AVATAR:
-Okay, so talking about James Cameron's Avatar is a funny sort of thing, because the perception NOW is much different than it was THEN. When the movie was first released, the one-in-a-million effects and oustanding visual design blew minds, and Cameron's name drew them to the theater. And so people came in DROVES- the movie unseated his previous film, Titanic, as the all-time moneymaker, creating a record which stood until Avengers: Endgame, which required the full force of 20+ Marvel Cinematic Universe movies behind it to equal it.
Yet today, the movie is almost completely forgotten, even made fun of.
My Initial Comments (in Feb. 2010!):
Wow, I was uh, a bit less wordy back then. In any case, I dug it, promptly made builds... and then forgot about the movie like everyone else did. Cameron has been working on sequels for YEARS, literally since the last one, but has delved into his own "No- it has to be PERFECT" mentality, leaving Disney and others frustrated because of course Disney spent bajillions on their massive "Pandora" expansion at their Animal Kingdom theme park, and now there's no promised sequels to hype them. But that stuff IS enormously popular over there, particularly "Flight of Passage" which puts you in the mind of a Na'vi as it flies a Banshee across the vast coastline and cave systems of Pandora.-Okay, "Avatar" is a pretty seriously bad-ass movie. You wouldn't think something that essentially borrows from every other piece of fiction ever, using zillions of well-established and often-dead Tropes (Seducing the Chief's Daughter, White Dude Meets the Natives and Becomes Their Leader, Searching for Unobtainium- and they ACTUALLY CALL IT THAT, Taming the Legendary Monster, Becoming One of the Tribe, Environmentalism, etc.) would be so awesome, but it's said that everything steals from stuff- all that matters is how well you use it. Look at "Star Wars"- that movie stole from as many things as "Avatar" did, so you know they're in good company.
The movie itself... well, it's largely a collection of old tropes. I enjoyed it at the time, but haven't ever had the desire to watch it again. It's just about a white guy who comes to an alien world in flux- humans have invaded and are farming "Unobtainium" (yes, really). This brings them into conflict with the natives- huge blue creatures called Na'vi. The humans are in two groups- marines who squabble with the Na'vi, and human scientists and researchers who try to work WITH them. There's an uneasy peace, as the scientists create "Avatars", transferring their minds into Na'vi grown in a lab, in order to better communicate with them. Jake Sully's a crippled marine whose brother was one of the scientists, but he died- Jake is thus a "match" for his Avatar, and joins it to help.
So of course the usual stuff happens- Jake interacts with a sexy blue giantess named Neytiri, quickly falling for her, as the old "Chief's Daughter" trope demands. “Right from the beginning I said, ‘She’s got to have tits'. Even though that makes no sense because her race, the Na’vi, aren’t placental mammals.”, said James Cameron. A Playboy Magazine interview shared "Cameron’s CGI team devised a way to animate Neytiri’s necklace so her breasts were always on show, but her nipples would still be covered. “We had a shot in which Neytiri falls into a specific position, and because she is lit by orange firelight, it lights up the nipples,” he said. “That was good, except we’re going for a PG-13 rating, so we wound up having to fix it. We’ll have to put it on the special edition DVD; it will be a collector’s item”.
So Jake quickly becomes conflicted- though he's with the researchers, he's more loyal to the marines, sharing their background. He feeds them info on the Na'vi. He & Neytiri fall for each other as he learns the Na'vi way (using their mental links to animals to form a partnership with his own Ikran- a flying monster), eventually siding with them... but watches as the marines destroy the Home Tree and kill hundreds, including Neytiri's father. Jake, desiring to make things right, engages in an ancient prophecy/story, linking to an even LARGER flying monster, which bands the various Na'vi tribes together, and they beat the marines once and for all. His human form dies, and the Na'vi successfully do a ceremony that permanently bonds his spirit to his Avatar, which opens its eyes as the movie ends.
(bullet DODGED, in my case).
(I apologise for perpetuating a meme, but I must admit that the comparison seems a pretty good one - I suspect the Catchans would take him into the ranks, no questions asked).
.
)
