Thoughts from a latecomer (a.k.a., F you, Cameron)

[Tyyr]

Because people still go and buy it so it becomes the most grossing movie of all time (yet), you dumbass.

Ultimately, those who shell out the f***ing money only care about that! Who the f**k cares about a consistent world when people still come and buy on an epic sale a story well told filled with plot hole!

Which has nothing to do with what you hope a movie will be. Can you even stay on your OWN point? Personally I'll hope for a story that isn't full of huge gaping holes.

I didn't say the f***ing story is well written, I say it's well told. Meaning you clearly identify your protagonists, you bait, hook and sink the audience with cheesy emotional plots. You create bi-dimensional villains your audience are going to hate to the end of time.

Writing a story and telling a story are the same thing. You can't tell a story well that's absolute shit. What you're describing isn't a well told story, you're describing the bare minimum requirements of a story. Just because you check a few items off the list doesn't mean you've told a story well, it means you're a lazy hack. Avatar would have made a shitty Enterprise episode.

This is why Serenity tanked at the box-office and Avatar became the highest grossing movie of all time, so suck it weakling. If you can't stand that hard cold truth, stop watching pop movies, they'll just depress you more.

"Suck it weakling?" Really?

Serenity tanked because the only people who thought Firefly was great were the browncoats.

All of which has zero to do with what you hope movies will be.

[Mikey]

Here's the issue: there is a niche - and an excuse - for movies that have zero plot, bad writing, etc., etc.; but are amazing action-porn. There is likewise a place for movies that look bad but have great stories/writing/performance. This film had neither. As I mentioned in the OP, I could have excused the lack of plot and the hackneyed theme, because I was already expecting that - the problem I had is that this film didn't have any of the other things to mitigate that, yet has been awarded and touted as the greatest film in the history of ever.

In other words, if Cameron was going to sacrifice the plot but have a great-looking film a/o a well-designed sci-fi milieu, then fine; instead, he sacrificed the plot but we got dressed-up Blackhawk choppers and Riley's dock-loader exoskeleton. SW gave us the Rancor; Avatar gave us... a pack of (space) hyenas, a herd of (space) rhinoceroses, a (space) lion, and two different types of (space) pterosaurs.

Let's see... well, if we're going to have combat exoskeletons, they'll be kick-ass and science-y, right? Well, no, in fact they'll just carry big rifles and a overgrown Ka-Bar. Also, their cockpit glass will be combat-proven enough to... be punctured by an aboriginal recurved bow - an all wooden bow, not even a composite one.

But, at least the flying machines will have advanced instrumentation... well, no, it can be defeated by fog and tricks of the Van Allen Belt.

But, at least the humans' weaponry will be all science-y... well, no, we've got bullet-and-cartridge SMG's and battle rifles; flamethrowers; and a pallet of TNT with a hand-primed fuse to serve as a daisycutter.

Well, at least if the plot is bad the performances and characters will be OK... well, no, we have the most cookie-cutter Jungian archetypes humanly imaginable, compelte with dialogue that might have been got from a vending machine.

I guess in the final analysis, what I'm trying to say is this: bad movies happen all the time - but why was this one billed as the greatest human opus in the history of literature?

BTW, Solka - did you really just say that at least one can hope for a well-told story that's full of plot holes? In other words, you're hoping for a well-told story - even if it isn't well-told? Riiiiiiiiight.

[SolkaTruesilver]

BTW, Solka - did you really just say that at least one can hope for a well-told story that's full of plot holes? In other words, you're hoping for a well-told story - even if it isn't well-told? Riiiiiiiiight.

My god, do you know anything about the creative process?

There is the storyboard/writing process, and there is the editin/production process. One writes the story, the other says it.

One concerns itself with the plot. It's quality, the plot holes, if it "make sense"
The other concerns itself with the music, the camera angle, the special effect and the theme each camera shot should be presented.

Why do you need to present a rich story about why the Na'vi's plight is horrible when you can pull the same level of emotion by having dramatic music and close-up shots of battered innocent savages instead? One of the key importance of show-business is "Show, don't tell". Well, Cameron didn't cared much about the storyboard, 'cause he wanted mostly to conquer the audience through an outright amazing directing work, and he did. The box office numbers don't lie: people loved that movie even if it's riddled with more plot holes than "These are the Voyages...'

The only people who actually are disgruntled at this movie is (sorry to say) those who think too much about it.

