James Cameron's "Avatar" (grading and discussion)

[Arrqh]

Why did you say sequels? Sequels would be another discussion
I specifically said this movie. Even if it gets to a Billion worldwide that is still break even territory give or take. So break even is the measure of success? That was my question.

I know what you said, but looking at a new IP is a lot larger then just looking at a single movie. In some other entertainment industries, it can be perfectly reasonable to not break even on the first product in a new IP because the expectation is to make a profit overall. Film is occasionally the same, depending on the situation. This appears to be one of those situations from what I can see. I don't think Fox will need a billion to greenlight a sequel.

Here, for instance, is a very important question that I don't know the answer to. Does Cameron himself own the IP for Avatar? Or does Fox? This will have a fairly large impact on what Fox would or would not consider to be successful and worth spending more money on.

In regards to any sequels using the basis of 'the tech is created/ the F/X ground work laid' so sequels will be cheaper. Ok then, where is that Ghost Rider sequel? How about the Incredible Hulk sequel. I'm sure we could list other break even movies where it took $$$ to create a character and yet the studios didn't rush to create more. Why is that? Will the name Cameron alone get more Avatar made? Maybe cause that's all it might have going for it if this thing can't push seriously passed the Billion mark.

Considering that a significant chunk of the budget of Avatar went into R&D and the same is not true on the other movies you listed... well, it's just not a valid comparison. It's a lot more financially complex then that.

 

[Hyperspace05]

A picture has appeared from a deleted scene, which was presumably cut very close to release: (since it looks finished)

http://i47.tinypic.com/fck0ew.jpg

Presumably this scene might appear on the DVD/Bluray release.

Apparently it was scanned in the new Cinefex issue. (larger cover).

 

[MarianLH]

All the comparisons between Avatar and Dances With Wolves inspired me to rent and watch the latter again, for the first time in at least a decade. Having done so, I think the comparison is unfair...to Dances With Wolves.

(A recap of where I stand: I liked Avatar, enough to rate it Average. Its plot was pedestrian and the characters relatively stock, but it lacked the gaping plot holes, wallbangers, and unlikeable leads that marred Star Trek, G. I. Joe, Terminator 4, and Transformers 1 (didn't see the sequel) for me. Plus, gorgeous worldbuilding.)

As an example of the Mighty Whitey trope, Dances With Wolves is relatively restrained. Dunbar doesn't become the leader of the natives, or a great warrior or otherwise particularly important. Aside from a few guns and a hat, the Sioux gain nothing from their association with him. And Dunbar earns their acceptance not through badassedness, but through good deeds--sharing food, helping an injured woman, saving a kid from a charging buffalo, etc. Stands With A Fist doesn't fill the stock "chief's daughter" role very well, either. While she is the (adopted) daughter of the tribe's shaman, she doesn't give off that "tribal princess" vibe.

Avatar, on the other hand, plays the trope so straight it's like Cameron made a checklist. Becomes the leader, check. Marries the princess, check. Does their thing (turok) better than they do, check.

Dances With Wolves takes its time developing the relationship between Dunbar and the Sioux; what Avatar reduces to a training montage is, in Dances With Wolves, half the film. We spend time with various Sioux characters and get to know them as individuals. Wind In His Hair is much more fleshed-out and three-dimensional than his Avatar counterpart. Tsu'tey's dislike of Jake is understandable in context, but he still comes off as the jealous jock boyfriend. He edges close to being Johnny from The Karate Kid sometimes. Wind In His Hair, on the other hand, is a genuinely likable guy, even when he's the closest thing to a villain the first half of the movie has.

Plus, he's so hot he'd melt butter just by walking by.

A lot of movies these days are impatient when it comes to establishing and developing things. Characters, relationships, changes of allegiance--remember when Star Wars III had little orphan Anni going from "I'm turning you in" to "killing kids whee!" in like ten seconds? Avatar could've spent more time developing and rounding out a lot of people and things. Tsu'tey's death gets a "meh" because we never got to know him. Same with Neytiri's dad, whose name I don't even remember. Stone Calf's death in Dances With Wolves hurts a lot more.

On the other hand it could've been worse, too. Contrast the way Avatar organically establishes the badassedness of Colonel Breathing-Is-For-Sissies to Star Trek's "I stab you just cus" introduction of Nero.

