Avatar

[J.T.]

Just got back from seeing it. The plot was predictable and the characters needed some work, but holy jesus the effects were amazing. The last half hour or so almost made up for the entire rest of the movie.

Still like The Dark Knight more, though.

 

[spaekle]

I have to admit, the one thing that kept me wondering how it was going to end was

Spoiler

the problem of how Jake would be able to stay in his avatar body; it didn't seem very practical that he'd be able to keep up what he was doing forever. Would he just go back home? It didn't seem like it would end very happily no matter what. But, of course, their magical god had the power to put him in his avatar body forever. I'm not sure how I feel about that, exactly; I wanted him to stay on the planet, but that whole idea really just feels like a random BS device thrown in so the movie could end happily. When the hell else would they ever use that power?

The big epic fight scene was great, though. :v

 

[Green]

I thought it was a great movie- A much-needed break from the regular "Let's take over the alien's world! 8D" thing. Instead, they took it to the next level. They made it where the characters interacted with the inhabitants of the planet in a completely different way- Inhabiting artificial bodies of the human-like race of the planet, with the main humans willing to sacrifice their lives to save the extraterrestrial planet from their maniacal peers. Just about everything else I feel about the movie has been said already, so I'll end with this: If a three-year old's and sixteen-year old's imaginations had a baby, this would be it.

 

[Diz]

It wasn't just the power to switch people's bodies, it was that the planet was so vastly connected that something as complex as a person's brain and personality could be absorbed by the planet and then regurgitated. It also served to emphasize the underlying theme of equality in the entire movie

I went and saw the movie with my mom the other day.

It's weird how the part about the rock faded away as that one guy in charge just wanted to blow up stuff

 

[J.T.]

The rock thing is one of those minor things about the movie that I have a major beef with - specifically, the name they gave it. Unobtanium? Really? Really? Could you not come up with a more original name? At least put a little bit of thought into it.

One of the pet peeves I have with all movies, but particularly with Avatar, is when someone is in epic trouble and get saved at the last second (for those who know TV Tropes, Big Damn Heroes moments taken to deus ex machina level). I don't mind a hero having partners and such, but it takes away the suspense when you know a character in a dangerous situation is going to get rescued at the last possible moment. If a character is in a bad situation, I want to see them get out of it themselves. Admittedly, it's just a personal problem, and it's probably just me, but it happened so. freaking. often. in the movie. As awesome as the last half-hour or so was, there were at least two major scenes where that happened in just that one scene alone, and I'm pretty sure I missed a few. The first time was when

Spoiler

Neytiri's about to get torn to shreds by the men on the ground, when surprise! every single animal in the freaking area decided to come down and rain hell on the humans

. The second was when Jake's about to get his throat cut by the colonel when Neytiri kills him with her bow. Again, I probably missed one or two. And to a lesser extent it seemed like kind of an asspull for

Spoiler

Jake to have grenades during the big battle, although I'm more forgiving of that - it's not so much unrealistic or implausible, but more of a "when did he get those?" kind of thing

.
... Yeah, I'm kind of hard to please.

Also my brother needs to see more movies, or at least become a bit more genre savvy. He refuses to believe I could expect anything that happened in the movie.

 

[Mango]

Oh, we're talking about this, are we? Wall o' text time, this movie gets my juices going.

Avatar is interesting. It's to be expected that when you hype a movie like this up as much as they did, people will hate it just that much more. I think a lot of the nastyness aimed towards this movie is more aimed towards the hype that surrounded it than anything else. The movie itself is not particularly offensive or bad, it's just very predictable.

That's what's so interesting about it; it's so damn predictable. I mean, watch the freaking trailer and if you've ever seen or read ANYTHING before, you'll know the entire story and what's going to happen, regardless of how "cryptic" they wanted the trailer to seem. But the thing is, at least I and everyone I know has found, you don't really care. This movie is good. It's nothing new or world-changing, but it's very good. The plot is well written, the characters are believable and either likeable or hateable, depending on their position in the movie, and it all moves at very nice pace. Yeah, it's a bit long, but again, I found myself not caring. It's quite obvious that this wasn't something written a month after the first idea of it; this is something has been pondered upon and well developed. This universe is so deep that you could tell me that it's based on a real planet and I'd probably believe you.

