Avatar (by James Cameron)

[Bobtheduck]

I saw it last night. Liked about 2/3 of it.

The fights were fun, as was the whole Pocahontas sequence that was the first half of the movie. Even though I thought the animism aspect was annoying, I thought that the fact they made this planet special [spoiler](the unique aspect was the super brain-like nature of the planet)[/spoiler] made up for that. As far as it relates to Pocahontas, one advantage Avatar has is that it's not based on real people, so they have more leeway... I'm more ready to forgive James Cameron for some loose analogies than the Disney animators who simply violated history (particularly since my bio-family's geneology suggests we're descended from her, though I supposed it's impossible to know for sure because of how difficult it is to trace anyone's history back to her.)

When it became blatant soapboxing, I stopped liking it. The whole "savages" and "aboriginals" thing was bad enough, but "We'll fight terror with terror" and "They're starting a shock and awe campaign" and "We don't have any green on our world" really annoyed me. I forgot it once the huge battle started, though. Especially the last one-on-one battle. Boy, I loved that one... As soon as he went for the trailer (based on Grace's scene) I knew what would happen at the end.

Did any old gamers think of Secret of Mana during one particular scene late in the movie (you should know which one I'm talking about) I expected a large white dragon to rise to destroy the world in retaliation after that...

[Lady Kenshin]

I loved this movie until the last third. Looking back, I loathe it.

[GrubbTheFragger]

I want my giant Dragon Butterfly!

Overall the movie was enjoyable not best picture worthy but still alot of fun to watch

[Etoh*the*Greato]

I loved it. The best thing they did to make Dances of Wolves was to replace Kevin Costner with a guy that looks like Mark Wahlberg.

[Warrior 4 Jesus]

I saw Avatar in 3D. I'm not convinced that 3D really adds much to the experience. There were several moments that took full advantage of the technology but most of the time it didn't do anything for me. I've got to say, for all the hype surrounding it, it was only quite good (and that's almost purely because of the impressive visuals). The imaginative fauna and flora were very cool (though I'm not sure why most animals needed an extra pair of limbs and the horse/zebra-like creatures didn't animate so well in a full gallop). The Na'vi were nicely animated and I enjoyed the ending battle and the strangeness of Pandora. The world was nicely realised. The story was beyond bland. It's not even that it has been done countless times, it's that no new perspective was brought to the story. The acting wasn't terrible but nor was it memorable. Sigoury Weaver didn't even make much of an impression. The music was decent at times but most of the time forgettable. Character development wasn't present, except for perhaps Jake and his Na'vi lover (she was probably the most interesting of the lot). I know people don't go to a James Cameron movie to expect quality dialogue and character depth BUT nor should we be happy with something so clichéd and for lack of a better word, 'soulless'.
I don't need great dialogue to enjoy a movie, I don't need great character development, nor much of a story to enjoy a movie but I need more than just pretty visuals. I'm giving Avatar a 7/10 (and even that feels particularly generous).

[Nate]

Well I just saw it tonight and whew, what a lot I have to say.

It wasn't as bad as I expected. But it wasn't good. It was okay. That's it. Let's see, where do I begin?

First, I wasn't impressed by Pandora. At all. It looked nice but it's all been done. Maybe if this had come out when he first thought of it, it would be great. But the characters are going "OH THE FLOATING MOUNTAINS OF PANDORA SO AWESOME" and I was thinking "Hey this looks like those cool floating islands from Final Fantasy 12. Hey those six legged horses look like Sleipnir, Odin's horse from the Final Fantasy games." Also why did everything on Pandora have six legs aside from the Na'vi? Speaking from an evolutionary standpoint it wouldn't make any sense for them to have that many legs, that's just more energy that would be expended and it gives them no biological advantage over four legs.

