Monday, February 22, 2010

Watched Lately: Avatar

  • Dear James Cameron:

  • I'm sorry for doubting you. I finally get what you've been talking about and I was wrong. All I got from the trailer was that the space people would be fighting the blue people, so I wasn't that excited about your movie. I was mistaken.

  • After watching the film, my wife and I talked about what we liked and didn't like. Although we watched the film in 3D, I don't think it added anything to the film. It could have switched to 2D after the novelty wore off and I wouldn't have noticed. And I know I refered to it as Dances With Wolves In Space Where The Indians Get To Win. But Dances With Wolves was a great film and your explosions are much, much better.

  • The best part, though, is that I completely bought into the experience. I actually cared about what happened to these blue people. In most other movies, mixing people and CGI characters was as convincing as Who Framed Roger Rabbit? After seeing the way characters interacted in Avatar, I get why you wanted to wait so long before making the movie. And I'm glad you did. Can't wait to see what you do next.

  • Sincerly,

    Anjin

  • P.S. What did you think of District 9? Are you bummed out that it totally stole your thunder?


© 2010 Marty Runyon. All rights reserved.

5 comments:

  1. I haven't seen it yet and probably won't until it comes out on DVD. Movies are too difficult to make time for now that there has to be a babysitter in the loop. Glad to hear you didn't think the 3D was that big of a deal, so I'll just wait for Netflix to send it to me.

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  2. Sure, Dances with Wolves, Princess Mononoki, and several other movies have already done similar stories better. But that didn't keep me from being thoroughly entertained. I mean, every action move has pretty much the same plot, but I like those.

    It's a James Cameroon movie, not David Lynch or Felini...what was anyone expecting? I got what I expected and then some. It's been a long time since I've gotten sucked so hard into the setting that a movie was trying to create.

    And really, that is what JC has always done best, he creates compelling settings. How entertaining would Titanic have been if it was set in a modern midwestern town?


    @Blue Kae: I thought the 3D enhanced my experience a lot. It's the first movies that I personally thought made really good use of it. It conveyed the physical scale of the environments really well. However, if you have a nice enough home theater set up, I'm sure it would still be visually spectacular.

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  3. @ Blue Kae - As much as I discount the 3D, this is a big screen movie. I'd offer to babysit if I knew where in the world you are. :)

    @ Yeebo - Rereading my post, it does come across as a little too negative, especially for a film I enjoyed that much. I can't think of a James Cameron film that I haven't enjoyed. He's the director Michael Bay would be if he had any talent for telling a story. (Actually, I looked up IMDB and that's true. I like all of his movies that I've seen.)

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  4. I live in Indiana so you'd need to hop on a plane. :)

    As far as big screen vs. home viewing. When I think about ticket prices, having to deal with other people, and not being able to pause if I need too, I generally prefer the smaller screen. Of course I have a 52" wide-screen so small is relative.

    There are very few movies any more that I'm tempted to rush out and see when I know the DVD release is only 3-6 months away.

    I must be getting old.

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  5. @Anjin: I didn't think your post came across negatively at all. I thought it was pretty fair. I was sort of agreeing with you :-)

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