"Avatar" the Movie

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[RED]

I now know what it is like to drop acid with supermodels, while reading "dances with wolves".:freaky:

[Ron Tisdale]

Hmmm....I take it that wasn't your favorite movie then? :O
Best,
Ron

[Kent Enfield]

A review at The Guardian's site described it as "a Yes album cover brought to life".

[RED]

Hmmm....I take it that wasn't your favorite movie then? :O
Best,
Ron

Nah, actually I loved it. :cool:

Nothing better than a touching love story to me ... especially if that love story involves explosions :D

[Keith Larman]

Not usually the type of movie I would like, but the wife and I had a chance to catch a grown up movie today (which is a rarity) so we caught Avatar in IMAX and 3D. Good lord that was a gorgeous ride. Not exactly Citizen Kane, but... Truly an amazing visual experience. More of an experience than deep story, but they tried. Well worth the ticket price just to see the thing in IMAX.

[George S. Ledyard]

I absolutely loved it. A sort of Eco Dances with Wolves, but stunning. I was blown away by how beautiful it was. What creativity!

[bob_stra]

I like it better when it was called "Sentenced to Prism"

The 3D was fun though :hypno:

[Ron Tisdale]

Cool....Myriam and I going to try to catch it in IMAX....

Best,
Ron

[lbb]

If I can't get to see it in IMAX, is it still worth going to?

[C. David Henderson]

This film rocks. I didn't see it in IMAX, but in 3-D; recommend 3-D highly, but I'm sure I'd enjoy it on a regular screen and I'm probably going to watch it on TV when the time comes...

There's an arc in adventure films and technology from Star Wars and Raiders of the Lost Arc, through Matrix and Lord of the Rings. You don't have to be Fellini to get this movie -- actually probably better not to be -- but it's a new step along that arc.

cdh

[George S. Ledyard]

This film rocks. I didn't see it in IMAX, but in 3-D; recommend 3-D highly, but I'm sure I'd enjoy it on a regular screen and I'm probably going to watch it on TV when the time comes...

There's an arc in adventure films and technology from Star Wars and Raiders of the Lost Arc, through Matrix and Lord of the Rings. You don't have to be Fellini to get this movie -- actually probably better not to be -- but it's a new step along that arc.

cdh

My whole family has now seen it. My wife LOVED it. My 25 year old daughter loved it. My high school age son was blown away as was my college age son (who has now seen it twice). I thought it was absolutely outstanding and intend to see it again.. So we've pretty much covered the male / female and young / old range here and it's unanimous that this is an awesome creation. Now, I have to say I have a lot of artistic folks in my family, so maybe we are not representative.

[ChrisHein]

I was hoping this was going to be about those cute kids with elemental powers bumming around trying to stop the evil fire lord.

[Adam Huss]

Its just a fun experience. So many movies are overly serious, depressing, and try too hard. This is a 'just right' action flick with a good enough story (or at least told well enough) to keep one interested for 2.5 hours. I am a little disappointed though, I thought I was clever for comparing it to Dances with Wolves, but I guess that's what everyone else did too! :0/

[RED]

If I can't get to see it in IMAX, is it still worth going to?

Yes, it is beautiful. I didn't see it in IMAX, and it was still a visual experience.

[RED]

I am a little disappointed though, I thought I was clever for comparing it to Dances with Wolves, but I guess that's what everyone else did too! :0/

No sir, that's also what South Park compared it to .:cool:

[Adam Huss]

Wow, didn't know South Park was still making new episodes.

[Adam Huss]

...you know, that actually reminds me of something. The first few years I was training, my little "peer group" and I would get all excited because we thought we came up with a new technique...but someone else would always be like "oh, that's such and such." Disappointment ensued.

[RED]

Wow, didn't know South Park was still making new episodes.

Yeah... and its sweet.:cool:

[Gerardo Torres]

I liked it a lot too. There's so much going on visually in Avatar that (if possible) it should be seen in IMAX 3D; it's similar in the way you can only fully appreciate Tati's Playtime or Kubrick's 2001 in 70mm format.

[JW]

[warning, thematic spoilers ahead.. no plot spoilers though]
[warning, very geeky]

I was going to write a review for aikiweb. I am surprised that no one mentioned anything about the content of the film, from an aikidoka perspective. I don't care too much about effects and all that but the movie actually has value thematically (btw I haven't read Sentenced to Prism but I bet James Cameron has).

Avatar is about musubi. The Na'vi call it zahelu and they have a specialized tissue in their bodies to accomplish it. Once they have acheived it, there is a mind/body link between individuals that allows them to function more as a unit than as 2 individuals. Doesn't this sound familiar?? I was like, "IT'S HYPER-DEVELOPED FASCIA!! IT'S AIKI!!" and my wife was like "shut up!!"

