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So, I've only seen Avatar once in theaters, and I immediately recognized the entire story as being Dances With Blue Wolves, so that didn't impress me. I didn't see it in 3D, which people tell me is the important part, but I actually saw it high as BALLS and was entirely "meh" about the visuals. So I kinda feel like even in 3D I'd be entirely underwhelmed by this thing- but I look forward to DIF corroborating that for me.
I'm looking forward to being able to see a nice Blu rip of Avatar. I loved it every time (four times) in theaters, but I dunno how it'll hold up at home.
I'm intensely psyched to hear what you guys have to say on this one. I have had...shall we say...heated discussions with a few people of the merit of this paticular film. And I know this is gonna be another one of those ones where I am literally screaming at my computer for 3 hours (Yes Star Trek, I'm lookin at you).
I may just have to push my DVD purchase ahead of schedule for this.
And yes I saw it 5 times in theaters. All in 3D. Sue me, why don't cha. Although in my defense I only had to pay for the extra 3 bucks for the 3D on them.
It's pretty much going to be a bitch-fest on Avatar, isn't it?
Not a lot of bitching, really, mostly just resignedly explaining our problems with it.
Oh come on. I can't possibly be the only one who genuinely liked the movie, can I?
Oh come on. I can't possibly be the only one who genuinely liked the movie, can I?
I did. I'm looking forward to a proper video release though; if any movie was made for a special features disc (or two) it would be this one, and hopefully we'll get a director commentary as well.
Did Cameron ever do a commentary for "Titanic?" I've got an old DVD I bought in the 90s sometime, and I think it's pretty bare-bones. I'm pretty sure it's not even an anamorphic transfer.
Getting back to the point, though … I really don't understand the strong negative reactions I've heard to "Avatar" over the past few months. I'm not saying this is typical or anything, and I'm not suggesting that you guys are gonna do this, but I've heard people get downright vitriolic about how awful that movie was. And these are people who knowingly and with intent sat through "Transformers 2."
I can totally understand being disappointed in a movie, if you were hoping for something other than what you saw. I can also understand just plain disliking a movie for reasons you can't adequately articulate. And speaking as somebody who really doesn't like "Batman Begins" at all for reasons that make perfect sense to me but that nobody else seems to share, I can especially understand holding what you think is a rational, sensible opinion that happens to be in the severe minority.
But I don't get the hate.
Maybe I'll come out the other side of next week's commentary at least understanding why you guys disliked it, even if I remain unpersuaded. Like Brian and "Star Trek" but without all the name-calling and throwing of crockery and subsequent court-mandated counseling.
Oh come on. I can't possibly be the only one who genuinely liked the movie, can I?
No, I liked it fine too. Not the greatest movie ever made, but hardly the worst. I saw it once, I felt I got my money's worth and haven't given it much thought since.
But *Spoiler alert* I wasn't present at the upcoming commentary, so I have no idea what the panel's take on it will be. This'll be a good excuse for me to see the movie a second time.
I don't see what there IS to like about this movie.
Nobody in the movie has an original character nor are any inspired performances turned in. We have the brooding soldier torn between his ethics and his orders. We have the proud native princess who doesn't know if she can trust the beautiful white boy she has her heart on. We have the spicy latina soldier who cracks wise and don' take no shit from nobody, mmm mm. We have the stern, manifest destiny touting Colonel trying to out Ermey Ermey.
Sigourney was the only performance in that movie that I enjoyed, and I can't even tell you what purpose she served to the plot in her 10 minutes of screen time. She smoked, then she died. I guess that's usually the sequence of events, but damn.
So if the characters are already stale by the time the movie starts, then what do we have left? The plot? It is LITERALLY Dances With Pocahontas In Fern Gully: Revolutions. The visuals? Well I actually saw Fern Gully as a kid and have seen Zangarmarsh in WoW, and between those two you've got Pandora. I didn't see it in 3D- but I did see Friday the 13th part 3 in 3D and it didn't enhance much for me.
What else might save it? Well, I suppose as long as there weren't any jarring wtf moments and the message itself didn't piss me off, I could give this movie a pass. Oh wait. Listen, when we said the native americans had a special connection with nature, WE DIDN'T MEAN THEIR HAIR WAS A FUCKING USB WAND. That doesn't make sense, and it's a level of preachy douchebaggery that I literally haven't seen before. Speaking of preachy, I'm really tired of white guilt movies. I haven't ever enslaved or conquered anyone, so I'm kinda past feeling bad about what my long dead genetic predecessors might have done. But what REALLY gets me is this: towards the end of the movie, they've set up that Pandora isn't going to save them and that it's up to them to fight off the invasion. Pandora, of course, being God for all intents and purposes. Then they start losing the fight and "God" sends aaalll the animals and shit to swing the fight in their favor.
So the message here is this: don't murder the indians and blow up their holy land to get to their oil, or else God will smite you. Oh, and trees and shit.
