James Cameron's Avatar... is Bad?

[North Suran]

Simply put, the story was generic, predictable, and there was not ONE plot twist in the entire movie.

. . .

There wasn't a single plot twist, and even the element of betrayal in the film was known from the start.

So we've gone from "This film sucks; its not original enough!" to "This film sucks; there areb't enough plot twists!".

I would have liked to see this sort of thing turn out quaisi-Angels and Demons with twists and surprises, a much darker, insidious world, and a better presentation.

I love it how you referenced Angels and Demons, since Dan Brown is the logical conclusion of your "Moar plot twists!" argument.
Angels and Demons - as with every single one of Brown's novels - uses plot twists in lieu of, well, plot.

50%. They got effects and filming right... now where's the best part; story?!

Story =/= Plot Twists.

[Orcoa]

Best film of the year hands down. Thats all I got to say

[Imitora]

2. It's written and directed by James Cameron. Which means, if Titanic is anything to go by, this movie'll
a. Be at least an hour too long;
b. Be self-indulgent twaddle;
c. Be over-wrought and sodden with simplistic & simple-minded moralising;
d. Have a piss-poor plot so full of holes you could sail the Titanic through;
e. Be stuffed full of 2-dimensional characters (more caricarture than character) emoting and chewing the scenery;
f. Have dialogue so painful, so cheesy and so banal one wonders if it's not in fact a parody on bad movie-making;
g. Have 2 hours of mind-numbing dullness building up towards the climax of an hour or so of total action. The knowledge of impending cool special effects and big explosions is to ensure the male theatre goer remains in the theatre while the drippy love story being played out in the first 2 hours is there to entertain the female theatre goer. I notice the trailers focus almost solely on, what I'm assuming, will be the final battle scenes. Which makes one wonder what happens to get us to that point and why is it not worth promoting.

This. Pretty much exactly this. So much so I quoted it on my blog.

I want my ten bucks and three hours of my life back. This was one of the first movies where I remembered every single preview, and not a single bit of the movie. It didn't taken Cameron ten years to make this movie, it took him ten years to recycle about ten other movies.

I'm far more excited about Gladiator Part II: Gladiator in the Woods.

[Kiah-Lani-Lew]

Best film of the year hands down. Thats all I got to say

the best film in a long time

[EvilDarkMagicians]

If I may present a moment of fridge logic regarding the plot of the movie:

The magnetic field that kept the Hallelujah Mountains afloat was tied to the sacred tree. The fleet was going to move in to bomb the sacred tree. Did none of them consider what would happen to the f***ing mountain range above them once the tree stops holding them up?

They didn't know that though. They thought the whole 'connection' thing was all mumbo jumbo, when in fact it could be proved scientifically.

... if they only took time to look.

I have to admit. I shed a small tear when their tree house burned down.

[Playing In The Water]

'CGI fuckfests' have been up to this point, almost exclusively, pieces of garbage like Day After Tomorrow or 2012. Just big things blowing up, explosions, big noticeable landmarks/pieces of Earth going kablooey.

That is not what Avatar is.

Oh noes, it's about explosions, big noticeable landmarks/pieces of fictional planet going kablooey.

No, it isn't. It's NOT about explosions and all that, that's the point. It's about the people involved, and that's the truth.

Avatar uses 3D technology and special effects to bring emotion to life, which is a complete roundabout from what virtually EVERYONE ELSE has been doing up until this point. So yes, there's originality in that, at least.

Shrek. Toy Story. Small Soldiers. (Just to name some). Tech to show emotions, already done, so no originality.

All of those named, actually, were made to look intentionally fake. Avatar was designed to be realistic, or at least believably so. Additionally, Avatar blows every single one of those out of the water in regards to just how well it was done.

What's so original about the stupid comic book movies that are being churned out year after year? Are THOSE new ideas? No, they're just re-hashing on what used to be popular and - lo and behold - using specials effects to make the fighting/killing/blowing up better. I honestly hadn't gone to a theatre to see a movie in a year or two, the films just so didn't interest me. At least Avatar is going with a new take on the way movies can be made, and a somewhat original plotline; you've gotta remember, this story was written, like, fourteen years ago. That's like four or five years after 'Dances With Wolves', which is its contemporary in a lot of ways.

1.Dances with Wolves wasn't that original, young fellow. http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/A_Man_Called_Horse . http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Little_Big_Man
2.Did I claim that the comic book movies are original? Uhhh... *rereads own post* no, I didn't.
3.You want originality, there have been plenty of original movies in the last two years.
I can point you to a couple of those:
Il vento fa il suo giro (see the trailer at http://www.ilventofailsuogiro.com/)
Persepolis.

