James Cameron's FernGully

[Gavin]

[SIZE=1]Or Avatar as he likes to call it.

So having seen the latest leap in CGI technology last night I figured I'd see what other OB members thought of the movie only to find we hadn't a thread on it. Well that parts fixed now at least.

I'm going to say straight out that I was bored almost to the point of walking out by Dances with Large Blue Felinoids. I'll openly admit that visually the film is extremely impressive, beautiful even, but the plot and characters themselves come nowhere near the point of saving it from being thoroughly average when it should have been much more. Clichés are rampant and anvils are dropped with almost gleeful abandon throughout the movie's staggering 150 minutes.

The storyline itself is terribly predictable from every angle, and most of the characters never seem fully real or fully developed, instead relying on a single or two characterisation points taken to extremes. Perhaps if the Aesops themselves weren't horribly, horribly unsubtle, or the Na'vi made indisputably superior morally and spiritually to the majority of human characters (the exception being those gone native) who stay firmly set in the "imperious bastards" role might've made me a bit more receptive to the plot.

Most of the reviews I saw for the movie gave it between 4 and 5 stars, I think I would give it a tentative 2 and a half as any less wouldn't be fair on the visuals. If you want a genuinely thought provoking movie on what Avatar tried to be then I would suggest District 9, an infinitely better movie created on less than a tenth of Avatar bloated budget.
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[neoswordmaster]

I walked into the theater expecting exactly one thing. Eye-candy. I did not expect the story to wow me, or the characters to be particulary good. I just paid some money to escape for a couple of hours into a visually pleasing world. With these expectations I enjoyed the movie.

Otherwise, yeah, have to agree with you on some of those points.

[Raiha]

[COLOR="DarkOrchid"][FONT="Times New Roman"]I am not thrilled with this version of Poccahantas with guns.

This might be because as a writer, english major, goddess of words [sigh], I found the story derivative, pedantic, and otherwise as unoriginal as they come, only worse, because it's James Cameron and I expected better. Instead surprise surprise, the villains were corporate villains from hell. Oh yes and the military. They're evil too.[/FONT][/COLOR]

[John]

As everyone has said, the narrative elements are cliche. I had heard that before I watched the film and thought I was prepared to deal with it; it's usually pretty easy for me to sit through mediocrity. But this movie [I]really[/I] upped the ante in that respect, so much so that at some points I actually had a hard time not stepping out of the theater for a break. It simply cannot be overstated how [I]painfully[/I] generic the plot and characters are.

However, telling a good story was never the ambition of [I]Avatar[/I]. Like any well-behaved Hollywood blockbuster, it's a big, cash-fueled spectacle meant to stun and bedazzle audiences, and it does a decent job of this. The visuals look realistic enough, but let's face it: Jurassic Park came out in 1993, set the benchmark for CG realism, and, despite astronomical advances in computing technology, hadn't been surpassed in over fifteen years. Maybe this movie finally did that, but they're waaaaay too late to be commended for this.

The art direction wasn't bad, but it wasn't all it was hyped up to be. Lisa Frank doing prog rock album covers.

I think the one aspect of the movie that's actually commendable are the action sequences. I felt that they were fun and well-paced, in stark contrast to the modern standard set by Michael Bay's indecipherable epileptic fits of jump-cuts and whip pans, and I was actually getting excited during the battle scenes in spite of myself.

I think time will treat the film well, though, and it may even make for a fine cult film when the pains of the crappier elements of the movie have been dulled by ten or twenty years.

[eleanor]

[font=trebuchet ms] Cameron himself described the movie as Dances With Wolves in space, so if it wasn't obvious already, the movie was never meant to dazzle you with it story/plot.

Anyways, my thoughts on the movie...I'll quote Roger Ebert:

"Watching "Avatar," I felt sort of the same as when I saw "Star Wars" in 1977."

Before you predictably attack me for trying to compare Avatar to Star Wars, my point is that sometimes movies are really cheesy and predictable, but they're still flippin' awesome. I know a bunch of fanboys will probably get butthurt over that statement, but Star Wars wasn't like the goddamn messiah of mindblowing storytelling or something, and it was pretty cheesy and full of WTFery.

And no, I'm not saying Avatar is the new Star Wars, or was as good as Star Wars. The point is, Cameron put a pretty neat spin on an old story and gave people a hell of a ride telling it. To those who dismiss the quality and creativity of the visuals/special FX-- um...like, lol. I don't even know what to say. Either your brain doesn't function properly and doesn't find breathtaking landscapes/fascinating plant life beautiful or you were pissed off by all the neon. idk.

