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[mg1942]

Originally Posted by incube

@Nosauz

Ur the one that is fixed on the idea that a good film must have some deep, philosofical meaning...

people like that are using the wrong measurements when evaluating a big hollywood release...
'deep' movies like that should only be reserved for the niche and l33t... typically dominated by independents/europeans...and a certain degree of experience and intellect are required to understand or appreciate such films... now that doesn't sound fun for teh mainstream who prefer escapism and pure entertainment...

[Nosauz]

Look I'm not looking for something deep or philosophical, I'm looking for something realistic, with grit, the way we humans are. in this story the many characters are just black and white, mary sues if you will. They are not complex, and they lack humanity, they lack relatability. They lack DEPTH. Characters are paramount to visual media types, especially when you have actors who are paid to do something, at least not just make me think your playing a part in a movie. There is no wow, this guy is so real, his anguish is mine, instead it's looking at a 3d picture book for the first time, the graphics impress more than anything.

also just because she's a secondary character doesn't make her less of a human, what are her motivations, other than fuck it?

Also you apparently seem to know sooo much about cameron please do impart your wisdom. i see you happen to miss a movie called titanic, although visually stunning and impressing, HIGHLY intellectual and poignant. When leo dies I cried, and I was 8 when I first saw the movie. I mean it's a boat slamming into an iceberg, but all the characters are amazing, the captain, the ship designer, the fat ladies at dinner, its all wonderful, because the people in the movie are HUMAN BEINGS. It's ok to have flaws, thats what makes us wonderful, we aren't messiahs, we are flawed people trying to be better, its ok to fall. It's the dichotomy of good and bad that make up a person, hero's fail, thats why most super heroes are quite intersting. Look at batman the juxtaposition of justice and violence/vigilantism is what makes him great, it's not the fact that he's a rich wierdo who has a fetish for kevlar. Writing doesn't have to be deep, the characters and the story have to be real enough for me to suspend my disbeleif and enjoy what the people on screen are feeling. Just look at entourage, it's all fun, very little to do with plot, mostly just some guys hangin out but why do I love it? The characters and the way their written makes you either hate or love em, and in Avatar all I could feel was apathy for most of the characters. Romance or not, plots do need to explained either through exposition or through action, none of which occurred in the movie, so trite or unimportant, they still need to be resolved to be good story telling, and this just wasnt.

mg182 w/e
look i'm no snob, I love great movies, like Iron Man, spiderman 1, spiderman 2, hell even bad ones like brothers grim, and district 13 to name a couple, but good story telling is a must for movies, the whole point is to have a story, and if say the story is lets beat the shit our of eachother with cool super powers then I expect there to be kickass super powers, and thats why street fighter the movie sucked nad so did mk the movie. Avatar looked great, yeah, but people claiming it's the next breakthrough in story telling or acting are just delusional, and to be a good movie you have to be able to tell a story. Actually if you think about crouching tiger hidden dragon, it was quite bad, unlike house of daggers it had no grit no real humanity, it was obvious the characters were acting, and this is what it felt like in the entire movie. The one redeeming character was the sargent becuase he starts off playing the sly military commander then discards his mask and becomes his true self after the betrayal, which is why his character is what is interesting, not jake, not atriya or w/e.

[incube]

lol i just lost any motivation to try to respond to ur posts....

let me quote myself again and leave it like that

Try to enjoy the film instead of spending the time u paid for to find unimportant plot points and looking for deep meaningfull lessons from every single movie.

PS: Avatar is supposed to be a breakthrough in 3D / visual effects.... ur the one that wants it to be all the rest too.

[Nosauz]

Originally Posted by incube

lol i just lost any motivation to try to respond to ur posts....

let me quote myself again and leave it like that

hahaha ok, you take what you want out of movies and i'll take what i want. Apparrently good story telling and relatable well acted characters aren't in what you want so I'll leave at that.

no point at talking to a brick wall.

I guess graphics alone make a movie, breakthrough or not a movie solely for graphics from a power player in the directors chair just feels like a waste. Fucking micheal bay could direct an impressive looking movie, just look at pearl harbor, but man oh man was that movies story complete shit.

[Sassarai]

Star Trek > District 9 + Dances with Smurfs!

[james0246]

@Nosauz: While I generally disagree with the venomous attitude you have taken toward the film, I do fully agree that there are many, many plot points and characters (etc), that are very superficial (I disagree as to the extent of the superficiality of the film, rather I see the failing of the story as being caused by too much story (which is what happens when a director/writer throws in too many storylines, genres, etc), not a lack).

