AVATAR Report...
POSTED BY: out2theblack
UPDATED: Wednesday, January 13, 2010 00:13
VIEWED: 25627
PAGE 7 of 11
ETA: I tried to avoid spoilers without tags, but do mention things that happen early on the movie. Read this post at your risk!
Hi. Just saw it today in 3D in a very nice theater. Here's my take:
First, I thoroughly enjoyed the 3 hours, went gaga over the visuals. Complete gaga. I can't even imagine the work that went into making everything move so believably, especially bits with creatures/characters winding through trees and such. And this is the first CG animated skin/facial expressions that I have been able to actually, fully believe, which is amazing considering how non-human the skin and facial features were. And the alien animals - the scary thing that chased Jake off the cliff, the way it tried to dig him out from the tree roots was amazing, how it moved. Catlike but super strong and absolutely vicious. I loved it. I could watch that scene 20 times, just to take in how it moved.
And my god - the flight control center!! Any scene there also needs to watched 20 times over, or more...
I liked the 3D. Wasn't in your face with spears hurtling at you, but gave an interesting depth. I tended to forget it was 3D, but just enjoyed watching it.
The woman lead was fabulous. So easy to relate to her reactions, yet she was always non-human. Heart on sleeve. Couldn't have been easy to pull that off, to create such an empathic alien.
Yeah, overall, good stuff.
And here's the less good: I did have to occasionally tell my brain to shut up and enjoy it. Mainly, I found all the pretty-pretty colors very pretty, but I wish they'd toned it back. It made the forest look like a velvet poster under black light in some teenager's bedroom in 1981. (I speak from personal experience. 
) In those moments, I could not make myself believe I was experiencing a real world. I knew it was there to make the kiddies in the audience say: oooh, pretty!
And yes - I did tell myself to shut up and say: oooh, pretty! And I did. Made for a somewhat immature kind of enjoyment. That's okay. I could probably use more immaturity in my life. 
As for the plot: yes, predictable. Heavy-handed with the peaceful natives-love-nature/native Americans analogy/Iraq war analogy/etc references. More subtley would have been nice. I mean: "Shock and awe"? Really? But this issue didn't really draw things down too much for me. Perhaps we shouldn't be subtle about these issues.
As for explaining the "processing net" as a way to save the world: I think it was made clear that business guy was too much of a single-minded wuss to make an independent decision and tell evil marine guy what to do, and in any case evil marine guy wasn't going to change course. He wanted to go after the native folk because he was pissed that they humiliated him on his first day out. He did what he did out of personal vendetta. No argument was going to stop him, not even from business guy.
As for the "white man saves the natives" issue: I did ponder that, had read it in a review. But I don't think it was the case for the reasons Frem and HK covered above. For me, the real problem with this was a loss of believability, like the overly bright colors. It became a contrived fantasy, and a common one: damaged, hopeless man rises to become a near god. A shallow way to get the audience happy, I say.
Select to view spoiler:
I mean, when Jake tames the red dragon thing and suddenly all the native are bowing to him, I didn't see a "white man/savage" issue, I saw an over-used Mary Sue plot device. The hero needs to be loved by all, including the wild untame-able woman, and the prior romantic rival. It smacked of LRH's Battlefield Earth, which I consider the prime example of that theme. And you see what that kind of thinking gets you: Scientology.
I did find the red dragon thing funny in the battle though: what a good way to set yourself up as a target. "Hey bad marine guy - if you want to come after me, look for the really really big really really bright red dragon thing!"
Please don't take offense at the criticisms, Avatar fans. I did really enjoy the
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Quote:
Originally posted by mal4prez:
I think it was made clear that business guy was too much of a single-minded wuss to make an independent decision and tell evil marine guy what to do, and in any case evil marine guy wasn't going to change course. He wanted to go after the native folk because he was pissed that they humiliated him on his first day out. He did what he did out of personal vendetta. No argument was going to stop him, not even from business guy.
Yep, sadly that was pointedly obvious, which is a major problem on field deployments when you have a ranking officer like that and no one at hand able or willing to pull his leash up short.
