The story begins with a white soldier being sent to a far away outpost after suffering from a traumatizing battle from years earlier. He is in a hostile land, surrounded by an enemy race that he has been taught to fear. He eventually gets to know the customs and charms of the people and becomes one of them. In finding a place in their society, he finds himself. However, the white people seek to relocate or eradicate his new people in order to acquire the land’s valuable resources. The man must fight with the people who have adopted him in order to preserve his new way of life.
Dances With Wolves – 1990
The story begins with a white soldier being sent to a far away outpost after suffering from a traumatizing battle from years earlier. He is in a hostile land, surrounded by an enemy race that he has been taught to fear. He eventually gets to know the customs and charms of the people and becomes one of them. In finding a place in their society, he finds himself. However, the white people seek to relocate or eradicate his new people in order to acquire the land’s valuable resources. The man must fight with the people who have adopted him in order to preserve his new way of life.
The Last Samurai – 2003
The story begins with a white soldier being sent to a far away outpost. He is in a hostile land, surrounded by an enemy race that he has been taught to fear. He eventually gets to know the customs and charms of the people and becomes one of them. In finding a place in their society, he finds himself. However, the white people seek to relocate or eradicate his new people in order to acquire the land’s valuable resources. The man must fight with the people who have adopted him in order to preserve his new way of life.
Pocahontas – 1995
The story begins with a white man being sent to a far away outpost. He is in a hostile land, surrounded by fairies. He eventually gets to know the customs and charms of the fairies and becomes one of them. In finding a place in their society, he finds himself. However, the white people seek to relocate or eradicate his new people in order to acquire the land’s valuable resources. The man must fight with the people who have adopted him in order to preserve his new way of life.
Ferngully: The Last Rainforest – 1992
The story begins with a white soldier being sent to a far away outpost after suffering from a traumatizing battle from years earlier. He is in a hostile land, surrounded by an enemy race that he has been taught to fear. He eventually gets to know the customs and charms of the people and becomes one of them. In finding a place in their society, he finds himself. However, the white people seek to relocate or eradicate his new people in order to acquire the land’s valuable resources. The man must fight with the people who have adopted him in order to preserve his new way of life.
Joined: Thu Dec 04, 2008 8:52 pm Posts: 967 Location: The Frozen Chozen
simply awesome. I couldn't describe the story line any better.
_________________ Madness does not always howl. Sometimes, it is the quiet voice at the end of the day saying, "Hey, is there room in your head for one more?"
Joined: Thu Dec 04, 2008 8:52 pm Posts: 967 Location: The Frozen Chozen
now, how much do we have to pay to get James Cameron to do Transformers?
_________________ Madness does not always howl. Sometimes, it is the quiet voice at the end of the day saying, "Hey, is there room in your head for one more?"
If at first 'White-Guilt' doesn't succeed, try try again...
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James Cameron’s Avatar has been held up (mostly by Cameron, himself) as ‘a reinvention of the movie’. Having (supposedly) having this epic story in his head for the last 15 years or so, James Cameron has said from time to time that his film was so epic that he wanted to wait for film-making to evolve to the point where his vision could be realized. After his hit film ‘Titanic’ failed to sink in the box office and instead set countless records world-wide for box office gross, Cameron has spent the last several years re-cooperating from his directorial smash hit, and pondered about his masterpiece.
Apparently watching Ferngully and eating Cheetos is a sign of film-making genius.
