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.
