Johann said:
lol evidence of what? Of my opinion? Some people thought the story was fresh, the soundtrack was great and the characters were all memorable. I just happen to not agree with those people. As Harry S. Plinkett said: "Avatar tells the story of 'Dances With Wolves' in space". Now, I don't mind a derivative story, but all I could think about when watching this movie is that I already knew exactly where he was going with this. Also, the overall colonialism message felt a little too condescending for my taste. As for the characters, well... they serve their purpose, I guess. There's the big bad military dude, the douchy corporate dude, and the indigenous people are all pure and great... all too predictable. Except for Sigourney Weaver the performances were all flat, too. I don't need to say anything about the soundtrack. I don't remember anything from it, and to me that's enough to say that it wasn't memorable. Again, none of those things makes it a bad movie. They do however make it mediocre. I was just surprised that a movie like that could make some people go see it more than once. |
You didn't state anything as opinion. You stated it as universally accepted fact. Commenting on wheter you enjoyed a movie and attempting to critically evaluate it are two very different things that require very different amounts of backup.
I must've said this a thousand times in every movie/book discussion. No plot/story is original. Anyone who thinks otherwise is simply saying so out of ignorance. The concept of colonialism being explored in a story wasn't fresh when FernGully or Dances with Wolves came out. It began over a century ago with The Heart of Darkness by Joseph Conrad. What makes a story unique is the way its told, not the story itself.
There are references to various colonial situations, and having caricatures serve as the leaders of the conquering force and "unobtanium" as the object they desire keeps the setting of the movie very general so that it doesn't get tied down with a single point in history. As a result, you see stuff that's reminiscent of Vietnam, Native Americans, African Colonialism, East Asian Colonialism, Iraq, etc. I found that pretty unique, and I felt it made a stronger statement against colonialism in general than a lot of the other stuff I've read and seen on the subject (Dances with Wolves, Things Fall Apart, Heart of Darkness, etc.; I've typed out this list eleventy seven times). They may have a more powerful effect overall (I don't think I'd put this movie on quite the same level), but that effect is limited to a certain situation, rather than the idea of colonialism. At the same time, a large part of what Cameron is trying to do is compare actions by today's first world countries with the colonialism of the past as a warning of sorts. If he gets too specific, it becomes hard to relate it back to the various things going on today.
I really don't know where your whole "indigenous people are pure" stuff comes from. They show some clear faults, but in the grand scheme of things their mistakes are nothing compared to those made by the corporation (which, looking at history, is true), and I think that's why you see them as pure. It is that they have their own, completely respectable culture and are having their land forcibly taken from them and their loved ones killed simply because their values are at odds with traditional Western thinking(Western society tends to look down on other cultures as if they're inferior or behind, there's no denying that).
I find Miyazaki movies to have some of the best soundtracks I've ever heard. Besides that, Tan Dun's soundtrack for Crouching Tiger Hidden Dragon is simply a masterpiece. However, I'd struggle to think of more than one song from any of those movies. More than anything else, I feel this is due to the successful integration of the soundtrack into the movie. A soundtrack should compliment the visual side of the movie perfectly. They should meld together so that they are indistinguishable. I'm not saying this is what happens in Avatar, but just because you can't remember individual songs doesn't make the soundtrack poor or even mediocre.
I didn't find Avatar to be a masterpiece or anything, but I thought it was a great movie, and second only to 500 Days of Summer in 2009.