@incube: you cannot simply ignore all the problems of the film (many that Nosauz has mentioned) simply because it is an "action" film. Stories still need consistency and logic, and Avatar does lose itself in its visual wonderment to the detriment of its story.

Originally Posted by Sassarai

Star Trek > District 9 + Dances with Smurfs!

Well said. Avatar is a better experience, but Star Trek is a better (or at least more fun) film.

[Vexx]

Originally Posted by Roger Rambo

Having just watched the movie, I can roughly say the idea this Pixiv artist got is generally accurate.

Gotta love tsundere whereever you find them

[FDW]

My opinion on Avatar:

It was alright, despite the generic storyline (I don't really care much about the visual element), but in my mind Cameron could've made twice as much money if the movie had a bad ending, (The Navi end up slaughtered through the superior firepower) or an ending where it's implied that Humanity will return. (This time with more guns.)

[james0246]

^Well, it seemed fairly obvious that the humans would return to the moon (it is the only known place with an abundance of the mineral the Earth needs, after all). The question is, how long it will take (5-10 years at least, depending on the amount of information obtained via communication before the human colony fell), and whether a diplomatic solution could be found instead (now that the mercenaries are gone (which is fine, considering that they were not military, just mercenaries), and some semblance of relations (via Jake and the various other human survivors) can be found between the 2 species, it would be best for all if a diplomatic solution could be found...otherwise, say bye bye to the Na'vi as their planet is bombarded from space until the entire area becomes a wasteland and the humans can then go down and excavate the resources as they see fit).

[FDW]

Originally Posted by james0246

^Well, it seemed fairly obvious that the humans would return to the moon (it is the only known place with an abundance of the mineral the Earth needs, after all). The question is, how long it will take (5-10 years at least, depending on the amount of information obtained via communication before the human colony fell), and whether a diplomatic solution could be found instead (now that the mercenaries are gone (which is fine, considering that they were not military, just mercenaries), and some semblance of relations (via Jake and the various other human survivors) can be found between the 2 species, it would be best for all if a diplomatic solution could be found...otherwise, say bye bye to the Na'vi as their planet is bombarded from space until the entire area becomes a wasteland and the humans can then go down and excavate the resources as they see fit).

Taking a trip down history lane, I could probably hedge a safe bet that the Humans will be back, with a larger fleet and A LOT more guns, and NOT in the mood to negotiate on fair terms.

[Vexx]

Its a larger version of the "imperial projection" problem across vast oceans.... the British ran into it repeatedly (the American Colonies, India, China). Projecting a sufficiently large military force across light years requires a huge supporting infrastructure of logistics, supply, resources -- the Avatar universe seems somewhat realistic in that energy and resource doesn't come from nowhere (as it does in the Star Trek universe).

The Romans solved it for a while simply by letting the locals do as they did - just new banners and sending resource skim to the homeland, eventually even the "roman soldiers" were simply local boys. The Celts objected to even that idea - and were subjected to almost total cultural genocide.

[james0246]

Originally Posted by FDW

Taking a trip down history lane, I could probably hedge a safe bet that the Humans will be back, with a larger fleet and A LOT more guns, and NOT in the mood to negotiate on fair terms.

Diplomacy is always the ideal, and I have hopes that the Giovanni Ribisi's character will have learned from his failed mercenary approach (as I said in an earlier post, much can be said of Ribisi's portrayal of the corporate greedmongerer that attempts to rape and pillage the land). But, I somewhat expect that the natives are screwed...

[FDW]

Originally Posted by Vexx

Its a larger version of the "imperial projection" problem across vast oceans.... the British ran into it repeatedly (the American Colonies, India, China). Projecting a sufficiently large military force across light years requires a huge supporting infrastructure of logistics, supply, resources -- the Avatar universe seems somewhat realistic in that energy and resource doesn't come from nowhere (as it does in the Star Trek universe).

The Romans solved it for a while simply by letting the locals do as they did - just new banners and sending resource skim to the homeland, eventually even the "roman soldiers" were simply local boys. The Celts objected to even that idea - and were subjected to almost total cultural genocide.

I'm not saying that the Humans will be sucessful in the Long-term, rather they get some initial victories, but as the Navi end up taking up Guerilla warface, the Human forces will get caught in a bloody endless stalemate that in turn, paves the way for a new status quo where some form of temporary peace is agreed upon.

[FDW]

Originally Posted by james0246

Diplomacy is always the ideal, and I have hopes that the Giovanni Ribisi's character will have learned from his failed mercenary approach (as I said in an earlier post, much can be said of Ribisi's portrayal of the corporate greedmongerer that attempts to rape and pillage the land). But, I somewhat expect that the natives are screwed...

