Kevin's Watch

I just wanted to add . . .

Without question, Avatar was an amazing capitalist and technological achievement. More than a billion dollars in ticket sales, and pushing the envelope of 3D entertainment. However, for an anti-capitalist, anti-technology message, the movie is a vast failure because its two greatest achievements contradict its own message.

It would be like the KKK making an anti-racism movie, using slave labor, with a counter-historical message that the North was pro-slavery. It's so contradictory on so many levels, it no longer makes sense to say you agree with its message.

But there's power in contradiction...

I just got back from seeing it at the imax. It's a stunning movie visually, though the plot was almost laughably predictable.


In the long run, I think the movie will be remembered for the special effects rather than any message. The contemporary references will only serve, over time, to make the movie feel dated; while movies will try to emulate the visual scenes for a long time to come. The superior travelogue like first two-thirds or so will take a while to equal while the shoot 'em up end of the movie will have plenty of copy cats early.

If this movie had been without the special effects and had to rely on plot, it would be in dvd release within two months. It's not the myth of the noble savage. That has been around since at least as far as Rousseau (And the jabbing of it since Voltaire), and is fine with me. The foreshadowing though just screamed out.

Spoiler

See the predator flying creature's skull and be told that only five had bonded with it before... umm, I wonder who the sixth will be? Be told that prayers to Pandora aren't answered the way he asked them? Come on, she saw the tree's seeds land on him and called it an omen. It would answer.

Orlion wrote:But there's power in contradiction...

I think of Cameron as the Al Gore of movies. Another big fat celebrity, getting fatter and richer telling everyone else how to live and how much humanity sucks.

Well, it's official...the Globes have hit the bottom, with Avatar winning best Drama.

jacob Raver, sinTempter wrote:Well, it's official...the Globes have hit the bottom, with Avatar winning best Drama.

I still can't believe it. That's like 2001 winning best comedy.

jacob Raver, sinTempter wrote:Well, it's official...the Globes have hit the bottom, with Avatar winning best Drama.

Dear god.

jacob Raver, sinTempter wrote:Well, it's official...the Globes have hit the bottom, with Avatar winning best Drama.

Come on, I know people didn't take the Globes seriously before, but come on...

Yeah, it makes me nervous that it will be another Titanic disaster at the Oscars. Then again, I haven't seen Avatar, and can't judge until I do. Titanic was better than I thought it would be, but it still was a pretty average story supported by good special effects.

Cagliostro wrote:Yeah, it makes me nervous that it will be another Titanic disaster at the Oscars. Then again, I haven't seen Avatar, and can't judge until I do. Titanic was better than I thought it would be, but it still was a pretty average story supported by good special effects.

Come on now...while overdramatic and a little unrealistic, Titanic is a far better film than Avatar.

jacob Raver, sinTempter wrote:

Cagliostro wrote:Yeah, it makes me nervous that it will be another Titanic disaster at the Oscars. Then again, I haven't seen Avatar, and can't judge until I do. Titanic was better than I thought it would be, but it still was a pretty average story supported by good special effects.

Come on now...while overdramatic and a little unrealistic, Titanic is a far better film than Avatar.

Then I have even less desire to see Avatar.

Well, that's not my opinion - I found Titanic sort of interesting but (I'm not sure if this is valid, but as an Aussie, I notice it) too bloody American (runs for cover).

Avatar interested me more. So I guess the moral is, go check it out for yourself. IMO, it had some good tension in the second half.

StevieG wrote:Well, that's not my opinion - I found Titanic sort of interesting but (I'm not sure if this is valid, but as an Aussie, I notice it) too bloody American (runs for cover).

Avatar interested me more. So I guess the moral is, go check it out for yourself. IMO, it had some good tension in the second half.

What would you consider an Aussie film then? Just wondering what you mean.

jacob Raver, sinTempter wrote: What would you consider an Aussie film then? Just wondering what you mean.

Jumping the line here - don't know about StevieG, but I would sadly consider almost all Australian films made too Australian. It's the reason why the Aust film industry is a lame horse. The best stuff are the films which aren't so concious of the fact that they are Australian, in my opinion.

jacob Raver, sinTempter wrote:Well, it's official...the Globes have hit the bottom, with Avatar winning best Drama.

agreed

I really enjoyed the movie fwiw. I don't know about best drama... eventhough I've seen it twice (once digital, and once on film, the latter being a disappointment after seeing it in the former). I just find the movie to be an aesthetically pleasant portrayal of a fairy tale, and I'm kinda stunned at all the efforts being made to politicise the movie. For starters, Pandora doesn't actually exist, Unobtanium doesn't exist, Navi don't actually exist, so how does the movie equal a metaphor for this planet or the noble savage? But I guess if a movie is seen by large numbers of people... it's going to be politicised, just like more celebrated plays were politicised way back when.

If humans were actually that interconnected with our ecology, maybe there's a metaphor; maybe if the movie were two different groups of Navi, one that stayed savage and one that industrialised, maybe there's a metaphor. But as it is, it's just science fiction.

What would you consider an Aussie film then? Just wondering what you mean.

Think 'The Adventures of Priscilla, Queen of The Desert'.


(*running, even faster*)

Stonemaybe wrote:

What would you consider an Aussie film then? Just wondering what you mean.

Think 'The Adventures of Priscilla, Queen of The Desert'.


(*running, even faster*)

Never seen it...has 7.3 at imdb...maybe worth a watch.

I enjoyed Avatar for what it was.
But if we're comparing it to Titanic, then I have to say Titanic was a more emotionally rewarding movie. It also had Kate Winslet.
I'll take a curvaceous human female over a skinny blue alien female every time.
I admit it: I'm a bigot. (Now if I could just see Kate in 3D...)

Tjol wrote:For starters, Pandora doesn't actually exist, Unobtanium doesn't exist, Navi don't actually exist, so how does the movie equal a metaphor for this planet or the noble savage?

Because that's what a metaphor is? It's not something real, it's something imagined which is analogous to something real.

People complain about the metaphor because it's a metaphor for an imagined ideal.

I complain about the movie because, apart from the CG, it wasn't a very good movie.