And while Avatar may share the impatience of modern film, it lacks the jaw-dropping wallbangers that have also become common:

G. I. Joe: "We knew you were going to be attacked so we were ready to intervene--but we waited until the attack is nearly over, all your buddies are dead, and the bad guys have taken the macguffin and are about to get away."

Star Trek: "Let's give command of a starship to an undisciplined jerkass who hasn't even made ensign yet."

Terminator 4: "The attack, despite seeming to be humanity's last best hope for victory, needs to be postponed because the collateral damage might cause me to never be born, and clearly I'm the only person who matters. Plus, I will survive being stabbed through the heart with a girder."

Don't get me wrong, I still liked Avatar. But it could've been better. It dodges most of the currently trendy movie pitfalls, but not all of them. And meanwhile, it raises the bar on worldbuilding a lot, and pushes the tech a little too.

Here's hoping for an extended cut on DVD, or at least a whole mess of character-developing deleted scenes.


Marian

 

[Hyperspace05]

Thanks for your in-depth thoughts, MarianLH. I have not watched DWW recently, so it is interesting to read a detailed comparison.

As for an extended cut, Cameron has said that an additional 15-20 mins of almost completed footage exists, including that pic I posted. (Beyond that, lots of stuff was filmed/mo-capped that they never did much post work on since it was cut early)

So I would not be surprised to see a longer cut on DVD/bluray.

 

[Brit]

But still, 80% of TrekBBS users rated it as 'excellent' or 'above average'. Yet, it is the remaining 20% who do the most posting here.

I am a part of that eighty percent, I have posted that I liked the film, nothing more than that and I gave “Avatar” an Excellent. Quite honestly I didn’t think you would be really interested why I voted that way, because I am coming at it from a completely different place than the rest of you. Since you pointed out the fact that some people are not posting, I thought why not so here it is.

I loved the look of the movie, to me it was breath taking, and it allowed me to “believe” I was on another world. I haven’t been so amazed by a movie since I saw Star Wars for the first time in the seventies and saw the starships roaring overhead in the first scene.

I don’t have one problem with the plot; I was absolutely thrilled with it. It is a pure basic romance trope, boy meets girl, boy and girl fall in love, but boy and girl have an insurmountable obstacle standing between them. Because of differences (this time they are two different species that cannot even breath the same air), they cannot be together and the story is how they overcome those differences. It’s a plot that probably predates the invention of writing. For my purposes it is perfect.

I have been somewhat active with a group of blogging authors and people (like me) that have aspirations to produce novels in the Science Fiction Romance genre. Have you any idea just how big a breakthrough “Avatar” is for us? We are battling publishers on two fronts, the romance publishers don’t believe that romance readers will read Science Fiction and Science Fictions publishers don’t believe that their readership will read romance. “Avatar” is something we can point to and say “this is what we are talking about and it seems to have found an appreciative audience.”

A couple of huge things have happened to our community recently, one is the release of “Avatar” and the other is the fact that Sherrilyn Kenyon hit #1 on the New York Times best seller list on November 12th with “Born of Fire” and again December 9th with “Born of Ice” both of those books like “Avatar” are pure kick-ass Science Fiction Romances. I can’t begin to tell you just how big a deal this is.

So yes I loved the film, and I didn’t have a single problem with the plot.

Brit

 

[Blue_Trek]

But still, 80% of TrekBBS users rated it as 'excellent' or 'above average'. Yet, it is the remaining 20% who do the most posting here.

Let me guess, some of those 20% also didn't like the new Star Trek movie too.

 

[TrekNut87]

Just saw it yesterday. I gave it an average rating. Awesome visuals and effects. The world of Pandora is an absolute marvel. easily some of the best visuals I've seen in years.

However, besides the visual eye candy, I feel that it's overrated. The story was extremely predictable, uninspired and seemed to run out of steam toward the end of the film. Because of this, I found some of the actors' performances to be somewhat lacking and unbelievable.

Final Grade: A solid C

 

[Jax]

But still, 80% of TrekBBS users rated it as 'excellent' or 'above average'. Yet, it is the remaining 20% who do the most posting here.

The 80% are busy enjoying life

 

[Kegg]

But still, 80% of TrekBBS users rated it as 'excellent' or 'above average'. Yet, it is the remaining 20% who do the most posting here.

Let me guess, some of those 20% also didn't like the new Star Trek movie too.

I liked the new Star Trek movie. I liked Avatar also, I just graded it average. I'm not sure how that grade is indicative of disliking the movie - at worst it'd be finding it okay, surely.

