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

[ST-One]

A movie has a problem (lots in fact) if it can't stand, and be understood on its own.

Granted, but 2001 can.

No, really. There's an internal logic to the whole structure of the movie that's understandable solely by judging the film's own merits. Just for one thing, note the trajectory of the scenes: We move outward. From Earth, to Earth orbit, to the moon, to beyond the moon, to Jupiter, and then... beyond the infinite.

If that is the point of that film, then the final scene of TMP gets it far better across 'Out there. That away.'

 

[Gepard]

Re Kegg: And? The movie still sidelines the evolution of man story in the middle third for a murder mystery centering around a robot. It's hardly flawless.

 

[trevanian]

Re Kegg: And? The movie still sidelines the evolution of man story in the middle third for a murder mystery centering around a robot. It's hardly flawless.

Dealing with that issue of HAL really IS part of the evolution issue, as in which brand of intelligence -- organic or machine -- has evolved into the superior form or at least the one worthy of surviving to experience the next part of the mystery.

Nothing flawless, but this one's close.

 

[ST-One]

Re Kegg: And? The movie still sidelines the evolution of man story in the middle third for a murder mystery centering around a robot. It's hardly flawless.

Dealing with that issue of HAL really IS part of the evolution issue, as in which brand of intelligence -- organic or machine -- has evolved into the superior form or at least the one worthy of surviving to experience the next part of the mystery.

Which is not even hinted at in the film.

 

[trevanian]

Re Kegg: And? The movie still sidelines the evolution of man story in the middle third for a murder mystery centering around a robot. It's hardly flawless.

Dealing with that issue of HAL really IS part of the evolution issue, as in which brand of intelligence -- organic or machine -- has evolved into the superior form or at least the one worthy of surviving to experience the next part of the mystery.

Which is not even hinted at in the film.

It certainly isn't hinted at in the novelization, so where else would I come up with that except from the film and/or film criticism of the picture?

 

[ST-One]

Dealing with that issue of HAL really IS part of the evolution issue, as in which brand of intelligence -- organic or machine -- has evolved into the superior form or at least the one worthy of surviving to experience the next part of the mystery.

Which is not even hinted at in the film.

It certainly isn't hinted at in the novelization, so where else would I come up with that except from the film and/or film criticism of the picture?

It's what you read into the picture (and a nice enough thought). But it isn't actually there.

 

[Admiral Buzzkill]

2001 has a plot and a story, and both are pretty austere. It's quite a remarkable film. The ideas behind it are certainly big enough not to come off, even now, as vapidly pretentious - something that distinguishes it from imitators like ST:TMP.

 

[gturner]

Okay, how about this for a far more plausible plot for a movie.

An American Hollywood liberal, say some famous actress or singer, goes into a primitive African country and decides she wants to build a fancy girl's academy at the cost of $20 million or so. But there's a already a pristine native village where she wants to build it, so she pays the 200 or so villagers $160,000 to move, which is like $800 freakin' dollars per primitive. Anyway, a bunch of them refuse to move so the evil, powermad American has the government move them by force.

How's that?

You could even claim it was based on a true story!

link

Sadly, Hollywood would probably rewrite the Hollywood actress/singer as an evil Marine Colonel, so the result wouldn't make a lick of sense.

 

[Brit]

Okay, how about this for a far more plausible plot for a movie.

An American Hollywood liberal, say some famous actress or singer, goes into a primitive African country and decides she wants to build a fancy girl's academy at the cost of $20 million or so. But there's a already a pristine native village where she wants to build it, so she pays the 200 or so villagers $160,000 to move, which is like $800 freakin' dollars per primitive. Anyway, a bunch of them refuse to move so the evil, powermad American has the government move them by force.

How's that?

You could even claim it was based on a true story!

link

Sadly, Hollywood would probably rewrite the Hollywood actress/singer as an evil Marine Colonel, so the result wouldn't make a lick of sense.

My suggestion is to go to Hollywood and pitch your story and see just how far you get.

Brit

 

[trevanian]

Okay, how about this for a far more plausible plot for a movie.