Not the best movie ever, but I'll defend it to the end.[/font]

[Gavin]

[SIZE=1]The problem is though Lunox that Cameron spent fifteen years developing this film, ten years of which were apparently just "waiting for technology to catch up" but that's still 5 years and an 80 page "scriptment" working on the story, language and culture that he admits himself are effectively lifted from Dances with Wolves, and likely other sources.

Avatar is also ponderously long at nearly two and three quarter hours, at least thirty minutes of which could've and should've been left on the cutting room floor without any loss of suspense (if there is indeed any suspense in the movie).

Yes, the movie is stunning to look at, but where Star Wars used ground-breaking CGI to complement its story, Avatar uses its CGI to attempt to make up for its horribly cliched story and generic characters and at 161 minutes long that's a tall order which for me it failed at spectacularly. But as I said my issue was with Avatar being labelled a four and five star movie, which it most certainly is not.[/SIZE]

[John]

[quote name='Lunox'][FONT=trebuchet ms]The point is, Cameron put a pretty neat spin on an old story[/quote] A [URL="http://www.instantrimshot.com/"][COLOR=Gray]tailspin[/COLOR][/URL], maybe.

[/FONT][quote name='Lunox'][FONT=trebuchet ms]To those who dismiss the quality and creativity of the visuals/special FX-- um...like, lol. I don't even know what to say. Either your brain doesn't function properly and doesn't find breathtaking landscapes/fascinating plant life beautiful or you were pissed off by all the neon. idk.[/FONT][/quote] Everything looked predictable, like something you'd see in an alien motivational poster or hotel room.

[Nerdsy]

[quote name='Lunox'][font=trebuchet ms] Cameron himself described the movie as Dances With Wolves in space, so if it wasn't obvious already, the movie was never meant to dazzle you with it story/plot.[/font][/QUOTE]

[color=deeppink]I'm... not sure how this is a defense.

"It has a bad plot but that's okay because it's not supposed to have a good plot!"[/color]

[rotlung]

I must admit that after watcing Avatar I did think that it was inspired by Fern Gully. However, the public likes a story that is a little bit predicable. I personally find those type of stories easy to follow cause it has signs saying "we're going this way"

Also I'd like to point at the last movie James Cameron released Titantic. From the beginning of the movie you knew Rose was going to survive cause she was there as an old lady.... If you went to see Titantic and did know the ship was going down then u didn't pay attention in history class. The point is both of the movies are less focused the ending and more on the journey and relationship of the characters.

I have to say that I loved catching the line by Sigourney Weaver "I'd die to get samples of that place" Later she actually dies there.

[eleanor]

[quote name='Gavin'][SIZE=1]The problem is though Lunox that Cameron spent fifteen years developing this film, ten years of which were apparently just "waiting for technology to catch up" but that's still 5 years and an 80 page "scriptment" working on the story, language and culture that he admits himself are effectively lifted from Dances with Wolves, and likely other sources.

Avatar is also ponderously long at nearly two and three quarter hours, at least thirty minutes of which could've and should've been left on the cutting room floor without any loss of suspense (if there is indeed any suspense in the movie).

Yes, the movie is stunning to look at, but where Star Wars used ground-breaking CGI to complement its story, Avatar uses its CGI to attempt to make up for its horribly cliched story and generic characters and at 161 minutes long that's a tall order which for me it failed at spectacularly. But as I said my issue was with Avatar being labelled a four and five star movie, which it most certainly is not.[/SIZE][/QUOTE]

[font=trebuchet ms] I'm guessing most of that time was spent...you know, not on the script. Scripts can change throughout the process of physically making the movie, yeah, but it's not like this movie was really relying on the strength of its scripts. The movie is good for other reasons.

I mean seriously we can sit here and moan about how cliche and boring the plot was, or we can appreciate what Avatar has done. Its use of CGI wasn't particularly ground-breaking compared to movies like Star Wars and 2001: A Space Odyssey, but it has opened up a new world of CGI for directors.

I'm too lazy to write new stuff, so I'll just post my argument from another discussion about Avatar. The OP was saying how Avatar represented the "style over substance" mentality of Hollywood and how Avatar's success would just create more meaningless visually driven crap.

"I wouldn't worry too much. The film industry right now is just reminding me of the film industry of the 40s and 50s, when they'd jump onto fads and spend millions. Gimmicks like 3D and ****ing huge screens and smell-o-vision or whatever was popular, but eventually audiences lost interest and the film industry ditched them.

