AVATAR Report...

POSTED BY: out2theblack
UPDATED: Wednesday, January 13, 2010 00:13
VIEWED: 25627
PAGE 8 of 11

PREV PAGE 2 3 4 5 6 7 8 9 10 11 NEXT PAGE

KNIGHTREYEDER

Tuesday, January 5, 2010 4:21 AM

I was part of the over the top crowd that saw Star Wars 20+ times back in the days it was still in theaters. That movie blew away everything before it. I have not been as impressed with anything since, no insult to Serenity as it was a really great film. It just didn't set new standards in film making, it stood alone on it's fantastic story.

I've been waiting since 1977 to get blown away the way I was by Star Wars.....and Avatar finally did it. It's about time too! I saw it in both 2D and 3D and let me say the 2D was stunning enough to blow me away. The 3d was just a great way to see it again!

Cameron's the man now.

_________________________________________________
VOTE FOR OUR FAVORITE SHIP!!
http://blogs.amctv.com/scifi-scanner/2008/05/coolest-starship-tourname
nt.php

Mal's expression in the scrapyard when he first see's Serenity says it all.

KNIGHTREYEDER

Tuesday, January 5, 2010 4:22 AM

I was part of the over the top crowd that saw Star Wars 20+ times back in the days it was still in theaters. That movie blew away everything before it. I have not been as impressed with anything since, no insult to Serenity as it was a really great film. It just didn't set new standards in film making, it stood alone on it's fantastic story.

I've been waiting since 1977 to get blown away the way I was by Star Wars.....and Avatar finally did it. It's about time too! I saw it in both 2D and 3D and let me say the 2D was stunning enough to blow me away. The 3d was just a great way to see it again!

Cameron's the man now.

_________________________________________________
VOTE FOR OUR FAVORITE SHIP!!
http://blogs.amctv.com/scifi-scanner/2008/05/coolest-starship-tourname
nt.php

Mal's expression in the scrapyard when he first see's Serenity says it all.

KNIGHTREYEDER

Tuesday, January 5, 2010 4:22 AM

_________________________________________________
VOTE FOR OUR FAVORITE SHIP!!
http://blogs.amctv.com/scifi-scanner/2008/05/coolest-starship-tourname
nt.php

Mal's expression in the scrapyard when he first see's Serenity says it all.

ASARIAN

Tuesday, January 5, 2010 10:20 AM

Quote:
Originally posted by TDBrown:
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!

Haven't seen Dances with Wolves. Still didn't see any white supremacy, though. :) Which is to say, I could see it if I wanted to, but I could probably warp any story that way, with or without special glasses.

--
"Hello, Navi." -- Iwakura Lain

ECGORDON

Tuesday, January 5, 2010 4:04 PM

Quote:
Originally posted by two:
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.

You should know better than that by now. 20th (the film studio) supported Joss all the way, even allowing him to shop the show around to other networks and allowed Universal to purchase theatrical film rights. The FOX television network is the one that killed Firefly. Please stop confusing the two separate business entities.

PIZMOBEACH

Tuesday, January 5, 2010 4:14 PM

Okay, I was just going to let this die but a link on another FFF thread fanned the flames.

First: Yes Asarian, I agree, I am being hyper critical. I used to do that as part of my college studies, "film major." I gave that up for something else but I spent enough time in classes listening to professors talk about film that I just can't help it, it's how I am when I watch movies. I usually keep it to myself on this site but someone suggested that I must have left my heart in a stone box so I decided to rant just a lil bit.

Also, I'd like you to consider that nothing is "just happens to be" in movies or tv. There's a reason for pretty much everything in every frame, and the reasoning process can make your head swim, and might even seriously disappoint you with it's coldness.

Lastly: Turns out I'm not just living in my own bubble, or at least there are some others that share my idea of "The Great Whitey."

http://tvtropes.org/pmwiki/pmwiki.php/Main/MightyWhitey

"Anything you can do, he can do better. He can do anything better than you. Oh yes he can, especially if you happen to be of Asian, Pacific Islander, Indian, African, Aboriginal or Native American descent. It doesn't matter that you have spent your entire life living in the densest African jungle, being taught how to survive there since you were old enough to stand up — the moment Mighty Whitey arrives in your town (most likely as a prisoner of war, an orphan or a lost traveler), you might as well hang up your blowpipe and take up crochet because his European (and therefore superior) genetics have pretty much made you redundant."

And:

http://io9.com/5422666/when-will-white-people-stop-making-movies-like-
avatar

"Whether Avatar is racist is a matter for debate. Regardless of where you come down on that question, it's undeniable that the film - like alien apartheid flick District 9, released earlier this year - is emphatically a fantasy about race. Specifically, it's a fantasy about race told from the point of view of white people. Avatar and scifi films like it give us the opportunity to answer the question: What do white people fantasize about when they fantasize about racial identity?"

"This is a classic scenario you've seen in non-scifi epics from Dances With Wolves to The Last Samurai, where a white guy manages to get himself accepted into a closed society of people of color and eventually becomes its most awesome member."

I'm not sure I agree with the second authors conclusion though:

"These are movies about white guilt. Our main white characters realize that they are complicit in a system which is destroying aliens, AKA people of color - their cultures, their habitats, and their populations. The whites realize this when they begin to assimilate into the "alien" cultures and see things from a new perspective. To purge their overwhelming sense of guilt, they switch sides, become "race traitors," and fight against their old comrades. But then they go beyond assimilation and become leaders of the people they once oppressed. This is the essence of the white guilt fantasy, laid bare. It's not just a wish to be absolved of the crimes whites have committed against people of color; it's not just a wish to join the side of moral justice in battle. It's a wish to lead people of color from the inside rather than from the (oppressive, white) outside."

