Avatar 3D [beware of spoilers]

[Lord Baal]

I think we've been comparing it to the wrong movies. It's not first and foremost a clone of Pocahontas or Dances with wolves. It's Dune!

Bah, show me one sandworm or Kwizatz Haderach.

 

[Yared]

I think it's supposed to enable FTL travel. Never explained though, which annoyed me.

That is one helluva blunder.

 

[Lord Baal]

That is one helluva blunder.

It's an extremely annoying oversight to be sure. The mineral is the only reason why Pandora even matters and is worth the effort, so what it's good for should be explained. It wouldn't even take much. During the corporate guy's diatribe to Sigourney Weaver, he could just drop in a line about it. "This is why we're here, because this little rock sells for $40 million and lets our ships travel faster-than-light." There you go, explained adequately for the film. The actual mechanics aren't necessay.

 

[Yared]

Exactly! So big minus point for that.

 

[Winner]

My thoughts exactly. I was on the graphics that I liked about the movie, everything else sucked. Which is why i gave it a four also.

I love how people keep repeating few phrases they read in a newspaper critique.

What exactly was bad about the plot?

I keep hearing it was "predictable". OK, what was predictable? That Jake gets closer to the Na'vi, falls in love with the blue girl and betrays his own kind? Yeah, it kinda follows given the film's main theme.
Others say it was just one big 'cliché'. Fine, but then what isn't?
Still others say it was 'shallow'. Again, define shallow.

I could go on like this for much longer, but you should see my point by now. In my opinion, the story was just uncomplicated, lacking almost any kind of subplots, moral ambiguities, heart-breaking dilemmas and the other stuff film critics love to elevate.

I say screw them. For the kind of film Avatar wanted to be, uncomplicated was good. It borders on fantasy/fairy-tale, but I think that was fully intended. A more difficult, more complicated plot would distract the viewers from the main strength of Avatar.

Exactly! So big minus point for that.

Explained in detail together with every other aspect of the movie in the accompanying materials. No reason to fill the precious on-screen time with techno-babble, again that would go against the film's nature.

Dubbing is the devil himself! Subtitles FTW! Even though I watched it in Japan, so Japanese subtitles when the Na'vi talked was almost impossible to follow...

Yes, sadly the distributor seems to have issues with screening undubbed/unsubtitled version.

 

[Lillefix]

I say screw them. For the kind of film Avatar wanted to be, uncomplicated was good. It borders on fantasy/fairy-tale, but I think that was fully intended. A more difficult, more complicated plot would distract the viewers from the main strength of Avatar.

Just because it has pretty images, doesn't meant we should just accept that they use the same plot which has been used so many times. They could at least throw in some variation.

I honestly think you have to low standards. You should expect more from the plot.

edit: Not expect...demand is a better word. I paid twice the price I normally do to see this in the cinema.

 

[Yared]

Explained in detail together with every other aspect of the movie in the accompanying materials. No reason to fill the precious on-screen time with techno-babble, again that would go against the film's nature.

Adding maybe one minute to explain what having access to Unobtanium would mean for the human race (A BIG DEAL, btw, not that it requires a Sci-fi genius to figure that out) would add some more depth to the story. They have already mentioned that the time spent in cryogenics (techno-babble?) was 6 long years.

It'd make it easier to comprehend the enormous pressure that was on the supervisor.

 

[Lillefix]

What would have made a better movie, was if they managed to make the function of unobtanium integral to the story, in stead of explaining everything in an awkward way. I'm pretty sure Sigourney Weaver's character didn't have to to be explained why they were on the planet.

But then they would have to hire something like a proper WRITER!!!

 

[Winner]

Just because it has pretty images, doesn't meant we should just accept that they use the same plot which has been used so many times. They could at least throw in some variation.

I honestly think you have to low standards. You should expect more from the plot.

I do expect more from the plot in the type of films which advertise plot depth and richness. Really, this is simply a matter of what people expect and I think it is rather trendy to slam Avatar for not accomplishing something it never wanted to achieve.

I'd be considerably more critical if there were some major plot holes, inconsistencies, illogical things, etc., that's really what drives me crazy (hence why I absolutely hate Armageddon. Saw it once and I barely survived it.) I won't join the bandwagon of cheap criticism just because the plot was simple and straightforward.

edit: Not expect...demand is a better word. I paid twice the price I normally do to see this in the cinema.

I paid 1/3 of what I normally do - maybe the price raised your expectations and lowered mine?

