Avatar [SPOILERS]

[stitch626]

When analyzing a movie, I ignore cliches and the like. Why? Because if it had been made before then it wouldn't be a cliche.

[Tyyr]

So that excuses laziness and a total lack of creativity on the part of the writers and directors? Seriously, if I tried to just copy someone else's work in grad school and only changed the window dressing that excuse wouldn't fly, I'd be failed at least for the paper, maybe for the class, and depending on if the deam was PMSing or not I might get expelled.

[stitch626]

And what if you wrote a story that just happened to be a very similar one to someone elses, but never read their story?

I've seen it. An essay in high school. Another student had a very similar paper to mine (same topic, same examples, same references) and neither of us had seen the other's paper.

Its possible (though highly unlikely) that Cameron never read the story of Pocahontas.



It isn't laziness if thats the story you want to tell. It just means they think alike.

[Tyyr]

And what if you wrote a story that just happened to be a very similar one to someone elses, but never read their story?

Its possible (though highly unlikely) that Cameron never read the story of Pocahontas.

It isn't laziness if thats the story you want to tell. It just means they think alike.

...well if that's what you want to argue then I can't really refute it.

Because I'm not fucking insane enough to believe that even for a second.

[Sionnach Glic]

There's a difference between two students doing a report on the same topic (which will naturaly use the same sources and references) and a multi-million dollar movie script which would have had shitloads of editors and corporate suits looking over it. Are you seriously suggesting that none of these people at any point thought to themselves "You know, this sounds kinda familiar..."?

[Tyyr]

And its not just Pocahontas, Pocahontas was just the latest and biggest iteration of a very old trope.

[Sionnach Glic]

Indeed. The whole "guy joins group of people off to rape a foreign land, falls in love with the natives and the land, turns traitor and helps kill his former comrades off" idea isn't exactly innovative.

[Reliant121]

Why should it have to be?

On a personal level, I really don't need it to be original if other areas can recooperate it.

[Sionnach Glic]

A film doesn't have to have a brand new plot (hell, most plots have already been done at this point). But when your movie that cost tens of millions of dollars to produce has a plot that sounds like it came straight out of a Disney movie, I consider it a problem.

[Reliant121]

My point is that for most films, I just...don't care about plot much. That sounded odd to say, but I do not care most of the time.

[Tyyr]

That's fine for you but I want more than pretty pictures when I go to a movie.

I've said it several times already, I do not mind a plot that's already been done, even done to death if the director/writer either bring something new to the idea or do it really really well. The problem with Avatar is it does absolutely NOTHING new and is done in a rather half assed manner.

[Reliant121]

I have never said it isn't personal choice, It's just an opinion. I guess what I'm saying is that if you don't like it, fine for it.

[IanKennedy]

This I actually liked, because i think the point of it is that there is no "good" or "bad" guy, there are people trying to survive. That may not have been what they were meaning to get at, but that's what I got out of it. Which, although it was a little awkward, I liked the fact that you realized both sides did horrible things to advance their cause, and that neither side was in the "right".

I agree, that would have been a very good way to end the movie, the problem is that I don't think that's the way it was meant to go. I get the impression that I was supposed to be sitting there cheering Jake and his furry friends on as they killed the humans. If I wasn't then the final battle was a significant departure from the humans evil, Na'vi good message the movie had been cramming down our throats to that point.

That's perhaps because you approach it like you seem to do most things. You decide what you think and then survey the evidence. You have been saying for weeks on here that this was not a good film. So when you finally saw it of cause you could not get into the mood to take it for what it was, rather than what you expected it to be. I certainly thought as Nick did that it ended with both sides being "right" and "wrong".

If you didn't like it I'm fine with that, everyone is different. I just wish you had seen it before you actually decided that.

The thing for me is that a lot of what Tyyr has said is true.

But, especially on the cliche bit, I really dont care. I want to enjoy watching it, not enjoy comparing it to everything else in the world. Perhaps it is just a personal difference.

