Do those who liked Avatar still like it as much as you did a year ago?

[gblews]

Re: Do those who liked Avatar still like it as much as you did a year

How do you feel about all this?

I have seen Avatar several times since it's debut and I am still blown away by the sheer beauty of the movie.

But I do agree with the poster who wrote that Neyteri is the movies' most compelling character. A very underrated performance by Zoe Saldana. It would be nice if the sequel puts her out front and tells her story. Lord knows James Cameron knows his way around female leads in action/Sci-Fi films.

Regardless of whether the movie "has gotten better" over the last couple of years, i still like watching it very much.

 

[Harvey]

Re: Do those who liked Avatar still like it as much as you did a year

Similarly, "the" theme from Glory does not make a reappearance, choral music in the vein of Carmina Burana makes an appearance. Other parts of the score are notably original in style, not just in Horner's oeuvre, but for any motion picture. Maybe it would have been better not to have such variety in the tonal range, but a little "classical" music in the score is very much like ending a piece with crashing chords returning to key.

We're almost certainly not thinking of the same theme here. The one I'm referring to is the principal theme in Glory, and it's also the principal theme in Avatar. The only difference is the end of the phrase, which resolves to a different note.

Glory does have a direct quote of O Fortuna near the end of the film, though. I don't believe Horner credits the musical appropriation, but the piece is at least in public domain (unless I am mistaken).

The voiceover about private military provides deniability for those desperate to avoid the plain message in references to "shock and awe." But for that matter, there was a more oblique reference to the official military's bad deeds in voiceover, if I remember correctly.

I remember a nice bit of dialogue referencing war in Venezuela and Nigeria (a rather strong implication of oil resource-motivated fighting back home), but have no reccolection of the voice over. That dialogue was a nicely subtle moment, but they're pretty rare in the movie.

Indeed, the real charge should be that the movie loves Stephen Lang's character, making him a real badass and a vivid character, while his counterpart in District 9 (who also has a climactic battle in an armored suit) is thoroughly generic. Overall, praising District 9, a much more thematically confused movie, with less coherently motivated characters, as better brings to mind the infamous praise for Crash as better than Brokeback Mountain. Like District 9, Crash is a redemption of the racist story.

Crash was horribly confused about racial politics, and it wouldn't be a stretch to classify it as a racist film. As for character motivation, it is no surprise that Avatar is straight-forward. The characters are not complicated, nor are their motivations complex.

It was not just Jake who was sent out as a messenger to the other tribes. I think the idea that Jake was the one who reinvigorated the Na'vi as they sat around moaning, then invented the idea of asking for help, is automatically presuming that the Na'vi weren't performing the equivalent of a mass funeral, and would have sat there moaning forever. This seems wrong to me.

The way those scenes are shot puts Jake at their very center. You're oppositional reading is interesting, but hardly seemed the film's intent.

Have people here seen the extended version of the film on Blu-Ray? How does it change the film, and is it for the better? I can't imagine making the film longer helping it, since it is already horribly bloated, but I'd love to be surprised.​

 

[davejames]

Re: Do those who liked Avatar still like it as much as you did a year

Finally watched the Collector's Extended Version, and I gotta say I was pleasantly surprised by how well the movie holds up.

I've been putting it off for a while because I was worried that, without the 3D, the effects might look depressingly flat and cartoonish, but on my 50" Plasma they were just as awesome and breathtaking as before (in fact I was almost MORE impressed by the work done on the Na'vi this time around). And there's so much depth already built into the shots by Cameron that it almost feels like watching 3D anyway.

Yeah, the story may still not be as gripping or original as it could be, but the characters are engaging enough, the story flies by, and the effects are so damn impressive that I was able to enjoy the heck out of it anyway.

 

[Temis the Vorta]

Re: Do those who liked Avatar still like it as much as you did a year

I don't see an option for me. I liked it fairly well for what it was back then.........a cool looking popcorn flick......nothing more. I like it about the same now and would still rewatch it occasionally. I like it better than "meh", but I certainly don't "love" it.

That's my vote, too.

I mainly enjoyed it for the visuals. The story is hokey and cliched, but so many stories are. I'm looking forward to the sequel, even if it's also a load of hokum.

But I do agree with the poster who wrote that Neyteri is the movies' most compelling character. A very underrated performance by Zoe Saldana.

I agree, I thought Jake was almost a disposable character. Sam Worthington just brought nothing to the role. But Zoe Saldana's motion-capture movements and voice acting really brought Neyteri to life. At least Cameron had the good sense to have Neyteri be the one to kill the main baddie in the end, rather than insisting the Heroic White Male do it. One cliche avoided.