 

[Winner]

Adding maybe one minute to explain what having access to Unobtanium would mean for the human race (A BIG DEAL, btw, not that it requires a Sci-fi genius to figure that out) would add some more depth to the story. They have already mentioned that the time spent in cryogenics (techno-babble?) was 6 long years.

It'd make it easier to comprehend the enormous pressure that was on the supervisor.

I'll repeat what I said to another poster in the previous thread - these explanations often go at the expense of dialogue dynamics and believability. Presumably, since unobtanium is what enabled humans to explore Alpha Centauri in the first place, everybody on the mission knows what it does.

In the scene you talked about, the executive bad guy boss is simply making a point - "see this rock? It's veeeery precious, this is what we want, now do your job!". It would look rather lame if he suddenly calmed down and started lecturing the other characters about its physical properties, or gave some US-style motivational speech about its importance for further human progress or something like that.

To cut it short, it is not necessary to explain it on screen and it could look weird if they tried. It is hinted that it has something to do with magnetism, and who wants to know more can buy the book about Pandora or do a 5 second search on the internet.

(BTW, if this was a movie made solely for me, I'd welcome any amount of techno-babble, but then I am not exactly the average viewer.)

 

[Camikaze]

Bah, show me one sandworm or Kwizatz Haderach.

I thought this parallel was a bit too close.

 

[scherbchen]

I'll repeat what I said to another poster in the previous thread - these explanations often go at the expense of dialogue dynamics and believability. Presumably, since unobtanium is what enabled humans to explore Alpha Centauri in the first place, everybody on the mission knows what it does.

in that case you might want to explain how unobtanium, unobtainable (heh) on earth, presumably (something has to account fopr the lame name, come on!), got them there in the first place. for some reason earth has like 3 grams of it and it serves to do tests on it and how you can harvest its power and it just so happens to get you to the place where they got loads of that stuff conveniently hidden under their magic tree.

what were the odds, eh?

or you did some cryogenic stuff to your crews, which is what they did in the movie mind you, send them somewhere, waited decades till they arrived. they bartered for some random ore with the natives. went back to earth with the obtainable unobtanium. more decades pass till they get there. they get there, they test that stuff. woohoo we can travel through space somewhat fast now.

what were the odds that they went to the place that allowed them to space travel faster? uncanny.

yeah, the unexplanium (and I claim that this would have been a better term for that floating thingie) certainly needs no light to be shed on it.

I wished they'd had just gone the Alien route. cryogenics, farm all the ore, back to sleep, voila. what is wrong with plain old gold? probably too farfetched that humans go all napalm on a civilization that sits on top of a deposit of fossil fuel or shiny goods. yeah, ok that was a silly idea.... that would never happen.

 

[Lord Baal]

I'll repeat what I said to another poster in the previous thread - these explanations often go at the expense of dialogue dynamics and believability. Presumably, since unobtanium is what enabled humans to explore Alpha Centauri in the first place, everybody on the mission knows what it does.

In the scene you talked about, the executive bad guy boss is simply making a point - "see this rock? It's veeeery precious, this is what we want, now do your job!". It would look rather lame if he suddenly calmed down and started lecturing the other characters about its physical properties, or gave some US-style motivational speech about its importance for further human progress or something like that.

To cut it short, it is not necessary to explain it on screen and it could look weird if they tried. It is hinted that it has something to do with magnetism, and who wants to know more can buy the book about Pandora or do a 5 second search on the internet.

(BTW, if this was a movie made solely for me, I'd welcome any amount of techno-babble, but then I am not exactly the average viewer.)

Winner, read my post #43. One single sentence is all that is needed to explain unobtainium adequately. One freaking sentence! That is not hard work and it is necessary to make sense of the story. The supervisor - and the vast majority of his underlings - is willing to commit genocide in order to get his hands on this stuff, so it would be nice to have it explained why exactly this mineral is so goddamn important.

 

[Plotinus]

What exactly was bad about the plot?

I keep hearing it was "predictable". OK, what was predictable? That Jake gets closer to the Na'vi, falls in love with the blue girl and betrays his own kind? Yeah, it kinda follows given the film's main theme.

Yes, that was predictable. The moment the blue girl appears you know they're going to fall in love. The moment he falls in with the Na'vi you know he's going to get drawn into their world, transform from a clumsy unthinking soldier into a sensitive spiritual eco-warrior, and end up fighting the horrible humans. To say that it follows given the theme of the film is too facile, because the point is that even given that broad outline, there could still be surprises along the way. But there weren't any at all. Once the situation has been established, every single thing that happens along the way is predictable.

