[Movie] Avatar (2009) - BZ wants your nub

My down and dirty comments:

The animation and amount of detail was astounding.

The story was good even though the allegations of Dances With Wolves + aliens hits pretty close to home.

The movie, for all the hype, was quite traditional as movie-making goes (see above), which seems to be everybody's beef with it, I guess?

What some people seem to be avoiding is the fact that the movie continually juggles the love story, the marine's renewal, the Na'vi culture, and the wider conservationism vs. rapid expansion plotline without hitting a false note.

The animation and amount of detail was astounding. Although we haven't reached the point of being able to do full CG humans yet without looking odd, the Na'vi blow clear past the uncanny valley without slowing down. It is a landmark by any standard, even if all the talk about Cameron "creating a new genre" is just pap.

Jam it back in, in the dark.

Originally Posted by Denicalis

No doubt. But I have to admit, this particular bullshit is why I hated Last Samurai as much as I did, and why I just can't stomach Dances With Wolves. Just that whole white guy walks into an ethnic place and shows them how shit gets -done- story is hard to swallow.

Except I love Dune, so what the fuck do I know outside hypocrisy? Still didn't much love Avatar, though.

It's touchy ground when you talk about culture assimilation, but yeah, unless we all stop going to Chinese/Indian/'ethnic' restaurants we're all guilty.
Still though, it's an unavoidable part of making a movie about (and therefore placing focus on) any particular white person.

Some story specific spoilers and :words:

Spoiler:

Originally Posted by Article

When whites fantasize about becoming other races, it's only fun if they can blithely ignore the fundamental experience of being an oppressed racial group. Which is that you are oppressed, and nobody will let you be a leader of anything.

I think Cameron made it a point to use the large flyer as an analogy for the marine's white ambition. Remember earlier in the film, when he's reporting to the colonel and he tames the first flyer? It was actually kind of disturbing to me because they placed such emphasis on his reaction. "You are mine." But the large flyer he gets towards the end, he uses only to help the Na'vi, and then he gives it up. It's evidence of a pervasive change in him to join a collective rather than evidence of his need to dominate them. He never, in fact, becomes their leader, and moreover never shows any desire to become the leader or to supplant their rulers. His only desire is to be a part of them. Not representative of them.

(The usual response to this goes something like, "Well, maybe not explicitly, but it's obvious he was taking over in reality if not in name!") That makes my problem with articles on this topic twofold.

For one, they cherry pick the parts they want to read into, sometimes against given evidence, because it suits a theory. I'm willing to acknowledge the white fantasy point of view, but if it doesn't acknowledge the possibility of a societal equilibrium, especially in the places where the movie gets it right, then it's a poor base for criticism. (If no movie can get it right, then it reveals the flaw in the argument.)

Secondly, they tend to assume that the average moviegoer is smart enough to understand and latch onto the convenience a movie like this affords them (the choice to be another culture's king) but never smart enough to understand that there is a choice. In other words, it makes the assumption that every man would want to be king, without exception.

I'm sure I'll catch hell for this post, but it seems like a critical dead end any time someone brings this up. Fine for generating discussion, not so much for anything productive or even particularly to do with the film in question. It's like the meta version of Godwin's Law.

There's nowhere I can't reach.

Originally Posted by nuttyturnip

Spoiler:

Do the Na'vi really think that Earth isn't going to send a fleet of ships to nuke them out of existence? The final conflict, with the complete disproportion of technological advancement, reminded me of Battlefield Earth (ugh), but those folks nuked their enemies so they couldn't retaliate.

Spoiler:

Some of the early dialogue that sets the scene for the movie talks about how the whole thing is basically a corporate venture with mercs, and how badly it would reflect on them to kill indigenous people. Essentially it was trying to put a degree of separation between Earth and the corporation.

And presumably the corporation doesn't have access to (or reason to own) weapons of mass destruction.

This thing is sticky, and I don't like it. I don't appreciate it.

Originally Posted by wvlfpvp

Hey, so. Unobtainium is the most retarded name for something ever.

Yeah, that really bothered me at first. It struck me as kind of pandering, but the more I thought about the movie as a whole, the more I think he really made it to be a family film. The soundtrack, visuals and visceral impact of everything was his way of making a film with universal appeal. He wanted people of all ages that saw it to immediately understand who the major players were and what their motives were.

I mean, he could still have come up with something like "lenticulum" but it might not be as transparent to youngsters.

I am a dolphin, do you want me on your body?

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

Originally Posted by knkwzrd

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 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.

I was speaking idiomatically.

Originally Posted by Devo

Is this supposed to make us feel better?

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.

How ya doing, buddy?