Avatar: Fire and Ash made $1.4 billion at the box office but is still seen, by some, as a disappointment -- now Disney is taking a hard look at further sequels.
Avatar is so suffocatingly boring as a big budget project, just seeing pictures of it makes me want to fall asleep and forget about movies.
Also James Cameron said this
“This was a driving force for me in the writing of ‘Avatar’ — I couldn’t help but think that if they [the Lakota Sioux] had had a time-window and they could see the future … and they could see their kids committing suicide at the highest suicide rates in the nation … because they were hopeless and they were a dead-end society — which is what is happening now — they would have fought a lot harder.”
The fact that James Cameron got all that fucking money to make a movie about indigenous resistance and didn’t even bother to learn the first thing about the history of indigenous resistance to colonialism is insulting to the extreme.
The wording of that, declaring an indigenous tribe a dead-end because it is surviving a genocide should insult you no matter where you live in the world and whatever your ethnicity is. It is an act of violence against humanity.
To think the Lakota Sioux and countless other indigenous tribes in the US didn’t know what was coming and didn’t fight as hard as they could is extremely patronizing in a racist way and ultimately it is just lazy. I expect people to try harder when making their historically inspired fantasy worlds, especially when they are given unlimited money…
I think James Cameron’s a big nerd who just uses movies and their massive budgets to develop technology that he’s interested in, whether it be a submarine for Titanic or new kinds of CGI for Terminator and the Avatar movies.
It’s so weird that the guy who literally built his own submarine to go check out the Titanic so his movie can properly represent it… couldn’t be bothered to Google a little bit about a topic he’s based THREE movies on.
Also, uhm… why are you calling him David? David Cameron is a British politician…
Honestly I think the movie would have been far better as a “nature documentary” type film about all the creatures and ecosystems of this alien planet, if they spent most of the movie actually focused on the artistry of the concept artists, CGI artists and animators instead of focusing on a lame overdone plot with paperthin characters and tropes then I think it could have been something wonderous.
Instead you get a work of art that assassinates a beautiful wild periphery of concept artists and CGI artists with a crushingly boring plot that insists on tearing down what drew people into the story in the first place, a raw expansive visual creativity that pre-existed before the imposed, lame hero’s journey…
Humm well now I feel like I’m missing out a bit and should probably watch it for the eye candy at least and put the story and main characters in the back of my mind. I would watch something like that, like Planet Earth with Attenborough except on an alien planet, it would be fun.
Yeah I would love a version of Discovery Channel’s Alien Planet but with much better science writing and that focused on explaining interesting reoccurring patterns in ecosystems in evolution on earth through the lens of a fictionalized yet scientifically sound vision of a somewhat plausible alien ecosystems.
I even loved the idea of the cute robot that serves as a sort of simple plot about what happens to it as it explores. Does it avoid danger or get ensared in it?
The plot would not be the focus though, I am thinking Tarkovsky’s Stalker levels of visual and elemental expansiveness but in a genuinely entirely scifi context.
Something like Scavenger’s Reign but less obsessed with human violence and more just focused on the experience of a vibrantly portrayed alien ecosystem.
Like Mad Max: Fury Road but with cool animals instead of cool post apocalyptic cars and motorcyles… ok maybe I am stretching the metaphor too far here.
James Cameron is an incredible film making technologist. His accomplishments in film will not be remembered for the stories but will be remembered for the technology that he developed and how he pushed the envelope. I wouldn’t go so far as saying that he doesn’t care about the story and getting the details all right… but I will say that creating the best looking version of his vision is his #1 priority.
Avatar is so suffocatingly boring as a big budget project, just seeing pictures of it makes me want to fall asleep and forget about movies.
Also James Cameron said this
https://www.yahoo.com/entertainment/james-camerons-old-comments-prompt-221001604.html
The fact that James Cameron got all that fucking money to make a movie about indigenous resistance and didn’t even bother to learn the first thing about the history of indigenous resistance to colonialism is insulting to the extreme.
The wording of that, declaring an indigenous tribe a dead-end because it is surviving a genocide should insult you no matter where you live in the world and whatever your ethnicity is. It is an act of violence against humanity.
To think the Lakota Sioux and countless other indigenous tribes in the US didn’t know what was coming and didn’t fight as hard as they could is extremely patronizing in a racist way and ultimately it is just lazy. I expect people to try harder when making their historically inspired fantasy worlds, especially when they are given unlimited money…
Try harder James Cameron.
I think James Cameron’s a big nerd who just uses movies and their massive budgets to develop technology that he’s interested in, whether it be a submarine for Titanic or new kinds of CGI for Terminator and the Avatar movies.
It’s so weird that the guy who literally built his own submarine to go check out the Titanic so his movie can properly represent it… couldn’t be bothered to Google a little bit about a topic he’s based THREE movies on.
Also, uhm… why are you calling him David? David Cameron is a British politician…
The first one was cool because the CGI was good for the time now I can’t help but notice how rigid the blue people are
Yeah, I don’t like the character design at all so I never even watched it, they just look bad. I can’t believe how much money is poured into this.
Honestly I think the movie would have been far better as a “nature documentary” type film about all the creatures and ecosystems of this alien planet, if they spent most of the movie actually focused on the artistry of the concept artists, CGI artists and animators instead of focusing on a lame overdone plot with paperthin characters and tropes then I think it could have been something wonderous.
Instead you get a work of art that assassinates a beautiful wild periphery of concept artists and CGI artists with a crushingly boring plot that insists on tearing down what drew people into the story in the first place, a raw expansive visual creativity that pre-existed before the imposed, lame hero’s journey…
Humm well now I feel like I’m missing out a bit and should probably watch it for the eye candy at least and put the story and main characters in the back of my mind. I would watch something like that, like Planet Earth with Attenborough except on an alien planet, it would be fun.
Yeah I would love a version of Discovery Channel’s Alien Planet but with much better science writing and that focused on explaining interesting reoccurring patterns in ecosystems in evolution on earth through the lens of a fictionalized yet scientifically sound vision of a somewhat plausible alien ecosystems.
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Alien_Planet
I even loved the idea of the cute robot that serves as a sort of simple plot about what happens to it as it explores. Does it avoid danger or get ensared in it?
The plot would not be the focus though, I am thinking Tarkovsky’s Stalker levels of visual and elemental expansiveness but in a genuinely entirely scifi context.
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Stalker_(1979_film)
Something like Scavenger’s Reign but less obsessed with human violence and more just focused on the experience of a vibrantly portrayed alien ecosystem.
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Scavengers_Reign
I guess I want a sciencey Over The Garden Wall but without any easy plot explainer at the end.
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Over_The_Garden_Wall
Like Mad Max: Fury Road but with cool animals instead of cool post apocalyptic cars and motorcyles… ok maybe I am stretching the metaphor too far here.
*James
James Cameron is an incredible film making technologist. His accomplishments in film will not be remembered for the stories but will be remembered for the technology that he developed and how he pushed the envelope. I wouldn’t go so far as saying that he doesn’t care about the story and getting the details all right… but I will say that creating the best looking version of his vision is his #1 priority.
Apparently in my head David = James?
Thank you for pointing that out, ughh my bad.
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Somebody hacked my brain and set it to autoreplace James with David.
I meant James Cameron.