Avatar - Page 2

Think about the carbon footprint of energy and expense to render and make it and then you won't.

You need to get out more...so to speak. There are plenty of intelligent, engaging films out there, they're just not usually made by corporations in Hollywood that are more interested in turning a profit than in showing risky stimulating cinema.

The reason everything is so bland is because by the time they've passed the lameness check of the script they have to pass through audience tests and anything vaguely thought-provoking, controversial or offensive (violence aside) is discarded during the cutting for risk of offending anyone.

I've heard "Americans don't like subtitles" but seriously, if you give it a chance you might just find something that touches you in a way you never thought possible. There are many fantastic independent American films I've seen.

Perhaps if the Cinemas/Studios were concerned about falling numbers they should look at what they're putting out there and why it's mostly such lame garbage. I won't see Avatar because special effects in and of themselves are not enough to sustain my interest.

Avatar picked up it’s 4th record this weekend, beating out Titanic’s long held record of $28M for highest domestic gross for the 4th weekend with $48M. Titanic now only has 12 records to its name and several of those are likely to fall to Avatar over the coming weeks.

The largest record hold is The Dark Knight with 28 but most of those are for out of the gate records. The ones that Avatar has a change of besting are the speed to $450M domestic gross, which took TDK 27 days. Avatar is at $429 after 24 days. $21M in the next 3 days is doable, but it may be close. The last record by TDK is getting to $500 in 45 days which the Avatar should easily best by a large margin.

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http://boxofficemojo.com/alltime/?page=byrecord&p=.htm

Saw a snippet saying all of Rupert Murdoch, Inc, the proud owners of such IQ-boosting programming as Faux Noise, is actually getting a potential stock boost from this movie.

Saw another claiming racism in that the movie has a fairly regular movie theme of the white guys saving the day (despite the fairly negative view of the US that others have claimed). Dunno about this one.

Have you scouted those planets? How can you be sure?


The last film I know of with subtitles that did pretty well award-wise was "Life is Beautiful" by Roberto Benigni. I'll say that I like the film enough to own it but the denoument was incredibly short by American standards. I've noticed this often in chinese cinema as well. The amount of time from the climax to rolling credits is often just a couple minutes. I don't think that sits well with American audiences who want to know a little bit more beyond "Happily Ever After."

I find many films really care far too much about visuals and Avatar is a prime example of that. They are amazing, but really limits what a film can do. M. Night Shyamalan has become a prime example of this with no special effects. Long pauses with lame reactions shots at odd angles can only carry a weak story so far. (Signs as a prime example of this.)


Wait until they break it down into shades of blue, and nose width to determine even more.

Cameron has announced a sequel is now in the works.

With this much cash flowing in, who wouldn't? Would've been hard to make a sequel to Titanic, though...

Nah easy peazy. I have a plot for it and everything.

The Titanic was the middle child of 3 sister ships. The Olympic and Britannic, which itself sank in the Mediterranean four years after the Titanic. Originally thought to have been sunk by a U-boat they fairly recently found that it was a floating mine due to the explosion at the bow, not on the side.

Out of over 1000 people only 30 lost their lives, mostly due to retrofitted changes that occurred specifically from the Titanic disaster. Its sad that we seem to be more often reactive than proactive to the world at large.

I would like to change my position and say that it would be easy to create a sequel to Titanic.

How do you think the sequel should go? This is Cameron, so a sequel is likely at least 4 years away. I hope that he makes it farther into the future with no original cast members left.

[I think it would be easy for the humans to kill them all off. Burn the planet with napalm or create a bio-weapon that will wipe them out. They really have no chance unless they took measures immediately for an upcoming attack. 6 years back to Earth, time to organize a plan and 6 years back to Pandora. At least 15 years should have passed unless there is another ship in transport to the planet we don’t know about.]

(Dammit! I should stop thinking about other people’s movies and start thinking about my own.)

Haven't seen the first one yet! WIll wait for it to come out on satellite TV later this year. Seeing Up! with the bad-fitting 3D goggles was enough for one year.

Actually, I only saw Titanic for the first time last year (I tend to be a year or two out of sync with movies/TV shows anyways; they come out late in Japan).

The vatican has now come out ( ) against the movie...

It has reached must see level.

I saw it in IMAX 3D.

It's very similar to many other Cameron movies:
- sci-fi underpinnings
- interesting and somewhat imaginative concepts
- great visuals
- hopelessly stupid, unengaging plot

I would recommend seeing it in IMAX 3D, since the best part of the movie are the visuals. Forget the downsides: the amazing graphics are worth the cost of admission.

Finally saw it this last weekend in 3D. It's easily one of the top 10 Science Fiction films of all time! Yes it was basically " Dances With Wolves " but I didn't care. It was a wonderful experience and portrayed humans sadly enough just like I'd expect them to act.

I'm really glad they have this technology now because that means when " John Carter of Mars " ( in the works in case you haven't heard ) gets made it'll be that much better.

I've also heard that Avatar is one of a trilogy ( just read this in a interview with Cameron ) so there's more of the story to come ( which makes it different from DWW ). This time however it won't take so long to come to fruition now that they've done it all once and the technique has been perfected.

