Avatar.

[Cadaverous Pallor]

We didn't go yet...but it's made $232 mil worldwide this weekend. $73 mil of that in the US.

[Chernabog]

Originally Posted by Cadaverous Pallor

We didn't go yet...but it's made $232 mil worldwide this weekend. $73 mil of that in the US.

I think that fell somewhat on the conservative side of initial projections... I was reading that $60mil was super conservative and $80-$100mil was going to be considered super good. Eeeh I don't think Cameron has anything to worry about.

[€uroMeinke]

That's a lot of Big Macs

[Moonliner]

I made it out yesterday to see Avatar.

The overall look, The bullet nosed ships, Marines working for "The Company", Am I the only one that thinks Avatar is set in an earlier time-frame on the same world as Aliens?

Come to think of it, there are a lot of nasty ass creatures on Pandora. I wonder.....

Story wise, I'd say Camron read some of the same books I did growing up. Harry Harrison's 'Deathworld' series comes to mind. To bad Avatar did not include power holsters. I always thought that was a cool idea.

I can't wait for Avatar to make it to Blu-Ray. It will be one helluva test for any home theater sound system. One specific scene ought to topple Kung-Fu Panda off the list as a sub woofer torture test.

[Cadaverous Pallor]

We also saw this last night. I enjoyed it from beginning to end. The 3D was great (non-IMAX).

No irksome sidekicks, no cutesy alien pets, no in-your-face comic relief. THANK GOD. For an over the top CG extravaganza, it got surprisingly down to the necessary components.

The world was fully realized, full of fun without being gimmicky or video-game-ish. There was one moment where I thought "what an awesome interactive blacklight playground this would make", but that was about it.

Spoiler:

I love how movies like this are able to play both sides of issues.

1. You hate the humans, hate the military, hate the profiteering...but what is it that saves the day? A human who learns to love the People. It's a classic redemption story, a "one person saves a race", but which race are they saving? Both...

2. When Jake asks Aywa for help in battle and he's told that Aywa doesn't take sides, I really dug it. "That's right, mother nature doesn't take sides!" But then, oh wait, no. Necessary, perhaps, but I liked the previous idea better. I guess it's easy to argue that Aywa was just defending herself.

I was reminded of many other movies but in pleasant ways. To me it didn't feel like it was stealing ideas so much as presenting new ways of looking at them.

I loved the moment the gawky scientist's Avatar gets hit, and the human stumbles out of his pod, unharmed though in shock. Yay, it's not the Matrix! "Your mind makes it real" my ass.

Weird Al jokingly called it "Cameron's $250mil Smurf Movie" but I have to admit I was reminded of the Smurfs, with the environmental message and the looming evil that wants to exploit them. Blue skin helps too.

When Jake is being chased by the crazy monster near the beginning, the noises it makes are exactly like the dinos in Jurassic Park. I groaned a bit at that. For crying out loud, make some new crazy beast noises!

Since we just watched the Phantom Menace review in full, which mentions that Lucas kept shoehorning crap in the background in both the prequels and the Special Edition OT, I felt extra sensitive to an overloaded background...but I think Avatar did have a good amount of this action without overwhelming the viewer, and kept the focus clear.

Yeah, slightly weak dialogue but I've definitely heard worse. Very good casting.

It didn't make me cry at any point, and though I did feel for the characters I think it didn't quite hit as deep an emotional mark as it might have.

Overall, this is the type of thing that defines the genre of Science Fiction / Fantasy. Awesomeness.

[flippyshark]

I'm divided on this one.

On the upside:

- This was a superior example of other-world imagining, the kind of visionary creativity that makes me love movies.
- The Na'avi worked splendidly as living, breathing characters. They were even kind of sexy.
- James Cameron knows how to stage an action sequence so that it's always clear exactly what is happening, and he realizes that the best way to make you feel you are there is to stage things with clear compositions, careful staging, judiciously varied time-length of shots, and no gratuitous shaky cam. Up and coming movie-makers, please study these techniques!

