Avatar (James Cameron) [SPOILERS]

[mwgdrwg]

fine, you lot want to go back and give cinematography awards to cartoons too. Fair enough, but you're all wrong.

Man, someone give this guy some Studio Ghibli 'cartoons' as an education.

 

[belboid]

Man, someone give this guy some Studio Ghibli 'cartoons' as an education.

have you done a degree in missing the point?

 

[Fedayn]

This film has more political content than 99% of the shit released in the cinema, if you can't pick up on it's non too subtle subtext then that's your own failings.

I'll paypal you a tenner if you can name one major cinema release this year that is as explicitly anti US imperialism than Avatar.

The best thing about the film was that it didn't chicken out and go for some reconciliation shit.

The fact that such a film was the biggest grossing and most expensive film in cinema history and that it was used to promote McDonald's Happy Meals makes it all the better, it shows that a sense of resistance and moral indignation can capture the popular imagination, that it isn't just something for middle brow wankers cramming into art house cinemas.

You should read some Ernst Bloch, son.

Yes I got the mesasage, not difficult after it was beaten into my head by the rather fuelled Steven Lang character. Yes I got the 'schtick', but it's still a massively overhyped film. The two aren't mutually incompatible you do realise don't you?

 

[revol68]

only if you're a fucking ten year old. It's pathetic liberal pseudo-politics were as naff as the godawful script. There's as much politics in High School Musical as there is in Avatar.

Christ, the politics are the precise opposite of liberal, infact it's the almost childlike manner in which the film articulates the moral and political choices that allow it to escape liberal handwringing bullshit.

I would argue that this simplicity is actually more interesting and compelling, cutting away all the various banalities of the particular infavour of fidelity to a universality that overrides petty individual morality and instead forces us to make an outright choice. Basically what I'm saying is that instead of going through alot of shit trying to contextualise the motives and predicaments of the individuals carrying out the work of the mining corporation or even fighting for the Na'vi it cuts away all this essentially inane dross and gets to the heart of the matter. I'm fed up seeing films where US soldiers are personalised, where we are treated to seeing how 'human' some cunt general is and how torn he is in carrying out his acts of barbarism, that my friend is liberal shit.

 

[revol68]

Yes I got the mesasage, not difficult after it was beaten into my head by the rather fuelled Steven Lang character. Yes I got the 'schtick', but it's still a massively overhyped film. The two aren't mutually incompatible you do realise don't you?

well actually it wasn't massively hyped when I went to see it at a preview showing, it was if anything facing a massive backlash from internet film nerds. The hype that came after that was born of the fact people really fucking loved it, rightly too.

 

[belboid]

I hope that arguent gets you a decent mark in your Film Studies A level. But its complete bollocks.

 

[revol68]

I hope that arguent gets you a decent mark in your Film Studies A level. But its complete bollocks.

You just don't understand it you left liberal prick.

Now fuck off and vote for RESPECT.

 

[mwgdrwg]

have you done a degree in missing the point?

Wasn't your point that animations don't require a DP and were simply to be derided as cartoons?

I apologise if I got that wrong.

 

[revol68]

And your a fucking idiot because I have never denied the 'huges' work. But it is a totally different thing to 'cinematography', it is a technical not artistic achievement.

oh fuck, a Marxist upholding the mythology of the artist versus the technician.

Actually I forgot you were/are an SWP sympathiser/member/groupie or whatever, you have no doubt never read fuck all of Marx's or any decent Marxist's writings.

 

[belboid]

You just don't understand it you left liberal prick.

Now fuck off and vote for RESPECT.

oh dear, you've totally lost it.

 

[belboid]

Wasn't your point that animations don't require a DP and were simply to be derided as cartoons?

I apologise if I got that wrong.

Not saying that at all, certainly not deriding them. The technical requirements for a DP in animation is reduced. There are a few exceptions, but there is no evidence that Avatar is one of them.

 

[mwgdrwg]

Not saying that at all, certainly not deriding them. The technical requirements for a DP in animation is reduced. There are a few exceptions, but there is no evidence that Avatar is one of them.

Hmmm, well for me there is no artistic difference between a DP's vision for a jungle on Pandora, or a DP's take on the Texas landscape in No Country For Old Men.

Technically they are worlds apart (no pun intended), but both have artistic merit that deserve to be recognised.

eta, No Country For Old Men didn't win the Oscar for cinematography...though it should have!

 

[belboid]

But there is. The former is created specifically to fit the films needs. The latter isn't.

 

[revol68]

But there is. The former is created specifically to fit the films needs. The latter isn't.

But doesn't that make the work on Avatar more classically 'artistic' if anything since it is less limited by technical constraints of traditional cinematography.

 

[mwgdrwg]

But there is. The former is created specifically to fit the films needs. The latter isn't.

Capturing a landscape as your basic building block is no different to capturing the performance of an actor in front of a green screen. Imagine the Paris of Amelie without lighting, filters, post-processing...

 

[belboid]

But doesn't that make the work on Avatar more classically 'artistic' if anything since it is less limited by technical constraints of traditional cinematography.

No. It's pointing and shooting. The artistry is carried out beforehand, primarily in the Art Direction (as already stated)

 

[belboid]

Capturing a landscape as your basic building block is no different to capturing the performance of an actor in front of a green screen. Imagine the Paris of Amelie without lighting, filters, post-processing...

absolutely. Indeed, precisely. That is most of my point.

But the filming in front of the green screen is very obviously not what won the award.

 

[revol68]

Capturing a landscape as your basic building block is no different to capturing the performance of an actor in front of a green screen. Imagine the Paris of Amelie without lighting, filters, post-processing...