 

[Robert Maxwell]

But still, 80% of TrekBBS users rated it as 'excellent' or 'above average'. Yet, it is the remaining 20% who do the most posting here.

Let me guess, some of those 20% also didn't like the new Star Trek movie too.

I liked the new Star Trek movie. I liked Avatar also, I just graded it average. I'm not sure how that grade is indicative of disliking the movie - at worst it'd be finding it okay, surely.

Nonsense! The movie was either a stupendous achievement of cinema, a marvel to behold, a game-changer, a timeless epic... OR it sucked out loud, was the worst piece of celluloid trash ever to offend my eyes, and has earned Jimmy Cameron a special place in Hell.

CHOOSE ONE!

 

[Greylock Crescent]

^ I still don't see a whole lot of evidence of this "either or" element. It seems that only a very small number of people either praise it or deride it exclusively. Most seem to be discussing both its strengths and weaknesses. Just because someone criticizes the film doesn't mean they automatically hate it. Nor would someone praising the film mean they automatically found it excellent.

 

[Base_Delta_Zero]

Just as the prequel Star Wars films are visually exciting and almost worth the price of admission for that alone, Avatar is all flash, no bang. I almost wanted to watch it with the dialogue cut out, not because the story was something I'd seen/read a million times (though I have), but because it was so badly done.

Jake Sully is not compelling in any way once he opens his mouth. None of the characters are, really. Lt. Uhura does the best job of conveying something with the nothing she's given and Gen. Pickett chews scenery like a true badass, but in the end they all dance to the director's stupid children's story bullshit while spouting fanfic dialogue. Every single actor in this thing was type-cast, too, which is infuriating.

I could say more, but who gives a shit? I'd rather just forget this thing.

If you liked/loved the film, great, but let's not pretend that fact means I'm retarded because I didn't.

Visuals: A

Uhura/Pickett: B

Everyone else: C

Story/Plot: F

Above Average - Barely (I will not be buying the DVD)

 

[davejames]

Again, I just don't think people are approaching this movie the right way. It reminds me of how everyone was bitching about how corny and one-dimensional Sam Raimi's first Spider-Man was, when it was pretty clear that movie was simply trying to capture the cornball innocence of the early Spidey comics.

In the same way, Avatar is clearly a throwback to those simplistic scifi pulp stories where you'd have some Buck Rogers-style hero exploring a strange alien world and falling in love with a beautiful alien (with the twist this time that he actually becomes an alien). It's not trying to be especially deep or anything-- just a fun pulp adventure. And that's more than enough for me.

 

[Greylock Crescent]

Again, I just don't think people are approaching this movie the right way.

Right. Because, clearly, no one could possibly have an objective criticism of Avatar. All criticisms are the result of people just not having the right attitude. You see? There's absolutely nothing wrong with the movie ... there's only something wrong with people who criticize the movie. If only they lowered their standards, or changed their attitude. Then they'd just *love* Avatar like it was meant to be loved.

Yeah, that must be it.

 

[Hyperspace05]

Having fun setting up straw men, Samuel?

 

[Greylock Crescent]

I suppose you could say that I was just making hay.

 

[davejames]

Again, I just don't think people are approaching this movie the right way.

Right. Because, clearly, no one could possibly have an objective criticism of Avatar. All criticisms are the result of people just not having the right attitude. You see? There's absolutely nothing wrong with the movie ... there's only something wrong with people who criticize the movie. If only they lowered their standards, or changed their attitude. Then they'd just *love* Avatar like it was meant to be loved.

Yeah, that must be it.

People can criticize it any way they want. I'm hardly saying it's a perfect movie or that it's brimming with originality. I just don't think it was ever intended to be a deep or complex movie, that's all.

 

[Daneel]

Well, Avatar is showing no signs of slowing down at the box office: yesterday it made another $19,418,139, which is actually 18.5% more than it made last Monday. This gives it the second-highest non-holiday Monday gross of all time, behind The Dark Knight's first Monday in release. FWIW, Alvin and the Chipmunks: The Squeakquel and Sherlock Holmes place 9th and 13th on this list respectively from what they made yesterday.

Avatar has now made $232,129,323 domestically, and $410, 864,537 internationally, for a worldwide total of $642,993,860.

 

[Lapis Exilis]

I in no way want to underrate the effectiveness of the visuals, which were amazingly rendered, and I am very pleased to see movie technology move to a place where "going to the movies" is a special experience. The absorption in an imagined world was very impressive.

