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

[Giantpanda602]

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.

 

[Ohhi]

It's not that it doesn't have it's creative and original moments it is just that the story structure and the way the characters interact with each other that reminds people of Pocahantas or Dances with Wolves.

 

[TheRightToArmBears]

Eh? It's just a McGuffin, I doubt it had any real use in mind. No doubt they'll think one up in a sequel though.

I thought the film as a whole wasn't bad, but aside from the CGI it wasn't anything special either.

 

[Imperioratorex Caprae]

People don't give it enough credit? Bah, it made shit-tons of money and you call that not enough credit?
Aside from that, there are a lot of people who're turned off by the over-arching "capitalists are evil" subtext in the movie for one thing rather than focusing on the fact that human beings are greedy inherently, not just "capitalists". For me it felt like it was trying too hard to win Cameron another Oscar by going over-the-top with everything and in the end I found it "pretty" but boring and pretty soulless.

 

[maddawg IAJI]

What do you think their reason was in Pocahontas? They were looking for Gold! Unowhatever is just the writers word for gold. And Avatar doesn't get enough credit? It is one of the most net grossing movies in existence (If you don't factor in inflation), it litterally made people depressed because they realized they couldn't live on Pandora and almost everyone who saw it loved it, as for me? I didn't really care either way for it. It dragged on and on and the 3-D hurt my eyes after an hour. Not to mention that it basically revived the 3-D movie.

As for the Metal's purpose, it apparently was a super hard metal and they were gonna use it to make ships and machinery more durable.

 

[Matt King]

unobtanium is a superconducter i think it says (conducts metal really well but normally needs to be at sub zero temperature but this one doesn't seem to need to be so obviously very valuble

 

[Daniel Laeben-Rosen]

Personally I thought the movie wasn't anything special in terms of story, but what it did better than any scifi-movie in ages was World Building. And I love me some good World Building.
The last bit of scifi I watched with decent WB was Firefly/Serenity.

That and Avatar was one pretty movie. In terms of blockbuster-material I'd say it's good enough. That and it had giant robots fighting dragons.
Y'know what? I'm fine with that.

 

[Arawn.Chernobog]

It's just a McGuffin, a special little "relic item" that is never fully explained and kinda just used to move the plot ahead, the movie is full of these alongside a lot of Deus Ex Machina moments. The characters are 2 dimensional (Seriously? Military Army general that can't feel emotions and has scars on the side of his face? Oh wow...) and the plot is piss-weak as well as having many points that are hardly justified or supported by itself.

It's generic and poorly-written movie that focuses on featuring pretty sceneries over any actual rich-content, it's the "anti-arthouse" film.

 

[RatRace123]

I thought it was OK, not bad, certainly not "Most successful movie ever" worthy, but it was good.
I don't feel that it was Cameron's best movie, (T2 FTW) but again, it was OK.

 

[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.

 

[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".

 

[Nova Helix]

People give that movie way to much credit. It's blue and boring and makes no sense. Lets go get Unobtainium, forshadowing hur hur. They take the slowest moving space ship EVER and for some reason support it with ground troops? Half way through I didn't care who won as long as it was over. I'm just glad I got in free (yay friends who work at movie theaters)

Seriously though what is so damn special about this movie, it's BORING

 

[Kenko]

It's not that it doesn't have it's creative and original moments it is just that the story structure and the way the characters interact with each other that reminds people of Pocahantas or Dances with Wolves.

Well it is a classic formula thats tried and true. It just works. People give it too much shit for it though.

 

[KalosCast]

MacGuffin

And the fact that it was called Unobtainium just means that whoever wrote that pile of crap is about as clever as a preschooler, on top of using the same plot we've seen 1,000 times in countless other works with no originality or twist to make it something new.

 

[Sexual Harassment Panda]

Really?

It was critically acclaimed and a huge success...

I actually found it a little dull, but whatever...can't please everyone.

 

[Sampler]

go watch Fern Gully along with the other two aforementioned flicks and then try watch Avatar again..

 

[Iconsting]

Fun fact: Unobtanium is a joke amongst engineers to describe a metal that they need for a project that they could never get their hands on.

Also, the biggest problem for me was the predictability. "Nobody has ever been able to create a bond between a this creature before." Oh yeah, he was totally gonna snag one before the end of the movie.

 

[blobin]

.

 

[Freechoice]

Well it's kind of like Starcraft 2.
You have a renowned creator taking many years and dumping millions into gaudy special effects and someone forgot to make a decent plot.

Neither gets enough shit for having taken 12+ years to make and still not being any good in the story department.

Are we gonna remember Crysis for anything besides being a CPU-killing monster? Probably not.

Then there's this [http://motivateurself.files.wordpress.com/2008/05/deus-ex.jpeg].

Bring back storytelling as a focus!