Awsome

this movie is a lot like donuts. they look awesome, but there's nothing really there and too many will make you sick.

Great piece of art with avant-garding visual effects, stunning both in cinema and blu-ray, other than that it's all fireworks, plot, history and characters are gigantic clichés.

A friend who I thought was pretty intelligent was all about this movie because he saw an anti-imperialism/colonialism/neoliberalism subtext to it. I just thought the movie made me dumber. Also on the colonial tip, if one were to read the film that way, it would reek of paternalism, that the savage can only resist with the support of the colonizer.
MAjorMercyFlush: good call on the pocahantas tip.

I have to agree with MajorMercyFLush and stryjewski. This movie is a snorefest. The amount of acclaim it recievs saddens me when shallow drivel like this is going to be held as a blueprint of successful filmaking.

It's nothing more than a set of video game like sequences sans the interactivity that makes video games appealing. So you can't interact with it, and the plot is for the lowest common denominator. Where does that leave it in my books? In the trash.

I'm not a movie buff by any stretch, I won't claim to hold knowledge in writing or rant about the scientific names of minerals. I'll just say the movie was blah. I don't even get where people claim it looked amazing visually, it just looked like a crapload of cgi to me.

The story itself is so weak I found myself bored for more then half of the 2 hour plus movie. The bad guys attack and win the first battle but the good guys regroup and win the war.... Isn't that every episode of the A-Team? Not one time does the movie surprise you with a turn of events outside your expectations. Don't get me started on the cartoonishly tough military leader or the final fight scene where the bad guy tells the good guy what he's about to do. How classic. I'm sure the fanboys will flame the hell out of this as apparently some see this movie as life changing. If this movie changed your life you need to get out more.

I know what you are saying and I can appreciate weird names, my point with the mineral was that it was impossibly hard to get, it was unobtainable... it's Unobtainium. I wasn't thinking about it from scientific naming conventions, I just thought it was heavy handed and a bit silly.

As I said the term has already been long been used as catch all for minerals etc that are exactly that, rare and near impossible to find, but they still all have real names that are [usually] derived from something particular to their structure. It's like naming a small country in Asia, Asia. It's counter intutive as you would be constantly clarifying what it was you were refering to. That's all I meant by that they wouldn't actually call it that, and the scientific people there would have known what it was really called. It was for the audience.

I think it just hit me in the same neurons as when you see films with variations of scenes like;

<A >
"Gentleman, as you already know... blah blah blah explain the whole plan"

If they already know, why are you telling them?! It's poor exposition aimed squarely at the audience and totally pulls me out of the scene.

I do totally, totally get that it's a movie though. I just get passionate about the medium :)

I just found the first half hour of Avatar to be littered with clunky exposition, some really bad dialogue, and things like that that I admit really did taint the rest of the film for me. I will give it a second viewing sometime and see if now the hype has worn off it sits any better.


woo, got my rant on there! :)

I have never seen both Pocahontas or The New World, but i know the story and it does seem similar. So i guess you have a point there.

You should see this website: http://www.chm.bris.ac.uk/sillymolecules/sillymols.htm. There are lots of minerals and acids and molecules with weird names. But than again this is a movie. Its not supposed to be scientific accurate, just entertaining.
I remember reading somewhere that James Cameron was asked why the Na'vi women have breast since they don't need them and he answered "because this movie was made for human people", my point exactly.

dunpealhunter:

The story is almost beat for beat the highlights of the accounts of the Pocahontas and John Smith story as we have grown to know it (it's up for debate), a point that has been made from many, many quarters. Amongst others, Disney have had a crack at the story as has auteur Terrence Malick. Watch "Pocahontas" and "The New World", both are dramatised accounts of there in relationship and the the founding of Jamestown and . Scratch the surface of that relationship and there is Avatar.

Also using with the name "Unobtainium" for the mineral/MacGuffin that was sort was for the lowest common denomiator in audience. A mineral would never actually be called that. It might refered to as that to a total lay person as it is a colloquial term, but they weren't. I'm pretty sure that wasn't the point at which I wanted to punch James Cameron in the nuts, but it didn't help.

My 2c. Feel free to disagree, discussion livens things up. I'm going to steadily work through everything I've seen and see if we can't get some engaging movement in these shouts. We are here because we love movies, lets talk about. Staying within constructive bounds of course, degenerating misses the point. Again my 2c.

I thought it was a fantastic movie. I have not seen anything like it before. They spend the budget they had in a very good way if this is the end-product.

What do you mean it was unoriginal? The only movie i can think of that has something even remotely similar is Dances With Wolves, but thats like comparing apples and oranges. I saw this movie a total of four times in the movie theater, i thought it was that good. But it might also have been because of the fact that this was the first movie i ever saw in 3d.

Visually it is truly the most incredible spectacle committed to film. However the story was thin and unoriginal and the first half of the script was appalling. Lazy use of, and overly lengthy, voice over for exposition, including one random line of voice over from no where about two thirds of the way in. Script writing 101 is show it, don't say it.
Just because it's the highest grossing doesn't mean it's well made. Pretty to my eyes, a creative vacuum to my brain.

Love it

Excellent very big movie!