I genuinely love well written plots, and I enjoy them fully while analysing them thereafter. But I don't think the future financiers of Cameron are going to be caring much about the quality of the story written, and will focus on making sure he directs it to the best of the capacity.

Let's cry, people. Cameron proved us how far and influential you might become in this business with a shitty story but good directing.

[Captain Seafort]

*sigh*

Ultimately, the people who shell out money to have the movie produced want a movie in return, not a constistently-built universe. Plot holes are a common ennough occurence in medias that it's just not that much of a weakness to worry about.

So if you want to have big budget movies, don't hold your breath for something overly self-consistant, and hope instead for at least a well told story with plot holes.

How in Christ's fucking hell are you going to get a well-told story with plot holes? The two are mutually exclusive, because a fundamental part of a well-told story is the requirement that events flow from one to the next, and do not leave people thinking "how the fuck did that happen?" "why didn't he do x, y, z, as he did before?" If events occur simply because the plot demands it, rather than because they are a logical outcome from previously depicted events, then you are watching shitty writing.

Because people still go and buy it so it becomes the most grossing movie of all time (yet), you dumbass.

Ultimately, those who shell out the f***ing money only care about that! Who the f**k cares about a consistent world when people still come and buy on an epic sale a story well told filled with plot hole!

This is utterly irrelevant to the question of whether the movie is good or not - it simply demonstrates that people will waste money on shit.

I didn't say the f***ing story is well written, I say it's well told. Meaning you clearly identify your protagonists, you bait, hook and sink the audience with cheesy emotional plots. You create bi-dimensional villains your audience are going to hate to the end of time.

You also, if you are competent, ensure that events follow logically from previous events.

If you can't make your f***ing point in the actual thread where it's concerned, don't come on the other side of the forum to keep your s**t up. 2,7B$ of grossing income say you just put your foot into your mouth up to your ass. Piss off if you don't have anything else to say.

You were a fucking idiot it that thread by diving into a subject to knew little about and you're being a fucking idiot in this thread. Piss off yourself.

Why do you need to present a rich story about why the Na'vi's plight is horrible when you can pull the same level of emotion by having dramatic music and close-up shots of battered innocent savages instead? One of the key importance of show-business is "Show, don't tell". Well, Cameron didn't cared much about the storyboard, 'cause he wanted mostly to conquer the audience through an outright amazing directing work, and he did. The box office numbers don't lie: people loved that movie even if it's riddled with more plot holes than "These are the Voyages...'

This merely means that the film is good eye candy. If that's what you meant you should have fucking said it, instead of going off on the idiotic and frankly irrelevant tangent of claiming that the story was well told, when it quite clearly was not.

[Mikey]

My god, do you know anything about the creative process?

IDK what "your god" has to do with anything, but yes I do. If I didn't, this film wouldn't bother me so much.

One concerns itself with the plot. It's quality, the plot holes, if it "make sense"
The other concerns itself with the music, the camera angle, the special effect and the theme each camera shot should be presented.

The fact that you can boil the creative process down to the statements above tells me that you know very little about the creative process. However, I can certainly tell you this: the production of a movie uses production elements in order to tell the story, which will be bad if it is written badly no matter how many pretty camera angles one uses.

Why do you need to present a rich story about why the Na'vi's plight is horrible when you can pull the same level of emotion by having dramatic music and close-up shots of battered innocent savages instead?

That's the thing - you can't.

'cause he wanted mostly to conquer the audience through an outright amazing directing work, and he did.

Unfortunately, he achieved an audience through mediocre directing work and the snowball effect of sheep mentality.

The only people who actually are disgruntled at this movie is (sorry to say) those who think too much about it.

You mean, "... think at all." If you can force yourself to accept crap without thinking about it, then good for you. Why should I force myself to accept something without thinking critically?

The box office numbers don't lie: people loved that movie even if it's riddled with more plot holes than "These are the Voyages...'

Exactly my point: why was such a cobbled-together pile of shit so successful? Well, Solka, you inadvertently answered my question - because millions of people like you are willing to pay for a product that they are told to like and are willing to suspend their higher brain function in order to accede to what they are told.

[Mikey]

OK, that might have been unclear, so let me put it this way:

The only thing that a big box office take proves is that many people saw the film. To take the box office receipts as evidence of quality is both idiotic as well as the resort of someone who cannot defend the film. I will state the premise of my argument more clearly:

This movie was not good.

