People don't give Avatar enough credit (James Cameron one)

[FalloutJack]

People don't give Avatar enough credit.

I have no idea who these uhhh...people are. Most of the time, I always heard that people loved it, from the younger crowd to the older generation (and by that, I mean up to senior citizens). Suffice to say, the complaints of other people are to be received like this:

Really, that's how it is.

WHAT?!

OT: The movie's story is old and has been told a thousand times before in different skins and shades. The only reason it was so big was due to the hype of the 3D.

Sorry, I can't hear you over the sound of how awesome I am.

(It's super-effective, folks!)

 

[aegix drakan_v1legacy]

My opinion on Avatar is this: It IS a rehash of Pocahontas. But that doesn't matter. It retells the story VERY VERY well.

I don't think it's a phenomenal movie, but I DO think it's pretty damn good. It just needed a little something more, and it would have been a masterpiece.

But as is, it has to settle for "pretty damn good".

ummm... what? You mean that in order to make a movie that's "pretty damn good" all you have to do is take an older movie's plot and fill it with cliches and archetypes? I never knew this, TO TV TROPES!!!

It's more like the good pacing, the way they built up the world, the atmosphere and the sheer epicness of the visual Pizazz (the final battle was nothing short of amazing) made up for the cliches and archetypes and made the movie very enjoyable DESPITE it being a bit of a re-hash.


Also, your comment could be used to describe the game industry right now, since everyone seems to think that making the same brown dull shooter + russians/arabs = Game of the year material.

 

[SarcasminBloom]

Were you on Mars or something when Avatar came out? You couldn't throw a rock without hitting someone raving about the damn thing.

 

[Rayne870]

Please, James Cameron has already come out and said that movies should be as good as Avatar, so I think its gotten enough credit that he's developed an undeserved ego. Pre-Avatar I even liked his work but, this was just bad. But at least it looked pretty.

 

[Bara_no_Hime]

Have you read like at least half the non-troll, analytical comments on this thread? Basically goes like this:
Dances with Wolves + Cliches * Archetypes = Avatar's Plot
Acting - believability = Avatar's acting
visuals + plot + acting = Ok || Good
Avatar != hype || praise

Yes, and I (and others on this thread) disagree with you math.

First of all, cliches and archetypes are only bad if they are done badly. James Cameron is a master of doing them well. He takes cheesy plots and does them so well that audiences don't mind the cheese. Look at Titanic. And Dark Angel.

When was any of the acting in Avatar bad when compared with, say, Aliens? I watch both movies, and see pretty much the same level - standard action film. Why does everyone want to hold Avatar to a higher standard than Kill Bill or Die Hard (both great, but campy movies)?

I didn't say Avatar was high art (and I wouldn't say that) but it's damn fun to watch. I enjoy it. It's a wonderful, campy, over-the-top movie. It's all the things that are great about Dances with Wolves (which was also cheesy as hell) throws it in the Aliens universe, or a very very similar one, to produce a really good, fun film. Is it gonna win an Oscar? Hell no. Then again, I have no interest in watching the King's Speech.

Avatar does not deserve all the hate it gets. It isn't trying to be intellectual or Oscar worthy - it's just trying to be a fun action flick. Stop acting like it's any different than any other action film. Or, to put it another way:

Avatar != Smart
Avatar = Fun

And fun is good.

 

[Bara_no_Hime]

Please, James Cameron has already come out and said that movies should be as good as Avatar, so I think its gotten enough credit that he's developed an undeserved ego. Pre-Avatar I even liked his work but, this was just bad. But at least it looked pretty.

I'll give you this one - James Cameron is a huge ego-maniac. If people hate on Avatar because he pisses them off so much, well, I can't blame them.

I like his work. I just try to ignore the man.

