Avatar (James Cameron film)

I heard this movie has a huge Writer on Board schtick to it. I hope I'm wrong as this looks like a mildly entertaining flick at least.

If this Cracked article is to be believed, it's super Writer-on-Board and exactly how Audrey thought it would be. Still, I want to see it. Even if it's not the best movie ever, I'm pretty sure I can enjoy it. The first ninety minutes especially sound like my sort of thing.

Just saw this movie. It is possibly the most hilarious movie I have ever seen. The writing is so hammy it is almost approaching Kirk-levels. One liners are delivered with frightening speed and intensity while the Blue Aliens hiss and growl like authentic natives! Probably the best part about this movie is The Dragon [callsign and position], The eventual big bad, possibly the most badass man in the universe. A man who, in short order, kicks open a door into a hostile alien environment, ignores his need to breathe, takes a machine gun, and shoots a woman out of a flying helicopter. He then goes on to blow up everything, shoot about a million Navi'i and then he gets out of his chopper, into a mech, and THEN the real badassery begins. I was rooting for him to win by his final scene. While Jake Sully (The Hero) is an interesting character, he has no real charisma. His dumb jock attitude, pointless and silly behavior and point blank refusal to obey physics somewhat alienated (sorry) him in my book. And the screeching of the female lead is so irritating, I had trouble not sarcastically imitating her in the cinema. The great environment was great, the fight was amazing, the cg blew me away, but don't go to see this movie expecting a masterpiece of plot, writing or subtlety. It is, like Die Hard before it, pure eye candy. Turn off your brains and enjoy.

sorry, kneejerk link fix

edited 16th Dec '09 8:45:40 AM by Janitor

I'll have you know I thought Die Hard was a very thought provoking story for me.

@rinsimyaldee

Yeah I've heard the "heroes" and the Na'vi really come off as assholes that you want to lose

I mean the human race need that flying rock stuff in order to save billions, why should one tribe get in the way of that?

Is that evil? Yes, should we at least try to find a peaceful agreement that would help both groups frist yes.

Hmm, so it contains some of the most awesome fight scenes ever, but if I want to see them in 3D, I need to go see them at the cinema, where there is no "skip" button.

Fuck.

@715

Yeah, if i was one of those RDA soldiers i'd be saying something along the lines of "I'm not letting my family freeze to death when winter comes just because some blue guys think the rocks look pretty" and then i'd take a joyride in one of those Mini-Mecha and shoot a blue dinosaur in the face.

... I gotta go grab that game...

I saw it to day. And I got what I wanted, Badasses, Guns, Stuff Blowing Up, Space Marines, Humongous Mechas, Scenery Porn, More Dakka, Large Hams, CGI FX and Cat people riding Dinosaurs ripping through reinforced glass with sharpend arrows completed with intentional Completely Missing The Point.

It was awesome that scene. That scene alone was worth my 18 dollers (AUD sucks).

However, I also liked the rest of the movie too. Even if the lead female was hissing all the time, the characters were inturiguing. Even if it is Dances With Wolves IN SPAAAAAACE with a Green Aesop, I liked it. Heh mabye I'm the only one here whome likes the movie for a reason etheir than the action part. However, Don't go to the movie expect a deep complex plot, subtleness or amazing acting, go to it expecting amazing CGI, a fantastic action scene, Narm Charm, and Bad Ass-ness.

edited 19th Dec '09 8:16:46 PM by PippingFool

@Pipping Fool: Actually, I partly want to see it because of the "Dances With Wolves INSPACE" thing. The Green Aesop I could do without, but whatever. Also, I heard teh beginning sort of just explained Pandora? Is that true? Because I ''really'' want to see that.

edited 17th Dec '09 12:14:37 PM by Lucky Revenant

Feels good watching it in 1080p HD.

But honestly, I'm not pumped for it. Doesn't really look interesting, but somewhat narmy to me. And the protagonist in that 'Avatar' body looks incredibly stupid.

edited 17th Dec '09 12:23:08 PM by Smokie

I have no interest in seeing it it looks like an absolutely bland generic action movie that has been made thousand of times before

Savages. I say drop a daisy cutter on 'em.

My moms reaction to the look of the Navi was instant disgust, like as if I had stomped on a mouse so hard it's innards shot out through it's mouth and anus and then shown it to her expecting her to be proud.

