You really should watch Avatar again, because you clearly missed a lot of stuff. Jake comments on this VERY THING in the film!
Quoting from the script:
James Cameron's "Avatar" (grading and discussion)
- Thread starter chrisspringob
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You really should watch Avatar again, because you clearly missed a lot of stuff. Jake comments on this VERY THING in the film!
Quoting from the script:
Not that it matters, but there is a difference between what happens on Pandora and historical parallels - the effective resistance of the entire planet to the initial attempt at conquest by the people from Earth is devastating and totally successful. Basically it's as if all of the living creatures in the Americas simply turned on the Conquisadores and destroyed them. That might have made an impression on the dying culture of Europe.
What I'm getting a kick out of today is that the politically-motivated criticism of the movie is all over the map - it's managed to offend defensive American conservatives and politically correct progressives each in their own way and for their own reasons.
The criticism of the original Star Wars was pretty much from the Left.
Certainly dialogue like "We'll fight terror with terror" and "they're going to mount a shock-and-awe campaign" is not designed to endear the movie to those of the political persuasion that controlled the U.S. government through the first eight years of this century.
What I'm getting a kick out of today is that the politically-motivated criticism of the movie is all over the map - it's managed to offend defensive American conservatives and politically correct progressives each in their own way and for their own reasons.
The criticism of the original Star Wars was pretty much from the Left.
Certainly dialogue like "We'll fight terror with terror" and "they're going to mount a shock-and-awe campaign" is not designed to endear the movie to those of the political persuasion that controlled the U.S. government through the first eight years of this century.
He's actually commenting on RDA trying to provoke an attack from the Na'vi - and giving them the justification to go after Home Tree - by destroying the memory trees.
The "Mother Pandora" motivation is pretty explicit.
Oh good, you found the script! 
And you missed the point again. My quote was to illustrate that you were wrong in saying history was not acknowledged. Jake was talking about the historical precedent of creating a conflict to use that as an excuse for a land grab.
And you missed the point again. My quote was to illustrate that you were wrong in saying history was not acknowledged. Jake was talking about the historical precedent of creating a conflict to use that as an excuse for a land grab.
All that really needs to be said.
Those posters of Johnny Depp give me the heebie jeebies.
R
ring
Guest
James Cameroon is getting RICHER and RICHER, and he don't give a heck whether you like it or not.........special effects were amazing, actions were out of this world....
story was ordinary.....
fed up with the alien thing, but this time they were beautiful
story was ordinary.....
fed up with the alien thing, but this time they were beautiful
Congrats to Cameron and crew for the awards! I still don't buy that it's the best picture of the year (not with such a simplistic and obvious plot), but what the heck ... it certainly deserves recognition for its popularity and spectacle. And Cameron certainly has earned recognition for, once again, creating an insanely successful film.
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I have now seen "Avatar" twice, both times in 3D (which I cannot see due to a cataract in my left eye). It is a beautiful movie and yes the plot is simple, but my direct experience is that the plot HAD to be simple. In other words to reach the large audience Cameron had to reach the plot had to be familiar because the mind isn't going to follow a more complex plot, not with all that was going on visually, and not with the enormous amount of new World Building we experienced.
I originally saw the movie on the first Saturday it was out, and was blown away. I also had the urge to flesh out the love scene in my mind. I immediately understood that Na'vi couples had to be using the bond. So I found the script, downloaded it and read it. There were whole scenes that I didn't remember seeing. I just figured that they were some of the deleted ones.
I went back to the movie last Saturday. Guess what, some of the scenes I didn't remember were there and I have a really good memory (scenes like putting the avatars to bed on Jakes first day as a driver.)
Avatar can overload the senses, and it wouldn't take a much more complicated plot to leave the audience confused. I can now clearly see how easily the thread of the story could be lost. Did Cameron know this in the beginning, who knows? But now especially, IMHO the plot that others condemn as simple, had to be simple for the movie to work.
