Avatar (James Cameron) [SPOILERS]

[revol68]

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.

And the best Satire award goes to....

The Oscars are a joke and always have been.

Shakespeare in Love anyone?

p.s. that Pocahontas gag has been out for a good bit longer than a few weeks, infact it and all the jokes about Dancing with Smurfs were doing the works before the film was released.

 

[belboid]

Repeating the same point doesn't make it any more true.

 

[belboid]

And the best Satire award goes to....

The Oscars are a joke and always have been.

Shakespeare in Love anyone?

lol, point marvellously ignored

 

[Fedayn]

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.

This is getting funnier, at first you denied any hype now after saying there was a huge anti backlash saying itn wouldn't have had an effect. Untie yourself and get back to my original point. It was massively overhyped and a victory of style over content. Visually remarkable content wise it's Pocahontas ripped off.

 

[T & P]

And the best Satire award goes to....

The Oscars are a joke and always have been.

Shakespeare in Love anyone?

That might or might not be true, but you'd be very hard pressed indeed to find a year in which Avatar could have seriously and truthfully be considered as the best film or best directed film out there.

 

[belboid]

even Cameron admits its a crappy rip off storywise, tho he named Dances With Wolves - probly cos that won an Oscar too

 

[belboid]

That might or might not be true, but you'd be very hard pressed indeed to find a year in which Avatar could have seriously and truthfully be considered as the best film or best directed film out there.

the year Titanic won?

 

[T & P]

the year Titanic won?

Indeed.

 

[revol68]

That might or might not be true, but you'd be very hard pressed indeed to find a year in which Avatar could have seriously and truthfully be considered as the best film or best directed film out there.

I think it could be considered for best Directed when you think of how much of a leap it is in the art of actual film making and the ground breaking techniques Cameron brought to fruition with it.

Should it get best screenplay or whatever, of course not, it's a simple (all the better for it) contemporary retelling of an age old story.
People make the Pochantas gag but anyone with wit can see how it differs greatly in it's core and it's political role, likewise Dancing with Wolves would have been a radical movie if it had been made (impossible I know) in the time it was set, or even if it had come out during the Vietnam war, however coming out when it did, it was little more than a piece aimed at easing liberal guilt.

 

[revol68]

the year Titanic won?

titanic was shite.

 

[Fedayn]

titanic was shite.

I doubt anyone will dispute that.... Or at least I hope not.

 

[revol68]

Also I'd have given District 9 a ton of awards, certainly more than shite like 'An Education' and 'The Hurtlocker'.

 

[belboid]

titanic was shite.

You sure it wasn't an a masterpiece of class war cinema, where everyone cheered the iceberg?

 

[revol68]

You sure it wasn't an a masterpiece of class war cinema, where everyone cheered the iceberg?

oh there was plenty of rather crude cliched class antagonisms in the film, you'd be blind to miss them but they were nothing new, radical or subversive, rather it was an articulation of a class war that is very safe, quaint and mawkish.

Avatar on the other hand represented quite a departure for Hollywood blockbusters in terms of it's politics.

 

[belboid]

Avatar on the other hand represented quite a departure for Hollywood blockbusters in terms of it's politics.

despite the fact that those 'politics' were copied from Dances With Wolves? Would you care to defend this claim, or are you happy to simply repeat it over and over and over in the belief that doing so somehow makes it so?

 

[FridgeMagnet]

No, to be fair it wasn't Dances With Wolves - also The Last Samurai, lots of Westerns, H Rider Haggard....

 

[revol68]

despite the fact that those 'politics' were copied from Dances With Wolves? Would you care to defend this claim, or are you happy to simply repeat it over and over and over in the belief that doing so somehow makes it so?

here's an idea, how about you read what I posted.

Should it get best screenplay or whatever, of course not, it's a simple (all the better for it) contemporary retelling of an age old story.
People make the Pochantas gag but anyone with wit can see how it differs greatly in it's core and it's political role, likewise Dancing with Wolves would have been a radical movie if it had been made (impossible I know) in the time it was set, or even if it had come out during the Vietnam war, however coming out when it did, it was little more than a piece aimed at easing liberal guilt.

 

[Reno]

It now seems to be Internet law that whenever Avatar is discussed, Pocahantas and smurfs must immediately be mentioned and should still be considered they height of originality, satire and a well articulated argument against the film. It's kind of boring how people just repeat whatever they read and think they are actually voicing their opinion.

This makes me wonder, how many films do people go to see ? I mean when is a major blockbuster not derivative of something else ? People keep going on about how much better District 9 was, but that film is no more original, ripping off both Alien Nation and David Cronenberg's The Fly wholesale, not just in plot, but also in imagery.

 

[belboid]

here's an idea, how about you read what I posted.

here's an idea, you read what I wrote. That isn't a defence, its another repetition. It does not in any way justify your assertion.

To be generous, one could say it is a recognition that you are talking utter utter shit, but are making a weak as fuck attempt to save face (again). It aint working.

 

[belboid]

This makes me wonder, how many films do people go to see ? I mean when is a major blockbuster not derivative of something else ? People keep going on about how much better District 9 was, but that film is no more original, ripping off both Alien Nation and David Cronenberg's The Fly wholesale, not just in plot, but also in imagery.

well, D9 is at least a thought through political allegory that makes sense and isn't sickly patronising. Even tho it's not exactly the most subtle allegory ever.

