Did I ever...?

Harkovast rants about movies from time to time, and I wanted to try it out too! I do recall an invitation (of sorts) to post away in this part of the forum… so here I go!

Granted, I did not see Avatar in 3D, in fact I waited until I could rent it to see it. But I am of the firm belief that if something relies solely on visual effects then it is crap. Good looking, perhaps entertaining, crap, but still crap. Avatar falls into this category. Allow me to explain.

First. Has it ever occurred that you have watched a movie so preachy, so blatant, that you started cheering for the bad guys? Sure, it may not happen often, but it happened for me in Avatar. I wanted the humans to exterminate every last single one of the giant blue freaks with their overly hippie (I don't mind hippie normally, really, but this was too much) attitude and primitive weapons. And their stupid little birdie-horsie things too!

But, under the preachy section, the thing that just drives me mad, is divine intervention. Oh goodness do I hate that. Not only is it Deus ex Machina, but it's a preachy Deus ex Machina! Oh no! The Freaky nature goddess thing is pissed off at us! Whatever the hell will we do! Bow down! Bow! Did I mention that this nature religion thing had all the trappings of a cult? Well it does!

And I didn't want the humans to win because I am some kind of Racist anti-environmentalist asshole. I don't think I am anyway. But I hate preachy. I really do. Hell, I'd cheer the Romans tossing early Christians to the lions if it were in a movie as preachy (in a pro-Christianity way) as Avatar! I do like the Romans, and can view their actions from their perspective, but I would never have someone thrown to lions. I also would not advocate the destruction of an entire people unless absolutely necessary for my own people to survive (rulers have to do things like that… good thing I'm not one I suppose), and I mean absolutely necessary.

But of course the Humans are too evil, greedy, etc for me to actively side with, I just was cheering more for them than the blue people. I didn't like them either! Huh. Just figures really. But the guy with the machine gun kills the guy with the bow in a stand up fight. Just saying.

Second. The pacing was off for me. Took too long to get things done, and didn't really captivate me in the build up. It was a far too long movie the way it was done.

Third. Not original in any way. Dances With Wolves? Never saw it, but it sounds the same. Then there is the Disney version of Pocahontas, and Fern Gully, which was better than Avatar because Tim Curry voiced the Bad Guy and Robin Williams voiced a crazy bat. The message and content is almost all the same… In fact, a negative review was given to Fern Gully stated, more or less, that: “The message the movie gives is that humans are evil, that doesn't do anything for anyone.” Avatar got rave reviews, but has a similar enough message. Avatar has the complexity and message of a Child's story told too long and in a dumber way.

Fourth. It was quite probably racist. The Blue people, The Navi or Na(t)iv(es) if you rearrange a few things and add some letters, are totally helpless against the evil (generally, white) humans… but then this (white, human) savior comes to them and leads them to great victory! Huzzah! Also, most humans are evil greedy gits who hate the environment. Or, white people are like that, or the Europeans were like that when they came to America, or whatever… and the Navi, or “Native Americans” were all happy nature lovey types with a perfect society. Sure, the colonials were not the nicest of blokes, but nor were the Native Americans.

Fifth. It is stupid. Leaving aside the idea that a bunch of primitive (tech wise anyway) giant people armed with bows, arrows, telepathic connection to some beasts, could really win in a stand up battle with a, even modern day, high tech force is odd (Remember the Ewoks and Stormtroopers from Star Wars 6? Yeah, then again, given the aim of the Stormtroopers…)… lets take a look at the final battle for a moment… “We're gonna load a bunch of explosives onto a big plane, ship thing, and drop it on their holy site.” The humans have spacecraft. They could drop what they need straight from there… why bother with the blundering in bit? “Nuke the site from orbit” I believe is a line from one of James Cameroon's older, better, movies… “Aliens”.

