Avatar and Rum Drinkth

[kallie_starmist]

I would normally post Australian stuff on my blog (here), but this is partly about an American movie and partly about drinking, so I figured LJ was a better place for it. (Although I'm perfectly legal to drink here, btw.)

It rained all this weekend, and I still have no friends in AU and therefore nothing to do in my spare time, anyway, and my

Comments

[snh_snh_snh]

Not to question your finely tuned Sketchy Sense or anything but....wi-ell.....have you done a background check on this landlord guy?

I demand Onychophoran aliens before I am willing to tolerate that level of sappy environmentalism when it's aimed at adults. What can I say, I'm harder on people I agree with than those that I don't.

[kallie_starmist]

I know it sounds bad, but it *seriously* wasn't sketchy at all. (My first thought when he suggested going into a bar was "oh dear", but things unsketched pretty quickly- it wouldn't occur to an Aussie that a 20-year-old Uni student didn't drink, I don't think). Remember, this is ME- I assume all men offering to be civil are sketchy until proven innocent, so it must have been pretty tame.

See, I was *ready* to be good and annoyed and talk about how heavy-handed it was, and it disappointed me greatly by being barely preachy at all. I mean, the producers claimed to have an agenda, but given that they spent so much money on stupid special effects on that turkey, I'd have to say their heart wasn't really in it. It was literally just a Fern Gully Cowboy AU fic.

[imasupermuteant]

At least it wasn't sexist?

I have to agree with you though. I really was just Pocahontas with more plants and no singing.

[kallie_starmist]

Yeah, they did pretty good about that (I did note that every female was unabashedly Good, but since the whole thing was pretty black and white this wasn't a big deal).

I liked it all right, I'm just miffed that such a fuss was made over it (which I'm ironically contributing to by continuing to talk about it). Also it was a Pocahontas with an even MORE sugar-coated Disney ending than the actual Disney version ("Yay we defeated them and now the world will be perfect FOREVER" vs "Yay we defeated them... but you kids watching KNOW they come back!").

[justmissjac]

See, I was not entirely disappointed in Avatar because I had no expectations of it to begin with. I heard it was really pretty, but generally I feel that if the budget goes into pretty, the plot will almost certainly be lacking. I am of the opinion that Avatar's plot really doesn't matter at all - it's a vehicle to introduce a really shiny world.

Unfortunately, the more time I have to think about the film, the less I like it, especially as an anthropology major. The Naavi were pretty damn predictable - and acceptable - in terms of society.

Maybe its Glamour is wearing thin. ^^'

[kallie_starmist]

Well, I figured that the plot would be lacking when I heard it was pretty- but then everyone seemed so impressed with it, even people that generally go for plot instead of special effects, that I began to think maybe it had something else going for it.

XD My rainforest ecology prof mentioned it in lecture this week- he said that as far as he could tell, there were far too many predatory animals and plants, without an herbivore population, in too small an area for the region to be ecologically viable.
I propose that we watch Avatar and take a drink every time something stretches or maims the sensibilites of our chosen profession. It'll be the Moho-Avatar drinking game!