So, I saw Avatar yesterday.
Jan. 10th, 2010 04:08 pm![[personal profile]](https://www.dreamwidth.org/img/silk/identity/user.png){kind=small}
conuly
Now, prior to seeing this movie, I'd read a bit about it, and truthfully, what I read wasn't all that complimentary. Even the language (or, at least, the process of making it) didn't really escape this scrutiny. (And on the subject of language, I'm impressed that they went through all the effort of conlanging up a whole language and making the actors learn it, but meanwhile, why did the Na'vi consistently pronounced "Sully" as "Sooly"? That's a mispronunciation I'd expect from somebody who had seen the word written, but not somebody whose first (and possibly only) association with the word was hearing it spoken. Those two phonemes aren't that similar, are they?)
Well, apparently the guy I went to see it with had not read all I'd read beforehand, and neither was he clued into the fact that "long braid down the back +/- sparse beads and/or asymmetrical feathers =INJUNS! Native Americans! So I was there the second he figured it out. "Wait - they're supposed to be Indians! That's not... that's not right!"
(If those braids had been a little more cornrow-y, they would clearly have been Africans, and if we'd heard a little more of that random didgeridoo that was in one of the background music bits I could've called them Australians... but (gratuitous, non-alien Western musical scales aside) I can't blame them for that one, the didgeridoo is a pretty awesome instrument.)
So, now, what did I think of the movie? Well, I took a day or so to think about it. And then I thought, before I posted, I'd head over to TVTropes and see what they have to say. (And that sucked up my entire day, yes, yes, when will I learn?) And boy, do they have a lot to say on the subject! Holy FUCK!
So I'm gonna take some parts and talk about them, but I'm not tackling the whole thing. That *is* what TVTropes is there for.
1. The ending. Oh, boy, the ending. I think this Cracked.com article sums it up nicely.
Look, the Na'vi have won for today, sure - but the humans still need that unobtanium. And while it's easy to believe that they're motivated purely by unadulturated imperialism and greed, the fact is that there's a good reason people are paying top dollar for those rocks. They aren't very pretty, so what is it they do? I don't know, I'm not sure if the movie tells us, but apparently supplemental material indicates they're a valuable fuel? Used in spaceships and mass transportation all over the globe?
Yeah, the humans will be back. But this time, given that they know they're on a deathworld, they're not gonna bother building a base and fighting with/arguing with/negotiating with the natives. They're just gonna nuke it all from space and move in afterwards. So Jake? He's dead. It might take another 20 years for this to happen, but there's no way these people have just given up.
And meanwhile, earth is still a hellhole. Sucks to be them, I guess.
2. The other Avatars. WTF? Back when Jake first uploads or whatever into his Na'vi-ish body, we see a good dozen or so others playing basketball. And then when Grace gets the bright idea to move away from the xenophobes, we're down to three. (And Ana-Lucia, who I know isn't really Ana-Lucia, but I never caught her in-the-movie name) And then... when they leave, the other Avatars stay? Or leave with them? Or what now? I don't know. And what were they doing in the interim, anyway?
3. Ana-Lucia. Okay, so, our three little rebel scientists have been captured for defying the warmongers. And Ana-Lucia, who traveled around with them, and hung out with them, and who left the battle - she's the one entrusted to bring them their steak? Or their pretend stake? Seriously? Why wasn't she also locked up? And even if this is all on the up-and-up except for that gun, why wasn't the guard a little more suspicious of her sudden animosity towards these folks? Did nobody know she'd turned in the middle of the battle? Did she bribe her crewmates to keep quiet? WTF?
4. Where are the motives? It's all greed, greed, kill-that-whale, greed. Don't any of the non-avatar humans have anything better to do than to go around moneygrubbing? Does nobody on that base ever have so much as the tiniest crisis of conscience? I admit, it's hard to run away when even the air will kill you, but... nobody of the grunts but Ana-Lucia ever thinks "Maybe killing kiddies for cash is wrong"? None of them? (And is it ALL about the money? Could we get any more black-and-white than that? The guys on Captain Planet made more sense than this, at least some of the time!)
5. I spend too much time on TBWer. In the scene where they're all fleeing their ruined home, and I see a grown-up carrying a child in her arms, all I could think was "Get that baby in a sling, mama!" If I'm referring to people I don't even know and who aren't related to me as "mama" because they're not babywearing, I've got problems. (But really, when you have to flee, it's easier with a sling.)