Sixth… I have an idea for a sequel. The humans return and… nuke the planet to shit, wipe the Navi out, (via nukes) and then send in teams to mine the “Unobtanium” (which, by the way, is a stupid name). This would be a somewhat realistic sequel. After all, we probably have enough nukes on Earth right now to get the job done; and that sounds like something us evil humans would do…

Seventh. The Dialog and the Characters. WHY!!??!?!? Enough said. If I wasn't a relatively nice person I would be demanding the script writers be taken out and shot. The only thing that makes this particular issue less problematic is that the actors are actually quite good. Or at least most of them are. Not that they had much to work with. And the Characters… Stock stock stock! Typical! We have evil racist Colonel person, Wise chief person who gets killed (Wes Studi, also known as Maugua from Last of the You Know Whats), Jealous boyfriend (who I wanted to die a nasty death… at least he died), white saviour person who works with the bad guys then has a change of heart, token girlfriend character and chief's daughter, etc. It gets ridiculous. No complexity at all.

Avatar is simple, straightforward, blunt, slow, preachy, and it comes in two “shades” white and black. This movie will not make you think. It's best feature is the shiny gloss. It is made for simple entertainment… and it fails in that as well for me to a degree. LOTM did not, even if it too is a piece of shit.

What do you all think? Bash me, bash Avatar, but I'm curious, c'mon! But don't bash Harkovast, it wasn't him who started this, but me, Canuovea, and I want credit (particularly the bad credit) to go to me. And I am aware how popular this movie was supposed to be.

I never saw Avatar.
Why?
Basically for all the reasons you have listed.
I dont like to be preached at.
I dont like the whole “white guy goes to live with natives nad becomes their leader and saves them from other white people” racist plot line.
I dont like excessive CGI.
Unobtainium is a silly name.

Everything I have heard of this film makes it sound like the most pointless crap imaginable, so I am not willing to fork out money for it. Maybe in a few years time when I can pick up the special eddition DVD for a fiver…

Amusingly, the “nuke frm orbit, its the only way to be sure!” line was spoken by sigourney weaver, who always appears in this film.
And having heard about what an obnoxious bunch of space hippies the Navi are, I whole heartedly agree with her.

Nuke em, Nuke em, Nuke em, Nuke em, Nuke em! Nuke em high, Nuke em low! HAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHA!!!

Erm. Yeah. Your instincts are correct.

Alright, I've finally seen the movie and now I can give my opinion.

Meh.

Very much Meh.


This is the film equivalent of a happy meal.
Colourful packaging but just empty calories.

I wasn't left enraged, just wondering “Was that it? This is what people are raving about?”

CGI gets on my nerves as we all know but here I have to admit some of it did look very impressive.

But when you get beyond looks, there is nothing here.
No characters, no originality, just empty, pointless colours and lights for a few hours.

Now people have (on this forum no less), torn this movie apart with vicious glee, so I wont repeat the many valid criticisms that have been thrown at the film.

What I want to do, is a rise a key point that struck me as I watched the movie.

THESE PEOPLE ARE MORONS!
Which people?
All of them.
Everyone in this movie is a moron.
The plot only makes sense if you assume everyone involved is stupid and/or insane….or maybe just working for the other side!
The decisions they take are so bat shit crazy that they were constantly leaving me going “Wait…what?”

So let me give you the run down of my top Avatards.

1- General McMoron.
I dont remember the generals name, but since he was more of a character from Street Fighter 2 than a real character, that is not surprising.
Unfortunately, he may have been tough, but he sure wasn't smart.
The Navi are massing in their thousands to attack your base, what do you do?
Take cover within the base?
Clear the forest around the base to give you a clear line of fire?
Launch some missile strikes or orbital bombardments to break those Navi up a bit?

No way! Lets go on the offensive because….um….well who knows? But where to attack?
How about in the one place on the planet where their are floating rocks that not only allow the enemy to launch an aerial ambush (something they would have been able to do NOWHERE else) but also disrupt your sensors and targeting equipment, massively levelling the playing field.
All this so you could blow up a holy Navi site. Now there was no way of knowing how the Navi would respond to this if he had succeeded. Previous evidence suggested that attacking their cultural sites had caused them to mass together for a giant attack….but this time it was bound to make them give up because….ummm….

Also, did the general have a plan for if the Navi had attacked the base while his entire army was out on this vandalism mission? Just a thought.

The general also sent all his soldiers running through the jungle, clearly setting them up for an ambush….or he would have been if he hadn't just met his match in the stupid stakes with his opponents…

2- The Navi- So dumb they would soon go extinct anyway.

