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Rottenwatch: AVATAR (82%)

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julls said:
i'd hope that if the extended cut is his 'true' vision he'd push for it, considering what a perfectionist he is.

Uh, the full version would be a few minutes over 4 hours. That like 90 minutes worth of extra stuff. We're talking in excess of 100mil here. No, I don't think Cameron would foot that bill. :lol
 
What if Jake and Neytiri's offspring is a foul-mouth 13 year old boy? Do it Cameron!

I'm sorry, I'm just so excited for the extended edition now reading the new script!
 
Scullibundo said:
Uh, the full version would be a few minutes over 4 hours. That like 90 minutes worth of extra stuff. We're talking in excess of 100mil here. No, I don't think Cameron would foot that bill. :lol

Let's start a fund. The PayPal Avatar Donation Fund to get the movie over 4 hours.

0/$100,000,000 so far.
 
Scullibundo said:
Uh, the full version would be a few minutes over 4 hours. That like 90 minutes worth of extra stuff. We're talking in excess of 100mil here. No, I don't think Cameron would foot that bill. :lol
Yeah, stuff like Jake going on an acid trip before becoming one of the Na'vi, I dont expect to ever see that. Was probably cut early on, though it would have been very nice visually.
 
Scullibundo said:
Uh, the full version would be a few minutes over 4 hours. That like 90 minutes worth of extra stuff. We're talking in excess of 100mil here. No, I don't think Cameron would foot that bill. :lol
oh, i meant the stuff he was talking about on MTV that got removed. haha.
not another 90 mins of content :lol as awesome as that would be.
 
heres a basic rundown of stuff from the script that wasn't in the movie (from IMDB)

1. Several scenes of Quatrich's men being under attack by the Na'vi wildlife. Includes base being under attack by stingbats

2. Several scenes of Jake in the cafeteria of the base, eating food there and talking to a chef about the situation on Pandora.

3. The film really only showed about half of Jake's training to become a Na'vi. There were several other rituals Jake had to participate in for him to be deemed worthy as a a Na'vi. Uniltaron or Dream Hunt is a ritual as important for a teenage Na'vi as Iknimaya. In Uniltaron Jake has to make a stone jar and then capture an arachnoid to store in the stone jar. The arachnoid's venom is used to give Jake a dream vision that is supposed to reveal his spirit animal. Besides this Jake was supposed to become a master at riding the direhorse to engage in a sturmbeest hunt. Lastly Jake was to be shown making a bow from the branch of Hometree which would complete his training and make him an adult Na'vi.

4. Several scenes of the Na'vi were cut. Including a large sequence of the Na'vi dinner scene where they discuss various views on Jake. There was also a large sequence of the Na'vi engaging in a circle to sing the Hunt Song before a stumbeest hunt that was not in the theatrical cut. Lastly the massive sturmbeest hunt where the Na'vi hunt a large sturmbeest herd was supposed to be in the film.

5. Several scenes of life on Earth were supposed to be in the film. Including scenes that shows a massive Earth city and the death of Jake's brother Tom.

6. Several character scenes that gave more depth to the characters were cut. Including more scenes on Jake, Norm, Dr. Grace, Selfridge, Quatrich, Trudy and Neytiri.

7. A scene was cut right before the final SecOps attack on the Na'vi where Selfridge turns against Quatrich and Quatrich nearly kills Selfridge.

8. Another scene was cut of the Na'vi after defeating Quatrich attacking the RDA base.

9. The sex scene between Jake and Neytiri was supposed to be a longer. This sequence has been filmed and is said to return in the film for the Special Edition.

10. The scene of the humans leaving Pandora was meant to be slightly longer.

Also, more character beats with Tsu'Tey, and the stuff abour Graces School
 
In the script its not 'You got a little local tail'.

03240-3.jpg
 
I really hope that four hour cut makes it. I won't hold my breath though.

