AVATAR - See it in 3D if you haven't! #1 Movie All-Time Domestic & Worldwide!

[Daradon]

I still have not seen The Hurt Locker, and am looking forward to it.

As for Avatar, it's one of those ''must see'' epics that has a huge place in history, but is not really a Best Picture.

As many have mentioned here, the story is predictable and cliched and a little too preachy. I don't disagree with that. I don't really have a trouble with the message, even if it is beaten over the head a little, because I still think they are important topics that kinda DO need to be beaten over some people's heads. Regardless, it is very obvious.

But it totally transports you to that time and place (or spot in the imagination). I really liked it because it made me feel like a kid again, full of wonder.

It is like a Star Wars or E.T. or other films like that. Very special in it's own right, for many reasons, but lacks the substance to be a Best Picture.

Normally I really need a movie to get me thinking, or to surprise me for me to like it. (Unless it's just a really great comedy) I don't go for special effects driven films, or summer blockbusters. But this movie was truly an event movie, and I really enjoyed it.

I was surprised Cameron didn't win the Best Director award though. I would think putting that movie together would have been very difficult. And from some of the comments I have read upon here about the Hurt Locker, the direction may have been lacking.

I still have not seen it (THL) yet, so I can't say though.

[T@T]

Originally Posted by CaptainCrunch

This was the best part of Avatar. But I don't think that T-Shirt is regulation

Biggest mistake Cameron made was not showing the real Neytiri!!

Zoe Saldana...aka Neytiri

[Hemi-Cuda]

you know what was another cheesy movie with an over-used storyline, hamfisted acting, but with jaw dropping special effects?

Star Wars

[3 Justin 3]

Originally Posted by Hemi-Cuda

you know what was another cheesy movie with an over-used storyline, hamfisted acting, but with jaw dropping special effects?

Star Wars

Except Star Wars was awesome and Avatar sucked. But ok.

[HOZ]

Originally Posted by Hack&Lube

I disagree. And this is the internet. What ever are we going to do????

Quoting this because....it needs quoting!

[HOZ]

Originally Posted by CaptainCrunch

You know after watching Avatar tonight (and yes it looks excellent) besides the average storyline, I get sick and tired of getting environmental and other messages crammed down my throat.

I guess that combined with James Cameron bleating about the Oilsands soured me a bit about this movie.

If you want to make an entertaining movie thats fine, but if your going to make a statement movie make a statement movie.

Also i did like the hurt locker a lot, but District 9 to me was definitely the movie and story of the year to me.

Personally I am confused what statement Cameron is making. First bazillion dollar movie was about how Icebergs are bad and how we should heat up the earth so main characters don't freeze. Next Gazillion dollar movie tells us we should embrace Gaia...and put our hair plugs into it.

WTF?

[blankall]

Originally Posted by Hemi-Cuda

you know what was another cheesy movie with an over-used storyline, hamfisted acting, but with jaw dropping special effects?

Star Wars

Over used story line in Star Wars? Really? They used basic elements that are part of every story, but the story was quite complex with many characters that showed development. There were also lots of twists in the story.... Luke is Leah's sister, Vader is Luke's father, etc etc. Not only that, the alien creatures and costumes they used were extremely original.

You could write Avatar by taking Pocahontas and changing the nouns and painting the natives blue.

[Hemi-Cuda]

Originally Posted by blankall

Over used story line in Star Wars? Really? They used basic elements that are part of every story, but the story was quite complex with many characters that showed development. There were also lots of twists in the story.... Luke is Leah's sister, Vader is Luke's father, etc etc. Not only that, the alien creatures and costumes they used were extremely original.

You could write Avatar by taking Pocahontas and changing the nouns and painting the natives blue.

i'm talking about only the first movie, of course the entire Star Wars original trilogy looks better than Avatar. and while the blue aliens might not have been that original, i'd say that the planet Pandora was done better than most any other world in sci-fi

[3 Justin 3]

Originally Posted by Hemi-Cuda

i'm talking about only the first movie, of course the entire Star Wars original trilogy looks better than Avatar. and while the blue aliens might not have been that original, i'd say that the planet Pandora was done better than most any other world in sci-fi

To be fair, Avatar was in production solely on Pandora for years and years, and they created their own tech just to create it. Thus it is a visual masterpiece, as a movie though it fails.

[CaptainCrunch]

I guess I'm too old school to appreciate certain things anymore. I guess I'm tired of all of the animation and computer work that goes into movies nowadays. I find myself being pulled out of the immersive feel that you need to have when your watching a movie. While Avatar was incredibly pretty, and Pandora was beatifully done, it just felt fake and unrealistic.

