Is "Avatar" the worst written movie ever?

sgip

sgip

Well-known member
May as well throw some gasoline on the fire....

Saw "Avatar" for the second time - strictly for the effects, but it occurred to me that if you pay attention to the story it's pretty much a hack job and the characters are just terrible. From the Down with Corporations message (via Aliens) to the syrupy "Oh look, how pristine the natives are", and finally the anti-war blather ("looks like some kind of shock and awe campaign...") I'd have to say if the film wasn't as pretty to watch as it is, it would really be a dud. Then there are the typecasts:

EYWA, Mother God vs YAHWEH, Father God
The tough and wrongheaded Security Chief (jeeze, zero surprise there for a baddie)
The Corporate Tool (ripped off from Aliens)
The tough Hispanic soldier (again, right out of Aliens)
Sigourney Weaver's tough but mothering type character. Her halo filled death scene was really too much for me.
The wounded vet who goes native (Dances with Wolves)
"The People", a common term used by Native Americans, used by the Navi - who BTW are all voiced by minority actors like Wes Studi, CC Pounder and Zoe Saldana.
The Circle of Life message (stolen from The Lion King)....

I could go on, as I'm sure others could as well. Yes, I paid twice to see it (IMAX, Irvine, IMAX Aliso Viejo) so I've helped perpetuate the Avatar brand, but does anyone else agree with me that The Emperor has no clothes?
 
Yeah... wasn't epic to me... just a recast of films from the last 20 years or so.

It felt like Pocahontas + Dances w/ Wolves + The Matrix with a little bit of Titanic and Terminator since it was James Cameron.

I think I liked Sherlock Holmes better.
 
with visuals like that you really need a predictable, brain dead story; besides it's a formula that works and for dads like me who get to go to ONE movie a year... we don't want to take a chance on some artiste, no-name indie film, we need a good escape for just a few hours and Avatar hit the spot...
 
Visually it's great, storyline is tired. Dialogue was worse.

But let's change topics. Who hates 3-D?

I can stand the glasses. Blurriness for anything that isn't dead center. Any twist of the head makes the movie go out of focus. The loss of peripheral vision.

Honestly, I want to see more than the middle 1/9th (1/3x1/3) of the screen. On IMAX, if I saw recording image in the lower right, you had to look at it to see it clearlyand then everything else was out of focus because of the glasses.

I hate 3D.
 
I gotta tell ya I spent the first 15 minutes just saying Wow, over and over. I really liked the escape and Cameron delivers on the promise. I saw it at IMAX and my 7 year old ate it up but it is alot to process for a young mind and by the end of it he had a headache. Young neurons fire at a faster pace than 45 year old grey matter. It is what it is, it's not Citizen Kane but it is also not Howard the Duck
 
Howard the Duck. WOW, now THATS an obscure cultural reference. How GL went from Star Wars to HtD is beyond me.

I guess for me the verdict is in. If you liked "Pocahontas" you'll love the sequel "Pocahontas in Space" which is my new name for Avatar.
 
[quote author="Soylent Green Is People"]May as well throw some gasoline on the fire....

Saw "Avatar" for the second time - strictly for the effects, but it occurred to me that if you pay attention to the story it's pretty much a hack job and the characters are just terrible. From the Down with Corporations message (via Aliens) to the syrupy "Oh look, how pristine the natives are", and finally the anti-war blather ("looks like some kind of shock and awe campaign...") I'd have to say if the film wasn't as pretty to watch as it is, it would really be a dud. Then there are the typecasts:

EYWA, Mother God vs YAHWEH, Father God
The tough and wrongheaded Security Chief (jeeze, zero surprise there for a baddie)
The Corporate Tool (ripped off from Aliens)
The tough Hispanic soldier (again, right out of Aliens)
Sigourney Weaver's tough but mothering type character. Her halo filled death scene was really too much for me.
The wounded vet who goes native (Dances with Wolves)
"The People", a common term used by Native Americans, used by the Navi - who BTW are all voiced by minority actors like Wes Studi, CC Pounder and Zoe Saldana.
The Circle of Life message (stolen from The Lion King)....

I could go on, as I'm sure others could as well. Yes, I paid twice to see it (IMAX, Irvine, IMAX Aliso Viejo) so I've helped perpetuate the Avatar brand, but does anyone else agree with me that The Emperor has no clothes?
[/quote]

What if someone never saw those movies before, wouldn't Avatar be an awesome experience for them? The movie is rated PG-13, I'm pretty sure a 13 year old has never even heard of Dances With Wolves. Anyway, the box office results speak for themselves.
 
avatar is overrated because its too similar to titanic, aliens, the matrix, dances with wolves? um, aren't those all pretty darn good movies? two of them won best film and director and one of them is in the national film registry. yes, the basic storyline is the same premise used in movies like dances with wolves, last samurai, a man called horse, etc. ok, so that's maybe once every 5-10 yrs a film comes along with that plot?

the closest oscar competition for avatar appears to be Up in the Air, which is basically a rehash of the same old formula that the award season seems to love. typical story of the corporate axman/lawyer/family man who begins to question the morality of his life and career. doesn't george clooney play that same role every time? [*cough* michael clayton] and that basic plot premise is no different than that of every holiday, family, lawyer-based, or oscar-targeted comedy/drama. we've seen this story a hundred times but it doesn't necessarily jump out at us because it's rarely that memorable.

on the other hand, we've seen the story in avatar maybe a handful of times. and it strikes us as so familiar, but only because the prior iterations were themselves so memorable. i consider that high praise for the film, no?
 
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