Avatar reviews - Attention : spoilers

[Gigatron]

Saw it last night in Imax 3D. Stunning visuals, incredible sound, but the story is a re-tread and an unfortunate victim of Hollywood's "people suck" campaign. How many more movies do we need to tell us that we're terrible?

Anyway, it's basically Dances with wolves (or even The Last Samurai), interjected with Forrest Gump, Aliens and The Matrix.

I wonder though, does every animal on Pandora have a USB cable, or only the ones worth riding? Like, can you plug your head into a frog, for no reason? I wish Eywa had a sense of humor - like an animal that has it's USB dongle right at it's butt-hole. How many Na'Vi would be so quick to plug their head into that ?

Now, from a technical standpoint, I did notice that were some 3D issues. For instance, if you tilt your head more than 5 degress to any side, the 3D goes away and you get double images. There were a lot of ghosting and double image issues - most particularly when the person/object wasn't the focus of the scene. Almost like the main subject was 3D rendered, but the rest of the scene wasn't and there was no way for the cameras to compensate.

Also, Imax 3D is nothing more than Red/Green seperation - just like the old Red/Blue speration of films of old. I was hoping for glasses with alternating shutters for a more immersive feel.


I say go see it, if just for the beauty and immersion of the visuals and sound.

-Fred

 

[CessnaDriver]

Re: Avatar reviews

Or Planet of the Apes, or Soylent Green, or Wall-e, or just about any episode of Star Trek TOS...

Etc.

To be fair, TOS walked both sides of the road quite well at times.

"The best diplomat that I know is a fully-loaded phaser bank." -- Lt. Cdr. Montgomery Scott

There was plenty of cold warrior thinking on that show.

Kirk giving weapons because the klingons did too to keep the balance of power for instance.
That would give a hippy the cold shivers.

 

[Carson Dyle]

Re: Avatar reviews

To be fair, TOS walked both sides of the road quite well at times.

No question.

Roddenberry was a complex man; half libertine philosopher, half mid-century man's man. It's an appealing, if sometimes contradictory, combination, and it lent TOS an extra dimension of humanity.

Cameron is not so different in that he clearly places a lot of stock (faith?) in technology, but at the same time he's aware of the potential for disaster should humans become slaves to their gadgets.

 

[The Stig]

Well, since the thread is steering off topic anyway I figure I may as well add that I think that furries are going to have a field day with the blue kitty things. Tail sex toys and everything, you watch.

 

[Qui-Gonzalez]

Well, since the thread is steering off topic anyway I figure I may as well add that I think that furries are going to have a field day with the blue kitty things. Tail sex toys and everything, you watch.

I do believe that theory was tossed out to us just before the release.

 

[The Stig]

Crap, am I repeating myself?

 

[niennumb1]

This is always going to happen after a flood of praise comes in for a movie that there's gonna be some just out to **** and moan about how stupid it is that so many like the film.

I'm seeing it for the second time Sunday and can't wait to experience the 3D!

 

[RPF Staff]

Some posts have been removed/edited. Let's please keep the discussion civil and on topic. Thanks.

 

[SVTStingRay]

saw the movie last night.... wow james is still the man!
my eyes have been ****ed.

 

[00MrNotWrong00]

I've never been so happy with a film thumbsup:thumbsup

I loved the part where everything was upside down and burning, that was what I wanted to see. Great Movie thumbsup:thumbsup

 

[phase pistol]

Hey wait a minute.

Fire needs oxygen in order to burn.

Pandora's atmosphere contains little or no free oxygen.

OK just checking. :lol

k

 

[DrStranglove]

Hey wait a minute.

Fire needs oxygen in order to burn.

Pandora's atmosphere contains little or no free oxygen.

OK just checking. :lol

k

If you read the wiki, it has the same O2 as Earth, it just has other crap mixed in which makes it poison to us. The masks they wear are actually filters.

 

[phase pistol]

Does the wiki also explain what Nero was up to for 20 years while waiting for Spock to show up from the future? :love

 

[Qui-Gonzalez]

Does the wiki also explain what Nero was up to for 20 years while waiting for Spock to show up from the future? :love

Yes, he was knitting those fine Romulan clothes, opening a Starbucks franchise on his ginormous ship and generally tooling around, aging very slowly...and being *****. Come on...20 years and not a female in sight? My revenge-o-meter would go cold.

 

[pennausamike]

My family went to see AVATAR a 2nd time.
We enjoyed it a little bit more.
We also took my father and wife and friend of my son.
They also thought it was a great piece of film entertainment.
I just took the story at face value for Pandora
and didn't apply Pandora eco-logic to earth eco-reality.

It's a simple story told well that loses nothing in the re-telling.

My comments from my first viewing still apply:

Avatar lived up to my expectations.
I went to see an "EVENT" movie;
I saw an "EVENT!!" movie.

My family and I all felt the 3-D increased the connection with the audience.
It also made the audience a participant in the aerial flights and battles.
3-D made the interactive viewscreens just a little more awesome.
And finally, the 3-D environment of Pandora was immersive and spectacular.

Cameron knows action.
Transformers 2 was too jumbled (except the amazing forest fight),
2012 was just characters outrunning destruction (more than once=yawn)
but in Avatar, whether a jungle hunt or a techno-battle, I knew who was who, what was what, and where they were.