STORY
The story begins with a white soldier being sent to a far away outpost after suffering from a traumatizing battle from years earlier. He is in a hostile land, surrounded by an enemy race that he has been taught to fear. He eventually gets to know the customs and charms of the people and becomes one of them. In finding a place in their society, he finds himself. However, the white people seek to relocate or eradicate his new people in order to acquire the land’s valuable resources. The man must fight with the people who have adopted him in order to preserve his new way of life. Dances With Wolves – 1990
The story begins with a white soldier being sent to a far away outpost after suffering from a traumatizing battle from years earlier. He is in a hostile land, surrounded by an enemy race that he has been taught to fear. He eventually gets to know the customs and charms of the people and becomes one of them. In finding a place in their society, he finds himself. However, the white people seek to relocate or eradicate his new people in order to acquire the land’s valuable resources. The man must fight with the people who have adopted him in order to preserve his new way of life. The Last Samurai – 2003
The story begins with a white soldier being sent to a far away outpost. He is in a hostile land, surrounded by an enemy race that he has been taught to fear. He eventually gets to know the customs and charms of the people and becomes one of them. In finding a place in their society, he finds himself. However, the white people seek to relocate or eradicate his new people in order to acquire the land’s valuable resources. The man must fight with the people who have adopted him in order to preserve his new way of life. Pocahontas – 1995
The story begins with a white man being sent to a far away outpost. He is in a hostile land, surrounded by fairies. He eventually gets to know the customs and charms of the fairies and becomes one of them. In finding a place in their society, he finds himself. However, the white people seek to relocate or eradicate his new people in order to acquire the land’s valuable resources. The man must fight with the people who have adopted him in order to preserve his new way of life. Ferngully: The Last Rainforest – 1992
The story begins with a white soldier being sent to a far away outpost after suffering from a traumatizing battle from years earlier. He is in a hostile land, surrounded by an enemy race that he has been taught to fear. He eventually gets to know the customs and charms of the people and becomes one of them. In finding a place in their society, he finds himself. However, the white people seek to relocate or eradicate his new people in order to acquire the land’s valuable resources. The man must fight with the people who have adopted him in order to preserve his new way of life. Avatar - 2009
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Neytiri and Jake's 'Avatar'
So the film starts out with the main character, Jake Sully (Sam Worthington), a paraplegic soldier whose brother has just been killed in battle. Confined in a robotic wheelchair, he is sent to a remote outpost on the planet Pandora where his local military-industrial-complex, lead by Parker Selfridge (Giovanni Ribisi), wants to mine a precious energy source and drive the blue-human-cat-aliens, the "Na'vi" off their land. In exchange for the spinal surgery that will fix his legs, Jake gathers intel for the cooperating military unit spearheaded by the R. Lee Ermey look-alike, Colonel Quaritch (Stephen Lang). To infiltrate their culture, Jake will use an "avatar", a biological Human/Na'vi body that will house his consciousness. While Jake begins to bond with the native tribe and quickly falls in love with the beautiful alien Neytiri, the restless Colonel moves forward with his ruthless extermination tactics, forcing the soldier to take a stand - and fight back in an epic battle for the fate of Pandora.
The theme of the movie isn't bad at all, and the concept of an "avatar" is fairly unique, and should have been explored better. However, outside of the sci-fi elements, Avatar absolutely nothing new in terms of storytelling. If you've ever watched Dances With Wolves or The Last Samurai, then you already know the plot and an approximate outcome of the story. If James Cameron thinks that Avatar is going to 'redefine the movie' then he's been smoking too much 'wacky-tobaccy' while watching Disney's "Pocahontas". If you want the Avatar experience, dig up your copy of Dances With Wolves, set your television's blue-levels as high as they can go, and pretend that the horses are mech-suits or weird alien beasts. Presto!
The story development is above par, but unfortunately with modern movies that is a low bar to hurdle. Character development is fair at best because character motives are as transparent as a Disney cartoon. Actually, this is what Avatar feels like, a big budget cartoon: Imaginative but unsubstantial, unfulfilling, and transparent.
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Neytiri in her all of her CGI furry goodness
The CGI in Avatar is actually overwhelmingly good. The world of Pandora and the Na'vi are extremely detailed in an enchanting but alien way. The details, like clothing in the wind, is very fluid and convincing. The cinimatography is excellent and Avatar has amazing scenes that are worth the price of admission. I will give Cameron and crew credit that they managed to create a fantastic, fanciful world with vibrant characters and locations that are familiarly beautiful, but very alien.
The problem is that there is TOO MUCH CGI in Avatar. Christ it seems like James Cameron got a case of the George Lucas syndrome and had to do every damned thing in CGI. Even the actors are CGI and my opinion is that if you have to do the motion-capture and facial tracking on an actor, just shoot a regular fucking movie. I don't believe that CGI will ever hit the point of fluid 'realism' and though Avatar comes close, in a few years this movie will be like all of the other overblown CGI movies and be unwatchable because something better has come along.
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Rule 34 applies even to Avatar. Damned Furries.
