http://www.nytimes.com/2009/04/25/movies/25avatar.html

this movie

Amazing string of words to discribe a movie. I have never heard of this thing before now but I have no intentions of passing it up the day it becomes public/.

I was excited thinking this was going to be about the spectacular Avatar : The Last Airbender.

Summer 2010, I think.

Super excited for the Avatar film. The series conclusion was breathtaking. I just want to know what happens when they grow up!

The trailer was just released. Here we go:

Looks like the worst shit ever.

I'm looking forward to this. Cameron hasn't made a weak film since getting going with The Terminator.

Titanic sucked. I watched it 3 weeks ago and was blown away by how dreadful it was.

I'm not shitting on Cameron for this. I mean, he fucking made a movie that everyone knew the ending of, threw Leo DiCaprio in the lead male role and asked Celine Dion to write a song for the thing. Dude is clearly operating on some next level mind-to-market shit but Avatar looks like one giant turd.

But most of his other work is superb.

And God, speaking of pre-Terminator...
(this was the poster for Piranhas II or whatever)
I know he was starting out, and don't blame him for the film, but I watched this for a laugh, and man was it one of the worst movies I've seen.

Actually, going back to that film reminds me of Cameron's and Lance Henriksen's long past, and makes me a little annoyed Cameron didn't find a part for him in Avatar.

Don't get me wrong - I'm not trying to dump on Cameron's catalog as a whole. But it goes w/o saying that he would never have gotten the budget for Avatar if Titanic had never grossed what it did.

dude, this is the 4th or 5th time he has had the biggest budgeted movie ever released.

You might be right. I also could see him having gotten this budget based on his previous sci fi successes, though.

And don't get me wrong either, I think Titantic is terrible too.

Are those giraffe people or something?

It's a great film with bad dialogue. You could watch it without the dialogue and still know what was going on. It's a delirious Romantic melodrama in the best sense. Celine Dion didn't write the song. The music from taken from James Horner's film score and the lyrics were written by prolific hack Will Jennings (Looks Like We Made It, Up Where We Belong, Tears in Heaven).




It was taken out of his hands and re-edited by the production company. It can't really be called his film.

I know. Part of the reason I said I didn't blame him for it. That said, doubt his cut was very good either. He was working with a terrible premise and worse script anyway. I can't really see anyone making a good film centered on flying killer fish.

This will challenge Heaven's Gate and Ishtar and Star Wars Episodes 1,2, and 3 for the worst big money debacle of ALL-TIME. I can't wait because Jim Cameron is one of the biggest douches in the movies.

He will need to go back to being a trucker after this flop.

Dances With Wolves in space . . . BUT IT'LL BE PHOTOREAL!!!

Yeah, Cameron is the man. There's some quote about the more successful you get the more people hate you. Think it applies to all the hate being thrown around here.

Hitler's Response to 'Avatar'

Prepare to be amazed by the Clone War Thundercats!!

Amazing.

People would probably be a lot more excited if this were actually a Thundercats film

I agree that the online trailer is fairly lame, but I saw the 15 minute imax 3d preview and it was pretty awesome. The effects aren't that much different or superior to anything else that's been released recently but it looked like the characters faces could emote better than anything I'd seen from CG before. And the cinematography of the action bits was great.

reviews are finally coming out and it seems that there's enough reason to get excited about this one. after months of nitpicking and poor advertising decisions, i'm for the first time looking forward to seeing this. maybe even preordering tickets for a 3d showing. maybe. might not be that enthusiastic yet.

part of me is wondering if all the positive word is partially a hollywood looks after its own type thing. that the same people who are saying how visually stunning it is will retract their opinions after the movie reasonably successful.

just go see the damn movie.

Just a wild guess, but considering the 'You're not in Kansas anymore' line is emphasized in the trailers and the juxtaposition between the live action (old technology) and animated sequences (new technology), I would expect Avatar to be littered with thousands on not-subtle, nauseating 'Wizard of Oz' references as a self-congratulation to himself.

sorry to have offended you. i thought that this being a message board that baseless speculation was acceptable. i suppose not.

I saw this film yesterday. It is visually stunning in pretty much every way. Pandora is a pretty incredible place, amazing flora and fauna and really beautiful colours and textures.

The story is fairly mediocre though, typically over the top. It reminded me of watching one of those ridiculous South Park episodes. Some of the one-liners are fucking terrible.

It's definately worth seeing though purely for the visual element.

A shit film that looks good, expect some new Star Wars bullshit from Lucas then in the next decade/

Going to see this Monday night in 3D.

I was expecting total shit and really good action, but honestly, I didn't find it that shitty. Sure, it telegraphed all of it's moves, but I don't think I cringed at the dialog once.

did you see it in 3D?

IMAX 3-d.

I love 3-d. Especially like this and UP, where the 3-d doesn't feel like a gimmick.

Cameron himself probably started my love of it. His 3d Titanic movie was amazing...even scenes where they are just sitting at a table talking...you feel like you're right there.

Movie was incredible. Should win every direction, cinematography, effects, design & sound award out there.

Also thought it was incredible. Amazing action, visuals, and a thoroughly interesting world to experience. The downsides are the complete predictability of the plot, indifferent acting, and overly straightforward dialogue (there will be no lines quoted from this movie).

