Topic: Avatar

Avatar. I feel like someone should bring it up, seeing as how today is the big day. And to be honest, I am still on the fence about this movie. I feel like it’s the ultimate example of an exploitation film. All the reviews I have read seem to praise its visuals while calling its plot one dimensional, which seems like kind of a double standard, considering this praise is the same used to deride films such as Transformers (and I am not defending Transformers).

Basically my biggest gripe (without having seen it) is with the marketing. “Movies will never be the same”? This seems kind of arrogant. It’s definitely trying to guilt the Cineaste in all of us into seeing it because if it really is going to change films, who wants to miss the one that started it all. But this is a ludicrous claim to make, because no one knows if it will. The Abyss, Terminator 2, Jurassic Park. All movies you guys have discussed that did change movies, but none of them used this as their advertising gimmick. I feel like Cameron had over ten years of this idea brewing in his head, couldn’t he give us amazing visuals and a really good story?

Again these are all my complaints without having seen the film. Maybe I just need to relax and learn to have a good time with it. And I think I could if I wasn’t being reminded every 5 minutes how this movie will blow my mind. I wanted to get your opinions, since I think you each bring something interesting to the table. Who knows. Maybe you can convince me to get off my high horse and go see it.

Thumbs up Thumbs down

Re: Avatar

I'm not sure you and I operate under exactly the same definition of "exploitation film." That aside...

I honestly don't think I ever saw Cameron say "Movies will never be the same." What I have seen is "Movies will never be made the same way," which is almost certainly true based on the production process. In addition, the film has broken through the "photoreal CG characters usually look like zombie puppets" barrier and for better or worse, there's no going back. This barrier had been breached previously by Gollum and Davy Jones (two examples he freely cites as being the reasons he felt the time had come to make this film), but now the line between live action and animated films has been erased, for those filmmakers so inclined to straddle that line.

To be fair, Cameron hasn't been brewing this story in his head for ten years. By his own account, he wrote the story 14 years ago, and by his own admission, he did it as essentially an excuse to push the visual envelope -- he owned Digital Domain at the time, and wanted to make them sweat and take a big leap forward. They were scared of it and he put it in a drawer, and by his account forgot all about it.

About 4 years ago, he dusted it off and started shooting it about a year later, after spending $10 million on R&D and art department.

The idea that this is the magnum opus that he's spent over a decade crafting is a misconception that he has done his part to dispel, but you know enough metaphors about rumors that I don't need to put one.

This movie's story will not blow your mind. Within the first 20 minutes Cameron has given you all the pieces and anyone who's watched any other movie in his life will know how they fit together. But the story is competently told if somewhat rushed, the visuals are astonishing, and this movie will go down in movie history, if not as a film that "started it all," then certainly as a significant milestone.

I mean, how much does a modern viewer actually know about the story of THE JAZZ SINGER? And yet what would any of us give to be able to go back and be there the first time a picture talked?

I hear a lot of complaints about the marketing, which I simply don't understand. What are they supposed to say? "This movie's a derivative turd and you probably shouldn't bother"? That'll really get the butts in seats! Marketing hypes movies. That's why it exists. And as far as it goes, I've seen very little marketing for this film up until this week -- and with the release looming of course they're on a blitz.

There are more billboards for DID YOU HEAR ABOUT THE MORGANS? than for AVATAR, and we're talking in Hollywood. I've seen way more advertising for NEW MOON than I have for this film, and NEW MOON came out weeks ago.

Even if the marketing were totally obnoxious (and to be fair, I don't watch TV or listen to the radio so it might be saturating those markets for all I know), that's a completely separate beast from the film itself. I think you'd come to regret not seeing this film in theatres in its first run, with a fresh audience if at all possible, and you might as well catch in in 3D while you're at it. I didn't love it, but I liked it quite a lot, and that's frankly more than I can say for the other big FX movies in recent years (2012, for example, was so awful it literally made me lose the will to live for about 24 hours).

