Avatar is possibly the most beautiful CGI movie ever!

[Reasonable]

SHMUPGurus said:

tarheel91 said:

Reasonable said:
Avatar manages to be the most impressive, beautiful use of CGI to create another world, coupled nicely with the lowest level of narrative ambition.

It's not bad, but in a way that almost seems worse it's simply bland. All that effort, all that expense, for something so familiar and obvious. Couldn't Cameron have actually married the ability to deliver a new world with something new to say or show?

What struck me was how much Avatar resembled the latest version of a AAA videogame. The plot's the same, the weaknesses are the same, but the graphics have been improved.

7/10 and the likely candidate for testing your new 3D TV and BR player, but not a great film nonetheless.

What particularly struck me, was how little it did with so much expense, while a film like Moon did so much with so little expense.

*facepalm* If you think ANY story is original, you simply haven't read/watched enough.  Every story has been done before.  What makes individual stories remarkable is the way they're told.  I thought this one was told wonderfully.

That's exactly what I wanted to write in the thread a couple of days ago. Was waiting for someone to post it so I can just quote for truth.

I'll answer you both here.  There absolutely original stories - i.e. plots.  That's easy.  The real question is are there any original themes left?

People often confuse these.  Theme is what the story is about, and while I hesitate to say there aren't any left, I would agree that all the major themes regarding our species currently have probably been touched upon.  But story or plot is the way you tell the theme (although of course a lot of entertainment stories don't even have a theme, which is why they are considered fluff in many ways).

Just an FYI to make this clear.  Therefore, when I say Avatar is lacking in originality I'm pointing out Cameron used a plot that was overly used vs coming up with a more original way to convey the theme (because one thing I will defend in Avatar is that it does have themes, which sets it apart from crap like Transformers right away, and in a good way).

Every year plenty of films and books, etc. come up with new ways to retell the same basic theme - and that's the level of originality I wanted in Avatar.  Of course, with the basic characters and structure Cameron set up for himself he basically painted himself into a corner, but that was his choice, not mine.

As an example look at say The Lovely Bones or The Time Travellers Wife - the books, not the films.  They both used interesting and original devives to explore their themes, even though the themes were familiar.  Or look at Moon, which featured a nicely original feeling plot while exploring existing themes.

A common theme might be 'Absolute power corrupts absolutely' - but there are many, many stories and plots you could use to convey that and yes, it is possible to come up with an original one if you put in enough effort.

As I said elsewhere in the thread, having read Cameron's original treatment I've come to the conclusion that Cameron deliberately settled for very familiar characters and story, to make it easy for people to absorb that and focus on the new stuff, which was accepting the aliens and their planet in a way rarely done before.

And in that he might have been right for general acceptance - but that doesn't change the fact he shyed away from using the tech and money to be more original, and create far more original aliens.  In a sense I don't really see Avatar as SF in a sense, because it does posit for me a truly alien society and how we might interact, instead he uses the SF setting to create a more allegorical tale that is really about the past rather than the future.

But hey, I'm glad people are thinking hard and talking about it - that's a great thing and i'll accept a little aggression anyday vs apathy.  In the end Cameron did put themes in Avatar, and meaning, so it's worth some conversation at least.