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Rottenwatch: AVATAR (82%)

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Guys, I understand it is internet protocol to discredit Lucas for anything involving the prequels, but yeah the complaints were for the same thing, just with humans instead of CG characters.

I was amused by the histrionic response from actors because it totally ignored the "violence" of conventional editing. I can't make this stuff up.

Also, funny how a decade changes the opinion of green screen sets and shooting on video.
 
I saw the movie yesterday and thought it was a decent adventure film with good effects, but that was about it. Acting and screenplay weren't very deep, the story was predictable, and the characters, in hindsight, were incredibly static.

Also, I'm kind of in the camp thinking this movie was more of a bummer than those people feeling "depressed" about how awesome the Avatar world appears to be. First off, humanity is fucked according to James Cameron. Earth is apparently "dying", pretty much 99% of humans aren't worthy of entering the "paradise" of Pandora, and future humans are so fucking greedy and self-serving that they will kill sentient creatures with access to limitless information just for some unobtainable "unobtainium" as quickly as possible so they could cause hyper inflation in their space economy and ruin humanity further. Yeah, Sam Worthington's doing great with his newly adopted species, but everyone else he fought for is fucked, and he doesn't really do much to help them in the end. No one does. We're fucked.
 
ahoyhoy said:
Yeah, Sam Worthington's doing great with his newly adopted species, but everyone else he fought for is fucked, and he doesn't really do much to help them in the end. No one does. We're fucked.

Try this analogy:

Hey, don't try and steal my lollipop because you dropped yours on the ground and now it's covered in dirt.

Take better care of yours next time.
 
Scullibundo said:

:lol

What are the alleged similarities?

GhaleonEB said:
The guy writing that article is pretty butthurt over something. :lol

The film's monstrous success insures that most of the articles from this point on will be motivated by one kind of butt-hurt or another, be it racist messiahs or anti-American messages or bitter fanboy tears.

And no, I do not include plain old negative film reviews as an example of butt-hurtitude.
 
Count Dookkake said:
:lol

What are the alleged similarities?
Between Halo and Cameron's stuff, or Avatar and Halo?

There's not much I can think of that's similar to Halo in Avatar at all. I can't think of anything.

Halo basically lifted every design from Aliens possible. :lol
 
Anticitizen One said:
well what he said was they are the military but "out here they basically act like mercenaries"
Wow... you really heard what you wanted to hear. Jake said that they were once Marines, but that now they were "hired guns", (his quote, not mine) otherwise known as mercenaries.
ToxicAdam said:
But this seems to happen every time some movies reach a certain threshold of public saturation. The media comes in and tries to overreach and create conflict where there is none. I remember the same kind of "battle" happened over Forrest Gump. Some claimed it was a liberal movie and some claimed it was a conservative movie. etc etc.
I can kinda see the conservative angle, but mostly it's a love letter to conformity.
Count Dookkake said:
:lol

What are the alleged similarities?
I would assume design, particularly the helicopters. I agree with Cameron, though.
 
GhaleonEB said:
Between Halo and Cameron's stuff, or Avatar and Halo?

There's not much I can think of that's similar to Halo in Avatar at all. I can't think of anything.

Halo basically lifted every design from Aliens possible. :lol

And then when they squeezed that fruit dry, they went and took the mandibles from Predator for the elites (which Cameron also came up with) ;).

I'm glad they did, HALO had a kickass atmosphere and uneasy tone about it. Jenkins was basically Hudson, Sarge/Apone, Foehammer/Ferro etc. Not to mention the dropships, dialogue and plot devices.

I just hope that Reach gets back to the quality of HALO 1 and 2 in terms of writing, as opposed to ODST's story and dialogue which felt like fan fiction with captain Serenity being held captive and being forced to read it out ala Futurama Star Trek episode.

Oh right. AVATAR's great eh?
 
Finally watched in in 3D. Wow.... I actually really liked the movie. To me, most of the flaws were easily overlook able in light of how much was done right in the movie.
 
The_Inquisitor said:
Finally watched in in 3D. Wow.... I actually really liked the movie. To me, most of the flaws were easily overlook able in light of how much was done right in the movie.

Don't lie, we just linked to your article. Butthurt is butthurt.
 
Scullibundo said:
And then when they squeezed that fruit dry, they went and took the mandibles from Predator for the elites (which Cameron also came up with) ;).

