You know what it is?

[conuly]

Avatar? It's just not, to me, a very quotable movie. I mean, my mother and I saw Ever After, and that's no less formulaic, but we quote that movie at each other quite often. (It helps that it plays on constant repeat on one of those "women's channels".) I always find time in my life for another Princess Bride quote. I can quote Monty Python with, if not quite the *best* of them, at least the *worst* of them, and I've never seen Monty Python! I read OotS, and go to the forum there where you can end most any argument, at least temporarily, by quoting the appropriate comic... even if, upon closer inspection, your quote is wildly off-topic. I quote Piggie and Elephant with the nieces, and when they were younger it was endless repetitions of Go, Dog, Go!

Quoting. It's what's for dinner how I live, and (to an extent) how I think. I sometimes come up with just the right quote or reference but then re-think it into non-quotey speech because the people I'm with won't get it. (There is something wrong with complaining about an ugly hat but not getting the "Man wears a hat like that..." reference. But that's all right, Firefly's on DVD.)

So to come out of a movie and not, upon retrospect, be able to find something to quote, some scene that's appropriate to my life... that's a little disappointing. (Although the movie is worth watching if only to see the space jungle bugs. Strange compliment, that, but it's the absolute truth.)

Comments

[leora.livejournal.com]

I haven't seen the movie, but this failblog post amused me: http://failblog.files.wordpress.com/2010/01/epic-fail-avatar-plot-fail.jpg

[conuly]

Yeah, that pretty much sums it up. Pocahontas had better music, but Avatar has better... better... better shiny.

[ancarett]

A movie in which they name the exotic, desirable element they seek to wrest from the indigenous peoples "unobtainium"? Has no sense of language, dialogue or writing, at all.

Whereas "Ever After" played so much with language and ideas and the phrasing of matters, even though it retold "Cinderella", you can still adore the beauty of wordplay found in that film.

[conuly]

Well, they also named the main character "Sully". Maybe they were trying for meaningful.

[ancarett]

Yeah, that was deep!

[ksol1460.livejournal.com]

*pulls on hip boots*

[jillianfish.livejournal.com]

"No, I do not like your hat."

Sorry, couldn't resist...

[conuly]

Good-bye!

[diatryma.livejournal.com]

I have read several books in which characters quote constantly, and it's fun when I actually know one. I don't have that kind of brain-- or if I do, it hasn't been rewarded into being a major part of how I communicate. I do admire people who have it, though.

[oloriel.livejournal.com]

My brother got a lot of impressed laughs when he commented, on a really awful hat, "Man wears a hat like that..."
... and nobody got the reference. But then, German tv only aired Firefly a few months ago. Alas.

I tried to think of a nice Avatar quote now that you brought up the topic, and you're right - aside from "I see you", there just wasn't anything. Well, perhaps the bit about "not looking above", but I'd have to look the exact wording up, which is already a bad sign...
Perhaps it's because Avatar is itself quoting every "White Guy falls in love with Noble Savage" and every Vietnam movie there is, and there's just no original quote that sticks. Instead, everyone knows what's meant by "Pocahontas in Space"...

And I love inside quotes. It's a pity, really.

[queenlyzard.livejournal.com]

Quotes are awesome indeed. And yes, Avatar was short of quotable lines. I think my favorite line in the entire movie was "oops."