[Abyss]

Very pretty, solid action. Plot was barely there, but that was fine, i went to see big blue aliens on dinosaurs fight colonial marines and we got that.
Totally worth seeing on a big screen.

SPOILERS
SPOILER
CHARACTER DEATH
SPOILER
SPOILER
LAST CHANCE BEFORE YOU ARE SPOILERIZED
AND SPOILERS

Spoiler

Is it my imagination or does Michelle Rodriguez die in every movie/tv appearance she makes?

- Abyss, animated.

[HoosierDaddy]

Hrm...

Spoiler

It's a moral play on always being saucy.

[QuickTidal]

Abyss, on 31 December 2009 - 09:56 PM, said:

Very pretty, solid action. Plot was barely there, but that was fine, i went to see big blue aliens on dinosaurs fight colonial marines and we got that.
Totally worth seeing on a big screen.

SPOILERS
SPOILER
CHARACTER DEATH
SPOILER
SPOILER
LAST CHANCE BEFORE YOU ARE SPOILERIZED
AND SPOILERS

Spoiler

Is it my imagination or does Michelle Rodriguez die in every movie/tv appearance she makes?

- Abyss, animated.

Spoiler

Did she die in Girlfight? I can't recall. She dies in pretty much everything else. Her lot in life I guess, but my gf hated her on Lost and was very glad when she died anyways. hehe

[Bauchelain the Evil]

I think the best adjective to describe this film is "cool".
Cool special effects and visuals, some rather cool ideas( if properly managed I'm sure the world of Pandora could have been the setting for some really great piece of SciFi or even fantasy). And even though the plot was more than predictable, the story surprisingly gripped me.
Definetly enjoyable.

[Old Magic]

you could nitpick the plot of this movie for days (i like these obscure reviews from sam strange, sums up all the baloney with the respect stupid decisions deserve- Sam Strange Remembers... Avatar (again) )..

In the end its one of the first 3D (experiences) movies to draw the widest audience, young and old.. without 3D its initial $75million weekend would see huge dropoffs the following weekends.. but word of mouth has eased skepticism on the $15 ticket and brought more people in (or back).. i had moments of childlike wonder here and there and didn't feel jipped from the higher ticket cost despite the predictability.. pure entertainment..

[Dag]

Just watched it. And - wow! If you put aside all inconsistencies in the plot - or, better even, if you put aside the whole plot - this movie is absolutely awesome! I can't remember the last time I had so much fun in the cinema.

[stone monkey]

I saw this today...

Technically impressive, visually arresting and a dumb as a bag of hammers...

It wasn't as stupid and pointless as say Transformers 2, which is something to be truly thankful for. But I was expecting a little bit more in the way of brains from it. In some respects the Jim Cameron who made Titanic did turn up to direct this film, whereas I'd rather the smart and imaginitive filmmaker who directed Aliens and The Terminator had made this film. Arguably, this is a big (huge, even) budget blockbuster, so things like plot, character and dialogue are of secondary importance behind sheer spectacle, but the Cameron of old was able to do them all at once.

That said, if you can you should see it in IMAX 3D. It looks amazing. Although I suspect that I'm the only person who thinks that the starship at the beginning was the coolest thing in it. I do have some issues with how successful the 3D effects were; in some scenes they work fantastically well and give you a true feeling of depth, in others it looks like the 3D characters are doing their thing in front of a painted sheet.

Spoiler

Okay, so what exactly does unobtanium do? I suspect it may have had something to do with the flying islands and therefore antigravity, so I can see why it would be sought after (but if not, those things really needed some sort of explanation) It's fine to use it as a McGuffin and say it's valuable, but if we don't know why it's valuable then we're sort of left wondering what all the fuss is about...

Secondly; I'm rather sick of the "white guy meets the natives, learns their culture and then they make him their leader" plot that gets trotted out all the time in this kind of narrative. It just bugs me. It's colonialist attitudes writ large.

There were some missed opportunities too; for instance, those big arches around the Na'vi's holy tree site looked suspiciously like ruins, which could lead one to speculate that the whole planet's ecosystem (with it's weird neural interconnectivity that really couldn't have evolved by itself) was actually some sort of construct. The fact that none of the so-called scientist characters was even remotely observant or bright enough to point this out was something of a wallbanger for me.