I'm glad they did, HALO had a kickass atmosphere and uneasy tone about it. Jenkins was basically Hudson, Sarge/Apone, Foehammer/Ferro etc. Not to mention the dropships, dialogue and plot devices.
Yeah. And at least Bungie wasn't shy about it: on the bulletin board at the very start of the first Halo, there's a poster asking for help looking for a yellow tabby cat. Answers to "Jones". :p

Basically set the mold for an entire generation of space marines.
 
Scullibundo said:
By the way, the bluray is being released on April 21. No idea what cuts there are. That is a date I saw being advertised here in Aus at video stores and I just read that as the date bandied about in the US by FOX.

That's a few days after my birthday.
Thats surprisingly early.

Im guessing it will be pretty barebones...
 
The_Inquisitor said:
Finally watched in in 3D. Wow.... I actually really liked the movie. To me, most of the flaws were easily overlook able in light of how much was done right in the movie.

Personally, I find the 2D version better. Too many details are lost with 3D. Somer scenes are harder to follow too (Thanator chase, for example).

Still, nice there were some advancements in 3D movies but the technology still needs some improving.
 
StoOgE said:
The complaints were based on Lucas taking the absolute worst takes and combining those together.

"Lets do it again, but this time, can you do it faster, and with more intensity?"
 
Instigator said:
Personally, I find the 2D version better. Too many details are lost with 3D. Somer scenes are harder to follow too (Thanator chase, for example).

Still, nice there were some advancements in 3D movies but the technology still needs some improving.


I thought the chase scene was much better in 3D than 2D. But yeah, Avatar is an incredibly beautiful movie and worth watching in both 2D and 3D.

And Cameron is great, no doubts about it. He will make you his bitch and you´ll like it :D

PS: Please stop the prequels talk before someone posts a pic of Jar-Jar Binks D:
 
5.1 million for a Monday seems like quite a drop from the usual legs Avatar has been having. Is the war machinery finally starting to slow down?
 
duckroll said:
5.1 million for a Monday seems like quite a drop from the usual legs Avatar has been having. Is the war machinery finally starting to slow down?

Maybe half the audience for the films offed themselves from Pandrawl.
On a semi-related note, am I remembering correctly that many years ago a kid offed both of his parents with a shotgun because he thought he was in The Matrix? I'm sure I read that somewhere.
 
Kids are in school and people are back to work.

5.1 million on a monday on the movies 4th week of release is pretty amazing ;P Especially since it is a non holiday week
 
Dead said:
Kids are in school and people are back to work.

5.1 million on a monday on the movies 4th week of release on a non holiday week is pretty amazing ;P

I'm not saying it's not good, just saying that it could be starting to slow down now. Duh.
 
Scullibundo said:
And then when they squeezed that fruit dry, they went and took the mandibles from Predator for the elites (which Cameron also came up with) ;).
Don't forget the Active Camouflage!
 
ryutaro's mama said:
Try this analogy:

Hey, don't try and steal my lollipop because you dropped yours on the ground and now it's covered in dirt.

Take better care of yours next time.

That's a pretty simplistic analogy in terms of something as huge as a fucking planet. And like I said before, Worthington offers no advice to his own people in terms of how they can redeem themselves, he just abandons them to suffer and die because of a few rotten apples. Why?
 
DarkMehm said:
Domestic: $435,957,707 31.9%
+ Foreign: $931,968,664 68.1%

= Worldwide: $1,367,926,371

$21m Monday Overseas.


I really think it could hit $1.6 Billion by the end of this week.
 
ahoyhoy said:
That's a pretty simplistic analogy in terms of something as huge as a fucking planet. And like I said before, Worthington offers no advice to his own people in terms of how they can redeem themselves, he just abandons them to suffer and die because of a few rotten apples. Why?

I saw this going 'round and 'round on another forum. I see it this way: regardless of the romanticized way Cameron presents it, in terms of the basic logic, it's hard not to believe Jake would do what he did under the circumstances.

Jake is a "regular joe". He's broken, life sucks, and he has no reason to trust or sympathize with the human infrastructure he's been in contact with most of his adult life. After coming to identify with Pandora, a person in that position would have a lot of motivation to say "fuck that shit" even if it is not thought out that well. People do more for less compelling reasons in real life all the time.

What sticks in some folks' craw is that the movie /sexes up/ Jake's decision and makes it seem like a grand and wonderful thing. Some people would be happier if the story had a darker or morally challenging tone, but it doesn't alter the fact that the underlying premise is sound.