I find these conversations interesting, but they don't make or break a film - Avatar is no exception. It's a ton of fun.

Scifi movie music + Firefly dialogue clips, 24 hours a day - http://www.scifiradio.com

TWO

Tuesday, January 5, 2010 5:53 PM

Quote:
Originally posted by ecgordon:
Quote:
Originally posted by two:
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.

You should know better than that by now. 20th (the film studio) supported Joss all the way, even allowing him to shop the show around to other networks and allowed Universal to purchase theatrical film rights. The FOX television network is the one that killed Firefly. Please stop confusing the two separate business entities.

I know that but I was ranting. Still am, too! If I had been reasonable then I couldn't make any solid connection between Avatar and Firefly. So, if I wanted to blame one person for both Avatar being rewritten, because of the sequels, with the Na'vi as blue Cherokee Indians and Firefly being canceled, I should have blamed Rupert Murdoch, not any part of Fox.

“While most American audiences have switched off at films that tackle issues of the Iraq War head on, Cameron has subversively gotten away with this simply by doing the old Star Trek (1966-9) standby of recasting the issue with alien faces and setting it on another planet. In so doing, he has produced a far more ardently outspoken anti-war work than all of the Fahrenheit 9/11 (2004)’s and their imitators put together. It’s quite a subversive touch for a film that is going to be one of the top box-office hits of 2009. Not to mention for someone like Cameron to have snuck out the front door of 20th Century Fox past Rupert Murdoch and the same studio that produces the Fox News Channel.” www.moria.co.nz/index.php?option=com_content&task=view&id=4561&Itemid=
0

P.S. -- Wish I had made a copy of the original script in 2005. I don't remember reading that Jake Sully asked Mother Nature to save her blue-skin tree-worshipers. In the finished movie, Jake says at the Tree of Souls, “Probably just talking to a tree right now. But if you're there I need to give you a heads-up.” That makes the Na'vi look dopey; the white guy does all the thinking for the blue people. “Our Great Mother doesn't take sides, Jake.” Defeatist attitude. In the script I read, Na'vi weren't passive victims without the white-man's leadership.

'Avatar': Why do conservatives hate the most popular movie in years?
http://latimesblogs.latimes.com/the_big_picture/2010/01/avatar-why-do-
conservatives-hate-the-most-popular-movie-in-years.html

"The White Messiah fable is the oft-repeated story about a manly young adventurer who goes into the wilderness in search of thrills and profit. But, once there, he meets the native people and finds that they are noble and spiritual and pure. And so he emerges as their Messiah, leading them on a righteous crusade against his own rotten civilization... Once a director selects the White Messiah fable, he or she doesn’t have to waste time explaining the plot because everybody knows roughly what’s going to happen... Cameron has simply used these familiar bromides as shorthand to give his special-effects spectacular some resonance." www.nytimes.com/2010/01/08/opinion/08brooks.html

“...the Na'vi are an almost offensively reductive cartoon of the noble savage...”
http://www.avclub.com/articles/going-navi-why-avatars-politics-are-mor
e-revolutio,36604/

ZEEK

Tuesday, January 5, 2010 5:54 PM

I think I forgot to mention a couple things that were jarring IMO.

Select to view spoiler:

unobtainium? Come on is that not the cheesiest name they could have come up with? That should have taken about 5 seconds to notice how everyone immediately rolls their eyes when they hear it. It shouldn't even have made it to a market research phase much less into the movie.

Jake getting lost was plain silly. You're telling me these super expensive genetically engineered avatars don't have GPS tracking? What kind of future is this? I would think they'd be far beyond our GPS technology by then. Heck couldn't they get their computers to show them what the avatar is seeing at the very least? That could have helped them narrow down the search.

All his getting lost really did was give the story a way for him to be introduced to the navi. They could have just as easily walked over to a navi camp and had those little spirit things jump all over him and the story is right back to where it needs to be.

ECGORDON

Tuesday, January 5, 2010 7:13 PM

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Unobtainium#Science_fiction

OUT2THEBLACK

Tuesday, January 5, 2010 8:33 PM

Quote:
Originally posted by Knightreyeder:

I was part of the over the top crowd that saw Star Wars 20+ times back in the days it was still in theaters. That movie blew away everything before it...

...I've been waiting since 1977 to get blown away the way I was by Star Wars.....and Avatar finally did it. It's about time too! I saw it in both 2D and 3D and let me say the 2D was stunning enough to blow me away. The 3d was just a great way to see it again!

Cameron's the man now.

Cameron would find that to be high praise indeed , and quite gratifying...

James Cameron emerged from his first viewing of Star Wars as an angry young man .

An angry , frustrated 22-year-old truck driver , model builder , and sketcher of science fiction concepts...

Star Wars was the sort of movie that Cameron was inclined to make , were he a moviemaker...

Star Wars turned out to change the course of his life . And , as the saying goes , the rest is history...

Avatar is the film James Cameron had in mind to make...and he's spent his life getting to this point .

http://www.wired.com/magazine/2009/11/ff_avatar_cameron/

http://www.wired.com/magazine/2009/11/ff_avatar_movie/

PREV PAGE 2 3 4 5 6 7 8 9 10 11 NEXT PAGE