Just got back from "Avatar"

Just got back from "Avatar"

by SouthernFriedInfidel | Published on December 26th, 2009, 7:39 pm | Arts

Finally got a chance to watch the big, highly advertised (pushed out the wazoo) movie from James Cameron, "Avatar." Without putting in any spoilers (that I can think of), I have a few thoughts I'd like to share.

Regarding the plot, I must say that I was strongly reminded of several works of fiction I've encountered in the past: "Dances With Wolves" is the obvious top one on that list. Followed by "Ferngully" and (might be a somewhat obscure reference for many) "Speaker For the Dead." And a tiny smidgen of "Childhood's End" for spice.

That being said, I have to go on to tell you that I saw very few weak points in this film. The casting was terrific, from the Jarhead hero to Sigourney Weaver to the villain, everyone fit their roles well. I guess that it should go without saying that the special effects were as close to perfect as I've ever seen. The music fit the story at every point... the mechanics were spot-on from start to finish.

But for me, the thing that gets my buy-in is the sense of wonder -- wonder at seeing a fully-realized alien world. One filled with beauties and terrors that probably match the actual wonders and terrors of our own real world, should aliens ever decide to drop in on us.

And of course, the ending of the story was VERY satisfying for the audience. Well, it would have to be, wouldn't it?

Overall, I'd say it's worth the trip. And the 3-D aspect of the film was very well-done as well. I think it was worth the extra cost for the premium they charge. Go. See. Enjoy!

Mom and dad offered to take the kids last weekend and C. emphatically turned them down. I got the sense that within his school culture that they had labeled Avatar as lame. He continued to make several references to Smurfs.

I'm like "C, it's got Aliens, and err sci-fiey spacey stuff, and you don't want to see it?"

So I'm wondering ultimately how it's going to do. I had no interest in seeing it, except for the fact Sigourney Weaver was in it.

Honestly your the first person I've heard say anything good. Honestly I haven't heard anything which seems odd.

I'll wait for Netflix.

IMHO, waiting for renting it to watch at home would be a major error. This is a film that demands the best venue for truly getting all it has to offer you. Unless you have a home IMAX, you will lose a LOT by waiting to rent.

Thx for the review, SFI. We were trying to decide if it would be worth seeing. The concept sounds lame, but the reviews have been really good.

You know, now that you mention the "concept" I'll say that as with a lot of science fiction, the mechanics of the technology left a bit to be desired. The link between the humans and their bio-engineered Avatars seemed a bit sketchy to me. But as with any speculative fiction, one has to be willing to grant the story some leeway in regard to suspension of disbelief in order to move on with enjoying the plot. I found this easy enough to do in this case. The story is strong enough to get past minor issues like that.

SouthernFriedInfidel wrote:IMHO, waiting for renting it to watch at home would be a major error. This is a film that demands the best venue for truly getting all it has to offer you. Unless you have a home IMAX, you will lose a LOT by waiting to rent.

Home Imax.... I might never leave the house...

Thing about the advertising is, I think it was a huge mistake to move to place references to the move everywhere they could. Fox knew that this was going to be a very strong movie anyway. Word of mouth could have handled all the need for hype they might need. The push to place the movie everywhere from breakfast cereals to football games indicates a level of insecurity over the success of the film, it seems to me.

See I'm not getting the "going to be a great movie" vibe... I got a much bigger vibe from the 2012 movie...

I think a lot of people are going to see it thinking it's Titanic and be heavily disappointed.

I find it odd they're using a love story to sell a sci-fi.

Liv wrote:See I'm not getting the "going to be a great movie" vibe... I got a much bigger vibe from the 2012 movie...

OMG....

OMG...

I went to see 2012. Will post thoughts in another thread. Just...

:violence-stickwhack:

I find it odd they're using a love story to sell a sci-fi.

Science fiction is simply fiction with science thrown in, Liv. "The Time Machine" (the original story by Wells) was a love story about a man transported to an alien environment. And of course, there was (eurrrgh!) the "first three" episodes of Star Wars.
:lol:

Avatar was a very good movie. The following is my complaint list:

1) They used Euphemisms from the 20th century. Surely, they could think of better phrases to use in a society that is 100's and maybe 1000's of years in the future.
2) The human army guys just showed way too much testosterone and it just looked corny.
3) There were some scenes (very few scenes) where they feel the need to take God's name in vain. Why they did this is at a total loss to me because it wasn't necessary and didn't help the scene at all. It made my wife and I feel uncomfortable. Why would they purposely alienate such a large portion of their audience for no reason whatsoever? Very confusing.