Plus the movie's story stacks the deck with circumstances to push Jake into his decision; he doesn't have any reasonable human oversight committee to argue with at hand. All he's got is a jackass suit (Selfridge) who thinks the Environment is Dumb on one side, and the most hardcore Col. Ripper in decades on the other. There's conveniently enough no way out /except/ to try and get the human compound overrun and drive everybody off the planet.
 
duckroll said:
I'm not saying it's not good, just saying that it could be starting to slow down now. Duh.
Yup on both counts. $5m for the 4th Monday during a school year is just bonkers, but it's also down 37% from last Monday. Revenge of the Fallen - to choose a random example - made $1.75m on its 4th Monday, and that was during the summer.

Though, last week the week days slowed down much more than the weekend. The Saturday-Sunday drop was just 17%, so it's hard to project Avatar's trajectory until the holiday weekend starts to come in.
cvxfreak said:
Avatar grosses 5 Billion Yen (~$55 Million) in 3 weeks in Japan.

http://ameblo.jp/sinobi
HOLY FUCKING CRAP
 
Kaijima said:
I saw this going 'round and 'round on another forum. I see it this way: regardless of the romanticized way Cameron presents it, in terms of the basic logic, it's hard not to believe Jake would do what he did under the circumstances.

Jake is a "regular joe". He's broken, life sucks, and he has no reason to trust or sympathize with the human infrastructure he's been in contact with most of his adult life. After coming to identify with Pandora, a person in that position would have a lot of motivation to say "fuck that shit" even if it is not thought out that well. People do more for less compelling reasons in real life all the time.

What sticks in some folks' craw is that the movie /sexes up/ Jake's decision and makes it seem like a grand and wonderful thing. Some people would be happier if the story had a darker or morally challenging tone, but it doesn't alter the fact that the underlying premise is sound.

Plus the movie's story stacks the deck with circumstances to push Jake into his decision; he doesn't have any reasonable human oversight committee to argue with at hand. All he's got is a jackass suit (Selfridge) who thinks the Environment is Dumb on one side, and the most hardcore Col. Ripper in decades on the other. There's conveniently enough no way out /except/ to try and get the human compound overrun and drive everybody off the planet.

That doesn't change the fact that the movie itself is extremely critical of humanity as a whole, or at least modern society. If we can assume that Worthington became disenchanted with humanity as a whole and lost sight of what he used to believe he was and the people he used to call his peers, what hope do the rest of them have? They obviously cannot see the folly of their ways, as they were granted access to this bountiful planet with a rich, bio-diverse history and a literal biological computer under their feet and yet could not resist the allure of a few tons of shiny rock. Instead of negotiating a slow, fair mining process that would result in billions of "Unobtainium" being mined every day (instead of trillions I can assume) while maintaining peaceful relations with the natives, the majority of the people on that settlement (and I'm talking probably 95%) decided to abandon all moral quandary and potentially obliterate an intelligent species. At least if the Na'Vi were portrayed as anything other than a benevolent, self-sustaining, almost "magical" people, there would be some level of comparison that could be drawn, justifying the humans actions somehow and making the entire experience seem more believable and less depressing overall.

So I say again: what hope does Cameron leave for us? We all clearly cannot live with the Na'Vi (both literally due to the poisonous atmosphere and socially due to their clear lack of trust in the "Sky People"). The only person who seems to learn their lesson in this movie is Worthington and a handful of scientists. Even the "suit", while looking somewhat remorseful at the end as being marched back to his shuttle, probably feels more embarrassment rather than guilt at the hundreds of human and Na'Vi lives he indirectly caused. Our "dying" planet will continue to decay and humans will eventually destroy themselves. Awesome.

Oh, and I also don't understand why everyone is getting depressed about how awesome Pandora is. People are giving Cameron way too much credit with designing the planet as "original". It's essentially just like the jungles we find on Earth, just with more glowey objects. It is incredibly dangerous, yet hauntingly beautiful. As long as we preserve our rain forests, you should be able to find species just as diverse (if not more so) on our own planet.
 
YUP. Another day, another $5 million for AVATAR. Domestic total now stands at $441 million. The sci-fi epic now stands at #5 on the All-Time Highest Grossing Films list...and by the end of today, will pass up SHREK 2. Next up, STAR WARS ($460 mil) and THE DARK KNIGHT ($533 mil).

link

This means that Avatar has a chance of extending its record for most consecutive days over $5m to 31 (next sunday). Previous record was Dark Knight with 20!
 
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