'Fellow'?
Anyway...

1. A Man Called Horse was slightly different from Dances With Wolves, in that the man was taken prisoner and didn't really have any choice but to adapt or die, mostly. If I recall it correctly, anyway; I haven't read it in a long while now, and I never bothered to see the movie, admittedly.
2. So you can snip at a movie that comes up with its own planet, flora, fauna, culture, and an entirely new language, and then write it off as the same as all the rest of the 'unoriginals' out there?
3. I don't much care if a movie is super-original or not; if it doesn't interest me, then I really won't give much attention to just how marvellously unique it is. Like Suran pointed out, it doesn't count for much if it's horribly unique and doesn't have much to it. Besides, I like the kind of movie that Avatar is; I don't need a Dan Brown plot with 'twists' to enjoy a film.

(As a side note, Dan Brown doesn't know how to do 'twists'; Angels& Demons and Da Vinci Code are exactly the same thing, when it comes right down to it. And both are bleh. )

[Dimoniquid]

If I may present a moment of fridge logic regarding the plot of the movie:

The magnetic field that kept the Hallelujah Mountains afloat was tied to the sacred tree. The fleet was going to move in to bomb the sacred tree. Did none of them consider what would happen to the f***ing mountain range above them once the tree stops holding them up?

They didn't know that though. They thought the whole 'connection' thing was all mumbo jumbo, when in fact it could be proved scientifically.

... if they only took time to look.

I have to admit. I shed a small tear when their tree house burned down.

Oh God! The tree house! And they worked really hard on it!

[Grandydia]

And, during the scene where the tree of whatever was burning, I half-expected Tsu'Tey (and I had to look the name up; I remembered ONE name the ENTIRE movie: Jake) to stab the chieftain to death to gain power but, no, he runs away like everyone else.

Isn't he doing something you didn't expect a plot twist in it's own?

[Playing In The Water]

I have to admit. I shed a small tear when their tree house burned down.

Just one? You can handle your emotions better than me then, for sure...

[Dimoniquid]

I have to admit. I shed a small tear when their tree house burned down.

Just one? You can handle your emotions better than me then, for sure...

That's why you're called 'Playing in the Water'.

[EvilDarkMagicians]

I have to admit. I shed a torrent of tears when their tree house burned down.

Just one? You can handle your emotions better than me then, for sure...

Ok, you got me. Fixed my statement for truthfulness.

[Playing In The Water]

I have to admit. I shed a small tear when their tree house burned down.

Just one? You can handle your emotions better than me then, for sure...

That's why you're called 'Playing in the Water'.

lol, yeeeah...

I have to admit. I shed a torrent of tears when their tree house burned down.

Just one? You can handle your emotions better than me then, for sure...

Ok, you got me. Fixed my statement for truthfulness.

Hahaha!

Awww, s'okay, we'll just go plant them a new tree. It'll be all better!

[Winland Islands]

The story is not the best but the visuals are the best that I have seen. Leave it to James Cameron to make "space smurfs/hontas/nam" epic.2012 and Transformers take heed.

[New Mitanni]

I've heard the story is about as original as sliced bread, but it looks nice. I might see it, if its still about in the New Year. Won't have a chance till then.

What bothers me is that the look of the film is also as unoriginal, despite all the praise for 'breathtaking visuals'.

Maybe it's because I'm over 40, but the first thought that went through my head was "Roger Dean must have been a design consultant on this"; for those of you too young to know who Roger Dean is, he was the artist for a lot of 1970s prog rock album covers, particularly for Yes.

Do any of the following look vaguely familiar?

As far as I'm aware, however, Roger Dean has no credited role in the design of Avatar.

Perhaps James Cameron spent a lot of time in his younger days listening to Tales from Topographic Oceans while stoned.

By God you're right! Even the trailers remind me of Yes albums!

I think I'll save the inflated ticket price on this one. Going to watch an otherwise unoriginal, and irritatingly anti-American/Western/capitalist film for the special effects is like reading a lousy novel for the dirty parts.

Now what would have been original, and not worked to death, and actually daring in hate-America Hollywood, would have been to make the corporation both dedicated to freedom and free enterprise and sympathetic to the aliens, perhaps even helping the aliens against a common enemy. But I know that kind of originality is far too much to ask from Hollyweed lefties.

[Playing In The Water]

I think I'll save the inflated ticket price on this one. Going to watch an otherwise unoriginal, and irritatingly anti-American/Western/capitalist film for the special effects is like reading a lousy novel for the dirty parts.

