OK, so I finally sit down to watch “the greatest movie of all time”, the “top grossing film of all time”, and every other hyperbole-laden phrase and I’m simply stunned at the noise this film made.
First, the positives.
The CGI was great. I can’t argue that point. The coloring, the shadowing, the three dimensional appearance of every shot was seemingly flawless.
I liked the changing between the AVATAR world and the human world, as well as the interaction between the two. No matter how good CGI is, it still cannot create a lifelike person that could pass as a human character. Not yet, anyway. I’m sure someday, actors will be invented at a keyboard, but it’s not there yet.
Now, the criticisms.
The main problem I had with the movie was that every one who saw it told me how it looked so REAL. That once I started watching the movie, I’d forget I was looking at CGI. Not even close. Was it good animation? Of course. But did it look like anything more than a well-drawn cartoon? No. Not once did I think Andorra was real. I never lost myself in the movie that way, and when the CGI and real world met and intertwined, it wasn’t that special. I liked the fact that they kept the two “worlds” apart, and it was fine to bring them together to tell the story. But it looked like humans super-imposed with cartoons.
Too damn long. Period. The story wasn’t compelling enough to last almost 3 hours.
The story itself was weak. Very standard stuff as far as plot goes. Good guy from EVIL world infiltrates GOOD world and realizes that the GOOD world is the place to be. Human falls for humanoid (and visaversa, of course), and somehow leads the small band of primatives to victory over EVIL world. Not too far from the Ewoks beating the Empire. All that was missing was the little people in bear outfits.
The Na’vi world reminded me of a cartooned version of Apocalypto. And Apocalypto was a much better movie. The only difference was the people were blue, had tails, and were chased by giant, scary beasties.
A small but minor nit… why was it spelled Na’vi in the first place? There was no need for an apostrophe. Just a pompous windbag’s idea of a clever, made-up world. Navi works just fine, doesn’t it? The writing was so George-Lucas like it became a distraction.
The evil beasties - very standard and boring stuff. Dragons that don’t breath fire, but instead have dinosaur teeth and take passengers. Horses with eight legs… Running rodents that look like large tapirs (see Apocalypto for a real one… or a computerized version of one, anyway). Hammerheads with feet instead of fins. Nothing special here. More like a teenage boy’s doodlings in his notebook. Napoleon Dynamite’s notebook. The only thing I didn’t see was a Liger, but I’m sure it’s in there somewhere.
More plot lameness. Misfit (Jake) gets not just any Navi to fall in love with him, but the Royal Family’s daughter. Han Solo - Princess Leah any one? Angry stud Navi Warrior who wants the same girl gets snubbed but ultimately likes Jake and takes instruction from him. (Dances with Wolves, Wind in his Hair and John Dunmbar?)
more writing lameness - Unobtainium? Really? That’s the best they could come up with?
More plot stealing - all the forest creatures band together to oust the EVIL world. Same exact thing happens in Ewok-world.
I have more. But I think you get the idea.
Maybe I was expecting so much more because of the buildup, but I can’t imagine the greatest movie of all time being any less hyped. Let’s face it, people LOVE this movie. A LOT of people. So, I’m probably in the small minority. But I don’t get the love.
From a CGI standpoint, the first time a dinosaur crosses the screen in Jurassic Park was much more moving and impressive than anything I saw in Avatar. And much more realistic. Those dinosaurs blended in with their real world environment almost seamlessly. That was impressive film making.
I’m sure the hate will be coming my way soon after I hit the Post button. However I can’t for the life of me understand all the love for Cameron’s AVATAR. At least his Terminator was an original idea with a fairly decent plot. AVATAR dragged into the night last night… the last hour and a half was so painful I wanted to cry. But I can at least say I saw it. For whatever that’s worth.
I can only say that watching the movie in the cinema (in 3D, but this is less important) is significantly more impressive than watching it at home. In the cinema, I did forget I was looking at CG. I’m not quite sure of why there’s a discrepancy, but I found it virtually flawless then, from a graphical standpoint.
Saw it on HBO last night. It was very mediocre. The acting wasn’t particularly good, and the plot was juvenile. I agree that CGI was good, but never truly realistic-- not even as realistic as Jurassic Park. The voodoo dance thing they did when trying to cure people was out of C Grade 1950s safari flick.
