I love that guy...geniusAvatar - Welcome to the future of cinema!
- Thread starter RedSky
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I love that guy...geniusHis points are spot on, I would have liked his videos a lot more if his voice didn't bug the shit out of me.
She looks like a gremlin dressed in drag haha
Blue man group meets black people haha
It’s too easy to be cynical and slate a movie for its (admittedly) shit plot. Why not just enjoy it for what it was? Blue aliens, riding around on dinosaurs and fighting space marines! Im all for the arty movies, pi, a scanner darkly, primer are some of my favourite films, but it doesn’t kill you to enjoy a cool space opera once in a while.
I thought A Scanner Darkly was pretty poor, personally. I loved the book, but when you cast Keanu Reeves in a role that actually requires acting chops you know you're not getting a good performance out of him.
his phantom menace review is brilliant
he also has a couple of star trek reviews that are funny
he also has a couple of star trek reviews that are funny
The book is awesome. I really enjoyed the film, partly because i thought it would be impossible to film, and downey jr, woody harrelson and your man who was freck were all amazing. More than made up for keanu reeves walking around looking bewildered for an hour and a half.
Ah feck. Should have checked this thread before starting a whole new one. My bad.
I don't think this review is quite as good as the Phantom Menace one. One of his basic premises is flawed too, which is annoying.
He makes quite a big deal about why primitive races were brutal too, which means portraying the Na'vi as tree-huggers is an absurd concept. The point he's missing is that primitive human races were brutal, just like the modern humans shooting the shit out of the tree. The whole point of the culture depicted in the film is that it's completely alien and not human in any way.
Of course, the whole plot is so absurd and full of holes there's not much point getting worked up about a minor criticism. I'm glad he pointed out the ridiculousness of Michelle Rodriguez painting Na'vi war-paint on her fecking helicopter. That made me lol at the time.
From the vid description:
Avatar is fecking shit.
That's what I came here to say.
That's what I came here to say.
Nah I'm not going with that Pogue...thats complete rubbish, they're humanoid, a complete composite of primitive human tribes, everything about them is part native american, part african tribal warriors and the film is part white american guilt, part US imperialism allegory and part hippy crap ...If they were "completely" alen, they'd be 40ft farting cotton space trees who talk using telepathic semaphore and reproduce with their faeces
You can't say they're completely alien when they look exactly like humans, talk exactly like humans, act exactly like humans, live off and around the same flora and forna as humans, and who's weapons, clothing, heirarchical system of leaders ship and belief in an interfering deity (plus tons more) are all completely ripped from the behavior of early civilized human tribes...You're sticking up for this film with your eyes shut if you can't see they're supposed to represent of a certain type of human / humanity. The aliens in Aliens are aliens, these aliens are primitive (yet strangely superior) humans...there's no two ways about it!!! He's spot on with the District 9 comparison IMO.
Of course they look like humans, they've got "Disney eyes" ffs.
My point is that he can't superimpose human sociocultural norms on a race of blue-skinned aliens that commune with the planet through a frigging tentacle on their head - just because they've got dreds and feathers in their hair. Yer man wanted to dismiss the idea that they could possibly be peace-loving, tree-hugging hippy aliens on the basis that primitive human tribes were as bloodthirsty and brutal as the bloke with the flat-top and the scars. This premise is fundamentally flawed.
The art design - and the allegory that probably under-pins the whole plot - clearly intends the Na'vi to resemble native American indians. This doesn't mean they need to behave like them in every way, or that their behaviour should be closely aligned with other primitive human tribes just because they're bipeds with humanoid features and great tits.
This. It was good fun, enjoyable and totally entertaining. OK, the storyline wasn't particularly original and it wasn't a 'clever' movie, but it was about aliens and action-packed and the dude got to ride a big dragon/dinosaur thing and fight the marines in space ships. It doesn't get much better than that, really.
Funny how a lot of the issues being debated were deftly handled in the original scriptment.
1. The Na'vi were less humanoid: they're described as more cat than biped, with jointless fingers and toes, and covered in subtle leopard spots that glow depending upon emotional state.