Can't wait!

As science fiction goes it falls pretty flat. The story is a pedantic retread. The cartoonish characters didn't help. By that I mostly mean the human ones. It even had a montage.

Compare it to 2001, Blade Runner, Close Encounters, Enemy Mine, Dark City or even the new BSG and Avatar come far behind those.

— Avatar hit #1 again this weekend. I’m surprised it bested Book of Eli by such a large margin. I really enjoyed Book of Eli. Even with the flaws the storyline was much more engaging than Avatar.

— Avatar took it’s 5th consecutive #1 weekend. Titanic had 14 consecutive weekends at #1 but ET has the most with 15, though not consecutive.

— Avatar took #2 place by making $450M domestic gross in 28 days. It took The Dark Knight one days less at 27 days. Titanic took 81 days. No other film has made that much domestically.

— The Dark Knight won’t keep it’s record of $500M domestic gross in 45 days. Avatar is only $8M from $500M domestic gross after just 31 days. By Tuesday, only 33 days, it should beat The Dark Knight record by nearly two weeks pushing it to #2 and Titanic to #3 with its 98 days record to $500M. There are no other films in this category.
[edit: Did it on Monday in 32 days.]


— Finally, Avatar is less than $200M from besting Titanic’s 11 year record of $1.8 Billion worldwide. Note that Avatar is only in its 5th week, while it took Titanic 10.5 months to achieve its longstanding record. It’s looking good for Avatar to also beat Titanic’s $600M record and to be the first film to reach $2 Billion worldwide.

PS: If we go by ticket saes by units, not dollar value, the story becomes very different, but we don’t have those stats at hand.

Then you've seen it right?

Because it's really about the experience. It's every SF book I've read that involved other planets and cultures portrayed on the screen. If it were more realistic I'm sure the Naivie ( don't know about the spelling ) would be less human but being humanoid makes us more sympathetic to them. So you've seen it right? Did you see it in 3D? Because that's really the way to see this movie.

Yea wiz bang golly 3D wowsers. I just don't think the technology pissing contest can vault a movie to the all time 10 ten sci fi. Pull away the 3D and the CGI and does this movie hold up? Not at all. Have you seen Dark City? Even Donnie Darko is better. I'd put Contact ahead of it. Avatar is mostly eye candy. It's the wet t-shirt contest of sci fi.

The movie makes maybe one comment on humanity and an well worn one at that.

Have you seen Avatar in 3D?

Avatar will change the way movies are made in a fundimental manner by simply being able to make CGI characters believable and 3D an art in itself. Think of the uses!

Yes I've seen Dark City. It's a fine movie. I like Contact also but on a bigger level Avatar has done something they didn't. That is put you into an alien world ( just like the ones you used to imagine when you read a book ) and with 3D add a dimension of reality that 2D doesn't have ( actually more detail ). The story wasn't bad it was just derivative. The whole experience is the thing. As a matter of fact I'll make a prediction. 3D plus HD will now make a bigger impact in the way we watch tv at home than either one would have by themselves.

Besides now they can make John Carter of Mars, Elric, Nine Princes in Amber, and just about any other great novel I've read into a motion picture without it looking cheesy.

So have you seen Avatar in 3D? Because if you haven't you haven't seen the full potential of this movie. I was prepared not to be as impressed as I was. I was blown away. Even though the story is familure the way it's portrayed makes you feel for the characters and get excited about the story. And it's a trilogy so it's even more interesting. Given that aspect it could turn out that Avatar has more to it than it appears.

Citing SF greats is all very well but the intent was to be this generations Star Wars. A pretty hefty goal even for someone like Cameron.

Star Wars didn't exactly have the most complex of plots either. Star Wars and Avatar are so far removed from a movie like Dark City or Blade Runner they might as well be in a different genre. If you make direct comparisons you've kinda missed the point.

Here's is an interesting comparison tho'...

Originally film made with constraints:

Lucas: Star Wars
Cameron: The Terminator

Absolute creative control of a film with almost no constraints:

Lucas: Phantom Menace
Cameron: Avatar

In comparison to Phantom Menace the winner is Avatar. This is a hilarious and poignant review of Phantom Menace.

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=FxKtZmQgxrI

So for you Avatar is great movie because it demo'ed some emergent technology that other maybe better movies could use. And that puts it in the top 10? I think a digital short would have sufficed.

Hi friends
I watched titanic and then this. They are both completely amazing, stick your face into the tv screen movies. Even that is a understatement.This movie is the best i think i will ever see, i get butterflies
The end makes me think MAKE A SECOND ONE ! SECOND ONE!!
And oh gosh. absolutely love it and when i get the dvd. Ill buy 6 and i will keep them all safe. Never lose them, scratch them. If i do ill burn them! i am keeping this bloody movie forever. i am trying to form it into words but i just cant!
James Cameron.The best man in the world,
Producing 2 BEST EVER movies in the whole bloody world.Titanic & Avatar.