Alas that THAT problem only existed in fantasy, but sadly enough I've known and even met a couple of those - I can only imagine how problematic that'd be when a force is that far out of contact of a superior authority...
Me, I blame those in charge of the personnel selection process, there's a reason for pysch profiling exo-contact people in the first place.
Select to view spoiler:
But then, that was the weakness Sully used against them, he KNEW that jerk was going to do something like that, and corpie would let him, so he baited them to stick their neck way out...
And stood there with an axe.
Tactically though, Sully was a bit of a dunce, I suspect you could carry a pretty sizeable chunk of rock on one of them flyers, especially his, and it wouldn't take too many of those to put those dropships on the ground in a hurry, yanno ?
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Quote:Interesting. An issue that could have bearings on a possible sequel. I mean, I'm assuming the earthlings would come back pissed as hell in ~12 years, but maybe there would be cooler heads?
Originally posted by Fremdfirma:
Alas that THAT problem only existed in fantasy, but sadly enough I've known and even met a couple of those - I can only imagine how problematic that'd be when a force is that far out of contact of a superior authority...
Me, I blame those in charge of the personnel selection process, there's a reason for pysch profiling exo-contact people in the first place.
I actually thought the floating rocks would be part of it. Perhaps the tree would get damaged, disrupting the "flux", and the rocks would fall on the ships? I hadn't thought of the animals rising up.
I do enjoy the idea of nature joining the battle. Kind of like the Ents in LotR. I was pondering on the way home: interesting metaphor? If we fuck with nature, it will come back and kill us. Not in such a conscious, warlike, quick way. But it will kill us eventually if we don't quit being idiots with it.
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hmm-burble-blah, blah-blah-blah, take a left
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I'm definitely going to see it but have to give 3D a miss. Unfortunately that format fries my neurons and makes me excessively twitchy...damn I feel ripped off. but everyone I know who's seen it raves about feeling like they've been transported.
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I saw this movie yesterday and was totally blown away by the visuals.
This was my first 3D movie and I was not disappointed in the visuals. The 3D effects on the computer screens just blew me away. I could not get over how deep they looked.
The planet, Pandora, was incredible.
I thought they were a bit over the top with the "bad, greedy corporations" and "bad military" theme, but the effects were able to distract me from that.
Every time they went through that "tunnel" when connecting with their Avatars, I was alternately thinking Dr Who and Star Wars hyperspace.
In fact, since ILM did the special effects, I think it would be really cool if they were able to somehow retroactively turn all the original Star Wars films into this type of 3D experience. I'd be in geek heaven.
And yes, Serenity/Firefly in 3D? Simply awesome. Can you imagine how much freakier the Reavers would be if they were coming out of the screen at you? Or, the scene in Serenity where the Operative walked through the hologram of River and Simon? It was pretty cool in 2D, but imagine 3D...
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MAL: Everybody's makin' a fuss.
***********
"They just float out there, sending out raver breeding parties..."
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It still doesn't feel like my point is getting across... 
I'm a lot more critical of movies by directors that I have a great deal of respect for. Cameron, tons of respect. I think Aliens is one of the greatest Science Fiction films ever produced, he broke the mold with that film in so many ways. Since then, perhaps unfairly, I have come to expect that he might get close to repeating those heights with his following films. With Avatar he did break new ground with many very special/incredible effects, alone they are worth many viewings (I'll be buying the disk as soon as it's out). But the story and characterizations, sorry, it makes sense when you know that he had the initial ideas in the 70s, very early in his career.
@HK - I think where we might not be seeing eye to eye starts here: You said, "Where in Jake's actions in service of the native people's cause do you see his "arrogance?" I don't see HIS arrogance, - that's not my beef - I see Cameron's arrogance, I see Hollywood's arrogance, I see White Male America's story telling arrogance - ya know, it's all about them. So the white guy turns around and does good - it's the fact that it's HIS story and not Michelle Rodriguez' character's story, or any other non-white, non-male story that I'm talking about.
