Avatar

[Kotowboy]

I love how people say Avatar's success was ONLY because of the visuals and nobody could possibly have enjoyed the pacing and action and direction.

[Adami]

I love how people say Avatar's success was ONLY because of the visuals and nobody could possibly have enjoyed the pacing and action and direction.

How many people really talk in extremes like that though?

From what I've heard, most people say that Avatar's success was LARGELY due to the visuals and not really because of the story itself. Obviously quite a few people loved the characters/story etc.

[Destiny Of Chaos]

I love how people say Avatar's success was ONLY because of the visuals and nobody could possibly have enjoyed the pacing and action and direction.

How many people really talk in extremes like that though?

From what I've heard, most people say that Avatar's success was LARGELY due to the visuals and not really because of the story itself. Obviously quite a few people loved the characters/story etc.

This

[Kotowboy]

or they say that it ONLY made $3bn because it was in 3D. Well 3D is roughly 33% of the ticket price which means it would have still made $2bn if it wasn't in 3D.

[Adami]

or they say that it ONLY made $3bn because it was in 3D. Well 3D is roughly 33% of the ticket price which means it would have still made $2bn if it wasn't in 3D.

Well......if it wouldn't have made 3bn without 3D..........then didn't it make 3bn because 3d?

I mean, I get that you like to come in here and introduce extreme arguments and then get mad at them, but why? No one here is making these arguments right now. We're talking about the 4 sequels. Who cares anymore why Avatar made its money? It did. Who cares how much money it made? I mean, my favorite movies probably made less than nothing. I still think they're better movies than the billion dollar ones. So why get so angry over what are essentially youtube comments? Can't you just ignore them like the rest of the world should?


Edit: Since it didn't make 3bn dollars, I assume that was a typo? If so, just ignore the first part of my post.

[Destiny Of Chaos]

or they say that it ONLY made $3bn because it was in 3D. Well 3D is roughly 33% of the ticket price which means it would have still made $2bn if it wasn't in 3D.

If it wasn't in 3D, I wouldn't have seen it in theaters at all. I'm sure I'm not the only one who felt that way. 

The 3D/effects was the draw, not the rehashed storyline.

[BlackInk]

I think the story is fine. Sure it's reused from a few different ones, but I didn't mind. I thought it still managed to be interesting and have plenty of cool moments despite that. It's not just the visuals for me, I actually enjoyed the movie.

[Kotowboy]

I think the story is fine. Sure it's reused from a few different ones, but I didn't mind. I thought it still managed to be interesting and have plenty of cool moments despite that. It's not just the visuals for me, I actually enjoyed the movie.

[Zantera]

I would be okay with the story being so cliché if I had engaging characters to hang onto. Just looking at some other Cameron-films, Terminator had Arnold and Linda Hamilton, Aliens had Sigourney Weaver but with Avatar I just didn't really care about anyone. A more likable lead character could have changed it up quite a bit.

[Kotowboy]

I liked Grace Augustine. But Sigourney Weaver is great in most things.

[orcus116]

I love how people say Avatar's success was ONLY because of the visuals and nobody could possibly have enjoyed the pacing and action and direction.

Well the visuals were the selling point and I know I'm sort of in the minority on this where I'll admit that they were really good but I just wasn't impressed. It definitely has a mass appeal regarding the rest of the things you mentioned but it was so damn predictable that I couldn't really enjoy anything. It was following a very typical story arc beat for beat that the action was just eye candy and nothing really fresh or, in my case, remotely interesting.

[Zantera]

Well the visuals were the selling point and I know I'm sort of in the minority on this where I'll admit that they were really good but I just wasn't impressed. It definitely has a mass appeal regarding the rest of the things you mentioned but it was so damn predictable that I couldn't really enjoy anything. It was following a very typical story arc beat for beat that the action was just eye candy and nothing really fresh or, in my case, remotely interesting.

I'm with you. It was a nice little spectacle, but I never got the feeling that Pandora felt like a real world.

