Amph James Cameron's Avatar (The Way of Water + sequels)

Hey, man I'm just trying to continue to enjoying Avatar, and the same tired prequel bashing will just make me give into my Cameron hate!

Hey, I've indulged in my fair share of "Cameron hate"! Join the Dark Side, the midchlorians compel you my dark padawan!



Actually, I'm still waiting for Herbert estate lawsuit Then again, I'm still waiting for ol Franky to rise up from the grave and choke the life out of Brian Herbert and KJA but that's a whole different topic...

In all honestly, don't you think that the very stylized Speed Racer looked exactly like the creators intended?

And I'm sure he who must not be named fully intended for Batman to have bat-nipples and live in a neon-lit Gotham, but it's still crap. Point is, it's not just the PT that is crap, I was on your side here

Trying to create Buster Keaton is not exactly equal to recreating a touching Andy Serkis performance.

Buster Keaton??? Mwahahahahahaha! What was that Joker line... "I thought my jokes were bad".

*shrug* It did nothing for the story, that "invested" thingy that you kept talking about. By contrast, I was very much "invested" in Gollum, with his madness and patheticness and his love of fish and hatred of hobbitses! Fat hobbitses!



If I wanted a tribute to Buster Keaton, maybe I should watch a Jackie Chan movie

Basically, what I'm saying is that ILM always seems to be the humble, slow tortoise who gets to the finishing line first. I just feel they deserve some respect knuckles.

ILM deserves repect for their work, yup, but not in the PT. There's tons of other movies out there where they were better utilised, Avatar included.

BTW, is it true that ILM did the horrendous Scorpion King CGI in 'The Mummy Returns'? Now that one was worse than Jar Jar!

 

Watched it tonight. The CG world is incredible, as is the mo-cap. Visually, it's one of the (possibly THE) most stunning movies ever made.

The plot was fairly average, and the characters came across, to me at least, as fairly one dimensional. I understand that that's part of the movie - what with little to no references outside or the mining station and Na'vi communities making it a fairly detached movie world, and whilst no character was terribly unbelievable, I found the lack of explanations and evidence for characterisations to be offputting.

Without a doubt, this is a fantastic movie experience. It is not, however, a great Movie - it has some of the pieces of the puzzle, but lacks others.

 

i really enjoyed it. i was a bit miffed that it ended in war as if that is the only satisfying solution. there was to be bloodshed no matter what.

i found a tiny thing quite inauthentic and have resolved that it was possibly propaganda: everyone speaks of pandora as hostile and i didn'T see it that way at all.

 

One thing about the movie that I appreciate more in retrospect is Quaritch. While the man is almost comical as an unstoppable force of death and destruction - after all, cool guys don't look at explosions - he's actually not that bad. Seriously.

Quaritch is essentially Ripley or Sarah Conner, fighting for the wrong side. He's got the same sort of determination, grit, will-to-win and survive, etc. As an antagonist, he is very antagonistic. But by the same token, from the human perspective he's exactly what you want on your side. He's fiercely protective of the men and women under his command, and he tries to do right by them. By betraying him, Jake cut him pretty deep.

For all that Quaritch was against the Na'vi, you only have to look at what he didn't do to see he was more practical than evil. I imagine that he'd list W. Bush, Truman, and LeMay as his personal heroes. People who are willing to cause harm in order to achieve what they see as the greater good. He understood that the Na'vi wouldn't leave based on threat alone, he needed to back up his threat. He could have destroyed the tribe when they formed a refugee column, he didn't. Didn't even seem to consider it on screen. His job was done, the mining location was secure. Even with the attempted destruction of the Tree of Souls, genocide was not his goal. He wanted to ensure that attacks on his people stopped, and he felt that destroying the Tree of Souls was an appropriate response.

As for his motivations in supporting these crimes against the Na'vi, it was suggested several times that earth is a dying world and needed the MacGuffintonium in order to recover or potentially even just to continue. If he's weighing the lives of 2,000 Na'vi against 20,000,000,000 humans, you can bet he'd choose the humans every time. If you look at it from that perspective, can you blame him for his tenacity?

 

Saw it. Hated 98% of the 3D, but rather enjoyed the film.