The point is Cameron has introduced such stunning visual effects, and HIS story is weak, but eventually other filmmakers will use those amazing visual effects and couple it with equally amazing stories and scripts. Will there be a lot of ****** movies in the process? Yes, but that's how it always is. Just like when widescreen was developed, a bunch of terrible films were made just to show off how big the screen was, but then eventually filmmakers started using it in a clever and innovative way.

I mean honestly film was always about $$ in the U.S., so IDGI when people get really depressed about studios following fads. It's happened forever, it's not like this random phenomenon of the last decade."

And really, other than that, I [i]liked[/i] it as a film. It was fun to sit back and just take Avatar in and not be my usual film elitist self. Once I got into that mentality it was easy for me to become emotionally gripped and stunned by the visuals. It was a hell of a ride. It is TOTALLY being over-hyped at this point, and I don't know how I feel about it possibly winning an Oscar (but let's be honest, the Oscars are stupid now), but I think it's a great, entertaining movie.

[spoiler]I know how you feel though about not liking a movie and seeing everyone fawn over it. I hated The Dark Knight.[/spoiler][/font]

[quote name='Nerdsy'][color=deeppink]I'm... not sure how this is a defense.

"It has a bad plot but that's okay because it's not supposed to have a good plot!"[/color][/QUOTE]

[font=trebuchet ms] Nice attempt at trying to put words in my mouth. My point is the plot isn't that good but the movie is still good because of its other strengths. Try reading an entire post and considering the bigger message instead of attacking one sentence. [/font]

[quote name='John']Everything looked predictable, like something you'd see in an alien motivational poster or hotel room.[/QUOTE]

[font=trebuchet ms]I thought it looked beautiful. We can't really argue about this, so I'll leave it at that. [/font]

[Gavin]

[SIZE=1]That's my biggest problem though Lunox, it is style entirely over substance and yet people are putting it on the same kind of pedestal as Schindler's List in terms of being a moral epic, and there's just something terribly wrong and shallow about it. I certainly hope that Avatar's level of CGI quality does have an impact on the film industry in a positive way, but at 250+ million to create it, I imagine not many films are going to dedicate that much of their budget to it.

I also agree with you somewhat about The Dark Knight. I didn't hate it, but I don't think it stands up well to repeated viewings in the same way Batman Begins does.
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[rotlung]

[quote name='Gavin'][SIZE=1]That's my biggest problem though Lunox, it is style entirely over substance and yet people are putting it on the same kind of pedestal as Schindler's List in terms of being a moral epic, and there's just something terribly wrong and shallow about it. I certainly hope that Avatar's level of CGI quality does have an impact on the film industry in a positive way, but at 250+ million to create it, I imagine not many films are going to dedicate that much of their budget to it.[/SIZE]

[SIZE=1]I also agree with you somewhat about The Dark Knight. I didn't hate it, but I don't think it stands up well to repeated viewings in the same way Batman Begins does.[/SIZE]
[/quote]

Well when ur film grosses over $1 billion worldwide $250 million seems like a good investment.....

Although i do agree not every movie is going to be willing to do that cause they won't see the return. I'm just waiting for the CGI version of Waterworld to happen...

[Gavin]

[quote name='rotlung']Well when ur film grosses over $1 billion worldwide $250 million seems like a good investment.....[/quote]
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I meant that the a good majority of Avatar's budget was spent on the CGI alone although I still don't believe only $257 million was spent on Avatar. Of course if Avatar can be so commercially successful with a dull, lumbering entirely generic plot offset but pretty visuals then we're probably head that way.[/SIZE]

[Nerdsy]

[quote name='Lunox']


[font=trebuchet ms]My point is the plot isn't that good but the movie is still good because of its other strengths. Try reading an entire post and considering the bigger message instead of attacking one sentence. [/font][/QUOTE]

[color=deeppink]If I disagreed with anything else you had said, I would have said so. I would suggest not presuming that I haven't considered your entire message simply because I do not comment on it.

With that one sentence, you were brushing aside the criticisms regarding the plot of the story by saying that it wasn't intended to be super special awesome or anything. This is simply not a good excuse if the story is bad or cliched or derivative.

Of course, the only real difference between "cliched and derivative" and "a neat spin on an old story" is whether or not you liked it...[/color]

[James]

[font=franklin gothic medium]I loved Avatar, personally. I can understand the criticisms about the plot, but I think for me it's a slightly deeper question.

