James Cameron's 'Avatar' - The next gen of cinema

NeilFawcett said:
Is it "gob-smackingly awful?"
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Yes. It's certainly embarrassingly twee. I was cringing for long sections of it, as cliché after cliché rolled across the screen (check out the "Oirish" immigrants). Cameron is a good director of action, but at all costs he should be kept away from script-writing.

I should also point out that both the Oscars and Golden Globes are notorious for being influenced by a film's popularity. If the film is a big enough spectacle, and it sells, it may win big, even if it's mediocre at best. By the time you got to the end of the SFX in Titanic you'd forgotten just how terrible the first half was.


M
 
Meridian said:
Yes. It's certainly embarrassingly twee. I was cringing for long sections of it, as cliché after cliché rolled across the screen (check out the "Oirish" immigrants). Cameron is a good director of action, but at all costs he should be kept away from script-writing.

I should also point out that both the Oscars and Golden Globes are notorious for being influenced by a film's popularity. If the film is a big enough spectacle, and it sells, it may win big, even if it's mediocre at best. By the time you got to the end of the SFX in Titanic you'd forgotten just how terrible the first half was.


M
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What's wrong with the oirish immigrants? The ship left from Ireland, and had a lot of poor Irish onboard? What were you expecting, sophisticated Egyptions? :)

Anyway, I like it so there! :P


I think it's a well produced film. Yes, somewhat cliche in places, but a clever re-telling of a story I feel... Certainly gave a lot of people an insight and interest into the trajedy.
 
NeilFawcett said:
Easy tiger...

You've already shown - in your own words - you came down harder on Avatar because it was hyped/successful.
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Nope, I never said that. Show me where you think I said that. Quote me directly.

I said that my review was proportionate to the hype. I didn't say that the movie's hype or commercial success was the reason for my bad review. As I've said in a previous post, the first Harry Potter movie was hyped beyond belief and yet I enjoyed it tremendously.

So not suprising you'd come down like an anvil on a film you didn't enjoy if it was the most successful film of all time.
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I come down like an anvil on any film I didn't enjoy. Why should I care if it made $9 trillion or whatever? That makes no difference to me. I still didn't enjoy the movie. It doesn't get any better for me simply by making a few extra bucks. Conversely, I am quite prepared to enjoy a movie even if it gets destroyed by the critics and doesn't break even at the box office.

Johnny English was a commercial success ($40m budget; $160m gross revenue) but a critical failure. The reviewers absolutely hated it! But I enjoyed it so much, I watched it at least three times (admittedly on DVD :p ).
 
Well I watched Avatar in 3D last night and really enjoyed it.

After watching the initial 3D adverts and noticing some stuttering when moving across the screen, I was a little worried the 3D was going to be over the top. It wasn't and I feel it enhanced the film experience.

Although the plot was predictable, tbh I was quite happy with this for an sci-fi action adventure, I would have been dissapointed if they had thrown in some pointless plot twist.

I think the world created was amazing and the visual effects stunning. Normally I am not a fan of CGI characters, but with this and district 9 recently, I think the technology is there now to create interesting and believable characters. Although I did find the main character slightly annoying, I think that has more to do with the actor than the CGI.

I would go and see it again tomorrow no problem, and would probably enjoy it even more, I think it does exactly what it says on the tin, sci-fi action adventure. Thumbs up from me :)
 
Evangelion said:
I come down like an anvil on any film I didn't enjoy.
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Odd... If I don't enjoy a film I try and think why, and try just be rational about it. ie: There's plenty of films I didn't enjoy, and would never watch again, but still have at least some respect for. Even if I don't enjoy/get on with a film, I can still give some credit for the techincal know how and how well it may well have been put togethor.

As such, I try not to resort to a binary (black and white) appreciation. ie: Any film I don't enjoy is "rubbish" or "gob-smackingly awful"...

For example, surely Armageddon is worse in your books that Titanic, so how on earth do you rate that? "really gob-smackingly awful?" :)

There is no way - with a fair mind - Titanic can be considered a truely bad film. It's well filmed, produced, constructed and does have some merits to its story/script. If you don't like it fine, if some of issues are major things to you, fine. But at least try and be a little bit rational about it :rolleyes:

I'm by no means suggesting it's a great/outstanding flick, but at least be sensible about it.
 
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Chimerical said:
That's the problem though, I see the 5/10 'score' as bang-on average which the film probably is if you're not interested in the visual side of it.

I wish people wouldn't rate films out of ten or whatever though but if they write enough of a description of their thoughts then its that's okay. Critics should ditch the 5 stars system too.
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Fair enough. Although you can't discount the visuals really can you? A movie experience is a complete package, visuals included. But again this is all still subjective.

I agree I don't like the star system overly either, however Evangelion did give it a score and I was only comparing like for like with examples to illustrate the point. 5/10 is an average score, the film is anything but average if taken as a complete package.

