Home Forums Miscellaneous Topics Movie, Book, and Music Review "Avatar" aka "Cliche!"

Dances With Wolves meets Pocahontas on Gaia with blue skinned Indian flying dragon culture, right down to the bows and arrows and war paint.

The story was disappointing but the visuals were incredible. This is a standard cliffhanger melodrama (with real cliffs) that has been done 10,000 times before, complete with the cavalry charging to the rescue just in the nick of time.

This movie has about every cliche you can think of. They only need to give the villain a cape and moustache to twirl to complete the scene. If you see political messages and enemies under every rock and bush you won't like this movie.

If you just like well imagined science fiction then it's a really cool movie. It is one you should see on a big screen as the CGI is spectacular and is probably the only big draw.

Even with the cliched story I still give it the "Good Excuse for Eating Ridiculously Overpriced Popcorn" certificate of approval. (But then I like well imagined science fiction, so I'm pretty easy to please.)

One more thing about the movie - I bet that most guys watching this will spend half the movie trying to catch a glimpse of blue alien nipple.















Well, at least I did...

lol want to see it for the special effects if nothing else......wish i could see it on an Imax screen.....for the most part i go to a movie to be entertained politics and the like be damned course since the wife started help manage the local one i havent paid to see one in over a year so my standards arent as high as it used to be when going to the theater......

had a hell of a time getting through 2012 though.....i know to much bout geology and the like and my wife kept hitting me after bout the 6th "horsechit" i let out in the theater

Jim in Idaho: Blue nipples out or not the movie made $232,000,000.00 in two days!
I don't think I will be seeing this one as I heard it has a "green theme" - doesn't look like they will miss my $7.50 though?
Hold into the wind
VarmintGuy

Same here, just go to be entertained. The story doesn't have to fit my political ideas as long as it's well told. But being an old sci-fi nerd my standards for the genre are pretty high.

They did a great job of imagining alien zoology but the anthropology (xenopology?) fell down, they model the Na-Vi after American Indians way too much, I mean the aliens could have been named Kicking Bird and Wind in His Hair, they were that close. The characters are one dimensional and stereotyped - the evil corporate manager with no soul, the gung-ho kill'em all and let God sort'em out military guy, the hard-ass but compassionate scientist leader, the kick-butt female pilot, on and on. And for being set 145 years in the future with interstellar travel, it's amazing how military uniforms haven't changed and they're still using pretty much the same ordnance we have today.

I-Max would be a great way to see this. Just smuggle some soda and candy into the theater, sit back and enjoy the scenery.

Not really. The military is still using the same basic rifle they were using when I was in Kindergarten.

I'm very sceptical of any movie that has to be hyped as hard as this one has been

Sounds like I need to see it on a big screen ,If I'm gonna see it at all.

Hmmm , naa ,I'll pass.

Has our ordinance advanced in 145 years in 1864 you could get a repeating breech loader with self contained metallic cartridges fed from a magazine and you could have spare magazines to reload with. Hmmmm.

I really enjoyed the movie even though I had to sit in the second row. I did notice the cliche's but the effects made up for it. The 3D is the best I have ever seen and I didn't leave with a headache.

P.S. I did spend half the movie looking for Alien Nipple. I wouldn't have minded seeing the chopper pilots nipple either.

What can you say about a movie where the "hero" has sex with a different species with a tail. What do you guys from Montana think about that?

Was she stump broke??

L.W.

Quick pick-up. I'm sure many of the guys have experience with that sort of thing!

Expat

JiminIdaho: Your motion picture packed with cliches is NOW #2 on the ALL TIME movie gross receipts list!
Trailing ONLY "Titanic"!
And its due to surpass "Titanic" in short order!
Predictions are now astronomical - at having "Avatar" exceeding $2,000,000,000.00 (TWO BILLION DOLLARS!) in ticket sales!
That prediction would surpass "Titanics" 1,840,000,000.00 (ONE BILLION EIGHT HUNDRED FOURTY MILLION!) total!
Hold into the wind
VarmintGuy
PS: See I told you they would not need my $7.50!

It's okay, I used your $7.50 to see it a second time. True, I went back to see the 3D version and my mindset was different so I enjoyed it quite a lot the second time. It is a cool movie.

I directed a couple of plays a few years ago and as someone told me would happen, from then on I want to direct every movie I see. So, as a highly qualified director ( ), it needs work.

But if you just go enjoy the scenery and let your emotions be played with as the director and music composer intend it's not a bad way to spend the cost of a magazineful of TSX's.

Must....resist.....obvious...pun

No...will is weakening..the dark side of pundom is strong.








"Well, the man did want a piece of tail!"

+1.

I went as a "what the hell" reaction after all I heard about it. I didn't have high hopes.