Also, yeah, I'm pretty sure Neytiri says "My Jake!" and not "Ma'Jake!". I don't even remember hearing her say anything remotely close to either of those lines in the film before that scene.
 
So I just left the theater with my friend who hadn't seen it yet. He already wants to go back :lol Also the theater was over half full (200 house) on a Thursday with bad snow...

Now regarding the "my Jake" she clearly says "my Jake" at the end. However the first time she says it is right after they mate and she is trying to wake him up. First time I noticed that :D so she starts saying it right after they become mated for life.

Also something else regarding the end
When grace is being healed I noticed only the front of the tree had NA'Vi there but at the end for jakes rebirth the entire tree was surrounded by NA'Vi which means all of the tribes stayed to see him reborn to be one of the people.
 
I really hope that four hour cut makes it. I won't hold my breath though.
Dont count on it, heh

Im trying to not be too hopeful about any kind of extended cut. I dont want to end up too horribly disappointed if we end up getting nothing.
 
Dead said:
heres a basic rundown of stuff from the script that wasn't in the movie (from IMDB)

1. Several scenes of Quatrich's men being under attack by the Na'vi wildlife. Includes base being under attack by stingbats

2. Several scenes of Jake in the cafeteria of the base, eating food there and talking to a chef about the situation on Pandora.

3. The film really only showed about half of Jake's training to become a Na'vi. There were several other rituals Jake had to participate in for him to be deemed worthy as a a Na'vi. Uniltaron or Dream Hunt is a ritual as important for a teenage Na'vi as Iknimaya. In Uniltaron Jake has to make a stone jar and then capture an arachnoid to store in the stone jar. The arachnoid's venom is used to give Jake a dream vision that is supposed to reveal his spirit animal. Besides this Jake was supposed to become a master at riding the direhorse to engage in a sturmbeest hunt. Lastly Jake was to be shown making a bow from the branch of Hometree which would complete his training and make him an adult Na'vi.

4. Several scenes of the Na'vi were cut. Including a large sequence of the Na'vi dinner scene where they discuss various views on Jake. There was also a large sequence of the Na'vi engaging in a circle to sing the Hunt Song before a stumbeest hunt that was not in the theatrical cut. Lastly the massive sturmbeest hunt where the Na'vi hunt a large sturmbeest herd was supposed to be in the film.

5. Several scenes of life on Earth were supposed to be in the film. Including scenes that shows a massive Earth city and the death of Jake's brother Tom.

6. Several character scenes that gave more depth to the characters were cut. Including more scenes on Jake, Norm, Dr. Grace, Selfridge, Quatrich, Trudy and Neytiri.

7. A scene was cut right before the final SecOps attack on the Na'vi where Selfridge turns against Quatrich and Quatrich nearly kills Selfridge.

8. Another scene was cut of the Na'vi after defeating Quatrich attacking the RDA base.

9. The sex scene between Jake and Neytiri was supposed to be a longer. This sequence has been filmed and is said to return in the film for the Special Edition.

10. The scene of the humans leaving Pandora was meant to be slightly longer.



Also, more character beats with Tsu'Tey, and the stuff abour Graces School


I take a vacation from this thread and look what happens, Avatar is about to sink Titanic!

Reading through those scenes I can definitely see why they were cut - while no doubt cool, most of them would weigh down the film heavily without justifying their need for serving plot. Yes, the plot and characters are rather simple, and therefore wouldn't have sustained all those extra scenes.

Avatar is already a long film, but an elegant film, and I think Cameron feels the same way.

I'm looking forward to the special edition with extra scenes, but that's all it will be, a "special edition", not a "director's cut".
 
Justinian said:
I take a vacation from this thread and look what happens, Avatar is about to sink Titanic!

Reading through those scenes I can definitely see why they were cut - while no doubt cool, most of them would weigh down the film heavily without justifying their need for serving plot. Yes, the plot and characters are rather simple, and therefore wouldn't have sustained all those extra scenes.