Plus, it's the arrogance that says given the chance the white man will save the day, in fact, it's up to them to save the day, everyone else is there to serve them saving the day (as in the other non-white or non-male characters). They will easily grasp the new ancient culture, they will of course attract and seduce the "girl" - the chief's daughter in fact - and rise through any special task that the "simple folk" would stumble to complete (even though it's their culture) and ride the beast no one else can, and after talking the chief into letting him stay he'll kind of brush the chief aside and start giving orders, "I can save you but only if you do as I say. First: Get the other clans together...."
And when he becomes Na'vi in the end wouldn't you guess that's as much because he's choosing his new status and his new body having working legs as anything else?
You are absolutely right about how we all take our lives to the movies, and I certainly see a parallel to America's regrettable global activities over the past years (and still). It's painfully obvious with the military and the corporation characters, but I see it in the choice for the main character too - the arrogant US white male having to turn all the wheels. It's just not always our story, there are other points of view.
Scifi movie music + Firefly dialogue clips, 24 hours a day - http://www.scifiradio.com
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Hey guys,
I've been reading the posts reviewing Avatar. I'm particularly interested in some of the takes folk here have on the story end of it.
Yes, it is somewhat predictable - a cross between Pocahontas and Dances with Wolves, but 'white male swoops in to save the day?' or "White male saves the savages?" I don't know about that. It was a simple plot, yes. It had the equivalent of native americans, yes. It had a white male infiltrating and then becoming aware of the natives plight, yes.
But, to me, it was more like Dances with Wolves; where a white male (from the military complex), discovers that the enemy is nothing like what he was told. In fact they had a culture and way of life that made perfect sense to them in their environment.
In Avatar, you have Sully, who is ridiculed and shunned for having a hole blown right through his life - and by his own people no less. The treatment of the wound warriors is subtly commented on here by Cameron. We, as the audience, forget, however momentary, that he's challenged physically, thanks to the avatar. We come to know this simple man as a warrior, of the Jarhead klan, who is driven and determined to make his mark.
He's given the opportunity, a carrot is also dangled, to do just that - make a difference. Much like in DwW, Sully sets out to gather info and intel on his potential enemy and gets a lesson in return. I admit this was handled much better in DwW than in Avatar, but it's there nonetheless. The more he learns about the Na'vi, the more conflicted he becomes about using the intel he's gathered to help exploit them.
He taps into a strength he didn't know he had, and, by the end of the story, it is brought to a predictable Hollywood ending. The bad guys are defeated and the natives keep their precious traditions. But, it's much more than that. Cameron, somewhat awkardly, is telling a cautionary tale about the environment and how we should be one with nature, protect the earth, etc.
Pretty much, a treehugging tale. HomeTree, Eywa, Tree of Souls. etc. The arrogance that most folk speak of is very elusively and cleverly manipulated by Cameron in this movie. Many see that Jake went to "save" the savages, but it is he who is saved quite literally by the Na'vi - both as a treehugger and a warrior. The premise was that he was protected and chosen by Eywa for something great; i.e. to make his mark.
As I stated earlier, it was somewhat simplistically told, but the truly entertaining part was the special effects, in particular, the new 3D we heard so much about. I didn't mind so much the 'black-lite' poster effect of the Pandora jungle, it added to the magical allure of the overall storyline. When I first heard it was animated, I thought "Oh no, it's gonna look like a cartoon," but far from it. It was awesome and, at times, breathtaking in scope.
I'm gonna go back in about a week to see it in IMAX.
SGG
Tawabawho?
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Quote:
Originally posted by pizmobeach:
@HK - I think where we might not be seeing eye to eye starts here: You said, "Where in Jake's actions in service of the native people's cause do you see his "arrogance?" I don't see HIS arrogance, - that's not my beef - I see Cameron's arrogance, I see Hollywood's arrogance, I see White Male America's story telling arrogance - ya know, it's all about them. So the white guy turns around and does good - it's the fact that it's HIS story and not Michelle Rodriguez' character's story, or any other non-white, non-male story that I'm talking about.
