Avatar trailer (new James Cameron movie)

lol

I saw Pocahontas Avatar the other day, and I liked it, but then there wasn't a movie I watched that I didn't like. My sister's boyfriend said they should make video games like that.

DuckReconMajor said:

hehe

I posted that a few days ago :P

fixed

OK, I suppose it helps if you already think like this.

I love hiking and camping, so the whole range of environments was right up my alley: I would have loved to hike around that place (without being killed).

And being such a runner (sometimes), and constantly working to improve myself, the most thrilling scene of the movie was maybe when he got in the body and went for a sprint: Who can sit still with that new power! Then he got to explore the world while I had to sit in a theater.

But I also would have liked more LotR epicness with the battles. Maybe all the trees were in the way, but I would have loved to see something like the charge of the Riders of Rohan.

the story: while watching, I was engrossed, but afterwards, I realized how much it was like others. At least I didn't notice for that first viewing. And the specifics of this story I did not expect. It could have been better, though.

Yeah, you could do that with a number of movies, probably. Dances With Avatar/The Last Avatar/A Man Called Avatar/etc. Then add touches of Fern Gully, MechWarrior, and The Matrix. There you go. Didn't recall Pocohantas until just now though :)

And District 9 > Avatar by a long, long shot.

OK, I finally went ahead and watched it (having to book a ticket in advance for one of the city's two theaters with an IMAX-3D projector). I have to add, this is the first 3D movie I ever watched in my life.

Was it original as a concept? Definitively not. During the whole duration of the film, I couldn't stop thinking about references and elements taken from other films, books, novels etc.

Just to name a few, first the very obvious ones, in no particular order:

1. Apocalypto, Tarzan, The Emerald Forest etc. for the eco themes, and not only.
   
2. Pocahontas. The whole "Noble Savage" and clash of cultures thing.
   
3. Conan the Barbarian, Dancing with Wolves, the last Mohegan, the Last Samurai, etc. for the "getting to know your 'enemy' so well that you switch sides" thing, more "Noble Savage" and "Warrior's Honor" concepts.
   
4. Dinotopia, in particular that need for mutual bonding and choosing between hunter/rider and flying steed.
   
5. Neon Genesis Evangelion and anything involving mecha: that whole "pilot sync" thing, although the tech aspects of it were not the dominant theme.
   
6. Macross/Robotech: more mecha and...Valkyrie ;-)
   
7. Starship Troopers, for the same reasons as mecha stuff.
   
8. Star Wars. Yup.
   
9. Fantasy settings like LOtR's and Never Ending Story's.
   
10. Never Ending Story in particular got a lot of references and similar settings (the flying dragon, that luminous forest (Perelin), the pervading essence of all Existence, the story about self-discovery and seeking etc.
    
11. Do I need to explain "War on Terror" and "Shock and Awe" ?
    
12. References to the Vietnam war, as well as the wars against American Natives abound.
    

And now the not so obvious, yet significant reference:

The Blue Swan, by some Romanovsky Boris guy. It's rather improbable that you'll ever stumble over it unless you read a lot of sci-fi, including Soviet Russian sci-fi.

"The Blue Swan" was a short novel talking about a team of army scientists exploring a luscious jungle word, whose only sentient species was represented by a race of blue giant predatory birds that fed by attacking and devouring the local fauna by consuming them through their acid-secreting wings. They were however sentient, had a language, lived in caves and even lit fires and used tools.

Throughout the novel, it was frequently mentioned that Earth had become an overpopulated, polluted place, and that once their mission were complete everyone of them would have to give a hoot "cleaning up". To make better contact with the "Blue Swans", the humans used a device that allowed them to transform (rather than just remotely control) into any being, including the Blue Swans. So a few of them went to live among them.

The novel took it to the point that one of the team members totally embraced the Blue Swan's way of living that he turned on his human team mates (eventually killing and devouring one of them), and when he was captured and turned back into a human said that he didn't feel human anymore, he felt a Blue Swan and didn't give a shit about dirty old Earth anymore. After much thought, he is allowed to be changed permanently into a Blue Swan and spend the rest of his life on the planet as one.

Now how's that? ;-)

There's probably a lot more that I missed/can't think of, but the point is that the only original thing is the way Avatar brought all of these together. Which was, I must say, awesome and very well done. A must see in any case,

I saw it again in 3D last night, I actually liked it better in 2D. Whilst a few scenes looked nice, small details are very distracting for the sake of showing off the technology and I had trouble keeping focus during parts where the camera is moving fast.

I found it interesting that when all the ash is falling down, some bits appeared to be in the room with me, I even instinctively batted one away from my face. Also it makes Michelle Rodriguez' boobs look rad :P

It's the first movie I've seen in 3D too and will probably be the last. There was a 3D trailer for that awful Tim Burton's Alice In Wonderland and everything in it just looked like sheets of paper placed in front of one another to create an illusion of depth (plus the movie itself looks shit).

Ironically, I thought the most impressive 3D display was the cinema chain's own branded 3D introduction which had all these blocks flying past you like Void meets MS Starfield screen saver.

Does anyone else get a vaguely racist "Mighty Whitey" vibe from this movie? The Smurfs Na'Vi didn't really have any of their shit together until the white human came to become the chosen one and fuck the chief's daughter tame the giant lizard bird and lead them to victory. It's rather condescending to both species.

Also I've been told this is an "anti-war" movie but in the actual movie the Na'Vi solved their problems with...warfare (OK, they had Gaia the neural tree network on their side, but still).

