_Avatar_, directed by James Cameron

still waiting till this plays on a rollercoaster at six flags

you guys are just too jaded to enjoy true wonder!

This was horrible and half-baked on so many levels, all of which I'm sure have been pointed out somewhere on this thread, but it is far too long to read all the way through and I want to vent.

I could not understand why, if they wanted the stupid resource so bad, they didn't just nuke the fucking tree in the first couple of minutes rather than bothering with the whole rigmarole of growing a massively expensive pseudo-Navii to infiltrate the tribe (that incidentally was demonstrated to be a completely pointless exercise as the Navii could tell straightaway that the avatar wasn't really one of them). I mean if it takes 6 years to travel there then it presumably takes at least that long to send a message so who cares about the media - by the time you've wiped out the indigineous population no one back on Earth is going to give a fuck.

Why did the scientists go along with it at all when it was clearly obvious from the first scene with Giovani Ribisi that the organisation they were working for could care less what happened to the natives? It would have been nice to have any external context to what was going on, motivations etc, instead of endless cgi "training" scenes.

Also why the obsession with stupid "mecha" robots? I guarantee these things would never be developed by any future military - they are completely stupid; unwieldy, inefficient and they present an obvious target - the trend is surely towards lighter, streamlined fighting vehicles with a minimal silhouette not greating hulking things that are slow and expose their operators to more danger.

The "War on Terror" theme was hamfisted and obvious - "we need to use terror against terror" "time to deploy shock and awe" etc etc *yawn*. And then some nonsense trying to justify suicide bombing or something. Pathetic.

And to cap it all there was the atrocious hippy dippy gaia ecology bullshit that underpinned the movie. Horrible wishful thinking - "if only we were nice to nature we could live in trippy neon harmony with it and one day evolve symbiotic genitalia and love each other etc". I'm in the Lovecraft/Herzog/Alien (oh the fuckiing irony - and I realise this film was a particularly heavy-handed inversion of Aliens) camp - the universe gives not one jot whether we live or die; a planet-flattening asteroid could be punching its way through the atmosphere as I type this.

The real shame is that they fucked up a classic story-telling trope. It would have been better and more effective as a satire if Earth had simply been straightforwardly at war with these furry motherfuckers a la Forever War and the central character had gradually changed allegiance over the course of the film from being the typical gung-ho marine. Cut out all the science garbage. Opportunity lost.

"we need to use terror against terror"

this was quite awesome in its bluntness but your points are generally sound i'd say

xpost: why the obsession with 'mecha robots'? because they're next-level ALIENS power loaders, and I want one.

only downside is not seeing Sigourney strap one of those badboys on.

only read your last post and had a moment

lol

i loved the fact that the mecha robots had the "not a step" sticker that the aliens loader queen-beater-upper thing had. great attention to detail in this movie visually, whatever else you think about it.

whatevers else u think abt it is prob stupid unless it includes "avatar is super rad"

I just loved how it was The Abyss, Aliens, Terminator Titanic and Ferngully all shoved in a blender. I went in totally suspicious and ready to be bored and jaded...and I was totally sucked in. The thing that had me completely transfixed was the Pandorum scenery, the real-life looking parts. I want to know how they did that. Did they just get cameras and go zooming through every kickass rainforest they could find?

ears are wounds is o t fucking m.

so tired of yr guys textbook views on what every movie needs to be compelling and hatred for mall hippie black light posters - im totally hanging out in the house w/the black light posters over the one w/the screenwriting textbooks

otm. and I'll bet the house with the black light posters has a working power loader. AND flying stingray dragon things. textbook house can sit around waiting for the asteroid to crash into earth.

imo blacklight posters looked better in batman forever when batman fought the glowstick gang

ice cr?m otm; you guys are not feeling the ~power of cinema~

Why did the scientists go along with it at all when it was clearly obvious from the first scene with Giovani Ribisi that the organisation they were working for could care less what happened to the natives?

A sizable number of academics will take funding from Satan himself because it's, well, funding.

besides every movie scientist worth a damn knows that you get your standoff at the end to show how secretly conflicted they really were...meantime, let's drive these cool blue people and do kickass science stuff!

mall hippie black light posters

^What does this mean??

ps yes power loaders are cool but there was a reason why the Marines in Aliens used them for loading stuff rather than combat. Ha don't know why these mecha things bug me so much though, I guess as far as issues with the film go its pretty lowdown on the list. Just a nerd I guess.