Though admittedly, the helicopter lizards were pretty awesome (or were they bugs? It was hard to tell). Still most of it just looked like it had been done before and better. Maybe that can't be helped because "James Cameron thought of it first he just didn't have the technology to do it!" to which I say what, hand animation wasn't good enough? Too childish for him? I feel like he just picked and chose from currently existing properties to fill in space in the script.

Oh and the SCRIPT. Seriously, "unobtanium?" I feel like he left that word in the script until he could think of a better name for it and then they started making it and said "Oh hey, you forgot to name the mineral" and he just went "Ah screw it we'll just call it that." I look forward to his next movie where the main character is named Protagonist.

"Fight terror with terror?" What a stupid stupid line. James Cameron if you are going to try and politicize a movie at least try to HIDE IT. It's called SUBTLETY. Try using it! Oh and the final battle scene (while well done) certainly didn't remind me of Return of the Jedi with a technologically inferior tribe defeating a more advanced civilization at all!

I also find it amusing that despite the movie's message (people are EVIL and destroy everything!) James Cameron still falls into the tired old "White people are the greatest people EVER because they can adapt to any society!" Jake is able to work his way into the tribes of the Na'vi and be accepted as one of their own! But could a Na'vi ever successfully integrate itself into human society and be one of us? Nope! Because they're not white and therefore the best! I mean white people can be Japanese (The Last Samurai), and they can be Native American (Dances With Wolves, Pocahontas) and even mythological creatures (Ferngully) but those people can never be part of our society! And not only does Jake become one of them but he even becomes the super awesome warrior of legend! White people are even better at being the people in the societies they integrate themselves into than the people themselves! WOOOO! GO WHITE PEOPLE!

Really this movie's been done before, and better. It blatantly rips off The Last Samurai and Dances With Wolves (along with a few other films). People will say "No it's just INSPIRED by them!" No, it's a direct ripoff. George Lucas has said that the movie The Hidden Fortress was the inspiration for Star Wars. I've seen that movie. Star Wars does not feel like "The Hidden Fortress IN SPACE!" You can see similar themes but the movies are very different, Star Wars has similarities but it's not exactly the same. This movie IS exactly the same as those movies.

And as for the hype? This type of movie has never been done before? Am I the only person who remembers Final Fantasy: The Spirits Within? Yeah it was a box-office bomb but so what? Just because it isn't as visually impressive as this movie doesn't matter, that movie did it first. If it hadn't been for the hype of this movie, maybe it wouldn't be so bad. Ultimately it's just popcorn fluff. It's visually impressive but thematically lacking and will be quickly forgotten for the next movie of this kind. It will certainly not change the face of cinema forever.

[Davidizer13]

I saw it a couple weeks back, with some friends. I thought it was OK, and that was the majority opinion, though my sister hated it with reckless abandon. All of us who went to the movie are baffled when we hear stories of people going to see it more than once.

Nate said some of what I was going to say: script-wise and design-wise, everything in this movie has been done before, and better. It started out looking promising, but about half an hour into it, all those cliches started to totally derail the movie down the well-worn paths that it took. Even the visuals, which I thought were very well done, soon lost their luster. District 9, of which I have only seen the trailers, had effects that were more stunning to my eyes than anything in Avatar, for a tenth of the budget. Even Alive in Jo'Burg, the short film that was the basis for District 9, had more interesting things to say and look at in 6-8 minutes than all of Avatar.

The movie ran for three hours, but hardly said anything memorable. I had the ending pegged at about an hour in. Part of it was probably because I watch/read a lot of sci-fi and fantasy, so all these supposedly-new concepts the movie was trying to bring in, to vary the "white guy moves in with space Indians" formula, were somewhat familiar. Ooh, mind-linking with space pterodactyl-dragons. Haven't seen that one before. Mecha. Wow. Next. Space marines. How original! [SPOILER]The life on the planet has formed a giant network, and unites to blow up Meteor with a giant laser, er, I mean, beat the evil, planet-destroying humans. [/SPOILER] Yawn.