[Chino]

Friday night. Cheers!

[Chino]

Well the visuals were the selling point and I know I'm sort of in the minority on this where I'll admit that they were really good but I just wasn't impressed. It definitely has a mass appeal regarding the rest of the things you mentioned but it was so damn predictable that I couldn't really enjoy anything. It was following a very typical story arc beat for beat that the action was just eye candy and nothing really fresh or, in my case, remotely interesting.

I'm with you. It was a nice little spectacle, but I never got the feeling that Pandora felt like a real world.

Would you mind me asking what felt fake to you? One of the reasons I praise this film so much is because of the attention to detail and the incredible level of thought that went into everything you see. Nothing was put in just because it looked cool. Everything you see was designed with physics and evolution in mind. It's the most realistic fantasy world I've ever seen.

[orcus116]

For me it was literally Earth with really good CGI but not quite uncanny valley level plants/animals and silly fluorescent colored things. I'm not even talking from a fantasy type perspective but just the quality of CGI wasn't that good.

Basically Pandora never felt like a real alien planet. Like 90% of it is completely familiar with a few lazily added features.

[Chino]

I'll address this either way tomorrow when I'm not on my phone, but what do you mean by "lazy features"? If you can remember anything specifically, I'd like to hear it (legitimately  asking as a fan who loves talking about this movie, not trying to bait).

 I'm watching the movie right now. Jake just bagged his ikran. I've been looking really hard for flaws and I've come up with two so far;

1) I don't think we'll be able to achieve what we did on a world like Pandora by the year 2154.
2) Jake looks at pictures taped to a mini fridge and they are in 3D. Crap job on Weta's part. I'm assuming if JC approved it, it was because of the crazy amount of resources it took to make that scene, and redoing it would have cost more than it was worth, or it would have caused more delays.

[MrBoom_shack-a-lack]

See even the newsreader is confused by 4 sequels....

https://youtu.be/JdN2UZyktGM

[BlackInk]

Pandora always felt real enough to me. And I don't get "lazy features" at all? I mean, if you think Pandora is a lazily built world, how fucking high are your expectations?

[Zantera]

Would you mind me asking what felt fake to you? One of the reasons I praise this film so much is because of the attention to detail and the incredible level of thought that went into everything you see. Nothing was put in just because it looked cool. Everything you see was designed with physics and evolution in mind. It's the most realistic fantasy world I've ever seen.

I think to me at least, it was just too colorful and a lot of the visuals reminded me of places in World of Warcraft. Having played that for so many years and seeing several places in Avatar that looked like they were taken straight out of the game (not saying they were) took me out of it, because I knew these locations as locations in a video game basically. Felt a bit Pixar-y almost.

On the other side of the spectrum, I thought a movie like Prometheus (while equally flawed, if not more) had stunning visuals and a planet I "bought" much more than Pandora.

[orcus116]

I'll address this either way tomorrow when I'm not on my phone, but what do you mean by "lazy features"? If you can remember anything specifically, I'd like to hear it (legitimately  asking as a fan who loves talking about this movie, not trying to bait).

Two that come to mind are floating islands and the rhino/shark, which looks like someone came up with it in 3 seconds. These are supposed to represent things you'd maybe see on an alien planet but they just look like stuff you'd see on Earth with a very slight twist. I'm not sure if it was a design choice but I feel that a lot of times, especially when it comes to alien/creature designs for these kinds of movies, everything is played incredibly safe so the audience has somewhat of a familiarity with what they're seeing to help sell it. That doesn't excite me. I want really out there alien and creature designs that I can't even think in my head. I want something truly creative and new not two existing Earth creatures slammed together to create something "new" or another humanoid looking alien with two arms, two legs, a torso, and a head. That is lazy to me.

[MirrorMask]

1) I don't think we'll be able to achieve what we did on a world like Pandora by the year 2154.