The movie was very good. It won't knock anyone off my top 15 list but it was still very good. Unfortunately, I can't recommend this movie to my kids because of point #3. And that's a shame because I believe my 10 year old would have really enjoyed this movie.

BecauseHeLives wrote:Avatar was a very good movie. The following is my complaint list:

1) They used Euphemisms from the 20th century. Surely, they could think of better phrases to use in a society that is 100's and maybe 1000's of years in the future.
2) The human army guys just showed way too much testosterone and it just looked corny.
3) There were some scenes (very few scenes) where they feel the need to take God's name in vain. Why they did this is at a total loss to me because it wasn't necessary and didn't help the scene at all. It made my wife and I feel uncomfortable. Why would they purposely alienate such a large portion of their audience for no reason whatsoever? Very confusing.

The movie was very good. It won't knock anyone off my top 15 list but it was still very good. Unfortunately, I can't recommend this movie to my kids because of point #3. And that's a shame because I believe my 10 year old would have really enjoyed this movie.

So, aside from point 3, I agree fully with BHL's quibbles with the movie (I never really paid attention to the "taking the Lord's name in vain" aspect, since I'm more interested in the story than other stuff). The advanced technological society was basically people from today placed in the future, like with a time machine or something. Unfortunately, it's a problem that plagues science fiction writing in general, with the only exceptions coming in literature that I remember (Robert Heinlein was one of the best at this, always creating whole cultures to base his stories around, possibly the Fifth Element as well). Maybe someone who pays more attention to this than I can comment on it. *glances at SFI*

And yes, I found much about the plot to be cliched, but not to a point as to make the rest of the movie disagreeable. The Acting was good (I love Sigourney Weaver!), the special effects were very high-quality, and the action sequences were pretty amazing, and the plot maintained a good message. It's interesting that this movie is considered a fore-runner for Oscar nominations (including best picture; the ballots go out today) on the strength of the technology and the special effects as well as the acting, but we'll see if it can beat other inspirational and strong movies like Precious, The Blindside, Up in the Air, etc.

HOPOMaster wrote:So, aside from point 3, I agree fully with BHL's quibbles with the movie (I never really paid attention to the "taking the Lord's name in vain" aspect, since I'm more interested in the story than other stuff).

Marines that curse... that CAN'T be true-to-life! :lol:

The advanced technological society was basically people from today placed in the future, like with a time machine or something. Unfortunately, it's a problem that plagues science fiction writing in general, with the only exceptions coming in literature that I remember (Robert Heinlein was one of the best at this, always creating whole cultures to base his stories around, possibly the Fifth Element as well). Maybe someone who pays more attention to this than I can comment on it. *glances at SFI*

Well, if the story you want to tell is ABOUT a future society, you make one up. But it must still be recognizably human, otherwise, it becomes extremely distracting to the audience, who will spend most of the story trying to puzzle out WTF is going on.

Example: There was a book I read once long ago that had that problem. In "In Conquest Born," the story revolved around two militaristic societies that had amazingly complex languages, with verb conjugations that took whole paragraphs to explain. That's probably why it was like 700 pages, and was a major reason why I tossed it aside about half-way through. Ye GODS BELOW, it was boring!

It's interesting that this movie is considered a fore-runner for Oscar nominations (including best picture; the ballots go out today) on the strength of the technology and the special effects as well as the acting, but we'll see if it can beat other inspirational and strong movies like Precious, The Blindside, Up in the Air, etc.

Best movie? Meh... I wouldn't think so. Best I've seen so far is District Nine. But then again, I don't get out to see movies all that often.

Well, I never said it would *win*, now did I? It's just predicted to get nominated, especially since they expanded the number of nominations in the category. District 9, I'd forgotten about, but that was also a very good sci-fi action film this yearr with an interesting, deep message. I think it's possible it'll get nominated, too, although it's possible that the lack of big names working directly on it would work against it (hopefully not, I keep hoping against my better judgment that the Academy has enough brains to look past names).

