Sure, there's a place for all sorts of terrible media. But high on the critical roll-call is not it.

And calling film a "visual medium" discounts all the writing, acting and sound work that go into making a good film whole.

Well, it being visual is what sets it apart from radio.

Also, is anyone actually saying that Avatar is a pinnacle of film as art? I'll I've heard people say is it's a pretty good popcorn flick that's entertaining for your $10 (or $15 if you're doing the 3D thing). At least it does what it does well, as opposed to, say, 2012.

Why is liking a movie for one reason better than another?

A lot of people are actually saying this. I will compensate for your ignorance of popular discourse by assuming that everyone you know is a scientist.

I'm curious if they include the sales/rentals of 3d goggles into the gross sales. Those tickets don't come cheap.

I think the media confuses "sales phenomenon" and sometimes "film experience" with "artistic chops" and it just sort of spirals out from there because everybody's using the language they've heard others use. I don't think everyone really believes Avatar is the best movie ever made, but they might believe it's the best reason to go to a theater in quite some time.

You'd be surprised:

"The film vibrates with the excitement of discovery and awe. Not just for the sight of six-legged rhinos and butterfly-hued dragons, but for the thousands of hours of work that unite here in a creative epiphany."
- Colin Covert, Minneapolis Star Tribune

"Mr. Cameron's singular vision has upped the ante for filmed entertainment, and given us a travelogue unlike any other. I wouldn't want to live on Pandora, mainly because of the bad air, but I'm glad to have paid it a visit. "
- Joe Morgenstern, Wall Street Journal

"An astonishing, breathtaking masterpiece. Cameron did it! It will easily surpass Titanic's box office. I think Cameron created a few new colors."
- Victoria Alexander, FilmsInReview.com

"With Avatar, Cameron has created the first great epic of the 21st century and a new benchmark in filmmaking. No wonder that this took 4 years to produce, it was worth every minute to get this right."
- Diva Velez, TheDivaReview.com

"This masterpiece is definitely one experience worth braving text a lot guy, talking teen girls and parents who can't be bothered to get a babysitter to see in the theater."
- Jeffery Lyles, MD Gazette

"The best picture of 2009, one of the best films of the decade and, really, one of the best movies I've ever seen."
- Kevin N. Laforest, Montreal Film Journal

"James Cameron invented a world comparable to George Lucas' galaxy of long ago, far, far away and as original as what Peter Jackson did with J.R.R. Tolkien's Middle-Earth."
- Gary Wolcott, Tri-City Herald

"Works as both a socially conscious Western update and as a true SF film, revealing the influences of such fine genre writers as Philip Jose Farmer, Larry Niven and especially Edgar Rice Burroughs (the 'John Carter of Mars' series)."
- John Beifuss, Memphis Commercial Appeal

"Un entretenimiento fascinante, con pasajes de inusual belleza, servido con mano maestra por James Cameron. Es también un alegato ecologista y pacifista, justo en tiempos de creciente militarismo y abuso de recursos naturales."
- Enrique Buchichio, Paraguay Total

Ole!

You need someone else's words to feel better about Avatar?

There is somewhat more to art than merely visuals. There are also the matters of meaning and social relevance. On these levels, Avatar is rather unremarkable. In terms of art, Avatar is a painting of a bowl of fruit. It's a very well painted bowl of fruit, but ultimately, there's nothing deeper to it. In terms you'll likely better understand, it's the difference between Stevie Wonder and T-Pain; both are technically singers but only one is a true musician.

Films as art resonate with more force and pathos than Avatar does. Honestly, aside from breakthroughs in CGI filmmaking, the word "art" doesn't even belong in a conversation about Avatar. All the non-visual elements are pretty ordinary, from the plot to the dialogue to the soundtrack. It's a fun movie but it has absolutely no impact. Compare this to far greater films such as Citizen Kane, Dr. Strangelove, Shawshank Redemption or Schindler's List. Those are works of art because they evoke something real. Avatar cannot accomplish this, and is barely "art" as far as the legitimate meaning goes.