I really enjoyed it! Formula storyline, but so well done that the viewer is drawn into it.

worth seeing in 3D....dont have a theater locally that can do 3D so the wife and i went to it in Billings this past weekend on our way through.....worth seeing just to see the 3D stuff, if thats what they are doing now i cant imagine 10 years from now....its not fly in your face, surprise you 3D for the majority of it, it really draws yah in.....sit close, if yah get to far back the 3D stuff doesnt work aswell.....think we were about 7 rows back and it looked great....going to see it again on the local screen this weekend in 2D to see how much of a difference it really is....

as for all the BS about it.....like any other film, got a strong group and an underdog, really dont put much more though than that in it.....

My sister said she about walked out. She said it was full of anti-war anti-Bush liberal propaganda. I haven't seen it but was impressed my sister is that conservative. Wouldn't have guess she had strong enough opinions to walk out of a movie for it.

its a bunch of 10 foot tall blue indians riding flying lizards versus cowboys with machine guns, tanks and helicopters.......so uh, no chit, shoulda knew that before paying for the ticket.....

I saw it twice, didn't bother

MILITARY BAD!!!

ENVIRONMENTALISTS GOOD!!!

MUST VOTE DEMOCRATIC!!!

me at all.

Wow, funny, for a minute there the room seemed to spin a bit. Oh,well, like the man said, it's just entertainment. Nobody is really going to have their opinions changed by a movie...

kinda what i think.....ive got to much chit going on in my life to get upset over a movie.....went to see it figuring its like most movies, there is gonna be an underdog.....the 3D and such makes it worth seeing as far as im concerned.....paid $10 to see it in 3D....wish there was a 3D theater closer cause i would like to pay to see it in 3D a couple more times....i hear they are going to release it in 3D on Blu-Ray but it wont be the same as the screen aint covering most your field of view.....

going to see it in 2D tomorrow for free so i guess ill just have to deal.....lifes to short to get wrapped up in the lil chit.....

I saw the movie today on IMAX in 3D. It was my first movie at IMAX and my first 3D movie. I don't know if other folks have IMAX cinemas but the screen is from the floor to the ceiling at least 50 yards wide. I was entirely impressed. Some of the 3D wasn't. Some of it looked like I was looking at a goldfish in a thick bowl, but some of it really impressed me. When they are showing real people, they are distorted, but there is depth perception which is cool. The animated characters look animated, and the 3D isn't as obvious, but when stuff is floating around: bugs, seeds, leaves... you honestly feel like you could reach out and touch them. I remember 3D Kung Fu theater when I was a kid. This is so much better.

As to the cliche part, they ripped off the Indians big time. They even had Wes Studi (Magua in Last of the Mohicans) doing a character's voice. Mohawks, bows, horses (kind of), all the nature stuff. I would have preferred something original. I liked it though. Even today's kids with all their technology will be impressed with what they have accomplished.

one of my buddys saw it this weekend, asked what he thought bout it given he is Assiniboine......he said "i was whooping and hollering with them, when i saw them putting on the war paint i figured they were Sioux.....my uncle said he thought they were Apache but i told him they couldnt be, the Apache werent that tall."

Not to beat this to death, but I'm guessing that on an IMAX screen that blue nipple was about as big as a coffee pot, right?

Our IMAX theater in Boise has been consistently sold out for since the movie opened. Some friends and I tried to go see it Christmas night and both shows were sold out. A friend took his son last Sunday and all shows were still sold out. You have to buy your tickets in advance on line.

James Cameron's directorial skills may not be impressive but I'd sure like to invest in whatever he's making next.

I saw Avatar regular at the late show and then took my wife to see it in 3D at the Imax. It is a technological tour de force but I sure hope all movies don't turn to 3D, wearing someone else's glasses was a bit of a hassle. The 3D incarnation without the glasses looks fuzzy and out of focus. OTOH the resolution of the regular version was outstanding, to the point that some 3D effect was apparent even without glasses.

The message that some cultures have different material values than the prevailing Western Capitalist one was well taken, even if the two viewpoints were ironically rather two dimensional as presented. If the humans were mostly callous capitalists, surely the Natives themselves were entirely noble savages (why exactly would they need "warriors" in that other-wordly utopia anyhow?).

Of note, Zoe Saldana of "Star Trek" and "Pirates of the Carribean" (the sea witch character) provided the voice for the alien love interest (my wife had thought it might be Penelope Cruz).

More remarkably, Steven Lang the same guy hiding behind Stonewall Jackson's fake beard in the abysmal "Gods and Generals", seen here as the buff and toned evil Colonel bad guy, was born in 1952!

Ergo the guy had to be at least fifty five years old during the shooting of the movie. Egad! An inspiration to us flabby ol' gaffers everywhere.


..and ya know, it is a testament to the power of "Saving Private Ryan" that I still feel a palpable sense of relief every time I see someone who died in that movie still alive in a different movie.

In this case Giovanni Ribisi, who died calling to his mother as the heroic medic in "Private Ryan", in Avatar seen as the on-site yuppie manager of the mining company.

Birdwatcher