Thumbs up Thumbs down

Re: Avatar

“Let's go see a $500 million sci-fi allegory about the perils of wasteful human behavior”

In this sense I was using the definition of “exploitation film” from the Stephen Heller work “Nightmare U.S.A.” which since I don’t have it near me at the time I can’t quote exactly but I can paraphrase as a film that sacrifices plot in place of some form of spectacle (he quotes I believe Friedman as saying Jurassic Park was one of the most expensive exploitation films ever made, which I am not sure how I feel about that). But more to the point…

I haven’t watched or read much from Cameron about the film, but every television ad I’ve seen (and I don’t watch much television either, but it’s constantly playing when I am out in public) has the text “Movies will… (Shot of blue people)… Never be… (Shot of that lion creature jumping at us)... The Same (robots or something).” So that’s where I was pulling that from. I guess I just felt making this claim was a touch of hubris, and for some reason that really irritated me. But to be fair, as you said, marketing is a completely different beast altogether, and they certainly can’t say “This movie… will do… absolutely nothing.” Knowing that Cameron’s intention with this film was to push the limits of visual effects helps clarify things a little more for me.

Still I wonder (again, without having seen it) how this is going to change CG film making. As beautiful as the trailers look, and they do look stunning, it still has a somewhat cartoon-y feel to it. So much so that someone I saw the trailer with asked me “So this is an animated film?”  Isn’t there an asymptotic effect when it comes to CG? Perhaps I am just being naive.

On a side note: I have been on a big kick since I started listening to the podcast a few months back of going back, re-watching and really appreciating movies with practical effects, in no small part because of Trey’s expertise and input in the discussions (I loved watching the Thing and my new all-time favorite zombie movie is now Return of the Living Dead).

Before I make any further judgments, I am going to completely roll over and see this film, probably even tonight, you know, after my screening of Old Dogs, and most likely have a good time. So what was I arguing about again?

Oh and I completely skipped 2012 (it looked dreadful), but I would like to hear more about this losing the will to live story.

Thumbs up Thumbs down

Re: Avatar

Crossposted to NP2K

Alright, finally got to see this last night in 3D IMAX with plenty of annoying talkers and even somebody taking flash pictures of the screen, thank you very much citizenry of Atlantic City.

Anyway, I was surprised at how weak the story was. No, I wasn't expecting revolutionary storytelling, I knew it was going to be Fern Gully in space and was completely fine with that. I also knew it was Cameron so I wasn't exactly expecting subtle. But even though Cameron isn't especially revolutionary when it comes to storytelling, he's usually more solid than Avatar was. Everything was exceedingly straightforward, even by Cameron standards; things got picked up and dropped pretty willy nilly, and there was never a point where I didn't feel like I was three steps ahead of the story. And - again, even for Cameron - man were the antagonists one dimensional, especially Paul Reiser - I mean Giovanni Ribisi.

Also, I understand the MacGuffin is just a trick to justify the story, but one quick and poorly setup As You Know scene is not enough to get me on board with what these characters are doing. Maybe I just missed it, but all I remember is Ribisi talking about how incredibly expensive Unobtanium is without a mention as to what it actually does or why it's so valuable. Was there something that I just missed?

But that's the story. And the story of this movie isn't its story, obviously, it's the experience. This movie is about putting you on an alien planet for two and a half hours and at that it succeeds exceedingly well, probably the single greatest example ever put to film.

The quintessential problem behind any artist working in science fiction is imagining an alien world. Really, it's a task beyond the capability of our feeble imaginations, already so prone to anthropomorphizing to truly imagine anything that could qualify as “alien” – that is to say, something completely and utterly foreign to anything we have ever thought or experienced ever. This is especially so when nature repeatedly puts our best efforts to shame. How could we possibly conjure creatures weirder than what crawls across the earth and swims in the depths of our oceans? It might very well be the single greatest act of imagination a human being can undertake, and while Cameron doesn’t break the surly bonds of Earth, he (and all the other imaginations involved) probably comes closer than most anyone else, and that alone is worth putting Avatar in the annals of cinema history.

