I can't believe I sat through two hours and forty minutes of this.
I thought Avatar sucked. Special effects can’t make an entire movie, and the narrative was mind-numbingly dull. Here’s a good case why. Who wants to argue with me?
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{ 31 comments… read them below or add one }
I’m still mad at James Cameron for “True Lies” and I wasn’t planning on seeing this, but I did like Disney’s “Pocahontas,” so I may have to reconsider.
I heartily agree! Kept waiting for the thing to live up to the glowing reviews. Watched the whole movie and never once went “Wow!”
very overrated, and way to long! I thought narnia was better.
Can you say overrated? Yes it is. Why did they have the human Avatars when all they did was bomb the shit out of their land?
waay overrated!
cmon, it wasn’t that bad. i liked it, my kids loved it, the visuals were stunning in TRUE imax 3d (not the fake smaller screen imax). sure – it wasn’t philosophical narrative on the scale of war and peace, but if you approach it as a fun time it might be more bearable for you.
I liked it…but yea, the story was a bit of a cliche. Metreon in SF in 3d was awesome. I wouldn’t mind seeing it again…its more exciting than watching Pocahontas even if the story is the same
Firstly, James Cameron did NOT make Avatar. It was the 3-d designers who made it. All James Cameron did was slap his name on it and create the worst big budget script EVER!
I mean, seriously! With a $237 million budget, I’d expect much less… Ahem, RETARDED dialog and more engaging story. I was about to leave at the tree scene because I felt like it was the shallowest, worst disguised, patronizing and tasteless propaganda bull**** I’d seen in any form of media in an extremely long time. I could have cried at that scene if it wasn’t such a BADLY written piece of garbage that could only enrapture a complete moron and had the decency to be entertainment instead of some psuedo-hippy garbage obviously written by some rich fa**** from Beverly Hills.
I’d rate it 6.8 and that’s only because of the graphics. James Cameron took a potentially good film and shat upon it with some of the worst, most patronizingly debasing, unintelligent bull**** I’ve seen from ANY movie in the last decade! He should be hanged or at the very least banned from writing and directing movies.
Dude how you going to talk so much garbage over this amazing movie. thats why James Cameron is fucking rich and your at home complaining like a tard A**. i dare you to reply to me lol. you were going to leave the theater because it sucked? no you werent your just trailer trash trying to sound smart on the internet. Avatar was an Amazing me that teaches leasons to lil people and brings action to older people. Just because it was like Pocahantis or whatever idk how to spell it, doesnt mean it sucked maybe some people liked avatar over a 2-D cartoon lol. and plus the romance in this movie is pretty Gnarly i loved it
These Hollywood retards forgot one of the most important things about television and movies.
SHOW DON’T TELL!
Even in terms of visual effects, Avatar is not even close to 2001: A Space Odyssey…!
I cant understand how so many people love this movie. Its just an average movie with some unusual effects. Its way too long really and to be honest I fell asleep in the movie which is not even like me. The rating this movie got should go to good films like Dark knight, Gladiator and Taken.
I agree with The Dark Knight, but Taken?? Taken sucked just as bad as Avatar!
Some great movies are the Godfather I and II, The Graduate, and Shawshank Redemption.
The only modern movies worth mentioning with movies like these are the Dark Knight and Slumdog Millionaire.
if you’re asking if avatar is overrated, then i will ask you something. Does a bear shit in the woods?
Avatar is not only the most over-rated film of ‘09, but quite possibly the most over-rated film of the decade. I’ve never considered Cameron to be the masterful director everyone (including himself) makes him out to be. It has to be said that he is technically brilliant insofar as he understands the technicalities and limitations of film making technology,
but is he a good storyteller? Not by a long shot. The story is the usual dirivative tripe that Hollywood churns out year after year, The characters are one dimentional and un-interesting (especially the military personnel), the acting is crap and the dialogue and writing is some of the worst since George lucas’ Star Wars prequels. Come to that, I’m not sure that it shouldn’t say “written and directed by George Lucas”. This vitally precious substance that the human race is mining for is actually called “unobtainium”?
Are you serious? I laughed upon hearing this, as did several other members of the audience. Cameron didn’t even have the originality to come up with his own creature sounds and noises. Did anyone else happen to notice the t-rex roar and raptor call that he stole from Jurassic Park? The sad part about this thing is that Cameron has already said he plans to do a sequel. Let’s just hope it’s another 10 years before it infects our cinema screens.
not to mention the only reason the humans want the unobtainium is $, WTF why not some plot like it's used to fuel the clean nuclear reactors earth now needs to make it's unstable polluted ecosystem possible? No, the humans are pure evil. And I mean come on I pulled that out of my ass as I typed it!
wow craig you said it perfectly, im so mad that people actually believe this movie to be good, the story was so predictable, and the dialogue horrible: so horrible in fact that i was saying lines that i thought the characters were going to say, and then they said them…..
