Thoughts on James Cameron's "Avatar" (mild spoilers for the genre blind)
Seen the movie now. Gotta say, while I enjoyed it very much, I didn't LOVE it. Perhaps I felt that there were a few too many overly predictable clichés in it... Like Zoe Saldana's character being angry at Jake, but then forgives him after he proves his worth with some ridiculous gesture, and the "oh god everyone is dying montage" followed by the "oh look the forest is saving our asses" I also thought that a tad over the top.
It's like "The moral of this story is: Be nice to the rainforest and one day they will come to your aid to help you fend off an invading alien race" sorry but that just took the cake for me, it was a bit too much to ask I think. I mean I know these people are in harmony with their world, what with their USB stick plaits, but that the entire world would just be overcome with a unifying consciousness to fight a greater foe strikes me as bizarre. The part when the vicious predator from earlier in the movie deigned to be ridden by the heroine was just a slap inthe face of logic. Some movies could get away with this if they've regularly been delving into "No fuckin' way!" territory, but "Avatar" mostly showed the limitations of the native people's hold over their land, what with they being unable to heal one of the wounded humans. It enters that doubt of "maybe they won't make it" into your mind, but in one fell swoop the "animals come to the rescue" scene falcon punches it out the window.
I mean I know people always bring up the "it's a film about giant blue aliens and THAT's your issue?" argument, but that's the argument of a retard. I know, I use it often. If a film sets its paramters and limits at a certain level and if it then breaks those boundaries, where there was no previous indication of it being able to do so, then it's illusion shattering if nothing else. It shifts your whole view of the world presented to you and invalidates a lot of assumptions you may have had about it. It cracks the fragile glass of the environment presented to you.