Old school Universal horror for me. Visible cardboard taped to lamps to provide the desired lighting. “We are deep in the Amazon. Oh look, a telephone pole.” I love that B movie stuff.
Avatar (movie): Your thoughts…
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I hated Matrix the first time I saw it. My first viewing was a tremendously frustrating experience. I wanted to bloody well throttle Neo.
spoiler alert
As he flys off at the end I got up from my seat with a loud, “About effing time.” I still get a bit antsy with it but I enjoy all the action sequences.
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@Dylan:
@Dylan:
Well some real desperate people wanted to see it because of how blue women are not whereing all of there clothing! :lol: :lol:
Also watch how Transformers 3 will do without Megan Fox.
Transformers 3 will do fine without Megan Fox. It will be a loud dumb CGI fest aimed at then 15 year old boys. Eye candy with questionable acting ability like Ms. Fox is not really hard to replace. And given the low bar for ‘story’ and ‘script’ in that franchise they can milk giant robots beating each other up quite well without the present principals for some time to come.
I had fun with the first and thought the battle scenes and robot stuff were very well done in 2 but I won’t be in line in any way shape or form for parts to come. I like me some big dumb loud action movies but Transformers 2 was a bit too dumb.
Split the 200 million that will no doubt be spent on T3 four ways and give us shot at getting four District 9’s.
I was referring to grossing
So was I. :-)
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I hated Matrix the first time I saw it. My first viewing was a tremendously frustrating experience. I wanted to bloody well throttle Neo.
I wouldn’t say I effing hated it… not nearly. But I found that it left much to be desired. Plus, the ending was beyond cheesy/cliche for a movie of this purported caliber, so that kinda sealed the deal for my thumbs horizontal take on it. I have no complaints about the scenes when the characters are outside the Matrix; I thought those were great. Especially when Neo is released from it and you see what happens to him. That was kinda spooky.
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@Dylan:
I never got into ET. Actually I really don’t like it. It used to scare me as a kid.
Stephen King’s IT scared me as a child.
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@Dylan:
ET was a big hit in 82, it did better then Star Wars.
I loved Jurassic Park… I still think it is a great work. Definitely a better film than Avatar.
I never got into ET. Actually I really don’t like it. It used to scare me as a kid. It has been so long since I watched it that I’d have to see it again to tell whether ET lives up to its hype… or status, rather.
I just saw The Matrix for the first time last week… I thought it was a good film, but not an excellent one like so many people seem to think. I am sure if I had seen it in 1998 when it came out I wouldv’e thought it was the coolest thing ever… but I didn’t. I really go for the sci-fi/action/intellectual thriller type stuff, but I just found Matrix to be lacking.
Jaws in 75?
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It was the most pathetic story and the lack of plot was replaced with special effects to make up for everything else that sucked.
3-D is the total downfall of movies and now has replaced a proper story with junk that fly’s in your face.
It’s a gimmick to sell toys and taco bell marketing tie ins to promote diabetes in children.
This goes for the comic book movies and that "Arnold Jackson and the Olympians: The Lightning Thief " riff raff, or Narnia lion thing whatever.
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didn’t like it. felt like i was watching Thundercats. very distracting
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@Imperious:
It was the most pathetic story and the lack of plot was replaced with special effects to make up for everything else that sucked.
3-D is the total downfall of movies and now has replaced a proper story with junk that fly’s in your face.
It’s a gimmick to sell toys and taco bell marketing tie ins to promote diabetes in children.
Haha… I like this analysis. :-D
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@Dylan:
Jaws in 75?
What about Jaws? Are we just comparing other films to Avatar now? I guess that is fine.
Yeah I think Jaws was/is a very good film. Interesting concept. Better than Avatar. It was way better as a kid, because it is a lot scarier… but I think it is a pretty good film.
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@Imperious:
3-D is the total downfall of movies and now has replaced a proper story with junk that fly’s in your face.
I think proper story in movies was replaced a long time ago. It is just that the current replacement du jour is 3D. Movie studios don’t tell stories anymore. They sell a product.
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@Imperious:
3-D is the total downfall of movies and now has replaced a proper story with junk that fly’s in your face.
I think proper story in movies was replaced a long time ago. It is just that the current replacement du jour is 3D. Movie studios don’t tell stories anymore. They sell a product.
Rarely is the product of quality… in my opinion.
