I’ve finally seen the movie that almost everyone was raving about. The apparently “best movie of the year”. The return of James Cameron. The spectacular, awesome and every superlatives you can think of to describe the movie – Avatar. And I wasn’t impressed.
True – the CG is extremely well done. It looks real, seems real and well, it was also like an elaborate cutscene from a game. 10 years and couple of hundreds of millions will help you achieve that.
A lot of people also tried to dissect the movie and gave it more meaning than it had. That it addresses the current world situation, it exposes the wrongs that man has done and let me tell you that it has all been done. Pocahontas did it years ago, Dances with Wolves tried the same route and all of them did it in lesser time, and with lesser cost.
While the CG may be impressive and we are wow-ed by the 3D effects, this gimmick hides the fact that the movie at the end has a flat story, subpar acting, corny dialogue and you can predict the ending from a mile away. Brainless fun? Probably. Best Picture? Puh-lease. Best Director? Where’s the puke bucket?
After finally catching the movie, I realised that James Cameron hides behind a smokescreen called gimmick. When Titanic was out, it was another big budget production where people have never seen such special effects. The acting was again nothing out of the ordinary, the story seems like it was plucked out from a Bollywood movie and they had so many corny lines that it was spoofed time and again.
10 years later, we see the same with Avatar. Now everyone is amazed by the CG and forgetting the fact that a movie is great not because of how pretty it is, but how great the story is. So, I frankly have no idea what is the big deal with Avatar.
I can tell you that some stuffs are actually being hyped up by the media, like Avatar and Twilight. We do not know if this is some kind of “payola”, but let’s just face it, this is what the media looks like. Of course, there are some hidden gems around the entertainment world.
P.S – Payola is like an extra payment done by labels from the music industries in order to promote their artists more by asking radio/TV stations to play more of their songs.
YOU LIE!!!
AVATAR IZ DA BEST MUVI OF ALL TIME!!!!
OF
ALL
TIME!!!!
hehehehe
Personally i think it’s a modern version of Pocahontas, with lots of flying. yeah, I wasn’t impressed. Thankfully I watched it in th comfort of my own time *wink, wink* so I had the power to forward the parts with too much drama.
Can’t agree with you there, Nick. I loved it.
@Photoblogger: exactly what I feel when I watched it! It feels so pocahontas. I do agree the storyline was flat. It doesn’t give me that feeling of awe when I leave the screen. It feels like just another rerun of some of your DVD at home.
@Vic the hidden gems don’t get covered, the people don’t get paid, and they end up as struggling artists that soon fades out. Then people like Michael Bay gets bags of cash. Sigh
@Bace Masquerading as a fanboy is a big offence :P
@Photoblogger Hahaha and I still don’t see why big rockets lose out to puny arrows :P
@The Photodiarist Haha you are not the only one. But lack of Avatar defenders here, means people that read this blog thinks almost like me :P
@Firdouss Surprisingly lots of people were awed by it
I haven’t watched it yet but this sums it up for me:
http://comixed.com/2009/12/18/comics-comic-strip-yonkoma-avatar-summary/
@Ben I hope the last panel doesn’t happen :)
Eh its a good movie! Pocahontas v2 :P
@Mark Leo :P thats exactly it! 10 years and 500 mil to make Pocahontas v2?! :P
I agree: It’s a 3D film filled with 1D characters, rehashed ideas and stereotypes.
But it’s next to impossible to find a poor review of this film. Have we all gone mad?
In addition to the aforementioned “Pocahantas” and “Dances with Wolves,” “Avatar” heavily from “Last of the Mohicans” (the waterfall scene!), “Black Robe,” “The Mission,” “District 9,” and even “Return of the Jedi.”
Some of the core concepts are quite similar to those in Orson Scott Card’s book “Speaker for the Dead” and Frank Herbert’s “Dune.”
If you like the stuff in Avatar, you should explore these movies and books for much more thoughtful treatments of theses themes. One of the best is the book version of “Black Robe.”
And by the way, Nicholas, I thought “Titanic” was a much, much better film. The characters were rich and complex, particularly the neglected supporting cast (Billy Zane, Kathy Bates, Victor Garber, etc.).