Comments | ioldanach: Avatar

ioldanach

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Dec 21, 2009 01:08

I'll start with the Short, Short, Short review. Avatar was very pretty, with decent acting, but it was more predictable than Titanic, and when we walked into the theater for Titanic we already knew the ship would sink.
11th_letter and I went to see Avatar this evening. A good portion of the commentary here is hers, but I lose attributions in my head of ( Read more... )

Comments 10

stefka December 21 2009, 07:21:36 UTC

Darling, you had me at "unobtainium." Good Lord. "Sherlock Holmes" it shall be, if there is any moviegoing on Saturday!

purpura December 21 2009, 13:39:13 UTC

I am SO Going to see Sherlock Holmes. I can't wait in fact.

anagramofbrat December 21 2009, 12:23:02 UTC

Later in the movie, our protagonist decides he has to bond with one of the bigass dragons to impress the natives about how one-of-them he really is, and get his native wife to come back to him. Naturally, after she's railed against him for being one of the people who betrayed them and destroyed her home and killed her people and so forth, when he shows up on a big dragon and says "I see you" (their deep meaningful greeting, which basically means "I grok you", but James Cameron must think people don't like Heinlien) she looks into his eyes and responds in kind. Because apparently having a nice ride overcomes those other minor details.

This paragraph really made me want to write Dune/Aladdin crossover fic. I'm going to see Paul Muad'dib and Chani on a sandworm singing "A whole new world" for the rest of the day, thank you.

ioldanach December 21 2009, 15:44:58 UTC

Ow. Ow. Ow. Brain hurt now.

anagramofbrat December 21 2009, 16:44:11 UTC

hey if I must suffer so must you.

sixswordsamurai December 21 2009, 14:29:11 UTC

now your assignment, should you choose to accept it..is to figure out how to pimp that dragon for double awesomeness.

sunatrya December 21 2009, 14:41:48 UTC

I liked it.
Yeah, it was Fern Gully for adults. Knew that going in, knew it coming out. But while the plot was a rehash, at least it wasn't a complete REMAKE like 1/2 the shit in theaters these days.
It was internally consistent, there was character growth. And, yes. It was pretty.
And the head Marine was bad-ass. Hoo-ya!

ioldanach December 21 2009, 15:48:20 UTC

There were just too many times when I was laughing at the "serious" moments or making sidelong commentary about what trope the movie was engaging in at that moment, or what future action this scene was telegraphing, for me to take the movie seriously enough to enjoy it. Too much MST3K fodder for me.

whildbill December 22 2009, 05:51:45 UTC

Yeah, the 'unobtainium' hurt. Kinda. Kinda made me laugh, too.

And yeah, it was pretty. Very Pretty. (saw it in IMAX 3-D)

As I said, don't bother. If you've read a little science fiction, you've already seen incarnations of all the various plot devices before.And, I would go so far as to say, you needn't even have read specifically science fiction (of which I've read next to none, compared to most of the people I know) to have seen a lot of the plot devices before. And the resultant predictability ( ... )

ioldanach December 22 2009, 14:59:46 UTC

Don't get me wrong, I am content with those several hours of my life, the immersive beauty of the movie, alone, covers that. And no the plot is not horrible, it is just overly simplistic, like a children's book, where you see something set up and then happen and then another thing set up and so on and so forth, and to a child it is all new and exciting but as an adult I've seen it all before. Something was needed to draw me in, to invest me in the movie, and that was lacking.