Avatar, Has Sci-fi Found Its Heaven's Gate? 443
brumgrunt writes "Den Of Geek wonders if James Cameron's Avatar is heading for a fall, and if it will even be a science fiction film, off the back of the previews shown last week. It writes: 'It seems in Avatar that all this gee-whiz science is merely there to draw the "old crowd" in and provide some kind of rationale for a brightly-coloured fantasy-world which reflects the most emetic of the artwork plastered over teenage girls' MySpace pages.'"
Based off the director's own words... (Score:5, Interesting)
The first hit I got was "James Cameron: Yes, 'Avatar' is 'Dances with Wolves' in space
At this point, it would have to be really damn good for me to see it. I don't need blue aliens telling me how bad White Manifest Destiney was in the United States. But I definitely don't need the overtones of insert-enlightened-human-here going in and saving the tribe^H^H^H^H^H by becoming it's leader, which is what the director was talking about.
Just say'n.
!aang, eh? (Score:2, Interesting)
I'm more excited about the Last Airbender, to be perfectly honest, so "Avatar" in the thread title always gets me...
I think people should stop nit-picking about Avatar being science fiction... yes, it is science fiction.
Re:All the whiners have is a teaser trailer (Score:3, Interesting)
I saw the trailer (not the full preview, just the trailer), and I was not impressed by the animation. The way the lion-like thing moves is completely unnatural and it looks like it's made from plastic. The movements of the blue people was also off at various points. At several points I guess they got stuck in the uncanny valley.
If it were a game, I'd say it had great graphics. But as a film it was just not convincing to me.
Re:All the whiners have is a teaser trailer (Score:2, Interesting)
Yes. We judge movies by their trailers. Directors and producers want us to. It's the trailer that gets people to buy the ticket.
When was the last time a theater gave you a refund because a movie was shitty?
It's not the fanboys who are declaring fail.
It's the people who actually like science fiction, and were fucking sick of hearing about AVATAR. Now we see that it's really a piece of shit. We have the fucking right to mock and taunt, because we've put up with shitty hype for ages.
The trailer got people talking.
But there is such a thing as bad publicity - people are talking about furries.
Re:Based off the director's own words... (Score:3, Interesting)
What's awful is it totally misses what made Dances with Wolves not suck, and it went right for a whole load of imperialistic garbage. The dialog would have to be really ****ing good to make up for "white-guy-proxy is now king-of-the-tribe and will lead the natives to salvation." And that's ignoring the whole "Furries gone mainstream" thing.
District 9 (Score:3, Interesting)
I was going to say this, but of course you beat me to it. District 9 is one of the most legitimate serious science fiction / extrapolative fiction movies I've seen in a long, long time - things you usually only get in books. A limited number of fantastical assumptions, and then the exploration of the very rational ramifications of those assumptions.
And it was made on a relative shoestring, and the effects are perfect -- and the acting is amazing. But if you're expecting a 100% crazy action/effects movie, District 9 isn't it. (Neither is Inglorious Bastards, which is also awesome)
Simplistic messages. (Score:5, Interesting)
While I'm very interested in watching the movie, at this point Avatar looks like it's going to feature the same old contrived storyline featured in sci-fi over the last decade: humanity and industrialization are evil and nature and those connected to it are good. There's been this tendency to depict humans are awful, uncaring monsters.
It's reminiscent of District 9 where humans and the multinational corporation central to the story were so over-the-top evil it was almost comical. I will add that I did very much enjoy District 9 as far as favorite sci-fi movies go for me it's near the top of the list. I can appreciate the point of the message and liked the impact, but I would have preferred it to not be so simplistic in it's worldview. There are multiple sides to every story and I'm fairly certain that in this day and age there would be a lot of outrage to see extraterrestrials being treated this way.
Basically, my point is while I do think we need to be reminded of the problems of the world I would prefer movies sophisticated in it's presentation. Sometimes I feel like these people in Hollywood are conflicted about the lavish lifestyles they enjoy and are trying to foist their guilt trips on us.
Re:Puhlease! (Score:3, Interesting)
Re:Based off the director's own words... (Score:2, Interesting)
Interestingly, Dances with Wolves was, for a time, nicknamed "Kevin's Gate" as people thought it was going to bomb like Heaven's Gate.
I'm going to give James Cameron a go on this one. The guy has an amazing track record, and dipped out on films like T3 because he just didn't see a story that could be told.
Re:All the whiners have is a teaser trailer (Score:3, Interesting)
It's the trailer that gets people to buy the ticket, but it's humanly impossible to judge a movie by its trailer. Trailers are made to be as generic as possible to appeal to the broadest possible audience and sell the most tickets. All trailers are made up of the same basic elements to make as many people want to see the movie as possible. There's the vet in a wheel-chair to appeal to the fans of the overcoming-adversity genre. There is the sci-fi aspects of the film to hook the sci-fi fans. There were the adrenaline-spewing fight sequenses to draw in the action movie fans. And finally there were the hints of romance so that fanboys who drag their reluctant girlfriends along can point and say "But look, there's also a love story in it!"
Also, I think it's fair to say that most directors would rather you judge their movies based on the entirety of the movie that they put so much time and effort into, not the two-and-a-half minute commercial that got cut together out of their work by the marketing department.
Re:District 9 - rebuttal / "wow you're wrong" (Score:2, Interesting)
Wow, you're amazingly not good at following plot points. Maybe there are holes in the plot, but they sure aren't the ones you listed.
As much as I want to rebut everything in great detail, it turns out I don't care quite enough. So a few... and I'll endeavor not to add any spoilers you didn't already give, and I'm dekarmaing this post to help.
6. Worker Prawns lack initiative. Definitely said early in the movie.
5. is because of 6.
3. If you PROCESS some material/chemical, it probably has different effects/uses than it had before you processed it. Otherwise why would you process it? Did you miss that whole bit of the movie?
2/3. That part about "powering the command module" - you made that up. At no point is powering a command module ever anything any characters are aspiring to. In the interest of avoiding spoilers, I'll leave it to you to figure out which part of those 4 words you might've gotten wrong.
Re:Heaven's Gate? (Score:4, Interesting)
How about a reference to Howard Hughes and "The Conqueror" to really go back a while and screw people up.
Not only was it expensive, hated by critics, and nose dived at the box office, many people who worked on it died years later because they filmed it upwind of the Nevada nuclear test site.
Re:Puhlease! (Score:4, Interesting)
Cell phones in shanty towns do exist now. In fact, there is a company in Kenya marketing ones that can be recharged by solar power. And even in the third world, EVERYONE has bad ass cell phones. Maybe not shoes, running water or electricity, but they have that.
And they do prefer animals for precisely that reason; gas is expensive, grass is everywhere.
Sometimes, weird developments actually occur in the real world, so why not in imaginary one?
Re:Story? (Score:1, Interesting)
I seem to remember some cynics arguing the same things with Titanic. Too much money... and would be a box office flop. We all know how well that theory turned out. I don't know if Avatar will be the blockbuster Titanic and Terminator was but one equation I'm certain of.
James Cameron + a load of cash to make a movie = an entertaining 2 hours that I'm willing to plonk down 10 bucks to see in a theater
You've lost me, Jim (Score:2, Interesting)
Re:Story? (Score:1, Interesting)
Not to say people didn't try [wikipedia.org].