Speaking of which, isn't denying him credit for saving the day rather ignoring the strong implication that Jake and/or Sigourney Weaver's character are responsible for Eywa's final intervention against the human army?

I thought Grace is the character who actually saved the day by finally getting Eywa off her ass and intervening directly to save the Na'vi. What the heck was Jake good for? The girls did all the work.

 

[Kemaiku]

Re: Do those who liked Avatar still like it as much as you did a year

Liked it then, like it now, watched the extended edition only a week ago.

 

[Hyperspace05]

Re: Do those who liked Avatar still like it as much as you did a year

Nice biased poll, there. I see there is no option for "liking it even more".

Personally I fall into the 'loved it then, loves it now' crowd.

 

[Skellington]

Re: Do those who liked Avatar still like it as much as you did a year

Haven't seen it in 3D. Liked the 2D version a heck of a lot on first seeing it in the cinema; still liked it on Blu-ray. I think that it's the kind of movie where you see and accept its limitations on first viewing rather than noticing them on a second or third. Its world is beautifully realised, even if its plot follows tried-and-tested Hollywood blockbuster formula. (At a cost of $300m dollars or so, the movie had to have a wide appeal.)

 

[JarodRussell]

Re: Do those who liked Avatar still like it as much as you did a year

Liked it back then, like it still. I think it's Cameron's worst in so far that I like Aliens, Terminator 2, Abyss and True Lies better, but it's great.

 

[stj]

Re: Do those who liked Avatar still like it as much as you did a year

The way those scenes are shot puts Jake at their very center. You're oppositional reading is interesting, but hardly seemed the film's intent.

The effort to save Grace puts her at the very center, quite rapidly. Jake is not even in most scenes of the appeal to the other tribes. And it is still true that the Jake the Savior meme requires a forced interpretation of the mourning/healing rite as a permanent condition.

The visceral resistance to Avatar requires ignoring things. Do none of the haters even notice Grace Augustine's name?

 

[Turtletrekker]

Re: Do those who liked Avatar still like it as much as you did a year

I have only seen Avatar once, on a normal-sized, non-plasma, non-HD TV 15-year-old TV, and I gave it a "meh".

However, I would like to see it again, if not on a movie screen, then at least on a larger, more modern TV set.

 

[Captain Craig]

Re: Do those who liked Avatar still like it as much as you did a year

What ultimately stops me from even "liking" this movie, I voted "meh" remember, is that so little effort was put into the story. At it's core Titanic is telling a cliche love story as old as Romeo & Juliet itself, yet it's written and acted with heart that still made it compelling.

Anyone seen the comparison of Avatar to Aliens, it's quite funny? The "it's the same film" showig screen caps side by side.

Avatar told a cliche story as well and it just wasn't put together in a way that made me care AT ALL. There is a huge reason this film wasn't nominated in any writing categories, it was lazy writing.

Even Terminator 2 is a 90% rehash of Terminator itself yet the nuances make you understand Sarah Connor better in that 10%.

Nothing makes me care or believe what is happening with the characters in Avatar AT ALL. It's visuals I feel allow those to dismiss it's flaws that would make it a great movie. I mean hell, Michael Bay's Transformer films are visually cool.

 

[Harvey]

Re: Do those who liked Avatar still like it as much as you did a year

Do none of the haters even notice Grace Augustine's name?

Can't say she left much of an impression, besides being played by Sigourney Weaver. I didn't even know she had a last name until you pointed it out here.

Can't say your claim that Jake isn't in most scenes rallying the other tribes jogs my memory, but it has been a while since I've seen the film.

 

[Hyperspace05]

Re: Do those who liked Avatar still like it as much as you did a year

Jake is not even in most scenes of the appeal to the other tribes.

I have only seen the theatrical cut, but Jake is present at both the "sea" tribe and the "plains" tribe rallying shots (which is all we are shown). But perhaps the extended edition(s) have additional shots where he is not present.

 

[zakkrusz]

Re: Do those who liked Avatar still like it as much as you did a year

Well, I have like 1,112 DVDs, how often to you think I get around to rewatching things? Not often. Certainly not if I just watched it within the past year or so. If I was looking to rewatch something from my collection it would be something older where the memory of it wasn't clear. I mostly concentrate on new stuff, watch the disc when I first get it, and file it away alphabetically.

But then my opinions aren't so flaky as to change all that much over time. If I liked I no doubt will still like it.