James Cameron's "Avatar" (grading and discussion)

Cameron's character moments were frankly invariably on the nose here; Stephen Lang's drinking a cuppa while doing the deed of mass slaughter is about as subtle as those bulldozers.

The dialogue in Metropolis is essential. It's just all in the intertitles.

 

OK, fixed the original quote so that it can't be shot down so easily. However, we are still left with a director and producer (Cameron) who eschewed heavy dialog in favor of visuals, mostly generic tropes, and standard archetypes. He made the movie he wanted to make. To him, the place that dialog sat in the realm of importance was exactly where he wanted it to be put.

Given the chance, would individual moviegoers want to change anything in the movie? Of course, but this isn't a personal holodeck, this is a money making artistic venture. Cameron is selling one size fits all blue jeans at the mall. And we are armchair directing a movie that will likely be the highest grossing movie of all time.

 

Well, I don't necessairly disagree that the dialogue in Avatar is weak, because it is. Frankly, there's no real line or quote from the movie I can think of that is memorable and when your plot McGuffin's name is the most generic place-holder ultimate-material name possible it shows that not much thought was put into the words.

As great a director as Cameron is and as much as he can deliver action, effects, nad 2-some hours of good entertainment he's not great at writing dialogue, which -again- I think is partly weak in this movie as is the overall story. There's just not a whole lot of depth here.

All that said, the movie is a lot of fun.

I'd probably liken it to the first Star Wars movie. The first Star Wars movie is a pretty pedestrian, paint-by-the-numbers, plot that's nothing original or spectacular. It's just a fantastical setting for Plot 531A. But Star Wars is memorable because the delivery of that plot and story, well, kicks ass.

I think Avatar fits under that same trope. It's an average, typical, story but the setting and delivery of it kicks ass and is very well presented.

Now, we can hope that maybe a bit stronger writer chips in with Avatar's sequel and that that movie is like ESB.

 

^
Sadly, Leigh Brackett is dead, because I know I'd want to see her weigh in ESB-like on Avatar II.

 

I think if this is an opera in 3 acts like Star Wars, it will follow the same arc. Introduction of the characters in the first act with a minor victory, put the characters at the brink of destruction at the end of the second act, and finish with a triumphant note in the third act.

Most of the movie itself can be described in these three acts with the introduction of Scully, the destruction of Hometree and the final battle. Even the last battle scene can be neatly split into these three parts with the introduction of the human fleet and the introduction of the Na'vi warriors, the loss of the Chacon and the loss of Tsu'Tey, and the defeat of RDA through Eywa.

With Cameron's apparent love of the standard 3 act opera structure, we will likely get a ESB type second act.

 

*crosses fingers!* Hope, hope!

 

Hmm, very good points there! It had not occured to me, but you are definitely correct.

 

As far as the Star Wars analogy goes, we're lacking a Vader. True, like with Star Wars, one of the main villains died and the other guy got away, but the other guy was the smarmy corporate chief. If the humans are to be the villains in the sequel (I think the most likely plot is they return in force!) we'd need a new bad guy.

You know Michael Biehn was going to be the Stephen Lang role but then didn't get the part because Cameron didn't want it to feel like an Aliens cast reunion? Well, Weaver's dead now, and we need a new bad guy. *cough*

 

Cameron can't write dialogue very well? Sure, but aren't a heck of a lot of us B5 fans?

 

I hated B5. I watched one episode and I wanted to kill msyself just to have something uplifting to do.

 

Poor man.

 

I went to the 11:40am showing on opening day, and a 4:00pm showing yesterday, and there was huge applause both times as the title flashed onscreen at the end.
But I live in Hollywood, so...

 

I've seen it twice...applause both times.

Went to see it again last night, it's been out three weeks, it's the middle of the week, holidays are over and everyone's back in school so I didn't bother getting advanced tickets...all shows sold out.

Crazy, man.

 

And if Cameron works at his usual pace, we can expect Avatar 2 in late 2027.

 

I have seen it once and no applause. Saw it on Tuesday, cheap day, and maybe 30 people in there, aka 15-20% full. However very little talking so that's like an applause. It really depends where you live, next week looks like the last week for the 3D version anyways in my area.

 

Really? There are no 3D movies coming out until march, and Avatar is still the biggest box office draw by far. Unless your theater only has very few screens, there would be no reason to move it.

 

It has 20 screens I think. They aren't very big, and it's not like it's a real 3D IMax type movie place, they built a small set of them in a mall to save the mall, it worked perfectly. My guess is they want to save money by not giving out the 3D glasses.

Maybe if demand stays high they will, but I looked up tickets for the 19th and it was no longer listed.

 

Both times I saw the film (opening afternoon and a week or so later) there was applause -- polite and appreciative, rather than enthusiastic, but applause nonetheless. There's little doubt that the film has touched a collective nerve ... which is to the credit of the film. But just because a film is a crowd-pleaser, that doesn't negate its inherent flaws.

 

I disagree with this entirely. It's nothing like the first Star Wars movie. Maybe that it had ground breaking special affects but the characters were more memorable and while they were a little wooden at times, there are some very good scenes, very memorable scenes with them.

The villain is well done as well. Yes, shallow but very well acted out and shows a great flaw.

There is so much going against Avatar and so much going for it. It's a dumb, turn off your brain flick and if you're into that, it's a great movie. Again, it's akin to Spider Man and Transformers, in between those two movies.

 

I’ve debated with myself long and hard about actually making this post, but after 52 pages, I guess it’s time.

What I’ve been seeing here is people that love “Avatar” (a great majority – even here over 50% rate it as excellent) and a few posters that are trying to pick the movie apart, trying to find a reason to dislike it. It’s ok to dislike it, but I get the feeling that a lot of people are perhaps more uncomfortable with the plot and are trying to find a reason for that discomfort. So they say the plot is cliché, or the acting isn’t good, or the characters aren’t anything special.

There was a time in the past, when I first started reading Science Fiction that it was “the genre” for what is called “speculative fiction.” That isn’t particularly true any longer as fantasy far out sells Science Fiction. But Science Fiction can actually be any genre, it can be a mystery, or suspense, or any of the other genre classifications but what it never could quite be was romantic. There were some authors that leaned a little into the romantic side like Zenna Henderson, Marion Zimmer Bradley, and Anne McCaffery, but never full blown Science Fiction Romance until now.

Lately there have been new authors, Linnea Sinclair with “Games of Command” and “Gabriel’s Ghost”, Anne Aguirre with her “Grimspace” and its sequels, and Susan Grant with her “Borderlands” books. These are pure Science Fiction Romance, and guys “Avatar” fits right in.

“Avatar’s” plot is pure romance trope – boy meets girl, boy falls in love with girl, but boy and girl can never ever be together because of some great obstacle that keeps them apart. The tale is how the couple overcomes that obstacle. This is very basic stuff and a plot that has been used hundreds or thousands of times and will be continued to be used because it works as a plot for a huge number of people.

Now if you don’t care much for Romance then you have problems with “Avatar’s” plot, but if you are like me and my friends then you adore “Avatar’s” plot. That fact doesn’t make either of us wrong.

“Avatar” is pure Science Fiction Romance, with a kick-ass heroine and it is the second time in my life that I sat in a move and saw something, that up to that moment had only existed in my mind’s eye. Because of this “Avatar” is perfect.

Brit (who started reading Science Fiction in 1958 at age 11)