Posted on 01/11/2010 6:45:05 AM PST by rellimpank
Visiting with family over the Christmas holiday, my brother talked me into going to see “Avatar,” the part-animated, part-live action and wholly computer-generated sci-fi movie.
Normally, I don’t like to go to see movies, but this was in 3-D at an IMAX theater. Well, I just had to check that out.
It was an incredible visual experience, once you got past the idea that the movie looked like a Yes album cover — complete with floating mountains.
In fact, a lot of the movie is familiar.
The story borrows heavily from “Dances With Wolves,” most of which was filmed northeast of Rapid City. Let’s just say that “Avatar” is not “Dances With Wolves in Space.”
Sure, a war-wounded soldier travels to an isolated outpost, contacts the local tribe, which assigns an initially reluctant female translator, with whom he falls in love while learning about their culture, is given a name in their language (something that, roughly translated, means moron), and he is accepted into their tribe shortly before he belatedly warns them that they are about to be wiped out by his technologically-superior kind.
(Excerpt) Read more at rapidcityjournal.com ...
Never got to see YES with Patrick Moraz. Nice to know someone else from that era is a FReeper.
I agree that Avatar was great visually and cliche’d, leftest, and boring storywise. But, what about the larger issue? Sigourney Weaver looked and acted like she hated to be doing her part. My bet is that Cameron is an arrogant SOB and this stiffled Sigourney’s creativity and sucked the life out of her emotionally. I would give anything to talk with her off the record about this project.
Whenever I see Cameron in an interview he’s always speaking as if he just cured cancer. Ughhh!!
Implies DWW was ground-breaking in this regard. In actual fact, it was kind of a cliche by the time the movie came out.
It did not rise above stereotypes, it merely transferred them to the Army and to a different tribe. I hated it.
I've seen all good people turn their heads this waaayyyzzzzz..............zzzzz.....snort...ssss.......
Good choice. Take away the effects and it’s a bad, bad movie. Wait for the 3D stuff in a movie worth watching.
Just an aside for those on the thread: the Jake Sully character is former military - the paramilitary force of humans that is seen in Avatar is essentially a mercenary force, NOT the US military.
Was it ever in doubt which side he would take? I, quite frankly, got angry at the fact that it took him more than 20 seconds to pick a side.
Stupid, stupid, stupid.
Oops, sorry missed yours somehow. LOL
That .gif is hilarious.
It’s a CARTOON people. I lost interest in those when I grew to be an adult. Give me Heckle and Jeckel if I must watch one. I would never watch a cartoon in a movie theater, heck I would never pay money to see a movie in a movie theater any more. I’ve got a house, garden, friends, large areas of salt water to to experience, and a full life, I have no need to pay to go to a movie theater.
Observation # 1:
The blue Avatar girl was nowhere near as hot as the green Orion girl in the latest Star Trek movie or the two in the original series. And besides she was a freaken cartoon.
Observation # 2:
Its been done. I've seen Return of a Man Called Horse, Dances With Wolves, Soldier Blue, Little Big Man, and countless other movies showing the Natives as perfect people in harmony with all Heaven and Earth until the evil white man shows up. This one is more of the same except its on another planet.
Remember that Disney movie – Atlantis?
Well the Colonel Miles Quaritch character reminded me of the Commander Rourke character big time; in fact he was a dead-on ringer.
For me it goes like this – take one caldron, through in Dances with Wolves, mix with Atlantis and Fern Gully then add a teaspoon of Smurfs for color and you have Avatar.
One thing no one talks about is that it was only produced at 24 frames per second. Normal movies are usually at 28 - 32 fps.
While it doesn’t sound significant, during the action seens or when the camera was panning fast, it definitely becomes blurry.
Very disappointing for me, as I thought it was a really beautiful movie. Story was predictable, but solid. Might need to take the wife to see it in IMAX just to get the full effect.
But why FOX decided that saving several million dollars by reducing the frame rate instead of putting their best product forward is beyond me...
The only reason why this isn’t just like “Dances With Wolves” in space is because it stars giant smurfs.
Saw Holmes ... pretty darn good, actually.
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