Fuck Avatar. Jim Cameron waited 15 years to make this, and then the public actually ate it up. I shudder at what he'll do next. And this is coming from a guy who puts Titanic in his top 3.
My response to Avatar: Meh. It wasn't great, but it was hardly a bad movie. Sure, it's unoriginal, so what? That doesn't immediately make it a bad movie. Sure, it's got amazing visuals, that doesn't immediately make it a good movie. However, when a movie gets a ridiculous amount of hype like this one did, it polarizes people, and people who normally would have seen the movie, moved on and forgotten about it, now have to become lovers or haters of it. Then you have people judging it on a double standard and start praising/damning it for reasons they wouldn't normally feel so strongly about.
I WANTED to like Avatar. There was nothing going into Avatar that indicated I wouldn't like it. I saw it with an open mind (in fact, I was high), and was fully prepared to be blown away by this movie.
Instead it just kinda blew.
Did Cameron ever do a commentary for "Titanic?"
Yeah, it's on the 3 disc edition, hard to find now, but worth the effort if you can. I say I hope we get a director commentary, because Cameron states early on in the Titanic commentary that he finds directors commenting on their own movies "suspect." Still, that was some time ago, and we did get one for Titanic and Aliens, so I'm sure we'll get one for Avatar.
Guys, keep your dicks in your pants. This is only the announcement thread.
I resent your implication that I own pants.
Oh come on. I can't possibly be the only one who genuinely liked the movie, can I?
No dude, I am right there with you. Although this is coming from someone who also enjoyed Clash of The Titans...and apparently a bad person for liking that one too.
I like the movie quite a bit. Plot holes, to be sure, but as far as world building and actually immersing you in it...I very much had a good time. Not a movie I'm going to rush out and see again and again, because doing so will diminish my enjoyment of it.
I guess I'm going to have to see this sober and listen to the commentary before I carve my opinion into stone, but even the idea of seeing it again is ugh.
Clash of the Titans... it takes a LOT to make me come down on a movie that involves gods and badass motherfuckers with swords fighting other gods and crazy demons and monsters. But man... very little about that movie did much for me. Liam Neeson's roles seem to have diminished in awesomeness evenly since Rob Roy, with the exception of Begins which was a slight step up from Qui-Gon. And I've always had a problem with any portrayal of Hades as a straight up maniacal evil dude. Guy was more emo than anything.
And I've always had a problem with any portrayal of Hades as a straight up maniacal evil dude. Guy was more emo than anything.
So wait a minute, you are legitimately going to try and tell me that being stabbed in the back by your brother, forced to live/work in the underworld for eternity and a day and live on nothing but the hatred and fear of humanity isn't enough motivation for Hades to go batshit evil?
And honestly I loooooved how they portrayed Zues, and all of the gods really (Even though the other ones didn't really get any screen time, but hey, this isn't their myth). I once heard someone complaining about how vibrant and healthy (AKA Young) the gods looked, I believe thier specific line was "Arn't they like a million years old?". Now you can blame that on me just having stupid friends or whatever. But I loved how everything was handled, it's what the Ancient myths and stories of epic tales deserve to have.
Haven't seen Clash yet. MIGHT catch it on cable, probably won't give up a Netflix queue spot to it. I suppose that's closed-minded of me, but (a) I saw one trailer for it that looked for all of me like a really bad cinematic adaptation of Diablo II, and (b) I heard literally not one good thing about it from anybody. Until now, obviously.
Plus the original fits snugly into the so-bad-it's-good category for me. Is the new one a straight remake, or is it similar in title only?
Well, sure. That would be enough to make a dude crazy, but as far as the myths go Hades neither existed under those specific circumstances nor was he ever any more "evil" than any of the other gods. If you want the "evil" god, Zeus is really a better candidate than Hades.
And really, I'd be able to let that pass if anything else really did it for me. The Medusa sequence lacked the suspense of the original, the Kraken had very little payoff and there was no tension in that sequence, and freaking Andromeda and Perseus have next to zero interaction. I genuinely think the original was a FANTASTIC film, and this was meh at best and cringeworthy at worst.
Original?
And alright I guess fair enough, if you want to go so far as comparing to the actual myths of ancient Greece, I will agree with you. But I think within the confines of this movie, Hades works. Although i would actually really like to see a completely faithful translation from original myths to this type of format, see the gods kicking some serious ass, and raping a shitload of women... you know that's actually one thing that surprised me about this Clash, for a Greek myth, there was a surprising lack of sex/rape, I guess they didn't want to completely turn the audience against the gods 
Is it just me, or is this thread turning dangerously into 'Off Topic' territory? Moderator, what's the guidelines for posting here? Do you mind if we use this as a general purpose Social Thread?
Not really, the only reason it exists is for the thread title itself being visible and changed. Socialize that shit.
Somehow it's just not the same when we have permission.
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