Avatar plotline

Comments (10)

1. I saw Avatar in 3-D. It was great fun as a visual spectacle and imaginative in its creation of an alien planet. Shakespeare it was not. But then it had no pretensions to be.

   It’s a bit like some of the reviews of the recent Star Trek movie are complaining that it was just an action flick. There were none of the interesting moral dilemmas confronted in the TV shows. To some extent, they were right. On the other hand, ST like M.A.S.H could become a pain when it got too preachy.

2. I was just chuffed that I picked out Wanye Barlowe’s creature design style. Whilst you can get pedantic and criticise bits that probably wouldn’t actually evolve, I have to admire his creativity and ability to make it look evolved.

   so I enjoyed the film, but must admit the characters were very 2D (despite 3D technology).

   1. Okay smart guy, explain why, when all the verts were hexapods, the “hominids” were tetrapods? And how on earth (or Pandora) could the interface thingy evolve? What advantage would there be to being able to talk to potential prey?

3. “Hey, cutie, want to come over and see my googleplex? Oops, did my axe just cut off your head? My bad.”

   Sure, that only works if your prey is so stupid that they fall for that the third time and forever after.

4. What advantage would there be to being able to talk to potential prey?

   …what about the insects (females AFAIK) that eat their mates? (Not that there’s much actual talking involved.)

   1. “Say, baby, you want to come to my place for a bite to eat?”

5. There’s no doubt that it was, in large part, simply Dances With Wolves, the ET Edition. Still, I didn’t go expecting any grand story. What I did see, from a purely technical point of view, was a movie that, like Star Wars before it, takes the last two decades of special effects development and builds it up to a new plateau. In both cases (Star Wars and Avatar), the stories themselves are kind of flimsy (although, generally, I thought the dialog in Avatar wasn’t nearly as corny as Star Wars’), but the achievement isn’t the plot, it’s the film. Visually, this is one of the most beautiful movies ever made.

   1. Aaron! This is not the place to be measured and sensible!

      Okay, I admit it: I went to see it and loved the spectacle. In 3D too, which was the most interesting aspect. In the 1970s I went to see a 3D movie – it starred one of the Mod Squad actors IIRC, and every time I inclined my head it went out of sync. By the end of it I had a splitting headache. This one I didn’t even notice I had the glasses on by the end of it.

      There’s a niche market out there for prescription 3D glasses.

6. While the rabid right has as expected dumped on the movie (Podhoretz for example) the left is uncomfortable about the truths of the movie and has tried a little to get over its discomfort. Monbiot as usual nails it – http://bit.ly/6GYF3v
   There’s no use calling Cameron for a hackneyed theme, it’s us who provide the material. From the “Age of Exploration” through today’s wars of choice, and war against our environment, humans do the same thing. As for that criticism by the “ethnic left” that this is once again about the white guy saving different looking people, that too happens all the time. Charles Man’s 1491 tells us about white women leaving their squalid settlements to live with Iroquois, then there is the story of Chief Blue Jacket from S. Ohio who is supposed to have been a white settler brought up by the Shawnee, that continues to sway people despite lack of evidence. So yes, we humans are like that. And that’s why Cameron will make movies like Avatar.

7. maybe it’s just greater attention to detail, but the movie itself seems to be ‘evolving.’

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