That being said, I was disappointed and distracted by how obviously African all the various tribal touches on the Na'vi were, from Zoe Saldana's ear spacers, to the stick through the nose guy, to the big multi-ringed collar thing, etc. etc. Maybe it was some kind of idea of intentional primitive culture parallelism but it seemed to me like they took National Geographic's greatest hits and called it a day, and that took me out of it now and then, especially in the beginning.

Re: Avatar

I really like that definition of exploitation film. I'm not sure if I'll adopt it, but I'd like to bring it up in a future episode and see how the other guys feel about it. At the very least, I like it for this conversation; if we're going to go with that definition, then Avatar definitely qualifies.

I saw the flick with several Down in Fronty people, so they all know my feelings on it. To summarize, clearly the accomplishment of the FX team - in terms of quantity and quality - is what's to be celebrated here. Walking out of the theater, I complained to Dorkman and the others that the movie 'amounts to a failure of filmmaking,' which I may revisit upon future viewings. Every sub-angle of my complaints can be traced back to a script that felt like student work or a second draft, and that felt clunky and awkward even for Cameron.

That's all for now. I'm killing time at the airport on my phone, and this has  taken ten minutes to write.

Teague Chrystie

I have a tendency to fix your typos.

Thumbs up Thumbs down

Re: Avatar

dexter wrote:

In this sense I was using the definition of “exploitation film” from the Stephen Heller work “Nightmare U.S.A.” which since I don’t have it near me at the time I can’t quote exactly but I can paraphrase as a film that sacrifices plot in place of some form of spectacle (he quotes I believe Friedman as saying Jurassic Park was one of the most expensive exploitation films ever made, which I am not sure how I feel about that).

I believe it is in this week's very episode (Gremlins) that I go into the interesting theory that mainstream Hollywood's primary output nowadays would have been called exploitation films thirty years ago.   ( if it's not Gremlins where I go into that, it's in the upcoming Ghostbusters II).   

When I was a kid, if you wanted to see aliens and monsters and car chases and things exploding, you had to go to the drive-in and watch a movie made by a studio you never heard of.    If you wanted to see emotional stories about characters, you went to a real movie theater and watched a movie made by a major studio.

Now, it's largely the opposite - the "majors" make movies from comic books and toys and old sci-fi tv shows, and the independent studios make character dramas.  Odd but true.

dexter wrote:

I have been on a big kick since I started listening to the podcast a few months back of going back, re-watching and really appreciating movies with practical effects, in no small part because of Trey’s expertise and input in the discussions (I loved watching the Thing and my new all-time favorite zombie movie is now Return of the Living Dead).

Well, garsh.  Just doing our job, y'know.    Glad you liked Return - Dan O'Bannon (who also wrote ALIEN, among other things) wrote and directed that one.  When O'Bannon died last week, Simon Pegg gave homage to O'Bannon on Twitter for making Return OTLD, since it was more or less the godfather of Shaun of the Dead.

Speaking of which - Shaun of the Dead, we should do that one.    We haven't gotten into zombies yet, and if Shaun doesn't belong on the Perfect Movie shelf, then nothing does.

Re: Avatar

Saw it again today, had the same problems with it. Uninvolving story, a bunch of characters whose opinions and outlook never change (it also occurs to me, the audience has the same thing going on - we're never given a reason to see two sides to anything, it's very unilateral) and a bunch of vague stakes resulting in more questions than answers.

It is what it is, I know. Just sorta sad. I see this the way you guys saw Wild Wild West.

Me with WWW, ya'll with Avatar: "Hey, this movie's effects are awesome, and....I like it! Yeah, I think this works!"