[SolkaTruesilver]

Exactly my point: why was such a cobbled-together pile of s**t so successful? Well, Solka, you inadvertently answered my question - because millions of people like you are willing to pay for a product that they are told to like and are willing to suspend their higher brain function in order to accede to what they are told.

And how exactly, from my posts, have you come to the conclusion that I, personnaly, enjoyed this movie?

I simply tried to make your thick head understands why the people who owns the kind of money necessary for big budget won't really care about lack of plot hole. You people don't seem to understand something: it's all about the money, not the quality. Sometimes quality brings in the money (I dare to present as evidence the most recent Batman film), sometimes it doesn't (Watchmen).

So, the next time Warner Brothers are comparing movie proposals to sign a 350M$ check, what are they going to favor? The moviewriter who claims he has created a very strong plot with consistant characters and a world that makes sense, or James Cameron who promise more eye-candies, emotions and Big Fucking Music?

I think it's a "no contest". They go for the safe (and stupid), but pretty. They'd rather go for the cover of the book than its content (explains why Da Vinci code sold so well, when I think of it).

The fact that you can boil the creative process down to the statements above tells me that you know very little about the creative process. However, I can certainly tell you this: the production of a movie uses production elements in order to tell the story, which will be bad if it is written badly no matter how many pretty camera angles one uses.

And here's come the shocker: NO ONE SEEMS TO CARE IF THE STORY IS BAD, AS LONG AS IT'S WELL PRESENTED. How many times do I have to repeat that? People still go and buy it, no matter how many plot hole you go. Christ, Independance Day was a commecial success, wasn't it?! Do I need to hammer the fucking point any more?

Why do you need to present a rich story about why the Na'vi's plight is horrible when you can pull the same level of emotion by having dramatic music and close-up shots of battered innocent savages instead?

That's the thing - you can't.

Seems like the people in the theater I was in really were in for the Na'Vi during the Home Tree destruction. Personnaly, I was laughing at the heaviest cheese I ever saw of my life, but my fellow audience really were in this story, because James Cameron happens to be that talented. He draws people in his story even if the story is crap.

How in Christ's f***ing hell are you going to get a well-told story with plot holes? The two are mutually exclusive, because a fundamental part of a well-told story is the requirement that events flow from one to the next, and do not leave people thinking "how the f**k did that happen?" "why didn't he do x, y, z, as he did before?" If events occur simply because the plot demands it, rather than because they are a logical outcome from previously depicted events, then you are watching shitty writing

Refer to the "think too much about it" (which genuinely can mean "at all", good point Mikey). People happen to like the story they saw, and if they don't stop to think about it, they had a pretty good experience out of it and don't feel cheated of their money.

I think you have weird standards of evaluating what is important in storytelling. There'd be 2 parts: the story, and the telling. Seems we are proven time and again that the telling is sometime more important than the story.

YES, this movie was shitty writing. But it was shitty writing presented with good directing flair. Case in point: You can enjoy that movie if you don't think about it. If you can enjoy the movie, there is something done right someplace. I agree that for some movie, the story is an essential component to the full enjoyment of what is presented before us ("Inception"), but that just wasn't the case with Avatar. It's not like they even TRIED to have a good story, and that's what I find all the more hilarious when I see you fella getting enraged over it's poor writing.

You expect a perfectly good Hot Dog to be as good as rich in quality Rostbratwurst, even if no one tried to make it appear as a German sausage. It was commercialised as a simple Hot Dog that you consume and don't think about it during or after, and yet you complained that there wasn't more. If you wanted story quality, and just can't enjoy anything without, you shouldn't have went to see Avatar*.

(*But then again, you probably are raging over many Trek film already)

[SolkaTruesilver]

OK, that might have been unclear, so let me put it this way:

The only thing that a big box office take proves is that many people saw the film. To take the box office receipts as evidence of quality is both idiotic as well as the resort of someone who cannot defend the film. I will state the premise of my argument more clearly:

This movie was not good.

"Being good" is irrelevant to what is important to those who finance the movie. The question is: DID IT GIVE ME MONEY. The answer is "Yes". Mission accomplished. I can't say I can argue about "the movie was good" or "the movie wasn't good", as it's (surprise!) a matter of TASTE, which is entirely subjective to the people's preference AND what they expect to see in a movie. Low expectation = further enjoyment.

