Wherein Robin discusses Avatar

[tamago23]

[Forewarning: no spoilers in this post, although the article linked to within the post is extremely spoiler-heavy.]

I saw Avatar in IMAX 3D last night. It was... well, there really aren't any words. Frolic and I sat there silently for about five minutes afterward, and then I said, "Holy fuck." Yeah, I'm coherent when I'm awed

Comments

[the_gersemi]

I'm not going to see it mostly for a different reason - that awful Playboy interview Cameron did. I'm fully aware that a lot of filmmakers do the same things he did (give a species that's not mammalian obvious tits in this instance), but just doing them to appeal to moviegoers and actually saying out loud that you did... Well.

[tamago23]

Odd, they seemed mammalian. They're humanoid and I saw no evidence of not birthing live babies, so I just assumed they're mammalian. And the breasts are actually quite small with no visible nipples (they wear large necklaces and such that cover where the nipples would be), so they're pretty unobtrusive.

Honestly, I think it's a shame if you let that keep you from seeing this movie - it's that much of an experience. But I know everyone has things they feel strongly about - goodness knows I certainly do! ;)

[the_gersemi]

Here's what he said in the interview:

CAMERON: Right from the beginning I said, “She’s got to have tits,” even though that makes no sense because her race, the Na’vi, aren’t placental mammals.

So it's tits for tits' sake, not because it makes any sense in the creation of the species. :/

I'm sure it's brilliant, visually, I'm not doubting that. :)

[tamago23]

I... I have to admit that makes me love him a little. I too believe that EVERYTHING SHOULD HAVE TITS, simply because tits are awesome.

Huh. I wonder what they are then. I saw no evidence of egg-bearing or anything like that.

[alexisyael]

I do think the Noble Savage line was skirted, but I mostly think he kept himself from crossing it. (There were maybe two cliche moments I thought were fairly eek worthy, but it wasn't really awful

[tamago23]

I thought it was more diverse than that - among the small group of scientists (5 people, including the main character) there was a Middle Eastern-looking man, and some noticeable diversity among the Marines. Honestly though, even despite this being set in the future, it didn't surprise me that the rest of the scientists were white. People who get to that level of achievement tend to be the privileged ones (the nerds who can afford to spend 500 hours training to run an avatar, plus five years studying the language, etc). White supremacy is an entrenched system and I don't honestly see that changing anytime soon; it will adapt and shift, but I don't think whiteness and white privilege is going to go the way of the dodo simply due to the passing of time and the birth of more mixed-race people

[antonchigurh]

I saw alot of African culture in the Na'vi as well. Also, did Pandora remind anyone else of the Myst series?

Cameron said he came up with the idea and story 14 years ago but there wasn't the 3-D technology yet to visualize it. That's why he spent so long filming underwater and playing with 3-D cameras. I'm guessing the anti-war theme stemmed from Desert Storm but can still be applied to Afghanistan/Iraq/entire Middle East.

I loved when Colonel Quaritch referred to the Na'vi as terrorist- despite what the humans were doing. As they say, "one man's terrorist is another man's freedom fighter".

[mad__pierrot]

Good review. I did skip the more spoiler-laden parts of it, but I liked what I read otherwise.

It seems that most critics of it have been a bit more muted in their response to it. As in, they praised its visual techniques, but when it came to the story of it, they thought it was pretty weak. None of them seemed to be quite as enthusiastic about it as you seem to be, and, even if I haven't seen the movie yet, it's nice to see something a bit more glowing for a change.

[tamago23]

All I can say is that nobody moved or coughed or made noise in that theater, the entire time. I've never seen that happen before.

I'm not sure what else they were expecting from the story; we knew going into it that it's an human invader/alien native conflict set on a different planet. Those stories really only have two ways they can go, which is either the invaders winning or the natives winning. But I thought that there were some amazingly detailed aspects in this movie and the emotionality of the story was well-explored.

As Frolic put it (paraphrasing here), "You can pretty much reduce any story to being boring if you just look at the bare bones. Okay, here's Romeo and Juliet: boy and girl fall in love, their parents don't like the other person's family, they die. But obviously there's a whole lot more to the experience than just the synopsis."

[tamago23]

Also, here. :)

[flmeluvr]

we're calling it "fern gully 3-D"

and I loved it too! I really want to move there, b/c I'm secretly an anthropologist at heart.

[tamago23]

I can't remember the Na'vi term for "big-ass-bird rider", but he specifically says at the end that (this is a paraphrase, but the sentiment is accurate) "[big-ass-bird rider] is no longer needed and has gone away". He states explicitly that he's not continuing to be the leader.

It would be nice if she went to see the movie and then apologized for the ways she got it wrong and wrote a new analysis of what actually IS wrong, but I doubt we're going to see that much humility from her.

[antonchigurh]

"I can't remember the Na'vi term for "big-ass-bird rider"..."

Toruk Makto.

(Sorry, couldn't help myself. Had to look it up.)

[tamago23]

I kept thinking Turok'Maktar - I wasn't far off. ;)