AVATAR
A++++++++++ FIRST RATE WOULD WATCH AGAIN
Non-Spoiler
Yes, this film has flaws. Those are addressed at length below the cut. For brevity's sake, here is why you must see this film:
It is beautiful. It is a work of breathtaking, heartbreaking beauty. None of the trailers do it any justice whatsoever. On a big screen and in 3D, the sublime splendor of this world is seared into your brain. The places and people are the stuff of dreams, perhaps, but there are moments when you want to weep for the raw majesty of it all.
It fills you with powerful emotions. Some of them are gotten cheaply or without much sophistication, but that doesn't really matter while you're sitting there, riveted, physically tensed with something in your chest coiling as the drama unfolds.
But for me, the best indicator that this film is worthwhile was that at the end, as I was stumbling out of the theater, (and I really did stumble--my adrenaline was so high my hands were shaking and my legs refused to work properly), my only thought was that I wanted to inhabit this world. I wanted to be a part of the Na'vi. I wanted explore the wondrous and terrifying planet they live on. I haven't had that kind of reaction to a story since I read Dinotopia or Dragonriders of Pern.
I guess my point is that, for all of its flaws--and there are some real humdingers--it truly transported me. And that made my ticket worth every penny.
Also, the Na'vi are HOT. ::fans self:: A line or two more on that behind the cut, too.
Possibly Spoileriffic But Since You've Actually Seen This Film Before Maybe Not
Issues with the film:
If this movie were expressed as an equation, it would probably go something like this:
(Pocahontas + Fern Gully + Star Trek: Insurrection + Dances With Wolves) x Weta Workshop^10 = Avatar
The plot is as old as time and wholly predictable. Soon-to-Be-Opressed-People have something The Opressors want, but the Opressors' ostensible representative is made to see the evil ways of his people and goes native (more on that later), using his knowledge of his own culture to save the Now-Actively-Opressed when the Opressors decide to begin Opressing. In addition, you can also pigeon-hole it under the TV Tropes category of "Green Aesop" Tales (Nature is pure and good and Man is greedy and destructive).
It is not at all subtle, and there are clumsy bits where you think to yourself "Oh, I know exactly what this scene is setting us up for later in the film." The plus side is that it means you don't have to think, you can just go along for the ride--and to its benefit, Cameron gives us quite a ride. It is heavy-handed in the way Hayao Miyazaki is heavy-handed, and there are some pretty good indications Cameron might have read Nausicaa: Valley of the Wind and watched Laputa: Castle in the Sky and Princess Mononoke. There is a GIANT FUCKING TREE, everything in the ecosystem is interconnected, technology is BAD and nature is GOOD. They were even audacious enough to name the Thing the Opressors Want "unobtainium." Geez guys, even as an avid Trek fan, I will admit naming Star Trek's magical material "dilithium" was pretty bad, but unobtanium? Come on!
The characters are so flat that if you held them up to the light, you'd see right through them. This in fact happens frequently. The Military Man is looking for any excuse to blow shit up and fights until the very end of the film because that is his single defining trait. The Corporate Dweeb is only interested in the bottom line. The Scientist's only concern is researching the planet. But I forgive that, because it makes you feel so obnoxiously righteous when the protagonists win, and you just love watching the black-hat antagonists get theirs.
It is so beautiful it is almost too beautiful. The imagery is so perfect, in parts so dreamlike, it is constantly calling attention to itself. For what it's worth, I actually kind of appreciated this because it made me realize two things: For one, it made you aware of what the current state of CGI is, and it is impressive. This is not Final Fantasy: The Spirits Within. The line between what is identifiably CG and what is real is becoming exceptionally blurry--we have escaped, for example, the Uncanny Valley effect in the animation of the Na'vi. And two, it showed how much effort went into creating the planetary ecosystem. Sure, some of the flora and fauna are just plain fantastical, but others...you just knew someone spent days scouring archaeology journals and field biology studies to come up with this stuff.
This is truly going to be a minor nitpick for most people, but...the military. The year is freakin' 2154, dudes, we are not going to be fighting the way we are now. Admittedly, this is a problem with most science fiction, (for example, what I've seen of the new Battlestar Galactica), but with all the thought that went into this film, you'd think at least a few brains would be dedicated to thinking of a Future Military beyond four-rotor helicopters and tiny open-cockpit Gundams.
The biggest issue with this film, of course, is that it is fraught with issues of race and imperialism. (FRAUGHT, I tell you!) I am nowhere near intelligent enough to actually go into much detail, but I will say it is much less "The White Man's Burden" and more "The Noble Savage." The absolute romanticization of the Primitive Native as beautiful and strong, spiritual and wise, is clearly an outgrowth of our tendency to manufacture an exalted idealization of the Conquered "as they were", once the threat they posed to Civilization has been safely neutralized (See: Native American Indians, the Maori, Australian Aborigines, etc.).
On that note, the Na'vi. Putting aside issues of cultural caricature for a moment, I would just like to say: oh my God, they are stunning. So finely framed, so imposing...so blue. And those huge, expressive eyes! I would have no problem getting thrown to the forest floor by an amorous Na'vi male, even if the mechanics of it killed me. I can hardly wait for the inevitable flood of fanart and fanfiction. (...Is this what it's like to be a furry?)
Ahem.
Right, so in conclusion, even for all of these issues, none were significant enough to make the film unwatchable. Avatar was still utterly magnificent. Definitely worth seeing on the big screen, and I'll probably buy it when it comes out on DVD.