Avatar is already a long film, but an elegant film, and I think Cameron feels the same way.

I'm looking forward to the special edition with extra scenes, but that's all it will be, a "special edition", not a "director's cut".

It will be a Director's Cut. Cameron is not Snyder, he will not release an additional cut if he doesn't think its better. Cameron is the only fan he has to please. This is how its been with all his films.
 
Okay, I just read the ENTIRE 2007 script. The stuff they cut are really good character and world development material. I really want to see an extended cut now. :(((((
 
Scullibundo said:
Also like how much more dangerous they make Pandora in the beginning. Where not only does the StingBat attack the compound as soon as Jake rolls out, but Quaritch's introduction to the bashee's and his little speech to all the fresh meat, whilst mowing down trees. All this happens before Jake goes to sleep as his avatar for the first time.

Note: Some things I'll talk about can perhaps be SPOILERS for the movie.

That attack you mention reminds me of something. I'm not sure if you read the original scriptment, but in it there's also a concerted attack by two animals right at the beginning, and there's this feeling that Hell's gate is under constant attack. This made sense given that, as it is explained later, Eywa was acting as a defense mechanism (in the scriptment, Eywa seems not a fully sentient intelligence in my opinion, but a sort of quasi-sentient caretaker, the movie leaves this a bit more open). One of the first things Josh/Jake was told was that he would never get sick on Pandora, since when humans arrived Pandora/Eywa developed resistant drugs to all diseases they brought (and RDA promptly exploited that to sell the new drugs back on Earth). The "twist" is, as we find later, Hell's Gate was under constant attack because humans themselves were thought of as an infection by Eywa, and that concerted attack by two mutual predators (iirc, or at least two animals acting in an unnatural way) happened, like many others, because Eywa was controlling them. The reason I said before that this gave the impression of Eywa not being fully-sentient is that it might have tried to communicate with humanity first in other ways. Instead, the hostile behaviour suggests something that is just acting kind of algorithmically based on some set of inputs (i.e. weird stuff arrives->destroy it) and not really "thinking". It's like Cameron says in the scriptment, "Is she intelligent, this Gaia? ... Sort of."

In the movie it feels like Eywa has more of an actual sentience. Grace says "I'm with her" before dying, they hear the voices of the ancestors when plugged in, it's as if the minds are all in there not just stored but perhaps acting as part of the larger Eywa mind. When Eywa listens and answers the call of the Na'vi, it suggests however a bit more of intelligence, required to understand Josh's pleading. In this respect, the movie version of Eywa seems more consistent with past behaviour. I didn't read the new script yet so I don't know if they mention constant attacks against Hell's Gate, but I can only go by what the movie showed anyway, that's what counts. Also, despite seeming a bit more intelligent in the movie, it's like it's less capable in other respects. Why, for example, did Jake have to travel to the other clans (I assume he only warned nearby ones given the remote station's psionic link range) if they could just warn them through the "network", as they did in the scriptment.

In the sequels, given the behaviour on display in the movie, they may go forward with it being some kind of super conscious mind, a sentient being itself, not just a super glorified defense mechanism. I wonder if they're gonna talk about its origins (or will just explain its origins as just natural evolution...).
 
Here are some of the scenes I felt really should have stayed in the movie:

- The backstory of Grace's school, and how she sees Jake as going through the same journey she did, but going further than she could allow herself to go. The ruins of the school, the background about Neytiri's sister and the closing of the school, those stuff seem really important to me.

- The little subplot about how Norm was actually getting angry at Jake because he felt he was the one who put in all the hard work and study into this, but Jake is getting all the glory. In fact they even kept the line from Jake about how Norm was "back on board" and it never made any sense in the current cut because Norm was never shown to ever actually voice serious displeasure at Jake.