I look forward to the day that it is applied to a better movie.

Avatar was obvious, predictable (and therefore, for a long stretch in the second act and another long stretch in the third act, boring), and more than a little annoying for its shameless use of a story trope that is racist at heart.

As others have said, the dialog is atrocious - which I can forgive in an action movie. But the bigger problem is that the story hinges on certain events that make no sense.

Jake is a completely uninteresting character except for his injury, which is never explored. We know nothing about him other than that he had a brother who is now dead and he was hurt in his service as a marine. He is not smart and he has no personality. I never could find a way to care for him because he was as much an empty shell as the Na'vi body he inhabited. My biggest problem with the movie is why in the world would Eywa/ Pandora "choose" him? No reason except that the writer needed for the Na'vi to agree to train him so that they could explain Pandora and their culture to him. In fact, Jake didn't really do anything but stand around and have people explain stuff to him. Every opportunity that arose to give him a real character was avoided. When he tames the big yellow dragon (something which I saw coming at least 45 minutes out), actually seeing that happen might have provided some reason to actually admire Jake as a hero - but no, he just showed up, once again Pandora having magically "accepted" him.

And as stunning as the 3D technology and perfomance capture was, the visuals were actually remarkably unoriginal. Pandora was just a glowy, sparkly rain forest. Most of the animals were slightly altered dinosaurs. The Na'vi were dressed in clothes that were lifted almost wholesale from various African and Native American styles.

Which brings us to the rather offensive aspect of the movie. So Eywa, the Na'vi Goddess, chooses a human (white guy) over any of Her own people. Despite being ignorant and more than a little dumb, he masters all the native skills - even taming the great beast that only five other Na'vi in history have ever managed to tame (because as a white guy, his natural prowess is plainly superior to that of the natives). He's soooooo cool that the Chief's Daughter throws over her betrothed to get down with Jake, the characterless wonder. As required by this story, he then not only leads the natives in battle to defeat his own evil race (more on this in a minute), but he manages to unite the Na'vi tribes into a confederation.

Meanwhile, as part of this tale designed to assuage white guilt, the humans are greedy and evil (all but moutache twirling) except for the small group of kindly scientists and one token brown skinned solider. The Na'vi are spiritual, eco-friendly, peaceful, perfectly egalitarian and sexy. Jake's going over to their side lets the audience think how they would do the same in his shoes, recognizing the superior values of the natives (which are highly idealized and totally unrealistic for any society) and choosing to join them - thus allowing the white guy to once again appropriate the possessions of the natives (now, instead of their mineral resources - their ideas and ways of life). So, the audience gets to simultaneously assuage their guilt by identifying with the natives over the greedy humans and possess the groovy parts of native culture.

Cameron called this an allegory of colonization but it actually is a kind of colonization of its own. And the grand irony is that people watching it and the writers probably think they are quite advanced because they are able to identify with the eco-friendly noble savages.

Anyway - I'm glad I went to see it, but I never want to see it again. The visuals were impressive and stick with me, but the story was horrible. The only interesting character was Natiri - it would have been a hell of a better movie if she had been the lead character and the hero of the piece.

 

[Kegg]

My biggest problem with the movie is why in the world would Eywa/ Pandora "choose" him?

They did? I thought they bought into the logic of his argument - Eywa wants nature to have a balance, and therefore doesn't get involved, but he points out that the balance is going to be screwed up by the human invaders (citing the evidence Eywa would have from Grace's memories). I'm actually interested in how that works - does Eywa controll all the animals besides the Na'vi, or can it just jack into them whenever it feels conveinent? This is where the insistence on the 'science' aspect clashes a little bit with what is essentially a mythic moment of storytelling; for animals to side with Gods need not be explained in such a work.

Beyond that he isn't 'chosen' by Eywa; but by the vagaries of the script, certainly (it's suggested he tames the Turok simply because he had an outside-the-box approach to it, but then, isn't it always the great ability of the white man to both accept the native ways and then improve upon them in these stories?)

The only interesting character was Natiri - it would have been a hell of a better movie if she had been the lead character and the hero of the piece.

She's pretty much the same as Jake, though, in that she's a very simply drawn character wiith a rather obvious character arc. It'd certainly be a different movie if she was the hero, though, and one of these days I'd like to see a movie about aliens which is told from the alien perspective.