Now what would have been original, and not worked to death, and actually daring in hate-America Hollywood, would have been to make the corporation both dedicated to freedom and free enterprise and sympathetic to the aliens, perhaps even helping the aliens against a common enemy. But I know that kind of originality is far too much to ask from Hollyweed lefties.

But...if the corporation teamed up with the Na'vi, then wouldn't there be other complaints? Like how shallow and flat, how 'obviously-enemy' the common enemy side would be? Or how cheesy it was that the human-like aliens and the humans teamed up?

I think it'd just shift the complaints elsewhere, personally.

[New Mitanni]

I think I'll save the inflated ticket price on this one. Going to watch an otherwise unoriginal, and irritatingly anti-American/Western/capitalist film for the special effects is like reading a lousy novel for the dirty parts.

Now what would have been original, and not worked to death, and actually daring in hate-America Hollywood, would have been to make the corporation both dedicated to freedom and free enterprise and sympathetic to the aliens, perhaps even helping the aliens against a common enemy. But I know that kind of originality is far too much to ask from Hollyweed lefties.

But...if the corporation teamed up with the Na'vi, then wouldn't there be other complaints? Like how shallow and flat, how 'obviously-enemy' the common enemy side would be? Or how cheesy it was that the human-like aliens and the humans teamed up?

I think it'd just shift the complaints elsewhere, personally.

Yeah, probably. But they would have been someone else's complaints, not mine, and I'd be going to see it

[EvilDarkMagicians]

I saw it for the second time.
I still love it.

[Playing In The Water]

I saw it for the second time.
I still love it.

Trust me; it gets even better the third time, too.

*plots a fourth...*

[Zombie PotatoHeads]

cool little planet with the blue people.

So they're the smurfs on steroids?

Smurfs on steroids living on asteroids...

suffering from haemorrhoids...

[Gopferdammi]

cool little planet with the blue people.

So they're the smurfs on steroids?

Smurfs on steroids living on asteroids...

suffering from haemorrhoids...

living in the funky disco-jungle...

[United Dependencies]

Whether or not the plot was anticapitalist/anti america is irrelevant to me. The thing I disliked was the plot which I predicted 100% the moment I first saw the trailers. Now I will admit that I am not for crazy plot twist or something totally irrelevant but when I can tell you exactly what is going to happen next and I am right I think that is where I will have to draw the line.

Other than that the effects where stunning and I do believe helped to make up for some of the lack of plot/character depth.

overall 2.5 out of 5

[Zombie PotatoHeads]

I was just going to make a thread asking people if it's worth seeing. I've not seen it. I was considering going but two things are making me baulk:
1. The ticket prices are ridiculously high here. It's almost double the normal price because it's 3-D and 3+ hours long. What with travelling, and the usual vittals necessary for movie-going, I'll be spending close to the equivalent of $35US. For a movie. For me to consider parting with that much dosh, it needs to be an extremely great movie.

-snip blah blah-

So basically, your basing your entire criticism of James Cameron on one film of his?

no I'm just using his biggest movie to date as a reference point for how this one will turn out. There's a difference.

Well, it won't be shown in Italy till Jan 15th, so I must judge from the trailer right now...
Basically, seems just like a CGI fuckfest, and nothing more. As for originality, there's no originality AT ALL in "conquistador changes his mind and sides with aboriginals".
Long gone are the times when Cameron was an innovative director.

Once again:

IT'S A BLOODY BLOCKBUSTER.

What were you expecting - Citizen Kane?

Complaining about the plot of a blockbuster sci-fi actioner being too shallow is akin to complaining that 2012 focused on CGI at the expense of character development; totally fucking redundant.

So when does a movie being a 'blockbuster' allow a filmmaker to ignore plot, story, character development, originality, etc?
Some of us like to not only be entertained with big explosions and cool special FX, but also appreciate an actual story to back them up. Rate we're going, next years' 'blockbusters' are going to be nowt else but random cool computer CGI. They won't even bother with any plot or storyline.

[Catholic Cornwall]

Best battle scene I have ever seen

[Buffett and Colbert]

A waste of fourteen years. I've accomplished much more in that amount of time.

[Peterbolton]

I saw it
The visuals were awesome, but the plot was the most cliché of anything in the world, I expected every twist and turn coming, it was almost like a 12 year old wrote it.
In other words, if your looking for eye candy and nothing more, see it! But if you're looking for a film that challenges you and makes you think, don't!