“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.

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.

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.

Here's the problem:

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

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.

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.

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.

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.

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.

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.