Re: Avatar
So, I saw this a while ago. Not so long a while ago that I saw it when it was recently released but enough that I am very thankful to have typed down points of interest to me.
Firstly, the 3D was kind of really awesome.
It was awesome because it made a movie that was mostly constructed using polygons on a computer so much more immersive. Secondly, it allows the film makers/directors/etc COMPLETE control over what people focus on. Because you know how you always want to oogle a secondary character or someone’s tattoo while completely ignoring the main dialogue? Well, now you won’t be distracted in such a manner!
Unfortunately, this also means you’ve got to bear with the twenty second long kisses.
And that’s where the praise ends for 3D. Because I love world building and while 3D did make Pandora ‘pop’, it looks equally good in 2D. Because yes, I did take off the 3D glasses for a couple of minutes to see exactly what they did to achieve the 3D effect. (And to see how good it would look in 2D.)
It was pretty much how they’ve always done 3D, offsetting images. Except this time they were ‘layered’ and blurred; like how you learn to draw mountain ranges by draw the mountains in front in sharp relief before making them smudgier and smudgier.
It also REALLY made my eyes hurt (new glasses eyehurt) during the 3D previews as my eyes got used to it. To be fair, the first trailer was ‘Alice in Wonderland’ and probably not the best choice to start newbie eyes off with.
The cinema I saw the movie at also had anti-theft tags on their glasses. Which was kind of stupid, as the lenses (i.e. the things you’d want if you were to steal ‘em) were simply held in by plastic clips. They also didn’t fit nicely over my glasses, and I had to perch those plastic clips on the top rim of my glasses to make them comfy.
ANYWAY, onto actually talking about the movie…
As a general note about the story: it was uninteresting and the things that interested me the most were the things not mentioned. Like Jake’s past and how he got crippled, the dystopian human world that was mentioned but never really shown and what would’ve happened the brother HADN’T been shot and ended up going to Pandora anyway. Just, you know, I love alternate universes and that wasn’t even HINTED AT.
There were also inelegances in how the story was told. Like the fact we had to be told that this brother was an identical twin. (An image/photo of his brother as he was cremated would be more show, less tell, right?)
Also, I found it a bit weird that Miss Blue, (I can’t remember the female main’s name (as well as all of the cast ASIDE from Norm, Grace and Jake) so she’ll be Miss Blue.) when yelling at Jake, YELLED IN ENGLISH. Also, Weta workshops did a wonderful job of capturing the actors’ movements BUT… the Na’vi body movement was not alien and thus felt very strange, especially in that yelling scene. I know their grace was highlighted several times, but all I was really thinking was that Jake was very stupid and had probably never actually jumped to and from logs and that mirarie would’ve made a much more elegant dreamwalker than he did. So yes… the in-alieness of the aliens bothered me.
UNOBTAINIUM. I am still unsure if that was just a legacy of the initial script for some fancy mineral they never actually got around to naming, a nice nod to Tropers and genre savvy people or whether the character in question couldn’t actually be bothered with the mineral’s actual name and was using what he thought was a funny term to describe it. It was rather hilarious regardless and kind of totally destroys any attempt at serious talking about what the whole mining operation was about. *insert faux conversation here with a rude interruption about unobtainium*
Relatedly, it was no real big surprise that the GIANT TREE was positioned right over the largest deposit of unobtainium in the sector. Trees grow best when there are lots of minerals in the earth, so it’s no surprise that the Home Tree was positioned over it. I also wouldn’t be surprised if the tree was somehow drawing the mineral through the ground towards it.
Keeping to the general theme of the world Avatar is set in, rather than plot points, I have to agree with a certain blog’s opinion that there is very little thought given to the plausibility of Pandora’s evolutionary history.
I mean.. the Na’vi have more UV reactive pigmentation on their skin than the contents of a dozen glowsticks or the average raver. THEY LIGHT UP AT NIGHT. How is that an evolutionary advantage?
