Avatar Soars Into $1-Billion Territory 782
Suki I writes " Avatar soars into $1-billion territory. 'Strong foreign ticket sales help make the science-fiction movie the fifth in history to pass the watermark. ... One of the riskiest movies of all times is now officially one of the most successful at the box office. When Avatar opened, its solid but far from stellar results left 20th Century Fox uncertain about whether the $430 million that it and two financing partners had invested to produce and market the 3-D film would pay off.'" Given that the big alternatives were Sherlock Holmes or Alvin & the Chipmunks, I think the winner was clear.
Science Fiction? (Score:2, Informative)
Just a few things threw me off. I loved most of the movie. And for a while I believed the blue people were spiritual in the same way humans were.. in ritual and what not...
But instead it turned out to be a magical spiritual world, and a collective thought borg of trees and animals.. and those that
A fantastic adventure, but really just lost me as a caring viewer. I prefer things to be more rational.
Re:Who's with me on this? (Score:1, Informative)
They did make a sequel
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=vD4OnHCRd_4 :)
Re:Awful Story + great effects = Blockbuster (Score:2, Informative)
Finally, why do entertainers continue to feel that they have to present their beliefs within a movie. If I want to be preached at or listen to political messages, I will go to church or read a newspaper/book. I do not want to see it in movies or hear it at concerts.
All stories that move you do so because they touch a personal experience or belief. Your beef seems to be that you feel there is a political message: and I'm sure you feel it's aimed at modern times.
While there may be a political message, Avatar's plot (as stated by Cameron) is basically "Dances with Wolves", and most every complaint you have should be directed there. While you are at it, make sure to hit basically everything Miazaki ever did (Princess Mononoke).
And if, like Dances with Wolves, the Natives are idealized: the colonial powers are not. The Na'vi are simply lucky there doesn't seem to be an equivelant to "small pox blankets".
Given Cameron's history (True Lies, Titanic, The Abyss, Aliens (where nature is evil)) I don't think there's much case to be made that he's preaching.
Re:Science Fiction? (Score:2, Informative)
I'm fairly certain that very little, if any, guilt exists in this country for "killing all the Indians" (by the way, there are quite a few of them still alive). I'm pretty certain that none of us that are around today had anything to do with what happened that long ago.
Re:Alvin & the Chipmunks (Score:3, Informative)
See Demolition man. It's an awesome film.
Re:Extremely predictable plot... (Score:1, Informative)
Your a smart guuy
Re:Floating Mountains (Score:5, Informative)
Did you see the floating unobtanium chunk that Parker (the manager) had on his desk? Same principle scaled up. The background material explains it by saying that unobtanium is a room-temperature superconductor and the mountains float due to the Meissner effect.
Re:Floating Mountains (Score:3, Informative)
Re:Science Fiction? (Score:1, Informative)
"We were doing a science fantasy, not true science fiction. We're not really predicting that there will be humanoids" on other planets, Cameron said.
The Associated Press [google.com]
Re:Science Fiction? (Score:3, Informative)
And it's a good thing they remembered their A-to-B USB cable to allow the transfer. Kind of like how Jeff Goldblum hacked the alien ships in Independence Day with his Macintosh over a coax connection.
Re:Science Fiction? (Score:3, Informative)
Not relevant to the plot? What WAS relevant to the plot then? The plot isn't really what makes this movie stand out... The 3D is.
Re:3d and tv (Score:2, Informative)
Good god man... you have all the right words, but have failed to actually grasp the technology. You're confusing two ways to view 3d.
The theaters DO use polarized light, but that's the only part you got correct. They don't do 120hz images (well I guess they COULD, but it's not an integral part of the 3d effect), they just use a left and a right projector with different lenses to polarize the light into two orientations. How would they even change the polarization of each frame if it was one projector? Two different lenses spinning really fast?
The 120hz figure you picked up off some Wikipedia page has to do with shutterglasses. This is the more consumer friendly version that actually can be achieved on a standard TV. The glasses for this type of 3d are completely different from your theater glasses, though. They work not by polarization, but by completely blacking out one eye at a time, in sync with the two 60hz images coming out of the TV. Nothing is polarized, it simply shows you a left image while blacking out your right eye, and vice versa.
There's some poster below me talking about the 'standard' for home 3d to be holography, or some crap. Please don't listen to them. I kill zombies in 3d on a nightly basis from the comfort of my home, so I kinda know what the fuck I'm talking about.
