_Avatar_, directed by James Cameron

3d is kinda counter productive, except in avatar

good 3d does not exist

CORALINE

yeah, disagree that good 3D does not exist. great 3D may be in short supply, but there's plenty of good stuff.

There is still a considerable cultural footprint for (EG) Aliens, Terminator and Titanic.

the extent to which avatar has dropped off the map is kind of funny/weird. i mean, compare with pixar's cars, which is still alive and kicking, minting money hand over fist - and was even before the sequel. kids glommed onto that and never let go. much more so than they did with wall-e, which got all the critical love, and certainly more than they did with avatar. if you want proof that pop culture event films can linger long in the cultural mind, you don't have to look any farther than star wars.

i don't think it's funny/weird, the movie is really stupid and bad and everybody knew it at the time.

more interesting that it was such a successful spectacle upon release, but that's not that hard to figure out either i guess

If ever you feel the need to enlighten us...

Successful marketing, hype, etc. It was the most-hyped movie since The Phantom Menace.

the phantom menace was so bad

i just rewatched all the 'new' star wars movies and that one is just the worst.

Hype doesn't bring in the repeat business, though, or the (sorry) long tail. It still pulled in a million dollars on week 17.

no way, the second one is the worst, by far. with all that terrible "romantic" dialogue. awful. at least phantom menace had the podrace setpiece.

(xpost)

if James Cameron wants to go far with his crazy vision and really franchise Avatar, he should build Avatar World. because for sure it's a better ride than a movie.

There's this earnestness in Avatar that just rubs me the wrong way. You can watch the Star Wars prequels and know they are trash, wooden acting, stupid plots, etc. I think everything awful about SW prequels is pretty easy to enjoy in a Bad Movie kind of way.

(I have to admit that it's kind of hard for me to judge The Phantom Menace objectively, because I tried so hard to love it and so I probably rate it higher than II and III, which are pretty indefensible. Still Liam Neeson's Sanjuro impersonation raises it bove them, IMHO)

podracing was great, that's true.
but almost nullified by way too many "cute" attempts to appeal to kids (jarjar, etc), which make me cringe more than romance stuff. yeah, maybe it's the earnestness in that but more the transparent marketing-department interference.

at any rate, i will take George Lucas's inflated ego over Cameron's any day

How do these compare to John carter? There's a good essay to be written for crappy alien worldbuilding spectacular overwrought sci-fi actionfests

Cameron should just make his version of Terminator 3 and make it 3D. He could even just call it Terminator 3D.

i don't think it's funny/weird, the movie is really stupid and bad and everybody knew it at the time.

i don't think that's true at all. avatar received near-unanimous critical praise, and not just for the spectacle (though, yeah, that was a big part of it). that's what's funny to me about it's disappearance from the pop cultural viewscreen/mind. it was loved in its moment, loved by critics and fans alike. people went to see it over and over again, wept in their seats, made fan pages about wanting na'vi body mods, avatar-themed weddings, to live on a virtual pandora if possible. think pieces were written about how it was damaging people's souls by presenting a fantasy that reality could never live up to.

for the most popular movie of all time its kind of amazing how a year or two later it has zero cultural currency at all...

As someone who doesn't give a shit about cultural currency, I don't think Cameron has ever approached Aliens since, but Avatar was a defensible time-waster and I'd rather rewatch it than all the "relevant" Marvel wanks and spaghetti western tributes.

People were lusting for a fantasy that included, y'know, genocide? I missed that.

Also pretty sure Gone With the Wind is still the most popular movie of all time ($18 tix and history-blind industry hype still suck).

i saw it as a critic in fact and loved it and cried even and then a few hours after it was over i felt like i was coming out of a drugged-out haze! i think it has teh subliminal messages

i 98% loved it for its spectacle though

Am I the only person who found it Just Plain Boring from the first minute until the present? Not bad, good, embarrassing or anything except dull?

Hah, two of my friends were fascinated by that whole subculture, and started jokingly announcing to each other that they'd had a shit day in work via "I could really feel my tail today".

i recognize its flaws but think it's a solid and even admirable sci-fi adventure flick (of the family-friendly variety). defended it at length upthread, and don't wanna go through that again.

thought it looked stupid from the start and never saw it. hate Cameron for the most part.

watching it again, the only times i thought it was okay was when there were metal things onscreen

honestly, i think it's a victim of backlash as much as anything. the combination of familiar plotting, gaudy spectacle, wanton heartstring-yanking and massive hype somehow made it too big to not-hate (for most film buffs, or so it seems). cameron being a total dick bag didn't help, either.