2. Pandora is extremely pissed off that the humans are there. The human compound is constantly under siege from giant poisonous mosquitos from hell called Slingbats, dart-slinging creatures called Slinths (unicorn/wolf that can throw its horn, attached to a retractable nerve cable like the Na'vi), etc. Jake actually arrives in the midst of an attack in which a few soldiers are cut in half, speared like trout, and stung through the face by a inch-diameter proboscis pumping poison that turns the victim into liquid sludge, slowly. This really looks like hell. You don't need Scarface telling you that in a briefing.
3. The second act focuses entirely on the Na'vi world instead of the intercutting between that and the human camp. And surprise surprise, Pandora ain't hell. Quite the opposite, in fact. This means you're afforded ample time to get the audience enamored with Pandora, and thus you have a better chance as a filmmaker to have the average Joe-Blow go: "Okay, I'm sold. This life is absolutely fantastic. Put me in Jake's position and I can see how you could forget your roots and fall in love with such a people, regardless of how they look.
4. Jake, in forgetting his roots (and how brutal they can be), indirectly brings on the invasion. He, with his newfound legs - and Grace with her scientific ambition - exists in a sort of idyllic haze. They're not completely ignorant of goings-on in the human camp, but they're not exactly jumping out of their skin to try and get the Na'vi to consider giving up their home. They're just sort of enjoying the ride, unawares that they've pretty much turned Na'vi.
5. Scarface is less George Bush and more George Patton. In connection with #2, he's actually a sympathetic character, trying his best to keep his people alive, and only a hard-ass when he absolutely has to be. You get the feeling he'd rather not be on Pandora, but he's too competent at his job to risk handing it off to someone who'd just be worse at it, and hence get more people killed.
6. Again, it's the Na'vi who attack first, thus bringing the final attack on themselves. With Jake and Grace trying repeatedly to get them to just move away from home tree; neither realizes the extent to which the planet is interconnected yet, and hence they don't understand that places like home tree act as supernodes. So they keep going: 'It's only a village - just move, guys.' But when Scarface leads an expedition too close to the village, the Na'vi and Pandoran fauna attack them, virtually obliterating them, with only Scarface and two others surviving.
7. As a result of #6, Scarface has a legitimate reason to be really pissed. He's lost two-dozen men, a shitload of equipment, and to top it all off, he's pretty sure that the guy he sent to feed him intel has gone native.
8. Jake's role as intermediary takes on the proper weight now, as he explains to the Na'vi and the planet that the humans won't turn tail and run. Grace, presumed dead, shows up with an understanding of Pandora's interconnectivity, but only AFTER home tree resurrects Grace into her Avatar. The trees preserved her mental data, and she experiences that process from the inside. Having seen the inner workings, she explains to Jake that Pandora sees the human camp as a tiny infection, and is perplexed at its own inability to heal that infection. She illustrates how maintaining the siege is taxing Pandora's ability to govern itself, and how the whole system might even be in danger of going out of whack. Now Jake and we as an audience get to go: Holy shit, if this is for real, then by fecking God it's worth fighting for. Bring on the final battle.
The only real quibble I have with the original scriptment is that the Deus Ex Machina (Pandora calling all creatures to the heroes' aid) still triggers without any major sacrifice.
So again: original story = nearly perfect. Filmed version = WTF.
1. The Na'vi were less humanoid: they're described as more cat than biped, with jointless fingers and toes, and covered in subtle leopard spots that glow depending upon emotional state.
2. Pandora is extremely pissed off that the humans are there. The human compound is constantly under siege from giant poisonous mosquitos from hell called Slingbats, dart-slinging creatures called Slinths (unicorn/wolf that can throw its horn, attached to a retractable nerve cable like the Na'vi), etc. Jake actually arrives in the midst of an attack in which a few soldiers are cut in half, speared like trout, and stung through the face by a inch-diameter proboscis pumping poison that turns the victim into liquid sludge, slowly. This really looks like hell. You don't need Scarface telling you that in a briefing.
3. The second act focuses entirely on the Na'vi world instead of the intercutting between that and the human camp. And surprise surprise, Pandora ain't hell. Quite the opposite, in fact. This means you're afforded ample time to get the audience enamored with Pandora, and thus you have a better chance as a filmmaker to have the average Joe-Blow go: "Okay, I'm sold. This life is absolutely fantastic. Put me in Jake's position and I can see how you could forget your roots and fall in love with such a people, regardless of how they look.
