Avatar 2009

Magical, Aesthetic, Knockout

James Cameron's Avatar is a scintillating product of sheer hardwrork and imagination which not only transcends you into an alien world but make you feel for them. Cameron brings science-fiction into this 21st century with a jaw-dropping wonder that is “Avatar" and he did it with elegance. Starting with sci fi, stunning visuals, astounding world creation, resonating sound design and adequate drama and action Avatar is a sensational triump in cinema.

Starting from the concept, the credit of the entire blockbuster goes to the visual-effects technicians, creature designers, motion-capture mavens, stunt performers, dancers, actors and music and sound magicians. It's a piece of art which deserves the best screen for a viewing. A regret I wasn't mature enough experience this back in 2009. The film being close to 3 hours doesn't feel long as the world building itself sinks your attention into it. Cinematography and Action design is just splendid. A literal cinematic brilliance from Cameron.

Sam Worthington and Zoe Saldana as the lead pair are beautiful. Starting from the energy and chemistry the characters have shared the adequate body language to all the VFX which adds to a realistic presentation. Stephen Lang is outstanding in a character you loath. He is feary and powerful and his presence suddenly increases the tension around the scene. He is damn good.

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After reading all the hate reviews surrounding this movie, I've really come to pity the Millennials and their successors, These generations have become so jaded to life, while never having any actual exposure to an environmental revolution other than what they've been indoctrinated to believe, are now so tainted that they can't simply enjoy a new experience like Avatar. Every character is shallow unless they constantly preach an agenda-driven mantra of extreme global cooling/warming man-made destruction, trans-bisexual anti-homogeneous gender nullification or some other left-wing dribble involving renewable energy, a meat-free diet or that somehow one race's life matters more than another because of the indignities they suffered centuries ago. Now, you have to deny that 4k eyecandy graphics are BORING to fit in with the new generation of beatniks and that CGI is killing the movie industry, even though all those that insist on it would never sit down and watch a standard definition B&W film from the 1950s, even if their life depended on it.

Creating a self-sustaining universe is something ever so difficult. Only a few (Tolkien, Lucas, Roddenberry & Stan Lee come immediately to mind) have been able to pull it off with success. The DETAIL that you need to weave is so intense that only a few Masters have been able to pull it off and have their legacy extend beyond a single work. The world of Avatar could easily be included into that mix. Just watching how the unique creatures breathed, their interactions with the surrounding environment and how life on that planet communed with itself was enough to make me want for more. Yes, the graphics today in 2021 might not be that impressive, but for something a decade old, they truly were breathtaking. Of course, this is coming from a person who grew up during the Beta-Max - VHS war, in an era when your home phone broke, you had to get to the Ma Bell Telephone Store to get a replacement (because you only rented your home phone from the utility) and where 4-bit video game graphics were groundbreaking.

There are 2 aspects of graphics that are the most difficult to program: running water and the human hand. These are the two things that the industry grades the most difficult and expects to expose the weakness of substandard work. Both of these are flawlessly done in the film and come off as exceptionally lifelike. After that, everything else is gravy and is believable to the standard eye. The amount of background activity is breathtaking and if you happen to look beyond the main protagonists on the screen, you can get lost with the environmental interaction. Unfortunately, most people won't be able to see the forest from the trees and never enjoy the graphical ballet going on in the background.

While those less-versed might not see it, Avatar is a modern version of the American Western; where the white-male protagonist is adopted by the native tribe and instructed in their ways of life and existence. It has been done time and time again (Bianco Apache, The Savage, Little Big Man, The Light in the Forest), and this film follows the doctrine to the letter. Avatar is nothing more than a new-age telling of the same old story of Empire vs. Indigenous people on a planetary scale, albeit with better graphics and new age technology. Yes, it's not a new tale. But honestly, after millennia after millennia of humans telling stories, how many original tales are still untold? Besides that, everything else about the film is almost perfect. The cinematography, the editing, the graphics and even the dialog fits the movie like a glove. If you weren't impressed, then go take a peek at Cool World or Who Framed Roger Rabbit and see how far we've come in just a few short decades. While not the perfect film, it definitely entertains and leaves the viewer wanting for more. Highly recommended.

Last time I watched this was at the cinema in 3D when it came out back in 2009. Watching it at home now on the small screen does reduce the experience a little but not by that much it's undeniably a great sci-fi action adventure movie. The special effects are otherworldly, the worldbuilding is some of the best and the adventure in getting to know the alien planet was a treat. The creatures are all so cool and make me want to know every one of them we haven't seen yet. I wish the characters were as layered though it's lacking in that. Our main character Jake Sully (Sam Worthington) I feel we know nothing about and he felt a bit annoying and pretentious in the beginning but maybe that's just the acting. Some character motivations aren't made very clear like Trudy (Michelle Rodriguez) and Norm (Joel David Moore) which I have no idea why they chose the side they chose. I forgot how beefed up Stephen Lang used to be compared to today, he made a really cool villain I really hated him. My favorite character is by far Neytiri (Zoe Saldaña). 2h42 is very long and that's a big reason why i've never rewatched it until now. The last third of the movie was absolutely epic!

