We saw Avatar Friday night. We went to the late screening with our oldest son, daughter-in-law and grandson. I think that’s the first time in my life I’ve ever seen a movie on opening day. (I won’t post any spoilers but if you’ve seen the trailer you can easily guess how it’s going to go anyway.)
It was visually awesome and worth seeing for the CGI alone, which is a good thing because, sadly, the story was juvenile, unoriginal and morally repugnant. It was merely another version of the typical Greedy Corporations and Evil Military Trying to Kill Peaceful, Spiritual Natives and Destroy Their Perfect World story. Being juvenile and unoriginal wouldn’t bother me so much; my biggest problem with Avatar is that the Marines are portrayed as the bad guys in a way that is so unrealistic it’s hard to believe that anyone is even capable of dreaming up such a thing, much less believe it, and yet, I know some people do see the military this way and that is what’s disturbing.
It’s hard for me to understand why they would go to the trouble and expense of making such a visually beautiful movie and not try to have a story that is equal in quality. Maybe they spent all their money on the CGI and couldn’t afford to hire a real writer.
Still, in spite of its faults I would recommend this movie to anyone who is interested in science fiction or action movies. In fact, I’m really hoping I get to go see it in 3D. Younger and more sensitive kids might find it scary but I think it’s okay for any child who is used to seeing action movies. However, I would recommend a “Don’t believe everything you see in the movies” talk afterwards. (The words “sh*t and b*tch are used a few times but your kids have already heard these in school anyway.)
December 21st, 2009 - 11:49 am
I think it’s funny yet unimaginative that they called this mineral they were trying to get “Unobtanium’… that’s a very old engineer/gearhead joke. Unobtanium is a substance the physical properties of which exceed any material available.
December 21st, 2009 - 2:19 pm
And they must have actually have obtained some of it, or else how would they have known what it did to make it so valuable? Thus calling it “unobtanium” doesn’t even work as a cute joke.
I won’t even mention the fact that unless this substance caused something like immortality I can’t see a human society a mere 100 years in the future spending a katrillion dollars in future money on a project to exploit a far planet just for this one thing when we are surrounded by a solar system full of other planets and asteroids packed full of valuable minerals. Does the script ever go into detail about the wondrous properties of this resource, or is it the usual empty platitudes?
December 22nd, 2009 - 4:43 am
They didn’t go into detail about what it was, but I think it was a room temperature superconductor. They showed a piece of it floating over something that looked like a magnet, and it behaved the way a present day superconductor does, only with no liquid nitrogen.
December 22nd, 2009 - 8:25 am
Yeah, that bugged me too, that they used the name “unobtanium”. As soon as you hear that you know not to expect very much.