|
Avatar looks badass. (pg. 34)
|
View this Thread in Original format
| The17sss |
| quote: | Originally posted by WittyHandle
I wanted to die halfway through. I feel emasculated that this guy one-upped me. |
:haha: |
|
|
| Verona^My |
| quote: | Originally posted by ziptnf
I think the visuals and look incredible, but I'm afraid that the story is going to be really lame. |
It's a moralistic story about a guy who saves a CGI rendered Indian tribe from a sadistic bad ass bent on destroying them. Unlike real life, the Indians win.
You gotta love the sadistic bad ass though. However, it pays to note that people like that really did lots of damage throughout history. His role can be compared to that of a pirate, or other type of ambitious sadist that massacres a tribe or razes a village without an ounce of compassion.
The movie has a non-realistic feel good ending, but the moralistic dimensions are right. |
|
|
| ziptnf |
| Dude, I ing saw it already. The story is lame, don't try to make it seem like it's deeper than it is. |
|
|
| leph555 |
| story would have been oscar worthy if the indians would have been wiped out |
|
|
| denys envy |
So I saw this last week, in 3D - which is the only way to go for this movie. I think everyone has pretty much voiced how I feel about it, especially Clovis.
But yes, visually it's incredible. Takes a lot of talent and hours to create something like that. I was just floored by the imagination of it all. Even when the story didn't pull me in, I was still looking around and just marveling. If I still had any desire to do them, I'd go a second time shroomed out of my mind, that would be one hell of an experience.
I don't think the storyline/plot was bad, but very predictable... I guess, in turn, that makes it bad. If you're going to do a movie for 2 1/2 hours, it should've had a few more twists or something. I've lost my interest about an hour into the movie, but the stunning visuals kept pulling me along.
All in all, I might go see it again. But I have a feeling it's something that would just get more boring every time you watch it.
And I don't think the acting was bad, I think the script definitely made the most damage. From what I saw, everyone was doing pretty well... I'm no critic tho. But when you have such a cheesy ass plot at times, the actors can't help but suck, even doing their damn best.
Still, worth the price of admission (once anyway) to go see it in 3D. Cinematic technology has come a long way. |
|
|
| SYSTEM-J |
| Finally saw it, and it's pretty much what everyone has said: incredible "experience" cinema but age-old story and very obvious and idealistic environmentalist message. It is racist in how the Navi are just an amalgmation of various "ethnic" human cultures. But then, that's no worse than any "ethnic" techno record. Funny how nefardec can get angry about this film but enjoy a track like Ritual Of Life. |
|
|
| WittyHandle |
 |
|
|
| nefardec |
| quote: | Originally posted by SYSTEM-J
. Funny how nefardec can get angry about this film but enjoy a track like Ritual Of Life. |
lol wtf! i haven't listened that track in like 7 months!
also, sven vath doesn't make preachy multibilliondollar global enterprises
furthermore, 'ritual of life' does not make an allegorical, moral or political statement.
:wtf:
best to just leave it at 'i personally find the use of world music samples cheesy'. |
|
|
| SYSTEM-J |
| quote: | Originally posted by nefardec
lol wtf! i haven't listened that track in like 7 months!
also, sven vath doesn't make preachy multibilliondollar global enterprises
furthermore, 'ritual of life' does not make an allegorical, moral or political statement.
:wtf:
best to just leave it at 'i personally find the use of world music samples cheesy'. |
None of those things make the film more racist. They make it more hypocritical, perhaps, more annoying, probably, but not any more racist. The basic reduction of various non-white, non-Western culture to an amalgamated Other is what's racist about the film, and Ritual Of Life is just as guilty as Avatar. Probably more, because if you take away the samples in that track you've got nothing left, where as the cultural features of the Na'vi aren't all the film has to offer. That's why cheesy world music samples annoy me more. |
|
|
| nefardec |
| quote: | Originally posted by SYSTEM-J
None of those things make the film more racist. They make it more hypocritical, perhaps, more annoying, probably, but not any more racist. The basic reduction of various non-white, non-Western culture to an amalgamated Other is what's racist about the film, and Ritual Of Life is just as guilty as Avatar. |
yeah but what made me angry was not the racism itself, but that racism can be so widely and successfully institutionalized, popularized, and capitalized, and even lauded.
Also I think your critique of the sven vath track is itself racist, and that you are creating an 'Other' where there actually is none nor is there any indication that the creator intended there to be one. The entire arrangement of the track is obviously about unification of many sounds from around the world, regardless of western or eastern or southern or whatever civilization. Different instruments gradually enter and the parts form a collective unified whole. There is no value statement made, no judgment or anything.
Your racist intervention is to presuppose that the track is racist simply because Sven Vath is white, which is pretty terrible.
Avatar is from its inception a story about white people and the other, and from its inception this institutionalized racism was engineered to sell, and sell wildly by capitalizing on people's guilt and emotions. Completely different.
Don't turn this into a personal tirade against a track that annoys you. |
|
|
| SYSTEM-J |
Or it's because the B-side remix is called "Tribal acid mix" years before "tribal" meant anything as a genre, because all the worldwide sounds being sampled just happen to be sign-posted sounds of traditional native music, because the track tries to tap into that new agey faux-spiritual "close to nature" fad going around at that time. The title, and the promo video packed with images of exotic nature from lands a-far clearly reinforce the same stereotypes as Avatar. Any disembodied native, tribal or otherwise non-Western ethnic cultural scrapings automatically connote religion, ritual, closeness to nature, closeness to life.
Don't get me wrong, I can ignore this: the Tribal Acid version is a good track and I can seperate the cultural context from the music, but you'd have to be very naive, ignorant or desperate to argue Vath wasn't doing exactly the same thing as Cameron.
| quote: | Originally posted by nefardec
yeah but what made me angry was not the racism itself, but that racism can be so widely and successfully institutionalized, popularized, and capitalized, and even lauded. |
Okay. I understand that. It's basically a matter of popularity. |
|
|
|
|
