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Alright, who has seen this? Impressions?

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I watched it yesterday. It was a beautiful movie, with nothing else going for it imo. Boring, predictable, and not a shred of originality.

But I have to hand it to them, the 3D was unbelievable. It was always the main characters that just popped out in previous "3D" movies. This time, everything has a depth, and this is best seen in indoor spaces, especially corridors. It's just like being in your own corridor.

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Completely and utterly agree.

Its a pretty movie, and it is probably one of the best looking movies ever

But underneath the hood, you find an average, run of the mill plot with some pretty one dimensional characters aside from the lead.

And even with a runtime nearing 3 hours, a lot of people hardly get any time

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The plot summary I read sounds like a very lame commentary on the Middle East.

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I'll add some more :)

Every little thing in the movie reminded me of some other movie. It was like watching the most original parts of the best movies of the last 10 years or something. And even though it wasn't a movie aimed at children, a lot of stuff would've been more at home in a movie made for kids.

And at times it just got very boring. Why do they stretch every unimportant scene, boring me to sleep? Why do I watch the guy flying on a bird for 10 minutes, when it adds nothing to the story? 3 hours is just too long, they could've wrapped it up in half that time.

Oh, and I hope we don't see any more of those stupid ritual-type things where the locals dance stupidly and hum and chant - it's just not atmospheric.

Ok, glad I got that off my chest :)

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Saw it tonight, thought it was amazing. :)

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I'm trying to to expect anything from this, so reading negative comments works. :)

I'll probably see it in 3D with my brother.

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I'm seeing it in 3D tonight.
Impressions to follow.

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Saw it today in 3D.


Better then I thought it would be. Beautiful movie to look at but I thought the writing was pretty bad. The dialogue at points felt like it was written by George Lucas

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Very good movie. Probably the most beautiful movie ive ever seen.


The only problem I had was that kinda stupid name for the material they were mining.

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By far the best thing I've ever seen.

Movie was good.
Visuals were amazing.

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For people complaining about the story:

They took a lot of risks with this movie, and I think the story is kind of cliche because they didn't want to take a risk on that as well.

The important thing is that the story is solid, moving, and powerful, even if it is predictable.

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Argh, I'm conflicted. I really don't like seeing movies in theaters but not seeing this in 3D seems like I might be missing out on quite the experience. Is it worth $17.50?

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I would say yes.

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I still stand by what I said - the movie is bad. But yes, it is worth the price, just for the visuals.

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The movie is not bad, it has 85% at rotten tomatoes and Ebert gave it 4 stars. It's a great, highly entertaining movie. For me it was similar to watching Star Wars (originals) for the first time. If you guys were bored by the 10-15 minute flying dragon scene, which was easily one of the most amazing and thrilling scenes of the movie, then the movie was definitely not made for you.

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I think it wasn't made for me, I agree with that - I rarely say that I absolutely hated a movie.

But to be honest, even though I can see why people liked it, I think 85 is an unbelievably high score for such a cliché movie.

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I would go as far as to say, if you don't see the movie in theatres, don't bother watching it.

See, I think this is where the disconnect comes in. I thought the visuals and setpieces were awesome.

But the plot and characters, you know the thing that should hold the movie together, were bland.

And it created a stark comparison in my mind. I wanted to like the movie for being imaginative but it was so.... standard.

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I completely disagree.

I think the storyline of the movie was great, I also think the characters were really well written. Could they have been better? Probably. But you can improve on every movie.

I stand by what I said about this being one of the best things I've seen in a long time. The movie without 3D would still be a good movie. But it wouldn't be an experience like it is in 3D.


What - to you - was cliche? Im not saying the movie wasn't, I'm just curious.
Because I want to know in what realm does a movie being "cliche" suddenly make it an abomination to movie-kind.

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I am going to have to agree with Typhoid here.

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I didn't really find the movie cliche but it was pretty predictable at some parts.
And it felt like some things weren't explained well enough.
But it was a good movie, and the crazy looking animals were cool.

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I never said it was an abomination. I just said it was a bad movie, and that I hated it :)

It's not that it was just cliche, there were a lot of things, but especially the dialogue, plot, and the twists were very familiar.

For example, how many times have you heard this dialogue before:
-You knew about this?
+Yes, I came here to warn you. But then I fell in love with this planet, these people...with you..
-I trusted you, I trusted you!

Blech, that made me want to leave the theater right then and there. And why in hell did the Navi trust the guy and agree to train him in the first place? There was just no reason at all for them to do that.

How about Sigourney Weaver talking to somebody (:D), saying that the tree is a network or whatever, and that what they're about to do is wrong, and the reply is a badly acted "what the hell have you been smoking"? It's always the same, x is important, some guys want to destroy it, they drive the people out of their home. I agree with Bond's comment - it is like a Middle East movie.

And tell me that you didn't expect the security guy to turn bad and take a beating from our hero, but not before pummeling him half to death?

They tried to mix technology (which was straight out of the Halo universe) with sticks and stones, using some fabulous visuals (which for some reason reminded me of LotR in some places), added a dab of The Matrix and a hurriedly cobbled up love story (which was just like James Cameron's other blockbuster, Titanic - two people from different classes coming together despite family objections) into it, with no strong points at all.

To be honest, the reason I hated it was because it offered nothing new to me. Like I said in my first post, it was like watching the best parts of the best movies of the last 10 years. And that, to me, is a bad thing.

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Edward Norton wasnt in the movie. What have you been smoking?




Hahahhahaha j/k.

