I get that colonialism has done that so many times throughout history, which is exactly WHY it bored me. Add some intrigue to it... I've seen that story more times than I care to count.

Ribisi cringing at the horror in front of him as the tree fell just doesn't do it for me. He was a smart guy in charge of thousands of people on an alien world. He knew what was coming yet there appeared to be little hesitation before the tree fell. That little moment actually cheapened the character IMO. It portrayed him as some sort of moron.

As I said earlier, if Ribisi had been a little more developed, the Colonel would have amused me more. But SOMETHING had to give within the "enemy" organization, yet there wasn't much there. A bunch of blood-thirsty morons without thought to the repercussions doesn't sell me on a movie. It's too easy and it makes me think the director didn't want to put the effort into explaining why people would be so short-sighted about something. Even a plot element that put Earth in immediate danger and the only way to save it was to destroy Hometree would have added some interesting conflict within the characters. ANYTHING. That's all I wanted. I hate it when fim-makers cheap out on the villains and that's how I felt about Avatar.

It may sound like I'm relentlessly bashing the movie but I actually enjoyed most of it. I just wish Cameron would have gone that extra mile to make the story as believable as the visuals.

I understand what you're saying - but how do you build on the colonialism angle in a interesting way while remaining true to reality? I guess they could abandon reality, but they kind of already did that with Jake Sully (going native ain't that common) and that angle's tired

I think the thing I missed most in this movie was... well, to make a Jurassic Park comparison, it would be the Ian Malcolm (Jeff Goldblum) character. Malcolm's character was the only legitimately interesting human element of that story, but he did a lot to add to the feel of the story just because he saw all the horror coming from a mile away, and when vindicated he was just annoyed that nobody else saw it coming.

I agree that the characters were probably too ordinary, and the most interesting ones were the Na'vi, who came across like African tribal archetypes in some places (first time I saw Tsu'Tey, heir to the cheiftain, I couldn't stop thinking that he looked like some nightmare image of a Zulu warrior from antiquity)

Still fun though

I hate to say it but I didn't find the Na'Vi interesting as characters either. The ol' "we'll fight 'em to the end, no matter the disadvantage" tribal stance isn't new, either, and I found their African tribal getup and music far too blatantly allusory for my tastes. In fact, the Na'Vi were downright MORONIC in the movie. I mean, for crying out loud, these people have GUNSHIPS versus your arrows. Anyone who is smarter than a tadpole knows to stay the hell out of that fight, yet they steadfastly tried to hold on to their home without any kind of reasonable defensive plan or... well, anything, really. The humans had been there for years but it seemed as if the Na'Vi weren't interested in forming a strategy past "shoot arrows at the truck tires". Maybe the Colonel was the smartest guy in the film... Those ridiculous smurfs deserved to be wiped out for being cork-on-the-fork stupid.

Now that I think of it, I don't know if there was one intelligent character in that entire bloody film.

I kind of liked it when they figured out how to put arrows through gunship canopies usig their momentum from falling

And Tsu'Tey was pretty interesting, if only because he didn't stick to the whole "god dammit THAT'S MY WOMAN" stereotype that I expected him to fall into

grace and eyowa (the god) were intelligent

Ewoya was a bit slow to react to the threat...if she had the capability to mobilize the entire planet's...why did it even have to be that close?

I agree with your points - and I did love the scene with the door.  Credit to Lang, his character was one dimensional, but he made that scene work because he made me believe he really would kick a door down in those circumstances if someone dared to cross him.

It's just a pity that Cameron so often stoops to sterotypes and crowd pleasing ones at that.  He knows people will dislike the corporate weasel and refuses to make him more than a cliche, same with Lang's commander.  It's like how in Titanic he knows average joe's want to see the working class folk portrayed as intrinsicly 'better' than the rich, and plays shamlessly to audience bias.

Still, he knows how to construct basic story and he is a damn good director.  I just wish he'd raise his sights beyond the basic when it comes to the details of his narratives and his characters.

But compared to real cinematic tripe, Avatar at least had a clear narrative, and a 'mostly' consistent theme, so I agree with as far from bad, but not nearly as good as it could have been either.

I suppose I'm part of the problem, since I am one of the people who allow themselves to be pandered too.

When the Colonel made that jump out of the exploding dropship, which promptly crashed right behind him? Me and the wife were like "Yessssssss this is awesome"

Hey, I'm glad you liked it and took the suggestion to see it in Imax.

You know, on the one hand I can't help but analyze it and see flaws - because they are there in the end - but on the other hand, those moments are undeniably ones that you can't help but react to.  Funnily enough for me the Colonel was one of the more memorable characters, not due his basic character or dialogue, but because of Lang selling him so well.  He also nabbed most of the undeniably cool moments in the film.

Yes, thank you for that, it greatly enhanced the experience. When I end up with an HDTV and a blu-ray player, this movie will be one of the first I grab.

Me and the wife had a discussion about that on the way back from the theater - we tend to agree with you, insofar as that the Colonel was the biggest bad-ass in the movie, doing things that any other director would have done by the hero. He was utterly one-dimensional and morally reprehensible to the point of caricature, but you kind of wanted to root for him anyway because he killed that giant tiger monster with a knife