The preceding might make one think that I dislike this film, I don't; its spectacle is second to none and Cameron still has a way with action sequences. I just found it a somewhat disappointing in some respects. And I still think The War for Eternity would have made a much better, more interesting and engaging film; one which will now, very unfortunately, never get made.

This post has been edited by stone monkey: 06 January 2010 - 11:13 PM

[cerveza_fiesta]

Saw it twice now in JAW DROPPING 3D.

I had absolutely no idea that the industry had come quite that far with 3D capability and technology. The last time I saw something in 3D it was literally tacked on and used for effect unto itself.

A major thing I liked was that 99% of the heavy 3D stuff in Avatar was integrated into the scenes rather than being the sole feature in the scene itself. Its hard to explain, but think if George Lucas were to remake (again) star wars in 3D. Every 5 seconds there would be some retarded over the top tacky 3D Jar Jar binx or something flying out of the screen into your face for the hell of it. Cameron seems to use the 3D effect with a bit of restraint ...even in the action sequences, using it to provide into-screen depth rather than the more outlandish out-of-screen effects...if you know what I mean.

Spoiler

Overall a solid but overused story with a more-than predictable ending. There wasn't anything new offered up there beyond Pocahontas in Space, but still carried the film just fine imo. I was entertained by it, therefore I liked it...despite the generic feel.

Definitely making a note to self that next time I piss off an entire race, all I need to do is show up riding a sweet dragon and all is forgiven.

The world was totally immersive. They created a whole friggin ecosystem from little bugs and floating dust, to midsize prey creatures, to predators and herbivores. Completely original looking but somehow completely familiar at the same time. I really liked the implication that Pandora's Gaia spirit was actually an entity consisting of the planetwide biosphere and linked up like neurons between plant roots. It gave just enough of a believable scientific backing to the Gaia spirit idea that you could see how it might actually exist as a physical entity rather than a religious construct of the Navi.

Opinion part:

Best scenes visually:

• hometree blown to smithereens. Especially in 3D....everything about that scene totally rocked.
• aerial fight in the floating mountains, teradactyls vs. helicopters....obviously. Hands down the most intense scene in the whole film.
• First scene where teh mechs are opening up their handheld cannons on the horseriders in the final battle "DUGGA DUGGA DUGGA DUGGA". How are mechs so incredibly sweet every single time???
• First time you see the interior of the control tower at the mine where it pans past the air traffic controllers etc... One of the best and most immersive uses of 3D in the whole film.
• The scene at the end where sully is transferred to his blue body and the little floating seed things are flying around. They defocus the ones that are in the foreground, while making them pop out of the screen. The effect was exactly how your eye would perceive that scene, with foreground stuff defocused because your eyes are focused on something deeper in the field of view.

Favourite scenes overall

• The entire lead up to, and wrestling of, the pet teradactyl by jake sully. That entire chapter of the movie was wicked.
• The fight between Jake, bluegirl and the coyote things on his first night in the jungle. Very nice motion and action shooting for animated characters.
• The part where they summon the seashore navi to come help and they all dive off the edge of the cliff on their teradactyls. Short but a very eye-poppingly cool scene for me.
• Any scene showing a full-frame closeup of somebody's face. 3D was very noticeable and very good on those scenes.

Neato details noticed on second viewing

• nice carryover of evolutionary traits, like 4 arms and 2 legs for all creatures, as well as 4 eyes and multi-nostrils....except the navi.
• Navi all have 4 digits on hands and feet while the avatars have 5 digits on both like humans...because of genetic splicing?
• avatars all have much heavier builds than the navi...especially sully. He looks 2x as big as the other main male navi character
• good attention to detail on the mechs. Knee joints and elbow joints had glistening steel where lubricated metal slides on metal. All other surfaces were dinged up and painted.
• Windows in the movie, like facemasks, windshields on choppers, building windows were all smudged and dirty, which helped add depth in the 3D version.

That's about it. This one deserves to win awards....and lots of them. Cameron ups the ante once again.

so yeah, folks that say this movie suck are fucking with you completely. Go see it.

This post has been edited by cerveza_fiesta: 07 January 2010 - 05:13 PM

[amphibian]

I saw it in true IMAX yesterday. I generally liked the movie, but had some serious problems with the storyline after a certain point. The military strategy of both sides was incredibly, horrifically dumb. More detailed points in spoilers below:

Spoiler

If all it took to bring down the bomber was a couple grenades in the right place, why did the battle take so long?

