posted
I am very fond of The Abyss written by Mr.Card based on J.Cameron's screenplay...will such a collaboration arise from Avatar? Though I was enthralled with all the special effects, i was not particularly impressed with the story; just following the myriad references was enough to...well. It's been a while since I lost my copy of Herbert's The Jesus Incident, Christa Galli and The Lazarus Effect -don't remember if this was the order- but this was clearly on Cameron's Avatar reading list. AS well as, of course, Mary Doria Rusells The Sparrow. With this new technology I find there can no longer be any excuses to bring the Ender series to film. ok, very new to this, so forgive the stilted speech.
Posts: 2 | Registered: Jan 2010
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posted
I just saw Avatar today. As a matter of fact I JUST got back from it 5 min ago.
Jenni and I LOVED it. Most 3-d movies are a gimmick, and not worth even considering going to see, but this movie was outstanding.
Posts: 15082 | Registered: Jul 2001
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posted
I have major conflicted feelings on Avatar. On one hand it was absolutely gorgeous, innovative and sometimes very moving (I suspect that's partly because I'm a treehugger and therefore more susceptible to being moved by this kind of movie)... but... the screenplay was just crap. James Cameron CAN'T WRITE and no one's ever going to tell him that because he's so successful. Avatar could've been so much better if they used all that budget and technology on a at least decently written story.
Posts: 241 | Registered: Nov 2009
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posted
As long as you ignored the lack of complexity in the story, Avatar was an amazing film. The story was adequate which when added to the special effects equated to an extraordinary film. The network among the tree's, ancestors, and Na'vi definitely reminded me of the Pequenino's relationship with their world. Personally, I think he got the idea from OSC because of their past affiliations. I would definitely recommend it to anyone. Hopefully in the sequel they will bring the same level of CGI awesomeness and still put more emphasis on a deeper plot.
Posts: 11 | Registered: Oct 2009
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posted
Cameron: "Hey! It's time for my next billion dollar project! I need a script!"
Random Cameron Lacky:"Hey, I found this old script for Dances With Wolves."
Cameron:"Perfect! Switch the indians out for aliens and give me Sigourny Weaver, and we have our movie!"
Posts: 1937 | Registered: Nov 2006
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posted
OSC posted a parody of the sentiment recently by describing Ender's Game in such a way that his description applied to Harry Potter. If you tried, you could easily write a description applicable to any two very different works. There are only 6 stories, as Lousie La'mour used to say- and he wrote 89 novels.
Posts: 9912 | Registered: Nov 2005
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posted
Avatar's story is fluff designed to facilitate the spectacle of pandora to the viewer. It is flat, narrow, and flies straight. It's an extrapolated sci-fi version of a basic hero's epic. All it is missing is the Chorus.
It works fine in the context of what it's supposed to do (facilitate visual thrill oooh aaah) but, uh, why is the story itself winning awards. Award the film's visuals, perhaps its cinematography. The story?
Posts: 15421 | Registered: Aug 2005
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posted
I guess the visuals were that good. Gives the equivalent of beer googles to anyone viewing it about anything else about it, heh.
Posts: 17164 | Registered: Jun 2001
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quote:Originally posted by Orincoro: OSC posted a parody of the sentiment recently by describing Ender's Game in such a way that his description applied to Harry Potter. If you tried, you could easily write a description applicable to any two very different works. There are only 6 stories, as Lousie La'mour used to say- and he wrote 89 novels.
Where was this posted? I'd like to read it.
Posts: 2 | Registered: Jan 2010
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quote:Originally posted by Samprimary: It works fine in the context of what it's supposed to do (facilitate visual thrill oooh aaah) but, uh, why is the story itself winning awards. Award the film's visuals, perhaps its cinematography. The story?
Easy- in the way that collateral damage flattens buildings next to bombing sites, collateral accolades cast praise on things that are mediocre, because they are associated with things that are great.
Posts: 9912 | Registered: Nov 2005
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You know, I could actually understand this line. After all, maybe it only just now occurred to her that he might not know that her people were only capable of mating with one individual over the course of their whole life. Posts: 37449 | Registered: May 1999
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posted
It's also to remind the audience in as clear a set of terms possible, the significance of what has taken place. I saw it as a bit of makeup for a very cursory development of the romantic plot- they had to establish its significance by the end of act 3, so that she could curse him in act 4, and make up in act 5- my only beef with this was how utterly predictable it was, but I didn't honestly expect anything different.