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Many movies have been made that don’t resort to Taco Bell toy Gimmicks.
“The Pianist” comes to mind…
“There will be blood” is another.
It does figure that the same people who like Ironman also liked Avatar. They both like this level of “quality”
They should love the movie called “Piranha in 3D” too.
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I could give a short list of a few quality films that are pretty recent. Intelligent and mature script, good plot, quality props, good acting and more meaning than a surface action film. Whether some fall into the Taco Bell/Burger King toy category… I don’t think so, but some might disagree.
1. The Lord of the Rings (all 3)
2. both Batman Begins and The Dark Knight (two of the few mature and well done superhero films)
3. Inception
4. The Bourne movies (all 3)
5. Master and Commander: The Far Side of the WorldI thought that The Pirates of the Caribbean films were well done also… minus the acting of Knightly and Bloom.
These are by no means all of them… I don’t branch out all that much into other genres… but these are what I could rattle off immediately. -
“The Pianist” was a terrific film. I get to see some great stuff working in an art-house cinema on weekends.
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@ABWorsham:
I think Jurassic Park, for it’s time, was a greater achievement than Avatar. Jurassic Park is one of my top five theater movies of all time.
Jurassic Park is awesome. great movie, unique and terrifing adventure with real characters, fast action and funny dailogue. It also has Samuel L. Jackson.
I am still waiting to hear what was good about Avatar.
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@ABWorsham:
I think Jurassic Park, for it’s time, was a greater achievement than Avatar. Jurassic Park is one of my top five theater movies of all time.
Jurassic Park is awesome. great movie, unique and terrifing adventure with real characters, fast action and funny dailogue. It also has Samuel L. Jackson.
I am still waiting to hear what was good about Avatar.
You make the point I was trying to make earlier about being able to step back from your own feelings about the movie. Are you unable to identify what is good and bad for yourself?
Besides I did say why I liked it.
I enjoyed it. It is a fairly standard story but I rather like that particular story and it was told very well. I like stories where the ‘good guys’ win. I found myself very immersed and never questioned whether the Na’vii were ‘real’ and I was rooting for them out loud by the end. Cameron certainly understands the grammar of cinema.
It is a wonderful technical achievement even only seeing it 2D but I’d hardly say revolutionary. Although my GF said, “This must have been what it was like seeing Star Wars in 1977.”
It is a solid film by any objective cinematic standard.
But I’ll tack on…
All of the action scenes were terrific. They were well shot and well editied and that this was largely done ‘green screen’ is even more impressive. The scenes where Jake chooses and ‘breaks’ one of the dragons and then flys were invigorating and vertigo inducing. The times when Na’Vi and Humans were in the same shot were seamless.
Themes of where honor is to be found and navigating Faustian bargains while fairly standard are presented and handled well. It is easy to sympathize with Jake’s predicament seeking a reconciliation between the sides and trying to decide if his own goals are worth the price. Sam Worthington did a fine job in his role as Jake being confronted with this Faustian/soldier dilemma.
Sigourney Weaver was terrific as somebody trying to simply understand how Pandora worked which for sci-fi movie lingo they gave you enough that you didn’t feel it was McGuffin and not so much that the scriptwriters were just trying to make themselves sound smart. They kept it all internally consistent.
The film maker took a stand. “It is wrong to kill people and destroy their home simply because you want their stuff and think your need is more important than theirs.” He had something to say and said it without apology.
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I did not like the film for its whole pantheistic, worship the trees theme as well as the language and gore, not the “we kicked the Native Americans out” moral. The lack of clothing on the blue people also had something to do with it.
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I thought the movie was too plain… too surface oriented. It was a visual spectacle, but there was no depth. This was due almost entirely to the storyline: it was very unoriginal and cliche. There was nothing new about the plot… it has been portrayed countless times in cinema and literature. It was predicatble. I felt like it was a mash up of Ferngully and Pocahontis. (I really love Ferngully by the way… and it is nearly as agenda oriented as Avatar.)
I really go for epic movies; movies with storylines and character angst that goes beyond action and simple resolution… movies that typically involve sequels/trilogies, but not necessarily. This movie was epic in its scope of plot: two sides opposing each other, one for good, one for evil. However that is where its epic quality ends, in its name. The substance to fill out the bill was never realized. The characters, as I said, were one dimensional; their motives and purpose were clear from the beginning of the movie. The only characters who grew through stuggle were Jake and Sigourney Weaver’s character… but even that struggle was inevitable in its course, a foregone conclusion.