The idea is fleshed out more by lots of neat science fiction tricks. Ultimately the point is that this planet has such a higher density of life that there is a form of connection that has coevolved in multiple species, and this is how zahelu happens. The trees can do it too and ultimately the ideas that get talked about on earth as metaphors or fanciful interpretations are in fact a biological reality on that planet: the whole biosphere is a connected super-organism. Information is distributed.

The point of the film really was to explore the type of connection that can bind individuals, and bind them culturally to an environment. What are the boundaries of "self" when experiences and feelings can be culturally shared among individuals and between a people and a homeland? In this fictional world where that connection is made more "real" (from the POV of pig-headed imperialist humans) by making it a biological connection not just cultural, Cameron has intelligently treated the cultural relativism that can corrupt the interaction of different peoples. Like I said, it's about musubi!
OK geek time is over, good night!
--Jonathan Wong

[Alfonso]

[warning, thematic spoilers ahead.. no plot spoilers though]
[warning, very geeky]

I was going to write a review for aikiweb. I am surprised that no one mentioned anything about the content of the film, from an aikidoka perspective. I don't care too much about effects and all that but the movie actually has value thematically (btw I haven't read Sentenced to Prism but I bet James Cameron has).

Avatar is about musubi. The Na'vi call it zahelu and they have a specialized tissue in their bodies to accomplish it. Once they have acheived it, there is a mind/body link between individuals that allows them to function more as a unit than as 2 individuals. Doesn't this sound familiar?? I was like, "IT'S HYPER-DEVELOPED FASCIA!! IT'S AIKI!!" and my wife was like "shut up!!"

The idea is fleshed out more by lots of neat science fiction tricks. Ultimately the point is that this planet has such a higher density of life that there is a form of connection that has coevolved in multiple species, and this is how zahelu happens. The trees can do it too and ultimately the ideas that get talked about on earth as metaphors or fanciful interpretations are in fact a biological reality on that planet: the whole biosphere is a connected super-organism. Information is distributed.

The point of the film really was to explore the type of connection that can bind individuals, and bind them culturally to an environment. What are the boundaries of "self" when experiences and feelings can be culturally shared among individuals and between a people and a homeland? In this fictional world where that connection is made more "real" (from the POV of pig-headed imperialist humans) by making it a biological connection not just cultural, Cameron has intelligently treated the cultural relativism that can corrupt the interaction of different peoples. Like I said, it's about musubi!
OK geek time is over, good night!
--Jonathan Wong

I realized it was about internal strength towards the last half hour of the movie, had to go real bad... hold on tight!

[JW]

I realized it was about internal strength towards the last half hour of the movie, had to go real bad... hold on tight!
Ah ha, there is a similarity with "Dances with Wolves!" Keep that ki in your suit!

[MM]

Check this Pocahontas-Avatar theme:

http://img526.imageshack.us/img526/3867/poca2u.jpg

[Franklin Newby]

haha - awesome!

[Gerardo Torres]

The usage of a known classic storyline (i.e. Pocahontas) was most likely a marketing move to reach a broader audience with such a risky project. And the move proved profitable, since Avatar is already the second highest grossing movie of all time.

I love the movie because it provided me with the most engrossing audio-visual experience of being in an alien/exotic location I've ever had. That said, I personally thought that 75% of the whole "Pocahontas" storyline could've been dropped and resulted in a more focused movie.

The first third of the movie plays like a sci-fi travelogue, taking the POV of an explorer and the sense of discovery that is overwhelming (ironically it reminds me of T. Malick's eye for natural beauty in The New World). Then the blissful sense of discover takes a back seat and it shifts to the familiar plot and the archetypal characters: the chief, the warrior rival-then-friend, the shaman/whatever, the village "children", etc. It didn't need any of that all-too-familiar stuff, IMHO. Since Jake Sully's changeover comes mostly from his interaction with Neytiri (the only captivating native Na'vi character) and the pandoran natural world, that's all he needed as moral/emotional signposts to carry the character throughout the movie, the rest was just "filler"… a filler that knowing mainstream audiences and reviewers obsession with plot (and lack of appreciation of other cinematic elements like visual conceptualization) turned it into a huge liability for some (enough to dismiss the movie entirely). As a result, things that are actually original to Avatar were not further explored, or partially ignored: the amazing fact that avatar bodies render the protagonist in two places at once, the scientific approach to a "connected" natural world (Dr. Grace's discovery of synapses among trees) which goes beyond the native's religious/cultural views, the flesh vs. metal theme like in the way pandoran animals have breathing elements that resemble the turbine engines in the exosuit and aircraft, among other rich details.

[dalen7]

Wonder if it will be the same as when Ice-Age 3D came to our city... no 3D glasses were given! :eek:

- dAlen