I've not yet seen Avatar so I have no opinion of the film. I'm not even going to read the thread because I hate even minor spoilers. I just dropped in to add a link to a bit of satire I thought was rather clever. I wish the guy in the article was real. If he were, before seeing a film I'd call him instead of checking in at Rotten Tomatoes.
Utah Man Fired From Job For Calling Avatar Fan "Avatard"

“People were calling up and saying that the movie was the best thing they have ever seen in their entire lives. One person actually said, ‘I wish I lived on Pandora. They are so nice there....About another caller- "“That guy was such a douche. He actually said Avatar was like watching Jesus being born. Who says dumb [expletive] like that? I asked why he liked it so much and he said ‘because it looked awesome.” That was it. Anaconda looked ‘awesome."

I just saw it in 3D at the IMax.

My immediate reaction was Fern gully on steroids, but the experience was enthralling.

I was a little disappointed that with all the CGI technology the aliens were still basically tribal humans and that the only solution was for enough bodies to be sacrificed.

Parts of the film reminded me of Midworld by Alan Dean-Foster, except that he had a far more satisfying story and final solution.

I think everyone has seen it now, but if you haven't then it's well worth it for the immersive experience - see it in 3D on the biggest screen, the extra $2.50 for the IMax was worth it

I agree that the natives were under-imagined. I suppose that some truly good builder of alien societies from the speculative fiction stable of writers would have helped in that department, but might well have added time to the film for exposition. Still, the story was pretty good, IMO.

So I see that the Vatican has released its review of this film.

Seems they aren't all that impressed. I'm sure James Cameron is crying over this while he cashes his checks... :roll:

Was not aware the Vatican had an in house film reviewer.

I expect the vatican wasn't impressed that the Pandoran god could actually actually do something useful like transfer a soul from a cripple into a healthy body..

"A tree where souls collect after death? Pulease, everyone knows souls go to an invisble place in the sky or undground to be burned for eternity. It's luducrous to suggest they go into a tree that can talk to animals. Why they'll be saying animals can talk next"

BecauseHeLives wrote:Avatar was a very good movie. The following is my complaint list:

1) They used Euphemisms from the 20th century. Surely, they could think of better phrases to use in a society that is 100's and maybe 1000's of years in the future.
2) The human army guys just showed way too much testosterone and it just looked corny.
3) There were some scenes (very few scenes) where they feel the need to take God's name in vain. Why they did this is at a total loss to me because it wasn't necessary and didn't help the scene at all. It made my wife and I feel uncomfortable. Why would they purposely alienate such a large portion of their audience for no reason whatsoever? Very confusing.

The movie was very good. It won't knock anyone off my top 15 list but it was still very good. Unfortunately, I can't recommend this movie to my kids because of point #3. And that's a shame because I believe my 10 year old would have really enjoyed this movie.

Shame, shame on taking your gods name in vain but its ok to kill and steal. I loved the movie and I will see it again, pray for me.

Saw the movie today on blu-ray. Good movie. Decent movie... visually stunning... but not "OMFG the best thing ever." Didn't like the war aspect though I 'got it'. Did like the "becoming" of the blue, had lots of parrells with my own life wanting to go abroad and stuff.... Wish they would have elaborated more on that and less on the shoot-em-up stuff... overall good movie. Saw 'up in the air' yesterday... and felt it was a much, much better movie honestly.

Liv wrote:Saw the movie today on blu-ray. Good movie. Decent movie... visually stunning... but not "OMFG the best thing ever."

Well, I've said from the start that the basic plot is nowhere near original. But it was done rather well, with (mostly) believable characters. Good for a bit of escapist fun.

BTW, I had a friend borrow my copy recently. She returned it, saying "I was surprised at how good it was! I wasn't even expecting to see any humans in it!"
:roll:

I think without 3d it would lose most of its attraction. It was seeing it at the IMAX in 3d that made it an immersive experience for me.

A Person wrote:I think without 3d it would lose most of its attraction. It was seeing it at the IMAX in 3d that made it an immersive experience for me.

Oh I don't know... the 3-D aspect appeared to be very understated IIRC. Even on a flat screen at home, the visual aspects are great eye candy.

Well we sort of can't do 3-D in this house... we tried that with Superman, and Shan was in the hallway vomiting the whole time....

Like I say, visually great.... and it was liked better than I thought it would. Loved Sigourney, but the story was predictable, underwhelming, and overall emotionless. On the other hand this one line from 'up in the air' left me balling:

The stars will wheel forth from their daytime hiding places; and one of those lights, slightly brighter than the rest, will be my wingtip passing over.