My long ass rant on Avatar
While we’re on the topic of old topics we are rehashing for this blog (^_^) I thought I would repost my Avatar rant….because I spent a long time ranting about it and James Cameron is our NUMBER ONE GUY on our “To Sue” list. Basically, if you know me in person, don’t ask me what I think of Avatar. I will just refer you to this post and you can read it and come to your own conclusions. :)
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Let me just start off by saying, I have never before been so compelled to write a movie review like I am now. Even after watching fucking “Twilight: New Moon”…..which I could pick apart FOR HOURS on how immensely wrong that movie is!!! (ESPECIALLY the incredibly exploitative double standards in it re: sexism – imagine if Taylor Lautner was a GIRL!!!! But that is for another random anger fueled note…)
The fact remains, all sane, intelligent people KNOW Twilight is shit, and people rightfully point out the flaws of how incredibly badly written that movie is for EVERYONE to see. Hell, there’s even Twilight hate boards, which I wouldn’t even go so far as to joining and posting random crap on how Stephanie Meyer writes bad fanfic novels and crap like that….
ANYWAY, this is a review about AVATAR, and for all of you considering watching it, this is a warning to you now: DON’T WASTE YOUR TIME, YOUR MONEY, YOUR EFFORT, OR YOUR BRAINPOWER(not like you need much brainpower to watch this film…but you know). Maybe its the fact that this movie has been hyped up for so long, or maybe its the fact that people are just incredibly stupid these days and take decent movies for granted, all the while lining the coffers of all the rich movie execs who fund these SHIT corporate driven, humanitarian movies with lame, tacky messages about the environment, love, peace, hope and all that jazz. Just look at how well Transformers 2 did in theatres and get back to me if you want to dispute this claim. Or X-Men origins: Wolverine (which I’m sure CIndy will be HAPPY to back up), or even Harry Potter x….
What makes me REALLY angry though, is how Avatar is getting immensely good reviews everywhere, and how the majority of people seem to think it is ‘epic, amazing, incredible, innovative, BLAH BLAH BLAH’. Well this review is to disprove everything this movie has been made out to look in the media, and to perhaps persuade the discerning movie goer into never, ever, EVER buying into the money making black hole that is ‘Avatar”.
In fact, I’d go so far as to say the editor who did the trailer for Avatar probably did the best job out of anyone in making it look like the grand, epic movie its supposed to be. The music, the cutting of Neytiri jumping off the hanging rock with her flying dragon, the use of titles….brilliant. The Avatar trailer was actually the highlight of my New Moon experience – which really says something about how shit THAT movie was! The Avatar trailer really sets everyone up for disappointment though, because the actual MOVIE contains a dismal amount of suspense, action, romance, character development and societal issues implied in said trailer. Whether this is because of James Cameron’s crappy directing skills, or the crap acting, or the really pathetic script I have no idea.
The hype behind this movie is IMMENSE though, not only because apparently it has ‘innovative’ CGI and 3D effects, but because apparently the storyline is 100% original.
yeah, I was pretty excited when I heard that too. But let’s take a look at this article on the daily mail:
Key paragraph???
“Of course, the film is making a buzz because of this technology, but Cameron is keen to stress that film, as ever, is about story, and the aim is not to bamboozle and distract viewers with special effects.
‘The irony with Avatar is that people think of it as a 3D film and that’s what the discussion is. But I think that, when they see it, the whole 3D discussion is going to go away…
‘That’s because, ideally, the technology is advanced enough to make itself go away. That’s how it should work. All of the technology should wave its own wand and make itself disappear.’”
Oh realllllyyy now hey????? The movie is ALL about storyline hey???? You have GOT to be joking. In fact, sitting through the movie felt like I was sitting through one MAJORLY LONG video game sequence. It felt like a showcase of ‘look what my movie can do, oh yeah we’re so awesome, look at our amazing technology and 3D effects!!!1!!1!1′ If Cameron was really serious about this movie, he would have given half a brain to actually rewrite the entire script. Because the script was pretty fucking WEAK. As I will cover in the next part of this overly long essay on why Avatar sucks so much.
Apparently Cameron began writing the script in 1995. Hah! Uhm…yeah…..if this is true, I really think he should start getting proper writers to begin editing his work, or perhaps just giving up writing scripts altogether. Its not like this movie was groundbreaking or aweinspiring….in fact, its probably one of THE most cliched movies I’ve seen since…forever. It’s like watching one of those really cheesy, crappy horror movies that purposely use every cliche in the book…only Avatar isn’t a horror, and it isn’t even unintentionally funny. It’s just plain boring. EVEN WITH THE SO CALLED AMAZING GRAPHICS!
