Avatar - Welcome to the future of cinema!
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Still think this was possibly the worst movie I've paid to go and see. Everyone harps on about the visuals but after the first 15 minutes, and apart from about two scenes (cockpit view of floating rocks in spaceship, massive tree explosion), I actually found it incredibly bland and predictable. Just another film that manages to make the vast possibilities of space and alien worlds into something utterly familiar and dull.
Life is in 3D...unless you're going to make something vastly different and more interesting, don't bother.
Less said about the characters and film itself the better. I genuinely couldn't give a feck for about the last two hours and just wanted to go home. Also the glasses gave me a headache.
Yeah, again. It was decent enough as a flick I thought, but from the imaginative side, it was a disappointment. Both the dream worlds and story had so much more potential. It's almost like Nolan chickened out of exploring the possibilities in favour of making sure the film was accessible. Least that's the impression I got. Nearly all mainstream flicks these days seem to have zero imaginative effort.
Though I have started having dreams inside my dreams since I saw Inception, which is a surprisingly horrifying experience. Er...bangerwrong.
Life is in 3D...unless you're going to make something vastly different and more interesting, don't bother.
Less said about the characters and film itself the better. I genuinely couldn't give a feck for about the last two hours and just wanted to go home. Also the glasses gave me a headache.
Yeah, again. It was decent enough as a flick I thought, but from the imaginative side, it was a disappointment. Both the dream worlds and story had so much more potential. It's almost like Nolan chickened out of exploring the possibilities in favour of making sure the film was accessible. Least that's the impression I got. Nearly all mainstream flicks these days seem to have zero imaginative effort.
Though I have started having dreams inside my dreams since I saw Inception, which is a surprisingly horrifying experience. Er...bangerwrong.
good visuals in the cinema, average film
I've not cried foul once, i've actually joined in the debate with you, agreed with a lot of what you said and tried to put my point across where I've disagreed with you.
lets try something here.
What do you know, it works.
As in for the Matrix in the first 20 minutes to half an hour they had that whole scene were it's explained to him whats going on, which explained the concept of the film. (might have been longer, I admit til they got to that point). As for Inception, there's nothing extra in it, I need to see to make me understand the film any better as far as the concept and plot goes.
Well it only works because you've put my name in there and as such it's working as a readable paragraph...I haven't really done any of that stuff...Though I definitely argue things when they suit me. I include myself as a person. I'm also a massive hypocrite. I'm many things. I am Legend.
Shall we call it quits, I know I'm done arguing over it now.
As long as we've agreed I am Legend.
and I won, yes we're agreed.
J
Yep. That's why Paprika is so much more superior. The dream worlds felt surreal... almost David Lynch-like.
Yep. That's why Paprika is so much more superior. The dream worlds felt surreal... almost David Lynch-like.
FWIW a middling 80s rating for a $500m+ grossing picture is actually a sign of "I know I won't risk my credibility too much by endorsing this product with (the few remaining shreds of) my professional integrity" Not a sign of "Hey folks, this movie is pretty darn good!"
Professional critics are very self-aware. They are very wary of stepping out of line for social reasons as well as professional duty. In Avatar's case, their ratings were never going to be about three out of four stars or anything like that. There were really only two choices: "Do I want to risk saying what I really think about this movie that everyone is going to go see anyway?" and "Since they're all going to see it anyway, I'll just say it's a pretty fun movie."
Bringing up the RT figures underestimates the "first-TV-set-on-the-block" nature of the film and all its ramifications within the sphere of professional film criticism. This was not an ordinary film judged on a standing scale. It was more of a social event. If anything, the social event nature of the 3D/CGI should have been the icing on the cake for critics to unabashedly slap a giddy 5-star rating on it across the board. As it turned out, it was more like "Well the visuals were nice, I guess I could give it 4 instead of 3 stars for that."
Also, an interesting tidbit regarding IMDB ratings for films released in the past ten years or so: a few years back, IMDB seriously considered (AKA invested actual money towards developing) denying rating rights to certain bands of membership (never explicitly stated but widely understood to have been teenagers & twenty-somethings) before the site was bought out and the plan nixed because of the impact such a measure would have had on site traffic among other reasons.
I'll take that as an insultiment.
Don't be silly. Some of the greatest artists to have graced this earth had or have that 'WTF?!' factor.
Please, Gambit, re-read the question.
But is it an entertaining and funny popcorn flick that you enjoyed? Let's face it, man, it was annoying. I was impressed for 10 minutes, then I felt like leaving the cinema but I was in a date so didn't know what to do. I don't think it necessarily had to be complex, but let me put it this way:
If Avatar were a 700 pages book, would you read it? A book with greatly designed nad new graphics, design, and illustrations. Would you read it? Let's forget for an instant it is a movie, etc. because it would go away from the point I'm making.
But MUFC07 my man would you not agree avatar is te greatest film ever?
Hehe
Hehe
The great thing about hypocrisy is that once you accept it in yourself, you can condemn it in other people.
I've not seen Paprika yet.
To be fair Anime is surreal and weird even when it's trying not to be.