I'm tired of all of the wire fighting and unrealistic fights in movies. I miss the old movies where Clint Eastwood would punch a guy in the face and it would look real.

Star Wars to me was special because the effects had substane behind them. The ships looked like they were really floating through space. The opening scene which changed movie experiences forever was a model and a camera and it looked like it had weight and that you could almost reach out and touch it, The ships in Avatar just looked like ghosts to me.

The light saber fights in Empire and return of the jedi looked real and emotional, a lot of the emotion is sucked out of fights because they look like dance moves.

[Sainters7]

Originally Posted by CaptainCrunch

This was the best part of Avatar. But I don't think that T-Shirt is regulation

Really? She acts way too manly for me. She annoyed me in Avatar. Actually she annoys me in every movie she's in. I'm not on board with super aggressive, guyish girls. Fair enough though.

Just saw it last night on DVD for the first time(I saw it twice in theatres though), with a few people who had never seen it before. It makes me laugh how many people I know who flat out refused to see it, and when they finally do, they absolutely loved it.

[octothorp]

Originally Posted by Hemi-Cuda

i'm talking about only the first movie, of course the entire Star Wars original trilogy looks better than Avatar. and while the blue aliens might not have been that original, i'd say that the planet Pandora was done better than most any other world in sci-fi

Better done how? In the original star wars trilogy, you never even stopped to question whether Tatooine or Endor was realistic, because they never gave you any reason to doubt it. It didn't matter that the forests of Endor or deserts of Tatooine were essentially earth-like, because they were just the back-drop for the story; they were exactly what they needed to be.

[Hemi-Cuda]

Originally Posted by octothorp

Better done how? In the original star wars trilogy, you never even stopped to question whether Tatooine or Endor was realistic, because they never gave you any reason to doubt it. It didn't matter that the forests of Endor or deserts of Tatooine were essentially earth-like, because they were just the back-drop for the story; they were exactly what they needed to be.

well i'm still a huge Star Wars fan, but personally i'm tired of seeing the same Earth-like planets in so many TV shows and movies. that's what drew me to Avatar, the planet was something new entirely. Star Wars does a lot better in this regard in the books and video games, with Kashyyk (wookie planet) and a few other places. i'm also a huge fan of that Discovery Channel special Alien Planet, showing what life could be like in an environment totally different from Earth

that's why i'm looking forward to Cameron's next project, as he's said he wants to do more movies on the other planets around Pandora. my main point with the Star Wars comparison is that the two movies are major benchmarks in movie special effects, they don't rely so much on Oscar worthy acting or script writing as much as just bringing you into a new universe

[Yeah_Baby]

Originally Posted by Hemi-Cuda

well i'm still a huge Star Wars fan, but personally i'm tired of seeing the same Earth-like planets in so many TV shows and movies. that's what drew me to Avatar, the planet was something new entirely. Star Wars does a lot better in this regard in the books and video games, with Kashyyk (wookie planet) and a few other places. i'm also a huge fan of that Discovery Channel special Alien Planet, showing what life could be like in an environment totally different from Earth

that's why i'm looking forward to Cameron's next project, as he's said he wants to do more movies on the other planets around Pandora. my main point with the Star Wars comparison is that the two movies are major benchmarks in movie special effects, they don't rely so much on Oscar worthy acting or script writing as much as just bringing you into a new universe

After I saw Avatar the first time I told people that you take the density of the Cantina in A New Hope and make a whole world out of it.

[SebC]

Originally Posted by Hemi-Cuda

well i'm still a huge Star Wars fan, but personally i'm tired of seeing the same Earth-like planets in so many TV shows and movies. that's what drew me to Avatar, the planet was something new entirely. Star Wars does a lot better in this regard in the books and video games, with Kashyyk (wookie planet) and a few other places. i'm also a huge fan of that Discovery Channel special Alien Planet, showing what life could be like in an environment totally different from Earth

that's why i'm looking forward to Cameron's next project, as he's said he wants to do more movies on the other planets around Pandora. my main point with the Star Wars comparison is that the two movies are major benchmarks in movie special effects, they don't rely so much on Oscar worthy acting or script writing as much as just bringing you into a new universe

Actually, in a way I found Pandora to be rather un-believable. The mountains aren't subject to gravity, yet the Na'vi are incredibly humanoid.

Unless our form is really close to ideal for a sentient being, and therefore likely to recur without much variation?

[Hack&Lube]

Originally Posted by SebC

Actually, in a way I found Pandora to be rather un-believable. The mountains aren't subject to gravity, yet the Na'vi are incredibly humanoid.

Unless our form is really close to ideal for a sentient being, and therefore likely to recur without much variation?

