Avatar (2009)

[Moonbat]

There was alot of Pandora left to explore, and many other 'tribes' of the Na'vi to look into.

 

[Thadlerian]

I'm one of those old fashioned types who normally prefers intelligent content over pure show when it comes to film.

Oh, there's enough nuance and ideas in Avatar. You just have to look out for it. To put it another way: Many people have beforehand decided it's a stupid movie (I did), so they allow themselves to watch it with stupid eyes. They're told what the movie is like, so when they watch it, they see only the stuff that verifies what they've been told.

Go see it. It's awesome.

 

[Hilarious Joke]

Yeah I think you should see it, Gol. I don't think the story's bad, maybe not very original, but it still fires the imagination.

None of the dodgy dialogue complaints or whatever hindered my enjoyment of the movie.

 

[Interference]

For me, as a 3D novice (nearly said virgin, but that may have given the wrong impression), the experience was phenomenal given that every aspect of the imagery was created from scratch - not painted grass or anything silly like that. It was like being in another world, quite literally ... which was worth the price of admission imho.

 

[GOLLUM]

Well if you insist....

I'll still watch it as I enjoy a visual feast. It's just that I normally I prefer my films to be backed up by some semblance of intelligent commentary.

I'm especially going to be looking out for those elusive insights Thadlerian suggests are there....

 

[Interference]

It's just that I normally I prefer my films to be backed up by some semblance of intelligent commentary.

Silly boy. Two words: James ... and Cameron.

 

[Themistocles]

Pandora's would need engineering to fit the different chemical balance of our world, but it could be done. This could be the "Pandora's Box" scenario hinted at in the title of the world...

"Pandora's box" makes perfect sense! That is definitely a possibility. To get to Earth, it would probably have to be some kind of rescue operation. Several Pandorans get kidnapped, and a rescue mission is launched... Then they discover the state of Earth, and discover a way to heal it.

 

[Mouse]

I finally saw this on Wednesday (Orange Wednesday!) in 3D. 3D's good but unless you're looking at the main focus point of the screen everything else is blurred, which is a bit annoying with a film like Avatar where you kinda want to look at everything on screen.

I enjoyed the film, even though it was massively predictable and certain bits of dialogue was massively dodgy!

 

[J-WO]

Then they discover the state of Earth, and discover a way to heal it.

Given this new technology, I think they could make Earth (a total opposite to Pandora- all super cities and chemical oceans etc) look spectacular.

 

[Rodders]

I haven't seen this yet, but i will soon. I have a feeling that any sequels will turn out like the Matrix trilogy. A Great first part, with much weaker, less thought out follow ups that will bring down the entire story. For some reason (and forgive me, but i am aware that without seeing it, i am on the side of ignorance here), i don't get the impression that there's much more story to tell. Any sequels will be franchised.

 

[Parson]

I haven't seen this yet, but i will soon. I have a feeling that any sequels will turn out like the Matrix trilogy. A Great first part, with much weaker, less thought out follow ups that will bring down the entire story. For some reason (and forgive me, but i am aware that without seeing it, i am on the side of ignorance here), i don't get the impression that there's much more story to tell. Any sequels will be franchised.

They wouldn't have to be. I may be in the minority here, but I am quite sure that the next sequel will be on Pandora, and we will begin to see what's in the box. If you remember the myth, the box was so intriguing that Pandora could not help herself, although she'd been warned, and opened the box. I think the same thing is going to happen here.

Human philosophy tends to follow the ying and the yang. We have seen the bad with the good in the humans. Now the next step is to see the good with the bad in the Pandorans.

If you've been following this thread, you may remember one of my earlier posts when I pointed out that the Pandoran's both knew what a warrior was and appreciated it. You will also remember that our heroine comes within an eyelash of killing the hero before he's done anything wrong. Although the race is in harmony with nature and detests killing without a good reason, killing is still part of their life and vocation.

I think we will be reminded of the old human adage: "Beauty is only skin deep."

