James Cameron's Avatar (2009)

[larabar]

Re: James Cameron's Avatar (2009)

I didn't care for James Horner's musical score all that much. It felt like I was listening to the soundtrack from "Willow" and was over-the top in parts towards the end. Michael Kamen also did this to all the movies he scored where you heard excerpts from "Die Hard". Lazy I guess

[Digger]

Re: James Cameron's Avatar (2009)

i liked it very much, i will go to see it again in 2d the 3d looks very good but those glasses kinda bother me.....

[i!!ustrious]

Re: James Cameron's Avatar (2009)

^likewise, the glasses bug. saw it in 3D on my Nephew's Birthday, and for me, the 3D refraction is far too illusory for my vision. i also managed to get butter from the popcorn on the glasses... it was a bust

i thought the movie was vibrant, overall; the eye-orgasmic visuals were just the immaculate awesomeness that i needed; and the acting was not bad. it was really cool to see Sigourney Weaver given a poignant role in this. whenever i go see movies with the amount of hype, glamour, etc. surrounding it, like Avatar has, i always go in with no expectations - or else it dampens my enjoyment. Avatar was like Fern Gully supercharged

i'll go see it again - at least one more time.

[Miguel]

Re: James Cameron's Avatar (2009)

excellent !!!!!!!!

[yerg]

Re: James Cameron's Avatar (2009)

it's a dream come true, i've been waiting for this movie so long, well not that i knew it would be Avatar but just the next Cameron's one.
He is not your typical director, and i don't want to talk about Titanic, it ain't his best movie, no

[Mr.Big]

Re: James Cameron's Avatar (2009)

The story was shitty enough but i didnt really care cause it looked so good in 3D.

At times i felt so relaxed watching all the neon colours come to life in the jungle scenes. Id say it would be really trippy on drugs. It is long though but all good.

[TomTom]

Re: James Cameron's Avatar (2009)

I am going to watch it next week in 3D..first time I check out a movie in 3D since the 80ties. 80ties 3D movies were shite.....let's see what 2010 3D movies can do.

[floridaorange]

Re: James Cameron's Avatar (2009)

TT, we're all waiting to hear your report!

[Kamal]

Re: James Cameron's Avatar (2009)

The visuals were so stunning, it came to a point where I stopped giving a shit about the movie (from the story's perspective). I just wanted more and more of the eye-candy. The scene where he first learns to fly on the winged beast was incredible. Nose-diving off the cliff bought me to the edge of my seat.

I'm not a big fan of watching movies in the theater but I'm so ready to go and catch this one again in 3D.

Absolute 10/10.

The CGI makes up for the storyline, music, and every other point in the movie that would have nudged the score below a 10. And how on earth they managed to make that 14 foot smurf chick look so hot is beyond me

Aces galore!!!!

[toasty]

Re: James Cameron's Avatar (2009)

It's a pretty impressive film as far as technique and special effects, and does raise the game for movies that come out after this, in the aspect of 3D presentation and special effects. It manages to elevate the computer generated characters that Lord of the Rings and King Kong pulled off and brought it further, seeing that you can recognize the avatars from their faces (Sigourney Weaver's avatar looks like she would as a Na'vi) and for the motion capture work they managed to pull off as well.

Story wise, it borrows a bit from Cameron's older films - the human compound looks like an updated set of Aliens, the environmental/life is precious message comes from the Abyss, and some of the more romantic elements seem straight out of Titanic. That's not really a criticism, it's more an observation, as James Cameron makes it work, and it doesn't feel clunky, just a bit familiar.

The film is getting a bit of flack for an unremarkable set of characters, but I felt it wasn't a fair critique - Cameron manages to demonstrate three very strong female central characters that have more to do in the story than any other female character in another big budget film would. They aren't the fretting wife/love interest that disappears in the third act when the finale action starts - they actually are servicing the story quite well, and are more fleshed out than most other female roles presented this year in the sci fi genre.

It's a great film for the visual aspect, but the story is serviceable and a bit underwhelming. I guess that a film that was four years in the making was going to have too much hype to live up to in some aspects - while succeeding and exceeding expectations in the visual departments.

