John Nolte is less than enthused about Cameron’s latest flick:
“Avatar” is a thinly disguised, heavy-handed and simplistic sci-fi fantasy/allegory critical of America from our founding straight through to the Iraq War.
But other than that, sounds great. Here’s hoping it bombs big time.
[Update a while later]
Another pan, over at Ace’s.
Wow, I’m shocked, shocked to read that Avatar is exactly what it looks like.
I did not see Titanic. Once I heard the plot I took a wide berth. The more hype I heard, the less I wanted to see it. I have had my share of Greek tragedies done poorly thank you.
Cameron used to be good at doing action movies. Anything more complex is seemingly out of his league. Last movie of his I watched was T2.
This Avatar movie is also poorly timed, considering District 9 was released not too long ago (a good movie despite the cinematography having that annoying shaking camera). This movie pales in comparison in every regard. The alien character designs from Avatar are amazingly bad. They seem something out of a bad childrens movie.
Ace of Spades had a good point about why anyone would be shocked that the guy bound to the wheel chair who now can dance on top of trees would suddenly turn on them. “Wait we shined up your wheelchair for you and everything! How could you do this too us?”
“South Park” put it best when it called referred to “Avatar” as “Dances With Smurfs.” Whatever little desire I had to see the movie was stomped at that point. Whatever happened to original storytelling?
Sometimes you see trailers for movies, and think “…hmm, that flick looks good”, or “..I’ll bet the trailer IS the only good parts of that one”, or “…I’ll wait for it to hit video, maybe I’ll pass on it then too”.
When I saw the trailers for Avatar, I went to three immediately. I’ll see it two years from now, when the g’sons want it on a rainy Saturday. That way, they can rent it, on their home video accts, and if I fall asleep, I’m not out any money.
I’ll see it, if only because I’m a sucker for good CGI. But from what I know so far, those who’ve seen ‘Dances With Wolves’ will indeed be in familiar territory…
Wasn’t this supposed to be the movie where the virtual reality was just too good for human eyes?
Oh yea, check out this shill on slashdot:
It’s amazing how you can spin things these days.
He was last seen ranting about greed, fear, and evil propagated by the “oil elite”.
I’ve been calling it “Call Me Joe” meets “Dances with Wolves” for months now. I am a CGI nut who would probably pay to watch it, except that I am so sick of being sermonized to by the left that I just don’t think it’s worth my money.
Damn, CFE beat me to it.
Wendy Testaburger is a lousy class President too! :p
They actually call the resource the rapacious Earth forces are after “Unobtanium“? =O
Hey, I have another question. If Cameron has been wanting to make this movie for “fifteen years,” what the hell is all the anti-Iraq War subtext people are talking about doing in it? Fifteen years ago it was 1994, Clinton was president, and all was wonderful candy floss, ice-cream fairies, and hot and cold running (and willing and empowered!) White House interns. The only conflict we were involved in was the Bosnian mess, and that hardly was something to bring about dreams of Native American-like aliens. I’m thinking this really is just his Dances With Wolves In Space, since that movie dominated the 90s.
OK, OK, OK, maybe I have to fork over the 12 bucks to see the “fine” movie to answer these questions.
So there is this ultra-valuable rock (like di-lithium maybe) that these cat people have and the ape people want. Couldn’t someone like Bill Shatner give some kind of speech with dramatic pauses where an equitable trading arrangement could be worked out?
So then the ape people blunder on to the Planet of the Cat People, and since they can’t breath the air, they have these kind of hovercraft and powered exoskeleton suits, but it seems all they can do with these things is blunder into ambushes of the Cat People who are pretty much armed with bow-and-arrow. Am I missing something? Do the Cat People put the di-lithium on the ends of their arrows and have the equivalent of the Russian two-stage shape-charge Kornet missile? Do the Cat People put captured weapons to use?
What makes the Cat People so dangerous anyway? Are they anything like the Predator in the movies of that name in having extreme powers of deception or even mind control? What am I missing here?
Or, are the Cat People otherwise just people, but they send their young to Engineering School among the Ape People, paying for this by trading di-lithium that the Ape People eagerly buy and the Cat People eagerly sell? And that the Cat People trained in Ape Engineering College go back to the homeland, and learn to use hundreds of pounds of explosives along with Ape People cell phones to defeat the hovercraft and the powered exoskeleton suits?
And if this whole thing is suppose to be anything remotely like Dances With Wolves or even like Bush’s Unnecessary Wars, aren’t the Cat People divided into waring tribes or factions that fight with each other given the chance? That the stupid Ape People blunder into Cat People ambushes and stuff, but that the Ape People form alliances with various Cat People factions and do the Divide and Rule sort of thing?