Because I’m such a nice person, I’m just warning you now the rest of this review will contain spoilers, so if you STILL want to watch this movie, even after everything I have said on how incredibly horrible it is….you should stop reading now.
P.S. Any intelligent person can decipher the plot from watching the trailer alone. Doesn’t take a ten year old to figure out whats going to happen…….. we all know how Michelle Rodriguez will end up anyway!
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Okay, so, first ten minutes. Jake Sully, a paralyzed marine, goes to Pandora after his twin brother dies from some bullet wound while on the job remote controlling an avatar. How convenient for the army!!!!! Not only does this guy have an IDENTICAL twin brother, said brother is also an ex marine who apparently also has ‘the same dna’ hence he can use the same avatar. Uhm…okay. Cool.
So, his mission is to basically remotely control this avatar, and learn the Navi way of life or something. Gain the Navi’s trust, and exploit them for all they’re worth(gotta love humanity!0. I think I can see where this movie is headed already!!! And this is ONLY the first ten minutes!!! So this leads to….
PLOT HOLE NO. 1: Why even BOTHER using remotely controlled avatars to ‘gain the natives’ trust’ when in the end, the army just blows the whole place up anyway!?!?!? I mean really, by the end Jake is pretty much deemed expendable and worthless, and they really didn’t give a shit about him or Grace(the scientist) either! All the supposed “intel” Jake gathered for them were pretty weak excuses to go on a hunting expedition, and surely if the copters and flying machines can bomb the ‘Hometree’ into smithereens, they can probably also find that tree of healing or whatever with the Eywa tentacles(?!…yeah.) When you think about it, why waste all the resources and energy into developing these avatars when they could just reach out, as humans??? Posing as an avatar just makes NO SENSE when you think about it, because not only is it more work and effort, it just complicates EVERYTHING to do with sleep, identity, and relations with the natives. But for the sake of this argument, I’ll just suspend my disbelief for a moment and go along with the human’s really badly organized colonization plan….
Moving on. So this Jake guy, he has to gain the natives’ trust hey? Nothing better than the chief’s daughter to help him out a little. In fact, as soon as I saw Neytiri watching him in the forest, I just HAD to sigh and think ‘here we go…’ *roll eyes* The floating jellyfish a sign from Eywa??? Really now?? ugh….Which leads to….
PLOT HOLE NO. 2: The entire native clan suddenly just accepts Jake with the snap of their fingers? Just because Neytiri says she ‘saw a sign from Eywa” everyone believes her, all the while KNOWING Jake was a ‘dreamwalker’ and that he was associated to the humans and their attempts at colonization. What is even more amusing is the fact that when they find out Jake knew all along the humans would bomb the place to the ground, the Navi act all so surprised and betrayed. IDIOTS!!!!! Seriously, who asked them to go and teach Jake EVERYTHING about their way of life without even asking what he was doing, wandering alone in the forest…..??? God these natives are clueless.
This brings me to my third point. CHARACTER DEVELOPMENT. By this time all the major characters are introduced, and the story is going pretty swimmingly. All save for the fact that these characters are one dimensional, generic, stereotypes based on other cliched video games and scifi fantasy movies. Seriously, you can pick em so easily, its like Cameron ripped off all the basic fantasy archetypes in the world. Let’s see, we have:
- The hardcore bitch who turns against all the human’s plans for ‘the greater good’ (Trudy)
- The typical stern, asshole military tough guy colonel who acts like he knows everything and questions NOTHING(think your steretypical tutorial type military guys in shooter games like halo or gears of war)/li>
- The generic fantasy protagonist who is thrown into a position where he has to make a tough good/bad choice which will affect his life forever(of course everything turns out wonderfully for him in the end) (Jake)
- The passive aggressive bitch with a soft side (Grace)
- The naive, faux strong princess (Neytiri)
- The braindead idiot who controls everything from a computer screen
- The jealous rival who think he’s entitled to everything from power to status to women
Have I covered them all???
These are basically the main characters anyway, and honestly, you don’t feel for ANY of them because they are so pathetic, and so, so shallow. You’d think three hours would be enough to cover character depth, AT LEAST with the main character….but nooo. Even Jake is a generic action hero stereotype who has seemingly been utilized oh so conveniently EVERYWHERE in the plot.
