[Yellow]

Sir Thursday, on 23 December 2009 - 01:04 AM, said:

@Yellow: This is a film that I think is probably only worth watching in the cinema in 3D. The visuals are what you should got to the cinema for - the rest is pretty weak, really. You won't get anywhere near the same experience if you watch it on a small screen in 2D, I don't think.

This is pretty much the reason why I won't bother going to see it at the cinema. I don't particularly care for tech demos, so if the plot/acting/everything else is garbage, I'm not going to spunk a tenner to go see it. I'm sure it looks great, but a film needs to have more than that, you know?

I hate watching films in 3D. I feel that having to put the glasses on detracts from the experience. Plus, the 3D tends not to work at the edges of your vision, so you have to try and ignore that while you're watching the film.

So yeah, I'll probably catch the DVD out of curiosity at some point. No big loss.

[Tatterdemalion]

Here's my take:

It's amazingly enjoyable and should be seen. I was not excited to see the film, but when an old friend came to town, decided to go. I enjoyed myself - a lot. The BIGGEST mistake people are having when talking about the movie is this: The story is NOT a POOR one, it is a SIMPLE one. It is not constructed badly, filled with holes, covered in 'convenient' moments, or erratic. It IS simple, straight-forward, a story you have certainly seen told before, and not a far step from the Aliens world. It is nothing too original, but the distinction is key. I CAN'T ignore terrible storytelling, unbelievable characters or excessively awful dialog. I CAN recognize that the story is not the focus of the movie, move on, and thoroughly enjoy the breath-taking visuals and colossal scope. I like dialog-driven intelligent movies as much as the next guy - most likely more - things like District 9, Usual Suspects, Memento - I don't know, whatever. But not every movie HAS to be like those. Some can build their merit in other ways, and believe me, there are MANY different things that go into movie-making and thus many different things to excel at if you so choose. Avatar excels at many things and demands respect therefore. What makes it a definite go see is that in some visual sectors, it not only excels, it pioneers. The 3D cast me in awe. Awe is an experience not easily found on a Tuesday.

It's not the best movie of the year. But it is a landmark movie that will be remembered for being the first quality use of 3D, and if a plethora of 3D movies are to follow, they might clean it up, they might even make it look better, but that won't render Avatar obsolete, because it was first. They will be followers. They will be imitations. They will be Jurassic Park III to Jurassic Park. They will be 2012 to Independence Day. They will be some god-awful '80s sci-fi to Star Wars. And if you see Avatar in 3D, you can come to appreciate just a little of what audiences were experiencing in 1977 when a colossal Star Destroyer thundered overhead and changed what people thought movies could do.

To me, that's easily enough to justify a story about a guy 'going native.'

[dktorode]

Yellow, on 23 December 2009 - 10:48 AM, said:

Sir Thursday, on 23 December 2009 - 01:04 AM, said:

@Yellow: This is a film that I think is probably only worth watching in the cinema in 3D. The visuals are what you should got to the cinema for - the rest is pretty weak, really. You won't get anywhere near the same experience if you watch it on a small screen in 2D, I don't think.

This is pretty much the reason why I won't bother going to see it at the cinema. I don't particularly care for tech demos, so if the plot/acting/everything else is garbage, I'm not going to spunk a tenner to go see it. I'm sure it looks great, but a film needs to have more than that, you know?

I hate watching films in 3D. I feel that having to put the glasses on detracts from the experience. Plus, the 3D tends not to work at the edges of your vision, so you have to try and ignore that while you're watching the film.

So yeah, I'll probably catch the DVD out of curiosity at some point. No big loss.

You sound like a friend of mine who refused to go watch 300 on the big screen for similar reasons.
He is super pissed at himself now that he didnt... Go watch it on Imax 3D...The 3D technology used is the best ever produced you wont have the same problems as before...you will more than likely regret not watching it if you dont and then "catch it somtime" on your lifeless tele.

