I wasn’t expecting this to be any good, and yesterday I went over to Rotten Tomatoes just to read the negative reviews it has gotten so far. I have to say, the negative reviews make me want to see it.
I predict I won’t care one way or the other.
I don’t think I will be seeing it. What I’ve read of the plot sounds amazingly juvenile.
See that’s the weird thing–I haven’t seen this alleged side at all. Cameron has always liked putting himself on the cross a bit, but I’ve done quite a bit of reading on the film (and I work in the industry myself), and I haven’t seen anti-Avatar sentiment as much as anti-Avatar-hype sentiment.
There will always be a backlash if the publicity machine throws words like “revolutionary”, “ground-breaking”, “earth-shattering”, “paradigm-shifting”, etc. into the fray. And while Cameron has a reputation for being a marvelous visual stylist, expert choreographer of action and large-scale setpieces, and maniacal pefectionist (in a good way), he also has a history of showing a tin-ear for dialogue, a ham-fisted approach to theme and tone, and a pandering sensibility. Which, for some people is fine–they like his movies because of (or in spite of) these things. But not everyone can or will.
A leopard (even a blue one that talks) doesn’t easily change its spots, so while I haven’t seen a whole lot of anger or resentment towards the very existence of the film, the dubious skepticism that some have towards it (espcially with all the hype surrounding its release) has some real foundation, and isn’t just knee-jerk “sour grapes” reactionism.
I’m into it, I want to see it. I have a personal connection to it, and I love Sci Fi epics, and James Cameron just makes a good flick. Citizen Kane? Nah. Up there with Star Wars and Lord of the Rings? I think it’s got a shot.
I don’t think you were so hurt about it. All of your arguments have been more movie geek kinds of crits.
Heh cool. I think they have roundly failed at the trailers. The original way they were going to do the promo was to not show ANY of the film at all. But Fox wouldn’t back that play. The trailers have made it seem cheesy as fuck, but I’m down, I think it’ll be cool. I think it’ll be worth my $ 12.50, especially since I am being subsidized to see it. 
Exactly. I hate hippies more than Cartman does, but I wouldn’t miss this for the world
Well if it makes you feel any better, the carbon footprint of the film is probably of Titanic proportions.
See, but it’s entirely possible for crap to have a message, too: IMO, that’s something that can make a movie almost unwatchable for me, to have a message hammered in over, and over, and over again, presumably under the assumption that the audience is retarded. That’s what I’m worried about with Avatar, really: an overly simplistic plot that’s patronizing toward non-Western cultures and carries a ham-fisted attempt at making some kind of point or another.
91% Fresh on Rotten Tomatoes so far, though. If it doesn’t nosedive after it actually releases, I’ll probably go see it.
Note that this is from someone who liked the movie:
I’m just worried that we’re going to end up with the Noble Savage archetype, which in some ways is just as damaging as the, er, Savage Savage (?) one.
ETA: Three days to official release now, and the RT rating has dropped five percent to an 86%. Still good, but the drop isn’t encouraging for what we’re going to see once reviews are coming from more people who aren’t cherry-picked for gushing.
I’m not in the predicting business but when I first saw a preview for this project I had a major WTF moment. I mean, blue cat people? With tits? God damned furries have even infected James Cameron’s manly brain. Have they no shame?
Well, I guess the question has been answered. From Rupert Murdoch’s Holiday Greeting e-mail:
There you have it – Rupert Murdoch has declared it a “blockbuster”.
I don’t think that will figure much, in terms of box office. (The initial reviews don’t seem particular polar.)
Apart from that indicator, I think people are used to disconnecting storytelling from their own values. How many bleeding heart liberals still enjoy action movies where the underlying philosophy is “might makes right?” When you watch First Blood, you accept that all the military and lawmen that get slaughtered had it coming, even if you would be appropriately horrified if a similar scenario played out in real life. The villain of The Amazing Mr. Fox is an agriculturalist whose unpardonable sin is erecting a fence to keep critters from raiding his crops, but we still enjoy the story even if we recognize that this is a right and necessary practice. There are plenty of movies out there (most recently Knowing) that suggest that apocalyptic Christians have been right all along, and naive humanists are going to burn for their doubt – and they play pretty well outisde of the bible belt, because (gosh-darn it) they succeed at entertaining.
Avatar looks to be as entertaining as blue fuck – it’ll do well.
Another day, another few percentage points’ drop on RT. 83% fresh now.
Ick. Thanks for putting that into my head. At least they’re… I dunno… aliens instead of anthropomorphized Earth animals. Ick ick ick.
Very interesting choice of words there… :eek:
Also a very decent 82 at Metacritic.
Yup, only 8.3/10 people enjoyed the movie so far…
The pre-release numbers are clearly going to be inflated. The real test will be where the ratings stabilize once it’s actually in theaters.
I went. It was awesome.
Then I went to see it again.
[SPOILERS] and [STUFF THAT DON’T MAKE SENSE UNTIL YOU’VE SEEN THE MOVIE]
Loved it.
There’s some really obvious shoutouts to current and past US politics (shock and awe, winning the hearts and minds yada yada) but I did not give a fuck because I was fucking there, dude. The trailers make this movie look like WAR BOMBS EXPLOSION JUST NUKE THE SITE FROM ORBIT. The movie is hardly about that, it takes two hours to get there. And those two hours are used building a wonderful universe, that’s coherent and well-thought-out. Yeah, there’s some eco-hippy-treehugging crap in there, but it makes sense. Cutting down a tree? Not a prob for me. Cutting down an internet-tree that allows you to talk to your dead grandma? Yeah, I’m not down with that.
And that whole universe is so full of detail. Neytiri’s picture on the fridge. That same fridge having a FOR FOOD USE ONLY handwritten tag on it. Creatures that skitter about somewhere faaaaaaaaaaaaaar in the background. Some guy in the background having his cap blown off when a CGI plane lifts off. Seeing it twice was not enough to take everything in.
And not everything is explained. Some is left to be figured out by the viewer, and things that are unimportant aren’t further explained. What does unobtanium do? It has a great exchange rate. Done, back to the alien planet.
Done rambling for now, I still need to have most of this stuff sink in.
Is the rest of your post that, or was that a joking line? I don’t want to read it if it’s the former, and if it’s the latter, it’s confusing.
If it’s the former, you might want to use the spoiler tag:
[spoiler][/spoiler]