You’d also think with a sci fi/fantasy movie like this, issues of humanity, identity, race, class and even gender would play into the themes. Well in this case, you would be wrong!!!! Instead, there is a corporate driven message about how humanity = bad, mother nature = good, greed = bad, war = bad. YES WE’VE HEARD IT ALL BEFORE, WE DON’T REALLY NEED IT TO BE SPELLED OUT FOR US IN A THREE HOUR LONG MOVIE.
True, the environmental message is one that is constantly emphasized in the media these days. And yes, I would agree it is an important message for future generations and whatnot. I couldn’t help but think how incredibly dumbed down the message of this movie was however – it was like James Cameron set out to make this movie for idiots who know nothing about the environment or nature!!!! It pretty much felt like a really really long lecture about how much society sucks in general, with some pretty graphics of flowers and flying dragons in between. UGH. Give me a break…..if you want a real environmental movie with bite, just watch Princess Mononoke or Nausicaa or even Pocahontas.
The latter are infinitely better at delivering their message than Avatar is.
Okay so, anyway, Jake is frolicking with Neytiri, learning how to ride a Pandora horse and shoot a bow and arrow…just all the stereotypical stuff indigenous people supposedly do. Like gather berries, worship nature etc. etc. QUESTION: Why is Neytiri imposed with the task of teaching Jake their way of life? Why not Neytiri’s future mate, Jake’s rival, who is a fully fledged warrior??? Doesn’t make much sense….
So this brings me to THE RAPE ISSUE. Now this scene made me REALLY angry because not only was it hypocritical and generally stupid, it also had references to rape which were IMPOSSIBLE to ignore.
So what happens: These Navi people – they use flying dragons to travel everywhere. Pretty neat huh?? Neytiri explains to Jake however, that you can only fly ONE of these dragons in your life, and once you ‘bond’ with them, it is forever and only you can fly that dragon. Now it is at this point where you realize all the Navi people have these tentacles at the end of their really long hair braids for some reason(what if you were to cut their hair off…?) and they use these tentacles to connect with everything that is ‘nature’. All the ‘domesticated’ animals on pandora have these tentacles too which connect with the Navi tentacles so they have a connection through their mind. Sounds like a really really neat plot device!! Didn’t see that coming…-.-
The whole scene with Jake capturing and flying his first dragon is immensely cringe worthy though, not discounting the fact that there are pretty implicit sexual undertones thrown in. Jake slingshooting the dragon, binding up its beak and throwing himself on its back is pretty hardcore, but what is even more amusing is that Neytiri is on the sidelines shouting ‘You only get one chance! make the bond! do it now! he’ll be yours for life!’ etc. Its just SO WRONG. Why? The Navi are portrayed as a race who worships nature, They supposedly worship mother nature, their deity Eyma, and they send prayers to the animals they kill. Yet here they are, invading these dragon’s territory(they have to go to a lot of trouble to get to the floating rocks), slingshooting the dragons(Neytiri even says “you’ll know if they choose you because they’ll try to kill you…-_-) then pretty much RAPING the creatures of their free will and of their way of life. Once they “bond” with the dragon, its FOR LIFE, and its now apparently their sole duty to serve their owner’s wishes. Not only is it brutal, its pretty fucking HYPOCRITICAL*sigh*
Hence we come to…
PLOT HOLE NO. 3: In the climax of the movie, Jake ditches his first dragon for a big ass red dragon who is supposedly king of the air and no one can touch him. Ummm yeah okay. What did Neytiri say again about dragons and the bonding for life thing?? Oh we seem to have forgotten that have we James Cameron??? Okay. Good to know. That other dragon will now be flying, LONELY all its life, destined to die without a Navi to take care of it. Poor thing.
But hey, the red dragon gets all the native’s attention. And they seem to like Jake again!!! In fact, they…THEY’RE BOWING TO HIM!!!! All in the space of ten minutes with him getting exiled from the clan because he was an untrustworthy dreamwalker with bad intentions!!!! AMAZING.
