Am I the only one who hates Avatar????

Christ I just had a thought....

Twilight in 3D....

aaaaaaaarrrrrrrrggggggghhhhh!!!!

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I don't know if Avatar does, but I thought it was clear that Cameron did. There again, my opinion of Cameron isn't exactly high.

Absolutely agree with this. However, I think it's really weak entertainment journalism that's to 'blame'. That, or our own low standards, as most publications/critics write/appeal to their audience.

I hate those stupid glasses. When the movie industry can plug into our brains directly through our cerebral cortex a la Strange Days, then we're talking!

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I like Avatar. I'm not crazy over it and it's not even close to my Top Ten, but I think it was done with enough quality effort and genuine love for the project to say that it's a step above most action-adventure visual effects extravaganzas of the same ilk.

I also get why people don't like it. Cameron and crew spent a staggering amount of money on a film that turned out to be just "pretty good." I do think the film really did break through some technological barriers, which in its own right is promising for the future of cinema. But Avatar does have a fairly rudimentary story that's successful because it (maybe too selfishly) panders to our inherent desire to defend all things good and pure. We've seen this kind of story before, and while it brings us much-enjoyed catharsis, it's not the narrative dynamo you'd expect from such an expensive project.

Still, I don't think it ever meant to be. I think making a visually outstanding film was the primary goal all along, coupled with a story that catered to its strengths and used a time-tested formula to engage people with the world Cameron's team created for it. It doesn't try to be Citizen Kane, but it satisfies in the way we like our adventure films to do.

If you consider how monumentally terrible a film like Spider-Man 3 is, a disgustingly expensive film in its own right, it becomes easier (for me, at least) to forgive whatever parts of Avatar weren't as developed as some maybe expected them to be for the price tag.

I guess what I'm saying is, it's fair to judge Avatar based on the enormity of its budget, and all the heightened expectations that come along with that. You have to. But it should also perhaps be judged equally as a product of the moviemaking world, where it's a fairly polished, highly-enjoyable genre film with truly revolutionary visual effects amidst an ever-growing heap of poorly-made trash.

That pretty much sums up how I feel about it. A stellar effort hampered by worn-out narrative conventions, I still have a lot of fun watching Avatar.

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Mostlly i wonder what kind of assault on the senses it would be if James Cameron got the green light to do a super hero flick.

Prince Namor for instance.

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That water would look AWESOME.

Oh **** - I would be ALL over that.

No! Stop encouraging him! Ahhhhh....

Just nothing good in Avatar for you, eh Chris?

I'm largely kidding. That last post was about Cameron in general, who I've been pondering an essay about. He's a pretty miserable guy and I find his general outlook (and the hamfisted way in which it permeates almost everything he does) pretty distasteful.

But, to Avatar, specifically, putting aside the Cameron stuff. Obviously, it's impressive in a technical sense. It's a new step in an important technology (though all the people crediting the motion capture stuff to Cameron owe Robert Zemeckis a big apology), and it looks great.

However, judging it even the way I think its supporters would like me to -- that is, as a purely disposable sci-fi adventure with the modest aim of merely entertaining people -- I just didn't find it exciting. If you strip down the action sequences, are any of them even remotely inventive or creative? I can't think of any, though I might be forgetting one or two. I feel like the predictability extended not only to the details of the plot, but the specifics of most scenes. Predictability is the enemy of excitement, and Avatar has the former in spades.

I can think of two quasi-exceptions, though neither are actually exciting, just sort of neat. The first is Jake's first run outside inside his avatar. It wasn't mind-blowing, but it was fairly exhilarating and got that moment right. The other is the way Jake trapped Toruk Makto; fairly clever and believable. But I don't think my heart rate budged much at any point, so even by the modest goal of being exciting and entertaining, I just didn't get much out of it.

Doesn't really bother me that others did. It would only really bug me if people tried to defend it as a genuinely good film, or creative, or well-written, or anything like that. But you (Seds) and Sleezy are both sharp, insightful guys, and obviously there's a lot of subjectivity as to whether or not a thing is purely exciting. Though it's worth noting that, had I found the film exciting, I'm pretty sure all the other problems would've probably overwhelmed though, just to a lesser extent.

