an oxygen mask to save time in asskicking. Clearly Cameron's deep sea diving gave him some ideas (and not just because Pandora looks like a big aquarium).

― Josh in Chicago, Monday, December 21, 2009 11:13 AM (2 hours ago) Bookmark

this reminded me of the abyss in a lot of ways (aliens, too - the dropship scene in the beginning was almost shot-for-shot aliens), especially in the breath-holding and immersion imagery. cameron's auteurist tics.

also re: the abandoned first dragon

don't we assume that he want back to his original ride after releasing the toruk at the end?

original ride was like oh hell no

the movie this reminds me of the most is 300, where its an impressive technical feat marred by objectionable philosophies