- The vision quest. It's a big foreshadowing scene, and it definitely "completes" Jake's journey as a warrior. In the current cut it just seems like the big event he wanted to stay behind for was just a body painting process which ended with everyone touching him. It definitely felt more important when he told Quatrich that he had to stay to do this one last thing to become "a man".

- The ending battle scenes with Max taking over Hell's Gate with the scientists, and eventually letting the Navi warriors in easily to surrender the base. This really gives Max a big pay off at the end, and also explains how the Navi didn't actually have to fight to get through the defenses of Hell's Gate.

- Tsu'tey's death. Another character ending which felt empty in the current cut. In the script he actually falls and survives, but the bald asshole AMP suit pilot finds him and cuts his hair bond off. Later he gets killed by Neytiri on the Thanathor, and after the entire battle Jake has a final chat with Tsu'tey where Jake is made the new leader of the clan, before ending his life at his request.
 
duckroll said:
Here are some of the scenes I felt really should have stayed in the movie:

- The backstory of Grace's school, and how she sees Jake as going through the same journey she did, but going further than she could allow herself to go. The ruins of the school, the background about Neytiri's sister and the closing of the school, those stuff seem really important to me.

- The little subplot about how Norm was actually getting angry at Jake because he felt he was the one who put in all the hard work and study into this, but Jake is getting all the glory. In fact they even kept the line from Jake about how Norm was "back on board" and it never made any sense in the current cut because Norm was never shown to ever actually voice serious displeasure at Jake.

- The vision quest. It's a big foreshadowing scene, and it definitely "completes" Jake's journey as a warrior. In the current cut it just seems like the big event he wanted to stay behind for was just a body painting process which ended with everyone touching him. It definitely felt more important when he told Quatrich that he had to stay to do this one last thing to become "a man".

- The ending battle scenes with Max taking over Hell's Gate with the scientists, and eventually letting the Navi warriors in easily to surrender the base. This really gives Max a big pay off at the end, and also explains how the Navi didn't actually have to fight to get through the defenses of Hell's Gate.

- Tsu'tey's death. Another character ending which felt empty in the current cut. In the script he actually falls and survives, but the bald asshole AMP suit pilot finds him and cuts his hair bond off. Later he gets killed by Neytiri on the Thanathor, and after the entire battle Jake has a final chat with Tsu'tey where Jake is made the new leader of the clan, before ending his life at his request.
Yeah, Grace is the character who lost the most. Her background scenes would have made the film so much better.

As for the Tsu'tey scene at the end, it was completely finished according to someone who worked on the movie:

11lmyjc.jpg


Unfortunately I dont think well ever see the Vision quest and the Hells Gate battle. Simply too much money would be involved.
 
duckroll said:
Here are some of the scenes I felt really should have stayed in the movie:

- The backstory of Grace's school, and how she sees Jake as going through the same journey she did, but going further than she could allow herself to go. The ruins of the school, the background about Neytiri's sister and the closing of the school, those stuff seem really important to me.

- The little subplot about how Norm was actually getting angry at Jake because he felt he was the one who put in all the hard work and study into this, but Jake is getting all the glory. In fact they even kept the line from Jake about how Norm was "back on board" and it never made any sense in the current cut because Norm was never shown to ever actually voice serious displeasure at Jake.

- The vision quest. It's a big foreshadowing scene, and it definitely "completes" Jake's journey as a warrior. In the current cut it just seems like the big event he wanted to stay behind for was just a body painting process which ended with everyone touching him. It definitely felt more important when he told Quatrich that he had to stay to do this one last thing to become "a man".

- The ending battle scenes with Max taking over Hell's Gate with the scientists, and eventually letting the Navi warriors in easily to surrender the base. This really gives Max a big pay off at the end, and also explains how the Navi didn't actually have to fight to get through the defenses of Hell's Gate.