Some things about it, though, really bugged me. First, that corporate guy who showed up in a couple scenes to spout a few lines. It was so obvious that the movie wanted you to figuratively boo at him, but he never really did anything worth booing. Second, they managed to make a knife fight with a giant robot unexciting to watch. How does that work? [SPOILER]The hero steals away the heir-guy's betrothed to be his shallow love interest, and hardly anything comes of it. Twenty minutes later, all is forgiven, and they're fighting together. Um, what? [/SPOILER]

Of course, that one might have been fixed by [SPOILER]how they made it worse. Every character on the side of the space Indians died in the end, except for Hero, Shallow Love Interest and Shallow Love Interest's mystic mom. I mean, there comes a point where you start to look callous. The chain-smoker science lady, I can kind of understand; with a plot this cliched, you were expecting someone to die to make things serious. Same goes for the SLI's chief dad. But the bumbling, osteniably-comic relief geek dude? Dies. Ana-Lucia, as the deserter gunship pilot? Bites it. The distrustful space Indian heir guy, minus his girlfriend? Yeah, him too. Pretty much anyone you care about gets killed off in the last half-hour, with little foreshadowing or grief afterwards. The movie threw up its hands and went "LOL EVERYONE DIES" just to wring some extra emotion out of the audience; so it can say "This movie is SAD, because PEOPLE DIE. Now gimmeh critical acclaim and/or Oscars." [/SPOILER]

And all this for $13 a ticket. I want at least the premium price I paid to get it in 3D back. Speaking of which, the 3D was OK; it wasn't gimmicky, things weren't being chucked at the audience for cheap thrills, but it didn't add anything to the movie. It was just there.

[Warrior 4 Jesus]

Avatar was merely okay. I have to disagree with the heroe's love interest being shallow. I think she was one of the few characters in the movie (maybe the only character) to have any life at all.

[LadyRushia]

Another thing that seriously bothered me was how Jake's disability wasn't a factor at all after the first half hour of the movie. I mean, I kind of expected someone to have a bit more conflict, thoughts, or whatever about suddenly being able to walk when he hasn't been able to walk for years. Jake's ability basically struck me as tokenism because there was almost no reason for him to be handicapped. It was like "See? We have a handicapped main character! No one has ever done that before ever! Look how fair and equal we are!" That didn't cut it for me. I would imagine that any person who has been confined to a wheel chair for so long, and who was suddenly given some way to move freely would have a LOT more going on in his mind than running away for the first time, being sad about coming back to his regular body only once, and then not thinking about any of that for the rest of the movie.

TL;DR Jake's disability wasn't important to his character at all. He could've been an able-bodied person and the movie would've been exactly the same.

Also, the helicopter pilot chick (did she even have a name?) was completely awesome. Can we just have a movie about her?
[SPOILER]Although, the way she died was maybe a little bit unclear. What I mean is, there's like 1% she could've survived and that she'll show up in the next movie.[/SPOILER]

[Etoh*the*Greato]

Also, the bumbling ostensibly comic relief guy totally didn't die.

Not that I would go to great lengths to explain that this was an Hamaaaaaaazing movie, but as for Jake's disability, I think it was supposed to provide a vehicle for which to explain why he initially became so intense about spending all his time in his avatar body. It's actually something that caught pretty well for me.

[Shao Feng-Li]

lol, good to know I'm not missing much. I'll probably pick it up from the red box.

I can't believe it's made more money than Star Wars

...

[minakichan]

I think that the hype is coming from people who have pretty much never seen a strongly trope-heavy science fiction or fantasy movie before; they hear there's amazing technology in it and that James Cameron, who made the much more accessible Titanic (although among less accessible things), spent like a jillion years on it and considers it his baby and masterpiece. They go in, they see the tropes which are totally fresh to them, and they think it's all very original.