This pretty much sums up my thoughts on it. I saw it in 3D earlier in the week and thought:

1. From a visual and technical standpoint, it really has no equal. Normally, when you watch a movie in 3D, it feels gimmicky and forced, but the effect was so realistic and it seemed so natural, I actually forgot that I was watching a 3D movie as opposed to something more like live action at times. On that basis alone, everyone should watch this movie, because we'll look back at this years from now as the film that ushered in a new era of special effects.

2. The story was very "been there, done that" and was an also-ran compared to the visuals. I actually nodded off a couple of times (although in fairness to myself, I was jetlagged, and had just finished eating a 24 oz T-Bone and drinking a few glasses of wine). If I had seen it in 2D, I'm not sure it would have been worth it for me. It wasn't bad by any stretch of the imagination, but it certainly wasn't groundbreaking, and a movie that clocks in at 2 hours and forty minutes needs to bring something new to the table to keep me interested, IMO. In the interest of full disclosure, though, the fantasy genre is not really my bag, so there's that.

When all is said and done, everyone should really watch this, in the theatre, in 3D. It's a matter of cultural literacy.

[Steve Graham]

Re: James Cameron's Avatar (2009)

can you believe there have been cries about racism in this movie? lmao, wtf!

Some see racist theme in alien adventure 'Avatar'
By JESSE WASHINGTON AP National Writer The Associated Press
Monday, January 11, 2010 4:05 AM EST

Near the end of the hit film "Avatar," the villain snarls at the hero, "How does it feel to betray your own race?" Both men are white — although the hero is inhabiting a blue-skinned, 9-foot-tall, long-tailed alien.
Strange as it may seem for a film that pits greedy, immoral humans against noble denizens of a faraway moon, "Avatar" is being criticized by a small but vocal group of people who allege it contains racist themes — the white hero once again saving the primitive natives.
Since the film opened to widespread critical acclaim three weeks ago, hundreds of blog posts, newspaper articles, tweets and YouTube videos have made claims such as that the film is "a fantasy about race told from the point of view of white people" and reinforces "the white Messiah fable."

http://home.knology.net/news/read.php?rip_id=%3CD9D5EJIO0%40news.ap.org%3E&ps=1016&_LT=HOME_LARSDCCL5_UNEWS

[floridaorange]

Re: James Cameron's Avatar (2009)

^^^
horses mouth:
[YOUTUBE]http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=7dOhNl_MiNA[/YOUTUBE]

[res0nat0r]

Re: James Cameron's Avatar (2009)

people are retarded. also a group is trying to get people to boycott the film because sigourney weavers character smokes.

[Steve Graham]

Re: James Cameron's Avatar (2009)

^^^ lmao, that's funny

[feather]

Re: James Cameron's Avatar (2009)

And people are getting post-Avatar blues, wtf

"That's all I have been doing as of late, searching the Internet for more info about 'Avatar.' I guess that helps. It's so hard I can't force myself to think that it's just a movie, and to get over it, that living like the Na'vi will never happen. I think I need a rebound movie," Elequin posted.

A user named Mike wrote on the fan Web site "Naviblue" that he contemplated suicide after seeing the movie.

"Ever since I went to see 'Avatar' I have been depressed. Watching the wonderful world of Pandora and all the Na'vi made me want to be one of them. I can't stop thinking about all the things that happened in the film and all of the tears and shivers I got from it," Mike posted. "I even contemplate suicide thinking that if I do it I will be rebirthed in a world similar to Pandora and the everything is the same as in 'Avatar.' "

Ivar Hill posts to the "Avatar" forum page under the name Eltu. He wrote about his post-"Avatar" depression after he first saw the film earlier this month.
"When I woke up this morning after watching Avatar for the first time yesterday, the world seemed ... gray. It was like my whole life, everything I've done and worked for, lost its meaning," Hill wrote on the forum. "It just seems so ... meaningless. I still don't really see any reason to keep ... doing things at all. I live in a dying world."