13 years later and the amazing computer animation still holds. When saying computer animation, most people forget the 11 years of making this movie come true from a team of people invested in every detail of this universe. The story is the most simple and most common one, to attract and affect the broadest of viewers. It's not over complicated, does not pretend to be more than it is : a new jurassic park for our generation. The detail in photography, art direction, concept design, sound mixing and animation directing still amazes movie makers until today. This movie started not only technologies that made the bed for Marvel Movies of today, it cemented itself as one of the greatest achievements of a movie maker to this day. Cameron delivers the most simple of stories in a compelling way, knowing when to pause and frame the action so the viewer can understand what is happening. The movie has its calms and reflexive moments about the culture of this planet but it nevers slows its pacing. Despite the criticism of people that or fail to understand the cinematographic achievement of this movie or its impact in the entretainment business, Avatar is about to get its sequel 13 years later and it's well deserved to see what Cameron can do with the technology available today.

This was a re-watch in anticipation of Way of Water. First off, I chose to watch the extended edition, which I had never seen previously. Having now read up on the various additions included in this version, I feel pretty comfortable recommending that people stick with the theatrical. Much of the new content is superfluous and/or awkward exposition (I don't need to hear some half-baked scientific explanation as to why the mountains float, and certainly not one that ends with Jake Sully hand waving it away by saying "...or something").

Now, as for the movie itself... the plot is still as simple as ever, and the spectacle is unfortunately starting to show its age. When this film came out in 2009, it was leaps and bounds beyond what video games could accomplish. But tech has come a long way, and now there are many scenes that feel more like a video game cutscene than James Cameron would probably like. This isn't to say that any of it looks bad, in fact, much of the critical CGI still holds up quite well (i.e. the close-ups on the Na'vi), but as a whole, the film no longer feels groundbreaking. This is a problem, because the spectacle was a large part of the film's success. Without it, we're left with a solid sci-fi action film, but not something that blew me away. The story/characters are simply too one-note to really leave a lasting impression.

I know it’s popular to hate on this nowadays, but some of the ratings on the top reviews are quite ridiculous.
I’m not a massive fan of it either, but some people rating this a 1 must be under the impression that it’ll gain them cinema snob credentials or something. In reality, it’s quite the opposite.
A lot of this is saved by the production: the filmmaking is top notch, action’s well helmed, cutting edge visual effects, impressive cinematography and lighting, standout score, all that stuff’s great and memorable. In fact, I’d argue very few movies are as immersive as this one.
The characters are ok (little too cartoony and cliché for my liking) but it’s the script in particular that brings a lot of the movie down. It’s way too tropey (both cinematic and literary), lots of bad dialogue, highly predictable and far too om the nose. It doesn’t have enough meat on the bones to justify the 3 hour runtime, and casting some better actors would’ve gone a long way as well (Zoe Saldana is the only person giving a legit good performance). You can hear Worthington’s Australian accent throughout the entire film, and it’s very distracting.
So, it’s fine, good on Cameron for making all the money in the world with an original idea. You could honestly do a lot worse than watching this. But you could also do a lot better.

6/10

Frankly there are a lot of problems with this movie, but overall I still think it's good and worth a watch. Specifically, I'd say the plot is pretty ordinary, but the technical details are all solid enough to be watchable.

So yea, the plot is basically just what you see anytime a white guy visits a different culture. At first he finds it dumb and then he gets into it and swings against the racist team he showed up with. I'm not saying doing that kind of plot sucks, just that this film does everything exactly the way I anticipate. The scene that really pops out to me is the talk when the head guy of the corp who just flat out lays the plot down with Ripley... I mean Sigourney Weaver.

Other than that, I've got a few nitpicks here and there. Like, whats the deal with the hair sex thing? That would be one thing on its own, but then you do that with animals too. Whaaaaaat? And what's the deal with such frequent slow motion? I mean, the movie is long enough as it is.

But, all of that isn't such a big deal because the effects are interesting enough to watch. This is very interesting technically, especially back in 2009 when it came out. I really like the look of the world they're in too. The forest/jungle looks awesome with those floating mountains, and the animal designs are nice. I love that the horse things sound exactly like the raptors in Jurassic Park. So yea, check it out for the technical stuff and I bet you'll be into it enough for at least one watch.

At this time, I’m probably the only person on Earth who hasn’t watched the first “Avatar”, but the trailers of the sequel made me feel like giving it a try. Although I’ve heard the worst things about the supposed lack of substance in the plot, I haven’t noticed anything that couldn’t be said about most blockbusters. There are times things suddenly move forward through easy gimmicks (like the bird, for example), yet I’m grateful they didn’t drag on even further, as the movie is indeed bloated, and the length is already quite challenging. The only thing that turned me off a little was the writing of the dialogues, a little too clunky and cartoony even for 2009. The way the characters are introduced also felt strangely old-school for a movie that was supposedly meant to take its audience to a new era.

