Seen "Avatar" at last!!!

[Waxing_Gibbous]

So about a year after everyone else, I finally sat down with a rented big screen projector, some popcorn and and a Blu-Ray of Avatar.
First impression after 40 minutes:
"This is awful. Just bilge" (apart from the cinematographics)! The plot is stolen, hook line and sinker from hands-down, the worst theatrical production ever: the aerial tree-hugging, gymnastica at the Millenium Dome in 2000.
"Evil Sky People", "At-One-with-Everything-Forest People" "Giant Home Tree of happiness and love". Soppy music, greedy corporation. It had it all and worse 10 years ago!!!
It was dire to the power of crap and then some. My wife spent the whole show with her head in her hands and cringing. I fealt vaguely ill. People around us would not look at each other.
Only the under 7s and the "developmentally challenged" seemed to enjoy it.
"Why in gawd's name couldn't he have pilfered a better plot?! I thought. Its unbelievable that they were THAT starved for ideas that they had to scrape the underside of the bottom of the barrel!

However; After the blowy-uppy home-tree-of-"why-didn't-you-see-this-coming-great-world-spirit?" scene, I thought it got a WHOLE lot better!!
So much of a whole lot better I might have to actually stick a crow-bar in my wallet and buy it!
So, IMNSHO:
Extraordinary effects, 10/10
Plagerised, rubbish plot - 0/10
Fight scenes - 10/10

And I could really go one of those giant dragony-things!

[rider]

The script is from Hiawatha - I think they changed a couple of names though.

It been used a couple of hundred times in other movies since then.

and, if you think the movie is bad, don't try the video game - it makes the movie look a like masterpiece.

[Jen]

:thumbsup::thumbsup: good on ya Peter :lol: Yeah i want one of those dragons too :P

[renormalised]

Actually, the Ikrans (Mountain Banshees) are not reptiles...they have a common ancestry with fish...or have aspects that are convergent in evolution with fish. They're warm blooded. Probably more mammalian/avian in much of their make up than anything else.

Beautiful creatures:)

[Steffen]

Well, I thought this (http://www.readwrite.co.za/2010/01/22/avatar-pocahontas-in-one-jpg/) summarises it well.

Cheers
Steffen.

[renormalised]

So what...all good myths/fables/legends have similar storylines. Just that in this case, Pocahontas has its basis in reality...although the story is only very loosely based on the historical events.

In actual fact, every movie ever made can be said to be a ripoff of another, or of a myth/fable/legend of some sort.

[Steffen]

No, only Hollywood movies :P

Cheers
Steffen.

[renormalised]

Oh, I don't know about that....the Bollywood ones a pretty much the same, as are just about everyone else's :)

[multiweb]

:lol: This pocahontas and other plagiarism debate is still going on? Bo-ring. :P ABADAH kicked a**! Period. (Says the gaavarnohr of califoniah).

[renormalised]

I know...it's a bit passe now.

You mean the "Governator":)

[starlooker]

I've watched it once in 3-D in the theatre, and 3 times already on DVD.

Am watching more tonight. :D

Best movie EVER.

[Jules76]

I watched it for the first time last night as well. Overall I thought it was good, however it didn't quite live up to the hype that was surrounding it for me.

One thing though, "unobtainium". Was this a joke or did they just run out of ideas?

[adman]

I always thought the whole point of Avatar was the 3d thing. By that I mean that 3d has been done before - but more from the starting point of "wouldn't it be cool to do a 3d movie, what can we put in it??".

Avatar was a movie that also happened to be in 3D. This (I think) was the first serious try at making a 3D movie where the 3D wasn't the whole reason for its existence.

So while I say that the whole point of Avatar was the 3D thing - the point was that the 3D wasn't the point. Do you see what I mean? The 3D was kind of incidental, they weren't continually beating you over the head with the 3D effect. In fact there were times when watching it (in 3D), that I had to take those glasses off for a moment just to be sure that it was still in 3D.

It wasn't the best film in the world, but I thought they did a good job of proving the worth of the 3D medium.

[Benno18]

Great thanks guys!!!!!! Dont have to watch it anymore, got the whole movie there!!!!!. I even have it on DVD. Myself and the wife were going to sit down and watch it, but the children win!!! Not enough time between kids going to bed and us watching it :P

Then theres the astronomy. thats on the back seat!!!

[Octane]

Julian,

Unobtanium is a real thing. Look it up on Wikipedia.

H

[renormalised]

Unobtanium = anything which is very hard or close to impossible to reproduce, manufacture and/or find in nature. It's an engineering slang term.

[multiweb]

Like an honest pollie with integrity. :lol: ;)

[renormalised]

No, that's Impossibilium:):P:P

[Waxing_Gibbous]

Still don't know why its worth 20 million a kilo.
Perhaps it induces original ideas in scriptwriters.:question:

[Jeffkop]

Peter ... the REAL visual treat was the 3D at the cinema. I couldnt imagine watching it with all the lameness that you've spoken of and not in 3D. I was just watching all these things move and fly, totally immersed in it, so much so that it wasnt really until the end, after Ide done a quick summation of what Ide just experienced that I realized fully how I'de been more mentally challenged opening the jaffa packet than I had with the show.

As a visual though, it was awesome and I'de happily do it all again.

[renormalised]

C'mon, Peter....think!!!:)

How much would you pay for a room temp, naturally occurring superconductor, if you had to build a fleet of starships and fly 4.4 light years to where it was found, then brave the hostility of some verdant paradise to get to it. Especially when your own planet is on its way to down the plug hole because you've raped it till there was almost nothing left. And the stuff you were after is an integral part of all your high tech, from starships to power generation.

I think you approached Avatar in the wrong way and you generated a self fulfilling disappointment in the movie. You were expecting too much and it wasn't the sort of movie that works like that. It's telling a story, based on tried and true mythos that's been repeated over and over again. But it did so in a different setting and did it rather well. It wasn't a movie to take away trying to figure out the subplots and intrigue...it was made to tell a story that most people on this planet have forgot in "living" their lives...that we're all interconnected, with everything, and if we let our own apathy, carelessness and the greed, lust for power and stupidity of a few rule the day then we're all going to go to hell in a hand basket. Sooner than we think. But there is hope. Which path do we take??

[Octane]

Peter, you really had to see the movie in 3D in a theatre.

I understand your issue with having to go to a cinema.

The movie was a visual feast and no DVD or Blu-Ray is going to do it justice.

H

[DiamondDust]

Well I wouldn't do it in 3D ever, EVER again! I got travel sickness:mad2: Had to take the b***** glasses off!

[Jeffkop]

:lol::lol::lol::lol: ... oh no ... see THATS how immersed you get !!! .. I feel really sorry for you, as even thou, as renormalised suggested, theres a couple of pearls we can take from the show, its the visual impact that is its true masterpiece ... IMO ... but that bit made you sick .... soz

[renormalised]

You needed "sea sick" tablets:):P

[renormalised]

Or in Ingrid's case, the "master puke":):P:P

It certainly had visual impact!!:):P

[Steffen]

Or, more appropriately, "see sick" tablets :lol::lol::lol:

Cheers
Steffen.

[DiamondDust]

Ok, Ok enough of the puke....you sick puppies!!:rofl:

[Waxing_Gibbous]

Actually, I had no problems at all with the cinemgrapholocs. I thought they were simply jaw-dropping. Just beautiful. I even got vertigo when they were climbing the floating boulders.
And I especially liked whatshername's attitude to whoshisface: "ghaaa. *smack!* "Like child"! :D
I still stand by my view of the plot and direction though.

[renormalised]

whatshername's = Neytiri

whoshisface = Jake

:):)