6. I talked about the lack of motives for the humans, what about the Na'vi? Their culture? Better than ours! (Calvary in a jungle? They must be better than us if they can make that one work!) Sully swoops in, blatantly steals Future Leader-Dude's fiancee and helps the people who bring down the culture and doesn't give nearly the warning he really ought to have given, and all he does is insult him a little! If I had that kinda restraint.... (Well, they have no divorce, so what could he have done? Sheesh.)
If they're so perfect, and we're so bad, it's kinda hard to get the moral. Oh, I get the moral (hard not to), but it doesn't apply to real people. I would have understood the moral just as well if the Na'vi occasionally had bitchy moods or, like, broke a nail or something.
7. The story hinges a lot on the Na'vi's universal(?) religion being literally true. Yawn. And a bit disturbing - if they really were just superstitious savages, would that mean that it's okay to kill them and steal their land? If the trees really were just trees, would their beliefs have less meaning for them? (Does nobody in this pseudo-military setting have deeply held beliefs of their own other than "I needs me some more money"?)
8. I gotta say, with all of it, I was a bit surprised by the Chekov's Monsters. Who knew "they can't be shot" was gonna be a plot point at the end of the movie? An AWESOME plot point. But... how does that work? Do all the animals spend time hooked up to the magic tree? Or does s/he have some other way of communicating with them when they're on the hoof and the wing?
9. What's with the bioluminescence? I mean, it looks cool, but is it really necessary? And do the Na'vi eat all their food raw, if they dislike fire so much? Or did she just not like torches?
10. Yes, I know - Sully's whole journey is tinged by the fact that he wants his legs back. He never really makes a hard choice in the movie at all. Betraying his species? Well, we're all a bunch of babyrapers, apparently. Never going home again? Why would he want to? Giving up a chance of getting working legs? Yeah, well, now he has legs AND A TAIL, so fuck you - and if he could only win if he was stuck in the wheelchair forever, what would he have done then? We don't know, because mobility is the be-all and end-all of his human existence.
11. The visual effects are stunning, especially in 3-D. There has to be a way to fix up a pair of clip-on 3-D glasses....
12. WTF? What's with the KNIFE on the Mecha-whatever? Are those standard issue? WHY?
So, basically? It's a so-so movie with great imagery. It has some troublesome aspects (seriously), but they're mostly troublesome in the context of... well, everything else that shares those aspects. This wouldn't be so bad if the story itself weren't largely formulaic. But it is.
So I saw it once, liked it well enough once I turned my brain off, and don't intend to see it again any time soon. If you aren't spending your life on TVTropes you might like it more.
Well, apparently the guy I went to see it with had not read all I'd read beforehand, and neither was he clued into the fact that "long braid down the back +/- sparse beads and/or asymmetrical feathers =
(If those braids had been a little more cornrow-y, they would clearly have been Africans, and if we'd heard a little more of that random didgeridoo that was in one of the background music bits I could've called them Australians... but (gratuitous, non-alien Western musical scales aside) I can't blame them for that one, the didgeridoo is a pretty awesome instrument.)
So, now, what did I think of the movie? Well, I took a day or so to think about it. And then I thought, before I posted, I'd head over to TVTropes and see what they have to say. (And that sucked up my entire day, yes, yes, when will I learn?) And boy, do they have a lot to say on the subject! Holy FUCK!
So I'm gonna take some parts and talk about them, but I'm not tackling the whole thing. That *is* what TVTropes is there for.
1. The ending. Oh, boy, the ending. I think this Cracked.com article sums it up nicely.
Look, the Na'vi have won for today, sure - but the humans still need that unobtanium. And while it's easy to believe that they're motivated purely by unadulturated imperialism and greed, the fact is that there's a good reason people are paying top dollar for those rocks. They aren't very pretty, so what is it they do? I don't know, I'm not sure if the movie tells us, but apparently supplemental material indicates they're a valuable fuel? Used in spaceships and mass transportation all over the globe?
Yeah, the humans will be back. But this time, given that they know they're on a deathworld, they're not gonna bother building a base and fighting with/arguing with/negotiating with the natives. They're just gonna nuke it all from space and move in afterwards. So Jake? He's dead. It might take another 20 years for this to happen, but there's no way these people have just given up.
