AVATAR - The Official Review Thread

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  • Re: AVATAR - The Official Review Thread

    I give it an A for visuals and D for story/writing. It was original and fresh when it was called "Little Big Man"--which may have been the first major Hollywood film to invert the bad injun, good cavalry theme. Since then, in movies including "Dances With Wolves," "Cabeza de Vaca," "Last...Mohicans," "The New World," the story has been done--much better, with genuinely interesting characters in the service of similar plots. You can make a big Hollywood movie with a theme like Avatar, but with real emotional resonance and without dumbing it down as badly as this was: I think Arthur Penn and Kevin Costner proved that.

    I'm not saying this was a bad movie--I enjoyed the visuals as much as anyone--but after an hour or so, I was hungry for even a small touch of subtlety and well-written character conflict, but all I got was: been there, done that. It was not a ninja movie or a mere adventure movie--it had something on its mind. But the obvious plot and one-dimensional characters didn't provoke much thinking--except that plot and characters were disappointingly hackneyed. Some relevant quotes from the "Aint It Cool News" review, which MacG linked earlier in the thread:

    So much hard work to create so much cinematic loveliness for such a binary, derivative, unsurprising narrative sledgehammer....

    ...the movie gets increasingly simple-minded, bordering on didactic. The humans get EEEEEEEVIL. The savages get Noble....

    But spectacle isn't story.....

    a hero's-quest / change-of-heart adventure in which NOTHING is surprising....

    "Message overwhelms the narrative" sums up my issue nicely....

    The story slips out of your head like it was sprayed with Pam.
    http://www.aintitcool.com/node/43429

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    • Re: AVATAR - The Official Review Thread

      Originally posted by Donreel View Post
      Some relevant quotes from the "Aint It Cool News" review, which MacG linked earlier in the thread:



      http://www.aintitcool.com/node/43429
      I'm glad someone got some use out of it.

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      • Re: AVATAR - The Official Review Thread

        Checked this out yesterday.

        Got sufficiently baked in the parking lot, and I gotta say I was COMPLETELY swept up in the world Cameron created...

        Until the third act.

        The exposition, the semi-cheesy oneliners, the shallow characters - I looked past all of it, as it was just such a ****ing amazing experience.

        But I gotta say, the doors kinda fell off at the end, and

        SPOILERS

        By the time the "Ewok Party" and Celine Dion song hit, I was already taken out of the magic and dwelling on the inherent flaws (in my opinion) in the hero's journey structure.

        We can argue in favor of the hero's journey all we want, and how it is a proven structure upon which to drape your drama, and how it has resonated with audiences for thousands of years in mythopoetry and all that, but you could also say the same of religion (and AVATAR had some pretty strong pat "spiritual" themes).

        I would like to see an evolution of the structure. It begs for comlexity. Cameron's "bad guys" (corporate goons and one track-minded jarheads), were completely flat. I wanted a hint of humanity in them as well. That they wanted the unobtainium for the sake of their children, the future of mankind. That they thought they were justified in their actions because their intentions were pure. The film seemed content to make them egotistical, arrogant imperialists (and while those types of people no doubt exist, you'd think a future where we are aware of and visiting other worlds might have opened up our mind a bit). Though, I will say - absolute power does tend to corrupt absolutely. Ultimately, I just thought these characterizations were very flat.

        Other issues: I'm pretty sick and tired of the notion of "The One." The Savior. The idea that we need to take it in the ass until some chosen (by a higher power) being comes along to save us.

        If anything, I would have twisted the convention on its head and made Jake's dead brother The One, and Jake the Near-One, or Almost-One. In other words, this peaceful, balanced, sentient planet would have been keying into something genetic that Jake and his Bro shared, but recognizing that his thoughful, SCIENTIFIC brother would be the "savior," through rational thought, compassion, and diplomacy. As it stood, we just got another story where violence is the answer. We must kill the bad guys.

        I get it. Drama is action. Diplomacy is boring (a fallacy, in my mind - Danny doesn't shoot Jessup in the face at the end of A FEW GOOD MEN).

        I wish I saw this when I was a kid. It would have blown my ****ing MIND! But, alas... I saw it as a jaded adult, hungry for new memes in storytelling. Like I said, I was totally enamored with this film until the third act hit, forgave it all transgressions. Maybe my buzz just wore off, I dunno. I thought the 3D was amazing (saw it on IMAX), and completely applaud Cameron for making a film the size and scope of which very few could pull off.

        PS - This has been called DANCES WITH SMURFS. You could call it DANCES WITH THE LAST OF THE BRAVEHEARTED SMURFHICANS. It totally treads the same ground, and I want to say I love all three of the films I mentioned here, tongue-in-cheek.

        I will say this though, DANCES WITH WOLVES (which I did see when I was twelve or thirteen) resonated with me far more than AVATAR. We know what happened to the Native Americans. There is a tragic poingancy as they trudge off, knowing their fate is sealed. In AVATAR we get no grasp of the gravity of imperialism. The idea that the humans will be back, better than ever, with a new bomb made just for the blue-folks, geared towards their subjegation or destruction. Like I said, here we got an Ewok party. Good guys win. Yay!
        Last edited by ihavebiglips; 12-30-2009, 01:35 PM.

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