Avatar is possibly the most beautiful CGI movie ever!

[Reasonable]

megaman79 said:

Reasonable said:

FaRmLaNd said:
Its definetely a suitable setting for further movies. Yes it was a tad predictable, but when a movie costs this much they maybe weren't willing to risk it on a more interesting narrative. Its still well worth a watch.

Yeah, that's very much the case.  I think I just got a little optimisitc that Cameron, who could have chosen to take some risks with his status, chose to play it safe himself.

I'd just watched Where The Wild Things Are a few days before and was amazed at the balls of Spike Jonez to take the amount of money he was given for this film and make a risky, meditative film that completely bucked the trend of what you'd be expected to do with that amount of money for a kids film.

At least Avatar wasn't bad, apart from a few cheesy lines.  Although derivitive the story was consistent and competently told, I just wanted more than a lot of familiar beats.  Maybe next time we visit Pandora Cameron will take a few risks.

Original scriptment was complex and had many more characters. http://www.aintitcool.com/node/43429

Judging by what is actually left in the film it is a huge tragedy that all this was cut.

Interesting read, thanks for the link.  It does seem that along the way Cameron decided to focus on a core, simpler story, and ditched elements that would have given more depth and range to the story.

I've read a couple of interviews where he talks about the risk of the aliens and the whole focus on non-humans, so I wonder if in the end he decided that the story had to be very clear and known to make it as easy to absorb as possible, allowing the only major departure to be the setting and the focus on aliens as central characters vs human.

Hopefully, assuming Avatar does well - which I'm sure it will, I've seen estimates of $73 million weekend in US - and Cameron returns to the setting, he will feel that he can inject more complexity now that the audience has accepted his aliens as characters.