Another Navi/hypocisy issue: during the battle between the humans and the natives, a leopard like creature bows its head in front of Neytiri, and she climbs on its back and they attack the colonel who has escaped his burning craft in this mechanical machine gun robot thing. QUESTION: Why does Neytiri bother riding this cat like creature when all she does is basically NOTHING but be a hindrance to the poor cat’s motor skills….who ends up dying for nothing. Its just so…..stupid!!!!!! They don’t even have a bond – Cameron seems to have just decided to add it in there to emphasize all the creatures of the forest working together, but instead just pulls if off really, really, really badly. There’s absolutely NO POINT to this, but then again, there are loads of scenes in the movie which actually have NO POINT. it gets quite frustrating sitting there thinking ‘why the FUCK are they doing this?’ or ‘it would be so much easier if they did it this way…’ Seriously. Everyone, even the creatures in Avatar, are moronic.
This leads to my next point: DEUS EX MACHINA. ie. “a plot device in which a person, group, or thing appears suddenly, and at the exactly appropriate moment, in order to conveniently and unexpectedly help a character overcome a previously believed insolvable difficulty.” (thanks wikipedia)
This is used SO MANY FREAKING TIMES in Avatar, it just gets to the point of being borderline RIDICULOUS. From the top of my head, I’m thinking of the scene where during the climactic battle between the humans and nature, the colonel’s craft crashes and he happens to land in the robot machine gun body(which was pretty much ripped off from District 9/Bioshock/Matrix 3) in the rainforest. Neytiri happens to find the leopard who happens to let her ride on its back, who happens to be meters away from where the colonel landed. A fight ensues, and then Jake all of a sudden appears out of nowhere to save Neytiri, then their fight suddenly is meters away from the crypts which Jake’s humanoid body is kept in. SO CONVENIENT!!!
Everything and I mean everything that happens in this movie is so convenient, so plot driven that its just basically a one dimensional story about human greed and corruption. One of the most obvious ones: the fact that dead humans can magically transfer their personalities from their human bodies to their avatars, with the help of Eyma and some good ol fashioned chanting under the fluro tree. CONVENIENT!!! Not only can Jake start a new life with Neytiri on Pandora, he can now acquire full function of his legs again, plus he’s also like some chief warrior now and is mated to the chief’s daughter. Ugh can this get anymore disney?!?
So let’s get on to the romance side of things. Wait…what romance?? The typical, 2D romance that isn’t even really explored in depth at all? Not only is the scene of Neytiri cradling the humanoid Jake bizarre and ridiculously strange, the connection between them seem cliched and tacked on. In fact, I think it would have done everyone a favour if they had just left the romance bit OUT altogether. Or at least just developed it a bit more other than Neytiri being conveniently forced to teach Jake their way of life!!! Their relationship is somewhat TOO perfect, and I think that is what makes their romance so bland, and so, so DULL. Yawn. Jake’s ‘rival’ isn’t even in the picture much either, which makes things even more boring. *double sigh*
Then there’s the whole indigenous people issues. Okay so here they COULD HAVE touched on the issues of racism and colonization….which I thought was something this movie would totally be about!! But no. The Navi are pretty stereotypical ‘indigenous’ people who hunt animals, wear loincloths, wear beads and hair braids, basically all the stereotypical things you’d expect a nature loving native clan to do. BORING. Seriously, where’s the originality?!?! And OH MY GOD!!! All it takes to save Pandora is a white messiah to come and save the day! Forget about how ‘strong’ Neytiri and her Navi tribe are….they are seemingly helpless without Jake. Seriously…could this get anymore cliched….you really have to admire Cameron’s aptitude for combining a million and one basic storylines into one bland movie.
The deaths featured in this movie are also very void of an emotion, and honestly, even when Neytiri’s father dies, its just like ‘Well……didn’t see that coming. NOT’. As soon as Grace dies and attempts to transfer her soul to her Pandora avatar, I’m sure at least some people thought ‘Oh god, Jake is TOTALLY going to try this out and turn into a Navi so he can live with the people forever…’. And GUESS WHAT!?!? HE DOES!!! AND THEY ALL LIVE HAPPILY EVER AFTER LA DE DA DA. Christ. Throw in a dose of reality won’t ya?!?!
Michelle Rodriguez also dies, which was a shame because she was probably the best character in the movie(if you had to pick a ‘best’ character, all were void of any emotional depth, really), but really, her death was SO predictable as well. A sacrifice for the greater good?? Like, so poetic. Even then, her death doesn’t affect you at all. Nor does the death of Grace…in fact, nothing really affects you in this movies. It’s really just a mindless, mind numbing movie for the brainless idiots out there who also loved Transformers and Iron Man. This movie contained SO MANY stereotypes and cliches, you wouldn’t even be able to call it original. Which makes me even more angry, because even before this movie came out, everyone in the media was hyping it up, saying how the script was “100% original!” and how it wasn’t based on a book, or play, or anything already established.