[QuickTidal]

dktorode, on 23 December 2009 - 04:52 PM, said:

Yellow, on 23 December 2009 - 10:48 AM, said:

Sir Thursday, on 23 December 2009 - 01:04 AM, said:

@Yellow: This is a film that I think is probably only worth watching in the cinema in 3D. The visuals are what you should got to the cinema for - the rest is pretty weak, really. You won't get anywhere near the same experience if you watch it on a small screen in 2D, I don't think.

This is pretty much the reason why I won't bother going to see it at the cinema. I don't particularly care for tech demos, so if the plot/acting/everything else is garbage, I'm not going to spunk a tenner to go see it. I'm sure it looks great, but a film needs to have more than that, you know?

I hate watching films in 3D. I feel that having to put the glasses on detracts from the experience. Plus, the 3D tends not to work at the edges of your vision, so you have to try and ignore that while you're watching the film.

So yeah, I'll probably catch the DVD out of curiosity at some point. No big loss.

You sound like a friend of mine who refused to go watch 300 on the big screen for similar reasons.
He is super pissed at himself now that he didnt... Go watch it on Imax 3D...The 3D technology used is the best ever produced you wont have the same problems as before...you will more than likely regret not watching it if you dont and then "catch it somtime" on your lifeless tele.

Agreed, the 3D is far superior to what's come out so far. The Stereoscopic cameras Cameron shot with are meant to mimic the human eye and the depth it sees when someone is sitting in front of you and it really did make a difference to me, cause I get annoyed by regular 3D usually too.

[QuickTidal]

AVATAR has taken 300 million in 4 days since release....The 16 million it pulled down for Tuesday alone is the second-highest number for a non-opening film ever (behind The Dark Knight's $20.9 million)

http://www.comingsoo...ws.php?id=61819

I wonder if a lot of folk like this flick or something.

This post has been edited by QuickTidal: 24 December 2009 - 12:28 AM

[dktorode]

QuickTidal, on 24 December 2009 - 12:26 AM, said:

I wonder if a lot of folk like this flick or something.

When you spend 150 mil on maketing...you tend to get results

[Yellow]

QuickTidal, on 24 December 2009 - 12:26 AM, said:

I wonder if a lot of folk like this flick or something.

A lot of people liked Titanic as well. What's your point?

[QuickTidal]

Yellow, on 24 December 2009 - 10:09 AM, said:

QuickTidal, on 24 December 2009 - 12:26 AM, said:

I wonder if a lot of folk like this flick or something.

A lot of people liked Titanic as well. What's your point?

ummm, that 300 million dollars means alot of folk worldwide went to see it...so people must like it....


Where did I lose ya?

[cauthon]

I am still flabbergasted at the criticism that the story would be bad. As has been pointed out, it's simple, but so are the Alien stories, so is Terminator (OK, ignore anything T3 onwards), and dozens of others. I think people here might have a problem with the storyline because they are used to deep stories, with numerous layers to it. But the truth is, the characters in Avatar are pretty well developed. They do not spend a lot of time in small details, but it is easy to see how the characters develop their affection or disgust of the natives and their world.

FYI, you might also want to check out these reviews:

http://whatever.scal.../avatar-review/

and

http://thearmchaircr.../12/avatar.html

[lobo the wolfman]

Watched this the other day and l really enjoyed it. The landscape to Pandora was incredible to look at and while the story is simple, as Tatterdemalion and others have said, it was still engrossing enough to keep you entertained.

Sad that l can never watch it in 3D, only have one working eye , l still consider it to be one of if not the best movie this year.

[Sir Thursday]

cauthon, on 25 December 2009 - 11:02 AM, said:

I am still flabbergasted at the criticism that the story would be bad. As has been pointed out, it's simple, but so are the Alien stories, so is Terminator (OK, ignore anything T3 onwards), and dozens of others. I think people here might have a problem with the storyline because they are used to deep stories, with numerous layers to it. But the truth is, the characters in Avatar are pretty well developed. They do not spend a lot of time in small details, but it is easy to see how the characters develop their affection or disgust of the natives and their world.