4. Jake, in forgetting his roots (and how brutal they can be), indirectly brings on the invasion. He, with his newfound legs - and Grace with her scientific ambition - exists in a sort of idyllic haze. They're not completely ignorant of goings-on in the human camp, but they're not exactly jumping out of their skin to try and get the Na'vi to consider giving up their home. They're just sort of enjoying the ride, unawares that they've pretty much turned Na'vi.
5. Scarface is less George Bush and more George Patton. In connection with #2, he's actually a sympathetic character, trying his best to keep his people alive, and only a hard-ass when he absolutely has to be. You get the feeling he'd rather not be on Pandora, but he's too competent at his job to risk handing it off to someone who'd just be worse at it, and hence get more people killed.
6. Again, it's the Na'vi who attack first, thus bringing the final attack on themselves. With Jake and Grace trying repeatedly to get them to just move away from home tree; neither realizes the extent to which the planet is interconnected yet, and hence they don't understand that places like home tree act as supernodes. So they keep going: 'It's only a village - just move, guys.' But when Scarface leads an expedition too close to the village, the Na'vi and Pandoran fauna attack them, virtually obliterating them, with only Scarface and two others surviving.
7. As a result of #6, Scarface has a legitimate reason to be really pissed. He's lost two-dozen men, a shitload of equipment, and to top it all off, he's pretty sure that the guy he sent to feed him intel has gone native.
8. Jake's role as intermediary takes on the proper weight now, as he explains to the Na'vi and the planet that the humans won't turn tail and run. Grace, presumed dead, shows up with an understanding of Pandora's interconnectivity, but only AFTER home tree resurrects Grace into her Avatar. The trees preserved her mental data, and she experiences that process from the inside. Having seen the inner workings, she explains to Jake that Pandora sees the human camp as a tiny infection, and is perplexed at its own inability to heal that infection. She illustrates how maintaining the siege is taxing Pandora's ability to govern itself, and how the whole system might even be in danger of going out of whack. Now Jake and we as an audience get to go: Holy shit, if this is for real, then by fecking God it's worth fighting for. Bring on the final battle.
The only real quibble I have with the original scriptment is that the Deus Ex Machina (Pandora calling all creatures to the heroes' aid) still triggers without any major sacrifice.
So again: original story = nearly perfect. Filmed version = WTF.
Well yes it does Pizzle Mahizzle, cos you're choosing to embrace the positive connotations of that, but ignore the negative. Because rather than make you love the characters through clever dialogue and inventive story telling, he made you love them through humanoid facial expressions...and tits "Oh look she's worried, oh look she's sad, oh look she's crying, oh look she's scared and she's shouting in an affrican accent, oh look she's got tits!!"..It's effin' lazy
And also in what way did they not act like human tribes?...Name one bit where they didn't act like a sterotypical tribal culture? ignoring their anatomy for a second? when did they do anything that if you replaced them with Native Indians you'd think "hold on, that doesn't fit"..?
The main hunter guy who's betrothed to whasserface didn't seem very peaceful or loving or anything like that at all by the way...But who gives a crap, they were clearly all peacefully primitive in a lovely way.
Everyone in that film was a crude 1 dimensional sterotype. Especailly the tribes people
And HW...that original ver. does sound so much better....proper characters and everything
Some other notes that I think might salve your insulted intelligence:
In the original, "main hunter guy" gets 'scalped' (his nerve thing sliced off) by Scarface midway through the final battle. (JC, you could have had some killer dialogue right there; pun absolutely intended) Does JC circa 2001 throw this death away as a one-off dramatic moment? Nope. Jake witnesses the scalping, gets pissed the feck off, and this is where he decides: 'That's it, I'm going to try and mount Big Red.' Thus Jake leaves the fight, throwing the Na'vi and co. into some consternation as to whether he's switched sides/chickened out. There is no silly "Jake = the chosen one" scene. He goes off to earn it mid-battle.
Also, Jake utters not a single awkward "Brother" anywhere. Ever. Not just because he actually has social skills, but also because he and everyone else is too busy trying not to die. There's a lot of non-verbal communication, just as you'd expect of beings designed to share a freaking nervous system: shared grins between comrades who just saved each others' asses, hand-signals and knowing looks between Banshee 'squadron' leaders and rhino-riders regrouping for attack. Good stuff.