My point being that the distinction between "originality in world building" and "originality in premise" isn't always made clear in a generalized review. A lot of those reviews don't claim the movie's a work of art other than to say that the visual design of the movie was pretty neato. And for the one guy who just comes out and slobbers on the movie, well, there will always be one.

There's no baseline for watching a movie and enjoying it (The same person could enjoy Last Year at Marienbad and Dumb & Dumber for different reasons), so I don't know why you guys are so keen on shoehorning one in here.

I seem to remember you avoiding the film because of some fascination you have with blue furries. Did you change your mind and see it?

You guys are getting way too bogged down in this "art" talk.

This is from Roger Ebert's review of Raiders of the Lost Ark:
Yet, I have no problem calling Raiders a great movie, or an amazing movie, or a masterpiece. I understand that some of you think Avatar flat-out sucks in every way, but understand that it's that kind of achievement that's spawning all this praise--only the rare fanboy is comparing this to Shawshank or what have you.

Why is the highest grossing movie of all time super fucking furry? I think that's the real question here.

big fucking surprise if a ticket costs 20 bucks

Good point. On the other hand Gone With the Wind is a pretty piss-poor comparison since no one had a fucking VCR in the 40s. How else were they going to watch it other than going to the theatre?

I don't even think it is 20 bucks. IMAX 3d was 14 dollars for me anyway. And I seem to remember these ticket sales were like less than 10% of the overall gross. Or was that 3D in general?

I imagine IMAX 3D would be about 10%, though now I'm a bit annoyed I paid about that for 3D in a normal theater. :mad:

In Germany, I paid 14€, which are about 20 bucks. And anyway, Avatar was only presented in 3D over here, so yeah...

Not in my city it wasn't.
Even the original version was shown both in 2 and 3D.

Is it a work of art?
Is any Cameron movie one?
Can popular action movies (or "CG-Pr0n" as the hater dub them) ever be considered that?

And does that even matter?
I mean, at the end of the day the characters are not too deep, the plot is not too original.
But then the movie has 10 feet tall blue alien cat bushpeople that ride on flying dinosaurs fighting mechs and a bad guy boarding his power suit in while his ship's going down and he's on fire.
Which is pretty awesome in my book, shallow characters or not.

I friend of mine actually was interested in seeing and I went to watch it again last night. In IMAX this time. It was a dollar more than digital 3d but clearly IMAX was the better choice. As soon as the movie started You could see the difference in clarity and the 3D was actually was more obvious. Not saying that it played a big role in the overall enjoyment though.
I completely agree with points about the story too but I actually enjoyed watching it more the second time around. Probably because it was my first IMAX film, but visually, it was great eye candy and pretty much a good reason to watch a movie on the big screen.

I wouldn't even go so far as to call them shallow. They're just flat. They're safely written. Not interesting enough to be unique, but not offensively underwritten enough to be annoying (with the exception of Michelle Rodriguez who plays every tough girl role she has the exact same way). They serve their purpose and that's pretty much it.

If you're good at something, never do it for free.

This review tidily lays out a lot of the issues I had with Avatar. It's a bit long, but then again you wasted three hours of your time and fifteen of your hard-earned dollars watching the movie, so this is really quite an efficient use of your time by comparison. Plus: the reviewer has more personality than any of the characters in Avatar, and he had the ability to make me laugh - and not just at him.

Enjoy!

YouTube Video

YouTube Video

It's weird watching that after his Phantom Menace review, in which he talks about how you shouldn't stray from stock characters too much. For the first half, I thought he was only pretending to dislike Avatar. I mean, contrast with this bit:
(not embedded due to timecode)

But I get his point that Cameron played it too safe. I think this was a fair review. He makes it pretty clear that your personal tolerance for eyeroll moments can make or break this one for you; for me, it helped that I expected all the noble savage white guilt preachy junk before I walked into the theater.

You can't trust the opinion of anyone who doesn't know how to use the word epiphany properly and yet persists in using it in print.