Avatar 3D

Did not see it in 3d but I enjoyed it anyways. Would have been cool to do the 3d thing but well, my local cinema is crap. As for the movie itself, it has been done before, many many many times but never this expensively or beautiful. Solid entertainment but really not much more.

 

I'm not going to see it. The people I know who have seen it pretty much agree with Joacqin. I don't see the point in spending that much money to make something that only stands out because it looks good. I know that many people consider cinema to be nothing more than entertainment but there are others who believe that cinema is an art form in its own right. Judging from all the fuss about that movie it seems really vain and pointless. The hype is killing any interest I might have had in the first place. The problem with movies that are mostly about special effects is that they age rather badly. As good as it may look now it will probably lose some (if not most) of its appeal in a few years.

 

You should see it anyways, regardless of the hype. Even though the story has been done, Cameron did it really well; I laughed when he wanted me to, I (nearly) cried when he wanted me to. I was rolling my eyes at it until I actually saw it.

My dad compared it to when Star Wars was released - it will change the way movies are made.

I also saw it in IMAX 3D, which is probably the best way to see it.

 

I saw it in 3D. I liked it. But maybe was expecting too much from the hype. I have to say though that it does feel draggy at some points.

 

Visually, it was increadibly impressive, especially in 3D IMAX. Plot wise, tehre were no surprises (in fact, I figured out pretty much the entire plot just from the comercials), but it was well done. I'm hoping sequels will have a more original plot.

 

Agreed. First time I saw the trailer I knew that it was Pocahontas but in the future and off-Earth.

 

Going to see it today. I have low low expectations - despite so many people telling me that it's fantastic I just can't muster much enthusiasm for it. Still, we need to kill a few hours today, and by virtue of being extremely long and pretty much the only movie showing, we'll see this.

 

Just saw it in 3D today. Spectacular visuals, predictable story. Still worth it, though.

 

Nice and shiny on the outside, hollow and dead on the inside. Effects were nice but the plot was pretty bad.

 

Yeah, pretty much that. By halfway I was screaming END ALREADY.

I feel at least half the scenes were there to show off the pretty. They had no reason to prance around on those bloody dinosaur-dragon things for so long otherwise. OTOH, I didn't see it in 3D, so the effect is pretty lost on me.

 

And whats with all the neon lights?? @_@

And the clumsy use of deus ex machina. Not impressed at all.

 

That was almost a really good movie.

The first half of it scratched one of my favourite genres, which is alien world/culture exploration. If it had've been just that, I would have been mightily happy. Unfortunately, they threw a superfluous plot over the top of the interesting stuff that included every bad cliche ever.

I couldn't help but laugh at the bit where Commander ******* does the escape the exploding ship routine. That was hilarious.

The literal deus ex was glurgh, but I didn't really care by that point.

Everything was just so heavy handed that it was painful - the foreshadowing, the strawman characters, the entire plot structure...
The all humans are bastards trope was taken to such an extreme that I couldn't sympathise anymore - yes, humans may be bastards, but packing that many complete monsters together breaks suspension of disbelief. I dislike the humanity-self-loathing message that the director seems to have and the general grimdark nonsense that has to be forced to make it come across.

But yes - I did enjoy the alien world/culture exploration, and was coping with the rest until that was thrown out for a focus on things exploding and badass posturing.

 

That's one thing I forgot to mention. I liked the details about the alien culture/world. But I only liked them when they remained details: one of my favourite little parts was when the priestess rips out that dagger from her necklace and slashes her own tongue in that one deft motion. But in most cases they weren't details so much as shoved in your face, and in those cases it's predictable and groan-inducing (dinosaur/dragon scene...)

And as for culture, why the hell do aliens act like Indians?

 

Well, yeah, I was being sarcastic. The movie to more than just American conquests though, it can be applied to any native oppression anywhere.

Also, according to Wiki, James Cameron is considering sequel possibilities if the first one does well, which it has.

As for unobtanium, that might actually be a really clever reference...

The depressing thing about the movie is that it's not unreasonable to presume that humans will act exactly like that when we find aliens: kill them and steal their stuff.

 

That sums it up just right.

 

I would have been much happier if the culture had actually been alien. Instead, it was a bad rip-off of a half-dozen native human cultures. On everything. They talk like them, dress like them, teach like them, act like them, their social structure is the same, the only differences are the tails and the wyvern thingys.

I groaned. I also groaned when the marine's "going native" thing included the typical "I no longer have a brain and can't remember anything meaningful from my previous life". You know, like combat tactics.

Actually, I thought that was more supported in the story. I'm a little confused as to why it waited until it's people were all wiped out, but at that point I didn't really care either.

I think it's easy to explain. You see, that wasn't really a human mining colony. It was really a human penal colony. That explains why 70% of the human cast were sociopaths perfectly! Odd to give them guns, but if there's no way off the planet it doesn't really matter.

As for the unobtainium, I groaned as well. No, I don't think it was a witty reference. I think it was someone trying to be witty for the sci-fi crowd and blowing it.

 

The deus ex that I had problems with was:

Spoiler

the absolutely ridiculous convenience of letting them transfer consciousness into their Avatar for good. It felt so tacked on just because they didn't want to touch the issue of a human/blue-alien relationship ala mass effect.