Avatar or Avatar?

[Fate]

I agree with Tim's WTF. Avatar should not win Best Picture.

A Single Man, Up in the Air, or hell even Inglourious Basterds would be a better choice.

[I Killed Kenny]

I liked it. It's a simple predictable movie, yes. But it's a movie that in the end makes me happy. And is probably one of the most beautiful things I ever seen, the world is simply amazing.

[Neil]

So is it basically all spectacle/explosion porn/pretty scenery then? I might enjoy it best with ear plugs then when I see it. Get all the good visuals but can miss the noble savage, one with the earth-mother bullshit. 

Also maybe its explained in the film, but why wouldn't you just wipe out the natives with bioweapons?

It's not explained. Mother fucking primitives beat the Space Marine Corp with mother fucking bow and arrows.

Fuck that shit man.

Nuke them from orbit.

Or at least pull out the smallpox blankets before you return to Earth in "defeat."

If the space marines won, what good would the movie be as an environmentalist fable?  Movies are an important social engineering tool, as we saw in the early 90s with environmentalism, and as we are seeing today with smoking.

[Neil]

In the end. we're invited to celebrate the potential destruction of humanity, and the ascendency of the blue hippies.

So it's like Aliens in reverse then?

[Neil]

WTF? This report can't be serious can it?

http://slatest.slate.com/id/2239576/entry/12/

Avatar Rising as Potential Oscar Pick

James Cameron's latest blockbuster, Avatar, opened only last week, but it already appears poised to rake in Oscar gold. Hollywood pundits predict the epic tale will garner eight or nine nominations, according to the Los Angeles Times. But more tantalizing to amateur handicappers is the possibility that Avatar could win best picture. Judging by the buzz, " 'Avatar' seems strongly positioned to win Oscar's heart with its strong environmental and social messages, its not-so-thinly-veiled Bush bashing and, most important, its technological breakthroughs," says the LAT. The New York Times' Carpetbagger blog seconds the sentiment: "The screenings are full, the reactions uninhibited, the Up in the Air and Hurt Locker people should start sweating."

If Titanic could win best picture, I don't see why this couldn't.

Moreover, wasn't Tim lobbying for King Kong?

[I Killed Kenny]

In the end. we're invited to celebrate the potential destruction of humanity, and the ascendency of the blue hippies.

So it's like Aliens in reverse then?

yes, with more color

[Admiral Yi]

Did you guys notice the similarity between Scarface's megacopter and the Aliens II drop ship?

[Kleves]

WTF? This report can't be serious can it?

Dances with Wolves won best picture, so why Dances with Wolves in Space!!!?

[Kleves]

So it's like Aliens in reverse then?

Cameron wanted to atone for endorsing the genocide of the innocent natives in the Aliens series.

[Sheilbh]

Dances with Wolves won best picture, so why Dances with Wolves in Space!!!?

Dances with Wolves beat Goodfellas

Though I thought Aliens and this shared an anti-corporate sentiment.  This is just more simplistic and less subtle/interesting/artistically worthwhile.

[Fate]

WTF? This report can't be serious can it?

Dances with Wolves won best picture, so why Dances with Wolves in Space!!!?

This was much worse than Dances with Wolves.  Costner started the movie a cracker and ended the movie a cracker. And he was banging a white chick, not some Pocahontas wannabe.

This Avatar guy took it too far. Cripple race traitor fucks the chief smurf's daughter by proxy and concludes this travesty of a movie by becoming a smurf.

[crazy canuck]

Though I thought Aliens and this shared an anti-corporate sentiment. 

I agree that Aliens echoed through this movie.  Right down to casting Ripley.

[Razgovory]

*May contain spoilers*

The 3D was awesome. The story was almost offensively stupid. The humans are painted as genocidal monsters (the greatest glory any character can achieve is to cease to be human, and become a native) while the natives are ludicrously glorified. Their god is even shown to be real, for fuck's sake. In the end. we're invited to celebrate the potential destruction of humanity, and the ascendency of the blue hippies. The movie had a great deal of potential, but threw it away.

If you feel you have to see it, see it in 3D. Don't see it otherwise.

I hate that.  Some of my best friends are humans.

[merithyn]

Went and saw it in 3D tonight. I liked it. The picture was truly beautiful, the CGI-to-live actions were seamless, the 3D didn't make me feel sick, and while the story was simplistic, it wasn't over-the-top treehuggerish in the usual sense. In this case, being connected with nature really was being connected with nature.

*SPOILER*

Their "god" wasn't a being, but rather a center point for a pantheistic world, much like our brains for the body. For those who haven't seen it, basically, the entire world is connected through a series of neurons that allows all creatures and nature to interact with one another much like the cells in our bodies do. So by killing the trees, they were actually killing a portion of the brain of the world.

As to the complaint that the humans were fighting for survival, that's bunk. They were fighting for cash, pure and simple. The unobtainium wasn't necessary for humans back on earth to live; it was a means to make money for the company on the planet. Personally, I would have found the story much more interesting if it were necessary for humanity to survive, but as written... meh. Simplistic story with amazing pictures.

[jimmy olsen]

They seriously call the element they're looking for unobtainium?

Sweet Christ, even George Lucas thinks that's cliched hackery.