But record-breaking selling is telling that people 1) Saw the movie a lot and 2) Either went to see it again or told their family/friends to see it. Mouth-to-ear recommendation is what you need to reach the recordbreaking level of box-office income, and it did. This isn't just a simple movie that was overhyped by publicity and happened to sell well on the first week (*cough* Episode 1 *cough*) and then slowed down (I know Episode 1 is one of the most grossing film, but it kinda shattered Titanic's record for the 1st week, but never managed to reach it in term of overall grossing income, which means there was a definite slowdown in moviegoing).

Albeit I guess any argument using Titanic is by default weak. Darn.

Just for the record: I quickly realised that I wouldn't be enjoying the 15$ spent on Avatar if I didn't switch my brain of, so I did and tried to not regret the money spent there. I just don't get that fulfillment over lost money bitterness.

[Captain Seafort]

"Being good" is irrelevant to what is important to those who finance the movie. The question is: DID IT GIVE ME MONEY. The answer is "Yes". Mission accomplished. I can't say I can argue about "the movie was good" or "the movie wasn't good", as it's (surprise!) a matter of TASTE, which is entirely subjective to the people's preference AND what they expect to see in a movie. Low expectation = further enjoyment.

But record-breaking selling is telling that people 1) Saw the movie a lot and 2) Either went to see it again or told their family/friends to see it. Mouth-to-ear recommendation is what you need to reach the recordbreaking level of box-office income, and it did. This isn't just a simple movie that was overhyped by publicity and happened to sell well on the first week (*cough* Episode 1 *cough*) and then slowed down (I know Episode 1 is one of the most grossing film, but it kinda shattered Titanic's record for the 1st week, but never managed to reach it in term of overall grossing income, which means there was a definite slowdown in moviegoing).

So what? Since you obviously didn't read the OP, let me summarise it for you: the movie was shit. Not "the movie was unsuccessful", not "the movie made a pittance", not "the movie's financiers are unlikely to be happy with it". The movie was shit. You can waffle on about how much money it made until the cows come home, it doesn't improve the quality one iota.

[Mikey]

Thanks, Seafort - at least one person involved here has actually read the posts to which they are allegedly "responding." I fucking know the movie was successful, that's the whole point to my initial rant.

Solka - I'd rather assume that you either didn't read the OP or that you just don't get it, rather than assume that you either: a) are acting like a fucktard, or; b) are a fucktard. So, let me boil it down in two ways:

1) Avatar was not good - either as far as plot and theme, which things I specifically excluded from my OP because I knew what I was getting when I turned on the movie; or as far as all the other stuff - production design, immersion in a SF milieu, writing and backstory, etc., etc. My OP pointed to the dichotomy of this mediocre movie having such phenomenal fiscal success.

2) More germane to our ongoing discussion - why would you be defending any sort of plot holes or story issues, when I specifically excluded such things from my gunsights and stated at least three times that I wouldn't attack Avatar on those counts because I already expected a shallow, derivative, and hackneyed plot and theme. Unfortunately I wasn't disappointed; but the point is that all the indictments of the movie which I mentioned were not based on any sort of storytelling or plot-based elements.

[Tyyr]

And here's the thing, spectacle and a tight story aren't mutually exclusive. You can have the huge grandiose effects and music and still have a well written plot. In fact compared to the FX budget the cost of getting a well written script would be a pittance. The FX team probably blew more on donuts and mountain dew than it would cost you to hire a real writer to give you a script worth shooting.

[RK_Striker_JK_5]

My basic point is: Should filmmakers do the research first and construct a decent universe and story seting before taking on the story? If they would, there would be fewer plotholes and it is more atusfying to watch a film or experience a story without having such mistakes bugging the beholder's experience and make for more consistent storytelling.

No.

Ultimately, the people who shell out money to have the movie produced want a movie in return, not a constistently-built universe. Plot holes are a common ennough occurence in medias that it's just not that much of a weakness to worry about.

No, I want a consistent story. Dumbass.

[stitch626]

Sometimes I want a stupid movie (when its for free... ). I get to have fun pointing out the holes and stupidity.

But if I pay for it, I want something that is either gonna make me think, or at the very least engage me.

[Mikey]

It's a damned good thing I didn't have to pay to see this one.

[Tsukiyumi]

And neither will I, either tomorrow or Wednesday.