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SPOOFE wrote:

I think it's clear that with the Batmans, the first four (Tim Burton to George Clooney) took their inspiration from the TV show

As long as we redefine inspiration as "vague character elements that must be portrayed" I agree with you. 1960s' Batman was campy and pretended to be cool. Every movie Batman since then has been a stock-casted "tortured soul" and the only difference between modern Batman movies is the depth of the manufactured torture in Bruce Wayne's soul.

balzi wrote:

derFunkenstein wrote:

... I love Cesar Romero's and Luke Skywalker's Jokers better.

wow! that is a massive call! I can see nostalgia winning out here and there but I'm old enough to have seen both, and even though my memory is slightly fuzzy on Mark's Joker - I think Heath's Joker would take some beating, and I would remember if the older one was that good.

My wife bought the Adam West 60s movie on DVD a couple years ago, and we watched it as soon as it came in. It's still great. "Some days you just can't get rid of a bomb!"

I'm not saying which one is more realistic or more true to the character or any of that artistic BS that I just can't care about; I'm saying which one I liked better.

Also, Batman TAS still runs on TV sometimes and if I happen across it I stop to watch it. It's still, IMO, the best Batman ever. This is why Arkham Asylum appealed to me. So why have I not played it yet? lack of free time.

And finally, I'm not saying Dark Knight and Batman Begins are awful. On the contrary, I really enjoyed them. They're just not what I think of when I think of The Joker. You're reading too much into it if you think I'm saying anything else.

derFunkenstein wrote:

My wife bought the Adam West 60s movie on DVD a couple years ago, and we watched it as soon as it came in. It's still great. "Some days you just can't get rid of a bomb!"

I'm not saying which one is more realistic or more true to the character or any of that artistic BS that I just can't care about; I'm saying which one I liked better.

Also, Batman TAS still runs on TV sometimes and if I happen across it I stop to watch it. It's still, IMO, the best Batman ever. This is why Arkham Asylum appealed to me. So why have I not played it yet? lack of free time.

And finally, I'm not saying Dark Knight and Batman Begins are awful. On the contrary, I really enjoyed them. They're just not what I think of when I think of The Joker. You're reading too much into it if you think I'm saying anything else.

I have that movie also, orginally on VHS. First thing that comes to mind from that movie is the shark scene in the beginning. I still laugh hard thinking about it.

For what its worth I like Nicholson's joker better.

As long as we redefine inspiration as "vague character elements that must be portrayed" I agree with you.

The style? The perfect flashy colors? The Joker-themed cars? Heck, what about the Joker-copter at the end of the first? Straight outta Adam West and Burt Ward.

derFunkenstein wrote:

.... You're reading too much into it if you think I'm saying anything else.

sorry mate. I wasn't actually reading into it, or having a go at you. I just thought it was amazing that someone would prefer the older one. I realise its only my opinion and even though I enjoyed Jack N's joker and probably would even watch the original Adam West Batman if I had the oppurtunity, but I can't recall being mesmerised by the incredible acting like with Mr Ledger. (Of course I'm biased, I'm an Aussie and I am/was a fan of Heath even from his Knight's Tale days, which was in most respects a terrible movie that I loved. go figure!)

so don't read too much into my statements either (read as a suggestion not a "get off my lawn" ).

I didn't happen to like much of the other acting in the later batman's.. Bale is just passable! if it was too much worse I probably couldn't stand it. I mostly enjoyed Neeson, Caine and Freeman. Gary Oldman was good enough. Katie Holmes was just ok, and I bit better than Maggie G. Eckhart was only just getting it done.

for me, those things meant that the story was excellent, because until later consideration that i realised how little quality there was to parts of the acting.

Anyway, I think I've almost hijacked the Avatar thread. In on in Australia now so might see it in early January.

have a good weekend.. and Merry Christmas everyone. I won't be around til early January and I can already feel you all missing me even though the USAians are all snoozing at this hour.
gotta love the love!!

Have a good Christmas, balzi.

I understand what you're saying about Christian Bale. The newer Batman movies are good in spite of him, not because of him. That's too bad when you're talking about the title character.