And speaking of good stuff, there's loads of ebb and flow in the final battle. Rhino-riding Na'vi stampeding over human infantry, Powersuits blowing whole chunks out of Rhinos. The 'retreating' Na'vi leading Powersuits into quicksand death goo full of nasty critters. Banshee riders leaping onto turbo-choppers, dropping boulders into intake fans, then gracefully diving back onto Banshee and banking away from explosions. Na'vi firing sap-gourd tipped arrows onto Powersuit windshields, blinding the drivers. Powersuits calling up those huge Earthmovers for cover. Stingbats making mincemeat of infantry. Flame-troopers turning Stingbat nests into kindling. It's not simply tracer bullets and hydraulic joints vs. bows and arrows and leathery wings. Both sides know what the feck they're doing and they apply that knowledge towards some brutal results. And it's all kept coherent through 'corporate guy' watching the unfolding battle from home base. Good stuff, all eliminated.
And Netyiri's mount at the end is a "six-legged armored freight train with a scorpion tail - this thing could eat a T-Rex for breakfast and have the Alien Queen for dessert." (JC's own words, I actually remember them verbatim) Not just a big panther. A goddam SIX-LEGGED ARMORED- I give up. So she's plugged into this thing, only half in control, cleaving through ranks of powersuits, wondering in the back of her mind whether Jake's betrayed them. Then when things seem really hopeless, fiery debris starts raining down from above like crazy. Netyiri: FFS NOW WHAT? Lo and behold, Jake swooping down from above on Big Red, tearing turbo-choppers to pieces two, three at a time. Jake: "Miss me?" Netyiri, re-invigorated: "Where the feck were you?" Jake: "Look what I'm fecking riding, woman! Where the feck do you think I was?" You get the picture.
I forget what Michelle Rodriguez does, but it's not 'Gee, I'll spray-paint right here in the hangar and no one will notice until I actually get some screen time'. Wait, I remember. IIRC she gets imprisoned for refusing to fly. And the mediacorp crew break her out and she helps blackmail 'corporate guy'. And THEN she joins the battle, swooping in to do her part and save some of the Na'vi. Does it look more and more like JC just bent his past self over and had a go? I think it does.
And not in the scriptment, but a good way to explain the Deus Ex Machina: Fine, keep Jake's prayer if you have to, but also have Netyiri have to risk her life to mount the Thanator, just as Jake does Big Red. Have Pandora sense the Na'vi fighters' desperation/urgency through their links to their animals. The Na'vi being the only sentient beings in her domain, let that be what bends her benevolent indifference just this once, since it doesn't go against her creed of non-intervention. It's for the benefit of no one particular species, but for the continuance of all.
I think they also briefly show the benefits of Unobtanium on dying Earth, thus raising the conflict stakes amongst all the Earthlings in the audience, but that could just be my imagination which is stuck in How-Avatar-Could-Have-Managed-Not-To-Suck mode.
Hungrywing you do sound a little like one of the people who fell in love with the original script and now hate the film on principle because it deviated from it.
Meh. There's no way I'm getting locked in a debate arguing in favour of Avatar having a coherent, original plot.
Still think the reviewer bloke got that particular bit wrong but the damn thing is so full of holes it's a debate I'm never gonna win!
I'd never do that. It's actually a feeling that audiences were cheated out of something that could have been much more. Sort of like if you discovered a new delicious fruit on a tropical island, arranged to have it imported to your home country, but alas, due to distance, the fruit will always arrive in not-quite-perfect condition. You yourself are still on the island, enjoying the original goods, and everyone at home is absolutely raving about your fruit and even singing your praises, but you can't help feel strangely sorry/guilty towards them.
So I'm trying to share the fruit in original form.
EDIT: Also, the filmed version doesn't 'deviate' from the original so much as it 'resembles in no way whatsoever.' Only the characters' names (and in some cases not even those) remain intact. I think what happened is that JC simply had too much time to second-guess himself in the interim and hence became worried that audiences wouldn't "get" it unless he reduced it to its bare elements.
Bear in mind he's planning this as a trilogy, too, so some of the better elements might come in the later films. The first of the Star Wars trilogy was very basic where feck all happened, too.