The Navi are dumb as dirt.
They encounter a human-Navi hybrid who turns out to be a solider.
Now previously, the Navi have fought skirmishes with the humans (The movie makes this point very clear). They have also spoken with a and been taught English by human scientists (this point is also made clear.) So they know the difference between scientists and soldiers (one teaches you…one kills you!)
So when they realise they have encountered a hybrid who is a soldier, are they concerned? Worried by a change in the “sky people” tactics?
No they instead decide to take him into the tribe and teach him their ways.
Yes, they want to teach an ENEMY SOLDIER all the secrets of jungle survival and the layout of their village and basically everything else the humans could POSSIBLY want to know to mount an attack.
At first I assumed the Navi were bring the hero into their society so they could mine him for info.
Questions like-
“What do the sky people want?”
“How many sky people are there?”
“What are the weaknesses of the sky peoples weapons and machines?”
“Can we trade to get some sky people weapons of our own?”
So what do they ask the hero? Fuck all.
They are apparently the least curious people in the universe.
They don't just not ask obvious and VERY important questions about tactics, they also don't show any interest in where he is from, what life is like for humans (after all, they seem to have no idea how to survive, so what do they do on their world? You would think the Navi might wonder!)
Their stupidity is soon repaid when the humans demolish their tree village using the info that the hero gave them about its structure so they know exactly where to shoot.
Now having had a few run ins with humans, you would assume, the Navi would be well aware of the humans deadly fire power and the need for stealth and getting in close to fight them in the jungle.
Well, turns out not, as they mount a fucking CAVALRY CHARGE! Straight at the rows of human machine guns and basically allow massive numbers of their warriors to be torn to bits for absolutely no reason and accomplishing nothing.
Amusingly, at the start of the film the love interest tells the hero he acts like a baby, making so much noise. So the Navi use cunning and stealth to hunt, but come in whooping loudly when they fight people with guns.
I don't know why the navi felt that what they themselves would describe as “baby” tactics were appropriate for most important battle their world had ever seen…oh yeah I do! Cause they are all idiots!
Oh yeah and if you capture a big flying monster, which is so easy a human figures out how to do it in about five minutes, you get to become king of all Navi.
You just fly above the thing and then swoop down on it and BANG, you are the Navi king.
Thats one hell of a system of government they got their! A big flying lizardocracy!
Best thing, is only 5 navi in recorded history ever worked this out.
But one human? He gets it immediately.
Its lucky for them Jake was a traitor to the humans, or he could have just become king and then ordered these blue morons to surrender.

3- The Hero….either incredibly stupid of an evil genius!
The actions of the hero are so insanely stupid and destructive that I am left wondering if he is actually smart, but just pure evil.
He seems to take actions that so clearly lead to war that I am struggling to understand how it could not be on purpose.
His mission is to warn the navi that they will soon be attacked and negociate with them to move.
He never mentions this to the navi.
He never tells them what the humans want or why.
He doesn't warn the Navi that they are in any danger.
He just enjoys pretending to be a Navi for 3 months.
Is he meant to be slacking off or something?
Why the hell does he do this?
However, he doesn't tell the humans he isn't bothering to negociate. He just carries on as if he is doing the mission.
Better yet, he feeds information to General Mcbadguy about how to attack the Navi.
So he is doing everything in his power to convince the humans that the navi wont cooperate, while giving them the info that will embolden them to attack.

How can people watching this movie and not notice this? Has CGI rendered the whole world blind?

During the final battle, even if the Navi are morons, Jake must have at least some concept of what happens when guys on horses charge a line of machine guns and rocket launchers, and yet he lets the navi run in there, sending them to the their deaths in their thousands.

And this is the guy the Navi make THEIR FUCKING KING!
But a people so lacking in curiosity as the Navi probably would be easy to manipulate. Their complete failure to ask any questions about what is happening means they never spot the holes in Jakes story….cause he doesn't tell them any story! He just lives with them! They never even ask why he was sent!

So who is the biggest idiot?
Pressumably the movie going public, that would make this poorly written, nonsensical, heavy handed to the point of being funny, CGI light show the highest grossing movie of all time.

I borrowed it from someone, so I am not part of the problem this time around!