Spoilers
I probably belong to the category of guys who didn’t really enjoy it.
Saw it in 3D this evening (IMax was sold out for 4 days).
The 3D gave me a headache for the following 3-4 hours.
The 3D imaging somewhat forces you to watch 2 different planes but it felt like a lot of details were blurry to me and in a movie such as this I wanted to look at every part of the screen.
The CGI are indeed impressive, not the game changer that Jurassic Park was 15 years ago but still very good.
What got me was the incredibly generic story (I mean come on…Dance with the Wolves/Pochaontas or for the more recent movie goers The Last Samurai or if you read sci-fi Orson Scott Card’s Speaker for the Dead). Or the fact that nearly everything in the movie can be lifted for a relatively recent movie. I mean action and sci-fi movies often similar but I think there something to be said when you can basically say this part is from this movie and that other part is from that movie and so on.
I understand that you can’t go into the ‘‘ethical’’ implications of being downloaded into another body or eventually remaining there (what makes you YOU and so forth) what if your mind gets copied and there’s two of you (one in the Na’vi one in the original body, who is who and so on) Granted this has been done in other sci-fi but at least its a bit less mainstream than Dances with Wolves.
With the amount of money put in the production of this movie they could have thrown in a few million dollars to write a somewhat good script when one considers that this is supposed to be THE James Cameron Movie.
Also various little things in the movie got to me such as the lack of bullet proof glass on gunships and mechs…I mean if you don’t have bullet proof (or arrow proof) glass in the 20-something century…don’t put a 4’x4’ windshield on your vehicle.
What happened to orbital strikes…or if no orbital strikes…air(or ground) to ground missiles…or if your in the Flux whatever zone where radars don’t work …just old fashion artillery and mortars or just a FOAB (father of all bombs) type weapon. Or airbomb or napalm type incendiary devices…
Another thing that bug me…why are the Na’vi purely Native American Indians, I mean they couldn’t find a different type of aboriginal culture that would be less cliché! I mean you have more than a century of sci-fi literature to find weird and interesting aliens/cultures take your pick…
And what about the world being fully realized…plant life was cool as where the insects but I personally thought that the most animals somewhat sucked, too similar to Earth life ( First the Triceratops with Hammerhead shark head, the pack of wild dogs, the lemurs, the black panther and the freaking HORSES (you can give them 6 legs it still a horse) (the flying animals were at least a bit more original).
Or for the more biologically/evolution inclined…the fact that multiple species synchronously developed neurologically-interactive tails/whiskers for animals (Na’Vi) to somewhat take control of them…one species you could have suspended disbelief (really not, but its sci-fi) but at least 3 (horse, banshee, and huge red flying beast of which only 4 or 5 instances of linking are reported).
The living planet thing has been done in other places, but the notion of a neurogenic network in plant life and trees (and eventually all the other animals) in this movie is just ridiculous. Why the hell would that evolve.
Frankly, while the cinematics are very good, in my opinion this is clearly not a game changer. Moreover, I do not understand most critics who fawned over this movie considering the incredibly crappy/redone to death story, zero character development, absence of emotional attachment, bad dialog and oh so many clichés ( I mean if your not making a B-movie you should have a limit of clichés you can use).
Golden Globes Best Motion Picture-Drama…WTF!!!
BAFTA Best Film !!!
Academy Awards…front runner for Best Picture!!!
I’am a guy who loves action and sci-fi movies(actually some of the only movies I go see on the big screen) and American cinema in general but I used to believe that a good movie had to have something beyond gorgeous visuals and badass action scenes.
For me it sadly was not a life changing experience and was kind of a pretty big let down…even if I expected to go see Dances with Wolves in Space.
I feel a bit jealous of those who thought it was world shattering…like the first time you saw The Matrix and you see the rows and rows of black and pink towers of people. (Although that had been discussed by various philosophers centuries before)
Anyway,
good day everyone.
AlexH