FYI, you might also want to check out these reviews:

http://whatever.scal.../avatar-review/

and

http://thearmchaircr.../12/avatar.html

The reason that the story has been criticised (or at least, why I felt the story was weak) was not that the story was simple (though it was) but that it was predictable. I had managed to avoid reading anything about the film before I went to see it, but after half an hour I could have told you pretty much exactly how the rest of the story was going to pan out. The simplicity is not the problem, the fact that the story has been told too many times before is (it doesn't help that this particular type of story is an obvious one to spot, and doesn't have many ways it can go differently).

Sir Thursday

[Tarcanus]

Did NO ONE ELSE notice that the dominant indigenous species (Na'vi) had only 4 limbs, while every other animal on the planet looked to have 6? Does this not strike anyone else as odd? Shouldn't the Na'vi have had 6 limbs, too?

[Obdigore]

They had their Hair-things (which was wierd) and their giant blue penises, but all the giant blue penises were used by Watchmen, so they just wore lioncloths.

[QuickTidal]

Tarcanus, on 29 December 2009 - 08:49 PM, said:

Did NO ONE ELSE notice that the dominant indigenous species (Na'vi) had only 4 limbs, while every other animal on the planet looked to have 6? Does this not strike anyone else as odd? Shouldn't the Na'vi have had 6 limbs, too?

Um....on earth MOST other species have 4, or 6, or more legs.....while humans, the dominant species have two (and two arms that likely evolved from other legs waaaaay back in the day)....so pretty much the same thing. The amount of legs or arms a species has is not related at all to the OTHER species on the planet, but rather said species' location, environment and lifestyle. The Na'vi seem to have evolved to live on two legs, just as we have. Not that difficult to believe.

[QuickTidal]

Oh, and this flick took 20 million yesterday, bringing the 11 day total worldwide to somewhere near 650 million. At this rate James Cameron may be well on his way to having the worlds two biggest grossing films of all time (the top spot holder is Titanic at 1.8 billion) if Avatar beats LOTR: ROTK (likely) and the Dark Knight (less likely). At any rate, over half a billion dollars is a staggering amount for 11 days in release. Whatever you're opinion of the flick is, it's doing swift business.

[dktorode]

Also ...4 eyes on everything not Na'vi.
Meh...if you want to nitpic then you could say that it would be extrememly unlikly that if we do find life on another planet, that they would be humanoid in shape and are pretty much the blueman group.

[QuickTidal]

dktorode, on 29 December 2009 - 09:36 PM, said:

Meh...if you want to nitpic then you could say that it would be extrememly unlikly that if we do find life on another planet, that they would be humanoid in shape and are pretty much the blueman group.

A very good point.

[Tarcanus]

I agree it's nitpicking, but I found it odd that only the Na'vi had 4 limbs and we saw no other animals with 4. Didn't seem like a normal distribution of a species.

[Traveller]

Just saw it.

I liked it, despite the criticism. They really might as well have had the machines logging instead of mining (i know I know rich minerals etc); and with such a blatantly bloodthirsty army it seemed unlikely that any diplomacy would have been attempted in the first place, but it was nicely done. I liked the little similarities to Aliens, with the drop-ship start (somebody wake up Hicks!) and Ripley Sigourney getting out of a chamber when they arrived. All the hardware was evolved from Aliens too - not a bad thing imo!

Best watched on a screen the size of a house

This post has been edited by Traveller: 30 December 2009 - 05:12 PM

[dktorode]

Traveller, on 30 December 2009 - 05:08 PM, said:

I liked the little similarities to Aliens, with the drop-ship start (somebody wake up Hicks!) and Ripley Sigourney getting out of a chamber when they arrived. All the hardware was evolved from Aliens too - not a bad thing imo!

There is actually speculation that this movie takes place in the same "world/universe" as Aliens.