Would love to hear what moments you guys liked best, though. I saw it twice (and a half, if you count RiffTrax), but I'm probably forgetting some things.

Great points Yoda. I find myself in the minority when most people are discussing the movie because I wasn't BLOWN AWAY BY IT like all the muggles I've talked to. The two things about it that I did get a kick out of were the above mentioned Toruk scene and Stephen Lang as the badass harbinger of manifest destiny.

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For me, because I had wished for it ever since I was a small boy in the 70s, it was the flying sequences. I know they weren't dragons, per se, but I had always wanted to see absolutely convincing dragons flying and fighting in the air, with great swooping shots and huge dives and turns - a scene that just channeled the exhilaration.

I guess I have to disagree a bit that the action sequences didn't do anything differently, because they were executed almost perfectly and at a level more convincing than anything before. I was just absolutely beside myself during the flying sequences - I felt like that little kid so many years ago that wished for stuff like this.

I guess I had an easier time ignoring the stuff I didn't like (like Cameron's clearly anti-human slant) because I knew the thing would be politicized and I figured the script was going to be boilerplate (although I held out some hope it wouldn't be before I saw it).

And Epic - Yeah, Lang just owned that role. I guess I was blown away in some ways, but let down in others, like a lot of the folks here.

I'm with Seds, I think anytime a film captures the feeling of flight, it's always exhilarating and really something you can't experience any other way, short of actually flying aircraft. So the flight scenes are incredibly satisfying to me. I'm also a junkie for art direction, and when you have a group of people that create a whole world that feels lived in, I get lost in that.

As for the action sequences, my feeling is this. We've become accustomed in recent years to exceptionally intricate, mind-blowing visual effects sequences in films. But when you can't find a way into the story--or maybe more to the point, when you can't feel the "stakes"--even the most eye-boggling sequence rings hollow. It's a video game. I'm thinking Clash of the Titans here. I'm thinking any of the Star Wars prequels.

But at least with Avatar, the stakes are never in question. It's all very clear. It might be overly simple, but it's effective in drawing you in on a pretty basic, cathartic level. So when the bad guy is threatening to level a tree the size of a skyscraper to make room for greedy capitalist ore drilling, and you know that tree is the home of thousands of peace-loving, salt-of-the-earth people, you're drawn in. And so those emotions interweave perfectly with the truly visceral image of the tree getting pulverized with missiles and ultimately toppling over. And when the visual effects look that good, it only helps sell what's taking place, both visually and emotionally.

So while I think the action scenes, in one sense or another, aren't really that new or creative, it's the circumstances surrounding the scene that sell it for the viewer... or not.

Addendum: Take Star Wars: A New Hope, for example. Nobody really questions the creativity of that film's final sequence, even though it borrows largely from 1950s and 60s science fiction of intergalactic bad guys threatening to destroy entire peoples or planets while brave heroes fight to thwart them. That sequence, in its time, was considered a visual marvel. But it's the clear stakes that make it truly special, built slowly by our attachment to the likeable characters and our aversion to the evil deeds of the enemies. And Avatar, to me, is a modern reflection of that classic adventure/sci-fi model. I think that might be why I like it.

I could've sworn the last one was in 3D??

Yeah, I agree with those who said that Lang was good. But Lang is always good. Probably might've saved the film a little had he been featured more. The Party Crasher has made a career out of scene stealing.

I hated it, the special effects were good that's it, the action was decent, 3/10, the story is the exact same as Pocahontas just in space.

Pocahontas has a lot more singing and sunflowers.

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ok yeah, but the overall idea is the same, http://www.treehugger.com/avatar-pocahontas.jpg

Ah, but Avatar's sunflowers have six legs! And they're blue instead of yellow! Creativity!

i'm never critical while watching a movie. i give it every chance to grab me on a 'gut' level- which it did. later i realized it wasn't great, but just pretty damn good.

bad movies don't get this much discussion even right after release, much less 2 years later.
there's a whole world between great and sucky.
it seems to me people have a habit in forums to say something sux if it's not truly great. they see in black/white i guess- like republicans.
i liked the message- don't continue blind patriotism when the truth repeatedly smacks you in the face.
been done before? i thinn it's a message worth repeating in our militaristic culture.

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