Me with Avatar, ya'll with WWW: "The effects are good, but you're not imagining how good this could be if it was just...better."

Things that stood out to me this time include the score, which seems to either be mocking the plight of the characters or over-indulging it at every - single - turn, and Michelle Rodriguez literally painting war paint on her chopper when she attacks the fleet, completely making a target of herself in what would otherwise be a wise, stealthy situation. Also, Sigourney's Na'vi avatar has a human nose, not a Na'vi nose. That's why she looks weird.

The last thing I noticed is that a lot of the problems in the movie resemble the sort of problems you get in another situation - where an expansive book has been adapted to a movie, and certain shortening changes had to be made to make everything fit. The sidekick scientist guy's whole "I resent you for being Mr. Lead Na'vi, aaaaaand now I don't anymore!" two-minute episode,  the backstory of Jake Sulley and his brother's actual qualifications, the state of Earth (and by extension, why unobtanium is important), the lack of compassion on the part of anyone but the specific Na'vi scientists and chopper lady.

There's also, wait for it, absolutely no externally redeeming quality to the Na'vi, as characters. They're total douchebags. They're in touch with nature, and the humans are apparently really, seriously evil, so that's how the movie plays out...but this goes back to what I was saying. Jake Sully is the only character with mostly-an-arc, and you could argue the pilot chick has kind of an arc as well (I wouldn't - she never seems like "one of them" in the movie, she's always compassionate), and the audience is in the same boat as the rest of the characters, with no multi-layered insight into the proceedings, a very confined sense from beginning to end of what's subjectively happening and how to feel.

In a stronger film, we'd decide to side with the Na'vi. (And that wouldn't be fucking hard to write, humans are literally destroying their home.) We'd witness someone on screen make some sort of a decision they weren't always going to make. We'd see why the humans decide to up and attack them, as opposed to keep trying peacefully - and sort of understand it.

We'd also see why the Na'vi are so important, aside from being innocent. We'd see a gentle one, or see one of them save the proverbial cat with a human. (Don't tell me Na'vi chick saving Jake's ass counts, she does it and then gives a completely unresolved explanation for why. "You have a strong heart?" So fucking what? Do weak-hearted things get to die? What do you even mean? You look fake sometimes, shut up.)

Anyway. Avatar. Be psyched for the Down in Front.

Teague Chrystie

I have a tendency to fix your typos.

Thumbs up Thumbs down

Re: Avatar

downinfront wrote:

It is what it is, I know. Just sorta sad. I see this the way you guys saw Wild Wild West.

Me with WWW, ya'll with Avatar: "Hey, this movie's effects are awesome, and....I like it! Yeah, I think this works!"

Me with Avatar, ya'll with WWW: "The effects are good, but you're not imagining how good this could be if it was just...better."

Now, obviously I wasn't there with the rest of the crew on opening night, so I don't know what those first conversations were, but I feel like this is exactly what everyone else has been saying: the effects/experience are amazing, the story is...not.

That's certainly how I felt, even immediately after the first viewing.

Re: Avatar

Here's the problem:

Teague wrote:

Avatar is a failure of filmmaking.

Replace "filmmaking" with "storytelling" and we're all on the same page, I think.

Re: Avatar

We are now, walking out of the theater Dorkman was all AOTC-jaded.

"It was good! It was good! Yoda fought and...and...it was good! Shut up!"

Bastards. I'm just ahead of the curve.

Teague Chrystie

I have a tendency to fix your typos.

Thumbs up Thumbs down

Re: Avatar

Uh, no. Your exact wording was that it was a "failure of filmmaking on every conceivable level," which is so stunningly indefensible I'm surprised I was able to form words in response. The only reason we're agreeing now is because you've altered your position to encompass only the storytelling.

I think it's perfectly solid filmmaking and, as I've said on several occasions including in this thread, the film I saw in theatres before AVATAR was 2012. You want inept storytelling? 2012 is the jackpot, and it's almost as long as AVATAR to boot.