You also have to remember that we have the Pandoran "Gia" to be considered. Who or what is this mysterious life force. Is it truly all of nature bound together or is there some binding agent that is in control.

There are many possible stories and I'm willing to bet that any really good ones happen on Pandora, not on earth.

 

[J-WO]

And then, of course, there's all those other moons floating around that big ol' gas giant...

 

[Moonbat]

Wasn't Gia sort of like a brain with 10 to the something amount of connections through al lthe living things on the planet, something about the communication travelling up through roots and form one plant to anohter, sort of like a giant brain with the all the interconnected neurons. Maybe the Gia/Pandora will be a big brain and will figure out that humans suck and so blow them all away, or at least try to, so then the humans will kill of Gia/Pandora with some clever poison and pave over the planet to make a giant parking lot/skate park.

 

[littlemissattitude]

Okay. I finally saw Avatar. Not in 3-D, but that hardly seemed necessary, given how gorgeous the film is in 2-D.

I have to say, I went in not really expecting to like the movie very much. I've only seen two other James Cameron movies, to my knowledge: Titanic, which I really hated, and The Abyss, which is among my favorite films. In fact, I only went at the last minute, with friends, and we had been thinking of seeing Sherlock Holmes, but the showing started too late (I had to be at work this morning, and two of the people I saw it with had to drive back to Utah this morning). So, we saw Avatar instead.

And...I liked it very much. Much more than I expected to.

And after the movie we were talking about what the moral of the story was. One (not the one I came up with) was, "Never let your troops go native." The one I came up with was, "When you visit someone's house, don't walk off with their stuff; it might make them angry, and for good reason."

 

[J-WO]

And after the movie we were talking about what the moral of the story was. One (not the one I came up with) was, "Never let your troops go native." The one I came up with was, "When you visit someone's house, don't walk off with their stuff; it might make them angry, and for good reason."

The moral I drew was 'if you stick a body part into any animal it will do whatever you tell it.'

Since then,I've been banned from my local zoo and I've gained a prosthetic leg.

 

[Dave]

I finally got to see this today. Apologies for a very long post, but this is a very long thread to read through too.

I'm hoping it will not be like the underwhelming eyestrain 3D that was Monsters v/s Aliens.

As someone who has poor eyesight and poor depth perception, this basically means that I'm stuffed if I want to go and see certain films.

I have good eyesight, but my eyes still feel tired now. 3 hours is a long time to be messing with your eyes like that. I'd say that Sky 3D TV totally wasted their money on their advert before the film.

He also managed to get motion-sickness from the 3-D combined with all the action in the film.

I didn't find it that bad, but I wouldn't recommend it if you have a fear of heights.

I was all prepared to take my girl friend to the Waterloo Imax (something like the largest loudest cinema sound system in europe) to see Avatar next week but they are all booked up, might have to see it elsewhere, but still in 3D

They've been booked up since before Christmas, but they were also showing it at silly times. You would think that with something actually half-decent to show they would put it on every night at peak times. I saw it at a local Odeon, but there is also an IMAX in Greenwich for your future reference.

It's the best thing I've seen since LOTR.

The premise of the movie is there are 10' tall blue elves.

When I first saw them and the whole look of the film, I thought "they are going to have to remake Lord of the Rings again!"

Firstly, I find it absolutely astounding the number of people that it is claimed that James Cameron has managed to rip-off this story from:

While you wait for the film premiere, you could do worse than to read "Call Me Joe" by Poul Anderson, a short story from 50 years ago which explores the same theme.

...it seems to be based pretty firmly on Ursula Le Guin's The word for World is Forest.

I thought the plot was slightly ripped from The Sky People by S. M. Stirling. There are just too many similarities. Then again, it isn't like the Going Native plot and the revamping of the European/Native American type story is new.

...the plot unfolded as part Fort Apache, part Dances With Wolves

I was thinking parallels of Borough's Tarzan or Mars saga's.