I'm old enough to have spent some time in the last millennium, and the year "2000" was a random placeholder for the future, a super space-ish future with flying cars and Star Wars landscapes and so on. The more technology advances the more we should get real and get a better understanding how of things may develop (for example, take all those movies either serious or comedic when someone is for whatever reason thrown into the future and they get culture shock, like "OMG what is this unfathomable wizardry", would we be THAT absolutely amazed at whatever may be here in 100 years, rather than understanding it as a logical development of what we have now?), but still we're just in that frame of mind where we slap just a 100 years to our timeline and go all spaceships, universe colonization and magic-like gadgets.

[Kotowboy]

There's no way we're ever getting flying cars.

[MirrorMask]

There's no way we're ever getting flying cars.

Of course we won't. What life would be one where you walk down the street and two car that had an accident 20 meters above you come crashing down on you?

One thing however I think we may get was those flat displays that people in the lab were taking and carrying elsewhere (talking about the movie now). That is something I could totally see happening, something so thin (we're going in that direction anyway) that you could just take from some place and carry somewhere else.

[hefdaddy42]

I would be okay with the story being so cliché if I had engaging characters to hang onto. Just looking at some other Cameron-films, Terminator had Arnold and Linda Hamilton, Aliens had Sigourney Weaver but with Avatar I just didn't really care about anyone. A more likable lead character could have changed it up quite a bit.

This.  None of the acting was really very good at all.  The visuals were spectacularly done, but the dialogue, story, and acting were obviously shortchanged because effects.

[Outcrier]

Cameron plans on shooting four Avatar sequels. Little detail: at the same time.

What a madman 

[BlobVanDam]

Cameron plans on shooting four Avatar sequels. Little detail: at the same time.

What a madman 

That's not that crazy. How long does it take to shoot the 20 minutes of live action footage?

[Zantera]

Makes sense to shoot them at the same time. They'll save money, and the sequels won't make as much money as the first, so doing it all in one go (I'm sure there will be re-shoots either way) is a good way to make the filmmaking slightly cheaper and make more money.

[hefdaddy42]

As long as the cast is expected to stay relatively the same across the span of films, shooting them together makes the most sense.  It will also be cost-effective.

[Chino]

Cameron plans on shooting four Avatar sequels. Little detail: at the same time.

What a madman 

That's not that crazy. How long does it take to shoot the 20 minutes of live action footage?

The entire film is acted out and filmed regardless of whether the scene is all CGI or not. The human acting drives the CGI skeltons and facial mapping.
 

[The Trooper]

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=BKKdnOZzMv4

Walt Disney World Avatar Land preview

[bosk1]

Looks pretty cool. 

[PetFish]

I love how people say Avatar's success was ONLY because of the visuals and nobody could possibly have enjoyed the pacing and action and direction.

No kidding.  This exact same story has also been told and re-told a million times (Dances With Wolves, Fern Gully, Pocahontas, The Last Samurai, etc) but for some reason Avatar gets bashed cuz, why?... it was the most successful and people don't like success beyond a certain point it seems... the magic number seems to be around $600 million and then people start turning on it.

I loved the pacing and action and direction and the "Eywa" angle really made me emotional, especially with dealing with a loss two days before the movie came out.  I was a mess a few times during the movie.

[Kotowboy]

I've made this point several times. That if Avatar is "the same" as all those movies then those movies are "the same" as each other.

And yes it is popular to bash anything successful.

[Adami]

Because the reaction to Avatar wasn't "That was a nice movie."

The extreme hate it gets (not from me, I'm just apathetic toward it) is largely a reaction to the extreme praise it got.

Had Avatar made like 700 or even 800 million dollars, didn't get praised as the greatest movie ever made (when it was released) it would have likely gotten the same amount of hate as most movies do.


To summarize....it's all Chino's fault.

Edit: The movie was also hyped as a revolution in film. And it was......visually, kinda. But when a movie being sold as a complete game changer is essentially a tired old story, then people are going to notice it a lot more.

[bosk1]

I agree with all of that.  (including the apathy part)