AVATAR isn't inept, and I wouldn't even say it's a failure, it just isn't particularly clever or original. Which might not be so bad, really, except that when the production itself is so innovative, the lack of innovation on the page just leaps out even more by contrast.

Disappointment I could go with, but not failure.

By the way, in the VFXShow episode on AVATAR, David Stripinis was on and expressed his disappointment that a lot of the character stuff had been cut out to trim the runtime, which is just as I suspected. It's not the first time Cameron made the wrong cut for the theatrical version (see also: The Abyss). I really hope that we get an extended edition with all of that stuff back in, and that this assuages my complaints with the stiffness of the storytelling.

Thumbs up Thumbs down

Re: Avatar

Why do I have a feeling you two were talking right past each other again?

Though I do have to admit, the idea that James Cameron could tell a story that incompetently does uncomfortable things to the solidity of my worldview.

Re: Avatar

Uh, no. Your exact wording was that it was a "failure of filmmaking on every conceivable level."

I've never had a problem with the FX accomplishments in the film. Whatever I said when I was drunk at 3 a.m. notwithstanding, my first impression was that the story was an awful mess and most of the visuals were awesome.

Not to get into a semantics argument, but I wouldn't classify the statement you're quoting as one that includes visual effects. Filmmaking as an abstract is storytelling, in my mental dictionary. There's room for shades of gray, but any other definition starts replacing pieces of what filmmaking means with CGmaking.

I think it's perfectly solid filmmaking and, as I've said on several occasions including in this thread, the film I saw in theatres before AVATAR was 2012. You want inept storytelling? 2012 is the jackpot, and it's almost as long as AVATAR to boot.

We've been over this, but I had fun with 2012. I don't think it's an excellent movie, and I recall more than a few moments of bad science, but I was actually more involved with the plights of those characters than of the folk in Avatar. There could be a dozen reasons why, so I'll call that incidental, but I didn't have a problem with the story of one and did with the other.

It may well boil down to the hype. Neither was the movie it should have been, but 2012 didn't tell me it would be.

Teague Chrystie

I have a tendency to fix your typos.

Thumbs up Thumbs down

Re: Avatar

downinfront wrote:

I've never had a problem with the FX accomplishments in the film. Whatever I said when I was drunk at 3 a.m. notwithstanding, my first impression was that the story was an awful mess and most of the visuals were awesome.

Well, my response at 3 a.m. was to the comments you made at 3 a.m. You can't discount what you said while simultaneously making a thing of what I said. If you misspoke, then okay -- let's strike both your statement and my response from the record and start over.

downinfront wrote:

Not to get into a semantics argument, but I wouldn't classify the statement you're quoting as one that includes visual effects. Filmmaking as an abstract is storytelling, in my mental dictionary.

I suppose that I could see the validity of this notion in theory. After all, the choices in lighting, production design, shot choices, and indeed the use of CG, etc, are all (or at least should be) in the service of the story.

However, even granting you that "filmmaking" and "storytelling" are interchangeable terms, I still don't think that it's a "failure...on every conceivable level." The CG was good. The cinematography was good. The production design was good. I can "conceive" of a lot of other ways that it was a fine film, and therefore -- according to our new definition of "filmmaking = storytelling" -- a successfully told story in a number of ways. It just had superficial characterization and a cookie-cutter plot, and again, that's more a disappointment than an abject failure, IMO.

We've been over this, but I had fun with 2012. I don't think it's an excellent movie, and I recall more than a few moments of bad science, but I was actually more involved with the plights of those characters than of the folk in Avatar.

You're free to try to explain how 2012 was more coherent and/or less predictable than AVATAR, which as I've noticed seem to be your complaints. If you hadn't gone into 2012 with the mindset of "This is a ~3 hour ridefilm" -- or if you had gone into AVATAR with that mindset -- I wonder if you'd be rating them in the same fashion.