The mountains are subject to gravity, you notice how the waterfalls flow down to the surface. The moutains are floating in sort of a planetary legrange point with a heavy dose of something messed up with the magnetic field due to the composition of the cores of those mountains.

The Na'vi were made to look humanoid for audiences to relate to them. That's simple and I can live with that. In fact all the flora and fauna all share recognizable traits of earth plants and animals. Realistically, perhaps instead of being carbon based, everything would be a wierd silicon based life form and we wouldn't have plants and trees, etc. but this is a movie made for entertainment obviously. People need a point of reference. The whole reason Cameron waited for so long was so that proper technology would develop to capture human faces and emotions and translate that to 3D forms That was the point of the whole movie and the crux of his original idea. This is for audiences to relate to them, their eyes, their movements, their acting, etc. Heck, in Transformers, Lorenzo DiBonaventure was the one that ruled that all the Transformers had to have mouths because he thought audiences could not relate to characters without mouths. Personally, I think he's a ###### and Cameron could have gone out further on a limb.

As for why everything is earth-like, you could also argue that it uses the common exo-biological reason for why most sci-fis have humanoid aliens with earth like plants and animals and that is because they were all seeded by a progenitor alien race at the beginning of their evolution. That fits in with the theme of the deeper, alien, planetary-wide intelligence that seems millions of years older and beyond the understanding of the primitive Na'vi who translate the understanding of the planet's nervous system and intelligence into a form of tribal religion. I believe Cameron said that the entire planet was supposed to be an organic planetary computer system.

[Daradon]

Originally Posted by CaptainCrunch

I guess I'm too old school to appreciate certain things anymore. I guess I'm tired of all of the animation and computer work that goes into movies nowadays. I find myself being pulled out of the immersive feel that you need to have when your watching a movie. While Avatar was incredibly pretty, and Pandora was beatifully done, it just felt fake and unrealistic.

I'm tired of all of the wire fighting and unrealistic fights in movies. I miss the old movies where Clint Eastwood would punch a guy in the face and it would look real.

Star Wars to me was special because the effects had substance behind them. The ships looked like they were really floating through space. The opening scene which changed movie experiences forever was a model and a camera and it looked like it had weight and that you could almost reach out and touch it, The ships in Avatar just looked like ghosts to me.

The light saber fights in Empire and return of the jedi looked real and emotional, a lot of the emotion is sucked out of fights because they look like dance moves.

It's funny you say this, because I know exactly how you feel, I just didn't get that feeling with this movie.

I did however get it for the new Star Wars trilogy. Special effects orgy with no substance. Course, there's a lot of reasons a lot of people didn't like those movies.

In comparison, the LOTR trilogy was very special effects driven too, but it seemed to be with soul and was used very well. As well they had real sets, and actors for the CG parts (like Gollum) and so it didn't look as fake as the new Yoda (IMO)

I'd take the puppet Yoda over the CG one any day.

But I do know what you are saying, I just didn't get that feeling with Avatar. I thought the effects were used with purpose in most parts.

I also get what you are saying about the fight scenes in most new movies, though I never really go to the movies for fights anyway (unless it's a good Kung Fu film or something). Like in the third (and second to a degree) Matrix film. It just started getting so over the top it was dumb.

[awildermode]

wow, between Hack&Lube, Nehkara, and Yeah_Baby...I am not sure which one of you is the nerdiest.

[flip]

Originally Posted by awildermode

wow, between Hack&Lube, Nehkara, and Yeah_Baby...I am not sure which one of you is the nerdiest.

Blaster is nerdier than all of them combined.

[afc wimbledon]

Originally Posted by Daradon

I still have not seen The Hurt Locker, and am looking forward to it.

As for Avatar, it's one of those ''must see'' epics that has a huge place in history, but is not really a Best Picture.


But it totally transports you to that time and place (or spot in the imagination). I really liked it because it made me feel like a kid again, full of wonder.

It is like a Star Wars or E.T. or other films like that. Very special in it's own right, for many reasons, but lacks the substance to be a Best Picture.

Normally I really need a movie to get me thinking, or to surprise me for me to like it. (Unless it's just a really great comedy) I don't go for special effects driven films, or summer blockbusters. But this movie was truly an event movie, and I really enjoyed it.

I was surprised Cameron didn't win the Best Director award though. I would think putting that movie together would have been very difficult. And from some of the comments I have read upon here about the Hurt Locker, the direction may have been lacking.

I still have not seen it (THL) yet, so I can't say though.

I was disapointed at Hurtlocker, it was meh! at best and didn't hold a candle to the HBO gulf war series Generation Kill.
I think Cameron should have got director just because he got the thing made, by all accounts if not for him a good chunk of the tech wouldn't have been developed. I think the acadamy was just trying to look intellectual.