- Tsu'tey's death. Another character ending which felt empty in the current cut. In the script he actually falls and survives, but the bald asshole AMP suit pilot finds him and cuts his hair bond off. Later he gets killed by Neytiri on the Thanathor, and after the entire battle Jake has a final chat with Tsu'tey where Jake is made the new leader of the clan, before ending his life at his request.

Yep wanted to see all of it. Except I think in the script Tsu'Tey gets shot down off his Banshee as opposed to being shot and falling from the Dragon's loading bay ramp.
 
I think Cameron's idea to allow people to choose how they watch the movie is awesome. That way, you can see the theatrical cut, all the way up to a full cut and anything in between.

They are already releasing Blurays with both the theatrical and extended cuts on the one disc so this is a logical extension of that.

Scullibundo said:
Except I think in the script Tsu'Tey gets shot down off his Banshee as opposed to being shot and falling from the Dragon's loading bay ramp.

Man, that was the most epic action scene in the entire movie. I get chills :D
 
The school stuff is definitely the number one thing I wanted to see.
Seeing those photos in Grace's locker was my favorite part of avatar.
 
Justinian said:
I think Cameron's idea to allow people to choose how they watch the movie is awesome. That way, you can see the theatrical cut, all the way up to a full cut and anything in between.

They are already releasing Blurays with both the theatrical and extended cuts on the one disc so this is a logical extension of that.

The last T2 bluray release had that. You could watch the theatrical, the director's or the cut with the shitty old-sarah ending at the end.
 
As a reminder, heres what Cameron said about how to present an extended cut for Avatar:

BD: What plans to you have for an extended director's cut for the Blu-ray/DVD?

JC: It's in discussion. I haven't figured out exactly how I'm gonna approach it yet. We might do something where we create an interactive DVD that's got a pathway so you could watch the movie the way it was released or watch it with other scenes in it or maybe do your own version with more of this or less of that.

I could only see this working, if they fork over the cash to complete several other scenes...
 
Dead said:
I think the one lesson to take out of this is:

Fuck IMAX and its runtime limits!
Again, movies have been cut for IMAX before. Also, the maximum run time for IMAX has increased before.
Justinian said:
I think Cameron's idea to allow people to choose how they watch the movie is awesome. That way, you can see the theatrical cut, all the way up to a full cut and anything in between.

They are already releasing Blurays with both the theatrical and extended cuts on the one disc so this is a logical extension of that.
Different versions of movies in theaters is even something that's happened on opening day. With Attack of the Clones, only digital screens had the wedding scene. Of course, the original has to be Clue, with different endings depending on what screen you saw it on.
 
Dead said:
I could only see this working, if they fork over the cash to complete several other scenes...

It'll be well worth the investment though. The movie is already the #2 movie of all time, and on track to potentially be #1. Buffing up the home video release significantly to make it a must have will blow the profits Fox makes off the movie through the heavens.
 
duckroll said:
It'll be well worth the investment though. The movie is already the #2 movie of all time, and on track to potentially be #1. Buffing up the home video release significantly to make it a must have will blow the profits Fox makes off the movie through the heavens.
well like I said

I just don't want to get my hopes up too much ;_;
 
Basically, the expanded script addressed nearly every criticism of the movie. Even a couple of those scenes - more background on Grace, the school, Quaritch/Selfridge - would have gone a long way.

We'd better get a really extended cut.

That I'll never get to see in the theater. :(
 
duckroll said:
It'll be well worth the investment though. The movie is already the #2 movie of all time, and on track to potentially be #1. Buffing up the home video release significantly to make it a must have will blow the profits Fox makes off the movie through the heavens.

Hell, even if they have to render some scenes, they can pay for it with a fraction of the profit of just the theatrical run. DO IT CAMERON. 4h18m it was, right?. I'll settle for no less. :D
 
Somnia said:
So I just left the theater with my friend who hadn't seen it yet. He already wants to go back :lol Also the theater was over half full (200 house) on a Thursday with bad snow...