I saw that trailer during Sunday Football, and I have just so many questions. “Titanic” interested me in the least because I pretty much know how it ends. Do you suppose I will be snookered into seeing the film just to find out what is going on?
I don’t know about you, Paul, but I’m a patient guy. I’ll wait till I get to see it on someone else’s dime.
Damn, did this thing really cost 500 million? Where did that money come from, George Soros?
I’ll see it despite the subtext because Cameron is a damn good director and storyteller. The visuals look amazing, and based on prior experience with his movies the story will work from beginning to end.
It is essentially a science-fantasy story (any hope for actual science fiction went out with the floating mountains), and the giggling leftroids thinking that it somehow justifies their pitiful juvenile philosophy will one day grasp the irony at their finding justification in entertainment produced by a massive corporate/industrial effort.
I’ve pointed out to friends though that it is amusing that the aliens would be a lot less sympathetic if they weren’t outrageously hot cat-elves.
Andrea Harris Says: “Hey, I have another question. If Cameron has been wanting to make this movie for “fifteen years,” what the hell is all the anti-Iraq War subtext people are talking about doing in it?”
That may be because the plot of this film sounds rather, ahem, similar to Ursula LeGuin’s “The Word For World Is Forest”, which was a thinly disguised anti-Vietnam war not-so-subtext published in the seventies. An attempt at ruthless imperialist exploitation by brutal humans is defeated by noble low-tech natives. Cameron would seem to be engaged in recycling. Very ecologically sound!
cynically
Porkypine
Dances with wolves celebrates conservative values – family, tradition, religion, honor, self-reliance, respect for rightful authority, even some good hunting scenes. What’s the problem?
I’ve found a hidden genocidal message in the film. Note how all the planet’s life forms are hexapods except for the 4 limbed ‘People of Color’. It’s obvious that the 4 limbs have exterminated all the other 4 limbed creatures that co-evolved in their environment. They need to be wiped out to prevent further ecological damage!
Dances with wolves celebrates conservative values
That’s the way I look at it as well. The IRS, ATF, FBI – not to mention union thugs and Democratic party politicians are the EVIL GREEDY Americans/humans bad guys in the two films and the cool natives are the average hard working just want to be left alone conservative tribe.
Which is why I get tired of lefties whining about “what we did to the indians”. The left wants to do the same thing to me every day of the year. Why should the damn “natives” get all the sympathy?
Sounds like the plot and story line were computer-generated too.
I’ve read descriptions of the film, and I don’t see an Iraq angle. Avatar sounds more like a parable of Western colonization in Africa, South America and Indonesia. Empire invades the turf of primitives they barely know and plunders the land for its exotic natural resources.
Is Procol Harum’s “Conquistador” part of the soundtrack?
“I’ve read descriptions of the film, and I don’t see an Iraq angle. Avatar sounds more like a parable of Western colonization in Africa, South America and Indonesia.”
Yeah, Avatar does the Western colonization story. But by the updated jargon and characters, it also attempts to do the Iraq angle, to suggest that Iraq is the latest iteration of the Western colonization story. That is the part that seems so bogus and has everyone snarking.
So when do we steal the oil?
Agreed. Kevin Costner isn’t nearly as politically correct as he pretends to be.
As for James Cameron, I’d nominate him to investigate the distress signal at LV-426.
Hmm. More evidence that the blue aliens are not native to Pandora: they’re blue. If their skin colour were camouflage, they ought to be green in this planet. Something else is at work…
Damn, did this thing really cost 500 million? Where did that money come from, George Soros?
I heard it was Rupert Murdoch.
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Am I the only one who actually enjoyed this movie? Ok ok, I did find myself constantly smirking when the blue people were screaming like Indians and pointing their bows and arrows, along with their African tribal wear… and YES they all seemed to be black… but this movie was BEAUTIFUL. I was swept up in the gorgeous scenery, and the effects were top-notch. The story line was generic but still lovely… and the sex scene with the two Navis was hot. I was constantly squinting my eyes trying to get a glimpse of their penises because all that was covering there parts was a cloth… and I wanted so badly to see what they looked like… Anyways, decent movie. Not the best, but decent. 3.5 out of 5
Through out the movie, I was momentarily messed up by many of the similar things that have been mentioned here, but for the most part, I dismissed them as my pleasure continued. Even the heavy-handed depiction of commercialism or the over bearing were accepted as being a critical part of the film.But there one little issue that (oddly enough, I guess) irritated me. There was no way to go back and view it after, but I’m pretty sure that when the Colonel was killed, he took his hands off the robot controls, trying to remove the arrow/bolt. Yet, with the Colonel’s death, the robot TOPPLED OVER! I would have expected such a machine just to simply stop moving and stand there.