The Na'vi are a Furry's wet-dream (ie: a 'Furry' is someone who gets off on humanoid animals. Let that haunt your nightmares suckers). You have these tall, blue, half-people half-cat aliens that look even more anorexic than both of the Olson Twins combined but still manage to have a decent set of tits. And of course, to bring the message home that these are very 'Native' peoples who are in tune with the earth, every damned one of them is wearing nothing more than a leather loin-cloth and maybe a beaded bra. Topping off a somewhat stereotypical Native American look is the fact that the Na'vi whoop and holler like they were in cowboy westerns. But the part of the movie that threw my suspension of disbelief out the window was the way that the Na'vi use their HAIR to interact with nature. Flying monsters, trees, and even dead ancestors, they connect their hair to whatever they want to communicate with just like a fucking computer keyboard.
The humans are no better. A majority of the soldiers are the knee-slappin', banjo-twangin', redneck and white-trash stereotypes that Hollywood loves to hate. Half of them wear 'civilian clothing' ala dirty plad shirts and Budweiser hats. If you ever watched Republican Space Rangers in Grand Theft Auto IV you'd be in the ballpark. Am I the only one who sees this as a stereotype of white people? Meh, I guess no one in Hollywood cares.
The only exception to the rule is Colonel Quaritch (Stephen Lang) who is so overblown, and so gung-ho that he is entertaining as hell to watch. If you thought that Sergeant Hartman from Full Metal Jacket was the cock-of-the-walk for military badasses, then Colonel Quaritch is a close second. Colonel Quaritch is so hard core he jumps into battle before putting on his oxygen mask. He leaps out of exploding helicopters wearing a mech-suit and knife-fights the monsters on Pandora. Colonel Quaritch gasses countless Na'vi while sipping his mug of coffee like he just finished his TPS Reports. "Yeah, that's a good cup of genocide. This guy is a rabid pitbull whose only objective in life seems to be skull-fucking Na'vi, even though the Na'vi have barely even interacted with humans up to this point in the story. As fun as the Colonel is to watch, there isn't really any method to his madness, save for the scars inflicted on his head by either a Na'vi or some Pandoran predator.
The final battle is epic with some awesome camera angles that keep the action tight and intense, however towards the end it falls pretty flat. The death of some main characters is about as emotional as falling down a pit in Super Mario Brothers. In my opinion, CGI is still years away from delivering a 'human performance' with true emotions and the small quirks and body language that draw me into a character. Either that, or the character development was so rushed that I didn't have time to care about them. Human essence can't be captured by a computer. Not yet.
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The final battle also evokes some real fantasy BULLSHIT, like when the earth-mother-spirit-thing helps the Na'vi by summoning all of the animals of Pandora to fight off the humans. It is so reminiscent of old Disney cartoons where you would have animals and nature itself fighting off villains, and for a movie that was supposed to take itself seriously, it was too jarring and abrupt and ABSURD.
OVERALL
In 2009, films such as Transformers: Revenge of the Fallen, Terminator Salvation and Fast & Furious have proven that audiences don't need originality or character development to engage audiences. When audiences all think they have some sort of attention disorder, Hollywood is their candyman. Big explosions, flashy CGI and millions of dollars invested in media hype are all that's needed to make pill-popping partakers think that they have witnessed the greatest thing since Ritalin.
The eye candy, like real candy, gives a sugar rush but isn't a filler. Not for this critic. And while Avatar delivers a decent story, it uses a cookie-cutter method of 'imitating' greater - and lesser -movies.
One thing that REALLY bothers me is the tried-and-true 'White-Guilt' syndrome that apparently bit Cameron right in his over-inflated ego. Alright everybody, we all know that white people have treated some indigenous races like shit over the course of history. It’s a sad fact, but a fact none-the-less. But does that mean that I need to get it driven into my head like a nail? Does that give you some right to patronize me like I am some kind of Hitler Youth? Fuck you, Hollywood. I do not condone racism or genocides, so you don’t need to keep skull-fucking me with your "Holier-than-thou" bullshit.'
My final word is this: Outside of the nitpicking I was actually entertained. Is Avatar worth full price? Hell no. Maybe a good matinee unless you get IMAX or 3D glasses for the bonus eye-candy.
Is Avatar revolutionary in terms of storytelling? Fuck off. Avatar brings nothing new to the table that will be discussed in film schools or mimiced in future movies. At best, it will get spoofed in one of those horribly lame 'Movie' movies ('Disaster Movie', 'Meet the Spartans', etc).
Was this honestly the best that James Cameron could do after 10-15 years? Wait a minute... Dances With Wolves came out in 1990... Add 15 years... Add a few more years for filming and development...
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