Major advancement by Cameron in motion capture and animation. It has none of the creepiness of Zemeckis' effots. Still a ways to go, though. None of the Na'vi characters stand out. Minor human characters like the Anna-Lucia copter pilot stand out more simply because she's a real human acting rather than a motion captured actor. Sam Worthington gives a completely 2D performance (even with the 3D glasses) possibly because he couldn't have his human character outshine his Na'vi character. Still a major achievement though.

Yeah, just ignore everyone who bleats about how "insulting" this film is to Native Americans or other indigenous cultures. That will surely try to dominate the discourse, but you'll miss the "point" of this film if you get caught up in that nonsense. I mean, of course it's ridiculous and paternalistic and ridden with cliches, and the plot predetermined and laughable and reductive and a silly, derivative pastiche of the Pocahontas myth, Dances With Wolves, Princess Mononoke and Lord of the Rings, but just fucking sit back and enjoy the 3D Imax ride. No one has ever made a film that looks like this, period.

I really enjoyed myself. FAR exceeded my expectations The effects are fucking incredible.

Dances With Smurfs?

Saw this last night and dug it. My least favorite James Cameron film, but still a good, fun picture. Fantastic, beautiful computer effects (though far from "game-changing;" it's more or less a really well-done animated movie, with some live-action characters walking around in it). The 3D was pretty worthless overall. I don't know why people dig this. It was like my eyes were broken and I feel like I don't really know what the film looked like because of it. Whenever I lifted the glasses, the film looked about 10 times better. May have to see it again in 2D.

It's really unfortunate the script was so bland. Every once in awhile there was a bit where it gained some life and I caught a glimpse of a better film. When Giovanni's character said something like, "What the hell have you people been smoking? They're just goddamn trees" and then laughed, I was like "Yes, yes, that's the kind of asshole I want in this film!" It felt like a real Cameron movie at those times. But they're too few and far between. It's too bad. A better script, with better characters, and this is a classic. As it stands, it's a good film, with really good special effects that probably won't seem so special in ten years. Infinitely better then the Star Wars prequels and the Pirates of the Caribbean sequels, though.

Imagination Land comes to mind.

I agree with Ogawa that if I had to rank this amongst his seven films (I don't count The Spawning) then it might be at the bottom. Flat and expository dialogue and schematic beyond belief. That Colonel character is just a stick figure. And I'm hampered by my pro Western bias...I have no sympathetic attraction to primitive tree cults nor with people who decide it would be fun to live that way. But this is worth seeing though for the scope and scale of the thing.

Did this hold any water?

I didn't catch "thousands," but there are a few Yellow Moss Roads and so forth.

Exactly...the story is there, and it isn't good, but it does enough to create the excuse to hold this movie together - just go for the experience and leave it at that - and it is quite an experience.

If the future of film is plotless wank like this, count me out.

Agreed. I read some article or review where they quoted a young unnamed writer/director who, after the screening of the film, said, "What do we do now?" What an asshole. Write a good screenplay and cast some good actors. Fuck you, make a film without hundreds of millions of dollars. Show a modicum of invention with limited resources. Lots of other people seem capable of doing it. After all the shitty previews they showed in front of Avatar, I turned to my girlfriend and said, "God, I hate movies." Even if Avatar is the future, theaters won't be clogged with James Cameron films but with shit like Clash of the Titans. What am I saying, the theater is already clogged with that crap. I can't even see a new Coen Brothers film in this state, but I can see Sandra Bullock's The Blind Side on five different screens.

This film is pretty tightly plotted actually.

Tony, You know exactly what I mean. Is this film's script going to get nominated for anything? Yes or No.

I wonder where Buster Keaton would have sat on the Avatar question.

i'm torn on this one, and not for the reasons stated here. loved the plot, actually. script was weak, but i appreciated the relative slackness of the movie, that there wasn't any unnecessary complication, that cameron took a well-worn storyline and approached it as directly as possible. there wasn't a moment in the entire film that i was squirming or bored. at the same time, there weren't any characters in the film, really. avatars only. i got chills down my spine at all the intended times, and the movie is definitely successful in that way, but i felt like i knew shia labeouf better after the first transformers than i did any of the characters at the end of the film.

and while the special effects were pretty unparalleled imho, the design was kind of dull. plant life was cool, but the creature design was pretty conventional. i liked the 3d, though. especially that opening shot in the cryo room.

and that final battle sequence. holy fuck. made the whole movie for me. i mean, i've seen some critics complain that the back end of the film isn't as compelling as the front, and i can't see how they could think that. for such an epic battle sequence, you never lose a sense of what's happening where and to whom. it flowed better than any of the battles in the lotr films, with intensity growing as it went on. i could watch that sequence on loop and be very happy.

one last thought. for all my misgivings, as i stood up to exit the theater, i kinda wished i could sit through it a second time. maybe i'd like it less the second time around, but i really enjoyed it overall the first, especially in a pure pleasure kind of way. it isn't as great as many critics are making it out to be, but i can't imagine anyone not enjoying the film on some level.

I don't think this is the Future of Film, or the Death of the Plot. That kind of alarmism is really overblown. Avatar is a clunky dumb sci-fi adventure film that cost a lot of $$ and will make even more $$. But I really don't see it as emblematic of a general decline in narrative filmmaking or smart scripting. There are still plenty of talented auteur filmmakers out there doing interesting stuff on more regular budgets. This just isn't one of those films.