 

Like all extraordinary movies, Avatar looks like it's gonna have an extraordinary box office run. I'm very close to re-adopting my Titanic-sinking prediction- will have to see how it does this weekend.

This week so far, though, has been very impressive. All three numbers have been above 16 million, and it looks like yesterday's take (Wed) was higher than Monday's- unusual. It'll definitely drop today since it's Xmas eve, though.

 

Are you one of the producers or a studio executive?

 

No, but usually once every summer and/or winter, I become a box office junkie for a favored film.

 

Me too. It started with ID4 in '96... My favored film this year is District 9

 

4-D Imax porn is where it's at.

 

3-D IMAX porn:

PROS:

-3rd Dimensional Boobs
-3rd Dimensional Buttocks (on Tera Patrick and/or Jenna Haze)

CONS:

-3rd Dimensional, um, wang (accidentally and intentionally) swinging towards the camera

Anyways, I'll probably watch Avatar again this weekend...my 3rd viewing.

 

Well with a Real Touch it becomes fully interactive.

 

It's not clear if the Earth is in any peril at all actually. The movie appears to just demonstrate the stereotypical "evil" corporation archetype i.e. evil corporation will do anything for a profit, including the destruction of another culture.

It's a bit of a shame actually, because the film could have added a bit of depth by suggesting that the actions of the humans were, perhaps, not so one-dimensional. I must admit, I think it would have been a better movie had they not made the separation between good and evil so black and white. The movie never shows Na'vi attacking humans without cause--they are a peace-loving people who only attack out of self-defense. Whereas, humans are greedy locust-like beings who will stop at nothing to benefit themselves through the rapid absorption of natural resources--they'll drive a steam-roller over everything.

That being said, I don't think the black and white cliche story is bad at all--I think it's very well done and I loved the film. I just wish they could have left out some of the blatant propaganda. The line "fight terror with terror" was an allusion to either the War in Afghanistan or the War in Iraq (it's later coupled with a comment about "Shock and Awe" tactics). Regardless of how you feel about those conflicts, it was a tasteless line, which hardly made sense within the context of the story even if the colonel was simply lying about the Na'vi. Up till that point--the film never showed the Na'vi performing any acts of terror (although Neytiri does guard Na'vi territory quite aggressively). It drew me out of the movie and I had to actively work to ignore the fact that the film was attempting to shove anti-war propaganda down my throat.

Regardless, I can't wait to see it again. I felt for the characters, am very excited about how it was performed with the new tech (I'm a theatre major), and was absolutely blown away by the 3D combined with life-like CGI (Especially the environments).

 

It's more hostile to humans- you have 9 foot tall, carbon fiber-boned natives trying to shoot you with poisoned-tipped arrows, giant 6-legged super-intelligent black panthers, flying dragons and even huger flying dinosaurs, etc.

I actually don't get what was so super-dangerous about Pandora when the humans have waaaay more advanced tech. I mean, the natives had BOW and ARROWS!!! Hell, even the Ewoks had catapults at least. I wonder if Cameron thinks the "noble savages" of AfPak fight the coalition forces with ancient weapons. Hah!

Give credit to ol' Franky Herbert, he didn't have Fremen fighting Saudakar with just blades, the Fremen were well equipped with lasguns and they evne had their own thopters, etc. Speaking of which, another "coincidental" similarity between Avatar and Dune.

In Dune, the Saudakar/Harkonnen forces couldn't use shields in the deep desert because it would call a beserk worm. In other words, the ecology limited one of their tactical advantage.

In Avatar, the marines couldn't use their radar due to some inteference in the Navi territory. In other words....the ecology limited one of their tactical advantage.

Please, Cameron apologists, expplain how this is a "universal" element or how this is part of some "common narration".

 

Yeah, but I think Cameron himself said that he was alluding to those wars.

The anti-war/evil corporation theme is definitely not new.

Did anyone notice that the music playing during the Thanator chase scene sounded remarkably like the music during a scene in Aliens (Ripley saves the marines with an APC)?
Ah...Weyland-Yutani

building better worlds

 

Did anyone notice that the music playing during the Thanator chase scene sounded remarkably like the music during a scene in Aliens (Ripley saves the marines with an APC)?