Its Giovanni ribisi

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I've known that guy as Edward Norton all my life. And I guess the friends I went with did too, as we all talked about him :D

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I don't see how it would be a Middle East movie.
I mean, you can take what you want from something to morph the view to fit something else IE; Nostradamus' "predictions" - but if anything I would say this is just a combination of every anti-corporate movie mixed with Indians.


Many times.
It makes for a decent movie, which is why it keeps getting done in different ways. If it wasn't a good idea and didn't work, writers and directors wouldn't keep using it.

That would be a good point unless:
Avatar had been in development since 1994 by Cameron, who wrote a 114-page scriptment for the film.[5] Filming was supposed to take place after the completion of Titanic, and the film would have been released in 1999, but according to Cameron, "technology needed to catch up" with his vision of the film.


Also: as to the name of the mineral: "Unobtanium" - he didn't create that. It's a widely used humerous canon for any type of mineral that is hard to obtain.

It sucks - Bube, that you hate this movie. Because he's making 2 more.

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Yeah, the unobtainium was a bit of an inside joke.

Really though, you should have been able to tell from the trailers that the story was going to be predictable.

As other people have said, it's been done before, but IMO never this well.

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Oh well, whatever, I won't be watching the other 2 then, just like my decision to not watch Twilight after I saw the first one :)

My taste in cinema doesn't get along well with others, this isn't the first time :)

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I would say that the story formula they used was definitely tried and true, but I would argue that the story itself and the way it was presented is what made the movie original. Never have I ever[ felt so deeply immersed in such a believable fiction. The cinemetography was astounding to say the least. I felt like Pandora was a real planet and the Na'Vi were a real people. Were there some cheesy moments? Yes, and I agree that unobtainium is the worst name for a mineral ever, inside joke or no. I thought the acting was pretty solid (although that general dude was a little too over the top G.I. Joe for my taste). Here in Rochester it was only $11.50 (and that's damn expensive compared to a non-3D movie at $8.00 a pop, $6.00 with my Mayo Clinic employee discount), and I thought that it was well worth it.

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Everyone started arguing so I stopped reading.

The depth on screen created by the 3d makes it worth the $16. Holy crap was that amazing.

Sure the story is basically Pocahontas, but it didn't drag and even when it did, it was interesting enough to look at so that I wasn't bored.

Seeing it while high probably skews my opinion a bit, but I found it to be an incredible experience and I've been recommending it to everyone.

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No, no - you got it all wrong.
Nobody was arguing. I was just informing Bube about how his personal opinion was wrong.

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Ok you're now on my ignore list. All of you.

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:lol:

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Well, I just got back from seeing it in 3D and I'm ready to side with Bube.

I'd say it's about average at best. I went because of the visuals and I was still disappointed by it. Many friends had said how much they got sucked into the world of Pandora, but I can't say it worked for me.

Okay, first the story/screenwriting, etc. You guys have pretty much covered it, but I have to reiterate that it was taken out of the screenwriting 101 text book. Does that make it bad? Not necessarily, but cheesy lines and a predictable story arc and completely one dimensional characters are boring and uninteresting. Again, it did the job of getting you to more action scenes and fireflies flying into your eyeballs, but I never really cared about why it was happening and that's a pretty big failure.

One more thing about story. My film teacher used to say, "Every movie you'll ever see is the same. Boy meets girl, boy gets girl, boy loses girl, and then it's all about how you tell the story." Well, I thought Avatar's was too simple. Also the "pre-war" speech was straight outta Braveheart

Now to the visuals. This is easily the most impressive CGI I've ever seen. There are probably a lot of technical aspects I don't understand, and many things looked very nice. In the end, I hated the general color scheme. Everything had that weird neon glow stick look, I just kind of got sick of it. The creatures were okay, but everything was slimy, there wasn't that much variety in the world of Pandora. The action scenes were great and half-way through I just kind of found myself waiting for them and nothing else, but you can't have just a movie with action scenes.

Anyway, I expected to be blown away, and I wasn't.

People keep saying that this movie will change the industry forever, but...really? Is that it? I'd still rather see Miyazaki's beautiful 2D drawings and the world/story he creates than Cameron's any day. Or Pixar for that matter. They create brilliant and beautiful worlds around a great story rather than the visuals like Cameron seems to do.

Anyway, so I'm with you, Bube! :)

PS: I didn't really see the Mid-East connection until these blatant lines.

General Whatever: WE FIGHT TERROR WITH TERROR

Doctor Whatever: They're starting some "Shock and Awe" campaign

That last one especially is a pretty direct reference to the beginning of the Iraq war.

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Well, at least we're up to 3 people now, if we include BaB, who hasn't done much to support us yet :p

Oh, and let me fuel the fire - I also hated Titanic :D

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You hated Titanic, or you think it's overrated? Because I also think it's overrated, but if I see it once every 5 years, I'll still enjoy it.

I'll probably watch Avatar on Saturday or Sunday. I discovered our cinema here shows it in 3D after all. :) My brother won't come, he thinks he won't like it.

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I hated it, and therefore think it's overrated :)

I don't know, I've always been fascinated by the Titanic, and it's tragic story, but when I saw that it had been turned into a love story, it was another tragedy for me :)

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I don't know what you expect

Our side, won't magically be convinced that the movie wasn't more than a tech demo for 3D effects.

And their side won't see it as bland and unoriginal. Prolonging the debate does nothing.

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Don't worry, I'll settle the dispute in a few days. ;)

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I was joking of course :) I myself didn't even want to get into a debate, but when asked direct questions, I had to answer them :)

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I am seeing this tonight and will offer my opinion.