I want to know why Trudy, DESERTER DURING BATTLE, was not also imprisoned? That made no fucking sense! Plot holes usually don't bother me, but it was just so glaring.....

Because it wasn't a military operation. The military types were all ex-military, now working as civilian corporate security contractors. Kind of a Blackwater run amok.

So what if it wasn't military? How is that at all relevant? They imprisoned the other native sympathizers, and she clearly was one of them. Again, she deserted in battle, and apparently suffers no consequences!

So you have seen it in 3D right? You weren't clear on that point.

Its pretty simple. One group actively hindered the companies ability to function, even destroying property while the other simply decided not to participate in the one activity. If it was known that she didnt firs on the tree then she might have been written up or put on some crap assignment, but I doubt it as it was clear many didnt care for what they were doing and those hard ex-military types might have looked at her differently in that case because she is a girl. Whatever reasoning you want to give to it, the only one that doesnt make sense is to imprison her for not blowing up a tree.

Why? It was a major operation, and she directly defied orders. It makes perfect sense that she would be dealt with severely, especially given the fact that the ex-marine (whatever the heck his name was) had emasculated the ostensible leader and had complete control of the operation. No apparent punishment, and allowing access to sympathizers with whom she was known to be friendly is what makes no sense.

I mean, she still apparently had easy access to flight equipment! The whole scene was incredibly lazily, and incredibly poorly done. It was a 2.5 hour movie. Another couple minutes for that scene to make a lick of sense wouldn't have hurt.

Oh, and one more thing: why do you trivialize "blowing up a tree?" I hate to break it to you, but whether or not to "blow up the tree", how to blow up the tree, and how long to try to negotiate before blowing up the tree was kind of a big plot point.

I hate to jump into a perfectly good argument, but some people mentioned not seeing this in 3-D... and someone mentioned not even being in a movie theater in years...

Well, I urge you to check out 3-D now. It IS NOT anything like the 3-D movies of a couple decades ago, or even a few years ago -- there is not distortion, or blurriness. It's amazing to witness the technology now. I remember going to see Jaws 3-D, or Friday the 13th 3-D in theaters, and it was crap. (yes, I'm old).

This ends my public service announcement... carry on...

<facepalm> And people wonder why so many have so little hope for humanity.

So she should be arrested for not doing a civilian job that was not part of her regular duties as a pilot? Yet, we see Jack Sully DESTROY corporate property by knocking out the cameras on the dozer and then see him in the corporate command center along with Grace arguing their point, not held up in a cell or in cuffs. Later the guy in charge, played by Giovanni Ribisi, lets them back into the Avatar to attempt to plead with them.

On top of that, Parker, the boss, had to be convinced by ex-Colonel Miles Quaritch to give the corporate go ahead to destroy Home Tree which he was reluctant to do and which visually saddened many as a result.

Finally, one of the first thing Jack Sully states when getting off the transport is that these were ex-military working for a corporation as protection.

So, again, what part of any of that is a deserting your post during wartime. The answer: None of it! Would she have gotten written up, fired, put on some crap detail or had her pay docked in accordance with her corporate contract, sure. We dont even know if her character was originally military, just that she was a pilot. Michelle Rodriguez always plays the same character so she could have been a surfer, street racing groupie or cop stuck on a mysterious island in a past life.

In a word, Yes. It was not a 'civilian' job in any normal sense. Sully et al. were not in some typical prison. There was no government present! Only the corporation. Thus, the corporation is the de facto government and ONLY source of authority. This seems to be our fundamental disconnect.


Once Parker gave Quaritch the go ahead, he was in charge of the whole she-bang. We don't even see Parker after that. It was deserting a post during wartime because Quaritch had control, and a war is what Quaritch treated it as. There is no way in hell a control freak like that would have let Trudy run around free. She would have been in the brig just like Sully et al, scheduled on the next ship for Earth.

Trudy was ex-military. It was discussed in her very first scene.

Again, it was a lazily and poorly done scene that made no sense at all.

So if the corporation is in control then you shouldnt assume that she should be imprisoned for not doing a job that she wasnt employed to do and that even Parker was reluctant to give the go ahead to do. Youre still focusing on this being a military operation with Quartich as the supreme commander.


Sure we do.


There was no wartime. This is a corporation move to mine. Quartichs feeling on the matter doesnt make it a military wartime operation. Its still a corporation working overseas.


If you say she was ex-military I believe you, I just dont recall it being stated, though it does seem likely. The point is, she is not in the military any longer. She signed up to be a pilot and protect the humans, not commit to destroy the indigenous people. Since Quartich was not in charge of the corporations Pandora operations they could have overlooked the whole thing since it was well beyond her duties as a pilot or, as I stated, she could have been reprimanded in other ways, the least of which is to get arrested for not involving herself in xenocide.

You are ignoring the biggest flaw in the flim, and that is the method of the 2nd attack. They came in low, and even sent in ground troops when they outnumbered the Navi and even had a ship that could fly out of the atmosphere where the Navi coud not reach firing a missle directly down to the area or releasing the bomb from a slightly higher altitude or simply attacking from multiple angles, not an overhead straight-line from the ground and air.