There were nice touches to the story. I liked the fact that Jake was disabled, which added something to his freedom when controlling his avatar - but not much was made of this. The whole avatar idea itself was interesting, although it seemed to me that these avatars ought to be people in their own right - when not being controlled, why don't they come to their senses and run off? There's a whole interesting dimension there that wasn't addressed. So these nice touches seemed to me not to go anywhere, ultimately.

Others say it was just one big 'cliché'. Fine, but then what isn't?

Well, the film I mentioned as the last one I saw before Avatar wasn't at all - District 9. There was a film with an original premise, complex characters, and an endlessly surprising plot.

Now it's all very well for Cameron to say that he wasn't intending to make a film with a complicated or surprising plot, or deep and interesting characters, and so on, but I don't think that's really a tremendously useful defence.

Still others say it was 'shallow'. Again, define shallow.

Shallowness means over-simplistic stories and characters. In this film, every character was uncomplicatedly bad or uncomplicatedly good. There were no real conflicts other than the external conflict of good characters versus bad characters. No-one ever faced any real dilemma or serious choice, and no-one had to make any real sacrifice as a result of their choices. Those are things that add interest and depth. Look, by contrast, at something like Casablanca. That's got a pretty simple plot too, but it is not shallow, because the characters face real problems and real choices, and they have to choose what to sacrifice when they make those choices. When Jake makes his choice to fight for the Na'vi, the only thing he gives up is his life as a disabled marine working for nasty shouty men.

Here's something that could have made the story a lot more interesting: suppose that unobtainium were needed not to fuel space travel or whatever it was supposed to be, but to help enormous numbers of people in some way. Perhaps it could have been a cure for some kind of plague back on Earth, or an energy source that could raise the living standards of millions, or something like that. Then instantly the story is no longer one of evil imperialists versus virtuous noble savages, because the humans have a good justification for wanting the stuff, one which may be so strong it justifies using force against the Na'vi. Then when Jake chooses which side to fight for, it is a real choice, because by defending the Na'vi he is denying hope for millions, not merely profit for a bunch of evil faceless shareholders. Isn't that more interesting? Wouldn't it add a bit of depth? Wouldn't it make us care more about what happens?

I wanted to like this film very much. And I hadn't read any reviews before I saw it. But I simply found the story tiresome, like re-reading a book I've already read too many times. It wasn't completely bad, and ultimately I did quite enjoy it, but it didn't really engage my interest as much as I thought it would. I would almost have preferred no story at all but instead just a sort of fictional documentary about Pandora.

 

[Winner]

in that case you might want to explain how unobtanium, unobtainable (heh) on earth, presumably (something has to account fopr the lame name, come on!), got them there in the first place. for some reason earth has like 3 grams of it and it serves to do tests on it and how you can harvest its power and it just so happens to get you to the place where they got loads of that stuff conveniently hidden under their magic tree.

According to the accompanying materials, unobtanium doesn't exist on Earth nor elsewhere in the Alpha Centauri system. It was created by pretty exotic processes (some techno-babble about collisions of moons during the planetary formation of Polyphemus and the interaction of the moon's magnetic field with that of its parent gas giant planet) and exists on Pandora alone.

The first human expedition used conventional technology, which made the ship bulky, slow and very expensive. When humans found unobtanium on Pandora, they realized its potential as a high-temperature superconductor and began mining it. This helped them to construct much lighter and faster ships which in turn enabled them to mine more unobtanium.

By the time the story of Avatar begins, unobtanium is probably as well-known as uranium is today, hence the absence of explanation - would I need to tell you what's uranium good for if you were an employee at a uranium mine? I guess not

yeah, the unexplanium (and I claim that this would have been a better term for that floating thingie) certainly needs no light to be shed on it.

As A.C. Clarke said, if you don't know how to explain an awesome technology, don't. Did he explain how the monolith worked? Nope - we were left to assume that a civilization millions of years older than ours would posses a technology that to us would look like magic.

In Avatar the properties of unobtanium are hinted - it is shown to be floating in a magnetic field. There is no reason to include explanatory dialogue informing the obtuse viewers that it means that it has superconducting qualities.

I wished they'd had just gone the Alien route. cryogenics, farm all the ore, back to sleep, voila. what is wrong with plain old gold? probably too farfetched that humans go all napalm on a civilization that sits on top of a deposit of fossil fuel or shiny goods. yeah, ok that was a silly idea.... that would never happen.

Unobtanium-like elements/minerals are sadly the most common sci-fi prop. It's not surprising, think about it - there is no economic reason to fly to Alpha Centauri. The prices involved would be huge (just the costs of manufacturing anti-matter fuel would be astronomical). Ergo, you need something that's only there and nowhere else to make such an activity profitable.