Avatar is a very well done movie. In almost every way that you can measure, it is a good movie. No, it's not as good as it was hyped to be, but that's because people were honestly expecting it to change the movie world, which is won't. But it's still an amazing cinematic experience that I would suggest to everyone I knew to go see.

 

[voltianqueen]

I went to see it today and I absolutely loved it~ I kinda figured that a few things were going to happen, especially Jake ending up staying on Pandora, but I thought it was brilliant anyway :D

 

[Icalasari]

The rock thing is one of those minor things about the movie that I have a major beef with - specifically, the name they gave it. Unobtanium? Really? Really? Could you not come up with a more original name? At least put a little bit of thought into it.

I think that they called it Unobtanium just to poke fun at that trope

 

[Music Dragon]

NO DON'T IT IS LITERARY RAPE cough cough don't know how that came out, sorry

Does your depravity know no bounds?

 

[Slartibartfast]

I saw the movie a few days ago.

It was amazing. Yeah, I know that it was clichéd, predictable, and had all those 'flaws' that critics notice, but I don't really care. It is now one of my two favorite movies (Star Trek [the new one; why the heck did they call it just Star Trek?] being the other).

So yeah. For me, the most predictable (coincidentally, also the coolest) part was Jake becoming the rider of the huge dragon-thing. Whatever it was called. And I can't get over how amazing the CGI was. They drew an entire world in a completely realistic way. There was more CGI than live-action, and they managed to make it look entirely real.

 

[Exo-Raikou]

I saw it a little over week ago, and I remember walking out thinking that it was an amalgamation of The Matrix, Tarzan, Pocahontas, and Star Wars

Yes, it was predictable, but I personally found that its main appeal came from its predictability. This movie struck me as a movie that could be both predictable and great at the same time. It is a favorite movie of mine, but there are times where I look for mind-blowing special effects and an amazing musical score, both of which were prominent in this movie.

That also goes a long way as to why I enjoyed ROTF so much.

On a lesser related note:

I think I'm the only one who sees a resemblance between these two.

 

[speedblader03]

I really do not plan on seeing this movie. From the previews I've seen, the plot is clichéd. Also, the aliens kind of creep me out in the way they look.(I'm not sure why) I've never really cared about how realistic graphics are, either.

 

[Dannichu]

I saw it a little over week ago, and I remember walking out thinking that it was an amalgamation of The Matrix, Tarzan, Pocahontas, and Star Wars

Exact same. I was told before I went to see it that it was like a sci-fi version of Pocahontas, and they were pretty much bang on.
A friend of mine didn't come to see it because she'd heard it was a massive "white man taming the savage natives"-fest and while that was true to an extent, I thought the minority representation (the main character being disabled was pretty cool, I thought, even if he totally escapes it in his Avatar form) was decent, especially for a film as blockbustery as Avatar was.

It was very, very pretty. Like, massively pretty. And it was the first thing I've ever seen in 3D, which was exciting. Although, and I dunno if it was just the cinema I saw it in, but I thought that with the 3D version, you lost some of the vibrancy of the colour. Just me?

 

[Murkrowfeather]

I think one of the things I liked about this 3D movie was that they didn't go out of their way to remind you that it was 3D. Like, they only used that function when it needed to be used to really make the watcher pay attention, not just to say "Oh, hey, did you remember that THIS IS A 3D MOVIE DHURR!". I personally notice a lot when they do that, because unlike most people wearing two pairs of glasses DOES actually remind you that you're watching a movie in 3D and are wearing the stupidest fashion in the history of Earth.

But yeah... Unobtanium. WHAT.

 

[Blastoise Fortooate]

Seeing it tomorrow...