 

[revol68]

also people seem to have missed the point that Avatar isn't about the genocide of the Native Americans per se, even if it uses many of the tropes, mechanisms and signifiers related to it and it's cultural articulation. Avatar is not about looking back at historical wrongs and easing white america's guilt 200 years after the fact, it's (for all it's flaws) about now, about the wars in Iraq and Afghanistan and about the brutal nihilism of capitalist accumulation that literally does threaten the whole planet. Sure it's simplistic, almost childlike, sure it suffers from the inherent structural flaw of main protagonist centrism (our human lead can't just join the Na'vi he has to lead them wah wah) and yes it indulges some cringe worthy New Age wank (though there is a half hearted attempt to avoid that when Weaver's character is trying to explain that this shit is not magic mumbo jumbo but very complex science) but despite that or on the case of it's simplicity almost because of it, the film has more political balls and backbone than any other Hollywood release I can remember since maybe Three Kings and even it only came out years after the fact.

 

[revol68]

oh and it's also just a really fucking amazing looking, fun film, something that seems to get overlooked by middle brow cunts trying to flex their intellectual inferiority over 'popular culture'.

 

[belboid]

ooh, revols learnt the word 'tropes' and 'signifiers'. Not quite correctly used within a sentence but nevermind.

Do tell us just how his film - first written before 9/11 - is all about Iraq & Afghanistan tho. Tell us, dont just repeat the claim. Show us where and how it is done in the film. Otherwise it simply sounds like you have chosen to interpret it that way. Which is fair enough, but then millions of people haven't chosen to interpret it that way too, or have not given a toss about the supposed politics cos they are so vague, woolly and a bit of a diversion from the pretty pictures.

 

[belboid]

oh and it's also just a really fucking amazing looking, fun film,

no one has said anything else. It's cretins like you trying to claim it is something more than that that is being laughed at.

 

[revol68]

well, D9 is at least a thought through political allegory that makes sense and isn't sickly patronising. Even tho it's not exactly the most subtle allegory ever.

I loved District 9 but to claim it made more sense than Avatar is bollocks, it required far more leaps of faith to fill in plot oversights, no bad thing to my mind but then I'm not one of those aspy fucks who fixates on tiny details and misses the bigger picture.

Avatar was a very compact, self contained simple story (again not necessarily a failing) that if anything made too much sense, leaving very little in the way of narrative gaps.

 

[revol68]

ooh, revols learnt the word 'tropes' and 'signifiers'. Not quite correctly used within a sentence but nevermind.

Do tell us just how his film - first written before 9/11 - is all about Iraq & Afghanistan tho. Tell us, dont just repeat the claim. Show us where and how it is done in the film. Otherwise it simply sounds like you have chosen to interpret it that way. Which is fair enough, but then millions of people haven't chosen to interpret it that way too, or have not given a toss about the supposed politics cos they are so vague, woolly and a bit of a diversion from the pretty pictures.

The story might of been written in broadstrokes before 9-11 but there can be no doubt that by the time it was made and released Cameron was not to subtly making a point about Iraq etc, I mean for ffs, the 'shock and awe' references, the 'either with us or with the terrorists' speech delivered to the Marines and many other not so subtle nods.

Also even if Cameron had written the thing in it's entirety prior to the war on terror, the very fact that he would have released it unchanged in such a context should tell you something.

p.s. please explain to me how I used 'tropes' and 'signifiers' incorrectly, afterall I only learnt them and wouldn't wish to make a fool of myself in front of superior intellects like yourself again.

 

[belboid]

Again, that's not a defense of your argument. Other than mentioning two lines which are applicable to any kind of conflict, and no one is denying that it's about conflict being generally, like, bad.

 

[Reno]

I loved District 9 but to claim it made more sense than Avatar is bollocks, it required far more leaps of faith to fill in plot oversights, no bad thing to my mind but then I'm not one of those aspy fucks who fixates on tiny details and misses the bigger picture.

True. It just seemed a bit too handy to have the space ship fuel, which it took "Christopher" twenty years too collect to get confiscated on the very day that his quest is complete, but that it also conveniently enough transforms the "racist" main character Wikus to teach him the lesson of making him walk in the enemies shoes. The allegory of District 9 was no less patronising or clumsy than that of Avatar.

At least there was an internal logic to the world and plot of Avatar that wasn't quite so reliant on convenient accidents and co-incident.

 

[revol68]

Again, that's not a defense of your argument. Other than mentioning two lines which are applicable to any kind of conflict, and no one is denying that it's about conflict being generally, like, bad.

you utter cretin, how on fucking earth did you take the message that conflict is generally bad from it?

Did the film come to a happy ending through the marines and the Na'vi coming to some agreement, to somehow mutually co-exist?

No it didn't, the film comes it's happy ended because the Na'vi kick the shit out of the Marines and send them packing.

The message anyone with a bit of wit would take from that is that the conflict wasn't avoidable that rather it was inevitable and the real choice to be made was one between fighting or not fighting but on what side you would fight for.

The film is about deserting and insurrection and for that alone it has ten times the balls of any other supposedly subversive or anti war film I seen come out of Hollywood.

 

[belboid]

D9 was, imho, more interesting in that it developed more realistic characters and didn't portray the 'others' as homogenous in the way overwhelmingly Avatar did. That makes it less patronising in my book, tho I do agree it is pretty damn simplistic as well, and that the world of Avatar was probably more consistent (tho various evolutionary scientists have said both sets of aliens were equally implausible, and whilst Avatar was worse, thats only really cos we were shown more of that world)