Brit
I originally saw the movie on the first Saturday it was out, and was blown away. I also had the urge to flesh out the love scene in my mind. I immediately understood that Na'vi couples had to be using the bond. So I found the script, downloaded it and read it. There were whole scenes that I didn't remember seeing. I just figured that they were some of the deleted ones.
I went back to the movie last Saturday. Guess what, some of the scenes I didn't remember were there and I have a really good memory (scenes like putting the avatars to bed on Jakes first day as a driver.)
Avatar can overload the senses, and it wouldn't take a much more complicated plot to leave the audience confused. I can now clearly see how easily the thread of the story could be lost. Did Cameron know this in the beginning, who knows? But now especially, IMHO the plot that others condemn as simple, had to be simple for the movie to work.
Brit
It still really bugs me, and yes I am bringing this up again, that people complain about Avatar or dislike it because of a simple plot. Whereas, almost everyone loves the original Star Wars. What was so complicated about that plot? It lifted from just as many tropes as Avatar does. However, like Avatar, it wasn't necessarily the story itself, but how the story was told. And Avatar did it just as well.
I hold, for me anyway, that Avatar is the first film to replicate the experience of seeing Star Wars in a theater. It's been over 30 years, and I felt like that kid again, completely won over and taken away to another world and just feeling giddy joy in this wonderful tale.
I hold, for me anyway, that Avatar is the first film to replicate the experience of seeing Star Wars in a theater. It's been over 30 years, and I felt like that kid again, completely won over and taken away to another world and just feeling giddy joy in this wonderful tale.
That's... actually something I hadn't considered, T'Baio. The plot for "Avatar" has been one of my chief criticisms of the film, simply because I felt it was an all-too-often told tale... and I still feel that way to some extent. However, you point out "Star Wars" as something similar ... and I think you're right. Other films on re-reviewing them seem guilty of the same thing. So the question stands... why did I feel this way about "Avatar" but not "Star Wars" ? I'm not entirely sure.
Regardless, I still loved "Avatar" and plan to see it again, so whatever criticism I have can't be all THAT bad.
Regardless, I still loved "Avatar" and plan to see it again, so whatever criticism I have can't be all THAT bad.
And you can say the same thing about The Wizard of Oz, The Shawshank Redemption, Casablanca, Apocalypse Now, Wall-E, Lawrence of Arabia, Slumdog Millionaire, Braveheart and many, many others. You can make a great movie with a simple plot. Surely we should all know that by now.
That being said, while watching Avatar, I couldn't help but think that Princess Mononoke, a much more textured and complex take on the same themes, had made that kind of movie slightly outdated.
This is the exact argument I have been using in real life. I would hold that if Star Wars were released today, then it would be torn to shreds by the internet populace. Thankfully, what a bunch of fan boys on the internet think doesn't really matter to people.
I think if Star Wars were released today it would be torn to shreds, too. However, I doubt the fanboy stereotype or genre fandom would be the same without Star Wars, so it's hard to say.
As far as why people love Star Wars but complain about Avatar, I think it has something to do with the availability of these tropes. When Star Wars came out, that sort of "old wizard taking the unsuspecting kid to a new world that he must learn to save"/Joseph Cambell/Lord of the Rings thing wasn't done on film so much, because of budgets and ability. It was only in print. Not only that, the cinematic storytelling that was available that it lifted from was foreign films and Kurosawa samurai films that people hadn't seen so much because there was no home video. So many people who may not have read these sort of things or seen these foreign films felt it was new at the cinema. It seemed original because they weren't familiar with them, not because they were truly original.
Now with Avatar, with everyone seeing everything on home video and budgets and abilites in the last 30 years increasing to the point that these stories have been able to be told, on television let alone at the movies, people are familiar with them and Avatar seems like unoriginal storytelling.
So, in my opinion, if you don't like it because you feel like you've been there, done that, I understand. But to say the films "sucks" because of it or that James Cameron is a horrible storyteller/director is just plain wrong. Because if it's simply pure originality you're looking for or it's your familiarity that's ruining it for you...well, Star Wars sucks, too.