I can understand why the attack on Hometree was pretty much hover and fire, as the Navi were not equipped to defend against it at the time. However I cannot for the life of me figure out why the attack on the Tree of Souls was done in a "hi-diddle, straight up the middle" jog IN BROAD DAYLIGHT. They knew about the lizards. Furthermore, I have serious problems with the response of the Navi to the attacks.

Here's how I would have handled the movie: During Scully's training, the chief pumps him for information and as Scully begins to sympathize with the chief, he agrees to train a group of Navi in Marine Recon tactics, while Pocahontalien teaches him their ways. It's a mutually beneficial exchange, which makes actual sense for both parties to trade. The corporate guy is alright with it, but the Colonel refuses to give the Navi anything other than Navi-equipped battle rifles. No RPGs, no air support, no grenades. Scully tames his regular flying lizard, and finds out about the Toruk AND ITS SUPERIOR DIVING SPEED. Soon after, Scully finds out that the Navi do have some sort of explosives, and very importantly, keeps this to himself and tells the Navi to never show the anthropologist the explosives.

When Scully finds out about the raid on Hometree, he warns them, but they still do the stone age projectiles and charge tactics against the helicopters to no effect. Due to the Navi generally trusting him because of the training he provided to a squad of warriors and being around so much, they ask him how to fight the Sky People effectively. He sends ambassadors to the other Navi groups while he and Pocahontalien work to tame the Toruk - as it's crucial to the fight back against the bombing attack on the Tree of Souls.

The ground attack, which is also equipped with explosives as a back-up, is bogged down by Scully's trained Navi conducting a guerrilla campaign while the Navi who don't follow the new way of tactics die in the frontal charge. Tsutey dies here, being a badass. Eywa still saves everyone's asses there with the rhino charge and zerg rush after.

The attack on the Tree of Souls is done at night to maximize the human advantage of technology (infrared, radar etc. being superior to Navi eyesight at night). The Scorpions are employed as screeners against the lizards, while the big plane carts the explosives to the Tree. The Navi try to drop rocks into the helicopter blades of the screeners and act as distractions from the key mission: destroying the main bomber. Scully waits, waits, waits until the bomber opens its cargo bay and uses the Toruk in a ridiculous dive through all kinds of gunfire to fling Navi explosives into the plane - a big boom results and the Tree is saved.

The Colonel gets in his mech, survives the crash and goes hunting for the pod. Scully does not know he's alive and leads the raid on the corporate base in daylight. We get to see a very cool battle scene as the Navi overwhelm the perimeter defenses with a lizard airlift, take out the mechs, blast the doors and capture the base. They don't kill the corporate guy and make him link up with Eywa at the Tree. Corporate dude realizes what's going on inside Pandorum life and thinks for a while about this. At this time, the Colonel finds the pod and kills Michelle Rodriguez who is guarding it, just as she warns Scully.

The requisite mano-a-mano duel happens and Scully becomes the Navi leader, due to his taming of the Toruk and excellent handling of the human attacks. The corporate guy realizes out he can make more money and leave the planet mostly alone by figuring out how the neural network works and then applying it to humans, he also figures out how to get the unobtanium without wrecking the world by using bioengineered grubber dogs/pigs or something.

Tell me that's not a better movie?

This post has been edited by amphibian: 07 January 2010 - 07:20 PM

[Yellow]

Went to see this after all. 3D looked great, film was a bit crap. Overall worth watching.

Although the CGI was well done, for the most part it was still obviously CGI (at least with anything that was alive). I realise that we're some way off complete realism, but those creatures, especially the ridiculous dog-things, just looked stupid. They clearly couldn't handle doing fur, so all the creatures were smooth-skinned.

I wish someone would make a CGI film where instead of me thinking, "oh, the CGI was pretty good in that film", I didn't notice the CGI at all.

Oh, and the bit where the two leads got it on... thank god they didn't show any detail, because you could tell everyone in the cinema was getting a bit uncomfortable with alien sex Apparently they're putting that scene in for the bluray edition. Think I'll give it a miss.