3D Imax was kind of disappointing (Score:3, Informative)
I saw it in a local multiplex that had a 3D Imax screen.
First, "3D Imax" apparently isn't Imax like at the science museum where the seating is very steep and the screen is a large concave surface. At the multiplex, they just used one of the larger "main" auditoriums with a temporary/movable partially curved screen that seemed not that much larger than the normal screen for that space.
Bottom line -- I did not get the "IMAX" experience like you get at the science museum or some traditional Imax theater.
As for the 3D part, that was good, although after a while I stopped thinking about it; it wasn't overdone but in some cases it seemed too subtle to be worthwhile. The visuals are all so stunning that I think 3D is like fudge sauce added to ice cream that already has 8 other kinds of sauces on it.
The good thing was that I wear glasses and the polarized 3D glasses fit over my regular glasses well and I had no problems with fuzzy depth of field as I have in other recent non-Imax 3D films. This was my biggest worry.
I'd kind of like to see it at the Zoo here which has a traditional IMAX screen; I think it might have more impact. The problem with Avatar is that the movie isn't that good. Every native people/environmental/military/corporate cliche gets used to beat you over the head, and the storyline is extremely simplistic, and the backstory non-existent. We can travel 5 years in huge space ships but our world back home sucks?
I wish the Navi were more complicated, compromised in some way that made them actually threatening or morally culpable. I wish there was something to like about the corporation and the mercenaries. I wish I knew what the heck unobtainium was and what it was for; the drive to get it at any cost MIGHT have been justifiable if it was some kind of magic energy source needed to keep alive the entire planet earth for example; or at least it would have made for good discussion.
Re:Science Fiction? (Score:5, Informative)
Odds are that the house you are in RIGHT NOW was taken by a cascade of force, torture, and broken promises from a native peoples that, largely, welcomed your forefathers with open arms.
That's completely false. First off, only a portion of the native population were friendly, the rest scalped white people whenever they could find them, and hung the scalps from their belts as trophies. There were a few friendly native nations, but a great many were hostile.
Second, the natives themselves were constantly at war with each other, taking land and property by a "cascade of force, torture, and broken promises". The Europeans were simply a new player in the game, and they won. Yes, dirty deals were made by unscrupulous Europeans, but at the same time the native population never claimed any land. In their minds it was they who were scamming the newcomers. "You want to pay us to use land that we don't own? SURE! Sounds wonderful!". They only really lost out because the Europeans DID claim land, and vigorously defended it.
This idea that the native American population was kindhearted and gentle and severely wronged by the European invaders is foolish and not based in reality.
Third, I don't know a whole lot of people who live in houses over 100 years old, and the native americans never claimed ownership of any land. So who, exactly, is living in a house that was taken by "a cascade of force, torture, and broken promises from a native peoples that, largely, welcomed your forefathers with open arms"?
You are living in a fantasy land. The fact is, the newcomers played the same game the native's were playing, the newcomers were just better equiped, and so they won. In fact, I personally think that, while it is a nice gesture to try to allow natives to live as they once did by giving them their own land to do with as they will (aka reservations), in practice it does more harm than good. Better to just intigrate.
There is nothing for a modern American to feel guilty for, and in fact any guilt at all is based on a lack of understanding of history.
Re:Floating Mountains (Score:1, Informative)
Exactly. You can find the scriptment of Avatar on the internet and there it is:
(...) Pandora is
blessed with a naturally occurring substance a million
times more precious than gold. Its joke name of
"unobtanium" has stuck, over the years. Unobtanium is a
rare-earth mineral, formed volcanically, which is a room-
temperature superconductor.
(...)
Another interesting property of superconducting materials
is that they will levitate in a powerful magnetic field.
This magnetic levitation, or maglev, effect has been used
to lift trains and run them without wheels since the late
1980's. On Pandora the effect causes huge outcroppings of
unobtanium to rip loose from the surface and float in the
magnetic vortices. These floating islands circulate
slowly in the magnetic currents, like icebergs at sea,
scraping against each other and the towering mesa-like
mountains of the region. The Pandorans call them the
Thundering Rocks, and the entire area is sacred to them.
Also, the scriptment contains some scenes that are not in the movie and gives a rich background for the story.
Re:Floating Mountains (Score:3, Informative)
They use strip mining and transport the ore in large trunks. If they want to mine the floating mountains they'll have to airlift their mining machines into place, transport the ore with their fliers, and worry about unbalancing the mountain and making it roll over.
Re:Science Fiction? (Score:4, Informative)