Nebulon has one question: How can the man who made Terminator, Terminator II, Aliens and True Lies produce this? Nebulon lived in hope that Titanic was just a blip and that his next film would set him back on track, but it appears that the whole thing is now further off the rails than it was before.
OK, so the plot. In the far future an evil human corporation (oh yes, that again) is mining the far off planet of Pandora for Unobtanium (no really) a very valuable mineral. Relations with the native Na’vi, a 10 feet tall race of blue forest dwellers, are poor as human expansion pushes further endangers their way of life. Sam Worthington is an avatar driver sent to inhabit a genetically manufactured Na’vi body in order to communicate with the local inhabitants, variously to further relations with them or to spy on them depending. As he gets to know and understand these creatures and their way of life he finds his loyalties torn between the Humans and the Na’vi with predictably dull results.
First off, Nebulon would like to protest at the representation of alien species. Once again you earthmen have resorted to stereotyping in a most hideous way. That any species as pussified and irritating as the Na’vi could ever be thought to have gotten a toe hold anywhere in the Galaxy is simply implausible. Once you get past the tallness and blueness, the Na’vi with their hippy living in harmony with nature and all our forest friend nonsense are essentially a rehashing of the modern re-interpretation of Native Americans. At least with Dances with Wolves we felt like the culture had some depth, texture, and conflict, but in this interpretation they have become passive and wimpish parodies. It’s as if a bunch of hippies blasted off from the earth in 1969 and this is where they landed.
Visually the movie is stunning, no question. It’s obvious where all the money from the colossal budget went, well let’s be honest, they spent it on marketing, but it seems like computer time was a close second. But here’s the thing, you can make the prettiest film in the world, but if at the end of the day your script is terrible, your plot simply a rehash of either Pocahontas or Dances with Wolves, and you find yourself with about an hour of footage more than you need, then the end result is inevitably going to be terrible.
Nebulon does not mind special effects. Nebulon does not mind long movies. But in this case the two combine to create what felt like the longest three hours of Nebulon’s already extensive life. It felt as though a galaxy was born and died before the damn thing even got to the halfway point. Visuals are important in a movie, film is a visual medium, but they are not enough to carry a film by themselves. Without a decent plot or script this is essentially a very long piece of modern art that belongs in a gallery, not a cinema.
Nebulon realises that this is a minority opinion and that this movie has met with pretty much universal praise, but allow Nebulon to be the one to say it: The emperor has no clothes and all the CGI in the world isn’t going to put some pants on him. This movie sucks plain and simple and following the glorious invasion, when James Cameron comes before Nebulon’s court of movie crimes he will be made to recant this work (and Titanic) or perish.
Links
IMDB
Global Voices Online - Chinese bloggers reaction to Avatar
Fail Blog - Funny take!
The Guardian - A negative review
Metacritic - Universal acclaim apparently
Trailer
No comments:
Post a Comment