Camerons Avatar

[robotical]

Finally saw it last night, the visuals were amazing, but the story was meh.

The blatantly political parts of the dialogue were jarring. 'Fight terror with terror', 'shock and awe' - really? It just served to yank me out of the movie and it was unnecessary. I also found the bad guys too unbelievable (especially the colonel when the early part of the movie had humanized him) to really feel much during the attack on home tree. It was also weird to realize just how poorly equipped the marines were for the moon considering the length of time they had been there (you would think they would have requested higher caliber guns).

All in all, very good effects and visuals, but the story could have been much better.

 

[eburacum45]

It was also weird to realize just how poorly equipped the marines were for the moon considering the length of time they had been there (you would think they would have requested higher caliber guns).

The problem with that is the new guns would have taken more than nine years to arrive. Pandora is 4.37 light years away. A request for guns would take 4.37 years to arrive at Earth, and the shipment would have taken at least five years to arrive at sublight speeds. So they would have to make do with what they already had.

 

[robotical]

The problem with that is the new guns would have taken more than nine years to arrive. Pandora is 4.37 light years away. A request for guns would take 4.37 years to arrive at Earth, and the shipment would have taken at least five years to arrive at sublight speeds. So they would have to make do with what they already had.

Except it was apparent that they had already been there for some time. It would have been expensive yes, but they had already been routinely shipping military equipment (which was not at all well designed for the native environment) and one would think that the manifest would change as they better understood what they were dealing with (why on Pandora were they running infantry on foot around an extremely hostile environment virtually unprotected?). Higher caliber weapons would have been one of my first requests after establishing a base.

 

[Mee_n_Mac]

It was also weird to realize just how poorly equipped the marines were for the moon considering the length of time they had been there (you would think they would have requested higher caliber guns).

The problem with that is the new guns would have taken more than nine years to arrive. Pandora is 4.37 light years away. A request for guns would take 4.37 years to arrive at Earth, and the shipment would have taken at least five years to arrive at sublight speeds. So they would have to make do with what they already had.

How long and how much $$s would it have taken to make avatars ? The movie was a tad inconsistent with all the effort spent making avatars only to "send in the Marines".

 

[doom_shepherd]

Finally saw it last night, the visuals were amazing, but the story was meh.

The blatantly political parts of the dialogue were jarring. 'Fight terror with terror', 'shock and awe' - really? It just served to yank me out of the movie and it was unnecessary.

That's Hollywood.

I also found the bad guys too unbelievable (especially the colonel when the early part of the movie had humanized him).

Yeah, he had barely as much character development as the villain in "Much Ado About Nothing." "I can be nasty because I CAN, I'm the villain."

In reality, those kinds of guys don't last, and they don't end up as Colonels.
But then again, that's Hollywood.

I ended up seeing "Avatar" and "Alice in Wonderland" on the same day and the little lady and I both agreed that as far as plot and characterization in the storytelling goes, Wonderland was better.

OTOH, the visual effects in "Avatar" actually made be GLAD I couldn't see it in 3-D. I was getting vertigo from just TWO dimensions. They really were that awesome.

 

[nimbus]

If you do go see it in 3D, try to go to a theater that has good quality projectors, if there is such a variance from theater to theater. The IMAX I went to had scan lines so visible that it ruined it (relatively) for me. I came out unable to choose between 2D and that 3D show as most pleasant experience.

 

[Mee_n_Mac]

If you do go see it in 3D, try to go to a theater that has good quality projectors, if there is such a variance from theater to theater. The IMAX I went to had scan lines so visible that it ruined it (relatively) for me. I came out unable to choose between 2D and that 3D show as most pleasant experience.

We saw it in a non-IMAX but 3D theater. Pic quality was very high. Do you think that the IMAX presentation may have been the fault ?

 

[nimbus]

I couldn't tell you - it was my first 3D and IMAX movie. But there's no doubt that the scan lines were very obvious, enough to spoil the 3D effect at least a little. Obvious enough that I doubt that's what IMAX got famous with. Maybe that theater was lower quality, I dunno.

I'll try and see it again at another theater.

 

[gravityTug]

I liked:
The 3D, I thought it was like being in a dream.

Some* of the artwork, i.e the night scenes were wonderfully done, I feel good art is VERY important to the atmosphere of a cgi movie.

The action sequences near the end, in particular the Chief Na'vi's Son vs. the Marines on the ship, this reminded me of the end sequence to The Last of the Mohicans

What I didn't like:
Clichéd story, dialogue, characters and as a result a lot of the movie was plain boring to me, even whilst being wowed by the SFX and 3D.

*The rest of the artwork I thought was either bland or ugly, from the Na'vi to their flying companions.

Ultimately my dislikes outweigh what I like about Avatar by quite some way.

 

[doublehelix]

When I saw it in IMAX, the glasses made things darker, which I didn't like. I did like the 3D, though!

-dh

 

[crazyeddie]

Overall I was pleased that we weren't blindsided by many plot devices. A lot of the hard to believe moments, or eyebrow raisers were introduced earlier, so you'd just accept them when they really mattered. Example: Sully falling down and being cushioned by giant leaves...so as not to die from a long fall. Introduced earlier as something the Na'Vi actually do on purpose, and used later as a plot device to move him from the aerial battles, to the ground fighting.

A simple classic story (Pocahontas), but retold with style, and amazing technique. I'm hoping for an Avatar 2!

Just to address the emboldened part of your statement: remember that early on in the film, it was mentioned in the military briefings that Pandora has much lower gravity than Earth's (though you would never know it from their actions), and also that the natives had a naturally-occurring carbon-fiber in their skeletal structures, which makes them "hard to kill". I think that was a partial explanation of how they take such falls without serious injury.

I have a stubborn reluctance to see a wildly popular film in the theaters, because I hate crowds, but boy oh boy did I become a believer when I saw Avatar on IMAX in 3-D. It left me speechless.....not because the story was all that compelling, but because I've never seen such a beautifully crafted film with so much attention to detail. Cameron really makes you feel like Pandora is a real place. And of course, I liked the political messages as well, uber-liberal that I am!

 

[FictionBecomesFact]

Might you have ideas for Avatar sequels? Please share them at this thread devoted to that specific subject:

viewtopic.php?f=18&t=23323