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redfiona99I think it might have been the hype, but am I the only one who didn't think the SFX were all that good? It suffered from the same problem 9/10ths of CGI has, which is that it doesn't look like you can feel it. Everything always looks smooth and glossy.
If you want to put science students off it, because, as a whole, we're really bad at noticing dodgy subtexts, or indeed any subtexts at all, just say that they use 'unobtainium' in a non-ironic way. I went to see it with 4 physicists and we face-palmed in unison. It's more the lack of thought than anything.
They got a few little details right, like I loved that the previous wars the various marines had been in were Venezuela and Nigeria, because that's a good show not tell for 'oil wars', but they got so many things wrong. It's little things like most of those animals don't show any of the expected adaptations to low gravity (one of my friends had an interest in xenobiology, it meant I did reading too), you might be able to make a case for the Navi's size being one but ... Then again, they also have an external, easily caught important organ, so I think we can take it as read that James Cameron knows nothing of biology (see my rant about the Ood brains). Apparently the physics is very good in the film, so once again we're left with the important question of why is it always the biology they screw up?
Also, evil corporate bod appeared to have reached his station through the Dilbert principle.
We'll not get into the world's worst marine ever. I mean, we all know that marines are hired for theirwinning personalities ability to follow orders, and he couldn't, to the point of leaving two civilians unguarded on a dangerous planet.
I will grant that, in it's one plus, the female characters are just plain old more interesting than the male characters, which appears to be a thing in James Cameron's films.
The acting is variable, with a general thing of Sigourney Weaver is awesome, the bad guys are consistent and Sam Worthington is a black hole of anti-charisma. Anyone capable of recommending a film he's even half decent in, since I grant that 'having to interact with CGI' normally leads to some less than brilliant acting, otherwise he's going on the Gerard Butler discard pile of people who do not have it in them to be leading men.
This, by the way, is before I even start addressing the scripts manifold failings. Other people have gone into the various fails far better than I can, but, other than the inexplicable dialogue, quite a few of the characters had no internal cohesion. There is no shock when a character changes their mind about something because they're not given a mind to change to begin with. There are of course exceptions, Dr. Augustine is love ('must get samples' indeed), but she's noticably the only one I can think of. Then again, given that she's a scientist working for a company, it makes me sad that she didn't even try the 'the neural net could make the company millions' gambit in her attempts to stop them.
I am also amused by their absolute lack of character redundancy: we have two mother figures, one must die, we have two leader types, one must die, we have two ass-kicking female flyers, one must die etc. If Tsu'tey had made it through the film, it would have been a shock.
It also leaves so major questions unanswered about Na'vi culture. In one of the spiels, in Neytiri's clan, it's male leader, female high priest(ess). In what we see of the plains people (or the point when the subtext got all texty), it's male leader. Yet the flying people of the cliff (I can't, off hand, remember what the not!dragons are called) appear to have a female war leader. Now, obviously, different clans may have different set ups, but why only one, and why would they, are women better not!dragon riders, something to do with the water, what?
Then again, it's a film with Dr. Grace Augustine, PhD in whatever we need for her to know for the plot to work.
And now we move onto things that are general fail with a lot of movies.
WHY WITH THE HOMINID ALIENS?!
Seriously, can't we have cute cuddly octopoids for once? Or insects, or anything else that doesn't stand up on two legs. It's not much to ask. I give earlier series a pass on this due to SFX not being good enough back then, but now, when James Cameron is going on and on about how advanced SFX are, do I still have lots of two legged aliens. Danny, who I watched it with, did point out that it's because the film-makers, quite reasonably, feel that humans are more likely to feel for things that look like them. And this is probably true. But once, just once I want something non-hominid. I was spoilt by Rygel.
And again with the faces
Okay, I get why in the cases of the avatars, but why is there this trend in cartoons and heavily SFX films to make the characters look like the actors. It's distracting, because I end up spending half the movie trying to figure out who the actor is rather than taking the character at face value, the Avatar example being Wes Studi as Eytukan, but the same thing happened with Alec Baldwin and Bernie Mac in Madagascar 2.