An American Hollywood liberal, say some famous actress or singer, goes into a primitive African country and decides she wants to build a fancy girl's academy at the cost of $20 million or so. But there's a already a pristine native village where she wants to build it, so she pays the 200 or so villagers $160,000 to move, which is like $800 freakin' dollars per primitive. Anyway, a bunch of them refuse to move so the evil, powermad American has the government move them by force.

How's that?

You could even claim it was based on a true story!

link

Sadly, Hollywood would probably rewrite the Hollywood actress/singer as an evil Marine Colonel, so the result wouldn't make a lick of sense.

My suggestion is to go to Hollywood and pitch your story and see just how far you get.

Brit

or he could wait awhile, then retype the same script he's making fun of ... but only submit it AFTER changing the title and character names, the way one wag did with CASABLANCA's Rick and Ilse awhile back.

 

[gturner]

Hrmm... So instead of calling the villain "Madonna" I should call her "Mary"? That could work. And instead of Malawi I could call the place Mandora, sort of playing up the male-centric angle.

 

[Admiral Buzzkill]

Sadly, Hollywood would probably rewrite the Hollywood actress/singer...

My suggestion is to go to Hollywood and pitch your story and see just how far you get.

Brit

 

[Gepard]

Dealing with that issue of HAL really IS part of the evolution issue, as in which brand of intelligence -- organic or machine -- has evolved into the superior form or at least the one worthy of surviving to experience the next part of the mystery.

I can certainly appreciate if that's the intent, but in execution, the change in focus from a wide view of human history and experience in space to a more densely-plotted story about HAL, then back to the austere broad elements pretty much robs the film viewing experience of this revelation. It just plain feels discontinuous and badly structured to me.

 

[gturner]

Sadly, Hollywood would probably rewrite the Hollywood actress/singer...

My suggestion is to go to Hollywood and pitch your story and see just how far you get.

Brit

No, because then they'll have me in some meeting and have Madonna walk in, who's now a wrinkled old hag, and then they'll have her try to give me 18 different kinds of VD.

 

[Kegg]

Re Kegg: And? The movie still sidelines the evolution of man story in the middle third for a murder mystery centering around a robot. It's hardly flawless.

Dealing with that issue of HAL really IS part of the evolution issue, as in which brand of intelligence -- organic or machine -- has evolved into the superior form or at least the one worthy of surviving to experience the next part of the mystery.

Quite. Hal has his progenitor in the dawn of man sequence - the bone used to kill, which famously cuts to a nuclear weapons satellite. That, and the association with evolution being bound up in killing anything in the way. HAL is in a sense both, as a tool and an evolving mind.

Which is not even hinted at in the film.

It certainly isn't hinted at in the novelization, so where else would I come up with that except from the film and/or film criticism of the picture?

It's what you read into the picture (and a nice enough thought). But it isn't actually there.

No, it's there. This is my point. There is a coherent story and use of themes in 2001, it's just not obvious and spelled out. It does require the audience to interrogate the film a little bit; that might not be your cup of tea or something you find annoying but it's not the same as it not actually being there.

 

[Brit]

Re Kegg: And? The movie still sidelines the evolution of man story in the middle third for a murder mystery centering around a robot. It's hardly flawless.

Dealing with that issue of HAL really IS part of the evolution issue, as in which brand of intelligence -- organic or machine -- has evolved into the superior form or at least the one worthy of surviving to experience the next part of the mystery.

Quite. Hal has his progenitor in the dawn of man sequence - the bone used to kill, which famously cuts to a nuclear weapons satellite. That, and the association with evolution being bound up in killing anything in the way. HAL is in a sense both, as a tool and an evolving mind.

It certainly isn't hinted at in the novelization, so where else would I come up with that except from the film and/or film criticism of the picture?

It's what you read into the picture (and a nice enough thought). But it isn't actually there.

No, it's there. This is my point. There is a coherent story and use of themes in 2001, it's just not obvious and spelled out. It does require the audience to interrogate the film a little bit; that might not be your cup of tea or something you find annoying but it's not the same as it not actually being there.

I agree, I think it's there too because I made the connection to "Childhood's End" which is also a more spelled out version of the "next" step in evolution. One of the things I remember most is the trip home explaining what I thought we had seen to my brother and his wife who both got really confused by that movie.