And meanwhile, earth is still a hellhole. Sucks to be them, I guess.
2. The other Avatars. WTF? Back when Jake first uploads or whatever into his Na'vi-ish body, we see a good dozen or so others playing basketball. And then when Grace gets the bright idea to move away from the xenophobes, we're down to three. (And Ana-Lucia, who I know isn't really Ana-Lucia, but I never caught her in-the-movie name) And then... when they leave, the other Avatars stay? Or leave with them? Or what now? I don't know. And what were they doing in the interim, anyway?
3. Ana-Lucia. Okay, so, our three little rebel scientists have been captured for defying the warmongers. And Ana-Lucia, who traveled around with them, and hung out with them, and who left the battle - she's the one entrusted to bring them their steak? Or their pretend stake? Seriously? Why wasn't she also locked up? And even if this is all on the up-and-up except for that gun, why wasn't the guard a little more suspicious of her sudden animosity towards these folks? Did nobody know she'd turned in the middle of the battle? Did she bribe her crewmates to keep quiet? WTF?
4. Where are the motives? It's all greed, greed, kill-that-whale, greed. Don't any of the non-avatar humans have anything better to do than to go around moneygrubbing? Does nobody on that base ever have so much as the tiniest crisis of conscience? I admit, it's hard to run away when even the air will kill you, but... nobody of the grunts but Ana-Lucia ever thinks "Maybe killing kiddies for cash is wrong"? None of them? (And is it ALL about the money? Could we get any more black-and-white than that? The guys on Captain Planet made more sense than this, at least some of the time!)
5. I spend too much time on TBWer. In the scene where they're all fleeing their ruined home, and I see a grown-up carrying a child in her arms, all I could think was "Get that baby in a sling, mama!" If I'm referring to people I don't even know and who aren't related to me as "mama" because they're not babywearing, I've got problems. (But really, when you have to flee, it's easier with a sling.)
6. I talked about the lack of motives for the humans, what about the Na'vi? Their culture? Better than ours! (Calvary in a jungle? They must be better than us if they can make that one work!) Sully swoops in, blatantly steals Future Leader-Dude's fiancee and helps the people who bring down the culture and doesn't give nearly the warning he really ought to have given, and all he does is insult him a little! If I had that kinda restraint.... (Well, they have no divorce, so what could he have done? Sheesh.)
If they're so perfect, and we're so bad, it's kinda hard to get the moral. Oh, I get the moral (hard not to), but it doesn't apply to real people. I would have understood the moral just as well if the Na'vi occasionally had bitchy moods or, like, broke a nail or something.
7. The story hinges a lot on the Na'vi's universal(?) religion being literally true. Yawn. And a bit disturbing - if they really were just superstitious savages, would that mean that it's okay to kill them and steal their land? If the trees really were just trees, would their beliefs have less meaning for them? (Does nobody in this pseudo-military setting have deeply held beliefs of their own other than "I needs me some more money"?)
8. I gotta say, with all of it, I was a bit surprised by the Chekov's Monsters. Who knew "they can't be shot" was gonna be a plot point at the end of the movie? An AWESOME plot point. But... how does that work? Do all the animals spend time hooked up to the magic tree? Or does s/he have some other way of communicating with them when they're on the hoof and the wing?
9. What's with the bioluminescence? I mean, it looks cool, but is it really necessary? And do the Na'vi eat all their food raw, if they dislike fire so much? Or did she just not like torches?
10. Yes, I know - Sully's whole journey is tinged by the fact that he wants his legs back. He never really makes a hard choice in the movie at all. Betraying his species? Well, we're all a bunch of babyrapers, apparently. Never going home again? Why would he want to? Giving up a chance of getting working legs? Yeah, well, now he has legs AND A TAIL, so fuck you - and if he could only win if he was stuck in the wheelchair forever, what would he have done then? We don't know, because mobility is the be-all and end-all of his human existence.
11. The visual effects are stunning, especially in 3-D. There has to be a way to fix up a pair of clip-on 3-D glasses....
12. WTF? What's with the KNIFE on the Mecha-whatever? Are those standard issue? WHY?
So, basically? It's a so-so movie with great imagery. It has some troublesome aspects (seriously), but they're mostly troublesome in the context of... well, everything else that shares those aspects. This wouldn't be so bad if the story itself weren't largely formulaic. But it is.