I think it happens to all of us; I used to actually think harem shows with like, alien girlfriends or something, were pretty cool since it was kind of an original concept that I'd never seen before, until I realized that nope, all these shows are copying each other and they're perfectly unoriginal. It's just a shame that Cameron gets all this credit for other people's ideas.

I guess to actually express my sentiments on the movie, I found it very offensive-- not the subject matter, but the very existence of Avatar irks me. The movie itself has pretty good graphics to be sure, but the environment really looks like a mix between Final Fantasy and Lord of the Rings-- highly detailed, realistic, but honestly? kind of a generic fantasy world. There are monsters in it that are utterly unoriginal-- sci-fi movies just can't think of original organisms that would have evolved on a different planet than Earth; given the vast variations of life that already exist on Earth, a totally different and isolated environment would create life that looks less similar to a zebra than a zebra looks like a fish, but instead we have these zebra-like animals and whatnot. Also, why are the intelligent race humanoid? Why does that body shape happen to coincide with that of the intelligent race on Earth? Isn't it just *gasp* to make the intelligent race easy to relate to for our human audiences? Then what's the point of the theme of tolerance and accepting other people anyway? It's not like the Na'vi are horrifying-looking like the aliens in District 9. Furthermore, how on Earth are the Na'vi different from African tribes or aboriginal Americans or what not?

I tangented.

Anyway, the graphics really aren't that realistic or original-- an above-average JRPG is really about the same, only limited by hardware specs and not the capabilities of the creators. So that aspect of the movie isn't impressive. What about the story? Nothing that can't be seen in some anime, really.

So the thing that bugs me about this is that it's a fantasy anime-- a B movie, maybe an A- because of the nice graphics-- that looks exactly like a 3D animated film for adults (as opposed to looking like Shrek) but because it was directed by big-shot director who took years on it and used motion capture, and because in America, cartoons aren't for adults HOMG, it's SO INNOVATIVE. Imagine, a big-shot director making a cartoon for grown ups! Animation for adults? Unthinkable! Shocking! Unprecedented! What a brilliant concept!

I'm essentially angry because the reason this film was "amazing" is simply because no one will take anime seriously, otherwise we'd have a bunch of other "masterpieces" floating around and the bar would be set so much lower.

[Nate]

Oh yeah, I forgot to mention the other thing that bothered me. His falling in love with what's-her-name. I don't think they said her name more than like twice in the movie so I can't remember it. BUT ANYWAY.

I mean she was really nice and everything but it's kind of creepy that he's a human and he sees this blue-skinned cat-like thing and he thinks "Oh yeah, I totally want some of THAT." I guess you could make the argument that he's in that avatar body and so he starts to think like them but...I mean if I woke up as a sheep tomorrow I don't think I'd suddenly go "Hey, that female sheep over there is pretty hot." So yeah that was kind of gross.

They go in, they see the tropes which are totally fresh to them, and they think it's all very original.

Hmm, I think that may be partially true (like I said, the floating mountains immediately made me think FFXII, but most people haven't played that and wouldn't recognize it), but I think there's a few other things at play here.

One, the movie does look really nice. I mean that isn't even up for debate, it really did look fantastic. And for a majority of the population what it looks like is all that's important. Man, that chick is so hot...who cares if she has no personality? She's hot! Man, the graphics in this game are so awesome...who cares about the storyline, the graphics are the best! Oh man, look at this sweet Porsche...who cares if it only gets five miles per gallon, it looks so cool!

Y'see where I'm going with this? We live in a very superficial society, I mean even our food items we buy are always changing their packaging to look more snazzy and catch our eye better. People see Avatar's pretty pictures and go "Durrrrr, who cares about story! It looks so real!"

Second is that believe it or not there's quite a few people who think Avatar's story is really good. I've heard people say that it doesn't matter that it's not original because it tells the story well, and I've also heard people say that it isn't original but who cares because nothing is original these days so it doesn't matter.