[eastendleo]

What a great movie experience.
Definitely not a perfect movie: I would have liked aliens that were not so close to American First Nations people and had a tad more variety in body types. And sometimes the 3D in the human areas looked too much like dolls in doll house rooms.
But!
There were moments when leaves were twinkling as they drifted through the trees when I had an almost overwhelming urge to reach up to brush them away from my face.
And moments when the bioluminescence was otherworldly and I was moved.
And I loved the scene where Sully first awakens in his new body and is drunk on the joy of having regained his legs, that felt very real to me ("I see you, Sully.")
And what joy to bond with an...um...dragon? and leap off a floating mountain and fly! Oh my god, yes, sign me up, I wanna go, now, please.
I remember reading to my daughter when she was real little and watching her eyes shine with joy. I had that, in Avatar.

And...
I had this thought as I watched...

Many criticisms of the movie have focused on the white outsider saving the savages story line. Something to consider. But I wonder if around the world where many feel intruded upon by Americans, the dominant story is the one Cameron presents. A people fighting for survival against impossible odds and finding help in unforseen quarters. And when those odds are impossible, why not hope that some of the mighty out to get you will turn to help instead? Not to mention, it makes for a positive story line for us as well. After all, last I looked, raping and pillaging (especially when it is us doing it) doesn't make for a feel good movie experience. I know I identified with Sully not the bad ass fuck who wanted to boogie and was going to buy the first round for a job well done.

So, within the confines of being responsible for bazillions of dollars and creating an entertaining blockbuster if he ever wants to work again, I think its a pretty nice trick to make a movie about how we treat our world and other people and ask: "Are you just going to sit there and watch or are you going to do something? Huh? What the fuck are you willing to do when something wrong is going down?"

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[Ozymandiac]

I didn't see it, but I heard these five frames are pretty much it.

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[Anomander]

Loved it. Absolutely loved it.

I'm still trying to process the whole thing frankly. Right at the beginning when the avatars were first taken into the wild and you got a close-up of one wearing a backpack... between the awesome CGI and 3D effects I honestly felt I could reach out and touch the guy and he would be real. A lot of the forest scenes were much the same way. The fact he used the 3D effects for a lot of the background and some of the harmless wildlife/fauna was perfect.

Incredible work on Cameron's part, I can't quite see how he can do better than this (discounting the hate I read regarding the storyline).

Unfortunately I only saw it on a normal sized theatre screen so I'll be checking out I-max later this week.

[QuickTidal]

One of my fave things is

Spoiler

when Neytiri is cornered and Jake can't get to her, but then the animals of Pandora come to their aid and Neytiri pumps her fist while yelling "Eywa has heard you! Jake! Eywa has heard you!!"...and I wanted to pump my fist in the theatre.

[polishgenius]

QuickTidal, on 10 January 2010 - 04:21 PM, said:

One of my fave things is

Spoiler

when Neytiri is cornered and Jake can't get to her, but then the animals of Pandora come to their aid and Neytiri pumps her fist while yelling "Eywa has heard you! Jake! Eywa has heard you!!"...and I wanted to pump my fist in the theatre.

See, at that part I literally facepalmed. Mileage may vary, I suppose...

[Yellow]

Yup, much facepalmage.

Have to say though that the only decent actor in this was Zoe Saldana (no, the colonel wasn't a good actor, he just had something interesting to do, which separated him from 98% of the rest of the cast). Even though she was essentially just playing Pocahontas, she actually put a bit more effort into it and made me root for her a bit (unlike JakeSullyPants).

Speaking of CGI again, I like the following film for its low budget artistry. If modern films had this guy working for them, maybe we could get away from the "good CGI but still obviously CGI" thing I dislike.

http://vimeo.com/7809605?hd=1

By the way, that whole vid is CGI and made by one guy. Someone described it as "Beautiful but boring", but it's very stylish (though I'm sure it's stolen more than a couple of elements from Gattaca, particularly the theme tune which is so beautiful you can bury me to it, thanks). Cameron's $200m slimy purple alien monster dogs are put to shame.

[Yellow]

Also, the fact that the Navi can biologically link with pretty much all the animals on the planet is ridiculous. I can just about believe that one of them (i.e. the horse thing) can do this, if they've co-existed for millions of years, but not the flying lizards as well. Especially not the dragon things, because only 5 people have ever been able to fly them before... making it stupid that they'd have evolved some kind of linking mechanism.

Why not just bypass the crappy explanation of a "link" and just have them ride the fuckers? Would be much more believable.

[QuickTidal]

Yellow, on 10 January 2010 - 06:59 PM, said:

Also, the fact that the Navi can biologically link with pretty much all the animals on the planet is ridiculous. I can just about believe that one of them (i.e. the horse thing) can do this, if they've co-existed for millions of years, but not the flying lizards as well. Especially not the dragon things, because only 5 people have ever been able to fly them before... making it stupid that they'd have evolved some kind of linking mechanism.