Uh, yes it was. Have I not made that clear, repeatedly?
The book paragraph is just so daft, seeing as books and films are meant to entertain and enthrall in completely different ways.
just did, my answers still stand. V for vendetta was a comic book first so the film didn't really do anything new, just took a good story and made into film. Matrix once the concept was revealed fell on the chosen one origin story used many times before (don't get me wrong I love the film). Inception, once we got past the concept then turned into another action heist film.
Ok everybody concentrates on the Pochantas dances with wolves storyline. I keep saying it was secondary to the whole meaning and purpose of the film, and why I have no interest in watching it on tv or in any other format other than Imax 3D. It's a theme park ride and an advertisement.
I'll try and explain.
The film took longer than 5 years to develop. It has been developing since Titanic. Cameron when making Titanic developed the camera technology for the deep sea filming, and he made a shit load of money for it. He then carried on with his camera technology with all those IMAX 3D Titanic. This was his research time and when he figured out how to make a camera for filming 3D in a different way. So he had this technology but he needed it to go mainstream, he needed Hollywood to buy it. So he had planned for a film on an Alien world so he could show it's wonders in 3D but what it to be more than anything was a smash hit. For it to be a smash hit he had to create a full length feature film, something that would be spectacular and make so much money that Hollywood would have no choice but to buy it and make him billions, and push Lucas off his perch and the cutting edge of film technology. Everbody goes on about pochadancing wolves but the real films he ripped off were his own. He looked at his biggest hits, Titanic a love story that becomes a tragedy (Seriously check out the comparisons, they're incredibly the same). Aliens, everyone loved his space marines and the big robot crane, and Terminator, things explode. So he had his formula, so you'd think the story would be his next concern, nope slap on any old theme we can go with that. What was the next main concern was making people love the Navi and hate the baddies. He used every trick in his book for that. For the Navi, give them big disney eyes, give them cat and dog like features because everyone sympathises with these animals in film (unless they talk or do comedy), ride the green movement and make them in harmony with nature, innocent, and play on the USA's guilt for their past. The baddies were so 1 dimensional it was unreal, a military that was the worst aspect of what we hate when we see the goings on around us in the world today. Corporate financial people that only care about profit. Hell he even used subliminal messaging to get that last bit of hate from the viewer. He could talk it up as this epic movie (which it was, just not a very original one).
Ok so thinking of it or comparing it to other films is pointless in my eyes. It was created for the sole purpose of selling this
and all that went with it which is worth more than what he'd make from the box office alone, and guess what, it worked. I didn't have the expectations weighed on me of seeing a piece of cinematic mastery, I expected it to be what it was, a theme park attraction. It has more in common with all the other IMAX films than it does with anything we are comparing it to on these threads. It milked the money from the viewer, made the film a success and did it's main job, sell the equipment. I for one loved it. I have no intention of watching it at home or on even the cinema. When Avatar 2 comes out though, I will be buying my IMAX 3D tickets as quick as possible.
Fair dues... It just can't work as a substitute a proper story, for me... Not going to slag anybody off for loving the 3D concept, mind.
Wow, easily entertained, you are, you must love Serie B football.
Is it too daft? I'd like to read a whole argument based on that statement from your part. I think it is daft to say otherwise. It's not like people adapt books/novels into cinema, is it?
I mean I'm not comparing a work of music with a photograph, am I?So your answer stands on "I can notice new things from Inception watching it once", I'm sorry, but that's the logic conclusion of your argument. I notice new, quite interesting things every time I see it. I don't love it though, I just happen to have watched it repetedley for different circumstances. Then, you say once we got past the concept then the movie turned into another action heist film. Can't the same be applied to Avatar? I mean once you get past the first 40 minutes and the visual effects it just turns into another film of which we have seen plenty. I honestly can't notice the difference.
According to what you said, Avatar is an epic movie, but not a very original one. I don't really see the epicness behind a "not very original" movie.
Having said that, I want to point something out about something I said earlier. The "everybody is a critic" thing. Yes, everybody is, long time since everybody was, you just have access to plenty of this unprofessional criticism because of the internet. Now, someone over-played this card and said that then what are we doing here and even discussing things, but that was not the point, 'cause we all discuss, say football for instance, from an unprofessional point of view. All our points of view are from what we can gather, and the argument I brought (which I couldn't support since it wasn't on a website) was that I could speak about experts saying Avatar wasn't what many say it is.
Now, for example, Spoony, you misunderstood me. I'm not saying you -we- shouldn't express our opinions on something. What I'm saying is we should be aware of the fact that many of us are not experts in a given subject and therefore should accept that we are giving opinions from an un-professional point of view and stop acting like we know everything. I'm open to any opinions you might have, whether I agree with me or not, as long as you give valid arguments, and not just throw statements at the fire acting like you know everything and are masters of cinema/football/any given subject.
Wow, easily entertained, you are, you must love Serie B football.
Is it too daft? I'd like to read a whole argument based on that statement from your part. I think it is daft to say otherwise. It's not like people adapt books/novels into cinema, is it?