Finally I think it's because this movie was hyped up for so long, and touted as James Cameron's magnum opus or whatever, and after a buildup like that most people didn't want to be disappointed, so they reinforced the idea in themselves that it was a good movie. Humans are very good at fooling themselves, I remember way back in one Penny Arcade podcast Gabe was talking about how when he was a kid, he had a Genesis and not a Nintendo. Since everyone else had a Nintendo and he couldn't get one, he had to convince himself that Super Mario Bros. and Zelda and Metroid and all those games were really terrible games, because if he thought they were good he'd be upset that he couldn't play them.

So it's the same thing here I think. People don't want to believe James Cameron's pet project he's been doing for fifteen years could really suck (or be average) especially if they pay 15-20 dollars to see it in 3D, so they convince themselves "Hey it was really good!" as a defense mechanism to justify it.

[Etoh*the*Greato]

I think Nate and I definitely verge towards agreement on the latter half. Everyone's getting very wrapped up in the originality argument, and I don't just mean here, but everywhere. Nerds all over are flipping out on that. All I gots ta say is :p There were much better things to nitpick (and really, that's all it's gonna be). The story, as unoriginal as it may have been, was presented very well. I enjoyed this particular telling of a theme that has been told since the turn of the 20th century and earlier. As long as people have been petitioning on behalf of emerging cultures getting the short end of the stick in encounters with established cultures this story has been told. I'll also go back to my previous joke. This is the best Dances with Wolves remake I've seen, and the best thing they did was replace Kevin Costner with that dude who looks like Mark Whalberg.

For everyone arguing on behalf of originality in film, I encourage you to pick up Joseph Campbell's The Hero With a Thousand Faces. This was a brilliant work pointedly arguing the strong cultural identities we share through stories world wide, and how key elements of those stories have remained largely unchanged for thousands of years. Yes, the movie is packed to the hair-braided bio USB port (Although that thing off their head might have been better called an ethernet cable lol) with tropes, but they aren't tropes because this movie repeated them. They are tropes because they've been around for ages.

I'm seeing Final Fantasy get reff'd a lot here. I'd like to point out that Final Fantasy is hardly the bastion of original thinking that attitudes are leaning towards. Every thing you see in those games has been done before, and been done better by someone else. Everyone else? Maybe not, but they have been done better.

If you didn't like the film, that's cool. You don't have to, really. The movie is doing quite well, and it is quite popular truth told. That doesn't mean that there is a giant mass of people out there who are blind or stupid for liking it. I may be a bit of an optimist when it comes to my reviews (You'll rarely mear he say "OH MAN THAT MOVIE WAS TERRIBLE") but I am a huge film buff, with a wide range of exposure to speak from. I liked it, but I would hardly say that I mesh with the concept of the ignorant John Q Public being discussed.

If you hate the story, awesome. I can totally see why someone could. I couldn't stand Dances with Wolves (Buuuuuut, that might have more to do with my dislike of Kevin Costner I think) and as I've said it's basically the same thing. If you hate the visuals, go right ahead. It took me a twenty minutes into the film before I could stop seeing the Nav'i as anything but weird. If you honestly hate it because it is popular... well... That may be your own damage, but whatevs.

[Cognitive Gear]

Ooh, lots of negativity. I don't have any investment in this movie, but I personally really enjoyed it, and was blown away by certain aspects of it. I just want to throw a few things out there to clear up some misconceptions, and to share my opinion.

Story: James Cameron repeatedly, and honestly, told everyone that the story was not original, and that it was a retelling of a classic tale. Check out this interview from back in August. I personally think that the story was told fantastically.

Innovation: There are tons of misconceptions about the innovation in this film due to obscure studio advertising. The innovation of this film lies in three places: The new 3D camera invented by Cameron, in showcasing that 3D can be more than just a gimmick, and in the new mo-cap tech used to bring the actor's true performance to a CG character. That's it. Most of these things will not be noticed, and in fact, are designed to not be noticed, by normal film goers.

