I thought it was basically Aliens, only a story set on a different planet, with different aliens, but basically the same universe.
You mean, “richer”. Mr. Cameron was already pretty well off before making Avatar.
I saw it for free. It was just about worth the price of admission.
Ripley: “I say we take off and nuke the entire site from orbit. It’s the only way to be sure.”
Hudson: “Fuckin’ A…”
It has to be a movie *and *a PowerPoint presentation? Wow… you are one demanding customer!
For starters: Have two people wearing glasses, and look at each other. Close one eye, and then the other, and see what happens to the other person’s glasses. Or, if you only have one pair, you can do this in a mirror.
Look through the glasses at an LCD screen, and turn your head this way and that. Then, look through the glasses backwards (with the earpieces protruding in front of your face), and do the same thing.
With multiple pairs of glasses, look through combinations of the lenses in various orders and orientations.
This is better than live theatre!
I post my opinion on a subject, wait a bit and here comes the laughter! (from me, I mean)
That isn’t mean to be critical, okay?
What I mean to say is, I read the words and say to myself: “I wish I’d said that!”
And Oh my Og, children! If y’all only knew how much I plagiarize you???
Life without parole, surely!
Thanks
Q
There is no point. It’s just entertainment. Did you have a good time? That was the point.
You take home the 1000 calories you gained from the popcorn and jumbo soda.
No, you guys! 
I just thought if ol’ Jim was trying to send me a “message”, I got it a long time ago! 
But I do see y’all’s point: All we see on the screen is about “good and evil”, isn’t it?
Sure it is.
I’m just saying that if Mr. Cameron was trying to send a “message”, then those of us who care already know, and (hopefully) are teaching it to our kids.
Yes, it was a very nice tale! Yes, it carried with it a moral, but was it anything “new and stupendous”?
No. Just a very unique way of presenting it, but here’s my caveat:
If the world should end tomorrow, and only THIS film survives?
I think it would be a wonderful way (even though the film takes place elsewhere) to show that we on earth treasure life and would be willing to do anything it takes to hold on to it.
Q
That dragons aren’t real.
Things I learned from Avatar:
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3-D technology has really changed. The bias against the blue/red glasses is over. If you haven’t seen it in 3-D, you’ve completely missed out on a unique experience.
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James Cameron is the greatest director on the planet, and maybe the only one who’s never sold out. Cameron is a true artiste, and always refuses to make concessions that hurt his vision. One day, watching a Cameron movie in its first run will be akin to being at Woodstock for the previous generation.
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Even though I knew all of the planet scenes were completely animated, I was continually absorbed by how realistic the plants and scenery was in comparison to say SW:Ep1.
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You don’t need motion capture to have realistic CGI. While the NBA Smurfs were hideous, everything else was great, particularly the animals.
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I knew going in that the story was going to be a rehash of older stories. But really, there’s a reason there’s only so many story archetypes: those archetypes work and are interesting. Mainly, I went because I respect Cameron, but I was blown away by the 3-D. But, even though the story was a rehash, they added some very interesting twists.
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When I went, Avatar was not yet the top grossing movie of all time (giving Cameron both #1 and #2 on the list with Titanic,) but I do feel special in being able to watch it while it was still in the theaters. I didn’t watch Titanic until it was on vhs.
From a historical perspective, Avatar is a milestone, even if the story is not original (was Titanic?)
I’m so glad you said that. Until now, I thought the dragons in the film were real filmed animals!
:rolleyes:
Don’t worry. Common mistake made by the people who loved the film.
Please take me at my word that I am NOT trying to be a dick, was your entire post a whoosh?
“James Cameron is the greatest director on the planet, and maybe the only one who’s never sold out”? :dubious:
As far as I could tell Avatar was all right there on the surface. There was no deeper meaning.
The following things are good: nature, trust, love, cooperation, restraint, honor, friendship.
The following things are bad: greed, exploitation, lying, intolerance, injustice, callousness.
I know, nothing too new here. The movie was simple messages told with great visuals.
It would be nice if we could have the unexpected in a plot once in a while.
A caring environmentaly minded corporation moves into a remote area/alien planet to stop the evil natives wiping out endangered species and causing major deforestation.
An Afro American, handicapped, lesbian, civil rights protestor and member of Greenpeace is a brutal serial killer…
The stunningly beautiful woman being attacked by six ugly and sweaty men at arms actually cannibalises the babies of the caring fathers attacking her to increase her supernatural powers at which the men are almost powerless to resisit her.
The ugly as sin hero knight riding by instinctively knows this and joins in on the mens side.
Native Americans? I thought they were Africans!
Pat Buchanan is not a native: he is a usurper. Therefore any speech of his cannot be comparable. His isolationism in a conquered land over the bodies of the natives make a mockery of using him to advance your point.
None a line of your argument holds true, in fact. That the planet has a shared ecology is not different from the Gaea hypothesis in essence, and in kind differs only that it is an extreme allegorical version of the concept.
It was never true that the human exploitation was good until the sacred grounds were threatened. It was only true that it was not a life or death matter. This has extensive historic precedence in the way Native Americans were handled in U.S. history.
That humans would not be accepted back was also the attitude of many Native American spokesmen, but since there will be a sequel and there will be human good guys in that sequel that rhetoric can’t be taken seriously as policy or morality.
The more you know about U.S. history and interactions with Native Americans, the more exact the parallels with the movie become. That may be why the message is so strong and obvious to some and not to others. Environmentalism is not what the movie is about.
But your particular argument doesn’t work at all for me.