Why not just bypass the crappy explanation of a "link" and just have them ride the fuckers? Would be much more believable.

See, now I don't understand this opinion. You are welcome to it of course, but why does the idea of a planet living this symbiotically with its inhabitants bother some people so? How do you deem it ridiculous? Is it that as a human race we feel the need to conquer and enslave? "I'm gonna ride this thing whether it likes it or not" mentality. We do it to horses. Do you think horses WANT to be ridden? I don't think so.

I'll tell you why that aspect of the story makes sense...because the Na'vi themselves (as they have been written) would never permit the misuse of the species that they live with like that. They are about symbiosis. They are, in effect, what environmentalist humans wish they could be. If we lived in a better harmony with our planet we might not be destroying it. Do you want to know how I feel we best get close to this symbiosis? Dogs. People who love their family dog and treat such as a companion live a richer fuller life because they do so, and the dog benefits in the same fashion. I wish that more people would see that.

So, I don't see any problem with the symbiosis presented in the film and the idea of a sentient planet is not hard to believe at all. Who knows what other plants in the universe are made up of....in our solar system alone there are many various planets of different makeup. Who's to say that a creature couldn't exist somewhere that was the size of a planet and has other creatures living on it in harmony...and that they have even evolved to be in that unison? Like Whales and the parasites that live on them, cleaning them of barnacles ect...

Spoiler

Besides which your argument essentially renders the whole resolution of the film null and void actually. Without the link between the creatures there could have been no success in the war and Quaritch would have achieved his goal of destroying the god tree and the Corporation would have gotten its access to the unobtanium, and the resolution of Jake's story would never have been, leaving him to die from his asphyxiation which would have been pointless and caused irreparable damage to the society that now looked to him as a leader as much as they did Neytiri. So yeah, they could have done it your way Yellow, but then the movie would have been ten minutes long and completely pointless...so I guess it's good they went the way they did. No offense though dude.

[amphibian]

Yellow, on 10 January 2010 - 06:59 PM, said:

Also, the fact that the Navi can biologically link with pretty much all the animals on the planet is ridiculous. I can just about believe that one of them (i.e. the horse thing) can do this, if they've co-existed for millions of years, but not the flying lizards as well. Especially not the dragon things, because only 5 people have ever been able to fly them before... making it stupid that they'd have evolved some kind of linking mechanism.

Why not just bypass the crappy explanation of a "link" and just have them ride the fuckers? Would be much more believable.

The planet puts forth organisms that link to each other and to the neural network. It's intelligent design by some kind of crazy biological coincidence. It's a seeming paradox that Cameron probably wigged out over for days.

I agree that some of that was shoddily handled, but I liked the implications of the animals being able to link to each other. Perhaps some would evolve into using the links as predatory tactics if allowed.

[alt146]

I liked the movie way more than I thought I would. Simple storyline ('Dances with Smurfs' for anyone who watches South Park), but still fairly gripping. Graphics were awesome and I was impressed by the large attention to detail. I also liked that the 3d was used very subtley. Jake's assault rifle always popping out of the screen was a bit heavy handed, but I was irritated by the 3d during the trailers and I really hate the '3d thing flying straight at your face' effect that has everyone in the theatre flinching. The one time it was done like that was when that gas canister flies past you, which suited the scene. The bits of ash or leaves floating past your face was a very clever use of the tech I felt, since it makes you feel much more immersed in the scene.

@CF - the whole 'picture is focused the way your eyes would be' actually irritated me, I kept looking at the foreground objects and having my suspension of disbelief hampered by the fact that my attention didnt change the focus. That and when a foreground object drifted towards the edge of the screen it suddenly disappeared, which was a bit jarring.

@ Amph - I agree, the military side was a little silly Jake should have explained what he was there for and started equipping the Navi way earlier. Keep in mind though, the explosives Jake used were marine issue (or at least that's what they looked like to me) and the marines couldn't attack at night due to the fact that their tech didnt work in the area.

I have a slight problem with the bond thing in that I can't see it remaining a trait in every animal on the planet if only one species uses it and selectively at that. A few shots of animals of the same species bonded together or of various animals bonding trees to search for food/water/predators or even of symbiotic bonds would have made the whole thing much more realistic.