I like stories where the good guys win also, but they must win at a price. The movie should be bitterssweet, to convey a sense of reality and consequence. (Though I suppose that could only be a preference… some people really enjoy “cotton candy” movies.) The struggle must also be realistic. While the Na’vii lost some major things in the movie… I didn’t feel it. I didn’t feel as though I could cheer for them because it was too obvious that I was supposed to. The political taint didn’t help, but … politics aside… the movie was flat. Special effects and good action won’t make up for that. Very few movies come near to being perfect in all categories of quality… I won’t say all the ones I previously listed were at the same level, but Avatar simply isn’t in the same league.
As Frimmel said, many of the movie’s aspects are standard: the story, the characters, the morals, the conflicts… (standard meaning average, typical, or possibly, for our purposes here, overused and recycled).
Then we have to ask… Why does such a standard movie garner excellent reviews and over a billion dollars in world sales? Is it because the populace has been so diluted by poor films, chock full of action, CGI and sex (not the case in Avatar), that standard themes are given more credit than something more original?I don’t mind the filmmaker taking a stand… but the things Cameron wants to say become more clear than the story of the movie. Which is why I found it distracting. And rather condescending in its plain and “indisputable” presentation. He could at least take a stand a little more intelligently, more subtly. Unless, of course, he wanted blatant preaching… in that case,he did just fine.
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I enjoyed it. It is a fairly standard story but I rather like that particular story and it was told very well. I like stories where the ‘good guys’ win. I found myself very immersed and never questioned whether the Na’vii were ‘real’ and I was rooting for them out loud by the end. Cameron certainly understands the grammar of cinema.
It is a wonderful technical achievement even only seeing it 2D but I’d hardly say revolutionary. Although my GF said, “This must have been what it was like seeing Star Wars in 1977.”
It is a solid film by any objective cinematic standard.
But I’ll tack on…
All of the action scenes were terrific. They were well shot and well editied and that this was largely done ‘green screen’ is even more impressive. The scenes where Jake chooses and ‘breaks’ one of the dragons and then flys were invigorating and vertigo inducing. The times when Na’Vi and Humans were in the same shot were seamless.
Themes of where honor is to be found and navigating Faustian bargains while fairly standard are presented and handled well. It is easy to sympathize with Jake’s predicament seeking a reconciliation between the sides and trying to decide if his own goals are worth the price. Sam Worthington did a fine job in his role as Jake being confronted with this Faustian/soldier dilemma.
Sigourney Weaver was terrific as somebody trying to simply understand how Pandora worked which for sci-fi movie lingo they gave you enough that you didn’t feel it was McGuffin and not so much that the scriptwriters were just trying to make themselves sound smart. They kept it all internally consistent.
The film maker took a stand. “It is wrong to kill people and destroy their home simply because you want their stuff and think your need is more important than theirs.” He had something to say and said it without apology.
Sorry I missed your answer.
I had almost the opposite reaction. I didnt care at all for a bunch of religous freaks who were killing human soldiers because the humans wanted to develop their land. I see absolutly no reason to sympathize with any of the whatever you call them. They wern’t real people as much as they were pretty CGI creations who through their height, blue skin and big eyes were tailored to make the audience feel sympathetic based on looks and not who they accaully were. If you swithced out the blue people for the Aliens from James Cameron’s other films(now Aliens is a good movie), nobody would feel any sympathy for those monsters no matter how many of their big trees were burned.
I didnt like the main character either. When he was human he is loyal to them, now that he is blue, tall and has big eyes he is loyal to the Navs. Ok.
And the stand that the movie takes, “its wrong to kill and destory people and their stuff”, in my experience thats a very common popular culture idea.
Also what was Faustian about it? What do you mean by the soldeirs dilemma?
I thought the good guys lost.
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I didn’t care at all for a bunch of religious freaks who were killing human soldiers because the humans wanted to develop their land. I see absolutely no reason to sympathize with any of the whatever you call them.
I was pulling for the soldiers and had zero sympathy for the “blue” people too. It would have been awesome if the final scene was the soldiers marching under the burned out tree in parade formation playing Yankee Doodle Dandy type songs:
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