Right now I can only really compare it to a dessert. Let's say you have two desserts, one being a really complex souffle and another being a basic chocolate cake. The former is more complex and requires a lot more finesse to prepare, while the latter is very simple and has been done a million times before.

With that said, you may find that you can appreciate the complexity and finesse of the souffle...but the chocolate cake's simplicity can also be appealing, especially if the individual ingredients are of a high quality.

This analogy pretty much explains how I feel about Avatar. The story is definitely derivative (it certainly qualifies as a CGI Fern Gully), but I don't think the plot is [i]bad[/i] by any measure.

I think one testament to how well the film was directed was the fact that I really wasn't sitting there worrying about plot at all while I was watching. I never became bored or disinterested. There were many extended scenes that involved very simple concepts (like Jake learning how to hunt or to find water in the forest). Those moments weren't full of major plot progression, admittedly, but they were filled with beautiful visual subtlety.

I suppose you could argue something like "so the movie's only value is in its CGI" and you'd have a very solid point there. But even if a film's primary value is in its visual beauty...is that such a bad thing? Visual design is obviously a major integral part of any film.

What I liked about the visuals, though, wasn't so much about how realistic they were. It was more to do with the imagination behind Pandora - the way the plants glowed at night or the different wildlife.

And as I said earlier, any weaknesses in the plot were largely countered by generally strong performances on the part of the actors (and I include the CGI characters in that description). I think often a fairly simple story can be told well - and with Avatar, I think it was told well.

So, for me, even though I can make objective and logical comments about where the movie is lacking... it doesn't change the fact that I thoroughly enjoyed the experience.

Maybe if I were analyzing the movie for a film class I'd give it a lower grade. But as an audience member in a cinema, it well and truly delivered. For me, that's what matters most.

Also, as a side note, I adored District 9. But it's a completely different film than Avatar, save for the fact that there's a central conflict between humans and aliens. The two movies definitely gave me very different feelings as a viewer.[/font]

[eleanor]

[quote name='Gavin'][SIZE=1]That's my biggest problem though Lunox, it is style entirely over substance and yet people are putting it on the same kind of pedestal as Schindler's List in terms of being a moral epic, and there's just something terribly wrong and shallow about it. I certainly hope that Avatar's level of CGI quality does have an impact on the film industry in a positive way, but at 250+ million to create it, I imagine not many films are going to dedicate that much of their budget to it.

I also agree with you somewhat about The Dark Knight. I didn't hate it, but I don't think it stands up well to repeated viewings in the same way Batman Begins does.
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[font=trebuchet ms] I mean I agree it's no Schindler's List, and it's always annoying when people overhype movies, but I wouldn't count these annoyances against the movie itself.

Personally I'm hoping more movies with original concepts, not adaptations, will start popping up with great CGI to show off whatever worlds the writer/director has come up with. It'll be costly, but with Avatar's profit far exceeding its budget I think studios will be more inclined to give the go-ahead on similar projects. If someone has a great script and a movie is made with Avatar-esque CGI to accompany it the results could be awesome.[/font]

[quote name='Nerdsy'][color=deeppink]If I disagreed with anything else you had said, I would have said so. I would suggest not presuming that I haven't considered your entire message simply because I do not comment on it.

With that one sentence, you were brushing aside the criticisms regarding the plot of the story by saying that it wasn't intended to be super special awesome or anything. This is simply not a good excuse if the story is bad or cliched or derivative.

Of course, the only real difference between "cliched and derivative" and "a neat spin on an old story" is whether or not you liked it...[/color][/QUOTE]

[font=trebuchet ms] My original point still stands, the sentence you have such a beef with makes more sense when taken in consideration with the rest of my post. [/font]

[Nerdsy]

[color=deeppink]Methinks you are overexaggerating my level of objection over it.[/color]

[Sara]

Whoa, lots of hate in here.

[James]

[quote name='Sara']Whoa, lots of hate in here.[/QUOTE]

[font=franklin gothic medium]*adds some love*

...

Wait, that doesn't quite seem right when I read it out loud.

Yeah, so, anyway, I do have a question relevant to this. I've read that James Cameron is interested in actually turning Avatar into a trilogy. As a result, various rumors have floated about as to what future films could be about.

My feeling is that Avatar's story wraps up in a pretty succinct fashion. So my question to everybody here is, where do you think a sequel could go?

Some rumors suggest that it could actually take place on different planets (I forget, was Pandora a planet or a moon? I'd heard that it was one of several moons linked to a much larger planet).

I think that'd be fine, but it would be kind of sad to leave Jake and his friends behind completely. I just don't know what kind of follow-up story they could come up with.

