Rate Avatar (James Cameron)

[RigaMortus2]

I thought the story was actually pretty good. I heard people who said they were disappointed with the story aspect, but it didn't bother me. At its root, its the typical "deep cover" story arc, where the person under cover gets sympathy for the person they are spying on and switches sides. But I felt they added more aspects to it than that. The three factions, the marines, the scientists and the corporation.

I though the world and setting was very original.

The effects were a 10.

I voted 8 over all because I felt there were some parts the movie seemed to drag on. The end action needed to start quicker than it did. I think the movie was about 30 - 40 min too long. I generally like 3 hour movies myself, such as LotR, but this just seemed to drag in parts.

 

[Bedrockgames]

I gave it a 9. The visuals were incredible (I say it with the IMAX glasses), the action was exciting, and the story was entertaining. I do have to agree with those who feel the message was delivered with a sledge hammer, but I don't expect subtley on that front from Cameron. The bad guy (whatever the colonel's name was) was a great, if over the top and one dimensional, villain.

I should also point out, I went in thinking I was going tot hate it (just saw it last night). It just didn't interest me, and the comparison to Dances with Wolves (a film I just can't stand) kept me away. This was definitely more in line with Lawrence of Arabia. A really solid, going native flick.

 

[Turtlejay]

I tease the film about being derivative, but don't we tell the same seven stories over and over again? Romeo and Juliet was just another romantic tragedy when it was new, but we still love West Side Story because it was told *well*.

Avatar was told well, in that the universe it created is immersive and beautiful. The characters may be a bit shallow. The plot may be thin. As whole it *succeeds* because of or in spite of it's parts.

I liked the world created, and would have given the movie a 9 or 10 if I felt it was a little more internally consistent. I bow to the need to make the Na'vi more humanlike as a storytelling tool. If they had six legs and breathed through their necks like the *rest* of the fauna in the world, I doubt the movie would be grossing over a billion dollars right now.

The tiny amount of digging I've done online seems to indicate that earlier drafts of the movie were more technical (hard sci fi!). While I think a movie like that is right up my alley, James Cameron obviously knows the world's moviegoer, because this 'sci fi' movie is as soft as they come, from Unobtanium to entirely glossed over technologies (how did they get to Alpha Centauri in such a short time? Cryosleep, growing an alien hybrid clone?). I see rumors of a sequel, here's hoping they up the sci fi a bit. For me? Please?

Jay

 

[shilsen]

I tease the film about being derivative, but don't we tell the same seven stories over and over again?

Nope, and it's hard to think that we do unless one ignores a lot of the stories out there, especially stories coming from different voices, cultures, historical periods, etc.

Romeo and Juliet was just another romantic tragedy when it was new, but we still love West Side Story because it was told *well*.

There's a big difference between doing an adaptation of an existing work for a new period (and being honest about the aim) and being derivative. Avatar is like Eragon, in that it purports to be an original creation but is a very obvious combination of rip-offs and little else. Only it's incredibly pretty. I daresay the movie Eragon would have been much more of a success if it was as pretty, but that wouldn't make it a good movie.

I think Cameron's very good at working out what puts bums on seats. That's not a very good measure of anything other than popularity, however. Twilight, as book(s) and movie(s), is wildly successful, but that doesn't mean it has any particular quality besides popularity.

Anyhow, I'll leave it to one of the funniest writers on the internet to expand a little further on Avatar: Tiger Beatdown's take on why Avatar is a hilarious movie.

 

[Evilhalfling]

Now, if only the message wasn't Sesame Street level intelligence and he didn't use a nuke to deliver the message instead of a rapier.

I want to see it again so that I can look deeper at the story instead of the visuals, but the world-building and level of detail expressed in that process was like nothing I've seen before in film.

and speaking of nukes....
why did the tavi think they had one long term?
the option of nuke them from orbit was completately ignored. If not nukes than atmospehere incidiaries.
humans want a buried mineral, native life is irritating ... hmmm.

I watched it and it was pretty, but the story kept irritating me. it was like a burr in my blanket. Too predictable, too happy, and too rehashed. And really what kind of evolutionary process provides USB ports to all species?
Where is the predator that uses it offensively?

Gave the movie a 5.

 

[TanisFrey]

Nukes from orbit. Overkill

It's far cheaper and easier to create orbital strikes. If the company has money to spend on sleeper ships it can make high-speed impact missiles. Get fast enough and you deliver an explosion as great as a nuke without going the hazardous process of building a nuke. Why poison your workers by handling Pu238, when they can build a really big rocket engine.

 

[Wombat]

Having finally seen this, my summation is: looks pretty, mediocre story. I wasn't bored, but I wasn't excited. Then again, Cameron's work has rarely done anything for me.

 

[Jeremy Ackerman-Yost]

Where is the predator that uses it offensively?

That drove me batty as well. But ultimately the Earth Mother schtick was more important to them than their ecological continuity.

 

[Mustrum_Ridcully]

and speaking of nukes....
why did the tavi think they had one long term?
the option of nuke them from orbit was completately ignored. If not nukes than atmospehere incidiaries.
humans want a buried mineral, native life is irritating ... hmmm.

I watched it and it was pretty, but the story kept irritating me. it was like a burr in my blanket. Too predictable, too happy, and too rehashed. And really what kind of evolutionary process provides USB ports to all species?
Where is the predator that uses it offensively?

Gave the movie a 5.

Where do these orbital nukes come from? You did see that they planned to use a bundle of commercial explosives that they used for mining to blow up the Na'vi? Why do you assume that a civilian corporation owns nukes?

 

[Hand of Evil]

Where do these orbital nukes come from? You did see that they planned to use a bundle of commercial explosives that they used for mining to blow up the Na'vi? Why do you assume that a civilian corporation owns nukes?

Spaceships and manpower, they could make one with time on their side. It was time that was causing them problems, they went with a quick fix, they could have waited a few years for one to be shipped in, they just wanted to meet their quota of ore and get their bonuses for it.