On the downside:

Spoiler:

- The major characters were mostly cut from the cliche cookie sheet. Would it kill writers to inject some unpredictability, some nuance, maybe even some well-earned divided loyalties, into these paper-thin characters? Case in point - early on, I wanted to like the hard-ass Colonel. What if he had a little more substance instead of being just plain evil? What if Jake Sully actually had good reason to trust and respect him, and it ended up being an actual tragedy that they end up on different sides? What if both had good reasons to make the choices they did, and both lost something by choosing sides? Instead, our bad guy was a ludicrous stereotype, not worth giving a damn about. Boring.

- Jake had his moment of moral clarity WAY too late in the story - it was very artificial, and clearly timed so that we could follow a drearily familiar plot device. ("I'm an outcast now, but I have to convince them I'm on their side, even though I pretty much destroyed their lives.") And forgiveness came much too easily as well.

- I knew exactly who was going to die and at what point along the narrative arc. For f**k's sake, H'wood - try to surprise me sometime, okay?

- Even though I thought the big blue people worked visually, for some reason, Sigourney was a little bit "uncanny valley" in her avatar form.

- I love the earth, but this movie's tree-huggery and hyper-pantheism got heavy-handed and ridiculous for me.

My (perhaps predictable) criticisms aside, I highly recommend the experience, especially in a good theater, and certainly in 3D. i'm very glad I went, and may even go back for seconds - especially because I don't think this is going to be nearly as compelling on home video.

Just an aside - It would have been interesting if there had been inter-clan strife among the Na'avi. It occurred to me that since this was a race of warriors, and obviously had been for a very long time, there must naturally have been tribal conflicts and wars - but this is never mentioned. One sensed that there was nothing but widespread peace and Eden-like perfection until the Earthies had shown up, but, this can't have been the case. Anyway, this is an interesting enough world, endless other stories about the Na'avi could spring from it. So, I guess I'd like to see their history, and I don't want it to be all glowy flowers and swaying kum-ba-ya around the tree.

So, that's my immediate response.

[flippyshark]

CP - You bring up an excellent point - all my criticisms aside, this movie absolutely buries George Lucas. Compared to Phantom Menace, Avatar does everything right, and my nit-picking is sheer ungratitude.

[Cadaverous Pallor]

Flippy's right - Cameron's composition is miles ahead of many others, never overusing shaky cam.

Originally Posted by flippyshark

Just an aside - It would have been interesting if there had been inter-clan strife among the Na'avi.

I think enough emphasis was put on "uniting the clans" to show that they aren't exactly buddies, but you're right, they could have made that more dramatic than it was. Perhaps they decided against it to avoid even more cliche pitfalls...or maybe the movie is really long as it is.

[Cadaverous Pallor]

For those that tweet - click on the Trending Topic "Avatar". About every 30 seconds, the page refreshes and tells you there are now another 40 or so more tweets mentioning Avatar. Now THAT is word of mouth.

[Ghoulish Delight]

Wow, I totally love The Hippy Matrix Avatar! I tried to keep my expectations low, even with all of the praise its been receiving. And I apparently kept them low enough, because I was really really really charmed by this movie.

My one and only criticism is that the last 1/3 dragged pretty badly. I was perfectly okay with a thin, one-dimensional, predictable, retread story, but for god's sake, if I know where you're going, don't waste my time getting there.

But the sheer beauty and wonder of the film was enough to overcome even that. Bravo, Mr. Cameron.

And, thanks to Mythbusters, the one moment that I probably would have otherwise rolled my eyes and and cried foul fell squarely into "plausible":

Spoiler:

During the attack on Home Tree, the entire clan let loose their arrows on the gun ships, and did nothing more than nick the cockpit glass. But during the final battle, an arrow pierced clear through the glass and killed the pilot. What gives?!! Well, thanks to the Mythbusters episode about firing an arrow from a horse, we all know that an arrow fired from a moving mount does indeed carry more force do to the forward momentum of the mount, and those flying beasts were certainly diving pretty fast, so I'll give it to them! Nice.