Yes, there were Roger Dean's sky-floating islands, Anne McCaffreyian one-on-one bonding between dragons/banshees and people, elements of ERB's Barsoom books and Andre Norton's Janus books, not to mention Alan Dean Foster's Mid-World, and all sorts of other referents, but so what?

There was even someone else in the news claiming that He wrote this story, but I can't find a reference now.

Cameron did say something to the effect that Avatar was based on all the science fiction he'd ever read...

I also read that in an interview too, so he doesn't deny helping himself to others ideas, but I personally thought it was mostly ripped-off Dune: Paul Atreides goes native with the Fremen, learns how to survive the harsh environment, rides a Sandworm, becomes their leader, and takes them to victory against technologically superior forces.

All directors borrow extensively from some other source and claim it their own I'm sure.

Of course they do. The beauty is how you assemble all the parts together in an original new way, and Avatar does that.

Maybe everyone just sees in the film what they want to see?

I've seen the film described as Dances with Smurfs.

Well, that's certainly another point of view.

..the plot was pretty average, probably your boy meets girl etc storyline just set in some futuristic world.

Like Mowgli at the end of Disney's The Jungle Book, maybe?

Actually, its very based on Hinduism...

I'm not sure if dustinzgirl was talking about another film, but many religions incorporate the idea of Gaia, or a Mother Earth Goddess. It is a firm 'eco-hippie' favourite too, but they actually referenced that in the film itself, saying that it wasn't some Pagan religion but a real phenomena. There was certainly a "Save the Earth" message in there somewhere.

And it has STRONG pagan roots! I actually believe I felt the deity in the movie calling to me!!!! Is that even possible???? She is Eywah the Savage Planet!!!!!

See, I knew it!

I ...loved the nature...

SF films never get the worlds right. They always have flowering plants - mostly Coniferous Forests. Yet, flowering plants on Earth are a fairly recent evolution. Look at the money spent on Star Wars cgi aliens, but they still have battles in forests of trees that look just like Earth. The Biology of Pandora was part of the story; it needed to be different and alien, and they really managed to do that.

...amazing, particularly the flora, the alien plants and the world did look amazing, the fauna, the animals look pretty good too. I liked the black panther/dog things, I liked the hammerhead rhinos too.

I also like the flying dinosaurs (or were they dragons?) and the parallel evolution of dog-things, horse-things and rhino-things.

Yeah, good old Unobtainium.

An old SF joke!

I thought the flying rocks were a little too much to believe.

...the Unobtainium turned out to just be a "Macguffin".

I also wanted it explained why our dying Earth's problems could be solved by this fantastic mineral. Still, if this is going to be a trilogy, then there is plenty of time to explain that in the sequels.

Yo dude, he could not reveal everything now could he, how else is he gonna make a trilogy?

My sentiments precisely.

You also have to remember that we have the Pandoran "Gia" to be considered. Who or what is this mysterious life force. Is it truly all of nature bound together or is there some binding agent that is in control.

My guess is that the Unobtainium is responsible for everything on Pandora. There was the highest concentration of it under the old tree city.

...why blow up the tree when there were floating mountains ...are they that lazy that they can only be bothered to forage for this...element within a radius of 20 kilometres on a forest moon light years from Earth.

I think it was more like the mountains floated because the Unobtainium in the ground.

I'm not so sure, the way the vines had grown around them looked to me like the force was from within them.

...what was going on with the hair thing, how can a plait somehow include the optic fibre things that can act like brain wiring neurons?

Things like the moon's unspecified location and the USB man-animal connections I can easily accept as artistic freedom.

Only, all the other animals had them in special appendages, so why not the Na'vi too?

the planet is in the Alpha Centauri A system...

...I had read/heard that it was, but not from dialogue in the film but from stuff I saw beforehand. Maybe I missed the line when they said Alpha Centurai A.

Me also, and I think I would have remembered some trivia like that had I heard it in the film.

I see James Cameron has upgraded his robot suit things from Aliens cool.