I think Cameron made it clear to us that he realized how far-fetched this is when he named the mineral "unobtanium" - which in science-fiction literature is a mock name for materials which are deemed impossible to obtain, either because they defy the known laws of physics or because their manufacturing would be extremely difficult.

I understand it was necessary for the film's plot, so I see no reason to complain about that. Now if the humans went there for gold, I'd be outraged, because that would be an insult to common sense.

 

[Lord Baal]

Putting an explanation of unobtainium in a book but not the movie isn't acceptable Winner. It's lazy writing. If you shoot a guy in Act 3; Scene 1, you should show the presence of a gun in Act 1; Scene 1. If you're basing your entire story on a mineral, you should at least briefly explainwhat the hell the mineral is good for.

 

[Winner]

Yes, that was predictable. The moment the blue girl appears you know they're going to fall in love. The moment he falls in with the Na'vi you know he's going to get drawn into their world, transform from a clumsy unthinking soldier into a sensitive spiritual eco-warrior, and end up fighting the horrible humans. To say that it follows given the theme of the film is too facile, because the point is that even given that broad outline, there could still be surprises along the way. But there weren't any at all. Once the situation has been established, every single thing that happens along the way is predictable.

No, I disagree. The end is predictable, the particular details are not. Which is what makes it possibly to watch the film.

There were nice touches to the story. I liked the fact that Jake was disabled, which added something to his freedom when controlling his avatar - but not much was made of this. The whole avatar idea itself was interesting, although it seemed to me that these avatars ought to be people in their own right - when not being controlled, why don't they come to their senses and run off?

This thought has never even occurred to me. I assumed that if the bodies grow up in a tank full of some liquid, their brains will be a blank slate.

There's a whole interesting dimension there that wasn't addressed. So these nice touches seemed to me not to go anywhere, ultimately.

There is no reason for that. Jakes disability is clearly intended to make the contrast between his human existence and his Na'vi existence even bigger. Emotionally this works pretty well, I could definitely sympathize with him when he run out of the laboratory to just experience running again.

I think the strongest moment (emotionally speaking) was by the end of the film, in the scene where the evil colonel breaks the windows of the cabin from which Jake controls his avatar and he is about to suffocate.

Now it's all very well for Cameron to say that he wasn't intending to make a film with a complicated or surprising plot, or deep and interesting characters, and so on, but I don't think that's really a tremendously useful defence.

I think it is. You don't slam pop-rock musicians for not writing songs as musically rich as the classical music. Cameron was clearly aiming to accomplish something else - this is why I said the plot is almost fairy-tale like. Doesn't mean it is bad - it works perfectly within the framework of the film.

Of course not everybody will understand that or like that, that's unavoidable. My problem is that from the minute Avatar was released, the critics complained about the plot, ridiculing it ("hey look at me, I am educated and I am above the cheap entertainment for the masses!") without trying to understand that the plot isn't really what the film was supposed to be all about.

Shallowness means over-simplistic stories and characters. In this film, every character was uncomplicatedly bad or uncomplicatedly good. There were no real conflicts other than the external conflict of good characters versus bad characters. No-one ever faced any real dilemma or serious choice, and no-one had to make any real sacrifice as a result of their choices. Those are things that add interest and depth. Look, by contrast, at something like Casablanca. That's got a pretty simple plot too, but it is not shallow, because the characters face real problems and real choices, and they have to choose what to sacrifice when they make those choices. When Jake makes his choice to fight for the Na'vi, the only thing he gives up is his life as a disabled marine working for nasty shouty men.

Here's something that could have made the story a lot more interesting: suppose that unobtainium were needed not to fuel space travel or whatever it was supposed to be, but to help enormous numbers of people in some way. Perhaps it could have been a cure for some kind of plague back on Earth, or an energy source that could raise the living standards of millions, or something like that. Then instantly the story is no longer one of evil imperialists versus virtuous noble savages, because the humans have a good justification for wanting the stuff, one which may be so strong it justifies using force against the Na'vi. Then when Jake chooses which side to fight for, it is a real choice, because by defending the Na'vi he is denying hope for millions, not merely profit for a bunch of evil faceless shareholders. Isn't that more interesting? Wouldn't it add a bit of depth? Wouldn't it make us care more about what happens?

AFAIK unobtanium is vital for Earth's economy to function.

Anyway, you want moral ambiguity - which is exactly what the film tries to avoid. You won't find much of that in the Lord of the Rings either (good vs. evil, evil loses, happy ending).