As far as why people love Star Wars but complain about Avatar, I think it has something to do with the availability of these tropes. When Star Wars came out, that sort of "old wizard taking the unsuspecting kid to a new world that he must learn to save"/Joseph Cambell/Lord of the Rings thing wasn't done on film so much, because of budgets and ability. It was only in print. Not only that, the cinematic storytelling that was available that it lifted from was foreign films and Kurosawa samurai films that people hadn't seen so much because there was no home video. So many people who may not have read these sort of things or seen these foreign films felt it was new at the cinema. It seemed original because they weren't familiar with them, not because they were truly original.
Now with Avatar, with everyone seeing everything on home video and budgets and abilites in the last 30 years increasing to the point that these stories have been able to be told, on television let alone at the movies, people are familiar with them and Avatar seems like unoriginal storytelling.
So, in my opinion, if you don't like it because you feel like you've been there, done that, I understand. But to say the films "sucks" because of it or that James Cameron is a horrible storyteller/director is just plain wrong. Because if it's simply pure originality you're looking for or it's your familiarity that's ruining it for you...well, Star Wars sucks, too.
I've lent my DVD of "Princess Mononoke" to a number of people. I find that most of them don't take to it -- either because of the complexity you mention, or because of the unfamiliarity of its cultural setting and tropes. Personally, I find it as stunning and mesmerising an achievement as "Avatar" but I suspect there is a possibility of sensory overload for audiences who are used to a diet of soap-opera pablum.
People complain more about this kind of thing now simply because the Internet exists.
There's always been one or two folks in every crowd who voice these kinds of objections.
I attended a big regional science fiction convention the weekend after Star Wars opened in 1977, and it was being torn apart both by fans and by speakers from the stage - a minority opinion, mind you, but vey real at the time.
And there were political complaints about the movie as well.
Since most people have never heard of "Princess Mononoke" it's not going to figure into the debate for anyone other than aficionados - but then, that was true of some of the movies Lucas imitated as well.
The people who are going to make this the most successful film of all times do not care about the familiarity of the plot and they are right. The audience is always right.
There's always been one or two folks in every crowd who voice these kinds of objections.
I attended a big regional science fiction convention the weekend after Star Wars opened in 1977, and it was being torn apart both by fans and by speakers from the stage - a minority opinion, mind you, but vey real at the time.
And there were political complaints about the movie as well.
Since most people have never heard of "Princess Mononoke" it's not going to figure into the debate for anyone other than aficionados - but then, that was true of some of the movies Lucas imitated as well.
The people who are going to make this the most successful film of all times do not care about the familiarity of the plot and they are right. The audience is always right.
T'Baio, I had exactly the same experience. Only I wasn't a kid in 1977, I was a thirty year old seeing something on the big screen that up to that point I had only read about in books. (It was a really big theater too, in those days some screens seemed about three times the size of the ones you see today in movie complexes.)
Brit
An aside: I hate that movie. It's stupid, overblown and tiresome. 'FREEEEEEEEDOM!'
The soundtrack is pretty neat though.
I wouldn't say Mononoke makes Avatar outdated. Sure, it has a more interesting approach to the environment(especially how it handles the idea of nature gods), but it doesn't have mechas and giant blue people and so on.
Avatar is not supposed to be a detailed or complicated critique of how we handle our environment - it just incorporates that as the ideological backdrop of its action/adventure fantasy. And in that material Mononoke has hardly outclassed it.
It's really much more like, say, Nausicaa - some environmental themes, but mainly a cool and fleshed out fantasy world. Incidentally I like Nausicaa a lot better.
I remember reading about people who were unimpressed because it was pretty much just Flash Gordon again. Lucas owes as much to the Buster Crabbe serials as he does to Akira Kurosawa and Joseph Campbell.
Wait, what? Europe was many things in the sixteenth century. Dying was not exactly one of them.
As far as historical parallels go, Avatar's conclusion struck me as fantasy mixed in with Isandlwana or Little Bighorn (or indeed Vietnam) - sometimes the better armed white guy really is laid low by the natives. He could be outnumbered or brashly overconfident - in Avatar's case, possibly both.
Of course, we all know how those wars ended... so there's room for the sequel!