Probably. When I watched Avatar I was very conscious the entire way that I'd seen this movie many times before. Sure the female lead was blue instead of brown, and the male lead didn't have blond hair but it was Pocahontas in space. And Pocahontas was already a cliche ridden mess so this was a cliche ridden copy of a cliche ridden mess. It was gorgeous to look at but like a cheerleader there was no one home upstairs. I couldn't just turn off my brain and enjoy it because every time I turned around the script was telegraphing itself, someone was phoning in a line, or they were trotting out another cliche. It never stopped sucking long enough for me to get in the right mood.

I've never seen Pocahontas so I was probably a lot better off than you. I don't tend to go for traditional Disney films, the more modern CGI ones are better. As for cliche, it's been suggested that there are only actually 7 main plots to choose from, that goes for books as well as film. In other words everything is a cliche, you have to distinguish your self in other ways. This did that with the Avatars, the plant/planet biology and such. I don't see it as much of a problem that things are '... in space', after all the whole of trek is basically 'something... in space'.

[Tyyr]

That's perhaps because you approach it like you seem to do most things. You decide what you think and then survey the evidence. You have been saying for weeks on here that this was not a good film. So when you finally saw it of cause you could not get into the mood to take it for what it was, rather than what you expected it to be. I certainly thought as Nick did that it ended with both sides being "right" and "wrong".

If you didn't like it I'm fine with that, everyone is different. I just wish you had seen it before you actually decided that.

Mmm, well I'm glad we've got psychics like you here who can tell me my thought process. Yeah, based off what I heard going in I didn't have high hopes for the movie. Guess what though, it was a James Cameron movie who's done two of my favorite movies of all time Aliens and the Abyss and I was going with family and friends who in general love this kind of movie so I did my best to get into it. I tried. I still didn't enjoy anything but the visuals and the 3D. If it makes you feel better to assume I didn't give it a fair shake, hey whatever makes you feel better.

I've never seen Pocahontas so I was probably a lot better off than you. I don't tend to go for traditional Disney films, the more modern CGI ones are better.

No arguement but Pocahontas is an example and as I've said before this general story was old before Disney ever touched it.

As for cliche, it's been suggested that there are only actually 7 main plots to choose from, that goes for books as well as film. In other words everything is a cliche, you have to distinguish your self in other ways. This did that with the Avatars, the plant/planet biology and such. I don't see it as much of a problem that things are '... in space', after all the whole of trek is basically 'something... in space'.

The "in space" statement refers to taking an old story, changing the setting a bit, and putting it out there as something new when its just something old with window dressing. Yeah, sometimes Trek does it but sometimes they do something new with it. The plant/planet biology thing was nice, but it was just the old, "deep spiritual connection to nature," thing given a semi-scientific explanation in the form of entangled nervous systems and a planet wide neural network acting as a psuedo-brain. The Avatars, I'll grant you that one they were something you really haven't seen before but all it did was physically let Jake carry out the usual training montage where the outsider learns about the native's culture. In other words it took something that could have been different, the invader stays the small relatively weak creature while the natives are towering aliens. It wiped that out and brought Jake up to the Na'vi's physical standards so he could play out the trope as usual rather than bring something new to the story by letting there be a far more obvious impediment to Jake getting in good with the natives rather than him just not getting it.

[Praeothmin]

Why did Cameron not have the right to tell the story of Pocahontas in space?

If that's the story he wanted to tell, then good for him, he succeeded.
It was in fact Pocahontas in space, but you know what?

The story doesn't ring as false to me one bit, because it depicts exactly how we humans behave in such situations:
Yes, some characters are unidimentional, and the plot is quite simple, but then, so is human nature.
The plot works, because we humans are still acting as a bunch of simplistic, arrogant bunch of retard know-it-alls sometimes, especially when there's big money involved, and we're facing people we don't understand...
Humans tend to act in barbarous ways when they want something others have and won't depart with it, and the humans believe (most often then not, wrongly) that they are entitled to it...
Look at what happened when Iraq invaded Koweit...

So yu don't like, you have every right to, but the story still rings true in the light of human actions on this earth right here...