DreadPirateMurphy
Explorer
Story originality as a concept is over-rated...mostly because it doesn't actually exist. The volume of works in different media is so great that artists struggle to simply provide an attractive and entertaining presentation that seems fresh to the audience. In my mind, Cameron succeeded tremendously well on that.
As an example, the story of Star Wars was trite a thousand years ago. It was a stereotypical heroic arc where the farmboy finds he was born to greatness, overcomes great evil, and saves the world/galaxy. The imaginative presentation by Lucas was what made the movie stand out as remarkable. Avatar is in the same vein, and it pushes the bounds on SFX in a similar manner.
Avatar shows the kind of loving attention to detail that Tolkein used in creating Middle Earth -- that kind of world-building should be very familiar to the folks on these forums! I found it completely immersive. The characters were archetypes, but they weren't two-dimensional. The villian seemed to honestly care for his men, the noble scientist was an abrasive chain-smoker, and the jealous rival put aside his differences at the right time.
I didn't find the references to unobtainium distracting. The whole point of the reference was to say to the savvy audience, "Yes, we know the properties of this substance are poorly explained and scientifically questionable, but we want eye-candy scenes set in floating mountains, so just roll with it." It is refreshing to have a wink at the audience rather than an assumption that we're all morons who won't notice the details.
I gave it a 9. It was, as everybody keeps saying, visually stunning, and the plot was good enough to not detract from the film. That, in the year of an awful Transformers film, is a big plus to me.
As an example, the story of Star Wars was trite a thousand years ago. It was a stereotypical heroic arc where the farmboy finds he was born to greatness, overcomes great evil, and saves the world/galaxy. The imaginative presentation by Lucas was what made the movie stand out as remarkable. Avatar is in the same vein, and it pushes the bounds on SFX in a similar manner.
Avatar shows the kind of loving attention to detail that Tolkein used in creating Middle Earth -- that kind of world-building should be very familiar to the folks on these forums! I found it completely immersive. The characters were archetypes, but they weren't two-dimensional. The villian seemed to honestly care for his men, the noble scientist was an abrasive chain-smoker, and the jealous rival put aside his differences at the right time.
I didn't find the references to unobtainium distracting. The whole point of the reference was to say to the savvy audience, "Yes, we know the properties of this substance are poorly explained and scientifically questionable, but we want eye-candy scenes set in floating mountains, so just roll with it." It is refreshing to have a wink at the audience rather than an assumption that we're all morons who won't notice the details.
I gave it a 9. It was, as everybody keeps saying, visually stunning, and the plot was good enough to not detract from the film. That, in the year of an awful Transformers film, is a big plus to me.