So I saw a midnight showing of this.....wow 2 and a half hours long so it was like 3 and half at the theater counting standing line, waiting, previews.

So here is my official review of Avatar:

3D....Meh. It was cool and the movie doesnt play toward it. Used exclusively as a tool to tell the story. Honestly, I could have done without it. No Nausea or vertigo and by about the 20 min mark you forget its 3D.....almost.

The Movie its self......Meh. Oh is going to win and earn lots because of the tech involved. Action scenes were tight and not blurry at all.

Dialogue was forgettable.

The Story has been told before in many different ways, Corp wants resources, uses military to get it, inhabitants fight back using rudimentary weapons against advanced mech. All I kept thinking about was those damn Ewoks defeating the Empire with pikes and logs tied to vines! I didnt have a feeling for either side. I wanted to see Blue people get slaughtered and I wanted to see the humans get slaughtered. It was as if I was a onlooker watching ants attack a garden snake. I was detached.

To sum it all up (and it has been said Before pages ago) The movie is all Flash and no substance.

However, this movie isnt about the substance I suspect and more about the tech involved. The tech, film process, CGI, et al was spectacular!

I feel that Cameron just like Lucas should not film and/or write movies anymore. Instead they need to fund people like Neill Blomkamp or Fede Alvarez visionaries. Think of what District 9 could have been with all this tech?? (I mean I feel it was perfect the way it is )

The bottom line is this:

So should you go see it? Yes, and watch it in 3D if you can just so you give it a fair chance. Cameron wanted it to bee seen in 3D so go see it that way.

Will it make lots of money? Yes

Will it win awards? Yes for the tech but HELL NO for the acting and/or scripting

EDIT: One last thing, If you do happen to go see this at an Imax (any of them) or a theater with a super large screen you need to sit in the rows from the middle on up. If you want my true advice sit in the 2nd to last back row.

I also saw this at a midnight showing. I'm not a terribly harsh critic, so keep that in mind:
The story is, indeed, a rehashed and derivative thing. That's not to say it's a bad story, but all the surprises for me were about timing -- people dying later than I thought they would, etc. The acting works for me -- but then again once it's better than a soap opera I'm not much good at telling the difference. I wasn't ever jolted out of the movie by bad acting, though.
The visuals are amazing. The entire movie looks beautiful, and both the CGI and the 3D are used very well. There are two 3-D show-off shots in the entire movie and then it mostly recedes into the background except for a few scenes where it comes into play beautifully, but not distractingly. It's an action movie so there's plenty of large-scale battle scenes but I didn't think that anything in the film consisted of CGI porn. The flora and fauna are amazing to look at and it does feel like a vibrant jungle. I liked the soundtrack but that's not something I normally notice in movies so your mileage may vary.

So I wouldn't recommend it as an amazing viewing experience that will change your life, and I still like Terminator 2 better, but this is certainly a very good blockbuster action film. And I suspect we will be thanking Cameron in the next few years for his work on the 3-D tech and for showing people how to make a CGI movie that isn't about CGI.

Oh, a note about the glasses: I saw this in a non-IMAX theater and still needed to be careful about seating. They didn't seem to work quite right in the third row but even moving back to just the fourth row they were good.

Saw it like an hour ago. OMFG. This is possibly my new favorite movie. This movie has more substance than a baseball player's piss.
The CGI was amazing. I can't comment on the 3D because our theater doesn't have it, but I'm doing film and editing in school (probably at a post secondary level) and I had trouble spotting some of the effects. There isn't enough caps lock for me to express how highly I think of this movie.
If spoiler tags aren't enough of a warning, this should...
The internal conflict was amazing, and living life in the tribe REMINDED him of what being human means. through an alien body that is neuro-linked over some crazy fast science.

I just got back from it myself. It's my favorite movie in recent memory, though that comes with a couple of caveats.

I saw it in 2D. The CGI was fake looking about three or so times: mostly when humans were outside in really colorful light, like Grace under the tree of souls. Other than that, it was amazing. I couldn't pay attention to the first two or three minutes of the movie it was so cool looking, before I adjusted, if you will. And, as Cyril pointed out, the dog-helicopter-insects were definitely over the top, and pulled me out of the movie for a minute. That being said, the other similar touches (other more believable monsters, the moss lighting up when stepped on) were very very cool, and completely believable and internally consistent with the movie's universe.

