AVATAR and 3D in general.... — Page 7

xhonzi said:

I think most, if not all, SciFi is allegory.  At least the good stuff is.  But it is subtle.  Once you get up on the soapbox and start pointing fingers, it loses its effect.

Yes. And also, some people are under the mistaken impression that the allegory part is what gives a work its value. Science fiction is supposed to be art. Art is about our deeper selves, thus emotion and imagination and the unconscious mind. Political discussion is not the purpose of art nor is it what makes art worthwhile.

Anchorhead said:

Vaderisnothayden said:

Political discussion is not the purpose of art ....

 

Incorrect.

Ben Shahn, Diego Rivera, Käthe Kollwitz, Pablo Picasso, Marc Chagall, Neil Young, Peter Gabriel, U2, Roger Waters, Spike Lee, Oliver Stone, Josef Thorak, Ernst Barlach, and hundreds of others throughout history.

Just because people have discussed politics in works of art doesn't in any way make political discussion the purpose of art in general. Art is for deeper things than mere political discussion.

Political discussion may be the consciously intended purpose behind an individual work of art, but there's always more going on in a work of art than the conscious intentions, and the intentions of individual artists do not set the general overall purpose of art in general. The purpose of art in general is not decided by what some individual artist or artists think. It's decided by the nature of art and how it works and what it is and what inside us it comes from. Any sort of artist who thinks their work is first and foremost for politics is misguided and doesn't fully understand their own art. But then artists rarely understand their art, because art is founded on what goes on deep inside ourselves, stuff that's not so easy to consciously understand.

Vaderisnothayden said:

Political discussion is not the purpose of art nor is it what makes art worthwhile.

Planet of The Apes? 

Several episodes of the Star Trek series? 

Anchorhead said:

skyjedi2005 said:

Maybe he should have stated as his opinion that....

Actually, all he ever states is that his opinions are the only ones which are valid & correct. When someone disagrees, they're wrong.  If they disagree a second time, they're attacking him unfairly. He's always the victim. Textbook troll behavior.

Stop inventing things. You can disagree with me as many times as you like and I won't say you're attacking me unfairly, unless you choose to get personally offensive, as some peiople do, and as you are doing right now. And everybody who argues in favor of their opinions believes their opinions are valid and correct and that opposing ones are mistaken (didn't you just tell me my opinion was "incorrect" -classic example). When you defend your opinion and debate its merits against an opposing opinion, you are saying "I am right. you are wrong". Some people don't admit to themselves that that's what they're doing, but really that's what's happening. If you say "I disagree" you are saying "I think your opinion is wrong". As for the question of victimhood, the reality is that I get a lot of shit from people I wasn't giving shit to. The present discussion being a classic example. You said my opinion was wrong. I disagreed. You then made a personal attack on me without me having made any attack on you. It is in fact you who are trolling.

If they disagree a second time, they're attacking him unfairly.

Actually, that was the attitude you took in one of our discussions. I disagreed with you and you started getting heated. A little further on in the discussion you suddenly blew your top, accused me of trolling and baiting (with no basis that I could see) and stormed out of the discussion. You did precisely what you accuse me of doing. You took offense at ordinary disagreement with your opinion and acted like you had been unfairly wronged.

Warbler said:

Vaderisnothayden said:

Political discussion is not the purpose of art nor is it what makes art worthwhile.

Planet of The Apes? 

Several episodes of the Star Trek series? 

See my original reply to Anchorhead. Of course individual works of art push politics, but that doesn't make pushing politics what art in general is all about.

Eh...never mind.  My New Year's Resolution is to stop wasting so much time.

ferris209 said:

Totally agree but you could do that with just about anything

So hands up all those that thought 'Avatar' would pass the billion-dollar mark after just 17 days of release then....

Looks like Cameron has proved to be a real kick-starter for this whole 3D deal after all.

I have to say that me and the family all had a great time with this new-fangled 'polarised' 3D in general, and 'Avatar' in particular, and thought it looked fantastic.  We caught a RealD showing, and are all keen to see more 3D in future.  Whether it comes near the quality of Cameron's epic efforts remains to be seen....

Someone somewhere reckoned they'd have preferred if the story had somehow instead been about the Human race joining forces with the Na'vi aliens to kick the ass of some other violent race that was oppressing them on Pandora....and I'd have liked to have seen that movie too.  

However, I'm also okay with the 'Humans as oppressors' storyline we got in the end, and 'Avatar' certainly provided plenty of spectacle.  Someone I know saw it in 2D only as he couldn't get into a 3D showing at the time, and he thought it was awesome that way too. 

It's now been confirmed that there'll be a longer, extended Bluray version, by the way.

Speaking of which, here's a look at the new, official Bluray 3D logo - http://www.thedigitalbits.com/mytwocentsa175.html#010510b

Suddenly, all this 'home viewing' potential is starting to seem really close....