Also, not to mention they have a fragment of their spinal cord hanging out of their necks. The kind-of domesticated wildlife too, which while wild, still had these neural interfaces which makes me suspect that once upon a time the horse analogues and gliderplane analogues were actually domesticated, not just… you know picked out from the herd. Because why else would they too have a bit of their nervous system hanging out of their heads?
I did quite like the big orange glider thing though. Even though THAT storyline was also very transparent.
Focussing more on the story… I went in not expecting much at all, because I had read spoilers that went along the lines of “Pocahontas… IN SPACE” so I was actually a bit befuddled when the movie started. Partly because I’ve only ever seen Pocahontas ONCE (although I did recognise a DIRECT homage to it in one of the hunting scenes (I had a friend who was absolutely crazy about it when it came out and kept on copying her poses in the playground, thus embedding them in my mind.)) and because I don’t like overly spoiling myself.
It was however a decent enough plot to show off Pandora, which I think was the entire point of the movie. And it worked, because it was a movie and it was all visual and aural and not all text like books which are pure world building self-indulgence. Simple drama to show off the complex backdrop. EASY ENOUGH.
That being said, the obvious ending was obvious. And I kind of resented that, because yay, Jake and Miss Blue can be together forever now, but goddammit, I kind of liked the scene where she saw Jake as he really was. Because yes, I do, on some level, ship Miss Blue/Human!Jake.
I also wanted Grace to get her happy ending as well. ;_; She deserved it!!
But she did die prettily at least…
The scene in which it is graphically demonstrated that you should never give legs to a paraplegic was rather funny though. If entirely word for word, action for action of every other ‘you should never give x to y because they will react in this manner…’ scene in the history of human story telling. Well, except for the ones which avert, subvert or invert it.
Which leads to the final disappoint of this movie. Norm did not get to shoot the colonel guy. He was scouting around the container that Jake was in! But no, Miss Blue had to finish him off and rescue Jake. Which is all very well, but is significantly less awesome.
And so, that is what I think of Avatar.
Well, that and it was funny that Bones had an episode where Sweets, Hodgins and the gloomy intern person were queuing to see it, because the gloomy intern person is played by the same actor as Norm. Except now he will obviously always be cast as an anthropologist-geek character.
Firstly, the 3D was kind of really awesome.
It was awesome because it made a movie that was mostly constructed using polygons on a computer so much more immersive. Secondly, it allows the film makers/directors/etc COMPLETE control over what people focus on. Because you know how you always want to oogle a secondary character or someone’s tattoo while completely ignoring the main dialogue? Well, now you won’t be distracted in such a manner!
Unfortunately, this also means you’ve got to bear with the twenty second long kisses.
And that’s where the praise ends for 3D. Because I love world building and while 3D did make Pandora ‘pop’, it looks equally good in 2D. Because yes, I did take off the 3D glasses for a couple of minutes to see exactly what they did to achieve the 3D effect. (And to see how good it would look in 2D.)
It was pretty much how they’ve always done 3D, offsetting images. Except this time they were ‘layered’ and blurred; like how you learn to draw mountain ranges by draw the mountains in front in sharp relief before making them smudgier and smudgier.
It also REALLY made my eyes hurt (new glasses eyehurt) during the 3D previews as my eyes got used to it. To be fair, the first trailer was ‘Alice in Wonderland’ and probably not the best choice to start newbie eyes off with.
The cinema I saw the movie at also had anti-theft tags on their glasses. Which was kind of stupid, as the lenses (i.e. the things you’d want if you were to steal ‘em) were simply held in by plastic clips. They also didn’t fit nicely over my glasses, and I had to perch those plastic clips on the top rim of my glasses to make them comfy.
ANYWAY, onto actually talking about the movie…
As a general note about the story: it was uninteresting and the things that interested me the most were the things not mentioned. Like Jake’s past and how he got crippled, the dystopian human world that was mentioned but never really shown and what would’ve happened the brother HADN’T been shot and ended up going to Pandora anyway. Just, you know, I love alternate universes and that wasn’t even HINTED AT.
There were also inelegances in how the story was told. Like the fact we had to be told that this brother was an identical twin. (An image/photo of his brother as he was cremated would be more show, less tell, right?)
