James Cameron's "Avatar" review

[Anayo]

Edit: Mild spoiler ahead.

Sometime in 2004 I watched Terminator 1, 2, and 3 one after the other for the first time. I loved the first two; they were creepy, awesome, and original, but I really wondered why number 3 turned out to be such a piece of worthless trash. Then one day I got curious and stared at the back of the VHS tape box and realized some guy named James Cameron wrote and directed the first two, whereas number 3 was not. Then a little later I watched Aliens, loved it to pieces, and read “DIRECTED BY JAMES CAMERON” in the credits. I concluded the James Cameron was worth keeping up with, and I would view his future work whenever it came out.

Sometime in 2007 I was reading a volume of The Bathroom Reader, a lowbrow book that has obscure and interesting information regarding all subjects. One article in the book talked about “Avatar”, a movie by James Cameron that he tried to make after Titanic, sometime in '98. He had to shelf the project cause it would have been too expensive. A year later I started reading about Avatar on movie sites; the predicted release date was December 12, 2009. I vowed to watch Avatar. If this James Cameron guy had anything to do with it, I couldn't go wrong.

Avatar is not a particularly original movie. The plot is like Dances with Wolves; white man shows up, falls in love with Native American culture, then changes sides and fights against his own people. The aliens of the movie are not what I'd call real “science fiction”. Larry Niven's Snouts in the novel “Footfall” are alien. Isaac Asimov's three-gendered gas beings in “The Gods Themselves” are alien. The aliens in “Avatar” are more allegorical and anthropomorphic than that, analogous to the rubber fin-headed actors in Star Trek, except rendered with much more sophisticated special effects.

You're probably expecting me to write “Avatar” off as shallow and derivative. But let's face it: a lot of people like Star Trek, regardless of how campy it is. A lot of people like Dances with Wolves, despite how predictable it is. And Avatar does the best job possible at being both. I liked Terminator 1, 2, and Aliens better, because the atmosphere of those movies was very chilling and distinct, like I was watching something that wasn't quite like anything I'd watched before. But even though Avatar wasn't terribly distinct or original, I liked watched Jake hunt alongside the Na'vi. I felt sad when the mother tree got blown to bits by the evil humans' gunships. It was satisfying to watch the movie's villain get impaled and finally die. Avatar's exorbitant special effects are probably more memorable than the story it tells, but I felt it was still worth watching in a nice James Camerony kind of way.

[MrPopo]

If you've gotten into James Cameron I'd recommend you check out Dark Angel (TV series). The first season is really cool, though it starts to loose it a bit in the second season.

[Frag Mortuus]

I felt the same way exactly.

However, you should totally put a spoiler warning in the thread title!

[Anayo]

What did I spoil?

[millerjm2]

How can you not appreciate Terminator 3? That movie is beyond awesome. Personally, my favorite part is when Arnold is in the convenience store. It is like he has a personal vendetta against snacks. He is picking up packs of beef jerky and slamming them into his basket with an unnecessary amount of force.

[Hobie-wan]

What did I spoil?

The "I felt sad when the ..." sentence.

[Anayo]

How can you not appreciate Terminator 3? That movie is beyond awesome. Personally, my favorite part is when Arnold is in the convenience store. It is like he has a personal vendetta against snacks. He is picking up packs of beef jerky and slamming them into his basket with an unnecessary amount of force.

I could go on for superfluous and unwanted paragraphs on that. I'll suffice by saying the message of T2 was "We can change the future if we try." The message of T3 is "Maybe the future is inevitable. I don't know. Either way, there's bound to be more sequels."

[RadarScope1]

About sums up my feelings, too.

Other than the tech used for the motion-capture and 3D viewing (if you saw it in 3d), there's not much terribly original about it. But Cameron is a master craftsman of movie pacing and storytelling. He doesn't tell us one ounce of information more than we absolutely need to know and he doesn't tell us any less than he has to in order to get us to care about the characters and understand their motivations. While a characters like the military commander is pretty one-dimensional, he doesn't need to be complex. There are other, more important characters were depth is needed and it is given. Even in instances where the next event in the sequence is utter predictable, he doesn't dwell on them. The biggest example I can think of is when Grace doesn't make it from her human body to the Na'vi body you absolutely know that in the end Jake will attempt the same thing and make it. Yeah, that does happen, but it happens at the VERY end of the movie and he doesn't waste 10 minutes after that showing scenes of the tribe celebrating or anything like that. /spoiler

I'm going to see it in IMAX 3D, and I'll likely eventually buy it on Blu-Ray or at least see it in 2D in at a matinee or something. No one who is interested in graphics and tech (which would be most gamers, even retro gamers) should miss this movie.

[crux]

I thought the movie was largely laughable. The mech had a goddamn knife. I know it's supposed to be cool and all, but that's just absolutely moronic. Never mind the weak plot, the plot holes, the oddly stunted technology for 150 years in the future, and the mostly terrible acting.

For the record, I also hate the recent Spiderman franchise, and thought Star Wars was mediocre.

[lisalover1]

I had a strong urge to play Panzer Dragoon after watching this movie.