Unobtainium: is a classic sci-fi trope. It was included in the script partially as a joke, partially as a tribute to old sci-fi adventure series.

Evolution: Pandora has less gravity, and denser atmosphere. As a result, there is more resistance to moving forward, and less friction on the ground to help propel you forward. In this sense, the extra legs would offer an evolutionary advantage, and once you became bipedal (assuming you had adapted a way to otherwise make up for the loss of traction), the extra limbs lose their usefulness. Secondly, it's not far fetched to think that similar life would develop on another world. Convergent Evolution covers this, generally.

Minaki- I honestly don't understand what you mean by animation not being taken seriously in America. America takes animation seriously all the time. Just look at Pixar, or any of our prime time cartoons aimed at adults. (Also this was never pitched as an animated film, I'm not sure where you got that.)

[Nate]

For everyone arguing on behalf of originality in film, I encourage you to pick up Joseph Campbell's The Hero With a Thousand Faces. This was a brilliant work pointedly arguing the strong cultural identities we share through stories world wide, and how key elements of those stories have remained largely unchanged for thousands of years.

See I don't mind that so much. I realize that "there is nothing new under the sun" and a lot of stories are variations on old stories. That still doesn't excuse blatant ripping-off and straight plagiarism I'd even say.

I said it before, and I'll say it again. Star Wars and The Hidden Fortress. They have a lot of similarities, and it's very clear that The Hidden Fortress greatly inspired Star Wars. However Star Wars is not exactly like The Hidden Fortress, but in space.

Seriously are we going to go with the "It's okay if it's exactly like other things because nothing is original!" bit? Isn't that what's killing the anime industry right now, a flood of carbon-copy titles that are unoriginal and bland? You can have variation on a single thing you know. Hamburgers from Fuddrucker's a lot better than hamburgers from McDonald's. They're both hamburgers, but Fuddrucker's puts more effort and care into it. They know a hamburger is a staple food but they at least try to make it as good as they can. If they had the same attitude to burgers that James Cameron apparently has to film, they'd be a McDonald's clone.

See what I'm saying? Even if it's not original it can still be done well, and with good variations. But as I said, Avatar didn't even TRY. It didn't even put forth any effort into trying to have something different and unique. What if the main character totally got into his role as an infiltrator for the colonel and betrayed the Na'vi? Hey that would've been something unique and different! It wouldn't have been original but it would have been a fresh take on the "white man becomes member of different culture" thing. It would have at the very least shattered audience expectations, and been somewhat engaging.

But no, he didn't put forth effort. He was perfectly content to take the scripts from other movies and not even change a thing about them. And the worst part is James Cameron can make good movies. Terminator 2 was great! It wasn't all that original, but it was still unique and interesting enough to make it good. Same thing with Aliens, it wasn't original at all but still managed to be engaging and different enough to separate it from other similar tales.

Here's the question. If Avatar had been done with regular hand-drawn animation, would it still hold the same esteem in people's minds? Or would it be dismissed as "an unoriginal story with nothing interesting going for it?" If you can't honestly say you'd enjoy Avatar as much without the huge budget, then it's a way of saying style is worth more than substance.

And that's not ALWAYS a bad thing, I saw Independence Day in theaters. There's nothing wrong with popcorn munchers, and as I said, this movie wasn't terrible, it was just average. But I make no excuses for its vapidness and worthlessness. It's nothing more than a movie that was entertaining but too long and too pretentious. I'm not saying no one can enjoy it or that they have to think it's bad, but instead I'm saying why people seem to be making a bigger deal out of this than it needs to have been.