In any case, I'd have no objection to sequels, given how much I liked Avatar. But it does make me wonder where it could possibly go next.[/font]

[Dagger]

[quote name='James'][font=franklin gothic medium]
I think one testament to how well the film was directed was the fact that I really wasn't sitting there worrying about plot at all while I was watching. I never became bored or disinterested. There were many extended scenes that involved very simple concepts (like Jake learning how to hunt or to find water in the forest). Those moments weren't full of major plot progression, admittedly, but they were filled with beautiful visual subtlety.[/font][/QUOTE]
I went into this movie with a feeling of creeping dread--my attention span for feature-length films is iffy to begin with, and the ponderous length plus what I'd heard about the story made me expect to get bored halfway through. But my experience was similar to yours. Whenever I reached the point where I could feel my mind start to stall out or wander, I found something new to look at onscreen, or the scene changed altogether.

It was a weird watch in that while I never entirely let go of my reservations about the plot, I enjoyed it all the way through and got satisfyingly swept up in the visceral parts. I first started letting down my guard during the scene when [spoiler]Jake tries on his new body for the first time and goes running out to breathe the fresh air of Pandora.[/spoiler] It was the first of countless exhilarating and beautiful moments. The ideal film has spectacular visuals and a spectacular script, but how often does that combination occur in real life? The average film has so-so visuals and a so-so script. Avatar's writing may lack nuance and poetry, but its direction and CG effects are at times wordlessly powerful, lyrical, transporting, and poignant.

I remember the first time I saw a trailer for Avatar, I was horrified. In a YouTube-sized window, the Na'vi looked like blue Pixar characters. I couldn't imagine taking them seriously. Promotional posters and so forth didn't do much to convince me otherwise--another part of the reason I went into the movie highly prejudiced. By the end, though, I realized I totally believed in them as living, breathing beings. The subtleties of their animated facial expressions contributed most of whatever emotional resonance the film managed to generate.

As millions have said, there's a lot to criticize with respect to how it reiterates the tired old Dances With Wolves and Last Samurai myth (white man exorcises his privileged guilt by joining the native population, then reinforces his destined dominance by beating them at everything they've spent their entire lives devoted to doing), and its depiction of disability is pretty ham-handed. On the plus side, while the Pocahontas routine is equally tired, the women in the film received refreshingly balanced treatment--it didn't feel like their contributions, even in battle, were an afterthought.

~Dagger~

[eleanor]

[quote name='Nerdsy'][color=deeppink]Methinks you are overexaggerating my level of objection over it.[/color][/QUOTE]

[font=trebuchet ms][img]http://i48.tinypic.com/imjymf.gif[/img]

On the subject of the trilogy, I hope the rumors about the setting them on other planets are true. Mostly I'm just excited that more original blockbusters are coming out.

And IA with Dagger's point about the female characters. God I love me some Sigourney Weaver and Zoe Saldena. Even Michelle Rodriquez. I loved EW's interview with Cameron when he said Hollywood forgets 50% of the population is women. [/font]

[Gavin]

[CENTER][SIZE=1][IMG]http://failblog.files.wordpress.com/2010/01/epic-fail-avatar-plot-fail.jpg[/IMG]
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+1 for Matt Bateman
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[rotlung]

[quote name='Gavin'][center][SIZE=1][IMG]http://failblog.files.wordpress.com/2010/01/epic-fail-avatar-plot-fail.jpg[/IMG][/SIZE][/center]


[SIZE=1]+1 for Matt Bateman[/SIZE]
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ROFL ROFL ROFL

[James]

[quote name='Gavin'][CENTER][SIZE=1][IMG]http://failblog.files.wordpress.com/2010/01/epic-fail-avatar-plot-fail.jpg[/IMG]
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[SIZE=1]
+1 for Matt Bateman
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[font=franklin gothic medium]Ironically, you could boil most movies down to the above formula. Some of the greatest movies of the last few decades have also been incredibly formulaic.

(But Matt Bateman still gets kudos for that XD)[/font]

[John]

[quote name='James'][FONT=franklin gothic medium]Ironically, you could boil most movies down to the above formula. Some of the greatest movies of the last few decades have also been incredibly formulaic.[/FONT][/quote] Using a formula is one thing, but what we have here is the same method that highschoolers use to avoid getting caught for plagiarism in their essays.

Just sayin'.

Also, I don't know how I forgot about this, but "UNOBTANIUM". Did Cameron just put that in the script as a filler term and forget to search-and-replace it later or something?