I don't think he had read any Arthur C Clark up to that time. Completely off topic: my favorite Clark has always been "Against the Fall of Night"/"The City and the Stars", both versions for different reasons.

Brit

 

[ST-One]

Re Kegg: And? The movie still sidelines the evolution of man story in the middle third for a murder mystery centering around a robot. It's hardly flawless.

Dealing with that issue of HAL really IS part of the evolution issue, as in which brand of intelligence -- organic or machine -- has evolved into the superior form or at least the one worthy of surviving to experience the next part of the mystery.

Quite. Hal has his progenitor in the dawn of man sequence - the bone used to kill, which famously cuts to a nuclear weapons satellite. That, and the association with evolution being bound up in killing anything in the way. HAL is in a sense both, as a tool and an evolving mind.

So, everything man touches, creates becomes death?

It certainly isn't hinted at in the novelization, so where else would I come up with that except from the film and/or film criticism of the picture?

It's what you read into the picture (and a nice enough thought). But it isn't actually there.

No, it's there. This is my point. There is a coherent story and use of themes in 2001, it's just not obvious and spelled out. It does require the audience to interrogate the film a little bit; that might not be your cup of tea or something you find annoying but it's not the same as it not actually being there.

It's nice that you can get something out of 2001.
I think its overrated trash.

 

[ST-One]

Dealing with that issue of HAL really IS part of the evolution issue, as in which brand of intelligence -- organic or machine -- has evolved into the superior form or at least the one worthy of surviving to experience the next part of the mystery.

Quite. Hal has his progenitor in the dawn of man sequence - the bone used to kill, which famously cuts to a nuclear weapons satellite. That, and the association with evolution being bound up in killing anything in the way. HAL is in a sense both, as a tool and an evolving mind.

It's what you read into the picture (and a nice enough thought). But it isn't actually there.

No, it's there. This is my point. There is a coherent story and use of themes in 2001, it's just not obvious and spelled out. It does require the audience to interrogate the film a little bit; that might not be your cup of tea or something you find annoying but it's not the same as it not actually being there.

I agree, I think it's there too because I made the connection to "Childhood's End" which is also a more spelled out version of the "next" step in evolution. One of the things I remember most is the trip home explaining what I thought we had seen to my brother and his wife who both got really confused by that movie.

I don't think he had read any Arthur C Clark up to that time. Completely off topic: my favorite Clark has always been "Against the Fall of Night"/"The City and the Stars", both versions for different reasons.

Brit

So, would you have understood the film even if you hadn't read Clark beforehand like your family?

 

[JoeZhang]

Dealing with that issue of HAL really IS part of the evolution issue, as in which brand of intelligence -- organic or machine -- has evolved into the superior form or at least the one worthy of surviving to experience the next part of the mystery.

Quite. Hal has his progenitor in the dawn of man sequence - the bone used to kill, which famously cuts to a nuclear weapons satellite. That, and the association with evolution being bound up in killing anything in the way. HAL is in a sense both, as a tool and an evolving mind.

So, everything man touches, creates becomes death?

It's what you read into the picture (and a nice enough thought). But it isn't actually there.

No, it's there. This is my point. There is a coherent story and use of themes in 2001, it's just not obvious and spelled out. It does require the audience to interrogate the film a little bit; that might not be your cup of tea or something you find annoying but it's not the same as it not actually being there.

It's nice that you can get something out of 2001.
I think its overrated trash.

No it's not that man becomes death, it's that evolution is or can be a process of death.

 

[ST-One]

Quite. Hal has his progenitor in the dawn of man sequence - the bone used to kill, which famously cuts to a nuclear weapons satellite. That, and the association with evolution being bound up in killing anything in the way. HAL is in a sense both, as a tool and an evolving mind.

So, everything man touches, creates becomes death?

No, it's there. This is my point. There is a coherent story and use of themes in 2001, it's just not obvious and spelled out. It does require the audience to interrogate the film a little bit; that might not be your cup of tea or something you find annoying but it's not the same as it not actually being there.

It's nice that you can get something out of 2001.
I think its overrated trash.

No it's not that man becomes death, it's that evolution is or can be a process of death.

Yes. And in the context of 2001 that would mean... what?