Me, I try to judge movies based on more-or-less the same criteria, and I can think of no set of criteria in which 2012 comes out ahead of AVATAR. For god's sake, they used a 360-degree shutter. Talk about failure on every level.

Thumbs up Thumbs down

Re: Avatar

However, even granting you that "filmmaking" and "storytelling" are interchangeable terms, I still don't think that it's a "failure...on every conceivable level." The CG was good. The cinematography was good. The production design was good. I can "conceive" of a lot of other ways that it was a fine film, and therefore -- according to our new definition of "filmmaking = storytelling" -- a successfully told story in a number of ways.

This appears to suggest you think CG, cinematography and production design a good story make.

I know you don't think that, I'm just saying. This paragraph is not helping.

Teague Chrystie

I have a tendency to fix your typos.

Thumbs up Thumbs down

Re: Avatar

And yet the paragraph you quote is me attempting to give some form of credence to your argument. So you disagree with my attempt to agree with you, if only rhetorically.

Look dude, you've gone and backed yourself into a corner here. On the one hand, you're apparently rejecting the notion that cinematography, visual effects, production design, etc, are part of the filmmaking process -- because remember, we're talking about the fact that you said "filmmaking," and are now attempting to say that means "storytelling" and isn't that so obvious you shouldn't even have to say so.

So if cinematography, CG, and production design aren't part of storytelling, then they can't be part of filmmaking, because those terms are interchangeable. Right?

But I think we both know that you're not making that argument because it's stupid and indefensible, and considering the different aspects of filmmaking you've worked in, you know better. Filmmaking is about the process of making the film, and there are many aspects to it. Writing is one aspect. It's an important aspect, and without much prodding I would be willing to say it's the most important aspect, but a film can be made with an awful story and be perfectly competent or even brilliant in its other aspects.

So since you can't possibly be arguing that "filmmaking" can be separated as a term from "the process of making the film," what we're really left with is that you can't support your claim that "filmmaking" is the same as "storytelling" entire. Even in your idiosyncratic mental dictionary, you have to know that there's a difference.

Furthermore, you said "on every conceivable level" and that is demonstrably false whether you meant the filmmaking process or simply storytelling -- AVATAR adheres perfectly to the Hero's Journey structure. If anything, the film's sin is that it's TOO perfectly structured, neglecting to build in any subversions of expectation for more seasoned film watchers. The film is capable of skipping merrily over long stretches of time without you ever losing track of the plot. Whether that's a "bug" or a "feature" depends on how much it matters to you that you connect emotionally with the events onscreen, but emotional connection is just one aspect of storytelling. Again, you could argue it's the most important, and I'd be hard pressed to find a reason to disagree, but it's not every aspect.

So it was 3 a.m. and you overstated your case. Okay. No one's going to fault you for that, and I can agree with pretty much all of the criticisms you came out with on your second viewing (though not the first, as the few you mentioned were superficial and clearly explained within the film).

It's just that to try to spin it as though you took the long view and the rest of us have come to know your wisdom is a little much.

Thumbs up Thumbs down

Re: Avatar

So I just got back from seeing it (FINALLY!) so everything that follows after could very easily be me in the whole OMGOMGOMG! MOVIE! Phase of things but I think it makes sense. So if you will listen I will try to explain what I'm thinking.

I really like how one of my friends described seeing Avatar, "This must be how people felt after seeing Star Wars!" Which I think works on a lot of levels she wasn't even tuned into.

We have a return to a very simple one sided, this is black and this white storyline. Which for me is like YEAH!! Whish as you guys yourself said when doing the prequels, we had the Sith and the Jedi, black and white. We get Luke is the good guy and we get Sideous/Vader are the bad guys, we don't question it, it's pretty frickin obvious and we don't go, "Hmm I wonder why they're like that?" they just are. Copy paste onto the humans (military side) versus the Na'vi/ good humans.