If you want to put science students off it, because, as a whole, we're really bad at noticing dodgy subtexts, or indeed any subtexts at all, just say that they use 'unobtainium' in a non-ironic way. I went to see it with 4 physicists and we face-palmed in unison. It's more the lack of thought than anything.
They got a few little details right, like I loved that the previous wars the various marines had been in were Venezuela and Nigeria, because that's a good show not tell for 'oil wars', but they got so many things wrong. It's little things like most of those animals don't show any of the expected adaptations to low gravity (one of my friends had an interest in xenobiology, it meant I did reading too), you might be able to make a case for the Navi's size being one but ... Then again, they also have an external, easily caught important organ, so I think we can take it as read that James Cameron knows nothing of biology (see my rant about the Ood brains). Apparently the physics is very good in the film, so once again we're left with the important question of why is it always the biology they screw up?
Also, evil corporate bod appeared to have reached his station through the Dilbert principle.
We'll not get into the world's worst marine ever. I mean, we all know that marines are hired for their
I will grant that, in it's one plus, the female characters are just plain old more interesting than the male characters, which appears to be a thing in James Cameron's films.
The acting is variable, with a general thing of Sigourney Weaver is awesome, the bad guys are consistent and Sam Worthington is a black hole of anti-charisma. Anyone capable of recommending a film he's even half decent in, since I grant that 'having to interact with CGI' normally leads to some less than brilliant acting, otherwise he's going on the Gerard Butler discard pile of people who do not have it in them to be leading men.
This, by the way, is before I even start addressing the scripts manifold failings. Other people have gone into the various fails far better than I can, but, other than the inexplicable dialogue, quite a few of the characters had no internal cohesion. There is no shock when a character changes their mind about something because they're not given a mind to change to begin with. There are of course exceptions, Dr. Augustine is love ('must get samples' indeed), but she's noticably the only one I can think of. Then again, given that she's a scientist working for a company, it makes me sad that she didn't even try the 'the neural net could make the company millions' gambit in her attempts to stop them.
I am also amused by their absolute lack of character redundancy: we have two mother figures, one must die, we have two leader types, one must die, we have two ass-kicking female flyers, one must die etc. If Tsu'tey had made it through the film, it would have been a shock.
It also leaves so major questions unanswered about Na'vi culture. In one of the spiels, in Neytiri's clan, it's male leader, female high priest(ess). In what we see of the plains people (or the point when the subtext got all texty), it's male leader. Yet the flying people of the cliff (I can't, off hand, remember what the not!dragons are called) appear to have a female war leader. Now, obviously, different clans may have different set ups, but why only one, and why would they, are women better not!dragon riders, something to do with the water, what?
Then again, it's a film with Dr. Grace Augustine, PhD in whatever we need for her to know for the plot to work.
And now we move onto things that are general fail with a lot of movies.
WHY WITH THE HOMINID ALIENS?!
Seriously, can't we have cute cuddly octopoids for once? Or insects, or anything else that doesn't stand up on two legs. It's not much to ask. I give earlier series a pass on this due to SFX not being good enough back then, but now, when James Cameron is going on and on about how advanced SFX are, do I still have lots of two legged aliens. Danny, who I watched it with, did point out that it's because the film-makers, quite reasonably, feel that humans are more likely to feel for things that look like them. And this is probably true. But once, just once I want something non-hominid. I was spoilt by Rygel.
And again with the faces
Okay, I get why in the cases of the avatars, but why is there this trend in cartoons and heavily SFX films to make the characters look like the actors. It's distracting, because I end up spending half the movie trying to figure out who the actor is rather than taking the character at face value, the Avatar example being Wes Studi as Eytukan, but the same thing happened with Alec Baldwin and Bernie Mac in Madagascar 2.
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Date: 2010-01-07 06:22 pm (UTC)