even the star wars episode two lines werent that bad, cameron is an idiot, and i hope everyone else sees that soon, overrated movie, what are they going to copy next? since they have just copied Pocahontas… 3d has been around for years, but it wasnt until hollywood decided to push a movie like this shat, did it become huge, once again hollywood tricks the idiots of society, while we once again must watch
I hate this movie. The dialogue was terrible at best and the narrative was dry and too simple. Cameron threw out ideas in this movie (Whatever happened to Jake Sully's twin brother? He just died and then he is never mentioned again. Shows how much he cared for him.) You'd think that since this movie is almost three hours long there would be good character development, but there is practically none. Characters would show up and be gone for 45 minutes then pop up again. This movie was so cliched I was praying that the humans would win, but of course nature always triumphs over technology and the natives win. That's another reason this movie sucked: the stereotypical natives. "They're native so they have to have perfect abs, be in touch with nature, be spiritually healthy, and being half naked is a must." And of course the greedy white man has to be the antagonist. I mean seriously, it's like Pocahontas meets Dances With Wolves set in the future. And this movie was CGI over reliant. And everyone praises it's incredible CGI, well I have some news for you, Cameron: just because it's the best CGI yet doesn't mean you can make an entire scene from it, and yes, we can all tell it's fake. And the symbolism sucked. Unobtainium? Really? Need I say more? I might have been a little more easy on this movie if it was a little less overrated, but since a good portion of humanity is riding it's c**k and saying it's the best movie ever just gets my panties in a bunch.
Notice how most of the film avoided having the Navi interact with the humans?
People are under the delusion that the CGI is so great because there is less interaction with the humans. The overall effect is that the majority of the population is caught up with the CGI'd characters interacting with the CGI'd environment/characters that they forget the reality of it. If a human character had been present the whole time, the film would've looked less realistic.
And because of that, if humans were inserted more often in the scenery, would this film had been just another Transformers or Clash of the Titans?
This film is just the decade's Titanic.
I can’t believe the preposterous amount of money and energy spent on a childish worn out plot completely lacking in creativity and imagination…… so you go to another planet and the natives just happen to chant like indians, ride horse like creatures, have mohawks, shoot bows and arrows, wear war paint….is that the best Cameron could come up with…… ? And this made up language was absurd, the plot cliche’ The mean ole white man comes in and attacks all the sweet natives……that didn’t work because the space indians weren’t likeable….. I was dying to see them get plowed…….
Seruiously this film is without a doubt, of course, no where near the best film of all time. It is however the most overrated film of all time. People who think they have knowledge of film and quality motion pictures tend to follow every last idiot who utters that this is the best film ever made. It disgusts me quite frankly.. And the whole special effects excuse has been worn out to the bone.. If the film had to rely so heavily on it's special effects to make it good or worth while, well, that says something in itself no? Not to mention all the plot holes as mentioned above..
Did anybody else notice that the hard-a$$ girl who drove the helicopter didn't wear an oxygen mask while in Pandora in some of the scenes while the soldiers did? Stupid inconsistent crap like that really turns me off.. Such a minor detail, yet such an obvious stupid mistake. James Cameron, with all due respect, needs to get off his high horse and concentrate on things other than the special effects, like, I dunno, I'd say a story? This film was a live action "Fern Gully" with Disney's Pocahontas' Dad thrown in the mix. O yeah, and don't steal from other films! Including your own: Love scene followed by disaster (Titanic –> Avatar)
Matrix owns Avatar as a far as movies all time rankings. Avatar was a visual movie & nothing more. The story and the predictability and the obvious characters were like any crap movie. Take out the visuals, it's a Sci Fi channel movie.
wtf is wrong with you people, this is the best movie ever I would hav loved it without the special effects, the storyline is great and moving, does everything that is far out and futuristic have to be nerdy and gay what makes them worse. And Gladiator is great but it is not as awe inspiring and different as avatar. I also personally thought the dark knight was boring because i was bored after they captured the joker the first time, ef u guys
Paolo did you not notice that the girl flying the helicopter was in a sealed of space so there was no need for a gas mask like the walker things
i will admit that if they make a sequel it will suck unless they just happen to get a new idea to add to it that is just perfect
I was told that this was one of the greatest films of all time with incredible depth, great characters, unbelievable CGI, and a plot that was second to none. Obviously, I was lied to. At least I can only hope that I was lied to, because if my friend was sincere in this proclamation, he's an absolute idiot.
The CGI is clearly CGI, and looks very corny next to the live action actors. It was almost painful watching the actors deliver their rancid dialogue, knowing completely that they were interacting only with a green screen.
It could be said that the story was entertaining — that is, if I had never seen an action movie or television show previous to watching Avatar. The final showdown was incredibly cliche, as was the "badass girl who swears!!!1!", the military industrialist characters, the "saved just in the nick-o-time" moments, and the religious undertone.