I frankly Looooooove this, it's a nice change to have a story where we don't spend the entire thing delving into why our bad guys are bad, and what scarring event as a child drove them to that. I don't care! Now I'm absolutely 100% you guys will critisice this as a poor storytelling choice. The easy way. Whatever, I don't care, I really dig the fact that Cameron gives it to us the way he wants us to see it. This isn't some scientific debate where all sides need to be heard equally and then a decision will be made. NO! This is Cameron showing us one point of view about the situation (and a very strong one at that), the humans are fucking over this planet and the innocent Natives are being slaughtered by the big bad humans with their guns.

Revolutionary visuals. Fairly self explanatory.

I know I'm rambling and this is turning into much more of a stream of conciousness than a coherent argument, but hopefully you kinda get what I'm going for.

Another thing I just sort of thought of. Not sure where I'm going with this but a weird little comparison. If you think about Han Solo and you think about Jake. They're kinda the same character. They both just sort of exist in this universe, when they get pulled into something larger (Jakes brother dies and he gets pulled into the Avatar program), they both sort of go along with it not really believing in the religious/magic stuff, until they are basically forced into the middle of it (Jake starts lessons with the Na'vi), And soon starts to beleive in the magic and side with the magic people (Han turns from smuggler to hero of the rebellion alongside Luke), and they both end up fighting the bad guys who at first they just sort of exsisted with (Han existing under the Empire, and Jake with the marines).

I have no clue what that says about the movie, but I thought it was kind of interesting.

You can blame this next bit on my inexperience or what have you,I'm not paticular, but it's what I think. Going back to the whole idea of this movie as a essay versus a balanced debate on an issue, the same concept could have easily been brought over into the character arcs. The only characters who have any amount of arcs are the good guys (Jake, Neytiri, most of Na'vi (In their acceptance of Jake even though he is tecnically one of the sky people), Grace (From basically loathing Jake to fighting alongside him), etc et. I'm not saying that they are amazing arcs, I'm just saying that they do have arcs. Whereas if you look at the bad guys, the closest thing we get to an arc is a slight look of hesitation on Parkers face before he tells them to pull the trigger and blowup the Home Tree. So my arguement would state that why would a story told entirely from the point of veiw of the good guys (And very deliberatly so) want to add any amount of depth to the bad guys, they're bad and evil just because they are. Think about it, Americans didn't ask why Nazis were evil during WW2, they just were and that was enough.

You guys said that Starship Troopers (and 300) were styled as a propaganda film for that universe. I say that Avatar would fall under the same category. (Same arguement goes for Starship Troopers, we never wonder why the bugs are tryingto kill us. They're just evil, it's what they do, and they need to die. )

Hope at least some of that made sense.


Chris out.

BTW My name is in the credits, that made me happy. lol.

ZangrethorDigital.ca

Re: Avatar

@DorkmanScott

I read your reply last night before I fell asleep, remembered having something to say, but now I'm exhausted of the conversation. I think we're all on the same page anyway.

Teague Chrystie

I have a tendency to fix your typos.

Thumbs up Thumbs down

Re: Avatar

So i just finished the GB2 commentary and wanted to add a few things.

You guys were talking about how there are only so many stories you can have and as long as it's entertaining, okay, I can go with this.

So keeping in mind everything I said above, yes the story has been told in other places and other times, but I frickin enjoyed it and was thoroughly entertained throughout the entire thing which is a very rare thing lately.

So take that for what you will.

ZangrethorDigital.ca

Re: Avatar

BrianFinifter wrote:

Crossposted to NP2K
Alright, finally got to see this last night in 3D IMAX with plenty of annoying talkers and even somebody taking flash pictures of the screen, thank you very much citizenry of Atlantic City.

As a citizen of Atlantic City I humbly apologize on behalf of my fellow residents.Though I'm sure they were probably from Philly and NY as is usually the case.Damn shoe-bees.

Thumbs up Thumbs down