For feck sake man, the movie got near universal praise and broke all box office records, isn't there the slightest chance that maybe, just maybe it's ok to be seen as an enjoyable film by some? You're really coming across as a pretentious little swine here.
Cinema and books are 2 very different things, books can't use visuals, they can't use music, they can't use sfx, they can't use actors. They've writing, that's all, plain and simple. They convey their stories in a completely different way to films, I don't understand how you can argue that. Just because books are made into films doesn't mean they're like for like, hence why most of the time it doesn't really go too well, bar the odd few here and there.
If you don't like Avatar. fine, that's your opinion, an opinion that isn't shared by a lot of people.
It got universal praise, yes, broke all office records, yes (tbf, there are other shitty movies which have done the same). But ok, it was enjoyable for some people, and how it did it is beyond me, and let me tell you why so I just support my argument: Psychologycal development of characters, storyline, development of the story, dialogues, are all pretty weak, pretty basic. Visual effects and music are good, and that's about it. Not worth, IMO, all the hype about it. But then again, that's just my opinion.
I don't think cinema and books are "very" different things, I actually think they are very alike, they both have their resources to be different, of course. In movies, you can't do some things that you can do with books, especially with the beauty of the language that you can mostly find in books. You say it is "just writing, plain and simple", well I don't happen to agree with you, as there are quite a lot of books that are very difficult to read, and to say it is just simple writing is not beyond simplistic. Books and films convey stories in different ways, that's true too, but not in "very" different ones, actually they just vary in the way that you picture them. Take The Birds as an example, the story written by Daphne Du Maurier and the movie by Hitchcock, I could share the links to both of them if you'd like, it's really good to see how they convey the same thing by telling different stories. You get the point I'm trying to make?
Story-wise Avatar is weak, really weak, and that's why I don't think it is worth the 8 dollars I paid and three hours I spent watching it, but that's just me. In my very humble opinion, it doesn't deserve to be among the best movies ever, let alone the epic ones. Again, story-wise. If we're looking for the selling of the special camera fact, then it delivered something, but then we should be talking of other movies which did improve cinema in the same line, which are actually not considered as good as Avatar.
There's nothing new in Inception I need to see to understand the film or gain any enjoyment from it. Yes Avatar does just become another action movie, but I was there to experience it and I loved every minute of it, I thought the battle scene at the end was incredible.
It was epic in every scale, huge battles, large cast, the film was gigantic in it's scope.
I never listen to experts.
Way too much whining over a shit movie.
Personally I think it's a good craic.
Ok, fair enough. Even though I don't understand you, that's your opinion, maybe your taste.
You never listen to experts? I'm guessing film experts? Well, let me suggest you listen to experts from time to time if you want to become good at something.
Well no, most people, including most major critics, but hey, what do they know,.
Exactly, your opinion, and what you've said there isn't far from the truth, but a good popcorn flick never needs 'psychological' development, it never tries to, you generally know that going in.
Actually Inception tried to, and failed.
No.
Books are just writing, plain and simple. The difficulty of reading them doesn't change the fact that it's text on the paper, how hard is that to understand exactly?
Everything else bolded, I mean, what the feck are you on? You're just agreeing with me here, and then going, "well yeah they're different, but y'know, kinda the same, in a way, and stuff"
Humble? Yeah that's exactly how you've come across here.
feck all people have said it deserves to be among the best ever, actually pretty much nobody here, so maybe if you just get the notion into your head that the general public think it's an enjoyable fecking film you can stop going on about your utterly irrelevant book v film comparisons and weak stories and what not. I'm sure you're a big expert on it and all that, but honestly, I couldn't care less.
I think Ebert said it best in his review of Titanic:
I enjoyed Avatar. To call it a masterpiece would be pushing it, but the visual effects and the technology employed here creates quite an experience. The story is almost painfully cliched and the dialogue is often ridiculous (Cameron really doesn't get enough stick for his dialogue), but it didn't bother me that much, probably because I expected it going in.
I'd say it's a good movie that succeeds at what it tries to do.
I enjoyed Avatar. To call it a masterpiece would be pushing it, but the visual effects and the technology employed here creates quite an experience. The story is almost painfully cliched and the dialogue is often ridiculous (Cameron really doesn't get enough stick for his dialogue), but it didn't bother me that much, probably because I expected it going in.
I'd say it's a good movie that succeeds at what it tries to do.
Saw this for the first time yesterday, thought it was excellent. Wasn't expecting much but pleasantly surprised.
Yep, it's a masterpiece.
If only the story hadn't been so unoriginal and full of cliches. I think that next films in the trilogy might have bigger potential.
There'll be a trilogy? This is news to me.
Filming the 2nd and 3rd back to back for 2013 and 2014 releases I believe it is, might be 2014 and 15 though.
Wish he'd do Battle Angel instead, Cameron pussied out man.
Wish he'd do Battle Angel instead, Cameron pussied out man.
I still haven't seen this film and I made the topic 
Don't bother. It's predictable cornball shite.
Doesn't deserve the hype and praise it gets. Very predictable storyline, with decent graphics used to sidetrack the audience.