The plot was a little predictable, but if you stop overthinking the movie and sit and enjoy it, you'll love it. It's intuitive and simple and the events follow a natural progression with a couple of interesting twists. The writing was good for the most part - the "Kansas" line and the "terror with terror" line were the only two that stuck out (and boy, did they). The script could be a little better, I guess, but once again it only rarely pulls you out of the movie.

The message of the movie is incredible. The thought that a Pandora-like world could exist is not that unbelievable, and neither is the thought that a company would go blow it to pieces for money. Really, the only thing stretching feasibility is the neural interface, but it was necessary to illustrate Cameron's point about connections between human species. (Haha, well, that and the thought that the Na'vi won.

(Side note: For the people complaining about the 'noble savage' thing, note that they fought a significant amount amongst themselves, with Tsu'Tey nearly killing Jake. The difference in tribal organization isn't that individuals are mystically magically less violent, it's that the system the people live under doesn't amplify those tendencies.)

I expected the story to be simplistic, and the characterization to be shallow and you know what? It was. It also happens to be one of the best, most memorable movie experiences I've ever had. I saw it in 3D just a few hours ago.

Why does every movie these days have to have grounded, "realistic" plot and differing-shades-of-gray morality? Sometimes you just want a sweeping, epic, enthralling fantasy. Think of Lord of the Rings. Is Sauron a morally complex character? No. Is the dialogue that natural and nuanced? No. But it's an amazing experience that sweeps you into a well-realized, compelling, captivating fantasy world. It's not "dumb" entertainment in the same way that you can enjoy a dumb action movie, it's just not "realistic" in the sense of "yeah, I could totally see that happen IRL". But it still paints a vivid picture you can relate to and become immersed in. More "realistic" isn't always better.

Let's keep the enthralling fantasy fiction around. I know the current trend is "gritty and realistic" as of late, even in our comic-based movies, and until today, I welcomed it without reservations. Avatar has strongly re-proven the value of the other approach. The real world blows. Let's escape into a great fantasy one from time to time.

4 stars out of 4.

Great movie.

This thread seemed like a wreck during the first pages, and I was thinking what all of this has to do with the Avatar?

Everyone here was like a super critic that knows exactly how the movie should be made and what the script should be. Heck, if you want something exact, go solve a math equation or something. Movies are about fun and being able to relax. They can let you think, or, on the contrary, could be something completely stupid that just lets you chill for a while. And everyone has their own opinions and views. I never understood those critics, how the hell are they supposed to know what I will like Sometimes I watch a crappy movie and I'm glad because I could relax, and sometimes I see a 10 out of 10 movie and I'm not awed because the story line just doesn't appeal me. It all depends.

Having said that, I watched the movie in 3D today, and it was the first movie I watched in 3D.

So far, I can't tell if it's one of the best movies I've seen, but I really enjoyed it. The story line was not exactly unpredictable. I can say I pretty much knew what will happen long before stuff actually took place. Pilot turning on commander, human attack, love between main characters, one of the chars being pissed at other for betrayal and then forgiving him, final transformation of main char human to main char elf, newbie main character taming the bad ass(tm) dragon. All of that was apparent long before it happened. It also made me feel sorry for the blue elves, because of all the unnecessary destruction, which was kinda weird, since I'm not in the first grade anymore. But that illustrated the destructive human nature very well, so good work there.

Concerning 3D, I'm puzzled. It wasn't overdone, that's for sure, no cheap gimicky stuff flying at you, and nothing was flat, which would be bad as well. So I guess 3D was spot on.

Did I liked it? I don't know, I was concentrating on the movie, so 3D doesn't really mattered much, but when I thought about it, yes, it was nice, aside from flickering at some very fast actions, which was kinda annoying, but ..., hard to tell. I think I'd say watch it in 3D if you can, but 2D is pretty good as well. Some scenes in 3D were very cool, and yet everything was natural.