Yeah, I wouldn't expect the natives to get completely killed off, but looking at the past experience of Native Americans in North America as an example, you could say that there are some truly dark and horrifying days ahead for the Navi.

[Daniel E.]

Nice movie. I wasn't blown away by it as other people, but it was a good watch regardless.

Originally Posted by FDW

Taking a trip down history lane, I could probably hedge a safe bet that the Humans will be back, with a larger fleet and A LOT more guns, and NOT in the mood to negotiate on fair terms.

The Humans Strike Back!

Hope they don't do it in giant four legged mechas!

[Solace]

I enjoyed it. I thought that it worked better as an imaginative piece rather than a narrative one but that's probably the goal anyway. Pandora is cool, and probably one of the most "realized" fantasy settings I've seen in a long time. Was the story deep and thought provoking? On some levels perhaps, but it's relatively easy to predict. The characters and love interest, ditto.

I was bummed that Grace didn't make it, and I felt the struggle between the characters choices were convincing if a bit obvious. I really felt Giovanni Ribis's role was pretty empty but I liked his small "change of heart" toward the end. On the other hand I felt the mercenaries being portrayed as warmongers was a bit extreme. Yes we get that they're "no questions no survivors" type people but the triangle of corporate/military/scientist was a bit too cut and dry for my tastes.

In any case the visuals were amazing and I'd love to see a sequel or side story. I think at the very least the Avatar universe is rich enough to provide some great potential for future works, professional or fan made. It's a place ripe with opportunity and possibilities and it would be a shame to see it all go to waste simply because the introductory story wasn't as original as the setting it was planted in.

[DragoZERO]

The 3D and visuals were amazing but the story was horrible. 1/4 way through I could have told you how it ended. I'm glad I went in there with no expectations or even a clue of what it was about.

[Roger Rambo]

Originally Posted by FDW

Taking a trip down history lane, I could probably hedge a safe bet that the Humans will be back, with a larger fleet and A LOT more guns, and NOT in the mood to negotiate on fair terms.

Any invasion force you send will probably be more poorly equipped than the RDA merc force on planet. Allot of people may have missed this, but nearly all of that gear was constructed by the company on planet due to the insane cost of shipping things to Pandora. About all the interstellar ships could manage was shipping in personell and complex parts they couldn't manufacture on site. They'd be extremely lucky if they could mount an invasion force that amounted to the total security force that the RDA previously had on planet. But even then, with no hope of resupply they run out of ammo probably in a few days. Your ships simply won't be able to carry enough material to set up a beach head.

The only remotely viable invasion strategy involves lots of relativistic weapon strikes and loads of every weapon of mass destruction you can think of. Of course then you run into the problem of the feasibility of getting this kind of operation launched on an earth in which the green party is considered a respected political power house.

Originally Posted by Vexx

Its a larger version of the "imperial projection" problem across vast oceans.... the British ran into it repeatedly (the American Colonies, India, China). Projecting a sufficiently large military force across light years requires a huge supporting infrastructure of logistics, supply, resources -- the Avatar universe seems somewhat realistic in that energy and resource doesn't come from nowhere (as it does in the Star Trek universe).

To give you an idea of the scale involved here...

Lets optimistically assume that it only costs $100000 to send a pound to pandora and we want to send an air cavalry platoon to the far off planet.

-Lets assume that our average soldiers weighs 220 pounds (we're including his weapon, ammo, misc gear and armor). So it costs 22 million dollars just to ship our soldier to Pandora. But we can't send him alone, so we get 99 of his buddies. That now brings the shipping cost to 2.2 billion dollars. But our soldiers also need food for two weeks. Soldier needs a high protein five pounds of food a day, which over the course of two weeks translates in to another 700 million dollars. So 2.9 billion. But they also need ammo. Soldiers easily carry 9 pounds of ammo on them, but for an extended operation you need more. So lets keep five extra of those 9 pound ammo loads for every soldier. So that comes out to an extra 450 million in extra ammo.

So that's 3.35 billion dollars (just in shipping) for an infantry company that only has enough food for 2 weeks, maybe enough ammo for a week and no heavy weapons or vehicles of any kind. Which in the environment they're going into makes them the equivalent to diamond embroidered disposable napkins.

[felix]

Originally Posted by mg1942

this is james cameron we're talking about... every shit he touches turns to gold!

next in avatar's crosshairs... titanic!

You might have to consider difference in value and ticket costs if you go that far in the past.

[DragoZERO]

Originally Posted by Cats

You might have to consider difference in value and ticket costs if you go that far in the past.

They will include all of that in the calculations and all. The fact is that this guy will have the two highest grossing movies in the world.