Woolie Wool said:

Does anyone else get a vaguely racist "Mighty Whitey" vibe from this movie? The Smurfs Na'Vi didn't really have any of their shit together until the white human came to become the chosen one and fuck the chief's daughter tame the giant lizard bird and lead them to victory. It's rather condescending to both species.

Yup, I had this thought.

Woolie Wool said:

Does anyone else get a vaguely racist "Mighty Whitey" vibe from this movie? The Smurfs Na'Vi didn't really have any of their shit together until the white human came to become the chosen one and fuck the chief's daughter tame the giant lizard bird and lead them to victory. It's rather condescending to both species.

I hope they slip that scene into the home version.

Woolie Wool said:

Does anyone else get a vaguely racist "Mighty Whitey" vibe from this movie? The Smurfs Na'Vi didn't really have any of their shit together until the white human came to become the chosen one and fuck the chief's daughter tame the giant lizard bird and lead them to victory.

Would making him black make it any less problematic? Maybe, in P.C. USA. Not at all, in the rest of the world without such false dilemmas. Plus, the meme is already covered by the similarity to countless movies like Dances with Wolves, the Last Samurai etc.

Also I've been told this is an "anti-war" movie but in the actual movie the Na'Vi solved their problems with...warfare (OK, they had Gaia the neural tree network on their side, but still).

Some of the most powerful war and battle scenes in cinematography and literature are found in "anti-war" works. Go figure.

all the posts about this movie ripping off other materials- thats pretty much how it is for every single movie ever made though. i mean, look at star wars. its riddled with ripped off material, but no one ever complains about that.

That's because Star Wars is good.

Also because no one wants to get their houses burned down by lynch mobs consisting of people like this.



He probably smells like a ton ton.

Kyka said:

He probably smells like a ton ton.

Booo...

Ok, so if it's just like Pocahontas, then why are people so happy with it? My friend described it as "James Cameron having sex with my eyes for 3 hours... and that's a good thing." Does it really look that good?

Ninjalah said:

Does it really look that good?

Yes. The special effects are nearly seamless, and the motion capture is amazing.

Maybe I'm just old, bitter, and jaded, but I was not blown away by the special effects, mainly because the production design for the creatures/vehicles was boring.

I was fairly disappointed since Cameron's previous work is top-notch in this regard (the future war scenes from the Terminator movies, all the stuff in Aliens). He has a lot of design skills himself and designed a lot of the interesting stuff from those movies.

Even Pandora itself was fairly tame, despite having freakin' Wayne Barlowe working on the movie (the 1933 King Kong still has the coolest looking jungles ever).

Kyka said:

He probably smells like a ton ton.

He smells worse on the inside.

Also, it's spelled taun-taun. >_>

I thought Avatar was like Starship Troopers without the awesome

http://www.cnn.com/2010/SHOWBIZ/Movies/01/11/avatar.movie.blues/index.html

The fact that this is serious makes me a sad panda

Bashe said:

http://www.cnn.com/2010/SHOWBIZ/Movies/01/11/avatar.movie.blues/index.html

The fact that this is serious makes me a sad panda

Cached version, for great Justice.

And yeah, it is sad. Reminds me of the "Blue Swan" plot I described above. Too good and idealized.

Bashe said:

http://www.cnn.com/2010/SHOWBIZ/Movies/01/11/avatar.movie.blues/index.html

The fact that this is serious makes me a sad panda

I guess this is why avery1555 needed help moderating over there :P

I used to feel that way about other things (though I was never suicidal: the logic there never made sense to me). Like when I was little I thought there could be a portal to the Pokémon world in my old church. I could never get up there though. It would've taken a fireman's ladder, but that added to the mystique. And who didn't want to be a Powerpuff Girl?

Like I said earlier, though, if I wanted to be in Pandora, I'd go play WoW and hang out with draenei.

DuckReconMajor said:

And who didn't want to be a Powerpuff Girl?

...

DuckReconMajor said:

Like I said earlier, though, if I wanted to be in Pandora, I'd go play WoW and hang out with draenei.

Or become an urban hippie of sorts, start dressing up like Manu Chao, grab a guitar and sit in a corner of the park with 3 lazy dogs to feed (what's it with rovering hippies and dogs, anyway?) Don't forget the diabolos and flaming bowling bats to juggle with!

I admit I felt the same way for a bit after seeing the movie. After a movie like V for Vendetta, Inglorious Basterds, or Return of the King, there was a short time when I just thought about how neat the movie was. But with Avatar, for a longer time, I thought about the green world I had experienced [/fanboyism]

It helped that me and my brothers sprinted to the car after the movie across the quarter mile parking lot. Feeling satisfied with what your real self can do in the real world is important..... I guess.

And then I had the urge to get out of my urban surroundings and go back to the family farm. Or better yet, go mountain climbing. (or even better yet, go wing-suit skydiving....)

Janitor Reviews Avatar - Spoilers

Here's what we have: Cliche, predictable, overused story. Underdeveloped characters who aren't particularly likable. Incredible visual effects. 3D gimmicks.

Now, what was awesome about this was the whole 'the planet is a living organism with a self-awareness' thing. I thought it was awesome because It connected to an experience I had on an acid trip prior to my viewing this. Made a whole lot of sense to me at the time.

About "Avatar Blues": It's just like someone going into a suicidal depression because his hard drive got fried in the middle of a World of Warcraft session. I've seen the movie, and I never experienced suicidal depression. Maybe it's because I'm a crazy Alaskan tech-head.

Kagemaru_H said:

Maybe it's because I'm a crazy Alaskan tech-head.

It may also have something to do with you being a normal, mentally-balanced person who can understand the difference between fact and fiction.

I'd say having Asperger's Syndrome eliminates the "normal" part, but the rest is true.