Has every film these mech-suits in them? They were also in District 9. They are the Soldier-Boys from Joe Haldane's Forever Peace.

Wow! People actually feel depressed when the movie ends and they have to go back to reality. It seems 'BTL' is not too far away.

Funnily enough, that is a theme in Surrogates. It is something Neo must consider in Matrix Revolutions when freeing everyone. It has been a theme in novels, but I expect we are going to get many more films on this theme now that we have people role-playing in cyber-space for long periods of their recreational time.

I thought the film was some sort of commentary/judgement on the rape of earth through resource exploitation etc. If this was the point, I can't help but feel a dramatic ending where they failed to save the goddess would have been more shocking.

I would have been much more shocking. You would certainly have people depressed enough for suicides after that, but the problem would be no sequels after that!

Yes, but where can they go with this?

They could grow an avatar for one of the blue cat people - send it back to Earth...

I also had that idea, but why do you think the Na'vi look like cats? Elves or Smurfs maybe, but cats?

Human avatars. I'd put money on it... Not so sure about Earth though.

You might be right, Earth is apprently devastated from what Jake said. It wouldn't make such a cinematic experience.

90% of the attraction of the original film is the world-setting and the visuals. Hard to see one of the Na'vi in a human avatar on Earth is going to have the same impact...

Perhaps they revitalize Earth with life from Pandora???

I think we've just written the two sequels already!

I have a feeling that any sequels will turn out like the Matrix trilogy. A Great first part, with much weaker, less thought out follow ups that will bring down the entire story. Any sequels will be franchised.

Possibly, as that is usually the way with sequels, but it would depend entirely on who the director was. James Cameron did alright with Aliens didn't he?

And if you haven't seen this, you must go to see it, and see it in 3D. For all the dodgy lines and faults it is a great cinematic experience, and one that is on a par with the other ground-breaking films mentioned by people earlier in the thread.

 

[Parson]

All I can say is "Wow!" Dave what a post. Well thought out with multitudinous* insights.

*(A $64 word for a $64 post )

Got to see this in 3D!

 

[Wiglaf]

Is IMAX 3-D worth the extra cost over regular 3-D. Both are with polarized glasses, right? (Old red-n-green sucked) The IMAX here isn't really different from a regular screen and its the only option in the county. The one in the park downtown is a half-dome but it only shows educational films. CECUT (in Mexico) wouldn't show it either. So since the IMAX isn't a dome IMAX, what's the difference?

 

[Dave]

I think everyone would have a different view on whether IMAX is worth the extra, and it depends on how much extra. I can't really say as I've only ever seen one IMAX 3D film and that was an animation, though I've seen the 180° and 360° cinema films that they had in domes at amusement parks.

I may be wrong, but I though all IMAX were just big flat screens though. The main point to it all, I believe, is that you can't see the edge of the screen when watching, and so it seems more real-life. There is always going to be some suspension of disbelief though, even with the VR goggles of the kind that Moonbat mentioned in Red Dwarf or a Matrix style link-up.

 

[Constantine Opal]

Well I have to say, this is the first time I've read a 14 page thread on here! I don't much care if the story was a bit 'basic', it meant I could concentrate more on the stunning visuals brought so well to life with 3D. Why else do you think they made it a 3D film? Not because it enhanced the script or storyline! Can I just say, I thought Zoe Saldana was incredible in it. (In the same way Andy Serkis was incredible in LOTR obviously). I thought her character gave a very raw performance in a way some human characters never have. The horror of finding her father dying, and of Home Tree being destroyed, the 'betrayal' she felt on finding out Jake was, in effect, working under cover... this performance had me enthralled all the way through. It's a pity she probably won't even get a nod at Oscar time.

I have never been so completely embraced by a film, to the point where the cinema could have blown up around me and I wouldn't have noticed. Just immensely beautiful and rich in all the places it should have been, and a gentle introduction to the world of Pandora and it's people.

Time for more convoluted story lines later on!