So I saw it once, liked it well enough once I turned my brain off, and don't intend to see it again any time soon. If you aren't spending your life on TVTropes you might like it more.
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no subject
Date: 2010-01-10 10:39 pm (UTC)I thought you might like this:
http://failblog.files.wordpress.com/2010/01/epic-fail-avatar-plot-fail.jpg
no subject
Date: 2010-01-10 11:06 pm (UTC)Cannot read
Date: 2010-01-10 11:33 pm (UTC)Ever sit with someone still trying to learn English from an East Asian country and you will noticed that without seeing a word but only listening to someone with clear diction that they cannot properly repeat the words perfectly because there are sounds they have never learned to produce together or at all (learning just the consonant and vowels of those languages will give you a clear picture of this). Unless they have a keen ear like actors who are able to reproduce foreign accents, it will take them time, decades even, if at all. Most Asians I know who have been speaking English for over 30 years and still do not produce the proper pronunciation on words we take for granted.
Thing of it as the Elmer Fudd effects, the WB cartoon character who R's sound like W's. I also know a real person, an American born professor, who makes the same mistakes. Issues like that are now associated with how the brain language center is functioning (see: NOVE Science Now!).
Now how about those 3D glasses!
Well one of the main 3D projection system developers, RealD, is supposedly making prescription 3D glasses and sunglasses. The downside it that there are at least two other 3D projection systems that these glasses would not be compatible with. And that is just for theaters. nVidia, the computer graphics processor manufacturer has their own 3D Vision system for TV and PC, and then there is print media which is still primarily viewable with the standard Red & Blue 3D glasses. But this week I got to experience what the ChromaDepth process has to offer. Clear 3D glasses on what looks like traditional printed images that you can view or even read without the glasses like you normally would. The special occasion, Avatar of course!
Re: Cannot read
Date: 2010-01-10 11:51 pm (UTC)However, I would expect that if the Na'vi do not have the vowel as in Sully that they would substitute one that is similar. Instead, what they did is exchange a mid central unrounded vowel for a high back rounded one. (Possibly it only sounds that way to my ears because the actors have the same phonemes I do and if they actually spoke the Na'vi language it'd sound quite different.) You explain the logic in that. And when you do? Sign your name. It's not very nice to leave anonymous comments with no name attached. I allow them because most people give some way of identifying themselves.
Though the information about the glasses is interesting.
Re: Cannot read
Date: 2010-01-10 11:58 pm (UTC)See, looking at the chart there, I can see they don't have any central vowels at all. Fine - but why replace them with an u? That's where it doesn't make sense. Admittedly, people do strange things when translating from one language to another, but... really now? That's not what I would expect.
Re: Cannot read
Date: 2010-01-11 01:27 am (UTC)Re: Cannot read
Date: 2010-01-11 03:20 am (UTC)Re: Cannot read
Date: 2010-01-12 08:15 am (UTC)Another explanation might be that there's a Na'vi word that sounds closer to the English pronunciation of Sully that has an inappropriate or insulting meaning. (The only words starting with Sa' that I could find at a quick look all seem to have the meaning of "Mother"; perhaps the Na'vi were simply hesitant to name a young male "Mama"? ;))
Though the most likely explanation is, I suppose, the one you gave: First seen it written, not heard it spoken, director didn't pay attention...
In the German dubbing, interestingly enough, they said "Jacksahly" (with the "a" pronounced as in hut, not as in Sally). Which is a whole different problem as Na'vi doesn't seem to have the "j" sound. Perhaps they're just that good at copying Jake...
Re: Cannot read
Date: 2010-01-11 04:48 am (UTC)no subject
Date: 2010-01-11 02:39 am (UTC)no subject
Date: 2010-01-11 03:21 am (UTC)no subject
Date: 2010-01-11 04:05 pm (UTC)I'm a bit worried about watching movies based on their visuals because I've recently attempted to rewatch Final Fantasy Spirits Within, and, er, um. It was disappointing.
Right now my biggest problems with Avatar are 1. I don't want to pay for tickets :D 2. The only English-language IMAX showing starts late enough for me to miss the last express train. -_-
no subject
Date: 2010-01-23 07:10 am (UTC)3) Yeah. She would /so/ have been there in the brig with them, and probably had her ass courtmartialed the minute she landed from that mission. She was still my favorite character, though.
7) Ah-ha! So I'm not the only person who thought about that!