Everything else is still holding up well. The special effects and action sequences are arguably on par with the most recent blockbusters, if not even better. Pandora is not precisely the best incarnation of my aesthetic ideals in movies, yet I enjoyed most of the journey. In particular, I was surprised to see how hard they hit with collateral damage in what’s supposed to be a comforting mainstream movie.

Landing at the convergence point between the advent of uncanny CGI capabilities and the peak of the 3D movie revival, Avatar was the right film at the right time to reap a swath of popular rewards. For one season in 2009, it seemed like everyone in the world was going to see this movie. Often more than once. It's the type of cultural lightning most mainstream filmmakers dream of bottling, then spend the rest of their careers chasing. Writer / director James Cameron showed tremendous foresight (and maybe an awful lot of luck) in waiting for the right moment to unleash his vision, having conceived the basic idea a decade earlier, and now may be showing a tremendous lack of the same in scheduling four very-belated sequels. But that's beside the point. For now, the future of this franchise remains unwritten and I'm just here to assess the ground level.

As plots go, the first Avatar entry is simplistic and naïve. We see the glaring character archetypes for what they are, right away, and the blanks essentially fill themselves. The mean, self-centered industrial types can never understand the unspoken bond their mindful, tribal counterparts share with the land. Greed imposes upon empathy, inciting armed conflict. It's essentially a Captain Planet episode. Shades of gray pepper both sides of the argument, so there is a bit more depth here than in a Saturday morning cartoon, but not much. It's entry-level writing, establishing a rudimentary threat and then working loose suspense until the third act. Avatar's storyline will neither surprise nor enlighten, but that's not what sold the show, anyway.

The film's real strength is in its knack for attentive world-building and its celebration of bright, colorful artistic representation. If this didn't look like it does, teem with life as it does, exploit the 3D craze as effectively as it does (Or as it did? Does anyone still watch 3D movies?), it wouldn't have landed with a fraction of the magnitude it once did. Its affinity for bright color and unusual hues, almost completely foreign in the cinematic language of the time, might be its most influential feature. Certainly, the creative minds behind Guardians of the Galaxy took notes and continued the trend. And the alien landscape of Pandora is exhaustively developed and realized. It buzzes, both literally and metaphorically, with biology. When the protagonist is staggered by his first exposure to the local fauna, we're staggered right alongside him. In this sense, it often feels like the cart has lapped the horse; like the storyline took a third-row seat behind the tantric urge to flesh everything out. So, while the spectacle of watching that six-legged, gill-breathing equine critter live and move is absolutely magical, its actual role in the story is limited to... er... living and moving for a few slow-paced scenes. After that, it's background fodder. The same is true of almost everything else on the map. There's an abundance of dazzling creativity, but no great underlying substance beyond the "hey, we're all like, connected, maaan" mumbo-jumbo. We're mesmerized by the beasts' intrinsic majesty, but any meaning we might take beyond the superficial is purely viewer-appointed. It's a billion-dollar tech demo, a wonderful place to dwell and take inspiration, nothing more and nothing less.

And hey, that's not the end of the world. Sometimes it's okay to cast aside a deeper meaning and a richer cast in favor of a different set of features. I love non-narrative art films like Koyaanisqatsi and Baraka. However, the trouble with relying so completely upon this brand of visual fidelity and computer imagery is, eventually, those bills come due. And, while Avatar's trees and airborne jellyfish and spinning, glowing lizard thingies have weathered the past thirteen years marvelously, its blue humanoid representatives are already showing their age. And those guys chew a vast majority of the screen time. As they continue to degrade, so does the associated movie magic, leaving audiences with a meager, barebones plot for sustenance. That just isn't a recipe for success. This felt thin but spectacular in the theater, but now? It's fading. How will it look in another thirteen years? How will the sequels?

I really see how this movie was revolutionary for its time. Pretty great visuals, also impressive motion capture, even if the textures partly showed their age. As an overall movie, it's something which you can watch, I didn't sleep in, but I don't feel like watching it again, and I don't even feel like checking out the sequel to be honest. There is nothing great of substance, there are some bits but after appearing once they are mostly just glossed over. Jake Sally is not much of a character, he felt self-insert at some point even; Like for example that he was happy to be able to walk again, it was only one scene. And then not a topic anywhere after, his past, his brother, it's never really explored much. There are monologues, but 80% of the time they are obvious stuff which are mostly already told through the visuals. Character-wise he's the bare minimum, thus he felt self-insert. That applies to pretty much every character in the movie, which are naturally kinda just there because the movie focused on Jake most of the time. Some of the military guys feel like they were just copy pasted from the Alien 2, lol. The story is also pretty basic, and sometimes felt a bit weird but I don't really feel like going deep here because there is nothing really thematically interesting, it's just written as a crowd pleaser. And as such, it's a very functional movie. However, I don't think it's good movie overall. If there is some good points to mention, the world is very nicely depicted and it's interesting how well-made it was particularly how the characters engage with the environment. Avatar would make a good video game, I think.
5.5/10