Tuesday, December 22, 2009

Avatar

I have often heard or read of atheists who became believers after seeing Himalayas or some such beauty, well i am not one of those people. Me, my belief comes from life, people - I am fascinated by the complexities of our emotions, the turns our lives take and so on. Which is why the whole range of visuals in Pandora doesn't strike me as much. The fact that in a movie that was 70% computer generated, I never thought about the computer animation part even for a moment is something that struck me only after leaving the theatres. I got thrilled with hair movement in shrek. And this movie is so much more in terms of animation but it is done so well and blends in that one hardly realizes it. You forget that navi people are all computer generated.

Yet that is not something that excites me as a viewer. We are talking about a whole new life form in a completely different planet and possibilities for every single aspect about them is endless. For God-sake, a sidney sheldon novel once had aliens who would communicate purely through thoughts without a need for words, language. That is just one aspect. Simply transporting the european invasion of americas into an alien world isnt enough. And I think i am fairly justified in expecting so much more.

Some of the elements like a random corporation with a oversimplified greedy motive and agressive military which wants to use force for force sake is quite laughable. But it is James Cameroon. He made us(atleast me) feel for an usual rich girl -poor boy love story and similarly he does make us root for the Navi people which is a great skill - to make us retain the emotional touch in the presence of all this hoopla and a cliche-ridden story which quite a few movies fail to do these days. But even he cant make you hate the military agressor or the evil corporation, heck he cant even make you laugh at them, you just tolerate it due to the rest of the movie.

Yes, there is this bit about the way they sync up with the animals or the way the trees are all supposed to be linked together similar to the synapse that our neurons form but that is just there for the sake of it. ( Remember matrix the whole image as an electrical signal to the brain manipulation, the whole illusion - maya concept, yes Matrix is leaps ahead of avatar in terms of script).

Similarly the whole save nature concept. It is there because you cant just spend 300 million dollars and not have some high brow concept. Having things for the sake of it is so blah - it is even getting tiring to say this.

Ps1: as some one from the group I went with mentioned when technology has improved so much why the hell do we still have to wear this sloping glasses? gave me a headache and made my eyes watery. On top of this, when outside temp in single digits the theatre was like a oven. I understood what cookies go through that day except cookies don't have feelings and I do. so:(

Ps2: Every guy in the group wondered why wasnt the mating ritual done through the neurons as well. Dont know why the James Cameroon guy thought differently!

Ps3: there was a trailer of movie with Cameron diaz and Tom cruise. Movie surely looks blah but the thought of these two beautiful people coming together excites me. like Ash and hrithik - not a big fan of either, neither do i like their acting but to see them together thrills me. i might even drag my posterior to the theatres drooling for this movie:)

7 comments:

  1. hmm I am yet to watch it.

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  2. hmm I am yet to watch it.

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  3. Ya...It required a lot of skill to actually make the viewer transfer emotions to the aliens...
    But I thought, although simple, the story could have had some potential as a fantasy fiction...It had all the elements in it: Prophecy, Courage, David v Goliath thing, magic etc...

    Probably a more well thought out story in 2 or 3 parts...but to be fair to James Cameron, he could not have made a trilogy or something without having any idea how the audience is going to react.

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  4. Have you seen Vanilla Sky? Tommy Boy and Cam Diaz have really good chemistry. So yeah, okay, maybe I'll watch this one.

    On Avatar - I thought it was an experience. An event I'm glad I watched. But as a movie it kinda sucked. The technical bits were awesome, but as sci fi fan, the movie needed more.

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  5. Ava ippo edukkura padam ellam ippidi thaan irukku, enna pannardhu? Tiring is right.

    I thought this one felt like a jaw-dropping (but message heavy) Nova documentary, shot MMORPG style. I'm really ok with video-gamish delirium masquerading as movie (eye candy? Bring it on!) but only if the name "James Cameron" is nowhere in its vicinity.

    You see, I'm this person that had tears rolling down her cheeks watching a machine descending/dissolving into a fiery cesspool at the end of T2 (and yes, it happened every single time I've watched the movie!). Cameron actually had me *feeling* for a frickin' metallic contraption! So small wonder that I'd expect to little more than *feel* for the humans in what's touted as his magnum opus.

    And OMG, was I shattered! Even a so-so story can be elevated by superlative casting (as others have noted -- of Titanic, in particular). But here. Whatever happened? Sam Worthington? Hello! The guy was "barely there" in T4; I mean, we know he's a paraplegic in this one, but what about the facial muscles? Jason Statham would have emoted better. Clearly, the director's whip was so busy driving the CGI team to the brinks of perfection that it totally forgot to do the much-needed cracking in the acting department.

    I had zero connection with anyone in the cast coz they in turn had zero connection with their own characters. Even Sigourney Weaver appeared gaunt, disinterested, and out of her element. I wanted to absolutely love and embrace all the cool N'avi-human nexus stuff they were talking about, but the utter lack of excitement on part of her research team (let's face it; the lot of them was about as gung-ho as a group of scientists experimenting on lab rats) -- not to mention narrative ball-dropping like it's nobody's business -- saw to it that whatever little interest I had, wound up within, unspooled fairly quickly. Oh well.

    Where did you catch it, btw? My cousin was visiting from USC, so we rushed to the Friday 8:45 show at the Vallco mall AMC, but too late...sold out by 7:30. Then off the three of us drove to Mercado, but same situation over there (plus no enthu to watch the 1am showing...had I done that, I'd have dozed off after 30 mins tops, so thank God I didn't, or should I have?). So I stood in line and got tickets for the next day. But even at that 6pm Saturday show, I was nodding off around 8pm...I'm rarely this "not there" at a so-called action movie, let alone a 3-D Imax one! Don't know why they had to make it so insanely long, considering the substantive lack of story/acting etc.

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  6. Praveen: still..? u shud just go ahead and catch 3 idiots then.

    Kaushik: isnt it obv. from the ending that there will def. be sequel, even a possibility of prequel?

    Amrita: oh vanilla sky forgot all abt it - but it was penelope cruz who walked away with tom then right?
    i dont know if i would really reco. from the trailers it just seems to be a step above mr and mrs smith - that is just rock bottom. yeah, agree avatar is an event which is why i had to watch it.

    Ava"Art": T2? seriously, need to watch it again. i didnt think the perf. were that bad but i havent seen the whole set of cameron movies. and the narrative stuff - gawd there were so many other irritating aspect that it didnt even cross my mind. that is usually the first thing that puts me off. i caught it in mercado 9.45 show.

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  7. No Time at all!
    I am planning to watch Avtaar and 3Idiots this weekend.

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