So all in all, I liked the movie very much, my friend watched it and said it was so so, and 3D was not cool because nothing was flying at him... To each his own. I would love to get Avatar on Blu-Ray 3D for home and all the technological stuff to play it if it was available and not astronomically expensive.

Is it me or are the "military" ships reused from the Alien movies? I swear the drop ship looked the same.

Avoid the Headache

grantmeaname wrote:

The difference in tribal organization isn't that individuals are mystically magically less violent, it's that the system the people live under doesn't amplify those tendencies.)

Primitive tribal peoples are, in fact, several orders of magnitude more violent than civilized peoples. They also tend to be massively more xenophobic.

http://www.sciencemag.org/cgi/content/a ... 9/4843/985
http://www.amazon.com/War-before-Civili ... 0195119126
http://www.amazon.com/Archaeology-Warfa ... 0813032849
http://www.jstor.org/pss/3773062?cookieSet=1

30% of all adult males deaths are due to violence, and nearly half of males 25 years and older have killed someone.

You would think this is obvious. In the US, like what?, 1% of our population is in the armed forces/police? With the Na'Vi, it's at least something like 33% of those who are of age. This isn't disimiliar from true primitive tribes, in which virtually every able male of age is a "warrior." With James Cameron's vision of the unisex Na'vi warrior culture, the discreptancy is only larger.

So, one should wonder, just what are all those warriors for?

the warriors are for gardening and keeping up appearances in general. those forests dont just grow themselves, you know.

this is an interesting thread. alot of opinions are getting treated like they matter.

seems like, more often than not, the people that enjoy the film are whining about the red team being too harsh of critics...
the red team seems to be upset that the blue team likes cg and recycled plots too much.

seems like theres ample merit for each view, movies can just be movies. you can also ask what the purpose of the movie was and did it succeed? if a movie's budget is floating at around 300 million, it probably has an objective of sorts, though it may solely be an investment.

Glorious wrote:

Primitive tribal peoples are, in fact, several orders of magnitude more violent than civilized peoples. They also tend to be massively more xenophobic.
30% of all adult males deaths are due to violence, and nearly half of males 25 years and older have killed someone.

You would think this is obvious. In the US, like what?, 1% of our population is in the armed forces/police? With the Na'Vi, it's at least something like 33% of those who are of age. This isn't dissimilar from true primitive tribes, in which virtually every able male of age is a "warrior." With James Cameron's vision of the unisex Na'vi warrior culture, the discrepancy is only larger.

So, one should wonder, just what are all those warriors for?

There isn't an organized military in the tribal system, or war for that matter, its normally hunters that are needed to protect the tribe or get revenge on another tribe for some killings. There wasn't a reason to take out another tribe because your neighbors would likely kill you before you could do anything to them. As far as xenophobia and the violence, you'd turn to it pretty soon to if you were competing for limited resources that everyone not part of your group wanted as bad as you do. One last thing, despite the more violence, tribes have no loss of purpose or recognition of crime, something we 'Civilized' peoples are all to familiar with.
(No more R&P gents...)

Glorious wrote:

grantmeaname wrote:

The difference in tribal organization isn't that individuals are mystically magically less violent, it's that the system the people live under doesn't amplify those tendencies.)

Primitive tribal peoples are, in fact, several orders of magnitude more violent than civilized peoples. They also tend to be massively more xenophobic.

http://www.sciencemag.org/cgi/content/a ... 9/4843/985
http://www.amazon.com/War-before-Civili ... 0195119126
http://www.amazon.com/Archaeology-Warfa ... 0813032849
http://www.jstor.org/pss/3773062?cookieSet=1

30% of all adult males deaths are due to violence, and nearly half of males 25 years and older have killed someone.

You would think this is obvious. In the US, like what?, 1% of our population is in the armed forces/police? With the Na'Vi, it's at least something like 33% of those who are of age. This isn't disimiliar from true primitive tribes, in which virtually every able male of age is a "warrior." With James Cameron's vision of the unisex Na'vi warrior culture, the discreptancy is only larger.

So, one should wonder, just what are all those warriors for?