To be fair seeing it in 3D at the IMAX was pretty great whatever other faults I felt there were with the movie. But overall I don't see what it has over the Star Wars prequels.

http://farm4.static.flickr.com/3173/3072818819_77ac0a0dbd.jpg

I could not understand why, if they wanted the stupid resource so bad, they didn't just nuke the fucking tree in the first couple of minutes rather than bothering with the whole rigmarole of growing a massively expensive pseudo-Navii to infiltrate the tribe (that incidentally was demonstrated to be a completely pointless exercise as the Navii could tell straightaway that the avatar wasn't really one of them).

the anthropologists and missionaries all come first, no? my impression was that the scientists were doing research and eventually reported the energy shit back to the main corporation, who then sent troops. the main character was on a ship with a bunch of new troops, yes? the build-up was happening as the story began. they used the avatars to get close to the Navi, and probably to be safer from the crazy ass jungle creatures, since they were like giants and stuff. i had the impression that the Navi knew what they were up to from whatever Sigourney's character did to cause her falling out with the tribe.

the whole idea that they had the technology to create the avatars, but were still using mechas with machine guns on them was pretty dumb, but whatever. I am guilty of making loads of excuses and rationalizations to justify enjoying a big sci-fi/fantasy spectacle every few years.

xpost

My impression was that the military were perfectly well aware of where the unobotanium or whatever fuck was located right from the beginning. I didn't think Sigourney Weaver was interested in that aspect of the planet at all - it was quite separate to the organic internet garbage. The military's main interest in a Navii infiltrator from what I gleaned from the endless montages was to find out the structure of the tree itself because they couldn't scan it from orbit or something. Which if correct doesn't make any sense if they could just obliterate the whole thing at any point. To be honest, the film is already sliding out of my mind less than 24 hours later so I could have misunderstood all of this.

Thing is I am perfectly willing to overlook the conceits of science fiction and fantasy movies/literature, if they can deliver elsewhere, but when an SF film has an incredibly paper thin plot, half-arsed characerisation, formulaic dialogue etc it makes you less willing to swallow all the plot holes.

My impression was that the military were perfectly well aware of where the unobotanium or whatever fuck was located right from the beginning.

yep. lang said that the unobtanium trade was what paid for the weave's science.

were still using mechas with machine guns on them

mechas with machine guns AND BACK-UP KNIVES in case something happened to the machine gun.

hooray we disabled the robot's machine gun!

OH SHIT IT HAS A KNIFE

this movie was so goddamn boring btw, i thought the visuals would be worth it but they weren't

Glimpses of blue nipples made me ignore a lot of the plot holes.

hahah

lol my friends email:

"Saw avatar in IMAX 3d last night high on pot brownies. Was literally
most overwhelming experience of my life. Had about five panic attacks."

http://failblog.files.wordpress.com/2010/01/epic-fail-avatar-plot-fail.jpg

i think the thing that bothered me most was the name - "unobotanium". seriously.

Very stupid. But as explained up thread, "Unobtainium" was a jokey working title for the substance that ended up sticking :(

http://gameinformer.com/cfs-filesystemfile.ashx/__key/CommunityServer.Components.ImageFileViewer/CommunityServer.Blogs.Components.WeblogFiles.00.00.00.21.22/3806.unobtainium.jpg_2D00_610x0.jpg

i actually liked the name unobtainium

Unobtanium has a long, long sci-fi history, as stupid as the name may be.

this was amazing and stupid

Unobtanium has a long, long sci-fi history, as stupid as the name may be.

are you serious?!

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Unobtainium

cameron guilty of utilizing ancient sci-fi tropes shockah

he didn't even bother coming up with a new name! it'd be like calling a dude in your mystery movie "macguffin"

i kinda wishe'd done that. also should have named the protagonist gyro goodman

hey i guessed right! wayne barlow did do "creature design" on this.

roger dean needs his credit tho

xp lol

what the fuck is going on with this movie. i went to go see buy a ticket yesterday and there was a lineup zigzagging through the entire theater, through the adjacent tim horton's, and out the door into the freezing cold then around the corner. hasn't it been out for a month already?

oh and james horner is still horrible

and i thought this movie would be the go-to punchline to jokes about box office failures for the next few years.

wonder if cameron found a wish-granting mermaid on one of his deep sea dives

he was probably blue and eight feet long

I mean she

O_O