Posts: 9912 | Registered: Nov 2005
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posted
If the story is predictable, but still a good story, that's just fine by me.
I expected Jake to be found out, exiled, and eventually reintegrated. I expected (at least) one of the main characters to die. I expected a showdown between Jake and Col. Scarface.
All of these happened, but with great effects, decent dialogue and good action. Very enjoyable.
Posts: 1711 | Registered: Jun 2004
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posted
Yeah, fine. I could have done with something a little less predictable, but I enjoyed the movie anyway. The story could have been worse, and as it was it wasn't really *bad* just not outstanding on its own.
Posts: 9912 | Registered: Nov 2005
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posted
Maybe not Dances with Wolves, but Battle for Terra. So similar a storyline as to be downright scary.
It's a story I don't much care for, although I am sympathetic to it's basis. But I'm still looking forward to it for the "eye candy."
Posts: 1295 | Registered: Jan 2003
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posted
Did anyone else see the movie and think to themselves, "I really want to see an Ender's Game movie in 3d"?
Posts: 24 | Registered: Mar 2007
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quote:Originally posted by sinflower: Jake: Then why did you save me? Neytiri: ....You have a strong heart.
I found that line funny because Sam Worthington also plays Marcus Wright in Terminator Salvation...
You won't get that if you haven't seen TS.
Posts: 1569 | Registered: Dec 2004
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Blayne Bradley
unregistered
posted
Hehehe.
my problem with the movie is that Humans lost out majorly in the end, werent these movies supposed to be about forgiveness and making up and other tree hugger crap that lets us exploit their planet for resources but in a nicer way? Humanity needed those rocks for superconductors didn't they?
Maybe I'm reading too much warhammer 40,000 fluff but I felt Humanity got the short end of the stick.
Also the Scientists were kinda dumb, this was a business executive she was speaking to, they don't care about academic theory give results tell her that the planets nature equals one giant muther effin supercomputer of awesome and they can make money by keeping trees around!
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posted
My comment was that the plot was a blunt instrument. It gets the job done, but boy, are you going to see it coming, and there's not a lot subtle about it.
That said, there are plenty of movies, especially in the genre, that don't even achieve credible linear coherence, so I'm inclined to give Avatar some slack. Nothing in it is as cringeworthy as, say, the "I don't like sand..." bit from Attack of the Clones, or the battlefield surgery in Terminator: Salvation, or Nicholas Cage going batspit at the museum in Knowing.
And the visual style really is incredible, especially in 3-D. Ebert said it was one of the first of the new 3-D movies that really "worked" for him, and I can see where he came from.
That said...
<SPOILER!>
...
...I know it's dramatic, and all, but wouldn't it have been nice of Eywa to pitch in before half the sympathetic characters were killed off?
The human base is pretty much open, by the looks of how the heroes make their escape; a few of those rhinocerous things could have taken out the entire aerial fleet while it was grounded at two in the morning right before the invasion.
Eywa works in mysterious, and dramatic-arc-predictable, ways.
posted
I think the expectations for this movie were hilarious. James Cameron says he wants to make a film to appeal to his inner 14 year old...that was your first clue.
I don't think Cameron stole anything from OSC, the Abyss already showed some of his "glowy things!" tendencies. Glowy magical forests that talk are as old as Tolkien and possibly older.
And yet for some reason, people still expect Hollywood to take their 385 million dollar investment, and take a RISK with the story. A spectacle of light and sound, huge investment, and people seriously expected more from this film?
I mean, come on...come onn! Posts: 1236 | Registered: Mar 2002
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posted
Sterling: I like to think that Eywa thinks very, very slowly, and after all can't talk to the rhinos and the dragons clearly unless they happen to hook up their spinal taps, so it took the planet some time to formulate and organize a response.
Posts: 37449 | Registered: May 1999
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posted
I want, really badly, for OSC to review Avatar. This is one of those movies where I'm not sure what he'll think.
Posts: 241 | Registered: Nov 2009
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posted
Tom: I'm sure one can come up with an excuse for why the response took so long. Probably several, with an hour to brainstorm. But to be frank, the movie doesn't provide one, and even if it had, the real reason would be dramatic convenience.
Don't get me wrong; I very much enjoyed the film. I even think the script works, for what it's worth. But it's strictly Screenwriting 102, and there was hardly a thing that happened in it I didn't see coming.