I posted the original ending a while back. It leaves very little room for a sequel (and I have no doubt he plans to use this ending to close out the trilogy). Again, no person who claims a creative bone in their body would fault him for tinkering with elements here and there, but wholesale plot transplants such as in this case indicate either senility or corporate meddling. As you say, he's probably withholding tons of creatures for later on. Pandoran ocean life, for one.
Also, did you know that if George Lucas had had his way, Han Solo would have been a weird-looking alien, along with a bunch of other zany elements that I don't remember anymore. Apparently his buddies Francis Coppola, Steve Spielberg, et al steered him away from the insanity. Then thirty years later, George wondered maybe Jaws, The Godfather, Schindler's List, Apocalypse Now and all those movies were just flukes. Maybe Steve and Frank had been wrong. Maybe Star Wars could have been just as good if he'd stuck to his guns. Maybe no proofreading was the way of the Jedi.
Just got back in, saw this earlier. I must say, I'm sold on the 3D thing, at times spectacular, but mostly provides a wonderful depth to the image.
As for the movie itself, it is total fecking garbage.
As for the movie itself, it is total fecking garbage.
Exactly Weaste, now go out and find the whole world wanking over this fecking piece of shit which is only impressive for 30 minutes.
Join the anti-avatar move!
Love Inglorious Basterds Hate Avatar.
It is great escapist entertainment with brilliant action sequences. I thoroughly enjoyed it a second time today.
Great seeing this in 3D on a big screen.. the movie is nothing without the 3D effects though. Lame story, flat characters.
Except Inglorious Basterds was shit too. District 9 rules. Also Pochantas 2 was on yesterday so i reckon i know how the Avatar sequel will work.
Inglorious Basterds was fantastic. It should win best picture, and best supporting actor this year.
It was okay/so-so... Def preferred HL.
It should definitely win Best Supporting Actor, but there's no way the film itself was good enough to win Best Picture. It just wasn't that good!
Of the film I've seen that are nominated for Best film then the order would be.
District 9
Up
Inglourious Basterds
The Hurt Locker
Avatar
District 9
Up
Inglourious Basterds
The Hurt Locker
Avatar
I'd pick District 9 out of those, though I haven't seen The Hurt Locker.
If Avatar wins any "best film" awards, I'm boycotting everything.
Fair enough the 3D was impressive, but as a film, it sucked.
If Avatar wins any "best film" awards, I'm boycotting everything.
Fair enough the 3D was impressive, but as a film, it sucked.
I agree Christoph Waltz should win best supporting actor, but after the first 20 minutes, you'd seen all the best bits and it got repetitive and dull. A bit like a Roland Emerich film. Best film I can't say as I've not seen the Hurt locker, or Up in the Air. Something i will sort out soon. District 9 is miles ahead of the rest. Hell even Star Trek deserved a nomination over Avatar and Inglorious. I loved Avatar but I took it for what it was. The fulfilment of 1950's style scifi event cinema. Nothing more. The story is predictable, it is full of stereotypes, but for me the point was seeing if they could pull it off and keep me entertained which they did. More than could be said for the overhyped Inglorious Basterds which shot it's wad in the first 20 minutes. For that reason, I prefer Avatar, it wasn't trying to be cinema at it's best, it was trying to be a spetacle, nothing more, nothing less. Cameron gets my vote over Tarantino this time. So far though District 9 was the best film of the year. In fact wasn't Moon this year. Far better than both Avatar and Inglrious.
The Hurt Locker
District 9
Avatar
Up
Inglourious Basterds [not bad just preferred the others]
No it was shit, disjointed and boring.
Two people watching both Avatar and Inglorious Basterds from there house for the first time, which one do you think the vast majority of people with any sense over the age of 12 would chose? The one that was a top class, interesting, well done film, or an oversimplified piece of junk that looked really cool in theaters.
Neither of them were top class, interesting well done film. One was a boringly dull over long badly paced film that had shot it's load within the first 20 minutes. The other was a brain dead bit of popcorn that shouldn't have any accolades in the home setting as it was about bringing a new viewer experience in 3D in Imax. What will happen is they'll decide both are shit and go with district 9.
Inglourious Basterds was, like any other Tarantino film, just violent verbal masturbation. Hardly a masterpiece.