I argue that it is roughly the same. The only difference is that essential resources are plentiful at the moment for the majority of the world's "civilized" population. When there is not enough to go around, the seemly "non-violent" civilized cultures will go fighting each other over the scraps of "essential" resources. It has happen many "times" before (World Wars, most ME conflicts, African conflicts) and it will happen again. Future fresh water shortages, oil shortages, famine, massive overpopulation leading to conflicts.

Xenophobia is other interesting aspect of our nature. It just got "doublespeak" into "Nationalism/Racism". If you think it doesn't happen in good, old USA or even EU. Think again.

(Sorry, I didn't mean to derail this thread into R&P territory)

And with that, let's see if we can all walk back to the proper side of the R&P fence.

Thanks for listening.

Saw it - liked it. Worth the money for sure.

I can't respond to most of your post without heading DEEP DEEP DEEP into R&P territory. And I don't want Cap'n Ned to beat me up.
But I think this portion of the post is kinda appropriate (especially compared to the rest of my responses).

Glorious wrote:

So, one should wonder, just what are all those warriors for?

Here's what the warriors are for ( ):
Scarcity exists. The amount of energy coming in from the sun is basically constant, so the production of food is basically constant. Populations thus remain basically constant. This means competition exists, which means tribes have a competitive "organ" - the hunters/warriors. People didn't magically start competing and the competitive (violent) instincts didn't magically develop when civilization started, but civilization in general and the Mesopotamian primary state in specific amplify the tendencies. This is because traditional societies follow a law of limited competition - while they compete, they don't decrease the abilities of their competitors to compete (denying them access to food, preemptively killing them off). This is true for traditional societies and to some extent for the primary states other than Mesopotamia -- for example, while the Maya and Aztec competed and waged war for resources, they didn't destroy the landbases of nearby competitors.

Glorious, Chunc, Krogoth, if you're interested I'll see you in R&P.

Back on topic, is it worth going to see in 3D? It wouldn't be that far out of my way, and I'm likely going to see it again, but I definitely never felt like Avatar 2-D was visually lacking.

I enjoyed it in 3d. Certain scenes do add a bit of feeling to the whole thing with it. Most memorably scenes that had insects flying around in the foreground but not disruptively that added to the immersion of being in a forest as compared to watching a movie in a forest.

grantmeaname wrote:

I can't respond to most of your post without heading DEEP DEEP DEEP into R&P territory.

You didn't really respond to it at all. I gave you actual numbers about primitive societies and violence, plus supporting evidence, and you gave me nothing. You're talking about the differences between civilizations. I'm not.

We can't really continue this conversation here, but if you want to make a post in R&P about some completely irrelevant comparison between the civilizations of Mesopotamia and the Latin America, go ahead.


Surprisingly enough, I actually enjoyed the movie despite hating this aspect of the plot.

you probably liked star trek too. where have the morals gone?

Glorious wrote:

You're talking about the differences between civilizations.

grantmeaname wrote:

tribes

grantmeaname wrote:

traditional societies

grantmeaname wrote:

traditional societies

grantmeaname wrote:

traditional societies

Did you read my post?

I've had enough bad experiences in the theaters that I stopped going to them. My home theater is good enough that I don't miss it.

But I've read enough about Avatar that I'll probably pick this up on DVD the week it comes out. Although I swear I'm going to label over the title with "Dances With Furries"

Darkmage wrote:

But I've read enough about Avatar that I'll probably pick this up on DVD the week it comes out. Although I swear I'm going to label over the title with "Dances With Furries"

ahkekekekekeke that's not going to get old until the day it dies, which i await anxiously.

Darkmage wrote:

But I've read enough about Avatar that I'll probably pick this up on DVD the week it comes out.

I'm fairly certain the DVD will be more expensive than two movie tickets. If you think you're punishing Cameron by waiting for the DVD, then I laugh at thee, if not, then I shant laugh.

grantmeaname wrote:

Did you read my post?

I think we've pushed the bounds enough, if you post in R&P I will respond.

The reason I ask you to take the initiative is only because I have no idea whether or not you even have R&P access, and I don't want write a bunch of stuff you're never going to read.