Posts: 3826 | Registered: May 2005
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posted
My prediction is that he will bluster on about not having wanted to see it for some ideological reason, or else bluster about not having seen it not for ideological reasons, but for practical reasons, because only *idiots* don't see movies for ideological reasons. It will have either been strongly recommended by someone, or will be a desperation pick while he's at the theater, even though he hadn't planned on ever watching it.
Then he will either say that it was surprisingly *good,* especially given the extremely liberal and annoying and evil embodying director who writes annoying schlock that is artistically craven and bankrupt OR he will say that it was surprisingly *bad* despite the fact that the director is the creator of such quality films that appeal to all people, not just the intellectual elitists who accuse him of being artistically craven and bankrupt (and who demand that he toe the line for the Leftaliban), when really it is *they* who are the true evil.
Honestly, I spin a wheel when it comes to OSC's opinions, because it almost doesn't matter what he says anymore, but really it's all about *how* he says it. If you just read his reviews for what is at best artful and at its very worst impressive spin, you can witness a sort of genius at work.
Partly all that is just a function of the column's format. He claims not to review anything he doesn't like, so normally he either reviews things he liked *in spite* of some major flaw he then devotes that article to, or else he reviews something he liked despite the fact that he thought he would hate it, at which point he grouses about the thing he hates for most of the article.
Posts: 9912 | Registered: Nov 2005
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posted
I don't really agree that the movie was muddled with ideological snipes, and I don't agree that the review should become muddled with frustrated pedagogy.
Posts: 15421 | Registered: Aug 2005
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posted
I believe I mentioned this elsewhere, but it especially fits here. When James Cameron was on Leno a couple of days ago, he said he was not anti-military. He has relatives in the military, and is proud of them. He pointed out that even though many of the military types in Avatar were thugs and barbarians, the hero exemplified the very ideals and virtures of a good marine.
Also, do not forget the other soldiers who were conscientious enough to turn against their own, even using their fighter craft against the others--reminiscent of the helicopter gunship pilot who stopped the Me Lai massacre by threatening to open fire on the out-of-control American soldiers if they did not stop what they were doing. That pilot was one of the heros of the Vietnam war, and much better exemplified the real character of the vast majority of American soldiers.
I think James Cameron has been getting a bum rap over his ideology.
Posts: 3742 | Registered: Dec 2001
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posted
Well, they wore uniforms, and had military ranks. Perhaps they were mercenaries. The hero, you will recall, had suffered partial paralysis as a result of his actions in a previous military conflict, for which he was honored, and I believe he was said to be a marine.
Posts: 3742 | Registered: Dec 2001
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quote:Originally posted by scifibum: I thought they were a private security force, not a military.
I distinctly remember them saying they were not the official military, but were under the command of the corporation in control of the mining effort. So yeah, a private security force.
Posts: 21898 | Registered: Nov 2004
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posted
Cameron should be pointing that out, then, instead of the equivalent of "some of my best friends are Marines!" There's no basis for trying to divine his views toward the US armed forces.
Posts: 4287 | Registered: Mar 2005
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quote:Originally posted by Ron Lambert: Well, they wore uniforms, and had military ranks. Perhaps they were mercenaries.
Perhaps? They were explicitly mercenaries. The main character goes through a blatant monologue about how the entire security force of the RDA base are goons-for-hire who were on planet solely for the money.
There was no governmental or national presence on Pandora. RDA's base is an example of a corporate extraterritoriality.
Posts: 15421 | Registered: Aug 2005
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quote:Originally posted by Samprimary: Perhaps? They were explicitly mercenaries. The main character goes through a blatant monologue about how the entire security force of the RDA base are goons-for-hire who were on planet solely for the money.
There was no governmental or national presence on Pandora. RDA's base is an example of a corporate extraterritoriality.
And yet, in fairness, it's pretty hard not to take the "pre-emptive strike", "they hate what we stand for" rabble-rousing scene as anything less than a shot at... Shall we say... Certain recent political policies.
I agree that they're clearly mercenaries. And I agree that strictly speaking the movie isn't so much anti-military as it is anti-imperialism. But I would be lying if I said I didn't think that the movie was bringing up certain subjects in an entirely intentional manner. Which- I will also say- is entirely the moviemaker's right, and if anyone has a problem with it, they're certainly not obligated to contribute cash to the 1.8 billion and counting.
Posts: 3826 | Registered: May 2005
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