Obviously, there were certain points being pushed — anti-violence, pro-spirituality, and of course, the whole "we're ruining our planet" thing. However, I found it disgusting that the people with whom I was watching the movie were cheering uncontrollably at the sight of Humans being slaughtered by (let's not sugar coat it, people) aliens, when they had earlier been in tears at how "cruel" the military had been. Yes, there must be some point that they're trying to push with this movie, though it's tough to find exactly what that is.
Hollywood blockbuster? Yes. Overrated? Unbearably. Deep? Not even close. If I want violence, action, and CGI, I'll play a video game.
Yeah, with one exception there was nothing original about this flick. The storyline was retarded and a total rip-off from 10-20 other things floating out there. The only thing it could be praised for was its powerful environmental message, ripped off from the "Medicine Man" starring Sean Connery, but over here they had to link it of course to something original – promoting inter-tribal intimacy. By contrasting Avatar with Cameron's earlier creations such as the Abbyss, Aliens or the Terminator, you can follow how childish and retarded the Hollywood has become. Well, in James Cameron's defence, after the True Lies flopped, he did say that from then on he will start experimenting with new ideas. So he basically admitted that he ran out of ideas and he will no longer be in the business of setting standards in the film industry. It was a warning to his fans: appreciate my earlier work, but don't expect much else from me in the future, as I am moving away from my earlier well tested formulas into the realm of the unknown where I may suck. But then surprisingly Titanic became a hit, so that encouraged Cameron to become even more creative.
My opinion: yes. It was good, but still overrated.
I think Avatar was really overrated.
To summarize: the movie started when this cripple made this deal with some company where he would live on Pandora and try to reach a diplomatic solution with the Natives. On a mission out into the woods, he gets lost in the woods filled with vicious monsters, and was eventually saved by a local. The God they worshiped supposedly sent them a message not to kill him, so they decided to teach him to become one of their tribe (like that's never happened before in Hollywood.)
Once he begins training, 90% of the dangers of the forest magically disappear, and Jake develops on appreciation for 'communing with nature' and the Na'vi culture. He eventually ends up defecting to the Na'vi against the 'evil human invaders.' Eventually they found out that he wasn't a Na'vi, but just some guy laying in a coffin a few miles away. They sentence him to death, but the humans show up and start destroying the village, and to everyone's great surprise, Jake manages to get out unharmed.
Jake's real body was then taken out, and he escaped to a shuttle that conveniently had one of those coffins. He gained back the trust of the people and led them against the evil human invaders, and after a glorified battle scene which stuck out like a sore thumb in a movie that promotes anti-war ideology, all but the obvious "good" humans were drove off Pandora.
I remember an interview of James Cameron. When asked why the Na'vi have tails, he smiled and said "Because tails are cool!" In fact, it seems that Cameron's best ideas in the movie rooted from that "Because (fill in the blank) is cool!" mindset. You just see the same old stereotypical bad guys who could eat babies alive without feeling remorse and "good" guys who are ready to kill them at the drop of a hat. And for all the awsome-looking creatures in the movie, the Na'vi look stupid, as just a bunch of blue people walking around in thongs.
To wrap up, the storyline was unoriginal, and it was predictable enough that you could always know what would happen an hour in advance. James Cameron's success proves the infinite monkeys theory. You get an infinite number of monkeys to write their own movie, and sooner or later one of them will write one that becomes a huge hit. James Cameron was just the lucky one.
Avatar reminded me of a video game cut scene – in effects, stilted, terrible dialogue and hamfisted storytelling. I didn't think the effects looked "real" – they looked like effects.
I”ll say it once, and i’ll say it again. Visually, Avatar, is a masterpiece. I’ve never seen that many colors crammed onto a screen, and i’ve got to give it to the production team- visually they did thier homework. But it’s in the areas of plot, scriptwriting and exicution that it falls like a stone.
Lets ignore the obvious fact that the Pandoran ecosystem and physics model falls apart if you look at it with even the most rudamentary magnifying glass, the damned film is just badly written. Painful lines, a main male character I could have given a crap about. The only character I really felt drawn to was Netryi and Colenel Quarich. Zoe Saldana was the only thing carrying me through the film, and at least twice I found myself checking my watch.
The need for unobtanium is never explained, the origional terraforming operation and first contact with the natives and wildlife were never touched upon. From my viewing of the timescale, the humans should have been on the planet for at least a half century, given the complexity of the avatar program. But it seems that Hells Gate is the only military installation on the planet. Not possible.
In my opinon, District 9, Children of Men and blindness were the only movies that really touched me in the way many viewed this movie as haveing touched them. And i think the only reason it’s had such an effect is because the messages, as wonderful as they are, were so impossibly obvious that you’d have to have been literally born yesterday not to see them.
See ya- Alex 20, dc