Also, I found it a bit weird that Miss Blue, (I can’t remember the female main’s name (as well as all of the cast ASIDE from Norm, Grace and Jake) so she’ll be Miss Blue.) when yelling at Jake, YELLED IN ENGLISH. Also, Weta workshops did a wonderful job of capturing the actors’ movements BUT… the Na’vi body movement was not alien and thus felt very strange, especially in that yelling scene. I know their grace was highlighted several times, but all I was really thinking was that Jake was very stupid and had probably never actually jumped to and from logs and that mirarie would’ve made a much more elegant dreamwalker than he did. So yes… the in-alieness of the aliens bothered me.
UNOBTAINIUM. I am still unsure if that was just a legacy of the initial script for some fancy mineral they never actually got around to naming, a nice nod to Tropers and genre savvy people or whether the character in question couldn’t actually be bothered with the mineral’s actual name and was using what he thought was a funny term to describe it. It was rather hilarious regardless and kind of totally destroys any attempt at serious talking about what the whole mining operation was about. *insert faux conversation here with a rude interruption about unobtainium*
Relatedly, it was no real big surprise that the GIANT TREE was positioned right over the largest deposit of unobtainium in the sector. Trees grow best when there are lots of minerals in the earth, so it’s no surprise that the Home Tree was positioned over it. I also wouldn’t be surprised if the tree was somehow drawing the mineral through the ground towards it.
Keeping to the general theme of the world Avatar is set in, rather than plot points, I have to agree with a certain blog’s opinion that there is very little thought given to the plausibility of Pandora’s evolutionary history.
I mean.. the Na’vi have more UV reactive pigmentation on their skin than the contents of a dozen glowsticks or the average raver. THEY LIGHT UP AT NIGHT. How is that an evolutionary advantage?
Also, not to mention they have a fragment of their spinal cord hanging out of their necks. The kind-of domesticated wildlife too, which while wild, still had these neural interfaces which makes me suspect that once upon a time the horse analogues and gliderplane analogues were actually domesticated, not just… you know picked out from the herd. Because why else would they too have a bit of their nervous system hanging out of their heads?
I did quite like the big orange glider thing though. Even though THAT storyline was also very transparent.
Focussing more on the story… I went in not expecting much at all, because I had read spoilers that went along the lines of “Pocahontas… IN SPACE” so I was actually a bit befuddled when the movie started. Partly because I’ve only ever seen Pocahontas ONCE (although I did recognise a DIRECT homage to it in one of the hunting scenes (I had a friend who was absolutely crazy about it when it came out and kept on copying her poses in the playground, thus embedding them in my mind.)) and because I don’t like overly spoiling myself.
It was however a decent enough plot to show off Pandora, which I think was the entire point of the movie. And it worked, because it was a movie and it was all visual and aural and not all text like books which are pure world building self-indulgence. Simple drama to show off the complex backdrop. EASY ENOUGH.
That being said, the obvious ending was obvious. And I kind of resented that, because yay, Jake and Miss Blue can be together forever now, but goddammit, I kind of liked the scene where she saw Jake as he really was. Because yes, I do, on some level, ship Miss Blue/Human!Jake.
I also wanted Grace to get her happy ending as well. ;_; She deserved it!!
But she did die prettily at least…
The scene in which it is graphically demonstrated that you should never give legs to a paraplegic was rather funny though. If entirely word for word, action for action of every other ‘you should never give x to y because they will react in this manner…’ scene in the history of human story telling. Well, except for the ones which avert, subvert or invert it.
Which leads to the final disappoint of this movie. Norm did not get to shoot the colonel guy. He was scouting around the container that Jake was in! But no, Miss Blue had to finish him off and rescue Jake. Which is all very well, but is significantly less awesome.
And so, that is what I think of Avatar.
Well, that and it was funny that Bones had an episode where Sweets, Hodgins and the gloomy intern person were queuing to see it, because the gloomy intern person is played by the same actor as Norm. Except now he will obviously always be cast as an anthropologist-geek character.