Yeah i thought it was boring. BORING! It was like every second of the film was market-tested or something, like they were trying sooooo hard to make the Perfect Movie. Maybe people just love being pandered to. I'll take a messy, ridiculous, nearly incomprehensible Phantom Menace over this any day.

it was loved in its moment, loved by critics and fans alike. people went to see it over and over again, wept in their seats, made fan pages about wanting na'vi body mods, avatar-themed weddings, to live on a virtual pandora if possible. think pieces were written about how it was damaging people's souls by presenting a fantasy that reality could never live up to.

We're living in an age where the most extreme get a bigger representation in the media and thus the cultural narrative. The Tea Party Era. I don't doubt there are extreme fans weeping in their seats throughout the history of films, it's just now that you can blog about it, it gets passed around, people re-post it for LOLs, it ends up on Facebook.

i don't think it's funny/weird, the movie is really stupid and bad and everybody knew it at the time.

fair amount of people on this very thread prove otherwise

xp

ya even when it was raking in the cash it wasnt like there was na'vi mania in the streets or anything

it's 2012 and you guys are talking about avatar

Yeah i thought it was boring. BORING!

upthread you say it looked great and was worth seeing fyi

Just call me Mitt Romney.

Yeah i thought it was boring. BORING! It was like every second of the film was market-tested or something, like they were trying sooooo hard to make the Perfect Movie. Maybe people just love being pandered to. I'll take a messy, ridiculous, nearly incomprehensible Phantom Menace over this any day.

this was exactly my gripe with the movie. I didn't think it was necessarily "bad", but I still wound up hating it because it didn't really take any risks whatsoever besides having a monster budget. Basically the same thing I thought about stuff like Seven Pounds or whatever Will Smith does

We're living in an age where the most extreme get a bigger representation in the media and thus the cultural narrative. The Tea Party Era. I don't doubt there are extreme fans weeping in their seats throughout the history of films, it's just now that you can blog about it, it gets passed around, people re-post it for LOLs, it ends up on Facebook.

that last may be true in general, but i don't know that it says anything particularly useful about avatar. setting aside the most "extreme" fan reactions as outliers doesn't change the fact that avatar was a very big deal in its moment - embraced not just by needy supergeeks, but by critics and mainstream audiences alike. and super-hardcore fandom isn't irrelevant. that kind of extremity helped make star trek and star wars such enduring cultural landmarks over the years.

Xposting nu star wars was made to attract a new audience, cars was made specifically to give Disney something to market to boys. that's one big difference. And Beowulf totally started the new 3d fad. Avatar made it an event. But really, it was no more than that.

it didn't really take any risks whatsoever besides having a monster budget.

given that it was released in the midst of the iraq/afghanistan war, i'd say it too some pretty substantial risks

"too" = "took", it took some pretty substantial risks

I remember liking this at the time. I don't remember why I liked it though.

I guess seeing something on a huge Imax screen affects my enjoyment of a movie more than I'd like to admit.

i hope that Avatar 3 is tailor made to only be watched in under-water theatres while wearing scuba gear and 3D facemasks

and surround-sound headphones!

given that it was released in the midst of the iraq/afghanistan war, i'd say it too some pretty substantial risks

how so? this kind of dumb pseudo-commentary has been going around for years

avatar's 'super hardcore fandom' isnt comparable to star wars or star trek - like im sure someone has cosplayed as John Postman from kevin costner's sci fi epic The Postman before, but that doesnt mean it has a real fanbase

All big tech heavy action films like this do more to recruit than any other films, I bet. I bet people saw the space marines get their assess kicked in aliens and thought, hey, I want to be a space marine!

given that it was released in the midst of the iraq/afghanistan war, i'd say it too some pretty substantial risks
how so? this kind of dumb pseudo-commentary has been going around for years

avatar is a very pointed and obvious metaphor for the genocidal consequences (agenda) of specifically western imperialism. and it presents "terroristic" responses to an invasion by what looks suspiciously like the US military as unambiguous heroism. for a funtimes, family-friendly summer action blockbuster, that's pretty remarkable.

avatar's 'super hardcore fandom' isnt comparable to star wars or star trek - like im sure someone has cosplayed as John Postman from kevin costner's sci fi epic The Postman before, but that doesnt mean it has a real fanbase

star trek had a tiny fanbase in its day. it failed on TV, and its memory was kept alive for decades not by popular acclaim but by its importance to a small but dedicated minority.

contenderizer that is bog-standard hollywood liberalism with a 'save the planet' gloss, absolutely risk-free

it presents "terroristic" responses to an invasion by what looks suspiciously like the US military as unambiguous heroism. for a funtimes, family-friendly summer action blockbuster, that's pretty remarkable.

to expand on this: for a funtimes, family-friendly summer action blockbuster made during wartime, while america was collectively losing its mind in fear of terrorism, that's pretty remarkable.