My 2 cents:
This is not a review of the movie. There are plenty of those out there, lots of which are more in-depth than I could ever write. Still, if you just landed on Earth [Welcome!] or if you simply do not follow any of the media phenomenons and you wish to know a pertinent opinion regarding the movie, here's one: The movie sucks!
Note that I said that the "movie" sucks; I haven't seen it in 3D, since I consider all of that stuff to be just a silly and distracting nuisance.
So, this article is going to try and explain why the movie sucks, not by detailing the scenes or anything closely related to the movie itself.
Since I first heard about the movie and that it was going to be made using "revolutionary" 3D technology, I had a bad feeling that it was going to suck, from an artistic point of view. And, of course, I was right.
Now, I am quite a fan of James Cameron and of his early sci-fi movies like: Terminator 2, The abyss and Aliens. Heck, I even liked Titanic.
But, and this is a big "but", when those were made, the sci-fi cinema industry was still in it's experimental phase; computer generated images were rarely used, and they had to improvise a lot in order to create the envisioned concept. So the
concept was very important, and it was reiterated until it looked good.
Also, I cannot explain why this is so, but back then [the pre '00-ish era], the
plots had a habit of being good. They addressed a "mature" public; and by mature I don't mean p0rn.
Avatar not only sucks story wise [true, the story is ok-ish, but not even close to the alien encounter of Aliens or from that of the Abyss] but it also sucks because it comes out as a kids movie. That would have been ok, if they would have stuck with this idea, but they mixed in some would-be "mature" scenes; and yes, this time I do mean p0rn, and other things that are the
main ingredients in almost all Hollywood productions today.
The movie also has striking resemblance to some other flicks you may have seen. Again, there are a lot of articles out there detailing this idea; I found the movie almost identical to
Terra, story-wise. One would think: has JC spent all those years to write a simple oppressor-vs-oppressed struggle, with some inter-species romance? Aren't we sick of that from watching Star Trek?! I mean, you get all the drama and action from Avatar in one episode from the above mentioned franchise.
Now, my opinion is that James Cameron gave the public what it wanted. Much as Caesar did when he gave
bread and blood to the roman people. That didn't make him a lesser military genius, nor a lesser leader.
So, should we blame it on the public? Yes, mostly.
For some years now standard movie quality has decreased at a frighting rate. Sure, there were always bad movies. But now-a-days, the so called "good ones" are beginning to get bad, or... not so good. Or am I getting to be a tough critic?!
Anyway, I feel we shouldn't blame James for what he did. Maybe he wanted Avatar to be just a money making kids movie.
Timmy: Maybe he's getting old?!
Mr. Reviewer: Who, Cameron?
Timmy: Yup.
Mr. Reviewer: Well, Timmy, you might be right. Just like George Lucas, right?
Timmy: Yup. Or... or, maybe he'll pull a rabbit out of the hat in his next movie?
Mr. Reviewer: You mean
Avatar 2, Timmy?
Timmy: Oh...
I was walking home one evening.