 

[Diligent]

Having just watched it recently for the first time, and having never seen it in 3d (its native format) I walked away from that movie barely feeling like I absorbed any of it. My mom actually put it best: It felt like watching somebody else play a video game.
To me the movie was a very empty experience.
And the fact that the rock is called unobtanium was a facepalm moment for me when watching it.
The colonel (or whatever) was such an over-the-top bad guy that it was laughable. It felt like his direction from James Cameron was, "I want you to be a meanie. Like...just a fucking meanie."
The heavy-handed "capitalism is bad... mmmmkay?" message was like a cheese grater on my soul.

In conclusion Avatar got more than enough credit for what it was.

 

[ZombieGenesis]

You know what else doesn't get enough credit?
Facebook. In terms of love it gets about the same as Avatar, and it's just not enough...

Perhaps living sacrafices, or virgin souls would be more appropriate.
In fact screw it, take my blood, it's only fair.

 

[Giantpanda602]

Holy crap, are you people still commenting on this?

 

[Aeshi]

Unobtanium has Anti-Gravity powers,that's how the islands stay floating, it might also explain how that tree grew so big (since the Unobtanium underneath it would've decreased the gravity more so it could grow bigger)

 

[johnzaku]

I loved it!

And you know what my main beef with people complaining about it almost being a remake?

NOBODY gives actual remakes this amount of crap. And NOONE gives STAR WARS the amount crap this has gotten for "unrealistic aliens"

and NOBODY gave the actual Dances With Wolves the crap about "abandoning his own people for savages"

It all seems like nitpicking over a movie that was genuinely visually stunning and admittedly used a fairly tired formula story-wise, but come on

also, I openly admit that cameron himself is narcissistic maniac, but he makes good stuff.

 

[Levitas1234]

The highest grossing film isn't given enough credit?

 

[loc978]

Honestly, I found the unironic use of the word unobtainium [http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Unobtainium] in a movie to be slightly insulting to my intelligence. The fact that most people I know didn't get the reference until it was spelled out for them made me hang my head in shame for them...

Was the film good, though? Eh, the CGI was pretty amazing. The storyline was predictable to the point of boredom, though. I felt like I'd seen the same movie at least 10 times in my life, just with fewer blue aliens.

 

[Axolotl]

At least Last Samurai as good acting (even Tom Cruise, altrought I think the movie would be even better with another main lead actor), good dialogues, good development even if a little used and good characters.

I give Last Samurai 8/10 in quality and 10/10 in entertainment. It's my favorite movie.

I guess if you ignore the offensiver moraqlity of the films message then it might be OK but how could you try and ignore it? It waved it in face the whole time, it's bad enough when films try and force their morals upon you but it's even worse when the morals being displayed are so repugnant.

Can you explain in others words? Didn't catch well what you mean.

You're saying the morality Last Samurai tries to pass is predictable?

I'm not saying it's predictable, I'm saying is offensive and objectionable.

 

[PhunkyPhazon]

The story is generic, the characters are one-dimensional, and it bashes its themes over your head with a mallet the Hulk's fist. Not to mention I was able to gleam the entire plot structure just by watching a single trailer. Never once did the movie try to throw in an unexpected twist or anything, it played things ridiculously safe. The movie was worth seeing once, but I have had no real desire to watch it again.

Too bad for me, my brother is Avatar's #1 fanboy, so he bugs me (And everyone around him) to watch it again every five minutes. Believe me, watching it again a couple times didn't really change my opinion. I'll admit the special addition does make some of the characters slightly less one-dimensional, though.

 

[funguy2121]

So, my friend repeatedly tells me how stupid it is that I enjoy Avatar. I don't believe he gives it as much credit as it deserves. People say that its a direct rip off of Pocahontas, but I think its much different. Take "Unobtainium" for example. Its the fake rock that they're trying to mine in Avatar-place (forgot what its called). I find it hard to believe that people want super expensive space granite countertops. Obviously it does something other than look pretty. Maybe it cures cancer. It has to do something amazing. They hired a company to FLY TO ANOTHER PLANET with all that military equipment to kill huge blue cat people who are living on top of the rocks.

I dunno, just something to think about.

Didn't they say it was used as fuel?

Anyway, there seem to be exactly 2 sides to this debate and both have been done to death, so instead of picking a side...