I hear it's like Smurfs in Space.

 

[Slartibartfast]

unlike most people wearing two pairs of glasses DOES actually remind you that you're watching a movie in 3D and are wearing the stupidest fashion in the history of Earth.

This is why I almost never see 3D movies. It was worth it for Avatar, though.

 

[Dannichu]

To those who gave props for them making an effort in regards to making the alien species scientifically consistent:

Right from the beginning I said, “She’s got to have tits,” even though that makes no sense because her race, the Na’vi, aren’t placental mammals.

(from an interview with Playboy)

Found a couple of Avatar-related, uh, thingies. Though I'd share.

Movies (better than Avatar) that did the plot first (because I love TVWoP)

What Avatar Tells Us About Disability and Masculinity (with an excellent discussion in the comments section)

Evolution of Avatar (an outline of the evolution of racist/overused tropes that led us to Avatar)

Sociological Images discussion of Avatar (focuses specifically on aspects of race within the film, with large discussion of gender representation in the commments)

And, while mindlessly jumping from one Avatar article to another (I'm snowed in and there's not a lot else to do, okay?) I found my absoute favourite Avatar-related quote:

Anyone that spends 10+ years and billions of dollars creating a film, then uses freaking PAPYRUS as it's identifying font is a complete douchebucket

(from here)

 

[Murkrowfeather]

Anyone that spends 10+ years and billions of dollars creating a film, then uses freaking PAPYRUS as it's identifying font is a complete douchebucket

I have to agree. At first I was like, "Hey, is that Herculanum?" because I hadn't been on a Mac in a while, but then when I looked at it again I actually said out loud, in front of my friends, "Oh Mew, that's the Newbie Roleplayer Font! NO!" (If you've ever seen Neopets' roleplaying boards you'll see what I mean).

 

[Rai-CH]

Anyone that spends 10+ years and billions of dollars creating a film, then uses freaking PAPYRUS as it's identifying font is a complete douchebucket

I guess I wasn't the only one who noticed that XD

I saw Avatar 3D last night. The special effects and the CGI was amazing, sometimes I wasn't sure what bits were CGI and what wasn't. Though I have to agree with people who said the plot was predictable and the characters weren't really well-developed. The main character was a bit of a Gary Stu with the whole Being able to tame the giant dragon thing when only very few native Na'vis (is that the name of the blue people?) can.
Also, what happened to the Unobtainium? They destroyed the home of the Na'vis and instead of taking as much Unobtainium rocks as they could, they decided "hey screw the rocks lets BLOW SHIT UP YAAAAY :D". I understand that the humans found out that they were going to be attacked, but they could have at least grabbed what they originally came for, rather than going into a full-on war and losing all their fighter, ships and the commander.

And I want one of those helicopter-lizard things. And a garden full of the Pandora flowers :)

 

[Aura Cobalt]

Ok, I just have to say this was the best movie ever! I know it was cliched and predictable, but for me that kinda added to it in a way. Though while watching it I was virtually deprived of suspense, it was remniscent of older stuff I have seen. Its like if I had to be born about 5-10 years later than I was this would become my obsession. It kinda replicated in a way what I used to love, but technologically it is so much more amazing. Cliches become cliches for a reason. its a bit ironic how it works: something is really inspiring or thought-provoking, people use it all the time all over the place, people get tired of it, and it looses some of its value. You could even say in a way that overly lucky and heroic heroes are a cliche. At one time we didnt care that they dont exist in reality; that fact just made them all the more amazing. Then once we kept seeing them they became un-amazing because they were no longer special. Stupid Law of Diminishing Return. But anyway, if you could try and make yourself get over all the boring predictability, and kinda see it from a kid's eyes, the movie was great. The whole anti-military thing or whatever you call it was great, and the pantheistic religion theme was really well thought out (I know most of you wont think so). I'm not saying I agree with it, but I'm not saying I disagree. Really, this was the only movie I have ever been able to call my favorite.