She also though they were ugly.

Last hour was a cool and all, but it wasn't worth watching the first two Seen It A Million Times hours. This is the first time in my life for playing Sudoku on cellphone during a movie. And it seems this movie is going to bomb, if the crowd in my theater is anything to go by.

edited 19th Dec '09 8:25:35 AM by Blast

The first part was rather plot driven, the problem is, that the plot is not exactly new. But hey, at least it was consistent. The second part was action driven so there is not much to be said here. I think watching it is like playing Assassin's Creed I. The movie itself as well as the story are not exactly the strong point but they are okay, what really gets is the visual stuff. THE MOVIE JUST LOOKS GREAT! Though I guess once it's not 3D anymore on my home system it's rather... plain...

AWESOME AWESOMEAWESOMEAWESOMEAWESOMEAWESOMEAWESOMEAWESOMEAWESOMEAWESOMEAWESOMEAWESOMEAWESOMEAWESOMEAWESOMEAWESOMEAWESOMEAWESOMEAWESOMEAWESOMEAWESOMEAWESOMEZOMGGGGGGG!!!!!

I loved this movie! Did I mention it was AWESOME?

I mean, it's the very definition of Troperiffic! There's Humongous Mecha, Flying Aircraft Carriers, More Dakka (NEIVAR ENUFF DAKKA), Stuff Blowing Up, Roboteching, Macross Missile Massacre, Rock Beats Laser (yeah, there was a continuity problem there since they are first shown unable to piere the glass, but hey, Rule of Cool, HUGE HELPINGS OF IT, Furries, Fredian Symbolism (Yum Yum), Final Fantasy X 's forest of Macalania, The Ethereal, Bad Ass of all sorts and sizes, Noble Savage, Pocahontas INSPACE, DancesWithWolves AND PrincessMonoke AND Instict InSpace, all of it Cranked Up To Eleven and taken Beyond the Impossible, Gaia's Vengeance, a World Tree, The End of the World as We Know It, Stripperiffic outfits, If I Can't Have You…, Blood Brothers, Mighty Whitey, Going Native, Its Getting Hot In Here, Training from Hell, Extremely Persistent Predator, Attack Its Weak Point, For Massive Damage, Bragging Rights Reward, Take Off Every Zig, For Great Justice, Someone Set Up Us The Bomb, In the Name of the Moon speeches, Scenery Porn, LOTS of it, and I'm certain there are MANY MORE I could think of if you gave me the time.

It was the most predictable film I have seen in my life. And I enjoyed it through and through. I cried. I laughed. I cheered. Yes, the coronel was Badass. No, the PMC as a whole still sucked. The Corrupt Corporate Executive was especially pathetic. Smug Snake, almost a Vizzini clone. The Navii aren't just savage heroes, they're jerkish, childish, and suicidally stupid and stubborn. They weren't really handsome or ugly: they were both alien and familiar. Almost like CLAMP characters in their proportions (have I started Wild Mass Guessing on what universe xxxHolic takes place in?).

As for the Fan Dumb over there talking about "needing the stones to warm our houses and not letting aliens who think they're pretty get in the way", you're Completely Missing The Point. No reference was made in the movie on what was exactly the use for Unobtainuim, just that it was very rare and valuable. Also, they aren't fighting for the rocks, they're fighting for their home and their cultural heirloom and landmarks. If you found awesome uranium (or diamond, or whatever) mines under Jerusalem, do you think anyone'd be allowed to undermine the city?

So Yeah, the main character is a Jerk Jock and his Smurfette is a Tsundere! What did you expect? He's a freaking Marine corporal! Those are moronic almost by definition at anything that isn't fighting! And of course he'd "betray humanity": what would you do in his stead? His life there is a thousand times more awesome than anything he could achieve with his sucky marine pension! He married up, that's what he did, our John Smith!

Oh, and there wasn't really an Author on board if you think of it. The Navi behave exactly like humans would do in the same situation. This is not about a freaking Green Aesop. This, like Mononoke Hime, is about power relationships, about how far one is willing to go for petty gain.

Ah, and I forgot. Testosterone Poisoning. Lots of it. And SPESS MEHREENS!!!

Okay, let us rethink this movie. What if it had happened in W 40 K, at the time of the Imperial Crusade. Oh, wait, it wouldn't have happened. I mean, the humans would never have come up with the Avatar project in the first place. Filthy Xenos.