While James Horner is a very talented composer and much in demand in Hollywood, he is often accused of stealing from himself. Now all composers that are successful and high profile are occasionally going to get that criticism of borrowing from themselves if they do enough scores, but in Horner's case it seems to have haunted his whole career.

Here's something from You Tube with James Horner talking about the music in Avatar.

James Horner says he wanted Avatar's music to be completely different than his previous work with Cameron

 

That was actually one facet they didn't dwell on much that I liked in the scriptment when I read part of it 12 years ago- it went into a lot of detail on how the human base had a massive killzone perimeter surrounding it, with tons of heavy weaponry arming that zone to keep the dangerous predators at bay. IIRC, it described heavy automated weapons fire flashes going off at night every now and then from encroaching threats.

that sounds a little more like it. i guess once you enter the jungle with the na'vi it seems quite the peaceful and welcoming environment. on its own terms.


did anyone else think that sully's 'birthday' referred to the day of his transformation rather than his actual birthday? obviously the na'vi could have done them on the same day niftily.

 

i guess i got confused because imdb lists the date as his actual birthday

 

i forget if we were disucsisng this in this thread or over in SFAF's Avatar thread, but I feel none of those lines are meant to refer to the Iraq or Afghan wars-

*facepalm* Must..resist....okay, we'll just agree to disagree. Similarly, "Lalalala no common element with Dune at all!"



c'mon- he made True Lies. You really think Cameron intends to glorify Al-Qaeda?

Meh, aren't there liberals out there who separate Al Qaeda from the Taliban, claiming the Taliban are only "Afghans fighting a foreign invasions". There have even been...wait for it...compared to Native Americans fighting white settlers. So again for me, any Indian-cowboy elements merely reinforce the connection with AfPak (and Iraq) conflict, that Cameron wants this to be "relevant!11!".

If he's trying to deny it (anyone have quotes from him?) maybe it's due to advice from marketing people who fear some kind of back lash. Eh, we'll see if he can be more subtle for the sequel (how long will he wait, ten years?).

Most of Cameron's films have a major anti-war/violence message at their core (The Abyss, The Abyss: SE and T2 in particular, T1 & Aliens to a lesser degree)

I don't get what's so anti-war about Terminator, it was all about transforming peaceful gal next door Sarah Connor into a militaristic mother of a future messiah who will wage WAR against eeeevil machines. The hero is most definitely a soldier (BTW, John sent his dad to have a one night stand with mom...creepy!). I don't sense any overt anti-war, no hamfisted sledgehammer message delivered like in Avatar. T2 was anti-war I guess, but approves the blowing up of a corporate building. War bad, terrorism good?

*shrug* Terminator still holds the distinction for being the only action movie where the sex scene is pivotal, indeed it's the whole point of the story!



With regards to Horner's score, listen to 'Troy' then listen to Avatar, easy to spot the similarity. I guessed Horner was the composer long before the end credits. The guy is running out of ideas, IMO. It's still decent overall, aside from the horrendous wailing vocals. Unlike Hans Zimmer or Howard Shore (or Brian Tyler in 'Children of Dune'), Horner does not know how to do ye olde wailing vocals in an elegant manner. Even from 'Troy' his wailing vocals were terrible, worthy of being used as a torture device in Guantanamo Bay.

 

The movie was great until the ending. Cameron pulled a stupid Hollywood conclusion out of nowhere. The film established a sense of realism, a sense of this scenario might possibly happen. Really, an army of natives on flying horse back are going to destroy a force of colonial marines because of a plot device? Pure rubbish. The battle looked nice, but the outcome and tactics were nonsensical.

 

I guess it has been probably already discussed several times, but I have just realized that - don't you think that Cameron's Na'vi look very much like the Nelvaanians from the animated Clone Wars by Tartarkovsky? No that I want to complain, it's just one of many random thoughts.

[image=http://images1.wikia.nocookie.net/starwars/images/0/06/TuzesAdazSon.jpg] [image=http://images1.wikia.nocookie.net/starwars/images/5/5a/Nelvaanians.JPG] [image=http://images2.wikia.nocookie.net/starwars/images/e/e2/Nelvaanian_hunter_TCWCG.jpg]