I saw Avatar and 3D last night.  I have to say I really liked it.   Some of the scenery was absolutely beautiful to me.   The 3D was very neat.  Clearly the story is referencing our treatment of the Native Americans.   Never having seen Pocahontas, I can't say how similar they are.  I can say I really enjoyed the movie and was thoroughly entertained for two hours.  I give it two thumbs up.

ferris209, you do realise that exact same treatment could be given to Star Wars?

No one is interested in originality before this, they never use the word "deriative", after all, they're on a a Star Wars site, everyone knows Star Wars is far from original, it's the execution that makes it great (OT that is).

Yet Avatar is here, and suddenly "it's bad because the story is not new"? What has quality got to do with originality? What the story is isn't important, it's the storytelling ("a movie is not what it is about, but how it is about it"). I found Avatar's story simple, well told and resonating. It's been done before, but who cares? That doesn't make it bad.

The rest of the film's areas, to me, were fantastic. The visuals were flawless (every Cameron and WETA did with the CG in this film is what Lucas wanted to do with the Pt and failed), the 3D was great, the acting was superb, the music was good, and as per usual in a Cameron film, the script was slightly cheesy but very memorable.

One of the best blockbusters I've seen in many years, easily, and definitely lived up to the hype.

I'm not really knocking it due to lack of originality, heck one of my favorite all-time movies is "Pale Rider" which is a direct knock off of "Shane". I just thought it was funny, that Pocahontas thing, and posted it.

I had one problem with Avatar, and that was that I thought the quick acceptance of Jake as the leader towards the end of the movie dumbed down the Navi culture. He didn't even have to apologize, all he had to do was tame this dragon and suddenly they were all over him, personally I don't really think Jake should be able to master that culture and become the leader just like that. Cameron wanted us to see the Navi as a complex culture with a different way of life than our own and I think that scene really made it seem as if Jake was "superior" to them. I thought they had reason to distrust Jake and he was, in many ways, using them. I think rather than the "this is our land" speech (is it really his land?) we should have seen some sort of apology and Jake should have been accepted into their culture and fought with them but not suddenly the leader of all the Navi. Just my two cents. Otherwise I really enjoyed the movie.

I know he had a speech and yes, he is seen by the Navi as A leader, I don't recall them making him THE leader(as in head of the Navi). As for the dragon stuff, keep in mind that taming that dragon was a BIG deal to the Navi.

Octorox said:

I had one problem with Avatar, and that was that I thought the quick acceptance of Jake as the leader towards the end of the movie dumbed down the Navi culture. He didn't even have to apologize, all he had to do was tame this dragon and suddenly they were all over him, personally I don't really think Jake should be able to master that culture and become the leader just like that. Cameron wanted us to see the Navi as a complex culture with a different way of life than our own and I think that scene really made it seem as if Jake was "superior" to them. I thought they had reason to distrust Jake and he was, in many ways, using them. I think rather than the "this is our land" speech (is it really his land?) we should have seen some sort of apology and Jake should have been accepted into their culture and fought with them but not suddenly the leader of all the Navi. Just my two cents. Otherwise I really enjoyed the movie.

Yeah, that's an old racist stereotype that goes white-guys-are-superior-and-make-better-non-whites-than-the-non-whites-themselves.

I really not sure how that is an old stereotype.  I've seen very few instances in fiction where whites were turned into nonwhites.   To me it makes sense that Jake is a leader in the battle.   The enemy are the humans,  Jake knows the humans and their technology better than any of the Navi would.

Warbler said:

I really not sure how that is an old stereotype.  I've seen very few instances in fiction where whites were turned into nonwhites.   To me it makes sense that Jake is a leader in the battle.   The enemy are the humans,  Jake knows the humans and their technology better than any of the Navi would.

There are many instances in fiction where whites have lived among non-whites as one of them. Biological transformation not necessary. Judging by what I've heard, Jake becomes the coolest Navi and eventually their leader, a clear example of the stereotype.

This article is kind of talking aboit what I'm talking about:

http://www.nytimes.com/2010/01/08/opinion/08brooks.html

Vaderisnothayden said:

Octorox said:

I had one problem with Avatar, and that was that I thought the quick acceptance of Jake as the leader towards the end of the movie dumbed down the Navi culture. He didn't even have to apologize, all he had to do was tame this dragon and suddenly they were all over him, personally I don't really think Jake should be able to master that culture and become the leader just like that. Cameron wanted us to see the Navi as a complex culture with a different way of life than our own and I think that scene really made it seem as if Jake was "superior" to them. I thought they had reason to distrust Jake and he was, in many ways, using them. I think rather than the "this is our land" speech (is it really his land?) we should have seen some sort of apology and Jake should have been accepted into their culture and fought with them but not suddenly the leader of all the Navi. Just my two cents. Otherwise I really enjoyed the movie.

Yeah, that's an old racist stereotype that goes white-guys-are-superior-and-make-better-non-whites-than-the-non-whites-themselves.

Yeah that's kind of what I was getting at, but I was a bit hesitant to put it in racial terms. (I prefer to use cultural or ethnic groups rather than race, as I'm a bit hesitant to lump all people of a certain "race", including caucasians, into one cultural unit.) It probably didn't help that I read a similar article before seeing the movie which kind of skewed my mindset.