REALLY NOW!?!??!? REALLY JAMES CAMERON!?!?!? ARE YOU REALLY CLAIMING THIS MOVIE is 100% ORIGINAL!!??!? BECAUSE I CAN THINK OF A NUMBER OF SIMILAR MOVIES AND BOOKS WHICH HAVE SIMILAR THEMES AND ISSUES AND STORYLINES – MOST OF WHICH DID A MUCH BETTER JOB AT PORTRAYING THE ENVIRONMENTAL ISSUE AND THE PEOPLE INVOLVED.
The three hours felt like three years, I even had to ask myself what time it was to see when the movie FINALLY ended. For all that happened in it, they could definitely have cut the run time down to an hour and a half…max. Seeing it in 3D is such a gimmick as well, for the most part you don’t even notice it and yes, the graphics are….okay…but not amazing. So really, it IS a waste of an extra 2 bucks, as I’m sure it looks just as good on a 2D screen. I mean don’t get me wrong, the graphics were cool…but at the same time, I felt that they were really really really underused alongside the storyline. To put it lightly, I actually was more amazed at the graphics in The Imaginarium of Doctor Parnassus than I was with Avatar.
As you can probably tell, I hated this movie. I hated it WITH A PASSION, I even took the time to write this immensely long essay on why it sucks so much. Yes I have no life, and YES I REALLY SHOULD FIND BETTER THINGS TO DO WITH MY TIME. What can I say, I just value decent movies, and this one was just so incredibly bad I felt it was my duty to warn everyone against giving James Cameron even more money than he deserves.
I also hate it even more now that the majority of people are saying how incredible it is. Seriously people, if you’re smart and you value WELL MADE MOVIES…….you will do yourselves the favour of not wasting your time with this movie. It’s not even unintentionally funny. It’s just bland, dull, boring, cliched, overstuffed, predictable, corporate driven, pretentious, self righteous, moronic, badly written piece of shit that deserves all the crap reviews it gets. Any other simile adjectives you can think of, feel free to throw it in there.
I know I’ve ranted quite a bit(well that might be an understatement), but I HAD to get all that off my chest and god it feels goooood. Now I just need to know if anyone agrees with me!!! (and let me know if I’ve left out any main points!)
I just read this review on the movie over here and it has some pretty good points on how 3D movies are pretty much just a gimmick…and something I totally agree on:
http://blogs.suntimes.com/scanners/2009/12/avatar_plummets_into_the_uncan.html
“Cameron has reportedly said he wants to make two “Avatar” sequels — but he hasn’t managed to flesh-out this one. Big chunks of character dynamics and exposition appear to be missing, and maybe the movie would seem shorter if some of these things were restored for the inevitable DVD Director’s Cut.”
Sequel?? Heh, can’t wait for that one </sarcasm> I’m sure it’ll be devoid of even more soul than the first! And a director’s cut of Avatar??? Ughghghh, seriously, who needs one, really. I’d even rather rewatch the #513423423rd final, FINAL cut of Bladerunner than that!!!
So yeah, I think that just about covers it. Feel free to agree, disagree, rant, pick apart my grammar, WHATEVER. I’ll be happy to dispute any rebuttals! But the fact remains….this movie is easily in my bottom 5 movies of the year…possibly even bottom 2. 0:-) Talk about a MAJOR disappointment!!!
Overall, 1/5 – .5 for the graphics, 0.5 for Michelle Rodriguez
P.S. The army is on Pandora seeking “UNOBTAINIUM”!?!??! REALLY!?!?? For a guy who began writing the script since 199-freakin-5…..I have no words.
P.P.S. Wonder when the sequel is coming out. *BIIIGGG SIGH*
P.P.P.S. Honestly, I wouldn’t be surprised.
P.P.P.P.S. HOLY SHI- THIS MOVIE IS #51 on IMDB’S TOP 250!?!?!??! God help us all.
Man this movie makes me angry.
P.P.P.P.P.S. Well apparently there’s now a Jake/Neytiri sex scene. NEED I SAY MORE?! good god someone really needs to cut back James Cameron’s funding…
Last Airbender better be amazing or I will fucking choke a bitch
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