So predictable. Did anyone not think Sullly was going to ride the bad-ass red dragon as soon as you saw it on screen? Best line: “Don’t play with it or you’ll go blind.”
Oh, and why do they have to have the SW character smoking in a confined space? No, that’s not going to happen.
And yes, Unobtainium was eye-rolley. And having the GR character explicitly explain it to SW just so we, the audience, will know about it is such a lame plot technique.
The thing about Cameron’s epic films is that they are wonderful to look at. Just don’t think about them too much.
A lot of people complained about Titanic. Yes, the love story was soppy, and anachronistic. Yes the plot was just plain stupid. But you really did get a sense of what it was like on that sinking ship, especially towards the end when it was going down for good.
Avatar was also astonishing in beauty and detail. We finally can see a jungle with insects in something of the profusion of reality. But the story? Forget it. Oh, what a surprise, corporations are evil. Nature holds all truth and goodness. Give it a rest, huh?
Write something with an original viewpoint for a change.
The problem with CGI isn’t the rendering of the figures, it’s the impossible physics of their movements. This is true of most movies that I’ve seen with CGI creatures or robots. They don’t ever move like they have the weight that things that big would have. The “Jurassic Park” dinos came the closest to reality but even in that the running and jumping of the T. Rex stretched credulity. The Abby figure in “Let Me In” was a small girl and they couldn’t even get her movements remotely realistic. Gollum and the giant beasts in the “Lord of the Rings” movies were pretty good, as I recall.
That bugged me a bit, too. We’ve seen that Na’vi are significantly taller than humans, and we’re told that Pandora’s gravity is lighter than Earth’s. Between these two facts, everything about their movements should have been proportionately slower. Instead, though, they moved like they were humans in Earth gravity.
“Unobtainium” is obviously a self-deprecating joke–it’s the filmmakers hanging a little sign that says PLOT DEVICE. It would have been stupid if the rest of the movie was assiduously serious and realistic, but in context I think it was the cleverest thing about the film (that is, not very clever, but worth a moment’s grin).
You forgot about the soundtrack that was lifted right out of The Lion King.
The native drums, the pan flutes, the African choir “Umm bye ahhhhh umm bye ohhhh!” :rolleyes:
Yep, I saw it this weekend for the first time too. I said to my wife, "Beautifully filmed, but I liked it better when it was called “Ferngully” or “Dances with Wolves.”
This movie is Exhibit A of why some movies simply must be seen on a big screen, in a movie theater, as I stated on the other thread about how often I go there. I’m sure it was totally awesome in the theater, and attracted millions of kids and did the great business that it did. At home on TV or god forbid a computer screen - meh. NOT THE SAME!
Why can people not seem to understand that the whole point of this movie is the 3D theater experience?
Yeah, many parts of this movie devolve to the lowest common denominator. The themes have been done before. The sole reason that this movie took a decade to make a cost a billion dollars was because it was filmed in 3D, not some crappy 3D port like 95% of what people have seen, and because they developed the MoCap for it. The reason it’s the biggest grossing film of all time and was such a media sensation was because of the 3D and CGI.
Watching it at home on DVD or HBO and saying “I don’t get what the hubbub was all about” is like eating raw bacon and saying “why do people like this stuff?”
ETA: Cameron probably should have not released the thing in 2D and on cable. Financially it would have been a disaster, but it would have muted all the backlash and eliminated the people who “didn’t get it”.
Shouldn’t a movie be able to stand on its own whether in a theater or on a home screen. “2001” looks best on a giant Cinerama screen (or did, I guess there are no more Cinerama screens) but it’s also a fine film on any screen.
Not all movies are created to serve the same purpose. Cameron has been pretty adamant that Avatar was intended as a 3D spectacle, first and foremost. I understand the urge to compare a big screen experience to a home one, but I think this is more analogous to a black and white versus color experience.
*Avatar *is trying to be to 3D what Wizard of Oz was to color. I’m not saying the two movie are equally good and the jury is still out on how ubiquitous 3D will become, but you need to see the two films in their intended format to really “get it”. The wow factor of something so new is a fundamental part of the process.
I’m sure there were old codgers and housewives in 1956 saying they didn’t see what all the hype was about watching Oz on their 10 inch black and whites.
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