Now regarding the "my Jake" she clearly says "my Jake" at the end. However the first time she says it is right after they mate and she is trying to wake him up. First time I noticed that :D so she starts saying it right after they become mated for life.

Also something else regarding the end
When grace is being healed I noticed only the front of the tree had NA'Vi there but at the end for jakes rebirth the entire tree was surrounded by NA'Vi which means all of the tribes stayed to see him reborn to be one of the people.

Just putting this on the new page...hate having my post at the very end of a page :lol
 
duckroll said:
- The little subplot about how Norm was actually getting angry at Jake because he felt he was the one who put in all the hard work and study into this, but Jake is getting all the glory. In fact they even kept the line from Jake about how Norm was "back on board" and it never made any sense in the current cut because Norm was never shown to ever actually voice serious displeasure at Jake.

If you pay attention, it is implied many times that Norm was jalous of Jake's acheivements. It's subtle, but it's still there. For exemple, when the are eating and Grace is telling the others how Jake escaped the tanator and made contact with the Omaticayan, you can see that Norm is not happy at all :lol
 
Tigel said:
If you pay attention, it is implied many times that Norm was jalous of Jake's acheivements. It's subtle, but it's still there. For exemple, when the are eating and Grace is telling the others how Jake escaped the tanator and made contact with the Omaticayan, you can see that Norm is not happy at all :lol
I didn't pick up on it the first time and also complained, and then someone told me to look harder.

Second time around - yeah, it's there. Pissy look at lunch after Jake wakes up. "Who's got a date with the chief's daughter?" scene. "The Hallelujah Mountains - heard of them?" scene. Norm just got all jealous and pissy for a while.
 
Somnia said:
Just putting this on the new page...hate having my post at the very end of a page :lol
Definitely didn't catch that last detail.
 
Being jealous and pissy is expected though. But in current version of the movie he was still totally cooperative and professional. So it made no sense that Jake would say that Norm's now "back on board" but still thinks he's a moron. That's.... not any different from how Norm was before that. The missing link is when Norm has a total break down and basically lets it all out on Jake and Grace after they land on the mobile link shack, because Jake gets the "least glitchy" link.
 
Jtwo said:
Definitely didn't catch that last detail.

Took me 6 times :D

Regarding Norm. I agree I didn't catch it the first time (maybe a little, but nothing major), but on my 2nd viewing I saw how he was angry/pissed off at Jake and how he opened up more and more as time went on.

I really really hope we get SOME of the scenes. There really were a lot of character development I would like to see. I'd REALLY love to see the dinner table scene when they were discussing Jake (though I doubt we'll ever see this).
 
duckroll said:
Being jealous and pissy is expected though. But in current version of the movie he was still totally cooperative and professional.
Um, no he wasn't. And Jake says, "Norm's attitude is improving." When before, Norm's attitude is quite decidedly bad. The line makes sense.
 
duckroll said:
The missing link is when Norm has a total break down and basically lets it all out on Jake and Grace after they land on the mobile link shack, because Jake gets the "least glitchy" link.

I hope this scene will be in the Director's Cut though.
 
Somnia said:
Took me 6 times :D
UGH!
I still have yet to even see this my second time! Grrr!
I'm basically at the whim of other's schedules. :[
Sure, I could just go see alone but I really want to see it with my sister and friends etc..

We were gonna go Dec. 23rd.
And then yesterday all day we were planning to go but it just didn't work out. >:O
 
duckroll said:
Being jealous and pissy is expected though. But in current version of the movie he was still totally cooperative and professional. So it made no sense that Jake would say that Norm's now "back on board" but still thinks he's a moron. That's.... not any different from how Norm was before that. The missing link is when Norm has a total break down and basically lets it all out on Jake and Grace after they land on the mobile link shack, because Jake gets the "least glitchy" link.

Eh, it was pretty easy to deduce what was going on in Norm's mind as the final cut is.
 
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