Evangelion said:
Good point. A rating is only meaningful when compared to the rating of other movies in the same genre. That's why I dismissed the comparison to The Lost Boys as completely irrelevant. Compare apples with apples or don't compare anything at all. A rating is only as useful as its context.

I wouldn't even have bothered to give Avatar a rating, had I not spent the past (x) number of pages being badgered for a review by people who've raved about it. But having decided to do so, I thought it best to explain my rationale. :)
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I disagree with that. Surely a rating is a single person's or group of persons general opinion of that particular film out of 10. Genre or Era play no relative role in it at all. It isn't flawless system by any means, with its major downfall being that it is completely subjective. I concede that if you have seen neither of the examples I have given then yes, they do become irrelevant. However as stated above, I was only demonstrating that the film as a complete package is a "better than average" movie experience.

Your opinion of the film is your prerogative, personal tastes differ. We all expect different things from a film and once the film is finished we leave the cinema with a different set of expectations been met or not met. That is the beauty of cinema. I just felt Avatar deserved more than the title of "Average" film or a 5/10 to put it another way. ;)
 
EgonSpengler said:
I disagree with that. Surely a rating is a single person's or group of persons general opinion of that particular film out of 10. Genre or Era play no relative role in it at all.

It isn't flawless system by any means, with its major downfall being that it is completely subjective. I concede that if you have seen neither of the examples I have given then yes, they do become irrelevant. However as stated above, I was only demonstrating that the film as a complete package is a "better than average" movie experience.
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You're missing my point. My point was that it's meaningless to compare the rating of one genre with another because people select different movies for different movies. How can you compare the rating of a comedy with the rating of a thriller? A sci-fi with a historical drama? You can't. Even if you do compare their star ratings, what will that really tell you? Little or nothing.

It makes best sense to compare the star ratings of movies within the same genre, because then at least you're comparing ratings given by people with similar expectations. Consequently, the ratings will make more sense and have greater relevance.
 
Evangelion said:
You're missing my point. My point was that it's meaningless to compare the rating of one genre with another because people select different movies for different movies. How can you compare the rating of a comedy with the rating of a thriller? A sci-fi with a historical drama? You can't. Even if you do compare their star ratings, what will that really tell you? Little or nothing.

It makes best sense to compare the star ratings of movies within the same genre, because then at least you're comparing ratings given by people with similar expectations. Consequently, the ratings will make more sense and have greater relevance.
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Of course you're right. Ratings are (a) not scientific and (b) somewhat illogical across different genres. But they do at least give an impression of someone's overall thoughts of a piece.

eg: Deep Impact 7/10, Armageddon, 6/10. There you go, you can see which I think is the better film IMHO.

Or T2, 10/10 and Titanic 8/10. You can see there how I think each film rates within its own genre/film type...
 
Evangelion said:
Well, Titanic was gob-smackingly awful and it still cleaned up at the Academy Awards. So anything's possible.

These days, if a director wants an award-winning hit all he needs to do is press the "overhype" button and let his publicists take care of the rest.
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Actually, Avatar wasn't particularly well advertised or hyped outside of general geekdom - as it's opening weekend figures, which were far from spectacular showed.

It only took half the takings on the opening weekend of blockbuster films like the Dark Knight, Twilight, Spiderman, Pirates of the Caribbean etc - you would have expected a far higher opening weekend if the figures were a result of massive publicity hype in the lead up to the films release.

Much like Titanic, the hype and ticket revenue has come from people going to see it again and again and word of mouth, rather than any massive publicity drive in the lead up to the release of the movie.

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As an aside, the box office figures are still ridiculous and showing no sign of slowing down, which for the 5th (?) weekend after release is outstanding - I don't see how statistics like that can be attributed to just 'hype' or 'publicity'.
 
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NeilFawcett said:
Hmm... Didn't particularly stand out to me... But then I'm not an expert or the poor Irish of 100yrs ago...
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It's a term used to describe either fake (or as in this case) caricature Irish. The "Begorrah" school of representing the Irish. It was a group of Irish poor designed by someone who wanted to make them as loveable as possible, salt-of-the-earth etc etc. In other words, not real actual characters.


M
 
Meridian said:
It's a term used to describe either fake (or as in this case) caricature Irish. The "Begorrah" school of representing the Irish. It was a group of Irish poor designed by someone who wanted to make them as loveable as possible, salt-of-the-earth etc etc. In other words, not real actual characters.


M
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Umm... Mmkay... Can't say I noticed it myself, although it's been sometime since I watched it. Maybe I didn't look hard enough for it....

Can't say it would make think a whole film should be a rightoff though TBH.

It's like saying Transformers wasn't good fun just because every character in it was an absolutely stereotype!? Or Indiana Jones was rubbish because the Nazis all behaved like 'Nazis'...
 
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