Here’s a NYTimes article about Bigelow from last year. It doesn’t specifically compare her to Cameron, but it’s an interesting examination of her work as a director, and it might shed some light on what her strengths as an artist are.
I’ve actually seen it in China. While nobody was cheering and crying, it has been a pretty popular movie among young people. I believe a big part of that is that tickets are extremely expensive and Chinese young people are currently into all forms of conspicuous consumption. Watching Avatar has turned into big event- most Chinese cities have little night life beyond drinking, online games and karaoke, so something like this holds a lot of interest. It’s very hip and modern.
But…
Everyone missed the point completely.
There are so many obvious connections you could draw to Tibet (or any number of areas, or the huge environmental problems) that I was honestly shocked the thing was allowed to play (it’s an extremely sensitive subject and even veiled discussion of it is a huge problem.) Whoever approved that movie to play watched it, and knew it’d go right over everyone’s heads.
Part of that is that Chinese people are not used to making those sorts of connections. But part of it is that the story was so simple and obvious that it didn’t actually address any of the moral issues it seemed to address. It made everything about good guys and bad guys, and didn’t actually challenge the viewer to look at their own lives. So very few people probably got any sort of pro-environment or anti-colonial message or whatever. What they got out of it was “good guys won, yay!” and that’s it.
Um. Then what did all the animators, art directors, texture artists, and whatever do? James Cameron did not have some sort of movie-making neural implant downloading his vision right into the computers. This movie was a collaboration just like every single other movie.
Anyway, to avert this hijack, here is my thread Avatar was a bad movie.
Re: The weight issue. Monique (not sure where the apostrophes go) used to be much bigger and part of her routine was about how she was beautiful and “fluffy” and happy with herself but at some point she decided too much fluffiness was not healthy and she lost some weight. If Gabouray decides to drop some weight she could get a lot of help from Monique and Oprah and I’m sure she could afford a trainer now, not to mention that any number of organizations would likely help her for free. However, she has to want to do it and maybe she’s not there yet. After all she has been getting so much attention for her role as a big girl and she hasn’t really had to experience trying to find other roles yet.
You’re neither going to hell or a bad person, but I’d say this does make you mind-bogglingly stupid. Her movie came out less than four months ago, and between doing publicity rounds and then, more recently, the awards circuit, I suspect this may have been the busiest time of her life. And even if she had lost 20 pounds, would you have been able to tell? Feel free to be Judgy McSkinnyston two or three years from now if she hasn’t made any effort to take better care of her health. But what exactly did you expect her to do in the 6 weeks since they announced the nominations? I thought she looked fabulous (both her dress and her features) and while I don’t want to be one of those enablers who ignore the implications of obesity in young people like her, it’s hardly realistic that she could’ve done anything to change what she liked look in such a short period of time. Yeesh.
How similar is Battle for Terra to Pocahantos(Disney film) or Dances With Wolves? Those are other frequently cited similar stories to Avatar.
The movie was screened at Sundance in January 2009. There has been lots of time to think, decide and act.
As stated above, she has to be ready to confront it (which is an issue I know well), but I really hope that those around her aren’t telling her it’s okay to put that kind of stress on her body. I think she looked happy and had a beautiful dress and such, but saying someone who is 200 pounds overweight looked “fabulous” just isn’t true, because she looks dangerously unhealthy.
Not that I think they should say that to her on the night of her biggest triumph, but I certainly hope those people who are supporting her aren’t supporting her right into an early grave.
Here’s the Wiki plot summary…
Saeteryn76, Cameron started work on Avatar in the mid-90s and started the script in 2006. He did not steal the plot from a movie that came out in 2007.
Interesting…apparently Cameron did a “scriptment” of Avatar in 1994, then shelved it. I wonder if it turned into one of those ideas that are in constant turn around.
Even though I have been proven wrong about the script-stealing, it does not effect my loathing for Mr. Cameron!
Kudos to you, Marley!
Well, it just means he didn’t steal from *that *movie. Battle for Terra could certainly have cribbed from any of the other handful of movies people often mention in these threads that are (plot-wise) identical to Avatar.
Unlikely that anything was stolen. The culprit is a lack of creativity. The story of Avatar is one we’ve heard a thousand times because it is the archetypal story of the history of our species. We go somewhere where we want to be, the people there are uncivilized and stupid, we put up with them for a while until we eventually start putting boots to foreheads until we get what we want. The native Americans are just the most recent example of that, we’ve been doing it since civilization started, or before. It’s what we do. Love it or hate it, it got us where we are.
The only way anybody’s ever thought of to tell the story of the misunderstood enemy faction is to take someone from the “good” side, have him end up becoming entrenched with the “bad” side, only to find out that they like the other guys better. Pocahontas, Dances with Wolves, The Last Samurai, take your pick.
The difference is, I’d probably rather watch The Last Samurai twice than Avatar once. Even though it hits a lot of the same notes, it came off as a lot more compelling.
What I’d love is to see one of these movies where the transplanted character doesn’t have the mutant ability to learn a completely new language within the span of one montage sequence. Sure, you can learn a few terms, but being able to put together entire sentences to give a rousing speech to your troops seems far-fetched, unless several years have gone by. I’ve got two years of German classes, and I don’t think I could ask a German where the bathroom ist, much less rouse an army of them into marching toward their possible doom.
Completely untrue.
I think most of the delays were just because he spent so much time working with the 3-D effects.
Thanks. I’m not a fan of his, either, and I hated Titanic. But it doesn’t make sense to accuse him of stealing from Battle for Terra, or for that matter from Pocahontas or these other movies. These are very basic story tropes that weren’t new in Dances with Wolves.
Here’s the YouTube link.
Wicked hilarious - Ronald McDonald saying the F-word, the Pringles guy playing grabass, a gay Mr. Clean.
No, not completely untrue. Just partially untrue.
But let’s be honest, the scenes where there was an actual camera involved that required directional lighting of sets and actors (primarily inside the military base) were not the scenes that won Avatar the Cinematography Oscar. It was the scenes of the Pandora landscapes, and the swooping shots thought the jungle or over the cliffsides, and the two sides locked in the final battle–those were the visual “money shots”, so to speak.
And those were far more indepted to the Visual Effects dept. than the DP.
Oy.
Ellie was my advisor in college. She is one HELL of a woman and always a pushy, frantic bitch. Strong willed, committed to doing good in the world, and absolutely impatient with any form of injustice. She taught me activism, women’s studies, and latin american history. My degree is in developing world history.
Imagine my shock. I heard about the event last night and then I heard THE VOICE.
“Self”, I says, “That sure as shootin’ sounds like Ellie. Uh oh.”
And thus memory lane is opened again.
Robot Chicken did it first.
Uh, nothing. Who called it weighty?
What did Bigelow mean when she said that Boal risked his life to write the script for Hurt Locker?
My cousin is an actress of size. Her contract with her agent will be in breach if she loses weight.