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First Review of Avatar Special Edition
brumgrunt writes "Den Of Geek has the first review of James Cameron's extended cut of Avatar. Its thoughts? 'As opposed to, say, the extended cuts of Aliens, Terminator 2 or The Abyss, the new scenes add little of particular note to everything we've already seen.'"
I doubt it features humans coming back to Pandora with 100x more firepower :o
If you post as an AC, don't expect me to spend a mod point on you.
So, adding to an already long, mostly pointless movie... doesn't add anything? SHOCKER.
Special edition or regular edition it will still never get anywhere near "Aliens." Sorry, Cameron, but the thirty years of experience you have gained and the extra production budget have actually made you worse. Go back to your roots.
May not be safe for work:
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=uJarz7BYnHA (part 1)
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=dLzKwTcGO_0
Domestic spying is now "Benign Information Gathering"
With a few minor exceptions, this review was a rehash of prior reviews.
Politics is the art of looking for trouble, finding it everywhere, diagnosing it incorrectly and applying the wrong fix.
Well, the main thing is that it was a "spectacle film". That's an almost unheard-of genre, especially nowadays. The whole point of that genre is an archetypal storyline and a huge focus on scenery and special effects.
Probably the only other well-known example would be "The Ten Commandments", which was one of the last. Huge production costs, big-name people, and what the 1950s considered top-of-the-line special effects. You can see elements of the genre elsewhere ("2001" is a well-known partial example), but there are very, very few pure examples dated after WW2.
People don't watch a spectacle film for the interesting, innovative story. They watch it because of the scenery and special effects and the sheer spectacle of it all. The early ones were basically "look how much I spent making this movie", back when "making this movie" was enough to get viewers.
If you came into it expecting a good sci-fi movie, of course it won't meet those standards. That's like judging a Bond movie by sci-fi standards: it doesn't compare well because it isn't supposed to be compared at all.
On a more personal note, I watched it months after release, on a rented DVD, headphones, and laptop. It was still an interesting movie, better than much of the stuff Hollywood puts out. Not an "instant classic" or anything, but it wasn't horrible, in my opinion.
I never really understood peoples problem with it. It seemed to me to at least have a better plot then many many other movies, not that that is saying all that much.
So maybe it did not have a above average script, but did anyone really think that it would have one? Personally I thought Titanic was pretty stupid, and its main gimmick was also having the top graphics technology of the time, far surpassing all other films.
Personally I really enjoyed Avatar and thought it should of been longer, but then I was more interested in learning more about Pandora the world then the story.
Troll is not a replacement for I disagree.
Every director has about 10 years of peek creativity, give or take a few years. And Cameron is well past his creative prime (basically from about 1983 to 1992).
There are some notable exceptions to the 10-year-rule, BTW. I would argue that Stanley Kubrick and John Sayles are two of the VERY rare exceptions. Many would include Scorsese as well.
SJW: Someone who has run out of real oppression, and has to fake it.
Same reason Bond villians never just put a bullet in Bond's head.
http://theoatmeal.com/comics/aliens_avatar Pretty much sums up Avatar pretty well.
Life was once calm, now the waves are coming.
First off, I thought Avatar was a great entertaining movie. It wasn't incredibly realistic and the story was a rehash of the same story we have heard so many times, yet still entertaining. That said, while the movie has a few realism problems I find your argument a bit silly.
You missed a few important details and possibilities.
- The humans came to Pandora not with the goal of wiping out the Na'vi, but with just digging some rocks out of the ground. Some military was sent along to encourage the locals to cooperate, but the original mission was not anything like "destroy worldtree".
- As you have shown, it's a very long round-trip. After deciding to attack the Na'vi, it's not like the humans can run back to earth and grab the big guns, they had to use what was available.
- Your basic premise "well if we have fast spaceships we must have amazing laser guns too" isn't really a valid argument. look at the past 50 years, computers and technology have made amazing leaps and bounds, but we still put on pants one leg at a time. Great advancements in spaceflight doesn't automatically mean we would also have equal advancements in weapons.
- The natives used bows and arrows, which couldn't even pierce the armor on the human aircraft without additional velocity. Projectile weapons are plenty enough to kill them and energy weapons could have been considered crazy overkill.
- The humans on Pandora were from a corporation with some hired ex-military mercenaries. Even if earth has developed stronger energy weapons, it's very possible such "WMDs" are limited to the government military, I don't see GM and Ford running around with nuclear bombs so I don't see why a corporation of the future would have free access to the latest and greatest weapons we have developed.
- Long trip, limited energy. Maybe energy weapons just aren't feasible given that the majority of energy collected needs to be used to power the vehicles, mining equipment, life support, and ships.
I love going down to the elementary school, watching all the kids jump and shout, but they dont know I'm using blanks.