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In Reply to: RE: AVATAR posted by PhilJ on December 18, 2009 at 15:21:46
After all of the hype can any film live up to expectations? Well, YES. While one could always nit-pick this film's derivative elements and find direct similarities with other well known screen productions, the themes in Avatar are universal, as are most cautionary tales told through historical allegory.
While Cameron's story is familiar, good stories that expose a tendency towards nationalistic greed, race hatred and cultural disfranchisement deserve to be told, retold and embellished in a lot of different ways. One of the side benefits is that, in spite of the unearthly beauty of Avatar's distant world effects, the film is very much grounded in our own American history.
What we have in Avatar is an allegorical tale depicting the cruelty of those who seek fortune through conquest and perceived technical superiority. The ironic symbolism of mistreating indigenous tribes (debasing their native culture, religion & lifestyle) through forced relocation and indoctrination can't be missed (similarities with the Trail of Tears and indian campaigns of the 19th century; indian school christian indoctrination, etc.). Into this are mixed thematic elements from Dances With Wolves and Cameron's Aliens and even the Abyss in an awe-inspiring landscape heavily influenced by Roger Dean artistry.
Avatar is a beautifully crafted film with solid historical grounding transposed to the SF medium (I caught a screening of the 3D version, so my assessment is based upon that rather than 2D or IMAX). While James Cameron's balls-to-the-wall screenwriting style may seem a bit heavy handed in places (replete with scene chewing antagonist stereotypes, less than subtle dialogue and often predictable motivations) Avatar is never less than a passionate, well made, highly entertaining film-going experience.
Highly recommended. Also, this is a film that should turn out to be a demo quality BD. I'd subjectively rate Avatar ****/***** (four of five stars).
Cheers,
AuPh
A yes soundtrack was missing, that was my toughts afte seing the floating mountains is Roger Dean all over Pandora.
The special effects were fantastic but I wasn't particularly happy with the plot and it's complete indictment of human nature. E.g. the natives apparently had no idea about the offensive capabilities of the humans so the "carrot and stick" approach had no chance of working.... what happened to the intimidation tactics ? the "natives" should have had far more "respect" for human military capabilities prior to the attack on the giant tree.
The "campaign" to attack the planet's "brain" was also less than convincing. Once the decision was made to wipe it out, it should have been done with standoff weapons; but than again, I guess you would not have had such a spectacular battle sequence without a little personal involvement.
A huge effort was made to make it look semi-plausible "technologically" but the "technical" holes still seemed a bit much (e.g. Anti-grav rocks in the sky ????).
I also have to wonder how it would work in 2D on Blu-ray ? I imagine it'll be a while before I have a 3-D capable display and player.....
Because the whole experience was so spectacular - I might even go to see it again at the iMax - I wouldn't like to start picking holes in the plot as it would be possible to do this with virtually every film ever made.
That being said, the one glaring illogical aspect of the film was that the main avatar was a trained marine, and whereas you would have expected the natives to attack the humans with bows and arrows, you would also have expected a marine to have devised another strategy based on his knowledeg of the weaponry and perhaps some weaknesses, as obviously, bows and arrows against guns/machines is futile.
When he led the natives into a slaughter I did kind of think he must have left his brain in his real body.
Today is a gift - that's why it's called the Present.
Best Regards,
Chris Redmond.
The experience was spectacular- plot be damned. Really. It's like the blues. Same three chords. Execution is what matters. So if this plot was similar to any number of others, if the dialogue was clunky, that's not the point. The point was to get lost in a visionary world. The execution was incredibly successful. I will probably see it again on IMAX 3D. The uniqueness of this movie is not the plot, nor is that what will be remembered.
except last time I tried to plan this; IMAX abruptly changed movies.
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