Why are films by people like Cameron picked apart and slammed like this, while movies like SAW XVII are only judged on the merits of being exactly like all the other movies in their crappy genre/series?

From a technical standpoint, Avatar has opened up new doors for talented filmmakers to forge new paths. For the rest of the lot, it makes no difference.

The story certainly wasn't as original as Aliens or Terminator, but it was certainly better than most of the other action/sci-fi movies to come out that year, so why are people bitchin'?

To sound important.

'kay. Guess I did pick a side there.

 

[Veylon]

I loved it!

And you know what my main beef with people complaining about it almost being a remake?

NOBODY gives actual remakes this amount of crap. And NOONE gives STAR WARS the amount crap this has gotten for "unrealistic aliens"

and NOBODY gave the actual Dances With Wolves the crap about "abandoning his own people for savages"

It all seems like nitpicking over a movie that was genuinely visually stunning and admittedly used a fairly tired formula story-wise, but come on

also, I openly admit that cameron himself is narcissistic maniac, but he makes good stuff.

Plenty of people give remakes this amount of crap; if Dances with Wolves ever does get remade it will be criticized at least as hard as Avatar. Look at all the people upset over Tron 2 or Alice in Wonderland and already standing in line to hate the new Wizard of Oz.

As for the abandoning, Dances with Wolves established the main character as someone already prepared; he wanted to see the frontier and interact with the Indians. He spends time with them before the army shows up; heck they try to shoot him without asking questions first.

Whereas, with Jake, he knows before he goes to the Na'vi that the military would attack them. His mission is to tell them to move (which he ignores to the detriment of everybody) and to gather intel. There's also the issue of the unobtanium which (apparently) is absolutely vital to humanity and the line about sending the soldiers "back to their dying world", implying that human civilization is in dire straits. Neither of these was true in Dances with Wolves. It casts the situation in a different moral light when it seems that the Na'vi are withholding something that humanity needs, something that the Na'vi don't even want or use.

As for Star Wars, it's fantasy. Space Opera. Avatar is at pains to make it clear that it takes place in our universe and works by the rules we know here. There are helicopters, genetic engineering, U.S. soldiers, and business executives. So we have higher expectations for realism.

 

[johnzaku]

I loved it!

And you know what my main beef with people complaining about it almost being a remake?

NOBODY gives actual remakes this amount of crap. And NOONE gives STAR WARS the amount crap this has gotten for "unrealistic aliens"

and NOBODY gave the actual Dances With Wolves the crap about "abandoning his own people for savages"

It all seems like nitpicking over a movie that was genuinely visually stunning and admittedly used a fairly tired formula story-wise, but come on

also, I openly admit that cameron himself is narcissistic maniac, but he makes good stuff.

Plenty of people give remakes this amount of crap; if Dances with Wolves ever does get remade it will be criticized at least as hard as Avatar. Look at all the people upset over Tron 2 or Alice in Wonderland and already standing in line to hate the new Wizard of Oz.

As for the abandoning, Dances with Wolves established the main character as someone already prepared; he wanted to see the frontier and interact with the Indians. He spends time with them before the army shows up; heck they try to shoot him without asking questions first.

Whereas, with Jake, he knows before he goes to the Na'vi that the military would attack them. His mission is to tell them to move (which he ignores to the detriment of everybody) and to gather intel. There's also the issue of the unobtanium which (apparently) is absolutely vital to humanity and the line about sending the soldiers "back to their dying world", implying that human civilization is in dire straits. Neither of these was true in Dances with Wolves. It casts the situation in a different moral light when it seems that the Na'vi are withholding something that humanity needs, something that the Na'vi don't even want or use.

As for Star Wars, it's fantasy. Space Opera. Avatar is at pains to make it clear that it takes place in our universe and works by the rules we know here. There are helicopters, genetic engineering, U.S. soldiers, and business executives. So we have higher expectations for realism.

Good point, I still stand by my argument, but I'm not as vehement as I was.

Touché