The "Dances With Wolves" storyline was what it was.
Some people want to see that story; some don't.
I felt the references to European settlers displacing the native American population were spot-on;
I felt the handful of references to the Iraq war were strained and artificial.
My only complaint is that rather than just a small group of Corporate-Baddies,
all of humanity, the race that destroyed their now-brown-no-green-Mother-Earth;
were portrayed as the bad guys.

The conceit that makes the story possible
(that the blue natives were physically and spiritually connected to their planet and environment)
isn't a real thing.
I had to suspend my real-life and religious beliefs to buy into Avatar's story.
And given that this (felt like a lot less than) two-and-a-half hour movie was so engaging,
I was willing to do that.

The reward was a thoroughly enjoyable movie-going experience.

Mike

I believe this movie will attract more word-of-mouth referrals than the ad campaign.

I still want to see it in 2-D to compare the formats' influence on the storytelling.

Mike

 

[Larry Young]

If you read the wiki, it has the same O2 as Earth, it just has other crap mixed in which makes it poison to us. The masks they wear are actually filters.

I didn't read the wiki (there's only so much time in the day), but when Col. Asskicker bamfs the jack-in pod at the end and Sam tries to get to his mask, it's clearly labelled "REBREATHER" which makes the audience think the atmosphere is similar-but-dangerous.

Geez, I liked this movie. It was like taking a tour of a Micheal Whelan painting.

 

[phase pistol]

I guess it's ultimately futile for me to try to poke holes in Avatar... Cameron is a pretty smart guy, so I think any lapses I can find, were probably thoroughly considered at the time and Cameron just made choices based on "storytelling" concerns. So if I disagree with things, that's fine, but Cameron is just doing what he thinks is better for his story.

Regards the atmosphere, I was thinking that if the O2 is unavailable for breathing, it would be unavilalble for use as oxidizer for fires as well. But if the masks are just "filters", the air could be fine for burning stuff but just be full of gases that are toxic to humans I guess.

I still don't get why, despite the magnetic interference making the missile tracking useless, they couldn't still have bombed the Tree from a distance using ballistic trajectories. The Tree ain't going nowhere. :lol

Cameron chose otherwise. :sleep

k

 

[Kerr Avon]

Okay, just got back, I admit I went in jaded a bit, so that affected me a bit.

First, the story is massively cliched and derivative. There really was nothing new story telling wise in this. That didn't completely surprise me, but Cartman called it, this was "Dancing with Smurfs." It's a shame Cameron couldn't find something to write a more interesting story.

On the other hand, Cameron is one ****ing amazing cinematographer. This was so well storyboarded, filmed and directed that it was really a great job of dealing with mediocre script material. I will admit, my eyes have been ****ed.

On the plus side, after having to deal with the memories of big blue penis from "The Watchmen" I can now replace the memory with big blue boobs!

By the way, Sully ultimately fails, and I'll tell you why. Earth and the rest of the planet still need the resources, and Pandora is the closest planet with it. Sully just sealed the case that the smurfs can't be negotiated with and dipolomacy is dead. All Sully did is guarantee the extinction or mass subjegation of the blue people. Instead of sending the ground troops, all they do is send another ship to use mass drivers from orbit to lay waste to the areas the blue people live. The mass drivers serve three purposes. They wipe out the people and animals in the immediate area. They dig holes hundreds of feet into the ground and expose the Unobtanium (real original there Cameron) to mining. The massive destruction disrupts the networking of the trees in the areas being mined effectively lobotomizing the 'goddess' of the planet. Humanity gets their materials, the blue people get casinos.

 

[DARKSIDE72]

Yea well since this is going to be a trilogy, we'll just have to wait and see if your BS ideas come to fruition...

Okay, just got back, I admit I went in jaded a bit, so that affected me a bit.

First, the story is massively cliched and derivative. There really was nothing new story telling wise in this. That didn't completely surprise me, but Cartman called it, this was "Dancing with Smurfs." It's a shame Cameron couldn't find something to write a more interesting story.

On the other hand, Cameron is one ****ing amazing cinematographer. This was so well storyboarded, filmed and directed that it was really a great job of dealing with mediocre script material. I will admit, my eyes have been ****ed.

On the plus side, after having to deal with the memories of big blue penis from "The Watchmen" I can now replace the memory with big blue boobs!

By the way, Sully ultimately fails, and I'll tell you why. Earth and the rest of the planet still need the resources, and Pandora is the closest planet with it. Sully just sealed the case that the smurfs can't be negotiated with and dipolomacy is dead. All Sully did is guarantee the extinction or mass subjegation of the blue people. Instead of sending the ground troops, all they do is send another ship to use mass drivers from orbit to lay waste to the areas the blue people live. The mass drivers serve three purposes. They wipe out the people and animals in the immediate area. They dig holes hundreds of feet into the ground and expose the Unobtanium (real original there Cameron) to mining. The massive destruction disrupts the networking of the trees in the areas being mined effectively lobotomizing the 'goddess' of the planet. Humanity gets their materials, the blue people get casinos.

 

[Kerr Avon]

Yea well since this is going to be a trilogy, we'll just have to wait and see if your BS ideas come to fruition...

So we'll get part two in 15 years and part 3 in 30? Really, bows and arrows won't do **** when you can use mass drivers to bring about extinction events.