If the movie had been humble and honest like Independence Day I probably wouldn't be so hard on it. Instead of "HEY THIS WILL CHANGE THE FACE OF SCI FI FOREVER" it just went "Hey the White House blows up and Will Smith punches an alien in the face, what do you want from us? It's mindless entertainment." I'm also stating reasons why people think it's so AMAZING rather than the average summer escapism it is, and why they feel the need to see it more than once. Seriously who saw ID4 more than once? Nobody. Why would anyone watch Avatar more than once? It certainly isn't for the story! Thus like I said it's only that people are entranced by pretty pictures. Again, style over substance. Why people look at the hot Victoria's Secret model rather than the average-looking woman with a great personality.

The new 3D camera invented by Cameron, in showcasing that 3D can be more than just a gimmick

But it IS just a gimmick. So it makes the world appear to have depth, when it doesn't. So? That's a gimmick. Just as gimmicky as "Hey, with the Wii remote you'll feel like you're ACTUALLY SWINGING A SWORD when you wave the controller around!" And I'm not saying that motion sensing or 3D is bad, it's fine for what it is...a cheap thrill. But it's certainly not some new advent of technology and it's nothing more than just a gimmick designed to make people go "Oooh ahhhh."

At least in Universal Studios, when I saw the Muppets in 3D, Kermit made sure to say "Don't worry, we won't do any cheap 3D thrills" and Fozzie comes up and goes "WOOOO CHEAP 3D THRILLS!" and proceeds to use a yo-yo and one of those noisemakers you blow in that unfurls and even squirts some water (and the seats have like water squirters on the back so when he does that you get squirted with a bit of water). They know it's a gimmick and they have fun with it. I can get behind that.

[Etoh*the*Greato]

I won't lie, Nate, I really liked the graphics. I thought that the world was quite pretty, and the fauna enjoyable. Granted, I have a soft spot for mountainous regions and scuba diving, and they kind of converge there. Would I have enjoyed the movie were it done with rubbersuit or traditional animation? I can say I probably would. I'm not gonna bother to differentiate between this movie being an homage or a rip off because it's not trying to be any one specific movie (unless you count Dances with Wolves, and I still stand by it being better by lack of Costner :p ). It ripped a ton of stuff. For better or for worse. BUT so have all the things that have been cited in this discussion as places where Cameron "obviously" got his ideas from. It's like the Penny Arcade comic where White Wolf was [snipped] about Underworld stealing from them, which caused Anne Rice to start griping at White Wolf and Dracula to in turn threaten her.

What was there was very well done, I thought. Clearly there is disagreement there, and as I've said, that's cool. It's an extremely divisive movie. I just feel that there are way better things to rip this flick on than the contents of the plot. My point in bringing up the originality thing is that if that is the sole measure by which you judge media, you'll be sorely disappointed. I used to be one of those that stood by Anime as a bastion of creativity and "never seen it beforeitiveness" but... You know, over the years I've come to realize that Anime has just as much potential and just as much actuality of being derivative as everything else. And I don't really think it's a recent trend. Looking back as far as the 80s we see a rehash of common themes, a rehash of the same characters over and over again, a rehash of the same plots over and over, borrowing from other novels, other comics, other cinema and other Anime.

Originality should be cherished, by all means. It's wonderful when you find something that is given all credit where credit is due, totally. I do not disagree with you one whit there.

As for the things that could have been done different, your example specifically... What purpose would that have driven home for the theme? They spend two, two and a half hours establishing Jake Sully as someone we're supposed to like or empathize with, only to have him turn out to be a total member? Yeah, the way it went was incredibly formulaic, but those formulas have existed for centuries for a reason: Unless it is done with incredible skill, craft, and care creating the kind of emotional dissonance that is made when you have a cast of characters that no one can relate to or like is one of the surest ways to cause your story to fail at reaching anyone. Obviously, there have been cases where this was not true, but as I said it took great skill craft and care.

[Azier the Swordsman]

Avatar was one of those movies I knew would be unoriginal and mediocre, and there wasn't a second in the story that I wasn't able to predict down to the letter what was going to happen, but still, I was entertained by the movie more than I thought I would be, and I guess that counts for something.