Non-Spoiler
Yes, this film has flaws. Those are addressed at length below the cut. For brevity's sake, here is why you must see this film:
It is beautiful. It is a work of breathtaking, heartbreaking beauty. None of the trailers do it any justice whatsoever. On a big screen and in 3D, the sublime splendor of this world is seared into your brain. The places and people are the stuff of dreams, perhaps, but there are moments when you want to weep for the raw majesty of it all.
It fills you with powerful emotions. Some of them are gotten cheaply or without much sophistication, but that doesn't really matter while you're sitting there, riveted, physically tensed with something in your chest coiling as the drama unfolds.
But for me, the best indicator that this film is worthwhile was that at the end, as I was stumbling out of the theater, (and I really did stumble--my adrenaline was so high my hands were shaking and my legs refused to work properly), my only thought was that I wanted to inhabit this world. I wanted to be a part of the Na'vi. I wanted explore the wondrous and terrifying planet they live on. I haven't had that kind of reaction to a story since I read Dinotopia or Dragonriders of Pern.
I guess my point is that, for all of its flaws--and there are some real humdingers--it truly transported me. And that made my ticket worth every penny.
Also, the Na'vi are HOT. ::fans self:: A line or two more on that behind the cut, too.
Possibly Spoileriffic But Since You've Actually Seen This Film Before Maybe Not
Issues with the film:
If this movie were expressed as an equation, it would probably go something like this:
(Pocahontas + Fern Gully + Star Trek: Insurrection + Dances With Wolves) x Weta Workshop^10 = Avatar
The plot is as old as time and wholly predictable. Soon-to-Be-Opressed-People have something The Opressors want, but the Opressors' ostensible representative is made to see the evil ways of his people and goes native (more on that later), using his knowledge of his own culture to save the Now-Actively-Opressed when the Opressors decide to begin Opressing. In addition, you can also pigeon-hole it under the TV Tropes category of "Green Aesop" Tales (Nature is pure and good and Man is greedy and destructive).
It is not at all subtle, and there are clumsy bits where you think to yourself "Oh, I know exactly what this scene is setting us up for later in the film." The plus side is that it means you don't have to think, you can just go along for the ride--and to its benefit, Cameron gives us quite a ride. It is heavy-handed in the way Hayao Miyazaki is heavy-handed, and there are some pretty good indications Cameron might have read Nausicaa: Valley of the Wind and watched Laputa: Castle in the Sky and Princess Mononoke. There is a GIANT FUCKING TREE, everything in the ecosystem is interconnected, technology is BAD and nature is GOOD. They were even audacious enough to name the Thing the Opressors Want "unobtainium." Geez guys, even as an avid Trek fan, I will admit naming Star Trek's magical material "dilithium" was pretty bad, but unobtanium? Come on!
The characters are so flat that if you held them up to the light, you'd see right through them. This in fact happens frequently. The Military Man is looking for any excuse to blow shit up and fights until the very end of the film because that is his single defining trait. The Corporate Dweeb is only interested in the bottom line. The Scientist's only concern is researching the planet. But I forgive that, because it makes you feel so obnoxiously righteous when the protagonists win, and you just love watching the black-hat antagonists get theirs.
It is so beautiful it is almost too beautiful. The imagery is so perfect, in parts so dreamlike, it is constantly calling attention to itself. For what it's worth, I actually kind of appreciated this because it made me realize two things: For one, it made you aware of what the current state of CGI is, and it is impressive. This is not Final Fantasy: The Spirits Within. The line between what is identifiably CG and what is real is becoming exceptionally blurry--we have escaped, for example, the Uncanny Valley effect in the animation of the Na'vi. And two, it showed how much effort went into creating the planetary ecosystem. Sure, some of the flora and fauna are just plain fantastical, but others...you just knew someone spent days scouring archaeology journals and field biology studies to come up with this stuff.
This is truly going to be a minor nitpick for most people, but...the military. The year is freakin' 2154, dudes, we are not going to be fighting the way we are now. Admittedly, this is a problem with most science fiction, (for example, what I've seen of the new Battlestar Galactica), but with all the thought that went into this film, you'd think at least a few brains would be dedicated to thinking of a Future Military beyond four-rotor helicopters and tiny open-cockpit Gundams.
The biggest issue with this film, of course, is that it is fraught with issues of race and imperialism. (FRAUGHT, I tell you!) I am nowhere near intelligent enough to actually go into much detail, but I will say it is much less "The White Man's Burden" and more "The Noble Savage." The absolute romanticization of the Primitive Native as beautiful and strong, spiritual and wise, is clearly an outgrowth of our tendency to manufacture an exalted idealization of the Conquered "as they were", once the threat they posed to Civilization has been safely neutralized (See: Native American Indians, the Maori, Australian Aborigines, etc.).
On that note, the Na'vi. Putting aside issues of cultural caricature for a moment, I would just like to say: oh my God, they are stunning. So finely framed, so imposing...so blue. And those huge, expressive eyes! I would have no problem getting thrown to the forest floor by an amorous Na'vi male, even if the mechanics of it killed me. I can hardly wait for the inevitable flood of fanart and fanfiction. (...Is this what it's like to be a furry?)
Ahem.
Right, so in conclusion, even for all of these issues, none were significant enough to make the film unwatchable. Avatar was still utterly magnificent. Definitely worth seeing on the big screen, and I'll probably buy it when it comes out on DVD.