I wanted to like this film very much. And I hadn't read any reviews before I saw it. But I simply found the story tiresome, like re-reading a book I've already read too many times. It wasn't completely bad, and ultimately I did quite enjoy it, but it didn't really engage my interest as much as I thought it would. I would almost have preferred no story at all but instead just a sort of fictional documentary about Pandora.

That's the problem when a philosopher sees a movie whose plot is primarily based on appeal to human emotions

Putting an explanation of unobtainium in a book but not the movie isn't acceptable Winner. It's lazy writing. If you shoot a guy in Act 3; Scene 1, you should show the presence of a gun in Act 1; Scene 1. If you're basing your entire story on a mineral, you should at least briefly explainwhat the hell the mineral is good for.

The characters know that, the viewer just need to know it's really precious - worth the fight from the viewpoint of the corporation.

 

[scherbchen]

valid points

but... but... damn you!

 

[Plotinus]

My problem is that from the minute Avatar was released, the critics complained about the plot, ridiculing it ("hey look at me, I am educated and I am above the cheap entertainment for the masses!") without trying to understand that the plot isn't really what the film was supposed to be all about.

Well, as I said, my views have got nothing to do with those of "the critics", and they've got nothing to do with any snobbish attitude towards the uneducated. If you don't like the motives that these critics had for their views, then fine, but that doesn't make what they said wrong. I'm not criticising Avatar because it wasn't a disquisition upon existentialist authenticity - I'm criticising it because I didn't think it very entertaining, and the reason why it wasn't entertaining was that its story was too simplistic, too predictable, and too hackneyed. It did not present me with believable characters making believable decisions in believable situations in a believable world, and because of that I didn't really care about them, no matter how much the film was saying to me, "These characters are good! CARE ABOUT THEM! These characters are evil! HATE THEM!"

Saying "This film is not supposed to have an interesting plot" is rather akin to saying "This book is not supposed to be well written" or "This game is not supposed to be fun to play". Fair enough, but if that's your design decision don't be surprised if people don't like it! Moreover, a film should stand on its own two feet. If, in order to appreciate a film, I have to know what the director's intentions are in making it, and I have to search out a load of supporting material explaining all the plot points that didn't make it into the film, then these are flaws of the film, not features.

As I said before, a plot can be simple without being shallow. The great myths mostly have pretty simple plots but are not shallow, because they contain genuine conflict - not the kind with guns, but the kind with choices. The plot of Avatar is simple and shallow, and that is why it is emotionally unsatisfying.

Anyway, you want moral ambiguity - which is exactly what the film tries to avoid. You won't find much of that in the Lord of the Rings either (good vs. evil, evil loses, happy ending).

No, and to that extent, The lord of the rings isn't very good either. However, it is superior to Avatar for the following reasons:

(1) The plot is far less predictable - in fact it goes all over the place, perhaps rather too much, at least in the book.

(2) It's got Gollum in it, who is a much more complex and deep character than anyone in Avatar (and even he is hardly Hamlet).

(3) The films (more than the book) have characters with quite well developed motives who behave believably. Faramir, for example, is tempted by the Ring in the second film and tries to take it - not because he is a cardboard cut-out "weak man" or "bad man" but because, as we see, he has been bullied by his father and unfavourably compared to his brother, and seeks to make amends by completing the mission in which his brother failed. The fact that he ultimately chooses not to do this is thus significant, because we know what it costs him to make that decision as well as the reasons why he does so, and we see the fallout of this, both good and bad, in the third film. This minor character has more depth and plausible motivation than anyone in Avatar, all of whom just are greedy or just are caring, and so on, and that makes him a much more emotionally engaging character.

(4) Victory comes at a serious price for the characters, above all Frodo. He saves Middle Earth but is so scarred by the experience that he has to leave it at the end. I thought that that was both moving and believable, both in the book and in the film. His choices in the story are real choices because they have serious outcomes for himself, and we see what those outcomes are for him and for his friends. The ending is not unambiguously happy.

That's the problem when a philosopher sees a movie whose plot is primarily based on appeal to human emotions

On the contrary - the film doesn't engage the emotions, at least not much. It may engage sentiment, which is a sort of shallow ersatz emotion, but that is hardly the same thing. Casablanca engages the emotions far more than Avatar does precisely because of the moral conflicts and serious choices that I mentioned in it.

As I said, I don't think that Avatar is a bad film, and I did in fact enjoy it, on balance. But I didn't enjoy it nearly as much as I wanted or expected to.

 

[Bast]

Obviously it wasn't really an original story or fantastic screenplay. But as a cinematic experience (and yes I'm also talking about the story included within), it was pretty good. It engaged me emotionally so I think it works overall.