Also:

http://www.thatguywiththeglasses.com/videolinks/thatguywiththeglasses/bum-reviews/15043-ep036

[ich1990]

I am late to the party and everybody has already said most of what I was going to say, so I will keep this short.

1) Knowing that this movie was going to be a sci-fi version of The Last Samurai with mediocre dialog helped a lot. My expectations were set right where they were supposed to be, and I enjoyed the movie quite a bit.

2) Politicizing was done with the subtlety of hitting the movie viewer with a brick. Repeatedly. I would like to have seen a little more grey in this world of the black and blue. Not all soldiers laugh while blowing up fleeing civilians.

3) How do the flying mountains work and, more importantly, how do they remain static? Any form of magnetic lift would be too variable, it would seem, to hold them still like that.

4) How do the waterfalls even work on floating mountains?

5) How does the wi-fi link between Avatar and human work in the "vortex field" around the mountains when other human technology fails there?

6) James, are you seriously trying to tell me that no daring young Navi'i has thought to try to capture that big predator bird thing from above? Or, if they have, why did they fail while an amateur succeeded?

7) This movie made me wonder if humanity has developed a respect for communal property rights or not.

I still thought it was an enjoyable movie and highly recommend that one see it in the cinema or at least on a very large tv.

[Nate]

3) How do the flying mountains work and, more importantly, how do they remain static?

The magic of Eywa.

4) How do the waterfalls even work on floating mountains?

The magic of Eywa.

5) How does the wi-fi link between Avatar and human work in the "vortex field" around the mountains when other human technology fails there?

The magic of Eywa.

6) James, are you seriously trying to tell me that no daring young Navi'i has thought to try to capture that big predator bird thing from above?

Well five of them did.

Or, if they have, why did they fail while an amateur succeeded?

The magic of Eywa.

Man didn't you pay ANY attention to the movie? :p

(Note: post is meant to be taken ironically.)

[ich1990]

Ah, you are right Nate. I don't know why I was thinking.

[Etoh*the*Greato]

According to the wiki (which I read one day while bored at work) the mountains were suspended by unobtanium deposits in the rock. As for their being static, I doubt they were, but even a floating cruise ship takes a lot of wind to float. The waterfalls? Couldn't even tell ya, man. The magic of Eywa.

Also, like nate said, five other dudes totally thought to do that. :p

[Nate]

I dunno if I buy that "deposits in the rocks" explanation. One, they never said anything about it being a floaty ore in the movie. The closest they came was showing it floating while the businessman was talking about it...BUT, it only floated when it was above that little pedestal thing.

Second, if the mountains have so much ore in them that they're floating, why weren't they mining there? Yeah the plane's instruments didn't work, but they could fly manual (like they did in the big battle at the end). That's the biggest catch to me. Yeah, the haul under the tree was probably bigger but it still doesn't explain why they never mined those floating mountains if they were so rich in ore. So I can't accept that.

[Etoh*the*Greato]

You're not objecting that they're basically claiming that it's a wonder ore that can create room temperature superconductors, free floating continents, and whiten your teeth?

Yeah, the mining thing I totally agree on. Seems those would've been an easier target. The corporate dude should've gone to them for the simple use of easier financial yield for a short time (Of course, that means that they would eventually still go to the tree and now you've just mined their holy mountains, so they're even less likely to move) but the security guy just seemed so unreasonably bent on genocide. This is an area I think you mentioned before where we totally mesh. Why is it that the dude in charge of the weapons has to be a biggotted ****? It's good plot motivation but poor fiscal sense. If you're exploring a new land with an indigenous people, you don't hire the first supremicist you can find simply because he's the best with a gun. You go to the second best, and if he turns out to be a tool as well, you move on to the third. Morality trumps skill especially in a position as sensitive as one like security.