Yeah most people would see the art stemming from the lighting, filters, post processing, that is the application of imagination.

 

[Fedayn]

well actually it wasn't massively hyped when I went to see it at a preview showing, it was if anything facing a massive backlash from internet film nerds. The hype that came after that was born of the fact people really fucking loved it, rightly too.

You're a hermit aren't you? It was massively hyped.

 

[IMR]

tbh I thought the artwork in Savage Planet, another scifi film with big blue beings, was actually better. And that was bound up with pretty basic Captain Pugwash style animation. It looked more weird, admittedly in a flarey 1970s way.

 

[revol68]

You're a hermit aren't you? It was massively hyped.

It was hyped to fuck prior to it's release but this actually nearly backfired as there was a massive backlash in the two weeks leading up to it's actual release, with lots of people predicting it would bomb, once it was released there was a second wave of hype based largely on the fact people thought it was pretty awesome.

I mean me and my girlfriend went into it expecting the worst and came away brilliantly surprised.

 

[Fedayn]

It was hyped to fuck prior to it's release but this actually nearly backfired as there was a massive backlash in the two weeks leading up to it's actual release, with lots of people predicting it would bomb, once it was released there was a second wave of hype based largely on the fact people thought it was pretty awesome.

I mean me and my girlfriend went into it expecting the worst and came away brilliantly surprised.

So first you deny the hype you now actually admit that it was massively hyped, ie 'hyped to fuck'? ho hum.....

 

[revol68]

So first you deny the hype you now actually admit that it was massively hyped, ie 'hyped to fuck'? ho hum.....

don't act stupid, you exactly what I'm talking about, it was hyped to fuck, then it got hit by a massive backlash about two weeks before it's actual release, so the film became almost anti hyped before a new wave of head of hype built up on the back of people actually going to see it and thinking it was awesome.

 

[Fedayn]

don't act stupid, you exactly what I'm talking about, it was hyped to fuck, then it got hit by a massive backlash about two weeks before it's actual release, so the film became almost anti hyped before a new wave of head of hype built up on the back of people actually going to see it and thinking it was awesome.

Roughly translated as revol can't remembner his own rantings and has fucked up ergo call someone a simpleton for pointing out your fuck up..... Not over hyped/hyped to fuck at all....

 

[Reno]

tbh I thought the artwork in Savage Planet, another scifi film with big blue beings, was actually better. And that was bound up with pretty basic Captain Pugwash style animation. It looked more weird, admittedly in a flarey 1970s way.

La Planete Sauvage, French animated sci-fi cult film which is called Fantastic Planet in English. In terms of plot it's certainly no more sophisticated than Avatar, but it does look very cool and it has a great progrock soundtrack by Alain Goraguer.

 

[revol68]

Roughly translated as revol can't remembner his own rantings and has fucked up ergo call someone a simpleton for pointing out your fuck up..... Not over hyped/hyped to fuck at all....

Really is it too hard for you to grasp that the hype turned into an anti hype backlash in the two weeks leading up to it's release, ergo at the time the first wave of cinema goers and critics saw the film it was if anything anti hyped.

it's not exactly Hegelian dialectics ffs.

 

[Fedayn]

Really is it too hard for you to grasp that the hype turned into an anti hype backlash in the two weeks leading up to it's release, ergo at the time the first wave of cinema goers and critics saw the film it was if anything anti hyped.

it's not exactly Hegelian dialectics ffs.

I can see plenty, I can see you wriggling like the prick you are.....

The 'backlash', whatever there was given the massive numbers who saw it wasn't exactly huge was it.... Or is that a tad difficult for you to get?

 

[belboid]

All the trailers were massively well received and it was generally predicted that it would be a very big hit. A fair few critics did say it wouldn't do well enough to cover all its real costs (once distribution and advertising were factored in) but they were always the minority from what I recall.

 

[T & P]

You said all this before I saw it, and I thought it was balls then, and I think it's even more balls now I've seen it It's a horrible conglomeration of every existing "noble savage" concept imaginable, mixing up every "tribal" trope in cinema to make the Na'avi mishmash. Every character is a stereotype and the entire plot is predictable from the first time anything is even hinted at - oh she's the daughter of the chief how surprising, oh they get it on, oh look there's a myth about riding a big dragon thing I wonder if the hero will do that. The bad guys are basically mailed through from the first time you see them.

You've just reminded me of something that's appeared on the internets in the last few weeks...

Is the script original and challenging? No

Is the acting outstanding? No

Are the characters three dimensional (and not in the 3D sense)? No

Then why the fuck should Avatar merit winning Oscars for anything other than the technical aspects?

If there was an Oscar to Most Entertaining Film, then award it to it by all means. But it certainly did not deserve Best Movie or Director.

That doesn't mean it was a shit film at all- the movie is good fun and good at what it does. What it does mean is that for once the Oscars have been about what it used to be: rewarding acting and directing excellence.

 

[revol68]

I can see plenty, I can see you wriggling like the prick you are.....

The 'backlash', whatever there was given the massive numbers who saw it wasn't exactly huge was it.... Or is that a tad difficult for you to get?

Why would a hype backlash in the two weeks leading up to it's release necessarily mean no one goes to see it, the film was always going to be 'an event' the issue of the hype and anti hype was whether it was going to be shit or not, once the critics and public saw the film the backlash went into retreat.

I saw the film on the Wednesday prior to it's weekend release and like I said I me and the girlfriend went in not expecting much at all in large part because of the backlash that had set in against the film, happily the backlash turned out to be unjustified.