But I'd have liked the God-Emperor of Mankind versus The Lifestream of the Navi. Do you really think they couldn't have been friands and gone fight Chaos together?

And the writing and playing with tropes is almost as good as the other Avatar's. YMMV on if that is objectively good or bot. I got my ticket's worth, is all I'm saying.

edited 18th Dec '09 5:45:28 PM by Raw Power

Yeah, saw it. They don't act like aliens at all.

Pretty visuals and pictures, predictable plot, blah blah blah.

But for me, the alien animals were the best part. Glow-in-the-dark helicopter lizards!

I would be a Na'vi over a human anyday. Why?

Because on Earth, nobody can fly (Unless In a Plane, Blimp, Hot-Air Ballon or Zepplin and you don't get the rush of the wind in your face.) and all the dinosuars are dead. On Pandora, You can fly on living Dinosuars. Awesome. You also have Tentacles in your hair.

@Raw Power Agreed.

edited 19th Dec '09 5:08:31 PM by PippingFool

Raw Power: You forgot one. Big Bad wasn't just a Badass, he was a Colonel Badass.

This movie was so tropetastic I nearly fell out of my seat. I had a serious Narm moment when they actually called it Unobtainium. I laughed so hard the stranger next to me turned and looked at me.

And like Raw Power, despite the incredible predictability of the plot and the substandard acting, I laughed, I cried, and I cheered. The 3D experience of it was quite fun and Cameron paid exquisite attention to the richness of detail of the alien world. Yes, it was Scenery Porn, but when it is done this well who cares? It really wasn't a Green Aesop, but I suspected a lot of people would interpret it as such. I found it far more DancesWithWolves than anything. The Humongous Mecha was awesome and yes, they were Space Marines.

Despite what wasn't oscar-worthy in this film, the whole experience was one of incredibly fun storytelling, YMMV. It was pure entertainment. I'm very glad I paid good money to see a 3D film in the theater with the expensive large drink (and left the kiddies and my husband at home! This was for ME damnit)

I don't recall feeling like I had this much fun watching a movie since Top Gun. It had that same kind of "yes I knew what was going to happen and this is all eye candy, but aren't I having fun getting there" feeling. FUN FUN FUN and AWESOMELY FUN.

edited 19th Dec '09 12:52:00 AM by tryn

Yes, it was Scenery Porn, but when it is done this well who cares?

Implying Scenery Porn is normally bad

wat

You know, given that the last thing I saw Cameron involved with was Dark Angel (and I thought that sucked) and everyone's saying the acting here was lame, I can't help but think that Cameron appears to have gone off the boil as a director.

I think he started his decline after Aliens, myself. T2 had nice SFX, but the dialog was oft-corny and the camera work reminded me too much of a comic book and not a film.

It's offical.

Avatar is a Your Mileage WILL Vary Film.

Edit: Here is what Cam the man has said about Avatar's premisis "Cameron himself acknowledged that the film is thematically similar to "classic 'Going Native'" films such as Dances With Wolves and At Play in the Fields of the Lord."

edited 19th Dec '09 7:05:02 PM by PippingFool

Just got back, and have to say the movie's alright. It doesn't do anything new, it isn't at all subtle, and it's so predictable that even nontropers will know the whole plot within the first half-hour... but it looks gorgeous and can still be enjoyable even though you've seen it before. I can think of worse ways to spend seven bucks and a few hours of your time.

That said, I'm surprised they didn't take the obvious Final Fantasy VII route for their unobtainium - with all the other cliches, I was sure they'd use that one. I'm also a little disturbed by the natives' use of their psychic skullplugs. It's like Dragonriders Of Pern without the consent.

And I'm more interested in the story that comes after what was shown in the theater. How does Earth react? How was a corporation able to get away with this? Where was the United Nations? Has this sort of thing happened before?

...And why is it always the natives who are teaching the heroes? The guy never said anything about his own world, or made any effort to help the aliens better understand the humans. At least the Earthlings were trying to reach a rapport of sorts.

I immensely enjoyed this movie and I knew the plot before I even got in the theater.

I didn't give a damn. Too much fun.

Favorite part about the movie though was the bio-matrix. It was straight a biological network. The idea of the avatars as well really intrigued me and I really enjoyed it.

I also laughed at the unobtainium. that was hilarious.