Plus, it's the arrogance that says given the chance the white man will save the day, in fact, it's up to them to save the day, everyone else is there to serve them saving the day (as in the other non-white or non-male characters). They will easily grasp the new ancient culture, they will of course attract and seduce the "girl" - the chief's daughter in fact - and rise through any special task that the "simple folk" would stumble to complete (even though it's their culture) and ride the beast no one else can, and after talking the chief into letting him stay he'll kind of brush the chief aside and start giving orders, "I can save you but only if you do as I say. First: Get the other clans together...."
I think you may just be reading way too much into this. I don't see "White Male America's story telling arrogance" at all. What I see is just a way of story telling that fits pretty much every plucky hero: yes, the story is about him; yes, he saves the day; yes, he has above-average abilities; yes, he gets the girl; yes, he succeeds where others fail, etc. I don't particularly tie that to "White Male" issues per se. Take Mal, for instance: he gets stabbed, shot at, tortured, saves the day, gets the girl (kinda), succeeds where other fail, etc. You could call that a mite irrealistic. And you'd be right. But making a film about total losers, where did that get fun? Superimposing "White Male" supremacy onto a hero, though, just because he happens to be white, I don't see it.
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"Mei-mei, everything I have is right here." -- Simon Tam
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Because I read the ORIGINAL script, I'm certain that the Na'vi are NOT savages that need white men like Jake Sully to teach them about flush toilets, machine guns, and dentistry. We will have to wait for Avatar 3 to correct the notion that Na'vi are 18th Century Apache blue-skins whose most advanced technology is the bow-and-arrow.
I believe that 20th Century Fox screwed around with the Avatar script because they wanted sequels. You know Fox as the people who murdered Firefly.
The best example of a major script change for the sake of a sequel: The Na'vi threatened to send a plague to Earth if the humans ever return to Pandora. Avatar 2 will have Earth send a bigger army to take back Pandora. How is that sequel possible if the Pandorans can destroy life on Earth? It is not, therefore Fox had the words deleted to protect their investment.
Where did I see the original script, before Fox crapped all over it? Via a link that no longer works from this page www.kuro5hin.org/story/2004/5/8/73755/86297 where it says, “Not technically a screenplay but rather a "scriptment", a combination of both screenplay and treatment. A stunningly majestic science-fiction piece that if produced (especially if by Cameron) would surely rate highly against sci-fi classics like Alien and Blade Runner.”
There are other Na'vi hi-tech miracles from the original script that are treated like unexplainable magic in the finished movie:
Select to view spoiler:
The telepathic bond between Na'vi and beast? That's not God's creation nor Evolution. It's Na'vi genetic engineering. The telepathic bond with the soul tree? Genetic engineering, again, because plants don't naturally have a nervous system. Na'vi immortality? A soon-to-be-dead personality can be uploaded to the tree of souls then downloaded into a new body. Floating mountains? Dragon Hunters (2008) www.imdb.com/title/tt0944834/ had floating mountains because they look beautiful. No explanations of how mountains float were necessary in that cartoon. The Na'vi built their floating mountains because that's beautiful. And does anybody believe that the mineral being mined on Pandora, unobtainium, is natural the way uranium ore deposits are natural?
The Na'vi technology was, originally, so beyond human understanding that it was unrecognizable as hi-tech. The crappy dialog in the finished movie makes the Na'vi into red-skins with blue skin, but the stuff that is not in words (and thus not in the screenplay that Fox Executives were reading) says high technology. At least it does to me.
The Joss Whedon script for "Serenity", where Wash lives, is
Serenity-190pages.pdf at www.mediafire.com/two
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The story is familiar to anyone who has seen Dances With Wolves. But the right side wins this time, and it's one Hell of a ride! I have seen this in both 3-D and 2-D now. I recommend 3-D, of course, but the 2-D was so immersive that it felt like 3-D. A 'must-see" film indeed!
"Might have been the losing side, still not convinced it was the wrong one." -Mal
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